#especially this semester because all the chapters we learned in the first semester are functioning like puzzle pieces now

[lilacerull0]

i really love histology

[thesassenachswiftie]

Chapter 2: “You Need To Calm Down)

Read on AO3

Summary:

Chapter 2 is here! It's time for Claire and Jamie's first fight but that also it's time for their first make-up sex. This is my first time writing Smut but @statell assures me I did a good job. If that's really not your thing (I mean you are reading OL fanfic so it probably is), it's all the big paragraph near the end and the two dialogue paragraphs after you can easily skip to the last 3 dialogue paragraphs without losing the plot. Big thanks to everyone following along on this journey and all the kudos and comments on the last chapter.

This chapter is not only inspired by "You Need to Calm Down" but also by "The Reckoning" any quotes borrowed from either of these works belong to their respective author whom I am indebted to and admire greatly.

Notes:

First of all, I’m on Twitter now @sassenachswifty.

Second of all, There was a short lived comment on AO3 about Jo's pronouns on my last chapter. I genuinely think the commenter realized their mistake and deleted it before I had a chance to respond--which is fine and good, heaven knows I've made mistakes with pronouns and felt weird and caught of guard about them and all of that. Basically they were saying the they/them pronons were not grammatically correct and were distracting to the reader. I get that, I totally do, it feels uncomfortable because we were never taught about the singular they in school and it looks/sounds weird if you're not used to it. However, the sigular they has been recognized by APA, MLA and I believe Chicago style and is, therefore grammatically correct. It's something I'm getting used to as a writer and it's something we can try to get used to as readers as we move forward into a more progressive society. Our grandkids are going to make fun of us someday for struggling with pronouns. I just wanted to say it's ok to struggle, it's not ok to dismiss (which I genuinely believe the commenter was not doing). Jo came to me as a nonbinary character, and while it is a good exercise in pronoun usage for me as an author, that is not their primary function in the story, they are there to be Claire’s friend first and foremost. They/them are Jo's pronouns and I cannot and will not call them anything else because that would be disrespectful to them. My only other option would be to use "Jo" in every instance where he/she/her/him would come up which would be annoying, repetative and frankly, bad writing. Thank you for coming to my TED talk, now on with the show!

Chapter 2: “You Need To Calm Down”

Claire awoke in Jamie’s bed early on Saturday morning.  It was graduation day, but she was definitely not walking the stage.  Still laying on her side, she picked up her phone off the nightstand and began mindlessly scrolling Facebook, stopping at a collection of photos from an end of semester happy hour the night before.  Frank was there as well as several of their mutual friends.  Were they still friends? Probably not anymore, who knows if they ever were.  Claire tapped from the photos posted by Gillian to the tag that took her to Frank’s profile.  She scrolled down his feed to see if there were any new updates. Other than the pictures, it was the same barely cryptic statuses that were clearly throwing shade her way to anyone that knew.  In a tweet? That’s a cop-out. Taking shots at me like it's Patrón, she mused to herself, recalling the pictures from the night before. Claire began swiping through Frank’s photos going back further and further.  Her and Frank in front of the house with the “sold” sign in the yard.  A candid picture she took of Frank in a coffee shop one day.  Brilliant, smiling faces of them and their friends all dressed up at their New Year’s Eve party--many of the people pictured in the photos from last night. Frank proudly standing with his arm around her, Claire beaming and angling her hand just so a few days after they got engaged.  Claire was so engrossed in these images she didn’t realize Jamie had awoken behind her.  He leaned over to plant a kiss on that spot just behind her ear, pausing when he saw what she was looking at, “Damn Sassenach, it’s seven AM for Chrissakes” he hissed.

Claire’s face flushed immediately. She had been caught.  She didn’t even know why she was doing what she was doing, but she felt ashamed, defensive, embarrassed, and justified all at once.  She swiped out of her Facebook app instantly but it was too late.  He had seen and the damage had been done. She couldn’t speak, she didn’t have any good excuses, and she definitely couldn’t turn to look at Jamie. She set the phone back down on the nightstand and burrowed her curly head under the pillow trying to avoid his gaze.  She couldn’t see his face, but she knew Jamie was watching her intently waiting for an explanation.

“Hey, are you ok? I dinna mean to snap at ye Claire, It’s just early and I dinna expect to see ye looking at pictures of your ex after what I thought was such a satisfying night. Am I not good enough for ye Claire?”  His tone started gentle and caring, but his veins were pulsing with jealous rage and his voice got more angry and frantic as he continued.  “Look at me, Claire!”

Claire didn’t like being told what to do, especially not with the newfound feminist energy Jo had ignited in her.  She hoisted herself out from her cocoon, and sprang up to face him. “I don’t have to do what you tell me to. You need, to calm down, you’re being too loud!”

 He made a distinctly Scottish noise--“Hmpph. That’s not what ye said last night Sassenach” he growled.  He couldn’t help flirting with her even in his anger. She looked so bonny, bare-breasted with her curls splayed every which way, the fire of her anger alight in her whisky eyes--frightening and sexy at the same time.

Claire wasn’t amused by his quip, or by the tone of voice in which he said it, “you need to just stop, like can you just not? I don’t like it one bit!”

“Not what, Claire? Not want ye only for myself? Not feel jealous seeing pictures of that rat bastard with his smug grin and his arm around ye to be the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning? You do belong to me, whether ye like it or not. Why are you mad? I’m the only one allowed to be mad, Claire! Yer mine, damn ye Claire! Mine, and I wilna share ye, with a man or a memory or anything whatsoever”

Her glass face broke before his eyes as he raised his voice louder.  Her anger had turned to something fragile, something Jamie was afraid he would break.  Even still, she spoke softly, but confidently, “I don’t belong to you or anyone, I’m my own person. You need to just take several seats” She glanced away from him, trying to keep her composure.  

Controlling his urge to scream, he replied “I know that, that’s not what I meant.  I ain’t trying to mess with who you are or your self expression, I mean that I am yours just as much as you are mine”

Damn, he’s good, thought Claire as she met his gaze again.  His passion, even when directed towards anger, was still sexy.

“Claire, I see you over there on the internet all the time, this isn’t the first time you’ve done this is it?”

She nodded in agreement, embarrassed, but somehow she felt safe admitting it to Jamie.  She was beginning to realize just how much he truly cared about her.  As strange as it seemed, through this small fight, their relationship was moving from simply mutual, passionate attraction to something deeper.  It might have been there all along beyond the urges of the flesh, but she was just now truly seeing it.  It was exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

“Listen, I’ve learned a lesson that stressing and obsessing about somebody else is no fun.” Jamie disclosed, trying to restore the peace. “He’s not worth your time if he let a girl like you go on the drop of a hat like that.” This made Claire wince internally, hoping he didn’t see, there was more to it than that.  He didn’t seem to notice and continued, “What we have is like sunshine, but you act like you would rather be in the dark.”  He reached for her arm, caressing it gently.

“You’ve figured me out.  You’re right, I don’t know why I keep checking on him. I guess I’m hoping I’ll find out something horrible has happened to him; but I promise, only you have me.”

“I mean to have you Claire, I am your master and you are mine. It seems I cannot possess your soul without losing my own.”  Both of Jamie’s hands were on Claire’s arms now, gripping her more firmly now. They were drawing closer to each other, the passion of their anger still surging in their veins. “I want you Claire, I want you so much I can scarcely breathe. Will you have me?”

“Yes.”

Their lips met with a fervour unlike any they had experienced before, hands caressing everywhere. Claire moaned into Jamie’s mouth as his hand cupped her breast, stroking her nipple vigorously with his palm.  His lips moved to her neck, that spot behind her ear that made her giggle and squeak.  He was ravenous, consuming her flesh with his lips, making his way down to her other breast, sucking her nipple as he ran his tongue around it, willing all sorts of noises to emit from her mouth.  She was straddling him, grinding against him, feeling his wanting against her in just the right spot. She thrust her hands into his boxer briefs, tugging at his hips to bring them even closer.  He responded in kind, slipping his hands into the lace waistband her cotton panties and grabbing that arse he loved so much.  He moved one hand around to her front and started stroking her most sensitive area and slipped a finger inside her.  “Oh, Jamie” she moaned as she began to ease his waistband down.  She allowed herself to let him go for a moment, releasing him to remove his underwear, as she did the same.  As soon as they were fully exposed to one another, she was on top of him again.  She moved herself up and down his length, feeling him rub against her, igniting a euphoric sensation in her core. When neither of them could take it anymore he slipped inside her, and she took him in to the hilt, riding him almost violently.  All the anger and shame she had felt moments ago had transformed into a primal lust unleashed on him. He responded in kind, kissing her vigorously across breasts, neck and shoulders until she shoved him back on the bed to gain a better angle.  Pushing her hand to his chest for leverage, she rode him harder than she’d ever ridden anyone before--not even the vibrator she used to experiment with in college. She could see he was close, his face contorting as he resisted the urge to finish before her.

“Sassenach, you’ll be the death of me” he groaned.

“Just a little more, Jamie” she panted, just before crying out, “Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh”. Seeing her satisfied, he allowed himself to finish as well.  Claire gently detached from him and collapsed beside him, breathless, resting on his chest, hair sprawled across him.

“Oh Sassenach, ye keep that up and I’m liable to pick fights with you more often” he sighed.

“You better watch out before you start something you can’t finish” she quipped in response.  

Jamie simply made a Scottish noise in reply, staring at the ceiling stroking her hair, wondering if he had, in fact, done just that.

End Note:

I try to slip in as many lyrics from each song as possible and make it still "work", occasionally changing tenses or adding/subtracting words to make them work. Claire's orgasm moans are the "oh oh's" in the chorus of YNTCD and I'm simultaneously proud of myself and ashamed.

[news4bees]

Things I do to make my ADD/ADHD slightly more manageable.

Full disclosure: everyone is different and non-neurotypical behaviors are not a copy-paste situation. What works for me might put others in the exact opposite head space and that’s okay. I just wanted to share what I’ve learned works for me over the years. I’ve been really struggling with my ADD/ADHD lately and I need to remind myself of the healthy coping mechanisms I’ve developed so I can implement them again.

1. Have a morning routine.

Working from home as a freelance editor / publishing consultant, I have a lot of autonomy over my day. Which is great… if I make the most of it. I learned a long time ago that I am most productive in the morning, so it’s important for me to get myself into the right head space as soon as possible. I set an alarm to get out of bed at 7:00am every day, I try and go on a walk around the neighborhood first thing (weather permitting—we don’t mess around with rain or snow), I eat breakfast (usually including either coffee or tea for caffeine purposes and warmth) and take my supplements, and prep for my day. It sounds super simple, but it’s really all about inertia. A body at rest will want to stay at rest. I’ve had just as many days where everything goes according to plan and I’m able to have a productive day as days where I don’t get out of bed until I have to drag myself to my service job in the afternoon. So having that morning routine and sticking to it can honestly be a night and day difference for me.

2. Make a schedule for my day.

I have a terrible concept of time. I can look at a task, assume it’s going to take several hours, and abandon it before I even begin. Or I can see a gap of time in my day (such as the two hours between lunch and when I have to get ready for work) and be worried it’s too small of a window to accomplish anything so I lie around instead. By creating a schedule, literally an hour-by-hour layout of how I want my day to progress, I have a tactical roadmap for how to achieve my goals. I also make sure I schedule little breaks and time to eat, walk around, shower, etc. into my day so I don’t forget. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and I have to remind myself not to get upset if I end up deviating from the schedule for one thing or another. It’s mainly supposed to help me look at my day in a way that makes more sense to me and how my brain processes time. I fully understand that there are others that might see my hour-by-hour schedule and be completely overwhelmed—that’s fine! Find what works for you.

3. Set attainable little goals.

This one goes hand in hand with making myself a schedule. If I have a giant task I need to complete at a future date, I really struggle with conceptualizing it as something I need to get started on now. I see that future date, feel overwhelmed, try to calm myself down by thinking, “It’s okay, I have time,” and will sit on that task until the last minute when I have to scramble to get it done. It’s procrastination, yes, but it’s also not feeling too overwhelmed to act on something until there is that “go go go!” anxiety-inducing pressure to get it done. So I break it down into smaller pieces and set little goals. A 352 page manuscript I have to create an index for by March? Scary. But indexing one or two chapters a day? Much more doable. This also helps me accomplish non work-related tasks, such as calling the bank or scheduling appointments or canceling a subscription—things I would have trouble accomplishing on my own otherwise because my I have trouble differentiating between “important” and “immediate”. Goals don’t have to be solely task oriented either. Set a goal to reach out to a friend you haven’t connected with in a while; set a goal to meditate for fifteen minutes, or be intentional about doing something you love like reading or art or exercise. Personally, the more things I can check off my “to-do” list the better, so I write out everything I want to try and get done, even if I would have done it regardless.

4. Keep distractions out of reach.

This one is extremely tricky for me since I work exclusively out of my room since I moved back home. I’m always surrounded by distractions, from my phone to my bookshelves to the dozens of internet tabs I constantly have open on my laptop. I have little tricks I know work for me: keeping my phone on the charger in a different room (but close enough that I can still connect to the Bluetooth), leaving the book I’m currently reading and the journal where I write my fiction in my work bag downstairs, blocking YouTube and other distracting sites from my laptop, and making my bed each morning so I’m not tempted to crawl under the covers when I’m feeling burnt out. But knowing these things will help eliminate distractions and actually implementing these techniques are two very different things for me. As I write this, my phone is on the charger next to me, my fiction journal is within easy reach and I have corresponding document opened in another tab, none of my site-brokers are enabled, and my bed is a mess of cozy blankets—all major distractions for me that I’m blatantly ignoring. So what can I do about this? Set a new goal: move my phone and journal out of the room, close unnecessary tabs, re-engage the site blockers, and make my bed. Little things to reset my headspace and get back on track.

5. Have an accountability buddy.

While freelancing gives me a lot of personal freedoms, it also means I function as my own boss. Some people might enjoy such responsibility, but I personally really struggle when I’m not constantly checking in with someone and showing them my progress. An accountability buddy doesn’t need to function like a micro-managing boss, but they should be someone you can go to and say, “Here’s what I set out to do today and here’s what I accomplished.” Currently, I do not have a good accountability buddy (my ex was my accountability buddy when we were together during my last semester at college, but he often criticized me for only working in short sprints and needing to take a lot of breaks, so I’ve been really hesitant to trust another person in that role ever since), but my mom often lets me inform her about my goals and will share some of her’s in turn; my dad and sister on the other hand get uncharacteristically angry when I ask about goals, so I’ve learned to steer clear. Mirroring is also a common strategy for ADD/ADHDers. The visual stimulation of seeing someone else working can often be a bit of a jumpstart to my brain that says, “Okay, it’s time to do things.” In the old days, this meant I would spend hours in the library or at coffee shop doing my homework instead of my apartment because I was surrounded by others with similar tasks. Now, if I find myself needing a mirror I’ll move my operation to the kitchen table so that I’m closer to where my mom works and I can feed off her productive energy, so to speak.

