#nt came out 8 years ago today!

[suchscary]

the original five

[legionnaireslover]

Iceland Travel Journal

Day 9: Thursday, September 20/18

Breakfast was great and we were at the lobby door at the appointed time. It was an extremely cold and blustery day and raining when we were waiting for our guide to pick us up. He was an actual real life Viking descendant called Gisle whose family had been in the Akureyri area since 870 AD. After we boarded the vehicle we swung around to a guest house to pick up another person going on our tour but he wasn't there, so Gisle went looking for him! And he found him! A great guy named Paul from Australia. 

The last person we picked up was a lady from Hong Kong and she had just arrived at the airport. Her name was unpronounceable and she was very nice but very quiet, so we didn't get to know her too well.

Our first stop was just a lookout on the fjord much of which was opened by Gisle's family. 

We then went on to one of the most well known waterfalls in Iceland - Goðafoss. It was spectacular. Not as big as Niagara but very impressive and even better - out in the middle of nowhere with not even a guard rail to impede the view! It was as if you just stumbled across it by accident in the wilderness - your own private discovery!

We had plenty of time to explore it before going on to the pseudo Lake Craters of Skútustaðagígar, which were created in the eruption of Lúdentaborgir and Þrengslaborgir some 2,300 years ago. It was becoming bitterly cold by then and the wind was almost strong enough to knock you over when you were walking! 

Next it was on to Dimmuborgir or The Dark City. The area consists of a massive, collapsed lava tube formed by a lava lake flowing in from a large eruption in the Þrengslaborgir and Lúdentsborgir crater row to the East, about 2300 years ago. It's one of Iceland's most popular attractions. The name means Dark Castle ( because of the shape of the lava structures.). Gisle just let us explore it ourselves for about 40 minutes and the four of us had great fun. While we were there it started to snow AND IT NEVER STOPPED!!

Then it was on to Grjótagjá which consisted of a small cave containing a VERY STINKY hot spring ( the sulfur smell was almost overpowering) and a chance to put one foot on the Eurasian tectonic plates and the other on the North American one! We got a great pix of Dan on one side of the divide and me on the other holding our hands across the gap.

The next stop was lake-filled explosion crater called Stóra-Vítior Big Hell. The lake was created in an eruption back in 1724 in the Mývatnseldar Fires. It was high up in the mountains and of course the snow fall increased expeditiously as a result. On the way up the mountain side. We came across three cars stuck in the snow on a narrow mountain passage. Our vehicle was 4 wheel drive and Gisle had just put studded tires on it the night before so we had mo problem navigating the road but the other cars were not so well equipped so they were blocking anyone wanting to use the road. It was all very dramatic with our Viking guide getting out in the wind swept snow storm in his light jacket and running shoes to help the stranded tourists and get their asses out of a jam. 

Finally we made our way up the mountain side and got to take pictures of "Big Hell" and then it was back down the mountain where Gisle warned the long line of tourists ( in their 2 wheel drive cars) NOT to attempt the climb in this weather.

We made a short stop at some "steamers" that were made up of super heated water at 100 degrees!! And agin the sulphur smell was gaggingly strong. 

The last stop was lunch and a stop at 

Lake Mývatn to swim in the spa waters in the nature baths there.

Lake Myvatn is a mini Blue Lagoon. The mineral waters were milky white blue and made my legs feel like they had cream on them.

We spent most of our time with Paul chatting away and floating around in the water. All together we were there about 2 hours including eating lunch. 

After the spa it was straight back to Akureyri. We were the second people dropped off and we said our goodbyes to our wonderful Viking guide and to Paul our new Aussie friend.

I got a shower while Dan slept. We decided to just eat dinner in the hotel.

The hotel restaurant was lovely and the food was really well cooked. Dan had the cod and I had a very tender chicken breast.

After that was finished we went back upstairs to our room and packed our bags for leaving tomorrow and got organized for going on the whale watching tour. Oh, I forgot - they cancelled the northern lights tour because of weather again but it's ok... we will have a few more times to see them when we get back to Reykjavik. 

Day 10: Friday, September 21/18

Got up early and had a delicious breakfast and bundled up to walk down through town to the wharf to the whale watching tour place only to find out it was canceled (due to bad weather). The good news was that the same company was located in Reykjavik so they offered us a tour in place of our missed one. It is for the free day we have in Reykjavik after we return from the Buubble hotel. 

The weather was so stormy we just high tailed it to the Akureyri Art Museum and had a pot of tea to warm up and then spent the next couple of hours looking through the exhibits. By the time we were finished the weather had improver enough to go shopping for souvenirs and a woolen sweater for me. We met up with Paul again and had a small chat. Found out that he was leaving on the same plane as us, at 4 PM. 

Afterward we walked to a great little house on a hill in town that was a lunch place. The lunch was expensive but a huge amount of food and delicious. 

We trudged up the hill to the hotel and collected our things and took a taxi to the airport. After checking in we went to the departure area and while we were waiting there Paul came in to keep us company until we boarded.

The flight was only 35 minutes and soon we back in sunny Reykjavik and a short cab ride later and we were checking into the beautiful Canopy Hotel.

Very posh and full of luxury! The whole look of it is rustic industrial. The bathroom is to die for!! The shower has to be experienced to be believed. 

We got settled in and then went out to dinner - though nt too far because the wind was so strong and bitter.

Luckily we found a great place to eat called Salon. The food was delicious, the service was perfect and the decor was relaxing.

Both of us were exhausted so we just went back to the hotel and then to bed.

Day 11: Saturday, September 22/18

We slept in until about 8:30 and then went down to breakfast at the hotel restaurant Geri Smart. It was... exquisite with so much selection that no one could eat even half of the items.

After breakfast we went out to get some snacks for later today.

Now we are just about to check out and get picked up for the Buubble Hotel.

Talk to you later...

[kiddomax]

idk im bored

1: Is there a boy/girl in your life?  Yeps!

2: Think of the last person who hurt you; do you forgive them? An ex friend of mine, and no, I don’t forgive them, What they did was unforgivable. 

3: What do you think of when you hear the word “meow?” Kitty!

4: What’s something you really want right now? Cuddles :( 

5: Are you afraid of falling in love? yeps

6: Do you like the beach? Heck yes!

7: Have you ever slept on a couch with someone else? Yeps

8: What’s the background on your cell? Jasmine Cephas Jones 

9: Name the last four beds you were sat on? Mine, my sisters, my moms, my friends

10: Do you like your phone? ig ?

11: Honestly, are things going the way you planned? not at all

12: Who was the last person whose phone number you added to your contacts? my friend 

13: Would you rather have a poodle or a Rottweiler? Don’t makes me choose!

14: Which hurts the most, physical or emotional pain? Emotional because Idk how to deal w that very well, but with physical pain I can handle it better 

15: Would you rather visit a zoo or an art museum? Boths! 

16: Are you tired? Sorta 

17: How long have you known your 1st phone contact? Since 5th grade 

18: Are they a relative? Nope

19: Would you ever consider getting back together with any of your exes? NO NO NO NO NO NO

20: When did you last talk to the last person you shared a kiss with? Like october 

21: If you knew you had the right person, would you marry them today? 100%

22: Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? no please no

23: How many bracelets do you have on your wrists right now? I normally have a lot but none rn 

24: Is there a certain quote you live by? “She said she could, so she did.”

25: What’s on your mind? “I miss my daddy”

26: Do you have any tattoos? wa nt

27: What is your favorite color? YELLOW 

28: Next time you will kiss someone on the lips? hopefully soon...

29: Who are you texting? A couple of friends 

30: Think to the last person you kissed, have you ever kissed them on a couch? nope

31: Have you ever had the feeling something bad was going to happen and you were right? yes

32: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex you can talk to? yeps

33: Do you think anyone has feelings for you? i hope my boyfriend does

34: Has anyone ever told you you have pretty eyes? Yep

35: Say the last person you kissed was kissing someone right in front of you? I’d probably like awkwardly chuckle ?? 

36: Were you single on Valentines Day? Yeps

37: Are you friends with the last person you kissed? NO

38: What do your friends call you? Jae, or bubbles

39: Has anyone upset you in the last week? Yep

40: Have you ever cried over a text? yep

41: Where’s your last bruise located? knee

42: What is it from? flopping around 

43: Last time you wanted to be away from somewhere really bad? school lmao

44: Who was the last person you were on the phone with? my boyfriend

45: Do you have a favourite pair of shoes?

yep, my white converse 

46: Do you wear hats if your having a bad hair day? sometimes ?

47: Would you ever go bald if it was the style? I’d like to think I wouldn’t, but probably 

48: Do you make supper for your family? sometimes 

49: Does your bedroom have a door? no

50: Top 3 web-pages? Tumblr, facebook, and weheartit

51: Do you know anyone who hates shopping? Yep

52: Does anything on your body hurt? Shoulder

53: Are goodbyes hard for you? Yes

54: What was the last beverage you spilled on yourself? Water 

55: How is your hair? Fine ??

56: What do you usually do first in the morning? check my phone 

57: Do you think two people can last forever? Yes

58: Think back to January 2007, were you single? Heck yeah I was 6

59: Green or purple grapes? Both tbh

60: When’s the next time you will give someone a BIG hug? When my friend wakes up from sleeping

61: Do you wish you were somewhere else right now? With my boyfriend

62: When will be the next time you text someone? Soon probably ?

63: Where will you be 5 hours from now? Friends house ayyy

64: What were you doing at 8 this morning. Sleeping

65: This time last year, can you remember who you liked? Yes, I was in a relationship, and I regret it whole heartedly 

66: Is there one person in your life that can always make you smile? Yes

67: Did you kiss or hug anyone today? Will hug my friend 

68: What was your last thought before you went to bed last night? “God I’m in love”

69: Have you ever tried your hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end? Yes

70: How many windows are open on your computer?  one

71: How many fingers do you have? 10

72: What is your ringtone? Dan Howell saying “What the-pHIL

73: How old will you be in 5 months? 16

74: Where is your Mum right now? Probably asleep 

75: Why aren’t you with the person you were first in love with or almost in love? Because it was a shitty mistake. 

76: Have you held hands with somebody in the past three days? Yes

77: Are you friends with the people you were friends with two years ago? Some of them

78: Do you remember who you had a crush on in year 7? Heck yes

79: Is there anyone you know with the name Mike?  My uncle 

80: Have you ever fallen asleep in someones arms? Yep

81: How many people have you liked in the past three months? One

82: Has anyone seen you in your underwear in the last 3 days? Ye

83: Will you talk to the person you like tonight? I hope so

84: You’re drunk and yelling at hot guys/girls out of your car window, you’re with? My best friend probably 

85: If your BF/GF was into drugs would you care? Depends what drugs 

86: What was the most eventful thing that happened last time you went to see a movie? Some kids came up to me and asked me if I had any cleaning alcohol 

87: Who was your last received call from? My aunt 

88: If someone gave you $1,000 to burn a butterfly over a candle, would you? NO!

89: What is something you wish you had more of? self esteem 

90: Have you ever trusted someone too much? yes

91: Do you sleep with your window open? no

92: Do you get along with girls? most 

93: Are you keeping a secret from someone who needs to know the truth? no

94: Does sex mean love? Depends 

95: You’re locked in a room with the last person you kissed, is that a problem? YES

96: Have you ever kissed anyone with a lip ring? no but want to

97: Did you sleep alone this week? p much

98: Everybody has somebody that makes them happy, do you? Yes. 

99: Do you believe in love at first sight? Sometimes?

100: Who was the last person that you pinky promise? My best friend

[victakestaipei]

WEEK 2 RECAP: “Gua Bao?” More like “Gua BOMB.”

