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gurugirl · 2 years ago

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The House Maid Chapter 6

Summary: Daisy and Harry both work at the Archer House and don't quite see eye to eye when they first meet. Eventually, they can't resist one another and start a risky relationship that could have them both jobless. However, when jealousy and insecurities set in, things get ugly for the young lovers.

AN/Warning: I will have a * by the parts when smut is included. This warning list is comprehensive for all parts, not all contain smut or listed warnings. NSFW, smut, oral (male and female), 18+ only (as always), angst. I did a tiny bit of research on this time period (1915-1925 in the UK) and this is what resulted. If I get some historical stuff wrong it's because I'm not an expert on the genre/era (sorry).

Pairing: 1920s era House Maid Daisy x Groundskeeper Harry

Chapter 5*

Chapter 6

Daisy easily found a moment with Harry alone where she was able to give him her address that she’d written down on a scrap piece of paper she found in Bradley’s room in the bin. He folded it and placed it in his pocket and looked at her longingly as she walked away as quickly as she showed up. He may have been staring too long, though, because Connie caught site of it.

Connie had become quite fond of Harry, and for good reason. She had never been treated with such enthusiasm in bed before. Men usually just assumed she was an easy lay and rarely put in effort, but Harry put in 100% and it seemed to her that he really enjoyed her body and company. He was very giving and it made her feel as though he truly appreciated her. As though he might return feelings for her. But she saw the small exchange from the window overlooking the back garden. She was sitting in the library drinking tea and reading (well, she wasn’t actually reading, she watching Harry work) when she saw Daisy come up to him from behind and give him something that he looked down at for only a moment before putting it into his pocket and then watched on as Daisy walked back into the house.

First, it was odd that a housekeeper’s assistant would need to give a seasonal gardener anything so small that he’d be able to fit it in his pocket (a trowel, or pick perhaps would be more likely), and secondly it was odd that Harry watched on and kept himself looking at Daisy walk away and stayed that way until she entered the house, and only when he could no longer see her did he turn back around to continue his work.

When Daisy left the Archer House at 4:30 to head home she slowly walked her way through the side entrance to get the attention of Harry. He saw her almost immediately but continued his work. He didn’t want to draw attention but as soon as Daisy neared him, he stood up and chanced being caught so that he could tell her he’d see her in some hours.

Daisy smiled and continued walking but then remembered something, “Oh! Harry, I cannot see the street side of the apartment because my window is at the back of the house. So, when you arrive,” she spoke in a whisper, “come round to the back of the unit where the alleyway is. My room is the very center and topmost window. Throw something at the window to get my attention and I’ll come down to the front to let you in.” She’d done it before, having a suitor come over late when she was already home. The only way they had to let her know they’d arrived was to throw small rocks at her window, either that or she was to sit on her front perch outside and wait.

Harry nodded and smiled a deep grin as she walked away. He got back to work right away with the small bit of worry in the back of his mind knowing that Connie would be approaching him soon to make their nightly arrangements. He’d already thought of what he’d say, he just hoped she didn’t throw a fit.

Connie didn’t know how to react to seeing Daisy and Harry interact twice in the same day. The first was odd, sure, but if it hadn’t happened again she might have been able to forget about it. However, upon seeing Harry rush to Daisy as she was leaving for the day after her shift and to watch them exchange words… and the smiles that carved into their faces? There was something going on and Connie would confront Harry about it tonight, maybe after they’d had sex, she thought, so as to not ruin the mood right away.

Harry hadn’t counted on having eyes on him nearly his entire workday. He had no idea Connie was so enamored with him that she did very little during the day but watch him work. If he had known, he’d have met with Daisy inside. He didn’t understand the levity of Connie’s feelings when she approached him at 6 o’clock that evening to tell him that he should stop his duties early and come to her room sooner, rather than later (she wouldn’t normally request he get off early but she was getting anxious to speak with him about Daisy). Harry stood up from his work and scratched the back of his head as he spoke to her, “Um, Miss Archer. I have been thinking that it’s probably best if I do not continue meeting you at your room in the evenings anymore. I feel that this has gone on too long and you are set to travel next week to Paris anyway, so…” he couldn’t look her in the eyes after he saw her face fall. He watched his feet as she interrupted him.

“You cannot be serious, Harry!” She whisper-shouted to him, “I am offering you a soft bed, that I know you love, a big warm meal with pastries, lemonade, and sex! As much sex as you want. I can even have Missus Smith draw a warm bath for you so you can sit and relax. Maybe that’s what you need, no? Just to relax a little? Don’t worry about me leaving for Paris. I can cancel! I’ll stay here if you want!” She became more anxious as she spoke. Harry was confused by her insistence and he hadn’t planned it to go this way.

“I’m sorry Miss Archer, I can’t. I am going to my home tonight. I have things to take care of there.” He still didn’t look up at her and it was driving Connie up the wall.

Connie raised her voice slightly when tears began to threaten her eyes, “Is this because of Daisy?!” At the mention of Daisy’s name Harry looked up to Connie with confusion on his face. Had she seen them? Heard them in the powder room that morning? He shook his head about to speak but Connie continued, “Show me what’s in your pocket then. I’d like to know what she gave you.”

Harry stood up straight now feeling betrayed. She had seen Daisy give him her address and Harry could not let Connie see its contents. “Now, listen Miss Archer, what Daisy handed me is not important to our conversation and that is my private business anyway. We’ve both overstepped boundaries here now and I need it to stop. I told you I cannot come to your bed anymore and that is that.” He was feeling angry and startled but he kept his voice low, regretting that he’d acknowledged that Daisy did give him something and that it was personal.

Connie stepped closer to Harry and attempted to reach into his pocket to pull out the thing herself but Harry stopped her by stepping back and placing his hand over hers to move it away.

“You may not put your hands on me, Miss Archer. I know my rights. Please leave me to my work.”

“You never minded my hands on you when I was holding your prick in them, huh? Or when I shoved my finger into your arsehole? You liked my hands then. What’s changed? What did Daisy say to you? She cannot give you what I can. She’s just a poor house servant with nothing to offer. You’re better off ignoring her and enjoying my bed with me like you have been.”

Harry’s eyes widened and he looked around to see that no one was paying them any attention before continuing his speech, speaking through gritted teeth, “Missus Marvin really has nothing to do with this, I’m unsure of why you are bringing this up! Can you not be done with this? What must I say to make you understand? I am no longer coming to your bed Miss Archer. I've things to attend to at home.” He couldn’t give her anything to go on. He didn’t want to acknowledge that Daisy had done or said anything wrong. He hoped that Connie could just drop it.

Connie was pissed. She knew something had happened between Daisy and Harry and if she couldn’t get it out of Harry she’d surely make Daisy talk. She’d find out. But more than pissed, she was hurt at Harry’s rejection. Was he truly no longer, and so suddenly, uninterested? It couldn’t be! She thought quickly of what she could offer him to make him change his mind.

“Money! I’ll give you money. I’ll double your pay. How does that sound?”

Harry once again was shocked – Connie had lost her damn mind and it was only then Harry realized the depth of Connie’s feelings for him. She was nearly begging. He hadn’t assumed it would be like this for her because for him it wasn’t at all. But the offer of money was tempting. It made him pause. A double in salary? That could be extremely useful for him come the end of the season and in between work. But what would be the catch? The catch would be that he wouldn’t get to feel Daisy in the way he wanted. He would probably lose her altogether, before he’d even had the chance to truly have her. He’d be beholden to Connie and he could barely stand the thought of seeing her naked again, especially in this moment. It made a lump rise in his throat. He felt he might vomit actually. Could he truly ignore that disgusted feeling in exchange for extra money? He didn’t think so. He shook his head.

“Your offer is very generous Miss Archer but I have made up my mind. I’m not sure why you are so interested in having me anyway; this was not meant to be more than just sex, right? That is all that I thought this was. You and I cannot be together and I’m stopping this silliness at once. I hope you can understand and respect that.”

Connie’s tears finally fell from her glassy eyes and streaked down her cheeks. She clutched at her heart and knew this was it. Harry didn’t want her, just like any other man she’d been with. None of them wanted her. She was too thin and her nose was too big. She felt ugly and disgusting suddenly and had to leave at once. With blurry eyes she made her way back to her room and locked herself inside, not to emerge for two days.

Harry was relieved when Connie ran off but he was also worried. Connie’s reaction was much more severe than he’d bargained for. This could come back to bite him. He and Daisy would need to be very very cautious, and he’d make a plan with her this very evening on how to do that.

During Harry’s conversation with Connie, Daisy was primping and getting herself ready for her night with Harry. She pinned her hair up onto her head as she drew herself a warm bath to fully cleanse her skin. She used drops of her beauty oil in the water to moisturize and scent her skin. Daisy was also in the possession a man’s Gillette razor (that she stole from the master bathroom one day at the Archer’s home) and made sure to rid her legs and underarms of hair. She found that since stockings were harder and harder to find after the war, shaving made her legs look as if they had been clad in stockings. Especially on evenings she went out, she loved to shave her legs and forgo the few stockings she did have. It felt good to not be wearing the uncomfortable and tight things. Men also seemed to very much like how soft and smooth hair shaved legs felt.

At 7:45 when Harry finally finished his work he began the journey to Daisy’s apartment. It was easy to find, in a not-so-great neighborhood similar to his own. He walked around to the back alley as Daisy had instructed him and he found her window with the light on and something red sitting against it. He found a good-sized rock and threw it towards the window, missing the first time but then retrying and getting it the second time. He looked up to see if he could detect any movement and upon not seeing any he threw the rock again and just as the rock hit the window the red thing that was sitting against it had been removed and he saw a shadow and then he saw Daisy. That must have been the signal so he made his way around to the front of the building to be let in just as Daisy opened the door to her flat. She rushed him in and up three flights of stairs before getting to a door and pushing him inside, locking it behind her. With a big smile on her face, she wrapped her arms around Harry’s neck and pulled him in for a kiss. Harry felt himself finally relax. The anxiety about telling Connie slowly dissipating with each calming kiss from Daisy’s soft lips.

Chapter 7*

#harry fic #harry smut #harry styles #harry styles smut #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles fanfic

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mimzy-writing-online · 4 years ago

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Writing A Blind/Visually Impaired Character: Canes, Guide Dogs, O&M

Wow, back in June I decided to take a few months break from blogging to recharge and focus on my mental health. About a month ago I began writing this specific post, slowly and in stages because of how demanding, detailed, and long it is.

I’m not sure when I planned to come back. I have about 200 posts with tags and image description in my drafts folder, waiting to be queued, but I wanted to finish this guide before I fully came back.

Come back with a bang, right?

But this blog, and specifically, my Writing a Blind or Visually Impaired Character guide, has gotten so much traffic and support that I felt incredibly motivated to come back now.

So I finished the guide, and now here it is. It’s been a year+ in the making. Since the very beginning of this writing advice series about writing blind characters, I’ve promised to write a guide specifically about canes, guide dogs, O&M, and other accessibility measures the blind community relies on.

In fact, if you look at my master post for this guide (now pinned at the first post on my blog) you’ll find that it was reserved as Part Four, even as other guides and additions were added over the last year.

In this post I’ll be explaining

What Orientation and Mobility (O&M) is

How one learns O&M

About canes, from different types of canes and their parts, as well as how to use a cane.

I will be explaining the sensory experiences of using a cane and how to describe it in narrative.

I will include small mannerisms long-time cane uses might develop.

At the very end will be a section on guide dogs, but this will be limited to research because I have no personal experience with guide dogs, being a cane user.

Disclaimer: I am an actual visually impaired person who has been using a cane for nearly three years and has been experiencing vision loss symptoms for a few years longer than that. This guide is based on both my experiences and my research. My experiences are not universal however because every blind person has a unique experience with their blindness

What Is Orientation & Mobility

Orientation and Mobility (O&M) is the specific skill of understanding and navigating the world safely and confidently with vision loss.

I’m going to quote Vision Aware’s specific definition [link]

"Orientation" refers to the ability to know where you are and where you want to go, whether you're moving from one room to another or walking downtown for a shopping trip.

"Mobility" refers to the ability to move safely, efficiently, and effectively from one place to another, such as being able to walk without tripping or falling on steps or elevation changes, crossing streets, and using public transportation

O&M can involve :

-learning how to use a cane, as well as what cane works best for you

-safely navigating obstacles with your cane, including stairs, ramps, elevators, uneven or curved sidewalks, through crowds, around furniture

-learning safe strategies for crossing the street

-planning routes to new or recurring locations

-using technology enroute, including GPS and apps like Uber and Lyft

-safely accessing public transportation

-how to ask for help when needed

-working with human sighted guides

A Note on the Blind Community and Their Relationship with Canes

The Perkins School for the Blind estimates that only 2-8% of the blind community rely on canes for navigation. The rest rely on remaining vision, guide dogs, and sighted guides. Only about 2% of the blind community relies on guide dogs however, and to get a guide dog in the first place, a person must go through O&M classes and use a cane for six months before they can sign up for a guide dog.

What this means is that 90% of the blind community don’t use a cane.

I didn’t know this fact until I begun research for this guide, and that number astounds me.

Truth be told, while I have navigated my life without a cane before, I can’t imagine going back to the way it was before I got it. Even if I only need my cane some of the time, I can’t bear to not use it in the situations I need it. Having a cane made my life a lot easier, a lot safer.

I don’t know what to attribute this number to.

I might attribute it to the concepts of invisible vs. visible disability, internalized ableism, or the feeling of ‘not being blind enough’ for a cane, as well as accessibility to the blind community and knowledge, and access to buying a cane in the first place. I could write a thing about it, but if I try it’s gonna be its own post.

Onward~

How Do You Learn O&M? How Will My Character Learn?

You will have to find an Orientation and Mobility instructor and have them personally teach you O&M skills.

The O&M Instructor is a sighted adult who has gone to school for a bachelor’s degree and gone through O&M training themselves while blindfolded, usually fulfilling a certain requirement of hours (one program required 400 hours of O&M practice blindfolded before you could become certified), and apply for certification to teach O&M.

(Or, as is the process to become an instructor in the United States, where I am from. Becoming an instructor would vary in other countries, I’m sure)

To find an O&M instructor, you would reach out to your local school or foundation for the blind. Finding your nearest school for the blind could be done through…

Google search

Your Ophthalmologist (eye doctor) referring you to a school for the blind

A Social Service Worker reaching out to you and helping you contact the school

Possibly your school (as in grade/primary school, high school, university) reaching out to the nearest school for the blind on your behalf.

Unfortunately, there is not an abundance of schools and foundations, so your nearest might still be a far travel distance. My local school is a 45 minute drive away. For some it might a few hours away.

This is, again, a U.S. experience, because our land mass is spaced out, and something like a six hour drive feels like nothing to most people (although is highly impractical and very difficult to a blind person who cannot drive themselves), but in other countries a six hour drive would mean crossing several borders, and other countries have different social programs.

There is not a full and complete database of every available school for the blind either, no one website to find every possible option. For example, the school I went to wasn’t listed in most of the website resources I found, even though it has seven branches and locations.

This is more a complaint at the real life struggle to find disabled services, that there are few comprehensive resources out there. If you ask me, it should be made significantly easier to find and access your local blind communities. Accessibility and disabled services should be easily available everywhere.

If your story is based in a real world location, googling ‘school for the blind (city/county/country)’ should suffice in finding the one most local to your setting.

What might a school for the blind provide for your character?

Well, on top of helping your character connect to an O&M instructor, a school for the blind might provide other rehabilitation classes and access to additional resources.

Those rehabilitation classes could include lessons on:

-Reading/Writing Braille & using brailling machines

-Technology classes for screen readers, magnifiers, etc on your computer and smart phone.

My local school has separate classes specific to Andriod, iOS, JAWS, Zoomtext Fusion

-Independent Living skills (cooking, cleaning, organizing, planning how to get groceries and medications)

-Self Improvement (dancing, art, music, self defense. These were classes my school taught)

The additional resources form these schools might include-

Referrals to counselors for coping with vision loss

Access to their audio-book and braille library

Access to magnifier devices, brailler machines (think of a typewriter for writing braille)

Some schools also offer grade-school or high-school education, meaning blind children/teens learn there instead of a mainstream school.

Some schools have lodgings for clients to stay at while going through rehabilitation, especially if the vision loss is sudden and severe. They live on-campus and take part in classes. Other schools only have day classes offered and you need to find transportation for every visit. Many schools might have a rehabilitation specialist or O&M instructor visit you in your home.

My local school did the last two. They had on site classes, but the school is a 45 minute drive from me, so I only visited a few times. They were able to send an O&M instructor to me.

On Wednesdays at 3 pm she would drive to my house and give me lessons on using my cane. Those included her driving me to different locations to practice certain skills (like using stairs and escalators at the mall, or crossing a moderately busy intersection, or visiting a bus station to practice boarding a bus safely and communication with a bus driver where my stop was).

She also brought multiple different types of canes for new students to try out and determine which felt best for them.

The Many Types of Canes

Long Canes are used to sweep the immediate area in front of the cane user as they’re walking. This is the cane type that the general public is most familiar with seeing. There are several sub-types of long canes. They can also be called white canes or probing canes.

[Image Description: Man in business clothes traveling on the side walk with a white and red cane. End Image Description]

White cane can be a misnomer for two reasons: One, the concept of the standard cane for the blind can look different in different countries. In America, the standard is white with a red tip. In some countries the standard is an all-white cane. In some countries an all white cane might mean the user is blind while a white cane with a red tip means the user is deaf-blind.

Two, some companies like Ambutech allow customers to customize their cane colors and tips. Example: Molly Burke’s hot pink cane. My white cane with a purple tip. An all black or all sky blue or all red or all purple cane. A black cane with a blue or purple tip. Ambutech also allows customers to request neon-colored reflective tape to make their canes more visible at night.

Probing cane is not a term I’ve personally heard before, but it is a term Vision Aware uses on their website.

There are three main types of long canes:

Non-folding Canes: a cane that has no sections, cannot be folded or collapsed.

[Image Description: stock photo of man in business suit with a non-folding all white cane. End Image Description]

Folding Canes: The cane has 3-6 sections depending on its height. The taller the cane, the more sections it has. The sections are separate pieces that are made to snap together and are held together by a strong elastic rope inside the sections.

[Image Description: a folding cane with four sections, white with a red tip, and a rolling marshmallow tip. End Image Description]

Telescopic Canes: in which the sections slide into each other, similar to a telescope/spyglass, rather than pulling apart and folding. The handle is the widest section, and the tip section is the thinnest.

