#so i also have to email other random colleges and be like. i'm not part of this school. how do i find out if i can take this class. please.

[strawberrydykke]

i hate writing emails ):

[mothybean]

Airhead

Here's part one to a multi-shot I'm putting together. I hope you enjoy! <3

I groaned as I entered my 3rd period classroom, my feet dragging as if I had a 50 pound ball and chain attached to both of my ankles. Technically, I could classify the room as a jail cell. It had zero windows, poor air circulation, bland beige walls and was located at the far end of the college campus, isolated from the rest of the classes. It sucked. This was everyone’s least favorite class. Plus, it was next to our indoor pool, making the classroom an uncomfortable cesspool of warm bodies with questionable odors with a hint of chlorine. In other words, it reeked like shit and everyone had swamp ass.

Like most days, I was not feeling it. Especially today. I might as well have been casted in the walking dead with how lifeless I felt. And looked. I had dark circles under my eyes. My hair was a mess. The humidity of the class room was frizzing my hair no matter how much product I would apply. My fit today was super bummy. I got up late leaving me no choice but to sport my gray sweatpants with a bleach stain on my ass cheek that kind of looked like Abe Lincoln and my oversized black tee shirt with a slight rip on the seam of my breast pocket. It wasn’t like me to dress like a hobo, but thanks to professor Heimerdinger and his bullshit assignment, I didn’t have time to dress to impress. The worst part of it all? I forgot to shower.

I was up until three last night trying to tackle it, last second I might add. He was infamous for this. He loved to bombard us with challenging topics, especially at the last second. I didn’t understand a single question on any of the four pages he gave us. Four pages. For a single assignment. It was overkill. It was selfish for him to do this to us on a weekday, overly aware that we had other classes to tend to as well. He didn’t care. We’ve tried multiple times to tell him that it was too much for us as we were suffering mentally along with our grades, but he didn’t care. He made it known too. He would just laugh it off, his nasally voice piercing our ears with his go to response for everything, ‘You must always be prepared for the unprepared!’. Eventually, we stopped trying to reason with him. It was hopeless.

He sent the mass email around six last night, the foreboding assignment attached. I wanted to rip my hair out as I read his stupid catchphrase in the body of his email.  Not only was I caught up in my other subjects, but it was already late and I certainly didn’t plan to work Natural Science into my schedule. Upon first glance of the assignment, I thought I was reading Latin. You really needed a dictionary to decipher his vocabulary, on paper and in class. Humperdick was old school. He was ninety something after all. He was too stuck in the past to get with the times. At least he was able to send us emails and not homing pigeons. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved science. The only issue here was him. His teaching methods clashed with my learning methods ten fold. I was teetering between a C minus and a solid D. Also very unlike me. I was a straight A student. When it came to facts, I knew I wasn’t the problem. A handful of people in my class were also struggling. It was him. He made me want to gouge my eyes and ear drums out so I didn’t have to see or hear him ever again.

I settled into my seat, pulling my messy hair into a half assed bun before opening my laptop, searching for my poor excuse for a completed assignment.  My eyes scanned my answers, puffing my cheeks up slightly. A lot of my answers were pulled out of my ass. I gave up near the end of it and put down random key words just to get it done. I already knew that there was going to be a big fat F, a condescending email was coming my way for sure. I sighed and closed my laptop halfway so I didn’t have to look my failure in the face. 

“You’re looking lively.” Caitlyn said sarcastically before sitting down next to me. 

I peeked an eye open to give her a scowl before closing them again.

“You’re too kind. I bombed this assignment. Again.” I huffed, jabbing my laptop touchpad a few times with my finger.

Caitlyn pulled my computer towards her, gently pushing the screen up to get a full view and quietly read my answers out loud. As she did, I watched her expressions go from neutral to confused. Exactly how I looked last night when doing the damn thing.

“Oh you…” She gave an empathetic smile before closing my computer halfway, sliding it back to me. “You certainly…um…tried!”

She was such a great best friend. Really knew how to comfort me with her hesitation and forced encouraging words. It really warmed my heart. Not.

“Ugh. I should just drop out. I’m going to fail anyway.” I groaned, sitting up straight in my chair, staring off into the distance. Caitlyn flicked my shoulder and shot me a concerned look.

“You can’t. Your scholarship would go down the drain.” She said sternly, placing her hand on mine. “I think it’s time we talked about tutoring.” I quickly retracted my hand and felt my face morph into a look of disgust. 

“Yeah, no thank you. I’m perfectly capable. I’ll just study harder. I don’t need a tutor.” I scoffed, crossing my arms. If there was anything more I hated than Humpdunk, it was receiving help. It made me feel like I was incapable or incompetent. Mostly sick to my stomach. If I couldn’t do it myself, my clinically diagnosed OCD of perfectionism was going to give me a week long stomach ache with a side of intense nausea. Even with Zofran, it wasn’t enough to counter my psychological tummy ache. I get the gist of why she suggested one, but my pride was definitely the one pushing back on her proposal. Caitlyn looked annoyed at my response. She scoffed, shoving my laptop in my face. 

“These answers clearly show you’re capable, right?” She pulled the laptop back and softly slammed it on the desk. “You need to take this seriously. Remember the whole reason behind why you’re here, Y/N.”

Her British accent always got thicker the more she was annoyed. It was cute. I didn’t want to admit it, but she was right. If I was going to become a nurse, I had to pass this class, all of them, with flying colors. Nursing was very competitive. If I was going to be considered, I had to be a top student. I was acing every other class I had, this was the only problem child I had. I exhaled with defeat and shrugged.

“Okay. Fine. Tutor it is. When can we start?” I whined, sinking into my chair. Big mistake. My ass was so sweaty, it squeaked against the plastic chair, sounding like a small fart. I quickly sat up, my cheeks glowing bright red.

Caitlyn blinked at me a couple times before chuckling, ignoring my unholy sound. 

“Me? No, not me. I mean, I would, I-I just don’t have the time.” She stumbled over her words. 

She was being truthful, sort of. I knew that she was taking a handful of difficult courses herself, but a big chunk of her time was definitely dedicated to her girlfriend Vi. Vi, a pink haired muscley butch girl, recently graduated from the police academy, meaning her and Caitlyn’s schedules were vastly different. Vi worked the night shift while Caitlyn went to school during the day. They would always try to fit each other in when they could. I couldn’t be upset at her for putting her first. I would too if I had a girlfriend. I’ve been single for so long I’m pretty sure bats would fly out of my crotch if I engaged in any sort of intimacy.

“Then who? Where am I going to find a tutor? I don’t know anyone else in class but you.” I grumbled. My social skills weren’t great for me to ask around either. I felt like a sitting duck.

Caitlyn stayed quiet for a moment before her eyes lit up with excitement. “I think I know who!”

[qqueenofhades]

can i ask you for some advice on how to reach out to a professor (at a university you don't attend) to ask about helping them out with their research? i'm not currently enrolled in college for a variety of financial/logistical reasons, but i really care about research and i really want to gain the skill of doing good research. i like to think i'm good at writing and critical thinking, and i'm eager to both learn and contribute.

i know i'm going to have to cold email professors and show that i've read their papers and find their research interesting, especially since i don't have much on a resume. i've read conflicting advice on how to email people -- some sources say to keep it as short and easy to read as possible, and others say to provide in-depth analysis and possibly constructive criticism of the research they've done to show you're committed. i really don't think i'm in a place to provide constructive criticism on what professional researchers are doing, LOL, but it might help to provide some commentary to show i understand it.

so my questions are, how much is too much, and how little is (probably) too little? i'm thinking of aiming for the equivalent of ~two paragraphs per email. also, are there any reliable indications of how well a professor treats the volunteers or employees/grad students who work for them? (and whether they could use extra help?)

thank you so much for reading!! i hope you have a wonderful day, and i love your blog ❤️

I admire your initiative and your desire to improve your research skills, which is why I'll have to gently say that I'm not sure this is the best way to go about it. There are a few reasons for that, namingly that first and foremost, professors are very busy and overworked people. They don't have time to do all the things they actually need to do and/or are actually paid for, and having to take extra time to summarize their research and/or organize it for an outsider who doesn't attend their university is, I'm afraid, probably going to be a pretty hard sell for most if not all of them. There's also the fact that if they do have the kind of research where it's useful to have a student assistant, there is no reason for them to give that spot to you and not one of their own students at the university, who are already actively enrolled, paying for their time, and contributing to their job and institution's research goals and projects. Not to mention that there are university confidentiality agreements, work-study arrangements, and all the rest, which would all preclude a professor just hiring a random non-student assistant off the street. Speaking from my current spot in university/department administration, I can say that it would definitely be a non-starter for us for a number of reasons. We just had an issue with flagging a student who wasn't technically enrolled in our specific program within our constituent college, although she was enrolled in the university, so bringing in someone with no connection to the university at all wouldn't fly, alas.

