#so to cheer myself up i have allowed myself to spend 30 dollars getting a new similar one <- not ideal

[kraniumet]

really do need to quit [cafe job] though. you see me posting like this because it's the only thing i have the energy to do on my downtime <- washed my dishes today and it almost took everything out of me and then tomorrow it's back again.

[agileo-101]

A nightmare has ended today. I would like to share that with you guys to celebrate! This will be a long post so honker down guys.

At the beginning of November, my account was hacked. My PayPal and my Google pay account were abridged.

On my PayPal, $1,236.50 was spent on 2 different power tools (what the hell am i gonna do with power tools??? this stuff is for house owners and i live in a freaking apartment!)

On my Google pay, a total of $ 3,057.12 was spent on freaking pixel 4

Now, I am going to assume this was done by two different hackers because their address is different, plus one guy's at Virginia.

I blurred out my name and my mom's name but those two are definitely not my address.

I even have one of the guy's name (or a fake name idk)

This was my major wtf moment. I was barely getting by paying my tuition and this happened. What little remaining money I had saved for Christmas gift was ripped away from me. The biggest irony of it all was that both of my Google pay account and PayPal had less than 100 dollars in it. Why the heck did those 2 companies allowed huge amount of money pulled out like that???? It was beyond me!!!

So the PayPal thing happened First.

At first everything was super frustrating every company was pushing off responsibility at each other. Acemetool claimed i need to talk to PayPal, PayPal claimed I need to talk to the merchant and this went on for a while.

I had to contact my bank first to cancel my card for security reasons and they issued me a new one (the front desk lady and consultant lady were so helpful and friendly.... Bless your hearts!!!). Then I had to call acemetool website to inform that the tools were a fraudulent order. They had to contact FedEx in order to intercept the packages. Thankfully I had contacted them early and the packages were returning to the warehouse. The staffs at the call center was amazing and they helped every step of the way.

Now this took me at least more than 2 weeks to resolve. I thought, yay! Surely I can get something for my parents and sister for this Christmas!

By end of November.... My Google pay was hacked....

Now, the Google pay was tricky one. The hacker went as far as to put the shipping notice email into the trash to prevent me from noticing that an order was placed. Now, I learned that contacting Google was as hard as finding regular shonen anime that featured man's nipple.

I had submitted a dispute regarding the ridiculous fraudulent order. Within two days my dispute was rejected. Because apparently, the hacker used my mother's name and the guy happened to live in same district as me (it took a lot out of me not to hunt down the bastard) so, they thought that my RELATIVE has placed an order and closed the case. I was devastated.i spent a week or so dejected and rolling my head to figure out this issue (this is why when my commissioned plushie, Little Ghiaccio Nya came in, that was a big cheer for me). 

anyway, How do I prove myself when I could barely find contact?!

So this is my tip to you guys if you EVER get hacked and need to contact Google. Your laptop does not hold the answer. Your phone does. Google had it set up that if you don't have Google pay app on your phone, it is virtually impossible to contact anyone. When you download the app, it gives you two options. Call or chat. I would recommend chat over the call because for call you will have to wait FOR HOURS! But in chat all you have to wait is couple of seconds. The investigating team/security team had temporarily frozen my account for safety reasons. I easily provided that I did not order the items. With my id, my mother's id and our home address on our drivers' licenses, the invoice from the bank vs the address that was on the shipping address (and the guy’s name when he signed for the package release). plus, on my Google store history, my purchase never exceeded $20 so the sudden crazy amount of spending was tad alarming. The agent from Google play support was very helpful, she answered all my questions and got back to me as soon as she could (which again, was so kind of her. She went on extra miles to assist me)

And today I was informed that the agent who was helping me

THANK GOD!!!!!

It is finally over! And this took about a little over two weeks to solve with google.

So yeah, I had been living under stress for good two months. It was such a wild rollercoaster ride. I was depressed because while I worked my butt off everyday to provide for family (I am also full time student, so I am sacrificing my social life, sleep and time to do my homework. I wake up 5 I the morning go to class, get to work at 4:30, clock out at 9:30, do homework until 2 in the morning. And repeat) and some jackass who doesn't want to do earnest earnings decided to steal what little I had. I experienced cruelty, greed and major frustration.

But at same time, I saw kindness from staff members at the bank, acemetool, and Google

Can't say same for you PayPal, got abridged first place, put me on hold for 40 min, barely answered my questions and the best thing you told me to do was "change my password" You did not offer me explanation as in why the hell you allowed more then $ 1,000 dollars to be pulled out of my account when I barely had $100 in there! grow some balls, have respect and Tighten your security for f**k sake

Then my friends from University who prayed for me, professors who encouraged me and. @dratinimartini @processormalfunction @x-01-king @lyxine you guys were my moral and emotional support. You guys are gem!

I sigh with relief and happy that it was over with. i am little paranoid every time i check my account, i tripped my security and changed all my passwords to all of the currently existing accounts. that is to be expected.

i’m still mad that those hackers are out there, invading ppl’s privacy and stealing their hard earn monies.i hope that whoever hacked my account, karma has something stored for them >:(

for now, i sleep with my legs stretched out. for christmas, i had commission money that came to my way (thanks for the $50 K-Bro!) and i will use that to buy something for my family :D so happy merry Christmas eve everyone.

stay safe

[imaginesforyourfandom]

It’s For You - Christen Press Imagine

(Y/N) POV:

I chuckled at Kelley’s antics as I walked with her, Christen, JJ, Tobin, and Crystal around the carnival that we were at. I looked away from Kelley towards Christen as the forward seemed to be in an intense conversation with JJ and Tobin. I assume it was intense based off of the crease on her forehead.

“Take a picture. It will last longer.” Kelley said as Crystal laughed at the look on my face. I had scowled at the defender who burst into laughter. “Could you be any more obvious?”

“Yes.” I said as she shook her head. I glanced at the forward hoping she wasn’t paying attention to any of Kelley’s teasing that she was doing.

“You got it bad boo.” Crystal said as I shook my head.

“You guys are exaggerating.” I said as they both shook their head. They continued giving me a hard time as the other girls had stopped for us to catch up to them.

“What are you going on about?” Christen asked Kelley who smiled.

“Nothing…(Y/N) is just an idiot.” She said as I frowned. Christen shook her head.

