#it’s been interesting to see my bootstrap believing parents come to terms with the difference between my brother and I

[h0neyfreak]

***

[queenofallwitches]

an update and primer:

so the last winter was weird. I had a complete breakdown, went into psychiatric hospital for 40 days in total. two seperate times.

learnt a heap of new things, met a tonne of cool people and had amazing conversations and few fights but overcome my own demons by that.

brain speaking-I have a scarred brain stem and neurological disorder is not a mental diagnosis, but a neurological disorder, proven by MRI scan, ADHD.

also damage to my basal ganglia, and prefrontal cortex.

neurological diagnosis means ADHD is not a "mental" health issue, as some believe, rather a neurodevelopment disorder caused by structural differences in the ADHD brain.

other neurodevelopment disorders include: Tourettes, Autism, Cerebal Palsy, Dyslexia and other Motor and Intellectual Disabilities. (Which recieve, in my view, a lot of insight, media information and stigma reduction by the advocacy networks surrounding these types of disability).

Over the last few years Autism has been over everything, I've seen mainstream media cover Tourettes and yet ADHD is still HUGELY misunderstood, misconceived and misrepresented in media, be in from the angle of documentaries, personal insight of a "typical" case, films, tv, and other media.

one of the first things my dr told me was "in females it rarely presents as hyperactive red-cordial OD child"

which is what my mother BELIEVES, that is because I have an adopted cousin with the ADHD dx who was that growing up, but the representation I'm told is also divergent for women with a higher IQ score than the average IQ. I come in around 142 and tested 123 at age 3 when I was unable to focus, pay attention and had severe trauma. I tested 142 in grade 8.

I'll share my experience as a female who is intellectually gifted, with higher IQ than average, and an adhd brain:

I've been told gifted and talented "genius" children are harder to diagnose because the symptoms present differently, we hide it better (camouflage) and our focusing can be "faked" by mediocre efforts of academic success.. this is true, I would do the assignment the Sunday night hours deadline, last minute, or have my parents half do it for me, plagiarise it (fuck I've killed my whole academic career now) copied but changed my words

from old 1970s encyclopaedias I KNEW they couldn't cross reference (I went through 15 years of school never studying doing homework or assignments and still had top grades).

I literally did not listen, and spent my classes planning the end of the world survival strategies with my GT friend who, basically helped me with my calculus and hard fucking maths, which was the ONLY 50 minutes of the day I put attention into my work.

now I'm going to be heading back to full-time study in the coming months, I get anxious as the pressure of a Bachelor level degree, and the pressure it takes me to perform, is enough to break me down. I've been advised it might be wise to start light (like a basic vet style diploma) and then build up, which is logical, but I keep thinking I'm meant to be doing my thesis by now. which is the kind of pressure one gets as a kid who is told repeatedly, "your intelligence is exceedingly the average and you can do ANYTHING you want"

I wanted to be an astronaut, a storm chaser, and an architect, a town planner and then a journalist. I always held to being a "FBI agent" or spy (I wonder why). so when I found psychology is really a blend of all these things, I kinda found a niche in a psych and social science double degree. but I'm thinking my academic career is LIFELONG, and due to the fact I also want to work in my field alongside my many written thesis coming, I'll be in academics for a long time. I may fail a few things, which I have to come to terms with. I do not fail easily, or readily, but I'm a perfectionist type-a academic who will put my whole life on the line to achieve "merit". I get exams, I get assessments, I read journals super-easy, I talk the talk and walk the walk so well psychologists who are at masters level compliment me on my "knowledge".

when it comes to mental health and trauma, I will always have the personal attachment, called lived experience, which will make failure and burnout, 100 percent realistic. I have to boundary up, bootstraps on, and prepare that yes, my personal "bias" will probably be entwined in this.

which is why I'm looking at the social science for the statistics and thesis writing side of things, and the counselling for the trained therapist side. either way, the degree of counselling requires so much self-insight, and then the social-science will back me away from personifying it. the other choice is criminology, which leads to forensic psychology, which is eternally fascinating. my main concern is the pro-pedophile content Ill be up against, which will look at the anatomy of a shoplifter akin to the devil, and leave the pedophile in the DSM-5 dx "paraphilia" box.

I'm not joining or jumping to anything.

either way I've got 2 year of credit, a heap of pathways and a lot of "academic momentum" from all my life being aimed to be "academic powerhouse". I went through my files and found a lot of awards I'd won in my high school, and top place in the competitions we would be entering in. I remember feeling so sad if I had a "credit" vs a distinction or high distinction, only to see now, a credit in university maths in year 9 is a skillset I don't have anymore so, good on me. or a credit in English, or Science at that age was pretty impressive, considering these tests were random and not studied for.

just a general skills assessment only the top 30 kids in the year were to take on a year by year basis and put out to vet from the top universities and taken by other kids in the same grade around the state.

it puts so much focus on my intelligence, because it's primed to be that way, I know that is true. I know I feel good being academically successful and it gives me a feeling of "achievement" but is it really for me?

I also found 2 letters from my local politicians offering me job placement, work experience and I was 1/4 kids in my 10th grade graduation tom get the letter, and due to my behaviour I pissed ALL the idiots who bullied me off. I was "too pretty to be a nerd" "too smart to be pOpUlAr".

so I made a group of misfits, who are all highly intelligent, creative and my group had the ONLY gay male in the school AND THIS IS BEFORE YOU FUCKING RETARDS MADE IT "COOL". he was bullied badly, so fuck you, you fucks claim "liberalism" but I bet you were the type of idiot who bullied guys like him in high school while you pretended to like my chemical romance and fake cut yourselves. I hate you all, forever.

my grade was full of idiots who were fake emo, who left the scene the moment the scene changed to dub-step and club music. I was there, watching you all, like sonny Moore, went from FFTL to that dubstep skrillex shit he started in 2009.

I dated you, hooked up with you and I went to your gigs. I know who was real and who was fake. I met some of you years later and realised the more emotive ones were the less "alternative appearing".

I can say 1/10000 emo guys from the 00s were genuinely Into the music and scene for the right reasons based on my dating history and this can and will be analysed statistically using SPSS one day to prove a lot. I've had too many relationships from each sub-culture and I have had 4-11 males at a time per public "output" of my energy pursue me over life.

I'm not being cocky when I say I have a long line of "suitors" and its banked back about 50 men. it's been a thing I've avoided as it seems to grow based on my body shape, attitude, appearance, so I am currently out of touch with dating scenes, no interest to try that ANYWAY, given the fact that I have had so many LONG TERM relationships ANYWAY. I can't see another one going well, and at this case, I'm living with an ex but we never went on conventional and now our families label this 3 things: "asexual", "polyamorous" and "open relationship". I'm also "bisexual" but this all to humans outside, looks ridiculous on paper. (wild orgies and lots of swinging or some stupid sex magick probably is what J brother literally thinks we do).

bc humans are intrinsically designed to need to label things they don't understand. we share a lease, not a relationship, and fucking polyamorous, I WISH. there are no girl-girl-guy 3 some, or orgies, or sex magic parties.

this has changed the attitude and perception of this "relation' which Is non-romantic, non-sexual. he can date and likely, will, as can I , and I likely won't date.

I would say 14/15 have had ADHD, or other mental illness and or trauma. which means to me, nothing at all.

I think this "open book" non romantic relationship style of "friends and roommates" not sexual.

attachment is misunderstood by others but works well fro my adhd, meaning I'm not expected to marry, or be a wife in any capacity. he is free to do what he wants, as I am, and open communication is a novel frontier I brought into this in the start, and stayed with for the duration. we fight, but I fight with a lot of people in my life over many petty things. also down to my adhd, I believe, I have rejection sensitive dysphoria, which makes me hypersensitive to rejection, perceived or real.

im not sure if this is trauma or adhd or both. but

I have used sexuality as a weapon in many relationships but it cannot or will not be used here, so I have had to resort to uncovering parts of myself which I never knew, which will stay with me even if he decided to marry and wife up in 5 years, which I'm okay and expecting him to do, and I would much rather that then be trapped in a situation where I cannot be that "wife/mother archetype" as I'm too "femme fatal/other-woman/sex-laced seductress and siren" a "FWB, unicorn, drug buddy, hook-up where im a therapist" or "intellectual and cognitive mind-bender work-study obsessed woman".

both at once and many types of human, including one who is a full-time ceremonial magician of 7 years. I will drink, drug, fuck, fight like males and still be more feminine and high maintenance than 89% of women. I grew up a tomboy and don't mind getting into fun, adventure based situations, like hiking, or anything adrenaline, I would only be reluctant to eat weird shit.

I also have many "neurological" issues including ADHD, and trauma which causes a rupture in the average human and I dating.

I'll tell you how many men have said "you are the unicorn" and then realised what that means, I went as far as canvasing the PUA world back in 2014 after reading the game, a book on PUA, which is essentially, pick up artistry, based on NLP and hypnosis. I did this after reading the copy my ex in 2008 handed me before we dated saying "I gave this up for you". it took me years to open the book, buy when I did I truly believed the only way I would fall in love again, was through PUA. that failed in so many ways but gave me a training foundation for men who were candidates for that, I have trained up J, and the way that sounds is BAD. I know, but I got a lot of value myself, I just don't see it how I wanted to see it.

but that was my original intent, and I achieved this he knows that, knew it was happening and evolved for the best self.

I am thinking we can modulate this into a business model for how I was operating in the BDSM world was mainly psychological, not physical.

