#like literally our city has quite a few nice buildings that ive had to have ppl drag me away from staring at them and everytime i go to

[iknowwhereyousleepatnight]

The secret to good school is good funding. One day, I dream of a world where all schools have options for their children. Personally, I think it's pretty important for that sort of thing to start out early. See if you're actually into that think BEFORE you're 100k in debt and hating your life.

My area has some awesome architecture. One time, I wanted to do a project on it, and my teacher said it was too complicated. I cried, like genuinely left that class, found a place to sit down, and just cried. The buildings were pretty, and I wanted to talk about them. I really do love the amount of thought put into those buildings. The people who made them are dead, but their art is still there. A bunch of dudes 100 years ago sat down and designed this theater. Then more came in and built it. And here I am, sitting there.

Architecture is so awesome in the way that it's interactive. It can survive longer than any human.

definitely!! being able to explore interests before you gotta choose one for your career is soso important i rlly wish i got to try out some more shit before i had to settle on smth

also sameee my city has a lot of old architecture (especially my school. some of the buildings are falling apart but they're very old and very pretty) and im like just in awe of it like architecture is an art but it's more than an art because unlike a lot of art it's not just something to look at it's somewhere someone lives or works or goes with friends and makes memories like a lot of art doesnt have a practical function but architecture does and it serves as a setting for so much of people's lives and that's really impactful and so awesome because there's architecture everywhere and it's all so beautiful *dreamy sigh*

also sucks that ur teacher sucked i hate when teachers/profs won't let you do projects on what ur passionate abt like passion is the basis of learning why aren't u supporting that....

[beyondmistland]

“May your heart be your guiding key” (Full thoughts on Kingdom Hearts III below!)

Graphics:

Ø  The game is bloody gorgeous, which helps mitigate the long and frequent cutscenes

Ø  The lip-syncing rarely fails

Music:

Ø  The new remixes are awesome and the brand-new tracks don't disappoint either

Ø  What does though is the actual audio mixing:

More often than not I struggled to hear the music over the sound effects during gameplay and the voiceovers during cutscenes

Ranking the Worlds:

Ø  #1: Corona: The world is huge, with varied terrain and a kick-ass final boss

Ø  #2 Olympus: The sheer scale and scope of the world took my breath away, plus we (finally!) get to fight all four titans

Ø  #3 The Caribbean: Assassin's Creed IV meets Kingdom Hearts, what's not to like

Ø  #4 Monstropolis: While not as eye-catching as some of the other worlds the way it intersects with the broader KH lore is really neat and the final cutscene was a delight in that it averts the Disney characters being useless when dealing with the original KH villains, on top of which its straightforward design is a nice change of pace, my only complaint is that there are only four types of Unversed

Ø  #5 San Fransokyo: The story is surprisingly short, which means you don't really get the chance to explore the environment, which sucks because the verticality and day/night cycle are awesome, plus there are a number of memorable boss fights

Ø  #6 Twilight Town: If it had been fully recreated based off the KH2 version the world would be much higher on my list but despite how small it is I love the liveliness, not to mention how peaceful it is in comparison to the other worlds, the same can be said for Hundred Acre Wood

Ø  #7 Keyblade Graveyard + Final World + Scala Ad Caelum: Though jaw-dropping in terms of visuals and audio they're not fully realized worlds, the same can be said for Dark World

Ø  #8 Toy Box: I loved the final boss as well as how the story tied into the larger plot of the game and I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy exploring Andy's room while "You have a friend in me" played in the background

Why then is Toy Box so far down on my list, world design

Even with endgame stats (LV40-45) the Gigas are tough to take down and as a result they come off as gimmicky in the worst sense of the word, beyond that the fact that the majority of the world is set in Galaxy Toys made me feel constrained and claustrophobic, which could have been partially alleviated if we'd been allowed to make our way through the parking lot outside, finally, the story kind of got repetitive with the backtracking whenever the characters were about to leave because "someone went missing yet again"

Ø  #9 Arrendelle: Though it has one of the best final bosses in the game along with Corona there is so much wrong with this world that I wonder if it's less Square Enix's fault and more Disney placing an insane amount of red tape on their favorite cash-cow:

1) Elsa does not become a party member even after you beat the world

2) You do not get to explore the city or the ice palace despite the latter being fully rendered on the map

3) Larxene, a lightning-based character, randomly traps you in an ice labyrinth when that would have made a lot more sense both logically and thematically if it had been Elsa

4) Speaking of Larxene, she does practically nothing the whole time you're there unlike Marluxia and Luxord, who are at least semi-active

5) You climb a mountain and get knocked off of it so many times that even Sora gets fed up

6) The bloody minigame where you have to find Olaf's body parts

7) Forcing us to watch the entire "Let it go" sequence and then having "Do you want to build a snowman" play over Anna's voice as she's explaining herself to Sora

8) So much of the story is excised that you have little clue as to what's going on to the point Hans appears for all of five minutes, doesn't say any lines, and isn't even named when it would have been cool, not to mention, just plain better, if he had started off as a guest member of your party

9) As a result of #8 Sora, Donald, and Goofy's presence feels like even more of an afterthought than usual in the sense that them not being there wouldn't have changed anything at all apart from Hans' Heartless then having no one to defeat it which can be seen by the fact that when they leave no one tells them goodbye unlike in every other world

10) The visual design was bland and tiresome after a while

11) The world's gimmick was uninspired to say the least

12) Fighting alongside a giant snowman (AKA Marshmallow) was awesome and in terms of pure gameplay the labyrinth was actually quite fun

Story Pros:

Ø  Master Xehanort's new voice actor is good but after hearing Leonard Nimoy's voice for the past couple of games the change is a bit jarring

Ø  The way previous games are referenced and tied together is a nice way of bringing new players into the fold while also setting up the finale's resolutions

Ø  The game has a better sense of humor than previous installments

Ø  Sora is more like his KH2 self than the bland caricature we saw in 3D and quite a few characters display some degree of genre-savviness

Ø  Master Yen Sid gets out of his chair to lend a hand for once

Ø  Donald Duck is the most powerful mage in Square Enix canon (and I am not making that up)

Gameplay Pros:

Ø  Being able to switch between different save points in the same world is a welcome addition

Ø  The secondary ability of all shotlocks to airstep is ingenious

Ø  You can have more than two party members finally!

Ø  The secret ending isn't too hard to unlock

Ø  You can upgrade your Keyblades, which means older ones aren't automatically relegated to redundancy

Ø  Donald and Goofy are useful again after being nerfed into uselessness in KH2

Ø  Towns and cities are actually populated by fully-voiced NPCs!

Ø  Cutscenes in Theater Mode are unlocked after completing each world rather than after beating the game

Ø  I never tried the Classic Kingdom minigames but the cooking one with Remy was a nice break from the normal gameplay (I suck at the egg-cracking one though)

Ø  The camera doesn't get in the way like it infamously did in KH1

Ø  I like the new main menu design (Feel free to disagree though)

Ø  The Gummi Ship is entirely optional outside of a few mandatory boss battles

Ø  Moogle Tickets are a nice way of giving players a second chance during difficult encounters (I do wish they didn’t activate so quickly though) 

Gameplay Cons:

Ø  The game never once tells you that you can switch between Situation Commands using L2

Ø  The game never once tells you that you keep all your lower-tier magic (Fire, Fira for example) and that your shortcuts don't automatically update to include the higher-tier version of whatever magic you have equipped

Ø  There's no real incentive to switch between Keyblades (That being said, my favorites are Wheel of Fate, Nano Arms, and Happy Gear/Ever After)

Ø  Attractions lose their charm quickly and completely ruin the flow of combat

Ø  Summons aren't too big of a deal since I only ever ended up using them once and even then it was by accident

Ø  Donald still heals you at the wrong time more often than not

Ø  Even on Proud Mode the game is way too easy for the most part (Apparently Critical Mode addresses this but I can't confirm that)

Ø  There is a lack of sidequests and post-game content that contributes to the feeling Square & Disney gave us half a game (For example, there is only one secret boss, said secret boss has a generic design, no ties to the story, and can be defeated at LV40 on your first attempt)

Ø  Hollow Bastion, Mysterious Tower, and Destiny Islands are not playable

Ø  The parkour from 3D has been nerfed too much in terms of distance to actually be useful

Story Cons:

Ø  Nomura fridged Kairi and he worfed almost everyone the first time you arrive at the Keyblade Graveyard!

Ø  The wrapping up of plot points and character arcs from prior entries was a little too nice and neat for me

Ø  The out-of-nowhere introduction of Subject X

Ø  Pete and Maleficent do literally nothing the whole damn game

Ø  The pacing is awful:

Almost all of the game's resolution is held back until after you've beaten the last Disney world

Ø  There are two important cutscenes in the Final World that you can accidentally miss because for some reason they are optional

Ø  We don't get to see what happened to Lingering Will, which also means we don't get any more insight into the third aspect of being (AKA the soul)

Ø  There are no Final Fantasy characters in the game, not even Sephiroth!

Ø  What happened to Demyx?

Ø  Master Eraqus has absolutely nothing to do with Terra’s restoration

Changes I’d make:

Ø  Require us to go through the Disney worlds a second time like in KH2

Ø  Have Aqua and Ven be saved halfway through the game instead of at the end, they could then spend the second half of the game resting or join you on one of the Disney worlds to refresh themselves

Ø  Have Lea and Kairi join you on one of the Disney worlds to get practical experience

Ø  Make the Keyblade Graveyard sequence be a series of one/two/three-on one battles so that members of Organization XIII can use their full arsenal of attacks from previous games

Ø  Let us play the second battle between Lingering Will and Terra-Xehanort

Ø  Speaking of Terra-Xehanort, we should have fought him alongside the Guardian Heartless

Ø  Have us explore Scala Ad Caelum while hunting down the individual replicas before then making us fight all of them in a boss battle

DLC

Ø  The presence of it says a lot about the game and not in a good way

Final Score

Ø  7/10-8/10

[veganvagabond88]

Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur

Before coming to Malaysia I hadn't given it much of a thought, the only thing I really associated with it was Borneo and Orangutans. I soon found out that it is so much more and I am now in love with the country.

I firstly flew from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur with my friend Ben, this is a much cheaper and quicker way to cross, you can take buses/ferries but they are super expensive so not worth it.

We spent a couple of nights here which was awesome, the city is pretty crazy but it has a lot to offer (if you like big cities that is) we stayed out of the main stretch at a hotel in Titswanga. It has a train link here which was convenient. We made the mistake of using the hop on hop off tour bus on the first day…. Now because of the traffic this was the worst way to see the city we hardly got to any of the stops, so we ended up getting off and either walking or taking a taxi or the train.

Top sites in Kuala Lumpur

Petrona’s Towers

I had always wanted to visit this iconic building, it is made up of two tall towers with a bridge connecting the two. It is a beautiful piece of architecture and really does have a wow factor. If you are on a budget however it is quite pricey to go up I think over $40 … so the best thing to do is grab your selfie stick and stand outside the entrance and take photos like we did, there's also a mall inside which you can walk in for free, its pretty impressive and has a food court, quite a few veggie options :) there's also a Juice bar, pricey but worth it if your into smoothies/juices.

KL Tower

For views I think this is the best place to go, you can see the Petronas Towers and around KL from here, it costs around 30MYR to go to the first viewing platform, I think you can pay more to go further though but we didn't bother it was high enough.

After walking around the tower and taking some photos we made our way down and went to the mini zoo there. Im not really a believer in zoos but this seemed OK and promoted conservation and had lots of signs up everywhere against animal cruelty. I was super happy as they had some mini lop rabbits I could have a cuddle with! I miss my rabbits at home.

There are a few other things around the KL tower, a racing simulator that my friend did although its just like an arcade game. Also there's an aquarium near by and an upside down house. You will see that Malaysia is a big fan of these, I’ve seen some photos of it but id rather spend money on something else to be honest.

Roof Top Bars in KL

Reggae Mansion Bar

Since my first visit to KL ive returned and done some more sight seeing. There are many roof top bars around the city which is great for views. I went to the Reggae Mansion Bar (also a more up market hostel), this is really cool, there is beer pong, a pool table, and TVs that show sport and a DJ, drinks are a bit pricey in the city but we were lucky enough to be with a local friend who was nice enough to buy a tower of beer for me and him and my friend to share which was nice!.

Helipad

The Helipad is also a hot spot for awesome views. This is a very high building with a bar at the top, now this is quite pricey however if you go before 9pm you don't have to pay entry fee (someone told me its usually a 100MYR entry but I’m not sure) as long as you go before 9 and buy an expensive drink its worth it, a pint of Tiger was 30MYR as were some cocktails. We met another girl Phoebe that we had been volunteering with in the Cameron Highlands here. It was nice to catch up and take some photos from the top.

Traders Hotel

This was free to enter to the top and had a great view opposite the Petrona’s , we stayed there for a good hour or so watching the sunset and taking in the sights. The light/fountain show outside the Petrona’s can be seen from here which is beautiful, I actually watched it from ground level as well, the lights and water sync with music played which is nice. I think it starts around 8pm and lasts an hour. The area up at the top has a bar and swimming pool where you can get a nice cocktail and food.

View from the Traders Hotel

Times Square

Another building not to miss, this is essentially a huge mall with two towers on either side made up of offices/hotel etc. The mall has many floors full of shops (fashion/electronics and more) and also has many food and coffee shops.

Treated my self to the best ice lemon tea! was nice to chill here around the hotel pool for a bit with my friends before we did some more sightseeing. 

view from one of the towers overlooking the hotels roof top pool area

One of the most impressive attractions here is the indoor theme park!, I only looked around inside as i was budgeting but it was still cool to see, i think park entrance was 50MYR. 

