#do you know how many kendrick photos i almost lost???

[ridiculously-over-obsessed]

Just had an absolute heart attack because I've got a massive catalogue of cast pics and so many fics that are partly finished saved on my laptop and therefore saved onto my OneDrive (that I don't know how to disable but at least I can access them on my phone or tablet without having to keep emailing shit back and forth) and I went looking for something super specific to find that OneDrive had just randomly deleted SO MUCH of it???? Like half of my photos/moodboards, various wips and completed fics, all sorts of shit that I need that I definitely did not delete (lowkey kind of a digital hoarder but that's not the point).

I mean thank god they were still in the recycle bin and I could just restore them all and I'm 90% sure that I haven't permanently lost anything but fucking hell that was not what I needed today ddjlkfjgldfkg

[streamacademe]

Bonus post: Thesis writing.

This post will be a combination of tips and tricks I have received from numerous sources, with the majority coming from Shinton Consulting and STREAM IDC staff. 

The big T

If you’re anything like me, just the word ‘thesis’ can instill a sense of dread in me. However, the best way to deal with a phobia is to face it head on, so let’s do just that, both in a literal and metaphorical sense. 

What a thesis is and what to expect...

Writing a thesis could take anywhere between four weeks to a whole year, and sometimes even longer! The worst thing you can do is compare your progress to that of others; setting a benchmark is one thing, but beating yourself into a panicked pulp because you haven’t written as many chapters as a fellow PhD/EngD won’t do you any good. The best thing you can do is have regular discussions with your supervisors on how long your thesis will take and plan accordingly. 🕖

Your thesis has to be fit for purpose (that is to pass), which means that it has to:

Satisfy the expectations of your institution and industry sponsor (if applicable).

How did you solve the problem that was proposed to you?

Contain material which presents a unified body of work that could reasonably be achieved on the basis of three years’ postgraduate study and research.

Show you have done the work and impress your examiners.

Allow your examiners to confirm that the thesis is an original work, which makes a significant contribution to the field, including material worthy of publication.

Research your examiners and quote them where possible, especially if they’re relevant to your field.

Show adequate knowledge of the field of study and relevant literature. 

Make sure you read all of the key papers in your field. 

What were the gaps in knowledge?

The ‘references’ section is very important as this sets the scene and examiners will read this. BUT, don’t have too many references. 

Demonstrate critical judgement with regard to both the candidate’s work and that of other scholars in the same general field.

Compare approaches and conclusions of others.

Note potential conflicts of interest.

Why did you use this method/approach?

Is your interpretation the only possible explanation?

Be presented in a clear, consistent, concise, and accessible format. 

Make your examiners lives easier. 

Make your viva as pleasant as can be!

Basically, you need to know why your project was important, be able to explain the key work that has already been done in the area and how it relates to your research aim. You should then be able to explain what you have done during your research and how this contributes to your field. 

Note: Keep checking university regulations! Each university should have their own code of practice for supervisors and research students, which will look something like this. 

Picture: A short summary of the above. Source: Tumblr.

Planning and writing

I’m not going to lie to you, it is not going to be easy. I have only just embarked on the journey myself and am already overwhelmed. However, with the right preparation, coping mechanisms in place, and a tremendous amount of self-discipline, we will get through. ☕

Getting started

You need to practice writing. That’s as simple as advice gets. 

You need to practice reading other PhD/EngD theses, mainly to understand what to expect, and to experience what being the audience for a thesis is like. 

Create a thesis plan... 

To start the mammoth task that is thesis writing, it needs to be fully understood and broken down into manageable chunks.

Make a plan (perhaps based on the table of contents of another thesis) of all the sections and chapters in the thesis.

Then break these into sections and keep breaking it down until you are almost at the paragraph level.

Now you can start writing!

Where to start the actual writing?

Start with the most comfortable chapter, such as a previously published paper, a set of results that are straightforward and can be easily explained, methodology/methods, etc. 

Create a storyboard for your thesis and write as if you are telling that story.

If you’re not sure what comes next, refer to previous theses and back to your plan and storyboard. 

Be ready to amend the plan for future chapters as each is completed and you become more aware of what the thesis must contain.

Remember: THINKING IS HARD, WRITING IS EASIER. 💭

Organisation

Develop and maintain a logical filing system.

Improve your back up technique; if it’s not saved in 3+ locations, it is not safely backed up.

Back up every day.

Never overwrite previous documents, just make many versions. It’s not worth the risk of losing a valuable piece of work from a copy and paste error.

Copy any key parts from your lab/note/field books as these can get lost/damaged.

Keep a file/folder of thoughts, references, etc. that you are not including in your thesis; these may be useful to refer back to for ideas and information.

Effective writing

Establish a routine, don’t be distracted, take breaks.

Set clear and realistic goals for each week/day. 

A GANTT chart is very good for this; use it to keep on track and measure progress.

You just gotta start. The hardest part is the beginning.

Don’t stall on details, walk away for a short break to clear your mind.

Get formatting correct from the start (check your code of practice/regulations).

Be consistent with references.

Seek help from the experts - supervisors, postdocs, online sources/training programmes etc.

Create SMART objectives for your writing process:

Specific - e.g. “I will complete chapter 3/collate all diagrams” rather than “I will make good progress”.

Measurable - e.g. “I will write 4 pages today” not “I will try to write as much as I can”.

Achievable - e.g. “I will complete the first draft for my supervisor” not “I will get it perfect before he/she sees it”.

Realistic - e.g. “I will complete the introduction today” not “I will complete a chapter a week”.

Time - it can be useful to set yourself deadlines e.g. tell your supervisor you will hand in a draft on a certain day - that way you are sure to have it done.

Finally, find a balance between being tough with yourself whilst protecting your well-being the best you can. I wrote a post a little while ago that covers managing your mental health during a PhD. Read it here. 

GIF: Anna Kendrick dishing out some top advice. Source: Tumblr.

