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certifiedceraunophile · 3 years ago

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Hello! I’m your Klaroline Swap gifter👀 I am sorry it's taken me this long to reach out but I've finally gotten to it! I am excited to be writing for you and wanted to ask a few questions about your gift. Wanted to know about your all-time favorite tropes and side pairings? Any Caroline friendships you like? Any tropes or pairings you don't like? Any pet peeves with KC fic? Any smut preferences? Anything you especially want to see or any info you'd like me to know? Hope you have a great day!💖

Heyyy!! Thank you for sending me this ask, and please don't apologize, it’s all good 💖 I hope you're having a great day too! So I’ll just jump in and answer all your questions ✌🏾✨

I am so so sorry it got this long, like so long, I really tried to condense it, but I have no concept of short and concise so now I have to put this below a cut 😭🙃😭

All time favourite tropes:

[see here's the thing I dont exactly *know* what tropes are so I'm just gonna yeet a bunch of HIGHLY specific prompt-thingies that make me tingle at you and you can do w them what you wish- like take out certain parts you want to use, or base other tropes off of them anything you wish really, even if you choose to ignore all of them I won't be holding it against you dw!]

Ok so I love love the "I was just captured by the bad guys and very harshly uh demanded to sell you out, but I didnt, bc even though I might posture like you’re the scourge of the earth and would gladly see you dead, I in fact, do not want you dead and will therefore not be selling you out and will handle mild -emphasis on mild please do not hurt either of my babies too much- torture instead and oops! look at that, you just overheard this exact exchange where I stand my ground and refuse to betray you, and now you’ve gone feral over your loyalty kink and are spouting promises of never letting go of me, which honestly I cannot bring myself to be mad at."

I love love love the forced bedsharing trope which then leads to accidental cuddling, where one party [caroline] is just very very annoyed that their body sought the warmth of a cockroach fucknugget being [klaus] and the fucknugget party is just very very smug about being the other party's personal space heater, and nuzzles them and cuddles tighter and asdfghjkl I'm getting tingly just thinking about it, and like says w a husky sleepy voice “don't move” and cuddles closer. jfc please I’m a basic bitch with very basic wants.

I absolutely LOVE the "we work on opposite enemy sides, but now we have to band together to defeat one common enemy and honestly I am NOT glad that I constantly wanna throw you against a wall, and not all reasons for said wall-throwing are strictly to inflict violence on you."

I also LOVE the "fuck youre bleeding/hurt/injured and fucking hell I dont know why my hands are shaking while I attend to your wounds but god it is, and now I'm not sure exactly how deep you've furrowed into my heart and stuck yourself there like a dickheaded leech."

Now I feel like I have given you many tropes, but I also feel like i didnt in fact help you at all, bc I'm not sure these are uh tropes?? but anyway those are some highly specific...scenes?? I have a very deep bias for

[you obviously dont HAVE to write ANY of them if you dont want to]

And also if I had to give you a clear cut trope to follow, I absolutely LOVE the enemies-to tentative allies-to lovers trope, in which one party is just working really really hard to get to the lovers part, and the other is working really really hard not to get to the lovers part, but caves later on, bc really the fucker grows on you. [Featuring Klaus as the "high key besotted already pursuing Caroline"-person, and Caroline is the "I am very very annoyed w this wooing, but I am more annoyed this wooing is working"-person. And also, I like my Klaus E V I L, But really really really *soft* for Caroline.]

Also if by tropes you meant settings, Like AU's, literally anything works, I have a personal bias for Crime AU's when it comes to enemies to lovers, and Canon is the ultimate enemies to lovers AU, but honestly you can use which ever one you want, I am not entirely sure myself if I have a specific preference here, AH, Fantasy, Supernatural, Scifi, it's all good.

[I however am not extremely fond of Historical Settings]

Again you are not required to follow any of these tropes at all if you don't wish to, I just require you to have a lot of fun writing and love the beauty you write yourself first!

Side pairings:

Ok I LOVE me some Kennett [kol + bonnie] but I also LOVEEE kolenzo [Kol and Enzo], I also am extremely just *heart eyes* at Bonenzo [Bonnie + enzo], but I absolutely DIE for Kennettzo [which is OT3 of Kol Bonnie and Enzo]

Kalijah is also a-ok w me, and I feel like I dont have any other side pairings I'd like die to see I guess. If you choose not to go with these side pairings its perfectly alright.

Caroline Friendships:

Ok this I can answer without rambling like an idiot, I love love love love :

Bonnie + Caroline [like i love this so much it physically hurts me, they both deserve so so so much better]

Kol + Caroline [I will literally touch a frog, and I have a phobia of frogs, to have one full conversation w these two idiots]

Enzo + Caroline [Honestly enzoline brotp makes me wanna sob happy tears bc they are so perfect together]

Katherine + Caroline + Rebekah [bad bitch meets head bitch meets super bitch, what could possibly go wrong]

Tropes and Pairings I dont like:

NOTPS:

Kolvina, stebekah, delena, stelena, datherine, steferine, Haylijah, Marcel+Rebekah, Matt+Rebekah, Bamon, Kai+bonnie, beremy.

And I think that's about it? mostly I just hate elena stefan damon and hayley and I am not fond of them w anyone, I hate all canon Rebekah relationships, and I dont like seeing Bonnie with anyone other than enzo or kol.

Tropes:

I am totally not fond of the Kill Liz for plot reasons trope, like seriously killing Caroline's mom is not ok w me, but I am totes fine if she's like already dead as part of Caroline's backstory, just don't show me Liz dying in the story as a part of the plot.

Any form of sire-bond-y or like sire-bond adjacent or like any form of deal/bargain/agreement that gives Klaus even a tiniest bit of power over Caroline's free will and choices, is just not for me, like at all, no matter how well it's done, I can't stand it.

not fond of any form of prisoner/hostage tropes, like klaus kidnapping caroline or caroline kidnapping klaus and holding each other hostage and stuff like that.

Death as a plot point doesnt work for me? and really I'd prefer if there were no major character deaths at all.

Friends to lovers trope is not for me, childhood friends to lovers trope is definitely not for me.

I don't like any sort of redemption arc really, anything that starts with Klaus as a “bad” dude and ends with him being a relatively “good” dude is not for me.

Any form of infidelity, like ofc especially in between Klaus and Caroline is just [shudder] hard pass, but like I also hate it when Caroline or Klaus cheat on anybody at all.

Also all the tropes and like themes I'm not comfy w that I mentioned in my original Gift Request still stand.

KC Pairing Pet peeves

ok This I can answer easily bc I have like a FEW,

I hate a woobified Klaus so much, like so much, I hate all TO!Klaus characterizations but this one is the worst, absolutely not here for it, I am not here to feel sorry for this mf I want to feel really deliriously GIDDY at how evil he is and how whipped he is for Caroline, but like concentrating on Klaus's manpain is not something I really wanna read.

Caroline excusing Klaus's bullshit, or like being a push over-y “it's ok, I understand why you did it” person is not for me, bc she never was one to begin w, she never did rationalize or justify Klaus's behaviour, she always held him accountable and told him what a difficult son of a bitch he is every chance she got.

I don't like arcs where Caroline is Klaus's redemption? like Caroline bringing Klaus into the "light" or whatever I am not here for it, like at all, I like Klaus staying evil while being endlessly in love with Caroline, and Caroline being able to be w a man she knows is a selfish evil ruthless grade A asshole, but will literally also choke himself to death for Caroline, cuz the man is whipped as fuck.

I also absolutely am not a fan of arcs where like Caroline remains "pure" or whatever, like that's just not for me, I am totally fine, actually MORE than fine for ruthless Caroline who is willing to do deplorable shit to get to her goal and protect her people, like Caroline being extremely almost evilly pragmatic just gives me a boner, and pretty sure gives Klaus one too. Klaus "protecting" Caroline's so called innocence is uh off putting for me personally. And her remaining this pure white light princess of good and Klaus being attracted to the *good* in her is um, nope.

Smutty Preferences

Honestly I’m very easy when it comes to smut [and u totally dont have to write me any if you dont want to]

I do not like:

non con/dub con, anal sex, Strict and/or elaborate Bdsm themes, [light undertones are ok], drunk sex, sex that’s basically infidellity [like caroline/klaus cheating on someone else w each other] , gagging, choking, Extremely rough emotionless sex, sex as a bargain, or as a part of a bargain.

Smut preferences:

I like reading oral sex, especially Klaus going down on Caroline

light bondage like being tied up [either Klaus/Caroline I enjoy both]

Sex toys are really really good, like love reading Klaus using one on Caroline, or Caroline using one on herself and Klaus watching

I do have a special love for praise kink, especially Klaus being really just in awe of Caroline during the do and expressing it uninhibitedly

Dirty Talk is GREAT

I enjoy both Klaus and Caroline in a dominant role, but I usually love it when both of them share the dominance equally, I’m just not into “Yes master” and “Yes mistress” level of dominance. I guess the word I’m looking for is Vanilla dominance lmao.

Bloodplay is also great if they're vampires.

And Klaus and Caroline leaving marks on each other is *swoon*.

I love reading possessive!klaus and possessive!caroline in equal measure so really your choice.

Hot and Dirty sex with a an undercurrent of emotion and devotion, want and need and all that nice stuff is great!

But I do have a list of words I’m not really a big fan of coming across when I’m reading smut:

Any word for vagina that’s not wetness, or folds or lips, is squicky, cunt is not a problem, pussy however is squick.

Clit is clit; little nub, bundle of nerves, all of that makes the med student in me really anxious lmao.

Any word for Cock that’s not cock is squick.

Juices, cream, semen are squicky, I just prefer come or release.

Ok these are seemingly innocent words but moist, engorged, gaping, drooling, sopping are not words I like seeing in context of smut.

So yeah that’s about it, I know hi, it’s been what, eleventy bajillion years since the beginning of this ask, I am so so so sorry for being this difficult, and really, LIKE SERIOUSLY, except for my squicks you are more than welcome to just skip past everything else, since I’m not really that hard to please, as long as the no-no’s are not there in what I read and the dynamic I asked for is even just vaguely followed I will be really really really happy and really I just want you to have fun writing whatever you feel like cooking up, I’m superrrr excited to see your interpretation of my request!!!

[Also Please please send me another ask clarifying you got my answer and also telling me I haven't frightened you with this long ass rambling list of okay’s and no-no’s bc honestly I am just anxiously debating if I should answer this ask like this or yeet half of it and vaguely rewrite the answer.]

Hope you have a great day lovely!! I am once again sorry for being this difficult. ✨💖🤝🏾

#kc sweet swap #anon ask

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listoriented · 5 years ago

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Capsized

indie game, the game

if someone asked me for the image that congeals in my head of “indie game c.f. 2007-2012” i would probably give them Capsized

following the post-braid realisation that there were still a lot of left ideas in sidescrolling platformy games to explore, demonstrate, use

or at least in my head that’s how it went down. of course indie designers had been making 2D platformers well before braid.

like all those other games, Capsized sits on the spectrum of action-puzzle

with familiar sparkly, wet, blue-green illustrations

and don’t-you-know-it ambient/synth/electronic soundtrack (some of which i did, admittedly, get a bit sick of)

the gist of it is that you play as a gun-toting astronaut whose spaceship crash-landed on a humid planet full of large bug-like alien bugs and bug-like alien humanoids who want to kill you, whether because you’re just different or because you want to kill them is unclear. some levels just need to be traversed, while others ask you to complete certain objects like killing certain bosses or gathering up spaceship parts. the between-missions framing narrative is delivered entirely through cutesy unlettered cartoon panels, which pleases me greatly.

the mechanics it gives you — a grapple cord and a jetpack — suggest you’re in for something more puzzly, ala trine. for the first few levels i did think there were some environmental puzzles, but it turned out most of them could be solved by shooting bits of environment that seemed, to me, indestructible, if only because nothing indicated that my lasers were doing any damage to them until they suddenly disintegrated, clearing a path. it took me looking up a video when i couldn’t work out how to finish the third mission to learn this.

it has other design qualms, but it’s one of those games where i can’t tell if it’s their fault for being difficult or my fault for being bad at it. my opinion on this seems to depend 98% at any given time on my mood. for instance the controls are floaty, sure, but this is a game set on another planet, so maybe it’s okay for it to feel floaty even if sometimes floaty = imprecise or frictionless.

or sometimes enemies seem hard to distinguish from the vegetative visual clutter of the background, but then, maybe they should be? even if this leads to unfair deaths sometimes? because if i was an astronaut guy fighting my way through a sweaty overgrown jungle planet full of hostile insectoids, this is probably an issue i would come up against?

on the other hand the “secret” areas, which appear as open pockets in the terrain holding powerups and lives and etc, pretty much just seem to involve trial & error to try and find the hidden pathway along the wall that allows access. a matter of luck and persistence, basically, and not particularly enjoyable.

the array of guns and enemies are pretty cool. ammo for the better weapons is smartly limited. some of the bosses had confusing abilities, and it took me a while to figure out how to beat them.

i finished it even though i really had no time to finish it. possibly because i had no time to finish it. my avoidance is a powerful force. i do feel a sense of satisfaction.

it took me 5 hours, apparently, to get through the story’s twelve missions on middle difficulty. a disproportionate amount of that was spent on the last few levels, which i failed a bunch of times.

that being said, it was here that the design elements really came together, as the escalating bullethellish numbers and clutter forced me to improvise more with the game’s grapple system. so i enjoyed playing it more towards the end, even though i also wanted to be done with it.

even in 2011, i doubt there was much particularly new and original here. but it’s a solid action-platformer with some good flow and lolsy but gratifying physics. it works within its limits well. fans of the genre (?!) could do worse.

a bit of digging tells me i got Capsized in late 2012 in a steam-packaged “canadian indie bundle” along with Klei’s early action-platformer Shank and Shank 2 and Capybara’s actiony-platformer Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP and a bunch of games I haven’t played so can’t tell you whether or not they are also action-platformers. that’s a pretty good bundle, though, and at least in terms of action mechanics i’d say Capsized is possibly even the better game, though it’s also been years since I’ve played Shank or Superbrothers

at the time i played it for 10 mins and then went to do something else, probably dota

Alientrap [website] are an indie studio based in Toronto. They also made Apotheon, CRYPTARK and a surprisingly long and varied list of other titles. They’re currently working on an FPS Roguelite, the website tells me.

