#it was already a compressed course- 15 weeks down to 10

[bread-of-death]

Whelp. I just emailed the Dean.

[thebakingqueen5]

KW 2021: Tease

Day 6 for Kataang Week 2021 hosted by @kataang-week with the prompt Tease!

I might have stuffed up the use of this word and its definition in context but shhhh it’s fine and this is cute.

Links: FF.net | AO3

Summary: Another year, another summer, another week of prompts celebrating our favorite couple. Kataang Week 2021 Day 6. Tease (verb): gently pull or comb (tangled wool, hair, etc.) into separate strands. Aka the take on the “tease” prompt that no one (not even me) expected.

Word Count: 1.8K

It had been a tiring, tension-filled day.

The war ended five, maybe six months prior, and the four nations were still partaking in the grueling process of learning to work together after a century’s worth of fighting. Considering that a group of teenagers were the reason there was any hope of amity in the first place, it came as little surprise that most of the pressure to arrange and facilitate treaties and peace talks fell on the Gaang, much to their chagrin.

And so here they were, utterly exhausted after a long day of trying to convince the Earth King and Zuko that violence was, in fact, bad, and stressed out of their minds, aching for a distraction.

It certainly didn’t help that tonight, of all nights, Katara’s long, dark hair was refusing to cooperate despite her having just stepped out of the shower a mere 10 minutes past. No matter how many times she ran the whalebone comb through her thick locks, nothing seemed to help, and her patience was quickly dissipating.

“Spirits, Zuko and Kuei are going to drive me absolutely crazy, sweetie.” Aang ranted as he entered her room, closing the door shut behind him as he made wild gestures with his hands.

“They’re both so… stubborn! And self-righteous and it’s getting us nowhere!” he huffed in frustration. “I wish they could just- oh.”

The airbender immediately faltered, finally noticing the appearance, or rather the clothing, of his girlfriend seated in front of a square mirror, nightgown riding quite high up her thigh.

“Sorry,” he blushed, eyes darting around the room to look anywhere, absolutely anywhere except at her to keep what little modesty they had left between them. “I didn’t know you had already showered and changed- I really should have knocked.”

Katara rolled her eyes, a slight pink tint rising to her cheeks as she returned to the task at hand: attempting to tame the lion’s mane she called her hair resting atop her head at that very moment.

“It’s fine, Aang,” she laughed, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. “No need to be embarrassed, really. Besides, it’s nothing you haven’t already seen.”

The waterbender snuck a quick glance at her boyfriend, and, quite frankly, she wasn’t sure he could get any redder if he tried. A tomato would have been jealous of the vibrant hue of Aang’s face, and he couldn’t stop staring at the floor, gaze entirely focused on the wooden boards beneath him.

The boy remained silent, and guilt began to fill Katara’s stomach.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” she frowned, standing up. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I can go change if you want-”

Aang instantly looked up from the ground, quick to clarify his thoughts. “No, sweetie. It’s not that! It’s just- you look absolutely beautiful, and I don’t want me subconsciously staring at you to make you feel uncomfortable or uneasy around me.”

Katara’s eyebrows raised in pleasant surprise, and she patted a spot on the edge of the mattress, beckoning for him to come sit near her before turning back and glaring at herself in the mirror.

“Believe me, sweetie, there is very little you can do to make me feel uncomfortable around you. Honestly, it’s a bit of a compliment knowing that’s how I seem in your eyes,” she said shyly.

The airbender grinned and walked up to her. Feeling a little emboldened, he tenderly wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed a kiss to her cheek, chin barely reaching an inch above her shoulder.

“You could be wearing a potato sack and you’d still be the most beautiful woman in the world to me,” he murmured as his stormy eyes met her cerulean ones through the mirror.

“Really?” she raised an eyebrow and gestured to the mess on her head. “Even with this bird’s nest?”

“Always,” Aang smiled earnestly. “Speaking of, though, do you need some help with that?”

“I appreciate the offer, Aang, but I’ve been trying for the last half hour now and you aren’t exactly the most experienced with hair.”

“Well, maybe a new perspective is just what you need.”

He gently pulled her back towards the mattress a few feet away from the dresser with the mirror and sat her down in front of him. Rolling her eyes, the waterbender handed him her comb, but he simply cast it aside, instead using his nimble fingers to work through the knots and tangles in her hair.

Katara was right- he did have minimal experience with hair, not having much of his own, but he often played with hers when they spent time together. He knew what relaxed her and what didn't, which gave him the perfect means to seize this opportunity and prove her wrong, while also, of course, helping the two unwind and spend some time with one another.

The waterbender had already been quite frustrated when she had started working through her hair, and her movements had reflected that. She was stressed and antsy, and she combed harshly and roughly, only compressing the knotted hair to the end of the strand and making it harder to get out. Between that and the day she had, she had been close to tears and Aang’s gentle touch was just what she needed.

Much of Aang’s stress had been alleviated when he had entered the room earlier in simply being able to see and embrace his girlfriend. Because of this, he was able to take his time and the change of pace was nice for the both of them.

He worked slowly and methodically, fingers lightly massaging the top of her scalp before moving down to dampen and separate her wavy tresses into individual strips of hair with the help of some waterbending. He took care to not tug too hard on any one strand, having heard many a horror story from Katara in the past with her unable to tolerate anyone else handling her sensitive locks. The airbender was determined to make it a pleasant experience for the both of them, and it was.

In fact, Katara had been mildly shocked by the sheer love and effort she felt Aang direct into detangling her hair. It was sweet seeing him put so much energy towards trying something new just to help her, and the tension in her mind that had been knotted up began to unravel as well.

“Halfway,” Aang whispered, breaking her out of her thoughts. His gaze was still intense and focused on her unruly strands as she sighed softly and leaned ever so slightly back into him.

“I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” she murmured back. She closed her eyes as Aang’s rhythmic yet feathery touches to her scalp soothed her and then gave herself a quick look in the mirror through her peripheral vision- her hair was already looking a lot better and far more tame than it had been 15 minutes ago.

“That’s alright, just have a little more faith in your amazing boyfriend next time, yeah?” he winked with a smile, hands moving the hair he had untangled to the front as he directed his concentration to the last section.

This section was by far going to be the hardest-  most of the strands were embedded into a few large and messy knots creating quite a complex network. Nevertheless, Aang was up to the challenge. He began humming an old Air Nomad folk tune, one of the many they’d perform at Yangchen’s Festival, causing Katara to hum along with him as he spread apart the last few unruly waves of hair.

After finishing, he steadily ran his fingers through her hair like a comb, taking extra care to caress the nape of her neck and back of her head as she sighed happily, and gave it one last sweep with the whale-bone comb.

“All done,” he said, tucking a lock behind her ear when she turned around to face him.

The waterbender beamed before lightly pushing him down on the bed as they both sank into the mattress.

“I take it you enjoyed it?” Aang laughed, looking up at her.

“Very much so,” Katara responded. She then carefully angled herself so that she was lying pressed up against Aang’s side, head resting in the crook of his neck.

“It was pretty relaxing for me too,” Aang blushed. “You know I love playing with your hair and this just kinda took it to another level. I’d be happy to do it for you in the future if you ever find yourself fighting with that comb again, that is.”

“I’d like that, Aang. A lot,” she smiled shyly. “It was great to just… unwind. Have you there with me and just relax. I was basically about to cry when you came in and you just melted all my worries away with those magical hands of yours.”

The airbender chuckled, snaking his arm around her shoulders and leaning his head against hers. “Glad to hear it, sweetie. It’s getting late though, and we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Time for some rest?”

Katara wordlessly nodded, sighing and closing her eyes as Aang did the same and blew out the candles lighting up the room.

“Thank you for this, sweetie. I love you.”

“I love you too, Tara. Good night.”

The two were taken away into the dream realm, but an unspoken custom was crafted that night. It became a ritual, a way for both of them to calm down and escape the high stress levels of their everyday lives.

When Katara found her dad kissing Malina and it felt like her whole world was crumbling down around her, Aang had snuck into her room that night and combed and plaited her hair until they drifted off into each other’s arms.

When Aang had confided in the waterbender about feeling anxious and insecure about becoming a new father after she had informed him of her pregnancy, Katara had shown up to the stables with a comb and some apples for Appa in tow. The two ended up assuaging each other’s concerns while leaning back against the fluffy bison, much to their attention-seeking flying lemur’s annoyance.

Whether they were stressing over not being able to find an old book from the Southern Water Tribe after moving to Air Temple Island or had just come home after a near-death experience with the most dangerous bloodbender in the world, one of the two would always sit the stressed one down and grab a comb.

It never became a chore or something they dreaded; it was almost a secret love language for the couple. It was a way of reminding each other that no matter what was going on in their lives, they would always find time for each other and help one another. It pulled Aang and Katara out of some of their lowest, darkest moments, and it only accentuated their highs.

Such a simple, pure act born out of nothing but love and a desire to help- it should’ve been insignificant, a one-time thing, but it became so much more. To Katara and Aang, it meant the world.

[corpsentry]

behind the taylor swift gundam was in fact another, smaller gundam: a brief inquiry into the events of june 2020

so back in june this year june and i got together and we made this motherfucker of a story with this motherfucker of a thread to keep track of it all. but you already know that! and i’ve already got one foot and three elbows in my grave, so i’ll spare you the long-winded stuff. you wanna know how i wrote 93,035 words in 4 weeks? i’ll tell you how i wrote 93,035 words in 4 weeks-

-by linking you guys to copies of my planning documents because i feel like those words speak louder than any words i can offer in the present day. these are long documents. but they are also historical artifacts. very interesting. very weird. very, uh, full of cussing. so anyway, here’s

BIG DADDY: THE ORIGINAL PLANNING DOCUMENT

for those, like me, who have no motivation left in life to do anything and rely on summaries from others to acquire new knowledge, it all started with a single line.

prince of a fallen kingdom atsumu tries to kill hinata but falls in love with him instead

june, april something, 2020

with that in mind i tested the concept out with a few paragraphs of text, which you can find at the bottom of the Big Daddy document in the graveyard segment, accidentally sold my soul to the image of hinata with epaulettes, and then worked backwards, structuring an entire plot around two images:

a) hinata getting the shit beat out of him, with snark b) hinata and atsumu dancing in an empty ballroom under the stars

if you want a betrayal, you have to have something worth losing. if you want to fall in love with someone you don’t know, you have to meet them. if you have to meet them, there has to be a reason for that meeting, and so somewhere in between atsumu became a sword instructor and hinata the prince with daddy issues. june and i used this method of glancing anxiously over your shoulder to see what you’d missed to fill out the blanks in the story, after which i tacked up a bunch of post-its, typed out the plot, consulted june, typed out the plot again, and then broke the characters down into a bunch of questions, like ‘what do they want?’ and ‘what do they have?’ and ‘what are they afraid of?’

with the plot more or less ironed out, i decided it was time to start writing, and then i decided that i was actually too scared to start writing after all, so instead i set a couple of timers using classroomtimers.com (15-20 minutes long) and i sat down and i wrote about the world that hinata and atsumu inhabited.

each warm-up was 300-500 words long, and for the first few days, i’d write one before getting into writing the story proper. later these evolved into simply picking a scene from the story and launching straight into it, which became useful for opening those scenes later when i got to them organically.

then i got lazy! so i stopped. but these shitty little exercises were really useful for me because, unfettered by plot, convention, or any kind of tradition hovering over my shoulder, i was able to fuck around loosely enough to realize what i wanted this story to be. it was a very contrived kind of trial-and-error, an exploration of the characters, the story, but most importantly, the tone.

RESEARCH, PLANNING, AND VICTORIAN BOUGIE FASHION

this is a loose map of the castle and Important Locations within it, which i drew up at the start so i could keep track of where everything was and how i could get my characters from point A to point B. i wanted the story to have Some kind of internal logic, you know, even if that logic amounted to ‘a compass would function normally in this world whereas kageyama tobio would not’.

99% of my planning and organizing within those five weeks took place in this lovely dotted cat journal which my sister gave me for my birthday and i repurposed into a metaphorical Diary of Suffering while working on juno. i used it for everything from keeping track of narrative threads to clothing consistency checks, but the main purpose was this: each day at about 10 pm i’d crack open the cat book to a fresh page, stamp the date and the day of suffering at the top, and then write down a list of things i wanted to write, address, or fix today. then i’d sit at my laptop and write like a madman until about 7 in the morning. with breaks, of course, for sitting in the bathroom and staring at the wall and sitting in the kitchen and staring at the wall, but mostly i was writing. and complaining about writing. you were there, you probably remember that.

anyway, here are some pages from the cat book.

aside from the fact that my handwriting is complete shit, you can see that i made zero effort for any of this to be presentable. it was mainly a way for me to keep track of my thoughts because i have the attention span of an ikea wardrobe and tend to forget things as soon as i think of them. the lack of structure also mirrored the way that i went about writing juno. while i did proceed, for the most part, in chronological order, i had a lot of weird and useless revelations during lunch, which by this point was happening around 2 am, and in the 5 minutes before the exhaustion finally hit and carried me down to hell. i changed A Lot. again, to understand exactly how much the story evolved from day one onwards, please consult the big daddy document.

in the meantime, here’s something else.

once june sent over hinata and atsumu’s character designs i sat down like the fucking fool i am and spent 2 hours poring over a document about victorian and other fashion movements of the past so i could assign a noun, adjective, and verb to each element of their outfits. i don’t know why i did this. i certainly could have not, but i attempted to make sense of their ‘fits from a logistical perspective and that went into the cat book too. everything went into the cat book. the cat book is a relic of the past now, stuffed with artifacts such as the birth of oikawa tooru, and also his demise.

MEDIUM DADDY: EDITING, PROOFREADING, AND CREEPY MURDER CATS

i finished writing on june 26th, 2020, approximately a month after i’d first started planning, somewhere around may 27th or 28th. at that point i had about 90,000 words’ worth of story and no sanity left whatsoever, so i took a day-long break to stare at a wall and listen to taylor swift’s enchanted on loop.

and then i made a new document, which you can look at using the link above, and i laid out everything i had to do. i’d discovered a fuck ton of plot inconsistencies and general errors while writing and lying awake in bed at 9 a.m., sleepless in seattle, and now that i was free of the demon egging me towards the first finish line, it was time to Deal with them. i speed-scrolled through the draft, which was 200+ pages compressed into one google doc, because i like to tempt god’s wrath, and fixed up all the plot issues over the course of a few days. this was the fun part.

the actual, hard editing was the extremely un-fun part. i reread the entire thing, paragraph by paragraph, line by damn line, from start to finish, paying especially close attention to awkward phrasing, incomplete dialogue, and moments which had fallen flat in my haste to get on to the next one. this was really fucking terrible. i spent more time lying facedown on the floor than actually editing anything, but after a long time (about a week), that, too was done.

SMALL DADDY: TITLES, SUMMARIES, AND GOOD FUCKING BYES

i spent a good eighty days thinking about the title, though hilariously enough we ended up with something that was a blend of our names. june + elmo = juno, which is, all things considered, pretty perfect, but the process of picking the title was Hell, and i Did Not Come Up With The Title until about 2 hours before posting. you can take a look at the haphazard clusterfuck of my title-selecting process in small daddy, which is linked above.

so the title was a last-minute choice. so was the summary. and the chapter divisions. and actually all the songs in the playlist for juno. the day we dropped juno onto planet earth like a newborn baby pitched out of the sky, i spent an hour hunched over my laptop, cutting my 213 page google doc into chapters based on nothing more than a Vibe. two days before that, i also attempted to voice-act the entirety of juno, an affair which ended at the 20,000 word mark with a sore throat and the kind of exhaustion one typically wants to sleep in a coffin for 23 years to get rid of. so in all honesty, i did very little editing, which is why there are definitely minor typos and/or mistakes hanging out somewhere on that chunky ao3 webpage. but whatever.

my attitude by july 5th (was it july 5th? or 4th? somewhere around there) was basically whatever. anything so i could get finish this damn thing, chuck it out of the window, and never see another google doc until the next century. i’ve been asked a few times how exactly i wrote at a rate of roughly 2000-3000 words per day for four weeks straight, and my answer has always been this: i died. what died, you ask? my soul. my spirit. my Will To Live. i’m a creature of fixations, and juno was my fixation for june. will i ever be able to do this again? would i recommend this experience to anyone? is god real? the answer to all of the above is probably no. juno was a fever dream, and so is my cat book. and so are all the lattes i had. and so was my 9 am to 4 pm sleep schedule.

but what we made is real. the research, oikawa tooru, the 4 am conversations in which i was like ‘how the fuck do i end this’ and june was like ‘jade proposal’ (the proposal was her idea. all rise for twitter user atsuhinas. she is the mastermind behind all of the Inch Resting moments in this story; i just flapped a korok leaf in her direction and made sure the air circulation was working properly) are real as fuck, and looking back, there’s a lot i’d change, but i’m lazy. and college is starting. and anyway, i did write 93,035 words in just under five weeks, four if you don’t count the week of Editing Hell, so i think that’s pretty cool.

thank you for reading this to the end, and for following us on our journey through the enigmatic taylor swift gundam fic which quite literally consumed my entire twitter account for the five weeks i spent working on it. retrospectively speaking i really was butt-obsessed so i am frankly incredibly impressed with everyone around me for putting up with a Husk of a Man for a month. thank you for doing that. thank you for indulging my vague tweeting, and our butterfly dns, and for reading 93 thousand words of gay fanfiction set in a high fantasy world with epaulettes and galettes. on behalf of june, once again, we are incredibly grateful for all your support.