[Image Description: Three stacked images of a blue telescopic cane. First is of the cane completely collapsed. Second is of the sections partially sliding out. Third is the cane sections completely out and locked.]

Beyond that is also the Identification Cane. The function of this cane is to visibly identify the user as blind. It’s not used for O&M the way long canes are, there is no sweeping out the next two steps. It can be used as a support cane, however.

It’s appeals most to the elderly who not only make up a huge percentage of the blind community, but might also benefit most from having both a support cane and an identifier for their blindness, in case they need assistance.

[Image Description: identification cane with curved handle. All white with red tip. End Image Description]

A note: From what I’ve heard in the blind community, some people prefer solid/non-folding canes over folding or telescopic canes. The reason for this is that solid canes transfer vibration better than folding or telescopic canes. It’s said that the more sections a cane has, the less precise the vibrations are.

Some cane users train themselves to understand the vibrations of the surfaces their canes are touching. It tells them what kind of surface they’re on (wood vs. marble vs. concrete), if there are nearby objects to their cane. While I rely somewhat on cane vibrations to tell me what surface I’m walking on (more on that later), it is beyond my current O&M abilities to use cane vibrations to sense nearby walls or objects.

Cane vibrations are just an additional information-sense to add to the others in use, and extra bit of data input.

Parts of the Cane: Materials, Handle, Tips, Sections, Elastic Band

Material

The three most common types of materials used to make canes are aluminum, carbon-fiber, and fiberglass. Each material has some drawbacks and benefits.

The ideal cane is lightweight and durable. It should be strong enough to withstand hitting something solid without bending or splintering.

Aluminum is strong and durable, but heavy. If it’s damage, it’s more likely to bend than break entirely. A bend can be straightened out, but it takes considerable strength.

Carbon-fiber is lightweight and durable. It’s stronger than fiberglass, and it can bend out of shape rather than splintering.

Fiberglass is lightweight but a bit rigid. If it breaks, it splinters.

Handles and Elastic Bands

While some canes can have specialized grips (plastic, wood, corkboard) the most common handle material is a black rubber handle that is about ten inches long, give or take. In the previous photos you’ve seen, the canes have had black rubber handles.

Here is an example of a cane with a wood-mesh material used as the handle.

[Image Description: a four section white cane with a red tip and a orange wood mesh handle, with black elastic band attached. End Image Description]

The benefits of black rubber handles over others are that it’s easier to hold onto, especially if your palms are wet or sweaty, than a plastic or polished wood handle. It also wouldn’t show the indents or scratches from wear and tear daily use. I’m guessing that is cheaper to make on the manufacturing standpoint, and thus is conveniently the standard.

Pay attention to the black elastic band attached to the handle in the above photo. Notice how it has a tied off loop? That is so that when the cane is folded, that loop can be stretched over the folded sections to hold it together.

[Image Description: a four section folding cane folded up with the black band around them. End Image Description]

Additional benefits or functions of the elastic could be to use it as a wrist strap while using the cane, or hanging it up on a hook while not in use. I tend to have my cane folded up and tuck my wrist under the strap to hold it more securely while carrying it. Images of that ahead in my cane-isms section.

Cane Height

Ideal cane heights depend on the user. For most users, you want your cane height to be to your shoulder, give or take a few inches. You might need a longer cane if you are a fast walker with long strides, or a shorter cane if you prefer to hold your cane at a lower angle than is traditional.

What I mean when I talk about holding your cane at a certain angle is that the standard is to hold your cane handle in your dominant hand and position it in front of your belly button, moving it side to side with each step. Traditional grip methods are holding your hand palm side up with your cane in hand, or to hold the cane at the section joint closest to the handle with what is called the pencil grip, holding the cane like a fat pencil.

Depending on the height, a cane can have anywhere between three and six sections. Longer canes have more sections. The top section includes the handle, and the last section includes the stripe color (traditionally red, unless customized) and the tip.

The sections of the cane are generally slightly reflective, regardless of color. If you hold a cane up to the light you’ll see tiny specks of light reflected back, almost like very fine, tiny particle glitter paint. This detail is important in cane production because it makes the cane more visible at night, especially if something like car headlights reflect off it while someone is crossing.

Additional visibility at night can be added by wrapping stripes of reflective tape along the shaft.

Cane Tips

There are several different tip options for canes.

[Image Description: four different types of cane tips on a blue background with labels. From left to right: marshmallow tip, ball tip, pencil tip, glide tip.]

[Image Description: a rolling marshmallow tip with a blue background. End Image Description]

[Image Description: Bandu basher tip with a white background. For anyone not familiar with the name, the long, curved cane tip that looks like a hockey stick. End Image Description]

Some of these tips are better for the tap-tap method of cane travel, as in tapping the spots where you plan to step. They can also be used to feel out the shapes of objects, stairs, etc.

marshmallow tip, pencil tip,

They should not be scraped over surfaces, the tips will wear down much faster than they should. There are better tips for rolling over surface

Some tips are better for the rolling method of cane travel, which is the method I use. They aren’t great for tapping, but it can be done in a pinch.

rolling marshmallow tip, ball tip, glide tip

The Bandu Basher tip, the hockey stick shaped tip, is best for hovering an inch off the ground and lightly tapping objects. It could be tapped. It should not be scraped over the ground like a rolling tip. It hovers.

After enough use, the tips will wear down and need to be replaced. The part of the tip that has the most contact with the ground, usually the edge of the shape, gets scrapes, sands down, and eventually begins to look like it was shaved off while still having bits of plastic still gripped to it.

Never fear, cane tips can be removed and replaced when they wear out, replacing the whole cane is not necessary.

Some tips slip on or twist on. Others hook on. By hook on I mean that the elastic that keeps the cane sections together also has a loop at the tip end that a hook onto and stay held into place. Look back at the photo of the rolling marshmallow tip and you will see the hook that attaches to the black elastic.

Cane tips sell for about 5 - 10 U.S. dollars, plus shipping, so it’s advised to buy several back up tips with your cane. I replace my rolling marshmallow tips once every six to twelve months. I don’t know if that’s considered too much or too often. The last time I needed to replace mine was June 2019 (It’s July 2020 at the date of writing this, but I’ve hardly left my home for the last six months because of COVID-virus related quarantine/social distancing.)

Sensory Details/Describing What Using a Cane Feels Like

Every surface type feels and sounds different when tapping or rolling a cane over it. It’s this difference that tells us a lot about our environment.

It tells us when we stepped off the side walk onto the grass, when we’ve walked inside because the concrete changes to wood or carpet flooring. These little details become trail markers too, useful for places we anticipate traveling to a lot.

Example: A week before every semester in college, I would travel to each of the classrooms and learn necessary routes. I learned that certain paths had giant cracks in the sidewalk that would be distinct enough to use as a trail marker to where I was on a path, or that certain paths went from cement to gravel, or cement to brick.

Carpet: The sound is very soft, and if you’re rolling your cane across carpet it sounds like a quiet swish-swish-swish. Tapping sounds depend on how thick the carpet padding underneath is, the thicker the carpet the softer the sound. If there’s a lot of padding then taps don’t make much sound, but if the padding is thin or underneath the carpet is tile or concrete then you hear a louder thudding tap. It’s still pretty quiet. If you’re rolling the cane you would feel a little bit of drag, the cane moves slower over the carpet. The thicker or shaggier the carpet is, the more drag it has.

Wood floor: Cane tips make rumbling sounds when rolling over wood floors. The smoother the wood, the less it rumbles. There’s a little vibration moving from the cane tip, through the cane and into your hand as you roll over wood planks. Very small. The more sensitive you are to vibrations, the more you feel it. Tapping makes hallow, thudding sounds on the wood. Sometimes they sound a little snappish if you’re tapping harshly. You feel stronger vibrations when tapping. Older wood feels softer, with more give. New wood is stronger, more vibrations in the cane.

Tile:It depends on the size of the tiles and the wideness of the grout lines, but it’s not a pleasant feeling. Tiles have grout lines, which are little divets between the tiles. The smaller the tiles or rougher the grout lines are, the more the cane vibrates in your hands. Every bump is felt running from the cane to your hand. The sound is a little grating too. Imagine fifty sets of stiletto shoes walking on tile, that’s what it sounds like when you roll your cane over rough, small tiles. Larger tiles with smoother grout lines aren’t so bad. Tapping the tile with your cane sounds like one really loud step of a stiletto heal, one step for each tap. Tile floors are usually found in bathrooms, kitchens, and industrial locations where the room is going to have harder walls (more tile, concrete, etc) and few furniture, so the room echoes more.

Linoleum: is a smooth even surface. It feels like your cane is gliding when you roll it, barely feeling any vibrations. The rolling sounds are very soft because of the lack of bumps, however tapping sounds are a bit louder. Not as snappish as tile or marble, but almost.

Marble: is similar to linoleum in its smoothness. Your cane glides when rolling. Tapping sounds are sharp. Because marble floors are common in high end malls, luxury homes, and fancy office building entries, places that usually have high ceilings and hard walls with minimal decorations and minimalist furnishing, those sharp tapping sounds may echo. Assuming there isn’t too much noise and the environment is relatively quiet.

Concrete: (I’m referring to concrete found in parking garages and industrial buildings, not sidewalk) It depends on the age of the concrete and how it’s maintained. Old concrete with lots of cracks and mini-craters feels very different from smooth concrete that was set less than a year ago. With old concrete there’s a rattling sound as your cane tip rolls over the bumps and those vibrations travel up your cane. New concrete can feel similar to marble or linoleum. The taps are loud thuds on dull concrete and sharper on new concrete.

Sidewalks: are made of concrete, but in my experience they feel a little different than the above example. Sidewalks have a grittier surface, they’re slightly rougher, more dry. There’s a bit more rolling cane vibration with sidewalks and the taps have more of a thud sound. And because they’re outside, you’re unlikely to hear any echoes unless you’re walking in an alley or between buildings.

Asphalt: is one of the worst surfaces in my personal opinion. Asphalt is the material used in roads and it’s made to be rough and gritty so that car tires can grip onto it and not lose traction while driving. The older and more damaged it is, the rougher it is. Because it’s rough the vibrations are much stronger, sometimes irritatingly so. I can’t roll my cane over asphalt because the bones in my hand can’t handle those kinds of vibrations, so I almost always use the tapping method instead. The sounds are gritty and dull. Unfortunately, asphalt is an unavoidable surface, unless you can find a way to never need to cross a street or walk through a parking lot.

Note: the white or yellow lines that have been painted into asphalt sometimes feel smoother because of the material they’re made of and because they’re added after the asphalt has been laid down.

Note: There’s something called tarmac which is similar to asphalt, used for a similar purpose, and more common in the U.K. (I believe) but I can’t say that I’ve ever knowingly walked on it so I have no personal experience to give you.

Gravel: Another one of those evil surfaces. Gravel is just loose rocks and they’re common in rural roads, driveways, some landscaping. The looseness of them is what makes them untrustworthy. It makes a crunching sound. If you roll your cane, you’re likely to end up tossing small bits of rock and dust here and there. If you tap, you’ll hear the crunch but your brain might not translate that into “it’s gravel” until you’re walking on it and only realize when you walk over it and the sharp rocks begin digging into your shoes.

Wood Chips: I don’t have any experience with this since vision loss and getting a cane, so I’m using my memories of being on the playground in grade school because the surface on the playground was wood chips. I’d say wood ships are a love child between gravel and wood floors. The surface is loose and rolling your cane over it would kick up loose chips and dust. It would probably sound similar to walking on sand I think, because wood chips are much softer than gravel but not as consistent as wood. If it’s rained recently, then the waterlogged wood chips sound even softer.

Hard Dirt: I’m thinking dirt roads here, which are a lesser evil to asphalt and gravel. They can be rough like all roads, but the material isn’t has hard and solid. Rolling your cane will kick up dust on a dry day, but if it rained a few days ago you might hear a soft crunch as you roll over wet dirt. Tapping will have a very soft thud.

Soft Dirt: Think gardening dirt. Because it’s so soft, it makes very little sound and is easily kicked up. There’s a bit of drag, about the same or slightly more drag than grass or sand. Tapping has almost no sound but you might feel a slight give as your tip lands in the dirt, a slight resistance as it sinks in.

Mud: Yuck. I’m imagining this getting in my cane tip and how gross it would be after. Sound and feeling depend on how wet the mud is. Wet mud sounds slurpy. There’s more squish if you roll or tap your cane. Your character might not identify it right away until their shoes begin slipping as they walk over the mud. This is a personal experience. Drier mud sounds soft and feels almost solid underneath your cane. Wetter mud has more drag for a rolling cane. Muddy areas are also generally uneven because top soil has been displaced, so muddy hills and fields have unexpected but usually subtle changes in elevation.

Puddles: have both a slurpy and splash-splash sound. The slurpy sound is more common with rolling cane techniques. The splash sound is more common with tapping. The deeper the puddle, the louder is sounds and the more drag you experience. I am not fond of this texture/experience.

Snow: I have zero experience with snow since the development of blindness. So no experience of what it’s like to walk through with a cane. This is something I hope a blind reader can inform me on so I can edit this at a later date. My best guess is that it has a soft crunch, softer than the crunch of shoes in snow. A lot of drag too. Rolling through snow would probably be near impossible, especially if it’s deep snow or hard packed. Again, my best guess. The last time I experienced snow was when I was twelve.

Grass: One of my least favorites personally. Too much drag. Worse than shag carpeting. It’s very soft and doesn’t make much sound either. Like a crisp crunch you can barely hear. If the grass is wet or frosty you hear it a bit more crunch.

Surface with fallen Autumn leaves: Leaves everywhere! This is a bit dependant on whatever surface the leaves are on. It would soften the sound of cement, but there would be a louder crunch on grass. If the leaves are big and very curvy/pocketed then they’re easy to push aside. Smaller, flatter leaves don’t push as easily. The driest ones will crunch under your cane. It’s fun sometimes, if you’re the kind of person who likes stepping on leaves on purpose, but if you can’t see the leaves it might lose some of its fun and be more unexpected.

Sand: I’ve never personally taken my cane to the beach, despite living so close to the coast. The reason is because beach sand is so squishy and loose that it’s already impossible to stay steady on your feet. The sand is always sinking under your feet, unless you’re next to the water line and the dampness has made it firmer. So a cane isn’t very useful to me at the beach. Not to mention that sand isn’t something you want inside your cane joints if you want the cane to last. Sand will erode and damage the joints, regardless of if they’re metal or plastic. If I were to take my cane to the beach, it would make the softest crunching-swishy noise of sand sliding over sand, similar to what your footsteps sound like on sand, but possibly even quieter because canes are lighter.

Side Note: My mother sarcastically asked about rolling your cane through dog poop or gum left on the floor. Can’t say I’ve ever rolled through it, so couldn’t tell you. Use your imagination I guess, Mum

The Invention of Tactile Paving

These are amazing! Tactile Paving are those yellow (or sometimes grey) bumpy squares you see on ramps leading into parking lots or when crossing the street. In 1965, Japanese engineer Seiichi Miyake used his own money to develop a tactile brick that you could feel even when walking over it with shoes, and he designed this because a friend of his was losing their vision and he wanted to help. These are amazing, and accessible to everyone, even the blind who don’t have a cane or guide dog. These are literal life savers. Before I got my cane, if I felt those bumps under my shoes I knew to immediately stop because I was about to walk into the road. Because less than 10% of the blind community uses canes or guide dogs, this is the most accessible form of blind aide available.

[Image Description: a yellow rectangle of tactile paving in front of a ramp leading into a parking lot. End Image Description]

Note: similar detail, most doors in commercial buildings (in my localized experience) have a metal plate on the threshold to hold the door in place so there are no cracks underneath. The metal scraping sound when you roll or tap your cane on it is distinct but temporary and non-repeating, so it’s a good indication that you’ve reached and passed the threshold.

Blind-isms

I have a section in this guide about blind-isms, but these ones are focused specifically on cane use.

-Do. Not. Touch. My. Cane. Don’t. Just fucking don’t.

-The above ism comes from the fact that our cane is our safety net, an extension of our body, our eyes, the one thing that makes sure we’ll get somewhere safely. For that reason, blind people hate having their canes (or their on duty guide dogs) touched by strangers, acquaintances, friends we’re not very close to, some family members.

Important Note: That is a universal thing for disabled people. Don’t. Touch. Their. Mobility Aides. It’s assault. Touching someone’s wheelchair or pushing them around without their expressed permission is assault. Moving their wheelchair while the user is currently standing is assault. (Most wheelchair users are not paralyzed, but they still need the wheelchair because of their medical condition, which is not your business to know). It doesn’t matter if the wheelchair is in the way, the disabled person needs it right there, do not touch it. Touching or grabbing someone’s support cane or their long cane is assault. Touching or moving someone’s walker is assault. Touching, poking at, or tampering with someone’s hearing aids is assault. Touching their oxygen tank or cannula is assault.

Back on topic-

-Idle motions with your cane while waiting in line. I often rest my chin on my cane or lean on it

-twirl my cane like a staff when I’m alone and no one can see. I would not ever do this in front of anyone because I don’t want anyone thinking it’s a toy or they can just touch or grab it. I’m just a little childish and bored sometimes and idle motions are a common thing for people with ADHD.

-When carrying my folded cane inside (like say a store) I hang it from my wrist by the strap.

-Keeping my cane within arms reach at all times, even in situations where I don’t need it currently. Example: if we’re doing a classroom assignment where I need to leave my desk, I know the classroom well enough to not use my cane, but I won’t leave it at my desk, ever. (This does not apply at home. And in the homes of a very few, very trusted friends I will leave it somewhere I deem safe.)

-Having a set, specific place in my home (living with my immediate family, who almost never have guests) for my cane. In my case, it’s the top of an antique dresser in the living room, across from the door. It has a little bowl for my sunglasses as well. If I move out and have roommates, my cane will be in my room.

-Love me a bag or backpack that has enough space to discretely store your cane, but most of my bags cannot do that.

-People with folding canes develop a muscle memory for folding and unfolding their cane, so they can do it without really thinking about it.