“She is not.” I smiled at the forward who shot me a small smile. I blushed as Kelley shook her head. “You’re one of the smartest people I know.”

“I really am not but I appreciate you saying that.” I said crossing my arms as Christen frowned. She walked closer to me and took my arm in her arms pulling me away from Kelley and along with her.

“You are not allowed to hangout with Kelley right now. Her self-deprecating humor is rubbing off on you.”

“Okay.” I said not wanting to argue with the girl. We walked around the carnival enjoying the cool stuff and even sat next to each other on the Ferris wheel. I mean…I was a mess pretty much the whole night because I was in close proximity to the girl I love and had to try not to show that I love her, but other than that it was great. We continued walking around playing games and having fun until we came across a particular game booth.

“oh, that’s cute.” Christen said about the teddy bear that was hanging up on the rack of prizes. I immediately decided in my head that I was going to win this bear for her. It was a ball bounce kind of game that you had to throw the ball and get it to land into the basket directly under the board it was bouncing off of. I know most carnival games are rigged to make sure you lose, but I felt pretty confident that I could win this.

“Let’s try it out.” I said as everyone nodded at me. Kelley smirked at me as she opted to not play the game. I rolled my eyes as I paid to play. I groaned when it bounced back at me instead of falling down. I tried a few more times before everyone decided it was time to leave so we didn’t get back at the hotel too late.

“I think that I am going to stay.” I said as they all gave me odd looks. Kelley gave me a sympathetic smile as she then turned towards everyone.

“I’ll stay too.” She said as Christen and them gave us skeptical looks. They nodded as Christen gave me a look.

“Please don’t stay out too late. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“We won’t.” I said with a smile as she nodded her head. She turned and headed out with the other girls as Kelley turned towards me.

“You have it so bad that you are really about to blow your money on a game that is rigged against you to win a prize for a girl who I think already likes you back.”

“Shut up Kelley.” I said as I reached into my pocket for another dollar and handed to the guy. He smiled and gave me the balls as I got in position. I groaned when I missed all three shots. Kelley chuckled as she continued standing and watching me.

“I’m going to get some drinks. You want one?” I nodded my head as I reached back into my pocket for another dollar. He smiled at me as I continued trying. I cheered slightly when the last shot finally made it. I glanced up and frowned when I saw that to get the particular bear, I was eyeing you had to make all three shots.

I continued trying and eventually frowned when I realized I was out of dollars. I then moved to all change to in my wallet to make a dollar. The guy frowned a little when I handed him the change. I groaned when I missed the last shot as I looked at my phone. It had been an hour and a half of me trying. God, I am pathetic.

“Here you go.” Kelley said as I took the beer from her and started drinking it. I finished it pretty quickly as I tried to think of a new plan. “Are you out of money?”

“Yes.” I mumbled as the defender shot me a look of disbelief.

“(Y/N) you had like $25 when I left.” She said as I frowned.

“The bear…and Christen…” I said as the defender shook her head. She sighed and reached into her wallet. She had like $10 and a couple tens and twenties. I raised my eyebrow as she reached for the twenty.

“Do you have change?” The guy chuckled as he gave her $20 in ones that I had given him in exchange for her twenty. She gave me some money as we continued trying with her also now trying to increase our chances. We had got more alcohol in us so our accuracy was declining and I don’t really know how much time had passed but I was vaguely aware of some of the booths shutting down around us.

“Damn it!” Kelley yelled as my shot hit the ground instead of going into the basket. I groaned as I looked to the defender who shook her head. We were all out of money. “Fuck this game.”

“Yeah…” I mumbled as I looked at her for a moment. “Sorry…I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve bought me enough shit that we can call it even.” She said as I nodded my head.

“I got to close the booth guys.” The dude said as I nodded my head. I looked at my phone and sighed when I saw 1:30 am. Christen is going to kills us.

“Thanks for nothing dude.” Kelley said as I nodded. He chuckled looking at us with a sympathetic smile before sighing. He reached up for the bear I had been eyeing the whole time and held it out to me.

“You basically paid for it so…” he said as I took it from him. Kelley scowled as we said goodbye before heading back to the hotel. I had the bear clutched to my chest the whole way as we got to our floor. I said a quick goodbye to Kelley before heading to my own room.

I opened the door and walked in quietly hoping not to wake Christen but frowned when I saw the light on. She was looking at her phone but glanced up at me when she saw me enter the room. She gave me a small glare and I was already gearing myself up to be yelled at.

“Where have you been?” she asked crossing her arms as I stared at her.

“Carnival…” I mumbled as she I held out the bear to her. She frowned but her eyes widened a little as she recognized the bear.

“(Y/N)…what is this?”

“It’s for you…” I mumbled again as she took it from me. She smiled slightly and then stopped and stared at me.

“Did you spend the whole night trying to win this?” she asked as I avoided looking at her. She took a step towards me and softly grabbed my face so I would look at her.

“Maybe…Kelley helped…”

“How much money did you spend?” she asked as I shrugged too embarrassed to tell her the estimate of money we spent.

“I don’t know. I just wanted to win the bear for you.” I said as she smiled a little. She let go of me as she sat the bear on the bed.

“I love it.” She said as I smiled at her.

“You do?” I asked as she nodded her head.

“I do.” She said as she bit her lip. She then grabbed my face pulling me in for a kiss. For a moment, I was too shocked to respond before grabbing her hips and pulling her closer. Eventually, she pulled away resting her forehead on mine. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has done for me.”

“I like you a lot.” I mumbled but then stopped when I realized what I had said. She chuckled as she gave me another kiss.

“I like you too.” She said as I smiled at her.

“Well…that’s a relief.” I said as she giggled.

“Yeah…but we need to have a serious talk about your spending habits.” She said as I frowned. “In the morning though.”

“Okay…” I said confused as she gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Wait.”

“What?”

“Can I take you on a date?” she smiled softly before nodding her head.

“Yes you can take me on a date.” She said as I nodded my head.

“Solid.”

We got ready for bed before I laid down. I felt Christen get into the bed with me as I jumped slightly. She smiled as she cuddled into me. I moved to get comfortable as I wrapped my arms around her. This day has been exhausting but I don’t regret a single thing.

The End.