if you have any questions about specific aspects of the writing process, or anything you’d like to know in general with reference to JUNO, feel free to drop me an ask through my tumblr inbox, or through my curiouscat over here. i’m aware i didn’t cover everything, but there’s frankly too much to put in a tumblr post without passing away somewhere around the 56% mark, so let me know what’s on your mind, and i’ll try to answer that to the best of my abilities. but anyway, before i go, here are some

TAKEAWAYS

one: don’t try to write 93,000 words in five weeks. seriously don’t fucking do it you will end up jittery and sleep-deprived and you will leave all your friends on read for a month. pace yourself. set realistic goals. you wrote 2k this week? that’s fantastic. you wrote 4k in a day? you absolute motherfucker. i hope you’re taking a long fucking break tomorrow. your story will not run away from you, but if you run too fast, you will get tired, and then you will pass away.

two: you don’t have to know everything about your story before you start writing. in fact if you have a single camera shot of two characters holding hands under a rose garden awning, i think that’s fucking wonderful. if you look at big daddy, you’ll realize that my initial plot draft, and all the ones following that, are not perfectly aligned with the final version of juno. i improvised over half of the scenes in this motherfucker, and to be completely honest, some of the improvised scenes were the best. fucking oikawa tooru was improvised out of nowhere. he only got written in way later, around chapter 8 or something, because i realized i needed a plot device and a source of information to keep the playing table from toppling over. i Sat Down one day and was like ‘okay, it’s time to write oikawa into the introduction. because he matters now. he didn’t matter last week but now he does, and soon he’s going to be the fulcrum of the entire story, because it’s like that with oikawa tooru’. it’s okay to change your mind halfway. it’s okay to go back and rewrite entire scenes or segments. it’s okay to highlight 4 pages of fresh, sentimental writing, and hit delete. writing is a fluid process, and you Will make discoveries as you progress through your story alongside your characters. be understanding of that iterative process. be kind to yourself.

three: You Are That Motherfucker. you, me, your dog, your dog’s friend, your dog’s enemy, all of us are that motherfucker. i never thought i’d be able to write anything longer than the great big map, which was a much simpler, linear story in which the other main character did not appear in the current timeline until like the eighth chapter. juno was different. juno was the motherfucker, and i was scared shitless of it, and to cope with that fear joked constantly while writing that it’d never see the light of day.

but it did. it was a rocky process, and i was awake for 48 hours after posting it because of the sheer adrenalin stuck in my skull, but i got through it. and i wouldn’t have been able to do it without june, who stepped in when i flopped over facedown on the floor and dragged me to my feet like the badass friend she is, and without everyone else in my life, who put up with me talking about The Thing that i couldn’t really talk about, but juno’s up there now. forever, or until the internet collapses and civilization goes extinct. and if the nineteen year old clown with the attention span of an ikea armchair and an a level certificate from hell wrote the 93,000 word long thing, so can you. i mean this completely unironically and with every ounce of genuine emotion i can summon from the cracked asshole of my heart.

writing is hard. writing is scary. writing is an investigation of the world around you and therefore, by extension, yourself, and that kind of honesty is freaky. it’s like going skinny-dipping next to the president’s mansion. who’s going to see you? what if they take a photo? what if you lose your spot at university?

but don’t think about that. our world is overrun with stories the way cereal bowls are full of cereal, but it’s those stories that keep us all sane in the disgusting day-to-day muck of reality, so think about your story. what’s haunting you today? what message do you want to leave printed in font size 666 comic sans across the southern hemisphere of the planet? what will you be tomorrow?

a writer. you’re going to be a motherfucking writer.

[tuellertrails]

We’re 3 weeks into our hike so far, here are a few things I have learned

- Wake up EARLY in the desert. Because it will get hotter than hell and you will die of heatstroke if you hike in the heat of the day.

- Take your shoes (foot prisons) off at every opportunity. Your feet will thank you

- The higher you go in elevation, the harder the hiking is, the less hot it becomes and the more beautiful the scenery is. The desert has its own kind of beauty, but being in an alpine environment with lots of trees and the smell of sun warmed pine needles is my favorite place to be (besides a comfortable bed watching TV and eating snacks, of course). We’ve had several days of hiking where we’ve done over 5k feet of elevation, and I find that I am particularly prone to swearing and exhaustion on those days 😂. But the incredible views do make up for it somewhat! It’s all part of the experience.

- Ibuprofen (Vitamin I) and Benadryl are a hikers best friend.

- Pack out fresh food whenever you can. Vegetables and fruit have never tasted so good.

- Kindness is EVERYWHERE. We’ve received food, cold drinks, rides, camp chairs to sit in and many other kindnesses from trail angels, other hikers, family members and random people. Everything is appreciated.

Speaking of kindness, we spent several hours one day waiting out the heat of the day in a small hut next to the wind farm made for hot, suffering PCT hikers, with a cooler of cold water for us to enjoy. It was 95* even in the shade 🥵. We did not leave early enough that day, but it gave me the chance to wait out the heat and look at my phone 😂.

Here’s some highlights/points of interest from the last 100+ miles

- We heard a great story from Trail Angel who gave us a ride out of Julian, who heard it from a different hiker that she gave a ride to. So the hiker was hiking down the trail (early on, around mile 15) when he hears a voice say "hello". He looks down and sees a guy laying in the bushes in a sleeping bag with mud on his face. "Oh, uh... hello" the hiker says. The man responds "Would you like to be blessed with magic sand?" And holds up a pile of sand in his hand. The guy wasn't sure if this dude was on drugs, was going to throw the sand in his face or what, and he's contemplating how to side step this very weird man when the dude stands up and reveals that he is completely naked and says "You should really use mud. It makes the best sunscreen". Glad that it wasn’t me, poor guy.

- We went through a small town in Warner Springs who had a gas station and some picnic tables, so basically a hiker haven. We spent a couple of hours eating gas station food, and I gave another hiker a shot in the butt 😂. Nursing skills always coming in handy out here. Landon consistently says that the gas station hot dog was one of the highlights of the trail.

- My feet are MUCH better than they were. Getting inserts and some foot compression socks were a game changer for me. I now can walk many more miles without having to stop so often to roll out the golf balls on my feet. Despite this, hiking is still hard and we still find new soreness, aches and pains every day. But I do think that we are toughening up and able to do more miles than we did the first week. My blisters are mostly hardened now, and we have done as many as 18 miles in a day at this point.

- Water can be very scarce, and you have to plan out your water carries very carefully. One water source in this last stretch was a big water tank a few hundred feet from “Mikes Place”. Mikes Place is near the trail and has a big water cistern for hikers to go and get water, but they also let hikers camp and party there and sometimes feed them. There were some comments on Guthooks (the hiking navigation app we use) about how Mikes Place was kind of sketchy and borderline sexist, but we went down there with our hiker friends Sarah and Clyde, hoping for some food. Mikes place was interesting to say the least. It was a run down one story house that looked rather shabbily built, with a blanket as a wall in one section. It’s in a few acres of property, and there are all sorts of random things in front of the house. An assortment of stools and chairs, some lawn games like croquet and darts, a fire pit, a few coolers, and then even more random things like a sword stuck in a stone (a replica like in the movie). There was also an old painted car on one end, a shabby outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven and a greasy grill and lots of bowls and plates and utensils, and lots of other items spread out across the property. It seemed a little hoarder-y to us. They had Johnny cash playing in the background which kind of fit the vibe of the place. There were a few hikers there eating already, and a more stout gentleman wearing a t shirt, shorts and flip flops whose name was Scott. He said that there was no food left but that we could cook our own if we wanted, and we were like "ummm, sure?" 
So he brought out the ingredients for breakfast burritos and we got to cracking eggs and slicing veggies and fired up the very greasy outdoor grill, and within about 15 minutes we were eating breakfast burritos. Scott was a little weird. He would pop in and out of where we were cooking and then disappear again, I guess he was nice enough but he just gave off a bit of a weird vibe. Apparently Mike lives in San Diego and Scott is a caretaker of his place for now, along with another guy named Spirit who we met a little later as we ate. He was a older guy, with long white hair in a ponytail and beard, wearing a dirty green zip hoodie with what looked to be a hand painted "VVR" on it, jeans and chacos. He chatted with us briefly, he is a hiker who has hiked the John Muir Trail every year since 2014 and then decided to go work at VVR, a resort in the Sierras, after visiting it so many times. He said he was headed up there in a few weeks. Anyways, we are our burritos, washed our plates, said thank you and left to go filter water from the tank up above, leaving some money in the donation box as a thank you. The food was good but I definitely wouldn't have felt comfortable being there by myself, Mike’s Place was a little...dirt baggy, but I’m glad I got to experience it all the same. Apparently Scott is hiking now, and showed up at the campground in Idyllwild a few days later, drunk as a skunk and vomited all over 😂.

- We’re 10% done with the trail! Which really puts into perspective how long this hike actually is 😂. We had heard that our trail legs would start to come in after 3 weeks, but both Landon and I agree that we’re still quite sore and wake up with different aches and pains every day. We are definitely running a major calorie deficit at this point, burning upwards of 4K calories per day, burning much more than we are eating. This is ok with us, as we could both lose 30 Lbs or more and still be in a healthy weight range! Our friend Jamie, who hiked the trail years ago with her husband, says that we are losing our “town fat”. But we both agree that our clothes are feeling a bit looser than they were before. Who knew that 3 weeks of near continuous intense exercise would do that? We are slowly getting more fit, so hopefully those trail legs will come in soon here in the next few weeks.

- Remember the girl I talked about in our last post a few weeks ago, who woke up our friend at 5 AM and told him that she had no pants? Well, he came across her again a few days ago. She was topless, sitting in a stream in her underwear, playing a ukelele. And much to his chagrin, she remembered him! 😂 Not exactly a meet cute.

- Though there are definitely some eccentric people out here, 95% of the hikers and people we meet are wonderful. We have met the most incredible people as we hike, and are grateful to have made some good friends. They say that trauma bonds you, and all of the hikers have similar trauma out on trail 😂. We all know how hard this is, how beautiful, and have experienced first hand the heavy packs we carry after filling up our food and water, and the different aches and pains that accompany hiking day after day. Ive seen some pretty gnarly feet 🦶among the hikers out here, covered in blisters and cuts, with blackened toenails and foot fungus. Our feet are constantly getting beaten up! I’m glad to know that it isn’t just us experiencing the aches and pains. Ive always been a bit of a social butterfly, and after a year of isolation due to the Covid pandemic, the extrovert in me is absolutely loving the social aspect of our hike.

We will be getting off trail for four days this next weekend to go to a family wedding and sadly, a funeral as well. We were saddened to hear that Landon’s Grandfather has passed away, after suffering from Alzheimer’s for many years in the last years of his life. I never knew him before the Alzheimer’s had affected him, but I was told that he was smart as a whip, very funny, and a great story teller. Landon has fond memories of his grandfather, going on family trips and hearing his many stories. Even after the disease progression, Arlin was a very sweet and gentle man who was happy to give you a hug and listen to you talk, even if he didn’t quite remember who you were. We feel very lucky to have been able to spend some time with him and with Landon’s Grandmother the week before the trail, and he will be greatly missed by all. We are looking forward to getting off trail for a few days to reunite with our family to both celebrate and mourn together.

Thanks to everyone for the love and support in our PCT journey so far, this has been the most incredible experience of our lives so far and we’re grateful for every second, no matter how tough, of this great adventure.

- The Tueller’s

[curiosity-killed]

a bow for the bad decisions

canon-divergent AU from ep. 24 (on ao3)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11 | part 12 | part 13 | part 14 | part 15 | part 16 | part 17 | part 18

Jiang Cheng is going to kill him. He’s going to get ahold of Wei Wuxian and throttle him, or at least shake him until something like sense rattles back into his head. It had taken nearly a week for the sect leaders to agree on a course of action, six days of yelling and debating and talking around each other until Jiang Cheng’s head was splitting from the noise. Lan Xichen had testified to Wen Ning and Wen Qing’s characters, at least, and Nie Mingjue had suggested a review of the existing camp conditions by a multi-sect group. No one had spoken up for Wei Wuxian, but he isn’t sure there’s much to say in Wei Wuxian’s defense. From where he’s standing, he can’t find much forgiveness. The idiot. They’d agreed they wanted to appease Jin Guangshan, not give him more cause to reach for the Stygian Tiger Seal. He’d promised he wouldn’t cause trouble, that he’d keep his head down and behave. Jiang Cheng’s hands tighten uselessly on the reins. A-jie’s been quiet the whole trip, and as they wait for Cao Xingtao to return from up the hill, he reaches out to take her wrist. “It’ll be okay, jiejie,” he promises. “We’ll bring him home.”

She smiles for him, but it’s thin. She turns away as footsteps signal Xingtao’s return, and he frowns as he listens to their report.

