#man which one of my peasant ancestors is responsible for me being like this...

[cinnamonest]

Something recently has me thinking about medium-fantasy settings (you know the type, blatantly dark-ages-euro-esque aesthetics, vague touches of fantasy and such), with of course the obligatory “village raided by foreign invaders” scenes practically inherent to the genre… how they always take trophies and spoils away, one way or another, and thinking about being one of said poor little war trophies…

You're just some little peasant wife in your tiny little village, that you've never even left in all your life. You were born there and you'll die there just like everyone else, you think, and any world beyond it might as well not exist.

You're only vaguely aware that there are other people in the world — every now and then, traders and travelers come through, sometimes people who look very different from you and wear very different clothes, even speak with a sort of different inflection to their voices. Sometimes you talk to them, listen to them talk about far-off places and people. Their tales and their goods and their very existence as outsiders is the only evidence of a world beyond the village you have.

One day, those traders and travelers start talking about some other group of far-away people. Merely invoking the name puts an unpleasant expression on their faces.

There are bad things that happen in the world. There are whole groups of people, populations beyond your ability to conceive, and sometimes the people of one population fight ones from another, over land or religion or greed or any number of things. This is called a war, and one of those, to your understanding, is taking place in the present, far away — or perhaps not so far after all, as anything beyond your range of sight might as well be another world — between people who are no more real to you than the figures in folk tales.

The other people, the not-your-people people, the bad guys in this particular war — they have to be bad, you think, they're not your people, and everyone else seems to think that that makes them bad, so they must be — are particularly strong. There's just too many of them, those travelers say, and they have better weapons and training and everything else, apparently. Moreover, they talk about them like they're some sort of monstrosities — some say they're so big and strong because they descended from gods or angels, others say their people are the product of humans breeding with monsters, and other such absurdities that you don't know any better than to believe must be true.

The more time goes on, the voices of townspeople and travelers alike begin to talk about the other people with an increasing tone of fear, more tense. The places you hear them talk of as having been attacked and destroyed are towns you’ve heard the names of spoken more frequently over the years, towns closer to your little home than the ones destroyed the month before.

They're going to take over the whole nation, people say — while you weren't aware your village even belonged to a “nation” to speak of — and a place like yours, well, they wouldn't bother subjugating the people for taxing or labor like they do big towns.

If they come here, they'll just take what they want and raze the rest to the ground…

The thought is scary, sure, but it doesn't really faze you. It feels like a fantasy, some story that you know will never actually happen. That's something that happens in other places, not here, not home, the roads and houses you know as if ingrained into your mind and heart. The idea of such a thing just has this inherent feeling of impossibility, the state of the place you know of as peaceful and quiet, immutably so.

But that day ends up coming sooner than later.

You're not actually there when it starts — having gone off to tend to something in the field, as has been your responsibility in your community each and every morning for as long as you can remember — only when you come stumbling back and see smoke in the near distance, do you drop your things and start running.

It's happened before, you think. A few years ago, someone's home caught fire and burned down. You helped put it out then, you can help now, too.

It's not until you come running right up to the little cluster of homes, bare feet pattering on the ground as you just start to think the fire is exceptionally big, that you turn your head and see bodies on the ground. See people running. Hear yelling.

Frozen stiff in panic, you can only stand still as you turn a corner and the picture comes together — there's people you don't recognize, standing over bodies and pools of blood. They look very different from you and any of your people, even down to the structure and shape of their faces. Identical clothes with crests you've never seen imprinted on them.

Everything is big. These people are bigger than yours, standing at least a few heads above the tallest people you've ever known. The horses are bigger than any you've ever seen. They hold big, shiny weapons splattered in blood, a far cry from the sharpened rocks you have for tools.

Most are too preoccupied with the mirth of the slaughter to even notice you. It's not until you see one — you feel as if your stomach inverts on itself as you see a man dragged across the ground and skewered, the weapon running straight through his body — that everything fully registers. You reach up and cover your mouth with your hands, trembling legs staggering backwards. Your eyes follow the trail, up the long weapon and the arm holding it until you can make out just the side of the face of the murderer, shadowed by the sheer brightness of such a massive fire, just in time to see him pull the sword out and plunge it back in a second time, hear the poor victim — you think you recognize his mutilated body, even in the shadow of the fire, such-and-such that lived a few houses away — gag and sputter and flail, again as the sword is pulled out and plunged in a third time, and he finally goes still.

The killer reaches up to wipe the blood off the side of his face with the back of his hand, but in doing so, turns his head just enough that you're in his peripheral vision — and then, his eyes widen and his whole head turns, eyes directly connected to yours. Only a few moments of stillness and pause pass, each of you staring at the other, before the instincts kick in. Yours — inherently aware of how much weaker you are — are, of course, not to stand your ground, but to run.

And you — poor dumb little thing, who has never known anything but the same routine and small little world every single day of your insignificant life, has never had to put any thought into much of anything, has never known what true fear and panic is before this very moment — have no better idea than to run right back to your home amidst the fires and chaos — thankfully the flames haven’t yet reached it — dive underneath your bed and cower. It occurs to you that you don’t know where your own husband is… but even if he were here, you don’t think he could offer you any protection from these monsters. The worst of possibilities is among the first to hit you, and you retch at the very thought, trying to perish the thought from your mind.

You have no other ideas — no other options, at this point — than to squeeze your eyes shut when footsteps hit the floor, boards creaking as they draw closer and closer, making a direct line for where you're very obviously curled up, heart beating out of your chest. You can only squeal and whimper when a hand grabs at your clothes and drags you out from under the bed, the other hand then grasping at your hair, roughly pulling you up to your feet.

You squeal and flail and kick. You keep your eyes closed, not able to bear even the thought of laying eyes on the long piece of metal that you're certain will run you through any second now.

But that doesn't happen. For a moment, he just holds you in place as you thrash and squirm. He says something — a voice so deep and rumbling that it makes your blood run cold — but it's not words, at least not to you, strings of sounds that have no meaning to you beyond the vague memory of once being told that other people in the world don't talk the same as you and your people.

You grunt and squeal when you're instead thrown up and over his shoulder, which harshly rams into your stomach, making you gag. Your eyes open, bewildered and afraid. You kick your feet and squirm with all your might, but a few harsh-sounding words and a smack to your thigh make you go stiff and still with fear.

It's like your weight is nothing, with how easily you're slung around and carried back out. As you hang over his back, coughing from the smoke, you're forced to see the little village street lined with unmoving bodies, some so familiar it hurts, a deep pain in your chest. Your eyes increasingly burn from the smoke, and even though you try to look for your own spouse and in-laws and neighbors, your vision blurs too much to tell.

You feel like you're going to fall, thus forced to cling onto your captor. You whimper as your fingers dig into his clothes, you hear other voices drawing closer as you make your way to the edge of the village — rapidly becoming nothing more than charred, smoldering wood and bodies and blood as the fire reaches its peak — where the others seem to be reconvening. The violence, you realize, has died down, as there is nothing left to kill, and all the things worth taking have been rounded up, and now they're going to leave. Leave the place that is, to you, the only place that truly exists, and go into the void of that which is unknown and unreal.

You say a few prayers in your mind to the guardian gods that were supposed to protect your people — even if they failed, it’s all you can think to do as you’re dragged onto some animal, pulled up and held pressed against his chest, and start moving, the tear-blurred sight of the mass of flames fully consuming the only world you've ever known, growing more and more distant with every second.

[wszczebrzyszynie]

sorry for the train ride… I hope the destination is at least interesting. I would LOVE to hear more about Przemek… he’s one of my absolute faves and I would honestly love to hear anything about him… maybe what inspired you to make him? or how he feels about his sexuality? or maybe his ethnicity (which I remember you saying you didn’t really have an answer for, but maybe you could talk about possible ideas you’ve had for it or how it affects his personality/how people treat him)

Nothing to be sorry for. i love trains. But it is a long trip with nothing but my phone and one book. Well not anymore im in Gdańsk now

Any way this is fun Przemek is one of my favourites as well. I created him because i wanted Ryba to have more friends, so he was very much a side/background character that i learned to love very much very quickly. Im not even sure why. Design wise there were plenty of inspirations... mainly the unbread twins from omori (which i think is where Lena came from as well and it shows), Artur from parties are for losers and Norton IDV (hence the scar... in the first draft Przemek was also a miner so it was very much my Norton at home). He used to be the straight man to Rybas whole... being at that time. They used to be childhood friends but Przemek was the smarter and more of a loner of the two. Tried looking for some old art of him but couldnt find much

Sexuality wise hes mostly in denial. He doesnt like thinking of himself as queer and doesnt want to be considered a part of the community, which affects the way he treats others (initial embarrasement to be seen with Ryba or Mikita, who are either visibly queer or just simply stand out; he grows out of it as the story progresses) and later on shapes his relationship with Ryba (mostly his struggles with being vunreable and opening up mixed with a very crushing need to be normal; he tends to force himself to do things he doesnt really want but thinks will be either for the ultimate greater good or just to be able to lie to himself more, either harming himself or Ryba in the process. Communication is a skill they both are learning as they go but it is a hard one)

And exact ethnicity wise I Dont Know. Well i mean he is polish ethnically and culturally but he does have darker skin from back where the story was set in a fictional dystopian world and i never figured out how to make it work with the background he has in current more historically grounded DNS. Most probably will never know until it just dawns on me one day. In the original DNS story hes simply "from here" (as is the case with most of the characters) and it doesnt really shape his experience as much as his class and upbringing does; hes catholic, he speaks polish, his family are peasants and hes a working man. In modern au its a different case that i dont know how to resolve and he does have a different experience with it; i dont like being cruel to my characters, especially with things i dont have personal experiences with, but i do know my country pretty well, so i can imagine some of the hardships he has to go through. It definitely can be a stress factor; hes a shy, slightly anxious person (which he doesnt even realize that he is? Second nature), so "standing out" and possible conftontations that can come with looking different in a relatively middle sized nowhere town is something he had to learn how to ignore throughout his life. I will finish this by saying i think it would be funny if it turned out some of his ancestors are from the old yugoslavia but not to explain anything just because i think at some point he used to be half balkan (and also many other slavic identites) . No clue from where exactly and it wouldnt affect him at all. Normal thing in lower silesia but he is from the other side of the country. Sadly. Bit of a lacking response hope you can forgive me for that

[lisinfleur]

Things I do for her

The request:

Author’s Notes | I hope you can forgive me for how long it took to be ready. Loved this piece! I hope you guys like it too! Universe | Vikings Pairing | Alfred x Ivar’s Sister Reader Info | Viking Age AU, requested by anon for 5CW Ivar II, posted for HTGI Event Words | 1246 ⁑ Warnings: None

"I could marry him."

