#and that is the exact mindset you need for violin

[a-blip-of-billdip]

au/headcanon/???

Dipper would, or should, play the violin.

the violin is one of the hardest instruments to master and requires unbelievable dedication, you need to practice every day for a significant period of time. like, you need to. or else you will not be good.

and, a lot of violin accompanying pieces are for piano.They just sound perfect together

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

The joys of being mediocre in something you enjoy

There’s something freeing about accepting that you don’t have to be good at something you enjoy doing. I think it’s natural for us to feel like we have to be decent at something in order to keep going at it. There’s nothing more frustrating than putting all your time and effort into doing some sort of activity or hobby only for it to turn out kinda eh, or for it to just completely fall short of what you envisioned. That alone, I think, takes a lot of fun out of it.

Having been there many times, I find it kind of acts like a roadblock. It also doesn’t help that most of us have it hammered in us the expectation of “If you can’t do it right, then don’t bother doing it at all.” sort of mindset. Even though most people who say that probably intended it to help you, it, in fact, does the exact opposite.

Hobbies are supposed to be fun. I think that’s something we need to remind ourselves from time to time. And if it stops being fun, you can put it down. There’s no shame in trying and failing - gotta repeat that to myself from time to time.

While Raiden, Qingmei, Makoto, and Dainn were visiting, I took out my violin for the first time in years. Even though I’m kinda rusty, I still can still play a couple decent tunes. Although I’ve played the violin for five years in school, I didn’t get much out of it, except maybe a casual appreciation for orchestras and classical music.

To be honest, I wasn’t the best at playing the violin, which was why I was usually in the back. I liked it enough to stick with it for so long, but I wasn’t aspiring to be a maestro or anything. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t so hung up on the fact that I was just okay at playing. It also didn’t help that the teacher we had through middle and high school was kinda pretentious in a snobby way - but that’s a really minor point. Basically, being part of the school orchestra gave me something to do other than academics, but other than that, it was meh as I pretty much just went thought the motions by doing the bare minimum.

Makoto’s been hanging out with Qingmei and Dainn a lot more, and he kinda prompted them, and the other demon slayers to pick up a musical instrument. Raiden’s quite musical as she knows how to play quite a few different instruments as well as sing. She’s the one who got Qingmei into piano, which then led to Qingmei getting into songwriting.

And unexpectedly, Dainn jumped in on the songwriting too despite having absolutely no prior musical experience. Even though he downplayed his contribution to Star Blessed Slumber as merely just a translator and his singing as passable for someone who never sang a note ever, Raiden noted that he seemed to have a lot of fun with the process. I mean, it makes sense considering that it’s a whole new and different thing for him, especially since he grew up in a culture and upbringing that didn’t really place as much emphasis on the arts.

Sometime later, Makoto offered to teach him how to play the cello. The whole thing was literally Dainn being like “Oh, this is so cool! I wish I could play something” when he saw Makoto play with an orchestra. And then Makoto responded along the lines of “Why not start now?” And he was like “Wait, what?” Then there was some back and forth with Dainn wondering if this was a good idea or not while Makoto was encouraging him to give it a try. Finally, he said, “Why not?” and picked the cello.

Several months later, he’s taken well to the instrument. It goes to show that you’re never too old to pick up on something new. Dainn started out from scratch, being unable to read a note and not knowing the basics, to playing songs and picking up all sorts of new skills. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so enthusiastic about something since picking up the cello - neither have the others. I guess after being known as a warrior for most of his life, it’s nice to have a change of pace and pursue something he never considered before.

Raiden was surprised when she saw Dainn with a cello, even more so when she saw how seriously he was taking his lessons. Then again, he tends to be a serious person, though that’s probably more of a product of his upbringing. Plus, there’s also the way he was raised to put 1000% effort into everything, and nothing less. Obviously, it took a lot of practice for him to get where he is now - that’s something that takes time and dedication, not just talent alone.

In terms of technical skills, he’s still got a long way to go - mainly because he’s still very much a newbie. I can’t really judge on that since I’m no expert on the cello, but I do know that playing an instrument isn’t really something you can learn overnight. Like with Qingmei, Raiden insisted on documenting Dainn’s progress on learning how to play, and it’s provided a lot of useful insights. It’s also nice to have something to look back on and see how far you’ve come, especially when you start off going in totally blind.

Obviously when you start out, it’s gonna be rough. Everything is new and unnatural, so it takes time for you to get used to it. You either get frustrated enough to throw in the towel, or you persist and keep going until it clicks and finally makes sense. And then you keep going, learning more and more new things. The more you do it, you either keep at it, or eventually lose interest and move on to something else.

And I think while trying - and struggling - to learn something new, the fun and joy of it kinda gets lost. After all, it’s hard to enjoy something if you’re struggling to get the basics down. Not to mention that there’s this mindset of “If you’re not getting it right, then what’s the point?”, which takes away the incentive of picking up something new. That shame and embarrassment of not getting the hang of something really stops you in your tracks. It’s even worse when people around you are like, “Don’t bother, you’re not good at it anyway. Do something more productive with your time instead.”

I don’t consider myself a perfectionist, but I do fall into that trap of giving up and getting frustrated when I don’t get something right after putting a lot of effort into it. That nagging thought of maybe I’m wasting my time kicks in and it makes me kinda regret even trying in the first place. It’s a frustrating cycle that’s easily imposed on you either by yourself or others, often without realizing it.

Qingmei’s gone a long way since she learned how to play the piano despite having no prior musical knowledge whatsoever as well and now she’s writing music. In her case, she never really set out to be good, she just wanted to pick up a fun hobby. Being a swordfighter and adventurer for pretty much her whole life, Qingmei realized that she needed to have interests outside of those in order to get out of a rut, which was the main reason why she wanted to learn piano - other than it being something that looked cool and fun.

Dainn’s reasons for picking up the cello were similar. He was basically raised as a warrior ever since he could walk, and so his life revolved around that. Going from a lowly foot soldier to practically straight to the top as captain wasn’t something he planned, more like predetermined by the elder knights - something he’s kinda resented as time went on. Since he didn’t have any other aspirations, he just did as he was told because it never occurred to him that he was allowed to make his own choices. He speculated that maybe if it weren’t for the fact that he was from what they called “The Streets”, rather than a noble like most knights were, maybe he would have been a lot more sheltered and isolated.

The more I learn about his past - which is not much, really, - the more I get why he seems kind of aloof and keeps things vague. I guess after spending centuries fighting a losing battle without really understanding why it had to be you who suffered, but doing so anyway out of obligation, it’s no wonder why he struggled a lot after the calamity passed. And somehow, he survived despite all odds. So what happens next since you’re still alive and kicking? Raiden was surprised that he chose to stick around, though it makes sense why considering that he had nowhere to go and wandering the wilderness probably wouldn’t do him any good since it’ll be more of the same, except maybe being even more lost and directionless.

Obviously, most people don’t have extreme scenarios like that, but it’s my long winded way of saying that it’s good to have a wide range of interests and not let yourself be boxed in. But in order to do so, you need to be able to step out of your comfort zone and not be afraid to do things badly. After all, you need to start off somewhere before you get good. And even if you still aren’t that good, if you enjoy it, then that’s all that really matters.

Do it for yourself. Don’t let other voices cloud your mind with unwarranted criticism, especially when that critic is yourself.

As I’ve said, I was inspired to take my violin out after all these years. Seeing how enthusiastic Dainn and Makoto are, I really wished I appreciated playing the violin more. I mean, it was a school thing, and I’m pretty sure no one in an intermediate orchestra set out to be professional musicians, but still. At least I do have an appreciation for classical music and orchestras, even on a superficial level as in they sound good and I think more people should get into them. I have been getting into more artists who are known for incorporating classical elements in their music - a genre that’s often considered old, outdated, and kinda inaccessible - and introducing modern audiences to them, so I guess that’s something.

So we had some fun playing around with our instruments and I didn’t feel self conscious about my playing at all. I was surprised that playing the violin still came somewhat naturally to me - that’s muscle memory, I guess. Maybe I’m not the best at playing, but that’s not gonna stop me from trying. I doubt I’ll be picking up my violin again anytime soon, but if I feel like it, there’s a lot of songs I’d want to learn how to play. I won’t be playing in any symphony orchestras - not that I want to, that sounds too intimidating! - but I’ll be playing for me, which is for fun and curiosity, and that’s more than good enough.

And despite playing the violin for five years, I never mastered the vibrato, which is a shame because I want to be able to do it, even just for the sake of sounding like I know what I’m doing. Dainn asked me if I had any tips on vibrato as he’s been struggling with that and I said well, we’re on the same boat. But there’s nothing stopping us from attempting, which we did.

How did we do? Horribly. Did we know what we were doing? Hell no! And it was funny, actually. Nothing like bonding over being bad at something and getting a laugh out of it. I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it someday - I’m counting on it!

That said, it would be nice to be able to master the vibrato. I mean, these days, you can find tutorials on pretty much anything. So if I ever decide to pick up my violin and learn a bunch of new stuff, I’m hoping it wouldn’t be too hard to find something. But again, I’m not really looking to becoming a maestro, though I’m open to playing more for funsies. I think for me, the freedom to be able to choose what you want to get out of an activity that has less to do with improving your skills like it’s a competition and more with improving out of curiosity does more to retain my interest.

Along with jamming out as an improv orchestra, we’ve been doing quite a bit of baking too. Baking is another thing that I’m not always the best at, but I enjoy nonetheless. I mean, I’d like to think I’m kinda above average when it comes to baking since I do it kind of often. I don’t tend to gravitate towards complex recipes that take a lot of steps and prep, but I do like to occasionally challenge myself with a recipe that’s slightly out of my comfort zone.

While I’m happy to say that most of my baking turns out good, I have had a few flops here and there - some which unfortunately end up being a waste. I try to salvage it because wasting food is not good - and in most cases, thankfully, it’s still edible, just not something I’d want to have again - but sometimes, usually for the sake of your stomach if it’s that bad, you have to give up and call it a day.

Maybe our impromptu orchestra session made us a bit more daring than usual, which was why we decided to challenge ourselves a bit in the kitchen. Then again, with Raiden taking charge, she tends to encourage us to push our limits. She is an expert on making all kinds of desserts, and so if you want to tackle a recipe that seems kinda daunting to take on alone, ask her for help. Even if it doesn’t turn out successful, at least we’ll have a good time trying to figure it out!

The toughest recipe by far was this angelcloud cake, a recipe that Raiden randomly found online in some ancient cookbook. Part of the reason why she chose this recipe was because she kinda expected us to fail. At a quick glance, the way the recipe is written is…well, I guess cramming in your life’s story in a recipe has always been a thing. Not to mention that it’s really disorganized, so even if you read through the recipe several times, it still doesn’t really make a lot of sense. And we’re pretty sure that there’s a lot of errors as the logic behind the measurements don’t really add up.

That said, I’ve been curious about where exactly this recipe originated from. Raiden went down a rabbit hole trying to uncover the recipe’s origins, but because it’s ancient, there’s not a lot. With what little information that’s available, it’s all conflicting. The conclusion we came up with is that it was probably one of those recipes that was probably passed down by families where no one bothered to write it out because everyone knew it. The one time someone decided to put it in writing, it ended up being inaccurate, and that’s the one that survived the passage of time. Go figure.

Sure, there were frustrations when things turned out badly, but it wasn’t so bad that we ended up wasting a bunch of perfectly good ingredients. I think it helped that we kinda knew it wasn’t gonna work, but we wanted to try to figure it out anyway because we were curious. The fun kind of fuck around and find out.

Even though we didn’t end up with a light and fluffy angelcloud cake, the final product, a somewhat dense and lopsided buttery vanilla cake, turned out pretty good. Raiden knows how to salvage a failing recipe and managed to turn the sad mess of merengues into a really thick cake batter. She did take a huge risk by putting a lot of butter in there, but it somehow worked. Without it, I can’t imagine how the cake would have tasted - probably super bland and dry.

Then we baked cupcakes, which went a lot more smoothly - not to mention that we had a lot less dishes to wash. We put up a poll and it seems like everyone was in the mood for matcha strawberry cupcakes, which go well with tea. As the snow keeps falling, tea has been our go-to drink to warm us up.

What better way to spend time cooped up inside than with music and cake?

Read on AO3

[animeyanderelover]

Hey uhh I really liked the Killua with ADHD s/o so... Ciel, Levi, Hange, Shaiapouf and Meruem, with ADHD reader (in the form of headcanons) .. also take your time :)

Wow, not gonna lie. I was already happy when I finally got to write something about the Chimera Ants already once. But to be able to write about a few of them again. I apologize if I didn’t get something accurate.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, obsessiveness, possessiveness, threatening, degrading, delusions, ADHD, violence, brutal behavior, killing

ADHD: ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a complex brain disorder. ADHD is a development impairment of the brain’s executive functions. It causes trouble with impulse-control, focusing and organization.

s/o has ADHD

Ciel Phantomhive

☕️Ciel isn't the best nor is he the worst to have with his darling having ADHD. He doesn't hate you for it, he knows you can't do anything against it since it's not your fault. You were just born with it and there's nothing you could have done. So he does try to be as understanding and patient with you as possible. But keep in mind that Ciel can get rather easily annoyed if his buttons are pushed the right way. So I feel like if he realizes that he's near his limit, he would somewhat push you away and let Sebastian or the other servants deal with you. This might hurt your feelings, but Ciel is actually frightened that he'll say something hurtful to you and for that leaves you. Would later on apologize and try to make it up to you. He himself isn't very familiar with ADHD, but is a smart boy and has his demon butler with him.

☕If you should tend to lose motivation and focus quickly, lose your things and don't seem to listen too someone when being talked to then you actually don't have to worry too much. Because Sebastian and the servants will do anything for you, meaning you don't have to worry about being forced to do cores. You losing things can of course annoy Ciel, especially if they were expensive or he needed them himself. Luckily his butler finds them always quickly. He would grow definitely a lot more controlling over his s/o because they keep forgetting things, leading him to scheduling out their whole day from the moment they wake up to the moment they go back to bed. Ciel also tries to not make you focus on something too long since you lose quickly interest. It's agitating in a way for him since he hates it when he gets the feeling that you don't pay attention to him, but he reminds himself that you can't do anything against it.

☕If you should be the more hyperactive one, Ciel will definitely have to leave you very often alone. Ciel isn't good with very energetic and loud people since he's constantly surrounded by such persons. He really does extend his string of patience a lot with you, but he feels kind of insulted whenever you suddenly blurt in when he's talking. Also nearly goes crazy whenever you can't sit still for a minute somewhere, tapping your feet and playing with your fingers. Your hyperactivity exhausts him and the only reason he puts up with it without lashing out on you is because you can't do anything against it and because he loves you. Hates leaving you alone because he's afraid that you'll climb up somewhere or touch some weapons or things which might hurt you. So whilst it makes him tick off, he will have you stick near him very often and if he needs to calm down, he'll order Sebastian to watch over you since that guy's the most capable of handling you.

☕Reputation is important for Ciel and as arrogant this may sound, feel like he wouldn't tell many people about you since he doesn't want to be judged for being in love with someone many nobles would describe as 'unsuitable'. He can gladly pass on the whole 'You-could-have-chosen-better' talk. A less selfish reason is that he is due to the way you are incredibly overprotective of you. Next to being a bit embarassed, he understands that you would probably not want to hear others talking trash about you. He lives in a very difficult time where people were more judging than they might be today. This openmindness wasn't as present as today and behavior was especially under people from higher society very important. Ciel knows that and it leads him to shielding you from the outside world.

