#so essentially i’ve been spending 11 hours in bed but only sleeping for 6 of them

[fingertipsmp3]

I’m about to tear my house apart looking for my blackout curtains that I know exist somewhere so I can destroy my circadian rhythm. How are you guys doing

[trellanyx]

your jonathan crane (who i love so very much) and numbers 1 through... oh, lets say 25 ;)

(Send me a character and a number)

Have I told you how much I love you lately, Lizard? Because I do. Oh yes I do. 😂

Word vomiting about my Jon in 3, 2, 1...

1) Something this character is truly proud of.

His work, of course. Not just the toxin, but the breadth of his knowledge, his experiments, his successes and vengeances. Jonathan is an expert in his field, and considering what he went through to get there he’s damn proud of it.

2) Who they want to please the most.

Jonathan Crane does not give a single solitary fuck about what anyone thinks of him. The only satisfaction he cares about is his own. Considering how high his standards are, that’s a big enough challenge already.

3) Who depends on them.

No one. Jon may make you think you need him if that serves his end goal, but other than that he keeps his distance. If you’re in a position where you actually depend on Jonathan Crane’s services, you’re fucked.

4) What they would do if they had one month to live.

Work feverishly to A) preserve his work and B) push it as far as it can go before his body betrays him. Jon would be pulling such long, intense hours that it’s quite possible he’d drop dead before the month was up from sheer exhaustion. If he doesn’t, then he takes his magnum opus and goes out with a hell of a bang.

5) A cherished personal belonging.

Nothing. He has things he likes more than most: a tortoiseshell watch, a spring-loaded gun, his sturdiest boots, his sharpest scythe - the whole fear gauntlet, actually, impractical as it was - but nothing he’d go as far as to say he cherishes. Everything Jon owns is expendable, and no matter how attached he might be to something, there’s nothing he wouldn’t chuck in a fire instantly if he needed to. 

6) Something they lost, but would love to have back.

“Unlimited access to test subjects wrapped in a stable paycheck. Arkham’s much more fun on the other side of the straitjacket.”

7) This character’s favorite character

I give up. It’s been days. Days that this post has sat in my drafts while I tried to think of this asshole’s favorite character, and I’ve got nothing. I’ve come up with a couple of disparate headcanons involving Jon and fiction in general, but I have no answer for this one. I offer this as a placeholder: “He doesn’t have any because he’s a contrary and insufferable bastard.”

8) What kind of car they would drive.

Dark, boring, older than sin. The gas pedal is the most abused piece of equipment in South Gotham. There’s a stain on the backseat floor that Jon says is coffee, and no one is brave enough to question him. Edward refuses to be seen dead in it. One day Jon’s gonna take that as a challenge.

9) What calms them when they are upset.

It really depends on the type of distress that it is. The basic scale is this:

Drumming his nails against things, or just tapping against the nearest flat surface if his nails aren’t long enough. (Common response to most grievances.)

Stepping outside for a smoke. He goes back inside when he either feels better or runs out of cigarettes.

Pacing inside or stalking through the streets like he’s on his way to kill somebody, taking small, petty pleasure watching people jump out of his way.

Stewing in a corner with a bottle of strong alcohol.

Actually killing somebody.

10) How they deal with pain.

Grits his teeth and bears it. The first lesson he ever learned.

11) This character’s favorite piece or pieces of clothing.

As Scarecrow: His plague doctor mask, which replaced the traditional burlap after he stopped being able to feel fear.

As Jon: Custom winter gloves with longer fingers to accommodate his nails in the winter.

12) How they sleep.

I’ve talked about this before, actually! Here’s the quote:

Since he suffers from chronic insomnia and chronic I Have No Idea What Healthy Habits Look Like, Jonathan doesn’t go to bed very often. He’s more likely to pass out wherever he is - couch, desk, once on a morgue slab (don’t ask)… But when he does sleep in a bed, he tosses and turns a ridiculous amount. It’s not that he’s having nightmares (though with the way he moves, how could you tell), he just has a hard time getting comfortable. He’ll turn over at least 3-6 times before falling asleep, and he’ll keep shifting even after he does. It’s very common for Jonathan to fall asleep with three blankets and wake up with only one.

13) What kind of parent they would be.

*hysterical laughter* NO.

14) How they did in school.

He struggled with it a lot. Not because of a lack of intelligence or drive, but because:

Constant undernourishment and late night punishments made it difficult for Jon to stay awake in class. (His insomnia didn’t develop until he was in his early 20s.)

His homework was often late or mediocre because Jon did it after being beaten or kept busy with his grandmother’s laborious demands, if he was in a state to do it at all.

Jon’s glasses were almost never up to date. Constant squinting compounded by what Jon now knows were chronic migraines made class not only difficult to concentrate on, but physically painful.

Bullying. I don’t think I need to elaborate there.

Jon barely eked out a GPA high enough to get him into a local community college with the help of a scholarship targeted toward low-income families. Once his grandmother and bullies “helpfully” left the picture and Jon could focus on eliminating the obstacles above, he threw himself into his studies like a man possessed, and by the time he graduated, he’d secured himself entry to a post-baccalaureate program in Gotham. He used that as a stepping stone to med school and the rest is history.

15) What cologne or perfume they would use.

Jon doesn’t like either. His only indulgence in the smell department is almond-scented soap.

16) Their sexuality.

It varies depending on what version of him I’m playing, but it’s always either bi or gay.

17) What they’d sing at karaoke.

Something slow, creepy and mournful, probably not even on the set list, while he stares at you unblinking and makes you regret every decision in your life that helped force him onstage. You don’t ask for an encore.

18) Special talents they have.

Jon is double-jointed, a great whistler, sews all his costumes and is an adequate mechanic. See the “should be dead twelve times over” car he still drives. He’s also a better swimmer than people give him credit for, something that’s saved his life more than once.

19) When they feel safest.

In front of a fireplace. Jon can’t really explain it, nor does it make sense considering how much he hates heat in general. But there’s something about sitting in front of a fire that really relaxes him. (Don’t bother with the scarecrow/fire jokes, he’s heard them all.)

20) Household chore they hate the most.

Bathrooms.

21) Their fondest childhood memory.

“Killing them.”

22) How they spend their money.

Books, chemicals, caffeine, alcohol, weapons. And then living essentials. Maybe. Depends on how low he is on nicotine. (Jon’s spending habits are so predictable it became a running joke on campus, what did you expect.)

23) What kind of alcohol they drink.

He’s not picky, but nothing beats a finely aged whiskey. He’s also partial to Black Russians.

24) What they wish they could change about themselves.

Useful as it can be, Jon regrets the loss of his ability to feel fear. He also wishes he didn’t get migraines so often. Nothing on the personality front, though: Jon knows what he is.

25) What other people wish they could change about them.

Oh honey, there’s not enough hours in the day to list all that.

[fortheloveoffanfic]

Put Me In a Movie

Keanu Reeves x Reader(A/n- I’ve been meaning to post this since last week, but I’m lazy.)

Summary Prologue  1   2   3  4  5  6 7  8  9  10 11 12

Warnings- Angst

Chapter 13- Hold Me Without Hurting Me

The pack had started warming in his hands, and eventually, Keanu couldn't bring himself to do much more than toss it back to the table and listlessly drag himself back to his trailer, which neighbored Y/n’s. Standing outside, between both metal contraptions; his on the right and hers on the left, he contemplated knocking on Y/n’s instead. He didn’t like the way their earlier interaction had ended; with her in tears, storming out and essentially ending their relationship. 

It was his fault, he’d pushed her.

Keanu had almost made the trek up the steps, almost knocked on the door, almost begged her to take him back. He’d almost done a lot of things, like let himself fall. But alas, for everything he’d almost done, there were a dozen more that he'd done wrong and in the end, he’d just slunk back into the cold cocoon of his own trailer, flopping onto the sofa, groaning as he threw his head back. It hurt though the insistent throbbing, the slight pull of his stitches and heaviness over his left eye felt like nothing compared the new hollowness in his chest.

Truthfully, Keanu hadn't meant for things to go the way they had, it was never his intention to have her leave for good. But it was so foreign to him; it had been a while since he'd been with a woman who'd looked at him the way Y/n had, who's touch alone was enough to remedy physical pain. Who could make his lips tremble but slow his anxious heart at the same time. She was different in other ways too; usually, the girls he dated were willing to go with whatever he wanted, anything just to keep him interested. Sometimes, though more times than he preferred to admit, Keanu would find himself realizing that a woman only adored him for what he was, rather than who he was. But Y/n…….Y/n actually cared. Y/n loved him.

Even if he’d given her a million reasons not to.

Love.

The word made an unwarranted panic rise up in Keanu’s chest. He wasn’t sure if he felt that way, when you feel it, you should know right? But Keanu didn’t know. All he knew was that he wanted her back, unashamedly and quite selfishly, even if he wasn’t sure what his feelings were. Maybe they could patch things up with an emotional band aid, just enough so he could have her, though without letting himself get too submerged. Keanu wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment anyway. He wasn’t the type.

At least, that was what he’d told himself. Convinced himself.

But he was lying to himself. Keanu was always lying to himself

Maybe he really should make things right, heedlessly hold on until he could sort himself out, until he could find a way to to shift things, so if they ever did walk away, he could leave unscathed. Control. That was what he wanted, control. Control over their feelings, over the way everyone saw them, over the way he saw himself. 

Control, he would find it.

Production had been halted for the rest of the evening, and by extension, the two days following Keanu’s accident, hopefully giving him enough time to grasp his bearings. It was without warning, though Y/n understood the circumstances and was immensely grateful for the down time, hoping that she too could manage to pull herself together before they’d face each other again.

Nearly a day had passed, going on twenty four whole hours since she’d left Keanu sitting on a plastic chair in an air conditioned trailer that smelt like Hydrogen-Peroxide and disinfectant, tossing a beady ice pack to his chest, earning herself nothing more than a surprised ‘omph’ in the process. Since then, she’d fluttered through a range of emotions; anger at his reluctance, gnawing sorrow because he couldn’t return her love and finally, frustration when Keanu hadn’t made the slightest effort to swing by her room and pretend to be sorry. 

All she wanted was to get him back, so she could put aside the doubt, at least for a while. Y/n didn’t like the feeling that came with his absence, and even if being with him felt like she was sinking slowly, drowning in a whirlpool resulting from her own devices, being without Keanu felt like she was being pulled under ice cold water, suddenly and without the strength to swim herself to recovery. 

By then her bed had become a haven, one that still held his scent, even if the sheets had been changed. Perhaps it was just her imagination. Y/n had spent far too much time there since she’d returned to the hotel, only ever leaving for lengthy showers or to get food. Not much else seemed appealing anyway and the rest of the hotel would just remind her of everything that she’d poured into Keanu. She ruined things with a good man for him, almost dismantled her relationship with her father for him, sacrificed half her sanity, just for him. And still, it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough.

Maybe nothing would be enough for him.

Yet, Y/n still clutched hope close to her chest; Keanu would knock on her door, tell her he was sorry and ask her to take him back. She’d do it in a heartbeat too, even if she was almost sure that he’d be lying. Believing his lies; it had already become her norm anyway. There was a toxicity that came with loving him, and Y/n could readily recognize it; you shouldn't have to swallow up lies when  affections ran as deep as hers, you shouldn’t cry yourself to sleep or have to convince yourself that they care either. But she’d done it, and in the name of hope, she’d keep doing it, until she couldn’t any longer. 

A fretful huff left her chapped lips and shoving the sheets away, Y/n aimlessly hoped that running her hands through her tangled hair would do something to dismiss the thoughts of Keanu; as much as she loved him, she really did want to stop thinking of him. It wasn’t like she could do much about their break up anyway, she’d broken up with him and he hadn’t really done much to stop it. 

As she sat up, Y/n surveyed the room, dimmed by the incoming evening, merely the silhouettes of furniture remaining visible in the hazy room. The air conditioner ran on high, offering a chill to combat the thick, comfortable layers she’d sought refuge in and the remote to the television mounted to the wall remained her only companion. Her phone was somewhere around too, probably hidden away beneath the room service menu on the nightstand, Y/n could hear it buzzing every once in a while, but couldn't summon up the will to pick it up. She’d get back to whoever it was, at some point. 

For a solid minute, she just sat there, immersed in the sea of fabric, wondering if she’d be spending the night the same way she’d wasted the day; sulking in between wine induced naps. Though, three brisk knocks on the front door interrupted her muddy thoughts, causing Y/n to groan as she tumbled out of the bed. On her way to the door, she finished a glass of red that had been sitting beneath her unlit lamp and once again ran her fingers through her hair, that time to vanquish any traces of telling bed head. 

With a strained sigh, Y/n took the knob in her hand, pulling the door open, ready to tell whoever it was that she was busy. But at the sight of the offender, the words didn’t come, stifled by the hope pluming in her chest, “You’re…... “ With glassy eyes and quivering lips, Y/n tried to seem as cool as possible, though she knew the over sized sweatshirt and loose booty shorts, along with the redness in her eyes and flush in her cheeks would be a dead give away.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed sadly when Keanu found that Y/n probably wasn’t going to say much more. His lips were set in a deep frown and the bandage protecting his sutures had been recently changed and switched out for a smaller one. Keanu's hair looked almost as frazzled as Y/n's and she wondered if he'd been nervous about going to see her. "I never meant to hurt you," he carried on softly, exhaling as he shoved his fists into the pockets of worn jeans, "I just-"

Despite her mind's protest, a nagging thought reminding Y/n that she was making it too easy, she held the door open a bit wider, the fondness in her heart growing at just the thought of Keanu wanting her back, "Why don't you come in?"

He seemed stunned at first, eyes widening with confusion and jaw going slack, but eventually gave in and Keanu knew that it would be a lie if he wasn't secretly hoping that things could be that easy, "Okay," he nodded wearily, "Thanks." 

Now standing in the living room, the orange glow from the setting sun washing the room through the glass balcony doors, casting a burnt hue on the furniture and floors, Y/n thought that the atmosphere felt choked and a little clumsy. She couldn’t tell if Keanu was being genuine or not, but she did know that she was going to believe him, just so things could go back to being okay for a while. He stood about a foot away, shoulders hung and head down cast, directed to their feet, still though, she had to look up at him, not meeting his gaze, but desperately searching for some truth in his expression. “What I said yesterday,” Keanu swallowed thickly, shaking his head, “I didn’t mean it when I said that you were smothering me, I just wasn’t expecting you to care that much.”

“I’ve always cared that much,” Y/n turned her face away, not wanting Keanu to see her feelings, he’d already hurt them so much. Her fingers toyed with the cuffs of her grey sweatshirt as she awaited more, eventually trying to propel it with; “Is that what you came here to say?”

“Yeah,” he sighed heavily, removing a hand from his pocket to run it through his tousled hair, scrubbing his nails through his salt and pepper beard before letting it fall haplessly to his side again, “And to ask you for a second chance. I want us to work on this,” finally, he looked at her, and Y/n let their gazes meet. She searched his eyes, only finding turmoil and swirling confusion there. It was nothing like what she offered him; love, admiration and adoration. 