A few more tips

Supervisor management

Establish what you want to cover in each meeting.

Keep a record of the outcomes and actions from those meetings.

Make your supervisors lives easy; they’re very busy humans.

They are unlikely to judge work unless it is presented completely (i.e. fully written with tables, figures, etc.).

Give them a neat, complete version of a chapter at a time (proof-read thoroughly and spell-checked).

It is in your supervisors interest for you to complete in good time; they are experts and will offer a lot of support.

To summarise, a good thesis:

Has an appreciation of what came before.

Focuses on the interesting and important.

Is well reasoned.

Will change the way people think.

Will teach your supervisors something. 

Has publishable results.

Is logical in presentation, analysis, and arguments.

Is well illustrated with tables, figures, graphs, summary flow charts etc.

It is worth spending a lot of time on these. 

Is written without grammatical and spelling errors.

Has an appreciation of what comes next.

I hope that the above was helpful! There are many resources out there, so get exploring if you need more advice!

I’ll soon be writing a post on how to survive your viva! So, watch this space. ✨

Photo: Make this your phone/desktop/laptop/everything background when you’re writing, I know I will! Source: Tumblr.

[shaunfloyd-blog]

a list of hikers;

i just left namibia. what a sad thing to say. my attachment to this country is more deeply rooted than ‘it was a cool country, i saw lots of epic landscapes and lions and shit’. people define a country more than anything else and it is the culturally diverse people of namibia who made my experience unforgettable. haha man that’s cheesy, but it’s what i’m saying.

in namibia, and perhaps all of southern africa it is very common for people to hitch hike, more commonly known as hiking. now, i have a car. in it is two vacant seats. it would be pretty inconsiderate to drive past people walking along the road, kilometers from any signs of life, so i picked up a few. here are their stories. (if i was worth my salt i would have photos of each of their faces but all i can offer is my words. and this irrelevant photo of the car with elephants walking by. sorry).

Unknown #1: a short, timid Damara kid got a ride with me along the way to Hoada Community Campsite. he wrung the hell out of his floppy hat the whole journey but was vibing when i put Kendrick on.

Robby: legend. favourite namibian. father of 5 plus or minus 3. super intelligent and well-travelled for a Herero growing up in tiny, rural Warmquelle (he was the youngest to start schooling when the school opened, at 7 years old). i picked him up on the 4x4 track to ongongo falls and along the way he explained the corruption behind the ‘community camp’. none of the absurdly priced N$500 nightly camping fee goes to the community, instead landing in some rich businessman’s lap in windhoek. to combat this and attempt to maintain trust in tourists visiting the area he started his own campsite right next door. also, him and a colleague published a book of original poems capturing Herero traditions, in the hope that what is written will not be forgotten.

Unknown #2: Herero teen and his mother jumped in as robby jumped out. the mother didn’t speak english so she didn’t speak. the son was drunk so he spoke excitedly but mostly incoherent. when we arrived at their small farm (~5 cows, <20 goats) i was introduced to the rest of the family who remained seated in the shade of their mud hut. i was told that i could take photos but the family didn’t look impressed to see me there so i left. the boy asked for money for beer and i said no.

Herero Schoolkids: i honestly don’t know how many kids squeezed into my two spare seats but it was at least 7. out of bushes and huts they ran screaming and giggling into the car, and didn’t stop for almost the whole journey. each time everyone was silent for a minute they would burst out in laughter, humoured by the silence. i took their photo on my film camera and the eldest asked urgently for a copy so i took down their school address and intend to send one from malawi. i don’t think they liked my music. i dropped them in opuwo.

Rejection #1: a Herero mother looked deep into my eyes and mistook my tired, sun-affected watery eyes for drunkenness. her daughter translated “you can go”. i translated further to “keep driving creep”.

Young Punk: he had a short mohawk. i drove him 1km up the road to a shebeen.

Rejection #2: a woman waved me down, squinted at me, then walked away.

Themba Boy: my friend. mentioned in my previous post. i drove him back to reception where his mum was.

Himba Couple: outside the hippo pools campgrounds a Himba couple approached and enquired “Ruacana?” and i responded with a thumbs up. this couple could’ve been royalty. the man was handsome and well-dressed in vibrantly patterned modern-africa-man attire. the woman was tall, lean and radiant from having a newborn child. she moved with confidence and grace, except when she had to get in and out of the car (their traditional jewellery is not designed for this). i mentioned before that they didn’t speak english so we didn’t talk much. my eyes were repeatedly drawn to hers in the rear-view mirror. they were beautiful, but more striking was the calm and knowing look within them. i dropped them at a government building in town which i could only assume is where they collect an allowance. the spell under which they had put me burst.

Junior: the young son of the Ovambo caretaker for the Ondangwa missionary accompanied me to town. his big eyes bulged out of his head, giving the impression of constant curiosity. i tried to start a conversation but each question was combated with a conclusive ‘yes’. he only spoke otherwise when we needed to turn or when we went passed his school. there were around 40 elderly people waiting at the post office for income from family, usually working in windhoek. it was too hot to deal with the stares confronting me so we left and went to pick n pay to sit in the air conditioning. those big expectant eyes and swinging legs, along with more stares from customers made it impossible to relax so i bought the kid his first ever kinder special and drove back to the missionary.

Mistikal Rapper: i was beginning to feel a little guilty, having passed a few people without stopping so when i saw a smiling man hailing me down i skidded to a stop. he was waiting outside a Kavango village of 50-100 people, dressed smartly in an ironed white shirt and dress pants, and accompanied by a suitcase. he spoke ethusiastically. he was on his way to renew his passport in Ondangwa so that he could take a trip to south africa. his original plan was to go next month but as a business owner, it didn’t make sense to leave during ‘money month’. Ovambos from the city migrate home in december to holiday with their families so spending goes up. instead he will go next year some time when business is quiet. i asked about his business and he responded with a brief of his life, as people tend to do here. after schooling he had moved to windhoek, ‘became a rasta’ (this isn’t the first i’ve heard of rasta culture in namibia), and started a reggae band. a few years later his uncle offered him work helping to run a store in his home village so he returned. him and his uncle didn’t agree on business matters so he started his own, and he now owns two ‘corner store’ style shops selling newspapers, tobacco etc. he still plays music and is about to record a second song which he is excited about because his message will reach more people. a message, i gathered, of one people, without tribalism or racism.