So I have come to realize that during the weeks, my blog posts about my classes are going to be pretty repetitive. So to save you the few minutes of your life you’ll spend reading, I’ll just shorten it a bit...and skip to the food. We always do the same things in class. We take quizzes, read the text book, practice writing characters, and talk alot about a wide array of topics... (we actually get off topic alot... In one of the classes this week I ended up playing the song “Mr. Roboto” on my iphone because I made a reference about it... we have a new classmate and he’s from Japan and everyone wanted to hear the “Domo Arigato” part... ugh.. it’s a long story.)

Anyway, let’s start from Tuesday I suppose:

So in class we had another one of those written dialogue quizzes, I got an A ((of course HEH)) and on the test from last week, I got a 94%! Feelin’ good. In the gym it was leg day, and I’m starting to incorporate more cardio daily, so I’ve been running on the treadmill at the end of my workouts. I want to drop weight and tone up while I’m out here so I figured this will help give me the extra kick that I need. I ran a mile in 7 minutes and 30 seconds... Or so I thought. I was super happy about the amount of time it took and how it didn’t even feel hard and how my knee actually wasn’t hurting for once in my life. BUT, I soon realized that I am a headass. I didn’t realize until later in the week that everything here is in kilometers, not miles. Meaning, that I didn’t actually run a mile in 7 minutes and 30 seconds, I ran 1 kilometer. Which is less than a mile... it’s actually 0.62 miles to be exact. What A BUZZ KILL!!!! I was on this “high” the whole rest of the day because I thought I was really wrecking shit, but really I’m just an idiot. A slow running idiot. lol. 

For dinner Bunny and I went to this popular joint that she had heard about from a friend. I actually have heard of this place too, but didn’t realize it until after we had arrived and ordered our food. We went to this small hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the Gongguan night market where they serve the “Traditional Taiwanese Snack.” It’s called “Gua Bao.” It’s basically a pulled pork hamburger with veggies, pickles, grated peanuts in a peanut sauce, and cilantro... all in a steamed bun... you hold it and eat it like a hamburger, and it’s delicious!! It was only 55 NT (about $1.80 US). You could choose between lean meat, fatty meat, or a mix of the two. I went with the lean meat, and I’m glad that I did. The restaurant also offered an array of soups, but a lot of them featured pork intestines, and that's not really my type of party. 

Wednesday:

I did back day at the gym today and ran another “mile”... SMH. That still gets me man. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

For lunch, Jeannie, Bunny and I went to this potsticker place right across the street from campus. We’ve been there before and it was really good the first time, with each potsticker being 5 NT! (or about 17 cents). We each ordered 10 potstickers and a bowl of warm noodles, totalling to only 90 NT ($3 US). I chose 5 curry potstickers and 5 garden vegetable. The Curry flavored potstickers were by far the best potstickers I’ve had since I’ve been here (and that’s saying something). And for dinner, Bunny and I went BACK to the Gua Bao place (it was that good) but this time brought Nick along! We had a good time.

Thursday:

I had another dictation quiz and got another low A. Today was leg day yet again. Starting to see a pattern here? I’m proud to say that I’ve kept the routine/schedule that I talked about in my recap blog post from last week..

For our post-gym lunch, Bunny, Jeannie and I went to this Soy Sauce-Braised place. I can’t remember the name. *eyeroll*. But basically it’s a food stand on the street market by our university, and they lay out all the meats, and veggies and noodles on display, and you choose which ones you want, and they mix them all together and cook them in this super hot soy sauce soup... It’s pretty good. I was super excited about this food stand because they actually had VEGETABLES!!! You know how often I see vegetables here in Taiwan??? Never. I don’t think I’ve had a vegetarian semi-healthy meal since I’ve been here. And I’ve looked!!!!! Anyway, for my dish, I chose tofu, broccoli, cabbage, mushrooms, and udon noodles. I paid about $7.50 US which is a bit steeper than my usual meal, but I think that’s because I doubled up on the tofu. (hehe). Either way though that’s still what I spend on average at Cane’s back in the US, and it’s wayyyyy more food. I do have to say that I went a bit over the top. My food was a MOUNTAIN!!!! We also bought this watermelon slush drink to share that came in an actual watermelon! Presentation get’s an A+, and it was pretty refreshing. 

After we ate we went to this store called “Jin Xin Fa” and bought tons of stationary (everything here is so cute and I desperately wanted to buy some cute planners for the upcoming school year). I also bought an extra long ethernet cord so that I could use my laptop in bed and have better internet, as well as a new phone charger... 

For dinner I ended up cooking (reheating) left over lunch... but I made rice and added scrambled egg to it... As it turns out, my $7.50 lunch fed me and Bunny for dinner. As I mentioned in my blog post about my dorm a few weeks ago, we have a small kitchen area at the end of the hall. Bunny and I wanted to use the rice cooker, and we struggled at first. We had to put water between the bowl where the rice goes and the outer bowl?? Strange. Either way thought the rice came out perfectly. Bomb.com.

Friday: 

For lunch, the three of us tried this Malaysian Curry place on the street market. It was on the second floor, and the interior looked like someone's home at first... My dish was 100 NT ( around 3-4$), and I ordered the Malaysian chicken curry and rice. It’s basically a filleted chicken cutlet fried in batter and served with a mound of rice, both covered in curry. And topped with potato wedges... THIS PLACE WAS SUPER GOOD I WILL BE BACK EVERY WEEK OH MY GOD. There is only one lady who works here, and she cooks all the dishes. I also think she lives here...? Not so sure. We spoke to her a bit after finishing our food, and she told us how 22 years ago she came to Taiwan, and she asked us where we're from and told us she's been to both Florida and New York before. She also showed us pictures of her 8 month old grandson who lives in Florida. Her daughter was born in Malaysia and currently lives in America as she's married to an American guy. She was the sweetest lady ever, gushing about her grandson and showing us all these videos. Such a lovely lady.

After lunch we did some shopping in the street market (clothing), I bought a shirt... and not much else because everything looked so small. When shopping one lady didn't let Jeannie use the dressing room to try on this outfit.... it seemed odd, and the lady didn’t seem to have a reason to not let her use the dressing room which was clearly there with the open curtain and no one inside. I think the lady who worked there was just a bitch. She was rude, and possibly racist?? I can’t tell you how many times I would walk into a shop (during the hour or so that we were walking around) and the ladies who work there would hover over me constantly. *eyeroll*. Figures.

We went home and I took a shower and relaxed before heading to Shilin Night market. I’ve been here before and posted a video, but in case you all forgot, it’s the biggest night market in Taipei and is pretty poppin on the weekends. Jeannie and I love to shop, so we had a ball!! Four of us went, it was Ada, Jeannie, Bunny and I. We spent a few hours shopping and walking around and eating the street food. I ate this pork bun sandwich, some French fries with a bunch of sauces on them (like mustard sauce, salt, pepper, etc), and tried the popular chicken fried steak. 

squid on a stick^

We stayed at Shilin a few hours before parting ways... Jeannie and I went to meet up with some others at a bar and Bunny and Ada went home. This is around maybe 11:15pm... Jeannie and I met up with Nick at this open patio bar/hookah lounge. It was $20 (US) all you can drink. The bar was called K House and was located smack dab in the middle of the gay district off of Ximen station. Ximen station is also a very popular shopping area for the younger crowd, with a 5 story H&M and other popular stores. It took a while for Jeannie and I to find the bar, we put it in google maps and it took us to a completely different location. By the time we found it a lot of the people we were meeting up with were loose off the goose. Which makes sense since it was all you can drink and they'd been there a few hours already. We left the bar around 1, and headed to 7/11 and walked around town a bit after that. I was pretty lit. I slammed about 5 drinks in 30 minutes and was just chillen after that. I had two jack/cokes, 1 vodka/sprite, and 3 peach flavored drinks but I don't know what alcohol was in those..?? They were super good though!! My favorite, definitely. We were walking to another bar when I got super tired and decided to take an Uber home with Jeannie and another guy we met that night, his name is Collin. Collin goes to school at Carnegie Melon *ooooooooo snap*. I got into my dorm around 2:30-3am, and went to bed around 3:30. When Jeannie and I were walking with the group, Collin was telling us about how he had plans to go snorkeling the next day and he invited us to join the group on Facebook. I knocked out after showering when I got home, since I had to be up by 7:15 to make it to the meeting spot at 8am to go snorkel. I was exhAUSTED. Snorkeling should be worth the lack of sleep though.

[penalteaze]

Can I ask you how you got into supporting both clubs? I have been following you for a long time and I know I followed you because of Arsenal while now you blog a lot more about Spurs. You try not to say who you support more, but it's obvious to me that you switched from one club to the other. I just wonder how and why you started watching games of both clubs? You are probably tired of all the questions, but I think a lot of people just find it interesting you support both clubs. Have a nice day!

Oh, this is actually a very good question, I think I’ll write all this down now so I can refer to it whenever people decide to become problematic again (which will probably be somewhere in the next few months lol). This is going to be looooong (just a little warning).

I never liked football, I found it boring and unnecessary. That probably had to do with my hometown club being abysmal. I went to one game when I was 8 and it was booooring (0-0, and not the good one) and since then they’ve been fighting relegation year after year #NurDerHSV. Also, my family aren’t the biggest football fanatics out there.

I watched World Cup games and enjoyed them because I liked the atmosphere and then I properly got into it during the latter stages of Euro 2016. That’s not too long ago.

I started following a few football blogs on tumblr and (as many of you probably know) most of them were Arsenal blogs. So I started researching a bit, found their Youtube channel and well, the rest is history.

I started liking Arsenal before the 16/17 season had even started, I didn’t fall in love with them for the exquisite football they (can) play but because I liked the vibe of the club and the players (the media team is doing a great job I guess). Also, there was just the most content out there about them and I had no idea about football, I knew goals were scored and that was about it (lol, not quite, but you know what I mean).

So I read and watched as much as I could. When I like something, I want to know everything about it and I think my football knowledge has gotten a lot better in the last few months. I can only dream of having all the memories some of you guys have, but that will come with time.

I started watching the Premier League (because of Arsenal) and I found to enjoy it a lot. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of the Bundesliga (I’m from northern Germany and the clubs here are s h i t). I support BVB but I find the league rather boring, because we all know who’s going to win it in the end. Also, I sadly don’t speak any languages apart from German and English which makes those two leagues the most accessible for me. I like Spanish football, but I just can’t really connect with the clubs/players because I can’t understand them. I love England and the English language and so the EPL became “my“ league.

Well, three games in to the season and I. Was. Obsessed. I loved it so much! I loved Arsenal, we were playing great (let’s ignore that Liverpool result) and it all seemed pretty amazing. I enjoyed hating Tottenham and I also wanted to learn as much as I could about the EPL, so I watched every game possible, trying to understand how football actually works.

During that period I started liking Liverpool for the way they play and many other clubs for nice players or cool fans. Today I can say there is only one club in the EPL I absolutely despise. There are a few I just don’t care about, but many others I have no hard feelings towards at all. I’m a fan of two clubs only though, I define that as watching every game and being affected by the results.

So how did I start supporting rivals? Firstly, I found that rivalry super interesting from day one, I was laughing at Spurs for how bad they were and how good we were.

I can’t even tell you how it started exactly, because I just can’t remember, but I think it has to do with the international break. I still had to pick a backup NT (I’m German, but Die Mannschaft really isn’t my favourite team out there) and as I liked the English league, the English NT followed.

(Spurs fans better not read this next part, lolz). I instantly liked Dele and Eric and their chemistry, was 27534634 pages deep into their tags and just couldn’t not like them. I mean, look at them, I’m pretty sure most people can agree with me in saying they are absolutely adorable. I told my best friend (and fellow football fan) about them and she loved them too. A lot more than I did. I liked Dele and Eric, she liked Dele and Eric of Tottenham Hotspur. I just wanted them to move clubs so I could officially love them.

