#is it that greedy to want a basic warehouse job or something

[putschki1969]

Hi Puts, I have a question, but maybe it's too personal. As a fan, how much money do you spend? I think the three FC alone cost about $130 a year. Each shipment to Mexico costs between $20 and $50, including fees. Buying CDs, DVDs, streaming tickets, shop items, magazines (Idk if Hikaru and Keiko send something like Botanical Tsushin) I think is quite a bit of money. I graduated this year and recently started working, so I'm wondering how much money I need to pay for everything I want.

Hello there!

Don't worry, I have no filter so there is literally nothing too personal you could ever ask me. Also, I think it's important to be transparent about stuff like that.

Before I get to the juicy details I want to preface this post by saying that I am in a very privileged position so using my fangirl expenses as a general reference is probably not the best idea. There is free education and public health care in my country so I do not have any debts from either of those. On top of that I do have a job with a decent salary and my monthly fixed costs are comparatively low since I share the rent and stuff with my mum (yup, I am 30+ and choose to live with my mum, sue me). My company pays for public transportation, internet and a big portion of my meals. Last but not least, I have no car, no partner, no kids, no pets, no other social commitments or anything else that would burden me financially aside from my obsession with Kalafina so I am free to spend a considerable amount of my income on my "hobby" without having to worry too much about running into debt or not having enough savings.

Having said that, I will openly admit that I spend a SHIT-TON of money for my girls, much more than I am honestly comfortable with. Yes, I can more or less afford it but it still brings me a lot of pain and tears every single day.

Now let's get into the details 〈(•ˇ‿ˇ•)-→ [Like you I will be using USD for easy understanding]

I honestly cannot tell you a definitive number since my expenses always change depending on how many events and releases are scheduled for a particular time period. I guess I can provide a rough overview of what I am currently spending on Kalafina since there are quite a few things happening right now (nothing compared to last December though).

The four FCs I am part of with their combined costs of roughly $150 are what I consider to be “negligible costs” and they are really my least concern in the grand scheme of things.

The streaming tickets are very cheap in my opinion and I would gladly pay even more for them if it meant I wouldn't have to spend a fortune on regular trips to Japan. But yeah, it's another $150 to $200 a year for various streaming events.

Releases and merch are pricey in and of themselves (incl. around $5-$10 of domestic shipping) but it's made even worse when you are crazy like me and buy multiple copies of something just to get special benefits. Recently I have ordered Hikaru's merch (~$100), Keiko's merch (~$50), Wakana's merch (~$120) and three *coughs* copies of Wakana's Blu-ray (~$220). I also made sure to purchase Hikaru's albums on iTunes (~$20) even though I already own the CDs.

International shipping/import fees is where the costs pile up and I usually end up paying anywhere from $20 up to $150 for packages. Austria has literally the WORST import regulations T_T

I also indulge in the occasional Kalafina fashion item so that gets pretty expensive too. But that’s just me so there is really no need to take these costs into consideration.

So yeah, you can expect to spend a LOT of money depending on how greedy you are. :P Being an overseas Kalafina-fan sucks! However, I have two tips for you:

Prioritising is key! Find out what’s most important to you and then make peace with the fact that you will never be able to buy everything because that’s just not reasonable (unless you are filthy rich :P). I obviously focus on digital and physical music releases because that’s how you support their solo careers. I know it’s tempting to pirate this stuff but I urge all fans to make those purchases. The same applies to live stream tickets. If you have the means and the event is foreigner-friendly, please go for it! Aside from that, you will just have to choose your orders wisely. Ask yourself the questions: What kind of benefits do I prefer? What merch am I most likely to use? Any merch I am particularly fond of? Make sure you don’t end up overspending. While I keep encouraging fans to spend their money, you should always do it within reason. 

Cluster your orders! If you are using a proxy service like Tenso or Buyee, it’s best to have items arrive around the same time so you can consolidate your packages (within the 30-day period). After all, there is nothing more frustrating than paying $20 on shipping for a tiny fan club magazine that’s basically for free. So before you make a purchase, check the scheduled shipping time and try to make your orders align with each other. And also try to pay attention to the shipping dates of FC-related items, that’s not always easy since the schedules aren’t exactly regular but you can at least get a feel for them. If a FC item happens to arrive at the warehouse, you could always use that opportunity to order some in-stock goods or releases you have had your eye on. They should arrive quickly so you can ship them together with the FC-item. Please note that this will of course increase shipping costs/import fees since your packages will get bigger/heavier but I think at the end of the day, you are still saving money.

