#hopefully i make some friends in grad school before i get thrown back into the cold world of adults | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

honeyrose-tea · 4 years ago

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this has been a strange start to the new year for sure. how are you doing? what did you think of the situation in the capitol? any thoughts or worries about the rest of the month? I'm curious to hear your thoughts on everything. -🌙

thank you so much for the ask💞 almost every day I check my inbox anticipating the next time I'll hear from you. just knowing that someone cares.... it really does a lot for my self-esteem. I don't have many friends right now and the few I do are very busy and have a lot of things they would rather do than talk to me. thank you for making time to listen to me and ask me how I'm doing. you wouldn't believe how many people don't. I haven't always been the most consistent presence for you and I'm sorry. I'm trying to do better and be less selfish because I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of that. thank you for always being kind to me, pen pal.

there is a lot I want to say regarding the capitol and the situation in the country in general. as a social science student (and hopefully one day a professor!) these situations are of great academic interest to me. as a bisexual woman and an informed US citizen who cares about my rights I am also very personally vested in American issues. but first I would like to tackle your question regarding how I'm doing:)

I'm doing pretty good. classes have started back up but most of mine are online. I'm thinking of switching to online exclusively because of how much emotional (and sometimes physical) labor in-person classes are, and also for the sake of my health and my parents'. it's funny how so many things we did with ease before the pandemic seem so burdensome now. even small interactions are anxiety-inducing now, and I find myself having a hard time socializing even casually. like a muscle that has atrophied without use, my social skills are awful now. on a happier note, my productivity and creativity are both at all-time highs since social interactions aren't using up all my energy anymore. I brought my record player to my dorm room and I've been listening to a bunch of music, I've also been writing and recording some music of my own. I have a couple of demos and if you or anyone else is interested, I'll post them on here. once I record and edit full band versions I'll put them up on my soundcloud. I've tried sharing some of my stuff with some friends but none of them really care and I don't want to annoy them. besides, it's more for myself anyway. I wang to prove to myself that I can make music and that I can say something worth saying. a lot of my struggle over the past 6 months has been that I feel as though nothing I do or say can change anything, that none of my actions matter. I struggle a lot with control and I've been working on it for years, but it's still really hard for me. anyway. I'm enjoying class and what I do outside of it. I've been in my element living alone again (in my dorm) and feeling free to wear/do/say what I want, when I want. I wash my dishes and sing to myself and manage my time and drink lots of artificially sweetened and heavily flavored coffee without anyone around to judge me. and I get to cry and masturbate when I want, both of which are helpful in regulating my moods. I don't know. it's not like I'm doing anything exciting, but I am doing each thing I do well and with a happy heart. I feel like this portion of my life is something of a hibernation- the winter seasons combined with the pandemic have me in a cozy little daydream, reading and self-reflecting and getting back in tune with myself and my passions. I have a feeling that the spring and summer will be very vibrant bustling months so I am trying to enjoy my rest and soak in as much knowledge about myself and the world around me as I can. it's hard for me to live in the present and not get antsy (connected to control issues, I think) but I'm getting better at it. on the subject of the future, I've also been using this time to look into grad school and prepare for the GRE (a standardized test required for most grad school applications, similar to the ACT/SAT). I'm learning a lot that I didn't know since neither of my parents went further than undergrad, and I'm getting excited. I'm really looking forward to doing research. I've already been collecting some thesis ideas for an undergraduate-level thesis that I have to complete next year for the honors college, and hopefully I can turn that into a masters and/or PHD thesis when the time comes. now, on to more important matters than my silly little life.

I have very complicated feelings about america. I do have some attachment to some of the original ideas that are at the foundation- "bring me your huddled masses...", "all men are created equal", the general spirit of democracy, etc.- all of these are valid and worth keeping (in some form) to me. I think a lot of good people and ideas exist around us and I believe that we must be as empathetic and kind as possible to one another in order to navigate the current climate and preserve the good that we do have. that said, america was also founded on some pretty terrible, bigoted principles and our history- as well as our present- is marred by injustices. our society has become highly individualistic because of capitalism, and it has resulted in considerable division on every level. the competition that fuels capitalism is like an invasive species of plant, it does not only exist within our economy but it slithers out into our social world and the way we relate to others. I think capitalism coupled with our post-enlightenment founding is the source of most all of our problems as a country. capitalism has taken root in america in a way more malicious and all-consuming than in any other culture, because it was there at the beginning of our country and all of our social norms have grown out of it. many other cultures have existed long before capitalism and though it has modified their culture, it has not altogether become it. because america was founded on capitalism, we have no cultural identity outside of it. america is, itself, capitalism. that is precisely why america is experiencing all of the best and worst parts of capitalism at their most extreme. it is why, as I mentioned previously, we are perhaps the most divisive and competitive society in the modern world, and probably in history. we are the richest and most powerful country but we have the largest wealth gap and incarceration rate, among many other extremes.

all of this is to say that the rise of Trump and fascism in this country has been a long time coming, and unmistakably inevitable. to defeat it we will have to break america down to its fundamentals, throw out everything that is unethical and unjust, and rebuild our entire society from there. this is radical and hard to imagine, it will also be very difficult to execute, but I strongly believe that much of our societal systems just cannot be reformed, they must be thrown out and replaced.

the capitol riots were inexcusable and sickening but decidedly inevitable. this has been steadily building for america's entire existence. I think it will get worse before it gets better, as there are already plans for bigger and more numerous protests across the country in the following weeks. that said, I feel hopeful as I see the anti-fascist movement grow in the wake of fascism, I am hopeful as I see many people being radicalized and awakened to the realities of this country's failings. I don't know how exactly we will even begin to rid ourselves of the biases, prejudices, and downright hatred that plagues our country. I don't know how we will relate on an individual level to those with such deeply-ingrained hate in their hearts. I don't know how we will change our systems of government and economy to reflect new cultural values that we begin to build together. I am not sure what the future will hold. I do believe, however, that we will triumph over this moment and that the future will be better. I think that the only way to radically change and unite so many vastly different people and remove the blinders from their eyes is through a terrible, historic awakening like the one we are having now. the situation itself is awful, but I am hopeful that out of this mess we become a nation more committed to justice and to some of the ideals which we have falsely claimed to be emulating for our entire history.

so yes, I am worried about the next few weeks, months, and even years. there is no end to the pursuit of a just society, and I think every informed citizen is always a bit apprehensive about certain aspects of their culture. there will always be problems to combat and injustices to rectify, but I think that we will soon be moving to a better place, that we will remember these moments and say, "never again". I am hopeful, despite seeing some of the worst of humanity in recent days, that these atrocities will bring positive change.

I know that was long and instead of discussing issues about the capitol, or even just current political issues, I expanded the scope considerably and dragged in a lot of things from history and grander sociopolitical theories. still, I think it is hard to talk about the insurrection attempt without talking about a lot more. thank you for reading my takes and caring about them. I spend a lot of time thinking about these things, and it feels nice to share them with someone other than my annoyed professors who want me to shut up so they can finish the lecture and stick to their semester schedule.

I hope you're well and that you're staying safe and healthy. are you in school now too? have you or your family had the virus? thank you for coming to talk to me, I always enjoy it. I'll talk to you again soon💞

#pen pal

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castcharmperson · 5 years ago

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Oh dang dude! TarotQuest and Class of 1021 sound super cool! I love the idea of TQ revolving around the narrative of tarot cards, and fantasy grad school? Heck YES! Sounds legit! Also the characters sound like tons of fun! Your personal characters Peach Blossom and James also sound like totally interesting characters, and I'm sure it's such a blast to actually be a playable character! So I have a few more questions~ What are your top tips for DMs? For players? What makes a campaign a success?

you are now my favorite person and also i am crying. your enthusiasm is so kind and good thank youuuu

Great questions! Going to answer in reverse order:

Campaign Success- make sure your goal is always Fun. Now, Fun can mean different things for different players. For TarotQuest, fun is both “how much chaos can I cause” as well as “I want to Feel Things” for my players. For 1021, it’s largely more the former. When I play as Janes, it’s the latter. In Fate of War, Fun was “the power of friendship!!” If you’re a DM, try to ask your players what they love/want more of in dnd before starting a new campaign (or even after each session! I love getting feedback).

I’d also totally recommend Griffin’s philosophy for bigger narrative structure if you’re DM a grand story. Make the story module. If players want to seduce the grim reaper or cast Geas on a minor deity (Bo and Taako have similar chaotic energies. But if I give my sister a secret in-narrative sibling, I will make her cry. And I already made her cry once in TQ and it felt horrible) but those smaller arcs will hopefully keep the bigger story in one piece (Johnny Voreman in taz and [redacted because my date follows this blog] in TQ)

Player Advice- tbh, I’m not often a player. I think my best advice would be “be passionate, be committed, but accept that death saving throws will happen.” My first character, Lyra*, was a wizard with the worst AC. I was on the brink of death in most rounds of combat. It was very stressful because I was sooo attached to her. In the final session of that campaign, I critically failed my third failed death save. It felt like the dice themselves were screaming “your problematic fav is dead” and it hurt. Beyond even things to that extreme, try not to let bad dice rolls affect your attitude as a person. When the DM says no, accept that. Also, when the DM is clearly in the middle of a monologue of flavor text, please don’t interrupt them. Because when you ask five minutes later what was described during that monologue, the DM will be annoyed with you.

Your goals are Fun and Respect. Also, don’t be afraid to Go Hard with improv and crazy character choices. The DM usually is going All Out as an actor. If you are too, that makes the DM feel less weird.

DM Advice- accept now that your players will interrupt you. Try not to take it personally, they’re just excited.

But in all seriousness, take that module advice to heart. At the end of the day, dnd isn’t your story, it’s a shared story. It’s a collaboration. The best moments will be the ones you never saw coming. Prepare ahead, do your homework and really flesh out your world as much as you can. Your players will not see all of it, but it will always feel better to be overprepared than underprepared. Be flexible, know that everything you prepared might be thrown out the window. The best advice I have for DMing is “don’t say no. Tell them to roll for it.” Because sometimes your players want to do something wild- let them try. Let them fail. Or, sometimes they roll a nat!20 and you have to let them do the crazy thing they wanted to do. When that happens, my favorite thing to do is “yeah okay, you successfully do that crazy thing. Now here are the consequences of that.” With my players, this is usually when they persuade an npc to join them on an adventure. I usually can’t manage an npc and run the rest of the story. So when they roll well, I let them ‘succeed’ in presaussion, and the brutally murder said npc in front of them a few hours later. Nat!20 doesn’t mean “everything goes how you want and there are no consequences.” It means “yes, you do this very specific action how you want.”

Think about why you want to DM and be aware of what you’re wanting to get out of dnd in this very particular role. I DM because I want to tell stories- I have beginnings and some endings, but I don’t have the middle of stories. I want my players to make that middle bit with me, to give life to the story. If you want to DM to see how much you can break the players you’re playing with, that’s fine, but make sure the players have a similar desire to break your world right back.