[dlwritings]

Got Your Six | Tom Holland | pt 2

series masterlist found here

general masterlist found here

pairing - mob!Tom x reader word count - 4,173 warnings - swearing, drinking, masturbation (f)

summary - April drags (Y/N) clubbing with her, Harrison, and Tom, and (Y/N) can’t even make it through the night.

(previous) (next)

Truth be told, I thought April would be over Harrison after she fucked him. I always forgot she wasn’t as familiar with one night stands as I was.

Not that I was familiar anymore. It had been a while.

April liked relationships, and it seemed like Harrison liked them too. The next day, Harrison dropped April off at our apartment about an hour before our shift at the cafe. She walked in all smiles with a bounce in her step. I had no idea how she was so awake so early in the morning. She always was. While I was grumbling good mornings to her until I had my cup of coffee, she was chatting as soon as she got out of bed. Just like every other morning, I rolled my eyes at her energy but smiled anyway. Seeing her happy always made me happy. I couldn’t help it.

“I take it you had a good night?” I asked her.

“The best!” she called back as she went into her bedroom. “Harrison’s so lovely, (Y/N). I really like him.”

April finished getting ready just in time for our shift, so we headed out and made our way down the street to the bakery. It was nice to live within walking distance of the place, and as long as we were together, neither of us minded the early morning walk through the streets of New York.

The first hour at the cafe was busy, as usual, but when there was a lull in customers, she dove right in to tell me about her night with Harrison. She spared me the details, which I appreciated, but she talked with such a glow that I knew she had a good time and that Harrison had treated her well.

When Harrison came in around noon with the intent to take her out for something to eat since our shift ended, I knew she was smitten. After two days? How? I was still iffy on how I felt about my gynecologist, and I had been seeing her for five years. April always did trust faster than I did.

For almost two weeks, I saw Harrison everyday. Often, because I saw Harrison, I saw Tom. Fucking Tom. I hated him. Him and his stupid button-up shirts and perfectly gelled hair and taut muscles and his annoying ass smirk. He would be the death of me, I knew.

Whenever Tom and Harrison came to the cafe, it was empty. If it wasn’t, it cleared out moments after they arrived. I couldn’t understand it. It was as if they had this magical power to make everyone around them vanish. Whatever it was, I hated it, because it meant I had no choice but to talk to Tom or look like a straight-up bitch. And I hated talking to Tom. He always made me mad, always called me sweetheart or babe or darling or princess or sweets. Who was he to call me pet names after insulting something about me?

“You need to make stronger coffee, princess.”

“Did you even warm up this muffin, sweets?”

“There’s too much ice in this, darling.”

Well I’m so sorry sir, I wanted to say to him. While I dump out all this coffee to brew a stronger pot, throw your muffin the microwave, and remove three ice cubes from your iced coffee, would you like me to shine your shoes or suck your dick?

The fucking nerve.

I made sure to support April though, because I was glad she was happy. And it really seemed like Harrison was treating her well. I just didn’t like that I had to suffer while she thrived. Yes, I considered spending time with Tom suffering.

Every waking moment with him made me want to blow my brains out. He was rude, arrogant, self-centered, and completely aggravating.

Then one day, Harrison came to the bakery on his own. It was the first time since he met us that he had done so, so it caught me a little off guard. “Hey, Harrison,” I said, giving him a smile. April was in the back getting a tray of muffins to replace the ones we had run out of at the counter. “Americano?” I asked.

“You know me so well,” he said back.

“You ever thought about trying something new?” I asked as he handed me a five dollar bill.

“Why ruin what’s already perfect?” he joked. I rolled my eyes and handed him his change. “Isn’t April in today?” he asked.

“She’s in the back,” I said. “She’ll be out in a minute.” The next question fell from my lips before I could second guess it. “Where’s Tom?”

Harrison grinned and ran his hand through his hair. “Missing him already?” he asked. “We were just here yesterday.”

“No,” I said, furrowing my eyebrows as I prepped his coffee. “I don’t miss him at all. Just surprised you’re not together. I’m still not entirely convinced you’re not gay lovers.”

Harrison laughed. “Surprisingly, that’s not the first time we’ve heard that.”

“Oh, I’m not surprised at all,” I said. I handed him his mug of coffee just as April came out from the back. “Harrison!” she said, her face lighting up. She put the tray of muffins down and ran around the counter. She threw her arms around him and pressed a kiss to his lips, making me fake gag. They pulled away from each other, and April rolled her eyes. “Don’t you have to be a buzzkill somewhere else?” she asked.

“Not until my shift ends,” I said, giving them both a smirk. 

“Speaking of the end of your shift,” Harrison spoke up. “I was wondering if you ladies wanted to go out clubbing tonight.”

At the same time that I said, “No thanks,” April said, “Of course.”

We both looked at each other as Harrison chuckled. “Tom’ll be there, too,” he said. “If that helps.”

“Oh actually, that does help,” I said. “That turns my no thanks into a hell no.” April groaned and gave Harrison a tight-lipped smile.

“Give me two minutes to talk to her, yeah?” she said. Harrison smiled and nodded, then walked to the other side of the cafe where he sat at a table and drank his coffee while scrolling through his phone.

“April, I’m not going!” I said as soon as we were alone.

“You know I’ll tell-”

“I don’t even care about Chris,” I told her. “Tell Mom and Dad. Whatever. I can’t stand another minute with Tom.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

“Oh, I will be so dramatic!” I huffed back.

“(Y/N) I’m begging you,” April whined.

“Why can’t you and Harrison just go alone?” I asked. “Why does Tom even have to go with us?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “He once told me that one of them doesn’t go to a club without the other. It’s some dumb bro thing. And if you don’t go, you’re going to make Tom third wheel.”

“Tom third wheeling is not my problem,” I said with a shrug. “And anyway, are you sure they’re not gay? I mean, they’re attached at the hip.”

“Oh, I’m positive they’re not gay.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“Gross!” I said, giving her arm a playful shrug.

“You started it,” she laughed. I rolled my eyes. “Please (Y/N).”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“(Y/N).”

“April.”

April groaned and put her hands on her forehead. “I’ll pay you,” she said. “I’ll do anything. You can half my paycheck for three weeks. I’ll, I’ll do the dishes for a month. Two months. I’ll do your laundry.”

I took a deep breath and let it out through my nose, letting my eyes wander to Harrison. He was talking on the phone now, still not looking in our direction. “Why does this mean so much to you?” I asked.

