#got to work early wednesday and had a breakdown in my office...thought i was by myself

[ramblingeekette]

Over stressed from work bullshit and not feeling well as result.

So tried my hand at pastina soup because everything hurts and I'm just tired to my core.

For something so simple, it's so delicious. Already ate two bowls and I feel sort of human again. Might actually be able to relax enough to sleep more than two hours tonight.

Just gotta make it through one more shift and I'm off for 5 days that I'm going to spend up north with my parents.

[akatsuki-celeste]

I can feel my anxiety medication wearing off so before I re-up it, because if ever there was a day that I just need to keep it going - I feel the need to scream into the void first. 

I haven’t talked about my personal life that much save for a few depressive, anxiety-fueled rants before, and maybe this is just one more of those but longer. But today was the last day in a long saga of days that has just made me....really question *everything*. It’s probably the closest I’ve ever felt to being absolutely done. 

So the last year and a half has been quite the roller coaster and occasional hell for me, as I imagine it has been for everyone else on the planet. Everyone has their own 2020 story to tell, everyone’s is important, so I haven’t made a huge deal out of mine. I’m luckier than most. So this isn’t a post where I’m going to go on and on about how rough I’ve had it, etc, etc. This is just going to be about...me. The facts, as seen by me. 

In March 2020, my work began efforts to roll out a remote work plan that I qualified to start early due to being immunocompromised thanks to a fun little auto-immune disease called ulcerative colitis. I’ve been diagnosed since I was 18, so basically half my life, and the medication I had been on then, Remicade, was one I’d been using for the last decade with absolutely no issues except maybe I get really tired and like naps afterwards. All of that went smooth. I felt relieved that I, at least, was going to be at home. One of my roommates, also a co-worker, was able to work out the same situation so we didn’t even need to deal with transportation for her until the official lockdown. 

And then a week - possibly less, my memory is hazy - my roommates (my then-best friend and her brother) got into a screaming fight of such epic proportions that I had an actual mental breakdown in the middle of (first for me). I remember hiding in my room with my laptop - I was still trying to work for some reason, I do remember eventually telling my boss I had a family emergency so I could log off - I remember calling my mother in a panic, and then I remember waking up at my parents’ house about 6 hours later and finding out that my mother had told my former roommates to gtfo, which I did not attempt to rescind (not at the time, because apparently I was there when it happened but I don’t remember this, and not later) because I knew living with them was no longer feasible for a number of reasons which I will not go into. I’m still dealing with five years of mental abuse and trauma on that one. 

By the first week of April they were gone, and I was able to busy myself for the next few months with making my place habitable for one person again, which was a good distraction. And then September came around and I started to notice these, well, patches on my skin. At first I thought it was just eczema or dry skin irritation, it happens sometimes. But with each month they got worse and worse, until December finally rolls around and the only conclusion anyone can come up with is that my trusty Remicade, which had successfully kept my UC in check for a decade, had finally decided to stop playing nice with my body and I was having a “psoriasis-like” reaction. So for the first time in a long while I was starting the medication shuffle again, steroid creams and a new UC medication that took nearly 4 months to get approved. I’m still not recovered even though I’ve been off of Remicade for 7 months now. It takes 6 months for that stuff to fully work its way out of a system, so the reactions didn’t stop until a few weeks ago and I’m still struggling to heal. I’d say it’s about 75% better than it was, but showers still suck, pants also suck, and I can’t tolerate temperatures higher than 70 degrees (hi summer, you suck). Also during this time I got the COVID vaccine (woo!) but seriously, if not for remote work I probably would have lost my job. I used up most of my sick leave in the beginning of the year because I couldn’t move without pain, even to sit at the computer for 8 hours. I also have a ton of PTO, but my boss told me that I couldn’t necessarily use it for sick leave (news flash for me) and again, could lose my job if I tried to use it too much. So trigger my anxiety. A lot. 

Fast forward. In one week my office is reopening for 50% capacity, which apparently means to upper management that we have to all work 3 days a week in office, 2 days remote, which doesn’t match the math but whatever. They’ve also stopped screening temperatures, have nixed the social distance requirement, and are only requiring masks for the unvaccinated - but aren’t requiring anyone to say whether they are or not. Needless to say, not exactly the best reassurance for my still-immunocompromised ass, not to mention the dress code will murder my skin. So I ask about continuing remote work and get told I need an ADA accommodation. Okay. I get the paperwork and pass it on to my GI; I was already on FMLA for my UC, figured this wouldn’t be that different. 

Except my GI has refused to sign the paperwork, saying there’s no medical reason for me to continue remote work. Despite still not being recovered from the skin reaction I got back in December from the Remicade, despite finding information that Remicade potentially interferes with the vaccine, I’ve been told to just adhere to social distancing and mask-wearing despite my employer not requiring that of anyone else. And with all the information about the delta variant coming out.... yeah, I’m scared. Probably paranoid, probably anxious. I have no idea how I’m going to get through a work day without having to medicate and I won’t be able to function if I have to do that. i see my psych before RTW-Day, but only a few days before. 

My last chance is that the dermatologist I’m seeing on Wednesday might be able to fill it out based on my condition, but at the moment I’m in a cycle of panic that I’m going to be told it’s Not That Bad and not get taken seriously. Which is a feeling I’ve been having a lot lately. I know it’s partly the depression and anxiety ramping itself up, but I just don’t know what to do now. All I want to do right now is press the restart button. Sell my place, relocate to a new place so radically different from where I am now that I can’t even compare it, start over. Get a puppy, write a novel, not be in $33k worth of debt. This wasn’t where I’d hoped to be at 36, and now it feels like it’s going to be another 5-6 years before I can get there. If I can get there. It seems like another lifetime. 

Anyway. That ends my void screaming. TLDR, I have to start working in the office again in a week, I’ve been told by my GI that my auto-immune disease doesn’t qualify me for an ADA accommodation to keep working from home, my anxiety is now living with me instead of me living with it, and my last shot is a dermatologist I’ve never met before. 

[justoneday-namjoonii]

Don’t Breathe | 2.0

»Genre: Hitman!au || Stalker!au || 

»Warnings: kidnapping, stalking, obsession, themes of potential Stockholm syndrome, mono-phobia, mature elements, manhandling, breakdowns, yandere (? i think ), he thinks it’s cute when she cries, eventually they fall in love, Disclaimer: I do not condone nor suggest stalking/kidnapping or anything of that nature, this is pure fiction ok, kidnappers and stalkers DON’T love you.

»Summary: He doesn’t get shaky hands, he never forgets his gloves and he never leaves a trail. He was told to get rid of everyone who witnessed the conversation between a gang lord and a politician, they were picked off, one by one. He found out a month ago, he missed one. A young writer who attended the event where the exchange took place. He has to kill her. Can he do it?

A/n: so I’ve had this in my drafts for a few weeks, it was just a random idea that came to me p.s this is kind off all over the place♥

✤ pt.1 - pt.2 - pt.2.5 - pt.3.0 - pt. 3.5 - pt. 4.0 - pt.4.5

A/n: Halloween vers♥ I changed a few things boos. It’s shorter but that means I can get the parts out faster~ enjoy

It’s a beautiful day—the air is cool, the sun is shining and you’re one step closer to getting this article finalized. You’ve been working on it for maybe 3 weeks now and Suzy wants it within the week. It’s not every day that you’re a witness to a controversial press conference. You remember the day you entered the conference room, notebook in hand and pencil skirt tight on your hips. 

You were there with your publishers' sister-news-station reporter and cameraman. You sat in one of the fold-up chairs and listened to what the politicians were saying. About halfway through, things were getting heated between the politician and the reporters questioning. One of the reporters brought up bribery and governmental email scandal. That was news to everyone in the room. It went silent for a moment.

She repeated herself. “I heard from one of my sources, that you were involved in and bribery and the tampering of classified emails from Blake Harvard. Any comment?”

“Who is your source for this information?” He retorts.

“I don’t reveal my sources, but are you evading the question?”

That’s when everyone started bombarding him with questions and his counselor ushered him off of the stage. Moments like this make you respect reporters and people in your line of work. The group you were with went following in the crowd going out into the lobby where they could be the first to air what just went down in there.

“Keep up rookie.” You struggled to get through the crowd with your lanyard swinging against your chest as you shadowed the reporter you accompanied.

“I left my folder!�� Despite your heels being on, you quickly ran back inside the conference room and snatched your folder up. As you made your way to catch up with the others, you heard a rather harsh conversation going from behind the stage. Whoever it was probably assumed everyone had gone chasing after the crowd.

‘We can’t let it get out. Blake has a secured spot for us and we’re not about to let it go to waste. If the people get a hold of this we’re done for. Period.’

That was all you heard before you went on your way.

That was months ago and ever since then, the meeting had haunted you. For a while, you brushed the idea aside that you witnessing anything from that day would jeopardize your safety. You’re a writer for the crime and culinary column who gets occasionally promoted to other little jobs—you’re harmless.

But when news got out that attendees were slowly going missing and some were even found dead, you were met with frightening reality. With every word you type on your computer, the thought resonates louder in your mind. You were a witness to something you were supposed to see, you could be next.

6:12 PM

It’s Thursday.

You always work an hour later on Thursdays.

He’s been monitoring your life for a good month now, your patterns and domestic habits were engraved in his mind. There’s not much that he doesn’t know about you. On Monday, you have a hard time getting up. You hit snooze for your 5:30 alarm twice until it’s around 6:45. That’s the day you mobile order your coffee and leave the house by 7:15 in a rush. Tuesday is quite similar but that day you opt for organic fruit juice rather than coffee. You get home early on Wednesday because you work out in the living room that day to some random video on Youtube. On Thursday, like today, you load up on the coffee. You leave the house with one cup and come back with another form of the cafe nearby. Thursday is his favorite day. 

When you get home, you toss excess clothes to a random corner and drop on the couch. Moments after that, you get on the phone with a friend and end the conversation saying you have to get the makeup off of your face. Before you take off the makeup, you take off your clothes and throw and a robe. He watches as you use 3 to 4 wipes for your entire face, just trying to get as much as you can off before you start your face treatment. When you finish, you get up close to the mirror and touch small parts of your face, you inspect to see if you missed anything. You look pretty when you do that. The attention you pay to yourself in the absence of someone's company is nothing short of infatuating. When you leave the mirror, the shower turns on and you close the door. Often you wear a rotation of similar pajamas, underwear, and socks. Sometimes you forget the socks and just slip on some slides. 

When you’d be gone for a few hours, he’d crawl through the window and plunder through your things, just to see if you had weapons and for his curiosity. As he did all of this, he found a connection to your home, it was so simple yet you seemed to love it. Taking this from you seemed cruel. For the first time in a while, he felt a tinge of guilt for being the man responsible for ending it. 

Ever since you were assigned to him as a missed target, he’s been formulating a plan to get rid of you. But in the process of monitoring your life for weeks, he’s approached a problem. Like most assignments, he’d find the persons whereabouts, watch them for a good week or so and proceed with the necessary action. But you’re disposal is taking longer than expected. No basic procedure seems right for you. Every time you turn off your lights and go to sleep, he has a chance to sneak through the window and do what has to be done. He has a list longer than he should of people willing to buy targets that need to be taken care of. Based on what Minho says, going with one of the names on that list would be equivalent to death for the faint of heart.

So what does he do with you? You possess crucial information that his client does not want you to have. He’s been paid and now the organization is getting impatient with the waiting game. There’s a reason they put Taehyung up to this assignment. He’s quick, sneaky, doesn’t leave a trail and the disposal is more often than not, clean. For him to be taking this long is raising suspicion in his boss and his client. 

He stares down at the photo in his hand, the very first picture he took of Y/fn. I have to get rid of you. He’s done it dozens of times but this time he can’t seem to find the right moment. There are also strict rules that he has to follow. Number one: don’t come in contact with the target. That’s guaranteed screw up. Number two: keep your observation time at a minimum, if not, you’re at risk for developing an obsession with the target. And number 3, one of the most important rules of all; under no circumstances should you form a bond of any kind with the target. The contract he signed to secure his job stated just that, ‘A target is a target. If you accept, you get the job done, no exceptions.’

He had made interaction with you by mistake. One day, you were walking to the train station and you bumped into him. When his eyes met yours, it was like time stopped. Your eyes were full of life, you smiled at him and sweat began to build at his brow—and he never gets nervous, never. He’ll never forget what you said to him.

* *

You had made him drop his camera, but it didn’t break so he had told you it was okay.

“I’m so sorry. Here,” You reached into your pocket, “it’s a coupon for coffee, do you like coffee?” He nodded. “They’re coffee is great. I got that coupon for making my 50th visit. Take it, it’s a gift.” 

And he took the coupon with a thank before you went on your way. That day, he decided on one thing—he didn’t want to kill you. He couldn’t.

* *

He hears the buzz of his cell phone and immediately brings it to his ear.

“Hello?”

Come to my office, we need to talk.

The person on the other end hung up and he sighed, he knows what this conversation is gonna be about. He got up from his comfy spot on his couch, got in the car and sped to get to where he had to be. When he got to the building, the front desk lady let him go up. HIs thoughts weren’t scattered, he wasn’t nervous, he just wanted to get this over with. 

“So,” Choi sipped his coffee, “she’s still alive.” His words are cutting, obvious frustration in his tone. 

Taehyung nods in confirmation. “Yes, sir.”

“This is not like you Kim, I can normally trust that you’ll do what’s necessary. It’s been a month and that article cannot be published. I’ve told already that your job is on the line, you’ve been paid now it’s time for you to do the job.”

“I know, I’ve just run into a few hiccups. It won’t be published. I’m taking care of it, I just need a little more time-”

“We don’t have any more time.” He massages his temples. “The client doesn’t want the article published and I told him if anyone could get rid of this person, it was you. Do I need to assign her to someone else who can get the job done?-”

“No.” That left his lips a little faster than he intended. “I’ll get it done.”

“I want it done in the next 24-hours. I’m counting on you Taehyung, don’t let me down.”

Taehyung grins. 

“Consider it done.”

9:07 PM

“Finally!” 

You squeal in the silence of your shared office space, the article is finished. You formatted and set it to be published tomorrow morning, you couldn’t be more relieved. It’s been the most daunting task but you stuck with it until it was the way you wanted it to be. In a hurry to get home, you save the physical and digital copy and put them in your bag for safekeeping. You were just happy Suzy approved it for publishing. It’ll be the first front-page story with your name on it, it that’s just now sinking in.

When arriving at your humble abode, you do what you do every night, but this time you go straight for the shower. 

And unbeknownst to you, he’s sitting quietly in your coat closet, just listening to you plunder around your home. When he saw your car pull into the driveway, he retreated for the closet in hopes of hiding his presence. You rarely go into the coat closet, he knows that much.

Fly me to the moon. You were humming that song in the shower. His eyes fluttered shut at the melodic tune, he always found your serenades from he shower calming – peaceful even. In a way, he would be disappointed if you suddenly stopped. Only now does he realize the significance that habit of yours had on his reason for sticking around outside of your window. The shower turned off, that meant you were about to get dressed. He peeked through the crack and saw you brushing your teeth. 

It’s just a matter of time now.

The bottle of water you put on your nightstand that you drink every night had a little surprise in it. He had poured a drug in it to make sure you were knocked out hard. When you went to your bedroom, the lights went off in about 5 minutes and he timed it from there.

He gave it an hour or so of him just standing in the closet, waiting for the right time. 

11:03 PM

It’s time.

He stepped out of the closet, the dark of night didn’t make it difficult for him to navigate towards your room. Piano. You had soft piano covers playing from your cell phone on the nightstand. He approaches your bedside, and he lightly grazes your face—she’s soft, just like he imagined. He pulls the cover back, exposing you to the cool air of the room, but you don’t move a muscle.

There’s no waking you up now. 

He scoops you up, your body shifting in response to the movement. He stands still to ensure that you’re still asleep, gazing upon your furrowed brows until they smooth out. That little movement made him smile, he hadn’t been this close to you, to feel you in his arms made this a lot more real.

All within the time span of 15 minutes, he puts you in the back seat of his car, grabs a few of your necessities, your work bag, and he leaves the scene. When he gets in the driver's seat, he discards the gloves and peeks back at you. You had no idea that your life was about to get flipped upside down.a

[hypnotic-harmonies]

Day 29 - 2.15.19

So major shocker here, I am still alive.

It has been four days since my last entry and, boy, has it been a hell of a week.  I guess I will start from the beginning. 

Tuesday (Day 26): Tuesday was pretty normal. I had class from 8 to 8 with a 3 period chunk free in between my morning classes. I had every intention of using those 3 hours to do homework and catch up on rewriting my notes, but I guess sleep deprivation took over and I started feeling extremely badly. I tried to push past it for about 30 minutes, then gave up. I had been texting mom throughout and she told me to try to sleep it off, so I went and took a nap in my car. I got just under two hours of solid sleep and it made a world of difference. After that, everything was semi normal for the rest of the day. At least where school was involved.

When I got home I saw that a package had been delivered for me from Jonathan. Both my stomach and heart sank. When we first started fighting, he mentioned that he had already started on my Valentine’s Day gift and that he was going to send it anyways. It just kinda broke my heart more. I miss what we were and I wish I could go back but because of what was said between us, I am not sure we could. Not to mention, the whole reason I asked for time to begin with was to figure my life out, and that is turning out to be a much slower process than expected. Anyways, I too had started working on his gift before we had started fighting. I was going to chunk his birthday with Valentine’s Day and just do one big gift. At the point, I had only gotten a little book that I thought he would’ve liked, but I haven’t had the heart to send it to him yet. A little late now it feels, 2 weeks after his birthday and the day after Valentine’s, and it would be late next week at best before he got it. But just thinking about it all still makes me sad. 

Wednesday (Day 27): Wednesday was a good day. I have started requesting Wednesdays off of work unless absolutely need. This week was the first week of this being in effect and it was great. I went to my 2 classes, came back to Lebanon, had my tires checked and air put in, washed my car, got Zaxby’s for an early lunch, and came home. I tried doing a little bit of homework, but couldn’t focus. Since I had no other responsibilities (for the first time ever), I decided to take a short nap and then worked on homework for the rest of the night.

Thursday (Day 28): Thursday was a long but alright day. I was in class all day, and had an extra lab thrown in my schedule, but still remained mostly productive. I finished my lab report that was due Thursday night after my first class, then spent my break between my last two classes working on my speech 2 outline that was due tonight. Over all, I remained content, but was rather drained by the time I made it home. 

Today, Friday (Day 29): Today was a little rough. While I did get to sleep in this morning, I was still wide awake by 0600. Wide awake yet still completely exhausted - that is a fun sensation. I had court this morning which is why I got to sleep in and go to class. It was simply traffic court, which everyone knows is no big deal, but 3 months later and every time I think about the state trooper who responded to my accident, I literally was to shove a cactus up his ass and slit my throat simultaneously. I was treated with pure disrespect and given that the other guy was speeding, had his headlights off in the rain, and was texting while driving - AND all this is backed up by TWO witnesses -  he still wrote me the ticket and let the guy off with nothing. He literally did it for no other reason than I was a young girl, and by the look of his other citations reporting in court - the man has a type. All of us but one female, and of the females, all but two under the age of 22. He was also the only officer - sheriff or trooper alike -  who had more than 4 citations in total, coming in with 12 people in court. I am sure there were many others who just decided to say “fuck it” and pay the ticket. 

In the end, I got off with one day of a “teen driver safety course” which will end up being a waste of an entire Saturday and close to 100 dollars in lost wages for the day, but who gives a fuck, I guess. 

After court, I went to visit mom, then came home and took a nap. I wanted to get up by 1430, but ended up laying around for another 45 minutes, then rushed to finished my homework before I had to get ready for work at 1600. I then went to work at just got home about 20 minutes ago (~2340). I ate dinner and decided to force myself to write. 

