#i don’t like 400m if anyone was wondering

[lucent-roase]

yesterday, my coach told a very select few people including myself that we were going to run 6 400s today (to put this in perspective, 400m=1/4 a mile, which you have to sprint). he told us so we could encourage our teammates to keep going throughout the workout since this small group usually carries the whole team effort-wise…

i showed up to practice today out of my MIND. i started hyperventilating and crying halfway through warmups, which is not something i really do, ESPECIALLY in public. when the team walked to the start line, my coach told everyone what we were doing. at this point, tears were rolling down my face, but i locked in for the first 400, but by gods it was HARD…

after my 3rd 400 (oh also, I AM A 100/200 RUNNER. I DON’T TRAIN FOR THIS) i started sobbing. like. whimpering and falling to the floor with my head in my hands. like the emo wolf drawing. you know the one. i literally did not think i could get through another one. but i did. AND A FEW MINUTES AFTER FINISHING MY FOURTH, I THREW UP IN A TRASH CAN. i thought puking would make my coach allow me to stop, but he was kinda right when he implied that i would feel better after. on the line. died once again, starting to cry after my fifth.

oh. my. goshs. my stomach (probably due to puking like 80 seconds prior) hurt so bad all the sudden. thank goodness my friend came up to me and talked me through it AND I FINISHED MY PRACTICE!!

but the funny bit was that i absolutely did NOT tell my teammates to put in effort, i was not supporting my friends, i was literally just sobbing away from everyone even though i was chosen to help others through this practice.

ANYWAY. just something i went through today that i ended up being really proud of. but jeez i wanna sleep.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Who owns the covid vaccines?

A key idea from sf is “all laws are local, and no law knows how local it is.” Prisoners of our own time and place, it’s hard not to feel like we’re living in the only possible world, is if everything around us is inevitable and natural — and any change is “unnatural.”

But anyone who’s ever dabbled in multi-agent modeling (sims where “individuals” each have their own goals and aversions) knows there are lots of stable configurations that a big, complex system can fall into, and re-rerunning the same sim produces wildly different outcomes.

14 months ago, we hit STOP on our big, complex system and now the US is about to hit START again. It will not be a return to “normalcy,” because the old normal wasn’t inevitable. There are lots of other ways we could get along. And frankly, the old normal sucked.

A key way in which Old Normal sucked was the way that monopolists were able to style themselves as heroic entrepreneurs whose great rewards were commensurate with their great risks — when in reality, the risks were always socialized and only the gains were privatized.

That’s an area where a new normal is long overdue, and that new normal is being born in the controversy over public access to covid vaccines.

Helping the poor world manufacture its own vaccines is the obvious right thing to do.

Not just because vaccine apartheid is slow genocide, but also because the longer billions of people are infected, the greater the chance that one of them will incubate a vaccine-resistant, even more deadly mutation.

MRNA vaccines are wild: compared to conventional vaccines, they can be manufactured with 99.7% less capital and 99.9% less physical plant, and mRNA production facilities can retool to make new vaccines 1,000% faster.

https://coronavirus.medium.com/manufacturing-mrna-vaccines-is-surprisingly-straightforward-despite-what-bill-gates-thinks-222cffb686ee

Moderna’s own assessment is that new mRNA facilities can be built in 3–4 months. There’s no good scientific or humanitarian reason to object to patent- and know-how transfer to the Global South, where vaccination is currently projected for 2023/4 (!).

https://apnews.com/article/drug-companies-called-share-vaccine-info-22d92afbc3ea9ed519be007f8887bcf6

We’ve just experienced the collapse of the racist lie — peddled by Big Pharma, Bill Gates, Howard Dean and other vaccine apartheid apologists — that poor brown people are too primitive to make vaccines.

The new talking point? “CHINA! CHINA! CHINA!”

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how-to-rob-a-bank/#roll-the-dice

Whether it’s racist lies about the Global South or New Cold War hysteria, the underlying ideological story is the same: exclusive patent rights and the (spectacular) profits they yield are the foundation of lifesaving medical innovation.

That is, fate has placed among us a tiny cohort of collosi, endowed with the superpower of inventing the future. But for all their creative might, these saviors-in-potentia have the fragile temperaments of toddlers, and if they’re denied their due, they’ll abandon us to die.

“Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.” The true mRNA vaccines theft isn’t entrepreneur-inventors who face robbery by the public sector — rather, those “entrepreneurs” have enjoyed billions in public subsidies, and now insist they owe nothing in return.

So much public investment went into the covid vaccines that it’s hard to account for it all. The GAO thinks that Uncle Sam coughed up $18–23b in direct subsidies. BARDA pumped in $19.3b.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20210512.191448/full/

The USG picked up the tab for non-clinical studies of new covid vaccines ($900m), and also shelled out for Phase III trials ($2.7b).

Moderna got $53m for production capacity, part of $100m in direct capacity contracts to pharma, backed with $2.7b for contract manufacturers.

J&J got a $1b pre-order from the USG; Moderna got $4.95b, Pfizer (which touts its lack of public subsidy!) got a $5.97b guaranteed order.

That’s just the latest round of investment. BARDA has been backing mRNA vaccine research for years, pumping billions into the project.

Pharma’s claim that it doesn’t owe us anything in return makes no sense, even by the companies’ own logic. They say that markets produce wonders because they reward canny risk-taking with vast fortunes.

By that logic, the public — who assumed the majority of the risk in developing vaccines — are the angel investors in this high-tech unicorn, and the pharma companies are the VCs who came in with some late capital to help scale up a sure thing.

It’s neither good business — nor legal — for early minority investors get squeezed out by latecomers.

But, of course, the government isn’t a business. Our democratic institutions direct our national productive capacity to R&D in service to human thriving, not profit.

Public investment in R&D isn’t a business in the same way that having kids isn’t a retirement plan: we have kids because we love them and want them to thrive. If they care for us in our dotage, that’s great, but if you treat your kid as an ambulatory 401k, you’re a monster.

I first encountered these ideas when serving as an NGO rep at WIPO alongside Jamie Love and Knowledge Ecology International. Love helped create the Access to Medicines Treaty and has been fighting the pharma industry’s self-serving story of fragile genius for decades.

In an interview with Janine Jackson at FAIR, Love lays out the plain case for an IP-waiver to enable poor countries to make their own vaccines, like the undeniable truth that this would “definitely expand the production and supply of vaccines.”

https://fair.org/home/government-money-thats-gone-into-vaccine-development-is-being-privatized-by-a-handful-of-companies/

Love also recounts the kind of public subsidy that went into covid vaccine production (for example, Pfizer’s boasts of free enterprise entrepreneurship omits the €400m from Germany and €100m from the rest of the EU).

Pharma’s claims of philanthropic largesse are wildly overblown. Pfizer told its shareholders it expects $26b from covid vaccines in 2021; Moderna’s projecting $20b (Moderna’s CEO’s personal net worth just hit $5b).

All that before pharma companies jack up the prices for “their” vaccines, in the years to come when we all need annual boosters, when the price will go from $10 to $175/dose, for a vaccine that costs $0.10/dose to manufacture.

The case for public access to vaccines and the case against pharma as a necessary or even laudable force for good is so thin, it’s remarkable that it’s persisted this long.

But as Love points out, the ideology that knowledge-monopolies are moral has some powerful backers.

Bill Gates is a prime example. Gates has been committed to enclosing commonly created knowledge and turning it into a monopoly — in service to coaxing our toddler-genius-collosi into action — since he was a teenager, writing petulant letters to computer hobbyists.

Today, Gates — a convicted monopolist — directs one of the world’s great fortunes (“behind every great fortune…”), and he mobilizes his capital to prop up the story of necessary and benevolent profiteering.

The Gates Foundation, for example, donates millions to “independent” media outlets (as well as partnering with public media like the BBC), and as Love describes, this has a chilling effect on negative reporting on Gates, the Foundation, and its ideology.

Like the time Love got a Washington Monthly reporter interested in a critical story about how the Gates Foundation’s grants influence its media coverage — only to have the reporter’s editor kill the story because they’d just applied for one of those grants (!).

Gates is a true ideologue, a relentless campaigner against any public access to public goods, in every domain, not just software. He’s been at it a long time, leading the charge against Nelson Mandela’s demand that South Africa be allowed to manufacture its own AIDS drugs.

Love: “Gates is a smart guy; he’s not the only smart guy around or smart woman around. I think people need to listen to other views. And, actually, Gates has sort of a mental block about these issues, and so some of his arguments just don’t add up.”

But all laws are local, and multi-agent systems have many stable configurations. On Friday, the New York Times editorial board — long a voice for strong corporate power — published an editorial and accompanying package strongly endorsing vaccine waivers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/opinion/biden-covid-vaccines-world-india.html

The Times notes that the global economy is losing trillions due to lockdown, and that these loses will mount for so long as vaccines aren’t universally available.

But it also makes an ethical case, calling vaccine apartheid a “moral failure.”

It warns of political instability and the potential for states to topple if something isn’t done, pointing to the pitched battles in Colombia (in which death squads are now murdering leftists with impunity and posting snuff videos to social media as a boast — and a warning).

Beyond advocating for vaccine waivers, the Times backs Public Citizen’s plan to spend $25b ramping up domestic, publicly owned vaccine production facilities to make vaccines to be given away free or at cost to poor countries.

https://www.citizen.org/article/25-billion-to-vaccinate-the-world/

That effort will produce 8b vaccine doses, “enough to vaccinate half the planet.” And it will provide booster shots and new anti-variant vaccines into the future.

The future is coming. Lockdowns are lifting. The rich world is inching toward an emergence from emergency. But normalcy isn’t returning — thank goodness. The whole world deserves (and requires) so much better than normal.

Image: Quapan (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/hinkelstone/49920420853

CC BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[tellywoodtrash]

immj2 20.10.20 lb

great, the memory card has fallen off aryan's shoe onto the floor. can't wait to see it kicked and passed around the house like the heere in andaz apna apna ka climax.

a wholeass pailllllllll of nails chachi has, and she knocked it over, and now she's scooped the memory card and put it with the nails. abbe yaaaaaaaaar.

dadi is a little too fida on this bahu. hello, you have other grandchildren in this house too? yes ok most of them other than siya suck, but still!!!! angre ko toh itna laad nahi deti aap??? i would argue he deserves it more, having to handle two-two sankiii raisinghania siblings. 

lehenga waala controversy ki hawwwwwww vansh ki maa ka lehenga kaise pehen liya tumneeeeeee, and riddhima's like bishhhhhh my man gave it to meeee.

btw i think it's rude af that vansh got haq over it and not ishani and siya. i would totally not let a brother give away my mom's payal AND lehenga to some chick he married coz he thought she was a shady bitch here to spy on the fam. HE DIDN'T EVEN MARRY HER COZ HE LOVED HER OR NOTHING!!!!!!! WHY DOES SHE GET OUR MOM'S STUFF?!?!?!!?!? WHO MADE HIM THE BEQUEATHER OF HER HEIRLOOMS????????

long story short, i agree with ishani's bitchface here.

face-off between saas bahu over whether vansh will show up for aarti. lordddddddddddd, y'all better off betting on shit like the ipl, at least kuch toh paise mil jaate usmein.

full raisinghania parivaar convinced ki nahi aayega vansh.

but oh????????? YEH KISKI HAI AAAHAT???????? YEH KISA HAI SAAYA?????????

boooooooooooyah in your faces, bitches. though mans looks like he'd rather wrestle a pack of wild dogs than be doing this. HE'S HERE. THAT'S WHAT MATTERS.  

behold the power of heterosexual crushy-wushy feelings (triple-boosted by the power of maa ka lehenga.)

mann hi mann mein gutargooo. god, just rip off the beautiful clothes and fuckkkk, you idiots. it's what maata rani wants!

OK BLOODY ENOUGH STARING THIS SCENE HAS LITERALLY GONE ON FOR 3 MINUTES TOO LONG, AARTI BHI KARNI HAI KI NAHI?!?! WHO ARE THESE PPL WHO STAND AROUND SUSTAINING EYE CONTACT LIKE THIS MY SOCIALLY ANXIOUS ASS IS FUCKING DYINGGGG HERE FROM JUST WATCHING THIS

dude turns on the puppy eyes only when she's not looking.

waaaaaah! look who's enjoying aarti! while smize-flirting with wife.

inn meesniyon ko baaz nahi aana. this is the fucking stupidest shit i've ever seen. WHY WOULD YOU MAKE A BED OF NAILS?????? DON'T YOU KNOW THAT THE MORE THE NUMBER OF THE NAILS PACKED CLOSELY TOGETHER, IT PROVIDES A FOUNDATION THAT ALLOWS EVEN WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION AND THUS DOESN'T HURT?????? USKE UPER CARPET BHI DAAL DIYA. SO HOW IS THIS SHIT SUPPOSED TO WORK, LIKE AT ALLLLL????

also idk wtf dushmani this family has against riddhima's poor feet ki unko hi nishaana banaate hain har time. poori ki poori body padi hui hai behen ki, kahin aur bhi vaar kiya karo, variety ke liye?!?

bhakti waala boner.

kal hi maine bola tha ki isko dandiya mat dena. angre inviting his own shaamat.

literally everyone in the family has their own different style of taking aarti.

aarti given to aryan with an extra side of stinkeye and promise to put him in jail.

voot has muted all the bloody songs and replaced it with some generic music and goddddddd. i have to go download some stream from tv now to watch the dance sequences properly. literally what is the point of voot’s existense, someone tell me. itnaaaa ghatiya streaming platform nahi dekha maine aaj tak. they should be paying us to watch shit on their trash site.

this is the most non-enthu dandiya playing i have seen in my life. he's standing there as if his shoes have been nailed to the ground. ffs, siya, who's in a wheelchair has more zeal.

his bejaan dancing reminded her of the other inanimate object that is priority as of the moment: the memory card.

aaaaaaaaaaand she hit him on the hand, and he walked off mooh phula ke that she wasn't paying attn. GOD EVERYONE IN THIS SHOW IS SO FUCKING ANNOYING.

meanwhile this one also got her hands on the bucket of nails. lordddddddddddddddddddd. i just can't with these ppl anymore.

yeh lo, yeh phir aa gayi maata rani se favour maangne.

FROM 0-60 IN A SECOND THIS ONE'S BRAIN MAKES ASSUMPTIONS. DIMAAG HAI YA TESLA KA ENGINE?!?!!?

inka khatam nahi hua. itna dimaag padhaai likhaai mein lagaati aap log toh khud ki companyaan chalaate, aur vansh ke paise ki zaroorat nahi padti.

ishani literally hammered nails into her bloody dandiya to hit angre with, who tf she think she is, jeffrey dean morgan from the walking dead?!?!!?!?!?!

hein???? riddhima ko itne upar se bucket mein memory card dikh gaya??? is she a long-lost cheel sister from naagin 5???? (maine bola tha this show is a companion piece to that one!!!)

i really truly get ishani’s annoyance with this b. she’s very very very irritating.

