#probably won’t be till after the holidays since I’m super super busy

[dawn-moths]

i’ve been thinking a lot about my cerulean gaze touya again lately. i really wanna write for him again soon.

[taylorrepdetective]

Since you like to say you’re always right, tell us what is next. You say you don’t make predictions, but you actually do, even if you don’t call them that.

Ok so I’m absolutely not always right. There have been some really big things I’ve been wrong about and a lot of small things too. And what I learned from that is to keep an open mind, and when I’m wrong about something, to figure out why I got it wrong and shift my world view in some ways to try to understand and guess better the next time. But it’s not even really about being able to guess. It’s about understanding when things happen. It is fun to be right on a guess though, when that happens.

The biggest thing I’ve learned, and luckily I learned it pretty early on in my time in this space, is that trying to figure out the timing something big will happen is absolutely a fools errand. And another thing to avoid is trying to come up with the exact, specific way Taylor (or others in her cinematic universe) will do something to get a point across. Like I can predict she will try to get a point across (set up a timeline, create a narrative, shore up a brand point) but I cannot predict exactly how or when she’ll do it. I also can predict she’ll set something up but then she never does. That’s because I think of lots of options. Some happen, some don’t. So this is the kind of thing I’m often wrong about. But I see them and always try to present them as options, not predictions. And if one of the options I think of happens, I have already spent time thinking about it, so it already makes sense to me.

I don’t know what’s next. She could drop TS11 at midnight. She could break up with Travis tomorrow, or announce her engagement next week. But I do not think any of those things is likely.

So here’s the closest thing you’ll ever get to me making a specific, timed prediction, because to me it seems quite clear:

What I do think is likely is that her jet will go to KC, ✅she’ll go to the game on Sunday✅, and her jet will then leave KC sometime between next Tuesday✅ and next Thursday. Why? Because it’s a home game, and she likes to go to home games and get the exposure and publicity that comes with that. She is working really hard at becoming an icon in KC, seem like her relationship is very serious for those who want to believe it’s serious, and she wants to shore up that relationship by spending time with him, his family, and his friends (also KC icons - the Mahomes mostly.)✅ All of this is so important to the story she’s creating. However, she won’t stay long ✅because that’s been her pattern. She also seems to be establishing that she also has her own busy, fabulous life✅ (she’s bejeweled and he lets her be✅) and when he’s busy with his football week (generally Tuesday-Sunday) he doesn’t have much time for her and she has her own life.✅This gives her the opposite option of the relationship being very serious. In other words it gives her an easy out for it to end. And Wednesday is her birthday. So she’ll either stay till Tuesday ✅and we’ll see or hear about birthday celebrations Sunday night/Monday, ✅then she’ll head out for further birthday celebrations with her other friends and family✅, or her jet will stay through her birthday, solidifying the seriousness of the relationship. But she will leave KC.✅ And then she’ll probably go to the game on Dec 17 in Boston✅. Why? Because it is a short hop from NYC, she has a huge fanbase there✅ and can expand it and shore it up, the patriots are bad so a win is likely✅, but they are a very popular team, so viewership (publicity) will be high✅. After that? Well she’s likely to spend more time in NYC✅/Nashville. Then she will probably go to the Christmas Day game in KC✅. This is a huge opportunity to “take the relationship to the next level” by spending the holidays together ✅, something the public absolutely loves to see and will further fuel the “engaged by the end of the year, after the Super Bowl at the latest” fire. Hopefully we’ll get something reputation-related for new years❌, so the extra publicity will help with that. Additionally all of this corresponds with the Eras film being released to streaming, another huge money making opportunity for her, and her attendance is an ad for the film.

After the new year, there will be some huge games with high viewership. They will be playing for playoff seeding. Then they almost assuredly will be in the playoffs✅. She will go to those games✅, which have even higher viewership, and will give her more free marketing for reputation and eras movie and anything else we don’t know about. After that, it will depend on how deep they go into the playoffs. They are no longer favored to be in the Super Bowl, but it is still a strong possibility✅. We all now know she can fly across the world after a concert to attend an event (she flew to the US during her time in SA, planned to a second time but couldn’t because of the events in Rio, and flew to London for 24 hrs for bey). The precedent has been set for her to fly from Tokyo to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl. ✅There is no bigger stage than the Super Bowl (outside of the World Cup final, if you’re thinking internationally.) The free marketing potential there is something that would be very hard for her to pass up. And if Travis isn’t playing, Jason’s team might be, and they can go together to support him. Imagine the potential of travlor in a suite together with mama and papa kelce cheering on a retiring Jason❌✅ . And even if neither of them are in the game, they could still all go together and stand in a suite as a big happy family in front of an audience of 115 million Americans. Why wouldn’t she do this?✅

Will all that happen for sure? Of course not. But you can see the logic, right? Will there be other things that happen that I haven’t thought of? Most likely.✅ I don’t actually have a crystal ball. What kinds of things could derail this? Well there’s always the possibility of the black swan, but a more likely scenario is they lose again against a team they should beat✅ and/or Travis has another bad game✅. There is a real danger of people turning on her as a distraction ✅and I think they have their fingers on the pulse of this very closely. As long as KC keeps winning, and there’s a good chance they will win the rest of their games, all will be smooth❌✅.

Also I am not even thinking beyond February. I have one interesting thought about it, but it’s just too speculative to even mention here. But as we move through the next two months, I’ll get clues to be able to guess at what will happen after she goes back on tour after the Super Bowl✅. And if I’m wrong about all of this, which I may very well be because she is notoriously unpredictable sometimes, I will simply take it as a learning opportunity to understand her better.✅

[palimpsessed]

Hey lookie there! A super obnoxious banner I will probably dispense with because it is so obnoxious. Anyway.

I was tagged by so many very, very lovely people today! So thanks to you all for sharing and asking me to share, too! 🥰 @aristocratic-otter @amywaterwings @phoxphyre @effing-numpties @vampire-named-gampire @seducing-a-vampire @ninemagicks @bazzybelle @captain-aralias @xivz @banjjakbanjjak

I have taken a post-COC breather on WIPs because I am burnt out. I also intentionally did not have anything planned because I was supposed to be having surgery at the beginning of January. But things being what they are, that got canceled. So instead of spending the next 8-12 weeks catching up on reading fic, I guess I will now have time to do some work?

So. Lately, I’ve been overrun with fic ideas. As we are looking ahead to the start of a new year, I thought it would be fun to share what kind of things I’m planning on my slate for 2021. No promises on if/when these get going/finished, but I’m excited about all of them, so I’m hoping I can keep up that excitement as I go!

1. Simon Snow and the Missing Magician

My Scooby Doo AU! Okay, so I’ve been promising this one forever (the first piece of fanart I ever did—my first tumblr post!—was for this story!) But it’s been a much slower process than I thought. Part of that was me trying to outline (hah!) and part of that was me trying to write an all Simon POV (fool!). Anyway. I think I got a good idea for it today that can help me retool as I get my head back in the game. I know I said no promises, but I swear to Stevie, I will finish this! (And it’s only part one! Augh! 😆 )

2. Val-un-tine’s Day

"A holiday dedicated to enemies. To show the people you loathe most how much you hate having them in your life." This...speaks for itself, I think? Will I get to it before the day in question? Who can say?

3. Slings and Arrows (or...Eros?) (how punny do I want to be? 🤔)

An Eros (Cupid) and Psyche AU! I wrote a line in my Regency fic where Baz compared Simon to something “sculpted by Praxiteles” and in my brain I was just like, “yes, Simon as Eros and Baz as Psyche, I will make this happen!” Anyway, other than getting my copy of “The Golden Ass” off the shelf, this is about as far as I’ve gotten with the idea.

4. My secret smut fic

Okay, it’s not really a secret, but if I give you the title, I feel like it will give too much away, since it is a quote that I know you all know. But I’m really excited about it and if I pull it off, it will be fucking beautiful.

5. An untitled Beauty and the Beast AU

I think the way I’m doing the roles in this will be different to how people would expect. At least I’m hoping they are.

Okay, that’s enough of that. (I have more I could share, but I won’t. I’m already feeling exposed! 😂)

“ART????” You may ask. Well, I have a few plans.

1. Illustrations for A Man of Letters

I only intended to do one from the final chapter, but then I wrote the rest of the fic and loved it and there are multiple scenes I want to see, so... I’m hoping to do multiple pieces.

2. COBB

Maybe??? (Part of me is terrified of having responsibility to someone else’s fic and part of me is excited.)

3. Portrait series

This one’s been kicking around in my head for a while. I think I’d like to continue them all in the same style I used for my Agatha one.

4. Fire series

I’ve talked about this one a bunch. So many of the most pivotal and emotional moments in Simon and Baz’s relationship feature fire in some form and this would be a series to highlight that. It’s just... going to be a long series. And part of me wants to wait till AWTWB is out and I can do all the books together. Also, I don’t really know how to draw fire yet. So I guess I should figure that out, huh?

Whew! Looks busy, but I’m so excited to dig in on something soon!

Tags!!! If you’re still with me after all of that, it’s after midnight here, so not really Wednesday anymore. That said, if you happen to see this, and you haven’t posted your own WIPs yet, then this—THIS—is your official tag! @ you!

[dakotacrisis]

London Holiday

What would happen if Ladybug’s Miraculous Cure landed the train at the London station instead of setting it all the way back in Paris? AKA: Adrien gets to actually go on his freaking field trip! Complete with Adrinette fluff!

---

“Miraculous Ladybug!” Ladybug thrust the helmet into the air. The ladybugs of her power went about fixing everything the akuma had caused. Mainly taking the train out of the middle of the Big Ben clock tower. Where the ladybugs deposited the three heroes though wasn’t the Paris station like they thought. They were now standing in the London station.

“Guess my powers wanted to save your class another train ride.” Ladybug joked.

Max de-transformed and handed the miraculous back to Ladybug. “It was an honor, Ladybug.”

“We couldn’t have done it without you.” She stowed the miraculous back in her yo-yo. “Bug out!”

And with that Ladybug was off and loose in London. Probably was gonna use the miraculous to get back to Paris out of sight of the public. It certainly would have been interesting seeing her swinging from the buildings to the shock of the Londoners. They weren’t exactly used to spotted super heroes running around.

Now that Adrien thought about it they probably freaked everyone out by shooting the train through Big Ben like a thread in a needle.

Max ran to find the others and Adrien discreetly snuck back on the train and de-transformed as well.

“Even miles away from Paris and Hawkmoth and we still had to deal with an akuma.” Plagg grumbled, “There truly is no rest for a superhero.”

“But we’re in London now so we have the rest of the day to relax.” Adrien reminded him. “I get to hang out with my friends and see Big Ben and you can sit in my bag eating camembert till you pass out.”

“Now that is a good vacation!” Plagg perked up.

With suspicion gone Adrien went to find his classmates. Everyone was grabbing their things from the overhead. “Adrien,” Nino saw him first, “Where’d you go? You weren’t at the back of the train.”

“Yeah, I got tossed into one of the bathrooms when Startrain was driving and got locked in.” Adrien shrugged.

“Well you are not going to believe who showed up to save the day while we were in space.” Nino raved about how Ladybug and Chat Noir seemingly appeared at of thin air to save the day.

His phone beeped alerting him that his father knew he snuck out to go on the field trip and demanding he return home at once. As far as he saw it he was already in London and there really wasn’t much his father could do about it. Unless he wanted to send the Gorilla on a two hour long train ride to drag Adrien back to the mansion.

“I’ll come straight home after my field trip. Don’t worry I am safe with my class.” Adrien sent the text and turned off his notifications. Rebellion felt good. Terrifying but good.

After Ms. Bustier made sure everyone was present and accounted for they headed into London. The class was busy gawking at the new sights and taking pictures as they made their way to Big Ben.

“Did you know that the clocktower itself is called the Elizabeth Tower.” Max informed the class, “Big Ben is actually the name of the bell inside the tower.”

“What?” Kim gaped, “Why do they call it Big Ben then?”

“Alliteration?” Alix suggested. “Easier to remember?”

“I don’t think it’ll matter anyways.” Alya sighed. “Big Ben is closed for tours.”

“What?” the entire class halted.

“Alya,” Ms. Bustier approached her, “Are you sure? We had a tour reserved.”

“It was the akuma. Even though Ladybug set everything right the citizens of London aren’t accustomed to the disturbances like we are so they closed down the entire Palace of Westminster while they make sure everything is stable.” Alya continued searching on her phone. “It says it should be reopened in a couple hours so we can always go then.”

“What are we gonna do till then? Hang around on the sidewalk?” the class hung their heads in disappointment.

Oh no. Adrien’s first field trip was not ending like this.

“Ms. Bustier,” Adrien raised his hand, “There are still plenty of other things to do in London. Museums, churches, parks, the London Eye. Why not go to one of those while we wait?”

“Excellent suggestion, Adrien,” Ms. Bustier said, “Okay class, change of plans. While we wait for Big Ben to reopen we’ll kill some time at some other London attractions. All in favor of museum?”

They went around raising their hands for different activities before deciding to visit the Kensington Gardens. It was free and would give the students time to look around, take some pictures, do a little souvenier shopping, and even visit the palace if they wanted to pay the small fee.

“It is decided, now if I can pull up some directions,” Ms. Bustier pulled out her phone.

“No need.” Adrien motioned for everyone to follow. “I know how to get there.”

“Are you sure?” Ms. Bustier asked.

“Know it like the back of my hand.” Adrien led the way for his classmates and in no time at all they were standing at the gate to the gardens.

“Adrien, how’d you know where you were going?” Marinette was at his side. “Did you visit here when you were here for the wedding?”

“Oh no. I wasn’t anywhere near Kensington.” Adrien said.

“Then how did you know?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

He fiddled with his ring for a moment embarrassed by the answer.

“Dude?” Nino clapped an arm on his shoulder.

“I played a lot of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.” he mumbled under his breath, “The mapping on the game is pretty close to the actual layout.”

There was a faint snicker from the group but was quickly silenced.

“That’s amazing!” Marinette was the first to say something. “Remembering where to go just from walking around in a video game? That’s really impressive.”

“Oh, thanks,” Adrien didn’t feel so weird about it now.

The class split up into their own groups and went around to see the different statues and attractions of the park.

“Nino, Adrien,” Alya grabbed Nino’s hand, “You wanna walk around with Marinette and I?”

“Sure thing.”  the boys followed the girls around the parks stopping every once and a while to admire the scattered statues or memorials.

They were on route to the Italian Gardens when a note of music caught the groups ears. There was a band playing music to a moderate happily listening crowd. Marinette had trouble understanding what they were singing since it was in English but the music had a good jazzy swing to it.

“May I have this dance my good lady?” Nino made an exaggerated bow to Alya.

“Oh yes, my lord,” she exaggerated a curtsy back at him and took his hand as they started dancing to the song.

Adrien glanced at Marinette who was laughing at her friends and tapping her foot to the music. “Wanna dance?” He offered.

“Huh?” she startled, “Oh well, I uh,”

“I promise I won’t step on your toes.” he pulled her in. They watched the swinging, jumping, dance Alya and Nino were doing and tried their best to copy it.

After a minute Marinette started to loosen up and they jumped and circled around the park like a pair of fools. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Marinette asked with a teasing smile.

“Not a clue. You?”

“I think it’s a miracle I haven’t stepped on you yet.” she joked and they both laughed. Adrien gave her a spin that made her giggle.

By the end his heart was racing and Marinette was pink in the face. They applauded the band as they launched into another song.

“Hoo,” Alya and Nino came back up to them. There was a sheen of sweat on their foreheads. “All that dancing works up a thirst.”

“You do always have to go above and beyond.” Marinette rolled her eyes. “Was the lift necessary?”

“We did it, didn’t we?” Alya smiled in triumph.

“You mean before you lost balance and went tumbling to the ground?” Adrien smirked.

“Don’t be jealous,” Nino wrapped an arm around Alya. “You still want to head to the Italian Gardens?”

Alya pulled out her phone and checked the time. “We still have time. Big Ben still isn’t cleared.”

“These Londoners need to not be so worried.” Marinette said, “Ladybug set everything right.”

“Like we said before. They just aren’t used to it like we are.” Adrien answered.

“Back in Paris if an akuma hits and it’s on the other side of town I don’t even worry about it anymore unless it starts spreading.” Nino said, “I was at a cafe getting lunch and everyone continued on like normal then ten minutes later we watched the miraculous ladybug cure zipping around the rooftops a couple streets over.”

“Nino, I feel like maybe you should be a little more concerned when an akuma hits.” Adrien didn’t like the idea of his best friend sitting idle and unbothered while an actual villain was terrorizing the streets.

“I think Hawkmoth should stop akumatizing that pigeon guy but he does it anyway.”

“Mood.” Marinette sighed.

They walked to the Italian Gardens and spent some time looking around at the fountains. “Hey Adrien,” Marinette tapped his shoulder, “Do you..um...do you wanna take a totograph with me? I mean--photograph-- with me? In front of the fountain?”

“Okay,” he stepped closer towards her as she held out her phone to take a selfie. “Agh, my arms are too short to get the both of us.”

“Let me try,” Adrien took the phone and held it out, “I’m not doing so well either.”

“Hey guys,” Ivan and Mylene walked up to them, “Do you want us to take a picture of you?”

“Yes please,” Adrien handed Mylene the phone, “Thanks a bunch. I couldn’t get a good shot for some reason.”

“No problem.” she took a couple pictures of them before handing the phone back. “Hope they’re okay.”

“These are perfect, thanks, Mylene.” Marinette offered to take Ivan and Mylene’s photo too while they were at it.

