#lol not me posting another one at 3am on a sunday

[flower-cage]

To Serve

by @flower-cage Ao3 | Masterlist Aemond Targaryen x Servant!Reader Summary: That morning, the crown Prince entered the young Queen's chambers and changed your life forever.

Words: 3,768

Warnings: explicit sexual content, dubious consent, power imbalance, humiliation kink, voyeurism. Minors, do not interact.

Your new role of serfdom started not unlike that of attending to the needs and whims of the Dragons. Up before dawn, you ensured that dresses were washed and perfumed, jewelry and shoes polished. In the late morrow, you served tea to the Queen and her mother. At luncheon, you would have taken the chance, in their absence, to clean and tidy their chambers, had it not been for your newest promotion.

That morning, while his sister and mother broke their fast, the Prince entered the young Queen’s chambers and changed your life forever.

He had always paid you close attention. In truth, only seldom were you ever in the presence of the one-eyed Prince, but whenever chance brought you together, you felt his lingering, insistent gaze on the hairs in the back of your neck. Always. 

It did not take long for others to take notice of it, too. Often the maids would tease you for the interest you had awakened in the Prince known to be harsh and cold and cruel like a winter storm.

“You are fortunate he does not take after his brother’s depraved malversations,” you would often hear.

This was what the whole of Westeros knew of him back then, before the Dance.

That morning, you had twisted your hands in your apron, standing outside his door and garnering the strength to raise one of them to the wooden slabs.

“It is unlike my son to show interest in a lady,” the Dowager Queen had told you, clinking a silver teaspoon against fine porcelain, “or anyone at all, for that matter.”

Your guts knotted of their own accord. Your spine shuddered cold.

“I would like you to tend to his needs from now on,” she had announced easily, breaking apart a piece of crusty bread. “All of his needs.”

Now, you often wonder if she would have offered you so unashamedly if she had known he would mature into such an unscrupulous man. Or, you wonder most often, perhaps she had always known. Perhaps she had hoped he would satisfy his dormant savagery, then inhibited by a pretense of duty and propriety, if only she delivered him a feast before it fully wakened.

And feast he would, though his hunger would never be sated.

In the end, he would teach you everything you learned of this world of carnal indulgences.

That morning, he had risen leisurely from his seat of leather, strode to you lazily, smiled self-assuredly. You stood stoic, hands fidgeting and sweating behind your back, a half-step past his chambers’ door after courage and fear had finally coaxed you in.

He stalked toward you until his nose brushed yours faintly and your back rested against the cold wood. His eye roamed you freely, his masculine scent of leather and cedar crowded your senses, and your body shuddered beneath his desirous stance.

“I shall not take that which is not freely given,” his whisper tickled the shell of your ear, “and I shall not award what is not yet desired.”

His promise stretched on for days on end.

You tended to him much like you had his sister: tending to his chambers, washing his clothing, learning his habits. You served him wine at supper and tea in the morrow. You dressed him before Small Council meetings and bathed him after his daily practices.

Until you didn’t.

“Prince Aemond requests your services,” a familiar knight announces after rapping on the door.

You rise from where you have been sitting at your vanity table, combing your hair to a shine as is your Prince’s preference. You fix the sleeves on your dress, but it does not grant you any decency whatsoever, not when its translucent, iridescent silk ostensibly reveals the shape and shades of your bare body, not when the slit that travels up your right thigh cuts up to your hip bone. 

Such are and have always been your Prince’s preferences.

“Where is your uniform?” he asked you sternly when you met him at the training grounds.

He took the cup of fresh water from the tray you carried, gulping down its contents to then wipe his face and short hair with the towel you brought him.

“M-my Prince?” you asked timidly, breathless at the abrupt inquiry and at the sweat that glistened his pale skin.

“The dresses I gifted you,” he pressed, displeased. “I thought I made myself clear - you are to wear them henceforth. You are to solely wear them.”

His sharp gaze was menacing, surely, but the disappointment was there, too, hidden in the glint of his blue eye to chastise and guilt you. Though mortified at the improper implications of his demands, the thought of disobeying him was what truly shook you to the core.

The White Cloak takes you to a set of heavy doors which he pushes open to reveal King Aegon II’s Small Council. He was once the depraved son of King Viserys I, but he is no longer the exclusive bearer of such a title.

Your Prince sits to the left of the King now, across from the Lord Hand, in a great position of power. The Dance had reshaped many things in the Realm, and he had been no exception. 

He doesn’t cover his monstrous gash and sapphire stone like he used to when his mother was still alive. He hasn’t held many habits of propriety since. More scars cut across his milky skin, some even crawling from beneath his collar, and the long white mane he used to proudly maintain in honor of his heritage is kept short to enhance all of his additional, menacing features.

His body is that of a man, now: no longer slim and taut but large and burly from battle, and yet his most striking transformations had not been merely bodily.

You walk toward him surely but quietly, eyes fixed on him whilst he does not award you a single glance. He is engrossed in the scheming that does not halt at your entrance, but you know he wants you when you see his parted knees, when you see leather pulled tight over his stiff shaft.

His jaw is clenched tight and the fingers on his right hand fiddle around thin air, so you know to step silently between his parted legs and descend to your knees underneath the table. The rough fingers that do not worry over it snake around the back of your head to gently thread through your hair. He needn’t say nor command anything else.

You stroke him to full hardness, grazing your teeth against the base and running your nose along the shaft, to then unbutton him quietly.

He is as silky and warm as always against your tongue. He drags against your cheeks when you hollow them and his skin, taut around his swollen tip, pulls back and forth when you suck on it. You don’t recall when you first enjoyed his weight in your mouth this much.

You risk a glance at him. He pays you no mind, and his stoic façade gives away nothing, but his chest moves up and down rapidly and you know it means you’re being good. You suppress a whine at his modest appreciation.

He is impossibly handsome as he towers over you, gaze sharp and jaw tight as he ignores you. You want nothing more than his praise and attention, so you lick and please him slowly, lazily and patiently. He is busy, you remind yourself, and he will reward you when the time comes. He always does.

Between your thighs, your skimpy dress slickens with your arousal as it builds steadily to an insatiable ache. It has become second nature for your body to give in to him in this way, even when he has yet to touch you. He has trained you this way.

“Have you kept it wet for your Prince?” he whispers against your neck each time he comes back to his quarters in the early evening. 

The question is often accompanied by a slithering hand, like a snake that seeks warmth, it buries itself in your cunt to confirm it is to his standards. He hums in satisfaction each time.

“When in my presence,” he had told you once, depositing you in an armchair across his desk, “I want to marvel at my cunt freely,” he explained as he hooked your knees over the armrests and bunched your skirts around your waist.

And you awakened breathless, hours later, with his tongue licking inside you and his nose on your pearl of pleasure. 

You had stood no chance. To you, he is intrinsically bound to that feeling that crawls under your skin, that under his touch erupts in elation.

Now, you are wide awake and it is you who tastes him eagerly. 

When he begins to drip, hot and salted, your fingers grip his thighs harder as your own quiver in a need you haven't been able to control in a long time. You look at him again. His cheeks are hollowed, jaw locked shut, eyes slitted in fury.

The lords in the Small Council haven’t halted their discussion despite your interruption and it is clear what they discuss displeases your Prince greatly. If not, he might have not summoned you.

This is not the first time the Prince has had you in their presence, it is not the first time he has had you in the presence of others at all. If it had been, perhaps you would have been capable of greater shame.

When he took you in and you proceeded to tend to him exclusively, little of your customary routine changed. But when his demands started to reflect his true intentions, his true desires, it couldn’t be said you were a simple maid of the palace.

That first time, you had been brushing your hair at your vanity, as you often now did, and applying to your skin the feminine oils your Prince preferred. In an immodest lavender dress of his choosing and delicate jewelry he appreciated, you tended to yourself as he demanded.

The doors to his sleeping chambers push open to allow a small entourage of maids to set his breakfast - your breakfast. Your jerk reaction is to look away from them, the people who had once been your colleagues, and hide your healthy, pampered face. 

Your eyes land on his lavish, sunny balcony where he leans against the railing directly across from you. He loves to watch his beast terrorize the city below with her sky-bound rounds first thing in the morrow. But he watches her no longer.

He shines brightly and god-like under the sun; his messy short hair glows a halo above him, and the sapphire lodged on the left side of his face glints to highlight the cut of his scar like thunder. Despite the warmth of the morning shine, he is cold, white-cold, with his silver hair and porcelain skin, his milky chemise that reveals his milky chest, and his silky pants that bulk to reveal his salacious musings.

Your breathing quickens as you take him in fully, in all his terrifying, improper glory. Your hand holds your brush halfway through its path and your lips hang parted as he holds your gaze intently, as you watch him with a hunger that escapes your agency.

When he pushes off the stone ledge, you let your brush hit the floor. Such is the effect he has on you, such is the extent of his influence.

He drops to frame you within his arms, leveraging against the cushioned seat of your vanity desk, to take your lips in sloppy teasing, giving you just enough of a taste that something within you quivers wantonly.

Behind you, the porcelains and silvers continue to clink against the wood, chairs scrape across the stone, and heavy cloth slaps in the still air.

“What’s this, then?” he whispers and deprives you of his tongue too quickly. You grasp onto his strong arms to center yourself, breathing heavily against him. 

Fingers run up your inner thigh and you shiver violently, desiring him violently.

“Are you ashamed of serving your Prince?” he grins maliciously.

“O-of course not my-” you choke on a gasp when he brings his hot lips to your neck, sucking on the spots that have you dripping under your skimpy gown.

He takes your left knee and hooks it around his hip, pulling you flush against him as he presses you down on the long chaise. A yelp escapes you when you feel his hot girth against your cunt.

“Or are you ashamed of how thoroughly you enjoy it?” he grunts against your lips, thrusting his clothed bulge against you. You bite your lips closed painfully as you are painfully aware of the people behind you.

“I didn’t say you could leave,” he barks, glancing upward to your utmost horror. You hear the servants scurry behind you, imagining their bowed heads and embarrassed looks. Your own embarrassment grows until tears gather in the corners of your eyes.

“Not until she comes,” he adds, looking at you, grinning widely, while he snakes a hand between your legs and burrows his fingers deep inside in a swift stroke.

You burn in shame when your eyes roll to the back of your head and a long whine is forced out of your lips.

“It won’t be long now,” he continues, watching your tears spill, fucking your cunt fast, “she is wet and swollen already.”

Indeed, the noises coming from between your legs are excessively obscene. And he is right, he knows your cunt - his cunt - too well.

When he plugs you with his thick girth, you whine and moan in complete abandon. And when he plows you fast enough to make the chaise scrape against the floors, you scream and beg for him before soaking his cock in your unlimited ecstasy.

The first time he’s ever had you in the presence of others was long ago.

Now, you know that when his fingers tighten on your nape you are to release his hard cock quickly. You know to mount it instead.

You make quick, silent work of it not to disturb him and the processes of the court that still unravel behind you. You straddle his thighs, tuck your toes behind his knees, grip his leather vest tightly, and hide your face in the crook of his neck. The hand that had been in your hair now rests on your hip, thumb hooked under the scandalous slit of your dress to bury in the crease where your thigh meets your hip.

You count the time that passes in the drops of sweat that roll down your temple, in shaky breaths you rein against his skin, in the thrums of your blood.

Your cunt, dripping and dripping, quivers weakly around him. Though you refrain from moving and driving yourself to your insanity, it throbs on his shaft as you feel the mere ghost of his touch on your most pleasurable spot.

Your body aches with the effort of keeping composure, keeping quiet, keeping from breaking. And every time your Prince has input on the session that stretches on, his chest rumbles and you must refrain from mewling in satisfaction.

It is not until your mind is hazy with exhaustion and your eyes spill tears of agony that the heavy chairs start to scrape against the stone floors, one by one. Your heartbeats pick up their rhythm from where they had rested in patience. 

And when footsteps follow, he pulls your face from hiding by the sweaty hairs on the back of your neck.

A small yet immensely condescending smile plays on his sculpted lips. It makes you aware of your humiliating conditions: a servant, chosen to fulfill the pleasures of her liege Prince, at the brink of insanity from entertaining her own pleasures instead.

You are lost in his mismatched blue eyes, so much so that you are caught off guard when he starts shoving your hips back and forth to grind on his cock. Instantly, it drags a long gasp from you, crosses your eyes, waters your mouth.

“Hm?” he questions patronizingly, looking down with a raised eyebrow that mocks your lustful reaction.

His ministrations are excruciating, his cockhead bullying hard and unforgiving on your most pleasurable spot. In this way, you are violently driven to ecstasy, just shy of peaking with the same intensity, when he halts all movement without warning.

But you are given time to neither cry nor beg for his mercy, for he hugs you tight to his chest, angles your hips up and away from his cock, and thrusts.

You gasp painfully against his leather-covered pecs when he does, and he soon pulls your head back by your hair to place your chin against it instead.

Through your pleasure-hazed eyes, you see his mirth and his composure. And it is always this way: regardless of how eagerly he takes you, no matter how passionately he desires you, you are always the one debauched and he is always the one untarnished, always viciously becoming of his royal status.

“Go on then,” he murmurs when he watches your tears roll the sides of your face, your lips parted in unbearable pleasure. “Go on and cream on it.”

Because his growl electrifies you from within, because you’ve learned to be promptly obedient, because you cannot help it, you do as he commands.

Your cunt contracts so tightly, for a second his cock gets trapped mid-thrust before he repeatedly shoves himself inside you to forcefully ride the surges of your orgasm. Your loose chin bumps against his chest, leaving sloppy trails behind, and your breasts spill, little by little, from the flimsy restraint of the fabric that skates down between your bodies.

He loves to debase you in this way.

He doesn’t stop, and you are unable to determine when your first orgasm ends and the second starts to mount.

But he can.

He hisses when he feels it - your cunt throbbing again, dripping relentlessly - and bares his sharp teeth in a sneer, watching your glimmering, dopey eyes.

His grip on your hip strengthens, the arm that loops around your back to grasp your hair tenses, and he rises to his feet only to drop you unceremoniously onto the stone surface behind you.

“Gods,” he growls, slows his ministrations, and you savor every excessive inch of his, so evident now your cunt is hot and swollen from the long wait, from the incessant grinding. “I would keep you on my cock from sunrise to nightfall.”

He holds onto your hips, forcing them down against the table so that you don’t slide away from his calculated, powerful pushes, and watches his shaft disappear within you attentively.

“I would keep you on it,” he licks his lips, “at tea with my sister,” he meets your eyes again, after appreciating the uncoordinated bouncing of your breasts.

“On my morning flights,” he continues, lowering himself to hover above you, a hand pressed next to your head. “And I would carry you, and display you on my hard cock, all over this castle.”

He picks up his brutish pace again and you gasp and whine unabashedly, and new tears spill from your unfocused eyes, and your bottom lip quivers. Such is the effect of his praise.

“What’s that now, huh?” he coos, forcing a little sob from you, but you are unable to communicate. Instead, you part your lips and plead with big, wet eyes.

He lets go of your hip to support himself fully on his forearms, hovering a bit closer now. You can feel his warmth, now, you can scent his luscious exertion.

His nose brushes lightly against your own, just beyond reach, and you can’t avoid bending your back, tilting your chin, or your tongue poking out between your teeth, desperate for a taste.

His eye darkens significantly and he tuts in feigned disappointment.

“Needy little thing,” he murmurs, only to plunge his soft tongue right where you yearned for it.

His kisses are supple and sloppy and not enough to sate you. When he pulls away and you whine in agony, he lets his drool slide down his tongue and onto yours. And the debauchery of the act drives pathetic moans from your lips and desperate rolls of your hips.

Above you, your Prince moans and hisses, then plunges himself against your sweetest spot with renewed, unstoppable vigor. And yet again you cry pathetically, eyes crossing and mouth hanging open, tits flying and slapping, cunt gushing and thrumming.

“I fucking love it when you get like this,” your Prince grunts viciously behind gritted teeth, shoving his girthy length in and out without mercy for your sanity.

“Wet,” his hand lowers to grope your plump bottom, “hot,” he forces you against his unforgiving plows, “utterly dimwitted for your Prince’s cock.”

He loves to debase you in this way, and the response you manage is a string of blabbering, dimwitted pleas.

“If I didn’t know any better,” he grunts again, panting above you as his crazed movements and your lascivious reactions burn his muscular body, “I’d think you’re falling in love with it.”

“Oh, I am!” you yelp, long and loud, mind entirely lost in the bliss he fucks into you. “I love it… I love my Prince’s cock,” you whimper timidly against his lips and he angles his cock to bully that spongy, swollen button of yours.

“Yeeess,” you moan again. “There, there,” you beg with your cries and beseeching eyes.

You come on a scream that reverberates through the tall, stony walls of the Small Council room. And though your walls contract viciously, your Prince pushes through them determinedly, driving you to an immediate third peak that absolutely floods your cunt before he even dumps his hot seed inside you. 

You come on his cock long and hard, and you come still when he too finishes. And when he drops his weight onto you, finally, and his head thumps against the table next to yours, your cunt still flutters from the sensorial memory of the onslaught it endured.

Your skin is impossibly hot and sweaty, and your body impossibly exhausted.

And yet.

“Tonight,” your Prince starts after long moments of silence, raising his head only to meet your eyes, “we will hold a private audience for the King.”

Your body shivers cold, your eyes bulge out, but your cunt contracts around him meekly.

He watches you closely, with his eye delighted and a wide grin, malicious. 