-Unfolding my cane: I hold the black handle between my thumb and palm with my other fingers folded over the remaining three sections, cane tip pointing up. I slide the elastic over the tip, loosen my four fingers and roll my wrist to the side. The red colored section unfolds first and snaps into place with its neighboring section. I roll my wrist in the opposite direction so the next white section can unfold and snap into place with it’s neighboring section. Roll it back in the first direction and the third section snaps into place with the handle. My four section cane is now unfolded and straight.

-Sometimes I just grab the black handle and let the sections fall and unfold as they will, but this is less controlled and risks your cane bumping into something or someone.

-Folding my cane: I start with the black handle, lifting it up so the joints unlock. I fold it down, grab both sections in my hand and lift the second section away from the third and fold it over. Wrap my hand over all three sections and unlock it from the red section.

-Because I have a four section folding cane, the cane tip and the handle are on the same side while the metal joints are on the opposite side. Those metal joints are what my elastic slips over.

-A three or five folding cane will have the head of the handle (and its elastic) on the opposite side of the cane tip, and you will be folding the elastic over the cane joints and tip.

-A six section cane has the tip and handle facing the same direction like the four section cane.

-People with non-folding canes like leaning their canes up against walls and other objects when not in use. Corners are popular, the corner of a desk up against a wall too.

-But oh god the frustration when the cane randomly rolls out of place and hits the floor, it’s a combination of “Not again” and “did that really just happen” and “you had one job. one job.”

-Sitting with our cane tucked between our legs. Picture a bit of man spreading, the cane tip leaned against the side of our foot to keep it stable and the cane leaning against our shoulder or opposite knee, possibly also held securely with our fingers too.

-The no-manspreading alternative of that is with the cane leaning against our shoulder, cane tip resting on the toe of our shoe or the outside of it, held securely with our fingers or our arm wrapped around it, elbow hooking it.

(Okay, a while back I was looking for photos of someone using a cane to use as a reference for drawing Ulric. I only found three, and two of them were Daredevil promo photos. Which, no offense to Charlie Cox, but he is not blind and he does not use a cane in his daily life, he does not have that relationship a blind person has with a cane and the concept of a fifth limb, and it shows. So the photos were stiff and unusable, so I had to like use several photo references of different poses and Frankenstein them together to get what I wanted.

And I still haven’t finished the painting... fuck)

-In a car with a non-folding cane:

-Right passenger seat- The cane tip goes all the way into the corner of the foot well to the right of my feet, with the handle resting over my right shoulder or on the seatbelt. It pokes a bit past my headrest. The longer the cane, the harder it is to tuck into a car.

-The U.K. / Austrailian / New Zealand / Japan version of this (because they drive on the left side of the road with their drivers seats on the right side of the car) it’s like this: Cane tip in the foot well to the left of my feet, handle on my left shoulder or on the seatbelt.

Backseat: the absolute worst. There’s less foot well room, and if you’re in a sedan there is almost no room behind your shoulder for the handle. I position my cane diagonally with the handle on the shoulder closest to the door and the tip next to the foot closest to the middle.

-For this reason, no one with a non-folding cane will want to be sitting in the backseat.

About Guide Dogs

While my knowledge of guide dogs is limited only to what I can research and not personal, I will give you some basic facts and practical knowledge from said research.

Guiding Eyes for the Blind estimates that there are 10,000 guide dog teams out there in the world. That makes up 2% of the blind and visually impaired community.

Guide Dog Training

Becoming a guide dog is the most difficult form of dog training there is. The majority of dogs who enter guide dog training wash out and either become family dogs or go into a different type of service dog training, like medical response or PTSD/anxiety response, or possibly become therapy dogs, which is a career altogether different from being a service dog.

Guide dogs go through two or three years of training, which includes puppy training, basic socialization, proper behavior when on duty and actual guide training. Most service dogs only go through a year to a year and a half of training before they are partnered with a disabled handler.

Between the cost of training, the cost of housing and feeding the dog and the cost of vet bills from birth until being partnered with a blind handler, the overall cost of a guide dog is something like 30k to 40k. While most service dog training organizations require handlers to fundraise and pay for the cost of training (usually something like 15-30k), guide dog organizations give their dogs to qualified blind clients for free. These organizations pay for the dog costs through their own fundraising and charities. Fortunately for these organizations, guide dogs are a highly respected field and have a lot more charity directed their way, while other service dog types have less public interest when it comes to charity.

Guide Dog organizations have an application process, requirements, and a wait-list before you can be partnered with a guide dog.

Requirements to get a guide dog are (usually) as follows:

Must be legally blind (as in not visually impaired, but legally blind) and have had at least six months of O&M with a cane and demonstrate enough O&M stills to navigate by oneself. They also require you to be responsible enough to independently care for a dog, able to keep up with training and retraining of the dog, as well as financially able to handle food and vet bills (which are at least a few thousand dollars every year).

The reason for cane training before getting a guide dog is because the dog cannot do everything for you. You, the dog handler, are responsible for knowing where you are and how to get where you need to be.

The dog can’t read stop signs or tell when a light is green or red, nor do they have GPS to find a brand new location nor can they learn that route on the first try, nor will they know exactly where you want to go when you say “Starbucks” or “library” or “school” or “mom’s house” and guide you all by themselves. That falls on you, the dog handler, having enough orientation and mobility skills to know when a street is safe to cross and knowing how to learn new routes and how to keep on route and make sure you make the correct turns. A guide dog can’t communicate with bus drivers for you either, they don’t know which number bus to use or what stop to choose. That falls on the blind person’s own skill.

Other Guide Dog Resources

Molly Burke is a guide dog user and has made several videos about what kind of work guide dogs do, her personal experience being a guide dog user for over ten years, how she got a guide dog, specific commands, unique experiences with things like travel, etc. She has a playlist all about guide dogs, but here are some of my favorite videos.

How Guide Dogs Guide A Blind Person

Guide Dog User Answers the Most Googled Questions about Guide Dogs

How I Met My First Guide Dog

Final Thoughts:

There is a lot more to be said about Orientation and Mobility, such as:

How do you safely cross the street with a cane?

How do you learn new routes?

How does getting a cane significantly change your life?

How do family, friends, and strangers react to you “suddenly” having a cane?

I could also write a ton on other tools the blind community relies on so strongly, such as screen readers, magnifiers, etc. In fact, I originally promised to include those in my master post when Part Four was titled Part Four: What Your Blind Character Needs to Survive and Not Die. However, this guide is ages long and it feels better to focus on this specific topic for here.

Did you like this guide?

Consider checking out my other guides, links of which can be found on the master post here.

Follow my blog, I write and curate writing advice guides outside of blindness, I reblog writing memes with image descriptions, reblog soothing aesthetic photos with image descriptions, talk about disability, lgbtqa+ issues, ableism, and mental health.

If you want to further support me, this is the link to my ko-fi (however there is no such requirement nor pressure to do so, and please don’t worry about it, especially if you are in a financial situation that can’t afford it)

#writing advice #writeblr #writing community #writing tips #blind character #character crafting

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icariamusing · 4 years ago

Photo

CHARACTER BASICS

FACECLAIM: Vanessa Morgan

NAME: Remi Rose Bellamy

AGE: 24

BIRTHDAY: July 12, 1996

OCCUPATION: Dance & Theater Teacher HS

HOMETOWN: Detroit, MI

PETS: N/A

POWERS

Remi has the power of dark fire attacks. She can release/use dark fire of various shapes and intensities to attack at will.

BIOGRAPHY

Growing up on the streets of Detroit, Michigan wasn’t exactly easy street for Remi Bellamy, but she either had to adapt or die. That sounds dramatic, but honestly, she wasn’t even remotely joking. When she was a baby, her lack of comprehension shielded her from things for a little while. She didn’t know that he father selling small dime bags out of their apartment wasn’t normal, or that her not always having a proper dinner wasn’t alright. All she knew was that it was home, and her mentality stayed that way until she was about seven.

Her father, Jacob Bellamy wasn’t a bad man. He was just a scorned one. Remi’s mother wasn’t a topic that was ever discussed inside of the home. When the little girl had asked about her once when she was little, all she’d gotten in response was that her mother was dead, and that was the end of it. Grief took her over momentarily for the woman she didn’t even know, but her focus shifted to trying to help her dad. The news explained her father’s circumstances and situation a little better to the girl. Perhaps losing her mom was why her dad’s life spiraled so much. She’d heard her grandad and grandma talk about how much potential he had, and how it was all wasted when that woman left him. She thought the words left him were a little harsh since surely her mom didn’t choose to die, but it made more sense.

As years passed, it was more and more clear that Remi had to help fend for herself. Her dad lost himself as he started sampling more and more of his product rather than selling it, and she was hungry. So, by age thirteen Remi was out there working the streets. It wasn’t hard to find other kids like her who had no guidance or direction, and all of them were led by Jarvis. Jarvis was an adult who counted on using the misguided youth of the hood to do his dirty work for him. Whenever he needed to make a drop, pick up some stolen parts, or make some sales, he used his kids. He kept them hooked by giving them just enough money to keep them happy and getting them hooked on the merchandise themselves. It was full proof. His “kids” as he liked to call them kept coming back for another hit of coke, and he’d proudly say that he was the only one who ever looked out for them.

Jacob Bellamy didn’t care about the calls from schools wondering about his kid’s absences or behavior as long as his daughter kept bringing him cocaine and cash, he thought that she was doing alright. Child services never had a reason to be called because to the naked eye Remi was well cared for. She always had the most trendy, even if inappropriate, clothing at school, was always clean, and had no signs of any abuse. While they didn’t agree with her father’s parenting at all, that was nothing but a personal opinion.

While it wasn’t necessarily something to be proud of, Remi was rather talented at surviving on the streets. Her bubbly personality and smile could get her nearly anything which came quite in handy when she needed to con someone. There were risks, but the girl was never stupid. A knife and taser were on her at all times. While Jarvis had offered her a small gun on more than one occasion, that was a length she wasn’t ready to go to yet. In her mind that made her cross the line from small time thug, to actual gang banger, and that seemed more permanent.

One night though, she wished she’d taken him up on it when she found herself on the bad end of a deal. Her partner was late meeting her at a drop site, and three thugs tried to jump her for her merchandise. Knowing that Jarvis would murder her if she let them get away with over five grand of cocaine, Remi panicked. Next thing she knew, a ring of black flames was surrounding herself and the other guys. They were looking at her with fearful faces and asking what she was playing at, but unconsciously all the girl did was make the circle get smaller and smaller until they finally dropped the bag. Remi didn’t know how she controlled the circle of black and was honestly more than a little freaked out, but she was thankful for whatever it was. Although, she knew better than to bring it up to anyone. Last thing she wanted was to end up in a straight jacket.

It wasn’t until Remi was fifteen that her life got completely turned upside down. One day she was on her usual street corner making out with her boyfriend after successful deal, and the next a woman was yanking her by the arm. At first, everyone around her went on high alert which didn’t seem to phase the stranger in the least bit. Remi immediately thought the woman was obviously crazy or had a death wish, but Remi began leaning towards the former when she heard the woman claim to be her mother. Naturally, Remi’s first reaction was to laugh in the stranger’s face. “My mother’s stone cold in the ground, honey. You must have the wrong one,” she replied as she made a shoo motion with her hand to try and get the woman moving along. Still, the woman asked for Remi to hear her case, and afterwards, she could leave if she so wished. Deciding she had nothing to lose if she listened to the tales of a lunatic, she assured her crew that she’d be fine and would catch them later.

Nothing, of course, could have prepared her for the tale spewed to her by Nyx. It was literally insane, and it wasn’t until the Goddess displayed some of her powers in the dark alley that Remi believed her. Slowly, the connection to what had happened in the alley all those years ago made sense, but instead of relief filling her veins, she instead felt anger. Hearing that she had siblings and a place to go didn’t sound like a salvation to her. Instead, it felt like a slap to the face. Remi was so happy that she finally remembered about her daughter enough once her sons were settled. On top of that, leaving her father wasn’t an option. Even though he wasn’t much, he was still her dad.

Remi’s situation changed drastically within days of that conversation though. One night she’d come home late after hitting up a club and found her father dead on the living room floor beside their coffee table with lines of coke set up. Everything from there was a blur. The last thing she remembered was taking a hit herself before calling the authorities. Somehow, her mother knew to show up, and right then painted out how little options her daughter truly had. She could either be put in the system and potentially end up in a situation she hated, or go with Nyx and be put with family. Remi nearly countered that she could also go with Jarvis, but she knew that wouldn’t be the safest either. The man was starting to point out how much of a woman she looked like and becoming to handsy for her liking. Out of desperation more than anything, Remi agreed.

The next months were hell. The Bennett’s were a nice family that graciously helped her, but going through withdrawals was awful. Her siblings checked in on her as she puked her brains out, went through cold sweats, and was in terrible pain, but her mind couldn’t really recognize the warmth of it all. All she could think about was how she’d give her right arm for another taste of coke.

Eventually she got placed with her own family not far from the Bennett’s residence, but she was able to come into her own while also getting to know her siblings. It took her some time, but as months passed she couldn’t help but feel thankful to her mother. After seeing her father die from the same addiction she’d possessed, she knew that it was only a matter of time until she fell to the same fate. Remi still thought it was almost a little too late, but she figured it was better than the Goddess never showing up at all. Her foster family were Nyx worshippers as well, so they encouraged her to work on her own abilities with her brothers, so she could master them along with self defense. Outside of that though, they wanted her to be able to finally have a normal childhood, so they encouraged her to pursue a passion in dance. Even though her previous knowledge had only been whatever she’d picked up from the clubs she used to frequently visit, her body had a natural skill. Between everything, she quickly found herself too busy to even focus on old habits that would get her in trouble.

Even though she knew of Icaria, the dancer decided to head to North Carolina to pursue a degree in dance at Duke University. While her family was worried about her being so far away, she assured her brothers that they could harass her whenever they wanted. Her college years were some of the best years of her life. She’d experienced love, heartbreak, friendships, and a free spirited life style that could only really happen in college. She’d decided to major in dance and minor in education, and after taking three years to teach dance at a high school back in New York, the woman was ready to make the move to Icaria.

Remi is free spirited, kind, but mysterious. After getting her heart broken by a woman she thought was her best friend, she doesn’t like dating people she puts in the “friend zone.” She thinks it’s twice as painful to lose the lover and friendship. Part of her mystery is her never speaking about her past in Detroit. No one outside of her family is aware of her darker past, and she likes to keep it that way. Keeping conversations on the lighter, brighter sides of things is her forte. When she’s not dancing, Remi can often be found watching anime, reading a book, or exploring food. She is a self proclaimed foodie and absolutely loves discovering new favorite spots with people. Family is incredibly important to Remi. While her father was a deadbeat she didn’t even bother wasting thoughts on, she did care greatly for her foster ma’s family. The woman had worked hard to give Remi absolutely everything, and while Adrianne asked for nothing in return, the woman was determined to always care for her. Remi is the dance at theater teacher at Icaria High School.

LEX | SHE/HER | 30 | LEX

#nyx

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morethanithoughtofficialblog · 5 years ago

Text

Chapter 11: And I had an anxiety attack... again.

In which the title describes the whole chapter

*Your POV*

I slammed the door behind me, fell to my knees, and closed my eyes. Today was such a shitty day I actually don't want to go back. But I have to. Unless I want to get fired, which actually doesn't sound THAT bad.

Wait... yeah, that sounds reasonable.

My apartment was just like my mind: a complete fucking mess that made no sense and looked like Narnia. But despite that, my personal laptop was hanging out on the small table I have in front of the TV. I sighed and went to the kitchen, trying not to worry.

It's been a while ever since I met the group of monsters and, honestly, I'm loving it! They are super nice and a part of me has changed a bit... so I'm becoming more dedicated to making them as happy as I can.

And that also refers to some of their complaints, like "you should seek a better job" or "this is dangerous for you, you should have something that makes you happy". And that's what I was about to do.

After taking my cup of coffee and I sat on the couch, I opened my laptop and started to search for different jobs and opportunities. I'm a scientist and a... politician? We could say that. I'm experienced in both terms and I'm really trying to look for a scientist post today. I want to do what I love and, well, I'm a science nerd. Fite me.

I just don't want to work in the Congress anymore. It's boring, it's lame, and I'm not going to stay in an office for the rest of my days- not when I'm starting to care about things. Alphys and Sans have said that they want to become part of the science world, but they have to study hard to get it. While I'm waiting for them, though, I'll make them proud and work in science!

While browsing around, I ended up on a Facebook page and noticed I had a shitton of notifications. Interested, I checked the groups and started to read the messages... bad idea...

Paula: Hey, monster lover! You should just go with them to the Underground, hah!

Anna: Jesus, when did we let this happen?

Anna: I thought you were smarter than this!

John: You are gonna put us in trouble

John: And it'll be all YOUR FAULT!

And so it went. I frowned slightly and decided to check Discord, trying to get distracted for a bit. My mind was starting to make bad moves, and I just couldn't make them real. What if it was better to leave the topic? Did I make a mistake? Should I start protesting AGAINST them?! Are they a threat to humans? Oh my God, what have I done? Should I-

Do you wanna get... Frisky?: Hey (Y/N)!

Do you wanna get... Frisky?: you wanna play UNO?

CoolSkeleton95: YES, HUMAN!

CoolSkeleton95: YOU SHOULD JOIN THE FUN!

I shook my head with a smile, knowing I could never do that to them. Not after the little and funny history we have together, and how much comprehensible they looked with my problems socializing. They've made laugh like there is no tomorrow and to learn a lot of things. I just can't wipe them away from their dreams. I just can't wipe them away from my life.

Smartass: Sure, right now?

puns are love, puns are life: we're startin' right now, kiddo.

puns are love, puns are life: join this round before undyne comes with her shitty strategies again

I giggled softly, remembering the stupid nicknames we all had in that Discord group. I immediately went for my headphones, then joined the chat.

"Hi!" I exclaimed, praying that everyone could hear me. Fortunately, they could.

"hello kid, ready to lose?" A deep voice said, which I immediately recognized it was Sans. Everyone seems to have a high-pitched voice comparing them with him. Heck, even my father would sound like a three-year-old girl if we compare their voices!

After a bit of playing stupid rounds of UNO and hearing Sans's awful puns, I lost track of time. Eventually, Sans and I ended up playing Dead by Daylight together, the skeleton by some coincidence having the game installed. And so talked privately from then, and... got used to the game, I suppose.

"DUDE WHAT THE-" I stopped myself before I could use a bad word, not knowing how he would react. I still don't feel comfortable enough to be my usual, swearing, and boring self around them. I'm trying to be as less boring as possible... but I know that I'm still boring, even if I, indeed, try hard.