Their phones beeped as a group message came through. Big Ben was open again!

The class reconvened to go see Big Ben. A lot of the usual tourists were still freaking out and refused to go inside despite the all clear so the class had no problem getting inside for their tour.

After the tour and a stop in the souvenier shop they departed for dinner before taking the train back home. Adrien wasn’t looking forward to the backlash his act of teenage rebellion was sure to bring but he could hardly care at the moment. He had an actual day out with his friends. He had fun and got to see some of the sights. The last time he was in London he had spent his entire free time looking for that medication Marinette asked him for. Still not sure why she needed him to find it but she seemed really distressed about it so he didn’t mind looking for her.

“I’m about ready to pass out,” Alya yawned as they loaded up back onto the train, “Adrien, I’m stealing Nino to use as a pillow. Hope that’s cool with you.”

“No problem. As long as Marinette doesn’t mind.”

“Not at all.” Marinette said as they took their seats again.

They started their journey back home and one by one the other students started to clock out for a nap after an exhausting day walking around London. Marinette was trying to stifle her yawns but they didn’t miss Adrien who was yawning along too.

“Do you need to sleep?” Adrien whispered so not to disturb the others.

“Yeah but I can wait,” she yawned again, “I’d feel bad if I slumped over and fell asleep on you.”

“I don’t mind.” he opened his bag and pulled out a blanket he had neatly folded inside. “That’s why I brought this.” He draped it over their legs. “Go on and sleep.”

“Thanks,” she smiled before resting her head on his shoulder like before.

“Goodnight, Adrien,” her voice was sleepy and only half awake before she slipped into her slumber.

“Sweet dreams, Marinette,” Adrien said as he rested his own head against hers and fell asleep.

What a great field trip.

[literaphobe]

a rose from rosa

It's Valentine's Day 2019, and the squad finds out that Jake and Amy have never celebrated the holiday together. And yet, for the past decade, Amy's been getting valentine gifts from a secret admirer who's not Jake. Or so it may seem.

for @letsperaltiago (from your secret valentine <3) read on ao3

2019.

“How have the two of you been married for years and years and not celebrated Valentine’s Day even once?”

“We haven’t been married years and years,” Amy denies, and Rosa only rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, Rosa. We got married like, last year. You were at our wedding. Keep up!”

“Rosa, I didn’t know you liked Valentine’s Day,” Terry remarks as he walks past, tearing open a new cup of yoghurt. Apple flavor, from Gina’s flavor of the month fridge thing she got him subscribed to. “Guess you’re a ro-“

“I don’t,” she interrupts, quick and harsh before he can carry on with this line of thought. “Valentine’s Day is a sham. Florists use it as an excuse to sell roses. Stores use it to sell candy and cards.”

“Oh,” Terry backs off, kind of terrified, and decides to dig into his yoghurt instead.

“Wait, Rosa, you don’t like Valentine’s Day?” Amy clarifies, holding her hand up in confusion. “But you get gifts every year. Why would you let anyone send you gifts if you hate the holiday so much?”

Rosa looks momentarily taken aback by this question. Lucky for her, her lack of response does not mean silence in the conversation.

“I mean, they’re probably all from ex-cons and criminals. She pulls in the interrogation room, Ames. Rosa has scared countless criminals into falling in love with her,” Jake says, obviously very impressed. “Wish I knew how to do that.”

“Hey, what are we talking about?” Charles asks as he returns from the break room. He’d been having some kind of fight with Hitchcock and Scully that no one else could really be bothered with.

“We–“

“We’re talking about how Jake and Amy have never celebrated Valentine’s Day. As a couple,” Rosa almost desperately interjects, as if she’s afraid of this topic of conversation to be focused on her. That’s not really suspicious though, because she doesn’t tend to enjoy being the focus of most conversations.

“What?!” Charles slams whatever he’s holding on the table, and everyone flinches at the sound. He glares at Jake and Amy. “Tell me that’s not true!”

Jake and Amy sigh.

“We’ve just,” Amy begins to explain, “we just haven’t had the time.”

2015.

“You’re as... sweet as gummy worms?”

“Jake, if you’re planning on getting me something for Valentine’s Day, I’d suggest you don’t run through your ideas out loud and in front of me,” she says without looking up from her paperwork, working on a report she’s been struggling with for a while. It hasn’t put her in the best mood. “And please, don’t compare me to gummy worms. That alone would be a great Valentine’s Day gift. In fact, I’d prefer it if I wasn’t compared to candy of any kind.” She looks up, her eyes widen, and she suddenly realizes how hostile she might have come across. “I mean, anything’s good though. So... keep up the good work, boyfriend!”

Her tone is light and awkward towards the end, she’s trying to sound as nice about this as possible, which, well, isn’t a shock. They’re uncharted waters, they’re a new relationship, and they haven’t even had a fight yet. It’s cute that Amy’s trying to be nice so that nothing gets ruined, because god knows it would kill him if this thing they’ve got going on blew up in their faces so quick. It would kill them both.

And yet, Jake yearns for a future where neither of them are quite so scared, where they don’t fret about stepping on the other’s toes just a little, where Amy bosses him around like she did in the past and now does in the bedroom. He knows he’d love her so much more for it.

“It’s okay,” he smiles, “this isn’t for you, it’s for Charles. When he found out Gina and I used to give each other friendship valentines as kids, he got super jealous so now if I don’t get him a gift every year he gets hella grumpy.”

“Oh wow,” Amy laughs almost relievedly. “That’s sweet.”

“Don’t worry,” his eyes light up with that sparkle they get when he grins, “your va–“

“Delivery for Amy Santiago?”

“Oh,” Amy turns around, and smiles as she receives what appears to be a basket of various Valentine’s Day gifts. “Oh wow, this is amazing.”

Gina walks past and looks up from her phone upon seeing the love-filled monstrosity. “Wow, you’re a little early, Jake.”

“Oh, this isn’t from Jake,” Amy says knowingly, almost pointedly, actually, and Jake gives a sort of awkward smile in response. “It’s from my secret valentine.”

“Your secret what now?”

Rosa walks by, groaning. “Damn it, we’re doing secret valentines now? Is secret santa not enough for–“

“It’s not a precinct thing,” Amy explains. “I was on a blind date about five years back and they send me Valentine’s Day gifts every year. It’s kind of a tradition. Don’t you guys remember?”

Gina and Rosa look at each other, indicating that they have zero recollection of this whatsoever. Jake is strangely silent throughout all this.

“Okay, that’s a whole can of worms,” says Gina, giving her an inquisitive look. “A blind date? So you’ve met them?”

“Met them? Not physically.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Rosa crosses her arms, looking stern. “Shouldn’t these gifts stop by now since you have a boyfriend?”

“She doesn’t know who this person is,” says Jake. “She doesn’t know any of their contact information, so there’s no way she can get the gifts to stop, unless she found out who her secret valentine was."

“Yeah...” Amy looks over at him. “That’s exactly right, Jake. I don’t remember telling you any of that though.”

Jake looks flustered. “Uh... I figured it out because I’m such a good detective and boyfriend?”

“Okay, but I still don’t understand this blind date thing of yours, Ames–“ Gina continues, but gets cut off when Charles barges into the conversation.

“Blind date?!” He looks very worked up. “Amy, if you’re cheating on Jake, I will kill you! I swear to god, I will kill–“

“I’m not cheating on Jake!” Amy retorts in exasperation. “I’m talking about a blind date I went on years ago on Valentine’s Day. It was... one of those things where you don’t see the person because there’s a divider put up and you talk to each other through these devices that mask what your real voice is.”

“That sounds creepy,” Rosa makes a face. “Why would you go on a date like that?”

2009.

“I don’t know, Kylie, I think I’m better off alone for now,” Amy speaks quietly into her phone, nearly shuddering at the thought of dating again. She only just broke things off with Constantine, and she already knew she didn’t want to be with him since... hours after their first sexual engagement. Imagine who she might get saddled with this time? “Plus, this whole thing seems sketchy.”

“It’s not sketchy,” Kylie insists, and she seems offended Amy would think so. “It’s a blind date.”

“Exactly. A blind date where I don’t get to see who I’m talking to. Or hear their real voice. You know what? I’ve changed my mind, it’s not sketchy, it’s downright creepy, Kylie.”

“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!” There’s a lull in their conversation. “Okay, look, there’s some benefits to this thing too. If you don’t like the person you’re on the date with, you can just choose not to reveal your name and contact information. They won’t see your face or know how you sound like! Doesn’t that sound safe?”

“What if they seem nice at first, but then when I choose to meet them they turn out to be weird once we really get to know each other?”

“How’d that be different from any of your past relationships?”

Amy looks up, scowling. That wasn’t Kylie speaking, that was Jake, who’s apparently been eavesdropping this whole time. He’s fiddling with his pen and grinning at her, legs on top of his desk like the disrespectful degenerate he is. Kylie, on the other hand, is laughing her head off on the other line. Traitor.

“What? You forget how loud your voice gets when you get all anxious and stuff. What’s this about a blind date?”

“It’s none of your business,” she seethes, looking away from him and trying to keep her voice down. “Can we be done with this now, Kylie? I have work.”

“You always have work,” Kylie groans, “I’ll hang up if you say yes.”

“Fine!” She whispers harshly. “I’ll go on the date, okay? Promise me this is just a one-time Valentine’s Day thing?”

“I promise,” she says. “After this, I’ll put aside my guilt about getting married before you and I won’t force you to do anything ever again.”

“Okay, great. I’m hanging up now.”

“Wear something pretty!”

Amy shuts her flip phone harder than she usually does and this action coincides with a file getting slammed down on her desk. By Rosa.

She gulps. “Uh, hey... Diaz,” she says that deliberately, remembering how someone got punched the other week for calling her Rosa. She would rather go un-punched today, thank you very much.

Rosa snorts. “Hey yourself. That’s the Kowalski file.”

She fumbles in realization, dropping some papers, which she sees Jake snickering at from the corner of her eye. Asshole. “Thanks,” she says to Rosa, who picks a pen up for her. “I’ll take care of this.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she crosses her arms now, smiling slightly. “So. Blind date?”

“Oh yes, Rosa,” Jake chimes in, uninvited as usual. Amy hates how he seems to just know everyone so well and so deeply, and how he occasionally pretends to know her too. Sometimes he’s right about the things he claims to know about her, but those are probably lucky guesses. “Detective Santiago here’s going on a blind date for Valentine’s Day.”

He makes sure to emphasize that for effect, and it works.

“Woah,” says Gina, who’s returning from god knows where. “A blind date on Valentine’s Day? That just seems tacky, Santiago.”

“Not that this is at all related to work,” Amy says carefully but pointedly. “But I’m not voluntarily going on this blind date. Just doing it to appease my friend Kylie.”

“Wow. You must be a really good friend.”

Hm. Was that a heartfelt compliment? Amy’s not sure she expected it, especially from Jake, but she’ll take it. “I guess I am.”

“I mean, to go on a crazy bondage-themed blind date on Valentine’s Day just to make your friend–“

“What? It’s not bondage-themed!” Amy protests in an outrage, and the rest laugh at this. “Where did you get that?”

“You said it was a sketchy, creepy, thing where you couldn’t see your date. Sounds sexual to me. Hey, I’m not judging–“

“Because there’s nothing to judge,” she retorts, firm on this. “It’s just an anonymous blind date. Whether there’s a second date will be completely up to me. But everyone’s clothes stay on.”

“That sounds dumb and boring,” Gina says, disgusted. “I thought Valentine’s Day was supposed to be romantic. You’re ruining Valentine’s Day.”

“Eh, who cares,” Rosa responds nonchalantly. “Valentine’s Day is a sham. Florists use it as an excuse to sell roses. Stores use it to sell candy and cards.”

“Rosa,” Gina places her hand on her chest, clutching it dramatically. “You’re not telling me you don’t like Valentine’s Day, are you?”

“No, that’s... exactly what I’m telling you.”

“Well, then stop telling me! Because girl, I’m gonna change your mind.”

2019.

“Delivery for Rosa Diaz?”

Rosa looks like she’s just seen a ghost. She doesn’t move.

“Rosa Diaz?”

Everyone looks weirded out at her reaction. She still doesn’t move.

“Uh, she’s here,” Jake says, pointing to Rosa, and the delivery guy gives her a weird look before placing an elaborate basket filled with many Valentine’s Day themed gifts. There’s nothing surprising about the whole thing. Except Rosa’s reaction to it. She now appears to be gathering herself, shaking her head as she puts the gift basket under her desk.

“Rosa, what’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing.” She clears her throat. “Nothing’s wrong. Shut up.”

“You get Valentine’s Day gifts every year, why do you look so shaken?”

“Nothing I just,” her voice is choked up, “I just didn’t think I’d get one this year.”

“Why not? I mean—wait.”

“Oh,” Amy continues from Jake’s apparent silent epiphany. “All the gifts came from one person.”

“What?” Rosa denies, an octave too loud for truth. “No they didn’t. They were all, all from random losers I don’t know.” It’s almost pitiful to watch her like this. “Talk about literally anything else right now.”

“Okay... I’ve got something,” Charles begins hesitantly, not wanting to cross Rosa. She gets vulnerable from time to time, they all know this by now, but she never becomes less of a threat. “Why haven’t you two given each other anything for Valentine’s Day? I can’t believe I let this happen.”

“You let this happen?”

“We always get swamped with work, Charles. That’s all there is to it!”

“No! That can’t be all there is to it!”

2015.

“So,” Jake leans over to Amy’s side of the table. “Valentine’s Day is in a few days.”

She smiles, her face lighting up actually. She looks nervous yet excited. This would be their first Valentine’s Day as a couple, and that’s big. “You’re right. Got any... ideas of what we should do?”

“A few,” he winks, indicating that its sexual ideas he has.

Holt bursts into the briefing room, and they sit upright in shock. Or well, Amy is. Jake nearly falls off his chair. He looks like he’s not to be trifled with this morning, like he’s stressed out about something.

“Peralta. I need you on a week-long stakeout with Sergeant Jeffords. Your murder case just became a top-priority drug investigation.”

Terry nods. “Yes, sir. We won’t rest until we’ve got our guy.”

Jake and Amy look at each other. “Crap.”

2019.

“Oh wow, that really is all there was to it,” Charles nods, standing corrected. “How about every year since then?”

“Stuff just kept cropping up,” Amy explains, and Jake looks tense about this again.

“That’s no excuse!” he whines. “You can’t be married and not celebrating Valentine’s Day. Jake, normally I’d blame Amy for this–“

“What?”

“–but there’s something you’re not telling me here! You’re getting beaten out by some random loser who gives Amy Valentine’s Day gifts every year!”

2009.

A blonde woman rushes into the bullpen and makes a beeline toward Amy’s desk.

“Woah woah woah,” she looks up in shock. “You must be Kylie.”

Her shock melts into simple delight. “And you must be the Jake I keep hearing about.”

“Oh wow,” Jake reaches out and shakes her hand. “Amy talks about me a lot? Gotta say I’m flattered, can’t say I’m surprised.”

Kylie rolls her eyes, but keeps her smile. “She told me you’d be like this. If I didn’t know what a slob you were, I’d tell her to date you.”

Jake laughs nervously, and a bit too loud, but it’s chill, because it’s 2009, and Captain McGintley is their captain. No one gets into trouble for being a too-loud laughing slob, except for with Amy. He’s so glad for that. His desk is a complete mess and sure he sees the occasional ant but why should that have to change?

“Great!” His lips are frozen in a not at all convincing grin. “Just great! Hey Kylie, what are you doing here? Amy went to investigate a lead.”

The almost deranged energy to the way he talks never drops throughout this.

“Oh, I just came here to charge my phone. Amy and I have the same phone brand. My phone went flat. Don’t tell her I was here though.”

“Oh yeah, sure,” especially since Kylie being here violates many rules. He’s not sure how she got in so easy. Maybe this precinct could do with some tighter security. “Any pal of Amy’s a pal of mine.”

“Ooh,” she grimaces, “please don’t call me that."

“Not a fan of pal? Alright,” he looks down, and pretends to focus on his paperwork instead of letting Kylie know how distracting and terrifying her presence here is. Also he does not want to do his paperwork. He hears the faint sounds of her phone starting back up.

“Oh crap,” he hears, a few moments later. “This isn’t good.”

“Anything wrong, buddy?”

“Yeah, I don’t like buddy either,” she looks up from her phone. “I’ve just been told Amy’s blind date for tonight cancelled.”

“Aw man, and Amy was really looking forward to that!”

She doesn’t sense his sarcasm and begins to look panicked, the kind of horror that scares Jake into thinking maybe telling the truth would get him in even more trouble than this bold-faced lie.

“She did?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah, totally. She couldn’t wait to... get off work and go for that date.”

He’s hoping maybe at some point, she’ll just stop taking it seriously, and never bring it up again, and never tell Amy, and also agree to be his best friend.

“What am I gonna tell Amy? Oh, this is bad, this is bad—wait—a replacement. I just need a replacement!”

Jake claps his hands together. “Yeah! Yes! You go, Kylie! Four for you, Kylie!”

“Mean girls?”

“Best movie that came out five years ago. Because it’s 2009. And that movie came out... in 2004.”

“I don’t have time for movie release facts, Jake!”

“Sorry!” He holds his hands up. “Sorry.”

“I need a replacement date. So Amy doesn’t get stood up.”

“Yes!” He points at her in agreement. “You do need that.”

“You!”

“Huh?”

“You, you’re gonna be the replacement.” She smiles wide now, proud of herself for figuring it out. “Yeah, you’re gonna be Amy’s blind date.”

