#plus i had an exam yesterday at 6 in the evening and finishing at 8 at night it was awful rippp

[sweeter-innocence-fics]

You Brought Your Worst and I’m Right Here - Chapter Four: Was it just a summer fling?

Pairing: Gale of Waterdeep x female Tav

Work Summary:

After an explosive falling out between Gale and his academic adviser, Mystra, Tav is left to pick up the pieces.

Modern/College AU.

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Epilogue

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 1699

Read on AO3.

Masterlists.

Taglist: @mrs-kai-anderson @ang3l1te @missryerye

Taglist info

Previous Chapter

Notes: all the usual warnings, plus arguing/shouting and general mental health stuff

---

A year ago

The chessboard was set. It was a Saturday night in the winter of their third year, all of their friends were out celebrating the end of exams, and Tav and Gale were sitting across from each other, chessboard between them.

Tav hadn’t much liked chess before she met Gale. Even still, he usually won, because she didn’t have the patience to think through every move as carefully as she knew she should.

But she liked playing with Gale. His eyebrows drew together in concentration, and when the games were close, she catch a glimpse of his tongue poking out from between his teeth. It was precious.

She took a sip of her hot chocolate, eyes intent on his face. He didn’t notice. He was far too focused on the game.

They had a longstanding “loser pays for dinner” agreement, but Tav wasn’t worried. Gale never made her pay more than her fair share, even when he should. She knew he came from a pretty well-off family, so it was no skin off his back.

Decisively, he moved a bishop, taking one of her knights. She watched his fingers wrap around the elegantly carved little wooden horse and put it to the side. Her eyes followed the movement of his hands as he wove his fingers together, resting his elbows on the table.

He had strong, dextrous hands. Not for the first time, Tav wondered what it would feel like to interlace her fingers with his.

He cleared his throat, and her eyes darted to his, startled, like she’d been caught. There was an amused expression on his face.

“Your move,” he said, gesturing at the board.

“I know,” she said, voice coming out a little strained. “I’m just… contemplating my options.”

“Of course. By all means.” He sat back in his chair, that smug little smile on his face. If he were anyone else, she would probably want to punch him, but somehow Gale managed to make smug look charming.

She stared back at the board. Her stomach grumbled.

“Hungry?” he said. “We can order now, if you-”

“No, I’m fine.” She was starting to realise that perhaps chess was a bad idea. Her last exam of the semester had been yesterday, and her brain was very tired. Perhaps that explained why she was feeling more impatient than usual.

She took her move, fully aware that there were surely better moves that she hadn’t even considered. Sure enough, in two more turns, Gale was check-mating her. He didn’t even take a moment to bask in his victory like he usually did.

“Now can we order food? I’m famished,” he said. He was grinning at her in a way that made her empty stomach do a little flip.

“Fine. But after dinner, we’re playing Settlers of Catan.” Now that was a game that Tav had a better shot of winning.

“Fine by me.”

*

Now

Tav heard Gale’s voice before she saw him. Her heart leapt into her throat at the sound of the front door closing. He was home.

She strode over to her bedroom door, and then hesitated. Would he even want to see her, after she’d avoided coming to visit? Did she even want to see him?

Distantly, she heard Wyll saying something, and then a laugh. That was good. At least he didn’t sound miserable.

Her hand was resting on the doorknob. Her other hand went to her pocket, pulling out her phone. There were no new messages, but maybe she should check her emails? She scanned through her messaging apps, and the next thing she knew, she was scrolling through twitter.

She perched on her desk chair. She wasn’t fully sitting down; she would get up and go downstairs in a moment. Just as soon as she’d finished reading this thread.

When the knock came at her door, startling her, she realised that it was getting dark in her room. Her lips curled into a frown as she got to her feet and switched the light on. Before she could talk herself out of it, she opened the door.

Gale was standing in the hallway outside of her room. When their eyes met, he smiled at her uneasily. All of the things that Tav should’ve, could’ve, still could say rushed through her mind in a torrent that made it hard to catch hold of any one string of words.

“I love you” and “I’m sorry” and “you scared the ever-loving shit out of me” availed themselves of her, but all felt too crass or too honest. She had to protect her heart, because no one else would.

“Hey,” said Gale. “Tav. It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too,” she said stiffly. “I’m glad you’re…” Alive. “… okay.”

“Yeah.” There was a pause. Tav was finding that her eyes were happy to settle anywhere but on his face. She fixed her gaze on a painting hanging on the wall behind him. “How are you?”

“Oh, you know. I’m okay. Been busy, you know?” She braced herself. “Sorry I couldn’t come and see you in the hospital. It was… all a bit hectic, with coursework, and stuff, you know?”

Gale swallowed. “Of course. It’s fine. You don’t need to apologise.”

They were both lying, and they both knew it.

“Are you coming down for dinner?” he asked. “Karlach and Lae’zel are both coming over to celebrate my release.”

“Of course. I’ll be down in a minute.”

For the first time, Gale smiled. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

*

It had been four days since Gale had come home, and Tav hadn’t been alone with him since the first evening when he’d come and knocked on her door. She would disappear up to her room as soon as she got home from classes, emerge at mealtimes (Wyll was pretty insistent that they all try to eat dinner together, where possible) and then go back to her room.

Every so often, she could feel Gale’s eyes on her during dinner, but she staunchly avoided his gaze.

And it wasn’t that she wasn’t trying. Sometimes, she would make a concerted effort to make conversation with him, but every word felt stilted and forced.

It didn’t help that she was sleep deprived. She slept fitfully, plagued by nightmares of Gale’s limp body and vomit-stained sheets. It was all she could see whenever she closed her eyes.

She was alone in the kitchen when he cornered her. Her heart plummeted as he walked into the room.

“Tav. Hey,” he said, looking nervous.

“Afternoon,” she said, opening the fridge, just so that she would have somewhere to look.

“Can we talk?”

It took every ounce of her self-control not to visibly blanche. “Sure.” She still wasn’t looking at him.

“Are we… okay? It feels like things have been… weird between us.”

Tav watched as the fridge door gave a little shudder. She couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing, until her eyes traced a path to her trembling hand that was curled, vice-like around the handle of the fridge door. She laughed – wet, throaty – at the absurdity of it, blinking back tears.

“Are we okay?” she repeated, stifling another hysterical laugh. She released the door, letting it fall shut. “Of course we’re not okay, Gale. You tried to kill yourself.”

She turned to look at him, then. His eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open as if he was about to say something, but no words came.

“I thought I’d lost you.” Her shaking hands came up to her face to rub away at the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. “I found you, did you know that? I found your unconscious body and I was scared that you were already dead. I thought I was going to live the rest of my life with you on my conscience because I couldn’t save you.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, so softly that she almost missed it.

“I know that,” she snapped back at him, taken aback by the harshness of her own voice. “And all I could wonder is why you never talked to me. Why you never told me what was going on with you. Why you wouldn’t let me help you. You spent months pushing me away and leaving me to worry what I’d done wrong. And now you wonder why I can barely look at you?” She was almost shouting now. Her voice felt wrong to her own ears. Still, Gale was just staring at her. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

“It hurt, Gale,” she said, much quieter now. “You hurt me and scared me and I don’t know how to forgive you, and I feel guilty because I know how hard this must be for you, but that doesn’t make me any less angry.”

“Is everything okay?” Wyll’s voice from the doorway made her jump. He stepped into the kitchen, looking from Gale to Tav and back, concern in his eyes. Astarion followed behind him, although his eyes stayed fixed on Tav.

She swallowed. She looked at Gale. He looked devastated, staring back at her with his big brown puppy dog eyes.

“Tav,” he said, and that made her hackles rise again. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

His apologies hit her like a blow to the chest. He was the one who needed help right now. What was she doing shouting at him and making him feel worse about himself? The last thing he needed was for someone to push him back towards the edge.

A sob shuddered through her and she stepped backwards, her back hitting the fridge. Gale reached for her but she shook her head, and he drew back.

“I don’t want you to apologise,” she said. Her voice sounded high and weak. “I just want you to be okay.”

She couldn’t look at any of them as she walked past them. Her feet carried her back to her bedroom, where she drew the deadbolt across and shut the curtains. In the dark, she stripped off her bra and jeans, leaving her in just a t-shirt and underwear, and then crawled into bed.

Next Chapter

[prince-of-tofu]

WOAHO I AM BACK FROM THE GRAVE THAT IS UNIVERSITY!! Wow it’s really been ages since I last updated my blog hey? I had such a blast at Gold Coast Supanova and I did not take many photos at the con forgive me for being such a terrible human being BUT I had such a lovely time over in Gold Coast and Brisbane a few months back! I was finally able to meet up with my beautiful Overwatch family and spend some quality time with them. Thank you for being such lovely people and meeting you guys has really been a big highlight so far this year. It was also nice seeing people that I knew from the convention scene over there and meeting new people. All of you guys are awesome!! I would definitely come to Gold Coast SupaNova and Brisbane again and hopefully stay for longer (whenI’mnotbeingkilledbymydegreecough)

ALSO, Supanova Perth is starting TODAY so I’ll be doing Saber Alter for today and a surprise cosplay for tomorrow (hintめっちゃキラキラですhint) I can’t wait to see everyone there!

[english-immerse]

Konstrukcje gramatyczne - matura rozszerzona

zadanie online :

https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/60892ab0b76bcf001df11a9f

https://quizizz.com/join/quiz/5ed8f154984c2b001bf148ce/start?referrer=5e7334eb5ed563001ce2ab53

https://quizizz.com/join/quiz/5e9b5069d3069b001b9c8bba/start?referrer=5e7334eb5ed563001ce2ab53

1.      Neither Paul nor Janek is/ (are)  honest

—  Ani Paul ani Janek nie jest uczciwy

2.      Neither of us – zwrotu tego używamy w odniesieniu do dwóch osób – żaden z dwóch

I have two brothers , neither of them is slim.

3.      None of us – zwrotu tego używamy jeżeli w zdaniu odnosimy się do grupy większej niż 2 osoby

None of us is prepared to the exam.

4.      Either …………….or ………albo, albo .

Either I will go to the sea, or I will go to the lake.

Albo pojadę nad morze, lub pojadę nad jezioro.

5.      It is no use crying – nie ma sensu płakać

It is no use complaining

W tej konstrukcji używamy czasownika z końcówką ing.

6.      There is no point in crying - nie ma sensu płakać

There is no point in breaking up

Nie ma sensu marudzić .

W tej konstrukcji używamy czasownika z końcówką ing.

7.       If only I could swim – życzenia na terażniejszość - Past Simple – Gdybym tylko umiała pływać

If only I shared the room with Robert

If only I had a laptop- gdybym tylko miała laptopa

If only I lived in France- gdybym tylko mieszkał we Francji

8.      If only I had  learnt that earlier- Gdybym tylko nauczył się tego wcześniej- żałujemy czegoś z przeszłości - Past Perfect

If only I hadn’t answered back that teacher.

Życzenia na przeszłość past perfect ( had + 3 forma lube d )

9.      I wish I had a dog     - chcałbym mieć psa= żałuję ze nie mam psa        

Jeżeli wyrażamy życzenie odnośnie sytuacji terażniejszej stosujemy  czas Past Simple

I wish I knew French      - Chcialbym znać      francuski

I wish I could sign up for/ join that gym. Żałuję, że nie mogę zapisać się na siłownię/ Chciałbym zapisać się siłownię.

10.  I wish I had bought it . – żałuję że tego nie kupiłem                  

Jeżeli, żalujemy czegoś z przeszłości stosujemy Past Perfect (had + 3 forma lub ed )

I wish I hadn’t been at the  event .

I wish I had invited Robert

!!! Jeżeli zaczynamy tłumaczenie od żałuję

To jeżeli w polskiej wersji jest przeczenie to w angiel. twierdzenie

! !She wished she learnt French – czasownik wish odmienia się przez czasy

She wishes ……………,

 Does she wish she had a laptop?- czy ona żałuje ,że nie ma laptopa

11.  I wish you would stop smoking. Wish + would – życzenie na przyszłość, jesli chcemy zmienić jakąs sytuację, kogoś zachowanie, które nas irytuje

.....................................................................................................................................

12.  Konstrukcje strony biernej

Mówi się …………………………

It is said that he is rich = he is said to be rich – mówi się

It is believed that he is talented= he is believed  to be talented- uważa, wierzy się

They say he writes novels=it is said that he writes novels= he is said to write novels

They think he lives in Alaska= it is thought that he lives= he is thought to live

13.  Jeżeli czynność odbywa się na tej samej płaszczyżnie czasowej, np. w danym zdaniu zastosowane sa czasy Simple Present- Simple Present to używamy – to be, to do, to write , itd. Jeżeli czynność odbywa się na różnych płaszczyznach czasowych np. Simple Present- Simple Past to używamy – to have done, to have been, to have written itd.

—  They say he cheats – It is said that he cheats- he is said to cheat

Ta sama płaszczyzna czasowa - Present Simple , Present Simple = to cheat - to plus forma podstawowa czasownika

—  They say he skip classes- it is said that he skip classes= he is said to skip classes

—  They believe he escaped- it is believed that he escaped= he is believed to have escaped

Rózne zastosowanie czasów- to have + III forma lub ed

- They say he wrote – it is said that he wrote – he is said to have written

- They believe he discovered- he is believed to have discovered

- They estimated he had misused the device- It Is estimated he had misused…..He is estimated to have misused

- They said he had mistaken - He was said to have mistaken

14.  Przypuszczenie odnośnie przeszłości. Jeżeli chcemy wyrazić przypuszczenie odnośnie przeszłości, np. że coś prawdopodobnie się wydarzyło, stosujemy konstrikcję:

Modal + have + III forma lub ed

She must have forgotten – On na pewno zapomniała

She  must have lost – Ona na pewno zgubiła

She might have overslept- Ona prawdopodobnie zaspała

! Ale - She had to do it- Ona musiała to zrobić , przymus

! Ważne jest aby rozróżnić przymus od przypuszczenia

She is late. It is so like her. She must have overslept.- przypuszczenie

She had to submit the documents on Friday. It was the deadline. - przymus

She must have done  – na pewno tak

She might have done – prawdopodobnie tak

She can’t have done – na pewno nie

She might not have done – prawdopodobnie nie

She could have done - mogłabyła to zrobić

............................................................................................................

—  Czasownik should !!! I should have done it – czasownik should jeśli chodzi o formę przeszłą korzysta z konstrukcji modal have i 3 forma lub ed

I should do it now.

Ale

I should have done it a long time ago.

Różnica między : I needn't have done a I didn't need to do it.

I needn't have done it- nie musialem tego robić, ale zrobilem

I didn't need to do it- nie musialem tego robić,i nie zrobilem

I needn't have bought so much food for the party, but I did as my mum didn't tell me that she had already bought all the food.

I didn't need to write the review for yesterday as my teacher had changed the deadline.

15.  Po przysłówkach : when, as soon as (jak tylko), as long as (pod warunkiem że)  , before, if, after , until , provided that, providing that (pod warunkiem że) , in case  nie używamy czasu Future tylko Simple Present

When I finish writing it, I will watch “you can dance “

When he finishes writing it, he will watch

As long as you promise to give it back soon, I will lend you my car.

16.  Despite, in spite of + ing- pomimo

Despite being alone- pomimo

Despite + ing/ lub rzeczownik

Despite being late- pomimo, że sie spóżniłam

In spite of not liking

In spite of + ing / lub rzeczownik

In spite of not liking - mimo, że nie lubię

!Ale

Although I don’t like - mimo że nie lubię

Even though I don’t like - mimo że nie lubię

Po wyrazach although, even though używamy formy czasownikowej, odmieniamy przez dany czas gramatyczny

....................................................................................

......................................................................................

17 Konstrukcja Kozatywna

Konstrukcji tej używamy, jeśli chcemy zlecić komuś wykonanie jakieś czynności

Have sth done/ get sth done

I had the roof mended- naprawiono mi dach - Past Simple

I will have the roof mended- naprawię dach/ naprawią mi dach - Future Simple

I have had the roof mended- naprawiono mi dach

17.  High time - Najwyższy czas- w tej konstrukcji stosujemy czas Past Simple

It is high time she went down to work

18.  Had better – lepiej- w tej konstrukcji używamy formy podstawowej czasownika

You had better work

You had better not lie - przeczenie

19.  Would rather

Jeżeli mówimy o sobie, o tym co my wolimy używamy formy podstawowej czasownika

I would rather work here than there

Jeżeli mówimy, że wolimy aby ktoś inny coś zrobił stosyjemy czas Past Simple

I would rather you worked here

................................................................................

20.  Ogólne upodobania – prefer ing to ing

I prefer learning English to learning German

21.  As if / as though – jakgdydby-generalnie w zastosowaniu tej konstrukcji "cofamy się o czas do tyłu"

He behaves as if he was the most important person.

Ona zachowuje sie jak gdyby była najważniejszą osobą, a nie jest

He behaves as if he had seen a ghost

On zachowuje się jakgdyby zobaczył ducha.