“Because I really like him,” she said, her voice lowering a bit. “And I like hanging out with him. And I haven’t been clubbing in a while, and I’d really like to go. With him.” I groaned and threw my head back. It was hard. I knew April liked to socialize, and I knew our budgets didn’t exactly allow for clubbing and nights out. If she had the opportunity to get drunk and go dancing with Harrison for free, who was I to stand in her way?

“Fine!” I caved. “Fine. But I won’t have any fun.” I looked over at Harrison. He was off the phone. “And Harrison!” I called. He looked over at us and smiled. “You have to buy all my drinks. Lord knows you can afford it.”

“Yay!” April cheered, throwing her arms around me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Awesome,” Harrison said, walking over to us with a smile.

“I’ll pick your outfit,” April told me. “Don’t even worry about it.”

“Do you not think I’m capable of doing that myself?”

“No, I don’t.”

Around 6:30 that evening, we both started to get ready. For me, April picked out a lace, bodycon, burgundy dress- one that we both knew usually made boys fall at my feet. “You’ve got something up your sleeve for me tonight?” I yelled through the apartment as I slid on my dress.

“I just want you to keep your options open!” she called back. “You gotta look your best in case you meet the one. Or just a one.”

She came into my room wearing a mauve bodycon dress, her hair curled, and her hairspray in hand. “Are all my curls good?” she asked, spinning around for me to inspect her look. I nodded, so she sprayed each hair into place. We were both ready to go by 8:00. I asked April what time we had to meet Harrison and Tom. “They’re picking us up,” she told me, looking at her phone. I groaned, and she rolled her eyes, not even looking up from her device. “And why does that upset you?”

“Because,” I huffed, “I’m going to get dropped off at the end of the night like a loser and you’re going to go back and have sex with Harrison.”

“Or you could meet a really great guy at the club and not need us to give you a ride at all,” April said. She locked her phone and smiled at me. “They’re here. Get your party face on.”

“I don’t have a party face.”

“Well you could at least pretend.”

The boys arrived in the Porsche, and Tom was driving. Harrison got out as soon as he saw us and opened the car door. He gave April us both hugs, April a kiss on the lips, and me a kiss on the cheek. I was flustered by his manners. Was his greeting abnormal, or had it really been that long since I met a decent man? I figured it was a bit of both. Tom, as expected, sat silently in the driver’s seat. “You girls both look lovely tonight,” Harrison said as he slid back into the driver’s seat.

“Doesn’t (Y/N) just look amazing?” April said, a teasing smirk on her face. “She says she hates going out, but you’d never tell by looking at her.”

“You look great, (Y/N),” Harrison said with a chuckle. “I mean, you couldn’t hold a candle to April, but-” I couldn’t help but laugh as April slapped his arm.

“Charming,” I said.

“Tom, doesn’t (Y/N) look nice?” Harrison asked, nudging Tom in the arm. Tom hummed in response and pulled onto the street.

“Don’t bother, Harrison,” I said sarcastically. “I think Tom is allergic to kindness.”

“Am I that obvious, babe?” Tom said, looking at me through the rearview mirror. I just rolled my eyes, folded my arms across my chest, and leaned back into my seat.

When we got to the club, we were let in right away, despite the line out front. “How did you do that?” April asked Harrison, hooking her arm with his.

“Who said real estate didn’t help make good connections?” he said, kissing the top of her head. She smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder as the four of us walked into the club. April might’ve been charmed, but I was suspicious.

“Do you guys own the place or something?” I asked.

“Or something,” Tom said. I knew I wouldn’t get any farther, and frankly I didn’t care enough to press, so I just turned to Harrison and April.

“You owe me a drink, Haz,” I said. “I told April you were buying tonight.”

“Haz?” he repeated, a grin on his face. “Where’d you hear that from?” I jabbed my thumb in Tom’s direction even though he was already at the bar away from us. Harrison just laughed and nodded. “As you wish. What’re you drinking?”

“Tequila lemonade?”

“You got it.”

April joined him to get the drinks while I sat alone on a couch in the area of the club they left me in. The music was loud and there were sweaty bodies everywhere dancing and grinding against each other. I people watched, as usual. Everyone was dressed for a night out- tight dresses and button-up shirts. As my eyes scanned the room, I swore I saw the same three men in a corner booth that I had seen when April and I were out to eat with Harrison and Tom a few weeks ago. I figured I must’ve been imagining it, and when they looked in my direction I looked away.

Tom made his way over to me before Harrison and April did. He handed me a drink, and I raised my eyebrows at him. “Harrison told me to give it to you,” he said.

“Oh did he?” I said. “And how do I know you didn’t drug it?” He seemed to tense the minute the words left my mouth, but I convinced myself I was wrong.

“And what would I get out of drugging your drink?” he asked. “How would that benefit me at all?”

“Look, I don’t know what sick twisted motives you have,” I said. “I’m still not entirely convinced you’re not a psychopathical rapist.”

“Okay,” Tom said slowly. “We don’t have time to unpack all of that.” I scoffed. “First, I’m pretty sure psychopathical isn’t a word. Second, I’m way more interested in fucking girls who want to fuck me back, which-” He motioned around the room. “-aren’t hard for me to find.”

“You know,” I said, “if you don’t want me to think you’re an asshole, it might help if you stopped fitting the stereotype of one.”

“Oh, I don’t care if you think I’m an asshole, sweets,” he said, sipping from his drink. I scoffed and finally took a large gulp of my drink.

“I’m going to ask you something.” I figured it was better to tell him rather than ask for permission. He seemed interested, his eyebrows raising in curiosity. “Why don’t you and Harrison ever go to clubs alone?”

“How do you know we don’t go to clubs alone?” Tom asked.

“April told me it’s a thing,” I said. “She told me it’s a bro thing.” Tom scoffed and took another drink from his glass.

“When you’ve had as many bad nights out as we have, you sort of develop a system,” he said.

“Oh?” I said. “What kind of bad nights?”

He chuckled dryly. “Sweetheart, you don’t even want to know.” I rolled my eyes.

“You're so dramatic,” I said. Tom just chuckled, and I took a long drink from my glass and scanned the crowd. Harrison and April were already dancing together, which made me sigh and bring the drink up to my lips again.

