#like. it's not just about the incredibly vague & stressful email from my office manager

[ourbastardofsorrows]

what if i just don't go back to school on monday

[hhemeraa-a]

Update / Haitus

I’ve been a ghost the last two weeks and I know that my last post was very succinct - which I had to delete because apparently porn blogs started reblogging it for some reason????????? And I’m just?? not in the place to deal with that.

I really hope to get back into a place where I can be here again, I know before I said I was on discord but I’ve had zero (zero) time to do literally anything else other than deal with my current situation so I’m barely even there. I do read all of your messages and I’m really sorry I haven’t responded. 

A lot of people had or have questions and wanted to know how I am, etc etc so under the cut will be a quick explanation of my absence and everything that’s happened within the last few weeks.

As some of you know, I am a Peace Corps volunteer servicing in China. I had been serving as a university English teacher for the last near 2 years. This was a very very very important and huge opportunity for me. 

Years ago when I was in college, my Mom was taking student loans out in my name while I was living with her. I went from having $54k in student debt (which is a lot already) to having about $108k in student debt in private loans. She shirked all responsibility on me, I had to graduate college early with a degree in something that I had credits in (International Studies with a focus on Chinese language and history), I was homeless for a while working random jobs, trying to join the Marine Officer program, etc etc -- needless to say, things were really really messy for a few years there. I ended up getting a really nice job for a logistics company getting paid about 2200 a month, but I was paying about 1600 a month in student loans. I had a lot of support from a friend who let me live with her and to this day I literally cannot thank her enough for everything she provided to me while I was suffering through all of this. 

After working that soul sucking job for nearly 4 years, I took a chance and applied for Peace Corps because it was an opportunity to finally make it to China. I was supposed to study abroad in college, but when my mother maxed out my debt, it was no longer feasible. I never thought I was going to get in because I had been out of school for years at that point, I had never taught English before besides 1-on-1s during college and I kind of thought I was too old???  

BUT LOW AND BEHOLD I GOT IN.  This shit meant everything to me. I was finally going to study abroad, I was finally going to have a chance to use my degree, I was finally going to have the chance to learn a language, I had an opportunity to have a complete career change. 

It was so incredibly hard though. I worked my ass off during training, I worked really really hard to integrate into my site, but if anyone has ever heard any of my horror stories of being the only foreigner in the middle of south east China, you’ll understand that it’s not always fun 😅 I even had a whole mental break down and had to be sent back to the States for 45 days so I could stop stressing, but I got my ass right back on that plane and came to finish the job I started. The low were low, but the highs were so incredibly high that it made up for every bad moment.

This program meant everything to me.  My first semester sucked ass, it was harder than I ever thought it would be. My second semester was so much better, my third semester I was over loaded with about 450+ students and 8 classes, but I was finally getting the hang of the language, the school, the people, and I had gotten the ‘ok’ from my school to work there as a full time teacher once my Peace Corps contract was finished. This?? Was such an opportunity?? I literally had started making the moves to start a life here -- at least temporarily. Work at my school as contracted teacher for a year, pass the HSK Chinese language test above a 4, use the money to find a better job in Taiwan -- there was a whole plan. 

Every year, Peace Corps meets for 1-2 weeks for In Service Training. We met from Jan. 12 - 17. Usually it’s just to reconnect and make sure all the volunteers are doing their jobs, medical check ups, etc etc etc. It’s a good time to see how other volunteers are doing. 

Jan. 17th we were formally told that the Peace Corps China program was being closed. After 2020, there would no longer be any new volunteers and that we needed to start preparing our schools for the transition. They called it a graduation, but we all knew it was a political move. For five hours, a room of 200 people ripped into the US PC HQ staff as to why they were “”graduating”” the program. They said it was because the budget didn’t call for it and that China no longer needed volunteers in their schools. Which is a lie. Tensions were already really really high, the answers kept gettin more vague, and we finally flat out asked if this was a political decision to remove Peace Corps from China. 

We didn’t get an answer. 

Needless to say, all the volunteers are livid. The information spread like wild fire to all of the schools and volunteers were faced with having to be the representative of a shitty political decision. It was extremely difficult to have to face students and try to explain that Americans don’t hate them when the political system there does. 

Chinese New Year was from Jan 25th - Jan 27th this year. I lived in Chongqing city in the Chongqing province/municipality, a city that has about 32 million people in it. During this time, the city becomes a ghost town due to the holiday being similar to Christmas/Thanksgiving where everyone goes back to their hometowns to be with family. All the shops close and for foreigners it can be difficult to find food because everything isn’t open lol. 

However on Jan. 25th was when news about the corona virus started getting around. It wasn’t very big, but the news was starting to spread. The Hubei province touches Chongqing province, so whispers were starting to come through and most information volunteers got were through foreign sources, but even my Chinese friends were telling me that I shouldn’t go out or if I do, I need to be sure to wear a mask. 

Sunday Jan. 26th, notices are starting to go up on store fronts saying that they are required by law to be closed, but I managed to find a place that was still open. News about the virus is starting to gain traction and more and more information about what is happening in Wuhan is starting to spread. My friend who is staying with me who lives in a small town near the border of Hubei (where Wuhan is placed) gets a call from his school telling him that it is safer for him to not come back to site. We are starting to hear that small towns are shutting down travel in and out, bus systems are starting to shut down and certain areas in the city are no longer allowing taxi or Didi (Chinese Uber)  services. 

Monday Jan. 27th, my friend leaves because all train and bus tickets out of the city were being canceled. My city was slowly starting to quarantine everyone. I live on campus, and when I tried to return after walking my friend to the metro, security took my temperature (with those neat little temp guns) and then wouldn’t let me in because they thought I was too warm. After arguing with them in my broken Chinese and convinced them that I lived there, they finally let me back on campus. They told me that no cars or people are allowed to go in and out anymore. 

I lived near city center and it was obvious that the government was slowly locking everyone away to try and prevent the spread, but it was so eerie and apocalyptic. We had been receiving emails from the PCChina director giving us daily updates that were inching towards the idea that all volunteers were going to be ‘consolidated’, so everyone just needed to be prepared. 

Tuesday Jan. 28th, the notice went out that the volunteers were being ‘consolidated’ to Thailand because China made it illegal for any group of 4 or more people to be together. We were only allowed 1 check in bag and we weren’t sure if we were ever going to be allowed to come back into country. People who were not at their sites were not allowed to go back to their sites. Wherever a volunteer was in that moment that we got the notice was required to get their ticket to Bangkok and leave immediately. I had to pack 2 years of my life up into a single suitcase not knowing if I was ever going to come back. 

Wednesday Jan 29th, I was on a plane and landed in Bangkok. I am a safety warden of my province and the first warden to arrive so I was in charge of all safety until staff arrived. 

But after that, things were very much in the air. We had no idea what was going to happen and every day things just got weirder and more serious and we didn’t know if at all we were going to be able to go back. We speculated a lot, as the news got worse and worse and worse. By Friday, all USA government employees were told to evacuate. No gov employee is allowed to enter China until the travel restrictions were let up, which meant that many PCChina staff - if they were to leave, would be allowed back in until China decided that it was safe enough or... if they wanted them back. 

Sunday, Feb. 2nd, all the volunteers who were at the hotel had a skype meeting with the head of the PCChina program and were told that due to the severity of the situation, all currently serving China volunteers would be forced to COS (Close of Service) by Thursday. The program was ending and we would all be sent back to our respective homes between Wednesday and Thursday. 

When I say it was the shittiest delivery of news imaginable, I cannot even put it into words. After we were all told that we could no longer return to China, we had lost our jobs, and couldn’t even say goodbye to anyone; HQ Staff had the balls to tell us that in order to get our final service allowance, we were still required to fill out paperwork and that we shouldn’t be sad. We should be happy we served at all. 

They gave no time for mourning, many of us put two years of our lives on hold to do this program, some of us don’t even have homes to go back too and they want us to make decisions in 4 days. After Thursday, they will no longer provide any assistance with travel, we do not get health insurance, the moment we COS, PC shrugs off complete responsibility of over 100+ volunteers. 

I have been so busy filling out paperwork and I have been so incredibly angry and sad and resentful that the only person I’ve told is my Dad. Returning to the USA isn’t really an option and the plan I had set into motion is now nonexistent because I’m no longer allowed in the country I gave two years of my life to until they decide that this virus has been resolved. 

I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out where I’m going to live, what job I’m going to have, how I can get a cellphone plan, where I can go because I’m being quarantined for having been in China within the last 14 days, how to manage the money I’m getting -- everything has been changing so rapidly that I still don’t know where I’m going to be by Friday since Peace Corps is only paying for the hotel up until then. 

I promise I’m not ignoring any of you, I really really want to be in a place where I can RP and chat with y’all, but life for me right now is moving so fucking fast and I have to make so many decisions that will affect my future that I literally have not stopped going since Sunday night. 

I still stand by my last message: I really appreciate all the messages you guys have been sending me. I do read them. I just don’t want to talk. I don’t have the emotional capacity to and I haven’t even been given time to just... process and be mad. 

I promise I’ll be back, just give me some time. 

[yasminsqueendom]

Antique the Vamp Geek Pt1 Ep10

CW: Lots of cussing, anxiety, crying, stress

A/N: Like a lot of stress

W/C: 1856

Hey y’all! It’s story time.

Imma get right into it.

My bitch ass, stick up her ass having, roommate found out I’m a vamp…..and the bitch ratted me out to my school. 

So, rewinding a little bit, I got an email from the nurse’s office “reminding” me that I had exactly one month to submit my status to the office. I thought it was just a routine reminder that was sent to everyone who hadn’t taken it yet. But, then a follow up email came through setting a specific time for me to come down for testing. 

At this point, I’m getting nervous because I know that appointments aren’t required. We all just had a deadline to submit the results. We aren’t even required to get the test done here at the school. So it seems extremely odd to me that they would be harassing me like this. On top of that, I DON’T HAVE TO SUBMIT MY RESULTS SINCE I LIVE OFF CAMPUS. And even if I did, I had until the end of the month to do it.

So, when my afternoon class ends, I go down to the nurse’s office to request a time extension or something. Just anything to buy myself some time. I get down there and there is only one nurse in the office and public safety officer at the door. That set off alarm bells in my mind because there is always a secretary, an assistant, and some student volunteers. It looks way too creepy in here for me. 

The lady looks scared for her life, and I'm already convinced they know what I am. My stomach is in knots and everything and I'm stressed tf out. Like what am I going to do? She damn near jumps out of her seat when I say who I am and why I'm there. 

She pushes this little kit across the counter and says “Open it and follow the directions inside.” I feel myself starting to get pissed because now I can't go into a room for privacy? I can't get a alcohol swab before I stick this needle in my finger or whatever? What the fuck?

So I gently remind her that it is protocol for me to be called back to one of the rooms for privacy. 

THIS BITCH GON SAY IT'S FOR EVERYONE'S SAFETY FOR ME TO DO IT HERE! 

I kindly say that I wouldn't be taking any tests until I get my own room for it. If I have something contagious, it would be safer for everyone if I was somewhere private. Internally, I feel completely unsafe and honestly am convinced that if I come to a back room I might not make it back out again. The public safety monkey outside has me feeling like I'm turning myself in for committing the crime of existing. I start to doubt myself, and I feel my resolve weakening. 

So, she shakily gets up and points down the hall talking about “You can use the last room on the right.”

Ignoring her rudeness, I go down the hall with the kit. I follow the instructions to remove the cap and press it to my finger. It would put you in the mind of blood sugar monitors for diabetic people. I place it in the little baggie that comes with the shit. I go back out to hand it to the nurse over the desk. 

This bitch jumps like I threw a whole grenade at her. I mean all the way, damn near under the desk. Her damn chair hit the file cabinet behind her and everything. It would have been fucking hilarious if it wasn't for my severe terror building up inside me. I was almost numb. 

She says I can go so I just turn around and walked out because fuck this place. 

I barely remember what I did after that. I send some vague email to the professor of my next class about feeling too sick to come in. And then just go back to my place and curl up in a ball on my bedroom floor and sob like a fucking baby. Like snot and shit everywhere. I'm just beyond consolable. 

Eventually, I hear someone moving around out in the main room and I'm immediately paranoid. I crawl over to my bathroom to splash water on my face. I look a hot ass mess in the mirror. I'm frustrated at myself for crying because if I didn't look ghoulish before, I do now. 

Anyway, I ease my door open and see it's gotten dark since I came in. And that's strange to me since both my other roommates need light to see at night. So, if one of them is here, it would certainly be much brighter in the apartment.

I see my super religious roommate's door is open. I peak around her doorway and see her in there trying (and failing miserably) to stuff a backpack full of clothes. Some burly dude is in there with her using his cell phone's flashlight.  