She saw him what? Twice in a lifetime?

And there was my little sister: wanting to solve a whole conflict between Englishmen and our men by marrying that thin rag of a man the English had the guts to call "The Great".

Beyond the phlegm of looking me in the eye and smiling at that idea, I couldn't see what else in Alfred was really that great.

"It sounds like a plan to me."

The stupidity, maybe.

"Are you suggesting you would marry my sister for an alliance with my people, is that it?" I asked in disbelief.

"I'm saying I think her idea is pretty good once it would not only avoid unnecessary slaughtering between our people but, perhaps, establish a solid relationship between our crowns, my friend."

I'm not your friend! Don't call me "friend"! I wanted so bad to cut his belly open right there!

But Y/N was smiling so proud of herself and the recognition she was receiving from that stupid smile on his face... I couldn't do it.

Although it would be a pleasurable end for that content - definitely a thousand times better than seeing my sister getting married to that thin stick of a king! - I couldn't be the one responsible for the tears I would see in Y/N's eyes for him.

It was true that she never stopped babbling about Alfred since the first time she saw his slender figure.

"Have you seen his pale tone?"

"His hair is so beautiful!"

"Oh, he has a sweet smile!"

"His voice is so peaceful."

Fucking shit.

More praises and I would stab my own ears not to spend my time hearing about that Christian prince.

I knew her heart. Y/N's could have my eyes and my traces, but she wasn't like me. We were the perfect opposites, and I knew it!

She was placidity where I was wrath. Her eyes were the blue sky of a sunny day, while mine were the thin blue of the furious sea. And I knew it.

Her place wasn't beside me.

And, although it would hurt me forever, I knew it.

"What grants me my sister won't end up being burned like a witch by your superstitions bunch of Christians you call a people? uh?"

I knew it! But I wouldn't give up on her so easily!

"First of all, I'll make her the Queen of Wessex, which is already reason enough for her to be safe from the peasants," Alfred started.

"You're gonna have to give me more than that if you want me to trust you, my friend," I mocked the words. "You're asking me to give you my most precious treasure in exchange for something I could easily get by cutting your throat and slaughtering your men. Besides sparing me from the pleasure of the bloodshed, you're asking me to trust you will care for my sister and keep her safe the same way I have been doing since our father was killed. By your grandfather, by the way!" I remembered.

"Which is nothing but the second reason in my arguments, my friend. Ivar, we have been at war with each other since before we were born. Our fathers were enemies, our grandfathers before them would've been. But I'm not my father nor my grandfather. I recognize my ancestors wronged yours. And unlike them, I'm up to fix these mistakes."

"Go on," I said, bothered.

But interested in what he had to say.

He giggled, noticing my boredom.

"I've tried this first with the Danes and your brother Ubbe. But his power wasn't the same as it is yours. He wasn't the king of Kattegat. You are."

Massaging my ego won't make you come closer to my sister's skirt, my friend... I wanted to say that. But Y/N was there, beside me in my chariot. I didn't want to be... Unpolite.

"And from a king to another, I know your people want the lands I have idle around my town. I know your people have techniques that could increase our production. And I know pretty well, from my experience among the Danes, that our people can coexist. A marriage like this could turn real the dreams of your father and my own."

"And what are these dreams you call your own, King Alfred?" I asked, curious. "I know my father's dreams your kind many times has tried to use against us, to manipulate our people into believing in your God and the false promises of the same land you promise me now. But I know no dream of yours... Clarify me."

"What are the dreams of a king other than making his kingdom the greater, King Ivar?" he answered me.

Showing me some of that ambition I thought he didn't have behind that peaceful facade.

"Your people have been showing your military superiority throughout the years. Mine has the fields necessary to feed the armies, materials, and resources to supply them, the finest smithery to increase your power... Follow my thoughts, king Ivar. We've been fighting for years. What could we do together?"

Here was a fire I wasn't expecting to see inside that man's eyes. I leaned my head, looking at him with surprise.

And I rose my hand, mutely ordering my men to lower their weapons.

"I think you have something in mind that might interest me enough to make this matter something I want to discuss longer. Let us propose a truce among our men, my friend. Set the chess table for two and let us talk about these ideas of yours."

Alfred smiled, and so did my sister. His smile was full of hope. Hers was full of an amount of passion I didn't want to see in my sister's eyes towards a Christian.

"But I have to advise you..." I warned. "Do not invite me into your home planning a trap, my fellow king. I may have a huge army behind me, but I'm more than enough alone to make you pay for breaking my trust."

He knew I wasn't kidding. And Y/N knew I wasn't doing that by my own will.

But what would she ask me to do that I wouldn't do with a smile on my face? Uh?

"The truce is settled then," Alfred declared.

His men inverted the spears around us, showing the flags instead of the spikes as a sign we wouldn't make war.

My men did the same as I sighed on my chariot.

"We'll see each other again tomorrow," Alfred stated. "At the dawn, in my castle."

With what I agreed, although it was clear I wasn't willingly giving up on that fight.

"Chamomile, and wildflowers," I said, getting Alfred confused for an instant before I turned my chariot, looking at him from upon my shoulder. "Sweetened with honey. It's her favorite," I completed.

Rolling my eyes at the way Alfred's smile became a mirror of happiness reflecting my sister's blushed cheeks.

Fuck.

It would be hard to get used to how delicate my brother-in-law would be.

"Thank you, brother," Y/N's voice echoed right before her warm lips kissed my cheek.

Her body bouncing on her heels in that habit she inherited from our older brother Hvitserk to show up when she was happy.

I sighed. It would be hard indeed.

But it was for her.

I could change the whole Midgard for her.

I could do it.

For her.

Do you like my work? Support me!

Tagged ones:

|| @bluearchersstuff || @ivarswickedqueen || @akamaiden || @bang-kim-bap || @cris101071 || @elysias-temple || @alicedopey || @queen-see-ya-in-valhalla || @lol-haha-joke || @readsalot73 || @rekdreams247 || @naaladareia​ || @laketaj24​ || @therealcalicali​ || @grungyblonde​ || @arses21434 || @honestsycrets​ || @2thequietone4 || @blackspiritshake​ || @vikingsbifrost​ || @wallabieswisher || @cyarikashakira​ || @chinduda​ || @isthat-tyra98​ || @xinyourdreamsx​ || @thiahilmarsdottir​ || @queenbeeta​ || @winchesterwife27​ || @gold-dragon-slayer​ || @mzliterarydreamer​ || @youbloodymadgenius​ || @marvelouuse​ || @tgrrose​ || @lif3snotouttogetyou​ || @lordsexmachine​ || @deathbyarabbit​ || @ietss​ || @thorins-queen-of-erebor​ || @didiintheblog​ || @h-e-a-v-y-l-e-a-t-h-e-r || @heavenly1927​ || @alexhandersenx​ || @alexisshoto​ || @letsloveimagines​ || @astrape-the-weatherwitch​ || @destynelseclipsa​ || @charming-merlin​ || @violetidk​ || @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie​ || @ghvsts​ || @littlemoonchildbear​ ||

Want to be tagged? Ask me!

[inqilabi]

sorry maybe i misunderstood but in one of your posts when you said "Stalin and Mao killed millions" was propaganda, what did you mean? like did you mean Stalin's repressions/purges/ethnic clensings weren't real or...?? cos i'm Russian and there's hardly a family here that wasn't affected by that, including my own. It's all still in living ppls memory, it's not something we're just told by the government lmao. It's actually extremely insulting to suggest otherwise. Like literally ask a person from an ex-USSR country and 9 times out of 10 they'll tell you of an ancestor/relative that was executed/sent to gulag/forced to flee the country/etc during Stalin's rule. Esp if you ask a jewish or other ethnic minority person.

Not sure if you’re genuinely interested in the perspective, if so I can provide resource reccs. I don’t think it’s insulting to ask people to consider that the history they have known may be entirely wrong and to question the common narrative/claims they hear. 

Especially considering the fact that CIA was literally created to fight USSR first and foremost, and then any other emerging socialist states thereafter. And the fact that Britain had been at it long before that. The Allies literally supplied troops for the ‘White Army’ to as Churchill put it “strangle the [Bolshevik state] at its birth” in 1917/1918. Formation of NATO itself is an alliance of capitalist anti-communist states. Not to mention that post WW2, when CIA formed, it absorbed existing Nazi and fascists into its CIA & NATO operations to terrorize any leftists orgs in Eastern Europe (Operation Gladio) because of how great they were at terrorizing, infiltrating and sabotage. And in the USA itself, Ukrainian fascists were incorporated into various intelligence orgs. A NSC directive (4A, 1947) stated the following: 

The campaign against the Soviets would include “primarily media related activities, including unattributed publications, forgeries, and subsidization of publications. Political action would involve exploitation of displaced persons and defectors, and support to political parties’ paramilitary activities, including support to guerillas and sabotage”

It is in this context that I understand the USSR. I may have criticisms of the CPSU, though it wouldn’t matter now. For us now, even though the exact conditions that the USSR faced will not be repeated again- I think it is necessary to learn from the successes and failures of the first socialist state founded amidst WW1, fall of Tsarist rule/semi feudalism/civil war, rise of Nazism and being surrounded by fascists, WW2 in which America & Britain both directly and indirectly let Germany destroy USSR as much as possible before getting involved, and the USSR was also dealing with a Japanese invasion threat in the east. To me its a feat that the people rallied behind its foundation, that there was fervor of the masses at that time- I can’t imagine it today. There were nearly 2 million party members in 1930. Some 3-4 million people enrolled to take classes with the communist party in 1933.