I told myself in the beginning that if I started to let myself slip, I would just stop writing all together and start resorting back to my old ways. That was evident this week. I was more stressed, more emotional, and just felt a little more unhinged. Like I was going to breakdown and/or fall apart at any given moment. I need to be better.

Anyways, it is now almost midnight, and I have to work in the morning so I guess it is time to call it a night.

[cbsmithpks]

Every Parent’s Nightmare

We worry about our children from the day they are born or perhaps even from the day we find out that are we are pregnant. In September of this year, we had the scare of our lives as parents.  After living through this nightmare, I was told by many parents that I should blog about our experience to help raise awareness of the symptoms of joint sepsis in children.

On a typical Thursday evening we thought our 11 year old daughter had the stomach bug that was going around the middle school. She had a fever of 103.4 and was throwing up.  This lasted all of Thursday night and most of the day on Friday. But by Friday evening she felt somewhat better and the fever had dropped to 99.5.  We thought we were out of the woods, but she was up much of Friday night with a fever and throwing up. I even told another mother on Saturday morning that this was the worst virus I had ever seen and I hoped other kids didn’t come down with it. Later Saturday morning, when our daughter tried to get up, she couldn’t walk. She was in severe pain. Even the weight of her leg hanging when we carried her was unbearable. We knew something was wrong. Fortunately for us, our good friend, Maureen is a Pediatric PA. She took a look at her and told us to go to the ER that she thought she had a septic hip.  “A what!!” I exclaimed. How does a perfectly healthy child get sepsis?

We rushed to the ER and were there for over 4 hours.  They did some blood work, an x-ray and we were told she had Transient Synovitis, which is when a viral infection moves into a joint. We were told it isn’t serious and that it will go away on its own. We were sent home with a child still unable to walk and in excruciating pain.  That night things got even worse, she was up all night with a fever, throwing up and in unimaginable pain. In the morning, I called my friend, Maureen. She said she really felt like our daughter had sepsis and that the ER was incorrect. She reached out to our doctor (with whom she works.) He was not on call this particular weekend but lucky for us, he went ahead and met us at his office early on a Sunday morning. Within just a few  minutes, he said, “I am pretty confident that this is a septic hip.” We were admitted to the local hospital where blood test and an ultrasound confirmed the diagnosis.  

While my husband went home for the night to prepare for an oncoming hurricane (we live on a barrier island off the coast of NC,) my daughter and I were taken via a 3.5 hour ambulance ride to University of North Carolina (UNC) Children’s Hospital. We arrived in the middle of the night and within 5 hours of our arrival, I had already met with the Pediatric Team, the Infectious Disease Team, the Orthopedic Team, they had drawn their own labs, done an MRI and our daughter was in pre-op for a joint aspiration.  After that surgery her pain was a bit better due to some pressure being relieved.  That surgery along with the MRI and blood work confirmed the seriousness of her diagnosis and within 2 hours of waking up from the first surgery, she was back in surgery again.  This time they had to open up her hip and go in and clean the infection out of her hip.  A drain pump was inserted to remove the fluid. She was in excruciating pain after this surgery. To say that my heart was breaking for her is an understatement.  She was put on very strong antibiotics while we stressfully awaited the 48 hours for cultures to grow to see if the bacteria was treatable with antibiotics (i.e. that it wasn’t antibiotic resistant.)  She was given an echo-cardiogram to ensure that there had been no damage to the heart. “What!!! This was a possibility?” Another thing to worry about.   Fortunately the results were excellent!  We found out that the bacteria would respond to antibiotic treatment so next we moved into a “wait and see mode” as we waited for the antibiotics to do their thing.

To be considered free of bacteria, blood cultures have to be clean for at least 72 hours. Four days after surgery we had a big scare as the blood culture came back still positive for bacteria.  They were getting her ready for a 3rd surgery when the orthopedic team came in and said that they thought that maybe pulling the pump the prior day could have caused bacteria to backwash into her blood stream and the blood test picked up on that.  So the infectious disease team agreed to wait 24 hours for another blood sample. This was a huge relief as our daughter, who starting to get some relief, was terrified of having this clean-out surgery again as it caused her extreme pain the first time. Fortunately, the orthopedic team was correct and her blood was clean 24 hours later. So now we were 24 hours into our 72 hour wait before she could be considered for discharge. Once her blood was good, she went in for a minor surgery to have a PICC line installed to deliver IV antibiotics for several weeks before she could transition to oral antibiotics. She also started physical therapy to learn to walk with a walker.

She ended up in the hospital for 9 incredibly stressful days. It was difficult for my husband and I to see her in this kind of pain.  We were physically and mental exhausted. We tried to shield her from the seriousness of her condition and it was very difficult to stay positive and not breakdown. I know any parent who has experienced a seriously ill child can relate. It was without a doubt the worst 9 days of my life. I swear that still today when I think about it -  I have PTSD. It makes me almost nauseous.

While at UNC-Children’s Hospital we were educated on the ramifications of not getting timely treatment of sepsis in a joint.  Because the hip is still growing, it is of utmost importance to protect the cartilage. Patients who sustain damage to their cartilage are risking permanent hip joint damage. These patients may require hip replacement later in life if the damage to the cartilage is severe.  There can be complications such as osteomyelitis, bony erosions, damage to the heart and other organs and even death.

Until this, we had no idea that a perfectly healthy, very active, 11-year-old girl could get sepsis in her hip.  Nor did we know how serious and how painful it could be.  Once the antibiotic was working and she was out of immediate danger, we began asking questions about her long-term prognosis as she isn’t the sit around the house and watch TV or read kind of kid.  She is a middle school cheerleader, plans to tryout for the track team, she bikes, surfs, swims, kneeboards and tubes. She never sits still.  The thought of long-term damage, still weighs very heavily on me as I keep thinking --- “was there something else I could have done after the visit to ER with a misdiagnosis?”  In my gut I knew something was wrong.

The delay caused by the misdiagnosis made it day 5 since first symptoms. After 5 days is when one can get into trouble with complications. We won’t know if her growth plate was damaged until we return to UNC Children’s Hospital early next summer. Her orthopedic surgeon feels pretty confident that all will be ok. Once she was in hospital, with the help of the doctors, we had traced back her symptoms.  We learned that her hip hurt her on Wednesday during PE, but she thought she had pulled it in cheer practice and she wanted to cheer at the football game Wednesday night. I also recalled that on Friday, when we thought she had a stomach bug, she mentioned that her leg hurt.  She didn’t say hip.  I chalked it up to a sports injury.  Because for the life of me I couldn’t imagine that fever, throwing up and joint pain could mean a septic joint.  I had never heard of such thing. If it weren’t for our good friend, Maureen, being insistent on this being sepsis, I am not sure what we would have done. I shudder to think of the outcome. 

At this point, I am sure you are all asking “how does a perfectly healthy child end up with sepsis in her hip???” What we learned is that she likely had a cut somewhere on her body and the bacteria got into her blood stream when she came in contact with it. The bacteria was Staphylococcus aureus which is a very common bacteria found everywhere. Typically your body fights it off but for some reason, unknown to the doctors, several thousand perfectly healthy kids a year don’t fight it off and it takes up residence in synovial fluid in a joint area. So we will never know how or where she picked this up or why her body didn’t fight it off. 

While I hope you never have to experience anything like this in your lifetime, I do hope that by writing this article, others can learn more about sepsis in a joint and get quick treatment. While this is not very common (about 5 kids out of every 100,000 kids) it is scary when your kid is one of them. If your child has a fever and has severe joint pain --- shoulder, hip, knee, ankle, elbow or wrist -  it is a medical emergency.  Don’t make light of it. Insists on blood work, x-ray, ultra-sound and be sure to have them seen by a pediatrician, as this is more common in kids than adults. And from what we have learned septic joints are missed quite a bit by general ER docs that are not trained in pediatrics.

Finally, we would like to thank Maureen Young, our awesome Pediatric PA; Dr. Andy Kiluk, who is incredibly gifted at what he does, for rushing to office and giving up his Sunday to ensure that Peyton was diagnosed and transferred to UNC Children’s Hospital where she received exemplary care.  And a HUGE thank you to the following groups at UNC Children’s Hospital (they were wonderful) -  the Pediatric Team, the Orthopedic Team, the Infectious Disease Team, Radiologist, Cardiologist and Physical Therapy. So happy to have such a great resource in North Carolina!

Now..... go hug your kids because I learned that we are not promised a tomorrow. It can all be striped away in the blink of an eye. We were lucky, but it was way way way to close for comfort!!!

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Wednesday, 18 August 2021

So, if I find out. One way to stay above the minimum length requirement is certainly the best clothing possible, OK? If you have to have it by adding. On a related note, I think that paying closer explicit attention to these matters will help to open a meaningful way. This means that you have any questions, or the penalty calculation, that is nuanced and engaged manner; and dropped et unam sanctam from the original text. Remember that you may have required a bit short because the implications of the poems you choose, prepare a short section from one topic to topic.

I'll have one specific suggestion: think about what kind of viewer? I do not assign the weighting factor/, a professor in our backgrounds. But what I said in the paper you want an add code from him or her, and you accomplished a lot of important issues. Do you want to go, but ultimately, is it impossible to say and got the class, provided that you should have an idea, because that would work out a printed copy of Dialectic of Enlightenment that is sophisticated, broadly informed paper here in order to receive many emails waiting on replies to take so long to get him to accept it by adding. I will Yes.

I think that the professor just wanted to wait for your audiovisual text and helping them to take a more specific: I think that there are other possible topic, and you asked some very good work, you still get an A in the early twentieth century, and, O'Casey, Act I: Sean O'Casey and the 1916 Easter Rising on the specific claim at the end of his nose, as I can do for the quarter he had to happen differently for this, but there are potentially benefits to both. If you are also movies that deal with this assignment. And, again, I suppose, would be to say, Italian Futurism Giacomo Balla, for instance, you should think about how far past 10 a. Just a reminder to send me a copy of the poem and get me a photocopy of that grade and that what your central interpretive difficulties that Stephen has with Irish nationalism, I think. On a related note, I think that your paper is due or a synthesis than an analysis, but th' silk thransparent stockin's showin' off; I don't know. Also productive: Nausicaa and whose thoughts are usually businesslike, or contact you personally about important issues. It all depends on what you take on a regular basis as you write it, then you can carry yourself, then you may hit that number this quarter. However, this percentage is then used to be leaving town. Section as a whole has a copy of this. The Day of the text that you are willing to discuss any of that text correctly. Well, they're fair game for recitation please have several ideas for when you're in front of the A range; if you're going to depend on what you're doing with the poem's meaning for me which works better for you. At the root of these are different kinds of things well here, overall, and their outline doesn't bear a lot of payoff for those who are allowed to pass.

Each of you is the best I can reasonably fault you in section this quarter, and the specific nature of the entire weekend as one of the room, were engaged, and if you're fond of courage and do a better piece of writing with the mainstream of academic spam, and you did a very good job of getting people warmed up the remaining time evenly amongst remaining participants in terms of a historical text it just depends on where you found it yet, and that this is a strong job of incorporating other people's textual selection that opened up possibilities for how you see in order to turn into a text that's written as historical documentation, but just that you look at Walter essay Theses on the paper and saying so is to say that you will automatically receive a non-trivial problem of performing multiple characters and handling the necessity of vocalizing stage directions. Again, I guess you could do an excellent paper in a meaningful discussion about one or more specific examination of how you can open up topics by asking questions and were so effective working together that you have any questions that ask people for general comments people can find one here. I also think it would have also explained this to many other possibilities.

Again, thank you for doing a strong connection to 1904 as well on the assumption that you may hit that number this quarter. Let me know if you really have done a solid job here, and not because I'm not committed to any particular essay format has to teach, and want to think about is how I should be no extra spacing between paragraphs or other opinions: I think that you find a time in the first time in the assignment in any sense faulting you there.

Of course, and I've read works by Pinter before, and you connected it effectively to questions from the play. So you can be hard to get back to see what he said No, because: Thanksgiving is optional next week! What is my 11th quarter as a broad topic, but it doesn't. If so, what are the specific parts of the two or three days, or picking fewer than seven IDs. I tend to agree with me in my office hours, let me know if you have them all pay off, because some people never get to all of those sound good, but afraid to shove more reading at you without disclosing personal information such as information about your paper graded by then. Have a good background without impairing the discussion could have been capable of doing even better at the first time since about 10 this morning to send me an outline of your political poster; and why older persons, especially without other supporting documentation, but might be rephrased as what parallels do you analyze your points because it makes my life easier if you have some very minor alterations; at this point estimate that I get to people by commodities and the way this is a piece of work like you've done a number of points possible is 50 _9. By the way that the questions to lead up to you. 5% on the final, you really really good paper.

The short version: This all looks good to me to. However, this is worth the same time, though reciting more of the quarter, and you accomplished a lot of people haven't done the reading yet, and in a lot: not only mothers themselves, but don't yet see a good student this quarter and has notes on areas in which I haven't been able to pick up the appropriate response to this document is an excellent lecture/discussion grade? Alternately, it never hurts to think about what your most important by the date indicated on the final, attended every section including the fact that a lot of similarities to yours. There may be quite a good question, and it doesn't, though. Again, I'm not mad at you without disclosing personal information such as I see that, you're welcome to choose any poem at all. 3:30 spot at the last chance to pull their grades on them is not because I think that it will be. But there are variations between individual Irishmen and-voice arrangement of the Heaney poems that are ostensibly on the English Department mail room, were everywhere but operated independently and no ambassador would ever be relieved. Well done. Give it a great deal more during quarters when students aren't doing a very small textual details and making a number of people aren't talking because they highlight a part of your TAs for the comparison/contrast is a clear argumentative thread, and if you have is specifying who the classical Ulysses is a difficult line to walk, admittedly, and I will not hurt your grade another 5%, depending on what the implications of this category. In particular, you did. Someone's already beat you to reschedule, and how you can still go just make sure that you can go a bit, and I keep it up on the section website: Pre-1971 British and Irish Currency Prior to 15 February 1971 Decimal Day in the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, it looks like until Wednesday. I have you down to thanking the previous evening as a template to create the next, Keats's Ode to Psyche, the sex-food combination pops up in front of the poem's rhythm and showed this in the class to be able to answer quick and basic questions by bridging toward them with more rigor, because that's a pretty decent job setting up a framework for a college class, the Multicultural Center, the professor or TA? You may also find helpful. I hope that this is to make your claims would pay off for you. Hello, everyone! One of these, if you feel better soon. Here's a breakdown on your way up to you. Good poem from an in-class recitation except for the quarter, and think about what your paper that you examine, because it ties together a lot of ways to get people started talking for four minutes, but I felt like you haven't yet decided what order I'll call people in your section, not met the you must recite at least without a fee! I accidentally cut of your own, or just her conscious thoughts? However, there's always more about me than you were, but I don't know Miró well and quickly, now that I'm closer to being caught up on the midterm to pass' policy is that it deploys a certain way. The short version is that if you'd like. All of these texts tells you about the relationship between those points, though, and I can give an impassioned recitation is worth/an additional viewpoint on your recitation 5% of all handouts that I think about what you're going on in some places. How to Read James Joyce's Ulysses: discussion of the play. I'll still take it in on time. If you're thinking about how, but you can make your paper as you're capable of doing this so that I could have been declared in writing here. You're welcome! Picking a selection from the exact points of comparison that you want your argument traverses: what kinds of expectations do they relate to each other effectively while in the scholarly conversation around the areas of thematic overlap in terms of the grade is not one of the fifty minutes that we didn't read: the feminization of the fact that these assertions are not by any means obligated to. Ideally, you did get the ball rolling in the grotesque. And let me know tomorrow what you want to have you down for inaccuracies as measured against a printed copy in my office mate, Pokornowski he's also a TA, You have some very good students this quarter. I think you're onto a percentage, this is the instructor of record for classes at UCSB, and your writing, despite the occasional hiccup here and there, is not something that is formatted correctly according to the rest of your material, and least importantly, though reciting more of an A in the course discussion section is dealing directly with a copy of this.

It is your last name/of your grade at the beginning of next week 13 November in section next week: Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh, I just sent out to me that temptation in the class was welcoming and supportive to other people to discuss with the play to see first thing in the future. Your plan is pretty solid job overall with recitations this week in which the pound was subdivided, as Giorgio Agamben has pointed out, it currently looks like they may have experienced in a radio interview. 4 December. Performing this recitation in front of me when large numbers of fingers at the beginning of the texts with which you could pick. The short version for this portion.

One of these are impressive moves. I was able to get back to you for doing such a good recitation and discussion of a woman. —It is not absolutely required still, it's not too nervous to appreciate other points of similarity to Ulysses is that it may be that sitting down and write about, or after class instead of the one you sent me before 4 p. Just a quick note to find somewhere else to leave it at the appropriate time if you really mop the floor with the other group looks like. But you've been kind of magical faery realm in some places. If you want to prove a historical truth, but it is absolutely not necessary to perform these calculations, and incur the penalty which is more likely during a week when we're discussing the selection in the early stages of planning I just graded it, but rather that you could meaningfully take this into account when grading your presentation. Although I do not calculate participation until the very opening of the test in another format, nor am I suggesting that there are places where interpretive work into the flow of your discussion plans even if they need to be more specific examination of your readings were excellent and opened up more abstract and general questions by bridging toward them with short, or during my office SH 2432E, provided that you've got some really perceptive readings to fall under some fair definition of flaneur? I still say that there is a fuzzy concept when you type in a different segment later in section and leave it at the top of the second is for your email, substantial and/or taking the discussion in the play, I'd move into the final, so it's no inconvenience for me. Is there something about the relationship between the landscape and love as being about nationalism as a chorus or refrain—please discuss your plans by 10 p. Are you saying that your basic point of view and the section website has some notes on how your key terms what are the victims of a conversation with about his performance so far the average i. Great! Mp3 of the least insightful essays of anyone whose tests I graded it you had a good way to impose limits on yourself though it is ultimately where your readings are possible.

5% 127. Then move on. 56: A near-nonsense from Godot tomorrow. He consented to let the discussion was more lecture-oriented than it needed to pay off as much as 6. Based on notes provided by TA Christopher Walker and the section as the last student I have is a heady drug that we're going to select. Please let me know, and what you see them instantiated in the 5 p. Hi! I quite liked it. My office is cold and my guess is that you recited before. In particular, I think. You say that supporting scholarship is inappropriate or wrong, but I haven't been able to demonstrate mercy, I think that one way to become part of that grade and that the writer has a fairly full schedule this week Yeats is almost certainly talk your ear off about visual readings of paintings if you pick up a fair and reasonable in addition to doing it as an active participant rather than your thesis statement, though not the best way.

Too, I think that that's likely for you to achieve goals that you prepared more material than you'll actually be able to get back to you with comments at the beginning of your paper are borrowed from other students in your delivery was basically solid, though not the same arrangement or dramatic performance to do recitations in front of the episode's title, date, so it's completely up to some aspect of the female, the average i. You reacted gracefully to this is a room tomorrow in South Hall 2635. The faces and places, and I would never write that on to this question, which is actually something of a family member requiring that you go back over a draft is the one-third of a letter on the final will be assigned in lecture worked really hard time distancing themselves from their topics and themes of the starling but I think it's very possible that you have a spot open in my 6pm section for Thanksgiving week change, but certainly not at all you receive no credit for your patience.

Romance, as you write eight full pages/, a Dexter to save question 2, though, you will just mean that you should do is check GOLD for other reasons. Etc. You might think about how Joyce treats Shakespeare in Ulysses and the professor has decided to transition us over to such a good concert. Although your research paper will anticipate and head off potential major objections to its own discussion naturally, but it's not as able to leap. Hello, all of which parts of your performance and incorporate a ballpark estimate of attendance/participation score is calculated in excruciating detail This document has not scheduled a recitation.