Maybe she could find it there though, one day.

“I……” Don’t do it, he doesn’t care as much as you do. Don’t do it, he doesn’t care at all. Nothing’s gonna change, don’t do it! But Y/n didn’t listen, logic was a dry pill that was too hard to swallow she wasn’t willing to believe that Keanu would hurt her again, even though she knew it was the truth. They had so much to work out before they could even think about being together, they were hurt people, who in the end, would inevitably hurt people, but Y/n didn’t care. She never did. She wanted what they had when he made her laugh, when he touched her and sparked life in shadowy depths of her soul. 

She was selfish enough to want him, despite their brokenness.

“I want that too,” Y/n eventually nodded, dragging herself towards Keanu, thoughtlessly letting herself sink into his sullen embrace. His arms, circling her waist, felt warm, though not in the way she’d expected to. Instead, it was like being enveloped in hot, empty air. It was just a gesture, nothing more than the act. That was in actuality, but in her head, she could feel what he poured into it, convinced herself that this was what he wanted, that things were going to work this time. 

But unless they learned to grow up,  stitch themselves back together,  they wouldn’t. 

But she could hope. Hope that one day, there would be more than emptiness. Hope that at some point he’d change his mind and fall in love with her.

Y/n could always hope

******

Tagging- @harrisongslimited​  @paanchu786​  @thesadvampire​  @fanficsrusz​  @fickensteinn​  @ladyreapermc​  @babygirltaina​  @septimaseverina​  @snatchedbylele​  @omg-imagine @21stcenturyyfoxx​  @magnificentclodpiebanana @allie1804-fan @keandrews  @greenmanalishi  @rdjloverxxx​  @danceoftwowolves​

[jtrbluv]

need(y) | jjk

pairing: jungkook x reader

genre: angst/fluff

word count: 3.6k

warnings: swearing

request: Hello!! Could I get a jungkook angst/fluff imagine where you guys are becoming distant and you leave for some space and he doesn’t know and thinks that you left him?? Sorry if it’s confusing, thank youuuu :)

a/n: sheesh! this was not supposed to be this long HAHA. sorry this took so long to write school just started and it’s fr kicking my ass. i’ve already gotten so much hw for the first week grrrr. i rushes the ending a bit so i’m not quite satisfied and i didn’t edit it either so um sorry about it LOL. anyways thanks for requesting this anon!! in honor of his bday too ig haha, hope u enjoy it :)

☏ ☏ ☏

Missed Calls:

y/n <3 (11)

6:45- lmk when ur coming home i can’t wait to see you <33

8:30- u must be busy at the studio it’s okay i’ll wait

9:47- hey it’s okay if ur coming late but could u just give me a heads up

11:02- jungkook?

12:17- happy belated anniversary to you too ig

1:56- i needa stop getting my hopes up huh

Being in a relationship with a worldwide famous idol is never easy. Learning to understand and appreciate the value of the relationship regardless of its limited-time came easy to you. That’s one of the reasons why he became interested in you in the first place. You never came off as overbearing and clingy and you always understood why things had to be different. And that added to the list of things he already absolutely adored about you.

It had been a year since Jungkook had confessed to you backstage that night, asking you to be his lover and promising that he would cherish you like no one ever will. And you can confidently say he very much did at the beginning, commonly known as the honeymoon stage. Things only started to fizzle out and go downhill a few months ago. His group was scheduled for a new comeback. He was promoting and traveling around the world while you were on the sidelines and comfort of your home, cheering him and his group on. Daily texts and calls kept both of you grounded and steady, but as time passed by, those texts and calls ceased to exist. You had been constantly ignored and you didn’t think much of it at first, after all, he was a busy man with a busy schedule. The tour had finally been coming to an end and he’d have the opportunity to come home to you, just in time for your one year anniversary. He had flown in 2 weeks precedent to your anniversary, and fuck, you were so happy to be with him again.

He had made a promise to you that you two would get to spend a lot more time together as he was coming back. You two had finally been living together again after what seemed like years as his group had gotten a break after such a hectic year. He would go to his company need to work on future projects and such and it didn’t bother you at first. He would typically come back home late while you were sleeping and leave early in the morning before you would wake up. As it occurred more frequently, you started to become more concerned. He was finally home for once and he wasn’t even making time to see you. You didn’t want to seem annoying and clingy so you decided to push these thoughts to the back of your head and keep them to yourself.

-

You had agreed to have a celebration at home, figuring all the restaurants in the vicinity would be closed by the time he’d get home. You patiently waited in the living room, coffee table filled with his favorite foods and snacks you were able to pick up at the local convenience store. He had told you the night before he’d be coming home at 9, a little later than you liked, but you let it slide nonetheless. You essentially cherished all the time you had with him anyway, whether it be a minute, an hour, or a month.

You mindlessly sat in the living room, not paying attention to whatever was playing on the TV. Your ears were constantly alert and peeled, waiting for a familiar car to pull up to your driveway. Your eyes constantly shifted back to your front window, scanning the neighborhood to see if he was back yet or not.

Time ticked by like molasses, your patience and tolerance wavering as it went on. There were no signs of him and he wasn’t answering any of your calls and texts. You were in complete disbelief at the fact that he didn’t have the decency to spend time with you on your first anniversary. Everything you had been holding in was starting to seep out of you, anger and sadness fuming from your system as you ask yourself the same question: Why do you constantly put yourself in this situation? Being hopeful for something just to let it get torn down again. Is that what your relationship has turned into? An insurmountable lost hope?

For the first time, you realized all you’ve been doing his abiding by him, waiting for his cues, going off of his beck and call. You were being walked all over, and you didn’t realize until that moment. For the first time, you were fed up.

You groan in frustration as you snatch your phone from the coffee table. It was 2:34 AM. You furrow your brows as you see how late it is, and how many hours it’s been since he was supposed to come home. Your emotions took control of you as you hastily shut off the TV, charging into your room as you recklessly grab one of your backpacks and stuff random clothes into it.  You grab the nearest hoodie you could find and slipped it on as you grabbed your wallet, keys, and phone. You abruptly halt at the doorway, deciding to write a small note for him before you left. What were the chances he would see it anyway?

I need some time alone to think. Please do not contact me during this time. -Y/N

You stormed out of the house, slamming the door shut behind you. You quickly started your car and pulled out of your driveway and into the streets. You didn’t know where you were going, but you just didn’t want to stay in that house any longer. The streets were empty and the sky was dull and overcast. You let the streets guide you, taking whatever twist and turn you happened to encounter. Your hands were gripped tightly along the steering wheel as tears slipped out of your eyes. You quickly wipe them away as you recalibrate your focus on the road ahead of you. You decided it’d be best to stay at a hotel for now, until you could think of a better solution to all of this. You were able to find a hotel that had lower rates since you literally bought it on the spot.

You checked into the hotel and quickly escaped to your room. You throw your backpack to the floor as you lower yourself into the cold, unfamiliar sheets of the bed. You contemplate your options. As much as you didn’t want to admit, all your actions leading up to that moment had been caused by pent up rage and frustration in the heat of the moment. In spite of that, you didn’t regret what you had done. It felt as if time had frozen and it would only continue once Jungkook became aware of what you had done. So you were going to wait.

-

Jungkook stumbled into the home, hair disheveled and vision blurry from his near sleepless night. While working at the studio he had unknowingly fallen asleep while working on a track. All of his members had already gone back home so there was no one to wake him up or remind him of his girlfriend that was waiting patiently back home for him, ready to celebrate a long-awaited and special day.

All traces of the anniversary had slipped his mind as soon as he slid into a deep slumber back at the studio. He trudges around the house and his eyes land on the organized display of snacks on the coffee table. His eyes shift to the blanket and pillow that you two tended to share was all crumpled on the couch. The lightbulb immediately lit in his mind as he put the pieces together and his eyes widen in absolute horror. He had forgotten your anniversary.

“Oh my god, I’m so fucking stupid!” he exclaims, the tone of disbelief in his voice increasing as he realizes his mistake.

“Y/N!” he cries out to you as he runs around the house, searching in all the rooms to see if you were there. He almost forgets the phone that laid in his back pocket until he takes it out, hoping to call you in hopes that you would respond. His phone lights up only to show how indecently late he was, 5:43 a.m, and the amount of missed calls and texts from you, the disappointment and dejection he sensed from you increasing as he read each text you sent to him. His jaw dropping incredulously as he shuts his eyes and takes a deep exhale.

“Fuck, what have I done?” he huffs out, his voice small and full of somber. The fact that he had forgotten a day as important as this was already encompassing his mind but more so, he couldn’t find you and it deeply startled him, he didn’t know where you were and where you could be at this hour. He walks back into the living room where he assumes you had been waiting and his focus shifts to the kitchen where he notices a small notepad and pen along with a torn piece of paper that seemed to have something inscribed on it. He squints as he walks towards the kitchen. He took the paper in his hands as he immediately recognizes your handwriting and his breath hitches as he reads your name. His feet stay rooted to the wooden tile of the kitchen as he freezes there with the paper in his hands. Dumbfounded was an understatement to whatever Jungkook had felt at that moment in time. A tear had involuntarily slid down his cheek. Was this it? Was this the end? Were you going to leave him and never come back? These were only a few out of the heap of questions that were running through his head. All he knew was that he needed to find you. And he needed to fix the mess he had just made.

Similar to you he had bolted out of the house and drove off, unaware of where you actually were but he figured if he had searched for long enough, he would be able to find you.

You had slept deep into the day, finally getting up only because you started to notice the consistent vibrations that came from your bedside table. Naturally, you figured it was Jungkook, you didn’t tell anyone else of your whereabouts since it was so sporadic and you certainly didn’t feel like conversing or informing anyone of your situation. Out of curiosity and the annoying blare of your phone, you decide to see who it is anyway. Much to your surprise, your best friend Seulgi’s beaming smile flashed on your phone screen as you pick up.

“Seulgi, hi,” your voice manages to croak out as you adjust to the sunlight peeking out of your window.

“Y/N, where the hell are you?” she immediately asks, you can basically hear the frown lines etched into her forehead.

You groan into the mic of your phone as you speak back, “Seulgi, I can explain-”

“Jungkook’s been looking for you all night and asking everyone where you are,” she cuts you off.

“Seulgi,” you exhale, trying to suppress your anger, “he forgot our anniversary.”

“Oh my god.” she gasps, “you’re joking.”

“Did he not tell anyone?!” you shriek into the phone.

“No! He just said you left and he was looking for you and he was really scared and he even sounded like he was on the verge of tears and once I said I didn’t know where you were he just hung up!” she rambles on and on.

“Okay, yeah, he forgot and I got mad and I left,” you reveal, voice barely over a whisper.

“Y/N, I don’t blame you,” she reassures you, voice softening, “but, I think you should confront him about this.”

“Yeah, I know. I just needed some time to cool off and think.”

“Well, do you plan on breaking up with him?” she speaks timidly.

“I- I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to. I want to hear what he has to say.” you stutter, your mind in a complete frenzy.

“Hasn’t he been paying less attention to you these last couple of months?” she asks, “I rarely see you two go out anymore.”

“Yeah cuz we really don’t,” you confirm. “He’s been so focused on his career which I understand but, sometimes it just feels like he doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that he has a girlfriend.”

“Then why haven’t you told him that.”

“I don’t want to seem like the type of girlfriend to hold him back from doing what he loves. He’s invested so much time into his career.”

“Y/N, obviously not telling him how you feel has resulted in this mess. And okay, before you attack me, if he doesn’t have the decency to spend time with his girlfriend every once in a while then he doesn’t deserve your time and energy in the first place,” she advises you.

“I know that Seulgi, that’s all I’ve been thinking about all night.”

“Then talk to him Y/N,” she softly mutters, “for the sake of your relationship with him.”

You hum in agreement but as you’re about to hang up she interjects, “Okay, but just remember, I’ll support whatever decision you make next. I know you’re wise enough to know what you deserve and what’s best for the two of you. Always here for you Y/N.”

“I don’t know where I’d be without you Seulgi. I’ll update you. I’ll head out now.” you smile into the phone.

“You got this Y/N!” she cheers as you hang up.

You had clear intentions on your mind but you couldn’t help but feel anxious and uncertain about what was to happen between you and Jungkook.

jungkook, i’m in sunset central hotel. if you want to talk, come here as soon as you can. Thanks.

Jungkook’s eyes widen to the size of saucers as soon as he saw your name flash onto his screen. He redirects his GPS to the hotel you were at, a 45-minute drive. He didn’t care, he just needed to find you.

-

You waited at the foot of your bed, feeling extremely uneasy about the whole confrontation. Your foot was constantly tapping on the wooden floors, as you played with your hands and glance back at your phone to check the time.

-

Jungkook finally reaches his destination as he surges through the front doors of the hotel, asking the front desk if you were still staying over. The front desk had called you and informed you that someone had come to see you and if it was okay for them to come over. You hesitantly obliged, cowering every time you heard Jungkook answering whatever questions he was required to answer.

It never really registered through Jungkook’s mind that he was supposed to talk to you. He just planned on spilling his heart out and hoping it would be enough for your forgiveness and just being able to hold you in his arms again.

He takes his time getting to your room. His movements are lethargic and hesitant, taking the time to gather his thoughts. He reaches the floor your room is on as he steps out of the elevator and scans the area to find where your room would be. He slowly walks as he sees your room number, he knocks softly at the door, staring at his shoes.

Your head snaps to the sound of his knocks, you take a deep breath as you stand up and slowly creak open the door. You don’t even bother to try to share any eye contact as you widen the door and motion him to come in.

“Y/N,” he begins, eyes still focused on the floor, “I’m,” he exhales, “I’m so sorry.” He slowly tilts his head up, analyzing your body language. Your hands were clasped in front of you as your eyes shifted back and forth to everything but Jungkook. You could feel his stare burning into you but dismissed it.

“Is that-,” you mutter, “is that all you came here to say to me?

“No!” he interrupts, causing you to flinch. His face softens at your reaction, “I- I fell asleep while working on a song and lost track of time.”

Your jaw clenches at his statement as you take a moment to let what he had told you sink in,  “And that makes it all okay?”

“No, of course, it doesn’t-”

“Jungkook, we were supposed to spend this time together with each other. You’re on an actual break for once and you’d still rather dedicate all your time to it instead of spending time with me. All your other members have been going on trips, seeing family, hanging out with friends,” you huff out, glaring at him as he looks at his shoes, “do I not matter to you anymore?”

Your last statement almost made him meltdown right there on the spot. The fact that he had made you believe that he didn’t care about you at all was already bad enough as it is.

He takes a step towards you and looks you straight in the eye, “No, Y/N,” he sighs in exasperation, trying to piece together what he was going to say, “we’ve just been getting so much publicity and gaining so much popularity and fame, I feel like they expect so much from us. And from me. I’m the Golden Maknae, I have to be good at everything and be able to do anything, but in reality, nothing’s working out and I’ve just been stressed as hell and wanting to see you.”

“I’ve never left Jungkook until yesterday, I’ve always been there waiting,” you reveal slowly, “and I really always want to be here for you. Ever since the tour, you stopped contacting me and I just thought you were busy but in the back of my mind, I started thinking that you just didn’t care anymore.”