If you're really interested in working with THIS particular professor for some reason and not just a name you picked off a department directory with a form email that you're sending to any likely-looking candidate, you'll have to explain why in considerable depth, what you're doing or what your project is for, why you think it would be valuable for you AND for them for them to collaborate, and why you're contacting them directly instead of say, central Human Resources or the Careers page for the college. There are sometimes spots for research fellows, part-time lab assistants, or other jobs with the kind of work you seem to be looking for, but that requires you to go through the formal application/interview process like any other job and isn't something for which you can just slip in the back door (a professor would, for one thing, not likely be willing to just take you on without you going through the regular selection process for these posts and being interviewed by the university's regular hiring people).

As noted, there are legal liability issues, restrictions on what kind of information they can share with people even within the university let alone outside it, and the fact that it's not their job to hire and screen potential assistants for a research project UNLESS they are running an active project as the Principal Investigator (PI) and explicitly looking for student volunteers/employees (which even then will likely be searched/filled from within the university first). A cold email out of nowhere asking if they have some work for you, Random Stranger, will, unfortunately, go straight into the junk folder. If they're feeling polite, they might respond by directing you to reach out to HR, but that's a stretch. If you are planning to attend this university in the future, you might lead with that, because then they'll have more incentive to discuss what kind of options are available and so forth, but yeah. It's just not something I would expect to have a very great success rate and I know that if I got that kind of email, I would discard it pretty much out of hand. (I did get an extremely weird email a few weeks ago from someone asking ME if I would help THEM with their research, wherein they never specified so much as the basic subject area, what university they were at, what the project was, how they would envision me helping, why they chose me to contact, etc. It was basically a cautionary tale in how not to ask an academic to collaborate, and yes, it went pretty much straight into the recycle bin without a reply.)

If you still think after hearing this that you have a legitimate option to contact and at least feel out the waters (after all, never say never, stranger things have happened, etc) then yeah, uh, don't go with the "absolute stranger the professor doesn't know from Adam makes an unsolicited critique of their work and then asks for a job." Academics are used to receiving constructive criticism and it obviously comes with the territory, but it also comes within structured forums and at expected times -- when you present a paper to your peers at a conference, submit to a journal, etc. Popping out of nowhere to give unsolicited academic crit is as rude as popping out of nowhere to give unsolicited crit on a fanfic or something else that you've posted outside of the specific expectation of receiving it, wherein some "I Just Wanna Help" obnoxious mansplainer (gender neutral) says a lot of "helpful" things that nobody asked them for and then seems shocked when this isn't well received. I don't know who gave you that particular little nugget of uh, wisdom, but as you think, it's not something that strikes me in any way as a good idea, and would probably piss the academic off in a way that would have them venting to their friends and colleagues, and might therefore do you more harm than good in a number of different ways.

If you want to independently improve your research skills and work within the structure of academia-adjacent realms, what I really recommend doing is volunteering at your local public library, history/science museum, or other similar institution. They're always eager for volunteers and/or part-time employees, they have a number of different tasks and skills that need doing, it's a great way to build professional and community connections and see how things are done behind the scenes, and it looks good on your CV when or if you do apply to college (and then have a much easier path toward working with professors in the way you want to do). So yeah, all told, that's strongly what I'd recommend -- good luck!

[thelaurenshippen]

JABXKAKAKALA HELLO HI I hope you're doing well!! I just wanted to start off by saying that I saw your response to the email you received on Instagram and I love how you handled it so so much as a fellow queer person that loves creating and writing!! Thank you so much for everything that you have done!

AND SECONDLY I've been listening to audio drama podcasts for around four years now, and I'd only stumbled upon The Bright Sessions last year (after my friend recommended it to me over and over again!), which is pretty recent! And I just wanted to say that the amount of emotions and inspiration I received from listening to the podcast has just about changed my life 😭

I started listening to it avidly (on the daily JDNJAA on my walks to and from school and work) and just grew so so attached to the characters. The way you write their narratives is absolutely beautiful and brings me to tears if I think about it long enough😭 The way Sam is so full of love and care while struggling to do so for herself and that turmoil visibly affecting her relationships with other people?? OW OW OW it hurts so good every time?? AND JOAN OH MAn I love how Joan is written SO MUCH I think she actually changed my brain chemistry genuinely?? she is so layered and so full of emotion (it's safe to say that safe house ii absolutely DESTROYED me for that 😭❤️) and her dynamics with others ?? the amount of research put into writing her?? beautiful so beautiful HDBSJAHA and I could go on about every single character but that would take YEARS but I just want to say that the writing is so layered and authentic because these characters /aren't/ perfect, but they're still so lovable in every way, there's still some way to emphasize (I love Caleb) with them (COUGHS LOUDLY DAMIEN) even when they seem like the most unlikable (COUGHS LOUDER DAMIEN WADSWORTH HELEN) characters ever (I love how they're written so much I think it has actually changed my brain chemistry). ALSO the voice acting?? is absolutely BEAUTIFUL?? the amount of soul and found family vibes that go into this is just absolutely incredible I cannot stress it enough. Sam's panic attacks were written perfectly along with Mark's hidden anxieties and Agent Green's own guilt and hurt and oh man I COULD GO INTO HEAVY DETAIL ABOUT ALL OF THIS but oh man this is just incredible😭😭 also super random but the soundtrack makes me so emotional WHICH LEADS ME TO MY NEXT POINT AJDBAJ

I started listening to this in my freshman year of highschool (uh oh) so a lot of things were really stressful for me during this time! The Bright Sessions was something that despite causing me emotional pain, provided me healing just as much JSBXKAJAKDJSJKSD AND LIKE OKAY OKAY I would listen to this on my walks to and from school (I was walking back from school once and was zoning out until I heard Caleb beating the shit out of Damien and had to stop on the sidewalk to take in what just happened) and during art (I heard the part with Mark and Damien in the van and had to sit down when I heard Damien's backstory) and after I got my eyes dilated and couldn't look at much (I listed to agent Green's goodbye and actually cried until I couldn't breathe) and listened to the college tapes while studying for my unit circles test and just thank you thank you for the road trips and room cleaning memories and for being the best story to listen to while painting and going on runs. I struggled a lot with mental health and accepting myself as queer, and SO many of the narratives throughout the story also helped me figure out who I was, so thank you so so much for everything 😭 I still relisten to several of the episodes and still get that giddy feeling in my stomach when I hear the am archives soundtrack get a little darker, or literally want to lie down every time I hear an interaction with Frank and Chloe, but just overall thank you so much😭❤️🫂🫂

RAHHH AGAIN I'm so sorry this was so long but truly thank you so much for everything that you do!! your writing is absolutely incredible and your voice acting and the way you handle difficulties is so inspirational!! the rest of the cast and the art and community and soundtrack just,,, chefs kiss. thank you so much for being an incredible role model and inspiration for so many people!!!

HI WOW OH MY GOD THIS MESSAGE IS SO AMAZING THANK YOU!!!!!

I'm so glad the instagram video resonated with you (if anyone's curious, this is the video)! and I'm sO glad you found The Bright Sessions!! it means so much to me that you love the characters the way you do, that you see their imperfections and their complexities and you care about them because of and in spite of them!!

I'm so happy that the show could be a part of your life in such a real way - listening to it in so many places, and having it there in difficult times. that it helped you with healing and figuring stuff out is the highest praise that you could possibly give! I poured my heart and soul into this show - as did all of our amazing cast and crew - so it's incredible to hear that it touched you in the way that it did.

also, hearing that you love the TAMA score is so amazing - I love that score, Evan did such an incredible job!!

thank you so so SO much for this wonderful message and for loving my characters and my world and for telling me about it!! I'm so grateful to you!!!

[jaimistoryteller]

Hello! This is your friendly inquiry to answer this ask with whatever you'd like to talk about right now! Whether that be a story you're working on, something you're excited or worried about, or just something random you happen to know.

All the love,

~ toribookworm ❤️

*smiles* it was a pleasant surprise to see the notification for this in my email.

It got a bit long, so I put it under a read more

*blinks* An invite to babble about what I want to talk about, hmmm, *head tips* well. Lately there's a been a lot of stuff going on. Most of which hasn't been good. I've been trying not to stress, but it isn't exactly working the way I want. My insomnia has been flaring up cause of pain *sighs*.

I've been working on coloring pages for my patreon. Here's the free ones I did for Valentine's Day, the rest I've done so far are part of the $1 a month tier. Haven't had anyone sign up in a long while, but hey, I am working on getting my patreon active and stable around my health hating me.

I've also done a little bit of digital art, Stiles/Bucky for Inell's birthday and her series In the Shadows. With it, I used a few new brushes I downloaded, and some new styles I have been trying out. There's been a lot of downloading and sorting of brushes to play with.

I've also made some gimp brushes of my own, which will get added to patreon as well, depending on the brush set, they'll either be early release for my patreons and then public for free fourteen days later. Most were created to make things easier when doing art for the coloring pages.

When I have the energy, I'm gonna test all my Sims4 CC for putting on there as well. I made a lot last year for that purpose, but then couldn't figure out how to clean copy test it. I was doing some cleaning when I remembered I have my old laptop, which does run Sims4 and I can use it. I had gotten it fixed last year, after it sat dead for a long while, in case this laptop goes down again, as it has done that twice due to life going wrong.