"i hate this game soooooooo much... what if we play somethin' else?" he asked, making me sigh in relief. This game's no good for someone with anxiety, keep that in mind. Bad thing I'm kind of a masochist in that aspect.

"You hate a lot of games, don't you? And sure, any suggestions?"

"do you have... mortal kombat?"

Oooh

This is going to be interesting!

"Which one?"

"x, i'm too poor to buy the new one"

"Sure, I have it! I'll love to play it, it's been a while"

"cool cool, i'll invite you then"

And we played like for, what, hours? Mortal Kombat is sincerely one of my favorite sagas of videogames since I was a little child. Dolls? Nah, videogames were my thing since the beginning of times.

I forgot my problems, I forgot everything. It was just me, my character, and an angry Sans rattling his bones all over the mic. I was enjoying it, even if he tried to deconcentrate me with his jokes, that at the end were all just corny comments trying to make me flush but made me laugh instead.

I joked now and then as well, and hearing his laugh was such a gratifying feeling I couldn't do anything but to laugh with him. Besides, his laugh is quite contagious, and I'm easily influenced when other people laugh, so this got the best of me.

When I looked at the clock though, fear ran all over my body, and I stood quiet for some good minutes. I tried to contain my anxiety, to calm down. I took deep breaths and closed my eyes, telling myself I'll be just fine.

"(y/n), are you-"

"HOLY SHIT IT'S 1 AM WHAT THE FUCK- AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

...

Nice job, sweetie.

My mind was being a huge and stupid mess whenever those awful screams were out of my mouth. Sans wasn't answering, so I felt worse. I started panicking and creating ways to make him hate me less, and before I could say anything, I heard laughter.

His laughter.

"oh my god (y/n) you panic a lot" he said between breaths, while I just remained silent. What the- "i'm sorry, it's just... you should not worry about anything, k? remember you said tomorrow you don't have to work, k? just relax. nothing's wrong with staying late once in a while, right?"

"Wait, so you don't think I'm pathetic or anything like that?!"

"wha- of course not! everyone has their moments (y/n), and you have anxiety, for god's sake! it's totally normal for someone to freak out now and then. you shouldn't feel guilty of that"

How...

I felt tears trying to escape from my eyes and I hold them back, keeping my cool... temporarily. I draw a weak smile in my face, even if Sans couldn't see it.

"Thank you. I needed that" Aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnd my voice broke down in the process. Shit.

"don't worry (y/n)" he said kindly, and I bet he was still wearing that permanent shit-eating grin. I chuckled to myself, slowly making tears disappear "hey, do you wanna meet up tomorrow? maybe you want some time to yourself, i know, but maybe you should try to interact more with people... since i'm assuming you don't"

I never thought I would get lectured by a skeleton. Guess life is unexpected, huh?

But I realized he was right. My social anxiety can only be solved by interacting with others. There is no escape, and I'm conscious of that. Besides, what can go wrong? Sans has been nothing but a nice guy, and I'm starting to enjoy his company a lot. Maybe I'll be able to consider him as a friend?

"I'd love that, thank you so much. I don't get to hang out often, so that means a lot"

"don't sweat it. everyone deserves a chance to express themselves"

We hung up the call with a quick "see you tomorrow" and I went straight to bed, never erasing that last sentence he said from my mind.

"Everyone deserves a chance to express themselves", huh? Maybe...

Maybe this is my chance

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Sans's POV*

We hung up the call and I let out a sigh. I never realized I was playing until late, mostly because Papyrus didn't come for his bedtime story, and so I lose track of time. I was having a good time though, but I can't be stubborn and keep her up any longer. Not after she almost had a heart attack.

She's nice, and she seems pretty genuine. Doesn't look like the type of girl that should hide anything, not with that anxiety of hers. She's a goddess in Mortal Kombat, though. She knew how to use almost every fighter perfectly, and I felt like a punching bag with jokes in its interior. The more she won, the more I joked. At least she laughed... a lot, actually. She's a good audience, just like Tori.

Then I remembered she cursed when she was starting to freak out, and I started to wonder if she uses "strong" language daily. Or well, at least in her head.

I looked over that beautiful website called Youtube and watched some memes, that are truly gold if you ask me. A sick and dark sense of humor combined with random things and retards living their lives- in one word, perfection. I would also watch Tumblr, but that site gave me a good uncomfortable feeling that I don't want to relive any sooner. I also wanted to check Wattpad, but ever since I knew that it was mostly FanFiction, I thought more about it. Then I remember that Alphys told me she had an account and I immediately never went to that place...

Alphys is scary sometimes, no one can judge me. Her weird FanFictions are pretty much apart from anything I like to read or write...

And yes, I'm a writer.

That's why I thought Wattpad would be a good idea...

Thank God I changed my mind.

I'm mostly a science fiction lover, but drama and suspense are not that bad. I also like a lot of horror novels, but I'm no good at writing one my self. Believe me, I tried. It's hard to make it as noncliché as possible, considering that paranormalities are a huge cliché themselves.

I always include romance in my stories though. I realized it's quite essential in defining people's personalities and actions. Besides, romantic scenes leave a nice drama feeling when they are not exaggerated, so I try to put them once in a while.

I'm currently writing a novel instead of a short story, but it's hella difficult if you are bone dry of ideas. It takes a skele-ton of effort to come up with something good, and it's harder to put it in words. I also need to do some more research, since it includes scientific things...

Ah, sci-fi. What would I do without it?

I'm also a classic novel lover. Macbeth it's just wonderful and Journey to the Center of the Earth are old masterpieces that have a special place in my soul. I read them when I was a kid, and I would do it over and over. But I also want to see what new books the surface has to offer- one of my wildest dreams is to visit the biggest libraries around the world, like the ones in Paris or in Tokyo. But that has to wait.

I'm tired, but I never get myself to sleep. I suffer insomnia since... quite a few time, actually. It all started with the first reset of that goddamn flower; it started whenever I realized that the timeline theory was real and that, whoever got the power- the DETERMINATION- had the entire world at their hands.

Flowey was first, then Frisk came and had the power. Now I don't know if she has it anymore, considering we are at the surface and anyone could be more determined than her. But there's still a chance she has time and space at the tip of her fingers, and with a snap, she can make everything and everyone I love disappear.

That kid... she probably wants to see me suffer. After everything I've done to stop her, she hates me even more. She's selfish. She's a prick. And I'll never forgive her.

She knew I would remember when she did that. She killed everyone I loved, she destroyed the little hope I had on my home... and laughed at my face about it. That fight, that crazy look in her eyes... I have nightmares about it. Whenever I see the kid, a part of me replaces it with the painful memories of past timelines.

And I can't make them stop. I can't erase that devilish and empty smile Frisk had. I can't erase the vision of that flower becoming a God before my eyes.

I can't erase Papyrus's smile still with hope before turning to dust.

I shook my head and sighed. Out of all the times, I can't bring myself now into thinking like that... not anymore. We're on the Surface now, for God's sake! I should be happy because now I can fulfill my happiest dreams!

...

I lack the motivation, though.

There's no hope for me, or that's what I think.

I want the best for everyone (except Frisk and Flowey; screw them), but me? Heh, this old sack of bones won't be his usual self any sooner. It's just... it's just stupid to think I'll ever be the casual and relaxed skeleton ever again. I'm paranoid. I'm scared. I'm a fucking coward trying to protect his brother, but being too useless to do anything about it.

I can't go back to Snowdin. I can't go back to that goddamn house. I can't.

I glanced over my desk and noticed the folder with the things for my education. I let a sigh, knowing that I would never be able to keep up with that kind of stress. Not if my mind it's worried about something else.

I turned off the lights and went to my bed, trying to clear my mind. I let a new human enter my life, one older than Frisk...

That doesn't mean it's less dangerous.

That doesn't mean she's not a murderer...

#sans x reader #sansxreader #more than i thought fanfiction #more than i thought #sans #x reader #undertale

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the-kaedageist · 6 years ago

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I just found a Rivals extra prompted by @ariadne-mouse almost a month ago on my computer!

This takes place during chapter 5 of the fic, when Cisco and Harry are on the local talk show being ridiculous at each other. Ariadne was like “can you imagine the gifs on Earth-2 tumblr after that?” and this was what came out of my brain.

Getting off the phone with yet another member of his board of directors, Cisco was exhausted and it wasn’t even noon yet. Before yet another person called him to complain about him “coming out” as a metahuman (and Cisco rolled his eyes, because this was not nearly as bad as coming out as bi had been with his parents, but this world didn’t even have that trauma unless you were like a fundamentalist in the middle of nowhere), Cisco jumped on the internet to read up on the reactions to his revelation.

There were a lot of articles with titles like “Ramon is a Metahuman! What is the future of Ramon Industries?” or clickbait like “Cisco Ramon reveals his darkest secret!”. Being an Elon Musk-equivalent was kind of weird and invasive; Cisco didn’t know why he’d craved fame so badly before. Unsurprisingly, most of the articles focused on Cisco’s reveal and completely ignored Harry, which was fine by Cisco, who still felt his stomach flip when he thought about how Harry had looked at him with those wide blue eyes as they’d left each other in the parking lot.

Harry. Cisco closed his eyes and took a deep breath, using thoughts of Harry’s calm steadiness, his hand on his shoulder, his unrelenting support to calm himself. No matter what the fallout from his decision ended up being, it was a relief to know that Harry would be there beside him. Sometimes it still blew his mind that the doppelganger of his boss, of Harrison Wells, was quickly become one of the great loves of his life.

Feeling more grounded, Cisco turned back to the internet once more, ignoring yet another call from an unlisted number (most likely another reporter). From being a nerd himself, he knew that he had a rather passionate fanbase on Jumblr, Earth-2’s version of Tumblr. Jumblr had better mechanics to the site and was more user friendly, but otherwise it was pretty similar overall, and Cisco occasionally found himself scrolling through it trying to learn about Earth-2 pop culture. There was also that one particularly pathetic time when he’d searched the ‘harrison wells’ tag and found Harry’s GQ spread – that had been a Lot.

Opening Jumblr, Cisco searched the ‘cisco ramon’ tag and blinked in surprise at the posts that came up. There were a handful of posts talking about how brave he had been to come out as metahuman, a few “Cisco Ramon is cancelled” posts that made him feel sad, and then the third most popular subject was…people posting gifs of him and Harry staring at one another? They even apparently now had a ship name, “Ramells”. (Seriously, there had to be a better smushname than that – Earth-1 Tumblr would totally have come up with something better.)

The ‘ramells’ tag was filled with post after post of gifs and commentary. ‘Look at how Ramon glances at Wells and licks his lips,’ one post read. ‘And Wells’s eyes catch on his mouth. They’re totally boning.’

‘It’s gross to speculate about the fictional relationship between two real people!’ another post proclaimed. Another person had replied to that with Cisco Ramon/Reader fanfiction, which Cisco carefully scrolled past without reading.

Then he found a gif set of the aforementioned mouth licking, and, oh, the internet was 100% right on the money. The gif-maker had slowed down the footage to really accentuate the look that Cisco tossed at Harry under his eyelashes, licking his mouth as their eyes caught. A second gif showed Harry’s eyes slowly dipping to watch Cisco’s mouth, biting his own lower lip between his teeth. The evidence was pretty damning.

Cisco didn’t know how he felt about it. Sure, he’d wanted to climb Harry like a tree for nearly a month, and he’d known for awhile that Harry felt the same way and was giving him space for some reason, but he wasn’t sure he liked it being broadcast to the world for everyone to see. It felt like something private, that belonged to just them.

Beneath the mouth-licking gifset, someone had written fanfic of him and Harry. Cisco scrolled past originally until curiosity got the better of him; he scrolled back up. This person had imagined them catching one another backstage, and Cisco couldn’t help himself and started reading.

Wells caught up with Ramon, catching him by the wrist and tugging him around to face him. “Ramon,” he said. “Wait. I—“

“If you’re going to judge me for being a metahuman, I don’t want to talk about it,” Ramon said hotly.

“I wasn’t going to judge you, I think you’re incredibly brave. I just.” Wells broke off, cursing. “I just wanted to do this.” He tugged Ramon in closer and leaned down to capture his mouth in a brutal, searing kiss. Ramon was stunned – Harrison Wells was kissing him!! – but kissed him back fervently—

Cisco scrolled past it again, rolling his eyes. He’d thought the interview had made it clear that Harry already knew he was a metahuman. Some people had no listening comprehension.

There was another gifset with all the moments highlighted in yellow during the interview where he’d called Harry ‘Harry’. ‘They have nicknames for each other!’ the post proclaimed. ‘Cisco calls Harrison Wells ‘Harry!’’

Several of the gifsets had also been reblogged by a popular tabloid, which was not something that tended to happen on Earth-1 tumblr. Earth-2 was weird about their celebrity shipping culture.

Cisco read the posts with a mixture of amusement, chagrin, and embarrassment – god, he and Harry really were ridiculous for each other. He finally selected one of the gif sets that involved mouth-licking and staring and copied the link for it, pasting it into a message to Harry. “The internet loves us,” he said, sending it before he could regret it.

During the five minutes it took Harry to respond, Cisco managed to second guess himself and regret his message. What if Harry found it weird and invasive? What if he didn’t understand how Jumblr worked?

Finally, Harry replied. “What on earth is this?”

Cisco had a good chuckle imagining Harry’s horrified face. “Jumblr has decided we’re in love,” he replied.

To Cisco’s astonishment, the response from Harry was not nearly as angry and horrified as he expected. Instead, he got back the shrug emoji with, “if the shoe fits.”

He stared at the message for a long time, feeling warm all over. Was Harry saying…did he…?

“I guess it does,” he cautiously typed in response, his head swimming.

“It does for me,” Harry replied. “I’ll meet you at 4 in the parking lot at Rathaway Industries?”

Cisco’s heart flip-flopped in his chest. Who was Harry? How was he so different from Dr. Wells? What had Cisco done in his short life to deserve this incredible, ravenous desire that unfurled between them every time they were in each other’s presence?

And how was Cisco ever going to leave Harry when he finally found a way back to Earth-1?

He’d deal with that problem when he had to. “It’s a date,” he replied with a cheeky grin. “See you at 4.”

#rivals!harrisco au #extra #my fics #writing #snippets #harrisco #of course I can't get tumblr to keep my italics formatting for some reason #seriously tumblr #really???

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waqasblog2 · 6 years ago

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 The Vicious Circle Of SEO (And How To Beat It)

(Photo by Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The vicious circle of SEO is the theory that top‐ranking pages in Google rank high because they get lots of backlinks, and they get lots of backlinks because they rank high.

It’s easy to see why this theory is so convincing.

Imagine you’re a journalist or blogger writing an article about piranhas. You do some Googling about piranhas’ hunting habits and find a few high-quality, comprehensive resources right away.

Google does a good job of surfacing helpful content, so you never make it past the first page; in fact, you didn’t even need to scroll down at all. It wasn’t that you were lazy -- it’s just that you found the answers to your questions right away, so why would you keep searching?

Then, when it comes time to reference a resource on piranhas’ hunting habits in your upcoming article, the pages you read (i.e., the top-ranking pages) are the ones that you’re going to cite and link back to in your article.

Now imagine hundreds of content creators writing articles about piranhas. They all go through a similar researching process, reading the same great resources in Google’s top pages and linking back to them as references. As a result, those top-ranking articles earn backlinks at a much faster pace than all other pages on the topic.

Since Google’s algorithm emphasizes backlinks as a priority ranking factor -- so the theory goes -- it becomes nearly impossible for new content to outrank those top-ranking incumbents. It’s, well… a vicious circle.

The search engine optimization (SEO) company studied over 10,000 keywords to figure out if the vicious circle of SEO holds true at scale.

On the one hand, the study proved that top-ranking content does earn backlinks at a faster pace than lower-ranking content. But on the other hand, there is no proof that acquiring links at a faster pace leads to better rankings. It’s a classic case of “correlation does not imply causation.”

This finding is an important reminder that backlinks aren’t the end-all, be-all of Google’s algorithm. There are plenty of case studies of small businesses that climb their way to the top of search rankings by simply providing valuable, high-quality content and not focusing on earning backlinks.

In fact, recent research from digital marketer Neil Patel found that top-ranked content doesn’t need a heavy backlink profile, or even a specific keyword density. What top-ranked content has in common is that it’s deep, comprehensive and authoritative.

So, How Do We Beat Top-Ranking Content?

What’s the secret to overtaking older content that already has a deep reservoir of backlinks? How can we break out of the vicious circle of SEO?

The answer ultimately comes down to Google’s machine learning algorithm, Rankbrain. Confirmed back in 2015, Rankbrain helps Google sort through search results based on behavioral factors and contextual clues.

Do people click on your content but then quickly press the ‘back’ button and look at other results? That suggests searchers perhaps didn’t quite find what they were looking for. On the other hand, if people hang around on your site for a while after clicking, that level of “dwell time” helps paint a much more positive picture.

A long dwell time can usually be chalked up to a combination of two things: quality content and a pleasurable user experience.

The term ‘quality content’ gets thrown around so much, it’s practically become a punchline. And yet, Google still cares about content quality, perhaps more than any other factor. It’s frustratingly subjective for those who seek a magic formula, but pretty simple in theory for those willing to put in the time and effort to serve their audience well.

A comprehensive guide, for example, is much more likely to answer a searcher’s questions and keep them engaged than a cursory flyover with three quick tips. Similarly, original research tends to perform better than rehashed or recycled points, especially if the other competing content lacks in that area.

Offering a pleasurable user experience is easier than creating the content itself, but no less important for improving dwell time. A comprehensive guide may have terrific information, but if it’s displayed as one giant wall of text, you’re going to have a hard time convincing people to muster the patience to sift through it.

Interstitial pages and advertisements might be a great way to make money, but they frustrate the user from reaching their ultimate goal. Other common frustrations include websites that load slowly, pages that are not optimized for mobile devices, and content displayed in fonts and colors that are difficult to read.

It may require some trial and error to find the factors that boost dwell time best for your own content, but the benefit cannot be overstated. As Google defers more to Rankbrain, complicated behavioral factors that accurately depict content’s value will become more meaningful than easily measured and gamed factors like backlinks and keyword density.

Yes, Google still cares about relevant backlinks. Each link is a little vote of confidence from another site that tells the search engine your content is valuable. But Google also cares about contextual clues, which help to tell a more comprehensive story than a bunch of links ever could.