☕I feel like the people in the manor are all really open-minded and would accept you open-heartedly which will lift a bit weight from Ciel's shoulders. Sebastian has infinite patience and Bardroy, Tanaka, Mey-Rin and Finny just really like his darling. It gives Ciel the feeling that he can trust and rely on them and whilst he definitely keeps a sharp eye on the human servants since they tend to be more clumsy which might end in an accident. After Sebastian Tanaka might be the most trusted, that is if he is in his real form. This gives Ciel a sense of ease because when he hurt you unintended, he knows he can count on them to be there for you and comfort you. Mey-Rin, Finny, Bardroy and Tanaka will over time grow just as their master overprotective over you.

Shaiapouf

🎻Here we have to keep in mind that Shaiapouf changed his type and behavior for his darling. I think during the first time when he was a stricter Yandere, he had a harder time dealing with this. Because back then it was all about perfection for Shaiapouf and this was somewhat of a flaw his darling had. After reading a whole day books about it, he did get that his s/o didn't choose to be this way, but it led him to being a bit harsh on them neverthless. When he reached the point of total adoration and devotion, that changed of course and all of a sudden, his view on all of this changed. It wasn't any longer a flaw, it was a unique trait his royalty had and Shaiapouf swore to himself to treat them like a loyal servant should.

🎻During the first stage he definitely tended to be very controlling, probably even forcing you into doing things even when you lost focus and/or motivation. At that time Shaiapouf just had very high expectations for you and you just happened to go against his perfect and ideal picture he had in mind. He forced you to educate yourself better, he forced you into learning the violin or another instrument, all because this perfect image of you was stuck in his head. And he scolded you every time he noticed that you stopped doing it once again. It was definitely not an easy time. So when he entered his worshipper mode it is most likely a huge relief for his darling. Because now he doesn't care about all of this anymore, the only thing he is focused on is protecting his king/queen and keep them happy. Now he doesn't lash out when you lose your things or seem to not listen to him. He's past total devotion and infatuation and due to his never-ending amount of patience with you a lot easier to be with. You don't have to move a finger anymore because he insists on doing anything for you now.

🎻The stricter version of him also wouldn't tolerate it if you should be too energetic, keep interrupting him or can't sit still without somehow move your limps or even do indecent things. He always tries to keep in mind that it's somewhat of a sickness, but for him it was then all about manners and good behavior and so he did try to forcefully change your way of being, always scolding you and trying to teach you how to act properly. For a worshipper Shaiapouf this is a no-go and even thinking back on how he even dared to think that he had the authority to try to change his already and always perfect majesty has him devastatedly sobbing. HOW DARE HE?! Now he honestly doesn't care anymore when you interrupt him, constantly act energetic or even scream at him in excitement. He's obsessive and due to that tends to focus really intensely on your behavior, he's beyond relieved that he didn't damage you with his previous way of acting. His majesty shouldn't change because of him. The only thing that makes him badly paranoid is when you act a bit too reckless which might end with you getting hurt. This makes Shaiapouf always fly panicked to you, preventing you from doing whatever you were about to do and try to coax you into doing something where he knows you won't get hurt.

🎻He used to somewhat degrade you and make you feel bad about yourself before too, inveighing constantly that you should and could do better if you would just try a bit harder. It has him going on a crying rampage later on because even thinking about how he used to say those words at you and not caring when you looked hurt at him inflicts an unbelievable amount of pain onto him. If he should ever even think that you still resent him for it, you have him kneeling in front of you whilst sobbing and begging for forgiveness even though he knows he doesn't deserve it. That's the exact reason he is even more anxious of ever letting you under humans again. He's frightened that they will not only kill you, but also talk down to you because of your ADHD. It gives him nasty heart attacks all the time and if he should ever find out that there was someone in your old hometown that bullied you because of this, he will remove named disgrace shortly after because it makes him absolutely furious when he hears that someone didn't respects and worships you the way he does. Blames also himself for not making you feel worthy enough if you yourself should think lowly of yourself.

🎻You all can probably guess it, but after becoming a worshipper, it will become a lot more easier for the s/o to endure life a bit better with Shaiapouf because now he doesn't see their ADHD as a flaw anymore, but as a special trait that has to be adored and protected. He will do now about anything and everything for you. Shaiapouf is in this case even more dependent on your approval because he's horrified of how unworthy he used to treat you and misreads things constantly, instantly blaming it on how he used to be. It can be as much as you reacting a bit too late to him because you weren't focused and then you already have him crying. He's still a lot to deal with, but it's better for your mental health to not be discriminated for your ADHD anymore and being told that you could do better.

Meruem

👑Just like Pouf, he had a change in his overall behavior which needs to be looked over. Let's just say that at first he was totally terrifying with dealing and accepting it. Different from Pouf he's the type to blame you for this even if you really couldn't do anything about it. It's a dangerous gamble in here because he used to expect total obedience and behavior from you and annoying him or going against his wishes ended with him hurting and scaring you on a daily base. After he had his transformation to a slightly better Yandere, he became totally fascinated with this, suddenly being interested a lot more about ADHD and informing himself properly.

👑It won't go well if you don't stay focused whilst he is doing something with you or he gets the impression that you don't listen when he's talking to you. It ends with him talking terribly down to you, pocking cruel fun at you for being so stubborn, dumb and weak and can even end with him hurting you physically when he's had enough. Later on he would be still somewhat grumpy and annoyed whenever you forget things or lose focus and don't listen to him. But now he came to the terms of accepting that this isn't your fault to start with and for that won't lash out on you anymore. He just checks on you and makes sure that you don't forget to look after your own health.

👑Being loud and interrupting others because you can't wait for your turn might be even worse than being unfocused and forgetful in here. Meruem is a king, you have to treat him like one and obey him. And being all impatient, not letting him finish his sentences and even yelling at him is such a huge sign of disrespect that Meruem used to think that you are either out of your mind or have a death wish. It ended so often with you crying afterwards, either because he had terrorized you or really hurt you. That changed of course later on, he still was somewhat annoyed by all of this, but now he just tends to clamp a hand over your mouth when he realizes that you're about to suddenly start speaking again. He doesn't like being interrupted. He proves to have more tolerance with you constantly being hyped up and even expects his royal guards, execept Pouf, to be ready to troll around with you when you seem too energetic. Since he knows that you can be very careless, he never lets you leave his sight, especially when his butterfly servant or another chimera ant is around.

👑He honestly used to be the worst when it came to talking bad to you and about you. He called you weak, pathetic, useless and many other things. He just thought that you should be grateful for him to even keep you since you were a sore for his eyes to see. But he also saw himself at that time as the only one who was allowed to talk like this, ending in him killing everyone who did the same. He owned you and only he had the right to do this to you. That changed after he softened up. Now he kills everyone who talks bad about you because he cares and I believe Shaiapouf might just really get himself killed because he simply does not see you as a worthy partner for his king.

👑Neferpitou and Youpi adore you and whilst Meruem is on alert whenever they are near you, it's nothing compared to hen Pouf is with you in the room. Meruem will never, NEVER, trust this guy when he's near you. The only person he really trusts you around is Komugi, since he cares about her as well and since Komugi never judges you to begin with. He feels sorry if he should have left any sort of trauma on you because he used to try to really break you so you would finally behave. That makes him really careful when he's now acting around you because he's somewhat worried he'll break you if he isn't gentle enough with you.

Hanji/Hange Zoë

🔬Hanji is someone who doesn't care about this at all. They're incredibly open-minded with everything and tend to be very special and peculiar in their own sense. Similar to their fascination with Titans, they will suddenly become to an unhealthy extent curious about ADHD, staying up nights to read books and maybe even ask people who know someone who has this disorder. It adds oddly up to their obsession they have with you and whenever you do something that is connected to this, they get scarily interested about it. Their interest about ADHD would go because of their darling from zero to thousand in only a short amount of time.

🔬Hange doesn't mind it that much if you don't really pay attention to things even though it can be a bit embarassing from time to time since they tend to start rambling exitedly about things only to realize a lot more later that you stopped listening ages ago. But Hange isn't someone who gets discouraged very easily and won't blame you for it. They are very lenient when it comes to you forgetting things, since they are a bit like you in that matter, even though they only forget things which aren't important for them. Also shows a lot of tolerance when you keep forgetting to do your cores or just lose motivation in it. They are also on the messier and forgetful side when it comes to taking care of themself. But what counts for them, doesn't count for you so the moment they thing you start lacking to look after your own health or the conditions you live in because of your laziness become too extreme, they will step in and help you with cleaning up. Whilst trying to keep you as motivated for as long as possible, they won't be angry or disappointed if they have to do it alone because you lost motivation.

🔬If you should show symptoms of hyperactivity and too much enthusiasm and excitement, you're a match made in heaven for Hanji, even though Levi tends to call you two a match made in hell because now he has to endure two of you. But honestly, Hanji shows a lot of similarities in this case. They can be really thrilled and driven by an invisible motor as well, not to mention that if they're too excited about something, they tend to cut people off before they finished speaking as well. But they do know when to stay quiet or become more serious whilst you don't, but it isn't like Hanji gets ever annoyed or angry with you. They find it even quite endearing since you remind them so much of themself. For the most part they will let you be, even though definitely stopping you when realizing that you're about to get too reckless. I can see them as even being the type of person who will be all excited with you together and do stupid things together. Not only because they just really enjoy being silly together, but also to look after you.

🔬They're not surprisingly very much angered whenever someone makes a wrong comment about their darling's way of acting around. Hange knows that people tend to get annoyed with heir darling and even see them as a nuisance. And that makes them mad. They really have no tolerance for such people who think they can judge someone without even knowing how they feel. And it's their darling we're talking about after all which makes them even more furious. Even Levi has to be a bit more careful. Hange definitely shows a lot more patience with him, Erwin and people they're close too, but even here they can become eerily quiet the moment someone says something too extreme or they notice that you're hurt. Whilst not caring what other people, except their darling, think about them, they care very much when it comes to whether people think bad about their s/o or not. Especially if you should feel insecure they would be a lot more on alert.

🔬Hanji's acceptance is a good thing to have since they don't judge you or get annoyed with you being like you are. They want you to be yourself after all. They don't baby you like many others, but it does lead to them becoming a bit more clingy, especially if you're the hyperactive type. If you don't live together with them, they always pop up very often to check if they have to help you a bit or not. Also has this odd quirk of making notes about your behavior because at this point it's safe to say that they reached the point of unhealthy obsessiveness, everything you do is being absobered by them. It's a bit unhinging to witness, but it makes it easier for Hanji to deal with your behavior even better since they know at some point what to expect and how to counter if it might endanger you. One thing, you're not going to be scout under any means because Hanji totally fears that either you'll lose focus or get too overxcited, and not in a good way.

Levi Ackerman

⚔️At the beginning it might be a bit more hard for Levi to adjust to all of this. Given the fact that he's obsessive and collects rapidly informations about you, he'll find out about this very early on, talking to neighbours, your friends and other people you're familiar with. And of course he'll start informing himself about all of this, but he has just a short string of patience and is easy to annoy. He knows he really can't let his ire out on you since you can't do anything about it, but sometimes your behavior just really tugs on his nerves since he isn't the best with people who are either unfocused or too active for their own good. So similar to Ciel at the beginning he might distance himself out of fear to say something too harsh to you. He doesn't want to scare you.

⚔️Levi would step in a lot into your private life if you should keep forgetting to clean up a lot and lose daily things. Neglecting hygiene, tidiness and maybe even your own health is such a huge red cross for him. He would be definitely a lot more controlling than usual and come over everyday to check on you and the condition your house is in. And if he thinks it isn't cleaned up? Guess who's staying for a bit longer to wash and scrub, doing your laundry and organizing your things? He might even try due to that to speed things up to get you to move in with him quicker so he can really make sure that you will never forget about such important things again. I can funnily see him as someone who won't be as mad as some people might think he would be. He's of course pissed that you either forget to look after the house and you or just lack motivation, but it gets attenuated due to him knowing that you don't do it because you're really lazy or because you aren't interested in it. He will still try to push you into at least helping a bit, but he can and will play the role of the housewife. Prefers it maybe even that way since he gets things done like he wants too.

⚔️With a more pumped up darling he will have troubles at first. It isn't like he isn't used to such people, he knows quite a few of those. But with his s/o this is just a bit of a different story since he really tries to avoid being harsh or mean to them which he would have been normally with those kind of persons. He might seek some advice from Hange since he knows that he is not the best when it comes to being patient. He might even let you spend time with them when he gets a bit overwhelmed with your energy since despite being annoyed with them most of the time, Levi trusts them. He would be gone for a bit to collect his thoughts before coming back with his emotions having calmed down. Will with time however learn how to deal with you being all bubbly and hyped. But he also will definitely watch over you more carefully since due to your too active personality you tend to do things that might be dangerous. It's one of the reasons he often gets mad at Hanji when he has to leave you alone. They are willing to do such things with you which triggers his overprotective side a lot.

⚔️Disrespectful brats aren't tolerated from him in all scenarios. But when it comes to disrespecting his darling, his reaction is definitely the most intense one. Whilst Levi admits that he himself struggles sometimes and finds himself annoyed by this, he would never insult you on purpose and if he does he apologizes later on. There's of course a difference between just pointing something out or really being mean with the intention to be. Levi can tell which is which and will act accordingly. He doesn't say anything if someone just points something out with the intention of wanting to be friendly since he's like this as well. But if someone insults you or pokes fun at you that's a different story in which Levi will shove someone's face into the dirt with demanding an apology. Would be a bit nagging when you seem to get discouraged very easily, complaining that you're too sensitive, but would still be in the end always comfort you when you're down.

⚔️Will literally not let you do anything dangerous since he's worried you'll lose focus and hurt yourself because you aren't careful enough. If you should even mention that you want to be a scout or anything like this, you'll have him instantly being over you and ordering you to stop thinking such a ridiculous thing. Levi tends to overthink everything a bit due to you having ADHD. Hange is probably the person he's the most calm around when with you since he knows that they are the last person who would judge you and from all persons he knows, he just has the most trust in them even though he tends to give them a rather long and harsh lecture whenever they tried something stupid with you.

[bourbon-ontherocks]

while we're talking music, dw De tes rêves is on the rota💯 I'm all ears on your feelings for Lemay songs👀 (Les Maudits Français &La Marmaille are 2 others good ones imo) unfortunately I'm pretty unfamiliar w Michel Berger besides his hits &Starmania, so I can't say; any recs/insights on that front? oh, and: what about Oublie-moi by Cœur de pirate? (while I'm at it, know that I've had 6.5 blogs across 3 accounts so far so Good Fucking Luck on your fannish dumpster dive when the time comes😂)

(Julia's adventures with the HPI anon)

Oh gosh, Lynda’s songs... Well La Centenaire is literally one my top five favourite songs of all times and all languages I think, standing side by side with with giants such a The Show Must Go On or Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) in my personal wall of fame. It’s just so beautifully written (C’est que je suis avide/Mais qu’y a plus rien à mordre/C’est qu’mon passé déborde/Et qu’mon avenir est vide 😭😭), and addressing such an universal topic: what’s the point of living old if that’s in a world that is no longer yours, where everyone you’ve known is already gone? I can’t help thinking about my grandmother who’s turned 92 this year and whose mindset is definitely getting closer to this song every year.