“Uh, no I’m not.”

“Uh, oh yes you are,” Kylie scowls at him now.

“Yes I am,” he says in fear. “Except I can’t!”

“And why not?”

“Because... Amy and I work together. That would make things weird.”

“Are you dumb? It’s just the one date. She’d never know it was you. If you’re afraid she’ll want a second date somehow, then just be terrible on purpose. Amy’s beautiful. She’s gonna find someone great. I only make her go on the occasional date so she doesn’t stay cooped up in here where romance goes to die.”

“What...” he bites on his lip. “This place is super romantic.”

“Uh huh,” Kylie snorts, unplugging her phone, which apparently got juiced up enough during their conversation for her to leave conveniently right now. “I’m gonna go. Don’t be late, and–“ she hands him a slip of paper–“here’s the place.”

“I won’t,” Jake says, not exactly a promise but a hopeful notion for himself, given his track record with attendance, which doesn’t really matter at work yet, because it’s 2009. “This is... gonna work out great.”

2019.

“Hey!” Rosa calls out, stern, her finger pointing straight at Amy who looks like she’s about to get eaten alive. “What’s that?”

She’s currently interrupting Charles who’d been cajoling (note: annoying) the rest of the squad with romantic (note again: gross) escapades with Genevieve on every past Valentine’s Day.

“Uh... nothing?” Amy is holding onto a very fancy looking card, concealing it in her hands.

“Don’t give me that crap,” her forehead wrinkles as she gets off her desk. “Give me that.”

“It’s just, it’s, it’s my ideas for Valentine’s–“ she throws the card at Jake–“Jake, catch!”

Jake looks at her in horror. He obviously wants to know who this secret valentine Rosa’s been hiding for years is, but he also doesn’t want to die. “Amy! Why’d you do that?”

“Partners in life!”

“Oh, right, love you–“

Rosa scowls at him, still grabbing onto Amy. “Jake, don’t you dare read that–“

“Oh, I already saw the card,” says Terry, to confused looks, “what? I thought if I found out who was secretly sending you gifts I could help you get together with them."

"Yeah," Amy assents, "I only looked at the card too because he put it down on the desk. I'm sorry, Rosa."

"Terry just wants his friends to be happy."

“Aw, Sarge,” Charles touches his chest. “That is so sweet–“

“That is invasive and a violation of–“

“Diaz, relax,” Terry says, holding his hands up to soothe her. “There was no name on the card. I wouldn’t know who it was any better than you.”

Rosa deflates in relief, and Jake looks down at the card. “Uh oh,” his eyes widen after he reads it.

“What, what is it?”

Jake looks up at everyone, just a little bit apologetic, a little bit wary of Rosa, who... looks like she’s given up. “I... know who Rosa’s secret valentine is.”

2009.

“Godiva chocolates?” Rosa holds up the pretty looking box, it has a pink post it taped on saying ‘from your secret admirer, xoxo’. She scoffs at Gina, who’s sat at her desk subtly grinning like she’s a hero. “You really think this is gonna change my mind about Valentine’s Day?”

“You really don’t know me, huh?”

Rosa smirks, proud as she crosses her arms. “No. And I don’t intend to.”

“Stop lying to yourself, sweetie,” Gina’s words flow slow like sticky honey, tender and unwavering. Rosa’s having a hard time convincing herself she’s not a bee. “Here’s something you don’t know about me: I don’t just do one thing and leave it at that if I’m trying to accomplish something. You think chocolates is all I have planned?”

“Whatever plan you have, I don’t want any–“

Gina’s phone rings, and Rosa hates how it gives her power, power that Rosa doesn’t have. She can’t say that about most people. She finds that she found her match when Gina Linetti first stepped into this building. No, not match like that, gross. She means it in a competitive way.

“Jake?”

“Gina, I don’t think I can do this.”

“Then don’t,” she says, and winks at Rosa. Rosa isn’t even sure why she’s winking. She elects to roll her eyes, but the fact that she reacts at all is Gina’s victory.

“What? Gina, you’re supposed to tell me that I have to do this!”

“Okay, then do it.”

“Okay, I’m doing it.” Jake takes a deep breath. “Thanks? I guess?”

“You’re welcome. Bye...” Gina puts her phone down.

“What’d Jake want?”

“Who knows?”

Jake, who’s on the line, who Gina unknowingly hasn’t hung up on yet, sighs and hangs up. He slowly walks back to his chair.

“Sorry about that,” he says into the microphone, and then he hears Amy say “no, it’s fine!” back through the speaker, her voice muffled to sound different but still easy on the ears. He misses her real voice. “Yeah, there was a line at the bathroom. So, about your question...”

Jake screwed up. Unlike what Kylie said to do, Jake didn’t play the asshole blind date who you never want to see again, he played himself. Which, well, he figured was enough to make Amy not want anything more. But the unthinkable happened. Amy... likes him. Well, she likes blind date unseeable him at least. She laughed at his jokes, they bantered back and forth, and he can’t see her face, but he’s pretty sure she didn’t make a single expression of annoyance. Not even once.

So what’s the issue here? Yeah, well... Amy wants a second date. In person. And that’s just too much for Jake, he can’t let that happen, because Amy finding out he’s him is one thing, but Amy knowing that they were on a date and she wanted a second one? That would just make things so awkward at work. For her, at least. And while Jake is usually a purveyor of Amy doing and saying embarrassing things... he feel like this one would cross the line. She’d never understand and maybe she’d even leave the Nine-Nine and they wouldn’t be partners anymore.

That scares Jake more than anything else.

“So? What do you think? I mean, not to sound too forward, but I thought the date went well... or was that just me?”

“No, it’s not just you,” Jake insists, because keeping this under wraps is one thing, but he doesn’t want to hurt Amy and make her think that there’s something genuinely wrong with her. “I loved this. You’re amazing, and I’m sure you’re beautiful, although that doesn’t matter because you uh, your personality is beautiful enough.”

She sighs, sounding disappointed. “Just get to the point, please.”

“I can’t see you. Ever. And it’s not that I don’t want to! I just—I just can’t—and I can’t explain why.”

“Okay...”

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighs. “I know. It sounds sketchy as hell. But I’m serious. You’re great, and I’ll prove it. We just can’t ever see each other.”

She seems interested. “How?”

“Today’s Valentine’s Day, right? Yeah, I mean, that’s why we’re here. How about... I promise you I’ll be your valentine every year from now till... forever I guess.”

“That’s sweet, but what does that mean?”

“I’ll send you a Valentine’s Day gift every year,” he nods. “And that way you know how special you are. Every year.”

“That doesn’t sound fair,” she says. “If I give you my address and don’t know anything about you, what’s gonna stop you from breaking into my house and murdering me in cold blood?”

“I’ll set it up through this... is this an agency? I’m uh, the... the people in charge of this super anonymous blind date thing. They have both of our personal information, right?”

“Yeah, they do. I only put down my work address though, not that you deserve to know that.”

“Okay. I’ll... get this place to deliver it to you. We do it through the middleman, and that way this whole thing stays anonymous. And you get a valentine every year, no matter what. I won’t make the gifts too sexual, so whoever you end up dating won’t get jealous.”

She laughs. “You know what? That actually sounds nice. You have a deal.” A pause. “For what it’s worth, I really love the way you think.”

“Oh, thank you.” He refrains from saying ‘and I love you’, because even he knows that’d be too weird. “And... for what it’s worth, since we’re doing that now, I think you deserve to be so happy. Because you’re one of the best people... I know.”

“Wow, you got all that from one date?”

Uh oh. Making it weird, he’s making it weird. Time to tap out before he gives the game away.

“Uh... yeah! I have to, I have to go.”

2019.

“So, who is it?”

Curious eyes latch onto him, every pair looking but Rosa, who Jake is scared to hurt.

“I–“

“Just tell them, Jake,” Rosa says, defeated, and her consent only drives up the desperation of the crowd.

“Tell us!”

“It’s me!” He yells, and everyone shows a range of expressions, best described by confusion, perhaps a bit of disgust. “It was me all along, okay?”

“That’s a lie if I ever heard one.”

“Jake, you have a wife. You can’t really expect us to believe you’ve been secretly sending Rosa Valentine’s Day gifts every year, right?”

“What?” he scoffs. “No, I’m not talking about Rosa. I meant Amy. I’m Amy’s secret valentine. The one, the one who’s been sending her gifts all these years.” he looks sheepishly at Amy. “Surprise?”

“Oh, I knew that.”

“What?!”

Amy shrugs. “I found out years ago, Jake.”

“How?” His entire life has been a lie. Okay, maybe not his entire life. Just, the last ten years. Or whenever Amy found out about this.

“I’m a good detective,” she says, crossing her arms, “also that company who organized our blind date got investigated and shut down and I might have taken a peek at the files.”

“Oh, you’re good,” says Charles, nodding his head up and down in a creepily approving way. He suddenly scowls at Jake. “Why didn’t you tell her until now? You could’ve gotten together much sooner!”

Jake looks appalled by this accusation. “I didn’t tell her? Don’t you mean–“ he turns his attention to Amy–“why didn’t you ask me?”

“Why would I?” Amy snorts. “You’re the only one who supposedly had that information. When we weren’t dating, I just assumed it was because you weren’t into me like that and you were just being a good friend. Then you told me you liked me and, nothing, and then we got together, and then we dated for years, and then we got married–“

“I think we get the gist of it, Amy,” Jake says in embarrassment.

“I don’t understand,” Terry pipes up, “why couldn’t you just tell her any time during these last ten years? Especially after y’all got married. Terry hates secrets kept over a long period of time between couples who are supposed to love and trust each other.”

Rosa grins subtly. “Wow. That one was a mouthful.”

“Yeah,” he frowns. “Terry didn’t think that particular hatred through.”

“Jake didn’t tell me because he wanted to get more and more bad at hiding it until I got suspicious and asked him about it,” Amy smiles proudly at Jake, who looks impressed because she’s spot on, “I’m assuming.”

“No you’re not.”

“No I’m not, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what you were going for,” she smiles again, sickly sweet and nauseating for all others but him. “You wanted it to be a dramatic reveal. A blaze of glory.”

“That I did,” Jake grinned. “You know me so well.”

“But I found that boring.”

“Oh,” he deflates completely, almost looking crushed.

“Because I already knew,” she explains, and it dawns on him that it was only her part of his supposed plan that she disliked. “And also–“

“Package for Jake Peralta?”

Jake’s face lights up and he turns toward her, bursting with excitement. The supposed delivery man is carrying a boombox.

“You got me a boombox?”

“Wait for it...”

The delivery man clicks on a button and upbeat music starts playing. Suddenly, several other people dressed up uber cool march in and there’s dancing, choreographed dancing, and ska is in the mix somehow, confetti is in the air, balloons rise to the ceiling, and someone kneels down in front of Jake holding up a banner that says ‘WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE?’

Jake kisses Amy deep and messy and desperately happy. When he pulls away, they share a tiny giggle, and then he kisses her one last time on the forehead for good measure.

“Ames, this is the most romantic thing anyone has done. For me. No, wait, it’s ever. This is super cool. And yes, I will marry you.”

They laugh again, and Amy grabs his arm in a gentle grasp. “I knew I had to go big to top ten years of your work. Also, we’re married. That’s why it’s ridiculous you never told me until now.”

“Worth it,” he says, and he grabs a heart-shaped balloon that’s clearly customized to say ‘My Love For You Is Bigger Than The Nakatomi Plaza!’. “Can I keep this? All of this. This is all crazy awesome and I have no idea how no one pulled their gun out when these guys came in.”

“Oh, I sent a memo to everyone, it’s cool,” he laughs because of course she did, “hey,” she picks up the banner, “look at this.”

In fine print, at the bottom of the banner read the words ‘I Know You’re My Secret Valentine, Idiot. Look What You Made Me Do’.

He gasps, hugging her, “That’s a Taylor Swift ref! Oh my god, you listened to Reputation!”

“Not really it was just the one–“ she sinks into the hug–“oh, what the hell. Yes. I did.”

“Okay,” he releases her from his embrace. “I’m totally gonna top this next year, by the way.”

“You can try,” Amy smiles wide and haughty. “I’m already months into planning next year’s Valentine’s Day.”

They hear Rosa push open her desk drawer with a slam, and they watch as she pulls a rose out of it. Hm, a rose from Rosa. Nice.

“Diaz, where are you going?”

“My shift is up,” she tells Terry, clicking at the lift. “I have to... go see Gina.”

“Gina? Why, she already–“ his eyes widen–“oh.”

“Yeah,” Jake nods, already in the know about this. “Good luck Rosa!”

The doors close, and Jake goes back to smiling at Amy.

“Wow, so Gina’s been Rosa’s secret valentine all along?” Amy marvels. “And she knew?”

“Yeah. I guess... we all needed a push in the right direction today.”

Amy holds up Gina’s card, squinting at it. “I don’t get how you figured that one out. I’ve looked over so many reports written by Gina. This looks nothing like her.”

“Oh, this is her fancy handwriting that she uses when she writes love letters. I’ve known it by heart since grade school.”

“Did any of her penmanship... rub off on you?”

She’s teasing, and he chuckles at it. “No. I still have the worst handwriting in the world. Can I still be your valentine?”

Her next smile is one he’ll remember for centuries. So is the kiss she plants on his cheek. “You don’t even have to ask.”

“Lifetime valentine membership. I knew marrying you was a good idea.”

And really, he’s never believed anything more.

[childoftimeandmagic]

Prompt! Klaus is returning a Christmas gift at the store where Caroline works and she feels the need to share her opinions.

Christy!!!!! Here you go and I hope you enjoy it. @misssophiachase

AO3

After the holidays was the most bizarre mix of slow and hectic that Caroline ever dealt with. Rolling her shoulders she glanced around her store front. She hadn’t seen a soul in hours, not since Elena Gilbert had walked in complaining about the status of men in the world. Flicking her wrist up to place the bill back on the door she sat back down. Opening a bookstore wasn’t considered a normal pursuit for a witch; but sitting in her store the candles lit and gently filling the air with sweet perfume of winter nights. Caroline couldn’t imagine something she’d like to do more.

Shrugging and reopening her book she leaned back in her chair. As she allowed her mind to be reabsorbed into the adventures of Nancy and Ned, the bell  above the door went completely unnoticed. Sighing happily into her book she refused to be pulled from the chapter for even a paying customer. After all what was a single customer who was probably just going to browse and leave to a good mystery.

As she turned the page she took the opportunity to sneak a peek at the person who’d entered her store from her vantage point by the counter. He was beautiful, tall, blonde and stylish. Something about him was dangerous though. A monster in human form. Now this wasn’t super helpful because he could just be one of a hundred supernatural creatures who called this town home. So it didn’t bother her.

Unlike Bonnie or Elena who were considered more powerful. Running one of the most popular supply and herbalist stores in the City of Mystic Falls, Caroline’s powers were more passive. Pointing out to her what someone desired most, or what they were hiding from themselves and the world. So the coven had left her to run her business without requiring a tax. Magic users were required to pay a percentage of their profits to the Coven which went to protecting and managing the local magic school.

Still her powers were passive enough that she was able to run a very nice business making sure that her customers got exactly the book that they needed. Not always the one they wanted, or thought they’d enjoy, but they trusted her and took the book that she found them. Hidden desires and empathy were her greatest assets in the store so she trusted them implicitly.

As the door closed quietly behind the man who had just entered a rather peculiar used book shop. The books were arranged alphabetically, by date, and genre. The oldest books were on display and honestly they were worth more. As he turned around the store opened up to reveal a grand room with a single counter in the far back with a fireplace and a ring of chairs next to it. The space was filled with even more shelves. No one seemed to be in the store except probably the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. Her hair hung in a way that almost belied what she’d look like laying in his bed. Clearing his throat he moved

His assistant had bought him a book from here about his least favorite artist. He could appreciate abstract art, but he was not about to read about Kandinsky. He liked obscure and odd focuses for his art work, but he liked people to be able to understand some part of it. he was hoping he could exchange it. With his siblings running a major city a piece, he’d grown bored and wanted to spend more time on his art.

So he’d left Marcel in charge of New Orleans, and he’d returned to the first home he’d ever known and opened up a small gallery. Going under a shortened version of his name Nik Michaels he’d thought that he would begin to enjoy life again. Occasionally committed a few murders. Instead he’d found himself irritable, museless, and in a city infested with magical and supernatural creatures which made for more challenging patience. Patience he wasn’t famous for having much of in the first place. Walking up to the counter he looked around and felt his anger rising. Who was this woman while beautiful to ignore him. Dropping the book onto the counter he growled, his eyes flashing gold.

“Excuse me, you have a customer,” he snarled, his voice low and rich.

“I also am at the climax of the book, so why don’t you take a walk around and I’ll be with you in a moment,” Caroline huffed, not looking up at the angry gentleman.

“I don’t want to purchase a book, I would like to exchange a book,” he said, his anger rising with each insistence of defiance.

“Sir, on the counter in front of you is a sign. If you can read well enough to be in a book store I assume you can read it as well.” She said waving her hand dismissively towards a small plaque on the counter next to him. In a delicate hand, and decorated with a gold painted frame stated.

                                      Welcome to Perfect Find Books                                Where you always find what you need.                                      No Returns or Exchanges.                                              No Exceptions.

Caroline for her credit, didn’t let the very attractive man distract her from finishing the chapter. When she heard a crash she flicked her wrist and the damage was reversed. While her powers might not be mighty and all powerful like many of the witches in the city, she could hold her own.