Food

So like all cities expect to pay more, there is a main walking street of food markets/restaurants however these are very meat/seafood based and quite pricey. My advice is to find an Indian restaurant, these are always so much cheaper and easier if you are a veggie. A roti with veggie Dahl is only around 1.30MYR and noodles/rice dishes around 4MYR. Portions are big to. Try a traditional banana leaf set. This comes with rice and a few veggie friendly dishes as well as Dahl. In most places they top up the Dahl and rice for free to. These sets usually cost around 6-8MYR depending on the place. Eat with your hands to, it takes some practice but I actually prefer it now.

China Town

I stayed here on my second visit. This place is very cool, a few streets full of markets mainly clothes/shoes and souvenirs (prepare to haggle, I bought a pair of “Birkenstocks” the guy wanted 75MYR!!! but I got him down to 30. There are also lots of food and drink stalls, try the fresh sugar cane juice, this is my favourite. Also at the far end of one of the streets is a stall ran by a Chinese guy where you can sit down and enjoy fresh steamed buns. Lots of veggie options from sweet potato, pumpkin, sesame, peanut butter and they also do a savoury one which is like a salty onion mix inside. They were delicious and very cheap.

In China town I stayed at the Backpacker travellers Inn, this was the cheapest place I found online, for a dorm its only 16MYR and 40MYR for a private room (bare in mind a private room is literally the size of the bed but it was nice to stay in a comfy bed for a night).

Besides eating and drinking there are heaps of Malls around KL, they really love shopping!, even if you are on a budget and have no intention of buying anything its cool to walk around them and take advantage of the air con to haha.

While in KL i also did over a week volunteering at a guest house as well as couch surfing and lots of hitchhiking around KL and other parts of Malaysia, I will upload a separate blog for this along with tips on how to live cheap/free in a big city and still have fun :)

Jessica 

[charmingturkeysandwich]

Knock, Knock Ch.24/27: The Aftermath

We’re getting closer to the end, friends! This chapter had more angst than I’ve planned, but I still love it. And I hope you do, too! Question: does everyone know the game Hangman? As I was taking the photo above I realized that might be a regional thing (and also realized how gross the concept is; like seriously why the fuck was I playing this as a child?!). But when I was in the hospital my mom and I played it a lot, hence it making its way into this story. 

If you read, let me know what you think? And thanks to @emmaswanchoosesyou for unintentionally(?) providing a line of dialogue. :)

Read on AO3.

Start from the beginning on Tumblr.

It’s funny how sometimes you just want to reach through your rib cage and rip out your own lungs.

OK, so funny probably wasn’t the word. But Emma was trying to see some form of lightness in her current situation. And, yes, she was failing horribly.

She couldn’t talk, not really. It came out all scratchy and wasn’t really worth the pain, so she’d taken to writing notes. Except her hands had suffered minor burns from coming in contact with hot objects, so that hurt, too.

Just wonderful.

Miraculously she hadn’t broken her legs – Killian did well to remind her exactly how lucky she was to have escaped that particular injury (“why are you calling me the lucky one? I’d say it’s you, considering if my legs were broken you’d have been the person in charge of helping me use the restroom,” she’d scratched out, her voice somehow Julia Child and Morgan Freeman at the same time).

He’d been distant. He was taking care of her, of course – in addition to David, Mary Margaret, and Regina, the three of whom were also tending to poor Belle (alongside a massively apologetic Will).

Belle was doing about the same as Emma, though with fewer bruises, cuts, and sprains (Emma was ever the Princess of Stupid Ideas with Painful Consequences, it seemed).

Sleeping was Emma’s current favorite pastime. Not because it brought much rest – no, with all those wires and tubes hooked up to her, with all the pain and discomfort, all the noises of the stupid hospital, her sleep was never really all that high quality. But it meant she didn’t have to talk to anyone, didn’t have to apologize again for her stupid/heroic behavior, didn’t have to watch the people around her worry and fuss and dote.

It hadn’t been the wrong decision. Despite his fucking crazy, Emma still stands by going up to check on Jefferson. She had to at least try to help. At first it had seemed so minor, so it wasn’t like it was life-threatening. She hadn’t known from the start what she was getting into. And when it escalated, well what was she supposed to do exactly, just say fuck it and let the psycho burn down her home? Yeah, it burned anyway (burned to the ground, nothing left but beams and brick and dust), but she had to know that she’d tried to save it, to save the only place she’d ever really felt OK.

And, you know, other people lived there, too.

Killian didn’t leave the hospital. Ever. The nurses would try to kick him out and he’d always get snippy with them. “Where the fuck am I supposed to go?” he’d growl out, not an ounce of politeness left in him. “My home burned just like hers. I’m staying here.”

After his little outburst, Emma had written him a little thank you on a sticky note and stuck it to his arm. He’d smiled and folded it up, putting it into his pocket before scooting his chair closer to her and laying his head on her bed, time to get some sleep.

She’d run her IV-laced fingers through his hair until his breathing evened out. Whether or not he was actually sleeping, she couldn’t be sure. But hopefully he was faring better than her in the rest department.

Mary Margaret was exhausting. She was pregnant and shouldn’t even be on her feet the way she was (probably? That’s how pregnancy worked, right?), but she was constantly on the go. She’d buy Emma and Belle better food, better drinks (even though they didn’t exactly like putting anything down their throats quite yet). She’d bring fresh flowers and prettier bandages to cover their burns and scrapes. She was absolutely hell bent on providing comfort and relief in the form of material goods and any attempts to make her stop only made her cry. So Emma gracefully (not) accepted each new offering, vowing via notebook that Mary Margaret was making a difference.

David was a different story. He and Killian were mostly still riding the Rage Train.

Jefferson had – thankfully – been moved to a different hospital, air lifted to the city where they had a dedicated burn unit (and a psych unit – just saying). He’d been in bad shape. Obviously. He’d thrown accelerant on himself, had been standing directly in the fire. His burns were the kind that stayed with you. Forever.

(So much for a cleansing.)

His legs had been broken. His pelvis, too, if she were to believe the chatty nurses roaming about the halls. It was a miracle he was alive.

A miracle that David and Killian did not appreciate. The two of them spent time researching how to sue him. They came up with “fantasy” plans for how to kill him and get away with it. They even tried to blame the ex for “not getting him proper treatment” and their landlord for “renting to a goddamn psychopath.”

Emma was pissed at Jefferson, and with every right to be. Duh. But what kind of recourse was going to do any kind of good right now? The man was clearly suffering mentally. It takes a lot of wrong in your brain to resort to arson, to completely dismiss the consequences of your very unhinged actions. She was angry and annoyed and caught in a never-ending why me kind of depression spiral about the whole thing, because obviously Jefferson’s actions affected her. Directly.

But suing him wouldn’t take it away. Even him dying wouldn’t change the past. He needed help. And Emma needed to never think about the bastard again. A concept David couldn’t seem to fucking grasp.

“Please,” she croaked. “Just... pretend he doesn’t exist.”

“But he did this to you, Emma! Your life is just… gone. And all because of that idiot!”

Emma rolled her eyes and shrugged and grabbed her notepad, scribbling in childlike chicken scratch: say his name one more time and I’m going to find an IV needle and STAB YOU WITH IT.

He stopped talking about it after that. Out loud and in front of her, anyway. But his rage, his fury was still permanently etched into his scrunched up face and lifeless eyes.

It was like he couldn’t see that Emma was still here. You know, right fucking in front of him.

(Sometimes anger gets in our faces. It makes us do the wacky. Just like love.)

 She was taking a “nap” (reliving the time travel episode of Castle in her head) when an all-too-cheerful sounding set of heels started clicking on the shabby linoleum floor of her shabby hospital room.

“First you land yourself on the no-fly list, and then you jump out of a burning building? Damn, girl, you’re making my life look positively dull.”

“Ruby!” she practically growled, her voice particularly yucky after a few hours without water.

“Oh, dear lord please don’t do that again. I’ll have nightmares.” Ruby always knew how to lighten a mood, make the best of a truly shitty situation. She and Emma shared that way too soon and highly inappropriate sense of humor and it was just what she needed after the doting, brooding, and outright ignoring of her the last three days.  

Emma grabbed for her notepad and pen, only causing a little pain as she jerked at her IV port, and started scribbling.

What the hell are you doing here???

“Um, my best friend jumped out of a burning building. Did you miss that part? Of course I was coming to see you.”

You sent your love via text through Killian’s phone. With a lot of emojis.

“No emoji is a substitute for this face.”

“Well, you’re not wrong about that,” a smooth British voice called from the doorway. It seemed Killian had returned from his hourly walk/excuse to avoid Emma.

“So, Jones, has the fire convinced you that you should move to Seattle? Victor is itching to get you in on his poker night after last week.”

“We played poker?” Killian looked truly shocked by that information, which was particularly amusing considering how much he’d won – while apparently blacked out.

“Oh, you played good, sweetheart.”

The two of them spent some time catching up, Ruby seeming to sense that Killian wasn’t in any mood for joking about the recent incident that was the reason she was visiting in the first place. Emma just listened and smiled and gestured a few times in response to a question.

It was just nice to hear her voice. And to hear Killian’s voice… you know, without the twinge of blind rage or deep depression.

He’d seemed to be feeling far guiltier than Emma could wrap her head around. What exactly could he have done differently that would have changed the outcome of the day? Literally nothing. It all would have gone the same, except he’d be hurt, too. But he was feeling bad and it was making her feel bad and there was just something so odd about feeling the person you want right beside you –

And realizing they don’t seem to be there at all.

-

He needed to tell her.

A lot of things, actually.

(There was nothing like a near-death experience to get your damn priorities in order.)

First of all, he needed to tell her about the step he took without her permission. But, you know, she was probably going to want to slap him. And he owed her that. So he couldn’t tell her that when she was laid up in a hospital.

And he needed to tell her she was wonderful and perfect and all he ever needed in his life.

Sure, she probably realized he felt that way. She probably suspected that he felt the L word for her. But they never talked about it. They’d had some heart-to-hearts, they’d confessed their feelings and whatnot, but there was always the hint of humor, the possibility that it wasn’t all real and important and solid.

He knew it was. And he suspected that she knew he knew that. But why didn’t he fucking tell her? Why didn’t he confess how terribly much he loves her and how he plans to stay at her side every day for the rest of forever? Why didn’t he make sure there was absolutely no possibility for miscommunication?

Oh, because he was scared. Scared she might run or worse, that she didn’t feel the same way.

But she did. She fucking did and he knew it and why didn’t he just take the leap?

Nope, instead he watched her leap – off a fucking building, not knowing if she’d survive long enough for him to spill his guts.

And now he was just so angry at himself and annoyed at her and positively raging at the lunatic who couldn’t handle his own shit and put them all in this situation in the first place. In other words, he was in no state for a mushy, lovey speech.

And she was in no state to hear it. It wasn’t clear whether she was trying to avoid speaking with him or if she was just reacting to his own coldness, but she’d been fairly uncommunicative. She’d reassure him with little notes and he’d keep them close, but he couldn’t control the fire in his chest every time he thought about how she was almost taken from him, about all his own shortcomings, and especially about fucking Bucky and how much he wanted to strangle that bastard with his fucking breathing tubes.

OK, yes, he was overreacting. Emma would lecture him beyond belief if he were speaking out loud (and if she had the ability to talk at length), but he was just so mad. And it was easier to be pissed off at a violent, mentally unstable neighbor than it was to cope with being irrationally angry at yourself.

Ruby’s visit provided some perspective. With Emma not able (and/or afraid) to lighten the mood, Ruby was a breath of fresh air. He was able to forget, if only for a moment, about all the bullshit of the past few days. He was able to feel like he was just sitting in his living room, hanging out with his two very favorite ladies.

But that sense of home quickly vanished when he remembered his home had done just that – vanished. Gone were the couches they’d lounged on, the TVs they’d watched, the video games they’d played.

(Gone were the walls on which they’d knock for communication long before they were face-to-face friends.)

It was all gone.

It appeared he’d gotten a little lost in his dark thoughts, because Ruby had moved on from joking and catching up with him to apparently playing hangman with Emma on the nurse’s white board. Emma had gotten an entire song title correct without a single body part drawn and therefore was celebrating by doing a little dance from her bed.

Which resulted in a tugged wire and a pulled cord and all of a sudden there was a steady beeping and a very cranky nurse storming in to fix everything.

“Damn, Emma, you’re on fire today with your clumsiness,” she joked, Emma raspily chuckling in response.

Killian, of course, was not amused by anything that contained the word fire.

“What, too soon?” she asked him, a look of mock innocence crossing her still-laughing features.

At least Emma was smiling.

 It was the next morning that Emma found out she could be discharged. They needed to check all of her wounds and do a few more tests on her lungs, but everything seemed normal.

Well, normal up until the nurse made the mistake of asking Emma if she was excited to go home.

She stared blankly at the poor lady and then reached for her water, gulped down as much as she could and responded, “Would be if I had one.”

Which appeared to be the moment the nurse realized that Emma had been in the fire that destroyed her apartment. And she therefore had nowhere to do. Not officially, anyway.

She had somewhere to go. She and Killian were both invited to stay several places. Ruby, of course, had offered her flat in Seattle, but that was the first suggestion they steadfastly turned down. Regina, Robin, Mary Margaret and David, even Belle’s family had offered them places to stay. Only Will had forgone extending an offer – and that was because he was so desperately wrapped up in helping Belle to recover the hideousness (and their brief disagreement, too).

“I’m thinking we go with Regina. She’s got the big house, after all,” Killian joked to Emma as he was packing up her (recently purchased) clothing and toiletries.

“If that’s what you want,” she responded flatly.

“Swan, I was kidding. I just kind of assumed we’d go to David and Mary Margaret’s.”

Emma rubbed at the little hole in the crook of her elbow, the place they’d just removed the IV (a sure sign she was imminently free from this hospital hell). “I mean… well, I was thinking that maybe we shouldn’t stay together.”