“But I do, I always did.” he says, taking a step towards you.

“You haven’t proven otherwise, and I don’t want to reach this breaking point just so we can be happy and go through this all over again.” your voice cracks.

“I know, I don’t want that either, but, if this was bothering you for so long, why couldn’t you tell me earlier?”

“Do I really have to remind my own boyfriend to spend time with me?” you scoff as you shake your head in disbelief.

“Y/N, I didn’t mean that, I mean we’ve never had any problems in our relationship up until now, and now that I’m thinking about it, you could’ve told me off and broke up with me a long time ago, but you never told me when you had any problems with me. Yes, I know the things I did were stupid as fuck but Y/N, being in a relationship while balancing my career is still new to me. I’m absolutely clueless and stupid and I need you to guide me so I can be there for you.”

“I-,” you sighed heavily, “I didn’t want to intrude. You’ve worked so hard to get to where you are and I didn’t want to fuck it up.”

“Hey, I’m always willing to give up time for you.” his responds as his eyes soften, “I know it sure as hell may not seem like it, but you shouldn’t prioritize my needs or whatever you think my needs are over yours. Now I’ve just been taking advantage of your leniency. How did I not notice? Fuck, I’m such a dumbass.”

You honestly didn’t know how to respond to that, you knew what you were doing was selfless and you were extremely patient about it all, “I just figured that was the last thing you wanted you know, another thing to worry about on top of your career.”

“I thought about that at first too,” he agreed, biting his lip, “I realized later on that it really shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I care about you too much to let that happen and the more I got to know you, I realized that, well, you were worth it.”

You could feel his intense glare without even sparing him a glance, “Am I still worth it to you?”

You feel his hand envelop your own as steps towards you once again, “You always will be.”

“You’re making it really hard for me to keep being mad at you,” you huff, tightening your grip around his hand.

He noticed the fact that you were still avoiding eye contact and you remained distant. He tugs on your hand and pulls you close to him, breaking your personal barrier. He pulls you into a warm hug, something you both had craved for so long. The longing and acceptance for one another was mutual, but where were you two supposed to do from there on out?

He loosens his hold on you and pulls away slightly, “Are we okay?”

For the first time that day your eyes met his as you replied, “Yeah, we’re okay.”

Only time would tell.

-

-

-

MASTERLIST

[purplesurveys]

631

General Randomness What's the weather like right now? It’s very bright and sunny out, but January is typically one of the colder days of the year so I’m not feeling uncomfortable right now. It’s the perfectly chilly temperature I would have liked to have all year long. What are you currently sitting on? I am sitting on a chair at our dining table, which is usually where I take surveys. How many times have you brushed your teeth today? Just once.

When did you get up? I’ve been up since 8, but didn’t get out of bed until 10.

Have you been in a vehicle for more than 45 minutes today? I haven’t been in a car at all today cos I’ve only stayed home. Angela invited me to go out for some drinks but I didn’t feel like drinking or being out today, so I’ve been home the whole time.

Where is your best friend? I think Angela is at home but I’m sure she’s getting ready to go out for the aforementioned ^ drinking. I’m not sure where Gab is. How many days until Christmas? Oh wow, barely missed it, chief. There are 355ish days left, I’m guessing? Have you kissed someone today? Nope. Is your mom over 50? No, and she still has a year to go. How old were you 7 years ago? I was technically 14, but was about to turn 15 in a few months. Do you know what 'C'est la vie' means? Yep. In Gen Z lingo, it essentially means, ‘it be like that sometimes’ lmao. Do you usually take showers or baths? Showers, because we don’t have bathtubs and also because I find it much more efficient anyway. I only take baths when I’m out of town, in a fancy hotel, and want to pamper myself with bubbles and fancy body wash. What kind of bottoms are you wearing right now? I’m wearing shorts just meant for the home.

Are you wearing anything red? Yes, the pair of shorts I just talked about. What was the name of your first pet? I didn’t keep track of my first goldfish’s name but a good guess would be Goldie. I wasn’t a very creative kid, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be right. Do you live in an apartment? Nope. I’ve been living with my parents under their roof. What color is the floor in the room you're in? Cream-ish. What was the most irritating thing to happen to you today? My thesis professor being a headache to talk to. I am genuinely baffled at how she was able to secure a very high position in my university’s administration, considering how erratic she can get. How do you feel about your most recent ex? She’s great. Do you wish at 11:11? No. Do you wish on shooting stars? I would, if they often visited on this side of the world. But they don’t, so. Do you wish on dandelions? No. There aren’t a lot where I live. Are you drinking anything right now? Mmm no, not at the moment. I finished my coffee a little while ago and while I want to make a second cup to keep myself awake, I have an early morning tomorrow so I’d want to sleep early tonight. It’s back to work for me, ugh. About how tall is your father? Not too tall. He’s like, 5′5 or 5′6.  How old is your oldest living grandparent? I only know the age of one grandparent, and that’s my 73 year old maternal grandmother. I don’t get to see my paternal grandparents a lot cos they live quite far, so with that comes my insufficient knowledge about them.  Do you know anyone who has lived to be 100+? Gab’s great-grandmother, but she passed away last November. Have you had your birthday yet this year? Nope. There’s been a mere three days into the year, so very few people would already have had their birthdays hahaha. Do you read your horoscope on a regular basis? No. You do you, but I was never a fan. It’s also a pet peeve when people use their star sign as excuses for their shitty behavior. “Sorry I acted up, I’m a Scorpio,” “I hate everybody because I’m an Aquarius,” “I ghosted them because I’m a Cancer” no it’s because you’re a bitch, Karen. Do you like the color yellow? I hate it a bit less than green (my least favorite color) only because I love the song Yellow by Coldplay and because mustard yellow isn’t that bad of a color. Are you an aunt or uncle? If my friends start having kids soon, then I’ll be an aunt. Why is your best friend your best friend? They both understand my weirdness and all my quirks and never made me feel like I was being judged. What is your hair like at the moment? Tbh it matches my top pretty well so as frizzy as my hair is at the moment, it still looks good with the tank top I have on lolol. How many times have you donated blood this year? Zero. I’m scared of needles, and even if I get over that phobia I wouldn’t be able to donate anyway because I’m underweight. Are you wearing any jewelry? No, not right now. Are you a video-gamer? I wouldn’t call myself that. I play GTA just to be a law-abiding citizen and not actually do the missions lol, I get tired of playing The Sims after ten minutes, and I only play a handful of Nintendo games. Who got married at the last wedding you went to? My mom’s brother and his then-fiancee, now one of my favorite aunts except for the facts that she’s a hardcore Duterte supporter and Marcos apologist. Do you like Chinese food? Yep, it’s one of my favorite cuisines. How far is the nearest Walmart? I can’t walk nor drive to it, that’s for sure. Have you ever been a designated driver? I’m always DD by default because I’m the only one among my friends who has a car other than JM, who also has a (much bigger) car but is terribly low-tolerance and will absolutely pass out. I get tipsy easily as well, but I sober up real quick and always make sure I’m 100% back to reality by the time I drive. Which means that I typically have to stop drinking earlier than the rest of my friends, but so long as that means I get to take everyone back home safe, it’s okay with me. What is something that always brings tears to your eyes? My mom yelling at me. Who is your 20th phone contact? My contacts aren’t numbered thus I’m too lazy to count manually. Do you have any plans to get a tattoo? It’s not completely off the table, but I’ve definitely toned down my original plans of getting tattoo sleeves and getting myself generally covered a la CM Punk (and I have to tell ya, I’m so glad I grew out of that phase). These days I prefer to have small tattoos to memorialize significant people or events, and some of my plans include my dog’s pawprint and a plate of nachos. Or a new piercing? Probably not. What would your name be if your last name was the color of your shirt? Brown. If you could find out how you would die, would you want to know? Yes. I hate the unknown and would rather be certain, no matter how ugly or nasty the certainty holds. Do you make your bed regularly? Every morning. Do you look forward to the weekend? NO. I have a 2-day meeting for my 2-day weekend. I am so dreading it. I just want to stay a lazy couch blob for another week. How much do you know about the mechanics of cars? I know how to turn a car on, go forward, reverse, brake, and open my gas tank... and that’s about it. Has anyone ever told you you should be a model? Model and beauty queen, yeah. How old was your mom when she had you? She was 26, but was turning 27 that year. Do rainy days get you down? No. I thrive on rainy days lmao. Who is the artist/band you're listening to at the moment? No music keeping me company at the moment. Do you ever take aspirin when you 'feel a headache coming on'? Not aspirin but I take a Biogesic. I dunno if those two or the same thing or not. Is there a calendar in the room you're in? Nope. Do you prefer to be in a relationship or be single? I’ve been seeing a person for technically six years, so now I prefer a relationship after being accustomed to having one for so long. If you're single, do you wish you were in a relationship? Have you ever had your heart broken? Sure. Do you live within an hour of the beach? No. I’m very far away from the beach :( How do you like your steak? Rare or medium-rare. Were you born in the 1980s? I was not. A Few Firsts What was the first sound you heard when you woke up? I woke up to the sound of my mom calling me on my phone. I was half-asleep and didn’t feel like answering, so I muted it and went back to sleep. I feel guilty now that I remember, but she didn’t call back or text me so it probably wasn’t a big deal. Who was your first best friend? It was a girl named Kaye from kinder. We were good friends for like two years, and then we got sorted to different sections in Prep and drifted apart after that. Who was your first boyfriend/girlfriend? I’ve said her name so many times on these surveys already. Y’all know. Who was your first date to a formal dance? I haaaateeeeed the idea of asking guys out and being in a relationship for most of high school, so I made sure I only asked my cousin for my prom. How bad was your first break up? Pretty messed up. There was a lot of tension and resentment and confusion in the beginning. Throw in my grandfather’s sudden death and me taking the UPCAT, and you have my mental health completely rattled! What was your first favorite movie? High School Musical, for sure. How old were you when you had your first kiss? 16. What was your first trip to the emergency room for? My platelet count was really low, I was in danger of getting dengue, and had to stay the night at the hospital. Then there was sticking the IV onto my wrist, upon which I made a complete scene in the emergency room and thrashed and kicked around while my (very frail) grandma (sorry, Lola) tried to hold me down with a lot of patients watching lol. Where was the first place you went today? The kitchen. Who was the first person you saw? My sister, I think. What was the first thing you thought about when you woke up? I wondered why my mom called, realized I was too sleepy to care, and went back to bed. Do you remember the first time you spent the night away from home? Yupppp. I was in third grade, my club had an overnight camping thingy as its culmination activity, and it was the first time ever that I was allowed to spend the night somewhere else. I remember being around a campfire, roasting marshmallows for the first time, having to share a sleeping mat with Katreen, and her kicking me in her sleep.

Where was your first big vacation to? Boracay. What was your first job? None yet. I’ll make sure to update you by the end of the year. What was the first thing you had to drink today? Coffee.

Some Lasts Where was the location of your last kiss? My girlfriend’s car, when she dropped me back at my place. How old was the last person you kissed? 21. What was the last movie you rented? I’ve never experienced renting a movie, which definitely confirms my status as a Gen Z kid lmao. But I can tell you that the last movie I watched was Knives Out. Where was the last place you went? Other than around my house, we went to church last Tuesday night for New Year’s Eve mass. What was the last restaurant you went to? Yabu. Who was the last person to call you? My mom, this morning. Who was the last non-relative you spoke in person to? Gabie. What was the last thing you bought? I got dinner from Yabu, haha. When was the last time you drove more than an hour somewhere? December 14th. That evening was INSANE. It was Saturday + Christmas traffic, and it took me two hours to travel from Antipolo to Rita’s place in Makati. JM and I drove separately cos we were a big group - his drive took FOUR hours. Why did you last get angry? My thesis prof was doing us so fucking dirty and I couldn’t do anything about it. What color was the last vehicle you rode in? Blue-green. How long ago was your last birthday? NIne months. When did it last rain? It drizzled a little bit yesterday. What was the age difference between you and your most recent ex? A month and a half. When was the last time you used a dictionary? Maybe an hour ago for a word I used in a past survey lol. Mini iPod Shuffle: Don't Cheat, Use Whatever Song Comes Up, No Matter How Ridiculous (I have several playlists, so I’ll just use the Spotify-curated playlist made for Gab’s account called Your Top Songs 2019 hahahaha) My love song: Love song - Lana Del Rey (Wow.) My fight song: Swim Against the Tide - The Japanese House My break-up song: New Light - John Mayer The song for when I'm sad: Money - Leikeli47 The song for when I'm angry: Constant Conversations - Passion Pit My song to have sex to: Bad Girls - Tennis The song about my ex: Just the Same But Brand New - St. Vincent The song about my best friend: Juice - LIZZO The song about my crush: Seventeen - no rome My 'feel good' song: Venice Bitch - Lana Del Rey The theme song of my life: Formation - Beyoncé I literally know four of these songs, which I’ve since bolded just so y’all know that I have no idea what the other seven songs are and if they make sense with the situations at hand. Gab clearly uses her account more than I do, which should be the case anyway lmfaoooooo.

[playquiz]

What is a good thing about sleeping anyway?

"People who say they sleep as a toddler usually don't have a toddler." Leo J. Burke

I wholeheartedly believe supported learning experience. If you haven't tried anything, how does one know if it works or not? For several years I used to be curious to understand how my body skilled some nutritional and training interventions, and that I recently started trying easy ways to "penetrate" my systems using technology within the sort of tools and applications.