“That will cost you fifty dollars, each time you break something I’ll tack on another hundred, think of it like Yahtzee. First one is fifty and the rest are hundreds,” she said, chuckling to herself at the joke about the board game.

“Just take your shity book back, I didn’t even buy it. It was a gift from a coworker, who is unable to return it herself,” he sneered, slamming a vase to the ground again. Only to have to reform in front of him.

“You are the most impatient and entitled man I’ve ever met,” Caroline sighed, standing up from her comfy armchair by the fireplace. Placing her book on the seat, bookmark in place she looked at him arms akimbo.“I will not take the book back nor will I be bullied into changing my company policy. So please take it, your awful attitude and leave.”

No was not a word that Klaus was used to hearing, refusal or defiance. Who did this little witch think she was. Growling he flashed forward grabbing her by the neck slamming her into the stone and brick wall behind them. “Maybe to live you’ll change your policy.”

She for all her credit looked bored, her hands were holding his arm but made no move to push him off or cause an aneurysm. Instead she met him dead on and then blinked a few times. Growling he pressed her harder into the stone, causing gravel and dust to fall along the ground. Still no real fear, like she’d accepted that he’d kill her. Oddly her bravery and refusal to cower eased his anger.

Once he’d released her she stepped about six feet away and rubbed her neck. She then walked over to the counter and wrote something down on a business card. Klaus watched her, eyebrow raised when she took the book from the countertop and the business card.

“Take the book and bring it to this used bookstore across town. They’ll take it. I won’t break my company policy.” She offered him that odd look again. Eyes unblinking then two quick blinks and pursed lips. “When you’re ready to actually buy a book come back and I’ll find you the one. Till then my number’s on the back of the card. Now that’ll be $250 for the tantrum.”

“Are you asking me out?” he asked, eyes bulging. He almost kills her, threatens her life, and she gives him her number. What kind of witch was this. Most would be calling him undead, and abomination and yet she didn’t seem to really care.

“No I’m giving you my number so you can ask me out,” Caroline said, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards.

“Let me get this right,” he said, slowly taking the offered items. “I just tried to kill you, I threw a tantrum and broke your vases, and a picture frame. Instead of fighting me with magic, or banishing me from your store. You’re charging me for the broken items which you already fixed, and giving me your number.”

“I’m a witch who specializes in passive magic. I own a bookstore where the desires, wants, and needs of a customer bring me to their perfect option. You didn’t kill me Niklaus Mikaelson, which I am taking to mean you don’t want to, and since I’m still standing with a business and policies in place, it seems foolish to cower now.” She shrugged and looked around her bookstore then back to him. “Will that be cash or card? Oh and since I have to also fix my wall now, I’m adding an additional two hundred dollars.”

Klaus Mikaelson grinned for the first time since he’d opened his own gallery up. She was smart, quick-witted, and brave, all on top of being beautiful. He hadn’t met anyone with those qualities who also knew who he was, and didn’t care in…ever. He would be remiss if he let her just pass him by. “If I’m going to take you out miss, I should probably know your name.”

“Caroline Forbes, and I’m not joking, will you be paying cash or card for the damage?” she asked her cash register already queued up. Klaus laughed and handed her a black Amex. “Charge what you like, I have more money than I can spend in my entire life regardless.”

Caroline chuckled and handed him back his credit card, adding another two hundred for the bruises she could feel forming on her neck. In total she’d taken 650 dollars from the most dangerous man in the world. Winking she walked over to the wall and waved her hand over the body imprint. Klaus watched as it shimmered and then put itself back together, when it was finished there wasn’t even dust on the carpet.

“Come again, Mr. Mikaelson,” she said, picking her book back up from the chair. Without another look at him she reopened her book. As clear a dismissal as anything.

“Have a very nice day Caroline,” he said, his mood higher than it had been in centuries.

Caroline smiled as he walked out of her store, and if someone asked if she liked the view of the oldest most powerful man walking away from her, well she’d never tell. Though for being a person in his thousands, he had a great ass.

[witchyinthekitchen]

This is a Vent Post about my Mother, Please do not reblog

This post is probably gunna be all over the place/time with things that I can remember/recall so bear with me here.

-Being told to make my own food bc mom was too busy with brand new baby (I was between 5-6 so poptarts were about all i could manage. I'd asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.) (my brother was a VERY finniky baby. If you weren't holding him he'd scream till his face went purple.))

-Tried to share interests in Anime/manga with her, when I asked her what she felt about it she said she couldn’t get into it and that it felt like a chore. (13-15 ish)

-Told her I needed therapy bc I was having suicidal thoughts. She took me, but then took me out once I started getting upset about the things i’d been talking about in therapy with my therapist because I'd come home in a bad mood.(15-16 ish)

-Went to Mother Daughter Group Therapy with her (there were other mother daughter combos) and she stormed out in the middle of it saying that we were only attacking her and not my dad too. (was 15-16 ish)

-Got into an argument about who i was voting for in the 2016 election while on vacation at Disney World (Hint it wasn't Trump like she wanted)(24 ish)

-Tried to gaslight me about trying to get everyone together to talk wedding stuff saying how she tried but that it all fell apart. (I have texts of her canceling it the day before we were all supposed to get together.)(26)

-Gets super defensive/upset any time I talk about “other mothers” in my life (MIL, BM)

-Has been super hot and cold with me during wedding planning and making passive aggressive comments about everything: Tell him to buy new pants for the engagement shoot 'bc I dont want him wearing baggy clothes -SO's Lost over 20lbs+ for the wedding and i'm so fuckin proud of him- “I don’t want to pay for hard alcohol for SO and his friends to drink at the wedding.” As if ½ the people invited weren’t all just her friends? ((All our friends live out of state/country so half the wedding is family and HER friends/neighbors.)) "I’m sure H*(SIL) and K*(MIL) have good counsel for you on _____," (Why would you say this when i'm asking for YOUR opinion? If i wanted their opinion i'd ask them.)

-4 months before the wedding she’s trying to talk me out of my venue saying we need to go look at the ones SO and MIL had suggested.

-Wants me to keep (BM)'s relation to me a secret even though i’m pretty sure 85% of the people who know me and are coming to my wedding know i'm adopted.

-Angry that I was moving out of the house at 21 with my SO she told his mother she hoped we’d fail. (In her defense she'd just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I'd done poorly in my last semester of college so parents thought it would be a good idea to take me out of college for a semester so i could live at home and basically be at my moms beck and call while also being expected to work 2 jobs (they'd told me the instant that the semester was over that i was expected to work 2 jobs) -That's at least how I was viewing that whole situation before I moved out- )

-As a kid I remember wanting to run away a lot. (Never away to a friends house but always to a park to live under a bridge like the goblin I am (lol)) (is it obvious I use self depreciating humor to get through things that I'm uncomfortable with? haha)

-I'd always hide things from her, even small things like a puzzle book i'd bought myself from the elementary school book fairs. i even began writing my diaries in code so she couldn't read them. Not that i ever caught her reading my diaries or what not but thats how afraid i was.

-The only things that stopped me from killing myself was the distressing thought that my mother would be more upset with blood on the floor than me being gone. (It was a constant worry of mine when I was having ideations.)

-When i was getting close to graduating high school the librarians told me they had a bunch of excess old books they were getting rid of and one of them happened to be the "Toxic Parents" book i've seen several other posts refer to. I took no other books besides that one. I hid that from her too. Looking back through it i remember there was a checklist in the book and i'd filled some of it out when i was younger. I most definitely am a people pleaser.

-We've never really been able to "talk" about things together like how my dad and i do and i think she's really jealous about it.

-The only way I feel comfortable talking to her is Via Email/Text because then that way i have a copy of all the things she's said. because i often forget things. (I honestly don't know how bad my memory is or if its gaslighting but i hope its just me being forgetful and not the latter...)

-I literally cannot let my SO do the dishes because my Mom would always do the dishes/clean when she was mad and bang pots around loudly and just even those sounds set me on edge.

-Her telling me that the careers i wanted to get into (IE: the Arts/Theater/Music) wouldn't make enough money and that they'd be fine as Hobbies but not as careers.

-She's continually trying to push me into a Customer Service Job because i'm so good at making other people happy. (talked to dad about this and he says i'm a very big people pleaser who doesn't like conflicts -cue nervous laughter about wedding planning-)

-Being around her for long periods of time is so physically/emotionally draining. I know that's probably a result of always being on edge with her and I always feel bad that I feel that way.

-Because she's said she hoped I'd fail (me and my So when I first moved out) I'm terrified of telling her anything personal going on in my life for fear that she'd take it out on me or use it against me (i got super anxious/scared when she came up to see me on my end of town once because we'd be stopping at the mall where i used to work and i hadn't yet told her that I'd quit that job.)

-I want to have a relationship with her. I want us to do fun Mom& Daughter things but at the same time I'm scared of letting her get too close to me again just to have it fall apart again.

-When I moved out (21) i went VLC with my whole family before i even knew what VLC was. I barely saw them (except for certain holidays/events.) I didn't talk to my dad for about 3 years because of this and am just now recovering that relationship with him (been 5 years now since I moved out)

-After I get married my plan is to move to CO. During that time i don't remember if my mom has mentioned if she'd miss me, but i do recall she has made multiple points to tell me that my dad says he would miss me.

-I had to beg for a 16th Birthday Party. She finally caved half a year later after I'd talked to my Therapist about it.

-pretty sure i'm the SG of the family (possibly Cousin 1 being the GC because she went to same University my mom did)

-Other family members on her side have stepped in to provide financial help to me on the promise that i wouldn't tell anyone. (probably to stop any gossip of favoritism)

I Don't know if she's an N or just really bad at expressing herself but her hot and cold attitude really sets off my anxiety that i've done something to piss her off and that she won't talk to me about it for a few weeks and then acts as though nothing is wrong/nothing happened. Planning my wedding is the MOST contact we've had in 5 years since i moved out and went VLC and i've been trying to use this as a way to bond with her better but anytime i think i'm getting somewhere Something happens and she's upset again. A phrase i've found myself come into saying recently is "I can't fix something that I don't know is wrong." So i've tried to take that approach when it comes to her. I know she's an adult and can choose for herself if she wants to talk about whats on her mind. I can't force her to talk if she doesn't want to but the anxiety it causes when she gets into these moods is really debilitating. I'm terrible at letting things go (especially if i think its my fault)

I'm Not Her Therapist, but if she has an issue with me I wish she'd just tell me instead of the Silent treatment for a week.

Trigger Topics that I've learned to Avoid at All Costs:

Anything about "Other Mothers" in my life.

Politics & Racism

Anything in the Past that happened.

My moving out

Anything that paints her as a "Bad Mother"(aka this whole post probably)

This post is a mess and I'm rambling. Thanks for sticking through this Brain Dump while I process. 

-Edit 2:

More things i'm recalling: For Christmas one year in front of my whole family (I was between 8-10 ish) she got me a set of underwear with the days of the week labeled on them and told me in front of everyone that "Maybe this would help me remember [to change my underwear daily]..."

One of my final years in high school I somehow managed to get a Cold Sore. My First Cold Sore ever and my lip where it broke out swelled up HUGE. I woke up the day it appeared ( a weekend thank the gods) and horrified went downstairs to tell my mom about it. I don't recall any words of sympathy other than "Cold Sores are caused by Herpes." I just remember breaking down into tears.

I mapped out a "Quiet Walking Path" that avoided all the creaky floorboards and steps in our house.

I get extremely anxious whenever I would hear my parents footsteps coming up the stairs. It got to the point that I could distinguish their steps on Carpet.

I jump/flinch (visibly) at loud noises, even if I know they are coming (movies songs ect.)

Routinely friended/unfriended me on Facebook before deleting it entirely (due to 2018 spying/hacking allegations)

I don't know if she means for these things to be hurtful but as someone who doesn't enjoy confrontation and is extremely sensitive to others feelings it just hurts y'know?

-edit 3: Attempted to talk to mom about her saying she hoped we'd fail via email. went about as well as expected. =Well, that clears a lot of things up. We only wanted you to be independent and happy, and it appears you are. End of story!

And for what it’s worth, I’ve said a LOT of things over the past 6 years that you didn’t hear about. And I’m not really sure where you heard “I hope they fail.” But I’m sure your source is 100%, and certainly not something you’d want to clarify with me.

I hope you got your apartment all squared away in Colorado. You should be under the 60-day notice by now! Woo hoo!

Let me know when you all are coming to get your stuff out of the house.

I’ll have it packed and ready for you.

-Mom

Am i reading into this too much? because it sounds like she's being hella passive aggressive about this.

-Edit 4: 7-19-18 Been venting about wedding planning being stressful on fb away from my mom since she doesn't have one anymore. I didn't realize she had fms reporting to her about my posts as she just randomly mentions via text that she wants to help me have fun while planning and that she wishes she could make it a happy time for me.

Edit 5: 9-26-18 Wedding is over finally. had our honeymoon and got moved out of our apartment back into my MIL's house. During the move we had to put all of our stuff into storage which includes Wedding gifts and thankyou notes. So Mom has been hounding me about getting them done and i've informed her several times that all of that is in storage and i havent been able to yet. She said not an excuse go buy more thankyou notes and write them all. I asked if Emailing a thank you would work, she says no must be hand written and mailed out (also who's paying for 100+ stamps: Me) Well Tonight she informs me that she's doing all the ones from her/my side and that she doesn't care if we do them for DH's side since SIL didn't send any thank you notes either. Cue big long talk with DH about all of this and he says not to worry about her being passive aggressive like this. Go and check my Email to find she sent an Email to me only with writing saying

"Dear all,

Thank you so much for attending --- wedding. Your presence was so important to me, and I know to the kids as well. Thank you also for the lovely wedding gifts you sent or brought. I know they are appreciated and will be enjoyed by the newlyweds. It was very kind and generous of you!

Unfortunately, --- is unable to send thank you notes, but I did want you to know that your gifts, and your presence at the celebration, were very important to all of us, and very much appreciated.

Fondly,

MOM"

currently I'm choosing not to respond and I wonder how our relationship is going to be going forward from all of this... I was so happy that the wedding was over so i wouldn't have to deal with this petty drama bullshit anymore but I guess thats just too much to ask for.

-She's also unfriended me on facebook again. I'm tempted to just block her to stop this wishy washy stuff from happening again.

[sweetestlittledarling]

To Good Friends

For @jim-news‘s Ego Christmas. Prompt: Candy Cane

I almost feel this story would have worked for the prompt of eggnog (and you’ll notice I made a reference to something Jack said about making eggnog in there). I apologize if this is a little bit sloppy as I really wanted to get this done for the day it was supposed to be up and I stayed up really late so yeah...

This was inspired by a story I read here on tumblr about how Dapper Jack (or Jameson as I’m calling his past persona) might have known Damien back in the day. I will find the title of that fanfic later as it is super late and I really gotta get to bed. I hope you enjoy this bit of fluff I wrote.

P.s. I decided to put this story right after my other story ‘Let it Snow’...

Everyone knew Dapper Jack as the quiet, friendly one. What not everyone knew was he used to be someone else. Sometimes he even forgets that fact himself, deciding just to focus on who he is now rather than who he was back then. He suffered less that way. But like the fallen snow, his quiet held back memories and standing there in the snow looking up at the turrets of the large snow fortress, looking up at two familiar faces that he remembers even though they probably would never remember him. He couldn’t help but allow himself to remember…

             “Hey Jameson, could I get a little help?”

             “Oh sorry!” Jameson puts down his pen and quickly rushes over to help you with the string of lights you are currently trying to wrap around the tree. Up till now he’d been sitting there, working on his writing. He was a quiet sort of guy, most of the time wishing to be on his own which didn’t win him many friends at the dorm. If it weren’t for you and Damien you are pretty sure that he would probably spend most of his time locked away just writing. But he’s a friendly guy, and you like having him around. With his help you manage to finish stringing the lights.

             “There!” you say in triumph. You have to say that the three of you do some excellent work. Getting the common room ready for the annual dorm holiday party has been no easy task but you have managed to pull it off. “Now all we need is for Damien to get back with the eggs for the eggnog and we’ll be all set.”

             “Don’t know how you manage to do pull this off year after year,” Jameson admits, patting you on the shoulder.

             “Just takes a little organization and a little bit of hard work.”

             “Guess that’s why your studying to become a lawyer,” Jameson admits, “and I’m just the lowly writer.”

             “Oh, come on now Jameson, you’re an excellent writer,” you say, “your work is amazing.”

             “Yeah well, try telling my father that,” Jameson sighs as he walks back to the sofa where he left his pen and pad of paper. He picks it up looking down at the words he’s written. “He’s convinced that becoming and author is foolish. Tells me that I should just come home and start working for the family business, making whiskey.”

             “Well your family does make fine whiskey,” you admit. You remember the bottle Jameson had shared with you that one night after midterms. Most of that night was a blur, it was that good.

             “Yeah, we do,” Jameson sighs, “I just wish I had passion for it. I wish I could please my da’ but my heart just isn’t in it. Not like it is with writing. I just wish I could make my old man proud ya know?”

             You do know. Your family has been telling you that you should just give up this dream of becoming a lawyer and to move back home so that you are not so far away. Sure, you don’t have a family legacy to uphold but trying to make your family proud was something you knew well. You place a friendly hand on Jameson’s arm, giving it a little squeeze. “I’m sure that your father will come around one day, Jameson,” you tell him. “Maybe after you become an award-winning author who writes books that sell millions of copies!”

             He chuckles as he rolls his eyes. “Yeah if I ever manage to get published, which I think will be never,” he sighs. But then he smiles. “But thank ya’ for believing in me. It’s nice to know someone does.”