And the song in itself is absolutely beautiful, the piano theme, the little violin arpeggi, Lynda’s voice at its finest bringing so much intensity to it, especially for an acoustic song... To me it’s just a masterpiece with a rare degree of perfection and I cry every time I listen to it because it’s beauty in pure form 😭❤️

And ugh, Les Deux hommes is basically La Centenaire’s little sister, a beautiful, beautiful acoustic melody and pure poetry, heartbreaking lyrics about same-sex parents facing homophobia... It makes me cry a lot too (btw thank you no thank you for this ask, anon, I listened to them both in a row to write that reply, and now I need a minute. Or two. Heck, make it an hour, okay?)

All right, all right, La Marmaille is nice, but how about I counterattack on the motherhood field with Si Je Ne Te Fais Pas d’Enfant, then ? 💔 (L’amour peut bien durer longtemps mais un enfant ça dure toujours, gah, she has her ways with words, huh?)

And oh, I didn’t know Les Maudits Français, this one belongs to the Funny!Lynda side, kinda reminds me of Les Souliers Verts which is the first song I’ve heard from her (pretty sure that was her first hit in France?) and which made me laugh so much back then 😂 (not for the story itself which is rather sad, but the lyrics are just sooooo funny and inventive)

Well, I’d say that if you know Starmania, c’est l’essentiel!!! 😍😍 I don’t necessarily find Berger’s music particularly fitting of an HPI mood, I guess that Message personnel kinda fits any bittersweet-angsty shippy situation? And of course, if you really want to dive into the drama, SOS d’un terrien en détresse for breakdown!Morgane, maybe?

Look, anon, you’re really expanding my Coeur de Pirate opinions today! Oublie-moi definitely carries this perfect mix of catchy music + somewhat angsty lyrics which is the exact brand of HPI: a colourful, irredeemable optimism tainted with delicate hearbreaks ❤️❤️ Adding it to the playlist RIGHT NOW

Oh and since we're at it, two songs suggestions for after you've watched the finale on Thursday

Boom boom by John Lee Hooker

I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor (I said heartbreaks, okay? 😈)

Ajsjdfjefjdjfsjjf, THREE different accounts?? Wow, you played no games, anon 😂 What does 0.5 blog mean tho?

[pluviatenebris]

@equationsoff​    //    Edward    &&    Viktor    [x]

  it’s a surprise to meet someone who DOESN’T know about it. it’s rather refreshing despite how many times edward has been forced to regurgitate the same script over and over for the various news crews that he’s been paraded in front of recently. at least he could be the one to word it. “ yeah, as far as i know it was a car accident. when i was a kid. been in a coma for years. only came out of it a few weeks ago. but, don’t remember anything before i woke up. so i’m sort of just…reset, i guess. ” the choice of words struck a chord in him. but he’s not sure why.

play is a strong word for what he does with the violin. it’s like he’s never played before despite his mother claiming he had been learning from a young age. his parents kept trying to remind him of things but since he was apparently seven when he was hurt it’s not doing much. besides making him frustrated and making him cling to anything he could do to remember. “ i’m trying. but it’s not going well. much to the annoyance of my parents. ” he is trying. so, so hard. playing until he couldn’t read the sheet music. but learning takes times especially from scratch.

an expert, perhaps? that would make things easier. a tutor would mean he could expedite his learning process around his other lessons and activities. he takes it and a similar smile appears on his face. “ thank you. perhaps i could trouble you for some pointers sometime? my parents can pay for it. ”

          The  only  part  of  the  explanation  that  makes  a  lick  of  sense  is  the  car  accident.  But  a  coma  for  several  years?  The  rest  of  the  pieces  don’t  fit.  What  is  the  angle?  What  could  Reginald  Hargreeves  possibly  stand  to  gain  from  not  only  reverting  Five’s  mindset  back  to  that  of  a  teenager  but  also  convincing  him  that  he’d  lost  several  years  of  his  life?  If  anything  that  only  served  to  make  him  young  --

                              Oh.

          And  then  it  hits  him  like  a  ton  of  bricks.  The  exact  reason  why  this  isn’t  a  version  of  Five’s  eyes  he’s  ever  seen  before.  It’s  like  he’s  looking  at  the  consciousness  of  a  13  year  old  who  cognitively  knows  he’s  supposed  to  be  13  years  old  but  is  emotionally  several  years  younger.  His  heart  clenches  in  his  chest  and  he  gasps  softly.  This  isn’t  just  about  their  father  trying  to  re-write  Five’s  memories.  This  has  to  be  about  making  it  seem  like  Five  had  already  failed  him  before  he’d  ever  tried.  About  trying  to  extinguish  that  ambitious  rebellious  spark  that  had  made  Five  the  most  dangerous  piece  on  the  chessboard  -  the  one  who  repeatedly  managed  to  save  his  family  against  all  odds  regardless  of  the  cost. 

          Was  that  what  Reginald  feared  would  happen?  That  Five  would  help  them  destroy  yet  another  timeline?  It’s  a  lot  to  process  and  Viktor  wishes  he  could  simply  blurt  all  of  this  out  and  just  snap  Five  out  of  it.  But  Viktor  knows  firsthand  what  a  gamble  recovering  from  amnesia  is  -  after  all,  he’d  almost  ended  the  world  Again.  Not  to  mention  the  effects  years  of  isolation  had  had  on  Five’s  mental  state.  He  can’t  run  the  risk  of  farther  harm  to  Five’s  psyche.  So  he’ll  play  it  by  ear  for  as  long  as  he  needs  to.  Whatever  it  takes  to  make  sure  his  brother  returns  to  him  safely.

                    ❝  Wow.  Well  ...  I  don’t  think  you’ve  been  ‘reset’.  ❞  he  responds  softly  after  a  moment,  sympathetic,  his  eyes  soft.  ❝  Maybe  there’s  just  something  you  aren’t  ready  to  remember  right  now.  ❞  And  then  he  elaborates  a  little  upon  realising  how  ominous  that  must  sound  out  of  context  to  a  child  coming  from  a  complete  stranger,  with  a  brief  nervous  chuckle,  ❝  I  mean  --  there  are  lots  of  people  out  there  who’d  love  to  take  a  mental  vacation  from  themselves.  What  I  mean  to  say  is  ...  if  you  feel  like  you’ve  lost  something,  then  it’ll  come  back  when  you’re  ready  to  remember.  And  if  you  don’t  feel  that  way,  well,  you’re  free  to  reshape  your  whole  future  however  you  want  now.  ❞  (  He  hopes  that  sounds  encouraging  and  not  dismissive.  Normally  Viktor’s  great  with  children,  but  this  is  an  unusual  situation  to  say  the  least.  If  their  father  has  been  drumming  this  mindset  into  Edward  for  weeks,  Viktor  has  no  idea  what  kinds  of  precautions  have  been  taken  against  the  possibility  of  Edward  running  into  his  siblings.  The  fact  Edward  doesn’t  recognise  Viktor  is  genuine,  that  much  is  clear.  But  that  doesn’t  mean  he  wasn’t  warned  against  strangers  claiming  to  know  him.  )

                    ❝  You  ...  want  me  to  tutor  you?  ❞  he  blurts  out,  stunned.  Everything  had  flowed  out  of  him  so  casually  he  hadn’t  even  realised  that  it  sounded  like  he  was  bragging.  ❝  Oh  ...  I  --  I  don’t  know  ...  ❞  It’s  been  months  since  he’s  had  a  student,  and  feels  even  longer  with  the  timelines  and  the  Apocalypses.  Not  to  mention  Viktor  isn’t  entirely  confident  he  can  pick  up  a  violin  without  having  a  panic  attack.  But  something  about  the  hopeful  look  Edward  is  giving  him  makes  him  unable  to  say  no.  (  Besides,  this  will  allow  them  to  spend  more  time  together,  right?  It  gives  Viktor  a  chance  to  assess  what’s  been  done  to  Five  and  what  their  father  is  planning.  If  Five  were  Five  he’d  be  telling  Viktor  to  think  bigger  picture  than  his  own  personal  feelings.  )  He  shifts  his  weight  a  little  and  then  straightens  his  posture  before  speaking,  trying  to  sound  more  confident  than  he  feels.

                  ❝  Actually,  what  the  heck.  Book  me.  ❞ 

[macklives]

hey, remember when i was talking about that thing with the jetpack, how since the jetpack somehow has a violin, a cement block and a flower pot inside it and if he extract the code from the objects contained within, he could get the jetpack itself? well if john uses this mindset right here and performs this exact same thing, it could work.  because you know why?

he now has the code for a potted plant on its own, which if you take out the plant, it’s a flower pot basically.

and you know how he can get that cement block and violin code? rose and dave. rose has a violin and dave uses cement blocks to uphold his desk and tables.

so the only thing missing would be to get that violin/cement block code from them and then voila, he has a jet pack. because he now knows this alchemy subtraction can actually work, he’d get up there in no time. its cheating but the game doesnt need to know that ;)

[rebel-shaw]

Band AU

It's the band 3rd LP the first release in a while, The group took a hiatus for a few years. 8 years to be exact, the band was formed by the then musical duo of Dutch Van der linde and Hosea Matthews some odd years ago. Even though they have stepped down from the front stage to become the producers, sound engineers and managers for the band, they still play on a few songs on the albums. And they have been adding new members comprised of wayward artists which each album.

The latest release have three new talents Charles Smith Micah Bell and Sadie Adler, (The only woman in the group) both have their own solo songs on the album. The group is most known for many hit songs from the amazing songwriting duo of Arthur Morgan and John Marston, with hits like:

Don't bother me anymore, Pinkerton's on my trail, Happiness is a Warm Gun In Your Hand, Red Dead, You never give me money, Turf war, All you need is cash. Just to name a few

“REDEMPTION” is the band “Return to form” for the artists their last LP “Red Dead” release to criticism and backlash from reviewers but fans praise it, but even with the fans love, it didn't sale very well. (1 000.000 copies sold in its first month.) Not as good as the first album which was their self titled LP which sold much better. (12.000.000 copies in its first month,) which led to the band to have internal conflicts resulting in the hiatus, they unceremoniously split up to many public disputes and finger pointing then went and did their own thing, and all was silent.

The only news about the group was when one of their frontmen John Marston was in an hiking accident up in the Grizzlies mountains the injury was so bad that he was sent to the hospital. Resulting in the frontman new facial scars which fans are saying it adds more the musician “bad boy” look.

Speaking of which it is kind of an in joke with fans, the fact that John's and Arthur’s appearances does not really match their songwriting. In that Arthur’s “pretty boy” looks are very misleading, like he is someone you can take home to your parents. But the reality is that Arthur’s song are very inappropriate loud and angry songs. (I came in through your window, and bloodshot, are a few that comes to mind) While John's rugged and greasy looks are not to appealing, but then he is the one writing mainly introspective songs. (Let it past, and The way back home)

The other members visited Marston in the hospital following the news of the incident, It was the first time in 6 years that the gang were all in the same room, Maybe this near death experience is what made them make this album. “REDEMPTION” is not only a badass name for a new album but also it refers to the band mindset, other frontman of the group Arthur Morgan had this to say about the name.

“We all kinda saw each other in the last LP as… I don't know, just getting in the way of each other. You know putting your nose into someone else's song and trying to make it yours. We all were to blame, we all fucked up, but now we are trying to get back on the right track with one another. You know, redemption I guess.” only time will tell if they got their redemption as for now, let’s look at the members of the famous band as well as the new cover of the album

Members from left to right. 

Upper left: Charles Smith: Lead vocals, (Occasionally) backing vocals,(Mainly) and various Native American and Wind instruments like Harmonicas and so on. (Mainly) Sadie Adler: Lead vocals, (Occasionally) backing vocals, (Mainly) Arthur Morgan: Songwriter,(Mainly) Lead vocals,(Mainly) Backing vocals,(Occasionally) Rhythm guitar. (Mainly) Dutch Van Der Linde: Manager, (Mainly) Producer, (Mainly)  Guitar (Rarely) Singer, (Rarely) Hosea Matthews: Sound engineer, (Mainly) Producer, (Mainly) Singer, (Rarely) Piano, (Rarely) Micah Bell: Banjo, (Mainly) Singer, (Occasionally) Bottom left: Sean MacGuire: Violin and Fiddle, (Mainly) Backing vocals, (Mainly) Lead vocals, (Occasionally) Bill Williamson: Drums and Percussion (Mainly) Backing vocals (Occasionally) John Marston: Songwriter, (Mainly) Lead vocals  (Mainly) Bass (Mainly) Piano, (Mainly) Backing vocals, (Mainly) Javier Escuella: Lead and Solo guitar, (Mainly) Backing vocals, (Mainly) Lead vocals, (Occasionally) Songwriter, (Occasionally) Lenny Summers: Backing vocals (Mainly) Lead vocals, (Occasionally)

Check out the new album REDEMPTION from Van Der Linde Gang coming out October 26th 1999

[millennialmoderator]

8 Powerful Mindset Shifts to Make for 2021

The way we choose to view ourselves and our lives determines the majority of our life experience..

Originally published on millennialmoderator.com

It dictates how we’re going to feel, the mood we will wake up with, our thoughts and reactions, and even our very destiny. If we surround ourselves with negative thoughts, daily events won’t seem quite as positive. If we, on the other hand, choose to try and remain positive – well, that’s a whole new ballgame, isn’t it?

There is, of course, more to it than “just be positive and not negative.” That’s why I will be going into eight powerful mindset shifts you can adopt over the course of 2021. Note how I'm not saying “adopt now so that 2021 can be the best year of your life.” Changing your mindset in the slightest will require a lot of work. You’ll need to keep reminding yourself not to do certain things and to do others instead. It will take time. But, if you want it to stick, you’ll be happy to exchange that time for a better version of yourself down the line. And now for the mindset shifts!

1. Comfort Is the Enemy of Progress

We all like being comfortable. However, the annoying thing is that the more comfortable we feel, the less we are growing. There is no growth in the comfort zone. It can be quite pleasant there, and we can truly enjoy our time being comfortable. In fact, sometimes all you need in life is to retreat there to recharge your batteries before moving on. Maybe you’ve reached a point in life where you feel you don’t want to grow anymore, and there is absolutely nothing else you want to do, achieve, learn, gain. If you would be perfectly happy to live the exact same kind of life from now until you die: congratulations. You have mastered your own life, and you have earned the comfort. On the other hand, if there are still things out there you would want to achieve, own, or become: recognize the enemy within your own camp, and join in battle.

2. Kindness Is a Virtue – Especially on a Bad Day

Kindness used to be considered a virtue, and rudeness was, once upon a time, abhorrent and tedious. Today, we’ve somehow managed to equate kindness with weakness, and we sadly exhibit it less and less. Yet kindness is nothing but positive. It makes your day better, and it makes the day of the person you are being kind to better, too. This is especially true if you are having a bad day.

It doesn’t cost much, either, yet it can completely alter the course of a day. And if you believe in the butterfly effect, it can alter the fate of the world at large. So, next time you sleep late and are consequently late for work and the barista at Starbucks hands you the wrong order, don’t jump down her throat. Be kind, smile, and swallow your irritation. You’ll notice the day somehow manages to become instantly brighter.