6. Give myself grace.

Whenever I have an unproductive day, my first instinct is to be angry or upset at myself. What kind of person spends the entire day in bed and doesn’t get a single thing done? This would lead me down a self-deprecating path of calling myself useless and a garbage person, which is a big trigger for my depression and I can easily find myself spiraling. ADD/ADHD means my brain functions differently, but at the end of the day my brain still works. It doesn’t mean I’m stupid or lazy, and a bad day doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. My schedule and my list of goals are a template to help me focus, but if something happens that gets me off task, whether intentional or unintentional, I have to remind myself that it is not the end of the world. I have to give myself grace and forgiveness, because things happen.

I’d be really interested to hear what other strategies people have developed to manage their ADD/ADHD, especially in the midst of a pandemic that might have altered the way we approach our days. Keep being awesome!

[happyhemostudies]

ochem (study tips & tricks)

 Hi there! Long time no see. I am officially through my first term of organic chemistry (out of three), and I have gained some tips & tricks to make it a little bit more manageable! (I got a B, and I know that some people on studyblr are happier with an A but a B in my first upper division science is more than I was expecting so I’m happy about it!)

Get a molecular modeling kit!

The beginning portions of ochem ask you to understand nomenclature (naming), functional groups, isomers, and stereochemistry. Functional groups are what I feel like you could maybe muscle your way through without ever seeing it in 3D but for everything else, make sure you use a model! It helps tremendously when you’re trying to learn what molecules look like in space. I lost mine in a box halfway through the term (at the beginning of isomers, rip me) and felt so lost with stereochemistry until I found it again. Make mini models of all your functional groups and learn what they look like. Make cis & trans models. Do what my friends and I did and stick random things together and learn how to name them properly. I got mine from Amazon for about $12 and it was worth every penny.

Preview notes/book before class.

If you’ve ever met me, you know that I’m full of anxiety and hate reading before class because I get anxious when I realize I have no idea what I’m reading. Don’t be me! Realize that reading beforehand can only help you solidify your understanding when you relearn it in lecture! It is totally okay to not know it while you’re reading as you’ve obviously never learned it before. This comes in super helpful because there’s a lot to cover in lecture, lots of diagrams and molecules to draw, and you likely won’t have enough time to write out all of the good book-type words you want to know too.

Watch additional videos.

I would like to tell you the wonders of videos for ochem. Since it’s such a visual course, it is SO much more helpful to learn from a video than a book! Honorable mention for @ TheOrganicChemistryTutor and other ochem videos on YouTube, but the real shoutout goes to @ Leah4Sci on YouTube and at leah4sci.com As my lab partner texted me at 1:14 am the morning of our second exam, “This woman is a godsend.”

Study with a group (and a whiteboard!)

In gen chem I made an awesome group of friends who now suffer through ochem alongside me. You would not believe how helpful it is to study with them, explain hard concepts, and work out problems with other people. We reserve a room in our science library and get to working out problems on whiteboards. Highly highly recommend. Especially if you can reserve a room once a week to go over the week’s materials.

Use colors in your notes.

One of my best friends writes her notes in strictly pencil and as a pen gal, it hurts a little. I cannot keep track of anything at all if it’s written in one color and I smudge pencil really badly as a left-handed human. So, I write in pen and make sure that I have at least a highlighter and one colored pen on hand. The highlighter is to highlight important concepts and circle my nucleophile and electrophile at the beginning and ending of a reaction. The colored pen is to track electron flow.

Attend (and try to enjoy) lab if you’re taking it alongside lecture.

My lab partner is lowkey the best frat boy I have ever met and has always made sure that I don’t have to fly solo in lab like other lab partners have made me do, leaving me with all the work. About half way through the term we no longer worked with partners but we worked together during lab if one of us got stuck and would work on post-lab reports together because the questions were always insane. Lab is an amazing break from lecture and a wonderful way to apply what you’re learning. You’ll also meet a bunch of cool people in lab, and I highly suggest forming study groups with your lab partner or lab bench as you spend so much time together every week. 

Make a second notebook specifically for ochem!

You know how some people manage to make super beautiful notes during class? And if you’re anything like me you’re trying but mostly just scrambling to write down everything? If this rings true to you just know that I wholeheartedly get you. This is your chance to make your notes insanely pretty or colorful while also reviewing! I bought a composition notebook and I take about 2-3 pages to explain ONLY the important stuff from each chapter. This is my “cheat sheet” going into the test and you’ll usually find me looking over it the morning of my exams (because my exams are at 9am :( it’s rough out here).

Hope this helps! Best of luck to those starting ochem and best of luck to those continuing on into their next term/semester of ochem.

[rusalkii]

How dare there be predictable consequences of my actions. Very inconsiderate of the universe, really.

It turns out that when I disappear into the woods for a weekend, spend all of Tuesday evening at a meetup, and then all of the next weekend either on a bus (20 hours of bus! this is really an excessive amount of bus) or with @ghostofasecretary, I don't have time for things. Who'd have ever thought. Also, my past self who was an idiot and didn't study made my Wednesday absolutely miserable, and if I fail that exam I deserve it. I will probably not fail that exam because the predictable consequences of my actions usually do not go so far as to cause me to fail exams, and therefore I never fucking learn, but that's a different matter. Getting a good grade rather than a mediocre grade is still worth putting some effort into. I have been doing quite well this semester at getting homework done (excluding Wednesday just now), but especially for the class I just had my exam in that by no means guarantees an understanding of the material. Studying! 3 hours/class/week is not an unreasonable amount of time to dedicate to this. I'm going to try to do pomodoros to consistently keep track of time. If I don't know what to do, first I should focus on reading the textbook and getting my notes typed up well. Then I should think through any parts that I feel don't make sense, and (for Stat and 216) doing the optional problems and (for Stat and 250) working through homework and worksheet problems I got wrong. I know studying never feels like a high priority activity, but half the reason my week just fell apart was because I felt desperately unprepared for the exam and got overwhelmed. Don't do that again. The pattern of too many urgent things -> can't prioritize -> everything falls to pieces is also not good. I need to remember to triage, and absent that just picking one thing and working on it is better than what happened. I know how to do this, I just didn't. Avoiding things because I can't finish all of them doesn't make anything better. Half is better than none.

Socials! ...well, I spent two days with Ghost? I skipped ballroom to go to the SSC meetup, which I endorse, and then again to study, which I kind of failed at doing and which should not have happened. I did not go to any others club meetings or do social things with people on campus, which... was the best thing to do given the hand dealt to me but given that I was the dealer I don't actually think I should let myself off the hook here. Ugh. I don't care that much about having friends on campus in and of itself but not having people I can easily regularly interact with in person is really bad for me. Trying to make more close friends in rat or SCA circles in the area would be nice, but do I know how to make friends no I do not. It takes so much time and it's terrifying and you never know if actually you're being judged and found wanting. Acquaintances you like and have mutual hobbies with are so low stress, why can't I just stick with those? Anyway. This is not productive and I don't actually know how to make it productive beyond aiming to do another on campus social thing this week and not skipping ballroom. Maybe kill two birds with one stone and meet up with M and speak Russian. Next Saturday I'm going to Coronation with a non-SCA friend, so that's nice. Internships! Interview with the tech company finally scheduled for next Friday, good god they're slow. Need to email R and T (R: something something you said you knew of professors on campus could we talk about that also is the club happening best Kira) (T: I asked about getting lunch, can we do that.). Because everything is terrible there are already deadlines I've passed, the time to figure out if I can snag a place doing research with someone interesting is now because otherwise I will have to figure it out concurrently with writing cover letters, which are hell. Also, DO YOUR FUCKING RESUME. Being a human being with a life and things! I need to figure out how many dollars I can spend per month until I graduate depending on a couple different assumptions because it turns out that doing all of your budgeting based of the "flinch away from the concept of ever spending money" principle is not actually advisable. I kind of abstractly want to ever have contact with my maternal grandfather but I don't know what to do about that so it's just going to sit here as a sentence. I should make sure I actually know the status of the thing where people keep wanting to pay for me to be the Bay Area for some reason (the SSC meetup was interesting, I should grab at plot hooks more), which means I need to message B. I need to have my headscarf finished by coronation, which should be quick, and ideally sew trim onto my purple dress and/or finish the goddamn seams of the green. It would be nice to make my underdress in case it's cold but that's probably not going to happen. I want to start a hat for Ghost with my new yarn. I should add RIM to my calendar and meditate on winter plans, by which I mean talk to Dad about them. It would be nice to call TsL.   Paying attention to lectures! Nope. Physically painful. Could be self studying, but I'm not. Literally go sit somewhere instead of the lecture and read the corresponding textbook chapter? This only works for Stat because I can't miss the others even if I want to. Physically leaving my phone at home was suggested. This also sounds physically painful but frankly I need to either give up on going or try something new, this isn't working. I wish I could schedule the tree app to automatically launch at a particular time.

Meta: this is late because Bus Hell and then Ghost, who is significantly more interesting than my life. I keep not doing specific action items from here because I forget they exist. My current todo list situation is Dubious but all possible todo list situations I've tried have various disadvantages so I'm not certain what to do about this. The single advantage of my current todo list situation is that it's Google's, which means I can have it as sidebar in my email and it integrates with Google calendar. I should... get something with a functioning desktop app or google chrome extension and phone widget with a Google calendar integration that also supports such magical features as "tags" and then maybe I'll be able to write down low priority items without either loosing them or the high priority ones. Note to get back to this entire thing when I'm not on a bus and add the important parts to my current list and search for a new list app.

[biopsychs]

I love microbiology but it is a difficult class and is made even more difficult when you have a bad prof. I started this post after I took an introduction to microbiology class but waited to finish it until I completed an upper year microbiology class this past semester. This way I can also provide insight and tips on what will help you not only in the class but also how to make sure you are prepared for upper year classes.

Topics you may cover in your intro microbio class:

History of microbiology

Microbial taxonomy (naming and classification)

Microscopy and specimen preparation

Prokaryotic cell structure and function

Microbial nutrition and growth

Control of microorganisms by chemical and physical agents

Microbial metabolism (including energy, enzymes, regulation, chemosynthesis, photosynthesis, and biosynthesis)

Microbial genetics (including replication, mutation,  gene expression, gene regulation, recombination, plasmids, etc.)

Virology

Immunology

And areas of/related to microbiology you may explore in upper classes may include: environmental microbiology, food and industrial microbiology, immunology, medical microbiology, molecular genetics, prokaryotic physiology, virology, and more!

Tip #1: Understand new material at the end of every week

Microbiology is a content heavy course. Even if you’re busy with other classes and responsibilities, do a thorough review of new content you’ve learned over the past week. Give yourself time to get help/go to office hours in case you don’t understand a concept (you can’t do this if you leave studying till the last minute).

Tip #2: Know the names of important microorganisms

This all depends on your prof. I had an insane prof who wanted us to know the names of every single microbe he mentioned in passing, but this shouldn’t be the case for everyone. The prof for my upper level microbiology class provided bonus marks if we could state the specific genus of a microorganism in any of our examples on the final exam. If you can, talk to students who have taken the class before for more insight.

Regardless, make sure you know the species, genus, etc. of microbes that your prof spent a significant amount of time talking about or ones that come up more than once.

Tip #3: Pay attention when you’re learning about metabolism

I say this for two reasons: (1) Metabolism is a difficult topic to understand and (2) It will benefit you to have a good understanding of metabolism now. Metabolism covers a wide range of ideas and concepts -- having a good understanding will help you in upper level bio/biochem classes and will help you link ideas together.

Tip #4: Study the material in different ways

Revise your notes in a variety of ways. I prefer to type my notes and write them out after class. Typing allows me to get all the info down, I can insert diagrams from lecture slides as I go, and leaves me with a detailed study guide to use when I’m studying for finals (I also add material from the textbook not covered in lectures to my typed notes after class). Writing out my notes afterwards reinforces the material, allows me to shorten my notes to the important stuff (e.g. I only draw necessary diagrams), and allows me to reorganize the material (e.g. make acronyms, put the info into a table, compare and contrast 2 concepts like cellular respiration and photosynthesis).

You can also use other methods to study such as flashcards, mind maps, read the material out loud, etc. Only use a method if it actually works for you -- for example, lots of people use flashcards to study but I rarely use them.

Another really good way to study is to make a practice test or at least think about how your prof will test certain concepts. This is a really helpful strategy for preparing for multiple choice and written questions.

Tip #5: Study with friends

This also ties into the idea of thoroughly learning new material at the end of every week. Plan a weekly study session or talk to your friends and hold each other accountable for staying on top of things.

I usually just met with one or two of my friends before each midterm. We would find a room with a whiteboard and spend an entire afternoon going over our notes together. I had other friends who would meet at least once a week and review the past week’s material together.

Tip #6: Draw it out

I personally love using whiteboards to study and would definitely recommend buying your own. If you don’t have one though, find an empty classroom with a whiteboard or just draw it out on a blank page. Don’t draw out every diagram you have available to you -- find the most useful ones! I like to draw out a process and then write down the description of the process side by side.

I also like to combine diagrams that I find useful. Drawing diagrams also works if you’re trying to compare and contrast processes. Having all the info laid out in one place can help you see what is truly similar or different, rather than trying to memorize the processes as separate things.

For example, I had a few different diagrams for photosynthesis in my notes. Instead of studying them separately I combined them together so I had all the info in one place.

Tip #7: Utilize all the resources available to you

Ask questions! Go to office hours! Most profs are happy to help meeting with them one-on-one really ensures you are getting a good understanding.

You can also ask your lab TA for clarification on concepts, because often the content you cover in labs is tied to content covered in lectures. My TA heard us all complaining about how our prof did not properly explain a difficult concept. So, she did a quick search and found the name of a youtube channel she remembered learning from in her undergrad.

As well, if the textbook for your class proves to be useful then actually use it! I like to read over the textbook chapter before class because then I can focus on understanding the fine details during lecture. (I’ve also compiled some online useful books and online resources at the bottom of this post for you to check out.)

Advice specifically for labs:

Use aseptic technique! Wash your hands, work close to the flame, etc. If you’re not sure about something, wait and ask your TA. And try not to spill anything. Someone in my lab spilled a tube of E.coli broth on their lab notebook which then had to be autoclaved, which meant they had to buy a new notebook.

DON’T FORGET TO FLAME THE LOOP!!

Even though you’ll be working in partners make sure you can do everything on your own. It might be easier to have your partner hold a piece of equipment while you do something else but it won’t help you when you’re doing the same work alone during a lab exam or as a research assistant.

Make sure you can do a Gram stain properly. If you can’t do a proper Gram stain consistently you can ask your TA if you can practice on a few slides or have them watch you do a Gram stain to correct any mistakes you’re making.

Be specific when answering questions. Your TA wants to make sure you know exactly what you’re doing. Also, write down the full name (species + genus) of the microorganism you’re working with the first time you mention it and then feel free to use the abbreviated form after (i.e. write down Escherichia coli first but refer to it as E.coli thereafter)

Listen and be safe. Your TA will probably stress safety a lot but make sure you pay attention if they tell you need to take certain precautions with certain microorganisms (especially where to dispose certain samples).