Her sentence didn’t quite compute. “What do you mean ‘not stay together?’ What else would we do?”

“Well it’s not like we lived together, Killian!” Her sore voice was probably on its last leg, so to speak, with this influx of talking, but Emma showed no sign of wanting to switch to the notepad instead. “Just because we lived in the same building doesn’t mean we have to go to the same ‘emergency shelter.’ Plus you can barely look at me and it’s making me feel like shit. So maybe you should just go work out your anger at me or whatever somewhere else. I’m sure Robin would be happy to have you.”

He got the distinct feeling that if she’d had the ability, she would have stormed off at the end of that sentence (she so very much loved to have the last word). But instead she just plopped back down on her lumpy bed and hung her head.

And he probably should have thought a little longer about what he said in response. But, you know, emotionally charged situations and all – they’re not great for critical thinking. “But we can live together now. I mean… why wouldn’t we? We have to find new places. What’s so wrong with finding the same one? It would certainly make the process a lot simpler.”

The room was uncomfortably silent for the span of two walkers scratching by the open door of Emma’s hospital room – and three announcements over the PA system.

“OK, so you want to move in with me because it would just ‘make things easier?’” Emma put air quotes around those last three words, and that was about the time Killian realized he should have kept his damn mouth shut (he’d been right to not confess the mushy stuff – it certainly doesn’t come out very mushy in his current state). “I’m not interested in taking an important step in our relationship just because it would be less of a headache. Speaking of headache, I have one. And I’m tired. And I’m hungry. And I’d like to be somewhere that doesn’t make me want to commit murder. So could you please go find David for me and, I don’t know, call Robin while you’re gone to let him know you’re coming?”

Emma stood from the bed and hobbled over to the duffle bag with her things, grabbing one of the sweatshirts he’d gotten from the hospital gift shop. She refused to look at him, but as soon as he took a breath to respond, she countered, “Killian, please. I can’t do this right now.”

So he leaned over, kissed her cheek, and left.

-

“What kind of idiot suggests moving in like that?” Emma rasped, Mary Margaret quickly grabbing the empty bottle in her hand and running off to fill it with more water.

“Well, I mean – he does have a point?” Ruby suggested, her voice light and laced with a tone of please-don’t-kill-me-for-stating-the-obvious.

“OK, yes. I mean, he kind of does. We were probably going to get to that stage, anyway. So it does make sense. But he’s barely talked to me since I was in the hospital!” Mary Margaret returned with the water and Emma sucked down half the glass before continuing. “He was cranky for days and distant and I get it, but you don’t go from ‘I’m basically just tolerating you’ to ‘let’s consolidate a life together’ in a few hours.”

“Well, as Belle said yesterday, you also don’t usually go from brunch with your BFF to half-dead in a hospital bed in a few hours, either, sweetie. The situation is pure garbage, and he probably did it all wrong, but you can’t stay mad at him for this.” It was the first time in three days that Mary Margaret had actually voiced anything other than how can I throw more things at you to make you feel better.

Of course, just when Emma was at her low, Mary Margaret decides to stop doting. Just fabulous.

“You know, he hasn’t even said ‘I love you’ yet? Who moves in before you say you love them?” Emma countered, her argument seeming flat even to her own ears, considering it would take being blind, deaf, and perhaps not human in order to not know that Killian loved her.

(Or that she loved him in return.)

“Emma, you’re not exactly the easiest person to please. Or the easiest to know what you want, I should say. I’m sure he was playing it safe. And I’m sure the second he saw the fire trucks, he regretting playing it safe.” Ruby took a deep breath, closing her eyes as if to channel the energy of the sea or some of that floofy shit she’d taken classes in back when she lived by Emma.

“I know I joke a lot. And I know I don’t say too much about Victor. But one day he was on call and he was paged after an accident. It had been some kind of mess between a couple of cars going too fast and a tractor trailer that had fallen asleep at the wheel. Anyway, the passenger of one of the cars looked just like me, apparently. Or enough that Victor’s heart dropped at least. He did surgery on her, but there was no saving her. He had to call time of death on her and he had to tell her brother and her boyfriend that she was gone. It was that night that he picked me up from the apartment building, still wearing his scrubs, and told me in a very matter-of-fact tone that I was the best thing to ever happen to him and he’d like to come home to me every night. He was tired. It was midnight – and not the romantic kind. But it was real. He’d had enough fear of losing me entirely that he was no longer afraid to push me away. Mad at him was better than dead in his book, I guess.”

(Always ending on a light note, that Ruby.)

The girls were all quiet for a few moments, Emma feeling their stares through her eyelids as she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to figure out any way she could stay mad at Killian instead of herself. (She was failing.)

“Now can we please call Robin to bring him over? I’d made up the guest room for both of you.” Mary Margaret was scowling at Emma when she finally opened her eyes. Ugh. How did she go and fuck up so quickly?

“Fine, but someone else is calling him.”

-

A strange number popped up on Killian’s phone. Who would be calling him that he didn’t have in his phone book?

That’s when he remembered that Belle and Emma had left their phones in the apartment. You know, the one that had burned down. And rather than trying to rush new iPhones and deal with insurance and all that crap, Mary Margaret had just picked them up some Tracfones from the local dollar store. Meaning they both had new numbers, at least for the time being.

He answered expecting to hear the rasp of Belle or Emma, but instead it was David’s voice on the other line, apparently having borrowed Emma’s new phone. “You’re being summoned, Jones.”

“Summoned?”

“Yeah, the crazy girl has admitted her crazy and requests your presence. And I swear if you refuse I’ll bop you on the head because, yes, she was wrong, but she also almost burned to death this week so how about we give her a pass?”

“Only for you, Dave.”

 Robin had been expecting that Killian wouldn’t stay long, his things already in Robin’s jeep before Killian had even requested a ride to the Nolans’.

“Oh, I figured one of you would crack. Like you could actually be away from each other.” Robin scoffed and rolled his eyes and Killian felt a lot like punching him for his attitude, but then again why would he? It was technically a compliment to his and Emma’s relationship that it was so obvious they should be together.

(Well obvious to everyone except Emma apparently.)

The ride to David’s place was mostly full of idle chat, comments on the football matches he’d missed and on how smitten Will was. It was, again, a relief to have some to just talk to, someone he didn’t constantly feel guilty about lying to or about failing to keep them safe.

As much as he was looking forward to seeing Emma, to hopefully holding her and allowing the tension of the past few days to dissipate, he was also dreading this. They were going to have to talk. They’d both need to apologize, or something in the general vicinity of apologizing, and they’d both need to be honest. Her own honesty would probably be fairly minor – probably just admitting she was scared, which, you know, duh. But his? She really could hate him for making such a decision for her.

Robin opted not to come inside, citing the fact that he and Regina actually were planning to watch a movie together that night (Oh, now I see why my bags were already packed), but he did ask that Killian pass along his well wishes to Emma.

And, of course, he wished Killian good luck.

(Which he’d need.)

“Killian! Fancy seeing you here!” David called out the front door, waving a bottle of beer at him to usher him inside more quickly.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see if I stay,” Killian groaned. He probably should have told Robin there was a chance he’d end up crashing his date with Regina. Just to give him fair warning and all if Emma were to kick him out. Again.

“Oh, you’re staying. Probably for quite a while, I’d imagine. My wife has already hung pictures in the guest room to make you both feel welcome while you’re sorting out your living arrangements. So you’re in this for the long haul.”

“Shouldn’t you two be focused on the baby and not us?”

“Well at this point you two need about as much supervision as children, so we’ll call it practice.” David clinked his bottle against Killian’s, took a sip, and wandered back into the kitchen.

“Ah! He’s here!” Ruby shouted as she bounced out of the living room, a glass of wine in her hand.

“Should we really all be drinking when Emma can’t?” Killian questioned.

“She can tolerate us all better when we have a buzz. Now, Mary Margaret and David and I are off to do some baby shopping! Leaving you and your lady all alone. But the kind of alone where you talk, not the kind where you get kicked out of airports. Savvy, pirate?”

“Aye, Captain.”

Ruby looped her arm through Mary Margaret’s and the two mumbled their goodbyes to Emma as they joined David out in the kitchen. There was some shuffling and talking and the scuffle of shoes before the outside door creaked open and shut.

And he was alone in the house with Emma.

She was perched on the couch, her less-bruised elbow leaning on the armrest, one leg curled toward her chest and the other extended across two of the three cushions.

“Can I sit?”

“If you can fit. I’m not moving my leg. It hurts like a bitch.”

“Shouldn’t you be icing it? Or taking pain killers or something?”

“Nah, I’m toughing it out. You know me.”

“That I do,” he mumbled, tipping his head away from her so he could roll his eyes without her seeing.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, mister. I know I’m frustrating but, you know, it’s been a bad week for me. Being on fire and all.”

Her voice was still hoarse and weak, but he could sense the smile, so he turned to meet her eyes as he sat down at the opposite end of the couch. “Yeah I suppose I could cut you some slack. But, you know, you only get to use this so many times.”

“No way, buddy. This one’s good for the rest of our lives. Very little can trump burning building. I’ll always have that card in my pocket.”

It was uncanny how quickly they could fall back into their easy, joking manner. He reached out and put his hand on her ankle, running his fingers along the bruises.

“So. The rest of our lives. That’s a thing you think about?” Easy joking was nice, but unfortunately, it was time for a Real Talk.

Her response was not only shocked, but almost offended: “Of course I do! It just kind of seems like… you don’t. Didn’t? Or something. I don’t know.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well why wouldn’t I?!”

It seemed they’d come to an impasse. Apparently when you were both just supposed to know that you were Serious (not just boyfriend and girlfriend but actually going somewhere else kind of serious), there really were significant chances for miscommunication.

“I love you,” Killian finally said, reaching out for Emma’s hand. “I love you so much it apparently makes me stupid sometimes. I shouldn’t have been so angry at the hospital. I mean, I was never angry at you, but I’m sure it was hard to watch me be angry near you. A lot. And I’m sorry that seized the worst opportunity to ask you to live with me. And I’m sorry it took you jumping out of a burning building and spending four days in the hospital for me to tell you I love you. So very much. Basically from the first time you yelled at me, in case you were wondering.”

Emma smiled and squeezed his hand tighter, shifting her leg forward so she could scoot closer to him. “I love you. Definitely not since I first yelled at you. But I still love you all the same.”

Little fireworks went off in his chest. Despite already knowing how she felt, despite the fact that none of this was a surprise, just hearing the words made him do a little happy dance all the way down to his soul.

And that’s when his voice of reason woke up from his nap and gave him a little tap, tap, tap to the brain.

Better tell her now, buddy.

Deep breaths. He needed to take some deep breaths.

“Would you still love me if I did something big and somewhat life-changing without your knowledge?”

“Did you already buy a house? Because I swear to God, Killian, if it’s ugly I will smack you.”

“No, no. Um. OK, so you know how I had meetings with the insurance guy and my lawyer and all that?”

“Yeah? Obviously? That was only a few days ago. And miraculously I didn’t suffer any memory loss from my recent… incident.” Emma smiled and giggled a bit (as much as she could when she sounded like what he imagined a talking bulldog would) and it made him all the more ashamed of the imminent confession.

“OK, yes, you remember. And I told you why I was going – but only part of it. The papers are in my bag and I can show you later, you know, if you don’t kill me – which, at this point I would understand if you did and – ”

“Killian. Spit it out.”

He paused one last time, exhaling out and preparing for the worst.

“I made you an equal partner in my business.”

Emma’s eyebrow shot up and her eyes roved the room as her mouth fell slightly open. After a few more seconds of silence passed, she started physically looking around the room like a leprechaun were bouncing around with a damn pot of gold in his hands. Maybe she had been taking more medicine than he’d thought?

Then she finally spoke: “And?”

“And what?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“Did you not hear me?”

“Equal partner in the business, right?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“That’s what I’m asking you!” she growled, choking a little from raising her voice. She reached for her glass of water and downed a little bit before turning back to him.

“Did you sign a contract with the devil for my soul in exchange for half your business?”

“Um. No?”

“Then why the fuck are you freaking out?”

“Well why aren’t you?! I asked you to move in with me a few hours ago and you reacted like you were going to run me over with a car. But I give you half my business and you’re just cool with it?”

“Well I do half the work. Why wouldn’t you give me half your business?”

This fucking woman. Just when he thought he knew her enough to predict her reactions, just when he thought he’d prepared himself for all the worst…

She goes and gets all understanding and reasonable on him.

“So you’re OK with it?”

“Did you not want me to be?”

“Well I assumed because I did it without your permission – which was stupid, yes, but I was scared you’d say no – that you’d be really angry.”

“I’m a little weirded out that you could do that without at least, like, my signature? But I’m not angry. I mean, not at you. I’m a little angry at the fucking universe because these injuries and this obnoxious voice are both messing with our schedule. Summer is almost fucking here. We need to execute our very well-crafted plans!”

Her frustration was palpable. She really was all-in when it came to the business.

And apparently also with the relationship.

How weird was that?

(His favorite kind of weird, of course. The kind named Emma Swan.)