22. strona bierna

Konstrukcja strony biernej to : czasownik być + 3 forma lub ed

This plant is grown in this country. Present Simple

She was assessed really severely- Past Simple

She has been promoted- Present Perfect

It will be fixed soon- Future Simple

It is being considered- Present Continuous

It might be changed - czasownik modalny

She had been rejected - Past Perfect

Ćwiczenia 

1.      Neither Mark nor Greg ( be) .............................keen on goingon that expedition 2. There is no point in ( revise) .....................................it. 3. If only I ( can ) ..............................speak French fuently.But I can't. 4.I wish  I (can ) .............................speak Greek fluently.But I can't. 5. If I (can) .......................speak French more fluently, I (get) ..............................that job . But I can't 6. If I (can) .......................speak French more fluently, I (get) ..............................that job . But I couldn't 7. I wish  I ( be) .....................better at French but I wasn't. 8. I wish I (be) ......................better at French but I am not. 9. If only I (revise) .........................the material more thoroughly, I would have been given a better mark. 10. She is said to ( be) ..................a talented artist.She writes brilliant poetry. 11. She is said to (be) ....................a talented artist.She wrote brilliant poetry. 12. She is said to (write) ........................in several languages. In fact, she is learning a new one. 13. She is said to (write) .......................in several languages. In fact,she knew 4 of them. 14. It is said that she (leave) ...........................him without a sinle word. It was last year. 15. Where is John? He ( must forget) .......................about the meeting. I am sure. 16.  Where is John? He (might  forget) .......................about the meeting. Probably he forgot. 17. You should (visit) ...................................your aunt a long time ago. 18. It is a shame you didn't vist me.We could (have)..........................a lot of fun. 19. She is unlikely ( win) ........................the ski competition. 20. She (can ) ..............................paint when she was 8 years old. 21. She ( be ) ..............................able to extend her visa and she was so satisfied that day. 22. She ( have to) ..........................extend her visa last year. 23. I am taking my umbrella in case it (rain) ..................................... 24.But for  your (stand up) ..............................for me, I would have been beaten up by those bullies. 25. If you   ( not stand up) ............................for me, those bullies (beat ) ..............................me up. 26. If I (be) .........................bored, I  often ( read) ...............................books. 27. If I ( have) .........................more time , I ( read) .........................more books. 28. If I (have ) ...........................more time at university,  I ( read) .........................more books.But I didn't. 29. I would rather ( go) .........................alone than (ask) .....................for your favour. 30. I would rather you ( not cheat) ..........................on my tests. 32. I would rather you ( not cheat) ............................yesterday. 33. I prefer (read) .......................to (watch) .................................films. 34. Despite ( share) .........................the flat with her, I will not invite her to my party. 25. Although I (share) ....................the flat with her, I will not invite her to my party. 26. She told me (clean) ....................my room. 27. She told me ( not smoke ) ..........................in the office. 28.I want to know where you (live) ......................Can you give me your address.? 29. I want to know where and when you (buy) ..............................it 30.Rice ( grow) ....................... in China by local farmers. 31.The Witcher ( write) .............................by Sapkowski. 31. I (give)..........................a promotion and I am so excited. 32. My bathroom ( refurbish) .....................................................now. 32 a. I (refurbish) ...............................my bathroom ...........................now. 33. She behaves as if she ( know) ..........................................everything. 34. She behaves as though she ( lose) ....................................everything. I know that it was a setback for her. yet I think she exaggerates. 35. I ( not need) ................................to stand in that awful queue as my mum had already bought the food. 36. I (not need stand) .............................in that awful queue as when I reached the cash register my mum phoned me to tell me  she had already bought the food. 37. It is high time you ( move out) ..................................you dont't pay the bills. 38. You had better ( listen ) .........................to me. 39. I ( test) ..........................my blood...........................now. 40. I (test) ........................my blood............................... yesterday. 41. I refuse............................(tell) you that. 42. I admit ...................................( be) there. 43. I regret ...................................( tell) you that as you told my secret to everyone. 44. I apologise for...........................( make) that mistake. 45. By midnight I ( know) .............................the results of my exam. 46. On Monday I ( do).............................................yoga for 7 years now. 47. As soon as I (hear) ..............................the news, I broke to tears. 48. I (read) .............................Lalka for 2 weeks now. 49. I (read) ..............................the book twice. 50. When ..................you (read) ...........................the book.? 51.I will phone when I ........................(know) the results. Rozszerzoan zwroty   Match 1. owing to                                        a) pod warunkiem że

2. due to                                            b) jeśli nie

3. despite                                          c) pomimo

4. in case                                          d) gdyby nie

5. unless                                           e) jak gdyby

6. but for                                            f) przypuścmy

7. although                                       g) prawdopodobnie

8, likely                                             h) z powodu

9. as if / though                                  i) z powodu

10. provided that                                j) pomimo

11. as long as                                    k) pod warunkiem że

12. supposing                                    l) na wszelki wypadek

13. unlike                                           m) w przeciwieństwie do 14. contrary to                                   n) w przeciwieństwie do

  Wstaw powyższe zwroty do zdań. 1. She is ............................to win the race. Nobody can catch up with her.

2. You can borrow that bike.......................you give it back tomorrow.

3. She behaved ...............................she had lost all her world.

4. .............................you won a lot of money, what would you do?

5. .............................thick fog, the flights were cancelled.

6. Take your umbrella, .................................it rains.

7. .....................she gets down to work, she will fail the exams.

8. ..........................liking her, I will not invite her. 9.............................I don't like her, I share her point of view.

[shytiff]

Jan 2021 Wins

ive “journaled” for 6 months now. it started as small ___ wins because when you feel rly empty, even doing the bare minimum feels like a win. written down some of the wins. i think until now i’d like to keep the “win” part. a win against my shadow sometimes. a win in life. some things to be grateful for. a win for remembering it later in the future. i know some days im just basically doing nothing.  there are a lot of wars not won by me. but im still tryna ✨manifest✨

1 - woke up. watched bts’ 2021 seasons greetings. read trap city. afternoon nap. pupuy’s mbah passed away. i got DOMS in my body even though i did the barest of exercise yesterday (frail, i know). shower, matcha latte.

2 - the x banner atikah and i sent for racil post thesis defense has arrived lmaoo. mom made delicious (and sweet) fried banana. did some studying (more than usual, bcs the bar is on the floor)

3 - ate muesli, 3 risols. Kopsus coklat at flavola. Stayed there from 12-ish to 17:30 lmaooo. weekly bahas soal w/ fi. Rapat nemo

4 - first day of collab module. Barely cicil ukmppd. My mood is normal-ish but i hardly have the will to study. Dinner is fried fish with mentai sauce, potato wedges, and saladdd by mom

5 - collab module, qa presentation for rsui reps. finished reviewing tryout 2 solid. did padi pretest (got 66,5). ate chicken porridge, a bit of muesli and vsoy, tan ek tjoan bread, matcha latte, fish and chicken and potato wedges and salad, fried banana. i ate well today lol.

6 - slept during collab webinar, went to clara’s place to study osce and attended padi together. i ate well at clara’s placeee lol. ate nastar, kusuka, white kwetiaw with soup (?), and lele goreng. went back home @ 9 pm. i feel refreshed. even though we’ve half studied half mukbang all day. human interaction rly does heal me. i need human interaction more than i think. at night i dreamed about going to bali, to waterparks, seeing sea creatures, watching a movie displayed on a concert-like stage and screen at the front row. 

7 - woke up at 07:55, finished my part for collab group work. felt a bit tired today. the rest of fam went to DM, and when they were on the way back i HURRIED my way out, not even taking a shower lmaoo. got pistachio matcha latte at starbucks dm. now im more skilled in searching the best spot in a cafe to distance myself from people lmao. the matcha latte is served with some sort of pistachio cream and sprinkled with nuts on top. its like when sbux had taro matcha latte and it had purple cream on top. the pistachio taste is quite strong. reviewed TO 1 padi, sent proposals for nemo sponsorship.

8 - did syndrome try out and padi 2 web try out. studied for osce and padi @ clara’s place. wanted to order pizza since clara bought me food before, but she insisted in ordering lmaoo. so dinner is pizza hut

9 - woke up at 11.00 lmao. havent had breakfast. lunch is muesli with the brand new delishhh chocolate granola and cimory banana milk. did one shot try out, got 71. had a google meet with Prof Agus (that ethics book ghostwriting job from a year ago is not finished until now huaaa) that went from 20.00ish and finished at 22.30,,,,, reviewed syndrome try out along the way. havent made my collab self reflection hhhh. i also need to study for osce. also havent edited article for bukang solid. and there goes my saturday nooo

10 - i swear i keep waking up late lmao. Flavola w atikah, racheel later came with wawa. Kopsus coklat and ukmppd class w dr yudo. After class i just talked at flavola (and ended not studying osce at all for sunday). Went to racheel's to pray and talk some more. Hurriedly went back for booty call with fi, watched konser dies natalis first. Tryout and sum study with fi and clar that went from 20:30 to 00:10. Powered by left over kopsus and 2 snackit pia. Rip my sleeping schedule

11 - woke up at 10:30 ish, the lack of meal and horrible sleep pattern (for my standard) produced stuffy nose during the day and a bit of headache that went away for a bit after i ate. Late bfast is muesli, drank protein, ate tan ek tjoan, plus 2 brownies in the evening. Tht coaching w dr niken. Did self reflection for collab. Had dinner without rice, as usual. Ukmppd class w dr ayu. Finished reflection at 21:30 lmao (deadline is 23:55). Tryna sleep and my nose is still itchy and i sneeze a more often. i hope it goes away 2mrw

12 - DV coaching, scele tryout, took a nap before padi cause my head kind of hurts. Les padi while drinking matcha with vsoy less sugar and no added sugar. I can withstand the horrible sugarless cy matcha taste bcs theres a taste of soy. Didnt do anything else. Havent studied osce on my own until now. Astagfirullah

13 - my head still kind of aches. Its goes away when im eating. im eating so well during the weekdays that i gained 2kgs lmao. lazed around the first half of the day. padi. finally tried saint matcha and damnn its an amazing upgrade from Cy matcha. the green color is super different yall. Cy’s green looks sick and tired compared to saint matcha. the taste? immaculate (although coco deli is more fragrant). caffeine? hits. awake and feel normal? yes. messaged an ao3 author and got replied and turns out she’s making a sequel for my fav fic of hers. yay

14 - osce practice w ara ren ness. bedah and anak osce coaching. had 3 of mom’s cinnamon rolls and matcha latte for the afternoon. cicil osce DV. edited some pld articles. did nothing else basically

15 - wasted my day, didnt have the courage to study osce (i feel like i procrastinate on it bcs it feels overwhelming to me), TO FKUI 2, hurriedly reviewed to 1 before, les padi. i feel like this is the least focused im being in a les. maybe its the too few matcha powder.

16 - woke up at 9 am. breakfast is muesli. reviewed to 2 fkui w apa salahku (finished at 12 pm, there goes half of my saturday). tried fried chicken master. its good and tender but i still prefer moon chicken. 

17 - breakfast is muesli, banana and 2 martabak tahu. snack is keripik pisang aduuu wenak (and picking bits of meat cooked by mom). went to devi’s place w/ racheel silvi. brought RJ to be wrapped. we watched okay madam and its super fun, hilarious and full of twists anddd a bit of cutesy romance. just the right balance to enjoy and let the stress out. late lunch is moon chicken yay!! went home after maghrib, did to padi 6 w/ fi and matcha latte. talked about a senior’s wedding and eating healthier til 22:30

18 - To fkui 3, wasted my afternoon playing my phone, finally mustered some will to study after ashar. My progress is rly slow today. Watched hilarious jessi interview with eric, heechul. Im telling u, i thought tiktok is the funniest internet content but i was wronggg. Seeing heechul flustered is hilarious. Tried to study again at night but only learned 1 disease hiks

19 - had no idea what i did before dzuhur lmao. went to racheel’s to surprise atikah. actually napped at her place lmaoo why do i feel so sleepy. gifted rj to atikah. we ate fried chicken master and pempek on a small green table and talked. its like korean movie lmao. we talked while im simultaneously listening to padi lol.

20 - woke up at 8, chicken porridge + muesli and low sugar vsoy for breakfast. arrived at clara’s @10am. to fkui 4. reviewed it. reviewed general physical exam. finished up to padi 7. tried bombo donut. studied osce. i felt sooo dumb in osce (and clara is already super smart). superrr motivated to learn after going back home (arrived at 7) but i ended up opening youtube and drinking protein lmaooo and its suddenly 9 pm

21 - matcha latte at starbucks dm. Studied osce. Obgyn coaching w the super kind dr ilham. Les padi. Read angel buddy and played with my phone til 12 pm

22 - to fkui. padi as usual. had low motivation, so i did the tryout that day close to the actual course.

23 - left home at 06:30 to study together in capitol. had breakfast in mcd first. thank god i ate rice + chicken and breakfast wrap cuzzzz. studied osce together w ara, ical, kelvyn, dio and kak ilonka til about 2 pm. WALKED to bk bcs my parents are there. apparently simply driving to capitol is too much for them. immediately ate muesli at 4 pm cause i didnt eat anything in capitol. did nothing else after that. did not pray maghrib together lmao somehow mom had mercy on me and let me sleep som more. mom bought sate padang but i didnt eat it. i cried in bed because as yoongi said, “this is the real you and this is the real me”. did not shower/wash my face at night bcs i felt like shit lmao rip my face (its a week before bukang photoshoot)

24 - i feel tired, lazy, and just wanted some sleep. like all that’s in me is drained. ate muesli with strawberry milk. tried fitmee beef. its better than i thought. because the noodle is chewy you spend more time to chew. also ate fried chicken and daun singkong. usually i cant wait to go to flavola but even at 12 pm i just feel like laying down. finally mustered the will to shower and go out. its raining a bit on the way. colddd. 

25 - to fkui 6, osce briefing, covid lecture (that was actually for ppds), padi

26 - spaghetti for brekkie, coaching neuro and ophthalmology, cicil osce

27 - cicil osce, the second to the last padi omg. the fastest padi ever

28 - obgyn osce practice at kak ilonka’s place (that nice kosan at forkabi) with ara, ren ness, kelvyn, dio with mannequins from og dept, tried meokja salemba that serves bulgogi rice. quite good. after arriving at home, studied neuro together with menno til about 20:45 an and i just dont have the energy lmaooo so i gave up and slept

29 - today is bukang photoshoot at bintaro. put base make up on the way. even put glue on my eyebrow. got eyebrow, eyeshadow and blush done by renata. took lots of photos. nebeng om coro afterwards to bxc to meet mom. we ate at genki sushi (renata ara kris mendel oca regan geordie eka). i missss road trips hua. did tryout fkui on the way back home. after shower and prayer proceeded to review TO with apa salahku. Last padi (havent done the questions beforehand so i sprinted it out while on the actual course). Muhasabah osce with kak widia afterwards lmao. Studied osce with clara

30 - studied osce with ara ren ness @ merra. I ate eatlah, moms muffin, kemplang, tango. I ate so welll. Its a productive sesh, neuro and infectious disease. At home i studied osce w clara til abt 22:15 ish. I feel like i miss my me time lmao its been 3 days. I can still go on w clara but i dont wanna get myself sick

31 - simul osce in the morning. Osce study with clara almira. Cicil osce alone. Played my phone at 10 pm even though i still have mental clarity post matcha latte -___-

[accio-jungkookie]

shine on anyway - spider-man x reader (ch. 1)

shine on anyway - chapter one

A/N: Hey, guys! Welcome to the first chapter of my Spidey fic :D AHHH I can’t believe this lol. I’ve been working over this for a bit, and I can’t believe I’m actually posting it? Idk man, crazy world lol. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! I love feedback so please feel free to like or comment! Thanks! (Also note that this story is focusing on character building and development more so than fan service, so Spidey doesn't show up for a little bit in the story <3 Thanks for understanding).

Summary: A kid from Milwaukee has to grow up far more quickly than she should while facing threats that men half her age would never dare go near. So, when she has to uproot after losing everything, does she lose herself too? 

Word count: 1.4k (I promise the chapters get longer)

Warnings: Discussion of depression and anxiety, minor character death, swearing, fight scenes/injury, loss, I’ll add any more if I happen to have forgotten.

teaser - one - next

“Y/N!” You heard your friend, Kyomi, yell from down the hall. You looked up, slightly startled about your name being shouted, before spotting your beautiful best friend. You smiled in her direction before shoving your jacket and books for your afternoon classes into your locker and shutting it. By the time you turned to face her, Kyomi was already almost by your side.

“Hi, Ky. How’s your morning?” You asked with a yawn, glancing on your phone screen to see the time. Not even 7:45 yet, and you already wanted to go home.

“Oh, you know, a Monday morning. And how about you, grumpy gills?” Ky asked with a grin as you rolled your eyes.

“It’s not even 8 a.m. and yet I’m awake. So, as good as I can be.” You mumbled with a small grin, grabbing her sleeve to tug her to the second floor of the school, aiming for a cup of coffee from the school’s student-run café. You didn’t mind the taste of dirt, or the slight anxiety boost, as long as you could stay awake during your first two classes of the day.

You jumped slightly as someone slammed their locker, the noise hurting your ears as you wince. Ky frowns and holds your hand, giving it a squeeze.

“Anxiety not doing well today?” She asked quietly, and you nodded as you opened your eyes and blinked a few times. You took a deep breath, trying not to focus on the sensory input that’s nearly ruining your ears. It’s nothing serious, or something you have diagnosed since the idea of it scares you, but it’s enough to freak you out a bit. Sensory overload is something you deal with a lot, and your massive amounts of anxiety never really help at all.

“Is coffee really a good idea, then? I know it makes your anxiety jump a lot, and I don’t want you to be on edge all day.” Kyomi said with a gentle smile. She was always the caring friend, the one with answers who always knew what to say. You were caring too, of course, but it was harder for you to express your emotions than it was for Ky. Not a bad thing, but a thing indeed.

“I’m ok, Ky. I’ve gotta make it through this AP physics exam in first period, so a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.” You said with a small grin, walking into the small room. Ky eventually convinced you to go with tea instead, since it still has caffeine but much less so compared to coffee. Then, it was time for class.

The time passes slow, your brain being crammed full of new ideas and theories and such that you would have to re-teach yourself later, since the lessons were built for straight memorization, not memory retention or application. The American school system was a pain in the ass, and your high school was a prime example of that.