Capsized came out in 2011. apparently an earlier version of it was made for a final assessment at college.

the point of the name, Capsized, is maybe a little unclear.

apparently it has local co-op but i didn’t get to test this out. sounds cool though

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up next is Car Mechanic Simulator 2015

#game75 #capsized #sidescroller #action platformer #aliens #agamewithguns #alientrap #games of 2011 #steam canadian indie bundle 2012

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laguera25 · 6 years ago

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A Very Long Review of Zak Bagan’s Demon House

I watched Zak Bagans' Demon House because I wanted to just how far up his own ass he could climb. Turns out he can almost create a perfect ouroboros of insufferability by sucking his own wang. It's not the charlatanry of it that offends me; in fact, if I could rake in the cash by claiming to sense and understand the paranormal, I'd consider it as long as it didn't involve fleecing anguished families with phony contacts with their dear departed. It's the patent stupidity and laziness of the fraud that galls.

Before the "documentary" begins, a disclaimer appears, which warns those huddled around their televisions or laptop screens that paranormal experts agree that demons can attach themselves to hapless victims through electronic equipment. Uh huh. And when did they decide this, because I've never seen any other paranormal show declare this. Was there a synod of all the self-proclaimed psychics, physical mediums, empaths, and every EMF reader-toting, patchouli-sniffing paranormal Scooby gang in the past twenty years where they all held portentous debates on the subject? Was it held at the Waukegan Airport Holiday Inn, where the desk staff mistook them for a 20th reunion of the emo-kid sigh-and-snivel club? And was Amy Alan there, presiding over the punchbowl and listing decidedly to the left after imbibing a bit of spicy, fruity inspiration from Mr. Hawaiian Punch?

And if that were true, and spirits and demons could transmit themselves and their malign influences through electronics, then wouldn't that mean that every paranormal investigator should be possessed by now, given their love of ridiculous gadgets? If listening to an EVP or watching a video can bring demons onto your scene, shouldn't there be millions of people gargling on pea soup and marinating in their own sulfurous piss in mammoth exorcism wards manned by sweating, emaciated, half-mad priests who haven't slept in days? Shouldn't a haggard, booze-swilling Wolf Blitzer be whispering furtively from some sanctified bunker about the hordes of possessed Imhoteping it through the streets?

More on that later.

According to the documentary, many of Bagans' friends have tried to warn him of the danger he's courting by visiting this house that the locals in Gary, Indiana, have allegedly dubbed the portal to hell. One friend even says the demon is an 8 on a scale of 10 on the Demon Badassery Scale, just below Satan himself. How this friend knows this without visiting the scene is never explained, nor, for that matter, is the criteria for the aforementioned DBS. Suffice to say that this demon probably uses the souls of dead infants for an invigorating anal douche.

Hearing this alarming news, does our hero, Zak, who styles himself a crusader against the evil forces, cancel the documentary, have the place exorcised by the Pope and his grandmother, and tear the house down so no one will be afflicted by the unspeakable horrors that lurk within? Of course not. The only sensible course of action is to invite more people inside, film a documentary, and broadcast it across the globe. Because the only surefire way to contain a malevolent entity that can spread itself through electronics is to make sure it has ready access to homes and eyeballs uncounted. With clear thinking like that, what could go wrong?

With the stakes--and Zak's blithering idiocy--firmly established, the documentary gets rolling. Zak gives viewers an admirably clear and concise--if not terribly believable--history of the house and the evils that befell the Ammons family. According to the family and the ginned-up police reports that are never shown in sharp focus and over which Zak is ever hunching in order to obscure all but the text we're meant to see, the children all begin to chant in tongues and spew profanities at their family members. Ah, the time-tested hallmarks of possession tales everywhere.

But! A twist! The children are hauled to the hospital, where the oldest reverse-moonwalks up the wall, across the ceiling, and down the opposite wall. Hee hee! Points for chutzpah. Zak claims this is all in the police report and witnessed by doctors, nurses, a CPS worker, and a child psychologist, but he develops an odd and intermittent case of spinal collapse that obscures the report, so for all we know, he's "reading" the departments memo about the impending visit from the crackpot paranormal team, with its reminder that any PR is good for the department in the current climate.

Zak further tells us that because the family uncle has been in the car with Zak, who has been in the house, the family refuses to let him return. Huh? According to the uncle, he was the one who manhauled the snarling, slavering children into the car for the trip to the hospital. If it's demon cooties you're worried about, surely that would present a bigger threat than sitting in the same car with the beanie-wearing hipster who wants to make a documentary? But never mind. The house has claimed its first victim in this film's runtime.

Zak does say that the mother of the family was exorcised by a Father Maginot and delivered, but no mention was made of the three children, to whom the demon was attached in the first place, receiving the same. I guess Mom got the family package. So Uncle Fred, who has been hanging with the three uncleansed children with no ill effects to this point, is suddenly become a social leper.

Onward.

While Zak is setting up his equipment in This Old Hellhouse, a woman who used to live in it pulls up. How convenient. She asks to see the house with her three teenage children in tow. Now, remember, according to Zak's friend, the demon in this house is second only to Old Scratch in terms of badassery and allegedly affects anyone who enters the house in horrible, life-scarring ways. Does Zak politely but firmly demur and thereby shield innocents from the possibility of harm? No. No, he does not. After a rather feeble warning that the house has a demon that does bad things to anyone who enters, he invites them inside. Apparently, he has no moral compunction about offering up the vulnerable souls of gormless teenagers like tasty canapes.

Sure enough, two days later, the mother calls to tell Zak that her daughter has attempted suicide. She does this while the cops are taking a report and the EMTs are tending to her daughter. Sure. No mother would hesitate to call some random dude she just met to tell him about her daughter's suicide attempt while her daughter is being carted to the ambulance. Makes perfect sense. Surely it makes even MORE sense that after suspecting that a demon from her childhood home has possessed her daughter and enticed her to attempt suicide, she would return to that same house to chat about the incident on a janky old rent-a-couch as though they were discussing old times. As Jake Peralta would say, cool, cool, cool.

One of Zak's cameramen quits at this point. Reverse-moonwalking on the hospital ceiling is nbd, but a teenage girl having a histrionic tiff with her mother is irrefutable proof that Dark Forces Are Afoot. Or maybe he just got tired of shoveling such pungent bullshit. Either way, out he goes. Lucky man.

The girl swears she has no memory of her attempt to punch her ticket, and so we are treated to the world's most sedate exorcism by a bored Father Maginot, who recites the ritual with all the verve of Droopy Dog. The girl, who squirms on the metal folding chair as though the demon is tickling her taint, grimaces and wrings her hands in an effort to look as though she is undergoing a great spiritual battle, but mostly, she just looks like her disagreeable lunch is trying to make a hasty exit from one end or the other. I smell Oscar. And dodgy potato salad.

It would be remiss and unfair of me not to acknowledge that Mr. Bagans does make a game attempt to determine if any of these phenomena can be explained by natural means. He brings in both a home inspector and an environmental inspector to see if either of them can find anything that would adversely affect the occupants--mold, high magnetic fields, radon, carbon monoxide, et cetera. Nothing is found, but Zak helpfully informs us that the home inspector was diagnosed with cancer shortly thereafter. The house, he would have us believe, has claimed another victim. Dun, dun, dun. As for the environmental inspector, he will play a larger role in the story in just a few segments.

Before we get to that, though, we need to further explore Zak's earnest attempts to debunk the theory of demons. He visits the original owner of the house, who places no credence in the stories and produces a copy of an article in which a grandmother of the Ammons family(they of the reverse-moonwalking child, you will remember,)claims that none of this ever happened. This article will never be mentioned again.

Confronted with that inconvenient speedbump on the road to paranormal stardom and the most legit documentary ever, u guise, Zak does what any moneygrubber would do when confronted with the possibility of disappointing and less remunerative truth: he ignores it and temporarily hares off on a theory of his own. What if, he theorizes based on no evidence previously presented, the controlling ex-boyfriend of Mother Ammons pulls intimate knowledge of dark magic out of his ass and conjures the demon to torment her? Excited by this exhilarating asspull, he tries to speak with the man in question, but he, bless his sensible soul, wants nothing to do with this elaborate rub-and-tug of the old third leg. Stymied in his quest for answers. he leaves this avenue of inquiry and returns to the trustier path of powerful demons who just chose this house in Buttfuck, Indiana, as their glamorous timeshare.

But what's this? His new neighbor has called to tell him that someone is trying to break into his house. Zak and his crew race to the scene and find three cruisers in the yard, lights flashing. Strangely, none of the three officers will approach the house, there is no sign of an intruder, and the footage is so dark that no facial features can be discerned. The officers, safe in the knowledge that their dignity is safeguarded from the jeers of their colleagues, spin a jumbled yarn about all the strange vibes this house gives off. One alludes to the existence of a five-page police report about this house. Multiple times. Zak never asks to see it, nor does he try to ascertain whether it is the report about the Ammons children or a different report altogether. Allow me to stand in awe of the frat-boy, come-handed sloppiness of his investigative technique.

We're roughly an hour into this bad boy, so it's time to ramp up the suspense and the ooga-booga factor before people turn the channel for something more exciting, like The Vanilla Ice Project. Enter Dr. Traff, an amiable, bespectacled man with a case full of gizmos used for measuring magnetic and electrical fields. He does a slow walkthrough, but nothing much happens until they reach the basement. Naturally. As any horror fan knows, the basement is where all the eldritch beings slither and creep and sniff for the souls of the living. The readings are slightly elevated, but the readings fluctuate wildly at a certain spot.

"Wow," they all say in hushed tones meant to impart a sense of unease as the needle swings rapidly from low to high. If that's not too much excitement for a body to take the good doctor soon discovers that Zak's electrical field is eight to twelve million times higher than it should be. I think I need to lie down. How am I to cope with such knowledge? Lovecraft would blush. Part of me wonders if the reader wasn't reacting to Zak's belt buckle. Or a clandestine penile implant.

"What?" Zak says, and for the first time, I empathize with him, because he sounds exactly like I did in the bygone years of my college algebra classes, when I would blink at the equations on the transparency like a poleaxed weasel and plead with my brain to understand.

Zak has grown increasingly agitated during this sweep, and when Dr. Traff turns to put away his equipment, he lunges at him. It's quick and aborted, little more than a partial curling of fingers and a short step toward the doctor's back, but to hear Zak tell it, he was seconds away from attacking him. Fearing for the unsuspecting doctor's safety, Zak heads upstairs, which gives the entity a chance to prey on Dr. Traff. What evils does it wreak? It...makes him dizzy. Such terror is almost too much for a heart to take.

A quick recap for those who missed it: According to Zak's friend, the demon in this house is second only to Satan in power and uses the souls of dead infants as an anal douche, and it drives anyone who comes into the house to suicide or marks them for tragedy or serious illness or injury. So Zak, the only one with paranormal experience, leaves an environmental inspector and his camera crew unattended while he <strike>huffs his own socks</strike> gets some air. If he's all that stands between us and Satanic annihilation, smoke 'em if you got 'em because we're boned.

Perhaps sensing that a wave of dizziness and a gesture of frustration used by nonas everywhere aren't exactly revving viewers' engines, Zak suddenly announces that he thinks he's discovered the house's insidious pattern. Well, hot damn, lay it on me. I've been waiting for this with bated breath, so tense that I've nearly strangled my pet hemorrhoid.

