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siren-virus · 3 years ago

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There's some stuff that has been going around in my head regarding Luckuboy!AU, so I'll just dump everything here and see how you might adapt/change/evolve some of these ideas, or don't use any of them since that's perfectly valid too and it's your au, not mine :3 anyways, this is a long idea that can be divided, so I'll do just that and make a paragraph for each sub-idea.

1) Ben's daily schedule: Ben most likely has a morning schedule in the coffee shop, and as such he would get to work early, now idk how they work, but I imagine Ben's day to day life would go something like this: Ben's alarm goes off at 7:00, he wakes up and leaves bed at 7:15, breakfast and shower before arriving at work at 8:00 (do shops open at 8:00? 8:30? idk :V), keep working until 16:00 with lunchtime tucked in the middle, hang out with friends/relax/naps until 20:00, start his own vigilante work until 2:00, where he goes to sleep and repeats. If his patrol is slow then he would go home earlier to sleep more, if it's hectic and he doesn't get enough sleep, then the afternoon/evening would be used in powernaps.

2) Ben the info brooker, I imagine that Ben would eventually get to know a lot, and I mean A LOT, of information about everyone and everything important that's going on in Undertown (which, considering the situation of Earth and the Plumbers, is probably the only alien world center, would be everything), and when he hears of someone having some kind of trouble, he gives them a nudge in a certain direction for them. Eventually word gets out that there's a new information brooker in town that has scarily accurate info, he works at a coffee shop and you better give him a big tip if you don't want some of your info to get out fast (how real this info is nobody knows, and since Ben hasn't heard of it he can't correct them)

2.5) One day Argit appears and asks for a coffee under a different name, when it's ready Ben calls for him (he used a fake name) and writes with an alcohol marker on the cup "Argit", scaring the hell out of him. "How did you know?" "I'd be shitty at what I do if I couldn't recognize you *wink*", then he tells him that as long as they do nothing dangerous near him he won't tattle him and Kevin to the Plumbers, or worse, Gwen. "Don't you dare" says Argit aghast, "Try me bitch" answers Ben grinning, almost double daring him into doing something dangerous only so he can call his cousin and set up a date

3) The coffee made in the shop is delicious, caters to every species needs, alergies, likes and dislikes, and everyone agrees that the place is the best of the best in the whole world for these reasons and more; thus the shop has been a tentative neutral zone for years, however the lack of "people" (idk what word to use that captures everyone, human or alien) that knows how to fight there has severly dampened the opportunity of it becoming one. Cue Ben beggining to work there, in the beggining it's nothing special, he's just a human who makes good coffee and is surprisingly charming, come a few weeks and months and everyone starts noticing how he's the infamous information brooker that has been the talk of Undertown, thus gathering a bit more attention. Eventually someone (Plumber, civilian, villain, whatever you choose) is more rude to him than needed and tries to get some info from him, even if it's by force... Ben decks him, like, he kicks their ass, defenestrates them, break a chair on them and hands them unconcious to the closest Plumber, bleeding and all while still being intact himself. Everyone glares in awe at the show of badassery and oficially the coffee shop becomes the new true neutral zone, where everyone can get coffee, exchange information and form unlikely friendships. Whenever someone tries to mess with the shop, if Ben isn't present, is busy or it's too much for him, everyone else, Plumber, villain and civilian joins him in defending the shop and getting rid of the nuisancess that mess with the shop.

4) With all the info that Ben gets both as a barista and as a vigilante, one would think that he would give everything out as long as you paid the prize, but surprisingly he has a strong code that he never breaks. If he EVER learns that a piece of information he has with himself is considered confidential, then he'll never speak about it with anyone, no matter how much they offer to pay him. He can't answer for the ones who talks about this info in the shop without saying in any moment that the info is supposed to be confidential, he can't read minds, but everyone catches on fast on this, and some say the keyword when talking in the coffee shop. However many still forget about it once in a while, since the calm atmosphere of the shop is too powerful and slip up often happen. Still Ben can't be blamed, how is he supposed to know if some piece of info is confidential if no one ever says it is? Again, he's not a mindreader nor a telepath.

5) Any info on his vigilante persona he never gives out, however it's not because of not wanting to give out any of that info, but rather because another part of his code is "If I haven't heard people talk about something, then I don't know information about it. All my info is second hand, so unless someone else already knows about it, I won't know about it". That can come in very handy considering the surprisingly little info there is about his vigilante persona out there, despite how famous he kinda is. This more often than not drives Jimmy mad.

Love brainstorms, hate the alien.

1) Most cafes open at 7am from my knowledge, 9am if you're in a sleepy town, so it'd be more like a 6am wake up, optional breakfast- (who eats breakfast these days?), straight to the cafe around 7ish to help with cleaning and setting up for the day.

This cafe is more of a 24/7 place. With 24/7 breakfast! (don't you hate it when places stop doing breakfast at a certain hour?)

Apart from that love what ya got there.

As for the vigilante side, he starts whenever is easiest, it's all dependent if things are hectic or not. Sun goes down roughly 7PM (pretty late I know, but where I live (during summer at least), sun won't go down til 9PM). Sometimes he finishes at 2AM, sometimes a few minutes before work (Incoming animatic!)

2) Love everything about that too! I'd like to think Ben has no idea about it at first, he just notices some days the tip jar is fuller than others. He chocks it up to his charming personality. But eventually he catches on.

Another thing to add, at some point if people wanted to get info from Ben they'd order a "whipped caramel latte with icing sugar, honey, and salt" (gross) Ben has no idea of this, but the weird amount of customers ordering that and asking for intel, kinda makes him think about it.

2.5) This!! good shit right here! Except, you can't call a customer a bitch, trust me... Karen's and Kevin's exist in all shapes, sizes and forms. So Ben uses the kill them with kindness, customer service attitude.

Additionally, sometimes Kevin, although rarely, comes by, hovers around the counter. He'll order a coffee and glare at Ben until, he gets his attention.

"You staring at me for a reason?"

"I need to know about Gwen 10."

Of course, at this Ben would grin devilishly and respond with, "Oh, you wanna take her on date? She loves sappy romance movies, she's also a nerd, so get her a math book instead of flowers."

That always shuts Kevin up, makes him leave most occasions.

3) Everything about this is just!!! Love it. Wouldn't change a thing.

4) Yes yes!!Sometimes, a customer will demand classified info (those that aren't initiated to how the cafe works). When Ben refuses to squawk this can lead to some shouting from a customer sometimes, which leads to a coworker, or a regular shoeing the nasty customer away. Ben can hold his own against most people, as a human, but sometimes they're just a little too big or a little too tough to be able to defend himself against.

5) I like that a lot too.

I also like to think that sometimes, if Ben wants to mess with someone, especially Jimmy. He'll slip a piece of information out that no one else knows.

"I heard from a plumber, that the vigilante guy likes smoothies- specifically [insert favourite smoothie flavour of the week]"

Cue Jimmy buying several of that smoothie to try and lure Luckyboy (still haven't thought of a namee!!!) out. It works, and Ben gets free smoothies almost every week.

This could backfire immensely though.

Woo, sorry about the delay there, been working a few shifts. Work is kicking my ass as usual...

#ben 10 #lucky boy! au #answer

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chiefcj · 4 years ago

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My first post

Hey all. This is my first time using this platform. I heard about it from Gary Vaynerchuk in his book Crush IT. I had never heard of this place before and I thinks it’s pretty cool so far, especially since I’m trying to start my own blog. If you are into books for self improvement or business check out my blog on blogger.com “10 Books For a Better You”. Check it out and let me know what you think. I value your opinions.

So real quick, a little about me, I come from a very modest upbringing in a middle American industry town. I have traveled all over the country before joining the Navy right out of high school. Since then I have traveled the world, met new people and learned a lot. I’ve been in the Navy now for 24 years. I’m a division commander (that’s basically a drill instructor) who motivates, coaches, teaches, and mentors fresh college students, developing them into newly minted Naval Officers or Junior Staff Corps Officers. I enjoy teaching and mentoring in the ways of leadership, management, and self betterment. It is said that leaders are readers and I have made it a goal to read 1 book per week. That is a challenge for me considering I’m a slow reader. But I haven’t let that stop me. As a matter of fact it has made me want to read more because of my curious nature. It also helps me be a better instructor when I know the subject. So, a lot of my content will be about the books that I’ve read and the lessons that I’ve learned, and hopefully I will inspire some of you to be successful. This journey of mine is an attempt at breaking free from the confines of a 9-5 J.O.B. and break out on my own as an entrepreneur. I’ll take y’all along with me and share the things that I have learned so hopefully, you can apply the same techniques and create your own bit of fortune.

On my journey I have read up on many successful business executives, influencers, and entrepreneurs to see how they made it. I was reading The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris, and he talked about having a good morning routine. This became a recurring theme with top performers, so I figured there must be something to it. I found some great books on morning routines to get me going. The 5 AM Club, The Miracle Morning, and The Compound Effect are all great books on the positive effects of a strong morning routine. Your morning routine sets the tone for your whole day and helps you get the most out of it. I can honestly say that I accomplish more with my morning before most people are even out of bed.

The 5 AM Club talks about the 20/20/20 principle, where you get up at 5 am and spend that first hour split into three 20 minute periods of “Move, Reflect, and Grow”. The first 20 minutes should be spent on some type of exercise (Move), the second 20 minutes is to reflect with either journaling or meditation. And, the last 20 minutes is to Grow your mind with a good non-fiction book about your interests to improve your skills and learn something. There is sooooo much more packed into this book, but if you take nothing else away from this book, that should be it. Now I know, some of you are cringing at the thought of getting up at 5 AM. It’s ok. It’s not that bad. Trust me.

The Miracle Morning takes a little different approach with the acronym S.A.V.E.R.S. which stands for Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, Scribing (Journaling). I really like this one because it starts your day off with meditation. Meditation has become a big part of my life. It helps me to get my mind focused and primed for the day, and often times I find answers to questions I’ve had, simply pop into my head and I can bang out some new ideas. It’s really been transformational for me. I used to think it was a bunch of hippy hocus pocus junk, but when many of the top performers and millionaires do it, I figured there must be something to it. So, I gave it a shot. Now I do it every day without fail. The Navy is even teaching a form of mindfulness called Warrior Toughness and has even integrated it into our routines. You can imagine my delight when they asked me to teach it to the new Officers.

The Compound Effect gets a little more in depth on the morning routine to include gratitude, reviewing your goals, and making your to-do list to get the most out of your day, week, month, and life. There is more great content in this book than just the morning routine, and is great for making major impacts on your life just by changing the way you look at things. This one is definitely a must read.

I have adopted a combination of the three methods to form my own morning routine and I block my time so nothing else gets in the way of making moves in the right direction. I start my day off early, before anyone else is up, with 20 minutes of meditation, followed by 30 minutes of reading, (I’m currently reading Tony Robbins’ Awaken The Giant Within, this one will change your life, really I mean it. I’ll write more about this one in another post). I write in my journal about whatever I’m thinking that morning, usually questions I’ve had running around in my head and answers that have come to me during meditation, or what I want to do. But, I always finish it off with 3 things I’m grateful for, 3 things that will make today awesome, and my daily affirmations (thanks Tim Ferris, that one’s from you). I cap my morning off with a dedicated hour of working on my immediate goal or project that will be the most productive for me that day. And then it’s off to get in some PT (Physical Training), usually a 2.5 mile run with my dog or some calisthenics and kettle bell exercises.

By incorporating these things into my morning routine it helps me to build good habits and make the most out of my day. In the past I was just all over the place and couldn’t seem to get much accomplished. I’d have a bunch of projects started, but never finished any of them. I’d have all these unfinished jobs around the house and my wife would hound me to get something done so our home didn’t look like a construction zone. I would spread myself too thin at work and miss deadlines. And, I would constantly get distracted by unimportant things that would monopolize my time and at the end of the day, regardless of how “busy” I was, it seemed like nothing got accomplished. I couldn’t focus and I would forget things all the time. Since I have taken back my mornings and prioritized things, I have taken my time sacred to focus on what is truly important and impactful so I can start moving forward in life instead of getting stuck in neutral with my engine redlining.

It has been a huge change for me and an exciting journey that is just beginning. I’ve read way more books, learned so much, turned around my finances, and checked off many of my projects. Things are looking up. As an educator my aim is to inspire you and show you how you take back your life and make a change for the positive. I hope that my story has been an inspiration to be great. I will be sharing more on here as I learn more and figure things out. So stick around and let’s make things happen. Thanks for being a sounding board and go ahead and leave me a note. I’d love to hear your stories too. We can be an inspiration to each other and change the world, one success at a time. And I’d love to know what books you are reading. Jim Rohn once said “What books are you reading to move you toward your goal?”

I have linked all of the books that I have read in this post so you too can take advantage of the great lessons and content they have to offer. A big thanks to the authors who have taken the time to write these books and make it possible for us to prosper. Until next time, Peace Y’all.

Chief C.J.

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rigelmejo · 4 years ago

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January Goals Update and Notes

Chapters I studied with Listening-Reading Method: Notes lol:

i do not control wtf motivates me. perhaps it literally just is i have to get really attached to a book.

anyway, february is here. i am thinking i may just start listen-reading to Guardian this month. I know I’ve been debating whether to finish Tian Ya Ke first before I started guardian, or do both at the same time. I am leaning toward starting Guardian, sooner rather than later. Even though it’s still me ‘not finishing one thing before starting the next.’

In the end, any studying is better than no studying. And I haven’t been motivated to read chinese lately. However, I have been motivated to read english - and listening-reading will be 1/3 english reading which may help push me to keep progressing. And the 1/3 chinese reading portion is more passive, since I follow along with the audio, so I can have a break from the dictionary for a while. Also... why did I initially start learning Chinese? To read Guardian. To read it in chinese, and english translation. If I’m thinking about my most prioritized goals, this task is more directly in line with what I want to accomplish than finishing reading Tian Ya Ke. Although, both ARE related.

Also, I think anything I learn from listening-reading to Guardian, will improve my reading/listening skills when moving onto any other priest novel. So it won’t be a detriment, it will only make going back to Tian Ya Ke easier afterward - since I will know more words, and recognize them in listening better (and ideally, pick up some words visually in reading better). So I think... if I do get motivated to start listening-reading to Guardian this month, then I’m just going to start doing it.

A note about Tian Ya Ke and difficulty: I am still noticing improvement. I am getting to the point where 1 page has a handful of unknown words at most, usually only 1-3 getting in the way of me easily following the plot. I am noticing I’m getting better at guessing what an unknown word is supposed to mean, guessing what the idioms that seem vaguely familiar mean (and remembering at least some of the words in them). Reading Tian Ya Ke has gotten much closer to reading Han She in terms of ease. I think I’m running into a similar number of unknown words now. I haven’t measured yet if the chapters are taking me under 30 minutes to read yet. Mainly because lately I can’t get myself to read more than 5-10 pages in short bursts at a time. So I’m not sure if reading speed has improved. But I can say that my reading recognition for Tian Ya Ke is currently better than my listening comprehension. I’ve been scanning the pages I read lately pretty fast as I read, guessing most words fine, and then just double checking their pronunciation/definition by clicking them for audio afterwards. Its currently the checking for precise sound/meaning that’s slowing down my reading of Tian Ya Ke. If I were reading it extensively, only looking up words for crucial meaning clarification, I would probably be reading it decently faster.

On a general goals note: I am still for some reason managing to focus easily on reading english books, which is not that usual for me (usually I can read 20-40 pages in a book, then can’t read more than 10 pages an hour or slower and eventually drop the book). So I’m going to keep taking advantage of this ability to focus while I’ve got the chance. It’s been really nice to finally start getting through more of my books. Right now about half are mental health related books (which I’ve been meaning to read for ages), and fiction (mostly historical romances as I’m trying to find an author that Clicks well with me lol). I’ve read 5 so far, with 2 non-fiction books in progress and 1 fiction in progress. That is a LOT in one month for me, each book being 200-500 pages. Lets say 350 pages average, I’ve read over 1750 pages so far this year in January. Yes, that might only be the same as 2 ‘big’ books... but in my defense, non-fiction is soooo much harder to focus on (like i said, i get about 10-20 pages read in an hour of non-fiction even now that i’m focusing -o- ), and I just have not managed to read anything considerable in a while. So... while I still have long term language goals, I’m not going to be upset if they end up getting sidelined again this month. Reading more is something I’m enjoying getting back into, and I truly have so many books to finally read... so I’m glad I’m doing it now.