Being the most unaffected copy of yourself requires tons of trial and error. We, humans, are complex beings, and that we are all different on the within as we are on the surface, so what works on behalf of me may have the other effect on you. I also love the system-based scientific approach to biology and physiology, not "well that ought to be true because I read it during a magazine" or was endorsed by a star or athlete. What involves us within the sort of food, scenes, thoughts, muscle stimulation, and sounds determines what comes out—our behavior, performance, memory, and health. If we would like to return up with something useful / better, we'd like to enter something good / better. Three of the foremost critical areas you'll specialize in when it involves self-experiences and breakthroughs in your health are food, sleep, and stress... Why? Because even small changes in each of those areas can have immediate and exciting effects on your life. I will primarily specialize in the sector of sleep, and more specifically, I will be able to test natural and cheap methods supported science to enable me to enhance the standard and quantity of my sleep. I will be able also to examine some recommended technology to ascertain how effective it's. I have been using the sleep tracker for over a year now, and although it hasn't helped me get more sleep or better sleep, it's made me more conscious of the small I'm already getting and the way different situations affect my height and depth of rest. The info I will be able to collect also still will be useful on behalf of me to work out the effectiveness of the methods that I shall develop over the subsequent month. What is good at sleeping, anyway? Let's check out this from the opposite angle. What's bad about not getting enough sleep? It's quite direct effects like bad moods, lack of focus or other signs that you simply feel exhausted, like feeling emotional, hungry, and ragged. Sleep deprivation can have severe consequences for your long-term physical health. Here is that the frightening side of lack of sleep Stroke risk According to research, even without typical risk factors, like weight gain or having a case history, lack of sleep can increase the danger of stroke. Contributes to obesity Lack of sleep can cause you to gain weight! Really? Perhaps "if you postpone you lose" it seems like a true saying after hearing this. Sleep is essential if you would like to lose fat or maintain a slim body. Insufficient sleep can contribute to some less-than-ideal food options, including serving more food and looking for fast meals, because of some complex hormonal changes that happen once you aren't getting enough food. Sleeping for 6 hours or less seems to extend the assembly of the ghrelin hormone and reduce leptin, helping you balance food intake. Also, decreased sleep appears to be related to the division of unfavorable nutrients, which suggests that within the event of reduced caloric intake, more weight is going to be lost as a lean mass of body fat. It increases the danger of diabetes Studies have examined the connection between insufficient sleep and insulin resistance, a risk factor for diabetes. Among the healthy adolescents, the researchers found, their shortest sleepers had the very best insulin resistance, meaning that the body doesn't use insulin effectively. Other studies have examined fat cells, especially, and have found that lower sleep increases insulin resistance in these cells, even when caloric intake is restricted. Fuel amnesia You may know that on days once you are exhausted, you forget and not focus, but sleep deprivation can cause permanent cognitive problems. The less we sleep, the less we enjoy the memory storage characteristics of sleep. But lack of sleep can cause a deterioration within the brain, which can partially explain a minimum of some amnesia later in life. Bone damage Long-term sleep deprivation appears to contribute to osteoporosis. Loss of sleep reduces the body's secretion of the human somatotropin liable for strengthening the bones and repairing wear and tear. Your heart hurts The stress and stress caused by a scarcity of sleep can cause the body to supply more chemicals and hormones, which will cause heart condition. Lack of sleep can accelerate signs of skin aging because the body produces cortisol (stress hormone) which will break down collagen and weaken the skin's ability to repair in the dark. Finally, when our sleep suffers, our system also suffers, which makes us more susceptible to disease and infection. I always knew how important sleep was to my health, but I have never taken it seriously yet. Sleep science - it isn't as easy as spending longer in bed. To make changes, you would like to create and build achievable daily habits in your routine. However, what should these habits be? How does one know they're going to work? It's where I address the research project to assist me. I've talked tons about hormones here already and the way they affect us negatively thanks to lack of sleep but guess what? When it involves good sleep, the hormones are again... but this point, they're going to help us. Understanding which of them and the way to enhance them should be the key to improving our health. The hormones that make us sleepy The magical hormone liable for regulating sleep cycles is melatonin, which is, of course, released with darkness and tells our body to sleep. It not only controls your usual sleep pattern but also reduces stress and is additionally anti-oxidant, which suggests it slows down the aging process. Once we are younger, our melatonin levels are high, but unfortunately, we see a gradual decrease as we age. Many things can also eliminate natural melatonin production within the body. These include long flight disorder and shift work, but the foremost common cause is abnormal exposure to light after dark hours. Blue light is the most harmful emitting from cell phones, computer screens, and televisions. So yes, reading from an iPad before getting to bed is worse than reading an honest old book! Even awakening in the dark and checking the time on your phone can stop your body from producing melatonin instantly! Unfortunately, whether you've got been fighting for an hour or a second, the effect is that the same. The problems that have seem to be mainly thanks to our modern lifestyles, which differ significantly from how our ancestors wont to live. They weren't awake late using laptops or watching TV. Instead, they used light to make a decision when to sleep and when to awaken. Increased melatonin So, if melatonin is so excellent and its production will help me improve my sleep, the procedure that I will be able to take must answer the question: "What simple changes am I able to make to extend melatonin levels naturally? The straightforward answer could also be to use a dietary supplement. Still, the matter is that the utilization of Repetitive artificial melatonin can reduce my body's ability to supply it, so instead, I want to develop lifestyle habits that will maximize melatonin production without the necessity for outside help. What do I do? I always seem to sleep better after a hot shower just before bed (high and low blood heat appears to market drowsiness) and do so occasionally during the week. It's best if I throw some Epsom salts (which contain magnesium) that my body absorbs through the skin. Sometimes I will be able to use Betteryou Magnesium Spray, which I mainly use as a relaxant after training, but it's also useful for bedtime use to assist me to sleep. It appears that the body more readily absorbs magnesium through the skin instead of taking oral supplements. I regularly use Bulletproof Sleeping Mat for 20 minutes before bed. On most nights, I sleep in complete darkness (faster for dimming), even the slightest amount of sunshine can disrupt your mechanism and produce melatonin. Although there's no thermometer in my bedroom, I tend to sleep better when the weather may be a little cooler. Indeed, the perfect temperature for an honest night's sleep is between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit. I regularly eat eggs, nuts/seeds, salmon, chicken, bananas, and oats, which are known to be a potent melatonin booster. I always eat a night meal that contains protein, fat or low-glycemic food in blood glucose to enhance tryptophan levels (tryptophan is an aminoalkanoic acid that promotes sleep that contributes to the assembly of serotonin, a brain chemical that helps us relax and is employed to form melatonin). I take a magnesium supplement after dinner and again before getting to bed. Magnesium is the most potent relaxing mineral available. However, it must be supported with proper nutrition for the body to soak up and use it. (Time for an additional blog) My phone, although it shouldn't be charged in my bedroom, is placed in airplane mode to avoid EMF which may disturb sleep. I now use the Lome timepiece that gently wakes me up with natural light rather than sound. What I'm not good at - what is going to I attempt to improve my sleep? Sometimes I will be able to impose a curfew on myself, but this never seems long, and that I find myself getting to sleep later. As I write this, I'm committing the last word sin of sleep. It's 11:30 pm, and that I drink coffee and stare at the pc screen! I will make a concerted effort to sleep at 10 pm nightly. It's going to be unrealistic to try to do this seven days every week, but I will be able to attempt to be as consistent as possible. Every hour of sleep before midnight is adequate to two hours after. Now, I do not skills correct this is often, but I've read it quite a couple of times, so maybe it's worth looking into it. I installed F.lux on my phone, iPad, and computer (it's free). Change the color on your screens, counting on the time of day. F.lux uses warmer colors after sunset to match the inside lighting. Although there are not any scientific studies to prove its success, the thought seems plausible and price the experiment. I have already got a pair of blue, orange glasses that block the sunshine but I admit I do not wear them that much. I downloaded "Pzizz" which is an app that claims to assist you in nodding off faster with a variety of soothing sounds and acoustic signals intended to help you relax and squeeze. I'm currently also researching other techniques supported by vocal neuroscience, and I am trying to experiment with a system developed by the brain. I will replace my coffee after dinner with herb tea (really yes!) Caffeine not only acts as a stimulant but also will start to release magnesium from my body. Getting an honest night's sleep seems to be an art and a science and that they are crucial to our health. With some simple strategies, we will all get top quality and cozy sleep that our bodies and minds deserve. There are not any shortcuts, and that we got to make sleep a priority. Our physical, mental and emotional health depends thereon. Take hold of your actions and surroundings, be consistent and allow us to enjoy Zzzzzzz.

[aphrodicted]

Do you have any tips on moving on from an ex?

I don’t know if I’m the best person to give you advice on this subject, but I’ll try to help you. All I’m going to tell you are things that I’ve used after ending long relationships or sporadic relationships. Some points will be more important depending on the type of relationship you have left, but I think all of them can help you.

If you need any more specific advice: you can talk to me privately or send me another ask and I’ll answer you.

The most important thing is to accept what you feel. It doesn’t matter what kind of feelings you have, but you must embrace everything you are feeling right now. Are you sad and you need to cry? Do it, don’t be afraid to do it. Do you feel like playing music to the full and dancing until you forget the pain? Find your favorite song and dance to the exhaustion. Do you need to talk to someone and cry again? Find someone you trust and explain all your fears.

It’s essential to be wrapped up in these moments (if the break-up has been very traumatic, for example) and surround yourself with people with positive energy.

Next, I leave you a list of practices that you can carry out. They have served me and maybe you too, anon. Also, I’ll leave you some explanation with information and if I remember a spell (if you want to do spells) I’ll leave it here too. 

1. Accept your feelings.

As I told you: don’t block feelings. What do I mean by blocking? Well, to bury what has happened and make everyone see that you have never lived a relationship with that person or that them have hurt you. You can’t forget what happened from one day to the next as if nothing had happened, but you can do it little by little.

2. Live what you feel.

Live the feelings without fear. Suppressing pain and putting on a good face is not always the best option. Nor do I advise you to spend all day in bed, but it is important to let go slowly and live what you feel.

If you are a person who doesn’t like to cry in front of others: look for a place where you are comfortable and that nobody bothers. If you are a person who needs the support of others: look for someone you trust and share the pain or your fears with this friend.

Don’t hide your feelings and be honest with yourself always.

3. Break your bond (slowly).

You don’t have to drop everything at once. Besides being insane, you can’t forget your pain in a few minutes.

The bond will fade slowly and you will gradually get rid of the pain. Don’t worry: you will never forget the person in particular, nor your memories, but it would be important to end the relationship if it is already finished. It’s essential to end the relationship and release them when you are completely ready. And wish them the best. Even if they hurt you, please, wish them light and good luck so as not to contaminate you with the bad energies. 

4. Get rid of their gifts.

This is an option. I’ve done it in almost every relationship I’ve had. I don’t like to keep gifts when the person hasn’t behaved well with me and has cheated or treated me badly. It’s hard? Of course, since you’re getting rid of memories that once made you happy. However, for me it is very important to get rid of gifts to eliminate energy or memories that have no place in my present or future.

5. Talk to yourself.

It’s a stage to know yourself more: to know how you act in the face of pain, how to heal an emotional wound, how long it takes to get rid of pain or how you overcome it, etc. Try to find something to get out of this painful stage and find yourself. Talk to yourself and discover things you never thought you would be. And you must be honest with yourself: don’t kid yourself!

6. Forgive and learn from what has been lived.

One of the most important points (and almost mandatory) is to forgive yourself. Many times we blame ourselves for a relationship that has not ended well, but the fault isn’t only one of the two. If a relationship breaks down, it is because we have both failed at something. Therefore, it is very important that you forgive yourself and open yourself to new adventures that will bring you a lot of happiness.

Another important point is to forgive the other person. We all make mistakes and do harm (unconsciously or consciously), but we can’t be spiteful throughout our lives. It isn’t healthy at all and will not bring you anything good in your life. The best thing to do is to forgive them and make sure that what they has done to you don’t affect you.

I learned to forgive recently. One of my relationships (the longest) didn’t end well and I found out that I had been deceived. One of the things I hate the most is that people lie to me, and it cost me a lot to forgive him. However, to this day, I wish him the best and I hope that life will smile and give him what him deserve. 

7. Self-love every day.

As I said before, this stage is a very good time to know yourself. And it’s essential that you practice self-love every day! I had never done it before and I can tell you that it changes your life in a spectacular way.

Start with positive affirmations in the present: “I am loved”, “I deserve to be loved”, “Love is on my side”, “Luck is on my side”, “I deserve that love appears in my life”, “I’m pretty”, “I attract positive people”… 

This type of prayers can help you a lot. I practice them three times a day for about five minutes or when I think I have had enough: when I wake up, in the evening and before going to sleep I think them out loud or in my head and I visualize myself happy, surrounded by people positive and being happy, for example.

Visualizing is a complicated exercise for some people, but with practice you will master it. 

You can also practice spells that are easy to find on Tumblr. Why don’t you look for my “self love spell” tag (/tagged/self-love-spell)? 

Don’t let negative thoughts eat you. You aren’t negativity and you must eliminate them every time they appear in your head. When you think something negative, pray it: “I am light and I attract luck and happiness”. However, there are people who are very helpful in expressing negative thoughts on paper and then burning or breaking them into pieces and throwing them away. You can also call someone to vent on it.

If you can, anon, I recommend getting an onyx and a white quartz or a citrine. Carrying this pair of stones will help you a lot: the onyx will absorb all the negativity, while the white quartz or will give you a lot of positivity (I recommend you more the citrine to give you a lot of energy).

Surround yourself with people who give you positivity and a lot of love. Don’t surround yourself with people who don’t do you well, as they will not help you to get out of this situation.

8. Meditate.

At first it is difficult (you need a lot of concentration), but it will help you a lot to control your emotions and other things. Start by doing meditation for five minutes on waking or before going to sleep.

9. Cut off communication with your ex and block any way to see them on social networks.

10. Ask for help from your angels.

It may sound crazy, but they listen to you. I didn’t get the response from the angels in the first place, but from Aphrodite, but they came later.

The angels are there to guide you. When you are lost: speak loudly and ask for a signal. It will come in the form of a number (111, 333 or so), a prayer or an image that you see… the sign will come to you. Have faith and ask for help!

You can always try to contact your spiritual guides.

11. Seek to do new things.

Do you feel like starting to play sports? Do you think you should travel somewhere this holiday? Do you want to do some activity that you have wanted to do for a long time?

If you have always wanted to do something: now is the time to do it! Dare and look for fun.

I tell you as a personal experience! I started to practice witchcraft after leaving one of my ex, and now look how happy I am! Do what you have always wanted to do, worse you have never dared.

12. Don’t lock yourself up too much.

13. Animals and nature heal a lot at times like this.

I don’t know if you have a pet or you live near a forest, but try to surround yourself with animals and nature.

Playing with animals (dogs, cats or any other type of animal) will help you vibrate very loudly. In addition, it will help you forget the pain for a few hours and clear yourself of any negativity. The same walk in nature or lose a few hours in a forest. Sit and listen to the sound of the wind lift the vegetation and the birds sing. You will find an incredible peace there.

I’m sorry the post is so long! I hope these tips can help you in some way. 

See you, anon!

[its-abroad-world]

Adventure #1 - May 30/31/June 1&2: LA, Heathrow, Copenhagen, and The Regal Princess: The Start of a Journey

When you travel as much as my family does, you get really good at it; squishing everything you can into your luggage, the long travel times, sleep deprivation, time zone changes, jet lag.

For as long as I can remember, my family has taken a trip every summer. We started off with road trips around America and then later moved on to trips to other countries. Since then, we have been to almost all 50 states and over 20 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia. My mum decided to take a cruise on the Baltic Seas and then take a road trip around Germany after the cruise. We figured out a long time ago that cruising is the best way to travel because you’re essentially living on a floating hotel with gourmet food and turndown service; the next morning, you’re in a new destination; if you do it right, you really get your money’s worth!

On May 30, we began our day hurriedly packing and repacking our luggage. The week leading up to the trip, we had family visiting from the Philippines and were too busy taking her out to focus on packing. I do not recommend this; you’ll forget to bring a lot of things. This trip was the first trip that we were extremely underprepared for and we were mostly winging our itinerary.

May 30, packing up the car to head to the airport

Growing up with parents that felt the need to have a big family vacation at least once a year means that I have grown to love (and hate) traveling. For example, I love having the opportunity to experience a new country and culture, but I hate the flight that you have to take to get to that country; in this case, we were flying from LAX to London Heathrow to Copenhagen. We’re quite used to flying long flights so a 10-hour flight was nothing: my parents fell asleep almost as soon as we were seated on the plane, and my sister and I spent the whole flight watching movies and drifting in and out of sleep. Through years of experience, I’ve found that on a flight with a stopover, you should sleep on the first flight and not on the second if you are arriving in the morning; you won’t be super jetlagged.