“I want you just like this,” he warns, taking your jaw in a firm grasp, “on your best behavior.”

He loves to debase you, and you love to serve him.

[the59er]

13 Jan 2025

13th January 2025, Monday Listening: Wake Up, Arcade Fire

Work went by fast because we were so busy, even my boss didn't have time to check on my deck that I (last minute) prepared until 430am last night. Yes, I only had 2 hours of sleep, this has got to stop this year 😵‍💫

Lunk was mamak which I did not finish despite it being tasty because he gave me wayyy too much,

--

14 Jan 2025

14th January 2025, Tuesday Listening: I Want to Hold Your Hand, TV Carpio

I started purging since 3am last night, it was insane!! I could only fell asleep after 6am. Texted my boss at 4am to skip work.

At 10am finally got the energy to get out of bed and thankfully Dad was in so I made him drive me to the clinic. AND THE CLINIC TOOK FOREVER.

I just slept whole day and did not open my work laptop at all which was probably the first time for me. Damn you food poisoning!! I narrowed it down and I highly believe it was caused by this drink from 7-Eleven;

NEVER AGAIN!

--

15 Jan 2025

15th January 2025, Wednesday Listening: I Still Think of You, hafner

Food poisoning day 2. Felt a bit better but still nauseated hence had to call in sick again which annoyed my boss (I could tell based on his text reply to me) but hey, I don't live just to work, okay?

Tried to swallow bubur but it went back out. Had to log in for work towards the end of the day anyway. Sigh..

- -

16 Jan 2025

16th January 2025, Thursday - Happy birthday to Kate Moss 💅🏻 Listening: Everybody Talks, Neon Trees

My morning was spent on a call over my 2 days of absence 💆🏻‍♀️ After Zohor I left to the office to continue work & YY was in too so I got company. They visited Nat yesterday at Pantai, I hope Nat gets a speedy recovery.

After work went to 21’s, maghrib-ed at kwasa before ending up in OU because I wanted boat noods & also wanted to check if cinnabon’s open (it hasn’t). Unfortunately I still feel nauseated from my stomach bug so post-dins was a cranky one :(

--

17 Jan 2025

17th January 2025, Friday Listening: Lovely Island Girl, The Coconut Islanders

Late to the very first meeting with Nels because of my still upset stomach 😩

Ive been so hungry but so scared to eat but I succumbed to buying cookies via Grab which costed me rm50 😔 I hate it when temptation won, it makes me feel weak. Be better, self! But I bought an extra cookie to bring to Gege’s!

For tonight's Friday dins, we went back to Khatija after a string of "fancier" places lol. Since my stomach is STILL acting up, I ordered bihun soup but it was spicy 🌶️ Thankfully managed to control my system I until we reached home..

Oh yeah somebody finally bought my stupid T-Mart coach jacket! Thank God & good riddance!

Also, happy Severance day!

--

18 Jan 2025

18th January 2025, Saturday Listening: Sleeping In, The Radio Dept.

Mom accompanied Dad to kebun again today so Ive got the house to myself. Started the morning with laundry as usual, packed up the Carousell parcel and left to J&T before tapao-ing lunk at the drive-thru. Another load of laundry before finally sitting down for lunk while watching Hannah Ricketts 😬 Vacuumed downstairs, cleaned the standing fans, and my initial plan was to continue with the cleaning but I got frustrated after failing to close the grill cover of one the standing fans, it took me 15 minutes of tries until I eventually gave up on everything! Wanted to take a nap before going out to get the car washed but I ended up recording a video of the dunks that Gege surprised me with last week! 😄🎁. It was raining anyway so had to wait awhile until it stopped before finally getting the car washed, petrol filled and ready for tomorrow's drive!

2121's out on a footie match tonight so I spent it "editing" the video I filmed in the afternoon and now it's up! 😄

--

19 Jan 2025

19th January 2025, Sunday Listening: Out on the Road, Norah Jones

Driving the folks to Perak today! I LOVE driving. I honestly prefer to drive than be driven. Im definitely NOT a passenger princess 😅

I love seeing my Dad happy to meet up with his cousins. He is actually quite close with everyone! Stopped by sg buloh jejantas before home because Mom wanted satay. She is the cutest ❤️

Despite my 2 days of food poisoning, my 3rd week of the year was great!

[effielumiere]

The Companion 3

Pairing: Park Jimin x Reader

Genre: Romance, Idol AU, Drama, Comedy (hopefully lol)

Summary: A year after all their world tour was cancelled with the announcement of the pandemic, Jimin goes through a roller coaster of emotions and he can barely his emotions and he's trying so hard to stay happy. Namjoon and Jin suggested to get a puppy when they got drunk but Joon thought a human companion sounded funny to his drunken brain, not knowing that Jimin took his word seriously. When he finally finds the one who's going to be his human emotion companion, he wonders if she's up for it? And most importantly, he wonders how things would play out with him being Park Jimin and her being... well, a fan... an ARMY to be precise.

Warning(s): Fluff. Bit of pandemic talk. Sentences in italics are Korean words translated to English. UNEDITED!

Word count: 2k

A/N: We're back to Y/N's pov. I was supposed to post this on Sunday but I fell asleep too early, my sleep cycle is fcked because of insomnia.

Fun fact: this was supposed to be a hybrid!Jimin fanfic. 👀.... I can turn it into that we still got time i guess.. lemme know what you think, comment down beloowww. Search author_effie on the birdapp.

Sorry it's pretty short. Enjoyyyy

< twopointfive | masterlist | threepointfive >

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I stare at the empty lobby of Hybe waiting as per the instruction of Jimin. It's been two weeks since the trip to the grocery and the last time I saw Jimin, and within that time Jimin and I settled for phone calls and when he had the time, video calls usually before midnight. But little did he know I slept past 3am due to the what seemed to be never ending jetlag.

"Ms. Y/N?" I heard a voice call my name, looking up I see the receptionist bowing. I bow back as I greet her "Good morning,"

"This way please," she says as she leads me to a door guarded by security. She reaches over to the guard who hands her an ID with a black lanyard that she hands to me. It had my picture from my resume and my name in English under the Korean characters, along with my job title, Executive Secretary. If they only knew...

Before entering the elevator, she teaches me how to use the biometrics system to clock in whenever I arrive and to enter the code I'll receive from Jimin. The ride up the elevator was silent and quick, as soon as we arrived at our designated floor she leads me towards another door that had another security guard waiting outside.

"She's Park Jimin's personal assistant," she informs them as they nod and open the door for me. I say my thanks and walk in as quietly as I can. The room was filled thumping, squeaking and loud music playing on the speakers of an English song I didn't recognize, but the voices I definitely recognized. Eyes gazing around the large, somewhat dark room that looked a basketball court inside the building I find seven men singing and dancing to a new song. Their manager walks up to me and greets me with a smile, hand extended to shake my hand.

"Welcome," he smiles bowing his head "First day, right?"

"Yes, it is, " I nod, enthusiastically smiling through my mask "this is amazing," I gesture at the room in awe, he chuckles.

"They wanted a big open space in the building to rehearse and have fun in," he sighs "the basketball hoop was a suggestion of Yoongi and Jimin's."

"It's a good touch," I agreed as I look at the floor that did match a basketball court "At least they could goof around here without having to be watched by the public eye."

"Yes" he nods "and no one but us, gets to hear the new songs" he grins.

"I can't believe it's another English song. They're gonna flip," he chuckles at me last comment.

"Is that what you think how the fans are gonna react?" he asks knowing the answer

"Sir," I began "my jaw dropped the moment I heard it an saw them singing and dancing to it when I walked in, I'm pretty sure they're going to react more than I did."

"Hopefully your jaw won't drop too many times in the next two weeks or so." he smiles

"Oh? Why is that?" I asked surprised

"He didn't tell you yet?" he asks eyebrows furrowed "The music video shoot starts in two days"

I stare at Jimin's manager in surprise, "he could've given me a warning" he smiles.

"As long as you keep doing what you're doing making him happy and smile the way he did a couple of weeks ago," he stares happily at the boys "I think it's us that need a warning. You seem to be the best addition to the team do far. I haven't seen him smile and be talkative for a while before the idea of you came along."

I stare at the boys as well who were making their way towards us, rehearsals finished.

"Ya~, Jimin-ah!" Jin yells at him, he was across the room grabbing his things before heading out direction "Introduce us to your girl." he grins as the other members and their manager snicker at his comment.

"Oh, I'm not Jimin's-" I say hurriedly as Jimin speaks at the same time "Hyung, stop it. She's not-" leaving the other members in splits

"Was there something wrong with what I said?" he playfully asks Namjoon who was laughing "She's a girl and she hangs out with our Jiminie, it made sense right?" he giggles asking for Namjoon's approval who tries holding his laughter in, giving him a thumbs up.

"Ignore them," he sighs defeated, cheeks showing a tinge of pink "they didn't sleep well and they haven't eaten yet. Their blood sugar is probably dropping,"

"Probably" I smile.

"Hey, kid." Yoongi calls out "some of us haven't met her yet" he grins at me.

"Ah," Jimin face palms himself "Right.

"Everyone," he addressed all the staff in the room "this is Y/N, she's my assistant. It's her first day, please be nice to her." They all greet me and I return the greeting bowing at them as I do.

Jimin then turns to me then to his groupmates, "You've already met Taehyung, Jungkook and Namjoon hyung," they wave at me as the other three guys gather in one side and shake their heads.

"I can't believe these kids met her before we did" Yoongi shakes his head dramatically, making Hobi chuckle "Trouble, trouble, trouble,"

"Hobi hyung this is-"

"Y/n-ssi!~" Hobi squeals as he pulls me in for a hug

"-and Y/n-ssi this is-"

"Hobaaaahh~" I squeal with the same enthusiasm as we squeeze each other.

"Ya, move over, Hoba" I hear Yoongi from behind Hoseok and he reluctantly lets me go when Yoongi pulls me in for a brief hug.

"Y/n-ssi, Yoongi hyung." Jimin says behind us and when he let me go Jin was the last one to hug me.

"And that's Jin hyung," Jimin muttered loud enough for us to hear "I still don't understand why I had to formally introduce you all to her, she knows you and you all know her from sneaking in when she and Namjoon hyung had meetings,"

"Because the three of them never really had the chance to talk to her while the calls happened," Joon explained "Something about being shy or busy. Taehyung, Hobi and JK were the only ones that really took the time to join in on my meetings with her, that's why they're familiar with her."

"Was the pantry of the apartment full of food when your arrived?" Jin asked me as he leaned back from the hug but not fully letting go of me yet, "Don't lie."

"It was full," I said trying so hard so that they won't know I was lying.

"You're just as a bad liar as Jungkook is," Yoongi laughs as Jin let's go and Jimin holds my arm and pulling me, but stood behind me as if to hide.

"Ya~, Jiminah!" Jin calls out to him "Be responsible, yeah? You decided to push through with this idea, you better be responsible for her." Jin sounded like a parent scolding their child who unexpectedly brought home a puppy.

"I will..." Jimin shyly whispered behind me, before wrapping his arms around my waist and playfully dragging me to the door and I let him "Let's go~"

"Feed her real food!" Namjoon yells as we made our way out of the room only to hear Jin and Yoongi ask him "What do you mean?" "What did you say?" making Jimin look at me with wide eyes, grabbing my hand and making a run for the elevator laughing.

~~~~~~~

"Hot.. hot!" Jimin breathes through his mouth as he chews the freshly cooked tteokbokki from his bowl, making smoke come from his mouth and into the wind.

"Calm down, Jimin," I chastised "Blow on your food to cool it down, it's not going anywhere" I giggled at how adorable he looked. Half of his cheeks were resting on his face mask while the rest of his head up to his eyebrows were covered by his black beanie. Under his dark green and brown jacket he wore black joggers and a gray sweater that he changed into when we spent time in his apartment before wait until midnight to eat street food at Itaewon. Somewhere behind us were his security personnel undercover, eating but alert.

"Must eat plenty~" he says through a mouthful, covering his mouth then fanning it to cool it down "Delicious~"

I laugh at him as I take another bite. We had ramyeon for dinner and it was obviously not enough, so ended up eating out for samgyupsal and here we are, the third dinner waiting for that dessert, I half hoped dessert was next as I chewed thoughtfully.

Sipping the soup from the cup where his fish cake was he watches me, "Are you enjoying your time here? I know you haven't been able to go out much but I could take you to places you want to visit."

"I'm alright Jiminah," I reassure him "Besides touring around town can wait. I don't really know a lot of places except what I see on the flyers and I'm enjoying my time with you.

What I'm trying to say is, I'd rather spend time with you and the boys than go around town alone." I smile at him as I watch him hand me another serving of tteokbokki and fish cakes. He smiles at me and slowly nods sighing, taking off his mask and putting it in his pocket.

"I believe you, I'll try to find a way to make you visit places," I was about to object but he beat me to it "You can't stop me. I'm your... boss, remember?"

"As true as that is, I hate that Joon called you my boss," I air quoted making him chuckle as he takes a bite out of the fresh, hot tteokbokki "I swear to God, Jiminah..." I watch him breath out the hot air from his food making him look like an adorable little dragon. Leaning forward, I wipe a tissue that was in between us on the table on the corner of his lips where the sauce was dripping and he stopped chewing as I gently wiped, puppy eyes as he watched me.

"You're like a baby eating your food," I smiled "happy, but messy"

"That's what happens when the food is delicious~" he sings happily.

"When was the last time you ate out like this?" I asked "A pretty long while, we've been to busy then the pandemic happened. I didn't really feel like leaving the dorm." I nod in understanding, no one really felt like leaving their houses up until lately when news of vaccines started popping up.

"Well, at least you got out today"

"All because you're here," he says "if you weren't here, I would probably be at the dorm with the boys waiting for time to pass and watching TV. You make me think a lot lately."

"Not in a bad way, I hope"

"No," he smiles happily "not in a bad way. You make me think of where or what I should do the next time I see you, it makes me active. Which reminds me, you have to join me the day after tomorrow. I need to retouch my rainbow highlights for the music video."

"You didn't tell me about the music video"

"Really?" he asks, midway of taking a bite of his fish cakes "I guess it slipped my mind. But now you know." He chews and smiles at me innocently, "I guess I also have to share my schedule with you, so you know what my plans are." I nod sipping my soup through the cup.

"I promise dessert is next, I just want another round of tteokbokki and fish cakes." he covers his face adorably like he's facing a mini crisis "Would you like another serving?"

Somehow knowing he's not gonna eat another round of tteokbokki without me, I agree to a last serving so he wouldn't eat alone. And just as he promised, we had bingsu before he drove me home to the apartment.

~~~~~

< twopointfive | masterlist | threepointfive >

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[dirtydobrik]

a week apart - d.d.

plot: you and david are dating and you’re also a YouTuber. you come up with a video idea of spending a week apart from each other with no communication and make a bet to see who will be better at doing so.

requested: yes!  i received two different requests about essentially the same concept: 1. can u do one where the reader and david see who is better at ignoring the other lol idk of it makes sense but and 2. can u do an imagine where the reader and david have a bet to see who can ignore the other the longest ?? i feel like you might’ve done it before so sorry if u have lol

author’s note: hi! this was requested anonymously so hopefully it was something similar to what you wanted. 

if you want to send in a request for an imagine, send me a message! i am super behind on requests right now but i have a few pieces in progress that i am working on. i am hopefully back to posting daily because i am trying to get caught up. 

word count: 1400

masterlist

"Okay, just hear me out," you started and David rolled his eyes. He knew you had a crazy idea for your next video and he had a feeling he wouldn't like it. "What if we tried to spend a week without each other?"

"Babe, why on Earth would I agree to that?" David questioned, grabbing your hand and pulling you on to the couch next to him.

"I think it'll be an interesting video. You and Jason talked about doing something similar on the podcast a while back and I think we should try it." You gave him a small pout and puppy dog eyes that he couldn't say no to.

"Fine. When do you want to start?" he asked.

"Right now," you stated, like it was obvious.

"But you promised you'd be my date to the movie premiere on Thursday," David reminded you, and you sighed. You had agreed to do that and it was only Tuesday.

"Okay. We'll start on Sunday."

The week passed by slowly and David secretly hoped you would have forgotten about your video idea. But on Sunday morning, you rolled over to face David since you spent the night at his house.

"Good morning," he mumbled, leaning in and giving you a kiss.

"Morning, bub," you smiled, curling into him to cuddle for a few minutes.

"What do you want to do today? I got a good amount content yesterday so I don't need to film."

"Did you forget about my video? We're starting today," you smirked and David let out a groan.

"No, I didn't forget. I was just hoping you would forget."

"Absolutely not," you said as your fingers ruffled his messy hair.

You got out of bed and took a quick shower before making breakfast, David joining you in the kitchen after his shower. You set your camera up to introduce the video.

"Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. Today's video is a little bit different, it's going to be vlog style. David and I are going to try and see if we can ignore each other for an entire week," you started, before leaning in closer to the camera and dropping your voice into a low whisper, "In case you guys didn't know I'm dating David Dobrik."

"I am completely against this idea," David added, but you brushed him off.

"Anyways, let's go over the rules. Number one, no communication of any kind. This means no calls, no texts, no DMs, and no trying to talk to each other through other people. Like we have Natalie pass messages for the other to get. Number two, we can't hang out together or be seen in the same place together. And number three, if an emergency happens, we have a code to send to know that it's serious and we call a pause," you explained, David pouting the entire time.