The house, Zak proclaims solemnly, disorients and confuses its victims. To illustrate his hypothesis, we see footage of Dr. Traff wandering around the house and staring at support beams in the basement or gazing blankly out of windows. Frankly, he looks like he's waiting for his Uber so he can collect his appearance fee and hit the Shoney's before he goes back to the hotel and beds down for the night. That's it? That's what you've come up with? A demon that makes you look like you're on a magic carpet ride with the Doobie Brothers? Why am I still watching this? It's not like I paid for it.

The producers must feel that we're not getting enough bang for our emotional-investment buck, too, because the next thing we see is one of the cameramen, Adam Ahlbrandt, roaming the halls and bellowing like a gut-shot steer for "that bitch" to come out. He throws himself against doors and reserves special invective for the elevator, which he punches kicks and shoulders repeatedly. He also disappears into the elevator for long periods and just stands there until Zak gets him out again.

I'm sure this is all meant to be scary, but it's cheesy and patently fake, and all I could think as I watched was, I hope there were no cripples on that floor who needed that elevator. Or any floor, for that matter, because elevators aren't supposed to be used as battering rams or tantrum boxes for artsy fumblefucks feigning possession rage. I can only imagine impotent, seething fury of some poor cripple who just wants to get to their room and take a shit in peace but can't because some fucksticks high on shrooms and ego keep holding the elevator for take after shitty take or have broken it outright. There would be no comp high enough for their loss of independence and dignity when they shit on the lobby floor and get blamed for making a mess, though I'm sure Bagans wouldn't waste the opportunity to declare that the demon made a hotel guest defile the lobby in a challenge to God's authority.

After an interminable sequence of watching the cameraman rampage up and down the hall like an escapee from a Butthole Surfers concert who mistakenly shoved the LSD tab up his ass in the hopes of a cooler trip, Zak and the remaining cameraman wrangle him into the hotel room, where the rage magically ceases and he delivers an unconvincing recitation about seeing something evil in the elevator. When Zak presses the subject, Adam replies curtly, "I think you know what I fucking saw, dude."

DUN, DUN, DUN!!!

Zak does, in fact, know what he saw. Before he came to the house, he had a nightmare about an eleven-foot-tall goat man who breathed black mist into his mouth, and now it's turned up in the hotel elevator.

"It doesn't want me, it wants you, man," Adam mumbles.

And there we have it. Satan's second-in-command has taken up residence in a house in the butthole of cornfed country and terrorized numerous occupants in order to lure Zak Bagans there and destroy him. Uh huh. If the demon can enter your dreams, why didn't it just reach out and pulp your puny brain while you snored, farted, and drooled in your BVDs? Why waste its time with an elaborate, imbecilic plan clearly concocted by a dribbling moron? Or someone who doesn't know how to write a convincing story?

Armed with the truth, Zak decides he must take a courageous stand. How will he do this, you ask?

Just you wait.

Armed with his steely, many resolve(and no doubt fortified by a snifter or two of cheap brandy from the nearby ABC Liquor store), the intrepid Mr. Bagans swings into action. The first step in Our Hero's ingenious battle plan is to send the jabbering, elevator-ravaging cameraman packing. For his own safety, of course, and not because he's served his purpose. Because everyone knows that the wisest thing you can do with a person under the pernicious influence of a demon that likes to cause chaos and harm whenever possible is to set him loose on an unsuspecting populace without so much as an attempt at removing the suspected attachment. Crack work. Goooo, team!

The second step in this grand plan to take the forces of hell down a peg? Why, Zak is going to barricade himself inside the demon's timeshare and become that annoying, unexpected houseguest that turns up on your doorstep unannounced, raids your fridge and snarfs the cannoli you've been holding out for yourself as a reward for surviving another day in the 9-to-5 trenches, uses your toothbrush, makes your bathroom uninhabitable for the next 12 hours, and is busily laying rank aftershocks into your sofa cushions, a traveling stench farmer who will be long gone when his rancid, gaseous seeds bear their noxious fruit the next time you plop down for a relaxing binge-watching session on Netflix.

On the face of it, this doesn't sound like a bad plan until you recall that this is the same yutz who:

-thought giving a powerful demon who can allegedly transmit itself through electronic equipment a global platform.

-allowed people, including lackwit teenagers, to enter a house purportedly infested by Satan's right-hand man with no protection whatsoever.

-Invited even more people into the demon's lair without protection. Maybe he was going to offer them up to it like a handful of scrumptious piggies in a blanket.

-left an environmental engineer and his camera crew unattended in the basement, the nexus of the dark doings.

-turned his raving cameraman, who just spent twenty minutes and a great deal of energy doing his best imitation of a meth-addled redneck, out without so much as a farewell wellness check.

Oh, boy.

The sheriff isn't exactly impressed with this sterling plan of action, but he doesn't forbid it, either, and a savage, petty part of me suspects that the good sir consented to it just to watch the show from the comfort of his squad car, chugging coffee and shooting the shit with the boys back at the station over the radio. Or maybe he wasn't too terribly fussed at the prospect of an overweening chode getting snatched into the abyss.

With approval in hand, Zak undertakes the epic final battle with the forces of evil with the doughty knights of the Home Depot who seal him inside the house with the help of plywood hammered over every door and window. Just before Zak steps inside with nothing but his smartphone and has the door sealed behind him, the sheriff says, "If stuff starts happening, and you need to get out, call me so I can send the fire department and have them bust the door in."

If only things could be so exciting.

Alas for us, not much happens once Zak offers himself as bait. He wanders the house and tests the doors and windows in a show of authenticity, texts from the comfort of the by-now-familiar janky sofa(Way to go, braintrust, run down your charge so that when you need the fire department to save you from your dumbass self and stellar record of piss-poor decision-making, you won't be able to call the sheriff. Don't worry, though; he's probably ensconced in his squad car just out of camera range, laughing up his sleeve and trying not to inadvertently irrigate his nostrils with hot coffee.), and stares at the walls.

"I don't want to go dark," he says, as though that makes sense in this context, since no previous mention has been made of the demon needing darkness to operate.

Eventually, Zak departs the sweet embrace of the janky couch and turns off the light. Thanks to the wonders of cuts and time lapse, things shift into warp drive. We see Zak sitting on a bed in one of the rooms. Then he sprawls. Then he sits. And then, after ninety minutes of buildup, the grand climax.

Even though he is alone, heavy footfalls and ominous creaks are heard. A good little marmoset, Zak sits up, on the alert, and gazes before him. There's nothing to see, but we can hear a furtive shuffling, as though Mr. Meth(ed) Man has come back after his bender and is trying to crawl into his room without disturbing his more staid roommate. This is followed by an unholy howl that speaks of the torments of the godless damned, but bears a suspicious resemblance to someone farting into a vuvuzela with unbridled gusto. Or hey, maybe the good sheriff agreed to feed his distorted radio static through the hidden speakers for an extra 100 dollars and a gift card to his favorite coffee joint.

"Stay away!" Zak cries, and scoots back on the bed as he gazes, horror-stricken, at nothing. Later, he will tell us it was a black mass, which is a phrase which here means the sad consequences of too much Saturday night. "I said stay away!" And-

And cut. When next we see the bed, it is much lighter, and the picture is painfully clear, almost stark. There is no sign of Zak, but we find him soon enough in the kitchen, clutching his head and bawling drunkenly about pain in his eyes. He lumbers and lurches around the house for a time and makes his way into the living room, where he bellows, "I want out", and sweeps unidentifiable bric-a-brac from a nearby shelf. He then turns and batters the front door.

And that's it. The knights Home Depot did not offer up the best of their goodly plywood for his righteous quest, because the fire department never needed to bust him out. All Zak needed was his mighty fists and shoulders, I guess. Hipster SMASH!

When next we see Zak, he tells us he's having the house demolished. Huzzah! An act of great sense. Perhaps there was a purpose to this journey, after all. Not to do with Satan's tag-team partner or bogies in the night, but with a man coming to greater maturity and wis-

Wait, what? He's had the house demolished, but because he's an investigator and a collector, he's kept a few items from the house, as well as some dirt from the basement. And he keeps it in a cheap storage locker that any dribblebib with a pair of bolt cutters could breach?

Flames! Flames on the side of my face! You have a demon so powerful that it is second only to Satan, you think it can transmit itself through electronic equipment and the briefest of contact, and anyone who has contact with anything from that house is beset by misfortune, and you're so afraid of it that you decide to tear the house down, but you opt to keep three fifty-gallon drums full of cursed earth in a poorly-secured storage locker?

You, sir, are a fucktruckle.

But Zak isn't quite done yet. He also tells us that the "confrontation" with the demon damaged his eyes and gave him diplopia, forcing him to wear prism glasses for the rest of his days, oh, woe.

You mean the same glasses you've been wearing since the start of this documentary? The same ones you've been wearing since at least 2010, five years before you filmed this? Those glasses?

You absolute fuckcricket. It's a shame Satan's spotter didn't rip your sphincter out and use it as a key fob for his new timeshare in Laguna Beach.

#demon house

12 notes · View notes

grad701-katie-shepherd · 4 years ago

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Formative Feedback

Negative/dumb

Note 1 Branding is cool, but a little standard – is there a way to make it pop/more contemporary? Is Bauhaus overused? Will you include all-gender toilets? The dash marketing is a good avenue! Social media is a good outcome. Merch is cool but can you be more original? See the Gen Less tote bag/backpack. Sketches are cool! Clear. AT lite; ooh nice logo! Commute: it takes me 1 – 1.5 hrs to get from Glen Eden to AUT on bus/train/bus. Not too bad; faster in some ways than car. Agree need more trains, trams, or light rail etc. Investigation: excellent focus question. Have you seen the murals on the trains? Stop, look, listen by Floc etc.

Note 2 Would love a light rail. Designing and selling merch where 100% of the profits go towards the construction of the rail will not bode well with 90% of residents and would piss a lot of people off. Taxpayer dollars are already spent towards these projects and people who are hardworking will not spend their additional leftover income on this. Particularly when transport projects are always delayed, and the cost is always more than the proposed budget. Shouldn’t the t-shirts go toward a social initiative? Or something that’s giving back to the communities.

Note 3 In a design sense, would it not be more beneficial to create a new logo/company as Auckland's transport, rather than slapping ‘Lite’ at the end”?

Note 4 So, you’re advertising an already planned council project? What part of the visuals are authentically your own? The logo and visuals of maps and trains are council property, aren’t they? BE CAREFUL WITH PLAGERISM!!!

Note 5 How are you working around the expanse of the money issue? It would close much more than people could give, and would the money end up towards the train?

Note 6 Seems to be quite similar to AT. Perhaps you could use another name with the same idea? Love the designs!

Note 7 Auckland topography (landscape) has so many hills and dips, how would you work around this? Also, areas of land/under buildings aren’t structurally sound to move Research that for more blog posts, haha :)

Constructive Feedback

Note 1 “Stuart Hall. Talks beautifully about modernism in terms of society.”

Note 2 “Instead of Bauhaus a very European and German design style why not make decisions to incorporate NZ landscape/Maori designs/patterns to make it unique and different to the rest of the world.”

Note 3 “Paula Scher did New York train lines - interesting and timeless designs” “Clean design and very well thought out campaign.” “helpful to have all output supporting each other”

Note 4 “Possibly make sure you identify if this is your personal campaign or a contribution towards the pre-existing light rail project”

Note 5 Could make the train more colourful.

Note 6 Really need to sell it to people.

Note 7 Essential to locate in the now – the lauding and the collective information. Selling the idea to the public on getting funded How are you asking the population to participate? What do you want to know from the audience? Have you seen the train signage for the stop and look campaign? Collaboration with artists? An idea is to bring nature into the design of the trains, showing kiwis it’s a more eco way of traveling.

Note 8 Make sure that the designs are completely different to refresh the appeal to the new train love the app idea.

Note 9 Way finding could investigate augmented reality.

Note 10 And the film on Helvetica that shows NY subway.

Note 11 If you use “...” you need a page to reference it properly

Note 12 Check the brand and infographics of London underground.

Note 13 Check if it is not too much in terms of outcomes it is quite a lot. Have you reached out to AT? They will have lots of info to help you and permission to use their logo. The outcomes are very thought through and cover all important aspects and some fun additions like the app.

Note 14 Agreed! Taking the bus takes so long! Really like your proposed visual styleHave you contacted the team working on the lite rail? They might give you some interesting insights.

Note 15 It’s easy to say that AT-lite will be more reliable and efficient but how can you make people believe this? Maybe through experiments from the game/app”

Positive Feedback

Note 1 Good job on the thorough research. As someone who often uses public transport, I’m very interested in your project. Looking forward to the final outcome.

Note 2 Really like the Bauhaus inspiration + look of your campaign – really well thought out.

Note 3 Well thought out project; the different design artefacts will work well together. Bauhaus style will work well with the goal for the project.