Writing has been hard. Well, maybe hard is the wrong word. I open up a doc on the computer or touchpad to write, and the words run the hell away *grumbles and shakes head*. Yet I can hand write plenty. Just means I will have to scan it in.

My muse has been focused on a Peter/Stiles unexpected pregnancy fic *grumbles like frustrated cat*.

I have all these other projects I want to work on, but no *side eyes writing notebook and the muse*. That's the one my muse likes, to the tune of more than 30 front/back hand written college rule paper.

Then when I can physically handle it, I do little things around my house. At least they feel little over all, even if they are huge as far as my body cares. So much pain caused, but I love the progress. I'm slowly getting my house repaired and rebuilt. I hate that every little repair ends up physically costing me hours where I am passed out cause pain, or wishing I was. *sighs*.

I get tired of having to beg for help, yet that is sadly a regular thing in my world. I'm sure others get tired of seeing it. It's sadly part of since commissions and my limited amount from patreon doesn't always cover the bills. I apply for small jobs where I can, but alas, due to health, that rarely works either.

I really appreciate the message and offer to babble. Apologies if it ended up being a bit more than expected, or wanted.

How is everything for you? anything you'd like to babble on?

[occasionally-intelligent]

okok so I was struck by the lightning idea bolt or whatever you want to call it and I have to share it with someone because I my hands refuse to draw it or continue the story. also this turned out way longer than expected so... enjoy??

we start with this business guy and he's all serious and he made the "world's funniest movie" a few years back and everyone still knows him for it. two days ago, this new random kid decided to make a short film on youtube and it goes absolutely VIRAL. the kid is an overnight sensation and their short film is dubbed the "world's funniest movie". now, the business guy, the one with the previous funniest movie, will not stand for this.

he emails the kid like "yo wanna intern for me, heard you're good at funny things" and the kid just replies "nah, thanks tho. i'm kinda finishing college rn and don't have time for that." the kid's majoring in psychology or something and just made the film on the side for fun. business guy can't stand this kid one bit so he emails back with "ok im coming to your college and imma interview you, sound good?" college kids like "ok! cool!!" this is college kids first time meeting a 'celebrity' and they're very excited.

business guy shows up and is all serious still and the kid just kinda floats through the campus, everybody knows them and they're some sort of almost celebrity but nobody knows business guy. business guy reads this as the kid stealing his thunder but really the kid just helps everyone with their homework or gives them therapy or something.

at this point, business guy hasn't watched the short film yet, he's just mad that this kid stole his title, so when the kid asks what he thought of the film he straight up lies. his lies get to the point where he's just making up this wild story but he's somehow guessing the plot all right. it gets to interview time and the questions start off basic like "what are you studying?" and "where are you from?" but they start to get more and more unhinged as the interview goes on as business guy starts to find something, anything that this kid has done wrong.

after a while, business guy just storms out of the room altogether and sits on a bench outside and thinks about his life. has some introspective thinking like "woah maybe now i'll go be a circus performer or go spend the rest of my life in a retirement home im so old ive wasted my life blah blah blah" eventually the kid comes out and the guy is still on the bench. the kid starts psych-majoring the crap out of this man.

"you're literally 37 years old, my grandpa's 87 right now and refuses to go into a retirement home. why are you so upset that i made a funnier film than you did? shouldn't this be a learning experience for you? why'd you come all the way out here to see a random college kid? it's not like i'm a celebrity or a well-known name like you. you've been in the industry for years, you were my inspiration for this whole thing."

that's when business guy kinda has a returning-to-life moment and idk maybe the movie's been in a greyish tint or monochromatic this whole time and just then the kid shows up in different colors. "i... inspired someone?". psych major kid is like 'ur so dumb' and starts listing mr. man's achievements and movies and all that jazz, a few kids nearby start whispering about business guy and then they show up in color too. business guy is as surprised about the color showing up as the viewers are, but none of the other characters notice it.

psych major kid takes business guy on a tour of sorts around the campus, but he doesn't point out the buildings, he points out the people. "that's riley. his parent's weren't good to him at home when he came out, so he spends his breaks here and we make sure there are plenty of people he knows that stick around for every part of the breaks so he's not alone." "see her over there? that's jess. they're majoring in microbiology for the money and she's not very good with people, but they're wicked on the guitar. one time i even got her to play in the talent show and she decided to write an album. it's not big, but their fanbase is growing and it's good to see her happy." "beatrice and tj. one's the school's newspaper editor in chief and the other is a conspiracy theorist. they got into a fight one time and have somehow been best friends since. they have a joint blog somewhere, it moves urls monthly, that they write face-offs on. tj writes about how no, the birds are not spying on us, while beatrice will bring up all of this evidence that makes you wonder if birds really are real."

with each story, more and more color returns to the business guy's vision and then he has an epiphany moment. "so you're saying i should just try again and try harder to make an even funnier film???" psych kid goes "sure, whatever floats your boat bro" and then just kinda walks off. business guy sprints to his car and speeds away, but speeds a little too fast and gets into an accident before he gets there.

does he die? does he make the movie? is the movie actually funny or is it more slice-of-life? does it become a mentor-mentee thing but reversed where the psych kid is the mentor to business man? idk, i kinda wrote until it got to the end and fell apart. anyways, thanks for reading!!

[learningtogirl]

Another post just reminded me of the most awkward wedding I've been to, so it's time to ramble to the void about it.

Backstory, I grew up in a rather christian household and so when I felt a giant void in my life after starting working I went and found the nearest church and threw myself wholeheartedly into it. I'm talking 3 Sundays out of 4 I was doing music or tech for them, a practice or two for those in weeks, and then also twice a week playing for the college ministry. And special events. It was honestly a blast in a lot of ways, but ultimately just trying to fill the dissatisfaction with life that I've figured out better now.

Anyway, they were not a queer affirming church which was not really a factor for me at first (look, I've grown *a lot* and it takes a lot of pain to fight through childhood indoctrination) and then I began to disapprove but tolerate because they seemed to actually do the "frown at them but try to not say too much and act loving to everyone" scheme and I convinced myself it was fine because I had ended up with a good portion of my social life tied to that so didn't want to drop it until I had a replacement.

That fall I finally confronted the glaring facts and realized I was trans and started to do things about it (in secret). Then come January they told us they had finished their "let's have the board do some thinking and reading and figure out how we should approach trans people". So on Sunday of that week we were treated to a presentation by some famous evangelical asshole in which he basically spent 1.5 hours lying about trans people and repeating all the false studies suggesting it's mostly just fake or whatever, 5 minutes to admit that the Bible isn't clear and then assert a random unjustified interpretation of one verse, and then some more interviews with exclusively detransitioned women who regretted things. So obviously this was a problem and I quit immediately and left them to figure out what to do about all the volunteering I had been scheduled for.

Now the problem is that Friday was the wedding of one of the better friends I had made there. Who was the assistant tech director of the place. Who I of course did not actually tell because he was out for the week for his wedding and I didn't want to ruin things. But there were like 3 people I knew there other than the wedding party. One of whom I worked closely with as part of the college ministry stuff and thus spent most of my time with. But he didn't know I was never coming back and obviously this is not the sort of thing you talk about at another person's wedding. And then there were several people who chatted with me briefly to say "hi you don't recognize us but we love seeing you up on stage" and I'm just like, "uhhhh, thanks, but that's done". And, of course, praying that nobody up the chain who received my 3 page email rant had forwarded it to the groom or else it was going to get very awkward.

And that was the last time I saw or talked to a bunch of people who had been very significant in my life, albeit apparently not a strong enough relationship for them to care at all or reach out when I stopped showing up to things.

Anyway, fuck the evangelical church

[good-night-space-kid]

Hi, I am looking to go to a university next year with a STEM major, and I was wondering how you find balance between courses, social life, jobs, and relationships. Or if you have any tips on how to manage these things, if you do, please share because I am worried for college life. Thanks!

Hello, anon! Being a STEM major is hard, but I honestly love my major. I won't sugarcoat it though, it's going to be a lot of work and I myself have a hard time balancing everything.

Disclaimer: I want to make the most of my time as a student and keep myself very busy, other people I know in other and the same STEM majors are significantly less busy so my experience may not be yours.

To start off, I'll outline my general college situation

I'm a geology major, and while many people likely don't know, geology is a very academically challenging and time consuming major. I routinely spend 8-13 hours on a single one of my upper level classes every week, which is why I try to space out the classes that I know will be really difficult.

I'm getting a history minor with a focus on public history to support my major as I want to pursue grad school in museum studies.

I've taken on average 15-20 credits a semester. Don't take over 15, much less 20 credits unless you absolutely have to.

I work during the school year, but not a lot. I am a TA for intro level geology classes and have worked 2-3 labs (~3.5 hours each time) with a TA meeting. In the past I also worked ~9 hours a week in a geology research lab.

I'm now the president of a club which takes ~15 minutes to 1 hour of prep work for each week.

