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adrenalinezetaax · 22 days ago

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A Conversation With Andrew Tamburrino

I had a brief chat with Andrew Tamburrino, whose short film Spring Forth screened on September 27 at A Night of Moving Images, a showcase of experimental films from the DMV that I organized at Rhizome DC. Andrew is a DC-based filmmaker. He wears many hats, also working as a projectionist and preservationist while shooting experimental films in his spare time. We discussed his sources of inspiration and creative process, as well as his experiences working in a film lab and in the projection booth.

I saw you post on Instagram a photo of Gregory Markopoulos’s Eniaios, and I was wondering what the context for the photo was. Were you involved in restoring it?

Yeah. So this past edition, the 2024 edition, we worked on. It's done in cycles, and this edition was XV through XIX, I believe, or XIV through XVIII. But I worked with Robert Beavers in getting new intermediates made from the originals and then subsequent prints that could be screened during the festival in Greece. So that was a really wonderful opportunity. I'm very sad I didn't get to attend the festival, but from everything I've heard, it was magical as always.

I've always wanted to go. I think I must have heard about it as recently as, like, two or three years ago. And I was wondering when the next edition would be. And I just assumed it would be in another four years. But it looks like they're back on cycle now.

Yeah. I had asked Robert, you know, because it was supposed to be 2020. COVID obviously put a wrench into things there. So they jumped to, the 2020 edition was in 2022. And then yes, this year was getting back on schedule, but I asked him if he was, you know, if 2026 would be the next edition or 28 and he wasn't sure yet, they kind of needed to figure a few things out before they decided. So yeah, maybe the next edition we can we can meet up and go.

Something I noticed, I think, in Markopoulos's work and in your film that you submitted [to the Film & Video Open Call], they both seem to share this interest in Greek myth. I was wondering if that influenced your choice of subject matter or if there was something else that did.

This particular film of mine was made before I started working on the Markopoulos films. But I have spent some time in Greece mainly, or not mainly, on vacation. I've been twice now, in 2021 and then last year in 2023. And I think it was that first trip that kind of really got into my head and invigorated me to make something out of it. And I've since made another film that is very Greek inspired. I also work a lot with Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler on their work. And I think kind of between the two of them and Robert Beavers and some other of the artists that I work with on a pretty consistent basis have all sort of molded me and have me thinking about film in a different way and have kind of allowed me to adopt some of their techniques and their point of views and kind of combine them all and re-amalgamated them into my own.

I noticed a pun in your title, Spring Forth. Spring the noun and the verb. And I think that's somewhat reflected in your choice of imagery. There's this close up of a statue and [you] use the split screen effect where it looks like the flowers are bursting from the head. And it seems to me that was a metaphor for the birth of Athena. Am I reading the film correctly?

Absolutely. So the film really came out of a… Last year was a very difficult year. And I was in a very depressed state. And I found that getting outside, especially with the camera in my hand, allowed a lot of that to kind of wash away for a time. And so that want and desire to kind of, like, take a few steps and spring out of the sadness and the uncertainty of a lot of the things that were going on in my life helped free that expression of joy and that expression of growth and sort of new beginnings. What I didn't realize is that it was also… This project was also sort of a false springs of sorts. I finished this film and my year got actually worse. So it was sort of this high and this peak that I didn't know that the like, sort of the bottom was gonna fall out, but for a time it was this real joy and spark of creativity. And yeah, this was the first film that I shot with this camera and really learning what it could do, the split screen effect and the double and triple exposures or something that I've never really worked with before. And I have a series of masks that can slide into the gate. And so all of those, you know, the desire to play and a desire to kind of like get out of the the mental space that I was in, this film is kind of the the result of that. And I’ve always been very interested in mythology and kind of the stories that we tell ourselves. I would not say I'm religious by any means, but I think that there is something sort of… I don't know, sort of basic to who we are that those stories kind of have stayed with us for so long. And my time in Greece only further inspired that really in seeing the temples and the, you know, the lengths that that people went to and like the places that people went to build shrines and churches on these far remote islands like deep into the hills, kind of brought that love of mythology and storytelling and such back to the fore. That's kind of all of where that sort of imagery and things really like came from.

What sort of equipment do you use when you shoot?

So I have a Ciné-Kodak Special number II. I believe my model is from the early post-war period. So like 45, 1946. And when I made this film, I only had one lens. I now have more of a telephoto lens on in addition to kind of the flat standard one. That particular camera allows for you to rewind, to do single frame, to do anything from eight frames a second to 48 frames a second. And it also has that space for a mask, a series of masks, to slide in. So I have, masks are top and bottom of the frame, left and right, and then also sort of an oval lens or an oval mask and a circle mask. This model of camera also came with a 100 and 200 foot magazine. Other than that, I have just a pretty basic tripod. I've made other work using an animation stand that I have. I may have done the titles for this one on the animation stand. But otherwise, it's like a pretty basic setup. And if i can't do it with the equipment on hand, I find a way to do it. Or, you know, I come up with another idea sort of thing.

I'm also curious, where did you shoot it?

Just in and around my neighborhood. So I live in DC in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, by the National Zoo. So the statue imagery was all done in my front yard. That statue planter was borrowed from a friend. And then the first image of the frog jumping into the pond was shot up at a local conservancy, Tregaron, that joins up with the Klingle Trail coming out of Rock Creek Park. And otherwise, all of the flowers are gardens in and around my neighborhood. And I found that very freeing to find sort of the subject so close at hand, it made shooting a very easy prospect of just like, you know, a walk around the block was enough to get some of those images captured. So yeah, it was a very hyper-localized little project.

Read the rest of the interview on my newsletter, The Reckless Sleeper.

#film #experimental film #analog

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starlightiing · 6 months ago

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Purely based off of what I see/the content they provide/what I know of them:

Alexandra- apparently works at an art gallery, had a private ig for agessss then suddenly made it public recently for some reason. Not really sure about her intentions maybe possibly trying to be more influencery but I think she does use Leo for clout a lot especially at races (but Charles isn’t much better)

Rebecca- is a model in her own right. (Not from Carlos). Not convinced on their rs, most videos I see of them together they look stiff

Lily M- pro golfer. Her and Alex are adorable together. Do I think they sometimes exaggerate for the cuteness clout? Yes. Do I still think they’re genuine? Yes.

Carmen- use to work in finance, been proven she doesn’t anymore even though she still tries to convince people she’s doing something in that area. Used to have private ig until George moved to Mercedes… is definitely one going down the wannabe influencer route. None of the content she posts of her and george looks genuine to me. It all looks to perfect and posed. I get weird feeling about her the most.

Lily Z- don’t know too much about her other than she’s studying engineering or something like that? Seems very introverted but sweet.

Kika- model in her own right. I know people are sketchy when it comes to Pierre and I think they’re a little performing sometimes but I also believe they’re genuine and they seem to have fun.

Tiff- pro cyclist. Is one of the few I’m not bothered by coming in the main entrance bc she doesn’t use it as a catwalk. She wears whatever the hell she wants and it’s very obvious she’s only there to support Valtteri which is sweet.

Flavy, Leila, any of the other wags I don’t really know much about/follow so can’t comment aha.

Interesting! I think Lily M was the only one who I knew the profession for. I wish I had like actual feedback to give you on this, but I don't know very much about them at all. Alex and Lily are super cute, I'd be heartbroken if they weren't genuine ahaha.

Why are people sketchy about Pierre? Does this go back to age again? I saw maybe a month ago a little video he put up in his Instagram and the way he looked at her, then down at her lips, and then back up at her eyes again and smiled and just,,,, it looked like she was his world. It was really sweet. That's all the experience I have with Kika really though. It was one of those looks where you know his stomach was absolutely fluttering and it was super cute.

Flavy I don't KNOW, I've just seen how passionately she seems to support Esteban, and how he supports her right back. I believe she is in the medical field or in school to be in the medical field? I am not super sure but she is kind and tends to interact with fans (shes interacted with me), and he's posted some videos of them being silly together. They're really cute!

I didn't think Carmen was too bad really! But again, I don't follow her or anything. Interesting that you get the bad vibes from her. Do you think George also isn't super into her? Cause to me he seems to love her but again all of this is just. They're in the public eye and everything is brushed over by PR so...

Anyway, just my thoughts. I really do not know them so it's hard for me to give you any good material to work with here.

Also their relationships are not my business so I tend to steer clear unless something pops up on my feed ahaha. It's very interesting to hear what people think about them!

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swanlake1998 · 4 years ago

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Article: Why I Left My Classical Ballet Job to Explore My Roots in Javanese Dance

Date: February 6, 2021

By: Cat Woods

At the peak of her career, dancer Juliet Burnett left the Australian Ballet to explore her Javanese roots. Now, the Indonesian-Australian ballerina is drawing on her heritage to expand the often narrow world of performing arts.

When Juliet Burnett smiles, the full gloriousness of her high-cheekbones and angular face are both feline and balletic, not dissimilar to the finely boned, regal faces of Javanese dancers. Her facial expressions, like her body — sculpted by almost two decades of professional dance — are deliberate and refined.

It's been five years since Burnett left The Australian Ballet at the peak of her career, having been steadily promoted, over 13 years, to the role of senior artist within the Melbourne-based company.

From her family home in Sydney, where she is temporarily living while borders are closed for travel due to COVID-19, Burnett is fired up about the attitudes of classical dance. She has memories of feeling like an outsider amongst a largely middle-class, white company that espoused creative adventurism but failed to appeal to — or recruit — more than a couple of Indigenous dancers, nor to make the Asian-Australian dancers in the company feel that their cultural heritage was encouraged in the imperial values of classical ballet. "Black dancers, Asian dancers, and dancers of color aren't made to feel like their cultural provenance is celebrated," she tells Allure.

"I felt like the role of women in classical ballet is to be subservient," she says now, reflective and thoughtful in her wording, though not cautious. Burnett is not one for tip-toeing about. "Not just the roles for women, but the very system of classical ballet.”

The Australian Ballet encountered backlash in June this year after it published a black square on social media. The national ballet company was accused by its Instagram followers of being "lazy," doing the bare minimum in its response to Black Lives Matter.

In 2019, in a review of the Australian Ballet’s version of The Nutcracker for Australian arts publication Limelight Magazine, the critic viewed the production as perpetuating "racialised stereotypes of Chinese characters." The lack of diversity in the ballet industry as a whole has been brought to public conversation by numerous dancers over recent years, including Misty Copeland, who, via a 2019 Instagram post, called out dancers who were in blackface during a rehearsal for a performance for the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. (Following the post and media coverage, the New York Times reported that the general director for the Bolshoi said in a statement at the time that the ballet company "will not comment on the absurd allegation" of racism.)

A statement provided to Allure from The Australian Ballet says: "The Australian Ballet aims to reflect the diverse Australian community that we operate in and foster an inclusive environment for all. We’re continuing to learn and we are working on longer-term strategies to increase participation in dance across all communities, and provide more access to The Australian Ballet for all Australians, it may take time, but we are committed to working on the bigger picture."

The statement continues: "The Australian Ballet recruited its first Indigenous dancer [Ella Havelka] in 2012, and since then has recruited a second First Nations dancer."

While Burnett would eventually become an outspoken advocate for diversity in ballet, her experience with dance began without an agenda towards a career, nor even the intention to practice classical ballet.

"My grandmother, Raden Ayu Catherine Ismadillah Brataatmaja, was a professional Javanese dancer," she says. "As soon as I was five, my mother was curious about whether dance was in my blood too, so she enrolled me in ballet with the idea that I could follow in her footsteps. She was totally not a pushy dance mum."

Brataatmaja was the star palace dancer of the Surakarta Sultanate (Javanese monarchy in Indonesia), performing the royal court dance Bedhaya Ketawang for Indonesian royalty. Widyas Burnett, while also fully encouraging her daughter to embrace classical ballet, endeavored to make the costume for 14-year-old Juliet's first school choreographic effort, "Campursari." The final number combined classical ballet moves with Javanese dance positions, set to the soundtrack of traditional gamelan music.

Like many young dancers who are recruited to train endless hours through their pre-teen and teenage years to be auditioned for international ballet schools, her talent was spotted by her dance teachers, Valerie Jenkins and Christine Keith. Her graduation from The Australian Ballet School led to the beginnings of her career in 2003. As a dancer with The Australian Ballet, she embodied Odette in Swan Lake, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, and La Sylphide.

In 2011, Burnett was awarded the Khitercs Hirai International Scholarship, intended to allow members of The Australian Ballet companies to travel internationally. She used the scholarship to visit Indonesia to study her grandmother's art of Javanese dance and to initiate workshops for Indonesian kids — particularly those in underprivileged "slums" along the Ciliwung riverbank in Java. Burnett also trained in the theatrical, dance, and meditation techniques as pioneered by her uncle, the actor, poet, and activist, W.S. Rendra.

"When visiting my Mum's side of the family in Indonesia, we'd arrive in Jakarta and there's this big fly road that was built during Suharto's time, and you go across this modern freeway and you peer down the side and there are all these shanty towns," she recalls. At a young age, Burnett was struck by the financial inequity in such a big, prosperous city. Her parents were very open about the fact that many children didn’t have access to clean drinking water, but "then I'd go to my aunt's place and have a beautiful home-cooked meal and watch their big screen TV and everything’s clean and they’ve got their maid cooking for us." Once her dance career started taking off, she "wanted to go back and try and reconnect and bring something back to [those children]."

"Ballet dancers can live in a bubble," she says. "The level of training, rehearsal and performance becomes more than work, it's a lifestyle. I knew, from early on, that I would have to work to maintain my curiosity for other cultures, other forms of dance, to ensure I was not losing my own spirit."

There was no sudden event that resulted in Burnett's choice to leave The Australian Ballet. In fact, Burnett says she had been open with the Ballet from the beginning of her tenure about the fact that she found the hierarchical structure to be outdated and felt that it clashed with her values, and saw the system of promoting dancers destroy careers. Since leaving The Australian Ballet, Burnett has been more creative and vocal in demonstrating how dance can be a political and social statement, and provocation to limited perspectives on culture, poverty, justice, and gender. She created and shared “Injustice: a short film” on her website last year. To get the clips seen in the film, Burnett made a call out on Instagram, inviting people to submit videos of themselves following her choreographic instructions.

In pre-pandemic times, Burnett resided in Belgium, where she is a dancer for The Royal Ballet of Flanders. Burnett has also just launched her own company, A-Part. "It's purely online for now," she explains, "but obviously, once the travel restrictions allow and it is safe to do so, it will be a real-world dance company that travels and performs."

For Burnett, working with the Pina Bausch Company and alongside Akram Khan as a first soloist dancer with The Royal Ballet of Flanders allowed her to shake off the shackles of rigid, classical training and methodology in favor of the liberation, the sometimes feral and primitive nature of contemporary dance and to finally indulge her need to journey into her own Indonesian roots.

"What's wonderful about the Royal Ballet of Flanders is that it's enabled me to dance the choreography of Pina Bausch, Akram Khan, and Édouard Lock, all these contemporary choreographers who I'd never have had access to in Australia," she says. "After I left The Australian Ballet, I wanted to delve into my artistic identity."