[therealestatesparkblog]

No, You Are NOT Going Too Far in Pursuit of Financial Independence

I was talking to my buddy and co-worker Craig Curelop recently. It was about 7:00 p.m., and we were having one of our not-infrequent discussions about financial freedom late after work. As usual, Craig was cooking dinner at the office after his workout. I suspect that he was cooking here in an effort to save money on electricity that hed otherwise have to use to cook at home (I cant even tell if Im joking about that or not). I was just here late, trying to catch up on emails. For some time, wed been having a debate about his approach to attaining early financial freedom. I was claiming that Craig goes too far in his pursuit of financial freedom. Craig was politely dismissing my claim and insisting that he was perfectly happy with his situation. Craigs Obsession with Financial Freedom Now, I think I have some good reasons to think that Craig is going pretty hardcore in pursuit of early financial freedom. He does a LOT. Craig house hacksin a house that is eerily similar to the property I first bought back in 2014my first house hack. His home is just a few blocks away from my property, but a bit newer and nicer. Craig, however, gets a far better financial return from his investment than I did and will likely do better with his investment than me over time, even though I bought an investment that has better numbers as a traditional rental property. How does he do this? Simplehe rents out his bedroom on Airbnb and sleeps on the futon in the living room! Craig bikes to workevery day. Thirty degrees and snowing like it is on the day I write this? Craig is still on his bike. Craig rents out his car on Turo, netting positive every month on vehicle expenses. Craig does not eat sugar. Craig does not consume alcohol. Craig is involved in extra-curriculars like Toastmasters in an effort to constantly improve himself. Craig reads incessantly. Craig hang-dries his clothes to save money on electricity. Craig gets up at 5:30 a.m. each morning to pursue his goals. Craig meets investors and potential contacts multiple times per week. Craig has literally optimized almost every part of his life in pursuit of early financial freedom. Is this too much? I certainly thought so at firstand I told him so. I thought so until our conversation the other night, when I suddenly remembered what I did to jumpstart my journey to financial freedom.

Related: 7 Daily Habits of Real Estate Investors Who Seek Financial Freedom My Obsession with Financial Freedom See, when I got started on this journey, the term house hacking (but certainly not the concept, which has been around forever) had just been invented by Brandon Turner in this article. The concept of biking to work was completely foreign to me. In fact, every single person I had ever even heard of (excluding the 40-year-old virgin) drove to work or took public transit. Riding a bike had just had not presented itself as an option until I began reading a blog called Mr. Money Mustache (one of my favorite blogs of all time). In spite of friends and family who thought I was crazy, I bought a house hack. I took this Mr. Money Mustache guys advice and biked to work. I read over 100 personal finance, business, psychology, and career-related books. I quit a stable, hard-earned job with middling corporate opportunity to pursue a highly risky job at a startup. I networked with investors all over the city. I tried to get up early to pursue a version of the Miracle Morning even though I hated it and am a night owl. I cooked all of my own meals and almost never consumed anything that even approached unhealthy. I kept a daily log. I even hung dry my laundry instead of installing a dryer. I did this for years. I still do much of this. I dont regret it one bit. In fact, looking back, I wish Id been more like Craigmore obsessed, more (not less) productive. You Dont Have to Be Perfect Forever! The reason I initially thought that Craig was doing too much was that I am currently growing soft. Nowadays, I still house hack. I bike to work, but much less frequently, and often on a custom built e-bike that I put together over the summer that is pretty awesome. This is partly due to a nasty foot injuryI suspect I will resume with biking more regularly on the road bike as the foot continues to improve and the weather gets nicer in the spring of 2018. I cook less and eat out a few times per month. I love Chinese food and am willing to splurge on it now a bit. I enjoy dates at casual restaurants with my girlfriend. I have a dryer. I still spend very little compared with your average American, but its creeping up a bit. I sometimes forget that Ineeded to do the hardcore things that Craig is currently doing to get where I am. Are they things that I want to do for the next 50 years? Are they things that Im even still doing today? No, not all of them. Am I proud that I did them and happy that they contributed to my current position? Absolutely. But the point of all of this is that I can afford to bring some luxuries back into my life now. I have enough passive income to purchase some of these things and still get ahead. And while my passive income more than pays for my lifestyle as things stand, it is not yet enough to comfortably fund the life I could see myself wanting in the futurea life that will involve fewer still of these optimizations. As my portfolio continues to grow over the next few years, I see a more permanent house in my future. I see potential pets. I see a very nice, large kitchen and a significantly improved bathroom in a future residence compared to my present situation. I see some luxuries that Id truly enjoy, like maybe a backyard or garage filled with home gym equipment (purchased second-hand via Craigslist, of course). I see myself gradually approaching a lifestyle that anyone would call middle or upper-middle class. But Ill be able to live that lifestyle at extremely low cost, with minimal waste, and fund it entirely with a surplus from real estate cash flow. This result will unfold gradually, as I consistently increase my passive income in the coming years. And this is possible solely because of the optimization that I implemented in the past and am continuing to ride in the present. Im starting to get soft, and I may well continue to soften in the future. To plan on living an entire life of perfect optimization would defeat the purpose of pursuing financial freedom. I seek bit by bit to build the exact life I wantand to only increase my standard of living in proportion to my passive incomeand never in excess to the point where I will grow fat and lazy. Im willing to go without some of the things I eventually aspire to in order to make that dream a reality. Craig has a similar vision. Craig will not be living on a futon forever. As his wealth grows, as he eliminates his student loans, and as these choices become less and less meaningful to his financial position, I am certain that Craig will cool it a bit. Related: The Surprisingly Simple Secret to Financial Freedom Most 9 to 5-ers Overlook Once you are at a point where you feel that you can ease off the gas pedal, do it. Do it in certain areas that are most meaningful to you. As your passive income increases and covers your living expenses you can stop making the sacrifices that everyone thinks Craig and I are making! But What About Living in the Present? Notice, however, that neither Craig nor I give up or gave up certain things that are universally accepted as important to a well-lived life. Like travel. Like nights out with friends. Like attending sporting events. Like visiting family. Like attending life events of those we are close with. Like volunteering in the community. Those are the things we associate with living. Craig does not go too far in his pursuit of early financial freedom. Craig is one of the healthiest, most well-adjusted folks I know. In spite of his unforgivable love of Boston sports teams, including the New England Patriots, he is a genuinely funny guy, a hard worker, and has friends who come to visit him from all over the country. Craig is doing this whole thing exactly right and will enjoy experiences comparable to every other 20-something in Denver over the next few years, based on his interests. The only real differences between him and the rest of the pack are that he will arrive where he is going on his bicycle, and he will rest his head at night on a futon instead of in a bedroom. He says these things do not affect his happiness. And I believe him. How could they? I believe that Craig has some of the highest odds of anyone I know of achieving a $1,000,000 net worth by the age of 30. You might look at Craig and think, Thats crazy I could never do what he does and sleep on the couch while renting out my bed! But I challenge you to see things from the other perspectivefrom Craigs perspective and mine. Is it crazy to build that much wealth that early in life? Is it crazy to enjoy the same recreational activities as your peers, yet come out way ahead financially? Is it crazy to create a life that is healthier, more fun, costs less, and sets you up for greater career success or income generation? Is Craig crazy? Am I crazy? Or is everyone else crazy?

You Need to Get Obsessed with Optimizing Your Life, Too! Almost every day since I started optimizing my life, my life has gotten better. Ive become healthier, wealthier, stronger, happier, a better skier, a better rugby player, and more in tune with my family. Ive experienced career accomplishments. Ive since met a wonderful girl who Ive dated for a year and half and love very much, and I have what I consider to be a pretty good, fun-filled life. I believe that this progression of events is not unique to Craig and me. Almost everyone I know who has gone on to achieve financial freedom at an extremely early age, who has accumulated a large amount of wealth in a short period of time, or who has started a successful business has done some version of aggressive, all-out optimization in pursuit of their goals. Maybe successful folks didnt sleep on a futon or even house hack. But you can be sure that they devote outsized time, in the beginning, to getting some kind of venture off the ground. You can be sure that they earn more than they spendby a lot. You can be sure that they become obsessed with the success of the venture theyre involved in. Every blogger on this site is obsessed with their craft. They study it relentlessly for years. You need to develop the same healthy obsession with your goals as well. No one has come to me and said they regret these types of choices. No one regrets giving a worthy goal their best efforts. And even if they do, in most cases, choices like these are easily reversible. You can always stop reading, stop networking, stop biking, and stop house hacking if you decide its not for you. Craig can simply stop listing his room on Airbnb tomorrow if he wants and live at a lower cost than almost every American, in the heart of an expensive city at that! Yes, folks can build a million-dollar net worth as middle-class wage earners over a period of decades. Thats not hard and can be achieved automatically, with merely sane spending habits, buying a reasonable home, and contributing to a 401(k). Im not talking about achieving this result. I dont write for folks looking to achieve this result. I seek to help people trying to achieve early financial freedom in a fraction of that time. And to do that, you need to become obsessed. And if you truly want to give yourself the best chance at achieving this goal rapidly, you need to optimize with a passion and zeal. The part of the journey that Craig is currently in is the part that so many more of you readers need to undergo to truly jumpstart your journey to financial freedom. This should be the fun part. Its where you really make the changes necessary to become successful. Ive met dozens of people who are undertaking this journey and house hacking (yes, with kids) in the bottom units of up/down duplexes. Ive met people who have begun biking to work. Ive met people who read relentlessly or who take action day after day in pursuit of success with their career or side hustle. For the first time in years, many of them are excited to take on life. They identify the correct opportunity, the opportunity that offers them a real shot at achieving their goals, and they pursue it 100 percent, with their best efforts, for years. Dont mistake these folks for the outliers. The folks who achieve financial freedom rapidly without making optimized choices in almost every area of lifechoices that increase their wealth, productivity, and happinessare the exception, not the rule. Conclusion Look, I totally understand that Craigs approachor even my approachmay not be something that you want for your entire life. Frankly, I DO NOT plan to house hack in perpetuity, and I am reasonably sure that at some point Craig will move on from his futon to a bed, then a house that he eventually wants to reside in semi-permanently. The whole point of this is not to live like this forever. It is to do it as long as necessary to achieve your goals. The point is to create and execute a plan to create the life you want and then live that life exactly as you want, as the person in nearly complete control, forever after. And along the way, youll probably find that many of these sacrifices are actually all-around improvements in your day and lifestyle! Im not trying to convince you to live on a futon. Im trying to tell you that doing so will not impact your happiness if you go in with the right mindset. And that it is not and should not be a permanent state of affairs. Im trying to tell you that choices like that are the ones that increase your odds of accumulating money and freeing up time with which to pursue big income and investment opportunities unavailable to folks with tiny savings rates and no free time. You may think that Im strange for biking to work, making my own meals, and living in a house hack. You may think Craig is strange for renting out his bed and car, sleeping on a futon, and biking to work. But to us, this life is better than an alternative that involves long commutes, being handcuffed to a mortgage, and engaging in unhealthy or unproductive behaviors that dont produce results or fond memories! And in five, 10, or 20 years, the folks who make choices like this are more likely than not to be multimillionaires with multiple properties and multiple sources of income. Dave Ramsey famously says, Live like no else now so later you can live like no one else. The implication of this is that you have to give up happiness and sacrifice now to live the life of your dreams later. This is not how I have experienced things. Life was better immediately after making the choice to optimize my lifestyle around my goals, AND it continually improves as I reap the financial, career, health, and relationship results of those choices. I feel good about where Ive been, where I am, and where Im going. You can live better than everyone else now, in an extraordinarily low-cost, productive, and impactful manner, AND live like no one else later. I made the mistake of thinking that Craig was going too far in pursuit of financial freedom. But he can and should go farther and faster if he can and will continue to love his life. Let me state it all again: He enjoys it. And he should enjoy it. He is becoming healthier, wealthier, happier, and more self-confident with each passing day, week, month, and year. I too have enjoyed it and will continue to enjoy it. You should enjoy it, too. I honestly believe that those of us who pursue early financial freedom and make the optimizations necessary to make that a reality experience a better life in the interim while pursuing it, a better life approaching Financial Freedom, and a better life after achieving financial freedom. There is no sacrifice in this way of life. The improvements you make to your life may have positive effects immediately and will likely only continue to grow. I give you permission to choose the healthy, wealthy, happy path that you know will leave you better off when its all said and done. And once you decide to go for it, optimize for happiness, health, and wealth without apology. Were republishing this article to help out our newer readers.

What lengths do you go to in your pursuit of financial freedom? Have you ever encountered criticism for living the way you do? Share below! https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/pursue-financial-freedom-unapologetically

[allsortsotings]

SPAIN LIFE: MUJAR

Ive been meaning to sit down and properly write an account of the last few weeks for, well, the last few weeks.

Moving to Spain has been a thing on the life agenda for years and now that it has happened it feels so normal. People often ask how we ended up here and the answer is ‘it just kind of..happened.’

Uprooting everything and leaving the country is a lot easier than it sounds. Just plan lightly and steadily for a few months then pack everything you own into a big bag some hours before your flight.

Watching Netflix’s minimalism documentary before going made being materialistically ruthless a lot easier. Less than a week later I may have moaned about charity-shopping an old faithful denim dress but another week after that and it’s forgotten. Clothes don’t really matter when you’re digging a hole to plant a fig tree on the side of a mountain.

I’m currently writing this from a tiny-house in a place called La Candadosa whilst Torben, or Jupiter, prepares some garden pumpkin with giant pepper and brown rice for lunch. I pulled some spring green-esque leaves and chopped them ready for a sprinkle of nutmeg and olive oil. Andreas, our workaway host, has taken the Sunday for quality time with his mujer, who also lives in Asturias building a massage retreat in her panera. A panera is a building specific to Asturias, its a kind of square barn house with a wooden wall around the top layer which was traditionally used for storing the grains and other dried foods.

Lidia’s is now converted to a sleeping house and dining area for guests and volunteers. Earlier in the week we were welcomed to hers with old jazz records inviting us in to see the table laid with a transparent tray of salad leaves, large bowled shining wine glasses and the low wooden beams making the otherwise cold room rather cosy.

Lidia’s new volunteer Zelah had arrived shortly before us and we connected instantly with a flame of energy. The conversation was filled with a slowly burning excitement which fuelled prospective of a future ecocommunity and networking the many existing permaculture projects in Asturias.