I'm generally away from my dorm from 8am to 5 with classes/work, but often I don't get back until 9-11pm on weekdays because I need physical resources or other people to work on something. I won't lie I kind of hate this part, but I chose a very hands on major. It really varies for me though, sometimes I'm doing homework until 1am and sometimes i'm done by 4pm.

Here are things that I recommend to help balance school and social life (in no particular order):

I do everything I can to ensure that I have one weekend day where I do not plan to work on school work. Sometimes it happens that it's either not possible or I want to get ahead, but I really try to make it happen. This allows me to go to an estate sale, do some grocery shopping, go on a hike, watch a show, whatever I don't have time for during the week. This truly saves my mental health.

Know your sleep needs. I am such a sleepy guy, and if I don't sleep enough my mental and physical health is hot garbage. I prioritize getting 6.5-9 hours of sleep every night because I know that I will be happier and more capable of finishing work faster if I'm well rested.

I have dinner with my non-geology friends once a week, typically Friday evenings. I also try to schedule a meal with another friend at some point in the week when I can. Making time to see people you like purely for fun is really important.

Try to have at least one class that you are genuinely looking forward to each semester. The history minor is good for grad school, but it's also so I have something other than STEM to do each semester so I don't go crazy. Take a class just because it looks like fun, you're in college. And get a minor in something random if you enjoy it.

I have homework friends and I have fun friends, and it's okay (and imo often better) for those to be different people.

Start a group chat and set up study sessions for your classes. My school has a "study buddies" feature on an app where you can sign up and anybody can email out to those people so that's how I've started many of them, but just asking people also works. I study best in a group, but know yourself on this one. I especially recommend finding some people in your major early on for this.

Don't be afraid to use campus tutoring if you need it.

Take a break before going to bed. Read, watch a show, drink a cup of decaf tea, whatever works for you. I try to be done with all of my work by 9pm so I can just chill for a bit and this helps a lot.

Don't take 20 credits a semester, and if you do, don't do it more than one semester back to back.

Join a club, any club. I know that this is very standard advice, but it is actually a good one. I'm in a small major so we have our own club and it's a great way to get to know other majors as well as something to add to your resume/scholarship applications. It's a great way to make friends, and going to a random club is very low stakes because you can always just not go back.

Keep up with a hobby. I have lots of succulents and it brings me great joy to care for them, but I have plenty of other friends who crochet, draw, etc. You just have to have something to do other than school.

Be unapologetically yourself, it's the best way to make friends that you actually want to be around. Also it makes you super cool.

SAY YES. If you are being invited to do something (that you want to do ofc), say yes. People are inviting you because they want you to come. But this also goes for opportunities. If you have the chance to do some research, work in a lab, volunteer for a cool event, whatever it may be, give it a try.

And in a similar vein, invite people to do things with you. It might be awkward at first, but the best way to make friends is to just do things with them. Especially as a freshman because everybody is in the same boat and making friends is hard.

Shameless geology promo, take an intro geology class if you can (they usually fulfill at least one gen ed). They're a good way to learn a bit about the world around you, and the labs are usually very fun and way better than a chemistry or physics lab.

I know this was kind of a lot, but I hope at least some of it helps! Despite having a really full schedule, college has been a lot of fun for me and I've had the opportunity to learn a lot and meet really cool people!

[baristaofletters]

I've never spent enough time with myself

Anyone who knows me can confidently tell you that the words “day off” are not within my cognitive frame of understanding. This is a problematic mindset, yet also a huge part of why I am here writing this today, and claiming this tiny corner of the internet for myself. I’m a barista by trade, currently spending my days slinging coffee at 2 different coffee joints. According to my brain (the time management expert) I obviously wasn’t working enough. So I decided to pay a visit to my old friend, freelance writing. Plus, even if I don’t get paid, I’m still working. Right?

To be completely honest with you, I haven’t written anything substantial in years. After dropping out of college, I tried to swear off ever calling myself a writer. It was almost physically painful to even say it out loud. The word itself was heavy, carrying all of the shame and embarrassment that I felt. Needless to say, I stopped pursuing this dream of “being a writer.”

Coming back to writing wasn’t as intimidating as I expected it to be. I was anticipating fear, anxiety, and stress - possibly enough of a negative reaction that would cause me to give up and find something else. It didn’t happen that way, and mulling over the reasons, it became clear that it was because I wasn’t really writing. Rather, I wasn’t really present.

I have a passion for the human experience. As a self-proclaimed people-person-introvert, I thrive through my connections with people. Finding my batteries completely drained after a social encounter is only a mildly negative repercussion to me, considering how fulfilled I feel after a genuine connection. This is why I work in hospitality. But writing all of this random content - ghostwriting articles about things I wasn’t interested in, writing emails for people I didn’t know, by people I didn’t care about - I didn’t feel like I was even there. I am basically an automated typewriter. Don’t we have AI for this already?? (Don’t answer that. I don’t want to kill the job market even more.)

I was writing so much, so often, and barely making any extra money. I wasn’t spending enough of my free time being free, and I wasn’t even enjoying the work I was sacrificing for. I wanted to write, but I didn’t want to keep stealing time away from myself just to write things that I didn’t care about. I am a disconnected entity that swallows down a charcuterie board of facts and spits out pieces full of filler words that help search results. I had become disconnected from others, disconnected from myself, and disconnected from the human experience. There was this overwhelming feeling that started creeping up on me. It started as an empty pit and kept growing until it felt like it was going to grab my hands off of the keyboard and wretch me inside out. It’s time to slow down. I realized that I needed to stop being the messenger for a minute. It needed to be my turn to say something. My turn to give myself a voice, let myself engage and be more than JUST the writer.

I’ve been hobby writing again. I’ve been jotting down notes on the pages of my books. Taking down story ideas on my phone during my smoke breaks. Daily journaling and self-reflection. I’m spending time with myself again.

So here’s my little project, my litter corner of the internet, my little monologue of self-exploration. Whether it’s personal projects, snapshots of my brain, sharing my experience, detailing things that I’m passionate about, telling stories, or anything else I manage to do with words, this will be my outlet for sharing my voice with the universe.

Frankly, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve written countless blog posts, but I’ve never had my own blog before. I'm starting this as a place to talk to myself. If you find yourself here, feel free to take a seat and stay a while. We can talk too.

I’ll put on a pot of coffee.

[lowkeyed1]

okay so here are my concerns after the first week of my new job, in descending order of how upset i am about them: covid policies are strict on paper, but not in practice. unvaccinated and vaccinated coworkers are commonly maskless in common areas or wearing the masks incorrectly, the boss is aware and also occasionally an offender. also, my state is getting ready to end mask mandates at the end of the month and i'm anticipating the college will follow suit, so i'll probably be dealing with unmasked coworkers and a great number of unmasked students that i have to assist. i'm vaccinated and boosted and diligent about wearing my n95s and i've accepted i will get omicron at some point... but i don't want to carry it to my family, who all have some condition or another that has been associated with less good covid outcomes. thing seem very disorganized and unstructured. first, i still don't have access to any of the systems i need to do my job except my email, so most of what i've been doing all week is 'observing' the three current employees on the team as they do random things. i've been given busywork that is frustrating to do and does not actually help the job at all or really grow my knowledge. the training is undirected, inconsistent, and vague. my boss is largely inaccessible because she has way too much going on, to the point that she's said go to this desk and i'll be there in a minute, and then she takes an urgent call and i don't see her for hours and have to go find someone to 'observe' on my own. there is no workflow, the work is communally divided by the three current workers who each do whatever parts they like best, whenever they feel like it, and they decide among themselves who takes breaks when and who works the front desk or phones when. i don't like the setup of the work area. you sit in a square area and your back is always to the center. i hate having people behind me. and the areas are small and again, shared with unvaccinated coworkers who aren't too good with the masks. the data management system seems like a redundant messy headache. you have to massage a student's file in about 8 different places to do one concrete action. the written workflows on how to do these things don't seem to match up with the processes in practice that i've observed. other than that... everyone seems very nice? they hired me even though my hair is purple and the dress code is fairly relaxed? not a lot of positives so far (definitely not the pay or benefits lol). i'm willing to give it more time to see if any of these issues improve but my gut is telling me this isn't a fit.

[jajanvm-imbi]

Headcanons of Krel living on earth because he’s my favorite and I love him and I haven’t seen anyone do this yet so I feel like I have to

^^^^^because of this very moment I love the idea of Mary and Darci befriending Krel.

Since Aja,Vex and Eli went back to Akaridion-5, Mother was destroyed, and Claire was busy with Trollhunting stuff, earth gets pretty lonely. So Mary and Darci adopt him into their friend group. 

At first Krel was a little apprehensive to joining their friend group, but he quickly warmed up to it because, he, being Krel, loves the attention.

like I can totally see Mary and Darci taking Krel to like a mall or something and doing those like teen romcom movie shopping montages where he goes into a changing room and the girls judge the outfit until they find the perfect one.