Burnett's activism has been creative, positive, and aligned with her belief that education and collaboration are the only ways to provide inclusive, safe environments for those in the dance world. She has presented master classes in collaboration with Ballet.id (Yayasan Bina Ballet Indonesia), which is a non-profit foundation enabling partnerships between Indonesian and international dancers and academics.

In an essay for Pointe in August, writer and educator Shaté L. Hayes writes that the only meaningful response to racial insensitivity within ballet is to genuinely commit to change within ballet schools through major companies. Posting PR-approved hashtags isn’t enough.

David McAllister left his role as artistic director of the Australian Ballet last year. In the statement provided to Allure, the new artistic director, David Hallberg, says, "The future of The Australian Ballet will continue to uphold the rich repertoire of classical ballet but as well, search for new ways to communicate the spirit of dance in this country. I am absorbing the diversity that makes Australia the great country it is, full of varied voices in dance, music, and art, that will be a part of building the repertoire at The Australian Ballet."

That can't happen too soon. Burnett's bravery in speaking of her own experience of working within the ballet world as an Asian-Australian also echoes the experiences of Black, Latinx, and multiracial dancers internationally. “For those of us who were mixed race or fully Asian, Black, or a dancer of color, the ballet world can feel really homogenous, and difficult to find your place and to find a way to celebrate your cultural identity with truth and authenticity,” Burnett says. “It’s important not to be afraid to question the systems that we work in, to say things to your directors. I really hope for a day when the structures we work in don't ask dancers to be mute, subservient, and to comply all the time."

#article #juliet burnett #allure #racism #ballet

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recentanimenews · 4 years ago

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FEATURE: How the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami Influenced Anime Over the Past Decade

Image via Netflix

In a single moment, everything changed; after one great shake of the earth, the world was never the same again. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, also known as 3.11 in Japan. At a magnitude of 9.0, it was the biggest earthquake to ever hit the island. The earthquake, and the subsequent tsunami that followed, also killed an estimated 15,899, injured 6,157, and was the most expensive natural disaster in history. The meltdown of the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant followed — rendering parts of Japan uninhabitable to this day — with many still unable to go back to their home even ten years on.

The shaking was felt all the way in Tokyo and beyond, leaving physical scars on the world’s biggest metropolitan area. This was nothing compared to the devastation seen in the prefectures of Miyagi, Fukushima, and Iwate. For those who lived through the event, whether that be in Tohoku or Tokyo, the feelings of that day have left psychological scars that have influenced their daily lives.

Image via Netflix

Aftershocks from the seismic event can still be felt even today: a magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit the region a little under a month ago, raising fears that another big quake could shake Japan at any time in the near future.

For creators living in Japan, these overwhelming emotions have manifested in their works. Creators such as Hayao Miyazaki, Masaaki Yuasa, Hideaki Anno, and Makoto Shinkai have internalized the events that transpired in their backyard and used 3.11 to help spread awareness, unravel some of the hanging threads, or even try and bring hope and happiness to fans.

Hayao Miyazaki looking at the debris leftover from 3.11 in an NHK documentary

Image via NHK

Hayao Miyazaki isn’t one to mince words and always just gets on with the job. A few weeks after 3.11, the Studio Ghibli director introduced his son’s latest work at the time, From Up on Poppy Hill. While Miyazaki tried to keep the press focused on the film, inevitably the topic of the tragedy from two weeks ago arose. Responding to why he felt it was okay to hold a press conference after the earthquake, Miyazaki spoke about his local bakery, explaining that “the old man at the bakery where I always buy dumplings and sweets has continued to make bread. That's why I think we should keep making movies.”

At the time, Miyazaki dismissed the thought that 3.11 would affect how he made his next work. But in a 2013 interview with Jiji upon the release of his then “final work” The Wind Rises, the director said the film “has not been affected by the earthquake or the nuclear accident. [The idea] was there from the beginning. I think that the times have caught up with us and overtaken us.” The Wind Rises contains a very realistic – almost chilling – interpretation of the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake.

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The earthquake scene from The Wind Rises

For Japan Sinks 2020, Masaaki Yuasa used some of his own experiences to highlight how characters would be feeling in the moment. In multiple scenes, the main characters are left worrying about what is going on without a clear line of communication – in fact, sometimes getting misinformation from sources not fully aware of the situation.

Yuasa himself explained in an interview in AnimeAnime that he felt like he didn’t know what was the “correct information” when he felt the quake in Tokyo in 2011. As he looked for information online, he heard rumors that Tokyo was in imminent danger. He was scared. Reflecting, Yuasa knew in his “heart” that he wasn’t as scared as those in the Tohoku region, but was “horrified” by what he saw on the news. Yuasa used a lot of those emotions he felt at the time to aid in telling the Japan Sinks 2020 story.

Image via Netflix

But it wasn’t just anime creators who were affected by 3.11. The 8th part of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga series, JoJolion, debuted only a few months after the quake in 2011. Set in a town called Morioh (similar to the town in Diamond is Unbreakable), the location is based on manga creator Hirohiko Araki’s hometown of Sendai. The manga was being conceptualized when the earthquake occurred and Araki felt that he “couldn't avoid” touching on the subject in the series, he said in an Asashi Shimbun interview in 2014.

Araki’s family home, which had been around for 14 generations, was also swept away in the tsunami. He added that was shocked at the loss of his childhood home and felt that he should draw manga to bring entertainment to readers and fans.

Araki wasn’t the only manga creator to touch on the events of 3.11 in their long-running series. Tetsu Kariya’s long-running series Oshinbo touched on some controversial aspects of the aftermath of the tragedy, with one of the characters in the series suffering from a nosebleed after being in the town of Futaba – a town that is still not open to the public.

This caused an outcry with government officials on the national and prefectural level, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saying that “the government will make the best effort to take action against baseless rumors” in reference to the manga. These protests saw the collected volume version of the arc change some of the wording slightly as to “clarify the intention of what was said," and that "some of the characters' lines have been altered.” The series has been on hiatus after the arc ended two chapters later in May 2014.

Image via Netflix

The Japanese government was also at the forefront of Hideaki Anno’s 2016 film Shin Godzilla, with many reviewers noting the similarities between the government in the film and what had occurred in the aftermath of 3.11. As Godzilla walks the neighborhoods of Kanagawa, waters rise, boats come ashore, and people are fleeing en-masse, meanwhile, the government is claiming that everything will be okay.

This sharp social satire of the events may be skin deep as the film goes on, but exposes the fact that Japan has a recent event that is very real and emotive to reference. Shin Godzilla Producer Akihiro Yamauchi explained in a 2016 Nippon.com interview that 3.11 “changed Japan more than anything else in the past 12 years.” He went on to say that the film had the option of “escaping into fantasy...but Anno-san and I talked it over and we both agreed that an approach like that would be meaningless.”

Image via Netflix

Makoto Shinkai’s 2016 movie Your Name, was directly influenced by the 2011 earthquake and the change in the psyche of the Japanese people. Taki, the male protagonist, at one moment in the movie says “You will never know when Tokyo could become like this,” vocalizing the fear that festers away in many people living in Japan.

Genki Kawamura, a producer on both Your Name and Weathering with You, explained at a discussion at the Aoyama Shachu think tank in 2019 that “Your Name is aware of the Great East Japan earthquake.” Shinkai later explained in a 2017 interview with Huffington Post Japan that the disaster aspect of Your Name is only the underlying layer of the film, and the film had to end the way it did for it to feel complete to both him and the audience.

In a 2018 Makoto Shinkai Exhibition in Sendai, the first prototype sketch drawn of Your Name by Shinkai was shown to the public. It depicted the area of Yuriage in Natori City, Miyagi prefecture, which was completely wiped out in the tsunami. The population of the area only had 30 minutes to evacuate before waters overtook the town. There weren’t many survivors.

Image via Asahi Shimbun

Shinkai visited the area of Yuriage in July 2011 and drew the sketch shortly after, which later became the springboard for what then became Your Name. He said solemnly in a TBS program “This could have been my town.”

Shinkai explained in the Huffington Post interview that 3.11 changed the way people in Japan thought about the world. "Before they’d think that “somehow...Japanese society will continue as it is," he said. "But since 2011, I think that idea has collapsed. The town does not remain a town forever.”

Because of this, Shinkai decided to focus on the little things that made up life: A late train, cutting up food, texting. Shinkai thought it was “necessary to draw meaning from the monotony of daily life.” Nowadays these beautifully crafted moments from Shinkai’s works are shared online as some sort of social media anime ASMR.

In the end, Shinkai’s main driving factor for the film was to make the audience “happy.” And it struck a chord with a wide audience, as the film would later go on to become the third highest-grossing anime film of all time worldwide.

Image via Netflix

As we look back at how one event changed the world view of many, it’s good to know that despite the hardships faced in the unexpected, the desire to create and bring smiles to audiences perseveres. Many creators have used 3.11 as a chance to reflect, and it's only to be seen how the long tail of 3.11 continues to impact creators and their works.

The Tohoku region is still feeling the effects of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, with families torn apart and homes unable to be returned to. Japan NPO Center has a website set up with ways to donate to local charities and not-for-profit organizations within the Tohoku region that has been set up to serve affected communities.

Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features.

By: Daryl Harding

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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rediscoveringmichelle · 3 years ago

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An Apple a day keeps the cravings away

January 2021, back in London after spending Christmas at home in Ireland with my family. This time had been a very different experience to the last. Freer, both mentally and physically. The last time I had been home was at the beginning of the global pandemic, restricted to the 2km radius of my home in Clontarf, North Dublin. However, on this occasion not only had restrictions been lifted by the Taoiseach for the Christmas period, I had lifted my own restrictions too. The beginning of the pandemic was the turning point of my recovery and now, 9 months later, I was no longer limiting myself to 3 healthy meals per day, with no snacks and a strict schedule of two 10km runs per week and a minimum 2 and half hours of walking per day. I felt happier and healthier than I had been in years, able to relax and enjoy late night glasses of wine and mince pies with my parents, meals out with friends and the odd day of rest and relaxation with nothing but a few hours of TV to pass the day. It didn’t matter how much weight I had put on; I had gained my life and laugh back, and I would be forever grateful for the lesson I had learnt thanks to this awful pandemic. That making myself thinner and fitter, didn’t make me any happier. And that being physically healthy is nothing if you destroy your mental and social health too.

January 2018 was really where it all began. Recently single and having spent a lot of my newfound freedom on nights out, eating takeaways and drinking large volumes of alcohol, I had understandably put on a bit of weight. The guy I had been seeing, suddenly stopped texting me and I felt rejected. My parents were back to living their lives after their run-ins with poor health. Dad back to smothering his toast in thick layers of butter and Mum loving her newfound ‘real-Mum’ life of Pilates and coffee catch ups since selling her practice for good. I was no longer needed. Mum didn’t need me to drive her to chemo or cook my Dad his no red meat, no oil, no salt dinners. I felt anxious as they went back to living their lives. No longer able to control them, especially my dad. I couldn’t force him into living a by-the-book healthy lifestyle. But I figured what I could control was myself. I could be the healthiest person I could possibly be. And with the added benefit of making that guy wish he’d never let me go. My perfectionist self would ensure that I would be the perfect picture of health. No cheating, no dieting, just a new lifestyle. A new me. One I could love.

I scoured the internet for all the advice on changing your lifestyle, getting fit and losing weight. Running apparently boosted your metabolism and was an efficient way to burn calories and fat. So, I started by running 5km, three times a week. Weights would help then to reduce my body fat and tone up so I coupled the running with strength training in the gym, also three times a week. I pounded out Kelsey Wells workout routines, while listening to ‘This is me’ from The Greatest Showman, a song about not being afraid to show the world exactly who you are, as I was ironically punishing my body into a shape that was not naturally me. I strictly followed Dad’s cardiologist’s advice and cooked everything from scratch, substituting beef mince for turkey mince and not using oil, butter or salt in my cooking. I cut out all snacks and limited myself to three meals per day. Social Media became my home ground for weight loss advice. ‘You’re not hungry, you’re thirsty. Drink some water.’ ‘No pain, no gain.’ ‘Ignore your cravings and they will eventually go away.’ ‘Craving sugar? Have an apple instead’. Each day would end with eating an apple to stave off the cravings and to quieten the rumbles in my stomach.

I started weighing my food, tracking everything from litres of water drunk and then steps walked and active minutes of exercise. I upped my runs gradually to 10km, twice a week because social media told me that after running for 35 minutes, you no longer just burn calories, but also fat. And yes, I do realise that anyone who has a degree in anything science related would quickly realise these were all completely made up and not based on fact, but I guess I wanted to believe them. I would believe anything that forced me to push (or punish) myself more. I stopped going out for drinks or dinner with friends. Too many calories and too worried that I wouldn’t be able to get up and run in the morning, unable to flex from the specific days I went running, for fear I would never run again. When I moved to London, I spent my weekends walking 40 thousand steps so that I could then earn a slice of banana bread from Deliciously Ella’s Vegan & Gluten Free Deli. I felt a rush of joy wash over me each time I saw the number on the scales or the minutes of my 10km runs decline, but like a drug, the high didn’t last long. I was addicted. I had no trust in myself. ‘You’re so controlled’, they complimented me. But deep down, I felt like there was a lazy, sugar and fat loving girl inside me. An imposter in a gradually reducing body. Fearing that just one biscuit and I would be back as that unhappy and overweight rejected girl.

I really believed that being thinner and looking like those girls I idolised on Instagram would make me happier. They were all smiling, surely that meant they were happy? As the compliments turned to concern, I felt that surely people were just jealous of how much weight I had managed to lose. Weight loss was something to be proud of, wasn’t it? The truth of it all didn’t hit me until the pandemic. As I sat up in my bed struggling to breathe on the night of the Taoiseach’s first lockdown announcement, I started to wonder what I was really fearing. During a time when people were dying, all I could fear was not being able to exercise enough and being locked up in a house full of food. I feared putting on weight and relinquishing control. I felt trapped with nothing to look forward to. Holidays cancelled and my boyfriend of two months at home with his family 167km away in Belfast. That was my rock bottom.

In an effort to cheer myself up I started to make a list of all the things I wanted to do post lockdown. Have date nights in with my boyfriend, making pizzas, ordering takeaways and eating breakfast in bed. Then the excitement of getting to do these things started to dwindle as the anxiety crept in, as I tried to count up how much exercise I would need to do in order to earn those nights. A day in bed with no exercise? Nope, that’s a no go. And that’s when it hit me. I had made myself thin, with the thought that then I would be lovable and that then I could enjoy my life. But I was thinner, thinner than I’d been since I was a preteen and I still wouldn’t let myself go enough to do the things I deeply wanted to do. To let myself enjoy life. How freeing it would be to just, let go!

My love for learning kicked in and I made the decision to start reading up and educating myself. I came across a book my mum had not so subtly left lying around the house. ‘Just Eat it – How Intuitive eating can help you get your shit together around food’ by Laura Thomas. I didn’t believe I had an eating disorder until I started reading her book. As she listed off the disorders, she then came to Orthorexia – defined as an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating or over exercising. ‘When was the last time you even asked yourself what you’d like instead of what you ‘can’ or ‘should’ eat?’ she queried. The sad reality was that I couldn’t remember. ‘We trust our phones more than we trust our bodies’. Well that was certainly true for me. She used science, showing that weight was in fact not a determinant of health but that by exercising, eating healthy and not smoking we could be healthy, regardless of our size. That eating a donut didn’t in fact negate the nutrients of the carrot we ate earlier. And that white flour was actually infused with calcium and that those carbs are what give us energy to move and enjoy life. My eyes gradually opened to all the lies diet culture had taught me and I felt empowered.

