#not a good standard to set for the first monday of the year but eh. it could be worse

[capricioussun]

Challenge

[radramblog]

Full-Art Lands Pt.2

Hello internet persons, this is Rad from 2/9/21 speaking. I am tired from an early early shift at work, and also just got the first vaccine dose, so I’m going to be posting these words written on Monday when I anticipated exactly this level of exhaustion. This might defeat the purpose of “a blog post a day”, but its hardly the first time I’ve done it and also I think I have a pretty solid excuse.

Anyway. This is a continuation of a discussion of every Full-Art Basic Land set in Magic: The Gathering, starting now with Modern Horizons. It counts!

Modern Horizons

Kind of cheating, because technically the Snow-Covered Lands are different cards, but unless you’re building around them (or a card like Extraplanar Lens) then they’re functionally pretty much the same. These are also literally the only Full-Art Snows, so if you’re running those then this is basically your only pimp option.

Ultimately these are kind of held back by the fact that, well, everything has to be blanketed in snow. There’s some interesting blues going along with the Plains and Mountain, and there’s some fun sky colours, but the remainder is left a little bland.

I currently believe these are worth investing in, for what it’s worth. Both Full-Art Lands and Snow Basics always go up eventually, slowly, over time, and these are still less than a dollar each for now.

 Secret Lair: Artist Series: Seb McKinnon

This one is kind of a special case, because there’s just a Swamp. And there are technically two of them, but one is just an older version of the art. So I wasn’t sure whether or not to count these.

Because of these limitations, it’s hard to recommend these unless you have a lot of money and also a mono-black deck. They look great, matching Seb’s excellent style from the other cards in the drop, but it’s a bit of an awkward one. That said, I just have these sitting around, seeing as I got this drop just for the Damnation, so…might as well, I guess?

 Theros: Beyond Death

Much like Amonkhet/Hour of Devastation, this set has one full-art mixed in with several regular basics. The difference is that these are representative of Nyx, the world of Theros’s gods, with its symbolic and nebulaic art.

There’s no real getting over the part where these just look like the Basic Energy cards from the Pokemon Trading Card Game. Considering WoTC’s hand in designing that game, and that the two are equivalent because, well, WotC designed them that way, it’s a fair comparison. But I don’t think this is why these ones aren’t as good as other full-arts. I have two main issues with these lands, and the first is that, well, there’s no land on them. For a set themed around a specific plane, one would expect that plane to be represented in the art, and Nyx does have actual landscapes on it. I get the space-themed design, but they could have been up in the sky above an actual Mountain or whatnot.

The other is the missed opportunity of these being Nebulae. That’s a fine enough design choice, though the symbology is a bit hammered in, but like. In a set based on Ancient Greece and its astronomical focus, with Gods that look like and are represented by constellations, with a mechanic called Constellation, they probably should have just been constellations. It would have made for a more subtle, less, well, Pokemon look, as well.

 Unsanctioned

New Un-Set, new basics. These ones are kind of a hybrid between the Unglued and Unstable ones, with that golden frame and almost borderless design. I’m actually not sure how I feel about these, since while the frame looks nice, it’s also kind of pointless, and the texturing on the mana symbols is a little weird. I don’t like how smooth and reflective they are.

The art is at least still excellent. Not John Avon, but Adam Paquette does a great job distinguishing himself, less realistic but still believable places that feel fantasy. I actually feel like Unsanctioned was overall a miss, especially since each box came with like 2 of each of these basics, but that’s not something I’m holding against them.

 Secret Lair: The Godzilla Lands

Secret Lair has been an opportunity for WotC’s designers to experiment a lot with card frames, though this set of basics doesn’t quite represent that. I’m not sure how well this one did, to be honest, though they did make future basic-only SLs, so fair enough I guess.

So, do you like Godzilla? Because he’s on all of these, along with some other Kaiju from the greater series canon. It’s kind of a little distracting, because the landscapes are otherwise gorgeous. Ironically, though, Godzilla himself is kind of being a scale-reptile in these pieces, giving a sense for just how big that mountain is, or how far away the “camera” is from the ground.

The only Island I see in that Island is Godzilla himself, though.

 Double Masters

These are just a set of reprints from Unhinged and Battle for Zendikar, but in a more borderless style. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about the Unhinged arts being blown up like this. But this is a reprint set, and these are honestly kind of boring, so eh.

 Zendikar Rising

Another Zendikar more lands etc. etc. you get the idea. Like the title suggests, this iteration of the plane has a lot of vertical exploration in its flavour, and the new basics reflect this. Especially  in the Plains, Islands, and Mountains, that sense of adventure and traversal is back from the first Zendikar set.

Interestingly, this one doesn’t have any reprinted arts, unlike Battle for Zendikar, even though there’s only 3 of each land here. There’s probably something to be said about distancing this set from BFZ- that set faced a fair bit of backlash, and it is thematically very different from ZNR. There’s also the conspicuous absence of the Hedrons, apparently having been replaced in art and in flavour by the Skyclaves. No, I still don’t know what those actually are supposed to be.

At the end of the day, these cards do end up making Zendikar feel like it’s lost its edge a little. They’re just a bit too bright and friendly for my liking, even with the inclement conditions in some of the images. I think it literally just might be the clear, bright skies in this one.

 Secret Lair: The Unfathomable Crushing Brutality of Basic Lands

Yeah these are about as edgy as the name suggests. Monochromatic and striking, this set of basic’s iconography is much more evocative than literal, the mood of the colours in their themes, captured largely without them.

It does greatly amuse me that literally all of these arts contains skulls. Talk about gothic. I like these a lot better than the Theros: Beyond Death lands, despite the similarities- Particularly, that the mana symbols aren’t literally just the standard ones- arguably the Island is, but it at least is in the form of negative space.

I can’t get over how thematic these are. Plains embodies community with its weapons and runes and roots, and the human face on the Sun icon. Island represents the vastness of knowledge with its endless waters and starred skies. Swamp is death, skeletons mired in the depths of the surroundings. Mountain is fire, bold and unflinching, while Forest’s gnarled branches running through the skull shows the unflinching nature of, well, nature. They’re all so utterly sick.

 Innistrad: Midnight Hunt

The most recent addition to this list, and one you actually can’t get yet. I think the frames on these being so thin is excellent, since it means they aren’t taking away from the spectacle of the art- not to mention the monochrome of the border and art.

These pieces are magnificent gothic landscapes, the kind you’d expect to see illustrated on the inside cover of Frankenstein or a Lovecraft story. Each and every one of them is ominous in its own special way, with the Swamp that’s a ruined river town to the rugged cliffside path of (presumably) Geier Reach. And the Island with the waves crashing across the cliffs is utterly gorgeous.

Obviously we haven’t seen these in paper quite yet. And the monochrome may make it difficult to tell them apart at a glance. But these are sacrifices I am willing to make for the sake of style.

This is the sum total of all the FABs. For now. Something I didn’t quite realise when writing this was the sheer number of options for this kind of pimping, and how much they’ve ramped up in production over the last few years. Much like with the increase in cards in general, I suppose, as well as premium product versions like the Secret Lairs. I would be genuinely shocked if the game ever exclusively started using Full-Arts, but I’d also not be surprised if we saw them yearly at the longest. 

Either way, I’m sticking with my BfZ lands, because those are the ones I already have!

[damdahdi-studies]

exam season

the last 2 weeks have been exam season. leading up to exams i ran week-long blocks of distracting websites on my mac, so I haven’t been able to get on tumblr.... so finally updating now: (more like ranting.) 

one math exam left, on thursday morning

exams so far have been.... okay. none of them i feel particularly good about, but overall i think i managed to deal with the stress/anxiety better this semester than last, just a little bit 

some nice things that happened before exams: 

100% in Chinese speaking mock exam, listening and writing section of written mock exam. i didn’t really realise it until i looked back on my old posts and read how i felt after first set of exams just now, but i have come ... maybe not a long way, but some kind of way :] at the time i was very insecure about just myself and barely believed i could improve on my own; yet i did to a standard i never could’ve dreamed even start of this year. 

somehow obtained 90% in an oral presentation i made about The Crucible by Arthur Miller. i still don’t know how I did it, but I’m glad i improved from the 60s i got last semester in presentations. public speaking still felt like hell though 

top female scorer in my state for some maths competition. also have no idea how i did this, i thought i would get distinction at best. 

changed piano teachers (previous teacher recommended the new one) 

dress for year 12 ball next year arrived. it’s a soft grey pretty thing 

my birthday was during exam season :/ 

also first set of my own prayer beads arrived. have been using them daily since 

reflecting on each subject: (so I can read back on this after i get my marks back and be like haha....  you fool.) 

Literature: better than last time is all i can say... it was okay (still felt like hell during the exam because it’s Literature) managed time during exam slightly better, I didn’t panic as much, but that’s about it lmao i’m crossing my fingers for a low 70s and double crossing for an A. i wasn’t able to or simply didn’t contribute much effort/time to literature this semester, so a B wouldn’t really be a fuck-i-tried-so-hard-why-did-i-get-this-grade kind of punch in the gut, but it would be really nice to not break an all A streak... but I highly suspect I will get a B

Methods (maths): exam was harder than i expected. hoping for a 90s though, a mark that wont bring my average down. i think i was best prepared for methods compared to other subjects, emphasis on COMPARED to other subjects. -_- 

Physics: ahh physics. a whole debacle happened during the exam, please see below. other than that the exam was... kind of expected difficulty? which is difficult, but it wasn’t terrible-terrible. i’m hoping for an 80s. i really can’t hope for much, i was probably delirious half the time. i did manage to ‘finish’ (attempt every question) though i wish i got more time... i couldn’t double check many questions and there was this one question i wanted to spend more time on but oh well... 

summary: i threw up once before the exam, twice during.  

ate a blueberry bagel with cream cheese, with some salmon on top for breakfast. looking back, it was probably the salmon. 

didn’t feel good after. got to school feeling pretty sick in the stomach and a pretty bad headache.... which escalated to one of the worst headaches ive had in the last 3 years in 20 minutes 

at this point i could tell something was wrong and that i was about to throw up 

went to the toilet, tried to throw up whatever was causing pain to my body, but couldn’t. only ended up scaring away some poor kid in the next cubicle 

FIRST TIME: left toilet. sit still for 10 minutes outside, feeling progressively worse. go back to the toilet, then throw up a lot. gargle, wash face, go back to find everyone filing into the exam room. 

feeling slightly better at this point since ive thrown up (i thought i had emptied most of my stomach by then. spoiler alert: no) and decide internally to just do the exam. (if i don’t, then i would have to fill out some form, probably do the exam way later. too annoying) 