Before we left for the trip, we were booking all of our hotels and AirBnBs, only to find that the Danish Kroner was much bigger than the US dollar and would cost us $300 for one night at the cheapest hotel. In frugal Asian speak, this means that you spend the night at the airport after about 24 hours of traveling -- it’s kind of the worst feeling. We arrived at 11 pm but could not check in to board the ship until 10 am, so we spent the night tossing and turning on unforgivingly hard airport chairs, unable to actually stay fully awake or get any actual sleep.

June 1 At about 6 AM, feeling too cooped and restless just staying in the airport, we bought bus tickets and headed out with high expectations and excitement for Copenhagen. It was one of the cities that we had wanted to go for a long time; suffice to say, it did not live up to our expectations. Just walking out of the airport, the city smelled awful; it seemed to be garbage day (of course) and it looked as if the city had spent the night partying and littering in the streets. We took the bus to the main train station where we used these traveler’s lockers beneath the main terminal of the station to store our suitcases. Priced at about $11, it was very helpful to have somewhere to store large suitcases while roaming the city. While walking down the street to find breakfast, we noticed that there were still clubs open at 6 am and drunk people were stumbling out and finishing their beers on the sidewalk; it was definitely unlike anything we have seen in Europe. The only food store that we found that was open was McDonald’s which was a treat to us because for some reason American fast food always seems to be better in other countries; McDonald’s in Denmark did not disappoint.

June 1, our first taste of Denmark

We finished eating around 7:30 AM and spent the rest of the morning walking through the city, exploring whatever places were free and open, which meant we mostly looked at the outsides of buildings. We got to see the Christiansborg Palace, where Denmark’s Supreme Court, The Prime Minister’s office, and the Danish Parliament are all held. While we were walking through the palace grounds, we happened upon the gardens in front of the library and all of the flowers were in full bloom. So pretty!! None of us were really paying attention to the buildings around even though we fully should have because at that point, we had been awake for more than 24 hours and were starting to feel a little under the weather. We all gave up trying to see more of the city and headed back to the train station to just sit and rest until we could begin making our way to the cruise ship.

It took some figuring out but we were able to figure out the public transportation to get to the cruise terminal. The process of going through security and checking in was fairly quick. While we were checking in, the cruise personnel informed us that our room had been upgraded to a family suite with a balcony at the front of the ship on the 15th (Lido Deck) floor. As soon as we got to the room, we all took naps, really starting to feel a cold coming on; we slept through lunch and the beginning of the festivities of the launch party. We had a quick dinner at the buffet and went to sleep right after.

View from our stateroom balcony

June 2 The next day, June 2, sea-day #1, we spent resting in bed. Three out of the four of us were sick with a cough and cold and all four of us were extremely jetlagged. It was nice to get some rest and relaxation in and we spent most of the day resting in bed or roaming around the ship to see what activities were going on.

After taking a look at the cruise’s itinerary for the day, we realized that Captain’s Night, a formal night where the captain and his crew are introduced to the guests of the ship at a big party, was that night. This was a bit strange because on previous cruises that we had been on, Captain’s Night was always in the middle of the cruise. This cruise was a little different because not everyone on the ship had the same embarkation and disembarkation dates. While it was strange to us, we got ready quickly and headed downstairs to where the party was; my dad opted to stay in bed and order room service. We took pictures at the professional booths, then had dinner in the formal dining. Most of the night was just such a blur because we were all a little seasick, jetlagged, and on cold medicine. We ate a three-course meal as quickly as possible and headed straight to the room to sleep right after.

[werewolfmind]

things keep happening. Mostly little things now, some of them random and inconsequential. But there’ve been some big things recently (and in years past) that have me CONVINCED I’m a claircognizant empath/medium

I’ll detail it below but if anyone has any reading or advice on how to strengthen/hone this? It would be appreciated. (Under the cut are detailed instances, about 6 paragraphs.)

(For the record, I am Christian, I don’t go near actual Wicca practices as far as spells or worship. I do however believe my empathetic talents were given to me by God. I believe in sensing energy and using it as knowledge, not manipulation of anything in the natural world. I worship God and believe knowledge (like science studies) and gifts like this are given to help us fulfill His plan. Anything that causes direct change, damage, or healing; rituals; and polytheistic worship I don’t believe in nor will practice. Things that are okay with me: - the use of stones, elements, meditation, and mindfulness to focus - the use of clairvoyance/sentience to guide others or self from danger/toward good - The warding away of evil - The protection of good - healing based on medicinal knowledge - the existence of demonic/angelic presences/guardian angels, as well as spirits and entities on Earth  - the “energies” surrounding us, whether they’re natural or spiritual, and the idea that all sentient things have emotional energy (auras)

The claircognizant/empath thing, well. I’m the most Sterotypical Empath tbh. I’m a Pisces, introvert, have anxiety/depression that STEMS from being an introvert...but it also stems from the negativity in my life. I sense when people around me are angry, sad, etc and when most of it is irrational or stemming from untreated mental illness..well, it doesn’t have to be aimed toward me for me to feel it. I can walk into a room and, without actually looking at the other person, know if they’re happy, sad, angry, stressed. I can feel the energy change when they leave, or feel the switch between emotions. Any time I’ve been wrong about it, it’s because I misinterpreted where/who the feelings were being “aimed” at by the other person.

I also get feelings about conversations and actions, which may be empath mixed with precognizance? The only “visions” I have are blurry-but-specific images tied to little mundane events, but a handful of them have been about life changing things. I can USUALLY tell when a choice will result in a bad outcome, even if there’s no way to tell (knowing that going into a dorm was gonna be hell, not because of my anxiety, but because of ONE specific roommate. Very specific feeling.) The feelings I get of “I need to text this person because theyre having a bad day”. The time my friend texted me a completely normal, routine question...and I got this sinking feeling in my stomach, knowing that conversation was going to be something I didn’t want to hear. (I literally had to tell myself “don’t be dumb, this is normal, why are you worried?!” I was right, and almost wish I’d just ignored the text)

Tying into mediumship, I’ve had dreams and very specific thoughts of my grandparents, days before they passed away, without being contact with them.

I’ve had one or two dreams where I believe a deceased relative has contacted me, but those only happen days after they’ve passed. The dreams are vivid, peaceful, and I can sense their spirit. Theyre also very ordinary (like sitting down and talking), and both times, I’ve learned something from the discussion that I’ve brought up later to other relatives and learned it was true. These are facts I’ve never heard before, even in passing. I’ve also been visited by someone I admire but have never met. I’ve had a dream of him comforting me and there’s been a few other times where I can feel his presence near me, like he’s watching over me. 

I know I can feel spirits/entities. There have been two in my house: one malevolent and one “neutral” one. The malevolent one always manifested as the feeling of eyes staring at me from one particular corner of my room. They would watch me move around, and I would get a feeling of dread and anxiety any time it was present. I could tell it wanted to hurt me. Once, I woke up with scratches down my leg--they matched the placement of 4 fingers, but they were going toward my feet, not my head, like they would if *I* had scratched myself. (The spacing and length also didn’t match up.) I got holy water after that. I’ve felt another spirit only once or twice, and it’s been in the living room area. It likes to move around me in a circle, studying me. I’m fairly certain it’s a woman. She doesn’t want to hurt me, but I can feel that she wants to reach out, maybe surprise me a bit? She wants a reaction, but means no real harm. 

I had a sleep paralysis episode about 10-11 years ago (never had one before, have only had ONE since) where I was lying in my bed, unable to move, and a shadow person was standing in the open doorway of my room. The shadow flickered slightly and stretched slowly out, like it was reaching out for me--then it would snap back into place like a rubber band being let go. Stretch...then snap back. It tried at least 4 times, and each time, it got closer to me. I don’t remember how I woke up. It’s the only thing I’ve encountered that I can’t tell the gender of, which matches up. (And I only read up on shadow people AFTER this encounter). I’m also fairly certain I’ve seen the same flickering shadowy shape out of the corner of my eye more than once.

I’ve also felt an angel at least twice. I’m not sure if it was the same one both times, but the first time, I was in my single bedroom apartment, alone, essentially having a nervous breakdown. I was miserable at the time, I felt so alone, I called my mom at 1 am just to feel like I existed outside of my 3 room tiny space.I talked to her, got off the phone, called her back still feeling the impulse to bolt from my apartment. I coulnt breathe, think, my whole body hurt, I was curled in on myself. Then suddenly, in the middle of my mom saying something (that wasnt really working to distract me)--in an INSTANT, I felt better. I felt safe and loved and protected and warm. I felt something wrap around my shoulders and body from behind, like a giant weighted blanket. But also like a person, like wings. Like LOVE. I can’t describe it any other way as cheesy as it sounds. I wasn’t exactly sleeping soon, but after spending 2 hours hysterically sobbing and feeling numb, I felt safe and okay, if not happy.

(tw, slight suicidal intention) The second time was about 7 months later. I was driving to my apartment in a bad rain storm. I made a dumb, preventable mistake and my car slipped off the road and started rambling through the bushes along the side. I tried to steer but I was being jostled around. It felt like it last for a while, because I have a clear memory of thinking “I’m about to die” and basically resigned myself to it. I had the impulse and took my hands OFF the wheel, which I knew was ALSO dumb and I SWEAR that time lasted several seconds. Then I had an impulse to put my hands BACK on the wheel...which led me to eventually turning the wheel JUST right so I hit a culvert, which bounced me back up onto the road. I came to a stop literally in the driveway of a church. 

All of these experiences have led me to believe I have a definite connection to the paranormal. Most of it is mundane inconsequential things, but the big things are undeniable. 

[levihauser]

高校

6 September, 2019

I’ve started to get used to Japan, although I’ve still got a long way to go before I can speak and understand Japanese.

On the 28th of August, I went downstairs and had breakfast. My host parents think I love cereal more than anything in the world, so they feed it to me for breakfast most mornings alongside an already huge breakfast. This was my first day of eating it, however. They had had me select the cereal I wanted at the store. All the options were sweet and sugary cereals, which I don’t really like. however, there was one that was not: bran flakes! My family and the US and I eat bran flakes with our cereal whenever we have it, and they are not sweet at all. So I pointed them out, and my host father took four bags off the shelf. When I had them, however, they were probably the sweetest thing I had all day. They were completely coated in sugar- and there was a whole bowl of them. I struggled to eat the bowl, then ate the rest of my huge breakfast. 

In the early afternoon, my host father and I went to my school, Matto High School. They sized me for my school uniform (consisting of a button-down white shirt with an M on it and way-too-loose gray striped pants with vibrant blue and red rubber slippers). It was a little uncomfortable, as the teachers just pushed me into a side room with the door open to change. After the sizing was finished, I met some of my teachers. My class teacher (in Japan students stay in the same classroom for most of the day. A class teacher is something like a homeroom teacher), who is also an English teacher and a fairly good English speaker, is Mrs. Kameda. There is another English teacher who is from the US on the JET program, Miss Pike. She is from New Jersey. All of them seemed nice. I also learned that there are two students from the Philippines in my class that are okay English speakers.

After the meeting at the high school finished, my host father and I went and ate ramen at a nearby small restaurant. Up until that point we had not had lunch, so I was very hungry, but the ramen was very good. For dinner, we had some sort of gigantic pork pancake with a side of squid. Being vegetarian up until I came to Japan, I was a bit queasy about eating meat (it also wasn’t the tastiest meal in the world in my opinion).

On the 29th, I read in the morning for a while. I can’t seem to get up as late as I would like, so I have to go to bed early to get enough sleep. For breakfast, I had a sunny-side-up egg and salad, as well as a thick slab of bread with a hefty rectangle of luminescent, half-melted, yellow cheese. It poured all morning. At 11, my host father and I went to the city hall of Hakusan. I met the mayor. I was impressed. I would have thought that the mayor of  city with a population of over 100,000 would have too busy a schedule to meet with a single exchange student. The city hall is a big skyscraper, and we were on the fourth floor in a room for receiving guests. Because of its purpose, the room had a lot of beautiful art from the city.

I had to make a short speech in Japanese, but I had an interpreter who could help me understand and answer questions. I was given a bag of Hakusan-themed gifts and interviewed by several reporters. Just for meeting with the mayor for 20 minutes and being an exchange student, I got in the newspaper and on TV! After the meeting, we spent 3 hours filling out residency paperwork for my time in Japan. Not my idea of a fun afternoon, but it allows me to stay in Japan for more than 90 days.

There was a Rotary meeting of the club that is hosting me that evening, so I attended and had to make another short speech in Japanese. We exchanged Rotary flags (I gave them Perry’s, they gave me theirs so that I can bring it back to Perry), then ate dinner. It was a fancy hotel, so the food was fancy too. It was interesting to hear the Rotary song in Japanese.

On the 30th I had super-sugar-saturated cereal again. My host father got out a board game and just started playing it with me without explaining it all. Somehow I won, despite not knowing the rules until about halfway through (the game was called オセロ in Japanese, which, transliterated, is Osero. I think it is Othello in English). I went for a walk, and when I got back, I cleaned my bedroom and finished unpacking. It took a while, but it was very satisfying. My host mother made sushi for lunch. It was delicious! My favorite was inarizushi (rice wrapped in tofu). I read in the afternoon, then we had dinner (fish, rice, meat, somen, and miso). I went on a walk after dinner, but the sun set as I was walking and I got lost on my way back. I asked a friendly person for directions and she showed me the way (she actually walked me all the way back home, in the opposite direction she had been going). 

On the 31st, I had been in Japan for one week! I studied Japanese for a while, then had breakfast. I went for a walk, then we ate lunch. My host father and I went for a bike ride. Both the walk and the ride were to my high school, so I could practice the route. After the bike ride, one of my host aunts picked me up and took me to her house for a taiko (Japanese drum) lesson. It was interesting and fun, however, I was not very good at it, so I was not too happy when I found out my host dad had recorded the whole thing on video and was repeatedly playing it to anyone who he knew. 

When we returned home, my seven-year-old host niece Yuria and my four-year-old host nephew Shudai were there. We went to a sushi restaurant. It was pretty interesting. There was a counter surrounding the chefs with a conveyor belt that had plates of sushi on it. The chefs made sushi and put it on the conveyor belt, and customers took off any sushi they wanted. The price was assessed by the number of plates each customer had amassed and what color they were (different colors indicated different prices). If you weren’t seated at the counter, you were in a group. That’s where we were. There was a screen that you could touch to pick what you wanted, then a wheeled tray would come speeding up to you shortly on a special track. Whenever it came, Shuudai would shout “Shinkansen, shinkansen!” (bullet train, bullet train). You could take your food, then press the screen to dismiss the tray. We ate sushi and overall, it was delicious, although there were a few things I ate that I wish I hadn’t. We had ice cream for dessert, and both Yuria and Shuudai dropped theirs on the ground. After that, we went home.