Yes the repressions, Yezhovshchina & reallocation of people were real. Repressions of the Kulaks and other class enemies was real. And to define class enemy, the kulak case is an interesting one: we’re talking about a class who regularly exploited peasants, & when a drought reduced the grain harvest, raised grain prices so the soviet government couldn’t afford to buy the grain to feed people (and this is where the rationing came from). The government in response encouraged peasants to form collective farms (kolkhoz), which was actually a youth peasant movement and grain harvest from these kolkhoz was soon as much as the kulaks. The kulaks then realizing that they can no longer control the markets, started murdering people in these kolkhoz. And this is the point where the Soviet gov decided to seize the kulak wheat, expropriate kulak land (dekulakization program as is known in the west) & give the land to the kolkhoz. In response, the kulaks burned their wheat, and killed their own livestock in the millions.  And despite this, most of them were only exiled, forced to reallocate or sent to the gulags. Also, forced reallocation of probably millions of people from the east to prevent Japanese invasion, and from the western region as Germany was invading did happen. 

Yezhovshchina of 1937-1938 was excessive. Here they replaced their normal voting process (e.g, Trotskyites were voted out with a vote of 700,000 against to 6000 for) with a 3 person tribunal who just handed out sentences like candy- in this period alone, I think there was some 300,000 sentences handed out. Though they were responding to Nazi infiltration among their party. Eventually the party committees got a handle of it, overturned half of the sentences. Many of the remaining sentences were never carried out because there wasn’t that much infrastructure to do so. But certainly innocent people were caught in the cross fire here. But imo the typical perception in the west that this purge was to eliminate any political opponents or to consolidate power is not true. It was primarily to eliminate Nazis in the party and any other counter-revolutionary who would have essentially handed USSR to Germany. There were definitely executions. There’s a quote from Ludo Martens on his study of the USSR that indicates a bit how unequipped USSR was to handle sentences of Yezhovshchina:

"Grigorenko, a well-known Rightist general who defected to the West, stated that, to escape the Purge, it suffice to simply relocate to another city."

There’s also interesting notes from Hitler (via Goebbel’s journal)and Churchill’s WW2 memoir that Hitler had hoped to take advantage of these antagonisms, defeatist tendencies and fascists sympathizers within the Red Army, but Stalin had succeeded in making sure via purges that the Red Army could not be taken advantage of.

But to address what is actually your main point: to assess history based on lived experience. What you stated is not reconcilable with the following examples:

Frankly I think the further breakdown of the 35+ would yield even more interesting insights. Also its expectedly low in Lithuania, Estonia & Latvia. What do we know about the history of these three countries that would help us understand that? There’s also this interview and this one specially about Stalin & the gulags, which sounds different from the experiences of your family.

Here is a quote from Ludo Martens book:

‘But how is it possible', asked a friend, `to defend a man like Stalin?' There was astonishment and indignation in this question, which reminded me of what an old Communist worker once told me. He spoke to me of the year 1956, when Khrushchev read his famous Secret Report. Powerful debates took place within the Communist Party. During one of these confrontations, an elderly Communist woman, from a Jewish Communist family, who lost two children during the war and whose family in Poland was exterminated, cried out:

`How can we not support Stalin, who built socialism, who defeated fascism, who incarnated all our hopes?'

And also, Normal Finkelstein stated that his parents, both of whom survived concentration camps, would refuse to listen to any criticism of Stalin and called anyone who criticized him a traitor. 

So how do we parse through these different lived experiences? What helps us understand the differences in these lived experiences? 

[dxmedstudent]

Hi dx! So I'm about to start my last year of medschool, but I don't feel mature at all. I love comic book movies, walk around in their shirts and love to collect action figures. My parents think adults don't deal with stuff like that, and make fun of me every time I go into a toystore. Is it true? Do I have to give things up so that people can finally see me as an adult?

Hey, friend! First of all, congrats for getting so far in med school! You’re almost there! :D Your ask reminds me of something I studied in classical civilisation back in school. I learned that Athenian girls who were getting married would dedicate their childhood toys to Artemis, leaving them at her altar to symbolise their passage into womanhood and the responsibilities of running a household. And I’ve always thought of that as sad; these girls were probably around 13 or so when they were expected to become women; they were still really young. Why should they have to give up everything they were, to be the person they were going to be? I resented the idea that anyone should have to give up their past to meet their future. But through much of history, people often didn’t get the luxury of a long childhood, because self-preservation and putting food on the table came first. Historically, it’s probably fair to say that people of all genders would be expected to ‘grow up’ early; when you live on the breadline, you’d be supporting your siblings until you married, at which point you’d have no time to enjoy leisure if you had to worry about feeding your 8 children and stopping them all from dying of measles and TB. My ancestors (and, well, my great grandparents) being farming peasants, didn’t so much have hobbies or interests, but they had occasional holidays and feast days on which they wouldn’t work and the community would celebrate. Relatively few people over the years have had the luxury of being able to indulge in leisure activities historically. But when they have, adults indulged too; the hobbies of Victorians of all ages are well-documented. I’m not religious, but when this topic comes up, I always find that 1 Corinthians 13:11 comes to mind: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

That’s from the New International version,  but I prefer the end to versions which summarise it with “I put away childish things”.  People sometimes interpret it to mean something similar; that grownups need to put aside anything that reminds people of being a kid. But I take something different from it. Because objects aren’t inherently childish or adult; what matters is our way of thinking. This is not a passage about toys or objects, but about a state of mind; when we mature, we become new people with more mature reasoning. And during medicine, we are transformed. We put the ways of childhood behind us, regardless of what our interests are. We look death in the face, and reflect on our own mortality and fallibility, and then we go home and do whatever the hell we like, because we are the captains of our own fate. What makes you mature isn’t whether you like comic book films or T shirts, but your frame of mind when you are working as a doctor. And it’s OK to still be figuring yourself out; it’s weird when you’re no longer a teenager and suddenly people expect you to be a grownup. It’s doubly weird when you go, in the short space of several years, from being a technical minor to a doctor; not only a grownup, but someone seen as an authority figure and grownup supreme. At work, you need to learn to work hard, be thorough, work well as part of a team, and develop your own clinical judgement so that you too can make clinical decisions with a proportional degree of confidence, and know when you need help. That’s what being a grownup in the medical field is really about. And I’m sure you’ll do great; you’ve got your final year to work on polishing things up, and you’ve got the rest of your life as a doctor to work on the skills you’ve started to develop now. But there’s actually nothing magical about turning 25 or 30. Society really hypes it up, but it’s pretty much more of the same. That’s because growing up is a gradual process that happens as a result of the experiences we have. For example, in many ways,  I’ve changed a lot during my university years and the time I’ve spent as a doctor; medicine changes your way of thinking and looking at the world. But in many other ways, you still feel pretty much like the same person, with the same interests and hobbies even if you do pick up some new ones. I’m still an anime fangirl with a penchant for drawing little manga-eque comics about medicine. My DnD/gaming friendship group is doctors (and their long-suffering mostly non-medic spouses); being a doctor doesn’t stop any of them from having nerdy interests. I’ve met colleagues with all sorts of diverse interests; you’d just never be able to guess from our work persona. As long as you do our work professionally and are professional with others, there’s really no reason why your hobbies would make you less of an adult. Doctors are human; we aren’t all the stereotypical old white men in white coats who drink port and play golf. We work difficult jobs where we make serious decisions and deal with pretty life-changing stuff, and then we go home and de-stress in whatever way we personally enjoy. People sometimes confuse acting like an adult with partaking in activities only adults usually partake in; however there’s nothing particularly grownup about wine-tasting, or hanging out in bars, or hitting the gym, or the other activities more easily accepted as ‘grownup’ compared to activities which might be seen as childish. There could be a lot of reasons why your parents feel the way they do. Part of it is probably that to your parents, you’ll always be their kid; parents can struggle to separate themselves enough from their children to see them as an adult in the same way as they might see a stranger. For example, my GP (a lovely middle aged lady with kids older than me) told us that her mother doesn’t quite see her as a real doctor; if she gives her mother advice, it still somehow doesn’t carry the same weight. That doesn’t mean parents can’t understand you’re a grown up or have a job, but they will always partly see you as the kid they raised all those years ago. Perhaps they feel worried about you out there, hitting the big world on your own, and they worry that if you don’t act ‘grown up’ in their eyes, maybe you aren’t mature enough to adult in general. The two don’t have to correlate at all, but people often feel that they must be connected. Parents are parents;  when you grow up, you realise that they are just people (usually) doing the best that they can. They often have advice (sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not so useful), and it’s up to you, as a grownup, to decide whether you follow their advice or not. They may have antiquated views about the kinds of hobbies grownups can have because of their own experiences, but it’s up to you to choose what you want to do in your life; nobody can make you give up your interests, after all. When you’re a doctor, you’ll be earning your own money, and your free time will be very much your own; you get to choose how it is spent.

Good luck, and have fun. Craft the life you want to lead, whatever that looks like.

[annes-andromeda]

GOT Virtues AU: Ice and Fire

N/: Finally, a new chapter! With another Aegon flashback! I felt that the White Walkers in the show were led up to be a pretty boring threat, so I gave them somewhat of a backstory. I’ve actually thought a lot about the White Walkers, since they’re just made to be demons of ice that for some unknown reason hate humanity����

Edit 11/14/19: Jons real name has been changed from Aegon to Aemon as it’s getting irritating to tell him apart from Elias son, also Aegon.

Jon Arryn had been chosen by Robert Baratheon to be his hand. Well, it felt more like being the king’s personal caretaker than being his advisor. The king did not attend council meetings, nor did he seem to be in the public eye much. He preferred to be in his chambers, drinking and waiting for his beloved Queen wife to join him in his solitude.

