#it makes me feel much less hopeless when i scroll through multiple days of job listings and see dozens i'm qualified for

[wickedhawtwexler]

i have looked at my resume so many times that half of these words do not look like english anymore

[thesaltyoncologist]

Trigger warning: suicide

This NEJM Perspective piece addresses an incredibly important problem during medical training. If you’re in medicine, take a minute to read this. And if you’re struggling yourself with mental health, especially during training, PLEASE feel free to reach out to me personally. We want to help. You are not alone in this. Click the keep reading link to view the article in its entirety.

My Intern - R.E. Leiter

Bobby hasn’t come in yet today,” one of my chief residents told me. “He isn’t picking up his phone or answering his pager. Could you go and check on him?”

I was in my final year of my internal medicine residency and was on a 6-week rotation as the assistant chief resident. In this role, I organized educational sessions for the residents and medical students and helped with administrative tasks. Most important, I learned how to support other residents and respond to their needs, which is what much of my job as chief resident would entail the next year.

Bobby was an intern in our program, and he and I had worked on a team together in early July. Bobby became my intern, and I was his senior resident. It was a role I cherished, and I tried to teach him all I could about caring for multiple sick patients simultaneously and navigating the systems, personalities, and politics of a large Manhattan hospital. We stayed late as we struggled to place an ultrasound-guided IV into the arm of a patient whose veins were shot from years of dialysis. Perched side by side on a windowsill, we nearly missed morning rounds as we listened to a dying patient recount his journey from India to the United States. By the end of our long, busy month together, I was proud of the doctor Bobby had already become.

Bobby lived in a building across the street from the hospital. New York prices being what they are, most teaching hospitals provide their residents with subsidized housing in the neighborhood. It’s a strange, almost dormlike environment, with residents working and living together in close quarters.

It was a cloudless yet cool August day when one of the other chief residents and I stepped out the side door of the hospital. When Bobby didn’t answer our knock, we explained the situation to the building’s staff and they sent a maintenance worker back up with us. We soon discovered the incomprehensible reality: Bobby had jumped out his window. The usual din of the Manhattan street below was eerily quiet. Cecil’s Internal Medicine lay open on his tiny kitchen table, the pages gently flapping in the breeze from the open window.

Somehow, we ended up in the emergency department and witnessed a compassionate but ultimately hopeless resuscitation attempt. While our program director broke the news to the other residents, we returned to the apartment and gave our statements to the police.

The sudden death of a colleague would shake any workplace; in a medical training program where the boundary between the personal and the professional blurred into near nonexistence, its effect was seismic. When Bobby died, we asked the same questions of ourselves that others do when a close friend dies by suicide: What could we have done to prevent it? What had we missed? But we also had a different set of questions: Had something happened to our colleague in the hospital the night before he died? We knew he had been on a particularly brutal rotation. Had he made a mistake? Our uncertainty precipitated the fear that we could be next.

A few days after Bobby died, my program director, one of the chiefs, and I flew to his small, Midwestern hometown to represent the residency program at his visitation. As I gave my condolences to Bobby’s sister, she enveloped me in an unexpected hug. “Bobby told me you were the perfect resident; he wanted to be just like you.” Though she meant it as high praise, her comment left me rattled. I couldn’t escape thoughts that my expectations were too high or that I should have picked up on something wrong while I was working so closely with him.

Residency leaves little time for self-reflection, though, and even less time for personal grief. The wards were as full as ever, and our patients and their families needed care. Because there was no one to replace us, we went back to work and processed the loss as well as we could. In the days and weeks that followed Bobby’s death, the program directors, chief residents, and I worked to rearrange staffing, but the hospital’s needs limited the changes we could make. Even when we did have flexibility, we nonetheless made scheduling mistakes as we tried to triage which residents and teams required the most support. We could all adapt to one or two residents taking time off for family, health, or personal reasons, but managing our collective trauma was entirely different, and our blind spots added to everyone’s emotional and physical exhaustion.