However, your three exams went well, if not mentally draining. Having multiple AP classes is an honest to god feat of nature, but you managed to do it with all A’s and B’s. You spent lunch in a hallway somewhere with Ky, and the end of your day sped by with minor hiccups in regard to your anxiety. But, overall, an averagely boring day. You went to the library after saying goodbye to Ky, since she wasn’t part of the school musical, and then set to work on your homework. The good thing about having three exams today meant you had minimal homework, only in three classes (Spanish, German, and AP English Language/Composition). Easy enough to work through translations and building sentences, but the English work was annoying. A research paper on any topic of your choosing, written in APA style. APA style was disgusting.

It was nearing almost 5 in the afternoon when the library was starting to close, so you packed up your things and went to the auditorium, sitting in a random chair in the back and pulling out your laptop. Not the best, not the worst, but it did what it needed to.

You shifted with a shiver, hating how cold the auditorium always is, before your felt a sharp pain on your ankle. You freaked out a bit, immediately slapping at your ankle in hopes of scaring off, or killing, whatever the hell had just bit you. You looked down at the floor once you had calmed down, and nearly gagged at the size of the spider on the floor. It was massive and disgusting with weird coloring.

“Fucking public school. I hate Milwaukee, swear to god.” You mumbled, snapping a quick picture of it so you could identify it later, before you got up and moved to a different section of the auditorium entirely. Rehearsals started in less than 15 minutes anyway, so there was no need to keep working. Instead, you changed your shoes and got on stage to stretch and warm up slightly. There was a slightly weird feeling in your stomach, and you kept looking down at your ankle every now and again to keep an eye on the bite, which seemed a little annoyed, if nothing else.

Soon enough, rehearsal ended, and it was time to walk home. You pulled out your pepper spray that you kept hidden in your bag and began walking. It was only a 20-minute walk, but 20 minutes walking in a big city, alone, and at night was freaky. Plus, you’re a smaller, high school aged girl. You were more prone to being abducted and sold into the sex trade simply because you were a girl. Disgusting, yes, but a sad reality. You continued walking, all of your senses on high alert as you kept glancing around. You got home right on time, locking the doors before setting everything down in the kitchen. You smiled as you heard the clicking of your dogs’ nails on the floor coming towards you. You smiled and sat on the floor, pulling the two dogs into your lap, cuddling them and giving them love before you had to stand up again.

You went upstairs to your grandparent’s room, lightly knocking on the door to let them know you were coming in, if they were even awake. You walked in, seeing them both asleep, and walked back out again. No need to wake them up if there wasn’t an issue. So, you went back to the kitchen on the main floor, writing on the whiteboard on the wall that you got home safe, and that you didn’t want to wake them. You grabbed your things, leaning down to give the two dogs another pat before leading them to their beds, telling them to sleep before you walked downstairs to the basement where your room was located. You walked through the curtain that served as your door and walked to the far end of your short room to pull the cord to turn your light on.

You turned towards your desk and sighed, knowing it would be a long night for homework. You set everything down on the floor and pulled out your textbooks and laptop, setting them down on your desk. You sat at your chair and got to work on your Spanish homework, ready to crank through it so you could get to everything else.

A few hours had gone by, and you were starting not to feel so well. You thanked your lucky stars for the timing, since you were just finishing up the last parts of your homework. You looked at the clock, seeing it was almost 1 a.m. You sighed and got ready for bed, starting to steadily feel more sick and tired. By the time you flopped into bed at 1:02, you were nearly half asleep and sweating buckets. You barely managed to remember to pull your glasses off of your face before passing out entirely for the night, dreaming of weird spiders and itchy ankles.

You woke up the next morning at 6:30, still tired as you cursed yourself tiredly for not timing out when you would wake up with your sleep cycle. Still, you had gotten more sleep last night than you had in all of last week combined. So, you told yourself you were rested as you sat up in bed, rubbing your eyes. You blinked the tiredness away, noticing you could see clearly.

‘Did I forget to take out my contacts last night?’ you thought, a little scared at the idea until you realized you had worn your glasses yesterday. With a frown, you got out of bed and started to get ready anyway, keeping an eye out for any creepy-crawlies. You were mildly confused, but you would figure it out later. For now, you had to focus on getting to school on time with the nasty migraine you had.

[everydayhustling]

QUARANTINE Q&A

Tagged by @studyburst 💕

1. Are you staying home from work/school? yup! now working here at homeee

2. If you’re staying home, who’s there with you? my boyfriend

3. Do you have pets to keep you company? yeees we have 3 dogs; Coco, Bolt Jr., and Loacker.

4. Who do you miss the most? my college friends, workmates, and fam.

5. When was the last time you left your home? just yesterday

6. What was the last thing you bought? 2 gallons of water. Gotta keep hydrated!

7. Is quarantine driving you insane or are you finally relaxed? Relaxed especially with work coz I don’t have to dress up and commute to the office. Here, my time is flexible and I can eat whenever I want haha.

8. Are you a homebody? 50% I also love to go out for hikes and swimming. 

9. What movies have you watched recently? Can’t even keep track. Mostly romantic comedies and thrillers. 

10. An event that you were looking forward to that got cancelled? MY MEDSCHOOL EXAM AND APPLICATION!!!

11. What’s the worst thing that you’ve had to cancel? going out of town.

12. What’s the best thing you’ve had to cancel? I can’t think of anything.

13. Do you have any new hobbies? blogging on tumblr is my new hobby now lol

14. What are you out of? we’re running out of butter cookies.

15. What music are you listening to? I always put on jazz music when I work. 

16. What shows are you watching? A lot! Recently obsessed with Korean dramas lol. My boyfriend and I just finished one. Right now I am re-watching The Originals, reliving my high school glory days. Watched a few episodes of some shows too but ended up not liking it. It’s all about watching shows that fits the taste lmao. 

17. What are you reading? Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. A must read book for all introverts out there.

18. What are you doing of self-care? Workouts to gain some muscle mass! It helps when you have an athletic boyfriend and a Nike Workout app haha. We usually jog every morning as well around the village when we can. I also do take care of my skin more and eat at the right time. 

19. Are you exercising? yup! a new thing for me actually since I an ectomorph haha

20. How’s your toilet paper supply? just enough! plus we have bidet so toilet paper is not an issue.

21. Have you made any changes to your hair during quarantine? now I want to hmmmm.

I’m tagging: @docberting @studylikegeller @studiousengineer @study-space-blog 

[sevenseasofrog]

Lads ‘n Lasses

pairing: highschool!ben x fem!reader

summary: single sex schools are never boring

word count: 2982

a/n: wagwan gs, this might not be to everyone’s taste but i’ll see how it goes, this is the first time i’ve imagined myself as the reader while writing ?? not as someone else reading it ?? it’s also set in a manchesterish sort of place bc i had a major mind block trying to write about anywhere else other than where i actually live ,, that probably sounds weird idk aha, it’s defo an au where ben basically is still in education and all sorts of chaos takes place as the year moves forward ,, anyway ,, enjoy !! if you have any questions or likewise feel free to send an ask bc i see how it could be semi confusing ,, love u all a lotta :) ❤️

here’s also some stuff that could make it less confusing (especially if you’re not familiar with lingo from north west england, i’ll maybe add to this with each new chapter that comes out :)

St. Mary’s/ Mary’s- the all girls school the reader attends, quite middle class and full of students who like to make drama for their own entertainment, strong focus on languages and arts

St. Peter’s/ St. Pete’s - the all boys ‘brother’ school to St. Mary’s, very laddish with a focus on sports and science

Niamh & Maria - the reader’s two closest and longest friends

Tram/Met - British version of an overground subway?

Shout - another word for a houseparty

Snide - unfair

Swear down - saying you are telling the truth

also, the reader and ben are between the ages of like 17 and 18ish, the whole thing isn’t very accurate to the uk school system but it works a little better like that so yall are gonna have to go with it aha

ps, this chapter is spilt in two bc i got very carried away when writing it and tumblr has a word limit, hmph. however, that does technically mean that i can say i’ve written two chapters not just one ?? go me !!

Chapter 1: September

4th of September, the night before a new term, new academic year and a nearly fresh start. Your last year at St Mary’s had not been something you were dreading so to speak, and now it was finally here. Thanks to upcoming exams, you only had a little over five months to get through before freedom, and eventually, a completely clean slate at a new, far less intimidating school environment. Anticipation building, you called it a night

6:15am. You woke up to the painful sound of your alarm clock, early morning sun peeking through the split between the curtains. Eager to silence the blaring noise you crawled out of the comfort of the duvet and hastily clicked the stop button in the centre of your phone screen. You made your way into the bathroom, careful not to wake your parents, brushed your teeth and quickly got undressed before stepping into the shower, letting the cool water run down your back without getting your hair wet, since you had it cut and washed yesterday afternoon. Slipping on your school uniform you caught eye of yourself in the mirror and decided that you had nothing to lose by putting on a little makeup, you had time after all. It was about 7am when you made your way downstairs, the house still quiet with only you awake. These mornings were the ones you liked best, just you and your own thoughts, with no one to bother you other than the dogs. It was still relatively warm during the September days so you chose to leave your jumper hung over a chair in the kitchen, putting just your blazer over your crisp, white blouse. Throwing an apple and cereal bar into your bag for later in the day, you figured that you might as well also pack some paracetamol and chewing gum for good measure, knowing it would come in handy eventually. You headed into the hallway to sit on the bottom step of the stairs to put your shoes on, tying the laces as tight as you possibly could, slung the black tote over your shoulder and grabbed your set of keys, which were usually on a hook which your dad had attached to the wall earlier in the year.

The walk to the tram stop was pleasant enough. There was no real breeze and you walked with your hands in you pockets to the beat of the music. Skipping down the steps to the platform to buy a ticket for the week, the change rattled in your pocket, and you had to cover it to stop anything flying out. Once you had finally managed to get the machine to produce a ticket after it spat out the coins you tried to use a few times, you spun round and walked towards the sheltered seats down the further end of the stop. It was only 7:45 by this stage and there were still very few people around. Missing the school rush was certainly worth it for you, and it also meant there was time to grab a coffee on the way to school with Niamh and Maria, who both got on at later stops anyway. You pulled your phone out of your pocket, deciding to text your parents, as you did every morning to let them know you were okay. You skipped a few songs before slipping your phone back into your pocket and looking up to examine your surroundings, following a good few weeks of not coming to the somewhat grimy metro stop, nothing had changed. The ground was still caked in chewing gum, graffiti littered the ticket machines, and the bin was, as ever, overflowing.

There was one thing different though, slightly odd too. A blonde haired boy who you had never seen before was stood on the opposite platform. Weird. It was then that you noticed he was in the uniform for St. Peter’s, with a backpack hung on one shoulder and a gym bag on the floor- grim move from the newbie. It suddenly hit you however. He was on the wrong platform, and could end up getting on a tram further into the city centre rather than away from it. God, this was awkward. You could leave him? it would be kind of funny? but also a bit snide.

No.

Don’t do that you told yourself. Deciding to ‘start the new term right’ you cleared your throat before shouting across

“You going to St. Pete’s mate?”

He looked up from the ground, obviously somewhat confused, checking to see whoever the person who had shouted was talking too. Luckily, this was quite easy, given that he then noticed that he was in fact the only person on the platform. You gave a wave and as friendly a smile as you could muster given it wasn’t even 8 o’clock yet, in a desperate attempt to get his attention, which just so happened to work.

“Um, yeah. Why?”

“Because given that you’re on the wrong platform, you’re gonna have a very hard time getting there”. His jaw dropped a little

“You are joking, right?”

“Nope!”, you popped the ‘p’, just for emphasis, “So... are you just gonna stand there like a lemon or change platforms then?”. He quickly picked his bag off the ground and jogged up the steps to the bridge. As he crossed you rolled the waistband of your skirt up, realising that you previously looked a little to nun-ish for your liking. By the time you had finished fixing up your appearance the mysterious blonde was plodding down the steps, towards you. Shit. Now what?

You had just about composed yourself by the time he reached you.

“Ben. Ben Jones” he spoke, before offering his hand to shake.

“You’re very proper aren’t you!?”, you thought out loud “guessing you're not from up here then hm? Name’s y/n l/n by the way, I go to St. Mary’s”, you said, trying to remain friendly.

“Yeah, moved up from Bournemouth at the start of summer. My parents wanted to come up here so I had a chance of getting some sort of sports scholarship or something for rugby, y’know, for uni and that”. He spoke with quite a low, quiet voice, but definitely had a southern accent that you couldn’t imagine going any time soon. Now he was stood nearer, you had managed to get a clearer picture of Ben; he was very well built and had the physique of a genuine sportsman, He wasn’t too tall- but still taller than you by a considerable amount. His facial features were mostly soft, although his nose looked like it could have been broken in past games and he had the most striking green eyes.

“Well, you’d have had a pretty difficult time getting anywhere if you were stuck in the centre of town.” you both let out a laugh.

“Honestly, I’m such a melt, only I could do that on one of the few days that being on time actually matters”. You broke eye contact momentarily to see that a tram was approaching.

“Right then” you said, stepping towards the edge of the platform. “We’re a bit early but I normally get a coffee anyway, you can come if you want? I mean, you don’t have to get this one if you don’t want but if you do then the offer’s there..” You trailed off, noticing that you had waffled on a bit.

“Aha, no it’s fine! I’d be happy to get this one, you’re literally the first person I’ve spoken to who’s like, my age so it’s not like I have anyone to wait for. Plus, I’ll probably get lost if you abandon me now.” He looked up with puppy dog eyes after picking his gym bag off the floor again.

Stepping on the tram, you decided to offer him your first piece of valuable advice; “Right… Well. If we’re gonna be mates I better give you the rules of the road up here”.

“Go on then, local expert”, he said with a smirk.

“First things first. Don’t put your bag on the floor. It’s crusty and makes you look like a gimp”.

“Noted”, he spoke as the pair of you sat on the grey seats.

“Second. Most of the boys are maniacs and the girls are awful bitches, I’d say that I’d help you figure out who’s who but you’ll probably be able to decide for yourself”.

“Hm, you’re really selling it to me. The brutal honesty is a nice touch”. You gave a playful punch to the side of his arm, with a grin smeared across your face.

“Swear down mate, you’ll thank me later for this though.”

The journey passed in a flash, the pair of you talking like friends reunited. You learnt that he had a beagle named Frankie, lived not too far from you, he played rugby for teams but also enjoyed drama and music.

“You’re quite the character aren’t you! can’t say I took you for a performing arts kinda guy”

“Well… What kind of person did you take me as then, all knowing-y/n”

“Well Ben from Bournemouth.. that would be telling wouldn’t it, I can tell you however that this is our stop though”. You both stood up, grabbing your bags and heading for the doors of the carriage. You had a text from Niamh and Maria earlier on in the journey saying they’d be late and there was no point waiting for them, so you carried on the walk alone with Ben.

“If I left you here right now, would you have any clue where to go?” you questioned, genuinely intrigued.

“Erm.. no… I would have to stand around for a bit and hope someone takes pity on me”

“What about google maps though??”

“Hmm.. Let’s just say that there’s a reason I don’t take geography”

The coffee shop was about the same distance from the tram stop as is was from school, and it was about 20 past 8 when you pushed open the door with a small chime. It was a cosy little café, situated on the corner of the market street with wicker chairs outside and brown leather sofas inside. You never stayed in however, much preferring to enjoy whatever you brought during the rest of the walk to school. Today was a latte day, no questions asked. You liked to rotate throughout a few different drinks, depending on your mood. Ben stood close by as you explained how you’d most definitely be on black coffee by this time next week, but you might have the odd pumpkin spiced latte as September moved into October, just for novelty really. He gave out a small chuckle,

“You really are in a league of your own aren’t you? I’ve known you like an hour and I’m convinced you hold the secrets of the universe or some shit”. You liked Ben. He was good company and you had a fair bit in common;

“and what if I did hold the secrets of the universe huh?”

“I’d use the black market to sell you to a looney philosopher somewhere or other and make myself some fat stacks.” You both doubled over in complete hysterics. Would it be weird to say that you’d never bonded so quickly with someone? yeah, probably you thought, brushing the idea away quickly. Your giggle fit was quickly broken up however when the barista announced that your drink was ready, you fished the loose change out of your pocket and handed it over moments later,

“keep the change mate” you said politely, turning on your heel towards the door once again.

“You really are quite the angel aren’t you?” the boy walking next to you said “ooooo, keep the change mate, I’m y/n and I am the source of all life and joy” he mocked.

“You know it blondie”, you retorted with a smirk.

You had walked a fair deal further, now following the main road and considerably nearer to school when Ben reached into his inside pocket .pulling out a cigarette and lighter. You silently watched out of the corner of your eye as he held the stick in his mouth and lit one end, he inhaled deeply before taking it from between his lips to exhale. Before his could bring his hand back up however, you plucked it from his fingers and drew a breath from it yourself before throwing it down and stamping on it. Ben simply stood with his mouth hung open looking dumbfounded. “Whoa steady on...What the fuck was that about then? Oh… and for the record, you owe me a cig now!”, he spoke with a tone of shock mixed with annoyance

“Boo-Hoo”, you spoke back, “But neither of us can have a first day back if we get excluded before we even get to school you dimwit. There’s teachers stood by the traffic lights down there”, you pointed further down the pavement. “See for yourself if you want…” you trailed off. Ben looked a little guilty, realising that he could have got you both in a good deal of trouble,

“Ah, Right, Okay… Sorry about that..”

“Don’t worry about it. Honestly. It’s fine, you’re new! You’ve got a lot to learn still”, you gave him a reassuring smile, but you could tell that he still felt a twinge of regret.

The pair of you carried on the walk in a comfortable silence, and as you approached St. Peter’s a thought struck you. “Right. After school, wait for me here, I don’t really want you being lost in a new town stuck on my conscience all night”

“How noble of you, Miss y/l/n! How will I ever repay you for this selfless act of charity!” He exaggerated, running his hands through his hair as he spoke.