But lovely Queen Lyanna Stark would not let her King husband indulge in his sweet wine. Lord Arryn would sometimes see her grace tugging at her lovers ear, while he’d groan in disapproval as she sat him down in front of his grand council.

Most advisors would think of this as unruly behavior and even irresponsible, but the king was no secret to being unruly. He had no interest in ruling the kingdom he had usurped. It was a shame, really. Despite the king being nothing but a drunken fool most days, his Queen was far from being her husband.

Young Lyanna was all Northern, Lord Arryn had noticed. While Robert stayed in his quarters drinking away his responsibilities, Lyanna took on her duties headfirst. She had spoken with Lord Arryn, and was even planning to go to Dorne and make peace with Prince Doran Martell in the coming months.

Lord Arryn admired her grace for being somewhat benevolent, despite knowing practically nothing of politics. She was a lady of the North, who was retrieved but a few years ago by her beloved brother after a silver haired prince had left her in a tower that touched the clouds. Her health had become somewhat fragile after that day, but as the years faded away, the she-wolf had matured into a strong and ever powerful Queen.

The Wolf Queen, as the people so proudly called her.

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

As the council had finished a meeting, Lord Arryn went to the study where Prince Aegon awaited him. Lord Arryn was responsible for teaching Aegon how to properly run and rule the kingdoms. And he’d need as much mentoring as possible, since the people could be unpredictable when a new monarch comes into play. He’d have to learn how to resolve the greatest of issues, how to negotiate with the great houses, and how to make decisions that will benefit both the lowly and the elite.

However, these matters weren’t the only ones they spoke about. It wasn’t always about politics or alliances, but also tales and histories of the Seven Kingdoms. Sometimes, the other Targaryen children, Viserys and Daenerys, would accompany them in their lessons. However, they never actually indulged themselves in the books that Lord Arryn would pick out. Viserys would grab any and every book that spoke only of Targaryen rule, so that his sister could know their ancestors better, as he would say.

Now, on this particular day, Lord Arryn had retrieved a special book for a special lesson. Aemon sat on the edge of his seat, quite literally, watching as Lord Arryn grabbed a chair and placed it next to him.

“So, Little Dragon” Lord Arryn said ���As you know, in just a couple of months your mother and I shall be traveling to Dorne to make peace with House Martell. Which means I’ll be away for a while, as will your mother”

“Yes” Aemon said meekly

“You will be in the custody of King Robert and his advisors” Lord Arryn said “However, I advise you to stay away from them, especially The Spider and Littlefinger. And, your mother has instructed me to keep you in the Red Keep where you shall be safe”

Aemon’s shoulders slumped. He sighed disapprovingly “Why can’t Mother just let me go out into the streets for a while? I promise I won’t wander so far”

“It’s too dangerous, Little Dragon” Lord Arryn said, opening the book he had rummaged and flipping through the pages “You may be the crown prince, but what happens if one day the people see you in the city without any guards or shields? I can promise you, they won’t be so merciful to you just because you’re a child”

“But the people love me” Aemon said “I’ve seen them waving and smiling at me. Some of the peasant children even wanted to play with me”

Lord Arryn looked up from the page he had stopped on “They may love you now, Little Dragon, but once you make a single slip, they won’t be as kind”

Aemon stayed silent. He had practically begged his mother to take him to Dorne with her. He was tired of smelling shit and cum from his window, and wanted to see the land where Lady Ashara and Princess Elia had lived. His mother had spoken of them quite fondly, almost as if they were close friends or at least acquaintances. Lyanna never spoke too much of them, though, as her voice would be filled with sorrow and Aegon never liked seeing his mother sad. So, Ashara and Elia’s names were hardly ever spoken.

“Now,” Lord Arryn said, snapping Aemon out of his trance “Why don’t we leave this conversation to your mother, and you and I will return to your teachings, alright?”

Aemon hesitated for a moment, but nodded his head in agreement “Alright”

Lord Arryn smiled before returning to the book they had to read. He looked over to Aemon “Tell me, does your mother ever read you stories before bedtime?”

“Yes, Lord Arryn” Aemon replied

“What kind of stories?”

“Well, she’d read me stories of the great kings, and of the Children of the Forest”

“Ah yes,” Lord Arryn said faintly “Tales of the many such as Brandon the Builder, the Northern King of House Stark or Aegon Targaryen, the Dragonlord who brought the Seven Kingdoms to their knees. Many children your age have had their stories told to them. But, have you’ve been told of other tales?”

“What kind?” Aemon asked

Lord Arryn pointed to the book. Aemon looked down at the page; there was an illustration of corpses, it seemed. The men’s bodies looked like glass, they held spears that appeared to be made of the finest crystal, and their eyes held sparkling, blue stars that could leave a man cold.

However, the corpses weren’t the only creatures the drawing depicted. The corpses appeared to be pointing their spears at other undead. Except they didn’t look at all like the pale skinned demons. No, these figures were like molten stone. Their hands were sharp claws that all looked like small, black swords ready to strike you down. They seemed to maneuver on their hind legs, charging at the corpses. Their mouths revealed long, jagged teeth and their jaws opened up to the tip of their ears. And their blood and eyes seemed to glow a bright, haunting red like that of the Red Wanderer that would fly over the known world.

Aemon didn’t understand why Lord Arryn was showing him such horrid imagery. Surely this wasn’t one of the lessons he intended to teach? And if it was, why on Earth would Aegon need to know such things?

“Do you know what these creatures are called, young one?” Lord Arryn said, pointing to the milk-skinned bodies. Aemon slowly shook his head

“These are the Cold Gods. They once roamed in The Land of Always Winter, building their kingdom like we built ours. They spoke in an icy tongue, and their armies were constructed on the bodies of dead men. The Cold Gods, however, wanted to grow their colonies. They hunted down the babes of sacrificers, and made them their soldiers”

“Where did they come from?” Aemon asked, clearly invested

“It is said that the Children of the Forest created them, as a means of defense to stop the First Men from invading. For a time, the Others served. But it wasn’t until one revolted, that the Children were left to fend for themselves”

Aemon turned for a small second to check on Daenerys and Viserys. Viserys was flipping through the pages of the book he had rummaged, while Daenerys looked at Aemon, the story of the Cold Gods grabbing her attention.

“But,” Lord Arryn started “The Cold Gods weren’t the only Gods. The Others had a common enemy, a predator they would battle for dominance over their prey. The Dark Gods, they were called. Shadows that lurked deep beneath the soil, and arose when called upon those they believed were on their moral ground”

“They look like wild dogs...” Daenerys said, her voice trembling softly

“Yes they do, Little Princess. However, unlike the Cold Gods who hunted men for troops and advantage, the Dark Gods hunted men for survival and sport. The Beyonders, as they were also called, fed off whatever living thing they could find. Whether it was mortals, livestock, greens, or even each other. They never stopped. They were ravenous beasts, who fed off guilty and innocent alike. Sinner or saint, good or evil, it did not matter. The Dark Gods preyed upon everything and anything, and their hunger never quenched”

Aemon could feel his blood rushing, his pulse getting slightly faster and more sporadic. His fingers fidgeted together.

“Lord Arryn, why are you telling me this?” Aemon stammered “You said you’d help me in ruling the kingdoms. Why would I need something as purposeless as a folktale to keep the peace?”

Lord Arryn placed his hands upon Aemon’s shoulders, towering over the boy

“Believe me, Little Dragon, you will need these certain ‘folktales’ in the long run. I fear this peace that we have all so greatly cherished, will soon come to an end. For Winter is coming, and so are the Cold Gods-”

“-What are you doing?” A familiar voice cut in

The entourage turned to see Queen Lyanna standing at the doorway, her arms crossed against her chest and her expression stern whilst glaring at Lord Arryn.

Lord Arryn quickly got to his feet “Your grace” he said, bowing at her presence

Lyanna walked up to him, her guise never changing “I asked you a question, Jon Arryn. What. Are. You. Doing...?”

“My Queen, I was only informing the prince on important knowledge that will be essential in his rule”

“Essential?” Lyanna jabbed “What you are telling him, my Lord, are mere wives tales that will surely keep him awake for days on end”

Lord Arryn couldn’t tell if the Queen was annoyed or irritated, but he simply lowered his head and said “Forgive me if have troubled you, your grace”

Lyanna hung her head back “I know you mean no ill will, Lord Arryn. However, I sincerely advise you to know that your job is to help my son in being a good king, not to make him wet his own bed”

Aemon snickered a bit at that. He knew his mother’s tone was serious, but he couldn’t help wondering if in her head, she knew that sounded silly. However, once he looked to see his mother eyeing him, his smirk faded.

“Come, my son” Lyanna said, grabbing Aemon’s hand “I think you’ve heard enough ‘lectures’ for today” She motioned for Viserys to grab Daenerys, and they all left, leaving Lord Arryn alone in the study with his thoughts.

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

“Mother, why did you get so upset?” Aemon asked “He was only telling me a story, just like how you do every night”

Lyanna stopped dead in her tracks. They were now in the throne room, the sun was shining perfectly in the halls and the pillars looked as if they were made of gold rather than marble.

“I wasn’t getting upset, Aemon” Lyanna sighed “I was just getting a bit uneasy when Lord Arryn started speaking of those.... horrid creatures”

“You talk as if they were real” Viserys cut in “Everyone knows they’re just myths to make children hold their tongues and obey their parents”

Lyanna rolled her eyes “I understand, however I don’t want Aemon knowing of such things. He’s too young, and some people don’t like talking of them, let alone speaking their names”

“But why would I be afraid of things like that?” Aemon mused “I’m not a babe who can’t sleep because of shadows in my room”

Lyanna crouched down to meet her son’s eyes “You’ll have to forgive me, pup. I was only looking after you. I don’t want you coming to my chambers crying because of the things you heard”

“I won’t, Mother. I promise” Aemon said, smiling

“Good” Lyanna smiled back, and placed a small kiss on the boys head. She got up from her knees and began walking away “Now, if there’s no more issues-“

“-Actually,” Aemon started “Mother, I’ve been meaning to speak to you about something. It’s about me... being king”

Lyanna stopped once again. She turned to Aemon and blinked a couple of times “What about it?”