I know it’s often frustrating and intimidating to navigate through the world of Kalafina but I hope my posts can at least somehow help to alleviate the the stress that comes with being an overseas fan.

[artoflifehealingarts]

Posted on Quora

By Tony Castaldo

Q: My IQ is at around 151 (Mensa). What can I expect to achieve in life?

Welcome to the club! You can expect to achieve absolutely nothing!

This is like saying, “I have a race car engine. How fast can I go?”

Well, buddy, you need the rest of the car, and unfortunately nature will not always match your engine with all the rest of the mechanical parts in your car. All the parts are randomly chosen and then forced to fit together.

The “rest of the car” in this case is both your physical self, and your emotional self, all you have proven with an IQ test is that you are capable of fast analytical problem solving. That doesn’t automatically make you well-adjusted emotionally, it doesn’t automatically make you an athlete, it doesn’t mean anybody will love you or you will love them, it doesn’t mean you will make a ton of money.

Here is the key you will learn when you get older. It may take time, but I’m giving you the hint now, so you’ll recognize it more quickly than I did: Emotions are king, and will ultimately determine your fate. Not rationality, that is a servant to your emotions, and it will always be.

The neocortex is called that because it evolved recently; before that we were ruled by instincts and emotions and very limited reasoning power, like all other animals. Well, in this case evolution worked by adding something new, not subtracting. Before the neocortex, our instincts and emotions were completely in charge of our actions, and guess what? They STILL hold the throne!

There is an “accidental” brain experiment* with a man that lost his amygdalae in surgery (basically the structures that act as an emotional clearing house) to excise a brain tumor. As a result, he was rational, he could solve math problems, ace quizzes, he did not lose any of his intellect. But he was incapacitated anyway, because he could not make decisions. Asked to pick out clothes for a day, he dithered in the closet for hours, until he had to go to the bathroom. And narrating what he was doing, he could endlessly analyze and come up with reasons to pick one shirt over another, depending on who he might meet, where he might go, what the weather would be, and never come to a conclusion.

You might think he’d get bored or angry or frustrated and just grab a shirt: Nope. Those are emotions. He wasn’t embarrassed by taking so long; he didn’t hate himself, he didn’t worry about what it meant that he could not make a decision. All emotions. In essence, he just did not LIKE any shirt more than another, and he had no rational reason to pick one over another. So his intellect just came up with one thing after another to present to the king (the amygdalae), which was dead on the throne and never indicated to the intellect “I prefer that option.”

Now bladder pain, hunger, muscles and joints hurting and getting tired from standing too long; those are not emotions, and he knew how to respond to that. Physical discomfort is a thing; but also not intellect. Given orders, he knew how to respond to that.

So what is the evolutionary role of Intellect, then? It is a SERVANT to your physical and emotional self, and provides you information, projections and predictions, and understanding for you to emotionally react to.

Why stay in school, when, emotionally it would be much more satisfying to have some money by getting a job? Your intellect will project those two futures, in one you likely have a better job and better life, in the other your short-term indulgences will lead to lesser jobs and a more difficult life. And when you emotionally consider one of those options better than another, the intellect has done its job and you stay in school, despite the short term allure of not being a broke ass student.

You have to learn to manage your emotions, delay gratification, and your intellect can help you with that, but it also depends on your emotional constitution right now. The Intellect can let you breeze through school and college. Mine let me finish a Bachelor’s in Mathematics in 3 years flat, and my Master’s in same in 18 months. It let me go to college for 12 years, earning five degrees with a 4.0 GPA, including my PhD.

Academic success is yours, and getting it will help you become financially successful, because our society pays (literally and figuratively) way too much regard to advanced college degrees.

But your emotions can derail all that. Mensa itself has studied this**; their members are not all successful, even in their own judgment, not all of them are living happily ever after. They have had members get addicted to drugs, get defrauded, go to jail for committing impulsive crimes. They have had high IQ women that got pregnant and bore children at 15. Mensans end up as janitors, truck drivers, and Amazon warehouse workers. Mensans have struggled with depression, and committed suicide. Mensans have attempted stupid stunts and ended up paralyzed for life. Mensans become obese and diabetic and get diseases because they cannot control their eating, their depression, or resist impulsive temptations.

And guess what? All of that shit at about the same rate as the general population that is NOT high IQ.

Why? Because emotions rule our lives. The best thing you can do with your intellect is not to “gain control” of your emotions; you cannot dethrone the King and should not try. But what your intellect CAN do is manipulate the King, learn to convince yourself to choose the best balanced outcome of short, intermediate and long term gains.