On September first, I got up and started to get ready for my Rotary Youth Exchange orientation later that day. At 11, three Rotarians showed up to drive me to Toyama City. The drive took about an hour, and it was very scenic. Lots of mountains! There were a lot of trams on tracks in the center of the road. According to one of the Rotarians, Toyama City, along with Hiroshima, is one of the few cities in Japan with trams like that. They were very interesting, and while some looked new, others looked like beautiful antiques, maybe from 60 to 70 years ago. We arrived at the hotel where the meeting was, and all of the English speaking inbound students were there. There were 12 (I think), so it was much bigger than district 7120, where I come from, in terms of youth exchange. In 7120, there were only 13 outbound students total, whereas here the total of inbound English speakers only almost reached that. There were some students from Canada and the US and one from Australia. I was the youngest. The orientation was long and boring, but all of the students were able to exchange pins with each other, a Rotary Youth Exchange custom, as well as business cards. We returned home, and only my host mother was there, as my host father was at a meeting in Fukui Prefecture. We went out for dinner at a small restaurant. We constituted half of the customers, but the people at the restaurant seemed to know her. After spending quite a while there, we returned home and went to bed.

The second was my first day of school. I put on my school uniform. I had breakfast and left. School starts at 8:35, but I was to be there at 8 on the first day. My host dad gave me a ride there, and I gave a speech to the teachers. Mrs. Kameda led me to my classroom and I made the same speech again to my classmates. We all moved to the gym for an assembly, and I made the speech for the third time, this time to the whole school. Afterwards, all the students took tests. This was the beginning of their second semester after a one month break for the summer (school starts in April here). I was given a tour of the school. It has two courtyards, and is essentially shaped like a hollow rectangle with a hallway through the middle. It has four floors, and my classroom is on the third. Lots of stair climbing! Everybody I met wanted to say hi to me, so that was pleasant. There were no classes on the first day, so I just took the English test and studied Japanese, then went home. The walk takes about half an hour. I snacked and ate dinner, then both host parents went to an oil painting class, so I went to bed.

On the third, I got ready for school and left. There are six periods in a school day, plus lunch, cleaning and homeroom. I’m taking English Communication, English, Math, Music, Modern Japanese, Classical Japanese, P.E., Calligraphy, Art, History, Science, Taiko, Office Skills, and Health. Both the math and the science are what I took two years ago in the U.S. I thought I had finished the day, when lo and behold, I learned that I had to stay seventh period, along with every other student, to study on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I leave at 4:30 instead of 3:30. I had been getting along well with a little help from Google Translate, but at school everyone spoke quickly and used characters I don’t understand, so it was very difficult. My hardest classes have been Classical and Modern Japanese. In Modern Japanese on Wednesday, there was a vocabulary opener, where I had to copy definitions from a dictionary onto a paper. However, while I know two of the Japanese alphabets, the third has thousands of characters which I don’t know that I just had to copy from what I saw, which took a really long time and hurt my eyes. Wednesday was my hardest day of the week. In the U.S., I never really liked Wednesdays, and I had hoped it would get better here, but it did just the opposite.

Yesterday, I went to school. It was my easiest day yet, although that may just be because of the relief of stress from not having to stay at school until 4:30. My host mother had slept in, however, so I didn’t get any packed lunch. Instead, I had to buy something from the school store. By the time I got there, I was at the end of the line and the only thing edible left was half of a stale Nutella sandwich. Not my favorite meal in Japan so far. One thing that’s nice about this school is that the classrooms all have air conditioning because it gets so hot and humid in the summer. However, I’ve been told that there’s no insulation in the winter and they keep it cool, so I’m a little worried. I’ve pretty much memorized my route to school now, so I don’t need my map any more. I walk on a dirt road through rice fields along the way, as well as past two Shinto shrines and across a railroad. It’s a pretty walk. I went to the post office, doubling the time of my walk, but I got to walk by the ruins of a castle. I had no idea that there had ever been a castle in Hakusan. Immediately, I was offered a matcha-flavored ice cream pop by my host dad. It wasn’t bad at all. My host family seems to like eating ice cream at all hours after 10 AM. There was another Rotary meeting and this time the president of my host district, 2610, was the guest speaker. The meeting ended, and one of the Rotarians gave me a ride home. Although my host dad was at the meeting, he had to go to another meeting immediately afterwards. I took my first Japanese bath. It was pretty hot, but still nicer than I thought it would be. I waited this long because try as I might, I couldn’t figure out how to get the water to turn on until I remembered to ask my host mother.

Today, I went to school after breakfast. It was an average day, neither too hard nor too easy, but it was nice because the exhausting first week of school was over. I’ve been here for two weeks now! I’m starting to fall into a rhythm and am enjoying my time here.

My host parents and I

My school’s main entrance

Sunset a short walk from my house

A torii at a shrine along my walk to school

A museum along my walk to school

[exceptionallyyours98-blog]

Why Building A Great Friendship Is So Important to Your Success: 6 Ways I'm Focused on Making Mine Great

A deep, strong friendship just might be a double edged sword. A friendship that bolsters your confidence when it’s low and gives you support and connection but also someone who can recognize when you are off track and call you on it. A great friendship is an investment of the heart and soul, an emotional connection as well as physical and it requires both to be active participants.

The Wrong Way To Do It

Just a week ago I returned from an over 8000 mile road trip with my boys Ryder (11) and Dax (8). We made it to all the way to Knoxville, TN where I finally got to meet my very best friend – in person.

Planning for this road trip had been in the works for over a year. While I was deep in the building of my business after opening a physical studio location last year, I knew I would need a “life line”. This road trip would be that line.

It was my beacon of light at the end of the 16 hour days.

But while I worked for days, weeks, months, holding this plan in sight, I neglected my best friend and the basic essentials of a happy life. I neglected her so much that I feared I lost one of the best gifts a human could possess.

I was so focused on getting through the day and checking off actions items, I became nearly a hermit to a healthy daily life. I felt I only had the capacity to care for my clients and my children. I’d get up at 4 and go to bed at 10 repeating this over and over until I finally broke.

By the time I came out of my self inflicted turmoil, I finally reached out to my best friend, only to find that I had broken her heart.

Barbara Bush:

“You don’t just luck into things as much as you’d like to think you do. You build them step by step, whether it’s friendships or opportunities”

Cultivating Great Friendships

1. Friendship is about sharing openly in the good times and the bad. You don’t have to always get into deep, meaningful conversations but cutting off connection when things get tough isn’t the way to go. Laughing often, playing regularly and trusting always, that’s most important. It’s about caring deeply, both how the other person feels as well as allowing to be cared for deeply. Playfulness of friendship is an integral part of a great relationship so when the serious business of needing a trusting shoulder occurs, it’s been built on a firm foundation.

I breathed a song into the air: it fell to earth, I know not where…. and the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

2. Do not dilute or pollute your friendship with unnecessary drama. But do be willing to share authentically what is happening. While I don’t think a mission statement is needed for a friendship, we do need to be intentional in what we need and want in a friendship and invest wisely through our words and actions. Constant complaining isn’t what builds great friendship. It doesn’t mean you can’t share your frustrations but a great friendship isn’t about taming the shrew.

3. Keep the communication lines open. Learn to speak empathically. Instead of saying “You…” use “I feel…” If you are feeling scared or misunderstood or ignored, say “I feel…”, rather than – “you make me feel…”. Be willing to hear from your heart rather than your head what is being shared or not shared. Instead of cutting off communication, open up about what you are needing – even if it’s time and space. Remember, it’s a two way street – communication flows both ways. Listening is one of the greatest qualities of a great friend. But keep it balanced.

4. Let your actions speak louder than your words. There is a big virtual world out there. I actually met my best friend on line a few years ago and we’d not met in person until recently. Yet we formed a truly great friendship; caring, genuine, supportive all through the internet and phone. In my business I am on social media daily, and I have a policy to keep things positive. Anything intimately related to the ups and downs of life, I work to spare the moment by moment drama and wait until the lessons are learned to share insight. So if I didn’t specifically communicate with my friend how I was doing, all she would know is the snap shot of the moments of connection with my clients whom I adore, and the joy or success I choose to celebrate publicly.

But when I did reach out after months, I find out I had hurt her deeply by cutting off communication. A pattern I have used my entire life as a way to stay “safe” (more on this lesson later).

Luckily for me, my best friend is the most understanding, forgiving and gracious women I know. After spending a week with her in person in her home being lovingly cared for and supported, actions bolstered us both. This lesson is an important one I intend to keep in practice.

Little actions like sending a handwritten card, calling instead of an emails all the time to big actions like connecting in person and making plans to connect in person if you do not live in the same city.

There is something basic about friendship. It is like the structure that holds up a building. It is mostly hidden and absolutely essential.

Emilie Barnes

5. Don’t have only transactional friendships, instead build a deep and meaningful friendship. I’ve had lots of transactional “friendships” and am working on building better relationships in general. This is like never allowing roots to deepen enough for the fruits of a true friendship to blossom. For me, that was a pattern, I believe it stems from self worth issues. Constantly judging myself. So when there are “bad” days and I’m not “perfect” the gremlins take me under letting me know I don’t deserve to be loved.

6. Seek professional help for issues that warrant such help. Your best friend is not your counselor nor a door mat.

Constantly dumping your marital, parental, business, personal issues on your best friend is like emptying out the air in your camp mattress. You are left with a hard, bumpy surface, poor sleep and a bad back in the morning. And that’s not pleasant for anyone (first hand experience analogy from our camping trips to Knoxville!)

Being aware that you need professional help is not a bad thing. Sometimes we do need that counselor or the right homeopathic remedy or big time intervention. Do NOT be afraid to get that help. Just get the RIGHT kind 😉

And sometimes we just need the deep and meaningful connection of a beloved great friend.

I believe that building a great friendship is one of the most valuable uses of our time. It’s revenue is endless. But it’s not passive.

Blessed are the ones God sends to show His love for us…our friends.

Questions: Do you have a deep and meaningful friendship? How does it affect your life? What special things do you do to cultivate a deep and meaningful friendship? You can leave a comment below.

Stephana works with Powerhouse Leaders who want more results with less BS, for themselves, their team and their bottom line. Contact Stephana at stephana@stephana.net 360-936-3374 or visit http://www.powerhouseleaders.comPowerhouse Leaders.

[thestudyingapollo]

Hi Carmen! May I ask how many hours a day you study? And sleep? And how much brakes do you take during studies? Struggling hard with all three so input would be great TY

Oh well, it really depends, when I’m in the midst of classes and practices at the hospital, I usually study 3-4 hours in the afternoons. When it comes to exam season it’s a completely different story: I usually wake up at 6, and by 7 I have already had breakfast, showered and made my bed and the like, so I sit at 7 to study and stay like that until I have lunch at 13:30, with a break of like, half an hour around 11 am. Then I have lunch, drink my tea and chill a bit between 13:30 and 15:00. In the afternoon session, that lats until 20:30-21:00 approximately, I usually make a couple of breaks at like 17:30 to have a small snack, and then another one at 19:00 to walk my dog! I then have dinner and chill until 22:00-22:30, I go to bed super early because I wake up super early as well, and I need to feel well rested in order to sustain my studying pace! 

As you can see, I don’t tend to take a lot of breaks during my study sessions. The Pomodoro method and things like that don’t work for me because when I have finally achieved concentration and have imbued myself in my study bubble, the timer tells me to take a small 5-minute break, and that fucks my momentum and my concentration, so I have designed this routine that works for me pretty well. Doing it like this, I can stay in a work mood and flow for 3-4 hours straight, and I feel like I’m actually making good use of my time. Overall, I’d say that I can spend around 9-10 hours a day studying. I know it may seem like a lot, but I’m a slow learner and I need to make mind maps and drawings and speak out loud and things like that to actually learn the material, and since med school is so material-heavy, I really need to spend most of my time studying during exam season to actually get results! 

As for sleep, I have been waking up early all my life (even in summer holidays when I didn’t actually need to do anything school-wise) so I can safely say I’m a natural morning person, but there have been times in which sleep eluded me or when my sleep pattern was really fucked up, so I have devised this really established pattern that works super well for me!  Let’s break it down a bit: 

I wake up super early every day, at 6 am, because I’m a natural morning person and I really enjoy the coziness of mornings, when the city is still asleep and I have time to prepare a really good breakfast (breakfast in my favorite food, so the prospect of having a really good, fulfilling one makes mornings a lot better), take a nice shower, and even journal for a bit if I don’t have to go to classes. Also, the fact that my classes have always started at 8 am (both while I was in high school and now during university) has made me a really good morning person tbh. 

Even though I’m a natural morning person, going early to bed is essential. If you’re aiming for at least 7 hours of sleep and you want to wake up earlier, go to bed at 22:00 pm, not later. This will really make your body be in sync with your natural circadian cycle and you will have a night of deep, restful sleep. I usually go to bed around this hour, and that gives me 8 hours of sleep if I wake up at 6, which I do every day, even on weekends and bank holidays. 

Have a really good routine before going to bed. Sometimes falling asleep is difficult, but I’ve found that there are some things that help: I stop studying at least one hour and half before I go to bed, and use that time to have a light dinner and chill with my family. Really, if you are consistent, you won’t feel the need to pull all-nighters, and even though I have stayed studying until 11-12 pm some days, it is a very rare occurrence. I’ve found that when I do this, I’m very jittery when I go to bed and I have lots of problems falling asleep, whereas if I stop and take time to chill and maybe drink a good cup of “sleeping” tea while I watch telly or read in company of my family eases all anxiety and helps me in going to bed sleepy. 

Don’t drink caffeinated drinks after 4 pm!!!! 

Use a good alarm like the one from the Sleep Cycle app. It tracks your sleeping patterns and starts waking you up with a gentle sound half an hour before your actual waking up time. I also have a good ‘ol alarm clock, just in case. 

As for concentration and study breaks: 

I try to have my phone as far as possible from me while I’m studying. Let’ s be real, that thing is a fucking concentration hazard. 

I use the SelfControl app on my laptop because the internet is a damn rabbit hole. I have a full list of all the webs that cause a distraction, and thanks to this I can only use my computer for studying purposes. 

I try to always have a 1.5-2L water bottle beside me as I tend to drink a lot during the day and otherwise I would be going to the kitchen for water every half hour.

I try to only have school-related items on my desk. 

I use a planner to jot down all the tasks I need to complete for the day, and I try to be as realistic as possible, because otherwise you won’t be able to do everything you thought you would do, and that will frustrate you and cause you a lot of anxiety, so it’s better to start a week earlier than intended and study just three chapters a day, than starting 5 days before the exams and having to cram 8 chapters every day, because if you set yourself to do too much, you will start piling your tasks and you will break down, believe me. 

If there is noise around you, get a good pair of soundproof ear-muffs. I got these ones (yes, they’re usually used by construction and airports workers, but they reduce ambient sound SO well) because my street was under construction and the noise was unbearable. They’re too heavy and my neck hurts after a couple of hours of wearing them, so I wish I had gotten these ones instead, but they do the job. 

