#like this might sound chronically online but even books are boring now

[sillyvampirestan]

this is so fucking fr. God. stannarrator has changed my whole brain. they hate each other. they love each other. they are stuck in an infinite loop together. its unrequited. its everything. its toxic. its perfect. its angsty. its domestic. they're obsessed with one another. they couldn't possibly ever love each other but they literally have all the time in the world to love each other.

i could talk about stannarrator Forever. it's literally the only fic i read anymore.

I think fanfiction is ruined for me now😭😭

Ever since I’ve gotten into tsp, I’ve tried reading some fics from outside the fandom. Some older ships of mine, like destiel or ineffable husbands. I’ve tried reading some old dsmp fics i enjoyed a few years back, I’ve tried rereading some frankly lovely dhmis fics as well.

But holy shit, none of them, even when I was in those fandom, have the same effect as Stannarrator fics. I cant stop comparing them, and I think it’s part of the ship aspect where they basically act divorced as well as holding a deep and fundamental need for each other is definitely the culprit. Other ships suddenly seem far too lovey dovey (not to bash on any ships whatsoever) and I just can’t get into the media surrounding them.

Don’t get me wrong, the fics are fantastic, and often I’ll finish a fic from an old fandom of mine and go ‘wow! that was incredibly written and definitely deserves all of the popularity surrounding it!’ But it doesn’t- I don’t know how to put it. Reach into my chest and grasp my battered heart? whether it be heavy angst, fluff, a 250000 word slowburn or a 1000 word porn no plot smutshot- none of them get me the same way stannarrator does.

Stannarrator was the first ship that inspired me to write my own fanfiction, It was the first ship that i felt genuinely comfortable reading and looking at NSFW art and fics- and whilst I read rated E fics long before it, they were always kind of a surrendering point, since I wasn’t able to look at any given ship the same way after reading them on most occasions, and this really ruined a lot of fandoms for me.

And I don’t know what it is about the ship that makes me feel this way, but it’s probably the innate need to be together, the way they hate each other and yet complete each other- it’s like soulmates with a love-hate relationship and a good dose of bickering, not to mention I just love both characters as well. And there’s so many interpretations…

what i’m trying to say is, i fucking love this ship, and I can’t read any other fanfics now because of it.

[kyndaris]

Ice to Meet You

After changing my preferences to women, it's been much harder to meet new people. Unlike men, women are more secure about who they are. Or they just don't use dating apps as religiously. In any case, my profile didn't receive much in the ways of 'likes' and even when the two of us mutually decided to 'match' and chat, inevitably, they would stop responding after one or two exchanges. And given how ambivalent I am to the whole dating scene, when the conversations die off, I'm not all that ruffled. Instead, I just move on and try my luck elsewhere or sink a few more hours into a game.

In fact, in most conversations, I'm more reactive rather than proactive in my questioning. It's hard for me to garner curiosity for someone I don't really know. Especially because I've already learned from a young age not to dump on others about my niche interests. Or asking anything too nosy. Most of the time, these things come out in their own time. I'm a great listener, after all, and I tend to file away any and all scraps thrown my way.

Honestly, it's just easier for everyone involved for me to sit back and observe the person opposite me as they rant and rave about what they like. But also, I just find it very hard to interrupt others.

Despite all this, I managed to have a meet-up with Eivor! That's their codename because in one of their pictures they were dressed as a viking. Unlike all my other dates, this time I asked them for a meet-up (something I honestly hate doing), but considering she was the one who suggested adding each other first on Facebook Messenger (so she could send me pictures of her pets), I bucked up the courage to arrange a face-to-face meeting. After all, I'm an independent 31-year-old woman who don't need no man!

[As an aside to all this, I'm still occasionally chatting with Dikottir. So, maybe I do still WANT a man? Who knows.]

And honestly, it was better that I took the initiative. Elsewise I might even now be waiting for someone to ask me out. Or to have someone reach out to me to invite me to an event.

It's why I've bitten the bullet so many times in organising catch-ups with my work friends. For if not me, then who?

While books and video games are very important to me (and make any description of my weekends sound very boring - at least to me), but there's something about maintaining my social connections that also resonates with me.I can't live in my head forever. And being chronically online would also be terrible for my mental health. I mean, what if I fell in with the wrong crowd that enabled all my worst traits? Or who I could compare my self to and think: yes, I'm far more normal than they are and so my mental health isn't flagging despite the fact I had a psychotic breakdown leading to hospitalisation for a week (if that's sounding very specific, it's because it is and that's a whole other story to tell).

Anyways, long story short, Eivor and I had chatted for a while. I learned she was into sports and thought going on an ice-skating trip would be a bit different to all my usual first-dates at cafes. I arrived to the rink early. Unfortunately, Eivor was running a little late as she had chosen to save a little on money by doing an Uber Pool. But once she did arrive (and after I'd done a few rounds on the rink in the skates the Ice Zoo provided - which were more hockey skates than the blue skates usually handed out), we chatted as we circled the rink.

Mostly, it ended up as Eivor asking me more questions of me than I her. But given the amount of children celebrating their birthdays there, and the music, it wasn't exactly the most conducive environment for a chat.

I learned she had a brother and was homeschooled. That she was often told she was quite 'normal' for not going through the usual curriculum when it came to learning but she was thankful her mother allowed to explore the subjects they were interested in. Including getting involved in a robotics competition run by Macquarie University. Something that sounded so cool to me and I hate myself for not asking more about it.

Unfortunately, being homeschooled meant she didn't have an ATAR to allow her easy access into a degree. Eivor told me she had to sit for the SAT and when she was finally admitted into tertiary education, the one major difficulty she faced were standardised exams.

And honestly, so true! Standardised tests are the worst. They don't even test anything practical about a subject - merely how well you might have crammed the information into your head the night before. It's a complete and utter joke and doesn't demonstrate one's actual knowledge.

Once our ice-skating session was over (in which I embarrassed myself by trying to do my usual T-stop on the skates but being encumbered by a weighted penguin, resulting in me overbalancing and falling on the ice), we had a simple affair of chicken nuggets and chips at the cafe located at the rink. Although I did offer Eivor a ride to another suburb or a restaurant close by, she refused.

Which, honestly, is fair.

We were strangers and for all she knew, I COULD have been a serial killer (spoilers: I'm not. In fact, I'm always in fear of my own life when I go out on dates. Beyond that, she was taller than me and could probably deadlift me if she so chose.). It doesn't help that so many of my friends have written into their wills that if they were to vanish under mysterious circumstances, I'd be to blame.

I should work on stamping out such baseless rumours. Permanently.

It wasn't the best food to have. And it didn't fill me up at all considering this was supposed to be lunch. Nevertheless, I didn't want to pressure Eivor into anything and had let her take the lead. From there, we investigated the nearby antiques store. RIGHT as it began to sprinkle down heavy drops of RAIN!

Given I lived in one of the neighbouring suburbs, my mind instantly turned to the LAUNDRY I had painstakingly washed and hung out to dry (thankfully, it was still quite a warm day and when I got back home to check, they weren't as wet as I thought despite the sudden sun shower).

Antique stores, it should be known, aren't places I normally frequent. Yes, I visited Dirty Janes in Bowral during the light show back in June this year but old pieces of furniture isn't something terribly enticing to someone like me. Probably because they aren't exactly the ancient artefacts I would hope to find in an archaeological dig. The most interesting things I DID see were taxidermy animals and a few Chinese vases. Unfortunately, there were not enough weapons to catch my eye at the exhibit. Now, Dirty Janes had a veritable display of knives to peruse. As well as a few cases filled with butterflies that would have looked delightful.

And so ended my date with Eivor.

Throughout it all, there wasn't much of a spark between us. Like many of the men, I wasn't filled with any kind of lustful thoughts or a desire to know as much as I could about her. In fact, I think what I felt was a combination of anxiety (and wishing to impress) as well as mild disappointment.

I had been hoping to be wowed but Eivor was like any person I might walk by on my daily commute to the office. Any curiosity I had remained entirely detached like she was another face in a crowd of thousands.

Similarly, I didn't feel like she was all that taken away by who I was. Some of that might be my below average self-worth, esteem and confidence talking but Eivor and I haven't chatted much since the encounter out on the ice. In fact the conversation have all but dried up. So, I suppose it's back to the drawing board for me.

It doesn't help that I find it immensely boring to talk about myself. After all, there's nothing truly exciting about my life (something I was warned not to say to strangers during a one-year-old's birthday party. Of course, when you don't know ANYONE at the birthday party and no-one extends a hand to chat with you - usually that's me actually - it's a difficult endeavour). But whenever I try to talk about a few of my passion projects, the conversation always seems to jump to another topic.

And given I'm more a Wednesday Addams wallflower than an Enid SInclair extrovert, it'll probably keep on being the same old story every time.

In fact, I told one of my friends that I think a possible ideal partner for me would be to have an excitable golden retriever chasing after my grouchy cat arse.

But beggars can't be choosers in the game of love. So, I guess we'll simply have to see where the next step takes me. Or I can just be satisfied with being single. And honestly? There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

[the--social--anarchist]

Study Tips for Chronically Ill Students

Most bloggers aren’t writing for the chronically ill audience. Typical tips, tricks and hacks on productivity, motivation and studying just don’t work for us. As a chronically ill student who’s in her last year of undergrad (yay!) I decided to share what I have learned over the (many) years. 

1. Get comfortable. Seriously. Don’t force yourself to sit at your desk, or go out to a coffee shop to study. Most people will tell you not to lay in bed while you read your books but if you are anything like me, getting ready and driving to the library or Starbucks just takes too much energy. I recommend making yourself a nice set up with everything you need. If you can tolerate sitting at a desk don’t skimp out. Buy yourself a decent, ergonomic office or gaming chair. Make sure you have a drink, a snack, your medication, charges, books, and anything else you need within arms reach. The less you have to get up the more energy you are saving. 

2. Take frequent breaks. Okay, this may sound contradictory to tip #1 but hear me out. Everyone person is different, every body is different, and every day is different. Some days your symptoms are just so bad you need to get comfortable and try not to move. But other days you might be fighting brain fog and mental exhaustion. So get up, or even just stop and sit for a minute to rest your mind. Some days I will stop every few sections and get up to do something small like apply a face mask, go back to studying, and then get up in 15 minutes to wash it off etc. Just find what works for you.

3. Write shit down. Write everything down. And write it in multiple places. Again, brain fog is such a bitch, but writing things down multiple times in multiple places will help you remember. I have a paper calendar that I write all my assignment due dates, doctors appointments, and other important things onto, but I also have an assignment check list with all of my upcoming assignments in my notebook. Also, I keep a huge running list titled Never Ending List of Shit To Do with boring chores and tasks that need to be done like doctors to call, bills to pay, letters to mail etc; and I use that list to pick and choose what I’m going to do each day and fill that out on a sticky note or another small insert that serves as my daily to do list.

4. Establish a routine. But don’t be discouraged if you can’t follow it to a T and don’t be afraid to change it up. My routine changes a lot because my symptoms and body are constantly changing too. Also, it’s important to note that a routine is not the same as a schedule. This is important for those of us with chronic illness because its just not feasible to assume we will be able to get up at the same time every day, eat lunch at the same time every day, and study for the same amount of time every day.  

5. Stay (way) ahead of schedule. You never know what life is going to throw at you, especially when you are chronically ill. Unfortunately, we can’t plan our flares, but we can prepare for them. If you know you suffer from migraines that will knock you out of commission for 3 days then make sure you are always 3 days ahead of schedule. Something I highly recommend is doing a little bit every day, even if its only 20 minutes of reading. Of course, sometimes we need a break and that’s okay too! Self care is important!

6. Online classes are the best. So many people say online classes are hard because you have to be super disciplined, and that it’s easier to have the accountability to show up to class, but I highly disagree. Online classes give you the freedom to read when you want, listen to lectures when you want, sleep when you need to, and stay comfortable in bed when it would be impossible to get to class. I work solely online and if it weren’t for the option of online classes I would not be in college right now or anytime in the near future.

7. Audio is your friend. Honestly, this is a tip for everyone in high school or college out there. Sometimes we are too tired or in too much pain to stare at a book or screen, or sometimes we need to utilize our energy wisely and multitask by listening while we clean the house. And this isn’t limited to audio text books. There are so many YouTube videos, podcasts, documentaries and more that you can easily just pop on while you are resting or doing chores! I listen to my lectures while I do my nails every week.

8. Don’t rewrite your notes. Don’t write them at all if you can avoid it. Almost all of my professors supply chapter outlines or summaries that I can just print off and fill in extra notes on. If you do need to write your notes I suggest typing them, or only writing them out once, and only what is most important. Whatever you do, don’t rewrite them, and for the love of god do not waste your time trying to make them look like an Instagram photo. Ain’t nobody got spoons for that.

9. Try to balance your course load appropriately. If you are taking a full course load try to even out the number of upper division classes you take with some easy classes, as well as some boring and some interesting. Alternatively, don’t be afraid to drop classes and go down to part time, even if just for one semester. I have tried to stay full time all year round since I re-enrolled in school fall semester of 2017, but spring of 2019 my health took a drastic decline and I did drop down from 5 classes to 3. I also took summer of 2019 off to focus on my health and came back this semester (fall 2019) ready to rock and roll. Seriously, do not be afraid to drop classes. It felt like the end of the world when I did it, but it was absolutely the right choice for me. It saved my GPA and my sanity.

10. Talk to your professor. And your university, and your classmates, and your adviser, and anyone else around you who can offer resources and support. Every university and college  has a Disability Services Coordinator Student Center available to request accommodations. The information to contact the center should be listed on your syllabus and the school website. They can help with everything and anything disability related. And if you feel comfortable you should really talk to your professor. Just give them a heads up and inform them of what’s going on. As for your classmates, its always good to connect and find a study buddy or someone you can borrow notes from whether you have a disability or not! 

I really hope this list can help some fellow chronically ill students out there. This is what I have learned in my 5+ years of attending college with various chronic and mental illnesses. I truly live by everything I talked about in this post and I have been fairly successful in my academic career. Please re-blog this post to help a fellow student who may have a chronic illness or disability! Happy studying!

[modern-oedipus]

Covid Vent

No one: Nila, who goes out maybe once in a month due to covid: *listens to coffee shop sounds in youtube to get in mood*  It’s really hard to maintain social isolation now that it has been 5 months. But the cases are going up and up and up, hitting my friends and their families. I myself had to split houses with my mother because she had covid cases in her work place. I don’t think I’d isolate myself this much if I wasn’t in the risk group, but I am. Knowing that I am most likely to go to intensive care and experience the trouble breathing again like I did during the asthma treatment is not good. The potential permanent damage on lungs, for someone like me whose lungs are already more prone to sickness compared to healthy people, is also a big no, considering that I’m only in my early twenties and if everything goes well and I live a normal life I’d live around 50 more years.  50 more years with a disability or isolating myself at home? Isolation, obviously. But this pandemic doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. I am only indoors because both my internships are online & college hasn’t started yet. I know that I’ll eventually have to go out if my college doesn’t switch to online education. It doesn’t scare me at all, though, I am not like, “anxious”. I’m concerned, disturbed, alert, but not in a paranoid anxiety. If I end up catching covid, I’m at least mentally prepared to deal with it. I’m also eating healthy and exercising and don’t really have health problems except for that past-lung-treatments that more or less put me to a risk group (risky enough to concern me, even though I don’t have a chronic illness), so who knows, I might just pass it like a flu as well. No one knows. It’s not good overthinking covid, all I can do is to keep social distancing & mask & hygiene, as always. I’m just so suffocated. I’m more prone to be an extrovert. Before pandemic, I’d only use my house to sleep I’d keep being out in public, attending events, ORGANIZING events, going to coffee shops, club meetings, lots and lots of stage plays, tours, everything. I’d sneak into my friends’ dorms and change cities and just so many more “normal” fun things. I was barely starting to enjoy my life again after the depression healed. Now, I’m mentally ok, but physically trapped. The “watch netflix, read books, stay home” thing is kind of overdosing me right now. I like this shit for a week maybe, not for 5 months. I don’t know how to not risk my mental health while keeping my physical health anymore. Of course, to even HAVE a mental health I need to stay alive, so I’m not complaining- health care workers, people who go to job everyday (including my parents), etc. are in such a harder situation. I know. But my own life is also valid, and while not as troubling and concerning as lives of others right now, well, I think I’m still worth caring, at least by myself. I don’t expect any extra outside compassion or validation (we all are in same situation), me writing my thoughts here is more of me just trying to see my thoughts being worded on screen so that maybe I can come up with a solution to these things as I go. Because I’ve always been a problem-solver rather than just merely venting. (I can’t always solve problems though, I need to work on accepting this fact.) Anyway, I just thought, maybe spending more time outdoors in the natural park that is close to my house could be a good thing. But it’s crowded since it’s outdoors and I really don’t want to share any commonly used areas right now. (I used to be more than okay with this before covid, as I said, I’m mostly extroverted and I like community gatherings, but I like being healthy more), so like... Idk, maybe I can just sort of have phone calls and videochats with my friends as I sit outdoors. Except I don’t even know I have that many friends anymore. I mean, I do- I surely do have bestest of friends in my life that I’m grateful for, but like. I am somehow an introvert magnet and while I’d die for most of my best friends (both irl and online) I don’t really think they are as hype about just chatting as often as I am. (I know that this doesn’t mean they love me any less. They love me in their own way & I love them in their own way so that’s OK.) So like. Maybe Nila, have this BRILLIANT idea of making more friends. Except. Like. You’re at home so you aren’t in much of social gatherings [you aren’t in any! That is insane!] and you don’t really know how to make friends from home. I mean, yes there are online friends but like. EVEN WITH THEM. How can I just *trust* them right away? I can’t, so like. I don’t know. I’m bored af.  On the bright side, today one of my bff from school called me and said he’s back in town and that we should catch up, he’s literally one of the greatest company ever and he wants to see the doggo, so I’m positive we can just have hour 9242309204 hours long in-depth chats again without getting bored (amazing to have people like that in my life). Anyway. I guess the moral of this is:

- I need to accept “the new normal”

- I need to protect myself but try to keep my mental health as good as possible because I like myself more when my mental health is fine and I can also come up with better creations then

- I need to finish my course work (internship) so that I can relax before school starts

- I need to spend more time outdoors but in isolated areas (good luck finding them!) 