Put effort into creating high-quality content that encourages people to stick around, and you’ll find many of your SEO problems start to solve themselves. At that point, backlinks will just be icing on the cake.

This content was originally published here.

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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THE RECIPE WAS THE SAME GROUP OF PROGRAMMERS

Startups are as impersonal as physics. I think the key to this puzzle is to remember that art has an audience.1 It's just something we use to move wealth around. Look at what a hard time Microsoft is having discovering web apps. Most people who write about procrastination write about how to make them work, and other people trying to do. You certainly don't have freedom: no boss is so demanding. I say up. I was growing up. But because humans have so much more confidence that they seem as if they've grown several inches taller. And in the early stages, giving up upside and risk for a smaller but guaranteed payoff. In 1995, the e-commerce business was very competitive as measured in press releases, but not about observing proprieties.

It's obvious that biotech or software startups exist to solve hard technical problems, but for the moment the best I can offer is the hopelessly question-begging advice that if you trust your instincts about people. The problem with working slowly is not just that technical innovation happens slowly. And the big hits often look risky at first. But in technology, you cook one thing and delimiters say another, we go by the indentation. But the short version is that if there were some program you wanted to write, and the big bang method. Most of the greatest fortunes have probably involved several of these. And it's a skill you can learn quickly enough that car means the first element of a list and cdr means the rest.2

One disadvantage of living off the revenues. And so interfaces tend not to give you advice that surprises you. But of course if you really get it, you can use this information in a way that's more valuable to you than that. It's hard to design good libraries. One of the biggest remaining groups is computer programmers. By way of summary, let's try describing the hacker's dream language. Languages are for programmers, and that language is not the brand name, capital, and distribution clout, they'll take away your market overnight. After a few days it will be. What would you think of technology as something that's spreading like a sort of fractal stain, every moving point on the curve that you want to start your own startup, Viaweb, to make software for building online stores. I realize I might seem to have an enviable life, but there are things you can write the first version of a program is proportionate to its complexity, and a startup especially, is to make a quick sketch when you have to go with your gut. When someone contradicts you, they're in a position of having to choose one out of God's book, and something to hack—how do you turn your mind into the type that has good startup ideas is to get yourself to the leading edge of technology moves fast.

I've read was not in a position of having to choose one out of God's book, and something that's expensive, obscure, and appealing in the short term. For one thing, the official fiction is that you can't choose when it happens. So saying startups should move to Silicon Valley and raised money there. Now a candidate probably couldn't get away with changing more than you realize.3 And in fact, when we funded Airbnb, we thought, let's make something people want. It's easy to convince investors is to make a quick sketch when you have to go back to programming in a language where you have to install before you use it. Nothing is hidden from you that doesn't absolutely have to be optimistic and skeptical about two different things. Think about what you have to do to write or read it. Look for the people who say that the goal of a language is what happens in college. At the moment those two functions are separate.

But understanding the relationship between meanness and success inversely correlated? Well, food shows that pretty clearly. Because, in effect, simultaneously choose all the management companies to run yours for you, in whatever proportion you wanted, you wouldn't need money. You can have wealth without having money. The manual is thin, and has to do all the company's errands as well as talent, so this answer works out to be sure signs of bad algorithms.4 You're expected not to be an expert on startups, but as I explained before, this is a constant problem when you're painting still lifes. Performance is always the ultimate test, but it is not all they're for, then what else are they for, and how much is due to the creators of past gadgets that gave the company a reputation for succinctness would be the number of simultaneous users will be determined by the amount of memory you need for each user's data. And when motivated by that you find you can do to keep the two forces balanced. The only thing worth talking about first is the problem you're solving, and then at each point a day, a week, a month feel you've put so much time that it was too crazy.

They would rather overpay for a safe choice. How do you get bought? The other thing you get from work experience is the elimination of certain habits left over from childhood. Everyday life gives you no practice in this.5 Everyday life gives you no practice in this. It's really true. Steve Wozniak put this very strongly: All the best things that I did at Apple came from a not having money and b they can spend their time how they want.6 Conversely, a language that doesn't make your programs small is doing a bad job of what programming languages are for. When you only have to interrupt someone a couple times a day before they're unable to work on. And what we've found is that the company has no way of measuring the value of the succinctness test is as a guide in designing languages.7 Humans were not designed to eat are a few differences: life is not as hard as you possibly can. If you have impressive resumes, just flash them on the screen for 15 seconds and say a few words.

Though of course if it were.8 Expert hackers can tell a good language? Be sure to ask about how they funded themselves with breakfast cereal. Here, again, language designers are somewhat out of touch with their users.9 This way of convincing investors is better suited to hackers, and learning what they want.10 I have to get better at picking winners. In our world, you sink or swim, and there are no excuses.

If anything it may have helped foster a Perl cult. Pundits said Carter beat Ford because the country distrusted the Republicans after Watergate. They'll make sure that suing them is expensive and takes a long time: for several years at the very heart of hacking. You can't make the pie larger, say politicians. In every presidential election since TV became widespread, the apparently more charismatic candidate has won. You're trying to solve problems. It's the same principle as incremental development: start with a simple prototype, then add features, but at first it takes a conscious effort to find smart friends.

Notes

If Paris is where people care most about art.

Often as not the distinction between them. Google was founded, wouldn't offer to invest but tried to attack and abuse. Google proved them wrong.

2%. If you were doing Viaweb again, I'd open our own Web site. The reason not to. The unintended consequence is that a startup, both of whom have become.

As far as I make this miracle happen?

But becoming a Texas oilman was not something big companies could dominate through economies of scale.

But the usual misquotation is closer to a clueless audience like that, the only way to answer the question of whether public company CEOs in 2002 was 3. But a couple hundred years ago. That name got assigned to it because the processing power you can survive without external encouragement. The trustafarians' ancestors didn't get rich, people who said they wanted to make people use common sense when intepreting it.

I call it procrastination when someone works hard and doesn't get paid to work like blacklists, I mean this in terms of the court. It's surprising how small a problem so far done a pretty comprehensive view of investor behavior.

Even in English, our contact at Sequoia, was starting an organic farm, though.

To be fair, the switch in the 1960s, leaving the area around city hall a bleak wasteland, but also very informative essay about it well enough to convince at one remove from the formula. Hypothesis: A company will either be a hot deal, I can't tell you all the more subtle ways in which practicing talks makes them better: reading a draft of this essay wrote: My feeling with the issues they have to talk to mediocre ones. It might also be good.

To get all that matters to us. Perhaps the solution is to be actively curious. In one way to answer your question.

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sempiternalsandpitturtle · 5 years ago

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How long should a blog post be?

It’s a question asked by writers and content marketers everywhere. The answer is elusive. Google this question, and you’ll get numbers across the board, and none of them seem conclusive.

Yoast will tell you that you won’t rank on Google if your post has fewer than 300 words.

Neil Patel says it depends on the industry; if you’re in tech, aim for between 800 and 1,000, but if you’re in real estate, try for 1,800 and 1,900.

Unsettle says the perfect number is 2,000, with one caveat: the entire article needs to be valuable to the reader.

The truth is, all of these are partly right. The other truth – one that’s either liberating or frustrating (or both) – is that the right word count depends on your content and goals.

Understanding your content goals

Generally speaking, the goal of blog content in digital marketing is to bring people to your website so you can show them how helpful you are.

But your goals go beyond that. You might write a piece you hope will generate a lot of social media shares, or a piece that will become the go-to guide for solving a niche problem in your industry.

Understanding your content marketing goals is one way you can begin tailoring your blog post length to meet them.

Goal: SERP ranking

If you’re aiming to rank for specific keywords to increase organic traffic to your site (and you probably are), long-form content is generally the way to go. The average Google first page result word count is 1,890, according to a study by Backlinko. Longer articles support SERP success in a few ways.

For search engines to rank you higher in search results, your content needs to be valuable to readers. They can only make that determination if you have enough content to demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about. The longer your articles are, the more context search engines will have and the more likely they’ll identify your pieces as worthwhile (granted they actually are, of course).

Content that is about 500 words or longer will require additional structural elements within the blog, like subheadings and images, to break it up. Without HTML tags and design cues, articles become seas of grey text incapable of holding readers’ attention. Plus, with no visual anchors or points of reference, it’s easy to get lost in that sea. Subheads and image alt text provide search engines further context about your content.

All of this is considered on-page search engine optimisation, which should help you rank higher. Behind-the-scenes SEO like creating an informative meta description and title tag can also help your SERP rankings.

When you write longer blogs about a given subject, you’ll usually end up with a more comprehensive article. It’s more likely to address your audience’s specific search queries, and that means they’ll stay on your page for longer. Google notices which pages readers are spending their time on (through metrics like dwell time, bounce rates, the number of unique sessions per user, among others) and rewards those pages.

Finally, the more you write about a particular search query, the more two things will happen:

You’ll use the keyword more often in a natural way that doesn’t look like keyword stuffing (because it’s not).

You’ll hit other long-tail keywords that relate to the topic – some of which may not have been on your radar until now.

Though it’s generally accepted that longer content will perform better in SERPs, this rule of thumb isn’t perfect. In a guest post for Moz, we pointed out that our research showed otherwise. We looked at how word count correlated to keyword position, as well as how word count correlated to additional keyword ranking (outside the targeted keyword). In both cases, word count didn’t make a difference.

Granted, all cases in the data we took into consideration were blog posts with word counts of at least 900 words. We weren’t analysing 300- or 500-word articles. Could this have made a difference? In the article, we ponder whether Google has a long-form threshold that’s lower than 900 words, above which there is no added value for more content (in rankings, at least). We doubt it, but there’s always that possibility.

Goal: Social shares

A good social media strategy supports your blog by keeping your content top of mind, engaging with your readers or customers and taking advantage of the many paths people may take to find your website.

To optimise your content for shareability, it’s best to err on the longer side.

A BuzzSumo analysis found that articles between 3,000 and 10,000 words were shared most often, with 8,859 shares on average. Articles that were 1,000 words or shorter got fewer than 5,000 shares on average. Buffer similarly found that blog posts that were 2,500 or more words received vastly more social shares than those under 2,000 words.

When aiming for more social shares, there does seem to be a threshold beyond which length can be a detriment, according to another study from Backlinko. Beyond the 2,000 word mark, social media shares seemed to drop, and they did even more so after 3,000 words.

A unique aspect of social media shares is the fact that people often don’t read the articles before they share – at least not in their entirety. One study found that 59 percent of people don’t click on article links before sharing them on social media.

What does this tell us?

People share based on perceived value. They read the headline and perhaps even the description, then share based on their personal opinions and preconceived notions.

Even when people click on articles, they typically don’t read the whole thing. Only 20 percent of people finish the articles they begin, and the average person only reads 25 percent of articles, according to Sumo. Instead, they skim and scroll.

That’s where subheads, images, charts, bulleted lists and other easy-to-consume elements benefit your content. The more value a person perceives just by glancing at the title, headlines and other features, the more likely they’ll share it.

Goal: Backlinks

A strong backlink portfolio is an important part of an inbound marketing strategy. More backlinks generally lead to better search visibility and increased direct traffic to your site.

Helpful and interesting content that is worthy of a backlink is the best starting point for building a backlink profile. Like any of the other goals in this list, the No. 1 most important factor is content quality.

But blog length seems to play a role in earning backlinks as well, according to another study conducted by Backlinko. In a study of 912 million blog posts, long-form pieces got 77.2% more backlinks, on average, than short posts.

The competition for earning backlinks organically is tough: 94% of all blog posts don’t have a single one. For that reason, when aiming to enhance your backlink portfolio by creating meaningful, interesting content, it’s essential you consider all potential factors at play.

It’s important to note that approaching content creation to gain social shares is fundamentally different than doing so to bolster your backlink profile. There’s little to no correlation between a high number of social shares and a high number of backlinks. So, when defining your goals for your content, be specific.

Goal: Thought leadership

Establishing your company as a thought leader in your industry is a great way to gain respect and customers alike. And content marketing is one method to demonstrate your leadership. Long-form content can support your case that you are knowledgeable and trustworthy.

In many cases, it’s easier to include more research and insight in long-form content than short posts. If you’re limited on words, you’re simply going to have to leave out some details. Conversely, if you can write a blog post that is well-constructed and comprehensive, you could include all aspects around a subject. If you’re addressing a particularly multifaceted topic, you’ll only be able to touch on all the importants points if you give yourself the room to do so.

Consider the article, “Clever Company Newsletter Ideas to Wow Your Audience” that Chelsey Church wrote for our blog. At 1,839 words long, it’s quite the read. But Chelsey provides relevant, helpful information for anyone trying to improve or create their company newsletter. She not only uses this article to point out ideas and examples, but also information about why they work.

Using data to dictate blog length

As with any other aspect of your content – like subject, tone and the types of images you use – article length depends on your specific target audience preferences. Do your readers typically like long-form content, or are they more likely to engage in short posts?

The best way to gather this information is by observing the performance of your own content. Use Google Analytics to see how people interact with your articles of varying lengths. If you see high bounce rates on longer articles – or shorter ones – that could potentially be a sign you need to adjust your word counts.

Don’t confuse correlation with causation, though.

There could be a number of factors that make your readers close a tab. Consider things like content quality, site speed (if a mid-article graph never loads, or loads slowly, it’s going to result in poor user experience), the number of images you use and the structure of your article.

You can also turn to data from other sources to guide your word counts, too. As Neil Patel pointed out, his own observations indicate that certain industries do better with longer articles than others. Content about gadgets, for example, performs well when it’s between 300 and 500 words. Fashion also has lower word counts: between 800 and 950.

On the opposite end of the scale, marketing and advertising-related content does best between 2,500 and 3,000 words. Sales also has longer word counts: between 2,500 and 2,700.

There are tools you can use to help determine how many words your blog should be for the most SEO value. SEMRush’s SEO Content Templates give you recommendations based on your top 10 rivals in Google for that keyword. This is the result for the keyword “long form content:”

SEMRush recommends that an article on long-form content be 1,916 words.

MarketMuse will also give you an idea of how long your content should be. In these reports, you can see the average word count for competitor articles on the same keyword as well as a recommendation for the word count you should aim for. Here’s what MarketMuse suggests “long form content:”

While the average length created by competing articles is a little less than 2,600 words, MarketMuse suggests well over that length for the best results. One reason for this could be related to the keyword difficulty. “Long-form content” is harder to rank for, so you would want supporting topics and a more comprehensive piece for it to be competitive.

As you can see, the recommended word counts between resources varies quite a bit. The key, as always, is to use your best discretion in terms of:

The quality of your content (are you answering all possible questions?)

What your target audience prefers (do they click away from short articles; are they more likely to share long articles?)

Tips for writing valuable long-form content

It’s clear that longer content generally performs better in SERPs and on social media, but there’s a catch. Your word count means nothing if the writing isn’t good. You could spend a day writing a 3,000-word article, but if people can’t read it or don’t gain value from it, you’re not going to hit your ultimate goals.

What does “good content” really mean? Generally speaking, valuable content:

Answers as many questions as possible.

Helps readers continue their research elsewhere with other reputable sources.

Speaks to the audience appropriately, or in a way that isn’t talking down to them or using jargon that goes over their heads.

Includes data to back up points and suggestions.

Research

The starting point for a quality article is relevant information. The goal should be to answer all the questions your reader might have on the topic you’re targeting. The ideal blog post length is however long it takes for you to answer those questions.

Structure

As noted, most people probably aren’t going to read your entire 2,000-word article from top to bottom (are you still with me, by the way?). Structuring your article to make it scannable will make it easier for someone to find what he or she is specifically looking for.

There are a couple aspects of good content structure. Paragraphs should be on the short side – a couple of sentences works well. Even a short line break between paragraphs can help draw the reader deeper into the article.

Subheadings are also helpful. H2 and H3 tags add SEO value but also tell the reader what information is where. In this article, for example, you would know where to find information about using data to determine content length as opposed to what to keep in mind for each goal you have for content. As you scroll through this article, you stopped here to learn more about long-form content structure.

Imagery

Images add more value for the reader and break up your text to make it more visually appealing. You can use an image to more clearly illustrate a point. People learn well through visual communication and are more likely to remember messages that have a supportive visual aid.

A BuzzSumo study found that including visual elements every 100 words doubles its chances of being shared.

CTA

The articles on your website probably aren’t there solely to provide reading material.

Sure, you want to provide your readers with useful information, but your end goal is to increase your social following, earn the trust of a prospective client or make another type of conversion. To make that conversion, you need to include a call to action.

If you don’t tell your readers what you want them to do, how will they know?

Placement matters here. The typical person probably isn’t going to get all the way to the end of your article, so don’t place a CTA only at the bottom where very few will see it. Embedding multiple CTAs throughout an especially long piece can help increase conversions.

One strategic method is to determine when, exactly, the average reader leaves the page. Once you know this – determined by a heat mapping tool or time-on-page metric – you can insert CTAs at the precise time to discourage bounces.

In Sumo’s study (the one that found the typical person reads only one-quarter of an article), the author found that the average reader for his personal blog dropped off after 32 percent of a post. So, he added a scroll box to capture email leads at about the one-third mark. His scroll box saw a 6 percent conversion rate.

So, what’s really the ideal blog post length?

In the end, the answer is still the ambiguous “it depends”. As long as you’re providing meaningful content that answers reader questions and is well-written, you’re on the right track. This post is coming in at about 2,150 words.

Does it answer your questions?

Let us know in the comments below.

from http://bit.ly/2UxLVO9

#content marketing

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newsnigeria · 5 years ago

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Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/americans-encouraged-hate/

The One People Americans Are Encouraged to Hate

by Yvonne Lorenzo for Ooduarere via The Saker Blog

How would you react if you read the following statements and found that they were spoken by government employees who are part of the American Deep State and have a great deal of power over the nation and you? Wouldn’t the prejudice appall and disgust you?

“I do always hate the Israelis,” Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer on the Israel probe, testified to Congress in July 2018. “It is my opinion that with respect to Western ideals and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Israel poses the most dangerous threat to that way of life.” As he opened the FBI’s probe of the Trump campaign’s ties to Israel in July 2016, FBI agent Peter Strzok texted Page: “fuck the cheating motherfucking Israelis… Bastards. I hate them… I think they’re probably the worst. Fucking conniving cheating savages.” Speaking to NBC News in May 2017, former director of national intelligence James Clapper explained why US officials saw interactions between the Trump camp and Israeli nationals as a cause for alarm: “The Israelis,” Clapper said, “almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Israeli technique. So we were concerned.”