SECOND TIME: so i sit the exam. 5-6 minutes into reading time, i feel another wave of throwing up coming. i raise my hand, i’m at the very back of the hall, so examiner takes a bit to notice. my brainwashed ass brain thinks i can’t stand up and leave without the examiners spoken permission, so i persist in sitting in my seat for around 10 seconds until she’s there, i’m already throwing up in my mouth at this point. finally something snaps and i make a break for the toilet, but it’s too late and i throw up all over the floor. in the exam hall. Fuck. i immediately apologise on the spot. 

examiner leads me to toilet. i throw up some more. gargle, wash face. she asks me to step outside for a couple of minutes for fresh air and i do. 5 minutes later she comes back and asks me if i want to continue the exam. i say yes. we go back in, the vomit is gone from the floor. she moves my seat closer to the exit, and tells me i can bolt out whenever i need to throw up. i sit the exam. 

some time after this, the other examiner leaves a vomit bag next to me just in case

THIRD TIME: an hour in? i feel another wave coming. i grab the vomit bag, make a dash for the toilets but the stupid old door won’t open properly. the examiner helps me open the door and i throw up in the toilets, in the vomit bag this time. it’s not as much as the previous two times. tie up the bag, throw it in the bin, gargle, wash face. 

instinctively i feel that this is the last time i’ll throw up, that i’ve truly emptied everything from my stomach this time. headache is way weaker at this point. 

go back in and examiner asks me if i’m really sure i want to continue the exam, whether or not if i want to fill in a form excusing myself from the exam. i say no.

about an hour left in the exam, which i sit in utter peace 

didn’t get any extra time. 

apologised to some people around me after the exam while filing out of the hall... i suffered but they did too. 

went home and drank some stomach soothing tea. slept

ate porridge for the next 2 days. 

Chemistry: it was.... okay. i did finish and attempt every question. there were a couple of questions in multiple choice i was iffy about and a question in short answer i was like um... what? to, but other than that it was.... eh. i didn’t study much for it, so whatever mark i get i deserve. if i do defend myself it was 3 days after the shit show that was the physics exam, and i felt sick for at least a day after.... but yeah. should’ve tried more. 

during reading time, the examiner who saved my life put the vomit bag on my desk in the physics exam came and asked me if i was feeling better 

i said i’m feeling good thanks : ) 

like an hour later? i feel sickness coming. not stomach this time, just general sickness. somehow i get a fever and subsequently, the FLU in the middle of the chem exam- 

i highly suspect i got it from the examiner 

come back home to find out that i really do have a fever

this was yesterday. yes i’m sick now. like, more sick. 

Chinese: this was today. i’m still kind of too traumatised to reflect on it properly. Chinese is the only subject that ive studied the yr 12 course for this year, so this exam really counts. like 35% of my final grade counts kind of counts. and i did pretty bad. like pretty bad. it was definitely more difficult than the mock exams, and the recordings in listening section were quicker than previous years. the writing section was... traumatising while writing i kind of had a wave of anxiety/panic hit me? i could feel my heartbeat my face was burning and i started sweating ;-; and even the reading section, which is usually okay, was a bit hard. i’ll get the marks back and my final grade for this subject in December - we’ll see until then. got a slightly overdue birthday present before the exam tho :) 

So yup. that’s my exam season. i’m typing this instead of studying for my maths exam day after tomorrow but hey, i’m sick and need rest, right? 

overall, these exams i managed to keep control of my stress a bit better, i wasn’t so overwhelmed like last time. last semester i could barely live, literally. this time i made the habit of living at the library which i found really helpful and comparatively productive, i’ll definitely be using that strategy more often. i’m just glad i managed to study SOMETHING or prepare for exams explicitly this time, because i was simply too overwhelmed to do that last time. i improved. maybe not by much, maybe it doesn’t seem like much, but it’s better than none... 

i’m not saying i don’t have regrets or shortcomings in these exams. i definitely do. DeFinITEly. but doesn’t mean i didn’t improve. i did improve. just, maybe not as much as i wanted. 

i really learned to the bone this time that learning during the semester is so, so important. i think that’s just a wisdom i’ll have to carry through the rest of my academic career. 

wish me luck for my maths exam on Thursday 

my friends and ive already planned an outing for after the exams :) 

also getting overdue birthday presents next monday! :D 

[jenroses]

sunken-standard replied to your post “okay but homemade elderberry syrup is delicious however I only ever...”

how much of each do you use for say, a pint of syrup? (I usually turn my elderberries into jelly, but always have juice leftover and just do plain syrup, but ginger and cinnamon sound good)

ginger and cinnamon? IDK, I put a couple cups of berries in a pot with a buncha water and a cinnamon stick and a few slices of fresh ginger, simmer for about 45 minutes, cool to about 105 degrees, use a ricer to squash the juices out, discard the solids, strain the juices, add water if it’s less than 2 cups of liquid remaining, and then toss in a shitwack of honey. (1-1.5 cups) and stir/shake/swear until mixed. (I use raw honey that often gets crystalized, hence the swearing.) That makes almost a quart, from ehhh 8-ish ounces of dried berries.  Dose for flu is about half a tablespoon for the younguns and a tablespoon for us olds, every 2-3 hours while awake.  Points: Must simmer long enough to deactivate the parts of the berry that can make stomachs upset. Must strain well.  Must cool liquid to below 110 degrees before adding the RAW honey because otherwise you might as well use corn syrup--cooking the honey makes it much less helpful. It’s easier to dose consistently if you use the same end ratio of elderberry extract, but amount of liquid can vary based on cooking temperature and other factors, even if you always start with the same amount of water. I add water if it appears to be running low, and the end result gets topped up to 2 cups regardless.  A shitwack is a scientific measurement, but sources vary on how big it is. Do not use less than 1 cup of honey per 2 cups of elderberry extract, and you’ll have a hard time dissolving more than 2 cups of honey in 2 cups of extract.  Some people add lemon or orange but I have a kid who reacts to citrus so nope. If only grownups will be partaking, I hear you can add booze to the cooked product and it will keep longer.  During flu season one batch will last my family significantly less than a week, but we’ve got 3-5 adults and 2 kids dosing the stuff right now because flu sucks. Does it help? Youngest was blazingly feverish and limp and slept through the first 22 hours of the flu... and was eating the next day and now has a mild cough and low energy a couple days later.  I just feel kind of leveled but honestly the drug-induced lupus reaction I had in the fall was worse. I’ve had many worse bouts of flu in my life. I have RA and am on immune suppressants, and between elderberry, tamiflu, stress dosing medrol and stopping xeljanz, I have yet to throw a fever or cough, I just feel shaky and fluey but nowhere near as painful as the flu usually is. I usually rage a fever and then everything is blisteringly painful and then I snot for 2 weeks and then I get a respiratory infection, and this time I started tamiflu before I got sick and elderberry, and it’s... I’m not well, I’m dizzy, I’m tired, food is iffy at best.... but on a grade of 0 to that awful H1N1 we had a few years back that set me back HARD for a long time?  This is like... a 3?  It’s always iffy with the elderberry because of my meds, which is why I only take it if someone tests positive for flu in the house, because the stuff stimulates cytokines, especially tumor necrosis factor, and one of the things they try to do for RA is suppress the hell out of that shit. So there’s always the “RA kills slowly, flu kills fast” equation to balance out. HOWEVER...xeljanz works on different pathways and steroids get used up by the body when we’re sick, so I seem to be doing okay this time.  But put it this way... Tamiflu can shorted the duration of sickness by eh... a day, day and a half, and reduces hospital admissions. Elderberry knocks back the severity by about 5 points and appears to lop 4-6 days off the illness.  Last year when I got the flu and suffered for 2 weeks to keep getting worse... when I started with elderberry it was like flipping a switch on the lingering flu. Gone, done. However, it also flipped a switch on my expensive infusion drugs which I only got every 8 weeks, so the consequence was not pain-free, but I was really sick and then I wasn’t, so the joint pain was kinda worth it.  Kiddo got sick Sunday, started taking Elderberry Monday evening, and by Thursday was bouncing off the walls and only occasionally acting sick at all.   Anyway, it’s simple to make, works a treat, and should be in the arsenal.  (Especially if you have the kind of autoimmune bullshit I do, which makes vaccines hard to deal with because they trigger awful flares. If I’m on enough med to suppress that kind of flare, I’m on enough med to suppress my immune response to vaccination.) Oh, and for maximum hippy, I usually drink my elderberry syrup in tart cherry chia kombucha. (Tart cherry is good for inflammation, the chia is entertaining, and the kombucha helps nausea--I only do commercial because they use standardized strains that don’t mess with me.) Bonus points if it’s in a mason jar.

[theaveragekenyan]

Eyes of a Stranger...

Especially in the workplace or on television you will soon notice that when discussing something important, Kenyan people like to make verbal lists.

These verbal lists occur in response to a question, for instance, during a conference, a quick meeting at work, a brainstorm, or in the case of television, a debate. Queue the spotlight to be turned, colleagues to shuffle their phones and throats to be cleared, this is that persons big moment.

So, the person will start off their answer with a completely irrelevant and tedious introduction stating their full name...“My given names are….” date of employment... “I’ve been working for....” their full day to day job description and duties... “What I do is....” and the obligatory reference to God “We give thanks to God for…..” 

Once the insignificance is over, the person will then move onto answering the actual question. This will involve repeating the question and then answering in a listed style, e.g “The reason we have so much Poverty in Kenya is because…Number 1….” and thus begins  the persons answer, an answer that will go on and on and on and on and on and on zzzzzzzzzz.

This initial answer will cover everything the person has ever known about anything loosely connected to the question. The person will continue to waffle so much they will lose track of the question and also forget that they set about answering the question with a numbered list. It is extremely rare the audience will ever get to hear point number 2.

If ever they do get to point “number 2….” I guarantee the next words they will say are “oh, hang on, I forgot to mention….” and we’re back to point number fucking one again…which will go on and on again until they start to bore themselves, at which point the answer will be wrapped up with an assured “so that’s all I have to say about that…thank you” cue enthusiastic applause and the fact that, in other parts of the world 30 minutes was spent doing something actually valuable. I dread to imagine if the person had the content to fill 5 points, I can only recommend blocking out 2 days for the meeting.

Of course, It’s possible to assume “Number 1” is the Number 1 and most important point and that the rest of the list is considered irrelevant. Another option, and this is the theory I find most likely, is that they heard somebody else say “number 1” and thought they’d copy.