Have fun! My favourite memory of the lab was when we were looking at samples we had prepared from soil the week prior. Everyone was comparing the fungi that had grown in their petri dishes and trying to see who had the most “fuzzy” sample.

Plan your time well. Read through your prelab carefully and make note of tasks that may take up more time (waiting for molten agar to cool, waiting for a sample to dry so you can heat fix the slide, etc.).

Label everything! You really don’t want to forget which test tube contains which organism or which tube is which when performing a serial dilution

Tie in things you do in the lab to things you’ve learned in lectures. You’ll make lecture material more interesting and you might learn different applications of what you’re doing in the lab.

At the end of the lab: Dispose of your materials in the proper waste bins! Wipe down your lab bench! Wash your hands!

Microbiology resources:

Some books related to microbiology/cell biology (note: these books aren’t meant as study materials but discuss some really interesting topics related to microbiology): The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee, I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Young, Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif, Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics is Fueling Our Modern Plague by Martin Blaser, and Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen.

For my class I used Prescott’s Microbiology ( Willey, Joanne M., Sherwood, Linda M., Woolverton, Christopher J.; 8/e) and A Photographic Atlas for the Microbiology Laboratory (Leboffe, M.J. and Pierce, B.E.)

For online resources I will always recommend Khan Academy. I found they didn’t have everything I needed for this class specifically but the topics they did cover were explained well.

Wikipedia! I’ve had multiple profs this year tell me to use Wikipedia. Please don’t go citing Wikipedia in any of your lab reports (but you can look at their references at the bottom of page to find more info). Wikipedia is good for finding up to date information, especially for information related to microbial taxonomy.

Some Youtube channels that have helpful videos include: Armando Hasudungan, Bozeman Science, Crash Course (also I’m pretty sure there’s a song about the Krebs Cycle out there)

Check out my other posts here!

[secretlessvicki]

Charades and Masquerades

He was a devote Catholic. She was the direct descendant of Madame Marie Laveau. Could he bring her to the side of God and holiness? Or would she show him the ways of magic and sin? 

What happens when a string of murders in one of the most haunted cities brings together two people who never planned to see each other again? And how this all tie into an infamous treasure?

Prologue   Ch 1

Chapter 1

It was another night of tossing and turning for Lieutenant Killian Jones. Being aboard a naval ship never alluded to a good night's sleep. But it wasn’t just the crashing of the waves and the sways of the ship that always had Killian waking in the morning feeling just a tired as he had been when he went to bed.

The empty rum bottle that sat on his desk and the memories of abandonment and betrayal plagued his mind. His mother passing just before his sixth birthday. His father not returning home one night after work. And an endless string of foster homes only homing he and his brother for the paycheck not really caring how the boys fared. And then there was her.

“Get your bloody arse out of bed!”

A sudden splash of water woke Killian from his sleep. “What the fuck, Liam? You couldn’t have just woke me with an alarm like everyone else?”

“I tried. That blasted device has been blaring for half an hour.” He pointed to what looked like a previously working alarm clock. Now it was just a pile of wires and plastic parts all across the cabin floor. “Did you go through another bottle again? Killian, when are you going to stop all of your self-loathing?”

Liam Jones, older brother extraordinaire began tossing away empty bottles with a roll of his eyes. He had been there with Killian through everything. The morning their mother passed, Liam was there holding his baby brother as he cried into his shirt. When their father did not come home, it was Liam who watched over his little brother. The day he turned eighteen, Liam fought with everything he had to earn custody of Killian. It meant working two jobs while also making sure that the rebellious Killian attended school and was clothed and fed. By the time Killian was old enough they were both in their respective ports serving in Her Royal Majesty’s Navy.

“Liam, the bloody fucking sun is not even out. Why in God’s name do I need to be up before it’s light out?” The faint pounding in his head increasing with each blink of his eyes. He almost swore someone was wielding a sledgehammer behind his eyes.

“You know better than to take his name in vain, little brother. Did you forget everything you learned in Bible study?”

A sudden memory of a nun slapping a ruler against a chalkboard flashed in Killian’s mind. He didn’t remember everything but he knew the important bits. Jesus turned water into wine. The Ten Commandments. It’s not as if any of it had helped him recently.

“Are you going to tell me why I am sitting awake on wet bed sheets? We are suppose to be on liberty. That means sleeping in.”

“You are only sleeping in because you stayed awake all night. Now put a shirt on and meet me in the Mess. I’ll fill you in over breakfast.” Liam threw a pillow at his brother before leaving.

After a string of incoherent curses, Killian rummaged around his bunk to find his uniform. Without a window in the cabin, he took a guess at what the weather would be like. The coast of Ireland in April could always be deceiving and he was sure Liam was going to take them both out for the day.

It took Killian almost 10 extra minutes to get down to where he was sure his older brother was waiting for him. He could almost hear Liam drumming his fingers against the metal table each time he had to stop because a fellow sailor commented on his red eyes or the dark circles underneath. Every time he opened a bottle he would tell himself that he would only have a shot or two. But two shots would turn into an entire glass, and after two glasses Killian would ditch the useless tumbler and drink straight from the bottle. He knew what would happen. No matter how much water he drank or how many painkillers he took, the result would always be the same. One massive headache and a piss poor mood.

His mood was even worse when he walked into the Mess to find that Liam had a glass of some awful green concoction. It could only be one thing. Liam Brennan Jones’ version of a hangover cure. One thing for sure was that the bloody drink would taste absolutely terrible.

“What ever happened to a good English breakfast after a night out on the town?”

“First of all, you did not spend the night out on the town. You wallowed away in some pub all night only to drink yourself unconscious in your bunk.

Second, you can do whatever you please at the end of the month when you get discharged. Until then you will continue to follow not only the royal navy’s rules but mine as well. I will still be your older brother even when I am no longer your captain.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” Killian saluted. “In two weeks you will have a new lieutenant to push around.”

“Aye, sometimes I look forward to the day. But until then you are mine, little brother. Now drink up. I want you more coherent. Something big came about last night.”

“Younger brother.” Begrudgingly, Killian drank his hangover cure. He flagged down one of the steward’s for a proper breakfast, finally settling in for Liam’s big news.

“Are you ready?”

Trying very hard not to roll his eyes, Killian slowly nodded his head. The movement felt like his brain was hitting the inside of his skull but Killian managed not to wince. At least he hoped not.

“We found something!” Liam vaguely explained.

“We? As in you and me? Because I certainly do not remember finding anything of importance. Or do you mean the crew? If that is the case I must be far more hungover than I thought, because I was almost positive our latest mission was a recon.”

“Just shut it you git and let me explain. Petty Officer Morgan…”

“Oh you mean that American you have been chatting with in your free time?” Killian suddenly was more interested in this story. Especially when it involved his prude of a brother and a woman.

“It is not like that Killian and you know it. Get your mind out of the gutter so I can explain. She and I have been emailing back and forth since we meet when you and I were stationed at the U.S. Joint Reserve Base in New Orleans. Reylin is into history same as we are. In fact, she actually did a semester abroad at Imperial College the same time you were in your second year.”

“So she likes history. Sounds like the two of you were made for each other.”

“Stop it, Killian. Would you let me get to the point? She likes history and her favorite subject is lost treasures of the world. She and I have been talking about our hobbies outside of our respective navys and she mentioned looking into an old New Orleans legend. Jean Lafitte.”

If Killian hadn’t been interested before, he was certainly now. While he was not as enthusiastic about history as his brother, Killian Jones did have a love of pirates, fiction or real.

“So you two were talking about a man who was one of the lesser known pirates? What is so important about him?”

“What is important is that to the people in the southern states, Lafitte is not just a second rate pirate. There he is a legend. And before you interrupt me again I wanted to tell you that Morgan has been looking into an old legends about Lafitte. More specifically his last buried treasure.”

“And she found it?”

Pirates and buried treasures had not been what Killian had thought he would be spending his morning talking about. And honestly, he still wished he wasn’t, his bed and pillow were screaming for him to return.

“Not exactly. But she has been digging and she found coordinates to a possible location.”

“Liam, what does this have to do with us?”

“I was thinking that you will be discharged at the end of the month and I will be on leave from my tour. And what better bonding than going on a treasure hunt?”

Killian was thankful that in that moment the steward had brought him his breakfast. He was going to need more protein to get his brain functioning if he was going to deal with Liam and another one of his grand ideas of adventures. The last time the two of them spent bonding time together, Liam ended up in a naval hospital in Brazil after finding out he was highly allergic to a thorny plant in the jungle.

“You want to go on a treasure hunt?” Killian began scanning the room. “Are you pranking me? Or is this some type of documentary for National Geographic? You honestly think it is a good idea for the two of us to fly to the colonies to help a Yankee sailor hunt for an unknown buried treasure? Are you sure you are not trying to impress this lass? Because trying to become Indiana Jones sure sounds like it.”

There was silence between the men as Killian ate and Liam sulked. It was when Killian’s eyes didn’t seem so heavy and his proper posture returned that Liam spoke again.

“You are telling me that you do not want to go? Killian Jones- Mr. ‘I love a challenge’ does not want to help a pretty woman find a long lost treasure? What else would you be doing besides wallowing away in your apartment?”

What was he supposed to say to that? Killian huffed and slouched in his seat. He could tell that Liam knew he had won. 

The next week and a half was spent listening to Liam and Officer Morgan talk about what the possibilities were at the end of the coordinates Reylin had. Killian had to admit that it was all very interesting and that he often found himself wondering what the treasure could be. Realistically he knew that the chance of finding something valuable was slim to near impossible. But it didn’t stop Killian from reading up on Jean Lafitte in his spare time.

As it turned out there was more to the man than it seemed. He had no loyalties to anyone but the person paying him. He looted supplies from ships belonging to Britain, France, and America. But what was interesting was that much of the loot that was stolen was dispersed by Pierre Lafitte, Jean’s half-brother. From his reading, Killian could tell that Jean and Pierre were close. Enough so that he could see the similarities between these brothers and he and Liam.

Jean was the romantic type. A number of legends and tales told of his seduction of women and his charm. Liam had almost choked on his dinner one night when Killian read the latest biography. “Sounds like a certain young lieutenant I know.” He had coughed.

Pierre was more reserved. He was the brains of the operations. It was his job to make sure that all treasures were sold or taken care of. While Jean was out having fun raiding the ships, it was Pierre who was keeping them both out of jail. Until he unfortunately found himself behind bars in a rat infested jail in New Orleans that is. Killian kept that news away from Liam.

Late one-night, Killian sat at his desk lost in a rabbit hole of information. If he was going to go on this adventure with his brother and some American lass, he wanted to know what it was that they were going after. His search started with possible treasures that one might look for with pirate hunting. It was after one in the morning, that Killian ended up on a forum made up of men and women across the world that discussed possible leads in hunts, myths and legends, and even a few experts on famous lost treasures. One post in particular caught Killian’s attention.

The lost treasure of Jean Lafitte is considered one of the world’s greatest lost treasures. It is believed that Lafitte hid the treasure somewhere in the city with clues left behind for his brother to one day find. To this day it has never been recovered.

The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans herself spent much of her life dedicated to finding out what was in the lost treasure of Jean Lafitte. No one knows why she wanted the treasure so badly. Was it for the money? Was the treasure powerful? Could it have possibly been tied to the city? To magic? Was the treasure a person? Perhaps the treasure is the long lost Fleur de Lis.

There were more posts and comments that all led to the same thing. The Napoleon Fleur de Lis. It was a pure gold statue encrusted with the finest cute diamonds and rubies. The fleur de lis itself was priceless without even considering it’s history. Napoleon had the statue commissioned as a physical representation of his family crest. Before his exile the statue had gone missing only for it to turn up in the hands of the American government after the Louisiana purchase. The government then gave the Fleur de Lis to the city of New Orleans as a gift. Years later the very statue went missing again, never to be seen again. At the same time, Pierre Lafitte had been imprisoned for the murder of an American sailor (was later exonerated) and his brother had moved all operations to Galveston.  

This was it. It had to be it. The treasure that Reylin and ultimately Killian and Liam were hunting.

With a quick text message to the group chat between the members saying he found a lead, Killian sat back in his chair with a grin on his face. Maybe this whole treasure hunting thing wouldn’t be so terrible after all. It could be just the distraction he needed from his constant thoughts of her eyes. Or the three faint lines she would get on her forehead when he said or did something that annoyed her.

That night he fell into a restless sleep. Dreams of a conversation from a time long before his own flashed behind his closed eyes. But just before he woke the next morning, the mystery man in Killian’s dreams faded into an image of himself. Green eyes full of tears broke his heart as he spoke to her.

“I told my brother. He knows to come find you. Keep it safe.”

[suspendedfl00r]

Hello,

My soul yearns for a good write to try to make sense of my world right now. I haven’t found the most success writing pen to paper; due to the fact I’m always tired and fall asleep or just feel guilty like I should be doing other thinks like work. This narrative follows my overall process with creation which is fine cause sometimes you gotta just focus on school. I am curious if I should just delete all my social media apps again. Also curious as to why I feel I need adderall to function. I essentially dream of days where I can just wake up at a normal time get out of bed and just do life. Getting energy for breakfast and working out, and being more delicate with the way I nourish myself. I guess that goes in more ways than one as even considering the media and conversations I intake + the things I exchange energy and time with being different. I wish to spend my free time reading books, eating cleaner maybe plant-based, working out doing yoga, painting drawing embroidering tinkering with electronics, tinkering with models making clothes, drawing imaginary architecture, making models of it. Writing poetry, playing the guitar, making YouTube videos, + beautiful media.

I guess when I think of all the things I wish I could do I get so distracted from the present. I’ve been trying to detach from this idea I have of myself just being better and accepting myself as I am in order to be more real about moving into those spaces I wish to fill. What I mean by that is: rather than looking at my art, the architecture I’ve done, or think about what I have done and how it is not enough compared to where I wish to be; I’m trying to shift my energy towards being happy I have these skills and I’ve done what I have as experiments as a process. Rather than distilling fear into these areas of my life wondering if I’m good enough or what I’ve done is good enough, I wish to be at that place where I am just doing, experimenting not being held back by my fears or yearnings to be comfortable in my bed. But jumping out of bed to try something new, or planning my meals and bed time carefully so I do have time to squeeze in all these dreams and aspirations making use of all my time, energy, and money rather than just sitting in my room waiting for the opportunity to present itself.

Anyway that is the first layer of my mind the second layer consists of my responsibilities and having confidence in my movement. Staying focused and not getting distracted.// so I gues this has three dimensions work, school, personal life: lately I’ve been loosing slee from the demanding rhythm of life: working the two jobs has been a great blessing and learning process. However it has been really rough lately just to get out of bed and go to the work that pays the bills: which annoys me cause In the back of my mind I overthink about how I am perceived in the work place. Also T.A.‘ing has been super stressful. I guess I’m putting too much effort in the wrong places: with the professor I am bothered with how unorganized and over assigning work, the kids are just assholes that takes shit to the dean after I spent two days pulling all nighters to give them feedback. The whole class has been a shit show, and I feel both the students and the professor lack to take responsibility and I am just in the middle trying to help, but not doing so well as I’ve not taken this class. Also underplayed and forgetting to clock my hours.