I threw myself deeper and deeper into my job, hoping that working to heal my patients’ suffering would shield me from my own. I kept my head down on my way into the hospital each morning, lest I catch a glimpse of Bobby’s window. Predictably, this strategy was unsustainable. Evaluating a new patient in the ED, I found myself in the same corner where I had watched my colleagues work on Bobby. I couldn’t muster the wherewithal to inhabit my role as a physician while also containing my terrifying memories. After rounds, I sobbed in my chief resident’s office. I saw Bobby’s death as a sign of my failure. I had failed as a resident. I had failed as a teacher. Bobby was my intern and I had failed him. I was terrified of working with another intern, let alone of serving as a chief to nearly 150 of them, many of whom would struggle with their own mental illness.

Each year, approximately 300 physicians in the United States die by suicide.1 Medical students and residents are particularly at risk, facing new professional responsibilities with the highest possible stakes, deep uncertainty about their own abilities, constant sleep deprivation, and isolation from family and friends. When I had a few seconds in residency to scroll through my social media feeds, I would see pictures of a world from which I felt completely removed. On Saturday nights, other people my age discovered new bands and ate at trendy new restaurants; I fought with the electronic medical record to input orders for laxatives and stood in line to perform chest compressions on a dying mother of two young children. These stressors form a dangerous and potentially toxic mix, particularly for trainees with preexisting or emerging mental illness.

Thankfully, I received the psychiatric services I so desperately needed. I still have a scar, but it’s well healed. I wonder, though, how many residents in our program remained isolated in their suffering. Bobby wasn’t only my intern; he was our colleague and friend. In the aftermath of his death, how many of us should have been working at all?

Six years after he died, I no longer worry about having failed Bobby. But I do think the system of medical training failed him and continues to fail every trainee it puts in harm’s way. Although there will be no easy solutions to this crisis, we cannot accept the status quo. We are losing too many young physicians to suicide for the current system to remain morally defensible. Seeking to improve the lives of others shouldn’t cost our trainees their own.

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, a prevention hotline can help. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24 hours per day at 800-273-8255. During a crisis, people who are hard of hearing can call 800-799-4889.

Disclosure forms provided by the author are available at NEJM.org.

The intern’s name has been changed to protect the family’s privacy.

This article was published on March 13, 2021, at NEJM.org.

[lykegenia]

The Things We Hide Ch. 9

The Southern Water Tribe stood for a hundred years against the Fire Nation, indomitable until Sozin’s Comet tipped the balance in Fire Lord Ozai’s favour. Now, as planned, the South is decimated, Chief Hakoda is a puppet on his throne, and Princess Katara is a political prisoner held in the Fire Nation capital to ensure his good behaviour. But Ozai has little time to gloat. A vigilante masquerading as the Blue Spirit is causing unrest among the people, rebel ships still hound his navy, and right under his nose the South’s most powerful waterbender waits with the patience of ice to strike at the very heart of his empire and bring it crashing down.

Chapter 1 on AO3 Masterpost here

Words: 4388 Pairing: Zuko x Katara Chapter Summary: The Fire lord’s garden party goes exactly how Katara thinks it will - until it doesn’t.

Read it on AO3

Katara –

It’s official, we’re taking a break. The fishing fleet got caught in a storm and luckily we found shelter. The people here are fishermen too, so it’s almost like being at home, only with less snow. All their fishermen are women, though. You’d like their chief. When we first landed, I may have accidentally suggested to her that we were better at fishing because we have bigger boats – don’t laugh, Katara, I know you’re laughing – but she kicked my ass like five seconds later, so she’s now teaching me some of their methods for fishing while our ships finish repairs. You should meet her. You’d like her. Although I don’t know how that would end for me.

Did you know they have a sea serpent here? I’ve only seen the fin, but it’s huge.

Anyway, there’s another reason I’m writing. I know you’ll understand this, you always do. I miss my little sister. You remember her, right? Always helping people, always exploring where she wasn’t allowed. We never could keep her out of the caves on the side of that stupid mountain behind our house, because someone told her that if she looked hard enough she’d find the hidden people and they’d tell her where to find the best treasure. She’s all grown up now, and Dad always told her to be careful, but I wonder sometimes if she still does things like that. She’s doing a great job with the polar bear-dogs, by the way. I hear they’re nearly eating out of her hand.