Permaculture is basically finding a way to make growing things sustainable and environmentally friendly. Finding a way to live wholesomely and healthily without making the climate suffer was a big part of the reason we decided to leave England. There are a lot of these projects going on in parts of Europe and we plan to travel through them learning how best to run an ecocommunity.

The big dream is to have an ecocommunity which is envisioned as some kind of large dome in which to do yoga, meditation and disco. There’ll be gardening, growing food, making music, writing, painting and work that makes people happy.

Before embarking on such a task, it seems advisable to experience versions of these realities whilst developing to at least in some way fledged human beings. No one can ever be a fully fledged adult, that would be too serious.

In our bunk above the dinner table four of us talked deeply about life and those personal themes that can be hard not to take with us everywhere. Everyone was so open. We spoke of loneliness, addiction, depression and healing from that. Despite the melancholic nature of the topics, the discussion was uplifting and held a warm tone to it. Already that feeling of communal living has started to creep through into our expanding hearts.

At first we were thinking of finding some kind of apartment or flat in the city and working a bit/socialising/meeting great people but now we are volunteering with workaway we’re quite sure that travelling first is the best option. Also the renewed lust for that communal feeling has somewhat overtaken the desire for a personal space. Life is just better with people.

Oviedo, the city we flew to, is nice but doesn’t feel quite real. The whole thing is almost like being in an open air museum. In one sense that’s lovely, because you have the hill coming down from the cathedral with Tierra Astur and other restaurants pouring Sidra into fragile 70cl glasses as has been done for years in this region. The sidra is made and harvested all over Asturias and is often produced by locals using their own apple orchards. A bottle with enough for six glasses costs about €1 in shops and little more at a restaurant. The custom is to use one glass and drink the whole lot in quick succession amongst friends. Its daily consumption with all meals at La Candadosa is justified by the claimed health benefits of the fermented apples. I’m happy to believe it.

The dull warm buzz it gives reverberates around the pubs, cafes and bars of Asturias, with every customer wishing those who leave ‘hasta luego’ or ‘buenas’ with a smile as they enter. People are friendly, warm and welcoming.

Cheese and cured meats are also hugely popular here, and though I enjoyed all of the traditional culture and play happening every night in Oviedo, after about the fifth day I did start to question the meaning of life. An entry in the bullet journal that day is simply ‘life: meaningless?’. The thoughts lead mostly to the conclusion that finding fulfilling work and flow is neccessary: bar hopping and even sitting in parks eating fruit will eventually become monotonous.

One thing that I truly must point out a love for, however, is the theme and philosophy of Asturian culture which is wonderful: mujar. This means to mop up the juices, to wipe every last bit of olive oil, tortilla and fresh tomato off your plate with a large hunk of crusty white pan. Asturian culture does not waste or take for granted; it savours, devours and celebrates, literally all the juice from the bone. I’ve admittedly been close to a moment of vegetarian weakness in the face of barbecued pork ribs atop a mountain of oily chips in a warm and wooden family barn in Novellana. Sidra and salad saved me.

The place we stay eats almost wholly vegetarian food. Stews, curries, vegetable pasta, salad, etc, so it has been easy and enjoyable to eat with so many other people.

Not only do we share food but knowledge and experience. I’ve learned about gardening, planting trees, mulching (‘mulch is king’), building a sauna, astrology, group healing, permaculture and some Ancient Greek tales recounted in an Irish accent.

Astrology is now a topic of specific interest. It’s endeavour is unlimited, and I’m now more spiritually sure of myself as a swamp witch. Michevious pranks are now followed with the comment ‘that’s a classic Scorpio joke’.

We are so much happier living in the grass roofed Pilgrim’s Cabin just off the route of el Camino de Santiago, with our stuff sprawled across low mattresses and muddy boots at the foot of the chestnut doors. There’s even an enamel tin bedpan hanging on the branch outside, which is a dream come true.

There’s a lot more to say, but first I’ll take further time to mujar: absorb that cultural richness of Asturian life.

[ecotone99]

[MF] Sunday Scaries

The conversation formatting doesnt hold on reddit copy paste, so its much better read thru link

Linking at Top to not spoil the end - hope thats OK!

https://www.casualblasphemy.com/blog/sundayscaries

​

------------------------------------------

Jesus Christ and Other Swear words

Volume II: Anxiety Rainbow

A Slower Burn to Fiery Finish. About 10-15 minutes

Chapter 2, 3 or 7, not sure yet.

​

​

Chapter III: Sunday Night Scream Into the Void

I lie (awake) to myself

A feeling of impending doom. So many emails. Existential dread and the Sunday Scaries.

I cannot sleep, it is nearly midnight. I have so much to do this week.

I lie awake and try to think of all the embarrassing things other people have done.

I can't think of any, so I go back to remembering my own social failings.

The time I tripped in front of my Crush age 14. My disastrous bangs of just last year. The time I mispronounced Worcheschertshishire in front of my cute coworker. The 23 blocks I walked with toilet paper stuck to my foot and that afternoon tanning in the park with a tampon string dangling from my bikini bottoms. Everyone remembers. I am sure of it. I farted once on a conference call.

Monday is only a few hours away. So many emails and the dishes sit soaking for a third day. I shouldn't have slept in today. I have so much to do tomorrow. I think about every time i've fucked up in my past 30 years.

My anxiety builds and I try again to refocus my attention. I try to remember all the embarrassing things other people have done, but I literally cannot think of any. I sort of remember one of my friends shitting his pants. Was that the day I walked into the sliding glass door. Do you think he remembers? Oh god, was it me that poped my pants? Oh jeez, i said poped, not pooped. Im talking out loud to myself.

Thank god no one is here.

I feel lonely.

----

I eat a CBD chocolate and feel the anxiety of impending doom. So many emails.

I remember. I remember every embarrassing thing I have done in my entire life. I have so much to do this week. So many emails. I have a meeting tomorrow and I don't feel prepared. That time I was left hanging for a high five with my hand in the air. I looked like Hitler with no friends. It is Sunday and life is Scary. So much to do this week. Were they laughing at me? I feel lonely. No one talked to me today. I feel like the Pluto of my friend group.

I decide to crowdsource some self esteem and climb on Tinder.

Left

Left

Right

Match!

Left

Left

Oh damn this guy is hot.

Damn, 5’10

Left

Right

Match!

Left

Left

Right

Match!

Right

Match!

Right

Match!

Every time I swipe right it's a Match. I feel attractive and desirable

Left

Left

ew

Left

Left

Double ew!

Left

Right

Right

Nothing. What!?

I lower my standards

Right

Right

Right

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing

Sunday Feels Scary Again. I have so much to do tomorrow. I don't want to play the game anymore. I fear rejection from strangers. Kinda horny tho. I survey my matches and read messages:

“Hey”

“Wanna Fuck?”

“Nice weather Today”

“Show me your bobs?”

“Nice Feet”

A profile stands out

Blake

6”2’ “Ive never shoed a horse, but I told a Cow to go home once”

I don't really get it, but he's HOT. That fish he caught is HUGE! I climb out of my comfort zone and message first. I've never done this before

“Hey” she wrote with butterflies

….

…….

………..

18 minutes pass. Nothing.

I go back to swiping unenthusiastically

Right

Right

Nothing.

I feel like a Moth in a world of Butterflies. Undesirable.

OH GOD. I research gravity blankets and take a xanax. I think of Cocoons.

I fall asleep lonely horny disappointed anxious and 8% numb. So many emails. Maybe I can do the dishes tomorrow after work, the gym, and picking up my prescriptions. I shouldn't have messaged him. I need groceries. That time I tripped on the bleachers and Becky laughed at me. I run through the grocery list in my head. Eggs, avocados, kombucha, spinach, Shame, paper towels, CBD chocolates. I feel weird.

------

I survive another week with espresso and antidepressants. It was hard. I am so tired. I am so tired all the time. Its sunday night and I feel The Doom coming again. I batten the hatches and prepare to wait out the emotional storm under the weight of my new Gravity Blanket. Its heavy and sweaty and I regret buying it. My anxiety rises to new highs and I feel like an idiot. Thank god no one is here. I feel lonely.

Ping!

Blake: :Me

“Hey ;) still up?”

I think about unmatching to teach him a lesson for not replying to me last week, but digital or not, I really need this distracting attention.

“Maybe ;) whatcha doing?”

Trying not to think about Monday LOL

LOLOL Same Same. Sunday Scaries :o

LOL I KNOW! Just gotta get through this week,

I am getting a puppy on Friday!

Puppy! What kind!?

A Frenchi :) her name is Luna

OMG NEED!

You have any pets?

Nooooo :(

You can come play with mine!

Cats or Dogs?

YES PLZ! I grew up with dogs :)

What was the name of your first pet?

Daisy :) she was so sweet

Awww, where did you grow up?

Seattle, just moved for a new job

It's hard being in a new city!

Well I can show you around!

What is your job?

Never been to Seattle, were you born there?

Born in Suburbia, lol

a little town nearby called Auburn

I work for a company that has meetings

I have a friend from Auburn!

LoL what do you meet about?

No way!

We meet about other meetings

Yea, did you got to Westside Elementary?

Eastside

Oh nice, her mom was a teacher there

Did you have Mrs. Ellison for 1st grade English?

I don't remember a Mrs. Ellison?

I had a Mr. Gardner

Oh lol. U like cars?

Sort of

I just got a new one :)

What was the make and model of your first car?

Wow! You are having quite the year!

Lol 1994 black honda civic. The dream

You sound like a Capricorn

Virgo!

Oh nice, when is your birthday?

August 24th, 1990

Just got a pic of my puppy, wanna see?

OMG YES

206-390-0345

I like Capricorns ;)

Oh god that sounded desperate

Texted you

Didn't get it!

Tried again

Nothing :(

Lol new phone too, I think its fucked tho

Whats your email, I wanna show you my bb pup!

Lol look at you Mr. New

[VeganJessica3@gmail.com](mailto:VeganJessica3@gmail.com)

….

……

……..

Did you send it?

…..

Hello?

Fal Asleep? lol

Ping!

An email arrives to my racing heart. He's so inquisitive! New car and a puppy! I wonder what he does for a living? Such a Gentleman, that was a whole hour of texting and he didn't even ask for nudes. I click the notification but my email won't open.

Please login to continue. I type my password “Daisy123”

Incorrect password/email combination

Please try again

Oh, is it lowercase?

******3

Please Try Again

*****3

Please Try Again

******3

Please Try Again

Ugh im so tired, I can't even type right. I'll leave it for morning

--------

MondayVegan Jessica III sleeps well in dreams of Blake, Frenchi’s and Avocados under the weight of her anti-anxiety gravity blanket. She wakes with a smile and grabs her phone eagerly.

Please Try Again

Please Try Again

Vegan Jessica III eats her last free-range Avocado on a piece of whole-wheat gluten-free non-cruelty noGMO carboloaf. Num!

Please Try Again

Fucking Annoying!

I switch over to my work email and begin responding to CC threads as I walk to the train. I meet with my team and we plan our next meeting. We have a great plan to plan.

I get home exhausted. I am so tired. We met for three hours and planned for three more days of planning meetings about meeting plans. I log in to tinder and check my messages. Nothing. I take a xanax and go to sleep. The dishes are molding and i'm out of avocados.

Tuesday

I wake stressed and skip breakfast. I head into work and drink espresso. We meet again to discuss our plan to plan. Everything goes as planned and we adjourn. I get out of work 15 minutes early and swing by CVS Pharmacy for LaCroix and drugs.

Some freak in a fedora oggles my breasts through my oversized sweater. What is he even looking at?

“Hi, yes, prescription pickup for Vegan Jessica III. It should have been called in Monday”

“Sure thing, insurance and ID please. Have a seat, it'll be about 15 minutes”

Pharmacists are just drug baristas, change my mind. I wait 45 minutes for the man in the never-dirtied lab coat to grab a prepackaged bottle of prozac from the wall. I hand him my credit card.

“Im sorry Ma’am, your card was declined, do you have another?”

The word ‘Ma’am’ turns three of my pubic hairs grey. It makes me kind of miss that creep in the fedora surveying my body.

Are you sure? Can you try again

Yes ma’am, the card is declined. Do you have another Ma’am?

Ma’am

Can you try calling them? I left my debit at home and don't have any cash.

I glance at my Fitbit. The time is 6:01pm

Its after 6pm Ma’am, you'll have to wait till tomorrow.

I leave the CVS and the pharmacists spends the next 30 minutes placing the bottle of pills back on the shelf.

----

I go home feeling frustrated. I skip the mailbox, dishes, dustbunnies and head straight for my bed. I pull the gravity blanket over my head like a ghost and feel a little better. I eat a half a pound of CBD chocolate and feel much better.

I log into Tinder. Fucking Blake ghosted. Unmatched. Under my blanket I get scared of ghosts and eat another ¼ pound of CBD chocolate.

Wednesday

I wake feeling like shit. I don't know why. I feel stressed. I call in sick to work and take a xanax and go back to bed. I awake to a phonecall from an unknown number. Fucking spamassrobocalls. I scream FUCK YOU to 1s and 0s. There's a panic rising in my throat.

I haven't checked my personal email in days now and try to log back in. I click password recovery and an email is sent to my old college email | [VegetarianJessica@college.edu](mailto:VegetarianJessica@college.edu). Ugh I can't believe I used to eat honey and drink milk with my coffee; I feel ashamed of my former self. It feels like a Sunday, but it's only wednesday.

I try to login to my old college email to recover my password for my post-college email.

I try to remember my old password

Please Try again

I try all my old combinations

Please Try again

Please Try again

Please Try again

Please Try again

Lockout timer 29:59..

29:58….

29:57….

Ugh I hate this shit.

Trying to recover a password to recover a password. Did I type it wrong? Was it capitalized? Am I just not remembering it right? Was the ‘I’ a “!” ?? Was there 123 at the end, or maybe beginning?