3. Self-Care Does Not Equal Being Selfish

This is another myth propagated by modern norms. We are mistakenly lead to believe that it’s somehow selfish to take care of ourselves, put our own needs first, do something we feel like doing and avoid something we don’t feel like doing. Staying home to read a book when your friends would like you to go out is not selfish. After all, you’re not doing anything to harm them – you are just choosing to do what you feel like doing. Start prioritizing self-care over making others feel good. This might mean getting more sleep, for starters – after all, it impacts not only your physical and mental wellbeing, but your creativity too.

Self-care might also mean making healthier food choices and indulging in the pastimes you feel will benefit you. The point of self-care is to nurture your genuine needs, as opposed to doing what other people want you to do (excluding emergencies, of course).

4. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

When faced with hardship, there are two reactions we can choose: giving up or getting back up. If you choose the former, you will likely be stuck in a perpetual state of negativity, in one way or another. Bad things happen to everyone, even horrible things. Yet some people choose to dust themselves off and embrace what they still have, while others choose to stop dead in their tracks, lamenting how they could have made something of themselves if only that one thing hadn’t happened.

A life without hardship is practically impossible, but if you choose to keep looking ahead, you can still do plenty. The power is in your hands once you choose to treat every bad event that leaves you still breathing as a chance to learn something, however small that something may be.

5. You Are Who You Spend Your Time with

If the people you choose to spend most of your time with are essentially negative people, you will feel their impact every day of your life. Part of this crowd are also people who might cause you to feel any negative emotion (self-doubt, inadequacy, irritability) or drain your energy. On the other hand, if you spend time with people who lift you up and recharge you, you’ll notice you are adopting a different worldview altogether.

Accept that the company you keep greatly influences the life you are living – even when that doesn’t seem to be the case. Choose to spend your time with people who can teach you something, people who can make you smile and laugh, people you like to be around. Even if you are currently closer to the negative bunch.

6. Mistakes Teach You More Than Wins

Most people are afraid of making mistakes. They think making a mistake is wrong or somehow bad. And this thought limits what they get to do in life. They never try many things, or they might try and give up after that first failure, disappointed that they are not instantly good at something.

The truth is, no one knows anything without having to learn it. Some people are more talented than others, there’s that. Take playing an instrument for example. There are people who have a natural ear and who will become better at it – but they still have to practice a lot. In fact, they practice for hours on end, sometimes for entire days. And they make plenty of mistakes until it comes out perfectly.

The mistakes you make can teach you more than you can learn from your successes. Successes are less frequent, after all, and every time you don’t do something right, you learn something new. Just like a baby does when taking its first steps, or a first violin when practicing their next solo.

7. The World Is More Gray Than It Is Black or White

We like to think that our world is built on opposites. Good and evil. Black and white. Darkness and light. But what the world really is is gray. If you shape your beliefs as either/or, and if you choose to approach people and problems with this attitude, chances are, you will be alienating a whole lot of people as well as experiences.

There is no just black or just white, and there is rarely just good and just evil. Everyone, and every situation, is a mixture of both. The sooner you accept that good people can do silly things and make mistakes, and that morally dubious characters can be incredibly kind, the better you will be able to adjust to living life as a human being.

8. We Are All Reading Different Manuals

Finally, accept that everyone is different and that the beliefs and truths you hold so dear will be utterly strange to someone else. So much of who we are depends on when and where we are born. Our family, our immediate surroundings while we are young, the culture we are exposed to – all of these influences shape our belief system, values, and mindset. And it can be incredibly difficult to change any of them.

When you first accept this fact as the truth, you can begin to challenge yourself and reshape the way you see and interact with the world. This realization will help you understand others, where they are coming from, and how they choose to interact with the world. Hopefully, it will also teach you to be less judgmental as well.

Final Thoughts

Think about each of the mindsets and shifts we’ve talked about here. Do you agree with them? Do you find them to be false? Have you recognized yourself in any of them? Can you see yourself altering any of the beliefs related to these mindsets? Remember: you are who you think you are. Not in the “I can fly if I imagine I can fly” kind of way, but in the more cold, hard, “my mindset determines who I am” kind of way. The way you choose to react and interact with the people and events around you is what ultimately shapes your world. And luckily, the only person who can truly shift that is yourself.

If you enjoyed this Mod, you might like to read more about theses 5 tips to maintain a healthy relationship! Please share this Mod using the social links below. Any questions or comments? Let us know on Twitter!

Originally published on millennialmoderator.com

[relatablyinsane-blog]

For the ones with senseless rage

This is going to be a tough one for more than a few reasons. One: being so irrationally angry that your head hurts, your jaw clenches and crimson laces the edges of your vision doesn’t make sense. I have no explanation for my feelings. Two: there’s a lot of backstory to the psychological damage displayed in this post about the last day and a half. And three, which is probably the worst part about it, is that this post has the potential to hurt the feelings of people i really DO appreciate and value. However, i said i would tell my stories no matter how hurtful they are, no matter how awful they make me look and no matter how hard they are to explain because there are other people out in the world who feel like this that need to know they’re not alone and there are people who don’t understand who NEED to for the sake of someone they may care about. So to anyone reading this that may be hurt by what I’m about to say, I’m truly sorry, and i want you to know that my psychosis and awful mindset is NOT your fault, it is my own.

So today was an angry day. For everyone who is normal an angry day might mean you slept through your alarm, stubbed your toe on the doorframe, forgot your lunch, got to work late and got slapped with a ticket foe forgetting your seatbelt on your way home. That’s a shitty day and makes for a shitty mood. Maybe you just didn’t get enough sleep and you’re a bit crabby. Maybe there’s no real reason other than it’s Monday and you’re more grouchy than usual. That is NOT what an angry day is for someone with Bipolar.

An angry day is when you wake up early feeling well rested, grab yourself a breakfast bar and a delicious cappuchino, perform well at work, do your makeup perfectly, and you still want to flay the daylights out of everyone around you. It’s when, completely and utterly without provocation, you feel like being as mean as possible to anyone and everyone you can simply because it feels good. It is when your jaw clenches so hard that a tension headache like a vice grips your temples and causes your vision to swim. It is when you don’t care about anything at all, when you feel oxygen pressing in on you like a steel barred cage, when the slightest provocation sears like acid in the pit of your chest.

There was no reason i felt this way yesterday. A few people asked why I was so pissed, and I can always tell that they don’t understand. Their reaction is utter confusion and slight discomfort when I tell them that there’s no reason I’m wound like a bomb in a spring, lashing out like a cat o nine tails in a tornado on everyone within reach. It is the only time i can deal with panic, when I’m trapped inside myself, pacing like an animal in a cage of molten fury. Instead of frightening me the anxiety makes me pace faster. On days like this, the only emotion I am capable of feeling is anger.

Of course it was a Friday, the one day I don’t see my home for at least twelve hours because I have to drive an hour away to pick up my step daughter and come back. There’s no gas in my tank but that certainly adds some to the fire. On top of that, we have to swing by my boyfriend Jace’s grandparents’ house so they can give Ariel, my stepdaughter, birthday presents that are three weeks overdue. Joy.

I owe an explanation. I hate going out and socializing. I used to be a social butterfly but eventually it just stopped. I don’t know whether it was due to my sudden revelation that people have a great tendency to pretend they like me or because of my abusive ex boyfriend that loathed me leaving the house, or maybe it’s just because I’m so tired of superfluous social interation that I’d rather be in my own company. On a day like today especially, I did not want to make a side trip.

Now let me say this: Jace’s grandparents are wonderful people. Gram, if you’re reading this, I’m so sorry if what I’m about to say hurts you in any way, and I want you to know that none of this is because i don’t enjoy you, your husband or your great hospitality. As I mentioned in some of my other posts, my extended family resented me as much as you could resent the horribly behaved adopted child of her already black sheep mother. They are high class, porsche and mercedes driving, six figure making New Jersey socialites. Everyone finishes and excels in college. Everyone gets a phenominal job. Everyone drinks sherry and gossips about the fact that Cousin Jane’s Versaci handbag is a clear fake. My mother, who ended up as a postal worker and my father, who never finished middle school because he dropped out to work on a farm for his parents, were so far from the family standard and it was clear. Add me to the mix and the only way we could be more unwelcome would be if we slathered our naked bodies with feces and showed up uninvited. The only time I saw them was on very special occasions. Nobody wanted the poor mannered, misbehaved adopted child at any family functions. I was NEVER welcome to spend the night unattended at anyone’s house. Because of this, extended family makes me uncomfortable. Hence why going to Jace’s grandparents’ house gives me anxiety like no other. The only time my extended family finally accepted me was when they put me on Vyvanse (which is exactly like Adderall) in high school, i went from being chubby to having a perfect figure, i was excelling at piano and violin and i could bite my tongue with the best of them. With Vyvanse the emotions went away. I was perfectly behaved, I was cunning, I could gossip, I fit in. I was finally the model of the Lombardi name. I was welcome at every party. I was complimented on how much I’d matured and trimmed up. I even got invited to go to my aunt and uncle’s timeshare in florida with them for an entire week. I was accepted. But it was all a lie, it was the medication, not me, but I lived for it. I was a perfect robot child.

I know how to deal with a family built on possessions and image, I know how to blend using thinly veiled insults and transparent smiles. I do not, however, know how to deal with a normal extended family.

That being said, I dread visits. Not because I dislike Jace’s grandparents. I like them very much and they have been nothing but kind to me. But because I’m crazy and abnormal.

But even on this day of fire and brimstone I can deal with a quick 20 minute “here are your presents bye” kind of deal. Until I realise that more people are here. Jace’s cousin and her year old child, to be exact. And not just any toddler (which, as we all know, I loathe babies and small children as it is) but a fussy one who’s just gotten shots and won’t stop whining and crying. Let me say again that I have nothing against Jace's cousin or her family. Again, she has been nothing but nice to me. I don’t know why I can’t stand babies (attention? me being told i would make a horrible mother so i avoid catching baby fever? the fact that i essentially helped raise my ex boyfriend’s roommates newborn for a year and never saw her again? Who knows), I just can’t. So when you combine an extended family visit, loud baby, and now a giant hour long birthday cake, presents and pictures fiasco to my pounding head and springtrap rage, I was losing my cool. I stood in the corner trying to look as normal as possible, gritting my teeth and shooting venemous glares at my boyfriend the entire time. I was a horrible guest. I refused cake. I refused candy. I forced out Happy Birthday and I could not wait to leave. I resented Jace far more than he deserved for my own brain, which turned what could have been a great day and pleasant gathering into a swelling nightmare in my ribcage. By the time we got home I’d lashed out at him more than enough, I don’t blame him for being fed up. When he called me out on my shit, I clammed up. When he explained himself I gave a lackluster apology.

I went for a walk to clear my head as soon as we returned with not a single word avout where i was going. It’s not Newark New Jersey but the area where I live isn’t the safest place in the world for a young woman to walk the strets at night, even if she is filled with a rage that would cause her to mercilessly beat anyone who antagonized her. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t help. I returned home and spurned all of Jace’s attempts at comfort. I glared at him when he said not to worry about cleaning, snapped at him when he told me to lay down and relax, and physically rejected his affection. So i went and laid in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, drumming my fingers until we went to bed with our backs to each other after he had finally had enough. I sat up for a little while longer, expecting him to just get over the way I’d treated him and try to console me now, on my terms. I was furious when he did not.

I slept it off. I’m the kind of person who likes to leave things in the day prior, but Jace hates going to bed angry and was still upset when we woke up. I don’t blame him. I don’t know why he stays with me in general. I am not a good person. Regardless I got up and made breakfast for us all, hoping to start the day off on a good food and not let my awfulness affect Ariel. Eventually, when the thought of Jace going to the park with the downstairs neighbor girl creeped poisonously into my brain, I spoke up. Is it stupid of me to feel uncomfortable for him and another parents taking their kids to the park when he knows good and god damn well I don’t want to go? Yep. Sure is. I realize this wholeheartedly. But at this point Jace had taken enough and we argued for awhile. His points were valid. I do not just get to wake up in the morning and act like yesterday never happened because it’s worn off for me. I did not apologize. I did not make amends with him. He deserves to be upset.

Eventually, when our conversation was getting nowhere, I used the safe word and we took a breather. For anyone that finds themselves in seemingly endless arguments i HIGHLY suggest a safe word. That way when you reach an impasse and are just resorting to the blame game you can walk away, get some space to calm down and return again.

Jace came back awhile later. We calmly discussed everything and he told me why my adversity to him being alone with another female bothered him, but said he understood why my past relationships put me in that mindset. I compromised that I would stop voicing my discomfort if it was irrational for the sake of his feelings, and he reassured me for the millionth time that he had never been unfaithful before and wasn’t going to start now. It will never permanently persuade someone who has been cheated on frequently in the past, but it is something I’m working on.

So yeah. I don’t have much of a moral for this story. This is the kind of shit that goes on in some people’s heads. If that’s you, you’re not alone and a bad day doesn’t make you a bad person as long as you try to grow from it. I’m tired now. Those days leave you emotionally drained. I feel like I’ve cried for hours. But my relationship is okay and I’m going to play the sims for awhile. Until next time i suppose.

[mariestherapeutics]

Crescendo ft. Junmyeon: Part 1. Crescendo’s finally here everyone! :D Also the first person to correctly tell me the reference I made of the Reader’s last name will receive a personal fic (like in Project Follower). If no one gets it then haha I guess I’m off the hook. ^^’ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(♫) I think there's a flaw in my code, these voices won't leave me alone. Well my heart is gold and my hands are cold.

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO... AGE SIX

"You can do this, Myeonnie, just pretend that it's practice." Kim Seoyeon, the professional cello artist, adjusted her son's tie for the fifth time as he fidgeted anxiously for his name to be called. "You've played this piece many times before, remember." She reassured him, smiling a bit.

Her son, Kim Junmyeon, though exceptionally talented in what he does, took after his father, Kim Yongha, in that he is a professional pianist. He was taught how to read music from a young age and inevitably became a prodigy by the time he was five.

May 21st, his sixth birthday, was the first night he'd have to play live in front of such a grandiose audience, and Kim Seoyeon wanted to make sure everything was perfect for her son's great debut in the classical industry.

"What if I mess up?" Junmyeon asked her, his small hands trembling slightly underneath his long sleeves. "Will they laugh at me?"

"Maybe," His dad told him honestly. Junmyeon stared at him with wide nervous eyes. "So you'd better not mess up." He winked, and Junmyeon managed a little smile.

The three of them stood apprehensively backstage, waiting for the signal to go on. Junmyeon quietly thought to himself that if he didn't play any wrong keys that night, he'd make his mom and dad buy a whole tub of icecream just for himself.

"There's our cue-- let's go, let's go!" Junmyeon had to remind himself to walk, but he nearly ran anyways when he saw the masses of people filling the seats of the auditorium.

"Please welcome the Kim family, who has been gracing our lives with magic since 1976." Junmyeon made a move for the piano at the center of the stage, but his father placed a firm hand on his shoulder and stopped him. This action sent a chuckle through the crowd, and Junmyeon felt his face grow hot. "Ah, this is your new edition, Kim Junmyeon, right?" The announcer asked, bowing in greeting to him. Junmyeon returned the bow, earning a unanimous "aw" from his viewers. "Please give us a good performance today, the Kim family!"