Maria: as Mystical Rapper got out of the car, expressing gratitude for having started his day with meeting me, a young Kavango woman with concern contorting her face, nervously asked for a free ride to Nkurenkuru, 153km down the road, because, y’see she had no money because her uncle had sent her some but the postal system had failed so she had no money and could she please ride for free. “yeah, it’s fine” i replied casually. “thank you so so much” as she got in. she spoke awkwardly of her uncle’s guesthouse where she worked as a kitchenhand, cooking mostly traditional meals of meat and pap. the conversation soon died and she napped for some time, waking to scold a couple we picked up along the way who weren’t gonna pay which is fine with me but no they must pay. haha hypocrite. before i dropped her off she showed me where to get a nice lunch at ‘Smart Bar’ and took me to the Kavango River where half a dozen big black people happened to be bathing naked. a grand procession was taking place in front of her uncle’s guesthouse, to celebrate the president coming to speak. to fill you in, the one and only SWAPO party has lost confidence in their leader and the senate is to vote on a new one. this is dividing the party for the first time since independence in 1990, it seems.

Michael: the young man was genuinely stoked to be given a lift 2 km to Nkurenkuru town, showing his gratitude with a long handshake and an exchange of names.

Unknown #3: she was finishing her final year of studying education at rundu, 100km from her home village. i had seen more of namibia than she had. she hadn’t been to windhoek but hoped to move there after first working at a school near her village for a few years. her family has cattle, goats and sheep. they fish from the river and once relied on it to bathe and collect water but now there is a tare which makes it expensive. her brother has a VW golf which she hopes to learn to drive in but he is usually busy working as a police officer. this girl had a healthy level of skepticism about me and wouldn’t let me drop her where she was staying. this i understand. guys are often creepy here.

Chubby Girl: the young lady needed a ride to the next town to go to the hospital. she never said why. she carried with her a bucket with a lid on it. i asked what was in the bucket and she said ‘porridge’, meaning the mealie pap. her eyes smiled with wisdom beyond her years.

[closetofanxiety]

Show Review: NXTAmherst

(They didn’t allow photography inside the show so here’s a picture of Amherst people doing their favorite thing, holding signs and chanting)

Hey! While you folks were watching CORPORATE WWE’S NO MERCY PPV, I was living it up indie-style! Er, corporate indie style. Along with my friends Mark and Mike, I went to see an NXT house show in Amherst, Massachusetts, where I lived from 2000 to 2002. How would the residents of this famous bastion of liberalism take to the grappling action of NXT? What kind of superstars would make the journey to the Pioneer Valley? How many people would we see who we previously saw wrestle in dive bars? LET’S TAKE A LOOK:

What: NXTAmherst, the last stop on a brief tour of the northeast

When: Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: The Mullins Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Who: A very, very small crowd. I’d be surprised if there were 600 people in attendance. I have definitely been to bigger indie shows.

Show Notes: Mark brought his camera along to the show, which he’s done at previous NXT and WWE house shows. NOT THIS TIME, PAL. We were informed at the door that “absolutely no photography” would be permitted inside. “Ya gotta keep your cell phones in your pocket,” the guy told us. What gives, Triple H? ARE YOU BANNING PHOTOGRAPHY BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT PEOPLE TO SEE THE EMPTY SEATS? Whatever the reason, we had to walk back to the car, deposit the camera, and then walk back to the Mullins Center, a cavernous basketball arena that they had cut in half for the show. Even then, it looked deserted. When we finally got inside, they told us we had “qualified for free upgrades,” and went from sitting in the stands to chairs in the sixth row back from the ring. They moved nearly everyone onto the floor because there were so few people. Amherst: not fertile ground for the NXT Xperience.

The Street Profits (Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins) vs. Tino Sabbatelli and Riddick Moss

The show started, as WWE shows do, with the national anthem, something people in the Pioneer Valley are not used to. Especially considering the hoopla over NFL players declining to stand for the anthem yesterday. When the ring announcer asked us to stand and remove our hats for the national anthem, a guy in front of me said, “Oh, what the fuck,” while someone else said “We should all take a knee.” This is not talk radio country, is what I’m saying.

Anyway, the match. A perfectly fine wrestling match. You could, if you were so inclined, hold this up as an example of wrestling to someone who’s never seen it: the babyfaces were fired up, the heels were shitty and cheated, the crowd lustily cheered the good guys and booed the bad guys. Montez Ford in particular looked fantastic in his dual role as face-in-peril and high-flying action man. Sabbatelli and Moss are a little generic for my liking, and I have to admit I hate the Street Profits’ gimmick. Hey, they’re black guys from the mean streets, and they’re about to GET FUNKAY. How many black wrestlers in the WWE have never had to dance as part of their gimmick, at least a little bit?

Good match, though. Street Profits win.

Rating: Three Banned Cameras.

Oney Lorcan vs. Lars Sullivan

I haven’t been watching NXT regularly, or any WWE TV regularly, so I’m not hip to this Lars Sullivan cat. In the 1980s he would have been a guy on one of those knockoff Road Warriors teams, kind of a random big dude, probably with face paint and a name like Havoc Crash or something. 

But it’s 2017, and he’s just a very big dude without face paint or a cool name, who does a gorilla press slam and avalanches in the corner and that’s kind of it. Oney made Sullivan look like a monster by bumping like a lunatic, though. At one point, Sullivan lifted Oney over his head and threw him, hard, into the ring post while they were brawling on the floor outside the ring. It was crazy! 