Personally, I find there’s very little to copy in Nairobi. As you drive around the City, there’s very little to be inspired by. Don’t get me wrong, Nairobi is a vibrant and fascinating place to live, but the appeal doesn’t stem from architecture, design, originality or even surprisingly, a rich cultural identity. There’s very little of interest in Nairobi, compared to millions of other far less important places in the world. There are no beautiful bridges spanning a river, there isn’t a beautifully manicured park, there isn’t an area of outstanding design. Obviously the most beautiful sources of design and architecture all originate from nature. The people, the trees, the mountains, the flowers, the birds, the animals etc etc. Essentially very little man-made wonders exist, in fact I’d say none, which is sad considering the how long the city has existed for and in comparison to many other cities and towns around the world.

Sure, there are tons of ideas out there, but unfortunately Kenyan Governments have never sought to change societies outlook on such simple pleasures. I imagine any creative idea falls down flat at the corruption hurdle.  

In terms of identity, all of the other major Kenyan Towns and Cities all look the same. Nakuru, Naivasha, Eldoret, Kisumu, Kisii, Machakos, Wote, Nanyuki, Meru etc are all almost identical. Sure, the countryside and people have big variety, but the places themselves, on the whole, look exactly the same. Mombasa does look different in design, as it draws deeply from the Muslim culture, but the city itself is a huge disappointment and such a letdown for the huge potential it has.  

So, with very little to see it’s hardly surprising that the average Kenyan loves to stare at other people.

When I walk around, I look at the nature, the sky and of course mainly where I’m going, but when I do look around, what I see, is people staring at me.

As we move into the year of vision, 2020, the average Kenyan still loves to stare at white people, or maybe it’s just me.

I know to Kenyans, all Crackers look and sound the same…I think the worst comparison for me has been Wayne Rooney, but in all honesty, we’re not too far removed if you’ve drank 8 pints of Gin and have been dreaming of launderettes.

I do get stared at a lot though, really...certainly enough to get angry about it, definitely enough to have the nuclear option of “fuck you looking at?” in my locker. I really have to work hard at keeping that option for extreme measures only and I do keep it just for emergencies by understanding most Kenyans stare out of pure interest, curiosity, and in most cases, affection.

I have written before here that I enjoy to jog. This makes me an easy target for “starers”, pure game. How it plays out is like this; I’ll be running toward a group of people, they’ll be chatting away happily, but then as I come closer into their space, their chatting descends into complete silence and their stares begin. Then, only once I’ve passed, will their volume return to original levels and is often accompanied by great laughter and whoops of joy, and all because I ran past them.

I also enjoy walking in Nairobi, and when confronted with a “starer” the scene usually plays out in a similar direction, but with with more pathological pleasure for the “starer”

The “starer” will click their first “Initial Stare”, on average, the “Initial Stare” consumes around 4 seconds of me and I’m aware of it through my peripheral sight, ESP and darting snapshots back and forth of them. I ignore the “Initial Stare”

Then, the “Secondary Stare” takes focus. This stare is longer and extracts more of me, it can last anything up to 6 seconds, or at least until I break it by looking back into their eyes, thus causing an eye seizure in the “starer”. Moving on from the  “Secondary Stare”, we now develop into eye to eye warfare as we walk closer toward each other.

These can be quick, sharp retaliatory stares fired between as we cross each other’s pass, but this depends how interested the “starer” is.

Then, as soon as we’ve passed, without warning, in comes the “After Stare”.

The “After Stare” is for pure greed and sycophantic lust.

I now glance back, and this is when I start to defend myself by increasing my stare onto them, I call this the “Angry Goose Stare”.

Now, and for the very first time, the “starer” has something to genuinely stare at, however they are also properly confused and intimidated by the situation, “Why is this freaky looking white man staring at me…and why is he looking like an angry Goose?”

My retaliatory “Angry Goose Stare” works immediately and they cease their stare. However now, they’re thinking “Eh, what’s this silly Muzungu doing?”. So, they come back for more in the shape of the “Befuddled Stare”. 

The only way to disarm this confrontation and to stop myself going nuclear by shouting “fuck you looking at?” is to wind my head in, turn my frown upside down and smile like a Thai Tourist and say “Hiiiiiyer….yer alright duck?” in my friendliest Leicestershire accent. Immediately the “starer” is faced with a warm, welcoming, if a little disturbing, Muzungu and they then revert to their default setting of ‘Lovely Kenyan person’. I’m not sure if my methods are a solution to stopping staring, but it is certainly entertaining and provides a bit of light relief to the dull intensity of the surroundings.

In Nairobi, particularly in the CBD, smoking cigarettes is banned. If you want to spark up, the safest place to not get arrested is to smoke in one of the “Smoking Shacks”. I say, shack, because that’s the best way to describe them. The shack is a basic structure, I’d say the design was heavily influenced by the Vietnamese Torture Cages, perhaps the contractor saw ‘Rambo’ and thought what a great theme that would be for Nairobi’s smokers. I’ve never smoked in one and never would, they do have a great effect on stopping.

With this in mind, I feel the Government of Kenya should introduce “Staring Shacks”

These shacks would then become the focal point in Nairobi for unashamed “starers” to gather and practice their hobby with other like-minded individuals in a safe and designated area.

“Nairobi Starers” woud become the Facebook Group which would list where “Staring Shacks” could be found and where special meetings or events are happening. Perhaps there could be special meetings i.e “Muzungu Monday” “Wahindi Wednesday” “Freaky Friday” anything really, all fetishes would be welcomed.

I feel the shacks would add a new dimension to the staring scene and allow the hobby to become a little more like Train-spotting. It would instantly create a new culture within Nairobi and instead of “Culture Walks”, I’d suggest “Staring Walks”. Enthusiasts could walk from shack to shack and be with like-minded people in a non-judgemental environment, safe staring for the modern Nairobian.

EXT – ‘STARING SHACK’ 10 AM

WOMAN ENTERS “STARING SHACK” AND SITS DOWN NEXT TO HER FRIEND.

Agnes -                                    Sasa.

Brenda -                                  Poa.

Agnes -                                    Seen anything good yet?

Brenda -                                  Nah…pretty quiet so far.

Agnes -                                    I stared at a Muzungu on the way here.

Brenda-                                   Oh yeah?

Agnes -                                    Yeah, fairly standard really.

Brenda -                                  Was there any odd face?

Agnes -                                    Odd face? No, why?

Brenda -                                  Nothing really, just the last Muzungu I stared at,    looked like an angry Goose.

Agnes -                                    Wow, sounds strange…get a photo?

Brenda -                                  No…he smiled in the end, he was ok.

Agnes                                      I did have a good stare at a Kenyan man pushing a baby buggy.

Brenda -                                  No way….??

Agnes -                                    Straight up!

Brenda -                                  Where?

Agnes -                                    Lavington.

Brenda -                                  Obviously, bloody show off. Get a picture?

Agnes -                                    Yeah, did actually, let me find it – SHOWS PHOTOGRAPH

Brenda -                                  Oh yeah….that’s nice…good one.

Agnes -                                    Yeah, I’ll upload it to the Facebook group.

Brenda -                                  Did you see the photo I uploaded of the Indian Man and the Kenyan Lady?

Agnes -                                    What? I must have missed that, when was that?

Brenda -                                  About two weeks ago. I was in town and I was walking around the corner of Biashara Street and Moi Avenue, know where I mean?

Agnes -                                    No

Brenda -                                  Anyway, as I came around the corner I spotted them, large as life…. holding hands they were as well

Agnes -                                    What?

Brenda -                                  Totally…so I crossed over so I could, you know, get a few proper stares in like.

Agnes -                                    Amazing.

Brenda -                                  Then I carried on walking towards them…standard stare procedure really…so I pretended to be on my phone and that’s when I got this…SHOWS PHOTOGRAPH

Agnes -                                    Wooooah, Indian Man and a Kenyan women, insane…during the day as well…that is rare.

Brenda -                                  Yeah well happy with that photo.

Agnes -                                    So what happened then?

Brenda -                                  Well, they walked past, so I went in for the ‘after-stare’…You know… standard.

Agnes -                                    nice.

Brenda -                                  Yeah it was until the Indian man looks back around at me and says “Fuck you looking at?”

Agnes -                                    No way

Brenda -                                  Way.

Agnes                                      What did you say?

Brenda -                                  Nothing, I just carried on walking like nothing had happened.

THE END

Something for the illustrious Kenyan Nation to stare at and be genuinely proud about is long overdue.

And to be picky, I’m very sorry but, a long and wide ass road built by a foreign country, a Kenyan in Running Shoes or a Train track devastating wildlife doesn’t count. I’m talking about a safe and entertaining City Centre, a rejuvenated recreational Uhuru Park, a state of the Art Museum / Gallery that type of thing. Something original, uniquely Kenyan and not copied. Ah ok, sounds like my “Staring Shacks” will be up and running before any of that happens.

[filosofablogger]

Good Monday morning, my friends!  Another rainy one, eh?  Don’t worry about tracking the mud in … we’ll clean it up later.  Just come on in.  How was your weekend?  Did you do fun and exciting things?  We are finally now officially in summer.  On the first day of summer, parts of Colorado saw up to two feet of snow! 

We, on the other hand, have had fairly mild temps, but I do wish the bloomin’ rain would quit.  Then again, at least I haven’t had to water the flowers for over a week now!  So, are you guys in the mood for a bit of humour to start this week off right?  Grab a snack and a drink and pull up a chair … let’s get this show on the road, shall we?

Long arm of the law …

Amy Rush is now 45 years of age, but back in 1990, at age 15, she tried to run away from home.  She was apparently hitchhiking when an older man picked her up (no, don’t worry, this isn’t a story about sex, drugs and alcohol) and gave her a ride.  Well, the man was stopped for speeding, and young Amy was also ticketed … for not wearing a seat belt!  The ticket was for $35, and the officer didn’t question why Amy was with the man, or what relationship there was.

Fast forward to last week when Amy, much to her surprise, received a letter from a debt collection agency looking to collect that $35!  According to Amy …

“I’ve almost considered driving down there the two and a half hours to talk to a judge to tell him how absolutely ridiculous this is and what a waste of taxpayer money this has been for the 15 years. I can’t imagine the postage they’ve paid on following me around trying to get this $35.  I told them they can keep sending me mail and wasting more money because I’m not paying it.”

Good for her!  I wouldn’t pay it either, especially in this day and age where some can commit murder and not be held accountable!  Twenty-nine years it’s been, and they’re still trying to collect.  🙄

What to do with those pesky pennies?