Note 4 Love the imagery and motion graphics

Note 5 I really like the combination of transport to design

Note 6 I really like the logo ideas.

Note 7 Great concept sketches. Love that you guys went in depth with what you will be creating. Allows audience to understand well. It’s smart how you’ve used a simple, clean art movement for your aesthetic.

Note 8 Love the topic, Auckland Transport sucks and needs to be improved. I liked the poster series of the trains getting closer – simple but eye catching. Very professional looking.

Note 9 “Very well thought out design outcomes, can’t wait to see them.”

Note 10 “Very creative idea :)”

Note 11 “Presentation was super clear and well laid out, great topic and choice of artefacts.”

Note 12 “Well contextualised and good research.”

Note 13 “Love the design problem. Great way to give yourselves a nice baseline for design but also has enough gaps for you to design for.”

Note 14 “Very interesting, you are idealists, and the world needs more people like you.”

Note 15 “Cody, you opened well!!”

Note 16 “Well planned presentation, all of you spoke concisely and confident.”

Note 17 “Bauhaus design I think will work very well with your topic and help all your artefacts look cohesive.”

Note 18 “Wooow, I wish public transport was faster and more reliable. Sometimes it takes me nearly 3 hours to get home from uni. Love living in Pukekohe :) Your campaign looks like it is going to be sick! All of your inspo looks cool. Can’t really think of any feedback, just make sure you don’t over commit yourself, so you are happy with your final outcomes!”

Note 19 “Love the examples of driving times from each area.Like how you had graphs as part of your research.

Note 20 Love how you included logo design development + storyboards.Love the train wrap idea!

Note 21 Like how you’re using Bauhaus as inspiration”.

Note 22 “Great research! Really supporting why you chose to undertake this project.

Note 23 “Great research. Easy to understand”

Group Reflection

As a group, we organised and discussed the different areas of feedback for which we received.

In terms of negative feedback, there were some concerns around the overused nature of Bauhaus. However, our research supports our decision for this influence given its success throughout history and within railway designs around the globe. There was a suggestion to possibly look into more Maori native patterns and relate it more to NZ culture. Currently there is a lot of Maori culture used as a differentiation point for branding and systems in New Zealand however so we feel that perhaps our researched visual approach could be more refreshing and applicable. This could still be further discussed. And/or investigated if deemed relevant at a later stage (future thinking?). There was also some additional negative feedback, which we discussed; however, this was possibly feedback coming from a place where there was a lack of understanding.

There was then also feedback around our branding and how it would sit alongside AT. There was nervousness for the possible plagiarism of their branding, confusion around whether we were a separate brand/campaign to this system etc. We have considered this in-depth and made the decision to sit as an integrated brand with AT given the credibility it would give the brand. Additionally, the system plan is already existing, and it sits with AT so to ensure that our project is feasible we are approaching it in this way. Furthermore, we also believe there may have been some miscommunication where some of our peers may have thought the logo, we presented was the existing branding for AT lite when in fact it was logo we are currently developing. “In a design sense, would it not be more beneficial to create a new logo/company as Auckland's transport, rather than slapping ‘Lite’ at the end”?

Additionally, some feedback questioned the engagement of the logo as well as how considered simply “slapping lite on the end of AT” was. However, this was a researched approach based on existing AT branding methods e.g. AT. Metro etc. Additionally, there is the presence of an icon, which was not emphasised enough in our presentation. It is currently still in development, and this will be considered. There was only a couple of negative comments around the branding however, which allowed them to be heavily overweighed by the considered positive feedback around the same things. Additionally, we take confidence in our supporting research and development for our approach still.

Feedback also raised the concept of feasibility. It asked us to consider the infostructure around the topographical landscape of Auckland as well as how we could ensure the system is faster etc. However, this is something we originally began approaching in the early stages only to realise, based on extensive research, feedback, and discussion, to be an approach, which is not so applicable for us Graphic Designers. Hence, we are well research in taking an approach of campaigning and branding around getting people to engage with this new system. The operational nature and funding are a responsibility held by Auckland Transport. This is currently just a concept that will be developed over the coming five years.

Despite the negative/constructive feedback given above, there was still an overwhelming amount of support for our project. People recognised the need for improvement to Auckland’s transport systems, discussing with us their own negative experiences with travel within the city. They felt we were well research with a clear focus point, and many appreciated the Bauhaus influence and basis for our projects visual approach. There was a lot of enjoyment for the range of design outcomes and how they would interconnect.

Moving forward, there are some additional points of reference/interest suggested to us as bullet-pointed below:

- Paula Scher - New York train lines and their interesting and timeless design - Stuart Hall - talks beautifully about modernism in terms of society - Helvetica film that shows NY subway - Brand and infographics of London underground - Reaching out to AT and/or the team currently working on the light rail - - -(something we are already currently considering) - Investigation of augmented reality for wayfinding - Train signage for the stop and look campaign - collaboration with artists like Flox

Overall, the feedback we received for our formative presentation was supportive and encouraging for us moving forward, providing us with possible points of research and design direction.

0 notes

greg38mcall · 5 years ago

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Our HGTV Urban Oasis Experience

Did you all see that this year's HGTV Urban Oasis giveaway house is located right in my backyard? That's right! This year it is located in Minneapolis, MN and you are going to want to hurry and enter to win this beauty!

Photo Credit: Tomas Espinoza for HGTV

I know many of you come here for our organizing and house projects, but this quick story is just too great not to share! And I would be beyond thrilled if one of my readers happened to win this amazing home.

I have really gotten to know designer Brian Patrick Flynn over the past few years, and he is one of the most generous and kind humans I have ever met. He is ridiculously encouraging, really supports independent artists and small businesses, has an impeccable design eye, and can find beauty in just about anything.

Brian is the designer of the HGTV Urban Oasis home and he asked ME to be the organizing stylist! Organizing a house that no one actually lives in is slightly different than my typical duties; it has its own set of challenges but it is a bit of a dream at the same time. You have to work within the parameters of specific sponsors and design styles and be sure it is editorial, while also being able to use beautiful props. The ideas still have to be relatable and sensible, which of course is my favorite part! I wanted the folks that are entering the giveaway to be able to see the organization as possible solutions that they would be able to incorporate into their daily lifestyle.

Photo Credit: Kelly Christine Photo for HGTV

After the organizing was complete and the Urban Oasis was being prepped for media, Brian asked me back again. This time he had me bring my crew to be photographed enjoying the Hygge lifestyle at the house! My oldest son had college prep and work so he couldn't be there, but my younger boys were absolutely thrilled to take part of a really fun HGTV photoshoot. These pictures were such a treat and we will cherish the opportunity forever. Kelly Christine was the photographer behind the camera and she did such a great job of capturing us as a family pretending to live our best Minnesotan lives. As you can see, they definitely wanted to show the relaxed, comfortable, family-friendly lifestyle that this home provides. My son couldn't believe that he had a once in a lifetime opportunity to jump on a sofa and get away with it!

Photo Credit: Kelly Christine Photo for HGTV

This year's Urban Oasis is a Modern Scandanavian Farmhouse, which is an extremely popular design aesthetic around here. It is not necessarily my personal style (I lean more colorful and traditional), but I was still able to find so much inspiration throughout the entire home. It instantly hugs you when you walk through the front door and the entire place feels like a cozy nordic sweater. It is layered with plush and textural textiles and has art sourced from really incredible talent. And don't even get me started on the finishes and hardware and oak kitchen cabinets... #sigh

Photo Credit: Rustic White Interiors for HGTV

You can tour the entire house here, and enter to win here (GO DO THAT NOW!). Although this post is somewhat of a "check out this cool home and our awesome experience", I also wanted to share some images of my favorite no-fuss organizing tips that anyone can incorporate into their living spaces.

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As soon as I was hired, I searched Overstock.com (the sponsor website) to recommend some of my favorite organizers ahead of time and crossed my fingers that everything would be fluid enough to work when I was finally able to see the home in person. My first day on location everything was a blank slate of freshly painted walls and empty cabinets and drawers. It was an experience in itself to watch the house transform as the team worked to install and style all of the rooms. TIP #1: SELECT VERSATILE ORGANIZERS

Photo Credit: Tomas Espinoza for HGTV

My biggest money-saving tip is to try and source products that are versatile enough to work in a variety of spaces and can move and evolve right along with you. I knew I would be tasked with organizing the master bedroom closet and bedroom, the studio armoire, and many of the kitchen cabinets/drawers. The key items I sourced were a mixture of wire and woven baskets, spring-loaded drawer dividers, clear bins, wooden hangers, and glass jars. I was able to mix and match these items in each area that I touched, which made my job much easier in the end. I do believe in measuring and purchasing storage that makes sense for each project, but by selecting items in basic and natural finishes, you are guaranteed that they will stand the test of time. TIP #2: SPRING LOADED DRAWER ORGANIZERS ARE AMAZING

Photo Credit: Rustic White Interiors for HGTV

I have mentioned before that sometimes I am the last to hop on any trend train, and for some reason I wasn't quick to take advantage of spring-loaded drawer dividers. This experience flipped me completely. I am IN LOVE. I used the dividers throughout the kitchen and I now want to be the poster child for these special organizing tools. They were so easy to use (ANYONE can install them in a jiffy), and they instantly created flexible drawer dividers for all the things.

I used them for the maintenance drawers, utensil drawers, and even to hold pots, pans, and lids in place. A bonus is that the natural finish of these particular dividers fit right in with the custom wood drawers. Swoon. TIP #3: FILE YOUR CLOTHING

I know that most of you know this by now but it is always worth mentioning. File your clothing. If your clothing is filed, it is always easier to see exactly what you have. It is also infinitely easier to take clothing out and put it away.

BONUS TIP: Use small bins and baskets inside of your drawers to corral the little things like undergarments and accessories. Sometimes the most obvious ideas are the most helpful. TIP #4: MATCHING HANGERS

Hangers have come a long way over the years. Wooden and velvet options are both readily available and are fairly inexpensive in bulk. Anytime you can, swap out all of your mismatched hangers for ones that match. It will instantly take your closets up a notch and help them feel more uniform and calm. BONUS TIP: Color blocking the items hanging in your closet will have a similar effect. I like to hang items in order by type first (jackets/cardigans, long sleeve, short sleeve, sleeveless), and then color within each category. TIP #5: USE DEEP BINS IN DEEP CABINETS

Organizing deep cabinets and pantries is always perplexing. It is truly wonderful to have all of that extra space, but making sure items are not being lost in the back can be a major problem. It is my goal to find the deepest bins possible in this situation because they turn into instant drawers. These bins not only categorize everything, but they also take items from the back to the front in a single motion. Also, whenever possible I like to organize from shortest to tallest. If space permits I will also add lazy susans to the mix.

Photo Credit: Rustic White Interiors for HGTV

Another tip is to place your small appliances inside of the deep cabinets and relocate your more frequently used items and foods into your standard cabinets and drawers. Small appliances are generally only used on occasion, so it may make more sense to store them in places that aren't as easy to access as the items you use every day.

TIP #6: A+ ARMOIRE

This house didn't have closets in the two main bedrooms (one styled as an office, another as a guest room), so armories were added in their place. We use armoires in our own home where we are lacking in built-in closets also, and I love that they can offer customized and space-saving storage opportunities.

I especially appreciate the option of adding them to a home office, as they are an ideal way to conceal anything from printers, electronics, and craft supplies, to cozy sweaters and work totes. A clear workspace translates to a clear mind.

TIP #7: CLEAR SOLUTIONS

Speaking of clear... I love a good woven basket when I am actually trying to conceal and streamline visual clutter, so I find they are a great option for open shelves and in open areas. But when it comes to organizing behind cabinet and fridge doors, I say the clearer the better. Anytime you can quickly see what you have on hand, you are one step ahead of the game. It also allows you to identify items without the need for fussy labels. Heading to the grocery store? Clear jars and bins will give you a quick look at what you have and what you may need. TIP #8: PRETTY AND PRACTICAL AT THE SAME TIME

Photo Credit: Tomas Espinoza Interiors for HGTV

If you are limited on space, or even if you just love to keep things right within reach, find creative ways to use the walls as both decor and storage. Just off of the mudroom, Brian installed the most darling rail system and I was absolutely obsessed over how it was used to display and organize the ordinary in such a beautiful and organic way.

TIP #9: ENTERTAIN THIS IDEA

Dedicate a spare cabinet or drawer to entertaining essentials. Our homes are best when filled with folks we love, so be ready to entertain at a moment's notice by keeping a drawer stocked with your favorite linens, candles, vases, napkin rings, serving dishes, etc...