Short match, not a lot from Sullivan, but Oney worked hard. I feel like Oney is going to be the Sami Callihan of 2018: the guy who NXT Just Didn’t Get, and who comes out for an insanely good sprint through the indies. Hard to imagine Oney wearing a cat mask, though. 

Rating: Two and a half Banned Cameras.

The Iconic Duo (Billie Kay and Peyton Royce) vs. Dakota Kai and Kairi Sane

Pretty stoked for this! I did not realize we were going to get to see Kairi Sane and Dakota Kai in person. 

I run hot and cold on Billie Kay and Peyton Royce. I’ve liked some of the stuff they do, but their mean girls shtick is running a little thin for me. Not for a guy sitting to my left, though. “Peyton Royce, that’s my girl! I love you! I love you, boo! Come to my house!” I bet that works, buddy. I bet she comes over to your house after the show. Congratulations on your pending nuptials to Peyton Royce.

(btw I can’t tell Peyton Royce and Billie Kay apart, they’re like the new Make and Blurphy)

This was OK! Dakota Kai played face-in-peril, suffering from the dastardly antics of the Iconic Duo. We didn’t really get to see her do much of the stuff she can do, and we saw about 15 percent of what Kairi is capable. I mean, it’s a tag match in front of 500 people, I don’t expect them to have a nine-star classic. 

We got to see the diving elbow, which was great. The “walk the plank” thing is much more OK in person than on TV. I kind of hate it on TV. I realize that’s heresy. Just call me John Wycliffe, baby.

Rating: Three and a half Banned Cameras.

Hideo Itami vs. Roderick Strong

There’s no one in NXT I feel worse for than Hideo Itami. He couldn’t have been Nakamura, because he didn’t have that kind of superstar vibe, but he could have been Asuka: a relentless engine of pure ass-kicking. Those two major injuries, though, have probably foreclosed on any chance he ever had of being a contender, or even of making it to the main roster.

He’s still good, though, and this was a good, stiff, nasty match between two dudes who can really get filthy. Strong was firmly in his Mr. ROH nice guy role, which was fine, because Itami was a sadist. Just like with Kairi and Dakota, there was the sense we were only getting a small portion of what these guys can do, but they did it well.

This was the only match for which the crowd was “indie-style,” I guess, in the sense that they cheered for the clear heel, Itami, as well as the face. Getting people to dislike you in pro wrestling has become one of the hardest things. Everyone should study Maxwell Jacob Friedman, the guy is a master at it.

Rating: Three Banned Cameras.

SAnitY (Eric Young, Killian Dain, Alexander Wolfe) vs. The Undisputed Era (Adam Cole BAYBABY, Bobby Fish, Kyle O’Reilly)

What is SAnitY’s gimmick? Like, what are they? I had to answer this question because a guy sitting next to me, not a big wrestling fan but there with his young son, was baffled by them.

“What are they supposed to be?” he asked.

And then I realized, I don’t know. They are ... man, I don’t know.

“Are they, like, actors in a play?”

I almost laughed at first, but wait: that’s kind of perfect.

Whatever they are, they were wrestling the ROH Outsiders. Listen, I like those three guys a lot, but there were points during this match when I started to understand Vince’s point about indie wrestlers being small. I don’t think of Eric Young as a big guy, but next to each member of UE, he looked huge. Taller by a few inches, sure, but also just a much bigger frame, more muscle. 

And if EY looked big, Alexander Wolfe and Killian Dain looked like fuggin’ giants compared to reDRagon and Adam Cole. Fortunately, Adam Cole has an insane amount of charisma (the kind of thing You Can’t Teach) and Bobby and Rilo Kiley are skilled workers.

They mostly bumped around for the Actors in a Play. I haven’t seen much of NXT lately, as I mentioned, so I didn’t realize that (a) SAnitY are good now, and (b) the Ring of Honor guys are ... what, exactly? 

At times during the match it seemed like they were classic shitheel cheaters brutally imposing their will on the hapless babyfaces, and then would abruptly switch to being cowardly pussies getting their asses handed to them. Kind of odd booking here.

The match ended with Undisputed Era taking a deliberate countout, which isn’t bad, really. The crowd hated it, but it made sense, given the idea that these are dudes who Don’t Give a Rip about playing by the rules.

Rating: Two and a half Banned Cameras.

INTERMISSION

Mike and Mark walked the concourse while I stayed at my seat and surreptitiously looked at my phone. So intense was the No Photos edict that I had seen Mullins Center event staff approaching people and forcing them to delete pictures they had taken. But I got a phone call during the first half of the show and wanted to see what that was. Also, I am a rebel without a cause:

EFF YOU HUNTER, I DID A PHOTOGRAPHY WHEN YOU SAID NO ONE COULD DO A PHOTOGRAPHY

Back to the show:

Johnny Gargano vs. Raul Mendoza

Match of the Night right here folks. Raul Mendoza came out to crickets, followed by a “Who are you?” chant. He was in the Cruiserweight Classic and lost to Brian Kendrick in the first round, but I had to google that. I had no memory of this nondescript-looking cat. This looked to be a squash match for Johnny Wrestling.

BUT HOLD THE PHONE, MABEL. Raul Mendoza can fucking GO. He put on a clinic, busting out high-flying lucha libre moves, countering Johnny’s offence, using the ropes like he was born amongst them. And he did all this while being kind of a chubby dude, hence one of my favorite types of wrestlers: shockingly agile, but with love handles.

Halfway through the match, the crowd totally turned, and was chanting “MEN-DO-ZA! MEN-DO-ZA!” Gargano also looked great here, to give the man his due. That spear from the apron he hits looks so much better in person, especially from six rows back. I thought he broke Mendoza’s ribs when he it.

Ultimately, Johnny won with the GargaNo Escape, but classily let Mendoza have the ring, as chants rained down on him. If this had been an indie show, we would have been chanting “Please come back! Please come back!” So good. I want to see more Raul Mendoza! I got a fever, and the only cure is a strong dose of Vitamin Mendoza!