And one last thing – please don’t send me any more of those Fire Nation recipes with all those weird spices and complicated fiddly buts. It’s giving Nanak ideas and we all have to suffer through them, and what happens after. There’s nothing wrong with sea prunes, you know.

Mimi

--

The letter was crumpled, the ink smudged from so many readings. Even after going through it multiple times, parts of the code were indecipherable. When they had decided on disguising their notes like this, back before Sozin’s Comet, they had decided the need for secrecy was too great to risk anyone being able to find patterns in the smokescreen of friendly correspondence. Katara and Mimi both mixed banal details about their lives with the more important facts, hiding them beneath the surface like the deep ocean currents that brought the bow whales in spring. They relied on their shared memories and in-jokes to communicate, and relied on Nila’s skill at getting information to fill in any gaps.

Not that there was usually much they could do to help, Katara groused, as she sat under the lantern tree in the garden and reread the letter again for the dozenth time. They had worked out that the mention of the ‘hidden people’ was really about Nila’s spies, who had missed their previous three report windows, but the rest of it was still gibberish. And instead of being able to go out and look for them, she and her entourage were stuck in the compound, still under house arrest, with nothing more strenuous to occupy them than garden parties and the ridiculous intricacies of court life. Sometimes she just wanted to forget the plan entirely and swamp the palace in a deluge, but this far into the dry season there wasn’t nearly enough water for that, if she even had the power to move it anyway.

No, for now she was stuck playing the role of subjugated princess, smiling from behind a paper fan in a pretty dress and dreaming of the day she would be free to cast off the layers of Fire Nation silk and daub her face with warrior’s paint as she had on the night when she crushed the three transports against the breakwater. Soon enough, she would teach them the oldest lesson of the Water Tribes: the sea is patient, and powerful, and cannot be conquered.

In the meantime, perhaps she could pry some information out of one of the more loose-lipped nobles, and if that failed, her alter ego might find something. She smirked to think about the growing rumours of spirits in the city, murmurs in the marketplace of a shadowy figure that cloaked itself in mist and slinked through the streets after dark. Ozai had reacted to these rumours with predictable force, but the extra patrols assigned to the wards were reluctant to risk the ire of the people – or the spirits – by going after another preternatural vigilante. It helped, of course, that Katara could pass her waterbending skills off as magic, and she took vindictive pleasure in knowing how easy it was to bring the dissatisfaction of the Fire Nation’s citizens to the surface.

Like drawing out an infection, she thought. All they needed was the right tonic.

She wondered about the Blue Spirit. Since the first night they spent running through the Caldera, she hadn’t seen him. If nothing else, his knowledge of the city would make her own reconnaissance go that much quicker, but despite Hama’s insistence to the contrary, Katara was not reckless enough jeopardise their plan in order to seek him out. Whoever he was, he clearly held no love for those who abused their power, but here in the capital, that didn’t narrow down the field. Maybe he was the son of a disenfranchised noble house, out to seek revenge by stirring up the common folk against their masters; or maybe he was an artisan with a stall in the market, no longer able to tolerate the injustices he saw every day. It was a mystery she would be unlikely to solve with the limited time she had.

“Lady Katara,” Attuk said, making her jump. “Prince Zuko is here.”

She ignored the excited little skip her heart made against her ribs. No matter how charming or earnest he seemed, he was still the enemy, and any attraction he might feel should be cultivated as an extra tool, or as a weakness if it could not be used to serve her purpose. That’s what Hama would, anyway, and if Katara’s thoughts wandered a bit too often too how he had warned her about Azula, or how he had returned her father’s hunting kit without thought of reward, she ignored that, too.

She checked her appearance in the mirror. Today she wore scarlet, following the tradition of the Fire Nation court, but her seamstress had been clever with the cut of the fabric. The layers of silk mimicked the light camel-wool cloth worn during polar summers, the traditional fur linings substituted for intricate golden embroidery. She knew few of the nobles were familiar enough with Water Tribe fashion to notice her quiet rebellion, but it was a comfort nonetheless.