I get told all of is incredibly intimidating (I am told) to women and men.

I don't really care anymore, because people have always seen this part of me in the wrong way ANYWAY, but I own who I am NOW. which is what I needed ANYWAY. so it cannot be stolen again, and sexual healing has come from abstinence ironically.

I also don't care what or who is trying to tear up my relations, toxic or not toxic, all people around me will be on a healing journey by default, or cut out of my life, for I am radiating that energy so brightly its impossible NOT to feel that pull.

I will drag your shadows into the light, and make your secrets spin from your lips into my consciousness. its not what I do but its what is design.

I make your weaknesses mountains to climb over. you cannot hide from these in my presence, I won't be this controlling or obsessive female who wants 24-7 attention as I have a life full of meaning without love or sex. I don't want to be wined, dined or expensively gifted, unless specially requested.

I don't want love letters or romantic declarations, this isn't some femnazi bullshit, but it triggers me. I appreciate the efforts and won't make you feel bad about your insecurities, for mine are probably 30 x more pronounced.

I appreciate small things, that most males won't or don't know how to do. like remembering things I've said and being thoughtful. or knowing my silence isn't personal, or a game, but a protective wall. I've had songs sung too me, guitars played, songs written, or things made in ways that are heartfelt. but I've always had them used against me too. so it is the context. I value time, energy, conversations of depth and reciprocal exchange. I also value trauma understanding, my alters and fragments being accepted and valued as me as a whole and a person who is not afraid, or scared of stupid stuff like sensitivity, emotions, feelings as raw as my own. men feel intensely too, lol.

but will only give oral sex 100 times before I don't recieve it, I can communicate now so that wouldn't happen.

but I won't be a bitch about this stuff. I am extremely feminine and care in ways other people, do not, I forget nothing people tell me, so it can be a reward or reverse uno card pull in a fight, but I am not evil or deviant in my relations. I react, depending on how you treat me. I don't need your money, or providing source of income to be okay as I am my own queen, however sharing resources is okay to build something. I don't need to be seduced, but will need to be shown a person is trustworthy.

few cross that.

that will always be time-endurance and testing. there are ground rules I don't play with, or play games. or like being forced or forged into something I'm not. I know abusive and I know safe, and I am a psychology expert, trained psychotherapist and study humans for fun, so I'll always be analysing things.

and I know red flags and I know ego, I know how to placate and please and pleasure, but will only do so, for a bigger and better reason than the mere act of seduction. which is without value and transactional to someone like me, I won't lie.

and I know every tactic in the book, for the book was written by someone like me, many lives ago, and my karma is being burnt for that book.

in terms of walls, I have many, may it be called a maze. or labrnyth.

I will teach you things you never thought you'd know, and change your life in ways you won't ever be able to go back to before. I will blow your mind, sexually, emotionally, intellectually, on all levels, and I'll make your friends and family love me.

I'll bring your walls down and you won't be able to understand this, because you don't understand me, and thats ok.

but I'll always understanding you and make your life better because thats what I do anyway, and people talk to me about things I will never share, as I keep secrets. I am jealous, of everything but, only because I am attached in a disorganised way, and working on that.(I won't even mention how man women or men don't know basic psychology of themselves). I also am a therapist , for my friends and family too.i should not be , but I am. I care, I listen, If you think I'm not listening, I'm still listening. sometimes I interrupt, because I have ADHD and I am horrible at resolute planning, or being "normal". but I don't want to be normal anyway. I need you to recognise and understand my shit, for that is what I do for everyone in my life, and I have helped more than I receive.

I'll probably accidentally give you therapy, but thats fine, because you will uncover your depths and find meaning in this. it's not something that goes bad unless you are fundamentally, evil, even the most abusive relationship I was in, was benefited from this process. yes he's still narcissistic, but he is self-aware. and did I benefit, never, just know the anatomy of self-proclaimed narc and I still can't hate him. will get my civil claim one day.

I will fuck your mind without meaning too. but thats because I fuck my own mind. but the meaning is made in the man- some find this highly offensive or personal (its not). I fuck minds by my own overthinking, or over perception on many levels of reality. so join the ride, or don't come along at all. because once the rollercoaster is in motion, I have no control of what may or may not happen. it's purely experimental.

I am experimental.

and the women who are judging me, are not any better.

look within, and shut the fuck up. self-improve and quit this jealous divide and conquer bitchiness. I HATE gossip, bitches, snitches and fakers.

I look to other women who are intellectually, physically and spiritually "individual". and find value in superior status to my own, which is something my narcissistic ex taught me.

I look for mentors, and teachers and people who will teach me how to improve myself, which I am fearful to reconnect after something is amazing and I can't give anything back of positive value. I am sorry I am working on that.

I won't devalue those below me, but I also need to be mutually benefiting from a relationship.

I dont drag people down, I may disappear if I feel I am doing this by mistake. I am flakey as fuck, and sorry for that. its anxiety and lack of perfectionism, so I am wrong and bad for this. I can change. will change.

if you can find value with my relation, personal professional or romantic, we can move into a symbiotic beneficial agreement based on mutual "terms". but many won't or cannot see this, nor do I impose my bullshit into the lives of randoms at this age.

I don't care if this is cruel, it's real.

I value loyalty, compassion, self-insight/awareness, someone who understands all parts-spirituality, metaphysics while still having intellectual & logical & analytical brain-sight.

I enjoy music, magick and learning new things.

I do not care about appearances I dont think ive dated based on one time. I do value connections and chemistry which is far-few between, I hate fakers. I smell insincerity miles away. but I do respect women who are well-presented, or beautiful, with hair beauty and makeup, I can't do this shit well, so I look up to those who are in professions who do it like art. I find them to be genius level queens who scare me.

I call out bad behaviour and make people uncomfortable if they are repressed. I will change you without even meaning too, I don't even need to date you. its just my presence, over time, amplified by the intensity of the dynamics.

I don't want simplicity, but I also don't need over complexity.

I value passion, independence, creativity, curiosity, problem-solving, deep-disscussions, shared adventures and some occasional risk-taking (lol), sensuality and sexuality for a common cause beyond physical pleasure. I like being taught but not micromanaged. I need my own independence, and need to be trusted with that. I hate being scolded for that like a child, or being pushed to change my ways to conform to societal values. which I will push back and refuse to do. which is not healthy. I don't adult like many others do, but I try to proceed in other ways. and learn to adult like normal people, accept me.

I also value myself, and how I can be celebrated, enhanced and improved vs. the opposite.

I give space, and have boundaries, and understand human psychology, sexuality and relationships in ways few others unless they are trained, can do.

I value MY time. so you can have space to value YOURS. I dont need to be in anyones pocket for a long time. I love being alone, and being around people who are stimulating, but draining people will be drained out of my life quicker than I intend. I am sorry for the people who felt I disappeared, when I was only trying to be 'fair', if I feel I'm a bad influence, I will work on myself until I'm not. I'm still working on it.

I also use this psychology awareness, to enhance communication, connection. you may or may not become an accidental guinea pig. I will be upfront that I am experimental, but that is part of the buy ticket and take the ride. lets work together. not apart.

I am coming from a place of love, and love is what I feel for my animals, which you will be adopting as children.which I want to stop experiments being done on. I love love, in all ways, but hate cruelty of animals and children, violence and suffering. I dont advocate justice, because I find life is fucking cruel, unfair and unjust. by default, so I focus on myself. what can be changed, and what I am able to do in my own locus on control. I will always find myself drawn to the outsiders, the misfits, the vagabonds, the misunderstood. I want to help people who are society, or socially, disadvantaged by trauma and mental illness, but only when I have ability to help myself.

it's a journey.

I will not date anyone who is cruel to animals, outside of specify magical sacrifice, there is not any place for that. nor will I date or fraternise with anything or anyone linked or associated with pedophilia. I won't judge anyone on anything that are outside animal cruelty and pedophilia. I don't and haven't. I keep on good terms with every ex, bar 1 whom I only apologised too this year. it felt good to do that. I change my behaviour.

I am open, but also highly attuned to both logical, factual, empirical , scientific worlds, and spiritual, intuitive, psychic and the "collective unconscious". I walk in both these realms, and I am "conventionally attractive". which puts a lot of pressure on me, to be "stupid". I am always dumbing myself down to fit into normality, but I look ridiculous if I do that so I peacock my intellect.

only to be misconceived.

I give up because I no longer care how anyone but MYSELF can see ME. I won't dumb myself down , but I can enhance you UP. prepare yourself for graded education, evolution and self-growth on mass scales.sorry not sorry.

that sucks for the people who want to be living vicariously through me, for making up to lost trauma years, for family who sold me out for the success I'd bring home, or fake trauma enmeshed friends, or whatever they want or need from me. I value my time and energy, and have given that in abundance, and if you want to be with nut only "one part of me that is alters". I can't provide that now. not sorry.

I have to work on something or not be in a dynamic at all.

I no longer can switch on demand to adapt for you, it will not be effective and that upsets a lot of people. especially now I'm sober. harder to handle this, as I see the world for its ways and why it is, more vividly. I haven't had alcohol for almost 2 months, although, I could drink, I haven't.

I can't do it, anymore. it, being, faking, my selves fronting to impress. I can't. I have no more left to give, and I'm expected by everyone to be a way I can't do it in the way they want.