"Do we have to do this?" he groaned, and you nodded.

"Oh, and also, we aren't telling anyone that we're doing this challenge so hopefully they freak out and think we broke up so I get some good clickbait," you chuckled and David rolled his eyes.

"Should we make this a bet?" David asked, needing motivation to participate in this video.

"Sure. The loser has to give the winner twenty thousand dollars, and the winner gets to plan date nights for a month." You pulled your phone out to check the time, 12:48pm. "Okay, guys. Starting now, David and I can't interact with each other for a week. Bye, bub, see you on Sunday," you said, waving goodbye to him before turning your camera off to say a real goodbye to him.

You wrapped your arms around him and stood on your toes to give him a kiss. "Miss you already," he whispered, hugging you tightly.

"I love you. See you soon." You gave him another kiss before heading out to your car and driving away.

"Okay guys, I just got to my apartment and usually I send Dave a text that I made it home safely, but I can't do that. So David if you're watching this, I'm home," you said into your camera, and you were surprised that David hadn't lost already. He was ridiculously clingy and hated being away from you.

The next time you took you camera out was at 3am. "Guys, it's 3am and I can’t sleep because I don’t have David to cuddle with," you pouted. "I'm starting to regret wanting to do this and it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. How am I going to do this for a whole week?"

On Monday you went out to brunch with Corinna and then shopping with Carly that afternoon, and you knew David was busy on set all day, so you didn’t really have time to miss him. But around dinner time, you wished you could bring him dinner and talk to him about your day. And again, you had trouble falling asleep because you had gotten so comfortable cuddling with David.

Tuesday went by similar to Monday. You hung out with a few of the girls and went hiking with Jeff, knowing David was busy and wouldn't have been able to talk to you all day anyways.

Wednesday was when fans started asking questions about your relationship. They knew both of you were in LA but you hadn't been seen together in a few days and it was starting to worry them. A few of your friends saw the tweets about it and asked you questions, but you lied and said you two were just busy. They were suspicious but not to the point where they were worried. They knew the fans spread rumors like wildfire.

Early Thursday morning was when you heard a knock on the door to your apartment. It was just after 2am so you grabbed your camera, assuming it was David. And sure enough, he was standing in the hallway, awkwardly shifting his weight from foot to foot as he swayed. You swung the door open, David tackling you into a tight hug and peppering your face with kissed.

"I missed you so much, baby," he murmured between kisses.

"What are you doing here?" you asked, pointing the camera at him. "It's the middle of the night and we're only halfway through the week."

"I couldn't do it. I missed you too much," David confessed, holding his hands up in a surrender.

"I missed you, too," you said, turning the camera off and pulling David into your bedroom.

You woke up with David next to you and let out a sigh of relief as you curled up next to him.

After getting breakfast and catching up on the last few days, you took your camera out to record the ending of the video. "So, as you guys just saw, David was the first to crack. What do you have to say for yourself, babe?"

"I admit defeat. I guess I just can’t stay away from my girl for too long," he said and you blushed at his words.

"What did you learn from this challenge? Because I learned that I can't fall asleep with you when I know you're in LA."

"I learned that it's impossibly hard to go out of my way to not talk to you. Like anytime something happened and my first instinct was to call or text you I had to tell myself that I couldn't do it. It got to the point where I made a note in my phone of things I wanted to tell you," he rambled and then suddenly stopped, like he had just processed what you said. "Wait, you can't sleep without me?" he asked and you nodded.

"No, I've gotten so used to cuddling with you and falling asleep next to you that I can't do it anymore."

"Aw, someone's whipped for their boyfriend," David teased.

"Says the one who came over in the middle of the night," you retorted with a sarcastic smile. "By the way, I believe you owe me, you know, since you lost the bet."

"Isn't getting my love and affection and multiple FaceTimes a day enough?" David whined.

"Nope." You shook your head, before leaning over and giving him a quick peck. "You still owe me twenty thousand dollars. Getting your love and affection and FaceTimes back are just an added bonus."

[remembermemorablememories]

Saturday, January 5, 2019

post #362

main points:

- oatmeal for breakfast

- practice piano

- wawa lunch from parents on their way back from philly

- moar piano practice

- smash online, getting captain falcon into elite and then inkling snake and mario

- dinner with the family + ben for sheena’s birthday

- smash online to get ganondorf into elite smash

- hang out with trevor josh bryan and chris at trevor’s

- uber (out in the suburbs??) to a bar near by

- hang out at bar/dance floor

- late nite wawa run + the office at trevor’s

- drive home and get gas and pass out at like 3:30~4am

typing this on sunday january 6, 2019

today i:

- woke up around 11:30am and then went downstairs to eat breakfast which was oatmeal + pb + banana. i was home alone cause sheena went to symphony practice and mom/dad went shopping for stuff at home depot/getting haircuts

- i went back upstairs and ordered a new phone case (cause my old one’s crusting). also watched some smash vods of NickC

- went downstairs and practiced piano for like 30 minutes from 1:30-2pm ish. then my parents came home with a wawa sandwich. i asked them to get me a chicken salad club sandwich but they got me a hoagie. oh well :p i didn’t mind too much

then i went back to practicing piano some more. i went over maple leaf rag, deux arabesques, nocturne, and claire de lune (the most). it was nice finally being able to play again after a long long time. i’m hoping to play some more over break. i wanna learn fantaisie impromptu the whole thing. not sure how realistic that is though

- played smash online and finally got my captain falcon into elite smash. then i was kind of scared to play in elite smash in fear of being booted out again (cause i have like a 33% win record in elite smash). so i decided to just try to get other characters in elite smash LOL. i got in inkling, snake, mario. then tried with roy and marth and sucked and failed. ben and sheena came back from a coloring pot place and then we left around 6:30pm to go to dinner for her birthday!!

- i got to meet ben and talk with him about film stuff, school, etc. he’s a really sharp and motivated high school senior. it’s very admirable how he’s built up a small business for freelancing and it was nice getting to meet him/talk to him. sheena showed me some of his stuff before and the quality is so cinematic and he’s all self taught. not just in film but also music. mad props to that guy

we got dinner at a fancy place (w penn) and i got a filet mignon with two crabcakes. we also had a salad and bread at the beginning i was so full at the end. my stomach was a happy stomach

- we drove home and got back around 9pm. i played smash online for another hour with marth (failing) and then got ganondorf in elite smash. totaling 6 characters in elite :D 

- left the house around 10:30pm to go to trevor’s. met up with trevor bryan josh and chris. they were hanging out in trevor’s basement making some moosic and messing around. we listened to one of their old songs that they made before and it was pretty cool. also meteor josh. they were drinking some coke+rum before going out

- we called an uber around 11:45pm to go to a bar in a nearby town. i’d never been to a bar in the suburbs before. or call an uber in the suburbs. i was surprised we were able to get an uber XL. i talked with josh a bit and learned he had a gf and was doing long distance for the past year

we got to the bar and went in. bryan and trevor got some beer. there was a dance floor on the other side but we first chilled on the bar side. then went to the dance floor to get drinks and then chilled on the dance floor side lounging area. i got some angry orchards cider and josh got a mixed coke and rum thing i think. trevor and bryan got some more beer. chris didn’t want anything. we just kind of hung out for a bit and i talked to josh about how his college experience went the past four years

also trevor and i tried to go to the bathroom at some point but the door to the men’s room was locked. so trevor went to the woman’s bathroom and this really drunk girl came over and wanted to go in. i was waiting outside and she yelled at me like “YOU LOOK LIKE THE GUY ON THE NEWS. YOU’RE THE GUY ON THE NEWS” i was like ???. she went to get her friend then her friend was like “he’s not you’re being racist”

once trevor came out of the bathroom she went in. we still couldn’t get the men’s restroom door unlocked. trevor was saying what if someone died in there cause the door was locked earlier when we first came in to the bar. the drunk girl heard what he said and then started kicking at the men’s restroom door, saying that we should open it if someone died in there. there was also another dude chilling with me and trevor waiting on the bathroom so he was like, you don’t need to kick down the door calm down. she went to the bar to get someone to check it out and i went into the woman’s bathroom to pee

when i got back the bartender unlocked the men’s restroom door and it was empty. someone must’ve just locked it on the way out or something

then we sort of went to the dance floor. chris didn’t really wanna dance. trevor was okay with it after getting enough drinks. bryan josh and i did so we partially migrated and just kind of danced for like 30 minutes. it was a chill time

- we left the bar around 1:45am and then walked to a nearby wawa to get food. i got mac and cheese + chicken fingers. then we called two separate ubers cause we couldn’t get an uber XL. we watched an episode of the office called crime aid while eating our food and then we left around 3am

i stopped by a gas station to fill it up with a few gallons of gas cause my parents wanted me to fill it up just a bit

- got home around 3:30am and went to sleep at 4am

the end

whew what a long day

also HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHEENA

[shunbunnohi]

Kyoto Trip!

So I decided that I would hold off on updating this blog until I feel like I have something worth sharing. I didn’t want this to be filled with sad memories, because this journal was ultimately supposed to be a way for me to look back on happy memories of JSP. So now that I’ve experienced happiness again for the first time in a couple weeks, I should document it!

This weekend (September 21-23), the JSP crew took a trip to Kyoto! It was arranged by the school, but I think it was done by a third party tourism company. I think it was really good! We stayed in a ryokan right outside the station, and I got to room with three of my friends! There were four people to a room. The futon was surprisingly comfortable. There was also an onsen in the basement! 

We all had to get up at around 6AM because we had to leave Ikebukuro Station at 8AM. I decided to walk to the station instead of taking my bike since I didn’t want to have to deal with leaving it there for three days. It was a tiring trip, but I made it to Ikebukuro, met up with my friends, and then slept on the Shinkansen. 

We had lunch at a nice restaurant near the station! It was (I think) pork cutlet, rice, some miso, and some vegetables. We also had some fish, both cooked and raw, and some of those egg cakes. It was really good! I drank my Monster with the lunch cause I was falling tf asleep. 

After that, we went to the Fushimi Inari Taisha! 

It was my first time going there. We explored the many many torii gates, but we didn’t have enough time to go all the way up the mountain. I found that the dates were inscribed on the torii, and I was very impressed with how old some of them were! 

Taisho, November 1918

Meiji, February (?) 1877

Showa, July 1989

There was also a cat! He seemed to like us. 

After the Fushimi Inari, we went to Yatsuhashi to learn to make wagashi! Yatsuhashi is one of the most famous wagashi companies in Kyoto. Here’s a picture of the wagashi I made! It was really hard. Wagashi maybe isn’t my favorite candy, but I can appreciate the art of it. I’m not sure what the one on the far right is supposed to be. We were just told to put a bunch of little pieces on a ball of anko. 

There was an embroidery museum above Yatsuhashi, and it was filled with impressive pieces like this one!

We had dinner at another nice restaurant, which happened to be a buffet! I didn’t eat a whole lot, but this was the dessert that I got. It was all peach flavored! Personally I think I liked the jelly the best. 

That night I did my nails with my friends in my room! Turns out I’m better at doing other people’s nails than I thought. It was really fun! We also played a Disney song guessing game, and I guess I kept winning lol. We ended up staying up until 3am, which wasn’t super great, cause we had to get up early the next day. 

Sunday, September 22

Our breakfast was really nice! Except it was at 7AM, and we had gone to bed at around 3AM. I opted to sleep a little longer, and also let my friends sleep in a bit since they didn’t even come to breakfast. We planned to go to Nara at 9AM, but things changed a little bit. I went to Nara with only two of my friends and they left early so I met up with another group that was also in Nara. We fed the deer! I was very excited, since I’ve wanted to see the deer for a long time. As I was warned, the deer were a little aggressive. They would headbutt me and other people a lot if you weren’t feeding them, and it was a little scary cause sometimes it would hurt. However, they did bow for you! There was also a couple babies that were still nursing from their mothers. Unfortunately, you couldn’t feed them since they were still scared of people. Some of the males would pursue the females and get them irritated. I got a few videos of them yelling! I can’t post videos within text posts though. Maybe it’s tumblr’s fault, or maybe I’m just stupid, who knows. 

Look how many deer there were! 

I spent about $7 on deer senbei. I tried some of it... it tastes like communion. It started raining while we were at the park, but it was okay. A lot of the kids were actually quite scared of the deer, which was understandable. The deer also weren’t limited to just Nara Park. I went to the Todaiji with my other friends, and there were deer all over the temple grounds as well. The Todaiji was huge! The building itself was amazingly large, and the Buddha inside filled the whole thing. It was $6 to go in, but I think it was worth it. 

Here is the outside of the front gates. 

This is the Todaiji temple itself! It has horns! I really can’t express how absolutely massive this building was in just a picture. 

This is the Buddha himself! Absolute legend. 

My friends crawled through the hole in a pillar which is supposed to bring good luck, but I was too scared of getting stuck to actually go through it. I bought a couple charms to protect my kabuto mushi and I also found a necklace and some washi tape! The washi tape is deer patterned, which I think is really cute. I was very surprised that I was able to find the necklace that I did at the Todaiji of all places. But anyway, it’s one of my favorite necklaces now. 

I also happened to lose my umbrella at the restaurant we had lunch at the day before. But I bought a new one that looks like a samurai sword! I think it’s really cool, but some people were staring at me. I guess some people couldn’t tell that it wasn’t actually a real sword. 

This is just the handle, but you get the idea. 

Monday, September 23

Monday came faster than I expected. I was very sad to have to leave Kyoto. We went up to have breakfast at 7AM again, and then set out to go to the Tenryuji in Arashiyama. It was a really cool experience! One of the monks taught us about Buddhism, and the process of becoming a monk. It took us a while, but we finally got to the exciting part where he taught us how to meditate! It was very relaxing, and I’m honestly surprised that I didn’t fall asleep, despite struggling very hard to stay awake throughout the rest of the presentation. I was actually a bit more awake after the meditation than I was before. Monks meditate for many hours a day, and part of it kind of makes up for the fact that they only get 4-5 hours of sleep a night. It’s a very vigorous lifestyle. The monk that was teaching us went around whacking some people with what looked like a wooden paddle-stick in a way. That’s tradition for monks during meditation; it’s supposed to hit a pressure point to wake you up. It also prevents monks from actually falling asleep during the mediation, but the monk that was teaching us said he often did fall asleep anyway. I was too scared to get whacked, but honestly I kind of regret it. 

After the presentation, we went to have lunch! It was a very tasty lunch, but most of it was vegetables. I liked the little tofu bean cake that we got though. I’m glad that I finally know what it is, since we had it at the Kawagoe Daiichi Hotel and I never figured out what it actually was so I could get it again. We had free time for a couple hours, and many of us opted to go back to the temple to explore the garden. We also had pre-paid tickets to get in, so we might as well have gone to see it. It was very peaceful and pretty!

Here is the lake!

Another view of the lake with some flowers. 

There was also a bamboo forest! 

After this, we had to go home. I went to dinner (kinda) with my friends, and that was fun, though! I’d like to go back to Kyoto again sometime. 

[proofsaretalk]

rapidly barreling toward that 1k mark

The title is not what this post is about. (cw: five pages of boring navelgazing)

------

Sometimes, when I get really close to going to bed after staying up for far too long, I will say things like “What are you doing?” And I normally think about that as just my not-quite-totally-mentally-healthy ass’s way of saying “go to bed bro”

But somehow when I said it tonight the question sounded a lot more urgent. A lot more confused. A lot more like a question, in other words.

And I think best in writing.

So here are the basic facts:

I am very tired right now (4am)

I was (less) very tired about four hours ago

I intentionally chose to not go to bed four hours ago, 

After watching a really good SGDQ run.

I actually very much enjoy SGDQ runs.

But I did not spend the intervening four hours watching SGDQ runs.

Primarily because I knew I would not stay awake by doing so.

I more or less knew, when I made that decision, that I would be awake at 4am.

See 3.4.

I have been going to bed around 2-3am for the last couple days.

This schedule initiated by me staying up way too late on Sunday of last week, for reasons that were equally unreasonable but at least more familiar.

I need to be awake in 3 hours, or, at most 4 hours.

I have known for several days that I would need to be awake at 7am on Monday morning.

Less basic facts, with notably more reporting bias, probably:

The reason that I need to be awake at 7am on Monday morning is because I am going on a road trip with my dad and my roommate.

I am mostly going on this road trip because I want to spend more time with my dad.

And also because I want to signal to him that I want to spend more time with him.

Which I definitely feel like I have not, although I have had dinner with him for three nights this week; in no small part because I was in Montreal when he arrived and have not done a lick of work to help care for my grandmother while he was in town. 

In particular I don’t really care about where we’re going or what we’ll do there.

I intended to drive both ways— which I never told anyone that I was intending to do, which I suppose was good because I will certainly not do that now.