When I tell you I felt heat in my damn scalp. Like, literally I thought I was gonna set something on fire just by touching it. Because I immediately know that everything I have suffered through that day was because of this ugly, naked mole rat looking, “I only buss it open for Jesus” acting, “my shit smell better than yours”  behaving, stick up her ass having ass bitch is trying to run away after she just potentially ended my time as a student. And may have just fucked up my whole world. AND SHE IS TRYING TO RUN??? RUN AWAY FROM THE SITUATION THAT SHE IS CAUSING RIGHT NOW.  

I close my eyes for a brief moment, and switch the lights on. I know it will take them longer to adjust than me. She starts screaming and he grunts like the big ass gollum he is. But he recovers quicker. I know already that any physical motion I make will be interpreted as a threat to these assholes. I just slowly open my eyes and just stare at them. My eyes burn, but I am so numb that I can’t even manage a reaction. He is standing there looking like there isn’t much between his ears (as my grandma would say). But she…...oh this bitch right here…..has the audacity to look like I just pulled a gun on her. Like I was gonna shoot her right then. I guess that’s how I looked. I know that’s how I felt. I never wanted to bite someone so bad. As much as I hate the thought of consuming any part of a creature like her, I wanted to attack. I was feeling reckless.

“Just tell me the truth.” I asked her. And she looks like she is about to piss on herself. I’m hoping she does. I want her to feel humiliated. I want her to hurt. She won’t say anything though, so I repeat myself. “Just tell me that you did it. Tell me that you called in and snitched on me.” 

She is still standing there looking absolutely foolish. But eventually she squeaks out, “I don’t know what you mean.”

Now, I feel cold. Like ice cold. We already run a little cooler, but now I feel a got damn iceberg. And then I feel nothing. 

It is at this precise moment that I hear the key turning in the main room. The Uninfected in front of me can’t hear it. They both clearly want to bolt, but I’m blocking the only safe exit. The fire escape outside of the window is rickety and rusting in places, but they look like they might try it just to get away from the “monster.” 

“Home sweet home.” My other roommate says from the hall. She walks up behind me, and freezes. She can only just see over my shoulder, and she is so close behind me I can feel her body heat. “What’s going on?”

It’s weird, but her body heat starts to thaw me out a little. I feel completely drained. I almost slump over, but I’m still angry enough to keep standing. I slowly back into my roommate, I know there are shadows behind me, swallowing me up as I step backwards. She’s complaining about me bumping into her, but she isn’t strong enough to push me forward, and she clearly doesn’t want to get in between me and the others. 

I reach up and shut the lights off again, and feel the smallest bit of satisfaction from the look of horror on Gollum and Stiff’s faces as they can’t see me anymore. He’s fumbling for his phone for the flashlight, and she is looking like a lost child. I can’t bring myself to care. They look pathetic. 

“Tell me what’s going on right now.” My saint of a roommate whispers in my ear.  I pull her back across the hall into my bedroom and close the door loud enough for the others to hear. I leave the lights off since I don’t need them (she’s used to that by now), and I tell her everything that has happened to me. Even things that haven’t happened yet. All my fears, all my pain pours out of me, and I feel incredibly grateful that I have at least one good friend that I can talk to face to face about everything. 

It made me think about all of my baby vamp listeners who send me emails about how alone they feel. I know it’s hard, but you aren’t alone. We aren’t alone. You are seen. You are heard. You are loved. 

Back to the story, my phone starts buzzing. I look over at it, and hear my roommate gasp. I realize this is the first time that she has seen my face. The light of my phone is illuminating me. Apparently, I was crying while I was talking, so she reaches across and hugs me. Just a sweet, friendly hug of someone being supportive, and kind. 

And then she does something I never thought anyone would do for me. She offers to be my source. I mean, wow. My world is fucking ending, and sometimes I don’t pay my portion of rent on time, and she offers to keep me alive. I am stunned. But, I politely refuse. I don’t want her life to be stained by mine any more than it already is by associating with me. 

I was so distracted by her kindness that I almost forgot what I had just seen on my phone. My father called me...he never calls me. My panic levels instantly soar over 9,000. My eyes go blurry and I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do. There’s a text message there, too, but I feel too distraught to read it. 

I just put that shit down, rolled over and went to sleep. 

At some point, I woke up and dealt with that shit later.

Anyway, stay safe y’all. Moisturize and hydrate.

Love Tique.

[invisiblerhythmcat]

(cw: this includes a lot of me dealing with my whiteness/white fragility while doing antiracist work) (oh, and there's apparently work drama too.

we're dealing with a very tricky, delicate matter with our racial equity trainer and I know I am not equipped to deal with it well, but no one else is actually helping me

except to vaguely say the last email I sent felt icky and they want to give feedback.

And honestly, on any other day, I'd be overjoyed because I'm trying to get people on my committee to stop treating me like I'm infallible. I want them to be challenging me and giving me feedback and that means I've done something right.

but today is not the day. now I'm just spiraling spiraling spiraling and assuming I am terrible and bad and absolutely wrong about all the equity stuff I'm doing at work.

unrelatedly, this is also why I need the organizers for our white caucus to also take on some of the responsibilities because this stuff shouldn't only be landing on my shoulder

reasonably, I know making mistakes is fine. And this is also a person who has openly said Incredibly Transphobic things in the office (for reference, we serve the lgbt+ community and most of our clients are trans, most of the people this specific person interacts with are trans), so like, I want to take what they say seriously because it's quite possible other people who were less comfortable approaching me asked them to and they're generally a very thoughtful person (when they're not being transphobic), but I also know it's coming from someone who also makes really bad mistakes. We're good. It's fine.

it's just - the stress and pressure of doing all the things, not having time to do the things, knowing I have power, but not the power some people think I have, or sometimes not being able to use it because I'm also a disabled trans person just trying to get through the day.

I know I'm fine. I just had a conversation with a different coworker where she was really excited by all the work I've done. That doesn't get erased by mistakes. And, in a year, I will not be leading this particular committee and, might not even be working there. I just...fucking hate that this is my response to getting feedback.

Can't I just be curious and excited and ready to listen? That's who I want to be. That's who I'm trying to be.

But I can't handle feedback. Even when actual human wellbeing is at stake, apparently. I just crumble immediately. I almost wish they had just confronted me in person because I'm actually better at managing that than a vague email. And I'd at least have some immediate closure instead of a day of anxiety before we have this conversation, so I have no idea if it's "I think you could have worded this better" or "actually, this proves you are a terrible person, step down from leading this committee immediately"

Also, it just really frustrates me because I have read over the email a bajillion times now and I honestly don't know where I went wrong. Like, usually I can have a sense. But I'm drawing a complete blank and that's terrifying. Because, it could mean that there's absolutely nothing wrong, or it could mean that I am completely missing something important, and that's scary. Of course, that's also a learning opportunity which I will be glad of when I get over myself. But again, I have the pressure of sometimes being the only white person certain people of color in the office trust. How many people am I hurting in my cluelessness?

blehhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I know it will be fine. We'll have a feedbacking session. I'll listen to the best of my ability. I know I'm doing the best I can and I'll do better.

And at least I can fix this one unlike partner nonsense, which is just a really huge thing I can't handle and is definitely part of the reason why this is affecting me so much right now)

[moonprincess92]

Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are

the food travel au 

3 ½ month film schedule. 31 countries. 24 episodes.

2 people who might just fall in love along the way. 

(read on AO3) 

Chapter 1: London  Author: @moonprincess92nz 

It’s her first fucking day and she’s late.

“SHIT, SHIT, SHIT–” Jyn dodges through suitcases, around security guards and even leaps right over an empty bench at one point as she races throughout Heathrow Airport. She practically slams right through a holidaying family and nearly bowls into a couple of kids with giant backpacks on their backs, but nothing slows her down because if there is anything worse she can do than being goddamn late on her first day, she can’t think of it. Her rep is bad enough, she needs this job –

ARRIVALS, the sign blares. 

Her poor battered suitcase screeching to a halt next to her, Jyn stops to stare around at the hordes of people pouring out of the arrivals gate. The production crew is flying in mostly from USA, she thinks she is one of maybe three people who are from the UK. They told her to meet at the airport, and she checks the email on her phone for the billionth time before scanning the crowd once more.

Finally, she catches a familiar face.

He isn’t so much familiar because she knows him, but rather because she may or may not have binge-watched Cassian Andor videos on YouTube for about eight hours the previous night. Thing is, Jyn honestly wouldn’t call herself a foodie. She knows how to scramble eggs and burn chicken nuggets, but that is about the extent of her cooking skills. Half the time she doesn’t know how she even ended up getting this job, but there she was balls deep in some popular Mexican cooking show because apparently, his face wasn’t so bad to look at. It was only when her roommate barged unceremoniously into her room at four in the morning to ask, “Don’t you have to be at the airport by like, 7am?” when she figured that she might have a bit of a problem.

(“Shut up, Bodhi,” she threw back at him).

Operating on as little sleep as she is, seeing Cassian Andor in person kind of makes her ovaries feel like exploding.

SHIT.

Luckily, before she says something and makes herself look ridiculous, it appears that someone notices her. She hastily says her name, and she’s pulled into the sea of formal introductions by who is apparently their production manager, Mon Mothma. Jyn has never been good at this part. Sometimes, she thinks that she chose the wrong profession entirely – she should be working in a lab or office, somewhere with as little human interaction as possible – but rather unfortunately, she’s chosen a profession where it’s impossible to get by without kissing arse and playing nice with others.

She’s learned over the years how to put on a polite mingling face, but Jesus, it takes it out of her.

“Hi! I’m Luke, the social media manager!” a bright-eyed blonde says.

“Wedge Antilles,” their sound engineer introduces. “Looking forward to working with you!”

“… Kes Dameron. Sorry, I haven’t had coffee yet,” It turns out their head of security is about as sociable as she is this early in the morning.

Honestly, she’s doing fine until suddenly she’s face to face with Cassian Andor and that’s about when it strikes her what she’s really gone and gotten herself into. She’s standing in front of an honest-to-god celebrity, here. She’s never worked on something on this large a scale in her life! It doesn’t help that there’s really something about his jawline as well, but either way she is a professional, goddamn it. She holds out her hand and says,

“Jyn.”

Cassian quirks an eyebrow.

“Is that… your favourite drink, or…?” he asks in confusion.

“What? Oh, bugger,” Jyn curses as he tentatively shakes her hand. “I don’t mean gin, I mean – it’s my name, Jyn with a J – and a y – apparently my parents hated me as a child,” She tops it off with a slightly awkward laugh.

God, she is bad at this.  

“Oh. If it helps, I often get called Caspian whenever I go to Starbucks?” Cassian offers.

“Well, that was your first mistake going to Starbucks.”

“What’s wrong with Starbucks?”

“Talk about commercialisation!” Jyn points out. “Whatever happened to supporting your local businesses?”

Incredibly, he laughs. “I’m sorry, you’re the new camera operator, right?”

“Right, right – I was offered the job a little last minute.”

“Of course – Kay unfortunately got sick – that was the guy who was originally hired.”

“Ah, I see,” Jyn tries to lean casually on her suitcase. “I wasn’t given any details, just a contract and a place to meet – sucks to be him, amiright?”

Cassian frowns. “He’s my best friend.”

Jyn blinks. Of fucking course he was his best friend.

She just gestures vaguely behind her somewhere. “I’m gonna…” she says, weakly. He smiles politely back.

If it was at all appropriate for the setting she would be SCREAMING.

“… so all in all,” Jyn eventually says through Skype later that night. “within the first minute of us meeting, I convince him I’m an alcoholic, criticise him for going to bollocking Starbucks and also somehow manage to insult his best friend!”

Little Bodhi through the screen shakes his head. “Oh my god, Jyn…”

Oh my god, Jyn sounds about right. She snuggles down into the hotel bedsheets and is at least thankful that she’s on a production that can afford actual stars underneath their accommodation. The last time she had a job, she was put up in a student hostel, and she’s pretty sure she’s still washing fleas out of her hair to this day. Most of day one was dedicated to production meetings with only a few establishing shots being filmed that evening. After hours of listening to Mon Mothma drone on and on (3 ½ month film schedule, tight deadline, 31 countries, 24 episodes, etc., etc.) Jyn was thankfully able to clear her head down by the Thames. With only her and the essential crew, she was finally able to breathe as she captured her city by sunset.

She honestly doesn’t know what this job is really going to entail. The travelling she is relatively familiar with thanks to her job, but even then she technically hasn’t been out of the country since she was 16, and she mostly tries to forget her time with Saw anyway. She might not have had a family for a long time, but she’s at home here in London as much as she’s ever been. It’s the only place she’s ever felt truly safe, felt like she has ground beneath her feet and she’s a little (a lot) terrified to actually leave it.

But hell, bills need to be paid and a T.V. show needs to be filmed.

“What am I doing, Bodhi?” Jyn mutters underneath the blankets.

“I believe it’s called ‘flirting’,” Bodhi smirks back in their flat on the other side of the city. “and, if I might add, you’re not doing it very well.”