“We’ll have to see about that one won’t we, I guess”, You hitched your bag back onto your shoulder properly. Before he turned into the courtyard of his new school he grabbed your arm,

“Wait a minute... you give off way too much chaotic energy for things to run smoothly. What’s your snap or your number or something incase something goes horribly wrong” He spoke again, with a slight twinkle in his eyes.

“Hm, go on then, I’ll give you my number then you can just add me on snapchat with it too if you really want. Two birds with one stone ‘n all that”, you reached into your bag and pulled out a pen. “Gimmie something to write on, chop chop matey!” you spoke hurridley, realising that you only had 10 minutes before you needed to be sat down in your first registration of the academic year. In a panic, he stuck out his hand, and you began to scribble down the first few digits.

“Fucking hell! I thought you were writing it down not tattooing it!”, he took in a sharp breath.

“Hm.. What.. Wait! Shit, sorry.. I’m a bit heavy handed”. You finished writing the numbers down with a conscious attempt not to press quite so hard and then threw the pen back into your bag.

“Aight then, I’ll see you later yeah?” He looked up at you,

“See ya later lemon boy”. You shot another smile before continuing on a few meters further down the path and approached the gates of St. Mary’s.

Hello old friend, you thought before taking a deep breath and turning into the school, with no way out for the next few hours at least. You stepped hurriedly through the labyrinth of corridors before reaching the room where you’d be registered. Throwing your bag onto your usual desk you could feel two sets of eyes on you.

“y/n l/n, You have some explaining to do! go on then, who’s the boy?” Niamh began, a devilish grin on her face.

“Gimme a second to sort my life out yeah? I just need to get my bearings then you can interrogate me”, you spoke, followed by a heavy sigh. After you put your bag in your new locker you returned to the desk where you were greeted by your long time friends once again. “Wait a minute, how do you even know? started hiring government spies or some shit?”

“Erm, no. But that’s quite a good idea actually. If you’re that desperate to know, Lewis sent me a message asking if you’d got a boyfriend over summer..” You let out a scoff before Maria could continue. “He still really likes you ya know?”

“Yes mum, I do know, you remind me most days” You all let out a laugh, attracting some attention from the neighboring tables.

“We’re off topic, you still need to explain yourself and we have like, 3 minutes until the bell goes” Niamh interrupted, she had always been the most conscious member of the group, as much as both you and Maria hated to admit.

“Right, I’ll keep it simple. I was at the met stop and he was stood on the wrong side so I told him to switch otherwise he’d never make it to school then he told me that his name’s Ben and he’s new and he’s in our year and then we got on the tram and then we went to get coffee then he decided he wanted a smoke and then I told him off and then we got to school and then I told him I’d meet him after school then I walked into school and now I’m here with you two” You barely paused for breath and gasped before either of your friends could continue, both of them looking shocked and rather confused.

“Right. You can explain that all again later in a bit only at least 76 times slower. ok? thanks? nice” is all Maria managed to respond before the door swung open and your teacher walked in...

Hope you enjoy !!❤️

Let me know if you want adding to the taglist !! :)

[cantando-siempre]

pinky promise

a little something i wrote for @logic-and-philosophy week last minute, inspired by an ask @mysunfreckle got talking about an enj & ferre fight.  hope i did it justice; not sure of my angst but we’ll see! enjoy!

read it on ao3 if you prefer!

“What are you doing up?”

Combeferre walks into Enjolras’s room in their apartment at 6 in the morning to find him wide awake, sprawled across his bed with books and sheaves of scribbled-on paper flung around him, his laptop perched on his lap in the center of the chaos.

“What I am doing up? E, it’s 6 in the morning. I’m getting up to leave for work.”

“No, it’s not,” Enjolras scoffs, not looking up from his keyboard.

“Enj.  There’s literally a clock on your computer.”

Enjolras doesn’t answer.  

Combeferre pauses.  “Have you been up all night?”

Nothing.  Combeferre can tell Enjolras knows exactly what he’s doing and what’s wrong here, he’s just digging his heels in and refusing to admit he’s messed up.

“Enj.”

Dead silence.

“Enjolras.”

“What?” Enjolras hisses, brow furrowing at his screen.

“You can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“This,” Combeferre exclaims, flinging his arms out.  “It’s 6 in the morning and you’ve got an 8 am class!”

“Yeah, and we’ve also got an ABC meeting tomorrow – today – and I have to get this done in time, plus there’s -- other stuff, and –”

“The ABC isn’t a priority –” Enjolras opens his mouth to protest and Combeferre holds up a hand “– your health is.”

“My health is perfectly fine.” Enjolras grits out.

“E, I can’t handle last February again.”

“It’s not going to get that bad,” Enjolras dismisses.  “I’m pacing myself –”  

“You're staying up until 6 in the morning!”

“I’m fine, Combeferre!”

“You’re obviously not!”  

Combeferre’s yelling at this point, his neck flushing.  Enjolras has finally looked up from his laptop, and is glaring at Combeferre with bleary eyes.

“Well, what about you?” Enjolras challenges.

“What do you mean?”

“You were up until 3 this morning.”

“I --”

“I heard you.”

“Listen, this isn’t about me, it’s about –”  

“Yeah, it’s about you!” Enjolras objects.  “You can’t come in here and lecture me on shit you’re doing too!”

“Oh, and who’s the one who passed out and got a concussion last year because they didn’t sleep for 72 hours?”

“Well, who’s the one who almost got hospitalized from running solely on black coffee and toast during exam week?  Spoiler: it’s you!” Enjolras yells, and he’s standing now, laptop strewn across the bed with the rest of his things.  He’s only a couple inches away from Combeferre, and his eyes are alert now, his jaw set tight.

“At least I don’t suppress my emotions until I have a breakdown. How’s Grantaire?” Combeferre hisses, fighting to keep his voice level.

“I don’t know, how’s Courfeyrac?” Enjolras fires right back.  “He hasn’t been around much lately; did he finally get sick of waiting for you to figure your shit out?”

Combeferre actually stumbles backward, looking at Enjolras with wide eyes.  Enjolras’s the only one he’s told about Courfeyrac, the only one he’d trusted enough to confide in.

“Piss off,” Combeferre growls, feeling like he’s going to explode.  “You’ve got no damn idea what you’re talking about, Enjolras, so just shut up.  Spend your time thinking about why Grantaire’s still coming to meetings despite you treating him like a piece of shit.”

“Fuck you,” Enjolras hisses, hands curling into fists and chest heaving.

“Same to you,” Combeferre spits, striding out and slamming Enjolras’s door behind him.  He yanks on his shoes in a daze and slings his bag over his shoulder, heading out of the apartment with his shoulders tense, jaw clenched, and eyes wet.

***

Combeferre hasn’t touched Enjolras in a week, and he’s going insane.

They’re both extremely touch-oriented, which Courfeyrac takes particular delight in observing.  Combeferre’s perfectly used to sitting on the couch typing on his laptop and randomly finding himself with a lapful of Enjolras, and he’s always resting his chin on Enjolras’s shoulder or slipping his cold feet under Enjolras’s legs and making him screech.  

Combeferre usually finds comfort in the fact that he can stumble through their door after a long day, swing his legs across Enjolras’s, and talk for hours, but he hasn’t even seen Enjolras for more than a minute recently, much less touched him.  Combeferre’ll come home for a break between work shifts and classes and catch a glimpse of Enjolras’s curly hair through the crack of his door, or pass him in the door of the kitchen as he brushes past and disappears out the door like an apparition.  

One morning, he and Enjolras come to a standstill over the island, their coffee pot in the middle zone.  Enjolras gives Combeferre a small nod, looking like death warmed over, and Combeferre shakes his head and nudges Enjolras’s favorite mug across the counter.  Enjolras gives him a tiny flicker of a smile and starts pouring coffee into his mug.  His hands are trembling, and there’s tiny half-moon cuts permanently indented into the soft skin of his palms.

“So --” Enjolras’s voice cracks.  “So how’s your lab going?”

This is purely bizarre.

“Good, I guess.” Combeferre answers cautiously.  “How’s Model UN going?”

Enjolras groans dramatically.  “It’s a complete shitshow; the delegate for North Korea is being a dick in committee and out, and --” he cuts himself off.

“Enjolras, can’t we just --”

“No, we can’t ignore this,” Enjolras interrupts.  “You’re being a hypocrite --”

“I am not --”

“Yes, you are!”

“Ok, well, if you’re saying we can’t ignore things, why don’t we talk about what’s been making you all tense lately?  Because your communication has been severely lacking.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You can’t figure it out?”

“Are you insulting me?”

“Why would I do that?”  

“I don’t know, why are you flipping out so much about me having a couple of late nights?  It’s not the end of the world, and we already fixed what happened last February --”

“It’s not fixed!” Combeferre cries.  “It doesn’t count as fixed if it’s happening all over again --”

“It’s not, shit, ‘Ferre, stop repeating yourself --”

“I can’t watch you like that again!”

“Well, maybe it’s not always about you, ‘Ferre!” Enjolras yells, hands clutching the edge of the counter.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Enjolras?” Combeferre says desperately.  “You know how both of us care so much, too much, about everyone else, and you know that’s not what I meant.  Please tell me what's wrong,” he pleads.

“There’s nothing wrong,” Enjolras grits out.

Combeferre sighs and walks out.  He’s done.

***

“Enjolras?”

Combeferre pads tentatively into Enjolras’s room after his last class of the day, armed with fresh-made gooey baklava as a peace offering.  Enjolras is squished into his tiny windowseat, staring through the glass out at the slowly darkening violet sky.  He doesn’t say anything, but Combeferre can tell he’s listening.

“Can we talk?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Enjolras says flatly.  “We’re fine.”

Combeferre almost snaps, but forces his mouth shut, stepping forward and setting the baklava pan on the bed.  “E -- Enjolras, I’m not stupid.  Something’s not right, and it’s -- it’s just wrong.”

“What, can you feel it?” Enjolras mocks, turning and scanning Combeferre up and down.

“Stop it!” Combeferre cries, his stomach swooping.  “This isn’t right, Enj, it isn’t you, and I can’t keep doing this.  You don’t play music anymore and you don’t come and make toast when I burn mine and you actually clean the coffee maker and – the apartment just doesn’t feel like home anymore.” he finishes quietly.

Enjolras looks startled when Combeferre finishes, and he watches him cycle through a hundred thoughts in his head until he settles on one.  Combeferre’s never been able to do that, compartmentalize and separate his thoughts into orderly piles.  His brain’s like a crinkled, ancient map; thought trails and isolated feelings and everything else weaving and circling and crossing over each other to make a mess of squiggly lines and indecipherable scribbles.

“You were right, you know,” Enjolras suddenly mutters, glaring a hole in the ragged carpet. “I had a panic attack in the Musain bathroom yesterday.  It was just too much at once, and I couldn’t handle thinking about it, so I just... didn’t.”

“What’s it?” Combeferre asks, voice quiet.

“You know who.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

Enjolras shakes his head.

“You need to hear you say it, Enj,” Combeferre says gently.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras forces out, biting his lip and fiddling with his leather bracelet.

“What about him?”

“No,” Enjolras says abruptly.  “That’s enough.”

“Alright,” Combeferre hums, “but you need to admit it to yourself eventually.”

“I will.” Enjolras says quietly.  “I have.”

There’s silence for a minute.  Enjolras crosses the room, sinking onto his bed and swiping a finger across the baklava to lick off the sugar syrup.  “I don’t want to be tired anymore,” he mumbles, sounding defeated and scrubbing at his eyes.  “It’s exhausting.”

“That is generally a side effect of sleeping two hours a night,” Combeferre quips, settling on the bed next to Enjolras and laying down, staring at the old glow-in-the-dark-stars he and Enjolras put up on Enjolras’s ceiling when they moved in.

“But you can’t pretend you’re innocent,” Enjolras says, whirling and pointing his finger at Combeferre’s face.  “Just because you were right about... some things doesn’t mean you’re not doing stuff wrong, and you said shitty stuff too.  You need to get more sleep.”

“E --”

“No excuses,” Enjolras says fiercely.  “I’ll work on communicating and... other stuff, and you work on not driving yourself into the ground.  Deal?” He holds out his right pinky, locking Combeferre’s gaze.

“Deal,” Combeferre finally says, linking pinkies with Enjolras and managing to keep a straight face before Enjolras breaks, his nose crinkling, and then Combeferre starts laughing too.  He takes in a deep breath and lets it out, and he feels so content as Enjolras flops down next to him and starts gesturing wildly in the air.

He’s got his best friend back.

[aimforthemoonstudyblr]

Hello STUDENTS OF TUMBLR, so here’s the post I talked about yesterday. This is  a recapitulation for all the study tips I followed whether it worked for me or not. Just try what you think works better for you. if you don’t have time to waste on trying new methods of studying and then failing with it and trying another one. Just sit with yourself, pick a paper and a pen (doesn’t matter the brand HHHHHHHH), then think of how you study the best, what’s your learning style : check here for more , and based on that choose what will work with you, your school system, your personality, how you manage your time .. and all.

 After figuring out your learning style, it’s time for the first step : MOTIVATION . I can hear some of you saying that motivation doesn’t matter, and what’s matter is discipline, and I totally agree with that, but I think that in order to build a discipline/ habit we need a push of motivation to start. ( I can recommend you the videos that motivates me the most).

****How to get motivation ? ****

1-    Audios / videos/ music ( there are plenty of them online and for free)

2-    Quotes. I definitely recommend putting motivational quotes in every sight-reachable  place.

3-    Pick a paper ( until finishing this post, you’ll need a lot of papers HHHHHH) and write all the reasons why you’re doing this, why your studying?

Personally : my school year starts on 15/9 and ends on mid June. It’s gonna be a long year since I’ll have exams on June based on what I studied from September to May. So I wrote on papers 260 quotes ( one for each day). If you want to try it, you can do that on sticky notes, or just simple papers(if you want it coloured, print some themed backgrounds and write on them)  

 Now you’re motivated and all, take a paper and divide it to  :

1-    Write all the subjects you take at school, class them from your weakest to the strongest subject.

2-    How many hours you can study daily? ( on week days / weekends / holidays.. ) , here it’s better to underestimate than saying I can study 6 hours a day then doing nothing.

3-    The largest part. Divide the hours estimated for each day in a way that you give your weakest subjects more time to work on ( having strong subject doesn’t mean ignoring them, give them time to).

4-    Now in a little column, write why things are not going well: is the problem YOU? Are you the only one stopping yourself from being excellent? ( i’m asking these questions, because I WAS) or is it something else? Parents? Friends ? relationships? Mental health issues? ( try to talk with someone about your issues or see a pro) [sorry, I’m not a professional advice giver and I don’t have the solutions for all of these problems, I had one problem and it was related to me and my way of thinking and I changed it myself, please talk with someone who’s struggling with the same things as you, and I hope you’re all going well and doing good] .

Let’s move to the practical tips :

·         You have probably read this at least 1584358442 times, but I’m re-saying it, because it’s so true. PLAN YOUR LIFE. PLANIFIER VOTRE VIE. خطط(ـي) لحياتك. Plane dein Leben. I don’t know another languages, but whatever language you speak, DO IT. how to plan? You’ll need the paper where you wrote the subjects and the time for each one. Get a planner, start a bullet journal, get some printables online, create those printables yourself with Microsoft, or just simple USE A PAPER. You can plan for a day, or for a week, for a month, or the whole year. I recommend doing weeklies at the beginning of each month , filling each day with your regular activities, important days or tasks ( that you already know) , and then every time that you have something new, add it on its day. when to plan? As I said plan monthly, then weekly, then daily, and every night before going to bed check what you need to do for tomorrow ( it will helps you get out of bed next morning)

·         Don’t overestimate what you can do. It’s okay to admit that you’re not a super human and you won’t be able to sleep for 8 hours go to school for 6hours , socialize , eat well , exercices and then study for 6 hours. If you can do that, congratulations , but you’re damaging your brain.

·         When planning and you have a history project don’t just write ° History instead write : - brainstorming : searching for ideas - organizing those ideas - plan your project : I.1.a / I.1.b … - finding an appropriate related video - organizing all information + adding animation ( if it’s on powepoint) - making sure you have copies of it ( it happened to me a lot that I finish a project than lose it because of a click) and you can apply this not only to projects but to all kind of activities like cleaning : wardrobe – kitchen – bath.. first you will feel satisfied ticking a lot of tasks, and second if you didn’t finish all the under-task , it will be a task in progress not an uncompleted task.

·         Start your day with checking your planner and  doing a to-do list to get a general look on your day. Write next to each task how much time it will take, so that you know what to prioritize

·         Try waking up early , it’ll boost your energy and if you’re best concentrating on morning wake up earlier and benefit of morning , I do this personally but make sure in this case to get to bed earlier too.

·         For your homework, write any homework you get down. I used to say I’ll remember it, then come next session and figure out that I had 12 math exercices. If you have blank hours between classes, use it to get your homework done , so that when you get home you’ll only focus on revising, summarizing.. getting ahead in class. start with doing the homework for your least favourite class or your weakest ones or the ones that take too much time. Do it as soon as it’s given to you, so that you get it out of the way.

·         Think of installing blocker for distracting sites, whether it’s on phone or computer.

·         Related to the previous one, limit your social media time, it won’t matter if you missed out news like your cousin bought a new car or that your friend from primary school is in Amsterdam, you can go back after studying and know all those unnecessary news.

·         Get rid of electronics if you don’t need them.

·         If you’re working on a project, collect all what you need from internet them disconnect. Otherwise, you’ll probably gonna see a pic of a cute cat and you’ll click on the link and you’ll find yourself after 3 hours watching videos of a turtle carrying a cat on his back ( I do this.).

·         Set a clean and minimalist study space, and bring all what you need for that study session from the beginning to avoid distraction.