“isse kahin safe jagaah chupaana hoga” she says, AND YET AGAIN PUTS IT SOMEWHERE TOTALLY DUMB, THAT SHE WOULDN'T REALIZE IF IT FELL TF OUT. WHYYYYYYYY IS SHE LIKE THIS?!!?!?!?!?!? JUST WHY??????????

I MEAN........... JUST GO HIDE IT WHEREVER YOU KEEP YOUR MENSTRUAL PRODUCTS????? LITERALLY NO ONE WILL TOUCH THOSE, ESP. VANSH/ARYAN. IT'S THE LAST PLACE THEY'D EVEN THINK TO LOOK. MY GOD WHY IS SHE SO INFURIATINGLY STUPID??????????

garba ke baad she wants to show vansh the footage. wonderful. should go great.

mummyji ka naatak to make riddhima take the akhand jyot. fwding.

if there's anyone who's MORE of a doe-eyed optimistic fool than riddhima in this house, it's angre.

god ishani, you're a horrible person.

ofc, isko hero banna hai. keel ko poora daboch hi liya haath mein.

great, he's like tum ziddi toh main bhi dheent. re bhagwaaaaaaaan.

pls god, let them pair siya with someone wholesome; nahi toh i'll not have a single couple to ship in this generation of raisinghanias.

lmaooooooo dandiya kam yeh toh fencing match zyaada lag raha hai.

husband was just saying sorry to apologize for bumping into her but OH HO HO HO HO PATIDEV KABHI MAAFI KYUN MAANGEEEEEEEE PARMESHWAR SE TOH GALTIYAAN NAHI HOTIIIIIIIIIIII

one ainvayi ka ~~deep~~~~~~ dialogue also, that made no fucking sense but ok whatever.

LMAO WHUT THE DANCING CAME OUTTA FUCKING NOWHERE I AM AS PUZZLED AS VANSH IS

also everyone's like baaju hato baaju hato iske khatarnaak dancing se already vansh ko lag chuki ek baar abhi humein nahi khaani

i am ishani and aryan, pissed at how this chick just be hogging the whole floor. hello, this is a communal garba space!!!?!!

also i fucking love nagada sang dhol, but solo dancing to this song just looks very very sad.

anyway, now that the cultural program part of the evening is over......... time for operation keel carpet.

this chachi is such a sample i swear to godddddddd. iske khurafaati dimaag mein full time aise nonsense ideas hi aatein hain. aunty, apply this time and effort into an mba or msw or something, and you'd be much better off in life.

for the love of god stop making this dude run unless its some legit chase sequence or something. he looks ridiculous running around in the house as if he's trying to break the world record for 400m.

Bhakti Boner round 2.

chalo, finally she's on her way to the room. in dono ke kaleje ko thandak.

once again, for those at home thinking of replicating this kaand to fuck over an annoying nanad/bhaabi/whatever: please read how a bed of nails works, so that you don't waste your time on it.

why's everyone watching her go up as if ISRO ne koi naya satellite launch kiya ho??? DO Y'ALL NOT HAVE WIFI IN THIS HOUSE??????? MATLAB, KUCH BHIIIIIIIII ENTERTAINMENT NAHI HAI KYA ISS GHAR MEIN RIDDHIMA KE ALAAVA????

issne toh mann mein jann gann mana bhi gaana shuru kar diya, outta pride.

HOW EVEN IS SHE BLEEDING FROM THE FOOT WHEN KEELON KE UPAR CARPET HAI?????????? KUCHHHHHHHHH BHI.

[bagels-and-seagulls]

Cheerleader matteo and hot jock david!!!??!’mmm

listen listen listen i have so many asks about my au’s that i am ignoring because this has been wearing me down and i feel like if i don’t answer it, i will explode. also, by cheerleader x hot jock i hope you meant enemies to lovers between the over cliche cheerleader captain and quarterback of an american football team because that’s what you’re getting. cheers :)))

-matteo heard whisperings about the new kid in school who was supposed to be fast enough to win a 400m with a handicap and an arm that was accurate enough to throw a 70 yard hail mary in the last three seconds of the game and make a connection that you really had to see to believe. everyone, for some reason, wanted to get matteo’s opinion about it as one of the cheer captains who was inevitably going to have to encourage some sort of enthusiasm in this god given talent of an athlete, and each time he would smile amicably and say that the team would cheer for whoever ended up replacing george, who was out for the season with a broken leg in four places, regardless of how good they were. but when it was just him and his friends, shooting the shit and talking out their asses, he admitted that he didn’t really care about the new quarterback. he was sure he was going to be an asshole anyways. they always were. 

-he meets him in passing, the new guy- well, meet is probably not the best word to use. the defensive captain, one of the left tackles, is talking with this boy that matteo has never seen before but feels like he might want to look at again, at least a couple of times if he were given the chance to appreciate the view, when the tackle bumps shoulders with matteo as he was waiting for the rest of the squad to join him. and matteo stumbles back a few steps as the tackle looks at him with a sneer and an eye roll, over emphasizing a dramatic, anyway, to the boy he was talking to. the boy looks over his shoulder. matteo looks away already making up his mind about who this guy was going to be. 

-later as he’s stretching on the track, kiki points over to the field as she drops into a low split and asks, have you met david yet? matteo looks over the team messing around to see the boy from before throwing the ball in a perfect spiral down the field maybe twenty or thirty yards. david? he repeats, feeling the way the name sounds in his mouth. kiki nods, yeah, the new qb. 

-they get formally introduced in the locker room later- well, formally, once again, probably is an overstatement of their brief interaction. matteo usually tries to avoid the football team if he can, either going before or after them, but he was staying late with sam, who had pneumonia the week before, to help her go over a new routine they were working on and ended up gathering his things right as the team rowdily made their presence known on their way in. david, apparently, has a locker in the same row as matteo, probably because most of the other ones were taken, and he casually says, hey, to matteo as matteo is trying to get his backpack zipped up quick enough to leave. uh, hey, matteo responds and clears his throat. i’m david, he says with a smile that was friendly but on the edge of something else, something with a bit of canine in it. i heard, matteo responds. did you? david asks and now the smile is filled with an arrogance that is too overly done for people like him. oh, one of the other players jeers, if it isn’t the cheer captain! here to give us a dance? he taunts and makes a lewd gesture that has matteo slamming his locker shut with a clang and a thought that he wanted to maybe kick someone’s teeth in. you’d like that wouldn’t you? he throws back and all the team members laugh at his back when he walks away. yeah, matteo thinks, i know exactly who this guy is going to be. 

-are you really the cheer captain? david asks him as he slides into the chair next to him in literature class that was unforntuately permanently assigned to him for the year. after a stilted introduction where the teacher forced david to awkwardly introduce himself to the class by halfheartedly saying he moved from up north and was looking forward to playing football here and that his favorite shakespeare play was romeo and juliet, she pointed to the seat next to matteo that was empty and told him to sit there. what about it? matteo asks in return as he crosses his arms over his chest and watches as david leans in a little further. i just never got your name is all, didn’t think it was leonie, he says with something sparkling in his eyes that makes matteo remember the barbs and gibes from most everyone that runs across the football field with david behind them that make him unsettled and something else entirely, and matteo wants to clench his teeth and say something a little too loud for this setting but all he does is hiss out, right, and i’m sure your the defensive line captain, too. how many tackles you get last year?

-apparently, their lockers are only a few down from each other, because of course they are. why wouldn’t they be? matteo thinks to himself as david says hello to him when he passes by with sly, little smiles tugging at his lips and winks at him when he catches matteo looking his way, even when he’s talking to his football buddies who always make it a point to throw a comment or pointed look  when matteo is caught. just another asshole, matteo answers to jonas one day after he asks who he was looking at. really? jonas repeats. looks like he was checking you out. and matteo scoffs as he shoves his books in his locker and shakes his head because even if david was the most devilishly attractive boy that matteo has come across in a long, long time, he wasn’t a moron, and he didn’t really think jonas was either. the quarterback? please, jonas, screw your head on straight.

-they have to work together occasionally on literature assignments since they oh so fortunately sit next to each other, and david spends more time looking at matteo with his lip between his teeth, throwing sarcasticm little comments at him, than he does listening to what matteo was trying to say about the book they were supposed to be reading that week. and matteo was starting to wonder if it was because he liked to hear matteo get mad and bite something back at him that was off topic and not productive or if it was because he liked the way that people would look over their shoulders and snicker at the way they got caught up bickering with each other. they get yelled at by the teacher for not staying on task, and matteo just glares at david for the rest of the day, who seems tickled pink by the whole ordeal. 

-matteo and david will occasionally cross paths as matteo is leaving the locker room and david is just coming in. matteo tries not to stare. really, he does, but when he’s tired, and sore, and sick of not being able to stick the round off triple back hamstring that leonie was certain was going to make the routine a whole other level if him and carlos could just get themselves on the same beat with their dismounts, the way that david’s hair sticks to his face, and the way his skin looks with sweat rolling down his temples, and the way that his flush goes down his neck under his collar, and the way that he pushes up his sleeves up his shoulders, and the way- matteo tries not to stare, but sometimes, just sometimes, he gets a little distracted. it’s not like he’s proud of it. 

-the season starts next week, david says to him one day when the lit teacher is running late and everyone starts whispering that if she doesn't show up in fifteen minutes, they’re legally allowed to leave. i know, matteo responds, making a point to keep looking down at his homework that was really as good as it was going to get at this point. you gonna cheer for me? david asks, and that gets enough of matteo’s attention to look at him with a raised eye brow that david smirks at, his pen flipping around in his hand. we cheer for everyone, matteo responds and flicks his eyes away because david was looking a little too satisfied with himself for matteo to really deal with right now, don’t flatter yourself. and david laughs, just a little like it was purposefully small and just for matteo to hear, well, i’m excited to see your little dance anyways. 

-david is good, like really good, and they win the first three games of the season by a landslide because david is quicker on his feet than matteo has ever seen anyone else before, and the way that everyone starts fawning over him and falling for him makes matteo rolls his fists up and look away.

-did you watch the game last week? david asks him during his usual pre-class routine of asking matteo a stupid question just to watch matteo roll his eyes at him. i go to all the games, matteo responds with a sigh, you know that. and david smiles because matteo has gotten into the habit of not responding to him these past couple of days, so he takes the minor victory where he can. just cause you’re there, doesn’t mean you watch, he responds, you said so yourself, you cheer for everyone. and matteo doesn’t really have a good answer that doesn’t seem too revealing for some reason, too like he’s exposing himself to something he wasn’t ever really going to admit, even to himself, so he just goes, yeah, and? and david looks like that was the answer he wanted to hear because he scoots his chair a couple inches closer, i watch you, you know? you finally got your front flip things timed with that other guy. 

-and matteo stares at him for a second, waiting for the second part of the joke, for the shoe to drop, for him to feel the wave of humiliation that usually comes from when a footballer pays him too much attention. you’re in the locker room when we perform routines, he says instead because he wasn’t going to fall for any tricks. yeah, but you got it in practice on thursday afternoon, so i just guessed, david shrugs and watches the way that matteo looks at the desk and then back at him like he thought david wasn’t done talking. matteo clears his throat and looks to where the teacher started standing up by her desk, you need to watch your right side in the pocket, he says. your ol on that side isn’t as strong, and if you were paying closer attention to the right, you would have avoided that sack in the second quarter.

-something changes between the two of them, and matteo can’t quite place why, maybe it was the fact that he finally gave david the attention he wanted, something other than a scoff and half a glance walking away, or the fact that he answered seriously, admitted to something david has been getting at for a while, or maybe it was because david was tired of playing the game he was, when matteo didn’t know the rules, didn’t know if he wanted to. 

-david’s sly smiles turn into little wiggles of his nose that make matteo laugh the first couple of times, and his winks turn into wide eyes and over exaggerated eyebrow movements like he wanted to include matteo somehow in whatever conversation he was having even though matteo couldn’t hear them. his sarcasm turns into a quiet type of seriousness that makes matteo’s collar feel a little tight and his cheeks a little hot when he compliments matteo on a move or a routine or just something like the color of the sweater he was wearing. his pre-class questions turn from taunting to curious, and he’s asking about where matteo is from, how’s his family, does he like his classes, who are his friends. matteo answers seriously on the days he doesn’t feel like he’s too much of an open book for a guy he can’t even watch make a pass down the field without blushing and possibly dropping one of the flyers. 

-the attention makes matteo feel like he’s floating and at the bottom of the ocean all at once. he doesn’t really know how to come to terms with that, so he decides to just not while he can help it.

-one of the perks for being on the cheer squad is that matteo gets invited to most every party anyone at school throws in one way or another, and when he has a group of rag tag best friends who shoot their shot with people they have zero chances with, he inevitably has to tag alone to whatever social disaster he’s about to face just to watch them try their luck with another unfortunate victim of their attention. this week, it was leonie’s house party because her parents were away for the weekend, and the football team was having a bye week. so they were fit to have a rager that was for the history books, and jonas had convinced abdi to go, who convinced carlos to go, and they all three had to convince matteo to go because he was the one that was going to get them all in after all. 

-it happens during a game of truth or dare, because of course, it does. how cliche this whole thing is.

-matteo, i dare you to sit on david’s lap for the rest of the game, leonie says with a sinister smile, and he vaguely wonders if this was punishment for not going with her plan for a full pyramid during the last game they had. but when he looks at the way she keeps sending david little smiles that has mischief pasted on her teeth, he vaguely remembers that they were actually pretty close friends at this point and thinks there might be something else happening here, like a setup, though he couldn’t decide for who. matteo looks over to david, who was taking a sip of his beer a little too slowly to be real life. and all of sudden, everything happens very quickly. david leans back on the couch and makes some motion to mean for matteo to come over. someone cheers. matteo thinks it’s jonas. david winks and pats his lap. matteo needs a hit he decides but goes over anyways and tries to make himself comfortable as david wraps his arm around matteo’s waist to keep him steady.

-matteo ignores the way that it burns, like he was on fire.  

-this is nice, david says into the fabric of matteo’s shirt and rubs his chin over his shoulder as people are cheering sam while she twerks on a wall somewhere. is it? matteo asks because he’s been trying to hold himself perfectly still to not bother him at all for at least ten minutes now, and david’s forearm flexes where it’s wrapped around matteo’s waist like he was meaning to pull him closer, and responds, yeah, don’t you think? and matteo is sick of whatever is happening, all of it, from the glances to the questions to the way that david sometimes makes him feel like he’s the only person in the whole wide world with just a little bit of well placed attention. and yeah, matteo’s a little buzzed, and it’s making him a little bold. so he asks, are you serious? david does tug him then, just to get matteo’s attention enough to look at him. i’ve been flirting with you since i got here, he says like it was already written in stone somewhere, and matteo blinks at him, is that what you call it? he asks, more in shock than anything else, and david laughs in a way that makes his eyes scrunch up in the corners and take matteo’s breath away. hey, i never said it was good flirting. 