Concerning my own classes I just pretty much fell behind the last couple of weeks from just lacking focus, which needs to be addressed as a real issue because no matter what I have to shoot for the A+ and practice statics so hard that I pass the class with flying colors I am definitely doing better than previous semesters but I want to have all of this class understood and down pat. So I will not struggle in solids next semester. Overall my biggest issue is that worksite from both jobs has been prioritized over my course which is due to the fact of paying bills, paying for school, and buying adderal(also been hard to find)

So as far as my personal life it is just a ball of stress and money especially when thinking about the car how I need to fix it. Wanting to have a good relationship with my family. Having kam around really helps but also adds to the stress as I’m usually a concerned about feeding us, overly sharing of my drugs and time. He is a Superman the way he works and I wish the best for him but I also realize I must see my self in the same light, and sometimes I see him as not having g his shit together and literally needing my help and this is wrong because that view reflects on the way I look at myself. His presence I really value but I often catch myself using him as a blanket to run away from my responsibilities. So as I feel myself with him, I see what I’m doing how it makes me crazy and I want him to just take care of all my problems for me the way I try to do for him. So essentially I find myself creating cycles of overdepency or toxic interdependency where my movement is based on his. Which is bad because we do move entirely different. He is so important to me because I feel he is my only friend really who gets me and hears me out and doesn’t judge me like my family does, while also loving me and actually caring instead of just using me like many of my friends do to just fill up their time as they run from their loneliness. He reminds me of reasons to be happy, while also reminding me that the stresses of the real world are real but you just do it.

so all in all I am doing okay and I still have time to do everything I want In this life and even this semester. My creative pursuits do not need to be happening now, however I am preppingg for them by focusing on my priorities of the now.

Which seem so jumbly because the lack of sleep. But really it’s simple!

Top priority: take care of yourself first! Eat nourishing food sleep at good times, exercise when you can and Allow yourself time to breathe. Stop worrying about how you are perceived and out overthinking to rest. Simply be gentle and loving to yourself by showing up for life. Nurture ur growth first. Before you consider Anyone or anything else!!

Priority #2 pass statics!!!

Study what you did not understand!! Chapter 21-22 then refresh on all the things you found tricky. Do all the exams and remember to not depend of reference material.

priority 03 pay bills/work

First acknowledge you need to be a good worker so stop delaying and pushing g things off. Just get them done, show up on time.

-stop breaking your back for people who will not notice/care

-to be avoid worker simply do the job you don’t have to go above and beyond but do the job well. ThAts it.

-do not let your jobs affecut your emotions: you are not defined by them in anyway and you are just there to do the work and make money. Dont over give, demand respect and don’t be a push over: be confident and focuses that your time and energy must be conserved to focus I. School: stop feeling guilty about work. Feel grateful that you are lucky to have two jobs during this plague! So echa me ganas.

As far as TA’ing

Get grades in but have a plan!!

Grade all project one and 2 then enter the rest of the grades

Also stop overworking yourself here for pretty much nothing. It’s not worth it girl. The professor and students jobs are not ur responsibility!

-do not let it get in the way of statics

Final remark: so yes I might feel super flakey about work life rn: but those spaces are temporary and do not let it distract you from the mission to graduate As the architect engineer master crafter!!! To learn! You are not the only flake everyone is struggling and you have a lot on your plate which you have communicated. So do not wear the guilt of the working world. You are a student and you get to participate in the work I g world and as long as you communicate and so your job you are ok!!

-as far as today go in to work

Focus on staying concentrated!!

Do good work

Tomorrow is a day off you can catch up then!! Also be happy share positivity with yourself and others!

You are doing fine! There is a lot going on but it will calm down! You got this!

[derpcakes]

Spookyfic Author’s Notes: Ghosts and Heroes and Metaphors

Via Yesterday’s Print

I said I’d do one of these every two chapters, didn’t I? Alas, Life Happened. The irregular schedule continues because this meta about The Ghost and its allegory got really long.

I said last time that the main catalysts for this fic were my brain melting post-semester and Night in the Woods. In the midst of all my NITW feelings, I considered the fact that Shirou would probably hate university. What do you even study, when your dream is To Be A Hero? I doubt the structure of academia would gel with him at all, much to his distress. Kid just wants to be functional, helpful, useful—nothing terrifies him more than the concept of him being useless, being a burden when he feels he owes the world so much. And isn’t a ghost story all about studying fear?

Another catalyst, which really helped to ground this fic when it was just a swirling cloud of “wouldn’t it be fun to write a murder mystery?” thoughts, was a paper I came across during the semester that melted my brain: Men, Movies and Monsters: Heroic Masculinity as a Crucible for Male Violence by Aaron Kipnis. I mentioned it in this post way back in April—as you can see it got into my head and got me thinking about a lot. It was an indispensable piece because it was one of the few I found in my wanderings through the subject of heroism and gender that said hey, listen, this idea that The Hero is always a manly man hurts men as much as it hurts women, though in ways we as a society don’t like to talk about. Kipnis suggests that chasing the ideal of The Hero—imposed by both modern action movies and ancient epic myths—has led generations of men to their deaths, whether in search of glory on a battlefield or as a result of self-harm.

If you can’t live up to the impossible ideal of The Hero, what do you fall back on? Well, you become a Monster of course. Kipnis observes that a lot of male-coded monsters, from vampires to the serial killers in thriller movies, have the same traits we celebrate in Heroes but warped and taken to their natural, nasty conclusion. This idea of The Hero and The Monster, two character types that stand in opposition to each other, being two sides of the same coin was fascinating and honestly kind of heartbreaking to me.

More realistically, though, if you can’t live up to the impossible ideal of The Hero, all you’re left with is a crippling feeling of inadequacy that society has in no way prepared men to deal with. A Hero is infallible, self-reliant, can take down entire armies singlehandedly, and certainly never falters or doubts himself—so in Kipnis’ own words, “Heroes can’t ask for help when they need it.” Someone who aspires to save the world surely has no need to save themselves.

And so we come to Shirou, a boy who Wants To Be A Hero and who has intense survivor’s guilt, trauma, and can’t stand to be a burden on anybody. I said the Most Shirou Line was that part where he says “I’m fine” and then faints, and I wasn’t kidding (there’s a part almost exactly like it in UBW, where he assures Saber he’s okay, and the next shot we see is him groaning and gritting his teeth in pain, hidden in his room)—this is a boy who bites down and buries everything for fear of being a nuisance, and defines his worth in the world by what he can do for other people. It’s a potent combination, and not a healthy one either—thus, the perfect aspect of his character to explore in a story, the most important thing to help him work through for writer and reader catharsis.

And so we come to The Ghost. Now, it is literally his ghost, but it’s also a neat bundle of metaphors for the emotional issues he refuses to acknowledge—like all problems, the ghost gets bigger when you push it away. The only way to “defeat” it is to face it head on, even if it’s scary, and accept that it’s part of you and try to find a way to move forward. He needs some help doing this, and that’s okay. I love that final scene in Part 6 a lot—after five long chapters refusing to cry, he finally lets it all out, lets himself feel those pesky and frightening negative feelings, lets himself say “it’s not okay”. And the people he love just hold and support him and accept him as he is.

Mental health is used as a horror device pretty often, and pretty often it gets exploitative—think every ghost story set in an “insane asylum” ever. I guess I wanted to look at that a little bit (though I’m no expert on the genre beyond what analysis I’ve read of these tropes and what bits and bobs I’ve picked up from pop culture osmosis). The horror element of this ghost story is the physical manifestation of Shirou’s trauma, which is intended to be acknowledgment that it’s natural to be scared of such things. Trauma is scary! Dealing with your issues is scary! The prospect of other people seeing how messy your head is is scary (Shirou is, after all, especially horrified that the ghost would try to hurt Sakura—i.e. he’s afraid that his own issues will hurt Sakura if she learns about them)! But in the end, I hope, the message is yes, these fears are justified, but you can’t keep avoiding these problems. Self-care is not hitting the physical manifestation of your PTSD repeatedly with a baseball bat in a Denny’s parking lot. Self-care is opening up to people you trust, gathering their support, and facing your problems so you can try to start to heal.

Just to show that you don’t have to get entangled in the supernatural to achieve this, we also have the parallel story of problem-facing and recovery with Sakura. The most blessed beautiful irony about these two is that they care so much for each other but routinely dismiss their own needs. I’m very fond of that “Even if you’ll never understand why, I love you” line because I feel like it sums up the way they look at each other: they see the imperfections, the broken bits, the self-esteem issues, and they accept them and try to help each other become better. Along the way, they learn to care for themselves little by little too (as we see in Sakura’s “can I say something selfish?” dialogue). It’s a relationship with mutual support and healing at its core, which is why it’s the emotional centre of this story.

It is, of course, a big ol’ canon parallel that Sakura sees Shirou’s ghost and says “well, that sure is a shadow monster messing up the town. But I still love you. Now let’s go fix this so we can go home and have a hot meal and try to get better.” Shirou needs a superhero of his own sometimes, too.

In the end, The Hero and The Monster are proved to be one and the same… but also, Shirou doesn’t have to be A Hero or A Monster and is allowed to just be Shirou, a sad and anxious young guy who wants to do good. The epilogue is still yet to come and wrap up these last emotional threads, but as of that climactic scene, he’s made the first scary and brave steps to trying to get better. He’s standing in ruins, after all, but they’re ruins overgrown with new greenery and new life.  

[journeyofmedstudent]

Medical School Journey

28 April 2020

.. Life is a journey .. When I was young I never dreamt of being a doctor, nor to enter the world of medicine. Everyone who knows me already know that Maram won’t be able to survive in the medical field, mainly because she’s super sensitive and would probably cry with every patient she meet along the way. I always saw myself as someone who’s interested in programming and digital design, maybe even engineering ( I still like engineering but sadly there’s no female section for this specialty).

Everything has changed during the preparatory year, I saw myself enjoying studying biology and the human body, even though I still can’t understand how smart our body is and all the functions that it can do in a matter of few minutes and even seconds, I saw it as magic and I still do, it’s absolutely fascinating.

During the preparatory year, we had an opportunity to visit the different specialties. I have chosen medicine and pharmacology. When I went to the medical campus I was very excited and amazed by the environment, somehow I felt this is where I belong, and I imagined myself studying there.

When I got accepted in medical school I was literally jumping all around the house from happiness, I knew that this is the start of a new chapter in my life.

The first couple years in medical school was the hardest, I felt like I’m stupid most of the time. This had a negative impact on me. Imagine being “smart” during school and then be this person who knows nothing and understand nothing in medical school. I literally had zero medical background. I felt like giving up and quitting multiple times. I was in a very bad state of mind and it had reflected on my grades unfortunately during that year.

However, I kept going. In Taibah University we have “Early Clinical Experince” aka ECE. I can still remember the first hospital we went to, it was Ohud Hospital, and we were like kids who just entered a playground. It was very exciting. However, during the other visits to primary health care centers or hospitals didn’t have that great memories, because it was always during the week which is supposed to be for studying, so it was always stressful and most of the times felt like a completely waste of time.

I remember hating anatomy so much, little did I know I’d be fascinated by a specialty which is all about anatomy.

Basic years are over and now I’m going to start the clinical years, the first rotation I had is General Surgery in Al-Ansar Hospital. This hospital gets lots of hate most of the time, but for me, I really liked it there. Everyone are very kind and provides the feeling of being part of the “family”.

Clinical years are truly amazing (If we ignore the fact that there’s logbook requirements that literally make us beg for signatures and got yelled at and kicked out multiple times). That’s why I took a summer training because the university wasn’t involved, and I can really get involved in the working environment and get to know the doctors and all of the health care workers better. This has led that they mistaken me as an intern instead of a student, and honestly it made me happy.

Needless to say, all of my summer training was in GS department in Al-Ansar Hospital. Many get surprised why I choose there. Well, in there I have an active role and I’m not being just an observer. Also another important part which I have mentioned earlier, there it feels like family. I will forever be thankful for everyone who I met and spend time with.

During the clinical year I experienced multiple of different specialties such as ophthalmology, ENT, psychiatry, obstetric and gynecology, pediatrics.. etc. However, there were no joy or satisfaction like in GS.

The senior year is one of the craziest year ever, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. Many things has happened, especially with COVID-19 and how it changed everything mid-way during the second semester. But I’m still grateful for everything, because I truly believe only what’s good is going to happen. Exit exam was cancelled, final exam was cancelled and replaced with other options such as open book exam, who would’ve thought that this is possible?

On my birthday, April 25th, I had my very last exam in medical school which was pediatrics. When I finished it I felt like I’m on the top of the world.

— Now I’m writing this on the 28th of April at 2am and will still modify it before posting it anywhere. —

During these last 6 years, I have met lots of beautiful hearted people, the evil ones, and also made some friendships that unfortunately were mistakes and caused me a heartache. I still don’t know how many of people that I got to know would still be in touch after graduating.

..

This isn’t even half of everything that I learned and experienced during my journey in medical school, but this is what I felt like sharing on this post.

I know nobody would probably read it, but if you did, thank you.

..

5 May 2020

Today I officially submitted my answers for the open book exam which is the last exam ever in medical school. I’m honestly overwhelmed by all of the feelings, I honestly cannot believe this day has finally come. I feel like I waited so long for it, but on the same time I feel like the time has passed by so fast. 

The journey of medical school has come to an end, but it’s only the beginning of another new journey. Let’s do this!  

[lost-in-our-words]

“Stellar Hearts” Chapter I (Part I): Juliana

Again, thanks to anybody who offers any suggestions, corrections, or constructive criticism. Before I start, I need to be sure to state that this story belongs to me, so please do not copy this story in any way, shape, or form. I want to make sure I’m making my posts easy to read. And, without further ado, here is Chapter I of Stellar Hearts.

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Autumn was settling over Haynes, evident by the display of fiery hues replacing the natural green of the trees’ leaves. It was the first of October, and by now I was beginning to see residents of the isolated town break out their heavy jackets and scarves. Meanwhile, I was huddled with my friend, Mya Townsend, inside of the Cabin, a modest, yet charming restaurant which sat humbly on the outskirts of Haynes, overlooking the Foxborough woods. The two of us were partaking in our annual tradition of enjoying a warm cup of hot cocoa from one of the local restaurants when the month of Halloween struck. I watched Mya, who sat silently across from me, gazing out the large windows which had replaced the western wall of the quaint restaurant, intended to provide the restaurant’s patrons with a splendid view of the woods’ Autumn trees and their leaves which swayed back and forth ever so gently in the mid-afternoon breeze.

I ran my finger along the rim of a porcelain cup which sat in front of me on the polished table, half empty of the chocolate beverage and completely drained of what whipped cream that had arrived with it. Compared to some of the other hot cocoa’s Mya and I had tasted over the previous years, this one was quite a letdown. Between its more watered down taste and the lack of marshmallows, I was sorely disappointed. Nonetheless, hot cocoa was hot cocoa, and thus I continued to sip away, as did my friend.