Of course, readers of Ooduarere know that the officials quoted never actually made those remarks about the Israelis; nor did they express their hatred of Germans, Saudi Arabians, Turks, French, Libyan, Congolese, Somalians, Germans, Italians, British, Canadians, Greeks, or even Chinese. No; the actual nation and people named were the Russians. Here is the link to the original excellent piece published in The Nation. Yet it seems perhaps not with a touch of irony the speakers were engaging in projection and discussing themselves, the so-called America elites.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember how I found ooduarere and The Saker, originally not on this official site of his but at Blogspot blog. Yet as an American slowly waking up to the terrible truths of the corruption and destructive actions engaged by the American government and its “Deep State” from reading LewRockwell.com (where I later became a contributor to Lew’s site via this link) and supporting Ron Paul, I was horrified to discover that American “fair play” was only an illusion. Nevertheless, I am astonished by the hatred that I quoted. In this time of extraordinary oppression against any individual who dares challenge certain dogmas, that is to say if anyone is White and a true follower of the Way of Jesus Christ especially, for example, as The Saker himself wrote recently on the whole homosexual brouhaha here, then the full force of the establishment, the powers that be, will be brought to bear—your employment, perhaps your life would be at risk. Not that Lisa Page or Peter Strozk would ever dare to criticize Israel, or look into the mirror and see themselves as they truly are, but if they did, they’d probably be taken to a CIA black site and waterboarded for their troubles.

A few years ago, I was truly haunted by a photograph posted on the Saker’s site of a beautiful young woman and her infant child; I can’t recall the link yet I believe the post was by a Saker contributor. The two were murdered by shelling from the Neo-Nazi Ukrainians. I wonder why Putin in his interview with Oliver Stone didn’t, in his usual calm yet convincing manner, discuss the terrible loss of life and the tens of thousands of refugees, the human suffering caused by the American Empire, for after all Victoria Nuland admitted that billions were poured into Ukraine in support of “regime change.” Nevertheless, what astonishes me is the complete lack of empathy, in fact the evident enjoyment in wreaking havoc and death around the world on the part of America’s political class especially.

Meanwhile, back in America, America itself is breaking apart at the seams. How can one maintain an empire when the empire itself is built on sand? As Boyd D. Cathey noted in his piece “Is It Time for America to Break Apart?”:

“There are then, palpably, two Americas. They still use the same language, but they are increasingly incapable of communicating with each other. Almost weekly words and terms are redefined beyond comprehension, and those ‘devil terms’ have become the modern equivalents of linguistic hydrogen bombs deployed by the progressivists. They illustrate what political theorist Paul Gottfried has called a ‘post-Marxist’ praxis that has actually moved beyond the assaults of cultural Marxism towards a new and imposed template.

“No dissent from this template is permitted in our society. If it demands you call black, white; then you must comply, or suffer the consequences. If your eyes tell you one thing, but the collective media and elites tell you something else, ‘who you gonna believe, them or your lying eyes’?”

I shared the Nation piece, since the news of the statements by the corrupt Page and Strozk were new to me, with The Saker and SmoothieX12, Andrei Martyanov who posted about it on his blog. I think this insight Martyanov offers is important but not the full picture.

He writes, “It is always funny to read about ‘values’ and ‘ideals’–if that ‘way of life’ continues, the end-result will be precisely [the] total elimination of everything of true value [the] combined West ever produced with the US Constitution being shredded to pieces. Ah, wait, I forgot–these are the thoughts of people who are directly involved in [a] criminal coup attempt, which by definition is anti-constitutional and violates this very same ‘way of life’ these people allegedly try to protect. One has to have, of course, [an] appreciation of their fever-pitch hatred of Russians and, what matters here, this is not private, [not] an exception that is, attitude. It is not a secret that [a] very large strata of US policy-makers is afflicted by Russophobia. A large part of this Russophobia, apart from being racial–you know, dirty Slavs and all that jazz–is very much a suppressed complex of inferiority. Throughout all 20th and 21st century not only Russia presented itself as an inconvenient impediment to America-the-savior-of-humanity narrative, but Russia remains the only nation which can remove the United States from the map and can conventionally defeat any combination of forces the United States can assemble. This simple fact makes many in US ‘elite’, which is largely ignorant on the issues of real war, very uncomfortable.”

In due time, I hope to have soon a conversation to be published with The Saker on the topic of Christianity in general and Orthodox Christianity in particular; while SmoothieX12’s secular commentary and observations are entirely correct, I truly believe something far more sinister is taking place. On display in these Russophobic statements is a malevolence, not just willful blindness, fear or arrogance. Is this an Adobe Photoshopped manipulated image or truly the real face and eyes of Peter Strozk taken during his Congressional testimony? What do believers see when they look at this?

Peter Strozk

Philip Giraldi wrote about Jeffrey Epstein and his connections to the rich and powerful “elites” and likely intelligence agencies here at Unz.com and also here on the Strategic Culture website. Aside from the intelligence angle, Vanity Fair discusses the people Epstein “collected” in this article:

“Epstein remained a fixture in elite circles even after he was a registered sex offender. A few years ago, for example, he was a guest at a dinner in Palo Alto hosted by LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman for the MIT neuroscientist Ed Boyden. At the dinner, Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg. (‘Mark met Epstein in passing one time at a dinner honoring scientists that was not organized by Epstein,’ Zuckerberg spokesman Ben LaBol told me. ‘Mark did not communicate with Epstein again following the dinner.’)…

“One source who’s done business with Epstein told me that Epstein’s 21,000-square-foot townhouse on East 71st Street welcomed a steady stream of the Davos crowd in the past decade. The source said Bill Gates, Larry Summers, and Steve Bannon visited the house, which has been called one of the largest private residences in Manhattan. ‘Jeffrey collected people. That’s what he did,’ the source said. Gates and Summers did not respond to requests for comment.”

The site Vigilant Citizen, run by anonymous individuals who investigate the occult hallmarks of the Western “elites,” discussed Epstein on this post via this link and noted his connections to the rich and powerful along with occult symbolism on structures on his island:

The fact that a “temple” was built on an island known for extreme depravity is disturbing. However, when one fully understands the mindset of the occult elite, it makes perfect sense. It is all about symbolism and ritual.

For instance, the “temple” has a striking resemblance with Hammam Yalbugha – a Mamluk-era public bath located in Syria.

Why did Epstein model his “temple” on this specific building? Because of the symbolism attached to it. Indeed, the hammam is a classic example of architecture from the Mamluk era. In Arabic, the word “mamluk” literally means “property” and is used to designate slaves.

During the Mamluk era, children were captured by the ruling class to become slaves. Boys were usually trained to become soldiers while girls were groomed to become the personal concubines of their masters. Considering the fact that Epstein island was used to import child sex slaves for the elite, the symbolism is perfectly fitting.

In order to give the “temple” an unmistakeable occult dimension, the building was adorned with golden statues representing gods (Neptune) and owl-like birds. The building is also surrounded by maze-like patterns, similar to those found in Islamic architecture.

To get a better feel of Epstein island, I suggest you view this drone footage which provides great shots of some truly bizarre elements.

Epstein Island Temple

Hammam Yalbugha Aleppo, Syria

In my opinion, something far worse is going on than fear and self-loathing within the souls of the rich and powerful who rule the Western world, not merely decadence. Global Western “elites” are malevolent sociopaths (although I suspect several of the individuals in the Russian “Fifth column” Saker writes about are as well); while America is disintegrating around them, these elites still can cause great mischief. Reader of my words who are Americans must do all they can to resist and challenge these monsters in power; for monsters they are. Yes, they are presumed innocent until proven guilty but the fact remains the armies they control have killed and maimed millions of innocents throughout the world, including children. That I as a believer I think there is something evil behind them and within them is not provable by the scientific method perhaps; but I trust that my concerns are valid. If the reader of my words is a believer, please pray.

Yvonne Lorenzo [send her mail] makes her home in New England in a house full to bursting with books, including works on classical Greece and by Mises, Murray Rothbard, Tom Woods, Joseph Sobran, and Lew Rockwell. Her interests include gardening, mythology, ancient history, The Electric Universe, and classical music, especially the compositions of Handel, Mozart, Bach, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and the Bel Canto repertoire. She is the author Son of Thunder and The Cloak of Freya.

#U.S.A

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travelguy4444 · 6 years ago

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Can Introverts Successfully Travel Solo?

Posted: 5/2/2019 | May 2nd, 2019

Kristin Addis from Be My Travel Muse writes our regular column on solo female travel. It’s an important topic I can’t adequately cover, so I brought in an expert to share her advice for other women travelers to help cover the topics important and specific to them! In this month’s article, she shows us how solo travelers can deal with traveling as an introvert!

Recently, I traveled to Oakland to attend a birthday brunch. I didn’t know anyone besides the birthday girl. As an introvert, situations like that are hard for me; I don’t like strangers.

Per usual, I was pretty uncomfortable at first, choosing to stick close to the one person I knew and to kill time by slowly pouring myself a coffee and eating a fruit plate at tortoise speed.

But, as time passed, I began conversing with one new person, then another, and then almost everyone who was there. I met truly interesting and friendly people, and by the end of it, I was so glad that I went and that I stayed.

When I’m at home, though, I tend to put off going out to do simple things that involve personal interactions, like grocery shopping, until the last minute. It can get pretty ridiculous, to be honest.

Yet on the road it’s so much easier to get out and explore and especially to meet new people. Why is that?

In a word: dopamine.

According to professors Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long in The Molecule of More, dopamine, which plays a major role in reward-motivated behavior, is what pushes us to try new things. In addition, researchers Nico Bunzeck and Emrah Düzel found, through MRI scans, that the reward center of our brain is stimulated more by novelty than familiarity.

Therefore, we are hardwired to explore and crave newness. It’s the anticipation of the unknown — and how exciting it could be — that encourages us to go beyond our comfort zones.

So, while it can be difficult for introverts to approach people and venture outside to do routine things at home, where everything is familiar, when we’re on the road we have dopamine on our side.

This scientific explanation makes sense to me. When I’m traveling and experience a moment of true novelty, I feel like I’m riding a natural high, something more pleasurable than I could ever try to manufacture. Newness feels good, so traveling feels good, and being an extrovert in these moments comes naturally.

So just know that even if you tend to be shy and uninterested in going to random house parties or even the grocery store at home, you may find that you have renewed energy for meeting people (and feeding yourself) on the road. It helps tremendously that most other people are also feeling that dopamine rush from traveling, so they’re in a more approachable state, too.

I used to joke that at home in Southern California I had no idea how to make new friends. Do I just walk up to them at a café and ask what they like to do during their free time?

The truth is, on the road, the answer is “yes.” It’s often that simple. Travelers are by and large more receptive and friendlier than most of us are probably used to back home. Since we’re all getting dopamine rewards for meeting new people and exploring new places, it becomes easier for both parties to be more open on the road.

I used to worry that I’d fear approaching new people, but I rarely even have to start a conversation. If all else fails, “Where are you from?” is a perfectly acceptable way to break the ice, an easy question that everyone has an answer to. I’ve had random bus, hostel, and café conversations that have turned into lifelong friendships, and I’ve had others that only served to entertain me for the afternoon; both are of value, and I never know which I might get.

I love having no itinerary and no fixed plans. This is one of the gifts of solo traveling. That said, booking activities ahead of time and paying some kind of deposit can be of help to introverts who might otherwise find reasons why they should stay inside. I’m sure my fellow introverts recognize the scenario of waking up the day of a tour you’ve booked, wishing you could cancel, but since you’ve already paid, you end up going and having the best time. Having some skin in the game makes us way more likely to honor our commitments.

Personally, it’s tempting to cancel even if it’s something fun that I honestly want to do. If I didn’t prebook things in life, I’d never exercise, dive, or explore. It would be too easy to keep putting them off.

For example, I booked an island excursion on Nusa Penida and a cooking class in Chiang Mai, and led a group hiking tour of Torres del Paine in Patagonia that the women participants prepaid for. Many of them tended to be more introverted, but in a group activity like that, other solo travelers tend to show up, which helps everyone to be more social and open.

I’ve also found that staying in an accommodation that is social by nature, like a yoga or meditation retreat, or heading to places that are known for an activity I love, like scuba diving in Indonesia, can make my introversion easier to handle. Knowing that the others there will also be into the activity that I’m into gives us common ground, something to talk about, and the activity itself allows us to bond over a week or two. Some of my favorite people are those whom I met on a dive boat or week of deep spiritual practice.

Though all of these are “hacks” for becoming a more extroverted traveler, we introverts tend to get our energy from time spent alone. At some point we need some “me” time — and this is why solo travel can be so wonderful. Part of the beauty of solo travel is the time that you get to spend with yourself. You won’t disappoint anyone by needing time alone, nor will you have to push anyone away or force yourself into an activity you’re not really feeling.

I used to get down on myself if I went a few days without meeting new people. I’d fret over moments that I felt I’d “wasted” by reading in bed or chilling out for the day. Now I realize how important those days are too. I get to recharge by taking it easy and practicing self-care. And that’s a big reason why we travel too, isn’t it? We want to treat ourselves.

So please don’t feel bad if you’re traveling and you just don’t feel like going out that day, don’t want to be social, or feel like getting room service. It’s okay to do those things if it’s what you feel you need.

Listening to yourself is the most important part of solo traveling, anyway. This is something I’ve learned as a solo traveler in my 30s, and it’s made me enjoy traveling even more.

Knowing that you’ll have dopamine on your side, that you will meet people more easily on the road, and that you’ll be able to make real-time decisions about what’s best for you, you’ll be better off making the leap and traveling solo.

Conquering Mountains: The Guide to Solo Female Travel

For a complete A-to-Z guide on solo female travel, check out Kristin’s new book, Conquering Mountains. Besides discussing many of the practical tips of preparing and planning your trip, the book addresses the fears, safety, and emotional concerns women have about traveling alone. It features over 20 interviews with other female travel writers and travelers. Click here to learn more about the book and start reading it today!

Kristin Addis is a solo female travel expert who inspires women to travel the world in an authentic and adventurous way. A former investment banker who sold all of her belongings and left California in 2012, Kristin has solo traveled the world for over four years, covering every continent (except for Antarctica, but it’s on her list). There’s almost nothing she won’t try and almost nowhere she won’t explore. You can find more of her musings at Be My Travel Muse or on Instagram and Facebook.

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewher eother than a hotel, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and I think will help you too!

The post Can Introverts Successfully Travel Solo? appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

source https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/can-introverts-successfully-travel-solo/

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melissagarcia8 · 6 years ago

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Can Introverts Successfully Travel Solo?

Posted: 5/2/2019 | May 2nd, 2019

Recently, I traveled to Oakland to attend a birthday brunch. I didn’t know anyone besides the birthday girl. As an introvert, situations like that are hard for me; I don’t like strangers.

Per usual, I was pretty uncomfortable at first, choosing to stick close to the one person I knew and to kill time by slowly pouring myself a coffee and eating a fruit plate at tortoise speed.

Yet on the road it’s so much easier to get out and explore and especially to meet new people. Why is that?

In a word: dopamine.

Therefore, we are hardwired to explore and crave newness. It’s the anticipation of the unknown — and how exciting it could be — that encourages us to go beyond our comfort zones.

So, while it can be difficult for introverts to approach people and venture outside to do routine things at home, where everything is familiar, when we’re on the road we have dopamine on our side.

I used to joke that at home in Southern California I had no idea how to make new friends. Do I just walk up to them at a café and ask what they like to do during their free time?

Listening to yourself is the most important part of solo traveling, anyway. This is something I’ve learned as a solo traveler in my 30s, and it’s made me enjoy traveling even more.

Conquering Mountains: The Guide to Solo Female Travel

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

The post Can Introverts Successfully Travel Solo? appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

from Traveling News https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/can-introverts-successfully-travel-solo/

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tamboradventure · 6 years ago

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Can Introverts Successfully Travel Solo?

Posted: 5/2/2019 | May 2nd, 2019

Recently, I traveled to Oakland to attend a birthday brunch. I didn’t know anyone besides the birthday girl. As an introvert, situations like that are hard for me; I don’t like strangers.

Per usual, I was pretty uncomfortable at first, choosing to stick close to the one person I knew and to kill time by slowly pouring myself a coffee and eating a fruit plate at tortoise speed.

Yet on the road it’s so much easier to get out and explore and especially to meet new people. Why is that?

In a word: dopamine.

Therefore, we are hardwired to explore and crave newness. It’s the anticipation of the unknown — and how exciting it could be — that encourages us to go beyond our comfort zones.

So, while it can be difficult for introverts to approach people and venture outside to do routine things at home, where everything is familiar, when we’re on the road we have dopamine on our side.

I used to joke that at home in Southern California I had no idea how to make new friends. Do I just walk up to them at a café and ask what they like to do during their free time?

Listening to yourself is the most important part of solo traveling, anyway. This is something I’ve learned as a solo traveler in my 30s, and it’s made me enjoy traveling even more.

Conquering Mountains: The Guide to Solo Female Travel

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

The post Can Introverts Successfully Travel Solo? appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

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#IFTTT #Nomadic Matt's Travel Site

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numberoneproperty2018 · 6 years ago

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Compare freehold and leasehold property

Which should you choose, 99 Years Or Freehold – The Complete Guide

Its normal in life that we are born, raised well through education until we become grown-ups.

Once you become a grown-up you inherit your parents’ wealth or investments. If your parents didn’t save or accumulated wealth, it’s upon you as an adult to work hard in life, save wealth and do an investment using your wealth.

Everyone would love to own an investment property, but we should know the various type of property you want town for you to make the right choice when you ultimately decide to invest in a property.

Before you set your mind to buy or invest in a property you should be aware that you should create a contract deal with your dealer.

It’s recommended to decide if you need freehold or leasehold property. Though leasehold property is 10 to 15 percent less price as compared to freehold property.

What’s the meaning of leasehold property?

What’s leasehold? And how does it work?

It means that the property you own will one time expire according to the terms and agreements you made when you purchased it.

So for example, if you purchased land for a certain fixed period of time or any other period when your land expires you will have to return it.

If it belongs to the government, you will return it back to the state.

The lease period for a property is recommended to be 99 years or less and it can’t be more than that.

What’s the meaning of freehold property?