-they make out in the bathroom when everyone else is too busy paying attention to the way that carlos claimed he could do a headstand for at least eight minutes. better than seven minutes in heaven, matteo thinks as david runs his teeth over his jaw. 

[metaldragoon]

When I was younger, I was really excellent at most athletics.  Not the best sprinter, but I still represented my school in the 100M and was unbeatable at 400M, 800M, 1500M, and high jump.  I played on the best school for soccer and basketball, and while I would never say I was “sociable” I was still surrounded by friends.  That was only until I was 10, so you might attribute to physically maturing at a faster pace than most kids, since I was also the tallest to go along with the fastest and most athletic.  My parents were starting to split up, they never officially divorced until I was like 14 but at around 8 they started living separately with small stints of living together again, and so I was mostly a daycare kid but I was with one of my best friends there and the only kid as athletic as me, though fortunately for track day he was a year older than me so I never had to compete against him.   My mom decided to get back in to teaching once I turned 10, which she had stopped since she was pregnant with me to take care of me, which I feel like makes so little sense because she worked at casinos and stuff until like 2 AM so I never saw her anyways, but, digressing, she found a full-time position.  Some desolate northern town where it reaches -50 and it’s a 4 hour drive to the next town.  I honestly was quite okay with the idea of moving.  I feel like most of my friends had moved and i was like cool, sick of being the lame-o with 40 year old parents and only lived in one house.  Also, being in a tiny town with no competition and training for sports all my life, I was like a whale shark in a fish tank, destroying all school records for my track events, and I feel like success never really mattered even, it just felt nice.  But each year there, being that it’s winter for about 7 months a year, and, weird of an excuse as it may be, the bugs and mosquitoes there are... so aggressive, it’s either too cold or I’m going to be choking on bugs and scratching my self of all my bites or getting bitten by fruit flies.  The sun is so affected by seasons, it’s dark at 3 PM in winter and sunny until 2 AM in the summer.   The point of these excuses is just that I lost my athleticism.  I am still above average, I guess, but I was slower than the year previous each of my 3 years living there.  People never ragged on me about it, I guess they just assumed I didn’t care was the reason, but I knew I just wasn’t as good as people anymore.  Kids that didn’t even play sports could keep up with me.  This is not very pitiable, but after losing all my friends from moving away, to lose my athleticism took it’s toll. My dad moved away from that northern town as my parents were officially done trying to be together, and I moved with him because I don’t know, I guess again it just felt exciting to be somewhere new.  I feel like as a kid all those complaints still didn’t really bug me, this is just looking back at the things that made me.  We moved in to some apartments, and while I would say I really enjoyed my time there, I guess this would be when I started having “depression.”  I never really felt like that’s how I felt.  My dad would work 3PM until midnight, sometimes I’d see him before he’d go to work, he’d make me dinner for me to eat later, and then I’d be by myself, playing computer games and listening to music and talking to lots of people online.  I’d make sure to go to bed around 11 so he wouldn’t know I stayed up, maybe have a little cry some nights because I don’t know, that just felt relieving, which of course it is, but whatever.  I lived about 20 minutes from school, so I’d walk myself to and from basketball practice and soccer was on the weekends so my dad would drive me there, and outside of that that’d be the only time I left the house unless my dad wanted me to go grocery shopping or something.  Something about my dad is that he is... stoic? completely unemotional? I don’t know.  I love him, and think he’s great, but he is not one for talking to his son about anything at all.  He disciplines me on the important things of life and is very reliable, but I feel like there’s no joy in his life or joking around, which I guess I just felt was normal since he was my only real contact.  I guess that’s why I liked being online so much.  I could be emotional and talk about things and be silly without thinking I’m disappointing my father, since he has no idea what I’m doing. I started having a lot of ankle problems, which I feel like honestly didn’t really affect my life, it just meant I missed time in sports, and eventually in Gr. 10 my knees started to go, which came to me giving up sports in Gr. 11 because the pain of practices just became too much and coaches weren’t willing to let me just use that as an excuse to only play in games.  Gr. 11 I moved with my mother who once again moved to some tiny remote town and I followed her, this time definitely under the influence of her emotional instability and feeling guilted about that.  I feel I really hit my low there, as I talked about with my injuries.  The town didn’t even have a soccer team and our basketball team was a joke anyways before I quit.  I was weighing about 250, I still feel like I was pretty athletic, but my knees would give out on me even just walking.  I feel I’ve always had this “pushing my body to extremes” from childhood that I’ve never adjusted to, because in my head I know I can work harder than anyone and succeed because I’m more athletic, and eventually they’ll give up, but they don’t because I’m not more athletic and it just destroys my body.  Maybe my adrenaline rush is just stronger than others because I feel like coughing and being completely out of breath, knees stinging and it being hard to walk because my feet are throbbing was just regular after a game but looking at it now I’m like there’s no way other people dealt with that.  Anyways, I don’t know, I’m just trying to say it was a very low point.  Ever since I heard Caitlyn Jenner talk about how all she did was train for the decathlon and football and everything when she was younger as just being referred to the “great distraction” for her transgender thoughts, which she didn’t understand and just thought were wrong ro something, I’ve found that pretty relatable.  Sports to me were the same things, a way to not be thinking about everything shitty about life.  Without that it was pretty much thinking about is killing my self worth disappointing my parents and making them think they did such a shitty job of raising me? Because that’s not what my suicide is about, and I don’t want them to blame themself, but I know it’s impossible to not.  That was basically my saving grace.  I’d also become pretty infatuated with a girl who I’d been friends with for about 3 years or so.  I know she didn’t like me back, as I had told her my feelings and she told me hers, but there’s always hope that she just hasn’t noticed what there is to like about me yet.  Looking back I feel like a “white knight nice guy here’s my fedora” fucking loser, but I like to also think I was a lot better than that too.  We were best friends and basically all my life was just typing to her and attending school.  My general sadness became directed towards her not liking me, because I always felt that yeah I’m a loser but I know I’m just in a bad spot and I have a lot of potential to be great... and for the person closest to me not to see that or be attracted to it when everything about her is attractive to me was really like a crushing blow to any kind of comfort I would have found in her.  Of course, she still was a great comfort but y’know, you go to bed alone and have insomnia and it’s hard not to focus and drive yourself down this negative road of how pathetic you are. I don’t know, Gr. 12 got a lot better as I moved back with my dad and got in much better shape and actually wasn’t afraid to express myself in English and actually got above C-’s in class.  My dad was living with another woman who’s now my step-mother and her son, who served as a wonderful little brother for me.  I still was a shell hiding in my room at home, but at least I’d have someone in person to joke with instead of devoting it all to my best friend with whom I would throw my emotions up and down on the roller coaster of my mind.  The year went by fine, I played more basketball and soccer and football.   I wasn’t the best, but I was still good I guess My dad, cold as he can be, had no interest in taking care of me past school, so the day after I graduated I moved away to my mother, where I stayed for a few months before moving with my friend in Winnipeg.  I went thinking one, she’s the only good thing in my life so I’ll at least be happy there, and two, hey, most people online “overrate” them self so it can be hard to be attracted when there’s that doubt, maybe the in-person version of me is what she’s been missing out on and I can still make her love me! Naive, of course, but I lived there for a few months.  It was good, but unfortunately I just wasn’t able to get a job and frankly I don’t know how the fuck people figure it out at that young of an age where they just get good jobs or apply to all the right things for post-secondary.  I moved back to my mom’s place, but she had moved in with her then-boyfriend, so I lived in her house she owned as just like an actual tenant, alone in a basement suite.  Those were some very cathartic times, I had a job as a dishwasher with 4 days on 4 days off, 6 hour days, so it would just be me doing absolutely nothing for 4 days until I worked.  Art, or talking to my friend more, drawing a bunch and reading and stuff.  Forming an obsession with Depeche Mode and anime.   Anyways, after moving away from Winnipeg, you know, it was really clear she wasn’t ever going to love me, I mean, it was probably plenty clear objectively a long time ago, but to the blinded fool that is metaldragoon he still always had hope.  But you know, I tried my best, showed her everything I was, and all I would do is cry all the fucking time about it and be miserable so to me I just decided I can’t be friends with her, ‘cus this is killing me.  I don’t remember what I said, but basically just said I didn’t want to talk to her.  I feel cutting her out made everything grey in life, I honestly didn’t get sad anymore, sure I’d cry here and there, but for the most part I didn’t feel negative because I wasn’t trying and failing, but not trying didn’t bring much happiness either.  It was an interesting time in my life, maybe a couple years, where I just wanted to exist and do whatever I did with my life back then.  Playing old games. Eventually I moved out of my mom’s and in to my aunt’s, got a job and moved out there to a basement once again, and lived there for I guess about 6 years.  That’s when I got in to Tumblr, a nice grey place for my grey existence, mindlessly reblog and eventually I got in to GIF making and I got praise for work, even if it waesn’t really “praise” but let me tell you a fucking like or a reblog on a GIF is some real juice and I became pretty devoted to that.  I’d just come home from work, scroll through my entire dashboard, and watch anime just to make GIFs of it.  Fa’ years!  Eventually I started befriending fellow GIF-maker unit-02, dishing out hot GIF tips with her, but of course no one can dish hot GIF tips without getting to know eachother a little better.  Eventually we started really talking the way I hadn’t talked in a long time, and it really felt great to have someone like that in my life again, and it’s gone so much further than any kind of relationship I’ve ever had with anyone.  I told her once I’ve never felt like I was truly the single most important person to anyone before, and it’s true and really quite... I don’t know how to put it better than extremely lame, but, quite a good feeling. Anyways, that’s basically my life.  I wanted to explain all that just to kind of not find a good way to talk about what I wanted to.  Over the last four years, I’ve started working full-time, 40hr weeks.  I’m married now, for almost a full year, and doing okay in life.  I own a house that costs me a lot of money and I make more money than I was ever thinking I would.  But the problem is, work has robbed me of self-reflection, it takes up so much time, I just don’t have time to think of things, sad or otherwise.  I’m married now, I always have someone who wants to talk with me, so even on the free times I did have to think about things, there’s someone there “for me” which is, of course, good, but it prevents me from delving in to my true mind.  I just want more freedom in life again, and all that negative shit that comes with it, I want it back.

All the important years of my life I’ve been depressed, and it’s what makes me who I am.  I want happiness, but I want to be the real me, more.  A man of self-reflection and deep-thinking.  Instead I barely pay attention to conversations because I have too much other shit I have to deal with, and I don’t even have shit to deal with, but my mind is just melted or something with all the shit I have. For now I tell my self to keep grinding, and eventually I’ll have everything and I can stop and return to who I was, but that’s a lot of time and who knows if by then I’ll ever be able to recover who I was?

[tkmedia]