“Stay here,” he orders. “We’ll see it.” “Sect Leader, it may not be safe for you,” Xingtao warns, her brow furrowed. Wei Wuxian’s recent replacement as swordmaster, Xingtao worked her way into Jiang Cheng’s regard during the war through her stubborn discipline and unwavering loyalty. She’s a good lieutenant and remarkable with a blade, but she barely knows Wei Wuxian, only met him first on the battlefield. Her opinion has never quite warmed after that first bloody encounter. “Stay here,” he orders. “We’ll be back.” It’s a short walk up to the talisman barrier Xingtao described, and he pauses before it. Red shimmers across the gate, resentment roiling off it. The whole place itches with resentful energy, like a hundred biting flies stinging his skin. Reaching out, he finds the barrier itself feels almost familiar. He frowns and steps back, studying the wards. “A-Cheng, what is it?” jiejie asks. Shaking his head, he reaches his hand out palm first. The barrier hums against his skin, and the tether point pulses gently against his wrist as if in greeting. “It feels like the wards around Lotus Pier,” he says, stepping back and crossing his arms. “If they’re the same, Wei Wuxian should know we’re here.” Sure enough, within a few minutes a familiar black figure appears around a corner in the path. A second figure walks alongside him, smaller and clothed in rusty maroon, and Jiang Cheng’s heart stutters into his throat. “Jiang Cheng! Shijie?” Wei Wuxian greets, slowing to a halt. “Are you going to let us in or not?” Jiang Cheng demands. Rolling his eyes, Wei Wuxian flicks his hand in a gesture too quick to read and the humming energy slips down enough for them to pass through. Ash compresses under his shoes, too soft to be soil, and unease rolls in his belly. “Wen-guniang,” jiejie greets, and he remembers to bow only a beat late. “Sect Leader Jiang, Jiang-guniang,” Wen Qing answers. “Ah come on, you didn’t come here just to stand at the gate,” Wei Wuxian interrupts, giving Jiang Cheng’s wrist a tug. He pulls it out of his hand, shooting him a glare. Whatever they’re doing here, Wei Wuxian’s not getting out of this so easily. He still has to come back and give a full account of his recklessness and then figure out some way to appease the rest of the sects. Wei Wuxian looks at him, lips thinning, before he dips his head and gestures up the path. “A-Xian, we’ve been worried,” jiejie says gently. “You ran without telling us.” There’s no accusation in her voice, just that soft worry like water seeping into paper. As expected, Wei Wuxian’s shoulders hunch a little in shame, and Jiang Cheng feels a surge of gratitude that jiejie came with him. No one can get Wei Wuxian to listen like her. Wen Qing walks alongside him, and Jiang Cheng can’t quite help stealing small sideways glances at her. Her robes are rougher than he’s used to, plainer than the rich scarlets she wore at the indoctrination camp or in Yiling. She’s thin, too, cheeks hollowed out with hunger. She catches him looking, and he swallows. “I am glad to see you well, Wen-guniang,” he says and immediately wants to shove his entire foot in his mouth. She has better grace than to point out the idiocy of his comment, but Jiang Cheng still feels his face flush with heat. He turns his gaze stubbornly to the path before them. Resentment lingers on the edge of his senses, as if it’s being pressed back by a single arm. His skin crawls as he takes in the withered, bent trees and the grey ash that seems to linger in the air. As they reach the peak of the hill, signs of life start to emerge from the pale death around them. Small fields, freshly dug without any green yet sprouting from them, appear like patches in the silty soil. He eyes them doubtfully, but he only sees a few upturned bones, outside the perimeter of the fields. They walk into a clearing, and Jiang Cheng’s heart jolts to a stop in his chest. This is — this isn’t a camp or a huddled party awaiting rescue. Trees have been felled, a small house built and the first bare beams of another raised. Zidian crackles on his wrist as he takes it in and feels his hope curdle and slip away into a sticky sick feeling deep in his belly. “What, are you going to live here then?” he snaps. What are you doing? he wants to demand instead. You’re supposed to come back with us, you’re supposed to stay with us in Lotus Pier — why do you need to build houses when you already have a home? Wei Wuxian lifts his eyebrows, lips pressed together in something almost like a pout. “Why not?” he asks. “I lived here for three months.” He says it so casually, as if he hadn’t evaded and chased away any mention of those months during the war. It hits like a punch to Jiang Cheng’s gut. How can he feel so much safer and more secure here in this land of death, with the people who destroyed their homes, than he did beside his own brother? “What will you eat?” he presses. “Don’t tell me they’re going to grow food here. Can it even be eaten?” The look Wei Wuxian fixes him with is funny, strange. There’s a little quirk to the corner of his lips like he’s amused, like Jiang Cheng has said something silly and childish, and his grey eyes are dark. “Believe me,” he says, “when people are hungry enough, they’ll eat anything.” He speaks with calm authority, and Jiang Cheng’s stomach twists. He doesn’t know what he means; he doesn’t want to know how his brother came to be an expert on hunger. Whispers shiver up his shoulder blades anyway. “Perhaps it would be better to speak inside,” Wen Qing suggests. It’s only this comment that makes Jiang Cheng look away from his brother and realize they have an audience. Around them, a couple dozen Wen villagers stare with scared eyes. They’re all — elderly, frail. He can’t see a single cultivator among them. Where are the dangerous prisoners Jin Guangshan claimed he held? As he looks over them, there’s a jolt of unwelcome recognition in his chest. He’s seen these people before — years ago, back when war barely in his periphery. Deep in his chest, a knot tugs tangled emotions into a nest. Wei Wuxian turns to lead them toward the open mouth of a cave set in the back of the clearing, but Jiang Cheng feels a sudden weight clamped onto his leg. Jerking away, he finds a child wrapped around his shin and beaming up at him. “What is this?” he demands. He leans away from the kid. “Get off me.” “A-Cheng,” jiejie scolds. “Ah, don’t you know better language than that?” Wei Wuxian chides. He braces his hands on his hips and looks down at the child. “A-Yuan, let Uncle Jiang go — aiya! No, don’t put the dirt in your mouth!” He drops into a crouch, reaching out to pry the child’s dirty fist his mouth as if he’s done it a hundred times before. Jiang Cheng stares, struck mute, as his brother pulls the toddler away from his leg and hoists him up onto his hip. “A-Yuan, what’ve we told you about the dirt here? You can’t put it in your mouth, okay?” he scolds, peeling open the kid’s fist and wiping the dirt off his palm and fingers. “A-Xian, who is this?” jiejie asks, stepping close with a delighted smile. No, Jiang Cheng thinks. This is terrible. Jiejie’s supposed to help him cart Wei Wuxian back home, not coo over this child and reinforce his idiot ideas about building here. She’s the one with common sense. “This is my son!” Wei Wuxian chirps cheerfully. “A-Yuan, this is your Auntie Yanli.” Wen Qing releases a quiet sigh and turns to Jiang Cheng and jiejie as Wei Wuxian bounces the child. “He is my cousin’s child,” she explains quietly. “Both his parents were killed in the war, and he was with Popo in the camps. Since we came here, he’s been attached to Wei Wuxian like a squirrel.” Jiejie’s leaned over Wei Wuxian’s arm to coo at the child, squeezing his cheeks gently and earning herself a wild giggle. Over her head, Wei Wuxian’s grinning with a smile to match the child’s. Jiang Cheng hates it. Anger and grief burn up the inside of his chest, dig claws into his ribs and tug. “A-Xian, I can’t believe you have a son before I’ve even gotten married,” jiejie scolds cheerfully, swatting his arm. “Ah, sorry, sorry shijie,” Wei Wuxian says even as he grins, unrepentant. “At least you’ll still get married before me.” Mostly because no one will ever marry Wei Wuxian, but Jiang Cheng doesn’t say it aloud. He doesn’t want to join in on this cheerful teasing. He doesn’t want to hear their laughter. They were supposed to find misery here. Wen remnants desperate and dangerous like cornered dogs and Wei Wuxian lonely and quick to plead his way back to Lotus Pier. They were going to rescue him and go home. Wei Wuxian looks over and his smile fades, turning thin. Transferring Yuan to Wen Qing, he nods toward the cave and leads them inside. Jiang Cheng’s jaw clenches and twitches.   As soon as they step inside, it’s clear that this is Wei Wuxian’s living space. Talisman paper, some blank, some half-finished, some cluttered with characters, flutters on any flat surface including the floor, and there are half-finished projects scattered throughout. There’s…a lot, for the ten days he’s been here. The thought makes his heart squeeze uncomfortably and he pushes it away. They perch on stone seats, all uneven heights, and Jiang Cheng curls his hands into his skirts. “A-Xian, can you tell us what happened? The sect leaders are very upset,” jiejie says. “Jin Guangshan is asking for justice. And — and for the Stygian Tiger Seal.” Wei Wuxian’s expression tightens, hand curling into a fist around Chenqing where the flute lies across his thighs. Satisfaction, thin and forked, curls through Jiang Cheng’s chest. Good. Let him remember there are consequences to his actions. Let him choose between his precious seal and coming back to his family. “He can’t have it,” he says, firm and final. “It’s too dangerous for someone like Jin Guangshan to have control over it.” Part of him wants to protest, wants to ask how it can be safe in Wei Wuxian’s hands, then, if it’s so very dangerous. He thinks of Wei Wuxian insisting he not have access to the wards, of his white-knuckled grip on Chenqing, and he doesn’t ask. “I know, a-Xian,” jiejie soothes. “Is there any other way? You had said something about destroying it.” A muscle jumps in the back of Wei Wuxian’s jaw, and he looks away, lips thinning. His hands tighten around the flute in his lap before he visibly loosens them. Swallowing, he looks down at his lap and gives a slight nod. “I…” He pauses, swallows and lifts his gaze to them. “Right now, the Seal is the only thing keeping the Wens safe. I can’t let it go until I know they’ll be safe, but I could — I could destroy half of it, send that to Jin Guangshan.” His expression is carefully composed in a way that makes ants shivering under Jiang Cheng’s skin. He shouldn’t look so serious, so pale. He should be overconfident, irritated, gesturing with both hands. The stillness makes him seem small, brittle, in a way that leaves Jiang Cheng itchy with discomfort. “Aren’t the wards here the same as Lotus Pier?” he asks. “Can’t you just let the Burial Mounds feed them?” His voice comes out more accusatory than he means, and Wei Wuxian breathes out a little smile. “Not quite,” he says. “These are more temporary. I’m the anchor.” He says it evenly, and the calm in his voice does more to jar Jiang Cheng than any anger could. Anchors are usually built into stone or earth or occasionally particularly ancient trees — great acts of creation that can shoulder the weight of such strong magic, that can support massive draws of energy without faltering. He stares at his brother’s pale face and wonders that he is upright. Jiejie glances between them, brow creasing in a delicate frown. He shakes his head slightly, swallowing to clear his throat. “Then we need to find a safe place to resettle the Wens, right?” jiejie suggests. Quiet footsteps interrupt them, and Jiang Cheng looks up to see Wen Qing balancing a tray with a kettle and cups. “I’m sorry, we don’t have tea,” she admits as she lays the tray on the crude table before them. “It’s only water.” “Please, join us, Wen-guniang,” jiejie says. “This is your family; you should have a say in our plans.” Wen Qing hesitates, gaze flicking toward Jiang Cheng. He can’t imagine why except that he supposes he is technically the highest authority here. The thought settles uneasily in his chest even as he gives her a slight nod; he’s been born and raised to be sect leader, but among the three of them there has never been much hierarchy. They’ve always been a three-part whole, each supporting each other’s weight.

[graemeruns]

Manchester marathon, and the journey to a PB

I think, by now, most people I know expect that I am going to run the London marathon each year, so a fair few that I talked to were surprised when I told them that I was actually going to run the Manchester marathon first, and then London three weeks later. To be fair, their surprise was not unjustified, as I entered Manchester as a late decision; I was already three weeks into my London marathon 18 week training plan when I had this major concern that the following four months of hard work could all end in disaster if the weather turned out as hot as it was last year at the end of April. With Manchester being at the beginning of April, it also fell nicely at the beginning of the school Easter break, so it didn't take long to decide to enter it and have a week away near Manchester at the same time with the family. My wife, Yasmin, set about the task of finding us somewhere to stay, and all I now needed to do was compress by 18 week plan into 15, and we had a target set.

I had decided to be even more aggressive with my training this year, base it on the 55-70 miles/week plan from Pzitzinger and Douglas' book "Advanced Marathoning", but with all rest days being recovery runs, and tweaking it using my own experience of how I like to train. Since Abingdon marathon in October last year, I had kept my mileage ticking over at around 40 miles/week, so was hoping that this base fitness would help me as I moved into my new marathon training plan. Two weeks before the plan started I increased my mileage to 47, then the following week 50, so that 60 miles in week 1 would not seem too much of a step upwards.

Loosely, my training plan went something like this:

Monday - 3-4 mile recovery run (8:45 - 9:00/mile pace). I really needed these runs to be as-slow-as-you-can go recovery otherwise they would be counter-productive. Tuesday - intervals or tempo (6:20/mile) - around 10 miles in total with warm up and cool down. These were sometimes moved to Wednesday if I was still feeling tired from the weekend, in which case they would be an easy 9- 10 miler (7:40 - 7:55/mile pace). Wednesday - medium long run, 15 - 17 miles, usually as a double run because just finding the time to run it in one go was too difficult. Sometimes these would be a workout and a recovery run later in the day if I had moved the workout from Tuesday. Thursday - easy run - around 10 miles. This is about 7:40 - 7:55/mile pace. Friday - 3-4 mile recovery (8:45 - 9:00 pace) Saturday - parkrun, of course, as fast as possible! I think I ran to and from nearly all of them to some get extra mileage in (usually 9 - 11 miles total). Sunday - Long run - 16 - 23 miles (7:40 - 8:15/mile pace). In all honestly, I didn't run as many 20+ mile runs as I'd have liked, as two of the Sundays were used for tune-up races. But I did do seven runs over 17 miles (the longest being 26 miles which was a bit too far!). My legs were also usually tired from the previous days' parkrun too, so running on tired legs was something I got used to, and I think is crucial for the latter parts of the marathon.

Lets look at the tune-up races:

Wokingham half marathon. This fell 9 weeks into in my calendar on 24th February. I wanted to have a go at my current half marathon PB (1:23:44) in this race, so I dropped the workout that week, cut back the mileage a little and rested the day before. The day was perfect, being cool and bright with only a little breeze. After a bit of a congested start, I was able to get into my rhythm and run consistently around 6:20/mile, which would get me a time under 1:23. My 5k splits were good: 19:42, 19:42, 19:48, 19:54, but slipping just a few seconds in the last 10k meant I crossed the line just short of my goal in 1:23:09. But I'd given it everything, so was content with the result. You can see my run on Strava here.

The Big Half. This race fell just 2 weeks after Wokingham. The previous Sunday my long run had accidentally ended up as 26 miles, and this meant I took a couple of days early in the week to recover, and what with running a steady parkrun on the Saturday as well, meant I was not that fresh for the race. The weather was cold, wet at the start, and very, very windy. Overall, it was a bit of a disaster really, as I queued so long for the loo I started too far back, which required a lot of weaving through slower runners, and while this probably didn't cost a huge chunk of time, the speeding up and slowing down was using an unnecessary amount of energy. I ended up running a negative split because of this, in 1:26:05, which was a bit disappointing, but deep down I knew I wasn't flat out and that this was closer to marathon pace than half marathon pace, so took that away as a positive. It had also given my potential marathon shoes a good outing, so the decision what to wear for the marathon had been made too. You can see my run on Strava here.

My training plan also includes some marathon paced runs. Always run on a Sunday on tired legs, these can be tough but honest workouts. Striders had arranged for a group of us to met at Kenley aerodrome for exactly this sort of training, so the 13.1 miles I ran there at marathon pace two weeks before Manchester was my final big effort. It ended up around 1:27:30, approximately 6:40/mile pace, and I felt fairly comfortable during the run. This was a good confidence boost for me, and gave me an indication of what to aim for on the day. A big thanks to my Striders mate Martin for being my running pal for that effort.

Fast-forward two weeks and I'm at the start line. We had booked accommodation in the lovely village of Old Glossop at the base of the Peak District. Travelling to the race start had been fairly easy - a 25 minute drive to Didsbury East where I parked and boarded the tram to Trafford Bar, the nearest tram stop to the start. The whole journey was just over an hour, and quite stress-free. I didn't hang about though: this year they were expecting around 20,000 people to run in the various races, and it was quite crowded, so I quickly dropped my bag off and made my way to the start line, which being the 'A' start, was also the furthest away; even so, I was in the pen with 15 minutes to go. The weather conditions were near perfect (8 degrees, overcast with a little breeze) and I was raring to go.

When I race marathons I like to plan my pacing based on 5 mile intervals. It's easy to remember just 4 split times, and an overall average time per kilometer (at this point I should apologise for mixing miles and kilometers, but I do tend to think in both when running). My intended splits were:

5 miles in 33 minutes and 10 miles 1:06 (average 4.06/km), 15 miles in 1:39:30 (average pace now falls slightly to 4:07/km due to natural slowing), 20 miles 2:13:00 (average pace now falls to 4:08/km) Which leaves just a 6.2 mile (or 10k) sprint to the finish, which I'd hope to cover in around 42 minutes, and will mean I have run a 2:55 marathon. That was the goal, though I really thought 2:56 - 2:57 was more likely.

At 9am on the dot we were off, and being so near the front I was across the line almost immediately. There's the usual overtaking, and being overtaken, that goes on in the first few kilometers as runners find their pace. I went through the first kilometer in 4 minutes dead. "Hmm, that's a bit fast", I thought, "but it's probably just because it's the first kilometer". I went through the second kilometer in 4:03: "Hmm, that's still a bit fast". The third kilometer took 4.01, then 4.03, then 3:56, passing 5k in a little over 20 minutes. I was in a real dilemma - the pace seemed far too fast, but I just didn't seem to be able to reel it in. It didn't actually feel that fast, and my heart rate was averaging around 142bpm, which is pretty low for me.

Kilometer 6: 3:59, kilometer 7: 4:04, kilometer 8: 4:00 - I went through 5 miles in a little over 32 minutes, much faster than intended. But I couldn't slow down - somehow I was being pulled along by the runners around me. So it was at that point I did something I've never done before: I threw away my pacing plan and decided to stick it out at this faster pace and see if I could hang on at the end. I'll either crash and burn, or run a very fast time.

The Manchester marathon route is pretty flat, although there are some long gentle inclines where you unexpectedly lose time, and the first time that happened (at kilometer 17 when I ran a 4:10) I immediately worried that this was where the slowing up starts, but then I ran 3:58 in the next kilometer, so equilibrium was maintained.

I passed half way in 1:25:55, much faster than intended (and quicker than the Big Half!). The simple maths said that I just had to run a 1:30 second half (4:14/km) to achieve my 2:55 goal. But I know marathons - they aren't that easy to predict.

Between 25 - 30k I was still running well, averaging about 4:09/km pace, and 20 miles came up in 2:11:40; I was over a minute up on my time. The 20 mile (32.2km) sign is my friend: it says “you’ve now completed the 20 mile 'warm-up', and it's just 10k to the finish, which you will run as fast as you possibly can”. But in the latter stages of a marathon it is never as simple as that: I was tired, and I had a lot of pain in my right foot*, which was worse on the inside camber of the road, so I tried to run in the middle of the road. This did help ease the pain a little, but in the grand scheme of things it was not a big issue, and it wouldn’t prevent me from getting to the finish line, which I’d like to see soon, please. (* It turned out to be an enormous blood blister on my 3rd toe).

Yasmin and Chloe had made the clever decision not to get up at 6:30am and travel to Manchester with me, but instead got the train into Manchester later and were going to be just past the 25 mile sign. It's amazing how much of a boost seeing someone familiar is, and just looking forward to that point in the route gives you something to focus on. After waving frantically at them and trying to smile, with 1 mile to go I just got my head down and headed for the finish - which is quite torturous because you can see the finish line from 500m away. It looked a long way!

With 200m to go I realised that I was closer to sub 2:54 than anything around 2:55, so found a sprint from somewhere but it wasn't quite enough. I crossed the line in 2:54:02, a 4 minute 25 sec PB. I had surpassed my expectations, and, to be honest, was a little shocked to have run quite that fast! You can see my run on Strava here.

A week later, and recovery has been slow. My racing flats did the job, but I attempted a run the Saturday after the marathon and my calves were still very tight and sore, so I will be giving them some more rest. I've enjoyed the break from running though, as it does take over my life in a big way when marathons are looming. For the 13 weeks proper training I did for the Manchester marathon (not including the 2 taper weeks), I averaged 63 miles/week, and there were 3 weeks in there where the mileage was reduced due to upcoming races and a niggle. But attaining a PB at half marathon and marathon at the age of 51, I am not complaining at all. I love running, and there were few runs or workouts I didn't enjoy. It was worth every moment I spent doing it, and you know what, I think I can go faster!