I will go to another year long outpatient DBT, followed by 10 weeks of A-C-T therapy, and however many ECT OR TMS may or may not help. I'm told it won't (ect) work. but TMS, is something I am open too. but I am telling you, none of this psychotherapy, that will be based on dbt skills, day therapy, intensive skills training, recommencing my studying, and resuming "life worth living" will or can wipe the traumas I've "recovered" memories for.

I will also shut the fuck up, and tell nobody about this if you leave me alone, I told that to my family, and this is open letter to the watchers, stalkers and perps who read this openly as I track the hits on here and have 200+ visits a day every day for the last month. globally. no idea how or who you are but I think its the same people who called the police for the "ayreon song lyrics" seen to be a suicide not last October.

thanks for that wake up call, I have shut the fuck up, since December, more so now. I will burn the journals, or lock them up.

my recovery is not linear, not yet fully integrated and I trust nobody so I don't think my psychotherapy will be deep, I focus on things like ADHD AND my EDNOS. and dbt skills. I won't be talking about sexual traumas.

enjoy the update, and thanks for the "attention".

I have my goals, my work, my meaning and what my life should and could and will look like, but I will not share that with anyone. that means everyone right now.

I've been tested, traumatised and terrorised to the point of not-tolerant of anyone who may bring that back, and banish the fuck out of my sphere every moment I need.

take me as I am, or watch me as I go, which I will go, where I am not wanted I will remove myself, but I will find where I am celebrated because I create that.

I will rise up against all adversity every time but that is survival and that created a resilient and brave woman, in me. who will not be destroyed or decomposed by humans who are fundamentally fucking evil.

I gift you my truth, in progression, and give up the pain of the past.

[sharingshane-blog]

Why I am a Leftist

I thought I would spend some time discussing some of my socio-economic beliefs and how I came to where I am today.  My battles with poverty, disability, chronic illness, and discrimination (being genderqueer and bisexual) have largely informed my current beliefs about how society should function.  Just like anybody else, my environment and struggles have shaped who I am and what I believe today.

I have been registered in every party with the exception of the libertarian party.  Currently I have no affiliation.  I have become increasingly more frustrated with the socio-economic and political climate of today, and it is not due to how divisive people are after the orange was elected in 2016.  That divisiveness was always there, and it was always meant to be there.  The so-called problems in this current system are not really problems at all.  They are simply injustices, but those injustices were meant to be there.  The United States was never founded as a land of freedom and democracy.  Hell, only about one-third of the population in the American colonies actually wanted to break away from England.  The vast majority were either ambivalent or actively opposed separation.  The Constitution was drafted and ratified by a legislature that consisted solely of white, cisgender, heterosexual, wealthy, privileged men.  Some were rapists such Thomas Jefferson.  Some were frauds such as George Washington.  Some were narcissists such as Benjamin Franklin.  All of them were racists.  They all possessed power and influence in their given states.  The America today is exactly what America was always meant to be, a place where those privileged few controls and uses the rest of the population for their own personal gain.  It is an oligarchy disguised as democracy and exploitation at its finest.  I am completely pessimistic about the future of America unless the entire system is uprooted and we begin again from scratch.  Anyone who believes that the system can be fixed are unfortunately sorely deceived.  

I came to this understanding during my one-year hiatus from college in 2017.  During this time, I was working at Panera Bread as a cashier. As the year progressed, the job became more difficult.  I was unable to work full-time because of my health.  I was in intensive therapy for the first half of 2017 spending about 10 hours doing that and 20 hours working each week.  It was emotionally exhausting and my chronic fatigue was weighing heavily on me.  During the course of the year my anxiety and PTSD became more intense.  Near the end of my intensive treatment, I began to develop these disassociative episodes or stupors when I was triggered or overwhelmed. It happened to me once while I was driving causing me to have car accident and total my car.  They began happening more at work and I would have to be sent home.  During these episodes, I cannot respond to most external stimuli and am largely unresponsive.  I am unable to speak or speak very little.  I lose track of reality.  I cannot feel different parts of my body particularly my arms and legs.  There became an increase fear that they may be seizures.  Sometimes it appears I am having a stroke.  So far there is no evidence of either.  I developed more chronic pain.  It is highly suspected that I have endometriosis although I haven’t had the opportunity to have the surgical procedure to confirm the diagnosis. There is more, but I will not get into that now.

During this time, I realized how little my health seemed to matter to my employers.  They could make some accommodations for me, but in the end, it was their priority to make sure that business ran smoothly.  If my health got in the way too much, then I could face the chopping block.  I watched as two other fellow coworkers got fired for taking too many sick days. Both have debilitating chronic conditions that could become life-threatening if not treated.  Of course, it would be outright discrimination to fire them based solely on their health conditions.  So, they took another route.  I was terrified of losing my job.  I pushed myself as hard as I could and would neglect my health in the process. It became clearer; however, that I could not maintain the work.  My managers began cutting hours.  I was already not making enough to satisfy basic necessities and now I was making even less.  I was forced to have to live with my parents which was an unhealthy situation for me (which I will refrain from explaining why for the time being).  I felt like a burden on everyone which took a toll on my mental health.  I attempted to return to school after my hiatus while still working my job at Panera and living with my parents.  This proved to be too much for me to handle.  I quit college and moved in with a friend.  I came out as transgender and my hours were cut more at work.  I was eventually forced to quit.  I caught my manager complaining about my health issues behind my back to other coworkers.  This is actually a HIPPA violation, and I could potentially press charges.  In the end though, I am poor.  I do not have the financial and emotional resources to fight her.

Be patient.  I promise you this is all relevant.

In all this, I tried to develop a better way to organize the business in order to make the employees feel less like they are part of a massive machine and more like individual human beings.  I felt as though I was part of that machine, and if I became too weak, the machine would break.  Another thing I realized was that I was easily replaceable.  There is not much incentive for employers to work with me when they could easily switch me out for a stronger part.  No matter how nice they seemed, their primary duty is business.  If they are not successful at it, they will lose their position of power.  The system requires them to be exploitive towards the lower-wage workers.  I could not develop a system in my mind that would fix this unless capitalism as a whole was completely abolished.  If we remove CEO’s and had the workers run the industries democratically, that would fix the problem.  However, this would require a complete uproot of the system today.  I became more familiar with the term class-consciousness.

I am a hard worker and a fighter.  However, I am human and limited.  Because of my disabilities, employers consider me to be a malfunctioned part. I cannot lift heavy things or be on my feet for too long without feeling like I’m about to collapse.  I have now been reduced to a cane.  There is nothing that I can do to change this.  The phrase, “pick yourself up by the bootstraps,” did not work for me.  It did not matter how much effort into the system, I was stuck.  It would have to take sheer luck and a willingness to exploit others to rise up in the ranks.  The latter goes against my moral compass.  I realized that I could never bring myself to ever be a manager.  I cannot ethically justify being in such a position where I have to treat money with greater importance than the human beings that would work under me.

However, in order to create a society in which people are treated as human beings, and true equality is obtained; it would mean that those on the top would have to relinquish their power and wealth.  There is this narrative in which people believe that it is perfectly natural and necessary for there to power figures; otherwise, society would turn to chaos. It is true that we make decisions on our self-interest, but that is why an anarcho-communist society could honestly work.  It is in the workers’ best interest to distrust power figures, to have control over industry, to regain their humanity, to maintain industry and do their part in society, and to be a part of a society.  It will not happen without a fight though.  Millionaires and billionaires will not relinquish their power easily.  The system was created to keep those people at the top.  Racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia have been perpetuated to pin those on the bottom against one another, to keep them from uniting. The police were established to enforce this narrative and protect capitalist interests.  In the North, they were established to protect the transportation of goods and keep poor workers, largely immigrants, from collectivizing and prevent them from having a voice.  In the South, the police were derived from overseers with the intent to preserve slavery. The police system is not broken. It is running exactly how it was intended to run.  The narrative that there must always be people on the top and those on the bottom was a common defense of African-American slavery.  It is an idea with the sole intent to keep people oppressed.

Helen Keller, the famous activist who fought for the rights of those disabled, understood that equality for those disabled could never be obtained in a capitalist society. Disabled people will always be seen as inferior.  Safety was secondary; so, businesses can maintain their quotas increasing the possibility of accidents causing workers to become disabled.  It is not commonly known that she became a socialist herself and became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, an organization which believed that that the workers must run industry.  It is a workers’ union dedicated to democracy and solidarity. Their core belief is that you have nothing in common with your boss.

Bernie Sanders is not a true socialist.  He is a social democrat, and lately he has had to tame his speech in order to maintain his power and influence.  He believes in a highly regulated capitalist system.  Socialists believe in abolishing capitalism altogether.  

I am an actual socialist.  I do not believe the system is flawed.  I believe the system works exactly how it is supposed to function and it is disgusting. This ended up being a loner post than I had planned it to be, but I do have much to say on the subject.  It is something I am passionate about even though I will probably not see this come to fruition.  I hope this was insightful to how I have come to my beliefs which I hold today.

[freshobservationcollection-blog]

Mental Health in my life

How do I begin? I have struggled with mental health issues my whole life. Originally I was under the care and duress of a very mentally ill mother who until this day does not acknowledge her illness. Because of circumstances being what they were, I was very depressed growing up but often told by my ill mother to “get over it”, “you are just being dramatic”. Never once in my childhood was mental illness taken seriously. It was always considered that if you were closer to God then you would be fine. I learned early on not to trust my parents with my emotional being. I recall the fights wherein my father was emotionally and physically abused repeatedly by my mother. I remember my father threatening to take his own life because of how worthless she made him feel.  Growing up in a “Christian” home made me long to see my savior sooner rather than later. Heaven was built as a glorious place, which I am sure it is, but it fed my depression and anxiety. I wanted to find ways to get there faster because it would be so much better there – with a parent who truly loved me for me, no more pain, no more humiliation at the hands of the one on earth who was supposed to love me.