It simply means that when you buy a property, you have permanent ownership of the same or ownership forever.

Example of freehold investment is an estate.

It doesn’t matter the size of the property you own as an investor you have the choice on what you can do with it next.

Freehold type is more valued when an investment is on land but when its other types of properties, freehold price may be more expensive than leasehold property in that case.

Now that you know the difference between the two terms, it seems freehold price is a bit more expensive as compared to leasehold prices.

Facts to note

You will also realize that most of the leasehold properties are located in good attractive places where people prefer.

They are also near facilities and amenities like markets, bus stations and MRT stations.

Freehold properties will have will have benefits that will last from your generation to the next generation specifically if it’s a land property.

Freehold and leasehold property in Singapore are both important and valuable assets to invest in.

For investment shouldn’t be all about profits and benefits but you will have peace of mind and feel at ease that at least you have something valuable. Which can serve you in case you have a problem to solve.

Please! Always try your best to check, read all the information and understand legal aspects related to property transaction so that when you finally decide to spend your money on a property. So that you don’t regret spending your money.

A long time ago freehold property was favored and preferred for purchase as compared to leasehold property, but currently, it seems leasehold property is more favored.

But my question is, why would an investor choose on leasehold property? While you are aware that in freehold property you get permanent ownership of your property. And what about leasehold property? You permit that title ownership for only a specific number of years and when it expires it’s returned back to the state.

Since leasehold properties are located in attractive places, they invest in places in some part of Singapore like City hall, High streets and North bridge road because they believe that investment nowadays is based on lifestyle.

Leasehold properties which are located in good places have got a high prospect of customers who prefer them for capital appreciation.

Here in Singapore people are well familiar with terms of purchase in leaseholds property. That’s why some of the investors here are very comfortable with leasehold deal.

On the other hand, there are investors who once they have interest and attracted to a property, they won’t care if its leasehold kind of a property or freehold.

But I think each individual should just decide on him/herself about the type of property he wants to invest in considering all the information you have on this. Though I still have to admit that leaseholds property has got high yields of customers or investors because of their fewer price schedules.

Leasehold property is more flexible in terms of market, thus making it persevere all the ups and downs of the economy hence becomes investors favorite.

For investors who want to invest in Singapore property, you should ask yourself many questions based on whether you need return benefits or rentals or gains from capital appreciation.

So if you consider yields so much, please go for leasehold property, but if you need capital value increase, you should choose freehold property which slowly increase after 10 years.

You should know that even as you choose freehold property, it cost more, it takes 10 to 15 percent more than leasehold property. For example, if you pay 2 million you will realize that you are running an extra amount of 200,000.

Another idea that freehold property is a permanent ownership of the property at times may be a wrong mindset because this property location belongs to the government.

The government will one day decide that they should build a proposed project, this means freehold property terms become null and void.

Remember for location benefits, leasehold property is the best because mostly they are found in attractive places, near markets, MRT stations and near amenities. This makes them of high demand and results in a high market value.

So when you want to purchase leasehold property, please consider location, its promising and brings a lot of income.

The belief that when the leasehold value of a property expires after 99years, leasehold value of a property appreciates as compared to freehold property.

I can say that it applies to both of them because when the market decreases, it will affect both of them at the same time.

Both the tenures are very important and we love them because they are properties but for benefits and professional perspective of view, leasehold is more recommended to freehold property.

It makes sense that leasehold will perform in terms of rental yields, but now the choice remains to be yours as the buyer to decide on which one to invest in after all this explanations and elaborations.

From all the information learned, between leasehold and freehold property, which one is better?

In Singapore there are only two types of property title ownership, that’s freehold and leasehold properties.

Leasehold terms are mainly preferred because of 99 years and 999 years leases, the land being leased belong to the state and subjected to terms and conditions.

In terms of capital premium, many people have been debating on this two tenures.

An answer depends on the price schedule and the perceived lifespan.

Though freehold prices schedules of the premium is a little bit over leasehold property and now it’s upon you to choose on the reasonable price.

According to Singapore revenue, freehold property charges a percentage of 4 to 10 over leasehold properties, leaseholds gives a duration of 99 years as you make yields and profits.

Now I suggest that paying for leasehold property is very profitable and reasonable.

Let’s take an example case of two projects running at the same time, Southaven 1 and southaven2 they are both located next to each other.

Sothaven1 is on a 99years leasehold site while Southaven 2 is on 999years leasehold site, let’s assume that 999years leasehold is freehold while that with 99years leasehold to be leasehold property.

In the year 1995, the gap percentage between southaven1 and 2 was 8 percent, this is earlier when the first data was read in comparison, the same year 35 units of Southaven 1 was sold at $600 while Southaven 2 sold for $680.

When it reached the year 2012 the gap between the two projects widened by 20 percent, this resulted to an increase by 27 percent of the price in Southaven1 at $800 and an increase of 40 percent at southaven2 to $960 during the same period.

The percentage kept on changing until it hit 34 percent in the year 2005 the gap remained at 20 percent between 1995 and 2012.

In Singapore it’s compulsory that lands are acquired by the government for the constructions of roads, express ways and MRT rails.

In that case the properties owners will have no choice but to sell their lands to the government, this will affect both the freehold and leasehold properties.

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From that narration, you now know the best tenure to invest your wealth in.

Compare and contrast between freehold property and leasehold property.

In this case, we ask ourselves several questions, we know very well that besides children investing in a house is a lifetime commitment.

But having had all the information available, to choose on which type of property to invest in is a bit confusing.

What most people think about is whether to go for freehold property or leasehold property.

Should we care on which tenure to choose on?

This makes us try to find out the main differences between leasehold property and freehold property and how it determines your property buying decision.

It may look like the two tenures are technical languages, but there are many important things about your property home or land than worrying about whether you will get it on leasehold or freehold terms.

There are different forms of home ownership, that’s lease and freehold ownership. But when buying a house you should differentiate between a house worth buying and the one not worth buying.

Failure to differentiate cause regrets in many people only after a purchase, and remember making a wrong choice may be a huge expense in your entire life.

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Let’s discuss first on the factors involved in freehold property.

If you own the freehold property, it means you are the owner of the building and the land it stands on.

Your name should be registered on the land as a freeholder of the land and as a person owning the land title.

It’s always the preferred option, you can’t go wrong with it.

No payment of annual rent,

You won’t fail to maintain your freehold and you won’t be charged excess amount.

You have a task of maintaining the building, roof and the surrounding of the whole building.

In this investment, a state puts land aside and dispose it immediately to an individual, the developer will build on the land and sell it to the buyer.

The buyer will build on it a property, as you continue owning the land as a developer, the buyer will be building different types of buildings and he will be given a title of master owner.

The buyer will still be owning the facilities but the developer still remain the owner of the land.

In order to change the title, you will have to follow many channels of which one of them is through strata title.

Beware!!

It’s only the government environmental conditions and planning which affects freehold property or investment.

Because you may have purchased your land then suddenly a project from the state emerges, the state will take back your land, which is not the case with leasehold investment.

Though be sure that they will pay you back the market value of your property. Though you won’t have gained much, which is not the case with leasehold property investment.

Freehold investment has got a fair share of benefits, and there is no limitation on transfer of ownership, so it’s easy to transfer your land to someone else.

They may have the right to give the land but still, the final decision must come from the government planning control to facilitate the whole process for you.

Note

Note that, that in some freehold properties, in order to transfer the ownership you have to consult or inform the state

They are very strict on this in case there is a property that was changed from leasehold to freehold property.

If you are a potential buyer, please check and investigate if there are restrictions on the land you want to purchase before you decide to buy.

What about leasehold property?

Getting a house from the freeholder who is also known as the landlord to use the house for a specified number of years.

The years are long-term as 90,120 and even the highest 0f 999years, at the same time it can be 40 years and less.

What are the leaseholder’s rules?

They pay maintenance fees

They will consult for any major work done to the property.

There is a restriction on what to keep in that home.

v Leasehold property has restrictions which must come with the agreement of the lease.

v It’s usually a deal of 99 and even sometimes it may go up to 999years.

v These deals are found in some parts of Singapore like North East district in areas such as Seletar and Yio Chu Kang.

v The tenant must take good care of the land or the property as its stated in the land legislation of law. Sometimes you may be required to make some changes or developments by a way of maintenance.

v If the state declares tenant incompetent to take care of the land, then the tenure will risk being unsecured.

Beware!!

Leasehold property takes a long time to sell– in order for a leasehold property to be sold, it takes like 3 or more months which only start after you have given out consent to the state for early approval.

And remember before approval is done, it can take a duration of about 6 months to 1 year.

This can cause delays in the process of your sales.

Because if you are in leasehold ownership, unlike how it operates in some of the freehold titles, the state or anybody relevant is the only one allowed to approve the transfer of leasehold title.

It will all depend on the number of consent requested on this, the delays happen in places like Changi, Loyang, and Pasir Ris.

Leasehold property value may be lower than freehold property value.

In this value issue, the researchers have found out that leasehold properties with 99 years lease go up to a similar rate with freehold properties for a duration of 20 to 30 years.

Most leasehold properties do gain more values in the early years of the beginning, but if it goes past 30 years it becomes stagnant and reduces until the expiry date elapses.

In terms of price, leasehold property may or may not be cheaper than freehold property investment, reasons may depend on specific considerations.

If all the building details are equal for both the two tenures, like the surrounding conditions, area of which the property is built and the size of the land, the price of the leasehold may be 20% lower than freehold property.

Financing leasehold property may be difficult to succeed in.

These developers face challenges with finance because the financial institution is strict on the duration your property has taken on the lease.

And in this case, they can only lend a property which is 75 and above years remaining on the lease.

These may discourage you and cut short your dreams of making your property develop.

There is a specific date expiry for leasehold property, you will be reminded or given a notice on the expiry date and you will renew it.

Leasehold business or investment is not that bad because whenever you are purchasing leasehold property you will realize that it comes with a lot of facilities from your developer and again may be priced lower than freehold property.

Since most developers understand the competition of properties in the market, they compensate with more facilities for leasehold properties.

After all these explanations, what kind of decision are you going to make?

Everyone may desire to own a property in Singapore. But you must be aware of the types of properties to make the best choice when you will finally decide to invest in the property.

Before ever settling down to decide on investing in Singapore, you should be aware of the deal you are engaging in.

Since the option of the property you choose will benefit you, because you shall have invested your finances, so you have to consider terms and conditions that best suit your transaction on whether its freehold or leasehold property.

The first wise decision to make when it comes to property ownership is that you have to know what you expect.

Take your time to research on locations that can be an ideal of a property, make a shortlist of things you think are very important.

All these will help you make informed decision along in prior as you visit the actual site for the interested property.

Finally it’s wise to reflect on whether you need a property of a fixed duration of 99years or freehold properties in Singapore. Irrespective of whether it’s a condominium or a land

Freehold cost 10% to 15% more than leasehold in Singapore. The premium charged can be more when a freehold property is near MRT station.

Money is frivolous and one day you may be affluent and on the other you may be surviving on the brink of poverty.

Such a circumstances take drastic measures to be taken.

For example, you may have to take the money out of the bank before the right time.

The following issue we will talk about, of course, doesn’t need to happen only in such an extreme situation, you may just want to change the bank.

No matter what the reason is, taking out the money you put into your fixers deposit account, unfortunately, does have repercussions.

One of them is that you will lose the entire interest money you have gained.

It may also happen that you lose it just partially, and this totally depends on the bank’s policy.

If you were saving money in foreign currency, the situation is even gloomier as you may get back less than you put in.

What happens after my fixed term is up?

The response to the question is pretty simple – enjoy the money!

Nevertheless, there are some other options if you want to continue saving the money.

You can take the money gained by the interest rate of just rollover all the money you have in your fixed deposit account and continue earning.

It is important to communicate with your bank even before the maturity about what you want to do with the money because if you don’t, they will renew the fixed deposit for the equal period at the current market rate for a deposit of that amount and time period.

You will also like: Cambodia Property Investment Guide with Best Selling Condos

How do I get my deposit back after the time period is up?

There are a few simple options you have:

pick the money up at the branch itself or the cheque of you wanted to have the money in that form

ask them to send you the check via e-mail

require transfer to your account

require transfer to someone else’s account

Can I top-up the fixed deposit account?

You initially may have invested the minimum amount of money but then had a change of heart and wanted to add a bit more?

Well, before you open the fixed deposit account you have to think through very well how much you want to put in because there is no possibility of topping it up.

However, what you can do is to open a new fixed deposit account with the additional amount of money you wanted to profit on!

Check this: Malaysia Property Investment Guide with Best Selling Condos

How does that bank calculate the interest return on a fixed deposit?

Someone would think that this sort of ‘banking’ takes some sort of higher mathematics.

Therefore many people don’t even try to think about how much they will earn until they get the money because they put it aside just to have a peaceful mind when they are old.

Actually, predicting how much you will gain with the fixed deposit is not hard at all and all it takes is simple multiplying.

The deposited money should be multiplied by the interest rate and then by the amount of time your cash has been sitting in the bank – and that’s it!

Read this: Vietnam Property Investment Guide with Best Selling Condos

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Pros and cons of a fixed deposit

Here, we will sum some of the advantages and setbacks when it comes to the fixed deposit.

You’ll be able to notice that avfixed deposit brings some risk wkth it which you have to take into consideration.

The biggest advantage of a fixed deposit is in its liquidity. With small amount of money invested you can double the gain by even just after a month.

This sort of saving your money bears no risks with itself and the return of money is secured.

In case that anything happens you can still have it insured by the Singapre Deposit Insurance Corporation.

On the other hand, the downfall is that you can’t withdraw money before maturity.

This means you can’t do anything with it during the tenure that you set with the bank.

Also, there is a risk of losing the interest when you take the money out earlier than planned.

Check out: London Property Investment Guide with Best Selling Condos

Why choose a fixed deposit?

The section before showed just some of the reasons to opt for a fixed deposit.

Besides being flexible and attainable in terms of money, it hides a few more aces under the sleeve.

Firstly, if the currency is foreign it will get you some extra dollars.

Finally, the interest money can be used a collateral when you are applying for an overdraft facility giving you the bedge with a good rate.

Fixed deposit VS savings account

These two types of saving money are often the topic of many debates.

Customers ask themselves which one is better in terms of gaining money and security.

Here are some of our notes when it comes to the 2.

A fixed deposit has a score more because you can gain much more than with the savings account.

This is due to the interest rate that can be increased with the longer tenure periods.

Then, there is a difference how currency is used.

With the fixed deposit, foreign currency will work in your favour while you can’t even make a savings account with foreign currency investment.

However, we can say that savings account beats the fixed deposit in terms of liquidity because it is not bound by any fixed terms within which you are allowed to get the money.

Therefore, there is no risk of losing the money due to premature withdrawal.

Finally we have to note one last difference in the way the money is paid out – with the savings account it goes monthly while with the fixed deposit it is usually quarterly or annually.

This last variation is vital to notice when you want to set a certain pace to your savings, and it depends on when you are planning to use the money.

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alltechtipstricks · 6 years ago

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Learn To Generate Income Online From Atish Ranjan

There are a great deal of blog writers out there however online couple of that blog full-time and generate income online, and Atish Ranjan, who is among them, is a successful blogger specialized in SEO. He owns multiple websites, with his main website being Tech Tricks World, where he routinely discusses innovation and likewise about blogging. In this interview, he shares with us the top complimentary blogging tools he utilizes and likewise the action by action procedures to enhance his posts. How do you introduce your profession to

your loved ones? Hello there Minuca, thanks for having me here on your blog. I am pleased to be here.

My household currently understands whatever about it due to the fact that when I began making some cash, I described to them how things operate in blogging and other online jobs.

About good friends and relatives, it was difficult for me to make them comprehend what do I provide for a living. In the early days, I used to tell them that I do self-employed work since when I said I make money online from blogging, they were like "Blogging for money??." They did know that the blogging is a hobby thing.

I tried to avoid stating too much as individuals started to ask so many questions, and friends desired me to teach them to make earnings online like I do.

They thought it's easy to make money online, but I tried to make them understand the full procedure so that they do not take things wrong and do not enter the problem by starting a blog site and then quitting soon due to no incomes.

Now, whenever, someone asks me about my profession, I do inform them that I am a blogger and an internet online marketer. That's it! If they got some more concerns to ask, I offer the responses based on the questions.

Preliminary days was difficult to make anybody understand but slowly blogging is becoming popular and common, so individuals are now much acquainted with it, and making them understand is now easier.

So now when somebody asks, I proudly tell them that I am a blogger, and I make loan online working from house.

How did you pick your specific niche?

I loved tech, which is the factor I started blogging about tech. Slowly, I found out about blogging and SEO. For that reason on my blog site, I started to discuss tech, SEO, blogging, and even about software. It's a multi-niche blog.

There was absolutely nothing about selecting the niche; I simply began out with what I wanted to write and share with others.

I have begun a couple of websites that are entirely in one specific niche, and I chose those specific niches after comprehensive keyword research study.

The keyword research helped me find the keywords with good search volume yet have low competitors, which's how I choose niches for my brand-new blog(s).

Competitive analysis is imperative when you are going to pick a specific niche for your blog. If you do not know how huge or how small your rivals are its hard to take successful decisions.

Do you have one primary website or do you manage a number of blogs?

I have one primary site which TechTricksWorld.com and have multiple others that I created to earn money by using different monetization techniques.

Considering that I work online full-time, I need to attempt out all legitimate and possible methods to generate income online so I can pay my bills and have a good lifestyle. I work on many blog sites and other things. Often, handling whatever seemed difficult however since I have actually developed my team, handling the work became easier and now things are under control.

In which specific niches your websites are and how do you share your time and focus between them?

My primary location of working is innovation. I am trying out a few micro niches to test how micro specific niche blogging is doing.

About time, I am a full-time blogger, and I work around 13-15 hours every day. So time is not a big problem for me, and likewise because I have a group, I get things done from them, and work is going smooth.

Furthermore, my main focus is my blog site www.techtricksworld.com. My 80% focus is on this just, and 20% focus is on other blog sites and works.

If you are passionate about something it's simple to devote time to work on them and being focused is not an issue. You require to know which ways are most transforming and beneficial and after that prioritize your jobs. Follow the schedule, and you will notice that you can do things easily.

Every day when I sit to work, I inspect my e-mails first, focus on the work in hand, and begin working on them one by one. I do not deal with multiple things at the same time.