When Yongha released Junmyeon's shoulder, he walked briskly to his piano and took a tentative seat. Junmyeon kept his eyes off of the crowd, like his mom and dad suggested, and found that it comforted him immensly. He watched his mom take a seat on the other side of his instrument, placing her giant cello between her legs and smiling at him. Once he saw his dad sit at his own piano, Junmyeon knew it was time to begin.

He pulled his sleeves up, rested his hands over the black and white keys, and produced the first notes of the song. When the introductory verse was over, Junmyeon waited for his mother's cello to join him, but it never came.

The next few things happened very fast. First, Junmyeon glanced over his piano at his mom, wondering why she was taking so long to play it, when he noticed she was clutching her chest and breathing heavily. Next, his dad stood up from his piano, and the crowd gasped as his mom fell off her chair, her medium colliding loudly on the stage.

"Mrs. Kim!!" Junmyeon's hands accidentally slammed downwards as he stood up, too, trying to get a better look at the scene, resulting in an unpleasant din. At that exact moment, Junmyeon witnessed his mom give a violent shudder, making his heart beat erratically and his breathing shallower.

Had he done that?

"Mom!" He bellowed over the clamor. He saw people in white garments enter the stage and surround her, picking her up onto a rolling bed and bringing her away. Junmyeon was moving to follow, but his dad was suddenly at his side, holding him back. "But, Mom--!" He cried desperately, pointing at her for his dad to see.

"Your mother will be fine, Junmyeon, she's going to be okay." At six years old, Junmyeon's only understanding of the situation was that, when he played the piano, his mother was hurt. As he gandered at the massive string instrument he was so eager to utilize, a shot of fear traveled down his spine for the first time in his short life. He whimpered, stumbling away from it and hugged his dad's midsection.

"I want to go home." He sobbed, tiny hands fisting in his father's tux.

That night, May 21st, 1997, was the last time Junmyeon layed his hands on a piano.

PRESENT DAY... AGE TWENTY

Park's Private Institute of Music has never been an easy college to enter, but Junmyeon managed to pass the entrance exam with flying colors because of his family and history. He didn't even need to show proof that he can play an instrument, not that he wanted to. The only one he ever learned to play was the piano, which would prove troublesome if he were asked to play it.

After the incident on his sixth birthday, Junmyeon believed he hurt his mother by playing the piano, and would cry on the spot if he even looked at one afterwards. Of course, as he grew older and realized how silly that mindset was, he wasn't as trigger-prone to bawling.

Something about that time really scarred him, though, because Junmyeon found that, on his tenth birthday, even though he could look at his piano, he couldn't play it or hear one be played, either.

I'm pathetic, he became accustomed to telling himself when he turned fourteen. He, Junmyeon, who was once his parent's pride and joy, now felt as if he were burden and a disappointment, though they assured him he was quite the opposite whenever they could.

"Your talents aren't limited to the piano, son." His dad, Kim Yongha, had told him at fifteen. "Though we had hoped you'd carry on the family business, you can do whatever you want."

Junmyeon was convinced that his parents were just saying nice words to him, but were secretly trying to guilt him into continuing the family business anyways. After falling for his own assumptions at eighteen, he decided to do it. He applied to Park's Private Institute of Music, much to his parent's approval, and assured them that he'd thrive there.

Yet, on the first day in class, Junmyeon found himself shoving his earphones in just before a classmate plays the piano. His heart hammers in his chest, the experience of being so near a panic attack making his blood hot and his stomach churn uncomfortably.

If he broke down in front of everyone, how would he show his face in public ever again?

Once he saw the student was a safe distance away from the massive string instrument, he tentatively pulled out his earbuds and tried his best to look calm through the rest of the lesson, where other skilled musicians took turns playing their instrument of choice.

Many people played the violin and the clarinet, with a few outcasts who performed the sax or the trumpet, and finally, a pretty girl sauntered to the cello display. Junmyeon watches her with interest, surprised that she went for the cello; he was affectionately reminded of his mother, who lives as a professional cello player.

The girl, who introduces herself as Rifi _____, sets the instrument between her legs, and plays. He, Junmyeon, immediately recognizes the song as his one of his parents', one he learned before his sixth birthday. The interlude ends, and he half expects to hear his father's solo begin, but the cello continues to play the piano's part in the absence of it.

It sounds strange to him, wrong even, and Junmyeon wants to march up there to play it right, but he knows that'd be idiotic of him. It's not his performance, and he wouldn't even be able to press two keys on the piano without freaking out. He settles on ramming his earbuds in again, spacing out until the song is over.

"Now that you all know who's good at what, I want you all to choose a partner whose instrument compliments your own. Your first assignment is to perform a duet." The professor instructs. Many of the students give Junmyeon a sideways glance, knowing that he was the only person who hadn't played something, but he pretended he didn't see them.

For the time being, he was excused of any instrument playing, he thought, but if his first homework assignment is to perform, how will he pass any of his classes? Maybe I can learn something easy, like the triangle, he tells himself fleetingly, but the concept slips away when the girl from before, who played the cello, approaches him.

"Hi," She greets, and Junmyeon pulls out his earphones.

"Hey," He replies, taken aback by the social interaction.

"Would you like to be my partner?" She inquires, tilting her head with the smallest of smiles. Up close, Junmyeon notices, she's even prettier.

"Um, sorry," He mutters disappointingly. It sucks that he has to turn her down. "I don't play anything."

"Well, you must play something if you're in this school." She insists, taking the empty seat in front of him. It's a music course, so there are no desks, just chairs. "Maybe, the piano?" She questions.

Junmyeon tells himself her guess is a mere coincidence to calm his suddenly racing heartbeat. That night on May 21st, 1997, never aired because of what happened. His parents didn't want news of his mother's sudden health issues spreading around, so the world was never introduced to Junmyeon. They went on fewer concerts after that, and no one knew a thing, save for the mass who attended it all those years ago.

Trying to look casual, he says, "Really, I don't play anything."

"You're Kim Junmyeon, am I wrong?" The question catches him off guard, and when he stays silent, the girl's smile widens in a polite manner. "I'm Rifi _____. I noticed your earbuds in while I was playing, so I'm not sure if you caught it."

A surge of guilt filled him, but he remained cool on the surface. "I heard." He reassures, and you nod in grateful realization.

"Great, then, would you?" Junmyeon knows you're asking about you being partners, but he has the temptation to act dumb about it. Before he can have any reaction, though, you add, "I promise you won't regret it afterwards.~"

And that makes Junmyeon pause. How could you possibly know what he'd feel, especially in the future? Not even Junmyeon knows how his emotions will work most of the time, yet... something about the way you're smiling at him, or maybe the way you asked so nicely, made him consider it.

Maybe he really could learn to play the triangle, at least that way, no one would be disappointed.

"If you'll have me." He says finally, returning your patience with a shy grin.

"Thank you!" You exclaim, standing up joyfully. "Let's get practicing as soon as we can, shall we? I'm free tomorrow morning, if you're up to it." Junmyeon realizes that he willingly partnered up with an early riser, and wonders if this will really work out the way you promised it would.

"Where at?" He asks, trying to stay positive. At least someone even noticed him, wanted to be his partner, and was enthusiastic about it.

"I'd prefer it if we used one of the school's playing rooms, but I'm up for anywhere you can go." You say, once again surprising Junmyeon with your friendliness.

"The playing rooms are fine..." He finds himself muttering, even though he has no idea where they're at. "Um..." You seem to know exactly what he's thinking, because you ask,

"Which complex do you live in? I can pick you up at the entrance around 8:30 AM." You swiftly pull out a planner, which Junmyeon stares at as if it were an aberrant. He's never been loyal enough to use one himself.

"I live in building A." He says, but instantly regrets it. Building A is for the wealthy students who can afford their own condo (which took up the entire floor). Admitting his economic status is tantamount to admitting his ability to play an instrument here.

But you either ignore this fact or are oblivious to it, because you smile cutely as you scribble down the letter in your booklet, then you close it and set it back in your bag. "I'll see you, then." You wave, sliding your backpack over one shoulder and departing.

Junmyeon sits there for a while, placing his earphones back in. He's fully aware that his professor is staring at him, wondering what he's still doing there, but he ignores the eyes and closes his own.

Maybe he shouldn't have accepted your request to partner up. Learning a new instrument, even the triangle, before the month was over was absurd. He'd either have to play the piano for you or back out. He couldn't live with himself if he just let it drag on.

Tomorrow, Junmyeon promises himself, finally getting up with his bag as some students from the professor's next class file in. Tomorrow I'll tell her it won't work out.

(Continued in Part 2... Crescendo)

[mint-sm]

LOS CAMPESINOS! REVIEW/ANALYSIS: We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Last time on the Los Camp review (suspenseful orchestral soundtrack plays), I went over “Hold on Now, Youngster...,” which was an excellent introduction to the band, but I don’t think was completely reflective of the refinement and impact it would later reach. While what was presented was impressive and lively as hell as is, and the foundation for a wittier, more poetic, more intelligent, more refined and diverse sound was there, they just didn’t have the a full-enough grasp on their visions to take advantage of it.

Well, just 8 months after the release of “Youngster,” the world was suddenly sucker-punched right in the face with “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed,” which had immediately shown a much firmer grip on that path. Bare in mind, prior to the release of “Youngster,” the band had already existed for 2 years, and that album was something of a compilation of different songs they had been performing in university clubs and internet radio shows. It’s an excellent compilation, and it’s still very well put-together, but it likely wasn’t the most precise voice and identity resembling what the band intended to jump for, at least for the future.

With “Doomed,” they finally found ground for their true calling, and it was surprising as hell. Starting things off, the album immediately hits you with “Ways to Make It Through the Wall" with its bombastic opening chords, grimy feedback, incredibly-banging and dense melodies, crashing cymbals and blasting violin, and even MORE shouty vocals from the band, including Gareth almost incoherently screaming “AND A ROOM FULL OF VACUUM AND A ROOM FULL OF AIR LOOK THE SAME!” during the bridge. On one hand, it still somehow manages to feel like the good ‘ol Los Camp we knew, and yet at the same time you ask yourself “This is the same band that just released an album with a song called ‘Drop It, Doe Eyes’?”

(HOW YOU BREAK THE RULES THAT YOU YOURSELF IMPOSED / THINK YOU'VE GOT IT IN FOR US, I THINK YOU'VE GOT IT IN FOR YOURSELVES!)

I kinda mentioned this in my intro, but I would personally divide Los Camp’s discography into 3 periods: A “Twee Indie Period,” followed by an “Noise Pop Period,” then a “Mellow Rock Period,” and “Doomed” is found kinda sandwiched in between the first two. A lot of the fresh-new-vibrant-indie-ness of “Youngster” can still be felt, but it doesn’t quite reach the more experimental and even more noisy magnificence of “Romance is Boring” that we’ll discuss next time. That said, this transitionary period still feels like a massive blow to the head with just how much more powerful the production feels now, but it’s really, really welcome.

While I don’t really think other tracks in the album reach as much of an impact as the intro, it still does consistently have a more consistently… not “tight,” but “punchy” feeling to it. Much of it feels in a way somehow messier than “Youngster,” with a more abrasive side, almost garageband-like than hipster-y (though looking it up, I just found out that “noise pop” is an actual thing. You can see why I’m probably not the most qualified music critic lol).

Later bangers (haha see that I'm an awesome reviewer look at my lexicon) on the album, such as “Miserabilia,” the title track, and "All Your Kayfabe Friends" all have this less-pure, but still clashing feel to them, with more distorted guitars, harsher-sounding percussions, and more compressed vocals, almost sounding cassette-recorded quality at times. Even their comparatively softer tracks, such as "You'll Need Those Fingers for Crossing" and “Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time,” still feel very feedback-y and dense, if that makes sense.

(WE GOT NOSTALGIC, ENDED UP FILLING SHOE BOXES WITH VOMIT / COLLECTED SCABS IN LOCKETS, HUNG THEM ROUND OUR NECKS LIKE NOOSES / NONE OF IT MATTERED, NONE OF IT MATTERS, NOBODY CARED)

Now this probably sounds like “Doomed” is maybe too messy or harsh to be really accessible if you’re coming from “Youngster,” but honestly, it’ll all feel surprisingly pretty familiar since a lot of the instrumental sensibilities from that record still shine through and are in the forefront. We still have a lot of those plucky, lo-fi keyboard synthesisers, we still have the violin and glockenspiel riffs, we still have the many call-and-response verses between Gareth and Aleks, and we still have the upbeat, catchy melodies and choruses.

Not much theory-wise has fundamentally changed in that regard, except maybe the softer, lowkey ballads have gotten more distinctive, such as “You’ll Need Those Fingers for Crossing,” which not only has a constant, but soft and occasionally punchy rhythm to it, but again, has that duet aspect, and it flows beautifully.

“Between an Erupting Earth and an Exploding Sky” is also this great, a bit dissonant, synthesized, little screechy, but also rather ethereal and floaty-sounding instrumental, a track that I honestly think is one of the band’s most visual-sounding themes, one that provides one of the most clear mental images, like maybe you’re splayed out while floating midair as both the earth and sky are already exploding beneath and above you all in extreme slow-motion, where everything’s all violent and impatient and tense and shit but at the same time weirdly serene and kinda cosy? It’s like experiencing a terrifying apocalypse and yet it feels like everything’s going to be okay.

There’s also “Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time,” which on top of just being one of the band’s very few honest-to-god love songs that’s surprisingly heartfelt (it’ll get more surprising when I discuss “Romance is Boring,” believe me), the muted vocals, the reverbed, feedbacked to hell background ambience, but very crisp guitar and percussion just paint this beautiful, but kinda fading image that’s honestly one of the most sweet tracks the band’s ever made, but also one of the most vaguely tragic.

(I DON'T WANT TO SOUND TRITE BUT YOU WERE PERFECT / THE WAY YOU LOOK COULD SERIOUSLY MAKE NATURE DYSMORPHIC / I WISH THAT YOU WOULD KISS ME 'TIL THE POINT OF PARALYSIS / THE WAY I FLAIL MY ARMS IN FRONT OF YOU, IT JUST EMBARRASSES)

And then we get to the lyrics, and like I’ve said, this is where the band has started to get much more flowery and descriptive, and honestly very funny in a sort of cringe-comedy-ish way, accentuated by once again, dissonant instrumentals. “Miserabilia” in particular is just like a really jaunty, upbeat and smiley-sounding track, and there is a definite playfulness both sonically and lyrically, but at the same time you go “wow, this ‘miserabilia’ (because get it, misery? Memorabilia? Miserabilia!) isn’t something I should cling onto, but at the same time, it’s pretty natural to do so, innit?” There’s also a really cute and funny lyric about “He whispered, ‘Oh my God, this really is a joy to behold’ / I thought he said, ‘It's a joy to be held,’ so I held him too close / It was a grave mistake, he never came back again!”, and I honestly can’t help but smile at just how absolutely DUMB it sounds when I hear it.