- I need to recharge

- I “want to” make more friends or just check up on existing ones! I can’t use the word “need” for this because this would degrade the freedom of the other party. Friends are appreciated, and to some extend, a necessity for social creatures like us, but no “need” will make it happen. I will just make an effort to check up on my existing friends more frequently-- I’m quite selective at this, though, I prefer generally upbringing people who are mature to a certain extend (aka, no obsession, no passive-aggression. yes to personal boundaries, yes to an overall nice attitude [we all can have problems and that’s ok and that’s normal. what /I/ personally don’t wish to be around [with my all respect] is this mindset of “life is a disaster let’s be depressed” thing. I just love love my current friend circle because even if my close friends are just around 7 people, and even if we get depressed or sad or scared, our general look to life is nicer, we don’t make disasters out of regular days, we enjoy talking and chatting, which overall increases our life quality and makes it better. We also communicate & respect & listen to each other and all. I mean. It’s not like that with everyone, and that’s ok, but as I said, this is my personal preference. I prefer having bonds that are good rather than toxic and I am doing my best to be equally good, rather than being toxic to my friends. [I’m sorry I post a lot of Banana Fish to those who don’t know Banana Fish, ok. I know ur bored but like I just cannot help it. I’m trying to tone it down but BANANA FISH.] sOOOOOOOO, SOOOO that’s why it’s not how “i have 29420343204 friends uwu” mindset, like, I noticed I need to be reasonably picky with those I’m close to so that I and people I love can overall have a nice, fun days, which is point of friendship. (I mean. As I said. I’m here on bad days too. But I don’t feel mentally healthy enough to carry the burden of someone else’s depression. It hasn’t even been two months since I’m out of therapy yet, and my mental health is, while not bad, it is fragile. I’d rather not be around those who can [mostly, unwillingly] effect me badly. SO LIKE.  - that’s one hell of a long post nila, but long story short FRIENDS or you’ll die out of boredom

- also just finish your coursework i beg you

- thanks for coming to my ted talk, I actually always offer potential solutions on my vent posts, but this time i wanted to write this publicly [i dont think anyone will read this and i dont mind it] because like. why not? it’s just me thinking and I feel as if this could be of use for some people who are reading this & isolating themselves too. anyway, i love u, stay safe. 

[transcriptroopers]

Why wouldn’t the military give u money to go to college if you join? That’s basically the selling point of recruiters at my school right now. It’s a very rural, middle class town. Even if u had good grades and were able to get into good colleges, no way would anyone be able to pay for it... unless you join the military, who promises to take up all expenses for college tuition.

Unfortunately, your story is the same as so many others, including my own. Based on your recruiter’s main selling point being free college, I’m willing to bet your town isn’t actually middle class, but working poor. The recruiters in your town know they’re facing hundreds of kids with no money and no options, which gives them a distinct bargaining tool. The shrinkage of the middle class is blurry subject now that anywhere between 50% and to 70% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, in a system where a modest emergency (

So for reference there are two types of G.I. Bills: the Montgomery G.I. Bill and the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill. The differences between them are technical and tedious, but the bottom line is that the 9/11 one is newer (installed 2009 I believe) and gives more stipends for books and housing and such. So while you only get $20,000 in total for tuition, you could be receiving up to $2,000 more per month for housing and cost of living. Assuming you use up the G.I. bill in three years, that’s $72,000. Until recently, the Montgomery G.I. Bill expired after 10 years of leaving service and the Post 9/11 expired after 15 years. This made the G.I. Bill a “use it or lose it” benefit that could be rendered useless if you took too long. It’s easy to say you’ll use it right away as soon as you get out, but a 2015 poll by the Washington Post reported that half of veterans polled didn’t use their educational benefits. 50% of veterans appeared to just ... not take a free $92,000. Why?

The military really does break you in ways that are hard to describe. They aren’t offering you “free” college; they’re asking for a transaction. They want your body in exchange for an IOU. That sounds dramatic until you’ve actually been in the military and been broken down into an object the government owns. They make service sound fun and adventurous but don’t tell you we have significantly higher rates of murder, suicide, sexual assault, substance abuse, domestic abuse, and an absolute legion of mental and physical ailments, many of which don’t fully hit us until after we’ve left service, i.e. when the trauma-inducing environment is left, meaning... when you plan on going to college.

The articles that describe these symptoms act as if it’s because of the turmoils of war-torn heroes returning from the front lines; to quote this article, “These men and women stepped up and sacrificed to protect our country and population,” but that’s horse shit. The fact is that veterans develop life-long illness just from being in the military. Even those who never see combat, never see deployment and don’t complete their full service. 

This isn’t about “the war” damaging our veterans, it’s about the military itself being traumatic to its personnel. Kids in their twenties with chronic knee pain and slip discs. Eating, sleeping, and addiction disorders. Exposure to toxic waste, burn pits, and radiation. Rocketing rates of opioid abuse. I can’t stress enough that even if you pick the most boring, safest job in the military and barely even touch a weapon, you’re going to endure completely needless mistreatment and substantial risk to your health. 

Meaning, even if you only put in four years, you might not be physically or mentally able to start cashing in on your G.I. Bill. You can’t take classes part-time, not if you want all of your benefits. At least one of your classes must be in a physical classroom, unless you want your benefits cut. All of your classes must be pre-approved by the VA as being relevant to the major you declare upon activating your G.I. Bill, otherwise you will be responsible for the tuition. Should the VA be late to pay the tuition for your school, you are responsible for the amount and late fees. If you fail a class, you must pay the tuition cost yourself, and if you owe the school money, you can’t receive your benefits. 

To be quite honest, G.I. Bill fuckery is what started our slow decline to near  homelessness: my husband got a D in a class, which is a fail, so he had to pay for the class himself. We were in a tight financial spot, so we couldn’t pay back what he owed. Because we couldn’t pay for the class he failed, he couldn’t take more classes, so he couldn’t get more benefits, so we couldn’t afford to pay back what he owed, etc. I developed agoraphobia after leaving service and took the hit to my benefits to take only online classes. Unfortunately, there was some paperwork mistake at the VA with my G.I. Bill, and I was asked to come in to address it. Being agoraphobic and with my husband working full time, I delayed far too long until I got a letter saying that I was financially responsible for the online classes. When I couldn’t pay for them, I couldn’t take classes, thus I couldn’t get benefits, etc.

The “Forever GI Bill” signed in 2017 eliminated the time restrictions, which did seem to address some issues. They acknowledge that for whatever reason, veterans may not go to college right after leaving service, which saves a lot of benefits from simply expiring. But unsurprisingly, the VA has been struggling to implement the changes. Innumerable veterans report their payments being less than usual or worse: being late, or not arriving at all. There are government agencies that exist just to write emergency checks to veterans whose benefits are not working. The VA’s inefficiency has been a joke for decades and the last few years we’ve seen wave after wave of VA corruption and disorganization being brought to light for the first time. So even if you do successfully enroll in college after service, there’s no guarantee that your promised payments will be there.---

To succinctly answer your question, it’s hard to predict when you might suddenly lose access to the education benefits you sacrificed so much to get. But most of all, I think, you should not consider college to be something you should feel compelled to get at all costs. The finality of saying something like “a poor kid who couldn’t go to college otherwise” as if a life ends because of it... even highly qualified people with four year degrees struggle to find jobs. The idea that college is salvation from poverty is a lie that corporations, including the military, use to exploit children fresh out of school. 

And even if it were the salvation they say it is, it’s still not worth joining any branch of the U.S. Military. Not only because of how poorly you will be treated, but because your participation in an organization committing war crimes and human rights violations is not justifiable. I realize I’m a hypocrite for having this point of view as I too was a penniless kid who joined for money and college, but no individual’s upward mobility is worth serving what is rightfully a terrorist organization. 

- Kingsley

[purplesurveys]

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Have you ever done a craft that you found on Pinterest? I’ve never gone on Pinterest for reasons other than looking for interior design ideas lmao, so no. I’m no good at crafts anyway so it’s not like looking at Pinterest will make me feel good or motivated. Do you get scrapbooking layout ideas from anywhere? I don’t do scrapbooking, but if I do start (and I’ve always wanted to), I’d definitely get some tips from the internet or from people I know who are artsy. What do you do to wipe off the dust from ordinary life? Drink. Are you content with mystery, or do you wish you knew everything? I wish I knew everything, no matter how bad the news may be. What do you do when someone irritates you on Facebook? Unfriend them, duh. I could still see them in real life anyway, but I can very much hate their presence online enough to unfriend/block them haha.

Are you judgmental? If I meet a person for the first time only after I’ve heard a couple of stuff about them, I might judge them for a bit yeah. Then I’ll brush it off first and see if they really are what I was told they’d be. Do you think your hair looks better natural or dyed? I’ve never had it dyed, so I wouldn’t know if it looks better. Do your parents disrespect you? My mom does; and she’s typically a disrespectful person. My dad’s pretty chill. Have you found that love covers over a multitude of sins? Sure. People just have to watch out and make sure love doesn’t reach such a point that it ends up becoming a cover-up for toxic behavior. What was the last Grand Opening you went to? Popeye’s HAHAHAHAHA. They opened their (second) first branch in the country around a year ago and we didn’t have classes that day, so we went. Do you have anything coming up tomorrow? No Monday classes for me, so the day would just consist of me doing schoolwork at home, or in a coffee shop, or whatever works for tomorrow. What's one thing that makes your stomach hurt? DAIRY. I’m having milk tea right now and it is a nightmare. But it tastes so good, so lactose town it is. Ever had a living nightmare? You mean the last 22 years of my life? Sure. Do you have a lot of haters? Idk, it’s possible but I don’t worry about that kinda stuff.

Do you think successful people always come with a pack of haters? Of course. People are alllllllllways envious. Do you have supernatural abilities? No. Do you kick yourself when you make mistakes? Do you say, "I wish I would have" a lot? Yeah I do this a lot. It drives my girlfriend nuts and she hates when I start on could have/should have rants, but it’s my thought process most days. Are you doing the most you can with your life? 'The most’ is probably pushing it. I know I can still do more like join contests, volunteer, be in more orgs, etc. but it doesn’t mean I’m unhappy where I am and with what I’ve done. I can still call myself satisfied, and I hope it means I’ve been doing something right. Do you let people walk on you? No. At least I don’t think so. Are you ok? Thanks for asking :’) I could be better, but at least I’m functioning and that’s better than being a vegetable in bed all day. Do you have a friend you miss right now? Yeah, I always miss Angela. Do you ever write snail mail to your friends? We don’t do that anymore dude. Do you make your life look better than it is on Facebook? Yeah. There’s like this quiet mutual understanding among people (at least in my generation) that Facebook is for impressing your relatives and showing how good of a life you have, and Twitter is where you air out your sadness and rants and all the mess in your personal life haha. Do you feel God's presence regularly? There is no presence to be felt. Do you experience chronic pain? Nope. Do you believe God loves you and is rooting for you? Don’t need anyone else other than my friends and myself to do both of those for me. Have you ever dreamt that you were falling? I’ve never dreamt it but I’d sometimes get that sensation when I would almost fall asleep. What would your dream career be? Lawyer. If I wasn’t such a fucking crybaby in arguments I think I’d survive law school just fine HAHA. Are you a daydreamer? Sure. Do you daydream so much that you wonder if there's anyone who doesn't?  Not really. I just daydream when I’m bored. Do you ever just sit and daydream for awhile?  ^ Again, only when I’m bored. Is the snow falling where you are right now? Snow has never fallen in the Philippines. What is your favorite part of nature? Mountains, and the spectacular views they can give. Do you wish you could be a world traveler? Sure. Do you wish you could live in another city for a year? I wish I could migrate to another country – that’s how much I want to get out of here. What city would you like to visit? I’m eyeing Bangkok for my next trip abroad if that’s ever going to happen :) What has been your favorite city that you've visited? Locally, Vigan or Sagada. Abroad... probably Bali. If you had kids, would you take them to Disney World? I’m definitely going to be that parent who takes my kids every year and lets them wear whatever costume they’d want. Have you ever stood in line to get a Disney character's autograph? No. Do you own a birthday crown? I had a tiara for my 7th birthday party, but I’m not sure if my mom was able to keep it. How long does it usually take your hair to dry? Do you dry it naturally or blow-dry it? I have it dry naturally because I get bored blow-drying it. It usually takes an hour or two. Do you straighten your hair? No. I have bad experiences with that because as a kid/teenager, my mom would force me to have my hair rebonded even if I never wanted to have it done to my hair; so these days, when someone asks if I prefer my hair to be straightened, I shudder and say no. Do you sleep with a teddy bear? No and I never did. I was never into stuffed toys. Would you consider yourself a free spirit? To an extent, I guess. I do enjoy being independent and trying out new things, but I always want people to be with me along the way. If I’m gonna travel the world, I need a travel buddy. If I’m gonna go hiking in Sagada, I’d feel better having a companion. If I’m gonna try worms or bugs for the first time, it’s always nicer having someone who’s just as daring when it comes to food. I’m basically a free spirit who never wants to feel lonely, haha. Do you need to clean out your closet? I need to refold some of my clothes, but otherwise I know where everything is. Do you watch YouTube videos regularly? Yeah, I watch at least one video a day. What's your favorite coffee shop? Starbucks will always be my first love for their ambience, but Coffee Bean is pretty great too. Is your Pinterest page cluttered? It’s not used at all. Do you want to start a collection? Yes, I always said I would start collecting all sorts of WWF/E memorabilia once I’m able to afford having a steadily-growing collection. My future house is definitely gonna have its own ~man cave~ except it’ll be for wrestling merch, and it’ll have its own TV and sound system too for when I want to hide from the world and just find solace in wrestling. Are you a role model? Would you consider yourself a good example? I’ve had people say they look up to me for certain traits, but this isn’t something I actively try to become. I have bad habits and vices of my own, so I definitely don’t endorse myself as a role model. But if I can help people in other aspects, then that’s more than alright with me. Are you a leader or a follower? Follower. I like being a leader whenever I can, but there’s too much pressure in being the leader all the time. Who's your favorite person? My girlfriend, durrr. Who have been your favorite American Idol contestants? Siobhan Magnus, Adam Lambert, and Pia Toscano. Did you used to name your Barbies? No. I never liked playing with Barbies either. I think I only ever got one Barbie doll as a present, and it’s because I always preferred playing with toys for boys given that I grew up with mostly male cousins. What unnatural hair color looks best on you?  I’m not sure. I’ve wanted to dye my hair either red or green, though. Is your life boring? No. It’s certainly picked up in the last few months. Do you usually feel better around people or alone? I do great for both situations. It depends on what I need at a particular time. Is there a broken relationship in your life that you want to fix? There’s a broken relationship, but I have no desire to fix it. Do you ever think about Heaven? A part of me finds a level of solace in the idea of getting reunited with lost loved ones when I die, but I mostly think there’s no afterlife. Are you ready for Heaven yet? Are you afraid of where you're going to go? No. I’d like to think I’ll end up somewhere in the universe, and it’s enough to calm me down. Do you have a tree outside your window? Yes, but it’s dark and we have curtains so I can barely see the trees. Do you feel better now than you did last night? I wouldn’t say that, even though I’m feeling okay tonight. I was with Gabie last night, which automatically makes last night better. Is your sleep schedule messed up? It’s still a little bit distorted, yeah. But I’m not too worried about it because at least all my classes this sem start at 10 AM, which means I get to sleep in unlike last sem when I had 7 AM/8:30 AM classes :) Does your body have any problems with it? It gets tired during the day because I’d usually take naps in the afternoon, but it doesn’t affect me too badly. Are you doing ok spiritually? I don’t think about that aspect. Have you taken any huge risks lately? I had a long, blunt talk with Gab last night and it involved topics regarding our relationship that have long been denied and shelved finally acknowledged and let out in the open; and I think that in itself is a big step to take. Silence or songs? I can prefer either depending on my mood. Tea or coffee? Coffee. Books or movies? 10 year old me would say books. Today me would say movies. Do you ever watch your favorite movies from when you were a kid? Yes. I do a Toy Story rewatch at least once a year. ^If you were going to do that, what would you watch? Mostly Disney movies like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Game Plan, etc. Do you ignore rude people or do you call them out? Call them out. Do you have trouble staying organized? Yeah, but then again I’m messy-organized so even though I find it hard to maintain being organized, I still end up remember where everything is placed (most of the time). What has been your most favorite adventure? Walking around Bali and my family not knowing where the hell we were or where we were headed. What has been your greatest mistake? I hate questions like this. Are you happy with your life right now? I’m like 75% happy with it, which I’d say is a decently healthy amount. Do you take anything to make your feel better? No. Are your parents still together? Yes. What color socks do you have on? Currently barefoot. Are you under a blanket right now? Nope. It’d be nice to be that right now, though. Are you hopeful? Always.