“I’m ready,” she said.

Zuko looked happy to see her. At his side, a servant held an armful of scrolls she recognised as the Southern sagas she sent him a few days before, because it had seemed the best way to thank him for returning her father’s affects.

“You didn’t like them?” she asked, frowning, once the pleasantries were out of the way.

Zuko’s eyes widened. “No! I mean, I did like them,” he stumbled. “I couldn’t put them down, actually.”

“Really?” There was that flutter in her chest again.

“It’s so different to what the masters here think of as poetry. Uh, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he added, inching one hand up to rub the back of his neck. “It’s just that, I’ve always thought poetry was kind of hopeless, you know? Blossom always fades, animals die, and we’re all caught up in the wheel of the universe, unable to change things. Your sagas are just so… so vibrant, like it’s celebrating change rather than just letting it happen, like you can do something and it will matter. If you see what I mean.” He ducked his head with a bashful smile. “There were probably a lot of references I missed, and the stories were a bit more complex than what I’m used to, but I did enjoy them.”

Seeing him so animated about her culture brought an unexpected flush of happiness that tingled along Katara’s limbs, and she answered his smile with one of her own. “If you want to keep them a little bit longer to copy them, I wouldn’t mind,” she offered, without really thinking.

“Are you sure?” Zuko checked.

She shrugged. “We’re allies, aren’t we?”

“We are,” he agreed, the smile spreading to light up his whole face. “If you’re sure you wouldn’t mind, then I’ll have a scribe make a duplicate. They can be a present for my mother,” he added, as the thought came to him. “I’m sure she’d appreciate them. Maybe you could clarify a few things for me, in case there are problems with translations?”

“I’ll answer what I can,” she replied. “What do you want to know?”

Zuko’s smile faltered at a subtle gesture from his valet, and Katara realised their shared excitement had carried them into their own little world. Together, they were chivvied across to the palanquin, with a hurried but half-hearted lecture from the servant about the impropriety of keeping one’s guests waiting, though Katara suspected the real reason for the sudden rush was a fear that they would arrive after the Fire Lord. From what she knew of Fire Nation protocol, the higher ranking nobles got to arrive at social events later, so that they could appear fresh and composed next to those of lower rank who had already spent hours enduring the heat and boredom that inevitably came with these sorts of parties.

As he handed her into the palanquin, Zuko smiled sheepishly at her, and she found herself returning it. Hama would disapprove. She set about arranging her skirts in a fan to avoid crushing the silk beneath her weight, pleased that Zuko had remembered to draw up the blinds without her even having to ask.

“There’s more of a breeze today, don’t you think?” she said, when the silence between them grew brittle.

Zuko nodded. “It’s coming off the sea. Li and Lo say the monsoon is finally here, and they’re never wrong – but I hope the rain stays away for the rest of the evening.”

Katara smiled and nodded. She didn’t tell him she could feel the sea in her bones, churning up a storm that would snap the dry crackle in the air like a strand of spider silk. She ignored the feeling, for the most part, but the weather-change left her fretful, distracted. She had come very close to making up some excuse to cancel the party and stay in the inner courtyard of the house, where she could bend away her agitation without fear of being seen.

“The thunderstorms at this time of year are amazing,” Zuko was telling her. “So much raw power, and after so long without water, the countryside just bursts into life. We have a special pavilion at the palace just for listening to the sound the rain makes on the roof tiles. The storms won’t be better until later in the season, but if you would like to see it…”

“I’d love to,” Katara said, thinking about how she might be able to sneak away and find the Fire Lord’s office. “It sounds wonderful.”

“I suppose you have storms in the South?” he asked.

“Not quite like here,” she admitted. “We have blizzards, and there’s thunder and lightning in those, but often the wind is so loud and the storm so thick you can’t tell. Sometimes it’s dangerous to go outside because the snow turns you around and you end up lost within a few steps of your doorway.” She shuddered. “I think I still prefer it to this heat, though – at least when it’s cold you can put another parka on.”

“I’ve never seen snow. I know what it looks like, from reading, and that it’s frozen water, but… what’s it like?”