I have read truly horrifying stories of others who have gone through childhood abuse – most instances worse than mine.  It has taken me a long time to realize that that does not diminish what I lived through – what to this day are things I can’t always remember but my sister tells me is best that way. It does not lessen my PTSD symptoms. When I least expect it, when I am feeling “normal”- I will have a flashback, or nightmares unceasingly reliving the lies I grew up with about myself, the core of my being and the beatings that I didn’t always remember.  I don’t welcome this, I don’t embrace it. I am not happy to say, yes I have forgiven but I can’t forget. More than anything I want the ability to forget forever. Hopefully heaven will allow that.

Dealing with my family history and my own issues, has helped me tremendously in the life I have chosen for myself. I am married to a mentally ill man. His issues run deeper than even he realizes most of the time. Times when he needs the most help are also the times he pushes people away the most, when he trusts the least those who love him the most.

I have been subjected to various forms of emotional abuse from him over the years. While it has gotten better, I am still regularly reminded by him of what he believes my weaknesses are. I have fought very hard to have a healthy self-image and am willing to admit I, like others on the planet, have weaknesses but the one you love is not supposed to use those weaknesses against you. If this same attitude were turned onto him, then I would be “attacking” and “criticizing while a man is down”. I have had to leave work in fear for the safety of my children – thrilled at the same time to realize that when we created a safety plan they were listening, and were able to implement it. I have been stressed over the fact that I am working and going to college, leaving my kids to the whims of my husband’s moods. I have been stressed to think I am not a good mother either way – working or not working.  I have had my children take self-defense lessons from a trusted friend to defend themselves in the event he thinks he could get away with laying a finger on them. I have in my mind, distinguished between domestic violence as it is culturally defined and mental illness related “going off”. – Not that there is any research out there to really prove the difference, but with my history, trust me- there is a difference.

 The things I have gone through have left me alone. The church does not check in with a couple struggling with mental illness within their family. Heck, I found out at 18 that some pastors will just say you are a wayward teen – even if you are trying to unveil the truth and get your siblings to safety finally. I think there are a few reasons that the church isn’t behind the family dealing with mental illness:

1.      There are way too many people in the church who believe if your relationship with God were better you would be fine;

2.      Along the same lines, people believe if someone were to just pull themselves up by the bootstraps and think positively the ill person would magically be better.

3.      Mental illness is contagious – heaven forbid!!!

4.      The person is a sucker- sucking the life out of everyone who enters their orbit without giving back.

5.      The biggest reason- this is a long term care issue. Most illnesses have an ending time frame. Mental illness is life- long. Who has the time to commit to a friendship like that? Who even wants to?

After Robin Williams death, my mother started her platitudes about if one is closer to God then one will be happy. Apparently this is the same reason she won’t discuss her own nervous breakdown when I was 2 or3. Her belief is not that she was under stress with 2 children 16 months apart, and a mother who just died, but that all she needed to do was get right with God. I am a Christian. I believe God is Jehovah Rapha – the God who heals. I also believe as a church, we need to back off of this theology A LOT. In order for a church ordained healing to have taken place, there should be a further diagnosis from a doctor that symptoms are no longer present. There are some recorded times of this happening in the 20th & 21st Century. Just telling the world you are healed is not healing in and of itself. God still works today. I do not doubt that. What I have problems with is those who abuse this train of thought. Job was told by his friends that he must be disobeying God in some manner, have some secret sin. This was not the case; Job was still praising God through the storm. My own experience as a teen plays this out. I am sure that I am not the only teen raised “Christian” who thought life would be so much better on the other side of death then on this side. How could it be a sin to want to give your life and start life with God eternally?

People do not choose to be mentally ill, and especially when dealing with depression – can’t just CHOOSE to be happy. Have you ever woken up on a raining workday morning and the day has just sunk into your bones unbidden? If you haven’t, you are blessed. Depression is akin to the rainy morning, but it doesn’t stop when the sun comes out. It doesn’t stop if you sleep just 15 more hours because that is all you need – sleep.  It doesn’t stop if you have things on your schedule that are a “must do” yet you are too lethargic to make the must do list. So, the thing that works for you every time, your favorite hobby is calling for you to help pull you out of your pit of despair – instead what you hear is you are a failure, you won’t amount to anything, you can’t even do the stuff you use to enjoy doing, who would want to spend time with someone so worthless?

It seems that those who have no heart for the mentally ill think that just by listening to another’s struggles, you will get depressed too. Seriously? Can that be any more wrong? Yes, I understand talking too much to depressed people may make you see things through their eyes. So what? Isn’t that what compassion and empathy are about?  

About the great void created by the mentally ill in my life. No there isn’t one. It doesn’t suck you in. Mentally ill people who acknowledge they have an issue are nothing if not honest with their closest friends. They expect the same in return. One of my best friends has issues, and I can tell her, “Look, you are just too much like my husband right now and I can’t take it at the moment, I can only be a shoulder for one at a time right now. I will call you but right now he takes priority.” She understands this give and take. She understands that I love her enough to respect her while telling her constantly that she drives me crazy in the same way my husband does. She gets it – she sees the similarities.

At the same time, those who acknowledge their illness and are honest are the most loyal friends a person can have. These friends also seem to me to be gifted in some area and just don’t know how to apply that to the world at large. When they are stable, there are untold depths to their personality, person, character that people just do not take the time to see. The insight into their realms of subjects, their loyalty is unmatched. There is a wealth of information, philosophy and varied interest that lies within the mentally ill that many do not get to see because they judge first and never take the time to ask questions or get to know the person.

Please note that I have made a distinction between those who acknowledge their disease and those who don’t. People who regularly believe that they would be “…okay if…” are not accepting their diagnosis. It is normal, any psychiatrist will tell you, that once properly medicated, a patient will often begin to feel normal, and decide that the medicine is no longer needed. This is different than those who choose not to acknowledge their issues. It is common for anyone to just want to be “normal” and once that perceived state is reached, believe medicine is no longer a need. This is where good friends come in again- to correct the wrong perceptions of those in the struggle. Open, honest dialogue aids in the on-going care. The dialogue cannot be open, cannot be honest, can be thought to be traitorous if the true friendship isn’t in place.

The hard calls. Friends learn to make the tough decisions. I wish I knew when I was younger about calling the police to take my mom to the hospital so she would get treated. With my husband, we are at the point that we have long talks. Although he prefers never to see a locked ward again, we both know I would only do what is best for him mentally. My girlfriend, I am an ear for her to vent. I have had to consider the possibility of breaking her confidence, but somehow it all worked out.

Since I have learned over the years how to take care of me – because after all, not many others are looking out for my best interest –I am the caretaker. I have always felt a caretaker role but my depth of understanding has grown. No, I don’t have any college degrees (yet!); all I have is life as a teacher. There is no better student then one who wants to learn from the lessons life presents.

I have cried out for help, only to realize that none is really available. I have a son who was very young and couldn’t get to sleep because he was sure he would wake up with a knife in his hand and be killing us and him. Crisis response was that “he’s tired, calm him down and get him to sleep”. So the cycle continues in my life.

All that is continuously going on, all that I don’t really have time or the energy for - yet my kids deserve so much therefore - I will continue to make their lives the best I can according to my capability; according to the talents God has bestowed on me. Amid everything, we have a very open and honest relationship with the kids as to how this affects them personally and as people for the world at large. Their views of others struggles are so much more mature than that of their peers (and even a lot of adults I know) and that is an outcome I can be grateful for.

[woodworkingpastor]

On Eagle’s Wings Exodus 19:3-7; 20:1-17 October 7, 2018

Opening Prayer

            © 2018 Thom Shuman, www.lectionaryliturgies.com (adapted)

Saving God, you saw your children as slaves in Egypt, and brought them to freedom; you see creation held captive by our desire for more and more, and you weep; and so you pour out your foolish love on us from day to day.

All that we have learned and think we know has not brought meaning to our lives; the brokenness of our world needs your peace; our pain-shattered hearts need your healing: and so you speak to us through your Servant, Jesus.

All the broken of our world long for your wholeness; all who hunger for hope long for the sweetness of your grace and joy; and so you fill us with the Wisdom of your Spirit.

Be present with us in our worship this morning; enable us to respond to your grace with boldness, courage, and creativity. Amen.

Philip Yancey often talks about the faith he was taught as a young boy, a faith that was heavily focused on rules and religious pecking orders.  He describes this by saying “At the top [of the list of sins] was smoking and drinking. Movies ranked just below these vices, with many church members refusing even to attend The Sound of Music. Rock music, then in its infancy, was likewise regarded as an abomination, quite possibly demonic in origin.

Other proscriptions—wearing makeup and jewelry, reading the Sunday paper, playing or watching sports on Sunday, mixed swimming, skirt length for girls, hair length for boys—were heeded or not heeded depending on a person’s level of spirituality. I grew up with the strong impression that a person became spiritual by attending to these gray-area rules. For the life of me, I could not figure out much difference between law and grace” (What’s so amazing about grace, 30).

He goes on to quote Mark Twain, who sometimes described people who were “good in the worst sense of the word.”  Yancey talks about conversations with strangers where he asks them to describe Christians. In all his years of asking people about this, never once has he heard someone say “people who are filled with grace.”