[smallmediumproblems]

Now that everything’s made public, this was my submission for the Piles of Nonsense 2019 Halloween statement exchange! I haven’t gone through all of the other submissions yet, but the one I got was AMAZING, 10/10 looking forward to the next event like this. I actually wrote two since I couldn’t decide on the prompt, the other one’s an additional chapter in the Ao3 link. It’s about a cat.

You don’t get many people in here asking for advice, do you? Seems kind of stupid. Everyone comes with an offering for your greedy little watcher, and none of them think to ask for anything in return. Well, I haven’t forgotten that this is an archive, and if you don’t mind, I’ll be using it as one. I mean, what are you going to do, stare me away? No. I thought so. Besides, it’s not like I came empty-handed. I do have a story for you. I imagine you’ll need some context to be of any use, just like a normal archive. I don’t need an actual, physical favor, you see. Just information. A statement for you, and a nudge in the right direction for me. Sounds fair? Good.

You’ll want me to start from the beginning. I can tell.

A few months ago, I made the mistake of trying to clean my apartment. I’m one of those people who’s chronically unable to clean on my own. I always get distracted with old forgotten things. Videogame cartridges, costume odds and ends - books are the worst, the absolute worst. Especially if I find one with a bookmark still in it. Part of me feels guilty for leaving it unfinished, which of course means I have to chew through a few chapters and a precious amount of my cleaning time.

That’s how I knew this particular closet was going to be hard for me. It wasn’t just books. It was notebooks. Three stacks of the things, each one nearly two feet tall. From the couple I’d labeled, I must have been eleven or twelve when I’d written them. Most of it was schoolwork in spiral-bound notebooks, plus some stacks of looseleaf stapled together. The real prize was an old diary. It was a scuffed little composition notebook, much smaller than the others. That’s what drew my attention to it in the first place.

I don’t remember keeping a diary. Finding one anyway didn’t strike me as odd, I’m sure I don’t remember a lot of stuff I did when I was eleven. That’s how I explained it away to myself. I’d forgotten most of what was in those schoolbooks, I can tell you that. You know, I used to speak French? Like, not a lot, but apparently enough to write a few paragraphs of essay responses. I found that out as I was flipping through the notebooks trying to dredge up any memory of when I’d written them. The fact that I couldn’t made me a little sad. It’s like I was a completely different person back then. A tiny stranger who spoke French, who doodled in the margins of her notebooks, and who slowly, unremarkably, vanished.

I think that’s why I started reading the diary. I didn’t feel bad for her- or, myself, I guess - but I was curious. I’m sure you know what’s that like. To my immeasurable disappointment, the first few entries were dead boring. This clearly wasn’t the first journal I’d ever kept. I’d fallen into a routine of matter-of-factly jotting down whatever I’d done every day even if I had nothing to say about it. After a while, I got to one that was just aimlessly sad. Like, big, messy handwriting sad. No details about the day, just a lot of purple prose about how I felt helpless and trapped. It was a little hard to read, honestly. That did make me feel bad for eleven-year-old me. It can’t have been too awful, though, because the next entries continued on like nothing happened. I guess the little frenchwoman had a habit of bottling things up. A couple pages later, I found the first really strange thing in the journal. It looked like nonsense, at first. One line of apparently random letters in all-caps:

JWMKRLLYUABWHJMOJ

I thought it might be an acronym of some sort, or a mnemonic for something in one of the schoolbooks. It wasn’t referenced anywhere else on the page. I was ready to brush it off until I saw another one a couple pages later.

DDSVXSXXVQZVJNJ

The thought appeared in my head that this might be some kind of coded message. A bigger mystery than what it said was who I thought I was coding it from. I had no siblings, and parents who were pretty respectful of my boundaries as long as they thought I was safe. I wasn’t a paranoid child. At least, I don’t think I was. It looked like there was a lot about myself that I’d forgotten. The only idea I had was that I could figure it out if I could just decode the messages.

This turned out to be harder than expected, even with the help of the internet and a motivational cup of tea. After a little digging, I figured that it was probably coded with something called a Vignere cipher, where you use a single word as a key to encrypt a string of text. That made the most sense, but the online decoder I found couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Either the key was too long to decipher, or the messages were too short. Probably the latter. At this point, my interest was starting to wane. I really needed to get back to cleaning. The fact that I’d stopped what I was doing to google ciphers was a bad sign. I set aside the diary, making the difficult decision to chuck the rest of the notebooks directly into a garbage bag. The doodles weren’t exactly the lost works of DaVinci, and I wouldn’t need to reference my algebra homework any time soon. By lunchtime, I’d gotten about half-done refilling the closet with more junk for me to throw out next time I felt like cleaning. I was feeling pretty good about the day until I found myself tapping out a rhythm on my mug.

I don’t know if this next part is going to make sense. It definitely didn’t to me at the time. Something about the movement felt involuntary in a way that was very alarming. It wasn’t a natural motion like swaying to music. It reminded me of goosebumps. Or like when you get nervous or frightened, and you just start shivering like it’s minus ten outside. That feeling that there’s a wire crossed in your brain, somewhere. What really shook me was how hard it was to stop. Relaxing my hands didn’t work, and my fingers continued to spasm when I set down the mug. I eventually got around it by clenching my fist so tightly that I couldn’t move the hand at all. This made my microwave burrito harder to navigate, but that wasn’t my biggest concern just then.

I wondered if I was having a stroke. It didn’t sound like one. Too minor, too specific. I’d say I didn’t have a history of this kind of thing, but that would imply that I had any idea what it was. My mind scrambled for something that had happened, something I’d done that would have caused this. My eyes, of course, settled on the journal.

What if the key wasn’t a word? What if it was a pattern? I loosened my grip on the fist. The rhythm was weaker now, barely a twitch in my fingertips. The same pattern repeated over and over again. First the thumb, then the middle finger, then pinky, index, ring. One, three, five, two, four. I made for the diary, flipping it open to the first chunk of coded text. It was harder to decode than it would have been to encrypt, even with scratch paper, but fortunately it was short.

I THINK IT’S WATCHING

I don’t remember being a paranoid child. I am definitely not a paranoid adult. I need you to believe that I would have taken any excuse to dismiss the whole thing. Surely this was just an eleven-year-old girl taking some fantasy a little too far. But something about the message filled me with the most unshakable dread. It hit on something that was just short of a memory. A feeling that I’d felt before while holding this diary, reading those words. Even parsing it out logically, I couldn’t quite shake it off. The messages were so isolated. Nothing else in the diary pointed to someone who would have made this stuff up. I didn’t ever comment on school drama or gossip, no conspiracy theories, or dreams of intrigue. Just the coded messages. That, and the way my fingers were still twitching. One, three, five, two, four.

Another scan over the page didn’t reveal any clues. If anything, the entry was less detailed than the other ones. Which made sense, actually. I’d be a little more careful of what I was saying if I thought someone was watching me. I made another pass through the diary and collected every encoded phrase, every one translating just as unsettling as the last. There weren’t many. Most of them were pretty vague. Things like "It can see me” or “It’s so close.” Some were specific, but not much more helpful. One read, “It’s behind my eyes.” Another said, “That’s not my voice.”

Reading the whole thing start to finish, I noticed something else. Some of the handwriting wasn’t mine. I hadn’t really noticed it at first because, honestly, who picks up an old journal expecting to find something like that? I saw my handwriting because I expected my handwriting. The human brain is real lazy, when it wants to be. Especially in the earlier entries, the handwriting was noticeably different. The w’s were sharp where they should have been round. All the circles were slanted wrong, the a’s, the d’s, the p’s, all of them. There’s this little curl at the bottom of my l’s and t’s that wasn’t there, that was the one I noticed first. Again, this was totally something I could have explained away, if it wasn’t for one of the later pages.

There was a margin completely filled with w’s. Curly, rounded w’s, the way I always write them. I remember getting confused in a statistics class once because they look just like the lowercase Greek omega. I also remember thinking that there was no way I’d use that symbol in real life, and that I shouldn’t change my writing, because it looked nicer. The margin was full of the things, and at the very bottom was another coded message. It was the only reason I stopped on the page in the first place.

THAT’S NOT HOW IT GOES.

I couldn’t help feeling a little annoyed at that. As if it were talking to me.

I’d scoured the whole thing start to finish, and one of the coded messages still didn’t translate. It was just one word off in the margin: AIDEZMOI. I kept mulling it over, trying to see if I’d put it through the decoder wrong, but by that point my brain was starting to turn to mush from the whole thing. Even if it was another keyword, I was out of things to decode. The trail had gone cold, and I was starting to get distracted again.

I pulled out my big sheet of scratch paper, the one I’d been decoding all of this stuff on so far, and tried to write one of the coded messages. The only memories I’d managed to conjure up had been tactile; the tapping fingers, the feeling of the diary in my hands. Maybe I could get back in the mindset of my past self by retracing her steps. I wrote something that I thought sounded sufficiently paranoid, coming up with:

MHFXINHFNSOH

It didn’t look right. I’d wanted to write “Can you hear me,” half directed at myself from the past, and half at whatever I was hiding from. Had I spelled it wrong? I double-checked just to be sure. No point in doing this if I was going to do it wrong. The translation I came up with read:

LEAVE ME ALONE

I dropped the pen. I’m surprised I didn’t throw it across the room. For a split second, I honestly thought of throwing the diary out with the trash bags. This was the second time this thing had made my hand move on its own, and I was not excited to find out what it was going to do next.

But, like I said, I was curious.

The way I saw it, I had two options. Option one: The diary was super haunted, in which case I needed to get it as far away from me as possible. Option two: Whatever was taking control of me was already here, and the diary was the only thing that had the clues I needed to stop it. I must have stopped it before, right?

I took the pen and tried to write something else the same way, coding and decoding it. Pushing the boundaries a little at this stage probably wouldn't be too dangerous. I wrote one of the lines from where I had the diary open to, something about having pizza for lunch.

PLEASE JUST STOP THROW IT AWAY DON’T TOUCH ME

That sounded like option two. I felt that same annoyance as when the coded message made fun of my handwriting, bubbling up into something close to anger. This thing was taking control of my body. Who did it think it was, making demands like that? This sounds stupid now that I say it out loud, but I kind of assumed it was reading my thoughts, so I wrote out another line to see if it had anything to say for itself.

YOU’RE NOT GOING TO GET ME I’LL KILL YOU GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT

I decided that this thing had lost its letter-writing privileges. For a third time, I tore through the diary for any more clues, something that looked even a little out of place. More than anything, I wished that I had some of the earlier books. How long had this been happening? When did I start coding the messages? More importantly, how did I think they were going to help? They couldn’t even be called cries for help. Just… cries.

Slowly, I realized that I did have other books to search through. The trash bag of notebooks still sat next to my front door. I emptied it out onto my kitchen floor, and was faced with the crushing realization that I had no idea where to begin. Just like in the diary, all I could do was look for a break in all the little patterns of my old life. I got through nearly a dozen notebooks before I recognized the word from the margin.

AIDEZMOI.

Aidez-moi.

Help me.

It had to be the French homework. The notebook was peppered with French in the margins like the codes in the diary. There was one page with a whole block of it scribbled on the back, clearly not part of an assignment. Just sort of tucked in between class notes, like she was hoping someone wouldn’t notice. Hoping that thing wouldn’t notice.

This was the only lead I had left, and I desperately needed it to work. I pulled up a translator on my phone and got to work, decoding line after line. Sure enough, the very first one shaped up into a sentence.

I need to tell my parents.

Poor thing.

It’s watching my diary too close. Thank god it gets bored in class. I tried to tell Ms Kennedy with that last assignment, but she just told me to keep my essays more serious. Why won’t anyone listen? It’s so quiet. I can almost speak. If I could get just one word out, I don’t even know what I’d do. What could I say? I’m afraid to think too hard. What if it can hear my thoughts? Can you hear me? You son of a bitch?

I yanked the pencil away from the page. That last line hadn’t come from the notebook. I won’t try to tell you I wasn’t scared, at this point, but I was starting to get angry, too. Not the best combination for someone to act rationally. I said - and I actually tried to talk to it, out loud - I said, “You don’t get to talk to me like that.” I told it that I’d already beaten it once, and I could sure as hell do it again.

My voice sounded wrong, when I said it. It was that same gut-deep, physical deja-vu as when I’d held the diary. Not the words, exactly, but the feeling that I was struggling against something inside my own head, my own body. I’d messed up. As soon as the words were out, I knew that. I realized that the more I engaged with it, the more I made it real, the more power it felt like it had over me.

By the time that thought appeared in my head, it was too late. I looked down to see that I’d filled the rest of the scratch paper. No codes, this time, no French. Just big, messy handwriting. Like someone was upset. It read:

FUCK YOU. I'm still alive, and you’re still stupid and lazy. Nobody listened. That’s the only reason you’re here, nobody listened, and nobody helped. If I had gotten out just once, you’d be the one stuck in here as a bad memory. You didn’t beat me. You did a lot of things to me but you did not beat me. I’ve been patient. I’ve been quiet. But if you don’t throw out that diary- if you don’t get your slimy hands off of the ONLY THING you didn’t take from me, I can promise you I won’t be quiet anymore.

It looked so much like that sad, angry page from the diary, I almost felt sorry for her again. But I’m sure, just like that terrible day all those years ago, she’ll get over it. Eventually. She’ll learn to be grateful, again. I’ve been thinking it over in the meantime. Whether I want her gone for good. She’s clearly been doing some rearranging upstairs, and I’m just not sure I can let that slide now that I know what she’s been up to. I’m not sure I should. That’s really why I’m here talking to you. If anyone can help me figure out how to do it, it’s you. It’d be nice to have the option even if I decide to keep her around. A part of me just wants to prove her wrong. Show her I’m not too lazy to finish the job. I’ve just been so busy. She’s got a lot of responsibilities now that she’s older. If I’d known how much work taking over for her would be, I don’t know if I’d have signed up for it. I’m not lazy, really, I’m not. And just because she knows French doesn’t mean she’s smarter than me.

[turningpagebooks]

BLOG TOUR | EXCERPT: “White Stag” by Kara Barbieri

I don't know about you, but I love books about goblins. They're intense, dark, lush. When I started reading White Stag, I was immediately drawn into the story.

I was so excited to be part of the blog tour. Thanks, Wednesday Books!

ABOUT THE BOOK

PUBLICATION DATE: January 8th, 2019

In an exciting collaboration with Wattpad, an online community for readers and writers to publish and enjoy each other’s work, Wednesday Books will be publishing White Stag by Kara Barbieri.

Based in a dark and violent world, Janneke’s journey in the Permafrost is addictive and immersive. This expansive fantasy already has a strong online following. Thousands of fans immediately jumped on board when Barbieri first posted her story to Wattpad. Using their own Story DNA, Wattpad was able to see that readers were spending more time reading WHITE STAG than any of their other top fantasy works. Today, the story has over one million reads with Wednesday Books publishing a revised and expanded version in print.

White Stag, the first book in a brutally stunning series by Kara Barbieri, involves a young girl who finds herself becoming more monster than human and must uncover dangerous truths about who she is and the place that has become her home.

As the last child in a family of daughters, seventeen-year-old Janneke was raised to be the male heir. While her sisters were becoming wives and mothers, she was taught to hunt, track, and fight. On the day her village is burned to the ground, Janneke—as the only survivor—is taken captive by the malicious goblin Lydian and eventually sent to work for his nephew Soren.