Mya sat upright in her chair and ran her fingers, whose nails were glossed over with a vibrant pink, through her blonde, bobbed hair. I had learned that this signal meant she was interested in starting up a conversation. However, she was never the best at bringing about a discussion, and so, instead, I cleared my throat and offered a question to her.

“You’ve been attending that college for a couple months now,” I began, my hands now clasped around the warm mug containing the disappointing drink. “Have you figured what major you may be interested in pursuing?”

Mya glanced up with a delighted smirk on her face, more than likely because a conversation had been stirred.

With a shake of her head, she explained to me that she still hadn’t the slightest clue what she may be interested in. “I’ve still been trying to wrap my head around a few possibilities, but they all seem to not be quite what I’m looking for.” She paused for a moment and glanced into her cup, seemingly studying the bits of whipped cream which still floated on the surface of the liquid. As she lifted the mug in her hands and enjoyed the warmth which radiated from it, albeit not taking another sip, she continued. “Alexus told me before senior walkout that she was considering studying a foreign language, and, thinking that perhaps she was onto something, I had convinced myself that such a major may be interesting. Thus, I enrolled in a French class this semester, but it just isn’t enthralling enough to peak my enthusiasm.”

“Enthralling?” I questioned. “That’s some impressive vocabulary for you, don’t you think?” Of course, I was joking around with my friend, but I had never expected to hear the word “enthralling” to escape her lips.

Ignoring my remark, she continued to tell of her journey through searching for a major. “After plan A failed, I tested out a few other ideas, pondering them for some time and weighing the pros and cons. I’ve sat in on a pair of classes, including an introductory sociology class and a women’s studies class which covered gender equality.” Mya lowered her head and seemed to enjoy a faint whiff of the hot cocoa before again looking up from her mug with a particularly unamused look. “Picking a major is a ‘major’ pain in the ass, Juliana. Although, I am sure you understand my pain. Tell me, have you come any closer to discovering what you’d like to do with your life?”

She got me there. While Mya was currently attending the Haynes Community College to explore her options while also knocking out some gen-eds, I diverged from her path. Likewise to her, I was indecisive in regards to my future, but had no intention of attending classes when I was still in the dark. This was not due to financial issues as many suspected, especially as my parents are offering to cover tuition and any other expenses, but rather an issue concerning avoiding a “mental overload” as I described it. I wasn’t exactly the best at managing schoolwork in high school, and so instead, while the majority of my graduating class is spreading across the United States to pursue careers, I had made the decision to take a year off from schooling and instead am focusing on my side business of photography in the meantime. Simply enough, it was named “Juliana’s Photography,” a cheap service as I wasn’t the most talented person with Nikon, but I could provide half-decent senior portraits to those who resented the thought of paying top-dollar for something so insignificant as photographs that may live only in a scrapbook or on a house wall, and to my amazement, the business was doing rather well. In fact, I had just returned from a photo shoot and still had my carrying case full of equipment resting beside me, and after stating that I was no closer to coming across an attractive major, Mya turned her attention to this photo shoot instead, curious as to how it had gone.

I offered a vague shrug. “The shoot was nothing spectacular. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred. My subject, a fairly pretty girl from Jefferson, had this obsession with fixing her hair nonstop despite being perhaps the most photogenic person I had ever come across. Thus, to my dismay, it would take several shots before I could ultimately snap a picture where she didn’t have her fingers up and tangled in her black hair.” As I reflected on the photo shoot, the corner of my lip flicked with a delicate twitch. “Now that I think back to it, however, little miss Priss was quite the nuisance, constantly insisting that another photograph be taken because of one tiny issue that could hardly be noticed, and no matter how many times I assured her that I could fix whatever the hell it was in editing, she begged for ‘one more picture just to be safe.’”

“I couldn’t have the patience for such an annoying client,” Mya joked as a response, then continuing to sip the last of her hot cocoa.

I offered a faint chuckle in response, drawing a look of confusion from Mya. From irritation, my mood returned to collected as I recounted what occurred following the session. “Except the mother offered to pay extra, obviously understanding how much a pain her daughter was being,” I added.

“How much?”

“Double what I was charging her. As tremendously as I wanted to accept the extra payment though, I refused. I was just being humble. Nonetheless, the mother shoved the large amount of cash into my hands and scurried off with her daughter before I could reiterate that I simply couldn’t accept it.”

Mya slammed her palm on the table and sent a stern glare my way, claiming that I was an imbecile for turning down such a glorious offer. However, deep in her sea green eyes, I could see a glimmer of humor. Before I knew it, she was bursting out in a fit of laughter, dubbing her comment as a joke and begging that I should not take her seriously, and surely, I wasn’t going to take her serious anyways. She is a terrible jokester after all. Anybody with functioning eyesight could see straight through her charades.

Returning to a sitting position on the wooden chair, she took a deep breath to regain her composure. Mya sure could crack herself up.

Our conversation went silent for a moment following the madness, and amongst the discomforting feeling of the ensuing awkwardness, Mya cleared her throat. Between her lips, I spotted a thin opening as if she prepared to speak, yet not a word came out. So, in an attempt to move the conversation forward, I reached down and unzipped the unvarnished black bag sitting by my feet, keeping an eye on my friend’s fingers which glided softly along her mug as she eyed me curiously. Searching throughout the bag, my hand moved between different lenses and filters before finally arriving at my camera.

“We were originally supposed to travel out to some field by the zoo about fifteen minutes east of town,” I started, “But the clients gave me a ring last night and said they discovered this small garden up on the northern outskirts of Haynes. It’s a wonderful venue, public and free to enter, and it actually made a great backdrop in my opinion.”

Pulling the camera out of my bag and switching it on, I handed the bulky device over to Mya. “Take a look,” I insisted simply with a faint smile curled upon my lips.

Graciously, she took the camera and focused her attention to the small screen on the backside of it. For a few silent moments following, she examined the pictures one by one, quietly dissecting the images and admiring the background which I had glorified. Some of the photographs had the high school senior sitting impatiently upon a granite stone wall with an array of colorful flowers, primarily irises and tulips, behind her. In others, she was standing with her back against an old wooden shed that we had found, the timber structure rustic in nature. However, perhaps my favorite photograph was the one with the black-haired woman holding a vibrant scarlet rose to her nose as she took a whiff of its floral scent. My reverence for the photograph, however, arose from how genuinely candid it was. It took one snap of the shutters for photo to be recorded, unlike all of the other pictures which required numerous attempts. There was no need for fixing the hair, no “one more photo just in case,” but simply a wonderful portrait.

Mya paused on one of the images, and reflecting off of her pupils, I could vaguely make out the photo that I had appreciated.

“Being here in Haynes, it meant I didn’t have to get in my car and drive anywhere as well.” I dug my heel into the carpeted floor and offered a faint smirk. “That was a plus.”

My friend’s emerald eyes rolled with misunderstanding as she gently let my camera down onto the table, and slowly, she relaxed back into her chair, sending a somewhat irked glare my way. “I’ve never understood what your quarrel with driving is,” she commented with her arms crossed loosely in front of her stomach.

This was not the first time that she questioned my distaste towards driving, and sure enough it would not be the last. Never did I understand why she was so passionate about understanding this uncommon trait of mine, but she always seemed determined to convert me into a lover of driving. “I’m serious, Juliana,” she reiterated, but now with a very gentle smirk creeping their way onto her face.

“Driving is stressful,” I responded modestly. “You must have said it a thousand times how driving gives you some sort of freedom, but I hate being responsible for a two-ton vehicle on a road with a bunch of maniacs who seem to have no respect for the rules of the road.”

“Stickler,” Mya mumbled.

“I’m sorry that I don’t want to get myself killed!” I sputtered, not angrily, but more in quick retaliation, accidentally sending a shot of saliva towards Mya. She flinched from the flying fluid as it landed on the table in front of her. In embarrassment, I swiftly covered my hands over my mouth.

How disgusting that must have been?

Instead of an appalled reaction, however, my friend once again broke into a fit, and by that point, we had turned into a pair of girls sharing a bout of giggles in the restaurant, drawing the attention of the other customers. Through my joyful tears, I could see a few other people scattered here and there, generally patrons similar to our age, becoming infected by the contagious laughter as well. The mature joint was no longer quiet with hushed gossip, instead being overcome with multiple tables sharing in the mirth that we were not able to contain within ourselves. Our waiter, seemingly aggravated with the sudden guffaw, returned to our table with checks in hand, settling them upright in front of Mya and I respectively before walking off without another word. Taking the hint, the two of us signed our checks, ensuring to tip the waiter as apology for the unwanted outburst, and dashing off quickly once we were free to. Thus, us two women, still suffering from an unstoppable frenzy of laughter, were left outside face to face with the boundless Foxborough Woods.

[rtell1]

Love is Courage

Rory Tell 

Professor Ward – Love and Film 

Love is Duration 

Anyone who gets to know me decently well, or is in a film class with me for a semester knows that I am huge Richard Linklater fan. Inevitably at some point, after I have referenced the Before Trilogy multiple times, someone will ask me why those movies are my favorite. Ironically, I don’t have an answer that completely satisfies me. Sometimes when you love something so much, especially a movie, much like love, it is this indescribable feeling one gathers that is impossible to articulate. For art, much like the intangible idea of love, something creates these intense emotions. However, if I am trying to pin down the reason for why I truly love the Before Trilogy, there are a lot of reasons. This is not solely because there are three different movies that all carry special places in my heart, but as I have grown, so has my love for these movies evolved as well. Movies do not change, but as I have learned from my lifetime, their viewers very much do. Michael Koresky gets at the heart of how the Before Trilogy develops for a person in time: “Romantic love is poignant because it is an infinite feeling that exists in a finite frame. And Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy is the most romantic and profound of love stories because it imbues love with the weight of time. In these three films, the temporal limits constantly imposed on love make every moment urgent, from the courtship of dating to the maturity of a long and meaningful relationship.”  The first time I had watched any of these movies was when I was 13, when my mom showed me Before Sunrise. Initially as an adolescent, “Jesse” represented everything I dreamed of: good looking, vulnerable, and a wry intelligence to match the banter of any Sorkin character. When I saw it again, mind you only 4 years later, I was now officially in love with the idea of being in love, and I saw Jesse and Celine as the perfect couple, the romantic ideal. Before Sunrise depicted this beautifully smart, self-conscious, vulnerable, sometimes philosophical, but mostly endearing pair. As I have grown older and continue to watch Before Sunrise, my thoughts on the film are constantly evolving. I mention this notion of our feelings on films developing to make the point that this is mirroring how we love people. Badiou, as referenced earlier in the semester, talks about how love takes on a temporal dimension. How love is shaped over time is central to understanding Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy. 

The Before Trilogy gains its unique emotional force from being a love story in knowing engagement with both the fantasies and the realities of romance. As one ages with time and returns to these movies, Linklater is asking his text to be viewed reflexively. Watching his movies entails a very particular form of viewer participation, as Celine and Jesse openly wrestle with the transience of love, the deceptions of time, and the specter of mortality. Viewers are obliged to do so as well, in ways that relate to their own lives. Linklater doesn’t just tell stories; instead, he wants the viewers to feel time from his first feature in Slacker, to the Before Trilogy, and especially in Boyhood. His films demonstrate that the cinematic image is not a photographic record of a moment in place, but the passage of a very particular pathway of time or space, never to be recaptured. Dennis Lim aptly writes how this idea functions within the Before Trilogy: “What separates these three distinct moments in the lives of Jesse and Celine are not mere edits, but unfakable real-time ellipses that carry a full durational weight for creators and characters and audiences alike. Each new film demands to be viewed through a palimpsest of accumulated experience. In the scheme of the Before movies, time operates both as a special effect and a reality principle.”  I think it may be difficult to discern how time functions in a Linklater film at first viewing, because as an audience, we are inherently preoccupied with worrying how Celine and Jesse will work at the end of every movie. I think on a re-watch, what is so rewarding, is that you realize it’s not about wondering where Celine or Jesse will end up. Instead, the film is about remembering what it was like to go through different stages of love. It’s about enjoying the smaller moments in life and in the film, where it feels like time is endless. 

With respect to how love evolves for Linklater, I think over time with relationships, cognition becomes relatively more important than emotion, and close relationships are more likely to be based on companionate love. This is love that is based on friendship, mutual attraction, and a concern for each other’s welfare. This does not mean that enduring love is less strong, rather, it may sometimes have a different underlying structure than initial love based more on passion. This type of evolving companionate love relates to the reading of the week, Carla Kaplan’s The Erotics of Talk, in specific her chapter named “That Oldest Human Longing” in their Eyes Were Watching God. Kaplan, in her revisionist reading of Hurston’s text, comes to the conclusion that the value of the erotics of talk lies in its dialogical emphasis on the relationship between speaker and listener, that which evolves between Janie and Pheoby. Kaplan writes how the ideal listener is so tough to come by, but as love evolves, one is less attracted to physical notions of love, and more to the companionate versions of love. She shows this by illustrating how time has evolved in how Janie loves. Kaplan notes how Janie, from the very moment she sees the blossoming of a pear tree, is in search of an “orgasm,” a revelation of the mind. While Janie originally believes this revelation to come in the form of marriage, over the course of time she understands this to be a false hope. As Kaplan points out, “The meaning of Janie's pear tree "revelation," it turns out, is not marriage or a husband or sex, but talk itself, the experience of conversation, the act of storytelling and self-narration. It is only in telling her story to Pheoby that Janie finally is able to satisfy that oldest human longing-self-revelation"  Only through time and experience was Janie able to locate what she thought was important in love. Thus, going back to the Before Trilogy, it is clear relationships change, and Jesse and Celine mature in varying ways throughout the three movies. Each film is a window onto a stage of life, sharply attuned to the possibilities and disappointments of one’s evolving love. Taken together, they have become something much larger and more radical, their relationship is an ongoing collective experiment in embodying the passage of time.

[susanpallmannhitegd-blog]

Reflections & Fresh Starts

It’s finally finished! This week saw the conclusion of project 2, complete with an in-class critique and guest viewers. I think there was a collective sigh of relief once we could call it over. That is not to say it wasn’t a fun project (it most certainly was!), but there is some very strong satisfaction to saying a job is done. I think my only regret about the critique itself was that we did not get much opportunity to give each other feedback, like we had with our posters last project. I found that a really valuable experience last time; in fact, it was directly instrumental in the creation of this project.

Now that it is over, I can really look back and reflect on the project’s process, and it’s truly amazing to see how far these zines came from being a vague concept just a month ago. I touched on my zine’s process a little during the critique presentation, but as those were supposed to be fairly short, I did not really go into the depth I would have liked to.

I did mention in the presentation that my choice of Futura as a typeface was largely based on the posters of my peers from the previous project. Of the top three I chose, 2 were on Futura. I myself had done Mrs Eaves, and for this project I wanted to try something a little less traditional. Futura fit the bill, but at this stage it was kind of like a first date. I knew I liked the look of Futura, and something about how my peers had portrayed it fascinated me, but I didn’t know anything about it, really. So naturally research had to be my first stage! That was where I discovered that Futura was more than just a geometric sans serif; it was very much an expression of futurism by Paul Renner. This ended up becoming my entire theme, so if that doesn’t exhibit the importance of research, I don’t know what will!