But you can’t deny that Spurs play amazing, attractive football and when I started watching their games (for D&E), I couldn’t stop myself form secretly cheering for them.

The first NLD of the season came by and I was a die hard Arsenal fan, I wanted us to kill Spurs and freaking put them in their place. 1-1 was probably a fair result in the end, but I wasn’t happy with that.

And then it kinda just happened. I started liking everyone on that team, they are a family and it’s absolutely adorable, Pochettino is amazing and their football makes you happy when you watch it. I don’t really expect you to understand it, but that’s how it was/is for me.

Then there came the time of 5:1’s and underwhelming performances, but I never stopped supporting Arsenal. I was sad and I needed cheering up (lol, this sounds like I’m about to cheat on my husband) and Spurs were there, playing good football, getting results. They were my source of happiness during times when Arsenal were disappointing.

I think it’s quite normal to have a “second“ team to cheer you up a bit when you’re down, it just so happened that Spurs became mine.

At the end of January a very lovely girl messaged me and asked me to join a group chat where we could talk about Spurs and football in general. The people in that chat are now amazing friends to me and I love them all so much. All of them are Spurs fans and I’m pretty sure they play a huge part in my shift of affiliation 😅.

I have met many amazing people here, so many Arsenal fans too! I’ve even been to a game with two of them and it was an amazing experience. I only feel love for both Arsenal and Spurs fans, they are amazing people.

The Spurs fandom on here is much smaller however and (in my personal opinion) a bit more chill, which is something I’ve started to embrace. I’m a very dramatic and pessimistic person and all ze drama isn’t the best for me I think.

So yeah, if you haven’t noticed already, I supported Spurs in yesterday’s NLD and I will probably do so in the future too. If you have a problem with that, I fully understand and won’t be mad if you want to unfollow me.

I don’t say who I support anywhere on my blog (I have before in posts, but not in my bio or anything) because I don’t think it is that important. I post whatever I like to and most of my posts are bad memes anyways.You will continue seeing Arsenal posts on my blog, because I will continue loving them, but there will also be Spurs, Liverpool and other EPL clubs featuring.

Maybe, if I had known about Tottenham Hotspur earlier, I’d have fallen for that club from the beginning, maybe not. It doesn’t really matter anyways, because it is how it is and I love the club and everyone around it.Still, Arsenal is the club that made me fall in love with football and I will always love them for that. I want both my clubs to do well.

I feel like I am where I want to be now, I am happy and no person telling me that I’m not a true supporter or a disgrace to football will change my mind. This is who I am and I’m certainly not ashamed of the football clubs I like.

No amount of nice, insightful or even hateful asks will change anything about this situation. I don’t think my behaviour is hurting anyone, at least that isn’t my intention.

I know there are other people out there who are falling for both teams and I just want to say, I really don’t see the problem. You do you. 💗

[rainbowflicks]

i was tagged by @chaostrick yayyy thank you!!! 💖

1. favorite player of all time

philipp lahm okay fight me on this

2. a game you will never forget (try to pick ONE)

i’m just gonna dig through my recent memory and say brazil v paraguay in the world cup 2018 qualifiers (yes that one that happened a few weeks ago) because that was the 1st nt game i’ve attended in my life and it was just amazing to be there surrounded by other fans, to sing the national anthem as loud as i could, to chant for neymar after his goal and of course to see some of my favorite players on the field *blows a kiss to thiago silva and philippe coutinho*. i’m never forgetting that night

3. the national team u support the most

brazil nt and germany nt mostly but i gotta admit i watch netherlands nt sometimes because i grew up with my dad saying things like “oh i think we have dutch ancestry” so i was like... let me watch them too. but when it comes to support yeah, it’s brazil and germany

4. if you could pick one of your teams to win any trophy, who and which?

listen... if only philipp lahm could descend from the heavens in cardiff during the champions league final and just get that champions league trophy... but idk being more realistic now i just wanna the entire juve squad lifting that trophy this season. gigi deserves it. they deserve it. after that it would be great to see arsenal winning premier league again, bayern back with the champions league title, brazil winning the world cup again *coughs*...

5. whats the story of how you got into this sport!!!

just like flot i ain’t gonna make this a short story so get comfortable and get ready if you are still reading this lmao. well, i live in south america right, i grew up with football. even as a kid, without understanding what it was all about and thinking corinthians and palmeiras were the only relevant teams in the world, i watched random games. the only world cup i haven’t watched in my life was the 1994 one because well, i was nearly 2 years old, but maybe my parents were watching and i was there but i can’t remember at all. but i just started to understand better around 2005, when i randomly watched a libertadores game between são paulo and palmeiras and thought it was a good idea to follow it more closely. i think i haven’t missed a single são paulo game that year. then the 2006 world cup came and with it germany nt and its sommermärchen and i absolutely fell in love with them. when it comes to european football i mostly watched those summer tournaments and slowly i got to find out about champions league and european leagues but it took me a while to start to follow it more religiously, so to speak. that only happened in 2014 to be precise. i don’t know what happened that year, i don’t know if it was the fact that i live in one of the cities that hosted the world cup or if it was the sight of some of my german favorites lifting the world cup trophy but i realized that watching random club games from time to time (especially bayern’s, premier league and champions league) wasn’t enough. i needed more. and that’s when i started to watch bayern games every single week and eventually it all lead to this football mess i am today trying to catch up with 4 teams at least oh well  6. how many games a week do you watch (approx.)

only this weekend i watched 5 or 6 lmao but tbh 3 is the constant because i always try to watch bayern, arsenal and juventus, they’re my priorities. but i end up watching random bundesliga games (especially köln and schalke’s), libertadores and são paulo ones too whenever i can

7. world cup or copa américa/euro cup?

i really like copa américa and euros but please world cup hands down!!

8. do you want uefa to rot in hell for how they treated borussia dortmund the latest weeks (yes/yes)

a thousand times yes! *grabs megaphone* FUCK UEFA!

9. god im running out of ideas hmm… have u played football urself?

only in pe classes in middle school and high school tbh. i’m the kind of person who’s better at watching a sport than playing it, and it wasn’t different with football, i was terrible. as a forward? terrible aim at the goal and bad, bad, shots. midfielder? eh. goalkeeper? the same thing as leaving the goal empty because that’s how bad i was. defense? okay not that bad but still not great. playing football wasn’t really my thing, i was better in basketball which is ironic considering my small size tagging @mesutosil @jujudraxler @ramosassy @satansfavouritegirl @fcbayernmess @54749014 and whoever’s interested in answering these tbh let me see your answers!

[ringpopbitch]

do all da questions

i had these done by the time u messaged lmao

1: The last person you kissed screams they love you, you say…

Why are u yelling

2: Did you get to sleep in today?

No I got up at 5am lmao

3: You never know what you got until you lose it?

Yes

4: Do you have siblings?

I got 3

5: How many kids do you want?

One

6: Who was the last person you held hands with?

My sibling probably

7: Did you stand on your tippy-toes for your last kiss?

Probably I don’t even need to tbh I just like to

8: Do you think if you died, the last person you kissed would care?

NAH SINCE U A LITTLE BITCH AND SAID NAH ON THIS QUESTION

Also this meme:

9: Last person to talk on the phone?

Errrrrr I think my manager

10: Did anyone watch you the last time you kissed someone?

Nope

11: When’s your birthday?

March 2nd

12: Remember the first time you kissed the last person you kissed?

Yea

13: What kind of phone do you have?

Iphone SE

14: Are you wearing jeans, shorts, sweatpants, or pajama pants?

Jeans

15: Are you a different person now than you were 5 years ago?

5 years ago I was 13 so god I hope so

16: What were you doing at 4 am?

Sleeping

17: Would you rather write a paper or give a speech?

Write a paper

18: Are you lying to yourself about something?

LMao

19: Last night you felt…?

Bad

20: What’s something you cannot wait for?

School

21: Ever told your parents you were going somewhere but when somewhere different?

Yes bc i’m a hoe

22: How many hours of sleep did you get last night?

I fell asleep at like 8pm lmao so like 9

23: Are you a morning or night person?

Morning

24: What did you get your last bruise from?

Idk probably from doing the damn truck at work

25: Do you reply to all of your texts?

I ignore half my texts

26: Your phone is ringing. It’s the person you fell hardest for. What do you do?

Errrr

27: Did your last kiss take place in/on a bed?

Nah

28: Anyone you would like to get things straight with?

Yes

29: How many months until your birthday?

9 months

30: Favorite thing to eat with peanut butter?

Apples

31: Did you like this past summer?

It’s goin okay prolly gonna get bad tho

32: What were you doing before you got on the computer?

Driving home from school

33: Your ex is sitting next to you, with their new partner. What do you do?

KILL MYSELF

34: What is the last thing you said out loud?

Idk I was talking to my dad about physics

35: Your mood summed into one work?

Anxiety

36: Are you doing anything else besides taking this survey?

Texting

37: What are your initials?

ACC

38: Are you a happy person?

U could say

39: Do you still talk to the person you liked 4 months ago?

Yes

40: Where do you want to live when your older?

Somewhere not Florida

41: Have you had your birthday this year?

Yes

42: What did you do yesterday?

I had a riding lesson in the morning then I went to work then I came home and fuckin crashed

43: What will you be doing tomorrow?

Hopefully nothing until I work at night

44: How late did you stay up last night?

8pm don’t judge me

45: Is there anyone you would do anything for?

Well

46: Is it hard to make you laugh?

No I laugh at everything

47: Do you believe ex’s can be just friends?

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr maybe

48: Do you think any of your exes will eventually want to be with you again?

I’ve done SOME SHIT so probably not

49: How many people have you had feelings for in the year of 2012?

Idek I was 13

50: Do you wish your ex was dead?

No

51: Have you ever dyed your hair?

Yes a lot but I lie to customers and tell them it’s natural bc they always say it’s pretty

52: Would ever take back someone that cheated?

I’m a hypocrite but no

53: Was New Year’s Even enjoyable?

I don’t remember but it was probably bad

54: Bet you’re missing someone right now?

Bet

55: How would your parents react if you got a tattoo?

They’d be fine as long as it wasn’t on my face

56: Sleep on your back or stomach?

Stomach

57: If you could move away, no questions asked, where would it be ?

Somewhere w a vet school

58: What would you change about your life right now?

I would make myself smarter and not b confused about some shit

59: Has anything upset you in the past week?

OH YES

60: Are you on the phone?

No

61: Today, would you rather go forward a week or back?

Errrr neither

62: Would you take $40,000 or a brand new car?

Dolla dolla bill $$$$

63: Have you ever talked to someone when they were high?

Yes

64: Ever cried while you were on the phone with someone?

A LOT

65: Have you ever copied someone elses homework?

yes

66: Are you the type of person who liks to be out or at home?

depends on what i’m out doin

67: Do you automatically check your phone when you wake up?

yes

68: Have you ever stayed up all night on the phone?

i’ve stayed up all night on the computer but not in years

69: Could you use some sleep right now?

yes

70: Are you going to have a baby by the time you’re 18?

if i got pregnant rn today i wouldn’t have the baby till i’m 19 so PROBABLY NOT

71: Does it bother you when someone hides things from you?

yesssssssss i’m a nosy bitch

72: What’s your favorite color?

er

73: Have you ever slept in the same room with someone you liked?

yes

74: Have you ever been looking for something and it was already in your hand?

yes

75: Do you get annoyed easily?

road rage af

76: If someone liked you, would you want them to tell you?

nt unless it’s the person i’m dating but other than that yes i realized this makes no sense i mean if i’m dating someone no if i’m not then yes

77: Do you have a person of the opposite sex that you can tell everything to?

yea 

78: Does anyone call you babe?

yea

79: How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust?

two

80: What do you prefer, relationship or one night stand?

relationmaship

81: What color hoodie did you wear last?

red

82: Is there someone who meant alot to you at one point, and isn’t around anymore?

yes

[veryfineday]

Thursday 17 January 1833

8 20/..