As much as I liked to argue with April and tell her I was content alone, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy when I watched her. Maybe companionship would be nice. Also my vibrator could not replace the real thing, and I hadn’t picked up a decent guy in ages. I gave up on Tinder as soon as the sexy 26-year-old ended up being a 43-year-old hooked on cocaine. The 40-something-year-old I could handle. The lying and drugs were not my thing. Plus, I hadn’t been out clubbing in a while -not able to afford the lifestyle- so I didn’t exactly frequent any spaces popular for hook-ups.

I finished my drink and headed over to the bar to get another one, leaving Tom without a word. The bartender put my drink on Harrison’s tab, and I sat at the counter and drank it as quickly as I could. I wanted to get drunk, and I wanted to get drunk fast.

I wasn’t someone who got drunk often. Again, it wasn’t exactly a habit I could afford. All I knew was that when I was drunk, I was happy, way more carefree, and a hell of a good dancer. Or at least I had the confidence to pretend to be a good dancer. Once my drink was gone, I made my way to the crowd of people dancing and started to move to the music. I didn’t have a care in the world. As I was dancing, I let my eyes scan the crowd for potential males. Some men were staring at me, others too wrapped up in other girls to pay me any attention.

One man specifically caught my eye. He was one of the guys I had seen in the corner of the club who had looked like someone from the restaurant. He was tall, brown-haired, and had a short beard on his face. In one hand he gripped his glass, and the other was rubbing his chin as he stared at me. He wore black slacks and a black and white striped button-up loosely tucked in. I noticed an expensive watch gleaming on his wrist. Who cares if he was probably ten years older than me? I was alone, horny, and feeling him.

Just as I was about to approach him, I felt a pair of hands on my hips. Before I could turn to snap at the man who had the audacity to touch me, his lips were by my ear. “You’re not gonna want to go for that one, petal,” Tom muttered.

“And why would I listen to you?” I asked. I probably should’ve moved out of his grasp, but something about his hands on my hips made me continue dancing. I blamed the alcohol.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he said. “But you’ll just have to trust me on this one.”

“How do I know you’re not just trying to steer me away from all the guys and take me for yourself?”

Tom scoffed. “Like I said, doll. I’m not a fan of the chase. I’m much more interested in girls who fall at my feet.” He chuckled. “Preferably to their knees.” He paused, his breath fanning my neck. Did I tilt my head to show him more skin? No, of course not. I wasn’t that drunk. Right? “Would you get on your knees for me, (Y/N)?” 

“I-” I let out a sigh, almost positive I felt his lips ghost across my skin. “I can’t fucking stand you.”

Tom laughed, and I felt one of his hands slide from my hip to my thigh. “Just because you can’t stand,” he taunted, “doesn’t mean you can’t kneel. Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t suck my cock. Wouldn’t beg for it. Just like all the others. You’re no better than the other girls, (Y/N). Don’t try to tell yourself otherwise.”

“I would never beg for you,” I said, trying to blink away my buzz. “I don’t beg for men I hate. And I hate you.”

“Believe me,” he said, a slight growl in his voice. “The feeling is mutual. I find you absolutely infuriating.”

“The way you’re asking me to suck your dick says otherwise,” I said.

“Oh, I’m not asking,” he said. “I never ask.”

“Is that supposed to turn me on?” I asked. “Because you’re basically telling me you never ask for consent.” Tom’s grip on my hips tightened.

“That’s not what I meant,” he muttered, “and you know it.”

Tom suddenly pulled away from me, so I finally turned to look at him. Honestly, I thought we were just bantering in the annoyed fashion that we both do, but he seemed actually angry. I sure as hell wasn't going to apologize, but I wondered what I had said that made a flip switch. “I’m bored,” I said to him, rolling my eyes. “And you’re a buzzkill.” I put my hand on his chest as I started to walk past him. “Tell April I’m ubering home it you see her.”

“I’m not your fucking messenger,” he said.

“Jesus,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Whatever. I’ll do it myself.”

I left Tom alone on the dance floor and found April, shouting to her over the music that I was heading back to our apartment. “Are you sure?” she asked, stepping away from Harrison. “We’ve hardly been here more than an hour.”

“I’m not feeling it,” I said, steadying myself by holding onto her shoulder.

“You had a lot to drink?” she teased.

“I put it all on Harrison’s tab,” I said. She just rolled her eyes, and I noticed Harrison smirk. “Okay,” I said, clapping her on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go. Harrison-” I clapped him on the shoulder too. “-take care of my sister.”

“Always,” Harrison chuckled. They both waved me off, so I stumbled through the club and headed outside. The Uber I ordered arrived within minutes, and I got home within a half hour. Once I was at the apartment, I stumbled inside and to my room, kicking off my shoes as I went along. I fell onto my bed, laying on my back in the middle of the mattress. I was annoyed, crabby, and so fucking horny. The whole ride home, all I could think about was-

“Stupid Tom,” I muttered to myself, tossing and turning as I laid above the covers. “Stupid Tom and his stupid, stupid fucking everything.”

His stupid face.

His stupid arms.

His stupid hands.

His stupid lips.

His stupid ass.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I pushed my dress over my hips and tugged my underwear down my legs, then reached into my nightstand and grabbed my vibrator. I was already wet. Truthfully, I had been ever since Tom touched me at the club. I was angry turned on, surely. That was a thing, right? I didn’t like him. In fact, he made me absolutely furious, but I would be lying to the world if I said I didn’t find him sexy as hell. But he made me so mad. Telling me not to go after guys. Acting like he had some magical dick.

His stupid dick. Probably big and thick and-

I turned my vibrator on the lowest setting and started teasing my clit, then moved it across my juices before easily sliding it in me. I bit my lip to stop myself from moaning and thought about Tom’s hands and how they gripped me on the dance floor, wondering how it would feel to have him gripping them as he pounded into me from behind, his lips dragging across the back of my neck, and his fingers rubbing my clit. I turned the vibrator up a setting and dragged it across my clit.

“Shit,” I muttered, using my other hand to grip my hair. I pushed the vibrator into me then, imagining how much bigger Tom’s cock probably was. Imagining him fucking me for making one too many annoying comments to him. Calling him sir in the bedroom. Letting him mark me however he wanted. Letting him claim me as his. Fucking me wherever he wanted to. Touching me in public, telling me not to make a sound but secretly wanting me to so he could punish me for it later.