But on the more depressing side of sardonic, there’s the title track, and it’s probably one of my personal favorite cuts in the band’s discography, not just because how much it hits close to home for me personally -- it’s about a long-distance relationship falling apart, and how over time you start getting more and more resentful of them and their diverging interests and they get so much more unfamiliar it makes you wanna break their new friends’ teeth in no I’m not still bitter -- but also because how it manages to perfectly encapsulate that snide, but genuinely frustrated catharsis, not just with the banging instrumental or the gradual vocal escalation as the song continues, but the really specifically-vibrant vignettes Gareth provides to really build this mindset, like how “Absence makes the heart grow fonder / fondness makes the absence longer / Length loses my interest, I'm a realist, I'm insatiable / Swapped counting days until I fly, with hours before your reply.” Really, if you can only listen to one song from this band, it’s this one (even if it is for the climax, which is absolutely incredible if emo-sounding as fuck).

(OH, WE KID OURSELVES THERE'S FUTURE IN THE FUCKING / BUT THERE IS NO FUCKING FUTURE / I'M JUST PRACTICING MY ACCENTS, PICKING AT OLD SUTURES)

Admittedly, there are some times when the lyrics really elude me on their exact meaning, probably because I can’t really pin down what scenario or what context they were born from, unlike the lyrics to “No Blues” where I can say “Oh yeah, he’s just making a football reference, right” (we’ll get into that later). Like the song “It's Never That Easy Though, Is It? (Song for the Other Kurt),” which I think is about the narrator meeting with a girl, breaking up with her, and I think like the on-off resentment he gets when she snogs with some other dude? I think? I dunno, I’m reading the lyrics and I’m listening to who’s singing what line, but I still don’t really get a clear scenario.

Though like I said, Los Camp doesn’t USUALLY excel or at least specify in making images, and are more for crafting mentalities, mindsets, and atmospheres, and you still get this kinda-restrained giddiness juxtaposed with deep-seated resentment/fondness about a girl and part of her family, which is a theme that continues on for pretty much the entire second half of the album, like with “The End of the Asterisk,” or “Documented Emotional Breakdown #1,” whose exact meanings also elude me, but they have an obvious, kinda “twee indie”-style jauntiness to them, but haunted by an understated feel of darkness.

(THEY SAID, "THAT BOY'S TOO LAZY", YOU WERE CLEARLY FOREWARNED / A JEALOUS EX SILENCED THE ROOM, HE SAID THAT YOU WERE A WHORE / "DO YOU KISS YOUR MUMMY'S LIPS WITH THAT MOUTH?")

I think that just about sums up this album in a nutshell: Twee indie-style jauntiness with darkness haunting under them, like maybe say, an erupting earth and an exploding sky? It feels like Los Camp have finally identified an ominous, impending feeling of doom underneath their twee pop exterior and is slowly bringing that out with noisier production, more simultaneously specific-yet-vague subject matter, and a lot more honest-to-god atmosphere, brought out with much more concise and evocative lyricism.

It marks the true beginning of what I think the band is all about, and redefined what to expect from them. Once again, the feelings it provokes are a simultaneous yet somehow distinctive mishmash of wanting everything to be raucous and violent and you wanting to break down walls and shit, but also at the same time wanting things to be more emotional and down-to-earth, yet additionally being resentful and anticipating that fearful, inevitable doom.

It really is a great addition to the band’s discography, and it honestly feels like the perfect halfway point between the band’s innocent enjoyment of a time and scene gone by and the massively sardonic bitterness of the future. What happens then? Stay tuned! (suspenseful orchestral music ends) (4.5/5)

FAVES: “Ways to Make It Through the Wall,” “Miserabilia,” “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed,” “Between an Erupting Earth and an Exploding Sky,” “Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1,” “Heart Swells / Pacific Daylight Time”

PS, if you’re interested, I’ve also got an EEP released recently too! It’s electronica/chiptune fusions about a lot of cheeriness and sadness and shit! Thank!

[irarelypostanything]

Chess Stories - Dick Waving Contest

Top definition: An activity that usually involves two people who dispute their superiority to the other. This is accomplished by the recitation of individual skills, exploits and accomplishments whose merit is questionable at best. Also, the purpose of discussing said activities serves no purpose but to prove superiority to the other.

Arie and I play chess in a conference room repurposed as nothing.  A former employee made it his temporary office for a solid six months, but now he’s gone and we figure it should become a makeshift board game room.  This was intended as a joke, but here we are.  We are not charging to a government contract for this--it’s a much needed flex-time chess break.  Arie is on overhead, so he says it’s the most productive he’s been in months.

Steven watches.  I start with the London System, though I admit I’ve been really tempted to try out the Evans Gambit.  The Evans Gambit, in my facetious and probably inaccurate explanation, involves making a sacrifice out of nowhere, positioning for an attack, and then just blindly throwing everything at the enemy.  It’s an opening that just seems to bear my name.

It’s Pi Day, so Arie starts by reciting the first 50 digits of pi.  He says he has it to 100.

“Why?” I ask.  “Is it a sort of exercise, flexing your memory muscle so that it can be applied to more useful things?“

“No, it’s a dick-measuring contest.“

I think about it for a moment.  “Oh, I get it!” I finally say.  “If I were to also have 100 pi digits memorized, I could find out whether or not you were correct.  We used to do the same thing in my English classes, only with poetry.”

*****

I kind of miss the competition, you know? You don’t get the same adversarial side by being an engineer.  You’re with a bunch of other engineers, trying to do vastly different things, so it would be pretty hard to even try to compete.  I figure to have a fair competition, you’d have to compete with someone at your exact skill level, working on your exact set of code....and if you actually do that, I think you’re probably an asshole.

Just my opinion.

But we used to compete in just about everything.  I probably should have had a better mindset regarding the violin: In middle school, I was one of seven people put a year ahead.  I used to have a higher rank than some of them, but of those seven it was pretty clear that I was not keeping up.  I also wasn’t doing great in the class, which is something that tends to happen when you suddenly find yourself surrounded by a different caliber of skill level, but I just kind of folded.  Now the other six are all way better than me, and I haven’t touched the violin because the E-string has been broken for the last three years.

Another middle school story: There was this guy named Stephen, whom I had never met and who only appeared online, as he went to some dual language or charter school or something called AFY.  He would kind of just go out of his way to be mean to me, possibly because I was from a rival middle school or possibly because he didn’t like the guy at AFY I was friends with, but then one day he just randomly asked me to play chess with him on Yahoo!.

At no point in my life did I tell him I had an account, or that I even played.  Yet we played, and then I won, and then he won, and then he won again and talked trash and that was it.  Then we had a rematch, but that time he played the Danish Gambit and pulled some other tricks, and I realized he was just so vastly superior to me that I didn’t even know how I won the first one.

I still think he’s a jerk, but that guy really knew how to play the game.

*****

I explain The London System to Steven, not to be confused with the Stephen from my flashback.  It’s a good counter, I explain, to various open game variations.

“Why is it a good counter?“ he asks.

I don’t really have an answer for that.  In hindsight, the answer is quite simple: If you have an opening you want to play, but the game starts with d4 and your opening starts with e4, then you can’t play the opening.  It’s like trying to play piano in a music room and realizing that they only have guitars.

I have my trademark London System triangle, which I usually manage to get with people but never with AI.  AI bots keep wrecking my London System with some next-level bull**** called The French Defense.  Strictly speaking, it’s a bit of a stretch to call The French Defense a counter to the London System (you get in the same position, but some people may contest that it’s possible to play The French Defense against The London System).  I wish it wasn’t debatable, though.  I would love to make a tasteless joke about the Hundred Years War.

“One thing about the London System,“ I continue, “it’s actually a position where it’s safer not to castle kingside.“  Immediately after saying that, I castle kingside.

I wish I had the position, but that’s actually a pretty critical mistake.  Arie goes on to explain that his entire strategy was to exploit a vulnerability kingside: He had me trade away my h-pawn, early on, but I thought putting a bishop there would serve as a substitute.  That’s not the case.  He gets bishops to draw lines down, he puts his two rooks together, and by the time those two rooks line up vertically to take my bishop and force mate, it’s too late.

Other than a few of my own attacks with a queen and a couple minor pieces, I don’t have much offense going for me at any point.  I try to exploit the fact that he hasn’t castled; he successfully exploits the fact that I have...on the wrong side.

We talk about it on the whiteboard after, as I erase socket-binding code and other C++ nonsense with extremely useful chess positions.  I like to castle kingside.  I do it out of habit.  But I have to learn to adapt.  Habit, combined with inattention and a failure to exploit new data, becomes crippling.

Always, always, someone or something can probe you for weaknesses and exploit them.  Let down your guard, allow yourself to be reduced to a creature of habit, and you will fail to stop the attack when it arrives at your doorstep.

But be mindful, stay alert, and exploit your opponent’s tendency to rely on knee-jerk responses and habit...and you may just find yourself bringing up victory.

[careergrowthblog]

Rescuing Differentiation from the Checklist of Bad Practice.

I’m not exactly sure why but it feels like, as a profession, we’ve made a mess of the concepts and language that apply to the everyday processes needed to teach a wide range of students within one class.  A range of what? Attainment, ability, experience, competence, knowledge, skill, confidence, fluency? Most likely a mix of all of these things (they’re all ways of quantifying types of knowledge in the end).  Here let’s call them ‘fluency levels’.

Let’s be grounded for a minute. It’s uncontroversial – totally obvious – that not all learners learn things at the same rate, short-term or long-term.  It’s a very common experience – and often a major challenge and concern –  that teaching can be very hard when, in one class, the range of learners’ fluency levels is wide.   How do you stretch everyone, teaching those reaching the top levels to go further, never holding anyone back, whilst ensuring those at the lowest levels within that particular curriculum area are supported or accelerated? This isn’t easy – and it doesn’t pay to diminish or deny this very real experience.

However, over the years, the word ‘differentiation’ has been morphed and distorted and, in classic system-over-sense style has been reduced to mean something narrow and mechanistic: the mandatory provision of different tasks for students of different abilities.  With this definition, the evidence for the act of differentiating – the evidence that SLTs and inspectors have sought in millions of lessons – is the existence of manifestly different tasks at different levels of difficulty, suited to the levels of the learners.  I’ve reported before my dismay at being involved in a joint inspectorial lesson observation of one of the best teachers I’ve ever known when his lesson was deemed to be only Good and not Outstanding because the conspicuous presence of different tasks and objectives was conspicuously absent.  Determinedly so. It wasn’t appropriate or necessary – but, hey, rules are rules!

Very commonly, this bit of reductive thinking has been linked to writing differentiated learning objectives.  The need for these is still firmly embedded into the psyche of way too many teachers.  I see it all the time. Powerpoints and whiteboards everywhere are routinely peppered with hideous tiered LOs: Must, should, could; All, Most, Some; Core, Challenge, Mega Challenge.   This has the effect of explicitly setting lower expectations for students at different levels within a class.  Some parts of the curriculum are only for ‘some’ – not all.  It’s explicit. Intentional.  And this is wrong-headed. A recipe for systematic underachievement and gap-widening.   It was this situation that led us to call the Oldham College CPD programme ‘Teaching for Distinction’ to get away from a tendency for people to aim at Pass with Merit and Distinction grades as some kind of optional bonus.  Instead we say everyone should be aiming for Distinction; ‘excellence’ should be defined, aspirational for all and aimed for explicitly.

A much better, wiser and more effective notion of differentiation is that it applies to the level of support and scaffolding learners need to reach common, aspirational learning goals. We’re all aiming for the top of the mountain – but some of us will need more help, more guidance, more time.  In mindset terms, this is an important shift.  Scaffolding can be taken down… it’s temporary support.  In practical terms, it means you set the same learning objectives for everyone within the curriculum area in hand and plan different ways to support students to get there.   This could be different degrees of guided practice focusing on specific parts of the learning sequence, different forms of writing scaffold or different modes of responsive questioning and feedback, tailored to push students forward from wherever they are.

However, in the language of the recent Ofsted framework consultation output, apparently this is not differentiation; this is called ‘adapting teaching in a responsive way’..’for example by providing focused support to pupils who are not making progress’.

Now, this is where I think we’re losing it.  In order to rid ourselves of stupid mechanistic tick-box behaviours, it seems that Ofsted and other differentiation critiques are suggesting we dance around the actual word ‘differentiation’ – it’s been sort of blacklisted.  But this is madness. It won’t stick.  The truth is that, in many situations, there will be a hair’s breadth between ‘adapting teaching in a responsive way’ and ‘creating distinct tasks’.  It seems ludicrous to draw a purist line where none need exist.

I’ve got as much faith in the averaged-out studies that show ‘differentiation doesn’t work’ as I have in those that say, ‘homework doesn’t work’.  For sure some interventions will be a total dud but it all depends precisely on the context, the exact nature of the tasks, the students’ age, prior knowledge and so on.  In reality, there is no one definable thing that is ‘differentiation’ – it manifests itself in a million possible ways.

I could write a long list of scaffolding methods designed to lead all students to the same ultimate high challenge learning goals that, to all intents and purposes, manifest themselves as ‘distinct tasks’ in the short-term.

If we start learning the violin in a beginners’ class (as I have done), pretty soon we’ve diverged and different people can play harder pieces than others.  We start practising different things  and need support with different things.  Let’s go off-piste and look at skiing. (Boom-tish!) You move from nursery slope to green to red to black.  Within the goal of ‘being able to ski like a demon’, you engage in manifestly different levels of practice in very different conditions on that path.  A mixed ability ski group would require you to set up very different tasks to achieve the level of practice needed. This is hard so, in reality, the best skier in a mixed group does quite a lot of waiting for the others.

What about maths?  Within any maths class, even those that are tightly banded, you get a range of learning rates.  However you adapt your teaching, there will be some divergence and at any given time, students will move onto the next exercise at different times.  It’s inevitable.  Sometimes the divergence is so great that arguably it becomes a different sub-topic, not just a different task.  Now – is this not differentiation by any other name? Or is this ‘adapting teaching in a responsive way’?  If you plan the adaptations in advance they can look for all the world like different tasks.

What about history? It could be that the objective of demonstrating deep knowledge of the topic by writing a superb analytical essay is a common goal but, because of divergent levels of fluency with recall of the narrative elements and understanding of the underlying themes, some students need more practice with piecing the basic story together at one level while others are flying off making connections and comparing subtly different interpretations.  The title of the work might be the same but what they need to do could be quite different – because of where they’d got to before.  I’ve known a history class where the two A/A* students were in with 18 or so C-to-E students – a random result of individual option selections. There, call it what you like but ‘different tasks’ were more or less necessary every lesson.  If you think that’s wrong – I’d like to see you try!

I think it’s instructive to think about developing growth mindsets and building the capacity for good self-regulation through a process of engineering incremental degrees of success, building confidence through effort and determination applied to specific learning strategies. But, if Rosenshine is correct, we need to think about the optimum success rate being around 80% – and that is not going to be true for a range of learners if we’re giving them all the same tasks and the same levels of support.  Divergence in some form is inevitable; de facto is happens all the time and, for most teachers, has already happened before students arrive at your door. So – what do we do?