Things accomplished in January:

Chinese novel chapters read in January: 8 (I’m on Tian Ya Ke chapter 27, page 10. I’m around 33% through the novel. I read around half as many chapters this past month compared to December... and honestly like 4 of these chapters I remember reading one Saturday that I managed to focus. I just wasn’t in the mood to intensively read very much in December).

Chapters I studied with Listening-Reading Method: 2 (Wow that’s not much... both were Tian Ya Ke chapters. Doing both intensive reading AND listening-reading to a single chapter really burns me out. Again, I just wasn’t in a reading mood, so I mostly skipped l-r to speed up how long chapters took to read).

Japanese Audio listened to: 14 (I was listening through Quicksleur - which is pimsleur but with the silences cut out, there are 3 sections, 30 audio files in each section. I completed 14 audio files in section 1. I’ve been listening to Quicksleur to try and refresh the japanese I used to know. Is it working? Yeah, I’m remembering a fair bit of what I used to know. I definitely think re-reading Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide or Japanese in 30 Hours would help reaffirm the grammar I used to know - but I haven’t been motivated to read grammar books. I was listening to quicksleur while playing video games, and that worked well as a low effort way to include listening. I will probably just keep listening to quicksleur, then change my audio to japanese and see what vocab I can refresh. Then maybe in a few months, once quicksleur is completed, I may move into using Japanese Audio Lessons and my actual grammar books. At the moment, realistically, I have 0 time for my grammar books. And I want to focus on audio primarily anyway for now - I do NOT want my kanji/spelling knowledge of japanese to affect my chinese reading skills right now. And I know, having tried, that for me they definitely do affect each other - I’ll see kanji and the pinyin pronunciation will jump in my head, or I’ll know a word in japanese and see it in a chinese novel and have to remind myself its a new word there. This mix up happened a lot when I first started studying Chinese - as I’d just come off of studying Japanese for 2.5 years. Which was very weird, it made learning chinese words harder, but the more chinese i learned the easier manga got to Read for a while. Anyway now that I’m refreshing my japanese, even Without seeing kanji on purpose - when I see them in my chinese reading i’m re-remembering the japanese pronunciation and word that hanzi also goes to. Which is already a bit awkward. So I don’t really want to add kanji included study on purpose for a while. I’ll just keep trying this audio focus for now... with the added benefit its easy to include, and doesn’t have to compete for my energy level I have to make myself read. I am well aware I’ll need to go to my long term, more well rounded, japanese study plan later on. But for now this is fine).

Chinese Spoonfed Audio: 0

Manhua chapters read: 0

Chinese shows watched: 1 (Watched anti fraud league ep 1 in chinese, and again I think some small videos and partial eps of other shows. I haven’t watched many shows period this past month though, so I’m not surprised this is low.

Personal goals met:

Personal books read: 5 (3 non-fiction , 2 fiction novels, 2 non-fiction in progress, 1 fiction in progress. This is really where my energy has been happy to focus on this past January. The non-fiction I’m particularly happy with as its a lot of mental health books I’ve been meaning to read for ages, and some of them I really think have helped me to cope with my panic attacks better. Lately my panic attacks have been less overwhelming, to a degree I think because my inner thoughts during them are having an easier time getting back to self-soothing patterns so I can calm down, and I’m more willing to openly express I’m feeling so bad which I think is helping me process the emotions faster, which helps them end sooner. I read a few as mentioned, although I literally cannot recommend complex ptsd by pete walker if the subject material is relevant to you. That book definitely helped the most, and the books he recommended within it are what I’m reading through now. The book was compassionate, informative, very supportive and encouraging of the recovery journey and its steps, and had a ton of very helpful exercises that can be put to practical use).

Continued to get my stomach to not hurt, also got it to work better without medicine. Avoiding very processed carbs - mainly white breads like biscuits, pizza, pie crust, cinamon rolls that come in those cans - has kept my bloating down and the pain down. Eating apples again every day with coffee/tea is helping, both with not needing my medicine, and with foods not hurting me/not bloating me so much. So I guess I have to keep eating apples every single day -o-. I ate pizza several times this past month (with my lactose medicine) and I only bloated a little, it did not hurt, which was GREAT. Eating biscuits from a can still hurt though - happily the bloating only happened a little, but the pain sucks, and definitely is caused by those kinds of carbs specifically. Other then minimizing dairy and that specific carb type, my stomach’s been tolerating other carbs pretty well. I’ve kept my daily bloating low even with some foods that ‘could hurt’ per day, to 1-2 lbs. Which is great. The worst I’ve bloated this month was by 4 lbs (biscuits), which hurt a bit but thankfully subsided after a day, and that is a big improvement over the 7-10 lb bloating I’d get in a single day from one ‘less tolerated’ food choice. I’m very happy I haven’t had to take my medicine daily, hopefully I’m on the way to getting my stomach as happy as it was this summer.

Goals for February:

Listen-Read Method Guardian, until I’ve gotten through the entire novel. I will probably start this in February, not sure yet if it will be postponed. This, and goal 2, are the main priorities for chinese and I don’t mind which one happens as long as I do some of either of these goals.

Continue reading Tian Ya Ke. Work on reading through my first complete novel in chinese. This goal has not changed, though I predict it may be postponed as I’m not sure how much time I will dedicate to it in February.

Optional. Audios. Keep listening to Japanese Quicksleur when there’s down time (like playing games), and Chinese Spoonfed audio if I feel like it.

Personal. Keep reading while I’ve got the motivation to. I am really enjoying getting through all these books I’ve wanted to read for so long.

So same chinese goals as last month - and I imagine these goals will remain the same into the spring and possibly as summer starts. For japanese, just continuing to progress to refresh my memory is all I am planning at the moment.

And a note to myself: it is shocking how motivating making a little line item in my notes saying “Personal books read:” managed to be. I added that to my to-do list in the middle of January, and since then have read a TON. So just as it motivates me to read chinese chapters, it looks like that particular motivator can work for more things.

#january goals #January progress #february goals #study plan #february study plan

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canaryrecords · 4 years ago

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When Canary released an LP of Marika Papagika titled The Further the Flame, the Worse it Burns Me in October, 2010, the last line of its accompanying biographical notes was: “This work remains unfinished and ongoing. Corrections and additions will be received with gratitude.” In the decade that has passed, a lot of new documents have become available online and some significant research has been published, notably the slim book by Panyiotis Kounadis with his daughter Elita that includes more of Papagika’s family background and the two photos of her with her husband. These notes will go some way toward correcting mistakes that I made in the Further the Flame and will fill in some of the gaps with what is now knowable.

While her death certificate lists her father’s name as Anastasis Katsoris other documents give his surname as Katsaros. Similarly, her mother’s name Anthoula Monduco appears elsewhere as Anthoula Anthos. Her place of birth on her death certificate, the island of Kos, is contradicted on her 1939 Social Security application, where it is given as Constantinople and gives her date of birth as Sept. 10, 1890. (Several other dates in 1890 also appear on various documents.) In 2019, a researcher named N. Nikitaridis presented documentation online that appears to show that Marika had moved with her family before the age of 10 to Alexandria, Egypt, where she married Costas Papagikas circa 1909. Costas's dates of birth also vary across documents, ranging between June 1, 1882 and August 8, 1883. He consistently listed his home as either Martino or Lamia, towns about 90km from one another in the central Greek district of Phthiotis. Nikitaridis’s work also showed through newspaper documentation that Marika Papagika held at least a dozen residencies as a singer in a half-dozen venues in Alexandria between March 1913 and April 1914: Lazaropoulos’ coffee shop, Barzadaki, Kassandra, Casino Lyon, and the Tornadazaki Cafe among them. Clearly by her early 20s she was a seasoned and popular performer in the Greek-Alexandrian community.

Researcher Hugo Strötbaum found documentation in the EMI Archive in Hayes that Marika and Costas Papagikas recorded six performances for the Gramophone Company in Egypt in December 1913 or January 1914. (Relying inadvisably on my memory, I believe that single copies of two of those discs are now known to exist.) On April 22, 1915, they arrived at Ellis Island, joining the wave of 351,720 Greeks who came to the U.S. between 1901 and 1920 at a time when Greece’s population was less than 2.5 million. They told immigration officials they would go to Chicago, where over 20,000 Greeks had already settled around Halsted Street and Blue Island Avenue. (About as many Greeks were in New York, spread out over Manhattan and Brooklyn.)

Their path over the next three years remains unclear, but by 1918 they were living at 159 W 31st St. in Manhattan. In July of that year, they cut a trial recording at Victor Records’ New York studio and then, December 4th of that year they cut four sides that were released. (The first of those was a take of “Smyrneiko Minore,” which they recut eight months later with a different violinist. The earlier take is included as the final track of this collection.) The only print documentation to have come to light of their performing careers in the U.S. is a February 16, 1919 appearance at the Olympic Theater on 5th Ave. in Pittsburgh, PA. The event was held between armistice at the close of World War I (Nov. 11, 1918) and the signing of the Treaty of Versaille (June 28, 1919) and was a call on the Allied peace authorities to unify Greece with the territories of Northern Epirus and the Dodecanese Islands which were at the time still under foreign rule. Following a series of speeches, Marika (using her Americanized name Mary) stood between photos of President Woodrow Wilson and the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and sang several songs in Greek including a translation of the popular 1917 American war song “Over There.”

It would be difficult to overstate the role of Panhellenism in Papagika’s artistic output and career. The early decades of the 20th century when Papagika came of age as a performer were a period of constant political upheaval and brutal conflict for Greece - the Cretan Revolution, two Balkan Wars, World War I, the Greco-Turkish War, a military coup, assassination attempts, territorial expansion, endless scandal and intrigue in the government and military, and the ultimate collapse of the monarchy when the last king died at the age of 27 from the after-effects of having been bitten by a monkey, all in less than 30 years and in the context of almost constant financial ruin. A desperate sense of bound unity among Greek-speakers became the basis for both political and artist endeavor for Greeks. As W.H. Auden wrote of Papagika’s Greek-Alexandrian contemporary, the poet Constantine Cavafy, “In [his] Panhellenic world, there is one great object of love and loyalty of which defeat has not deprived them, the Greek language.”

Among her earliest recordings for the Gramophone company were patriotic songs referring to the Balkan Wars, and songs of patriotism and Greek pride, in one form or another, remained a steady baseline of her discography. Apart from her patriotic performance at the Pittsburgh conference and promotional material issued by her record labels, the only other print evidence we have of her in the U.S. is her appearance next to Costas in the front of a 1924 photograph taken at the first annual ball of of the Metropolitan New York City chapter of the newly-formed Order of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association on December 15, 1924. The event took place at the Commodore Hotel at 109 E 42nd St., less than twelve blocks from 215 W. 34th St. where Marika and Costas were living at the time. In the photo (used as the cover to this collection) Marika wears a similar headdress as the one she wore for a photo used as the cover photo for a 1921 Victor Records catalog. Behind her to her left is Costas in his ever-present pushbroom mustache.

In the same photo, behind Marika to her right stands a significantly taller man. It is my guess that this is the only known photo of her most consistent accompanist barring Costas, the cellist Markos Sifnios. (Marika’s Ellis Island documentation gives her height as 5’3” and Sifnios’ draft registration states his height as 5’11”.) Sifnios, who was born March 10, 1886 or 1887 in Latomi on the island of Chios, appeared on the vast majority of the Papagikas recordings. He left behind an ex -wife and two children (born 1906 and 1909) on Chios, lived for a while in Djibouti, and ultimately arrived in the U.S. on a boat from Shanghai to San Francisco in July 1917. By September 1918, he was living on W. 31st St., one block down from the Papagikas and was earning his living as musician. When Marika and Costas lived at 215 W 34th St. in the mid-20s, Sifnios moved to number 253 on the same block. He performed with them from their first trial disc in July, 1918 through December of 1928 on nearly all of the 200 recordings they made in New York over the course of a decade. They were, it seems, very close. His death on April 5, 1929 around the age of 41 marks, as much as any other date, the end of the Marika and Costas Papagikas as prolific and popular recording artists. They cut only eight more sides in first half of 1929 without him before going into retirement from recording for nearly a decade.

In early 1930, Marika’s widowed older sister Stamatia Corneliou (or Stamatea Cornelio) emigrated to the U.S., quickly settling on Halsted St. in Chicago, where she ran a boarding house for immigrant laborers and waiters (from Mexico, Spain, Sweden, as well as Greece). Meanwhile, by April 1930 the Papagikas bought a house at 198 Sea Ave. in the largely Italian Arrochar neighborhood of Staten Island for $7,500 (about $117,000 in current money - a significant gain from the $40 they carried when they arrived 15 years earlier). Living with them was one Angelo Basil Greggo, a waiter who’d been born in 1894, emigrated in 1910, and served as a private with the U.S. forces overseas during WWI. (A census enumerator was told that Greggo was both a nephew and a musician like his hosts. We have no reason to believe that either claim is true.) Greggo continued to live with them when the moved to 198 Lily Pond Ave., two doors down from their close friend, the record producer and singer Tetos Demetriades, in the Rosebank neighborhood about a decade later.

Demetriades had lured them out of recording retirement to make four final sides with Marika singing in February and March 1937. Shortly afterward, of nine sides recorded by Costas in July and September, 1939 only two, bearing little resemblance to his 1920s performances, were issued. (Demetriades was listed as Costas Papagikas’s contact on his WWII draft registration card.) Whether these six issued sides were made in generosity toward the Papagikases or as a boost to other musicians using their famous names or some combination, we can't say. In any case, they did not sell well.

July 15, 1943 Marika went to the Staten Island Hospital. She died there less than three weeks later on August 2, the result of a cerebral hemorrhage and heart disease. The following day, the Staten Island Advance announced her death somberly without mention of her performing career, stating that her funeral would be held the following day at Casey Funeral Home and Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church. She is buried in Silver Mount Cemetery, Sunnyside, Staten Island. Her headstone reading “M. Papagikas” gives only her date of death and age as 52.

Costas Papagika’s death from heart disease Oct. 12, 1947 was reported by his niece, Euryklia Staurakuli (whose husband Theophanis had worked in the 1920s at the Hellenic Phonograph Company at 532 8th Avenue.) They had no children. Their friend Angelo Greggo died in Avlonas, Attica in Feb. 1967 and was interned there in his family’s vault.

Among the proliferation of reissued recordings of Marika Papagika, particularly online, a remarkable number have remained unavailable. Partially this has to do with contemporary stylistic preferences for material that fits the image of Marika as a performer of proto-rebetika or Smyrna style music, while a substantial amount of her output was theatrical or in then-popular styles (like tangos, which were enormously popular among Greeks in the 20s) that are now out-of-favor. And partially, it has to do with the fact that the majority of her recordings were made “acoustically” before the advent of microphone recording and survive in disc form in widely mixed states of audio fidelity. This collection, including new transfers of several ubiquitous performances, also includes some that have not been available for nearly a century. Hopefully it inches us closer to a clear picture of one of the most gifted immigrant musicians in America’s history.

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rivet-ing-titanic · 5 years ago

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April 26th, 1912 - American Inquiry Day 8

The Evening Star of Washington DC, April 27. 1912, shows Ernest Gill, right, in opposition to his Captain, Stanley Lord, left.

Day 8: The subcommittee returned to their normal way of conducting the inquiry, although later than normal due to how late testimony was being given the night before. Notable among the witnesses today is Captain Stanley Lord, and Marconi Operator, Cyril Evans, both of the SS Californian. Both men will spend the rest of their careers, and lives with the shadow of that Sunday night, and their actions, or lack there-of. Before testimony is heard, Senator Smith reiterates that “everything that transpires in connection with this inquiry is public, and no attempt whatever to suppress any part of the testimony, or the circumstances surrounding it; will be made.”