I remember the next thing due were our plans for the photoshoot and some early spread layouts. Keeping in theme with the futuristic idea, I knew pretty early on that the classic retro astronaut look would be perfect. I did not realize what kind of undertaking making such a costume would be, but I was committed to the idea. Although I now know how much work it was to create such a costume (and that I could only breathe in it for a few minutes), I am glad I decided to stick by the idea, because the visual power of the imagery really boosted my zine, in my opinion. It really fit the theme I was going for quite beautifully, and to see that I had such a strong concept so early on in the process is quite encouraging.

That photoshoot even ended up being a central part of my cover by the end of the project, even though I had only intended for it to be on one spread to begin with, and that leads me to another discovery about this project. I fully expected the cover of the zine to be the easier part, and to undergo the least amount of changes. This was not because I thought the design of my cover was especially good (I did not even have a design yet); it just seemed like it would be the element I would be most sure about. Quite contrary, it was probably one of the last and less “sure” aspects of the whole zine, only coming together in the last two weeks.

And the before/after comparison is outright shocking. Thank goodness I had gotten my content finished early enough to really put time into the cover.

I really feel that this zine expresses a lot of what I learned all throughout this semester, not just the things discovered during this project. The critique of my first poster was, as I said, an essential part of this zine’s design. My zine used a very strong grid structure, as I’ve touched on in a previous blog post - this was entirely because the grid was one of the best elements of my typography poster design. Many of my design choices were inspired by or thought of during the last project as well. The work of tracing Futura letters in light ties directly to our first exercise. My colors in both my first project and this one (admitting that they may not be coming across the way I see them) are a subtle nod to the wonderful colors I saw at Brad Vetter’s studio during that field trip. I use large green letters in my specimens and colophon pages, and while they carry a different function, I kind of see them as a reference to the drop cap letters we saw in the really old books at Special Collections. It all got tied into this project, and for me that gives it all more meaning. The process itself was rigorous, but this too was something the semester has really pushed me to be better at. I think I have said before that this class might be the most challenging for me design-wise, but I also feel that it may be the class where I see the most progression. I have grown more than I really thought was possible, even over the course of just two projects, and that is indescribably exciting.

The reading for this week is chapter 10, which talks about the process (this is really why I chose to reflect on my process for project 2 in this entry). It details design tasks, and the steps to reach a solution professionally, and I was surprised how many parallels there are between the process it details and what we are doing in class. The way our projects are set up, we are given a design challenge, and through some steps we develop a solution. Looking at the variety of choices, styles, and themes in the zines we collectively created as a class demonstrates the many ways a specific problem can be solved through design. Even though we all followed a similar process and time frame, there were incredibly diverse outcomes, and that made for a really fun critique. I think watching my classmates present their work was another invaluable experience to hold on to for the future.

On that note, presenting my own work was pretty scary. I am not very experienced with public speaking at all (I was even home-schooled through high school, so I got even less than most inexperienced college students), so the idea was decidedly intimidating.

... but it went much, much better than I was expecting it to. Typically when I have to give a presentation, it is about a subject I don’t have too much interest in, and perhaps don’t know well, but I distinctly recall during my presentation, I got to the part with my poem. Knowing I had written it to be humorous, the nerves really disappeared in that moment, and I was able to read it clearly. I was delighted to see my audience laugh at the right parts, and clap when I was finished, and that’s what makes me believe that when I know my work intimately, and have pride in it, I can present it well. I am sure that with more practice I will get better at public speaking, but I think there is also something to being able to look at this magazine I spent a month on - see people viewing it and smiling, or laughing - that gives me the courage to talk about it. When I’m presenting my work, it stops being public speaking, and instead it is an interaction, between me, the audience, and my work. I think that presenting like that for the first time really opened a door for me mentally, and now I see a new area with a lot of potential for growth, and I’m excited to see where that takes me, especially in the years to come.

Now it is on to project 3! We are starting by generating grids for our process books. Fortunately, I have come to absolutely adore the grid this semester. Between this and my other classes (including history of graphic design), my use of the grid has really improved exponentially. It is really a design element I’m passionate about, and as of project 2, I’ve found it is uniquely fun to use to develop visual systems. It is a little intimidating to jump into a new project after spending a month on one I had grown familiar with, but I am glad I get to start it off with a method I deeply enjoy.

[condensed-theorem-shop]

Here, let me take a break from ranting about cults to talk about something nice and uncontroversial (ha): homeschooling.

And by “talk about homeschooling,” I mean “copy/paste a comment from Ozy’s blog, because it got sufficiently long to be maybe worth sharing on my own.”

I was homeschooled much like this! And so have Many Thoughts. Apologies for the absurdly long comment.

(Well, my parents would never describe themselves as “unschoolers” in a million years — they’d say “classical/eclectic” if asked — but “classic homeschoolers who pay serious attention to the child’s interests” and “unschoolers who pay serious attention to the three R’s” probably converge at some point.)

I had a very very positive experience with homeschooling overall (and am happy to expound on it at length; my parents are very Into educational theory, and included me in the discussions as I got older).

(Braggy data on success thereof, which I blush to include, but: I ended up graduating at 16, attending a college in the top 20 in my field, and recently getting accepted to a good grad school with tuition waiver, TA position, and fellowship. On the non-math side, I double-majored in honors liberal arts, and was nationally competitive in fencing in high school. My 13-year-old sister is auditing her first college class (discrete math), regularly runs local 5- and 10Ks and places top in her age group, and wants to be a surgeon. The 10-year-old is on Suzuki book 3 for cello, and one of the top students in the local string project. All of us were reading at two, reading chapter books at three, and won various impressive things in lots of math competitions as well as the private-school-equivalent-of-UIL.)

So from that experience, some thoughts:

(1) The sleep thing is so so so true. Easily the #1 thing my non-homeschooled friends were jealous of. (#2 was not having to take the state’s standardized tests.) Possibly this is outdated science, but my understanding is that teenagers are actually just biologically wired to go to bed later and sleep in later than adults.

(2) Exercise, yes! Homeschooling and exercise and free-range kids all fit very nicely together. I did lots of biking and swimming and hiking and roller-blading and just running about wildly; it definitely contributed that by the time I was in double digits I was allowed to ride my bike anywhere within about a ten-block radius (the boundaries were defined by the nearest streets busy enough to be dangerous), so I got lots of exercise just getting around.

(3) Something of a follow-up on that last: if your kids are going to be running around unsupervised outdoors during school hours, you should probably make sure you’re clear on the local homeschooling laws, and then coach them on how to talk to a policeman. My parents did that for me, which was good, because it did in fact happen a few times that a policeman stopped me and asked some very pointed questions about whether I was playing hooky.

My instructions were: be polite; say “yes, officer, no, officer”; explain that I was homeschooled, and it was my recess [we didn’t have anything that formal, but easier to say that than explain your entire homeschooling philosophy]; if they insisted on taking me to the station, comply and then ask for my parents until they were provided.

The last stage of that never in fact came into play; the policemen always went “oh, okay. My sister homeschools! Do you like it?” and let me go (once with instructions to go get a better lock for my bike).

(4) I absolutely approve of homeschooling as “hey, let’s test out our kooky educational theories!” That’s exactly what my parents did. (My dad’s pet theory is that algebra should be introduced alongside arithmetic, and slopes alongside fractions. All three of us turned out super-math-y. Just saying…)

(5) One of the best things about homeschooling is a 1:1 (or close to it, if you have multiple kids) student:teacher ratio. Take full advantage of this.

(6) Yes, the math thing! A depressing number of homeschooled kids end up with poor math skills. It doesn’t help that it’s usually the mom homeschooling, and women seem to have even more of a tendency to go “oh, I can’t do math, it’s scary” than men. (Not claiming that women are inherently worse at math or anything; this seems to be pretty clearly a response to cultural pressure.)

Hiring grad students is a good idea; they’re interested in the subject, have some teaching experience, are usually lonely for their own families/younger siblings, and will work for dirt cheap. My family did a lot of that for me.

Beware of Khan Academy and various other “teach your kid math for you” services; these tend to prey on this phenomenon. Parents will pay ridiculous amounts of money for canned math curricula, because they’re so nervous about their own abilities; and while I know a lot of public-schooled people who used Khan Academy on their own after school and liked it, it really doesn’t substitute for an actual math teacher, especially for kids who aren’t inherently super-math-gifted. If you want a math curriculum, consider looking into Art of Problem Solving.

(7) A common unschooling failure method is: the kid spends twelve hours a day playing minecraft, the parent decides this is Probably Educational He’s Learning About Architecture Or Something, at eighteen he still can’t read or multiply. (My parents tend to refer to this as “nonschooling.”)

Making the three R’s less optional will probably help with that. Also, it seems like there’s something to be said for helping kids do things that they first-level don’t want to do but second-level do want to do. Plenty of adults use things like leechblock, or accountability to a friend, to serve the same function; a kid can’t reasonably be expected to have mastered using those tools, so a parent reminding them to turn off the computer and go work on their exhaustively detailed pyramid replica they love seems like a good thing.

C. S. Lewis actually brings something like this up in the Screwtape Letters (as part of an analogy for spiritual growth, but whatever). He points out that reading children’s versions of Greek myths is fun, and learning the first handful of Greek words is fun; and that being able to read Hesiod in the original is also fun; but in between, there’s a lot of drudgery with memorizing paradigms and struggling through translations. Even a kid who’s really passionate about Greek may need to be nagged a bit on a day-to-day basis to go review their verb tenses; it seems hard on a twelve-year-old to require them to have the intrinsic motivation to do that without any authority figure nudging them.

In my family, what this looked like on the day-to-day level was: my parents would tell me things like “no, go do your translations before you play” or “don’t forget you need to spend 30 minutes working on chemistry at some point this evening.” (Not very unschool-y, I admit.) But they’d be flexible about it, if I’d gotten really into researching the mathematics of swarming behavior or something.

And if some subject was consistently a cause of misery for me — not just “ugh, organic compounds, whyyy” but genuine “I hate this, it’s boring, I don’t want to do it,” every time over a period of days or weeks — they’d discuss with me whether I genuinely wanted to quit the subject. (It was really really clear that this was actually an option, and I wouldn’t be in trouble for choosing it or anything, which was crucial.)

I nearly always, given some space to think about it, decided that I wanted to keep working on the subject. Sometimes we’d decide to put it on the back burner for a while and come back to it next semester, or to skip to a different part of the subject and come back to that one another time, or try a different textbook, or find a tutor. Occasionally I did decide I was done with the subject, and they respected that.

I think this worked out really well. The only two subjects I can think of that I decided to totally quit were piano and Latin, and in retrospect both were absolutely the right call. Piano I quit after a year, and I recall absolutely none of it; I’m profoundly unmusical and was a disaster at it and hated it, and don’t wish in the least that I’d kept trying. Latin I quit after eight years and an audited university class; my parents and I had a serious discussion, and agreed that while I was glad to have studied Latin I wasn’t interested in pursuing it at a higher level, and that “took a class on the Aeneid in Latin” would be a good milestone for having mastered it to a casual-reading-of-Latin-texts level, and so I did that and then quit. I’m a little rusty, now, but given a dictionary and grammar can still read Latin texts fairly comfortably.

(8) I think you’re overestimating the difficulty of learning a foreign language. I had a friend growing up who was German/English bilingual, as was his mother; my mom tutored him in literature in exchange for his mother spending an hour or so a week talking with me in German. Afterwards my friend and I would hang out, and were encouraged to talk in German.

In addition, I did Rosetta Stone (pricey but effective, immersion-based) and later the Foreign Service Insitute’s course (free online if you can find it, or cheap to buy; immersion-based; meant for diplomats who are told ‘okay, you’re going to Germany in a month, be ready.’) (I also did another online course at one point, but it wasn’t very good.)

By the time I graduated high school, I was able to (with reference to a dictionary) read genuine literature in German; Goethe and Rilke were my favorites. My accent was apparently very good; I was asked more than once if my parents were native speakers (e.g. by the instructor in the not-so-good online course). I got a 4 on the German language AP test, which exempted me from all foreign language requirements in college (which I’m very grateful for; college language classes are super-intensive).

And — in some sense, the most important — when I spent a semester abroad, I was comfortably able to get around Vienna for a week or so speaking to people in German. (It helped in Hungary, too; Hungarian is hard and I learned very little, but nearly everyone spoke either English or German.)

I think key elements in that were: I started early (I was seven when I met my friend); I spent a good amount of time with a native speaker; and everything I did was immersion-based. The not-so-good course I took wasn’t mostly immersion-based, and I actually found that very frustrating, because I had to keep switching languages in my head; eventually I convinced the teacher to just talk to me in German all the time, which everyone else found very impressive but made it much easier for me.

(9) What you’ve said about the social issues all sounds right. I think the value of just escaping the social pressures of middle school isn’t to be underestimated; I know a surprising number of people whose parents homeschooled them /just for middle school/.

I got to spend my early teens dressing however I felt like (frequently ridiculously), wearing no makeup, hanging out with boys as friends, and not being at all self-conscious about any of it. My friends in public school were constantly worried about their appearance and their weight — and I don’t mean this as “I was a better person than them” or anything like that, I mean that other girls made nasty remarks to them constantly, and I escaped that. I’m very glad to see my sisters getting the same benefit.

(10) Also: bullying. Or, rather, not. The vast majority of my friends who were in public school were bullied, at least at some point; many of them still deal with ongoing trauma from that.

I encountered bullies — twice, total. The first time was in elementary school, in a homeschool group, and my mom promptly picked up on it and got the bully kicked out — she was able to both notice and do something about it, neither of which parents of kids in school can usually do. The second time was in middle school, in my fencing club; I took it to the instructor promptly, because I had spent my whole life with authority figures who listened to me and trusted me and acted productively on that. She had a very stern talk with the much older teenager in question, and he left me alone from then on.

Honestly, I’m pretty sure the bullying issue alone justifies homeschooling.

[worldcakecakecake]

Good Luck Friedrich

A series of video diaries by Isabella Beilschmidt for her baby brother, Friedrich, where she details and explains the lives of their hectic family.

Managed an update woo! As always, expect slow ones with this story, but since lately I’ve been getting a lot of messages about it, I planned of a way to work on this one quicker after I finish a new thing I’m working on, so you might get the next chapter sooner, but let’s see how that goes. Hope you enjoy!

                                                      Video 2

“No, no, no, a nice gentle orange!”

“But we already painted this in baby blue, it won’t match!”

“Oh trust me, my kind of orange will be perfect. Wait till we start mixing and you’ll see what I mean.”

“It better be pretty, because if not, I’ll feel embarrassed walking by this every day.”

“Analiese, you’ll be in Paris by the time we start using it."

“I still have an entire summer here!”

Isabella had enough of this, she switched the camera from the wall her papa and older sister were currently discussing on, to the crib where Friedrich lay, facing the ceiling, ever curious eyes darting every part of the ceiling, room and the dogs that watched around him, his cute little hands and feet wobbling, still testing out his first movements. To Isabella there was nothing more adorable, especially since he was wearing a really small and cute woodland creatures footie pajamas.