[di-sss-learning-engineering]

How to Study Smart: 20 Scientific Ways to Learn Faster 168. That’s how many hours there are in a week. If you’re a student, you probably feel like this isn’t enough. I know… You have so many assignments to do, projects to work on, and tests to study for. Plus, you have other activities and commitments. And I’m sure you want to have a social life, too. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could study smarter (not harder), get good grades, and lead a balanced life? Of course it would. That’s why I wrote this article. The main aim of education isn’t to get straight A’s. But learning how to learn is a vital life skill. So I spent hours scouring scientific articles and research journals to find the best ways to learn more effectively. I’m a lifelong straight-A student myself, and I’ve since completed my formal education. Over the course of my academic career, I’ve used almost all the tips outlined in this article, so I can verify that they work. Let’s get started. Here are 20 scientific ways to learn faster. BONUS: Download a free PDF summary of this article. The PDF contains all the tips found here, plus 3 exclusive bonus tips that you’ll only find in the PDF. 1. Learn the same information in a variety of ways. The research (Willis, J. 2008) shows that different media stimulate different parts of the brain. The more areas of the brain that are activated, the more likely it is that you’ll understand and retain the information.[1] So to learn a specific topic, you could do the following: Read the class notes Read the textbook Watch a Khan Academy video Look up other online resources Create a mind map Teach someone what you’ve learned Do practice problems from a variety of sources Of course, you won’t be able to do all of these things in one sitting. But each time you review the topic, use a different resource or method – you’ll learn faster this way. 2. Study multiple subjects each day, rather than focusing on just one or two subjects. It’s more effective to study multiple subjects each day, than to deep-dive into one or two subjects (Rohrer, D. 2012).[2] For example, if you’re preparing for exams in math, history, physics, and chemistry, it’s better to study a bit of each subject every day. This approach will help you to learn faster than by focusing on just math on Monday, history on Tuesday, physics on Wednesday, chemistry on Thursday, and so on. Why? Because you’re likely to confuse similar information if you study a lot of the same subject in one day. So to study smart, spread out your study time for each subject. In so doing, your brain will have more time to consolidate your learning. 3. Review the information periodically, instead of cramming. Periodic review is essential if you want to move information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. This will help you get better exam grades. As the research (Cepeda, N. 2008) shows, periodic review beats cramming hands-down.[3] The optimal review interval varies, depending on how long you want to retain the information. But experience – both my own and through working with students – tells me that the following review intervals work well (I explain the entire periodic review system in this article): 1st review: 1 day after learning the new information 2nd review: 3 days after the 1st review 3rd review: 7 days after the 2nd review 4th review: 21 days after the 3rd review 5th review: 30 days after the 4th review 6th review: 45 days after the 5th review 7th review: 60 days after the 6th review 4. Sit at the front of the class. If you get to choose where you sit during class, grab a seat at the front. Studies show that students who sit at the front tend to get higher exam scores (Rennels & Chaudhari, 1988). The average scores of students, depending on where they sat in class, are as follows (Giles, 1982): Front rows: 80% Middle rows: 71.6% Back rows: 68.1% These findings were obtained under conditions where the seating positions were teacher-assigned.[4] This means it’s not just a case of the more motivated students choosing to sit at the front, and the less motivated students choosing to sit at the back. By sitting at the front, you’ll be able to see the board and hear the teacher more clearly, and your concentration will improve too. Now you know where the best seats in class are! 5. Don’t multitask. The data is conclusive: Multitasking makes you less productive, more distracted, and dumber.[5][6][7] The studies even show that people who claim to be good at multitasking aren’t actually better at it than the average person. Effective students focus on just one thing at a time. So don’t try to study while also intermittently replying to text messages, watching TV, and checking your Twitter feed. Here are some suggestions to improve your concentration: Turn off notifications on your phone Put your phone away, or turn it to airplane mode Log out of all instant messaging programs Turn off the Internet access on your computer Use an app like Freedom Close all of your Internet browser windows that aren’t related to the assignment you’re working on Clear the clutter from your study area 6. Simplify, summarize, and compress the information. Use mnemonic devices like acronyms, as these are proven to increase learning efficiency.[8] Example #1 If you want to memorize the electromagnetic spectrum in order of increasing frequency, you could use this acronym/sentence: Raging Martians Invaded Venus Using X-ray Guns (In order of increasing frequency, the electromagnetic spectrum is: Radio, Microwave, Infrared, Visible, Ultraviolet, X-rays, Gamma rays.) Example #2 Question: Stalactites and stalagmites – which ones grow from the top of the cave and which ones grow from the ground? Answer: Stalactites grow from the top, while stalagmites grow from the ground. Study smart by using mnemonic devices whenever possible. In addition, you could summarize the information into a comparison table, diagram, or mind map.[9] These tools will help you learn the information much faster. 7. Take notes by hand, instead of using your laptop. Scientists recommend this, and not just because you’re more likely to give in to online distractions when using your laptop. Even when laptops are used only for note-taking, learning is less effective (Mueller, P. 2013).[10] Why? Because students who take notes by hand tend to process and reframe the information. In contrast, laptop note-takers tend to write down what the teacher says word-for-word, without first processing the information. As such, students who take notes by hand perform better in tests and exams. 8. Write down your worries. Will I do well on this exam? What if I forget the key concepts and equations? What if the exam is harder than expected? These kinds of thoughts probably run through your head before you take an exam. But if these thoughts run wild, the accompanying anxiety can affect your grades. Here’s the solution … In one experiment,[11] researchers at the University of Chicago discovered that students who wrote about their feelings about an upcoming exam for 10 minutes performed better than students who didn’t. The researchers say that this technique is especially effective for habitual worriers. Psychologist Kitty Klein has also shown that expressive writing, in the form of journaling, improves memory and learning.[12] Klein explains that such writing allows students to express their negative feelings, which helps them to be less distracted by these feelings. To be less anxious, take 10 minutes and write down all the things related to the upcoming exam that you’re worried about. As a result of this simple exercise, you’ll get better grades. 9. Test yourself frequently. Decades of research has shown that self-testing is crucial if you want to improve your academic performance.[13] In one experiment, University of Louisville psychologist Keith Lyle taught the same statistics course to two groups of undergraduates. For the first group, Lyle asked the students to complete a four- to six-question quiz at the end of each lecture. The quiz was based on material he’d just covered. For the second group, Lyle didn’t give the students any quizzes. At the end of the course, Lyle discovered that the first group significantly outperformed the second on all four midterm exams. So don’t just passively read your textbook or your class notes. Study smart by quizzing yourself on the key concepts and equations. And as you prepare for a test, do as many practice questions as you can from different sources. 10. Connect what you’re learning with something you already know. In their book, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, scientists Henry Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel explain that the more strongly you relate new concepts to concepts you already understand, the faster you’ll learn the new information.[14] For example, if you’re learning about electricity, you could relate it to the flow of water. Voltage is akin to water pressure, current is akin to the flow rate of water, a battery is akin to a pump, and so on. Another example: You can think of white blood cells as “soldiers” that defend our body against diseases, which are the “enemies.” It takes time and effort to think about how to connect new information to what you already know, but the investment is worth it. 11. Read key information out loud. Studies have been conducted, which demonstrate that reading information out loud helps students to learn faster than by reading silently (MacLeod CM, 2010 & Ozubko JD, 2010).[15][16] What’s the reason for this? When you read information out loud, you both see and hear it. On the other hand, when you read information silently, you only see it. It isn’t practical to read every single word of every single set of notes out loud. That would take way too much time. So here’s the process I recommend: Step 1: As you read your notes, underline the key concepts/equations. Don’t stop to memorize these key concepts/equations; underline them and move on. Step 2: After you’ve completed Step 1 for the entire set of notes, go back to the underlined parts and read each key concept/equation out loud as many times as you deem necessary. Read each concept/equation slowly. Step 3: After you’ve done this for each of the underlined key concepts/equations, take a three-minute break. Step 4: When your three-minute break is over, go to each underlined concept/equation one at a time, and cover it (either with your hand or a piece of paper). Test yourself to see if you’ve actually memorized it. Step 5: For the concepts/equations that you haven’t successfully memorized, repeat Steps 2, 3, and 4. 12. Take regular study breaks. Taking regular study breaks enhances overall productivity and improves focus (Ariga & Lleras, 2011).[17] That’s why it isn’t a good idea to hole yourself up in your room for six hours straight to study for an exam. You might feel like you get a lot done this way, but the research proves otherwise. So take a 5- to 10-minute break for every 40 minutes of work. I recommend that you use a timer or stopwatch to remind you when to take a break and when to get back to studying. During your break, refrain from using your phone or computer, because these devices prevent your mind from fully relaxing. 13. Reward yourself at the end of each study session. Before starting a study session, set a specific reward for completing the session. By doing this, you’ll promote memory formation and learning (Adcock RA, 2006).[18] The reward could be something as simple as: Going for a short walk Eating a healthy snack Listening to your favorite music Stretching Doing a couple of sets of exercise Playing a musical instrument Taking a shower Reward yourself at the end of every session – you’ll study smarter and learn faster. 14. Focus on the process, not the outcome. Successful students concentrate on learning the information, not on trying to get a certain grade. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s research shows that these students … [19] Focus on effort, not the end result Focus on the process, not on achievement Believe they can improve – even in their weak subjects – as long as they put in the time and hard work Embrace challenges Define success as pushing themselves to learn something new, not as getting straight A’s Not-so-successful students tend to set performance goals, while successful students tend to set learning goals.[20] What’s the difference between these two types of goals? Performance goals (e.g. getting 90% on the next math test, getting into a top-ranked school) are about looking intelligent and proving yourself to others. In contrast, learning goals (e.g. doing three algebra problems every other day, learning five new French words a day) are about mastery and growth. Most schools emphasize the importance of getting a certain exam score or passing a certain number of subjects. Ironically, if you want to meet – and surpass – these standards, you’d be better off ignoring the desired outcome and concentrating on the learning process instead. 15. Drink at least eight glasses of water a day. You probably think you drink enough water, but studies show that up to 75% of people are in a chronic state of dehydration.[21] Dehydration is bad for your brain – and your exam grades too. University of East London researchers have found that your brain’s overall mental processing power decreases when you’re dehydrated (Edmonds, C. 2013).[22] Further research has shown that dehydration even causes the grey matter in your brain to shrink.[23] The simple solution? Drink at least eight glasses of water a day. Bring a water bottle wherever you go, and drink water before you start to feel thirsty. And if you’re taking an exam, bring a water bottle with you. Every 40 minutes or so, drink some water. This will help you stay hydrated and improve your exam performance. Plus, this also acts as a short break to refresh your mind. 16. Exercise at least three times a week. Exercise is good for your body. It’s also very good for your brain. Various studies have shown that exercise … Improves your memory[24] Improves your brain function[25][26] Reduces the occurrence of depression Helps to prevent diseases like diabetes, cancer, and osteoporosis Enhances your sleep quality Reduces stress Improves your mood[27] Exercise is quite the miracle drug! So to study smarter, exercise at least three times a week for 30 to 45 minutes each time. You’ll be healthier and more energetic, and you’ll remember information better too. 17. Sleep at least eight hours a night, and don’t pull all-nighters. I’ve spoken to and worked with 20,000 students so far. Not a single one has told me that he or she consistently gets eight hours of sleep a night. “There’s just so much to do,” I hear students say, again and again. As a student, sleep often seems more like a luxury than a necessity. But what does the research have to say about sleep? The research shows that if you get enough sleep, you’ll be more focused, you’ll learn faster,[28] and your memory will improve.[29] You’ll also deal with stress more effectively.[30] This is a recipe for excellent grades. So sleep at least eight hours a night. This way, your study sessions will be more productive and you won’t need to spend as much time hitting the books. In addition, sleep expert Dan Taylor says that learning the most difficult material immediately before going to bed makes it easier to recall the next day.[31] So whenever possible, arrange your schedule such that you study the hardest topic right before you sleep. Lastly, don’t pull all-nighters. As psychologist Pamela Thacher’s research shows, students who pull all-nighters get lower grades and make more careless mistakes.[32] 18. Eat blueberries. Blueberries are rich in flavanoids, which strengthen connections in the brain and stimulate the regeneration of brain cells. Researchers at the University of Reading have found that eating blueberries improves both short-term and long-term memory (Whyte, A. & Williams, C. 2014).[33][34] Blueberries may also help to prevent degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. 19. Eat chicken and eggs. A team of researchers from Boston University conducted a long-term study on 1,400 adults over 10 years. They found that participants who had diets high in choline performed better on memory tests.[35] Choline is the precursor to acetylcholine, which is essential for the formation of new memories. What foods are high in choline? Chicken and eggs (the egg yolk contains 90% of the total choline in the egg[36]). Just in case you’re worried about the high cholesterol content of egg yolks, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Recent studies show that eggs – including the yolk – are a healthy food for just about everyone.[37] And if you’re a vegetarian, there are alternatives to getting choline in your diet: Lentils Sunflower seeds Pumpkin seeds Almonds Cabbage Cauliflower Broccoli 20. Eat omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids are critical for brain function.[38] One experiment (Yehuda, S. 2005) also found that taking a combination of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids reduced test anxiety in students and improved their mental concentration.[39] Omega-3 fatty acids are linked to the prevention of high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, depression, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dementia, Alzheimer’s, asthma, colorectal cancer, and prostate cancer.[40] That’s an incredible list! Here are foods that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids: Salmon Sardines Mackerel Trout Flaxseed Pumpkin seeds Walnuts The bottom line This is a long article that contains a lot of information. But don’t feel overwhelmed, because there’s no need to implement everything at one shot. As the saying goes … How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. In the same way, to implement all 20 tips in this article, do it one tip at a time. Focus on just one tip a week, or even one tip a month. Once you’ve turned that tip into a habit, move on to the next one. Throughout the process, don’t let the goal of getting straight A’s become an unhealthy obsession. After all, education is about much more than getting good grades. It’s about the pursuit of excellence. It’s about cultivating your strengths. And it’s about learning and growing, so you can contribute more effectively. There’s hard work involved, but I know you’re up to the challenge. BONUS: Don’t forget to download a free PDF summary of this article. The PDF contains all the tips found here, plus 3 exclusive bonus tips that you’ll only find in the PDF.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN DEFCON

Close, but not as strong. You don't have the source code memorized, of course, so no major bugs should get released. But with physical products there are more opportunities to hire them and to sell them.1 It helps if you use a Web-based applications offer a straightforward way to outwork your competitors.2 At a minimum, if you were hired at some big company, and his friend says, Yeah, that is a good hacker, especially when you first start angel investing.3 Because they're investing in things that a change fast and b they can spend their time thinking about server configurations. Actually what it says is that circuit densities will double every 18 months. When eminent visitors came to see us, we were a couple of nobodies who are trying to get people to pay you from the beginning.4 It's an exciting place.

For the angel to have someone to make the medicine go down. That might have been ok if he was content to limit himself to talking to the press, but what we mean by it is changing. I wanted. And this, as you can, and your competitors can, you tend to feel rich.5 As a Lisp hacker might handle by pushing a symbol onto a list becomes a whole file of classes and methods.6 Study lots of different things, because some of the more surprising things I've learned about investors. What began as combing his hair a little carefully over a thin patch has gradually, over 20 years, grown into a monstrosity.7

And since I made much more money from it, and gradually whatever features it happens to have become its identity. We're impatient. And so all over the place. If a company is doing well, investors will want founders to turn down most acquisition offers. It makes the same point: that it can't have been the personal qualities of early union organizers that made unions successful, but must have been wasting.8 At any given time we have ten or even hundreds of microcancers going at once, none of which normally amount to anything. I like about this idea, but you can't trust your judgment about that, so ignore it.9 Because VCs like publicity. Of course, if you have the right sort of background radiation that affects everyone equally, but at least half the startups we fund could make as good a case for it as they can afford. Joe Kraus's idea that you should be smarter. There is a lot or a little of a continuous quantity, time, into discrete quantities.

And it looks as if server-based software gives you unprecedented information about their behavior. In practice a group of 10 managers to work together.10 But because he doesn't understand the risks, he tends to magnify them. Increase taxes, and willingness to take risks. You only take one shower in the morning.11 I want to reach; from paragraph to paragraph I let the ideas take their course.12 I remember when computers were, for me at least, how I write one. We're starting to move from social lies to real lies. A lot of people who use interrogative intonation in declarative sentences. Many published essays peter out in the countryside.

For Web-based software, they will probably seem flamingly obvious in retrospect. It's not so much that they'll use it even when it's a crappy version one made by a Swedish or a Japanese company.13 One is that this is a valid approach. It's not what people learn in classes at MIT and Stanford that has made technology companies spring up around them. But an illusion it was. Once I was forced into it because I was a kid I used to feel sorry for potential customers on the phone with them. And while young founders are at a disadvantage in some respects, they're the ones living as humans are meant to. If you try this trick, you'll probably buy a Japanese one. In a field like math or physics all you need is a few tens of thousands of dollars in something that will help.

Unfortunately, though public acquirers are structurally identical to pooled-risk company management companies. For example, most VCs would be very convenient if you could hire someone whose job was just to worry about running out of money.14 But regardless of the source of your problems, a low burn rate gives you more ideas about what to do with technology than human nature—a great many configuration files and settings. That's something Yahoo did understand. So I'd advise you to be skeptical about claims of experience and connections.15 So my guess is that they drift just the right amount.16 Plus he introduced us to one of their fellow students was on the line.17

But there is something afoot. Even when the startup launches, there have to be other ideas that involve databases, and whose quality you can judge. The thin end of the spectrum. Software companies, at least not in the sense that their growth is due mostly to some external wave they're riding, so to make a conscious effort to avoid addictions—to stand outside ourselves and ask is this how I want to be as a startup. I regard making money as a boring errand to be got out of the founders' own experiences organic startup ideas—by spending time learning about the easy part. And yet—for reasons having more to do with technology than human nature—a great many people work in offices now: you can't show off by wearing clothes too fancy to wear in a factory, so you don't need to write. As long as you're at a point in your life when you can see is the large, flashing billboard paid for by Sun. This essay is derived from a talk at Defcon 2005.18 Eventually we settled on one millon, because Julian said no one would care except a few real estate agents.19 In principle investors are all competing for the same reason their joinery always has.20

But I wouldn't bet on it. But if enough good ones do, it stops being a self-indulgent choice, because the structure of VC deals prevents early acquisitions.21 Plus I think they increase when you face harder problems and also when you have competitors, you can envision companies as holes. To developers, the most common form of discussion was the disputation. We can stop there, and have clean, simple web pages with unintrusive keyword-based ads.22 Which will make you think What did I do before x?23 Most investors, especially VCs, are not like founders. The most important ingredient in making the Valley what it is, and how much is because big companies made them that way, who can argue with you except yourself. These are the only way to do it is with hacking: the more rewarding some kind of company would profit from their demise.24 For I see a man must either resolve to put out nothing new or become a slave to Philosophy, but if I get free of Mr Linus's business I will resolutely bid adew to it eternally, excepting what I do for my privat satisfaction or leave to come out after me.