Aemon hesitated for a moment. He could tell his mother anything, right?

“Well I’ve been thinking about it and...”

“And...?” Lyanna urged him

“And I don’t think I want to be king”

Lyanna scoffed “Aemon, don’t be foolish. You’re the crown prince, it’s your responsibility to be the next king”

“But what if I’m no good at being king?” Aemon rebuked “What if the people don’t want to see me on the throne? Lord Arryn said they’d do terrible things to me if I ever made a mistake”

“That’s not true” Lyanna mused “Yes the people can be harsh at times, but they wouldn’t flay you just because you looked at them a certain way”

“Even if you’re right, I wouldn’t be happy” Aemon said “All my life I’ve known nothing but the Red Keep. You say that one day, you’ll take me to see the blue roses in Winterfell-“

“-And I will-“ Lyanna reassured

“-But you’re lying!” Aemon snapped “You’ll never take me to Winterfell. You can’t even let me be alone with Lord Arryn!”

“Because I’m trying to protect you!” Lyanna yelled. Her voice nearly echoed in the room, and she forgot that Viserys and his sister were still present, standing awkwardly next to her. She took a deep breath, and straightened her posture.

“Listen, I understand it’s hard for you to live in a place that’s so familiar it’s maddening. I had to stay in this wretched fortress for most of my days after I had you”

Aemon’s eyes grew “You did?”

“Yes. Robert wouldn’t let me leave our chambers, nor did he leave my side. But after a while, he knew I could take care of myself” She leaned down, and reached out for her son’s hands “We both have a duty to preform, pup. I don’t mean to sound cruel, but no matter how much you whine to the gods, Robert, or even me, it does not matter. You are the heir to the Iron Throne, and nothing will ever change that”

Aemon hung his head in shame. He felt like a fool for snapping at his mother. Instead of thinking rationally and understanding his mother’s feelings, he only thought of how he felt. Like a spoiled little prince.

“And besides, it’s not like I’ll be nagging at you forever. After all, you have a gift that’ll ensure your safety and the safety of others”

Aemon scoffed in a similar fashion to that of Lyanna “As if it’ll every work properly. The last time I tried using The Flame, I nearly burned down the canopy!”

Lyanna chuckled “In time you’ll learn. It’s not easy for the other great houses, so don’t feel so dreary. And besides, you were three. At that age you couldn’t even muster an entire sentence or carry a sword”

Viserys and Daenerys snickered at that. Aemon groaned “Mother...”

“Come along then” Lyanna called “I believe we should get some supper. All these council meetings have left my stomach unattended”

The children followed urgently, however Aemon still had far too many questions. Why did his mother get so worried when Lord Arryn spoke of the Cold Gods? They were only stories, weren’t they? And even if they were real, the Kingsguard would make good work of them. Surely gods weren’t impervious to steel.

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

“So, you’re mother actually believed in the White Walkers?” Sam asked. Him and Jon were scrubbing the tables at Castle Black. Once he had spotted Jon Snow, Sam saw some familiarity to a certain Targaryen Wolf. Jon nearly brought a knife to his throat once he mentioned his name. Well, he did. Except it was replaced with his hand.

“She never said” Jon answered “No matter what I did or where I was, my mother always believed someone was after my head”

“Well, she had every right to be cautious” Sam mused “You’re father was Rhaegar Targaryen: a man who brought shame to his family name. Robert despised him. If the Queen hadn’t said anything, who knows what he would have done to you”

Jon stopped scrubbing and looked at Sam “My mother spared me because I was her son. My mother spared Viserys and Daenerys because they were children. Aye, she hated the Targaryens, but she wouldn’t condemn a child and a newborn babe to the fate of their father”

“She sounded like quite the woman” Sam chuckled “I think she might have been a better ruler that Robert. After all, she’s the one who kept Dorne loyal to the crown”

Jon proceeded with his scrubbing, wanting to not say much as he feared others might be listening “I never did ask: how did you know I was Aemon Targaryen?”

Sam smiled and looked at Jon “Well, it was your eyes, of course! They’re the same color as Queen Lyanna’s. The Stark eyes. I don’t think there’s a lot of Northerners who are born with silver eyes”

“They’re grey, not silver”

“Well, there’s not much of a difference, really”

Jon giggled at the statement. People did say Stark eyes were silver, like that of fresh forced steel.

“You still promise you won’t tell anyone?” Jon said, quietly “I could loose my life for this”

“I swear on all the Gods” Sam promised “You helped me, so now I help you”

Jon smiled. The only true friends he ever had were Robb, Arya, and Daenerys. Not that they counted as much, since they were all family. But having Sam as a friend made Jon happy.

Happy that perhaps in this dark world, there was still trust and good.

If only the retelling of the Cold and Dark Gods didn’t cloud his mind like fog.

[diallokenyatta]

Fuck You for having any kind of criticism of LeBron school. WTF are you doing? Planting vegetables and shit. GTFOH....Niggas like you is why black people are not taken seriously. YOU BITCH!

Yeah, yeah, fuck me, I ain’t done shit, how dare I say anything critical of King James.I’ve heard it all, every insult and condemnation coming from people cuz I, a poor Black man living on the South Side of Chicago had the gall to articulate a critical review of Lebron’s Blessings bestowed upon the unwashed, unworthy masses. So, I’ll just toss your insult in the pile with all the others Anon.The insults don’t bother me at all, as a Black Atheist Vegan Socialist in America, I’m very used to and comfortable being on the outside of the huddle (oh, and I don’t like pro-sports either, LOL!). So, I’m with the worst person to Troll, cuz I’ve been dealing with having unpopular and ridiculed positions long before the advent of Social Media. 

Lemme tell you what does disturb me, however: 

I’ve had hundreds of angry responses to my Lebron criticisms, but not one of those outraged Subjects of the Lebron Kindom has acknowledged and spoke directly to my criticisms.  There has been no dissection of my points, not counterpoints or corrections offered.  

Even when I engage the Lebon Lovers they don’t appear have even read or comprehended my criticisms, they just know I’m not praising Lebron, and that alone enrages them.  They don’t even understand the scope of Lebron’s mission, they just know a Rich gave some alms to the Poors, and they are all creaming and nutting in joy. That shit is strange to me. I used to lament that the US and Blacks, in particular, were returning to the Gilded Age (where you basically had hyper-rich and poor people, and the poor lived according to the dictates and benevolence of the rich). But it’s worse than that; the US and Black Integrationist are returning to the Feudal Era, where you not only had hyper-rich and poor, but the poor were forbidden to even have independent thinking, forbidden to criticize their Lords, let alone challenge their will. SMH.But even during the Gilded and Feudal times the poor, the peasants and serfs knew which side they were on, they had no illusions that they were in solidarity with their “Betters.” Today every poor person, every modern day serf thinks they are one good idea, one fast break away from becoming Lords or Noblemen. SMH.So instead of being resentful of the Parasitic Elites we are in awe of them, we worship them, we defend them when strangers on the internet question their actions and motives. SMH.Yall are worse than Peasants, and have even less potential to overthrow the unjust Systems that create the economic imbalances than our ancestors did. SMH. 

So, Fuck You as well Anon.But I’m not gonna call you a Bitch like you did me cuz I have more respect for a female dog than people like you; at the very least a mother dog is loyal and fierce in protecting of its offspring, which more than I can say for you New Negros. I’ll trust a Dog over a Coon any day. Finally; I prefer to be a poor Revolutionary Urban Farmer over being a Reactionary Integrationist caught up in the Cult of Celebrity Worshipwww.diallokenyatta.comwww.patreon.com/diallokenyatta#BroDiallo

[nowtravel]

Rejecting the nauseating mix of new age spiritualism and old age religion that defines the Camino de Santiago, Bert Archer embarks on the lesser-known Via de la Plata

The road is just wide enough for a pick-up truck loaded with building supplies to rumble higher up into the hills that overlook Baños de Montemayor, still terraced after 17 or 18 centuries. The road is mostly flagstones, mostly level, with tufts of beaten-down grass poking up between them. But every so often, there’s a stripe of more obviously found stones, rounded and less evenly spaced, laid around the same time the terraces were being carved, that gave the Via de la Plata its name (which, despite sounding like it has something to do with silver, actually comes from the Arabic al balat, which means “cobblestone road”).

Following the pick-up are five men, aged probably 25 to 50, Croatian by the sound of them. Three have wide-brimmed straw hats, the sort that were probably conceived as modest country hats but that stand out these days as the millinery equivalent of the peasant dress; two of them have thick socks under sandals; all have conspicuously large and conspicuously new backpacks: pilgrims, on their way to Santiago de Compostela.

I hate them on sight.

These are the people that make the more popular parts of the so-called Camino de Santiago so intolerable; these are the people I wanted to get away from when I took the Via de la Plata, a lesser known pilgrimage than the Camino.

I like the idea of a structured route with some heritage as much as the next guy, walking in the footsteps of thousands who have walked the same road. I just can’t stand the arch admixture of new age spiritualism with old age religion that infuses the very dust kicked up by every be-sandaled foot that strides the Camino.

Born in the Dark Ages from a myth about the mystical appearance of the clam-encrusted body of St. James, executed by Herod in Jerusalem in 44 AD, the pilgrimage route had slowly fallen into desuetude until the 20th century, when people realized they didn’t have to walk anymore. They still visited the church where the mythical body of the saint mythically rests, but they got there by 20th-century methods: planes, trains, and automobiles.

Then came the 1970s, a decade that has a lot to answer for: the Khmer Rouge, China’s Cultural Revolution, Idi Amin, Allende/Pinochet. To that list may be added a resurgence of pedestrian pilgrims, dedicated souls who cut through the undergrowth to reveal the neglected paths, going back to primary sources, like Pope Calixtinus II’s 12th-century guide to the camino, the Codex Calixtinus, to re-establish the route. There were some faithful in there, certainly, but the fact that the resurgence came at the same time as the international marathon boom is not pure coincidence.