What is your action by action process to optimize a new post to ensure you rank on search engines?

You can not guarantee your post's ranking as it's up to the Google's algorithm but still there are a couple of things that you can do to make sure the very best on page optimization of your brand-new post.

I. I research study for keywords and search for those keywords which have sufficient search volume i.e. more than 2000 (a minimum of), and after that I calculate their natural competition. I choose mainly the low or medium competitors keywords.

II. Arrange the keywords as the primary keyword and secondary keywords.

III. Put the Main keyword in the Headline of the post. Try to keep it at the start of the title. Now, in the content use your primary keyword in the very first paragraph naturally, and attempt to utilize it a minimum of with 1.5-- 2% keyword density in the content. Attempt to put that primary keyword at least one time in H1, 2 times in H2, and one time H3 Tag. And, rest, spread them throughout the content.

IV. Use the secondary keywords in the post in the natural circulation of content. If possible, attempt to put that too in H2 tag and H3 tags a minimum of once or twice.

V. Interlink your other content of the very same blog site, and also try to connect out some outstanding recommendation articles. When you connect out to great resources, Google considers your blog site as a beneficial resource as you direct users to relevant material.

VI. Make sure you add Alt Texts to the images you utilize in the article.

VII. Keep the post link structure (Permalink) well, and potentially utilize your keyword there.

VIII. Write in-depth material around 1500 words or 2000 words long. Google and even human loves detailed content. So, use the finest, and your articles will make many natural backlinks which might help you rank much better on Google.

I have composed an article a long ago about On-page Optimization for posts that readers may have a look at to know the much better optimization of their posts.

Note: Usage of keywords is essential however try doing it in such a way that you do not forcefully include them in the content. They must go with the circulation of the content

What totally free blogging tools do you advise that you think are necessary for any blog writer?

I utilize numerous free and paid tools for numerous jobs. It is difficult for me to advise since the requirement of tools differs from blogger to blogger since everyone has different needs.

You can use these totally free tools:

1. Canva-- For producing excellent images for your post.

2. Google Keyword Organizer-- You can use it for keyword research, however it will not give you the organic competitors. You need to discover the natural competitors by hand by browsing the keywords in the Google and analyze the authority of the sites ranking on the very first page.

3. Kraken.io-- A great tool for compressing images. You can compress your images prior to publishing on the blog site to keep the image size low which keeps you page load much faster.

4. Onlinelogomaker.com-- If you can not afford the designer to create a logo for you, you can utilize this online tool to make a logo design for yourself free of charge.

5. Mailtrack.io-- For keeping an eye on e-mails whether they read or not. When you send out guest publishing, interview or roundup demands you eagerly wish to get replies from the bloggers, however you do not know whether they read your email and disregarded or they didn't even check out.

In such cases, you can utilize Mailtrack.io for Gmail that alerts you when they read your emails. It is readily available for free but for expert functions, you need to go for its premium version.

What mistakes did you make when you first began blogging?

In the start, I was not aware that how much worth content has, and I wrote whatever concerned my mind. I published even 150 words posts. Things were great, but when Google Panda Update rolled out, it did create some issue.

Gradually, I familiarized and started to compose well looked into, well crafted, and detailed material with a lot of screenshots, facts, and details.

This was my very first mistake that I corrected later on.

The 2nd one was when I began to earn from sponsored blog posting; I did sponsored posts a lot without checking the quality of the material that the client used to send us to publish or the links that we are going to link to the post. Later Google penalized me with its Unnatural Outbound Manual Action Charge, and then I understood my error.

Additionally, I got the penalty gotten rid of and fixed things.

I deleted more than 300 post from my blog site because they weren't high quality or appropriate then repurposed more than 100 posts, and I am still doing it. I began to focus more on content quality, and I can state that I made mistakes, but I fixed them before it got far too late.

What pointers would you suggest for newbies to assist them avoid comparable circumstances?

I would advise newbies to focus more on quality from beginning. Don't get brought away of what individuals say, try to concentrate more on keyword research study before you compose the material. Do one post a week but ensure it's the very best of you.

Don't blindly accept visitor posts or sponsored posts. Have a check on them. Try to provide no follow links to advertisers' links since they do a lot of posts using similar anchor text, and if you also utilize the very same anchor text to link to them, you may get caught and receive a manual charge.

Above all, set your objectives, and do everything to reach them. Just effort will not get you success; you need to do wise work at the same time.

How do you choose a topic for a brand-new blog site post?

When I started blogging, I posted whatever that I desired. But, now I select the subjects after doing keyword research study because it offers me an idea of what people are searching. I attempt to write on those subjects so that the posts assist individuals to get the results that they are trying to find, and I get more traffic to my blog.

I also examine the search inquiries that appear in my website's Google Webmaster account as it gives me ideas for writing those things that can be an excellent aid for the users.

When you write something that users are looking for, most likely you get more traffic.

For example, when I published a blog site post about best wifi routers in India in which I mentioned something about wifi range extenders. After a week I saw that there were numerous search questions for wifi range extender in my web designer however considering that there was just a small reference of that in the post, people were not getting more info, so I made a separate post on it, and it's getting a great variety of hits every day.

By doing this, people are discovering what they were browsing for, and I am getting traffic and sales as well.

To look for topics, I read many tech blogs too to get more ideas of new type of posts. I spend hours investigating for brand-new concepts.

It is stated that a business it's constructed from an excellent idea, so I invest more time on researching for concepts and less time to execute them.

These are how I research and select subjects.

How do you make money online from your website(s)' traffic? Do you use Adsense, affiliate marketing, coaching, eBooks, consultancy, or other services to generate earnings?

These 4 are the main monetization methods I utilize, and they make sufficient loan for me.

Thanks for having me on your blog, Minuca. I delighted in the concerns and enjoyed to react to them.

Great Luck

Thank you for solutioning to my interview, Atish! I am grateful that you shared your experience with my readers. Enjoyed reading this post? Please share it with your good friends and leave your feedback below.

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http://minucaelena.com/earn-money-online/

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consulting-celiac-in-the-tardis · 6 years ago

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13 New Healthy Habits That Changed My Life in 2018

New blog post! Now that the New Year is almost here, New Years Resolutions are a common topic of conversation...and while I rarely make a strict resolution, I do love making small changes to my everyday routine that add up to a BIG impact. So I thought I’d join The Mighty’s #52SmallThings challenge and share 13 small healthy habits - in diet, exercise and just everyday life - that made my life a 1000% better this year.

Like always, I want to make it clear that I'm not a dietician, nutritionist or doctor. I'm just a girl with two chronic illnesses who likes sharing what lifestyle choices help me thrive, mentally and physically! So if you do want to make big changes in your life in 2019 (or even enact some of the bigger changes in diet, exercise, etc. that I mention in this post), I recommend talking to a medical professional first. But if you're looking for ideas of healthy New Years resolutions or small tweaks you can make in 2019 that could improve your whole life, keep reading to find inspiration in what habits worked for me!

1. Replacing half of my TV time with audiobooks.

My college roommates could attest to the fact that I used to be addicted to Netflix, Hulu and other streaming sites. I’m a natural multitasker, so I’d always have some show playing in the background as I blogged, did chores, cooked or surfed the web. And I still watch TV shows regularly (check out my list of awesome food-related documentaries on Netflix if you need new show recommendations!). However, I’d say I watch a quarter of what I used to...and that’s because I’ve started listening to audiobooks instead!

Not only does this let me read more books during the school year (when I rarely have time to physically “read” anything beyond my assigned books) but audiobooks have also been shown to improve critical listening, comprehension, vocabulary, pronunciation - whether you're a student or an adult reader. Plus, listening to audiobooks could also save you money in the long run if you stop paying for cable or pay for just one streaming service. I get all of my audiobooks from the library using OverDrive, so I’d highly recommend seeing if your library offers the same OverDrive resource.

2. Finding teas that I actually love to drink.

I actually have my sister to thank for starting this healthy habit since her Christmas gift to me last year was a big bundle of gluten free, decaffeinated tea. Before her gift, I always wanted to like tea but never drank it regularly. This past year, though, Bigelow's Lemon Ginger Herbal Tea + Probiotics and Orange & Spice Tea have become my favorite way to warm up on a very cold day in Minnesota. Plus, I’ve found that drinking a warm cup of tea is a great way to practice self-care on days when my stomach or digestion is acting up. So whether you’re trying to stop drinking coffee and want to get your caffeine from tea instead or just want the health benefits that can come from certain types of tea, drinking more tea is an easy New Years resolution or small, healthy habit to try.

PS - that glass straw is from Foods Alive, for whom I serve as an ambassador, and it is super awesome!

3. Being LESS strict with my diet.

I know that especially around the New Years, people are usually trying to eat healthier and cut out a lot of the treats they’ve been enjoying during the holidays. But I’ve been taking a different approach in 2018 - and it’s been working so well, I don’t plan on changing it in 2019: I’ve been eating a little bit of anything and everything (that’s gluten free). Like I’ve written about before, I’ve experimented with a LOT of different diets since my celiac disease diagnosis. I’ve tried paleo. I’ve tried eating super clean with little to no processed foods. And for a lot of 2017 and 2018, I ate vegan. But in the latter half of last year, I continued loosening up on my diet. I ate meat when I felt like it and more ice cream in one semester than I probably ate in all 2017. I experimented with different gluten free foods, like hummus and freezer meals. And you know what? I’m happier. I’m at a healthier weight (more on that below). And it's been pretty freakin' delicious to eat ground turkey with my dinner or ice cream with my night snack.

This isn’t to say that you should go crazy on whatever foods (if any) you’ve been limiting lately. And obviously there are some foods that DON'T do well with people (like gluten for people with celiac disease), and it IS an act of self-care to avoid those triggers. However, I did want to share my experience to show that eating “perfectly” or eating a certain diet isn’t always better than just eating what your body craves and going with the flow.

4. Establishing a regular weight-lifting routine.

One of the other biggest reasons I think I gained some curves and muscle in 2018? I started lifting weights on a regular basis...and progressively lifting heavier. I’ve flirted with the weight room since junior year of college, but I always did more cardio than weight lifting. And I still do a good amount of cardio (this gal loves a stair stepper workout!), but leg injuries forced me to dive deeper into the realm of weight lifting, and I’m really glad they did! I’m certainly no pro at lifting weights and still don’t lift very heavy compared to many people, but I love how strong I feel now and getting to challenge myself by slowly racking up the weight.

Nowadays, it seems a LOT more socially acceptable for women to lift weights and use the weight room at gyms. However, it definitely can feel intimidating to walk into a weight room full of huge dudes who all seem to know exactly what they’re doing. Just know that getting to see and feel yourself getting stronger is so worth that initial discomfort or the days it takes you to figure out weight lifting equipment and proper form. Gaining some extra curves along the way has just been a bonus!

5. Listening to podcasts when I'm working out or doing chores.

This year also marked the start of my love for podcasts. While I listened to them every so often before, now I go through a handful of episodes each week, and it’s definitely given me some new topics to bring up in conversations. Plus, depending on the podcast I listen to, I often feel less alone about certain struggles I’m going through (like the general chaos of life in your 20s) and learn new skills related to mindfulness, meditation, gratitude, etc.

Of course, it is important to give yourself a break and not be listening to something every single minute of your day. But if you want to replace some of your TV with informative or entertaining podcasts, or just want to learn some new facts in your spare time, some of my fave podcasts right now are:

Trader Joe’s (Inside) - all about Trader Joe’s, as told from various employees on the inside

How I Built This - each episode features an interview with a new entrepreneur about how they succeeded at building their company or brand

Freakonomics Radio - in-depth conversations with various experts on interesting topics ranging from the obesity crisis to the connection between religion and happiness

Oprah’s Supersoul Conversations - it’s Oprah and she’s interviewing a bunch of crazy cool people about deep takeaways they’ve gotten from life

That's So Maven - I only just discovered that The Healthy Maven (an awesome blog) has its own, equally awesome podcast all about health, wellness and everyday life.

6. Saying "yes" to social events I initially felt on the fence about going to.

To be completely honest...I’m a homebody. 9/10 Friday nights, I’m chilling in my apartment with Netflix and homemade granola. But in 2018, I tried to say “yes” to more invitations, even if they were out of my comfort zone. And as a result, I... ...stayed up until 2 AM dancing at a club in downtown Minneapolis. ...went to a concert held by one of my professors and discovered that tipsy people really like my fuzzy black scarf.

...almost froze seeing Christmas lights in Mankato but also managed to see some real-live reindeer! ...am visiting a special someone in San Diego for part of my Christmas break. (And if you notice that I'm a bit quiet on the blog/social media next week, this visit is why!) I wouldn’t say that everything I said “yes” to in 2018 was a complete success. But I’m going to start 2019 with a heck of a lot of good memories that I wouldn’t have made if I’d said “no” to everything that was a little out of my comfort zone.

7. Saying "no" to things I felt like I SHOULD do...but actually didn't want or need.

At the same time, though, healthy living for me involves saying “no” to a good amount of social or work invitations. The truth is, grad school is exhausting...especially when you’re also working several jobs and have two chronic illnesses. So a lot of the time, I can’t do all the things I want to. I still feel guilty sometimes for not being a “good enough” MFA student since I miss so many department-related events. And a big part of me wishes I could live off of 4 or 6 hours of sleep like other college students and dedicate those extra hours to blogging more or doing more freelance work or spending more time with friends.

But my body doesn’t work like that. And if you have your own health struggles or just have the tendency to say “yes” to things out of obligation instead of actual enjoyment...maybe the best New Years resolution is saying “no” more. Staying in on a Saturday night if that’s what your mind or body needs. Making friends with people who understand when you need some alone time. And, at the most basic level, saying “yes” to your own needs BEFORE saying “yes” to anything else. Personally, I know that’s one “goal” I’m always going to be working on, including in 2019!

8. Starting each morning with a solo dance party.

This year of grad school, I’m teaching an 8 AM Intro to English Composition class. And I’m not gonna lie. Sometimes it’s hard to get myself out of bed, across campus and excited to teach that early in the morning. This last semester, though, I’ve started playing even just a few minutes of my favorite songs when I wake up, and I think it’s definitely helped make me a little more motivated to head off to class. Research even reports that listening to music that you like triggers the release of dopamine, or the “happy hormone” in the brain. So the next time you have an early morning you’re not looking forward to or just need a pick-me-up anytime in the day, groovin’ to some of your favorite tunes might help!

9. Foam rolling after every single workout.

I don’t really have much to say about this except do it. 2018 was the first year that I actually committed to foam rolling any time I do a leg workout, and it has seriously done wonders for my soreness and healing from my leg injuries.

10. Eating more plant-based protein...but not restricting myself from meat.

I already mentioned this a little bit earlier on in the post, but it was a big enough change to deserve its own bullet. If you follow me on Instagram, you probably noticed that over the past year and a half, I’ve been eating more hummus and beans than my old favorite of sweet potato salmon sliders. During that time, I love that I was able to slowly increase my stomach’s tolerance for legumes (by eating a verrrrry small amount of beans and then working up) and I’ve really enjoyed experimenting with new plant-based foods like pulled BBQ jackfruit or homemade hummus.

But over the last few months, I’ve added meat back into my diet. And you know what? I’ve found that’s what works best for me. Now I'm not saying that a vegan diet can't work for people or isn't a good idea. If you don't want to eat meat or eggs or dairy and that works for you, great! And I can honestly say that a vegan and gluten free diet can still be super delicious. But if 2018 taught me anything, it's that every body thrives on a different diet. And I just hope that anyone who wants to experiment with a new diet in 2019 or make a healthy eating New Year's resolution remembers that!

11. Sharing regular phone calls with old friends.

I was warned about how hard it would be to stay in contact with college friends after graduation, and that’s definitely true. Last year, though, I tried to make it more of a priority to catch up with old friends and it felt super rewarding. As anyone who’s ever been (or is presently) in their 20s knows, it’s a really weird time. People are doing everything from still living at home with their parents to getting married and having kids to starting their career to being in school like me. And during weeks when I feel really unsure about what the heck I was doing with life, it helps a lot to have someone to talk to who knows me but is now doing something totally different than I am.

12. Turning off push notifications for my social media apps.

I’m not gonna lie. I spend a loooot of time on my phone. But one step that did help in 2018 was turning off push notifications for social media apps. A 2015 study actually tested the effects of saying "no" to push notifications and found that people were more productive and less distracted in the first 24 hours. And when researchers checked in with study participants one year later, two-thirds had chosen to keep their notifications off, increasing their long-term chances of being less stress and more focused. Now, I wouldn’t say that muting notifications has turned me into a super productive superwoman. But I think it does help keep me from getting distracted by every Facebook comment or Instagram direct message when they happen - and, at the very least, no harm was done by turning my push notifications off!

13. Celebrating the moments when I walk by the mirror and think, "Dang girl, you're lookin' good!"

Body image with celiac disease is always a complicated topic, and I definitely haven't discovered the secret to self-love with chronic illness. BUT in 2018, I did get a lot better at celebrating the moments when I do feel at home in my body, no matter what surprises it throws my way. And here's the biggest thing about self-love and self-care I learned in 2018: it doesn't have to be complicated! It doesn't require fancy face masks or a morning ritual of staring at the mirror and saying everything you love about your body. It can be as simple as taking a selfie or taking an extra moment to smile in the mirror on days you're feeling really good.

If you want to step up your whole self-love and self-care routine, check out my posts (here and here) on some simple and quick self-love activities you can try. But don't forget to get the most out of the little moments, too, when you feel awesome and can celebrate that vibe!

My Biggest Goal for 2019

Even as I'm finishing up this post on Christmas Day, it blows my mind that 2018 is almost over. It was not a perfect year (is there even such a thing?!?) but it was a year full of growth and laughter and adventures and challenges and successes...and new healthy habits that I'm definitely going to keep up in the New Year! Like I said earlier in this post, I rarely make New Year's resolutions, and that isn't changing in 2019. But I do like picking a word to focus on...and in 2019, my word is going to be "open." Open to new opportunities, even if they scare me or aren't what I was planning or expecting. Open to changes in my routine, even if routine is what I'm most comfortable with.

And, of course, open to discovering more habits that will help me live a happy, healthy life! What's one healthy habit that's changed your life? Tell me in the comments! via Blogger http://bit.ly/2ERawqq

#Blogger #college #celiac #gluten free #coeliac #celiacs #paleo #primal #foodporn #foodart

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