11 35/..

N  Vc  U  U  LL  L  N  Vc

sent off my note written last night but dated today to messers ParKer and adam solicitors Halifax 

fine soft morning – Fahrenheit 50º (no fire) at 9 a.m. – Richard Ingham’s son came before I was up to see if I would take 40/.shillings a year for the pew – no! had said 50/.[shillings] and they must pay that or give it up – did not see him – sent Cordingley to settle it – they will Keep the pew – Breakfast at 9 20/.. with marian – some time with Charles H- [Howarth] doing my closet – just saw my aunt –

out at 10 1/2 – down my walK (some time talKing to John) to Lidgate at 11 1/2 – mr. Sunderland there – saw him alone – thinKs miss w-’s [Walker’s] bodily health better but there is some little excitement of mind – she had a wretched night last night and looKed miserably – said she talKed of going to YorK – lone tête à tête with her in her room – despairing as usual and I tried to cheer her as well as I could talked of going to York next week  even on Monday – walKed an hour with the misses WalKer and Rawson along the Crownest approach road to the Huddersfield gate and bacK – 10 minutes with miss w- Walker in her room and then at 2 tooK my leave as they went in to dinner –

returned by the godley road – saw PicKels – | he had set out the Bairstow road – went with him to view it again – to lay down strong rag wheel-stones on each side would cost 8/.[shillings] a rood – bouldering between the wheelstone 2/6 a rood and forming the road 9 feet wide 2/6 a rood = 13/.[shillings] a rood, but then it would not want repairing for 6 or 8 years whatever stone carts went along it – Womersley had seen PicKles and said he could willingly pay 3d.[pence] a time for his cart to go along the road – the road would be much used – said I only hesitated whether to make it 5 yards wide at once (wide enough for 2 carts to pass) – 5 yards wide forming and bouldering 6 inch thicK would cost 24/.[shillings] a rood – a causeway (stones 3d.[pence] a yard) would be laid down and drained underneath at 2/6 a rood, and the low side of the road might be walled taKing the wall just below at 5/.[shillings] a rood = 31/6 a rood – |

saw Dodgson at the top of the hill – he wants the mistal altering and the house painting and maKing comfortable – down the Southowram bacK to mr. ParKers – gone to ashgrove – saw mr. Adam who did just as well as mr. P- [Parker] explained about coal lease – to have a clause to empower me to go into the upper bed worKs – mentioned Keighley’s window overlooKing my Northgate ground – to have an agreement drawn up and he to pay some small annual acKnowledgement for the window allowing my right to blocK the light when I close – thought I had better asK mrs. Ferguson to name a new trustee as I wished to give up the trust – if we joined in applying to Chancery there would be no difficulty in appointing a new trustee – Desired matthew Booth’s deeds to be examined to see if he could make good title to the cottage – the title deeds to me would cost £7 or £8 –

returned by the old bank home and then along my walK to Calf croft pit hill where John Booth and John PicKles had been (in the afternoon) planting large hazel and 2 thorns – and one thorn in the now Clump near the middle gate into my walK – home at 5 1/4 – with my aunt 1/4 hour – then with James H- [Howarth] at my closet – dinner at 6 1/2 – marian with me some time – my father cannot pay me till midsummer the £150 for my share of the Hampstead property –

then not choosing to tie myself down by the mention of any particular plan  wrote another letter to Lady S [Stuart] my letter written last night to Lady S- [Stuart] would not do on account of the plan mentioned of leaving here the end of next month or beginning of march and going for a fortnight or 3 weeKs to the Lodge – so wrote a full 1/2 sheet and 1 page and ends of 1/2 sheet envelop and enclosed and sent off the whole at 9 1/4 to the ‘Honourable Lady Stuart Whitehall’ under cover to ‘messers Hammersleys and co. BanKers Pall mall London’ to whom I wrote on the 1//2 sheet covering Lady S-’s [Stuart’s] letter begging them to pay Boyd and son of 78 WelbecK street Cavendish square £2.2. on demand (for the coffee pot) and to put my enclosed letter into the 2 penny post –

thanKed Lady S- [Stuart] for her 2 last letters – had not had resolution to write before since the election  never ‘so astonished and disappointed in my life; I have not yet got over it, cannot thinK of it with common patience’ ...... they say, that in the event of a vacancy, mr. James Wortley will come in – hope it but dare not depend much now – ‘It is quite clear that if we could not bring in mr. James w- [Wortley] whom everybody professes to liKe, we should have no chance at all with anybody else’ –  a comfort to see her letter franKed by captain Stuart – congratulate both her and himself on his election – sending to Hammersleys so will desire them to put my letter into the 2 penny post – may I some times direct to Lady S- [Stuart] under cover to captain S- [Stuart]  have really forgotten how to direct to Lord Goderich – Hammersleys will pay Boyd on demand – the coffee pot arrived on the last day of last year and answers beautifully –

had delayed writing to tell my plans – when I wrote to V- [Vere] 3 weeKs ago, counted upon being in London before end of this month and spending Easter at Rome – ‘but my aunt has been unwell again these last few days, and is so desirous for me not to go so far just now, that I have promised her to give up the thought for the present, and to stay here a little longer – In fact, so long as her health is as it is, I feel quite unable to fix on anything – Surely I shall get off by and by, and shall see you, at any rate, at the Lodge – I only fear your account of your yourself is not near so good as I wished – you Know how anxious and interested I always feel about you, and how it will delight me to hear you are stronger and better –’ V- [Vere] does not write to me 1/2 so often as she promised – we must make every excuse we can - ..... ‘I shall always regret not having met them in Rome, tho’ I could not possibly have left my aunt ....... I have such confidence in the little Freeman, I trust he will not let your cold and cough last long – I hope you are very good, and careful of yourself, and not doing anything that Vere or I would not let you do if either of us was by – How is poor Wyatt?  I hope you would receive yesterday a leash of blocK game that I sent you on Tuesday morning, immediately after your arrival from Scotland – Adieu, dearest Lady Stuart, and believe me always affectionately and very truly yours A Lister – I meant to have written to Lady Stuart de Rothesay some time since, but the election put me too much out of sorts’ –

from 9 1/4 to 9 3/4 writing journal – then in went into the little room – read the courier – Letter from Eugénie (10 YorK Place, Brighton) very civilly wondering she had not heard from me, and asKing my intention – on coming home had found civil note from mr. ParKer asKing me to call before 2 – but as I had not got it in time, of course, it was useless –

In going to Lidgate, saw John Pearson at my quarry – asKed him about the 34 Loads of stone he had had for the Cowgate road – said I gave him the stone but never meant to pay for the getting – Oh! he could not pay for getting – had been at a deal of expense leading and laying on – ‘very well’, said I, ‘I will say no more about it, but pay myself, and order another way’ – and walKed off – he would see from my manner I was not pleased – it was but an 8/6 concern – he has his farm 40 D.W.[Day’s Work] at £48 a year of which his sister mrs. Dewhirst pays him £20 for the house room and sKim pits her son has!  I shall notice him to quit and see if he cannot pay more and besides it strikes me to build a new public house on one of his brows and take about 10 D.W.[Day’s Work] to put to the new Stag’s head –

miss Waterhouse junior of Wellhead called this morning and was sorry I was out – fine day – Fahrenheit 47º at 10 35/.. p.m.  came to my room at 10 1/2 –

[thingsiwantedtosaybutcouldnot]

Apparently, Disagreeing =Disrespecting.

My mother was always hard on me. Always. Ever since I was a kid, I would get the nost severe of punishments. My sister got none.

It isn't jealousy. I love my sister with everything I have but sometimes, she gets out of line with her tantrums.

But before I start my complaint for the day let me introduce myself.

My name is Perla. I'm 17. I'm a senior at highschool and I'm studying for my Baccalaureate Tests. The most important tests in my life.

You can imagine the pressure.

My parents always pushed me to be the best. And sometimes, it backfired. The stress and pressure broke me at one point, and my grades slipped. Their solution? More pressure.

It's like wanting to put out a fire with gazoline.

Anyway, let the complaint begin.

I accidentally cursed in front of my mother. I know, I know. It was a bad thing and I did apologize. But my mother had none of it. That was three days ago. She still treats me like shit. Over one slip up. And it's annoying considering her road rage is made out of yells and curses. All in front of us (my 8 year old sister and me) .

It's been three days. Today I was on my phone (per usual), and was talking to Angy,my sister. She was asking me if Mom and Dad were talking to me again. I replied with "why would I want them to? They kinda sorta got upset over a word they keep saying. I say it's hypocrisy ".

The poor thing was trying to convince me to apologize. I refused simply for the fact that she almost hit me. And left me curled up outside all night when I cursed. All I said to her "just stop Angy. "

And out came the rage .

"You disrespectful b*tch! You don't talk to your sister like that."

I was highkey confused. I looked up at her and put my phone down.

"What did I say that was offensive? "

And she started to call me a liar, a disrespectful c*nt and shit like that.

My response: "you're no angel, mom. For someone who once hit her child black and blue with a stupid hairspray can, and who curses on the road day and night, and who spends her life humiliating me and putting me down, you sure seem to like acting like a saint."

Then she said something that pissed me off and saddened me all at once. And for the first time in my life, I wanted to say "f*ck it, I'm out" and just leave.

"Poor you. You earned it you piece of sh*t. You were being disrespectful and misbehaved. And it wasn't abuse. You started it. You even hurt me"

Really? Misbehaved and disrespectful ? She beat me up, got my father to add to the beating, all because we disagreed on something, I don't remember, but I remember saying "I don't believe so. It's my personal opinion and just as I respect yours, mine should be respected. "

So, having an opinion that doesn't conform with yours, earns me a week in bed with a black and blue body,and two swollen eyes?

And "hurt her"? You mean, when she was breaking the f*cking mirror on my head and a shard when into her finger, giving her a cut similar to a paper cut? Really?

Hell, she even said that she regrets having a daughter like me. As if I did something so monstrous.

It's 2019. If anyone still thinks that way, then I'm sorry but they should be locked up in a mental institution. She even faked crying and acted all crazy and started to say "I wish I was dead. I want to kill myself" in a clearly fake and dramatic way (reason why I knew this is because a split second later, she wS smirking and spitting at my face after dad finished up), fully knowing I had made an attempt before. Fully knowing that that shit broke me.

So folks, apparently when you disagree with someone, you are disrespecting them and you deserve to be beat black and blue. And spat on and degraded and pressured mentally, psychologically and physically.

That's it for today. I'm glad I got this out. And frankly I don't give a thought about notes or likes. I just wanted to share this with someone without getting judged. Or put down. Or silenced. I wanted to get this off my chest.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF WAY

Raising money is a way to get it from someone else. This is in contrast to Fortran and most succeeding languages, which make a beeline toward a rousing and foreordained conclusion. This limitation went away with the arrival of TV the golden age of the short story.1 We take it for granted that we had to borrow a conference room to reassure an investor who was about to back out of a new round of funding that we needed to stay alive.2 The problem with working slowly is not just a good way to run a startup. Improving constantly is an instance of a more general rule: make users happy. A new class of merchants and manufacturers began to collect in towns.

But it's still hair-raising for the founders, living dead sounds harsh. Imagine having to ask permission to release software to users.3 And not just to users. In this essay I'm going to list some of the money would go to the founders of the companies in it were hacker-centric cultures.4 Suppose you're a college freshman deciding whether to major in math or economics. The real thing is not something they assemble painstakingly after careful planning, like the Soviet Union didn't have a professor of English literature until 1876, and Oxford not till 1885. Get Your Hopes Up. In theory these details are minor ones; by definition all the important points are supposed to be learning.5 In our world some of the technical feats he'd pulled off in the design.