“Hi, Friedrich. You are now three weeks old! You see your sister Analiese and Papa there,” she pointed as they began a tracing, and to her surprise, the baby followed the movements, his eyes now frozen on their figure, wobbling more, surely wanting his papa’s attention.

“They’re working on our semester calendar for when school starts again in September…well, for the ones who are staying in Switzerland of course. Papa takes this wall and paints all our schedules into this huge beautiful calendar surrounded by beautiful designs of a theme we all vote on. This time, fairy forest won. It’s a way for us to organize ourselves as well to not forget any of our assignments, plans or even what day were in. He’s being doing this from the moment Heinrich and Alessandro started Kindergarten, and as we got older, we even help him. Maybe one day you’ll help papa and vatti make your own calendars.”

After her explanation, she started pointing the camera around the high ceiling of this living room, the elder walls, the different paintings their papa and the rest had decorated with over the years.

“This is a beautiful place, isn’t it? Large, lively and even strong.” With a little last poke to his nose, she stood and began walking around, introducing the kitchen, the library, the halls, from the ones in the basement as well as the top floors, their views of perfect blue sky, of green hills, colorful fauna, from the distance and even the ones they grew in their garden and yard.

“This place is more than two hundred years old. Vatti used to tell us a story about a powerful woman that used to live here, so selfish and greedy that a witch placed a curse on her to never leave the threshold of her house. Vengeful she was she began to study all kinds of witchcraft to get back at her. Once she learned enough, she challenged the witch on a dual for her freedom and vatti says that a great battle took place in these very hills until she acclaimed her winning. The process helped to make her kinder actually, starting a school to teach little witches and wizards what she learned…but then we told uncle Vash, and he just said that an old noble family used to own it, went broke and just left the house fall to pieces. Yep, the house didn’t use to look like this.”

She pointed the camera around, hoping with the story she was to tell that Friedrich could imagine how broken down it had been once, instead of all this strong wood, paneling, colors, carpets and order that took years to reach.

“You’re lucky you didn’t see it when it was still being worked upon, so the house can be to you from the beginning a strong fortress to protect and grow in and-”

“I’m starting to have second thoughts about this…”

“Oh come on, it won’t be that bad!”

A sling, a throw, a body being hit against the wall, creating a hole, debris falling on the ground, along with a dizzy Aldrich, who groaned and tried to relieve himself from the pain. Isabella was so startled she could only remain still, letting the camera roll and capture this. Alessandro came out the door his younger brother was slung from, panicking, as surprised to a still as Isabella. He was clearly not expecting for this to cause so much damage.

“What just happened?” Analiese shouted as she came up, gasping but quickly being the only one to hurry to Aldrich’s side, to help him up, check on him and embrace away any kind of pain.

After Friedrich started wailing, Feliciano climbed up with the baby in his hold, trying to shush him back to his calm, which was hard to do with the dogs following around and then for all to instantly panic when they saw where Aldrich lay, going to his side to help and inspect the damage. Feliciano quickly calculated and sent a heavy glare in Alessandro’s direction.

“What happened here?” He demanded.

“Uh…” Alessandro was quickly trying to plot something that wouldn’t get him into trouble.

“I have everything tapped. You can’t escape from this one,” Isabella interrupted.

Alessandro groaned but was still too scared to talk.

“Whatever it was, it’s your money we are using to fix this and your vatti will later give you a stern talking to,” their papa warned, beginning to pick some things to clean up as well as filling Aldrich with all kinds of kisses he sometimes wished could heal.

The last thing the camera caught as it turned away was Alessandro’s groan. It now instead focused on Isabella’s still surprised expression, deciding to move away from this commotion and find somewhere silent to begin.

“Okay, so, eighteen years later and the house is still falling apart, but trust me, it’s way better than how it used to be…”

  Ludwig and Feliciano had arrived for the first time before the house almost eighteen years ago, on a bad red golf Volkswagen, the cheapest one they could find, with nothing but a couple of bags of clothes and other small items they could take in the small time they had.

Back then, there was no paved entrance, no garden, Feliciano couldn’t even spot the door, only but grass and vines standing tall and wrapping around every available opening of the old decaying house. Feliciano came out from the car and neared, not fearful, finding available spots to enter through the fauna until finally he could reach the door, a heavy lock impeding any kind of trick. Luckily Ludwig had brought a large snip to easily break it, and although the door was free for a simple push to give them entrance, they both though it appropriate to use the keys they were given for their first entrance. The locks worked sufficiently and Ludwig pushed the door for him, instantly greeted by a cloud of dust, falling specks of rocks, the only light being the one that came from the door, illuminating only but greyed floors, rotten wood and walls, and various holes that let quite the cold air drift. Pieces of the ceiling lay on the floor, rats, cockroaches and spiders scurried, and Feliciano was just about ready to let himself cry.

“Ludwig…it’s much worse than they said,” he honestly told.

Ludwig sighed, agreeing, taking off the heavy jacket he wore to instead give it to Feliciano, making sure to cover him well. He tightened the beanie on his head, fitting the large jacket well on his shoulders, then buttoned the area where the large bump in his stomach lay.

“Stay here, I’ll check the rest of the house."

“No, I want to see it too. We need to see it together.” He already moved forward, taking his arm decided.

“Feliciano, all kinds of sickness and diseases are in the air. I can’t risk you and I can’t risk the baby either,” he was determined.

Feliciano raised his hand to cover his mouth area from the dust, dirt and contaminated air. “I’ll stay like this, and don’t worry, as long as I’m by your side, I know I am well and that you will protect me,” he promised.

Ludwig groaned but ended up accepting, making sure that Feliciano’s hold of him was tight, assuring, for no such escape even if something were to suddenly happen.

They started the inspection, checking the functionality of every still standing door, of the broken windows, of old mural paintings that Feliciano would be determined to fix. The floors creaked much worst as they took their steps. Some halls were inaccessible with all the debris and old furniture that piled. The stairs were so unsafe, with many holes and even worst piles of impending entrance that Ludwig and Feliciano feared to go up to the second floor or down below to the basement.

As they were checking the old kitchen, Feliciano gave a simple little cough.

“We’re leaving,” Ludwig decided.

“But-”

“We saw enough. Come on, let’s go.” He took a more protective hold of Feliciano, trying to cover his entire body well on him until they finally exited, closing the door behind them.

They moved the car only but a mere distance, for Ludwig’s Swiss cousin’s house, which lay in the very near vicinity. His young cousin Lili was the one who instantly came out to greet them, offering them both kind embraces and welcomes, helping them with the small luggage of things until they were brought to the basement, which would be their stay in the meanwhile.

The four of them shared a dinner of soup, baked fish and a simple summer salad, just perfect enough for Ludwig and Feliciano after everything.

“How soon are you planning to start on it?” Vash asked.

“Tomorrow. I’ll start by cleaning it up, getting rid of all those old piles of junk,” Ludwig already planned on his head.

“But…aren’t you already going to start working on Vash’s mechanic shop as well?” Lili wondered with worry.

“I will. I’ll just wake up early and work what I can before leaving, then come back and continue until it gets too late.” He didn’t seem to mind at all despite the deep hurt Feliciano felt, knowing that he would exhaust himself so much for him and for the coming baby.

“Take it easy, Ludwig. Why don’t you instead work on it on the weekends?” Vash suggested.

“We have no problem with letting you both stay here however long until it’s good enough for you two to move in,” Lili added.

“I rather not. I want to have it done as quickly as possible. I don’t want my son or daughter to come into this world homeless,” he said while taking his bites of salad and fish harshly in determination.

“Ludwig…” Feliciano reached a hand to lay on his arm dearly. “I’m only four months in, the baby won’t be coming until January. We have enough time. I don’t want you to overwork yourself. We’ll manage what we can peacefully, and even if we don’t have the house ready yet, the baby will have us, and a lot of love, and that should matter the most, right?”

Ludwig still remained pensive, but he did take a dear hold of Feliciano’s hand, rubbing it gently, with promise and wishes, eyes landing on the bump of his stomach, reminding him of everything he still desired for the little thing that was growing inside.

“I still want to give it everything,” he said, the heavy promise obvious in his attentive eyes, to nothing but the bump and Feliciano’s face.

“It will have it, Ludwig, there’s no doubt, but don’t hurt yourself in the process. I rather this baby have you and me than anything else." He raised his hand to rub at the side of his face, quite an intimate and meaningful moment for them, which actually left Vash and Lili feeling rather awkward.

“Do you know its gender yet?” Lili wondered, quite excited about the coming little cousin she’ll have and wanting to change any gloomy air in the table.

“We were going to ask if you knew any doctors. I should be getting my first sonogram soon and that’s when we’ll surely know,” Feliciano smiled, excitement reigning once again.

“I really do not mind what it will be, I’m just worried about his bump, it’s too big for someone whose only been pregnant for four months,” Ludwig told.

“Mrs. Natale, she has a lab in the village. The number one person to go to about this. I’ll give her a call and assure you an appointment as soon as possible,” Vash promised.

They continued on other topics, until all plates were empty and they could withdraw to their sleeping preparations.

As soon as Feliciano had his shower, he sat down on the floor, a sketchbook on what was supposed to be his bed, drawing along while Ludwig was finishing his own book, with every turn taking a glance to try and have a peek at what his mate was doing. The only time Feliciano broke from his concentration was to stare at the clock in the bedside table, showing that it was about to be midnight.

“Caro, you should be going to sleep,” he told him.

“Not until you do as well,” Ludwig told him back, but obeying and closing his book, leaving it right at the bedside table as Feliciano did with his sketchbook. Ludwig made space for him and Feliciano took his spot beside him, letting their arms wrap around each other, dwelling in their softness and warmth.

“What were you drawing?” Ludwig asked, curious after he hadn’t managed to catch a single glimpse.

Feliciano had no problem with picking the sketchbook and showing him, both gazing to Feliciano’s plans for the house, how he was thinking of making the gardens, the entrance, the façade, the rooms, the halls, the living room, the kitchen, the terrace, all to every last detail and intricacy, a wonder that Ludwig could agree would be the dream they both wanted for this house. The last drawings were the plans for the baby’s room, still unfinished, but what took Ludwig’s interest was the giant stuffed dog doll in the corner. He raised his eye at that and Feliciano couldn’t help but laugh.

“Will that really be necessary?”

“Of course! Our baby could play with it and make it feel protected. I’m sure this child would love dogs as much as you do,” he grinned, nuzzling his nose with his.

“Well, if we can find a place that sells big stuffed dog dolls, sure, and also…if we have the money,” and Ludwig gloomed, saddening and worrying as every time he thought about the economic problems they faced, sighing and hoping he could forget about them in the trace of his fingers on Feliciano’s stomach.

“We will do what we can, please don’t worry, Luddy. If we can’t get it, it’s all right. Small little ones would be enough, I don’t mind. Like I always say, what matters the most is being together,” Feliciano said, taking the side of Ludwig’s face to rub, easing him close for a meet of their lips, the last soothing touch to bring them into their sleep and dream.

  Feliciano convinced Ludwig to stay resting in the morning, only to be awakened once he had to leave with Vash to start working at the shop. Once they were gone, around the slope of the hill in their car, Feliciano and Lili picked some bags they quickly prepared after breakfast and headed down on foot to the old browned house. Once they were inside, Lili cleared whatever old planks, curtains, broken glass or piles from small openings, letting in more natural light into the old home, much easier to see and work with. She made sure that both her and Feliciano were covered as Ludwig would have wanted if he was there, with tied cloths on their mouths and heads, gloves, old hoodies, old pants, boots, and she jokingly put a pillow around Feliciano’s bump. They started clearing the main entrance, everything either moved to a single pile in a corner or outside in another one. They moved, they dusted, all through the day, until finally Feliciano could actually spot the stone of the floor clear. It was only a small space, but it was relieving, it was a sign of progress.

Time was lost to them as they worked, the late evening approaching them without notice, until sudden steps joined, neither Feliciano’s nor Lili’s.

“What are you doing here?” Ludwig instantly scolded, rushing off to take a hold of Feliciano, dusting away any dirt, taking watch of every part of him, relieved to find absolutely nothing stuck to his skin or signs of sickness since he prepared himself well.

“Lili and I thought it was best we started while you and Vash were away,” he smiled, still content and proud over the little they had done.

Ludwig gazed to Lili, who was dusting away the last of a corner they had decided they would reach for today, smiling and waving to Ludwig as a greeting before she continued with throwing all that dirt through a window. Ludwig couldn’t really complain or get angry, for as his eyes settled on what they worked. It was actually plentiful, the whole entryway clean, sure still a lot of things to be worked upon, but at least most of the old junk and piles were not there anymore, a nice clearing to work peacefully and be more focused on.

“Feliciano, you did an amazing job, but next time,” he reached and took the broom he held, “just wait until I arrive, I don’t want to risk you getting hurt or sick.”

Feliciano couldn’t help his groan, “just because I’m pregnant does not mean I’m incapable, Ludwig. I really want to have this house ready as much as you do, so I want to work on it when I can. It’s our home and I want both of us to work on it together. Don’t feel so worried, I covered myself, I’m with Lili and this street is completely safe. Please let me come here more often without you, I really want to offer what I can.” Even if his gloves, even if all the dust that lay on him and his heavy wear, he still leaned to embrace Ludwig, and he had no hesitation to wrap his own arms around him, only sighing as he let his hands play at his hair, still gazing to what they did, an excellent job for something that was just him and Lili.

Ludwig was weak to all this love.

“Promise me you’ll always come with Lili, do not try to move any of the heavy things that can be straining for you and never take any of the stairs until I fix them, all right?”

“Sì, amore,” Feliciano agreed, smiling unto Ludwig’s chest, relishing in his warmth and comfort.

Extra steps joined, those of Vash as he entered, gazing to what his sister and Feliciano did, an impressed smile as he nodded approvingly to everything.

“Excellent, need any other hands?” They continued until it got too late, with not even their flashlights enough to light up the continuing cleaning they did.

By the time they returned back to Vash’s house, they did well on trying to clean out one of the old living rooms and halls, all piles gathered at the front, Vash having called a truck to pick it up the next morning. They had a nice and welcoming dinner where Feliciano asked Ludwig and Vash about their day, Ludwig suggesting to Feliciano and Lili what they could do while they were away the next day and about that doctor they needed to contact for an appointment.

  During the week that passed, a friend of Vash offered to get rid of every ugly bush, tree and tall grass that covered the house. It was all done in an easy day, more for the expecting couple to look, for more light to shine upon it and for more order as they continued to clean, by that moment having finished clearing most of the first floor, covering windows and doors with plastic wraps, installing some large electronic lanterns to help them work in the night, even a foldable table where they kept things like tools, bags, extra brooms, mops and formulas, as well as for whoever was working to have their breaks for food or just rest.

Ludwig and Feliciano decided to halt everything for that Monday since Mrs. Natale, their new Obstetrician, gave them an appointment for Feliciano’s first sonogram. Vash gave that day free to Ludwig without hesitation, understanding well what it meant, and so both headed to the village that morning, excited and nervous.