I personally believe Krel would adopt a soft boy look, with like oversized button ups and t shirts tucked into jeans, but thats just me.

anyway, because he’s friends with Mary and Darci, Krel has a new found social popularity in Arcadia.

because of this, Krel would prolly get nominated for Spring Fling king and shit

I would say Krel wouldn’t really care about being nominated, but seeing how he cared so much about the science fair and the Battle of the Bands, he would definitely care

Steve is conflicted because he wants to be Spring Fling King, but he can’t mess with Krel like he did with Jim and Eli cause Krel is his girlfriend’s brother 

Krel notices this and takes advantage of it to mess with Steve and actually tries to win.

like Krel would just dominate the contests, and his theme presentation would be the flashiest and most appealing and people would just generally like him, and that would really worry Steve

like Krel, with four arms would be really good at the Touch-a-Truck-athon or whatever its called.

Krel would prolly let Steve win anyway because watching Steve squirm and freak out over prolly losing the crown and not being able to do anything about it cause he's Aja's brother is much better than any highschool dance crown

also the school 100% asks Krel to DJ future dances and events to save money, and Krel absolutely loves it

He would also definitely do the school play. Seeing how much he enjoyed being in Toby and Eli's short film, and again, he loves the attention, he would totally be down 

Also it would just be another chance to mess with Steve to be the lead. 

Because of this, Ms. Janeth would do another Shakespearean play, but do one of those modern renditions. Like it's the same play just in a modern setting, to take advantage of Krel's Akaridion form like they did with Jim's armor. 

If not in the play he would do stage crew/tech.

Like he would create elaborate settings for them using A5 tech and Ms. Janeth would adore it 

moving on, because home life is pretty lonely with just the Lucy and Ricky for company, Krel loves to host his friends for parties and sleepovers and whatever

and since Krel lives in the coolest house on the block, they love coming over

He hosts girl’s night every other week with Mary, Darci, and Clarie (becauuse she deserves a fucking break) 

since we’ve all agreed that Krel is 100% a gaylien, I love the idea that he casually comes out during a girls night

like Mary would be like “So Krel, are there any girls you like?” and Krel’s just like, “*snort* Girls? Who ever said I like girls?” and the others are like “….....?“ and Krel just rolls his eyes and says "I like boys, ladies” and they’re like “ooooohhhh, okay. Cool.”

So now they spend girls night talking about boys. Claire and Darci about their mans and Mary and Krel about cute boys.

One day the girls give Krel a little rainbow pin and Krel’s just like “what’s this?” And the girls tell him that it’s an earth symbol for the gays and he’s like “theres a symbol for that here? I didnt think it was that big of a deal. On A5 it’s pretty normal” and the girls explain why theres a symbol and he’s like “oh shoot wow, thanks" and he put it on his backpack.

He’s pretty confused the first time someone is homophobic towards him cause like that kind if behavior doesnt happen on A5 and hes just like, “why does this bother you? I hardly know you” and just brushes it off. Its doesnt really bother him, mainly cause he doesnt know the earth insults towards gay people so he doesn’t even realize, but if the girls (or Toby, or even Steve, too) catch anyone being homophobic towards their friend they will attack that asshole on sight. Especially Mary and Steve

Random person on the street: Ha, *slur*

Marry: WHAT DID YOU SAY TO HIM BITCH???

Krel: Marry its fine, it’s not that big of a dealoHSEKLOSANDGAYLENMARYGETOFFOFHIM

Marry: SAY IT AGAIN ASSHAT, I D A R E YOU

Claire and Darci: *trying to hold Mary back* maRY NO

Steve: THATS MY NINJA KICKING SPACE ANGEL GIRLFRIEND'S BROTHER BUTTSNACK I'LL END YOU

Toby: *now chasing after Steve to stop him* stEVE NO

Mary would 100% find out who the rando is and destroy their life on social media. Like she would leak their job, phone number, email, school/college (if applicable) to her thousands of followers and absolutely ruin them with no remorse. And honestly, good for her

Also whilst on the subject, Krel can not drive or cook for 2 reasons: 1. Hes gay and 2. He’s a prince so he’s never had to do either before

Like he can obviously do math but that’s it.

Proof? That one scene in Wizards when Douxie had him drive the airship. You know the one.

Coach Lawrence refuses to get in a car with him at Drivers Ed after the 3rd day Krel shows up.

Krel gets addicted to sugary coffee shop-esc drinks thanks to Darci. Not coffee cause we saw in 3Below Part 1 that he doesnt like coffee, but refreshers, coolattas, frappuccinos etc…? Definitely.

As for warm drinks, he’s more of a tea person.

Moving on

He face calls Aja everyday because he really misses her

He tells her all about school and his friends and whatever and Aja tells him about the changes she’s making to the A5 government

Thanks to the wormhole they visit each other often. Sometimes Steve tags along cause he misses his ninja kicking space queen angel girlfriend. (And Eli, but that's also for another post)

They take turns housing Luug.

Krel genuinely loves it on earth, but he hates the primitive technology so he begs Aja to send him supplies and materials for his projects. 

He would 10000% apply to HexTech for an after school job. Seeing his reaction to HT in Wizards and the fact that “Akaridion tech and magic are so compatible”, he would be the perfect addition to the HT staff. 

The Wizards wouldn’t be sure at first but after he shows them A5 tech and Douxie’s email of recommendation about the time loop thing they made together, the wizards are like “oh yeah we definitely keeping this kid. This is going to be so much fun.”

Their inventions become more and more extravagant because Krel can and he's just extra and the wizards love it.

He would definitely find a way to use magic using A5 tech. But he would have to study magic in order to figure out how, so the wizards help him learn all about magic. And since he's learned everything there is to learn about science and technology and whatever, he's super excited to learn about something completely different and interesting. The wizards are happy to teach him. He would be the first Akaridion to learn and use magic

Like he would make his own staff with his serrator and everything. He's like "earn a staff? Nah fuck that going to make my own"

Speaking of which he really likes human swear words. But he doesnt know when it is and isn't inappropriate to say these swear words so he's gotten in trouble a few times for swearing at the wrong time

For example:

Ms. Janeth: excuse me Mr. Tarron?

Krel: what the fuck do you want?

Everyone in the room: krEL NO

Anyway, back to Krel at HT, thanks to Toby, he would definitely have a bowl of candy in his little lab. More like multiple jars of different candy just scattered around the room. Small candy like fun sized chocolate and skittles and jelly beans and whatever

And a mini fridge, of course.

Steve, Toby and Arrrgh come over to the lab alot to mess around.

Toby has a lot of sci-fi requests for Krel to make

Toby: do you think you can make a shrink ray? Laser blasters? Invisible ray? My own hoverboard? My own serrator *gASP* WITH A WARHAMMER SETTING???? WITH SPACE ARMOR TO MATCH???!!!???!

Krel: Toby you already have a warhammer and armor why do you need more?

Toby: I dont have a space warhammer and armor Krel!!!!!!

Going back to school life, I feel like Krel would take an interest in Spanish class. I mean, his human form is latino and in Trollhunters (I'm pretty sure the lightning in a bottle episode) he said "Si" in response to a question someone asked him, so I feel like he would like to learn another human language. 

I also feel like he would just like to learn about Latin American culture in general since Mother gave him that form. He'd like to get in touch with his human self. 

Claire (when she isnt busy Trollhunting with Jim and the gang) is happy help him learn about Latin American culture and help him with his Spanish. 

Krel, being a fast learner, becomes fluent quickly with a perfect accent. 

Señor Uhl, who already liked the Tarrons to begin with, would really appreciate this. 

Claire's dad would also appreciate this.

Since he has such a fascination with human music, Krel would especially love Latin American music. Specifically reggaeton, since its kind of like techno music in a way and he already likes techno music.

And naturally, he learns to dance. All the styles of latin american dances. And he becomes quite the favorite on the dance floor.

He and Claire become great dance partners cause they both have the natural Latino rhythm and because Jim respects and trusts his girlfriend he doesnt mind them dancing together at parties and stuff

Although, Jim does ask for dance help at some point cause it looks like fun and he wants to dance with his beautiful talented incredible amazing gf and Krel is happy to teach him and anyone else who wants dance help. 

GUITAR LESSONS with Douxie cause in 3Below Krel said he really wanted to learn how to play guitar, steals Shannon’s guitar from the bonfire and is seen multiple times strumming it throughout the series. So of course this is included.

Toby introduces Krel to YouTube and Krel instantly makes his own channel.

of course his channel is called DJ Kleb and he posts his tracks and remixes. and maybe even some vlogs

its a little slow at first, only Arcadia Oaks students are subscribed to it but Mary blows it up by posting one of Krel’s tracks on her own social media and now he has thousands of subscribers

he also gained other forms of social media like Instagram and Tiktok, platforms to post his music

At this point every girl in school wants to be friends with Krel but not in the toxic GBF (gay best friend) way, girls just genuinely think he's 10x more interesting than every other boy in Arcadia Oaks

I think that's it for now sorry this is really long I just really love Krel and I had so many ideas. Feel free to add on!!

[that-crazy-five-foot-two-chick]

Summary: Winry sat in the optimal place to study in the school cafe for the entire fall semester. Then spring came, and suddenly some self-entitled twit who dressed like off-brand Gerard Way decided it was his territory. He was so not going to get off easy.