Daily Bread Mailbag: Lomachenko, Charlo-Castano, Stevenson-Herring, More

The Daily Bread Mailbag returns with Stephen "Breadman" Edwards tackling topics such as Vasilliy Lomachenko's big comeback win, the upcoming unification between Jermell Charlo and Brian Castano, the record of Artur Beterbiev, Shakur Stevenson vs. Jamel Herring, and more. I’ve asked you in the past about the best wins in boxing. You’ve gone on record stating you believe that Duran’s win over Leonard is the best win in boxing history. But I wanted to ask a slightly different question: What are some fights you think would’ve surpassed that win if it had gone the other way? I know that might be a very broad question, but I’ve been pondering it for a while. One that I can think of that might have an argument is Pryor-Arguello. If Arguello had beaten Pryor, he would’ve been the first four-division champ ever… am I remembering that correctly? Could that have been one of the best wins if it had gone the other way? I also wonder about Hopkins-Trinidad. I know Trinidad was the favorite for that fight, but what if he’d won that one? What are some other what-if big wins you think of? Greg K. Bread’s Response: If I said Duran W over Leonard was the best in history then I was typing too fast. What I meant was it could possibly be the best win in history. It’s high up there. It's among the best. As is Leonard over Hearns1. Ali over Foreman. Frazier over Ali1 and Armstrong over Ross. Along with Duran over Leonard 1, those are most likely the 5 best wins in boxing history.  If Arguello would have defeated Aaron Pryor in 1982 he would have won 4 titles before Leonard in 1988, Duran in 1989 and Hearns in 1987. It would’ve been huge. To defeat and undefeated top 10 P4P fighter the caliber of Pryor in his prime would have been amazing and no doubt a top 10 win in boxing history.  If Tito would have defeated Hopkins it would’ve been something. Tito’s “off night” vs Oscar would have dismissed as an off night. Hopkins had been champion since 1995 and considered an excellent fighter. It would’ve also been for 3 belts the WBA, WBC and IBF. I don’t know if it would’ve been bigger than Arguello over Pryor but it would’ve been huge. Because for as great as we view Hopkins now, in 2001 he had not received the respect he has today from the boxing community. Hopkins WIN over Tito is actually bigger than Tito’s hypothetical win over Hopkins. If Pernell Whitaker would have gotten the official decision over Julio Cesar Chavez then it would have simply been the best win of the 90s. It’s a shame Whitaker didn’t get the official verdict. I saw your comment about Sha’Carri Richardson and I can’t help but to think she was set up. Marijuana is legal in the state she smoked in and it shouldn’t be illegal to smoke by Olympic standards. I know you’re a fair dude Bread but we disagree on this. On another topic do fighters get tested for marijuana also? Bread’s Response: First of all yes boxers do get tested for marijuana. In fact there have been fighters who have had wins turned into NC because of positive marijuana results. Let me preface my comments about Ms. Richardson. I would love to see her compete and win. My daughter runs the 100m, 200m and 400m. Richardson is from the USA and I want to see her beat the Jamaicans who have had a strong hold on the sprints.  Now what I said is the people are using the WRONG argument to defend her. I would love to see marijuana not be on the BANNED list. But the fact is, it’s on the list and the committee has their reasons why. They believe it slows the reaction time which can be dangerous on the track. They also believe it sets a bad example for younger athletes and it can be used as a MASKING agent for more powerful substances. These aren’t my rules. These are the rules of the testing agency. Ms. Richardson was well aware.  The best argument that can be used is that marijuana should not be on the banned substance list. Period. The rule is archaic and it shouldn’t be in existence anymore. The arguments I keep hearing is “keep that same energy yall had with Michael Phelps.” And that Sha’Carri Richardson was SET UP. Those are ridiculous arguments. When you’re wrong. Ask for GRACE. Be accountable and hopefully things work out. First let’s address the Michael Phelps case. Phelps didn’t test positive for marijuana. A photo surfaced of him 6 months AFTER the Olympics smoking a BONG. Phelps was suspended for 3 months and lost sponsorship. He could’ve fought that but he didn’t. There would be no way to prove what was in the BONG despite us knowing and using common sense what it was. Remember it’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove. You can’t compare that to Richardson testing positive a month before the Olympics. It’s just not the same. Remember I want Richardson to win, but we look foolish making WRONG points. At least research before you say ridiculous stuff.  When I first read that she tested positive I said to myself maybe she used a topical solution for muscle soreness and instead of having CBD in it, it had THC in it. I was literally making excuses for her because I couldn’t believe the press head lines. To hear her say, she knows what the rules were. She did it because of the stress of her mom dying, there was nothing I or anyone else could say. This wasn’t a MISTAKE, it was poor judgment. When you use the word set up you better be careful. I have seen black athletes put through hard times or be held to a higher standard than other athletes. I have seen injustice. In this case a young lady suffered bad news and she decided to smoke marijuana, despite knowing the rules. In order for her to have been set up the committee would have had to have a hand in her mother dying and/or know that Richardson would smoke to relieve stress. Do you see how ridiculous that sounds? Also illegal and banned have two different meanings. Marijuana is a banned substance. It can be legal in Oregon but it’s banned to use during or around competition. Please stop conflating the meanings. Let’s just hope they remove the ban all together and allow her run. But no it wasn’t a set up. And no this is not the same as the Michael Phelps case. It’s ok to support Sha’Carri Richardson and still hold her accountable.  She didn’t use a steroid but unfortunately as of now, marijuana is banned.  Hi Bread, Hope you and your family are doing well. My question to you is regarding Loma and his latest fight against Nakatani. During the week leading to the fight, Loma and his team let everybody know that he had an injury in camp, 3 weeks before the Teo fight. Loma's manager said that Papachenko wanted to postpone the fight (which Loma refused), and that Loma's right shoulder popped in the 2nd round after a jab (he only really used his right hand again starting in the 7th round, supposedly when he understood that he would lose otherwise).It was obvious that Loma chose Nakatani to send a message to Teofimo and the world, and God knows that the message has been received !Besides being a "vintage Loma performance", as Tim Bradley said, I have to admit that I've never seen Loma with that big of a chip on his shoulder from the get go (we've seen glimpses of it when he was hit clean/hurt by Linares or Campbell, for example). He started letting his hands go after only half a round of assessing his opponent. It was obvious that his objectives in this fight was to show that he could takeover early (proof that he's learnt from his loss), and to hurt and stop Nakatani. What is your analysis of this fight ? And what do you think are the keys to victory for each fighter in the Loma/Lopez rematch? Thanks and greetings from North Africa. Bread’s Response: I thought Loma looked excellent. But reoccurring injuries are part of the game. This is not the first time Loma has been hurt. I honestly felt he dug so deep in the Linares fight, he hasn’t quite reached that form again since that night. This last performance was very close but Nakatani is too slow and gangly to deal with Loma, so this may be a case of the perfect style coupled with a motivated fighter coming off of a loss. I think Lopez needs to do what he did in the their first fight. Put rounds in the bank and keep the fight at long range for as long as he can. It’s not just height and reach. Lopez is not that much taller and longer than Loma. But he has a more commanding presence from Long range and he has to build points before Loma gets in his groove.  This match up could be a case of Jermaine Taylor vs Bernard Hopkins. Where as for some reason it took Hopkins time to break the range vs Taylor. Hopkins is clearly a better fighter than Taylor but Taylor who was excellent just gave him fits. We don’t know how good Lopez will be yet….but that comparison comes to mind.  Loma can say what he wants but Teofimo’s sharpness and power bothered him. It takes his body and mind time to warm up to Teofimo. He shoulder probably was hurt. I don’t doubt that. But I also know what I saw. Teofimo came out sharp, mean and forceful. Loma needed time to adjust to that. He didn’t want to get clipped. In this rematch he simply has to find a safe way to break the range earlier and get in his rhythm. It’s not as easy as everyone says of “just start earlier”. Well Teofimo has something to say about that. I think Loma has to work on his quickness in camp and find a way to get his jab working a little bit more. A jab finds rhythms and breaks rhythms.  Emile Griffith, not Griffin. Valdes was very underrated.  He lost a few early because he had mono and went back to Colombia to get better. I feared him more than I feared Monzon even though Monzon was the better fighter.  Valdes often fought to the level of his competition. Bennie matched up well with taller guys because of his jab, which was almost like a straight left and tall guys were not ready for it and had trouble getting accustomed to it. Valdes should have been in Canastota by now. There are guys in there who don't have his credentials but many of today's voters are imbeciles. Bread’s response: Thank you for the correction. The editor’s should have caught my mistake, lol. I love it when my old school readers write in to put me in my place and give me wisdom. I receive it with open arms. Let’s show some love for Rodrigo Valdes who is a top 2 or 3 middleweight of the 70s. I’ve watched a few of his fights and he could go! For some reason he had Brsicoe’s number the Philadelphia legend would have been champion if he could have figured out Valdes. Valdes beat Briscoe 3x and stopped him once. 2x with the title on the line.  Hey Bread, Love your work mate and your knowledge and insight on the mailbag each week just a couple of questions firstly on Canelo, although I admire the guy as he is a tremendous fighter, it puzzles me why he has gone on record in several interviews stating he will not face other Mexican fighters in the ring again he obviously has the star power and right to choose to face who ever he wants but I cant work out why? Do you have any ideas? If an American or British fighter said they wouldn't fight one of their own countrymen anymore they would be laughed at. Is it a case of him not wanting to spill Mexican blood on the canvas or some sort of patriotic thing I don't know  I think fights with the likes  of Gilberto Ramirez or Munguia would be absolutely huge especially on the Mexican holiday weekends! Also everyone seems to think he's going to walk right thru plant if and when the fight gets made but I have my doubts I think this will be one or if not the toughest fight of his career to steal  a quote of the first rocky movie  This man is dangerous and I think the last piece of the puzzle for Canelo at super mw will be the most risky fight for him.   Kind regards!   B from Western Sydney Australia  Bread’s Response: I never heard Canelo say that he wouldn’t fight a Mexican fighter. I know he’s fought a few in his career, Chavez Jr., Angulo etc. So I would have to read the context in how he said that. Munguia and Ramirez are nice opponents for him but the bigger opponents are Charlo, Andrade, Beterbiev and Plant. Then there is also David Benavidez who is Mexican American and wants the fight. If Benavidez beats one of the fighters I mentioned and earns a shot at Canelo, Canelo won’t be able to use that excuse. Let’s see what happens. I never read or heard Canelo say that.  I also believe that Caleb Plant will be a tough opponent for Canelo. Plant is better than Saunders. He’s taller, longer, faster and I believe he’s mentally tougher. I also see that he’s a more dedicated athlete. When you have extreme dedication you are willing to go through more to get the glory because you know you haven't cheated the grind. A fighter who gives his all at all times. A fighter who restricts his diet. A fighter who does all of the little things, will fight through those moments of crisis harder. I believe Plant is one of those fighters.  Obviously Plant will have to be better than he was vs Uzgategui and Truax. But I think he will be. Obviously he’s going to have to be stronger and not be bullied to the ropes. But I think he will be. Obviously Canelo has a serious heavybag routine where he punches THROUGH the target and Plant has to be aware of this. But I think he will be. I believe if Plant fights an ON THE MOVE fight. Oscar Valdez just fought one vs Berchelt but Plant has to be less violent than Valdez. Mayweather fought one vs Diego Corrales. Sambu Kalambay fought one vs Mike McCallum in their first fight. Muhammad Ali fought the best one in history vs Cleveland Williams.  If Plant can punch on the move he will frustrate Canelo. He’s going to score points. And most importantly, he will force Canelo to burn loads of energy by having to use his OWN legs to track him down. Canelo fights an energy efficient fight these days. His pressure is not like Joe Frazier’s or Henry Armstrong’s. It’s been said that Canelo’s stamina has improved. Well if Plant fights this type of fight, then that theory will be put to the test. This fight will come down to what style Plant decides to fight. There are fights I can see. There are fights I have to wait and see and assess later. Plant’s best chance to win is Stick and Move and not try to hit Canelo with anything big. The harder you try to punch Canelo the easier it is for him to counter. Plant has to throw fast stick punches. Sort of like how Calzaghe punches but obviously in his own form and body type. Jab Canelo's gloves, jab to distract him. Feint him. Move him around. Stay off the ropes. When Canelo presses him if he can’t hold the center, move until Canelo stops pressuring then go back to the center. Forget about the crowd. Just win baby. If he fights that fight. People will be pissed but the WIN for this fight is HUGE. I give you props for telling your truth about the fallout with Jrock. I still think you guys are better together and not apart. The young brother may be lost and it’s going to take some pride swallowing to resurrect the relationship. My question is assuming you aren’t training him, do you think he has a shot at the Charlo vs Castano winner? I’ve always been a big fan of his. I’ve watched several of his fights and that wasn’t him in the ring against Rosario. Bread’s Response: Yes I do think Jrock has a shot at the winner. It basically comes down to a few things. How engaged he is with his new trainer. Traveling to train is a load mentally and physically. If he can find someone to run a productive camp and figure out his body he has a shot. People always say he’s too small for 154lbs which is ridiculous. He’s big for the weight. He may not be the BIGGEST but he’s big for the weight. He has big quads, broad shoulders and a wide back. He’s 5’10.5” with very long arms of over 73 inches. He walks around heavy just like the rest of the guys in the division and he has to cut 25lbs-30lbs just like everyone else. If he finds someone to learn his body and know when to peak him out right, he’s right with those guys. The key is learning his body. He has very low body fat and he hasn’t made 154lbs in a year and a half. He may not even be a junior middleweight anymore.  Stylistically he matches up well with both guys. At his best he’s turned in a better performance than both ever have. So his high is higher than their highs have been. The issue is, is his low. He’s also turned in a lower performance than they ever have. The key will be his confidence and a trainer who is open to learning his body. It won’t be easy but far from impossible. Jrock would have been the favorite to beat both if the fights were made after he defeated Hurd.  I was going to bet Jermell Charlo but then you brought up how good Brian Castano was an amateur. You were right. He did beat Spence and Devrenchenko. My question is how much do you think amateur success translates to pro success? Bread’s Response: I would say 75% of the time it has a bearing. Usually the best amateurs are the best pros. Over the last 10 years it hasn’t been the case as much but it still relevant. Let’s look back. People consider Sugar Ray Robinson the best fighter ever. The Olympics weren’t as big in boxing in the 1940s. But Robinson was either 85-2 or 85-0 as an amateur.  Floyd Patterson was a great amateur. Our best in 1952. And he was one of our best fighters of the 50s. Muhammad Ali was our best amateur in 1960. Well it’s no need to get into what he was as a pro. Joe Frazier was our best amateur in 1964. We also know what he was as a pro. George Foreman was our best amateur in 1968. Again HOF as a pro. In 3 straight Olympics the Gold Medalist and the US’s best fighter turned out to be a HOF.  In 1976 we produced 5 Gold Medalist. 3 won titles. 2 became ATG in Michael Spinks and Ray Leonard. In 1980 Donald Curry was best amateur. He went on to be a HOF. In 1984 Evander Holyfield, Frank Tate, Pernell Whitaker, Meldrick Taylor, Mark Breland and Virgil Hill were medalist and turned out to be champions and or HOF as pros. In 1988 Roy Jones, Riddick Bowe, Michael Carbajal and Ray Mercer all medalist all turned out to be champions. Carbajal, Jones and Bowe HOF. In 1992 Oscar de La Hoya was our best amateur. HOF as a pro.  In 1996 Floyd Mayweather, Antonio Tarver, David Reid all won medals. All win titles as pros. 2004 we had one Gold Medalist. Andre Ward. HOF as a pro. 2008 Gary Russell, Demetrius Andrade and Deontay Wilder were the best fighters on the Olympic team. They still remain towards the top of their games today. In almost 100 fights as pros they have 2 losses. In 2012 Errol Spence was the best fighter on that team. He’s still the best from the team.  In 2016 Shakur Stevenson, Gary Russell and Charles Conwell were the standouts. None of them have taken a loss yet. Stevenson the only medalist is the best so far as a pro. Historically domestically and internationally the very best amateurs have about 75% of the time been our best pros. You do have cases like Terence Crawford who was around the 2008 team. He’s our best fighter overall from that time. Read the full article

[concernedlily]

K2 reaction post

My reactions before I read anyone else’s reactions and get tainted!

SPOILERS

FOR PEOPLE ON MOBILE WITH NO WORKING READMORE

SPOILERS HERE SCROLL PAST

I’m SUPER FUCKED OFF about Roxy. At least Eggsy is sad about it? But everything we were worried about, wondering if those two scenes they kept using in teasers were all there was, and it was: two short scenes, where Roxy was totally in service of Eggsy, in her first scene she could’ve been any agent, and she’s gone. Get away from this shit, Sophie, you deserve better and so did Roxy. Charlie had a much bigger role and he failed the tests and then (should’ve) DIED. Frigging henchman Angel had more scenes than her.

Obviously I went in with my Hartwin goggles on but GOOD GOD. This film is SO SLASHY. The Harry/Eggsy was the only part of the film that had any real truth to it, which I attribute as much to Colin and Taron as the writing. BREAKFAST SCENE (I pissed myself as HKLP) and explicitly linking that to Tilde. The mirror scene (in both senses of the word) and HARRY’S SOFT SMILE were everything. Eggsy being the one to know how to bring Harry’s memory back, and it being through this memory of their puppies, was amazing. I loved that Eggsy trusted him but also doubted him, and actually had a meltdown at him in the cabin; not everything was good again immediately. Plenty of possible angst to mine (and no immediately obvious major other ships, which was interesting; the Kingsman and the Statesmen will have various pairings get attention, but before the film I’d expected Eggsy/Whiskey would be the new big thing and for obvious reasons don’t see that quite so much now). CGI young Colin was kind of freaky.

That said Eggsy and Tilde were cute together, and I did get a really real sense of them being in a relationship, intimate, happy. The arc felt kind of unfinished, although I could see where they were trying to go with the duty vs love element. I’m going to go 50/50 on my prediction that Eggsy is out of Kingsman; I suspect they haven’t decided yet. Assumption will be still in, but if he’s out at the beginning of a third film it wouldn’t be unreasonable. There was a nod to the possibility when they talked about the proposal, of being a public figure and being a spy.

I didn’t think it actually went that much bigger than TSS in terms of budget? With Poppyland they had the same thing as Valentine’s bunker where the big climax was built on set. TSS was budget of about $80m and take was about $400m, so if they spent $120m on this one (excluding the marketing budget, which I believe probably best summed up by the word OUCH) it could probably do $400-500m again and be considered a success, and it was tracking pretty well for opening weekend.

And the bad - as a film, my god it’s a mess. A sprawling, surface-level, disjointed mess that barely hangs together as a coherent narrative. Way too many characters, far too much going on. This is Vaughn, I know, but it felt super self-indulgent; I’ve never thought TSS was perfect, but it had a decently tight structure. TGC felt really anti-climactic to me at the end because despite the heavy costs (ROXY, all of Kingsman, Tilde and Eggsy’s friend in jeopardy) and despite absolutely adoring seeing Eggsy and Harry fighting together and protecting one another, I never felt like I got a chance to *care* about any of it before I was being rushed on to the next thing.