“Oh, Tom!” I called out, digging my head into the mattress. “Fuck!”

I turned around onto my stomach, moving my hips against the vibrator, chasing my release. My moans were muffled by my pillow, and I could feel myself getting closer and closer. I pictured Tom slamming into me from behind, spanking my ass until I came all over his cock, then him having me suck him off and swallow what he gave me. I turned the vibrator to the highest setting and pressed it to my clit, feeling my legs shake as I came and collapsed onto the bed.

I turned off the vibrator and laid on my bed, taking a moment to catch my breath. I seemed to sober up after that, realization hitting me that I just gave myself one of the best orgasms to the thought of Tom. I sighed in annoyance and got out of bed, hoping to wash off the shame in the shower.

“I fucking hate him.”

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

TAGLIST

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[fatathlon]

IRONMAN 70.3 Indian Wells – La Quinta – Race Recap

* A video version of this race recap can be found on my YouTube channel here.

A triathlon is a game of contradiction.

You spend hours, weeks, months training for something that lasts moments of your life. Improve at one sport by mastering three. Train slower to race faster. Race slower to race faster. Do it alone, surrounded by people. Never see a finish line as the end.

One of the most challenging contradictions is the trap of identity. To do well, you have to immerse yourself in training for long periods of time. It can become you; consume you. And then what is objectively a meaningless act of physical exertion assumes a station in your life that it never deserved. And you are left with nothing but finish times and medals, to gather dust because nobody cares.

I thought about these contradictions a lot during my training for my first Ironman 70.3 race in Indian Wells – La Quinta California. It seemed fitting in this vein of contradiction that I would train in the cold and snow in order to race in the warm desert. I hoped that by recognizing the contradictions inherent in what I was doing, I could avoid that most challenging trap, and come away with an experience, rather than just another race.

After Musselman in July, I took a break for a few weeks, and then started training again. I had a few minor injuries, which were challenging, but for the most part my training was consistent. I did some bike fitting and got a set of aerobars on my bike. Winter arrived early in Vermont; we had snow on the ground before Thanksgiving. So most of my riding was indoors. I ran outside as much as I could. And weather doesn’t matter in the pool, of course.

Swimming was a major area of focus for me this fall. I got a second swim analysis and really worked on my technique. I was able to take another ten seconds off my 100-yard time, and by December I was swimming faster on average than I ever had.

I had also been trying to eat smarter, both to be healthier and to drop extra weight. With the help of a friend, I definitely had some success here, though it added some stress to our family routine. Kids like what they like.

I was a little concerned about flying my bike to California, because I had only done it once before and I didn’t have to assemble it myself when I arrived that time. So I broke it down and packed it up at the bike shop so I could get guidance with questions that I had and hands-on help from Darren, my friend who owns Vermont Bicycle Shop. I felt a lot more confident once it was all ready to go.

The flights were pretty uneventful, and we made it to San Diego in one piece — including my bike. One of the first things I did was put it back together; I wanted to make sure I would have enough time to solve any problems that came up. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any and the assembly went pretty smoothly.

The Catamount, my custom Orbea Terra, ready to ride

We spent a few days with my brother’s family in San Diego, hiking at Torrey Pines and playing on the beach. It was a nice way to get acclimated to the environment. It wasn’t as warm as I thought it would be, but it definitely was a lot warmer than Vermont. Locals on the beach were dressed in winter coats and hats, but our girls thought it was the perfect weather for swimming in the Pacific.

Before long it was time to drive to Indian Wells. The amazing scenery on that drive took us all by surprise. We stopped for a moment but the day before the race was very busy so there wasn’t a lot of time for sight-seeing.

After getting the family settled at the hotel, I had my first Ironman athlete check-in experience and got to see the pro panel, which included the eventual race winners Lionel Sanders and Paula Findlay. I checked my run gear in to T2, a little overwhelmed by the enormity of the transition area. Then it was time for a half-hour drive to the swim start and T1, to see the swim course, check in my bike and decontaminate my wetsuit before hanging it on the racks where it would stay until race morning. I made sure to mark it well so I wouldn’t have any trouble finding it.

My day would have gone quite differently if it hadn’t been for my teammate Lacy. She and her husband gave me a lift to the shuttle buses, which was already a great help by itself, but when she mentioned her water bottles I realized I had forgotten something at the hotel. Specifically, all of my hydration. It was still sitting in my refrigerator. They drove me back so I could retrieve them and I was so grateful. Luckily we were up early enough that it didn’t affect our day — we got on a bus with no waiting and were off to the start area.

I knew the water would be cold. The reported temperature that morning was just under 59 degrees. There was no warm-up swim. We stood in line at the rolling start for a long time before finally getting into the water. And then, finally, after everything, I was racing.

The first one or two hundred meters were tough. I was hyperventilating from the shock of the water temperature and struggling to relax and find my rhythm. I expected that, but it didn’t make it any easier. Finally I settled in, though, and found my zone. It was clear pretty quickly that I should have seeded myself further forward; nobody around me was actually swimming at the pace they lined up for. I was crawling over people all the way. My goggles half-filled with water but I ignored it since I could still see. When I finally crawled out of the lake, I had a personal best time of 34 minutes. By my watch, I had swum ten seconds per 100 yards faster than my first 70.3 in July.

As I mounted my bike, I readied myself mentally to face the biggest contradiction of the day. I had programmed the wattage target my coach and I agreed on into my bike computer, and I was going to stick to that number like superglue. The paradox of my plan was that the number was low. It was lower than I had expected. It was lower than it was at my first 70.3, and it was low relative to my power profile. It was so low that it meant I’d be doing what amounted to a zone 2 ride for the entirety of the bike leg.

The plan was predicated on the knowledge that the course was pancake flat, and that triathlons succeed or fail on the run. We would conserve energy on the bike, allowing my inertia to do most of the work, and hopefully get off the bike with enough in the tank to really drop the hammer.

So what the bike ended up being was a test of patience, rather than fitness. My heart rate stayed low, peaking only at the very start during the excitement of transition and climbing a tiny hill out of transition. I spent a lot of the time focused on avoiding drafting as much as I could, but it was pretty difficult considering that the roads were absolutely packed with riders. That forced me to surge occasionally, but it was okay because the course was so flat.