“Fuck you, mate.”

“Just calling it like it is.”

“Seriously,” Jyn stresses, then. “what am I doing here? I’m working on a travelling food show and I barely know how to cook!”

“You’re the camera operator, not the bloody caterer,” Bodhi says, exasperatedly. “I’m fairly certain you don’t need to know.”

“But–”

“Jyn, listen,” Bodhi cuts her off. “Lord knows I’d prefer to just wrap you up and bring you back home, but honey, you gotta stick with this, ok? No more flaking! You think you don’t fit in, fine – fake it until you do. Go get bloody lost in Germany or finally learn how to make pasta or something, I don’t care, just get out and do it, because we both know you’re not really living here.”

“I’m living!”

“You’re existing,” Bodhi sighed. “and I know your life has had its fucked up moments. I know. It sucks. But it’s time, Jyn.”

She snorts. “You know, when I called you it wasn’t for another therapy session. How much do I owe you this time?”

Her best friend rolls his eyes. “A lifetime of free pancakes.”

“You know I can’t make pancakes.”

“Lifetime supply of Jammy Dodgers, then.”

“That, I can do,” Jyn points at the screen.

Bodhi laughs, only it quickly turns into a violent yawn. “BLIMEY, I’m tired.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll take the hint,” Jyn smirks. “but, um, before you actually do go – on a scale of 1 to 10, exactly HOW bad was the flirting?”

“Minus 5,” Bodhi deadpans. “Don’t insult his friends next time.”

“Yeah,” Jyn grimaces. “I’ll do that.”

He grins. “Love you, Jyn.”

“Yeah. Love you, too.”

tellmewhatyoueatofficial check out that view! #tellmewhatyoueat #london #tower bridge #filming #cinematogropher #travel #sunsetwiththecrew #bts @jynserso

bodhitherook JYN BABE U MANAGED TO MAKE IT ONTO THE OFFICIAL INSTA ACCT  

bodhitherook also how the fuck are u not wearing a jacket

tellmewhatyoueatofficial @bodhitherook i confess we might have asked her to take her jacket off for the #aesthetic

bodhitherook WHO RUNS THIS ACCOUNT JYN BC CLEARLY THESE PEOPLE ARE TRYIN TO KILL U IT’S OCTOBER

jynserso pfffft sun was out, was a solid 15 degrees that’s basically sunbathing weather

jynserso but still calling you out @walkstheskies his name is Luke Skywalker go stalk him 

Jyn manages to corner Luke Skywalker in the hotel hallway.

“WHY ME,” she despairs. Her phone is open on the show’s official Instagram page, and it’s pretty clear what she’s talking about, although she quickly adds, “and before you say anything, I KNOW signing the contract means technically I consented to my image being used on multiple forms of social media, but still–”

Luke just shrugs happily.  

“I belong behind a camera, not in front of it,” she protests.

“Hey,” Luke counters. “you look beautiful in that shot! Also, I should be the one complaining, after you sicced your best friend on me.”

“Oh good, Bodhi did his job then,” Jyn says. She steps out of the way hastily as several of their fellow crew members run down the hall between rooms, someone cheering something about shots in the background.

“He’s sent me about a dozen messages insisting that I look after you and treat you right,” he laughs. “Nice guy!”

Jyn just smirks slightly before eyeing down the hallway once more. It’s been two days, and their insane shooting schedule is already starting to hit them all. Quite frankly, none of them have any business still being awake at this time, but it was a long day and apparently they are all still so hyped that trying to sleep with the racket they’re making would be fruitless anyway.

“We should get out!” someone calls enthusiastically from one of the open rooms, and Jyn turns to see their lighting director’s face beaming when she notices her. Shara Bey dashes over and clings hold of her shoulder. “Hey! Where should we go?”

“What’re you looking at me for?” Jyn asks in bewilderment.

“Well, you’re the local girl,” Shara points out.

Jyn stares at the over-tired, wired and enthusiastic faces all staring back at her. They’ve all spilled out of their rooms, nodding and asking and between this and the Instagram post, Jyn isn’t sure she’s been on the receiving end of this much attention in her life. There’s a reason she stays behind the camera! She glances at Luke, although the man just shrugs at her in response.

“I’ve never been to London! Where do we get good food around here?” he asks.

Shit.

“Uhhhh... I know a place that sells killer fish and chips?”

“It’s an adventure and it’s happening - c’mon, guys!” Shara leads the way. 

She ends up bringing them to The Cantina, of all places.

A fun fact to rattle off is that there are literally thousands of pubs throughout London, and somehow she always ends up here. Her and Bodhi almost haunt the place at this point. It’s objectively not the most popular in London nor even relatively famous, but in Jyn’s opinion it captures the very heart of British pub culture (you know, getting shit-faced and yelling about football). It’s kind of what the entire show they’re filming is supposed to be about, so… yeah, here they are. The place is always dark and a little shady, the music always slightly too loud and the lights slightly too piercing, but Jyn feels almost relaxed here.

“I moved back to London when I was 16,” she explains as they approach. Shara Bey has already filmed several snapchat videos of herself by this point and now seems to be flirting with the security guy. Most of their group is hanging onto her every word and she adds, “We’d come here on the weekends with our fake I.D.s and get hammered.”

“My kinda party,” Luke grins.

They all pile inside The Cantina, Jyn dutifully avoiding Cassian’s eyes. Honestly, she had no idea that he was even coming - did famous T.V. presenters even do that? - but someone called out to him just as they were walking out of the hotel doors to go catch a train and he dashed out to join them. After embarrassing herself so spectacularly, she figures the only way to handle tonight is the true British way: ignore all emotions and pretend everything is fine.

She notices a gap at the bar and she manages to quickly order two shots as everyone piles into the pub. She thought she had avoided all scrutiny as her colleagues get caught up in which drinks to order, but apparently nothing gets past the social media manager. Luke gives her a look of bemusement from over his shoulder and Jyn bites at him,

“What?”

“Steady on,” he says.

“Shut up,” Jyn accuses.

“You know, if you want to talk to him all you have to do is open your mouth and start saying words,” Luke says, slyly.

Jyn glares. “What d’you know? You know nothing.”

“I know that look! Trust me, I get it. I’m a huge fan too.”

Jyn finally meets his knowing gaze.

“You also watch three seasons in eight hours?”

“Without subtitles!” Luke nods. “My Spanish got a LOT better.”

“Stalk on Instagram?”

“I’m a social media manager,” Luke scoffs. “Raise me something actually valuable.”

“Imagine marrying someday?”

Luke laughs. “Jyn, we all know that he’s out of both our leagues, but with you… ehhhhh, there’s potential.”

“I’m sorry, EHHHHH?”

“I also said potential!”

Jyn was going to offer one of the shots to Luke, but with that statement, she keeps them both for herself. It’s true, she’s been filming this man for the last two days and she still technically hasn’t had any kind of one-on-one conversation with him that isn’t to do with camera angles. Besides the disastrous first attempt, that is. She isn’t even sure what’s stopping her at this point. It’s not like she’s kidding herself that something is going to happen – they’re on a schedule, they’re going to be travelling in a tight knit group for months without space to get away, and who even looks at her like that anymore? – so it’s not even the fact that he’s hot that makes her like this.

She’s just never done anything on this kind of scale before. These people all have established careers, been featured on Ellen, have followers on Twitter… this is the first time Jyn’s worked on a project where the director isn’t some uni student filming a sex scene in their parent’s garage. Bloody hell, what could she even say to him?

“Ok, look,” Luke sighs next to her. “exactly how many shots is this going to take? Because I will literally buy them all if it will get your ass over there.”

“I don’t know,” she says honestly. “but at least one more.”

tellmewhatyoueatofficial rumour has it that somewhere round here you can get some killer #fishnchips! @theofficialcantina #tellmewhatyoueat #bts #london #camden town #camden market #london pub #the cantina #filming #cinematogropher #travel  

Her ass inevitably did not end up over there.

“Ok, we’re going for the casual ‘we’ve just stumbled upon this place’ feel,” Their director, Draven, is running backwards somewhere behind her, trying to keep up with the action as Cassian walks down the street. She’s aiming for the vision of him being in amongst the crowd, just one with London, which is kinda contradicted by the fact that they have blocked off one side of the entire stretch of street outside the restaurant they’re currently featuring and their security guy is letting through a controlled amount of people to walk through their shot. Still, she gets to watch Cassian stroll down the footpath with his hands in his pockets, contently gazing around the streets, so she’s probably got the good end of the deal, here. Voiceovers will be added in later, so literally all he has to do is walk and smile as Draven yells out direction.

“Ok! You reach Rebel Rebel,” he calls out. Cassian pretends that his eye is caught by the actually previously chosen restaurant, glancing up at it. She zooms in on his face.

Yes. Definitely has the best deal, here.

“CUT,” Draven yells. “Perfect, we’ll shoot it once more, then head on in.”

They take a break before moving into the restaurant to do more filming and she listens to Draven rave to their producer about how big they’re expecting their audience to be for this particular episode. She probably doesn’t try hard enough to hide her scoff, but she’s exhausted from being up until 2am that morning and still too pissed off at herself to care. Despite all of Luke’s encouragement, she still hadn’t managed to get herself over to the table where Cassian had been sitting. She had an opening and alcohol, and yet…

“Look, I’ve worked on this show before and I’m yelling you,” Luke nodded at Cassian last night. “He’s a good guy! He’s worth getting to know.”

She was sure he was. It was just getting to the point of knowing him that worried her. She glances bitterly up at Rebel Rebel. Honestly, of all fucking places in London, they just had to choose the most cliché.

“Why do you not like this place?”

She whirls around in a slight panic, heart practically leaping into her throat. Cassian’s watching her curiously, water bottle in hand and please Jyn, please remember what proper words are.

“Who – who says I don’t like it?”

“That expression on your face,” Cassian points out.

She’s almost impressed that he noticed. “Is filming going to be this forced the entire time?”

For a moment she isn’t sure if he’s going to give her a real or diplomatic answer. She supposes his job’s on the line, but just as that thought occurs he admits, “A lot of things are pre-shot filming this kind of show. It’s like reality T.V., we pretend it was all filmed on the spot when actually we planned the entire thing. But the food and the reactions, that’s going to be real. You can’t fake taste.”

“What if you don’t like something? Are we allowed to include that?”

“Usually depends on who I’m allowed to piss off,” he mentions.

“Well, I dunno who chose Rebel, Rebel, but this place sucks,” If he can figure it out from the look on her face, then there’s no point denying it. Jyn points out the restaurant that is technically one of London’s top places to eat. Recommended on Trip Advisor, stars and celebrities were known to dine there and even Jamie Oliver did a special there once, but as far as Jyn is concerned the entire place was overrated.

“How do you know that?”

“Like I couldn’t possibly know great food,” She winces a little at the tone. Blimey, she needs to work on not sounding so defensive.

“Show me,” Cassian suddenly challenges. “After filming today, take me to the good food.”

He can’t be serious. Surely he isn’t? They have a schedule, they have deadlines, they can’t just go bloody rogue! Yes, fine, she does have somewhere in mind. She might consider wine and a can of tinned soup a decent meal, but that doesn’t mean she can’t recognise great food when she sees it. The memories suddenly hit her, of meat sizzling, of swinging on vinyl chairs and knives clinking against plates. She remembers being allowed to stand on a stool behind the counter to take customer’s money and running through the kitchens trying not to get caught by the chefs. Whenever she hears classical music she’s taken back and they’re literally only around the corner, but…

It’s a stupid idea.

She shrugs. “I think Draven’s gonna burst a blood vessel if we don’t get back to it.” 

JUST TAKE HIM TO THE FUCKING RESTAURANT JYN DO IT DOOOOOO IIIIITTTTTTT

FKJDJFKJDFJKFJKDF KILL ME Also are u still harassing luke to be nice to me bc honestly bodhi

Im just lookin out for mah gurl Also turns out he’s kinda funny so But not the point, just take him Jyn seriously

But it’s such a personal place and we barely know each other

Don’t make it about you then. Just say u know a place that’s better, bring ur camera and film the magic. Oooooh, get baze to make his special, that shit is GOOD Plus this way you’ll get to know each other eeeyyyyy

I’m going to regret this

No u wont 

It eats at her, until eventually Bodhi manages to make her snap. Damn it, it will not leave her alone and apparently, her way of asking people out these days is just turning up at their hotel room door and demanding them to come with her, since the moment Cassian answers her slightly too hard knock on his door she blurts out,

“Get your coat on, we’re going somewhere.”

Cassian blinks slightly, but seems entirely non-phased as he ducks to the side to grab a jacket and follows her out the door. “Where are we going?”

“To the good food.”