Janneke’s survival in the court of merciless monsters has come at the cost of her connection to the human world. And when the Goblin King’s death ignites an ancient hunt for the next king, Soren senses an opportunity for her to finally fully accept the ways of the brutal Permafrost. But every action he takes to bring her deeper into his world only shows him that a little humanity isn’t bad—especially when it comes to those you care about.

Through every battle they survive, Janneke’s loyalty to Soren deepens even as she tries to fight her growing attraction to him. After dangerous truths are revealed, Janneke must choose between holding on or letting go of her last connections to a world she no longer belongs to. She must make the right choice to save the only thing keeping both worlds from crumbling.

Add it on Goodreads

Buy it on: Amazon CA | Chapters Indigo | Barnes & Noble | Amazon US

EXCERPT

1

MASQUERADE

THE FIRST THING I learned as a hunter was how to hide. There was a skill in disappearing in the trees like the wind and merging into the river like stones; masquerading yourself as something you weren’t was what kept you alive in the end. Most humans didn’t think the masquerade was as important as the kill, and most humans ended up paying for it with their lifeblood.

Here, as the only mortal in a hall of monsters, I was very glad that I was not most humans.

I kept my steps silent and my back straight as I passed beneath the white marble pillars. My eyes flickered around me every so often, counting hallways, retracing my steps, so I could escape at a moment’s notice. The Erlking’s palace was treacherous, full of twists and turns, stairways that led into nowhere, and places where the hallways dropped to gaping chasms. According to Soren, there were also hollow spaces in the walls where you could slink around unnoticed to the mundane and the monstrous eye, but you could hear and see all that went on in the open world. The lair of a king, I thought bitterly. I dared not say it out loud in case someone was near. But beside me, Soren sensed my disgust and made a sound deep in his throat. It could’ve been agreement.

Soren examined his king’s palace with the usual contempt; his cold, calculating eyes took in everything and betrayed nothing. His lips turned down in a frown that was almost etched permanently into his face. Sometimes I forgot he was capable of other expressions. He didn’t even smile when he was killing things; as far as goblins went, that was a symptom of chronic depression. He lifted his bored gaze at the gurgling, choking sound coming from his right, and it took all my willpower not to follow his line of sight. When I felt the subtle whoosh of power transfer from one body to the next, my fingers twitched to where I’d slung my bow, only to remember too late that it had been left at the entrance of the keep in accordance with ancient tradition.

A scream echoed off the cavernous passageways as we made our way to the great hall where everyone gathered. It sent chills down my spine with its shrillness before it was abruptly cut off. Somehow, that made me shiver even more. Ancient tradition and custom aside, nothing could stop a goblin from killing you if that was what they desired. My hand reached for my nonexistent bow again, only to be captured by cold, pale fingers.

Soren’s upper lip curled, but his voice was low and steady. “The next time you reach for a weapon that isn’t there might be the last time you have hands to reach with,” he warned. “A move like that will invite conflict.”

I yanked myself away from his grip and suppressed the urge to wipe my hand on my tunic like a child wiping away cooties. “Force of habit.”

Soren shook his head slightly before continuing on, his frown deepening with each step he took.

“Don’t look so excited. Someone might get the wrong idea.”

He raised a fine white eyebrow at me. “I don’t look excited. I’m scowling.”

I bit back a sigh. “It’s sarcasm.”

“I’ve told you before, I don’t understand it,” he said.

“None of goblinkind understands sarcasm,” I said. “In another hundred years I’m going to lose my understanding completely.”

Another hundred years. It hadn’t hit me yet, not until I said it out loud. Another hundred years. It had been a hundred years since my village was slaughtered, a hundred years as a thrall in Soren’s service. Well, ninety-nine years and eight months, anyway, but who’s counting? Despite the century passing by, I still looked the same as I had when I was forcefully brought into this cursed land. Or, at least, mostly; the scars on my chest hadn’t been there a hundred years ago, and the now-hollow spot where my right breast should have been burned. The four months when I’d belonged to another were not something I liked to think about. I still woke up screaming from nightmares about it. My throat went dry and I swallowed. Soren isn’t Lydian.

“You look tense,” Soren said, breaking me out of my thoughts. I’d crossed my arms over my chest. Not good. A movement like that was a sign of weakness. It was obvious to everyone that I was the weakest being here, but showing it would do me no good.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just don’t like this place.”

“Hmm,” Soren said, eyes flickering around the hall. “It does lack a certain touch.”

“What does that even mean?” I asked.

“The entire design of the palace is trite and overdone.”

I blinked. “Okay, then.”

By now we’d entered the great hall where the reception was held. Every hundred years, the goblins were required to visit the Erlking and swear their fealty. Of course, their loyalty only extended to him as long as he was the most powerful—goblins weren’t the type of creature to follow someone weaker than themselves.

The palace, for what it was worth, was much grander than most other parts of the goblin domain. Soren’s manor was all wood, stone, and ice, permanently freezing. Nothing grew—I knew because I had tried multiple times to start a garden—but the roots never took to the Permafrost. Here, it was warm, though not warm enough that I couldn’t feel the aching chill deep in my bones. The walls were made of pure white marble with intricate designs far above what a goblin was capable of creating, and streaked with yellow and red gold like open veins. It was obviously made by humans. Goblinkind were incredible predators and hunters, gifted by the Permafrost itself, but like all creatures, they had their flaws. The inability to create anything that wasn’t used for destruction was one of the main reasons humankind were often stolen from their lands on raids and put to work in the Permafrost.

Soren’s scowl deepened as we passed under a canopy of ice wrought to look like vines and flowers. “I feel like I need to vomit,” he said.

I stopped in my tracks. “Really?” I swore, if I ended up having to clean up Soren’s vomit...

He glanced at me, a playful light in his lilac eyes. “Sarcasm? Did I do it right?”

“No.” I forced myself not to roll my eyes. “Sarcasm would be when you use irony to show your contempt.”

“Irony?” He shook his head, his long white hair falling into his face.

“Saying one thing when you mean the other, dramatically.”

“This is beneath me,” he muttered. Then, even quieter, he said, “This place is in dire need of a redecoration.”

“I’m not even entirely sure what to say to that.” With those words, he flashed me a wicked grin that said little and suggested much. I turned away, actually rolling my eyes this time. For a powerful goblin lord, Soren definitely had the ability to act utterly childish. It could be almost endearing at times. This, however, was not one of those times.

In the hall, the gazes on the back of my neck were sharp as knives. I kept my head straight, trying my hardest not to pay attention to the wolfish faces of the other attendees.

From a distance they could almost be mistaken for human. They varied in size and shape and the color of their skin, hair, and eyes much like humans did. But even so, there was a sharpness to their features, a wildness, that could never be mistaken for human. The figures dressed in hunting leathers, long and lean, would only seek to torment me if I paid them any attention. As the only human in the hall, I was a curiosity. After all, what self-respecting goblin would bring a thrall to an event as important as this? That could very easily get me killed, and I wasn’t planning on dying anytime soon. My hand almost twitched again, but I stopped it just in time, heeding Soren’s warning.

We finally crossed the floor to where the Erlking sat. Like Soren’s, the Goblin King’s hair was long. But unlike Soren, whose hair was whiter than the snow, the Erlking’s hair was brown. Not my brown, the color of fallen leaves, underbrush, and dark cherry wood, but murky, muddy brown. It was the color of bog mud that sucks down both humans and animals alike and it somehow managed to make his yellow-toned skin even sallower. He was the strongest of all goblins, and I hated him for it. I also feared him—I was smart enough for that—but the fear was drowned out by the blood rushing in my ears as I locked eyes with Soren’s king.

Soren turned to me. “Stay here.” His eyes turned hard, the glimmer of light leaving them. Whatever softness he had before drained away until what was left was the hard, cold killer he was known to be, and with it went the last shreds of warmth in his voice. “Until I tell you otherwise.” Subtly, he jerked his pointer finger at the ground in a wordless warning.

I bowed my head. “Don’t take too long.”

“I don’t plan to,” he said, more to himself than to me, before approaching the Erlking’s throne. He went to one knee. “My king.”

I eyed Soren from underneath the curtain of my hair. His hands were clenched in fists at his sides. He must’ve sensed something from the Erlking, from the other goblins, something. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Cautiously, I directed my gaze to the Goblin King himself, aware that if I looked at him the wrong way, I might be inviting my own death. While the behavior and treatment of thralls varied widely among goblins, I had a feeling submissiveness was required for any human in the Erlking’s path.

This close, the Erlking’s eyes were dark in his shriveled husk of skin and there was a tinge of sickness in the air as he breathed his raspy breaths. His eyes flickered up to meet mine and I bowed my head again. Don’t attract attention.

Soren spat out the vows required of him in the old tongue of his kind, the words gravelly and thick. He paused every so often, like he was waiting for when he would be free to drive his hand through his king’s chest, continuing on with disappointment every time.

The tension around the room grew heavier, pressing down on those gathered. Somehow, like dogs sniffing out blood, they all knew the king was weak. Beautiful she-goblins and terrifying goblin brutes were all standing there waiting until it was legal to kill him.

Beside the weakened king’s throne, a white stag rested on a pile of rushes. Its eyes were closed, its breath slow. Its skin and antlers shone with youth, but the ancient power it leaked pressed heavy against my shoulders. That power was older than anything else in the world—maybe older than the world itself.

Goblins were, before all things, hunters. Born to reap and not to sow. Cursed with pain upon doing any action that did not in some way fit into the power the Permafrost gave them, the goblins fittingly had the submission of the stag as the symbol of their king’s ultimate power. Until it runs.

I didn’t want to think about what happened after that.

Soren continued to say his vows. The guttural language was like ice shards to my ears, and I shuddered. Catching myself about to fidget, I dug my fingers into my thigh. Control yourself, Janneke, I thought. If they can do it, you can.

A soft voice whispered in my ear, “Is that you, Janneka?” His breath tickled the back of my neck, and every muscle in my body immediately locked. Icy dread trickled down my spine, rooting me in place.

Don’t pay attention to him. He’ll go away.

“I know you can hear me, sweetling.”

Yes, I could hear him, and the sound of his voice made me want to vomit. My mouth went dry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kara Barbieri is a writer living in the tiny town of Hayward, Wisconsin. An avid fantasy fan, she began writing White Stag at eighteen and posting it to Wattpad soon after under the name of ‘Pandean’. When she’s not writing, you can find her marathoning Buffy the Vampire Slayer, reviving gothic fashion, and jamming to synthpop.

Check out her Twitter

[beckettsthoughts]

ALL THE SPACE ASKS

I had to leave this ‘til last, because I had some others come in at the same time. I love when I get these, you’re the absolute best

Cosmos: What are you like when you’re angry at someone?

Fucking cruel, at my worst. I’m petty, and I hate it, but when I’m really angry I like to make people feel guilty and that can come about from ghosting them, bragging about doing things without them, making myself unavailable when they offer to make it up to me. I like to think that these days I’m better about it, I’ve learned that most of my anger stems from something called rejection-sensitive dysphoria, and one of the coping mechanisms I use these days is to remove myself from it for a day or so to let myself rationalise what’s going on, get over that initial feeling of rejection so that I can see it from their perspective. Nine times out of ten it wasn’t intentional, they didn’t mean to upset and probably already feel kind of bad about it. There are times in the past when I feel that my anger was justified even if my retaliation wasn’t, but most of the time my anger was unwarranted and that’s something I’ll always regret. 

Shooting star: What are you like when you’re sad?

I don’t often find myself just sad, it’s usually combined with anger, frustration or downright despair, so it’s hard to tell how I get when I’m sad. I tend to feel tired, and I’ll probably reach out to my friends both online and offline to talk things through if I can. I’ll find something else to do, funny videos to watch or a story to read, and it usually goes away pretty quickly. 

I would explain what it felt like I was depressed, because then I was genuinely sad a lot of the time. But honestly, I don’t really remember that much. That whole period of my life feels like a blur in my memories now and it’s bittersweet, but there are times back then that don’t even feel real to me now.

Eclipse: What are you like when you’re happy?

Excitable is probable the best word for it, incredibly excitable. I’ll move a lot, walk and jump and flap my hands when I’m really happy. It’s so hard to describe outside of the moment of pure joy, but when I’m happy I’m affectionate and energetic and talkative. That feeling in itself is very enjoyable.

Space dust: Are you happy?

Yes, actually, in a calm sort of way. Right now ‘normal’ for me is pretty good, so even though I’m kind of neutral right now it’s a happy neutral, if that makes sense? I’ve had an alright day, my seminar was pretty dull but then I went to get dinner, did some drawing and then settled down to watch documentaries. I posted this ask meme and I got so many responses, which makes me really happy as well. So yeah, I’m happy at the moment for sure.

Constellation: Have you ever read a book that is worse than the movie?

God, you’re all going to hate me for this but I have to admit it:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I tried to read the book for the first time when I was eight or nine. The emphasis there is on the word ‘tried’, because I got about a third of the way through before putting it back down in bitter disappointment. I used to eat up books that size in a matter of days, maybe a week, but Deathly Hallows was taking me so long and I got so bored that I actually just gave up. I did manage to read the whole thing on my second try, but I definitely didn’t enjoy it the way I enjoyed the others. This was more of a personal issue, because in no way is the book bad, it just didn’t suit me or what I liked to read. The movies, at least, I could focus through. The two-part split was helpful, it made it much easier to digest and I found that I could follow the story a lot easier. Once I’d seen the movie I found the book a lot easier to read, but that first experience still stands out in my mind as the one time I genuinely disliked a book from a series I really loved. 

Black hole: Do you have any diagnoses?

Indeed I do. Several, in fact. I’m not exactly shy about it, so I may as well go through the list. Starting with the physical, I have: 

Chronic, full-body dermatitis 

Various allergies

Moderate to severe hayfever

Chronic migraine disorder

And in terms of mental health and neurodivergence, I have:

Autism

ADHD (combined-type)

Anxiety disorder NOS (originally diagnosed as social anxiety, since expanded to NOS with no further change)

Emetophobia

I was also previously diagnosed with depression, which I no longer suffer from.

Galaxy: Are you a sun, moon or star person?

Moon or stars, definitely, though I find it hard to choose which. I’m definitely not a sun person, though. 

Though one lovely person did once say I was their sun, moon and stars (I don’t think it’s hard to guess who that anon might have been)

Milky way: Do you prefer math or humanities?

Humanities! I took all of my A Levels in humanities and my undergraduate course is also one of the humanities! My specific interests within humanities are philosophy, ethics, sociology and the arts, including music, theatre, art, creative writing, linguistics and literature.

Satellite: When was your first kiss?

In a romantic sense, I haven’t had it yet and probably never will. That sounds really pathetic but in reality I’m just not interested and the whole concept ever-so-slightly grosses me out.

Sunspot: Are you a sensitive person?

Yes. Incredibly.

Andromeda: Describe your first best friend:

Lord, where do I even begin? Firstly, he’s one of the kindest and most considerate people I’ve ever met. He’s sweet, and he’s passionate about his interests in the best way. I could listen to him talk about them for hours. He has the nicest smile, something I’m glad I get to see on a regular basis when I’m home, and being around him always makes me happy. He’s cool, he has some awesome style and a wicked talent for hair and makeup, and his music taste is at least five times better than mine. There’s nothing I like more than just talking to him, being around him and getting to hug him and pet his hair while we chill in my room or his. 

God, he’s so good. I can’t even properly tell you how amazing he is. I love him more than anything else in the world.

Saturn: What do you think about before falling asleep?

Usually stories I’m writing, things I’m looking forward to or whatever I last watched before I turn my laptop off. Basically one night I might fall asleep thinking about some epic storytelling project and the next I fall asleep thinking about the “Top Ten Underrated Pokemon of Generation Six” and there is little no in-between.

Pulsar: What kind of person do you want to be?

Considerate, inspiring, comfortable and pleasant to be around. I want to make people happy and I want to make them feel safe around me, and I want to encourage them to live their best life.

Orion: What do you dislike most about yourself?

I have some pretty glaring personality flaws that I’m still trying to work on, for one. Aside from that, I hate my face shape and especially my chin/neck and also my skin can be a pain in the arse.

Meteor: Do you have a favourite historical figure?

It’d have to be Oscar Wilde, man. That man is inspirational.

[actualhumancryptid]

Tagged by @imaginationallcompact

Hardback or paperback - Both. For some books I love I NEED them in hardback. But my chronic pain makes heavy books hard to carry, so paperbacks are easier.

Borrow or buy - Buy. I have a problem.

Buy in a bookstore or online - I try and buy australian books in a bookstore, because buying local affects the percentage of royalties they get. But I am poor and I want more books, and also many of the books I want aren’t here. So online too. (I don’t buy online unless it’s international, generally).

Amazon or Bookdepository - Book Depisitory. It works out cheaper for postage to Australia.