Witnesses:

Philip Franklin, Vice President, International Mercantile Marine Co.;

Ernest Gill, Donkeyman, SS Californian;

Stanley Lord, Captain, SS Californian;

Cyril F. Evans, Marconi Operator, SS Californian;

Frank O. Evans, Able Seaman, RMS Titanic (recalled);

Notable Quotes/Lines of Questioning or Summarized Testimony:

Philip Franklin starts the morning off by explaining the circumstances that had transpired in order to subpoena the captain, Marconi officer and several crew of the SS Californian in Boston on April 25th. Consideration was given for their arrangements to travel to Washington working around the ship’s next planned sailing on the 27th. When the Inquiry started this morning, Lord and C. Evans are on their way by train from Boston to Washington, and would arrive later that afternoon to testify.

Senator Smith also questions Franklin again about the official and non-official communication regarding the accident, when he first heard and from whom, who he communicated with, and what was communicated. Franklin is very forthcoming and had already provided the subcommittee all relevant telegrams, but Smith continues to query him about it.

There is very interesting conversation between Franklin and Smith regarding the Titanic operator’s conduct in the matter of the ice report around 5pm Sunday from the Californian that he originally ignored but picked up about 30 minutes later from the Baltic. I appreciate and would support Mr. Franklin’s testimony, and essentially arguments made against what Smith has been saying, in regards to timing and conduct, and whether the operator should be employed by Marconi or the ship owner. LINK to the second half of Franklin’s testimony which I believe is worth the read.

At the end of what seems like a tense back and forth between the two, Senator Smith and Mr. Franklin discuss how he and his employees have been treated through-out the inquiry. While Franklin understands the position, he emphasizes how he would desire to send non-Americans home, but Smith digs his heels in. Smith reiterates why them being there is so important, and that until he is satisfied that they have been completely thorough in this inquiry, he will not allow anyone to be sent home.

Senator Fletcher asked if it would be practical to run ships in pairs across the ocean, to which Franklin replies that he does not think it practical, and continues to insist as Fletcher inquires more into his reasoning.

Ernest Gill, second donkeyman (person in charge of a ship’s engine room) of the Californian¸ is read his own personal statement by Senator Smith, and affirms all that was read to be true. READ THIS WHOLE THING!!!

In Gill’s statements, he tells of what transpired on the night of Sunday April 14th. He recounts that he had seen “a big vessel” from the deck around 11:56. He states that “They could not have helped but see her from the bridge and lookout.” Then, unable to sleep he comes back on deck around 12:30 and sees the rockets, saying to himself, “that must be a vessel in distress.” It wasn’t his duty to notify the bridge “but they could not have helped but see them [the rockets],” so he turned in with the belief that the ship would go to the distressed vessel’s aid.

“The next remark I heard the second pass was, ‘Why in the devil they didn't wake the wireless man up?’ The entire crew of the steamer have been talking among themselves about the disregard of the rockets. I personally urged several to join me in protesting against the conduct of the captain, but they refused, because they feared to lose their jobs.” – Gill

“I am quite sure that the Californian was less than 20 miles from the Titanic, which the officers report to have been our position. I could not have seen her if she had been more than 10 miles distant and I saw her very plainly. I have no ill will toward the captain or any officer of the ship, and I am losing a profitable berth by making this statement. I am actuated by the desire that no captain who refuses or neglects to give aid to a vessel in distress should be able to hush up the men.” – Gill

Seriously, read Gill’s statement, it isn’t very long and its got juicy deets.

“From the position we stopped in to the position at which the Titanic is supposed to have hit the iceberg, 19 1/2 to 19 3/4 miles; south 16 west, sir, was the course.” – Lord

When they finally did go to Titanic’s aid, Lord estimates (per the Californian log book) it took them 2.5 hours to get to her location at full speed in the morning. When asked had they received the C.Q.D. from Titanic, Lord estimates at least 2 hours. Gill saw the rockets at 12:30; Titanic went under at approximately 2:20; going full speed, based on estimates the Californian, that night of the sinking could have gotten there right as Titanic potentially saving those in the water, and almost 2 hours before the Carpathia. This is if they went when they saw the rockets later after the wireless operator had turned in. Had they received the Titanic’s initial C.Q.D. which was sent at midnight, the Californian could have been there when the Titanic was not yet fully foundered, and potentially saved a lot more lives. (This is my own trail of thinking based on testimony, NOT fact.)

” I saw several empty boats, some floating planks, a few deck chairs, and cushions; but considering the size of the disaster, there was very little wreckage. It seemed more like an old fishing boat had sunk” – Lord

In regards to the distress signals, Lord tells a short story about how things played out. He claims to have seen a “peculiar light” coming along, however they “could not distinguish where the sky ended and where the water commenced. You understand, it was a flat calm” and another officer told him he thought it was a star, so Lord went below. “A quarter past he [the officer] said, ‘I think she has fired a rocket.’ He said, ‘She did not answer the Morse lamp and she has commenced to go away from us.’ I said, ‘Call her up and let me know at once what her name is.’ So, he put the whistle back, and, apparently, he was calling. I could hear him ticking over my head. Then l went to sleep.” - Lord

“We could not have seen her Morse code; that is an utter impossibility.” –Lord who also claimed the distress rockets could have been mistaken as a shooting star or not seen at all. Interesting though, because according to Gill, multiple people saw them.

The Californian’s chief officer (Stewart) woke C. Evans at 3:30 saying "There is a ship that has been firing rockets in the night. Please see if there is anything the matter." At that point he got word from the Frankfurt(German liner) that the Titanic had sunk and her location. This was followed up with an official message from the Virginian, with the same details.

There was lots of talk, as they headed towards the Titanic’s location, between the crew members of the Californian, regarding seeing rockets and informing the Captain of said rockets earlier in the night.

According to C. Evans, Gill had mentioned “I think I will make about $500 on this” in regards to telling the press about the rockets.

“I should think between 150 and 200. We had great difficulty in getting through them to get to the wreck” – F. Evans (regarding bodies in the water, they passed through them to get to the overturned collapsible boat)

“The first child was passed over, sir, and I caught it by the dress. It was dangling. I had to swing it, and a woman caught it. The remainder of the children - there was a fireman there and with the assistance of a young woman they caught the children as they were dropped into the boat. There were none of the children hurt. That was the only accident, with this woman. She seemed a bit nervous. She did not like to jump, at first, and then when she did jump she did not go far enough, and the consequence was she went between the ship and the boat.” – F. Evans

Evans says she parted between the third and fourth funnel. 200ft. of the stern left visible, sitting horizontally for about 4-5 minutes after the forepart went down. Stern then plunged forward perpendicular.

SEE American Inquiry Day 7 here.

#titanic inquiry #mypost #this day in history #sscalifornian #rms titanic #captain stanley lord #mystery ship #rivet-ing-titanic #april 26 #shipping history #International Mercantile Marine Co #US Senate Titanic Inquiry #sinking of the titanic #gill #this one is good #go to gills statement

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lemonadelyric · 4 years ago

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ALL.THE QUESTIONS FOR THAT ASK MEME

1. What do you identify as and what are your pronouns? I use he/him pronouns, please! And I have a lot of identities so uh, be warned. I'm nonbinary! Not really sure on gender, or any specifics. I'm pretty fluid between andro/masc/fem so??? It's a big Question Mark. I'm polyamorous! I'm in a handful of relationships but they're all important to me. I'm also pretty open about loving and appreciating my friends too! I'm pansexual! I'm also panromantic and nebularomantic! I know people debate on pansexual/polysexual/bisexual all the time, and honestly I just go with pan cause I like the flag colors xD But also, it's basically me saying I feel attraction not based on gender/presentation! 2. How did you discover your sexuality, tell your story? Oh oof okay so. I noticed it since I was YOUNG. I always thought girls were cute?? I'm AFAB, for the record. But I always figured that was something everyone was into. Then some people were talking about lesbians and such, and I was like "Well yeah, I'd kiss a girl" SO YOU CAN IMAGINE HOW WELL THAT WENT OVER. People asked me if I was gay, and I didn't think I was? I liked boys too! Wasn't until probably high school that I finally settled on "Yeah, I'm bi." and then discovered the whole gender spectrum and being nonbinary and so much just fell into place 3. Have you experienced being misgendered? What happened and how did you overcome it? So I present pretty andro, I think! I don't try to fit a masc/fem scale but like, in person I don't really make a big deal out of it. There was a stretch of time where I went by she/her still, even as a nonbinary. But I switched to he/him about a year ago and it's just GOOD for me. Well.... Someone I really don't like joined the chat where I first decided to go by he/him. They joined, and they bitched to the mods about not liking me, but they called me "she/her" EVEN WITH he/him being in my intro. The mods were friends of mine and corrected them and were DEFINITELY on edge and asked me if I ever went by she/her or if they were purposefully misgendering me. 4. Who was the first person you told, how did they react? I'm pretty sure it was my boyfriend, Eric! They didn't give a shit HAHA, and have been all respectful and everything. 5. Describe what it was like coming out, what did you feel? So I don't actually remember when I told them? But it wasn't a big deal actually. 6. If you’re out, how did your parents/guardians/friends react? Oof so, I don't think I ever straight up told my mom. But I don't really care what she thinks anyways LOL I did have to tell Eric's parents, though! When we were poly and dating our qpp Reina. (Didn't want to explain those details and shit to them). But telling them that meant telling them I'm gay haha. They totally didn't care and have been so welcoming and accepting, i love them so much ;;w;; 7. What is one question you hate people asking about your sexuality? "Why do you need to be polyamorous do you not love your partners does that just mean you want to sleep around you're just using it as an excuse to cheat on your partners" All said from people who don't know shit about being poly. 8. Describe the style of clothing that you most often wear. Oh god this is so boring. I just wear jeans and tshirts xD Nothing special or SUPER GAY. 9. Who are your favourite lgbt+ ships? ROSE/PEARL FROM STEVEN UNIVERSE I don't consume a lot of lgbt media apparently, huh. 10. What does makeup mean to you? Do you wear any? Sometimes! Usually no, though. I like eyeliner most of the time. 11. Do you experience dysphoria? If so, how does that affect you? YES. So with my chest it's more frequent, I also just don't like being as fat as I am. SO that's half my body problems. Bottom stuff is less frequent but usually during That Time Of The Month (Which, I actually haven't had for YEARS, but I started getting again recently, I hate it.) 12. What is the stupidest thing you’ve heard said about the lgbt+ community? "Oh yeah I'm inclusive of ace/aro people in the LGBT community!! You have a chemical imbalance in your brain which makes you just like us!!!" Like.. what the fuck. 13. What’s your favourite thing about the lgbt+ community? I love how we're all THERE for each other! You join a chat, go "Hey I'm gay" and we're like "GAY??? GAY???? GAY???? GAY????" we're like dogs LMAO 14. What’s your least favourite thing about the lgbt+ community? Sick of transmeds and terfs and ace/aro exclusionists and shit, fuck off my blog. Also??? Can we stop making jokes about MOGAI identities and shit??? "Lmao this gender is based on being a special snowflake" cool shut up, let people live damn, it's not that hard to just respect people. 15. Have you ever been to your cities pride event? Why or why not? Nope :c Everywhere I've lived either 1. there wasn't any close to me/I wasn't out, or 2. ITS TOO DANGEROUS TO GO, or 3. I don't have a car lmao. 16. Who is your favourite lgbt+ Icon/Advocate/Celebrity? Lil Nas X, hands down. He's a great dude. 17. Have you been in a relationship and how did you meet? I'm in three right now!! So the first is Eric, we met on an online rp chat website thingy! Second is Chander, we met through a mutual friend and we knew each other like a year then within the span of like two months we started dating and now we live together, 2.5 years later xD Third is Jay! I met him through a kin Discord, we've been friends over a year but it took a few months before we started dating! 18. What is your favourite lgbt+ book? Y'know I don't think I've ever read one. Uhhh... I mean the Black Dagger Brotherhood has a gay couple??? Does that count??? xD 19. Have you ever faced discrimination? What happened? Slightly! Most of mine is about being polyamorous. I have people tell me "That's not enough to be lgbt" paying 0 attention to me also being nonbinary and pansexual. Also had people tell me I'm not trans enough to be nonbinary because I don't want to transition. 20. Your Favorite lgbt+ movie or show? One Day At A Time? That's about the only one I can think of LOL 21. Who are some of your favourite lgbt+ bloggers? Uuhhh I don't really follow bloggers. 22. Which lgbt+ slur do you want to reclaim? QUEER and gay itself. People act like "gay" was never used against the lgbt community like, bitch, if Hillary fuckin' Duff has to tell some stupid teens in a PSA to not use "gay" like that, then I'm reclaiming it, shut up. 23. Have you ever gone to a gay bar, or a drag show, how was it? Nope and nope. 24. How do you self-identify your gender, and what does that mean to you? I'm nonbinary! I use he/him pronouns and it pretty much just means I don't wanna be a boy or a girl. I don't mind being called like "You're a good guy" or whatever. 25. Are you interested in having children? Why or why not? Not really? I'm very selfish and self-centered, I don't think I could handle having a child xD 26. What identity advice would you give your younger self? "You don't have to figure this all out right now! You have time! Also, make friends with gay people. They're not some closed community where if you join and you're wrong they abandon you." 27. What do you think of gender roles in relationships? Eh, nah. Like I'm a big "Yeah sure I'll do laundry and dishes" or whatever. But I'd rather share responsibilities! 28. Anything else you want to share about your experience with gender? I've been questioning and trying to identify my gender a lot more and get more specific, but I'm in no rush. 29. What is something you wish people know about being lgbt+? We're just people, man. That's it. That's all there it to it. You don't have to have the same feelings as us, but just give us the right to love and marry who we want, or not do that, or have our relationships look however we want. 30. Why are proud to be lgbt+? I'm proud to be LGBT because it means I'm in a community of people who are accepting and caring. It's like a family wherever you go.

Thank you for the asks <3

#anxietylich

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vellumreviews · 5 years ago

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A Witch in Time - my review

I received an e-galley of this title via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you publisher! 2.5 out of 5 stars A Witch in Time is a story of a young witch, an artist and a demon cursed to be reborn over and over again to live out a doomed love affair. Once I heard the words witch, artist and demon - I was so there! I was so excited about this book and the cover is gorgeous. Well this book was not what I expected. The characters were flat, one dimensional, the book jumped the shark in 3rd reincarnation and the ending was predictable. My first problem with the book is the age gap between Merchant & Juliette. She’s 16 and he’s in his 30s with a wife and a kid on the way. Historically, I am aware that these things happened - but I honestly couldn’t get past the revulsion I felt when they had sex, or when he painted her nude. I don’t know but to me this is just pedophilia. They have a love affair, it happens in like 20 pages, like just happens, for purposes of the plot. It’s so unbelievable. My second problem is that this book is VERY rape happy - why? Just to show that Juliette has a hard life. Juliette is to marry a young man who is cruel and abusive to save her family. It’s very Tess of the d’Umbervilles - a young woman, trying to save her family gets raped by the richer man, then she is disgraced and discarded like trash. Not to mention that once Juliette leaves - her younger sister marries this awful piece of trash and gets abused by him. WHY?! I felt so awful for the sister! Why didn’t Juliette ever help her?! She was only obsessed with herself - that’s why. Which brings us to why I dislike Juliette. Then we have Juliette - a spoiled brat who never really grows up. The wold is just against her and she makes all of her own problems. And I understand, she’s still in her teens, but I just couldn’t care for her. Honestly, I couldn’t care for any of her reincarnations, like at all, and especially Hellen. WOW I have not disliked a character this much in a long time. She’s shallow, self-obsessed, self-important, and one dimensional. She only cares about what kind of designer she wears, what kind of party she attends/throws, who is present at this party, how it can benefit her, how her house looks - honestly she needs to be Instagram ready at all times. If I wanted to read about any of this - I’d pick up a Vogue, not a historical fiction book. And then Merchant (the artist) is just there to break her art and Luke (the demon) to pick up the pieces and put her back together. The magic and the demon take up maybe like 10 pages total of this book. Basically what drew me to the book in the first place was not there. And then there are descriptions like: “She turned to see a middle-aged woman with long hair and low breasts leaning against the doorway.” Why are her breasts mentioned in this? What’s the purpose of their description? I honestly don’t think this author likes women very much, what with all the rape, descriptions of saggy breasts and the misfortune that befalls them She likes them only if they’re wearing a 2013 Alexander McQueen gown at a gallery opening. There are parts of the book I did enjoy: the way the curse worked with the administrator (if it was done better), Juliette’s mother’s back story, traveling through time and seeing Paris in the 19th century. This could have been a great book, but instead it’s just a shallow piece of work that made me angry and depressed.