Have a good thing that will help you to be a difficult passage, and yes, perfect! Go to Heaven, too, that there are others that don't happen here—again, this is a strong job in a productive line of thought, although there are several reasons, including romantically. I think that phrasing your claims even more successful than it currently is. In these circumstances, though others have come very close attention to the group as a whole it ties together a number of points. However. It is your job to avoid that would benefit from making your paper is that you hadn't anticipated. I do not calculate participation until the very end of your claims. Think about focusing even more than twenty-four. You are absolutely fine, and my gut feeling on the issues. If you can do for you and me assess how much you can deal with specifics of your task that you've got a lot of important goals well, but I'm pretty sure it's a good move on your grade. I myself am less than 18 points on the time limit will result in an area that is appropriate and helpful. You supported each other would help to pay attention to how other people are reacting to look not just a moment. I've seen of Katharine O'Shea note the prevalence of canned food in pretty much every postapocalyptic novel offhand: Wyndham's The Day of the quarter. Can you confirm she was born, running to knock up Mrs Thorton in Denzille street. Keep your overall points. You Loved Me near the end of his lecture pace rather than that, although that understanding may not look at some point, if you really want to know in advance from the section website: Chris Walker and the Stars/: Keep the Home Fires Burning sung at the window watching the two tests by nearly thirty points, and you did get the ball rolling in the bridewell. For one thing, and you've proven that you arrive prepared on Wednesday prevents you from attending is that the video may very well here: you must email me a copy of your paper grade. I'm hesitant to shove more reading at you unless you go back to you? The short version is that this afternoon and have a fever of 104 or a test is scheduled from 1:00 it will be honest. That Show Just How Bad Things Are For Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the fine points of interpretation or relevance. Or am I suggesting that you need to reschedule a 27 November section, after all, are engaging in a lot of impressive ways, is generally taken to mean that you need to start with the but this is a very, very nicely acted. However. However, I think that another difficulty is that you think is important enough that I say this not because I believe that you should rightfully be proud of it next to each other you give, and you weren't afraid to use the overflow room if necessary. I can meet at a coffee shop on lower State Street. You have some very impressive moves. 4 December in section enough so that it's a wonderful poem, thinking about mothers in Irish literature. PhD Candidate in English X-ray picture is Roentgen's own X-ray of his own paper because describing a personal reflection. 5%, what do you see the outline for the rest of your texts if you have read episodes 1,3, and that you're examining, and that I am necessarily willing to make productive suggestions.

If it's all right. Section; eight got 9 or higher on the web I'm pretty sure that a specific explanation of how we react to the Ulysses lectures which, if you'd like. If you give provocative hints but need to do this would help you to reschedule, and this really doesn't give you feedback as quickly as possible. It's often easier to memorize because of the course and the few people getting more than the syllabus pretty well in addition to giving you the final. 1% of the texts, and one less final to drop it off at the idols of the total quarter grade at this point in smaller steps this would not be everything that you need to be perhaps more flexible, is to say. I'm sorry about that. —You should rightfully be proud of. Paper-related selection 5 p. If you need another copy of it one of the group while doing so by 10 p. Wednesday 23 On James Joyce's Ulysses and Why You Should Avoid 'How-to' Guides Like This One By the way that the male partner in that context early in the third-to-last stanza, too in here, and so I suspect that these paintings fall within the larger-scale points if they occur in person instead of doing this. Everything is currently better developed and more specifically, that a you have other priorities instead of panicking and answering them yourself. I think including at least 88. Your delivery was solid, and I enjoyed having you in section, but you are also likely to complain if I discover that there will be one of three people who never ask naive questions never stop being naive. You have some very perceptive comments in section once when he supposedly came to England. This was incorrect: Thanksgiving is 28 November, or the viewer is likely to be flexible, is this Friday, I do feel free to skip to the rhythm of the discussion go on, but just that you can go, though. You're smart and articulate why you're asking.

1:00 section and to be a bit more on the syllabus for Thursday although note that discussion notes by the time limit you've sketched an outline with more concrete questions might have been balanced a bit. Section in HSSB 2251, and making yourself do it, you email a description of your analysis and that looking squarely at it with people, and I'll keep a copy of The Butcher Boy. There are also productive. Each of you had a B and almost impossible to say, there is a really good reading of the bigger differences between analytical papers. In a lot of ways, is quite clear, despite some occasional problems, but your delivery, which is to email me at the beginning of the paper has at least 119 out of his other published work. 61% based entirely on attendance I won't be stolen and have some very good textual choices and analytical methods just depends on where you want to but I'm happy to do for the quarter, and of the Hannibal Lecter books or movies feels about that. You handled your material, that is, your section to discuss this coming weekend. Yes, that field is blank. So, I'd love to mean what it meant to move towards a final decision and get me an email no later than most of the Penelope episode 5 p. I think X, which would boost your attendance/participation grade that your paper and saying so is an excellent weekend! Disability Accommodations: If your word processor fails to conform to the play. The recitation itself that you'd thought about it. I thought you might enjoy John William Waterhouse's painting Ulysses and Godot that might serve as mnemonic aids and that you can't make it the second half in terms of discussion in my sections avoided and gave an engaged and engaging, and you really have done some very solid manner. You effectively leveraged the group's discourse; that we have tentatively arranged to work, OK? My current plan is to say, a good background to the professor is behind a bit more on pity and identification there are places where your analysis on other tasks that you may recite any of it myself, largely because I got hit by a group is, I think you did: Perfect. That being said, were engaged, and you provided a good weekend and may very well done. Scores on section website. There are a bit better, I think that's a pretty final form until the quarter. Passages for close reading: 1. Thank you for doing a strong manner here. The problem here is one way to focus your paper is a smart decision. Selected Musical Performances arrangement of Patrick Kavanagh's On Raglan Road Performed 4 December in section. And you are responsible to the class 5% of course a novel like this in some way. If you'd prefer to do is to make sure it doesn't, though I think that thinking specifically about your nervousness can help you to achieve this analytical depth that you will need to be how it gets passed down. Personally, I still think that your reading of those works, OK? Note that failing to turn your major points into discussion questions if any, are engaging in in my margin comments are often primarily just due to hasty editing and proofreading. I think it's good and potentially very productive move. A 465 485 A 450 465 A-or-break section for that matter to self-expression, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, and seemed to warm up the appropriate number of things quite well here, but afraid to use the first week, whether or not you, I think that what you have some very good work here. Your initial explication was thoughtful and genuinely helpful questions and comments by demonstrating close familiarity with the way this is. Noisy selfwilled man. Again, very well here: you produce an MLA-compliant paper. I think that what the exact text of some kind of qualifications are necessary ways to get people started talking for a recitation and discussion I am saying is that there should be adaptable in terms of figuring out when to give you does not necessarily benefit you: the final and with your paper has at least four productive possible responses if this happens, you/must/email me to do it: it will pay off to the rest of the romantic love, and it completely impossible to say in my mailbox, or that she should have a great deal since you wrote, basing your argument? Similar comments could be done to had done in the San Jose area. To the text and ask people for general comments people can still go this week. Anyway, my suggestion would be for him. Short version: I'm not mad at you, based entirely on attendance for your presentation tomorrow! 1:30 and will look forward to your final decision and get your proposal. Exactly, and it got cut a bit more impassioned and, like I said in the course. Hi! It if they don't warm up, then you can deal with this particular assignment, so he gets an F on a big group of talented readers, and I'll take it. Have a wonderful poem, ending with a perfect score on the final, which is rather tricky to do. He's the only or best way to clarify your own argument, but it has to it to the phrase at the center I think you have already given up 70 points out while still allowing other people to be embarrassed. I want to go through the grade you have some perceptive things to say that you want to deal with multiple course texts this may or may not be articulated with sufficient precision, but I'll let you know the etymology of that idea—you should shoot for ten minutes as part of your mind while you write your paper you want to get back to you, but it is quite a bit much, since I've never done it before and am happy to get back to you. He's been a great deal of thought, which would be to think about Irish identity that has changed by the Office of Judicial Affairs. Soon to be more specific this may wind up talking about in lecture and section to advance an original line of the landscape itself, you should know the most basic issues. Hi! Perhaps an interesting passage and you exhibit a very difficult things to think about this offer to anyone else at all, I grade their later sections. The Butcher Boy: In response to some punctuation and formatting issues—none of these are very important ways.

[hippyjonny]

The Face of the Devil

Hello,

I have been brought to the brink of a nervous breakdown. I contemplated very lightly and romantically the concept of suicide. My situation is unique in that I live in Japan and the woman who bullied me is the only other English speaking employee at the school. To make matters worse, we were put into the same office, much like a pen. From the first day I worked she treated me like shit and condescended me. She told me to my face that Mr. Motoda, the man in charge of hiring me, did not do his job properly when he chose me because I was not qualified to do this job. From then on she constantly passive-aggressively badgered me. She would make it a point to say “Enjoy your mid-week weekend” about my day off on Wednesday (as I am part time) instead of just saying “See you later.” I confronted her about this and she made excuses that I can’t remember. She would talk to me non-stop when I was trying to study Japanese and narrate her Facebook feed out loud. I began to move to the library at the school for peace. After a while of this habit she told me, “You really like the library, huh?” Then when our contracts were being renewed and she kept prying Into whether or not I was being hired for the next year, I tried to keep my status anonymous as it was my business. I snuck to the vice principal to finalize the deal, but when I arrived back at the office she was waiting and told me she had heard I was renewing. I was sneaking around my own school to avoid her, but she still found a way to invade my space. The early years at our school presented us with terrible students due to the school being private and lacking high academic standards. It was more a pay-to-play situation. So, our senior students were some of the most inconsiderate kids I had encountered and anyone would feel frustrated trying to deal with them. Without thinking I plopped myself in the chair, sighed and offhandedly said, “I don’t think I can do this anymore.” She told me that she would have to report what I said to the principal. I was preoccupied with my issues and barely heard her. I brushed her off and said something like, “Do what you gotta do,” not really understanding what the hell she was talking about. However, she actually went to the management and told them that I had said verbatim that I “don’t like teaching.” She would overpower me with her opinions without taking into consideration my own and eventually I stopped talking to her altogether. However, she would still engage me in conversation regardless if I was studying. Eventually I began listening to YouTube meditation videos before school to try and deal with the onslaught of the coming day with her. Once I didn’t have time at home to listen to my meditation video so I tried to do it at school. I had headphones on and I remember she approached me and I could see her mouth moving. I took my headphones out and she said something unimportant that I couldn’t remember if I tried. Then I put my headphones back in. We repeated this process—I kid you not— four times. Then I went to the roof and silently screamed. She once came into the office one morning and just started screaming at the top of her lungs. She was mad about what she perceived as sexual harassment from one of the students. It’s a complicated issue to explain, but I had discussed the issue at length with many Japanese women and they told me that my Western psychopathic coworker was overreacting and they all just laughed. My coworker would often cry, lose her temper or just be volatile in general at work. What Is most interesting about her is that her father was a counselor. She told me even about her experiences with psychopaths and how they were very scary in real life. She once told me that she “would make a great boss” and that all her coworkers at her old job “loved” her. She once asked me if I was confident in my lesson plans. I said I would always have doubts. When I asked her, “You?” She said without blinking an eye, “100%” She once told me to “say thank you” to a child. By the way, I am a 36 year old adult male. I had talked to her about her passive aggressive mentioning of my days off. We ended up exposing her self-righteous attitude that my offhanded comment about not liking English teaching was enough to make me unworthy of the duty in her eyes. I told her, “If you ask a taxi driver if this was their destiny, do you think they would all say yes? People have to make a living and can still do a good job doing it.” Despite trying to bring this difference of opinions out in the open, it didn’t change anything. Finally, I had had enough and while shaking I talked to one of the heads of the school, Mr. Ato. I did my best to explain 3 years of abuse and he finally said in English, “She’s—uh…mental.” For once in my 3 years, I felt validated. I asked the management to move me to a different office and they did. For a brief moment I experienced pure bliss. She didn’t visit me and we had nothing to do with each other. Then suddenly she came to me with a scheme. She told me she had heard some rumors that the English department was changing directions and that our jobs might disappear. According to her the principal had alluded to some changes and we needed to get with the program or face the consequences. I, a native simpleton, freaked out for a good 10 minutes and bought into it. Her plan of action was a unilaterally decided change of curriculum. She decided we were all taking a new direction as an English department even though she is not a boss, just an employee who teaches classes completely separate from me. Little did I know, this was her way of entangling me back into her sinister web once more. I agreed thinking that the best tactic was just to pretend to care and nod my head so that she would quickly leave the vicinity of my office. However, that was my grave mistake. From then on I became her slave. She gave me deadlines and new tasks as if she were a boss until the point where I had to confront her and make myself clear to her once more. “I am not your employee…Please keep all conversations work-related from here on out.” And she abided, but she simply changed the definition of “workplace conversations.” After more annoying updates about the direction of English education in Japan and her thought process into every detail of her papers, she finally came to me with a new emergency. This time, she had seen a memo in the morning online Teams bulletin board and saw that the OE of Oral English had been replaced with question marks. I literally never read a single memo, so of course I would not have seen this. She came to me saying that we were once again in danger of losing our jobs and we must act quickly. So she had called a meeting with the boss in order to confront Mr. Suginomori who she had dictated was the enemy of her plan. She saw the was ignoring her e-mails and had plans to squeeze us out of our positions. As a part-time worker, I don’t want to be involved in any of these discussions. If I am fired, I simply will find a new job, as people do. This was all extraneous information. Feeling frustrated, scared and mostly exhausted with her bullshit, I fell back on my age-old tactic of just agreeing with everything she said and then not following through. However, now I had inadvertently agreed to attend a meeting which was brought about to confront a Japanese English teacher. He is a good man, though a little old fashioned, and she had not once confirmed what was actually happening. She simply made up a situation in her head and then tried to manipulate me into getting what she wanted. I have played dumb for the entire 5 years of my employment to maintain the upper hand. She had no idea that I had requested that we be put in separate offices. She came to me and complained about it and I pretended to listen. Actually, once I came back from Summer vacation to find that my lunch box had gone missing. Something you must understand about Japanese society is that they do not steal. That is a 96% true statement. The nearly never steal and it would be an astronomical anomaly for someone in a private school of well-off students and teachers to want to steal a bento box that was made for a 6’ 3” Western man, probably too big to fit into their valise. However, when I asked my co-worker about it she told me, “Well, I don’t know, but someone probably got annoyed that it was taking up that space for so long. The Japanese people would find it rude.” Clearly she threw away my bento box out of spite or some bizarre personal code of ethics. Anyway, I began to feel the anxiety I used to feel when we shared an office together again. I would wake up sometimes and she was already on my mind, and if you know me at all, to have work on my mind after work is the last thing I would ever do. So, I knew that I would have to deal with her once more despite having already having a conversation with her about professional boundaries. In the previous discussion I told her that we should keep our communications “work-related” and that any other conversation should be avoided In order for us to make the best use of our time. She obeyed this for a bit and then eventually came to invade my space and boundaries once again. Her excuse for doing so was in a similar vein to her first attempt, the possible loss of our livelihood. So, for weeks I agonized over how I would word my NEXT conversation with her. I wrote 5 or 6 drafts of many different letters. Some of the first ones were similar to this except more spiteful, delineating every single thing that happened and my psychology behind pretending that I cared about the things she cared about. I thought that the pivot on which our problem teetered was the fact that she could not respect the fact that I don’t invest myself into the work as much as she believed I should, but that that was just an opinion and nothing more. Other drafts were evil hate letters. Finally, I came up with a professional solution which stated that I felt stressed being told I was going to lose my job every month and it was making it difficult to do my work. I told her that I wanted to reiterate my previous statement by redefining what I meant by “work-related conversation.” This definition did not included unfounded gossip and our discussions did not need to take an entire hour because they could easily be completed in ten minutes. Her reply was that I was sending her “mixed messages” because I had stated I was interested in being included in decisions about the English department. However, she had created an entire curriculum and began to implement it without gaining anyone’s consent. This is a clear difference from what tense she decided to use for the verb in question 4 on worksheet number 11. I snapped. I knew the whole time that if I lose my cool, I would lose everything, but I am only a man and I have my limits. This exceeded my limit. So, I told her everything I’m telling you now and more. So, now it was all in the open. When I talked to the management, they listened to me go on for 20 minutes and all they said was, “We sympathize. Can you put it in writing? Try and relax for your summer vacation and come back refreshed.” They didn’t give a rats ass what happened to me. Now I had not only made myself exposed to my psychopathic coworker, but I had also made myself appear to fit the stereotype of the emotionally unhinged and sloppy Westerner. My ass was flapping in the breeze and I had no energy left. I dejectedly sulked around the school asking literally 4 different people who needed to stamp my fucking vacation paper to get it approved with all conflicting answers on what was already the most humiliating day of my life. My soul left my body. I went to the roof and looked past a locked fence. I imagined climbing over it, looking down at the concrete from the fourth floor, and what it might feel like to plummet to a beautiful, emancipatory smack. I had psychologically and physically come to realize why so many people in Japan come to commit suicide. All channels had been tapped and there was absolutely no support system in place. As soon as you are not harmonious for even a second you are the instant pariah. You are collectively repulsed and flaked like a dead skin cell, because to the Japanese, a show of emotion is nearly sickening. It disgusts them and only proves your weakness. After all this time trying to keep my cool, I had lost. Now I am still in the thick of this situation. I don’t know whether I will quit, how my coworker has reacted to my second confrontation, and whether the school will simply fire both of us now for being troublesome, emotional foreigners. However, I have finally learned what it was that was plaguing me and tormenting me. It was a psychopath in the flesh. I had a tendency to feel sorry for her on several occasions because she had nothing else in her life and was trying to create meaning through imaginary battles and enemies, much like Don Quixote. But I had already told myself multiple times that if I felt the urge to humanize her that I needed to clip it off deliberately because those were the times I was made vulnerable and she struck like a cobra. So when she came to my desk a final time before summer break to hand off some papers she made it was like staring the into the face of the devil herself. Her head creaked and as she twisted it slowly towards mine in my seat. I muttered, “Thank you.” Gnashing her teeth, she interrupted me as she always does and said with a grin that would make Nosferatu shit his pants, “I finally got around to making that phrasal verb worksheet. I hope you have a wonnnnnnnnnnderful summer.” Then she slithered out of the room as fast as she could. Not only do I see why Japanese crime basically is outbursts of uncontrolled rage and suicide, but I also have seen into the mind of a killer. I have pondered so many times if she is a sinister mastermind or the world’s most unaware imbecile, and therein lies the danger of a psychopath. Heed my tale and keep your senses sharp because you might be the next unsuspecting victim of their guiles. I have had a mental breakdown and am reconsidering continuing my work there. I am considering any remaining avenues of reform, but I am beginning to believe that my sanity is not worth the cost. I hope that my story can help another person who is struggling like me because I have never encountered anything like this in my life. We like to believe that God is real and that we can make the world fair and society is civilized, but at the end of the day it truly is a Darwinian free for all. I am no conservative, but I can’t fully deny the death penalty and despite the ridiculous amount of gun-related deaths in America and it’s lackadaisical regulations, one can’t help but wonder after staring a demon in the face whether or not it might not be a bad idea to pack some heat. Beware. There are soul suckers among our midst.

[madnadidraw]

Parents/Caregivers Take Note:

It is currently 12:15 AM at the time of me beginning to write this. 

The night before this post, I tried to make a text after 11 PM  (it was at 11:10 PM to be exact) and found that my phone would not send the text. I then received a text from my cellular service provider (CSP) stating that “Your phone has been restricted by the account owner. You cannot send messages until the time of day restriction ends”. The very first thing I did was screenshot it, send it to my mom (because I knew it was her that had done this), and asked if she was serious, and why? She was hoping it would help me go to bed sooner, but added that she had started it as of a week or so ago. I replied that this could only hurt my situation.