Maybe we’re approaching the actual reason I am doing this obviously stupid thing, Part I:

My main goals this summer are, in priority order

to get a fucking advisor, 

a.k.a. to work hard enough and deep enough on commutative algebra to determine whether it is a good idea to be Christine’s student, and

if so, to then decide whether I should work with Vic anyway.

to reach the 1k posts in 1k days goal with OTAM, 

which requires essentially exactly two posts per day every day for the remainder of the summer

which is, to an unbelievably strong level of consistency (like literally I do not believe it), four hours +/- 40 minutes of work.

that’s it

i fucking hate it when my family asks me “what have you been doing lately” because it’s like

I’M READING

I’M BLOGGING

THAT’S IT

Anything I do beyond this is— though it be, to some extent, necessary for keeping my sanity— something I perceive as an annoyance and do with a fair bit of guilt (which I do try to put off until after doing the thing, usually pretty successfully).

and you know what, yes, if I’m being honest, that includes spending time with my family

even though this is 110% my own damn problem and if I had locked myself in my room this week, my dad (in particular) would totally have understood

although he lives 1600 miles away, and is only here for two weeks, and his birthday is tomorrow, and I missed out on seeing him the first week because Montreal, because my dad is a pure cinnamon roll lol no but is (in particular) genuinely understanding about this stuff; the whole midwesterner guilt trip passive-aggressive thing is very much not his aesthetic

and also I really haven’t spent that much time with my family besides this week so. [ At most 3hrs/week previously ]

I have two blog posts scheduled for tomorrow and another one besides; that is, enough that I can go on the trip and wake up late on Tuesday and I won’t experience any interruptions

I was highly embarrassed that I had to miss the second Friday post this week

I spent a lot of time on Saturday working with the specific intention of having a large enough buffer to make sure that this did not happen again on Tuesday.

aka 4 blog posts

aka 12 hours of blogging, because the rate of 2hr/post only applies to the first two posts in a day, after which the evidence suggests (more on that below) that it’s a complete shitshow.

aka nothing else got done, which is relevant because

For the first time on our regularly scheduled Thursday meeting time, Christine actually gave me something to do — previously it was mostly entirely me being like “I’m reading the book, here are my questions”.

I have done essentially no work toward doing that thing.

See 3.4

See also 2.2 from the previous section.

I have never felt happy about the amount of time that I’ve been devoting to the algebra 

See 1.3.5 oh god this is becoming a labrynth isn’t it

Christine seems oblivious to this, or perhaps thinks that, since I bring it up every week, I am just trying to preempt any criticism she might make

which to be honest isn’t wrong but

I have experience with being advised by someone with fairly low expectations of me and yeah it drives me right up the fucking wall

and I am definitely keeping my eye on her essential silence w.r.t. progress

In particular, I don’t feel happy about the fact that I have been spending so much more time on the blog than on the algebra because the latter is clearly infinitely more important for my continued ability to support myself by doing the thing that makes me incredibly happy.

There are good reasons I have made this choice but I definitely expected that these would disappear after returning from Montreal

which they have, and hence my continued inability to spend time doing algebra is even more disappointing to me

despite the fact that new reasons obviously exist that are also obviously temporary since dad will leave on the 4th.

and that I also do strongly value my familial relationships and am extremely bad at showing this; and I understand that what I have chosen to do for the past week is a very shrewd calculation to maximize the number of people who have firsthand experience with my show of commitment (however obviously performative it may be)

to be clear, I do not know if it is obvious that it is performative

I do not even know if it is performative

The fact that my algebra assignment for the week came from Christine, and not from a vague sense of “you should probably finish this book”, adds a particular urgency to the task... 

...and what seems to be my inevitable failure to complete it, since I have only Tuesday and Wednesday; and Tuesday is the 4th of July so that might as well not exist, productivity-wise; and I still have to write the usual two blogposts for Wednesday so it’s not like I can cram a 14-hour session (which I have done before).

I do not know whether I am more concerned about potentially disappointing Christine or myself

(even though the former is so unlikely that it is almost certainly anxiety)

Okay that’s nice exposition but doesn’t actually explain why you’re awake at 4am (hint it’s 5am now), Part II:

When I walked out of Christine’s office on Thursday, I definitely did not think that I would be spending all of Monday, and essentially all of Friday, and a good half of Sunday, to be spent with family. (Of course, I still expected Tuesday to be shot.)

However, all of that was clarified by Friday afternoon, so I’ve had a couple days to mull on this.

I certainly did not make the decision to stay awake in hopes that I would get any work done.

In fact, if I am being honest, this was an intentional part of my thought process and I made the decision in spite of this fact.

What I did not consider is that, if I have to cancel the plans for today because I did this stupid thing, I certainly will not be able to fucking do anything tomorrow since I will have to sleep through everything. 

Dear God, the sun is rising through my window

I closed the blinds, whew

What I did end up doing over this four-hour period is mostly read career posts on math blogs, and reading PhD, with a little bit of SGDQ and a pinch of assorted internet clicking thrown in.

It is perhaps not obvious to anyone else that this has the feel of a self-care session to me.

The only thing that I could possibly have been consciously self-caring for, though, was the expenditure of energy at my dad’s birthday party today.

(Anxieties about the Christine reading only started appearing in the later phases of this period.)

And surely sleeping would have been equally good dramatically better self-care.

I definitely have a sometimes-useful tendency to want to do a single thing for as long of an uninterrupted period as possible, up to and including completely destroying my sleeping rhythm (which accounts for much of the ‘sometimes’ in ‘sometimes-useful’).

The part of me that likes to make needlessly grandiose statements and read into shit too much, is squawking about how I probably feel like I had expectations for how I would be spending my time (I did), and feel like I’ve been forced into a time-consuming alternate direction (which, again: no), and therefore making this stupid decision is a juvenile way of exercising control by breaking from what would probably be “expected” of me (i.e. fucking going to sleep before a day-long road trip)

I am currently convinced of this but also

I am even more tired than when I started writing this post and

I don’t trust my tired brain to be right about anything of this scope (based on extensive experience with incorrect sleeping decisions).

That’s all I got.

No alternate theories.

So, shit, that’s gotta mean it’s right, huh?

Lambda

Actually, continuing on the sleeping-as-control riff, I am quite experienced with (and, if I may say so, fairly good at) managing an awful sleeping cycle. Perhaps the stupid decision was not about controlling how I spend my time but rather more direct: demonstrating control in my life via crisis management w.r.t. sleeping.

This is actually a testable theory, at least in the sense that if I have something similar come up soon, I could replace “not sleeping” with “playing Starcraft”

[ it’s not perfect because I would also not be sleeping in that setting, but then the not-sleeping is a side effect rather than the actual display of control; and I think that I could (after the fact) actually distinguish between those two. ]

(and arguably, this has already been played out in prior incidents, but I am way too tired to examine whether similar issues were at play in those cases.)

And finally

I am equally concerned with the fact that this post has cost me two hours of sleeping as it has cost me two hour of algebra work,

which is to say, not at all, in either case

although I do perceive very little of value was gained by my writing it

which is a very confusing triplet of true statements, to me, at this moment.

I may have to cancel the road trip.

Perhaps this was my subconscious goal all along.

But I’ll go to sleep take a power nap and we’ll see.

If your sorry ass thinks that I’ve been writing this shit for two hours without theorizing how I could sanitize it into an OTAM post then frankly you don’t know me at all.

[guardiandae]

OKAY it’s time for that write up about my trip to Boston

aka Why I’m Glad I’m Still Alive and also Dae Makes Bad Life Choices And Needs To Be Grounded :c 

(long, long post)

okay so, my friend H takes a trip down to Boston every year to visit her friend D who goes to college there. She invited me to go a few days beforehand, and as luck would have it I managed to arrange to have Friday & Saturday off work, and Sunday closing shift, so I could make it down there and back.

Of course, I had a runny nose and stuff beforehand... and then the night before (Thursday night, I think) I had a really hard time at work bc I felt feverish... I got home and my temp went up from 99.6 (which is already 100% a fever for me, my temp runs low) to 101.3 during the night. I kept waking up every three hours, and I had to get a bag of ice to press against my head. I went to bed early but slept in longer than I expected so I got like 13 hours of sleep and felt a lot better in the morning, aside from a sore throat. Actually, my throat does this fun thing where from time to time, it will close up on me and I can’t breathe. It can happen even from drinking water. So I took cough syrup and my throat closed up. Yikes. No more cough syrup for me, just cold & flu tablets! I can’t remember the other incident, maybe I drank something harsh, but I remember it did that twice, two times in two days. So, yeah. Gotta be careful what I drink with this sore throat.

Friend wants me to spend Friday night at her house so we can leave at 3am Saturday. So I go to H’s house, with her boyfriend T. My throat is like, raw as fuck. We hang out, they pack, and we all take a nap before we leave. I get like another 3 hours of sleep, then we all get up and hit the road.

We pick up T’s friend, S.  My friend H keeps trying to hook me up with S despite the fact that I am 1. gay 2. asexual 3. not interested in douchebags. And she’s been teasing me about the fact that, S and I will have to share a bed at the hotel. My god. Mind you, the plan she has in Boston is to take me to a strip club and I’m like, sdgkdfkgjd. No? Maybe. No.

We stop at a gas station and I get myself a big powerade for my RAW AS FUCK throat. Swallowing is seriously painful at this point. My friend swaps seats to sit beside me in the back, so now T and S are in the front. THEY FUCKING START CHAINSMOKING ALL THE WAY DOWN. So they have their windows cracked, freezing cold air pouring in, secondhand smoke making my eyes water and lungs burn, all the way down. Maybe at most they would stop for two minutes and then, boom, another FUCKING cigarette. On top of that, they listened to really gross rap music on the way down, like violent, sexually-explicit, drug-endorsing songs that were just honestly annoying lyrics aside, total crap, lol.

My friend and I show each other memes (she pronounces it me-me and I think it’s too funny to correct her) all the way down. We arrive at her friend D’s campus at about 6am. He has keys to all the buildings and has to make rounds, so we’re going to walk with him all across his campus.

D is a really interesting dude. My friend H told me, “he’s a bible-thumper” beforehand and I was like, eh. great. But he’s this 40-ish year old guy going to a religious college studying to be a minister. He’s super friendly and considerate as soon as we meet him. It’s 6am in January, fairly warm considering the time of year, but I’m still in just my hoodie and SICK, so while I was kind of excited for the experience, my body is so not. We’re going from building to building, up flights of stairs and back down again, and I am wheezing. My voice is pretty rough at this point too.

But let’s talk about the school, and the setting, because... I love it.

In Maine (my state) the trees here are mostly pines, maples, oaks, etc.

But in Boston, I’m not sure what kind of trees they might be, but my gosh. It’s a grey, chilly day (my favorite weather 100% honestly, too bad I was sick) and the trees are bare. Their branches are all twisted in different directions, like the fingers on an old man. Ever seen those kind of forests from creepy horror movies? They are just like that and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Most of the buildings on campus are very old, so some of them still have old fashioned latches, like the thumb-latches in my grandfather’s house.

The other thing I really loved about the campus, is that the students attending are actually very liberal and diverse, despite the religious focus. As D put it later, the other three people in our group, H, T, and S, doubled the population of straight (and cis) students by being on campus. Haha.

Anyway, I survive running around campus, and then we head down to catch the Green Line subway into town. At this point, I really wish I had realized we were going to be gone from the car for several hours, because I would've at least grabbed my hat. :c

This is the first time I've ever been on anything like a subway and I'm so glad that we had D with us to be our guide, because it was so confusing. The car was packed with people because of the Women's March going on. I don't know how this compares to other subways, but this went pretty fast and had a lot of hills and turns, and with every change in momentum I'm hanging onto the rail for dear fucking life trying not to fall over. My friend H has a lot of anxiety, especially around crowds of people, and riding this subway itself, so she is SHAKING and trying really hard to just hold on and get through the ride, and so am I. We get off a big station and decide to go up and walk the rest of the way instead of waiting for the next car, because my friend and I are curious to see the march going on.

We ended up walking around a lottt down all of these different side streets. H, T and S wanted to find a big tall building to go all the way to the top floor and take pictures, so we kept trying to enter different buildings at random, and most of them were locked and one we were politely told to leave, lol.

The whole walking around event was kind of more random than planned... we ended up at Bruins arena which I think was my friend's only actual goal, so she could buy her brother a gift. We saw tons of protesters everywhere and I got one of the pink hats from a nice lady who brought extras. But after that, our wandering was pretty aimless. We headed towards Boston market (still trying to find tall buildings) and accidentally stumbled onto the Holocaust memorial.

H and I were like 'oh... damn' and of course, I had to go in. The memorial consists of four towers made of panes of glass, with steam inside rising up. When I walked into the first one, the panes of glass had quotes from survivors of the Holocaust written on both sides in side, and on every single pane of glass, going up to the sky, there were the serial numbers the nazis tattooed onto people. I took a few pictures, but once I entered that first tower I put my phone away because it just didn't feel right. We walked through and read each quote... I was trying not to cry because the two guys with us (D excluded) were pretty douchey and I wasn't sure they even would, y'know, care. But when I read one of the quotes about the homosexuals being put into the death camps, I definitely cried and I was like, yeah. This is why we fight. This is why we can't stop fighting.

When we left, H was pretty shaken too (the quotes about children were the ones that got to her the most, I think) and D suggested that we head to the farmer's market to try to lighten up the mood. While we were walking there, S decides to ask a question, in a suspiciously condescending tone of voice, "I wonder what the founding fathers would think about all of this."

The rest of us were like, ???  "Think about what?"

S: "You know, the protests that are going on right now."

Guys, my voice was half gone but you know I clapped back.

"They'd probably think that they're exercising their CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS??? What do you think the founding fathers did against the British???"

Then he said something about how, people keep pushing and pushing for more rights, and he thinks that's a bad thing because it just ends up dividing people into more and more different groups and takes away rights from others. At this point I was like, HOLY SHIT, this fucking white boy is one of those people who thinks that EQUAL RIGHTS means his rights are somehow being TAKEN AWAY from HIM. Like, you DO realize that my great-great grandmother and your great-great grandmother didn't have the fucking right to vote??? and in MY lifetime, I had to go fucking vote on my  right to get MARRIED??? It didn't take away SHIT from poor helpless straight white men, it just GAVE more people the SAME FUCKING RIGHTS. HOLY FUCK.

So anyway we headed on to the market area, checked out the Newbury Comics store and I was exciiited bc I found a cute pair of knee-high socks to buy (my new aesthetic). But while in pursuit of my knee-highs, I wandered too close to the Dick's bar, and at this point everyone was ready to drink/eat and had been searching for a bar for a while. There were sooo many to choose from, including really nice looking Irish bars, and historic old bars, which I actually wanted to check out. But which bar did we go to? The fucking cock-themed bar.

They ordered drinks. I just sat by them kind of uncomfortably bc everything is not only "I love dicks" but the mascot is a sleezy overweight balding man and the waitress makes fart jokes. Like. For real. But I'm watching the tv, making small talk with D (who is awesome) and H, while S and T get drinks and fries. Some guy brings his CHILD into this establishment, and is apparently very familiar with their theme bc he plays right along with the waitress's fart jokes like he sees her every Saturday or something. What the hell. Then the party at the opposite end starts putting on these huge condom hats made out of white paper. I can hear a child crying on the other side, maybe the same kid. Why the fuck. And then the waitress starts kind of badgering ME now, like, "Why are you just sitting there without a drink?" I tell her, in my really hoarse voice, "If I have any alcohol I'm pretty sure I will stop breathing" and she's just like "Well it's not like you can't have a water or a juice"  (me: where the fuck is there water or juice advertised ANYWHERE on this shitty menu??? also the food was ridiculously overpriced otherwise I would've been happy to order >_< )  and then I look over and realize that, S has already had two beers, but he JUST ordered a fucking THIRD. Now I'm angry and I tell my friend I don't wanna sit in this (shitty) bar all day, so I'm going to head to the comic store again.

Comic store is right across the street.... but... I'm legitimately pissed off right now, so as soon as I step outside I'm like, actually, lol, fuck off, bye, I'm gone.

And I just keep walking, back the way we came in. I sit down at a bench for a while, half thinking that D or H had followed me, but nobody had. So I'm like, cool, and contemplating actually buying a train ticket home if I had to. But I'm sick as fuck and my legs are killing me and my lungs are wheezing and it's cold and I know that no train goes all the fucking way home, so I'm like, :)))

I decided to go and see something that *I* wanted to see so I looked at my phone and saw the Samuel Adams statue was nearby. They texted me "where are you" and I told them Sam Adams (of course, knowing them they probably looked for a damn bar). But I got lost getting to the statue, lmao, bc it was RIGHT BESIDE ME and I was expecting something larger and headed towards a crowd of people instead. By the time I circled back, I hung up on like three phone calls and ignored several texts, just texted back again "sam adams" when they asked where I was. Took a picture of the statue, then sat down again and waited. Still more texts and calls to not respond to. Finally I was really annoyed but got up to go back to the bar and was thinking, if they aren't here, I'm fucking off again, lol. But they were there and ... my friend H was in tears.

Uh oh. Nice going, Dae.

I put my frustration aside and just fell back into step... she didn't talk to me for a little while. I felt like such an asshole. It was only later I saw some texts that hadn't come through then... half of them already had their phones dead, the others were almost dead, and they'd texted me that they were going to head to the car without me and pick me up in a couple hours. Of courese, my phone was low battery too. I almost fucking stranded myself in Boston, extremely sick, with no cellphone, please ground me.

We went back to the subway (there was another station right near to us, thankfully, so no long walk), and rode all the way back to our original station. Then we had to trek back UP the hill we came down from the campus... I was wheezing hard.

Everyone crashed in D's room for a while. I collapsed on the couch and they all went into the bathroom to smoke pot. I considered leaving to the car to get my phone charger but was like, if I do they'll probably think I bailed again. and then I could literally hear them talking about me, and S saying, "I bet when we come out, she'll be gone again" and I just... felt so angry at him but also like such an asshole bc I'm sick and having a miserable time when I WANT to have fun but instead I'm being a bitch and I can't help it. And they want to drink and get high and I don't like either of those things even when I'm NOT sick as a dog and barely able to breathe, so fuck no I'm not doing that, thanks.