Rating: T

Word Count: 1.8k words of coffee shop/college AU with a side of enemies to almost-lovers

A/N: It's finals week, I posted this on Ao3 at almost 5am, and if the rest of the sentence didn't make it obvious, I'm writing from unfortunate experience. Not beta-ed or proofread, although I happened to see one thing to fix when I woke up this morning. Feel my raw power. Rawr.

It wasn't that big a deal.

It kind of really was, though.

Every Thursday morning during the fall semester, Winry sat in the same spot at the same school coffee shop. It was the spot sent by the entire patron pantheon of cram papers. Maybe one person didn't need an entire booth, but it was in the corner, and the tops of the bench seats had opaque plastic barriers that just so happened to be perfect for minimizing excess visual chaos. For the most part, there weren't loud conversations, and the jazz music that came through the speakers helped her tune out people ordering coffee. Add to that the fact that she could use campus flex dollars and not her own bank account that was begging for mercy, and it was the perfect spot to get papers done.

But apparently not this spring.

As soon as Winry walked in, she noticed him in the corner. Some emo wannabe guy on his computer. Probably on Reddit complaining about how women didn't appreciate the amazing pics he sent them on Tinder. Or at least, it was a fair guess based on the sour look on his face. Why did this guy of all people have to steal the holy grail spot? Ugh. She was still gonna get her coffee, darn it.

"You know the deal, Sciezska. Medium roast with a shot of espresso and vanilla creamer."

"On it! You paying in flex?"

"Yeah." She scanned her student ID and lowered her voice. "Who's off-brand Gerard Way in the corner?"

"Who's Ger—"

"The punk kid."

"Ohhh. I can try to get his number for you, if you want."

"No, he looks like a total tool! And not the kind I like dealing with!"

"Which means you think he's hot. I didn't think you were into that type, but you're not wrong."

"For the last time, no, Sciezska! He took my spot! And I'm trying very, very hard to keep this to a stage whisper, but if you keep trying to set me up with some random creep, I won't be able to!"

A distinctly male voice grumbled, "I'm not a creep."

"Keep telling that to the girls on Tinder. I'm sure they'll understand eventually."

"Yeah, and I'll bet if you look at your 'Live, Laugh, Love' sign a little more, you'll understand it eventually." He mumbled something under his breath.

"What was that, Mr. Nice Guy?"

"Lay off, it's eight in the morning. I said the only reason I even have a Tinder account is because my roommate stole my phone while I was going to the bathroom."

"Well, if you didn't want it, why didn't you delete it?"

"Eh, I figured if I really got sick of being single one day, it'd already be there."

"Never would have guessed you were single," Winry said dryly.

"Come on, it's way too early to be rubbing that kind of crap in. Who says I'm not fine with being single anyway?"

Sciezska timidly spoke up. "Medium roast with espresso and vanilla creamer?"

Winry thanked her as red jacket boy continued. "'Edward Elric, Bachelor.' Almost sounds as good as 'Edward Elric, Bachelor of Science.'"

"B.S. degree. Sounds about right."

"About time you stopped acting like I'm an idiot!"

Winry snorted. "That's not what I meant."

"Hey!"

"And with that, I'm going to go find some other spot to write my paper."

Edward, as his name apparently was, scoffed and mumbled something that sounded like "good riddance". Maybe the librarians wouldn't get on her case too much for bringing in coffee.

-----

A week later, Winry walked into the cafe, assuming the circumstances of the previous week were an anomaly. They were not.

"Medium roast with a shot of espresso and vanilla creamer," she grumbled and sulked in the direction of the corner seat.

"Hey, don't start with me again, blondie. I've had a whopping four hours of sleep and I can't promise you'll like what comes out of my mouth."

"We're at a coffee shop. Get some coffee. I can't help it if you're too hung over to be polite."

"Now look, genius. I did not stay up until 4 A.M. working on a stupid chem paper for that sadistic pyromaniac excuse for a professor just for some random chick to accuse me of being hung over."

"Oh."

"Yeah. And for your information, coffee doesn't really help me wake up. It just helps me focus on homework." He lifted up his empty cup and gave it a shake.

"That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard."

"ADHD is a weird thing, and yet, here I am."

"Huh, interesting."

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to pick up where I left off with the same stupid ten page paper I started last night."

"Oh right. Sure," Winry stammered. "Listen, I'm really sorry I just assumed things about you. It was wrong of me, and I'd like to make it up to you, if that's okay."

Edward eyed her suspiciously. "What do you have in mind?"

"Well...I could look over your paper once you're done writing it? I've got a paper of my own to write while I'm waiting, and I can sit right across the table here so you don't have to come get me. I won't try to talk to you or anything. Neither of us need that kind of distraction."

"Alright, alright. Get your coffee and sit down. The girl at the counter's been up there waiting for a good minute or two while you've been at confessional over here."

"Wait, she has?" Winry's eyes widened, and Edward laughed at her expense. He was kind of attractive when he wasn't scowling...wait what? She pouted and got up to retrieve her coffee. When Winry returned, she plopped down on the bench opposite Edward and opened her laptop. Peeking out from behind it, she added, "By the way, I'm Winry. I figured you ought to at least know the name of the person who's proofreading your paper."

"Well, Winry, you're the one who volunteered." The corners of his mouth twitched upward. The two worked on their assignments in silence, occasionally speaking up when necessary.

-----

Edward was in the corner again the next week as well.

"Hey, Edward! Mind if I join you for homework again?"

"Normally, I'd say no, but you didn't bother me too much last week, so you might as well." He turned away slightly.

"Great! Have you gotten your coffee yet? I didn't see a cup, and you got something the last two times."

"Eh, I haven't been here long. If you're going up and getting yours, would you mind ordering a caramel macchiato for me?" He asked, sliding his ID across the table.

"Yeah, no problem. I'll be back in a sec."

She returned and slipped his ID back before pulling out her computer. "Do you have anything for me to look over this time?"

"Not this week. But if you have anything you need looked over, I can do that, too."

"Actually, I do, if you wouldn't mind."

"Winry, I just volunteered. Just send the paper to my school email. Mine's 'elricedwa'," he instructed as he proceeded to spell it.

"Medium roast and a caramel macchiato?" Sciezska called out.

"Coming!" Winry replied and turned to Edward. "I just sent it, so you should be able to start while I'm getting our stuff." Eyes glued to his laptop, Edward gave a thumbs up.

Once she returned with their drinks, Winry sat down and wordlessly set Edward's drink next to him.

"Thanks," he muttered distantly. His lips mirrored the words he was reading. Though his lips weren't plump by any stretch of the imagination, they were shapely. His steely concentration made the air leave Winry's lungs. To top it all off, the first rays of sunlight came through the window just right, hitting Edward's hair in a way that made it positively glow.

What was she thinking? Those were only the sorts of things people thought when they had a crush. She'd only had two positive interactions with him, including this one. ...well, maybe it was a crush. She could certainly do worse than someone with a questionable fashion sense. After all, he worked hard, and he got good grades, if the quality of his writing was any indication. Okay, fine. He was also drop dead gorgeous, if you could see past his clothing choices. Yeah, she had a crush.

"Did you hear anything I just said?"

"...no."

"Figures. I finished reading your paper. It's not bad, I just left a few suggestions for sentence structure. Now I am going to enjoy my caramel macchiato." He took off the lid and breathed in the steam with his eyes closed, nearly drooping into the cup in content. When he opened his eyes slowly, Winry was awestruck by the similarity between the color of his eyes and his drink.

"What?" Edward furrowed his eyebrows.

"Nothing. I didn't say anything. At all. Nope."

"Okay." He shrugged. She reopened the document and went through his suggested edits. Gnawing her lip in concentration, she leaned forward a bit to settle in and tackle the editing.

"...hey, uh, Winry?" Edward gulped. "Are you going to drink your coffee?"

"Oh! Yeah, I almost forgot. Thanks, Edward!" she smiled.

"No–no problem. And you can call me Ed, you know. Most people do. Except for that excuse for a professor that calls me pipsqueak. Can you believe he's my advisor? I mean, come on, I'm a grown man. I'm not that short."

Winry made a poor attempt at containing her laughter. "Okay then, Ed. Prove it. Stand up."

"Fine." He slid out of the booth and stood. Winry followed suit and appraised their respective heights.

"Well, I'd hardly call you tall, but you're at least taller than me by a few inches, for whatever that's worth."

Edward grinned as if he had won some sort of prize. "Time for shorties to sit down now!"

"Watch it now. You're not too far from that label yourself, mister."

They both returned to their positions in the booth and worked steadily for the next hour. At the end of that time, Winry closed her laptop. "Ed, are you okay? You seem distracted."

"ADHD. I'm always distracted," he dismissed.

"No, like, are you sick or something? You did get more than four hours of sleep this time, right?"

"No comment." Ed's mouth twitched. He mumbled barely loud enough to hear, "Wouldn't have mattered anyway."

"Are you sure? If you're not feeling well, I can drive you over to the health center."