“Ciao, è un piacere incontrare un altro italiano," she greeted with cheek kisses that Feliciano had no problem with sharing in as they entered her office, Ludwig right behind, offering his own greet with a nod and a shake of her hand. “Vash told me you both moved in about a week ago. You chose a perfect place for your child. It’s a very German-Italian area, both the languages and cultures will be there for them to witness and grow with, although I’m sure you two will plan trips to your countries from time to time.”

Instant gloom set on their faces at that last mentioning, Feliciano stuttering and gazing to Ludwig for hints, wondering what they could tell her. Luckily, sensing how they felt about it, she started the questions quick, the three helping to fill in before it was safe enough to get Feliciano to lay at the chair to start. His shirt was raised, the gel was placed, the machine started and already she had the device circling, studying the screen for what was slowly appearing.

“Any guesses for what it will be,” she said wanting to keep conversation between them.

“We haven’t really sat to talk about it."

“We really won’t mind anything, we just wish for the baby to be healthy."

“But we do want to know if it will be an alpha, omega or beta, to make the necessary arrangements to the room.”

“Ah yes, I heard you two bought the old Wagner manor on an incredible deal. How are you going to deal with the reparation? I’m sorry to remind but the house has been in a horrible state for decades. That kind of fix will take a lot of time and money. I really wish you two luck,” she really did hope, dealing with the screen as the image became much clearer.

“Slowly, one thing at a time.”

“It’s true, we don’t think the house will be fully prepared for when the baby arrives, but we will do what we can so it can be the house they can come into as soon as we leave the hospital that day,” Ludwig expected.

“Right now we’re on a brink with this baby coming, we can’t pay for anything big, but just accept help and do what we can ourselvea."

“So I assume this is the only baby you’ll want for a while.”

“Yes, just for now, I mean, I’d love to have a big family, give this one a little sibling in the future, but we rather wait until we can have enough money and more prepared rooms to take care of a second one,” Feliciano smiled expectantly, already envisioning, one Ludwig couldn’t help but fall dearly to, with such a gentility and smile that betrayed his tall and intimidating demeanor. Mrs. Natale couldn’t help but smile herself, finding them both so sweet.

With one last checking, she came to a conclusion that she was eager to give to the happily expectant parents. There it was and she elated…but after she thought about what they just said, all sweetness left, her smile soured, clear hesitation that Ludwig and Feliciano noticed, of course worrying, Ludwig taking Feliciano’s hand ready to hear whatever it was she would say.

“Signora…is everything all right?” Feliciano wondered, sitting, wanting to be strong for her coming words.

“Um…yes, everything is just …well…from what I can see, you’re going to have healthy alpha boys,” she declared, afraid of the kind of reaction they will get, but still trying to remain as cheerful, to lessen the heaviness.

“Oh, healthy alpha boys,” Feliciano sighed with great relief, but still maintaining his hold in Ludwig’s hand, who felt the same coming calm.

“Hear that, Luddy, we’re going to have alpha boys, just like you. Alpha boys…alpha boys…alpha boys…wait…” the realization hit them.

“Eh…congratulations,” and she turned the screen, to make it obvious that there was in fact two growing little figures in Feliciano’s stomach, which explained the rather large bump he held for just four months. “You’re having twins…”

  Ludwig and Feliciano felt all kinds of emotions at that moment, proud to know what their baby would be, of course, healthy, amazing, but two…two babies, identical twins at that, when they were at ruins, an old decaying house they just started fixing, Ludwig with a single job that was not even enough to pay for one baby and now they had to suddenly deal with the fact that they were having two at the same time.

Mrs. Natale calmed them, gave them books, medicines, ways to relax, even offering numbers for people that were bound to donate anything they might need for now two babies. Still, they left the lab with gloomed expressions, the only ounce of joy but a little picture of the sonogram that showed the black and white grained images of the two growing figures. Feliciano maintained his gaze only on it, planning what he could do with it, anything to not look at Ludwig’s expression as they drove back to continue working on the house. Even without seeing him he could sense his trouble, the harshened grip he had on the wheel, a stressed expression, singular on the curved roads they drove.

He thought about putting the picture on the fridge in Vash’s house, maybe on a little frame at the working table in their own house, or he could just keep it in his sketchbook until they actually had a nice wall they could frame it on. He sighed, they didn’t even have a real place to put something as simple as a sonogram picture.

They arrived before the house, so suddenly to Feliciano, who was too dedicated to the picture, to then raise his gaze to the rather horrible house, seeming more ugly now, more taunting, even after they cleared it of everything green covering it at the front, after the internal cleaning, after they placed some lanterns to give it life while they worked in the night or when it got too dark during the day.

Ludwig just got down, not even waiting for Feliciano or offering to open his door, he just went straight into the house, his gaze as frontal as from the moment he was told that he would father twins. Feliciano took a couple of easing breaths before he decided to head out himself, with easy gentle steps, enough for Ludwig not to notice as he gazed to the plans of the house they set on the table, one they had found when cleaning one of the old libraries. It had all rooms marked, which gave more of an assurance and form to how it was once, a help to repair. Ludwig pointed and marked, before he settled on an idea, raising his gaze, pensive and wondering, before he finally laid his eyes on Feliciano, who was shy to come any closer, for dread still seemed to hover above them heavily.

“There’s a series of rooms in this hall,” he pointed above them, “right in the center is the second largest room of the house. A door is right across what will be ours. We have to immediately start work on the stairs, cleaning, fixing the floor and ceiling. Once that is done, we’ll instantly set to work on that room for them.”

Feliciano nodded and so Ludwig closed the plans and sat on a chair, letting out heavy breaths, trying to relax, his head resting on the lean his arm took of the table, drained, tired, with now an extra heavy weight to worry about that didn’t let his mind or even body settle.

Feliciano let him dwell on it before he uttered: “I’m sorry…”

Ludwig raised and turned his gaze to him, wondering what that apology was for.

“I…didn’t expect them to be twins."

“You can’t control that, Feliciano, it just happens."

“Still, having twins runs well in my family, I should have…thought about that, and maybe if I knew…then…” he couldn’t continue, the whimpering didn’t let him, the tears trickled down easily and no matter how hard he gripped his hands on his jeans, it didn’t stop his watering and trembling.

“You would have what?” Ludwig stood, coming close, the scene a breaking that took him a lot of strength to not break the same, extending his hands to caress his face, looking into his eyes as a way to calm him enough to speak.

“Then I wouldn’t have left us do this, I wouldn’t have left myself burden you,” he breathed enough, letting his own tears fall upon his fingers as Ludwig continued to dry them, as Feliciano moved his glance away, too saddened with heavy fault.

“You were, are not, and never will be a burden to me, even if I knew what we did would have produced twins, I still would have done it. I rather have this…falling and tumbling house, broke and with nothing but a couple of bags of things we managed to bring then have the life we used to live before. I would choose you ten times over it.” He pulled his face enough to lay kisses on his cheeks, on his lips, enough of an assurance, enough of an intent.

“I’m happy were going to have alpha boys, that they’re healthy and that we’ll have a big family, it’s just…” he took a deep sigh, hands now falling to rub on his stomach, with the same stress, the same lingering and even fear that he’s worn ever since the news was told.

“I was already scared we wouldn’t have for one…and now that we’re having two…I’m worried…I want them both to be well, to be brought into a secure house where they’ll have everything, entirely everything that I can offer to them and you, but all I have is this house that-” that very moment a piece of the ceiling broke and fell apart unto the clean pavement they had cleared in one of the living rooms. It was so common they were pretty much unfazed by now. “…does that, a job that doesn’t pay enough, barely for one baby, no degree, no qualifications, nothing to really bring what I want into this family. It’s concerning, distressing and I fear that you and our boys will just see me as a disappointment.” He lowered once again, his graying returning, so downed that he couldn’t even continue his words.

No, neither could stand to see each other like this, so even with Feliciano’s own still falling tears, he leaned to place his own hands on the side of his face, in the same caresses, softness and sureness that Ludwig just gave him.

“You were, are not, and will never be a disappointment,” he repeated, with a shining smile, glee in his eyes despite the still falling tears. “I know right now everything looks bad, but we can fix it, there’s a chance for us to change it. We have so many people kindly helping us. We have Vash and Lili, all their friends and Mrs. Natale gave us a lot of numbers and locations to receive donations, we can use those. At least we have a house, not matter its ruin. I-I-I’ll start painting! Yes, I can sell some canvases, have a room with an amazing view just to paint. I learned some sewing from Lovino, Lili has a lot of fabric, I can make the babies’ clothing, I can make many other things to sell as well."

“…I could…try to make their beds and… most of our furniture,” Ludwig slowly began to elate with the prospect, already thinking of all kinds of projects, for Feliciano, for his coming children.

“You can?”

“My cousin Berwald taught me a thing or two. There’s a lot of wood in this area and Vash can help me get anything else. I’m pretty confident in what I’ll be able to do."

“Oh, they’ll be more than enough, they’ll mean more than whatever expensive thing we can get in a store!” Feliciano jumped into his embrace, both now smiling, swaying and laughing, bringing this space more love, more of them, with true elation for the coming twins, confident to give them everything even with the little they could manage. It made this old cringing house lighter, beautiful and more their home.

< Video 1.2                                                                                                                              Video 2.2 >

[luninosity]

Hi Luni, I just wanted to say that I love your kitten!Sebastian series!! I feel like the criticism of it being out of character (I don't agree) can't really be applied here because it's not something that would ever happen our world, so how can we know how someone would react, and also, you've said that when you write RPF, it's based on the actor's public personas/images, because we can't really know them. (I'm the person who commented lots on each chapter of AC recently)

Yeah, without getting into a Big Discussion™, I feel like OOC critique is a really odd one for a fic that is both RPF and AU, for exactly those reasons - like, I’ve never claimed that this is the ‘true them’, and they’re facing entirely new SF-future challenges anyway, so they’ve been shaped by that in different ways?

I mean, in general, yes, you want characters to have recognizable core traits that make them ‘Chris’ or ‘Seb’ or ‘Steve’ or ‘Bucky’ as opposed to a random Tom or Jerry, because we’re here for stories about the characters we already love. Obviously that’s the case. But our individual head-canons for those characters will always differ, especially in AU settings - maybe I think Chris would react this way, maybe you think he’d react this other way, and hey, guess what, those are both perfectly fine interpretations! (Assuming there’s at least some extrapolation from what we know about the character and his established values - for instance, I don’t think you could write a believable Chris Evans who  - without any explanation of altered circumstances in order to justify it in-text; if that groundwork’s done, that’s okay too, if someone wanted to explore that story - didn’t love his family.)

I think the part that is making me disillusioned with fandom in general (I was saying this to a couple people after the comments popped up) is this weird cultural shift from ‘this thing wasn’t the kind of thing I like so I’m just gonna go find something that’s more my thing instead’ to ‘this thing wasn’t the kind of thing I like so therefore it is BAD and I must TELL THE CREATOR THAT IT IS BAD AND THEY ARE BAD AND THEY SHOULD NOT CREATE ANY MORE’. Like, what?!

Fan creators do their work for free, out of love and affection (or sometimes burning frustration + affection regarding source texts), and fanworks are not measures of a person’s being ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ and you (meaning random anons etc, like mine) do not have any authority to police ‘good’ or ‘bad’ content or whether someone should be allowed to create more works. We can (and should) talk about structural hierarchies and inequalities in fandom culture, don’t get me wrong, but one of the fundamental tenets of fan culture as I understand it (or as it used to be) is that we welcome people who love what we love and who want to create things to share with other lovers.

And maybe we learn and get better as creators; maybe a first fic or art IS out of character, or maybe even a later one is, because the creator’s trying something new. So what? The creator still tried something new and was brave enough and generous enough to share it for free. (Fan works are not pro works, so the only compensation for our labor is emotional compensation, which is why this matters so much more in fandom spaces, and there’s a whole other essay here about how fan culture functions, because of this, necessarily differently from the whole ‘you put it on the internet, deal with it’ argument that sometimes gets made; but moving on for now….)

Ahem. I sort of got into a Big Discussion anyway. My point is, I’ve been talking to a couple people ( @viperbranium, @hitlikehammers )about gradually moving away from writing fic (not any time soon! I have a LOT of WIPs to finish! I still love all my OTPs!), because this culture is starting to…not feel like the fan culture I fell in love with, way back when, where people were welcomed (and I remember the first time I shyly wrote a comment!fic for a serious BNF in Supernatural fandom because she’d made an LJ post wanting a coda to an episode, and I tried, and it probably wasn’t very good because it was my first fic - but you know what? she REPLIED AND POINTED OUT BITS SHE LOVED AND GOT ALL EXCITED OVER MY LITTLE NERVOUS NEWBIE EFFORT, AND OH MY GOD I FELT LIKE I COULD MAYBE BELONG) - and where if you didn’t like a thing (and let’s be clear that I’m talking about likes/dislikes, not something like deliberate malicious misrepresentation) you’d just shrug and move on, where you’d never dream of telling someone to stop creating because you personally felt that one fic of theirs was OOC.

And, to be clear, it’s not about feeling personally hurt if someone simply doesn’t like my fic. Sure. There are many fics I don’t like, sometimes for no other reason than the writing style rubs me the wrong way. You know what I do? I close the tab and move on. And I’m starting to wonder whether (especially given my tiring circumstances at the moment, with Evil Demon Cat likely not going to make it to 2018, and daily vet visits, and so on) I have the emotional energy to devote to something that’s another source of stress: even if I just laugh and delete obnoxious messages, I still have to read them. I still have to see them. I don’t want to write and post a fic wondering how many nasty ‘you should stop writing this pairing forever and go write OC’s since you obviously want to anyway’ (yes, that’s a quote from one of my anons) notes are about to appear this time. (Maybe I will just go write original fic, anon. I have sold some already. Thanks.)

Anyway, that became more of a…thing…than I meant it to. Um, thanks for letting me vent? *laughs* I still have a lot of fic to finish writing, so I’m not going anywhere any time soon. Those are just thoughts. Swirling cranky thundercloud-colored thoughts, probably also colored by my own tiredness. (I am so very tired. We’ve been keeping Kitty locked in the bedroom at night because he’s started trying to hide in the weirdest places and we don’t have the time to hunt him down and then medicate him in the mornings, but he HATES being locked up and screams all night. And daily vet visits. And also it is finals week so I am GRADING ALL THE THINGS and I have an Obnoxious Entitled Male Student this semester who tried to argue his paper grade “because all English grades are subjective and opinion-based anyway right?” OH WOW I GUESS ALL THOSE YEARS OF BECOMING AN EXPERT IN MY FIELD AND DOING TEACHER TRAINING AND GRADE STANDARDIZATION AND NORMING SHOULD BOW DOWN BEFORE YOUR EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD SELF, YES, ABSOLUTELY, BY WHICH I MEAN NO YOU ARE WRONG).

Like I said: tired.

I’m going to go and have lunch now.

Oh! But also I didn’t say thank you for YOU being awesome, and all the lovely support in your message, because that’s awfully nice to hear! YOU ARE AWESOME AND I ADORE YOU AND YOU HAVE MADE ME SMILE AND I HOPE YOU KNOW HOW MUCH BETTER YOU HAVE MADE MY DAY.