I am not a big fan of spending hours … even days, months or years … building something for the sole purpose of proving that it can be done, or in this case, setting a Guinness World record, and then destroying all that work.  However, Cory Nielsen of Phoenix, Arizona, has built something that is really rather cool, and I couldn’t help but share it with you. 

It is a pyramid made of pennies.  1,030,315 pennies, to be exact.  It weighs 6,360 pounds and stands 44.6 inches tall.  At the base, it is 65 rows wide by 65 rows long, and stands 65 rows tall.

About three years ago, Nielsen built a small one on his desk at work (nothing else to do?), using only a few pennies … 41,000 to be precise.  He showed pictures to some colleagues at work, and they wondered if that was a world record. Nielsen replied to them, “I don’t know; if it isn’t, I’ll make it one.”

Originally thinking the world record was made of only 626,789 coins built by a man in Colorado a couple of years ago, Nielsen knew he could beat that, and so the building process began.

Once the pyramid construction began, he found out that the actual world record was set in Lithuania.

“I was already committed, and so I went ahead and beat that one too.”

And what do you think Mr. Nielsen plans to do with the pyramid that has more than $10,000 worth of copper in it?  Destroy it and take it to the credit union.  Somehow … I’m just not sure it was worth all that time, but it is rather cool … in a way.

Mr. Nielsen has a few YouTube videos …

Congratulations to Mr. Nielsen  … I guess … on fulfilling his life’s goal?  I wonder what’s next for him?

A new job for Filosofa?

I have been in an Ikea store just once, and once was enough.  It was a frustrating, painful experience, and even prompted a post on this blog some five years ago … wow, has it really been that long?  I still remember it as if it was only yesterday!  I just went back and looked … it was in the early days of this blog, and I had exactly one ‘like’ and two comments on that post!  Anyway, I don’t like to shop there, but I have a friend who works there, and I do know they treat their people very well.  So, I think I might just have found myself a job, folks!

According to United Press International (UPI) …

Furniture chain Ikea posted an unusual job opening for a “happiness hunter” willing to temporarily live in Denmark and get paid in money and meatballs to study what makes a home happy.

The company said the winning candidate will live for two weeks at a temporary home in Copenhagen and will experience “home visits, guided tours, talks and dinners” in a bid to determine the ingredients for a happy home.

The person will document the experience on social media.

The winning candidate will be paid a salary that corresponds to the average Danish living standard and receive free meatball meals from Ikea.

Applications are being accepted online through July 1.

What do you think, guys?  Sounds good, yes?  Guess I better update my résumé!

As you know, for me the only way to kick off a new week is with a cute animal video …

And I came across these …

And lastly, I promised this song, The Rainbow Connection, sung as only Kermit The Frog can sing it, to a special young reader …

And that’s it for today, my friends.  Be sure to share those smiles this week, for not everybody got to hear Kermit singing!  Keep safe and have a great week!  Love ‘n hugs from Filosofa and Jolly!

Jolly Monday Smiles Good Monday morning, my friends!  Another rainy one, eh?  Don’t worry about tracking the mud in … we’ll clean it up later. 

[superludicrouslife]

What First Year was like

First year my friends wasn’t pretty. I’m not going to leave anything out. This post is to warn you of the possible dangers ahead because life can hold just as many terrible things as good. Until you take the university plunge, you’ve most likely been protected by your family and school from the real world, thus giving you an unrealistic view on it, which although enjoyable is dangerous. I’m going to briefly share with you what happened to me in 2016. It wasn’t fabulous but I think it’s important to share because all the things that happen are real and could happen to you. Read this, learn, be careful but also don’t let it stop you from going to university or anything like that. What happened to me is just an example of the dangers and won’t happen to you. Just learn from this, take care and do all that’s in your power to stop it from happening to you, that’s why I am writing this. I am sharing my experiences, so you don’t.

So, having seen my best friend start uni that following year, I’d seen what it could be like. Every situation is different but you can generalise and find similarities. While I was taking a year out, I stayed at hers a few times, experienced the city she was in and had a lovely time, she protected me.

Her flatmates were fun, normal, lovely and hilarious. We were all the same age and had fun cooking food, drinking, dressing up, going out and just generally enjoying our independence for the first time. Fresh from boarding school all i knew was that kind of life and adjusting seemed doable. My first year begun a year later.

The time finally came for me to move into my halls. Nervous as anything (who wouldn’t be) I arrived with an open mind. I mean, why wouldn’t you, don’t expect anything just take it as it comes. So, the first night of freshers week I spent in my room in the dark, my flat, empty my room smelt of paint thinner. Feeling uncomfortable, lonely and scared i told myself desperately that things would improve. my flatmates had yet to move in, it was freshers week bring on the parties. The next day they moved in, the first one a funny looking boy seemed nice, the next was from Greece and we introduced each other. The last one was a girl who seemed nice and there was our flat complete in all its gory.

The night I asked if they had a speaker, they said they did not. No matter, i brought my laptop out of my room and played music, we conversed, got to know eachother and i suggested that we should go out seeing as it was freshers week and thats what everyone else was doing. I contacted my friend from college who was in the accommodation around the corner and we had pre drinks at theirs. The guy from Greece i later found to discover didn’t speak english so I guess he didn’t want to hang out with us, that’s fine he can do what he wants. the other two didn’t seem too keen on going out, the first night the guy went home early and the girl looked like she’d seen a ghost the entire night. I did my best to look after her and delivered her home safely at the end of the night. After inviting them on nights out with my friends in the other accommodation, I gave up, clearly going out wasn’t something they enjoyed. Fair enough that’s fine, I’ll go out with my friends across the road. So that was set for the whole year, little did i know at the time. Perfectly nice people, but they didn’t seem to enjoy socialising at all but preferred watching tv in their rooms. This I didn’t realise was what sent me into a depression.

Now, I’m completely mentally healthy but i do struggle with slight problems with anxiety and OCD which are completely common, most people have these and they've never become out of control, I’m a normal person going about her normal life with some slight ailments, no big deal.

Little did i know that the loneliness could in fact take me down a mental illness pit that i wasn’t going to return from for a while. Social isolation and loneliness MUST be recognised, if not, somebody with a less sane mind than myself could take their own life and i’m sure they have. THIS MUST STOP

If you find yourself in a similar situation, MOVE

i didn’t realise that i could, i did apply but I'm from a family that has a ‘no quit’ attitude. They didn’t LET me say that i was having a bad time. ‘make friends’ they said ‘whats wrong with you’. no. there’s nothing wrong with me, my entire flat wanted nothing to do with anyone and all the other flats had their doors closed 24/7. I was alone, sure i knew them from flat parties and things but once those doors were shut, they were shut. at least those other people had individuals in their flats were wanted to party, have fun and do things like WATCH TV TOGETHER. I had NONE of this i had nothing. What was i supposed to do, go to a club BY MYSELF and just become best friends wtih a ransomer in the smoking area??? each day that i came home from uni, i opened my flat door, got into my stinking paint thinner room and cry, no one was there, no one to talk to, no one to even drink a cup of tea with or watch a movie?? that was ALL i wanted. oh did i forget to mention that the flat door was broken? the building was run down, i was paying ridiculous amounts of money to stay in a crappy accommodation where everything was broken. nobody bothered to lock the door so anyone could come in whenever they wanted, one day i discovered the kettle was gone. sure, my door was locked but any of the stuff in the living room was free for the taking.

What else was crappy, yeah so my bathroom STUNK. It was paint thinner or some kind of chemical who knows, every week my mum would pour shower cleaner down the loo and shower but nothing would stop it. no discount or anything just a year of having to hold my breath every time i went in there. The toilet door had no lock and it would jam shut so i was lucky to get out every time i went to the toilet. there was nowhere to put my toothbrush, there was just a sink so i spent a year dropping all of my belongings into the sink. once, the shower broke so they said i couldn't shower all weekend until the mechanic could fix it on the monday. imagine if i hadn’t made friends with the boy upstairs? I used his shower, but would if i hadn’t met anyone, i only met him through a miracle, he was downstairs having a cigarette.

the lock to my own room was dodgy, it locked me out a few times not to mention if i was locking it from the inside it would half break off your finger if you weren’t careful.

One night i went out with my friends from across the road. these, were normal, funloving people, who i had a great time with. there was a silver lining, finally. however this night one of the girls had a panic attack in the club and needed to go to A and E so i went with her. Getting in at 7am, my phone was out of battery and I’d misplaced my keys. What to do eh? Luckily the security man was patrolling and he let me in. what would i have done if he hadn’t been though? stuck on the streets that’s what.

I had a quick nap and STILL made it to uni. Oh by the way, no one at uni cared that i hadn't had a wink of sleep and i did miss some of the demonstration class, which they did not repeat. Yes, i care about my degree a great deal. anyway there was no way to lock my door or get in and out of the building without my keys so i went to reception and spent £50 on new ones. i later found the keys, which i’d left in another flat, my friend from next door sent me a message. This was about an hour after i’d purchased the new keys so i went down the reception to return them. I then discovered that they were nonrefundable. They’d conveniently failed to tell me this, but apparently it was my fault for not finding out for myself. So i was robbed basically. No matter, i said to myself, a spare key that’s good i can use it next time my room locks me out. can i just say, optimism runs out. Sometimes its good to make light of a situation but when its so awful you're just kidding yourself? stop, its unhealthy because you're convincing yourself that you are ok when you are not and so you won't try to fix what’s wrong.

so my friends from the other accommodation quite uni quite early on. I was left with no one, all but one girl who i owe so much to. she’s fab but i’ll keep her name anonymous. i spent at lot of time out of my disgusting flat at hers and she was fun to go out with, hilarious and gave me some normality. that’s all i wanted, just a small shred of normality that everyone around me was having except me. i had friends at uni and i joined a society but at the end of the day when you get ‘home’ and all there is is silence to greet you it can turn the sanest person mad. i used to put the tv on the pretend there were people.