I think the issue is not with the word differentiation. It’s a widely used term that teachers use to refer to the process of meeting the challenges described above.  The problem lies with the crass mechanistic tick-list approach that’s been taken with evidencing it.  It’s another of those things drummed into us in the dark years of Ofsted stupidity that, along with grading lessons, can’t be wiped away easily by a bit of myth-busting literature.  I’d rather we were talking about effective and ineffective differentiation – just as we should talk about effective questioning, effective homework, effective collaborative learning, effective retrieval practice, effective instruction.  If we get bogged down with this hair-splitting ‘no true Scotsman’ pedantry –  ‘that’s not differentiation that’s adapting teaching’    –  the shutters will come down.  Go away with your faddish redefinitions, I’ve got classes to prepare. 

The common-sense thing is just to explore and re-establish the meaning – not to ditch the word. Good differentiation is this: common high-challenge learning objectives defined in detail with steps to success mapped out; scaffolding planned with guided practice leading to independent practice.  It means looking at the interesting variety of ways teachers support and scaffold students to reach ambitious goals over time (like a gardener tending their plants -one by one, not necessarily simultaneously) and not mandating idiot-box requirements like different worksheets or a certain number of levels of task in any given moment.

There you go; differentiation saved; restored.

Come on,  let’s not lose the plot and create yet more stupidity out of the old.

Done.

Rescuing Differentiation from the Checklist of Bad Practice. published first on https://medium.com/@KDUUniversityCollege

[nehathestudygod-blog]

13 Super Effective Approaches to Inspire Your Youngster to Practice Music    

Consider back to after you had been in college. You had your academic classes as well as your after-school activities. You knew your day by day program: Math, English, Science, etc. Then right after college: piles of countless homework!

With numerous distinct topics, it is no wonder adding time for you to practice music can seem to be like a burden to a kid. That is where you come in - you could aid shift your child’s mindset!

What’s the bottom line? It’s as much as you to assist your child see music in the various light!

Instead of treating music like every other subject, build a distinction so your youngster sees music as a thing she or he really wants to do. The best method to shift your child’s mindset will be to allow her or him play an instrument they are really serious about.

“If you desire your kid for being motivated to play an instrument, music ought to be diverse than other educational topics,” says Bobby K. from Guitar Chalk. “Your kid shouldn’t see music like a forced discipline, like Math or Geography. This in the end comes down to choosing the right instrument, that is going to be the 1 the kid is enthusiastic about and really wants to perform on their personal.

“For me, that was the guitar, which had me practicing (voluntarily) three to four hrs per day at eleven years outdated. That couldn’t have occurred with piano mainly because piano wasn’t “my” instrument. It was just an additional topic. But guitar was various in that it felt like play, not college perform. Acquiring your little one into a similar scenario, in which their instrument doesn’t come to feel like just a different school subject, is definitely vital. If it’s not happening, that might be a signal that it’s time for you to switch instruments.”

This also signifies you might must be versatile. Though it can be expensive to permit a little one to begin and halt quite a few various actions, try to operate with him or her to discover a single he or she enjoys and it is intrinsically motivated to practice.

Like this tip? Click here to tweet it. 

Place Your Youngster in Control It’s no secret that when we’re advised to complete a little something, we do not normally want to do it. Through the program of a day, there are several diverse people (dad and mom, teachers, older siblings, coaches) telling little ones what to try and do. Include music to that listing and it’s no wonder motivation would seem to dwindle!

Fight this dilemma by putting your little one in manage. Allow her or him identify the practice routine, that way they’re a lot more very likely to stick with it.

“Kids hear adults tell them what to carry out every one of the time; to catch their awareness, let them prepare their particular practice routine,”  says Nicole Weiss, LCSW Psychotherapist and Coach. “Start together with the end in thoughts. Basically, you want to get your child for making the selection that she or he needs to practice in order that she or he can play the way he or she wants to perform. Following the choice is manufactured, the parent can help the little one study and discover how normally a great musician practices. The little one then sets a schedule based on the actuality that, for being fantastic, one need to practice.”

Not simply will this permit your kid to truly feel a sense of control, it will eventually also support her or him to discover the worth of practice.

“The kid helps make the routine, then the parent reinforces it,” Weiss says. “I’m certain quite a few parents reading this would say…’yeah but will they do that day to day?’ That’s in which you can be found in - but you've got extra fat as part of your reminder. It was the child’s desire to make the objective. Furthermore, the reward must be for accomplishing tiny aims. For example: ‘practice just about every evening this week and we will download that song you want.’ Reward the get the job done.”

Additional: Motivate Your Child to Practice By using a Reward Program

Assist Your Kid Realize the Gift of Music Present your kid that taking part in a musical instrument is usually a particular privilege and a chance that is not necessarily obtainable to all people. Educate your youngster to enjoy music and all it's to supply. Assistance them find out that music can enrich their life.

“I feel that we’re here on this world to do excellent issues with the gift of our lives, and we’re right here to serve other folks,” says Heather F. from Music for Young Violinists. “Learning to perform [the violin] assists us in each of those areas - we’re drawn up into a level of greatness as a result of the discipline necessary to research this artwork type, and in this system, we cultivate a present that we are able to share with other people.”

This also consists of assisting your child produce a appreciate for music. Consider them to concerts or displays, play music in your house, and aid them learn what they like.

Many grownups want they'd caught by using a hobby or endeavor they started like a youngster, like playing a musical instrument. Though this can be a hard concept for younger children to grasp, teaching them to enjoy music can help them have an understanding of why practice is significant.

As outlined by this post from MusicTeachersHelper on motivating students to practice, “…I can not count the number of occasions I’ve heard adults say to me, ‘I quit taking piano when I was young and it had been such a blunder. I wish I could go back and get lessons again.’ Dad and mom might help little ones know the value that musical talent brings to society.”

Really do not Make Practice an Obligation This a single may seem somewhat counterintuitive, suitable? Just after all, you have invested the money in an instrument and lessons, and you also want your kid for making the most of it. Plus, if your son or daughter really wants to be good, she or he requires to practice!

The important thing here will be to not make practice seem like an obligation, as compared to other fun pursuits. For instance, if your son or daughter loves to play video games or perform outside, do not make it possible for him or her to do this right up until following completing practice.

Utilizing a entertaining activity as being a reward will generate the mindset that practice may be the obligation that stands during the method of the enjoyable action, and this might generate resentment or dread for practice.

As Why We Teach Piano suggests, “Don’t set an arbitrary amount of practice time, without particular aims, and after that reward them with playtime or video video games afterwards. This just reinforces the notion that taking part in piano is not fun and video games are fun.”

Strategy Performances In regards to any sport, pastime, or endeavor, it’s important to help keep your eye on the prize. The exact same factor applies when it comes to your kid understanding an instrument; your son or daughter has to possess a goal in sight, otherwise, she or he may query the will need to practice.

“If you should maintain students engaged and excited about their music schooling, be certain they are carrying out regularly throughout the yr,” says Anthony M. founder and writer of the Music Parents’ Guide. “There are other profound effects on a lot more scheduled performances for all college programs, also. We, as dad and mom and teachers, require to foster a increasing curiosity and in some cases an pleasure about music in our children’s lives. Constant performances will be the most effective technique to do that and proceed to encourage our kids.”

It gets improved:

Not just do performances help to increase pleasure, additionally they do the job to hold youngsters accountable. Ask any music teacher - even probably the most unmotivated pupil is going to be much more probably to practice if it signifies avoiding embarrassment at a recital!

Let Your Youngster Choose Just because you loved taking part in piano as being a kid doesn’t indicate your youngster will like enjoying just as a great deal. Your kid might have other interests, and it’s crucial to allow him or her to examine various endeavors.

“First of all, I think it is important that the little one pick the instrument they are planning to discover,” says Matt T. from Unlock the Guitar. “I’m a guitarist, and I’d really like practically nothing greater than my son to become considering mastering guitar, but he’s undeniably drawn on the piano. Plus, if an instrument is thrust on them, training it will eventually also be thrust upon them. Letting the child pick the instrument turns this on its head, and into your favor, even if they did not pick the instrument you'd probably have liked them to perform.”

Be Their Cheerleader Allow your kid know you’re her or his largest fan, in particular early on when your child may well truly feel frustrated or discouraged.

Eighty-eight notes college of music suggests listening for your little one at your home as often while you can and generating encouraging remarks about their progress. Also, be sure to ask them how their lessons went.

Get a genuine interest with your child’s musical journey. Your son or daughter will probably be fired up to play for you personally and demonstrate off new techniques!

Aid Them Engage With Music Your child is much more probable to practice music if she or he feels linked towards the system. Help your son or daughter create an interest and curiosity for music.

To assist your kid remain engaged, grow to be a a part of the procedure. Whatever you could do to obtain concerned is probably to improve their interest and determination.

“Motivating your youngster by reward or punishment will end functioning quite swiftly; as a substitute, enable your child get curious about music and create an inner desire to engage with music,” says Jonas G., the founder of flowkey.”Let your kid play close to with various instruments. Listen to music and sing together. Your little one will naturally wish to imitate you, so a large inspiration for children to practice is seeing their mothers and fathers engage with music themselves.”

Develop Challenges In lieu of telling your child to practice, aid him or her set certain aims and difficulties. This can help them progress faster due to the fact they’ll get the job done on accomplishing particular tasks or mastering certain techniques. This idea might be utilized to any instrument.

Practiceopedia writer and practice professional, Philip J., has a fully diverse consider: “Don’t inquire your children to ‘practice’ - they won’t understand what to try and do. As a substitute, give them bite-sized, clear issues to finish: (1) Get the job done out a fingering for measures 24-35 (two) Gradually pace up segment B to 85bpm. (3) Manage to perform the left hand with the coda from memory.”

Owning difficulty coming up with all the appropriate challenge? Verify out Phillip’s web-site, thebootcampedition.com, for any large assortment.

Celebrate ALL Accomplishments Studying to play an instrument is often a lengthy journey complete of peaks, valleys, and plateaus. Even though you’ll surely be proud when you observe your child execute, it is crucial to celebrate the little victories along the way in which.

Though verbal praise is vital, you could possibly also want to produce another technique to celebrate achievements; familyshare recommends keeping a journal of one's child’s accomplishments. After you put it in writing, you’re much less very likely to forget. If journaling is not your issue, you are able to continue to keep a white board on the fridge, or make a chart that you simply can display in the property!

Celebrating the small victories will help your kid keep a good frame of mind when they’re struggling or obtaining issues tackling a brand new notion or song.

Allow Them Perform Music They Like Even though there are often particular signature songs and classics for various instruments, your youngster will reduce interest if he or she doesn’t just like the music they’re taking part in.

Work along with your child’s instructor to create sure your child is playing some music they certainly love.

Based on the Academy of Music and Dance, “As children get to become all around ten years previous, sometimes younger, they start to create preferences for musical design, largely influenced by radio, Tv, and no matter what they’re most exposed to at your home. They may also generally gravitate to whatever their close friends are listening to, especially for boys at all around age 13 and girls all-around age 11.”

Use this as a motivational tactic; make it possible for your son or daughter to perform no less than one acquainted song as a part of their weekly regimen.

Make Practice Exciting This should really come as no surprise - no one wants to practice when it is uninteresting! Integrate pleasurable games, activities, and difficulties, along with your kid will appear forward to practice!

As outlined by PianoDiscoveries, “appropriate goals and optimistic reinforcement will make training entertaining and rewarding. Extremely handful of little ones are self-motivated within their practice. Most require incentives and reminders to maintain them centered and moving forward.”

Request your child’s music instructor for some imaginative tips on how to make practice extra fun!

Discover the ideal Teacher This brings us to our final strategy and 1 with the most critical: discover the ideal instructor! Even though practice is done outside of lessons, in case your child connects with her or his teacher, they are a great deal a lot more possible to practice on their very own time.

In accordance with Music Central,”…finding the ideal teacher will make or break the whole encounter. Really don't be afraid to test a new instructor in case your youngster is not connecting. The most beneficial teachers are usually the ones who not simply teach, but understand how to get a superb good friend and mentor for your kid.”

Discover a teacher who understands your child’s understanding style, in addition to a person who’s able to teach ideas within a way that keeps your little one interested. When your son or daughter likes their teacher, they’ll be more prepared to take course and practice constantly.

Among the various issues that mothers and fathers encounter in dealing with children’s music lessons (choosing the instrument, finding a good teacher, etc.), acquiring children to practice is definitely the most challenging of all. The severity with the trouble plus the value of practice make it challenging to believe that you'll find so few articles addressing this. What’s extra, mothers and fathers and music teachers generally resort on the failed techniques they remember from childhood in desperate attempts to motivate youngsters to practice. A frequent illustration of this difficulty could be the “practice for thirty minutes” rule, by which a music teacher will suggest that the child practice 30 minutes per day and typically maximize this time because they get older. In attempts to enforce adherence to this arbitrary dedication, mothers and fathers will generally “pay” the child for 30 minutes of “work” with a little something rewarding like watching Television, playing outside or enjoying video games. The trouble with this particular system is that it tends to make the 30 minutes of practicing some thing to be endured in an effort to do one thing that is valued. But precisely what is so sacred about thirty minutes of training? Where did this normal unit come from? How is it better than 27 minutes or 34? To transform training right into a rewarding activity, parents need to motivate reaching everyday musical ambitions. Such as, in lieu of saying that 30 minutes of practice is ample regardless of precisely what is achieved, you could say, “Today the aim of practicing should be to play the 1st eight measures of your piece with no any mistakes.” Whether or not reaching this target requires 12 minutes or 40 minutes isn’t crucial. What exactly is critical is that the youngster knows the musical objective of every everyday practice session and feels motivated to be as productive as you possibly can though practicing in an effort to attain that goal and feel that sense of accomplishment. In case the goal is playing the primary eight measures on Monday, the logical objective for Tuesday would be to play the following eight. Fairly soon, the little one will acknowledge the cumulative aim of the week: to perform the complete piece free of charge of mistakes. This prospects to more motivation, a lot more work in the course of practice and most significantly, pride in what they've accomplished. While this strategy achieves higher success, in addition, it necessitates extra energy from the mothers and fathers; it is easy to evaluate the clock and monitor 30 minutes, but goal-related training usually means setting daily goals to your kids, monitoring the ease or difficulty your youngster experiences with his music and setting new, far more demanding aims. Don’t fear! Right here are some strategies to help you: Very first, divide the week’s target or teacher’s expectations into 7 equal components and ensure your youngster understands every one. On some days, your kid may select to do the job toward two days’ well worth of objectives, by which case, it is wise to present them the choice of skipping the next day’s practice session. Day by day aims ought to be attended to on a daily basis and need to involve taking part in scales or other technique-building techniques; advancement on specific pieces may be more spread out, as long as the kid continues to move forward with the piece. Even though it may be tempting, don’t bargain with practice time. Whilst in trying to skip every day, your youngster could actually imply, “I will practice double tomorrow,” this sets the regular that practice time is negotiable. Progress need to be measured and appropriately altered each day (if essential) by analyzing the amount of effort, aggravation and completion/advancement in reaching the every day ambitions. Yes, this is certainly more get the job done than monitoring thirty minutes daily, but within the finish, this will be easier than the agony of forcing young children to adhere towards the necessary thirty minutes of meager, unmotivated energy. It will eventually also make everyone’s life a little more pleasurable!

Formas fáceis de ensinar música para crianças https://nehathestudygod.tumblr.com/post/170483079355/deal-with-music-like-a-unique-subject

[careergrowthblog]

Rescuing Differentiation from the Checklist of Bad Practice.