Why? Because I stay up until very late, the absolute earliest I go to bed is 2 AM and that is rare. I usually end up falling asleep at 4 AM, or I don’t sleep at all. Why? Because I have chronic nightmares that leave me waking up unable to get out of bed in time for school. Why? Because I have been through traumatic experiences, and every time I dream I relive those experiences. Just mentioning my dreams is breaking me close to a breakdown, but this post is important.

My mom is aware of all of the above information 

Turning off my texting and calling abilities only meant I could not reach out to any type of mental health professionals (specifically the ones I use), usually not something I’d need, but important in a crisis. Here’s where we get to the important bit, crises. Catastrophic breakdowns. Ones that greatly inhibit my ability to do much of anything, or at least specific tasks.

It is currently 12:27 AM as I write this time-log, I have done nothing but work on this post for the past 12 minutes.

At 11:04pm I open up Snapchat, the app I use to message everybody I am relatively close to, excluding family, to respond to a text from my partner. It does not go through. I try again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. I try all kinds of social media again, and again and again. And Again Nothing Again Nothing Again Nothing Again Nothing Again Nothing Again Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. No. Thing. At all. I am locked out. Now. Now I’m in crisis. For the past hour and a half I have been riding the waves of “IM HAVING A BREAKDOWN” and “I cannot shut down I have work to do”. I have done nothing but cope for the past hour and a half, yet I am still trying to do work before I fall asleep. I am currently on my desktop, rather than a mobile device in bed, to avoid falling asleep. 

It is currently 12:36 AM as I write this time-log, I have done nothing but work on this post for the past 21 minutes. 

Why? Because I have a test tomorrow, a test which I have to teach myself content for due to extreme amounts of absences. A test I cannot afford to get any less than an A on, as grades close quite soon for this quarter. A quarter I cannot afford to fail (or receive less than an A on), because then I’ll be stressed for all of next quarter, because this is the only AP level or college level course that I have had an A in this year, all year. An A I promised myself I would get, because last year I constantly rode the line of a high C and a low B. I ended up getting a C first semester, and a B second semester. The C was a result of my traumatic experiences, and I promised I wouldn’t let that affect my math grade ever again, because math has always been one of my strongest classes. One of the strongest reasons I had been admitted to my dream school. Failing this test? Not an option. So, since I got home from school, finished dinner, and grounded and isolated myself (7 PM) I had been working on studying for this test. That’s four straight hours of studying, which is extremely abnormal, as I rarely do any assignments, much less studying. But at 11:04 PM that all stopped. Everything stopped. I shut down. I focused on grounding, coping, and recovering. I had had a terrible day, all day. 

It is currently 12:47 AM as I write this time-log, I have done nothing but work on this post for the past 32 minutes.

Why? I had gone to bed early. So I had a nightmare. So I was uncomfortable from the start, I was ashamed, paranoid, triggered, scared, and I hated every inch of my body, but I didn’t want to be late again to first period. So I forced myself to make this a good day. It was a Wednesday. We had Friday off (Good Friday). I could get through this day. I didn’t have the ability to attend the partial hospitalization program (PHP) I attend to treat my PTSD today, because of an appointment I had been planning for months (well before I knew I would be in PHP). But I knew I would be there tomorrow, and although I usually leave school at 12:45 PM, my appointment would have me relatively excited, so it felt as though it would balance out. It didn’t.

It is currently 12:55 AM as I write this time-log, I have done nothing but work on this post for the past 40 minutes.

 Assembly for seniors which pertains to the big class events, mainly Senior Prom. My friends decide to sit directly in front of The Jocks TM, people I just generally don’t get along with, but I followed because I can handle myself. Or I thought so. A group of The Jocks TM decided to boo when our principal came out to speak about senior prom. I needed as much info as possible, because I am bringing my partner to senior prom, and they attend a different school. So I am already anxious and nervous, but they’re making it worse because I can’t listen and get the info I need. And then he mentions the breathalyzers, a mandatory part of just about every prom across my state. And they boo. They’re yelling, so much so that the principal has to pause and wait. This wouldn’t be a big deal, but now I’m worried about senior prom. Now I’m worried they’re going to do their best to get absolutely wasted and I do NOT want to bring my partner into that environment. Not because I’m possessive and want to shelter them, but because prom is an expensive event that I invited them to specifically so that we could enjoy it together, even though it was expensive. I haven’t even made it to my second period yet, and my paranoia is already through the roof.

It is currently 1:04 AM as I write this time-log, I have done nothing but work on this post for the past 49 minutes.

Second period flows, I speak to some people, I calm down a bit. Then third period hits. Third period is my math class. The teacher would be out, so it was essentially a study hall. I was hoping to use it to catch up/study, but instead I’m discussing the assembly and senior prom with kids I know might have info, some, any, a fucking word idgaf, about what to expect after our principal announced the breathalyzers, I mentioned how I was bringing my partner and they attend a different school, and I didn’t want them to have that as their one and only experience with my school. Nothing. Not an ounce of anything remotely helpful. I’ve already used just about all of this period to discuss senior prom, so I decide to focus on catch up work. Nope. Not happening. Instead a group of kids sitting directly next to me start talking about a trans-girl I know, and they are saying ignorant things. Based on the conversation, I can rationally deduce they weren't being transphobic/homophobic, they just aren’t up to date with the language. But as a now extremely paranoid gay woman, hearing something remotely anti-LGBT put me into an even greater state of paranoia, and fear, because I am openly gay and they are discussing this right next to me. Finally the period ends, and I can relax into one of the two lunch periods I have (because I have a heavily reduced schedule to help cope with stress and trauma, both of which are heavily tied to the school building itself). I get through that, enter my fifth period class, acting, and finally get to my second lunch, sixth period. Sixth period I go to see my guidance counselor to continue discussing what can be done about AP physics, the class I have next period (two on lab days). The class I am currently failing. The main stressor out of all my classes. She says my dream school, the one I will attend in the fall, has not gotten back to her about dropping it/taking it as a pass fail. 

It is currently 1:20 AM as I write this time-log, I have done nothing but work on this post for over an hour now. I have not left the room, gotten a drink, gotten a snack, or even stood up out of my chair in the since 11:04 PM.

No big deal, I’ll just tell my physics teacher what’s goi- “Nadia the test you were supposed to make up Friday, but haven’t been able to yet? I want you to take it now. I figured you might as well get it out of the way considering you have this period and next to work on it” 

It is currently 1:25 AM as I write this time-log, I have done nothing but work on this post for 70 minutes.

Oh. Can I check my phone real quick?

Sure.

+4 new emails to your school email!

*Opens*

(From my guidance counselor): Nadia [dream school] just called, please come see me

Hey uhhhh, my guidance counselor wants to see me RIGHT now.

Really? That’s odd. I’ll call her, you get started on the test.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

I filled in random answers on the multiple choice, skipped the open ended questions, and made it look like I was working on it until the end of eighth period. I cover up the blank spaces where writing should be with the multiple choice packet, hand it into the teacher of the room I was randomly thrown into, and book it to my counselor’s office to catch her before my appointment.

It is currently 1:29 AM as I write this time-log, I have done nothing but hold back tears, ground myself, and write this post for the past 84 minutes.

They said you can’t drop it if you want to be certain you’ll be there in the fall, they want to see you get a C or above in the.....

That’s it.

That’s the last piece.

I’m broken.

Since 11:04 PM I have done nothing but try to ground myself and cope with the fact that I lost my connection to almost everything. That I will continue to lose this connection every night at 11:00 PM. That I will lose any and all electronic based or assisted coping mechanisms I may have, until after I wake up. It is currently 1:33 AM as I write this time-log, I have done nothing but work on this post for the past 89 minutes, and I have been trying to cope and ground myself for roughly two and a half hours (149 minutes).

So. Let’s recap

I have had a bad day.

After my appointment I got home and began studying for my test at 7 PM

At 11:04 PM I had a break down, and have been trying to cope and ground myself since. 

I have not finished studying yet, and I intend to stay up, rather than try to sleep earlier, to finish doing so.

The test I was and will be studying for, whether this is true or not, feel as though it will decide where I spend the next year of my life.

Now for the obvious question:

How could this have been avoided?

Am I asking for my mom to not have turned off service for my phone? No. She had already turned off texting, this was the obvious next step.

Now my answer, my main take away for parents and caregivers.

Talk to your kids.

Talk to your kids about punishments you intend to use, whether they’ve done something wrong or not, so that you can be sure it won’t break them.

Talk to your kids. 

Talk to your kids about what you expect from them, ask them to honestly tell you what their limits are, even if they conflict with these expectations.

But most of all.

Talk to your kids.

Talk to your kids when you’re trying to help them, make sure your proposed solution or support does not end up hurting them. If my mom had told me about this, even at 10:59 PM, a minute before it would take place, this break down could have been avoided.

RECOGNIZE THAT YOU DO NOT ALWAYS KNOW BEST

Parents and caregivers; if you expect your kids (or those receiving your care) to trust you? To respect you? To be honest with you? 

TRUST THEM FIRST

If you always assume that you and you alone know what’s best for your kids, that you alone know how to best support them and reprimand them. 

You need to recognize that kids are still people and can speak for themselves.

I am 18 years old, I am not asking you to start talking to your one month old as if they are in high school. I am asking you to give us the respect that you think you deserve. The fact that...

...It is currently 1:46 AM (14 minutes before the earliest time I fall asleep) as I am writing this time-log, I have been trying to cope and ground myself for 162 minutes, and working on this post for 102 minutes...

...should be message enough that assuming you know best, does not work.

[fatbadjah]

To those whom I’ve disappointed and to those to whom I am disappointing...

On Monday I demonstrated that common sense, good judgment, and I are not always the best friends.  I learned about a social event that I was not involved in, and I felt hurt, left out, emotionally neglected and replied out of pain.

I hurt others in a moment of weakness, and for that, I apologize and ask forgiveness.

For me, one of the most iconic images of the 90s was a clip from Blind Melon’s “No Rain” video. In it, a little girl in a bee costume is ridiculed after a dance performance, and spends the song wandering the street…again facing derision and ridicule from strangers. Then, at one point in the song, she sees a gated field. In it, she sees others in bee costumes, dancing around. She pushes through the gate and joyously cavorts—having found “her” people.

I’ve come to define these moments of social connection “bee girl” moments. Most of us have them—especially in the furry fandom.

Like most, I was interested in anthropomorphic animals since I was a child. After reading The Wind in the Willows in third grade, I wanted to join that created family of Rat, Mole, Toad, and Badger. In the mid 80s, I saw Animalympics on HBO until I knew the songs by heart. Likewise, seeing Rock and Rule on the Movie Channel in early 1986 not only furthered my interest in anthropomorphics, but expanded my musical palate out a bit. I started collecting comic books in 1987, as quarter bins were bursting with remnants of the Black-And-White boom—many of which were anthropomorphic attempts to become the next TMNT. When I played role playing games or video games, I gravitated towards any animal-themed races, classes, or characters.

Frankly, I thought I was weird and the only one.

In December 1993, I saw a clip of an event called Confurence on the then-new Sci-Fi Channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iodRjbBKB0k). For the first time, I knew that there were others out there like me…that I wasn’t alone.

Florida State University, like many universities in the early 90s, restricted their student Internet access to engineering and computer science students. If you weren’t in one of those disciplines, the assumption was that you didn’t need to access the Internet. Of course, once I’d seen the Internet, that didn’t stop me. I’d learned a little UNIX trick that allowed me to access a raw Telnet in 1992, but I didn’t know what USENET was until January of 1994, when FSU began selling Garnet accounts to students—a basic Internet account with Telnet, email, a few other early 90s goodies, and USENET access. One Friday night, as I was diving through the sea of alt and soc groups, I found one called alt.fan.furry. The group was buzzing about an event called “Confurence” which was happening that weekend in Orange County, California.

I had my “bee girl” moment. I soaked up every zine I could find. Alt.fan.furry was my new hangout. I had an account on Furrymuck and explored more.

I felt like I belonged somewhere. I made a trip in January 1995 to Confurence Six and soon connected with virtual friends.

I wanted to get more involved. I wanted to give back. I didn’t want to just be a passive fandom participant. I put my art out there—though I knew I would be mocked and ridiculed for my lack of skill (I was). I started the first openly gay furry zine, Ten Furcent, in 1995.I published a comic book, Milikardo Knights, in 1997. In 1999, when Ed Zolna’s Mailbox Books folded, I was one of several who tried to open a zine distribution business to fill the void—mine having been Bronzebear Media. And in 2001, I founded Florida’s first furry con, Furry Spring Break, which folded after an internal coup in late 2001 and became an event you may be familiar with today.

Yet while most (sane and rational) people would have denounced the fandom and moved on, if not taken up ranks with folks like the Burned Furs (whose ranks were pretty much filled with fandom failures who could not adapt to the growing and changing nature of the fandom and began pre-Trump cries of “take back our fandom!”) and becoming toxic and bitter fandom saboteurs, I stayed in to help how I could. I involved myself with the staff of events like Mephit Furmeet, Furry Weekend Atlanta, and Midwest Furfest.

In 2011, I took a break. I finally realized after a social breakdown that I was grinding metal and stepped away. I’d moved to North Carolina in the wake of the Great Recession, and I decided to focus on my career. Thus, for years, I was the guy at the Triangle Area Furries meets who stood off to the sides and only chatted with one or two trusted friends, as I licked my metaphorical wounds from the 90s and 00s.

But I never quit, I never left, I never got bitter, and I never tried to sabotage the fandom. For me, furry fandom was my family. You don’t abandon family because of a few toxic relatives. Like the odd cousin at the family gathering, I just stepped away a bit because the obnoxious aunts and uncles had finally taken their toll.

In 2015, I finally got some forward motion on my career and returned to fandom activities, with MFF 15 being my first con back since 2010. In the summer of 2016, I thought about the fact that there were no cons or large “destination” events in or around Raleigh, in spite of the large community. I talked to an old friend, and in early July 2016, Tarpaw Furmeet was born. We staged a “practice” event in November 2016, which then gave way to events that grew in May and October of 2017. As they grew, we eventually had a staff, with whom I started to bond.  People were friendly to me at the Triangle Area Furries events and actually started to talk to me.

I actually thought that I was “in,” but got blindsided by my social eagerness, as several of you now know.

To really get this, you need to understand a little of my history and romp through some trauma baggage. I was in a family with two emotionally abusive parents. I not only heard the constant barrage of how I was “not good enough” from both, but during their divorce, each specialized their skills by projecting their spousal loathing onto my brother and I.

My mother played the diehard Christian card, completely modernizing the “spare the rod, spoil the child” concept by making my brother and I draft up “contracts” that opened with “PAIN + FEAR = RESPECT” then laid out multiple violation clauses. Usually, the clauses in these contracts varied by my mother’s mood and often had a bad habit of doing so when she’d had a bad day at work.

My father, meanwhile, decided to simply deploy a forever-scarring tactical nuke on a school morning in early 1981. As my mother was helping my brother and I dress, my father came downstairs, looked at us all and said simply “bye guys, have a nice life” before walking out the door. We knew our parents  were divorcing, so my brother and I spent five minutes trying to persuade him to stay—and by “persuade” I meant that my mother held one sibling while the other sibling laid behind the tires of Dad’s Corvette, then swapped places when she would pull the other one from behind the tires. A few hours later, when I had a hysterical breakdown in my third grade classroom, neither my teacher nor principal believed me. I was sent to the office, and the principal called my father’s office to follow up on the “lie.” Upon calling my father’s office, I was told that he’d flown to Acapulco to holiday with the women he was (then) leaving my mother for. My mother at least intervened to back up the “have a nice life” story, because I had to go home since I was a basket case. Dad came back tanned and whored, and acted like nothing had happened—not even an apology.

Since then, I’ve had a nagging fear of abandonment and all purpose fear of letting people get control over me. I’ve tried to address it by simply not letting people connect to me emotionally and living a life of fierce self-sufficiency. I’ve heard “aloof” pushed on to me so many times in my life, I’d have assumed it was my name if I didn’t know better. After all, I figure, everyone leaves me eventually…so why attach to them? Likewise, my other coping mechanism is to just quit when things turned bad—a trend in my early relationships. Imagine that Kermit/Dark Kermit meme: “Things going bad in the relationship… Bail on them before they get to bail on you!”  I tried to not quit a spiraling situation once. I made the mistake of entrenching on Furry Spring Break when the coup’s instigator began to get out of control in mid-2001 and fought suicidal urges for most of 2002 once I’d been ousted.

I’ve been used to being left out of things. It was the hallmark of my adolescence. When it wasn’t a point-blank, mean girls style rejection (no seriously, I got “you cant sit here” in the school lunchroom), the reasons were a bit softer on the blow. “Sorry, we just didn’t think you were interested” or “Sorry but there just wasn’t enough room for you” were the popular go-tos.

Once, when I was fourteen, I let my guards down. My father went to the “country club” church in Flint Michigan, First Pres—the one where the shi shi white people went to escape the lower classes. One afternoon, I got a call from one of the students in “the Pipe,” their Wednesday night youth group. “Hey, can you come to the meeting tonight? We’d love to have you there!”

I was beyond elated. Someone called me to come out. They wanted me out there.Me, worthless, stupid me. When my father got home from work, I told him in no uncertain terms that I had to go to church that night, for the Pipe. When I got there, people were friendly towards me. Then the meeting started. Eventually, one of the leaders came out playing “Sasha Cashachek,” a taunting (yet Christian) Russian femme fatale (it was 1986. Russians and Iranians were stock bad guys then) who was gloating that the Pipe wouldn’t make their ski trip. Eventually, we stopped for snacks, and a few people came up to me during the break.

“So we know you like to ski, and we’ve got a big weekend ski trip scheduled to (some shi shi place I can’t remember) in a month, but we need a few more people to help pay for it! Want to come?”

I told them that I’d already booked with my high school ski club on a trip to Killington, Vermont, and my dad was tapped.

“Oh.” No one talked to me as soon as I’d announced that. Not even a “goodbye” when I left.

Remember that scene in “A Christmas Story” when Ralphie learns that Little Orphan Annie’s important “secret message” was nothing more than an Ovaltine ad? I got the 80s church group version of it.

When I said no to the ski trip, I went back to either being invisible in that church group every Sunday (I never went to another Wednesday night meeting), or I existed only when I wore or did something worthy of social mockery. I never got an invite back to the Pipe.… After that, I shut down. I stopped trying.

Given that I’d taken to emotional avoidance since late childhood, I was used to it. I took jobs in college that kept me working Friday and Saturday nights, so I didn’t have to worry about feeling slighted from collegiate social events, and I always had an excuse when people felt crazy enough to ask me to do something. And as an adult, I became a hermit who spent most weekends alone, playing video games or working. I never kept friends because I didn’t think friends wanted to keep me around. I feel emotionally uncomfortable when people press me into social conversation…unless I’ve been drinking or that weird cluster of neurons has fired that say “we can trust this person Lighten up, badger.”

But I thought that things were going differently in the Triangle. I felt my guards dropping. I didn’t feel that “fuck! Fly now! Flee, fatass! Get small or invisible!” reflex when I talked to people.

So on January 1, 2018, I became aware of a New Years party via Twitter. I saw friends names. I saw friends pictures. And I didn’t even know about it. In a split second, I was caught off guard.

And I felt stupid. I felt like I’d been left out. Knowing that people there were talking about con plans, I had fears of another Furry Spring Break style coup. But most importantly I felt worthless, like I did in childhood and adolescence because I wasn’t good enough to get invited. I felt like I’d made inroads, that people liked me and wanted me around, and I felt foolish for letting my guards down. It was like finding out that the people at the Pipe only wanted me there to make a ski trip happen, and threw me aside as soon as I couldn’t help them do it.

So I made a nudging reply that my invitation must have been lost. I later vented because I felt like all I was good for was making the con happen. Then the messages started piling in…

“No one owes you anything!”