As the line-ups at Machu Picchu and the final approach to Everest’s peak attest, an increasingly leisured and monied Western population has taken rather warmly to artificially reproducing the sorts of physical hardships their ancestors fought so hard to put behind them. Iron Man competitions, extreme sports, and the blooming of a hundred million six-packs all bear witness to a population for whom leisure has become oppressive and regular achievement—stable income, family, housing, a general lack of conflict—is too easy, no longer enough.

Marathoners and Everest climbers are noxious enough, but what makes the Camino so intolerable is the added celestial righteousness. I have no pilgrims in any of my social media networks, but I have read the comments elsewhere: regular reports on how far, how much, how great, with the added bonus of conspicuously quiet—but not silent—averrals of how grounded they feel now, or what inspiring people they met along the way, like the 82-year-old woman who did it barefoot, or the uncle who did it for his cancer-stricken nephew. Ugh.

And those who do not believe they have a friend in the sky, but follow the same route as those who for more than a thousand years did and made the trip in the hopes they’d escape the business end of his supernal hob-nailed boot (though for those who still believe, the route is still, as the Catholics say, “indulgenced”) seem to me disingenuous and possibly deluded, like mindful college kids who think Buddhism is an alternative to organized religion, or people whose third car is electric.

Robert Ward, who wrote two good books on the subject of being a secular pilgrim on the Camino, is neither disingenuous nor deluded. He started out as a guy who just liked walking. Then he heard about the Camino, and something happened to him. In the middle of many good sentences in these books, one about walking parts of the Camino several times over the course of a decade, the other about tracking down as many depictions of the Virgin Mary along it and similar routes, he comes out with ones like “While we’ve all heard it said that life is a pilgrimage, it is also true that a pilgrimage is a life,” and “I was a pilgrim and always had been one. It was something that dawned on me day by day, not a lightning flash on the road to Damascus, but a slow recognition that ‘pilgrim’ is another way of understanding who we are, and that to make a pilgrimage is only to formalize that understanding.” There’s something about walking holy roads that makes you think big, beyond what’s in front of you, that attempts to give it all a meaning that transcends the cafes and the bars, the jamon and the queso, the beer and the fina.

There is one very good thing about the Camino though: It goes through small towns that would otherwise never attract travellers. As the route increases in popularity, however—there were 237,886 pilgrims in 2013, according to the official count—they are becoming more and more like standard tourist towns, albeit catering to a very particular demographic.

The Via de la Plata is different. It’s been around as long, and has been used from time to time over the centuries as an alternative, all-Spanish route to the tomb of St. James (the standard Camino routes begin in France). But it has never been primarily that, and that has made all the difference.

The Via, also known as the Ruta de la Plata, began life as a pre-Roman trade route, first for the transport of tin, then as a way for the Romans to conquer various bits of Iberia, who later, according to Pliny the Elder, used it to trade gold and copper, running as it did between the copper mines of Rio Tinto and the gold mines in Las Medulas.

Practical people built practical settlements, unlike those who, from Charlemagne forward, built basilicas and monuments to saints and martyrs around which towns like Redecilla and Ourense grew. There are churches in Fuente de Cantos and Casar de Caceres on the Via, but they’re not the main attractions and not being on the Camino has meant they’ve been thrown back on their own devices to come up with economic engines to replace the trade no longer being done along the route, which is now the A-66, which, though it pretty much follows the old Via, allows you to efficiently bypass all the towns. (In fact, a drunken holler in a Seville bar asking if anyone had heard of Fuente de Cantos drew a chorus of equally bibulous “No’s,” and one meek response from the kitchen, “I think it’s a town.” Fuente de Cantos is just 37 miles north of Seville, and the A66 is the way you get from there to Madrid.)

When I got to Fuente de Cantos (population: 5,002), the church was shut, so I visited the house of the doctor of the mother of the second most famous Spanish painter of the 17th century. Francisco de Zurbaran lived the first 16 years of his life here, before his father sent him off to Seville to be a painter’s apprentice. Specializing in monks, nuns, royalty, and, in the painting that’s become his most famous, a cup of water, Zurbaran was second only to his friend Velasquez in esteem in their day.

Since then, he’s not fared too well in international circles, though in Spain, he’s still fairly well known. He’s Fuente de Cantos’ favorite son, and since the house he grew up in is still in private hands, the modest museum dedicated to his time here is in the house he was actually born in. It’s a small affair, renovated last year for the 350th anniversary of his death, so actually having any original Zurbarans was out of the question—as the museum-keeper told me, the security expenses will probably never be feasible. So, on the walls there are pictures of his pictures, blown up and framed. There’s also a new touch screen counter where you can flip through a PDF catalogue of his work. It is thoroughly charming, if earnest but underfunded and mostly amateur projects charm you.

Seville, where by some definitions the Via begins, is gorgeous. The Alcazar, recently re-celebrated as the stand-in for Game of Thrones’ Dornish palace, along with its cathedral, its jamon iberico, and many, is as glorious as you’d expect. But Fuente de Cantos, with its single visible bar, where the tapas is still free (even though the bars tend to close pretty early), and its streets lined with white-washed houses populated only by pint-sized Iker Casillases and David Silvas is unexpected, which is where its beauty lies.

The cheese you get a few miles north, in Casar de Caceres, a tiny suburb of the larger Caceres, is slightly more famous than Zurbaran. Torta del Casar is a raw sheep’s milk cheese; soft and either white or pale yellow, it’s most often served as a spread or dip. It’s a designated cheese, which means the sheep have to come from this part of Extremadura, where shepherds began making the torta accidentally, when bunches of the harder, more regular white cheese they were trying to make spoiled during humid spring seasons. Until quite recently the cheeses were given away free with the purchase of one of the more popular hard cheeses. Then an American food writer stumbled on it, praised it to the heavens, and, over the next couple of decades, turned it into one of Spain’s most expensive cheeses.

Every town along the Via has its version of the torta, something unique they’ve cultivated and are waiting for the world to recognize, from the never-quite-finished Gaudi-esque house in Los Santos de Maimona, lovingly constructed over the last three decades by a passionate septuagenarian builder named Francisco González Gragera, to Hervas, with its annual Jewish festival that celebrates the fact that it is one of the only towns in Spain that didn’t tear down its old Jewish quarter with its gentile citizens dressing up in their versions of Jewish costumes and doing little dances they think might also be Jewish.

But my favorite is the parador in Plasencia. A former nunnery, it provides a striking contrast to another one I visited just outside Fuente de Cantos, one of the few bits of evidence, aside from those Croatians, of the seeping influence of the religious pilgrimage into the Via de la Plata. The Albergue Convento Vía de la Plata de Fuente de Cantos was a modest but lovely little former convent turned into an albergue of the sort that dot the Camino de Santiago, cheap, with communal facilities and a cafeteria where you get your daily bread, and not much more, before heading out again.

Except here, it’s the exception rather than the rule, and when I called ahead to say I’d be coming, and that I thought I’d like to write about it, there was enough excitement that the mayor invited me to lunch in the albergue cafeteria, where big aluminum platters of modest food like cheese on toast and slices of jamon were served as we talk about tourism, the fantastic success that other route has made over the past couple of decades, protecting many of its small towns from the financial crisis that’s still going on here, and how she’s trying to get some of that sweet pilgrim cash out her way, to add to the mostly school group business of the Zurbaran house.

I sympathize, but later, as I sit in the vaulted brick cellar of the Plasencia parador and a waiter who knows his gin brings me a gin and tonic, served in a big-bowled stem glass packed with ice, the way they’re doing it in Barcelona and Rotterdam these days, with Fever Tree tonic and garnished with a sprig of basil, I silently hope she fails.

By the time you reach Baños de Montemayor, where I ran into my Croatian pilgrims, it’s almost time to turn off to Madrid. The Via continues, all the way north to Astorga, but this isn’t the Camino. There’s no one, in heaven or earth, tracking your progress or waiting to be impressed with your endurance, self-abnegation and weeping blisters. You can do the rest some other time if you like; the bars are open later in Madrid.

[chinad]

In completion of 2017.

Dec 19, 2017

dreamt being friend of an English noble family, or Japanese host, ie their 2 boys and only daughter. first the boys showed me their real estate, and traditional kid practices around & in trench of their castle, which so beautiful, with yard and fence, and harvesting field with peasants nearby. I commented British buildings usually round shape while Chinese commodity residential block usually in slice alike. they also showed me their parties. then their only sister returned. the girl likely an artist, she put on me new shirt & introduced me to her party. when I prepared to performance and jumping from 2nd floor balcony to hall ground over awaiting crowd, my alarm woke me up. it's a warm dream, without pressure, esp the daughter cares me so much. this week still in wilder joys aid by alipay virtual credit. I try to prepare an installment with the credit, so I in urgency to spend near ￥1500 so as to mount to 2000 CNY installment. spending upon year end gifts really a breeze. I equipped dearest son a suite of SQAD winter uniform, including coat & pants, pricey ￥350. last night I spend another 120 on family photo book reviewing a decade golden memories, esp in woz's growth. for our domain registrar, godaddy defies the credit, I partially shift some deposit from monthly mobile data plan and spare cash for renewing our remnant 16 domains year end. but mobile fee recharging has limit set by the virtual credit, so I only allowed 400 CNY to transit. however, after these operations, I more confident that 2017 will complete without regret. past week also allows us enjoying benefit of goods, like my kid brother aided me a new Japanese style bed cushion, quite soft & warm & economic efficient, I praise it exceeding word. otherwise each morning esp chiller morning when I get up my bone hurts. our new google home mini first arrived amid our seasonal cyber gifts. it's so beautifully functional, enrich my son's spoken English & informative anytime empowered by the moral uplifting American corporate giant. we spend half hour to setup it, still my son at a loss for he was not left alone to accomplish the task. he wants now to carry independent workload on his own. that remind me how hard my situation can be in a tiny world our economy & social circumstance permits. my kid brother this time generously extended arms to me, likely last time our elder brother loaned me for domain renewal even in his hard time shamed him, and his aid grants us to upgrade our rechargeable batteries stock, which prepares us for more e-gadgets to harness even more wonderful modern living standard. God, dad, reviewing our situation, we felt so much blessed: our beneficence hinders nobody, our broad laugh shadows no one. while most renowned billionaires bow to PRC sinful tyrant, confronted by lawless deprivation and death penalty instead of standing clean, esp IT industry monopolies in rats' race. God dad, our anxious free growth might ceilied esp upon my offspring, but dearest God dad, is there anything we bestowed is not under your Holy Majesty warranty? grant us usual path, and merry heart forever, under shine & shrine. bring me sooner my Royal China, my Crown Queen from Japan, Asoh Yukiko, for broader future of our 2 nations. in our ancestors' forged link, we stand firmer on the eastern Asia now and then forever.