Stop and think about that for a minute.  How could this be?  For all of the hospitals and orphanages and leprosariums and disaster response and (in Roanoke) teacher’s aides and backpack meals that basic Christian compassion have been responsible for, how is it that Christians are better known for judgment and rules than about grace?

Our Scripture texts today remind us of the balance between law and grace; these texts come out of God’s particular involvement with people. Moses is on the mountain with God so that the relationship between God and the Hebrew people can be made official, if you will.  Our Bible reading for last week brought us through the description of what came before.  And among the stories of Moses’ call and all of the plagues and the ultimate escape from Egypt, maybe you noticed the constant refrain that the people were brought into the wilderness to worship God. We might think the point of this was to sacrifice a lot of animals, or spend time singing, or sharing litanies, or praying. Fundamentally, worship is more than this.  Worship is a public declaration of what we believe has ultimate importance. Worship is not only about the songs we sing and the words we say; these are a means to an end. Worship is about relationship and commitment, call and response, sacrifice and blessing.

Which makes it fascinating to me that the compilers of the Narrative Lectionary had the wisdom to pair these two passages, Exodus 19 and 20. How many times in recent years has there been some kind of public controversy over the display of the 10 Commandments in public places?  In terms of our relationship with God, what happens in Exodus 19 is more important than the 10 Commandments of Exodus 20, because Exodus 19 tells us that what ought to be on display in public is our transformed lives.

God establishes a relationship with these people based on three significant points:

The first is an act of grace:  I bore you on eagles’ wings.  When God found the people, they were fundamentally broken. If you keep that in mind as you read about their travels described in Exodus, their whining and complaining and rebelling starts to make sense.  A friend of mine adopted a child out of foster care; this child is a testament to how quickly parental dysfunction can damage a child.  This young boy has numerous behavior issues based on the things that happened to him in the womb, and in the first six to nine months of his life.  He continually acts out of this brokenness.  Every parental response that my friends take toward their child is an act of grace.  It’s hard work.  But it is grace.

The thing we are inclined to forget is that this is how we came to faith: not as whole people, but as broken people.  We like to think we can pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, but it is a lie.  We are each broken people, and our brokenness impacts our relationships with one another in so many ways. We try to hold it all together and put on a good show and hide our brokenness behind a mask, or a neatly manicured lawn and brightly painted front door. Being exposed is the worst thing that could happen to us.

In times when our brokenness gets in the way of our grace, I wish we viewed the church in the same way that sick persons viewed a trip to the doctor’s office: that the church would be the first place we turn to find forgiveness and acceptance.

Of course, it turns out that sometimes people will choose to be sick because it seems better than what they fear will happen if they go to the doctor.  Some of you know Emily Shonk Edwards.  She’s a medical doctor, and I asked her this week about the reasons people give for not coming to the doctor when they know something is wrong.  Here’s what she said:

Don’t have health insurance.

Work in jobs where they don’t have time off to take for appointments.

The doctor won’t listen to me.

Too busy taking care of other people.

Want to believe that they are healthy and the doctor will discover they are not.

Afraid that they will be given bad news.

Afraid of being sent to the hospital.

Afraid that their independence will be compromised.

It’s interesting to notice how many of these reflect on the fact that a cruelty of being broken is that we become fearful of the thing that can bring healing.  But this need not be an obstacle in our relationship with God. Our brokenness is not the defining issue.

There second are some expectations in this relationship. If you obey my voice… Grace is the foundation of this relationship.  Law would come, because in our brokenness we need some boundaries.  The 10 commandments are important, they’re just not the only important thing. No one thinks it’s cruel to tell a young child to keep some distance from a fireplace or the street in front of their house.  Boundaries give us more freedom than we often admit.

This expectation would prove to be a huge problem for the people. By the time we’ve read through to the end of the Old Testament and heard the words of the prophets (which we’ll get to later this Fall) we will see that the prophetic critique of the people was that they had not stayed within the boundaries; they had not extended to others the same grace that God had extended to them.

In the Old Testament we see the seriousness of this described in “blessings and curses” passages, like one we see in Exodus 20:4-6:

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

It is interesting to note how quickly we see the harshness of God in the passages about judgement.  Some rabbis did the math on this verse, noting that while God’s punishment might extend to the fourth generation, God’s love would extend to the thousandth generation.  They calculated that God’s love was 250x stronger than God’s anger.  

Who of us could say that about ourselves?  I wonder how many times I’ve heard some express—either in fear or in jest—that God would zap them with a lightening bolt for a misdeed? I feel certain I’ve heard that more frequently than God would pursue them and love them so much they’d never want to leave again.

But if all this isn’t enough, we come to the third point: You shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.

Grace and law; acceptance and boundaries have a purpose.  Think about this. These people will be a priestly kingdom—it means they will be for other people what God was for them—the means to a right relationship with God.  That’s a big idea.  Let that sink in for a bit.  Think about when this story fits on a timeline: it was the third new moon after they left Egypt.  Three months ago. Think about what you were doing on July 7 and how much (or probably how little) has changed in your life since then. Three months was all it took for God to say to them: “You will be the people through whom I will bless the world.”  Think about who they are. Think about how little they know about God.   People attend church for years and don’t feel they are capable of serving God.  Clearly, our abilities aren’t what God is interested in. Our availability is what matters, because this isn’t a relationship based solely on how we perform; it is a relationship based on grace.

We don’t need to live in fear of God or fear of our past or fear of what we can’t do.  We just need to come.

In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning includes a story of former New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.  Odds are that this story is not true. But the story remains instructive as an illustration of grace:

In the middle of the Great Depression, New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia strived to live with the people. It was not unusual for him to ride with the firefighters, raid with the police, or take field trips with orphans. On a bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself. Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told the mayor that her daughter’s husband had left, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. However, the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. “It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor,” the man told the mayor. “She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.”

LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said, “I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions. Ten dollars or ten days in jail.” But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous hat, saying, “Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Baliff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.”

The following day, New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered woman who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren. Fifty cents of that amount was contributed by the grocery store owner himself, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.

[dukestudents]

The Other Duke Groups, Part 1: Coven

Hey Duke Students! While your minds may all be on final exams (and all the work you have yet to do), I’m here to direct your attention to something new.

It’s no secret that Duke has an insane amount of organizations and clubs. If you’re not in them, chances are you’re at least on a listserv or two (or three, and for the life of you, you can’t figure out how to get off it). But what about the groups you may not know of?

           In the coming series, I’ll be conducting interviews with members of some of the groups that you might not have ever heard of, or groups that are so niche you may never have crossed paths. You’ll meet tea connoisseurs, kazoo conductors, and today, two Duke students with their own blossoming digital media publication.

(Coven’s team)

             Coven  is an online platform that is working to empower women through the literature that they publish. In addition to the magazine, Coven cultivates small and large “covens” that bring women together to offer encouragement, resources, and wisdom. Their events, which range from coffee chats to full-fledged ‘Witch Fests’, “aim to galvanize the incredible women who know that true success is somewhere at the intersection of ambition and reality.”

I got the chance to hear from the publication’s two founders - sophomores Alexandra Davis and Caroline Brockett - who filled me in on all the incredible work that they’ve already accomplished.

While you’ll read all about Coven in the interview below, the most impressive part about Davis and Brockett’s publication is the message they put across about collegiate life. As any college student - particularly a Duke one - can confirm, there is no shortage of pressures to be faced with on the daily. Coven is deconstructing the myth of effortless perfection. They do this by uniting readers through empowering pieces, eye-opening photography, and most importantly, by fostering a community of support among college women.

           Read on to hear directly from the the two amazing founders themselves.

(first: Alexandra Davis, second: Caroline Brockett)

What is Coven?

Coven is a digital media publication that publishes literature by, for, and about college women. To all the college women who have been there, Coven is for you. We provide our readers with minutes of empowerment on the C1, during lectures, or post-Shooters.  

Our content combats unrealistic collegiate expectations, or the idea that everyone seems to and “should” have the perfect life, academics, and body. Life isn’t perfect nor is anyone, so these expectations do nothing but add to the anxieties of college life, especially as with women. Instead, Coven romanticizes the real. Today, we have a small but brilliant coven of editors, creatives, and social influencers working to build something that's never been built before.  

In addition to the magazine, we cultivate small and large “covens” that bring women together to offer encouragement, resources, and wisdom. Our events--whether coffee chats or full-fledged Witch Fests--aim to galvanize the incredible women who know that true success is somewhere at the intersection of ambition and reality.

What inspired Coven’s beginning?  

Alexandra: I spent more time on Amazon Prime strategizing party outfits than I did on Thesaurus.com freshman year. And that terrified me. When I started thinking about the possibility of Coven a year or so ago, I wanted college women to have their own, unique manual on How to Be Their Badass Selves, not what social media told them they should be. I wanted to provide my Duke friends with a place to make the best of the beautiful pain and cringe-worthy awkwardness of being a college girl.  

In discussions with high school peers over Thanksgiving break, friends were all-too-quick to recount their dejected college experiences, too. But as I returned from break, I became demotivated by Duke’s atmosphere of effortless perfection. Being a Duke student was already a full-time job. Social, physical, and academic pressures just compounded my stress. I needed to separate myself from this inhibiting environment to make a meaningful difference. Thus, The Coven was born in a semester off, and I continue to run it back at Duke today.  