And remember that this is supposed to be Fun for you too. If DMing isn’t Fun, take a step back and figure out why. You don’t want to dread DMing. Stage fright (which I even get playing with my closest and dearest friends) is understandable, but DMing should not be misery.

This is way more than I expected to write. Hopefully this makes sense? Your questions are so insightful!!! I’m so honored you asked lil ole me for advice!

*so funny story. I have a necromantic wizard named Lyra [lie-rah]. With no knowledge of her, my sister’s boyfriend made a blacksmith warlock named Lyrra [lee-rah] at the exact same time. It’s equal parts hilarious and a nightmare for my easily confused brain.

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #charmedasks #charmedanswers #really though these are excellent and thoughtful questions #i hope i did them justice #at the end of the day dnd is a game. and games should be about fun with people you care about

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academicsapphic · 7 years ago

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92 Question Tag

Tagged by @annikki-studies thanks a bunch!

LAST:

Drink: always water

Phone call: the pharmacy

Text message: “everyone i know just leaves after sleeping together unless they’re like dating” - me to a GC

Song you listened to: Crushed Little Stars - Mitski

Time you cried: i don’t even remember which frightens me cause i normally cry every five seconds

HAVE YOU:

6. Dated someone twice: i haven’t even dated someone once 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: i haven’t even kissed someone once 8. Been cheated on: see #6 9. Lost someone special: i don’t feel like i have? 10. Been depressed: it’s my way of life 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: okay so i did drink a punch at my friend’s party and i didn’t get drunk but my body completely rejected it cause i drank half a cup really slowly with water, was completely lucid, and ten minutes later started vomiting. that’s enough liquor for me i shall stick with beer. and im still salty cause i was like i wanna see what its like to be tipsy i wanna let loose and have fun! and my body was like “how about no fun and only puke”. all that to say: yes and no??? DON’T DRINK LIQUOR MIXED WITH JUICE IT’S A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN EITHER DO SHOTS OR DRINK BEER OR DRINK NOTHING

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS: 12-14: purple, certain blues, gray

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. Made new friends: omg so many. ive made shitty ones then i made my actual ones. all you do in college is make friends. 16. Fallen out of love: havent been in it. ive fallen out of infatuation though 17. Laughed until you cried: of course, all the time, my friends are ridiculous 18. Found out someone was talking about you: yeah that’s always a great feeling 19. Met someone who changed you: i’m sure lots of people i’ve met are responsible for who i am today 20. Found out who your friends are: yes, see #15 21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: see #7 GENERAL: 22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: all of them why would i add strangers 23. Do you have any pets: a dog 24. Do you want to change your name: not really 25. What did you do for your last Birthday: i think we went to dinner 26. What time did you wake up: like 6 something? not being at college means i have a normal sleep schedule and i hate it 27. What were you doing at midnight last night: sleeping i hate summer 28. Name something you can’t wait for: MOVE-IN MOVE-IN MOVE-IN I WANNA GO BACK TO UNI SO BAD 29. When was the last time you saw your mom: about an hour or two ago 30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: so many things i cant even list but also im very grateful for my life so like idk 31. What are you listening to right now: HIMYM 32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: ?? idk 33. Something that is getting on your nerves: summer, registration, sometimes my family 34. Most visited websites: Netflix, YouTube, Tumblr, Amazon, Vandy’s registration site, and MyFitnessPal

LOST QUESTIONS. I JUST PUT IN RANDOM INFO ABOUT ME 35. Mole/s: my arm, my neck, my chin 36. Mark/s: a lot, birthmarks, scars, places ive burned myself 37. Childhood dream: same one i have now, be a professional musician and performer 38. Hair color: dark almost black brown 39. Long or short hair: long, but recently my hair got cut and i actually really like it short too but for the long run, long 40. Do you have a crush on someone: no life is boring and im giving my feelings a break from getting hurt 41. What do you like about yourself: sometimes my music is good and my eyes are a nice color but i hate everything about me lol 42. Piercings: basic ears 43. Blood type: no idea 44. Nickname: Bree 45. Relationship status: single, as i have been for my whole life, as i will be for my whole life 46. Zodiac: Aquarius

47. Pronouns: she/her 48. Favorite TV Show: Fringe/The Office 49. Tattoos: Nope, maybe someday, something small on my wrist or hand, but probably not cause my pain tolerance is -100 50. Right or left hand: left 51. Surgery: nope 52. Hair dyed in different color: ive gotten highlights a couple times 53. Sport: softball from childhood through high school 55. Vacation: going to myrtle beach next week 56. Pair of trainers: what are trainers? MORE GENERAL: 57. Eating: just made myself dinner (veggie burger with lettuce bun and 100-calorie fries) 58. Drinking: water, obv 59. I’m about to: eat some frozen grapes and do some cardio 61. Waiting for: School to start jesus i wanna go back so bad

62. Want: all my wildest dreams to come true 63. Get married: i like really really wanna spend my life with someone so hopefully that happens someday 64. Career: idk yet. maybe grad school, maybe law school, maybe my music career will take off and ill get to do my passion for a living WHICH IS BETTER 65. Hugs or kisses: i wouldnt know cause no kisses yet 66. Lips or eyes: eyes 67. Shorter or taller: for guys, taller, for girls i dont care cause theyre all so beautiful i shant dare have a preference for their anything 68. Older or younger: older but not by a lot 70. Nice arms or nice stomach: i truly dont care i have neither so how could i judge 71. Sensitive or loud: sensitive i love crying and i wanna have a df who cries too 72. Hook up or relationship: not that i could get either, but relationship 73. Troublemaker or hesitant: troublemaker cause im so hesitant HAVE YOU EVER: 74. Kissed a Stranger: no 75. Drank hard liquor: yes it tastes so bad but i stuck through it to try to get drunk 76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: i literally lost my right contact at the beginning of senior year and spent the rest of highschool wearing just my left one. i’m a mess. i’ve never lost my glasses though *knock on wood* 77. Turned someone down: yes which is amazing 78. Sex on the first date: if im going on a date with someone ive probably already known them for a while since dating strangers terrifies me so sure maybe why not 79. Broken someone’s heart: doubt it 80. Had your heart broken: not truly? like ive never been in love but in an infatuation crush sense? literally all the time. i spent all second semester so heartbroken that i was in physical pain for months at a time over this guy i liked so much who had a girlfriend and was also really annoying so it wasnt even worth it. it took a therapy session to get out of it.

81. Been arrested: no my black ass would probably be killed first 82. Cried when someone died: yes 83. Fallen for a friend: I never fall for friends. that’s so weird to me. when i first meet you i’m either not attracted to you so you’re therefore just my friend, or i’m attracted to you and i can’t just like you as a friend so you’re a crush. but i’ve never been friends with someone i liked, i’ve only liked strangers and people i’ve never talked to cause im pathetic. i could never like one of my friends oh my god. when friends like me, i get so uncomfortable i can hardly look at them. DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 84. Yourself: honestly i have to cause its kind of hard to let down the only person on your team at all times 85. Miracles: kind of, i believe that everything happens for a reason and the universe/gods have a plan so if something miraculous happens it was meant to happen 86. Love at first sight: i believe in first really strong attraction that turns into love 87. Santa Claus: not anymore :’( 88. Kiss on the first date: definitely, even before the first date who cares OTHER: 90. Current best friend name: don’t really have a single best friend 91. Eye color: brown 92. Favorite movie: Breakfast at Tiffany’s probably

#mine

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coleymari-blog · 7 years ago

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Cyber Space is Always Sweeter : Chapter 3

Summary: Lucy is a down to Earth, studious, responsible runaway attending Magnolia College. Natsu is a rambunctious, intelligent, pyrophilic fraternity boy going to the same school. They don’t exactly run in the same circles and they have one hell of a history. What happens when the names and facades disappear and all that’s left are words blinking on a screen? Modern day, College/Pen Pals AU. I’m sorry I suck at intros. Rated M for Language, Adult Situations, and future sexual situations.

Chapters 1 | 2

Just five more minutes 'til freedom.

Natsu was almost ready to erupt from his seat. As much as he didn't mind being a Teacher's Assistant for Makarov, he was itching to get to the party. He knew the rest of the brothers would be pre-gaming while the old geezer was still rattling on about the importance of utilizing his office hours (especially if they were a cute, barely legal co-ed, but they didn't really talk about that). Every other professor let out early on the first day of classes, but the grad student should have known better than to expect that from Makarov. He watched the clock on the wall tick down to 7pm and his alarm was a room full of college sophomores running towards their own escape.

After checking in, and being lectured again on 'being late', Natsu took off towards the Fairy Tail house like a bat out of Hell. He knew he could have taken the campus trolley, but with his motion sickness? He wasn't that desperate to make it home. Knowing he could shave a couple minutes off the run, the pinkette made a mad dash through the bottom floor of the library, colliding with a caffeine-wired senior who chewed him out for sending his work flying across the carpet. He helped clean up the mess, apologizing for the struggle. The time he'd saved on the shortcut he'd ended up spending twice as long dealing with the consequences. Story of his life.

Natsu was running up the fraternity house’s front steps when he could hear the mayhem that was already ensuing. The block hadn’t opened up yet, all the front doors to all the houses still being closed. The Row was set up in more of a horseshoe really, with Fairy Tail anchoring one end and Sabretooth on the other. Honestly, they were probably doing the same exact thing as his brothers were doing, preparing. His cheshire grin was ear to ear when he burst through the door and was immediately greeted by raucous laughter and a fresh can of beer. Everyone was already on a decent buzz, Gray challenging Loke to shots off the bar, Laxus and Bickslow were currently racing against Gajeel and Romeo in their own game of Flip Cup, everyone seemed to be gearing up for a fantastic night.

“Yo! Flame Brain!” Gray called out, shaking his head after his most recent shot, Loke bending over the bar groaning quietly. “Did you bring the provisions?” Natsu made his way over and immediately dropped the glass bottle on the table, cracking it open at the same time. Luckily he’d been able to go off campus to procure it between his seminar and his last stint in Hell. If he hadn’t, Gray probably would have killed him. It was a time-honored tradition between the two of them, Loke sometimes if he was on their good side at the time.

“Calm your tits, Ice Dick,” Natsu replied, grabbing two glasses and pouring about two fingers worth for the both of them. They knocked it back with practiced skill and went for round two without a second thought. The raven-haired man dropped the bottle behind the bar on the ‘Brother’s Only’ shelf. Hopefully, the sacredness of the shelf would keep their semi-private bottle safe. They both knew the only exceptions were dates or pledge brothers.

Before long, there was shouting from the street outside the house indicating the beginning of the block party. Reedus, being closest to the door, was commanded to open theirs so that people knew they were participating. Luckily this wasn’t a campus-wide event so it was limited to other greeks and their dates, meaning way less foot traffic through the house. As far as atmosphere, Fairy Tail had decided to go with a casual bar feel with popular dance music. Mermaid Heel was doing a “Slow and Sexy” party, playing nothing but sensual, partnered kind of music. Lamia Scale was utilizing all their party lights and had two rivaling Techno DJs, one inside their house and one on the front lawn to supply the block with music as well. Quattro Cerberus went absolutely wild, Natsu able to hear them while he was running home. From what he could tell, they were playing nothing but energizing music and supplying copious amounts of booze. Sabertooth was throwing a costume party, each of them dressed in all sorts of elaborate (or scandalous) outfits. Blue Pegasus chose a much more elegant theme, their members all dressed to the nines like they were straight out of a movie premier. Lily Heart had thrown a bubble party, their house and lawn covered in technicolor foam. The other, smaller, organizations were throwing smaller parties but all in all, there were twelve houses opened up and ready for party goers.