This eliminates the stresses that come with hosting last-minute dinner dates and happy hours, or at the very least, quickly and easily elevates the setting for a nice mood boost. TIP #10: DRAWERS ALWAYS GET MY VOTE

I was recently having a discussion with a friend about kitchen planning and storage and whether she should install lower cabinets or drawers. Drawers always get my vote if there is an option between the two. I typically find that lower base cabinets are a recipe for that deep and dark area of doom (standard depth is around 24"). Sure, you can add pull out drawers and mechanisms inside of the cabinets, but you have to open the cabinet doors all of the way, navigate around them, and then pull out the contents. A drawer is a quicker way to access everything while ensuring nothing is getting lost. Drawers are also much easier for kids to use and maintain while maximizing overall space (no need to install any extra components).

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Last but not least, let's just celebrate this amazing backyard moment. I am so envious of this year's lucky winner!!

Photo Credit: Kelly Christine Photo for HGTV

Photo Credit: Rustic White Interiors for HGTV

Photo Credit: Kelly Christine Photo for HGTV

ALL STORAGE SHOWN WAS PROVIDED TO URBAN OASIS BY THE SPONSOR OVERSTOCK.COM. IN THE EVENT OVERSTOCK NO LONGER CARRIES THE SPECIFIC ITEM, I SOURCED A SIMILAR ALTERNATIVE

JavaScript is currently disabled in this browser. Reactivate it to view this content.

ENTER TO WIN THE GIVEAWAY HERE

TOUR THE ENTIRE URBAN OASIS HOUSE HERE

SEE MORE OF OUR FAMILY PHOTOSHOOT HERE

Brian and I had such a great time working together that he invited me to take part in another HUGE project last month. I can't wait to share more!

from IHeart Organizing http://www.iheartorganizing.com/2019/11/our-hgtv-urban-oasis-experience.html

0 notes

acehotel · 8 years ago

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INTERVIEW: MODERN WOMEN

Photo by Megan McIsaac

Sarah Gottesdiener is an old friend and the modern woman behind Modern Women — an LA-based design, art and consulting institution that exists somewhere at the intersection of feminism, magic and winsome tote bags. Sarah developed a healing and self-awareness practice and accompanying workbook based on the phases of the moon. For the past two years, we’ve carried the workbooks on our shop, where they've promptly hot potatoed off the shelves into the eager hands of future witches. Sarah was kind enough to take some time out to talk to us about her life and work, the ways of soft power and how the moon can heal and help us.

Ace: Hi Sarah. You are an old Ace friend!

Sarah: Yes. I remember when Ace Hotel Portland was just getting built. [VP of Brand] Ryan Bukstein used to play drums for my band.

No way.

Oh yeah, Ryan's an incredible drummer. He's like one of the best drummers I know. Jesse [who runs Ace Hotel Shop] is a good friend. We just went to New Orleans together and stayed at Ace. I even interviewed for a job at Ace. I love you guys. I love everything you do.

We love everything you do, too. Is Modern Women a collective or is it sort of a moniker that you go by?

My background is in art and graphic design. Anything I put out for mass consumption is under the moniker, Modern Women. I also like using a moniker for this project because every book that I put out has many, many amazing contributors, so it seems narcissistic to just credit me when I have six other esteemed well-versed practitioners and various healing modalities contributing to the project.

That makes sense. Tell me about the motivation for The Many Moons Workbook? Did you see a palpable lack of self love happening in the world or humans ignoring the moon in favor of their cell phone screens?

So, this book’s origin story: It’s one part boring and one part magical. I had been teaching with this kind of method that I call Moonbeaming. I’d been working with the cycles of the moon for the last five years of my life and I saw kind of miraculous results both magically and practically.

I'm incredibly practical. I'm an East Coast Jew who was not raised to be hippy or woo-woo, so anything like astrology — or anything intangible — I've always been very skeptical of. This was kind of the most practical, tangible way of working. I started teaching workshops called Moon-Beaming. People started contacting me, like, "Will you teach in Atlanta?" "Will you teach in New Orleans?"

I'm like, Well, I can't just hop on a plane. I write on my blog pretty regularly. I share a newsletter. I’m on Instagram. But I need a way to get this out to a larger public. The magical part was I was just laying on my couch, tossing around the idea in my mind. Like, what do I do? Do I write a book? Writing a book seems insane. Writing a book seems like I'd have to dedicate five years of my life to it. I don't know how to write a book. I'm not a writer, by the way, nor have I ever really wanted to be.

So Spirit was like...I call it Spirit. You might call it the Muse, you might call it inspiration. Spirit was very clearly like, "You need to write a workbook. You're gonna do this for three years." I was like, "Okay, well when does it need to come out?" Spirit was like, "It needs to come out by January 1st." It was June at this time. I was like, "Okay!" So I did it, and it came out ... This is the second year that you guys have them on your shop. A year ago it came out, like right before January 1st. Nick of time, December 26th or something. That's kind of the origin story of it.

How did you get involved in Moon magic, as a skeptic?

I moved to Portland, Oregon, where you throw a rock and you hit a witch.

Ha. True.

A bunch of people I knew were either astrologers, psychics, intuitives ... I'm an intuitive. I'm a tarot reader as well. I didn't know that really until I moved to Portland, and met other people like me. I met a bunch of awesome women, and that’s how I kind of got started. I really respected them and, we would get together and do stuff, share. Again, it was just through meeting people and trying it myself.

Working with the Moon has been around since the dawn of time, there are a lot of resources around this kind of spiritual practice — everything from magic to astrology has been strongly tied to the moon for ages. I never tell someone to do something in the workbooks, or any time, that I haven’t tried myself, and haven’t had positive results from.

Yoko and the Moon posters by Sarah Gottesdiener. Photo by Nancy Neil.

What were those results for you?

Finding my perfect partner. Making my desired income. Finding a diagnosis for a chronic health condition. Getting debt paid off. Meeting really great people. Living life in a richer, more layered way. Becoming more present. Loving myself more. It's kind of filtered over into everything. Helping people. Getting to help others. It's kind of the gift that keeps giving.

How would you describe this Moon cycle work to, say, my grandmother?

The very basics are this: Human beings, before the Gregorian Calendar, for thousands of years, have used the cycles of the moon to mark the beginning of their month, to mark special holidays, to mark the new year. You see remnants of it in Christianity and in Western culture. Halloween actually correlates to a more Pagan traditional holiday called Samhain. Pagans and Wiccans use the Wheel of the Year, which correlates to the solstices and the equinoxes, and the points of celebration between them.

There’s light and dark and how it tracks. The first calendars were lunar. The Jewish calendar still is. I believe the Hindu calendar and the Chinese calendar traditionally is still lunar. Obviously, people who get their periods can schedule it according to the moon cycle. We’re sort of wired to be lunar in our DNA. It’s really only been in the five hundred or so years that we’ve used the Gregorian Calendar. For thousands of years before that, we used the moon.

The moon cycle is very, very natural and simple to work with. You can start a cycle with the new moon, where you begin a new project or set new intentions. Then you kind of do a check-in a week later, and then you begin to practically build in the world. The workbook takes you through all of this. The full moon is meant for gratitude, illumination, reflection, big big wishing, big big dreams, big big intentions.

In the waning moon period, which follows the full moon, you clear away anything you don’t want, or you clear away any habits or thought patterns, behavioral patterns that aren’t helping you get what you need. Then it kind of begins again in the new moon, so it’s a natural cycle that can correlate to any project, any process.

If you’re a creative person, the new moon would be the inspiration phase. It would mean making a mess and doodling and figuring stuff out and brainstorming. Waxing period would be, “Okay, I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to make a poster about love,” or whatever the hell it is. Then you do it and spend time doing that.

The full moon is looking at the project, appreciating it, being stoked on it, being stoked on yourself. Then the waning moon period would be getting rid of anything you don’t need anymore. Refining. Editing. Doing away with anything that’s taking away from your focus or your creativity. Only to begin again.

It’s a very natural cycle that you can utilize for just about anything, whether it’s super-duper practical, like, “I’m gonna clean my house,” or “I’m gonna get my fucking finances in order finally.” Or really magical, like “I’m gonna invite the best possible outcome for love into my life,” or, “I’m truly ready now to make six figures,” or “I’m ready now to move to another country,” or whatever crazy, out-of-bounds idea you can come up with.

I’ve tried it for the really really crazy stuff, and I’ve tried it for the really really boring, mundane stuff like, “God, I gotta pay off this debt.” And it’s worked for both.

What about the simple act of looking at the moon alone? Not for any analogous purpose or means to an end? Is there value in that?

That’s great. That’s actually what I tell people in my workshops. A lot of times people are like, “How do I practice? How do I get started?” It’s really good to take a walk every night, around the block, or if you have a dog, take that night walk and spend time with the moon. I’m really lucky, because I live in LA and I can see the moon almost every night.

Start taking stock of how you feel in your life around the major moon cycles. Like around the full moon, you might feel really energized and really jazzed, or you might feel incredibly depleted or really emotional. It really just depends on your specific experience. Around the new moon, around the full moon, again, around the waxing, the waning, it’s good to take note. “Hey, I can see the moon, it’s halfway lit up, that means it’s in the waxing period. How am I feeling? Am I ready to put the pedal to the metal? What do I want to do?”

The other really interesting thing about the moon is that, due to its orbit, we only see one side of it at all times. We never see the “dark side of the moon”. That’s really beautiful and poetic. We’re always looking at the same side, but we’re looking at it from various stages of illumination. The sun is lighting up the moon. We’re looking at the light of the sun lighting it up, seven seconds earlier, right? That’s the speed of light. We’re metaphorically looking at our consciousness, the truth of the matter. The sun correlates to activeness. So we’re sort of getting lit up on the stage of this blank slate every time.

The moon is our subconscious. The moon is our interior. The moon is what needs to come out in order to keep going. We’re looking at this really interesting interplay of light and dark, of consciousness and unconsciousness, of day and night, and I think that’s a really beautiful thing to remember when we’re looking up at it and engaging with it.

Amazing. Would you say that your audience base is primarily women?

I would say it's 92% women.

Why do you think that is?

I would like to ask a man why they’re not interested in this stuff, more than ask why a woman is. I’m not sure, but what I do know is there seems to be a correlation between the moon and between women of all kinds, however they’re identified. Trans, non-binary, in-between, femme, however you want to identify. There seems to be an inherent connection to women and the moon. I think that we’re having both a huge rise in feminism, and a backlash against feminism, right? Because every time we take a couple steps forward, they’re gonna try to push us four steps back. We’re seeing that in the laws that are happening. Obviously we’ve seen that in the election.

There’s a very, very long line of herbalists using the cycles of the moon to create their concoctions. Of shamans, of witches, of doulas, of healers utilizing the moon cycles in their healing works, in their practice.

There’s also this incredibly long lineage of these people being marginalized, oppressed and murdered basically from day one — having their healing practices taken out from under them. That’s why we see the preponderance of men in medicine when it actually was women who first were the practitioners. You see it institutionalized, through laws and the government, through violence against the “female” or “othered” body. The moon becomes this symbol, this metaphor for the divine feminine. There are masculine gods or deities that are associated with the moon in various cultures, but, I would say, that I’ve found most deities that are associated with the moon are feminine. It’s kind of this cross-cultural specificity of correlating women and women-identified people with the moon.

A lot of it comes down to intuition. While everyone is intuitive, women are generally considered more in touch with their feelings, and are more likely to be open to noticing how the moon affects them in nuanced ways.

Do you think that just by paying attention to these sorts of things, it can in a way be a political act?

Yeah. We've totally been taught that personal is political. Have you seen She's Beautiful When She's Angry?

No, I never have.

It’s on Netflix. It’s a documentary about the first women’s movement from the 60s and 70s. This saying “the personal is political,” this documentary makes a really good argument for it. As people who are female-identified, woman-identified, femme, non-binary, the other, it’s really up to us to try to see things in a different way. I call it a sort of soft power. We’re trying to do things in a way that’s loving and kind and caring. Soft power is listening. It takes longer, it’s quieter, it’s more subtle. But I think these are all ways that we can kind of utilize this idea of our intuition, of process.

A still from She’s Angry When She’s Beautiful

We've been taught in our society to compete. We've been taught in our society that there's a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that we're racing, and that we need to get a trophy, and if we don't get the trophy, then someone else will get it, and then we've failed. That's very patriarchal, masculine kind of thinking. This moon cycle is literally this kind of spiral. It's not a linear beginning, middle, end, like we see in movies, and all of these other sort of cultural references. It's a process.

We're not here to get one trophy, and beat everyone else out. We're here to get 75 million trophies, whether it's a trophy of getting up in the morning and taking a fucking shower, or it's securing a job, or meeting the person of our dreams, or getting rid of an addiction, or forgiving our abuser, or forgiving our mother, or whatever it is we need to do. It's this non-hierarchical kind of mode, and that's kind of this moon cycle. It's this non-hierarchical kind of mode, and that’s kind of this moon cycle. I think that's what we need to be taking into account, both in the realm of self-actualization and love, and at a larger, more societal level.