·         I’ll also recommend changing studying space often ( if that works for you), because scientifically every time we move around we force the brain to form new associations with the same material so it becomes a stronger memory.

·         If you can do it now then DO IT. There’s an Arabic proverb that goes: لا تؤجل عمل اليوم إلى الغد، فإن للغد عملا آخر. (Do not postpone today's work to tomorrow, for tomorrow has its own work) [see the first pic]

·         In class sit at the front : - I do this because I get distracted easily by my friends , plus i’m short-sighted. - you’ll hear the teacher better, also the teachers always answer for front-students questions because they look more serious than questions of someone sitting at the back.

·         ASK. Don’t be shy. There’s nothing wrong with asking, even if you sounded stupid, better sounding stupid in class, then being stupid in the exam. Profit from every chance to ask. Ask your teachers, classmates, google, parents, teachers that aren’t really your teachers (I don’t think they’ll ignore you). If you’re toooo shy to ask in front of classmate, wait for the end of the session, and go to the teacher.

·         While revising, put a mark, or highlight what you need to ask for, and actually ASK FOR IT. I used to just highlight questions that I didn’t understood and never asking, and guess what, one time on a Physics exam, while redoing old exams of my teacher I found so many hard questions, I said he gave them before, he’ll never give them another time. He actually did. J

·         After school routine: i take train to go back home, my way back home lasts 40mn. 1st I do when coming back is studying, because my brain is still in the mood to study ( when I’m extremely tired physically or emotionally , I take a nap. Health and Mental wellness have more priority then Studying for me).

·         when I go back to home, I don’t change clothes to stay in the sensation of being in school. Plus home’s cloths are comfortable but make you feel lazy. ( at least for me) . if you feel comfortable with home’s clothes and still be productive, change.

·         EAT WELL. I can recommend some good food for your brain : Omega 3 & fattyacids (eggs/ fishes : salmon- sardines .. ) – caffeine ( coffe-/ tea) in moderate consumption- Curcumin ( improves memory and boosts serotonin and dopamine which improves mood, it also helps new brain cells grown) – vitamin K( broccoli) – pumpkin seeds- oranges- dark chocolate .. also STAY HYDRATED : it improves concentration and cognition, helps balancing mood and emotions, reduce stress, increase blood flow and oxygen to the brain and maintains memory function. Just TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. ( if exercising works for you, do it. I didn’t personally try that, I’ll just start exercising this year because one of my final exam on June is Physical Education, and it’s all practical)  

·         Revisit older work on a regular basis to keep it familiar so that it will be stored in long term memory. And revise often.

·         This is how I do for revising sessions : I keep track of the review dates of each chapter : - 1st R : 2 days after taking it in class - 2nd R : 3 days after 1st R -3rd R : 7 days after 2nd R -4th R : 21 days after 3rd R - 5th R : 30 days after 4th R - 6th R : 45 days after 5th R - 7 th R : 60 days after 6th R with this system I’ll be able on June to remember what I learned on October.

·         Also, everytime you review, test yourself.

·         Divise the revision sessions in bloc of 20 to 50 mn, then take a rest, to give time to your brain to analyse to the new information. And every time increase the time.

·         Learn the same information in different ways : - rewrite it in your way - mind maps - explain it to someone else - youtube videos - class notes - others resources : your friends notes, if you have this in your country Para-scholar books (books made by other teachers –not by the government- where you can find notes, summaries, exercises with correction )

·         When revising, make a list of possible questions. Make quizzes. If it’s literary subject ( languages) , do a list of possible writings topics). For math, re-do the exercises given by teacher (the exam will probably look alike, since it’s the same person making the exam). If it’s a national exam ( my case), do the exercises given in the end of every chapter ( since it’s the same government giving the exam).

·         Make mnemonic* to facilitate learning new information. Link the information with a crazy story. (- Mnemonic = cutiing something down into an acronym, rhythm, word or phrase, to help remembering it).

·         Read information out loud: you’re mentally storing it in two ways : seeing and hearing it.

·         Talk to yourself , imagine you’re explaining it to someone else. Move while reading your notes. I don’t know why but It works for me.

·         In one sitting just focus on one topic. But don’t stick to the same topic for the whole day, or the whole after-school, your brain will feel that he’s not learning something new, and he’ll stop accepting new information.

·         Don’t memorize in one sitting rather break up the info into small chunks and review them consistently over a long period of time.

·         Before every exam make a checklist of things you need to know. It will help you get an overview of the material.

·         Start studying for an exam earlier, you’ll have more time in case you stuck on some points. Also you don’t know what can happen, you could get sick or an emergency ruins your plans.

·         Work on your psychic state. If you have toxic relations, get them out of your life. You need all your brain capacity, you can’t just waste it on toxic things. If you feel like needing help, ask for it.

·         HELP YOUR FRIENDS. (if you’re not religious, ignore the rest of this point, and just do this because you’re a great human <3 , if you’re religious: I had a teacher that used to always say this to us : “Help each other because who only loves himself (selfish), God doesn’t love him”).

·         DON’T BE SOO HARD ON YOURSELF. TAKE A DAY OFF IF YOU’VE DONE WELL ALL THE WEEK. I saw this on a youtube video: you can make a system of scoring for yourself , everytime you reach a score you’ll do something fun : go to the cinema, go on a train trip, go to the down town, or just lie in bed and watch your favourite movie. REWARD YOURSELF.

  I can help with other tips, I’m just busy these days, maybe all go back later and add some more.

I hope this is useful for you.

If anyone have any remark or questions, please don’t be shy.

   (excuse my English) .

[eyenfinite]

012420 | @ eyenfinite, rse

LONG POST AHEAD!! (again)

 Ilang araw na since the result was posted but I keep on checking it, and I still see my mothafucken name, I wanna cry. My hands were literally shaking from the time it was posted. Sobrang unexpected knowing na lakas ng loob lang talaga ang ipinuhunan ko dun and I’m not even kidding. Sharing with you some of the notes I had during my review days.

“Today, I woke up feeling at ease — which I think is strange? Idk. I dreamt of passing the board exams and everyone were congratulating me. Sana true.” (Dec 28, 2019; 7:40 am)

--

“Yo!!! I just got the result of my final preboard AND I FREAKING PASSED IT!! I cried earlier when they called me and handed me the results. It was really unexpected. I feel like I wasn’t really able to give my best, and I still doubt myself as to whether I will pass or not but tadah!! I PASSED!!! I went 16 (?) ranks higher this time. THANK YOU LORD Let’s do this again at the actual board exam!! 100% BatSu!! LGE!!!!!!” (Jan 07, 2020; 9:06 pm)

 --

“Yesterday was the first day of our board exam. Ayoko magmukhang mayabang but tbh, hindi na ako kinabahan. Ayoko lang ding magsabi ng tapos at sabihing hindi ako nahirapan sa exam, kasi hindi din ako nadalian. On to the second day! Simula na ng computation! Laban lang and trust Him. Claiming na engineer ako next week! Engineer na kami next week! ” (Jan 16, 2020; 3:49 am)

--

“Exam’s over!! Para kaming nabunutan ng tinik sa lalamunan. Hahaha. We were all devastated lalo na after ng 2nd day exam kasi ang hirap talaga ng mga tanong sa Civil. Pati mga master namin, nahirapan. Naiiyak na nga ako that time kasi sabi ko, hindi ko pwedeng hulaan basta yung sagot kasi one time big time ‘yung exam. It’s not like removals sa uni. I kept praying din kasi parang nanghihina na ako physically and emotionally. Like, what if sumabit ako? Mga ganun na naiisip ko. But I have faith in Him. Then yesterday, we were all cramming after the 1st exam kasi for sure puro computations na formula based yun. Nung nabigay na samin yung exam at nabrowse ko, wala namang kakaiba. Lahat naman ng computations ay gamay namin at maganda ang foundation sa review center.  It went smooth with the computations part. Mej nangangatal pa nga ako. Hahaha. Nasulit namin yung 4 hrs. We went straight to the church after, I was in tears while thanking Him. For all that He has given us, especially the strength. I won’t be able to finish the exam if not because of Him.” (Jan 17, 2020; 8:40 am)

 --

Week before the exam, feeling ko hindi na ako makaaral. We spentd almost 6 hours sa review center na puro exams and handouts ang binibigay, nonstop. Hindi ko na alam paano ipapasok lahat sa utak ko. Yung mga exams, di ko na sinasagutan, inaantay ko na lang na checkan namin. Kung magkakaron man kami ng time mag-aral sa umaga, mababawasan pa yun kasi pumupunta pa kami ng St. Jude para umattend ng mass and novena. After review, pagod na pagod ka na na gusto mo na lang matulog na. Nung umuwi ako, someone called and said “Bukas, lalabas na ang result. Mga 10 am.”, and I’m like, PRC ka ghorl? Char. Alam ko naman na after 2-3 working days lalabas yung result pero wala akong pinagsasabihan kasi baka ma-jinx. Plus, ayokong sila yung unang makakita ng result. What if wala ako? Nasa pauna pa naman ang pangalan ko kaya madali lang makita. What I didn’t know is that some of my friends pala were silently waiting din for the result.

Ayun, talagang let go and let God lang. I mean, who would have thought that I’ll come this far? The other day, I saw some of my notes regarding how uncertain I was with my studies, graduation, review and passing the board. Maybe God said I need not to worry cos he’s got my back.

xx,

your tumblristang engineer na.

[ryuuichinaruhodo]

Work life limbo

I had gotten food poisoning the day before the exam for the apprenticeship, I was bedridden for over a week. That was frustrating as you could only apply for that next year. So what was I to do until then?

I had immersed myself into anime and games, attended comic con and got into manga. It wasn't until October when my dad invited me to work at my uncles restaurant as they were short staffed.

I worked there for a period of 3 months, earning £4/hr, below minimum wage. Being my first job, working 10hrs my feet were not used to the aching and tiredness and on my first day after I came back home I went straight to bed.

The prices on the menu were really cheap, 50p for a cup of tea for example, takeaway £4-5, buffet 6.30. The job itself wasn't that difficult, aside from the immense amount of chilli oil burning my hands. My ezcema flared up constantly when working with my hands. At times I would argue with my father, he was a different person when he worked. Easy to anger, stressed.

Other times I would argue with one specific customer who would get away with eating the whole buffet and getting a drink for only £2.

Working for my uncle, it's easy to see why he made millions: exploiting his employees by paying them almost nothing. He had owed my dad money for years.

End of that year the restaurant closed down, it didn't seem to be making any money. I mean the prices were really low and the customers always complained they were too high.

My next job after that was CeX, I stayed for about 4 months earning the minimum wage of 5.30. The job itself was alright, but there were management issues. At times I would have my lunch at 5pm. A full 8 hrs since I last ate and 2hrs before closing. They had employed too many young staff at one point and had cut my hours. I wasn't happy about the hours cut and the staff they hired made plenty of mistakes. One of them wasn't taught properly and gave away 2 expensive phones worth 2k.

After earning enough money to build a new pc for £1000, I left and decided to try look for an apprenticeship again.

I went to Lambeth college on the apprenticeship open day, I had the intention of looking for a digital marketing job or a construction one. In the end I went for a month coding course to see if I liked it or not.

This coding course was the wrong choice. We had to make an app from scratch, it was difficult and it still had a ton of bugs. It was unrealistic for us to make something perfect after just a month of training. But we managed and overall it was a success. However when the placements came, that's when I lost interest. I did 2 placements one at mylondonhome.

Originally there was supposed to be one other person doing the project with me, however he dropped out and I was left on my own to develop an app. So I did the best that I could, I made a prototype and thought that someone else would come in to build upon that. However they expected me to make full fledged app in just 2 weeks on my own. They only paid me minimum wage.

In the 2nd placement I did have a team to work with, but because we were all new to designing and making an app we struggled. Some of the issues we had was that we had to tether our phones to get internet to do our job. The supervisor incharge never provided us with internet and kept bouncing us between 2 locations. After about 2 weeks he told us it was shite, all that work we had put in shot down. What do you expect when you're not provided the support or the tools to do your job. The team gradually got smaller and smaller and went from 6 to just 3 people. I had enough of that stupidity and even though they were paying living wage it wasn't worth my time. I had to lead the team for some reason and in doing so felt like I was doing most of the work. All that work amounted to nothing in the end.

I took a break from working after those placements left a bad taste in my mouth. Everyone thinks I love coding, sure it's fun when you get into it but when you're first experience with something is terrible is hard to convince yourself to beat a dead horse and go back to it.

Next year my through my dad's connections I gotten a job in a high class Chinese restaurant. He said they would pay £10/hr. He was wrong it was minimum wage. I did part time - 6 days a week part time.

This job only lasted 5.5 weeks, I was treated like an outsider by the staff. They were horrible and picked on me. Whilst trying to learn how to do the job they just laughed at me for being slow. All I ever did in that restaurant was grab a cloth, wet it with vinegar and wipe plates. I asked one of the employees who worked over 2 years if he ever saw a raise. He never had gotten a raise. The manager there was the most useless person in the restaurant and made the wait staffs lives a nightmare. He couldn't do anything himself, couldn't use Excel, couldn't take orders, didn't know what the food looked like. So every 5 mins he would pick on someone to do something. It got old and annoying fast. I then started looking for another job. On my final day at the restaurant the staff started arguing with me saying I left work undone and that they helped me but that was a lie. They had to be forced by the manager when I complained for them to help me. My hours were done anyway, I was no longer part of it so they could not force me. The very fact that they lash out on my last day reaffirmed that I made the right choice to leave early.

The job I applied for seemed promising and I thought they would of accepted me for the role. But instead they opted for someone whose used to work there because they had experience. So I was left hanging .

As usual when a job has screwed me over I would take a short break. So that's what I did, I went back to playing games and watching anime.

Sometime in the summer my brother's friend was doing his own bubble tea business and was looking for a helper on the weekend. So as I usually do I thought why not. It was decent I would earn £50 for 7-8hrs work, around minimum wage. We went to a Thai festival in that year, travelled all the way to bath. My first time in bath the buildings looked like something out of a Victorian film. One of the issues with making such a sweet drink in the summer was the number of wasps that would attack you. There were issues with the job, like the menu being massive and that each drink had to be made in such a specific way, to the millimetre even. The owner also had issues with wanting everything to be perfect and that he could the job perfectly but others could not. After the summer had ended, there was no more business to be had so I was left with nothing to do for awhile.

A few months later in November and a random charity worker knocked on my door looking for people to donate to a good cause. Considering I had no job or income I wasn't able to give. However he told me if you don't have a job why dont you try this job? So that's what I did I tried yet again.

This job was a very difficult job, trying to get complete strangers to part with their money by reading off a script. I would have to knock over 150 doors each night. Being the middle or November the nights were very cold. 150 doors is alot of doors to knock but getting people to sign up to something was like a needle in a haystack. After just a short 2 days of training by reading off a script and given the procedure to get people to sign up, on my first day I had no idea what to expect, but I wasn't given all the equipment I needed to do the job. I was told it was my fault for not checking. How was I supposed to know what I needed? So I lashed out at them for their negligence. I tried for 2 weeks, I believe 99% of my training group left the job. The issue with this job is that you need a high level of fitness to knock 150 doors. We had one person who was overweight and they could not keep up. I could barely keep up myself having asthma. I had no choice but to quit after 2 weeks as that was the probation period.

I took an extended break until summer time came once again. I was ask to do the bubble tea again and I did. This time the owner had a van especially for bubble tea making. We had planned to do another event, this time about anime camping. So I went to help him out with this, even helping him receive a delivery at his house when he wasn't able to. The next day I went in the car of his friend and for about 6 hours we had a system in place that worked really well. Come 6pm we would pack up swiftly and head back. I was given £50 that day. The owner then asked me if I wanted to help him out tomorrow and so I did.

Like I said previously about the owner he had issues. When we had arrived at the venue he had managed to forget the straws! How do you forget that when you're making bubble tea? So at some point in the middle of the day he had to dip out and travel back to his house to grab more. I was left alone in charge for about an hour. I wasn't able to serve people without straws and was stuck waiting for him. After he came back he kept nitpicking everything, if a drink was slightly off he would tell me to make the whole drink from scratch, slowing the production. He said that he would finish up business by 6pm. He was still serving even at 9pm! Plus we had to pack up everything into the van after. That took a long time, we started packing at 8pm and didn't finish until 11pm. It had already been well over 12 hrs working and then he stuck around to chat to people when I was clearly tired and frustrated wanting to go home. It wouldn't be until 1am that I would get back home. After that he gave me £60 for the 'hardwork'. Wait so you're telling me yesterday I worked 6hrs and got £50, but today I worked 10+hrs and only got £10 more? What the fuck.

So I started to question him, I would like another £20. He for sure made alot of money in that event, there was no way he couldn't afford to pay me correctly after I had helped him receive supplies at his house, went out of my way to help him days in a row. Even Manning the station for an hour because of the straws. Guess what he made up a long list of excuses telling me he paid me less because I made mistakes and that he didn't even need my help. Saying that travelling in his car actually cut into my wages. Some fucking bullshit I tell you. I thought that being my brother's friend I could trust him to pay me a decent wage for my work. I started to go through his list of excuses and cut his lies to pieces, that's what my brother gave me when he saw it. Afterwards he called me up and said 'whats your problem?. That was the angriest I had ever gotten over the phone. I started going through his bullshit and he tried to say that it was justified to pay me less because I had to sit in his car. Well if I had known that I had to pay a journey fee to work for him I would have never helped in the first fucking place . Afterwards I told him he better send me the fucking money and when he did I was done with his sorry ass of a man. His girlfriend started attacking me over social media saying that it was £20 extra. No if fucking wasn't, it was the minimum wage that I had earned. It's my right to earn the legal wage.

After that ordeal I took a extended break once again until next year...