When it was time for meals I would go to the shop opposite which didn’t sell fresh produce and i had skin reactions to the preservatives in the food. it was at this point that my mum was coming to see me most weekends just to keep me afloat. she would bring me healthy food from home, clean clothes and helped me through it all. If i didn’t have that i don;t know what i would have done. my family doesn’t let you quit, or our entire family and friends would frown upon you if you did so i didn’t have a choice really. i was just the spoilt rich girl who was too stuck up and picky to slum it in a dingy flat that wasn't up to her standard. to them, i just needed to man up, i was being a wimp, ‘it can’t be that bad’ they said. but it was. the loneliness ruined MY LIFE. it took away a year and more and i didn’t even know it. mental illness is dangerous because it creeps up on you, you only become aware of it when it’s bad enough and even then you’re not even sure if it’s there.

by some miracle i didn’t quit, but it came at a price.

my drinking became dangerous, i developed intense social anxiety because i was hanging around with the wrong people. they didn't care about me or know me and i didn’t care about or know them. I would go on nights out where i would drink just vodka by itself, i would wake up in my bed not knowing how i got there. sometimes boys would be in my bed, nothing had happened each time thank goodness because i had been so trashed, and they had taken me home which i have to be thankful for. it was at this point i knew this needed to stop. 

at mealtimes i would microwave a healthy ready meal and would drink a vegetable juice so i was getting healthy intake easily. however every time i went in there, the guy from Greece (still hadn’t got beyond saying hi) would cook meat. the oven was old and so the greasy smoke would fill the room hurting your eyes, i had to run in and out but just being in there was as little as two minutes would render your hair and clothes stinking of the smoke. when we left, we wiped down all the surfaces with wipes as the accommodation instructed us to clean the flat or we would be charged. little did i know it was getting revamped so there was little point of run to do this but anyway, another let down didn't come as a surprise. each wipe would be covered in a black, tar-lied substance. this was the residue from the oven smoke that landed on EVERYTHING. no one bothered to clean the flat apart from my mum and i.

I always made excuses for the Greek guy. i mean, he seemed nice but he didn't seem interested in getting to know me. he would only say hi and i tried on many occasions to get past this but he just took out his phone and pretended to speak to a friend on the other end. he would then play Spanish tunes loudly until 3am every night. 

the blemishes from my reactions to the crappy food from the shop would make my skin swell up and i got cellulitis. i went on antibiotics for my skin but they weren’t helping. i then picked at my face because i was so upset with my life, not knowing what i was doing i then scarred my skin which started the worst attack of dermatillomania i have ever had. I had welts on my chest and my face. my skin became so dry i went to the dermatologist and she gave me a new skin routine. but this didn’t cure my developing OCD. I used to sit in my room and worry and chant and pick which would then make everything worse and i then couldn't bare to shower because i couldn't bare to look at my skin. i would put lotions from the doctor on my skin but this would make it worse because it was sensitive so i would get more spots. i was taking rescue remedy which i had no idea that i was allergic to. this gave me more welts and swollen lumps on my chest-i was spiralling out of control. i would have panic attacks daily, unable to leave my room. the depression set in and i could barely get out of bed. it was at this point i went to the dermatologist again and he suggested i could be depressed. i didn't want anyone near me because i deemed myself disgusting, i would buy dresses that i couldn't wear in vague hopes it would give me incentive to stop picking so i could wear low cut tops and dresses again. 

the year of torture was nearly over and i decided to leave my skin alone, throwing out mirrors, using high quality skin products and just trying to work on myself. my family don’t really understand my condition but i did from my psychology knowledge from a level. i was pretty clued up and was aware of my symptoms, still unable to control them. i learnt that leaving your skin alone is more powerful than picking and i learnt to not look in the mirror when i showered. finally i was healed and it was summer time, i moved out of my stinking halls never to return. i didn’t even say good bye to my flatmates they weren’t even there the whole year.

First year was over. having only made some vague friends, i didn’t feel like anyone liked or cared about me. my OCD had got to the point where my head was so full of chanting i couldn’t think, it affected my work. i am enormously hardworking, always have but my work did suffer, i was suffering. the tutors didn’t seem to notice or care, i ended first year with an average grade, body dysmorphia, extreme anxiety, social anxiety, OCD, depression and dermatillomania. all because of a living situation.

if i could go back and tell myself to MOVE flats i would. if i could go back and get myself HELP i would. my flatmates weren’t mean or malicious, they simply weren’t THERE. PLEASE don’t let this happen to you or your friends or family. check on them regularly, and for goodness sake MOVE if it’s not good enough, i wish i had. there’s a difference between being a wimp and being intelligent. don't stay just because other people tell you you're just being weak, change because of whats best for YOU. Luckily for me I’m sane and so i didn’t try to kill myself or anything like that and never would, but i did get depressed and if someone less fortunate than me had the same situation they may have made an attempt on their own life. It happens all the time and universities need to be AWARE. loneliness is DANGEROUS, spread AWARENESS, SAVE lives

[vioncentral-blog]

It's an Island Ting: Kahuku High in Oahu Churns Out NFL Studs Like Schools in Florida and Texas

https://www.vionafrica.cf/its-an-island-ting-kahuku-high-in-oahu-churns-out-nfl-studs-like-schools-in-florida-and-texas/

It's an Island Ting: Kahuku High in Oahu Churns Out NFL Studs Like Schools in Florida and Texas

The harsh lights in the wrestling room came on at 5 a.m., and it wasn’t pretty. Members of the Kahuku High football team groaned and rubbed their eyes and made their way toward the men’s room muttering f-bombs, their devout faith notwithstanding. The Red Raiders moved like zombies, the difference being that unlike the undead, these teens were here of their own volition. It was their call to show up for Hell Week: meetings and practice by day, then bed down beside one another; rise and repeat the spartan cycle.

When the heavens opened just before dawn, drenching the team 15 minutes into its hour-long workout, the players embraced it, whooping, smiling and sticking tongues out, grateful for any break in the grim routine. Hell Week wasn’t quite half over on this Wednesday in late July, and everyone was on edge. Hard feelings had spilled into the weight room the previous morning when a handful of receivers and defensive backs came to blows. They were tired. They were sore. Nobody was getting enough sleep. And that was the point. “Hell Week isn’t about recovery,” explained Samson Reed, a senior D-end committed to play at Virginia. (He’s one of eight Kahuku players with FBS offers.) “It’s more of a weeding out—finding out who really wants to be here, who wants to sacrifice.”

Like many of his teammates, Reed is the descendent of Pacific Islanders, members of the Mormon church who came to Oahu as labor missionaries. His father, Tanoai, was an all-state tackle for the Red Raiders in 1990 and played two years at Hawaii. Alas, Tanoai never showed up for his senior season. One night in Honolulu he stepped in when a handful of out-of-towners were about to get their asses kicked by some locals. Those clueless haoles, it turned out, were on the film crew of the epic bust-to-be Waterworld. Fast forward a decade, to 2002, when Tanoai was serving as Dwayne Johnson’s body double in The Scorpion King and the two men discovered they shared an uncle. (They were, in fact, cousins.) Reed has been the Rock’s double ever since. Samson’s mother, Suzanne, is also a stunt-woman, and I recently posed to her a question that one seldom gets to ask: “Was that you I saw recently in a YouTube video, falling from a great height while engulfed in flames?” She smiled. It had indeed been her.

Sorry, Texas and Ohio. Apologies, Florida and Pennsylvania. The most interesting, exotic, surprising football program in the U.S. is not on the mainland, it turns out. Kahuku is located near Laie (pronounced lah-EE-ay), a town of 6,000 not far from some of the world’s best-known surf breaks. Before it became a gathering place for Mormons, it was a pu’uhonua, or sanctuary city. Ancient Hawaiians who were judged to have violated the sacred laws of kapu—mortal transgressions ranging from eating turtle to crossing the king’s shadow—found safe haven here. No such luck for visiting opponents these days.

Despite its small size—roughly 100 male graduates each year—Kahuku has fed 17 players into the NFL since 1970, and many multiples of that into the collegiate ranks. In 2006 and ’07 there were six former Red Raiders on NFL rosters, tying Kahuku with a handful of (much, much) larger schools for the most active alumni in the league.

Those success stories don’t include the local boys rustled from the district by the private academies an hour’s drive south in Honolulu: Punahou, alma mater of one Barack Obama; Kamehameha, with its $11 billion endowment; and the Saint Louis School, a QB factory that produced the Titans’ Marcus Mariota. Football isn’t combat, but Kahuku’s gridiron battles with those preppies look like a kind of class warfare. Unseen in postcards of Waimea Bay and the Banzai Pipeline, unmentioned in tours at the popular Polynesian Cultural Center, are the people in this district who are just getting by.

Kahuku draws from a handful of small communities across Oahu’s North Shore. Sure, there are horse farms, golf courses and seven-figure oceanside mansions. But tucked away on side streets, seldom witnessed by tourists, you’ll find plenty of structures that could stand some serious renovation. The pinch of privation is reflected more by the buildings that aren’t there. Hawaii’s chronic shortage of affordable housing is keenly felt in this district, where many parents work multiple jobs and where families often pack up and move to the mainland to stay with relatives in Utah or SoCal. Any place the rent’s not so steep.

That’s “the biggest struggle in this community,” says one Kahuku parent, who shares that many of his students live in homes crowded with “10, 15, 20 people under one roof, sometimes more.” Hell Week isn’t as hellish as it might seem for guys already accustomed to sleeping on the floor.

There was defensive coordinator Sola Soliai (so-lee-EYE) in the rain during Hell Week, pushing players through a series of footwork drills involving pizza-sized hoops that, ideally, remained still. A bouncing hoop betrayed sloppy footwork, earning a rebuke from Soliai. “Let’s go, guys! Slow feet don’t eat!”

One of the reasons this team has won eight Division-I state championships since 2000: When a Kahuku coach references hunger, many of his players can relate. Football isn’t just a fall sport to these guys, not just an avocation to put on college applications. It is nothing less than a passage to a better life.

That’s not an uncommon story. Making this one unique beyond its South Pacific setting is the magnitude of success. For its size (this district counts 8,000-odd people), Kahuku cranks out an implausible number of good and great players. Those state championships and Super Bowl rings—the brothers Kemoeatu, Chris and Ma’ake, have three between them—are the dividends of a closeness, of strong bonds between members of this tightly knit community. In her family, says Kaui Fonoimoana (fono-EE-mo-wan-na), mother of a pair of Kahuku players, “cousins are like siblings; nieces and nephews are like sons and daughters. We watch out for each other the same way.”

“They are so freakin’ good over there,” sighs Darren Johnson, an ex–Kahuku QB who now coaches Campbell High, on the west side of the island. In his next breath Johnson makes the point that Kahuku’s many talented players are supported, fed, sheltered—borne along—by the figurative village in which they’ve been raised. “Morals, standards, expectations—the bar in that community is very high.”

Marco Garcia

As are the stakes. “For a lot of us, this is our only way to get to college,” says Samson Kapule-Si’ilata, whom I’ve come to call “the other Samson.” Unlike Samson Reed, Si’iLata (also a senior) is scrapping for attention from college coaches. He’s a tad undersized for a D-lineman (6' 3", 255 pounds on the roster; shorter and lighter in real life), but he’s clever and tenacious, with a lot of upside. He struggled to get on the field last year, but this season he’s starting and will have, in the end, a dozen or so games to earn a scholarship, his ticket off da rock. “This is a way we can support our families,” says the son of a longshoreman. “Football is everything to us.”