I need to set my passwords to things I can never forget. Maybe take a lesson from Sunday. Shame and Trauma seem to make for fantastic passwords.

MyFatherAbandonedOurFamilyIn1997!

That's not something im likely to forget

I spend the next 29 minutes finally doing the dishes and feel a little better.

Please Try again

Please Try again

Please Try again

Please Try again

Lockout timer 59:59

FUCK

I hate this shit. I click the password recovery button on my college email and a third is sent to my very first email address. [Jessica1990AuburnWA@aol.com](mailto:Jessica1990AuburnWA@aol.com)

I go to AOL.com and try to login

Please Try again

Please Try again

Please Try again

Please Try again

Please Try again

Please Try again

Please Try again

Please Try again

It feels like im opening those Russian Dolls. Every time I open one, another is there. The Russian Nesting Dolls of Digital Frustration. Please Try Again Later.

Recover the password

to recover the password

to recover the password

Please Try Again

I channel my frustration and hit the gym. Pilates class with Pontious. I stop on the way home and Scream into the Void. I feel a little better.

I check the mailbox before the stairs.

I turn the key and an avalanche spills out. Envelope after envelope, it seems unending. They just keep coming. The cascade flow dries to a dribble and I reach inside to scoop the rest of my mail out.

My arms are full of dead trees and I feel sad. Plus its like super heavy after an hour of cross planking. I ascend the stairs and unlock the door with my keys in my mouth. I push the door open with my forehead and dump the heavy mess of envelopes and magazines on the floor.

A Victoria Secret catalogue catches my eye. I make a mental note of my despise for their company message and start perusing the pages. What kind of image are they putting in the heads of young girls. False standards of beauty. Where are the real women! That bra is like super cute tho. I order three in different colors but my card is declined. The bras never come, its ok tho, they wouldn't have fit me anyway.

When my card is declined I think of Blake’s rejection again. Ghosted. What an asshole. Whatever he's probably just another pig who gets off to Victoria Secret models and supports an impossible standard of beauty. I am now convinced Victoria’s real Secret is mainstream distribution of introductory pornography to young boys in suburbia. That's a big mental leap to take from subquality prethought, but I think it's important to note where some of these idolized false standards of beauty start. They start with aging young Mother’s ordering VS products and catalogs to catch renewed interest from their lazily inattentive husbands and trickledown pornoEconomics recycles the catalogs to prepubescent boys. Hidden and stolen, they are a prime middle-school currency. The image of Desire becomes fixed in pubescent development and the path upscycles again.

I throw the catalog away disgusted and pick up my copy of the much more realistic Vogue. I eat more CBD chocolate and forget to call my credit card company. I fall asleep with fragrant advertisements and two miles of photoshop-smoothed Gigi Hadid legs on my face.

Friday

It's a beautiful morning and i'm feeling rested. I don't know what happened to Thursday. We have a brief meeting about next week's meeting and are dismissed early. Summer Fridays are the best! I meet up with my besties and we dress up to impossible standards of beauty.

Thin pink straps patterned with “VS VS VS” loop my shoulders out of my strapless black dress. Clash is in. I think it looks cute even tho the bra doesn't fit well. I lace up my gladiator platform cork wedges and we head out for a night of dancing.

I dance next to my ugliest friend and bask in double attention.

Buy you a Drink?

Wanna Dance?

Ever Ride a Motorcycle?

All eyes on me. I dance and twirl and snort the night away. This cocaine is fantastic. My credit card still doesn't work so I have boys buy me drinks. I black out a bit and wake up in my Uber home. Its light out and the birds won't shut up about the stupid sun. My heart is beating arhythmically and I feel weird. A feeling of impending doom is brewing and it makes me feel weirder - it's not even Sunday.

I sober up a bit, but can't sleep. I decide to finish the vial of cocaine I took from that boy and do some housekeeping.

I take the trash out and open my computer. I feel inspired to clean and conquer.

I will recover my password!

I see a button for ‘alternate recovery options’ on my ancient @aol email and click

A series of questions challenge my identity

“Date of Birth”

August 24th, 1990

“What was the name of your first Pet?”

Daisy

“What was the name of your 1st grade English Teacher?

Mr. Gardner

“What City Were you Born in?”

Auburn

“What was the Make and Model of your First Car?”

1994 Black Honda Civic

And just like that I'm in! I recover my password and recover my password and recover my password.

The russian dolls reassemble and my anxiety plummets

--------

----

---

Until I open Gmail to a Nightmare

The realization grips me. The Saturday Scaries are Real. I spring to the 4 foot foyer of my apartment where the non-fashion-catalog remainder of my mail avalanche sits piled like rubble.

I rifle through envelopes and cut my finger. It really stings. I suckle a droplet of blood and read the envelopes

Chase | Amex | Credit Karma | MasterCard | Kohls Discover Card | ATT | SPRINT | T-Mobile

Bills. Bills of all kinds. Bills of all shapes and sizes. Bills Not mine, but mine. An acre of rainforest in bills.

My iphone rings and my phone wont open. Panic Panic Panic. Saturday Scaries. I pull my bleeding finger from my mouth and the iphone recognizes my face. I answer the call

“Ma’am i'm calling from TransUnion Credit Reporting, we've seen some unusual activity on your report this week, can you confirm opening the following 227 Credit Cards on Sunday between the hours of 11pm and 4am Monday Morning?”

(This phone call 97% actually happened)

My vision spots and I hit the floor.

___

I awake Sunday. My head is throbbing and my finger hurts. I look at the papercut and it stares back with green eyes. It smells like Almond Butter, but the gross GMO kind. I put CBD oil on it and leave the house.

I head to the hospital, but my credit card is declined. My finger is green to the knuckle and it definitely feels like a Sunday.

I head home and curl up in my bed. With my green arm I pull the gravity blanket over my head and cry. I fall asleep feeling scared and not safe.

I wake to pain. The green has spread throughout my whole body. I feel weak. I need to go to work. So many emails.

I feel The DOOM

I try to lift the gravity blanket, but I am weak and it is too heavy.

The longer I stay, the weaker I become. Days pass and I miss meeting after meeting. I sweat profusely trapped inside a cocoon of anxiety. Unseen emails pile up and add to the weight. My phone is out of battery and I can't reach past the blanket for my charger. I need water. I really need water.

I feel The DOOM

I think of blood poisoning and my plummeting credit scoreThe Chrysalis hardens to reject the outside world

It becomes my Tomb. I feel safe here.

Immune to Anxiety

No emails, no meetings.

The DOOM fades to black and so do I.

submitted by /u/Beerandcabfare [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2QcBhf7

[coruscantholonet]

Survey Response Part 2

Last time we went over statistics, this time we’ll go over some of the things people said they liked about the sim.

“ What are some of the things you like most about the sim? “

Build Related:

 “The city build is probably the best I have seen so farThe look is damn amazing “

“The look is damn amazing”

“It's pretty well designed and free of lag!“

“ The whole urban feel of coronet city and the peacefull feel of Vreni Island “

“The city build”

“The build and orginality”

“ The build quality is very nice, even if some areas are difficult to navigate. “

“ The general feel and atmosphere. “

“ City “

“ Very well built with options for everyone. And I do love the animesh NPCs! They make the place so alive and realistic. “

“ Very good build with plenty of areas to explore and roleplay in. Great use of space making every square meter well utilized. “

Really appreciate these, it was a struggle to rebuild after what happened on the prior seen, makes it worth it to have people appreciate what we’ve done.

Community Related:

“ Community involvement. Consistent traffic. Encouraging role play. “

“ community “

“ The people are very friendly and always someone willing to RP “

“ The rp opportunities “

“ The fact everyone here thinks about character building and not just giving rewards for being online. For example, you really need to train to move through the ranks of Sith, not just alone be active. “

“ ...Having literally any traffic, which currently sets us apart from any other SLSWRP today. “

We’ve been lucky not to be hit as hard as some by the lowpoint of the year. I want to point out many of the SWRP sims put a lot of work into their sims and are worth visiting

“ The friendly community, the absence of trolls/griefers, and it being the most active SWRP sim currently “

“ I love the fact I can be creative, esp. with my own character coming back, 20+ years later after Coruscant. Not to mention, being a unique character species, such as a Red Sith. More importantly, the connections, and friends I have made in the past, whether it was 4D, Byss, etc etc, still remain to some degree. Which probably is what brings me back. “

“ There are actually people on it and there's rp to be had there. “

“ people “

“ the fun RP's and different character personas “

“ So far the various amount of peoples RP seems on point. That alone makes everything else decent for me. “

“ Met some hella cool friends here “

“ The quality of people is above average. “

“ It has traffic “

“The People”

“ I like how active it is. I've met some really nice people since I started roleplaying here, and have had some really nice interactions with more than a few people. It's nice to roleplay in an environment where people can come and go as they please. “

“ that it's active and continuously doing events, and that fact there focused on he corellian system. “

“ Friendly, Focuses more on a believable and less epic SWRP. Nothing absurd in terms of story of bias faction. Opportunity to expand without aggro. Friendly staff. “

Been very happy with the community, significant improvement from what I’ve seen in past years <3

Story & Setting Related:

“ This is the first time in years that character stories have been the heart of the RP, without an overarching storyline dictating what we can and can't RP. Having loose stories through the Holonet News is definitely a help as a loose guide but not being dictated to has allowed for more organic RP. “

“ I 'm also fond of not everything always being an in depth story that needs an end goal. Those are nice, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it's nice to just play your character in a mundane, every day situation. “

“ The players are great “

“ focus on crime “

Love how much Underworld stuff we have gone on, probably the most active crime scene I’ve seen in many years.

“ the return to the rich history of the post legacy, was not a fan of the gcw era so glad to see swl back in the era many of us spent years roleplaying in “

“ The roleplay potential across factions “

“ The potential, the opportunity, and of course the activity. “

" that its a neutral setting “

“ The Jedi “

“ Well, I love Star Wars in itself, but I really wish we could have a bigger galaxy :( “

“ the fun RP's and different character personas “

Staff & System Related:

“ eva “

“ I enjoy the hud, its very user friendly. the staff and most players ive encountered have been very pleasant, and helpful. the environmental settings are quite nice, and i like some of the little easter eggs/oddities ive found while exploring (npc's dancing on rooftops, hanging from power lines, and so on) “

“ the admin team “

“ Most of the staff “

“ The group leader of the Crimson Dawn.. he always has interesting story ideas and RPs.. The people are cool to and I really like the LRS meter I feel it works great in keeping things semi balanced meaning not making any certain individuals to over powered. Also the fact that rank is actually based upon time and effort put into the sim not just having a huge ego. “

Our group leads have been among the best I’ve seen in our six year run, all together a great group of people

“ Attention to detail, traffic (usually always someone to RP with), enough staff to manage everything. “

“ have not seen an owner as dedicated as zen in a rp sim “

PERVS!:

“ the boobs “

“ Eva Butt “

“ Not getting arrested for nudity xD “

CorSec needs to get on that!

Final part will go over what people dislike! Coming Soon!

Community & Setting/Build seem to be the #1 thing people do like, have taken some notes as to what wasn’t mentioned.

In case you’ve been in a cave....

[vaanibct]

Studio IV - Actual Reality

Week 8 (17—21-09 -18)

First week back after the mid-semester break just made me realise how much we still have left to do. Although we all have been working on our own part of the project over the break, I think we still haven’t finished what we aimed to, by today. Due to the increase in work, I have decided to write weekly blogs until the end of the semester, which will showcase my progress each week. 

Monday - Due to foot injury during the break, Shades was unable to make it to Studio today. So, Carol and I used this time to catch up on Studio work. We discussed our individual progress until now, which wasn’t too much. During the break, we were busy with other tasks, which lead us to focus less on our Studio project. However, there is one good news - Carol finally managed to buy a new phone (Samsung Galaxy S8), which will make it much easier for us to test prototypes and work on the geolocation and AR in Unity.

                     ————————————————————

Tuesday - Today, Carol and I had a good discussion with Ashwin, about the progress of our Project. Since Shades wasn’t able to come in today as well, we couldn’t really work on what we had planned to do after the mid-semester break. However, Ashwin suggested that we start prototyping other aspects of the app, for e.g. geolocation or UI etc. I think talking to Ashwin really helped as Carol and I seemed to feel more confident with our tasks and the position we were at.

After our discussion, I showed Carol my current situation with the geolocation and mapping in Unity, using Mapbox. During the break, I followed many tutorials and instructions for the mapping to work in Unity. Similarly, I managed to work the geolocation as well. However, when I showed it to Carol today, the map seemed to be of another far away country, not of Auckland City. I also changed the longitude and latitude of the scene as well, but the same issue occurred. To resolve this, I exported the Geolocation scene as a package, forward it to Carol. When imported in her laptop though, it crashed all of the AR scenes, as well as the part she had been working on. Due to this, she need to restart from scratch. So, we definitely need to find a better way working with Mapbox.

Next, I showed Carol my “Home Page” designs for the app. This would be a huge part of User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX), which is why the final app design needs to clearly represent our ideas of Auckland City, as well as portray elements of discovery, exploration, and identity. Out of the 4 that I had designed over the break, Carol seemed to like the simple green design. So, we used that image as part of the app, in order to prototype and receive feedback. Carol managed to add that to the Unity User Interface, to fit the screen her phone.

Although it seemed to fit nicely, I discovered that it didn’t look too visually appealing. I know that I need to continue iterating the designs and choose a common theme, that showcases the colours of Auckland City. So Carol suggested that a “retro” theme somewhat describes Auckland. From here, my main goal is to probably create a few more designs for the app “Home Page,” as we need the feedback to progress further.