Dec 12, 2017

these weeks brewing shopping online for quite some times, empowered by alipay virtual credit. but unfortunately godaddy doesn't support it. so I ordered woz's new boot, google home mini as planned in this dawn. later I will buy myself tea whose deficit last months helplessly. In dawn dreamt of a respected elder, likely PRC general Liu Bocheng. he first in my dream appeared as a painter, who drew golden leaves with Chinese traditional calligraphic painting. then he linked 3 painted leaves in a line to forge a brush and drew more in batch likes painting software, painter which can animate painting procedure does. then some relatives of the elder appeared, claimed the renowned man never query the elapse of his old acquaintances, for he can grasp the information in solitude & void. after woke up I felt he must be old partner of Deng Xiaoping, General Liu. these days PRC surveillance turns more rampant, and insanely. last weekend it only deterred playing back & restricted sources available via lagging internet, but last night it shameless rip audio from online episodes real time stream, and reset cache building minutes each after 2 or 3 minutes, just aiming upset my watching experience. hatred in PRC, esp dogs arranged by tyranny let me sad sometimes recently, by their desperate, cheap and total equipped to teeth. nevertheless my son rejoiced after my analyses of adversity we were beset, after he felt insulted by my scorn when he refused counting cash for me when I handover bills to pay our spa groupon in front the counter. might he thought the ammount, ￥250, too small for his engagement, but I hoped he recount before shifting to cashier, for I just roughly fetched from my purse. but he move them directly to cashier with whom I natively didn't trust. my son got hurt and in next Saturday when we went cinema & bought Taiwanese sweet juice he refused to face cashier. I first puzzled by his refusal, blamed him shy to publicity. then I saw his attitude & reason behind. so in Sunday luncheon, I explained why I didn't put him as independent but a kid. we more or less reunited & the downtown hotel restaurant lunch is delicious. after showered & returned to his mom's house, I let him watch "Rick & Morty" while I massaged his feet. his sinful mom tentatively arranged her lesbian friend's son came over for her english tuition, then my son looked diligently to play steam game with the docile kid while his mom, also the cheating kid, posed to be too busy and left my son unfinished amid game playing. its all right God, dad, just let the bitch does her utmost sins trying tearing my son apart between beast & holy, hership vs fathership. God, dad, 2017 ends soon. grant us renew all 21 domains with bonus, my only source of surplus in bare living year long including boarding & lodging, spa, barber, monthly cinema, weekly dining out with woz, dearest son. grant us self-relying sooner my online portal of Royal China. bring me sooner my Crown Queen, Asoh Yukiko, for future ahead, for tomorrow reality in eastern Asia. protect zhone 21 domains in our title & promising in their far-sight & far reaching game changing. grant us merry Christmas & lunar new year!

Nov 30, 2017

dreamt editing video as my old career in QRRS cable TV. a piece of video abnormal & frequently freezed. I reported to leader that its likely encrypted. my once departmental leader, likely framed me and side watched for my clueless while playing Mahjong with his pals in the studio. but I checked carefully to assure its not damaged but encrypted, then gradually decrypted the video. after that I posted my resignation notice for the unfriend environment in which the boss conjected with departmental leader setup me in. last night I felt sad for our new registrar, dynadot, so irresponsible to fix its problematic dns setting rule. it domain root record defies matched field, say title and value, but just arbitrary single value. while zoho mail hosting SPF and let's encrypt ssl dns verification both need title "@" matching txt value field, otherwise the only txt value wouldn't be recognized, and verification halt to proceed. such a simple malfunction defied many users' operational inc mine, and caused many complains in its user community. but after near 3 months after my transferation from godaddy, I yet saw fix at all. the boss of the company shows his leisure time with his pet dog in his pool on social media. this reminds me their less concerns with their product on which I deeply hope I can firmly cling to, after departed from godaddy which more intelligent and powerful esp dns setting, just in one shortcoming, too expensive & bargain needed in renewal. I hope our new registrar, dynadot, responsible, steady, but new found let the assumption shakeable. God dad, why domain registry so thin in scale of intellectual property, why is it so easy to be a domain registrar with such a problematic product while remains open service? it shakes my faith in American corporate moral, and traditional Chinese, esp from Taiwan, as dynadot founder is a Taiwanese, more equipped with merit of hard working and emotional smarter. On Tuesday our ordered ssd from taobao arrived. but last mile express, contractor Yuantong express failed to deliver. I buzzed the agent according sms noticement and the man claimed he no longer in the job for days. so I visited local office of the contractor a bus stop away. the small office jammed with parcels. 2 women there helped me find my package after a quarter's scrutiny. Yuantong once had a wonderful service, speedy & well organized, but now seemingly in deconstruction. for its too earlier to fetch my son from his school, I lingered awhile in KFC local franchise, now under PRC native brand. there I found my alipay virtual credit, 花呗, resumes my limit from freeze. I paid a KFC groupon via the payment tool in a blink. that's so exciting even before I went to bed hours later, I still felt shocking satisfaction. I need credit so badly. in next days I wondered what credit is and how it can facilitate my life, I took granted that it only encourages installment. so this month I will equip my son & my own 3 items, woz's new boot, google home mini, and my tea, all in one installment and hopeful year end bonus will pay the bill eventually. God, dad, enlive quality service in American Chinese startup, esp established corporations like dynadot. bring me fruitful usage of credit. bring me my Royal China, my Crown Queen Asoh Yukiko for better management of monetary. grant me constructive credit adoption, and booming business my online portal empowers.

Nov 27, 2017

retrospect last week, it elapsed so peaceful. but in fact I burning for the coming salary which turned out extraordinarily surprising. previously I thought the year end most financially demanding tasks completed with 2 loans from my old hometown relatives, ie my sisters & brother. but suddenly my vpn service informed me renewal due in couple days, exactly Nov 22. while recently my salary released usually on 19th monthly. so I took it easily. from 19th, Sunday, I looked out hopefully descending of salary till 22rd, Wednesday. everyday I prayed for solution. it was a sunny noon on 22rd Nov, 2017, I gave up canteen lunch and hope my last salvage. but it didn't. then I sought out with blessing resolution for dorm canteen's loan. they didn't refuse my appeal, offer ￥1000 at once. with it I immediately deposited in my icbc credit account. CCP surveillance blocked my trading attempts for a quarter, then went smoothly. my paypal strangely refused my payment, claiming verification failure. so I ditched it and paid via alipay, a mainstream electronic financial tool in PRC. my vpn vendor listed under its transaction log in alipay. might be that's what PRC surveillance demands in defying of my paypal which done last year perfectly. then most wanted salary release notification sms arrived: with year end bonus, I got 4420 CNY. I had previously doubted many times my budget & salary supporting gap, and thought I will save my purchase from returning less to bank credit, which already warned me insufficient pay back & possible sue over me. the main coming bill is my son's desktop os, ubuntu on a ssd usb drive, and gift sending to my nephew whose first child, a daughter just born. I had already refrained from gifting his wedding ceremony nearly year ago. so this time my congratulation really due to manifest. they both costs ￥300. with the powerful salary, I maintained last month pay back standard, 500 CNY each for ccb & psbc credit debt, while clear all my due liability among bills active in life, except debt to canteen loan adds more hundreds. but in the afternoon, when I handed over ￥1700 including 200 to pay a woman staff there for my laundry, the canteen operative woman and her husband accepted without complains. God, dad, what a wonderful moment after so many neck breaking anticipation! in the night I informed my son online the clearance of bills and claimed only left unfinished is donation annually to poor kids in China mountainous area, and bbn bible radio. but now, I want more: equipping my son woz a pair of new winter shoes to replace his wrecked one, and my tea deficit for months. my son's programming lesson arranged by his mom stepping in, my preparing his desktop environment is portable os on ssd udisk hopefully running on hardware of his old dell notebook and intel nuc in his lounge. dad God, let my son adopt my suggestion, first step to master typing via training tools from chrome store on his chromebook. grant me helpful and his prompt execution for remaining aid from powerful google & online courseware. I have almost no more debt in his education, nor in my online business, our portal for Royal China and democracy of China progressive. God dad, grant me another surge of spacious budget for renew our domains year end, nearly 15 domains left. grant us happier lunar new year, and Christmas 2017. thx for this clueless post in firm hint of publish in rest of recent elation.

via Blogger http://ift.tt/2BkFvp8

[be21zh]