It’s a bit far to walk and she’s still not used to the T.V. glamour of being able to take taxis everywhere, so she drags him out into the cool, drizzly evening and onto the tube. Taking the Piccadilly Line into Covent Garden, the night is fresh and just starting to buzz when they climb up into the street. She wasn’t going to get her camera out until they reached Lahmu, but the side street they cut down is strung up with multi-coloured lanterns and his face is honestly too good to not try and capture.

“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure if we’re even allowed to do this,” Jyn admits, as she points out the way. “Like, filming outside of scheduled shooting. Have I just violated my contract or something?”

“Depends if Draven likes what he sees,” Cassian answers her.

“I’ll delete it later, then,” Jyn says, walking sideways as she filmed and hoping that nothing got in her way lest she accidentally go flying. “No one has to know a thing. And if you talk, I’ll kill you.”

He laughs a little into the camera. “I’m starting to think I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“But anyway, welcome to Covent Garden again,” she makes a deal out of saying, ensuring that she can still see his face through her lens. He pauses under a lamp post and thankfully, no one seems to recognise them in the dark and without the addition of an entire film crew. To someone else, they could literally be any random YouTube vloggers or something. “Naturally, this damn show only brings you to the touristy side of London, but there are some admittedly great places to eat in this area. Not fucking Rebel, Rebel though, I mean shit that’s actually edible.”

“We might want to edit that last part out.”

“Yeah, post can handle that,” She would wave a hand if she had one to spare. “Tell me, superstar Cassian Andor, how are you enjoying London so far?”

He smiles a little against the backdrop of lit restaurants. “It’s cold.”

“Of course it’s cold, it’s fucking England.”

“But it’s exciting,” he adds. “There’s so much history here, buildings that have been around for hundreds of years… it’s great to see.”

“You’re supposed to say you love the food, stop going off script.”

“Sorry – I love the food.”

“Good,” she says. “because if you don’t love where we’re going, then I’ll buy the next round of drinks.”

“Where exactly ARE we going?”

She points across the street and she films him turning and seeing the lit up sign of Lahmu. Owned for the last fifteen years by Baze and Chirrut Malbus-Îmwe, it’s known for its wildly eccentric yet still somehow delicious menu. Jyn leads Cassian there, waving to the matire’d on their way in and asking if Baze is around.

“You’re a regular?” Cassian asks.

“Kind of,” Jyn hedges. “it’s weird to explain.”

She doesn’t rest until they find Baze in the kitchen, the co-owner and chef shaking Cassian’s hand vigorously like any person who was vaguely familiar with food would. Jyn keeps the camera rolling the entire time until finally, he tries Baze’s famous Secret Special and the unearthly sounds that come out of his mouth Jyn deems a little too inappropriate for their G-rated show.

“This is fucking amazing,” he practically moans.

“I’m glad,” Baze says warmly as Jyn hastily cuts the recording.

“And you seriously won’t tell me what kind of meat this is?”

“Of course not, that’s the secret part.”

“It’s not going to have me arrested, right?”

“No. Well… I don’t think so, at least.”

Cassian just shrugs. “Good enough for me.”

Carefully working on packing the camera away in the bag she has strung around her neck, Cassian continues to enthusiastically shovel whatever mystery meat it is into his mouth. Over by the kitchen bench, Baze leans in and squeezes her shoulder.

“So can I expect to actually get on T.V. here, or not?” he asks in undertone.

“Probably not,” she admits.

“Ah, well. It was a nice idea while it lasted,” Baze sighs, gruffly.

“You guys are still doing well, right?” Jyn asks, casually.

“Stop worrying. We’re fine,” Baze shoots her a look. “Exposure never hurts, however.”

“Just let Cassian tweet about this place,” Jyn points out. “You’ll have people coming in hordes.”

Cassian cuts in to scoff, “I’m not THAT popular.”

“When you have a follower count with 5 digits or more, you’re considered popular, mate.”

Cassian protests, but honestly they’re mostly silent after that as he apparently just savours the flavours Jyn knows have to be hitting his tongue. She realises at one point that she’s closed her eyes and she hastily snaps them open because Jesus, Jyn, get a grip, she can listen to the boiling soup and scraping of pots without looking weird about it. It’s only when Baze moves away to carry on directing his kitchen, however, when she finally says,

“Look. I think we got off on the wrong foot when we first met,” she says. “I swear I usually know how to talk to people normally. I’m a big fan?”

Thankfully, he laughs and she lets out a slow breath of relief. “I’m honoured.”

“No really,” Jyn points out. “I don’t even speak Spanish, and I watched all three seasons of your last show.”

“That’s dedication.”

“Sorry again.”

“Hey,” he shakes his head. “It’s fine – I’m a big fan of yours too.”

“Piss off,” Jyn says before she even stops to think whether that might offend him or not. “I film obscure niche documentaries and indie films that lose money rather than make money, there’s no way you like any of that shit.”

“No really, I looked you up when we knew you were coming,” Cassian points out. “Or, ok, Kay sort of insisted that we look you up, he was feeling a bit territorial. But we watched a little of that one documentary you did on the abandoned insane asylum?”

“Oh god,” Jyn shivers. “that place was creepy as all fuckin’ hell. I had nightmares for weeks.”

“But the camera work was beautiful! Wait, exactly how creepy?”

“I’m pretty sure that one of the film crew got possessed.”

“You’re not serious?”

And it’s weird, but he finishes his Secret Special and she tells the quite frankly terrifying story of when one of her crew members had gone a little nutty and claimed that they were having visions of dead people and it kind of… goes well. Her heart is still pounding, but they’re finally talking. It at least makes her feel a little more grounded, a little more like she actually fits into this project that until this point made her feel like she was just floundering under water. This isn’t another weird documentary about haunted buildings, this is something that will eventually air on prime time British television…  

“So how did you end up as a T.V. presenter, of all things?” Jyn asks once his plate is scraped clean.

“I started in regular journalism. Believe it or not, but I’m not the best cook.”

“Shut the hell up,” Jyn insists.

“No really,” Cassian says, earnestly. “I can appreciate good food, but I still cannot make anything like my mother can.”

“Well, I burn toast so together, we’ve got this show covered.”

“Thank God, I was starting to worry.”

She laughs. Fucking laughs. But he’s laughing too, so she hopes it’s ok and he asks her then, “How did you get into camera work?”

“The professional answer is that I have always appreciated the entire filmography of whoever happens to be employing me at the time,” Jyn says. “The real answer is that I was running out of time to pick an elective at uni and I chose this random media studies paper on a whim.”

“So we pretty much started in the same place.”

“I guess, yeah,” It’s hard to imagine herself having literally anything in common with the celebrity, but what the hell does she know in the end? They’re quiet for a moment, Cassian moving to wash his own plate and Jyn pretending that she isn’t watching. It’s only when he’s finished and everything is put away when he turns back to her and says, 

“So what’s the story?”

“Sorry?”

“The story,” he reiterates and Jyn’s chest thuds painfully. “about why this place. Don’t try and tell me there isn’t a story.”

It’s true, there is one. And she honestly wasn’t sure whether she was going to say it when she first brought him in here, but there’s something that makes her want to say it now. She takes a deep breath and answers,

“My father used to own it.” 

He nods, but doesn’t say anything else. He waits, clearly willing to let her talk when she’s ready, and she eventually sighs in exasperation. “Fine, my father owned it and it’s how he met my mother,” she adds on. “I practically grew up here, but they died and it got sold when I was eight and it’s never felt exactly the same since. I guess I still try sometimes, though.”

It’s a very glossed over version of the story, but it will do for now. He nods in understanding before gesturing to her camera once more. “Do you mind?”

She frowns. “What do you want to film?”

“I have an idea – just roll with it?”

She humours him, once again pulling out the camera. She’s at least thankful that the kitchen lights are kind of perfect for filming as she sets it on top of an upturned saucepot in lieu of a tripod. She prompts, “What are you thinking?” and Cassian looks up right at her through the lens.

Blimey.

“We’re going to be taking Europe by storm, right?” he says, and she almost thinks his words aren’t even intended for the camera. “The idea is that we experience multiple cultures and different kinds of foods, but I love that there’s one thing that seems to be universal. No matter where you are in the world, food has this ability to connect things. We associate food with the places we come from, certain celebrations, smell with memories, a restaurant with home…” Her heart is definitely somewhere up around her throat and he smiles at her. “and that’s pretty awesome.”

tellmewhatyoueatofficial rumour has it if you order the #SecretSpecial you’ll become a changed person! #tellmewhatyoueat #restaurant #food #filming #locations #london #covent garden #bts @lahmurestaurant

k-lara7 omg I love this place!!!!

yavemiel @ pingou7 we are so going here next time you come visit me

bodhitherook I had no idea they were filming here @jynserso??????

doptimous Definitely would recommend @lahmurestaurant. The owners are so nice, you’re never waiting long and it’s honestly a great experience every time we go. 

In the end, Draven loves their side project so much that it turns into his idea.

They were all supposed to be on a flight to Cardiff at this point, but the network has apparently let them delay by twelve hours to allow them to shoot additional footage and anything that gets her favourite restaurant exposure is fine with Jyn. But despite their filming obviously fake candid shots outside the restaurant, Draven’s admitted that there’s a lot of charm in the real candid-ness of what they filmed the previous night and hopefully, a lot of their original footage will end up being used in the final cuts.

“I’m going to miss London!” Luke says cheerfully as they wait at the airport. Definitely not a big enough production for a private jet, they get a few looks waiting amongst everyone else but luckily at 4am not many people care all that much about the moderately famous food show host and crew. Jyn is attempting to sleep in her cold, plastic chair but it’s kind of hard when Luke won’t stop chatting.

“Do you ever stop?” she asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind,” she mutters. She gets up and leaves Luke to his cheerful trawling through Twitter and notices Cassian slumped down near the phone charging station. With his hoodie pulled over his eyes it’s difficult to tell if he’s awake or not, but he stirs when she sits down next to him.

“Naturally the network couldn’t wait for tomorrow and literally had to book us on the next flight to Cardiff,” she says. “Who the hell even flies to Cardiff at this time in the morning?”

“Right?” he smiles a little. Then, after pausing he adds, “Hey, um… I’m sorry if I stepped over a line or something before. When we were filming at Lahmu. I know you didn’t really intend on it being a part of the show and it got kinda personal so I just wanted to make sure you’re…”

“It’s ok,” Jyn says softly.

She isn’t sure what it is. It’s 4am in an airport, it’s one of those liminal spaces where time stops existing and only vacant expressions and stress endures. But she turns to glance over at him and he’s looking at her and shitballs, her stomach twists itself inside out.  She still doesn’t know what to expect from this entire project and she certainly doesn’t expect anything ever from him, but a part of her is really, really pissed off to know that they have to part ways at the end of all this.

But then again also, they have 30 more countries to go.

Finally, the announcer is declaring that their flight is beginning boarding. All around, tired people stand and yawn, stretching and picking up suitcases and rousing sleeping children. Cassian sighs before pushing back his hood and giving her a determined look.

“Let’s go to Wales,” he says.

“Let’s go to Wales,” Jyn agrees. 

---

[ecfandom]

clexa psi based

who is more likely to hurt the other?

In PSI verse they’re both pretty even on this one, but if I had to choose I’d say Lexa. Clarke is more willing to be open and vulnerable with Lexa earlier on than Lexa is with Clarke. She is willing to take the first step, ask for what she wants, go for what she wants and sometimes that can land her in some pain when Lexa reacts by closing herself off and throwing out her defensive barbs. Eventually Clarke learns to take it for what it really is–Lexa’s fear–and learns to navigate it when it comes up, but there are times when Lexa really just shits on her vulnerability and leaves her confused and upset. Never fear though, Lexa learns how to be soft and open eventually. 

who is emotionally stronger?

Tricky question because, who thinks they’re emotionally stronger and who actually is emotionally stronger? Gotta give this one to Clarke. Lexa grows up her entire life learning that the world does nothing but fuck you over and take from you. And so Lexa learns at an early age that emotions are weakness and hardness is the key to success. Many people admire her for her fierce stoicism. They comment on her strength and her resilience. Lexa prides herself in it. But if anyone were to take a closer look, they’d see that Lexa’s “strength” is actually incredibly sadness and pain. Yes, she is resilient. Yes, she is strong. But when it comes to emotional strength, she is strong (hard) in all the wrong ways. 

Clarke on the other hand has had a foundation of love and emotional abundance since a young age. Growing up in a large household with three brothers, Clarke had to fight for the validity of her existence and her emotions constantly. It’s not that she was overlooked, in fact as the beloved baby she was given quite a lot of attention, but being surrounded by those older and more experienced in life made her have to work hard to find her own voice and her own emotional center. Her brothers, and her parents, were also very keen on protecting Clarke’s emotions, sometimes too keen. So Clarke has a really poignant emotional strength that compliments Lexa’s stoicism well. 

who is physically stronger?