                         ————————————————————

Thursday - Surprisingly, Shades came in for Studio today, even though she was very much in pain in her moon-boot. We had a catch up session, where we discussed our progress, what we all did over the break. However, I was a little disappointed to hear that Shades was unable to complete any of the stories, even though we needed them finished after the mid-semester break, so we could record and edit the audio next week. Although, I could understand that getting sources and clarifying information takes a long time, which she had been working on for most of the break. So, due to our situation, we decided to postpone the recording of the stories to next Thursday, instead of next Tuesday. I believe that we will really need to complete this part of the project by then, because we have to move on to the next part. However, by Thursday, I will need to sort out the recording equipment, as I am helping Shades with ‘Audio.' Although, I do believe that the ‘content' comes before ‘quality,’ because the audience needs to stay interested in the storyline, whereas the sound effects and background noise would be an added feature to build excitement as well as emotion.

Next, Carol and I decided to get feedback on the UI and UX of the app, that we uploaded on the phone yesterday. This was literally just a basic prototype as we wanted to see how well the design turns out from Unity. But we wanted to use this opportunity to get the user’s response to our app, in order to see how we can improve their experience. And as their feedback suggested, I need to do major design improvement. It was great to receive some feedback, because I really heard what people wanted to see and how to relate our theme with Auckland City.

Feedback: The Logo needs work, the letters aren’t that relatable, and have different thicknesses (looks chunky). However, if we want to keep the letters, then make them more stylish and fluid, as well as use a font that gives a “curiosity” feeling. Maybe adding shadows could intensify the effect. The “back” button on the screen is hard to see and needs to match the theme. The buttons also need to be placed thoughtfully on the screen. The colour scheme is quite bland for Auckland City (why did we choose green?), it doesn’t give the discovery vibe. In terms of the road, it doesn’t really specify Auckland because roads are generic.

Overall, I think that we are running out of time, and are behind our schedule already. There is still so much to work on, and we haven’t even started on some of the aspects of our app. But mainly, what I really want is to get regular feedback on each process and part of our app, because this is what will help us improve our overall design and idea.

                           ————————————————————

Friday - Throughout this week, I feel like there has been a bit of tension between our group. So, in the morning, we had a group meeting to clarify our tasks and cleared the air (kind of). I think this tension was caused mainly due to the miscommunication during the mid-semester break. I know that Shades really wanted to have a catch-up session at some point, but we all were quite busy with other tasks and unable to meet up. So, not being able to discuss issues we were all facing lead to less work being done. This also meant that we all started to be less empathetic towards each other, which created a negative energy around us. But most importantly, this meeting helped us realise that we need to stick to deadlines, as we have much more to do than we anticipated and each part/process is taking time.

When I spoke to Shades yesterday, I could understand that getting background information on the stories and even writing a well thought-out script takes time and patience. However, I was finding it hard to grasp why she would need all this other information about the people involved and their lives, especially when decided to record fictional stories (based on a true story), so the characters and events could have been easily manipulated. Anyway, we all agreed that the stories need to be finished by next Tuesday, so we can move on to the next part of the project - recording and editing the audio.

In terms of the App itself, Carol has been trying to work with the AR assets, and will sketch some 3D models for the stories. It is important that the Augmented Reality part relates to the stories and the overall theme of our app. So, we will need to sit down as a team to discuss the main aspect of each story, as that will be the AR for that story.

As for me, I decided to gather the feedback that I received about the designs, and improve my design processes, as I know that the pages I made during the holidays didn’t fully reflect my design abilities. I could see that this was my chance to showcase the artist within me, and I could produce much more than this. I started to work in Illustrator, and firstly made a “retro” colour scheme to refer to. This allowed me to stay on track and make well-balanced designs. I will need to continue working on these during the weekend, so they’re ready for feedback next week. However, at the moment, Carol seems to like where I’m headed. The first few designs “gave an Aotearoa feeling.” And even Shades made a few suggestions to improve the idea.

Overall, I can start to see that the app may not be as advanced as I first thought. There are many aspects we need to complete and to finish them to a high quality means it would require more time. I will try my hardest to complete the tasks assigned to me, as soon as possible, so that I can help out Carol and Shades with their parts of the Project. It’s all about teamwork, aye!!

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[lyvyshor]

Amore...with an Italian twist ;)

“When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie That's amore,  When the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine That's amore...”

     So here it is... some of the Amalfi Coast, with a few bits and tips from a very subjective and personal point of view, for couples in their 30′s, looking for a quick getaway. For me, this was a nice change of scenery, with a bit of colour and freshness, despite the rather unfriendly weather. But... I won’t get ahead of myself and I’ll just let you discover piece by piece what I mean.

     The Amalfi Coast, along with Capri Island represents one of the most popular regions for tourists worldwide. And for good reason! From countless artistic monuments, to the wonders of the Ancient World, going through the spectacular vues, welcoming beaches and, of course, the famous Mediterranean cuisine, this part of the Campania region is an important destination for any traveller.

     Me and my better half are some of those travellers. We just had the chance to have a quick peak on this piece of Italy, in a few days escape from our busy parents lives.

     So here we are, hand in hand, trying to discover a bit of history, doing a bit of shopping, dipping our toes in the Tirenian Sea, having a bite of food... glorious food... and enjoying each other under the (very) shy sun, between drops of rain and limoncello. 

VESUVIUS

     Vesuvius National Park is an UNESCO reservation of the Biosphere and the volcano is considered the most dangerous in the world, given the very dense population in the area, where many homes are built illegally. 

     Those who climb, are in for a rather steep road and will literally have their heads in the clouds, as the surround the mountain, but the views over the bay of Naples are quite a nice reward, along with the strange looking hardened lava here and there. The crater, on the other hand, is a bit of a disappointment, as it is basically a huge round hole with no lava, given that the last eruption happened back in 1944.

     Although it’s such a big landmark for tourists, the only stop before going towards the crater is a tiny shop/cafe, very old looking, not at all inviting, with a bunch of souvenirs like magnets, key chains or lava jewels; they serve a few hot drinks and, only if you buy, you’re free to use the facilities, which remind me of communist times in Eastern Europe, suffice to say.

     But then again, to climb on Vesuvius, a monster of nature, known for thousands of years, well... not everyone has done it, so, tick!

POMPEII

     Here’s another landmark which is included in the UNESCO World Heritage, the reasons being explained by its Committee as follows: “The Committee decided to inscribe this property on the basis of criteria (iii), (iv) and (v), considering that the impressive remains of the towns of Pompei and Herculaneum and their associated villas, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, provide a complete and vivid picture of society and daily life at a specific moment in the past that is without parallel anywhere in the world.”

     Well, I couldn’t have said it any better. Once I was there, I couldn’t help but imagine and wonder what it was like back in time, before the eruption ended it all; I would have liked to be there for a day, maybe, to live how they did, to see whether or not history does justice to Ancient people. 

       Pompeii has a large surface, it used to have 20.000 inhabitants and it takes quite a while to walk around it; unfortunately, when we went, it was raining cats and dogs and this took a big part of the pleasure of discovering. I noticed the big theatre, the forum area, the public baths, the brothel (yea, something for everyone, I tell you!) and... there are a few ancient(!) water pumps with water to drink.

     One thing is for sure, there was a thriving civilisation that Pompeii is showing us even today; people knew how to live; they had all amenities, a flourishing economy, they promoted culture and entertainment.

NAPLES

     Naples is controversial; some say it’s dirty, noisy, chaotic and even dangerous for tourists, others say it’s full of life, vibrant, packed with history and art, under the ever threatening and eye catching Vesuvius. I think it all depends on expectations and everyone is right, in their own way, going from agony to ecstasy: yes, it is quite filthy, laundry is hanging on top of tiny streets, buildings have old paint and graffitti, even on the historic monuments, the traffic is a nightmare, there are beggars and pick-pockets, but, if you’re warned and your expectations are low, you can well appreciate the great area (volcano, hills, gulf, seaside), the hundreds of churches and chapels, the museums, castles, catacombs and the famous Mediterranean cuisine. Moreover, Naples is an excellent starting point for visiting the Islands around it (Capri, Ischia, Procida), Pompeii and Herculaneum, The Caserta Palace, the Amalfi Coast, Paestum.

     Before travelling to Naples, I had read a bit about it; my perception was an  appealing one. I was inspired to visit Naples, to look for more information about the place and to read more about its history and more about the Italian Mafia.

     Another appealing perception was regarding visiting tourist attractions in Naples: “Since 2012, the waterfront has been a pedestrian-only zone, inviting families to walk and bike along the Bay of Naples – with its views that have captivated people for millennia.”, “La Paranza social cooperative now offers tours of Naples’ catacombs, and runs other activities in Rione Sanità”, “With much to love about the city – ineffable spirit, immense cultural riches and world-renowned cuisine, for starters – visitors will likely find more reasons to return, rather than stay away.” (“Don’t let the Mount Vesuvius fire put you off visiting Naples”, article published by: LIVIA HENGEL, in www.independent.co.uk, July 2017).

     I personally did not like Naples much; the few hours we had to look around did not do it justice and the little I visited did not make a strong impression, which is probably unfair; so yes, my perception changed drastically and I don’t really believe that the media did much to influence me, in the end, although there was nothing wrong with the article I had read. Well... maybe next time.

SORRENTO

     The closest city to the Amalfi Coast is Sorrento, which is more than 2000 years old. Close to Naples, but without the chaotic atmosphere of the metropolis, Sorrento is an excellent start for exploring the Coast.

     The narrow streets, which reflect the layout of the ancient city of Surrentum and the numerous buildings which are centuries old, have made Sorrento an ideal destination for relaxation, since the olden days; even Goethe and Casanova have visited this lovely place.

     Sorrento is the place for a passeggiata, an old tradition of the Italians, the evening walk, just before supper time. Whether you want to see the Tramontano hotel, where Henrik Ibsen wrote one of his plays, have a stroll in the Villa Comunale park, or just observe the atmosphere on Corso Italia, you will surely enjoy the experience.

          Just like I did for Naples, I had read a bit about Sorrento before going. My perception was entirely appealing, I couldn’t wait to visit the place and it actually made me eager to discover more. I must say, it hasn’t disappointed, as I enjoyed this part most of the whole trip. Unlike Naples, what I had found out about Sorrento before actually going, did make quite an impact on me, so I was already going with the idea that it would be nice and relaxing; which it was. The media did not lie, in this case.

     If you are a couple. like us, I think the nice thing to do is walk down the marina, have a look at the fishing boats, explore the tiny streets on the steep hill, have a nice lunch at Il Leone Rosso, then dive into the extremely brightly coloured shops in the touristic area. You can also find plenty of little limoncello factories, where you can have a taste, while the staff explain and show you how it’s made.

     If you have a sweet tooth and if you’re lucky, Piazza Tasso might surprise with an open market of delicacies and sweets which might not be found anywhere else.

      Let me just give you some final thoughts, after all this avalanche of information and ideas. I could say that Naples and Sorrento, plus the other landmarks around are worth a visit, whether it is for the cuisine, or for the culture, the adventure and even for the thrill of a dark experience; either way, there seems to be something for everyone.

     Well then! Yes, yes, I know you can’t have enough of my pictures and tales and that you feel like you’ve travelled along with me, but... off you go, visit, explore, don’t just believe me!

[2classysisters]

I recently got back from an 11 day trip to Belize and had an amazing time!   I actually traveled solo on this trip with the tour company, EF College Break.  I’ve gone on a few trips before with this company, but Rachel has always gone with me.  EF College Break is for people ages 18-28, so unfortunately I only have a year left to travel with this company.  There were 42 others on this trip with me, along with a tour director.  I met a lot of new people and made some awesome new friends!  I highly suggest EF College Break if you want to travel, but don’t want to plan everything.  They literally take care of it all for you, which makes things much less stressful.

I thought it would be fun to share with you my travel experience in Belize.  To make things easier, I’m breaking things down into the places I went to.  For each place, I’ll share the highlights of the things I did there.  At the end of this post I’ll also be sharing with you tips, tricks, and hints for Belize that I learned prior to going there and while I was there.  Let’s get into it!

Lamanai Duration: 2 nights Accommodation: Lamanai Landings Hotel and Marina

Highlights

Lamanai Ruins– We boarded a boat and headed down the New River to get to the ruins.  Along the way we made a few different stops to look at sites and species.  The Lamanai Ruins is the Maya City with the longest period of occupancy (over 3,000 years).  The temples and structures we saw along the way were breathtaking.  It’s amazing to think that people were able to build these structures without today’s tools and technology.  It was very hot, humid, and buggy at the ruins.  It was still a wonderful experience and it wasn’t too long of a hike.  There was no one else at the ruins while we were there, which surprised me, and made the experience even better.  I would definitely recommend going to the Lamanai Ruins if you ever go to Belize!

Crocodile Night Safari– Our hotel also offered the option of going on a crocodile night safari.  It was $35 (US) per person.  This safari was educational, yet thrilling at the same time.  On this safari an  American Crocodile Education Sanctuary (ACES) trained guide is with you.  The educational purpose of the safari is to spot crocodiles, catch them, and then tag them to learn more about them.  Our guides did catch one crocodile on our safari.  They check the crocodile out, measure it, and tag it.  Everyone on the safari is also able to take a picture with the crocodile.  The guides were very knowledgeable about crocodiles and I learned a lot about them on this safari.  I thought this was an unique experience and would recommend it, unless this sort of thing scares you.

San Pedro Duration: 2 nights Accommodation: Caribbean Villas

Highlights 

Snorkeling at Hol Chan- On our first full day in San Pedro we went snorkeling at Hol Chan, which is the second largest barrier reef in the world.  We got to the reef by boat and went snorkeling for a few hours in the morning.  This was my first snorkeling experience and it was amazing!  The water was so clear and we were able to see a lot of marine life.  Plus the water was a nice, warm temperature, which was a nice added bonus!

The beach in general-  Since our resort was right on the beach, the beach in general was definitely a highlight while in San Pedro.  Whether you’re interested in water sports, swimming, or just relaxing, there’s something for everyone to do at the beach!