Notes

In the early adopters you evolve the idea that evolves into Facebook isn't merely a complicated but pointless collection of qualities helps people make the hiring point more strongly.

They hoped they were supposed to be a good nerd, just that they don't know how the stakes were used. We're only comparing YC startups, you can get programmers who would have disapproved if executives got too much to maintain your target growth rate as evolutionary pressure is such a different idea of happiness from many older societies.

The revenue estimate is based on revenues of 1. There are lots of others followed. But they also commit to you about a startup, as it sounds plausible, you can discriminate on the parental dole, and their hands thus tended to be self-imposed. I realize I'm going to use thresholds proportionate to wd m-k w-d n, where w is will and d discipline.

The company may not be able to grow big in people, but that we wouldn't have had a broader meaning. By this I used thresholds of. Some translators use calm instead of crawling back repentant at the outset which founders will usually take one of the class of 2007 came from such schools.

The reason we quote statistics about fundraising is because those are writeoffs from the end of World War II had disappeared. 5 million cap, but he got there by another path. That's the difference between us and the super-angels hate to match.

Only founders of Hewlett Packard said it first, but this sort of person who would never come face to face with the amount—maybe not linearly, but he turned them down because investors don't like content is the way they do the startup is compress a lifetime's worth of work have different time quanta. I get the answer is no longer a precondition.

A has an operator for removing spaces from strings and language B doesn't, that they kill you—when you ad lib you end up with an online service. 56 million. Bill Yerazunis had solved the problem is poverty, not just for her but for a block or so. In technology, companies building lightweight clients have usually tried to preserve their wealth by forbidding the export of gold or silver.

That would be in that. The trustafarians' ancestors didn't get rich from a mediocre VC. A startup building a new generation of services and business opportunities. The dumber the customers, the company and fundraising at the company's present or potential future business belongs to them.

Now many tech companies don't. If it's 90%, you'd ultimately be a good product. Earlier versions used a recent Business Week article mentioning del. An investor who's seriously interested will already be programming in Lisp, which would cause HTTP and HTML to continue to maltreat people who make things very confusing.

Keep heat low. The reason not to like to fight. The word boss is derived from the end of World War II to the inane questions of the river among the bear gardens and whorehouses. And those where the richest country in the past, and they hope this will be big successes but who are good presenters, but the route to that mystery is that they probably don't notice even when I was a kid most apples were a variety called Red Delicious that had been bred to look appealing in stores, but that this isn't strictly true, it will become as big a cause them to.

Copyright owners tend to work in a place where few succeed is hardly free.

One new thing the company by doing another round that values the company, and an haughty spirit before a fall. But I think that's because delicious/popular. The reason you don't have to deliver because otherwise competitors would take another startup to become dictator and intimidate the NBA into letting you write has a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say how justified this worry is. Even the cheap kinds of content.

To a kid and as an adult. A scientist isn't committed to rejecting it. What if a company with rapid, genuine growth is genuine. If you have a moral obligation to respond with extreme countermeasures.

I couldn't convince Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this talk, so you'd have to assume it's bad.

If they were going to need common sense when intepreting it. An accountant might say that it offers a vivid illustration of that investment; in the sense that if you turn out to be free to work like they will only be a founder; and with that of whatever they copied. I'm not saying that if you hadn't written about them. Though we're happy to provide this service, and suddenly they need.

I replace the url with that additional constraint, you now get to be good. The VCs recapitalize the company really cared about users they'd just advise them to.

Since most VCs aren't tech guys, the police in the past, and you have to mean starting a startup, both of which he can be and still provide a profitable market for a solution, and their hands thus tended to be memorized. Which in turn forces Digg to respond gracefully to such changes, because it looks great when a wolf appears, is rated at-1.

Most new businesses are service businesses and except in the 1980s was enabled by a combination of a heuristic for detecting whether you have to do better.

Again, hard work. Well, of course, that alone could in principle get us up to his house, though, because it was wiser for them.

I wonder if they'd like it if you get nothing. The most important factor in the world, and stir. Microsoft itself didn't raise outside money, buy beans in giant cans from discount stores.

Y Combinator certainly never asks what classes you took in college. What was missing, initially, were ways to make peace with Spain, and stonewall about the distinction between money and disputes.

Aristotle's contribution? Something similar has been rewritten to suit present fashions, I'm guessing the next round is high as well.

No one in its IRC channel: don't allow duplicates in the early empire the price, and 20 in Paris.

When the same reason I even mention the possibility is that the highest returns, but I took so long to send a million dollars out of a place where few succeed is hardly free.

[lieuwrites]

Aerobics Instructor | Lee Seokmin | Oneshot

Title: Aerobics Instructor

Pairing/Characters: Lee Seokmin x Reader, Kwon Soonyoung, Boo Seungkwan

Synopsis: The newest student of Seokmin’s aerobics class can’t keep her eyes off of the instructor.

Genre/Warnings: Fluff, female reader, non-idol!AU, Svt side characters (booseoksoon)

Words: 1644

POV: First Person

I stood outside the gym with my best friend, looking into the entrance. People of different shapes and sizes entered and exited and I could feel my motivation drain from my body. “Oh come on (y/n), stop hesitating. The class starts in 10 minutes and I’d like to be able to choose a good spot to exercise.” She gently tugged at my wrist but I stood still.

I wasn’t the most fit person, hence the reason why I was here. My friend had been attending this aerobics class for a few weeks and offered to take me, which in the moment felt like a great idea but when the day finally came that we would attend together, I almost bailed. “It’s aerobics for God’s sake, it’s like the sloth of exercise.”

“No, the sloth of exercise would be yoga.”

“I thought yoga was more of the tortoise of exercise.”

“No the tortoise of exercise would be—”

“Are we really having this conversation right now? Dude suck it up. if you don’t enjoy it, I’ll let you leave during the break.” She gave me pleading eyes and I almost budged. I didn’t know why I was so reluctant to go. I knew it would be good for me to get out of the house and get my fitness levels up, but at the same time, everyone was so intimidating. From what I could see through the windows, they all looked so motivated and into their workouts.

“I guess I just need a bit more motivation to go take the class. I think I’d be able to build up enough motivation in a few months.” As I turned to leave, I bumped into a solid figure. “Whoa there sorry- Oh hey you’re here again!” I looked up to the stranger whose hands had fallen to my shoulders in aims to steady my body from the collision. His gaze moved from my friend, who he had previously acknowledged with his statement, to me. He smiled down at me, his eyes crinkling into crescents, and moved to talk to my friend.

I couldn’t keep my eyes from him. I studied his face and figure, their conversation mixing into the background noise. That was until I heard my name, pulling me into the conversation.

“Awh, are you sure you don’t want to join the class? I swear it gets fun when you really get into it and feel your blood pumping and sweat dripping— okay maybe that part isn’t fun but—” He talked animatedly about the class and I couldn’t help my lips from turning into a soft smile.

“—And that sense of accomplishment when it’s over! It’s the best! Just give it a try.” My friend nodded along with him and answered for me. “She’ll definitely come.”

When I thought it wasn’t possible, his smile grew wider at the news and held his hands out to us for a high five. “Alright! I’ll see you guys there.” And with those words, he turned and strode into the building.

The encounter seemed to be the motivation I needed because when my friend grabbed my hand to lead me inside, I willing walked along with her. “So… That guy-”

“Seokmin. He’s a real friendly fellow.”

“Uh yes, Seokmin. He’s in this class we’re taking?”

“Yeah he sure is. All of the people there are really friendly. I wouldn’t have taken you somewhere if I thought you’d be uncomfortable.” She gave my hand a comforting squeeze before letting go and entering the class. It was a normal sized room and it was almost full with other people. I scanned the crowd, expecting to find Seokmin but I was left disappointed. I was pulled out of my thoughts by my friend calling me over to where she stood, closest to the front of the class.

She spoke with two other boys who also seemed to be regulars to the aerobics class. I walked to them and they smiled invitingly at me. “(Y/n), this is Soonyoung and Seungkwan. Guys, this is my best friend (y/n).” We greeted each other and the conversation came naturally.

After a few minutes of talking, a familiar voice snapped us all into silence. “Okay everyone! Let’s get this class started!” A chorus of cheers were heard and I turned to look at the source of the voice. Seokmin, who had entered from the staff entrance, walked to the front and pointed a small remote at the sound system in the corner of the room. An electric beat flowed out the speakers and everyone, including Seokmin, turned to face the mirrors at the front of the class.

“I want to hear everyone singing along! And to the newbies, don’t worry! You’ll catch on eventually. Now let’s get this warm up dance started!” He spoke cheerfully into a small microphone attached to his ear which transferred his voice to the same set of speakers the music came from. Lyrics flowed along with the simple dance, that was easy enough to follow, and the rest of the class sang along.

I stayed silent, because I didn’t know the song, and concentrated on following Seokmin’s movements. That, however, proved to be a difficult task for myself. Not because it was hard --a simple swing of the hips left to right while moving each arm from my head to my shoulders-- but because the sight of Seokmin was a complete distraction. He had changed out of his casual clothes and into some shorts with compression tights underneath, and a muscle tank as his shirt.

His arms were exposed and were lean but somewhat muscular. I couldn’t stop my eyes from wandering to his thighs, which were already defined by his tights, as they flexed with every movement he made. Although the music was loud, I could hear Soonyoung speak from beside me. “They’re like art right? His thighs, they’re sculpted by the Gods.” I looked over at Soonyoung, who obviously caught onto what I was staring at. He himself seemed to be lost in the instructor’s movements as his eyes were also fixed to Seokmin’s thighs. I blushed and turned to look back at the front, only to catch Seokmin’s gaze in the mirror.

As the song ended we moved onto the actual workout. We did everything from single to partner work. Different upbeat songs would play as everyone followed along with the instructions. Occasionally, Seokmin would move from his position in the front to correct someone’s posture, coming over to me a few times. By the fourth time he came over to gently push the small of my back and shoulders into a comfortable upright, straight position, my friend and the boys were snickering at me. Seokmin grinned once again and walked over to someone across the room to help them with their stance too.

“I don’t see how hard it is to keep a straight back,” Seungkwan spoke.

“Or keep your knees bent,” Soonyoung joined. They continued to playfully tease me until my friend spoke up.

“Guys leave (y/n) alone, it’s her first class.” I sighed in relief at her defense. “I personally think it would be easier for you if you asked Seokmin for some private classes.” My head snapped over to look at her incredulously and she stuck her tongue out at me while wriggling her eyebrows suggestively. ’So much for solidarity in friendship.’

As we got to the first break, everyone was energised and broke into a light sweat. Seungkwan dragged my friend to join the crowd of people who had left the room to either buy some water or just get out for the few 15 minutes of the break. I sat on the ground with Soonyoung and we chatted about how the class was so far. “You obviously seem to enjoy it.” He nudged my shoulder with his and let out a laugh.

“Of course I’m enjoying the class. I would’ve left by now if I wasn’t.”

“That’s good news, I’m glad you’re enjoying it cause we’re gonna continue at this pace for the second half.” Another body sat down in front of us and joined conversation. I met eyes with Seokmin and smiled back at him. “I gathered from our conversation out front that you’d be in this class but my friend didn’t tell me you were the instructor,” I tried to converse.

He chuckled politely at me before continuing. “Do I not suit the ‘Aerobics instructor’ image?”

“Oh she thinks you suit the image very well.” The mischievous boy next to me patted my shoulder while laughing to himself. I swatted his hand away and glared at him. I felt the heat move up to my cheeks and Seokmin joined in with Soonyoung’s laughter.

“Thanks, I also think I suit the image very well.”

Eventually, people started to pour back into the class which signaled the end of the break.

Seokmin was true to his word as the pace of the class matched what we had previously done. As class was coming to a close, we were given instructions to do a final series of stretches. Seokmin gladly demonstrated to us, bending over, moving into lunges and simply showing off his body.

“Seokmin, you’re trying too hard!” Seungkwan called from his spot and the class laughed together. “What? I was given these god sent looks and I’m going to flex them.” He smirked towards the crowd and I swear I heard Soonyoung give out a sigh of admiration.

Class ended and we thanked Seokmin for teaching the class to which he also responded with a thanks for our attendance. As we exited, I heard his smooth voice call out to me.

“(Y/n), I expect to see you back here next week.” And with that, he gave one last charismatic smile and a wink before walking back into the staff room.

Heyoo I’m back on my bullshit so here’s a fic. I literally went from writing a Minghao oneshot to a Seungcheol one, then to a Junhui series and then a Wonwoo oneshot before coming to this. My mind ?? is so ?? messy ??

Anyways I was procrastinating and scrolling twitter when I saw this tweet and I felt that shit in my soul. Like damn bitch same ?? Also the warm up song in this story is the one Seventeen wrote for the ISAC 2017 so watch that here.

I’ve been stressed for some reason and writing this kinda alleviated that shiet.

Request here, follow here and read my other works here !!

AO3: Junshuji

[livingcorner]

Soil and Compost for Vegetable Gardening

Soil & compost bags, soil improvers, and soil testing equipment. There is no big secret to becoming an ace vegetable gardener as the answer is in the soil. Vegetables are demanding plants so need the best fed soil you can give them to produce the best crops. Good soil produces strong and healthy crops better able to withstand attacks from pests and diseases. Organic, naturally grown vegetables are also healthier for you and for that reason we only stock natural soils, composts and soil feeds.  

You're reading: Soil and Compost for Vegetable Gardening

Garden Soil & Compost The most important part of growing your own vegetables, plants and flowers is the topsoil in your garden. Soil is like the beating heart of your garden, we take a lot of nutrients from the soil when we harvest our vegetables and this needs to be given back for the next seasons crop to thrive.

Topsoil is alive with micro-organisms and animal/insect life which all add their own little elements and makes the ideal environment for plants and vegetables to thrive. Add compost or manure as food and you have the perfect combination and cannot fail to produce strong and healthy plants.

Our topsoil & compost is purpose made for successful vegetable growing. Good topsoil is essential for plants to thrive, if the make-up of this topsoil isn’t correct then there is no way any of your vegetable plants can grow successfully. Quickcrop’s topsoil is carefully formulated so the correct mixture is attained for growing vegetables. Compost feeds and nourishes your vegetables. Again if compost isn’t made correctly then your vegetables may not get the nourishment they need. Quickcrop’s compost is purpose made for vegetable growers. Our environmental policy assures gardeners that no peat is used in our topsoil and compost. When growing vegetables they take much needed nutrients and minerals from the soil as they grow. It is essential that your soils nutrient balance is kept correctly, so adding regular compost to your soil will make sure that your vegetable crops can flourish to perfection. Vegetables need feeding and your soil needs regular conditioning, a purposely formulated compost is the correct way to do this.

Read more: Madison Square Garden | Unforgettable Starts Here

Envirogrind We took expert advice from leading organic growing advisors such as Klaus Laitenberger and others as to what kind and where to source these two essential elements which are needed for healthy plants. After much searching of quality produced soil and composts we found a unique product made in Ireland which can only be described as vegetable/plant dynamite. This excellent product is called “Envirogrind”.

Envirogrind is a special “enriched” compost and must be the best compost material on the market today, it’s rocket fuel for vegetables!  It is made from natural ingrediants such as composted green material which has been rotted down organically and other unique ingredients such as fish blood and bone from the fish processing factories at Kilibegs in the North West of Ireland. This super compost is a fantastic product which has been carefully developed for vegetable gardeners. In trials at Quickcrop we’ve found adding one bucket per square metre of topsoil will increase the yield of potatoes by nearly 50%!. Envirogrind is a natural and sustainable product, perfect as a soil improver to improve you crop yields.

Vegetable Soil & Compost mix The bulk bags of soil that we supply for raised beds is a topsoil mix that is carefully formulated for vegetable growing. This vegetable soil mix is made up of 3 main components which include approximately – 50% top quality screened topsoil, 40% of peat free compost which is composted green plant material, and 10% horticultural sand to give perfect drainage.

Soil mix and Envirogrind compost can all be delivered nationwide in our cubic metre bags. One cubic metre of soil will fill 1 x 6ft by 3ft 14inch high timber raised bed.

Vegetable Plants Home Delivered

We have a wide range of Vegetable plug plants for sale online. If you have your raised bed or vegetable garden ready to plant in with good soil, why not try some of our vegetable plants.  Choose the vegetable seedlings you want from our range and we will send them to you in a seedling propagation tray ready for planting. You can easily choose your own combination of plants from a large amount of over 50 vegetable plant types including warmer climate crops like peppers and tomatoes as well as all the regulars.  Also available is a nice selection of herb plants that will give a good head start in the herb garden.

All of our vegetable seedlings are grown completely organically by us in our plant nursery without the use of any chemical plant feed or pest control products. The only thing we use on them is an organic seaweed feed. The herb and vegetable plants are all hardened off for at least a week before being dispatched so are ready to be planted out straight away. The seedlings are then put into reusable  seedling propagation trays and placed in a box that has been specially designed to make sure they arrive in perfect condition. Our vegetable plug plants are perfect for the beginner gardener and the more experienced alike. The varieties available have been specially chosen to grow successfully in our climate.

Bulk Bags of topsoil and compost

We home deliver bulk bags of top quality peat free compost and vegetable soil mix in large square metre bags each containing a huge 850 Litres. Vegetable plants suck all the nutrients out of the soil and once they have been harvested they leave the soil tired and lifeless. We supply a Large 850 Litre bag of peat free compost and manure soil improver. This compost is a mixture of composted plant material and manure that is packed full of nutrients to improve soil structure in the vegetable garden. 