I moved on to more books and podcasts and started culling my social media feed of anyone that didn’t make me feel good. I started following intuitive eating dietitians and anti-diet advocates. Following people of all shapes and sizes and realising how biased our society is towards people in smaller bodies. Not just the size of airplane seats but assuming that all health issues experienced by fat people can be solved by weight loss. I learnt that the night sweats I had been experiencing, the pretty much non-existent sex drive and the inability to maintain body heat for any length of time were in fact all side effects of the restricted eating and over-exercising. Half the time I didn’t even look as thin as I had become because I was wearing so many layers of clothes in order to keep warm. Walking around the house with a hot water bottle strapped to my waist and wearing a fur coat indoors while out for dinner with friends. Only now can I laugh at the image of it. I started to make a list of all the things I would gain through gaining weight and glancing back over it now, I have gained all of these and more. My headspace, my laughter, my body heat and a fantastic relationship that I thankfully didn’t destroy because of my restrictive, anxious mind-set.

My recovery hasn’t been easy. The steps toward eating intuitively start with banishing your food rules and allowing yourself to eat what you want. A process that takes time before you can start tuning into your hunger and fullness cues again and introducing gentle nutrition. It involved allowing myself to devour entire tubs of Oatly chocolate fudge ice-cream, multiple evenings per week. Making my way through all the delicious Deliveroo takeaway options London had to offer – Honest Burgers red meat beef burgers with rosemary salted fries, Franco Manca pizzas, with all the toppings, and Kin & Deum Thai curries, with full fat coconut milk. Gradually I started being able to listen to my body and trust it. Whether it hungered for a salmon stir-fry or was seeking out a slice of chocolate cake. The interesting thing being, that months later it now craves nutritious food the majority of the time. And that by allowing it to have higher sugar or fat containing foods whenever it wants, I no longer feel out of control around them. I no longer find myself devouring three large sized bags of crisps in one sitting, overtaken by the fear that I will never let myself eat them again.

I have days where I find myself critiquing my larger thighs in the mirror but instead of allowing the thoughts consume me, I allow them float by with curiosity and continue about my day knowing that the way I look doesn’t define me and that the greatest things about me have nothing to do with my body shape or size. I am a thoughtful friend, who prides herself at remembering important moments in friends’ lives. A courageous girl who isn’t afraid to try new things, whether that be travelling solo across Vietnam or signing up to a surf and yoga retreat in Cornwall. A creative person who loves to draw and a lifelong learner that is open to new ideas and wants to challenge her way of thinking. My body will change a lot over the next 50 plus years of my life, but the great thing is that thanks to freeing myself from the disease, I get to look forward to the possibility of being alive for that long and to enjoying every waking moment, no longer postponing life for when I look or am a certain way.

#recovery #healing #dietculture #orthorexia #bodyimage #eatingdisorder #rediscoveringlife

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maxiekat · 5 years ago

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In a world full of rom-coms, when was the last time you cried over an onscreen breakup that actually stuck? No grand gestures to save the day, just pure, raw, lust and heartbreak. If you want to get so deep in your feels you forget if you’re actually heartbroken or just bleary-eyed over someone else’s love story, then you may need to subscribe to the church of Drake Doremus.

The director is known for his mostly improvised, chill-inducing romantic dramas (Like Crazy, Newness, Equals) and his latest is a tender-to-the-touch look at a modern love triangle in Endings, Beginnings, which premieres Sunday at Toronto Film Festival. Much like his previous work, Endings, Beginnings is clever and cutting, but also soft and quiet. Shailene Woodley is at the heart of the film playing Daphne, a thirty-something artist (her specialty is hand-painted tea pots, which she sells on Etsy) who recently and abruptly quit her job and ended her long-term relationship with her boyfriend (Matthew Gray Gubler, in his third Doremus film).

Looking for a hard reset on life, Daphne moves into the pool house of her much more together older half-sister. She also stops drinking, focuses on looking for a new job, and cuts men out of her life. Until, of course, she meets two men at a New Year’s Party. One’s brooding, asking her for a light of a cigarette in the most drunken and charming of ways. He’s wearing a shearling jacket, worn-in with adventures. The other’s in LA’s version of a suit — he’s put together, and looks at her with the steady intentness. Daphne should be avoiding both, but she quickly becomes enamored with bad boy Frank (Sebastian Stan), a nomad who drinks absinthe, and good boy Jack (Jamie Dornan), an academic who has a dog and dreams of moving to Europe. What starts as innocent text-flirting evolves into two full-blown relationships. Oh, and the guys are best friends.

When Stan first read for the film, he read for both Frank and Jack’s role, but what really attracted him to the heady rom-dram was Dormeus himself, of whom he’s been a huge fan. “I met him and I said, ‘I gotta tell you, I don’t know which one of these people you are seeing me as, but I really relate to both of them. I love both,’” he says over the phone to Refinery29. Stan’s in London where he’s filming the spy-thriller 355, a movie he says is “stylistically and tonally very different,” than Endings, Beginnings, but with “a couple of similarities here and there.”

“And we just got very deep. We got into relationships and being in our 30s and the world we are in right now, and all our experiences.” The vulnerability seen on-screen between Woodley, Stan, and Dornan is something special, and almost entirely improvised, based on just 30 pages of notes. Endings, Beginnings is a far cry from the big budget Marvel movies you’re used to seeing Stan in (he plays Captain America’s pal Bucky Barnes in seven Marvel movies and one upcoming spin-off series.) I was reading your Instagram post earlier gushing about working on this film with Drake. When did you become a fan of his, and why did you two think Frank was the role for you?

“I was aware of [Drake] for awhile. Like everyone else, I loved Like, Crazy, and then I also like his recent movie with Nicholas Hoult, Equals. I was also just really interested in doing a movie and improvising — because the entire movie is practically improvised. I never worked in that medium before. I got a call saying, Hey do you want to meet with Drake and talk about this movie [and] read the draft?, which was basically like 30 pages. There were two guy [parts] at the time. I met him and I said, ‘I gotta tell you, I don’t know which one of these people you are seeing me as, but I really relate to both of them. I love both.’ And we just got very deep. We got into relationships and being in our 30s and the world we are in right now, and all our experiences. Again, I didn’t really know that is where we were gonna go, but he was very honest with me and I was honest with him. We parted ways, and the next thing I knew he called me to have a session with somebody at the time that he was thinking of for the role as Daphne, and I went in and had a 3-hour improv session with him, then he called me and told me that he wants me to do the Frank role and I was fine with that.”

Only 30 pages. Everything else is improv? All the film’s dialogue?

“Yes, that is all literally on the day, in the moment, happening real-time. Basically, the script that he had was just the outline: Daphne comes out a recent relationship and moves in with her best friends. They’re having a New Years Party, and she runs into Frank who asks her for a cigarette. It was all outlines, but in terms of the dialogue and how we would get there, that was all improvised. That was an interesting experience because I had never worked that way and no take is ever the same. I walked away from that experience feeling very vulnerable. You’re not hiding behind any lines.”

The improvisation really added to the film. I left it feeling more emotional than I expected.

“We’ve all had relationships, and we know how tricky they are. They’re complex and there’s many layers. I don’t know — I have always loved romantic comedies. I grew up on When Harry Met Sally and all that, but I sometimes feel that relationships aren’t entirely depicted as messy and as raw and as painful as they are. That’s why I loved working with him because I feel like he gets to the core of situations. I’m happy to hear you related to it because that is what he wants. He wants you to go, 'I’ve had that conversation...been in that situation.’”

There’s been a resurgence in romantic comedies, but not so much romantic dramas like this. Do you think there’s a reason why?

“I love romantic comedies and there is a space for them, but [rom coms] are hopeful. Sometimes when I go to the movies, I don’t want to necessarily see what my life is. I want to be like, Hey! It’s nice to think that maybe that could be that way. If you want to be inspired, or laugh a little bit — there’s that element of it. And sometimes you want to see a movie that makes you feel less alone in your experience. A lot of European films are much closer to this, and I think Drake loves a lot of European films and is influenced by them and the personal quality. Structurally in romantic comedies, you have bigger things happening, right? Whereas [in this movie], there are big things happening, but there’s a much more subtle transition through everything.”

Frank is the “player” of the film, while Jack is the “good guy,” for lack of a better phrase. You’ve said before that you didn’t really know why you were often cast as the “bad boy.” Do you still not know why?

“I don’t know! [Groans] I don’t know. The truth is, the reason I was saying [I could play] Jack was that I talk a lot in my life. I philosophize a lot. I try to read things. Then I think about it, and then I wanna talk about it. I relate to that [aspect of Jack]. And actually, there was a lot to Frank and Daphne that we shot that was funny. They had a lot of their own back and forth, but what ended up being in the movie — I think Drake never forgot the vision that he had for Frank — [was him] being much darker than we shot. I am happy it ended up that way because there needed to be a contrast.

But I don’t know! I am glad they think I can do this. I am one of the most over-thinking, neurotic people I know. So I don’t know how it happens, but it keeps happening.”

I thought a big part of Frank also was his big shearling jacket. Since most of the movie was improvised, did you have anything to do with his outfits?

“Oh yeah, I kept that jacket, first of all. It’s a great jacket. What’s great about Drake is that he was like, ‘Hey, listen, people wear the same stuff all the time. If something works, let’s just it.’ I was like yeah, the guy probably kind of flies by the seat of his pants anyways so he just has a few things. I think I wore some of my own jeans. The boots I wore were mine. Drake definitely wanted us to wear our own stuff so we could feel comfortable in it.”

This was originally called No, No, No, Yes and ended as Endings, Beginnings. How did the title change shape the movie?

“It was always a working title. I saw that it was paired up with her experience — every no and every yes was paired to one of the relationships that she was going through. Endings, Beginnings is a little more specific. I know for awhile he was even contemplating a title that was even just made up of emojis which I thought would have been really fun.”

Oh yeah. I loved the texting aspect in this movie.

“There is an element of texting in the time period we are in, and there is this new language to it. They got it in the sense that both Jack and Frank have their very specific ways of texting. Jack probably uses punctuation, and Frank does not. [Laughs]”

You’ve worked with a few of the Big Little Lies women now. Do you have plans to work with the others like Zoe Kravitz, Reese Witherspoon, or Laura Dern?

“That has not hit me — that’s kinda funny. I don’t think I have ever met Reese Witherspoon and I’ve met Laura Dern. If the opportunity presents itself then great. I certainly wouldn’t have had a problem if there had been a role in the second season. I would have done it in a second. I loved the first season.”

I have one more that I have to ask about — obviously Gossip Girl is getting rebooted, and Chace [Crawford] said it made him feel “old,” but he’d be down. Have you thought about it at all?

“[Laughs] I don’t even… it’s so weird. Somehow a lot of people talk to me about Gossip Girl, and I always thought I was just a guest star. It was a very special show. It certainly defined those years, and we all got our start there in a way. It would be hilarious and weird and crazy. He’s right — we are old! I don’t know what business they’d have with me, but, Jesus. If there was some funny little witty thing and they called and we’re like, ‘We’re doing this thing and we have everybody….’ I’m not gonna be the asshole that says no. Maybe I’ll be in the background scooping some ice cream.”

#sebastian stan #endings beginnings #drake doremus #gossip girl #shailene woodley

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abundanceofsoph · 4 years ago

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SkyFire 2: Chapter 12

The Late Show with Steve Colbert: September 28th, 2016

Word count: 2.8k

Song is Reaper by Andie Case

SkyFire 2 MASTERLIST

Aurora was anxiously pacing backstage as she waited for her time to walk out onto the set. She listened as Stephen Colbert began his opening monologue and she swallowed thickly as he explained how the following day marked the first anniversary of the shooting and how this episode was in honour of the 43 lives they had lost that day. Mark squeezed her shoulder in support as she was announced and she let out a shaky breath, trying to push her anxiety aside as the curtain was pulled back for her. Her hand trembled as she walked out into the bright studio lights, the crowd applauding as she approached were Stephen Colbert stood in front of his desk. She hugged him before taking a seat on the sofa next to the desk; the audience continued to clap and cheer for a few extra moments before Stephen shushed them and she felt the weight of everyone’s gaze fall on her. She had a smile plastered on her face and if her family were there, they would recognise how fake it was, but to the audience in front of her she looked calm and collected, some would even say excited to be there.

“Aurora, welcome,” Stephen said once the audience fell silent. “Thank you for joining us tonight.”

“Thank you for having me,” Aurora replied. “I know we’ve been trying to make this happen since your first show last year.”

“We have and of course everyone watching knows that it’s been an incredibly challenging year for you, so we are very grateful to have you here. What has this last 12 months been like?”

“Like you said it’s been really challenging. When I woke up in the hospital they told me I’d been shot about a dozen times, once in the abdomen, 4 times in my shoulder and then another 7 or possibly more in my left hand, so for the first few months I was just focusing on all the surgeries and trying to heal.”

“And about a month after the shooting you were trending online after you joined your fiancé Harry Styles on stage for One Directions last concert show. What brought that about?”

“I think in the wake of tragedies like the Columbia shooting we all focus on the victims and their recovery but not a lot of thought goes to the victim’s friends and families if they survive. For those that die, their families receive overwhelming support, but if your loved one survives, there’s not a lot of emotional support and that’s something I never realised until I found myself in that situation. While I was recovering physically and receiving the help I needed to deal with the PTSD and the emotional trauma, my family was struggling and that became pretty clear to me when I watched fan videos from the One Direction tour and I saw the way that Harry and the other lads were hurting. I can’t begin to imagine the trauma of hearing someone you love has been involved in a mass shooting and that they might not make it. That leaves such devastating wounds that I knew I had to go to London and help them through that pain. Getting on stage was just this last minute idea we cooked up to celebrate that I was still there and to thank the fans for all their support.”

“It was a beautiful moment to watch,” Stephen replied, “but you’ve been pretty quiet online since then.”

“I have yeah. I stayed on Instagram and I’ve kept posting there but I deleted all my other social media accounts after the shooting.”

“Why was that?”

“Emotions were running high and unfortunately the anonymity of social media really encourages the worst in people. There was quite a lot of awful things being said about myself and my family in those first few weeks and mentally I wasn’t in a good place so I just deleted everything and my manager does a great job of keeping my Instagram comment section clear of the worst of things.”

“Why stay on Instagram at all? Why not delete it as well?”

“Despite the fame and attention, I’m like most 21 year olds. I want to see what my friends are doing and share the aspects of my life that I’m comfortable sharing and I love my fans. They’re really wonderful people and I like being able to invite them into my world in small ways, I’m just learning how to do that in a way that’s right for my mental health.”

“You said you were receiving a lot of hate after the shooting, what kinds of things were being said?”