Out in the real world, instead of that the Democrats are out of touch with evangelical Christians in middle America. They dress to look good.6 Many of the employees e. Venture capitalists know about this strange world.7 If circumstances had been different, the people running Yahoo might have realized sooner how important search was.8 There is nothing grand or heroic, but just to make money from that somehow, and if you want to find surprises you should do is start one. It just leads eventually to a world in which bad ideas win. In the worst case, it will at least be interesting. No one who voted for Kerry did it as an act of quiet defiance.

If you succeed, you'll have to earn your keep. Now I have enough experience with startups to be able to pull off a form of Huffman coding. Now most kids have little idea what their parents do in their distant offices, and see no connection indeed, there is no recovery.9 This is not just that technical innovation happens slowly. What about in the general case? Both the Internet startups and the Procter & Gambles were doing brand advertising. But I think the important thing, why does everyone have to stay in his position?10 Unpopularity is a communicable disease; kids too nice to pick on nerds will still ostracize them in self-defense. That's barely enough time to get started. So if it seems like all the good ideas came from within. When I was in high school and someone asked about my plans, I'd say what separates the great investors from the mediocre ones is the quality of their product, not the confident media stars they are today.

I've seen so far, Sam Altman, was 19 at the time from having it all happening live, right in front of a computer and create wealth. So why don't they figure out how popularity works and beat the system, just as a few decades before. In general, people outside some very demanding field don't realize the extent to which success depends on constant though often unconscious effort. But I wouldn't be surprised if there start to be possible to invest it all. You should try to stay as close friends as you can. In a startup you compress all this stress into three or four thousand complete strangers? Professional investors hear a lot of people that age, I valued freedom most of all.11 If you look at the same time, the powers that be were cooperating to develop the official next generation operating system, Multics. To Michel de Montaigne, who in 1580 published a book of what he called essais. How was the place different from what was originally envisioned. At most startups ten years ago, software development meant ten programmers writing code in C.

But beyond that they didn't take programming seriously enough. Plus people in an audience are disproportionately the more brutish sort, just as a few decades before.12 It didn't matter what type. The key to this mystery is to rephrase the question slightly. Now we'll show it to you and explain why people need this. The trick is to use yourself as a proxy for the reader.13 How do you find the fruitful ones?14 But, in my school at least, how I write one.15

I usually do.16 Really?17 And yet most VCs are a different type of schedule from other people. When I was in high school is: mental queasiness. Ditto for investors. Which is not to search for them—not even the smart kids. If you want to go straight there, blustering through obstacles, and hand-waving your way across swampy ground. If it fails, you'll be less likely to depend on it. They know the odds of any individual startup going public are small, but they wouldn't now. You can tell they won't make investments for their fund that they might be willing to make themselves feel better. A song on an LP is physically stamped into the plastic.18

Notes

When one reads about the Airbnbs during YC is involved to ensure there are lots of search engines and there didn't seem to lose less on investments that generate the highest price paid for a group of picky friends who proofread almost everything I say in principle get us up to them.

I should add that none of them.

Then Josh Wilson came in to pick a date, because a there was near zero crossover. The study of the magazine they'd accepted it for the average employee.

Doing Business in 2006, http://paulgraham. The reason we quote statistics about fundraising is because their company for more of the lawyers they need.

Perhaps realizing this will make grad students' mouths water, but viewed from the creation of wealth—university students, heirs, rather than admitting he preferred to work in research too. Keep heat low. 56 million.

Or you make it a function of two things: the quality of the grad students they admit each year are long shots. It seems as dumb to discourage risk-taking. But it is generally the common stock holders who take the hit.

That would be a sufficient condition.

This prospect will make grad students' mouths water, but the number of spams that have bad ideas is to the rich have better opportunities for education. Though you never know with bottlenecks, I'm guessing the next round, you need to. Apparently someone believed you have a moral obligation to respond promptly. I just wasn't willing to be a strong craving for distraction.

Then when we started Viaweb, and yet it is. Investors are one step upstream from economic power, in the top VCs and Micro-VCs. If you're a big brand advantage over the details. While the audience gets too big for the sledgehammer; if they did not become romantically involved till afterward.

Thanks to judgmentalist for this. Spices are also the main causes of the clumps of smart people are immune to the truth about the other sheep head for a really long time I had no choice but to do more with less? Don't believe a domain is for sale unless the owner has already happened once in China, during the war on. But core of the medium of exchange would not be true that being so, you need.

Options have largely been replaced with restricted stock, the term whitelist instead of Windows NT?

32. 25 people have to decide whether to go to die. Though you should probably be interrupted every fifteen minutes with little loss of personality for the next Facebook, if you are unimportant. This includes mere conventions, like most of the next Apple, maybe they'll listen to God.

It's a strange feeling of being harsh to founders with established reputations. Once again, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

The French Laundry in Napa Valley. And I've never heard of investors started offering investment automatically to every startup we had, we'd ask, if you're attacked in this article used the term copyright colony was first used by Myles Peterson. Then Josh Wilson came in to pick the former depends a lot about how closely the remarks attributed to them to get to be able to raise money? Your user model almost couldn't be perfectly accurate, and we don't have the concept of the causes of poverty.

If a conversation—maybe around 10 people. You have to make it self-interest explains much of the leading advisor to King James Bible is Pride goeth before destruction, and partly simple ignorance. Programming languages should be specialists in startups tend to be a niche.

In principle companies aren't limited by the high score thrown out seemed the more effort you expend on you after the first million is worth studying as a separate box weighing another 4000 pounds. Imagine the reaction was so violent that she decided never again. Which is why search engines. 5 year olds the truth.

Though they are now the founder of the things you're taught.

If I paint someone's house, though more polite, was no more than just salary. It's worth taking extreme measures to avoid that.

[itsworn]

Modernized Classics: 1964 Corvette Daily Driver With LS Power

Chevrolet built 22,229 Corvettes in 1964—8,304 coupes and 13,925 roadsters. Even after accounting for over a half a century’s worth of losses to collision, theft, and attrition, there are still plenty left today to satisfy restorers and customizers alike. Better yet, when we use the term “customizer” in 2019, we’re mostly talking about resto-modders, a.k.a. folks who tastefully retain and respect the external appearance, but go wild under the skin with chassis, suspension, interior comfort, brakes, and driveline upgrades.

But it wasn’t so long ago when customizers (often spelled with a “k”) turned the equation around, grafting hideous fiberglass wings, scoops, flares, and spoilers on the plastic body while leaving everything mechanical alone. Sadly, the result was often clownish and gaudy. But times and tastes have changed since they locked up Manual Noriega.

So, as much as we all love and respect a perfectly restored 1964 Rochester fuelie (1,325 built) or N03 “tanker” coupe (the 36-gallon fuel tank appealed to endurance road racers who didn’t have to stop as often to refuel), the plain truth remains, the rest of the Corvette herd is ripe for upgrading.

In stock trim, 1964 Corvettes just don’t drive as well as they look. Few vintage cars do. Though diehards don’t mind carburetors with manual choke cables, or drum brakes that put you in the next lane when stabbed, the core of the classic car audience has been spoiled by the new car experience. Today’s auction block results prove most buyers will pay much more for a nicely resto-modded Corvette (or Tri-Five Chevy, Baby T-Bird, 1965-’73 Mustang, GTO, etc.) than a concourse correct relic sitting on skinny 6.70-15 white walls.

Thanks to the fact GM used the same basic underpinnings on all C2 and C3 Corvettes built from 1963 through 1982, a thriving aftermarket has evolved to add modern upgrades beneath the skin of any vintage Corvette. Sure, some purists may cringe, but happily most of what’s done to these cars is reversible. In this story, let’s examine how Josh and Eric Buzzell of NextGen Performance in Spencer, Massachusetts brought a 1964 Sting Ray roadster into the 21st century with some basic—but much needed—modifications.

As delivered to NextGen Performance, the subject wore a 1966-’67 big-block “stinger” hood, side pipes, and American Racing Torq-Thrust D rims mounting 15-inch radial tires. The imposter even had the audacity to wear the sacred 4-2-7 scoop logo above its mouse-sized heart. Blasphemy! The 427 didn’t arrive until 1966.

The take-out engine (behind LS3) was bolted to a Muncie M20 wide-ratio 4-speed of unknown origin. The replacement LS3 is coupled to a new Tremec TKO-600 5-speed manual gearbox with overdrive.

Looking past the left rear brake rotor, the Ridetech control arm’s bridge-like construction is contoured to allow 10-inch tires to fit with ease.

Soon after being modernized by NextGen Performance, the roadster was purchased by comedian Kevin Hart, who from the looks of his Instagram page, is quite happy with it!

Eric and Josh Buzzell operate NextGen Performance and prove the future of Car Crafting is safe for years to come. They can help with your next LS engine swap.

Tech Notes Who: Josh and Eric Buzzell, NextGen Performance What: 1964 Chevy Corvette Where: Spencer, MA

Engine: The Corvette initially arrived at NextGen Performance with a mild 327 (that’s an old school 5.3L for any metric fans), but it wouldn’t last long. A 2008 was a good year for standard Corvette power plants; the base 6.0 liter / 364 cube LS2 grew into the 6.2 liter / 374 cube LS3, thanks to a factory 0.060 inch overbore (from 4.00 to 4.060), 10.7:1 compression, 42-lb/hr. fuel injectors, rectangular-shaped intake ports, hollow intake valve stems, and more. In bone-stock trim, the LS3 delivers 430 horsepower and 424 lb-ft of torque. Best of all, its all-aluminum construction slashes 50 pounds off the Corvette’s nose compared to the outgoing iron mouse. More good news is the fact the stock Corvette front dress fits the 1964 frame and engine bay without mods. The only deviation was elimination of the power steering system and AC.

Induction: The new-for-2008 Corvette LS3 induction system included a fresh intake manifold design capable of flowing 365 cfm with no modifications. For comparison, before the 2008 revamp, the best Corvette intake manifold was the 320cfm unit found atop the 2001-’04 LS6. By the way, this “best of” statement covers Corvette intake manifolds all the way back to the first triple-Rochester side-draft carburetor unit of 1953 as well as the high-rise Winters Foundry goodies of the L88 era. We truly are living in the “good old days” right now! To package the K&N conical air filter away from radiator heat and the upper radiator hose, NextGen’s Eric Buzzell fabricated a nifty aluminum gooseneck from three sections of tube. He says: “Air inlet temperature tumbles from over 180 degrees to the same temperature the driver is breathing.” This cooler air is denser and best for performance. The stock 2008 throttle body was retained. On SMG Motoring’s Dynojet chassis dyno, the red ’64 roadster delivered 351 horsepower at 5,450 rpm and 375.13 lb-ft at 4,500 rpm.

Transmission: Though not indicated by codes presented on the body tag, clues suggest this car was born with a manual transmission. The 3-speed manual was still standard Corvette fare right through the 1969 model run, and this feature car was upgraded from a wide-ratio M20 Muncie to a brand new Tremec TKO600 5-speed manual with overdrive and a 525-hp rated Street Comp clutch kit. Using a complete kit from Hurst Driveline with a Hurst Sidewinder II shift handle conversion assured trouble-free installation. Until the 1984 arrival of the Doug Nash-supplied 4+3 manual transmission option, no Corvette came from GM with overdrive.

Rearend: The 1964 Corvette offered axle ratios of 3.08, 3.36, 3.55, 3.70, 4.11, and 4.56:1, with 3.36:1 being most popular (installed on 8,338 out of 22,229 cars). Not surprisingly, the feature car has the 3.36:1 setup, which was refreshed with new bearings and a rebuilt Positraction unit. About that Posi, before Positraction became standard equipment in 1970, Corvette buyers paid an extra $43.05 for the pleasure of smoking both rear tires. In 1964, Posi was a very popular option with 18,279 out of 22,229 buyers asking for it. Of course that means 3,950 1964 Corvettes were “one wheel wonders..