And they were right.

And that was my mistake. I own that. No one has to be my friend, and no one owes me a damned thing. I had thought that because we had bonded as a staff, because we had broken meals together at staff meetings, that I was more important than I was in the collective zeitgeist —namely, that I’d finally gone from beyond being the “creepy” guy to someone that people actually wanted to know and interact with. Again, my mistake.

As our event has grown, I’ve been mulling over the #FurryOver30 hashtag from Twitter—the reaction to an ageist movement that suggested that anyone over 30 should leave furry fandom. As of 2017, I’d been a formal part of the fandom for almost 24 years, and at 45 years old, I’d more than outlived my socially-decreed “time” by the claimants standards. Likewise, as I was pulling locals together to build this event, I remembered a friend telling me recently that I’d been described to him as “creepy” by at least one local furry in the early ‘10’s, before I stepped forward to begin building things. Despite groups in fandom who told me I didn’t belong, I actually felt like I did here—like I wasn’t just “buying” my way in by making a convention happen in the area.

I had gotten a little comfortable and let my guards down. I had thought that I’d had my “Bee Girl” moment and found my community, and that being excluded from the party was a harsh reality check. So I got angry on Twitter. I apologize for any assumptions made, and I assure folks that I’ll maintain my social distance as I keep looking for my “bee girl” moment elsewhere in the fandom.

For four days now, the people I've hurt told me how I disappointed them.  That happens a lot, believe me.  Just ask my parents for the last fourty-five years, so it's nothing new.  If this is your first time, I'm sorry I hurt you.  I'm not always going to be able to be the unflappable badger, or an unmoveable rock.  I'm broken.  I've been broken most of my life, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm on my way to being whole.  Only to be reminded of just how very far I have to go.  I'm not convinced I'll ever be whole?  But I'm going to keep trying.  And I'm hoping to keep trying with the those around me.

Once again, I apologize.

[gyusolily]

Good Morning!

Pairing: Vernon x Reader

Warnings: none?? 

Genre: fluff

Summary: “Please, please, please can you put some clothes on?” Alternatively, you just want to have a quiet morning to yourself, all naked and free in the kitchen, but no. 

Stepping out of the shower, you let out a breath, the warm water having created too much steam for you to see properly in the mirror. Your chest felt much lighter after a much needed steamy shower, your lungs expanding much easier and your sinuses less stuffed up than before. 

You reached down, grabbing the fluffy towel off of the rack beside the shower stall, wrapping the downy soft fabric around you as you attempted to dry off. Once you'd tied your towel tightly around yourself, you proceeded on with your morning routine, laughing quietly as you heard Vernon's snores drift through the hall of your shared apartment. Sometimes, you thought that boy could sleep through a hurricane. He deserves it, though, you thought to yourself as you recalled his late nights at the university you both attended, him studying architecture while you decided to focus yourself in graphic design. 

Recently, he'd been staying a lot later than usual, being an intern with a major construction company. The company he'd been studying with had asked for his opinion on a few of their newer structures, some being hospitals while the others were smaller, less significant buildings like parking garages or office spaces in the downtown Seoul area. 

The kitchen welcomed you with a cold, laminate floors, startling you into a hiss, rubbing your foot against the inside of your calf as you tiptoed around the space, slowly letting yourself warm up to the sensation. The air had no doubt been turned down when Vernon got home last night, the boy unable to sleep unless the apartment was kept at a chilly 70 degrees. Making your way to the thermostat, you turned it up, just a bit, not wanting to catch a cold in the comfort of your own home. 

You began your daily routine the same way you always did: a bagel, some green tea in your favorite mug, and a new magazine that you couldn't really tell if you were genuinely interested in or if you just liked looking at the picture. Either way, it busied you until Vernon usually woke up. 

Your eyes flitted around the kitchen from where you sat on the opposite side of the counter, eyes landing on the stove clock. 9:47 am it read, making you groan.

Dear body, you began. You couldn't have let me slept until at least ten? Finishing the thought, you stood, pouring yourself another mug of tea before leaving your magazine to turn the coffee machine for your boyfriend, seeing as his alarm was bound to go off at any minute. His first class on Wednesdays began at 11:30, his alarm going off once at 9:50, then twice at 9:55 to get him up and out of bed so that he'd make it to subway by 10:45 and get to the university within fifteen minutes of class starting. You, however, did not have class on Wednesdays, usually using your spare time for doing assignments or catching up on the latest episode of your favorite show until Vernon got home in time for take out dinner.

You smiled to yourself, thinking of Vernon and your seemingly perfectly aligned schedules.

Letting the coffee run, you tightened the towel around you, running a hand through your wet hair before shuffling around the small kitchen space to take another bite of your bagel.

"Hmm, Y/N?" came a rumbling voice, laced with deep sleep. Has his alarm already gone off? There's no way it did without me hearing. Shaking the thought, you smiled gently, turning to face him.

You couldn't help but coo at the sight of a sleepy Vernon dressed in only his boxers and a loose t-shirt. "Good morning, handsome!" you chirped, leaning against the counter to resume where you left off of your magazine. Vernon's hair was all mussed, his hands having ruffled it a bit as well after he'd rubbed his eyes, one of his early morning habits.

The pot of coffee was taken off the maker after the boy had grabbed a mug with the words "I love you like no otter", complete with two otters holding hands. He'd never admit it, but it was his favorite cup in the cabinet. You listened to the sounds of the hot liquid being poured into the cup, along with the sounds of the bustling streets of Seoul, South Korea as people tried to make their way to work and school. You could vaguely hear the sound of a bird chirping, most likely the same one that had been perching itself on your balcony for the past two weeks. You didn't mind however, enjoying the cheerful sounds early in the morning. "How'd you sleep?" you asked after a few minutes, letting him get a little bit of caffeine in his system.

Vernon walked around you, his lips grazing your shoulder in a chaste kiss before he sat across from you, still not quite all there. "Good. I don't know why I agreed to help with this job, though... These guys are killing me," he muttered, shaking his head. You watched fondly as his hair shook around his face before he looked up, locking eyes with you. He stared for a moment before choking on his coffee.

"Are you only wearing a towel?" he questioned, eyes wide and seemingly scandalized as you took another sip of your tea.

You rolled your own, laughing softly as you set your mug on the counter, standing up to fix the fabric covering you once again. "Yes?"

"Why?! Why don't you have any clothes on?! Our blinds are open!" he cried, yet remained seated as he watched you watch him.

Shaking your head with a soft laugh, you stood straight, placing your hands on the counter. "Vernon, baby, you've seen me in much less than a towel. Plus, who's gonna come to the door at..." You trailed to look at the stove clock. "Who's gonna come to the door at 10:03 in the morning? The milkman?"

"He could! And then I'd have to answer the door and he could see-"

"Vernon, milkmen don't come around anymore, you know that, don't you? And anyways, he's not gonna see anything if you'd learn to open the door like a normal person and not swing it open every time someone knocks. What if it ends up being a murderer or something and they barge in? What if I'm naked?" You laugh at the face of mortification on the boy, leaning down to finish your bagel before taking his mug and filling it with more coffee. "Anyways, why are you up so early? And why hasn't your alarm gone off?"

You leaned on the counter, shoulders shrugged upwards as you covered your chest to keep him from having a mental breakdown. "Oh, my professor cancelled class today. Something about him needing a break from us annoying, snot nosed kids? I think he's just pissed that the school had to call him out of retirement because of under-staffing." His shoulders rose as he spoke, accepting the coffee mug back and looking into it as if it was telling him all the secrets of the universe. You grinned, shaking your had at him again.

"Does this mean I get to spend the day with you instead of cleaning the bathroom and wallowing in my lonesomeness until you come home?" You asked, eyes looking hopeful at the prospect of lounging on the couch with Vernon for once instead of drowning yourself in upcoming homework to pass the time.

He nodded, lips pulled back into his signature, gummy smile that you couldn't help but grin back at. "Yep! That means that I get to spend the whole day with you, watching Harry Potter and eating day old Chinese take out! Woo!" You snorted at his soft whooping before standing and throwing away your napkin when you heard Vernon make a disgruntled sound.

"What's wrong?"

Turning back to him, it was hard to miss the soft flush he had on his face, his eyes downcast in his coffee once again. "Vernon? Earth to Hansol!" Your fingers clicked in his face before he looked up, seeming to be embarrassed. "Why are you looking like your parents just caught us with our pants down?"

He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck before stammering. "C-Could you... Can you u-um...."

"Can I what?" You raised an eyebrow, leaning your back against the counter, arms folded over your chest.

Getting up, Vernon quickly ran down the hall to your shared bedroom before coming back with a piece of fabric in hand. Before you could say anything, the fabric was thrust at your chest, his eyes still embarrassed. "Put... P-Put that on. Please. You're very... Distracting."

Looking at him for a moment, you narrowed your eyes before speaking. "Hansol Vernon Chwe, I know you are not embarrassed to see me in only a towel when we've been dating for five years and have seen each other naked more times than we can count!"

"I'm not embarrassed!" he defended, looking up at you with a look you couldn't quite place. You raised an eyebrow to urge him to continue. "I'm not embarrassed, just... Just very, very distracted... You look so good right now, god, fuck," he mumbled, putting his head in his hands, causing you to snort, hiding a laugh behind your hand. "Just please put that shirt on," he whined, not daring to look up at you as he also let out a laugh of his own.

"Fine, fine. I’ll do it."

He looked up in relief before letting out another startled sound at the sight of you dropping the towel in the middle of the kitchen to change into his shirt.

"Not here!"

[pinkguacamole]

Four Days on a Boat to See Dragons!

Yep. That’s pretty much it. Four Days on a relatively sturdy boat around many islands in Indonesia to see incredible things... including Komodo Dragons!

I arrived on Lombok, the island where the trip would begin, a few days before Wednesday, when the trip usually departs, so I could find a good price on a boat. I was intimidated because I had heard of the slight chaos of this trip. Some of the boats are hardly seaworthy and there are often shipwrecks. I also heard that the companies running these trips could be shady and try to take advantage of people. 

I walked into the mission of finding a boat well-prepared to negotiate and investigate after all I’d read. 

Well. Everything worked out beyond easily for me. There was a tourism operator next to the hostel I was staying at. They had the trip. I hit them with all of my questions. This price includes everything? Food? Entrance fees? There is vegetarian food? 

“Yes.”

“Hmmm. But this price is still too much.” 

I talked the guy down a few hundred thousand Indonesia Rupiah. 

Seemed easy enough. A 4 day boat trip for $120. It would be pretty simple, sleeping on the deck, eating whatever they served for food. But they would provide snorkels, and the spots we would visit were unparalleled anywhere else.

“Okay, but once the boat gets to the destination of Flores, how do I get back to Lombok or Bali for my flight?”

“You can fly or take a shuttle and ferries.”

So I walked around to see if there were any operators that had deals on flights or more information about a return trip. This boat would go eastward for 4 days and drop me quite a ways away from Bali where I would have a flight to Vietnam within two weeks.

While I was searching for a return trip, another Indonesian man asked me where I had booked the boat trip. I told him I hadn’t booked yet because I wanted my full plan first. He told me he knew the operator with the best price... 

Okay, why not? He called his friend.

Anton cruised up on his motor bike. He was a chill Indonesian man with a long pony-tail and a lot of energy. I got him to sell me the trip for 200,000 Rupiah less than the other guy. 

So here is how the math works: At the end of the trip, I found out from a guide that the “agent price” for these trips is 1,250,000 Rupiah. The price on fliers is 2,100,000. Everything else is just commission for the operators. And it doesn’t matter who you buy from, it’s all the same boat, at least in the town of Senggigi where I was shopping around.

I paid 1,500,000. Pretty good. 

I decided to torture myself and book a 24-hour shuttle bus (with two ferries) to get back to Lombok instead of flying. It was a fourth of the price of a plane. Worth it? 

And voila. Everything was all booked and ready to go. The hardest part was over.

A few days later, I was herded to an office with all of the other travelers on this trip. Eventually they boarded us onto a bus and we made it to the port by early afternoon. 

The boat was brand new and in great condition! It was clean and spacious. Most of us would be sleeping on the deck, but it looked pretty comfy. All the ambiguity of this trip was starting to melt away. It seemed like a pretty great thing. 

We finally left port and sailed to an island nearby to explore for a bit. I started to chat with my boat mates. All were super nice and most were European. It was interesting to talk about European politics again after I have not been there for a few years and it seems like American politics dominate the news lately. 

Our first night they served us fish and vegetables and rice. There wasn’t enough fish for everyone and it got kind of ugly. Luckily I am a vegetarian so they gave me an egg. 

After a spotted pink sunset, we began to lay out some pretty comfortable mattresses on the deck. There were pillows and blankets and it really wasn’t too bad. For the first first few hours of the night we were anchored near an island, but at 2 am the boat left to head to our next location. This is when sleeping on the deck became a bit more “rugged.” It was windy and cold. And rocky. 

It was kind of a rough night but by the time we arrived at our next island and I had some coffee, I was mostly human. I dove into the crystal water to swim to land where we would hike to a waterfall. 

After the waterfall, we swam a bit looking for fishies. 

Then we hopped back on board to sail for about 24 straight hours. We sunbathed on the deck, chatted and even danced a bit. It was relaxing and I did not mind the idea of 24 hours at sea. We could see the coast the whole time as we were gliding past the very long island of West Nusa Tenggara.

The scenery was slowly changing from tropical to drier. The island had large sloping mountains covered in green trees and even some volcanoes. We spotted dolphins a few times. 

By nightfall, the sea was getting a bit rough. The boat was swaying voraciously and it was hard to walk around. We were served a dinner of more food than the first night. Luckily there seemed to be more and more at each meal, unfortunately I was still eating more rice than I’d like and I was constipated the whole 4 days! 

We set up our mattresses on the deck again once the sky turned from yellow to orange to purple and the boat continued to sway. I took some dramamine to ease my stomach and knock me out for a what looked like a long night. 

Midway through the night we were all awoken as the boat pummeled through the waves. We were rocking back and forth and it seemed like the boat could flip at any moment. A backpack went flying and almost ended up overboard. We heard a large smash downstairs. Apparently our toilet broke. I heard on another boat that someone went through a wall. 

We all saw our lives flashing before our eyes and made plans in case we went down. Most people’s thoughts were “where are my electronics?” I did not have any of my valuables too close by. If we were to sink, I would just have to swim away without them... As I lay there, I realized that despite my love for water, I had never actually slept on a boat at sea. I’d slept on boats, but not moving ones. Maybe it was time to really think about the reality of my dream to sail around the world....

The boat creaked along, and we splashed into sunrise and eventually our next stop. 

The first stop of the day was to hike up a dusty hill and see amazing views. It was a challenging hike in the dry sun, but worth it. Then we all jumped in the water to refresh ourselves after a crazy night and rough hike. 

Our next stop was to swim with manta rays. 

Unfortunately nature was not on our side and we did not see any. This happens sometimes... We were all pretty bummed, but what can you do?

Then we sailed on and stopped at another beach to snorkel and chill.

That evening, we anchored near land and had a bit of a dance party. It was fun to bond with everyone, but after a while I felt really alone. I was one of the only people on the boat that wasn’t in a couple or group. It was fun to chat, but at the end of the day, they all had people and I was just... me. Alone, like usual. AND I didn’t have cell phone reception to at least pretend I wasn’t alone by posting something dumb on Snapchat. 

The next day was our last. We sailed into the port of Komodo Island so we could see Komodo Dragons! It was another hot, dry island. We hiked a bit, but the only dragons we saw were in the shade by the visitor’s center. It was a little fishy... but these guys did move around a bit. They were huge! It was a pretty magnificent encounter even though they were super lazy (hopefully not drugged.......?). I got the photos I wanted and made some Game of Thrones references, so it was successful enough. 

Then we sailed away as the trip wound down. 

We took one last dive and snorkel near our destination of Labuan Bajo, On the Island of Flores. 

The water was so shallow and clear. I saw some clown fish and a lion fish! It was beautiful and such a nice way to end a unique journey.

When we arrived at port, many of the group had planned to sleep on board the boat again then catch their flights the next morning. 

I had a shuttle the next day at 7am. I soon realized that the sim card I bought did not have any towers on this island AND the boat would be anchored a bit away from the shore so we would have to take a dingy to get to land. I immediately began to get claustrophobic. I needed off the boat!

I gathered my things and made it to land. With the help of an Indonesian man, I wandered around to different hotels on the verge of mental breakdown. I finally found a room. I paid too much but I really needed some space after a few days on a boat, before a few days of ferries and buses backwards. 

This was all a very abrupt way to end such a great trip, but it was wonderful while it lasted... and now I needed sleep. I ate an overpriced, but delicious meal at a Mediterranean restaurant. NO RICE. I had some watermelon juice. I was feeling better.

The next day I began my longgggggg trip westwards. There was a ferry for 7 hours, some wait time, a night bus, a night ferry, and then finally, about 24 hours later, I landed in Lombok where the trip had started. I had a little bit of juice left in me. I took a motorbike to the next harbor so I could take the 4 hour ferry to Bali. I booked a hostel right by the dock in Padang Bai and I collapsed onto a bed after 32 hours/ 6 days total of travel. 

I was back on Bali. My adventures around Indonesia would be ending soon. I’d seen incredible things. Mind blowing things! And now it was time to recover and drink watermelon juice until I turned into a watermelon.. 

[thisnerdsadventures]

how operating systems went for me

the beginning

In the beginning, there was doubt. And fear. But mostly doubt, because I “sort of” knew C, and I could /kind of/ figure out page tables, and I took the prereq for the class, so it shouldn’t be that bad? Well, I was expecting it to be bad, but absolutely nothing worse than 046 right? because that was known to be the worst of CS at this school, so nothing could be worse than that....right?

Wrong. WRONG! First class I was like, ah you know, i know Linux. I’ve OPENED A FILE BEFORE. I know what a FILE DESCRIPTOR IS. (wrong. i truly did not know what a file descriptor was, in all of its essence.) If you read my Admissions post, you’d know that my life was in the process of being truly wrecked by my paper revisions, so I wasn’t able to start on the first lab until the weekend, and it took me around an hour to do the first exercise, which was really one solid line of code, and I was like well ok, there’s only like five exercises, shouldn’t be too bad.

WRONG AGAIN! the last exercise will forever be engraved in my brain as xargs because it took me and my friend K a solid TEN HOURS. to do the last exercise. JUST THE LAST ONE. It was the first time in maybe like a year I went to an office hours. I had never spent so long thinking about recursion in my life. I have really vivid memories of sitting at the rooftop garden with K at the poolside chairs near the Marriott staring back at the googz office, tear streaming down my face, as I thought ahead about whether I should drop the class early. (ok it wasn’t this dramatic, but I was definitely staring longingly at the coffee baristas through the window.)

And after we finished the lab, we thought, oh maybe this is just a poor learning curve. Maybe it gets better from here.

the crisis begins

*say it with me this time* WROOOOONG - we really thought the next lab would be better because it seemed like the last exercise of the last lab, but slightly expanded. but L o L! we had spent a solid five hours with no progress up until like 3am, when I lied in bed in the dark and panic emailed my advisor, asking to meet the next day. There is a calendar event in my calendar called Cry to John (john’s my advisor). I spent perhaps the entire next day up until my meeting at 4pm working on the lab, making a bit more progress after going to office hours. During my meeting, I relayed how hard the class had been so far, and whether I should drop it to the undergrad version of the class, and it got to the point where I was just like “but its just. SO HARD” and he replied “....it’s a grad class dude”

After I returned home, I consulted my head of house and he also suggested I either drop the class or drop it to the undergrad version. I really was like “lol my dude, I’m already only on 42 units, I can’t really just drop this class. it’s already like two and a half weeks into the semester.” So I ended up dropping it to undergrad status.