Food Recommendations

Tropicana Restaurant & Bar– This restaurant has a great atmosphere with both indoor and outdoor seating.  It offers a variety of food including Latin, Caribbean, Lebanese, and American dishes.  I got chicken nachos when I went there for lunch and they were delicious!

El Patio Restaurant– This restaurant specializes in Local and Caribbean cuisine.  Like Tropicana, it has a great atmosphere!  I had fried shrimp here and it was definitely some of the best shrimp I’ve had.

Waraguma– Waraguma is known for its pupusas.  I had never had one before, so I tried a chicken one and it was delicious!  It also offers Spanish food as well.  Along with the chicken pupusa, I got a beef burrito and it was so good too!  It was huge, so I could only eat about half of it.  This restaurant is outdoors.  My only complaint about it is that there aren’t any fans or anything so it does get warm there.  The floor of this restaurant is made up of crushed seashells, which I loved!

San Ignacio Duration: 2 nights Accommodation: The Log Cab-Inn

Highlights

Zip lining & Cave tubing- I can’t remember the name of the place where we went zip lining and cave tubing, but we did both of these activities at the same place.  This was definitely one of my favorite things I did on this trip!  I’ve gone zip lining once before in St. Lucia, and loved it just as much the second time.  Cave tubing was such a cool experience.  First we had to hike to where we were going to start tubing.  Then during the cave tubing, we went through caves and just leisurely tubed down the river.  Seeing the caves was really cool!  It was really relaxing tubing too.  I would highly recommend going cave tubing in Belize if you ever get the chance!

Tikal, Guatemala Duration: Day trip

Highlights

Tikal National Park- San Ignacio is right along the Guatemala boarder.  While we were staying at San Ignacio, we took a day trip to Tikal National Park.  Here we were able to see Maya temples,  ball courts, excavated buildings, and some breathtaking views!  Temple IV, which is the highest temple at Tikal, is 212 feet high.  It has great panoramic views of the park once you climb to the top.  This was also one of my favorite things we did on this trip!  The Mayan sites are all so remarkable!

Hopkins Duration: 3 nights Accommodation: Almond Beach Resort and Spa- Honestly, this was my favorite place we stayed at.  This resort is so nice!  You walk out of your suite and your on the beach.  They have a very good restaurant on site as well.

Highlights

Snorkeling- I’m not going to lie, the snorkeling in Hopkins was better.  The water was choppier when we went snorkeling in Hopkins, so it made it not quite as enjoyable.  I also saw more snorkeling in San Pedro as well.  We went to two snorkeling spots with a break at an island in between.  The island was beautiful!  The water surrounding it was shallow and so clear.  A lot of us decided to hang out here while the others who wanted to went to the second snorkeling spot.

The Beach in General- My reasoning is the same as above.  The resort had complimentary paddle boards and kayaks to take out as well!

Food Recommendation

Loggerheads Pub & Grille-  Loggerheads is known for its burgers.  You can also get sandwiches and some other things as well.  The french fries are also super good!  We went here on a Thursday night when there was live music, which made for an awesome atmosphere!  It is a small place, so you may have to wait awhile to be seated/get food if it’s busy.

Belize City Duration: 1 night Accommodation: Radisson

Highlights

Belize Sign- We were only in Belize City one night before flying back home, so we really only had an evening there.  We ended up only having a short amount of free time in Belize City since most of our evening was spent at a farewell dinner.  With the little time I did have, I went with a few girls on my trip to see the iconic Belize sign and take pictures there.  The sign is right along the water and it makes for some great photos!  There’s also a pretty lighthouse right next to it.

Tips, Tricks, & Hints

Get cash beforehand– ATM’s aren’t always readily available in Belize.  Plus there are places that only take cash.  I got all my cash before I left for Belize and this worked out really well.   You don’t want to end up in a bind at a place if you don’t have enough cash and cards aren’t accepted.   You can use US dollars as well, which is a huge plus!  2 Belize dollars=1 US dollar.  Super simple!

Bring bug spray/bands–  I don’t know if it’s only during the wet season, or it’s all year round, but do yourself a favor and bring bug spray with a high deet.  You can also get bands too that you can put on your wrist or ankle. You’ll probably still end up with bug bites though, but at least you’ll feel better about yourself being prepared!  Our tour director mentioned Vick’s vapor rub for bug bites as well!

Wear a higher SPF sunscreen– Since you’re farther down south, the sun is more intense.  Definitely bring a lot of sunscreen with you and get a higher SPF than you normally would.  I brought SPF 50 with me and was religious about applying it.  I didn’t end up burnt the entire trip!

Bring a backpack and/or fanny pack– For me, a backpack was definitely a must to carry all of my essentials in, especially while visiting the Mayan ruins!  Some of the girls on my trip also had fanny packs and those seemed really nice to have your essentials handy right in front of you.

Waterproof camera or case/pouch– Since was in water or by water a lot in Belize, a waterproof camera and a waterproof pouch really came in handy.  I would definitely recommend both or at least one or the other.  For my birthday, I received a waterproof digital camera.  I took this along and used it while snorkeling.  It worked really well!  I also bought a waterproof pouch for my cellphone on Amazon and used it when cave tubing.  I was able to take pictures on my phone while keeping my phone safe!

Water bottle–  This was definitely a must for me!  I carry a swell water with me on the go to most places anyway, but it was very important in Belize since we were on the go so much and in the heat a lot.  A lot of the hotels we stayed at had water bottle filling stations too, which was really nice!

  Well there you have it!  That was my Belize trip in a nutshell.  I hope this post was informative and helpful for any of you wanting and/or going to Belize in the future.  If you have any other questions about Belize or anything I mentioned, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments below!

-Michelle

Belize: Travel Guide I recently got back from an 11 day trip to Belize and had an amazing time!   I actually traveled solo on this trip with the tour company, …

[viralhottopics]

5 uncomfortable questions for Hyperloop One

Hyperloop One test facility

Image: Hyperloop One

LAS VEGAS Hyperloop One’s 2016 was about as good as yours: Some good moments (even great ones) and some very, very bad ones.

The next-gen transportation company, which is building a unique people-mover platform based on a design by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, had a milestone moment last spring. In the arid Las Vegas desert and with hundreds of parched journalists watching, it publicly tested the propulsion system for its planned tube-based transportation network that could cut hours-long travel between cities down to minutes. Hyperloop One estimates a trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco will take just 30 minutes. The test itself lasted just a few seconds, but Hyperloop One also spent the day proudly showcasing all the progress it was making on building the tubes and preparing for full-scale human transportation by 2021.

SEE ALSO: The world’s first hyperloop is officially coming to Dubai

Hyperloop One promised more exciting tests before the end of the year for more exciting demonstrations.

Then it all appeared to fall apart.

Flamboyant company CTO and Co-Flounder Brogan BamBrogan was shown the door and then he promptly sued, blasting co-founder and Executive Chairman Shervin Pishevar, alleging nepotism, mismanagement and veiled threats. It was an ugly scene that undermined Hyperloop Ones credibility and lingered on until the fall when Hyperloop One and BamBrogan settled out of court.

Since then, the company has reorganized and sought to regain its footing and stride. Pishevar appears to have stepped back a bit while former SVP of Engineering Josh Giegel took over at CTO.

Executive Director Shervin Pishevar (far left), CEO Rob Lloyd (center) and former CTO Brogan BamBrogan at the first successful test of the Hyperloop One propulsion system.

Image: lance Ulanoff/mashable

I found Giegel, Hyperloop One CEO Rob Lloyd and SVP of Global Operations Nick Earle on the floor of CES in Las Vegas last week. Like the rest of us, they were running between meetings and presentations, but I managed to ask them what I consider five critical questions.

What follows is our brief discussion, edited for clarity.

Do you feel like youve stumbled?

Rob Lloyd:

Actually, I am extremely proud of the companys grit, focus and execution and I think weve accomplished things that most people thought would be quite impossible.

Weve continued to build the team, 225 today in the company. The quality of that team continues to be at the highest level on every function. We’ve built out our facilities. Weve made progress on our development loop, which is the primary focus of the company. Weve raised $50 million more equity. Weve built a 105,000-square foot factory 21 miles from where were standing. And we are so close to showing the world that Hyperloop is real, since the last time we talked. I think thats an amazingly incredible track record and something every one of our employees is very proud of.

Is that where we drove to, 21 miles outside to the factory?

Lloyd:

You havent been to the factory. It was 33 miles to the development loop. Maybe 34 to the post site, and we built two preparation areas. The development loop, Josh [Giegel] was there this morning and, literally, the progress on building dev loop, which is the companys focus, to show a prototype, to build a prototype, to show the world that Hyperloop is real, has been phenomenal. But the facilities around that are amazing.

Work on the test facility continues.

Image: hyperloop one

The 105,000-square foot facility 20 miles from here is a fabrication site where Josh and his team have hired welders and fabricators and machinists. Theyre building components and learning the methodology of manufacturing the technology that will be part of Hyperloop and that learning will be part of what we continue to develop on our site, and also at some of the customer engagement sites we have around the world as we move from an early development site to one that would be more like an early production site, which is really the focus of the company.

Are you still on schedule?

Josh Giegel:

As far as near term dates, we talked about basically starting our conducting our development loop, beginning construction on that at the end of last year [2016], which we did and [we are] continuing construction right now. Starting testing basically within the next couple of months here, if not sooner.

Hyperloop One CTO Josh Giegel (left) speaking with media after last spring’s successful test.

Image: lance ulanoff/mashable

Then, after that, we have engaged with RTA [Roads & Transportation Authority] on the ground in Dubai and in a couple of other spots around the world that are moving into how do we actually build this in your country and how do we actually regulate this?

And then were looking for the 2020 timeline for cargo and 2021 for people. Thats still what were targeting at this stage.

What do you think, at this moment, are your biggest hurdles?

Giegel:

The biggest challenge we have at this spot, taking it to production, is So were doing a proof of technology, proof of concept in the desert, right? Thats our R&D facility. The next rev of that, the next version of that is taking this same performance, or better performance, and driving the cost down. So, thats what were going to be spending 2017 on. And 2018 is going to be really going through a lot of the, building these and moving those into a, this is a new type of product, a higher-performing, low-cost sort of product, which will ultimately get us to the point that we want to be at to be extremely compelling in the marketplace.

Lloyd:

Second thing that I always thought was going to be a challenge was the certification and regulatory environment, where we are dealing with technology that isn’t regulated. Firstly, there is no regulation for Hyperloop and we have to work with regulators to write them. Secondly, typically, these things are done, Well build and then well ask you to certify it, but we are approaching it quite differently. Were collaborating with regulators before weve even finalized the design of the product. Having them weigh in and give us advice as to how to design and develop the product in such a way that they would approve it.

The Hyperloop One propulsion test track.

Image: lance ulanoff/mashable

So, were way further back in that process than normally happens in a highly-regulated transportation technology, and were learning so much about what we would do and the decisions that Joshs team would make. So, that, a couple of years from now, that regulator was a part of that, very collaborative and then theyll be almost co-authors as to how that technology can be regulated. I think thats what were looking for in terms of negating that risk. So, that was one that concerned me and I am pleased with the progress weve made and how much positive reception weve had.

Nick Earle:

I would add that the third challenge as we go to market point of view is really very unusual, which is too much opportunity.

Ive been in the IT business for over 30 years. Typically, you go out to customers to try and persuade them to be interested. We had the opposite problem. We had 2,800 entries for The Hyperloop Global Challenge and we whittled them down to 35 that was announced today. But if you think about that, thats 35 entries, not just for teams, but teams that each have somebody at the government or regional level whos in transportation planning saying, I support this bid.

A worker is busy making the Hyperloop One tubes.

Image: hyperloop one

So, what weve got is 35, government -supported requests for us to build Hyperloops.

We need to qualify and just do a few initially and make sure we get them absolutely right. Se we have a very unusual, at least in my experience, challenge, which is, we really have to be crisp over qualifying which ones that we go after because there is so much demand and so much interest. You could argue its a nice problem to have, but Id argue that actually its a tough problem to have.

What is up with Dubai? Dubai seemed to come out of nowhere. When I read about it, I wondered, is Dubai going to get Hyperloop first?

Giegel:

They put together, the Dubai Future Foundation, put together an accelerator. Its an incubator for startups, so to speak, in that area. And what they were doing was providing office space, but theyre also providing connections to the regulatory and government officials that you need to take a project to scale. We got into that fairly quickly in August and we mobilized a small team, about five of us that went over there for the better part of five months, actually a team is still there, and we moved through that process, we were the first team to move out of that process into the actual feasibility study with the government body there.

They put together a plan together to attract technology talents and technology opportunity to Dubai and to the UAE and completely opened their doors and said, Go ahead and youre gonna need to talk to these people. And so, Lets do it.

Is there a chance that Dubai would have Hyperloop One first?

Lloyd:

Yeah, theres a chance that that could be first. Its certainly not decided. Theres much more work that needs to be done. Theres a chance that that could occur in Europe. Theres a chance that that could occur in Asia. And, quite frankly, were just saying, we need a number of places that really want to do this. So, we can make the decision, the strategic decision, that Nick just mentioned, is when we prioritized and put our resources behind those projects, were really prioritizing that theyre going to get through the entire construction phase, have the government contingent to support them, that we can finance them and raise the capital. Thats another thing in the filter that still has to happen. So, we can get the most phenomenal, high-potential, impactful new route, but well need to be able to raise project financing to then construct that.

Theres a lot of filters to go through.

Dubai is a possibility, but weve got more work to do there, and I think, along with the regulator, were very happy with where we are, but were still working really hard with the team.

How soon can I ride?

Lloyd:

Five years. 2021.

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from 5 uncomfortable questions for Hyperloop One