Should you study Computer Science and within that Algorithmic Science, there is an interesting class of Algorithms called “Greedy Algorithms”. Greedy algorithm - Wikipedia . The hallmark of such algorithms is that always choosing the optimal short term solution is guaranteed to produce the optimal long term solution, so it is very easy.

That is how basic animals work, as if this is always true of the world. It is why we can trap them: We humans can devise traps so the optimal short term solution for the animal will NOT lead to their optimal long term solution, it will kill them instead. The rat taking the bite of cheese triggers a spring-loaded bar that breaks its neck. The deer chased by a human takes the route of fastest escape and lands in a concealed pit.

People have all that same Greedy Algorithm equipment built in. The purpose of the intellect is to let you defeat this very strong tendency to choose the optimal short term solution, because the Greedy Algorithm does NOT solve all problems. Animals, and us, evolved emotions to use the Greedy Algorithm because it is the simplest and easiest algorithm to implement, one step up from the random action of bacteria and viruses.

The intellect is there to help you accurately predict the consequences and outcomes of your actions in the future, so your emotions can make an informed choice about what will give you the most emotional gratification in the long term, or at least for as far as you can see the future.

There is often a tendency amongst the high IQ crowd to put undue importance on the value of their intellect. They want to “Spock it out,” dismiss emotions as unimportant.

Well, Spock is mythical bullshit, humans don’t work like that, so figure that out as soon as you can. The point of life is emotions, and the best thing you can do with your intellect is use it and delayed gratification diligently to ensure you live a happy life, find love, avoid fear and embarrassment and prison and disease and disability, work at a job you love that uses your talents.

There is no point in being smart if it doesn’t make you happy. You have been gifted with a superior ability to solve problems and understand consequences. A bigger hammer to solve life’s problems, or avert them altogether. But it is useless if you don’t use it, there is no point in being proud of just owning a big hammer, you need to use it.

And remember that your Intellect is a servant to your emotions, it isn’t there to replace them, but to inform them, so you can resist short term gratification when your intellect sees it is likely to sabotage your long term future. That is how you avoid being trapped like an animal and suffering at the hands of others.

* Amygdala results: I believe I first read about this in the book “The Man That Mistook His Wife For A Hat”, but for a neurologist’s talk see Antonio Damasio | Speaker | TED.

** See for example High intelligence: A risk factor for psychological and physiological overexcitabilities.

The remainder of the conclusions and advice are my own based upon reading several such studies, and the implications mentioned.

[diceandlipstick-blog]

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist Session 1 recap - 1/15/2019