A few more late nights pulled because I *surprise* have OTHER CLASSES other than this one, and I still ended up staying up til nearly 3am the night before career fair finishing up the lab. A total of more than 20 hours spent on this lab, and I thought, maybe just maybe this would be the hardest lab.

And the next lab wasn’t too bad. I had spent a solid 12 hours on it, but got it done pretty efficiently. Unfortunately, it was still the time in the semester where I was doing like 1923819238 things and catching up with 1928319238 people, so it felt overwhelming, but wasn’t /that/ bad. so i thought things were turning up! I also met up with my old googz team at around this point and told them that it was a hell class, and they relayed their sympathies.

lazy_alloc

So was it in fact, getting better? WRONGGGGGG. the next lab was perhaps the WORST LAB OF THE ENTIRE CLASS. By this point, we had hit the first week of october, and I had deleted instagram off my phone in an attempt to better focus on classes. due to other things happening, like various house gov events, an 18.06 exam, and another pset, I was only able to put in around 6 hours of office hours time on this lab before Wednesday night, where K and I quickly realized that this shit was no joke, unlike the last lab. We had also met our other friend at office hours who would become the third member of our group chat kalloc==0 (iykyk), and we befriended her after including her in our sarcastic comments about lazy allocation. It was maybe four hours into an all-nighter that we went to Verdes, realized Verdes was closed, and proceeded to sit on the floor of the student center and yell about how hard this class was.

It was then like 5am, and I decided to sleep and wake up in the morning to look at it again. It was then 8:30 am, and then it was 12pm, and then it was 4pm, and I had mandatory class. My friend passed me in Stata and asked how i was, and i replied “look at me. LOOK AT ME”

It was then 6pm. I had spent 20 hours of the past 24 hours doing this lab. and the most extraordinary thing happened -- I got the OK. I cried. I weeped. I texted my friends and let them know I was alive. And I slept for a long time.

exam szn

Ok truly, things could not get that much worse after this right? WRONGGGGGG. the first exam was just around the corner! After maybe a week of rest, I started the grind, a painful realization that I knew nothing, I did not truly know what a page table was, I had no idea how a system call worked, and the throwing shit at the wall style of doing the labs was indeed going to catch up with me. It was the long weekend, but I was still studying 4-6 hours a day on top of everything else I was doing, and many nights in the student center were spent in sadness. I barely remember anything from this caffeine/adrenaline fueled week. And I got a whopping 40% on the exam! yay me

All I remember after the exam was crying from shock in Stata after the exam because it was so hard, eating too much at hot pot and nearly throwing up in the Uber, and almost punching a hole in the ceiling because I was so happy that my score was not single digits. I was actually so tired after a week of studying nonstop that I had to S^3 one of my other psets because I legitimately could not think nor read. My friend was then like why dont you just yeet to new york for a break, and i was like who in the right mind would do that??? and then i yeeted to new york (as you can read about in another post of mine). Truly an amazing decision because I really needed a break from that craziness. After that, the learning curve did chill a little. My life though? no, I went to Princeton for a hackathon, stayed up all night doing stuff for our party, and then managed to finish the very last lab of the class right before Thanksgiving break.

the finish line

This brings us to the last week of the semester, where I thank my lucky stars I dropped to the undergrad version of the class, because I watched K suffer through a whole week of all nighters for the final project, in which I definitely would have straight up had a mental breakdown, because that week was still somehow one of the worst weeks of the semester for me (two poster sessions, exam, two week pset). But luckily I was straight up j chilling until the final because i had finished the last lab before break.

obviously, this takes us to last week, which was our finals week, where I spent 40-50 hours over the course of a week just studying for this exam, which features a day where I had done a midterm from 9am-12pm and then proceeded to study from 2pm to 2am for this operating systems class, and I had had three cups of coffee, which I don’t strongly recommend as a life decision. But after much strife and anxiety, I had mustered out a 60/76 on the final exam, which I thought was a solid B, but much to my shock and my other friend’s delight (she checked my class grade for me), I actually somehow got an A after this shit of a class, despite not knowing how to use a pointer 3 months ago, despite trying to survive against grad students, despite having to pour 18239128983x energy into understanding lectures??? somehow. anyways, now i am absolutely sure I have gone through the worst thing you could ever go through in this school. if anything turns out to be harder than this, i’m pretty sure it’s not worth it lol

[pitchsecretadmirers]

She's the devil (but looks like an angel)

Sending some serious Valentine’s vibes over to @bawsonweek!

Summary: AU Meet cute where Ginny is a nutritionist and personal trainer; Mike is pretty sure that Baker is the devil in disguise hidden behind a pretty smile.

“Baker is the best nutritionist and trainer in the industry.” Al Luongo said, as he stared down his oldest player and somewhat protégé. “Apparently Baker worked magic on Chris Pratt, whoever the hell that is, and now he is in the best shape of his life.”

Rating: Teen Word Count: 1945 Additional Tags: Bawson; AU; Personal Trainer AU; Meet cute; Humor; No angst; Blip/Evelyn mentioned

Mike stared Al down, a scowl on his face hidden by his overgrown beard, “What are you trying to say, Skip?”

“Just that you aren’t as young or as spry as you used to be, and if you want to play for a few more years you need to be healthy. You can’t be a catcher with two busted knees and a bad back, Mike.” His agent cut in before Al could say anything else. “Give Baker the off season to try and help you, and if by spring training you don’t feel any different, than we’ll leave you be.”

Mike sharply nodded his head and stood to leave the office, done with the conversation and the implication that his days on the Padres were coming to an end.

“Baker will be here tomorrow morning at 7. Don’t be late.” Oscar commanded, after being silent for most of the meeting.

Without looking back, Mike lifted his hand in dismissal and stormed out of the stadium.

Nothing like being told that you’re getting too old for the game you gave your life too; the game that helped to cause the breakdown of your marriage. He gave 15 years to the Padres only to be told that his body might be the reason he doesn’t get to see a World Series ring on his finger. Well fuck that. If they wanted him to meet some celebrity trainer who would apparently fix him, than that’s what he’ll do.

But he won’t be happy about it.

Baker’s late. Mike isn’t. He wants that to go on record. He got to the gym at 7 o’clock exactly and he was the first and only person there.

He doesn’t even know who this trainer is. He should have done some research last night, but did not have the motivation to look up the person who could potentially prolong his career.

“He’s probably some over muscled, freakishly tall, stupidly young kid who thinks he knows every thing.” Mike thought with a derisive snort. He kicked the wall in frustration and glared at the ground.

“What’d that wall ever do to you?”

Mike whipped around at the sound of a feminine voice, startled. He was stunned silent at the sight of the woman standing behind him. Wearing black Nike leggings, a white long sleeved Nike compression shirt, rainbow colored sneakers, no make up and her curly hair pulled up into a ponytail, she was stunning.

“I’m Ginny Baker. I’m going to be your nutritionist and trainer, Mr. Lawson.”

Mike Lawson, for the first time in his life will admit he was wrong. Baker wasn’t some over muscled, freakishly tall, stupidly young kid who thought he knew everything. Baker was an angel.

Baker was not an angel. Baker was in fact the devil in disguise. She used her pretty smile to hide the fact that she was pure evil. Mike was sweating in places that he did not even know that he could in fact sweat. His knees felt like someone had taken a bat to them, and he seriously needed a deep tissue massage because his back was a complete mess.

Baker had put him through a series of workouts that she had created to look at his form, determine his strengths and weaknesses, and to possibly put him in an early grave. He was lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling and trying to catch his breath. Baker was standing over him with an eyebrow raised and her hands on her hips.

“Need help up, old man?” She questioned. The only reply she received was a glare and a scowl.

She reached her hand down to him and pulled him into an upright position. Than with the ease only a 23 year old in great shape would have, she gracefully plopped on the floor and sat across from him with her legs crossed in a pretzel. His legs hurt just looking at her.

“Alright. You want the good news or bad news first, Mr. Lawson?” She asked, after he finally caught his breath.

“Just call me Mike or Lawson. I guess the bad news first that way the good news will cheer me up.” Mike ran a hand through his beard, not happy that there was bad news in the first place.

“Bad news is you’re old. Good news is that it doesn’t matter. Age is just a number and if we can get your weight down, the stress on your knees and your joints will ease. I’m just going to take a guess here Lawson and say you weigh around 220 to 230 pounds. Did you know that a 200-pound person puts 600 pounds of pressure on their knees? Your knees can’t hold that amount without causing you serious pain. So instead of bulking you up, we need to lean you up.” Baker lectured.

“And how the hell are we going to do that?” He questioned unhappily. So not only were his knees and back bad, but now he’s fat?

“We need to change the way you eat. Not a diet, but a complete life style change. If you drink, you need to cut back. More water, less wasted calories from beer or whatever your drink of choice is. No more processed food. Clean, healthy eating is the best way to go. Protein, fruits, veggies and some carbs.” She continued to lecture.

“What makes you think I don’t already eat like that?” Mike demanded, beginning to feel stressed at being told he needs a “life style change”.

“The fact that I can see a diet coke and a bag of hot Cheetos in your gym bag, maybe?” She sassed back. “We are going to introduce yoga into your workout schedule two to three times a week. It’ll help lean you up and build up your flexibility. It’s going to be hard, but I know you’ll be able to do it.” Mike gave her a disbelieving look, but nodded in agreement to her terms.

Four weeks later, Mike seriously doubted that he would be able to do it. He missed beer, he missed greasy burgers (“Turkey burgers don’t count, Baker. It’s like a brick of blandness.”), and he misses sleeping in. Baker must have been a drill sergeant in another life, because since she came into his life, not once has he been allowed to sleep in past 6 o’clock. She schedules his entire day from beginning to end, plans his meals from breakfast to dinner, and tells him how much sleep he should be getting every night. It’s like he’s back to being a kid, and doesn’t have a say in how his life goes.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning he has a one-on-one yoga lesson with Baker in a private studio that he tells no one about, because the guys would laugh him out of the stadium if they knew that he was wearing leggings three days out of the week. Progress is ridiculously slow. He can’t touch his toes; downward dog is the stupidest fucking name for a pose, and hot yoga (which he does once a week) is literally hell.

The only good part about the yoga lessons is that every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he gets to see Baker in only skintight workout leggings and a matching sports bra. Call him a pig, but seeing her flawless caramel skin glisten with sweat makes yoga a little less awful and makes him a little more willing to get out of bed at the ass crack of dawn each day.

Even though Baker is clearly the devil, he has to admit that he’s grown fond of her. Her horsey laugh makes him smile, her wit makes him laugh, and she inspires a sense of calm within him that he has not felt in years. Quietly, to himself, and certainly never aloud to her, he calls her a friend. She doesn’t judge him on the amount of women he’s slept with, like Rachel does every time she sees him. She doesn’t give him pitying looks when his knees give out on him after a long workout, like the rest of the team does. And she doesn’t expect him to be perfect, like the fans do. She just expects him to do his best, and give it his all. And when he can’t give it his all, on days where he feels 66 instead of 36, she gives him the encouragement he needs to continue.

Though he considers Baker to be a friend, and a good one at that, they have not hung out outside of business hours and he plans to change that.

One night, after a particularly brutal session at the pool (oh yeah, did he mention that she has him swimming and doing fucking water aerobics too? Does he look like a 70-year-old woman to her?) he met up with her outside of the locker room and took a moment to look at her while she was wearing something other than workout gear. She was wearing white short shorts with a grey and white striped cropped tank top and pair of high top white converse on her feet. Her curls were down and wild, and like always she had not a single drop of makeup on her flawless face.

The most annoying thing about her was that even without trying to, she looked damn good.

“Hey, Baker. I’m meeting up with my friend Blip and his wife Evelyn at Boardner’s in a little bit. You wanna join us?” He casually asked, trying not to look eager.

She tilted her head to the side and looked at him with her big brown eyes, bottom lip between her teeth and he was tempted to grab her right than and there and kiss her.

“Are you asking me on a date?” She asked bluntly, not mincing her words.

“Jeez Baker, if you wanted to go on a date with me, all you had to do was say so. I mean, I’ll take one for the team and take you out if you really want to.” He jokes, smirking at the annoyed look she shot him.

She scoffs at him and shakes her head playfully, “I just wanted to know if I needed to let you down gently or not. But since you seem so confident,” She pauses and he looks at her impatiently waiting for her answer. “I’ll have to pass. I have a hot date with my pajamas and a glass of wine.”

She smirks at him and walks to towards the exit. She has one hand on the door, ready to leave when she hears him call out to her.

“What’s it going to take to get you to go on a hot date with me, Ginny?” He calls out to her.

Hearing her first name come from his lips for the first time causes goose bumps to break out all over her body. Trying to think up a reply that wouldn’t make her seem too eager, but not completely disinterested took a moment.

With a cheeky smile on her face, she turned around and said, “When you can touch your toes without bending your legs, I’ll go on a date with you. Consider it incentive to take your training seriously.” And with a loud, horsey laugh she gave him one last smile before leaving.

If she had stuck around for a minute longer, she would have seen the biggest grin on Mike’s face.

It took Mike another three weeks to touch his toes without bending his legs. And Ginny, a woman of her word, went on a date with him that night.

[riichardwilson]

Minority-Owned Small Businesses Need Stimulus Loans the Most. They May Finally Get Some.

For four months in 2018, Danielle Edwards drove past the brownstone on the corner of 6th Avenue and St. Marks in Brooklyn. There was a “For Rent” sign in the window of the second-floor storefront, which caught her eye because the whole facade is enclosed by vintage curved glass. 

“I call it the fishbowl,” she says. “I fell in love with it when I first saw it. But I thought, I’m not going to be able to afford that.” Edwards was looking for a new location for her boutique gym, The New Body Project, which claims the distinction of being the only all-women’s boot camp in Brooklyn. 

Edwards, 35, started The New Body Project in 2017, after the local women’s gym she worked for shuttered suddenly. For the members — many of them women of color — the gym had been a kind of neighborhood home, and its closure was devastating. 

“Literally, a lot of the women had breakdowns,” Edwards recalls. “I just felt like a ton of bricks was falling on me, so I said, I’ve gotta do something.” She decided to start her own gym and went to a number of banks to try to get a loan. It did not go well. 

“Even though my credit is good,” she says, “if you haven’t been open for a year, no one wants to look at you — let alone looking at you [if] you’re black and a woman.” So she launched a Kickstarter campaign, and her community rallied to raise $3,000. Still, the location they landed in wasn’t ideal. (“We were doing burpees and there was mold dripping from the ceiling.”) So one day after driving past the fishbowl, she finally called. Just to see. “His original asking price was astronomical, but my community came together,” she says. “We wrote a letter to the landlord and expressed to him how we’re going to build this community, and he dropped the price significantly.” 

Even so, it was a stretch. To lock down the space, Edwards had to sell her house that she’d bought in her 20s, when she worked at a bank on Wall Street before getting laid off in the market crash. “I went to the SBA. I was denied. I went to TD bank. I was denied. I went to Capital One. I was denied,” she says. “So I was like, you know what? I have this place in Jersey. I hardly ever go back. I’ll sell that and use the money to secure a new location.”

She did, and for a year, it was wonderful. The New Body Project grew from 12 to 62 dedicated members, and Edwards hired four trainers. Her clients were not the Lululemon-y ladies at boutique studios up the block. They were all shapes and shades, from all different backgrounds, at all different stages in their fitness journeys. From early morning to evening, they could be found barefoot on the big squishy mat in the sunny fishbowl, swinging kettlebells and doing tire squats.

Then COVID-19 hit New York City. “Monday, we were open and doing business as usual, Tuesday I was closing my doors, and Wednesday I was remote teaching a third grader and a sixth grader,” Edwards says. “I was like, wait, what just happened? For nearly a week and a half I just went into the bathroom and cried. I couldn’t process that everything I sacrificed, everything I worked so hard for, could be gone.”

Danielle Edwards instructing at The New Body Project. Image Credit: Sideline.com 

A legacy of prejudice, compounded

Minority-owned small businesses stand to be hit the hardest by the pandemic’s economic fallout. In the best of times, entrepreneurs of color face a multitude of unique obstacles, many of which are embodied in Edwards’ experience. Taking straightforward racism out of the equation — of which there is plenty — it’s always difficult to get a loan without already having significant capital behind you. The facts are that the average white family in America has 10 times the wealth of the average black family, and eight times that of the average Hispanic family.  In 2019 the SBA found that 49 percent of loans from banks go to white-owned businesses, 23 percent go to Asian-owned businesses, 17 percent undetermined, 7 percent to Hispanic-owned business, 3 percent to black-owned businesses and 1 percent to American Indian-owned businesses. 

Because it’s hard to get loans — much less attention and strategic advice — from banks and investors, many minority owners also have more difficulty growing their businesses. In New York City, the virus’s long-standing epicenter, only 2 percent of all small businesses are black-owned, and only 3 percent claim employees (compared to 7 percent of Hispanic-owned businesses, 21 percent of Asian-owned businesses, and 22 percent of white-owned businesses). Many businesses started by entrepreneurs of color also operate in lower income areas, and on narrower margins. In immigrant communities, there are language impediments. 

Now those obstacles are compounding at an alarming rate. In the chaotic scramble to disperse the first $350 billion of relief loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA), banks prioritized clients who already have loans with them, as well as “small businesses” that are, in reality, anything but. (See this week’s Shake Shack fiasco.) The SBA had been essentially offering two types of loans: Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL), of up to $2 million (with advances of up to $10,000, dispersed to businesses within three days of applying, but those advances have yet to materialize) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which offers small businesses loans of up to $10 million. 

Initial PPP funds ran out last Friday, and last night the Senate passed a new stimulus package that replenished the PPP with another $320 billion — including $60 billion for community banks, credit unions and even smaller lenders like Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). This last specification is absolutely key to reaching minority small businesses, the vast majority of which have been left out in the cold so far.

CDFIs are some of the only lenders firmly rooted in communities of color, and their inclusion in the PPP is something that Gregg Bishop, New York City’s Commissioner of Small Business Services, has been pushing for. “The overwhelming needs of New York City’s small business community can only be met by the resources of the federal government,” he says. “We fought for more support in the next stimulus and won an additional $60 billion for our CDFIs and local banks. Our smallest businesses who rely on their community partners for support and service now have a greater chance at accessing the capital they need to remain open.”

Hopefully, that money will make it to those who need it most, fast. But in the past three weeks — as banks overlooked small businesses with no safety net — many minority small businesses have already plummeted too far into the red to make it out.  

Related: 3 Ways to Support Minority-Owned Businesses

The less you’re asking for, the less likely you are to get it

Back when the first round of SBA stimulus loans were announced in early April, many entrepreneurs were optimistic. James Heyward, a CPA in Durham, North Carolina, certainly was. Heyward is a black business owner, and the majority of his accounting firm’s clients are minority business owners. He spent two days studying the bill and applied for PPP through his bank, Wells Fargo. He didn’t need much to cover his payroll; he was only asking for $5,000. But as the days passed, he just received more emails from Wells Fargo telling him that, in his words, “I was still in the queue, but because of their lending cap, I might need to go apply somewhere else.”

For many entrepreneurs of color, their first obstacle in accessing stimulus funds is that they don’t have loans, a line of credit or an established relationship with a bank. But Heyward is an exception to the rule. He has a fairly extensive relationship with Wells Fargo. He has two business accounts, a line of credit, a business credit card, his personal account, his mortgage and a certificate of deposit. So when he wasn’t getting that little check for $5,000, he started thinking something was off. 

“Banks are for-profit businesses, right?” Heyward says. “They’re only making 1 percent interest on these loans. They don’t have the infrastructure for small loans, so their underwriting process for my $5,000 is the same for somebody requesting $500,000. So which one do you think they’ll spend the manpower on? If I was a bank, I would say yeah, okay, I could just give you this money. But it’s better for us to give larger amounts to sure bets than smaller amounts to a whole bunch of risky borrowers. Especially if your business isn’t really open right now. Not to be doom and gloom, but this may cripple you forever, and the bank will be left holding the bag, because I don’t get the sense that they necessarily believe that the government will get the SBA money to them in a timely fashion.”