Rating: Four Banned Cameras.

Sonya Deville vs. Liv Morgan

The cool down match. Sonya Deville has an MMA gimmick, Liv Morgan has a Carmella gimmick. This could have been a lot shorter. Deville is impressive looking, physically, and Morgan needs work. A Deville squash would not have been out of order. The highlight of this match for me was that Mike was pretty well in his cups by this point, and he was very, VERY pro-Liv. He was upset when she tapped to a triangle choke.

Rating: Two Banned Cameras.

NXT Championship Match: Drew McIntyre (champeen) vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas

I have tired of Drew McIntyre in what may be record time. When he came to NXT at WrestleMania week, trailing intrigue from EVOLVE and TNA, I was like, “Hmm, OK, I’m engaged.” And then he had a hot-as-heck match with Oney Lorcan and I was all YES I am Ready for Drew McIntyre. And since then, eh. I don’t know. The win over Roode felt blandly predictable. Not a lot of juice in that feud. And now you have a noble babyface champion in the grand WWF/E mold, which is to say, he’s boring and without a discernible character.

Almas is Almas. Or maybe he’s La Sombra, as three guys in Bullet Club shirts sitting near us kept chanting, along with random shouts of “tranquilo!” We get it, guys. You are knowledgeable fans who know the real score. They also called Killian Dain “Big Damo,” Dakota Kai “Evie,” yelling out “Drake Younger!” at the former CZW man who is now a referee, etc.

Twenty years ago, an NWO shirt was a sure sign that someone was a casual wrestling fan, the kind of person scorned by the hardcore crowd at ECW shows. Today, a Bullet Club shirt is usually a signifier of the opposite: this is a person who is going to tell you how “KENTA” was so much better in his matches against “Dragon,” oh wait, sorry, you probably know him as “Daniel Bryan.” 

Another crowd thing: people love doing that “One-Two-SWEEEET” thing during a two-count. Little kids were doing it, who hopefully haven’t been corrupted by Wrestling Twitter yet. It’s just a fun thing for kids. That’s fine. Kids can shout whatever they want at wrestling shows. Everyone else, though: stop doing this.

Anyway, this match was boring. There was never any sense that Almas could actually win this thing, so there was no drama. Both guys worked hard, though. After the match, Undisputed Era ran out and beat on Galloway. Babyface after babyface ran to the ring to help, only to get beat down themselves. It started to feel like one of those PWG shows where Super Dragon and the Young Bucks beat up everyone on the roster. Then SAnitY came out and beat the hell out of Undisputed Era. Then everyone else beat the hell out of Undisputed Era. Then Undisputed Era left, because they got beat up so badly. It was 8 vs 3, and they lost. WWE has a weird way of making heels sympathetic underdogs. It says a lot about greed-swollen psychopath Vince McMahon.

Rating: Two Banned Cameras.

[buzzfeedreader]

Jonathan Leibson / Getty Images

SZA’s Ctrl is a black girl’s Tumblr come to melodic, vibrant life.

SZA, who is 26 years old and grew up in New Jersey, is speaking in a specific vernacular that will be familiar to black women who spend chunks of their time in certain corners of the internet. It is apparent right from the opening song, "Supermodel," which begins with a recording of the singer’s mother speaking on the grand theme of the record (“That is my greatest fear. That if, if I lost control or did not have control, things would just, you know. I would be be...fatal”). It’s not that the lyrics come in the form of some impenetrable fancy language, necessarily — it is standard (African-)American English, after all — it is the attitude with which she throws out the lyrics that catches the ear, and then makes the words linger on the mind.

When she plaintively sings “Why can’t I stay alone just by myself / wish I was comfortable just with myself” on that opener, for example, you can almost taste the minimalist Tumblr theme; if you close your eyes you can picture an ironic Blingee lighting up on a loop behind your eyelids. Ctrl is covering much of the ground that fills my own dashboard up every single day, the hundreds of posts that essentially boil down to a quest for self-determination — self-determination in a world that seems hell-bent on pushing us into predesignated roles and situations. And that is expressed in pithy but heartfelt text posts about black girl magic in all its forms, mood boards and videos of hair and fashion inspiration, and the men and women we fancy and love, alongside photo sets and GIF sets of nostalgia-nourished TV shows and age-relevant quotes about life and love and self-care. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that SZA was for a good long time an active Tumblr user (I have followed her on there for years). Even now, via her million-follower Instagram, her preferred platform these days, SZA is still doing much of what her Tumblr used to do (minus the direct contact afforded by her Ask box). Last month she posted a screenshot of a Tumblr post about awkward flirting with the caption: “who dragged me like this?��

SZA’s reputation has been building for years via a couple of well-received EPs, See.SZA.Run and S, and her first studio album Z. In 2013, she signed with indie label Top Dawg Entertainment, the home of Kendrick Lamar and the rest of the Black Hippy crew — the first woman to do so. Three years later, she appeared on and co-wrote Rihanna’s opening Anti track, “Consideration.” Collaborating with the likes of Jill Scott and Chance the Rapper, she’s been making atmospheric, lush, and moody R&B that is as much throwback as it is forward-looking, and it is a combination that has made listeners consider her a safe pair of hands (3.9 million monthly listeners on Spotify is no small feat, after all) — the evidence of which lies in her label’s ease with releasing Ctrl in the same week as Katy Perry’s latest.

Music like SZA’s found its first home on Black Girl Tumblr. Or, at the very least, gained loyal followings there. Artists like SZA, H.E.R., Jennah Bell, Jhené Aiko, and so on were the much-cherished discoveries of like-minded girls and young women who were also yearning for their own reflection to come back undistorted. And so perhaps it is inevitable and fitting that listening to SZA’s Ctrl often feels like reading a series of all lowercase, punctuation-free Tumblr text posts. Those posts are often telling a version of the truth, comically bemused but with an arched eyebrow. SZA is earnest, yes, but that doesn’t mean her eyebrow isn’t raised throughout Ctrl.