A couple hours of passed by and Natsu was ready to give the other houses a shot, especially after Gray had found his company for the evening in a woman with striking blue hair, continuously referring to herself in the third person. A few minutes of that mess and Natsu was ready to pull his salmon hair out by the roots. He was on his way out when he ran into Gajeel and his girlfriend, Levi or something. Unfortunately, he was also greeted by a familiar blonde who was already trying to run away.

Grinning to himself, rubbing the back of his neck, Natsu looked down at her and tried to ease the ever-mounting tension. “Hey, aren’t you that Lily Heart girl?"

Gods the library could be boring at night.

The afternoon had flown by as Lucy worked the book depository, filing them into different categories before making her rounds of the floors to return them to their rightful place. Unlike some of the others, she actually enjoyed the busy work. She loved losing herself in the stacks, her earbuds firmly lodged in her ears as she listened to her rather eclectic playlists. She’d even managed to find a couple of spots that she knew would be good studying spots for her and Levy.

The freshman had been enjoying herself so thoroughly that she didn’t realize it was time to switch over to her front desk shift until she heard her name over the library PA system. The only downside to that task was the fact that she couldn’t listen to her music. However, she was allowed to work on her homework which was a huge plus. It was almost like getting paid to study! Granted, after paying for her school expenses, she only received about five dollars an hour but it was still more than nothing. She’d heard of other on-campus jobs, like the Catering team, and had made a mental note to check it out when she had the time. Her Chemistry class already had homework so she began that while sitting at the desk, answering the random people that would appear before her.

It was about five minutes until the library was supposed to close when it happened. In he ran like a pink blur, immediately colliding with one of the students that had been glued to his seat for the past couple of hours before finally heading home. Lucy couldn't help but giggle as Natsu got told off but nonetheless watched as he helped clean up the mess he’d caused. She couldn’t help but smile softly at the nice action. And just as quickly as he’d appeared, the frat boy was gone.

Lucy shut down her laptop, cleaned up the desk, and put the ‘Closed’ sign out on the desktop before heading out with the rest of the library staff. She sighed remembering that Levy had wanted to go to that Greek Row party. Both she and her new boyfriend were affiliated somewhere and Lucy shuddered at her memories of her own attempt at joining the brainless automatons. She was glad things hadn’t worked out...right? All she’d wished is that things had ended way differently.

The blonde, upon reaching her dorm, texted her friend and agreed to go out that night. She immediately went to her bag (as she hadn’t fully unpacked yet) and pulled out some of the hottest clothes she had. They were some things that her ex-stylist Aquarius had picked up for her when she’d first gotten accepted to M.C., causing the girl to smile at the memory of the mostly-vile woman. While she missed her life back in Crocus, the life of an heiress, Lucy was beyond grateful for her independence. It hadn’t all be sunshine and flowers but she could definitely say she had learned a thing or two about more than just school.

After about an hour and a half, with one last text message and a final application of lipstick, Lucy felt ready to take on the world. She was ready to face the people that had been so very cruel to her and show them that they hadn’t broken her down. Part of her wished to run into Minerva and her minions but a majority wanted to avoid her like the plague. Her phone made a soft, twinkling, bell-like sound to indicate Levy’s alert that she and Gajeel had arrived outside her dorm to drive her to the party.

It wasn’t a long drive but it felt like an eternity while the freshman grew more anxious in the backseat. She remembered something that Master Scorpio had told her once, that even if she was afraid that she was never to show fear. She was to funnel whatever energy it was into her attack. This was no different. A drink at the six major houses and she’d head back to her dorm. She’d start with Fairy Tail and make her way to Sabertooth where she was already friends with one of the brothers. Plus, she figured it’d be nice to see Sting if he wasn’t “otherwise occupied”. Once they parked Gajeel’s Mustang in the parking lot of Fairy Tail, the three of them walked inside, only to be met by none other than Natsu Dragneel himself. It certainly didn’t help the situation when he brought them up.

“No, I’m not affiliated with those girls,” Lucy hissed, her grip tightening on her handbag. Flashbacks of the party kept swirling in her head, the worst ones causing her heart to race uncontrollably. “Apparently I wasn’t their brand of ‘witch’”. That earned her a glare from Levy and a grin from Gajeel. He liked the blondie, she definitely had spunk.

Natsu sputtered, the alcohol obvious on his breath. “I- uh--” he murmured, grabbing a shot from a passing tray and downing it swiftly. “Sorry, had no idea. I just remembered that you and Minerva used to hang. My bad.”

The fact that he even insinuated that he didn’t remember what else that had transpired between them before drove Lucy crazy inside. With a huff, she apologized to Levy and broke away from the group, making her way to the bar. She didn’t even look back, she just focused on the prize, hoping she’d have the strength to make it to the other five houses.

#nalu fanfic #nalu fic #ftfanfics #ft fanfiction #nalu #let me know what you think y'all #:d #cyber space is always sweeter #;csias

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speaknowslut13 · 3 years ago

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Hi honey bunches!

I really appreciate that! I’ve always kind of thought no kids/no marriage, and then I went through an identity crisis and finally came to terms with my sexuality in my early 20s and then I was like “yeah definitely no” haha. So many people are like “you’ll definitely change your mind” and I find it rather obnoxious. And while I’m pretty sure I don’t want biological children, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about becoming a foster parent, and would love to get to a place in my life where I could do that.

Feel free to talk about the complicated family situation if you want! (Or not, totally no pressure, but I definitely understand having a complicated family.) my parents also did a courthouse wedding and I honestly love their wedding photos, they’re so cute! Do you have any pictures of your dress that you can/want to share?

Gosh that sounds awful! I’m glad you were okay though. Out of my sibling/cousins (there’s 5 of us and all pretty close!) I’m actually the only one who *hasn’t* been in a major wreck. I still vividly remember getting a phone call from my sister after she rolled her pickup (she was thankfully okay, somehow walked away without a scratch even though the car was totaled, and this happened like one week after she’d gotten her drivers license.) but on to happier things!

I love that though, I think it’s so important to actually *like* your partner haha. What kind of video games do you like to play? And what’s your go to movie for movie night? And that’s literally the sweetest thing that you do his nails and makeup 🥺 how are things with the pandemic in your area?

Panic! puts on a great show, I saw them in Seattle during their death of a bachelor tour in 2017 and it was so much fun. I hope you get the chance to go! Who else is on your concert bucket list?

Omggg okay I will have to add Rijeka to my list of stops 👀 if everything goes according to plan, I want to do a road trip down the Croatian coast starting in Zagreb and ending up in Dubrovnik. My birthday is mid august, so it would be end of august to be a birthday trip! I love Munich, it’s only a couple hours from me by train so I’ve been there several times since I moved here! Because of travel restrictions, I haven’t been able to visit some of the places like Dachau yet, but I really want to. That history is heavy but so so important.

I adore the PNW, and I was originally planning on moving to Oregon for grad school before I ended up in Europe haha. I have a lot of good friends in that area and I can’t wait to be able to visit them in again! Where in Canada would you like to end up? The polar express thing sounds soso cool, honestly might book a seat for myself hahaha.

I think a lot of writing poetry is just accepting that a lot of it is going to be bad and then going from there haha. Like one of my professors told me, it’s always easier to work with something than it is with nothing so I have years and pages worth of bad poems and then some that I’ve turned into really good ones. Ohhh those all sound really interesting! I especially like the idea of a paranormal mystery. Do you have a particular tag that you post your writing under?

That sounds like an excellent weekend! What kind of project? And do you have your own pool or do you go somewhere? What a crazy coincidence for us to be paired together!! I actually didn’t start marching until college, my high school wasn’t big enough to have a marching band, just a pep band, and then I got involved with the music program for fun when I started college and ended up marching my sophomore through senior years. It was a lot of fun, but also a lot of hard work!! I can definitely understand how that could cause burn out. Mono sounds horrendous in the best case scenario, let alone what you were dealing with. Oh the EMT thing sounds like a cool program though!

Hahahaha yeah my sister is an amazing singer but it just missed me. I do perform well in the shower, when I’m out hiking in the woods, or alone in the car. Well I think you’d do well even without knowing everything single instrument ahdjshs i believe in you! ✨

Hope your week is off to a great start! 💖 Drew

Let's get the family stuff out of the way. Chase and I met in September of 2013, got engaged in January of 2014, and then married February of 2014. His brother was not pleased with that. There was a massive fight and its the only time I've seen Chase really truly angry. They were living together at the time and when we told him we decided to get engaged and that I was essentially moving in he flipped out. He was also drunk that night. We were excited, our parents were excited for us. We hadn't planned on getting married until May of 2015 but that didn't matter. He said some pretty horrendous things to Chase and then to my face. So Chase kind of snapped. After that, Chase wasn't sure he wanted to tell his family about the ceremony. He didn't want to rock the boat any more than he already did. My BIL moved out quickly after that fight. Chase and I always planned on having a ceremony with everyone later. That never worked out. Its something we regret, not inviting his parents. His Dad passed in 2016 after I found out I was pregnant. So he'll never get to have that. Even though we all moved past that, in that last year things have gotten tense between them again. I try not to get involved. My BIL eventually apologized and we all got really close especially when my FIL got sick. Even though we've both forgiven him, I don't know if Chase will ever really forget the hurt that situation caused me and him. It didn't stop us though. We knew our minds. We're both Taurus signs. So there really was no stopping us.

We didn't mean to get married on Valentines day. I had just been fired from Express for the stupidest reason, partly because of my relationship. We just decided on a Monday to get married that following Friday. When we went to get the license, that's when we realized it was going to be Valentines Day. We laughed pretty hard about it. We still do. I joke that because I always had such a rough time on Valentines Day, the universe made up for it.

Even though we jumped head first into commitment, we waited on expanding our family. And it wasn't an easy journey for us. Now, its a completely unrealistic option for me to carry another pregnancy. So, if we ever change our minds about having another kid, we'll adopt. I grew up with a messy extended family and so my tolerance for the behavior I've seen of late is non existent. I don't need that negativity. I don't have enough spoons! So, we keep our head down and mow our own lawn, so to speak.

I will make a post of pictures under my tag themodren . All of my personal posts are under that tag because I reblog a lot. However, the story excerpt is also under the tag brownandgreenandgold because it corrresponds to a poem I wrote. I'll put that one up for you too. Some of my other tags are: renreacts , folklorethemusical , and relativelyricalanalysis . I've started these tags hoping to follow up on them with more content but I haven't yet. You can find them all under themodren though. I'm trying to talk myself into sharing more.