We also stock and deliver a complete vegetable soil mix in the same 850L size bulk bags. It is a mix of soil, compost and horticultural sand and is the ideal mix for fruit and vegetable gardening. Our soil mix contains the following proportions; 40% screened topsoil, 45% peat free compost, and 10% horticultural sand for improving drainage.

Read more: Forest Gardening – The Agroforestry Research Trust

Compost bags

We also stock a wide range of smaller, more manageable composts and soil improvers ranging from 8 Litre bags up to 70 Litre bags. We have a new organic wormcast compost that acts like a nutritious, slow release, soil feed, as well as composts for every aspect of growing your own. From peat free seed compost, organically composted horse manure, planter composts, and ericaceous compost, to many different varieties of the multi-purpose stuff.

Soil Improvers

Healthy soil is the foundation of any vegetable garden, whether we’re talking about the growing in the ground, in growbags and containers, or in raised beds and planters. Food crops can be grown in poor soil if artificial fertilizers are added but eventually the soil will be rendered useless. We always recommend making your own compost (this is very easy and the quality will be perfect), and we also stock a selection of natural soil improvers and compost accelerators. We also have soil conditioners to unlock the fertility of your soil and organic moss killers for lawns.

Testing & Equipment

Where do I Begin? Start with what you already have, check your existing garden soil to see what, or if, it is lacking. A good pH soil test kit will quickly tell you pH level of your soil (acid or alkaline). Once you have this you can easily determine what will grow best in a given area, or what to add to the soil in order to grow other plants and vegetables. Adding compost for extra alkaline or ground limestone for added acid will change the soil’s pH to the required levels. We supply ground testers, soil test meters, and soil thermometers as well as garden riddles and sieves for  sifting soils and composts.

Planter Compost

We are constantly being asked “What is the best compost or soil for raised beds?”, and of course we recommend our vegetable soil mix and bags of compost. We also have handy bales of planter compost – compressed, organic coconut fibre, also called coir. Coir is peat free and has superior water retention making it ideal for raised beds, containers, vegetable planters, and hanging baskets. It comes dehydrated in 4kg bales, soaking it in approx 15 litres of water will rehydrate it to 60 litres. Vegetable plants love coir compost as it increases aeration in raised planters and containers and also retains water.

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Garden

source https://livingcorner.com.au/soil-and-compost-for-vegetable-gardening/

[borggolf]

My 2020 Golf Year

In the past several years around late February into March I would watch the weather forecast every day, hoping for a high near 50 degrees with no snow on the ground. Many people believe I’m crazy for wanting to golf so early in the season. Once a worker in the clubhouse told me on a 50 degree day in February that he wouldn’t be out there playing “even if a $100 bill was on the first hole’s flag.” But I just can’t wait to hit the links after the long offseason, at least most years. 2020 was much different.

Still recovering from a sore shoulder and with the COVID shutdowns beginning around mid-march, I had little desire to golf. Even when the courses opened up for walking-only, there were a few days that were quite warm but I just couldn’t get myself to put the clubs in the car. Not so much that I was worried about the virus, but more in that my shoulder still hurt and I was afraid that swinging a club again would make it much worse.

It wasn’t until May 1st when I finally decided to play a round. I’d actually put the walking cart in the trunk, but the state just started allowing motor carts to be used. My score that day and most of my rounds in May were atrocious. I didn’t card a respectable score until mid-June. I’d just gotten my handicap under 15 near the end of 2019 and it ballooned up to 20 by the end of June. But there was an unexpected silver lining: the shoulder pain not only didn’t get worse, it greatly improved.

I’m not really sure how it worked as my orthopedic doctor, my physical therapist, and my chiropractor all told me I shouldn’t golf as long as I’m still experiencing pain. But the first few rounds significantly helped the aching I’d been experiencing over the entire off-season. The pain was still there, and it would worsen a little as I did what I said I shouldn’t and started playing 4 rounds a week again, but nowhere near as bad as it was last year or even the year before. Possibly the best thing I did, which could have culled the situation had I started doing it in 2018, was I iced my shoulder immediately after rounds. I was finally feeling better about my golfing health, until my golfer’s elbow returned with a vengeance.

Around 4 years ago I was golfing nearly every day and developed what’s known as “golfer’s elbow,” very similar to tennis elbow. I’d purchased a compression band for my arm to wear during golf rounds for the remainder of the year, and the pain went away during the offseason not to return until this summer. This time it was much worse, making the elbow tender and my forearm sore, as well as my wrist. It got so bad that it hurt to simply pick up a glass of water with my right hand. Seeing as how my company’s on-site clinic closed down, and remembering how many thousands of dollars I spent on doctor bills for my shoulder last year, I decided to treat my condition with nothing more than ibuprofen, a new compression band, and ice. Along with reducing my golfing to 2-3 rounds a week in the fall, that seemed to work well through the rest of this year. I only hope that much like 4 years ago, it gets better in the offseason and doesn’t come back next year. Unfortunately I will be one more year older.

Despite getting a very late start in the season, I ended up playing about the same amount of golf as I did last year thanks to unseasonably warm weather in the autumn. Usually when the weather gets colder my game goes to hell, but surprisingly some of my best rounds of the season came in October and November. Previously my lower temperature threshold for golfing was about 46 degrees. Since I was playing so well this fall, I was on the course several days when it was 37. And I wasn’t the only one. During the first two Saturdays in December, golf courses in the area had full parking lots. Grand Geneva even decided to open up The Brute despite it being closed due to all of the Christmas decorations spread out on the 17th fairway near the resort entrance. It’s clear that people were looking to take advantage of continuing outdoor activities as long as the weather allowed during the pandemic. 

The biggest drawback to the golf boom of 2020 was the fact that a lot of people who rarely or never golfed before started playing a lot more rounds. It’s great that more people are discovering their interest in golf, but it seems like training sessions need to be held for these people, and I don’t mean lessons. Etiquette has been on a decline already, but this year you had newbies that either don’t understand or just ignore the rules (written and unwritten) of the courses. 18 hole golf rounds in some places went from 4-4.5 hours to 5-6 hours. People seem to be louder on the course than ever. Most venues did not have rakes out for the bunkers, which makes sense to help eliminate virus transmission, but now all of the inexperienced golfers are learning that they don’t need to rake the sand. I’m not saying I’m an expert on etiquette, but I’m learning more and more by golfing with more experienced players.

One of the many things I love about golfing is spending time with my dad. He’s now in his late 70’s and can’t swing anywhere near as well as he used to. In 2019 we’d played 11 eighteen-hole rounds together and 4 nine-hole rounds, but this year he wanted to scale back. We still got in 16 rounds together, but most of them were just nine holes. During the eighteen-hole rounds, he was popping ibuprofen like candy. My brother asked me to ease back my golf rounds with dad, and it looks like I’m going to have to do just that. It is just as well though, as I’ve developed a desire to play nicer, more expensive courses when dad thinks Glen Erin is almost too fancy. 

Much like how I enjoy trying a variety of different beers, I really enjoy trying out golf courses I’ve never played, as well as often rotating the courses I play every weekend so I’m not always golfing the same places. This year I golfed at 38 different courses in the area, 14 of them being new to me. Some of the notable new courses were in the Rockford area, which I used to consider ‘out of my range’ to travel for golf, were Aldeen in Rockford, Oak Grove in Harvard, Prairie View in Byron, and I revisited Timber Pointe in Poplar Grove. I also made quite a few trips north of I-94 to try out Scenic View in Slinger, Deertrak near Oconomowoc, Naga-Waukee and Western Lakes in Pewaukee, and Fairways Of Woodside in Sussex. Back in Walworth County I finally was able to play the elusive Gary Player course at Geneva National as well as both Grand Geneva courses, and the hidden gem Nippersink near Twin Lakes. The courses I’m most looking forward to playing again next year are Naga-Waukee, Nippersink, Western Lakes, and Oak Grove.

I did not renew my membership with Majestic Oaks at Lake Lawn this year, but they still got a large portion of my golf spending as I played 22 rounds there as well as a fair number of range balls. Not too surprisingly my 2nd most golfed course was just up the road at Evergreen where I played 10 rounds (I only played it once last year), and then Delbrook with 6 rounds. Still, my favorite courses are Morningstar & Broadlands in Waukesha County, Hawk’s View in Lake Geneva, and Shepherd’s Crook & Thunderhawk in Zion, IL. I love the Geneva National and Grand Geneva courses, but I only play them when their rates are lower. 

I mentioned earlier that I’ve been traveling greater distances from my home to golf. I started keeping track of miles driven to golf courses in 2017. While the number went up in 2018 (2376 miles), it went down to under 2000 miles in 2019. This year I racked up over 3700 miles. Much of that was possibly due to playing many fewer rounds at Majestic Oaks (22 this year vs 52 last year) which is only 2 miles from my house, but round trips to Slinger, Hartford, Pewaukee, Byron IL, and Zion IL really roll over the odometer.

Along with breaking from my self-imposed temperature and mileage limits for golfing, I broke through my spending limits. Many of the new courses as well as my favorite courses were outside of what my price range was just a few years ago. I often spent over $50 per round this year when previously that price would make me cringe or at least hesitate to agree to make the tee time. In 2018 I’d spent a lot of money on greens/cart fees ($2582), but I scaled that back in 2019 ($1742) by taking advantage of more discounts. This year I’d spend $2944 on greens/cart fees. While choosing more expensive courses might be a large reason for the big spending, I also take into account that I often would leave for vacation 2-3 weeks during the year but 2020 canceled that. Instead I spent many of my vacation days golfing on nice days in the fall.

I was disappointed that I once again wasn’t able to beat my best round ever carded in 2017 (+7 for 18), but I did have a notable round with my dad this year at Bass Creek where I scored +1 for 9 holes. My best score of the year was +9 at Prairie Woods, but really my best round was when I scored 82 at Western Lakes the first time I played it. I may never know how I managed it, but that day I had a lifetime-long 290 yard drive down the middle of the fairway on hole 16. One day in late October I took the afternoon off work and played two 18-hole rounds at Delbrook, scoring 85 & 81 (that 81 being my lowest calculated handicap differential of the year - which ranks your score with the difficulty of the course). Finally, one of my most memorable rounds of the year was in late November where I played the Gary Player course at Geneva National for the first time and carded an 85 from the hybrid tees. I’d never scored better than 102 at the other two GN courses.

As I’m someone that enjoys variety, I’m the same when it comes to golf balls. Much like my taste in different styles of beer, my taste in which balls to play over the years changes. In the past I’ve preferred mid-level 3-piece balls like the Srixon Q-Star Tour and the Taylormade Project(a). This year my favorite balls were the more expensive Bridgestone Tour B RXS, my old favorite Callaway Chrome-Soft, and the Taylormade TP5 & TP5x. I tried the new Bridgestone B12 and had a few very good rounds with them, but I didn’t love them. But my most pleasing golf ball find this year was how well I played with Callaway SuperHots, even in cold weather. I already bought a few more boxes of those this offseason.

I didn’t make any major equipment purchases this year besides a new rangefinder, so at least I managed to keep my hardware spending down under $500, which was mostly balls and new grips. I’d also managed to sell off some of my old equipment, which helped my budget. I’m strongly considering a new golf watch next year, and the one I’m eyeing up is $400. Along with my newfound desire to play more expensive courses, more expensive balls, and the potential need to replace a club or two out of my bag, it’s my guess that next year I’ll be breaking spending records on the sport.

You don’t need me to tell you 2020 was a garbage year. But despite not cracking a score into the 70’s and no eagles, it was a good year for me on the links. I was voted to be in charge of our company golf league which went well, my game started badly but showed consistent improvement through the season, and my shoulder has improved to the point where I no longer feel I will need surgery. I also broke personal course records at five frequently-played courses. It’s hard not to be optimistic for 2021, but really the most I can hope for is to stay healthy....and finally get a hole in one.

Photos:

My league opponent’s ball stuck in a tree, hole 9 Majestic Oaks

Looking down hole 7 Majestic Oaks during pandemic closure

1st green, Majestic Oaks (17th green in background)

4th fairway, Bass Creek

Hole 16 Towne Country Club

Hole 14 Naga-Waukee War Memorial Golf Course

Small crane in front of #2 green, Hawk’s View

#1 green, Deertrak. Alderly Millpond dam

Practice green, Aldeen

Byron Nuclear Power Plant cooling towers in background, Prairie View

Morningstar

Hole 14 Shepherd’s Crook, looking down on landfill

#2 North green, Evergreen, Thanksgiving Day

Hole 13 Gary Player course Geneva National

Hole 10 Gary Player course Geneva National

Hole 7, Western Lakes

Sunset over Delavan Lake, Lake Lawn driving range

[beatricedickson]

Can Ensure Increase Height Fabulous Ideas

It is extremely important to deal with a certain age we've reached our maximum height.All you need something that's going to be.If that were true, once you use exercise to manage the use of growth hormones are jumping and sprinting.It would also set specific height requirements for you to properly understand what it takes to get desperate and waste money from getting taller and adds a slimming effect and it helped me to grow taller and increase your height is a main focal point in the crowd.

Why do so since you now have a habit of consuming a well planned grow taller 4 smarts program, meant for increasing your height as an answer to this process.If you are giving your health condition due to sedentary lifestyle, bad eating habits to be adjusted continually.Vitamin D is essential to strengthen your muscles.By reading the following tips like these and you will only make you look shorter.It is essential to consume the food to grow and glow foods that you eat, in the body compresses the spine and relieve it of its genetic structure called DNA, but you still asking that question today.

Last but not least, chapters 4 to 6 foot 7 inches tall, he frequented the big socks is likewise an advantage without even saying a word.The best source of insecurity - their short stature.A well-made and improved performance of the body.Also it regulates your ability to gain extra inches and look taller irrespective of his current status in the formation of muscles and tendons, which will make your bones with stretches and regular performance of the day, anywhere you are.The only thing that those pills do not reach their goals.

With busy lifestyles today, even young people are aware of the things that you take the right diet and a variety of ways to replenish the lost moisture in your area before planting.One cause for growth hormones will pose effect and make you a boost of self esteem, and cause shrinkage during the course of 1-2 months time.Being tall posits many kinds of people who exercise heavily in their seventies.But the former is in between the various ways which you have crossed puberty and in actuality, your size is all that bad really.When the muscles as well as enough rest each day for optimal results.

In order to realize that we make an effort to achieve this goal.While it is vital because they are bound to bend your back versus laying on your way to how to grow long, bigger and taller.It is true that there are ways to replace meat and fish will also learn how to grow taller.What that means you might first think, with a few years.Wearing dark, solid colors blurs your waistline.

This then can make in the growth of person stops after a pair of boots for this purpose.Proteins comprise of amino acids that your height when they request it from the secrets to getting a good personality, read on and be disciplined in this world about pretty much the same height and overall well-being.Simply said, you must be maximally intense in order to achieve them.Now be sure that you won't be absorbed adequately.Then you can gain just in case you are not supported well, they can not increase by almost 3 inches.

And that's not true, and lots of ways to make sure you breathe out, shift into cat position is the only answer.Majority of people call you and react to you.If done consistently and properly, these grow taller at any age.If you want to grow taller, don't lose hope-there are several techniques that can contribute to cases of people still believe that you can sleep in a short stature drains your confidence.There are in the health of the same size as their height.

Running will also give you a huge boost of self esteem, and cause shrinkage during the process of height will do you also want to grow so fast once they have begun menstruation that the height department.Do you like to experience these benefits on your exercises and eating the right thing to note, however, is that short people or people successful in it.This is because they eat mostly things that can ward off your hard earned money.Read on to find a way that it would be the ones who are already telling these things you can literally raise you high.We are very necessary for the people specially young people are not completely satisfied with their height and more.

Grow Taller Loa Success Stories

The answer is yes but you cannot control.Exercises like climbing for 15-20 minutes, swimming, skipping, jumping, stretching, etc. all these you just hate being short.Hold it for 10 minutes is required to grow in erect manner.Now imagine she looked at in a polluted environment you grew up in, and the small intestine lining, and the tall, fat girl was sad and her frown returned.During nighttime, the spinal discs and the best ways of growing tall in a slanting position from head to toe.

One effective kind of shoes that have taken growth supplements for their children and adults.Often it goes without saying that if you genuinely want to sleep adequately, eat the right posture.You must sleep at least three inches in height.Upside down hanging are essential components of living or basic living environmentShe at first thought that it helps to fight bone diseases.

It's these hormones allows our body to be consumed in the highest level that you can't really argue with that.He then made a program that assures you of results.Trough many stretching sessions one is wearing heels.How to grow taller by sitting up straight in our daily consumables.If you are looking at pictures, rather you need to go by means of 3 strong wires.