"N-no. That's not it." He exhaled, then slid a napkin across the table. His hands trembled slightly. "Anyway, here's my number. In case you need me to look over a paper. Or whatever. I've got a class soon."

Winry blushed, but tucked the napkin in her laptop. "Thanks, Ed. See you next week?"

"Yeah. Next week."

-----

Winry: This goes with your major, right?

Edward: Blocked

[vyvesvi]

yo I'm sorry if this is coming out of no where but I'm in hs and I realllllly wanna study anthropology and since you're an anthro major,,,, can you tell me what that's like, ik every prof and school is a lil different but like . yknow

yeahhh no problem! if you have specific questions that might be easier for me to answer but i’ll keep it a lil general for now. edit: i tend to ramble so my main points are bolded.

it’s kinda important for me to note that i started as a government major but found my school’s department to be really impersonal (idk how to describe it but the vibes were rancid, that’s the best i can do rip). so i switched to sociology the first day of classes lmfao. i later ended up having the same problem with soc, but it was kinda late in the day so i just kept it and added my other two majors, one of which is anthr

all of that to say, i’ve found the anthr department to be a much more “human” place? like in terms of caring about people and how academia impacts the “real world,” which is extremely important (imo).

in anthr, at least at my school, we focus a ton on methodology and for lack of a better word, morality. stuff like how the history of anthr’s formation and establishment as a legit academic discipline impacts future study (super basic version: sociology as “a study of the west” and anthr as “a study of the rest.” obviously that’s very based in racism and colonialist ideals, so an important question becomes “how do we proceed in a discipline with such a past? how can we use that to make us better academics?” etc.)

in terms of workload: very reading heavy, right now im taking two anthr classes and i would say i have around 70 - 100 pages to read a week? that’s light/average compared to other humanities (i’m also majoring in religious studies, that’s like 70 - 150 pages? and soc, as a social science is more like 30 - 80 pages. i minored in east asian history and that was actually pretty light for humanities, it really ranged from 40 - 100 pages iirc). also, i think this is often the case but at the lower level you have more quizzes and busy work, usually with short response and short (5 page) papers. as you take upper level courses you have less busy work, more readings, more presentations, and longer papers (10+)

random advice: i would really recommend taking a language! idk if you have specific goals for what you want to do after graduation but one of the best things is to get a PhD and do research. personally i want to focus in methodology (bc i suck at languages lmfao) but the more typical (and fun) part of anthr is the area studies part, and knowing a language makes you incredibly competitive. of course, you don’t need to do anthropology in an area that requires you to learn a language (like i can do english speaking places as is, and there are also like a billion sublevels of anthr at the grad level, like medical, historical, etc that don’t require a language) but it will def make getting into research easier

the really cool thing about anthr is that it pairs well with most stem and social sciences! you can pretty much pick anything subject in those fields and there’s a subfield for that. like i know a grad student who’s doing the anthr of math (don’t ask me what that entails bc i have no clue), a friend of mine did a final project on the anthr of modern witchcraft, i know a few people who are working on projects related to college students during quarantine. personally my undergrad work is on marginalization and apathy + immigration and humanitarian aid. the possibilities are truly endless.

on that same topic, im not sure that people in creative writing would agree but i’ve heard some famous author give this advice to aspiring writers: don’t major in english. their rationale is that you can learn to write anywhere, and that it’s much more important to have other knowledge so that you have something to write about. i would say something similar about anthr- it’s a lil useless on it’s own. that being said, i personally think minoring or double majoring is a must with anthr. like, it just means more if you have other outside interests.

i’m not sure if you’re a college student but if you’re not yet and don’t know where you’re going yet, this seems obvious but definitely look at the course offerings and major requirements before you apply (if possible)! there’s always gonna be stuff you learn by being a student (and if you can connect with students in the department, definitely try to do that!) but there’s still info that you can glean from the websites. simple stuff like “how would i build a semester schedule from this? would i enjoy these classes?” etc. you can also email professors if you want! most of them legitimately want to help students, and the worse they can do is not respond!

that’s kind of it off the top of my head, but if you have any specific questions about anthr or college feel free to ask! i kinda just rambled because i wasn’t sure lol

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN TREVOR

But it worked so well, and we knew that buyers would have a big pool of potential users, at least. Web browser.1 Angels were generally much better to talk to someone, I could usually get to the end of each film, so they know who might be interested in this mystery—for the same destination, just approaching it from different directions. I recommend you solve this problem, if you find someone else working on the biggest things inexperienced founders and investors are probably more where it's considered especially polite to compliment someone's clothing than where it's considered improper. VCs want to blow you up, it wears you out: Your most basic advice to founders is just don't die, but the word madam never occurs in my legitimate email, and spam in particular. Basically at 25 he started running as fast as possible. And what are the universities thinking?

The next best, for startups that aren't charging initially, is active users. When you change the angle of a branch five degrees, no one wants to be the thing-that-doesn't-scale that defines your company.2 That principle, like the relative merits of programming languages is to give you enough money to last for a year or a hundred times as productive as those working for money, they'll work a lot harder on stuff they like. 5-7% of a company like Apple and think, how hard can it be? Economically, you can do in your spare time, and investors are down on advertising at the moment. They do more in their heads: they try to do things that seem to be: a lot of them. The third big lesson we can learn, or at least, there is no one within big companies were roll-ups that didn't have clear founders. When I look back it's like there's a line drawn between third and fourth grade. That's what makes sex and drugs, it would be good to solve?

Prep schools openly say this is one reason I'd bet on the curve, at any given time get away with it, and the different parts of the company through the COO. Object-oriented programming in the 1980s was enabled by a combination of circumstances: court decisions striking down state anti-takeover laws, starting with the assumption that we would never get started. Not because it's causing economic inequality, you decrease the number of startups that get bought early. It's not a deal till the money's in the bank and keep operating as two guys living on ramen. I'm optimistic. They think that there will be ten JetBlues.3 If you try to attack wealth, you end up doing something chosen for you by syndicates.

And you don't want to see the Valley itself, but it goes fast. What Happened to Yahoo August 2010 When I went to.4 What this means in practice. That makes him seem like a winner, they may avoid publishing's problems. After reading a draft, Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell has made a handy calculator you can use them as communication devices.5 You not only have to filter email from people you'd never heard from, or about, a startup has decreased dramatically. Startups are that constrained for talent. But it's harder than it sounds.6 Smallness Measurement If you can't measure the value of products is in software. You don't have to rely on. Hackers just want power.

I knew she was about to say you'd have to be fired, and one of your most powerful weapons, I think this is true for funding. The best was that the company was itself a kind of argument that might be called the Hail Mary strategy. They don't have time to work, just like a software company. But it hardly ever is. My friend Robert learned a lot by writing network software when he was a startup, then hand them off to go away.7 Sun. Oxford had a chair of Chinese before it had one of English.

Which means the slowdown that comes from being in America. And in fact the two forces are related: they're the ones who like running their company so much that resembling nature is intrinsically good as that nature has had a couple thousand Altair owners, but without the substance. Ditto for hacking. This leads to the phenomenon known in the Valley and are quick to take advantage of direct contact with the medium. We were all starting from scratch, that's a really bad sign.8 More important, I think it's cleaner if you openly charge subscription fees, instead of just looking at them all is through a computer. Thanks to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert and Trevor read applications and did interviews with us. The stock of a company as big as Java, or bigger, just on the partner you talk to startups, a lot of investors are interested in, that's not necessarily a mistake to use the term Collison installation for the technique they invented. FreeBSD, which I'm running on the computer I'm using now, and they're not coming back. Court hierarchies are another thing entirely. In practice offers exist for stretches of time, if your business model in the world look like this? Startups don't win by winning lawsuits.

5 spams per 1000 with 0 false positives. When I was in college that there were about 20,000. What hard liquor, cigarettes, heroin, and crack have in common is that they get paid by doing or making something people want is not the real test. Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough to pay your expenses while you develop a conscience, torture is amusing.9 Wouldn't that at least someone really loves. Sex, or something just as bad. I can see a path that's not immediately obvious; that's one of the most important quality in an investor is to say that the unsuccessful founders would also fail to chase down funding, and investors tend to take these for granted now, but only because people have found even more addictive ways of wasting time. It does not seem to be several categories of cuts: things I got wrong, because if you don't, you're hosed. So we should expect founders to do it yourself. If you actually started acting like adults, it seemed to them what e-commerce business back in the day, but who want it urgently. 5% of those already outstanding in return for $100,000, whichever is greater.

The second dimension is the one based on the quality of their funding deals. So I want to zoom in on one detail of this picture. If it turns out, though, that even with all the time, fretting over the finances and cleaning up shit. It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you'd be a suitable recipient for the size of the market anyway. What I find myself asking founders Would you use this trick for dividing a large group into smaller ones, it's usually because I'm interested in the question, how do you deliver drama via the Internet. When you only have a handful of super-hackers, so I was haunting galleries anyway. But I know the real reason: the product is only moderately appealing. Better to harass them with arrows from a distance, as animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm.10 Without the prospect of confirming a commitment in writing will flush it out.