The first 20 miles flew by so fast that I was actually surprised when I saw the mile marker sign. At 30 miles I felt no worse; very comfortable and just cruising along. It was a strong contrast to my last race, where the 30 mile marker saw me doing pretty solid work. I began to get excited about the paradoxical plan as evidence in its favor continued to build. That naturally inclined me to want to push harder, but I redoubled my efforts to stay focused and in my target zone.

The highlight of the bike course by far was the Thermal Raceway, which is a private racetrack for cars that we got to ride around on. My watts went up on that section for sure, but it was a match that was worth burning. It’s a unique experience to ride your bike around a banked track with perfect pavement, designed for million dollar super cars. I had a lot of fun there.

The rest of the course was technically uphill but the gradient was so gradual, I barely noticed. I rode into T2 just 2 watts over my target. My family was cheering at the dismount line, which was a nice boost going into the start of my run.

After racking my bike and strapping on my running shoes, I started out on the final leg, to see if the contradictions would be resolved. Here I was, running in the heat and sun after training for months in the cold and snow. Here I was, having biked slowly on purpose to see if I could do a faster race. And here I was, after weeks of training at a jog, pushing my legs to go fast, and stay fast.

I have always run fast out of transition, because it takes a mile or two before my legs really feel normal and I can tell how my body is actually doing. At my first 70.3, I slowed that pace after the first aid station, feeling that I would have to conserve energy to make it through the run without shutting down. This day, though, I felt strong. I felt no such impending decline. I felt like I could hold the pace. So I didn’t slow down.

The run followed asphalt roads for a couple of miles before turning off onto a golf course, where it tracked around the greens on a winding, undulating path that was a mix of concrete, dirt and grass. There were no long straightaways, no places to hide from the course. It was highly dynamic and constantly changing.

A conclusion I had drawn from my first 70.3 was that I had been underfueled. This time, I ate and drank everything I could get my hands on during the run. I think I probably ate two or three whole bananas, a half at a time, plus several gels and all the coke, gatorade and red bull I could grab. I didn’t slow down during the aid stations; I didn’t want to lose my inertia. At one point I took a cup of ice, dumped it in my hat and packed it onto my head. The contrasts had never been more stark — at home I had been wearing winter hats to keep the snow off my head; today, I was deliberately packing ice onto my scalp.

It was a two-lap course which meant that I had to run agonizingly close to the finish line at around mile seven, only to have to turn around and do the entire thing one more time. Now I knew what to expect, though, and I knew where to push and where I could relax. Now all I had to do was hold my pace.

When the second lap of the course started to beat me, I focused on my family, waiting for me at the finish, and steeled myself in the resolve to make this all worth it. What was the point of asking so much of them, to support my training, to spend an entire day of our vacation standing around, if I didn’t make it worth it? I wasn’t going to slow down for anything.

The last couple of miles were hard and my pace started to slip a little bit, but I was still moving faster than I had ever really expected. I found my family just before the finish line, gave everybody high-fives, and then took it over the line. It was a personal best by a long margin, with personal records in every part of the race. I almost couldn’t believe it, but there it was.

If there’s one thing I learned from this race experience, it’s that you can’t always see contradictions as obstacles. Sometimes, they are puzzle pieces in a larger pattern that you can’t fully recognize until you’ve put it all together. You can’t always resist the things that don’t make sense; sometimes, you have to lean into them, make them part of your plan and see them through to the end. And that’s when you can find clarity.

We closed out our trip with a drive through Joshua Tree National Park, marveling at the natural beauty of the desert before boarding our plane to fly back into winter. With California behind us, it was time to look forward to a new year, and new contradictions.

Watch the video version of this race recap:

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[sophocused]

uni recap 2019

I think it's really important for young studyblrs still in high school or junior high to be exposed to more detailed and honest uni experience anecdotes, so buckle up because it’s about to get real honest and a little personal in here.

I'm in the middle of the fall term of my second uni year, technically now in the 2nd year of my general B.Sc. and I need to start from the beginning a little bit, especially when it comes to my academic journey so far.

Let's start with junior high, when adults always want to ask what you want to be when you grow up. After going to a career symposium with friends, a field trip run by the school, that's when I heard about the College of Pharmacy at the "top" university of the province.

First thing that attracted me was that they make an annual $100k a year, and to my 14 year old impressionable mind that was convinced that my future had to revolve around making bank, I decided from there that I would work towards the end goal of becoming a pharmacist.

I was convinced that pharmacy was the ultimate goal to get my life going, as a real functioning adult of society.

Fortunately, I was wrong. It was a hard pill to swallow, but a necessary one nonetheless.

Since this is an academic recap, I won't bring up the mental health and physical health bits of the last eight years of my life, I'll fastforward to high school senior year, when I decided I would (as a minimal effort-get straight A's student) actually TRY in my studies again. It was because my work ethic had grown to a point that when I didn't try and still got a B or A, I was scared of the moment I would actually try and then not get an A or A+. I wanted to fight that fear of realizing that I'm not "effortlessly good at thngs" because I didnt want to have a fear of failure.

(Disclaimer: it's been three years since then and I'm still a work in progress when it comes to my relationship with failures but it is getting consistently healthier, despite bumps)

Thus, I started this studyblr three years ago, June 30th 2016 I believe?? My url was chemystery for the first few days but sophocused came up because of sophocles (not that hes my fave philosopher or anything) it just stuck ANYWAY IM GETTING DISTRACTED

So I actually tried in my last year of high school, worked hard and got A's in physics, pre-calculus, and AP chemistry. The AP chemistry came with a provincial exam, that in getting a score of 4, granted me a $150 reward, and the grade of a B in two university courses (2 chem prerequisites)

I was a fool and no one exactly explained to me that those 2 courses were even harder when taught through uni, because I really wasted nearly $1000 in taking those two courses again in my first year of uni, in hopes of turning them into A's.

I should probably mention that going into uni, the pharmacy program had 2 chem, 2 bio, 1 calc, 1 written course, and 2 electives, as prerequisites. My innocent mind, thinking it wouldn't be a big deal, registered for a full five and five course load, so that I could finish all my prerequisites within my first year of uni, and apply for the college of pharmacy by March. (Back then, it was still a Bachelor's program where selection process depended on your AGPA, and your mark on a written critical skills essay)

I learned the hard way that for university, it is a mentally and emotionally laborious task to try and juggle five classes, having to hold yourself accountable when it comes to attendance and figuring out what notes you want to take. There's no way to write physical hand-written notes for five courses (not for me anyway).