You can almost hear that eyebrow creak upward on "Garden (Say It Like Dat)” in which she sings engagingly about self-doubt and anxiety: “Lie to me and say / my booty gettin’ bigger even if it ain’t” is a funny, relatable lyric. And even before she expands it into something more plainly stated, it carries undertones of a little sort of sadness. The latter half of this second-verse lyric, for example, is tongue in cheek and on the nose: “I know you'd rather be laid up with a big booty / body hella positive ‘cause she got a big booty” (her ad-lib — an incredulous “wow” — is pitch-perfect). But then the emotion pinballs quickly again with the quiet admission that comes by verse’s end: “You know I'm sensitive ‘bout havin' no booty / havin' no body / only you, buddy / can you / hold me when nobody’s around us?”

In many ways SZA is singing about the things we have come to expect from our indie-slash-folksy white female singer-songwriters, but what Ctrl is delivering comes as experienced and reported through a firmly black girl lens. Like another young musician who has developed an ardent following, British singer-songwriter Nao, SZA makes pop that's sincere — almost painfully so — but she is also playful and smart and funny. Even when she is not in control (of her gravity, of her ex, of the size of her booty), she’s still "finding herself" while remaining refreshingly self-aware — she knows who she is and roughly where she wants to end up. I thought a lot about Nao’s For All We Know while listening to Ctrl and had a clear thought: Where Nao’s constructions sound something akin to black girl church, SZA sounds like the aftermath of a black girl night out (one in which you might have found yourself crying in the club). It perfectly encapsulates that keyed-up post-club, pre-sleep 3 a.m. feeling when feelings are close to the surface.

There is also a firmness in SZA’s persona on this record, best exemplified by her grandmother’s short, spirited interlude at the end “Love Galore”, addressing SZA by her given name, Solána Imani Rowe: “But see, Solána? If you don’t say something, speak up for yourself, they think you stupid. You know what I’m saying?” It’s a nod and a wink to the listener. SZA knows who’s listening, and who that message is for. Another noteworthy and matter-of-fact exemplification comes straight out the gate on “Doves in the Wind”: “Real niggas do not deserve pussy.” Which is self-explanatory.

On “The Weekend,” a soon-to-be sidepiece classic, SZA is funny: “My man is my man is your man / heard it’s her man too,” she coos dismissively before telling her paramour to make sure he’s at her place “by 10:30 / no later than / drop them drawers / give me what I want.” And on “Drew Barrymore” (a geniusly titled song, effortlessly conjuring as it does images of '90s teen rom-coms and coded norms of suburban insecurity and acceptance), she is sharp: “I’m sorry you got karma comin’ to you.” When she sings wistfully about the titular character from 1994 film Forrest Gump (first in cinemas when she was 4), SZA’s being cute but also serious — imagine a world in which pussy was given to only deserving men! “Where's Forrest now when you need him?” she intones almost solemnly on "Doves in the Wind.” “Talk to me.”

The dip into the '90s oeuvre of Robert Zemeckis notwithstanding, Ctrl is very much of the now. Even with its dizzying array of producers, the entire record sounds cohesively and fluently like 2017: Peep the references to Netflix show Narcos (which also got a shoutout on Stormzy’s 2017 LP Gang Signs and Prayer) or the aforementioned “body positive” (a term whose overuse has given it an unearned negative reputation on Tumblr and beyond). On “Normal Girl,” SZA borrows liberally from Drake’s 2016 single “Controlla” (“You like it / when I be / aggressive”). Even the nostalgic TV Ctrl harks back to is curiously very current again: that period in the '90s that young people have rediscovered and which they quote liberally from, thanks to streaming. SZA refers to comedy sketch show MadTV on “Doves in the Wind,” and on “Go Gina” she uses one of Martin Lawrence’s catchphrases from his sitcom Martin.

Ctrl is a mishmash of so many influences, which will continue to reveal themselves as it beds in with listeners. Its pop DNA is evident in its many catchy hooks and choruses (“Prom” sounds like a 2017 update of Gwen Stefani’s “Cool,” for example), and her guest stars — Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott, James Fauntleroy, Isaiah Rashad — add weight but are never overwhelming. SZA has an ear for what is aurally pleasing and commercial: Upon my third listen to the record, I was struck by how happily pretty much every song would sit on the soundtrack of a teen show (won’t someone invite her to score a black girl coming-of-age movie, please?).

What sells the record best, though, is SZA’s own conviction. Like the black girls who live their multi-adjectived lives on Tumblr, she is the best chronicler of her own life. It’s an expansion of self-identity that stretches beyond Strong Black Woman (which is not entirely discarded as one facet) and travels into the territory we have always known was in us. SZA’s music is vulnerable and sweet, self-questioning and self-affirming, all at the same time, in a way that is performative, yes — but also intimate and tender. It is a snapshot of one 26-year-old’s life right now, much like all those Tumblrs are moments in amber. Ctrl feels “Dear Diary” real, which is to say it is Black Girl Tumblr writ large. Control, in all avenues, is the defining characteristic, and it is powerful. “I belong to nobody / hope it don’t bother you / you can mind your business / I belong to nobody” SZA sings on “Go Gina.”

Listening to Ctrl, you don’t doubt it.