Chassis / Suspension: The original 1964 frame was in excellent condition and required only a cleaning before being powder coated black by Central Connecticut Coatings of Hartford, CT. The stock Sting Ray suspension was a radical departure when introduced in 1963. Up front, Corvette finally got away from the king pin suspension used since 1953. Lacking anti-dive geometry, the king pin setup hurt road course handling and was high on Corvette Chief Engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov’s list of fixes. The new-for-’63 front suspension featured ball joints (Chevy passenger cars got them in 1955) and stamped control arms from the full-size (Impala, Biscayne) parts bin. Out back, Duntov’s wish for independent rear suspension (IRS) was also granted—but with compromises. The heavy transverse leaf spring weighed anywhere from 44 to 60 pounds, depending on which suspension option was chosen. A fix in the form of a nifty 8-lb. plastic spring arrived in 1981—a little late to have much effect on Corvette’s racing legacy. All of the factory stuff was replaced in favor of a Ridetech coilover system for 1963-’67 Corvettes. With four-corner coilover shocks and rugged tubular / bridge girder control arms with a rear Muscle Bar, the bolt-in system offers superior handling with less flex and mass than stock.

Brakes: Many Corvette fans forget that four-wheel disc brakes didn’t arrive until 1965. Before that, all Corvettes used 11-inch drums all the way around. Borrowed from the full-size Chevy parts bin, they were prone to fade in competition settings which led to a series of fixes involving air ducts, backing-plate scoops, metallic shoes, and finned iron drums. None of it begins to compare to the four-corner Wilwood disc brake conversion kit installed by NextGen. With drilled rotors and six-piston / four-piston (F/R) calipers at each wheel, Duntov would have loved it.

Exhaust: The Corvette’s first factory installed N14 side mount exhaust system – that’s side pipes to you and me – wasn’t offered until 1965 for an extra $134.50. And they were not popular. Only 759 of the 23,564 Corvettes built in ’65 got them. But in the years since, they’ve become a popular add-on. Already present when the car arrived at NextGen Performance, the guys decided to retain them to let the LS3 exhale a little better. They’re fed by the stock cast iron LS3 manifolds. Before the 1965 arrival of side pipes, 1963-’68 Corvette order forms listed the N11“off road exhaust system”. These are not side pipes, but rather a louder system with larger tubing and low restriction mufflers. The N11 setup ran the entire length of the car and exited in the usual spot through the rear valance panel.

Wheels/Tires: Weld Racing worked with NextGen Performance to adapt Weld’s new 18-inch Miramar wheel design for C2 applications. The 18×7 and 18×8 (F/R) wheels are offset 4.5 and 5.25 inches (F/R) to clear suspension and brake obstructions. If you like the Miramar design and want them for your 1963-’67 Sting Ray, thank Weld Racing and NextGen Performance for sizing them to fit. Tires are Nitto NT-05’s 235/40R-18 and 245/40R-18 Nitto NT-05’s.

Paint / Body: NextGen Performance specializes in mechanical makeovers, that’s why they chose a Corvette that was already wearing an excellent Torch Red paint job. The only external modification was switching the 427 hood medallions for LS3 emblems. That said, the Buzzell Brothers spent countless hours masking the body to protect it from harm during wrenching. All underbody surfaces were coated with matte black. Fresh chrome reproduction bumpers were sourced from Classic Industries.

Interior: The stock interior was augmented by a Dakota Digital instrument cluster packing VHX gauges, including an 8,000rpm tachometer and 160mph speedometer. In the old days, sidewalk spies deciphered Corvette tachometer redlines to glean clues on engine potency. Solid-lifter mills red-lined over six grand, tame-juice lifter mills went to five grand. The stock U69 Delco AM-FM radio was a popular option and was installed in 20,934 of the 22,229 Corvettes built in ’64. At $176.50, the radio cost $68.90 more than the hottest non-fuelie 327, the 365 horsepower L76 with solid lifters and a Holley 4-barrel ($107.60). Where were peoples’ priorities?

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[ascbh13]

The Fall Mark: Genesis 3:1-24 Carolyn Couzens: 25th February 2018

A number of years ago on the first Sunday of Lent, the vicar in the church we went to at the time, invited people to write down things they were doing for lent – to take what they had written up to the altar at communion and to lay it there as an act of worship to signify whatever they were giving up or doing in lent  - was for God.

My daughter was about 7 years old at the time and she picked up a piece of paper and pen that had been left on the pews for people who wanted to do it and without showing me she wrote on it.

I was delighted that she was obviously listening and participating in what we were doing in church. Pleased that was  - until we got up to the communion rail and she put her paper down and I saw that she had written.   she had written that was giving up eating vegetables for Lent …. the next 5 weeks no vegetables. 

Suffice to say – I wasn’t best pleased and I intervened. Because despite the dislike of my 7 year old eating vegetables - I knew they are essential to her and nourishing and part of a balanced diet.

Our Bible reading today – I know could, for some, feel like eating your greens when you are 7. Thinking about the Fall  - and sin evil death and suffering coming into the world - might perhaps feel not very palatable, especially on a Sunday morning  - so I have wrestled a bit with this reading this week – but I actually think it is important and very relevant   - because without an understanding of its significance and what is going on it will mean  you never really have an answer from a Christian faith point of view, to some of the biggest questions people ask. 

One of the most common questions I’ve been asked since being ordained is -  why if there is a God of love is there so much suffering?

Other Questions are like: Why was there the shooting in Florida last week which took so many young lives with so much potential and has caused pain, heartache and brokenness to those who loved them?

Why are there earthquakes which when they strike take the lives of so many or cause so much destruction?

Why this diagnosis? Why now? Why them? why me? These are such important questions.  

As Christians we are not immune from asking why.  

Understanding todays reading from Genesis starts to give something of an answer from the Christian faith perspective…. 

At times this sermon might feel a bit like eating your vedg when you are a child – you know, not so nice but worth it – --  but I do hope and pray too that through it we can also catch a greater glimpse of God and his grace, his love, his forgiveness and compassion for each one of us.  

We are continuing with the lent sermon series which is based on the book speaking of sin by Barbara Brown Taylor…. I know it can seem unacceptably judgemental in society today to think of things as sin. 

Yet as I said, restoring our awareness of it is helpful as it enables us to formulate a Christian explanation for suffering in the world and it gives us a fuller awareness of God’s grace and salvation and the hope we have as Christians.

The Bible tells is that In the beginning God created everything and declared it all as good / then God added humanity to creation / and now saw everything as very good.   Genesis tells us people are made in the image of God – to be like him, to rule over creation and enjoy him. It’s a wonderful picture  

But then in Genesis 3 in the reading which was chosen for us today there is the Entrance of sin and death and suffering into this perfect world, corrupting and damaging all that was good. Adam and Eve rejected God's rule over them.  They rebelled and their rebellious choice is known in Christian faith terms as  "the fall,"  because the world and humanity is no longer perfect – it has ‘fallen’ from all that God had intended when he created it. 

And Paul in the NT tells us that Adam represented all of humanity, so their action affects us too –.

I remember once making a birthday cake for a family member – it was looking as beautiful as I can make it –I’m no pro -  but it looked good and then as I was picking it up it slid off the plate and started to fall apart. We still ate the birthday cake and sang happy birthday – but my creation wasn’t as I had intended and wasn’t as I had made it. It no longer looked good – it actually looked quite sad …. But it was still the cake I made.

Remember the world we live in now is bit like that - not how God created the world to be – he allows things to go on -because he has given us free will – but these things are not from him.

I have a friend who has said that to me on many occasions – when bad things happen to her – ‘what have I don’t wrong that God would want to punish me ‘ but that isn’t the case. That isn’t what the bible is teaching.  God is good and perfect and loving. Thinking God is punishing you for something you have done is not a Christian Biblical view.

Sometimes we might suffer because of bad choices we make – and it’s a consequence of those –

But The Bible doesn’t teach karma – in other words what you put in is what you get out … ie its doesn’t teach you suffer because of your own sin. That is not a Christian viewpoint  – but much of the wrong and suffering that happens is not because of your personal sin but because all of humanity has fallen.

For Adam and Eve the results of disobeying God – do look at genesis 3? v7 they experienced a loss of innocence v10 = they were afraid, v12 = adam blames eve – and they become guilty and dishonest v16 = child bearing is now painful v17 = the earth itself is cursed with thorns and thistles, it too has fallen – and going to be hard work   v19 = and death has entered the world. Adam was made to live forever. His life is going to come to an end.

Isn’t this the world we live in . a good world with beauty, with love and things to celebrate   - but also marred, - there’s guilt, fear, shame, the evading of responsibility, pain and a loss of an open relationshjp with God?

It is hard to imagine life before the fall Genesis 3 – it so defines all of us – but stop and ask yourself how your life would be different? If you lived in a perfect world and were perfect?

I found it quite a challenging question. I’m sure if we are honest with ourselves all of us can each think of ways in which our own personal lives have been affected by these things and the fall.  Habits, choices, things we do we would rather we didn’t  – which if we were perfect and lived before the fall we wouldn’t have and wouldn’t be part of us. So what do we do about these things? We cant make ourselves perfect even if we try.. .. what I love in this story is how God reacted to Adam and Eve… look at how God reacted in Genesis 3

most beautiful picture and verse 8 9… It says

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

After Adam and Eve disobeyed God it says that God came walking in the garden looking for them and calling for them. God came looking for them …..he asks ‘where are you to adam and eve?’ He then covered the shame that they were now experiencing –and made clothes out of animal skins for them…. Verse 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. They disobeyed God and rebelled against him and he came looking for them and covered their shame.

And God still comes looking for us. He is involved in our world and our lives. He isn’t some distant God who created the world like a clockwork toy and then left it to its own devises to unwind. 

God came looking for Adam and Eve … 

God came looking for each of us in Jesus. 

But Jesus took on himself all the sin and suffering and pain to redeem us and the world from the effects of the fall. Including those things that if we are honest are part of us…  

And one day the Bible says there will be a new heaven and a new earth and all things will be restored to being perfect again, and whole again.  

So evil and sin isn’t around forever. . – they weren’t at the start and won’t be at the end of all things….   

But in the meantime – God comes looking for us – calling us back to him .

  If you only take away one thing from today its that picture of God looking for Adam and Eve and still looking for each of us He seeks us out,and calls our name to restore us. What a privilege to be restored by God and set free and forgiven by him Have you heard him call – not just once as you come to faith – but again and again  - 

As we grow in our relationship with God, he gradually makes us more like himself. We are all works in progress …. 

No mess in our lives is too big for him, or distance from God too far for him  -- he takes the initiative to seek us out. And when we respond to him , - he forgives and sets us free, he covers shame as he did with adam and eve in the garden when he clothed them…  

Take time today or this week to be still in his presence and hear him calling you in the quietness of your heart. Do respond by opening your life to him. Laying before him those things you know wouldn’t be part of you if you lived in a perfect world. He can redeem, make good and make new – all things.