Dec 19, 2017

dreamt being friend of an English noble family, or Japanese host, ie their 2 boys and only daughter. first the boys showed me their real estate, and traditional kid practices around & in trench of their castle, which so beautiful, with yard and fence, and harvesting field with peasants nearby. I commented British buildings usually round shape while Chinese commodity residential block usually in slice alike. they also showed me their parties. then their only sister returned. the girl likely an artist, she put on me new shirt & introduced me to her party. when I prepared to performance and jumping from 2nd floor balcony to hall ground over awaiting crowd, my alarm woke me up. it's a warm dream, without pressure, esp the daughter cares me so much. this week still in wilder joys aid by alipay virtual credit. I try to prepare an installment with the credit, so I in urgency to spend near ￥1500 so as to mount to 2000 CNY installment. spending upon year end gifts really a breeze. I equipped dearest son a suite of SQAD winter uniform, including coat & pants, pricey ￥350. last night I spend another 120 on family photo book reviewing a decade golden memories, esp in woz's growth. for our domain registrar, godaddy defies the credit, I partially shift some deposit from monthly mobile data plan and spare cash for renewing our remnant 16 domains year end. but mobile fee recharging has limit set by the virtual credit, so I only allowed 400 CNY to transit. however, after these operations, I more confident that 2017 will complete without regret. past week also allows us enjoying benefit of goods, like my kid brother aided me a new Japanese style bed cushion, quite soft & warm & economic efficient, I praise it exceeding word. otherwise each morning esp chiller morning when I get up my bone hurts. our new google home mini first arrived amid our seasonal cyber gifts. it's so beautifully functional, enrich my son's spoken English & informative anytime empowered by the moral uplifting American corporate giant. we spend half hour to setup it, still my son at a loss for he was not left alone to accomplish the task. he wants now to carry independent workload on his own. that remind me how hard my situation can be in a tiny world our economy & social circumstance permits. my kid brother this time generously extended arms to me, likely last time our elder brother loaned me for domain renewal even in his hard time shamed him, and his aid grants us to upgrade our rechargeable batteries stock, which prepares us for more e-gadgets to harness even more wonderful modern living standard. God, dad, reviewing our situation, we felt so much blessed: our beneficence hinders nobody, our broad laugh shadows no one. while most renowned billionaires bow to PRC sinful tyrant, confronted by lawless deprivation and death penalty instead of standing clean, esp IT industry monopolies in rats' race. God dad, our anxious free growth might ceilied esp upon my offspring, but dearest God dad, is there anything we bestowed is not under your Holy Majesty warranty? grant us usual path, and merry heart forever, under shine & shrine. bring me sooner my Royal China, my Crown Queen from Japan, Asoh Yukiko, for broader future of our 2 nations. in our ancestors' forged link, we stand firmer on the eastern Asia now and then forever.

Dec 12, 2017

these weeks brewing shopping online for quite some times, empowered by alipay virtual credit. but unfortunately godaddy doesn't support it. so I ordered woz's new boot, google home mini as planned in this dawn. later I will buy myself tea whose deficit last months helplessly. In dawn dreamt of a respected elder, likely PRC general Liu Bocheng. he first in my dream appeared as a painter, who drew golden leaves with Chinese traditional calligraphic painting. then he linked 3 painted leaves in a line to forge a brush and drew more in batch likes painting software, painter which can animate painting procedure does. then some relatives of the elder appeared, claimed the renowned man never query the elapse of his old acquaintances, for he can grasp the information in solitude & void. after woke up I felt he must be old partner of Deng Xiaoping, General Liu. these days PRC surveillance turns more rampant, and insanely. last weekend it only deterred playing back & restricted sources available via lagging internet, but last night it shameless rip audio from online episodes real time stream, and reset cache building minutes each after 2 or 3 minutes, just aiming upset my watching experience. hatred in PRC, esp dogs arranged by tyranny let me sad sometimes recently, by their desperate, cheap and total equipped to teeth. nevertheless my son rejoiced after my analyses of adversity we were beset, after he felt insulted by my scorn when he refused counting cash for me when I handover bills to pay our spa groupon in front the counter. might he thought the ammount, ￥250, too small for his engagement, but I hoped he recount before shifting to cashier, for I just roughly fetched from my purse. but he move them directly to cashier with whom I natively didn't trust. my son got hurt and in next Saturday when we went cinema & bought Taiwanese sweet juice he refused to face cashier. I first puzzled by his refusal, blamed him shy to publicity. then I saw his attitude & reason behind. so in Sunday luncheon, I explained why I didn't put him as independent but a kid. we more or less reunited & the downtown hotel restaurant lunch is delicious. after showered & returned to his mom's house, I let him watch "Rick & Morty" while I massaged his feet. his sinful mom tentatively arranged her lesbian friend's son came over for her english tuition, then my son looked diligently to play steam game with the docile kid while his mom, also the cheating kid, posed to be too busy and left my son unfinished amid game playing. its all right God, dad, just let the bitch does her utmost sins trying tearing my son apart between beast & holy, hership vs fathership. God, dad, 2017 ends soon. grant us renew all 21 domains with bonus, my only source of surplus in bare living year long including boarding & lodging, spa, barber, monthly cinema, weekly dining out with woz, dearest son. grant us self-relying sooner my online portal of Royal China. bring me sooner my Crown Queen, Asoh Yukiko, for future ahead, for tomorrow reality in eastern Asia. protect zhone 21 domains in our title & promising in their far-sight & far reaching game changing. grant us merry Christmas & lunar new year!

Nov 30, 2017

dreamt editing video as my old career in QRRS cable TV. a piece of video abnormal & frequently freezed. I reported to leader that its likely encrypted. my once departmental leader, likely framed me and side watched for my clueless while playing Mahjong with his pals in the studio. but I checked carefully to assure its not damaged but encrypted, then gradually decrypted the video. after that I posted my resignation notice for the unfriend environment in which the boss conjected with departmental leader setup me in. last night I felt sad for our new registrar, dynadot, so irresponsible to fix its problematic dns setting rule. it domain root record defies matched field, say title and value, but just arbitrary single value. while zoho mail hosting SPF and let's encrypt ssl dns verification both need title "@" matching txt value field, otherwise the only txt value wouldn't be recognized, and verification halt to proceed. such a simple malfunction defied many users' operational inc mine, and caused many complains in its user community. but after near 3 months after my transferation from godaddy, I yet saw fix at all. the boss of the company shows his leisure time with his pet dog in his pool on social media. this reminds me their less concerns with their product on which I deeply hope I can firmly cling to, after departed from godaddy which more intelligent and powerful esp dns setting, just in one shortcoming, too expensive & bargain needed in renewal. I hope our new registrar, dynadot, responsible, steady, but new found let the assumption shakeable. God dad, why domain registry so thin in scale of intellectual property, why is it so easy to be a domain registrar with such a problematic product while remains open service? it shakes my faith in American corporate moral, and traditional Chinese, esp from Taiwan, as dynadot founder is a Taiwanese, more equipped with merit of hard working and emotional smarter. On Tuesday our ordered ssd from taobao arrived. but last mile express, contractor Yuantong express failed to deliver. I buzzed the agent according sms noticement and the man claimed he no longer in the job for days. so I visited local office of the contractor a bus stop away. the small office jammed with parcels. 2 women there helped me find my package after a quarter's scrutiny. Yuantong once had a wonderful service, speedy & well organized, but now seemingly in deconstruction. for its too earlier to fetch my son from his school, I lingered awhile in KFC local franchise, now under PRC native brand. there I found my alipay virtual credit, 花呗, resumes my limit from freeze. I paid a KFC groupon via the payment tool in a blink. that's so exciting even before I went to bed hours later, I still felt shocking satisfaction. I need credit so badly. in next days I wondered what credit is and how it can facilitate my life, I took granted that it only encourages installment. so this month I will equip my son & my own 3 items, woz's new boot, google home mini, and my tea, all in one installment and hopeful year end bonus will pay the bill eventually. God, dad, enlive quality service in American Chinese startup, esp established corporations like dynadot. bring me fruitful usage of credit. bring me my Royal China, my Crown Queen Asoh Yukiko for better management of monetary. grant me constructive credit adoption, and booming business my online portal empowers.

Nov 27, 2017

retrospect last week, it elapsed so peaceful. but in fact I burning for the coming salary which turned out extraordinarily surprising. previously I thought the year end most financially demanding tasks completed with 2 loans from my old hometown relatives, ie my sisters & brother. but suddenly my vpn service informed me renewal due in couple days, exactly Nov 22. while recently my salary released usually on 19th monthly. so I took it easily. from 19th, Sunday, I looked out hopefully descending of salary till 22rd, Wednesday. everyday I prayed for solution. it was a sunny noon on 22rd Nov, 2017, I gave up canteen lunch and hope my last salvage. but it didn't. then I sought out with blessing resolution for dorm canteen's loan. they didn't refuse my appeal, offer ￥1000 at once. with it I immediately deposited in my icbc credit account. CCP surveillance blocked my trading attempts for a quarter, then went smoothly. my paypal strangely refused my payment, claiming verification failure. so I ditched it and paid via alipay, a mainstream electronic financial tool in PRC. my vpn vendor listed under its transaction log in alipay. might be that's what PRC surveillance demands in defying of my paypal which done last year perfectly. then most wanted salary release notification sms arrived: with year end bonus, I got 4420 CNY. I had previously doubted many times my budget & salary supporting gap, and thought I will save my purchase from returning less to bank credit, which already warned me insufficient pay back & possible sue over me. the main coming bill is my son's desktop os, ubuntu on a ssd usb drive, and gift sending to my nephew whose first child, a daughter just born. I had already refrained from gifting his wedding ceremony nearly year ago. so this time my congratulation really due to manifest. they both costs ￥300. with the powerful salary, I maintained last month pay back standard, 500 CNY each for ccb & psbc credit debt, while clear all my due liability among bills active in life, except debt to canteen loan adds more hundreds. but in the afternoon, when I handed over ￥1700 including 200 to pay a woman staff there for my laundry, the canteen operative woman and her husband accepted without complains. God, dad, what a wonderful moment after so many neck breaking anticipation! in the night I informed my son online the clearance of bills and claimed only left unfinished is donation annually to poor kids in China mountainous area, and bbn bible radio. but now, I want more: equipping my son woz a pair of new winter shoes to replace his wrecked one, and my tea deficit for months. my son's programming lesson arranged by his mom stepping in, my preparing his desktop environment is portable os on ssd udisk hopefully running on hardware of his old dell notebook and intel nuc in his lounge. dad God, let my son adopt my suggestion, first step to master typing via training tools from chrome store on his chromebook. grant me helpful and his prompt execution for remaining aid from powerful google & online courseware. I have almost no more debt in his education, nor in my online business, our portal for Royal China and democracy of China progressive. God dad, grant me another surge of spacious budget for renew our domains year end, nearly 15 domains left. grant us happier lunar new year, and Christmas 2017. thx for this clueless post in firm hint of publish in rest of recent elation.