—Bim Adewunmi on SZA’s new album

[jimn]

get to know the blogger/bts would you rather questions thing~~~~

i was tagged by the lovely @jnghobi thank u so much because i love doing these things

i’ll tag @parkesjimin @lesbianblossomjimin @minyoongihoseok @cinnamonsugas and @itsjinmin (as always if you don’t want to do this, no pressure)

get to know me:

nicknames: toni (that’s it i don’t have any cool nicknames)

gender: she/her

star sign: cancer

height: 5′5″

time: 12:49 am

birthday: july 6th

favorite bands: the national (it’s sad dad rock by sad dads for sad dads and i love them), bts (obviously), fall out boy, my chemical romance, system of a down, 

favorite solo artists: kendrick lamar, lorde, troye sivan, frank ocean, childish gambino, jay park, kahlid, the weeknd

song stuck in my head: shut me up - mindless self indulgence (an oldie but a goodie) 

last movie watched: baby driver (WATCH IT YOU WON’T BE DISAPPOINTED)

last show watched: the rachel maddow show (i would take a bullet for that woman)

when did i create my blog: 2012 but we don’t talk about that time

what do i post: bts… so much bts.

last thing i googled: ‘heart eyes emoji’

do you have any other blogs: i have a jikook sideblog @flowerjungkook a yoongi sideblog @yoongi093 and a hobi sideblog @hooseok

do you get asks: sometimes. i love getting asks

why did you choose your url: BECAUSE I WANT PARK JIMIN TO BE SAFE AND CARED FOR ALWAYS. so safejimin was a good fit lmao

following: 439

followers: 2742 (i used to have almost 5k during my s/pn days, but lost a lot of followers when i turned anime blog, then kpop)

favorite colors: grey

average hours of sleep: lmao nothing is constant

lucky number: i don’t really have one, but i write !!! and ??? and emojis in groups of 3 so that might count

instruments: violin when i was a kid but idk anymore

what am i wearing: an oversized tshirt bc it’s ass o’clock here rn

how many blankets i sleep with: 0 in the summer bc i live in the desert. there’s a cactus outside my window

dream job: writer or political commentator 

dream trip: london

favorite food: stuffed artichokes

nationality: american

favorite song rn: sometimes i want 2 die - blackbear

bts would you rather:

build a snowman with taehyung OR have a snowball fight with hoseok

get coffee with yoongi (the dream tbh) OR get ice cream with yoongi

go to the cinema with jimin OR the amusement park with jungkook

do a dance cover with hoseok OR sing a duet with jin

kiss namjoon OR cuddle yoongi (literal dream right here)

babysit with jimin (i would brave children just to spend time with him) OR dogsit with taehyung 

meet hoseok’s family OR have taehyung meet your family

film a commercial with hoseok OR film a sketch with taehyung

hug jimin OR hold hands with jungkook

go to paris with jin OR to london with yoongi (dream trip with the dream boy)

film a drama with jin OR do a photo shoot with namjoon

attend an award show with namjoon OR wear couple t-shirts at the airport with jungkook (the only way i’d wear a couple’s shirt would be if i was in a coffin and somebody put it on me after i died and i’d fucking haunt their asses)

spend a lazy day with yoongi OR explore a city with hoseok (BOTH)

fall asleep next to jimin OR wake up next to jungkook 

have a fun picnic with hoseok OR a fancy date with jin 

have jungkook serenade you OR have taehyung sing you to sleep

have a dance party with hoseok OR sing karaoke with yoongi 

go camping with jimin and tae OR go to the beach with namjoon and yoongi

have a sleepover with the hyung line OR a birthday party with the maknae line (ot7 party time)

celebrate halloween with jungkook, yoongi, tae, and hoseok OR christmas with namjoon, jimin and jin 

[latestnews2018-blog]

Florence Welch puts herself out there in ‘High as Hope’

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/florence-welch-puts-herself-out-there-in-high-as-hope/

Florence Welch puts herself out there in ‘High as Hope’

The 31-year-old singer says she’s made herself more vulnerable and is ready to showcase her self-acceptance in her latest album with her band

Florence Welch, of Florence and the Machine, in Manhattan, May 11, 2018. Even for an artist who makes anthems out of the confessional, the upcoming album “High as Hope” represents a new openness, and a new confidence. “It was a very physical record,” she said, “very tactile. Really, the thrill of making a sound has never left me.” (Kathy Lo/The New York Times)

The day that Florence Welch got “Always Lonely” tattooed in blocky print on her left arm, she was not lonely at all. She had spent a blissful day traipsing around New York with a close friend, visiting bookstores, savouring ice creams and coffee, feeling enamoured and alive with the city’s possibilities. She wrote a poem about it, “New York Poem (for Polly),” which contained a line that became the title of the fourth Florence and the Machine album, High as Hope:

Heady with pagan worship

of water towers

fire escapes, ever reaching

high as hope.

And yet there she was, in an East Village tattoo shop, getting that sad phrase inked on her body while her friend (Polly) looked on. Welch, the effervescent leader and songwriter of the British rock band Florence and the Machine, has made a speciality of wringing joy from despair, so she did not think twice about exposing her loneliness.

“I thought that I would just cement it,” she said, “because maybe if I just had it on there, I could own it somehow, make it a part of myself, or embrace that part that I find difficult.”

Welch, 31, is lately very ready to showcase her self-acceptance. Her New York poem is collected in Useless Magic, a book of her lyrics, poetry and drawings that’s out July 10. High as Hope, due June 29, is full of secrets she never thought she would share, let alone sing and dance about in front of fans. Even for an artist who makes anthems out of the confessional — a painful breakup fuelled How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, the group’s last album — High as Hope represents a new openness, and a new confidence, for Welch.

“I made myself more vulnerable and made a step away from the metaphoric,” she said in a recent interview at the Bowery Hotel. “It created a creative bravery. I was like, it’s OK to put yourself out there.”

It was a path she had been on since 2015, with the No. 1 How Big, but even then “I still felt I had something to prove,” she said. “This one, I had a lot of joy in making it.”

“Florence has definitely gone through a transformation,” said her bandmate Isabella Summers, with whom Welch began playing music in her teens in South London, where she grew up. Summers, who plays keys in the group, went on to help produce and write some of Welch’s early work, including the 2009 breakout Dog Days Are Over.

“The first time I really found my sound was working with another woman, working with Isa,” Welch said. “As a young artist, you can struggle to find your voice, and it takes a while to say, ‘No, I want it to be like this.’” Now, she added: “I’m very OK with being in charge. Because I know that I know what I’m doing.”