Katara was thrown by the wistful tone of the question. She didn’t know how to answer – how could she, when the snow and ice of the South had been as constant and natural to her as the water? And in a land of such heat, what was there to compare it to?

“I never really thought about it,” she said. “I’ve never had to think snow was like anything, it just is.”

Zuko looked thoughtful, digesting her answer. “What’s a sea wolf?”

“What?”

“One of the sagas mentioned them.”

“Oh.” Katara relaxed slightly. For a second, she had thought he meant to trap her, but the expression on his face was open, the bright gold of his eyes slanted in expectation of her answer. Something uneasy stirred across the skin at the back of her neck, but what could it hurt to tell him about sea wolves? They came to the South in the spring, Tui’s demon aspect chasing tiger seals through the streams of melting ice, their black fins stretching taller than a man above the water. They were respected, Katara explained, because they hunted as a group like humans did, and were cunning, and generous, and vengeful in defence of their families.

“I think I know what you’re talking about. We call them Shachi.”

Katara tried the word; it tangled on her tongue and made her giggle. By this time, they were passing along a broad avenue lined with mangingko trees, their bright yellow leaves fluttering in the wind coming off the sea.

“In some of the stuff I read,” Zuko ventured after a moment of silence, “there was a character called ‘sea wolf’. It was used like a title.” He seemed to be choosing his words, glancing at her sidelong and picking at a stray thread in the silk cushions. “I… I hope this isn’t rude, it just caught my eye and, um… it’s alright if you don’t want to answer, but it seemed like a pretty big deal.”

Katara felt tension creep back into her limbs. The storm air was getting to her, but worse than that was the sudden, choking fear that she had been found out. How much did he know? Did the royal guard escorting them draw closer?

No, she decided. If Zuko had any idea who she really was, he would have brought more soldiers with him. And if this was a test, then surely it was better to control the information he got rather than to arouse his suspicions further.

Be calm. Be still. Adapt to the flow around you.

“There was an old tradition,” she said, trying not to sound like she was working out how to lie. “‘Sea Wolf’ was an honour given to the most powerful waterbender in the South, carried until they could no longer carry out their duty.”

“And what was their duty?” Zuko asked.

“They were the people’s champion. When they died or wished to retire, they would choose their successor.” She smiled. “It’s all in the past, especially now that the Fire Nation are our allies. What need do we have of such things?”

Zuko frowned, as if puzzling something out. “If it’s all in the past, what happened to the last Sea Wolf?”

Katara froze at the question. Fire and screaming flashed in her memory, the heat and the guilt of seeing her people destroyed and being able to do nothing to stop it. Her fingers reached for the familiar comfort of the necklace at her throat.

“She died.”

--

Katara was surprised by the number of guests in green and yellow as Zuko led her through the grand moon arch and into the Fire Lord’s public garden. The Earth Kingdom nobles flittered through the Fire Nation court like hummingbirds around flowers, keeping up a sycophantic bubble of conversation over their glasses of chilled fruit punch. The sight of which had Katara clenching her fists inside her sleeves. How many Earth Kingdom citizens had died trying to fight the Fire Nation, only for the self-interested aristocracy to pander to the enemy in order to protect their own interests? With great effort, she smoothed her face into a smile, and allowed Zuko to lead her through the crowd and offer introductions.

“Oh, so you’re the little thing Her Grace has taken such a shine to. The Fire Lord is quite generous to keep you as he does, you know.”

“Is it true the Water Tribes still wear animal skins and live in huts?”

“How brave of you to wear such colours, with your skin tone. And those beads – how quaint!”

Katara replied to all the backhanded sniping with good humour, but only because it was fun to guess whether they would be more shocked or scandalized when Zuko came to her defence. While he lacked the delicate wit to ever really be a proper politician, he made up for it with dry sarcasm and a disdainful stare, made all the more effective because, as the Crown Prince, nobody could afford to insult him. She watched as one particularly pushy matron, no doubt hinting at a match between Zuko and her rather mousy daughter, tripped over and over herself trying to clarify a remark about Katara’s hair.