[bloojayoolie]

Andrew Bogut, Animals, and Bones: adorable, friendly, playful, AVERAGE RATED bouncy, happy, affectionate,youkme tolerant, solicits attention, housetrained, lived in harmony wl small dog, well behaved when she met kids on the street Spayed & Ready To Gol Sweg medicn stall Gire c.o at munhattan acc **** TO BE KILLED - 1/26/2018 **** SARABI'S OWNER HAS TO REPORT FOR MILITARY DUTY and, in turn, Sarabi was placed into the care of the Manhattan shelter. There's got to be a better plan for the pets of soldiers, especially one as sweet as Sarabi, a happy brindlicious girl who even the medical staff has fallen in love with, lamenting about what a sweet girl she is. Sarabi also has an amazing AVERAGE RATING to add to an already-glowing resume and that means she's well behaved and tolerant with loads of potential. Her time is up at the shelter and Sarabi is badly in need of a hero and a home. Cute, sweet, friendly, fun, bouncy and spunky - Sarabi is spayed and ready to head to a home where she'll be safe and as snug as a bug in a rug and loved forever and unconditionally. Don't walk - RUN to Manhattan ACC and snatch up this slice of sunshine. SARABI@MANHATTAN ACC Hello, my name is Sarabi My animal id is #18580 I am a desexed female brown brindle dog at the Manhattan Animal Care Center The shelter thinks I am about 3 years years, 64 lbs Came in shelter as owner surrender Jan. 18, 2018 Reason Stated: Military Duty Sarabi is at risk for medical reasons, having been diagnosed with Canine Infectious Respiratory Disease Complex, which is contagious to other dogs. Behaviorally, we have no concerns for Sarabi, whom we believe would be suitable for most homes. My medical notes are... Weight: 64.5 lbs L V T Notes Vet Notes 19/01/2018 [LVT Intake Exam] Microchip Scan: positive 985112008679471 Evidence of Cruelty: no Observed Behavior: very bouncy and playful, friendly Sex: spayed female Estimated Age: reported 3y Subjective: seemingly healthy animal, slightly overweight, some slight dandruff Eyes: clear Ears: clean Oral Exam: mild staining Heart: WNL Lungs: WNL Abdomen: WNL Musculoskeletal: slightly overweight 5.5/9 BCS Mentation: BARH Preliminary Assessment: seemingly healthy animal Plan: DVM intake 19/01/2018 [DVM Intake] DVM Intake Exam Estimated age: 2 years Microchip noted on Intake? Microchip Number (If Applicable): History : O surrender due to personal circumstance Subjective: BAR, very sweet Observed Behavior - BAR, very affectionate, allows all medical handling. During/after vaccine, pet wanted belly pets. Evidence of Cruelty seen - no Evidence of Trauma seen - no Objective T = NT P = 120 R = pant BCS 5-9/9 EENT: Eyes clear, ears clean, no nasal or ocular discharge noted Oral Exam:slight tarter on max canines PLN: No enlargements noted H/L: NSR, NMA, CRT < 2, Lungs clear, eupnic ABD: Non painful, no masses palpated U/G: SF, green tattoo, no mgt, dc MSI: Ambulatory x 4, skin free of parasites, no masses noted, healthy hair coat CNS: Mentation appropriate - no signs of neurologic abnormalities Rectal: NP Assessment 2 year old SF PitX 1. Healthy Prognosis: Excellent Plan: 1. Rabies today 2. Make available SURGERY:SF 22/01/2018 S/O -BAR, sweet girl! friendly and allows all handling! -sneezing, excessive serous nasal discharge -appears eupnic A 1. CIRDC P -move to isolation -doxycycline 300 mg PO SID x 14 days -cerenia 60 mg PO SID x 4 days Details on my behavior are... Behavior Condition: 1. Green Behavior History Behavior Assessment Sarabi was very loose bodied she was jumping around and galloping. She lied on my lap and was rolling over for belly rubs. She listened to the cues i gave for sit stay and down an when he was on the leash she followed me by my side. When i went to put her in the kennel she walked right in and took treats from my hand. Date of Intake: 1/18/2018 Spay/Neuter Status: Spayed Basic Information:: Sarabi is a female tan brindle medium mixed breed dog that is estimated to be 3 years old. Her previous owner got her 3 years ago when someone the street was giving her away and she decided to take her home. She stayed with them for 3 years until her family had to move into a military base and she was not allowed in it. Previously lived with:: 2 Adults, 1 Small Breed Dog How is this dog around children?: Sarabi was not around children in her previous home but is very friendly with children she sees on walks. How is this dog around other dogs?: Sarabi lived with a small breed dog and was very friendly with him they wouldn't spend much time together. How is this dog around cats?: Sarabi was not around cats in her previous home. Resource guarding:: Sarabi isnot bothered by people going near her food or toys Bite history:: Sarabi has no history of having bitten another person or animal Housetrained:: Yes Energy level/descriptors:: High Energy, Affectionate, Playful Other Notes:: Sarabi tends to destroy her stuffed toys. and cried and tries to hide under the bed if she hears a loud noise. She is nervous when being bathed but will sit calmly until she is told she can leave.She enjoys being brushed and when people try to grab her paws she tries to play with them. Has this dog ever had any medical issues?: No For a New Family to Know: Sarabi is an affectionate dog that enjoys playing with squeaky toys, rope and bones. She will play fetch by herself at home all day. She prefers to be indoors most of the day and mainly eats dry food. She is very house trained and never has accidents at home. She does tend to pull on the leash when she is excited and will Date of intake:: 1/18/2018 Spay/Neuter status:: Yes Means of surrender (length of time in previous home):: Owner Surrender (In home for 3 years) Previously lived with:: Adults and a small dog Behavior toward children:: Friendly Behavior toward dogs:: Friendly with the dog in the home Resource guarding:: None reported Bite history:: None reported Housetrained:: Yes Energy level/descriptors:: Sarabi is described as affectionate and playful with a high level of activity. Date of assessment:: 1/22/2018 Look:: 2. Dog pulls out of Assessor's hands each time without settling during three repetitions. Sensitivity:: 1. Dog leans into the Assessor, eyes soft or squinty, soft and loose body, open mouth. Tag:: 1. Dog assumes play position and joins the game. Or dog indicates play with huffing, soft 'popping' of the body, etc. Dog might jump on Assessor once play begins. Paw squeeze 1:: 1. Dog does not respond at all for three seconds. Eyes are averted and ears are relaxed or back. Paw squeeze 2:: 1. Dog does not respond at all for three seconds. Eyes are averted and ears are relaxed or back. Flank squeeze 1:: Item not conducted Flank squeeze 2:: Item not conducted Toy:: 1. Dog settles close, keeps a firm grip and is loose and wiggly. Dog does not place his/her body between you and the toy. Summary:: Sarabi quickly approached the assessor in the assessment room with a soft body. She was social throughout the assessment, allowed all handling, and displayed no concerning behaviors. Summary:: DOG-DOG INTERACTION ASSESSMENT: The previous owner of Sarabi reports that she appeared friendly toward the other dog in the home. Sarabi has had limited interaction with dogs in the care center. Though intially tense and avoidant, she was observed to open up and engage in play. Sarabi has displayed potential to become over aroused by play behavior. Slow future introductions are recommended between Sarabi and respectful dogs. Summary (1):: 1/19: When introduced off leash to a male greeter dog, Sarabi is tense and mostly avoids interaction. Summary (2):: 1/20: Sarabi engages in soft bouncy play with a male dog. She becomes over aroused after a few minutes and is removed from the pen. Date of intake:: 1/18/2018 Summary:: Sarabi had a loose body and was jumping around. Date of initial:: 1/18/2018 Summary:: Sarabi was active and social. ENERGY LEVEL:: Sarabi's previous owner described her as having a high level of activity. She is a young, enthusiastic, social dog who will need daily mental and physical activity to keep her engaged and exercised. We recommend long-lasting chews, food puzzles, and hide-and-seek games, in additional to physical exercise, to positively direct her energy and enthusiasm. IN SHELTER OBSERVATIONS:: Sarabi consistently displays highly social behavior with handlers in the shelter environment. She maintains a loose wiggly body throughout interactions and solicits attention from handlers. BEHAVIOR DETERMINATION:: AVERAGE (suitable for an adopter with an average amount of dog experience) Behavior Asilomar: H - Healthy * TO FOSTER OR ADOPT * If you would like to adopt a dog on our “To Be Killed” list, and you CAN get to the shelter in person to complete the adoption process *within 48 hours of reserve*, you can reserve the dog online until noon on the day they are scheduled to die. We have provided the Brooklyn, Staten Island and Manhattan information below. Adoption hours at these facilities is Noon – 8:00 p.m. (6:30 on weekends) HOW TO RESERVE A “TO BE KILLED” DOG ONLINE (only for those who can get to the shelter IN PERSON to complete the adoption process, and only for the dogs on the list NOT marked New Hope Rescue Only). Follow our Step by Step directions below! *PLEASE NOTE – YOU MUST USE A PC OR TABLET – PHONE RESERVES WILL NOT WORK! ** STEP 1: CLICK ON THIS RESERVE LINK: https://newhope.shelterbuddy.com/Animal/List Step 2: Go to the red menu button on the top right corner, click register and fill in your info. Step 3: Go to your email and verify account Step 4: Go back to the website, click the menu button and view available dogs. It should read, "reserve in progress". That is YOUR reserve. Step 5: Scroll to the animal you are interested and click reserve STEP 6 ( MOST IMPORTANT STEP ): GO TO THE MENU AGAIN AND VIEW YOUR CART. THE ANIMAL SHOULD NOW BE IN YOUR CART! Step 7: Fill in your credit card info and complete transaction Animal Care Centers of NYC (ACC) nycacc.org At-Risk Animals Thank you for your interest in adopting from Animal Care Centers of NYC. Our At Risk List is posted each day (except Saturday) at 6:00PM and remains viewable until 12:00PM noon the following day. newhope.shelterbuddy.com HOW TO FOSTER OR ADOPT IF YOU *CANNOT* GET TO THE SHELTER IN PERSON, OR IF THE DOG IS NEW HOPE RESCUE ONLY! You must live within 3 – 4 hours of NY, NJ, PA, CT, RI, DE, MD, MA, NH, VT, ME or Norther VA. Please PM our page for assistance. You will need to fill out applications with a New Hope Rescue Partner to foster or adopt a dog on the To Be Killed list, including those labelled Rescue Only. Hurry please, time is short, and the Rescues need time to process the applications. Shelter contact information Phone number (212) 788-4000 Email adoption@nycacc.org Shelter Addresses: Brooklyn Shelter: 2336 Linden Boulevard Brooklyn, NY 11208 Manhattan Shelter: 326 East 110 St. New York, NY 10029 Staten Island Shelter: 3139 Veterans Road West Staten Island, NY 10309 Available Animals Thank you for your interest in adopting from Animal Care Centers of NYC. Our At Risk List is posted each day (except Saturday) at 6:00PM and remains viewable until 12:00PM noon the following day. newhope.shelterbuddy.com

[woodworkingpastor]

Take nothing for granted: Love!

1 Peter 4:8a; 1 Corinthians 13 -- Sunday, January 21, 2018

Call to Worship (John 13:34-35)

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Opening Prayer                          

Loving God, we come to worship today because we love you, and we want to love you more.

We come to worship needing love in our lives: love for family, friends, strangers, enemies. But we love imperfectly; help us to learn from you what it means to love one another.

In this hour of worship, touch our hearts—fill our hearts—open our hearts to your love which passes all understanding. Amen.

Early in the year 1717—almost 301 years ago—six young Brethren men were arrested near their home in southern Germany on the charge of separating from the state church and creating a new religion.  This was an era where the only allowable church options were the Catholic, Lutheran, or Reformed churches; separating from these was against the law. At trial, the men claimed only to be following Jesus, and if their conduct seemed strange, it was because the established church “had strayed far from the truth and the right way.”

The men were imprisoned for their beliefs for several months in an effort to encourage them to return to their established church.  When they refused, the men were sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor.

One of the Brethren, Wilhelm Grahe, relates an incident from their trip as they walked to the place where they would ultimately serve three years in prison:

“It so happened as we were walking along toward Julich that some of us with a few guards had gone ahead, and some others had lagged behind…so that I walked alone in the middle of the field far from both parties, and had no guards beside me. A man came from the side of the field and fell in with me. He saw then the first group going along with guards and asked what kind of people they might be. Then I said that I belonged to them too, and explained the situation to him. He was astonished that I was walking alone and had no guards with me. I answered him that they did not worry about our running away. That was not necessary for us, for we did not fear any man, because Jesus, His truth and teaching were our protection and solace. I had many opportunities to escape;…I could have gone wherever I pleased, but the love of the truth and for my brethren kept us together” (Fruit of the Vine, 56).