[memsmedic1]

India part two (clinics in the jungle) 12/25/2016-1/8/2017

…The patient was a 32 y/o male who’d been carried by his friends on a homemade stretcher from a village 5 hours away! He had been sick and getting progressively worse for the past 11 days with fever and chills, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain, and now bloody diarrhea.

The patient was semiconscious, feverish, hyperpneic, tachypneic (44 RR/min) tachycardic, diaphoretic, hypovolemic (78/62), with severe RUQ and RLQ abdominal pain and guarding.

After completing a detailed exam and ruling out other possible causes of his illness such as appendicitis, peritonitis, encephalitis, amebic dysentery, malaria, and arboviral fever, we decided to treat for septic shock as well as enteric fever and infectious colitis.

After treating him with ceftriaxone, ketamine, promethazine, cipro, metronidazole, paracetamol, and 3 liters of normal saline over the course of the afternoon we advised his friends to spend the night in the village and come see us again first thing in the morning.

Next morning he was back again and this time he could talk and sit up on his own! He stated that he felt much better and his vital signs were much closer to normal than yesterday, but he was still sick so he got another IV with fluids and antibiotics, and then we turfed him back home with strict instructions on how to take the oral antibiotics and ibuprofen we prescribed for him and to drink lots of water!

Over the course of the entire expedition we only had a handful of critical patients (6-8) who probably would have died without care and several of them were seen in this first village. One woman who was carried in from an even further outlying village on a bamboo stretcher was so sick that we requested for her to be flown out by the military, and since we were foreigners they agreed. She was flown to Dibrugarh where she spent a week in ICU but was able to recover.

In between taking care of the critical patients, I was able to help with the rest of the people who came to be seen also. First the patients would sign in to the register and get triaged. After triage they would form a line and go one by one into newly built bamboo and sheet exam rooms where one medical person and a translator would do a complete workup on the patient and then call one of the two MD’s in who would take report, perform any additional examinations and make a diagnosis.

Most of these cases were fairly straightforward: We saw a lot of children with parasites, sick babies, stomach pain, back pain, muscle and joint pain, non cardiac chest pain, headaches, and ear problems.

We also saw quite a few patients who required surgical procedures. I was able to assist with several including keloid scar removal, lancing a plugged sublingual salivary gland, repairing a cleft lip, and cutting out a subcutaneous cyst on a patients head.

The amazing thing is how incredibly grateful and appreciative the people were for everything we did, from giving worm medicine and children’s vitamins to complex treatments and procedures. Not once did anyone demand more than we had given or try to maximize their profit from us unlike the rest of India. Of course some of the patients were shy and didn’t want to tell us everything that was wrong with them when we were writing down the chief complaint so after giving them medicine or other help for their illness or injury I would always ask if they had any questions and they would sometimes say no but I also have these other problems… So it was very hard to gauge how long a certain patient might take to be seen!

The medical team worked in the first village for 3 days. The weather during this time was crystal clear and sunny during the day and nearly freezing at night. On the morning of our first hike however, we woke up to fog and rain. We decided to hold the clinic for 2 more hours before heading out to see the last of the patients but it ended up being 4 hours by the time we were finished!

Then we packed all the medicine and supplies into large bamboo baskets that would be portered to the next village we would be stopping in. The cooks who had been taking such good care of us made us one more meal of rice and vegetables and then we were off on our first hike!

We were on the trail for maybe 2 hours when we came to a small village which consisted of only a couple bamboo houses. In front of one of these had been constructed a brand new bamboo shelter with tables and benches underneath. The villagers had received word that we were traveling through today and had prepared a meal for us!

We were all still full from lunch but if we were to refuse to eat it would be very disappointing to the generous villagers so we gratefully took off our ponchos and backpacks and sat down at the brand new tables.

In addition to the standard ball of rice with curry we were also given an assortment of fruits to eat. We had bananas, tangerines, fresh and dried persimmons (amazing), and small round fruits that looked exactly like tiny dragon eggs! They are called “gelesuh ” and after peeling the scales off are translucent with a large pit in the center like a litchi, but they taste deliciously tart instead of sweet.

Even though it was fruit like this that was special for me anything that can’t be grown or harvested locally is what is prized by the mountain people. Because these villages are completely cut off from the outside world except by trail (including radio, tv, cellular service, electricity other than solar, and even satellite phone which is banned by the military due to sensitive geographic location) you can either hike the 5 days out to town and then carry your groceries back uphill for 5 plus days home or you can purchase your supplies and have them packed in by Chakma porters.

Chakmas’ are originally from Bangladesh and are well known for the heavy loads they are able to carry. They make their living portering flour, salt, oil, roofing tin, and other staples up into the valley for 150 to 200 rupees/kg ($2.38-$3.17). The packs our porters are carrying are quite heavy (40-50 kg) but were nothing compared to what these guys carry which can be over 80 or 90 kg.

A package of salt that is worth 10 rupees in the city is sold for 200 rupees up here because it is valued by weight.

After this scrumptious repast we donned our packs and ponchos and continued hiking down the slippery trail. After another hour or so the rain stopped and we were able to see the afternoon sun shining on all the fresh snow that had been dumped higher up the mountains.

Part of the time the trail led through the dense jungle and part of the time we followed along the side of the river.

As we walked along we kept our eyes open for wild animals. Part of the trail we were on led through one of india’s national parks which is the largest protected area in the Eastern Himalayans, and is well known as one of the richest areas of biodiversity in India.

Animals that call the park and this valley home include Bengal Tigers, Leopards, Snow Leopards, Clouded Leopards, many smaller cats, Asiatic Black Bears, Sun Bears, Dholes, wolves, Indian Elephants and many other herbivores, Red Pandas, Slow Loris, Eurasian Otters, linsangs, binturongs, civets, butterflies, birds, and 7 species of primates!

While we heard monkeys almost every day (I think they were watching us) the only other wild things I saw were lots of brilliantly colored butterflies, many different birds, and a flock of Hornbills.

After another couple hours we came to a small Nepali village where the villagers insisted we stop for refreshments yet again! Fortunately for me one of our critical patients from the first clinic was in this village so I was able to delicately sidestep total gluttony and go check on her. While she had been doing very well after being treated a couple days ago she was now hemorrhaging again and needed additional medical care that we couldn’t give because all our medical supplies were ahead with the porters. We told the family that we would send a team back in the morning with medicine and helped them figure out some things they could do for her in the meantime.

After this we continued on hiking but because of our late start, the rain and slippery trail, and all of our stops we didn’t arrive at the next village we were stopping in ‘till a few hours after dark.

By this time we were tired, sore, and had blisters from our wet shoes but this village was very happy to see us and cheered us up with a welcome celebration that included speeches, dances, and jungle flower leis for everybody! Afterwards we were shown to our quarters which was actually a house built with hand cut boards for the school teacher to live in.

We set up our supplies in the village school and held the clinic for 2 days. Even though this is the biggest village in the valley there were no critical patients here so I was able to focus entirely on taking care of regular patients, and there were lots of them! Early in the morning when we’d walk over to the pharmacy and exam rooms to get ready to start we would have a crowd beginning to gather, and after dark when we were exhausted and finished for the day we’d have another look and there would be more patients waiting than when we started!

The kids were so cute and curious, our translators told us that there had only been one other time foreigners visited them; two German or Australian naturalists studying and photographing the flora and fauna several years ago. So if a child hadn’t hiked out of the valley yet either to go to town or school we were some of the first or the first white people they had ever seen!

On December 30th we packed up and prepared to hike to our next stop, but first the villagers had a going away ceremony for thanking us for coming and helping. They also gave each of us a beautiful hand woven basket as a going away present and then we were off!

Back along the river and through the jungle we trekked, enjoying the warm sunny day and gorgeous views. Halfway through the days journey we came to a small village where they were expecting us for lunch. After we entered one of the bamboo huts and sat down around the wall we had a happy surprise: no rice for lunch! Today we were served tea, popcorn, tapioca root, purple yams, and sugarcane! After we finished we were able to see 5 or 6 patients from the area before continuing on our way. Again we had to hike after dark through the jungle for several hours to make it to our next clinic area (not recommended).

There are countless creeks and streams that must be crossed, some via bamboo or log bridge and some from boulder to boulder. Also the trail was riddled with areas that had been completely obliterated by landslides and some of these were very treacherous. Either the mud is so deep that you run the risk of becoming permanently planted or so unstable and slippery you risk sliding right off the former trail and over the edge of the mountain.

Our destination today was the smallest village we were scheduled to visit. We spent New Years Eve there seeing patients and for the first time were able to see everyone who came for treatment in one day and still have daylight leftover to wash our clothes and take baths in the river! To get to the river you had to walk through a large field of cardamom which is the cash crop of this area, through a section of jungle, down a part of the mountain so steep you have to use roots and vines to lower yourself down, through more jungle, and down the bank to the rushing, bigger than it looked from the helicopter, ice cold, crystal clear, glacier water!

After hanging around the fire for a couple hours talking and taking care of blisters we went to bed, but not for long! We were woken up just after midnight by several very loud firecrackers and then we heard a large group of people singing to us! To celebrate New Years here the villagers go caroling and write a Happy New Years message on all the doors in the village in addition to setting off fireworks if they can get them.

Next morning we wished each other a happy 2017 and began packing our backpacks and getting ready for our longest hike of the journey. We ate a delicious breakfast of tea, rice balls, and dal and were on the trail by 0730.

One of the American teams people had been kinda dragging for the last day or two and wasn’t eating much but she said she was fine and we thought it was probably just fatigue and a stomach virus.

Again we traveled through virgin jungle and along the pristine river under a sunny, clear, bright blue sky. The sleeping bag penetrating chill of the night soon wore off and we started shedding our jackets one by one. As happens every travel day, the group slowly spread out along the trail as we hiked along with the faster ones in front. The longest hike of the expedition was going to be today because we were passing through the least populated part of the valley. There will be no villages between where we stayed last night and the next village where they are expecting us tonight. There was not even anywhere for us to stop for lunch so we were all trying to make good time.

Early afternoon I was drooping along somewhere near the front of the lineup when I was overtaken by one of the other M-E.M.S. team members. He told me that one of our translators had caught up to him and said that the person who had looked a little sick earlier had suddenly become a lot sick and was hardly making any time at all. The two of them were trying to catch up to the front of the group where the porters were and grab some IV supplies and medicine for her.

I decided to go with them so the 3 of us jogged down the trail a couple more miles until we came upon some porters. We searched through their loads and found a bunch of saline and a drip set but none of the other supplies needed. We continued on a little farther and found another group of people including some porters and another M-E.M.S. member. After more searching through porters loads we had amassed an eclectic pile of IV crap and a couple meds but not the medicine or IV start supplies I was looking for. The porters told us that the items we were looking for was with the next group at the front of the expedition but that they were too far ahead to catch.

We decided we would just have to make what we had work so the 3 of us from M-E.M.S. started running back up the valley towards our days starting point looking for our patient. We would remember certain landmarks and say “surely they will have made it that far” only to have them come into view one by one devoid of life.

Finally just before sunset we caught sight of our goal slowly moving toward us. One of our translators was carrying the patient on his back and there were a couple other medical team members and porters with them.

After laying the patient down and everyone else quickly catching our breath we found out the patient had started off from the village this morning mostly ok but then started experiencing worsening nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, severe headache, weakness, and dizziness. When I checked her out the patient was cool, pale, diaphoretic, tachycardic, hypotensive, and dehydrated.

I patched together the supplies we had been able to find, started an IV, and gave her what medicine we had. Then we built a stretcher out of a bamboo pole and a hammock and got ready to retrace our steps a second time back down the trail.

This was easier said than done. For one thing there were creeks, streams, bamboo pole bridges, fallen trees, and landslides to cross, and for another even though we rotated out who was carrying the stretcher fairly often, when the translator/porter first came ahead to tell us there was a problem he had left his load along the trail so instead of resting between shifts whoever wasn’t carrying the patient had to tote a giant porters basket filled with clinic supplies!

After dark we continued on for 5 or 6 more hours using our headlamps but there was no way we would reach our destination that day. Fortunately one of our translators knew a family who had moved from the large village that we had held clinic at into this mostly unpopulated area to start growing a cardamom field and we were able to make it to their bamboo house and spend the night with them. They also gave us our first real meal since morning which was no small thing because they haven’t started growing rice yet. They have to carry in all their food that they can’t hunt or gather in the jungle!

The patient was still very sick and couldn’t eat or drink anything so we gave her more medicine, hung the IV bottle on the bamboo rafters above her section of floor space and kept it running all night.

In the morning we all felt very stiff and sore but the patient was feeling a little better and was able to walk with assistance. Our kind hosts made us rice cakes wrapped in leaves for us to take with us for breakfast and we started on our way again.

We added up the totals with our translators and figured out that the 3 of us who went back up the trail yesterday walked and ran a total of 27 miles, and most of that distance we were either carrying our backpacks or the patient!

Today we only had to hike 9 miles in order to catch up to the rest of the medical team, some of that way being through the jungle and a good portion of the distance along the bank of the river. Part of this was easy for our patient to walk over with sand and small rocks, but part of the river lay through a boulder field that would be covered by water during the rainy season and was a daunting challenge to clamber over one by one (still easier than blazing a new trail through the jungle though). We were all very grateful that our patient could get through this without being carried!

About halfway to the village where the team was holding clinic we were met by an emissary who was bringing us the medicine and supplies that we weren’t able to get from the lead porters the day before! Yesterday while running back to our patient we asked some of the team to send certain supplies back ASAP but we were just now getting what we needed. We took a trailside break and administered some additional meds to the patient which at least helped her maintain her current condition without worsening.

In a few more hours we arrived in the village that we were supposed to get to yesterday (too late for lunch although I wasn’t even hungry by this point), and after making the patient as comfortable as possible were finally able to take a rest! Somebody, though I don’t remember who it was due to my exhaustion, came over to where I was lying behind the medical supplies and took off my boots and washed my feet in cold water which helped immensely to rejuvenate me. After recovering for a bit we jumped into patient treatment mode along with the rest of the team who had already been seeing patients since early morning, and worked for the remainder of the day.

After clinic was finished for the evening Phillip came and talked to us and said that there was a problem. He was worried that the entire medical team would not be able to make it to the last village that we were scheduled to visit because it was not on the way out of the valley and the team had a lot of blistered feet and exhausted people in it by now plus a sick one. To get to the last village one would have to cross the river and climb a trail straight up the side of the mountain out of the river valley and back into the mountains.

Phillip didn’t want these villagers to be disappointed knowing that a medical team had passed within a few miles, were supposed to stop in their village, and didn’t, so he was wondering if the 3 of us from the Myanmar team and the optometry assistant would be willing to go provide care on our own (Phillip and Nio had to stay with the main group in case there were problems). I thought about my feet and muscles for a second or two and then said yes I’d be happy to go! The other three wanted to come also so we made preparations to leave the next day.

The next morning there were still a few patients we had to see and a couple procedures to do but after everything was done we helped pack up all the medicine, equipment, and supplies into the baskets that the porters accompanying us to the last village would carry. The rest of the team heading out of the valley had already left by the time we were packed up so we said goodbye to the villagers and we were off!

We had followed the river downstream for two or three hours when we came across 4 men who were from the village we were on our way to. They had been expecting us to arrive today and had come down to give us some fresh fruit from their village and guide/assist us with our gear on the journey there.

The nickname of this last village that we are heading to is “the fruit village” and we now saw why. Our new friends had brought tangerines, grapefruits, and pineapples for us to eat and fixed them for us right there on the riverbank!

After we were done we continued on down the river for a little farther then turned off onto an obscure trail into the jungle. After a few minutes we popped out into a large clearing where there were several recently harvested rice paddies with little ponies grazing on them. Our guides told us that this is where the fruit village grows their rice because it’s the closest level area to the village. At the far side of the paddies the mountains started abruptly and we soon found ourselves clearing the trail with our noses as we climbed up the remarkably vertical trail.

Up, up, up we went until we finally cleared the valley and started walking along the mostly level ridge for a few minutes. Then we turned and dropped down onto a flat shelf on the side of the mountain and walked into the village. Everywhere we looked we could see pineapple plants, banana trees, many different types of citrus trees, and persimmon trees all loaded with fruit growing in between the houses. After we dropped off our packs where we would be staying we decided to set up the clinic since it was still early and see as many patients today as we could.

The village had already prepared the small 3 room bamboo schoolhouse for us to use so we simply unpacked and organized everything in one room and started seeing patients in the others.

There were never more than a few patients at a time waiting to be seen so we were encouraged to keep going by thinking that we had almost seen everybody. However, every time we called a patient from the waiting room (bonfire) another one seemed to take their place!

Finally, a little after eleven we saw the very last patient and called it a day. We walked back to the house we were staying in and started warming up around the open fire pit. While we were sitting talking and unwinding some of the village women brought us supper that we hadn’t stopped to eat earlier! We ate and crashed because tomorrow was the last day and we had a long hike out to town.

Next morning after a breakfast of fruit we loaded up and started off. Leaving the village we took a different trail that lead in the direction of town and would save us considerable time. Also it wasn’t as steep!

After a couple hours we wound our way back down to the river and continued to walk along the bank. The river was much larger now than it was when we saw it last because it had been joined by another river. The river was quite wide, at least 7-8 feet deep, and still ice cold. Sometimes in order to follow the easiest route bamboo bridges have been constructed from one side to the other. These bridges are built every year at the beginning of dry season and wash away every year at the beginning of rainy season so they are only built well enough to get by. Every time we walked across one we unbuckled our backpacks in case the bridge broke or we lost our balance off the one or two bamboo poles available to walk on.

Other times there were large streams flowing into the river that were too small to justify a bridge so we just had to wade through.

Early afternoon as we were walking along we saw a group of people far up ahead of us. As we got closer we realized that it was the rest of the medical team! They had spent last night camping out along the river and hadn’t left as early as we did this morning.