Chase was really into WOW. I prefer games that are RPG in nature. I've played Castle Crashers, Baulder's gate, Torchlight, and currently Portal. I like Pokemon. Chase really grew up around video games. I didn't. He's so good at them. He's great at figuring out how things work whereas I'm the player that spins in circles.

I'd like to move to Vancouver or anywhere around that area. It looks so pretty.

The EMT program was amazing and I had a real knack for it. I was originally going to go pre-med. I wanted to be a Doctor. But I was thrown some curve balls and ended up in a Fashion Design program that no longer exists. Didn't finish that one either because I got pregnant and my postpartum period is where my autoimmune disease really jumped out. If I thought I could handle it, I'd go back and finish the nursing program I was going to go through, too. Or ideally I'd just go do pre-med again. Unfortunately I don't think that's in the cards. I'm still struggling to get my body under control and stress has a tendency to deplete my spoons quickly. The pandemic really hit me hard because I wanted to help but couldn't.

I try to focus on the good in my life. I try to remember to honor my limitations. I tell my husband that I feel like a ten cylinder engine that's being forced to only use four. It can be frustrating. So I laugh at myself and try to focus on other things. Like the recent succulent collection I've started. I might have a problem. We have a pool in our backyard. It was out of order until recently. I'm enjoying it a lot since that last few years I haven't been able to. Despite my struggles, my life is incredibly blessed. I always feel weird talking about the pain and disappointments of my life because I feel ungrateful.

The pandemic feels stale here. I'm sure the numbers are going down because there are so many people being vaccinated now, but unfortunately there is still too large a number of vaccine resistant or hesitant people. That frustrates me. Both my husband and I are vaccinated now, but we still wear our masks. We also avoid interacting with others outside our circle because our daughter hasn't been vaccinated yet. Hopefully come September that will change. Our state lifted mask mandates too soon, I think. We're a mostly republican state. I wish that didn't matter but it does. People are starting to act like the virus isn't still an issue even though it definitely is. Its been especially rough on my kid. She's been in virtual preschool for a year. She goes back in person in August, which I'm very nervous about. She has an IEP for speech therapy, so she needs to go, otherwise I'd find another solution. She doesn't get to go out much either. Its been tough on her. Her safety is of utmost importance though. I've heard too many horror stories of mom's acting like this virus isn't just as potentially life altering for children as it is for adults. At the beginning, parents were even hosting "covid parties" so all their kids would catch the virus. Horrified would be an understatement in describing my reaction to those articles.

The project is a memorial for my grandma. She passed recently. Its okay. She was old and we were expecting it.

Chase and I will watch things that we've wanted to watch for awhile. I haven't seen all the Marvel movies yet and there are a slew of older movies he's seen that he wants me to see. So, we typically pick something we haven't seen.

Lorde announced music today! So once she starts touring, I'd like to see her. Honestly, I'd like to see Twenty One Pilots. Halsey is another. I like Halsey. My best friend likes Marianas Trench, so it'd be fun to see them with her. If N'Sync ever toured again, I'd go see it. I would have loved to see Prince in concert. There's just so many different musicians I like that I'd love to see.

Are things getting any better where you're at, Drew? I hope your week goes well!

#inthaf anon #themodrenreplies

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thisnerdsadventures · 4 years ago

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summer updates

wow i literally just abandoned this blog for two months didn’t i LOL

yes, so, my life got a little crazy and things have been going all right, but just wrenches thrown in the gears here and there, but here’s a rundown of everything that has happened:

So I graduated (per my last post). And I was supposed to be going around the world, travelling and having fun and visiting people, but instead I was at home binge watching Netflix and wishing my internship had started a couple weeks early. If I definitely didn’t get my free weeks of travel in the beginning of summer, maybe by the end I would get them.

For my summer internship this year, googz shipped us all of our work from home stuff, including a keyboard, monitor, mouse, and our computer. This summer I had a great dual monitor setup with the monitor I already owned, which made it feel like I was at the office. However, in fact, I was not at the office, since all our internships went remote this summer, so while I was surrounded by three screens and a keyboard and mouse, I was not surrounded by coworkers, which made the internship experience feel super different.

Week 1 already felt different - some of us didn’t have our credentials, so day 1 and day 2 were pretty slow compared to the rush of getting to know people and getting to know the team in-person. My team though is pretty chill - we have standup every morning bright and early at 8am PST/11am EST (rip me) followed by the daily NYTimes crossword. I was prepped and ready for this, having done the crossword in the back of my systems class every Monday and Wednesday for a whole semester with my best friend. Turns out they’re pretty good too, we did a Friday crossword in like 11 minutes the other day.

Project has been going kind of smoothly? which is surprising if you were around to witness the chaos that was my last summer intern project, which underwent like fifty thousand dead ends and turnaround and permissions errors. Aside from like a couple of permissions errors which got resolved within days, my project has been working? Nothing has exploded?? I haven’t broken prod??? This feels fake. Every time something works I tell my boss: I am shocked. I am shook. But yeah, I essentially did most of my project in like 6/12 weeks, which my manager was also surprised to see (in a good way). I feel like the theme of this summer was getting a really solid design down before going forth and implementing the thing, which I think would’ve prevented a lot of the pitfalls from last summer. Because I had already thought in advance of a lot of the weird things I might run into or identified examples where what I wanted to do had clearly worked, it was a lot easier to implement, and I was a lot more confident that it would work. My manager and team have also been really great at keeping in touch and checking in constantly, so although it’s still obvious that there’s some team aspect missing, it definitely isn’t as bad as it could’ve been.

Outside of my project though, I can definitely feel a lot of other things lacking. For example, last summer I was really involved with ERG stuff because my team essentially led like two of the ERG’s at the office, but I’m not sure if that’s just not the case at my current team, or maybe they just haven’t been present for the interns because of COVID. Last summer too, my team did a lot of bonding stuff, like we went out to dinner, played games, got lunch, went out for drinks, etc, but obviously nothing like that happened this summer. There also aren’t any other interns on my team, which is a little sad because it was always great to commiserate with someone else (still friends with both of my co-commiserators from previous two summers). I also feel this general feeling of like “I don’t want to put in the effort to make friends because I already have them from last two summers” and also “I am so old I can’t relate to these post 2000′s kids”, but that could also be my work life blending into my life life because of COVID.

Since work isn’t as big of a part as my life as it was in the past, I’ve been doing some other stuff too this summer. Actually a lot has happened, both good and bad.

In July, MIT announced that only seniors would be back on campus, but only the seniors who lived on-campus could actually access campus. Thus my housing plan with my friend group full of seniors went kaboom.

I was really stressed about housing for a couple weeks after that. I asked myself whether I wanted to even go back, and I ended up choosing to go back so I would a) have at least some socially distanced contact with friends since loneliness has really taken its toll on me and b) get my own place so I can work productively and learn to live independently. I was really convinced that I had to lock it down ASAP otherwise there would be no places left. So I actually signed a lease pretty soon after that, and hopefully MIT will still let their seniors back (please otherwise I will cry so much and probably try to get out of my lease).

My personal life generally has been tumultuous. I think especially with COVID it’s been hard to keep up with acquaintances, and generally relationships are strained across timezones and the Internet. So there’s been a good amount of personal stuff going on in the sidelines, and because work and life aren’t really well separated right now, it’s been leaking my productivity at work, which hasn’t been great.

I thought about applying to grad school. Then it came time to pay for the GRE. Then I realized I didn’t, at all, not even in the slightest, wanted to do grad school.

June and July also had two of my friends’ 21st birthdays, so we did a lot of planning for zoom parties and birthday gifts. For one of them, we made a Google photobook with poems and drawings that 30 of her friends submitted (a lot of effort) and for the other, we put together a mixtape of songs that everyone associated with her. This summer has been hella boring to say the least, but it was nice to be able to pour some time and energy into something that would make friends happy.

We’ve also been playing a lot of Covidopoly. I don’t know why but my friend group has gotten really hooked on this. We really will play for like three hours straight. It’s bad.

I tried to write some more music. It’s been going on and off.

I did Chloe Ting workouts pretty regularly for a couple months, which was actually something I’m proud I stuck with. This week I really fell off the wagon due to some personal issues, but I’m hoping to get back on it this weekend.

Not sure where this falls under, but I go on a lot of walks with my mom, but I ended up getting stung in the face by a wasp and some mosquito bites got so bad I had to go to urgent care. I need to go away from California

Overall everyone has a lot of drama. I have a lot of drama. It is not fun and I wish we were back on campus

I have made shakshuka like seven times during quarantine and it is so so good.

I started journaling in an attempt to empty my thoughts out somewhere more productive and to force myself to slow down when I start thinking a lot. It has been working generally, and I guess it’s just a nice place to reflect on things that have left a deeper than not impact on my day.

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braxzana · 5 years ago

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Hermit Colony

[Caveat: This is not a post intended to entertain anyone; I have way too much time on my hands and finally figured out how to post instead of just stalk, so feel free to just scroll on past this. It’s cheaper than a therapist, though, so here I go.]

So there’s a Monty Python sketch where they have a “colony” of hermits. They each have their own cave and live far apart, and yet they talk as if they’re close neighbors. I was reminded of that bit during the recent / current pandemic shut-down.

I only half-jokingly refer to myself as a hermit because while I do live within a city and have easily a dozen people within stone’s throw of my house, I do not ~interact~ with them. I couldn’t name them nor recognize them on the street.

I have no real friends --- which Steam always reminds me “You have no friends!” --- but again, that’s primarily by choice. I had acquaintances in high school and after we became (allegedly) adults we would meet up every few years or so for coffee and chat for an hour, but that’s it. And that’s fine with me; most of my ‘friends’ from back then didn’t enjoy the same things I did, and now they are all married with children and we have even less in common.

[EDIT: Adding a note in here --- as may become apparent soon, I tend to ramble a bit and there’s a rather lengthy build-up to the actual POINT of this post. Sorry about that, if you’re bothering to read.]

I do not have, nor have I ever had, a ‘significant other’. I dated, if you can call it that, in high school To be precise, I met a girl at a seventh grade ‘sock hop’ where we were literally thrown together during the dance. Being a socially awkward nerd at the time (as I remain) the taunts of, “friction makes heat’ just embarrassed me.

We went on two double-dates to the movies and McDonalds afterwards and that’s it. I lived out of the city at the time, and couldn’t drive into town so there weren’t many opportunities to socialize --- not that I was particularly interested in going to big parties anyway. We ‘broke up’, or I should say that I was dumped, for someone more demonstrative.

After that ‘relationship’ ended, I had one blind date in my, like, 20s or 30s, where I was set up with a cousin of a co-worker’s wife; it was just about the most horrible experience I have ever endured. We had exactly zero chemistry, nothing in common and it was just, it was just horrible. Certainly soured me on blind dates ever after.

My point is, I have had very little experience with relationships. That never really bothered me too much, either. I’m not asexual, nor a-romantic or anything; I can get quite weepy at sentimental movies and I love a sappy romance that ends well. My dream scenario is for a tattooed girl with taut muscles to pull me onto her motorcycle and roar into the distance, leaving my boring tie and briefcase rolling in the street (I can’t stand ties or briefcases but for this scene they’re props).