Yeah. It’s a radical way of thinking. I was thinking about how the feminist movement wasn't as unified as other civil liberties movements, and why exactly that was (and still is). I've often wondered if that's because of patriarchal society or heterosexual relationships — to love the quote-unquote oppressor doesn’t necessarily help one’s cause. And it’s not like it’s men’s fault; they suffer from patriarchy, too. But it’s just a deep societal internalization of “the way things are” that women have taken on. Can you ever really gain traction if your immediate household is divided? Feminism, or the dismantling of certain systems of power, in some ways introduces an entirely new way of moving through space.

Totally. In the light of this new U.S. regime, and all that’s going on right now, the focus for me needs to be on myself, and those who I love, who might be affected by this situation, no matter what their gender. I am choosing to focus help and attention on those otherized, marginalized.

The other thing, I think, is that oppressed groups, especially women — generally, because women are so intuitive and such sponges, which can be really really useful and helpful for us in certain ways, but really detrimental in others — tend to take upon the actions of our oppressors subconsciously.

I've really been finding myself, in the light of recent events, taking a hardcore look at my internalized misogyny. Where am I unfair to other women? How do I immediately jump to sort of a defensive or judging mode?

Have you heard of Shine Theory? It’s this idea that we must focus and lift other marginalized groups up. There's this really rad podcast. It's called "Call your Girlfriend.”

Oh, I love Call your Girlfriend.

They talk about Shine Theory. Then there's this really great magazine you should check out called Got a Girl Crush. All it is, literally, is a magazine of various female writers, artists and activists, and every issue is just a profile of 10 amazing women. The idea of Shine Theory is that we boost each other up, we look for the positive that is mutually beneficial. We congratulate each other openly. We help each other find jobs. I work at the Women's Center for Creative Work. That's where I rent my studio space. It's in LA and it's a center for women to come to work, to have workshops for events. The idea is that we're here to network. We're here to help each other. We're here to give each other props. We're here to support each other.

Yeah. It’s so important right now. I think about the kind of internalized misogyny that's directed towards one's self. The kind of misogyny that manifests in poor self-talk and instances of self-loathing.

Oh yeah. My work as a tarot reader, which is kind of like a therapist, and my work in workshops, I see it — we're so hard on ourselves. We're like unrelentingly savage. We're like the Pepe Frog meme savage to ourselves. Whether it's like "our shoelaces aren't tied right," "our hair looks weird," whatever, "the dinner was a little too salty," or whatever. "We're five minutes late." Whatever it is, we're like very much in a state of contraction, holding our breath. Like, "Oh my god, this email wasn't worded right. Oh shit, I'm five minutes late on the deadline, oh my god." Someone hits you and you're like, "Oh my god, I'm sorry."

We’re doing all these things and we’re still not cutting ourselves enough slack, and I think that’s part of the self-love aspect. My favorite question in the Moon Book, I believe it was in the one that’s out now that you guys carry, but it’s like, “Have you finally let yourself off the hook?” “Have you finally given yourself permission to breathe, and be amazing, and awesome?”

We are so much better than we ever give ourselves credit for.

What has been inspiring you lately?

The design of Bruno Munari, A Seat at the Table by Solange, Annie Dillard, the artwork that the PDX gallery Nationale shows, the talks of bell hooks at the New School, the many different strains of activism of this country that is rising, and that will continue to rise in the coming years.

What advice do you have for the young feminist just starting out?

You don't have to be perfect, you just have to start, and then continue in an authentic and consistent fashion.

The 2017 Many Moons Workbook is only available via print on demand here.

#yes #modern women #sarah gottesdiener #feminism #art #design #the moon #many moons workbook #interviews #la #interview

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bisoroblog · 6 years ago

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Personalized Learning: Mistakes, Moving Furniture and Making it Work

This story about personalized learning was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

SAN DIEGO — Vista High School principal Anthony Barela had a vivid image of what school here could look like after a $10 million grant to reimagine learning: Rolling desks and chairs, with students moving freely and talking about their work. Better attendance, class participation and graduation rates.

One year later, Barela has watched some of this vision flourish — including new classes and ways of teaching — while other parts never took off.

“Oh, I hate [the furniture],” observed teacher Catherine Connelly one spring morning, as she watched a student propel himself across the room in a rolling chair. Connelly, who is pioneering a new course in social and emotional wellness, added: “I don’t know who thought white desks and rolling chairs were good ideas for high school students.”

Vista’s trials and errors started when the school became an XQ Super School Project, with a five-year grant by the national nonprofit to bring a personalized-learning approach to this suburban district. With year one down, teachers, students and administrators are still negotiating the promise and pitfalls of personalized learning on a large scale, lessons that may shed light on the relatively new reform that so far seems to be facilitating modest achievement gains.

Barela contends that Vista’s approach is making a tangible impact in an area he’s long considered paramount: attendance. More kids are coming to school; attendance rates among last year’s ninth-grade class were up 15 percent from the previous year’s freshmen, according to Barela, and 10 percent from the same class’s eighth-grade rates. The average GPA for freshmen was slightly higher (0.2 percent) as well.

This nearly majority-Latino city began its experiment with personalized learning three years ago, after a districtwide survey revealed that thousands of high schoolers felt their education wasn’t relevant. District officials theorized that students’ disillusionment with the curriculum contributed to Vista High’s 10 percent dropout rate. In response, they launched an experimental Personalized Learning Academy for 150 juniors and seniors deemed at risk of dropping out.

Grades and attendance rates for students who signed up for the new academy rose slowly over the next two years, giving Vista officials sufficient evidence that their approach could work on a larger scale. They applied for and won the $10 million XQ grant, which meant that they would need to replicate the features that had made their academy successful on a much larger scale: creating smaller communities, making changes gradually, giving students more control, and focusing on students’ social and emotional wellness.

Smaller communities

Vista school officials started by trying to replicate the academy’s intimate structure, in which four teachers shared the same group of 150 students and got a block of time each day to plan lessons together and review who needed additional help. Sharing information helped them develop closer relationships with students and better tailor their lessons.

For the 2017-18 school year, they broke up Vista’s freshman class of almost 700 students into six self-contained “houses.” Teachers say they appreciate the chance to work more closely with the students, along with a small group of their colleagues, and believe it’s helped contribute to a drop in disciplinary incidents.

“Because of the relationships and collaborations between the teachers,” said freshman math teacher Amanda Peace, “those issues are able to get settled a lot faster than they would in a previous year.”

Yet some teachers also said that the intimacy of the house system — in which freshmen often ended up in three or more classes with the same students — caused friction.

While students in the pilot academy chose to join the close-knit community, last year’s freshmen had no choice. When they had conflicts, they didn’t get time away from each other, so Peace said her team decided to switch several students’ schedules midyear.

But even with such frustrations, the house system kept freshmen who would otherwise be scattered across Vista’s sprawling outdoor campus feeling “like a little family,” said 14-year-old, then-freshman Peyton Kemp.

And having small groups of teachers sharing the same students also paid academic dividends.

“I think the students were a little shocked by the connection between teachers,” freshman science teacher Lexi Kunz said. “They hadn’t seen that before. We would have times when they’re working on one assignment and there’d be a very explicit connection in another class, and I think they went, ‘Oh, this is real, they’re really talking to each other.’ ”

Vista’s large freshman class was broken down into “houses” as part of the transformation, creating closer relationships and more interdisciplinary learning. (The Hechinger Report/Mike Elsen-Rooney)

Making changes gradually

Teachers and administrators in the academy also found that for change to stick, it had to come gradually; students and teachers both needed time to adjust. At the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, freshman history teacher Matt Stuckey, one of the school’s most experienced personalized-learning practitioners, told students that change wouldn’t happen all at once.

“Some days, it’s going to feel like what school felt like last year,” Stuckey told them. “Then there’s going to be times when you’re really going to have the independence to show what you’re learning in different ways.’ ”

More student control over learning

Personalized learning encompasses a range of techniques meant to give students more control over what they learn and how they learn it. Much of the momentum has come from foundations with roots in Silicon Valley, whose founders believe that a proliferation of cheap technology allows new possibilities for personalizing education. The idea has also appealed to educators who see benefits in letting students learn at their own pace, after years of standardized testing.

In Kunz’s windowless freshman physics class on an April school day, a group of about 15 mixed special and general education students squinted up at a projection of a graph.

“I had a lovely conversation with Ms. Peace about graphing,” Kunz explained to her students. Peace teaches in the same house as Kunz, and had noticed that this group of students struggled when choosing increments for labeling the x-axis of a graph.

Kunz devoted the entire lesson to reinforcing the skill. Students worked quietly — a couple listened to music through headphones — and the special education teacher who co-teaches the course walked around spending additional time with some students.

That kind of communication — in which Kunz and Peace tag teamed their teaching of the same concept — is a clear benefit of the house system and of personalized learning’s approach, and simply wouldn’t have happened in previous years, teachers say.

But communicating with each other about where to focus is just the first step, according to Craig Gastauer, the former science teacher who’s now in charge of training Vista’s teachers in personalized learning.

For example, if Kunz’s reinforcement lesson on graphing had allowed students to fill in the x-axis in the way they thought was correct, then compare answers, they would have understood the process more deeply because they would have found the answers on their own, Gastauer said.

From his tiny office in an out-of-the way corner of the campus, Gastauer said that the whole experiment is about trial and error; he ultimately wants to overhaul the school’s grading system, removing letter grades and switching to “competency-based” diplomas that would allow students more flexibility in how to demonstrate they’ve acquired the knowledge necessary to graduate from high school.

“We want to make sure first we have a curriculum that’s inviting to the students where they can work with teachers to co-create parts of the curriculum,” he said.

Teachers have come a long way since the beginning of the last school year, when many said they felt “under the microscope” and fearful they’d be criticized for not adapting quickly enough to the changes, Gastauer said. They felt additional pressure from amped-up media around the XQ grant, which celebrated its 10 “super schools” last September with a flashy national TV event featuring actor Tom Hanks.

With part of the grant money, Vista turned its library into a “learning commons.” The space now serves as one of the school’s primary gathering spaces, a gallery for student art and a technology hub. (The Hechinger Report/Mike Elsen-Rooney)

War, peace and Chromebooks

History teacher Caroline Billings embraced the changes. Instead of the traditional global history course she’d taught in the past, in 2017-18 she led a “challenge” class in which freshmen designed self-directed projects based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

On an April morning in Billings’ class, students chatted in groups and surfed the internet on Chromebook laptops, as part of a unit on peace. Later, as a final project, the groups would propose ways to incorporate the study of peace into the 2018-19 history curriculum.

Billings assigned each group of three a different aspect of peace studies to research. One group typed “France” into the Google search bar, another browsed search results for “domestic peace.”

Avery Mortensen, 14, appreciated that Billings started the unit by having students read a critique of teaching peace in history class, and called the class more “student involving” than previous history courses.

Other students struggled with the freedom of toting the personal Chromebook laptops the school gave out. “It’s more like a personal thing when you get distracted on the Chromebook, not the Chromebook itself,” said 15-year-old Emiah Mills.

Finding the right balance with the new technology is a focus for teacher training. Gastauer instructs teachers to “plan learning and then ask how can tech enhance. Don’t start with the app.”

Before the Chromebooks, Mills had to borrow her grandmother’s computer. Now she gets more done at home, although she admits she also video chats with her friends while working on essays.

Can wellness be taught?

Teachers knew that students would at times struggle with the increased freedom and responsibility of personalized learning, and they were ready with a solution they’d piloted in the academy: “wellness” classes dedicated to helping students cope with social and emotional discomfort.

Wellness teacher Cindy Brooks said the course supports the broader goal of Vista’s personalized learning push “to get those kids that get lost in the shuffle. Try to bring them in.”

Ultimately, wellness class became something of a metaphor for the rollout of personalized learning as a whole, illustrating the challenge of making a concept that worked with a small, self-selecting group succeed on a much larger scale.

Eight teachers volunteered to teach the course and write the curriculum, but they had no idea where to start. “It’s a class that no other place was doing,” said wellness teacher Rick Worthington. They cobbled together curriculum materials meant for guidance counselors and health teachers.

“We’re literally learning as we go along,” Worthington said. “You can know what stress is and what anxiety is, but how do you teach a teenager?”

In the beginning, students were antagonistic. “That’s the worst beginning of a school year I’ve ever had,” Worthington said. The eight teachers were directly encountering aspects of their students’ lives they used to see only from a distance, but had little framework for teaching them coping skills for what came after school.

The wellness class gave teachers a chance to “step back from the content area of teaching to make that a priority,” former English teacher Cindy Brooks added.

In addition to daily lessons on topics like how to receive a compliment, wellness teachers checked in with students every week about grades and helped mediate conflicts in other classes.

Gradually, students started to look forward to wellness class. “It’s a good break from school work,” said 15-year-old Namrit Ahluwalia. “Regular school days take our mind away from who we actually are.”