“Lady Katara,” Zuko interrupted smoothly. “I hope you will forgive my rudeness. I got so absorbed in presenting you to so many lovely people that I forgot you haven’t even got a drink yet. Will you accompany me?”

Katara took his offered arm and all but purred at the way the matron’s jaw dropped open. “Of course, Your Highness. I admit, my throat is quite dry after all this delightful conversation. I don’t think I’ve ever tried fruit punch before.”

“Then I’m glad I have the pleasure of introducing it to you,” he replied, and led her to a quiet corner of the garden shaded by a thick stand of bamboo. “I’m sorry for all of this,” he murmured when he was sure nobody would overhear. “I know they can be rather… not nice.”

“I can handle them,” Katara told him with a shrug. “Is something else bothering you?”

“What?”

She frowned at him. “You’re scanning the crowd like you’re expecting something to happen. Am I keeping you from meeting someone special?” she teased, unsure why she wanted to catch him off-guard.

“What?” he cried, colouring. “No! I’m just…” He sighed. “It’s Azula. She’s late.”

“And that’s unusual for her?” Katara asked.

“She’s up to something,” he growled.

“Maybe you can find out if anyone else knows where she is,” she suggested.

Zuko’s eyes widened. “You believe me?”

She shrugged. “You do remember I met your sister, right? No offence.”

“None taken,” he replied, with a slowly spreading grin. “Wait, I almost forgot – drinks! Will you wait here for me?”

Katara hummed. “If I stay here all by myself it’ll look suspiciously like I’m not enjoying the company, but if I go out there,” she gestured vaguely, “then I’ll be roasted alive.”

“By the sun or by the company?” Zuko joked.

“Take a wild guess.” She shook her head. “I’ll mingle. I still have to find Bato, anyway. I haven’t seen much of him recently.”

Zuko bit his lip, the way he did whenever she brought up any reminder that she was still under house arrest, or that she and the rest of her entourage were watched, but he nodded and promised to come find her later with drinks.

Good, let him feel guilty, Katara thought as she ventured back into the sea of nobles. It means he won’t look so hard at what we’re doing.

She didn’t get far before she felt somebody slink up behind her. Instinctively, she took hold of the water in the nearby pond, but before she could do any more, a tall, pale young woman stepped out in front of her. Everything about her was made up of precise, straight angles, from the severe line of her fringe across her high forehead to the crease where her sleeves folded at the elbow, to the lazy slant of her kohl-rimmed eyes. She held herself with the kind of poise Katara knew from experience could drop into a fighting stance at the slightest provocation – something everyone else must have noticed, too, because the majority of the nobles who looked at her deflected their attention quickly away.

“You don’t have to pretend to like them, you know,” the strange woman said.

Katara gave her a quizzical smile. “I’m sorry?”

“Those Earth Kingdom ninnies,” came the drawled reply. “They probably wouldn’t notice if you were mean since they’re trained not to make a fuss. One of the only fun things to do around here is to see how far you can push them before they resort to having a tantrum.”

“We haven’t met before, have we?” Katara replied, hoping to at least get a name from her new acquaintance.

“Azula told me about you,” the stranger said. “The Water Tribe Princess. I thought you’d be taller.”

“My name’s Katara.” And yours is…?

“I know. Azula was impressed with you, you know, even if she’d refuse to admit it.” The thin face split into a smirk like a shark’s. “You should have heard her. It got so boring, listening to her go on and on about how rude you were to her.”

“I’m sorry I inconvenienced you,” Katara replied, not sure what else to say.

A shrug. “You should take that as a compliment, actually. Being ‘rude’ to Azula simply means not being scared stiff of her. Anyway, my parents would be horrified to find me not circulating. These parties are always so dull.” She turned with a dismissive wave of her hand. “If you ever need a friend, my name is Mai.”

Relieved to be out of dangerous waters, Katara offered a polite nod of her head and made her way over to where Bato was standing with his attendants. They all wore Fire Nation uniforms and stern expressions, telling her in no uncertain terms that every word she shared with her father’s ambassador would be reported to Ozai or his agents. In a way, she was grateful, because it meant he wouldn’t have the opportunity to chastise her for being reckless – because she could tell by the deep furrow of his brow that he knew exactly how she had been spending her evenings.