We crisscrossed the river several more times with the bamboo getting slippery from a light drizzle that started falling. Finally we left the river and started up the last steep part of the trail to the road. This road is constantly under construction to push up into the valley we are leaving and is constantly being obliterated by landslides. Right now the road extends 18 miles out of town. Phillip had arraigned to have 4 taxi trucks meet us at the end of the road today but when we scrambled up the last of the trail and onto the road there was only one taxi who was there by chance dropping off Chakma porters. Because there was still no cell service this far out Nio caught a ride back to call for additional taxis once she got into service.

Because it takes an hour and a half just to drive the 18 miles to or from town we decided to start walking. After 2 or three hours four more taxis showed up for us and our hiking was officially over!

The Myanmar team spent a couple extra days after the American team left hanging out and recuperating with our new friends before taking a truck taxi the 7 hours south to Dibrugarh. On the 8th we said goodbye to India and flew back to Thailand with sore muscles and blisters but so grateful for this opportunity we had to be of service and explore a remote corner of the world while spreading peace, goodwill, and healing!

[itsjayyyy]

September 18, 2018 4:53 pm

wow since it’s been a few days since an update, I had a lot of things to open this entry with, but of course only one topic can be the first i talk about. so, the most recent one: I was just laying in bed thinking about how I need to study for my bio exam tomorrow and also complete the next two modules for econ, but then I realized it’s tuesday and econ hw is due monday nights, and freaked out. I literally went through all five stages of grief, before I was like “it’s okay, it’s only the homework, the exam will pull my grade up” and opened my laptop to start reading for bio. but then I checked econ and apparently because there’s an exam this week, there wasn’t any homework due so HOLLA.

so this past weekend has been annoying, as always. I was at ioa for friday, but we only had three workers total (we normally have 6) for closing, so it was hell trying to close on time. and then saturday I went to usf, which is always hell. not to mention, hhn started so we had to spend an hour cleaning so the night crew would be set. and at the end of my shift, the usf manager has the nerve to say to me that she wants me to pick up some shifts this week. I tell her that I have four exams, and I’ll have to check my schedule, but she says “oh but your availability says you’re free after 4 on tuesdays, thursdays, and fridays” what the fuck!!!!!! don’t go looking at my availability when I’m not your employee!!!!!!! so I kept saying I had to study, I had to see, two of my exams are online, etc and she kept pushing for me to at least take shifts on friday afternoon and saturday, since I should be done with exams by then. I took the saturday shift because by this point my shift ended a minute ago and I wanted to leave, and told her I’d call her to let her know if I can take friday (I won’t.) SO SUNDAY I walk in to ioa (home sweet home), and we have a new coworker!!! And by new I mean he used to work at usf but transferred here permanently. What. “Oh jay we send you to usf because they’re understaffed and we’re overstaffed.” Okay. So I tell my manager that they’re stupid for accepting MORE workers when we have that issue, and she has the audacity to say to my face “oh it’s more than that, he didn’t like it at usf” as if I haven’t spent the last two months telling both ioa and usf managers that I hate usf. Okay. So Sunday, when I next work at ioa, I’m going to speak to my highest manager and tell her that she either tells the scheduler that I am not to work at usf again, or I quit. I have enough money in my savings account to last me a while.

wow. rose deadass drank 6 apple juice boxes out of the 8-pack we had. this bitch clearly doesn’t care if I starve huh.

so yesterday I met up with heather after class in the student union. did I mention how much I love cafe bustelo? I really love it. a good cafe con leche really warms me up. we talked for a while, then I walked her to class. In our conversation, our birthdays came up at some point (I think I said something along the lines of “you didn’t get me anything for my birthday this year! and she said “you didn’t get me anything either!”) and I was like “I bet you don’t even know my birthday” and she said april 22nd. and then later she was like yea well I bet you don’t know mine and i immediately said march 19, so she said she’d buy me starbucks today to make up for it.

today’s morning was really gr8 and also really un-gr8. like, I woke up at 7 thinking I had to leave the house at 8:30 for my ortho appt, and laid in bed for a while before finally getting up and showering. but when I stepped out of the shower and saw the time was 8, I realized that I didn’t leave the house at 8:30, my appointment was at 8:30. cue getting dressed while still partially damp, forgetting heather’s gov’t textbook, and going 75 in a 45 zone. I thank the gods daily that motorcycles don’t get red light tickets.

while driving down the main road leading to my university, I had this white car weaving between traffic. at one point he was behind me, but then when I slowed down in a turn he switched to the right, which ended up being right behind a campus shuttle (you know, the ones that drive 5 mph under the speed limit at all times and you can barely see around. and they’re diesel, ugh!). as he saw me speed up at the end of the curve, he switched back to behind me and sped up too, but as soon as I reached level with the front of the shuttle (and the pickup on the other side of me), I slammed on my brakes so he couldn’t try to go around. Definitely risked getting run the fuck over, but it was so worth it seeing the look of frustration on his face.

I got nearly instant karma, though, because he entered the university through the first turn, when I went for the second a little ways up since it’s closer to my garage. but the traffic light was down, so I had to merge into one lane with everyone else, and then they wouldn’t even allow left turns because it’s too complex for the person directing traffic, so I had to make a right then a u-turn. But it was made up for by the fact that the trike that normally parks in my spot was probably also deterred by the traffic, and I got to claim my righteous spot.

so when I got on campus, I went to heather’s class, or rather, the building it was in since I couldn’t find room 106 exactly. I remembered that my annoying coworker said that her classes were in that building + the one next to it also on tuesdays, but I thought that there was no way I’d actually bump into her considering there are over 60,000 students and the buildings are pretty large, plus I didn’t know what time her classes are.

well, now I know that her class gets out at the same time + same building as heather. we walked towards the starbucks (which is near her next class), and I introduced her to heather, we talked about how it was to work at universal, the sort. and then she was like “well I gotta go to class now, bye!” and i was like bye and smiled and when she was more than 20 feet away I turned to heather and said “that’s the coworker I told you that I hate.”

I love pumpkin spice season!!!!!!!! got a frappuccino tho, because it’s never truly fall in florida. heather got a mango dragonfruit refresher bc I recommended it to her, and it’s funny because the person ordering before us was also named heather and also ordered a mango dragonfruit. As a barista, that’s like my worst nightmare. Luckily they were able to tell it apart because the other heather got a grande. We sat in the starbucks for a while, I explained how weed is a lot more safe than cigarettes, talked about pine hills’ reputation, and how samantha’s mom is so damn disrespectful. This woman drove heather home one day when picking up samantha, and the whole ride was bragging about how samantha was going to be so successful because she’s majoring in some type of psychology and will be making over 90k a year. and then she turned the conversation to how teachers don’t make that much money, and she asks heather how she could do that, just take such a low-paying job. and lemme tell ya how MY GIRL HEATHER FUCKIN SNAPPED. she done said she tired of people saying teachers don’t make a lot of money yall. she said to samantha’s mom, “I don’t know how you’re looking down on my salary when you have three children from three different men with only a salary of $30k.” Y’ALL. the point that heather was trying to make the point that “people from working-class families act as if a salary less than 100k is unacceptable even for an unmarried, childless young adult despite working class families often having a household income of 50k while supporting children just fine,” but damn she really went there. goin off on this good catholic woman for having baby daddies. well samantha’s mom and samantha became very upset. and they told heather’s dad who would not leave her alone until she apologized. as in, he was banging on her door telling her she had to apologize. I said put headphones in and ignore it, she was like “girl you don’t understand haitian parents. my dad literally opened my door with a knife when I locked it.” so she had to apologize :/ but she also made it clear that she didn’t like the way samantha’s mom disrespected her. she tried to make it seem relatable, and be like, “oh what if i said that to your mom, wouldn’t you tell me to apologize” and I’m like???? no???? I would make my mom apologize for being disrespectful first the hell??? then I reminded her about how I literally lived on the streets for 3 weeks because my mom was disrespectful to me.

today after class I decided to take the city bus home, for 4 reasons: I wanted to stay humble and remember where I came from, I wanted time to be able to finish this book, not walking the last half-mile home every day this semester has caused some weight gain, and I really wanted to hold my parking spot against that damn trike, and it seems he comes too early in the morning for me, so I just left my bike there overnight. yea I’m petty.

The book was really good. It’s definitely a hard read, for sure. In the sense that it really will make you cry. At the end, it listed all of the school shooting victims since columbine, plus a small snippet about them (it was like 20 pages long). The one that really got me was an 8 year old, whose text read “shoot me first,” as he wanted to take a bullet so it wouldn’t be used against his classmates. Then, below that entry, a seven year old, who said “shoot me next.” Just typing that is making my eyes water again.

The walk home was super tiring. I’m super out of shape, it was hard for me to even imagine that I did this every single day the entire first semester of college. And I have to do it tomorrow morning again, ugh. Can you believe heather wakes up at 5:30 am???? I’m never seen out of bed before 7, and even then it’s only for things like appointments. But I guess I really should start waking up earlier, because whenever I get on campus around 8 I feel great because I have so much time to study and stuff. but that means I have to buy a coffee on campus, and I don’t know if I want to commit to that expense.

edit: so I originally posted this to my main, and when I saw that I copied it, then deleted it, then tried to paste it into a new post, but I guess I didn’t press ctrl hard enough because it didn’t copy. and I was about to cry bc this is close to 2k words, but then I realized I had a tab of my main open that still had the original post showing, so I copied from there.

[myfuckofffundjourney]

Money Diary, Week #3

Thursday Jan 18

Wake up, bus to the shuk - 5.9 nis. Grab a coffee and I don’t even want it. 11 nis. So weird. Maybe it’s because I’m already running late and feeling anxious about time. I drink half and then grab groceries for the client I’m cooking for, all of which I’ll get reimbursed for so I won’t list them. I also cab to their place - billing them as well. Nobody got time to haul groceries on a bus #lazy.

After cooking for 6 hrs (hey guess who just made +1200nis!!) I pack a meal from what I made (chicken, potatoes, and an Asian pear, and it’s all fucking delicious, and free, and I even had a container because of yesterdays lunch that I took to school, score!) and bus to the central bus station. 5.9 I’m feeling a bit woozy so grab soda water to calm my stomach. 7 nis. I decide to finally buy a pair of Blundstones, a decision I’ve thought about for literally like five years. I see a pair that I like that are on sale for 350 and I grab them. Also add 50 nis to Rav Kav. The boots feel great in the store and for the dash to the bus, but as soon as I’m off the bus and walking to class, they start to kill! I’m worried I got the wrong size, even though the next half size up is way too big on me. I take them off in middle of class to make sure I don’t fuck them up too badly. Finish class, head home, make toast with peanut butter and hang out with Josh.

Friday Jan 19

Wake up and peel myself out of bed to grab some random groceries - I have no coffee in the house, and really feel like having eggs for breakfast. At the grocery store, I also find an avocado thats not hard as a rock (fun fact: apparently there were no deliveries of avocados to Israel for a week and so the price doubled, and none of them are ready yet. I don’t care that the price is doubled - it’s only like 6 shekel anyway and i’ve been wanting an avocado all week.) I get eggs, an avocado, and laundry detergent - 28 nis. There is a massive bag of Tide for 60 shekel (8 kg) and I think I might get it because it smells so nice and is cheaper per kilo than anything in the store and will last for like, half a year or something. And in two weeks I’ll even have a HOUSE to store it in!!!

I stop at my favorite coffee grinder guy and pick up 100g of coffee for 6 nis and think back to when I was living in Florentine and I could find the same amount for at a minimum 10 nis, usually more. Thank you, Jaffa gods, for making prices reasonable.  This usually can last for almost a week, but it’s exam season and I’m going to be mainlining coffee.

When i get home, I make a good breakfast (toast, eggs, salad, coffee) and THEN I CAN DO MY LAUNDRY! FOR FREE!!!! I’m so effing excited, it’s been literally four months without a washing machine at my disposal. I’ll probably need to throw some things in the dryer at the laundromat because its going to be a fucking COLD weekend and I have no clean socks and stuff, but still!

Anyway, I’m at my next conundrum, which is the fact that it’s now sale season and there are so many things I want/need. In the wants column, we’ll just put new clothes. I’m v bored of that I have and would love some new additions. In the needs column, we’ll put shoes - this is a biggie, I hate buying shoes and spending money on them - house items (coffee table, bed, closet, curtains, oven), a new phone (this one is pissing me off with its jerkiness and general crappy demanour. I could probably get it to work well if I do a factory reset but the screen is also cracked and replacing it will cost at least 400 nis. I’d rather get a new/secondhand phone.) Anyway, IKEA is having a sale, all the clothing stores are having massive sales, and I’m not sure what to do. These are more investment type items, but it’s still hard to justify spending the money. And then the fact that Uri and Jordana are getting married soon - I’ll actually make a bit of money from catering his aufruf kiddush/her shabbat kallah dinner, but not a ton.

I FINALLY get a message that I’m getting paid for an event I did like, three weeks ago - that’s another +1,630. YESSSS. That plus an extra +500 for shabbat will be so helpful for the move.

Run out to throw some things in the dryer - I just collect random shekels and don’t actually keep track, but i think it’s around 8 nis. While waiting for my stuff to dry, I get some binders, highlighters, little page markers, and also use the stores hole-puncher to hole-punch LITERALLY like 500 pages of notes. Don’t have to buy a hole-puncher though! It’s still 33 nis. Ugh.

I end up heading to Jerusalem kinda stupidly late, and end up taking a taxi to the bus station with Josh, but he covers it because he owes me money for groceries. The sherut is 35 nis - ugh. I’ve left my purse at home so Josh lends me a 50 that he also says to use toward groceries.

Saturday Jan 20

I work for WAY longer than I would have wanted to, and it really isn’t very much money, and I really needed the time to study, but on the other hand, it was pretty easy and it was 500 nis. So, balances out. After Shabbat is out I head to Jerusalem - 5.9 for the train, and 16 nis for the bus. When I get to Tel Aviv, the bus to my house is a friggin half hour away so I have to walk home, which is a massive waste of time. Really need to sit and calculate how much that half hour was worth to me, because I’m SOOOO behind on my studying, but can I just stay up a half hour later? Does life even work that way?

I make a peanut butter and banana wrap. Wraps are THE BEST thing to have around but I never buy them because I feel like they’re expensive? But a friend left these at my house and they’ve been the base of many a quick happy dinner, so maybe I’ll keep them around. Also come up with a plan to market myself as a meal-prep delivery service for people who can’t cook at home... i wonder if I’d ever actually execute that.

Sunday January 21

Basically spend all day inside studying/making food/cleaning/doing laundry. All of these are relatively money-less endeavours! On my way to school I do grab some fruit because I have none in the house. 9 nis

A friend coming from New York places an order on amazon for me for bamboo toothbrushes and charcoal exfoliating gloves - those guys are the shit and I hate throwing out plastic toothbrushes. They last quite a while and it only comes out to 70 shek - I’ll pay him when I see him.

Monday January 22

I meet Kim at the shuk for a grocery shop. It doesn’t really feel so smart to do the shop before my CSA gets in. I need to recalibrate my weeks so that I can do it on Tuesday morning and not be starving. Anyway, I get:

Parmesan and goat cheese - 24.6

Oatmeal, wild rice, and raisins - 20

Salmon - the guy cuts me way more than I asked for and I tell him off. I asked for 300 grams for a reason, mister, not for 350 grams. I’m turning into an asshole lol. 33 nis

Avocado, sweet potato, zucchini, chilis - 18 nis

Clementines, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, and an impulse buy dragon fruit - 34 nis

Green onion - 5 nis

On the way home, I still can use my transfer on my Rav Kav. Hell yes. Now I just need to stock up on things like more coffee, wraps, and one or two other things, but between this and the CSA I should be good for the week.

At home i make a big pot of rice, roasted veggies, two sauces (one using up cilantro that was going bad and yogurt I didn’t feel like eating), salmon, and sauteed greens from last weeks CSA. Now I have food options! And I only need to finish my celery and romaine lettuce from the CSA. Don’t know what to do with it though. Hmm.

Buttttt ugh I get an email from the school. I owe tuition, I think it’s loan time. I’m thinking of asking them if I can consolidate the debt, and when I do a huge work event I can throw a few thousand shekel at tuition. PAYING FOR SCHOOL IS SUCH A BITCH. But at least the loan system here doesn’t blow. I also get an email about a grant. GRANT I NEED YOU GET IN MY WALLET.

CSA box comes with some dope looking ingredients. I’ll have to cook wisely this week so nothing gets wasted though - my fridge is already FULL of food. What a nice feeling :).

Tuesday January 23

I wake up late, ugh. Go grab coffee - this time i get double what I got last week - rice milk, and cashews, to maybe turn into butter. It comes out to way more than i anticipated - 44 nis. Eek.Still though, haven’t eaten out once this week except for one coffee and one bottle of water, so I’m feeling good! Then I feel terrible when i think about tuition and moving. Gah! Cashew butter tastes amazing though, so there’s that!

Finally get an answer to an insurance claim I filed (and won) months ago! They had sent me a cheque (srsly who does that) which I never received, so they are going to cancel it, and wire me the funds. It’s around $350 - just wish I’d done this before the dollar crashed so hard. Oh well. Still free-ish money!

Buy an eclair. I need some comfort sweets. Interestingly, I don’t think I’ve had anything with overt amounts of processed sugar in a few days - since Saturday, I guess. I’ve had honey in my tea and stuff, but that’s it. I wonder if I’ll feel anything? It’s only mediocre but I needed to get out and interact with a human who is not Josh/the dog. 10 nis.