“While most people were incredibly supportive, there were also a lot of voices pointing out the special treatment I received because I’m a Stark. I saw the best surgeons and I never had to worry about hospital bills. I also survived because my parents responded to the emergency as quickly as they did, and I was rushed to the nearest hospital. A lot of people died because nobody got to them as fast as they got to me.”

“Did you agree with what they were saying?”

“Of course, and I still do. Growing up poor and then being thrust into my dad’s world has always caused me to have a tremendous amount of guilt. I have so much privilege and even though I knew how lucky I was I didn’t use that privilege to help people. It was really confronting to get called out for that on such a massive scale, especially when I was at my most vulnerable.”

“And you used that as a wakeup call, didn’t you?”

“I did. My father’s charity, the Maria Stark Foundation stepped in immediately in the wake of the shooting and set up the ColumbiaStrong fund to pay for the medical care and funeral expenses of the other victims. The fund has ensured that everyone had access to the surgeries they needed, as well as providing therapy for those of us who developed PTSD and other mental illnesses from that day.”

“It’s an incredible initiative,” Stephen agreed, “and we’ve heard that you’ve taken a more hands on approach in recent months.” Aurora looked at him for a moment, trying to work out what he was referring to. “It’s been reported that you’ve been visiting hospitals over the summer.”

‘Ahhh’, she thought, ‘So people finally caught on to that.’

“I thought I was doing a good job of sneaking around and keeping that out of the news,” she chuckled, attempting to cover her nervousness. “Ever since my own amputation I’ve been visiting the children’s hospitals and speaking to kids with prosthetics and residual limbs.”

“They must love meeting you.”

“They’re incredible kids. Honesty I think they’ve helped me more than I’ve helped them. They’ve always got a smile on their faces and they don’t see themselves as victims. Meeting them helped me come to terms with my own situation.”

“You’re very humble.”

“I just don’t like to take credit for things like I’m some hero. I’m just 21 year old girl that survived something horrific and I’m just trying to do the best I can with what I’ve got.”

“Well we’ve got some people joining us tonight who are also doing the best they can with what they’ve got,” Stephen said to the camera, the audience clapping along. “We’ll be right back with more of the incredible survivors of the 2015 Columbia Shooting and a performance by Aurora Stark.”

As the cameras cut to the commercials, Aurora stood up, making her way off the set to where Mark was waiting for her. “You did great,” he said and they both turned to watch the crew swap out the seat she’d just vacated with a three seater sofa and add three bar stools behind it. There were 5 other survivors of the shooting guesting on the show, all choosing to be interviewed together as apposed the solo interview that Aurora had just given.

“Welcome back to the late show,” Colbert said when they returned from the commercial break. “I’m joined by 5 incredible young men and women; Chris Watkins, Jacinta Flores, Brandy Taylor, Jacob Lawler and Daniel Thomas.”

Aurora watched the interview on one of the monitors backstage. She felt like her own experience was being recounted by the 5 people on set as they discussed their own recoveries and the challenges facing them, so similar to her own. 3 had returned to Columbia to continue their studies, while the other 2, like Aurora, couldn’t face going back. They all had a range of injuries, but she found that they all shared the same burden of nightmares, flashbacks and guilt. After Colbert threw to another commercial break, Aurora headed back out onto the set, this time heading for the stage area. She smiled at the members of Harry’s new band, grateful that they agreed to join her for this performance, and she felt a little less nervous with them sitting behind her after spending so much time with them all in her home studio. Sarah gave her a supportive thumbs up from where she was already sat behind her drum kit, Adam similarly smiling in support with his base guitar in hand, and despite feeling more at home with a guitar in his hands, Mitch had happily volunteered to play piano once he’d heard Aurora talking to Harry about how scared she felt to play live. She didn’t allow herself much time to be nervous about her first solo performance in years, taking a seat on the stool set up behind the microphone and listening on silently as Stephen continued to interview the other 5 survivors. She wiped her sweaty palm against her thigh and then she heard Stephen thanking his guests before walking over towards where she and the band waited.

“With her new single raising money for the ColumbiaStrong fund,” he said into the camera, “this is Aurora Stark with Reaper.” The lights dimmed across the set, a solitary spotlight softly lighting where she sat as the song began.

Broke down, thought that I would drown Hoped that I'd be found, 'fore I hit the ground Sun rays out the corner of my eye Saw you weeping, saw you creeping Saw you sneaking in the shadow's dawn I feel so strong Saw you out the corner of my eye

Don't come for me today I'm feeling good I'mma savour it Don't come for me today I'm feeling good I remember when You came to take me away So close I was to heaven's gates But no baby, no baby, not today Oh, you tried to track me down You followed me like the darkest cloud But no baby, no baby, not today Oh reaper Oh no baby, no baby, not today Oh reaper Oh no baby, no baby, not today

So come back when I'm good to go I got drinks to drink, and a man to hold I got good things to do with my life, yeah Oh, I wanna dance in the open breeze Feel the wind in my hair, hear the ocean sing I got good things to feel in my life, yeah

Reaper

As the song finished, the lights lifted, and Stephen walked out to hug Aurora before turning to the camera as the audience applauded. “Aurora Stark everybody!” Stephen yelled. “Reaper is available now, all proceeds going to the ColumbiaStrong fund to support victims of gun violence. We’ll be right back.”

She quickly hugged Mitch, Sarah and Adam before following Stephen back over to the desk, joining the others on the sofa.

“That was an incredible song,” Stephen said when the show returned from the ad break. “Thank you for sharing that with us, Aurora.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

“Now back at the start of the show we were talking about the ColumbiaStrong fund started by the Stark family to help survivors of the shooting, and I’m interested to hear what you all think about it.”

“I wouldn’t be sitting here without that money,” Brandy said. “My mom’s health insurance wouldn’t have covered the therapy I needed afterwards, and I was really struggling. My dad isn’t around so my mom was already working 2 jobs to pay the bills and send my 3 younger sisters to a good school. My medical bills would have bankrupted us if the Starks hadn’t helped us.”

Everyone else nodded and agreed, adding their own versions of the same story, while Aurora felt her eyes growing damp. She knew that the foundation had paid peoples bills and she knew that her father’s money had helped people but being confronted by it made it all the more real to her.

“I know Aurora was saying earlier in the show that she felt guilty that Iron Man and Captain America got to her so fast, but I’m grateful they did,” Daniel added. “If she hadn’t been on campus and they hadn’t responded, I hate to think about how many more of us would have died that day. When Iron Man stopped the shooter, he was heading for one of the busiest parts of campus. A lot of people walked away unharmed because Aurora sent out that SOS.”

As he spoke, Aurora felt her cheeks burning and she ducked her head in embarrassment. If she’d known that agreeing to this interview would lead to these people praising her for her actions last year, she would have declined the invitation. She didn’t deserve their praise or their thanks. All she’d done that day was cower under a table in fear and call her dads to come save her, but here these other survivors were, acting like she’d saved peoples lives. She hated it.

“I don’t know about everyone else, but I know I deal with a lot of guilt,” Jacob said. “My therapist called it survivors’ guilt and he said it’s pretty common for those who experience trauma to struggle with trying to understand why they survived when others died.” Everyone else nodded in agreement. “Aurora, I want to thank you, even though I’m pretty sure you don’t feel like you deserve it. You saved a lot of people that day and the money that your family has donated has saved a lot more. You shouldn’t be ashamed of your privilege because your using to help people around you. So, thank you.”

Aurora felt a few tears slip down her cheeks, painfully aware of the audience and cameras watching every moment. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want them thanking her for something she didn’t deserve.

“It’s very nice of you to say all of that but I shouldn’t be the one you’re thanking,” she said, quickly wiping at the tears threatening to drip down her blushing cheeks. “The first responders deserve our gratitude. The doctors and nurses. And my dads were the ones to set up the money so please don’t thank me for that. I was lying in a hospital bed just trying to hold myself together just like the rest of you. I’m not anyone’s hero.”

Jacinta, the blonde sitting next to Aurora on the sofa, pulled her into a tight hug.

“As you can see ladies and gentlemen,” Stephen said to the camera’s as the two girls hugged. “The emotional scars left behind by this tragedy are still very fresh in the minds of those who survived. Thank you for joining us this evening in commemorating those we lost and those still healing. Aurora’s single, Reaper, is now available for purchase from all the usual places with all profits going to the ColumbiaStrong fund to ensure support is available for those affected by gun violence. Thank you for watching and goodnight.”

Stephen stood up, walking around the desk to shake everyone’s hand as the audience applauded and Aurora pulled herself back together. She said her farewells as soon as she could, making her way backstage to where Mark and the band were waiting for her.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know it was going to go that way.”

“It’s ok Mark,” Rori promised. “I don’t think anyone expected that to happen.”

“Let’s get you guys home yeah?” Mark replied. “Steve said he was cooking a big dinner for everyone.”

NEXT CHAPTER

OR CONTINUE READING ON AO3

#skyfire #skyfire fic #aurora stark #dad!tony #iron dad #step dad steve rogers #stony #stony fic #boyfriend harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #superfamily #harry styles #tony stark #ptsd #domestic fluff

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wellesleyunderground · 4 years ago

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Wellesley Underground Interview with Founders (Sara Hess ‘08 and Shavanna Calder ‘08) of Feminist Fashion & Beauty Magazine, MUJER!

Need a break from the politics? Dive into the making of Issue No.2 of MUJER! Magazine. Interview by Camylle Fleming ‘14.

1. Wellesley Underground (WU): Tell us about the origin of MUJER! Magazine and bring us up to speed on the November launch.

Sara Hess ‘08, Editor in Chief: MUJER! has been a long time coming for us. Ever since Shavanna and I were swapping clothes from each other’s closets when we were roommates at Wellesley, we’ve had an interest in fashion and over the years we’d often played around with the idea of doing a fashion related project together. MUJER! came about in late 2017 when I had reached a point of being really frustrated with fashion magazines (all of the ads and the Photoshop, the lack of any real content and focus on hyper consumption). I also was disappointed to see that several of the fashion bloggers I’d followed over the years and enjoyed for their authenticity were following the same route as they transitioned from blogs to Instagram and started posting highly stylized Photoshopped pics that were all sponsored and very phony. Finally, I had recently turned 30 and it then occurred to me that I was older than nearly all the models I saw in the major fashion publications, which is insane when you think about it. I told Shavanna what I was thinking of doing-- a feminist fashion and beauty mag, all models 25+, no Photoshop on their faces or bodies, more racial and ethnic diversity, a focus on more sustainable production and consumption and no ads. Shavanna is an amazing stylist and has a great eye for design so I was super excited when she agreed to be creative director. I was living between Mexico City and New York at the time. I had developed some contacts in the fashion industry in Mexico and really admired the fashion scene there, which is one of the reasons we went with the name MUJER! It took us about 6-7 months to produce the content for the first print edition which was published in September 2018.

2.WU: How did fashion and beauty become sites of contestation and rebellion for you two?

Sara: I grew up in a small town in rural Pennsylvania and was constantly getting in trouble for breaking the dress code at my public school. It’s ironic because I was definitely a major nerd-- not your typical rebel. In junior high, I was really upset to find out I had not been accepted to the National Junior Honor Society. I asked one of my teachers why and he told me that it was because the shorts that I wore to school were often too short. Honestly, it was not my intention to be risque. I was just awkwardly going through puberty and had legs that were too long for my body and it was impossible to find shorts that were long enough and didn’t look dorky. After that, I went through a punk rocker phase, where again clothing is a form of rebellion. I was totally into the early Gwen Stefani punk looks. I would get picked on a lot by classmates but then a few months later everyone would be wearing what I had been wearing before, which would be my cue to change styles because I never wanted to look like everyone else. For me, it became a way to stand out and to push back against conservative influences.

Shavanna Calder ‘08, Creative Director: I can’t say that I’ve thought of fashion for most of my life as a site of rebellion. I just wore what I liked and (especially as a kid) what was on trend.

I had hip surgery 5 years ago and have struggled to be able to wear heels after that. In some ways that forced me to rethink how to dress for formal situations (without heels). Though I am working towards wearing heels again through physical therapy (my profession requires it), I’ve found a certain level of pride in showing other women that we can still look dressed up/professional etc. without wearing heels. Also embracing flatforms has been fun!

I think beauty, more so, has always been a site of contestation and rebellion for me as a Black woman. Growing up and having hair that was different than most of my friends. Makeup and hair supplies that we had to drive an extra distance for. Reading different magazines than my friends because teen vogue (at that time), seventeen etc never catered to me (thank God for Essence). Now, being natural, my hair oftentimes is a point of rebellion/contestation as I educate and ask for the things that I need as a Black artist instead of accepting the burden of sitting in silence.

Founders Shavanna + Sara (above)

3. WU: On social media, you’ve discussed the initiative of “showing women as they actually exist in the world”. Can you describe some of the images you two grew up with and how they are in conversation with MUJER!

Shavanna: In some ways growing up when I did, I feel like I did get to see images of women (more often) without photoshop and a ton of contouring etc because that just wasn’t on trend. It’s one thing I miss about the early 2000’s. That being said, the rest of the content oftentimes centered around ways to get men, look flirty etc etc. For us I think “showing women as they actually exist in the world” goes beyond imaging to the content of the magazine (the stories and issues that are discussed) as well as the lack of harmful ads encouraging women to alter their bodies by buying certain products etc. We are able to highlight a diverse group of female identifying folx and the complexity of us instead of the monolith that I often see portrayed.

4. WU: What are the ways in which your Mexico City base contributes to the core principles of MUJER!

Sara: Mexico City is just my heart and soul. I don’t know how else to describe it. It makes me turn to mush as though I’m talking about someone I’m in love with. The creative and design scene here is out of this world funky and unique and I really feel that I can wear anything going out here at night. People are elegant and cool and put a great deal of thought into how they present themselves. The fashion scene is authentic and fun and nowhere near as pretentious as it is in other parts of the world. We try to reflect this creativity and sincerity in MUJER! as well.

Shavanna: Additionally I’ll say that people have really embraced us there. There is an openness, flexibility and sense of collaboration that has made it super easy to throw any ideas we have out there and run with it (more than I’ve seen in other parts of the world).

5. WU: For those of us who are new to publication production, can you walk us through the steps of creating content, finding models, artwork, all without the filler of advertisements?

Sara: We are also new to magazine production, ha! We started by basically bringing together people we knew from the fashion world here in Mexico City. I have a dear friend, Jenny. She’s a stylist from Sweden and was working on the sets of reality shows here so she kind of kicked me into gear to do the first beauty shoot. She had a lot of experience doing shoots so she helped me get a great photographer and scout a location and models. We’ve really been blessed with meeting all of the right people at the right moment. We found a wonderful lead graphic designer, Celina Arrazola who happened to know the neighborhood where all the printers are and was an expert in hand binding books. Advertisements were never an option so we self-finance the production, which was and is intense.

Shavanna: Yes, as Sara mentioned we’re incredibly new to this and are (honestly) still figuring a lot out as we go. However, generally we come up with ideas/stories together that excite us, that we haven’t seen in other fashion magazines. We then reach out to female identifying folx to help us realize these ideas (because we want to support female entrepreneurs as well). The hardest part will be figuring out how to make it sustainable (and take the more of the financial burden off of Sara) and we’re in the process of sorting that out the best way we can!