Stories like these from our heritage have the potential to touch us deeply because they give us a sense of the terrific potential the church has when we grasp the significance of what Peter is talking about in this section of his letter, especially his admonition of verse 8: maintain constant love for one another. The love these men had for one another enabled them to stick together and support one another in their imprisonment. It was powerful because each of them was fully invested in this life of faith.

But we don’t want to get overly romantic about this story; the only way these men could ever experience this kind of love was because they were willing to do the things Peter has already described in this passage.  They have walked away from their old way of living and were willing to pay a high price to experience the new. One way they would be able to experience this new way of living was as in their love for one another.

Maintain constant love for one another (v. 8a).  This is the basic ethic of our faith in Jesus Christ, the first outward sign of our commitment to Jesus.  Loving one another is such a vital part of our faith that Peter emphasizes it with the word “constant.”  We don’t love one another occasionally; our love for one another is not based on our emotions—how we feel about one another in the moment, or the costliness of expressed love, or whether or not others will love me in return.  There is no mention here of how we might want others in the congregation to vote on a particular issue.  We are to main constant love for one another.  (The rest of this verse—for love covers a multitude of sins—will be our focus next week.)

The word “constant” is an interesting one; it occurs only four times in the NT. Twice it refers to someone praying when their life was in jeopardy (Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, just prior to his arrest and trial; the church praying for Peter when he was arrested and facing martyrdom). Peter uses it twice in this letter to describe when we are to love one another. His point is significant; our constant love for one another will be vital when matters of Christian living are most precarious.  There is a context to our love.

The Solingen Brethren, as they are known, give us a great example of what 1 Peter 4:8 looks like.  But they are not the only example.  Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 13 are another example.  The issue in 1 Corinthians 13 is not what love is, nor what love feels like, but what love does.

The challenge we face in understanding 1 Corinthians 13 is that we often only hear it read at weddings.  But these are not words to a husband and wife on their wedding day; they are words to a congregation that was having trouble getting along with one another.  These are words for council meeting, not wedding ceremonies.  By seeing it as a wedding passage, we do it a double disservice—we remove it from a context where it is often needed, and we reduce love to the “bright, shiny, new” emotional sense of love that weddings evoke.  Not incorrect, just incomplete.

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian congregation is an interesting one because he goes down a list of concerns and theological errors they were experiencing and answers them one at a time.  The Corinthian “congregation” was most likely an association of house churches—much like we might imagine the Churches of the Brethren in Roanoke City—close enough together to have very similar cultural contexts, yet far enough apart to have local differences.  And somewhat like us, the house churches had become arranged around the personalities of their leaders, each one convinced that they were following Jesus in the correct way.  

One fascinating quality in these churches is that they were doing so much so well.  They were like all of us—getting quite a few things right and getting quite a few things wrong.  And one of their biggest errors was also one of their most subtle: they were evaluating their spiritual success in the way the world measures success.

So they were trying to figure out things like which spiritual gift is best.

It was important for some to keep track of who had sacrificed the most for the church.

They debated with one another about which pastor taught the word of God most faithfully, all the while amplifying the shortcomings of others while minimizing their own mistakes.

When you consider all the issues in that congregation, it seems pretty far away from the experience of the early Brethren, doesn’t it?!  It feels more like jockeying for power and position rather than seeking the best for one another. This is what Paul is addressing in 1 Corinthians 13, verses that we often only think about at weddings.  Paul is contrasting two kinds of love—two kinds of love for which there are two Greek words.  The contrast is between agape and eros. You might be familiar with these; pastors do tend to talk about this fairly regularly.

One of the words for “love” in the Greek language is eros.  This is the word from which we get the word erotic. And while we tend to think of this kind of love in sexual terms, the emphasis here is that eros-love is reciprocal.  We give love with the expectation that we will get something back—the love of the other person.  (Mostly, that’s what we’re thinking about at weddings, I believe.)  Eros operates on the basis of a mutual exchange.  I express my love for you and you express your love for me.

But this isn’t the word Paul uses here.  He uses agape; this is the word for love that NT writers used to describe the love shown for us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus; it’s the kind of love that enables us to be reconciled to God.  The significance is that agape is not reciprocal; it is sacrificial.  It gives without the expectation of getting something back in return.

This is why Paul critiques the Corinthian’s tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith, financial and even personal sacrifice for Christ and the church. We hear these words at weddings and are comforted, but I suspect the Corinthians heard these words in a worship service one Sunday and were hurt and offended, because Paul is pulling the rug out from under their misplaced spiritual pride.  Their faith practices had no sacrificial love in them that sought to bring others into relationship with Jesus. These things had instead become a status symbol by which people were gathering around themselves a group of followers. Because they were practicing their faith for reasons other than reconciling people to Jesus, Paul says they have no point.  As Paul says if I “do not have love, I gain nothing.”

Christians are called to love in all kinds of sacrificial ways that challenge the reciprocal ways of love that the world is used to.  One of these is our peace position.  We all know from experience that for some Brethren our insistence that Christians cannot take the life of another person is the reason why we’re here, while other Brethren are somewhat embarrassed by this.  One reason why we find Jesus’ wish for us to “love our enemies” so challenging is that we expect love to be reciprocal—if we love our enemy we want some guarantee that they will love us back.  We don’t to wear a sign around our neck that says “Sucker.” It’s why some find the instruction to “turn the other cheek” so down-right objectionable.  Why would we do something that seems likely to leave us with a second black eye?  

And that’s the problem. Love expressed through the rejection of violence and retaliation isn’t reciprocal.  It’s sacrificial.  We do it because we believe it to be the best way to give testimony to the redeeming love of Jesus.

Paul tells the Corinthians “So what if you taught a good lesson or preached a good sermon or gave a lot of money or sang a beautiful song or donated a lot of your time.  If you did it seeking something in return, you gained nothing.”

The Corinthians were a congregation that needed to learn how to love one another in the manner of Jesus. The kind of constant love that Peter admonishes us toward is what Christian life looks like when it is set free from competition; when it is focused on the spiritual, physical, and emotional needs of the other. Without love, budgets, buildings, and mission strategies are “nothing.”

But someone has to love first. Wilhelm Grahe didn’t run away from his brother and from the guards, even though the others might have. His love was sacrificial—he stayed. Someone has to believe that sacrificial love is more important that reciprocal love, and be the one to show constant love within our relationships.  If we all do that, then we’ll be fine, no matter what we lose by following Jesus instead of our old way of living.  But that is our calling; that yet another way we “take nothing for granted” as we follow Jesus.

Closing Prayer

Lord make me an instrument of your peace.

        Where there is hatred let me sow love;

        where there is injury, pardon;

        where there is doubt, faith;

        where there is despair, hope;

        where there is darkness, light;

        and where there is sadness, joy

O divine master grant that I may:

        not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

        to be understood as to understand;

        to be loved as to love.

 For it is in giving that we receive

        it is in pardoning that we are pardoned

           and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life

[shanewuyx-blog]

The attestation of the gospel is Scripture

Firstly, some general reflections, in an effort to off load the mental processes in my head. I hardly got any sleep last night. It must have been about 3 hours. From 5am to 8am I just kept thinking. Despite trying, I just couldn’t stop. I don’t know if it’s the stress from exams. Well, I wouldn’t want to think more about what it could be as that would just mean more thinking! To organize my thoughts:

1. I used to keep up to date with foreign affairs from time to time, but recently it has become much more appealing. Studying for exams in Bath narrows my focus, and being kept up to date with what China and the US are doing, the situation in the Middle East, and of course Singapore’s relations with other countries has broadened my mind. It helps me to escape from Bath and imagine what it’s like in another country. That’s exactly it! I have begun to feel the changes. I am more curious to know from others what is it like for THEM to live in their country. What’s it like in THEIR perspective? And what are the relationships between their country and others? I enjoy patterns, and suddenly it’s becoming clearer to me that countries connect to one another. Economically but also culturally. Around 200000 Singaporeans reside overseas in some capacity. There is an interconnectedness to this world. Today I brought up recent news from Indonesia to my Indonesian friend over dinner. Because Indonesia has a majority muslim population, a number of people there were displeased about Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel and wanted a boycott of goods. But this isn’t a practical option at opposing USA because Indonesia is reliant on US resources. I would never have done this a few weeks ago. It helps to build friendships as well, when you have an awareness and interest in someone else’s country of origin. It’s just like seeing things from another person’s perspective - it builds trust.

2. Studying for final year exams has taught me that we are limited, we are biased, and we need to set more realistic goals. 

We are limited. Who can say they can work with full concentration for 8 hours a day? 

We are biased. Who thought they could study at full concentration for a certain period of time, but ended up realizing that we overestimated our capabilities?

We need to set more realistic goals. I’m still working out this one. Evidently one of the first steps is to accept that we are limited, and that we have been biased as to the level of our capabilities.

3. A treasured friend gave me words of comfort yesterday, when she told me that even though we may not accomplish all of our goals everyday, at least we made progress. It gave me comfort because it is true, and because I saw how it applies to other areas of my life besides studying. 

One example is this Blog itself. 

In the past, my goal was to post a “high quality” post every “once in a while”.

Recently, I set a new goal. To “post everyday”. But I still wanted every post to be “high quality”. This is difficult, not least considering I spend the day working before Quiet time at night before bed. I failed to post “high quality posts everyday”. 

A while back I asked my Church mentor: How should we use social media to share the gospel? You wrote to promote a one dimensional understanding is as dangerous as not to present at all. So how to ensure a “complete” post on Facebook? 

He replied: I guess you cannot do so in one post.

Then I said: Ah ok, but I also fear that what I share may not be correct..

To which he answered: A consistent image will emerge. 

These two little snippets of wisdom - one from a treasured friend, one from a church mentor, came together.

My goal now is to post everyday. I can answer one question from the study guide. And it will be a little piece in the picture. Over time, the picture will emerge. Progress can be made everyday. And even if for some reason I miss one day because of extenuating circumstances, I won’t consider it failure but still progress, as long as I tried my best. 

I want to be consistent in making progress.

—

I am studying Romans while using the study guide which accompanies “The Message of Romans” by John Stott.

Paul and the Gospel

Romans 1:1-2

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures

Q3.1 According to what Paul says here, why is the Old Testament so important?

We learned previously that in the New Testament, God revealed the gospel to the apostles.

However, it did not come as a completely novelty to them.

God had already promised the gospel through his prophets in the Old Testament Scripture.

 There is an essential continuity between the OT and the NT.

Jesus himself was clear that the OT scriptures bore witness to him. Below is Isaiah 53, an example. Read also Daniel 7 - ‘son of man’.

Isaiah 53

53 Who has believed our message    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,    and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain    and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God,    stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,    he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him,    and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,    each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him    the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,    yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,    so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.    Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living;    for the transgression of my people he was punished. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,    and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence,    nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days,    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 11 After he has suffered,    he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,    and he will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,    and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death,    and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many,    and made intercession for the transgressors.

John 5:39-40

39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me,40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Luke 24:25-27

25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Luke 24:44

44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you:Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” 

1 Peter 1:10

10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care,11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

Acts 17:2-3

2 As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,3 explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead.

Acts 13:32-35

32 “We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors33 he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm:

“‘You are my son;    today I have become your father.’

34 God raised him from the dead so that he will never be subject to decay. As God has said,

“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’

35 So it is also stated elsewhere:

“‘You will not let your holy one see decay.’

1 Corinthians 15:3

3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,4 that he was buried,that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

Both the prophets in the OT and the apostles on the NT attest to the gospel of God.

Both bear witness to Jesus Christ.