Heyward isn’t alone in this conclusion. Benjamin Burke is a senior tax consultant at Snappy Tax, in Ocala, Florida. In an email he said, “I have been told off the record that banks are prioritizing the [PPP] loans first for people that have pre-existing loans with them. Then the bigger clients. Then everyone else. Additionally, some banks will not even touch PPP loans under $30,000. If a business owner did not have reserves, it won’t be long before they have to close for good. We are already seeing clients in this position.”

One of Burke’s clients is Brooke McGee, a Latina business owner based in Ocala. A 33-year-old single mom with six kids — one of whom is disabled and severely immunocompromised —  McGee worked for a trucking company for 13 years until she got laid off in 2019. So last October she founded her own company, First Watch Dispatch, a carrier, shipping and dispatch service and started out running the business from home. That quickly proved impractical since, as she puts it, “I don’t have a big house in a nice neighborhood, and having 20 semi trucks pull up to my driveway was not conducive.” 

She tried to secure a loan for an office space but couldn’t. “So,” she says, “in January I took my life savings and leased a building.” This February, after maxing out her credit card and having the lights turned off in her home, McGee was finally able to pay herself for the first time. Then, the pandemic started to spread, and McGee had no choice but to shut down. Even though her company plays an important role in the supply chain, McGee says a big part of her job is handling truckers’ paperwork, which “has been through literally thousands of hands, at stops from New York all the way to Florida.” The risk to her disabled daughter’s life is simply too great. “I’m trying to work from home,” she says, “but I can’t have the truckers come to my house. Plus I have six kids in six grades and only two computers.” 

As of our conversation, McGee had tried for weeks to get through on the government site to file for unemployment. Burke, her tax consultant, has helped her apply for the EIDL and PPP loans through her bank, the Florida Credit Union, but she hasn’t heard back about either. Because McGee’s truckers are all private contractors, her PPP request covers only her salary, and Burke worries the request won’t be worth her bank’s time. “My fear is that these smaller sized loans are being overlooked,” he says plainly. Now, McGee’s landlord is threatening to evict her. 

Brooke McGee and her six children. Image Credit: Brooke McGee

Beware predatory practices amidst of information chaos

While reporting this story, I talked to many minority small-business owners who assumed that they’d have an easier time getting approved because the amount they were asking for was so negligible. But as time went on and stimulus funds began dwindling, some owners inevitably turned to outside parties for help, leaving them and their businesses exposed to an entirely different threat.

The New Body Project has five employees including Edwards, and she requested $12,500 to cover payroll. As soon as the SBA loans were announced, she called TD bank, where she had her business checking and savings accounts, to ask about next steps. She waited on hold for over an hour to be told that “they don’t know because they have not been guided by the government yet.” 

As she waited for help from TD Bank, and panic-researched online, Edwards got an email from Groupon saying that she could apply for the PPP through their partnership with Fundera. Fundera is an online loan broker, similar to Kabbage or Lendio, which connects businesses to lenders for a “finder’s fee” from the bank. Edwards was dubious, but figured it was worth a shot and applied, and got a response that she’d made it to the next step with one of Fundera’s lending partners, Cross River Bank. Edwards had never heard of Cross River Bank, so she was hesitant, but decided to move forward with the application because she still hadn’t heard anything from TD Bank, and knew the loans were first-come, first-serve. Then the PPP money ran out.

While it’s not always a bad idea for business owners of color who are being underserved by their banks to look for funding through legitimate brokers like Fundera, attorney, stimulus analyst and Entrepreneur contributor Mat Sorensen points out that borrowers should be aware that the SBA-approved lenders these brokers will connect you with are still likely to put their established clients first.

Of greater concern is the lack of information and reliable advice available to desperate business owners, particularly immigrant entrepreneurs for whom English is their second language. The Renaissance Economic Development Corporation is a CDFI, and affiliate of Asian Americans for Equality. They’ve been lending to minority business owners in New York City since 1997, and their managing director, Jessie Lee, says she’s seen a surge in predatory practices. 

“A lot of our borrowers are getting secondary information from their ethnic media,” she says. “It’s so confusing that a lot of them have turned to brokers and accountants for guidance, and some of these brokers are predatory. I just found out that one of our clients went to a loan broker who said that they do the PPP program, when they don’t, and then took $2,000 from my business owner.”

Her advice for dealing with third parties? ”Always verify — are you an agent of an SBA lender? Do you have an SBA lenders agreement?”

Related: These City Programs Are Giving Minority- and Women-Owned …

The case for giving CDFIs capital

Renaissance is one of roughly 2,500 nonprofit Treasury-certified CDFIs across the country. CDFIs have long played a critical role in dispatching federal and state funds to the businesses in underserved communities that need them most. And in past crises like 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, CDFIs dispersed substantial public relief funds (they gave out $12 million in emergency funds after 9/11, and $6 million after Sandy). But as the COVID-19 crisis has played out, Lee says that Renaissance has had to rely on private funds, like part of a recent $1 million commitment from Chase to minority-owned NYC businesses. It hasn’t been nearly enough. When we spoke a week ago, Lee told me that, “Over a thousand businesses have submitted interest forms, and we’re only going to be able to help maybe 200 of them.”

Bishop, the Commissioner of NYC’s Small Business Services, says giving CDFIs nationwide the capital they need to lend in their communities would be a game-changer for minority-owned small businesses. “CDFIs and small community banks are really the only lenders operating in communities of color,” he says, “They look beyond the credit score. They’re very flexible.” Until this point, however, most CDFIs haven’t been able to offer PPP loans. “We’ve been advocating for them to be allowed to participate, but it’s really about liquidity,” Bishop explains. 

It’s a catch-22: Because CDFI borrowers are often small businesses in communities of color, many operate with very narrow margins and are now struggling to pay their rent, much less their business loans. Consequently the CDFIs are too low on cash to offer PPP. 

Now, thankfully, the Senate’s latest stimulus bill  — which should move through the House quickly — has allocated $30 billion of the new $320 billion PPP funds specifically to community banks and credit unions, and another $30 billion to even smaller lenders like CDFIs (a total of $60 billion intended to reach minority and women-owned businesses). 

Lee is cautiously optimistic. “We believe this legislation is a step in the right direction because it gives smaller businesses a fighting chance at securing funding and enables CDFIs to help minority-owned business owners in our communities,” she says. “That being said, $30 billion will go quickly and will not come close to meeting the needs of millions of distressed businesses. In the weeks ahead, we will need more financial resources to stabilize our neighborhood mom-and-pop businesses.” 

One thing Lee is sure of is that, “The 8 week time period for PPP is unrealistic in New York. We believe businesses will need more funding over a longer period of time, given the city and state timelines for reopening the economy. And payroll assistance helps but businesses still must figure out how to pay their rent. This is a big issue they’re having to confront even after securing a PPP loan. Businesses need flexible capital to address their unique needs.”

Still, while the money is there, any minority small business that hasn’t yet put through an SBA application with another lender should reach out to their community bank, or find a CDFI near them (you shouldn’t apply for the SBA loans with more than one lender).

Heyward, the Durham-based CPA, thinks that moving forward, CDFIs and community banks should play a bigger role. But he thinks this should happen in tandem with the SBA creating more permanent classifications of small businesses, so that truly small businesses with no capital aren’t competing for loans with companies 20 times their size. 

“You can call them microbusinesses, or main street businesses, but people with gross revenues under 2 million or something like that,” he says. “Because when anyone in Washington gets on TV and says, ‘We’re doing something for the small businesses,’ I’m looking at the qualifications for a small business and thinking, ‘So what am I, a blip?’ And maybe that could be the domain of the community banks and CDFIs, because the commercial banks could care less about those loans anyway.”

“The systemic prejudice in this situation, in the beginning it’s not racial,” Heyward continues. “But we all know it’s not right. I don’t have to go beat the drum on that.” To the big banks, he says, “I’m just saying that you have to be honest. You have a lot of business owners who are truly expecting to get this money. Their margins were so small to begin with. For minority-owned businesses, this is crushing.”

Edwards is still waiting to see if her PPP application gets approved at Cross River Bank. But in the meantime, after working through the initial shock, she’s been characteristically resilient. In a matter of days, she designed an entire online fitness program for The New Body Project, complete with a weekly family karaoke session. “I won’t throw in the towel,” she says. “I believe this will make us better when we come out of it. It’s never easy to get help when you need it, so I’m blessed my business is something that can be continued online. It’s actually given me the opportunity to tweak my business model. I’m really proud of what I created.”

Related: How to Submit Your SBA PPP Loan Application and Calculate the …

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Minority-Owned Small Businesses Need Stimulus Loans the Most. They May Finally Get Some.

For four months in 2018, Danielle Edwards drove past the brownstone on the corner of 6th Avenue and St. Marks in Brooklyn. There was a “For Rent” sign in the window of the second-floor storefront, which caught her eye because the whole facade is enclosed by vintage curved glass. 

“I call it the fishbowl,” she says. “I fell in love with it when I first saw it. But I thought, I’m not going to be able to afford that.” Edwards was looking for a new location for her boutique gym, The New Body Project, which claims the distinction of being the only all-women’s boot camp in Brooklyn. 

Edwards, 35, started The New Body Project in 2017, after the local women’s gym she worked for shuttered suddenly. For the members — many of them women of color — the gym had been a kind of neighborhood home, and its closure was devastating. 

“Literally, a lot of the women had breakdowns,” Edwards recalls. “I just felt like a ton of bricks was falling on me, so I said, I’ve gotta do something.” She decided to start her own gym and went to a number of banks to try to get a loan. It did not go well. 

“Even though my credit is good,” she says, “if you haven’t been open for a year, no one wants to look at you — let alone looking at you [if] you’re black and a woman.” So she launched a Kickstarter campaign, and her community rallied to raise $3,000. Still, the location they landed in wasn’t ideal. (“We were doing burpees and there was mold dripping from the ceiling.”) So one day after driving past the fishbowl, she finally called. Just to see. “His original asking price was astronomical, but my community came together,” she says. “We wrote a letter to the landlord and expressed to him how we’re going to build this community, and he dropped the price significantly.” 

Even so, it was a stretch. To lock down the space, Edwards had to sell her house that she’d bought in her 20s, when she worked at a bank on Wall Street before getting laid off in the market crash. “I went to the SBA. I was denied. I went to TD bank. I was denied. I went to Capital One. I was denied,” she says. “So I was like, you know what? I have this place in Jersey. I hardly ever go back. I’ll sell that and use the money to secure a new location.”

She did, and for a year, it was wonderful. The New Body Project grew from 12 to 62 dedicated members, and Edwards hired four trainers. Her clients were not the Lululemon-y ladies at boutique studios up the block. They were all shapes and shades, from all different backgrounds, at all different stages in their fitness journeys. From early morning to evening, they could be found barefoot on the big squishy mat in the sunny fishbowl, swinging kettlebells and doing tire squats.

Then COVID-19 hit New York City. “Monday, we were open and doing business as usual, Tuesday I was closing my doors, and Wednesday I was remote teaching a third grader and a sixth grader,” Edwards says. “I was like, wait, what just happened? For nearly a week and a half I just went into the bathroom and cried. I couldn’t process that everything I sacrificed, everything I worked so hard for, could be gone.”

Danielle Edwards instructing at The New Body Project. Image Credit: Sideline.com 

A legacy of prejudice, compounded

Minority-owned small businesses stand to be hit the hardest by the pandemic’s economic fallout. In the best of times, entrepreneurs of color face a multitude of unique obstacles, many of which are embodied in Edwards’ experience. Taking straightforward racism out of the equation — of which there is plenty — it’s always difficult to get a loan without already having significant capital behind you. The facts are that the average white family in America has 10 times the wealth of the average black family, and eight times that of the average Hispanic family.  In 2019 the SBA found that 49 percent of loans from banks go to white-owned businesses, 23 percent go to Asian-owned businesses, 17 percent undetermined, 7 percent to Hispanic-owned business, 3 percent to black-owned businesses and 1 percent to American Indian-owned businesses. 

Because it’s hard to get loans — much less attention and strategic advice — from banks and investors, many minority owners also have more difficulty growing their businesses. In New York City, the virus’s long-standing epicenter, only 2 percent of all small businesses are black-owned, and only 3 percent claim employees (compared to 7 percent of Hispanic-owned businesses, 21 percent of Asian-owned businesses, and 22 percent of white-owned businesses). Many businesses started by entrepreneurs of color also operate in lower income areas, and on narrower margins. In immigrant communities, there are language impediments. 

Now those obstacles are compounding at an alarming rate. In the chaotic scramble to disperse the first $350 billion of relief loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA), banks prioritized clients who already have loans with them, as well as “small businesses” that are, in reality, anything but. (See this week’s Shake Shack fiasco.) The SBA had been essentially offering two types of loans: Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL), of up to $2 million (with advances of up to $10,000, dispersed to businesses within three days of applying, but those advances have yet to materialize) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which offers small businesses loans of up to $10 million. 

Initial PPP funds ran out last Friday, and last night the Senate passed a new stimulus package that replenished the PPP with another $320 billion — including $60 billion for community banks, credit unions and even smaller lenders like Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). This last specification is absolutely key to reaching minority small businesses, the vast majority of which have been left out in the cold so far.

CDFIs are some of the only lenders firmly rooted in communities of color, and their inclusion in the PPP is something that Gregg Bishop, New York City’s Commissioner of Small Business Services, has been pushing for. “The overwhelming needs of New York City’s small business community can only be met by the resources of the federal government,” he says. “We fought for more support in the next stimulus and won an additional $60 billion for our CDFIs and local banks. Our smallest businesses who rely on their community partners for support and service now have a greater chance at accessing the capital they need to remain open.”

Hopefully, that money will make it to those who need it most, fast. But in the past three weeks — as banks overlooked small businesses with no safety net — many minority small businesses have already plummeted too far into the red to make it out.  

Related: 3 Ways to Support Minority-Owned Businesses

The less you’re asking for, the less likely you are to get it

Back when the first round of SBA stimulus loans were announced in early April, many entrepreneurs were optimistic. James Heyward, a CPA in Durham, North Carolina, certainly was. Heyward is a black business owner, and the majority of his accounting firm’s clients are minority business owners. He spent two days studying the bill and applied for PPP through his bank, Wells Fargo. He didn’t need much to cover his payroll; he was only asking for $5,000. But as the days passed, he just received more emails from Wells Fargo telling him that, in his words, “I was still in the queue, but because of their lending cap, I might need to go apply somewhere else.”

For many entrepreneurs of color, their first obstacle in accessing stimulus funds is that they don’t have loans, a line of credit or an established relationship with a bank. But Heyward is an exception to the rule. He has a fairly extensive relationship with Wells Fargo. He has two business accounts, a line of credit, a business credit card, his personal account, his mortgage and a certificate of deposit. So when he wasn’t getting that little check for $5,000, he started thinking something was off. 

“Banks are for-profit businesses, right?” Heyward says. “They’re only making 1 percent interest on these loans. They don’t have the infrastructure for small loans, so their underwriting process for my $5,000 is the same for somebody requesting $500,000. So which one do you think they’ll spend the manpower on? If I was a bank, I would say yeah, okay, I could just give you this money. But it’s better for us to give larger amounts to sure bets than smaller amounts to a whole bunch of risky borrowers. Especially if your business isn’t really open right now. Not to be doom and gloom, but this may cripple you forever, and the bank will be left holding the bag, because I don’t get the sense that they necessarily believe that the government will get the SBA money to them in a timely fashion.”

Heyward isn’t alone in this conclusion. Benjamin Burke is a senior tax consultant at Snappy Tax, in Ocala, Florida. In an email he said, “I have been told off the record that banks are prioritizing the [PPP] loans first for people that have pre-existing loans with them. Then the bigger clients. Then everyone else. Additionally, some banks will not even touch PPP loans under $30,000. If a business owner did not have reserves, it won’t be long before they have to close for good. We are already seeing clients in this position.”

One of Burke’s clients is Brooke McGee, a Latina business owner based in Ocala. A 33-year-old single mom with six kids — one of whom is disabled and severely immunocompromised —  McGee worked for a trucking company for 13 years until she got laid off in 2019. So last October she founded her own company, First Watch Dispatch, a carrier, shipping and dispatch service and started out running the business from home. That quickly proved impractical since, as she puts it, “I don’t have a big house in a nice neighborhood, and having 20 semi trucks pull up to my driveway was not conducive.” 

She tried to secure a loan for an office space but couldn’t. “So,” she says, “in January I took my life savings and leased a building.” This February, after maxing out her credit card and having the lights turned off in her home, McGee was finally able to pay herself for the first time. Then, the pandemic started to spread, and McGee had no choice but to shut down. Even though her company plays an important role in the supply chain, McGee says a big part of her job is handling truckers’ paperwork, which “has been through literally thousands of hands, at stops from New York all the way to Florida.” The risk to her disabled daughter’s life is simply too great. “I’m trying to work from home,” she says, “but I can’t have the truckers come to my house. Plus I have six kids in six grades and only two computers.” 

As of our conversation, McGee had tried for weeks to get through on the government site to file for unemployment. Burke, her tax consultant, has helped her apply for the EIDL and PPP loans through her bank, the Florida Credit Union, but she hasn’t heard back about either. Because McGee’s truckers are all private contractors, her PPP request covers only her salary, and Burke worries the request won’t be worth her bank’s time. “My fear is that these smaller sized loans are being overlooked,” he says plainly. Now, McGee’s landlord is threatening to evict her. 

Brooke McGee and her six children. Image Credit: Brooke McGee

Beware predatory practices amidst of information chaos

While reporting this story, I talked to many minority small-business owners who assumed that they’d have an easier time getting approved because the amount they were asking for was so negligible. But as time went on and stimulus funds began dwindling, some owners inevitably turned to outside parties for help, leaving them and their businesses exposed to an entirely different threat.

The New Body Project has five employees including Edwards, and she requested $12,500 to cover payroll. As soon as the SBA loans were announced, she called TD bank, where she had her business checking and savings accounts, to ask about next steps. She waited on hold for over an hour to be told that “they don’t know because they have not been guided by the government yet.” 

As she waited for help from TD Bank, and panic-researched online, Edwards got an email from Groupon saying that she could apply for the PPP through their partnership with Fundera. Fundera is an online loan broker, similar to Kabbage or Lendio, which connects businesses to lenders for a “finder’s fee” from the bank. Edwards was dubious, but figured it was worth a shot and applied, and got a response that she’d made it to the next step with one of Fundera’s lending partners, Cross River Bank. Edwards had never heard of Cross River Bank, so she was hesitant, but decided to move forward with the application because she still hadn’t heard anything from TD Bank, and knew the loans were first-come, first-serve. Then the PPP money ran out.

While it’s not always a bad idea for business owners of color who are being underserved by their banks to look for funding through legitimate brokers like Fundera, attorney, stimulus analyst and Entrepreneur contributor Mat Sorensen points out that borrowers should be aware that the SBA-approved lenders these brokers will connect you with are still likely to put their established clients first.

Of greater concern is the lack of information and reliable advice available to desperate business owners, particularly immigrant entrepreneurs for whom English is their second language. The Renaissance Economic Development Corporation is a CDFI, and affiliate of Asian Americans for Equality. They’ve been lending to minority business owners in New York City since 1997, and their managing director, Jessie Lee, says she’s seen a surge in predatory practices. 

“A lot of our borrowers are getting secondary information from their ethnic media,” she says. “It’s so confusing that a lot of them have turned to brokers and accountants for guidance, and some of these brokers are predatory. I just found out that one of our clients went to a loan broker who said that they do the PPP program, when they don’t, and then took $2,000 from my business owner.”