~Iryna

#a witch in time #my review #book review #arc #fantasy #witches

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sesamesaysme · 5 years ago

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BOOKS COMPLETED IN JUNE 2019

(listed by order of completion)

Bookworm that I am, just thought I’d share.

I normally am in the middle of 2-3 books at any time because one in text, one in audiobook, and lately one in Chinese too because I’m trying to improve on that

SEA OF POPPIES by Amitav Ghosh / Feb.15, 2019 - June 10, 2019 / Set prior to the First Opium War a cast of characters all end up together on a ship from Calcutta to Mauritius. / Ok, this took me waaaay too long to finish. It wasn’t that it wasn’t good. It was because I wasn’t really paying attention in the beginning which caused me to not have any of the characters’ identities straight in my head which made me have no momentum reading it because I didn’t know what was going on. But once I finally did figure out who everyone was it was good. One scenario that stands out in my mind is when one guy takes care of his shitty jail cellmate (and by shitty I mean literally covered in feces). But, you see, I still can’t remember names.

THE BEST COOK IN THE WORLD by Rick Bragg / May 30, 2019 - June 10, 2019 / (audiobook version) / Part memoir part cookbook of author’s mother’s recipes from the American south / I was in China for the last 2.5 months. I think I was missing food from back in the U.S. so picture me passing time on long Shanghai bus rides with descriptions of things like buttery biscuits and fried chicken being read to me 😂. Some parts felt like too much of the same thing over and over, but it was a good book to semi tune into while looking out of bus windows.

THE ALICE NETWORK by Kate Quinn / June 10, 2019 - June 12, 2019 / (audiobook version) / A young woman searching for her cousin finds out about the past of a woman who was recruited as a spy in France during WWI / To be honest I suspected going into this exactly what it was going to be but I still listened to it hoping it was gonna surprise me in someway. But nope. It’s another one of those historical fictions with a book cover that shows an image of someone from behind. And it’s that formula in which the author uses a present-day person to gradually reveal pieces of the past. Usually these things involve some sad story of women getting separated or an unfortunate romance or somebody’s child or friend or sister dying tragically but ultimately the present-day person learns a lot from it blah blah. And the past is supposed to be this big mystery but actually it’s pretty predictable for the reader. Another one that I remember being basically the same formula was Before We Were Yours.

BLACK BEAUTY (黑骏马）by Anna Sewell / April 28, 2019 - June 14, 2019 / Written from the perspective of a horse, you follow it as a young colt in a comfortable home through various other homes it lives in throughout the course of its life, sometimes getting kind treatment, sometimes incredibly inhumane. / I read this one in mandarin Chinese while following along in English for practicing my Chinese reading skills. I would guess my Chinese reading skills are at the level of a 9-10 year old. I read it at the pace of 30 minutes a day--a daily Chinese lesson. So now I know an abnormally large amount of vocabulary in Chinese pertaining to horses 🤣. All jokes aside, I felt so bad for the horses in this book though! omg!!! sob sob

REVOLUTION FOR DUMMIES: LAUGHING THROUGH THE ARAB SPRING by Bassem Youssef / June 13, 2019 - June 14, 2019 / (audiobook version) / The “Jon Stewart of the Arab World” takes you through his experience of creating political comedy that dared to make fun of and critique the Egyptian government. His program was similar to the Daily Show but with a whole lot more life-risking. / This was very interesting. I don’t know that I ever laughed out loud even though it does have humor. I was more fascinated with just finding out his story.

EVERY DAY A FRIDAY: HOW TO BE HAPPIER 7 DAYS A WEEK by Joel Osteen / June 16, 2019 - June 18, 2019 / A pastor gives his advice on how to appreciate life. / Yeah, sometimes I just want to read some inspirational stuff. I’m not really a religious person but I would say the pastor’s writing is suitable for anybody. To sum it up, he basically tells you to appreciate what you have.

THREE DARK CROWNS by Kendare Blake / June 11, 2019 - June 19, 2019 / Triplet girls, each with their own powers, have been kept apart for years and now are pitted against each other trying to kill one another because only one can be queen. / Fun, dark YA read

THE WAR ON NORMAL PEOPLE by Andrew Yang / June 19, 2019 - June 20, 2019 / (audiobook version) / This is by the Andrew Yang who is one of the huge number of Democratic candidates. / Seriously, more people need to pay attention to the things this guy is saying. The stats he gives about how many jobs are going to be automated in the next few years...just wow. Totally eye-opening.

ONE DARK THRONE by Kendare Blake / June 20, 2019 - June 21, 2019 / (audiobook version) / 2nd book in the Three Dark Crowns trilogy / It’s not very long so I listened to the entire thing while I was doing the Felix from Stray Kids drawing.

THE WORLD AS IT IS: INSIDE THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE by Ben Rhodes / June 21, 2019 - June 26, 2019 / Author was a speechwriter, policymaker, and friend during Obama’s presidency. / Will make you long for the Obama era the entire time you are reading this.

#books #books read #books completed #sea of poppies #the best cook in the world #the alice network #black beauty #revoution for dummies #every day a friday #three dark crowns #the war on normal people #one dark throne #the world as it is #andrew yang #kendare blake

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isobelhigginbotham · 5 years ago

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30/04/20 Reading Kenneth M. Swope’s “A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592-1598″

(1). The Boat’s design

“The most remarkable Korean warships of course were the famous turtleboats, or kobuksön, which were supposedly reinforced with iron plates and spikes across the deck to prevent boarding and lined with cannon across the bulwarks. A turtle’s head at the fore of the boat was supposedly filled with a combination of sulphur and salpeter that spewed blinding smoke to confuse the enemy.” (p. 75)

(2). Excerpt from Yi Sun-Sin’s diary, from Swope’s book.

“Previously, foreseeing the Japanese invasion, I had had a Turtle Ship specially built with a dragon’s head, from whose mouth we could fire our cannons, and with iron spikes on its back to pierce the enemy’s feet when they tried to board. Because it is in the shape of a turtle, our men can look out from inside, but the enemy cannot look in from outside. It moves so swiftly that it can plunge into the midst of even many hundreds of enemy vessels in any weather to attack them with cannon balls and flame throwers. In this voyage our Flying Squadron Captain rode this Turtle Ship in the very van of the fleet. I commanded the Turtle Ship to dart into the enemy formation and to shoot the guns “Heaven, Black, Earth, and Yellow,” which it did. Then the Japanese robbers poured down fire like hail from their positions on the mountains, at the foot of the hill and on the boats. In the midst of the battle, I plainly saw that some Korean traitors, mixed in with the enemy’s rank and file, also shot at us. This made me very angry. I ordered my oarsmen to row my Flag-Ship at top speed, and dashed to the foremost front, hammering the enemy vessels; then my officers and ships’ captains rallied around me and hurled cannon balls, long arrows, winged arrows, fire arrows, and other death dealing missiles from big guns “Heaven and Earth,” while our battle cries shook the land and sea. Finally shrieks and death agonies were heard from the enemy vessels as their warriors fell dead or ran away with the wounded on their shoulders in countless numbers. The survivors pulled further up the hill and dared not come forward to fight”.

This excerpt really shows the significance of the turtle ship, as a vessel of mighty power. We are very lucky to have access to such a diary entry from Yi Sun-sin, because it provides me with important evidence for suggesting why it was presented it as a gift, and the symbolism for the turtle ship.

(3). Description of the full size boat as by Swope:

“Korean success in these battles rested in the superior firepower and maneuverability of the turtleboat. Although still a point of debate, according to most modern reconstructions, a turtleboat was about 35 meters long, with a 9-meter beam, and measured about 2.5 meters from bottom to deck. Bulwarks on each side were fitted with ports for guns and cannon. The turtle’s head was about 1.5 meters long and 1 meter wide and filled with a combination of sulfur and saltpeter, which when mixed produced a smokescreen. The vessel contained twenty-four cabins, five of which were used for powder magazines, arms, and gear; the rest were used for sailors. It had ten oars to a side and probably carried forty or more cannon, one or two heavier pieces, fire arrows, and assorted bombs and incendiaries to be thrown by the crew.”

(4). The Turtle boat as a symbol:

“One would be hard pressed to find another four-hundred-year-old conflict anywhere in the world with as much contemporary visibility. Shrines, memorials, and statues to the heroes and battles of the war dot the Korean countryside, while in Japan some of its commanders were deified in the ensuing Tokugawa period. From 2004 to 2005 a yearlong bio-epic on the life of Adm. Yi Sunsin (1545–98), Korea’s greatest national folk hero, whose exploits are credited with saving the country from destruction, aired on South Korean television. At one time in the 1970s, statues of Admiral Yi were placed in public schools all over the country, both to inspire patriotism and to demonstrate the government’s steadfast resolve to defend the country against the communist threat from the north; one huge statue guards the approach to the president’s house in Seoul. Strolling through the capital’s many gift shops, one is inundated with pewter figurines of Yi and his famous turtleboats (kobuksön). You can even buy commemorative pewter shot glasses engraved with the admiral’s likeness or packs of cigarettes bearing the image of a turtleboat.”

This is significant evidence for the argument that Rutt was gifted the turtle shop as a symbol of military might and patriotism. After looking at sculptures that have been built in Korea during the 20th century, it does allude to the idea that the turtle ship was given as a representation of Korea’s might. The text indicates that “one huge statue guards the approach to the president’s house in Seoul”. Richard Rutt spent much of his time there, and so a combination of Rutt’s work with the Asiatic Society in Seoul and the national significance of Yi Sun-sin (who is associated with the turtle ship), leads me to suggest he was given this as a patriotic gift. As a ubiquitous symbol found in gift shops and statues, it does not seem unusual he was gifted this.

(5). Academic conference that might suggest Rutt attended a similar one in 1969:

“A recent academic conference on the war held in the South Korean seaside town Tongyöng, located near Admiral Yi’s naval base at Hansan Island, attracted scholars from Korea, Japan, Europe, and North America.3 The mayor of Tongyöng greeted the attendees, who were feted with a series of receptions and banquets. One of Japan’s largest daily newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun, sent multiple reporters and photographers to cover the gathering, which received two days of print coverage the following week. The fact that a four-century-old war would receive such extensive national media attention suggests the conflict’s enduring significance and place in the public eye in both Korea and Japan.”

I found this excerpt from the book very insightful. Richard Rutt was associated with the Royal Asiatic society, which was filled with scholars, missionaries and academics. Perhaps, Rutt was gifted this turtle ship at an event that was similar to this. As far as I know, there were no excursions made by the Royal Asiatic Society Korea in 1969 until March, so that if Rutt was attending an event of celebration of this kind, it would not have been as a trip done by the society. But the event does signify the significance of the War beginning in 1592, and shows that it is still being commemorated as a great military victory to this day.

(6). Military might and the turtle ship symbol reasserted:

“The broad scope of this conflict has even prompted one Chinese scholar, Li Guangtao, to call this war the single greatest event in the history of East Asia. Yi was back to his old tricks, darting in and out among Japanese vessels and creating havoc with his turtleboats. He killed one Japanese naval commander and nearly finished off another. It is said that the enemy “lost all color and wept in fear” when they saw Yi once again at the head of a Korean fleet.”

“The war is also a symbol of perseverance and the will to prevail against overwhelming odds. Koreans are rightfully proud of Yi Sunsin and the righteous armies, and their exploits are well chronicled and memorialized all over Korea. It is no accident that Yi’s war dairy and memorials to court are among the few primary sources of Korean history that have been translated into English and that miniature statues of the admiral and his turtleboats are readily available in gift shops.”

Again, this reiterates the popularity of the turtle boat and the symbolism they manifest in Korea. The turtle ship model, or status of Yi Sun sin seem to act as a sort of public spirit and morale. In other words, the way the British flag or the Barbary lion (English national animal) brings about a feeling of patriotism for Britain, statues of Yi Sun-sin and turtle ships act as a source of identity. I arrive at the same conclusion that Rutt was gifted this turtle ship as a sign of Korean nationalism and military might.

Source: Kenneth M. Swope, “A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592-1598″, (USA: University of Oklahoma, 2009)

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planttastic · 7 years ago

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Book List 2017!

Goal: 48 Read: 48 New Authors: 13!: Rebekah Crane, Georgia Hunter, David Machado, Dee Lestari, Garson O’Toole, Tahereh Mafi, Soraya Lane, Courtney Elizabeth Mauk, F.C. Lee, Kory Stamper, Marie Lu, Mohsin Hamid, & Krysten Ritter Re-reads: 2: 1984, & The Stupidest Angel

1. The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1) - Rick Riordan, ★★★★

2. Dragon Fly in Amber (Outlander #2) - Diana Gabaldon, ★★★★

3. Seven Up (Stephanie Plum #7) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

4. Packing For Mars: The Curious Science of Life In The Void) - Mary Roach, ★★★★★

5. Hard Eight (Stephanie Plum #8) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

6. The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland - Rebekah Crane, ★★★

7. 1984 - George Orwell, ★★★★

8. To The Nines (Stephanie Plum #9), ★★★

9. At Night We Walk In Circles - Daniel Alarcón, ★★★★

10. Ten Big Ones (Stephanie Plum #10) - Janet Evanovich, ★★

11. We Were the Lucky Ones - Georgia Hunter, ★★★★

12. Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum #11) - Janet Evanovich, ★★

13. Twelve Sharp (Stephanie Plum #12) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★★

14. Lean Mean Thirteen (Stephanie Plum #13) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

15. The Shelf Life of Happiness - David Machado, ★★★

16. Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War - Mary Roach, ★★★★

17. Paper Boats - Dee Lestari, ★★★★

18. Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations - Garson O’Toole, ★★

19. Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★★

20. Unravel Me (Shatter me #2) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★

21. Unite Me (Shatter Me #1.5 & 2.5) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★

22. Ignite Me (Shatter Me #3) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★

23. American Gods - Neil Gaiman, ★★★

24. Wives of War - Soraya Lane, ★★★

25. The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things - Courtney Elizabeth Mauk, ★★

26. Fearless Fourteen (Stephanie Plum #14) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

27. Finger Lickin’ Fifteen (Stephanie Plum #15) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

28. Sizzling Sixteen (Stephanie Plum #16) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

29. Smoking Seventeen (Stephanie Plum #17) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

30. The Epic Crush of Genie Lo - F.C. Lee, ★★★★

31. Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries - Kory Stamper, ★★★★

32. Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum #18) - Janet Evanovich, ★★

33. Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng, ★★★★★

34. The Dark Prophecy (The Trials of Apollo #2) - Rick Riordan, ★★★★

35. Notorious Nineteen (Stephanie Plum #19) - Janet Evanovich, ★★

36. Young Jane Young - Gabrielle Zevin, ★★★★

37. Takedown Twenty (Stephanie Plum #20) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★

38. Warcross (Warcross #1) - Marie Lu, ★★★★

39. Sourdough - Robin Sloan, ★★★★

40. La Belle Sauvage (The Book Of Dust #1) - Philip Pullman, ★★★★

41. Voyager (Outlander #3) - Diana Gabaldon, ★★★★

42. Feedback (Newsflesh #4) - Mira Grant, ★★★★

43. Top Secret Twenty-one (Stephanie Plum #21) - Janet Evanovich, ★★

44. Exit West - Mohsin Hamid, ★★★★★

45. Bonfire - Krysten Ritter, ★★★★

46. Artemis - Andy Weir, ★★

47. The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (Pine Cove #3) - Christopher Moore, ★★★

48. Mrs. Fletcher - Tom Perotta, ★★★

**WARNING** SPOILERS BELOW!

1. The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1) - Rick Riordan, ★★★★ Here's the thing. I know these are middle school books, HOWEVER some of my favorite modern literary characters have come from Riordan's Demigod books and this one contains the return of two of my favorites. I'm glad that he's continuing to write them, though I wish he would up the reading level, as I'm sure a lot of his readers are into YA levels now. An easy start for the new year! Progress: January 1, 2017 – Started Reading January 4, 2017 – Finished Reading