At some point in the school year, administrators realized that none of the eight wellness teachers had experience with English Language Learners. ELL specialists like Kim Collier tried to help, but Collier had no experience with the curriculum wellness teachers were creating on the fly.

“We tried to make some adjustments, but the train was moving,” Collier said. This year, Collier will run a training with wellness teachers before school starts to make sure the course is accessible to ELL students.

What changes are ahead?

There will be other adjustments going forward as well. This fall, Vista’s house system will migrate to the 10th grade, and will expand each year until the whole school runs under the new system.

There are still open questions about how the school will shift into its second year. Some freshmen teachers want to follow their current students to the 10th grade. There will also be a new leader: Principal Barela stepped down to be near family in Colorado. He will be replaced by Kyle Ruggles, a former elementary school principal who most recently oversaw academic and behavioral support programs for the Vista school district.

Much of Barela’s vision will remain. And science teacher Blaine Darling says teachers sound different now when speaking about personalized learning. “For the first time, it’s given everyone a common language,” Darling said. “The conversations that are happening are happening outside of staff meetings.”

That’s exactly what Vista is hoping for: a new kind of teaching that will last, long after the grant is spent. It’s why science teacher Gastauer wasn’t upset at criticism of the moving furniture: Already, Vista has introduced a new version with individual desks instead of long tables, and has gotten much better feedback from teachers.

“The focus has always been on our teachers feeling like they’re comfortable,” Barela said, “and making sure the reason we’re doing that is for our students to be able to leave here better off than when they arrived.”

Personalized Learning: Mistakes, Moving Furniture and Making it Work published first on https://dlbusinessnow.tumblr.com/

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robertmcangusgroup · 7 years ago

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The Daily Tulip

The Daily Tulip – News From Around The World

Thursday 26th October 2017

Good Morning Gentle Reader…. Well if your reading this on Facebook it means that I haven’t been blocked again, which makes a change….. I don’t know why, but the International Space Station crosses the sky here quite often, saw it this morning, along with two of three smaller satellites twinkling as they crossed the heavens… It seems like only yesterday, that the Russians launched Sputnik, no not the web based newspaper but the small satellite, that shocked the world and effectively started the Space Race back in the 1960’s .. what amazing steps we have taken since that auspicious moment… Man on the Moon, Voyager I and II leaving this Galaxy and venturing out into the unknown, and NASA's Cassini spacecraft wrapping up a 20 historic years in space, and collecting data as it crashed into Saturn's atmosphere and burned up like a meteor.,,, Boy.. haven’t we come a long way….

COUPLE'S AMAZON PACKAGE CONTAINED 65 POUNDS OF POT…. A Florida couple who ordered some storage totes from Amazon said their package arrived with a little something extra -- 65 pounds of marijuana. The Orlando woman said she and her fiancé ordered four 27-gallon storage totes from Amazon recently so they could put some items in storage. She said they were immediately suspicious when the packages arrived. "They were extremely heavy, heavier than you would think from ordering four empty bins," the woman, who did not want to be identified by name, told WFTV. She said the cause of the extra weight became clear from the smell when they opened the boxes. "When the first officer got here, she was in disbelief," the woman said. The boxes contained the plastic bins the couple ordered, but the totes themselves contained boxes filled with a total 65 pounds of marijuana. The package had been shipped by Amazon's Warehouse Deals via UPS from a Massachusetts facility. The marijuana was turned over to police and the couple spent more than a month attempting to get answers from Amazon in a series of email exchanges. The customers said they were never able to speak to a supervisor and they eventually received an email with a $150 gift card and a message saying: "I am unable to do anything else at this time." The couple said they only wanted an apology and an explanation. "There was no concern for a customer's safety. I mean, this could have turned into a worst-case scenario," the woman said. Amazon said it is cooperating with law enforcement to investigate the unusual incident.

A VALATIE, N.Y., WOMAN EXPERIENCED A SIMILAR CONFUSION IN JANUARY…. When a package arrived at her home that she thought was a box of toys she was due to review for her blog. Pamela Marks said the box was labeled as coming from JAKKS Pacific, a California-based company that makes toy tie-ins for companies including Disney and Nintendo, but she opened the package to discover it actually contained about 7 pounds of marijuana. Marks turned the package over to police and an investigation was launched.

STEPHEN HAWKING'S PHD THESIS CRASHES UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE WEBSITE…. The University of Cambridge's website crashed on Monday after posting famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking's PhD thesis online. The university in England made Hawking's thesis paper available to download online in a series of PDF files which drew droves of people to the website and caused it to crash. Hawking wrote the doctoral thesis titled "Properties of expanding universes" in 1966 when he was 24 years old and gave Cambridge permission to post it to the university's Open Access repository. "By making my PhD thesis Open Access, I hope to inspire people around the world to look up at the stars and not down at their feet; to wonder about our place in the universe and to try and make sense of the cosmos," Hawking, now 75 said. Before it was posted online, hundreds of people traveled to Cambridge every month to view a physical copy of the thesis. More than 200,000 digital objects including 15,000 research articles and 2,400 theses are available on the repository, called Apollo, and the university hopes Hawking's decision will encourage other great minds to make their work available. "Each generation stands on the shoulders of those who have gone before them, just as I did as a young PhD student in Cambridge, inspired by the work of Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell and Albert Einstein," Hawking said. Dr. Arthur Smith, deputy head of scholarly communication at Cambridge, said all graduating PhD students will be required to deposit an electronic copy of their doctoral work for preservation. Hawking was flattered by the high demand to view his thesis and stressed the importance of providing a foundation for future scholars. "It's wonderful to hear how many people have already shown an interest in downloading my thesis - hopefully they won't be disappointed now that they finally have access to it!" he said. "Anyone, anywhere in the world should have free, unhindered access to not just my research, but to the research of every great and enquiring mind across the spectrum of human understanding."

RODIN SCULPTURE FOUND IN NEW JERSEY TOWN HALL…. An archivist in New Jersey discovered a multi-million dollar sculpture by French sculptor Auguste Rodin at a town hall. The bust of Napoleon Bonaparte was put on display at the Hartley Dodge Memorial building, which serves as the town of Madison's town hall, after curator of collections Mallory Mortillaro identified the work of art in 2014. Mortillaro discovered the bust pressed against a wall and recognized it as a possible Rodin before sliding her hand along the side of the sculpture to discover the famous artist's signature. "That's weird, I thought. Why does it say Rodin?" she said. The sculpture had been donated without paperwork so Mortillaro informed the trustees of her finding and emphatically encouraged them to authenticate the piece. "She said, 'You don't understand. I think we have a Rodin,'" Nicolas Platt, the foundation's president, said. Mortillaro reached out to various scholars to confirm the sculpture's authenticity before finally getting in contact with Rodin expert Jerome Le Blay, formerly of the Rodin Museum in Paris, who offered to fly from Paris to see the piece. The piece was ultimately authenticated, but an announcement was delayed due to insurance and security concerns. The Napoleon sculpture is worth at least $4 million, but Platt said the foundation has no plans to sell the unique piece of art. People are curators their entire lives and don't end up finding a blue whale in a boat. That's what [Mortillaro] did," Platt said. Mortillaro attended the unveiling and was on hand to answer questions about the sculpture and its origins. "It's a really special thing to be able to give to the world," she said.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU'S FAMOUS PANDA CUDDLE SCULPTED IN BUTTER…. A butter sculpture at the Canadian National Exhibition is drawing attention online for its adorable subject matter: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cuddling panda cubs. The sculpture, previewed in a photo tweeted by the exhibition's official Twitter account, is being molded by David Salazar and his team of artists at the Toronto event. The sculpture is based on a viral photo tweeted by Trudeau last year when he was given the opportunity to share a snuggle with the Toronto Zoo's giant panda cubs, Jia Panpan and Jia Yueyue. "What is better than seeing yourself made of butter @JustinTrudeau!" the CNE tweeted. Salazar said his team of artists will be working on the Trudeau sculpture as well as more than a dozen others depicting animals that rose to viral fame, including the infamous Ikea monkey. "It's pretty funny working with butter. It's a little surreal," Salazar told the Toronto Star…. I had my palm greased to write this one, thought I would slip it in…..

Well Gentle Reader I hope you enjoyed our look at the news from around the world this, Thursday morning… …

Our Tulips today are stunning... Purple so rich one would think they were grown for a Queen.....

A Sincere Thank You for your company and Thank You for your likes and comments I love them and always try to reply, so please keep them coming, it's always good fun, As is my custom, I will go and get myself another mug of "Colombian" Coffee and wish you a safe Thursday 26th October 2017 from my home on the southern coast of Spain, where the blue waters of the Alboran Sea washes the coast of Africa and Europe and the smell of the night blooming Jasmine and Honeysuckle fills the air…and a crazy old guy and his dog Bella go out for a walk at 4:00 am…on the streets of Estepona…

All good stuff....But remember it’s a dangerous world we live in

Be safe out there…

Robert McAngus

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paulelafleur-blog · 7 years ago

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Measuring Design Effectiveness: Mastery Journal

This past month has shown us why leaving time and availability open within the design process for iterations of work based on critical firsthand, qualitative data and research via the target demo through questionnaires is so vital. “By adding an assessment phase to the process, the designer can track the successes and/or shortcomings of a project” (O’Grady, 2009).

With even the smallest sample size (15 respondents) and a limited number of questions posed (10 in total), the feedback was crucial and paramount to making further adjustments based on the targets critiques and honest opinions. This information from the main consumer let in insights and understandings that were previously overlooked or thought to be not as worthy in the grand scheme of things.

Of course, on the other hand, these questionnaires and surveys can re-affirm what all of the hard work and sweat was for at the start of the design process. The research and information gathering phase of every project should be taken extremely seriously, as the target audience will pick through pieces of work that don't fit in with their mindset. They know what they know and they will know that you don't know it. They will call you out for poor branding, lackluster research, and overall poor design choices because of it. So the first phase of the design process where you need to get your hands dirty amounts to a lot when you do it right the first time.

These questionnaires and firsthand feedback are best when the audience is helping to fill in the minor gaps between designs, not having them point out cavernous schisms in your work that don't gel with them.

Below are the results from the questionnaire in regards to the Making Wavez campaign that I transformed over this program during several courses.

The questions, predominantly, were graded on a sliding scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high). This was to allow for “quantifying various degrees of opinion” that may be expressed by the respondents (Collins, 2010). But the most telling question was the penultimate one that allowed for long-form answers to be given in regards to the weak points within the totality of the Making Wavez campaign. While the scores ranked/averaged highly in favor of the overall campaign, the 9th question was the most telling. It proved to be the most insightful amongst the lot.

1. On a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high), what is your score given to the brand’s visuals? (e.g., colors, fonts, imagery, visual message). Do the visuals explain the brand’s intent?

This question will give quantitative feedback on the emotional connection that the brand has with the target demographic. If the visuals and branding do not convey what Making Wavez is about at first glance, or at least give a nod to what they do and stand for, then there is a lack of emotional and psychological connection that needs to be addressed.

2. On a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high), how effective is the brand’s visuals in conveying the attitude, energy, and sociability of the actual event to entice you as a consumer?

This question’s purpose is to make the emotional connection with the consumer. It is one thing for a brand to properly convey and visualize its meaning or intent of message, but an entirely different thing for a brand to make that deeper emotional and psychological connection with its intended audience.

3. On a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high), what is your level of interest/engagement in the website design/layout?

This question will help to address the first impressions that the users have with the website from a purely visual aspect. If the average score ranks low, then there are clear issues that need to be resolved within the design of the website.

4. On a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high), what is the level of ease that you can visually navigate the layout based on experience and interaction of the website’s usability.

This question will address the general impression the user has with regards to the UX/UI and interactivity with the website layout and design. A lower average score will raise concern to pain points within the site’s design.

5. On a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high), what is the level of cohesion between the desktop/mobile app and their corresponding social media pages?

This question can help bridge the gap between owned assets and paid for/shared assets across the consumer journey. While there is full control over owned assets (e.g., websites, mobile apps/sites) there can be a disconnect with branding when the assets need to follow specified guidelines and are controlled by outside sources (e.g., Facebook, Twitter). This question can ensure that enough is being done on the social media accounts to connect owned and paid/shared assets to avoid confusion amongst consumers.

6. On a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high), how unique, innovative, and useful do you find the Spotify integration within the festival wristbands?

This question will gauge the audience’s willingness to use more digital capabilities during the actual festival, as well as assess the likelihood of user interaction with other touchpoints throughout their time prior to, during, and after the event. This can lead to further integrations and partnerships in the future, as well as more downloads for the app, as well as attendance increases for coming events.

7. On a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high), how interested are you in a musical event that also aids in the charitable good for wildlife and their environment?

This question can support the notion that the charitable messaging can be utilized to a fuller extent in consumer-facing campaigns to push sales, brand engagement, and overall awareness. A higher average score can sway the next iteration of materials to be more sea turtle and ocean-focused rather than musically-dominated. Once awareness has been built of the event, then the non-profit portion can come through to a higher extent that drives consumers deeper into being a part of the festival.