             You smile back. “Hey as I tell Damien all the time, I got your back Chief.” That’s when the door opens and in comes Damien with his bags from the grocery.

             “Here are the eggs,” Damien says as he produces the item in question, handing them to you.

             “Good, and now gentle men we see if my aunt’s magical eggnog recipe actually lives up to all the hype.” You walk over to the refreshment table and crack several eggs into the punch bowl where you have all the other ingredients already mixed together nicely. You mix in the eggs, sprinkle in a bit of cinnamon, and pray that this won’t go the way of the bad clam chowder incident (which still makes you a bit queasy just thinking about it). You ladle some of the eggnog into glasses handing it to both Damien and Jameson before taking a cup yourself. “Alright, the moment of truth,” you say. You all clink your glasses for luck before taking a sip. It doesn’t taste horrible but-

             “It tastes kind of like cinnamon milk,” Damien muses.

             “It has been a while since I actually had auntie’s eggnog,” you confess, “maybe as a kid I thought it tasted better.”

             “Wait hold on!” Jameson says, placing his cup down with a big grin on his face. “I know exactly what will help!” He rushes out the door and only a few minutes later comes back with a bottle in his hand. “Me Ma’ sent me some of the good stuff. Said I should share it with my friends over here in the states. No better time than the present!” He pours the in the whole bottle and you ladle out some more. You all clink and then take a sip.

             “Mmmm,” you hum, the alcohol instantly warming you and making the eggnog taste far better. “Let me just say, that right now I consider your mother a saint among women!”

             “Truly a wonderful woman,” Damien agrees. “Oh, and I almost forgot!” He quickly goes back to the shopping bags and produces a box. “I stopped by the candy store on my way back, figured we all deserved something sweet,” he says as he opens it.

             “Ooo, candy canes!” you say in delight as you reach in and grab one. “Man, it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve had one of these.” You pull one out and hand it to Jameson. “Here ya go Jameson, sweets for one of the sweetest guys I know.”

             “Aw, thank ya’ kindly,” he says, blushing a bit. “And I want to make a toast.” He raises his glass in the air, a big smile on his face. “To the both of you, two friends who have been for me over these years of being away from home! I want to thank you and pray that we continue to be friends for the rest of our days!”

             “Yes, the best of friends!” Damien echoes raising his glass.

             “To friends!” you say, raising your glass as well. The sounds of clinking glasses fills the air…

             “Dapper? Are you alright man?”

             Warfstache’s voice brings Dapper back to reality as he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns and looks at the pink man’s worried face. He smiles, as a sign for his friend not to worry. He is glad when Warfstache smiles back. Looking around Dapper realizes that Anti has disappeared, probably off to lick his wounds. He’s pretty sure that he’ll be back at some point, never can keep the king of chaos down for long. Dapper will have to make sure to remind himself to go and check on him later, maybe make him some hot cocoa.

             “Well, it’s been fun guys, but I think it’s time for me to head home.”

             Dapper looks up as you come out of the ice fortress, followed by Dark. You are still wearing Dark’s coat which makes Dapper smile. It feels so good to see both you and Damien together again…even if it isn’t really Damien and you aren’t really you…but then again with any of the Egos can anyone really call themselves who they were in the past. Feeling a bit nostalgic Dapper snaps his fingers and produces three candy canes. He hands ones to each of you.

             “Aw, thank you, Dapper,” you say.

             “Ooo, candy!” Warfsache says, giving his cane a long lick before sucking it into his mouth like a toddler.

             Dark takes the candy cane, eyeing Dapper a little bit. Dapper wonders if Dark knows his secrets maybe even remember him. It really doesn’t matter to Dapper at that moment as he is just happy to be amongst his friends once again. 

[13rwbabes]

Montgomery x Reader Imagine (Part 5/?)

Okay, I’m not proud of this part, but I need some time-filler before cool things start happening.

I asked you for any recommendations and adivces, you wrote me about dinners, hickeys, jealousy, it’s all coming soon, I promise!

I already almost finished part 6, but I think I will postpone it and make it part 7 and write new part 6 if that makes sense lol

PART 1     PART 2      PART 3     PART 4

Bryce and Zach were literally sitting on the grass in front on Bryce’s house and waiting for us to come.

“Finally! What took you so long?!”, Bryce asked when we got out of the car.

“She drives like shit”, Monty said.

“Excuse me?!”, I knew we had to make up an explanation on why we were gone for so long, but boy, no one will talk shit about my driving. “I had to refuel”, I lied.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t drive like shit”, he looked at me with cocky grin.

“Guys, still, it’s like five minutes road”, Zach said. “Ten in both ways. Fifteen with refueling. And you were gone for like fourty-five. So...”, he crossed his arms on his chest. “What were you doing for missing thirty minutes?”, he squizzed his eyes at looked at me, then at Monty, again at me and again at Monty. 

“Okay, fine”, I rolled my eyes. “His parents aren’t home for a weekend and his mum left him lasagne or something like that and because he’s drunk so after he found shisha, he felt a little hungry and well, he ate the whole damn thing”, I shrugged. It was probably the most stupid lie ever, but at least snouded like something that would last around 30 minutes.

“What?”, he mouthed and glared at me.

“Have fun, boys”, I smiled at them and went back to the party.

I spent rest of the night on drinking coca-cola, watching boys playing berr pong, talking to peple and spotting Montgomery being very touchy with his new friend. I wasn’t obviously jealous of her, I was actually feeling sorry for her, because she probably thought he would call her in day or two, but well, surprise, it’s Monty, girls don’t get a call from him after he gets what he wants.

***

First thing I saw on Monday morning in school was Montgomery harassing some freshman.

“Monty”, I stood next to them. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”, I asked calmly.

“He started it”.

“Blah, blah, blah”, I rolled my eyes. “Right now I see you, holding him by his shirt”, I looked at his clenched fists. “Hands to yourself, Montgomery”, I said through my clenched teeth.

Finally he released the other guy.

“Go to the class, kid”, I said and gave him a little smile. I looked at Monty with serious look on my face. “It’s slowly getting boring”

“What?”

“I’ve been putting you in your place since like seventh grade.”

“You chose it for yourself, nobody never asked you to stand up for people”, he snorted.

“Pull yourself together, Cruz”, I walked past him and went to the class.

***

“Guess, who got laid last Friday”, as usual I was sitting in cafeteria with Jess and Sheri when boys came after their PE.

“Why should we care?”, I asked

“Montgomery”, Justin said excited.

“Wow, that’s exciting”, I said and went back to my Spanish homework I’ve forgotten to do during weekend.

“It’s probably that girl who was all over him for the whole party”, Jessica snorted.

“And seriously Monty, even you can do better than walking around and bragging about having sex”, Sheri gave him a pity look.

“I wasn’t bragging!", he defended himself, as he sat next to me.

“He didn’t have too. We just had PE, he’s scratched as fuck”, Zach said.

“Oh my God, what are you, fourteen?”, I asked. “Everyone of you get laid sometimes, stop making big deal out of nothing”, I rolled my eyes. “Besides, it was probably the girl that literally flipped her hair at him after the game, wasn’t it Monty?”, I looked at him trying not to laugh. It’s not like he would say it was me.

“Fuck you, Y/N”, he smiled at me sarcastically.

Few minutes later Monty dropped his phone. He bent down under the table to reach it, but he wouldn’t be himself if he just took the phone and sat again. Instead his hand went from my anckle to upper thigh. I gave him the “I’ll kill you” look, he just sat like nothing happened and went back to scrolling on his phone.

Some time later we both got up to go to the chemistry.

“What was that?”, I asked as soon as we left cafeteria.

“It was probably the girl that literally flipped her hair at him after the game, wasn’t it Monty”, he mimiced me.

“Oh come on”, I rolled my eyes. “Or wait, maybe it wasn’t the girl from the game, it was actually the one that was all over you for the whole party?”

“What are you, jealous?”

“You wish”, I snorted. “I don’t care what you do and with who”.

“If just have to know, I hooked up only with you that night”, he said.

I felt a little warm feeling in my stomach after his words, but I quickly made it go away.

“I literally just said I don’t have to know, because I don’t care“, I threw my hands up. “But seriously, Monty, at school keep your hands to yourself”.

“As you wish, babe”.

“And I’m not your babe”.

“Well, you didn’t complain in my bedroom”, he snorted.

“Montgomery!”, I hissed through my teeth. “If someone overhear anything and spread some rumours, I swear I’ll kill you”.

“You seem to be very tense today. You should get some d, if you know what I mean”, he winked at me.

“Not today, Satan. Math test tomorrow, remember?”, except from Chemistry, we also had Math and Peer Comunication together. “Besides, because of that thing with freshman in the morning, you don’t deserve any of this today”, I pointed at myself.

“What? Oh come on!”.

“Sorry, Mont, I’m inflexible about that”, I shrugged.

He leaned toward me as we were walking and whispered, “We’ll see”.

***

I was walking to my cheer practice, I walked by sports utility closet, when door suddenly opened, someone grabbed my hand and pulled me in there.

“‘Fuck, Montgomery, what is it with you today?”, I asked while my hand was roaming on wall trying to find switch.

“How did you know it was me?”.

“Well, I was hoping it was you. Just because it would be really fucking weird if someone else pulled me in the closet, but it’s like... less weird that it was you”.

He put his hand on my waist as I gave up on finding switch.

“What do you want?”, I sighed.

Instead of answearing, Monty started kissing my jaw. It was actually quite impressive how his lips found my face in this total darkness. There was something about him and his touch, that instantly made me melt, but this time I had to stay tough.

“Monty, I have practice”, I tried to gently push him away.

“You can skip one”, he whispered.

“No, I can’t”, I groaned at his lips kissing my neck. “But...”, I stopped talking to get his attention.

“But?”

“Tomorrow my parents have dinner with my dad’s business partner slash friend and his wi...”

“Tomorrow I have practice”, he didn’t even let me finish.

“Don’t interrupt me”, I punched his arm. “As I was saying, my parents have dinner tomorrow and they won’t be home till like 11 p.m., so...”

“I’ll be there at seven. Now, go practice some handsprings or whatever you do”, he smacked my ass and opened door for me.

***

Next day I went home straight after lessons. Surprisingly both my mum and dad were inside.

“Hey, you’re home so early?”, I sat next to them in the living room.

“We need to tell you something”, my mum looked at me with super serious face.

I froze for a moment. Fuck, I thought, my mum is pregnant. Or they’re getting divorced. they found out about this whole ‘fuck buddies’ thing. I don’t know how, but they found out. Don’t know which is worse.

“So, we’re gonna go straight to the point”, my dad said.

“Yes, please.”

“Sweetie, we know, we always goes on any holidays or trip together, the three of us... but like... this New Year’s eve... we’re going to...”

“Jesus, dad, just say it!”, I shouted.

“We’re going to Aspen with some friends, the two of us, Jeff’s parents, few other married couples. Basically, you’re not going with us”, dad finally got if off his chest.

“But if you don’t feel good about this and don’t want to stay alone, we will cancel”, mum ensured.

“And that’s it?”, I finally could breath again. “Are you kidding me? I thought something happened!”

“Well.. It’s first time you’re not going somewhere with us...”

“First, I’m seventeen, seriously, it’s gonna happen more often, you know? Second, last time I spent New Year’s Eve with you was when I was eleven”.

“But, you’ll be alone for four days”

“I’m seventeen”, I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, it’s super sweet that you’re so concerned about me and that you were ready to cancel your plans if I wasn’t okay with it, but go to Aspen and have some fun”, I patted their knees and gave both of them kiss on the cheek. “Now I’m gonna go to my room, because you gave me serious heart attack with this whole ‘we need to tell you something’ thing”, I got up from the sofa and went to the stairs. “Oh, and if you’re not gonna be here, I will throw NYE party”

“You see, I told you not to worry about”, dad said to mum.

“Come on, dad, I know you were the one who wanted to cancel”, I shouted from upstairs.

They left at six, some time later I heard a doorbell. I slowly went downstairs, checked myself in the mirror and finally opened the door.

“Welcome to mi casa”, I said as Monty walked inside. “Where’s your car?”, I spotted his jeep wasn’t on the driveway.

“I’m not stupid, Y/N, I walked here. Unless you want someone to see my car parked in front of your house”, he said while looking around the home.

“Good point”, I nodded my head and went to the kitchen. “You want something? Tea, coffee, water, sandwich my mum made me before she left?”, I asked while looking into the fridge.

“I’m good, thanks”.

I went to the living room, where Monty was looking at photos, mostly mine.

“You have been cutie since always, huh?”, he pointed at one of the pictures.

“Oh, yeah, especially on this one, I was six and didn’t have any of my front teeth, super cute”.

“Okay, but what the hell happened to you in this one?”, he was looking at photo of me with red face, swollen lips and tired look in my eyes.

“Oh that was the day my parents found out I am allergic to peanuts”, I explained. “Don’t know why my dad thought it was picture worthy”, I rolled my eyes.

“It seems like your parents really love, they’re really proud of you. I mean... looks at all those pictures...”, Monty pointed around the room.

“Yeah, they do...”, I tried not to laugh when I remembered how they wanted to cancel Aspen. “But your parents also have loads of photos of you in home...”

“Yeah, to show off”, he snorted. “They’are always firsts to brag about when I do something right, but they’re never actually there to see it happening. You know? They’ll show their guests pictures and say This was when Monty played his first game, This was when he got his first home run, and so on... But they’re never on the bleachers to watch the actual game. And when I do something not so great, they just never mention it, they don’t talk about...”, he was walking around the room, so I couldn’t see his face.

“That’s why you always do everything to get yourself suspended or in detention?”, I asked. “You want to get their attention”.

I felt like I was slowly getting into his mind, that after all those years I could finally understand why he does thing he does, but then Monty again built wall around himself.

“What? Yeah, that’s stupid”, he cleared his throat and turned around to face me. “Besides, I didn’t come here for psychotherapy.”

“Monty, it is okay to talk. It is okay to let things off your chest once in a while...”

“Right now, the only thing that is on my chest”, he walked towards me, put his hand on my waist, “is the fact that I got two home runs on Friday and only one third base with you”.

I sighed and looked at his face. Well, it looked like the talk was dome for today, so we can do things I actually invited him for.

I took his hands off my waist and still holding them I started walking backwards to the stairs.

“Come and get it”, I whispered.

“You don’t have to tell me twice”, he smirked. “How much time do we have?”

I looked at the watch. “A lot. The thing is”, I pulled him closer, “can you go for so long?”, I asked with my lips touching his ear.

“Oh, you’ll see”, he grabbed my ass and pulled me up so I could wrap my legs around his hips, where, let’s be honest, they were for the most of the time.

***

Monty took a minute to calm his breath, then got up and started dressing up.

Right, fuck buddies thing doesn’t include cuddling after sex, I thought to myself. It was first time when after hooking up we didn’t have to pull ourselves quickly to either leave Jessica’s bathrom or to get back to Bryce’s party, but because me and Monty weren’t even a thing it probably would be awkward to lay in bed and hug.

“I just thought”, Monty said. “You’re so concerned about your reputation and keeping this a secret, but how can you be sure I wouldn’t start bragging about it to the guys? I wouldn’t, but how do you know?”

“Oh that’s easy”, I said as I put my robe on. “You’re not that stupid, you know Jeff would fucking kill you, either for fucking me or for bragging about that”.

“What is it with you and Atkins anyway?”

“Our mums are best friends, so we basically grew up together, he’s like a brother to me, I mean I’ve seen him every single day since I can remember. So yeah, we’re like siblings”, I shrugged.

“So you two have never hooked up? You have never been jealous about him?”, he smirked.

“Ew, that’s gross”, I looked at Monty with disgust. “I mean, I’m not blind, I know he’s good looking and everything, but just... no”, I shaked my head. “But once, in kindergarten, me and Jeff was playing in sandpit and there was that girl Jenny and she literally sat between the two of us and started playing with him using my toys”, I was getting way to pissed for someone who was talking about something that had happened over ten years ago. “So I slapped that little bitch”, I said with calmer tone.

Montgomery looked at me with his eyes wide open.

“So, you’re one of those crazy bitches, huh?”, he chuckled.

I smiled at him innocently.

“I gotta go”, Monty said, so I walked with him downstairs. “See you tomorrow”, he kissed me and left the door.

“Little fucker, so he can’t lay for a minute after we’re done but he can give me goodbye kisses?”, I asked myself.

For a moment I started thinking that this whole ‘friends with benefits’ thing was mistake, but then again - if some weird, twisted part of me wanted something with Monty, that was the best type of relation that was possible with him.

Don’t be shy, leave a comment :)

And you can always send an ideas on what could happen next :)

Part 6 is coming on Wednesday/Thursday!

[steampunkfan]

How I Sold $58,000 Last Year Selling Just Gift Cards for the Day Spa

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Robert Norberciak, Marketing Director at the Scottsdale, Arizona day spa, Mozaik Skin & Body, and one of the founders at Service Business Hustlers. 

People love shopping local. Even more so, people love buying gifts that are local. They want to treat their friends to amazing experiences at local businesses.

With my day spa, I don’t sell anything online except for gift cards. I don’t try to compete with e-commerce stores. I simply focus on the one thing that no one else does in my market well. I focus on making it easy for my customers to buy gift cards.

I had the joy on Mother’s Day to watch a family go into my competitor. They asked if they sold gift cards. The lady was like “No”.

They came over to my spa and walked out with $300 in gift cards that they bought for their mother. Guess who got the new customer?