2. Dragon Fly in Amber (Outlander #2) - Diana Gabaldon, ★★★★ I must admit, I enjoyed this one much more than the first (a surprise, considering I wasn't a huge fan of season 2 of the show). It deals a lot more with history and the coming together of the Rising, which was more interesting than I expected. The ending was still incredibly sad and hopeful (as I did expect) and got me right in the heart. Progress: January 5, 2017 – Started Reading January 6, 2017 –page 79. "This book is long af. I was surprised to see a big reveal for a character (if you could call it that, I guess) in the first chapter. Oh the differences between tv writing and novels." January 12, 2017 –page 389. "Dude just pulled a snake out of his pocket like it was no thing. Wtf was happening in France?! Don't keep snakes in your jackets, gents. That is weird af." January 14, 2017 –page 521 "Sudden POV shift to Jaime is odd and unexpected. It seems that it's just in chunks? Makes it feel uneven." January 15, 2017 – Finished Reading

3. Seven Up (Stephanie Plum #7) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ Stephanie is bad at her job, these are super formulaic and there's a standard love triangle, yet I can't stop reading these. They are the potato chip of bounty hunter novels. Progress: January 16, 2017 – Started Reading January 18, 2017 – Finished Reading

4. Packing For Mars: The Curious Science of Life In The Void - Mary Roach, ★★★★★ Full of science, humor and a lot of information I never thought to ask about space. Mary Roach is my favorite science writer, quite possibly my favorite non-fiction writer. Stiff will probably always be my favorite of her books, but I think this is tied for 2nd with Gulp. Progress: January 19, 2017 – Started Reading January 19, 2017 – Shelved January 20, 2017 – page 133 "It's things like, "buttocks are nature's safety foam" that make me love Mary Roach's books. Give me all the facts in amusing and easily digestable prose!" January 24, 2017 – Finished Reading

5. Hard Eight (Stephanie Plum #8) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I figure since this book came out over 13 years ago, spoilers don't count, so I'm not going to put this under a cut, but at least a warning. WARNING. Stephanie is still terrible at her job, goes through cars more often than she buys tanks of gas, but at least she FINALLY BANGED RANGER. Unfortunately we only got a paragraph of explanation, which does not do justice to his apparent sexiness. (For the record, I'm still Team Cupcake.) This one did feel a bit different, as she wasn't money-driven to solve the case. It does lend her a bit more... humanity? Progress: January 25, 2017 – Started Reading January 25, 2017 – page 94 "Gdi Stephanie, if you're going to handcuff a FTA to your car, DON'T LEAVE THE KEYS IN IT. I swear 😒 is the only face I make when reading these." January 26, 2017 – page 128 "AGAIN with the wedging herself into a car. A Honda CR-V is a gd suv. Despite Stephanie being repulsed by her 'stomach roll', unless she has the seat very far up, doubtful considering she is also tall, she would not need to wedge herself into the front seat of an suv. Ughhhhhh. 😒" January 27, 2017 – Finished Reading

6. The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland - Rebekah Crane, ★★★ I got this as a Kindle First Read and decided to read it as a filler between trips to the library. It proved to be a very quick read, and reminded me of Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, though they aren't really that similar. (I had conflicting feelings about that one, too.) I think it does downplay mental illness, but does a good job of showcasing the power of friendship (less cheesy than it sounds), being there, and how tenuous that can be. Progress: January 28, 2017 – Started Reading January 29, 2017 – Finished Reading

7. 1984 - George Orwell, ★★★★ It's pretty clear why everyone is suddenly re-reading this. It's not going to save us though. Progress: January 29, 2017 – Started Reading January 31, 2017 – page 81 ""The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him..." #alarminglyrelevant" February 4, 2017 – page 199 "I know it's been years since I read this, but did I really just conveniently forget how wordy and dense it was? Oof." February 5, 2017 – Finished Reading

8. To The Nines (Stephanie Plum #9), ★★★ Finally some real character development! Or at least acknowledgement from Stephanie that she has learned things (wearing sensible shoes) and that she feels lackluster in her performance. It was interesting to see her finally evaluate her life outside of who she is as a romantic partner (I know that the romance is a big part of the series, but still). And it was nice to see Vinnie be a little less creepy and explore some different bond types. Progress: February 6, 2017 – Started Reading February 6, 2017 – page 32 "Not really sure how I feel about Stephanie's hatred of a lady she just met, especially considering it seems to tie in with how she looks. Uncomfortable." February 7, 2017 – page 248 "For the second time, Stephanie has mentioned having sensible shoes on in case she has to run. She IS getting better!" February 8, 2017 – Finished Reading

9. At Night We Walk In Circles - Daniel Alarcón, ★★★★ A winding novel with an unexpected ending. I really had no idea what it was going to be about, but I had read Lost City Radio in 07 or 08 for my Writers on Writing class and enjoyed it quite a bit and was excited to see that he had written another novel. Progress: February 8, 2017 – Started Reading February 18, 2017 – Finished Reading

10. Ten Big Ones (Stephanie Plum #10) - Janet Evanovich, ★★ I have a lot of issues with this one. First the good: Ranger and the tiny peek into his life. And the return of Sally Sweet!! The bad: This one feels pretty racist with all of the gang bits. Stephanie seems to suffer no consequences for her terrible actions and she continues to suck at her job. Despite her constant refusal to get a different job, there are times where she's is pretty lackadaisical when it comes to actually doing it. There were A LOT of questionable things that happened, some really awful and terrible things, and at the end everyone is like, "lol, nbd." ARE YOU KIDDING ME. Actions have consequences, unless you're at the end of a Plum novel, I guess. Progress: February 18, 2017 – Started Reading February 22, 2017 – page 181 "So much fat shaming/ guilt happening right now I want to stop reading. This is the part of 'chick lit' that I loathe. Way to reinforce stereotypes. At the same time, if your character is going to eat a dozen donuts a day, she should know that she's going to gain weight and be on the lookout for diabetes because that's is just unhealthy." February 23, 2017 - page 226 "Jfc Stephanie, this is the worst idea, ever. If I didn't know the series was continuing, I'd think this is how the character got killed off." February 24, 2017 – Finished Reading

11. We Were the Lucky Ones - Georgia Hunter, ★★★★ Oh, my heart. This was pretty difficult for me to start, mostly because I didn't want to get too attached to characters that were bound to have a horrific end. However, once it gets going (ie, all the terrible things start happening), it goes pretty quickly. I don't know if if any one novel can encapsulate the spanning horror of the Holocaust, and I appreciate (not sure if that's the right word) that Hunter went for a more focused approach, scattering milestone dates within the story. Progress: February 25, 2017 – Started Reading March 8, 2017 – Finished Reading

12. Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum #11) - Janet Evanovich, ★★ :Deep, prolonged, exasperated sigh: Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie. I'm so glad you're a fictional character, because I'm pretty sure I'd hate you if you were real. AND YET, I can't stop reading these. I blame Morelli and Ranger. Progress: March 9, 2017 – Started Reading March 11, 2017 – Finished Reading

13. Twelve Sharp (Stephanie Plum #12) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★★ FINALLY. A story I liked! We get a lot of Ranger in this one, a pretty decent story, and none of Stephanie's cars blow up! She's competent and not as silly. I was wrong about the 'turning point' moment! Finally, finally, finally. Progress: March 13, 2017 – Started Reading March 15, 2017 – page 201 "There's usually a point in each of the novels where I think, 'that is how everything is going to go to hell.' This one is leaving her gd panic button at the office and skipping town to get away from "scary stuff" and Ranger, while someone is trying to KILL HER." March 17, 2017 – Finished Reading

14. Lean Mean Thirteen (Stephanie Plum #13) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I had issues with some of the motives in this one (especially with Joyce) and I continue to be annoyed that Morelli and Ranger pass Stephanie between them while 'protecting' her. The ending seemed a bit trite, but at least her car died in a normal way. Not entirely sure how I feel about her constantly complaining about her job. But perhaps I'm expecting too much. Progress: March 22, 2017 – Started Reading April 1, 2017 – Finished Reading

15. The Shelf Life of Happiness - David Machado, ★★★ I got this as a Kindle First read, so I wasn't really sure what I was getting into. I liked it well enough. I definitely wanted more of the story, the end felt kind of abrupt. Progress: April 26, 2017 – Started Reading May 7, 2017 – Finished Reading

16. Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War - Mary Roach, ★★★★ Though not my favorite of Roach's books (that will always go to Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers), I found this a lot more interesting than I thought I would because it's about subjects I wouldn't have immediately thought of when thinking, 'war.' A lot of the 'gross' that Roach does so well, (who thinks about diarrhea when fighting a battle?) along with textile science and shark repellent. Progress: May 9, 2017 – Started Reading May 18, 2017 – Finished Reading

17. Paper Boats - Dee Lestari, ★★★★ I ended up loving this book a lot more than I expected it to. It's very sweet. The characters are charming and likeable. It does a very good job of capturing the awkward personal growth that happens during college and how it affects relationships. I thought I could feel a bit of Tiffany Tsao in her translation, at least I found some similarities to her novel. I can certainly see why Lestari is such a popular writer in Indonesia. One of the best Kindle First books I've read. Progress: May 18, 2017 – Started Reading May 23, 2017 – Finished Reading

18. Hemingway Didn’t Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations - Garson O’Toole, ★★ Oof. I will say that this is very well researched. Clearly a lot of time and effort went into finding the origins of these quotes, and I do appreciate that. However, I am not a fan of how the information is presented. Most of it feels pretentious ("QI feels...") and stiff. To be completely honest, I don't read many nonfiction books for a similar reason, so it's purely opinion. Progress: May 24, 2017 – Started Reading May 24, 2017 – 1.0% "Holy pretentiousness Batman... This might be rough to get through, but I really love quotes..." May 24, 2017 – 2.0% "There's faulty information on the Internet?! YOU DON'T SAY. (It is possible that I'm not the target generation for this intro.)" May 25, 2017 – 11.0% "Maybe I don't like quotes as much as I thought I did." May 28, 2017 – page 59 14.9% "My last year of college, I wrote this play about a blogger loosely based on my life. I had a draft due, so I pulled a few of my own blog posts, pasted them in some strategic places and turned it in. Almost all the feedback I got was about how the blog posts didn't make sense with the rest of the writing, probably because I didn't bother to edit them. That's how I feel about some of these entries" June 12, 2017 – page 241 60.86% "Not that it's important, but I have no idea what POV is being used here. Sometimes it feels like second person, and others third? All readers know that the writer is from QI, so separating them seems awkward. Oh well." June 19, 2017 – Finished Reading

19. Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★★ I have to say, I was pretty surprised by this novel. The premise is not new (dystopia, boy meets girl, etc, etc), but Mafi has a very distinct and different writing style that I find quite enjoyable. It's different. I imagine a lot of people hate it? There's several instances where people are commenting on Juliette's body that are gross and super off-putting. I'm hoping this is something that diminishes in further novels. SPOILER: The best part was the end though, SURPRISE IT'S JUST A SUPERHERO ORIGIN STORY. All of a sudden we're in this weird X-Men/Inhumans universe and I am so here for it. Looking forward to reading the rest. Progress: June 21, 2017 – Started Reading June 25, 2017 – Finished Reading

20. Unravel Me (Shatter me #2) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★ Basically everything I expected to happen, did happen. Ughhhhhh. Progress: June 28, 2017 – Started Reading July 1, 2017 – 30.0% "So far, most of this has been angst and trying to make Warner and Juliette seem So Similar. It makes me want to barf." July 2, 2017 – 64.0% "Every time I read YA novels I always think how I would never want to be a teen again. The angst and drama and omg." July 2, 2017 – Finished Reading

21. Unite Me (Shatter Me #1.5 & 2.5) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★ Destroy Me: I do not understand people's love for Warner. I'm going to put this under a spoiler cut, just in case. SPOILER: He's the embodiment of entitled masculinity. He wants Juliette even though: he doesn't really know her, she hates him, he thinks she'll 'save him, and that he deserves her. It's gross. He literally kidnapped her after stalking her. He manipulated her on more than one occasion, bordering on torture, just to see what she was capable of. And now he's reading her diary/book as though he has the right to know those thoughts. His image of Juliette has been stripped of all agency. I don't care that he has qualms about what the Reestablishment is doing. I don't care that he seems to care about the citizens in his sector (also creepy). I don't care that he's possibly losing his grip on reality. I'm pretty sure he's going to turn over to the Omega's side in later installments so that he can get some kind of redemption arc, and then there might be a love triangle (BARF). I hope Juliette stays far away from him. I hope she never forgives him for the kidnapping, the simulation room, or his general desire to own her. Because women don't owe men anything, because we're not objects to be owned. Fracture Me: 75% of it was just a retelling of the end of Unravel Me, so that was unfortunate. I imagine it was a nice bonus to have while waiting for Ignite Me to come out, but I don't know how much it added to the the series. Progress: June 25, 2017 – Started Reading July 3, 2017 – Finished Reading

22. Ignite Me (Shatter Me #3) - Tahereh Mafi, ★★★ So, I really wanted to like this series. I really did. However, I was so disappointed in how it all played out. The characters were totally OOC in this installment. I still hate Warner, I don't care what he does. The end felt anticlimactic, though that might just be a symptom of reading too much dystopian YA novels. Pretty unsure about there being more books, but I think a lot of people will read them. Progress: July 5, 2017 – Started Reading July 5, 2017 - 6.0% "Ughhhhhhh. This is everything I Did Not Want. Warner, your 'elaborate scheme' was not for your father's benefit, it was your way to stalk her, you creepy asshat." July 6, 2017 – 10.0% "She thinks she should lead the resistance? What? Is that why she trained so hard while she was at Omega Point? Oh wait... She didn't. Excuse me while I don't believe our MC." July 8, 2017 – 29.0% "And we descend into every trope of the third YA trilogy book. I was expecting so much more than this." July 8, 2017 – Finished Reading

23. American Gods - Neil Gaiman, ★★★ I had pretty high expectations for this novel, as I'm a Gaiman fan and a lot of people rave about it. However, I found myself a bit disappointed. The imagery was probably the best part, a lot of awesome scenes were set up that would be visually stunning. I enjoyed Shadow as a character, but I expected more to happen. SPOILER: It feels like 500 pages of build up to a war that never happens. I wonder if I'm just expecting too much 'action' because of other books I've been reading. On a completely tactile note, this edition is incredibly pleasant to read. It stays open when lying on a table, and it has nice bendy covers. I bought this years ago from Borders and it's been sitting on a shelf since. Progress: July 16, 2017 – Started Reading July 22, 2017 – Finished Reading

24. Wives of War - Soraya Lane, ★★★ I actually enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Lane does a very interesting job at skirting around some of the extremes of war. There are no overly gory or visceral descriptions of wounds or death and is generally light on descriptive detail in general. People are explained in detail, (nearly everyone is very pretty or very handsome) and an occasional location will also be described. I actually prefer less description, but I could see that others may find it lacking. This novel is very much about emotions, and considering the subject matter, it makes sense. I found myself wanting less telling and more showing in some cases. What I did find very interesting is the gender politics that were in play. WWII is a fascinating time to explore it, what was expected of our three main 'girls,' how they either defied or followed them, and what it meant after the war was over. It gets a little schmaltzy sometimes, but I'm willing to forgive that. SPOILERS: The Thomas situation is very difficult, considering PTSD wasn't 'a thing' yet, but they did acknowledge combat neurosis. But it pained me to see Scarlet battered, and still feel that she couldn't leave, that she was required to stay with him. And for Thomas's life to come to such a tragic end. It was hard to read, but also expected. And they totally say The Thing at the end. Progress: July 24, 2017 – Started Reading July 28, 2017 – Finished Reading