Which brings me to Merlin :(. This is so emotional on paper but it just left me kind of cold? Maybe because of the fucking stupidity of they make a big deal of the a minesweeper but Eggsy still steps on a mine, or because Mark bless him isn’t the greatest singer and it seemed a bit odd, or again not getting that time with him; but it just happened and then swept on so quickly. Mark was at the wedding scene shoot, with those green CGI tights, so I guess at one point they were thinking they might have him gravely injured but not dead. I think that links to the para above: I feel like the story is all over the shop because Vaughn never quite committed. TGC has Difficult Second Album all over it and I think he probably had too much of an eye on a prospective third film.

Anyway. I’ll see it again. Of course.

[elevenhoursinfront-blog]

14th September 2017

Steve woke up the moment the alarm went off and left the room. Weird for him, but I presumed he was going to wet himself. He usually plays of his phone for 15 minutes and then goes for a wee. He came back after 10 minutes and he had made us both a coffee! What a lovely surprise. Neither of us have had a hot drink since we were in Tasmania. We got ready for work and jumped in the van. I took my GoPro in to take some photos and videos. I wanted to make a really good film in the shed and I've planned what filming I need to take. It's going to take the rest of my time here to make it, but it'll be worth it. It'll keep me busy! I took a few photos of some people as we were waiting for the bell to start. I was at the back with Maggie and we found out that we only had 2.5 trailers to do. We normally complete 26 trailers per day so we should be done within an hour or so. It just goes to show how fast we work. There are around 60 tree bunches on each trailer. There are are 8 hands to each tree bunch and a singular hand has about 20 bananas on. Noah worked out that in his 3 months of working at the banana farm, he would've seen 9 million individual bananas, roughly. Any way, back to where I was actually going with that. We should be finished today by the first break which means a long weekend again. I can't hide my excitement to be off but I'm sad about losing money. I'm not sure what we'll do if our days keep getting shorter. I was working away and I was so hyper. Really, really hyper. Maggie and I were singing along to songs stupidly, splashing each other with water, having a great laugh. Time went by so quickly. I was messing about with my GoPro with Cait and Mitch too. I filmed them being stupid, I filmed the shit shoot to show how many bananas are thrown away. I also put the GoPro into one of my banana boxes to go through the machine - don't worry though Dad, Cait was well aware and got it out before it was sent away. Mitchel took my GoPro too and did some funny films. I had a great morning. We finished packing the bananas after about 1-2 hours. I got started on the cleaning whilst the two other belts finished. Top belt always finished first. We did a big clean, a really big clean which became boring after a while. There's so many of us girls that the jobs run out pretty quickly. It was 0950 when we all stopped, went to the break area and waited for the bell to go. I went around taking pictures and filming Steve doing some cleaning as that's a rare sight. He ended up turning the industrial hose on at me so I was absolutely soaked. My feet started to foam like fairy up liquid. At the start of our shifts, we have to go through a metal tray type thing of liquid and chemicals that stops us bringing in any diseases that could harm the bananas. That's why I started foaming. The bell went and we had our lunch. April, one of the older ladies that works there, told me that we weren't going home now. We were staying to help Jenny outside for a little while. I was dead excited - outside! Finally. It's like a prisoner getting to leave the cell. I told the girls and made sure everyone of us put factor 50 sun cream on. Vicki got us as many hats as she could find too. The bell went for work again and I was very excited. We all lined up outside and waited for the actual outside staff to leave so we could go. We walked about 5 minutes, not even that to the first paddock. It was the closest one to the shed. Jenny put us all into pairs, female with male. I was put with Maggie's Matt and Steve was put with Maggie. We were given a massive knife that was almost like a machete and was told to get on with it. We had to go to each individual tree, untie the banana bag and take it off, then pull the string down and put them into separate bags. One bag for bags and the other for string. The paddock is 400m long and the trees are pretty much on top of each other. Matt and I got into the swing of it fairly quickly. He would untie the knot as I couldn't reach them and I would pull the bag off the bananas and put them into the bag. I was carrying the bags and he would carry the knife. The knife would be to cut the bunch down should it be too high for Matt to untie which wasn't too often because he's quite tall. We took about an hour to do the whole line which went really fast. We were in the sun and I was loving it. I desperately needed my water though and you don't have the hands to carry it around with you. No wonder the guys pass out. Once we finished the first line, we walked back to get water which was strange for Jenny. She just said "go have a water break". Jenny is all about hard graft. Matt said to Steve that he was worried because we were basically chopping down perfectly fine bananas to rot into the ground. This paddock was only planted last year. How strange. We did another line (of trees, not cocaine) before Jenny said we were heading back. We were told we'd be finished helping the odd job by 1230. I was happy, I really enjoyed being outside. I wish I could work outside permanently. I might say something to Vicki should the opportunity arise but it's a bit too far down the line. We all got back to the shed and sat in the break area. We have to wait for Vicki to come out and say you can go home before just leaving. There could be more work that’s needed. We waited for about 10 minutes and most of the staff turned up, waiting around. Steve and I saw Blayde and little Matt who were on holiday this week. We knew then that something was not right. We asked why they were here and Blayde said his mum said he had to come in (Vicki). Oh god. What was happening? Were we losing our jobs? What was going on? We all started to worry, saying that what would we do if we were to lose our jobs. We saw the big staff in the office upstairs through the window. We waited about 20 minutes before Graham, the owner came out. He stood on the bench and said "There's just no easy way to say this so I'm just going to say it. We are closing the farm, as of today. We've tried for two long years to get this working but we can't." He started to cry. He carried on saying "I want to thank you all for your hard work and I'm so, sorry. There's too many bananas in Australia and the market is no longer there". Everyone was silent. Completely silent. Someone said "Thank you Graham". I started to clap and everyone joined in. People started to cry, including me. Vicki and Jenny were in absolute pieces. Their whole lives have just stopped. Tristan, our supervisor from the Philippians could not stop crying. He was on sponsorship to provide money for his whole family back home. Anthony, the outside supervisor, just stood up and walked out. Got in his car and left. He didn't say a single word. I don't blame him. Supervisors had the right to know beforehand, the company should've had the respect to tell the exec staff first. Give them notice what was going on. The big managers had meetings with their financial advisers who said on Friday evening to cut their losses and shut. Vicki and Jenny found out on their lunch time, as casual chat, that they were losing their jobs on Thursday. Vicki had to leave the shed because she couldn't face anyone. She drove the buggy into the paddocks and spent the afternoon crying. She has a house to pay for, she's 49 years old and she only gets 8 weeks redundancy pay. Jenny is well off so money isn't her problem, her house is paid off. It's her family business though so it's heartbreaking for them. I was shocked. I didn't know what to think. Vicki stood up and said "We will call your names out individually and you can come and collect your letter, if you don’t have one, come and see me after". We got our letters which contained our final payslip, a letter of contract termination and a final tax summary for taxback/visa purposes. Those that didn’t have their letter, were getting their second year visa granted by the owners. They were only doing it for those who had 1-2 weeks left of working which is completely fair and I’m so pleased they did that. They would have to wait for their payslips to be processed next week to show that they did their 3 months.

We started to say our goodbyes to staff and eventually left. Gobsmacked. I couldn't stop crying. What were we going to do now? Our plan was completely ruined. We drove the other hostel home and pulled up outside ours. The guys at the hostel came walking out with cold beers to help the mood as they found out which was nice. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the full time staff. People who's lives were just completely ruined. Bills for homes and children that have to be paid. They had been fired on the spot, with no warning or help. I saw many men crying because they couldn't support themselves or their family anymore. It's an awful situation. In fact, awful isn't the word to even describe it. I rang the Seafarm the moment I got back and the man told me to go in to fill in the application form. The waiting list would be about 4 weeks which is far too long for me but any options I have is better than none. We jumped in the van straight away and drove to the farm. We got the forms and they told us to bring them back tomorrow. On the way back to the hostel, I jumped out at one of the cafes called Annie's Kitchen to see whether they were hiring. They said they were quiet at the moment, maybe in a months time.

The problem is, Cardwell is going to go downhill now. Backpackers bring in so much money the whole town because of the banana farm. The farm was the only reason we came to this small little town and now nobody will come. Leonie was panicking because she relies on backpacker money for her income. She said she's going to have to get another job now. She reckons things will be closed down after a while. It's going to have a bad domino affect throughout the whole town which is absolutely crazy. Steve and I got showered and sat in the room. We were just silent. I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what to say. I started to cry and Steve laid there with me. He said that we'd write today off and talk about it tomorrow. I felt sorry for us and everyone else at the same time. We went outside after a while and sat chatting to everyone. We were all in a pity-party. We were talking about it for hours. I text my family and told them the news but they weren't awake yet. Steve started to feel hungry so he went to the kitchen to make us dinner. He wanted to make us chicken curry pasta which I've never heard of before. Steve said his mum used to make it and that it was nice so I went with it. He bought it down whilst we were chatting still and we ate away. It was nice to be fair. It would've been better with a different curry sauce. It was Ciar, Matt, Caiome and Bines last night tonight so we were all meant to be going to the pub for a drink at happy hour. None of us were feeling up to it really but we had to go. We left around 1700 and walked the 5 minutes down the road to Yasi. It was shut but the owner came out and said we could sit in the garden as the inside had been hired out for a private fishing event. Fishing is so big here. We chilled for an hour or two. Steve and I got one beer each which was $4.50. I didn't want to buy anything because we no longer had a drink but Steve's an avid spender. I wanted to FaceTime my Dad so we left earlier than everyone else. We got called boring and what not, as we always do. Last Saturday, Ciar came over to me in the entertainment room when we were all drinking and she said "You don't have friends because you're always in your room". If I'm honest, I was hurt. I don't want those types of 'friends' if they make me feel like rubbish for not doing something everyone else is doing. Yes, I'm actually a fairly boring person and I do enjoy chilling in my room of an evening after work. Whatever. I called Dad whilst he was eating his porridge. He asked what our plan was, which we don't have. At all. The call ended fairly quickly and Steve and I went outside. We chatted to people. The majority were still down. I spoke to Cait the most. She and I are the most devastated. We waited for everyone to come back from the pub and then we went to the entertainment room. Everyone was enjoying a good few drinks as it was probably going to be the last time with people here... We played a drinking game called Arrogance. You have one cup and you pour a bit of your drink in. The player next to you will flip a coin. Heads or tails - you guess. You get it right, you pass the cup on. You get it wrong, you drink. Eventually, our cup was filled with beer, cider, goon and peppermint tea (thank you Harriet). That got people fairly drunk and before you know it, we were up on the benches dancing and laughing away. The boys were on the grass playing "see who can kick the ball through the window first". Steve won! He shot it in first which was great because the game had been going on for ages. Luckily, the window was smashed a few weeks beforehand so none of the lads could do it this time. The drinking, laughs and what not continued. Steve and I didn't really drink much. Scrap that - I just asked him and he said he was drunk. I didn't realise. I didn't really drink much, in fact, I wasn't even tipsy in the slightest. I was still very deflated after the words longest, most rubbish day ever. I kept wondering when my bad luck streak would end... Bines had a go at kicking the football through the gap in the window and ended up kicking his trainer onto the roof. Bad idea for someone who was leaving in the morning. We had to get the trainer down and luckily Nick was able to get it. Cahoime wanted to try but she was very drunk. We weren't letting anyone too drunk climb up on the roof. The trainer was saved and the night carried on. I went to bed around 2330. Steve stayed up but he joined me after about half an hour. We fell asleep straight away. Thank God, the day is finally over.

[scriptaccountant]

I'm not sure whether this is better suited to you/economist, but I THINK you might be able to help me? I have an antagonist who's very wealthy. Has her own company, investments, on the board of other companies, properties, diversified assets, etc. But I want her to be left with basically none of that by the end, and I was wondering what the best way to drain her accounts/assets would be. Thanks!

Hi!

I actually dragged @scripteconomist away from exams long enough to discuss this. There are a few things that you are going to need to consider, but hopefully we have some options that might work for you.

First, how wealthy is she? There are levels to being rich that are sometimes difficult to conceptualize if you aren’t rich. I personally follow this adage regarding the difference between “rich” and “wealthy” “Rich people work for wealthy people.” That means, your CEOs, CFOs, etc are Rich, and people that own large corporations are Wealthy. Wealthy people don’t have to work for their money. But other people have different ways of defining the words. The reason I bring this up is, I did a quick google of “Millionaires who lost it all” and most of the results talk about professional athletes, musicians and lottery winners. Those are all people whose money depended on a short-lived source. If they mismanage it and spend it all, then there’s no source for new income (some musicians have a longer career than others, and can make a comeback, but it’s difficult for athletes to do the same). But a lot of those stories also talk about how they’ve rebounded since and what they are doing now. Maybe they aren’t worth the same amount, but many aren’t in poverty.

But if you consider people with generational wealth, that money is self-replicating. Their parents and grandparents and so on have already set up the structures needed for the money to continue. The people in the super wealthy tier tend to be from generational wealth (old money, if you like), though a lucky few have managed to get there in their own lifetimes. Now consider “losing it all” when talking about billions of dollars. How much is all? If you inherited 8 Billion and lost 4 Billion, you’re still very wealthy. So you need to consider, how much is she worth, how much does she actually have to lose in order to consider it “losing it all”? How low do you want her to be at the end? Does she literally only have the clothes on her back? Is she learning what it’s like to struggle to pay bills each month? Is she still pretty well off without having to worry as long as she manages her money, but no more buying yachts?

Second, how do you want her to lose the money? Is this something you want another character to be responsible for enacting? Do you want her to be the agent of her own downfall? Do you want it to be something out of anyone’s control?

In order to lose it all, she needs to lose three things:

her company

her personal assets (including shares in other companies)

her reputation (so that she can’t work back up from another company).

If she has her own company and is wealthy, she most likely has it set up as a corporation to limit her liability. That means that if the company has to liquidate to pay debtors, only the company assets can be touched and her personal assets are safe. So her liability is limited to what she put into the company and she is protected from losing more than that.

Out of anyone’s control: You say she’s well diversified. That’s definitely something that she would do. She would own stocks in different companies, different industries, and different areas. All of this lowers her risk of losing all her money. But there is also non-diversifiable risk, or market risk. This is the risk that the market as a whole will drop out in its best recreation of late 1929. This could happen from war, extreme natural disasters that hit a large number of major companies in different industries, alien invasion, and bubble situations like the build up to 1929 and 2008. This could make her lose her company. This could make some of the companies that she’s on the board of have to close. But some companies will rebound better than others and she might survive it. Also, unless she’s overextended herself by using personal loans to purchase the shares that plummet in worth, she’ll still have her personal, non-stock related, assets to fall back on. Of course, you could have the natural disaster/war/aliens destroy those as well. She’ll at least be hurting for awhile.