For this album, Welch took a producing credit for the first time. She spent six months just making demos, mostly on her own. One of the most challenging songs was Hunger, the second single. Its opening line — “At 17, I started to starve myself” — is a reference to an eating disorder that Welch struggled with as a teenager. “I never thought I would talk about it,” she said. “I didn’t really talk about it with my mum until really recently. So to put it in a song — it’s like, what am I doing?”

She worried that people would be angry with her for discussing it, and tried to convince herself to take the line out — the rest of the lyrics deal more obliquely with emptiness. But the song was not as powerful without it. She thought about tossing the whole track off the album, but, she said, “It’s at the heart of it.” Her revelation stayed, and it helped her own understanding. “It definitely was a release for me,” she said. “The songs sometimes have more clarity in them than I do about my life.”

(Welch declined to go into greater detail about her eating disorder, for fear that others would model themselves after her. “When I was in it, I was always, like, hunting for information,” she said. “I want to be responsible.”)

‘A kindred spirit’

Working with producer Emile Haynie (Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die), High as Hope centres, as always, on Welch’s muscular, emotional voice, which can go from ecstatic to mournful in one lilt. The tracks build from piano and earnest percussion toward sometimes lavish instrumentation; the saxophonist Kamasi Washington did arrangements for French horn, tuba, flute and bass clarinet.

Washington, who also plays on the album, signed on quickly — he had ideas the moment he heard the demos. “The thing for me was trying to add without taking away what she had already put in there,” he said. He called Welch a kindred spirit, comparing her to another of his collaborators, Kendrick Lamar, in the purity of her love for music and her freedom to follow where the tune goes in the studio. “It was really cool, every time we’d finish recording, we’d go in the room and she’d have all new vocal parts that she’d created while we were recording the horn parts,” he said.

She starts with the lyrics, filling graph-paper journals at home, some of which are replicated in her book, complete with whimsical doodles. “I could fall in love with a plastic bag, if it paid me some attention,” goes one, with a sketch of a heart-adorned bag. The album has its share of songs about wanting, and love, though not always romantic love — Patricia is about Patti Smith, whom Welch calls her North Star. Though Welch herself is bad with directions (she gets lost even in the grid of Manhattan, she said), her music has an urbane sense of geography, skittering from scenes in a rainy Los Angeles to a bleak Chicago and a nostalgic London. And it also gets wry. The song Big God is about “obviously, an unfillable hole in the soul,” Welch said, “but mainly about someone not replying to my text.”

In a two-hour conversation, she laughed often, and robustly. In the hotel lounge, she spilled her secrets in a voice loud enough to demonstrate she did not care who else heard; she has the surprisingly rare ability, as an artist, to translate how her emotions and music intersect. “You know, having an overactive mind and overthinking stuff, and being anxious — ever since I was a kid, if I had a song that I could follow, everything would become very calm,” she said. “It was like this cocoon that I could go into.”

She was sitting on a dusty-gold velvet couch, beneath a Renaissance-looking tapestry, that, in her own vintage tapestry coat and ruffled ivory blouse, she might have slid right out of. She wore necklaces and rings on six fingers, many adorned with horseshoes, and tucked her wild, softly glowing hair over her right shoulder. Her natural colour is more mousy reddish-brown than her signature flaming tresses, she said. In concert, her energy is brash and soaring, and she moves as if the music is catapulting her — a fierceness that seems at odds, but should not be, with her romantic vibe.

Almost as soon as she came on the scene, Welch became a fashion industry darling, but her ethereal look was nearly happenstance, said Tom Beard, a director and photographer who began shooting the musician when they were students at Camberwell College of Arts in South London in the mid-2000s, and continued to create her album covers. The first photos he took of her, at a festival, she wore a pink dress and elf ears; Summers, her bandmate, remembered this period as being full of glitter. Only after Beard and Welch checked out an exhibit of Pre-Raphaelite art at the Tate museum did she transition to her much-copied flowy-boho-goddess aesthetic, he said.

For the tour after How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, Welch experimented with a more androgynous (for her) style, all angular suits. It was, she said, a reaction to her heartbreak: “I was almost angry at the more vulnerable, feminine sides of myself, because they seemed weak.” But it felt like a pose.

Now, she said, as she’s collapsing the boundaries between her on- and offstage life, she wants to wear more real-world clothes — even sleepwear. “On this record, I was embracing the femininity, embracing the things I really liked, embracing that you can still be powerful and strong and scary in a pink nightie,” she said.

Beard, her friend since her earliest days as an artist, said she is now being more truthful than he’s ever seen. “It’s the confidence of 12 years,” he said. “What she’s putting out there is the Flo that I know and I’ve always known.”

Listening to her record in the studio, he said that he welled up. “When you’re not holding anything back, no one can hurt you anymore, can they?” he said. “Whatever was hurting her, I can just hear it in her voice, how collected she is now. She’s comfortable with the person that she is.”

Her fall tour for High as Hope is her biggest yet, with headlining stops at arenas like the Hollywood Bowl and Barclays Center in Brooklyn. At a preview show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last month, the stage heaved with flowers and moss and baby’s breath hung overhead, like clouds. Beforehand, she had joked that the tour “could be called, like, ‘On Nightgowns and Spiritual Confusion’ because that’s what it is, I’m in a nightgown being confused about things in a loud way.”

But when she walked onstage, de-accessorised and barefoot, in a shell-pink lingerie gown and lace-edged bed jacket, there were no doubts. She stalked the floor with the fervour of a preacher, raising her arms in exaltation and executing balletic spins. In the end, she made her way into the crowd, for a communion. “Tell someone you don’t know that you love them,” she instructed. “Make it awkward.”

In real life and in performance, Welch is looking for connection. “I quite like the idea of putting really big, unanswerable spiritual questions in pop songs,” she said earlier. “We can be together in this moment, and celebrate the not-knowing, and perhaps feel closer to each other. We can jump up and down. If you just dance about it, you will feel better.”