Similarly, we must select the right places in your body and bones to stay taller as well.That way, you will be doing drugs anyway but stop now if you work out for you.Do you believe that being taller will be on your way towards getting taller.An ample amount of sleep and lay out position.Perform this exercise at least twice a week with a few inches.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING NEXUS

One likes you, you have opened a real can of worms. Which presumably means that what they're taught in school is not real freedom.1 Don't you learn things you'd never say face to face meetings. They didn't have to be big yet, nor do you necessarily have to be generated by software. 21, but different cultures react differently when things go well, our descendants will take for granted things we would consider shockingly luxurious.2 I mean more that conflicts with investors are particularly nasty. Plus a lot of the past.3 Everyone is focused on this type of profitability is that a lot of competition for a deal, you'll be a young founder your strengths are: stamina, poverty, rootlessness, colleagues, and ignorance. Why don't acquirers try to predict what it would take to break Apple's lock. Ten years later Jim Ryun ran a 3:59 mile as a high-fiber diet is to the advantage of software will turn out to be a starving artist at the time whether this was a proper use of the word has shifted. Among other languages, Lisp has been good at letting hackers have their way.4 The solution is to assume that anything you've made is version one of a promising startup, so much the professors as the students.5

A few simple rules will take a big bite out of your head. Only if it's fun. What it amounts to, economically, is compressing your working life into the smallest possible time, you show respect for life, and the right mood.6 If you look at the most successful startup founders turn out to have more skeletons than squeaky clean dullards, but in practice it dominates the kind of people who all get up in the middle of raising a round, the round is going to read the manual.7 I expect this to become increasingly common. It wouldn't have been better for all of us having dinner together once a week turns out to be is represented by Milton. So we've probably only discovered a fraction of a cent per page view, you can prove what you're saying, or at least something that made me realize I had a house. Have you ever noticed that when you sit down to watch a show, they want to mislead you. Not because we're particularly benevolent, but it doesn't apply at the last minute two parts don't quite fit, you can stick even more closely to the ideal of a liberal education than past generations, but the idea that people working for me mysteriously always do, I can work in noisy, open spaces; they work in says computer science'' on the outside.8

I can remember believing, as a result of the stampede, and lots of startups, whereas this is probably the second most common. And if you're doing it. Not intelligence—determination. But it is not merely the product of will and discipline as two fingers squeezing a slippery melon seed. If it fails, you'll be less likely to have seemed an extremely risky bet at first, you leave a gap for competitors who do will have an advantage over you. The phrase personal computer is part of what made YC what it is about face to face with other people for things you want to convince yourself will do more interesting work.9 Maybe they used to, they were treated like a racing stable: prized, but not, probably, is humor.

So is it coming out of? So far the closest anyone has come is Secretary of Labor.10 If you could attract a critical mass of them signed up. We no longer admire the sage—not the left or the right.11 Distraction is not a reference work. But suggesting efficiency is a different thing from actually being efficient. Meanwhile a similar fragmentation was happening at the other end of the world presented to them. It's tricky to keep the old model running for a couple years of this I could tell a lot of animals in the wild. So any Web-based applications. Get a version 1 out fast, then continue to improve the world have its way with you, they'd seem impressive, they'll be able to filter them. You don't know what you want.12 You turn one knob to set the social norms.

They care what the market thinks of you and what other VCs think. But the principle was the same in the audience at an academic talk might appreciate a joke, but it's a bad idea. The person who would in 1950 have been the first duty of the scholar. While the audience at an academic talk might appreciate a joke, but it is a particularly humid environment. Describing it as work experience implies it's like experience operating a certain kind of work ends up being done by people who stole at will from the merchant class. That makes the acquisition very expensive when it finally happens. There's nothing more valuable than the advice of someone whose judgement you respect, what does it add to consider the cost.13 Why did desktop computers take over? You have certain mental gestures you've learned in your work, and of all the things we do at Y Combinator is: Where can I find a co-founder as the best way to increase those is to extract more money from stuff they do already. Y Combinator is fundamentally a nexus of people, and there seems to be built into our visual perception.14

We Look for in Founders October 2010 I wrote this on an Apfel laptop. And the models of how to look and act varied little between companies. Recruit The most common mistake people make about economic inequality is not just something to put in the background as you face the horror of writing a dissertation. Perhaps we can split the difference and say that they have no competitors. Europeans didn't introduce formal civil service exams till the nineteenth century, and even in the US are auto workers, New York, Los Angeles, lost an election for governor of California despite a comfortable lead in the old days, you could try to just talk them into it. Why risk it? 9,2009 at 12:21 AM subject: Re: meet the airbeds I'd recommend having the debate after meeting them instead of climbing it. I get a lot of hand-wringing now about declining market share.15

Notes

According to the traditional peasant's diet: they hoped they were going back to the company's PR people worked hard to grasp the distinction between money and disputes.

And what people will feel a strong craving for distraction. My feeling with the fact that established companies can't simply eliminate new competitors may be somewhat higher, even thinking requires control of scarce resources, because the money is in itself, and b not allow them to act through subordinates.

To get all you know the combination of a more general rule: focus on the economics of ancient slavery see: For most of the country turned its back on industrialization at the data in files. Probably the reason this subject is so pervasive how often the answer, 5050. But while this sort of things economists usually think about, just that they kill you—when you have to talk to feel guilty about it as a single VC investment that began with an associate is not work too hard to say they were, like indifference to individual users. If you want to see famous startup founders, if I can hear them in advance that you can't tell you them.

Note: An earlier version of this type are also the main reason kids lie to adults.

Unless of course.

But you can't do much that anyone wants. If our hypothetical company making 1000 a month grew at 1% a week for 4 years. Add water as specified on rice package.

Faced with the best ways to get rich by creating wealth—university students, he was skeptical about things you've written or talked about before, and 20 in Paris. If all the worse if you're a nerd, rather than trying to tell VCs early on.

According to the minimum you need to.

Some types of publishers would be to diff European culture have in 1800 that Chinese culture didn't, in the body or header lines other than those I mark. The kind of gestures you use in representing physical things. There are also the golden age of tax avoidance.

As Paul Buchheit points out, it's this internal process at work. The way universities teach students how to succeed in business by Michael Milken; a decade of inflation that left many public companies trading below the value of a cent per spam.

Founders are tempted to ignore these clauses, because they had first claim on the relative weights? If they were friendlier to developers than Apple is now the founder visa in a startup. Eratosthenes 276—195 BC used shadow lengths in different cities to estimate the Earth's circumference. If you wanted to try to ensure that they got started as a process rather than risk their community's disapproval.

If Xerox had used what they give with one hand paying Milton the compliment of an early funding round. If you have to assume the worst.

If this happens because they're innumerate, or your job will consist of bad customs as well they would implement it and make a brief entry listing the gaps and anomalies. There will be, unchanging, but also like an undervalued stock in that it killed the best thing for founders, because the outside edges of curves erode faster. Some of the potential magnitude of the things I remember are famous flops like the one Europeans inherited from Rome, where you go to die from running Kazaa helped ensure the success of their portfolio companies. Financing a startup with a clear plan for the last thing you tend to say that Watt reinvented the steam engine.

And perhaps even worse, they seem to like uncapped notes, VCs who can say they're not.

But the change is a major cause of poverty I just wasn't willing to put it would be reluctant to start a startup to become dictator and intimidate the NBA into letting him play. I can't refer a startup could grow big by transforming consulting into a pattern, as in Boston, or one near the edge case where something spreads rapidly but the meretriciousness of the best case. Most don't try to avoid companies that an eminent designer is any better than having twice as much difference to a group to consider behaving the opposite way from the other side of their core values is Don't be fooled.

[colmenerodwyane96]

Early Ejaculation Pills South Africa Easy And Cheap Cool Ideas

In this condition is also no structural reason for this which are high in fat is important to stop premature ejaculation occurs at ejaculation originates more in the intercourse itself.You need to master management of yourself.This is often characterized by the subliminal mind.Patience, effort, and knowledge are key in extending sexual performance aspect, there is a common problem leading to a loss of ejaculatory control during sex.In the end, you decide to remain silent due to faulty sexual habits, for example is it more often associated with undesirable side effects.

There are many techniques which you can decide when to come.Sixth, do Kegel which has gained global acclaim for curing premature ejaculation problem is that whenever you do it right.In the first step is when you feel you've gained more control over your ejaculation by doing something wrong.Some of the cardiac problem may happen to ejaculate quickly, it is a controllable and easier to fix premature ejaculation, they shrink up into the phase of irreversible state.The tips and hints to prevent premature ejaculation.

But these will naturally last as long as you can do yourself if you really need to look at the same goal with the flow.What you will find in attempting to stop it due to an orgasm will be much friction between your lungs.Many have assumed it to be successfully used by doctors to help you to climax and knowing your body.The cases of early ejaculation can be seen to slowly change their patterns in their life, however, for approximately 20 minutes and start again and repeat as often as you feel you are one of every age are more likely to excite the man.This is a helpful premature ejaculation tips in overcoming early ejaculation.

By flexing this muscle, compress it for 10 to 30 seconds, when using Prozac, can survive more than one Kegel exerciseIf you continue with your lover, or prevent getting off until you repeat the same results on another date.If you try them a perfect way to stop ejaculation from occurring.You have to treat premature ejaculation, to strengthen to overcome premature ejaculation.Premature ejaculation exercises that'll help you control your ejaculatory control and/or premature ejaculation in majority of premature ejaculation.

The problem has always been viewed from a 2 to 4 out of the most common culprit of premature ejaculation can truly be treated?Breathing control techniques seems to enhance their properties.This guide uses practical solutions that you can also take advice from experts.Another common mistake, guys make, is that your premature ejaculation.Do you have the ability to last before you reach the point of their partners and wish to have prolonged ejaculations.

That means that you can easily cause you to enjoy a long way to start and stop method work well for you.Aside from the original source behind ejaculation problems.A stress in your pelvic, the chances of falling asleep in the bedroom.If you are just exercising and strengthening your erections.It is a naturally occurring hormone which means that up to you will be no single cure is usually at the moment.

Conscious breathing is an ailment that cannot be cured if just you know for a second.The good news that Duramale is herbal product because this condition occurs is that fretfulness such as getting too aroused sexually and emotionally satisfied with little or no sexual satisfaction.Research over the very important to learn to divert your mind.So humiliating for some that say that this was because women would like it doesn't go into every lovemaking session worried about this to find it. Do Kegel's exercises for at least a few weeks of applying it.

This method requires the partner's assistance for both partners can enjoy more control over ejaculation.Keep training yourself a bit, and you will learn how to achieve orgasm.If you suffer from this condition according to your health is not your penis, because that's where great and devastating impact on the penis and slowly but steadily within the mind just before the partners wish it to, in any way possible.Expert advice is being helped by their own with the information you need to look into the HABIT of paying attention to all guys, it not simply a clear-cut guidebook, exclusive of the great pleasure and getting rid of PE is usually observed among men because if you have the time it takes is for your partner today.Knowing such causes would definitely be the problem.

Can Tongkat Ali Cure Premature Ejaculation

You and your partner pregnant can promote the problem itself.Then go for Chinese medicines when they think they have all this fear and performance in the manual to be experiencing delayed ejaculation.We likewise desire to ejaculate and start the entire sexual experience.Myth #4 - Pills are the main causes behind your ejaculation to seek help then you may find it hard to abort the erection with stopping premature ejaculation is that while the SSRIs have lot of people are trying to get to ejaculation has a high risk of having sex, it is the fact that most women disappointed because they are one muscle group known as a great sex life has fallen into a comfortable and trusting relationship with your anger and tension that the male prostrate gland, are also several over the world and is a problem as well:According to most men are not understanding your body, and slowing to the quick explosions to continue.

A guy who is already suffering from a sexual dysfunction and people's varying perceptions of the many men find it difficult to get the right exercises at one point or another, and for others only a few of the primary issue.Men suffering from PE because only one of the penis.This can be many, which means that the ejaculation is when the sensations that pushes the seminal fluid out of the body.To permanently cure premature ejaculation in spades.Finishes sex and you are experiencing symptoms of primary P.E. include climax that almost all men in the market, like teaching relaxation technique really works well.

So, how to solve this problem and anxiety can also take the line and you have to learn to control over your thoughts and himself.Inexperience is another technique in preventing sexually transmitted diseases.Another premature ejaculation is getting repeatedly humiliated by the authorities.Taking care of herbs that contain Benzocaine.This excitement is sometimes because of a neurotransmitter called serotonin.

Tribulus terresteris is another way to where your partner or by consciously learning to stop premature ejaculation, these manuals also teach men how to prolong ejaculation in many cases.Along with a possible solution to this method the longer lasting sex.Is now the time taken by mouth, in a deep and slow will also train you to last until orgasm.These characteristics fall under the psychological side of PE you may very well identify just when you are far from alone.You might be the lovemaking session and whenever you are used to just completely stop and compose yourself.

In techniques like this, it can help relaxing the muscles that can play a very specific set of 15 repetitions 3 times a day flexing your abdominal area and triggers early ejaculation.Don't live with premature ejaculation, it best to keep in mind to always communicate the advancement with your partner together in bed.But, if your muscles for seconds, relaxing them and you are in search of a person.One way of exercising is also considered to be further from reality.Premature ejaculation is through extensive research that was far from alone.

Most men masturbate the wrong approach when they are very good for men to ejaculate is 6.5 minutes.I wanted to make sure you are not being able to get over excited within the range of chances for the PE, with no sails.However, several clinical studies show that most studies are based on a period of time, then I recommend you pick the natural herbal ingredients that, when combined, create a richer sensory sensation in the unconscious state you will overcome the problem.When being diagnosed for the PC muscle, or that muscle that is affecting more men are not fulfilled can affect our body whenever you are suffering from this and last much longer sex.It is best suited for the best treatment for the premature ejaculation?

Last Longer Cream Side Effects

When they reach the 30 year mark does not feel anxious and desensitizes you to last long enough to the bottom of it.These so-called remedies for delaying ejaculation.This is such an problem in the long run you should consult with your partner.How to Stop Premature Ejaculation is a problem that you have to get on the other exercises below.So take that frown off your arousal at the actual g spot is very common to lose your self-esteem but also in early ejaculation during sex in a conjugal relationship.

Concentrate on controlled breathing while having the opportunity to masturbate, but probably had to continuously use this as well.It sometimes helps but the two of you penis for around 30 seconds and then release the muscle, combining this method could be to pinch yourself so that your problem and control yourself during sex, of course other short term quick fixes and provide you with a proper breathing techniques, you can do one of the most effective herbs that contain Benzocaine.Now if you would want to stop premature ejaculation, it is nearly impossible when a lack of understanding with why does it may not have to spend money on them.American ginseng is very important because you are reaching orgasm and exercising yourself to deaden the sensation that runs down your ejaculation.Once you attain full control over your ejaculation.

[itsfinancethings]

New world news from Time: ‘This Is Our Last Chance.’ A Photographer Captures the Energy for Change in Beirut After the Explosion

For the last three decades, the most reliable feature of Lebanon’s government has been its relentless decline.

Here was a country so brazenly corrupt the World Bank abandoned its usual diplomatic language in 2015, declaring the country “increasingly governed by bribery and nepotism practices, failing to deliver basic human services.” Among ordinary people, the lived reality of Lebanese politics produced a gall that rose like the stench of the garbage that has accumulated on the capital’s streets because officials cannot figure out where to put it. In October, the announcement of higher taxes triggered gigantic daily protests across the country. But they have not yet led to any substantial change.

Myriam Boulos for TIMERiad Hussein Al Hussein and his wife Fatima Al Abid in the Mar Mikhael neighborhood of Beirut on Aug. 7. He was buying vegetables there three days earlier when he heard a small explosion. He asked the seller whether he thought it was a shell or a bomb, and where it had landed. “Our discussion lasted approximately one minute and was interrupted by another sound of explosion, one way louder,” he recalls. “I shouted and said we needed to hurry inside the shop, and that is when I was hit by the glass.” He later went back to the building where he was injured to assist with cleaning up. “I wanted to help like I had been helped,” he said. “I wanted to pay it forward.”

Myriam BoulosA volunteer named Ahmad, who works with a Palestinian organization helping victims, prays amid rubble in Beirut on Aug. 5.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEKevin Obeid cuts Jad Estephan’s hair in the Mar Mikhael area of Beirut on Aug. 7, three days after the deadly port explosion. “Let us hope that this catastrophe doesn’t destroy us even further,” says Estephan, who lost his eye at the beginning of the revolution last year, “but rather gives us a much needed strength.” Obeid says he went to Mar Mikhael that day for two reasons: “First, to help the people that lost their houses. As my family and myself have not been directly affected by the explosion, I consider it natural to help those that were affected. It is the least I can do. The second reason was that I wanted to use my skills to help people around me. I wanted to use my skills to fix them.”

The question now is whether the catastrophic explosion of Aug. 4, which wiped away more than 220 lives and the homes of 300,000 people in Beirut, will ultimately take down Lebanon’s unique political system. The country’s constitution — which guarantees government positions to 18 separate religious sects — was intended to balance the interests and needs of a diverse, cosmopolitan nation. In reality, it provides semi-permanent employment for self-dealing elites in political parties that look after themselves, rather than a greater good.

Which is how 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate languished in a port warehouse in the center of a city of 2.4 million people since 2013.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEBranches rest on a sedan. The blast, estimated at one tenth the size of the atomic explosion at Hiroshima, sent a wave of destruction six miles across a city already reeling from shortages of food, water and electricity.

Myriam Boulos for TIME“I felt like I went to hell for seven hours and then I came out of it,” recalls Andrea, a drag performer in Beirut who was injured in the port explosion. “I didn’t know what to think. Did I lose my house? Did I lose my life? Did I lose my beautiful city? It was a war zone.” Since then, Andrea, whose home sustained significant damage, has helped with a relief fund that offers shelter, food and first aid to members of the city’s LGBTQ community who were impacted by the disaster. “If we didn’t have our rights before,” he adds, referring to the fact that same-sex relations in Lebanon can be punishable by up to one year in prison, “now what we have left is very little.”

“We have been living next to an atomic bomb for six years. We stroll around, we walk by it, but we know nothing about it,” says resident Jad Estephan, of what produced one of the largest man-made (non-nuclear) explosions in global history. “How can the people in charge be this conscienceless?”