The agent of her own demise: She’s involved in some shady dealings. Maybe she embezzled, Maybe she ran a Ponzi scheme. Maybe she did insider trading. Maybe she made really bad decision for her company that causes it to fail. Maybe she did all of the above. Maybe she set up a Ponzi scheme to get money to pay for a new venture with her company based on faulty projections or just because she ignored what her advisors said and overextended herself. Then when the return on investment wasn’t what she expected, she embezzled from the other companies that she’s involved with and used information from being on the boards to perform insider trading both to try to rescue her company and pay off the people in her Ponzi scheme. But then she’s caught. The Ponzi scheme collapses because that’s what they do, the embezzlement and insider trading is found out and she’s in a load of trouble. Her company is already in trouble from the bad business move.

She’s now facing criminal and civil charges that compound so she can’t save it. The company is liquidated (it’s generally easier to find a buyer for the assets of a company and then pay the debts, even though it’s better for the current owner if they can sell the company as liabilities will be assumed as well, but let’s say she has to do the first).

Let’s look at the charges she’s facing:

Insider trading: 

Criminal penalties- up to 20 years in prison, up to $5M in fines per charge (if she traded as an individual; if the shares were traded under her corporation then up to $25M per charge). 

Civil penalties - up to 3 times the amount gained or loss avoided from the trade made with the information. She may also be banned from trading (which will stop her from rebounding once she’s out of prison).

Pyramid or Ponzi scheme: 

Criminal penalties - depend on where she lives. The US does not have a federal law covering these, but the FTC may push for prosecution as fraud. For reference, Madoff pled guilty to securities fraud, wire fraud, and mail fraud and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. 

Other examples of Ponzi schemes for research can be found on the link in this sentence.

Civil penalty - may have to pay restitution.

Embezzlement: 

Criminal penalties - there is a statute of limitations of 5 years. The penalties will vary depending on how much she stole, but the maximum rating is for over $400M and will likely include fines of at least $250K per charge and 20-30 years in prison (maybe more if multiple counts are brought). The exact penalties may vary by state. 

Civil penalties - restitution to victim(s). 

Here is some more information about embezzlement and some example cases for research. 

Here is a link to information about the US Federal laws for embezzlement including the different types. 

 As you can see, those combined could not only drain quite a bit of cash, but also land her with some pretty serious jail time even if she can manage plea bargains.

Brought down by someone else: Divorce and theft. Maybe combined. If she didn’t have a prenup, she could lose half of her worth in a divorce, depending on location (for example some states don’t consider assets from before the marriage to be marital property and divisible, in the past a married woman could not own property so it would all be her husband’s). If her ne’er do well spouse used her trust to empty her accounts, sell her company and stocks, move it to an offshore account not linked to them, and maybe even set her up for one of the above to get her in trouble legally but that’s not necessary, and then divorces her for half of whatever she has left.

For any of these that require selling the company, or liquidating it, you need to consider what type of company it is. Construction or property can change fortunes very quickly. Liquidating a retail company is easier because most of the assets will be in inventory that is fairly liquid. While liquidating a manufacturing company that has a lot of capital tied up in expensive and specialized machinery will be more difficult. It’s usually easier to find someone willing to buy the assets in a liquidation than to buy a company, so they may get more money selling the assets, especially if there has been a scandal tied to the company.

I hope this gives you some ideas and things to consider and places to start researching. Good luck!

Disclaimer

[jhmyguardiangel]

For the drabble thing, Jeonghan + flowers, please and thank you! (((((im a jeonghan stan too;;;; god bless this angel)))))

Genre: Fluff

Category: Seventeen Plus

Drabble title: Flowers

A/N: Hope it fits your liking! x

Word count: 825

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You had known it for sometime now, that girls watched him through their classroom windows. The way he walked through the corridors with two of his best friends, Choi Seungcheol and Joshua Hong. The way he kept his hair long and tied, and the way he smiled. 

It is a given this group of three were the visuals of your school, but Yoon Jeonghan, was the only one who caught your attention the most. 

Most people at school called him feminine due to his looks, but what they didn’t know was that Jeonghan was very sporty. Team captain of both basketball and football school varsity teams, and also a runner for 400m relay together with Seungcheol. He also had a knack for singing in the school choir too.

You hate to admit that you were rejected in sports teams, because luck wasn’t on your side. You were in the girls’ choir and the co-captain of the cheerleading team, along with your classmate, Sohee, the captain. She liked Jeonghan since the start of high school and you were just waiting for her and Jeonghan to date. Valentine’s day was nearing after all.

However that wasn’t the case.

“I don’t get it, Jeonghan.” Joshua paced back and forth on the bleachers, fixing his songbooks, “Why didn’t you ask Lee Sohee out for Valentine’s? I mean, she is the cheerleading captain. Oh and she fancies you.”

“Nah man. She isn’t my type.” Jeonghan answered, spinning his basketball on his pointer finger. “She’s clingy… and I don’t like clingy girls.” Joshua laughed.

“Why not? It’ll be a captain x captain kind of thing.” Seungcheol smirked as he drank his cola.

Jeonghan shook his head. “Dude, this isn’t high school musical. And besides, there’s this girl who I have my eyes on.” he held his basketball and thought. “What was her name again? The girl who’s smart, sings really well, and leads the cheerleading team too?”

“Y/N?” Joshua had wide eyes.

“Yeah.. her.” Jeonghan stuttered. Joshua laughed and pretended to wipe a tear off his eyes.

“Yeah right, Jeonghan. ‘This isn’t high school musical’. ” 

“You two are supposed to be helping me out here.” Jeonghan playfully threw a basketball at the latter.

“Hey bro, watch it!” Seungcheol panicked. “Just ask her out if you like her so much. If you don’t, I’ll do it.”

“Ah ha. Please don’t.” Jeonghan laughed as he headed out of the gym. 

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“Valentine’s Day is in a few days. Don’t you have a date yet, Y/N?” Nayoung asked you.

“Nope. Not yet. Though I’m not expecting anyone, I am quite busy. How about you?”

“Seungcheol did. And gave me a box of chocolate.” she chuckled happily and held your hands.

“Do you think Jeonghan probably took Sohee out?” you fiddled with the straw of your juice carton.

“I don’t think so. But I know you fancy him.” she singsonged. ‘”Anyway I gotta go. Bye Y/N! See you tomorrow.” 

“Yeah. See you tomorrow.” you smiled and packed your things. 

The next day, you headed out of the classroom and towards your locker. You opened it to put your stuff in and when you did. A piece of paper fell off. Hesitating to grab it, you stood there for a minute to make sure there it wasn’t a blackmail.

‘Hi Y/N, I’d like for us to meet up and chat, if that’s alright with you. Come to the music room at 3. -J.’

Tilting your head, you looked at the unknown person’s initial. “J.. Wonder what that stands for.”

You made your way to the music room. No one was in there, so you thought of waiting. You sat on the stool by the piano and played several keys.

“Hi there. I see you got my message?” a voice called..

You hummed. “Or else I wouldn’t be here.” you looked up.

It was Jeonghan.

“May I sit next to you?”

You hitched a breath. “Uh. Yeah. Sure..”

“What’s your plan for Valentine’s? It’s two days away.” he asked, pressing keys on the piano as well.

“Well I’m a little busy, practising my solo for the contest, quizzes here and there, and also cheerleading-”

“Great. I’ll pick you up at 1pm.” he handed you a bouquet of flowers- roses to be exact, blushing as he avoided your gaze.

You blushed as well, slightly panicking. Indeed you were ecstatic, your crush just asked you out. You looked away, and pursed your lips. “What about Sohee? I thought she was your date?”

“I rejected her.” 

You turned immediately. “Rejected?”

Jeonghan turned to look at you, placing his elbow on the piano and chin on his palm, smirking as if he was in love with you for the longest time.

“Of course. Because I told her you’re my Valentine.”

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

The Misadventures of Prince Kim - chapter 7

(aka the royalty AU story)

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] [AO3]

Max was already learning so much over the next few weeks. Since recent hostilities had left most of the kingdoms rather isolated from each other without much contact or trade, he hadn’t been able to learn a lot about other places while he had been back at home, but now it felt like the whole world was suddenly at his fingertips. It was absolutely fascinating!

Who would have known that the Lahiffe Kingdom, of all places, had fertile plains completely dedicated to growing potato crops? Or that the remote Haprèle Kingdom had some of the most beautiful mountainous scenery in the world? And he had only heard stories about the incredible art and architecture of the Kurtzberg Kingdom, and now he was able to see some for himself just by asking his own classmate.

That was barely even the beginning of it. Despite most other kingdoms having comparatively low technology levels, they still had so much to offer. Why, oh why had previous generations of rulers not opened up their countries to allow this spread of knowledge and culture? Thank goodness places like this school existed, where people from all over the world could come together and share all of this. Max decided right then that he would do everything in his power to persuade the other kingdoms to lift their trade restrictions. Hopefully that would help the whole world advance together, ushering in a new age of peace and prosperity, where everyone would get along with each other and there would be no problems…

But of course that was too much to ask for. Peace? Prosperity? When people like his own friend Kim were going to be future leaders? He may as well say goodbye to the idea of global peace forever.

“Kim, you’re going to end up starting a war or something,” Max warned him, glancing up from his homework. Kim was trying to do his homework too but was procrastinating by making origami out of the paper he was meant to be writing on. Rather messy origami, too.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Kim muttered.

“Oh really? I heard you snapped Alix’s pencil the other day.”

“That was totally an accident.”

“Mhm. And I suppose it was also an accident that time you slammed the door in her face?”

“Obviously! She’s so tiny, I didn’t even notice her, so…”

Max rolled his eyes. “Can’t you at least try to get along with her? I don’t want my two friends to end up at war with each other, thank you very much. I think you two could be good friends if you were actually nice to her.”

“Oh Max, you know I love you, but I can’t be friends with someone like her!”

Max gulped and tried not to stare at his beautiful friend’s face. Oh Max, you know I love you… He pushed the phrase out of his mind. Kim meant it platonically, obviously. And anyway, not for the first time Max wondered if Kim’s sudden unexplained idiotic turn for the worse meant that something had happened at that detention. Maybe something decidedly other than platonic. A certain word kept popping into his mind to describe Kim’s recent behaviour if that was the case… tsundere. That wasn’t a good thing.

“You absolutely can be friends with her,” Max said. “If you’re friends with me, and I’m friends with her, then it’s definitely possible.”

“But she hates me anyway.”

“That’s only because you’re being a jerk. You managed to make friends with Adrien, didn’t you? And you’re good friends with Marinette too. I know you can do it. You just need to get over yourself first.”

“Can we just talk about something else?” Kim said quickly. “I’ve really gotta get this homework done, I don’t want to get another stupid detention.” He looked down at his crumpled piece of paper and frowned. “Uh… I don’t really get any of it. Which rank is below count and above baron and how would they be addressed? I don’t even know what that means. And what the heck is a courtesy title? Max please help…”

It took all Max’s self-restraint not to just take the piece of paper and do Kim’s homework for him. This wasn’t even difficult. Viscount was between count and baron, and one would be addressed as “Your Lordship”, and a courtesy title was… No, he shouldn’t. “Do your own homework, Kim,” he said. “I won’t help you with it until you stop being mean to Alix.”

“Hey, and what about her though? Threatening me with that snake? And making fun of my country for not having like… helicopters or whatever it was? She’s not exactly a nice person either!”

“Perhaps you’re both being idiots, but you in particular are being much more of an idiot. So until you stop doing that you can do your homework without my help.”

Kim pouted but didn’t say anything else.

Sports day was quickly arriving now that September was almost at an end. The weather here in this part of the Bourgeois Empire was still fairly warm at this time of year so it would be held outside in the grounds. Kim just couldn’t wait. This would be the perfect opportunity for him to show off how great he was at sports, and by extension, his whole kingdom! Lê Chiến was already famous for that, after all. Sports day was definitely going to be his day.

Since it wasn’t a mandatory event a lot of people weren’t going to be there – he guessed that Prince Nathaniel probably wasn’t going to attend, since he seemed to always try his best to stay as far away from other people as he could – but Kim decided to head down to the grounds early and get in a warm-up first. Max was planning to meet him there a little later, too busy in the library at the moment researching about something called a “constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy”, whatever that even meant. Kim knew he should probably spend more time on his school work like Max was doing, but that was just so much effort! And it was boring, too! If he was going to be at this school for three whole years then there was plenty of time for that later, so why not just have fun for now?

Walking down the corridors he heard a voice somewhere nearby and stopped… ugh, it was Alix. And Juleka too, judging by the quiet mumbling replies. He didn’t know anything about Juleka, she seemed alright, but today was not the kind of day he wanted to run into Alix. Hang on a second, she had just said his name… what was she talking about?

“…and yeah, Kim seems intimidating but he’s actually really sweet!”

Sweet? No way! He ran forwards and turned the corner to see–

Oh. It was just that stupid snake she was talking about. She had it wrapped around her arm and was showing it off to Juleka, who was leaning right in its face and gazing at it with her spooky red eyes.

“Awesome,” Juleka said. “Has he killed anyone?”

“No, he’s way too nice for that.”

“But… he could kill someone if he wanted, right?”

“Oh yes, definitely.”

Juleka grinned, and Kim noticed her teeth seemed to be rather sharp. “That’s so awesome. Hey, do you think you can get more deadly cobras as pets? The ones that attack and kill people?”

“Sure you can, but it would probably kill you too if you weren’t careful.”

“That would be the coolest way to die. Agonizing death by snake bite. I would love that.”

Okay wow, that was weird. Kim walked past them muttering, “You guys are crazy…” Out of the corner of his eye he saw them turning to look at him for a second, but neither of them said anything. Good.

Sure enough, Kim absolutely excelled at the sporting activities. He came first in the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, even the hurdles. He did lose a duelling match, but at least that was against Adrien, his friend, so that wasn’t too bad. Adrien went on to win the duelling competition anyway and Kim did find it in his heart to feel proud of him. There were also some events that Kim did not take part in, like jousting, since those weren’t big in his kingdom and he hadn’t really tried them much. Anyway, that seemed quite old-fashioned. Jousting? Really? What was this, medieval times?

He wasn’t planning to take part in the archery competition either but he changed his mind when it turned out that Max had decided to try it, saying that archery was a fairly “mathematical” sport and that it couldn’t be that hard. Kim was surprised to find that he really was quite good at it despite never having even tried it before – he was somehow even better than Max.

The sillier races took place towards the end of the day. Kim managed to do fairly well in the sack race, and tried his best in the egg and spoon race but somehow got beaten out by Alya and Chloé, who seemed to have their own personal rivalry going on between them. The trouble began when it came to picking pairs for the three-legged race. Kim had been planning to do it with Max, but it turned out that Max had already got bored and left. In fact, most of the class had by this point, and the royals were not allowed to team up with the nobles so there weren’t many people left to choose from.