Lexa is and Clarke lives for it. No stranger to the gym, Lexa is long and lean and cut in a way that has Clarke seeing stars more often than not. And Clarke is by no means weak. She is strong and healthy and sturdy, but there’s something about the intention and purpose with which Lexa’s muscles work that makes her woozy. 

Lexa takes a lot of pride in her body and her strength. She enjoys being able to carry Clarke her women around, takes pride in being able to make them feel safe and protected. It’s all a bit egotistical, but deep down it’s important to feel good about her body, when for so long she’s had issues with accepting it. 

who is more likely to break a bone? 

Definitely Clarke. This girl is an absolute walking accident. She is klutzier than a cat on wheels and makes walking into walls while reading scripts a habit. The first time she does around Lexa, the CEO nearly has a heart attack at the loud thud and the sight of Clarke grimacing. With a grin she can’t quite keep off her face she vaguely remembers reading an email from a producer warning her about Clarke’s tendency for accidents and how they sometimes are enough to cause delays in shooting. Like that time she’d been cast as a tennis star and showed up to her second month of work with a broken thumb, citing a fight with a revolving door. 

who knows best what to say to upset the other? 

Honestly they both can be pretty vicious. It doesn’t take them long to really get to know each other. They know each other’s ticks, their vulnerabilities and dreams and everything in between. So when it comes to going for the jugular, they’re both pretty good at it. 

Though, there are hard no’s that they both steer clear of when arguing or fighting. Clarke would never dream of bring up Lexa’s parents or her traumatic childhood and Lexa would kill herself if she were to make a comment about Clarke’s body image issues or her family. 

who is most likely to apologize first after an argument? 

Shockingly it would be Lexa. Lexa is hard and stoic and tries her best to be unfeeling, but Clarke makes an Ox look flexible. Read: she’s stubborn as fuck. Because Clarke is willing to be more open and vulnerable with Lexa, when Clarke feels scorned she’s refuses to be the first again. First to open up, last to apologize. It’s essentially her unspoken motto when it comes to her infuriating fuck buddy she has way too many feelings for. 

who treats who’s wounds more often? 

Seeing as how Clarke is the klutz I’d imagine it’s Lexa who starts carrying around bandaids in her back pocket for the inevitable paper cut or whatever else trouble Clarke manages to get herself into. 

Though, there is a day on set when a stunt coordinator isn’t paying attention and a picture car goes awry, plowing into the barrier between the active set and video village where Lexa is seated, keeping an eye on filming that day. You can believe Clarke has never run so fast in her life. And when Lexa looks up at her with an affinity and softness she’s rarely experienced from Lexa, she goes all mushy and overboard and insists on taking Lexa back to her trailer to “look over her wounds.” “I don’t have any wounds, Clarke.” “Well…let me just check, okay?” Lexa wants to argue, but then Clarke averts her eyes, and “I was scared. You scared me. I just need a second alone with you.” And jfc Clarke makes it really difficult to not have feelings some times. 

who is in constant need of comfort? 

This changes on a daily basis depending on what Clarke or Lexa is going through. Lexa rarely lets anyone close enough to provide comfort, but occasionally when she wanders over to Clarke’s house and they have one of those weird movie dates that don’t involve sex and are eerily like a date, she’ll let Clarke hold her head in her lap and stroke her hair until she can stop stressing out over box office numbers and hollywood controversies. 

Clarke is not one for needing much comforting. She’s got a pretty good grasp on herself and well established web of friends to rely on when she needs support. But every once in a while Clarke will get in these moods where she feels terrible about everything and she can’t emote or act the way she wants to and a day of filming runs long and she hates all of the takes and nothing seems to be going right. That’s when she craves Lexa’s and only Lexa’s touch. The way her hands map so gently over her body and card through her hair with a tenderness the CEO insists she’s incapable of but slathers onto Clarke anyways. 

who gets more jealous? 

Oh my god they’re both SO bad about this. They are unbelievable. For two people who agree to no strings attached, meaningless sex they are insanely territorial and possessive. This is usually where most of their fighting stems from and when they both tend to go for the jugular as mentioned above. They know exactly how to play each other because they both are smart enough to realize that it’s not just meaningless sex, but neither of them are going to be the first to admit it. 

Though they handle their jealousy very differently. Clarke, when jealous, aims to reclaim Lexa. She gets touchier in public, invites Lexa back to her trailer in between scenes so that Lexa can’t run off with whatever hot extra she sets her sights on. She comes over more often and she’s more aggressive when they sleep together. She likes to remind Lexa, and herself, just how much better she knows Lexa than the strangers Lexa ocassionaly brings home. 

Lexa on the other hand gets distant. Lexa hates seeing Clarke with other people more than she’d like to admit. And what’s worse, it makes her insecure and question herself, which Lexa thought she’d kicked out of her system long ago. When Lexa gets jealous, she stops coming round, she gets cold and doesn’t take initiative. She does it because, like it or not, Clarke makes her vulnerable. And also because she secretly likes to see Clarke get all possessive and clingy. 

who’s most likely to walk out on the other? 

At first, this is Lexa’s go-to reaction whenever things get tense between she and Clarke. She starts by leaving after they’ve slept together. Once they move past that and Lexa learns to stick around a little longer, she starts only waking out on Clarke when they’re in the middle of arguments. 

It’s one of the few things that brings Clarke to tears. Lexa comes back a few minutes after walking out one day because she comes to her senses halfway down the hall, and she walks back in to find Clarke collapsed against the couch, crying. Lexa decides then and there that seeing Clarke cry and knowing that she’s the cause is the single worst feeling in the world and she’ll never walk out on her again. 

Habits are hard to die though of course so it happens a few more times, but with practice Lexa learns to face her discomfort rather than walk away from it. 

who will propose? 

Propose? What is propose? 

who has the most difficult parents?

Well, this one definitely has to go to Lexa seeing as how she has no real parents. With her father dead and her mother a drunk who left her at a park when she was two one day and never came back, this award goes to Lexa fair and square. Her foster father happily pockets money from the government and Lexa’s trust her father left for her while he drinks the day away and beats Lexa when he feels like it. So yeah, Lexa’s “parent” was difficult to say the least. 

Otherwise, Clarke finds her mother’s prying and her father’s jokes a constant nuisance but she can’t really complain. 

who initiates hand-holding when they’re out in public? 

Clarke. Definitely Clarke. The first time she does it Lexa nearly drops the iced coffee she’s holding. But Clarke tightens her grip and doesn’t let Lexa pull away and after a tense several blocks of Lexa walking with a stick in her ass, the CEO starts to relax and maybe even enjoy the sensation of Clarke’s warm hand in hers. 

And this isn’t in public, but of course there’s the time, in the dark of their her room, that Clarke grabs Lexa’s hand right before she comes and it steals Lexa’s breath so swift and so hard it makes her dizzy. 

who comes up for the other all the time? 

I don’t know what this means…

who hogs the blankets? 

Clarke hogs the blankets because she runs cold, and once Lexa has grown accustomed to falling asleep to Clarke at night, and once waking up to her presence in the middle of the night no longer scares the shit out of her, she’s happy to let Clarke do it because she enjoys the way Clarke looks so peaceful in her cocoon of blankets. 

And sometimes on really cold nights, she wakes up to Clarke in one of Lexa’s hoodies, all wrapped up in the blankets, and Lexa would never admit it, but the sight makes it easier to breathe some how. 

who gets more sad? 

Definitely Lexa. Lexa battles with PTSD and depression and is always overcoming her trauma, even after years of therapy. She’s got a good grasp on it, and has learned how to manage it on a day to day basis. But sometimes there are days when she falls into an emotional and mental pit and just can’t quit pull herself out of it. On days likes these, she can often be found down in her home theater, half asleep as she lets her old french films ramble on in the background. 

Clarke finds her there, in this depressed state, one day when Lexa’s assistant Aden gives her a key and asks her to drop something off for him because he’s running late. It’s heartbreaking, but she knows how Lexa is, so she doesn’t intrude. She simply goes back upstairs and prepares a mug of warm tea that she leaves waiting on the counter for when Lexa is ready. She cleans the kitchen and sweeps the floor and makes sure all of Lexa’s pillows are in the right place and then she leaves for a nearby coffee shop so that’s she’s close but not too close should Lexa need her. She shoots her a text letting her know about the mug and her presence and waits for Lexa to need her or not.

who is better at cheering the other up? 

They’re both pretty good at this though in entirely different ways. Knowing how particular Lexa is about her surroundings, Clarke tends to do what she can to lighten Lexa’s burdens because that’s typically what’s causing Lexa’s stress or upset. She putters around Lexa’s house while she has Lexa nap and when Lexa is ready and awake, they go to the movies and eat popcorn and giggle (Clarke giggles, Lexa definitely does NOT giggle…she would never [she definitely does]) in the back of the theater. And Clarke wraps her hand around Lexa’s and pulls it into her lap and runs her thumb over Lexa’s wrist and Lexa finds herself smiling. 

Lexa on the other hand gets funny and charming in a subtle and unassuming kind of way. She’s got this wit about her that she hides from most people but it sort of just comes out with Clarke. More often than not when Clarke needs cheering up it has to do with her career and so Lexa makes it a point to remind Clarke of who she is outside of an actress and what it is about her that makes her so amazing separate from acting. A lot of that comes in the form of Lexa taking her to dinner (not a date. she doesn’t do dates. just a…get together. like friends do. friends who kiss…and such.) and charming her into smiles and laughs and she even dances with her on the empty patio when all the guests leave as the clock climes towards midnight until Clarke can’t remember why she was upset in the first place. 

who’s the one that playfully slaps the other all the time after they make silly jokes?

Clarke does the slapping. But the best part is that Lexa almost never intends to be funny when this happens. Mostly she just says something that’s on her mind, often of the nerdy/dorky variety, that her “suave and debonair” filter doesn’t catch, and Clarke finds herself bursting out laughing at the ridiculous thing Lexa has just said. It endears them to each other fiercely. 

The only other time this happens is when Lexa says something sexual in Clarke’s ear at the most inappropriate times and it earns her an astonished grin and a slap to the arm or back. 

who is more streetwise?

Lexa spent a lot of time on the streets given her absentee guardian so I’d say Lexa is significantly more streetwise. Clarke grew up in a wholesome, affluent family in a nice Colorado neighborhood, so she would call herself sheltered if pressed.

who is more wise?

I’d also give this one to Lexa. Lexa is older and has more living experience. She’s also been through a great deal more than Clarke has and so she has more experience problem solving and overcoming things. 

Clarke is spontaneous and impulsive and young and vibrant. She rarely takes the time to think things through when it comes to anything other than her roles and wise is not usually the word used to describe her. But Lexa loves that about her and finds it endearing and stunning and perfect…wait, what? 

who’s the shyest? 

Again, this is Lexa. Lexa isn’t great with people naturally. She’s learned to of course given her career but naturally people kind of scare her. No matter how old she gets there’s still a piece of Little Lexa inside her that fears the bullying she’d learned to expect from people as a child. People make her nervous and she doesn’t trust them. If it were up to her, she would communicate solely through email and text. 

She is an amazing leader and commands whatever room she is in like the grace of god itself flows out of her mouth, but it’s a practiced skill. 

Clarke on the other hand comes alive with other people and is happiest in the company of her friends. Lexa finds it both endearing and terrifying. Clarke’s extrovert tendencies help Lexa become more comfortable with people and after some time Lexa finds herself enjoying the little get togethers with Clarke’s friends that Clarke invites her to. Of course it helps that Clarke sits in her lap all night and runs her fingers up Lexa’s neck casually as she talks and laughs with her friends strewn across her apartment. 

who boasts about the other more? 

They’re both pretty ridiculous about this. I mean if you think about it they have the right to be because they’re both seeing an incredible person that everyone would love to be with. 

Lexa is slightly more subtle about her praise, choosing to casually bring Clarke’s movies and roles up in conversation to talk about what great projects they are whereas Clarke goes around essentially shouting about Lexa Woods and her incredible mind and her incredible body and her incredible laugh and butt and hair and wit and her fingers oh my god and her–

That’s when Raven clamps a hand over her mouth and tells her that the box of spaghetti on the grocery store shelf really doesn’t give a shit about how great Lexa Woods is. 

who sits on who’s lap? 

Always Clarke in Lexa’s lap. Whenever, wherever, as often as she can. Lexa pretends to be annoyed with it, but secretly she misses Clarke’s warmth and weight when Clarke sits anywhere else. 

[ambitiouslyamanda-blog]

TEN THINGS I LEARNED IN MY FIRST YEAR OF UNIVERSITY — 05.07.17

First year of university was…wild, to say the least. If you’re reading this, you’re probably a senior in high school struggling to grasp an expectation on what post-secondary will be like, shaking in your scared, bewildered little boots. Have no fear; I am about to disclose to you everything you need to know about your first year of university, from the workload to parties to relationships and beyond. If you’d like to know the ten important lessons I learned in my first year of university, read on!