Her advice for dealing with third parties? ”Always verify — are you an agent of an SBA lender? Do you have an SBA lenders agreement?”

Related: These City Programs Are Giving Minority- and Women-Owned …

The case for giving CDFIs capital

Renaissance is one of roughly 2,500 nonprofit Treasury-certified CDFIs across the country. CDFIs have long played a critical role in dispatching federal and state funds to the businesses in underserved communities that need them most. And in past crises like 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, CDFIs dispersed substantial public relief funds (they gave out $12 million in emergency funds after 9/11, and $6 million after Sandy). But as the COVID-19 crisis has played out, Lee says that Renaissance has had to rely on private funds, like part of a recent $1 million commitment from Chase to minority-owned NYC businesses. It hasn’t been nearly enough. When we spoke a week ago, Lee told me that, “Over a thousand businesses have submitted interest forms, and we’re only going to be able to help maybe 200 of them.”

Bishop, the Commissioner of NYC’s Small Business Services, says giving CDFIs nationwide the capital they need to lend in their communities would be a game-changer for minority-owned small businesses. “CDFIs and small community banks are really the only lenders operating in communities of color,” he says, “They look beyond the credit score. They’re very flexible.” Until this point, however, most CDFIs haven’t been able to offer PPP loans. “We’ve been advocating for them to be allowed to participate, but it’s really about liquidity,” Bishop explains. 

It’s a catch-22: Because CDFI borrowers are often small businesses in communities of color, many operate with very narrow margins and are now struggling to pay their rent, much less their business loans. Consequently the CDFIs are too low on cash to offer PPP. 

Now, thankfully, the Senate’s latest stimulus bill  — which should move through the House quickly — has allocated $30 billion of the new $320 billion PPP funds specifically to community banks and credit unions, and another $30 billion to even smaller lenders like CDFIs (a total of $60 billion intended to reach minority and women-owned businesses). 

Lee is cautiously optimistic. “We believe this legislation is a step in the right direction because it gives smaller businesses a fighting chance at securing funding and enables CDFIs to help minority-owned business owners in our communities,” she says. “That being said, $30 billion will go quickly and will not come close to meeting the needs of millions of distressed businesses. In the weeks ahead, we will need more financial resources to stabilize our neighborhood mom-and-pop businesses.” 

One thing Lee is sure of is that, “The 8 week time period for PPP is unrealistic in New York. We believe businesses will need more funding over a longer period of time, given the city and state timelines for reopening the economy. And payroll assistance helps but businesses still must figure out how to pay their rent. This is a big issue they’re having to confront even after securing a PPP loan. Businesses need flexible capital to address their unique needs.”

Still, while the money is there, any minority small business that hasn’t yet put through an SBA application with another lender should reach out to their community bank, or find a CDFI near them (you shouldn’t apply for the SBA loans with more than one lender).

Heyward, the Durham-based CPA, thinks that moving forward, CDFIs and community banks should play a bigger role. But he thinks this should happen in tandem with the SBA creating more permanent classifications of small businesses, so that truly small businesses with no capital aren’t competing for loans with companies 20 times their size. 

“You can call them microbusinesses, or main street businesses, but people with gross revenues under 2 million or something like that,” he says. “Because when anyone in Washington gets on TV and says, ‘We’re doing something for the small businesses,’ I’m looking at the qualifications for a small business and thinking, ‘So what am I, a blip?’ And maybe that could be the domain of the community banks and CDFIs, because the commercial banks could care less about those loans anyway.”

“The systemic prejudice in this situation, in the beginning it’s not racial,” Heyward continues. “But we all know it’s not right. I don’t have to go beat the drum on that.” To the big banks, he says, “I’m just saying that you have to be honest. You have a lot of business owners who are truly expecting to get this money. Their margins were so small to begin with. For minority-owned businesses, this is crushing.”

Edwards is still waiting to see if her PPP application gets approved at Cross River Bank. But in the meantime, after working through the initial shock, she’s been characteristically resilient. In a matter of days, she designed an entire online fitness program for The New Body Project, complete with a weekly family karaoke session. “I won’t throw in the towel,” she says. “I believe this will make us better when we come out of it. It’s never easy to get help when you need it, so I’m blessed my business is something that can be continued online. It’s actually given me the opportunity to tweak my business model. I’m really proud of what I created.”

Related: How to Submit Your SBA PPP Loan Application and Calculate the …

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Minority-Owned Small Businesses Need Stimulus Loans the Most. They May Finally Get Some.

For four months in 2018, Danielle Edwards drove past the brownstone on the corner of 6th Avenue and St. Marks in Brooklyn. There was a “For Rent” sign in the window of the second-floor storefront, which caught her eye because the whole facade is enclosed by vintage curved glass. 

“I call it the fishbowl,” she says. “I fell in love with it when I first saw it. But I thought, I’m not going to be able to afford that.” Edwards was looking for a new location for her boutique gym, The New Body Project, which claims the distinction of being the only all-women’s boot camp in Brooklyn. 

Edwards, 35, started The New Body Project in 2017, after the local women’s gym she worked for shuttered suddenly. For the members — many of them women of color — the gym had been a kind of neighborhood home, and its closure was devastating. 

“Literally, a lot of the women had breakdowns,” Edwards recalls. “I just felt like a ton of bricks was falling on me, so I said, I’ve gotta do something.” She decided to start her own gym and went to a number of banks to try to get a loan. It did not go well. 

“Even though my credit is good,” she says, “if you haven’t been open for a year, no one wants to look at you — let alone looking at you [if] you’re black and a woman.” So she launched a Kickstarter campaign, and her community rallied to raise $3,000. Still, the location they landed in wasn’t ideal. (“We were doing burpees and there was mold dripping from the ceiling.”) So one day after driving past the fishbowl, she finally called. Just to see. “His original asking price was astronomical, but my community came together,” she says. “We wrote a letter to the landlord and expressed to him how we’re going to build this community, and he dropped the price significantly.” 

Even so, it was a stretch. To lock down the space, Edwards had to sell her house that she’d bought in her 20s, when she worked at a bank on Wall Street before getting laid off in the market crash. “I went to the SBA. I was denied. I went to TD bank. I was denied. I went to Capital One. I was denied,” she says. “So I was like, you know what? I have this place in Jersey. I hardly ever go back. I’ll sell that and use the money to secure a new location.”

She did, and for a year, it was wonderful. The New Body Project grew from 12 to 62 dedicated members, and Edwards hired four trainers. Her clients were not the Lululemon-y ladies at boutique studios up the block. They were all shapes and shades, from all different backgrounds, at all different stages in their fitness journeys. From early morning to evening, they could be found barefoot on the big squishy mat in the sunny fishbowl, swinging kettlebells and doing tire squats.

Then COVID-19 hit New York City. “Monday, we were open and doing business as usual, Tuesday I was closing my doors, and Wednesday I was remote teaching a third grader and a sixth grader,” Edwards says. “I was like, wait, what just happened? For nearly a week and a half I just went into the bathroom and cried. I couldn’t process that everything I sacrificed, everything I worked so hard for, could be gone.”

Danielle Edwards instructing at The New Body Project. Image Credit: Sideline.com 

A legacy of prejudice, compounded

Minority-owned small businesses stand to be hit the hardest by the pandemic’s economic fallout. In the best of times, entrepreneurs of color face a multitude of unique obstacles, many of which are embodied in Edwards’ experience. Taking straightforward racism out of the equation — of which there is plenty — it’s always difficult to get a loan without already having significant capital behind you. The facts are that the average white family in America has 10 times the wealth of the average black family, and eight times that of the average Hispanic family.  In 2019 the SBA found that 49 percent of loans from banks go to white-owned businesses, 23 percent go to Asian-owned businesses, 17 percent undetermined, 7 percent to Hispanic-owned business, 3 percent to black-owned businesses and 1 percent to American Indian-owned businesses. 

Because it’s hard to get loans — much less attention and strategic advice — from banks and investors, many minority owners also have more difficulty growing their businesses. In New York City, the virus’s long-standing epicenter, only 2 percent of all small businesses are black-owned, and only 3 percent claim employees (compared to 7 percent of Hispanic-owned businesses, 21 percent of Asian-owned businesses, and 22 percent of white-owned businesses). Many businesses started by entrepreneurs of color also operate in lower income areas, and on narrower margins. In immigrant communities, there are language impediments. 

Now those obstacles are compounding at an alarming rate. In the chaotic scramble to disperse the first $350 billion of relief loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA), banks prioritized clients who already have loans with them, as well as “small businesses” that are, in reality, anything but. (See this week’s Shake Shack fiasco.) The SBA had been essentially offering two types of loans: Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL), of up to $2 million (with advances of up to $10,000, dispersed to businesses within three days of applying, but those advances have yet to materialize) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which offers small businesses loans of up to $10 million. 

Initial PPP funds ran out last Friday, and last night the Senate passed a new stimulus package that replenished the PPP with another $320 billion — including $60 billion for community banks, credit unions and even smaller lenders like Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). This last specification is absolutely key to reaching minority small businesses, the vast majority of which have been left out in the cold so far.

CDFIs are some of the only lenders firmly rooted in communities of color, and their inclusion in the PPP is something that Gregg Bishop, New York City’s Commissioner of Small Business Services, has been pushing for. “The overwhelming needs of New York City’s small business community can only be met by the resources of the federal government,” he says. “We fought for more support in the next stimulus and won an additional $60 billion for our CDFIs and local banks. Our smallest businesses who rely on their community partners for support and service now have a greater chance at accessing the capital they need to remain open.”

Hopefully, that money will make it to those who need it most, fast. But in the past three weeks — as banks overlooked small businesses with no safety net — many minority small businesses have already plummeted too far into the red to make it out.  

Related: 3 Ways to Support Minority-Owned Businesses

The less you’re asking for, the less likely you are to get it

Back when the first round of SBA stimulus loans were announced in early April, many entrepreneurs were optimistic. James Heyward, a CPA in Durham, North Carolina, certainly was. Heyward is a black business owner, and the majority of his accounting firm’s clients are minority business owners. He spent two days studying the bill and applied for PPP through his bank, Wells Fargo. He didn’t need much to cover his payroll; he was only asking for $5,000. But as the days passed, he just received more emails from Wells Fargo telling him that, in his words, “I was still in the queue, but because of their lending cap, I might need to go apply somewhere else.”

For many entrepreneurs of color, their first obstacle in accessing stimulus funds is that they don’t have loans, a line of credit or an established relationship with a bank. But Heyward is an exception to the rule. He has a fairly extensive relationship with Wells Fargo. He has two business accounts, a line of credit, a business credit card, his personal account, his mortgage and a certificate of deposit. So when he wasn’t getting that little check for $5,000, he started thinking something was off. 

“Banks are for-profit businesses, right?” Heyward says. “They’re only making 1 percent interest on these loans. They don’t have the infrastructure for small loans, so their underwriting process for my $5,000 is the same for somebody requesting $500,000. So which one do you think they’ll spend the manpower on? If I was a bank, I would say yeah, okay, I could just give you this money. But it’s better for us to give larger amounts to sure bets than smaller amounts to a whole bunch of risky borrowers. Especially if your business isn’t really open right now. Not to be doom and gloom, but this may cripple you forever, and the bank will be left holding the bag, because I don’t get the sense that they necessarily believe that the government will get the SBA money to them in a timely fashion.”

Heyward isn’t alone in this conclusion. Benjamin Burke is a senior tax consultant at Snappy Tax, in Ocala, Florida. In an email he said, “I have been told off the record that banks are prioritizing the [PPP] loans first for people that have pre-existing loans with them. Then the bigger clients. Then everyone else. Additionally, some banks will not even touch PPP loans under $30,000. If a business owner did not have reserves, it won’t be long before they have to close for good. We are already seeing clients in this position.”

One of Burke’s clients is Brooke McGee, a Latina business owner based in Ocala. A 33-year-old single mom with six kids — one of whom is disabled and severely immunocompromised —  McGee worked for a trucking company for 13 years until she got laid off in 2019. So last October she founded her own company, First Watch Dispatch, a carrier, shipping and dispatch service and started out running the business from home. That quickly proved impractical since, as she puts it, “I don’t have a big house in a nice neighborhood, and having 20 semi trucks pull up to my driveway was not conducive.” 

She tried to secure a loan for an office space but couldn’t. “So,” she says, “in January I took my life savings and leased a building.” This February, after maxing out her credit card and having the lights turned off in her home, McGee was finally able to pay herself for the first time. Then, the pandemic started to spread, and McGee had no choice but to shut down. Even though her company plays an important role in the supply chain, McGee says a big part of her job is handling truckers’ paperwork, which “has been through literally thousands of hands, at stops from New York all the way to Florida.” The risk to her disabled daughter’s life is simply too great. “I’m trying to work from home,” she says, “but I can’t have the truckers come to my house. Plus I have six kids in six grades and only two computers.” 

As of our conversation, McGee had tried for weeks to get through on the government site to file for unemployment. Burke, her tax consultant, has helped her apply for the EIDL and PPP loans through her bank, the Florida Credit Union, but she hasn’t heard back about either. Because McGee’s truckers are all private contractors, her PPP request covers only her salary, and Burke worries the request won’t be worth her bank’s time. “My fear is that these smaller sized loans are being overlooked,” he says plainly. Now, McGee’s landlord is threatening to evict her. 

Brooke McGee and her six children. Image Credit: Brooke McGee

Beware predatory practices amidst of information chaos

While reporting this story, I talked to many minority small-business owners who assumed that they’d have an easier time getting approved because the amount they were asking for was so negligible. But as time went on and stimulus funds began dwindling, some owners inevitably turned to outside parties for help, leaving them and their businesses exposed to an entirely different threat.

The New Body Project has five employees including Edwards, and she requested $12,500 to cover payroll. As soon as the SBA loans were announced, she called TD bank, where she had her business checking and savings accounts, to ask about next steps. She waited on hold for over an hour to be told that “they don’t know because they have not been guided by the government yet.” 

As she waited for help from TD Bank, and panic-researched online, Edwards got an email from Groupon saying that she could apply for the PPP through their partnership with Fundera. Fundera is an online loan broker, similar to Kabbage or Lendio, which connects businesses to lenders for a “finder’s fee” from the bank. Edwards was dubious, but figured it was worth a shot and applied, and got a response that she’d made it to the next step with one of Fundera’s lending partners, Cross River Bank. Edwards had never heard of Cross River Bank, so she was hesitant, but decided to move forward with the application because she still hadn’t heard anything from TD Bank, and knew the loans were first-come, first-serve. Then the PPP money ran out.

While it’s not always a bad idea for business owners of color who are being underserved by their banks to look for funding through legitimate brokers like Fundera, attorney, stimulus analyst and Entrepreneur contributor Mat Sorensen points out that borrowers should be aware that the SBA-approved lenders these brokers will connect you with are still likely to put their established clients first.

Of greater concern is the lack of information and reliable advice available to desperate business owners, particularly immigrant entrepreneurs for whom English is their second language. The Renaissance Economic Development Corporation is a CDFI, and affiliate of Asian Americans for Equality. They’ve been lending to minority business owners in New York City since 1997, and their managing director, Jessie Lee, says she’s seen a surge in predatory practices. 

“A lot of our borrowers are getting secondary information from their ethnic media,” she says. “It’s so confusing that a lot of them have turned to brokers and accountants for guidance, and some of these brokers are predatory. I just found out that one of our clients went to a loan broker who said that they do the PPP program, when they don’t, and then took $2,000 from my business owner.”

Her advice for dealing with third parties? ”Always verify — are you an agent of an SBA lender? Do you have an SBA lenders agreement?”

Related: These City Programs Are Giving Minority- and Women-Owned …

The case for giving CDFIs capital

Renaissance is one of roughly 2,500 nonprofit Treasury-certified CDFIs across the country. CDFIs have long played a critical role in dispatching federal and state funds to the businesses in underserved communities that need them most. And in past crises like 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, CDFIs dispersed substantial public relief funds (they gave out $12 million in emergency funds after 9/11, and $6 million after Sandy). But as the COVID-19 crisis has played out, Lee says that Renaissance has had to rely on private funds, like part of a recent $1 million commitment from Chase to minority-owned NYC businesses. It hasn’t been nearly enough. When we spoke a week ago, Lee told me that, “Over a thousand businesses have submitted interest forms, and we’re only going to be able to help maybe 200 of them.”

Bishop, the Commissioner of NYC’s Small Business Services, says giving CDFIs nationwide the capital they need to lend in their communities would be a game-changer for minority-owned small businesses. “CDFIs and small community banks are really the only lenders operating in communities of color,” he says, “They look beyond the credit score. They’re very flexible.” Until this point, however, most CDFIs haven’t been able to offer PPP loans. “We’ve been advocating for them to be allowed to participate, but it’s really about liquidity,” Bishop explains. 

It’s a catch-22: Because CDFI borrowers are often small businesses in communities of color, many operate with very narrow margins and are now struggling to pay their rent, much less their business loans. Consequently the CDFIs are too low on cash to offer PPP. 

Now, thankfully, the Senate’s latest stimulus bill  — which should move through the House quickly — has allocated $30 billion of the new $320 billion PPP funds specifically to community banks and credit unions, and another $30 billion to even smaller lenders like CDFIs (a total of $60 billion intended to reach minority and women-owned businesses). 

Lee is cautiously optimistic. “We believe this legislation is a step in the right direction because it gives smaller businesses a fighting chance at securing funding and enables CDFIs to help minority-owned business owners in our communities,” she says. “That being said, $30 billion will go quickly and will not come close to meeting the needs of millions of distressed businesses. In the weeks ahead, we will need more financial resources to stabilize our neighborhood mom-and-pop businesses.” 

One thing Lee is sure of is that, “The 8 week time period for PPP is unrealistic in New York. We believe businesses will need more funding over a longer period of time, given the city and state timelines for reopening the economy. And payroll assistance helps but businesses still must figure out how to pay their rent. This is a big issue they’re having to confront even after securing a PPP loan. Businesses need flexible capital to address their unique needs.”

Still, while the money is there, any minority small business that hasn’t yet put through an SBA application with another lender should reach out to their community bank, or find a CDFI near them (you shouldn’t apply for the SBA loans with more than one lender).

Heyward, the Durham-based CPA, thinks that moving forward, CDFIs and community banks should play a bigger role. But he thinks this should happen in tandem with the SBA creating more permanent classifications of small businesses, so that truly small businesses with no capital aren’t competing for loans with companies 20 times their size. 

“You can call them microbusinesses, or main street businesses, but people with gross revenues under 2 million or something like that,” he says. “Because when anyone in Washington gets on TV and says, ‘We’re doing something for the small businesses,’ I’m looking at the qualifications for a small business and thinking, ‘So what am I, a blip?’ And maybe that could be the domain of the community banks and CDFIs, because the commercial banks could care less about those loans anyway.”

“The systemic prejudice in this situation, in the beginning it’s not racial,” Heyward continues. “But we all know it’s not right. I don’t have to go beat the drum on that.” To the big banks, he says, “I’m just saying that you have to be honest. You have a lot of business owners who are truly expecting to get this money. Their margins were so small to begin with. For minority-owned businesses, this is crushing.”

Edwards is still waiting to see if her PPP application gets approved at Cross River Bank. But in the meantime, after working through the initial shock, she’s been characteristically resilient. In a matter of days, she designed an entire online fitness program for The New Body Project, complete with a weekly family karaoke session. “I won’t throw in the towel,” she says. “I believe this will make us better when we come out of it. It’s never easy to get help when you need it, so I’m blessed my business is something that can be continued online. It’s actually given me the opportunity to tweak my business model. I’m really proud of what I created.”

Related: How to Submit Your SBA PPP Loan Application and Calculate the …

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source http://www.scpie.org/minority-owned-small-businesses-need-stimulus-loans-the-most-they-may-finally-get-some/