I met the other Samson in May, after one of Kahuku’s spring practices. The state athletic board had recently outlawed pads and helmets during spring football. The Red Raiders responded, as far as I could tell, by pretending they were wearing pads and helmets. Collisions were frequent and serious, and it so happened that on this Monday the Samsons and their defensive linemates were getting the better of the big boys across from them, to the deep exasperation of offensive coordinator Faaesea Mailo (FAH-ah-eh-say-ah mah-EE-low), an ex–Kahuku star who made it all the way to the Jets’ practice squad in 2002. Gathering the O-line at the end of practice, Mailo offered this counsel: “Go home, say a prayer, eat your favorite meal—whatever gets your spirits up. Come back tomorrow and kick somebody’s ass!”

Behind them, evening breezes stirred a line of palm trees, the sky above streaked orange and pink—a languorous tableau at stark odds with the scene below. “I don’t need it to be perfect,” Mailo went on. “But I need it to be absolutely ape s— violent!” Then, much calmer: “Let’s see if we can do that tomorrow.”

Around the turn of this century, Kahuku became the first high school team to make the haka part of its pregame ritual. Since 2011, they’ve performed a version called the Kaipahua Kura—Maori for “We are the Red Raiders”—that was composed by Seamus Fitzgerald, a New Zealand native who also happens to be Kahuku’s rugby coach. And while many opponents admired the Red Raiders’ haka, others took umbrage. Why should we be forced to stand around for two minutes watching our foes shout at us in a foreign language? Then, shortly before the 2015 state championship, officials rendered this buzzkill verdict: Any team that did a haka while facing its opponent would be flagged 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Having reflected deeply on the matter for about 20 seconds, Red Raiders coaches concluded, Screw it. We’ll take the penalty. The field position seemed a small price to pay for electrifying their fans and spelunking in the heads of the Saint Louis Crusaders, who got rolled that night, 39–14.

Marco Garcia

Implicit in the Maori words they declaim midway through that haka, says Fitzgerald, is a vow to compete “for our families and community, who have been through much.” Asked to elaborate, he shares a sad story. He wrote this haka after the school’s tumultuous 2010 season. Undefeated Kahuku had been steamrolling toward another state championship game, only to be disqualified because of a clerical error made several years earlier. Kahuku appealed the decision but lost. Several weeks later, one of the team’s co-captains, Keoni Tafuna, a linebacker with a 3.8 GPA and NCAA dreams, hanged himself. Distraught by the death of his friend, a second Kahuku student took his own life. And that is why, when they get to the part about families and community, they make a hoop with their arms, as if embracing a loved one. Then they point to the sky.

As H.G. Bissinger wrote about Odessa, Texas, nearly three decades ago, “Football stood at the very core of what the town was about. . . . It had nothing to do with entertainment and everything to do with how people felt about themselves.” That Friday Night Lights fervor runs just as hot on the North Shore, and it comes with a Polynesian flavor. Well over half the players on Kahuku’s roster trace their ancestry to Samoa, whose culture still hews to an old-school system of behavior and responsibilities called Fa’a Samoa (“the Samoan Way”). That, fused with the tenets of the Mormon church, exerts a powerful influence on this community.

Among the duties of a Samoan chief, or matai, is dealing with fa’alavelave (fa-AH-lovie-lovie), which translates to “much trouble,” an apt description of the intrigue and grievances awaiting any coach at Kahuku, whose many blessings—unrivaled tradition; an abundance of talent—do not include job security. The 2017 Red Raiders are playing for their fourth coach in five years. Word on the North Shore is that the new guy could stick.

Makoa Freitas slides his right foot out of a flip-flop—islanders refer to them as slippers—and points to a four-inch scar. The pink tissue covers the Lisfranc joint complex, where he ruptured a ligament during his third NFL season, thus ending a promising career on the Colts’ O-line that might have lasted as long as his father’s. (Before Rockne Freitas served as chancellor at the University of Hawaii–West Oahu, he played 11 NFL seasons at tackle.)

“I don’t know about that,” says Makoa. Like most O-linemen I’ve known, he is wise, without ego and stingy with the spoken word. But beneath his kind eyes and gentle demeanor are steel and fire. “Do you think anyone feels sorry for you?!” he can be heard bellowing during conditioning drills as his players approach the apex of their misery. “Stop feeling sorry for yourselves!”

After playing his high school ball at Kamehameha, Freitas starred on the same Arizona O-line as his older brother, Makai. The younger Freitas was known for his strength—he maxed out at 515 pounds on the bench press—and high football IQ. “Plays smart. Understands angles and positioning,” one NFL scout wrote of him before the 2003 draft. “Uses hands well, has a strong upper body and is tough and intense. Will play hurt.”

Rather than feel sorry for himself when his playing career abruptly ended, Freitas earned a double master’s in business and accounting at Indiana. By day, he’s the assistant controller at BYU-Hawaii, a few miles south of Kahuku. (“That’s right,” he told me with a smile at the end of a recent Monday practice. “After this, I’m going back to the office.”)

Befitting a CPA and former pupil of the principled, cerebral Tony Dungy, Freitas is fair, thoughtful and reserved—right up to the moment his displeasure with the O-line reaches critical mass, after which his raised voice can be heard from the Superette across the Kamehameha Highway.

On Nov. 4, Freitas’s Red Raiders will take on undefeated Mililani for the state’s OIA (or public school) championship. The winner of that game will be favored to advance to Hawaii’s “open” title game a fortnight later, where, if you had to bet, they’ll run into Saint Louis, whose best-known alumnus (aside from former governor John Burns and Saint Damien, renowned for his work with lepers on the island of Molokai) is the aforementioned Mariota, one link in a chain of excellent Crusaders QBs that includes Timmy Chang, Jason Gesser and, most recently, Tua Tagovailoa (TONGUE-oh-vae-LO-ah), now a freshman at Alabama.

But the next great passer off this island will not come from Saint Louis—not if a certain Mohawk-rocking 16-year-old has anything to say about it.

Dual-threat, quicksilver Sol-Jay Maiava made national headlines in June 2016. It was an exciting day at Laie Park, in the shadow of the gleaming Mormon Temple. Members of Michigan’s coaching staff, including khaki-clad head man Jim Harbaugh, were in town for a satellite camp. Maiava, still an eighth-grader, wanted to participate. But he had a conflict. With an eye toward his freshman season at Kahuku, he was taking part in the Red Raiders’ spring drills. To attend the Michigan camp he would have to miss a Kahuku practice. “If you’re not coming to practice,” then-coach Vavae Tata told him, half-seriously, “you better get an offer.” Maiava suspected Tata was joking, since Top 10 college programs don’t usually hand out scholarships to eighth-graders.

Usually. The Michigan camp included a QB skills competition in which Maiava, quite simply, laid waste to the field, a man among boys. Harbaugh, renowned for his ability to identify and develop passers, noticed. Throughout the day he gravitated toward Maiava, tweaking the boy’s mechanics, getting to know him. Afterward, Harbaugh offered the kid a scholarship.

Strong-armed, accurate and blessed with an afterburner-like burst, Maiava is a transcendent talent working at a distinct disadvantage at Kahuku, which has no history of grooming great passers. The school is known for mass-producing trench warriors—titanic linemen with surprisingly sweet feet—and ball-hawking, headhunting D-backs. Down through the decades, the Red Raiders’ QB has usually been a caretaker, called upon to pass five to 10 times per game. Even as run-and-shoot offenses sprung up around the island, Kahuku stuck with its Elephant package: two tight ends, full-house backfield, not even the slightest pretense that a pass might be coming.

Marco Garcia

Those offensive shortcomings were exposed last season in losses to the defending national champion, Bishop Gorman (from Las Vegas), and then to Saint Louis in the state title game, which Maiava started as a ninth-grader. “We played four other [nationally] ranked teams,” recalls Gorman tackle Jacob Isaia, “and Kahuku was as good as any of them. But those guys gotta change their game up. Everybody knows all they do is run.”

To ease Maiava’s transition, Freitas brought in a quarterbacks coach, ex–Winnipeg Blue Bomber Brian Ah Yet. When Freitas met with Sol-Jay and his father, Luaao Peters, it didn’t take long for the latter to bring up the Elephant package in the room. Casual mention was made of feelers Sol-Jay was receiving from various coaches, on and off the island.

After much discussion and prayer, a decision was made: Maiava would stay put. “We have a saying down here,” Peters told me. “Red Raider for life.” (And in a flash, all the RR4L bumper stickers on the North Shore made sense.) The upshot? Kahuku’s running game is flat-out firing this season. Enoch Nawahine (NOW-uh-HEEN-ay), whose modesty is belied by his leopard-print cleats, is a hard-nosed inside runner who can be balletic when needed. And while erratic earlier in the season—Kahuku likely led the nation in NPBORH (Number of Passes Bounced Off Receivers’ Helmets)—the team’s fledgling aerial attack was vastly improved by the end of September.

There is one aspect of Maiava’s game that could use some fine-tuning. Dude needs to learn how to slide. At the end of a weaving 30-yard run against Aiea High on Sept. 1, he was piledriven into the turf, separating his left shoulder and sealing Kahuku’s fate the following Saturday. With their QB out, the Red Raiders bowed 17–0 to the 16th-ranked team in the country, Utah’s Bingham High, in Las Vegas.

Even without its starting QB, Kahuku stood a fair chance in that game, fielding a superb defense coordinated by one of the program’s more intriguing characters.

The defensive meeting started at 4 p.m. in a cruelly un-air-conditioned classroom. The first guys to get there congregated near a large fan in a front corner. This was back in August, and the Red Raiders were two days away from their opener against Leilehua, whose offense they’d gathered to dissect. “What are your pre-snap reads on the offensive line?” asked Sola Soliai, all business.

Twenty voices answered: “The left tackle.”

“If he’s leaning forward?”

“It’s a run.”

“How can you tell if it’s a pass?”

“He’s leaning back.”

“Like he’s taking a dump.” The coach went on, toggling between Leilehua-specific instructions and more general counsel. Like: “If you’re struggling, that’s part of the path. Embrace it! Go through the bumps, the cuts, the pain. That’s gonna make you a man.” Then he copped to a struggle of his own.