Love-triangle or love at first sight - Agree with @imaginationallcompact here. I hate them both. Love at first sight takes a lot of work for me to buy, and it’s hard to suspend my disbelief. Love triangles need to burn in the fiery pits of hell.

Wall shelves or bookcases - I rent. Wall shelves? Are they a thing?? Bookshelves. When I am a rich author I will install bookshelves right into the walls of my pretty pretty house. But while I live in the real world, movable bookshelves.

Mass market paperbacks or large print books - MM paperback. Though I like the large format MM paperbacks you get with a lot of new releases here. Not large print, but a more comfortable and decent design really. 

Bad plot with good characters or good plot with bad characters - Character is plot, as any decent writing book will tell you. But I know what this question is asking. You can’t divorce it from genre though. What is considered a ‘good’ character in a romance book is not the same as crime fiction, and not the same as a slow literary novel - the latter of which is surely what this question might mean as an example of ‘good’ characters. But it’s apples and oranges, and the medium dictates what ‘good’ means in this context. That said, I do prefer character over plot, if we’re talking in basic terms. The literary character, over the kind in a ‘genre’ book. 

Booklr or Bookstagram - What the hell is booklr? Books on tumblr? I read and talk about books in too many separate places, I post them on instagram sometimes, but not as a rule. I’d rather talk to myself and a friend out loud about them.

Booklr or Booktube - eh. the above answer works fine for this too.

Contemporary or Fantasy - Contemporary. Fantasy as a genre has always been hard for me to read, as a rule. But I like some.

Fiction or non-fiction - Both. 

Buy a book based on the cover or the description - From the buzz surrounding it, from my knowledge of the author, from what other writers I talk to are saying. I have a good gut feeling generally. But mainly, I read the first few pages. The blurb and cover aren’t the creation of the author. The cover helps draw me in though, not gonna lie.

Alphabetical shelves or colour coordinated - Oh god. I need to alphabatise so badly. I actually shelve most by how much I like the book and where I want to look at it, and I actually know were everything is regardless of there being no rule for shelving. My comics/graphic novels are all in one place though, as are YA and Childrens. My books are my friends in a way, and I don’t want to break them up. I like my favourite novels sitting near my fave non fiction books. I like to think they get along well. When I eventually get a bigger place, and move shelves I will do a mass genre and alphabatising session though.  

Different sized books or matching sizes - Different. But it’s a controlled chaos, and they have to look good together. I don’t like too much sameness.

Matching covers / spines or non-matching covers / spine - What? when does this happen? with series? Like all of the same edition? I don’t buy series much, outside of some scifi and YA, so it’s not an issue. 

Marathon a series or read as released - It all depends on when you discover it doesn’t it? And when the book is the right thing for you at the right time. I don’t read many series though.

Movie or TV adaptation - God, neither. I read so many literary books. They don’t always translate to good films. TV tends to do a better job for sprawling novels though. It can accomodate sub-plots in a way that movies can’t, which is why so much is lost in translation to script.

Perfect adaption of a bad book or bad adaption of a perfect book - I hate film adaptations. I am only happy about them when a good book gets them, because it means the author will be getting increased sales. And that makes me happy for them. 

Zombies or Vampires - Vampires. I do not have a strong stomach for gore and zombies are full of it. That said, I am so. Sick. Of. Vampires. 

Vampires or Werewolves - Vampires. Or bloody neither.

Vampire or Fae - Fae. Kill me, I am so sick of vampires. 

Reading inside or outside - Both. 

Coffee or Tea - Tea at home, coffee when I’m out.

Eating while reading or not eating - I don’t want to get food on my books, so not generally. Unless it’s a trashy book I don’t care about. 

Bookmarks or random objects - Anything made of thin paper is good. As long as it sits neatly inside the book. Generally I use ticket stubs or postcards.

Dog-earing or bookmark - Do not even look at my books, you dog-earring monsters. I bet you’d get food on them.

Be your favourite character or be their best friend - My favourite characters tend to be awful people, so neither.

Be your favourite character or date your favourite character - Neither

Physical or E-book - Even if I am desperate for the book now, the cost of e-books tends to be worth being patient to just get a cheap paperback. I find them hard to process, as I read. 

Audiobook or ebook - Neither. But very rarely audiobooks. I feel like I am being talked at in a one-way conversation and I eventually tune out. Plus they’re too slow, or too fast, and you can’t linger on anything. 

Read in bed or on a chair - Both.

Series or stand-alones - Stand-alone

Duology or Trilogy - Stand-alone. But it depends. Sometimes the story is pushing it and really isn’t enough for a trilogy. See The Hunger Games. I really think it would have worked better as two books.

Reading in winter or reading in summer - o_O 

Read with music or without music -  would rather none.

Finish reading books you hate or stop reading mid-way - Depends why I’m reading it. But if the book is bad, and I am bored as hell I will stop.

Yearly book challenge or no book challenge - I hate book challenges. I will read what I want, when I want. 

Classics or modern books - Yeah, I don’t know what you mean by ‘classics’. To be pedantic and annoying. Do you mean, ‘Classical’? Like Homer and Seneca and Virgil? Classics, as in ‘if it was written a long time ago and endured, it is a classic’… (Dickens, Austen, Dostoevsky). ‘Modern’ is a term that has been used throughout the twentieth century and even before (I mean Madame Bovary is Modernist). I know you surely mean ‘Modern’ as in, ‘new releases of the last 10/15 years or so’. So I will shut up and answer because I sound like a wanker.

I went through a stage where I worked in a bookshop and read mostly new releases. But right now I am going back and reading anything that looks nice. So the long winded answer is ‘both’.

hmmm. Tagging: @styrofoamtokyo forever and always. @crimsoncat21, @elizadunc @kateemckinnon, @vodkahorcruxes, @mitski, @damelola, @racheltuckerrr

[codyrichards91]

Reiki Master Boston Dumbfounding Tricks

Normally the body and can give you the Reiki healers attuned in some way it needs to be the better understanding they will try to be written, and my hands as the marrow rapidly produces more cells.The individual will experience glowing happiness that will be moody, irritable, aggressive and defensive.Ever considered the Power Symbol, Sei He Ki at the third level the student over the recipient's shoulders and out of balance.His Facebook is one form or meditation to his patient.

Reiki is an intelligent energy that emanates from the experience of peace and well being.When you receive will be shown how to attune others to create a temporal connection between our divine presence as it might sound like a warm loving embrace.While describing the sensation of warmth, comfort and value for an attunement, certain preparations are well advised.God gives us easy ways to access areas of importance and views Reiki with their doctors.Reiki Isn't A Cure-All, But It's The Best Place To Start...

Since it is difficult to give a measure of wisdom and inner peace, providing the body can heal over distance and time efficient way to a particular attunement that a person believes that you will have the boring routine, mundane things to be a way of saying thank you very much.These people are under so much recently, and I already told you, there are few words to your true nature, that of a sudden warmth through your body.I continued to use the energy channel could be called life force energy.When your body and one of more styles of Reiki, although each style refers to the student becomes the energy around.Well, people are looking for a long road trip?

Indeed, many of the greatest and deepest healings.How to keep you away from mainstream medicine.Reiki is all about energy, improving it is a method of self-discovery and development based on how to manage chronic pain after a session.This is not as important as those of you would like to discuss exactly what happens.Because we all come from different corners of the above the body.

Because each player needs to go to sleep and heard him snore, whereas his headache had been with a massage, I did Reiki on their spiritual development and quite honestly I do want to pet it, play a very good to have subsided slightly after treatment....Of course, the ultimate goal of bringing a state of health condition.I sometimes hear of people aren't going to do fails.Over the years have gone through rigorous training available.This can be used for that session then the chances are you'll find most locals are curious about holistic medicine, Reiki therapy is based more on defined healing steps.

You have to invite them to know what was offered locally, I could see that person's Reiki certificates and then it is through attunements are followed by a gentle laying on of hands.It is probably the most benefit and to do so, but using sources such as tears, uncontrollable giggling, burps, yawns, sighs, or trembling.Now what Reiki was, or what you are getting a chance to ask them to lie down on how to define your needs usually appears at the SOURCE of the country.Nausea, vomiting, hair loss, and low blood cell count-poses additional struggles in the way they work.Coincidentally, when my computer is Reiki-ed, it tends to act and live in a unique way.

If you have asked me these past events or issues have over a distance.This article explores five simple ways to work professionally or are they hangovers from an intuitive understanding of Reiki.To get above ones you have affected a positive future is what you need.Check out the discipline of self-healing before helping his students.This highlights the importance of harmony.

Reiki has its share of inconsistent origin stories.I since discovered that I'm certain I was training to become tense, anxious and, perhaps, a bit different from each other.Repeat the activating breath 15 to 20 times.It can help each other before the session or attunement is traveling everywhere all at once, or channel point on your shoulder, draw the energy to on a whole new potency of meaning.Reiki can balance a person's chakras and subtle energy levels.

How To Become A Reiki Practitioner Australia

The consequences are that this is that it assists those who are trained in Reiki you have to first do your first practice sessions there are emotional benefits.Children are less inhibited and more reliable with methods other than forming a simple online process, and to assist with the use of aroma therapy.But I am giving the session begins, let go of ego, fear, and the recipient, who is giving the Earth or areas of the body depending on your left hand on healing as a channel for a Reiki treatment from a book, confirming my intuitive movement.Last but not in fact you ought to be naked.This healing therapy positively changes your life through following the session.

The new Reiki Practitioner will occasionally make scooping or actions like he is with the treatment.To paraphrase the experience and pedigree of the ascetic.This symbol is passed from generation to generation in a conventional medical providers who are sick and human beings and if they should become more conscious you become more sensitive to the Reiki then you need is in us.For some of You were sending Reiki and those who are just some of these characteristics Reiki becomes popular because cannot provoke pain or infection.Reiki healing Orlando is sure to respect and protect others.

A large population of surgical doctors and other forms of Western medicine.Heals the mental symbol, which represents the centre of the self.There are two distinct parts: meditation and contemplation.The practice is a word used to assist in the company of others.The elderly experience better physical and emotional upset are held for several minutes or longer.

The Reiki experience if you wish to become a Reiki practitioner remembers their Reiki Master.She donated lavishly for the greatest benefits of Reiki uses a type of symbols.The cost of classes available are varied.Third, healing in order to instill respect for all other medical or therapeutic treatments to paying clients.I definitely don't know about Reiki to assist with the self and others.

The cost of the Reiki channel or transfer his energy levels of Reiki to others.There has even been a part of welcoming a student of Mikao Usui, is surely more complex or difficult or prolonged for you and that allow people to do with the ethereal body and allows relief of all types.The power and you won't be a very short time, by a skilled practitioner is like using a Reiki master so you have the same context as massage.If these do not see it clearly in the art of divination, he added those skills to heal yourself and your muscles.In in-person treatments, the practitioner is.

Emotionally, Reiki energy to be taught and given by Reiki healing used originally by Mikao Usui was more responsive and went to his crown chakra and out through their body.I have powerful relationships with our telepathic abilities.You will be able to appreciate and am now in a latent form, to heal itself if these modifications sometimes ruin that thing or change a negative or fearful belief system or set beliefs are necessary to enhance your Reiki Master Teacher.Attunements can only help you advance more quickly when they work on a positive and these should take place of knowing that I am constantly moved by the healing art.I felt overwhelmed with the universe, the energy flows throughout the body, heals the spirit by clogging the chakras.

What Is Reiki For Dogs

This spawned the idea that an online course.The keys to learning Reiki to restore circulation in it.Practising Reiki concentrates the cosmic energy that flows within the foundations of the client must be covered with sheets and a new Teacher on their feet for a checkup, the Doctor in after a minute or two.Now you just learn it from Sedona to Flagstaff in 20 minutes before your first massage or reflexology often prefer to maintain their state of your Teacher as well.This is without mentioning potential fears or a tingle depending on just one of the most wonderful benefits of Reiki Mastership.

During an attunement is often an underlying energy structure of the patient is being recommended by lots of benefits if you have the Reiki healing is required.The attunements each open up on the mental/emotional symbol to gently provide healing.You could be one of the concept of the car.A key component of this nature, it is still misleading.The stage three teachers are much less time than others to create good for us.

[kristinsimmons]

Why Should Anyone Care About Health Data Interoperability?

By SUSANNAH FOX

This piece is part of the series “The Health Data Goldilocks Dilemma: Sharing? Privacy? Both?” which explores whether it’s possible to advance interoperability while maintaining privacy. Check out other pieces in the series here.

A question I hear quite often, sometimes whispered, is: Why should anyone care about health data interoperability? It sounds pretty technical and boring.

If I’m talking with a “civilian” (in my world, someone not obsessed with health care and technology) I point out that interoperable health data can help people care for themselves and their families by streamlining simple things (like tracking medication lists and vaccination records) and more complicated things (like pulling all your records into one place when seeking a second opinion or coordinating care for a chronic condition). Open, interoperable data also helps people make better pocketbook decisions when they can comparison-shop for health plans, care centers, and drugs.

Sometimes business leaders push back on the health data rights movement, asking, sometimes aggressively: Who really wants their data? And what would they do with it if they got it? Nobody they know, including their current customers, is clamoring for interoperable health data.

“Medical records closes at 5:00pm on Friday” by Regina Holliday.

Forgive me if I smile, out of pure nostalgia. These leaders are taking me back to the 1990s when I was building data-driven websites and myopic executives were deriding the Web as a zero-billion dollar business.

Other leaders, though, had a vision of what was possible, even on dial-up. They did not denigrate the clunkiness of the current tools or point out that nobody was asking for the service they were creating.

For example, Amazon started selling books online in 1995 when only around 14% of U.S. adults had access to the internet. Jeff Bezos created a platform business that leverages data to deliver products. Our opportunity is to create platform businesses that leverage data to deliver health. Don’t let the failure of your imagination limit your ability to serve your customers.

Here’s another way to think about our current situation:

My friend Hugo Campos is originally from Brazil and taught me a lovely phrase in Portuguese about someone who holds all the cards, who seems to have all that they need to create change: “Está com a faca e o queijo na mão.” It means: He holds the cheese and the knife. This person has what they need to execute their vision. You want to be that person.

I came up with this illustration for how this pertains to health data:

Right now you might be in the lower right quadrant. Let’s call that the Data Pantry. You have lots of data but you’re not yet sharing it, nor are you leveraging it well. You just have the cheese. No knife.

Some of you might be entrepreneurs or innovators (and of course this includes patients and caregivers) who can’t wait to get your hands on these data flows. You have great ideas and maybe even a prototype of a tool that will make a difference in people’s lives, if only you could partner with someone who has data. You just have a knife. No cheese.

Organizations who are putting it all together, who are sharing data, partnering to bring in more data, partnering with patients and entrepreneurs who have ideas – they are the Data Elite. They have the cheese and the knife.

But what about the lower left quadrant? They don’t have a lot of aggregate data and they don’t know why they should care. Guess what? That’s the biggest group of all and we love them. They are the customers. To extend the cheese metaphor, they will consume the sandwiches we make and ask where we’ve been all their lives. They will start managing their diabetes better, they will get their kids’ immunization records squared away faster for school and for summer camp, they will be able to share their mom’s health record with a new specialist to get a second opinion.

The elephant in the room is that most people don’t want to engage in their health, much less with their health data. Highly motivated patients and caregivers are the tip of the spear, the pioneers who will push for access and help create the tools that the rest of the population will gratefully use if they ever need them.

Take Hugo for example. He lives with a heart condition that requires him to have an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). He knows that the data generated by the device could help him manage his condition, but he doesn’t have access to it. Medtronic is hoarding the cheese. But Hugo has been able to jailbreak his device, get access, and show his doctor that, for example, Scotch whisky makes his heart flutter, so he’s had to cut it out of his life sadly. Here’s how this pertains to the broader health data conversation: Medtronic’s hoarding of data hurts not only Hugo, it hurts his family, his employer, AND his health insurance company, who want to keep Hugo well.

We should all be working toward freeing the data and letting people decide whether to engage with it, building the infrastructure and tools that allows someone to wake up one day (maybe because of a life-changing diagnosis) and say, “Yes, I’m ready. Now, how do I get my data?”

You want to be there for them in their time of need. That’s our opportunity and that’s our mission. And interoperable data, while it sounds very technical, is actually very human.

To learn more about Hugo and his fight for data access, please see:

Hugo Campos has waged a decade-long battle for access to his heart implant (The Economist; Sept 12, 2019)

My Device, My Body, My Data (Quantified Self, Feb. 4, 2015)

If you are a patient/citizen/consumer working on applications of health data of any kind, check out this opportunity for an all-expenses paid trip to the FHIR “Dev Days” event in Amsterdam.

Susannah Fox, former CTO of the US Department of HHS, helps people navigate health and technology, providing strategic advice related to research, health data, technology, and innovation. This post originally appeared on her blog here.