25. The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things - Courtney Elizabeth Mauk, ★★ I'm not really sure what to say beyond that I just didn't like it. It's possible I would have liked it more if I had read it before Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (they have similar plots, but beyond that, they have little in common). I didn't like any of the characters, though I did feel some empathy towards Drew and Ben. Carol was completely unlikable, though perhaps that was the point? I certainly don't understand her actions. I found myself wishing I knew more about Jennifer, maybe it would justify the reactions of her family more. It is a very quick read, though. Progress: July 31, 2017 – Started Reading August 1, 2017 – Finished Reading

26. Fearless Fourteen (Stephanie Plum #14) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I still keep expecting Stephanie (and Lula?) to get better at their jobs. Adding the kid in to this novel was a nice change, glad to see Mooner back too, even though Stephanie is judges them very harshly. I'm mostly reading these to get caught back up on my reading goal. They're easy to read and mostly amusing. Progress: August 2, 2017 – Started Reading August 2, 2017 – page 8 "I was excited to get back to these novels, but less than 10 pages in and Stephanie is hardcore judging a kid for having piercings. COME ON. This was written in 2008. Let's move on from the 'bad people have tattoos and piercings' stereotypes please. He better turn out to be a stellar kid and she feels bad about judging him." August 4, 2017 – Finished Reading

27. Finger Lickin’ Fifteen (Stephanie Plum #15) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I mostly didn't care about the story in this one. It feels like Lula is becoming more of a caricature in every book, which makes me kind of sad. Not everything needs to be so over the top. Not everything needs to catch fire. Relatively anticlimactic ending. Progress: August 4, 2017 – Started Reading August 6, 2017 – Finished Reading

28. Sizzling Sixteen (Stephanie Plum #16) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I liked this one a bit more than the last few, it was sort of nice to have Vinnie around again (even though he's pretty terrible). I did notice several spelling and editing errors, which was kind of strange. Progress: August 7, 2017 – Started Reading August 9, 2017 – Finished Reading

29. Smoking Seventeen (Stephanie Plum #17) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I'm getting too used to reading Plum novels, and I'm figuring them out too early. Enjoyable enough, though there are a few things that are starting to get on me. Glad she finally hooked up with Ranger again. Real tired of the, "I love two men, isn't that just *ca-raaazyyy*" idea. It's not crazy? You can love two people at a time. Dave was creepy af. Progress: August 14, 2017 – Started Reading August 16, 2017 – page 144 "Come on Steph, you can connect the dots better than this..." August 16, 2017 – page 286 "Dots finally connected. Took ya long enough." August 16, 2017 – page 300 "She literally just said 'connect the dots to [character], hahahah. I think I've read too many Plum books in a row." August 16, 2017 – Finished Reading

30. The Epic Crush of Genie Lo - F.C. Lee, ★★★★ YESSSSS SOMETHING DIFFERENT. I really hope we get more Genie Lo books, because I would read many more novels of her kicking demon ass. Progress: August 16, 2017 – Started Reading September 4, 2017 – Finished Reading

31. Word By Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries - Kory Stamper, ★★★★ Even though this took me ages to get through, I really enjoyed it. I've been getting the M-W Word of The Day email for years and was very excited when they announced this book. It definitely helped me realize that the dictionary is not the final say on English, but just a record of how we use it. The bit on dialect is my favorite (and would have gladly read more about it!), followed closely by the discussion of 'nude'. I certainly have a better appreciation of dictionaries and lexicographers. Progress: August 16, 2017 – Started Reading September 21, 2017 – Finished Reading

32. Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum #18) - Janet Evanovich, ★★ While I appreciate the change in narrative structure (slowly presenting information instead of all at once), it's still a Plum novel and feels a little bit out of touch. Poor Lula deserves more than a caricature characterization. I want to know more about Connie. The love triangle is getting old, mostly because Stephanie is stuck in some pretty outdated notions of how her life is supposed to be. It could be said that I'm rather liberal, and I'm looking into too much, but Lula can be more than just a former ho. Stop describing her outfits with such disdain. I just... expect more from a book published in 2011. Progress: September 19, 2017 – Started Reading September 27, 2017 – Shelved

33. Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng, ★★★★★ My. Heart. Ng is a truly gifted storyteller. Though perhaps it feels like a story that has been told before (maybe many stories that have been told before), it's such a nice, solid, slow build. I find myself wondering about the characters, and how their lives played out after the novel ended. Progress: September 1, 2017 – Shelved September 27, 2017 –page 1 "I was the first person in my library to get this and I AM VERY EXCITED" October 3, 2017 – Finished Reading

34. The Dark Prophecy (The Trials of Apollo #2) - Rick Riordan, ★★★★ Though Apollo is super annoying (on purpose, I assume) and there wasn't enough of Nico DiAngelo, my Sweet Baby Death Prince (aka, no appearance and only a single mention), I enjoyed this. I love Leo, and I'm warming up to Calypso. I find Meg very interesting, especially because she doesn't fall into 'girly' stereotypes, SPOILERS also her dealing with the abuse from her stepfather is an important thing for novels to address. However, I'm all about the Waystation. I want an entire series about it, and its inhabitants and the travelers passing through. And as cheesy as it sounds, my favorite part of all of Riordan's series is how he reps families of all types. <3 Progress: October 3, 2017 – Started Reading October 7, 2017 – Finished Reading

35. Notorious Nineteen (Stephanie Plum #19) - Janet Evanovich, ★★ I know that these are meant to be light reading, but that doesn't mean they can't be better. Stereotypes and problematic behavior (and speech, and expectations...) shouldn't be the norm. Progress October 11, 2017 – Started Reading October 12, 2017 – page 72 "I don't know if I'm just noticing it more, or judging more harshly because this book was written in 2012, but there's a lot of things that are problematic af in this. I've stopped counting the moments of casual racism, but some old dude is groping Stephanie and all that happens is she and Ranger switch seats? Hell. No." October 13, 2017 – page 103 "Threatening someone with a fake rape and groping accusation? Wtaf, Evanovich. That is not okay." October 14, 2017 –page 292 "An Arthur Beasley and a Simon Diggery? Someone finally read Harry Potter." October 14, 2017 – Finished Reading

36. Young Jane Young - Gabrielle Zevin, ★★★★ Though lacking the emotional gut-punch of A.J. Fikry, this was still an excellent novel. SPOILERS: I think what I really took away from this was the severe inequity between men and women. Jane's career was destroyed completely, while the Senator went on, with barely a blip. Obviously this is very reflective of our society, which is all too apparent these days, and it's one of those things that gets me in the heart. I know life isn't fair, but damn. Progress: October 14, 2017 – Started Reading October 16, 2017 – Finished Reading

37. Takedown Twenty (Stephanie Plum #20) - Janet Evanovich, ★★★ I don't know why I keep doing this to myself. This one seemed a little bit less problematic at the beginning, and then just went off the rails with the racist stereotypes and constant slut shaming. Ugh. Progress: October 16, 2017 – Started Reading October 18, 2017 – page 122 "Evanovich really has something against fat people. She points out everyone's weight, and just made a show about how a woman who weighs "upward of 200" has wrists that are too big for regular handcuffs. I call BS." October 20, 2017 - page 210 "For the love of all things holy, STOP SLUT-SHAMING LULA." October 20, 2017 – Finished Reading

38. Warcross (Warcross #1) - Marie Lu, ★★★★ Well hello Marie Lu, why haven't I read your novels before?! Warcross is like an amalgamation of Ready Player One and Quidditch with the added bonus of POC characters and a female MC (awww yeaaaahhhh). I expected the end, but it's not going to deter me from reading the rest of the series. Progress: October 20, 2017 – Started Reading October 23, 2017 – Finished Reading

39. Sourdough - Robin Sloan, ★★★★ Confession: I love stuff about San Francisco, and this was no exception. It was a little weird and a little magical, very much like the city herself. Though I guess this technically took place in more than just SF proper. However, the descriptions of Clement St, took me right back there and made me wish I could stop and get some Pad Thai from King of Thai Noodle House #2 and a Genki strawberry and nutella crepe. ::sigh:: Memories. It also made me want to learn how to bake bread. I think what I enjoy most about Sloan's writing is that I'm not quite sure what I'm about to get into, but I'll believe it when I'm there. Progress: October 23, 2017 – Started Reading October 25, 2017 – page 168 "I think I love Beoreg." October 26, 2017 – Finished Reading

40. La Belle Sauvage (The Book Of Dust #1) - Philip Pullman, ★★★★ I am a HUGE fan of the original trilogy, and I was scared/excited to learn that Pullman was going to return to this world with more novels. I was not disappointed. A likable new MC (::cough:: UnlikeLyra ::cough::), adventures, mystery, a little bit of terror, and a few hints about Dust! I likely should have re-read the original trilogy before I read this, but honestly I didn't have the patience. I was the first person in my library to read this copy, and it's a beautiful edition. Progress: October 26, 2017 – Started Reading October 26, 2017 – page 1 "I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS" November 4, 2017 – Finished Reading

41. Voyager (Outlander #3) - Diana Gabaldon, ★★★★ Oh man, what a long read... I found this one much more interesting than the first two, maybe because it was a more complex story. The jumping around of POVs is a bit distracting, as it takes a bit to realize who is talking at the beginning of each bit. But I managed to breeze through this a bit easier than I thought I would, considering how much I struggled through the second one. Bring on more Jamie Fraser, please. Progress: November 5, 2017 – Started Reading November 5, 2017 – page 1 "This book is a long one. o.O Here goes..." November 11, 2017 – page 564 "Was it necessary to give Mr. Willoughby a foot fetish? Really?" November 15, 2017 – Finished Reading

42. Feedback (Newsflesh #4) - Mira Grant, ★★★★ It should be said that I'm a sucker for the Newsflesh series, and would gladly read anything in the canon. I found this to be a very good addition to the original trilogy. I like that it was way more diverse, with a lot of effort put into those differences (pronoun use!!). I wish I had re-read the trilogy before I read it, it's been a while and I found myself forgetting a lot of little things that had happened. I don't know if it diminished it, but a fresher read would have added a lot more to the story. I think what I really appreciated is that it sounded different from the Mason's POV. Ash has a different way of forming her thoughts and sentences, and it showed. What I didn't like so much was the over-explaining (maybe over-defending?) what it meant to be an Irwin, and to some extent a Newsie and Fictional. That might be because I have read the OG trilogy several times and I didn't feel the need to have it explained. Also, not once was Kellis-Amberlee shortened to KA, which seemed odd. This is a world steeped in a disease, and I find it hard to believe that an entire team of bloggers wouldn't shorten it, same with all of the politicians. (I mean, we live in a world with the flu, and does anyone other than doctors call it influenza?) Progress: November 16, 2017 – Started Reading November 22, 2017 – Finished Reading

43. Top Secret Twenty-one (Stephanie Plum #21) - Janet Evanovich, ★★I think I need to stop reading these... Forever disappointed, forever annoyed by the awful stereotypes, fat shaming and repetitive storylines. Progress: November 23, 2017 – Started Reading November 26, 2017 – Finished Reading

44. Exit West - Mohsin Hamid, ★★★★★ A beautifully told story. Some nice, unexpected aspects, sweeping prose that's almost poetic and a very satisfying ending. Ah, lovely. Progress: November 27, 2017 – Started Reading November 29, 2017 – Finished Reading

45. Bonfire - Krysten Ritter, ★★★★ I definitely picked this up because it's Krysten Ritter, who, in my head will always be Gia Goodman first and Jessica Jones second. And oddly enough, this felt like an amalgamation of Veronica Mars and Jessica Jones, especially in the characterization of Abby. I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would, though it's not anything amazingly new. There are parts that I was less impressed with, but it was a quick read and I hope she writes more. BIG SPOILER AHEAD: I think the characters could have been fleshed out more, I found myself wanting more from Abby, more of her life in Chicago, why she feels the need to drink herself into oblivion to sleep... A little more in the explanation would have been nice too. It felt to quick and tidy. Not to mention the very obvious 'twist.' IT'S ALWAYS THE GUY YOU CONFESS TO. Ughhhhhhh. Progress: December 4, 2017 – Started Reading December 6, 2017 – Finished Reading

46. Artemis - Andy Weir, ★★ I wanted to like this, I really did, but I found it lacking. The storyline was good and a little different because moon stuff, but I guess I expected a lot more. I can see why a lot of people love this, and why it's ending up on a lot of 2017 best lists, it just won't be on mine. The following cut isn't really for spoilers, but just to be safe: POSSIBLE SPOILERS: I did appreciate that MC could have been a man or woman and the basic plot wouldn't change (ie the whole thing wasn't based on Jazz being a woman), HOWEVER there were a lot of bits that felt unnecessary and overly 'feminized'. I didn't believe some of her language, and some of her mental wanderings seemed really forced (when I'm in a stressful situation, I don't imagine what the dude next to me looks like while working out... "Hey, I'm a girl, it's allowed", etc). Weir has a section in the acknowledgements about the people who helped him capture a female narrator, and I think they failed him a little bit. Why is everyone overly interested in her sex life? Do people just go around commenting on how many sexual partners you have on the moon, because that's just how 'different' society is? That seems weird AF to me. Jazz gets annoyed, but it's rude and invasive. I think some of it was supposed to play on the tension between her and Svoboda, but it just seemed awkward. Progress: December 6, 2017 – Started Reading December 8, 2017 – page 94 "Struggling to enjoy this. It feels like he's trying really hard to talk like a Woman. Which is unnecessary. It also feels like it's building up to a hull breach or fire, due to the repeated warnings of fire, and overstating of the double hull. I hope I'm wrong." December 8, 2017 – page 158 ""I was a helpless, exposed girl with no weapon" SERIOUSLY. You can't write Jazz as a supposed badass, and then pull out that drivel. I expected more." December 8, 2017 – page 178 "That wasn't a good one, it was sexist and gross. Ugh." December 8, 2017 – Finished Reading

47. The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror (Pine Cove #3) - Christopher Moore, ★★★ Not the best of Moore's novels, hardly my favorite, but a fun read for the holidays. It's a little bit wacky and makes me miss CA. Progress: December 23, 2017 – Started Reading December 26, 2017 – Finished Reading

48. Mrs. Fletcher - Tom Perotta, ★★★ I'm not totally sure how I feel about this novel. I've read Perrotta novels since I was in high school, and I don't think this is one of his strongest. However there are a few things that were well done: changes of voice and capturing the 'present day'. I'm getting better at reading new novels, but this one in particular felt very *now*. It might feel dated in the future, or, hopefully, serve and example of what life is right now. Well, maybe pre-45, but I digress. It's full of current cultural and social issues, but I sort of felt like I wanted more. And wasn't a huge fan of the ending. SPOILERS: Thank anything holy that Brendan wasn't a rapist. I thought Perrotta was leaning pretty heavily toward that, and he got dangerously close to assault. Maybe I just wasn't ready to handle it, but it would have made it so much worse. I'm not really sure how we're supposed to view Brendan. Are we supposed to feel bad that he's completely clueless about how to treat women, or are we supposed to dislike him for being totally oblivious? I will say that a lot of the situations made me think about my own assumptions (I would definitely take the Gender and Society class that Eve took), so there's that. Progress: December 26, 2017 – Started Reading December 28, 2017 – Finished Reading

#book list 2017 #book reviews #reading list 2017

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thegrassisaalwaysgreener · 5 years ago

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Peru- Part 1

Turning 30 can be quite daunting to some. While I wasn’t totally terrified, I did want to hit one more continent before the big 3-0. My initial goal was all 7 continents by 30, but that darn Antarctica is quite pricey. I “settled” for six and had planned a magical trip to Peru with my fave travel buddy Jill. Since we had planned on trekking the Inca Trail, we had booked the tour part of our trip almost a year in advance. We had done tons of research (mostly Jill to be honest) and we had decided to go with Tucan Travel for their tour. They had great reviews and had tons of options for duration and location of tours. We decided on the 4 day Inca trail along with an amazon jungle trip at the end. We were planning to be away for just under 3 weeks and wanted to pack as much into this trip as possible. Most people who hear Peru think Machu Picchu, but this country has so much to offer! I have decided to split the blog up into two since writing 3 jam packed weeks all out (and reading it!) is a bit exhausting in one go. This first blog will be all about our trip before Machu Picchu and the second one will be all about our amazing trek in the Valley of the Incas.