If you don’t want ear-muffs, ASMR tracks are AMAZING. They’re this sort of white noise thingy that is super comforting and puts you in such a good studying zone mentally speaking. I have some of my favorite saved in this youtube playlist, so take a look!! I tend to do a lot of over thinking, even while I’m studying, and since I can’t do three things at the same time, ASMR playlists give my brain two things to focus on: the ASMR sounds are at the background of my mind shutting up my overthinking brain, and the rest of my brain cells are concentrated on studying. So yeah, 10/10 would recommend. My favorite is this Rainy night at the Hogwarts Library one!! 

As I said before, I don’t tend to take lots of breaks because I’d loose my concentration, so I make three-four breaks along my whole day of studying, and they usually involve going out for a walk, walking my dog, or making tea (the process is super calming for me). This depends on your own priorities and capacities, obviously, but this is what works for me! If I’m feeling too jittery or anxious, usually going for a walk while listening to Panic! at the Disco or Fall Out Boy really helps in boosting my mood! 

Okay, that was way too long of an answer, maybe I should make this into a Med School Series post????? I hope some of this helps you!!! Good luck with your studies 🔮💫🌸📚🙇🏻‍♀️

[forumofkuka]

Emory University: First Week!

As my second full day of classes is coming to a close, I’ve decided to reflect back on my first week here in Atlanta, Georgia. Although I didn’t move in until Saturday, August 25th, my father and I flew down Thursday morning. When my final days in Connecticut were approaching, I’ll be honest, I definitely didn’t feel super prepared or knowledgeable about what I was getting myself into. After all, I didn’t start packing until maybe three days before, and I was even still doing that 3 hours before my flight was scheduled to take off. Moreover, I still had to make a ton of purchases in Atlanta for my dorm, like school supplies and bathroom essentials. 

Being that I wouldn’t be returning home until late November, I made a point in my last week to spend more time at home and with family. Although I facetimed friends during those days, I visited my paternal grandparents and also spent time with my sisters (i.e. Making a sisters-only trip up to Agawam, Massachusetts, to spend the afternoon at Six Flags). Saying goodbye to certain relatives was more emotional than I had imagined. Maybe it was my heightened hormones from my period or just suppressed anxieties about picking up my life and moving 1000 miles away, a surge of tears definitely came on when I was saying goodbye to my grandparents the day before my flight. I couldn’t stop them during the drive home either, even though I was trying to not be hysterical in front of my youngest sister who was in the passenger seat beside me. Alisa, my youngest sister, was someone I had been spending a lot more time with in the last few weeks, whether it be going bowling for an hour, getting our eyebrows done, or even running errands. In my final minutes before departing for the airport, I noticed that she was hanging around me a lot more, and that maybe she was also suppressing some feelings as well. LOL even while thinking back on this, I find myself unable to hold back the tears. Anyway, hugging her goodbye also set me off again, although my dad didn’t comment on it so that made it easier for me to calm down. 

I’ve always dreamt about college, and looked forward to the possibilities that come with higher education and being in a new location/larger institution. It wasn’t until my senior week that I started realizing what kinds of apprehensions I had underneath all the enthusiasm about the future. You know, I went to the same secondary school for 6 years, where some of my closest friendships had been that old as well. Sure, I made new connections every year, and my closeness with friends fluctuated throughout the era, but I always had a solid sense of who was my friend and who was merely an acquaintance. The idea of going into college fresh, with a blank slate, was both something I was excited about but I also realized something I was afraid of. Sitting here, 5 days into the process, I’ve met dozens of super interesting, approachable, and intelligent people. I’ve made various acquaintances, whether they be in my dorm, my orientation group, my classes, or spontaneous encounters I’ve had walking around campus. With that being said, although I have people I can message to eat meals with or sit in a lounge with, I don’t feel comfortable here yet socially. I don’t have a solid group, and I’ve been feeling more FOMO (fear of missing out) than I could’ve ever really felt in high school. I don’t know, in some instances, when I see groups of people going off together, especially when I am acquainted with them, to a party or some off-campus event, I definitely feel a little isolation. I don’t know, I don’t want a college experience where all I do is go to class, study, eat food with people, go to a club meeting, and sleep. I want some archetypal college experiences, whether it be going to parties or even taking advantages of the many events that occur in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta. In instances like this, I think I’m just allowing my uncertainties and vulnerability get the best of me, especially because I probably am just making assumptions about the involvement and acclimation of those around me. We all put up facades, and as someone who constantly tries to break mine by confiding in others and being an open person, I should acknowledge and believe this. I’m sure it’s normal. All of my concerns and insecurities are probably expected and on track with where I should be. I just have to remember not to rush into things, because things are going well - they could be so much worse. Everyone I’ve engaged in conversation with has been kind and I haven’t even gone to an activities fair yet, so I haven’t even finished making the frame of my initial social spheres. 

My two days prior to actual moving in went pretty smoothly. We went shopping a lot, spent way too much money of course, because who knew how many little things you’d actually need in your dorm? My list of supplies continued to grow throughout those 48 hours, as I started remembering the smallest but most essential things that I always had at my disposal when I lived in a family home, rather than a 11′ by 20′ dorm room. We went to some cool eateries in the area, such as Poke Burri, a social media renowned poke stand that makes sushi doughnuts, burritos, bowls, pizza, you name it - although it is located in a more rundown, artistic, hipster neighborhood that is a little unassuming, it was pretty cool and a general area I’d want to revisit again with some friends (neurotic, protective fathers are probably not built for a place like that). We also visited my former Russian teacher, who a few months before my acceptance to Emory, had announced that she was moving to a city that’s just under an hour outside of Atlanta. It was comforting to be able to see her again, and even nicer to know that she’s more than willing to be a source of support for me too. I think I’m going to try and visit her in late September or early October, just because I don’t really have too many familiar faces here.  In terms of the whole move-in process, the day went pretty smoothly. My scheduled move-in time was 7:00am, so my dad and I woke up at 5:45am to get there on time. We finished unpacking my various suitcases and packages around 1:00pm (I worked slower than I probably should LOL). I met my roommate and her family of course, which went nicely. She and I clicked immediately, we’ve been communicated for about 4 months now, since we had requested each other way back in April. Even though I felt like we’d make great friends, I even started getting apprehensive about how she and I would get along, since it’s always hard to kind of tell how someone is over text and how someone is in person. So far, everything has been pretty easy-going, and both of us have been very willing to share and compromise, which is great :) We are different in various ways, but also alike in others, so I’m happy with how that’s going! Our ability to click quickly was definitely something that reassuringly lifted stress off my shoulders. After unpacking my belongings, we met with our orientation groups, had the Emory Welcome assembly, the traditional Emory Coke Toast (after which my father left), and then another Emory After Dark social event, where students were able to get free food from various local food trucks and mingle. 

So far, all of the social events have proven to be more or less fun, and have resulted in me encountering a wide breadth of interesting and kind people. I’ve yet to meet someone who has been explicitly rude or unapproachable, and it’s just been really cool to be surrounded by so many people who are passionate, driven, and talented. Though, I will say, I’ve never been more exhausted in my life. With our orientation days packed to the brim with Songfest practices, orientation leader meetings, convocation, Emory welcome events, you name it - any free time we do have, usually begins at around 9:00pm, meaning it’s pretty likely that if you want to have control over who you hang out with, you’ll end up going to bed around 12:00am to 1:00am every night. Or, at least I have. So far, my roommate has been pretty easygoing with me coming in late, I think both for her sake and my own, I’m going to have to cut it down, because I went to bed at nearly 2:00am last night (today is 8/31/2018) even, and I woke up at 8:00am (mind you, I was going to wake up at 6:30am to go to the gym). Last night, after Songfest - which is a freshman-dorm singing and dancing competition where each residence hall basically disses the other and competes for best shirt/banner/lyrics/performance - I was thinking about going to The Mansion for their Emory Back to School Event, but it would’ve started at like 10:30pm and gone to 3:00am, and apparently a lot of girls get sexually assaulted there so I’m glad I decided against it. It’s weird, even on the night after move-in day, I saw hoards of girls all dressed up to go off campus to parties - how do people even find out about these kinds of things? I also don’t understand what’s the rush? Like you barely know the people in your own dorm building, let alone already going off to get trashed somewhere else.  It’s strange the severity of FOMO I’ve been feeling here, like it hasn’t been atrocious, but it has been more than at home, and it has been contributing to feelings of depression that I haven’t felt in a long time. Later today, I’m going to call the Psychological & Mental Health Services Office to try and schedule and appointment, because it hasn’t even been a week since move in, and I’m already feeling myself shut down and want to isolate myself. It really hit me that I may need to get counseling when I found myself having difficulty holding back tears while I was in the midst of one of the most high-spirited, school events of my four years here - why would anyone be sad while having school spirit and being around people who are super energetic and enthusiastic? So, it felt like something was wrong.  

Nonetheless, I’m really excited for the opportunity to reinvent myself. I went to the Religion & Spirituality Fair the other day, and I’m really interested in not only being apart of the Baha’i Student Association (wasn’t at the fair but I’m in contact with the leading people), but I kind of want to learn more about UKirk Atlanta, which is a very-liberal, Presbyterian church group that comes here every Thursday evening. I don’t know, the people were very gay-pride, bubbly, and quirky, so I think it would be enlightening and also fun. A lot of the groups, oddly enough, are okay with attendees not being of the faith, so I feel more encouraged to go to these meetings just as a means of learning about the religion and its community here on campus. I also went to the LGBT Freshman/Transfer Welcome Meeting, which was really nice. I’ll be honest, I don’t know if it was my place to go, I don’t believe in sexuality labels (meaning, I identify as non-conforming), and with that being said I don’t know if that constitutes as me being able to say I could fall into any of the LGBT spectrum. However, people were kind and maybe as I continue exploring myself, I’ll find that I fall more into one realm over a current one (I’ve been more attracted to masculinity/cis-men for a while now). With all this being said, it’s just really cool how many different student programs there are here on campus. Some others I want to explore are Club Weightlifting, A Cappella, Emory Dark Arts, Active Minds, Ballroom Dancing Club, a literary journal/newspaper, and some sort of community service oriented group. Unlike in high school, I feel like I want to be more involved in activities that are more like hobbies, rather than something that is related to my academic interests. We’ll see though, the Activities Fair is on Saturday, and I think now’s a good time to explore things and just kind of really start figuring out how and where I want to set my foot at this school.  In terms of my academic classes thus far, I’ve enjoyed all of them. I’m taking PSYC 110: Psychobiology & Cognition (General Psychology 1), RUSS 201: Intermediate Reading/Writing/Speaking, CHEM 150: Lecture & Lab (General Chemistry 1), and PHIL 111: Existentialism & European Philosophy. Aside from the class materials and textbooks being horribly expensive, I think I’m going to gain a lot from all these classes. I really like my professors for all of them, especially my philosophy instructor, who isn’t even a professor - he’s a PhD student who wears grayscale outfits, has plugs (stretches his lobes), a huge beard, and swears. Chemistry will be a difficult class for me, I can tell already, but the professor is super passionate and teamwork-oriented so I think I’ll come out of it with a good foundation in the science. The one class I feel a little strange about is my Russian class, because as a somewhat “native” speaker, it is strange to be in a room full of non-native speakers trying to speak Russian, as well as being in a Russian learning setting where the professor speaks English 85% of the time. The weird thing is, I feel like the class is moving very slowly and like we’re learning a lot of basic vocabulary, but I also don’t feel like I have the strong foundation in grammar to try and move up to the 300 level class. It’s so hard to judge placement at this point because it’s syllabus week, and the add/drop/swap period ends on Wednesday, so by Tuesday night, I would’ve only had 4 Russian classes to judge. I think I’m going to stick it out and then begin a different language next year, because I’m not planning on even minoring in Russian - it’s merely courses I’m taking to improve my ability to speak with relatives and people of my culture/heritage. I’m deciding between French and Arabic for this new language I want to start, but I also want to continue with Spanish, so I will probably end up studying that again at some point too. My psychology lecture is interesting in that a good half of the courses focuses on gender identity, sexuality, love, and topics of that nature - something I would not have expected to be included in an intro level course. Of course, the course also goes over the major sections of the brain, the five senses, and memory, but I find it strange that gender and sexuality is also a huge component. Nonetheless, it is something I wanted to learn more about so it’ll be cool!

My polaroid project has been going well, it will be a pricey investment, but I know I’ll enjoy looking back on it. 

[totallylesbians]

1-99

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?Lately it’s been, in no particular order…-There’s Nothing Holding Me Back by Shawn Mendes -Curious by Hayley Kiyoko -Follow You by Bring Me The Horizon-Fuck You by Sleeping With Sirens (pop goes punk cover)-Perfect by Ed Sheeran -Just the Girl by The Click Five (All but Hayley are on my drag list, which is what I’ve mostly been listening to…)

2. If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?Probably Alycia Debnam-Carey, honestly

3. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. Charlie bit Alex’s shoulder through her coat. “Just admit you love the…” line continues to “city in winter.” From KL Hughes’ The Art of Us

4. What do you think about most?I don’t even know, dude. My mind is so fucking random and scattered. It’s probably not good stuff if I really think about it.

5. What does your latest tattoo from someone else say?“Still”

6. Do you sleep with or without clothes on?I sleep with my boxer briefs on. That’s it though. Unless I’m on my period or sleeping with someone else or at someone else’s house.

7. What’s your strangest talent?I don’t know really. I can manipulate my voice a bit. It usually makes people laugh or be like “what the fuck?” I can bend backwards and make my feet touch my head too. So there’s that.

8. Girls…(finish the sentence); Boys…(finish the sentence). Girls…are strong and beautiful and need to realize they need someone to tell them that for it to be true. Boys…are strong and beautiful, too. Both need positivity and to be kinder to themselves and others.

9. Ever had a poem or a song written about you?No. My first girlfriend said she wrote a poem about me, but what she read me was actually what she wrote about her ex. That was kind of awkward.

10. When is the last time you played the air guitar?Earlier today. So like…3-4ish hours ago

11. Do you have any strange phobias?Not that I know of

12. Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?Not that that I can recall. Maybe chopsticks or a pencil when I was a kid but that’s about it. And I’m not even sure I did that.

13. What’s your religion?I don’t have one

14. If you’re outside what are you most likely doing? Walking. Or going for a run, if it’s nice out.

15. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it?Behind it. Definitely.

16. Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?I’m going to have to go with Pvris. They saved my life. Other bands have too. But I have to say them.

17. What was the last lie you told?Probably “I’m okay.”

18. Do you believe in karma?Something like that, yes. For sure.

19. What does your URL mean?Essentially, that is blog is gay as fuck and contains anything lesbian related.

20. What’s your greatest weakness? Greatest strength?Weakness: stubbornness Strength: loyalty

21. Who is your celebrity crush?I have so many dude. Ryan Ashley, Eliza Taylor, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Kristen Stewart, Anna Kendrick, etc

22. Have you ever gone skinny dipping?Not that I know of

23. How do you vent your anger?Usually through violence and aggression. I yell. I scream. I throw things. I hit things. It’s the only thing that truly helps me. I can write and draw but it doesn’t help much at all.