1. Being away from home for the first time is simultaneously awesome and awful.

If you’re moving into a dorm first year like I did, or are simply moving out into an apartment to go to school, be wary that being away from home has its up’s and it’s downs. While the positives include no rules, curfews, or groundings; going wherever you want, whenever you want; and basically, taking your new city by storm with only you in charge, going away from home for your first time also introduces many new responsibilities you haven’t encountered yet, like paying bills, cooking your own meals, and for some, doing your own laundry. First year, I loved my newfound freedom, but learned rather quickly that it’s necessary balance it with grace and care, making sure the most important things like schoolwork and bills were taken care of before I went out to the bar that night.

2. If you’re moving away to university, you will miss your family and shitty small town.

Homesickness is something that happens to everyone who goes to post-secondary, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. Even I thought I wouldn’t miss the minuscule small town I previously lived in for 6 years and would be perfectly fine without my parents, and I ended up taking the train home the first weekend because I missed them so bad! Truth is, you will miss your parents, siblings, friends, and extended family a lot, especially if you’re travelling too far to visit on weekends and study breaks, so make sure to keep in touch by calling an texting them. Your mom may be hundreds of kilometers across the province, but her sweet, soothing voice is just a ten-digit phone number away.

3. Making friends is much easier than you expect it to be.

When I went away to university, I only knew two people; my roommate, who was my stage manager/good friend in high school, and another girl I went to secondary school with. Safe to say, I was terrified of not being able to make friends due to my obnoxious nature and that I would spend my first year cooped up in my dorm, lonely and bitter. Luckily, this didn’t happen; in fact, I made friends my first day of being at university. I lived on residence, which was the greatest aid to meeting and connecting with people; and to be honest, my residence floor felt like a family to me, and I miss them all tons! I got to meet loads of people during frosh week by doing events and just mingling through my res building, and my academic orientation was also a tremendous help in connecting with people in my program. I know some frosh events and orientations are absolutely abysmal and super lame, but many of the people I was grouped with or had spoken to during these events are still in my life today, either as acquaintances or best friends.

I also want to emphasize that even if you don’t live on res, you can absolutely make friends through your program, campus groups and events, at the gym, or even through study groups. Just do the things you like to do, and you will find someone to connect with.

4. Frat parties are overrated (but good places for booze!)

I’m going to say it – frat parties are kind of  lame and you should not feel obligated to go, even if  all your friends are attending. My rule of thumb is if you have to pay to get into a party, it’s probably not going to be very fun (though there will be ‘free’ booze, so it’s really a balancing act of the pros and cons). Drunk people are obnoxious and impulsive, so visiting parties or going out to crowded bars can easily place you in uncomfortable situations. Be wary of where you’re going, don’t put your drink down out of sight, and always go with another person.

Oh, and please, do not chug your alcohol. You will fucking die if you do.

5. Your schoolwork comes first, and said schoolwork will kick your ass.

University is a social butterfly’s dream, but remember why you’re there to begin with. You need to get your degree, and to do that, you must pass your courses, which requires attending classes and studying your ass off. The jump in workload from high school to university is huge, and preparing yourself for it is important. First year is often considered among upper years to be the easiest out of your four year degree, so take this time to get the best grades you can to improve your GPA in case you bomb a class later in your university career. Studying and finishing up work takes a lot of time, so make sure you plan ahead so you don’t fall behind. If you are overwhelmed with your projects and exams, it’s important to take a step back, breathe, and ask for help if you’re really struggling. Remember – you can retake a class if need be.

6. Professors can either be your best allies or your greatest enemies.

Your teachers in high school probably told you, “your professors aren’t going to baby you like this in university!”, and they’re right. Your professors aren’t going to nag you to hand in your assignments or attend class; they get paid whether you do or you don’t. But most professors do care; and some will undeniably help you get a better grade in their class. Using office hours was something I wish I did more during first year because I absolutely could have used some help when writing essays or studying for exams. A professor is often more than happy to help you improve or send you in the right direction, so don’t be afraid to email them or speak to them after class to schedule an appointment. However, some professors — often the one’s who have to teach hundreds of kids per class — won’t be as helpful. In fact, they can be the least helpful people around, whether it’s treating you like an idiot or being as vague as humanly possible. Feel free to contact TA’s instead of your moody prof for better clarifications.

7. You probably shouldn’t be working a part time job during first year.

Unless you need to do so to pay your bills, I don’t recommend getting a job first year, mostly because your stress levels will be through the roof. If you end up having a steady handle on your school work after your first midterms and have garnered an idea of what your program expects, you can find a weekend job to get some extra cash, but I personally think first year should be about having fun and getting good grades.

8. Drinking and drug use are normalized as all hell in university.

If you were like me and barely drank throughout high school, you will be intrigued to find out that a good 90% of people you meet in university either drink a ton of alcohol or smoke a staggering amount of weed. Sometimes both. While I am someone who drinks probably once a week now, it is important to be open to trying new things but also be safe about it. So no, I’m not telling you to go inject yourself with heroin; I’m saying trying a beer or taking a shot of tequila is perfectly fine. I know most who go into their first year aren’t legal until second semester (in Canada), but I don’t really feel like telling you not to drink because in the end, you’re gonna do whatever the hell you want. Know your limits and again, be aware of your surroundings to ensure your safety.

9.  Finding a relationship should not be a priority!

For some reason, I had envisioned myself meeting the perfect guy first year who would date me and make me ‘happy’ as we traversed coffee shops and listened to avant garde albums together. Safe to say, I was slightly disappointed when that didn’t happen. I want to stress that finding a significant other should not be on your priority list first year (or at any time, really) because you already have so much to focus on. Relationships are sometimes hard, and require a lot of work and energy, which often, you don’t have to spare during the tribulations of freshman year. You have your whole life to fall in love; patience is a virtue.

10. Your health is much more important than school ever will be.

As someone who almost collapsed under the stress and anxiety university brought me, I stand behind the point that before anything else, you need to take care of yourself. Yes, schoolwork is important and social events are fun, but if you’re feeling like you constantly have a weight on your chest or a panic attack every two days, it is important to step back from the stress and get help. Post secondary institutions have mental health initiatives often free for students that include solo, group, or single counselling sessions, along with other things, like stress relieving yoga classes or help lines to call if you’re uncomfortable with professional therapy. If you’re someone privy to catching colds or sicknesses, make sure to let your professors know through emails and academic consideration papers so that you can stay home and rest should you contract something nasty. As someone who wrote three of her exams through bleary eyes, a fever of 101 degrees, no voice, and a nose stuffed to the extreme, I can vouch for the importance of physically taking care of yourself. Indulge in a bath, drink some tea, take a nap, put a face mask on, or even go for a walk — any of these self care practices are important in recharging from the perils of studying and socializing.

There are tons more things I could have disclosed in this article, but these 10 points were the most important for me to state. University is an incredible experience for me so far — and I hope it will be for you as well.

Ambitiously,

Amanda

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[smalltriumphs]

Let’s talk.

I don’t think many people know this but I started this Tumblr blog as a way to cope with anxiety.

If you have the time or interest to go back to my entries from 2010 - which I doubt you do - you’ll notice the posts were text-heavy. I needed to write my feelings down in order to make sense of them, to place the intrusive thoughts elsewhere instead of in my head. I’ve always kept journals and diaries as a kid. I’ve always felt the need to work my emotions out in that way.

Those closest to me know that something happened to me in 2010. Something in me changed, and I’m still not sure if it was for better or for worse. I don’t think I’ve ever explained it here or to even the people in my life. I think I’ve only described it in vague terms: I was overwhelmed. Stressed. I couldn’t take it anymore.

So why am I bringing it up now, nearly seven years later? Mental health has become a prominent topic since then, and it’s truly uplifting and encouraging to see public figures, strangers, and even close friends come to terms with and open up about their own mental health issues. Yesterday was Bell Let’s Talk Day, an initiative created to end the stigma around mental health and to raise money for mental health programs. According to the Bell Let’s Talk Twitter account, $6,585,250.50 will be donated to mental health initiatives in Canada. The money was raised by posting on social media with the hashtag, #BellLetsTalk. Each mention was worth five cents.

Not only were people sharing tweets and Facebook statuses, but also very personal stories in blog posts and Instagram captions about their own struggles dealing with depression, anxiety, and so on. I couldn’t imagine the amount of guts it took for some of these people to take ownership of their mental health issues. I admired their vulnerability and was in awe of their candidness.

And then I felt like a fraud.

Here I was, nodding along in agreement and admiration at everyone’s journey, but I didn’t have the balls to share my own. I shared this feeling of hypocrisy with Miller, and he encouraged me to write about it.

So here it is. I will try to be as honest as possible, but some things I just refuse to share and would rather keep to myself. I hope you understand. Also, since it has been seven years, I likely won’t remember every single detail.

In 2010, I was in my second year of university and I remember feeling incredibly uneasy most of the time. I was taking an ethics class, and not understanding the material at all, which was not a feeling I am used to. My grades were below average, and I didn’t have a single friend in that class to share my anxious feelings with. The teacher was no help either.

Then by the end of the semester, the teacher emailed me to discuss something serious in her office. As I sat down, she told me I failed the class. I don’t remember much but she said, “I’m sorry it had to end this way.” I nodded, fighting back tears. She let me out of her office, and I slowly walked away from her, but I really wanted to bolt.

I immediately told my parents I failed a class, and they were surprisingly supportive and kind, probably because they noticed my zombie-like behaviour and appearance lately. I was relieved to have their support, but that didn’t stop me from feeling like complete shit.

After that, things started to happen to my body. 

I was having a lot of trouble sleeping - so much so that I needed my mother there in order to feel calm. One night, after hours of tossing and turning, I called my mother in. I was about to burst into tears, feeling so frustrated about life. My mom, who was incredibly groggy, tried to calm me down, but failed. Instead, I started shaking.

It was completely involuntary. I had never experienced something like that before. I tried to lie down but I still kept shaking. I asked my mom to hold my hand and sit on me to get me to stop, and she did. Moments later, the shaking ceased. My mom spent the night with me.

That was just the beginning. What followed were months and months of restless nights, random bouts of crying (I cried in the car after a dental cleaning), intrusive thoughts about failure, death, and illness, feelings of inadequacy, difficulty breathing in certain classrooms or public transit...

I went to a couple of doctors, starting with my regular family physician, who told me to stop being idealistic. At the moment, I was bewildered, but I kind of understand what she means now. The second doctor was a man who prescribed me anti-anxiety pills - I took them once and, oh my gosh, never again. I felt incredibly alert and lucid and weird - not really what I want to experience before bedtime.

However, he also recommended I talk to a school counsellor. At the time, it wasn’t widely accepted to go to a counsellor as it was to make a trip to the dentist or physician, but I was desperate and determined to get through this, whatever it was. 

Once or twice a week, I met with a kind, softspoken brunette woman whose office was located in the basement of the university I attended. Muted pastels and light shades of grey surrounded me as I discussed things that I normally don’t bring up in conversation. My utter fear of failure. My affinity for control. The crippling desire to please my parents. I cried in that office more times that I can remember. I was embarrassed at first, but it felt good to finally let go and share the deepest, darkest, most hidden parts of me.

In those sessions, she recommended small things I could do to manage my anxiety. It was there I realized it was something I would probably never get rid of but I could learn to live with if I had the proper tools and resources. Most of them you can guess - friends, family, physical activity, self-care, etc.

Over the years, I tried my best to follow her tips (I have a Type A personality, after all...). Most days were good, but I also had - have - really bad days. And I’m still learning to be OK with the bad days.

I’m not sure what I hope to achieve by sharing this. Was it self-serving, to show how far I’ve come? Was it to participate in a conversation that I’ve been dying to be a part of since 2010? Maybe it’s a bit of both.

If this helps at least one person in any way, then I’m glad I’ve bared a part of my soul.

And now, back to the regularly scheduled programming of reblogged posts.

[jeremyau]

The empathy layer

Can an app that lets strangers — and bots — become amateur therapists create a safer internet?

by Mar 2, 2017, 10:30am EST

Illustrations by Peter Steineck

In January 2016, police in Blacksburg, Virginia, began looking into the disappearance of a 13-year-old girl named Nicole Lovell. Her parents had discovered her bedroom door barricaded with a dresser, her window open. Lovell was the victim of frequent bullying, both at school and online, and her parents thought she might have run away.

On social media, Lovell posted openly about her anguish. On Kik, a messaging app, Lovell told one contact, “Yes, I’m getting ready to kill myself.” In another exchange, she grabbed a screenshot from a boy she liked who had changed his screen name to “Nicole is ugly as fuck.” She broadcasted these private interactions to the wider world by posting them on her Instagram, where she also snapped a photo of herself looking sad, adding the caption “Nobody cares about me.”