Each year, I sell close to ~$23,000 of gift cards just online. We sell another $25-35k in-store. 

I’m going to break down for you my exact strategy on how I am selling so many gift cards through my website and in-store. 

Stop Offering Just Plain Dollar Amounts

If someone is going through the trouble of buying a gift card from a local business — they don’t want to go the easy route and buy them just a gift card. They want to buy them something special. In fact, I have attached a log of all my recent gift card purchases.

Where you see “-”, the customer selected a dollar amount. In fact, 19 out of my last 26 purchases of gift cards have been for packages. People love treating someone to something unique. It’s a win-win for everyone.

The person buying feels like they are treating someone to something special. When the recipient gets the gift card, they enjoy it a lot. They feel someone really put an effort into the purchase.

Do you know what the cool part about selling an experience is?

When that new customer comes with that gift card — they get a full experience from your place. If you give them an award-winning experience, then they’ll love your place forever.

For example, a restaurant might want to do a “3-Course Meal for $49”. You can use John Taffer’s method of identifying that it’s a gift card. You put down a “blue napkin”. The whole staff know it’s a gift card. You go above and beyond to deliver an amazing experience. The food is delivered fast.

Gary Vee and John Taffer talking about retention:

At the end of the meal, the manager comes over and makes sure everything went great and offers a special on their next visit with a coupon.

Using Pricing Anchors

While most of the time, our customers want to buy packages as gift cards, some still want to buy just a dollar amount. We use two types of pages for our Gift Card Checkouts. The first is the specific package they want to buy. The second is a generic page that we can use to sell generic dollar amounts (in our case $75, $150 and $300).

The prices you pick influence the actual dollar amount the customer is going to buy. If you put prices up $5, $10 and $15 — most customers won’t ask, “Do you sell a $50 gift card?”

Then again, if you sell every gift card from $5 to $500, in $5 increments, the customer is going to have a choice overload and probably pick something towards the bottom.

Pricing Experiments You Might Not Know But Can Learn From

There’s an excellent article on the effect of a pricing anchor. When we created our pricing choices for our gift card, we choose one really high card value and two that are closer to each other. The result is that the majority of our purchases are the middle pricing option.

Make It Easy to Buy Gift Cards

Include a Link in Your Header

Customers are not going to search your entire site to see if you sell gift cards. They want to know right off the bat. Just like you might have links to jobs and careers, you should have a Gift Card link to at least one type of gift card right off the bat.

Go Above And Beyond With Your Links

When you come to our site, you will notice every service menu item has a second link right after “Book Now”. The second link is “Buy as a Gift”.

We make it super easy for the customer to select the package they want to treat someone to. Not only that, but they also are constantly reminded that we sell gift certificates.

Test Your Platform

When picking a platform for your gift cards, it’s absolutely imperative that you test the purchasing path yourself.

When we used our Appointment Reservation system to process our gift cards, we didn’t sell many gift cards. While their platform is amazing at managing reservations, it wasn’t designed for the details around selling gift cards.

It’s a two-page checkout though that includes every possible option to purchase the gift card directly through their page. The complexity of it reduces the overall purchases.

Make It Simple for Your Customer to Buy

Last year, when we did our full website rebuild, we had a custom platform built and implemented into our system to create a super smooth and easy checkout system. Since then, we have sold an additional $15,000 in gift cards compared year over year.

Gift Card Season is 101 Days Away — Here’s Your Action Plan

In the first two weeks of May, I sold almost $4,000 in gift cards for Mother’s Day. The scary thing is, that’s still only 25% of the volume that you are going to do during December!

60–100 Days Out

Start Crafting Packages and Offers

Right now, you need to start preparing your business on which packages you are going to sell. As we have already talked about, people love treating people to experiences. That also means they are willing to spend a little more to get a little more.

We sell robes at the spa. Do you know that 90% of our robe sales are tied to our three major holidays? It’s because we increase our prices and include them in our packages.

This past Mother’s Day, we took our already popular two-hour package, added a robe in and increased the price accordingly. There was no problem selling these increased value packages. In fact, 90% of all the robes we sell are for our three major holidays.

Knock-’em-dead offers

If you are running out of ideas on what are popular packages, start using tools like Groupon and LivingSocial. While you do not want to copy their prices, you can use them as a research tool to discover what packages are hot and trending.

During Black Friday, we would do various types of promotions —

“Buy 3, Get 1 Free”

“25% Off If You Buy Over $100 in Products”

A lot of these people were already asking if they could buy them as gifts.

Black Friday -> Christmas transition

One of the biggest things about selling gift cards well is capturing that transition. For the two weeks leading up to Black Friday, you want to strategically plan ads that fit that shopping day.

Once Black Friday is done, you want to immediately transition into promoting your Christmas Specials. This is why it’s very imperative to have a well laid-out plan, so you can make the transition smoothly.

Pro tip: Depending on how deep you discounted and the popularity of the gift cards, you may want to consider doing an “Extended Promotion — Gift Card Sale!”.

60 Days Out — Start Planting Seeds and Distribution

Build Dedicated Pages for Your Offers With Simple Checkout

Every successful campaign requires a dedicated page for each offer. You want to sell the feeling of that package. You want to make the page easy and simple. We use a one-page and Stripe for our system.

You are going to use the landing page for all your promotional material online. For all your Facebook promotions, your newsletters, etc.

There are many articles on how to do single-product checkout. Ours is a form with a Stripe gateway behind it. We capture the most important information: To, From, Design, Note, the Package. We let Stripe handle the processing, and we send the gift through the emails.

You can also look at some pre-built solutions as well.

Email campaigns and social media

Last year, the very first email I got about Christmas from Groupon was on September 17th.

On my Facebook feed, I have already started to see “Days till Xmas” countdowns.

The sooner and earlier you start to plant seeds into your customer that you will have gift certificates, gift baskets and packages available, the better.

Here are some of the emails that I have sent with success:

2016 Holiday Gift Guide (11/15)

The Insider’s Secret Black Friday Spa Specials (10/31)

Running out of time for a gift? Grab yours today online. (12/21)

Overall, I will send roughly eight to 12 emails between October and November to all my customers to promote the gift cards that I sell.

In-store flyers and A-frame

If you run any type of brick and mortar, you absolutely need to promote that you sell gift cards anywhere and everywhere you can. Do not hold back. Within our spa, we distribute flyers. We leave our upcoming promotions flyer out right by the magazine.

We use flyer stands and have them at checkout, in the bathrooms and by the product.

We create a beautiful A-frame that goes out in front our store. We decorate it with festive colored balloon so it catches the eye.

We even update our window cling to show that we sell gift cards!

The more seeds you plant into your customers, the more likely they will come back and buy. Think about Black Friday. No one wakes up and goes, “Hey, today I am going to buy this!”. No, they already know what they are going to buy seven-plus days out.

AdWords

People still use Google to find gifts. They will type in things on where to buy them gifts, what to buy people, and so on. This campaign doesn’t need to be very elaborate because quite frankly, if you are in the local space, it’s easy to beat your competition.

Target keywords Like: “Portland Day Spa Gifts,” “Portland Massage Gift Card”.

“Portland Spa Packages & Gift Cards Available. Buy Online, Instantly Available.”

You will then send them to that pre-built landing page you have already designed for an easy online purchase. Guess what your competition isn’t doing? They are taking shortcuts and hoping the customer figures it out.

Last Two Weeks

Make sure your receptionists, front desk, staff and your whole entire team is ready to push gift cards.

Every time someone is checking out — “Were you interested in any of our Gift Card Packages?”

If your staff hear people are saying keywords like they have family in town, or that they are visiting — “Hey, I’m not sure you know, but we do have some really cool gift cards available during the Holidays.”

Help your customers out — don’t let them try to figure it out themselves. If someone needs help buying a gift card, just simply walk them through it. All too often, I see businesses be like, “Yup just go online and buy it”. Out of the hundred times I hear that, maybe two will buy it actually.

Final Pro Tip

Optimize your website, your social profiles like Facebook and Yelp to include the fact you sell gift cards. We don’t rank for any of main categories #1, but we do for gift cards. Guess what happens when someone in my city is looking for gift cards? They come to me.

 You can join me and four other service business founders who generate over $3 million a year, where we share information like this daily. Come join us: Facebook Group Service Business Hustlers. 

via Preneur Marketing Blog http://ift.tt/2vl1dWp

[wolfguy13-blog]

“But I know, I know, life can be beautiful. I pray, I pray, for a better way. We were kind before, we can be kind once more”

Wow! It’s been a hella long time since I lasted posted here. As much as I try to make happy posts here, I don’t. I usually post here when I have no where to vent to about the drama and sadness in my life. So let’s change that and add one postive note at the end of my rants lol. So here we go!

I got my Canadian citizenship in January (which is great) and I was in Canada for a while to manage everything! I was meeting my friends and even visited my uncle (dads cousin) for a day or 2, because I didn’t want to stay there too long as I know his dad wasn’t happy about me being there due to his paranoid delusions. This point is important and one of the biggest headaches I have nowadays. Anyway, I came home end January’s and have been job hunting (which requires way more patience than I have) for the whole of February and April and now I heard back from Pepsi about some internship which starts in the summer! I have no idea how unemployed people spend their time because Im going crazy! The only thing constant in my life is me focusing on my fitness and going to the gym! Then that’s it. I go early in the day, come back by 1. Eat lunch, then I’m a waste for the whole day! I mean this would be great if I was on vacation, but now it feels like I’m wasting my life!

I really miss my friends in Canada. I have family here which are pretty much all who I hang out with but they’re not my friends. They’re not people who enjoy my company for me, but rather since I’m related to them they like me! I miss Ari, Alice, Rui, my kawaii juniors at western university, my other friends and the list goes on! A part of me wants to go back and work there but staying away from my little brother for such a long time isn’t something I can handle right now! He needs someone to give him lectures and make sure he’s on the right path and I guess I have to do that. Lol. But maybe once he’s older and ready for college I’ll be able to move, but probably not because I’ll be married then ugh. Also future me who I reading this, if you are suffering from your job jay remember you were losing your mind when you weren’t doing anything! Keep a goal and stick to it!

Speaking of marriage, I’m now the talk of the family because of some fake scandal! My grandmothers brother (yes the crazy paranoid one) visited her and accused me of inviting his daughter in law to a hotel while I was in Canada. This was a huge accusation and my grandma got super upset and they’re not speaking anymore. I got called that night and they were like stay away from that psycho woman. This is where I question my people reading skills because apparently my uncles wife has been telling stuff to her father in law ( they’re both here and my uncle is in Canada). She told him about some cousins of mine messaging her in private etc etc and the old man (since he already has doubts on me) thought I was into her and he told someone and someone told someone else and now the whole family has heard that I had an affair with that girl. Like HOLD UP FAMS WTF. My 24 year old virgin ass hasn’t even dated anyone yet and now I’m inviting married women to hotels ewwwww.

It’s been stressful and I’ve thought about it several times. I’ve been mad, I’ve laughed at it, and I’ve even had pity on the old man as he’s so lost in his mind he’s playing in that woman’s sneaky hands. Also apparently the woman was influenced by her mom who keeps telling her to leave my uncle and her child and now she W believes it. She’s telling people she’s gonna leave my uncle and her son and everyone’s just like wtf you cray cray. This accusation has stressed out my grandmother so I’m doing my best to separate my feelings and helping them reconcile because they’ve lost so many siblings (you could count them on both hands) and there are only 3 left. My granny is mad but will be okay if he comes and apologises and takes the accusation back. This is all good and well but why am I in the middle of this shit storm with that crazy girl!

I was really mad today and I spoke to my grandmothers sister who told me that the old man didn’t spread this so i don’t need to involve other relatives. But alas, everyone thinks I had an affair and I’m trying to trust they won’t believe it (which so far I heard some people denied it, so that’s good). Also I have so much free time that this thought pops up while I’m trying to sleep, so I’m mad at myself too!

I’m a little sad because my dad told me that be thinks we won’t be able to go on holiday this year either. I mean, I’m employed in the summer (fingers crossed) I doubt I was gonna go, but my little brother deserves a break! Also I heard my cousin in the states is super fit now and I saw a picture and he’s lost so much weight! That’s sparked my competitive soul and now I’m much more focused at the gym so that’s a plus maybe? There! I added a few positive points into my post haha.

Also this month and next month are always hard for me because it’s my brothers death anniversary in April, and my mother’s in May so maybe that’s why im on edge. I can’t say I’m happy right now but I hope that changes soon. Sometimes I think of what my dads friend once said about his son, that he was never happy after coming back from abroad and I was so sure I wasn’t gonna be like that. But now I’m thinking twice. Where did my drive to come back go? Why do I get so emotional when I leave my country? But when I’m here, I can’t be bothered. I’m definitely lost right now. But here to hoping I get back on track and find some fulfilment in my life! (Earning money in a 9-5 job till you die? sounds worse than death!). I should totally focus on my side business huh.

Thanks for reading, “let’s make this beautiful”

Cheers,

M

[mylifeasavetstudent]

Nerves About Ross

6/22/17

I heard I was accepted 3 weeks ago, but I’m still waiting to hear about whether I start in September 2017 or January 2018. I should know within the next 5-6 weeks - which could give me only 3-4 weeks to get ready and move down there.

Trying to get my thoughts in order, here are some of the logical and illogical things I'm scared about in regard to starting Veterinary School and in regard to moving down to St. Kitt’s. I’m sure some are normal and shared by most students, but I’m sure some are me just being a whiny 23-year old New York girl.

_____________

1) Packing. (Overpacking, underpacking, forgetting). How am I gonna fit everything in two suitcases? I plan to use vacuum seal bags and bring the two biggest overweight suitcases and a carry-on that I can. I just keep thinking about all the bulky stuff - kitchenware, bedding/pillows, shower/beach towels, steel-toed farm boots, shoes/clothes, toiletries, makeup/hair/cosmetics, electronics, books/school supplies. I went away to undergrad college about 30 minutes away and lived on an on-campus dorm/apartment for 4 years. However, I was in a big city, and could easily get anything I needed down the block. I was also so close to home, that I often went home on the weekends, and could pick up anything I needed. Also important to note that I could use Amazon, unlike St. Kitt’s. Every time I moved in/out, it took about 2-3 car loads of stuff!

2) Buying textbooks/school supplies.

I guess I should wait till I get to the island to get books? Do they have a school bookstore? Will other students be selling them? I worry if I wait till I get down there, I won’t be able to find them.

Should I order them in advnace and pack them? I worry this will take up too much space/weight in my suitcase. Should I order them in advance and have them shipped to St. Kitt’s? This would probably be super expensive, and what if they take too long to get there or go to the wrong location?

3) Buying a car (getting license/insurance/mechanics, etc.)

When should I buy a car? Second semester? I’m worried I’ll be taken advantage of and pay a lot of money for a really crappy car. I’m nervous about driving a dangerous car. I’m nervous about going through all the processes of getting a license, insurance, legally buying the car, etc. I love my US car and I’m gonna miss it and hate leaving it at home for a few years! I’m also terrified to find a reliable St. Kitts mechanic, since I’ve heard horror stories about being overcharged and taken advantage of. Mechanics who “fix” your problem, but purposely create more. Criminal mechanics who steal your car and sell parts. Agh.

4) The bus system/traveling.

Super nervous about figuring it out and navigating it while I don’t have a car yet. What if I get stranded in some bad area alone as the sun sets?!

5) Food shopping (bugs, giardia).

I've heard horror stories about food on grocery store shelves being rancid and expired. I’ve been told to check the dates on everything before buying it - even milk and cheeses. I’ve been told about boxes of pasta full of bugs and peanut butter full of worms. I’ve also heard there is giardia and mycoplasma in the tap water? Definitely scared of that. Is this true of bottled water or other drinks?

6) Bugs/centipedes/spiders/ticks.

I am terrified of bugs. The pictures I see of giant spiders, moths, and aggressive, hard-to-kill venomous centipedes in homes/beds/clothes give me absolute nightmares. I’m also scared of ticks and tick-borne diseases due to all the outdoor activity. 

7) Living arrangements.

The uncertainty here is killing me. I know I'll be living in a dorm my first semester, but that’s only 3 months. And will I be living alone? With 2 roommates? 3? How do I apply? I’m nervous to be living alone - but what if I get roommates I hate?

8) Wild animals/monkeys/sea animals/hiking.

Are there dangerous wild animals? What about the monkeys? What about in the ocean? Are there aggressive fish/octopi? Do I need to worry about jellyfish? Sharp sea urchins? I know there are a lot of great hikes - but I'm an inexperienced hiker. Do I need to be scared of animals on the trails? What about tick-borne diseases? What about being robbed/attacked by humans on the trial? Or getting lost in the woods with no cell signal? I don’t even know what clothes to wear or what hiking shoes ARE! HELP.

9) Personal Safety/Being burgalarized.

I’ve heard that as long as you are generally street smart, you should be okay. But I also hear horror stories of native drug deals gone wrong right near St. Kitts students - of guns shots and murders. I’ve heard of armed car jackings, robberies, rapes. I’ve heard of break ins and burglaries. Definitely nervous about personal safety. Even if just my STUFF is stolen - I’m so nervous I'll lose expensive items, as well as personal valuable like photos and class notes. I’m investing in personal property insurance that extends to St. Kitts, as well as external hard drives to copy all my stuff. Do I need to buy a pocket knife or mace or something?

10) Cell phones.

I still don’t really understand this concept. So I can bring my iphone, and simply put it in airplane mode and turn on the wifi? That way I can use iMessage, email, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, viver, etc. for phone calls/text - but, it will only work when there is wifi around. This way, I won’t be charged an exorbitant amount for international cell service. Should I stop paying for my phone plan?