5a. WU: Okay, same question. Add COVID, go:

Sara: Now, because of COVID, our plans to do another print edition were derailed so we decided to do a digital edition-- everyone featured sent in their own photos and instead of printing we created a PDF version of the magazine, with Celina’s excellent graphic design of course.

It essentially made printing the way we did with the first edition impossible. That was a very manual process that involved visiting the printer in person multiple times and Celina handbound the magazine, with me struggling to be useful to her by folding the pages. This time we went all digital.

Shavanna: In addition we had to become creative since we could no longer conduct shoots or interviews in person. Everything was done via email (except for Sultana’s shoot which happened pre-COVID). All other photos were submitted by the women in the issue. Whilst I missed many aspects of being in person, in some ways the challenge allowed us to lean in to our mission of showing women as we truly are. It also allowed for us to have a remote intern via Wellesley which was awesome!

6. WU: How do you want to grapple with the plurality of feminism(s) in the pages of the magazine?

Shavanna: By being truly intentional about seeking out diverse voices. By celebrating those voices and by taking our readers feedback to heart. Outside of the folx who are interviewed or featured in our magazine we attempt to employ women in the creation of the physical product as well (design, photography etc). The end result is something that has been touched by women from various parts of the world and from different walks of life.

7. WU: Can you share the story of how the magazine gained its title? How do you respond to any pushback and claims of appropriation from Latinx individuals for your usage of the word “Mujer”?

Sara: For starters, we were founded in Mexico City and at least half of our readers are native Spanish speakers. The publication, like many of its readers, is also bilingual. For the interviews and articles that are originally done in Spanish, we leave them in Spanish, only translating key quotes into English and vice versa for pieces that are originally in English. The title is also a global call to women that goes beyond the English-language paradigm.

8.WU: The fashion and beauty industry can carry both an air of superficiality and apoliticism. Tell us what people get wrong about the experience of working within it.

Sara: I think this is hard for us to get into because we are not really working in the fashion and beauty industry-- we are working parallel to it and trying to pick the piece we enjoy while also creating something new and different for women that makes them feel empowered, not inadequate.

Shavanna: Yes neither Sara nor I really work within the industry (nor have we prior to the magazine). I’ve worked as a stylist from time to time, but that’s about it. For the most part we’ve been consumers who were unhappy with what we were consuming and figured we could do something about it.

9. WU: In an effort to not over-glorify the value of success and “making it”, let’s talk about failure. Can you share with our readers what went wrong in the process of producing MUJER!?

Sara: Before our Chilanga shoot, Shavanna and I got horrible food poisoning. Like, nearly had to go to the hospital.

Shavanna: Yes we were living on pepto bismol and had just started eating plain bread and pasta the day of our shoot, but we powered through! Honestly this magazine has felt like a contribution to society that we were meant to be a part of, so despite obstacles that have come up, we know that we can’t be sidetracked.

10. WU: How do you react to the “self-care” trend and it’s correlation to the consumption of beauty products? Relatedly, how do you two take care of yourselves?

Sara: I’m an introvert who fakes being an extrovert, but I definitely know I need alone time so I try to make space for that. As of late, I try to use more natural/ organic beauty products and just less of everything period. Also sleep. Sleep is so important. Finally, I’ve decided I will deal with drama in my professional life because I feel like that’s where I’m making a contribution that’s important but I try to minimize drama in my personal life as much as possible.

Shavanna: I try to take care of myself by reminding myself that rest is ok and necessary (so hard). Practicing my faith/meditation. Asking for what I need. Going to therapy (physical and mental health). Exercising. Connecting with loved ones (friends and family). Being kind to myself.

11. WU: As a follower of your Insta page, I find myself lingering on your original posts, staring into the faces of the individuals you capture. It makes me realize how my brain has been trained to see the same faces featured in public spaces, so much so that they’ve become invisible. Can you share the favorite photos that you’ve captured and why they stand out to you?

Shavanna: My favorite photos are of Wellesley alumna Solonje Burnett. I’ve always admired Solonje’s fearlessness and creativity and I think we truly captured her essence in these. Though she is beautiful, the interview is about so much more and highlights her as the complex, multifaceted woman that she is (instead of just her beauty routine or what her house looks like).

12. WU: What does the day in the life of an Editor-in-Chief look like? How about a Creative Director?

Shavanna: We’re very collaborative. I don’t think we really have hard and fast rules as to who does what necessarily as much as it’s a partnership. One of us will propose an idea (in between juggling the rest of our lives) and we’ll discuss pros and cons and greenlight what works best and aligns with our values. We also just hold each other accountable. Right now there isn’t a typical day in the life as well just because we both have other jobs (though it would be amazing for Mujer! to continue to take off in a way that allowed us to devote more time to it).

13. WU: Both of you currently have worked with higher education institutions (Harvard + NYU). Can you tell us a bit about your “day jobs” and the types of opportunities they have afforded you in relation to the Magazine?

Sara: While I was working at HBS, I co-authored a case study on Monocle magazine which has helped to inform some of our thinking around the business model for MUJER!

Shavanna: I worked for almost 7 years at NYU, first at Stern and then within the Faculty of Arts & Science. In terms of opportunities? I’d say actually, for me, anyway the two aren’t related. My time at NYU influenced my acting career more so than Mujer! by giving me some flexibility and certainly financial stability.

14. WU: Lastly - a question you ask your features in the upcoming digital issue: how have you been gentle with yourself during this time?

Sara: Uff, I have been eating a lot of ice cream and taking breaks when I need to. I turned off the New York Times news alerts on my phone. I still read the news everyday but this has helped a lot.

Shavanna: Uff indeed. Hm sometimes I remind myself that the fact that I’m functioning is enough. This quote from Audre Lorde has been getting me through: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Working out and going for walks, journaling, therapy, being in touch with my spirituality, limiting myself on social media (or at least certain groups or accounts), listening to my body in terms of what it wants (whether that be food or change of environment). Talking to friends when I have the energy always brightens my day and constantly reminding myself to take things one moment/day at a time. This is all incredibly hard and I’m grateful to those who have been gentle with me when I struggle to be gentle with myself.

Check out the MUJER! Covid-19 digital issue here: https://www.mujerrev.com/mujer-sale Given the increase in domestic violence and gender based violence around the world during the pandemic, a portion of the proceeds from the issue will go to two organizations helping womxn that are survivors of domestic abuse and human trafficking: Women of Color Network - Blue Lips Campaign and El Pozo de Vida.

MUJER! Homepage: https://www.mujerrev.com/ MUJER! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mujerrev/

#wellesleyunderground #wellesley college #mujermagazine #fashion #beauty

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bdgthinks · 5 years ago

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The Two Sides of “The Two Sides of Singapore, As Seen By A Food Delivery Rider”, As Seen By A Food Delivery Rider

https://medium.com/@bdgthinksShort pre-amble: Just as how the original Rice article is just the opinion of one writer, what I’m writing below is likewise, just the opinion of mine alone. Also, my opinions are based on my experience working with Deliveroo while Yusuf worked for Grab Food so there may be some differences between the pay structure, zone distances and other company-specific policies.

I was clicking past Instagram stories yesterday afternoon, about to take a nap, when I saw a friend share this recently posted Rice Media article. Part photo journal, part commentary on the gig economy, Singapore’s class divide, and how income inequality is growing more apparent as we adapt to the ever-evolving Covid-19 situation? Sign me the hell up.

All images courtesy of Ricemedia.co, Yusuf Abdol Hamid, or myself

20 minutes, a few raised eyebrows, and many heated texts later – I reluctantly abandoned my plans to nap because I read some many things in this article (which I highly recommend you read first before reading on!) that I disagree with profoundly.

Before I start, I want to offer my appreciation to Yusuf (the narrator), Boon Ping (the editor/author), and Rice Media for publishing this piece that will help many understand the oft-overlooked issue of social/income inequality in an engaging and accessible manner. My misgivings towards some of Yusuf’s opinions notwithstanding, the general sentiment towards this article is extremely positive and has done what I believe every great article should do, provoke thought and inspire critical thinking towards the status quo!

A smattering of positive feedback to the original article

What I appreciated most about the article is encapsulated by joce_zhang’s comment, that it’s an important reminder to be kinder to people – regardless.

However, I couldn’t help but find it slightly troubling that Yusuf and Boon Ping (the editor) seemed to have oversimplified these issues and reduced the stakeholders to caricatures: the rich as the Monopoly Man; and the tireless ‘seen by many as a dead-end job’ delivery couriers as a Dickensian orphan, counting pennies and agonizing over whether they ‘deserve’ a Zinger.

I worry that one unintended consequence of this article is that some ways social inequality is highlighted may lead to reinforcement of the divide rather than dissolution.

During my Summer holidays in 2018, I became attracted to the idea of working part-time as a food courier cyclist as in my mind I saw it as being paid to just cycle and listen to podcasts. Since then, I’ve been an on-off Deliveroo cyclist during the shorter holidays or whenever I needed a little bit of extra pocket money.

In past the two years, I’ve earned exactly $4081.63 from making deliveries (inclusive of bonuses) and dividing it by a conservative $15/h rate, I’ve worked for around 272 hours or about 700 deliveries. split about 60/40 between private properties and HDB flats.

And I guess it’s also partly because of my different experience working in food couriering the past two years that made me feel so much discontent while reading Yusuf’s article. In these 400-odd deliveries to private residences (or heck, in any of my deliveries), I don’t recall having once been treated unnecessarily rudely, aggressively or dismissively by any of the stakeholders I interact with in the job – restaurant servers and managers, condo security management and customers alike.

What I have experienced actually are customers that have tipped me for my efforts - especially ones who live in fairly inaccessible areas, and (during this circuit breaker period) offered me a snack or a cold drink to drop off their deliveries; security guards who ask me how my day was and if I’ve had my lunch or dinner; and restaurant staff who invite me to have a seat in the restaurant while I wait for my order.

Some treats from kind customers

Even when I had made a mess of the customer’s order from their order roiling around during a bumpy 15-minute bike ride (entirely my fault of course!), I’ve never heard anything more than an entirely deserved ‘tsk’ at the disappointment of having half of their pho soup ending up in the plastic bag instead of the bowl – and even then these tsk’s are far and few between!

And it is (again, solely from my own personal experience) where I felt that Yusuf could have been cherry-picking the worst examples from his own experience to make a point. While service industry personnel are no doubt severely underappreciated and that should be improved as a whole, I feel that such blatant incidents are the exception rather than the rule.

My point is: the world isn’t binary. Heck, even up to a year ago I was still echoing Yusuf’s entire argument and ranting rather colorfully about the injustice and discrimination of it all. Who are YOU to tell me which lift I can and cannot use?

In the pursuit of delivering a commentary on some really important social issues, I feel that it fell short by over-emphasizing the ludicrousness of the elite and failing to consider the many other factors that contributes to this problem.

For one, I thought that the annoyance projected to security guards seeing themselves as ‘a barrier between the riff-raff and their diamond-encrusted residents’ was a bit uncalled for – painting a picture of the fearsome guard – in employ of the up-in-the-air bourgeois hiding in their ivory tower, assailing an innocent courier who had the audacity to think that he had the right to take the same elevator as the residents?

But then… when we consider that most lift lobbies are a good distance from the security guard posts where the guards are stationed, it doesn’t seem so unreasonable for a guard to have to raise his voice to get his point across, right?

Being fortunate enough to live in a condo myself, I’ve sometimes felt unease in the duality that security guards experience every single day: faithful bastions in keeping residents safe, spending their days patrolling the lush, landscaped gardens and expansive feature infinity pools, but never once stepping foot into the houses they loyally guard.

And at the end of the day, clocking out to return home to an environment I assume is much less luxurious.

So why then, do Yusuf and Boon Ping deign to foster an us vs them divide, arbitrarily placing one occupation on one side of the line and another on the opposite?

How about the incredulousness towards the guy who orders a stupid $11 Dal.komm latte every day, or the Grange Road resident who only orders a single scoop of Haagen-Dazs ice cream?

Like I said, caricatures that highlight and reinforce the rich-poor divide.

Cherry-picking prevents the reader from seeing the single cups of coffee that I’ve delivered from Common Man Coffee Roasters to Tenteram Peak, the eight egg tarts from Whampoa Hawker Center to Toa Payoh. Or my dad, who lives a one-minute walk from the hawker center but still chooses to order through Grabfood because he paid for a subscription service that offers 50 free deliveries for just $10?

All these customers lived in HDB units.

As a courier, there’s nothing I appreciate more than collecting an order to find out I’m being paid $5 to cycle one block away, or reaching the restaurant to find out that a customer only ordered an easy-to-transport wrap instead of say, twelve packets of chicken rice – I’m getting paid the same amount anyway.

So yes, they’re paying our salary, so thank you.

Juxtaposition is also good and all for making a point, but is it truly accurate and representative?

The word exclusive is used a lot by Yusuf - but are those who live in a smelly HDB with the pee smell in the corridor exclusively nice, and the expat who lives in the Ardmore Park condo with the super high ceiling exclusively mean? Is it wrong to live (or aspire to live) in an exclusive private property? These are questions to be stimulated, not answers to be given.

There’s so much to pick apart, but my goal isn’t to say: I’m Right, You’re Wrong, it’s just that say that There Are Two Sides to Everything.

A brief aside on ‘fulfillment’

While I love my part-time job – paying me upwards of $20 an hour to keep fit and listen to podcasts, I’m entirely cognizant that while I’m privileged that it’s a side-hustle, a side-gig, a part-time job to me; it’s also a livelihood to tens of thousands of hardworking people out there.

Where I could turn off the app and head home when I decided I’ve earned enough in the week to eat at a new restaurant I’ve been eyeing or if it was too hot in the afternoon, most other people working my job can’t – if not, the lights may not turn on the next day.

In a comment to an earlier draft of this piece, a friend shared that it’s a privilege to be able to separate your social identities. I think it’s also a privilege to have the choice of perspective. We exercise when we’re healthy, as a hobby, or a passion. Deliverymen don’t see it that way. There is no ‘good to do’, there is only ‘must do’.

At the end of the day when the world starts to recover from Covid-19, you’re going to start getting photo and videography gigs and transition back to the white-collar world.

As for the security guard and domestic helper at Ardmore Park, the server at the Grange Road Haagen-Dazs, and the tens of thousands of for-hire drivers and delivery couriers? There’s no ‘back to normal’ – this is their normal.

In a discussion post on Yusuf’s article, a redditor referenced Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

In the blue-collar normal, where every day is a struggle to meet the needs of financial safety and security, maybe fulfilment isn’t really an aspiration for most. In an article calling for empathy, I feel the quality slightly lacking in my reading.

A few months back I began my education into inequality in Singapore with Teo You Yenn’s seminal This Is What Inequality Looks Like. In it, the title of one of her essays especially stood out to me: Dignity Is Like Clean Air. She describes, like Yusuf does, that many blue-collar workers in the service industry always feel invisible, that people don’t respect them, that it makes them feel small. I’d like to add on to** Dignity Is Like Clean Air** with the caveat: Segregation Is Not Necessarily Dirty.