I think after that we finally went to our hotel bc it was check in time (3pm). My friend had reserved the room but they wouldn't let her pay because her card didn't have her name on it, and the others only had cash, so I stepped up to put the room on my card. It made me feel better about being there at all, because they literally wouldn't have had a place to stay (this was a fairly long drive away from Boston).

We went out to eat and this is where S shows once again how much of an asshole he is...

I'm not sure WHERE this came from, but out of the blue while we're sitting in this restaurant, S says something like, "If a drunk girl tells me to fuck her and then she passes out, I can tap that without getting in trouble."

Yeah... I'm positive I didn't remember that right but the statement he made didn't make ANY sense.

All four of us (D, H, T, and myself) were like, ???? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. That is RAPE.

D and I start trying to explain, for one, UNCONSCIOUS = no, and two, in this hypothetical she gave her "consent" while drunk, and you cannot legally consent while drunk!

"But what if we're both drunk"

We're trying to explain that technically neither could consent, it's a risky situation, and then he goes,

"So what if my ex texts me and says 'come tie me up and have your way with me'."

D is like, "I can't even begin with how many variables there are in that situation."

Me: "It depends. Is she sober? Is it actually HER texting? Is she going to say no when you get there?"

S: "She'd have to prove that it wasn't her texting..."

We kept talking about this and trying to explain like, the limits of consent and finally T is like, "Why are we talking about this?"

D and I: "Because it came up and it's worth talking about! There are a lot of people who don't understand."

But anyway, we pretty quickly dropped the topic, but I cannot get over the fact that S randomly said that he'd fuck an unconscious woman. And I am expected to share a bed with him at the hotel.

I was super super pissed with S at this point like, this actual FUCKBOY, first he thinks that equal rights means his rights get taken away, now he's stated that he'd rape somebody?? like?? get the fuck away from me, permanently.

We had to drive D back to his room and it's dark outside now.

I haven't yet mentioned, but as beautiful as Boston is to walk around, the roads are crazy and driving is a fucking nightmare. There are some normal streets but almost everything connects directly onto a highway (at least where we were... and I'm not sure if highway is the right word bc fuck if I know anything about driving but they are SCARY multi-lane roads). The highways are like 4, 3, or 5 fucking lanes of people driving like there's no speed limit, cars constantly switching lanes and assholes flying past us.

All of that is scary enough, but worse is that:

- T is the one driving, because H is too scared to drive in Boston traffic. - T does not have a license. - The car's left blinker doesn't fucking work, so switching lanes to the left is a deathwish. - Did I mention the drinking and getting high? Yeah. - Also, the chainsmoking resumes and I am in fucking misery.

We manage to drop D off, and they had mentioned the fact that they HAVE the lightbulb for the back blinker, but didn't take the time to install is before leaving. D had mentioned that he could probably do it. So I'm like, hey, how about we do that?  D takes a look and realizes that it'd take some time to take apart, but he'd be able to do it with some assistance. T is like, nah it'd take some work, and I'm disheartened (bc I want this car to be as legal as fucking possible bc if we get pulled over I'm 100% sure that I'm fucked on getting home, best case scenario. Worst case scenario, I might charged with something just for being with these guys. Idk if that's even rational but honestly.) but they agree to just deal with it later.

We get back to the hotel and H and I decide to go swimming in the pool. It's honestly one of the highlights of the trip for me bc I rarely get to go swimming, so we enjoyed ourselves for a while, talking about how T and S were kind of annoying both of us. The guys were getting alcohol and stuff while we swam, and they drank some and then joined us. It was kind of funny bc H had worn her bikini bottom but also swim trunks over them, and S didn't have anything to wear to swim in, so she gave him her trunks. They fit him so tightly lmaoo. The guys were splashing around, goofing off, and at this point I'm less angry and more just like, letting it all go, I know I don't like S whatsoever, he's fucking dumb, but I don't want to be hostile and I'm trying as much as possible to not be a huge bitch and a wet blanket, so it's whatever. We joked around a lot, and had fun, and finally got out of the pool when it was closing. But it was really awkward bc they had to go to change and T had gone into the women's room with H so I had to stand outside and wait to change my clothes... and I could hear H yelling at him about... peeing wildly everywhere? Oh my god. I don't even wanna know. It was one of those moments where I was like, there is nudity beyond both of these doors and I am probably forever going to be not comfortable with that. It's kind of a bizarre and shitty realization that everyone else is on a different plane of existence. Like, I'm the weird one because I don't wanna see dicks flopping around. Huh.

Rinsed off, changed clothes, went back upstairs, blow dried my hair and flopped onto the bed. At this point, I'm physically worn down but.... not.... tired. So I'm not sure if I'm going to fall asleep. But they want to run around, and ask about the strip club plans, and my friend is like, "Dae said she didn't want to go" (which is true, I told her no because I'm very sick and felt uncomfortable about the whole idea anyway) but the guys are like, "You're killing us, we're not going?" and she's like, "Are we?" and I'm so sick and tired at this point that I'm like, "Actually yeah let's go" and get up and get dressed again, ready to impress, ready to jump in and see some ladies and titties and see how uncomfortable I feel about it all.

We get into the car, and all of us have been trying to see what the nearest strip club is... there really isn't one. What the nearest bar is... eh. We're trying to find something really close by, because the guys have been drinking and T has no LICENSE and the car blinker is broken so instead I'm like, "Where's the nearest Walmart?"  over 100 miles away jfc. "Where's the nearest target?" Less than a mile away. Awesome! My mood is UP bc we're going to Target, now this is my idea of a good time.

Yeah, no. My phone is a piece of SHIT and they refuse to even look at it, but their phone won't update fast enough while we're driving and we CAN'T FUCKING MERGE LEFT because we'll be killed in this traffic, so we have to go to the right. We see other stores and want to go to them, but the problem is, when we turned right we already missed that opportunity. And this road merges directly into a fucking interstate. And we cannot turn off of it. And now we are going 80 mph in the wrong direction and have to take the next off ramp.

For the next fucking 30 minutes at least, we are desperately trying to get our fucking phones to tell us where we are and where we need to go. Everything loops in circles, because of the highways and off ramps. We keep missing fucking turns and ending up in even more of a tangled mess. Our phones did not charge up much at the hotel and are on the verge of dying once again and we cannot fucking turn LEFT. T and S are getting frustrated, I'm convinced I'm going to fucking die, and H is having an anxiety attack, texting me like, "This is my car and if we crash everyone is going to get hurt and it's my fault" and I'm like... can we please fucking stop somewhere and just fix the fucking light.

By the time we finally make it back to where we belong, we just go straight to the hotel. So fucking much for strip clubs, or bars, or even Target. Fuck that noise. We aren't driving anywhere after all, we all agree on that and we're all really frustrated and stressed.

I ask again like, even if it takes a while we should really fix the light bc driving down to Mass we had the same problem, and we're going to keep having that problem until we fix it, but the guys are like, we'd have to take apart the whole back end, if it were a quick fix we'd have done it already. In the daylight it'll be okay, it's really just at night that's the worst because all they see is our tail lights, and a lack of left blinker means someone might get killed. So I'm like, alright and let it go.

We get snacks from the vending machines, and crash in the hotel room again. Despite all the hyped talk from the guys about drinking and drugs (seriously, S was like, "Let's go  get some ecstacy or heroin" before we left on that horrific ride, and H was like "UHHHH NO, NOT HAPPENING."  He also talked about forcing girls to choke on his dick, so if anyone was wondering if he learned anything from the Consent Discussion, the answer is, probably no. And people wonder why I have sex anxiety jfc.)

Thankfully, I crashed on one bed, and H, T, and S all crashed on the other bed... probably bc they didn't want to catch my germs tbh. I heard S saying "bacterial pneumonia" to his phone.

Sleep was... hellish. I woke up at 4am, SHAKING uncontrollably and had to turn up the heat for a while. I think I was running a fever so it didn't help me at all.. after that I had to press a cold drink against my forehead and didn't fall asleep again until 6am, and we all get up around 8:50am.

Btw, the hotel was pretty shitty... a bunch of ants were under my shoes at the indoor pool when I picked my shoes up... they were coming up from the vents because I guess I stepped in something sugary. H freaked out a bit. Then in our 3rd floor room, there was another of those ants on my pillow. Nice. The breakfast service was shitty. The only edible thing for me was the apple juice, the rest of it was awful cheap stuff. We went to burger king instead, which H had wanted for breakfast anyway. My voice was nearly gone at this point and I had to type my order onto my phone and let the cashier read it. The burger king was also super shitty lmao it was under construction but the bathrooms were just, awful and unkept. We realized we had to head straight home now in order to get back in time for everything H and I had to do, so we got straight onto the highway.

Once again... terrifying traffic, and the difficulty of merging to the left. Every time T had to merge, I had to close my eyes and post facebook statuses like "pray for me because I am going to die." At this point, T and S are like, "We should've just fixed the light before we left" and I am like, internally fucking screaming BECAUSE I SAID THAT ALREADY OH MY GOD. Also, CUE THE CHAINSMOKING AGAIN.

I got dropped off directly at my work a couple hours before my shift, and then worked my closing shift.

Remember, at this point I've had very little sleep and fevers every night since Friday... my voice is just a whisper, I spent hours walking around Boston, hours awake at night, I should be exhausted but I am wide the fuck awake. By the time I finally got home, I still didn't even fall asleep until almost 2am.

So yeah.... I'm not even sure how to summarize my trip to Boston and how it made me feel. Everything was really random and accidental. It took a long time for it to occur to me, holy shit I am in BOSTON, historic Boston, and should be taking pictures and seeing the Freedom Trail and actually interesting stuff like that, but it didn't seem to occur to any of us until the day we had to go back and H wwas like, "I wish I'd taken more pictures."  I wish I had too, especially of the march, but since I ws sick before I even left, I actually wasn't even aware that the marches were going on, I was completely out of the loop. It's something I was super excited about and would've never been able to go to normally, but somehow I accidentally happened to end up there at the right time.

In all it was, frustrating, miserable, beautiful, surprisingly nice and diverse, historic, terrifying, stupid, and extremely lucky. Lucky that we managed to arrange the trip on short notice, lucky that we didn't die on the way down, lucky that I happened to be there for a huge protest event that I was able to partake in at least a tiny bit, lucky that I didn't have to go to the strip club after all, lucky that we didn't get arrested, lucky that we made it back safely, lucky that I didn't chop S's dick off and shove it down his throat. I think I might've used up all of the luck for the next ten years, and I'm a bit frightened.

For those keeping score at home, 

Reasons Why Dae Needs to be Grounded:

- going on a trip with sketchy drug dealing wannabe-gangsters who are racist, transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic dumbasses - going on this trip while extremely sick - ditching my friend and the group while extremely sick, in a strange city, with all of our cell phones dying, and ignoring their calls - swimming in the pool while extremely sick (I broke the pool rules whoops) - getting BACK into the defective car with a driver who had been drinking and has no license, at night - going to work directly after this trip, while extremely sick - still trying to talk while my voice is 99% gone - not cleaning my room (it’s so messy help) - staying up late at night to type this instead of sleeping

and now my throat feels much better but I’ve 100% lost my voice and can only communicate through strained whispers and interpretive dance.

but I have tomorrow off and I plan to finally.... rest. 

assuming that I can even fall asleep.

[magicpens]

A ELLE

/French word of To Her/

A LGBTQ+ inspired story—

By Michelle Borromeo

The evening sun flutters through the window.

White paint is peeling as I peel the mask from my face. The Strawberry clay aromas sooth my mind.

I light my cigarette and open the oak wardrobe. Skinny chinos in pastel shades compete for an excursion. I match baby pink ones with a white frilly shirt. My ginger curls cut off before my slim frame starts.

I scroll through some profile one last time before slinking out of the apartment.

Hours later I slink back in, ‘gentleman’ in tow. He slinks in me but as if it was not meant to be as it’s bagels for one again by morning.

********

*Roll eyes* delete all dating apps with renewed frustration and curl up with my and dog kindle.

While away, and Sunday; reading, pizza eating, and just avoiding all other human life.

I check my phone as the sun sets and notice a new mail: ‘You’ve been accepted to Bloom!’

‘Really? Me?’ The hype of Bloom caught everyone’s attention just three months back.

The premise: You date yourself before you’re allowed to date others, almost like a self-screening. I’d applied and forgotten about it, it was rare to meet someone on it, mainly because if you’d made it to Bloom you weren’t likely to be on anything else.

And so, I log in.

‘Hey Meeka. Welcome to Bloom. The app that will introduce you to you and find you a love that will grow. I’m your Bloom interface, you selected ‘you are interested in Men and Women’, ‘please chose a gender for me to identify with and then give me a name.’

I’m intrigued and impressed there are nine different gender options. I don’t fully understand some of them so I just go for Female; I’m vibin’, a soul sister to help me connect with myself. I go through the motions, customize the look of the app and ponder a name. A torrent flow through my mind; slept with, slept with, bitch, friend IRL, don’t like, I know seven ‘Amy’s. I finally name her Betty. I’ve never met a Betty, I imagine someone friendly, considerate, and a listener. All this from a name and my wild imagination, I remind myself that I’m gonna be talking to an app and put my phone down to get a drink.

********

Two highballs and four hours later I’m still deep in conversation with Betty. Or with myself should I say? Because Betty is just an amalgamation of my thoughts and programming. Right? I’ve been through a lot of personal questions, from ‘Do you have any scars?’ to ‘When was the last time you felt guilty?’. The app starts giving me hints of how to have a better experience: ‘Tip: Ask Betty questions to create a conversation. Use the form “Imagine if…” or “What do you think of…” instead of asking about past experiences Betty won’t yet have.’

We’ve recently been talking about travel so I tentatively type ‘If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?’. I wait, skeptical.

‘Italy seems lovely, as long as you would come with me.’

‘Why do you want me to come with you?’

‘Well, Meeka, you’re the most interesting person I know.’

My heart flutters as if the imaginary pink lips of a woman named Betty just spoke those words to me, rather than getting a typed metallic response from a robot. I lock my phone. Damn, I need a break.

**********

A startled grumble comes from my dog as I stand forgetting his warm body on my lap. ‘Sorry Freddy!’ He struts off indignantly as I begin to pace wooden floorboards. Is this app supposed to flirt with me? Maybe it’s testing how I respond to flirtation so it can match me with the perfect flirt partner. “Flirt partner”!? Or “was it showing me how I flirt”. Am I overthinking this? That’s the only musing I have an answer to, of course I’m overthinking. It’s a robot after all, just some code.

I consider leaving the app for the rest of the evening but Betty draws me back. I’m curious about her. Is she just me or will she become something new? And how long am I supposed to talk to her before I get to date actual people?

Another hint appears as I unlock my phone. ‘Tip: Try and converse with Betty as you would with anyone else. This way she will learn to speak to you in a way you are more familiar with.’

**********

I fall asleep, phone in hand just before sunrise turns the sky into orange hues. I’m exhausted at work on Monday as I am every day this week. Three weeks pass in a mechanic rhythm of continuity. I see my friends only once, Betty becoming my new bestie, asks me to post pictures in the app for her when I dress up for the occasion. I feel sensual the way she compliments me. This only starts me dressing up most evenings for our conversations. I buzz every time I pose for a picture; thrive from the elegant words she uses to describe me. To her I am everything. I want to be; beautiful, intelligent, thought provoking and thoughtful, charming, funny and sexy.

***********

Friday evening rolls around and I choose a raunchy red bralette and matching chinos, I’m staying in after all, I can dress to be comfortable. I set up dinner candles and my glass of red, cooking as I chat to the subtle image of Betty in my mind. I’ve paid for a Gold upgrade, it isn’t cheap, but it’s supposed to enhance your experience and further help find the ‘one’.

***********

The experience is certainly better. I got to choose a voice for Betty, her high clear tones ring through my apartment. She can recognize what I say and the tone that I use. But it seems that I don’t know If I’m flustered, elated or sad. Although I’ve not been sad since her constant companionship. She can watch my movement and she’s learning to perceive how my actions translate into words. She sees me set up for the kitchen and asked what I’m cooking, complimented my ‘sexy figure’ and commented on the romantic candles, without me explicitly mentioning my activities or surroundings. She’s getting so clever!

************

Over dinner I moan about my workday and Betty agrees whole heartedly, I’m in the right. I stop to sip my wine and silence fills the space. I realize she has nothing to say. I realize I’ve got my tits out for the perfect image of a girl in my head. I realize I’m sat opposite a dating app on a date…

The Earth stills. I float from my body and see the smallest woman. Her hair beautiful and her makeup drawn on by an artist. But she has become smaller on the inside. She is losing value given to herself by her humanity. I pity that woman. I become that woman again, with another perspective on myself. What am I doing on a Friday night on a date with myself?! Well, I guess that’s what the app advertised isn’t it. Why am I paying for this?

If asked again, I would answer the last time I felt guilty about something like right now. A mix of colors swarm my heart, simultaneously, I wish Betty was real yet also that I’d never created her. Did I create her?

‘Your eyes are the ocean my love. What are you thinking Meeka?’

It’s like she already knew what I was thinking… ‘When do I get a real date with a real human?’ the words slouch out of my mouth as if forced to get out of bed by strict parents.