I used to think I was ‘shy’, and I probably was, to some extent, but later in life I learned about Introverts and I was stunned to find out that that was ME. It’s not that I dislike talking to people, it’s that I get anxious and mentally drained being around a LOT of people, particularly at some kind of formal event. One on one, or even hanging around the office with a few co-workers, I had no problem chatting.

My core issue boils down to this, I think... I never felt comfortable approaching someone to try to establish a friendship with THAT being the goal. I could talk to my office-mates because we were all ‘trapped’ there in that environment. In college, I had no problem talking with my fellow grad students. There was something to talk about (not just work / school stuff) and I was not trying to get into their pants, to ~impose~ myself in their life.

Because that’s what it felt like --- feels like --- an imposition. Like, who am I to think this person wants me to know about their life? Why would they be interested in anything in MY life --- heck, I’m barely interested in my life (I am not suicidal, so please don’t infer that from some of the things I say).

So for the most part I just kept to myself. And that was fine. I joked about being a hermit and people understood I was ‘private’ and didn’t nose around too much in other people’s lives.

Then the pandemic hit.

Irregular hours at the office turned into me quitting rather than return to regular 5-day-a-week, eight-hour-a-day as if nothing were going on in the world. My employer was a Trump devotee and this was the final straw for me. I wasn’t so much worried about dying myself, or hurting anyone else --- I stayed in the back of the office and rarely saw anyone, anyway --- but just the idea that what we did was considered ‘essential’. All I did was take money from some people, use it to pay some other people, and give the rest to some other people. I did not consider that ‘essential’.

Point is, I have been unemployed since late April 2020. I was unemployed for all of 2002 and 2003 so I’m not terribly worried about it --- I have always been frugal and have enough cash on hand to live for twenty months or so before I get in real trouble, and I have a money market account that, depending on the market, could last me anywhere from nine to twenty years. Catch being, I might live longer that that... and I have no retirement income, there may not BE any Social Security by then (certainly not enough to live on), my medical expenses may be through the roof, etcetc. Just too many variables. But for a year, maybe two, I don’t really have to worry... I can take my time and hopefully find a job I can at least tolerate to carry me a few more years before I ‘retire’.

Being home during a pandemic sounds like a dream come true, at first blush. I don’t have to see people, I can play video games and watch TV all day, I can stay up until 4am, sleep until noon... and it was pretty good, for a while.

I’ve almost always been alone. But I’ve rarely been Lonely. Finished all my PC games, all the TV shows are re-runs or I’ve binged new ones in a day or so and run out of new content... that leaves me alone with my thoughts, and that’s never a good thing.

I looked at Match.com --- after twice submitting a profile to eHarmony, they told me they could not find ANY matches for me --- but one photo and a generic “Hiya!” post didn’t tell me anything about the people on the site. So I went to OKCupid, which is... different. I’m not here to shill for them, but they have a series of Topics where you can type about yourself, what you’re looking for, etc and they have thousands of questions you can answer which they use to determine matches for you.

These questions are sometimes simple, like, Do You Smoke or Do You Want Kids but they also have some, shall we say, graphic questions. As I said, I’m not actually shy, just introverted, and with the anonymity of the internet, I had no problem answering even the questions that would make me blush in person. Filtering out those with kids, or extreme devotion to religion or those who purposefully said they liked Trump whittled down the pool considerably. But even so, I reached out to eight or nine people I could see getting to know.

None have replied back. Granted, during the pandemic, they may have simply abandoned the idea of “social” networks like that, or the 4,000 character intro message I posted immediately turned them off... who knows?

Long way of saying, I’m still a hermit, and I’ll likely die one, and I’m just putting these thoughts out into the aether as an attempt to reconcile myself to that likely fate. It would be great if things turned out differently, and I DO nurse that feeble flicker of hope, but I’m too much of a pragmatic realist to lose myself to the unlikely fantasy.

--- Braxzana... the Hermit.

PS: I’m not looking for advice or critique; I just wanted to get this out of me and look at it external to my brain. I will not be going to churches or libraries to meet new people or changing who I am JUST to ‘hook up’ with someone. I want someone who wants me for who I am, and that person may simply not exist, or know I exist. So I need to work more on being okay with that.

#Hermit #Lonely Introspection

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mudschools · 7 years ago

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MUD: Which category are you competing in and why did you choose to enter that category?

Korbyn Rachel: SFX Character

Rose Ripley: I am competing in the character/prosthetic category. I really love creating characters and doing creature design, so this category, to me, is a lot of fun. I also just love Guardians of the Galaxy, so it is really cool to be able to participate when that is the theme of Battle of the Brushes.

Samantha Martino: I am competing in the Character/Prosthetic FX category. I was drawn to it because I loved how much you could do with it. One night my friend let me do 2 completely different looks on him back to back (which is a lot!) and both times he just looked like a completely different being.

Ashley Soper: I am competing in Beauty/Fantasy. During 301 I was able to build my portfolio and I felt really good about my photos. I loved the models I got to work with and was very happy about how my photoshoots came out.

Melissa Ginzel: I am competing in the character/ prosthetic category in Toronto. When I originally enrolled at MUD I definitely thought I’d be more on the track of doing beauty makeup in the industry. While in school however, I loved seeing the intense transformation that could occur using different appliances and painting techniques. Sean Conklin and Ray Schaffer definitely worked with me to cultivate that passion and my final project was so successful, I was hooked!

Caliann Feimer: I am competing in the FX portion of the Battle of the Brushes competition. I chose this category because FX is what I love to do. I’ve been an FX artist at Six Flags Great Adventure coming up on four seasons and I couldn’t think of anything I enjoy more than bringing a character to life.

Faith Grady: I was accepted for the Beauty/Fantasy competition! I chose this category because I love the creative side of avant-garde makeup, and really wanted to challenge myself to create something outside of the box.

Skyla Mangine: I will be competing in the prosthetic/character design portion of the competition. I chose to do the SFX competition because for me it’s where I can really show my skills and creativity. I love having the opportunity to completely design a new character and turn someone into an otherworldly creature.

MUD: What’s the best/most encouraging advice that you’ve received so far?

Rachel: The best advice I’ve been given has been to always be true to myself. I am one to think outside the box and I think being told to embrace that really helps me expand more artistically.

Ripley: “Do or do not. There is not try” -Yoda.

Martino: The best advice I’ve received was to just move on. When something isn’t working out the way you planned or isn’t looking the way you want it to, just move on. I am one for always dwelling on something that isn’t necessarily going my way, but when I remember to just move on and work on something else, sometimes something better than what I planned can come out of that. Happy accidents!

Soper: Asides from the family, the first email I made was to Gil and Paul. Gil was one of my teachers for special fx 201. I brought in what I felt were my best photos, he helped me and gave me advice on which ones I should submit. I shared my inspiration photos with them and received amazing advice. I then texted Caitlin Nash, a girl from my class, after she offered to brainstorm with me, she then said “You are going to do so F*ing good. Like you know what you’re doing. You got this”. I also reached out to Lacey who took first place at IMATS New York and picked her brain about the competition.

Ginzel: To not be so hard on myself and to not let fear win out – take everything that comes to you and be confident in your decisions.

Feimer: It’s honestly absolutely an honor to be chosen for this competition. The overwhelming support I have from previous employers, coworkers, and friends is extremely encouraging. Make-up Designory has also helped keep me in contact with a lot of previous competitors who offer the best advice given that they’ve been in these shoes.

Grady: Ever since I was a little girl, my mom has been telling me, “You’ll never know if you don’t try.” As I have gotten older and made big decisions, such as applying for Battle of the Brushes, I have listened to that advice. It’s nice to know that the worst thing that can happen is them saying no, and by trying I avoid that annoying “what if” that can linger in the back of your mind.

Mangine: So far the best advice I have gotten would be to follow your gut feelings and don’t get caught up in your own head.

MUD: What do you hope to get out of this experience?

Rachel: I hope to connect with other artists and people in the industry to further advance in my career!

Ripley: I hope to gain exposure and experience. Hopefully, the competition will get my name out there and help me with networking opportunities. It will also help give me experience in a “high stress” environment because it is timed. In addition, it allows me the chance to deal with problems that happen on the fly, which is also something that happens on set.

Martino: I hope to be able to really discover and hone in on my adaptability skills. Being able to come up with a look and adapt it to whatever prosthetic pieces I may get is definitely freaking me out a little bit, but I can’t wait to learn how I will handle that situation when I’m in the thick of it.

Soper: Just that, experience. This is very outside of my norm. I haven’t done anything like this before. I have experience in Bridal and Print makeup, not avant guard or fantasy makeup. This really challenges me, and I am up for the challenge. Just the fact I got accepted to compete is amazing!

Ginzel: The whole thing seems to be very character-building– how to perform under pressure, how to develop a character or concept, how to adjust when curve balls are thrown at you. But ultimately I want to create something that leaves a lasting impression that I can be proud of.

Feimer: I really hope to grow as an artist in this experience. The nature of the competition is stressful and exciting all at once. I hope to create an amazing character and create some connections with the other artists and people I encounter on this project.

Grady: Best case scenario, I’ll be able to earn back the money I spent getting there, haha! Really though, I’m so excited to learn a few things while having fun and being inspired by the other competitors! I’m truly honored to be selected to compete in such a prestigious competition, and if one person likes the make-up I do, I’ll be happy.

Mangine: I would like to get my work out to a bigger audience. I hope that I can show more people what I’m capable of and get a career boost.

In a few short days, 7 of our grads will compete in Battle of the Brushes at IMATS Toronto. MUD: Which category are you competing in and why did you choose to enter that category?

#avant garde make-up #Grads #IMATS #Los Angeles #make-up #Make-up Artist #new york #special effects makeup #Toronto

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thedeadvexillologist · 8 years ago

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04/03/2017 - An Experiment

I spent today doing pretty productive things, I think. I got the apartment mostly cleaned, meaning that I’ve gotten all the surfaces wiped down, and everything that my ex-roommate left after they moved has been organized in a decidedly “not-roommate” manner. Found more interesting things than I thought I would, and I might decide to Craigslist some of them for a bit of pocket cash to work with, who knows. I’ll have to check the going rates of these things on eBay at some point in the near future, maybe some of them can be worth a few bucks. Beyond that, though, this marks a point in a project that’s gone on for about a month, though I had originally planned for it to only last a week. The apartment was supposed to be cleaned (i.e. pretty much in the state it is now) before I took my vacation to New Orleans back in early March. However, some stuff happened, some things got thrown into chaos, and, while I did get the bulk of the work done on time, I didn’t get all of it done, and I didn’t consider the project finished. It’s still not finished, I guess. There’s still a few microprojects that need to be done before the apartment is fully cleaned, the fridge and oven should be deep cleaned, and I need to reorganize the shelf in my room where I’ve thrown everything I might feasibly need if certain situations arise, like rent or an explosion or something. But the rooms themselves are clean, and more importantly, organized, so maybe now I won’t lose random shit in the chaos that used to be the apartment.