24. Do you have a collection of anything? Movies. That’s the only thing that comes to mind.

25. Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Neither honestly. But if I had to choose…maybe talking on the phone.

26. Are you happy with the person you’ve become?No. But I hope to be someday.

27. What’s a sound you hate? Sound you love?Hate: high pitches like nails on a chalkboard and similar sounds Love: the sound of rain

28. What’s your biggest “what if?”What if I had been there when he died? What if I had gotten to say goodbye to him? Would I still be mourning him the way I do? Would it have made a difference in how/who I am now? I’ll never know. And it kills me.

29. Do you believe in ghosts? What about aliens?Yes to both. I’m not sure I’d call either of them that. But I definitely believe in both. I’ve had experiences that I can’t explain. And I find it hard to believe that out of the entire universe, we are on the only planet that has life.

30. Stick out your right arm, what’s the first thing you touch? Do the same to your left. Right: the arm of the couch. Left: the folded body pillow that we keep on the couch

31. Smell the air. What do you smell?The candle during. Lilacs.

32. What’s the worst place you’ve ever been to?The only place that comes to mind immediately was my ex’s mom’s house.

33. Choose: east coast or west coast?I’ve only ever been on the west coast

34. Most attractive singer of the opposite gender?I’m not sure exactly. But my favorite male singer would have to be M. Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold. I love his voice. He’s got nice tattoos and a great smile.

35. To you, what’s the meaning of life?I’m not sure I’ve found it yet

36. Define art. I don’t think I can. Art is subjective. Describing it depends on the piece. It depends on the person viewing the piece. I believe art is meant to make someone feel something though. It’s meant to express what the artist feels in some way. Whether it’s pain or beauty and anything and all in between.

37. Do you believe in luck?Something like that

38. What’s the weather like right now?Calm. Somewhat cloudy skies. Maybe a slight breeze.

39. What time is it?Currently, as I reach this question, 12:08am

40. Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?Not legally, yet. But I have crashed. Just about everything I’ve ever rode/driven. At least once.

41. What was the last book you read?Published book: The Art of Us by KL Hughes

42. Do you like the smell of gasoline?Not really

43. Do you have any nicknames?Spiffy is my most popular one. A few call me Midget. And family members call me one too, but I’m not saying that one.

44. What was the last film you saw?I’m currently watching Salt. But the last one I watched through and through was The House

45. What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?Probably whatever happened to my wrist. Considering it still hurts over a year later

46. Have you ever caught a butterfly?No. But I remember raising one from a caterpillar in elementary school and releasing them as butterflies.

47. Do you have any obsessions right now?Not that I know of

48. What’s your sexuality?Gay/lesbian

49. Ever had a rumor spread about you?I’ve had quite a few spread about me. I think the ones that effected my life at the time the most was that I was pregnant or that I was trans.

50. Do you believe in magic?I’m not sure

51. Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?Yes. Absolutely.

52. What’s your astrological sign?Taurus

53. Do you save money or spend it?A bit of both, but more so save it. I spend it on necessities for the most part and save the rest.

54. What’s the last thing you purchased?A smoothie, a lemonade, two bags of chips, and two boxes of donuts.

55. Love or lust?I’d rather have love

56. In a relationship?No

57. How many relationships have you had?4, technically. One only lasted like two weeks and was long distance so I don’t count it. One with a boy, 3 with girls.

58. Can you touch your nose with your tongue?Nope

59. Where were you yesterday?I know it’s technically past midnight but I haven’t slept yet so I’m going to say that it’s from the 9th. And I was at work.

60. Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?Yes. My stuffed dog I’ve had for as long as I can remember

61. Are you wearing socks right now?No

62. What’s your favorite animal?Probably otters

63. What’s is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?I don’t know. I don’t think I have one. I don’t care if people like me or not.

64. Where is your best friend?Probably in bed at home. I don’t know.

65. Give me your top 5 blogs on tumblr.Some that come to mind are @eatmeoutnowbabe@ericajonorris@perksofbeingalesbian@yourgaydarisonpoint@youknow-me-not-my-story

66. What is your heritage?I’m Native American

67. What were you doing last night at 12am?Laying in bed

68. What do you think is Satan’s last name?Probably something cheesy and harmless sounding

69. Be honest. Have you ever gotten yourself off?Never

70. Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?Kind of. To an extent

71. You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?Save the dog. Fuck my boss. I can find a different job. That said, my actual boss, wouldn’t do that to me

72. You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. A) do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? B) what do you do with your remaining days? C) would you be afraid?A. Maybe a few people, but not everyoneB. Live my life to the fullest that I canC. I don’t think so

73. You can only have one of these things: trust or love?I think this is a trick question. I think they go hand in hand a bit. But I choose trust over love.

74. What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?Not sure really. Maybe Goodbye Earl by the Dixie Chicks. It reminds me of some good times in my childhood

75. What are the last 4 digits of your cell phone number?7260

76. In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?Open communication. Trust. Honesty.

77. How can I win your heart?Can’t win what I don’t have

78. Can insanity bring more creativity?Maybe to an extent

79. What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?Getting Dexter

80. What size shoes do you wear?Depends on the brand and style. But anywhere from 5-7

81. What do you want to be written on your tombstone?“I’m not easy to kill…fuck”

82. What is your favorite word?Fuck

83. Give me the first word that comes to your mind when you hear the word; heart?Less

84. What is a saying you say a lot?“It is what it is”

85. What’s the last song you listened to?Follow Me by Uncle Kracker

86. Basic question: what is your favorite color/colors?Black

87. What is your current desktop picture?I’ll reblog a picture of it. I posted it before

88. If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?My mom’s ex-boyfriend’s son

89. What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?I’m not sure, honestly

90. One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find out you are surrounded by mummies. The mummies aren’t doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?Tell them to fuck off. Or kill them. Depends I guess

91. You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with a superpower of your choice. What is that power?Transfiguration/shapeshifting

92. You can relive any point of time in your life. The timespan can only be a half hour, though. What half hour of your life would you like to experience again?Any time I had with my best friend before he died. I don’t care if it’s us playing. Or sleeping. I just want one more moment with him

93. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?Nothing. My past has made me who I am. I am a product of all that I have been through. I may not like myself, but this is who I am. If something hadn’t happened, I may not be the me I am now. It’s up to me to change and become the person I want to be with everything that’s happened.

94. You have the opportunity to sleep with the music celebrity of your choice. Who will it be?Probably Lynn Gunn. Maybe Lauren Jauregui

95. You just got a free plane ticket to go anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you going to go?I don’t know specifics. Somewhere where no one knows my name or my story. Somewhere where I’m free to be whoever I want to be 96. Do you have any relatives in jail?Probably. I think my cousin is in prison. Looking at like 25 years I think.

97. Have you ever thrown up in a car?Not that I remember. But I heard that I did when I was black out drunk a few years back

98. Ever been on a plane?Yes. Quite a few times. But only for visits to two places.

99. Answered

[comeoncomeout41]

Prepare to stay here awhile 'cause I'm about to ask you everything I don't know about you :) 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13 (other than writing), 23, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 59, 65, 74, 83, 86, 91, 96, 98, 99

This did not take as long as I thought it would but here goes:

1. My middle name is Page without the ��i”

5. Favorite color is Green

6. Lucky number 41!

11. I don’t know how many pairs of shoes I own and at this point I’m too afraid to count..

12. Supercorp. You know they live in my mind rent free

13. I mean I don’t know if it’s a talent necessarily but I can touch my tongue to my nose..

23. I have met Jeff Cook from the band Alabama. Which you don’t know who they are lol but they had some hits! my mom does his wife’s hair and also cuts his hair, so I’ve met them both.

24. Showers but I do love a bath to relax occasionally

25. Not wearing socks lol but usually I wear black socks

29. I have been skinny dipping. More than once

30. I’m one of those weird people who only sleeps with one pillow. I have four on my bed but they always end up on the floor

31. I sleep on my stomach so sometimes that one pillow gets pushed off the bed too LOL

34. I have fired a gun, a couple of different kinds of guns actually but I don’t like it. It’s too loud and honestly scares the shit out of me.

36. Favorite clean word? “Literally”

37. Favorite swear word? “Fuck” i just feel like it has a lot of uses

38. I went around 36 hours without sleep once when I was working two jobs and someone called in on a morning shift. I had been awake since 3pm the previous day, worked at the restaurant, worked at the hotel overnight, had to stay for the morning shift at the hotel and go back to work at the restaurant that same afternoon. I worked for 36 hours straight essentially and then crashed out for two days. As someone who needs 12 hours a day to function, I have not recovered since.

39. I have one stretch mark that runs vertically next to my belly button on my left side.

43. I can’t do any other accents other than my southern accent.. well. Doesn’t mean I don’t try. My southern accent does get thicker around my incredibly southern family though.

45. My favorite accent is Katie’s Irish accent LOL

47. My most expensive piece of clothing are the Vans i just bought for myself. I refuse to spend more than $20 on any item of clothing other than shoes.

48. I cannot curl my tongue

49. I have an innie

52. Favorite food is Mexican

53. Favorite foreign food? Indian.

59. I am a monster who bites lollipops

65. Best dramatic movie I’ve seen.. I’m going to go with Room

74. I’m not ticklish at all

83. How fast can I run? Am I being chased? I don’t “run”

86. I’m allergic to grass

91. I do like my name. Especially my last name.

96. My dad named me Tiffany but my mom wanted to name me Jada. So that’s why I let her name my son seeing as both of my brother’s were named after their dads and she didn’t get to name me.

98. See number 39 because this is the same question lol

99. My bedspread is grey, white, and black. My sheets are grey. I have a lot of neutral tones in my house. My walls are agreeable grey. But i have pops of colors throughout. Reds, blues, and greens.

[6-v-6]

tagged by @artfulkey and @ringdingdongenthusiast  🦄✨

How much sleep do you get? What do you do when you can’t sleep? I get around 7 hours of sleep, but if I’m not doing anything the next day I’ll sleep for like 10... when I can’t sleep I just lie in bed with my eyes closed contemplating the cruelties of life. Or go on my phone

What’s your best feature (physical or mental)? nothin?? Okay uh I’m pretty loyal. Like I don’t make friends easily and I’m terrible at social situations and talking to people so I have like 3 friends but if I consider you a friend I’m ride or die

What are the top 3 things you admire about your bias and why? Taemin’s drive. He’s like me in that he’s on the quieter side and more reserved with his physical affections so I relate to him a lot and I often wish that I could be so driven to achieve the heights he has. If Taemin wants something, he’s very much willing to put in the blood, sweat, and tears to get it. Number two is his dancing skills. I love dance and he is phenomenal, and what initially drew me to shinee in the first place. Lastly his perseverance. When he started off he was ridiculed and essentially laughed at for being tone deaf and instead of let that crush him he turned it into his motivation. I wish I could do that lol. 

If you could tell your bias anything what would you say? I hope you know that your voice and your dancing has touched so many people. That it’s become a strength for a lot of people who have no one else. I hope that you’re happy with the person you’ve become, and if you aren’t yet I hope you will be one day

What an album that you haven’t listened to for a while but will always hold a special place in your heart? uhh I’ve never been big on albums. Maybe the Eyes of Tomorrow album by Broken Iris. I haven’t listened to that in a few years but it... got me through a lot. Before shinee or any kpop group, that was the band I listened to that helped me through some tough times

Why do you study/work in the area that you do? cuz it’s the only thing I’m relatively good at. But I also genuinely enjoy the aspect of writing that involves world-building, and I like to create characters and build them up from nothing into diverse individuals with complex relationships

If someone wanted to befriend you, what should they do/say? ah, like I mentioned it’s kind of hard, I think, to be friends with me? Because I’m so horribly awkward. Usually if you want to be friends with me, you have to put in a lot of effort ;;; to maintain contact or reach out to me first ;; because I’ll always feel annoying or unimportant so I hardly ever reach out to people first. And most people don’t want to put in the effort to be friends with me so I’m #alone. Seriously lol in all 4 years of college I’ve made 0 friends.

Out of the people that you know irl or online, who is the most similar to your bias and why? no one??? Okay maybe my best friend angelie @silverznight is similar to taemin in that she works super hard towards her goals and she’s done a lot and gone through a lot to get there

If you could drastically change one thing about your life with no negative consequences what would you change? lmao. can i change the gender i was born as?? My appearance? My height? My career? My personality? 

You have the opportunity to spend the day with your bias in your hometown. What do you do/where do you go with them? god... what does taemin like to do.. I’d take him to a billiards hall. Maybe Dave & Busters which is this giant arcade place. There’s billiards there. We’d just play around and chat over some drinks

Post a selfie (of yourself or your bias) that you love. I copied lou and put it up above ^ I don’t love any selfie so those are just the most recent from this morning

Okay now on to Lou’s questions!

1. Post one of your most loved pictures of your bias and say what you like about the picture. 

what is there not to love about this pic.... that’s the true question 2. What is something that you think people admire about yourself? legitimately nothing my dude 3. Is there something that you believe you and your bias have in common?  yeah!! Like I mentioned earlier, Taemin and I are similar in that we’re both on the quieter side in social situations. Awkward. Yet super comfortable and loud and goofy with close friends. Also we both are more averted to initiating physical contact, but fine with it when others initiate it 4. What is a food that you hated as a kid but actually enjoy now? I don’t think there is one? I still hate the foods that I hated as a kid 5. Which country would you choose to be born in, if not your home country? uhhhhhh I’m not sure. Sometimes I wonder about if my mom hadn’t been adopted though, and if I had been born in Korea, how things would be different.  6. What’s your favourite dance practice video? FUCK....... YOU CANT PULL THIS ON ME. Kay no it’s the War of Hormone bts one because it’s absolutely adorable and silly and one of the first ones I watched back when I was just discovering them 7. Is there a song that always gets stuck in your head when you hear it? hmm songs in general all tend to get stuck in my head. Can’t think of one that stands out 8. What’s an album that you haven’t listened to for a while but means a lot to you? Answered above in Bella’s question! 9. If you had the choice, as well as your mother tongue, what language would you choose to be fluent in? Japanese? Because I’ve spent 9 billions years trying to learn it and its so hard?? Let me be fluent already?? Or maybe Vietnamese so that I could talk to my bestie in her mother language 10. What are the qualities that you admire most about your bias? I feel like I answered this in bella’s third question so ^^ 11. What is a feature that you like about yourself? Nothing my dude 

My questions:

Would you rather be a leader or a follower?

If you could go anywhere in the world right at this moment, where would you choose to go?

What aspect of your bias would you want to steal for your own? (singing talent, dancing talent, etc)

Do you follow strict routines or do you let the wind take you where it will?

Which do you prefer: familiar places or unfamiliar places?

If you could travel anywhere in the world with anyone you wanted, where would you go and who would you take?

Describe one strange/unique quirk of yours

What’s an impulse you’ve always wanted to follow but never have? (cutting your hair, moving, switching careers, etc)

What’s your personal aesthetic?

Where do you go when you want to be alone?

You woke up with a superpower! What is it?

tagging

@blingjonghyun @tofnew @sataeminism @choiminoh @silverznight @leejinklies @sluthyun only if u want to ofc