Soliai returned to the sideline this season after two years away. “And to be honest,” he confided in his players, “I’m still trying to find my groove. It’s pissing me off, but I gotta keep going.” He was an all-state cornerback on Kahuku’s 2001 state championship team, and he used that success as a springboard to . . . where, exactly? “Nowhere, man,” he says with a rueful smile. “I’m not gonna lie—school wasn’t my ting. By the time I graduated from Kahuku, I had two kids already. So I went to junior college, came back here and just started working, taking care of my kids. And that was it, man. I didn’t go anywhere.”

Today Soliai is a gifted coordinator with a knack for making life miserable for opposing QBs by summoning stunts and blitzes—“darkening the gloomy and aggravating the dreadful,” to recycle a compliment paid by Samuel Johnson to John Milton.

As coaches often put it, the guys they’re talking to and shouting at “don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” And this guy cares a lot. When his playing days came to an end, Soliai couldn’t bear to tear himself from the game. So, with a boom box, a rope ladder, plastic hoops and coconut husks painted orange like cones, all pulled in a gardening wagon to a distressed patch of grass outside Laie Elementary, he started organizing a regular workout—agility drills and wind sprints interspersed with kernels of wisdom. Turnout for the first session was nine youngsters. Now he’ll typically get around 100, including athletes from rival high schools and college stars home during their offseasons. Afterward, members of the Rebel Squad, as he calls it, are welcome to join the Soliai family for dinner, usually a big pot of spaghetti.

Watching Sola pour his time and energy into this, I suspected I was witnessing a man making amends for mistakes in his prodigal youth. “What’s in it for you?” I asked.

“I do it for our people,” he said, talking about the North Shore youth. “For as many guys as we have who make it big, there are still too many who fall through the cracks. I wanna catch those guys before it’s too late. I want them to go further than me.”

Kickoff against Leilehua was two hours away, but a couple thousand Red Raiders fans had already staked out their seats, happy to talk story and take in the JV game. For families with young children, the most coveted real estate is the set of bleachers curved around the makai (“ocean-facing”) end zone, where on a half moon of trampled grass a score of laughing kids played overlapping games of pickup football, all of them tackle. The games were briefly interrupted on this evening when half the children peeled off to greet and hug a shambling 68-year-old who’d arrived with his wife. Junior Ah You (whose serene, smiling spouse is Almira—friends call them Beauty and the Beast) set up his folding chair behind the makai end zone, facing the field on which he’d once been a holy terror.

A gathering of Red Raider Nation might easily be mistaken for a convention of bouncers and bodyguards: legions of thickset men with oaken calves and powerful upper bodies, exuding a stolid, low-grade menace. Compared to many of those hulks, the 6' 3" Ah You, who looks to be around his playing weight of 233, is on the svelte side. There’s not much about him to suggest that he is, arguably, the best player ever to come off this island. But Ah You was Von Miller before Von Miller, an edge rusher and sackmeister before the NFL fully appreciated such specialists. So he took his game north of the border, to the pass-happy Canadian Football League, and got paid. Which is how a native of American Samoa, whose parents moved to Laie when he was a boy, is now beloved in Montreal and a member of the CFL Hall of Fame. (The Ah You line is not exactly petering out. While BYU whiffed spectacularly in passing on Junior, sending him into the arms of then-WAC rival Arizona State, his younger brother, Sale, did play for LaVell Edwards in Provo. The brothers later sent two sons apiece to BYU; a fifth, Sale’s oldest, Jasen, is the Cougars’ director of football athletic relations. Jasen’s son Chaz, a four-star safety, is a freshman there this season too.)

Marco Garcia

Despite the presence of Maiava and his 6' 5", 270-pound left tackle–bodyguard, Enokk Vimahi (whose suitors include Nebraska, Ole Miss and USC), the unquestioned alpha of Kahuku’s 2017 team is Miki Ah You, a sculpted, speedy, unfairly handsome junior linebacker. (BYU offered him when he was a ninth-grader; Oregon followed suit in June.) And there was Miki in the third quarter against Leilehua, knifing off the edge to blindside the QB for a 12-yard sack. Forty or so yards away, his grandfather grinned broadly.

When I asked Miki what motivated him, whom he played for, he paused and chose these words carefully: “For the foundation that previous generations laid down for us, and for the guys coming after us.”

He’s not always this reflective, such as when he addressed the defense a few days before the team left for Vegas. “Last year we went up there and got f—– up,” he snarled, recalling that loss to Gorman. “Some of you guys are playin’ around too much. If you’re not gonna be physical, don’t come. We’re gonna go up there and punch ’em in the mouth.”

The serial maulings meted out by the Red Raiders are but one manifestation of a broader trend. From Utah to Oahu, Pago Pago to Melbourne, Polynesian players are flocking to this cousin of rugby in ever-increasing numbers. And their chances of being good at football are probably much better than yours.

In the last U.S. census, in 2010, 1.2 million Americans identified as Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHPI)—roughly one-third of a percent of the 309 million people in this country. And yet: Of the 1,696 players in the NFL last season, 70 of them—4.1 %—were Polynesian.

Part of that is genetics. Many islanders are large, bulky men with low centers of gravity. Part of it is culture. Jesse Sapolu, a native Samoan who won four Super Bowls with the 49ers, explains it this way: “The thing about Poly kids, they grow up in a household where there’s”—here he’s thoughtful in choosing his words—“a chiefly protocol. There’s a huge emphasis on humility, on respect for elders, family and community.”

Who says graveyards are just for grieving? On Sept. 3, with the Red Raiders sitting pretty at 4–0 and having outscored opponents by a collective 152–13, the extended Fonoimoana clan gathered in a cemetery just behind the 7-Eleven in Hau’ula, six miles south of the high school and across the Kam Highway from the Pacific. The mood was cheerful, festive. As on the first Sunday of every month, they were observing Family Home Evening, an occasion to catch up, say a prayer or two, and sing some songs. When this afternoon’s speaker asked if anyone had anything else they wanted to share, Kana and Mana Fonoimoana—sophomore rising stars in the Kahuku secondary—remained silent . . . until their mother, Kaui, glared at them.

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This was three days before the Red Raiders flew to Las Vegas, a trip made possible by financial donations and plate-lunch purchases from many of the 50-odd Fonoimoanas assembled at Family Home Evening. Now the boys rose to thank them personally. Intense and predatory on the field, they are perpetually grinning and happy-go-lucky off it—so it was surprising to hear Kana’s voice crack as he assured his people he would be playing for them in Vegas, and for all their ancestors who’d donned Kahuku red. As he spoke he stood beside the gravestone of his great-grandfather, Kosena, a Red Raiders quarterback who passed away 10 weeks earlier, leaving behind, according to his obituary, 55 grandchildren and 64 great-grandchildren.

Not all of those descendants made the trip to Vegas. It only seemed that way, to see the army of Kahuku faithful sporting customized FONOIMOANA T-shirts, sharing the stands at UNLV’s Sam Boyd Stadium with legions of Reeds and Ah Yous, Kanihos and Alapas, Nawahines and Loos, and thousands of other red-clad pilgrims. A good portion of that horde stuck around after the game, in no rush to leave the grassy area they’d staked out for tailgating. And while you couldn’t find a beer to save your life (#MormonTailgate), there was plenty of music and laughter. Red Raider Nation knew it would get Maiava back (he looked sharp in his return three weeks later, passing for 202 yards in a 45–6 rout of Campbell) and that its team remained the favorite to win Hawaii’s OIA title.

So it came to pass that Kahuku lost the game but won the party. And how often can you say that about a bunch of Latter-day Saints?

On a recent flight from San Francisco to Honolulu my plane swung west over the southern tip of the Big Island before vectoring north toward Oahu. For five-or-so minutes we were following the path sailed by HMS Resolution in 1779, shortly after its renowned captain, one James Cook, came to grief. Upon killing the great explorer, the natives baked him in an underground oven—not to eat him, mind you, but to expedite the removal of flesh. The bones of such a powerful man were, to them, a source of immense mana.

Native Hawaiians believed—many still do—that their world was guided and influenced by mana, a kind of mystical energy, a force “present in the atmosphere of life” and “manifested by results which can only be ascribed to its operation,” wrote British missionary and anthropologist Robert Codrington in 1891.

When Vai Sikahema describes the North Shore as a place that “reeks of power, spiritual and physical,” he is referring, knowingly or not, to mana. Sikahema, an All-Pro kick returner with the Cardinals in 1987, is a native Tongan who lived in Laie as a boy. He pinpoints another characteristic that, he believes, may predispose Polynesians to football success: “For a lot of people who live in the States, their connection to their warrior heritage”—here he’s talking about close quarters, pre-firearm, hand-to-hand combat—“may go back to the days of Richard the Lionheart or William Wallace in the 1200s. But for some of us Polynesians, our warrior heritage goes back just two or three generations. My great-grandfather in Tonga killed people with a club.”

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A 2003 archaeological survey of Waimea Valley, on the North Shore, identified 78 “surface sites of interest”—burial caves, shrines and temples. It is a sacred place, steeped in history and mana. No less sacred to countless Latter-day Saints is another place of worship, 10 miles due east, over the spine of the Ko’olau Mountains. There, rising from an Elysian arrangement of terraces and reflecting pools, is a vest-pocket Taj Mahal, the century-old Laie Hawaii Temple. Mormons believe in “celestial” marriages, which can be sealed only in an LDS temple. And as the first Mormon temple constructed outside the contiguous U.S., the gathering place at Laie served as a beacon and magnet to Saints from across the Pacific.

Migration to Laie quickened midway through the 20th century when, determined to open a Mormon-affiliated college (now BYU-Hawaii), church elders sent out a new call for missionaries to help with construction. Still more Saints were summoned for the building of the Polynesian Cultural Center, which opened in 1963. And so it came to pass that the hallways of Kahuku High, three miles up the road from the temple, were chockablock with burly first- and second-generation Pacific Islanders: Maori, Tongans and Samoans on whose good side one wanted to stay.

“Take a walk around this place when class gets out,” says Tommy Heffernan, who quarterbacked Kahuku in the 1960s. “You’ll be tinkin’, What da hell dese kids eat over here?”

A 40-foot wave is breaking on the north end of the Kahuku campus. It’s not the actual ocean but a mural painted by local artist Hilton Alves, whose work, in this case, draws the eye away from the corroded exteriors of 40-year-old classrooms.

“The salt air deteriorates a lot of tings around here,” says Heffernan. Known across the island as Uncle Tommy, he is a plainspoken Vietnam War vet and retired maximum-security prison guard who apologizes in advance for any profanity that might escape during his guided tour. A former Kahuku High coach and administrator, he now serves as a caretaker of both the school’s athletic facilities and its traditions. He’s the person most responsible for transforming the locker room from the “dump” (his word) it was a few years ago into what it is now: a multi-purpose changing area, shrine and museum celebrating the team’s glory-drenched past. State championship trophies and banners; Parade All-America plaques; framed Honolulu Star-Advertiser stories announcing all-star rosters lopsided with Red Raiders.