“Having fun?” she asked.

“I’m looking forward to the play they’re putting on for us, but it’s too hot,” he replied, smiling. “Not that there’s much to be done about that.”

“I’ve been told the rains will come soon.”

“Oh, and will they?”

She nodded. “Soon enough.”

“I see.” Bato sucked in his cheeks, glancing at their escort. “How are things with you, day-to-day?”

“I had a letter from Mimi yesterday,” she told him. “Something about –”

A fanfare interrupted her. The Fire Lord had arrived. Ozai appeared at the top of the steps to the private wing of the palace with Ursa’s hand placed delicately on top of his, fantastically arrayed in layered scarlet and burgundy that glittered with golden thread. On anyone less sure of their own power, such a display might seem ridiculous, but the thought did nothing to stop the cold shiver that ran down Katara’s spine. The last time she had seen the Fire Lord, he had been hidden behind a wall of flame.

He spotted them and came over. She was glad for the steadying hand Bato laid on her shoulder.

“Our most honoured guests,” Ozai said silkily. “We are so glad you could join in the festivities.”

“We are pleased to be here, your Majesty,” Katara replied, with a bow. “The entertainment promises to be enjoyable.”

“My son, no doubt, has told you about it,” replied the Fire Lord, with only the smallest hint of a sneer. “He would do better to spend his time bringing to justice the perpetrator of the recent destruction in the harbour.”

Bato’s grip tightened on Katara’s shoulder. “As I have told you before, Your Majesty,” he said, “the Southern Water Tribe will do all in its power to assist our allies with the capture of those responsible.”

“Can’t such serious talk be left until after the party is over?” Ursa interjected. “This celebration is supposed to be a happy occasion, after all.”

“My wife, the peacemaker,” Ozai chuckled. Katara noticed how his grip tightened on Ursa’s fingers. “Very well. We will take our seats and see what the Ember Island Players have for us this year.”

“Lady Katara, would you sit with me?” Ursa asked.

“Of course, Your Grace.”

As a group, the Water Tribe ambassadors and the royal entourage of the Fire Nation made their way to a small stone courtyard beyond the garden, where a small stage had been set up in front of rows of cushioned wooden benches. For a moment Katara paused, waiting to see whether Zuko would appear as he had promised. When her hesitation threatened to grow conspicuous, she sat down between Ursa and Bato, leaving enough space that she could shift up if she needed to.

On the stage, a man dressed in fiery orange tassels spread his arms.

“That’s Agni,” Ursa explained to Katara. “The god of fire. He narrates the story because his omniscience allows him to take events and show humanity the lessons embedded in them.”

“… a tale of how two threads of Destiny were ripped in twain…”

“I see neither of my children deigned to honour their father by showing up,” Ozai growled. “How disappointing.”

“Your Majesty, Zuko is here,” Katara protested. “Somewhere. He escorted me to the party.”

“… and, once known to each other, how they – what is the meaning of this?”

Ozai’s sneering retort faltered as he looked to the stage, where Azula stood with a blue fireball on each open palm, towering over the man dressed as Agni.

“I’m afraid tonight’s show has been postponed,” she trilled. “What a shame. I do so enjoy Love Amongst the Dragons. How fortunate that I’ve come prepared with an alternative form of entertainment.”

The audience watched, transfixed, as four royal guards armed with poleaxes marched onto the stage, dragging an unconscious figure between them.

“Noble guests, honoured Father, the time for fear is over,” she announced. “I have caught the saboteur. May I presents the Blue Spirit.”