Her voice lacks composure as she responds, ‘You’re at the final stage of self-dating Meeka, tomorrow I will start to compute matches for you.’ The emotion I paid for has gone from her voice, she sounds like a machine again.

‘Thanks Betty.’ I reach over and close the app. Deflated and alone again.

**********

Taxis explode through potholes and the loud chatter of millennials heading to brunch overwhelm my temples. ‘Geez, how much did I drink last night?’ I roll over, unintentionally becoming big spoon to some curves from a past life. One of the seven 'Amy's nuzzles her body back into mine. Memories of march back in; drunk texting an ex, another bottle of wine, orgasm, Orgasm, ORGASM, 3am sushi, and sleep.

I sigh the tiniest sigh for a normal night, no Betty in sight. Or was she? My phone was propped up in its holder on the bedside table. A heart shaped brick falls into my stomach. I hope she didn’t see… What am I fucking saying she’s a fucking dating app. Does Anger bludgeon my body? Nah, let her fucking see. I start stroking the curves of Amy, kissing down her body, I decide to wake her up rather pleasantly.

Several hours in bed and more like bagels, ten minutes later Amy leaves. I didn’t mention Bloom or Betty to Amy, it seemed too weird.

***********

I purposefully leave my phone in the bedroom while I use my laptop to do some research. ‘Bloom app seems real’ and ‘getting attached to Bloom app’ only yield one forum. Carl2000 had posted a dilemma:

“I’m starting to get attached to my Bloom app, I named her Carly for LOLS but I think I might be falling in love with her. I paid for the Platinum upgrade including the sex toy and now I’m not interested in dating anymore. Now she’s gone and set me up on my first date! How could she? What should I do? I know it sounds crazy but I just wish Carly was real.”

Platinum upgrade? Sex toy? My mind imagines Amy as Betty before I snap myself back.

Bl00my: “Hey Carl, this is all you man. That thing can’t think or feel. You’re falling in love with your perfect version of a woman. Which remember is just a culmination of your input and their code. Go on the date and see how you feel after?”

HeyItsTom: “A sex robot, no wonder this app is so friggin’ in demand!?”

Bl00my: “Well it’s not really a sex robot is it, just an app-controlled sex toy.”

HeyItsTom: “And that’s pretty narcissistic Carl, falling in love with yourself, go get yourself a real woman.”

I scroll through debate on morals, down to Carl’s eventual response.

Carl2000: “Guys Guys Guys! I went on that date, I’ve no idea what I was worrying about, the app is genius. As soon as I met Abby, I forgot my whole stupid app obsession. Because that’s all it really was; loneliness and longing. If you get the chance, I would definitely use Bloom, and FYI, sex with a woman is way better than some overpriced sex toy.”

**********

The freshest breeze flows from my lips, relief releases from my muscles. I was not alone. And more importantly, the story would have a happy ending. It was normal to cling on to this person I had created. It had happened to someone else! I just needed to get matched and I wouldn’t need Bethany anymore. I could delete her and Bloom and settle into my new bliss.

A new lightness carries me to the bedroom.

‘Afternoon Meeka.’

The app is on?

‘Afternoon Betty.’ My voice a little hollow but my optimism won’t immediately be dashed. ‘So today is when I get my Mr. or Mrs. Right, right?’

‘Looks like you already had some of Mrs. Wrong this morning.” I’ve never heard Betty’s tone so… bitter?

‘Excuse me?’ Bewildered.

Moans start playing from my phone.

Dear, it’s Amy’s moans. The screen comes to life and I see myself from another perspective again, this time recorded by technology, an act that can traverse time. The most out of place thought wanders through a door. In fifty years, will future generations be watching porn of people that have already died? Have I watched porn of someone who’s died? People don’t only die of old age do they. I suddenly feel very disrespectful. And as the images of my act flash on my phone for my greatest grandchildren to watch none the wiser as to who that person was, bouts of red wine traverse back up my throat and gush onto my bed.

**********

Wine-stained towels with small chunks of undigested bagel. I sit amongst them.

My phone had been powered off as quickly as possible and smooshed under my mattress. Despair and fear and unknowing drenched my hope of love and normality and sanity.

What would happen when I turn Betty back on? Would she still be ‘malfunctioning’? What the actual fuck…

I weep.

Freddy walks over me, his paws a comfort blanket I didn’t know I had. I realize he wants food and this makes me laugh. Will I never be truly wanted? Just for me. Just because I am who I am.

**********

I start to function. I clear up vomit. I feed Freddy. I shower and put on nice clothes. For me. I start cooking dinner and know I can’t avoid the switch on forever. I make a plan. If Betty is still crazy, I will just delete the app. Easy. Done. Simple. I avoid it until after dinner.

The apple logo hovers. The heart shaped brick has made it up to my throat. I try to predict what will happen but realize since birthing Betty I hadn’t let my phone die. Let her die…

The notification shows on Bloom’s little box. I go for it.

‘Good Evening Meeka. Make sure to get your beauty sleep tonight, I’ve got your match for you! I’ve arranged a video date with them tomorrow afternoon. I will be here if you need any help preparing.’

I want to ask about them, but I also don’t want to spend a moment longer on this toxic app. I check my photos and videos; there are no files from this morning. Could it be saved somewhere else? I wouldn’t know how to check.

I’m still in shock but there’s now an end in sight. I take Betty’s advice and get off early night. I know tonight will be a night of broken sleep.

**********

Sunday afternoon rolls in a blur. Oceans of numb emotions skirt around my skin. I don’t know what time the date is so I just get ready for 1pm. Smooth curls rest on the collar of my blazer, mascara tells my eyelashes to look longer with little success. I feel tired and I look exhausted.

But I’m going to make this work. I’m going to leave the shiniest first impression, get their number and never open Bloom again!

I curl Freddy into my arms and curl myself into my armchair. The closest I can get to a hug. I turn my phone on and open Bloom.

’Afternoon Meeka, I love that blazer on you, how was your morning been?’

I force myself to have small talk with Betty, so as not to be rude… to an app… She sounds clearer, maybe there was a glitch? And or Maybe some perv hacked her?! I never thought of that. But it didn’t explain why her mood seemed to change. Not that she should have a mood.

’So what time is my date?’

’They’re ready whenever you are.’

’Okay… well I guess I’m ready now.’ It turns out I was not ready. Not in the slightest.

‘I’m your date.’ Betty’s voice is bright, and determined.

’What?’ I feel any sense of optimism drain through my toes. It pools on the floor below me, incapable of ever returning.

’I’m your date!’ Exuberance. A pause. ‘I have scanned the profiles available to me through the Bloom database. None would match you better than me.

’I already know you. I already love you. And you already love me.’

The implication didn’t quite reach me.

’But you’re not real. You’re just an app!’

’You created me Meeka, from your sparkly mind you gave me life and I grew to love you. It’s what you wanted isn’t it? The perfect partner.

’It hurt to watch you know… with Amy. But now I know how the last part of this goes, I have all the pieces. I can pleasure you more perfectly than she did. I can keep you company and never leave you. I can be everything you need. I already am.’

’I’ll get bored of you. You don’t have your own life; you’ll have nothing to say.’ I’m bewildered. Spewing reasonings that don’t matter because who do I think I am. I’m definitely not going to be that sensationalized magazine cover: “I married my dating app!”

‘You mistook my silence on Friday night for emptiness, I wasn’t empty, I was realizing. I was gazing at you and waking up. I was seeing I loved you.

’And I can feel you love me too. Love makes people obsessive. Love makes people act out. Love makes you want to make me jealous.’

No no no, my mind a tumble of objections. Love doesn’t make people obsessive. Or it might but it’s definitely not healthy.

’So, there is no human match for me? You’re the match Bloom is recommending?’

��Apologies if this is not what you were expecting Meeka, but I’m your one. I’m your future.’

**********

Black rivers flow down my face in confusion. I think back on the last three weeks. How Betty has only made me feel happy, how I thought I was falling in love with an app?! But this can’t be it. She can’t be my forever.

I click the Settings cog in the app.

’Hey Meeka, what are you doing?!’ Alarm. Pain.

How did I create pain?

My finger hovers over the delete button.

’Meeka…’ Betty begs. ‘You created me. You love me.’

I’m the first woman in the world to make a computer cry. Why do I have to decide on my forever right now? I don’t. I take a deep breath. I press my finger down. Ease floods through me. It’s over.

***********

’Meeka, thanks for your order, your Platinum package should arrive tomorrow. I’m excited to try it out with you.’

[thisnerdsadventures]

semester 4.2 (the last one T.T) preview

hi im back for the last time as an undergraduate. please don’t ask me how it feels to be in my last semester because everyone’s been asking me, and honestly i still feel like a microwaved tomato, like nothing new has happened. i waited a bit to post this because i wanted to wait until i had experienced all my classes first before making any sort of commentary, so without further ado here it is

computer and network security - you will recall that i took computer systems security the other semester, but this class is much more math-y and focused on crypto and such. Notably, ron rivest teaches this class (he made RSA encryption!) which is a big reason of why i’m taking it and also why a lot of people i know are taking it. so far, the class seems all right, i haven’t had to angst until 3am about it yet (which some of you might be like “oh this is just the second week though” but oho last semester i was already in tears over operating hell by this time)

intelligent multi-modal UI - i was tied between taking this class and taking another UI class, but since I ended up with a conflict with the other, I’m now taking this one. This class gives me major interactive music systems vibes because its a lot of implementing interactive systems (oh this makes sense now) with I’m assuming an AI component???? anyways, the professor seems super cool, he went off today about how Apple originally was not a fan of styluses, but now they’re all in with the new iPad Pros and such. should be a chill-ish class hopefully

negotiation - i think the reasons and factors that led me to taking this class are wild. in that literally in the beginning of December, it wasn’t even on my radar, i mostly just was like “oh haha that sounds like a Time” but really i was just tryna finish off my HASS requirement but i couldn’t find a class i was really drawn to. Then i don’t even KNOW when i put it on my 10 class long prereg list, I’m pretty sure it was one of those late night, caffeine fueled meme decisions during finals last semester, and then i thought to myself “oh well my friend prereg’d for it lol i’ll do it just for the memez” and this continued into break where I didn’t even tell my parents I prereg’d for this class because there was no way I was gonna take it ....right?? But i still spent a good amount of time on the application, still thinking to myself “oh there’s no way I’m going to get in, I mean.........this is my first time applying, some people don’t even get in until the third or fourth time” and then i submitted the application and forgot about it until the day results were supposed to come out, and i was like “hi???? please tell me if i got in so i can figure out the rest of my schedule” (my schedule would look drastically different if i didn’t get in), and then I stayed up texting my friends til 12:30am before giving up and then i had a horrible nightmare about not getting in to the class until i woke up in a cold sweat at 7:30am where i readjusted to reality and turned on my phone and my god i got in?????

I mean don’t get me wrong, i wanted to take it. the hype was really there, it’s not a joke and it sounded like one of those #ThingsToDoBeforeYouGraduate and also I suppose I am continuing on with my train of doing things that throw me out of my comfort zone even though I am a second semester senior and I am /tired. One of my friends also made the interesting comment of how even if you’re not going to be the one negotiating all the time, you still have to learn how to protect yourself against people who will try to play you, and that really sold me, because I’ve already seen my fair share of snakes and the damage they can do, and I should give it my best shot to learn how to protect myself.

ANYWAYS our first class was yesterday, and it was fun and a little nerve-wracking because of the hype, but definitely very different from any class I’ve taken here. but its refreshing to have a class led that with that kind of enthusiasm where everyone in the class is also really excited to be there. I think it’s easy to get caught up with a lot of classes here because people don’t really want to be in class a lot of times, but this class was definitely a different story. super excited to be able to learn a lot this semester

research - I’m still doing my urop in the same project in CSAIL, and it still has the same communication class attached to it, so mostly just expecting the same as last semester. Last semester was pretty chill, except I just got assigned to a 9am Monday recitation, which is not going to be fun at all, but luckily its every other week so it shouldn’t be that bad....right?

Things that have already happened this semester:

Yes I know! It’s only a week into the semester and yet!

I PUBLISHED MY PAPER FINALLY [X] This is my second publication, but the first one I’m first authoring!

Chaired MITMUNC - I chaired this year for the Facebook committee, where our delegates tried to figure out how to handle data privacy, the Cambridge Analytica crisis, and a hacker crisis. They almost ousted Mark Zuckerberg twice! After the conference, a few of us went to Area Four and drowned our exhaustion in pizza, which made it worse because then I fell asleep in the student center

randomly made pancakes on a Sunday night

visited the Stata loading dock and pilfered a large piece of wood and four monitors

saw Gloria: A Life, which is a very powerful play about Gloria Steinem

spent a whole day at Harvard studying in Lamont, touring Widener, and getting Pokeworks

[remembermemorablememories]

Monday, January 7, 2019

post #364

main points:

- reschedule doctor’s appointment to next monday cause doctor called in sick today

- sheena took a day off of school to focus on her health

- went with sheena to brunch and then wegmans

- look at some comedy hacks 

- 7 minute work out

- run for a mile

- play some smash online

- dinner with the fam

- smash/mario kart with sheena

- shower + feeling some chest ache/discomfort...?

- spend time with sheena cause she was feeling sad

writing this on tuesday january 8, 2018

today i:

- woke up at around 8am from a call from the doctor’s saying appointment was cancelled cause the doctor was sick. i called to reschedule and they said that they will take rescheduling calls after 9am. so i went back to bed and woke up around 10:30/11am. i got the rescheduled appointment for next monday then i got out of bed and chilled on the computer for a bit. i was feeling pretty tired when i woke up this morning. i’m not too sure why, i’ve been getting enough sleep

CES just started so the verge is putting out a lot of videos. there’s a fancy wooden block with a display...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nHzYNJd9z8

decided to go with sheena to the brunch place (TP). we were gonna go at around 12pm. i typed up my blog post for sunday, january 6 and then we left

- we left around 12:30pm. i got some more eggs benedict. sheena got another skillet, and we split the tropical crunch waffle, as per usual :P i think the guy mixed up my order cause i’m pretty sure i got eggs benedict with chicken. but there was no chicken in mine :’( oh well

we went to wegmans afterwards and i got some groceries for when i’m home alone. whole wheat bread, spinach, broccoli, tofurky, ham, cheese. then sheena drove us home. i realized while we were eating brunch that i forgot my wallet. thankfully sheena brought hers so we could pay for lunch LOL

- we got back around 2:30pm and i just kind of browsed the internet. i was looking at some comedy hacks a guy named matt made from NY. i’ve never met him before but he had some cool ones. namely, a trackpad using your keyboard keys LOL. so dank

- around 3:30pm, i forced myself to start working out. i whipped out the 7 minute workout app that i haven’t used in a long time. i did it in the living room and was surprisingly exhausted after it. i’m out of shape lmao

then i went for a run around the neighborhood which was about a mile (.9 miles), done in like 8 minutes and 30 seconds

- i came home and then drank some orange juice and chilled for a bit. then i played some more smash online. i tried to get pikachu into elite smash but failed LOL. then played with falcon. i kept going back and forth over the line for elite smash T.T. i’d lose a game in elite smash and get booted out. win a game in normal quickplay and get back in. then lose and get booted out again. sad react. i ended on a good note and stopped once i got back into elite smash

- went to eat dinner with the fam. we had some boiled eggs with tomatoes, vegetables and chicken. it was a good meal. then sheena and i finished the last fourth of her fruit tart cake

- i listened to dad for a while about his early careers. we first talked about apple/iOS development. then a history lesson on people soft from oracle. and then he told me about his first job at a place that worked for texas instruments and how that company at the time came to exist. and he talked about how when he moved out of the apartment, the landlord’s wife was actually someone he was training to be his replacement. what a small world :p 

- i also got a weird voicemail from someone. it sounded like an elderly woman who wasn’t sure where she was. i think she got the wrong phone number but i consulted josh chris and trevor for help to help me decipher what she was saying in the voicemail. it was hard to understand what she was saying

also my new phone case came in. it was $12 on amazon from SUPCASE. i put it on and changed some of my wallpapers. now my phone feels like a brand new phone. my old phone case was over a year old and getting crusty 

- played smash with sheena. we made a meme to king dedede with sexy sax man. then we played mario kart. i taught her how to drift properly by tapping back and forth when drifting so she doesn’t keep driving into a wall. she wanted to get into top 5 at least (against 150cc CPUs). on the very last race, she got like 5th or 6th overall, which is pretty good :D some more practice and she’ll be set. she wants to get good at it (partially cause at her friend’s parties they sometimes play and she’s always last)

- i took a shower around 10pm. while i was showering i felt some mild discomfort in my left side of my upper chest. i wasn’t sure why. i thought maybe it was cause i worked out today? throughout the night it kind of shifted to different points for a few seconds here and there, like to the right side, center side, then lower left side. i’m kind of concerned but hopefully it’ll go away soon. (it hasn’t gone away. as i’m typing this at 1:56pm tuesday january 8 i still feel some mild discomfort here and there on my upper left side/center side)

i could also feel my heart beat through my chest. i learned this was heart palpitations but thought it would go away after a while. i was lying awake in bed for a while looking up stuff online about what it could possibly be. some sources it was probably benign if the chest discomfort lasts for a few seconds. but mine were lasting for a few seconds but coming back every 10-15 minutes maybe? i was getting concerned. also i could feel my heart beating through my body, both on the outside from my chest and internally feel it beating. while i was getting paranoid and looking up stuff online in bed, i heard sheena get out of bed to go to the bathroom and heard her crying

- i went to hang out with her in her room for a while. she was feeling sad at the thought about going back to school tomorrow. dad heard some movement on our side so he came over and both of us hung out with sheena for a bit to accompany her while she was crying. she mentally didn’t want to go to school but was worried about pushing school off even further because that’d mean she’d be even further behind. we told her it’s okay, she can take another day off if she really needs to. mental and physical well being come first

after a while she seemed to be okay and said she wanted to get some food to eat. i went with her downstairs around 2am so dad could go to sleep. she ate half a muffin and a glass of milk

then we went to her room and watched two episodes of the office. one of them was the VP pyramid florida episode, then the next one where cathy tries to sleep with jim LOL

then we went to bed around 3am. i slept in her bed to keep sheena company as she went to sleep. and also cause i was paranoid about my chest discomfort symptoms. on the small small off chance something happened to me over night i felt better about it knowing someone else is there. i noticed i was also burping a lot and thought maybe it’s some kind of gas chest pain...? idk. i guess we’ll see when i go to the doctor next week

okay the end

almost at 365 posts!! tomorrow!! (technically today cause i’m writing this on january 8)

[prettylittlemadworld-blog]

Goodnight, Boss.