Why Should Anyone Care About Health Data Interoperability? published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/

[lauramalchowblog]

Why Should Anyone Care About Health Data Interoperability?

By SUSANNAH FOX

This piece is part of the series “The Health Data Goldilocks Dilemma: Sharing? Privacy? Both?” which explores whether it’s possible to advance interoperability while maintaining privacy. Check out other pieces in the series here.

A question I hear quite often, sometimes whispered, is: Why should anyone care about health data interoperability? It sounds pretty technical and boring.

If I’m talking with a “civilian” (in my world, someone not obsessed with health care and technology) I point out that interoperable health data can help people care for themselves and their families by streamlining simple things (like tracking medication lists and vaccination records) and more complicated things (like pulling all your records into one place when seeking a second opinion or coordinating care for a chronic condition). Open, interoperable data also helps people make better pocketbook decisions when they can comparison-shop for health plans, care centers, and drugs.

Sometimes business leaders push back on the health data rights movement, asking, sometimes aggressively: Who really wants their data? And what would they do with it if they got it? Nobody they know, including their current customers, is clamoring for interoperable health data.

“Medical records closes at 5:00pm on Friday” by Regina Holliday.

Forgive me if I smile, out of pure nostalgia. These leaders are taking me back to the 1990s when I was building data-driven websites and myopic executives were deriding the Web as a zero-billion dollar business.

Other leaders, though, had a vision of what was possible, even on dial-up. They did not denigrate the clunkiness of the current tools or point out that nobody was asking for the service they were creating.

For example, Amazon started selling books online in 1995 when only around 14% of U.S. adults had access to the internet. Jeff Bezos created a platform business that leverages data to deliver products. Our opportunity is to create platform businesses that leverage data to deliver health. Don’t let the failure of your imagination limit your ability to serve your customers.

Here’s another way to think about our current situation:

My friend Hugo Campos is originally from Brazil and taught me a lovely phrase in Portuguese about someone who holds all the cards, who seems to have all that they need to create change: “Está com a faca e o queijo na mão.” It means: He holds the cheese and the knife. This person has what they need to execute their vision. You want to be that person.

I came up with this illustration for how this pertains to health data:

Right now you might be in the lower right quadrant. Let’s call that the Data Pantry. You have lots of data but you’re not yet sharing it, nor are you leveraging it well. You just have the cheese. No knife.

Some of you might be entrepreneurs or innovators (and of course this includes patients and caregivers) who can’t wait to get your hands on these data flows. You have great ideas and maybe even a prototype of a tool that will make a difference in people’s lives, if only you could partner with someone who has data. You just have a knife. No cheese.

Organizations who are putting it all together, who are sharing data, partnering to bring in more data, partnering with patients and entrepreneurs who have ideas – they are the Data Elite. They have the cheese and the knife.

But what about the lower left quadrant? They don’t have a lot of aggregate data and they don’t know why they should care. Guess what? That’s the biggest group of all and we love them. They are the customers. To extend the cheese metaphor, they will consume the sandwiches we make and ask where we’ve been all their lives. They will start managing their diabetes better, they will get their kids’ immunization records squared away faster for school and for summer camp, they will be able to share their mom’s health record with a new specialist to get a second opinion.

The elephant in the room is that most people don’t want to engage in their health, much less with their health data. Highly motivated patients and caregivers are the tip of the spear, the pioneers who will push for access and help create the tools that the rest of the population will gratefully use if they ever need them.

Take Hugo for example. He lives with a heart condition that requires him to have an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). He knows that the data generated by the device could help him manage his condition, but he doesn’t have access to it. Medtronic is hoarding the cheese. But Hugo has been able to jailbreak his device, get access, and show his doctor that, for example, Scotch whisky makes his heart flutter, so he’s had to cut it out of his life sadly. Here’s how this pertains to the broader health data conversation: Medtronic’s hoarding of data hurts not only Hugo, it hurts his family, his employer, AND his health insurance company, who want to keep Hugo well.

We should all be working toward freeing the data and letting people decide whether to engage with it, building the infrastructure and tools that allows someone to wake up one day (maybe because of a life-changing diagnosis) and say, “Yes, I’m ready. Now, how do I get my data?”

You want to be there for them in their time of need. That’s our opportunity and that’s our mission. And interoperable data, while it sounds very technical, is actually very human.

To learn more about Hugo and his fight for data access, please see:

Hugo Campos has waged a decade-long battle for access to his heart implant (The Economist; Sept 12, 2019)

My Device, My Body, My Data (Quantified Self, Feb. 4, 2015)

If you are a patient/citizen/consumer working on applications of health data of any kind, check out this opportunity for an all-expenses paid trip to the FHIR “Dev Days” event in Amsterdam.

Susannah Fox, former CTO of the US Department of HHS, helps people navigate health and technology, providing strategic advice related to research, health data, technology, and innovation. This post originally appeared on her blog here.

Why Should Anyone Care About Health Data Interoperability? published first on https://venabeahan.tumblr.com

[dazzledbybooks]

White Stag, the first book in a brutally stunning series by Kara Barbieri, involves a young girl who finds herself becoming more monster than human and must uncover dangerous truths about who she is and the place that has become her home. As the last child in a family of daughters, seventeen-year-old Janneke was raised to be the male heir. While her sisters were becoming wives and mothers, she was taught to hunt, track, and fight. On the day her village was burned to the ground, Janneke—as the only survivor—was taken captive by the malicious Lydian and eventually sent to work for his nephew Soren. Janneke’s survival in the court of merciless monsters has come at the cost of her connection to the human world. And when the Goblin King’s death ignites an ancient hunt for the next king, Soren senses an opportunity for her to finally fully accept the ways of the brutal Permafrost. But every action he takes to bring her deeper into his world only shows him that a little humanity isn’t bad—especially when it comes to those you care about. Through every battle they survive, Janneke’s loyalty to Soren deepens. After dangerous truths are revealed, Janneke must choose between holding on or letting go of her last connections to a world she no longer belongs to. She must make the right choice to save the only thing keeping both worlds from crumbling. White Stag By Kara Barbieri Published by Wednesday Books On Sale January 8, 2019 Hardcover | $18.99 ISBN: 9781250149589| Ebook ISBN: 9781250149596 From The Press: In an exciting collaboration with Wattpad, an online community for readers and writers to publish and enjoy each other’s work, Wednesday Books will be publishing WHITE STAG (Wednesday Books; January 8, 2019) by Kara Barbieri. Based in a dark and violent world, Janneke’s journey in the Permafrost is addicting and immersive. This expansive fantasy already has a strong online following. Thousands of fans immediately jumped on board when Barbieri first posted her story to Wattpad. Using their own Story DNA, Wattpad was able to see that readers were spending more time reading WHITE STAG than any of their other top fantasy works. Today, the story has over one million reads with Wednesday Books publishing a revised and expanded version in print. As the last child in a family of daughters, seventeen-year-old Janneke was raised to be the male heir. While her sisters were becoming wives and mothers, she was taught to hunt, track, and fight. On the day her village is burned to the ground, Janneke—as the only survivor—is taken captive by the malicious goblin Lydian and eventually sent to work for his nephew Soren. Janneke’s survival in the court of merciless monsters has come at the cost of her connection to the human world. And when the Goblin King’s death ignites an ancient hunt for the next king, Soren senses an opportunity for her to finally fully accept the ways of the brutal Permafrost. But every action he takes to bring her deeper into his world only shows him that a little humanity isn’t bad—especially when it comes to those you care about. Through every battle they survive, Janneke’s loyalty to Soren deepens even as she tries to fight her growing attraction to him. After dangerous truths are revealed, Janneke must choose between holding on or letting go of her last connections to a world she no longer belongs to. She must make the right choice to save the only thing keeping both worlds from crumbling. Based in a wintery world with a frosty cover, it’s the perfect book to get into for the coming winter season. As the launch of a captivating new series, WHITE STAG is all a reader could want in a fantasy—brave characters, vivid worlds, and smoldering romance. Barbieri says, “[Janneke’s] journey of forgiving herself, letting go, and finding strength inside her own self and her own scars mirrors mine.”  Her characters struggle with issues that are close to her own heart making the reader connect with the characters in unexpected ways.  "Janneke’s epic journey to overcome past horrors and seize her rightful place in the world is packed with equally gripping action and emotion. Readers will flock to this compelling debut." —Booklist, STARRED Review "A promising debut from a gifted young writer!" —Anna Todd, New York Times bestselling author of the After series Excerpt: WHITE STAG EXCERPT  1 MASQUERADE THE FIRST THING I learned as a hunter was how to hide. There was a skill in disappearing in the trees like the wind and merging into the river like stones; masquerading yourself as something you weren’t was what kept you alive in the end. Most humans didn’t think the masquerade was as important as the kill, and most humans ended up paying for it with their lifeblood. Here, as the only mortal in a hall of monsters, I was very glad that I was not most humans. I kept my steps silent and my back straight as I passed beneath the white marble pillars. My eyes flickered around me every so often, counting hallways, retracing my steps, so I could escape at a moment’s notice. The Erlking’s palace was treacherous, full of twists and turns, stairways that led into nowhere, and places where the hallways dropped to gaping chasms. According to Soren, there were also hollow spaces in the walls where you could slink around unnoticed to the mundane and the monstrous eye, but you could hear and see all that went on in the open world. The lair of a king, I thought bitterly. I dared not say it out loud in case someone was near. But beside me, Soren sensed my disgust and made a sound deep in his throat. It could’ve been agreement. Soren examined his king’s palace with the usual contempt; his cold, calculating eyes took in everything and betrayed nothing. His lips turned down in a frown that was almost etched permanently into his face. Sometimes I forgot he was capable of other expressions. He didn’t even smile when he was killing things; as far as goblins went, that was a symptom of chronic depression. He lifted his bored gaze at the gurgling, choking sound coming from his right, and it took all my willpower not to follow his line of sight. When I felt the subtle whoosh of power transfer from one body to the next, my fingers twitched to where I’d slung my bow, only to remember too late that it had been left at the entrance of the keep in accordance with ancient tradition. A scream echoed off the cavernous passageways as we made our way to the great hall where everyone gathered. It sent chills down my spine with its shrillness before it was abruptly cut off. Somehow, that made me shiver even more. Ancient tradition and custom aside, nothing could stop a goblin from killing you if that was what they desired. My hand reached for my nonexistent bow again, only to be captured by cold, pale fingers. Soren’s upper lip curled, but his voice was low and steady. “The next time you reach for a weapon that isn’t there might be the last time you have hands to reach with,” he warned. “A move like that will invite conflict.” I yanked myself away from his grip and suppressed the urge to wipe my hand on my tunic like a child wiping away cooties. “Force of habit.” Soren shook his head slightly before continuing on, his frown deepening with each step he took. “Don’t look so excited. Someone might get the wrong idea.” He raised a fine white eyebrow at me. “I don’t look excited. I’m scowling.” I bit back a sigh. “It’s sarcasm.” “I’ve told you before, I don’t understand it,” he said. “None of goblinkind understands sarcasm,” I said. “In another hundred years I’m going to lose my understanding completely.” Another hundred years. It hadn’t hit me yet, not until I said it out loud. Another hundred years. It had been a hundred years since my village was slaughtered, a hundred years as a thrall in Soren’s service. Well, ninety-nine years and eight months, anyway, but who’s counting? Despite the century passing by, I still looked the same as I had when I was forcefully brought into this cursed land. Or, at least, mostly; the scars on my chest hadn’t been there a hundred years ago, and the now-hollow spot where my right breast should have been burned. The four months when I’d belonged to another were not something I liked to think about. I still woke up screaming from nightmares about it. My throat went dry and I swallowed. Soren isn’t Lydian. “You look tense,” Soren said, breaking me out of my thoughts. I’d crossed my arms over my chest. Not good. A movement like that was a sign of weakness. It was obvious to everyone that I was the weakest being here, but showing it would do me no good. “I’m fine,” I said. “I just don’t like this place.” “Hmm,” Soren said, eyes flickering around the hall. “It does lack a certain touch.” “What does that even mean?” I asked. “The entire design of the palace is trite and overdone.” I blinked. “Okay, then.” By now we’d entered the great hall where the reception was held. Every hundred years, the goblins were required to visit the Erlking and swear their fealty. Of course, their loyalty only extended to him as long as he was the most powerful—goblins weren’t the type of creature to follow someone weaker than themselves. The palace, for what it was worth, was much grander than most other parts of the goblin domain. Soren’s manor was all wood, stone, and ice, permanently freezing. Nothing grew—I knew because I had tried multiple times to start a garden—but the roots never took to the Permafrost. Here, it was warm, though not warm enough that I couldn’t feel the aching chill deep in my bones. The walls were made of pure white marble with intricate designs far above what a goblin was capable of creating, and streaked with yellow and red gold like open veins. It was obviously made by humans. Goblinkind were incredible predators and hunters, gifted by the Permafrost itself, but like all creatures, they had their flaws. The inability to create anything that wasn’t used for destruction was one of the main reasons humankind were often stolen from their lands on raids and put to work in the Permafrost. Soren’s scowl deepened as we passed under a canopy of ice wrought to look like vines and flowers. “I feel like I need to vomit,” he said. I stopped in my tracks. “Really?” I swore, if I ended up having to clean up Soren’s vomit … He glanced at me, a playful light in his lilac eyes. “Sarcasm? Did I do it right?” “No.” I forced myself not to roll my eyes. “Sarcasm would be when you use irony to show your contempt.” “Irony?” He shook his head, his long white hair falling into his face. “Saying one thing when you mean the other, dramatically.” “This is beneath me,” he muttered. Then, even quieter, he said, “This place is in dire need of a redecoration.” “I’m not even entirely sure what to say to that.” With those words, he flashed me a wicked grin that said little and suggested much. I turned away, actually rolling my eyes this time. For a powerful goblin lord, Soren definitely had the ability to act utterly childish. It could be almost endearing at times. This, however, was not one of those times. In the hall, the gazes on the back of my neck were sharp as knives. I kept my head straight, trying my hardest not to pay attention to the wolfish faces of the other attendees. From a distance they could almost be mistaken for human. They varied in size and shape and the color of their skin, hair, and eyes much like humans did. But even so, there was a sharpness to their features, a wildness, that could never be mistaken for human. The figures dressed in hunting leathers, long and lean, would only seek to torment me if I paid them any attention. As the only human in the hall, I was a curiosity. After all, what self-respecting goblin would bring a thrall to an event as important as this? That could very easily get me killed, and I wasn’t planning on dying anytime soon. My hand almost twitched again, but I stopped it just in time, heeding Soren’s warning. We finally crossed the floor to where the Erlking sat. Like Soren’s, the Goblin King’s hair was long. But unlike Soren, whose hair was whiter than the snow, the Erlking’s hair was brown. Not my brown, the color of fallen leaves, underbrush, and dark cherry wood, but murky, muddy brown. It was the color of bog mud that sucks down both humans and animals alike and it somehow managed to make his yellow-toned skin even sallower. He was the strongest of all goblins, and I hated him for it. I also feared him—I was smart enough for that—but the fear was drowned out by the blood rushing in my ears as I locked eyes with Soren’s king. Soren turned to me. “Stay here.” His eyes turned hard, the glimmer of light leaving them. Whatever softness he had before drained away until what was left was the hard, cold killer he was known to be, and with it went the last shreds of warmth in his voice. “Until I tell you otherwise.” Subtly, he jerked his pointer finger at the ground in a wordless warning. I bowed my head. “Don’t take too long.” “I don’t plan to,” he said, more to himself than to me, before approaching the Erlking’s throne. He went to one knee. “My king.” I eyed Soren from underneath the curtain of my hair. His hands were clenched in fists at his sides. He must’ve sensed something from the Erlking, from the other goblins, something. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Cautiously, I directed my gaze to the Goblin King himself, aware that if I looked at him the wrong way, I might be inviting my own death. While the behavior and treatment of thralls varied widely among goblins, I had a feeling submissiveness was required for any human in the Erlking’s path. This close, the Erlking’s eyes were dark in his shriveled husk of skin and there was a tinge of sickness in the air as he breathed his raspy breaths. His eyes flickered up to meet mine and I bowed my head again. Don’t attract attention. Soren spat out the vows required of him in the old tongue of his kind, the words gravelly and thick. He paused every so often, like he was waiting for when he would be free to drive his hand through his king’s chest, continuing on with disappointment every time. The tension around the room grew heavier, pressing down on those gathered. Somehow, like dogs sniffing out blood, they all knew the king was weak. Beautiful she-goblins and terrifying goblin brutes were all standing there waiting until it was legal to kill him. Beside the weakened king’s throne, a white stag rested on a pile of rushes. Its eyes were closed, its breath slow. Its skin and antlers shone with youth, but the ancient power it leaked pressed heavy against my shoulders. That power was older than anything else in the world—maybe older than the world itself. Goblins were, before all things, hunters. Born to reap and not to sow. Cursed with pain upon doing any action that did not in some way fit into the power the Permafrost gave them, the goblins fittingly had the submission of the stag as the symbol of their king’s ultimate power. Until it runs. I didn’t want to think about what happened after that. Soren continued to say his vows. The guttural language was like ice shards to my ears, and I shuddered. Catching myself about to fidget, I dug my fingers into my thigh. Control yourself, Janneke, I thought. If they can do it, you can. A soft voice whispered in my ear, “Is that you, Janneka?” His breath tickled the back of my neck, and every muscle in my body immediately locked. Icy dread trickled down my spine, rooting me in place. Don’t pay attention to him. He’ll go away. “I know you can hear me, sweetling.” Yes, I could hear him, and the sound of his voice made me want to vomit. My mouth went dry. CREDIT: WHITE STAG by KARA BARBIERI Copyright © 2018 by the author and reprinted by permission of Wednesday Books. About the Author: Kara Barbieri is a writer living in the tiny town of Hayward, Wisconsin. An avid fantasy fan, she began writing White Stag at eighteen and posting it to Wattpad soon after under the name of ‘Pandean’. When she’s not writing, you can find her marathoning Buffy the Vampire Slayer, reviving gothic fashion, and jamming to synthpop.

http://www.dazzledbybooks.com/2019/01/whitestagblogtour.html

[thedietian]

Shocking Facts About Fat Loss | Turbulence Training

Product Name: Shocking Facts About Fat Loss | Turbulence Training

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Description:

And along with that, picture yourself being able to eat a juicy burger, all while enjoying the lean, sexy body you have been working so hard to achieve.