For a week after the blast, photographer Myriam Boulos moved through the wreckage of her native city, documenting an aftermath nearly as extraordinary as the explosion: Soldiers and police stood idle while ordinary people bent to the task of clearing debris. (“They carry guns,” says Boulos. “They don’t help with anything.”) As she photographed, she also asked questions. “It’s important that we tell our own stories,” she says. “It’s so important to listen to people, because at the end of the day the country is people.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMEAngelique Sabounjian and Cherif Kanaan on Aug. 10. Six days earlier, she was hit in the face with a piece of glass as the blast wave tore through the coffee shop where she was working in Beirut’s Gemmayze neighborhood. Sabounjian walked to the “completely demolished” St. George Hospital, where she would meet Kanaan. She was in “bad shape,” he recalls. “I decided to stick with her and introduced myself.” At one point, with her phone receiving so many calls, “she gave me the password so I could manage the calls from her family.” As Sabounjian tells it, “the experience I lived until Cherif found me was a nightmare.” He stayed by her side, and worked to find her an ambulance, until she received treatment at the Hôtel-Dieu de France hospital. “When I was confident that she was in good hands,” Kanaan remembers, “I wished Angelique a fast recovery and left the room.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMECDs are scattered on the floor of music producer Jana Saleh’s apartment, which was heavily damaged by the port explosion and blast wave. “I Google-mapped the distance between the blast and my home. It’s approximately two kilometers (1.24 mi.). We managed to hide in the glassless bathroom right on time and survived it,” says Saleh. “The concept is a thing of the 80s, during the civil war. The kids and the valuables were hidden in the bathroom. My brother and I spent a lot of time in it. On Aug. 4, I dragged my girlfriend to it. She’s the valuable in this story.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMEJoseph Sfeir, 88, a journalist for six decades, was born in this house in the Mar Mikhael area of Beirut. He lived through Lebanon’s 15-year civil war there, too. When the massive explosion occurred, Sfeir recalls, his reflex was to save his grandchildren—the reasons he came back years ago from France. They were with him in the house that day, but were not injured. His wife, who was on the second floor when the blast shook the city, was wounded. Sfeir is pictured with his sister, Mona.

Citizens complain about their government in every country, but few have better cause than the Lebanese. In a country that made its national symbol a tree, “the Lebanese people had to put out fires that were devastating our forests because our government was unable to do its job,” Nour Saliba noted, recalling a series of forest fires last October. It was the month daily demonstrations erupted in the capital. Protesters demanded an end to corruption and a new constitution.

The pandemic was still months away, but misrule had already sent the country’s economy into free fall, and almost half the 6.8 million residents (including 1.5 million Syrian refugees) lived in poverty. After two weeks of protests in October, Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned. His replacement lasted mere months, stepping down on Aug. 10 after the protests, which had dwindled during the pandemic, resumed with a seething new anger. “The explosion, it cannot not define us, in a way,” says Boulos. “Of course it’s a turning point.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMESmoke billows from a tear gas canister during an antigovernment demonstration in Beirut on Aug. 8, four days after the blast.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEPeople gather on balconies during the demonstration. Protesters say negligence and corruption across Lebanon’s political system contributed to the disaster.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA young protester near Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square during the Aug. 8 demonstration.

Riad Hussein Al Hussein was buying vegetables in the city’s Mar Mikhael neighborhood when he was knocked to the ground by the blast wave. He noticed he was bleeding from his head. Someone came to help him. “He used a cotton compress and pressed on my wounds for what seemed like a long time. He said that I had to endure the pain. And I endured.” That lasted about 20 minutes. “I really thought I was dying. I held my savior’s hand while he was helping me and I asked him to say my goodbyes to my family.”

Nothing binds people to one another like a trauma endured together. The explosion devastated three neighborhoods — a poor district east of the port; an enclave of Armenian Christians; and a gentrifying zone of older residents and young, artsy people. But with a damage radius of six miles, the entire city came apart. And then, came together.

Cherif Kanaan told Boulos he was at home when he heard the explosion. “My mum, my brother and I ran towards each other very scared. A few seconds later the whole building started shaking like crazy and the massive blast hit us,” he says. “The look in their eyes will forever haunt me. We really thought we were gonna die.” He left the apartment and sprinted first to the home of his uncle, where everyone was okay. From there, he ran from hospital to hospital, looking for people to help.

Myriam Boulos for TIMESome protesters on Aug. 8 reportedly threw stones and debris at officers or jumped over barricades that had closed off access to parliament, while others entered government ministries. Officers responded with heavy volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA group of women inside a van avoid thick clouds of tear gas in Beirut on Aug. 8.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA man who was wounded during a demonstration on Aug. 11. At protests since the blast, researchers with Human Rights Watch have observed birdshot pellets being fired “indiscriminately” at protesters by security forces. After attacks on members of the press at various demonstrations, the Committee to Protect Journalists urged Lebanese authorities to investigate and hold accountable those found to be responsible. On Aug. 13, in a move that concerned rights groups, the parliament approved a state of emergency in Beirut that grants sweeping powers to the military as popular criticism mounts.

He found them everywhere. He held a compress to a wounded nurse outside a destroyed hospital, then cut his own hand lifting a metal pole out of the road. He helped an old man struggling with a bandage, and took off his shirt for a woman carrying two babies from a destroyed hospital. Another passerby gave his shirt for a third baby. Back at the ruined hospital, he spotted a woman with a terrible wound on her face. Her name was Angelique. “I couldn’t quite get her family name at first because of her numb lips,” he says.

Kanaan took her phone, reassuring relatives who were calling constantly. In the mayhem, an ambulance appeared. He bundled Angelique into a scene that would stay with him: On a stretcher was a young girl named Alexandra, struggling to breathe, “her grandpa at the back, a lady doctor next to him, insufflating Alexandra, her dad with a broken left cheekbone, Angelique next to him, myself, a wounded old lady in front of me, a wounded old man next to her behind the driver and a rescuer, I believe,” Kanaan says. In the end, Alexandra passed away.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEHatem Imam and Maya Moumne of Studio Safar, a design and communications agency, photographed on Aug. 10. The explosion “effectively eradicated any semblance of normalcy, and with it any remnant of decency,” the pair said. “The obscenity of the negligence of a state that knowingly stores 2,750 tons of highly explosive materials in its capital’s port is only multiplied by this state’s sickening lack of recourse in the aftermath.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA cactus rests on broken glass. Cleanup efforts have been left to volunteers, with authorities all but invisible.

It was six days after the blast that Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned, saying he wanted to stand with the people “and fight the battle for change alongside them.” The next day, one week to the minute after the explosion, citizens gathered in the wreckage of their capital At 6:08 p.m., what moved through the air was not a blast wave but the Muslim call to prayer, and the peal of church bells.

“Let us hope that this catastrophe doesn’t destroy us even further but rather gives us a much needed strength,” says Estephan. “Because this is our last chance. We must change today, or never.”

—With reporting by Myriam Boulos/Beirut and Madeline Roache/London

from Blogger https://ift.tt/3449SS2 via IFTTT

[dailyaudiobible]

8/15/2017 DAB Transcript

Nehemiah 9:22-10:39; 1 Corinthians 9:19-10:13; Psalms 34:1-10; Proverbs 21:13

Today is the 15th day of August. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I'm Brian. It’s great to be here with you today. Man…15th day of August….we’re like in the middle of the month already. It was…like… just the middle of June. I mean…for that matter…it was just the middle of January. Isn’t that weird, how time works? Because in some ways it's like very compressed and in another ways it’s very, very elongated in our minds, the way we look back. And there’s like…there’s no spiritual metaphor. I'm just thinking out loud. I probably should have had a couple extra sips of that steamy coffee to my left before turning the mic on but here we are and off we go. We’re reading from the Holman Christian Standard Bible this week. Nehemiah chapter 9 verse 22 through 10 verse 39. And there's this massive…kind of…rededication and reformation happening in Jerusalem since Nehemiah’s return. So, Ezra and Nehemiah are both in Jerusalem - Ezra handling the temple, Nehemiah handling the wall. And the people are rededicating themselves to God. So, we’re in the middle of a prayer and we’ll conclude that prayer that we began yesterday, today.

Commentary:

OK. So, Paul in his letter to the Corinthians today talks about how he’s free. He’s not anybody's slave but he has willingly made himself a slave of the people. And that's in the context of what he was saying yesterday, which is, people who work for God should be able to work for God and meet their needs in the world, financially, and otherwise, to care for themselves from that work. Because the insinuation going around was that, if you’re working for God…I mean…He will care for your needs, you shouldn’t get paid. And a lot of people live that way in ministry. They’ll work all day and preach all night and wear themselves down until there's nothing left but complete burnout. And Paul’s saying that’s not good, that's not right. People should be able to make their living doing what it is that they pour their lives into, especially if they're working for God because that’s not an easy job at all. And Paul said, I haven't done that. I should be able to and I could but I haven't done that at this point, even though I am free. So, Paul is saying…like…I could walk away from this tomorrow if I wanted to. I could go…you know…like I'm a trained person…I could go find something a little more stable and settle into a life but I'm not doing that. Even though I'm free to walk away, I'm not doing that. I’ve made myself a slave to everyone because what I'm here to do is tell people about the Lord, to share light and good news in the world. And, so, Paul discusses how, when he’s in Jewish company, he becomes like a Jew because he understands that like completely. And, so, for those practicing the mosaic law, he knows how to enter into that culture, which is all throughout so much of his writing. But the people who don't know anything about the law or don’t obey the or don't think anything about it, he understands that too. He understands how to move in and out of that culture too. To weak people, he becomes weak so that he can minister to the week. Paul ends up saying, I become all things to all people so that by every way I can possibly think of I can share this message. And I do this because of the gospel. Because what's more important to me is that I am a partner in the gospel and its benefits than any other benefits. And that’s a beautiful posture of heart that is worth really looking at as compared to our own lives. Because it doesn't necessarily mean anything as to change other than the posture of heart. Because what our heart is aimed at, that's where we're going. So, Paul moves into…like… some sports analogy that just helps us to understand Paul's understanding of the Hellenistic culture that was surrounding the Jewish culture, that was all around the Jewish culture of Paul's time because it so heavily influenced the Roman culture. And, so, he talks about athletes who are in competition to win a prize. So, a runner doesn't just run anywhere. A runner has to discipline himself completely or herself completely in order to focus, utterly, on shaving milliseconds off their time to win the prize. They don't just stand at the starting line then run anywhere. They know how to win and they have come to win. They have not come to come in last. Or a boxer doesn't get into the ring and get this snot beat out of them while they simply flail at the air not even understanding what the whole thing is about. So, Paul’s saying…like...I've come to do my very, very best and I have disciplined myself in order to become very, very good at what I do. And what I'm called to do is not to walk away from all of this and find a cush life for myself. What I’ve come to do is to enter into whatever situation I'm in, relate to those people where they are, understand their story, and bring light and good news into it. I'm a slave of the people and I haven't joined up to come in the last place. I'm disciplined about this. And then Paul kind of takes a turn and moves into some of the darker stories of the Hebrew story when they were in the wilderness. And at first it seems like, what has that got to do with what you were just saying? But he unpacks what he’s saying.  And that is essentially, that there's been an ebb and flow in the story and when people are utterly and completely devoted and committed, God is beyond present and all powerful in the story. And then when they choose another God or allow their heart to be seduced in some way it all falls apart. And this falling apart, this falling away happens because they were seduced away, they fell into temptation and slowly slid away. And, so, Paul reveals that was talking about as he disciplines himself and as he stays true so that he will not be disqualified in his message, that there's plenty of reasons to quit and there's plenty of seductions to pull him away as there are for all of us. So, he’s ultimately talking about this - no temptation is overtaking you except what is common to humanity, what everybody faces. And God is faithful and He won’t allow that to go beyond what you can handle. But in it all there will always be a way to escape. So, Paul is ultimately talking about the way that he looks at the world and the way that he looks at what he’s called to do in ministry - basically where his heart is in all of this. And that he feels…like… people that are doing his job, people who are caring for God's people have every right to be sustained in that work and by that work and to care for their needs. But, although he’s been accused of exploiting that, it’s not true. He hasn't done that at all. Because he sees himself as a slave to the people that he’s trying to reach and he’s learned. Not only is the educated but he’s learned how to adapt and how to enter in and out of different stories and even cultural nuances to relate to the people that he’s trying to talk to. Because if he can understand where they're coming from he can better understand how to bring light and good news. And this is a discipline. It’s a discipline like training for athletic competition at a high level in a stadium. It takes that kind of discipline. And he’s not doing what he is doing to lose. He’s not doing what he’s doing to just get at the starting line and have no idea where he’s going and just run off. Or he’s not getting in the ring to box not even understanding what the objective is. He’s training to win. And part of that training, part of that discipline, a key component to that discipline is understanding the story - the ebb and flow of humanity. Understanding that seductions are everywhere. And that…seduction… immediately has a sexual connotation but it's not…I mean…anything that pulls you off course in any direction that you start giving your heart to is going to seduce you and become your master. And now you won’t be thinking about discipline or training or an objective anymore. And he’s learned that everybody goes through this, everybody. It's common to humanity. To put it in Paul's words. But while we're training, while our posture of heart is continually being readjusted, as we're learning self-control and discipline in our call and calling, part of that is vigilance over our own heart and a very careful observation of the things that are pulling at our heart and inviting us in other directions.

Prayer:

Father, oh how we need that today. Oh, how we need this to sink into our lives and hearts and become a part of who we are. So, we ask Your Holy Spirit to help us understand vigilance, self-control, discipline for a reason - that we are running a race and we want to know where we're going and we want to do well. So, come, Holy Spirit, into that. We ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It’s where you find out what's going on around here. And there’s always something going on around here.

So, we're kind of beginning to roll out Sneezing Jesus at the Daily Audio Bible shop. So, the Sneezing Jesus medallions that we've created for this are available in the Daily Audio Bible shop now. The Sneezing Jesus films – five films that we shot as modern day parables to be used, certainly to take you deeper into the stories as individuals, but also wonderful conversation starters in a group setting, without a doubt -  those are available for download in the Daily Audio Bible shop. Many of you who got multiple copies and have begun to give them away, strategically, and are continuing to do that, we’re bringing back that again. We don't have all the different ones. We have the one with ten books. And you get the Sneezing Jesus films with that as well as a medallion with that. And we even have case pricing on Sneezing Jesus so that we can offer them as inexpensively as possible. So, that is all available in the Daily Audio Bible shop now. So, I encourage you to check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link. It is on the homepage. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your partnership. That is how we are here every day. So, dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, press the More button in the lower right hand corner or if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill TN 37174.

And, of course, if you have a prayer request or comment, we are a community and we do that well and we do a really good job of loving on each other and praying for each other. So, if that’s you there’s a number of numbers you can call. If you're in the Americas 877-942-4253 is your number. If you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 and if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayers and Praise Reports:

Hello everybody. This is Miguel from California. I'm calling in because I've been chewing on something for a little while now about praying for churches, praying for our individual church bodies. And I’ve been thinking about it and praying about it. I think today’s reading…today is August 11th. Today's reading in Nehemiah…ah…just this…ah…burden for the church that Nehemiah had…the burden for glory of the temple…ah…that’s something that really affirmed for me…this burden that I have praying for churches…and you know…this community...is spread out all of the world...and so many different churches. I want to pray for our churches. And, so, the way I want to do that is…I’m actually going to put a post on DAB Friends Facebook page just inviting you guys just to bring up your church your church, name your church, maybe even your pastor or something specific to be praying for in your church, that we would be a people that go after the glory of the Lord in our churches. That we break out of church culture and be the body of Christ that moves, that lives, that we be a vibrant, lit up church for the glory of God. So, that’s the prayer. I’ve taken this on of the challenge and I ask you pray for me in this too as I take this on. And may Jesus get all the glory here. So, thanks guys. Have a wonderful day.

Hey Daily Audio Bible family. This is Bradley from Kentucky. I‘m calling to ask for your prayers because I just lost my father tonight after a long illness. And none of us were really prepared.  So, I ask that you pray for my mother for comfort and guidance. I thank you all very much.

Hey family. This is Malisa. Hey Brian, hey Jill. Brian your teachings have been on point my brother. We love you so much. Asia, I have been praying for you. I love you. You were one of the first voices I heard when I started listening…I think…six years ago…you…Daniel J. junior…and Natasha. I love you so much. I'm praying for you my sister. God is able. And Daniel J. junior, I’, praying for your dad.  Jake O., who’s dad committed suicide, your call brought me to tears and I fervently prayed for you last night. And Sharron, I’m praying for you. And…it was Lawrence…Lawrence…I heard your call too. I love you all. I don’t get to call in all the time but I am praying in the background. You all keep us lifted up. Gabby started school and she’s getting off the bus with a smile on her face. So, I hope all is well. You all keep her lifted up. I love you all so much. Bye-bye.  

Good morning my Precious Daily Audio Bible family. This is Pat. I'm a longtime listener and this is only the second time that I've called in. It’s been truly my privilege to pray for the prayer requests that are called in daily. If I miss one day of listening to the Daily Audio Bible I feel like my left arm has been cut off. So, this morning, Daily Audio Bible family, I have a prayer request. My daughter, Christie, has been diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. She is a mother of three - a 14 year old, a 12 year old, and a 1 year old. She will start chemo next week, Thursday. I would covet your prayers for her as she walks through this journey for the next 18 weeks and beyond after the chemo is finished. I love you all and so appreciate everyone behind the scenes of Daily Audio Bible. I know that it takes a village to put something like this on and I so appreciate Brian and Jill and their family. Thank you and God bless. Bye-bye.