Caroline: Freshman year of college was a year of many firsts for me, especially as it pertained to failure. I had never experienced it on so many levels before: academically, socially, and so on. Though it felt crushing at times during these moments, I was lucky to have a team of successful women behind me that could speak and assimilate to my experiences, providing me with the encouragement and confidence I needed to pick myself up by the bootstraps and persevere. It was these times of trial that helped me see what The Coven can mean to people and grow to be. I believe it has the potential to serve as a secondary support system, like a virtual mother/sister/friend to make you laugh, ponder in awe and feel quite alright by the end of it all. The Coven showcases real women with their real lives, not just the glamorized fairytales of those who simply ‘have it all.’ The Coven is authentic, inspiring, and it was exactly what I and so many other women were looking for.

How is Coven redefining what it means to be a media organization?

 First and foremost, we are a community. Today, the only nod premier publications give their readers is a haphazard “Letters to the Editor” afterthought. Coven’s readers aren’t just integral parts of our publication, but they are the publication. Their experiences are our featured stories, and their feedback enhances each article in order to make the stories on the website as multidimensional as possible. We don’t just accept written and visual stories, but we also use the comments and social postings that content inspires  to build out our issues. In order for our content to always be inspiring, they always need to be holistic representations of what being a college women can be.  

Just this weekend, our friends were so early to an event that we drove aimlessly around its radius, in full costume, until we came across an old gas station. By the time we had cleaned the store out of its Hot Cheetos, the owner asked to take photos of us. About 15 questionable poses later, we were half convinced that the only reason the store owner asked for photos in the first place was for someone to come and see if we were OK. We had made ourselves so late to the event--and had so much fun doing it--that we even questioned going. Those are the genuine feelings, stories, and cringe-worthy moments that we want to share through Coven. Whether accepting submitted photos, stories, or even recreating social media comments, we want to turn your cringe-worthy moments--the sheer embarrassment of earliness--into the empowerment of your own, personal gas station photoshoot.

What have been some of your biggest successes as an organization?

We have an online presence, but we also have in person meet ups to facilitate discussion and connections between collegiate women--our boss witches! Some of our best successes haven’t necessarily meant our “biggest,” but the most inspiring for our readers.  

For example, we sent a group of our Coven Correspondents to attend Her Conference, a multi-day career development conference for college women in New York. There, they were able to privately speak with two of the Keynote speakers, actress Aja Naomi King (How to Get Away with Murder) and actress, writer, and producer Troian Bellisario (Pretty Little Liars). We offer these “Witch Fests,” as we call them, in order to inspire our readers to further envision and lead lives they love. In the past, Witch Fests have ranged from Her Conference to the Museum of Ice Cream in Los Angeles to a cozy home in Joshua Tree. These events are just another way that we foster an empowering community for our readers.  

What have been some challenges?  

You can’t have two full-time jobs. One of the biggest challenges has been trying to run the publication as sophomores in college. (*Alexandra speaking) Obviously, I figured that out when I decided to take the semester off to found and begin running the publication. But, ultimately, there’s no equivalent to a Duke education, or the resources they can provide us.

(*Caroline speaking) As a sophomore majoring in Psychology, there is a lot that I don’t know about how to run small logistics. I know Alexandra will agree with me on that too. While there is so much that we both don’t know, there is an incredible wealth of knowledge in the people surrounding us. From mentors on Duke’s campus to our parents to older friends, we have been lucky to have a great reception from many who are willing to help with their areas of expertise. So while there have been a plentiful amount of road bumps, blocks, and detours, it has been a fantastic learning experience in which we both come out every day having learned something new. Overcoming the challenges we encounter is what makes us tougher and stronger, so I wouldn’t change it for the world.  

What do you hope for Coven in the future?

There are a lot of things that Alexandra and I hope to see in Coven’s future. I deeply believe that our mission of empowerment, equality, and authenticity, can continue to expand Coven to different dorm rooms nationwide. It is our hope that Coven can inspire a change, and bring this to different collegiate women, one by one. Effortless perfection is something that has the ability to pervade an entire culture and place an incredible amount of stress and anxiety on the individual, especially when on campuses. Because of this, we at The Coven find it inspiring to see smaller Duke publications subsequently write stories on this topic as well, trying to combat this unrealistic standard.  

Is Coven looking for others to get involved? If so, how?  

The Coven team is always looking for new and inspiring talent. We have an option to submit on our website, but those who are interested in working us longer term are always welcome to reach out to us by email or social media with their thoughts or talents. We have room for collegiate women interested in virtually all fields, from marketing to graphic design to poetry to finance (just to name a few). I always encourage anyone who is passionate and driven to put their effort into this work to reach out to us! We love everyone on board with us now, and would be thrilled to further expand our team.

                                                            ***

                   All in all, Coven is the perfect example of a group started by Duke Students that deserves far more attention. Since learning about the publication, Coven has quickly become my newest C1 distraction, and I don’t doubt that it might become yours, too.

Useful Links:

Website: https://thecovenmag.com/  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coven.mag/  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecovenmag/  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thecovenmag/  

-Samantha Steger

[pitchinasia]

Entrepreneurs on pitchIN

Stanley Chee and Jeffry Chan – SalesCandy

The SalesCandy CRM was conceptualised when Stanley and Jeff realised that there wasn’t a CRM in the market that focussed on fast paced leads management and sales generation. They did a bit of research and started talking to potential customers. The clients were so interested that some put money down even before the CRM was built.

Meet Stanley and Jeff, the founders of SalesCandy.

Share a little bit about your employment background.

Stanley - I worked as a Java servlet developer (programmer) in the States back in the year 2001, after graduating from Arizona State University as a Computer Systems Engineer.  After I came to KL in 2002, I have been starting and running businesses.

Jeff - I worked in an international digital agency based in KL prior to my entrepreneur journey. I have started close to 5 companies prior to SalesCandy. With a total of 5 years in digital marketing, I have slowly pivoted to offer performance based digital e-commerce and lead generation advertising services while being transparent with my clients’ budget.  One of my longest standing clients, Tropicana Berhad, has been with me for more than 2 years.

Where are you from? What was your childhood like? Grew up in which town? Which school etc.

Stanley - I was born in Cheras, the third of four siblings.  My parents ran businesses.  My dad passed away in 2001 and my mom is in her 70s now. She is still running her garment wholesale business. I grew up in Pudu on the top floor of my parent's shophouse on Jalan Pasar, I spent a lot of time playing Street Fighter with my 1-year apart younger brother in the video arcades.  I went to Chinese independent school, Tsun Jin High School, and was enrolled into American Degree Program in Inti College Subang before completing my degree in USA.

Jeff – I was born in Teluk Intan. My parents moved to Kuala Lumpur when I was still an infant. I grew up in Subang, had my high school years in Sri KL, and then enrolled into Taylor’s College before completing my Hospitality Degree in Toulouse, France.

When and what gave you the inspiration to become an entrepreneur?

Stanley - When I was in the States, I always thought that if I were to start a business, I would be the behind-the-scene guy as I'm a full-blown introvert. I can be working in front of the computer for days without the need to interact with any human being.  My mindset changed when I returned to KL and joined my friend’s business as a partner.  Since then, I have been exposed to and am fascinated by the many disciplines that I wasn't familiar with, including corporate structure, human resources, legal, intellectual properties, marketing, accounting, and financials.  I like the part that an entrepreneur is fully accountable for the results of the company and I really love soaking up new knowledge from diverse disciplines.

Jeff - Money was hard to come by in my family when I was young. I bootstrapped my first startup venture back when I was 24. Over the years I have been involved in various businesses - from distributing skincare products to running a digital agency.  I have had my fair share of failures in my previous startups before finally founding my current digital advertising agency, Adversary, that specialises in running its own e-commerce stores.  Being an entrepreneur has truly pushed me to the next level, as you are always in the unknown. The adrenaline feeling of building something of your own from scratch is invigorating. Yet, I am still learning everyday from growing SalesCandy.

What is the inspiration behind SalesCandy? If you to give in one sentence, what's special about SalesCandy?

Stanley - Jeff and I stumbled upon a big pain point when we were running online lead generation campaigns for our property developer clients.  The average time taken for the lead to get a call from the salesperson is way too long (1 to 2 weeks on average).  What's special about SalesCandy is that it is the only CRM in the market which does instant routing of leads from all sources to the salesperson phone and automatically re-route it to another salesperson if the first one didn't accept the lead in 45 seconds.  Our company tag line is "Close More Sales" as the full focus of SalesCandy is to help our clients and their sales team close more sales.

Jeff - Being SMEs ourselves, Stanley and I felt the pain points of a typical small business owner/salesperson who is always on the go who needs a simple CRM integrated within phones. SalesCandy was created to fill that missing gap. It is created for businesses who truly want to prioritise sales generation. Our patent-pending CandyPixel tech will revolutionise how businesses are able to get their enquiries/leads on the go. You can generated a CandyPixel code that is inserted into your website source (all websites are compatible from Squarespace, Wordpress, PHP, Wix, and all) and it will automatically flow leads through SalesCandy. The beauty is SalesCandy takes less than 5 minutes to setup.

How has the journey been thus far?

Stanley - Crazy, in a good way!  The solution is very well received and the pain points are real and clear. We managed to secure four paying early adopters even before the system is ready.  The product went live in August and we are in the midst of rolling out the solution to our early adopters.  OSK Property is fully running on SalesCandy now and next in-line will be Tropicana and Hap Seng Land, followed by TOC Automotive College.