“Hey Marinette, wanna team up for the three-legged race?” Kim asked.

“Ah sorry Kim, I’ve already teamed up with Alya!” Marinette replied. “But I could help you find a partner! Hmm, let’s see, who’s still here… Nino’s teamed up with Adrien I think, so not them… maybe you could... Oh hey Alix! Come over here! You’re really short, Kim’s really tall, it would be so funny–”

“What? No, I’m not teaming up with her!” Kim snapped, stepping away as Marinette grabbed Alix by the arm and pulled her over.

“I know you like winning and it would be harder like this, but come on, it would be hilarious! You’re both sporty and everything!”

“Yeah, Kim,” said Alix. “It’ll be fun.”

He shook his head. “No way. I’d rather just not do the race.”

“What? Why not? Weren’t you just asking Marinette to team up with you?”

“Yeah, exactly! Marinette! Not you!”

“Are you kidding me?!”

Kim had just about had enough. There was barely anyone left here anyway, no point staying. “I’m leaving!” he said, and stormed off.

Slightly later, in his room trying to do homework but feeling like bashing his head on the wall would be more productive, there was a knock at his door. He stood up and opened it to see Alix there, looking absolutely livid, with her pet snake wrapped around her shoulders and somehow looking in as much of a bad mood as she was. Without even saying anything she shoved Kim aside, stepped into the room and slammed the door shut behind her. “Kim, what the hell is your problem?!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about!” Her hands were curled into fists and she seemed alarmingly ready to start throwing out punches. Kim quickly took a step away from her.

“What, just because I didn’t want to do that stupid race?”

“This isn’t just about that race! This is about how much of a jerk you’ve been lately! And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’ve been nice to everyone else, just not me. Making friends with Adrien, asking out Chloé – yes I know about that, we all do – always hanging out with my friend Max and trying to get him to do your homework for you…”

“Max doesn’t do my homework for me!”

“Stop trying to change the subject. The point is I know you see me as a rival for some reason, whether it’s the snake or the skating or being Max’s friend or whatever, but at least I’ve been trying to be civil. And I know I’m not that good at it. But I’ve been doing a hell of a lot better than you have!”

Alright, that was kind of true. Kim just didn’t want to admit it. “Your snake tried to kill me,” he huffed.

“If my snake wanted you dead, you’d already be dead, trust me. That being said, I think he’s getting peckish...”

The snake hissed and snapped its teeth menacingly. Kim took another step backwards, very much not liking where this was going. Surely she wouldn’t kill him with that snake, would she?

“So anyway, why do you hate me?” she continued, the snake still hissing and baring its fangs rather ominously. “Are you just jealous of my country’s technology or something? Still a sore loser that I beat you in that race? Are you scared of snakes and thinks that gives you a valid reason to act like a douche? Because that’s what you are, in case you didn’t know. And me and my snake both really, really hate douches.”

Okay, he really did not like where this was going. That snake looked hungry. Could cobras swallow humans whole? Or did they kill them with venom first? How long would that take? Would it be painful?

“Don’t forget, I’m a pharaoh, I outrank you by lightyears. I run an entire country and I can do whatever the hell I want. If I want someone dead, all I have to do is say so, and that’s it for them. They’re fricking dead. So if you think you can get away with being an absolute moron without having to face the consequences, you’re even more stupid than I thought!”

Dead? Did she actually say dead? Oh boy, she was going to kill him with that snake, he was certain about it now, never mind what Max said about that. He had messed up so bad. Seeing that snake, flicking its tongue out like a little lizard, clearly ready to pounce on him and kill him in the most painful way possible… He sank to his knees, terrified. “I’m sorry…”

“Fine, but don’t think a tiny little apology is going to solve everything, because it won’t! Unless you actually change your attitude then saying sorry is meaningless, so… Wait, are you – are you crying?”

“Please don’t tell your snake to kill me,” Kim mumbled, hastily wiping tears out of his eyes. He hadn’t cried in years at least, he was sure, and was not happy about breaking that streak. Hopefully no one else would find out.

“What? No, I’m not going to... I would never actually kill anyone! I was just angry!” She sounded less upset now, more concerned. “Did you really think I was going to tell my snake to kill you?”

“Uh… pfffft, no…”

She sighed. “Kim, are you afraid of me?”

“Nope.”

“Answer truthfully or I’ll go get my sceptre and whack you over the head with it.”

“Well okay, I hate snakes so your snake is kinda scary,” he admitted. “And… I guess… since you control the snake… well…” He wasn’t quite sure when he had stopped being so afraid of the snake and more afraid of Alix herself. Of course that was all tangled up in how he didn’t like her and thought of her as a rival and also had a crush on her… It was no wonder he hadn’t properly noticed.

“Yeah, I thought so.” She gave her snake a stroke and it stopped hissing, immediately backing down and resting its head calmly on her shoulder. “I should have known that would happen. Everyone always ends up scared of me. I guess my problem is a bit similar to yours, huh? You’re just an idiot, and I accidentally scare away anyone I want to be friends with.”

“Wait… friends?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ve been trying to be your friend, since you’re friends with Max and you didn’t act all weirdly over-respectful around me just because of me being a pharaoh, like everyone else does all the time. But now I’ve gone and messed that up, haven’t I? You’re scared of me now, just like all the others. Of course I can’t take all the blame for that, since you’ve been acting like such a jerk that I didn’t really have much of a choice but to confront you about it…”

So she really had been trying to make friends with him? Huh… maybe Max had been right after all. Maybe they would make good friends. Kim took a deep breath, thankfully feeling a little less afraid now.

“Okay, I was a jerk,” he said. “I was just… yeah, okay, I was jealous of your country’s tech. And annoyed you beat me in that race. And hated your snake. And just thought you were kind of annoying in general.” And trying to get rid of this stupid crush on you, he added silently. “But I really went overboard with that, and it would be cool to make friends, so uh… I get if you don’t want to now, but… I really am sorry. I’ll try and be less of an idiot. Max says I never think stuff through properly.”

“Max is definitely right about that. But…” She smiled suddenly, that genuine smile again. “He says that about me as well. I guess me suddenly storming in here and lowkey threatening to kill you may have been overboard too. But hey, it’s not like I’ve exactly got many friends, so I may as well make a new one. Are we friends then?”

She held out her hand for a handshake. Kim accepted, relieved.

“Anyway, I think if I run back now I might have time for the last few sports day races,” Alix said. “Are you coming?”

“No, I think I should probably do my homework…”

“Wait, really? Max would be proud! I guess I’ll see you later then, new friend.”

“Yeah, see you.”

She left the room. Oh thank goodness, that had turned out alright… He had been so sure for a few seconds that he really was going to die. And yet here he was, alive, with a new friend too. He certainly hadn’t expected the outcome to be that good. He wasn’t even sure he deserved it, looking back.

And the truth was that he didn’t want to go back to the sports day because he still felt shaky, like if someone suddenly startled him he’d have a heart attack and die. After all, he had just been in very close proximity to an angry cobra, so it was probably best to just rest a little for now. He had a reputation to keep up.

There was still one thing left to take care of, though. That annoying crush. If Alix was going to be his friend now then he’d better try and get rid of it before she noticed, or even worse, before anyone else noticed. Hopefully it would go away soon. After all, there were plenty of other cute girls at this school to fall for, weren’t there? Surely it was only a matter of time.

[pttracktherapy]

15, 25 and 35 weeks…. About 2 weeks ago I had already started to write this blog in my head. It was going to start off “After deliberation, I have decided to hang up my running shoes….”. I was getting a bit tired (the warm weather was NOT my friend), everything felt a little uncomfortable and my ankle (the fractured one) was starting to niggle me. So it’s with much surprise that I am writing this and I am STILL going!! Don’t get me wrong, all my runs are now split into run/ walks (the interval program on my garmin is a savour!), I am running 3 miles at a time and I have started aqua jogging again but I’m still moving. This is far more than I have could have ever anticipated. I am actually focusing more on time than mileage. I am doing about 2 hours of run/ aqua cardio a week, plus an hour of swimming, pregnancy yoga for an hour and then 45 mins of gym work. Most mornings I get up and walk a mile before breakfast in the early morning sunshine. I feel so much more awake and alert for doing this and I hope it something I can carry on until the end. My joints and muscles feel pretty strong (except my ankle), but part of me wonders whether that is a reaction to the warm weather… I haven’t been very diligent with my stretching but aside from that I’m still doing about 4-5 hours of exercise a week, just of moderated intensity.   I have been waiting for that moment when I knew it would be time to stop running, and I still think in the next few weeks it will happen, but for now I’m just making the most of what I can do and enjoying the fresh air. I stopped going to track at 30 weeks- it’s quite funny to read that statement now! I’m such a nutter :) Once I got going on the session itself it wasn’t too bad and my 400m and 200m splits were certainly quick relative to my size but I wasn’t enjoying it. Warming up was an effort. Running round in circles was an effort. And I don’t need to do it so I stopped. I carried on parkrun until 34 weeks – I had my parkrun baby shower at week 32 which was amazing :) and Pete’s 30th birthday/ 50th parkrun at week 34) but again, it stopped becoming enjoyable. And whilst I have had an amazing time doing parkrun over the last 8 months, I wanted to bow out whilst I was ahead and I look forward to going back hopefully in the autumn. I have started aqua jogging again, using Knowsley Leisure Centre. I am used to the funny looks I receive now! I still stand by the fact that fracturing my ankle was the best thing that ever happened to me- it taught me to cross train, to  be patient and to trust the process. If I hadn’t have going through that last year then I think I may have found this a little more difficult but I am still brimming with motivation and confidence which has made the entire journey an amazing one from start to (nearly) finish. Of course it has been hard not taking part in another summer season of competition, but I know it doesn’t really matter and I have enjoyed supporting from the side lines, being bag lady and chief photographer. I am really enjoying my swimming and it’s the one sport where I haven’t felt as much of a decline in relation to the progress of my pregnancy. It was quite funny this morning at Edge hill coaching session- Coach Terry has been letting me wear flippers during the main set to counter act my drag ;) and today I actually acted as the pacer for my lane over 6 x 100m efforts. Imagine that- pacing at 35 weeks pregnant!! When I look back, I have done so much more than I ever expected and I’m really chuffed that I have been able to do that and hopefully encourage other women to keep active in whatever way is best for them. I know I am so lucky to have been able to carry on, and that other women have had no choice but to completely stop. I don’t take any of this for granted.   So every day is different, and I adapt things as I go along. The next few weeks will probably see a reduction over all activities but I’m cool with that. It’s like a taper before a marathon- you have to be ready for race day!   So, perhaps for the last time here are my pregnancy stats:   Pregnancy miles so far: 696.9 (I should hit 700 next week !) Average per week: 19.9 miles Vo2 predictor according to watch: 49, a drop of 8 overall Confidence level: 100% Motivation level: 100%   I want to take the opportunity to everyone who has played a part in my journey. Obviously Peter, my very patient husband who joins me on my morning “walkies” round the block, laughs at my disappearing belly button but has always been supportive of my choices; the pt track therapy gang and Phil for supporting me and giving me encouragement when you know I was finding things hard; to the Striders for being so supportive of my decision to carry on running and adapting sessions for me to take part; to anyone who has ever joined me for a run/walk and kept me company or helped me pace or take part in an event; and finally to the running community in general. I was so worried about how i would be perceived but I can honestly say I have had so much positivity from people- both people I know and complete strangers. This has made my journey so much more enjoyable and rewarding. Thank you. Sometimes it is too easy to worry about what you can’t do and instead it’s much more positive to focus on and be grateful on what you can do. The human body is capable of so much more than we give it credit for in our modern sedentary lives. On a final note, I read in the paper that 20% of adults do less than 30 mins of exercise a week and that a proportion of people (can’t remember the exact figure) actually spend longer on the toilet than they do exercising over their lifetime. How scary is that!!! Go out, get outdoors and enjoy the world on offer.

[visiontherapy]

Spiritual Success 6- Shining and Sharing Your Faith

Shining and sharing your faith is an important part of becoming a spiritual success. And we have seen that the steps involve reading the Bible daily, praying constantly, fellowshipping at the right church, giving of yourself and your money, and now the final step in becoming a true spiritual success is shining and sharing your faith.

WE ARE CHRIST’S BILLBOARDS

 As you drive along the motorway you see billboards, and they are designed to capture your attention. They are easily seen, and often have a slogan in them that intrigues, shocks or otherwise makes you look.

Most people in our nation will never enter a church building apart from maybe a wedding or funeral. They will never read the Bible. You and I are the only Bible they will ever see, the only contact with a church they will ever experience.

 Romans 10:14-15 (ESV Strong's)

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

 You are the billboard, you are the one who is sent and you sharing your faith, church, not the pastor, not the guy with evangelism as their spiritual gift, you and I are the ones to show Jesus and preach the good news to them!

 Spiritually successful Christians make others look and you are constantly sharing your faith, even if they themselves are quiet and unassuming.

 And remember, kindness, love, respect, miracles, signs and wonders, all of these are links in the chain of salvation, but none of them actually save people.

 Ten million signs and wonders would not make this world turn to Christ, because belief is a choice. Ultimately people choose to either accept Christ, or reject Him. You’re responsible in sharing your faith, but you are not responsible for the decision they make.

  WE ARE ALL CALLED TO SHINE

 John Stott said, “We should not ask, “What is wrong with the world?” for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather, we should ask, “What has happened to the salt and light?”

 Matthew 5:13-16 (ESV Strong's)

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

 Every one of us is called to shine for Jesus, to be salt and light to a world that is a mess. Whether you fancy yourself as an evangelist, whether you have that gift or not, sharing your faith starts with you shining for Jesus. Very often it’s what you do rather than what you say that is the most important thing in reaching out to others.

 Uncle Erick story… On his way to church in his Sunday suit and saw a neighbour digging out his grease trap. He went home, changed into his overalls, skipped church and got down and dirty and smelly in the hole with the man… a few weeks later that man came to Christ.

 If you are not living a life they respect, why should they bother to listen to you?  If you’re gossiping, exploding in anger, manipulating people or holding grudges, your words carry little power. If they see you as honest, stable and kind, someone with their life together, they will listen to you, I promise you! Especially if their life is a mess.

 But don’t think you need to be a stellar Christian to share your faith. I’ve seen drug addicts lead other drug addicts to the Lord. You don’t have to be perfect to shine, but you cannot influence others for Christ if you do not have the right to speak into their life. When they see a change in your life, you earn that right.

 And the reality is, you need to be sharing your faith as much as they need to be hearing about it? Shining for Jesus builds builds upon your credibility as a person, but you need to couple shining with something else… sharing your faith, or speaking about Jesus.

 Check Dr Billy Graham being interviewed by Woody Allen on out Facebook page…

 https://www.facebook.com/ignitechristianchurch

  DON’T BE THE DEAD SEA

 If you are alive in Christ you should be sharing your faith.