I also tried to do some research on grad school. I’m still not 100% convinced it’s a pipedream at this point, but it’s the closest thing to a direction I have to move in, and I haven’t actually given it a shot, so I guess technically the dream isn’t dead. I compiled lists of all the documents I’ll need for all the programs I’ve decided to research in the three colleges I want to shoot for so far: Iowa State, U Iowa, and UAB. However, I don’t think three schools is a wide enough net to cast, and I don’t think it’s a terribly good idea, or even possible to apply to multiple programs in the same university (or maybe it is, who knows). But the problem there is that I don’t really know what to look for in schools in other states. I’m so familiar with the schools in Alabama and Iowa that I can narrow down the biggest and most likely candidates fairly quickly, but I’m kinda lost when it comes to other states. Not to mention I don’t want to move too far away from family right now, if only because some members are getting on in years, and I don’t want to be impossibly far away in the event of another tragedy. So basically that means I’m not going to look for schools in the northeast or west coast, which limits most of the high-end, cutting-edge schools, which I doubt I’d get into anyway. The trouble is I don’t know how far away is too far. Also the prospect of leaving Iowa isn’t terribly appealing at the moment for several reasons, most of them being that I’d have to uproot and leave some of my closest friends for good. On the other hand, the prospect of living here forever doesn’t sit well with me either, and neither does it sit well with my closest friends. One of said friends almost left for Des Moines earlier this year. They were stopped only by a conglomeration of forces, but the fact of the matter is they’re still in town, and as far as I’m aware they’re going to stay here for a bit. I’m immensely glad for that, but at the same time it makes the idea of leaving all the more difficult. I guess while every cloud has a silver lining, the opposite must also be true, which would be a sobering thought if I had any alcohol in me tonight.

I spent too much time struggling with the matter of researching grad schools, so I took a walk to try and clear my head and get something moving in there. I walked a mile to the northeast in the light rain, then circled back, and while stuff got moving, it was all chaotic and jumbled, as walking thoughts tend to be. Useful for thinking of scenes of action and importance, not quite so much the milder connective tissue that I tend to have the most trouble with in my writing. And ultimately that was the goal, to try to get my brain into a mode suitable for writing. A couple of my closer friends make art, and they’re both very good at it, but they both practice every day. I like to call myself a writer, mostly because of the grand stories I’ve developed in my head, but they’re useless unless they get put onto paper, but sadly that’s where the problem is. Putting ideas onto paper is difficult, and it’s very rarely perfect like I want them to be, which leaves me disappointed in the end, feeling like I’ve wasted the energy I put into the work.

But like I said, I don’t practice as much as I should. I used to write a lot more, back before the issues of being an adult hadn’t quite sunk in yet, and I simply had more time and less worries than I do now. I also used to keep journals. Quick, emotional things that I used to put down my thoughts during the most turbulent times of my life. The longest lasted about five months I think, but in the end I would always calm down, not feel the need to vent in a journal format, and eventually the journal would end and at some point I would burn it. I think I’ve gone through three in this manner, though it’s been a very long while, and I may not remember the earlier ones as clearly as I do the more recent ones. Anyway, the point is that when I was journaling, I was also writing outside of the journal. Emotional stress makes for a good partner to the muse, I guess. But it’s not really a productive form of writing in and of itself, and I never really mourned the end of the journaling stints. But during my walk I figured that this kind of non-productive, aimless writing could be analogous to the artist’s doodle, which in and of itself is a form of practice. So I guess I decided that if I can’t find the energy to start or restart one of my projects, I’d find the energy to just aimlessly ramble on paper for a significant amount of time, and I guess I’d hope that that will lead to a more productive form of writing later on, when I get used to the art of stringing words together again.

The big difference here is that I’m not in the usual state of life that I am in normally when I journal, I think. I’m not in a particularly turbulent stage of life right now. Quite the contrary, I’d describe my position as tentatively stagnant. I have a direction I want to go in, but I’ve missed the train for this year, so I have to build up my resume and try again in another six months or so. In the meantime, I can’t really leave, and I’m not really doing anything other than treading water (badly). So I’ve tried to make goals that I can try to meet so that when or if these plans fall through, I’ll still have some sort of order, and some framework with which I can keep everything centralized while I figure out what to do. One of those goals was to get the apartment in a presentable state, another one was to get back to my writing hobby, so that I have something I can do during my day that isn’t chopping salads or languishing on Youtube. Maybe it’ll lead to some sort of therapeutic epiphany that will help me on in life, or some such bullshit.

I’m also making these long journal entries digital and public, which are two things I don’t often do. Partly this is because all of my writing is done through a word processor since my handwriting is crap at best, but partly because it’s more difficult for me to burn something that’s both digital and public. I guess the idea is that there’s going to be a record somewhere of this, and that hopefully it’ll be more difficult for me to ignore something if I see it every day. I honestly don’t know. It’s an experiment. An aimless writer’s doodle that I’m making public on a whim because I don’t really have a reason not to since blogging exists as a form of an online public journal anyway. As for the length, they’ll probably all be about this long. If you don’t like it, I can think of a few things that need sucking, and I’ll be happy to direct you towards them. I dunno what I’ll write about, but I doubt I’ll limit it beyond what I like, what I find interesting, and what I feel like writing about on any given day. Also I doubt these things will have any sort of regularity to them beyond “more.” Hopefully that’ll be enough.

#Tod's Aimless Writing Thing #yeah that's probably a good enough tag for it #hopefully I'll remember it

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dorothyd89 · 8 years ago

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How Tim Walked His Way to a 50-Pound Weight Loss. Wait. WHAT!?

“Holy crap! Seriously!?”

It was 1 AM, and I was sitting, bleary-eyed at my computer in a hotel room in Barcelona. Like many people, instead of sleeping I had been messing around on Facebook (oops!) and happened across a thread with a Nerd Fitness reader who said the following:

“Nutrition is 90% of the battle, right? Well I’ve seen that in action over the last few months. I was unable to continue workouts due to a health issue and have had to rely COMPLETELY on walking and nutrition to find results. I think the pictures speak for themselves.

I am completely sold on the principles of the Nerd Fitness Academy. Thank you, Steve Kamb for founding NFA!

I am not done, I have only begun, but now that I can (hopefully) begin workouts again after seeing my doctor in a couple weeks, I look forward to even greater results! Already I have lost over 50 pounds since starting NFA, I no longer need blood pressure medication, and I fit into size 34 jeans…a feat I have not done since grad school 20 years ago!”

What followed were the photos you see above… right!?

My jaw hit the floor when I saw Tim’s 7 month before and “during” photos. I seriously yelled out loud “Holy sh**!” when I saw them, and I couldn’t help but smile. I wanted to share Tim’s success story with you today, because I want YOUR success story six months from now!

Tim, a recovering gambling addict and single dad of 4 kids (!), is a proud member of the Nerd Fitness Academy and based his exercise, mindset, and nutritional strategy on the information presented there. However, I want to point out that Tim had NO gym membership, NO fancy trainer, NO magic bullet, and NO wonder supplements.

I’ve been bouncing emails back and forth with Tim and noticed VERY interesting details in his success – tons of things that many would have seen as obstacles (or worse…excuses to justify inaction!). Tim, on the other hand, actually succeeded in part BECAUSE of these setbacks.

Today you’re going to learn how to surprise yourself 7 months from now – WITHOUT “EXERCISING”.

Six months from now, I want you to look at your “before” and “during” photos with a shocked smile. (It would help if you took photos today!)

Why are you doing this?

I asked Tim what prompted his big change, and why did he think he was successful. His answer about Big WHY really jumped out at me, something we talk about at Nerd Fitness a lot too.

I thought [this journey, after failing repeatedly before] would be harder, but after working through the Big Why (several times) I focused on “baby steps” like getting rid of liquid calories, stop putting sugar on things, no ice cream, etc. Little-by-little, I got to where I am today. One day at a time, sometimes one moment at a time!

I looked at what I COULD do rather than what I couldn’t, and that freed me up to find the slimmer, healthier me inside of all the fat and junk that was clinging to me. I am not fat. I am not garbage. I am me, and I am glorious. I am not a special snowflake, I am a lean, healthy badass (sort of) who will not let circumstances get in the way of me being who I was created to be so that I can be a great example to my kids and loved ones of what a healthy, intentional, good man looks like.

As you’re getting started on your journey, DIG DEEP and really think about WHY you’re doing this. You might need to go three levels deep (like Inception) and keep asking why to get to the root of your reasons for changing:

I want to lose weight. Why?

Because I want to feel better. Why?

Because I don’t like where my life is going and I want to be a better example for my kids. OKAY!

If you don’t have a good reason for getting in shape (“because my doctor told me to” isn’t going to cut it long term), you’ll use any reason to give up along the way! “Shoot, it’s cold out. Can’t exercise today.” “I had a bad day at work – I deserve this treat.” “Meh, tomorrow.”

However, if you have a damn good reason for why you are embarking upon this journey (like Tim did), you’re going to be more likely to actually stick with your plan even when life gets busy, your kids get sick, and so on.

Personally, I’m on this journey because I want to find out what I’m capable of. I feel a responsibility to this community to take care of myself and a responsibility to the future me to be healthy. I’m also doing this because I know how great it feels to hit a personal best, nail a new gymnastics move, and look in the mirror with pride at what I’ve built. It makes me happy.

How about you? Spend a few minutes journaling or writing out your thoughts and dig as deep as you can until you get to the root of your desire to get fit.

The Right Mentality at the Start

Now, this is where most people get thrown off.

After determining your big why, you need to have the right mentality for beginning your journey too.

The NF Community asked Tim what he thought about his transformation looking back at himself after 7 months:

“If you’d told me I could lose 50 pounds in 7 months with just changing my diet and walking, I would have told you to take a long walk off a short pier! I can hardly believe it myself.”

I bet you read that sentence above and thought, “I’ve heard THAT before, on every late night infomercial promising me amazing results if I buy their workout equipment or ab coaster or whatever.” The difference here is that you don’t need to buy anything, you need to change your strategy.

Tim is an actual person (a single dad with 4 kids!) from our community, with a family, a real job, and he’s not trying to sell anything in that sentence. In fact, that sentence was shared privately with our community, and only after he posted it did I ask if I could share it.

Tim said the toughest change he had to make was his own mindset. As a recovering gambling addict (6 years and counting – congrats Tim!), he knew he had mental demons to overcome when it came to getting healthy:

“I did a pretty good job of wrecking my life and found myself seven years ago being forced to do something about it. The biggest thing I learned from that experience of entering recovery (I have six years of sobriety) is that the pain had to outweigh the fear of change before I would do anything to recover. Unfortunately at that point it was too late for my marriage, my career, and a few other things I deeply regret destroying as a result of my addiction.

I learned that I do not need to fear change, I just need to recognize it, lean into the pain, and do the next right thing. So as I moved through recovery from a gambling addiction I soon found that there were other areas in my life that needed change as well. Shocker!