The season is spring and the setting is the City of Splendor, Waterdeep. We find ourselves entering the Yawning Portal, a famous tavern built over the entrance of a well, which leads down into Undermountain. We'll come back to that in a bit though. Entering the Tavern is a lovely half-elf named Sylvar. She enters with a cloaked wrapped tightly around her lithe frame. Is she hiding something? We shall see...She looks around for someone, but doesn't seem to search hard, or possibly can't find whom she is looking for. She is nervous and looks extremely out of place, but that is only to me, the DM who will set up her story and potentially her demise at a later date.  Following her as she takes a seat, at the only table made available to our unlikely group of heroes is Elias, a young male half-elf with mischievous intent in his eyes. He receives a lukewarm almost disdainful welcome from Durnan, the proprietor of the renowned Yawning Portal. Elias is warned by Bonnie to behave while she chastises him for getting the barkeep riled up with his presence. Elias unphased and amused, orders a drink and takes a seat at the back of the tavern, away from the large crowd, though ever aware of his surroundings. As he settles in and is brought his drink a large half-orc (all you interbred motherfuckers.) enters the tavern. He's no stranger to his surroundings, and his love struck eyes fall on Yagra Stonefist, a roughneck half-orc female, who's brutality and manhandling has earned her the attentions and affections of Dirge.  Dirge takes a seat at Bonnie's insistent that he occupy the table with the lonely half-elf. He orders a drink and watches Yagra arm wrestle a few of the hulking bandits seated at her table, with stars in his eyes. Panning the camera no one is holding to the entrance yet again, and you find yourself looking at a bruised up hill dwarf named Yossuck, returning to the tavern after a long days training with Hlam the eccentric monk in the mountains. Yes, you heard me, a hill dwarf monk.. weird I know. He moves with sore muscles straight to the bar and requests a drink. Durnan points over to a table and shoves a tankard of ale at the dwarf grunting about taking a seat and glaring at the pack of bandits who have become even rowdier with the third arm wrestle loss. Suddenly everyone hears the song, "Under the Sea" as Sebastian the crab enters... Sorry, scratch that. Kymani, an islander who sounds like the crab from my favorite Disney movie, enters the tavern. Loudly greeting anyone who wants to listen, (Psst which was no one.) asking a few unhelpful patrons if they've seen his friend, Obaya Uday, to which most just look at him as if he were shit that they stepped on. (people are so racist and rude) He is greeted by Bonnie who is flustered but seemed to have it all under control, as she is running around taking orders and serving as fast as her legs will carry her. She points to a table and scurries off with a promise of return and a look of distressed confusion, he takes his seat, and it seems as though the properly planted single table that was the only place for our random adventurers who never met before or knew one another were forced to sit together. As conversations fly between them all, Elias joins the group, offering overpriced tour guiding. Once everything seemed settled, there was an outburst from the back of the tavern, the group of rowdy bandits were now trying to fight the large half orc woman. She managed to knock two of them out, but eventually the remaining four overpowered her. She was knocked out, but not before several members of this mismatched heroes get a few hits in, though sadly for Dirge, Yagra missed his heroic smash of one of her enemies. During this epic battle for first level players... Elias pickpockets the distracted customers of the Yawning Portal. Lucky for him Durnan wasn't paying him any mind though in hindsight, he should have been for his patrons' sake.  Once Yagra falls, Durnan breaks up the fight, sending the remaining bandits scampering out the door. While everyone is helping make the knocked out Yagra comfortable, there is another catastrophe to deal with. Durnan yells out, "TROLL (earned XP)!!" and once again our heroes are put into a combat situation. They fight hard, though let's face it Durnanwrecked the troll with his 4 hits on the beast and a  cocktail of oil and flame. Though there was an explosion of stirges (earned XP), who tried to drain the party members. Durnan giving the group his thanks, though the tavern was filled with more suitable warriors who could have handled the troll with more finesse, (silly DMing done weirdly wrong and right) this group were the champs of the night. As they celebrated their victory over free drink and food for the night, they are approached by a man, who calls himself Volo. Members of the party don't bother to pick their own brains to see if they remember who he is, what he's "famous" for. He sits with them, enjoying their free drinks and food, and offers them payment for a little help. He hands them each 10 gold dragons (coins not the beasts) and tells them with a job well done, he'd pay them 10 times each what he had given them if they will help him find his friend Floon Blagmaar, who has disappeared a couple nights back, and he fears the worst of his friend, and for his safety. After a while of insights and shit talking, the party agrees to band together and find this Floon character. Heading off to the Skewered Dragon, in a seedy area of the seedy dock ward, they enter the new scene which is not impressive at all, and are quickly taken advantage of by the greedy and desperate proprietor of this establishment. He extorts them heavily for the little information he knows, which for the most part isn't helpful aside from the fact that after Volo left Floon that night, another man joined him for a few more drinks and they left together. The new man's name being Renaer Neverember (I can never remember.), who is the son of the previous Open Lord, Nagault Neverember.  A smarter, maybe nicer man sitting at a table, taking a smaller fee (at this point you all have paid among yourselves 20 dragons.) offers up that he watched Floon and Renaer leave together, and were followed by a couple of men who in other areas would be bad, but fit in nicely with the dark and bad-ass theme of this bar which is called for to progress the story. Sent to Candle Lane, to look for a door with a flying snake on it. The group enters the yard of the warehouse and making plenty of noise, and shedding tons of light because of their weak ass human member with no dark vision, they are once more tonight set up in combat. Fighting four kenku (earned XP), who leave them with a parting exclaim, "Xanathar sends it's regards." (So do the Lanasters, bitch!) the group basically raids the warehouse which is packed with trash, or at least as far as the searching eyes have found so far. Sylvar finds a door, and inside the tiny closet, they find, not the man they are seeking but his friend, Renear. He accounts a similar story of drinking and leaving the tavern, he was hit over the head and has spent a couple days in the dark. He expresses to the group that he fears that they may have mistaken Floon for him, and that they seek the fortune Renaer's father had embezzled and hid away somewhere in Waterdeep. Renaer makes a claim that he doesn't know anything about the truth of the gold's hiding place but seems to gather his courage and offers to help find his friend, possibly out of guilt or friendship, who knows now. And that my friends is where we have been left off for the session.