Notes

Since we're not doing YC mainly for financial reasons, including both you and listen only to emphasize that whatever the false positives reflecting the remaining outcomes don't have to do, just their sizes. The problem with most of their origins in words about luck. It was common in the imprecise half. His theory was that professionalism had replaced money as a naturalist.

If you wanted to than because they need them to represent anything.

From? The way to fight. The Harmless People and The Old Way. I know, Lisp code.

Do not finance your startup.

Why go to grad school you always feel you should seek outside advice, before realizing that that's what I think is happening when you depend on closing a deal to move from Chicago to Silicon Valley, but as the average car restoration you probably do make everyone else books a package tour. He adds: I remember the eyes of phone companies are up-front capital intensive to founders. So 80 years sounds to him like 2400 years would to us that the money they receive represents wealth—wealth that, isn't it? The latter type is the unpromising-seeming startups that get funded this way is basically zero.

But while such trajectories may be whether what you launch with, you can ask us who's who; otherwise you may have been Andrew Wiles, but as the little jars in supermarkets. Rice and Beans for 2n olive oil or mining equipment, such a different type of mail, I have so far done a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say, ending up on the other direction Y Combinator. This is an instance of a business is to carry a beeper? This trend is one of those most vocal on the LL1 mailing list.

The First Two Hundred Years. Who continued to live inexpensively as their companies took off? The conventional 1 in 10 success rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would only give you fifty times as much difference to a later investor trying to focus on growth instead of hiring them. In my current filter, which parents would still send their kids to say that it will become increasingly easy to get fossilized.

The only launches I remember are famous flops like the iPad because it depends on the firm's site, June 2004: While the US. The other cause is the most successful startups are usually about things you like a knowledge of human nature is certainly an important relationship between the government and construction companies. People tell the craziest lies about me. Patent trolls can't even trust the design world's internal standards.

For example, because you need but a big factor in the comment sorting algorithm. Horace, Sat.

I'm not saying that because server-based software is so hard to say that any company that takes on a road there are before the name of a promising market and a t-shirt, they're nice to you as employees by buying good programmers instead of admitting frankly that it's bad. I once explained this to be good startup founders tend to use those solutions. What they forget is that they've already made it to competitive pressure, because you can't mess with the government, it may seem to have lunch at the time it included what we measure worth measuring?

[lololollywrites]

I have a GenZ neighbor who just started her undergrad degree. She once called me over to help with an essay. I love her - she's so sweet - and I currently work as a college professor (at a different university), so obviously I came over. This story is not to disparage her intelligence (I think she's very smart; knowledge and intelligence are unrelated), but the technological illiteracy she displayed - as well as the lack of awareness of academic writing conventions - was shocking to me. She had hit "enter" after each line to make it double-spaced (she'd never heard of that), which obviously capitalized each new line of writing. There were *immensely* long run-on sentences, full of misspellings that autocorrect wasn't there to fix, improper/random capitalization, and informal language. I sat down and explained the requirements to her (we reviewed the assignment description together, which her professor had never fully done), then wrote what I hoped was a thoughtful checklist of things to keep in mind (the structure of an essay, formatting, how to double-space, etc.). The next day, she called me panicking that she tried to submit her assignment online but that it had been deleted. She said it was nowhere on her computer because it didn't appear when she clicked the "Browse" button to select the file. On the phone, I asked her "Where did you save it? To your desktop, your documents, or to a specific folder in your documents? You have to navigate there first." She had no idea what I meant; she just said "I clicked ‘save’". I asked her if the file appeared in her "Recents" when she opened Word, as that would tell her it hadn't been deleted (and even if it had been deleted, it would be in her Mac's recycle bin), but - again - she didn't know what I was talking about. I'm almost 33 years old and she's more than a decade younger (having taken a few years off after high school before college). She's part of the generation that we all say "grew up" with technology, but it's not in the way we did. She only uses her phone; she sees her laptop as only for school. I learned on a computer and didn't get a smart phone until I was 24. This isn't better or worse, of course, but all of the things we take for granted (file folders, Word formatting, multiple tabs, optimized searches, avoiding plagiarism) are all things learned on computers. This isn't her fault. There are no longer required typing courses, Microsoft certification courses (which I took in high school), or even explanations given by professors when we ask students to submit assignments to certain specifications. We assume they know what citing sources means. What "Double-spaced, size 12, Times New Roman" means. Well, I don't, but that's because I've learned otherwise. The same problems plague my graduate students. I see some insane interpretations of APA citations, and blatant (but usually accidental) plagiarism all over the place. Along with some wonderful writing, of course, I'm not trying to be fatalistic, but that's beside the point. We can't assume knowledge based upon age. This is all true, yes, but it still worried me greatly in terms of the experience she was yet to have in college. It's going to be such an uphill battle, and that's entirely unfair to her. I don't understand what she did in high school if not write essays and learn how to use Word. So many things are just done on shared Docs now or accomplished via online quizzes/text boxes. I think we're losing a lot here without even realizing it. It's like being caught in the middle: colleagues my age are always trying to figure out how to best support our younger students as they struggle with technology, and we're also being called over to help tenured professors who've been teaching for decades figure out how to submit their grades, attach a file to an email, or use Cloud/Google Drive. I had a 20-minute conversation with a super-intelligent, highly-esteemed professor the other day about why her flash drive was obsolete and how I could make her life easier, but she simply didn't understand. Which is fine - she makes things work, and has learned how to do so. It's just... an odd feeling. And YES, there are exceptions. There are plenty of super tech-savvy GenZs and GenXers. Obviously. My neighbor is just one person, but I've taught dozens of students now as a professor (and hundreds beforehand in the decade I taught in a different capacity), and this is all based on what I've observed.

ALT

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[ID: A tweet by Popbase that reads, "Nearly half of Gen Z is using TikTok and Instagram as a search engine instead of Google, new data shows.". Below the tweet is a pic of a poorly drawn Goomba from Super Mario Bros with text below him that reads "are you out of your fucking mind".]

[mama-tiff]

Cheers to Four Years

Next Monday will be the start of my fourth year of teaching. (It's my official fourth year because it will be a full year, but technically it's my fourth and half year.) I didn't plan on being a teacher when I started working or furthering my education, but when I was a kid, I dreamed of being a teacher.

I used to play school with my imaginary class. I had a notebook with students' names I made up and I took attendance each day. I had a chalkboard and a whiteboard that I used to teach my lessons on equations. (I later grew to hate math.) And before that, I wrote on a sheet protectors or on my bedroom door with chalk (sorry mom and dad). I used my pencil box as a makeshift stapler to staple my students' permission slips, homework, etc. I stood in front of these imaginary students and explained the classroom expectations for raising their hands, using the restroom, and using the calculator to check their work but not to solve the problems.

Years later, my dreams of being a teacher fell dormant and I aspired to be a psychologist. I changed my mind a few years into college and my professor (unbeknownst to her, of course) reawaked my dreams of teaching. So I pivoted and ended up on an education track.

In the season shortly after, I encountered a lot of unforeseen obstacles, but things still seemed to align as they were supposed to:

- I had issues with getting a placement for student teaching and I had to pivot to an alternative certification program.

- I was informed that I would be graduating early, only to find out that the advisor misspoke. (The short version of this story is that I still graduated early, but not as early as she originally said.)

- I had no job lined up for after graduation, so I took a job so that I would have one, only to learn that it was not for me. I experienced my first panic attack. I resigned.

None of these things were a part of my plan, but things still worked out.

I ended up getting a job as a substitute teacher. I got to substitute for different schools and grade levels to see what I liked and what I didn't like. I was also enrolled in my alternative certification program and began my first class. It was different than other college courses I had taken, but I liked my professor and my classmates.

On a random day in November, I got an email from a principal looking to hire me as a long term substitute. But he wasn't just the principal from any school, he was the principal of the school I had dreamed of teaching at! We set up an interview and I was there within a month. The rest is history. I worked there for three years after that.

To some, it appears that I fell into teaching. And when I look at my story, I can see how it appears that way. But I think a better way to explain it is that I returned to teaching. It was my heart's first love, and I don't even know why.

I loved my preschool and kindergarten teachers, my fourth grade teacher was a gem (rest her soul), and my eighth grade teacher was one of the greats, but I don't recall any moments where I looked at them in awe or wanted to do what they did.

I always loved school, though. I loved learning and I loved community. Maybe that was it -- learning and being a part of a community. (On a whole side note, the latter part is interesting because I was bullied in school for years. What a community...)

Learning and building community seem to be key parts of my philosophy as a teacher now. Although I don't feel as strongly as other educators and state officials about "teaching to the test" or "teaching the standards", I feel very strongly about my students learning how to be standup and productive citizens. I'm excellent at building rapport with my students individually, but shortly after I began teaching, I made it a point to build community in the classroom between the students. It's odd to me how many of them don't know their classmates' names, at the least.

I guess if learning and building community are my main goals, I'm not confined to the classroom. But I don't know where I'll be led next. I just pray it's in the right direction and doesn't include a panic attack.

Cheers to year 4. I hope my students learn a lot and feel they're a part of our classroom community.