I’m also told you’re given an old block phone from Ross for calls to other students and businesses on the island. 

11) Massive debt.

Yep. Probably gonna be in $325,000 of debt and start at $40,000 a year while I have clients scream at me about how rich I am and don’t care about animals. 

12) Failing out. 

Definitely scared of vet school being “too hard” and failing out. I know I’m a good student and I’m planning to study my ass off - but this fear is still there.

13) Living on my own.

Like I said, I lived about 30 minutes from my house for four years in undergrad college. I could go home on the weekends, and ask my mom for help with anything. I lived on campus, so I had maintenance and security staff always present. I never lived off campus. I also lived with 1-3 roommates every year, and always shared a bedroom - so I was never completely alone.

14) Making friends and knowing no one.

Definitely a big fear - but everyone else seems to manage it, right? I guess when you’re all in a completely new country with no friends/family, everyone’s a bit more open. 

15) Logistics - setting up a bank account, loans, FAFSA, paying pills, receiving monthly loan allowals, visas, passports, customs, flights, vaccines.

SO MUCH TO DO. 

16) Rabies vaccine

It’s gonna hurt, isn’t it? What other vaccines do I need? Can I get them on the island? Is it cheaper?

17) My dog.

My dog is 13 with CKD. I’m terrified that when I get on that flight, it’ll be my last time seeing her. ):

18) Mail system.

Seems very complicated and expensive. I’ve heard people dig through your personal mail right in front of you. And SO. EXPENSIVE. Also gonna greatly miss amazon.

19) Disease (Zika, HIV, Lyme, parasites - vaccines)

Definitely scared of getting some crazy topical diseases that we don’t have up here in NYC. Definitely scared of parasites - is that gorgeous water there safe to swim in? Not just the oceans/seas, what about lakes? I don’t need some crazy vagina parasite swimming into me or accidentally swallowing some giardia. Or is just the drinking water dangerous?

20) The health system (getting insurance, birth control, allergy shots, hospital visits)

Trying to figure out how to continue my birth control and allergy shots while I'm down there. Apparently my birth control is $4/month over the counter down there. Apparently Ross Health Services can administer my allergy shots, but I’ll have to bring the refrigerated vials down from NYC with me, and have them changed out every 9-12 months. God knows how much that would cost to ship - might be cheaper for me to just fly up and back and get em!

Definitely nervous about the quality of health care and emergency health care down there. I heard chickens roam the hospital. Hoping to get all my general/preventative care done on my breaks back home. 

21) Being okay with “island time” (everything being closed)

I’ve lived my entire life in a busy city - nothing closes, ever. Weekends, nights, holidays - there’s always somewhere I can stop and get food/drinks. Adapting to there being no drive throughs or quick delis to stop into when I had 5 minutes before class is gonna be rough. And so is realizing that by 5pm on a Friday, I’m screwed until 8am on a Monday for any business I need to go to or contact. Especially dreading this with a car breakdown. 

22) Not being able to find things from the US (Certain drinks, snacks, cosmetics)

Again, this is just something I’m gonna have to adapt to - but I will miss it!

23) Deciding when I can afford to go home.

I have no idea if I should go home after every semester? Is that something people normally do? Or once a year? 

From what I'm reading on flight websites: It’s gonna be about a $400-600 flight ($1000-1200 round trip), take about 5 hours (10 hours both way) and need to have 1-2 stops. With the stops, it’ll be about 7-22 hours one way (14-44 hours round trip). Ugh. 

24) Not taking advantage of all the great opportunities/trips available. 

I’m scared I’m gonna be so overwhelmed with classes and exams, that I’ll miss out on some of the great extracuricular activities, clubs, sports, games, hikes, etc. Or the great “vacation” trips abroad available on breaks. 

25) Second semester - rent, laundry, landlords, safety, finding roommates.

Definitely scared of moving on to second semester and out of the dorms where I'll be pressured to find a safe, convenient, cheap apartment. I’ll have to move all my stuff (how? rent a car?), pay bills, pay rent, deal with a landlord, all for the first time in my life. And I’m definitely scared about picking the “Right” roommates to live with. 

26) Restaurant food/native food

How is the food there? I’m unfortunately not a huge seafood fan, but not averse to trying the native food. However - is it safe? Should I make sure I ask for no ice (water parasites)? Is there a possibility of undercooked meat/seafood or spoiled/expired meat/seafood? Is there a possibility of parasites in the food?

27) Hobbies

I’ve been going to school part time and working full time the past year, and I haven’t participated in any of my hobbies in over a year. I love learning foreign languages and I love horseback riding - and I haven't had time (excuse excuse) or money to do either. I worry this will just continue on in veterinary school, as I’ll be even more stressed, and have even less time and less money. Is there even any horseback riding availability down there? I mean, I can’t really pack all my language books (guess I can do a lot online), and I definitely can’t pack all my riding stuff (boots, helmet, clothes, saddle, etc. etc.)

28) Fun one: So when do I change my blog name from mylifeasaPREvet student to mylifeasaVETstudent? I also think I’m gonna start a website blog about life on the island - no only for future nervous students (like me right now) - but for my friends and family to see via Facebook. Don’t exactly wanna share all my tumblr info on Facebook! Best website for a blog?

[elle-stevens]

The Break Up Blog - Day Nineteen

Staying busy is not only hard work, but it’s tiring. 

And now that I actually have a pay cheque, it means that I have to leave my apartment to buy things I need. Almost half of it’s already gone just from sending money home to replenish my savings, buy groceries and set aside for rent which is due every three months. But at least I have money to use up unlike last month. 

Still, it showed me that I can have very little money and manage to not starve somehow. 

My body woke me up super early at 07:30 and I had another attack of the sniffles and discomfort in my throat from acid reflux. The new medicine that I ordered last night will only arrive sometime tomorrow, so I hope I can manage till then. I bought some aloe juice in the meantime to tie me over till my gastritis medicine arrives. 

Since I hadn’t gotten groceries this morning, I had a Mcmuffin delivered to my home instead. After that, I decided to get ready for the day and head back to the bar I visited on Thursday night. One of the waitresses gave me a digital bracelet so that my orders could be calculated during the night when I’d originally intended to buy a cocktail. But I didn’t buy any drinks that night and forgot all about the bracelet when my drunk ass when to a night club afterwards. 

So I went back to the bar with the intention of returning the bracelet. But I got there way too early and the bar wasn’t even open yet. And I couldn’t come back later because of my second potential interview and the grocery shopping that I still hadn’t done. So I contented myself with splurging on treats at Starbucks and re-reading ‘And Then There Were None’ by Agatha Christie on my iPad for a good hour. 

After that, I took a taxi to the school where I wanted to teach some extra classes on the weekends for a little extra pay. I got to the location an hour early and still managed to get lost during that time. As it turned out, the ‘school’ was actually in a residential building close to where the taxi had dropped me off in the first place. Have I mentioned before how appalling my sense of direction is? It didn’t help that Apple Maps kept insisting that I had ‘arrived at my destination’ when my destination turned out to still be a good 50 meters away. 

The lady I met for the meeting, CA, seemed very nice and we upstairs to the school, which turned out to be located inside a residential apartment, which surprised me. I had envisioned an actual training centre, not a school being run out of someone’s home. Still, the classroom set-up seemed pretty decent and the room even had a massive TV with impressive multimedia capabilities. But the initial advertisement had been for children in grade 5 all the way up to middle school and the teaching days were only supposed to be every Friday. But CA actually wanted me to teach a group of first graders and the future calendar days kept changing because of public holidays. All of this was perfectly normal, but I still wasn’t satisfied with the terms. Plus, C’s words about not getting caught working multiple jobs with my current work visa kept coming back to me. I’m only allowed to work at my current job and if my school found out that I was working elsewhere, they’d have grounds to fire me. And they’d have the power to refuse to give me a letter of reference with any other job I’d want to do in my current city. I’d be totally screwed if that happened. 

The meeting went well enough and CA seems like a really nice woman. But everything didn’t line up exactly the way I wanted to, so I told her I’d have to think about it more and promised to get back to her later in the evening since the classes start next weekend and she has to get someone in now to teach. I decided right after that meeting that it’s probably not a good idea to put myself in a position to get fired for a temporary job that I’m that keen on after all. I’m sure the children at this school are lovely and I do enjoy working with younger children. But considering what adorable gremlins I have to put up with as is at my current job, why would I want to teach more younger children at a different school? 

I went home again and tried to rest. But sleep never came and even though it was close to 18:00, I decided to quickly go and do some grocery shopping before heading to the gym. I did really well with keeping my shopping to a minimum of one hour. But I chose the wrong time for grocery shopping because it seemed like everyone in my city was doing their grocery shopping at the exact same time. Never in my life have I ever had to wait for 40 minutes in a line just to pay for groceries! Back in South, we have packers in supermarkets that help you with your groceries while you pay. China’s kind of ironic in that way like most Asian countries: someone always cleans up after you when you dine at a fast food restaurant where you’re perfectly capable of throwing away your own trash. But there’s never anyone to help you when you actually need it, like helping you put your groceries into a trolley so you don’t hold up the queue. Luckily, I packed my groceries away at the speed of light and took a cab home. 

By that time, it was already 20:00 and I had only two hours left to exercise at the gym before it closed. I know I could’ve just exercised at home since I’m using workouts on a phone app anyway. But I like the aura of a gym; it makes me feel like I’m part of something bigger than myself and in camaraderie with other gym-goers trying to achieve the same goal that I am. 

As it turned out, I could’ve just stayed at home and done my workout in private. It was an intermediate weight loss programme and it was really hard to do! I’m already uncoordinated as is given that I damaged my heels 5 years ago because I developed plantar fasciitis. So I kept losing my balance and momentum while my calves were on fire from all the running and jumping I had to do. It didn’t help that my ex personal trainer, LB, was in the vicinity, so I felt like a perfect idiot trying to exercise on my own in front of him. 

I did a few classes with LB last year; he seems nice enough and he did help me with my weight loss for a while. But he convinced me to do a second set of classes with him and then kept flaking out on me at every turn after I already paid him. So I got pissed off and told him I didn’t want to do the classes anymore and that I wanted a refund. He placated me for a while saying the refund process takes a while. But the money never got returned to me and now we actively ignore each other whenever I’m at the gym. I don’t dislike him exactly, but I’m never going to trust him again. I get that way when people burn me. I won’t take revenge on you and I won’t actively go out of my way to be nasty to you, but I also won’t let you near enough to hurt me a second time. 

So I pretty much gave up on my crappy exercise and I didn’t bother with any weight lifting or using the treadmill. I only deigned to use the elliptical machine for 8 minutes because I still needed to buy some groceries for breakfast tomorrow and most of the stores in my neighbourhood close at 22:00. I managed to buy eggs, milk and this other fruit tea that I like before I went home. I even showered at home instead of at the gym just so that I wouldn’t get to the store too late. 

Even though I got a lot of things done today, it doesn’t feel like I really accomplished anything by the end of it. I know I’m being too picky on the job front, but I’m getting to that point in my life where I’m not willing to settle. Not for anything to do with love and certainly nothing to do with my future career path. Maybe it’s unreasonable to think this way, but I want things to line up perfectly just once. Any bit of happiness I’ve ever accomplished in the past has always been done with an arduous, upward climb fraught with obstacles and difficulties. I’m getting older now and I realise that I want some things to come more easily for me. I’m tired of slogging around, begging people to validate and give me what I deserve. 

I thought of X a lot while I rode the bus back to that bar earlier. I’m beginning to miss her less and less these days and I finally wondered what I’d ever seen it in her to begin with. I guess that question is inevitable when the scales of amour are finally lifted from your eyes and you come to the morbid conclusion that no one you invest in is ever really as wonderful as they seem. I wanted things to line up perfectly with X and they never did no matter how much I tried to make things work between us. She hurt me in the worst way imaginable and I’m finally starting to get angry about it. I never saw it before, but maybe royally screwing things up between us was X’s way of telling me that she wanted out of our relationship. I could probably forgive her in time for using me for money and even lying about having cancer just so she could use me for money. But I don’t think I’ll ever forgive her for stealing nearly 6 months of my life from me when I genuinely thought she might actually die on me and then somehow blaming her indiscretions on me because I turned out to be not so perfect for her either. She’s a cruel and selfish person and a part of me might end up hating her for it for the rest of my life. 

See? It takes a lot for me to get really angry when people insult me and take me for granted. But once you’ve shown me time and time that you can’t be trusted and that you don’t actually respect me on any level, then you’ve lost me forever. I guess I lose a tiny piece of myself that hopes and loves every time someone hurts me in an indescribable way. 

It is what it is. Maybe I’ll finally let it go or maybe I’ll hold a grudge till the day I die. I just have to take it one day at a time and hope to God that I don’t lose more pieces of my true self in the process. 

I think I’ll take a break from drinking alcohol, at least for the next month. I’ve been acting out lately and it’s time for me to be a grown-up again. I’m in charge of my own happiness; I can’t let other people’s insincerity, insensitivity and hidden agendas steal my joy anymore. 

It’s almost midnight now and my stomach is cramping up badly because I didn’t eat well today. I don’t know if my lack of appetite is because of my depression or my new exercise regimen; all I know that is I need to do better with taking care of myself properly. I’m gonna go to the bank tomorrow and take out my rent money for the month. Then I’m meeting my friend KI for lunch; we’re gonna go to a Mexican restaurant. I love Mexican food - it takes me back to Spanish class in 12th grade and learning how to cook authentic dishes with my teacher twice a semester. I haven’t done any work on my Katie portrait in nearly two weeks. Since I won’t be teaching any extracurricular classes this semester, it gives me more time for myself and whatever I choose to spend it on. 

I hope things will work out the way I want it to on the job front. I’m gonna try not to stress about it and just let the chips fall where they may. For now, all I have are trivial but necessary distractions to give me strength to face the days ahead. 

[booksforthebrave]

First Post from China

Okay, I PROMISE I’ve been meaning to post about how things have been going but I just haven’t had the time or have lacked energy until right about now. SO! Prepare for a looooooong post while I talk about what’s been going on. Also, if you even want to find my posts just about life in china, search the hastag #BftBinChina

Starting way back on December 16th-17th when I arrived in China:

The flight was actually alright, ya know, for a fifteen-hour flight. Well, actually the guy next to me kept trying to infringe on my space so I ended up wrenching my shoulder a bit. I didn’t sleep till near the end of it when I dozed off for about thirty or forty-five minutes during Inception (this after I binge watched about seven hours of the inflight Food Network shows and watched Gone with the Wind which I thought I would fall asleep during but apparently I like it too much to sleep).

I arrived in Shanghai, got my luggage and was able to get to the Ramada I was staying at that night. Got some sleep, went back to the airport to catch my flight to Fuzhou, and…..missed the flight because I was still in security when the gate closed. See in China, when they say take off time, it is the actual time the plane leaves the tarmac, so the gate closes twenty or thirty minutes before then. If you’re in security, they won’t let you through, you have to go back to the counter, change your flight, have them track down your luggage and bring it to you so you can check it in AGAIN, and then go through security again. Luckily there was another flight just an hour later, though I almost ended up changing it to the afternoon flight because they seemed to be taking a long time finding my luggage and bringing it to me.

Kaylee meets first road block: My phone isn’t working. It will not connect to the wifi so I can’t get on WeChat to tell my dad that I missed my flight. I try and buy a sim card and it doesn’t like it. I find the business center of the Shanghai airport, the woman lets me use the phone to call the phone number I have for dad…who doesn’t answer.

I have like five seconds of panic then decide I’ll just keep going and hope for the best. The very, very kind guy at the ticket counter when I recheck my luggage not only assures me I can make the flight but he walks me through the terminal, through the shortest security line, and then power walks me to the gate so I make it. One very short plane ride later and I am in Fuzhou, get my stuff, and head out the arrivals gate.

I don’t see anyone holding a sign for me and I kind of panic again for a bit. I try to get WeChat on my iPad (which is connecting to Wifi) but the verification stuff stumps me (aka, sending a code to the phone that doesn’t work). I then work up the nerve to go to the “Visit Fuzhou!” desk and ask to borrow their phone. Daddy picks up this time, says he’ll call the woman who is supposed to be picking me up, and not ten minutes later she comes rushing up, slightly frantic.

The rest of the day was getting to the apartment, meeting up with Dad (who I haven’t seen in person since August 2016), visiting the school briefly, and just trying to stay awake till bedtime (which kind of worked, I dozed off during the Battle of Scarif in Rogue One).

I spent about a day freaking out and just being overwhelmed to the point of tears. The rest of the week was mildly freaking out every time I had to leave the apartment or school because I was still finding my way around, and was riding a scooter (traffic laws are nonexistent here). But as of today I have gained my confidence, know where pretty much everything I need is, and can get around either on foot or on the scooter.

I am settled in my room, pretty much unpacked (there’s still some clothes that need to be ironed and hung), I have my part of the pantry with food for me, and I often have a cat cuddling with me (dad’s cat, a beautiful boy named Chairman Meow. I usually just call him Kitty).

 School and my library:

So the school is Fuzhou Lakeside International School; and for a school that has signs everywhere that says it is an English campus, I haven’t heard much English from the kids and even some of the teachers. But that’s alright, my job is the library and making it useable.