Starved for affection among her peers, Lovell sought it out online. Police found a trail of texts on Kik between Lovell and a user named Dr. Tombstone. Kik allows users to remain anonymous, and over the course of a few months, the conversation turned romantic. Tombstone’s real identity was David Eisenhauer, a freshman at Virginia Tech, five years older than Lovell. In a horrific turn of events, authorities say Eisenhauer lured Lovell to meet him, then murdered her.

According to Kik employees of the time, the tragedy was a moment of reckoning for the platform. In the beginning of 2016, the app laid claim to 200 million users, and 40 percent of teenagers in the US. Kik’s terms of service stated that anyone under the age of 18 needed a parent’s permission to use the app, but these rules were easily ignored. Because it allowed users to remain anonymous, a wave of negative press around Lovell’s murder painted Kik as a playground for predators. “It was, for the entire company, a shock,” says Yuriy Blokhin, an early Kik employee who left the company recently. “Everyone felt we had to do more, an increased sense of responsibility.”

Executives at Kik wanted a system to identify, protect, and offer resources to its most vulnerable users. But it had no way of knowing how to find them, and no system in place for administering care even if it did. Through their investors, Kik was put in touch with a small New York City startup named Koko. The company had created an iPhone app that let users post entries about their stresses, fears, and sorrows. Other users would weigh in with suggestions of how to rethink the problem — a very basic form of cognitive behavioral therapy. It was a peer-to-peer network for a limited form of mental health care, and, according to a clinical trial and beta users, it had shown very positive results. The two teams partnered with a simple goal: find a way to bring the support and care found on Koko to Kik users in need.

But as the two companies talked, a more ambitious idea emerged. What if you could combine the emotional intelligence of Koko’s crowdsourced network with the scale of a massive social network? Was there a way to distribute the mental health resources of Koko more broadly, not just in a single app, but to anywhere people gathered online to socialize and share their feelings? Over the last year the team at Koko has been building a system that would do just that, and in the process, create an empathy layer for the internet.

In 1999 Robert Morris, future co-founder of Koko, was a Princeton psychology major who got good grades but struggled to find direction — or a thesis advisor. “They didn't know what to do with me,” Morris told me recently. “I had a bunch of vague and strange research ideas and I would show up to their office with a bunch of bizarre gadgets I had hacked together: microphones, sensors, lots of wires.”

Morris finally found a home at the MIT Media Lab. A budding coder, Morris spent much of his time on a site called Stack Overflow, a critical resource for programmers looking for help on thorny problems. Morris was blown away by the community’s ability to help him on demand and free of charge and wondered if that crowdsourced model could be applied to other personal challenges. “I struggled with depression on and off for much of my life, but my early time at MIT was especially difficult,” he recalls. “I liked StackOverflow, but I needed something to help me 'debug' my brain, not just my code.” For his thesis project, he set out to build just that.

Based on the peer-to-peer model of StackOverflow, Morris’ MIT thesis, named Panoply, offered two basic options: submit a post about a negative feeling or respond to one. To quickly build and test the platform, Morris needed users. So he turned to Mechanical Turk, an online marketplace where anyone can crowdsource simple tasks for a small payment.

Morris taught MTurk workers a few basic cognitive behavioral techniques to respond to posts: how to empathize with a tough situation, how to recognize cognitive distortions that amplify life’s troubles, and how to reframe a user’s thinking to provide a more optimistic alternative. The only quality control Morris put in place was basic reading and writing comprehension. For each completed task the MTurk workers were paid a few cents.

Using an online ad for a stress-reduction study, Morris recruited a few hundred volunteers in order to fully test the system. Like the MTurk workers, the subjects were given some brief training and set loose to post their issues and reframe the issues of others. This random assemblage of people was about as far as you could get from trained and expensive therapists. But in a clinical trial conducted along with his dissertation, Morris found that users who spent two months with the Panoply system reported feeling less stressed, less depressed, and more resilient than the control group. And the most effective help was given not by the paid MTurk workers, but by the unpaid volunteers who were themselves part of the experiment.

It was a single study and has not yet been replicated, but it gave Morris confidence that he was onto something big. And then a stranger came calling. “A week after I defended my dissertation, I got several manic emails out of the blue from some guy named Fraser,” Morris said. “It was immediately apparent that he had an incredibly deep understanding of the problem.”

At the same moment that Morris was building Panoply at MIT, Fraser Kelton and Kareem Kouddous, a pair of tech entrepreneurs, had been pursuing the same idea. The pair had hacked together their own version of a peer-to-peer system for therapy. They recruited participants off Twitter and put them into WhatsApp groups, then had one group teach the other group the basics of cognitive behavioral therapy. “At the end of testing, 100 percent of helpers thanked us for the opportunity to participate and asked if they could keep doing it,” said Kelton. “When we asked why, they all said something along the lines of "for the first time since I finished therapy I found a way to put 5 or 10 minutes a day toward practicing these techniques."

A month later Kelton came across Morris’ work and emailed him immediately. “This is embarrassing, but I think I emailed him two or three times that night,” says Kelton. “We thought we had a clever idea, but he had taken it and jumped miles ahead of where our thinking was, run a clinical trial, gotten results, and defended a dissertation.” Within a few weeks Kelton, Kouddous, and Morris had mocked up a wire frame of an app that became the blueprint for Koko. They called the company Koko because the service is meant to help users by showing them different perspectives. Koko backwards is “ok ok.”

Fraser, who knew the startup scene, approached investors. “It seemed to us that there was a possibility that a peer to peer network in this space was kind of a perfect application,” says Brad Burnham, a managing partner from Union Square Ventures. The firm had previously invested in a number of startups that relied on networks of highly engaged users: Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare. But Burnham had never seen something quite like Koko before. When Koko users added value to the network by rethinking problems, they actually provided value to themselves, by practicing the core techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy. “By helping others, they were helping themselves, and that seemed like a great synergy," said Burnham. In January of 2015 Union Square Ventures, along with MIT’s Joi Ito, invested $1 million into Koko. Less than a month later, the company launched its iOS in beta.

The first time Zelig used Koko, she was sitting in a parking lot waiting to pick up one of her kids from a summer program. She had downloaded the app in search of emotional relief. Her son, an intelligent and outgoing boy with Asperger’s syndrome, seemed to have no place of acceptance outside of home, and was facing the increasing isolation often prevalent in the lives of teens on the autism spectrum. Her younger daughter had just been diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

“I have a special needs kid and high needs kid. My life is not typical,” Zelig explained in a phone call. “It’s pretty stressful and it’s always on. You make attempts to do your best and things don’t work, which is really scary.” She asked that we only use her Koko screen name in this story to preserve her family’s privacy. “My kids were struggling mightily, and there just wasn’t a way for me to see anything that could possibly make it better.”

The Koko app offered Zelig two choices. She could write a post laying out her troubles and share it with everyone who opened the app. They would give her advice on how to rethink her problems — not offer a solution, but rather suggest a more optimistic spin on the way she saw the world. But Zelig didn’t feel ready to open up about her own struggles. “It was hard for me to take the big things going on in my life and make them the size of a tweet, to get to the core. It was hard to turn loose those emotions.”

Instead, Zelig started reading through posts from other users. The Koko app starts users off with a short tutorial on “rethinking.” The app explains that rethinking isn’t about solving problems, but offering a more optimistic take. It uses memes and cartoons to illustrate the idea: if you choose the right reframe, a cute puppy offers his paw for a high-five. The app walks new users through posts and potential reframes, indicating which rethinks are good and which aren’t. The tutorial can be completed in as little as five minutes.

Once users finish the tutorial, they can scroll through live posts on the site. Despite the minimal training, the issues they are confronted with can be quite serious: an individual who is afraid to tell her family that she’s taking anti-depressants because they might think she’s crazy; a user stressed from school who believes “no one actually likes the real me, and if they see it, they will hate me”; a user with an abusive boyfriend who has come to feel “I am a failure and worth being yelled at.” I walked a friend through the tutorial recently, and they were shocked by how quickly Koko throws you into the deep end of human despair.

Koko lets you write anything you want for a rethink, but also offers simple prompts: “This could turn out better than you think because…,” “A more balanced take on this could be…,” etc. The company screens both the posts and rethinks before they become public, attempting to direct certain users to critical care and weed trolls out of the system. Originally, this was accomplished with human moderators, but increasingly, the company is turning to AI.

Accepting and offering rethinks is meant to help users get away from bad mental habits, cycles of negative thought that can perpetuate their anxiety and depression. Over the next few months, Zelig found herself offering rethinks of other Koko users almost every day. “Having it in your pocket is really good. All of sudden it would hit me what I needed say in the reframe, so I would pull my car over, or stand in the produce aisle.”

In the process of giving advice Zelig felt, almost immediately, a sense of relief and control. She began to recognize her own dark moods as variations on the problems she was helping others with. Zelig says the peculiar power of Koko is that by helping others, users are able to help themselves. She eventually got around to sharing her issues, but always felt that “I was more helped by the reframing action than I was by the posting. It trained me to be able to see my world that way.”

The last few years have seen an explosion of startup and mobile apps offering users mental health care on demand. Some, like MoodKit and Anxiety Coach, offer self-guided cognitive behavioral therapy. Others, like Pacifica, mix self-guided lessons with online support groups where users can chat with one another. Apps like Talkspace use the smartphone as a platform for connecting patients with professional therapists who treat them through calls and text messages.

For the moment, Koko is one of just a few company built primarily around a peer-to-peer model. Its best analog might be companies like Airbnb or Lyft. Why pay for a hotel room or black car when the spare apartment or neighbor’s car is just as good? Why pay for therapy when the advice of strangers has proven to be helpful and free?

Studies have found that cognitive behavioral therapy can be as effective at treating depression and anxiety as prescription drugs. Since the 1980s, people have been practicing self-guided cognitive behavioral therapy through workbooks, CD-ROMs, and web portals. But left to their own devices, most people don’t finish courses or stop practicing fairly quickly.

Koko is still a tiny company, staffed by the three co-founders and one full-time employee, all based out of New York City. To date, over 230,000 people have used Koko, and more than 26 million messages have been sent through the app over the last six months. Many, like Zelig, have used it on a daily basis for more than a year. But like so many mobile apps these days, Koko has struggled to attract a large following.

The Koko team always knew it would be difficult to charge users for the app, or to make money advertising to a relatively small number of anonymous users. It was at this critical juncture that the team from Kik came calling. After the murder of Nicole Lovell, Kik reached out to its investors at Union Square Ventures for advice. Burnham connected Kik with Koko, setting in motion an entirely new direction for the young company.

When users sign up for Kik, the first contact added to their address book is a chatbot. It answers questions about the service, tells jokes, and posts updates about new features. “A few months before meeting with Koko, we noticed something interesting happening with the Kik bot,” said Yuriy Blokhin, the former Kik engineer who helped forge the partnership with Koko. “People were not only talking to it the way it was meant to be, as a brand ambassador, but also sometimes people were mentioning they were depressed, concerned about their parents getting a divorce, or being unpopular at school.”

Kik didn’t know how to respond to these kinds of emotional confessions, but Koko did. It had millions of posts, carefully labeled by workers from Mechanical Turk to describe the type of problem they represented. It used that database to train artificial intelligence that could respond to posts sent to a chatbot. If the content of a message was critical — defined by Kokobot as being a danger to themselves or others — it would connect users with a service like Crisis Textline; if the issue was manageable, the bot would pass the person on to Koko users; if it was a troll, the bot would hide the post. This is the same AI approach Koko now uses to classify posts on its peer-to-peer network.

Once that approach proved successful, Koko went one step further. If a user posted about a stress Koko had a highly rated response for — a sick family member, a difficult test at school, a spat with a significant other — the chatbot would automatically offer up that rethink. The AI was now acting as a node in the peer-to-peer network.

Beginning in August 2016, any user on Kik could share their stress with the Kokobot. Most received a reply in just a few minutes. Working with Kik made Koko realize how big the business opportunity was. “Do a search on Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, any social network, and you will find a cohort of users reaching out into the ether with their problems,” said Kelton. The team realized that if they could train an AI to identify and respond to users sharing emotional stress, they might also be able to train algorithms to automatically detect users who were at risk, even if they hadn’t reached out. Koko was transforming itself into an intervention tool, scanning platforms and stepping in on its own volition. Koko hopes to provide these tools to online communities for free, using the feedback to train an AI with services it can one day sell to digital assistants like Siri and Alexa.

The move into detection and intervention, however, has been complicated. This past January, the team set up the Koko bot on two Reddit forums r/depression and r/SuicideWatch. It scanned incoming posts, and messaged several users offering help.

The response wasn’t what Koko engineers had expected: the community was outraged.

“I feel deeply disturbed that they would use a bot to do this,” wrote one user. “Disgusting that assholes would try and take advantage of people,” wrote another. The moderator of the two forums set up a warning advising users to ignore Koko’s chatbot. “I have to say that the technology itself looks like an interesting idea,” the moderator wrote. “But if it's in the hands of people who behave in this way, that is incredibly disturbing.” The Verge reached out to both moderators and users who left angry comments about Koko, but did not hear back.