I’m not exactly sure why but it feels like, as a profession, we’ve made a mess of the concepts and language that apply to the everyday processes needed to teach a wide range of students within one class.  A range of what? Attainment, ability, experience, competence, knowledge, skill, confidence, fluency? Most likely a mix of all of these things (they’re all ways of quantifying types of knowledge in the end).  Here let’s call them ‘fluency levels’.

Let’s be grounded for a minute. It’s uncontroversial – totally obvious – that not all learners learn things at the same rate, short-term or long-term.  It’s a very common experience – and often a major challenge and concern –  that teaching can be very hard when, in one class, the range of learners’ fluency levels is wide.   How do you stretch everyone, teaching those reaching the top levels to go further, never holding anyone back, whilst ensuring those at the lowest levels within that particular curriculum area are supported or accelerated? This isn’t easy – and it doesn’t pay to diminish or deny this very real experience.

However, over the years, the word ‘differentiation’ has been morphed and distorted and, in classic system-over-sense style has been reduced to mean something narrow and mechanistic: the mandatory provision of different tasks for students of different abilities.  With this definition, the evidence for the act of differentiating – the evidence that SLTs and inspectors have sought in millions of lessons – is the existence of manifestly different tasks at different levels of difficulty, suited to the levels of the learners.  I’ve reported before my dismay at being involved in a joint inspectorial lesson observation of one of the best teachers I’ve ever known when his lesson was deemed to be only Good and not Outstanding because the conspicuous presence of different tasks and objectives was conspicuously absent.  Determinedly so. It wasn’t appropriate or necessary – but, hey, rules are rules!

Very commonly, this bit of reductive thinking has been linked to writing differentiated learning objectives.  The need for these is still firmly embedded into the psyche of way too many teachers.  I see it all the time. Powerpoints and whiteboards everywhere are routinely peppered with hideous tiered LOs: Must, should, could; All, Most, Some; Core, Challenge, Mega Challenge.   This has the effect of explicitly setting lower expectations for students at different levels within a class.  Some parts of the curriculum are only for ‘some’ – not all.  It’s explicit. Intentional.  And this is wrong-headed. A recipe for systematic underachievement and gap-widening.   It was this situation that led us to call the Oldham College CPD programme ‘Teaching for Distinction’ to get away from a tendency for people to aim at Pass with Merit and Distinction grades as some kind of optional bonus.  Instead we say everyone should be aiming for Distinction; ‘excellence’ should be defined, aspirational for all and aimed for explicitly.

A much better, wiser and more effective notion of differentiation is that it applies to the level of support and scaffolding learners need to reach common, aspirational learning goals. We’re all aiming for the top of the mountain – but some of us will need more help, more guidance, more time.  In mindset terms, this is an important shift.  Scaffolding can be taken down… it’s temporary support.  In practical terms, it means you set the same learning objectives for everyone within the curriculum area in hand and plan different ways to support students to get there.   This could be different degrees of guided practice focusing on specific parts of the learning sequence, different forms of writing scaffold or different modes of responsive questioning and feedback, tailored to push students forward from wherever they are.

However, in the language of the recent Ofsted framework consultation output, apparently this is not differentiation; this is called ‘adapting teaching in a responsive way’..’for example by providing focused support to pupils who are not making progress’.

Now, this is where I think we’re losing it.  In order to rid ourselves of stupid mechanistic tick-box behaviours, it seems that Ofsted and other differentiation critiques are suggesting we dance around the actual word ‘differentiation’ – it’s been sort of blacklisted.  But this is madness. It won’t stick.  The truth is that, in many situations, there will be a hair’s breadth between ‘adapting teaching in a responsive way’ and ‘creating distinct tasks’.  It seems ludicrous to draw a purist line where none need exist.

I’ve got as much faith in the averaged-out studies that show ‘differentiation doesn’t work’ as I have in those that say, ‘homework doesn’t work’.  For sure some interventions will be a total dud but it all depends precisely on the context, the exact nature of the tasks, the students’ age, prior knowledge and so on.  In reality, there is no one definable thing that is ‘differentiation’ – it manifests itself in a million possible ways.

I could write a long list of scaffolding methods designed to lead all students to the same ultimate high challenge learning goals that, to all intents and purposes, manifest themselves as ‘distinct tasks’ in the short-term.

If we start learning the violin in a beginners’ class (as I have done), pretty soon we’ve diverged and different people can play harder pieces than others.  We start practising different things  and need support with different things.  Let’s go off-piste and look at skiing. (Boom-tish!) You move from nursery slope to green to red to black.  Within the goal of ‘being able to ski like a demon’, you engage in manifestly different levels of practice in very different conditions on that path.  A mixed ability ski group would require you to set up very different tasks to achieve the level of practice needed. This is hard so, in reality, the best skier in a mixed group does quite a lot of waiting for the others.

What about maths?  Within any maths class, even those that are tightly banded, you get a range of learning rates.  However you adapt your teaching, there will be some divergence and at any given time, students will move onto the next exercise at different times.  It’s inevitable.  Sometimes the divergence is so great that arguably it becomes a different sub-topic, not just a different task.  Now – is this not differentiation by any other name? Or is this ‘adapting teaching in a responsive way’?  If you plan the adaptations in advance they can look for all the world like different tasks.

What about history? It could be that the objective of demonstrating deep knowledge of the topic by writing a superb analytical essay is a common goal but, because of divergent levels of fluency with recall of the narrative elements and understanding of the underlying themes, some students need more practice with piecing the basic story together at one level while others are flying off making connections and comparing subtly different interpretations.  The title of the work might be the same but what they need to do could be quite different – because of where they’d got to before.  I’ve known a history class where the two A/A* students were in with 18 or so C-to-E students – a random result of individual option selections. There, call it what you like but ‘different tasks’ were more or less necessary every lesson.  If you think that’s wrong – I’d like to see you try!

I think it’s instructive to think about developing growth mindsets and building the capacity for good self-regulation through a process of engineering incremental degrees of success, building confidence through effort and determination applied to specific learning strategies. But, if Rosenshine is correct, we need to think about the optimum success rate being around 80% – and that is not going to be true for a range of learners if we’re giving them all the same tasks and the same levels of support.  Divergence in some form is inevitable; de facto is happens all the time and, for most teachers, has already happened before students arrive at your door. So – what do we do?

I think the issue is not with the word differentiation. It’s a widely used term that teachers use to refer to the process of meeting the challenges described above.  The problem lies with the crass mechanistic tick-list approach that’s been taken with evidencing it.  It’s another of those things drummed into us in the dark years of Ofsted stupidity that, along with grading lessons, can’t be wiped away easily by a bit of myth-busting literature.  I’d rather we were talking about effective and ineffective differentiation – just as we should talk about effective questioning, effective homework, effective collaborative learning, effective retrieval practice, effective instruction.  If we get bogged down with this hair-splitting ‘no true Scotsman’ pedantry –  ‘that’s not differentiation that’s adapting teaching’    –  the shutters will come down.  Go away with your faddish redefinitions, I’ve got classes to prepare. 

The common-sense thing is just to explore and re-establish the meaning – not to ditch the word. Good differentiation is this: common high-challenge learning objectives defined in detail with steps to success mapped out; scaffolding planned with guided practice leading to independent practice.  It means looking at the interesting variety of ways teachers support and scaffold students to reach ambitious goals over time (like a gardener tending their plants -one by one, not necessarily simultaneously) and not mandating idiot-box requirements like different worksheets or a certain number of levels of task in any given moment.

There you go; differentiation saved; restored.

Come on,  let’s not lose the plot and create yet more stupidity out of the old.

Done.

Rescuing Differentiation from the Checklist of Bad Practice. published first on https://medium.com/@KDUUniversityCollege

[careergrowthblog]

Rescuing Differentiation from the Checklist of Bad Practice.

I’m not exactly sure why but it feels like, as a profession, we’ve made a mess of the concepts and language that apply to the everyday processes needed to teach a wide range of students within one class.  A range of what? Attainment, ability, experience, competence, knowledge, skill, confidence, fluency? Most likely a mix of all of these things (they’re all ways of quantifying types of knowledge in the end).  Here let’s call them ‘fluency levels’.

Let’s be grounded for a minute. It’s uncontroversial – totally obvious – that not all learners learn things at the same rate, short-term or long-term.  It’s a very common experience – and often a major challenge and concern –  that teaching can be very hard when, in one class, the range of learners’ fluency levels is wide.   How do you stretch everyone, teaching those reaching the top levels to go further, never holding anyone back, whilst ensuring those at the lowest levels within that particular curriculum area are supported or accelerated? This isn’t easy – and it doesn’t pay to diminish or deny this very real experience.

However, over the years, the word ‘differentiation’ has been morphed and distorted and, in classic system-over-sense style has been reduced to mean something narrow and mechanistic: the mandatory provision of different tasks for students of different abilities.  With this definition, the evidence for the act of differentiating – the evidence that SLTs and inspectors have sought in millions of lessons – is the existence of manifestly different tasks at different levels of difficulty, suited to the levels of the learners.  I’ve reported before my dismay at being involved in a joint inspectorial lesson observation of one of the best teachers I’ve ever known when his lesson was deemed to be only Good and not Outstanding because the conspicuous presence of different tasks and objectives was conspicuously absent.  Determinedly so. It wasn’t appropriate or necessary – but, hey, rules are rules!

Very commonly, this bit of reductive thinking has been linked to writing differentiated learning objectives.  The need for these is still firmly embedded into the psyche of way too many teachers.  I see it all the time. Powerpoints and whiteboards everywhere are routinely peppered with hideous tiered LOs: Must, should, could; All, Most, Some; Core, Challenge, Mega Challenge.   This has the effect of explicitly setting lower expectations for students at different levels within a class.  Some parts of the curriculum are only for ‘some’ – not all.  It’s explicit. Intentional.  And this is wrong-headed. A recipe for systematic underachievement and gap-widening.   It was this situation that led us to call the Oldham College CPD programme ‘Teaching for Distinction’ to get away from a tendency for people to aim at Pass with Merit and Distinction grades as some kind of optional bonus.  Instead we say everyone should be aiming for Distinction; ‘excellence’ should be defined, aspirational for all and aimed for explicitly.

A much better, wiser and more effective notion of differentiation is that it applies to the level of support and scaffolding learners need to reach common, aspirational learning goals. We’re all aiming for the top of the mountain – but some of us will need more help, more guidance, more time.  In mindset terms, this is an important shift.  Scaffolding can be taken down… it’s temporary support.  In practical terms, it means you set the same learning objectives for everyone within the curriculum area in hand and plan different ways to support students to get there.   This could be different degrees of guided practice focusing on specific parts of the learning sequence, different forms of writing scaffold or different modes of responsive questioning and feedback, tailored to push students forward from wherever they are.

However, in the language of the recent Ofsted framework consultation output, apparently this is not differentiation; this is called ‘adapting teaching in a responsive way’..’for example by providing focused support to pupils who are not making progress’.

Now, this is where I think we’re losing it.  In order to rid ourselves of stupid mechanistic tick-box behaviours, it seems that Ofsted and other differentiation critiques are suggesting we dance around the actual word ‘differentiation’ – it’s been sort of blacklisted.  But this is madness. It won’t stick.  The truth is that, in many situations, there will be a hair’s breadth between ‘adapting teaching in a responsive way’ and ‘creating distinct tasks’.  It seems ludicrous to draw a purist line where none need exist.

I’ve got as much faith in the averaged-out studies that show ‘differentiation doesn’t work’ as I have in those that say, ‘homework doesn’t work’.  For sure some interventions will be a total dud but it all depends precisely on the context, the exact nature of the tasks, the students’ age, prior knowledge and so on.  In reality, there is no one definable thing that is ‘differentiation’ – it manifests itself in a million possible ways.

I could write a long list of scaffolding methods designed to lead all students to the same ultimate high challenge learning goals that, to all intents and purposes, manifest themselves as ‘distinct tasks’ in the short-term.

If we start learning the violin in a beginners’ class (as I have done), pretty soon we’ve diverged and different people can play harder pieces than others.  We start practising different things  and need support with different things.  Let’s go off-piste and look at skiing. (Boom-tish!) You move from nursery slope to green to red to black.  Within the goal of ‘being able to ski like a demon’, you engage in manifestly different levels of practice in very different conditions on that path.  A mixed ability ski group would require you to set up very different tasks to achieve the level of practice needed. This is hard so, in reality, the best skier in a mixed group does quite a lot of waiting for the others.

What about maths?  Within any maths class, even those that are tightly banded, you get a range of learning rates.  However you adapt your teaching, there will be some divergence and at any given time, students will move onto the next exercise at different times.  It’s inevitable.  Sometimes the divergence is so great that arguably it becomes a different sub-topic, not just a different task.  Now – is this not differentiation by any other name? Or is this ‘adapting teaching in a responsive way’?  If you plan the adaptations in advance they can look for all the world like different tasks.

What about history? It could be that the objective of demonstrating deep knowledge of the topic by writing a superb analytical essay is a common goal but, because of divergent levels of fluency with recall of the narrative elements and understanding of the underlying themes, some students need more practice with piecing the basic story together at one level while others are flying off making connections and comparing subtly different interpretations.  The title of the work might be the same but what they need to do could be quite different – because of where they’d got to before.  I’ve known a history class where the two A/A* students were in with 18 or so C-to-E students – a random result of individual option selections. There, call it what you like but ‘different tasks’ were more or less necessary every lesson.  If you think that’s wrong – I’d like to see you try!

I think it’s instructive to think about developing growth mindsets and building the capacity for good self-regulation through a process of engineering incremental degrees of success, building confidence through effort and determination applied to specific learning strategies. But, if Rosenshine is correct, we need to think about the optimum success rate being around 80% – and that is not going to be true for a range of learners if we’re giving them all the same tasks and the same levels of support.  Divergence in some form is inevitable; de facto is happens all the time and, for most teachers, has already happened before students arrive at your door. So – what do we do?

I think the issue is not with the word differentiation. It’s a widely used term that teachers use to refer to the process of meeting the challenges described above.  The problem lies with the crass mechanistic tick-list approach that’s been taken with evidencing it.  It’s another of those things drummed into us in the dark years of Ofsted stupidity that, along with grading lessons, can’t be wiped away easily by a bit of myth-busting literature.  I’d rather we were talking about effective and ineffective differentiation – just as we should talk about effective questioning, effective homework, effective collaborative learning, effective retrieval practice, effective instruction.  If we get bogged down with this hair-splitting ‘no true Scotsman’ pedantry –  ‘that’s not differentiation that’s adapting teaching’    –  the shutters will come down.  Go away with your faddish redefinitions, I’ve got classes to prepare. 

The common-sense thing is just to explore and re-establish the meaning – not to ditch the word. Good differentiation is this: common high-challenge learning objectives defined in detail with steps to success mapped out; scaffolding planned with guided practice leading to independent practice.  It means looking at the interesting variety of ways teachers support and scaffold students to reach ambitious goals over time (like a gardener tending their plants -one by one, not necessarily simultaneously) and not mandating idiot-box requirements like different worksheets or a certain number of levels of task in any given moment.

There you go; differentiation saved; restored.

Come on,  let’s not lose the plot and create yet more stupidity out of the old.

Done.

Rescuing Differentiation from the Checklist of Bad Practice. published first on https://medium.com/@KDUUniversityCollege