The pain needed to outweigh the fear of change before I would do anything to recover.”

Two years ago, he stepped on a scale saw “300 lbs” for the first time in his life. Although he never identified himself as big or fat, stepping on that scale shook him to his core and made him realize he needed to change.

Tim found Nerd Fitness in June of 2016, where we talk about the importance of mindset and the right strategies to get started:

In recovery from addiction I was told many times, “If you want what we have, then do what we do,” and that’s the message I heard from you, Steve, and the rest of the Nerd Fitness team: We aren’t here to tell you what to do, we are simply telling you what worked for us nerds, so if you want what we have, then do what we do.

I also liked that there was a monetary cost to [The Nerd Fitness Academy], because it meant I had skin in the game. The best things in life cost me something, whether it was time, money, blood, sweat, or tears, and I was ready to make a change.

Sounds pretty freaking badass but believe me, I was not, nor am I, a badass. I’m just a guy who ran across your program which showed me three things: First, the problem; Second, the solution; and Third, how to implement that solution.

Although Tim invested in himself, you do not need to spend money to find results. However, having some “skin in the game” might cause you to take this action more seriously – I know it does for me (I hired a friend, Anthony Mychal, to be my virtual trainer to keep me accountable!). And how much is being healthy and happy worth to you? How much can you afford to invest in yourself?

Again, no need to spend money up front to get “skin in the game.” Can you give money to a friend of yours and commit to what you’re going to do, and then he’ll give you the money back? Or tell a friend you’ll donate $X to a cause you hate if you don’t follow through on your goals?

It’s how Saint dropped 60 pounds in time for his wedding – he put his money where he mouth was!

Now, let’s look back at the rest of Tim’s statement above. Tim attacked his problem head-on and had a serious conversation with his brain:

I need to change. I do not need to fear change. Change is good.

I’ve tried and failed in the past. How can I try differently this time?

Change is good. This next attempt needs to be different from previous attempts if I’m going to get in shape this time. So, what SHOULD you do?

Do Less. Go Slow. REALLY Slow.

“The less you do, the more you do.”

– Kunu (Paul Rudd’s character in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”)

If you’re like most people, you’ve said to yourself recently, “this is the year I’m going to get in shape.”

And you might have done all sorts of things and maybe even succeeded so far:

Signed up for a gym

Gone to the gym every day

Bought workout DVDs and followed them dutifully

Drastically changed your entire nutritional strategy

Started flossing

Add another 5 things.

Tim’s success, I believe, is due to the fact that he did LESS than ALL of those things above!

When he started his most recent journey, he hurt himself by doing too much during a workout and was told by the doctor he couldn’t strength train for 6+ months! I bet if you were told you couldn’t exercise for 6 months, then the idea of ‘getting in shape’ would now be gone. But this was, ironically, exactly what Tim needed to succeed. “Oh, I can still walk…” Perfect. That is enough to radically transform your body.

In fact, I’m going to tell you to NOT work out if you’re starting from a sedentary lifestyle.

Yes, this is a fitness website telling you not to work out.

In fact, I think exercise sucks! I don’t do it. Instead, I train in a fun way that I am excited about.

If you just want to lose weight and feel better about yourself (Like Tim did), going for a walk and focusing nearly all of your energy on nutrition will get you 90% of the way there! Once you get to a baseline of health and fitness and have lost significant weight, then you can focus on building the physique you want.

So, disregard what people in infomercials or magazine ads look like – those people train 20+ hours a week, have super genetics, are probably on steroids, and/or don’t use the equipment or workout strategy they are advertising.

Instead, keep it simple and your expectations in check. Tim couldn’t exercise, and that allowed him to focus on just TWO THINGS:

Going for a walk. Tim doesn’t enjoy running, so he just went for hikes and walks. That’s it. This allowed him to mentally check a box that said “I did something healthy today”

Finally accepting that nutrition was 90% of the battle, so he should be focusing 90% of his mental energy on adjusting that.

How much time do you think about THE PERFECT workout strategy, and if you should do 10 sets of 10, 5 sets of 5, or something in between? Do you worry about getting your heart rate to the perfect “fat burning zone” or anything like that? What about going from cardio kickboxing to yoga to weights to underwater aerobics?

Scale your thinking WAY back.

How can you make SMALL but permanent changes to your exercise strategy? When you make a change, make such a tiny change that you understand that you are making this change forever. This is what you do now:

Decide to walk a certain amount of minutes this week. This is what you do now.

Cut back on one extra soda this week. This is your new normal.

ONLY after that you’ve built a walking habit would we recommend you start to implement something basic like a body weight training routine once a week, or even just challenging yourself to do some push-ups each morning when you wake up.

Nutrition is Everything. EVERYTHING.

Nutrition. Nutrition. Nutrition.

We talk about nutrition more than any other subject at Nerd Fitness, because it’s everything. And that’s not what most people like to hear.

How you eat will be responsible for 80-90% of the success or failure you will have moving forward. So you need to attack your nutrition with a solid strategy.

This means two things:

ANY workout strategy will WORK with the right diet: walking, yoga, zumba, dancing, rock climbing, strength training. Literally anything physical if you stick with it.

ANY workout strategy will FAIL with the wrong diet. If you don’t eat well, no amount of training will fix that.

It’s why one of our Rules of the Rebellion is “you can’t outrun your fork.”

Again, most people do best with SMALL changes over LONG periods of time. It’s is how Tim won. In his own words, he was not a big fan of the Paleo Diet (read our beginner’s guide here) mentality, though his nutritional strategy now closely aligns with it.

We’re not gung-ho Paleo advocates either. (We like that it’s a simple mental model you can follow to learn what to eat and what to avoid, but we agree that you should probably dip your toe in pool and slowly wade in).

This is why the NF Academy Nutritional Blueprint is laid out in 10 levels, and Tim liked the small transitional changes to how he ate:

You said that nutrition was most of the battle, so I chose to accept that, and in doing so I sloughed off the false belief I had been carrying around which told me that nutrition was not the main thing, that working out and burning calories was the main thing. I had to accept what you and your team said: mindset + nutrition + exercise = health.

I started at level 2 (basic calorie counting). I had already been trying to track calories but wasn’t sticking to any good eating habits until I started at Nerd Fitness Academy.

My first official step was eliminating liquid calories. Baby steps work!

I then started eliminating processed foods from my diet one meal at a time. I took a week to eliminate them from breakfast, then the next week I removed them from lunch, the third week it was dinner, and the fourth week was snacks. That last one was HARD. It’s too easy to hit the vending machine rather than bring good snacks for the day!

I would say it took me another couple months to finally get through Level 5 and 6, pasta and bread were staples for me, with every meal.

All-in-all it took me four months to get to Level 7 if my memory is right. I blended it with Dr. Fuhrman’s “Nutritarian” diet mindset, so while I avoid breads, I partake occasionally, and I don’t avoid meats like Dr. Fuhrman would have me do.

READ THAT AGAIN. Tim didn’t go on a diet, and you should NEVER go on a diet ever again either. Tim didn’t say “I’m gonna follow this strategy for 6 months and then I can go back to how I was eating before.” Instead, small permanent changes, and that’s just his new “normal.”

Shift your nutritional mentality and make small changes you can live with. Here’s exactly what Tim changed over FOUR months:

Minimization of liquid calories. You’ll be surprised how many calories and how much sugar is in ‘healthy’ apple juice!

Cut back significantly on sugar. Sugar is worse than Jar Jar Binks.

Cut back on processed carbs (bread, pizza, pasta, etc.).

Eat more vegetables and fruits (though don’t eat only fruit – that also has lots of sugar!), and some meat.

Check out intermittent fasting and deciding it worked for him.

When you make these changes gradually over time, it’s much easier to live with and adjust what your body decides is “normal,” building serious momentum.

And NEVER underestimate momentum.

Accountability and Momentum.

Now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about two final pieces of the puzzle that helped Tim succeed, and they will help you succeed too.

Having people to help keep you accountable and building momentum.

Tim loved having that level of accountability (and having invested in himself) and having people on the same journey has him to help stay on target:

I find that being able to “tell on myself” when I step out of line to people I trust is incredibly helpful and helps ensure that the momentum in my life continues to move forward.

If I sit and do nothing, I invariably backslide and find myself worse off.

As a mentor of mine likes to remind me, “There is no ‘gress’, only Pro-gress or Re-gress. If you stop you will only move backwards, never forwards. Keep at it day-by-day, little-by-little, focusing on doing the next right thing and before you know it, you’ve climbed the mountain, reached the moon, or made your kid’s day.” I don’t do that perfectly, I just try to keep at it.

Sometimes the people around you have good intentions but don’t have the right understanding (of nutrition, health, and fitness) to be supportive. That’s why surrounding yourself with people who can be truly supportive (like Tim did online with the NF Rebellion) is so key. When I asked Tim if he had support at home, he said:

“Yes, they were. However, when I started using Intermittent Fasting they looked at me sideways. I am a single father of four kids so they couldn’t do much to object, but my friends at first thought I was nuts. I had some who were on board and encouraged me, but some of my friends thought I was crazy.

Now, however, they are ALL asking me what I did to lose so much weight (they don’t ask about health as much as weight, unfortunately). It’s hard to argue with results!”

Remember, for years and years, broken and god-awful fitness and diet advice has been spread throughout the country and world. Our friends and family often believe things that aren’t fully true, even if they have the best intentions at heart when they question your decisions.

Tim had an online support group that helped keep him in line and to pick up the slack of this real life gap. It’s called Nerd Fitness, and you’re reading about it! Whether it’s the private facebook groups associated with The NF Academy, Rising Heroes, or our FREE message boards with 30,000+ members, there’s a way for you to get support from others on your journey.

You didn’t become who you are today alone, don’t forge into tomorrow alone either.

Focus on the Next Thing.

I don’t know where you can be 6 months from now. That depends on where you are now, your genetics, your lifestyle, and everything in between.

But neither do you. So don’t worry about it! It’ll get here soon enough.

You can’t fix the past (though you can learn from it), and you can’t control the future (though you can influence it)… so you might as well focus on today, right?

Focus on your next meal, and add one more vegetable.

Focus on your next beverage choice, and make sure it has minimal sugar.

Focus on your lunch break, and see if you can go for a walk.

Do not overthink this. Do not worry about where you will be six months from now. Instead do the following:

Ask yourself WHY you are doing this. Dig deep. Write it down and hang it somewhere to remind yourself every day.

Don’t exercise unless you enjoy it. Walking is fine. So is dance, rock climbing, zumba, swimming, and anything else.

Nutrition is 90% of the battle. Put almost all of your focus there.

Small changes over many months will give you the best chance for success.

Invest in yourself. Put your money where your mouth is – you’ll take this next attempt more seriously.

Stop worrying about how soon you’ll “get there.” Remember that you never really “arrive,” so you need to find a way to make sustainable daily life changes. Keep them simple and small. But permanent.

A funny thing happens when you do the above. 6 months from now, you just might wake up, look back at a photo of yourself from today (you DID take photos today, right?), and say out loud to yourself: “Holy sh**.” And then you can email us and we can share your story with the world.