The Koko team acknowledged it made a mistake by allowing its chatbot to send messages on Reddit without warning, and not educating users and moderators about who they were and what their goal was. But Kelton believes that the feedback from users who did interact with the bot on Reddit shows the system can do real good there. “One mod bent out of shape on how we handled the launch vs. many at-risk people helped in a way that they appreciated,” was a trade-off Kelton could live with. “Helping mods understand and embrace the service is a containable problem, one that we're already having good success with.”

In January 2017, top officials from the US military met with executives from Facebook, Google, and Apple at the Pentagon. The topic was suicide prevention in the age of social media. The federal government considers the subject a top priority, as suicide has become the leading cause of death among veterans. For the tech companies, the problem is wide ranging. Among teenagers in the United States, most of whom spend six and a half hours each with their smartphones and tablets daily, suicide is the second leading cause of death.

In attendance was Matthew Nock, a professor of psychology at Harvard and an expert in suicide prediction and prevention. When it comes to using technology for detection and intervention, “the consensus in the academic community is there is great potential promise here, but the jury is still out,” says Nock. “Personally I have seen a lot of interest in people using social media and the latest technologies to understand, predict, and prevent suicidal behavior. But so far many of the claims have outstripped the actual data.”

Despite those concerns, Nock is interested in what companies like Koko might offer. “We know that cognitive behavioral therapy is effective for treating people with clinical depression. There is not enough cognitive therapy to reach everyone who needs it.” Koko provides people with the simple tools they can use to help themselves and others. “These people aren’t clinicians, they have been trained in the basics, but for scaling purposes, I think it’s what we can do right now.”

The scalability of tech makes it an alluring tool for mental health — but the business comes with unique risks. “Everyone wants to be the Uber of mental health,” says Stephen Schueller, an assistant professor at Northwestern University who specializes in behavioral intervention technologies. “The thing I worry about is, unless you have a way to make sure the drivers are behaving appropriately, it’s hard to make sure people are getting quality care. Psychotherapy is a lot more complicated than driving a car.”

Koko’s experience with Reddit wasn’t the first mishap to befall company trying to scale mental health, an industry traditionally made up of heavily regulated, sensitive, one-on-one clinical relationships across an online community. Those challenges were made apparent in the case of Talkspace, where therapists didn’t feel they were able to warn authorities about patients who may have been a danger to themselves or others. That led some therapists to abandon the platform. Samaritans, a 65-year-old organization aimed at helping those in emotional distress, released an app in 2014 called Samaritan Radar. It attempted to identify Twitter users in need of help and offer assistance. But due to the public nature of the interaction, the warnings ended up encouraging bullies and angering users who felt their privacy had been invaded.

The ethics of using of artificial intelligence for this work has become a central question for the industry at large. “The potential demand for mental health is likely to always outstrip the professional resources,” says John Draper, project director at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. “There is increasingly a push to see what can technology do.” If AI can detect users at risk and engage them in emotionally intelligent conversations, should that be the first line of defense? “These are important ethical questions that we haven’t answered yet.”

In a recent manifesto on the state of Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that as people move online, society has seen a tremendous weakening of the traditional community ties that once provided mental and emotional support. To date, creating software that restores or reinforces those safeguards has been a reactionary afterthought, not an overarching goal. Systems designed to foster clicks, likes, retweets, and shares have become global communities of unprecedented scale. But Zuckerberg was left to ask, “Are we building the world we all want?”

“There have been terribly tragic events -- like suicides, some live streamed -- that perhaps could have been prevented if someone had realized what was happening and reported them sooner. There are cases of bullying and harassment every day, that our team must be alerted to before we can help out. These stories show we must find a way to do more,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Artificial intelligence can help provide a better approach. We are researching systems that can look at photos and videos to flag content our team should review.” In early March it was reported that Facebook had begun testing an AI system which scanned for vulnerable users and reached out to offer help.

The goal for Koko is the same, but distributed across any online community or social network. Its AI hopes to reach vulnerable users, people like Nicole Lovell, who are posting cries for help online, searching for an empathic community. On a recent afternoon I opened the Koko app, and spent an hour scrolling through a litany of angst: not having the money to complete school, feeling obsessed with an older married man, overwhelmed at the prospect of caring for sick relatives who can no longer remember your name. Beneath each post, three or four users had suggested rethinks, blueprints for coping that users could learn from.

For people who are suffering, knowing that others are in pain, and that they can do something about it, is one way of healing themselves. “Something that caught me right away and kept me coming back to the app again and again was the amazing feeling of hope,” said Zelig, when I emailed her recently to ask a few questions about Koko. “That regardless of all the crap that seemed to be happening in my life, that I could still be of help to someone and could take a positive action.”

Zelig’s kids, like most teenagers, have become keenly interested in what keeps their mother occupied on her smartphone. “They see me typing away and want to know what I’m doing,” Zelig explained. “I’ll ask them, do you think this is a reframe? How would you do it? It was cool, because it’s a puzzle we solve together. What is the critical thing this person was dealing with? [It’s] an emotional, social puzzle.”

A year and a half after she downloaded the app, Zelig still uses it almost every day, but she doesn’t consider herself to be in a state of crisis anymore. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Koko using chatbots and AI to reach out to people who had never heard of the service. At first she told me that if a chatbot had approached her out of the blue, she would have ignored it. But she wrote back later to say that, if these technologies mean more people find their way into the Koko community, she’s in favor. “Life really had me and our family by the throat there for a while,” she told me. “Koko was part of what gave me the ability to see a way through to the other side.”

Illustrations by Peter Steineck

[adenathebean-blog]

The Great Job Search of 2017

Hello all,

Wow, another super long break between blog posts. But you’ll be glad to hear that I’ve actually been busy over the past few weeks and not just sitting in my apartment watching k-dramas. I’d spent a fair amount of time growing accustomed to my new apartment, neighborhood, church, and friends over the past seven weeks, so naturally, my next step was to begin the daunting process of finding a job.

I’d gotten a lot of mixed reviews on being a teacher in Cambodia, some from friends and acquaintances who have experience and some from all of the online research that I’d done. Some of the pros included my status as a UK citizen and my time spent in the US, my age, the desperate need for native English teachers in SE Asia, my TEFL certificate, and the fact that I’m a female. The cons largely consisted of my age, the oversaturation of “do-good” teachers in SE Asia, my lack of a bachelor’s degree, and the fact that I’m black. Surprisingly (or maybe unsurprisingly), none of this advice was the least bit helpful. Any education standards that exist in Cambodia are rarely followed and whether you get hired or not is up the complete discretion of whoever you end up in the interview room with.

So, with high expectations and images of local flocking to me, begging me to teach their children, I did some research about the international schools closest to me. And by research, I mean that I typed “school” into Google maps and clicked on the results that were in English. I then proceeded to wade through pages and pages of information that was either incredibly vague or had nothing to do with me (that is, if the website was functioning in the first place). The foreign teachers in Cambodia pages I’d joined on Facebook were incredibly helpful during this stage and I check in almost every day to see what new positions were available in the city.

Being the planner that I am, I made a document with a list of the most promising schools, their distance from my apartment, when the next term began, and some of their requirements for prospective teachers. Then I went down my list and emailed each of the schools in turn and waited patiently for some responses. Besides a single rejection email, on the grounds that I wasn’t qualified enough (no shocker there) I got nada. And as much as I had been warned, I was finally learning first hand that Cambodia is not a country of planners and organizers and schedulers.

At that point, I didn’t really know what to do, so I waited it out for a bit, not sure what my other options were. A few days later, I did end up scheduling an interview with a small school that I had several good recommendations from people at church. The interview was online and went well, despite my webcam choosing that precise morning to stop working. Another school also called and asked if I could come in and do a teaching demo. I said yes, but the prospect of doing an hour long teaching demo with 3-4 year olds and no interview beforehand was more than a little daunting. The night before the demo was scheduled was one of the most difficult I’ve had since moving to Cambodia. I was missing family and friends and the lifestyle I’d grown accustomed to and the next morning (after I’d called my mom and finally managed to stop crying) I called to reschedule the demo. In typical Cambodia fashion, they told me they’d call back and let me know what future day and time worked best for them. As you can imagine, that was the last I heard from them. And the day after that I was contacted by the school I’d interviewed with and told that they were very sorry, but they had no positions available until the end of June. (Not sure why they interviewed me and gave me every detail of the contract if they didn’t have any vacancies, but I’m not bitter. Heh.)

In any case, that week ended up being a dud and I honestly wasn’t feeling very motivated to keep searching for a job in a field where those in charge seemed to be intentionally unhelpful. On the other hand, I spend most of my days stressing about running out of money and being a penniless cat woman in the middle of Phnom Penh. There were a lot of desperate prayers and even more not so useful advice during that time. The most frustrating part had to be the questions that people asked at church and other social gatherings.

Them: So what brought you to Cambodia?

Me: That’s a long story haha. Lots of things brought me here.

Them: Like what?

Me: (expiring visa, too late to apply for school, America’s kicking me out, didn’t feel like going to England, people at church from Cambodia, Asia’s cool, K-pop, Cambodia’s as close as I can get to Korea right now) I just feel like God called me here, ya know?

Them: Cool, cool. So what are you doing here?

Me: At church?

Them: No, in the country. Are you working?

Me: Ah not yet. Looking though. Do you have any recommendations for good schools?

Them: Oh, so you’re a teacher?

Me: Well, not yet.

Them: So you just finished your degree?

Me: *desperately looking for a way out of this convo* No actually, still working on that. I have my TEFL though.

Them: Do you have any experience?

Me: I tutored and worked with the teen ministry in San Diego.

Them: I see. How old are you?

Me: Twenty-one.

Them: Oh, you’re young.

Me: Yeah.

Them: Yeah

 So that was fun. So much fun. Anyway, I was seriously starting to doubt my purpose in Cambodia. It’s true, I have no experience in the classroom and I spent the last twenty years of my life proclaiming to the unwashed masses that the last thing I ever wanted to do was teach, especially kids. God is funny like that. He likes to answer a few prayers and then throw us for a loop by giving us something we never asked for, but learn to appreciate later. (Maybe if I tell him I never want to marry a tall, handsome, Asian man who appreciates the fine arts, plays six instruments, and loves the outdoors…) Wow, these posts are getting more and more personal as I go along. Anyway, last Thursday I did another intensive round of applications, including making phone calls and actually visiting a couple of schools and handing over my CV. One of the schools I had the address for (and had spoken to the director of) turned out not to exist, at least not in the place that it claimed to. The encouragement was strong with this round and by Thursday evening, I had secured four interviews. One was postponed as the school had another applicant who they’d already met with express interest in taking the position.

So, feeling much more sprightly and confident, I spent Friday morning playing my part as a wedding singer. (True story. Chiara and I sang Amazing Grace at the most beautiful wedding that I have ever been to. If this teaching thing doesn’t work out, being a professional wedding singer is my next choice.) That afternoon, I had my first in person interview. It went well. The school was nice, as were the principal and vice principal and its strongest feature was the proximity to the apartment. Monday came along and I had another interview at a school that was much further away, but the campus was new and clean and the director was a fellow Brit, which earned him (and me, I think) extra points. The last interview was on Monday afternoon and it was the one I was most nervous about. With the previous two, I had sent my CV ahead of time, so they had interviewed me knowing that I didn’t have a degree of very much experience. I’d simply made an inquiry to the last school about whether they had positions and they’d asked me to interview right away (I actually had to reschedule because of the wedding).

I had no idea what I was going into and ended up at the wrong campus. There are three different campuses, one for kindergarten, one for primary, and one for high school, which is where the main office is. I showed up at the kindergarten one, but luckily all of the campuses are on the same street within walking distance. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the director who I was supposed to interview with was fifteen minutes late. Once he showed up though, it was smooth sailing all the way through. He was the first person to conduct one of my interviews who wasn’t a westerner, although his English was phenomenal. Despite this, he had some of the most western ideals out of all of the people I’d spoken to during my job hunt. He placed a lot of emphasis on communication (which is a rarity in Cambodia) as well as parental involvement (also rare) and said that he likes to give people chances, it’s just up to them to prove they deserve it. And then he whipped out a contract right then and there. We went through it together, I asked all of my questions, and we sealed the deal. As of the 29th of May, 2017, I became a kindergarten teacher at True Visions International School!

Funnily enough, half an hour after I’d gotten home and done a victory lap around my apartment, I got a call from the school that I’d interviewed with that morning, letting me know that I’d passed the interview and they had a position for me with their kindergarten class. It was the same pay, and although I liked both schools, True Visions really won me over and is much closer to where I’m living, so I’m incredibly satisfied with my choice.

Now that the easy part is over, all I have to do is learn how to teach English to kindergarteners. Woohoo!