8. On a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high), how cohesive are the values and messaging of the brand (e.g., fun, exciting, innovative, environmentally top-of-mind) executed throughout the Making Wavez materials (e.g., eco-friendly sunscreen, recycled fabric tote bag, reusable/recycled water bottles)?

This question will help tie in the emotional connection that consumers have to the products that are an extension of the brand at the music festival event itself. The higher ranked average scores can tell that the consumers understand and will engage with the swag at the event based upon its environmental and charitable good. If the scores average too low, then there is a clear disconnect between intent and branding.

9. Please list any specific improvements that you can suggest to enhance the branding for the consumer. Whether it is in regards to the visual identity, the brand’s execution of messaging and tone, or in regards to the collateral and additional pieces that can be seen online, in person at the festival, or interacted with at home.

"Spotify wristbands are awesome. Would love to see more of that style of thinking incorporated elsewhere." "Awesome stuff! I wish actual music festivals had this level of ease to their navigation and user experience." "Nothing to add at the moment." "Make a better connection to audience/who attends event." "Can't think of anything at the moment! Overall, it was a great, cohesive piece of work." "Colors are a bit bright and overwhelming sometimes - more personal opinion, but it fits with the theme and motif of the event and atmosphere of the electricity in the crowd and the music." "N/A." "No images of the event spaces/locations." "Would love to see more visual representation of the types of people/crowds from the event and the surrounding areas and physical spaces." "visually, showing more beach and vacation related items on the page. (e.i. waves, palm trees, sand, sun)" "The branding is cool. Would like to see more coming through about the meaning of the products like the sunscreen and tote. Push for more innovation." "More visuals showing community engagement, people having fun, exciting crowds and more party atmosphere." "I think there should be more pictures of attendees or people partying and not just musicians with a backdrop. People want to get to a place that creates a fun environment to meet and party with strangers" "I think everything is fine the way it is." "Further development of digital integrations and partnerships like the Spotify one would be really great. Also, further pushing the sea turtle connection through visuals and theme."

This question will fill in any holes that the consumer finds to be glaring and out of place. This is where constructive feedback can be given to alert of any major gaps or oversights throughout the process. In turn, these suggestions can be assessed as an individual bias from one respondent or a popular opinion from the masses that urges an immediate change. It was left for the near end of the questionnaire since it can be used as a “safety valve, and may possibly offer additional information” that was once not thought of. (Collins, 2010).

10. On a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high), how likely are you to attend this event?

This question would be the ultimate proof of concept that the brand, its visuals, and its expanded campaign were successful in reaching the proper audience, on the proper channels, at the right time to fully engage with the consumer for the ultimate call-to-action: donation and attendance.

One of the biggest takeaways from this month was to listen to and understand your target audience. The consumer isn't as foolish or unknowing as you may think. They understand and want to be listened to and catered towards. And that is our job as a media professional. Learn, grow, listen, and develop ideas that will better our consumers’ lives, not interfere with them or disrupt them.

This course was foremost in allowing myself to be taught by the consumer and to learn from them. It was a massive lesson all on its own. The customer may actually be always right.

References: Collins, H. (2010, September 01). Creative Research. Retrieved August 22, 2017, from http://ce.safaribooksonline.com/book/design/9782940439676

O'Grady, J., & O'Grady, K. (2009, February 01). A Designer's Research Manual: Succeed in Design by Knowing Your Clients and What They Really Need. Retrieved August 22, 2017, from http://ce.safaribooksonline.com/book/graphic-design/9781592535576

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jansen1107 · 7 years ago

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Trick-or-Treating (Kinda) in Cuba

I recently returned from a trip to Cuba. I had a wonderful time. Cuba is a beautiful and poor country where the absence of American influence is immediately noticeable and welcome. Called The Forbidden Tour, the theme of this trip was things haunted, spooky, and horror. Okay,… it was really just an excuse for we American tourists to take advantage of a group tour to Cuba while we still have the chance—Donald Trump is working tirelessly to close the door that was opened by Barack Obama. I’m glad our group got in when we did, and while we were there, we knew we were in a window of opportunity that would soon be shut to Americans. And, really, out of nothing more than spite. Sad.

I’ve been on five or six of these haunted horror trips. My friend Charles is the organizer, and his company is based in Connecticut. He keeps dreaming up new tours we can do, which gives us an excuse to go to new countries. Cuba is not really known for its haunted sites, but we found a few. The bunkers at the National Hotel in Havana offered some serious pings on Charles’s ghost-hunting app. We also toured Castillo de Jagua, an old fort that was made of mortar using animal blood and that is believed to be haunted by a “woman in blue.” Supposedly, her bones were excavated during a renovation and are now on display in the castle’s chapel under a thin sheet of plexiglass.

I was also humbled and honored to be a guest at an actual Santeria ceremony. The unsettling part of the ceremony was the noticeable pig’s head at the back of the room and a large plastic bucket that looked like it had the remains of a dog in it. From what I understand, Santerians practice animal sacrifice, and being a vegetarian and an animal lover, I’m not sure how I feel about that. I have tremendous respect for people of all faiths, but on some things, I’ll have to agree to disagree.

The Santerians were incredibly generous and offered us shots of black coffee with sugar, plates of pineapple and watermelon, bags of popcorn, and even gift bags with incense sticks, cigars, a tea candle, a paper cone of what I think is either incense or possibly dried beans, and a chalk seashell. The English-speaking priest asked us if we’d be interested in buying plastic baby dolls in custom Santerian outfits that were supposedly imbued with magical energy or spirits. I declined (even though I’m a toy collector), but now I regret it because they didn’t ask for donations at the end of the ceremony, and selling the dolls was probably a source of income for them.

Our group danced with the Santerians as men played drums at the front of the room and one man sang in a beautiful voice, calling out to the congregation and being answered in kind. I really worked up a sweat and felt the energy in the room. Two women had to be escorted from the dance area when it was clear they were possessed of the spirit. In Santeria, the spirits or orishas ride the dancers and possess them. Instead of being frightened, I was awed. It was a humbling experience to be part of it all.

Other sites we saw included the grand cemetery in Havana, which is the largest urban cemetery in the world. We actually lost an older man from our group and had to organize a search party, fearing he had passed out from the heat somewhere in the forest of mausoleums. Being a loner, he had a penchant for going off on his own, but I finally spotted him on his way toward us on an avenue that was being used for a military drill. Phew! That was the most unpleasant scare on the trip.

Havana is beautiful. I had the opportunity to ride “the oldies”; antique cars from the ‘50s and ‘60s that have been kept in good condition since they were made and are now used mainly as cabs for tourists. Riding along the beautiful Malecon seawall was like a dream and a reminder that my heart belongs in seaside towns.

The people of Havana were stoic and thoroughly unimpressed with Americans, which was both humbling and relieving. It was nice to walk around and not be stared at, even if we looked like goths in our dark clothes, T-shirts with ouija board prints, and (gasp!) facial hair! Everyone looked the same in terms of clothing to me, and I was longing for just one or two university students to come walking along with brightly colored hair… or piercings… or a mohawk. It never happened while I was there. The whole country was so understated. The only billboards were those advertising propaganda. There were no logos or ads jumping in our faces at every turn, and it was hard to know if we were looking at a restaurant or a copy center from the outside. It felt like the whole country was a speakeasy.

And not a single Starbucks in sight! Hallelujah! Although I did have my traveling companions doubled over with laughter when I asked the barista at the National Museum’s snack shop (in a whiny valley girl voice), “Can I get a venti caramel macchiato? I haven’t had a caramel macchiato in days, okay? I am so dying right now.” Of course, the request went way over his head, and he made me a frozen lemonade, one of only about three beverages on offer. It was delicious.

My friend Krys and I got up at 6:15 to run 4 miles on several mornings. We loved watching the sun come up as we ran down by the water. Commuters were out waiting for the unreliable buses even at that early hour. We said, “Hola,” to many of them as we passed, and the Cubans were very friendly. Watching the sun come up as we ran on those early mornings reminded me how beautiful this life can be.

Cuba is one of those places where you can actually use your rudimentary Spanish and not get an eye roll, like you do when you’re in Europe—where everyone is fluent in English and doesn’t have time for you to struggle with verb conjugation. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my four years of high school Spanish and subsequent years of reading the language and eavesdropping has made me decidedly conversant. I was able to help my friend Lynn find a souvenir map of Cuba at the airport, told the cashier in a grocery store that Cuban coffee is reputed to be among the best in the world, and had a conversation with a man in front of the National Theater about how he’s happy to see tourists but the government takes all the tourist dollars… speaking of which, could I spare a peso or two and maybe a couple bars of soap?

We Americans are spoiled for choice, and it’s something you take for granted until you walk into a Cuban grocery store and see only two choices of coffee, three choices of shampoo, and hear rumors that a shipment of Gouda cheese can cause a near run on the store. Some of our group complained that hotel cleaning staff were stealing toiletries. I don’t think this was due to need so much as an actual hunger for choice. At one stop, a man asked me if I had Ivory soap on me, something rare in Cuba. It’s human nature to want choice and variety in all things, and we Americans don’t know how lucky we are.

And that brings me to the part of my story about the kids. In our emails prior to the trip, Charles recommended that we bring cheap toys and toiletries to hand out to the Cubans. The weekend before leaving, I went around to the dollar stores in my neighborhood picking up bars of soap, cheap Barbie knock-offs, coloring books, crayons, pencils, Matchbox cars, and Pez dispensers. It seemed like every time we ran into a group of school kids, my goodies were stowed in my suitcase under the bus where I couldn’t access them. It happened outside Hemingway’s house and again outside Castillo de Jagua. Just seeing the looks on the kid’s faces was priceless. Finally, I got smart and started carrying my goodies around in a canvas tote bag with the tour logo on the front. I was like a wide-eyed, maniacal Santa Claus on the lookout for kids. When we got to the National Theater, I spied a little boy with no shirt on and a pair of shorts hanging out in front of a restaurant. He must have been about five or six. I was across the street and couldn’t get to him in time because he disappeared when I crossed. I was heartened that some tourists walking by handed him a green tennis ball before I could get to him.

A few minutes later, I spied a little girl holding the hand of a man who I assumed to be her grandfather. Quickly, I reached into my bag and handed her one of the knock-off Barbies. I’ll never forget the look on her face! Her mouth formed a little “o” and her eyebrows shot up. Isn’t it the best feeling in the world to make kids happy? I had read reports that girls actually line up on the playground to play with a single Barbie doll. And I think that sucks!

As I continued walking with my group, I looked back and saw that the girl and her grandfather had stopped. She then came running back to me with the doll. I shouted to her, “¡Es tuyo! ¡Es tuyo! (It’s yours! It’s yours!)”, thinking she was bringing the doll back to me because her grandfather wanted to teach her a lesson in modesty. Boy, was I ever wrong! She pointed to the other two dolls sticking out of the top of my bag and said that she wanted those, too! I obliged. So, now she either has a whole set of new dolls for herself or she’s going to give the others to her sister(s) or classmates. I admired her enterprising spirit!

The rest of my goodies went quickly. It gave me such a great feeling to hand out each item. The girl on her dad’s shoulders who cheered when I handed her a coloring book and a box of crayons. The little boy who shyly turned away from me when I handed him an Optimus Prime Pez dispenser. (His mother assured him it was okay.) The parents were always so appreciative. But that little boy who got away will always stay with me. I send you positive vibes, little man!

At the end of the week, our group customarily has a costume ball where we get dressed up and compete for prizes. Although I won “Crowd Favorite” on our last trip to Germany and Prague, my Spring-Heeled Jack costume was an utter failure. No one knew who I was supposed to be. I decided not to wear makeup with it because it was so hot and muggy. You won’t find many pictures of me in our shared group photos. I think I just weirded everyone out in my skeleton shirt, bat cape, and cut-up rubber Batman mask. (I was having flashbacks to a similar experience when I was a child.) No matter. I’ll wear the costume again for Halloween and then retire it. I love the character and was glad to wear him in costume form.

So, that was my haunted mystery tour to Cuba! What an amazing time. It’s sad to think that if you’re an American and are reading this, you might not have the chance to visit Cuba for a while. The Trump administration is moving quickly to slam that door shut. And thereby taking away one of our freedoms. “Make America Great Again,” he says? My advice is to get there this year (2017). If you’re interested, Charles is offering the tour again next year, if Americans can still travel to Cuba. But the next trip will be more of a tour for music and food than a horror tour. Tropicana and Buena Vista Social Club were some music venues we got to enjoy, and I highly recommend you check them out if you’re in Havana.

And be sure to bring lots of toys for the kids!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMhS5Xt_sRE&list=PLPd7HOSqosr5QPRTrdJiwt9dVaFmz7UpF

#Cuba #tourism #horror vacations #Americans abroad

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