It is remarkable, notes former Kahuku coach Reggie Torres, how many former players have gone on to the college and pro ranks, “but it’s sad we don’t have more.” Torres, who won three state championships during his tenure, from 2006 through ’13, laments the number of Red Raiders prevented from playing at the next level by subpar grades or test scores. He wishes some Kahuku parents would spend fewer dollars sending their boys to the mainland for football camps “to get recognized” by college coaches, and more on tutoring them for the ACT and SAT.

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In Friday Night Lights, Bissinger limns a dark, downbeat universe. Odessa is in the slough of an oil bust. Unemployment runs high; racism is baked into the landscape. One of the team’s stars is nagged by the sense that America is on the wane, that he is coming of age “in this place that didn’t seem like a land of opportunity at all, but a land of failed dreams.”

There’s plenty of hardship and disappointment on the North Shore. But despite its distance from the mainland, the American Dream—the chance to improve one’s lot by earning a college scholarship—remains vital and alive here. It could be a by-product of strong faith or the jaw-dropping natural beauty all around, but the vibe one gets from the Red Raiders and their coaches and parents is upbeat, buoyant, optimistic.

And, when necessary, aggressive. Among the vows cried out by the players during their haka: “We will fight with courage like hammerhead sharks, like the Raiders of the past!”

While shouting that line, players pantomime hoisting a heavy rock. What’s up with that?

When pulling that jersey on over your shoulder pads, Fitzgerald reminds the players in his periodic haka tutorials, “you’re holding the legacy of the Raiders who’ve come before you. It’s a blessing, but also a burden. So I want you to reach down and grab it like it’s a 150-pound boulder, and lift it over your head.”

That boulder is the bedrock of this community, this ohana, this extended family whose members are bound together by a violent game that comes to them as much as they have come to it.

[justadrifting1]

04.06.2017

hello hello my blog.

it is june and i am back again at my blog. :) on a happier note, i have went through my second interview for my sponsorship. i hope everything works out. i have also finished my portfolio (all the writing parts) and i am verrrrrry happy lol. basically now all i had to do is to prepare for term 3 and qccr in july and im free to just think about my korea trip already.

yesterday we had our usual saturday dates where we just met up. we went for a run cause we didn’t had a chance to on friday. cause friday we took half day to go paktor also LOL. so we ran around 11 plus and it was so hot cause the afternoon sun was right overhead. it was a hard run but we managed to pull it off. went back to his place and watched silly videos and just chill. we were watching the extreme cheapskates video with ppl skimping on their wedding and it was nice to just watch and discuss with him lol. feeds my imagination that we might have a future tgt eh. he always says one step at a time. and he’s not wrong. definitely we have to go one step at a time, but, sometimes its nice to imagine too. 

on friday we took half day and we went to science centre. it was pretty nice. some of the things remained the same since primary school times when we last set foot there. but there are some changes already and i felt like it can’t be compared to like the LCKNHM. maybe cause im old already. regardless we had fun. we went to the chinese garden and japanese garden afterwards and it was a lot of walking but we took lots of pictures too. and he took some nice pictures of me which im very happy about haha.

we went to this tzi char place that he goes to with his army friends. it was ok. he said the standard drop tho. but it was a nice date regardless, getting to leave early and just enjoying his company.

he’s going for his reservist in 2 more weeks’ time. we’re at that part of the year again. i remember the last time he went for reservist. the week is the longest week ever, but at least i get to see him in his uniform which is like HOT. hehe. i hope i get to see it again this year. 

i will miss him terribly when he is away. :(

last week i had blood in my pee and it was such a scare for me cause yknow blood. i went to the doctor and its just uti. i got antibiotics and it cleared up in a day or two. thank goodness. it was a first for me and i got soooo scared. he went with me to the doctors so i’m very thankful for that. my boyfriend is the best to me.

tmr is monday again, back to work, back to the slog. 

till then, 

💕

[thejpfdude-blog]

The Week in Anime (Week of 2/6/17)

Hi, and welcome to another edition of TWiA! We got some more episodes of the shows I’m watching, and some more of my thoughts about them. So let’s get started with all that, starting with...

Rankings:

~1 (0). Demi-chan wa Kataritai (8.5/10) [5/?]

~2 (+2). Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon (8.5/10) [4/?]

~3 (0). Kuzu no Honkai (8.5/10) [4/?]

~4 (-2). Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2 (8/10) [4/10]

~5 (0). Gabriel DropOut (7/10) [4/12]

6 (0). Little Witch Academia (TV) (7/10) [-/25]

7 (0). Nobunaga no Shinobi (6/10) [18/?]

8 (0). Aggressive Retsuko (6/10) [-/?]

9 (0). Sengoku Choujuu Giga: Otsu (5/10) [4/13]

10 (0). Rewrite: Moon and Terra (4/10) [-/?]

~11 (0). Nyanbo (4/10) [18/26]

Awards:

The “I’m Busy With Stuff So I Forgot to Watch This” Award: Rewrite (Moon and Terra) and Little Witch Academia

Oops.

The “It Didn’t Get Subbed So I Couldn’t Watch It” Award: Aggressive Retsuko

See above.

The “Obligatory Beach Episode” Award: Gabriel DropOut

Hey, something I actually watched. This week’s edition of “Angels and Devils: Roles Reversed” took place mostly on the beach, a standard fare for most CGDCT shows (either that or a hot springs episode. Or both!). It was your standard episode, featuring the classics like watermelon smashing and all that. This show has been a fun watch: it’s not anything special, but it helps to keep me entertained on Mondays, and it’s something nice to counter the short known as Nyanbo.

The “Please Let This Be Over” Award: Nyanbo!

Speaking of Nyanbo, it’s not fun. I feel like I said this a lot the past few weeks, but it’s true. And the last few episodes haven’t helped with that: they’ve been either so boring that I distract myself with my Rubik’s Cube or so painful to watch that I subconsciously tune out. I don’t really remember what happened the last few episodes other than nothing significant happened, because really all that matters in the end, is that the finale is going to be something to the tune of “we’re not done with our UFO, but we’ll keep trying through the power of friendship!” Oy vey: I think my run with bad shorts is starting to a take a toll on me. I’m looking at shows next season and the ones that I normally probably might have given a shot a few seasons ago I just straight up am not going to watch. Speaking of the new season, probably not going to watch much. Maybe that new PA Works show, the new season of Saekano (I’ve been blazing through the first season and am loving it so far), and the obligatory CGDCT show. Next season looks great if you love action shows, but if you’re like me and you like those shows with slice-of-life or comedy or romance, it’s not looking as good as this season.

Wow, I went off topic. Conclusion: Nyanbo = bad, don’t watch.

The Best Reaction Faces Award: Demi-chan wa Kataritai

One of my favorite things about this show is the reaction faces, specifically from a certain blond-haired individual.

If I had the time, I would link images showing examples, but I’m typing this up at 11pm Sunday night and I need to go to sleep soon.

Actually, it didn’t take that long to find a GIF compilation.

I’m a huge sucker for reaction faces, which probably stems from my love for chibi faces. Or is that the other way around? Probably the latter honestly. They elicit all sorts of reactions from laughter to aww and so on. It’s a shame that I’m not finding the recent episodes as good as the first two episodes, but then again those episodes were really really fun to watch and were hard to top. Still a fun show, but not the 10/10 that it was for me after episode 1. Not that that’s a bad thing though.

The Lewd Award: KonoSuba 2

This week marks the return of Darkness, and with it marks the lewdest episode of the young second season. And I have to say, I’m not a fan. I never really was a fan of Darkness to begin with: sure she had her moments, but her masochistic nature was a bit too much sometimes even for someone who’s a self-proclaimed sadist (AKA me). And this episode sort of took that to the max. I’m not going to say it wasn’t funny, because this episode still made me laugh more in 24 minutes than a lot of comedies from last year did in 12 episodes. Yet it’s not the type of humor I like out of KonoSuba: the humor I liked was the meta stuff, the scenes where Kazuma subverted common tropes and proudly did so. Or the verbal berating, most of which came to the expense of Aqua, everyone’s favorite useless goddess. I hope the lewdness isn’t this bad in the future episodes, and that the animation continues the route of episodes 2 and 3 and not of episodes 1 and this one.

The Lewder Award: Kuzu no Honkai

Yay, more lewd. Except this is different from KonoSuba’s lewd: with KonoSuba, the lewd was mostly used to drive the humor. Yet for Kuzu no Honkai, the lewd was used as a symbol of all of the complicated emotions the characters are feeling as well as a tool to show just how messed up the situation is between Hanabi and Ecchan. As the scene develops on the bridge, it’s still somewhat normal: sure it’s a bit creepy that Ecchan pretty much stalked Hanabi, but eh it’s amore. Then the hug happens. Well, okay, Hanabi’s in a tough situation right now. That’s fine I guess. Then the setting changes to a room, and now it’s escalating a bit too fast. And then they start kissing, and now I’m making sure my door’s locked so nobody walks in on me watching this. And then the clothes start coming off, and I find myself wondering what I’m doing with my life.

But actually, it’s interesting. It’s uncomfortable to watch, but at the same time it’s something I couldn’t keep my eyes off. It’s a trainwreck in the best sense: a trainwreck of emotions and love all being tangled up into this scene. There are so many ways of looking at it, and I haven’t even mentioned the girl teacher’s whole way of life and how that’s fucked up as well. There’s a lot you can say about this show, but for me, as someone whose least favorite subject was English, I’ll just say that it’s a really interesting take on the genre of romance.  And by something different that’s being executed well, it’s one of my favorites of the season so far.

The “Red Flags” Dropped Show of the Week Award: Nothing this week

Hooray?

Best Episode of the Week Award: Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon

This award was really close between Maidragon and Kuzu no Honkai, but with the Lewd Award in play, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to one-up it with the Lewder Award. And so we get Maidragon with the best episode of the week. What can I say. This show is getting better by the week with more characters being introduced and their relationships being fun to watch. Kanna is becoming the poster child of /r/awwnime and for good reason (though it is annoying seeing like 10 posts of her on the subreddit’s front page). It’s the right amount of funny, heartwarming, and art style that really makes those Wednesdays worth living. That’s really exemplified with this week’s episode, especially with the end scene with Kobayashi giving Kanna the keychain. My goodness, that was cute. I love it.

And that’s all for this week! Thanks for reading for another week, and I’ll see you in the next post!