Going back to the ‘fucked up service lifts at the back for the smelly people, the non-residents and stuff’, how about we just call a spade a spade?

In restaurants, servers and chefs who have their meals there usually sit at tables near the kitchen (or even in the kitchen itself).

In airplanes, consumers have the choice to pay a much higher premium for more leg room and a more gourmet selection of food. In fancy hotels, bellboys and concierge staff have to wear stiff suits – there’s usually a dress code for guests to enter certain areas.

So, is it really that unfair, for someone who’s had the means to pay for the privilege of living in luxury, to not really want to share a lift with someone who might smell unpleasant from having spent hours cycling under the hot sun?

The service lift provides the same functionality – no one’s saying that couriers are ‘lesser people’, we’re not being asked to walk up the stairs while the ‘masters’ take the magic moving box. It wasn’t created to separate the ‘undesirables’ from the ‘desirables’ like a pre-Rosa Parks bus, and it’ll be unhealthy to think of it as such – even worse to let it fester.

To package my views into a neatly categorized box – When I’m Brandon the Deliveryman, it’s perfectly fine for a guard to request for me to take the service lift, but when I’m Brandon the Guest attending a dinner party at the same condo, no one is stopping me from taking the resident lift right?

Different day, Different fit, Same me

I still think that it’s incredibly fucked up that some employers make their helpers take a separate lift though.

But in delivering the core message – is it more helpful to frame your reflection as ‘why do some people treat their subordinates with such contempt and how can we as society hope to change it’, or to just resent the fact that ‘rich people like that la’ – and laugh and pretend we’re friends.

I guess what I’m most frustrated with about the article is that it had the potential to be so much more. It occasionally flirts with the possibility of going deeper into one issue or the other but ultimately ends up being a reflection of one privileged dude’s brief foray into an industry that many of us often take for granted.

And because there are so many issues at play, people often fall into the trap of distilling extremely complicated issues into dangerous sweeping statements, which eventually does very little for the problem in question.

Another frustration I often have towards the discourse towards social issues is that they often fail to carry a call-to-action. Okay, I’ve checked my privilege, I’ve understood that my successes in life is partly a byproduct of the wealthy family I was fortunate to being born into – now what?

A good rule of thumb that I’ve been trying to implement into my life recently is to think about the net positive or net negative an action has onto society. And hence:

To the fortunate: While it is important to understand your privilege and not take things for granted, you also don’t have to be ashamed of it. Every dollar you spend goes into the economy and is earned by someone else. So, what can you do to influence a net positive?

Be kind to everyone, be kind to everyone, be kind to everyone.

If you can, have the moral courage to call out undesirable behavior – especially if it’s someone close to you. But if you can’t – it’s okay too. Start with yourself. The world could do with less ‘you should do more’ and more ‘thank you for what you did’.

This is not exclusive to tipping service staff or offering couriers a cold drink (although it is always really welcome!). Offer a kind word to anyone you interact with. Ask the office or school janitor if they’ve had their meal yet, wish your security guard a good morning/good evening when you pass them by, clear your tray when you’re at a fast food restaurant and smile and thank the servers if you pass them by.

I promise you - these little acts of kindness will go a much longer way received than it takes you to give them.

To our everyday heroes: Your intrinsic self worth is by no means defined by how an asshole treats you. You are so, so, so much more important.

You are somebody, you are somebody, you are somebody.

In this essay, my intention is to extend the net positive that Yusuf and Rice has already generated while minimizing the net negatives it may unintentionally create by framing the issue as ‘us vs them’.

I hope that it will be seen as an addendum to Yusuf’s original piece instead of a correction. To build up on the important issues that **each and every one of us **should acknowledge and then go one step further to see how we can resolve them. I hope that reading this has provoked more questions than it gives answers. I hope that we don’t see the world as black-and-white but how things can move to a more palatable shade of grey.

Of course, my thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions here could be (and probably are) wildly ignorant and myopic, and I still have so much more to learn. So please confront me, dispute me and tell me where I’m wrong and what I don’t know.

If I have to leave you with just one takeaway, I hope everyone remembers to be kinder to people – regardless.

(You can also find me at https://medium.com/@bdgthinks!)

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mystarmyangel · 5 years ago

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[TRANS] YoonA – L’Officiel Spring/Summer 2020 YK Edition Interview

You tried both feminine and masculine styles for today’s photoshoot. Which style do you like more? Especially when you wore a wig, I felt that it fits the YoonA I know. Is it? While discussing the pictorial concept, I was also asked if I will be okay to wear a wig. I thought it is a great idea, so I accepted the suggestion readily. Its feel fun trying something for the first time. And when I really tried it, I saw ‘a face that I don’t even know myself’ so I felt that the decision to go ahead is right. I also tried two different styles of outfits, as I have always been wearing more feminine outfits, I felt that masculine concept is more charming. But when I wore feminine outfits, I will have thoughts like ‘ah, as expected I look better in lovely outfits.’ Thus, I feel that both concepts are good, I have always been doing similar concepts so I would like to try different concepts in the future.

It has been 13 years since you debut. Is there any split moment where you feel like you have grown up as compared to before? Like how I do not find it tiring filming like this the whole day? As time passes, more ‘free time’ came out (laughs) and I naturally become more relaxed. Looking back to my debut days where I have many things that I don’t know about, everything feels dim and tough. But right now, I have accumulated a lot of experiences so I know what fits me more and I can do even better. Just like shooting for a photoshoot like now, I also actively voice out many opinions, seeing how I am showing more initiatives, it seems that I have mature a lot too.

How is YoonA like as a child? Did you already show ‘a born celebrity’ personality back then where you were not afraid to be in front of many people? I remembered that I like talent shows, I will not hesitate to participate whenever I get the chance. I do not feel shy standing in front of many people. But I have always been the careful type so thinking back I am not sure how I managed to do that, I am amazed too. Right now, because of the nature of my job I met a lot of people, so my personality has changed, and I am able to chat comfortably with people who I meet for the first time. To me, it is a huge change.

So, you went for the audition like this? The audition video of you singing with your kiddy face has been a hot topic for a long time. My situation is like the famous scenario of ‘accompanying friend to go for audition but I end up being the only one getting in’. (Laughs) My friend said to go audition together and I agreed thinking that ‘even I didn’t get in, it will still be a good experience’. In the end my friend did not get in, but I got in. And from then I became a trainee for 5 years and all the way until my debut, I have not missed a single day of practice. Looking back like this I guess this is indeed something I really enjoyed doing.

You debut as a singer and actress at about the same time. Up til now which of your works are the most memorable ones for you? I thought of the project that allows many people to come to know me and also my first leading role, ‘You Are My Destiny’. Although people in their 10s and 20s might have know me while promoting as a SNSD member but people who are of the higher age groups would not know me then. Through this project, I receive love from all the different age groups. My first movie ‘Confidential Assignment’ and my first leading movie ‘EXIT’ are all precious works too.

Your first leading movie ‘EXIT’ is one of the biggest hits of the year. The movie indeed received more love than what was initially expected. If I had a rich experience of filming movies, I would have known then that more than 9 million moviegoers is an alarming figure, but I didn’t realize it at the initial stage. As I see more and more moviegoers, I gradually became very excited. I began to wonder if I will be able to see a number (of moviegoers) like this again in the future. Because it is a disaster action movie, I have been running throughout and there are many actions scenes that require me to use body acting, but the result turns out well, so I felt it is even more meaningful. While experiencing a disaster indirectly (through acting in a disaster action movie), I learned a lot on how to deal with situations should they happen in reality, because disasters are situations that anyone may and can experience.

From my personal point of view, I feel that the concept and the role in the drama series ‘The K2’ are very memorable. Before that, there were a lot of candy-like roles that ‘do not cry no matter how lonely and sad’, but the gazes of Go Anna played by YoonA are completely different from before. In ‘The K2’, Anna is a very complex role that has been living a secret life of solitude, it was a new challenge for me. The location where we filmed the overseas scenes is Barcelona. When I do not have any shooting schedules, I strolled around the city and created really good memories there.

It is not easy to break an existing image. I realized that wanting to break the image or stereotype that people have of me is not something that is achievable just by with words. I used to be very mindful of what the public thinks. I will foremost consider what the public’s reaction will be if I act in a role like this. ‘The K2’ is the first project that I decided to do without considering factors like that. After that, I opened my mind a lot on showing more different sides of me as an actress.

Is there any roles you would like to challenge in the future? I wanted to try a character that is different from what I have shown so far. People only see a fragment of me, but I have many different sides of myself that only I know about. However, it is really hard to meet the right character at the right time, I guess all actors and actresses out there share the same feeling too.

Can you tell us more of the scheduled work you have for this year? Fortunately, the work I liked has appeared, but I think its better to share more of the details after everything becomes more certain. After all, there are always all sort of changes when It comes to work related matters.

Is there any plans as a musician? The special album ‘A Walk To Remember’ that you released last year was a surprise thankful gift to fans. I do not have any plans right now but the desire to sing is always there. Of course, I will continue doing music to express my gratefulness to fans.

The genres featured in the special album are calm music such as folk and acoustic ballads which are the opposite of SNSD’s usual upbeat and fast dance tracks. Was your personal taste of music originally that way? I listen to all types of music, regardless of its genre. I basically will browse songs that are on music charts, be it dance track or a classical song. My favourite genres change often too. Perhaps it is because I listen to a lot of songs of such genres during the preparation of the special album, so I was influenced (Laughs). My music playlist is mainly based on the weather or mood of that day. It rained yesterday so I was suddenly reminded by a song in the movie ‘About Time’ called ‘II Mondo’ so I looked it up and listen to it. I think it is because it is a background music of the famous wedding scene in the movie where it suddenly rained, and everyone was seeking shelter. Recently I also like to listen to old pop songs. Not long ago while driving, Roy Orbison’s ‘In Dreams’ was played in the radio, and it was so good. Matching the weather, atmosphere of that day, everything seems to fit perfectly together.

Speaking of old pop songs, I recalled that you posted photos taken with a film camera on your Instagram, it seems to have similar vibes with your preference in music. 6 months ago, I went to Paris for vacation with the thought of taking photos with a film camera. Although it is a disposable camera, the exterior design of the camera is really pretty, and the results turn out unexpectedly good too, so I was really satisfied. These days you can check the photos as soon as you took it, but for film cameras you would not know how it turn out until the photos are developed. I really enjoy the time and anticipation I have while waiting for the photos to be developed. It is a fun experience.

When we talk about YoonA, it is hard not to think of SNSD. What does SNSD means to you? To me, they are always the most special and comfortable people. We spent our 10s and 20s together even closer than we do with our own families, so right now even just looking into each another eyes we will know what the other party is thinking. Even now we still keep in touch often with one another.

YoonA started donating since 2010, and you become a member of ‘Honor Society’ in 2015. What are your thoughts with regards to donations? When I was about 20 years old, I started donating through a relay donation program. From then on, I will participate in donations whenever I got the opportunity. Regardless of the amount, I think it is most important to want to share. My consistency with donation is also largely influenced by my parents. They often told me ‘how much you receive, how much you share, this way you will receive a bigger blessing’. It is not easy to continue donation consistently, but I will do my best to continue doing it.

How do you de-stress whenever you feel mentally exhausted? For example, through exercise? Although I do Pilates to unwind myself, but it seems just doing Pilates is not enough to relieve my stress (Laughs). I am also trying hard to find things to do at home so as not to have feeling of tiredness. Sometimes I bake cookies, shift the positions of my furniture or I go for a drive. Today I brought the cookies I made myself and shared them with the staffs. In the past, I relieved my stress by meeting and chatting with people around me, but now I am finding my own way to relieve stress. That’s because no matter how much fun I have when I met with my friends, there is always a sense of emptiness when I went home. I think that I can’t always depend on others, so I am trying hard to look for ways to manage my mood better.

What is the thing that is the most ‘YoonA-like’? Hmm, my personality is always changing bit by bit, so that are times that I don’t even understand myself. Aren’t everyone like this, there are many people that think I have a bright personality, although generally it is so but there are times where I am not. In a sense, I think the realest me is shown most through ‘Hyori’s Homestay 2’. The cameras were rolling for 24 hours, so it is unbelievable to say I didn’t have moments that I was relaxing. Through this reality show, I was surprised to know that there are many people who saw a complete different me.

How do you feel about getting older? I am not afraid of getting older, on the contrary, I am actually looking forward to how I will be like as I gradually get older. Occasionally, there will be interviews where I was asked how I think I will be 5 or 10 years down the road, these are things that I can’t be certain of since they are still far in the future. However, regarding next year when I can think and plan for, I can promise that ‘this time next year, I will be even better’.

It is this positive mindset that made YoonA who she is today. What are the happiest memories you have so far? There are too many. Like when SNSD went on concert tours, when SNSD received daesang, the time when my first leading movie opened in theatres, when I received a rookie award as an actress… now that I say it, it seems like the list can goes on and on. I have so many happy memories in my 20s, but perhaps after going through my 30s I can say I am the happiest in my 30s. My philosophy is that ‘compared to setting big goals, lets achieve the small goals right in front, enjoy today and have fun every moment’. I am thinking, if I spend today happily, won’t the ‘today’ of each day come together and eventually my whole life will become enjoyable.

Cr: Chinese Trans by Limyoonabar (木白) & YOONYA (奶瓶, 麦麦,小土狗) Eng Trans: mystarmyangel

#YoonA #L'Officiel #LOfficiel #Magazine #Interview

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etudier-avec-bella · 5 years ago

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My First Term at University

Hello! If you’ve been following me for a while, you may have noticed that this blog has been pretty dead for the past few months. Like, literally no new posts have gone up from me since results day. Yikes. Where have I been, and what’s been going on? That’s what I’m here to clear up. Because I have a lot to talk about.

I am going to be touching on three main topics: Life at York, my course and how I’ve been studying, and- finally- my mental wellbeing.

So, grab a hot drink, get cosy, and prepare for what is possibly the longest piece of writing I’ve ever produced in my life. Seriously. It’s huge.

**Disclaimer: In no way is this post supposed to reflect the ‘real’ life of the average student at York, nor am I making any comment on the quality of education or student life at York. I am aware that I’m extremely lucky to be a student on one of the best Chemistry courses in the country, and this post is simply detailing how I found the transition from living at home to living independently as a university student. York- I love you. Even if you weren’t my first choice, I am so glad I ended up here. I’ve met some wonderful people and learned so many incredible things just in this first term alone. Please don’t take this post as me hating on York or something, because I really, really don’t lmao**

Life in York

Let’s kick things off by talking about what it’s like to live in York!

Contrary to what I initially assumed about moving to a university in the middle of the countryside (i.e. that there would be nothing to do), York is a beautiful city, and I’m so excited to get better acquainted with it over the next three years.

The high streets here are jam-packed full of hidden gems- I seriously think that you could go to a different coffee shop every day for a year, there are so many of them dotted around. I’ve loved being able to wander around and see where my feet take me, and there’s always somewhere new to discover; bookshops, cafés, museums, the castle walls, art exhibits, concerts… Oh, my!

Some of my favourite places that I’ve discovered so far are:

● Drift-In- my favourite little coffee shop! It’s never too busy if you go before midday, making it the ideal place to crack out some work in a more relaxed studying environment. They also offer a 10% student discount, and have a wall of polaroids of the dogs who have visited the café. Incredible.