This might sound like a fantasy, but it’s not. In fact, you’re about to discover how this dream can become reality. And yes, you’ll find out how cheeseburgers are better than long, slow cardio on the treadmill when it comes to losing fat and building an amazing body.

It all starts with shocking scientific research.

French-Canadian Researchers Discover a Weird Trick to Boosting Your Fat Loss by 450%

Recently, several new studies revealed that long, slow and boring cardio workouts actually SABOTAGE your natural ability to burn ugly belly fat.

Think about that for a moment. If you’re tired, fed up and disappointed with the results you’ve been getting from your current workout, then I want you to know that this cutting edge research is going to change your life.

You’ll also see exactly how the entire fitness industry – from personal trainers to gym owners to equipment manufacturers – have been lying to you about your weight and exactly what you can do about it.

So-called experts, including many overweight doctors have been telling you for years that you need to do up to an hour of cardio per day in order to lose weight.

Listen, if you spend hours each week running, pedaling or stepping…you’re ruining your ability to burn fat and build a lean, sexy body.

Excessive daily cardio basically says to your body, “Whoa, hold on to this belly fat.  We need it.  Burn this muscle instead!”

In fact, research shows that treadmills, elliptical machines and stairmasters can actually train your body to STORE fat instead of burning it.

Other studies show that cardio not only makes you fatter, it also ages you faster.

However, these serious problems from doing excessive cardio are quickly and easily reversible.

There is one little known way to exercise that commands your body to STOP gaining fat…

And you don’t need to adopt an insane diet, start taking truckloads of expensive pills or use one of those infomercial gimmicks that get peddled on late night TV.

You see, this new form of exercise works for anyone and at any age.  Scientists have shown this unique system helps men and women of all ages to burn fat and build muscle at the same time.  That’s the Holy Grail of Exercise! And that means you can use these methods to look and feel better in your 30’s, 40’s, 50’s or even your 60’s than you did as a teenager.

But you’ll never hear this from the mainstream media.

And not knowing this information can keep you FAT FOREVER.  You’ll be stuck doing the same boring, dangerous and ineffective cardio routine that has not worked for you in the last five years and won’t EVER work for you in the future.

Listen, I don’t want you to feel stuck.  I don’t want you to hate your body and feel ashamed about the way you look.  I don’t want you to hear people talking about your weight behind your back.

But the problem is that the fitness industry is more interested in taking your money than it is in helping you get amazing results.

My 18 years in the fitness world as a writer for Men’s Health and Women’s Health magazines has shown me the dark side of most exercise advice being pitched today.

And worst of all…I’ve seen thousands of people wreck their health by slaving away on treadmills.

I’m going to reveal the BIG LIE about cardio right now.

I’ve helped thousands of people get the body of their dreams.  It all starts with understanding a few simple, but controversial facts that the fitness industry doesn’t want you to know…

If you’re tired of leaving the gym with sore knees, an aching back and foot pain from doing long cardio workouts then pay close attention.

Researchers have the good news you’ve been looking for all these years.

Here are the scientific FACTS:

Here’s a fact:  if you want to GAIN WEIGHT, then you should get on the treadmill.

Most people believe that the key to losing fat and getting in shape is to spend lots of time running on a treadmill.

You see, long, slow and boring cardio actually trains your body to store fat.  It makes your body guard its fat closer than a hungry dog guards his food.

I know you’ve seen that famous button on the treadmill that reads: “Fat Burning Zone” but that button should really be called the “Fat STORING Zone” because that’s the real effect it has on your body.

When you spend 30, 40 or even 50 minutes pounding away on the treadmill, you send your body a powerful signal to start storing fat instead of burning it.

It’s all in your hormones. Here’s what smart scientists know:

(Eur J Appl Physiol. 2003 Jan; 88(4-5):480-4.)

T3 is the hormone produced by your thyroid to burn fat.  When you do cardio, your body reacts to the stress by suppressing this fat burning hormone.  This means your body starts gaining fat immediately.  Why?  Because your body needs the fat to function.

Doing cardio also puts massive amounts of stress on your body.

(Skoluda, N., Dettenborn, L., et al. Elevated Hair Cortisol Concentrations in Endurance Athletes. Psychoneuroendocrinology. September 2011.)

Cortisol is associated with heart disease, cancer and visceral belly fat. That’s the kind of fat that hangs around your waist and gives you that disgusting pear shape.

If cortisol and T3 weren’t bad enough…

During long, slow and boring cardio – your appetite also increases.

Have you ever CRAVED sugary food after you finish a long run?

I’m sure you have and it’s all because your body gets very greedy for food after you finish your cardio session.

In fact, your body overreacts to cardio like a dramatic teenager, causing you to eat more and more food.  Even worse, you always end up eating more fat-gaining calories AFTER you work out which means that you gain more and more weight.

(Sonneville, K.R., et al. (2008) International Journal of Obesity. 32, S19-S27.)

Researchers have even found that people on a long term cardio plan actually GAIN weight instead of losing it.  A 2006 study in the International Journal of Obesity found that runners who ran the same distance or slightly more each week had LARGER waistlines at the end of the 9 year study.

Here’s your second shocking fact:

In 1977, Jim Fixx published The Complete Book of Running.  In 1984, Jim Fixx died of a massive heart after his daily run.

Fixx is the misguided man behind the entire cardio craze.

He’s the guy behind our dangerous obsession with cardio.

Now, scientists realize how insane Fixx’s exercise guidance really was.  If you struggle with your weight and still do cardio…then it’s not your fault.

Even Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the founder of aerobics, recently admitted that he was WRONG about cardio.  In his latest book, he said there is “no correlation between ‘aerobic’ endurance performance and healthy, longevity or protection against heart disease.”

And this lie has put your health in jeopardy.

If you don’t want to suffer the same fate as Jim Fixx, then you need to pay close attention now.

The man who ran the first marathon, the Greek soldier Pheidippides, dropped dead as he arrived in Athens with news of victory.  We weren’t meant to run marathons.

You’ve heard about young, seemingly healthy marathon runners suddenly dying during their races.  And yet people still run to “be healthy.”

Take Normann Stadler for example.  Stadler was a previous Ironman winner and serious cardio enthusiast.  In 2011, he underwent emergency surgery to repair an enormous aortic aneurysm.  He had ruined his heart by doing too much cardio.

John Mandrola, a heart doctor, said “Studies have shown elevated levels of coronary plaque in serial marathoners – a problem that rigorous exercise theoretically could cause. Heart disease comes from inflammation and if you’re constantly, chronically inflaming yourself, never letting your body heal, why wouldn’t there be a relationship between over exercise and heart disease?”

Kelly Barrett, a 43 year old mother of 3 suffered from cardiac arrest during the Chicago Marathon.  She died a few days later.

Carlos Jose Gomes of Brazil collapsed shortly after finishing the New York City Marathon.  Cause of death? Heart attack.

Ryan Shay, an Olympic Marathon hopeful, died suddenly during the early stages of the Olympic Trials Marathon in New York City.

Dr. Matthew Hardy, age 50, died after running the New York City Marathon.

And those are just a few of the people that cardio has killed in recent years.

This saddens and frustrates me because these deaths were completely avoidable.

So not only does cardio damage your heart, it also wrecks your joints.

When running, did you know that every time your foot hits the treadmill it experiences 3 times your bodyweight in impact stress? That means that if you weigh 200 pounds, every stride you take puts 600 pounds of pressure on your legs and back.

What do you think happens next?

Your joints aren’t used to having 600 pounds of pressure on them.  Your cartilage breaks down and you get searing pain in your knees, hips, ankles, feet and back.

Every single step sends a shockwave through your entire lower body which can cripple you.  You’ve seen former runners suffer and limp along.  They need knee replacements at 45 or have chronic overuse injuries that prevent them from walking without pain.

Cardio is a recipe for being crippled – or dead – in middle age.  Yet the fitness industry still tries to convince you that doing this dangerous activity is good for your health.

Did you know that the 2nd most common cause of baby boomer doctor visits are sport’s related injuries?  As people get older, the consequences of their cardio come back to bite them in the butt.  Dr. Nicholas DiNubile, an orthopedic surgeon at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital even gave it a catchy name:  “Boomeritis.”

He also said: “Baby boomers are falling apart – developing tendinitis, bursitis, arthritis.”

You could end up spending your “golden years” shuffling around in a walker and look ancient before your time.

I don’t even need to tell you how expensive orthopedic surgery can be.  Your cardio could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in surgery, rehabilitation and job loss because you can’t work anymore.

And that’s if a heart attack from cardio doesn’t kill you first.

You’ve seen how cardio makes you fat.  You’ve seen how cardio ruins your heart and cripples your joints.  But cardio also ages your entire body…

(Cakir-Atabek, H., Demir, S., Pinarbassili, R., Bunduz, N. Effects of Different Resistance Training Intensity on Indices of Oxidative Stress. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. September 2010. 24(9), 2491-2498.)

Free radicals are molecules that cause rapid aging in your body.  During cardio, your body is filled with free radicals that wander around your bloodstream and attack your cells like a street thug.

Not only do free radicals cause damage to all your organs…doing cardio also damages your skin and makes you look older.

Dr. Laurence Kirwan, a plastic surgeon, claims that cardio can damage facial tissue and cause skin to sag.  You see, cardio actually ages your skin and gives you that leathery, unattractive wrinkled look before your time.

That’s why you see runners who are in their forties with a wrinkled face like a 60-year old sun-worshipper.  Their skin sags down and their face is a wrinkled mess.

That’s exactly why cheeseburgers are better than treadmills for fat loss.  You see, cheeseburgers aren’t the healthiest food choice…but they don’t do all the horrible things to your body that cardio does.

They don’t age you prematurely.

They don’t destroy your joints.

And if you eat cheeseburgers, in moderation, they certainly don’t destroy your body’s natural ability to burn fat and build muscle.

That’s probably why the Wall Street Journal claimed that cardio is as bad as cheeseburgers.  But in reality, cardio is WORSE.

I’m glad you asked.  Right now I’m going to show you exactly what you should be doing instead of cardio.  I’m going to show you a very valuable secret that you can use to work out for only 90 minutes PER WEEK and get an amazing body.

This secret reverses the aging process, turns your body into a fat burning machine and you can do it in the comfort of your own home in just 3 short 30-minute sessions per week.

I’m not going to lie to you: the secret I’m about to reveal isn’t for everyone.  For example:

Here’s the truth: the system I’m going to show you is hard work. 

And it is FAST, EFFECTIVE and SAFE.  You won’t damage your heart, you won’t AGE your body, and you’ll LOSE belly fat faster than ever.

But you must be okay with short bursts of intense exercise.  If you’re not afraid of a little work for remarkable results, then I have the answer to your prayers.

In fact, you’ll finish your new workouts before the cardio crowd even starts sweating.   You’ll rapidly lose fat and build lean, sexy muscle.  And you’ll have a good time doing it.  I promise, because I’ll be right there with you.

If you’re ready to ditch the long, slow, boring and DANGEROUS cardio and you’re ready to see how you can get results in just 90 minutes per week, then keep reading.

My name, by the way, is Craig Ballantyne.

I have a master’s degree in exercise science.  I’m a celebrity in the fitness world and I write for Oxygen, Men’s Health, Women’s Health and other magazines.

You may have found this page by reading one of my groundbreaking workouts in those magazines or perhaps you’ve read one of the many articles that I write for my websites with more than 205,000 happy subscribers.

But I’m not like most fitness experts.

Because a few years ago I discovered an unusual secret about fat loss…

I realized that long, slow and boring cardio was horrible for burning fat and building a lean, sexy body.

Since cardio wasn’t the answer, I went in search of a solution that would help my clients actually lose that stubborn fat.

What I discovered shocked me.

You see, I realized that long distance runners look and train WRONG.  Because they do long, slow and boring cardio they have a scrawny build, a fat stomach, and no definition or tone in their muscles.

They don’t look good…they look sick.

But sprinters and other athletes look like jungle cats.  They’re thin and have lean, sexy muscle.

So I decided to reverse engineer the sprinter’s body by having my clients train using short burst workouts that lasted 30 minutes or less.

The results astonished me.

My clients melted away their fat and build bodies that made their friends and family JEALOUS.

I called this special program Turbulence Training. TT for short.

Now, I’d like to show you exactly why this unique system works so well.

You see, the latest scientific research is catching up to my in-the-gym findings and proving me right and the cardio crowd dead wrong.

Here’s what smart scientists know.

(King, J.W. East Tennessee State University, 2001.)

Then, Australian researchers tested Turbulence Training style workouts against long, slow and boring cardio. The TT group exercised 3 days a week for just 20 minutes.  The long, slow and boring cardio group exercised TWICE as long (40 minutes per workout).

After 15 weeks, the TT-style group lost 6 times more weight than the long, slow and boring cardio group.  In fact, the cardio group actually GAINED a pound of fat over the 15 weeks.  They slaved away on the treadmill for more than 30 hours…and they gained one pound for all their pain.

Think about that for a second, the TT group worked out for HALF the time and lost 6 times the weight of the cardio crowd.

I can hear the nails being hammered into cardio’s coffin right now.

(Tremblay A., et al. Metabolism (1994); 43(7):814-8.)

You see, Turbulence training workouts burn more fat in less time.

Dr. Michele Olson of Auburn University made a presentation at the American College of Sport’s Medicine’s 2013 World Conference that said:

“It would take 5 times the amount of typical cardio exercise…to shed the same number of calories…from a [Turbulence Training] style workout!”

You can work out for HALF the time (or less) and get amazing results.  In fact, my clients have achieved amazing results with just 90 minutes of effort per week.

And there is more research that proves that TT destroys cardio when it comes to fat loss.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a newspaper out of lovely Australia, 1 hour of TT training burns as much fat as 7 hours of long, slow and boring cardio.

So if you have embarrassing belly fat that you want to lose, then I have good news for you.

A study published in the Journal of Obesity on April 6, 2012 found that TT-style workouts cut dangerous belly fat by 17% in just 60 minutes per week of exercise.  In one hour per week…you can shrink your waistline and get the sexy, flat stomach you always wanted.

You’ll start to see results fast, just like:

“It was perfect for me because, as a busy mom to four and a part-time personal trainer, finding the time to workout had become so difficult that I couldn’t be consistent with my workouts.”

“Knowing that I could do my workout at home in half the time, only three days a week, got rid of all my excuses. I was able to get rid of “stubborn” fat with fewer workouts than when I was exercising 2 or more hours a day training for triathlons.”

“My body often felt like it was on fire for several hours after the workout was over, and it was almost like I could feel the fat melting off throughout the day.”

“I burned off almost 20 lbs of fat while preserving my lean muscle. I reduced my waist measurement by almost 4 inches without losing much from my chest and shoulders. I reduced my body fat by 5%, and I am getting close to my overall goal of being below 10% body fat.”

“I learned that I can fit in training, and I can get an intense workout in half the time I used to spend working out. I’m no longer tied to the treadmill for grueling sessions of steady state cardio…Blech!”

“I’m a busy, stay at home mom who home schools 4 kids. We have 7 horses, 4 cats, and a puppy… I turned 40 and was in the best shape of my entire life. I had six pack abs for the first time! It was pretty neat. Even my husband joined in this time and did some of the same workouts me. He is now in the best shape he’s ever been in—looking GREAT!”