[ianwillplaythepiano]

Blog No. 3

Welcome back to the blog of a conflicted soul! This week, in part with hopes of keeping my philosophical rumination to a minimum, I have decided to apply my introspective energy to a different area of my life– . No doubt the logo would be familiar to most people, so familiar to a point where many (myself included) might read that symbol out loud as, “Apple”, without thinking. Apple-made technologies are an insanely integrated part of what we see around us every day, from kids standing around a bus-stop playing Pokémon Go on iPhone, students and businesspeople alike typing away on their MacBooks, to grandmas slowly but surely scrolling through their iPad to find just the right picture to share on their grandkid’s Facebook page, it’s almost impossible to walk though an American town without finding evidence of the tech giant’s footprint. For most, these devices are great tools for facilitating the logistics of daily life, but are only a means to an end. For me, Apple has been an invaluable source of personal growth, but also the impetus for a whole host of complicated social habits, tendencies, and debilitative emotions that I have yet to master control of. In two days from now, on April 17th, I will have worked as a technician for Apple’s Genius Bar for a full four years of my life! This week especially, so close to what we call my “Appleversary”, and also coinciding with the quarterly review I had last Friday, I’ve been thinking a whole lot about my experience so far, and how I feel and act while I’m at work…Since 2015, I’ve gone through one hell of a personal transformation. I hadn’t quite gotten out of my college dropout spiral yet, and was still pretty depressed and hopeless generally, but starting out at Apple encouraged feelings of significant excitement, responsibility and a confidence that I could do a great job. My self-talk began to become more positive and encouraging, reminding me that I was a capable and talented person, contrary to the internal commentary that was usually plagued by self-defeating overgeneralization and fallacious helplessness. Seeing that I could help people in a job, and help them effectively, allowed me to gain just enough momentum to work at developing facilitative emotions to help me out of my depression. However, as I had never held a “real job” apart from teaching piano lessons out of my house and selling chocolate at a local shop, I soon discovered that I didn’t have as many pieces of the puzzle together as I thought. As a genuinely empathetic person, or a least someone who enjoys helping and caring for others, all I thought I had to do at Apple was deliver what I considered was the best customer service I had to offer. I believed I had a high enough level of emotional intelligence– an ability to read people and their moods, to lift people to the same level of optimism as me by coming to their level first– to get by and succeed on talent alone. I honestly thought that they had hired me specifically to interact with customers that way. Back when I was a customer, I’d been on the receiving end of multiple above-and-beyond experiences at Apple stores, and so had it in my head when I got hired that my priorities were not only aligned with everyone else, but the expectation. I was focused on the people in front of face, and not nearly aware enough of what the business actually expected of me. I thought that if a customer was unhappy, the best way to care for them was to spend time making them feel better, and campaign on their behalf, even if it meant asking managers for regular exceptions to preserve the experience. What I came to understand over time, all too slowly, is that I had a subpar understanding of how exactly to have every interaction be good enough to say we did what was expected of us, even if there are still some customers who may have gotten much less than they really needed. At the time I wasn’t aware of it, but there is a dramatic amount of emotional labor required to perform my role effectively. I need to be able to assume a role that conveys not only that I care for the priorities of the customer, but that I genuinely represent the priorities of Apple. Taking my own emotions out of the equation, not just my opinions, but the anxieties about my own behavior that might affect my behavior. Also, part of the hardest and most stressful aspect of my job is the emotional contagion that happens all the time. If I come into work with extra self-doubt and perform poorly, which is noticed and reacted to by my team members (or vice versa), it’s possible for that negativity to build up and cause actual issues. This is a reality so much that we sometimes call our repair room “toxic” when emotions build off of each other enough. There are so, so many moving parts at Apple, an internal social landscape that changes all the time, and there is a consumer demand that is so constant that the things to know and get better at are endless. As a new and inexperienced member of the workforce (and as somebody already prone to debilitative self-talk), when I originally realized there was fallibility in the renewed confidence and positive self-concept I had developed over a year or so working there, it was a setback. I thought that I’d finally gotten over most of my depression, and could allow myself to feel excited about my life again. But after three years of working for Apple, while admittedly there is still stress anxiety there because of my belief that I should be able to perform perfectly, just as well as the best of those around me, I know how I need to approach work to do the best I can. Now at least, I realize how much of an impact my own self-talk has on how I perform...how much what I put in is what I get out. My hopes for now, and into the future, are to more consciously than ever manage my self-talk and practice getting out of my own way- turning my historically debilitative- into facilitative-emotions.