● Lucky Days- the perfect place to take your friends for lunch! They also do really good cakes if you ever feel like treating yourself after submitting an assignment.

● The Little Apple Bookshop- There are lots of cute little indie bookshops on the road leading to the art gallery, but I think that this one is my personal favourite. Stock changes frequently, so it’s worth popping in every once in a while, and they have classic novels at much lower prices than the likes of Waterstones (for all of you English Lit students out there!)

As for the University Campus, it’s similarly wonderful. The River runs right through Campus West, making itself home to lots of ducks, geese, and other waterfowl. We also have wild bunnies outside the Biology greenhouses, and I always see them hopping around in the dark when I walk home from my French classes. Campus West isn’t too big- you can walk from one side to the other in about 15 minutes- so the student community is super tight-knit. I have friends from loads of different colleges who I’ve met through mixers, societies, and my classes, and it’s really easy for us to link up and do stuff together because we’re all so near to each other.

There are also some pretty cool places on campus, if you don’t feel like leaving to go to the city centre- the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall are always putting on lunchtime concerts with cheap tickets for students, which is a nice way to wind down after working all day AND show support for the music students, and there’s also a student-ran supermarket in Wentworth College called Scoop, where you can bring your own containers and buy spices/grains/pasta in bulk for much cheaper than you can in other similar supermarkets. Scoop also sell boxes of locally-sourced produce, making it easy to support small businesses on a budget!

Honestly, there are still lots of places on campus that I’m yet to visit. Whenever I get fed up of working, I like to go for a little 30-minute walk to the other side of the university grounds and see what I can find (there’s a really lovely garden behind Derwent College, it has a big stately manor house and lots of fancy greenery). It’s a nice way to get some fresh air and change up the scenery when I get stir-crazy from being in my room for so long.

My Course/Studying

As many, many people have told me in the past- university-level Chemistry is hard. And you know what? They were right. However, I like a challenge as much as the next overachiever, and as a self-confessed science nerd I’ve got to say… My course is a dream.

I know I’m only one term into my first year, but the way I look at basically everything around me has already changed so much. The fundamental knowledge you gain just from first module covers all of the main bases, and I’ve found that the way I think about and approach scientific problems is already very different to the way I would have looked at them during my A-Levels. You’re encouraged to think a lot more openly, and apply relatively basic concepts to solve really tricky problems instead of just learning the answers to a syllabus- it’s a great chance to utilise your all of your skills.

In terms of how I’ve been studying, not a lot has changed. My exams don’t carry any real credit this year, but I’m still aiming to achieve high grades. Over the Christmas break, I’ve been focusing a lot more on resting rather than working- so I whilst I haven’t done a LOT, the revision I’ve done has been productive. I still use flashcards and Quizlet, but I’ve recently introduced summary posters onto the scene as well, which has been working well for me. I’ll make a post on how I make these in the near future!

Overall, the first term has been pretty good academically. I feel stretched and challenged, and things are at a manageable level of difficulty. Which brings me onto something that has not been at a manageable level of difficulty this term…

My Wellbeing

Mental health. Something of a taboo topic within the study community. It’s something we all will deal with, and something most of us will struggle with to some degree at times. So, why don’t we talk about it more?

I won’t go into super deep, personal detail in this next section. Mostly because there are some things I’m not comfortable with sharing on the internet. However, I do think it’s important for me to use my small platform of followers to talk about my own experiences and attempt to tackle the stigma about being a student and struggling with mental health, so I am going to be as honest as I can about what’s been going on.

Before coming to university, I was already having a difficult time with my mental health, and had been for a few years. This summer was a particularly bad one for me. A-Levels left me completely exhausted, results day was a bit of a sticky one, and thinking about life as I knew it coming to an end was terrifying. I knew that, once I moved to uni, I was going to feel even sadder, lonelier, and more out-of-place than I already did. And I had no idea how to deal with it.

I believe that one of the biggest contributing factors to my sudden and sharp decline in mental wellness after arriving in York was the fact that, even two months later, I still hadn’t gotten over my Durham rejection. Ignoring my initial disappointment was a bad idea, though I didn’t know it at the time.

As someone who has been a high achiever their entire life, rejection and failure aren’t things I’m used to dealing with at all. Not on this scale, at least. Academics was the one thing I could always rely on, the one thing underpinning all of my successes. The one thing within which I had manifested almost my entire personality. Before, I was always Bella, the smart one. Bella, top of the class. Bella, the straight-A student; set to do great things; capable of going anywhere… But, now, here I was. Bella, just got rejected by her dream university.

Trying to settle into student life with a completely secure sense of self is hard enough- trying to settle in whilst struggling to cope with all of these new, conflicting feelings? It was so, so difficult. WAY more than I would ever admit to in real life. Stupid me was too proud to admit that I was upset to ‘only be going to my second choice’ so I told friends, family, and everyone else that I was perfectly happy to be going to York instead of Durham, and that I wasn’t sad about it at all.

(I want to clarify that I am in NO way trying to diminish the hard work and achievements of anybody who got into their second choice university, or anybody else who got into York. Only now have I realised that it’s nothing to be ashamed of, and if anything you should be proud that your efforts got you into whichever school you ended up in. I’m just sharing with you all how much I struggled to accept this rejection, and how it affected my mental health).

I knew people who had gotten in, and I saw them posting on Instagram about matriculation and other social events at the university. This completely broke my heart. I was happy for my friends who were studying there- they worked hard and more than deserved to be there… but I couldn’t help but feel jealous. I wanted to be there with them. The place that I had worked so incredibly hard to receive an offer for.

Although it’s embarrassing to admit, I did actually cry a bit after seeing these posts. I didn’t know how to process my feelings, because for those first few weeks after rejection I absolutely refused to let myself mope (looking back, I’ve got no idea why I did that. Wtf Bella?). I was determined to be strong about it and try to force myself to be happy with the situation I found myself in- despite the fact that, deep down, I knew it wasn’t where I wanted to be. Not at first, anyway. Pair the bittersweet pain of first-time rejection with my consistent struggle with self-esteem and low moods… Things got ugly fast.

If I had to put a finger on when I started to feel things getting really bad, I’d trace back to somewhere near the first month mark. Freshers week, whilst it felt awkward and drawn-out, wasn’t too bad in terms of my mental wellbeing. I think I was so caught up in trying to adjust to this crazy, new life I had that I didn’t have a lot of time to stop and wonder how I was feeling. Those of you who also struggle with mental health issues will know that they never really go away. They always at least linger in the background, if they aren’t in the forefront of your mind. So I suppose you could say that I felt my strange, healthy-but-unhealthy version of ‘normal’.

I hadn’t yet adapted to life as a York student, but that wasn’t much of a concern at this point. It takes a long time to adjust to change, and I had only been there for a few days. I thought I just needed to wait it out. But, after the first few weeks passed by, I started to notice something weird.

I still didn’t feel settled in. In fact, I didn’t feel like I was there at all. Nothing felt ‘real’. After years of dreaming and wondering what life would be like at university, I suddenly found that the situation I was in wasn’t what I expected it to be at all. I didn’t ‘feel’ like a university student here, even months into this first term. Or, rather, I didn’t feel what I had decided that being a university student ought to feel like.

For my whole life, I’ve attached so much of my identity to my intelligence and educational aspirations. To reach the highest stage of my academic career thus far- the place I’ve been working to get to my whole life- and find out that it was possible that this wasn’t where I wanted to be caused me to completely lose my sense of identity.

The conflict between feeling ‘too good’ for here, but simultaneously viewing my rejection as me ‘not being good enough’ for Durham left me drifting somewhere in the middle with all aspects of my life. University was a big deal for me, and had been for as long as I could remember. I attached so much of who I was to my work, and ergo the university I was going to go to. Having failed to prove to myself that I was who people had been telling me I was for years, I didn’t have scraps of personality left to hold onto.

I felt as though I didn’t belong here, but also that if that were true I didn’t really know where I did belong. I knew that I was smart, and that I was capable of achieving the A-Level grades that I needed to meet my offer requirements for my first choice. Things just didn’t go to plan in my Maths exams. But, at the same time, whenever I struggled with the work here in York, I would say to myself: ‘Oh, look. You can’t even manage the work they give you here. How did you ever think you were good enough for Durham?’

As you can imagine, this made my mental health quite difficult to manage properly. My inability to cope with rejection, trying to live independently for the first time, facing a whole new series of academic challenges, and missing my friends/family ALL took its toll on me in more ways than I care to say. But, stubborn old me tried to make the best of an unexpected, difficult situation. I decided that I wasn’t going to be ungrateful.

I had been accepted into one of the best schools for my subject in the country. I was going to try and make the most of life here, even if it wasn’t what I had wanted in the beginning, and even if it was proving to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. I wish I could say I was able to move past the sadness I felt because of my rejection and because of all of the other things going on in my life (my already poor mental health, trying to live independently…), but that just wasn’t the case.

To keep it short and sweet, student life was kicking my arse.

The dip in my mental health began to affect my ability to work and take care of myself. I was struggling with this sudden and total lack of motivation to keep up with just about everything.

Independent study was completely forgotten about. I skipped countless music rehearsals, and rarely spent time with my flatmates and friends. I didn’t cook properly- I relied on foods that took less than five minutes to cook or didn’t eat at all. I didn’t put as much effort into looking after myself and looking presentable as usual; I usually love dressing nicely, carrying out elaborate skincare and makeup routines- but all of that immediately went out of the window. I rarely left my room, and I would stay essentially completely by myself for days at a time.

There was no part of my life that didn’t take a blow as a result of my poor wellbeing. It was like I’d given up and decided I would just settle for the bare minimum and float aimlessly until the winter break arrived. I didn’t care anymore. Not about appearance, not about my work, and not about me.

Now is probably the time to mention that I didn’t actually tell anyone that this was going on, spare one of my closest friends who I knew for sure wouldn’t judge me. To this day, most people still have no idea that I was having such a bad time, and that I’m still feeling the residual negative emotions from the last few weeks of term. There are a lot of reasons why I didn’t talk to anyone about it, but the main two were that I’m a very private person, and that my family isn't always the most understanding when it comes to helping each other deal with mental health issues. I desperately wanted other people to know what I was going through, but the thought of coming out and telling them straight-up petrified me. I knew I couldn’t do it. So, I chose to hide all of it under the façade of being exhausted from my busy timetable. Or whatever excuse was most convenient at the time for whoever asked me what was wrong.

Another reason I didn’t tell anybody about what was going on kind of plays into the problems I’d been wrestling with before coming to uni (they’ve been an issue for much longer than just this summer, just to point out). I won’t talk about them in detail, because I’m not ready to discuss a lot of what I went through and what I’m still going through, but I’ll say that part of it is that I have a pretty crippling fear of being judged by other people. For my physical appearance, for my academic achievements, for my personal opinions and preferences- for everything. Everything. I don’t really talk about myself to anybody, so even just writing this post feels a bit odd. As you can imagine, admitting I’d been having a terrible time with my mental health to my close friends and family was out of the question.

I had basically reached my lowest point ever. I felt lonely, isolated, and completely lost. I wasn’t living the life people were expecting me to, and I wasn’t

Maybe this seems silly to some of you out there reading this who are dealing with a much bigger and more painful situations than my own. I recognise that there are much worse things I could be going through. And no, of course not every day of the past term was awful. I’m not trying to say that being rejected from my dream university caused this- rather that it fed into what was already a significantly complex problem. But, for someone like myself who pinned all of their self-worth on their educational goals and achievements- for someone who had never really ‘failed’ at something like this before- I was pretty fucking crushed. Enough to make me lose track of basic things I’d never usually had a problem managing before.

My problems had engulfed my life. I was miserable and couldn’t stand it. I was fed up of sticking it out alone. Desperate to let someone else take the burden for a little while, I finally, finally decided it might be worth considering getting some help.

I made an appointment to go and visit the University mental health services, and they signposted me to the local NHS mental health services. The waiting list for an assessment was surprisingly short- it only took me 2-3 weeks to get an appointment where I could receive an initial diagnosis and learn what treatments were available.

It was at this point I found out that I had an anxiety disorder.

This wasn’t particularly shocking news- I struggled with social anxiety as a young teenager- but it made me quite emotional to finally hear someone tell me that what I was feeling WAS part of a bigger problem. It wasn’t just me blowing things out of proportion.

So, that brings us to where I am now. Currently on the waiting list for group therapy. I haven’t really decided if its something I want to talk about on this blog yet, but I feel like even just sharing with other students that I took the step to go and seek help from my uni will hopefully encourage more people who are struggling to do so as well. Most universities have decent mental health services, or at least someone who can point you in the direction of the appropriate resources to help you, so it’s definitely worth looking into in my opinion.

But, right now, I’m feeling okay. This term has been challenging for me and my emotional wellbeing, but the knowledge that I ploughed through and (for the first time in my life) asked for help when I knew I needed it makes me feel proud of myself. A month away from halls has definitely helped me, and I’m actually looking forward to going back with a new, rejuvenated perspective on student life- which leads me onto the final section of this long, waffly post...

What have I learned? How am I trying to make changes? What are my plans for the future?

Well, aside from developing my Chemical knowledge through some pretty fantastic lecture courses and practical sessions, I’ve discovered a lot about myself this term. For example- I’ve realised that I place too much of my personal value on academic achievement and the prestige of the institutions I’m a member of. I should learn to accept that I am so much more than my grades, and that it doesn’t matter where I go to school. Sure, it would have been nice to enjoy all of the things life in Durham has to offer, but does it really matter when I’m living in a beautiful city, studying the subject I love with people who are just as excited about it as I am, and watching myself change and blossom into a completely new person? Not at all.

The most important thing, and the most difficult, was to admit and accept that I wasn’t having a good time here. And that it was okay to feel like this. I could lie to everyone around me about it and say that I was happy, but I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. In fact, it took being honest with myself for me to actually start to feel a little bit happier about where I was- literally AND mentally.

I suppose this begs the following question: would I consider transferring? Surely, after all of the emotional chaos I went through trying to get over what felt like the biggest setback of my life so far, I would take the ‘easy way out’ and re-sit my Maths papers so that I could re-apply to Durham and live the life I was convinced I needed to be living?

Honestly… No. Partially because the heartbreak of being rejected was kind of enough to put me off potentially going through it again by re-applying, but also because I feel like this is an important life experience for me to have.

I need to learn healthy coping mechanisms for dealing with rejection and being in situations I didn’t initially want to be in. Obviously, there are lines and limits with this kind of thing, and it differs from person to person and situation to situation, but I’m in a good place for me, I think. It isn’t perfect, but it isn’t meant to be. And I know that if I work hard to make the most of everything my life has to offer me, I’ll reach a point where the struggles I’m dealing with now will be but a distant memory.

...

So, that’s all I want to mention for now! I hope this explains why I’ve been so absent from this blog. Being productive was something I really struggled to do this term, so I didn’t have much going on that I could really post about. However, I’m looking forward to showing more of what my life as a Chemistry student at York looks like when I move back up for term two.