 The Dead Sea in Israel is the lowest point on earth, more than 400m below sea level. It is renowned as being deadly because of the lethally high salt content. Why is it so poisonous? The river Jordan flows into it, but nothing flows out, that’s why it is dead. And so many Christians are like that… we get plenty of teaching, tons of input but give nothing back.

 Greg Laurie said, “Input without output is hazardous to our faith.” We become like the Dead Sea.

 2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV Strong's)

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

 If you are getting good teaching, if you are growing in Christ reading His Word, start using it, start handling the Word of truth correctly. Let God’s truth flow through you to others, don’t be a typical Christian and stagnate!

 SHARING YOUR FAITH EFFECTIVELY

 I would like to run a seminar to detail how to effectively share your faith. Please don’t be put off by this, it is a very simple thing. The gospel is simple, not complicated. It is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find food.

 1 Corinthians 1:18 (ESV Strong's)

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

 Sharing your faith should be natural and reflect our relationship with Christ. I don’t want to Bible bash people, I don’t want to offend them or manipulate them into a decision they are not actually making. Jesus made you the way you are so that you can gently and naturally share your faith in a way that sits right with your personality.

 So what are the steps to sharing your faith effectively, even for a non evangelist?

  1.      CONNECT WITH PEOPLE

 People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. I’ve been involved in all kinds of evangelism around the world, and have traveled with Dr Bill Newman across the globe, but he would tell you that the mass evangelism campaigns we have are just a platform for personal evangelism.

 Romans 12:15-16 (ESV Strong's)

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.

 Aussies hate arrogance, so don’t be superior, don’t be self absorbed and don’t preach at them. Step one is to just connect with people, where they are at.

 Brett plays in a band and often tells people about his faith in the club where they are playing. Some of you mums share with other mums at school. Glen shares Jesus from his Harley. Some of you builders talk to tradies on the building site. I often talk to people who come for an eye test and get the gospel as well. Last week I spent half an hour sharing my faith with one of my staff.

 Whenever you meet people, the first step is to connect with them, and love them with gentleness and respect.  Don’t Bible bash them, take the time to talk to them, connect with them, listen to them about their life and their struggles…

 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV Strong's)

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

 If I meet a salesman who pitches vigorously in my face… I feel disrespected. If I meet someone I can trust, someone who listens and seems to care about me, I am more inclined to respond positively.

  2.      KNOW THE WORD

 When Peter preached the first sermon in Acts 2, he quoted Scripture. Now you don’t have to quote verse and reference, but you ought to have enough of the Word in your life so the Lord can quicken it to your heart as you need it sharing your faith.

 Artists know their brushes, builders know their tools, musicians know their instruments, so you should know your tools. Your tool is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and God promises this…

 Isaiah 55:11

So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

 I have memorised, learned and studied the Bible, and so as I speak to people in I find verses popping into my head, quickened to my spirit as the bible calls it.

 Hebrews 4:12 (ESV Strong's)

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

 The Word of God is living and active, and it penetrates people’s hearts, and divides or separates good from evil, right from wrong, sin from righteousness. That verse says it discerns, which in Greek means judges, the thoughts and intentions of their heart, which is very handy when sharing your faith.

 Using Scripture as you talk to others sharing your faith penetrates more than the best of your words or your fine sounding arguments.

 You can not argue someone into Heaven, only the Holy Spirit breaks the yoke, and only the Holy Spirit can save a soul, and He uses the Word of God.

 Ask the Gideon’s, who have countless testimonies of people coming to Christ just by reading a bible in a hotel room or prison cell.

 Salvation is a spiritual act. You may feel that people need convincing, but behind it all there are demons and principalities that need to be overcome, and your words do not cut it. The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God, and if you don’t know the Word, when sharing your faith you are fighting with bare hands with your sword still in its scabbard!

  3.      BE CHRIST CENTRED AND CLEAR

 There are so many issues people talk about, and you need godly opinions, but don’t get diverted, keep the main thing the main thing. You will not win people to Christ arguing about same sex marriage, creation science or the Shroud of Turin. Facts may be part of the journey, but they alone will not save people.

 Titus 3:9 (ESV Strong's)

But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

 2 Timothy 2:23-24 (ESV Strong's)

Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil,

 If you want people to come to Jesus, talk about Jesus! You might have an opinion on various issues, but getting on Facebook and offending people about non salvation issues will not bring them to Christ. You might win the argument and send them to hell for eternity, is that a good deal?

 As you are sharing your faith you can share your testimony, you can share your experiences by all means, because a person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument.

 Why not memorise a few verses about Jesus and the gospel, like John 3:16 or Romans 5:8?

  4.      CALL THEM TO REPENTANCE

 We rarely hear about repentance these days, even sadly in gospel preaching, but for people to come to Christ they must acknowledge their need of Him.

 How can people agree to be saved when they have no concept of what they are being saved from? They might look at their life and be sorry for what they’ve done, but that’s not the same as repentance.

 Remorse is being sorry. But repentance is being sorry enough to change.

 2 Corinthians 7:10 (ESV Strong's)

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

 People are generally sorry not for what they have done, but they are sorry for being caught or suffering the consequences.

 In our modern society, we have a huge tendency to pass blame for our bad behaviour or decisions.  We abdicate responsibility, we blame others, we always have.  Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the snake, and the snake didn’t have a leg to stand on!

 So often today we excuse bad behaviour because we’ve convinced ourselves it is someone else’s fault. I only did this because you did that to me. My sin is because of my parents, my partner, my upbringing, my circle of friends, my church, my job and anyone else… except me!

 Here’s the top 7 ridiculous lawsuits won, all from the US…

 I tripped over my own toddler in your furniture store and broke my ankle… $750,000

I spilled hot coffee on my lap and burned myself… $2.5m

I locked myself in your garage while robbing your house and could not get out because you were on vacation… $500,000

Your chained up beagle bit me after I climbed your fence and fired pellets at him… $14,500

I slipped on the soft drink I threw at my boyfriend in your restaurant and broke my tailbone… $113,500

I burned myself on an uninsulated wire while trespassing on your property… $24m

Red bull didn’t give me wings… $13m

 Listen, regardless of upbringing, relationships, friends  and the tough life you’ve been dished, at some point if you want to change your life you need to acknowledge your guilt, and step up to take responsibility for your decisions.

 Ezekiel 18:20 (ESV Strong's)

The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

 In other words, man up and take responsibility for what you’ve done or become!

 And so it is with the gospel… when people have the revelation that they are sinners, destined for hell, but that Jesus paid the price for them and died in their place, then they are truly ready to receive Christ.

 And we need to understand that too. People out there are lost. We call them sinners, unchurched, unbelievers, non-Christians, but the reality is that they are lost. If they die tonight, they face judgment and eternity in hell, so you need to find the best way to reveal that fact to them when sharing your faith.

 5.      ASK THE QUESTION WHEN SHARING YOUR FAITH …

  If you talk to someone about the Lord, if you share you faith and don’t ask a question, it’s like a preacher who preaches well but never asks for a response. At Ignite that doesn’t happen, because I always preach to a verdict, to a response. It’s like a salesman, who does the greatest pitch ever then fails to close the sale by simply asking, “Do you want to buy it?”

 I will often ask people to pray to ask Jesus into their lives in church. Often no one responds. I’m not embarrassed. It’s God’s problem, not mine, I just need to keep faithfully asking as I feel led.

 So don’t be afraid, just ask and let God be God. We are responsible to ask, but we are not responsible for their reply to that question. Peter said,

 Romans 10:9-10 (ESV Strong's)

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

 Peter spelled out exactly how to be saved, and challenged the crowd, and 3,000 came to Christ that day. Be bold, be courageous and just ask. The worst that can happen is that they say no or not right now. The best is that they accept Christ and live with Him for eternity!

 BE A LINK IN A CHAIN

 When people come to Jesus it is usually a long and convoluted journey. Long before they meet you or anyone else, the Holy Spirit has been working in their life, preparing the soil for a harvest of salvation. You might be the first Christian they have ever talked to, you might be one of many in their journey, or you may have the privilege of leading them right through for the Lord.

 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 (ESV Strong's)

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

 In the chain of their salvation you could be the first link in the chain, the middle link or the last link.. Just don’t be the missing link!

 You do not have to force every person you talk to into making a decision to receive Christ on the spot.  Just be faithful, take them a little further on the journey, as far as they are prepared to go, and believe the Lord to complete the rest.

 You cannot save them, they have to make the decision, and God’s grace is there for them…

 Ephesians 2:8-10 (ESV Strong's)

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

 Arthur Stace was a quiet, unassuming ex-alcoholic who walked the streets of Sydney before dawn every day for 37 years, and never led one person to Christ personally. But every day he wrote a single word in the pavement in yellow chalk, and that word led to the conversion of thousands of people to Christ… the Word was “Eternity”.

 WHOSE LINE  IS IT ANYWAY?

 Remember, ultimately a person is responsible for their own decision to accept or reject Christ. It is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility to save souls, and our job is simply shining and sharing our faith.

 Ultimately, salvation is a choice, and it is a choice they make, not you. Only the Holy Spirit can draw people into the Kingdom, not you, so we do not need to see a result or try and make people get saved… those are the Holy Spirit’s lines, not ours.

 Our job is to shine, but to shine brightly in this dark world. Yet we must not fool ourselves or compromise our witness for Christ.

 St Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the gospel at all times, and where necessary use words.” What he is suggesting is that you let your life shine for Christ, but I believe He is wrong on the second part… you must also use words. Otherwise, they think you’re a nice person and a great guy, and Christ isn’t honoured, you are! So couple your shining with words that tell them the reasons why you act in such a noble way…

 Let me finish with 2 verses we have already used…

 Matthew 5:16 (ESV Strong's)

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV Strong's)

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

 THE SHINING AND SHARING CHALLENGE

 If you have never asked Jesus into your heart, now is a great time to do it. The Bible says we have all sinned, the Bible says we are all guilty and are destined for hell. You don’t need to be good enough to be saved, you just need to be humble enough to accept Jesus’ free gift of salvation.

 Think of one person you know who doesn’t know Christ, and then pray for an opportunity to shine and to share. It’s not enough just to do good and shine, and it’s not enough just to tell them you’re a Christian, you need to do both!

https://ignitechurch.org.au/?p=2494

[anadventurousgirl]

Yesterday I was privileged enough to go swimming at the London Aquatic Centre with two ex-Olympians; Keri-Anne Payne and Duncan Goodhew. Not only that but I was lucky enough to be doing this with a fantastic group of people. We had all been chosen as ambassadors for this year’s Swimathon. Once we were all in a room together I could see why.

We were all at different stages with our swimming and had various reasons for wanting to take part in Swimathon. The one thing we had in common was the desire to push our boundaries and achieve something new.

What had been holding us back? Confidence. A day spent together at the pool saw each one of us challenge our limits and encourage each other to face fears. There are often so many fears involved in going to the pool. If we can break down these mental barriers our confidence has the chance to grow.

1. You can forget body image

For most of us the idea of stepping into our swimwear fills us with dread. We feel exposed and as if we have nowhere to hide. We were given lovely new Zoggs Swimwear to train in. I thought my Aqua Reef costume was fab and flattering but the voice in my head still said ‘Yeah, it’s still me in a swimming costume’. Not only that but we were being filmed and photographed.

As we all stepped out poolside one thing became abundantly clear. How we looked was totally irrelevant. What mattered was having fun and learning new skills. We were all different shapes and sizes and I doubt any one of us was 100% happy with how we looked. But (and here’s the key to forgetting about body image) no-one else cared! They really didn’t. Our hang ups are ours alone

2. You don’t need to know it all

We’ve all had it. That fear of going to a new place and not knowing where things are or how they work. Which changing room should you head to? What coins do the lockers take? Where do you need to take your shoes off?

We sometimes wonder why we aren’t told all these things when we first arrive. To be honest, we probably should be. Leisure Centres could help everyone by displaying this and other information clearly. But just because it isn’t always obvious it doesn’t mean no-one wants to help. Staff probably don’t know you are new and will be more than happy to answer your questions.

Failing that just ask another swimmer. Twice yesterday I was unsure of something and asked someone else. Both times they didn’t have a clue either! But that meant a shared experience. Suddenly you are no longer alone and have a partner to work things out with. It is amazing how much confidence we gain by realising we are not in a situation alone. If you’re not sure, just ask. You certainly won’t be the first one to do so.

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3. No one else is getting it right

My biggest reason for signing up to Swimathon was to re-learn front crawl. I can plough up and down the pool forever in breast stroke but daren’t try front crawl for fear of humiliation. What if I wasn’t doing it right? Would everyone point, stare and snigger?!

Well, they can’t. And guess why; because they probably aren’t getting it right either. Each one of us yesterday looked different when swimming. I learnt that I swim totally flat. I don’t rotate my body, so my arms have to make a huge effort to come round and I struggle to get my head position correct to breathe. It didn’t make me any worse than anyone else. We all had our technique quirks which made us less than perfect.

Keri-Anne coached us and gave some fantastic advice and then showed us how she swims. Wow! It was mesmerising to see how smooth her technique was. If anyone is getting it right it is her. But that’s her career, she has worked on that every day of her life for many years. And I bet she’ll tell you she still isn’t perfect.

So give yourself a break. Relax, enjoy and (bringing me to my next point) keep learning.

4. You can ask for help

Swimming lessons are for children and athletes aren’t they? That was my reasoning. I know how to swim and if I wanted to get better I should just try harder. Plus, as I recently told a friend, I don’t like being coached. The idea of someone watching, analysing and criticising was just too much for someone as self conscious as me.

Turns out I was wrong. And that almost never happens! I loved being coached. It wasn’t about criticism, coaches genuinely want to help you get better. That’s why they became a coach. They are there to build you up and make you feel awesome.

Yesterday I had so many lightbulb moments from the tips Keri-Anne gave me. That’s not to say I came away a hugely better swimmer. But now I know how to get there and what I need to work on. If you are anything like me and worried to try improving for fear of failing then get yourself a lesson booked.

5. Swimming gives you a glow

Who doesn’t get out of the pool with rosy cheeks, feeling better about themselves? I always feel happier after exercise and when you’re happier you give off a glow!

You will also be getting fitter, which makes you feel good about yourself. Feeling good about yourself glows through as confidence.

So get to the pool. Forget all your worries and get yourself a glow!

Swimathon

Swimathon 2018  takes place from Friday, April 27 – Sunday, April 29. With distances from 400m to 5k, there is a Swimathon challenge for everyone. Choose to take part in an organised Swimathon session or take part at a time and place which works for you with My Swimathon.

I’m going for the 5k distance at my local leisure centre. Are you in?! You can sign up to Swimathon here.

[jetpack_subscription_form title=”Never Miss An Adventure!”]

Swimming: Five Reasons You Should Be Confident Yesterday I was privileged enough to go swimming at the London Aquatic Centre with two ex-Olympians; …

[lewiskdavid90]

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