It’s a cute little library, has a couple thousand books (really not that many considering most of them are kids books), some desks, lots of display shelves and some deep cubby like shelves that each can hold two rows of books. As in, someone shelves the books, then pushed them back in the cubby and put ANOTHER row of books in front of the shelved ones. No surprise that when I was pulling books off to sort them (because the sections were basically, picture books, series, classics, and bilinguals) there were books still perfectly in order because no one knew they were there!

Nothing is labeled beyond the library barcode which is on the inside of covers and there is no set place for that, it’s just on the inside cover. No Dewey Decimal numbers for nonfiction books, they were just on the shelves with the other books; and someone had put the Twilight books under classics. Half the space is also closed off to the students because there is a textbook area that needs to be reorganized both in terms of shifting books and shifting shelves to make more room for the main library area.

Luckily when I set up a meeting to discuss needs and goals with my administrator, she fully supports my ideas. When I go back to work on Wednesday (because I worked three days and then we are off ten days for Christmas and Western New Year), labels and a label maker will be waiting so we can start working on those and I will have a tape measure and masking tape to start laying a floorplan, so we can determine what new shelves would suit.

Fuzhou: food, places, and scooters:

Pretty much everyone rides scooters or mopeds and it is not uncommon to see people riding on sidewalks, or going the wrong way on streets and in bike lines, and ignoring red lights to go. You kind of just have to say you’re going and go. It helps that the cars tend to move way slower than at home so your real danger is just from others on scooters. My first three days I almost crashed twice, and took the turn into our drive too steep so the scooter fell over but after those I focused, practiced, and don’t freak out too much unless something drastic happens.

Dad’s apartment is located on the fourteenth floor overlooking West Lake and West Lake Park; the view is spectacular. The building is also conveniently located, we can walk to school in about ten or so minutes, or scoot there in less than that. There are two Walmarts fairly close, dad’s favorite bar is down the street as is a cute little restaurant called Omellete Woods, his Thai place is across the street as is a little convenience store, the bakery 85 C is on the way to work (there is also one in Richardson if you want to try it out) and pretty much around the corner is Three Lanes Seven Alleys.

Sanfang Qixiang (the Chinese name, pronounced Sahnfahn Sheshan) shopping center built over and around an outdoor market from several hundred years ago. The buildings are all meant to look like they would have back then, there are some little kiosk like shops in the main lanes and no scooters are allowed so there’s just a ton of people but less chance of being run over. All kinds of shops are there; food, clothes, bakery, juice, books, and even a Starbucks (more expensive than back home!).

Important: the exchange rate is about 6.5 rmb for 1 US dollar, so I went to the bookstore and for two brand new, shrink wrapped books that are in both English and Chinese I paid 49 rmb, or $7.50. So keep that in mind because I’ve mentioned different food places and I will say this: we eat like kings. We went out to dinner with one of our coworkers who likes to eat as much as dad and I, filled the table with so much delicious food there were leftovers and it was 176 rmb, or $27. Dinner at the Thai restaurant the other day was mango beef that made me swoon, some amazing cod with vegetables and chips, and some pineapple dumpling things: 165 rmb or $25. We went to a Turkish restaurant called Aladdin’s where we ate lamb chops, potato salad, hummus, and soufflé (sorry, I don’t know what that bill was, I was praising the food to the cute waiter).

There is also a foot massage place that dad goes to a lot, and I use the term foot massage loosely. Because what happens is that they first put down a tub of super-hot water with tea in it to soak your feet it, then they have you turn around, so they can give you a shoulder, back, neck, arm and hand massage. THEN they start on your (now red like a lobster) feet and legs. This is an hour-long massage… for 50 rmb or $7.60. Yes, you can get an hour long massage every day for about twenty days for the same amount as an hour-long massage back home in the States.

All in all, I think I’m adjusting well. I get a lot of looks, being a tall, blonde, American woman, lot of people want to take my picture and about half of them do it on the down low. I’m even adjusting alright to living with my father again (which I was worried about because I am an adult. The cat helps, he has abandoned dad for me). One of dad’s friends is going to help me with learning some basic Chinese as right now I can say hello and thank you. Hopefully I’ll make some friends soon so I’m not just hanging out with dad and his friends, though that will probably be slow going as I am still myself (read: homebody).

Two weeks ago, I didn’t think I could make it till summer vacation. Today I’m thinking of going window shopping at scooters, so I can get one painted Batgirl colors and wondering where in China or even the Pan Pacific that I should go for the month-long holiday for Chinese New Year that we get in February.

Yeah, I think I’ll be okay.

[mybothsideslikechanel]

This past month has been so weird since I haven’t been at school for more than a month because of the strike. Of course this happens when I decide to go back to school. There’s a possibility we might go back next week depending on a vote going on till tomorrow. The whole situation is fucked up since if we do end up going back, our semester is gonna be pushed back to January and our holiday break won’t even start till December 23rd. I feel like if we even do go back, the rest of the semester is just gonna feel so rushed and out of sync. The break was nice at first but now it just feels like I’m going nowhere in life again. I pretty much feel lost and useless.  It’s also super weird because Ray is in school and I’m not, meaning I have way more free time than he does. I’m working more hours, which keeps me busy I guess, but I still feel like I have a lot of free time. Technically I could be studying but at this point, I feel so unmotivated and like there’s no point. Like I previously mentioned, Ray is really enjoying his program and he has a close knit group of friends. Close knit as in they have their own Facebook Messenger and Snapchat groups that they’re always constantly communicating on. So you know it’s real. I’m really happy that he’s made friends but sometimes it feels like I’m being replaced. Sometimes it feels like he’s losing interest in me or that he’d rather want to be with them since he has new people in his life. Ray and his group of friends all hung out outside of school for the first time about a month ago and I thought he’d invite me or at least ask me if I was interested in coming but nothing. He was literally hanging out with me at my house right till he had to leave and I thought he maybe would’ve asked me then if I wanted to come with him but he said nothing. It kind of hurt my feelings that he didn’t ask me. I get that no one else was bringing their significant other but I don’t even know if your friends know I even exist. Well I’m pretty sure they do because you used us staying in London for a weekend as an excuse to not going to Bull with them a couple weeks ago but other than, I wonder if you even mention me in conversation or tell them about us. Sometimes I wish you weren’t so secretive of me. I don’t know if that’s the right word exactly but I wish you would make our relationship public here and there. It makes me feel like you’re embarrassed of me or I’m not worthy enough of being seen with you on your social media. That’s definitely me overthinking but when it comes down to it, that’s ultimately how it makes me feel. You don’t even take pictures anymore where I’m in them but my face isn’t even showing, if you do, it’s super rare. I mean I’m lowkey too but I always wanna show you off to the world and how we’re together. Ray started working again too, every Tuesday and Wednesday. He also plays volleyball every Wednesday night, plays basketball every Sunday night, and now he’s helping coach Villanova’s senior basketball team which is every Friday afternoon (I think) on top of school. It feels like we’re spending less and less time together even with me not being in school, or if we do spend time together, it’s only for a short amount of time. Like today, I got off of work at 4pm and he got off of work at 6:30pm. We got to see each other for about an hour and a half before he went to volleyball but that’s it. I’m probably not even gonna see him tomorrow since I work 1-9:30pm, so Friday we’ll see each other. We’re probably gonna spend less time together when I’m back at school. You used to pick me up after my closing shifts all the time but now you’re too tired or you have something to do for school, which is fine, but I really miss that.  Today, you had breakfast with your group of friends in the morning since your class got cancelled and I felt so jealous and upset that I wasn’t there with you. I guess I’m just not used to you giving other people attention and spending a lot of time with other people too. I’ll have to get used to that one way or another. Lately too, you’ve been going to bed early while I stay up alone for another 2-3 hours. I get that you have to get up early most days now so you have to go to bed at a decent time but those days when we would stay up till 2/3am talking were the best. It’s always the worst when we’re having a good conversation or I want to talk to you more but then you cut me off and just straight up tell me you’re going to bed and I’m just like “oh”. Sometimes I wonder if it’s life that’s changing or if it’s us who are changing. I don’t think you know how much I think about us all the time and what we are because you mean so much to me.

[sweetsuccesssociety]

Back to School to Become the Ultimate Girl Boss: 10 Lessons I’ve Learned About Being an Entrepreneur

Whoa, hello there friends! It’s been a hot minute since I’ve written a post on here! Thanks for being patient with me while I worked out the logistics of balancing my life. I’m now back at school and although my workload is heavy I do actually have more free time to spend on writing stellar content, so that’s what I’m here to do!

As I said, this year I decided to go back to school for entrepreneurship at one of the colleges in Toronto. I just finished my first week and oh my goodness – what a ride it has been! I literally went to school two days this week because of the holiday Monday (I only have classes Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, hollaaaaa) and I’ve already learned so many amazingly applicable things that I’ll absolutely be implementing for my business, and some things that may not be as applicable to my business but still relevant nonetheless. Here’s the rundown from week one.

1. 5:00am wake up is the worst, but there are some positives to it!

Let’s just get this out there into the world – I am NOT a morning person. I hate waking up early and I’m at my most productive around 10:00pm-2:00am. Pretty sure I get that from my grandma, who’s in her mid-80s and still stays up till 2 every night! The point is, when I realized I had to get up at 5am in order to make the commute from the suburbs into the city for my 8am classes, I was not impressed in the slightest. I’m pretty sure the moment I realized this, I spent about 20 minutes ranting to my boyfriend on the phone about how society is catered to morning people and the world sucks – very dramatic, I know (but is it not a little bit true though?).

When I actually had to do it this week though, I had an incredibly odd experience. I actually enjoyed being out and about before the sun came up! The actual waking up part was a struggle, there’s no fooling anyone there. But there were no cars, no people on sidewalks cutting me off, nothing like that. The train station I go to is also right on Lake Ontario, so I get a pretty nice view of the sunrise while waiting for my train!

Am I a fully transformed morning person? Absolutely not, I slept in till about 10:30 this morning and have no shame about it. However, do I think waking up early is much more doable than I originally had anticipated? When you’re excited about what you’re doing and want to get up and work and learn, absolutely!

2. Network, network, network – and do it properly!

Ahh, networking. The dreaded word that our introverted sides absolutely cringe at. Girlfriend, if that’s you, just know I’m totally with you on that one. I love networking with other bloggers and such online, but when it comes to face-to-face actually talking to someone, I freeze. I’ve never been to a networking event for this reason, but all of that is about to change… that’s right, one of my assignments is actually to attend a networking event! First of all, terrifying, right? But second of all, how incredibly applicable that is! As someone who is generally quite shy, I need something like this to push me out of my comfort zone. You can’t get better at something without practice, so although I’m freaking out about it, I’m also so glad I can do it in the safety of being in school.

Something I learned about networking events this week is that a lot of people have the wrong idea for how to go about it. Many people think that if they leave at the end of the night and have run out of business cards they were successful at the event. As my HR prof pointed out though this week, this isn’t necessarily the case. If you leave without collecting any business cards from anyone else, how are you supposed to contact them? If they have your contact info and you don’t have theirs, who has the upper hand? That means the ball is in their court to contact you, which may or may not happen.

3. Know exactly what’s happening in your business’ Supply Chain Process

In my entrepreneurship program, I have to take a course called “supply chain management”. Do you think I knew what that was? Absolutely not! I thought it had to do with places like staples that supply items for other businesses, which yes it is, but it’s so much more than that. Essentially, it’s about the process of creating your product or service and all of the little steps involved. And when I say little, I mean EVERY LITTLE STEP. You used a piece of tape to package a box for shipment? That’s part of the supply chain. You need a specific type of paper to create your journals? Again, that’s another part of it.

The reason it’s important as a business owner to know everything about your supply chain process is so you can know exactly what amount of money is going into a product from beginning to end. This is relevant, of course, in figuring out how to make a profit while still keeping things at a reasonable price. I can’t go into super specific details, as it’s only the first week, but I do know that it’s important to have control of the finances in your business, which is why supply chain management is so important.

4. A Handshake is more than just a handshake

In one of my classes this week, we did one of those icebreaker introduce yourself exercises. Sounds pretty generic, right? It was, except our prof insisted that she needed to shake each of our hands in the process. Some people were pretty weirded out by it, while others like myself hardly noticed. Afterwards, however, she pointed out in a general sense that most of us had strong handshakes while others needed a lot of work. This was strange, as your handshake isn’t really something you tend to think much about in everyday life, but isn’t it so true that a handshake can tell a lot about a person during that small first impression window of meeting someone?

When shaking hands with someone, here are a couple of tips I learned during this exercise. A firm grip is preferable over one of those handshakes where someone holds out two fingers (isn’t that so awkward?! Omg I’ve had that happen to me a few too many times). Eye contact, squaring your shoulders with the person, and smiling are amongst other qualities of a good handshake that were mentioned.

5. It is absolutely possible to make friends as an adult

You guys! After the past year of having pretty much no one around except my boyfriend, I finally am developing somewhat of a girl group at school! Maybe I’m fangirling a bit too much about this, but it’s so exciting to me to have a group of girls to eat lunch with and do group projects with – we even have a WhatsApp group chat! And yes, I am in college again, so I suppose it’s again one of those places that make it a bit easier to make friends, but it happened so organically that I’m not even sure college had a lot to do with it.

We’re all entrepreneurs and we’re in the same class. But perhaps if we had met at a networking event or something like that we would have hit it off there too. The point is that I’m 23 years old and I’m starting to develop new friendships, so it is absolutely doable. That’s a crazy exciting epiphany for me!

6. You need to be comfortable with criticism if you’re going to be successful as an entrepreneur

Criticism has always been like my arch nemesis, both giving and receiving. I have a very difficult time not taking things personally and I hate saying things to others that they might take personally. It’s a double edged sword. That being said, I’m fully aware of the importance of being able to handle giving and receiving criticism as an entrepreneur. There will be a day when I have to manage other employees. There will be a time even sooner when I’m pitching my business ideas to investors, who will absolutely tell me exactly what they think, what they like, and what they don’t like.

These concepts are terrifying. Luckily, I’m currently in college where my professors encourage us to practice in a safe space. We’re required to work in a group not of our choosing and give in-person peer evaluations to each person in the group on a weekly basis. I was extremely uncomfortable with this activity at first, probably because I grew up in this millennial generation where teachers always sugar-coated things for us growing up (for instance, whenever I’ve had to do a peer-evaluation it was always written anonymously). But that’s not how the real world works. There’s an entire generation of us who aren’t prepared to handle criticism, which is why I think activities like this are so important and relevant, especially within an entrepreneurial lifestyle.

7. Entrepreneurial traits for the most part can be learned

There’s a lot of debate going around about whether the common traits of successful entrepreneurs can be learned or not. The verdict by professionals in the industry, however, is that for the most part these traits can be learned. This was interesting as I was among those who believe you either have what it takes or you don’t. Among some of the top traits successful entrepreneurs tend to possess are a tolerance for ambiguity, a drive to achieve success, persistence and perseverance, personable, and an ability to be a critical thinker.

8. We weren’t given strict deadlines in school for no reason

Have you ever actually thought about what deadlines mean in the real world? Maybe this is just me, but I never made the connection between our teachers giving us strict deadlines growing up and what that would teach us for when we step out into the workforce. I honestly thought they were just being hard-asses!

One of my profs used an example to explain this that really got me thinking. If a bakery owner takes an order for a cake to be ready for Saturday at 2pm for a little boy’s birthday party, and then at 1:30 calls the mom who ordered the cake to tell her that she won’t have it ready in time, what are the implications? It’s more than just a failing grade on a test. It’s a little boy’s dream of having a Pikachu cake for his 5th birthday crushed! Now the mother has to run around last minute to find a grocery store cake which her kid may or may not like (you know how kids are lol).

Okay, so maybe it’s not the end of the world. But those are real life implications impacting real people because that one person didn’t meet their deadline. It causes a lot of stress for everyone involved. In order for the world to function properly, we need to have discipline and we need to have deadlines. No matter how large or small the issue, we as entrepreneurs must make sure we’re setting and meeting deadlines. Otherwise our businesses aren’t going to succeed in the ways that we probably want them to.

9. We’re not always going to like the people we work with and they’re not always going to like us

Going back to the group I was assigned (which I don’t think has happened since I was like 14). There’s a reason my prof assigned us groups to work with instead of allowing us to choose our groups. As an entrepreneur, it’s likely that we’ll have the opportunity to work with a wide variety of individuals, some of whom we may like and others of whom we won’t so much. We need to learn to work with anyone, regardless of whether we want to be their best friend or not.

10. I’m finally excited about the path that I’m on!

This one is more personal, but it feels so great to finally be on the right path! I’m actually excited to wake up early in the morning and get to work on building my business. That’s something I haven’t been able to say, like, ever. It’s been a long road, but I feel like I’ve finally found my passion, and it’s an amazing feeling!

If you had told me a year ago that I would be this happy in a year, I would have laughed and then cried because that’s how shit things were at this time last year (pretty sure I had just gotten back from PEI after having a meltdown and loosing my housing so it wasn’t a good time to say the least). Every decision I’ve made up to this point has led me down this path, and I don’t have any regrets about either the good times or the hardships. They’ve made me who I am today, and I’m proud to be that person.

The takeaway…

Overall, my first week at school was a successful one. I’m incredibly glad to have chosen an entrepreneurship college certificate. This is exactly what I need to get my business off the ground and learn important skills along the way.

What is your number one tip for entrepreneurs who are just starting out? Let’s get a conversation started in the comments to support each other through this process. I’d love to hear your thoughts! Also, have you heard about our brand new membership? The Society is for the woman who is driven, ambitious and wants to find success in all areas of life. If this sounds like you, then you need to head over there to check it out! We’re looking forward to having you join our fabulous community.

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