Talking about this has really helped me to reflect on my experiences and gain a little bit of closure from what was a pretty wild and confusing 11 weeks. I might post more content like this in the future, because I think it’s important to show other students that they aren’t alone and more people are dealing with things like this than they realise, but I won’t make any promises just yet.

I hope you are all having a lovely winter break, wherever you are, and I hope you are all looking forward to the next term of school, college, university, or even just the New Year by itself!

See you soon.

Bella <3

#studyblr #mental health #student mental health #anxiety #coping with anxiety

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epicfales · 5 years ago

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When I hate My Body, I Remember What It Has Given Me

It is day twenty-seven of strict social distancing. I only know this for sure because I checked my most recent Instagram post, which says that two days ago was day twenty-five. Today is Wednesday, April 8, 2020. I only know this because I checked my watch. The days feel long and short at the same time, and I’m not sure how that can be. There are many things I’m unsure of, these days; and I trust that we all feel that way to some extent. This pandemic has shattered our collective sense of normalcy and routine, as it’s disrupted weddings, graduations, proms, birthdays, and funerals—rituals that many people cannot fathom living without. I cannot go another day without confessing what I know to be true: it’s easy to live without those things when you have no choice.

At some point over the past twenty-seven days—they all blend together—I was talking to my friend, Liv, who was impacted by cancer. I hate how people use words like “fighting” or “beating” when putting verbs alongside a beast like cancer. Because no verb in any language can describe the deeply physical, emotional, and spiritual experience of being sick in that way. Sometimes when I imagine her being pulled from what was her happy and blessedly normal life, I see her being dragged into an arena, and cancer is not the lion—she is the lion—and cancer is this dark amorphous force that engulfs her body. I imagine that she roars, and her voice is so strong that I can see the sound released from every fiber of her being, and then watch as her very essence tangles with that darkness. Other times, I imagine her as she is in a photograph: dressed as Muhammad Ali, strutting down a hospital hallway, bald and in a mask, donning boxing gloves and a cape, staring down the camera. Everyone felt the need to reassure her that even without hair, she was beautiful. This pisses me off, because they all confront that photo with the unconscious premise that hair is a vital part of the human body, and my God, do they not notice the cape?

The Muhammad Ali quote that she boldly posts alongside that photo: “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’’

I turn to my conversations with Liv in the moments when I feel most defeated. She is one of my only friends my age who knows what it’s like to be chronically sick—sick in a way that doesn’t get better. Our diseases are extraordinarily different, but our shared experiences unite us in a unique bond. Today, I feel a humiliating level of defeat. And of course, it’s all rather absurd, because today isn’t different from any other day. The catalyst for my defeat: a bike ride to the mailbox at the end of my dirt road. I can’t put the words together to confess how difficult this exercise was for me. I’m just too disappointed in myself, and too ashamed. It’s only a mile to the mailbox and a mile back, but the road is hilly, and the terrain is rough. I’m grateful no one saw me. What had begun as a leisurely ride quickly became the most difficult exercise I’ve done in memory. I pushed myself way further than I should have, and my endurance was fueled by a profound anger towards my body’s many inadequacies. It was also fueled by the simple fact that I had no choice but to keep going; I needed to get home, and putting one foot in front of the other was the only way to get there (at that point I was walking alongside the damn bike). When I finally collapsed onto the living room floor, I Facetimed my family in Kalamazoo . . . their first reaction was to laugh. I don’t blame them for this, because I really did look pathetic, and it always takes people a minute to switch from the superficial observation, “Jess is horribly out of shape” to the more somber realization, “Jess is sick”. Nevertheless, I put on an almost childlike tantrum as I raged against my body. I said to my body, “You are weak, and pathetically inadequate. I’m ashamed to look at you in the mirror. Your scars are ugly. You are undesirable. No one likes you.” We all know the guilt and remorse felt after being mean to someone who doesn’t deserve it. My poor body. It has endured so much for me, more than most bodies endure, and I’m ashamed of it. I forget that it has made me a champion.

There was a brief period at the beginning of the pandemic when the chronically ill imagined that the rest of the world would finally understand what it’s like to be us. We saw people voice dismay over missed sports games, over canceled proms, and over abandoned vacation plans. We hoped their dismay would turn into empathy, and we waited for them to realize that the sacrifices being asked of them are sacrifices that we’ve had to make for years. It quickly became evident that such empathy could not be expected. We watched from afar as young people descended upon Florida beaches, as friends took advantage of cheap airline tickets, as communities gathered at packed bars, and as people selfishly hoarded toilet paper and hand sanitizer. They will never know what it’s like to be us.

I’ve heard all sorts of justifications for the social shenanigans plastered across our Facebook timelines and Instagram feeds. Mostly, people claim they deserve such festivity, and the use their feelings of “missing out” to rationalize having a good time. There’s the infamous youth on spring break who went viral for saying, “If I get Corona, I get Corona. I’m not going to let it interfere with me partying.” What it comes down to is this: people believe they are entitled to undisrupted lives. Our culture is based on comfort, indulgences, and personal gratification. For many, the mandated social restrictions have quickly become the worst thing to ever happen to them. If social distancing is the worst thing to happen to us by the time this is all over, we will be incredibly blessed.

I could say that I wish we lived in a world where bad things didn’t happen to good people and where life was fair. But I don’t wish that. Not even a little bit. Life is often ruthless, unpredictable, and unjust. When my complex autoimmune disease caused me to go deaf five days before starting college, I involuntarily put my life on hold to get Cochlear implants; and when I recovered from that I then faced a series of dangerous infections over the years, as all immunocompromised people are prone to do. Liv learned she had Leukemia while on a school trip and had to drop everything to return to California for life-saving treatment—a treatment that went on to cause its own disease. Years later, few of our past dreams or expectations for life turned to reality. None of this is fair. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. And we are better for it. Having our lives spontaneously disrupted proves to us that life is hard but reminds us that we can do hard things.

When I was fifteen—before I got sick—I encountered a proverb that fundamentally challenged how I viewed the world: “Tell me what you need, and I will tell you how to live without it.” Sometimes I find myself randomly reciting those words, as a reminder to reevaluate my values and priorities. It’s amazing what we can live without. As this global health crisis unfolds, we are all forced to question what is necessary, and to make the distinction between comfort and survival. I pray that on the other side, we can all call ourselves champions.

#immunocompromised #autoimmune #Cancer #covid-19 #social distancing #priorities

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rainydawgradioblog · 5 years ago

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a covidsation with shelby leone

Next up is Shelby Leone, a fellow English major attending Seattle University and a stunningly talented multidisciplinary artist, writer, and musician. Last November, I was lucky enough to book their band Cherry Lip at my former DIY space, Red Room (RIP !!). Big thanks and love to Shelby for this thoughtful and insightful commentary.

Lola Gil: Tell me about Cherry Lip and yourself. How long have y’all been playing together? Which artists are you most inspired by? How would you describe your sound?

Shelby Leone: I am a musician and writer based in Seattle. I’ve been around the scene first doing poetry readings and then playing music for three years now, and I played with Cherry Lip for a little less than a year. The sound of that project was really influenced by my bandmate Bobby’s love of Bossa and my love of sounding like a jaded nightclub singer. The band’s sound changed with our members as well, as we sort of interchanged whoever was available to play bass and keys and guitar. Sometimes it got kinda psych rock and others it was kinda Bossa indie rock.

Personally, I love Amy Winehouse, Alex Turner, Japanese Breakfast, Devendra Banhart, it’s hard to name only a few lol.

LG: Are you planning on releasing any music soon?

SL: Yes, depending! Recording at home is awesome, but what people don’t really touch on often is how expensive some of these DIY kids’ equipment is. Between mics and software and other do-dads you see in these set ups, things can add up financially, so I’m slowly working towards finding a way to record something that is well-made from the cozy comfort of my basement.

LG: Have you been involved in any other creative projects outside of Cherry Lip recently?

SL: I am working on a few! I’m an interdisciplinary bitch. Right now, I am working on a book of poetry, an illustrated zine (drawn by my best friend and reason for being, Quincey Caldwell), as well as some musical projects of my own :)

Recently, it has all shifted though too. Since implementing social distancing in my life, I’ve been working with recordings done by my friends and bandmates before we couldn’t go to each other’s houses and make stuff face-to-face. Everything is being done over text, and it’s not the same... but it’s not impossible to keep making things.

LG: How have you been personally affected by COVID? What has your quarantine experience been like so far?

SL: I literally had just begun to hit my stride in the scene, playing and booking shows for the Cherry Lip project. I got really into it. I was even thinking about hosting a show to raise money for the Bernie Sanders campaign in my backyard. All in all, I had around three or four events drop, which doesn’t seem like much, but when you’re an artist who is just getting started, every opportunity to show people what you’ve worked so hard on is worth something.

I mean house shows, venue shows, art shows, they’ve all come to a halt. In person, at least. I miss it so much, I have this big hole in my chest. I really love the community aspect of the DIY scene, even with its complications and problems. I miss seeking my weekend friends at shows, people I never saw unless we were dancing together or playing in bands on the same bill, or chatting on someone’s porch. I am lucky to live with so many people who feel the same, we’ve been filling our time trying to keep our own little creative colony connected.

LG: What music have you been listening to recently? What’s your go-to quarantine album?

SL: Jessica Pratt’s self titled release is so good for times like these. When I got laid off of my dishwashing job, I just laid on my bed and listened to it all the way through like three times. Also not to be that guy, but King Krule’s new record, Man Alive! is the kind of underwater anguish I need right now. I also just love melodrama.

LG: Are there any spring shows that you were particularly looking forward to attending that got cancelled?

SL: Ha Ha! lol...so yeah. My best friend got me tickets to see AJJ for Christmas and it was supposed to be in March... I am so sad. High school me will have to wait a tad longer to see their favorite band.

LG: How do you think the Seattle music scene is going to shift post-COVID?

SL: Something I know in my gut is that there is more than one single scene in Seattle. It’s this living organism made of pockets of microscenes. So speaking for the limb I find myself in most often, I think we strangely needed the break. Needed a revitalization. Right now, artists are getting antsy and for a lot of them, this means new work or new motivation to get out of the house. So hopefully that means that we come back with new life. We might have the change to make something really cool here, if the world sticks around to see it. Idk maybe not.

LG: In this funky and isolating era of social distancing, how do you think artists can support each other? How do you think social media is facilitating and/or inhibiting connection within Seattle’s creative community?

SL: I have been supporting artists as much as I can, both physically and monetarily. If you can, buy a print off of Instagram or share a Bandcamp song. Tip a cam girl, share an artist’s work on your story. It’s about staying connected to each other for more than the cloudy “need to be seen” feeling that lurks in the undertones. Right now, social media is purely social for the first time in a while, and I am grateful to be around and be an artist in an era where a complete shut down of in-person experiences does not totally stop the art form being shared.

-Lola Gil

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rvantures · 5 years ago

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Welcome to RVanture

Thanks for tuning in! My name is Leslie and my boyfriend is Chris. We’re both 26 years old with a passion for experience. Our experiences have shaped the people we have grown into and the people we have grown to love both individually and as a couple. The opportunity to experience van life and all it has to offer is something we can’t even begin to describe with words. But we’re going to try!

Without further hesitation, here’s a little about me – Leslie. I like to describe myself as a maker, believer, and make-believe. My current role is as a copywriter for a pharmaceutical advertising company. I’ve always had a knack at storytelling and crafting creative content. I studied fashion merchandising and business at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. During my sophomore year I studied abroad in Paris, France. After graduating I went on to receive my masters degree in strategic design and innovation at Instituto Europeo Di Design in Madrid, Spain.

Chris describes himself as an avid concertgoer; for any type of live music. He studied communications and media studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He loves trying new foods, indulging in unique beers and learning about cultures different from his own. His well rounded personality and sense of humor is something I’ll never tire from.

During my time in Spain, Chris came over for 4 months to live with me in my small studio apartment to explore Europe. We decided early in that trip that travelling, exploring and experiencing were something we wanted to make a priority in our relationship.

We explored Spain through Madrid, Mallorca, Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, Salobrena, Toledo and El Escorial. We popped over to the United Kingdom and checked out London. From there we caught a flight to Italy where we tipped the tower in Pisa, found the secret bakery in Florence and swam in the crystal waters of Cinque Terre. We ended our exploration in Paris, France. It was there that I had the opportunity to show Chris where I had studied and teach him all of the unique things I had learned about the city. Moreover, we learned a lot about each other in those couple of months.

When we returned from Europe we started saving for our next big adventure – Reykjavik, Iceland. It was after Iceland that we decided we would save for at least 2 vacations a year, one outside of the US and one somewhere in the US.

Last August, while planning our US adventure, we stumbled upon a startup van rental company – Boho Vans, based in Phoenix, Arizona. We were captivated by the idea of joining the van life/tiny home movement for a week. We booked ‘Stevie’ for a 5-night trip through Phoenix, Tempe, Flagstaff, Page, Grand Canyon and Scottsdale and fell in love. We were living in a van with no toilette, shower or television and had an amazing experience. We had solar panels and were completely off grid. There was a liberating sense of relief and realization that we were in control of our experience. We could get up and go to the next spot whenever we wanted. It was that trip that sealed the deal for us. It was Stevie and Boho Vans who opened the floodgates in our search for the perfect van.

Post Arizona, Chris and I decided to start looking more seriously into buying our own van and converting it. As we kept our eyes peeled looking for the best rig, I stumbled upon an Instagram posting from @TheDareListFamily. They were selling their recently renovated RV, Valour. Chris and I immediately reached out and expressed our interest. After going back and forth via email, things started to get serious.

As you can imagine, we weren’t the only people interested in Valour the Van, so to differentiate ourselves from other prospective buyers, we wrote an adoption letter. This letter explained in depth the places we had been, the love we have for travel and one another and the future we had our minds set on, ultimately leading up to how we were the perfect fit for Valour.

We planned, researched and became invested in making this dream a reality. Eventually we received the official email, we were the chosen couple! We almost fell over. The only issue…they were located in Vancouver, Canada. A mere 3,017 miles (46 hour) drive away.

As this realization set in, along with figuring our vehicle emission regulations, safety standards, logistics on crossing the boarder, finances and a tight timeline, it became apparent we wouldn’t be able to make this work in a comfortable, timely way. We were devastated.

We had invested so much time and energy in trying to make this work – as far as we were concerned, in our minds, we already owned Valour and were part of #Vanlife. Having to shake the dream and wake up to reality was really difficult for us. In the midst of all of this we were gearing up to leave for Atlanta for vacation. It was on that trip that we decided come Memorial Day we would have a van in our possession.

Weeks went by and we searched high and low. Chris and my dad went on several 9+ hour long road trips of their own to check out different vans and RVs. Nothing seemed to fit our requirements. It wasn’t until mid-May when we saw a listing seemed too good to be true. We reached out with strong interest and made a deposit having never seen the 24-ft RV in person. We knew this was an experience and opportunity we couldn’t pass up – something just felt right.

The deposit was good for one week so the following weekend Chris and my dad took another long road trip, this time to Virginia to check out, and eventually purchase, what would soon be called our RVan.

Chris and I are excited to begin this journey to take RVan places we’ve never been and create endless memories and we’re stoked you’re following along!

#vanlife #rvliving #tinyhome

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