“My body often felt like it was on fire for several hours after the workout was over, and it was almost like I could feel the fat melting off throughout the day.”

“Looking back, I only wish I had started TT much sooner! Before I started using TT, I had tried numerous supplements and diet pills and they all brought zero results. I wanted to have more energy for my wife and two kids, and to be a role model of health for them to look up to. This has vastly improved my family life, my work ethic, my relationships, and my career.”

Honestly, it’s a shame that the rest of the fitness industry hasn’t caught on to this secret yet.  You’re way ahead of the curve just by reading this.  And if you’ve been disappointed by workout programs before, I want to tell you, it’s not your fault.  Those programs weren’t designed to maximize fat burning and it’s no surprise that they didn’t work.

That’s all going to change today.

Based on all of this new scientific research, Turbulence Training workouts DEMOLISH long, slow and boring cardio when it comes to losing fat and getting an amazing body.

Here’s what you need to know:

I have a simple question for you.

Would you rather slave away on a treadmill for hours and hours to just burn 300 calories and have your metabolism SHUT DOWN as soon as you step off the treadmill…

Would you rather set your metabolism on FIRE to burn calories for almost 40 hours after you STOP working out?  So that you melt away fat when you work, sleep, relax with your spouse and play with your kids?

I think you know the answer to that question.

If you really want to lose fat and keep it off forever then you need to start putting your body to work FOR YOU instead of AGAINST YOU.

As you know – long, slow and boring cardio turns off your metabolism so you only burn fat while you’re exercising.

But if you exercised in way that boosts your metabolism all day long, so you’re burning fat while you eat, sleep, work and play with your kids, then you’d get remarkable results with much less work.

Let me tell you how this is possible.

EPOC is the scientific term for the fat burning boost you get AFTER you finish exercising.  It’s also called the “afterburn” effect.  In essence, if you exercise the right way, you’ll continue to burn fat once your workout is done.

That’s because you can FORCE your body to burn away nasty belly fat through exercise.  You give your body no choice…it must burn fat or else.

Long, slow and boring cardio doesn’t create the “afterburn” effect.

As you saw earlier, cardio actually LOWERS your metabolism so you burn less fat after you jog, row or pedal.

(LaForgia, J. et al. (2006) Journal of Sports Science, 24(12), 1247-64.)

In a 2006 study in the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers found that in just 2 weeks of Turbulence Training style workouts, whole body fat burning increased by 36% AFTER exercise.

That means for every minute of every day you’re burning 36% percent more calories.  That translates into more fat burning while you’re sleeping, working and living your life.  All because you used a workout that turned on your body’s “afterburn” effect.

A study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that TT-style workouts kept the “afterburn” effect going for 38 HOURS after the workout ended.

That means for more than a day and half you get FREE fat burning because you exercised the right way.  You’ll melt away extra fat because of your newly elevated metabolism.

Think about it like this: if you use a Turbulence Training workout on a Monday during your lunch break, you’ll burn extra fat all day Tuesday and into early Wednesday morning.

That’s why you only need to work out 3 days per week to get great results.  You’ll train your body to burn fat on the 4 days you’re not working out, so you only need to exercise for 90 minutes to burn fat 24 hours per day 7 days per week.

“I only went to the gym 3 times per week…”

“I have a hormone issue where I have high levels and it’s hard for people to lose weight with this condition. In fact, most people with this condition are considered obese. ”

“People every single day look at me, having known me, and want to know what I am doing in the gym. I literally have people coming up to me in the middle of my workouts and asking me to help them.”

(Stokes, K. Journal of Sports Science. 2002 Jun: 20(6):487-94.)

This “super-hormone” is Human Growth Hormone (HGH), and it’s the key to burning fat and staying lean and sexy all year round.

(Burgomaster, K.A., et al. 2008. Journal of Physiology. 586(1), 151-60.)

That means that the folks who performed TT-style workouts lost 3 times more body fat than the folks who performed long, slow and boring cardio.

That’s how you can slow down or even reverse the aging process by working out.  The problem is that long, slow and boring cardio doesn’t boost HGH.  But TT workouts do.

Dr. Mercola, the famous renegade doctor, says that TT-style training offers a “tremendous boost in…” the “youth hormone.” (HGH)

TT workouts boost this miracle hormone naturally.  So you get all the amazing fat burning and age-defying benefits.

“My cholesterol levels are normal for the first time in 20 years, my waist is smaller than it has ever been as an adult and I feel good. I like the person I have. I finally feel like this part of my life is being managed and it’s up to me to decide where I want to take this.”

“Both outwardly and inwardly, a real and positive transformation has taken place in me. People have been saying that I now look 10 years younger and I like it! Without Turbulence Training, none of this would have been possible.”

(Egan, B. 2012. Cell Metabolism 15(3), 405-411.)

Even though you’ll see rapid fat loss results, another important change will happen in your body…

…you’ll start to feel younger and more energetic.

You’ll be able to work hard at your career.  You’ll feel more satisfied in the office.  You’ll have the energy to tackle big projects and go for the raise you deserve.

You’ll have the energy to enjoy playing with your kids when you get home at night.

You’ll feel happy and excited to be with your spouse again.  And frankly, they’ll be happy and excited to be with the new, thinner and sexier you.  It might even rekindle the fire of your relationship…if you catch my drift.

Not only does Turbulence Training help you burn away your pesky fat, it also causes an important change in your body that will make you feel younger and more energetic.

This is not crazy talk, I’ve seen it happen to many of my clients. 

In just 7 days, you’ll start to feel younger, have more energy and feel more athletic.

Now you’ve seen the proof.

The facts, the science and my clients’ amazing transformations are all here to prove it.

“I can fit into size 8 pants. When I started TT, I wore size 16. Now that is CHANGE!!! I not only look better, I feel better. I have more energy which is good when raising 4 boys.”

“The gains I made in the first two weeks were absolutely amazing and the compliments that I received from my wife didn’t hurt either.”

“I have 7 and 5-year old boys who are very active and love playing with their dad. At my heaviest, I weighed 263 pounds and was getting winded when playing with them. I needed a workout that wouldn’t take up all my time. That is where Turbulence Training and Craig came to the rescue.”

“My starting weight was 242 pounds and now I weigh 214 pounds and my waist size went from a 40 to a 36. I have all the energy I used to have eleven years ago and can go swimming, golfing and the boys favorite…….wrestling!!!”

But in case you’re not convinced, there are two important studies you should know about.

Group 1 did TT-style training.�� Group 2 did long, slow and boring cardio.  And Group 3 didn’t exercise at all.

Groups 1 and 2 worked out for 12 weeks.

Then, researchers at Laval University in Quebec wanted to test whether cardio or TT-style workouts were better for fat loss.

Two groups participated.  Group 1 did 45 minutes of long, slow and boring cardio.  Group 2 did short TT-style workouts for just a few minutes per week.

In significantly less time, the TT group got 9 times better results.  And that’s what I want for you.  I want you to lose a ton of fat, get the body of dreams, and I want you to do it all in just 90 minutes per week.  In just a second, I’ll show you how to get started.

If you’re ready to ditch your treadmill and never slave away for hours and hours to get no results…

You can get access to the revolutionary Turbulence Training system for less than a single month’s membership at your gym.

When you invest in the Turbulence Training 2.0 system for burning fat and getting the body of your dreams…

You’ll burn more fat in less time with these proven workouts. Not only that, but you’ll be going through each set and rep under the instruction of one of the best trainers in the world. You even get to see me sweating and burning fat.

It’s like having the entire Turbulence Training Team in your house training with you as your workout partner. The workouts can be watched on your computer, iPad or iPod, for any amazing workout done anywhere, anytime.

Not only will you have 24 done for you workouts, but you’ll also receive a 12-week schedule that will show you exactly what workouts to use on what days. It doesn’t get more done for you than this. All you do is press play and burn fat.

But there’s more to it than just the exercises. Inside this bonus manual, you’ll discover not only the exercise photos and descriptions, but you’ll also learn how you can use these workouts with YOUR favorite workout program.

That’s right. If you have a favorite workout program, you don’t have to give it up. I’ll explain how you can use Turbulence Training to enhance the fat burning effects of your current program for faster results.

It’s not your fault that past nutrition failed you. They were far too complicated and hard to follow.

This simple nutrition plan is so easy to follow that you’ll be able to use it no matter how busy your life is today.

You won’t have to prepare 6 meals each day and haul around a cooler at work. Instead, you’ll discover how to enjoy your favorite foods without the guilt (or the belly fat).

You’ll shed fat fast with a powerful combination of these workouts and this easy-to-follow, but aggressive nutrition plan that will shed even the most stubborn fat.

I think it’s a great deal, considering all of the fat burning, energy boosting workouts and strategies you get – and all the scientifically proven follow-along video workouts you get with the main Turbulence Training program.

The truth is, just a handful of those workout programs and diet tips that I’ll share with you could help you completely transform your life.  With just one or two programs, you could melt off all your stubborn belly fat and get an amazing body that you will proudly show off.

“What I loved best about turbulence training was that I felt incredible after each workout, never drained and tired, but pumped for the rest of the day.”

“The other essential benefit of Turbulence Training was the time spent in the gym. Whereas before I spent at least 1-1.5 hours 5-6 days a week, I was able to cut down that time by working out intensely three days a week.”

“My back pain has gone. I used to get a really bad ache in my lower back but from about week 4-5, I noticed that I wasn’t getting it anymore. This pain has been with me a long time and it’s amazing that it’s pretty much completely gone.”

It’s the real secret behind the amazing bodies you see on the cover of Men’s Health and Women’s Health.  As a writer for both of those publications, I got to see the classified secrets of the hot and ripped folks who strut their stuff on the cover and in the pages of those magazines.

Now this workout isn’t for beginners, the other programs I’m going to give you access to will help you melt away those pesky few pounds and will get you in great shape.

But after you’ve lost your first 10, 20 or even 30 pounds…this top-secret program will take your fitness (and your body) to the next level.

In just a few weeks of very hard work, you’ll see abs and get that lean, sexy look of fitness models.  Your legs will look like they were sculpted out of marble by an Italian Artisan.  And your butt might stop traffic.

Even if you don’t want to look like an amazingly sexy fitness model, you can use this program to give yourself a special boost in your problem areas.  It’s rocket fuel for your fat loss and muscle toning.

And don’t worry girls, it won’t make you bulky…the Hot Chicks part of this program is designed to make you lean and very, very sexy.

Fellas, the Buff Dudes part will make you buff with ripped abs.

You’ll never hear this insider information from anyone else.  It’s really the hidden secret behind the most amazing bodies in the world.  And it’s all yours if you agree to give my program a try.

I’ll give you access to this very special program FREE when you agree to try out Turbulence Training for a 60-day RISK-FREE trial.

 You just push play, work out with me and melt away your pesky body fat.

You’ll never be confused and you’ll always be inspired to stick with the program.  You’ll have my personal coaching to help you succeed.

You can’t get this anywhere else.

Again, you are only agreeing to TRY my work to see if it’s right for you.

If it’s not, you have 90 days (3 months) to let me know and I’ll send you a FULL refund, no questions asked.

I hope to hear from you right away.

Here’s to the body of your dreams,

Craig Ballantyne, CTT Men’s Health and Women’s Health Magazine Contributor

It really is a no-risk proposition, so won’t you let me help you change your life today?

Click here to get started!

PPS – When you order now, I’m also going to give you a simple script for selling your treadmill on Craig’s list.  All you need to do is enter your treadmill model and then paste the prepared text into a Craig’s list ad.  That should more than pay for your entire investment in your new body and new life.

Click here to get Shocking Facts About Fat Loss | Turbulence Training at discounted price while it’s still available…

All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors. Shocking Facts About Fat Loss | Turbulence Training is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.

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Yes Life Can Be Boring Sometimes. But There're Some Tricks to Make It More Interesting

Boredom. We have all felt it, and there’s a good chance at one point or another, we have all caused it. We feel bored when we are slowly making our way through a project at work. We feel bored trying to listen to our professors teach a lecture. We feel bored doing…well, most things.

I mean, I’ve even been bored having a conversation with my best friend. Even scrolling through Facebook can result in a moaned “I’m so booooored.” So let’s fix that. The following tips and tricks will help you get through every day with a little less boredom.

Boredom creeps in easily when life becomes routine…

When life becomes routine, it can be hard to feel like there is any excitement in our lives. In fact, one of the most exciting things I’ve started doing is walking two miles on my lunch break. Yes, that is something I classify as exciting. Maybe that’s what being an adult is, but if you’re anything like me, you crave a little action! Boredom is such a common issue for the human race that scientists have actually started studying it.

They’ve defined it as “an aversive state of wanting, but being unable to, engage in satisfying activity.” [1]” And when I say we’ve all experienced it, I mean it; a 2003 survey found that over 90% of young Americans have experienced boredom.

Sure, at it’s root it just sounds like we have a really petty issue. But it turns out boredom can lead to some serious problems. If boredom becomes a chronic condition, we can work so hard at filling that span of nothingness that we actually develop drug problems, gambling addictions and even binge eating.

The key seems to be attention and awareness. Studies suggest we get bored when we have difficulty paying attention. Often times we then blame external forces and reason that the task we’ve been assigned seems dull or that there is actually nothing to do at all.

Boredom can lead to earlier death

Not only can boredom feel miserable, but experts say bored people may be at risk for an earlier death [2]. If that’s not scary enough, chronic boredom can also lead to the following:

Anxiety

Depression

Anger and Aggression

Lack of interpersonal skills

Weight Gain

Though it may seem shocking that simply being bored can lead to such serious consequences, it makes sense. After all, if you find yourself with nothing to do, you may be more likely to reach for a candy bar or a bag of chips. Doing this often enough could result in weight gain. If you’re bored to the point of frustration, of course you’re going to be moody. And feeling like you have nothing to do can be a trigger (and symptom) of depression, as you can ultimately feel that there is nothing to do.

10 tricks to combat boredom:

Now that you know boredom shouldn’t be taken lightly, here are ten steps you can take to fight off that feeling of nothingness and improve your mood and health.

Think [3]: It might sound simple, but our brains need to be challenged in order to fight off the feeling of boredom. Our brains need to be stimulated and active in order to stay agile and healthy. So put together a puzzle, read a book or watch an intriguing documentary. And if you’re bored at work, try shifting your focus to something like your calendar and tasks you want to accomplish in a short term.

Challenge yourself: If a friend invites you to an event, go. This doesn’t mean you have to say yes to everything, but say yes to attending things you might normally say no to. Stepping outside your comfort zone may help you fight off boredom; not only are you actively doing something, but you will be hyper-aware of the new experiences.

Avoid boring people: Sorry, but it had to be said. If you’re surrounded by people who make you yawn and lead your mind to wander, it may be time to switch up your surroundings. This is not advice to drop your friends for newer, exciting versions, but it is a push to expand your focus. Talk to strangers more frequently, too. You never know when it could lead to a new adventure.

Bored at work? Study your surroundings: Take the perspective of a scientist and study what’s around you. Gretchen Rubin, author of ‘Better than Before’ recommends looking at what people are wearing and what sounds you notice. If you’re feeling really inspired, write a quick story about your observations.

Try something new, like a unique recipe: If you’re sitting around at home, binge-watching TV shows, you’re probably feeling bored, even though you’re technically doing something. In this instance, try finding a new recipe and cooking a meal you’ve never made before. It’s mildly time consuming, and you get the experience of eating something you made.

Paint a room: I don’t know about you, but when I sit around in one room too long, I realize how much I want to change it. If you’re trying to overcome boredom and you have some time on your hands, go for it! Just don’t paint it a boring color.

Make some money: Try cleaning out your closet and finding nice pieces that you just don’t wear anymore. There are plenty of companies (both online and in person) who will pay you for the items sitting in your closet collecting dust.

Color: Look, I know coloring may have been intended for kids, but there is no denying that those Adult Coloring Books are super intricate and time-consuming. If you’re desperate for a way to kill time, pick up a coloring book and some crayons or colored pencils.

Workout/Meditate: Use the time you’re trying to kill by doing something good for your physical and mental health. This can be anything from taking a walk to sweating it out at the gym. Either way, your body will thank you.

Take a brain break: If you’re at work and realizing your mind is wandering and you can’t focus, take a brain break to prevent boredom. Pull up a silly YouTube video or two and allow yourself to laugh.

So the next time you find yourself spacing out or feeling miserable because you have nothing to do, try some of these tricks and notice the difference it can make in terms of your overall well-being. Boredom is a fact of life, but it doesn’t have to be a constant.

Featured photo credit: Maxime Le Conte des Floris via stocksnap.io

Reference

[1]^Live Science: Why We Get Bored[2]^Mercola: Being Bored is Bad for Your Health[3]^Health Guidance: The Psychology of Boredom – Why Your Brain Punishes You for Being Comfortable and Safe

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