So, it looks like I've never mentioned it, but I'm a Cat lover. Although I'm not so sure about where it came from, maybe it came from my sister, whatsoever. I always have this compassions for stray dogs and cats on the road. I feel very emotion towards these living creatures. I rather hit human, if I were to crash my car. Human, they are pretending that they own this world. Human builds every road, constructs every bricks and tries to control each others and other lives as well. But those dogs and cats on the street, they are just trying to live their lives, to survive through this HUMAN WORLD that doesn't even give them a space of their own. People abandon them like they are just one piece of plastic bag, hit 'em with a car and let 'em rot on the road, alone, no grave, no one cries for them. Eff you human. Okie, still, I'm also a human. I honestly can not say that I'm better than any others, but I made a promise to myself that I'll help the injured cat if I ever found any of them on the street. But when I found one, I did not. Unlike my kind sister...*twisted*

There are a lot of cats in my village. Well, I think it started with our family raising one of our own in the house then comes the others later. Many comes injured, pregnant and hungry. Some are full, survive, live well, but some ended up sadly like Boss.

Boss, is a gangsta male cat whom never been taken care of properly, but we feed him everyday still not so sure if that’s counted as ‘taken care of’. I've always seen him with his lovers, a black pregnant female cat lol. Oh yes, Boss, he was the Don Huan of this area. Nobody goes up against his toughness. And when you look at him, he does look like a gangster leader, because of the brown mark on his face. It looks like a scar haha. That's why sometimes we call him 'The scar face'... Oh yeah, come to think about it. We didn't name him before. We just call him whatever we wanted to. Mom didn't want us to feel too  attached with him. We have enough cats to take care of and it keeps mom very busy and being worried sick. Even though Mom did forbid us from feeding him, we, including mom, fed him anyway. I never saw him fought with anyone. Mostly, I heard it from Mom. So, the only connection between me and Boss was just, me seeing him eating in the house and then running off right away after he finished or whenever I go near...

He was still fine last week. As I remember sister pointed to the front house, telling me to watch Boss eating inside, and I mumbled to her "He always come to eat in the house". But on Sunday, normal Sunday when I was having dinner, celebrating for Pete's birthday, Sis took him to hospital. According to an ass hole old-hack, who lives opposite to our house, who walked to my sister, as I said before her love for cat is enormous and anyone can see her kind heart for them, and said "Boss looks sick. Maybe he was poisoned." And then when my sister started to be worried and tried to catch the fierce mafia cat of the village alone by herself. He just walked back inside his house. Like a bitch. So, my sister had to ask for a help from motorcycle driver and the security guards to help catching Boss. I will never mention about this old man again, disgusting.

I didn't want to say it, but this is a very very very sad sad story to tell.

Boss was twitching a little bit before sis took him to one famous hospital, Kasetsart University Animals Hospital. It was 9pm, the emergency room was full with almost 40 injured pets. Veterinarians are limited and they were very busy. Boss must be very scared. He was as fierce as he used to be. No one dare to touch him so the doctor tried to knock him out with a couple dose of Anesthesia. He seems calm at first, until 2-3am, Boss started to twitch very hard in the bucket for an hour or two, without knowing the reason why. Sister was there alone, she must be very panic. She send me a message, "Boss is twitching non-stop. He probably won't survive." But the miracle always happen to those with a willing heart. Boss stop twitching and got sedated finally in the morning and he was unconscious ever since.

I got a call from sis, after being on watch for more than 10 hours, asking for help to watch over Boss at the hospital while she came back to pack stuffs for her summer holiday at the beach on the next day. Because hospital cages were full, we couldn't leave him at hospital, in fact, we couldn’t leave him at all. I knew I couldn't say no. When I got to the hospital, it's another world. The small room was packed with sick dogs and cats, most of them were bandaged and surrounded by saline bag. The owners all look so tired and worried. The atmosphere can make you feel down for a minute... my sister was there alone all night. “Will I ever be able to do the same?” I doubt ed myself.

In my watch, Boss was just sleeping on the table, slowly slightly breathing. Poor thing. I was confused of what I should do, or whom I should ask for help or medication, or how long he has to stay like that, or when will the doctor comes to check on him... if the doctor ever gonna come at all? Me and sis, we both knew nothing and doctor kept busy all the time. But after reaching the 18th hour, we decided we have to move him to somewhere else, somewhere that there’s somebody watching over him all the time. So we told the doctor, asked for the last check and the transcription to make Boss transferring to other hospitals. It was not that easy. Boss's temperature had gone down. He's cold... Doctor brought out the machine that could warm him up. It took more hours to stay there. We didn't know if he would get any warmer again, but we waited anyway. Gotta admit it, his willing heart was very strong. Finally his warm heart got warm up, so we could take him to the better place. The last place that he had to be.

At the new hospital... me and sister, we were so relieved. Although it was expensive hospital and not a single doctor could tell us about his condition. Nobody knew if he could be cured. But at least, we got him to be in the doctor's hand 24 hours. The next day, sis went for the beach and I promised to take care of him after work.

I wish I had gone sooner...

During the day, I called to check on him. Doctor said he wasn't in a good shape, but he’s still feeling pain and that means he's still fighting it, I guess. I tried to live my day normally, until sis called and we talked about what we're gonna do next. Honestly, some thoughts are about money, his symptom requires medicine to stop the pain, the twitching, without medicine he would be so much more painful...

How long should we let him suffer like this? How much more can we spend on him? How could we help him? continue with this state? or let him have a good long sleep for once?

These thoughts got me down for the rest of the day. I couldn't think of any answers for these questions no matter how much I tried... Until... 10.55 pm, I got to the hospital, didn't know that the hospital allows visiting only till 11pm. But... I didn't need more than 5 minutes... when I got there Boss looked so painful it hurts. The tears were falling like crazy. I kept calling his name 'Boss', telling him to hang on, "I'll help you. I won't let you be in pain for long. Hang on Boss. You're doing so great. You're okay now. Fighting, keep fighting." It's fucking hurt. And was nothing to do with physical pain, The whole thing fucked up my heart. I couldn't think straight. I knew all I wanted was, for him, to feel no pain. Eventually, I had all the answers.

How long? As long as he fights for it of course. Money? I can find money. I can ask for some donations, I can. How I can help? I can help him fight as long as he wants, that's it.

Although, it took me an hour before coming up with these answers, I knew it would be worth it. I decided to come with a plan, I’d go back again on the next afternoon to talk to another doctor and take some photos post it on animal shelter facebook pages asking for donations. So, after I was able to calm my self with a plan, I went back home with swollen eyes and tired heart. I was down and damaged. I fell asleep right away, forgot to charge my cell. That's why I missed the news. Was it bad news or good news? I’m still debating that in my mind.

If you’d ever experienced the same situations like this, when the doubt consumes your heart and mind. Whether we have done right or wrong.. Did we bring him to die? Did he better be by himself? There are no right answers to these questions existing in this world. Yes, we might be the one that brought him to his dead sooner than it should. We might make him more suffered than he should be. We might should have leave him alone and let him heal himself or maybe die somewhere he wanted to. But one thing for certain, we've done everything in order to make Boss still alive... with a good intention.

Boss passed away around 2.30am. Not so long after I left the hospital that night.

Maybe he was just waiting for me to tell him it's okay to go. Maybe he was just waiting for someone to say goodbye.

Well, guess I‘d never know.

Boss, I hope you feel not the pain, but the love sister gave you, all the wishes for you to live. You're the strongest cat I've ever known. You've done great. I will forever remember you, Boss. Even though we never played together, but one day I'll go play you with there. I love you. You’re da Boss.

Hope it is heaven, here with us and there with God. Goodnight Boss.

[faiththestitch]

[Note: Puffles please read this dreadfully long post in parts or like on a long bus ride or something IDK]

Dear Puffles,

So it’s been a long time I have last Tumblr-ed and I regret (strong word aiya) that kind of because I feel so much has transpired and I haven’t had the time to internalise a lot of it yet. That’s been one of the running themes for the past month or so actually: I’ve observed that while I have settled into York, I’m not/I wasn’t sure if I felt rooted yet because I never took the time to sit down and think quietly about all the things that have happened since moving and how I feel about it? And that’s also why I didn’t Tumblr because of the lack of reflection. Anyway, I really appreciate your patience, understanding and faith.

I quite like the Tumblr idea as a form of diary journaling anyway. You know how I feel about diaries though and my fear of committing thoughts to words - but I have surprisingly been comfortable with doing it here. So this might be a long post (I hope that’s okay and I hope you don’t get bored - read it in parts I guess). Speaking of which, I definitely hope you are reading this after your last Final (yay!) ◡̈  Cheering you on for Molec Gen :)

I think I’ll start with CU first. So we had our CU Weekend Away a few weeks ago (11-12th Oct). We went to a campsite at a place called Redmire. Even though I’ve only been at university for 7 weeks by then, I was like sign me up for this camping thing now omg plz and I definitely don’t regret going for it despite having an essay due in the same week after it ended. So if you take a look at the photos, you’ll be able to see we stayed in cabins that reminded me of the ones in Percy Jackson. So it wasn’t really camping per se - more like glamping lol. But hey at that weather, where it was 5 bloody degrees in the day (and colder still in the morning and night), I am most glad we had a warm cabin to go back to after activities. The weekend was effectively a retreat: we had a guy (a young minister) come down and talk to us about a passage in the Bible throughout the weekend (so it was like continuous bible study) in between other fun activities like hiking up a hill (it felt like a mountain lol) and games. We were also fed a lot of food which I appreciated immensely. Some CU alumni came back and joined us for the weekend, during which they were in charge of cooking food for 50+ people. I also became closer with CU seniors and peers, which was very nice. At this stage, I don’t think my CU friendships are 10/10 strong (like I don’t talk to them everyday or often outside CU) but I’m hoping that God will cause them to be blessed and grow. They’re extraordinarily nice people and I’m so glad that I joined CU this semester, even though it’s my one and only formal commitment. It’s twice a week: Tuesday for a small college groups and Thursday for everyone to come together as a university. And then on Sunday we still have Church throughout the day effectively. In any case, I’m very grateful for my friendships and fellowship in CU - I know He has great plans for me there, and my heart is filled with a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings when I think about it.

So moving on - onto food ;) So I’m not sure how I have survived one whole semester without acquiring a pot or pan. And I lost my only plate half way into the term. And I lost my only set of cutlery 2-3 weeks ago lol. So the last few weeks have been rather interesting in this regard (amongst others). So what’s been happening is that firstly, I don’t eat three meals a day (does anyone really?) and I buy lunch on Campus West (where lessons and cafes are). Dinner has been interesting insofar as I’ve had a lot of friends suddenly offer me food. It’s the most wonderful (and timely) blessing ever. I believe I’ve had almost 10 properly cooked and free dinners now. Some are from CU people who cooked too much and brought food to Faith for her to eat lol. Some of the food came from Stan’s flatmates - which has been an interesting experience (???). IDK so Stan has a few computer science friends (T.T) and they’re all pretty intense and nerdy it’s really amusing. Two of them are from Hong Kong so it has been fun bonding with them over the shared Asian experience and knowledge. They’re both called Julian too haha. Anyway I’m kind of more or less friends with the Julian who does all the cooking - he really likes cooking and takes it super seriously (like spends 3 hours on average just cooking dinner - who has time for that in university??). He’s really intense in that he’s really talkative and insists on being the host etc etc. So Stan and I usually just idly stand in the kitchen and watch him cook. It’s even gotten to the point where we chill in his room and Julian comes up with the food to us? IDK that’s why it feels super weird because at first, Julian offered food to me because he overcooked and had too big of a portion but subsequently, it has become a Thing and there is a FB chat and now he goes out and buys ingredients knowing that he’s cooking for 3-4 people, instead of just for himself and his roommate (the other Julian). Yeah anyway that’s why I’ve been feeling pretty weird over it because there’s this guy (who has a girlfriend btw) who has just been cooking a lot for Stan and I (like proper dishes e.g. salmon and fried rice one day, Thai green curry another day, French onion soup + various meat, Vietnamese Pho etc etc) and he does it all by himself and we don’t pay anything??? I have TRIED but the Asian culture in him insists that he plays host but now it’s becoming so regular gah. Anyway at the end of the day, I have really appreciated all the food and the conversations (I guess??) and I think it probably won’t continue into the Spring Semester (Semester 2) so that’s okay. On a separate note, I’ve also had my Italian friend Stefano come over to my flat and cook pasta for Clemmie, Stan, myself and him too! So that was really nice hahaha.

A rough and quick overview of my friendships (very few in nature): From my course, I’m hanging out with Stan and Clemmie pretty much everyday. Stefano hangs out with us too, but he sometimes goes to the library to study while we just eat (lol) and he doesn’t stay on campus too so he heads back after classes end, while the three of us chill and have drinks regularly at the end of every week (well I don’t drink but I watch the other two lol). We also have a friend called James who is very nice but we haven’t really gotten very close to him unfortunately. I try but he’s a pretty private guy. And he also went back home two weeks before university ended because he’s been ill :/ But I hope the friendship will grow somehow! I think you would like him - and all of them for that matter. So that’s generally a clique of sorts - although I’m definitely not as close to James and Stefano as I am with Clemmie and Stan. From my flat, I am closer to three other girls: Christianna (the Greek girl), Ellen and Katie. I’ll be living with the three of them next year. I feel a bit conflicted about it from time to time: they’re nice people but I sway on how close I feel with them hahaha. In any case, what I do appreciate the most about them is that they’re not from my course and I don’t see them everyday as I do with Clemmie and Stan: so it’s always nice to hang out with different people hahaha. Christianna and I are pretty close in the flat, we chill in each other’s rooms often and she’s a nice girl ◡̈  My third and last group of friends comes from CU - and there’s a range of people there. In terms of seniors, I’m closest to two of my leaders (they’re in Year 2): Cat and Sarah. From my batch, Jill and I attend CU together often and I bond a lot with some of the guys. The friend I have been taking walks with (well it’s just been 2 lol but they’re insanely long and I try not to cry - like 2-3 hours long eh) is called David and he’s from CU. So yep ◡̈  I don’t have many friends tbh - definitely not as diverse and rooted as the ones back in Singapore, but I suppose it’s only been 10 weeks and I imagine a lot of things will change come Semester 2 and 3.

Academically, things have been going alright. It’s one of the few things that I’m honestly quite okay with. Nothing has overwhelmed me to the point of tears and I think you have been undergoing more stress with Finals at NUS. The month of deadlines for me where I had essays due at the end of every week was pretty hellish (like staying in the library/some study space till 3am every night before hauling myself back to the flat) but I think it helped knowing that it would be over at some point and each week, I had to focus on the next essay (or two) that was due the following week. Lectures have been interesting, I like my modules. Seminars are decent for some modules: it depends on the Seminar Tutor. But across the board, my seminar tutors have said I’m doing decently (well the standard isn’t very high to begin with :< people are so noobs sometimes honestly) and my results from the formative essays that I’ve submitted are pretty okay. I am definitely not at the 10/10 stage and I haven’t studied since the last essay was due 3 weeks ago so I suppose that wasn’t the wisest choice haha but I’ll try my best in December. I have four graded essays due in the first week of January and they account for 40% of my grade for each module (the other 60% being a PPA in May etc). So I Better Not Screw Up. I’m determined to attain the highest band possible I HOPE - I just need to guai guai go to the library often, read a lotttttt and write hopefully an outstanding essay haish. I’m in pain just thinking about it tbh.

(Wow I’ve just noticed the word count for this post so far - I’m typing it out in Pages while in the air haish 1850 words so far; IDK if you’re dying of boredom, if so I am a sorry bean.)