Jeff - The journey has been a roller coaster! We are rolling out a pilot project for Hong Leong Bank, meaning they would be our first Bank Early Adopter! We are on target to surpass our RM1.1m revenue projection this year!

Tell us about your most challenging time in the SalesCandy journey.

Stanley - I believe it was the timeline we had to deliver the v1.0 after the contract was signed and payment made by our very first early adopter back in April this year.  We had four months from money in to deliver the product, including an Android app, and a browser based Manager Portal.  I am proud to say that we delivered on time, while somehow finding the time to secure another three early adopters, getting the pitchIN fundraising exercise started and participating in and winning (one of the 5 winners) the HLB LaunchPad Programme. Phew!

Jeff – There were hurdles every point of the way, from selling an app using only presentation slides to selling with an actual demo. While rolling out every new version, we were always simultaneously working towards the next version.

We faced some challenges prior to starting the company when we approached potential VCs and investors for seeding but were turned down as we had no revenue back then. Stanley and I didn’t take NO for an answer. We created a sales deck to sell using Powerpoint slides to garner early adopters for the project. We then bootstrapped the company using the early adopter’s upfront deposits as part of the funding. I am truly grateful for our first 4 early adopters which has made what SalesCandy is today.

Briefly tell us about where SalesCandy is today. Its successes, etc. Among all, what are you most proud of with regards to SalesCandy?

Stanley - SalesCandy is rolling out the solution to its four early adopters and we are gathering feedback in terms of UX. We also crushed some bugs along the way. There is a lot to be proud of, but the one that I am most proud of is when our early adopter congratulated us on the first property sale that was closed by their salesperson using SalesCandy. From the lead being submitted on Facebook Lead Ads, to the first call being made in less than 30 minutes, then to the lead visiting the sales gallery and finally making a deposit, it took the salesperson merely 9 days for the whole process. Those 9 days happen to be the average duration it takes other property developers sales team who are not using SalesCandy to make their first call. I'm very proud of my team. It is my goal to create a global technology brand that all Malaysians can be proud of.

Jeff - There has been many occasions to celebrate with SalesCandy - from the millisecond routing during testing phase to the results we’ve seen from our early adopters thus far. I am really proud of my team for churning such a rigid app from scratch in only 3 months.

Where do you see SalesCandy being 3 years from now?

Stanley - By the end of 2020, we should be established in Asia Pacific with revenue streams coming in from both corporate clients and Google Play Store self-sign up.  We should be finished rolling out our Sales Optimization Algorithm, Marketing Automation and Sales Automation with Chat Bot assistant features.  We would probably be going through Series B or C of fund raising to further dominate the world with our whole new approach to CRM.

Jeff - We would like to put real automation into our hybrid mobile-CRM ranging from our Sales Optimisation Algorithm all the way to the viability of an AI-Assisted CRM Auto-Log. Using these algorithms, we plan to penetrate China within the next 3 years, and build a USD100M revenue company there.

What do you do when not working on SalesCandy? Your hobbies, how you spend personal time, family time etc

Stanley - My 16-month old baby boy, Rinat, keeps me busy when I'm not working on SalesCandy.  My wife and I love to travel and we are very active in this organization called EO (Entrepreneurs Organization) which involves 3 conferences in different parts of Asia every year.

Jeff - Due to the hectic nature of my work, I tend to prefer going on relaxing trips like by the beach, or a secluded city. One thing I can’t live without is the internet as my work revolves around it!

Salescandy is raising up to RM1,500,000 on pitchIN Equity (http://bit.ly/salescandyecf). As at time of writing, they have raised RM1,250,865 from 43 investors.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT PARENTS

It's a bit like anaerobic respiration: not the optimum solution for the long term. Some angels might balk at this, but much of what they're responding to when they lose interest in a startup can stay in grad school, a lot of kids who grew up in Manhattan, and as a rule, the more prominent the angel, the less likely they are to say it. Odds are it will be a junior person; they scour the web looking for startups their bosses could invest in. Nowadays a lot of macros, and I can't think of one that began in an incubator. If you disagree with. Inventors of wonderful new things are often surprised that investors expect them either to sell the company or go public. But what a difference it makes to be able to make arbitrary transformations on the source code. One of the least excusable reasons adults lie to maintain their power, and what to do. The lies are rarely overt. A few Thanksgivings ago, a friend of mine rarely does anything the first time as an adult. It's so easy to understand what they do: you call a function on the macro's arguments, and so, later, was Perl.

And as many programmers have observed since, one is very often mistaken about where these bottlenecks are. They may if they are extraordinarily fortunate do an IPO, which we should remember is also in a sense using a mainframe-era programming techniques. It's a lot like being a postdoc: you have no revenues. It's that startups will underestimate the difficulty of raising money. Alas, you can't; you have to say yes or no, and then, fairly quickly, they learn whether they guessed right. Years, probably. And there are pretty strict conventions about what a cheeseburger should look like. Don't just think investors are stupid. You can assume the cook isn't going to try something weird and artistic. I'd consider it to be real.

I'm not saying we should stop, but I can infer it from the fact that I didn't ask my parents for seed money, though. What kind of book do you read and feel sad that there's only half of it left, instead of comparing each character. These guys entered a market already dominated by two big, entrenched competitors, Travelocity and Expedia, and seem to have just humiliated them technologically. Isn't computer technology something that changes very rapidly? Well, we humans are as conspicuously different from other animals as the anteater. And so interfaces tend not to give you bigger abstractions—bigger bricks, as it were, so you don't need them. Google and there were several will remember it for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot. At least, that was what had happened to the language he had designed. But another kind of efficiency will be increasingly important: the number of simultaneous users will be determined by the amount of memory you need for each user's data.

White. The project either gets bogged down, or the result is sterile and wooden: a shopping mall rather than a bumbler who needs to be a good idea to have a language designed by a committee. That's not a recent trend; change has been accelerating since the paleolithic era. But the investor is already being compensated for that risk in the low price of the stock, so it is in other ways more accurate, because when someone is being an asshole it's usually uncertain even in their own mind how much is deliberate. Bookstores are one of the biggest threats to a startup that's already taking off, but there aren't enough investors who will give $200k to a startup, then hand them off to VC firms. We can all imagine an old-style editor getting a scoop and saying this will sell a lot of wild goose chases, but I've never had a good way to look at what you've done in the cold light of morning, and see all its flaws very clearly. A really good hacker can squeeze more out of better tools. It's an old one, as old as forums, but we're still just learning what the causes are and how to address them. We'll suppose our group of friends start with $15,000 from a first-time angel investor can be as much work as raising $2 million from a VC firm, go to their web site and check whether the person you talked to is a partner. This works better when a startup takes serious funding is that the first problem is the diffuseness of prefix notation. Be able to downshift into consulting if appropriate.

How about other languages? Off the top of my head, that might include: people who are high or drunk, poverty, madness, gruesome medical conditions, sexual behavior of various degrees of oddness, and violent anger. Once you realize how little most people judging you care about judging you accurately—once you realize that most judgements are greatly influenced by random, extraneous factors—that most people don't choose programming languages simply based on their merits, and so on. The friends might have liked to have more than 10 who are interested; it's difficult to talk to the OS, you're unlikely to be able to develop software twenty times faster than you. Of course the ultimate in brevity is to have a very good profiler, rather than a bumbler who needs to be protected from himself. Lisp. The ideal medium seemed the short story, which I've since learned had quite a brief life, roughly coincident with the peak of magazine publishing. Fortran I was pretty much pure propaganda. They find some just as the prototype is demoable. Even VCs do it. The state of the art in programming languages in the next fifty years will have to work harder to entice people to buy them. Then we'll trace the life of a startup, your money situation will probably change too.

This only seems unfair if it comes as a surprise. If you want to optimize, there's a lot they can do to keep the redesign cycle going is good. McCarthy gave Lisp the shape it has. Seed firms differ from angels and VCs in that they're actual companies, but they can also deter you from improving it. From the evidence I've seen so far, startups that turn down acquisition offers usually end up doing better. And in any case I think good profiling would go a long way toward fixing the problem: you'd soon learn what was expensive. But I am not negative on this one, I am interested, but we are still in the gathering data phase.

Economically, the print media and the music labels simply overlooking this opportunity? For companies that offer server-based applications. I don't. We hope that as startups get cheaper and the number of simultaneous users you can be in close contact with all of them. You may even want to do dangerous and unsavory things. Investors know this, at least not in the sense we mean today. And at the same time the veteran's skepticism. Startups live or die on morale. After sex, death is the ultimate elegance: the Perl program is simpler has fewer elements, even if the syntax is a bit uglier. No thread about Javascript will grow as fast as one about religion, because people feel they have to say actually is a list of n things within something that looks like a more sophisticated type of essay. Any really good new idea will seem bad to most people; otherwise someone would already be doing it and it wouldn't be novel.

There's a sort of Gresham's Law of trolls: trolls are willing to use a forum with a lot of people. Bootstrapping may get easier, because starting a company is a function of the interest other VCs show in it. But the cost of producing and distributing books. Be independent. You see it in sponsored research too. It's easy to start to believe it will happen, and then everyone wants to buy you, and merely to call it a lie. VCs they have introductions to. A really good language should be both clean and dirty: cleanly designed, with a small core, and powerful, highly orthogonal libraries that are as carefully designed as the core language.