Wednesday January 24

I have to print some notes for this exam that i am definitely in no way passing (hi moed bet!) It’s way more expensive than it would be at school. Damn. 12.5

Total: 770.7 - minus shoes - 420.7

School/misc- 403 (includes a 350 nis pair of shoes that are too small and that I will try to return)

Groceries- 221

Eating out- 28

Transportation - 118.7

Money earned: 500, 1620

The takeaway from this week is: School is effing expensive, and I spent freely on groceries to not be tempted to eat out which worked (slash my extreme isolation/studying helps too) but I also bought a lot of “nice things” that I don’t need. On the other hand, I’ll have lots of food stored for the next week or two. Wins all around, I think. Would be nice to get most of my weeks spending to look like this (minus the shoes) - I could be down with spending only 400 nis a week.

[whitebirdmagazine]

I Quit Social Media for a Week

Saturday, May 6, 2017

Life was simpler when I was younger. No job, no bills, no responsibilities except the minute amount of homework that, let’s be honest, I was excited about. I could play all day, pretending to be any number of characters from movies and books, and that’s all I really had to worry about. Even in high school and college, where the homework amounts were staggering and jobs and bills and responsibilities started to become a never-ending nuisance, things were simpler.

So what happened? I graduated college in 2008, right around the time facebook opened its doors to the masses (rather than just the college kids like it was when I signed up) and twitter became a thing. And phones got smarter.

Sure, there was myspace and livejournal and all that when I was in high school, and facebook in college, and we all carefully curated our Top 8 friends and our AIM away messages, but there was still a level of disconnect we don’t have today.

Now, there are 15 different social media apps for each part of your life you want to share, and they’ve taken over our free (and not so free) time.

As a high school teacher, I see the dangers and perils of social media on a daily basis, and realized that while I’m older and no longer subject to much of the same levels of cyberbullying these kids go through, I’m on social media entirely too much.

So I’m going to conduct an experiment: for one entire week, I’m going to stay off social media.

I want to see what happens when I don’t have mindless scrolling at my fingertips when I’m bored. Currently, my phone is a constant distraction whenever I’m trying to be productive in my creative endeavors. At work it’s not really a problem since I’m a teacher and free time is a luxury, but on the evenings and weekends, my phone battery dies faster than you can say YouTube.

For the record, these are the social media networks I regularly use (so will not be using during my experiment): YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook. The only exception I’ve allowed is to post a video to my YouTube channel, but I’m not allowed to check comments or views until the week is up.

This will be going from Sunday, May 7 - Saturday, May 13 (at midnight, a full 7 days). I will be deleting these apps from my phone for the duration of the experiment.

Let’s see how this goes!

Saturday, May 6 11:37pm

I tweeted a “see you later” and deleted twitter, facebook, instagram, and snapchat apps from my phone so I’m not tempted by the little red numbers (or habit). I wonder if anyone will like/favorite/DM/comment while I’m gone. Will I be sad if they don’t?

Sunday, May 7 9:39am - Day 1

I woke up this morning, grabbed my phone, checked my email, and then felt lost. Normally this is when I catch up on all I missed overnight… but now? So I got out of bed, made breakfast, and checked goodreads ratings on all the books I bought at the library sale yesterday (Goodreads doesn’t count as social media!). Semi-productive already. Now… to read?

4:15pm

I finished one book (The Master and Margarita - FINALLY) and started another (The Upside of Unrequited) and am starting to do that thing at chapter breaks where I pull my phone out looking for a distraction. Which makes no sense because I’m thoroughly enjoying this book. But no distractions await me, and I open the book for a new chapter.

11:22pm

Day one: done. Also, I finished The Upside of Unrequited, but that may have also been because it was a fast read and I had a decent chunk of time to devote to it. Also, no social media distractions… I wonder what else I can accomplish this week. I do sort of feel disconnected, though. Like, I want to share my thoughts about this book and see all the Disney posts on Instagram and check twitter and get rid of the Google Plus (YouTube) notification on my email. But I can’t.

Monday, May 8 9:30am - Day 2

It’s only been a day and already I feel so much freer without being tied down to the various social media feeds. What am I really missing? Drivel. I did feel a bit weird this morning as I drank my coffee - usually the time I scroll through all my feeds - but I just opened my phone and didn’t know what to do with it. So I listened to my audiobook instead. So far, no social media equals more productivity. I want to keep this in mind when I’m back in a week.

9:45pm

I told my students about my experiment and convinced another to try it. Another told me she tagged me in something but I told her I can’t check it until Sunday. That might be the hardest part - the communication barrier. Social media is how we connect now, it’s how businesses and artists get followers, create connections. So much of the world is online. But what if I don’t want to be? (To an extent, at least - I feel like it’s impossible now to avoid the internet totally, especially for creative types because it is such an easy/cheap way to distribute your work.) But do I really need a twitter/insta/facebook/snap? No. Do I enjoy them? Sometimes. Do I feel the effects of not having them? Yes.

Tuesday, May 9 2:48pm - Day 3

It’s starting to get annoying now, mostly because

I’m bored, and

I created a poll for online lit mag titles and I can’t crowdsource, so I have to do it the old-fashioned way, which gets fewer responses.

I’ve restarted my feedly as well, in an effort to curb the planning block boredom. Does that count as social media? It’s articles - mostly from online lit mags - so it’s educational, right?

9:25pm

After work I went to Happy Hour with teacher friends for teacher appreciation week (appreciating ourselves) and at one point, the other three were all on their phones, scrolling through social media (for memes based on AP Exams, because teachers), and so as the only person not on social media (or an AP teacher, for that matter), I definitely experienced the non-social side of social media. I was left out because I wasn’t on my phone, yet we’re all leaving ourselves out by being on our phones rather than interacting with the world around us. Ironic.

On another note, my sister-in-law asked me for a picture of us from Prom, and even though I was pretty sure one existed on facebook, I couldn’t get to it, so I had to physically find all my old photos and dig through them to find one.

On a side note: How weird is it that when we share pictures now we just shove our phones in people’s faces? And then there’s no control - what’s stopping them from scrolling through your other pictures? With physical photos, they only get the stack you give them.** Invasion of privacy is the new normal.** Oh, and I downloaded two new games to my phone just to have something to do to kill small amounts of time. Distractions, distractions. Hard to get rid of them all.

Wed, May 10 9:32pm - Day 4

I almost went on facebook today by accident. I was on my computer, procrastinating writing (as one does) and opened a new tab. I was just about to type the ‘f’ when I realized autopilot had taken over, and I closed the tab.

I’ve been good, but now it’s starting to get annoying. It’s not that I miss it, per say, I just liked having the option to scroll. Though I guess that’s the problem - the option becomes the norm becomes the auto-action and we get sucked in.

I guess I Just wonder if I’ve missed anything. I know - rationally - that I haven’t. That nothing on social media is important. But it’s also how people communicate, and what if someone tried to message me? (Well, I guess if they really needed me, if it were really important, they’d find a way.) And how often do I get messages anyway? Not very. I fear that part of me expects other to have missed my presence, that I’ll come back to all sorts of messages and notifications… when, in reality, I probably won’t have any. And I’m kind of worried how I’ll feel when that happens. It would seem I’m much more in the clutches of social media than I thought.

Thurs, May 11 9:36pm - Day 5

The only time no social media really affected me today was when I wanted to check facebook to see if was my friend’s birthday (it was). I didn’t want to tell her happy birthday if it wasn’t and don’t have that info anywhere else (because that’s what facebook is for), so I had a student look for me. Yep, I sunk that low. I guess that in itself is a lesson: don’t depend on social media for courtesy and manners. That kind of thing should be kept in a safer location - what happens if the account had been deleted, or facebook was hacked and everything gone? No more birthday reminders. Old school might be the best way to go.

Fri, May 12 11:28pm - Day 6

Only one more day. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Part of me says “thank goodness,” while the other part knows how quickly I’ll probably sink back in. But I’ve been so productive this week without it, and the whole thing has been positive and freeing, so I hope I remember that.

Sat, May 13 11:03pm - Day 7

Last day! Last hour! I think today was the day I checked my phone the most, since Sunday, before realizing I had nothing to do on it. Probably because it’s the weekend and my days aren’t filled with school distractions. But, I’m going to preemptively say (because I’m going to watch a movie and go to bed), I MADE IT!

Sun, May 14 - What I missed

Facebook: 20 notifications, 0 directly for me Instagram: 1 comment, 5 followers, 14? Likes Twitter: 4 messages (some with missed threads), 27? Notifications (some of these from a group tag) Youtube: 6 comments (no new video posted) I didn’t reinstall Snapchat.

So did I miss anything super exciting or pressing? No.

I responded to maybe three of the tweets I was went, and that’s it. And honestly, I scrolled through them all for about 15 seconds before I realized I just didn’t care, and closed my phone.

Social media is great for communicating - it’s an easy way to get in contact with people on an informal level (or like, with students - two of my notifications came from them), but mindlessly, endlessly scrolling is a waste of time. There’s nothing important there, and it’s all FOMO, basically. If I quit scrolling, I may miss something important/genius/hilarious/etc, but nine times out of ten, there’s nothing there, or it wasn’t all that profound/important/funny anyway.

I also noticed that as soon as I turned it all back on and started the scroll, I started judging and comparing myself to others. Well, they got a nice note from a student I didn’t get (except I did, last week, and Instagrammed it too); they commented on that post; they’re celebrating 5 years, etc. It’s all there to put our best lives forward, but at what cost to ourselves and others? Numbers don’t matter and yet we all live so anxiously by them. By tiny digital hearts and thumbs up that mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Social media drives the world rather than talent, ambition, intelligence, creativity. It’s all about your following - it’s how Trump got elected.

And it’s terrifying.

So I’m back, but not like before. And I know how easy it is to slide back in, but I’m going to try my hardest not to. I hope this sticks, because this past week felt good, and I don’t want to get lost again.

7:55pm

Honestly, it’s been 12 hours and I’ve barely scrolled. I just don’t care anymore. The conversations are nice - the FOMO I’d felt wasn’t really about the tweets and instas, it was about the missed opportunities for conversation, through notifications and DMs. Five pictures down my Insta and I was done. I deleted most of my twitter notifications because again, I just don’t care.

And I don’t want them clogging my time, my energy, my optimism, my life.

[canaryatlaw]

Today was okay-ish. Not great really. I'm still just in a weird space, mentally. Still can't get my mind to stop racing. I did call my psychiatrist today but he wasn't in that office today, but they took a message and said they'd have him call me, and asked if I needed to be today, so I said I mean it's okay if it's tomorrow but today would be preferable. I didn't get a call back today. Sigh. And it's just that much more difficult now that I'm working 9-5 because when am I supposed to do things like call my psychiatrist or anyone else that is only open 9-5? When am I supposed to go to the doctor ffs? I have one appointment scheduled for late June at 8 am. I'm sure that's gonna go over well with my brain. Sigh. Now I'm getting worked up over this which is the last thing I wanted to do. I think I'm gonna go up to 4 mg of Xanax a day though. It's still within the threshold he said I could try to figure out. I just want to talk to him about it because this guy knows my brain better than probably even me and when something that used to work is no longer working it's not a good sign. I should move on now though. Alarm went off at 7 and I successfully convinced myself to get out of bed by 7:01. Got ready, poured my cocoa krispies and then looked at my milk and it had apparently curdled when the refrigerator does was stuck open for some reason when I got home yesterday. Great. At least I figured it out before I poured it onto my cereal. So I hurried around grabbing some oatmeal (one of the disposable cups) and some cinnamon toast eggos. Made the bus so that's good. I got to the office and went to go see my supervisor but she wasn't in her office, so I just went back to mine and started working on the stuff she gave me yesterday. Not that long after she showed up at my office and said she was gonna be taking a personal half day but would make sure I had enough work, and that she'd probably be going down to court at 10:30 if I wanted to join her so I said sure. Kept working until then, then went down to court and absolutely nothing interesting happened when I was hit by another one of my wow you're going to close your eyes every 3 seconds now and be incapable of keeping them open spells that I've been getting lately when I'm sitting still and focusing on one thing, and at some point after that started my supervisor came over and said it looked like all the cases were just getting dates so it wasn't gonna be interesting if I wanted to go back upstairs. I'm not sure if she saw that I was visibly falling asleep or not, lol, but I took the out. It was a little past 11 at this point and I think then was when I called my psychiatrist. Then I didn't really have any work to do so I closed my door and set my alarm for noon and took a nap. I woke up at like 11:45 so I was probably only "out" for like 30 minutes, which I figured I'll just work through my lunch to make up for so it'll be fine. I mean, power naps are a thing right? And as long as I get the work done it's not like anyone cares, so....not a big deal lol. So I then opened my office door and started conversing with the two ladies who have the offices across and next to mine. The offices are kind of set up mostly in these 3 pod systems, and this is the first time I'm actually in a full 3 pod, since first semester the office next to mine was empty and last semester I was just kind of off in a corner. So we talked as we worked and that was cool. One of the ladies gave me some DCP packets to do, which they seem to think is like the worst thing ever and kept apologizing for giving me such a boring assignment and I'm like.....dude, I spent an entire semester doing this basically. This is child's play lol bring on the packets I can do them all. So I did all 4 then reported back to her and expressed my concern about the investigation into the last one that was somewhat lacking (whenever an allegation gets unfounded on the grounds that "it's the kids word versus the foster parents word so I'm gonna believe the foster parent" the kill bill sirens start going off in my head). So that was good. She then asked if I wanted to do some trial prep for a TPR, so I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through a rather large file to write up a timeline of services that mom and dads 1&2 did or did not do (no polygamy, just two different dads for two kids). It wasn't terribly thrilling but it was fine. I left right around 5 to catch the 5:13 train, which I'm gonna have to start leaving a little bit earlier for because the last two times it's been a few minutes early and I've barely made it (it's typical for me to get in anywhere between 8:50 and 9, so I figure 5 minutes here or there evens itself out). Trip home was fine, quickly threw some dinner together and tuned into the flash, most of my excitement stemming from knowing that watching this week's episode meant getting to next week's episode when my bby Len is coming back haha so more of a means to an end than anything else, but I actually really liked the episode! I definitely like, snorted when they showed that in wiping Barry's memories they screwed over Savitar too and now killer frost was like welp, gotta help them fix it lol. The scene with her and Cisco though, like stop it broke my heart so much <\3 like JUST LET CAITLIN BE HAPPY DAMMIT IT ISNT THAT HARD UGHHHH so that made me sad. The main part with Barry was pretty comical, him and Iris were adorable together even with the inevitable this isn't their reality looming over their heads. And they managed to get the probable cause hearing fairly by the book, so I didn't get too pissy over that (I mean, there's no way that would be the only possible way to keep the guy in custody and he would HAVE to be released otherwise, so that part was totally unrealistic, but I realize that was just a necessary plot point). But overall I really liked the episode and then of course the first shot of the preview had me flipping a shit immediately because LEN IS STANDING IN FRONT OF THE WAVERIDER and we already know he was wearing oculus clothing in other shots on the sizzle reel and ugh.......I really don't want to get my hopes up but I can't help it, they're already sky high. I really wouldn't be surprised if it's another fake out, though I would probably be the angriest I've been with them at this point. I guess we'll see where that goes. It took me about 6 minutes to remember that prison break comes on right after the flash (and by remember I mean going to the my shows list to watch B99 and see oh shit it's recording) but I caught up to live pretty quickly. I felt pretty distracted during this week's episode, probably just due to weird mental head space again. But I'm glad they're making progress and then they were like 3 episodes left!!! and I was like what????????? This is way too short lol. But I'm very much looking forward to that teased Michael/Sara reunion for next week because I know it's gonna be epic. Lol, at the end of the episode they're like "Michaels dying!" and I was like lol, when is Michael Scofield not dying? Also, at this point I'm just convinced Michael doesn't know how to give up on anything so he just keeps trying crazier and crazier ideas until one of them inevitably and inexplicably works. But I am enjoying that. So after that, I did watch Brooklyn 99. I may be totally wrong on this, but I could've sworn B99 used to be a half hour show??? I'm probably just wrong but I definitely thought that. This episode at least seemed very distinctly split into two parts, both of which were pretty great. The Rochester partying was hilarious of course as was them recreating what happened. Then there was the whole Amy/Jake storyline with her taking the sergeants exam that led to that super sweet scene of him just being like this is your dream and it's been your dream before we started going out, I've always known you were gonna be my boss anyway and it was really adorable (and then he went all die hard and it was really funny). And yeah, that pretty much capped my tv for the night. I got into a Twitter DM convo with one of the DCTV podcast hosts (I'm being intentionally vague here) regarding the appearance of the waverider in the trailer and they weren't happy about it and was just kind of ranting at legends and normally we just have stupid and amusing conversations about our shows so it got kind of awkward for a minute there but we both calmed down and were like okay it's fine people have opinions lol. And plus they have an entire podcast to rant to about their opinions, so the need to do it to me personally isn't really there. We're fine though, I like them and I enjoy talking to them. And that was pretty much my day. Tomorrow is Wednesday and my third day at "work" for summer. Did I mention I'm the only law clerk in the office right now? My name looks so lonely on the sign in sheet, lol. Most people are still in finals, I just finished really early and wanted to make sure I made it back in time for the child death case to be up so here I am. I'm probably the only law clerk in the building at this point 😂 but yeah, as far as I know I'll finally be going iron the field (maybe I should pack a change of clothes? We didn't discuss this) or maybe she's coming to the courthouse but I'll be interviewing a 5 year old girl who was removed from her mother's care about 2 weeks ago after reports of physical abuse and that mom was a heroin addict with visible track marks on her arm, and she was always referring to her daughter as "that little bitch" and like throwing her around, and also they were living in like complete desolation, like there were holes in the floor and no heat (and this is Chicago and even though ITS FUCKING MAY it's still been freezing) and many other such examples and yeah, it wasn't good. The DCP investigator seemed to think the girl appeared as a normal happy, healthy 5 year old so that's encouraging. I guess we'll see how that goes. Okay, time for bed now. Goodnight punks. Stay awesome.