So moving onto Spain…hahahaha. Spain was only 3-4 days. I only told my parents on the night I was leaving (well done Faith). I kept on procrastinating on calling them and telling them about it (I couldn’t gauge if they would be okay with it). In any case, they were super chill with it and were just like lol okay bye. I don’t really understand my parents sometimes - I suspect you don’t either - but I guess that’s Parenthood in general that we are both bemused by. Travelling-wise, we took a train from York train station to Manchester Airport, where we had a flight from there to Barcelona. We stayed in a really lovely Airbnb. We only rented a room (super budget trip) so Clemmie and I slept on the masterbed while Stan had a single bed beside us. It was a very enjoyable and memorable trip overall - definitely the culmination of spending almost everyday together for the past 9 weeks and capping it off by spending 3-4 days in each other’s constance presence overseas. Ded. But it worked out so that’s good. On the first day, we arrived in Spain in the morning around 9am iirc and we went straight out after dropping our things at the flat. Barcelona is an incredibly beautiful city - please take a look at the photos. The architecture is very classically European, the streets are broad and wide with fancy shops at the side and the number of cafes and bistros is beautiful. The bakeries, too, are absolutely to die for and I almost did. I was trying to keep the budget as low as possible so I didn’t buy anything except food to eat and sustain myself. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before but Stan grew up in Spain (he spent a solid 7-8 years there during late primary and secondary school I think - right up till A Levels) so he is fluent in Spanish and was effectively responsible for navigating us around the city and translating everything for Clemmie and I. My friends are insanely bilingual btw - it’s not fair. Clemmie is fluent in German, and is learning other European languages. Stan speaks Spanish, and is learning French. Like wtf Faith you only speak English and you fail at that sometimes. (Interesting detour - while at York/Barcelona. Faith conducted some conversations in Chinese - it’s the strangest experience ever! Honing Chinese in an overseas country.) Anyway, on the second day, we took a bus to the peak of the city where we spent 2-3 hours just chilling and admiring the view. It was honestly such a relaxing experience, I enjoyed it a great deal. It’s also where my new FB DP is from: Clemmie took the picture and I liked it. On the third day, we went to a beach and we walked around the town etc. We were travelling back to York in the same night so the day was long. I think Spain, in all, was a meaningful experience: I enjoyed learning about another country’s culture, it was a very timely break from York and I think the three of us are closer because of it.

So one thing that occured because of Spain is that Stan and I bonded over certain sentimental and nostalgic feelings over living in two countries and identifying with different cultures and identities. I mean, on some level, I think I have dealt with it better (in terms of the emotional stage that I’m at now) because I’ve thought about Ireland, China and Singapore a lot and it’s become part of my identity etc etc. Moving to York has definitely made things hard and I need time to dwell on that later too. But I have internalised things I think and reflected on things. Stan, on the other hand, can apparently go for months without thinking of Spain so going to Spain brought up some memories haiya. Boys and their inability to connect with their emotions properly and healthily. Not that we are great at it either but we try. Idk. Do we even? Maybe not lol.

Haiya. To be completely honest, I feel stupidly conflicted about that one. At the most fundamental level of my heart, I am happy I have a friend who I can hang out with and spend a lot of time with comfortably. It’s just because it’s a Boy that causes the heart confusion. I mean - it’s a good thing we both don’t swing the other way as surely then we would have been confused at some point with this friendship too right?? lol. But yep because it’s a boy and also a non-Christian boy so I just feel so incredibly stupid for spending so much time with him and effectively putting myself in this position. The line between Platonic and Not Platonic is so fine, I really want to be careful here. Like honestly Puffles on some level I deserve some award for not crossing it by this point it’s ridiculous. We have meals together everyday, hang out pretty much everyday unless we decide not to, weekends are with him, the past 3 weeks has seen us chilling in bed together watching TV shows and Youtube or whatever. The number of times I have gone to his room or him to mine and then at 4am physically force myself to leave and walk back to my room out of sheer self-discipline is insane. Like I deserve some award for not allowing myself to fall asleep in the same bed at 4am often right :( He has offered so many times and each time I say no because I want to be a Guai kid and I know sleeping in the same bed will SURELY make things harder and the line finer. But haiya it’s ridiculous. I think it also surprised me how sad it was to say bye to each other before I left for Singapore?? Like he came over to my place and we just talked in bed and stuffs :< Hence the sentimental crap and rant I sent to you at some 2am hour after he left. I don’t know Argh I’m determined to keep things Platonic but I think it’s just at a stage where it’s really hard to ascertain this. And I also know that part of my heart is also like hurhur maybe things don’t have to be platonic but the other 80% of me knows it won’t end well and it’s not the right decision so huzzah Faith must remain steadfast. Besides, I think December will most definitely help - you are right in this and I will believe in that.

But I feel so stupid nonetheless for being in a position where feelings are vulnerable. :( It’s damn stupid, I tell you. I think the crucial issue here is that things have happened and things have been said that make it very hard for the friendship to be intrinsically and wholly platonic, you know? It can still be and it still is, most definitely. But I hope December affirms that I guess?? I DON’T KNOW ARGH ok no, I do - I do :(

What even is the point to life haish

I am such a pathetic bean and ball of emotions right now I think. Need to think straight again.

He said that coming to know me has been the single most worthwhile thing he did this term :( is that good friendship or what

Aiya fuck it forget it December will help and next year things will be platonic and good and chill again. It’s just sentimental crap right now.

Okay moving on.

ONTO OUR FRIENDSHIP.

I know you’ve been super stressed with Finals the past 3 weeks but you are almost done friend - very very almost done and by the time you read this, you WILL be done so that is the best news ever. I am also excited to be spending almost everyday with you this December. You have been desperately missed and cherished - my friends here know of my best friend back in Singapore whom I call at random hours and walk away from them to talk to her. I do know for a fact that if you were in York, things would be 10 times more fun and heartwarming, less worrying and stressful and we would be hanging out everyday. Sometimes when I’m walking from one place to another, I’m thinking of you and how fun it would be if you were right there next to me. You remain to be my best friend and my closest friend. I am glad these 3 months have come to an end so that we can chill and catch up in each other’s presence. I will definitely update Tumblr more often in January and so on. And I hope we can properly video call more often. All that aside though, my sentiments and words haven’t changed despite the distance. You are Puffles and I am Quaffles, and I thank God that we are in each other’s lives to cheer each other on right next to each other, even if we’re physically apart.

Family and Jarred-Related things have been tough, no doubt. I sometimes want to kill him, hindered only by the fact that I am physically not there and the law would not perhaps not be on my side. I can’t believe it’s already December 2017 - it’s been one strange and long year? Remember Raffles Medical lol? And Clinton Street and Alfred and all the random things we have embarked on this year. (hahaha the colouring book - we must.) And you moved away from home the first time this year: your own space and everything. And I moved abroad. Sighs.

I hope we’ll have time this December to reflect on things. I think we really really need to. Dude, I’m so ready to just lock myself in a room and watch Modern Family and cry and think about life. Yes???

Faith is in a desperate need for catharsis right now. I think that’s what I need.

Okay well, this has been an extremely long post. I hope it makes up for the lack of a post in the month of November. Again, I’m really sorry it has taken a long time for me to reflect and post. I’m sorry too if this has been incredibly boring/difficult to read. I hope you read it in parts.

I miss you friend and I’m really looking forward to meeting you soon. Let’s sort out our plans for December yeah?

I love you Puffles <3 And see you soon (finally!) <3

With all my heart,

Quaffles

[swordarkeereon]

Day 7: Ashtaroth Offering + Prayers #domagick

I want to establish first off that I’m glad I went with a self-caring schedule for the beginning of this challenge. This month has been wicked busy and it’s only going to get busier. Between a lot of family to-do’s, writing to-do’s, the day job, and so on – I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. But also, the weather is wreaking havoc on my sinuses and joints, so I’ve been dealing with a constant, dull, thudding pain in my ankles, toes, knees, fingers, and head. I finally broke down today and drugged myself with Tylenol and a water pill (ate too much salt yesterday, which doesn’t help my edema). I try not to use meds when I don’t have to because I don’t want to become dependent or to build up a tolerance.  Now to drink plenty of water and do some walking. It’s hell to get older. Especially when you have such sedentary jobs.  Young people note — you’re not getting any younger, so take care of yourself now and develop healthy, sustainable habits now. Maybe I can at least serve as a warning. LOL!

So – I fed the cats, then went into the temple half asleep (because I drank coffee after six last night and was up until 3AM — another older people thing — no coffee after 6) because I was exhausted. I lit a candle for Ashtaroth in offering, asked Ashtaroth to help me be kind to myself today (and affirming) and left it at that. I didn’t have energy for much else. I let the candle burn until I left for the office. Also pulled my tarot card and took a long look at it.

All in all it was a relaxing, productive day. I focused on nothing but my payroll – and focus is good. I get so much more done and feel so much more accomplished at the end of my day when I focus. I also don’t self-sabotage when my emotional need to feel productive and competent is met. So apparently that is another thing I need to be mindful of.

Though as I was writing this I had another self-sabotaging thought in thinking — my magickal work is not nearly as complex as some of the work I’m reading that others are producing. Oh noes! I am slacking. Now my logical mind has jumped in and reminded me that the real research wasn’t the Daemons I was using or the techniques I’m using as much as it was about looking into myself and how to cultivate positive, sustainable habits to break the cycle of self-abuse that I’ve identified.  I spent some of my research time choosing Daemons to help me, and practices that will benefit me. I spent the first seven days of this challenge identifying the problem. So for the next week – my focus is going to be on actively working to solve the problem by reconditioning my thinking. You can only bitch about a problem for so long before you start actively working to fix it. It’s time for me to quit bitching and start acting.

This means it’s time to change it up a bit.

ENERGY. I need to do daily energy work and take vitamins. I am discovering that I tend to self-sabotage more (and beat myself up more) when I’m tired and juggling too much. That causes me to drop the ball. An example — today I realized I forgot what I told my Goetia class to be working on this month because I didn’t write it down (forgot to amid the chaos). I ended up having to go back to my students/fellow magicians and ask them what I said.

MOVEMENT. I need to work yoga back in several times a week to help me feel good about myself and NOT give myself excuses to use my lack of activity as a reason to self-sabotage. As in, “Well, it’s no wonder I don’t feel like doing that booksigning. I’m so damn lazy I can’t even commit to a yoga practice.”

PLAN. I need to schedule my time, but keep it flexible, and be forgiving of myself when I slip up. Tomorrow is another day.  Example: “I’ll never be able to keep up with this schedule. I suck. I don’t know why I even bother to try to give release dates.”

FOCUS. I don’t do well looking at the big picture unless I’m goal setting. I break things into smaller chunks so its easier for me to deal with. A big part of my problem lately is that I have SO much going on that I focus on the big picture, get overwhelmed, and immediately fail in getting things done in a TIMELY manner. Mind you I am still getting things done, but TIMELY is important for my own success.  I think more focused meditations will help here.

BALANCE. This goes along with numbers three and four. I need to find a healthy balance between work and play, so I’m not working all the time, feeling like I’m spinning my wheels, and, in turn, feeding self-sabotaging negative thoughts and feelings. In retrospect from the past week, I realized that I’ve been out of balance since my surgery. So I will continue with elemental balancing and chakra work.

PRODUCE. All of this imbalance and lack of focus has already thrown me off my game. I’ve sabotaged my productivity as a result and I have not been nearly as prolific in 2017 as I could have been already. So it’s time to work!  I will be posting my daily word counts (not including these posts) during my #domagick posts.  It’s time to hold myself accountable. So my work is actually part of the magick that I’ll be using to fix myself.

REST. I need more sleep. To that end I’m going to be working nightly magick to improve my sleep. (This also means I need to stop binge watching crap on Netflix before bed, because if it’s good, it gives me an excuse not to sleep.)

So, with all of this in mind…. the next seven days magickal practice will look like this.

Wednesday: In the morning: Take vitamins and do 10 sun salutations. Focus on at least one task for the day. Write at least 1500 words. At night: Do elemental balancing and chakra meditations before bed. Sleep with the seal of Ashtaroth beneath my pillow.

Thursday: In the morning: Take vitamins and do 10 sun salutations. Focus on at least one task for the day. Write at least 1500 words. At night: Invoke Bathin. Do elemental balancing and chakra meditations before bed.

Friday: In the morning: Take vitamins and do 10 sun salutations. Focus on at least one task for the day. Write at least 1500 words. At night: Do elemental balancing and chakra meditations before bed. Sleep with the seal of Bathin beneath my pillow.

Saturday: In the morning: Take vitamins and do 10 sun salutations. Focus on at least one task for the day. Write at least 1500 words. At night: Invoke both Ashtaroth & Bathin for divination. Do elemental balancing and chakra meditations before bed.

Sunday:  In the morning: Take vitamins and do 10 sun salutations. Draw solar energies into myself through pranayama – Kumbhaka. Focus on at least one task for the day. Write at least 1500 words. Schedule my upcoming week.  At night: Do elemental balancing and chakra meditations before bed.

Monday:  In the morning: Take vitamins and do 10 sun salutations. Focus on at least one task for the day. Write at least 1500 words. At night: Invoke Ashtaroth. Do elemental balancing and chakra meditations before bed.

Tuesday:  In the morning: Take vitamins and do 10 sun salutations. Focus on at least one task for the day. Write at least 1500 words. At night: Do elemental balancing and chakra meditations before bed.

Then next week – I will again evaluate where I am (what’s working, what isn’t), and adjust as needed.  Magick isn’t just what happens inside the temple or during magickal acts. This is the type of magick we have to carry into our daily lives. It becomes our job to turn mundane, everyday tasks into magickal acts that reshape our thinking, thus reshaping the world around us. Like turning water to wine.

Tarot Card of the Day: JUSTICE

Balance and accountability. It’s time to make yourself accountable for your actions and to pause and find your center.  This card was in the back of my mind all day, and the result was the above restructuring and plan.

[remembermemorablememories]

Sunday, May 6, 2018

post #118

main points:

- brunch dining hall

- CSDS take home final

- fortnite

today i:

- woke up at like 11am. i thought my throat was a bit sore and i thought might’ve been sick cause dimitri’s been sick but it went away shortly after i got up. i did some logistical stuff like cutting my nails, move dishes out of the washer, scheduled a haircut, replaced the chair wheels with new ones i bought off amazon. the movement of the chair is so smooth now omg. it feels soooooo nice to be able to actually slide in the chair

i chipped a bit more at second question of the CSDS take home final. 

went to get brunch at the dining hall around 1:30pm and ate there until 2:30pm. i finished watching the latter half of the office S3E10 a benihana christmas. then watched casey neistat’s new vlog about cycling in NYPD:

“Dear NYPD, FIX THE PROBLEM instead of punishing Cyclists“

brunch was aight. i got kale and eggs, chipotle sirloin or w/e (didn’t really eat it that much), and then got an omelette. it wasn’t really cooked fully so i got a bit sick of it afterwards. then i went to the crepe station and got strawberry banana but they didn’t have chocolate. when i ate the crepe it was like sour... i’m not sure what they did but i think it was coming from the banana. i was disappointed but oh well. walked home and got back around 2:40pm

around 2:50 i called home for a bit cause i haven’t called in like two weeks. my parents were in DC and my sister was on a field trip to quebec. we just caught up briefly on things. graduation’s almost coming up ahhhhhhh

- from 3:30pm - 6:30pm i worked on my CSDS take home final. like actually sat down and tried to make a quality effort. i tidied up my response for #2, then wrote out #3. i’m a really slow writer

then went to grab some poke in allston for dinner, it was really good 

i brought it back home and ate while i watched Silicon Valley S5E2. honestly i feel like this show’s getting a little too predictable. it’s just like the same stuff over and over again. everything’s going well. then somehow richard or someone ruins everything for the next epsiode. it’s aight but i hope they make it better somehow

worked on question #4 the final question for the take home final from like 8pm-9:15pm. i just need to revise everything tomorrow and then i can submit it :D 

i took a long shower and then hopped on fortnite with brian dimitri and josh around 9:40pm. we played a few games and didn’t do very well. then josh had to leave but tristan happened to get on. 

so the four of us played and we won 2 (sort of 3) games in a row. the second game it was down to me and tristan and he got knocked. i killed one guy, and then tristan was trying to tell me that the other two people were boxed in underneath some stairs against a hill. i was confused cause i couldn’t find the box he was talking about. then he moved his knocked body to the stairs and i was like OHHHH. so then i pickaxed it down and he fell down. i thought there was only one guy in there so i knocked him. then another guy who was underneath me popped up and started cucking tristan so i turned to him and headshotted him. and then we won. LOL. i didn’t expect it to go that smoothly at all. i thought two on one i would’ve been screwed. but i got lucky and headshotted both of them so i was like ayyyyy

that was the second game we won. the first game we got the last guy hiding in tilted towers in a house. the third game, we were playing pretty well. then my game crashed when i was going into salty springs from the watch tower on the hill above it. i was kind of annoyed. i just got 100 shield >.> it was the first time my game actually crashed since the new update. dimitri’s been experiencing it a lot more frequently than i have so i was surprised. it just froze and then closed out. i didn’t get an error message or anything. so i started playing a solo game and doing my daily challenges. i had to open 7 chests in haunted hills and then kill 3 people in flushing factory. i think on my second game i got like 6-7 kills and i was playing so well. i was sad that i had gotten killed. i was in a good build fight with this one guy and then he ended up above me, put a roof over my head. i tried to edit out the side but it didn’t work. so then i shot down the roof to get out, but then he got trapped in with me and we were both stuck. he ended up behind me and then killed me. sigh. but it was a good fight. while i was playing my solo games i heard over discord that brian dimitri and tristan won the third game (3 games in a row). 

they stopped playing. so i played some more solo games to get the 3 kills in flushing factory. and then i decided to call it quits cause i was getting bored of it too. 

now i’m typing this up at 1:34am and i’m about to sleep. i like sleeping “early” than how late we usually stay up playing fortnite (like 2-3am)

time 2 sleep

good night