[desertchicken]

on good, painful conversations and learning how to “grow up”

i’ve done no work this weekend but somehow I’m okay with that, and I’m okay with the prospect of getting up tomorrow morning and starting on my problem sets. and what i mean when i say things are okay, is to say i’m still in the process of learning how to live in the strange cognitive space of being overwhelmed by everything i’m learning about the world, being conflicted about ideology and future aspirations, comparing myself socially/academically/professionally to those around me and finding myself wanting but also

also being okay with finding what I’m interested in pursuing, the things i’m passionate about, and acknowledging my own limitations. and accepting the fact that i’m a social and emotional being, and actually reaching out and having difficult but necessary conversations with the people i love, to actually show them i care about them in a way that neither trite nor ironic. to acknowledge my own laziness and sensitivity and inability and fear of forming opinions about things, and to guide myself towards improvement in a way that’s neither too soft nor too harsh.

what I mean to say is

what i mean to say is i haven’t written in a while, so my thoughts about things are difficult and tangled but i’ll attempt to process a bit here. maybe it would be better to wait till after finals week, but there’s just so much right now, that I thought it would be good to unload while it’s still fresh:

i had lunch with jiwon and we talked for a long time about gender expectations and being in math/econ. it was after the analysis exam (harrowing emotional experience pt. 3, one more to go) when we just kind of laid on the tables and shared in our anxiety about our exams...but somehow that conversation about marriage/the future/gendered expectations, her talking about coming from a low-income background, talking about how she feels distant from her hs friends because of the very distinct trajectories their lives have taken, was just such an unexpectedly beautiful conversation that left me deep in thought about a lot of things (even when I’m exhausted, i’m so eternally grateful for these conversations that still find me and sustain me, with close friends like maya and iyanu, with “acquaintances” like frances and jiwon and theo and minh quan and alex and peter, little by little, in degrees of comfortability and vulnerability)

and somehow that conversation in particular and hearing about jiwon and how someone like her would be okay with not getting married and having children, and just hearing her say that was so...relieving, almost? after the strange anxiety that’s gripped me recently about finding an s.o., just seeing someone who has professional and academic ambitions similar to mine and not being in a relationship and not actively searching for one was comforting in a strange way, and I think i will accept where I am right now and be okay with my youth and being “alone”, so to speak, but in the presence of these people who I am learning from continually

on a completely unrelated note, a. gave me a hug after the analysis exam. he initiated it, and it was very normal and platonic. it’s just i didn’t expect it from him, of all people.

i still haven’t replied to lem i’m not sure how i should bring it up i feel like complete and utter shit but then that’s what happens when you’re a shit like me so please respond in the future to messages promptly thank you and good bye

that night we had a conversation with people in fellowship which was probably one of the most uncomfortable discussions i’ve been in for awhile, and that’s saying something. it was about the whole multi-ethnic and racial dynamic in fellowship, and on some scale it was a microcosm of the political conversations we’ve been having and i’ve been thinking about on campus as a whole: the tension between “calling out” and persuasion, respectability politics sort of thing, anti-blackness and depoliticization in asian-american communities, and so on, and so forth. i spoke once and it wasn’t that great and i know it wasn’t about me, but i guess some things that made me uncomfortable that I mentioned to iyanu later on in the brunch we had the day afterwards:

the sort of implicit “good ally/bad ally” dynamic, esp. in the context of asian americans/asian american boys

the extremely uncomfortable place of being explicit but also not really about calling out the first year asian american friend group for being exclusive and non-asian poc who might feel uncomfortable with that friend group

somehow a talk like this is “mandatory”, but the mandatoriness is implicit, and some people find it more mandatory than others but is “politicization” a sort of hobby? are the stakes too high? (perhaps this is a horrible characterization to make but the nature of the convo almost reminded me of the whole “good christian/bad christian” dynamic in a lot of conservative christian groups

but also i understand why students like iyanu/esther/lindsey were angry, and i’m just very confused sometimes about what our community ought to prioritize

in the end it was probably something jeremy said that made things make sense to me, and it’s that it’s not even about anti-blackness or race in particular, it’s the fact that members of fellowship care only about things that affect people close to them, and don’t really care when it doesn’t. so it’s a community issue. it’s a lack of community engagement, a sort of imbalance of emotional labor, which would make any relationship fall apart. so i guess i see the point of being uncomfortable, and i’m very glad i went. 

on a related note i walked out afterwards just feeling so drained and kind of done and confused and not knowing how to process, and i’m so glad i met theo on the way who had just had a conversation with pj about the whole irreconciliable anti-blackness talk. and so we stood in the oldenborg hallway for a good two hours (didn’t feel like two hours) and just had this really intense conversation again about colonization and genocide in Christianity, and anti-blackness in asian communities but not only that but anti-blackness as a way of civilization, and it was just...i still need to process that more and there’s so much there to think more and read more about 

had brunch with iyanu the next morning and it was a difficult but extremely necessary and good conversation trying to unpack the fellowship discussion last night. i’m so grateful for her. she asks me why i keep coming back for these talks, and i realize the ugly truth that i probably wouldn’t care about these things if it wasn’t for the fact that i befriended people who weren’t asian my first year. i don’t think that makes me any “better of a person”. i hope i will never succumb to that belief. but also...that’s the whole thing about being a “good ally” and a “good asian american” though i’m not sure what I think and feel about that whole thing again 

went to the workers’ delegation protest. felt extremely uncomfortable chanting again. i don’t know what to believe sometimes. i probably should have gone to the sociology sit in as well, but I really don’t know what i believe and i need to begin taking ownership of my opinions. i think i should have gone to the sociology sit in, because it wasn’t about alice goffman, it was about transparency. anyways, i stopped by at the sage tank presentations an hour earlier, and felt very keenly the divide between different student groups on campus. students presenting their entrepreneurship ideas to gain approval from rich alumni, and later on other students shouting down oxtoby and marching around bridges. i wonder if it’s possible to be a part of both those worlds. it’s a bit jarring to think about at times

all of friday and saturday was just too much so i spent the evening laying around in my bed watching movies and looking at facebook. read the story of some little girl who got cancer who’s a friend of a friend, and she died in january. cried. watched silenced/crucible. cried so hard i got a nosebleed and felt profoundly angry at the injustice of the truth, the deep, profound injustice of abuse. (and slowly coming to terms with the fact that i feel things, and that it’s okay to base my beliefs upon emotions as long as they are grounded in fact, and being okay with feeling emotions and being human in general). which i mean, kind of helped in a way, but also i just thought about death a lot and i need to feel nice things as well. and being angsty but also learning how to grow up and have conversations with people and to balance realism with idealism and to never cease being indignant at the pain of the world... 

my aunt from shanghai visited today and we spent a surprisingly long time over dinner and in the oldenborg lounge talking (in my hesitant chinese, lmao) about self-sufficiency, charity work vs. sustainable development, inherited wealth vs. the whole “pulling up by the bootstraps” ideology, communism and capitalism, economic systems and injustice and everything. i don’t think i agree with her about everything but it was interesting to hear an opinion from someone who lives in a foreign country and also is not from my generation. and i’m grateful that she considered and responded to and was very respectful of my opinions, and that she never dismissed my ideas as the fallacy of youth or whatever. it felt very much like a discussion between “adults”, whatever that is. i feel old in a strange way that is also indicative of my youth. (though she did pay for my meal, cause she said i wasn’t working yet. lmfao)

called my parents last night and talked to them awhile about similar things. if there is anything i’m grateful for, it’s that my parents (esp my mom, probably cause she’s less busy) are progressively becoming more and more interested in discussing politics and philosophy and aapi identity and antiblackness and whatnot. even my dad is becoming more comfortable in our new mostly-black church. 

and i guess there’s not that much more than that, other than the fact that things are not necessarily becoming easier to deal with, but that i’m slowly learning how to deal with them in a way that’s not destructive to myself. maybe i’ll write about susan neiman and her book later. I still feel strange about missing out on things like the whole aamp ceremony today, seeing hanna’s pictures on facebook, hearing about people’s summer plans and internships and successes and whatnot.

but what can i say about this whirlwind of a year, of this semester? another whirlwind of a year? i will probably write more about this as the school year winds down to more of a close, but strangely enough, even though things are more difficult and stressful sophomore year has overall been a much more...lively and enriching experience(?) than my first year was. perhaps it’s the way that i was so terrified and anxious my first year of “making the most” out of my college beginning that instead i lost a lot of opportunities, and that my newfound desire to not give a fuck this semester has helped me beyond measure. what can i say, other than the fact that my world has, as I hoped for when i graduated high school, expanded far beyond the one i knew before. between skyping and having lunch with tannenbaum and sarkis, deepening friendships and intense conversations with friends and mentors in ppcf/aamp but also now in my math classes, learning not only the language of politics but now also how to stand by my own opinions, to come to the realization of the harsh, ugly reality of what the world truly looks like but also to never lose sight of the hope blooming in so many of the people i’ve come to know and love here, to feel the intimate pain of loneliness but also to learn how to openly express my love, to count and make the most of my blessings instead of comparing what i have to those around me and my friends back home because

because i’ve learned something about myself: that i’m sensitive and easily overwhelmed and i take a lot of time to process information, that the littlest things like these conversations hold so much meaning for me. but also to learn to accept my own seriousness and sincerity, but to take it with a grain of salt as well and be okay with lightness but never chastising myself in the whole “angsty teen” way of being misunderstood about being complex or needing to be someone i’m not

there’s just so much here, there’s so much, and i’m tired but also deeply grateful for what i’ve learned here and am continuing to learn, for my capacity to learn.