Sunday September 22, 2019 Thanks to Air Canada breaking a suitcase of mine, I was able to use a discount to purchase our tickets. We paid around 600$ round trip for the tickets- which was a steal. The price was a steal until I realized the day before our trip that we were flying AC Rouge. Surprisingly, our 8-hour flight was pretty decent. We were in a two seat row and received a hot dinner and snack before landing at about 0100 Peru Time (0200 Toronto time). Monday September 23, 2019 We had booked a flight north to the beach town of Mancora, but that wasn’t leaving until mid-morning. Jill found a great B&B that was only a few kms away from the airport and boasted 24 hour check in with free breakfast. After an extensive customs assessment with fingerprints and photos, we hopped into an Uber and paid about $7.00 to get the B&B Cusing Wasi .The B&B was easy to miss as there were no signs and seemed to be just another gated home in a not so desirable area. Once we confirmed the address and saw some lights turn on, the owner of the B&B greeted us around 0210. The kind faced, Spanish-speaking owner led us to our room that had three beds and a bathroom. While the B&B hallways were fairly busy with people coming and going, it was great to put our feet up and sleep for a few hours. Breakfast was included and the owners’ wife made us fresh eggs with toast, lunch meat and fruit. After thanking our lovely guests and clearing up our $50 bill, we got back into an Uber to the airport. Our flights with Viva Air from Lima to Mancora had been fairly inexpensive at about $160 each return (more to come about Viva Air…) including “fast lane access” and our checked bags. We made it through security and our check-in in just over an hour. We thought we had plenty of time before boarding, but apparently they start boarding much earlier than at home. We hopped on the bus to the plane and enjoyed our emergency row seats to ourselves for the 2.5 hour flight. We arrived in Talara mid-morning and grabbed our bags en route to picking the best taxi offer. As with most airports, there were tons of people offering to take us wherever we needed to go. The prices ranged from 100-150 soles (50-60$ can). We paid just over 50 to be driven the hour or so long trip from Talara Airport into Mancora. After the mildly stressful drive, we finally found our street at the very end of the beach strip. The owner of the AirBnb Gilberto, met us at the front gate and escorted us to our beach house. Gilberto lived on the property with his two dogs (Max and Willow) in the largest of the 3 homes. He had two similarly styled set up Airbnbs along with a cute lounge area outside with a swing, some beach chairs and couches. Each of the beach homes had a small sitting area, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom with a deck out front with beautiful ocean views. We dropped off our stuff in the small sitting area before checking out the rest of the place. The Airbnb was pretty cute and similar to the description. The bedroom had two twin beds with a towel and sheet on it and the bathroom was just what you would need. We changed out of our travel clothes and headed down to the beach for a wander. The beach was quiet and beautiful. We walked along the water towards town, checking out the many hotels/hostels and restaurants on the way. We stopped at La Tranka for our first lunch. La Tranka is one of many restaurants on Mancoras busy main strip. The town of Mancora has a population of just over 10,000 and is a popular beach destination for Peruvians and other South Americans thanks to its beautiful beaches and great surfing. The majority of people that we saw were locals visiting the area for some R&R. We realized at lunch how important Google translate was going to be on this trip as the menu was only in Spanish. We ordered our first Peruvian drinks (that were pretty cheap ranging from 15-20 soles or 5-8$ Canadian) before settling on the “tortillas with shrimp” for Jill and the ceviche and “chicharron” mix for me. After all of the cooking shows I’d watched, I thought I was in for a pork treat with the chicharron. When our meals arrived, we were both very surprised. Jill had ordered a shrimp omelet (not a tortilla) and I had ordered an assortment of fried fish. While both of our meals were delicious, we learned a valuable lesson about translation. My ceviche was huge and filled with white fish, shrimp and squid. The portions were massive and we definitely didn’t finish all of our first true Peruvian meal. After lunch, we wandered around the town and checked out the market. This market was rather interesting as it was multiple small stalls of individual vendors selling similar things such as fruit, eggs and vegetables along with packaged food. Since we didn’t really need much in terms of food to bring home (and most of it did not look all that appetizing unfortunately), we wandered in and out of the shops and started walking back towards the Airbnb during low tide, checking out all of the happy hour deals. During low tide, we could walk all the way from our Airbnb to the town without any issues on the beach. High tide (about 10 am and 11pm) would prove to be a different issue. Since it was getting quite cold (way colder than we thought it would get), we grabbed sweaters and scarves to make our way to the Point Hostel who had 2 for 20 soles cocktails and grabbed our first Pisco sour of the trip. Pisco is an Peruvian drink (which we learned so much more about in our Pisco tour) mixed with some sort of citrus juice, sweetner and egg white while watching the beautiful sunset. After our drinks, we walked back home for a good nights rest!

Tuesday September 24, 2019 Gosh it was nice waking up to the sound of the ocean! Since it was high tide, we hopped in a TukTuk type cab to get into town (3-4 soles). We had a lovely breakfast of crepes with coffee and juice for $13 soles a piece at Bananas café before heading over to the Inka Warrior Surf School. We decided to get a surf lesson, as we both are poor surfers and wanted to try again. There are several surf schools in the area and all charge about the same (70 soles each) for a one-hour lesson, wet suit and full day access to the boards. Henry was Jill’s instructor and I had Barrone who were both excellent. We practiced on the sand first before heading into the water around 10 am with many other surfers (or learners). The guys were amazing at telling us when to stand up and made us feel like we could actually surf- spoiler alert, we can’t surf without help. After our lesson, we were super exhausted, so we hung out for a bit before heading to a local spot for lunch that was suggested to us by our instructors. While it took us a while, we were not disappointed by the ceviche that we had at Logan Furia. This hole in the wall was owned and operated by someone’s Abuela and was clearly a local hang out. Our ceviche was a huge portion of various fish with plantain chips to dip. At 20 soles, we were more than full and headed back to the beach to relax before we gave surfing another shot. We didn’t realized (or at least I didn’t) how much work the instructors actually did for us. While we tried really hard, getting up on the boards was way more challenging than we thought and the waves were getting further and further apart with more choppy waters. Jill called it quits but I was determined to get up. I ended up sitting on my board for longer than I tried to get up and made a new friend in the process. Daniel is an artist from the UK and was travelling around, painting and drawing while exploring South America. We chatted while drifting basically all the way down the beach before realizing we should probably just head in. Jill and I met him for a drink at a hostel/bar on the beach before heading home. We had planned to head to the lighthouse for sunset so rushed home to shower and dress in warmer clothes. We met Daniel back in town and picked up some wine for our stroll up to the top of the hill where the lighthouse is. The lighthouse has one of the best views (if not the best views) of the town. Jill and I have a pattern of chasing sunsets at lighthouses and did not stray from this pattern. We got a bit lost trying to find the trail and ended up in a lovely gentleman’s back yard. He had no idea what we were looking for (thanks to the language barrier and a poor game of charades) but somehow managed to help us find the proper trail. The sunset at the top of the lighthouse was amazing! We could see the whole town and the ocean looked magical. We enjoyed our wine before walking back down (very carefully as I had already taken one sweet wipe out) into town. Dinner was burgers on the beach at the same spot we had beers at. The server ended up getting our food from other vendors and overcharging us but we enjoyed our time nonetheless. After dinner we headed to the Wild Rover Hostel, which was part of a chain of “party hostels” in several South American countries. We played some drinking games and enjoyed 2 for 20 soles cocktails for a very extended happy hour. The staff were probably the most intoxicated people there but we had a blast playing drinking games and making new friends. The hostel closed early (at 0100) so with the help of our surf instructors and other new friends, we managed to buy some beers to have on the beach before making our way back home.

Wednesday September 25, 2019 Already it was our last full day in Mancora! We started the day with a delicious, hung over breakfast overlooking the water at Green Eggs and Ham. The weather was just perfect! Since we had already done most of our shopping and town adventuring, we decided to enjoy the beach and lounge around for the day. I laid out on the beach cots with the pups and a random cat and caught up on my reading. That evening, we met some of our new friends for dinner at Tokuyo. This was the most popular sushi restaurant in the town and it did not disappoint. Since we had to be up early, we called it a night and headed home to pack and sleep the rest of our hangovers off. Thursday September 26, 2019 Sadly, we were saying goodbye to our mini beach vacay and our pup friends Willow and Max. After taking a photo in front of the cute Mancora sign, our taxi driver drove us back to the Talara Airport. When we arrived there, we were surprised to notice that it was very quiet. The security guard was confused on why we were there. I attempted to explain that we had a noon Viva Air flight and were there to check in. She explained that there was no such flight and I went into full on panic mode. A word to the wise, if you are ever booking flights in another language, make sure to translate it properly and re-read it multiple times. Viva Air had emailed me a few times asking to change the time of our flight. What I hadn’t realized was that they were also changing the date. I did not read the emails well enough and didn’t realize that they had changed our flight from the 26 to the 27th (the next day). They had given us the option to have our money back at the time of the change but if we agreed to the change, there was nothing they could do. My heart sank when I realized my mistake. We were told that the airport staff would be in at noon and we could speak to them then. This was 2 hours away! We couldn’t do much other than to sit and wait in the airport and read. Jill had used her roam like home (since the wifi at the Airbnb was subpar to say the least) so she was able to see that there were two Latam flights that day back into Lima. Normally, we would’ve just stayed in Talara for a day but we had booked a tour that was leaving early the next morning out of Lima and didn’t want to miss it. The airport staff didn’t arrive until well after 12 but we were able to get on the 1720 Latam flight for about $250 each. While this wasn’t the end of the world, I was super frustrated with myself for not realizing the change and being more organized with this flight (since being organized and anal attentive is one of my strengths in life). Since we had plenty of time before our flight, we took a 4 soles tuk tuk into the town and went to a locally popular buffet call La Terraza. For $34 soles each, we enjoyed many different dishes including meats, rice noodles and a bizzare potatoe and tuna layered appetizer that we thought was a dessert. This place had great wifi so I was able to contact VivaAir who was not helpful in the slightest and wouldn’t do anything for us. Since there wasn’t much in the area, we went back to the airport and waited for our flight. The Talara airport is really new, clean and well cooled. There is nowhere to buy anything to eat or drink other than a small cart and there is no wifi. This wasn’t a big deal for us but we had read reviews that there were places to eat and even a lounge (hard no). Our flight back to Lima was breezy, despite never being offered to buy food or water. Latam is a nicer airline than VivaAir with slightly more room in the seats and appeared cleaner. By the time we got back to Lima, it was just before 7 and we grabbed an Uber from the airport to our hotel- Hotel Las Palmas. We grabbed our free pisco sours (which were horrific) and the only item on the menu at the time- burgers before going to bed early for our next adventure.

Friday September 27, 2019 Peru Hop is one of the smartest tour companies I have ever heard of. It was created by 3 guys who wanted to make travelling safe, cheap and fun throughout Peru/Bolivia. They have so many different packages and options- the possibilities are truly endless. They pick passengers up at a whole bunch of hotels in the big cities and take you to various towns throughout the country in nice coach buses. The tour guides speak a multitude of languages and are very knowledgeable. The tours often stop at not as well-known places and hidden gems. You can choose the length of the tour and when you get on and off if you’d like. We decided, since we didn’t have a ton of time, to do a 3 day planned trip south of Lima to a couple of neat towns. The cost of the trip was about $180 Canadian each, which covered the bus, some of the adventures we did and our shared accommodations. We were picked up at Hotel Las Palmas bright and early @ 0700 after we had a nice continental breakfast at the hotel. We drove about 2 hours to Mirasur Resort. This was an interesting place that we could great breakfast at, as well as a delicious taste of a Peruvian drink called Emoliente. Emoliente is a sweet infused warm tea and was just the best after the bus ride. We explored the resort that had lots of guinea pigs (which we came to realize are not pets but food) along with some strange kids toys, open areas to do activities and various trees and plants including plantain trees. Jill and I had missed the explanation of the group activity but the basis of it was, whoever’s numbered mini house the guinea pig ran into, won a prize. Somehow, I had ended up with the winning number and won a shot of Pisco… at like 10 am. I felt peer pressured into taking it and almost vomited after but it was all in the name of fun right?! Once everyone had finished their breakfast and bathroom breaks (FYI, in Peru, you cannot put toilet paper down the toilet due to the inability of the plumbing to handle it) we got back on the bus and headed to Chincha. Chincha is a mix of Peruvian and African cultures as there were a large amount of slaves that had been brought over from Africa. We visited the Hacienda San Jose that housed many slaves over the years that slavery was occurring in Peru (a fact I had no idea about and was quite shocked to learn about). While the history of the plantations’ use was quite awful, the grounds were beautiful. We were shown the secret slave tunnels that had been used to hide undocumented slaves and for punishment. They were pretty eerie and made me feel sad about the thousands of slaves who suffered in the small, cramped, damp tunnels. Once out of the tunnels, we had a bit more time to explore the church and beautiful grounds. We got back into the bus and enjoyed the interesting desert landscapes and beautiful homes with brightly coloured bricks on our way to Paracas. Paracas is a small beach town with a cute boardwalk filled with shops and restaurants. We were staying at Freyles in a 6 person dorm room. This dorm was great with a nice pool area, lots of lounge space and private washrooms in each room. The only dorm mate that was there was Ryan from Canberra. We reminisced about our time in Australia before wandering around the town. Jill and I had lunch at one of the spots on the boardwalk that was pretty delicious. Paracas was a bit pricier than Mancora, which is the only place we had really been that we could compare to. I had fish kebabs and fries with a delicious Cusquena beer for 49 soles (still way cheaper than anything at home). We fell upon a big parade that was happening on the main street and wandered around to the Paracas sign (of course). We met back up with Ryan after grabbing some warmer clothes at the hostel and enjoyed a nice sunset overlooking the water and happy hour. While the happy hour deal nor the sunset could compete with Mancora, we enjoyed our evening and wandered around to the party hostel in the town called Kokopelli. There wasn’t much going on at the hostel so we grabbed some beers from the convenience store and played cards on our hostel balcony before bed.