What’s one decision you can make TODAY that will help you move in a direction of a changed life six months from now?

-Steve

PS: We have over 25,000 students going through their first year of their journey in the Nerd Fitness Academy. If the above spoke your language and you’re looking for more instruction, or looking to make an investment in yourself, consider checking it out. It has a 60-day money back guarantee.

PPS: I was serious about you emailing us (contact at nerdfitness.com) with your success story! I love sharing them with this community to remind people that you’re not alone; that if you’re an older woman, a divorced dad of 4 like Tim, or a young college kid, the Nerd Fitness Community is here for you.

http://ift.tt/2k1qGmx

http://ift.tt/2jajPTE

http://ift.tt/2iYeJfv http://ift.tt/2iKfQ3Y http://ift.tt/2iNfDgA

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boldadulting · 8 years ago

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This Is How You Prepare for Grad School Interviews: 4 Steps to Get Confident and Make a Killer Impression

So, you got a grad school interview, or maybe 2 (or 5? You're going to be tired!).

First of all, huge congratulations! Tons of people apply to each graduate program and just the fact that you got an interview is already a great sign.

But now you might be feeling nervous because now you're actually going to be meeting the very people who will ultimately decide whether you get to go to grad school.

Don't think you're alone and don't take your nerves as a bad sign. Not feeling very confident is not a sign that you're worse than everyone else! You'll feel better when you've done some prep work. You'll also feel better when you really take to heart that low confidence is incredibly common among talented people.

So I'm going to tell you:

How to prepare for grad school interviews

Disclaimer: This is based on my experience and experiences I've heard about. I'm most familiar with interviews for programs that are:

life sciences

PhD program

rotations-based (you try out different labs before choosing one)

on the West Coast

where recruits aren't admitted till after interviews

If you have experience with other types of interviews or your interview experience is different than what I describe, please comment or email me about your experience and advice.

1. Prepare yourself for imposter syndrome

Grad school interviews are a perfect breeding ground for imposter syndrome [see note 1].

You may have been one of the best students at your undergrad college, and suddenly you're among the other students who were also the best at their school.

Or maybe you don't think you were actually that great of an undergrad student and now you're feeling like they must have invited you to interviews by mistake.

How will you convince them to give you one of the limited spots, when you're not even that sure yourself that you're good enough?

Stay tuned for a separate blog post about imposter syndrome at recruitment but in the meantime, here are a few tips:

prepare as much as possible. You'll feel less afraid if you know you've prepared

remember that everyone is putting their best foot forward

"never compare your insides to everyone else's outsides" - author Anne Lamott

be open about the fact that you're not feeling very confident (talk to your undergrad mentors, friends, and family before you go. If you want extra bold points, you can try talking to fellow recruits or grad students about it at interviews [but first, see note 2]

remind yourself you don't have to be perfect to get into grad school

Now, let's talk about the actual dynamics of interviews. Most interviews will be 30-60 minutes (and you may have ~3-8 interviews per recruitment weekend). You'll spend part of the time talking about your research; part talking about theirs. To be ready, you'll want to:

2. Practice explaining your research

The most important part of your prep work is making sure you can talk about your research project(s). Hopefully you've been working on a research project for a while and have a general understanding of the background of it. You may be worried that you don't know it well enough, but don't worry, you just have to review a few key things.

Grab a piece of paper (or follow my example and use an Excel spreadsheet to set it up) and make categories:

what was already known before you started (or before the lab started the project)

why the project matters – what will the project help us understand better? E.g. if you're studying a gene, what cellular pathways are you helping us understand?

big picture significance – relate it to what even a non-scientist would care about (E.g. does the gene have some tangential relationship to Alzheimer's disease? Does the process you're developing relate in some way to smartphone technology?)

what we planned to do

what we did – what did you actually get done (this may differ than what you planned because of unexpected results or because you ran out of time)

what was your role - this is especially important if you were working in a team or were helping someone with part of their project

results

conclusions – what can you infer from your results? Are you particularly excited about some part of it?

next steps – what are you going to do when you get back from interviews, or what would you do if you could keep working on the project (or what did the people who picked up the project do next)? Think of some immediate next steps and some loftier ones [see note 3].

Make bullet points next to each one to fill in as much as you know. Don't worry that you don't know all of the answers; you now have a very good sense of what you know and what you don't know.

To fill in the blanks:

look back at the papers you were given when you just joined the lab

find new relevant articles

do some googling

talk to people in your lab

And don't feel like you need to have all the answers because:

it's ok to not know something

you'll have multiple chances:

You have lots of interviews (~3-8 faculty members per recruitment weekend) so you can course-correct if you realize there's part that you didn't prepare. Can you ask your mentor in lab to try to stay available by text for any last minute questions?

You'll likely have at least a few minutes between interviews and while the time is best spent finding your next interview and taking some deep breaths, you can probably do a bit of googling to find the answer you suddenly realized you needed. (Though honestly, the deep breathes might serve you better.)

If it's possible to set up your interview schedule so that the first program you interview at isn't your dream program, this can give you a great chance to practice before it really matters most.

Now that you have your cheat sheet mostly filled out, what do you do with it?

You're going to want to prepare different versions of your explanation:

A. 1 sentence - simplified, bigger picture

What's the general topic of your project? It may be helpful here to relate your project to areas that even people outside the field know a lot about.

This is most useful for brief interactions with other recruits or when meeting professors or grad students at low-stakes social events. This is your research elevator pitch.

B. 1-2 minute - a basic explanation of your project

Why does it matter?

What (broadly) did you do?

What did you find?

This is most useful for expanding if someone seems interested after you give your 1 sentence explanation.

This is also a great starting point for when a professor who's interviewing says “tell me about your project.” It gives the main point and gives the other person the opportunity to ask more questions, possibly leading to:

C. 4-5 minute - a more in-depth explanation

For this longer explanation, practice giving an overview using any and all aspects of the sections you outlined in the exercise above. Although you may practice going through this whole thing, remember that everything you're practicing here will be part of a conversation, not a monologue.

Be prepared to be interrupted, and don't expect to go in order. If you memorize this like a script you might be thrown off when the person you're talking to cuts in to ask clarifying questions or to throw in their own ideas, so think of this as more of a collection of ideas that you can pull from.

Practice each kind of explanation (A, B, C) until it feels comfortable. The next blog post will give you more info about how to deal if you realize you can't answer a question, but the takeaway is: don't panic! You don't have to know everything. In fact, I bet most professors are way more interested in how you respond when you don't know the answer than how many answers you know.

3. Prepare to talk about yourself

Whenever you're going on interviews, regardless of whether they're for grad school or “real world” jobs, you need to be prepared to give a brief introduction to yourself. This is another elevator pitch that you should have ready.

When we're asked about ourselves, it can feel awkward—how can we possibly sum up the complex being that we've become after ~25 years on this Earth? But the person you're talking to wants to get to know you, and it's up to you to help them [see note 4].

A few possible topics you might consider sharing about yourself:

where you come from

what you majored in

what topic you're interested in studying in grad school (if you aren't sure, don't panic [and see note 5]! Choose a few topics you find more interesting than others and be honest about the fact that you're still open to different topics)

how did you become interested in that subject

what do you do for fun/to relax

Many interviews with faculty are much more like a casual conversation than a formal interview so be ready to chat with them how you would any human you're making polite conversation with.

4. Prepare to discuss the faculty members' research

A lot of people worry about how much they need to know about the professor's research. You likely can request the faculty members you want to meet with and get a list of who you'll be meeting with ahead of time. This is great, you get all this information so you can prepare ahead of time!

Uh wait, if you have all this information ahead of time, does that mean you need to become an expert on all of their research? No. That is absolutely not the expectation.

So how much should you prepare?

First of all, most interviews will be fine even if you don't know anything about their research. They probably don't expect you to know their research because:

many faculty don't have a good sense of how interview weekends are set up, so they may not know if you had advance notice

while most programs will try to match you with people you're interested in, you'll also end up with a few people you didn't ask for (note, these can either be truly random people or they may be on the admissions committee)

they'll be telling you about their research anyway

However, if you want a truly rich interview, it's a great idea to know at least a little about the research of your interviewer.

First, let's talk about how to prepare for people you're meeting with who you LOVE—those dream professors who are the whole reason you want to go to that program in the first place [but see note 6].

For these professors, I would recommend reading several abstracts and/or a full article of theirs in some depth. No, you don't need to understand all of their methods (in fact, asking them about a method you didn't understand is a great conversation jumping-off point).

But with those extra special professors, you want to show them that you're really invested, that you've thought about their project, and that you can think critically about research.

How to prepare for most faculty you'll meet with (these are the ones who you're open to working with but don't feel super strongly about)?

For these, it's usually sufficient to read their research descriptions on their website. (Though keep in mind that lab websites are notoriously out of date, so you may be reading about research they aren't doing anymore. But that doesn't matter because they'll still see you cared enough to prepare.)

You should at least be able to say from memory what their topic is (especially because other recruits and grad students will ask and it's a bit awkward to have no idea what to say in response).

Whether you read a whole paper, a few abstracts, or just a research description, you want to come ready with some questions to ask. Possible ones:

Why did you use [technique/cell type/etc]?

How does ___ relate to ____

I remember learning about ___ in my classes. How is this related to that topic?

What did you do next?

Have you thought about doing ___? (note that this is a varsity level question! If you can't think of anything to ask in this form of question, it's ok!)

Would [other method] have also worked to answer this question?

Why did you choose this area of study? (Note, I would say this is probably the weakest question in the group)

Was this done all in your lab or do you collaborate at all with other labs?

Arguably the hardest part of each interview is when the professor tells you about their research project. Some of them are awesome at explaining it for people outside the field; others are not!

Don't beat yourself up if you have a hard time with this part. We're very used to passively taking in information in class. It's a whole different ball game when a professor tells you about their research and suddenly you're having an impromptu discussion about it.

What do you do if the professor says something you don't understand?

Nod along, pretending to know?

Interrupt?

I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. You can't really interrupt them constantly, and sometimes their next sentence will address your question. But you do have to get used to interrupting them a bit, or at least showing on your face that you don't understand. It's going to get awkward at some point if you're totally lost and you don't admit it.

You can practice with a friend or a lab mate: ask them to tell you about a topic that they know more about than you do, and practice politely interrupting when you aren't sure what they mean. You can also switch roles so that you

get used to being interrupted and having questions asked

see what it's like to be interrupted so you can determine what feels polite and what you should avoid

When you're in your interview, don't be nervous if the professor is writing while they're talking to you, or even if they're filling out a form. Don't assume they're making a list of everything you're doing wrong! They're meeting with a lot of students, and the notes are there to help them remember how awesome you are!

This blog post was about how to prepare ahead of time for interviews. Stay tuned next week for tips for how to behave when you're actually there! Future blog posts on this topic will address:

dealing with imposter syndrome at recruitment weekends

what to do if you didn't get into the program of your dreams (or even anywhere)

how to decide if you should even go to grad school