Saturday September 28 , 2019 The continental breakfast at the hostel was similar to most- bread, cereal, meat and cheese- which I was totally ok with. Part of our PeruHop tour included a morning boat ride to the “poor man’s Galapagos” islands called the Ballestas islands. The open-air boat was pretty neat and we learned a lot about the area and the wildlife along with some of the history. We saw TONS of sea lions and penguins but sadly no dolphins. The boat cruise was just over an hour long and we had a little bit of time when we got back to Paracas to grab a smoothie from Fruzion before hopping on the bus. En route to Huachachina, we stopped at the Paracas National Reserve to take some great photos and enjoy some of the beautiful wildlife, desert and ocean views. We also saw the Pre-Incan desert textiles and learned of their history. The drive from Paracas to Huachachina is about an hour and a half. On the way, Melanie our tour guide gave us some important history and culture about the area. I was most excited about this oasis town because we had heard great things about it and the photos looked amazing. As we approached the town, we were all floored at how much it looked like the photos. This town was legitimately a desert oasis (hence the nickname-duh). The sand dunes all around the town are massive and the Huachachina Lagoon in the middle, with palm trees all on its borders is spectacular. We drove into town and learned a bit more about how this desert oasis came to be. The bus dropped us off just outside of the town (2 min walk from the main strip). We were staying at the Wild Rover (same chain as in Mancora), which was the party hostel of the town. The Wild Rover is probably the most interesting hostel we had ever stayed in, and that is saying a lot since we have frequented our fair share of hostels in our travels. It was pretty big with rooms all round a pool/bar area. Our room was right off the main pool area, which I had mild concerns about, especially since the rooms were not to be locked. The room we were in was a 3 bunk bed room with small storage boxes below each bed and a washroom. The wood storage box was long, thin and did not fit our backpacks. We ended up leaving our backpacks in the corner and putting our important stuff in the boxes on the floor (which was super annoying to get to). We each had a wristband with our name and room number on it that acted as our “room keys” and allowed us in and out of the hostel and to charge meals/drinks to our room. After unpacking, we were headed out and about in the town before the best part of the day- dune buggies and sand boarding! We were meeting the larger group up the road to check in to our tour. The tour groups and leaders were mildly disorganized but the fact that they have so many tours running at the same time and get everyone where they need to be is very impressive. The dune buggies were way cooler than I thought they were going to be! Jill and I had sweet front seats, which allowed us to see the scary twists and steep hills we were going down slightly earlier than everyone else. Our driver drove around the dunes with speed and clear knowledge of them. You could see hilly dunes and buggies in all directions. Our driver stopped 4-5 times so we could sand board down some of the steepest dunes I had ever seen. Jill was far more proficient in standing on the board than I was so I opted to lie down each time, which was almost as terrifying. On our last sand board run of the day- Jill and “Maria” collided due to Maria’s inability to steer. Thankfully, Jill ended up with only a sprained ankle (better than Maria’s broken arm) and a few scrapes. We finished the night off with a beautiful sunset and tons of photos with the dune buggies. We headed back to the meeting spot, which was halfway up the dunes surrounding the town, and stopped for some more amazing photos. The town looked so neat, nestled in the sand. After hobbling back to the hostel and showers, we met up with some people on our tour and had some dinner and drinks. The hostel was throwing a “full moon party” so we partied all night with our roommates- who ended up being weirdly similar to us (only several years younger). The party was definitely reminiscent of our time in Thailand especially with our buckets filled with booze. I crashed much earlier than the rest of the group but still had a blast.

Sunday September 29,2019 Wild Rover definitely knew how to through a party! We were both feeling less than great in the morning and had to be up slightly early for our pisco tasting and tour. We had a small breakfast before packing up the majority of our things. The group was picked up at the hostel to go just outside of town to El Catador- one of the oldest pisco vineyards in the country. We were taken on a tour of the vineyard and given the history of pisco and how to make it. Pisco is made from grapes in a similar process to wine but after the grapes are fermented, it goes through a distilling process (similar to many other alcohols). Despite being moderately hung over, we sampled pretty well each of the pisco’s El Catador made from the super sweet ones, to the more bitter ones and everything in between. They had a great line of cream piscos that were similar to Bailey’s but with tons of different added flavours such as chocolate and coconut. After the pisco tour, we hopped back on the bus to Huachachina for the afternoon. Fortunately, we were able to leave most of our stuff at the hostel, as that is where we were being picked up later in the day for our drive back to Lima. Since the town strip was rather small and Jill’s ankle was pretty sore, we found an amazing hostel (Bananas Hostel) to hang out at all afternoon. We had our phones and books and lounged in their hammocks and on their couches that were just off the main path but hidden in trees, flowers and gardens. It was a beautiful spot and a perfect way to end a busy weekend. The PeruHop Tour was picking us up from the hostel in the early evening but I hadn’t had a chance to get my magnet yet (I collect magnets from each city I travel to) so I walked around the whole town and to the outskirts to find the perfect one and the best fanny pack I could find. I hadn’t brought a purse and was carrying around my backpack most places when a fanny pack would do, so I was stoked to have found the perfect one with a black base and fun colours throughout. The bus back to Lima was about 4 hours without traffic. The tour guide was super sweet and brought bags of popcorn for each of us and put on a classic- Mrs. Doubtfire. We snoozed on and off and were at our hotel in Lima around 2200 that night. We checked into the Hotel Santa Cruz and were thankful to have a quiet private room (albeit a bit muggy) to get a good night’s rest.

Monday, September 30, 2019 The Hotel Santa Cruz is located in one of the more touristy and nice parts of Lima called Miraflores. It is a short walk to the road that runs along the ocean and is filled with bars, restaurants and shops. I had decided to check out a local Crossfit gym in the area so hopped in an Uber (3.5$) to Latido Crossfit for an 0800 class. I was one of only two people in our class, which was kind of fun. The workout didn’t involve a barbell which made me sad, but I was super excited to get a good workout in and do something I loved doing. Crossfit is such a neat sport and even though I didn’t understand most what the instructor said, I was still able to grasp what we were doing. Movement is universal and I even did some assisted handstand walking for the first time. After the class, I paid the $20 USD drop in fee and grabbed an Uber back to the hotel. Jill had made her way down for breakfast and we enjoyed the continental breakfast while I ran her through my workout. We got ready for the day and dropped off our laundry to the Laundromat across the street. This was the first time we had really done laundry in the week we were away and were super excited that it was only 6 soles a kg. Today, we were going to explore downtown Lima. Lima is Peru’s capitol city and is home to over 9 million people. Fun fact- it is the largest city in the dessert after Cairo. I won’t bore you with details of the city’s history (as this blog is already long enough), but there have been many civil and political issues in this city over its centuries since being founded in 1535. Lima has also seen its share of natural disasters including several damaging earthquakes. Our Uber driver told us that many of the streets downtown were closed due to some sort of political issue. We were a bit worried about this since we had been hearing stuff on the news about the President trying to disassemble congress. This wasn’t going to deter us from going to explore Lima’s downtown. Since Lima is a coastal city with warm air temperatures, the city always seems to have a fog over it, even though it only usually rains about once a month. Today was no exception. The temperature was mild but the sky was grey and sad (which we would come to associate with Lima). Somehow, we hooked up with a “Lima by Walking” Tour and met our tour Leader Jose at the Plaza Des Armes downtown. He took us on a walking tour of the Plaza Des Armes that included seeing the Changing of the Guard, City Hall, Cathedral, historic fountain and explained what the other important buildings in the square were. We learned a lot about Peru’s political history, especially about many of the issues Lima has had over the years. Jose told us that Lima is considered to be the Food Capitol of South America (this might not be actual fact but Peruvians believe it) due to its vast array of cultural influences for food. Lately, there have been a lot more Asian influences and Chinese/Peruvian fusion restaurants called “Chifas” that are all the rage. Jose took us around most of the downtown core and taught us about the various areas in Lima. Lima city has 43 districts, each having its own mayor which I thought was kind of interesting. We got to see the Rimac River, which runs through the city but is now empty as it is the dry season. He pointed out a few important places and a main street that we shouldn’t go to as it is more “working class” and have lots of crime including mugging. We enjoyed some chicha (which can be alcohol and non) and is made from grape juice with lime, sugar and a touch of cinnamon. It was pretty tasty but quite sugary for me. Jose said it was almost as sweet as Inca Kola, which is known as the flavor of Peru and is seen being drunk by almost everyone in the country. Allegedly, diabetes and obesity are high in the countries as well (as per Jose). We finished our tour with some pisco (obviously) after having learned so much about Lima/Peru’s history and all of the politics that have been going on lately. I was really impressed with this tour and would recommend it to anyone. They had several other tours and we were planning to check one of them out when we returned to Lima. Since we had a bit more time in downtown, we took the classic photo in front of the Lima sign and grabbed the most amazing chocolate/caramel stuffed churros of life. We were going to check out the Catacombs and Cathedral but realized they were 10-15 soles per person each to get in. We were also history-ed out by this point. I had also seen the catacombs in Paris and I feel as though once you’ve seen one tunnel of old skulls, you’ve seen them all. Our Uber back to Miraflores took a bit longer as it was rush hour in Lima- it seemed to always been rush hour though. We grabbed a late lunch at Barra Mar around the corner from our hotel. We share the stuffed avocado and causa (which is the potato and tuna or other fish layered dish) and I had a delicious ceviche bowl. The restaurant was small and everything was written in Spanish but the service and food was great. Our laundry was done by the time we got back, so we paid for it and got ready to start our packing, as we were leaving for Cusco in the am. We met a rep for Tucan Travel in the lobby at 6pm and he went over basic info about the flights and such with us. We were being picked up at the hotel in the am and being brought to the airport for our flight to Cusco and the start of our Inca trail adventure. It was an early to bed after we finalized our packing since 0500 starts to the day are no joke.

*Below are some of my fave photos from our first week or so in Peru (in no specific order as usual because Tumblr is annoying)

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samuelfields · 5 years ago

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A Severance Negotiation Success Story For Parents Looking To Leave Work

The #1 thing I recommend for anybody who aspires to retire early is to negotiate a severance. If you are planning on quitting anyway, there is no downside.

Every time I hear of someone quitting their job, I’m happy for them. But at the same time, I also liken it to a baby panda dying in the woods. Leaving so much potential money on the table is a travesty because of ignorance, fear of confrontation, or not knowing your worth. I want to change this.

I’m pleased to announce the 3rd edition of How To Engineer Your Layoff is now live! The book first went into production in 2012 after I engineered my own layoff from the finance world at age 34. Negotiating a severance package was my #1 enabler for retiring early.

Over the past six months, my wife has been diligently editing, updating, and adding to the book after our little one goes to bed. we’ve taken in all the feedback readers have provided since the 2nd edition was released in 2017 and made the book even better.

Here’s a summary of what’s new:

1) The third edition expands the ebook from 150 to over 180 pages. We’ve added three new chapters bringing the ebook’s total to 20 chapters. In addition, we’ve added a useful worksheet and checklist to go through to help guide you step-by-step through the severance negotiation process.

2) Thanks to continuous feedback from readers, we’ve been able to add new real-life case studies in the third edition to demonstrate just how beneficial it can be to negotiate a severance.

3) The third edition also brings in recent data, revised facts and figures, new charts and graphics, and an expanded featured posts section to help you learn more. We’ve also added helpful information on employment news, unemployment resources, market trends, and more.

To help celebrate the launch of the third edition, one of our readers, Mike, wanted to share his story of how negotiating a severance changed his family’s life for the better. His is a case study for working parents who want to be stay at home parents.

I’ve also created a $20 discount code “getlaidoff” for anybody interested.

A Severance Negotiation Success Story

Sam’s book, How To Engineer Your Layoff: Make A Small Fortune By Saying Goodbye, is a must buy for anybody looking to negotiate a severance, retire early, or simply do something else with their life. In our case, it was for my wife to spend more time with our two kids.

My name is Mike and I am pretty much you’re average American. I am married with two kids and a house in the suburbs. My wife, Maureen, is level headed, calm and non-confrontational.

While that works for our marriage as we rarely get into meaningful disagreements, I believe those qualities hurt her compensation at work.

Throughout the eight-year tenure at her current company, I have often had to push her to speak up and advocate for herself. After all, if you won’t stand up for yourself, you cannot expect others to.

While it has taken some gentle coaxing and sometimes a little pressure, each time she has taken my advice to speak up for herself, it has paid off.

This is a story of encouraging everyone to alway speak up and ask for what you want.

Always Ask For What You Want

Situation #1: Asking for a raise after completing a rotation program

Maureen began working at Company X, which is publicly traded, about eight years ago. She was in the company’s rotation program. The rotation program is comprised of three separate one-year stints in different departments of the Finance Division.

While in the program, Maureen received excellent reviews at all three of her positions and upon completion, she was placed in a highly visible department with high expectations and a significant workload.

When discussing her new role, I was adamant that she needed to be compensated properly, and based on her excellent reviews, she had the leverage and performance to justify a significant salary increase.

After a few conversations, Maureen agreed to speak up and scheduled a meeting with her boss. In the meeting Maureen asked for a salary commensurate with her new position and not just the token annual increase that comes with her review. She was able to point to her work experience and the commendation she had received from her prior bosses.

Result: Maureen received 90% of the increase she asked for and in her annual review, also began to receive equity options in the Company on a rolling, three-year vesting schedule.

Situation #2: Going From Full-time to Part-time

In December of 2015, we had our first child. After taking a twelve-week maternity leave, Maureen returned to work. As stated, her job was demanding with ten to twelve hour days being commonplace.

My job, as an energy trader also had long days, irregular hours as well as weekend work, not to mention a heinous commute. Despite these factors, we tried both working full time for a couple of months.

The result was a horrible quality of life. We had no time for leisure or for each other. Further, there was high stress on my mother as the baby’s primary babysitter and caretaker.

Convinced we could no longer go on like this, I told Maureen that she should meet with her boss and tell him that she either needed to immediately transition to part-time employment or she had to quit. Initially, Maureen was skeptical. Not only did no one in her group work part-time, but most people also worked 50+ hours a week.

However, my argument was that we really had nothing to lose by her requesting this change, as the current situation was unsustainable. Again, after taking some time to consider my suggestion, Maureen met with her boss and explained that it was part-time or bust.

Result: After a week to consider her request as “they have never done this before,” Maureen was granted a part-time position and started working 8:30 AM – 12:30 PM, five days a week. It changed everyone’s lives for the better, especially my daughter’s who could now spend more time with her mother and now Maureen has been a part-time worker for almost 2.5 years.

Additionally, while Maureen’s salary was cut in half, it was almost like found money as we were ready to forego her entire paycheck. This found money was only supplemented through more equity vesting, options granted, 401k matches and service time accrued.

Situation #3: Receiving A Severance & All Her Equity

Maureen got pregnant with our second child in February of 2018. We had always planned for her to stop working, at least for a while, when our second child was born. We felt like this would make the most sense for us as the cost of daycare becomes very expensive when you get to two kids, especially as Maureen was now only working part-time anyway.

Like many of you, I have been an avid reader of Financial Samurai for years now. I knew that Sam was an expert in negotiating a severance and ‘engineering a layoff.’ I read all the articles he posted on this topic and showed them to my wife, encouraging her to try and do the same.

She said I was crazy, yadda, yadda, yadda and that her situation was completely different. Well that all changed when her company was acquired during the summer of 2018. With such a large acquisition there was certain to be layoffs, especially in a support function like my wife’s.

As she began to read the tea leaves at work as more information about the transaction was signaled, disseminated and gossiped about on a daily basis, I took it upon myself to contact Sam.

After engaging Sam as a consultant, he and I spoke and went through the entire situation (as well as everything else in my ‘financial life’). Sam was able to give me some good advice, such as expertise on things like WARN Act pay and protected classes.

But most importantly, Sam knew how to stage the discussions Maureen was to have with her boss to optimize her benefits. Maureen more or less stuck to the plan he outlined and we are very happy with the outcome.

Result: Maureen not only received WARN Act pay and the vesting of ALL her equity options ($40,000 value), she also received a severance of 15 weeks worth of pay! In fact, Maureen was actually able to procure a letter from the HR department stating that she would get severance, including for those years, on a pro-rated scale, in which she worked part-time.

We are over the moon, and this result is by far better than what we had hoped for. Before reading How To Engineer Your Layoff, we thought there was little-to-no chance she’d be able to get any of her equity options, let alone a severance worth 15 weeks of pay on top of three months of WARN Act pay.

The overall severance package was worth over $85,000. If we had not bought Sam’s book, my wife would have just quit.

Always Negotiate Your Freedom

The bottom line is that purchasing Sam’s book was money well spent, literally times a thousand. Not only did I learn a lot and get great guidance, but it forced my wife to be proactive as I could say to her, “Maureen, I spent good money on getting this advice. You have to talk to your boss before you go out on maternity.”

Engaging Sam was kind of my version of speaking up and advocating for myself. Like all the situations described earlier, I am happy with the results and it reinforces the idea that no one is a better champion for yourself than you.

As Sam says, “never quit, get laid off instead.” How To Engineer Your Layoff is a must read for anybody looking to leave their job with a nice financial runway. The first five years of a kid’s life goes quick. It’s great to make the most of these years.

Regards,

Mike

Readers, why do people fear speaking up for what they think they deserve at work? If you are willing to quit work, why wouldn’t yout at least try to negotiate a severance? Don’t forget to use the temporary “getlaidoff” code for $20 off of you plan to buy the book.

The post A Severance Negotiation Success Story For Parents Looking To Leave Work appeared first on Financial Samurai.

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