It was incredibly fast-paced as well, and I had many days where I just didn't want to get out of bed. I was so conflicted with my perfectionist mindset, and the pressure to get a 4.0 GPA that I spread myself so thin and honestly it was one of the most difficult years of my life. I still got out with 8 B's and 2 A's by the end of my first year. I was ashamed of those B's.

When it came to applying for pharmacy however, despite the grades I got, my GPA didn't make it to the minimum 3.50 needed to be applicable for pharmacy, but I got my transcript a month after I had already applied for pharmacy and I had even done the written exam.

I had to face my first big failure which was getting the email that they couldnt even look over or consider my application because my GPA did not reach the minimum required.

On top of that, I learned that I could not just simply try again the next year. This was because suddenly, the university decided they were going to change the Bachelors pharmacy program into a PharmD. A doctorate. To me, that meant they added eight more prerequisites (even more difficult uni courses with chem and human phys), and a required PCAT score. We also were not allowed to apply until Fall 2020. That meant, I now suddenly had no plan for my academic career for the next two years because I had really only ever thought about getting into pharmacy on the first try.

After a breakdown or two last year upon processing this, I had made the decision and talked to my parents about trying for it again, and doing the new prerequisites. This brought in the new mental turmoil of money on my mind during my summer after first year of uni, thousands of dollars this would cost, suddenly having no routine for four months after working at max brain capacity for 6 months.

My 2nd year of uni, fall 2018, a lot of growing had happened, a lot of processing of failure happened, just. a lot. happened.

October 2018, I got a job at a school, so I really juggled my school stuff with work. Five days a week, I would be up at 6-7am and then get home around 6:30pm, while doing human physiology, organic chemistry 1, an eastern religions elective, and an intro to statistics course.

long story short, yes I must spare you the details of the process of it all because it got pretty sad. That was my worst uni term, ending with 1 B, 1 C+, 1 C, and an F in organic chem.

My first F in university. My first F ever in my entire school life. It was a begrudging blow at my mental state, and I spent two to three weeks devastated. I dont know how I got out of it, I think one day I just said to myself, "Okay you got an F, but did you die?"

Honestly, the humour in that really cheered me up, among other things, and the emotional support I got from my older sister, and by the time I got into the 2nd half of my uni year (right now), I have discovered I potentially have a calling to become a teacher or to work in the lab as a technician.

Most importantly, most if not all of the credits I've earned, are also applicable to get into the Faculty of Education. Basically, I came to peace with having options, and digging deep into myself to really find the thing that I could really see myself doing based on my personality and interests, not just on the money and the rush of finishing school.

I just finished the longest midterm season of winter 2019, with my first midterm being early February and my last midterm + essay deadline on March 15th... I did well. I did well in trying to really take care of myself while trying to go to every class and trying to work hard as much as I could everyday. I think out of my many midterms, I got 1 A, 4 B's, and a C. These are all salvageable. I do still really want to keep working towards a 4.5 GPA but now I'm okay if that doesnt always turn out to be what I get.

Anyway I finally get to write something like this because I've been busy for the past month, a lot of things happened again in the midst of it all, but I'm still okay. I get a week to rest before my lab exam and then it's finals season.

This time, I'll try hard not to just let my life pass me by, with only ever school and academics in mind, I had gotten really sad these past few weeks, and I'm usually good at being my own antidote for that, but I really got to a point where I felt I had no strength to pick myself back up.

Last night I said "fuck it" and decided to go to my cousin's house who I hadn't seen in over a month to spend time with them instead of working on my 30% essay due midnight. Before I was so desperate to finish it, terrified of the 2% deduction per day it would be late, but after crying on the bus, I had had enough of letting my academics bring this much weight on my mental health. After spending four hours with my cousins and aunt, I came home to my mom, and I watched a two hour movie with her.

I didn't regret it one bit. I felt better than I had in a long, long while.

Now, this Friday, my grandma and other cousin are flying in, and I cant wait to just keep healing.

Thank you for reading, or scanning over, I hope you got something good out of this, as I am telling this story both for my sake, and for other students’ who might commonly find themselves in the same boat. I believe in you.

[adventuresofamodernscholar]

**Disclosure** I wrote this entire post in order to avoid making my presentation for a conference…and forgot to finish it until about 18 months later. So everything that refers to “this week” or “in a few days” happened over a year ago. I am the world’s worst procrastinator.

  Phew! I am exhausted!

A few weeks ago I decided to quit my day job, so I have been nothing more than a full time graduate student for the past month or so. While I am looking for another (less stressful) job, my days have been pretty unstructured and open; somehow I cannot remember having had a minute of free time this month, though, so maybe I haven’t been as free as I seem to think…. hmm.

Anyway, a big chunk of my time this month has been dedicated to working on building my CV in preparation for applying to PhD programs next summer. I have been studying for my GRE exams, submitting papers and abstracts for publication and conferences, and, of course, I have been working hard on my schoolwork and preparing presentations for conferences for which I have already been accepted.

A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to present virtually at a conference in India, but this past weekend I had my first in-person presentation at an academic conference; it was simultaneously the most exciting and most terrifying moment in my academic career so far. I was so nervous, especially since I had no idea what to expect, what to wear, or how I would be able to afford to go! I spent an unreasonable amount of time delving through obscure sites trying to find some solid information about these conferences, so I wanted to create a helpful post for other young academics with the same questions that I had. I hope this is helpful!

What to Wear

For some reason, this was one of the most stressful parts of my preparations; I had no idea what to wear to an academic conference! I tried searching a variety of websites geared towards academics, but there is almost nothing out there on the subject. Even my trusty friend, Pinterest, had an overwhelmingly diverse array of results for “academic conference outfits” (although there are some cute ideas, hence the link). I did find one very useful piece of advice, though, in the bowels of an internet Q&A page: “don’t be the jerk who shows up in a full suit”.

Considering the fact that I was thinking about splurging on a new suit for this conference, I was beyond grateful for this piece of advice.

Eventually, I settled on a crisp new cardigan, black slacks, and a nice blouse, and I would certainly say that I fit in with what everyone else was wearing. I was actually surprised to see that I was among the better-dressed attendees.

  While at this point I can only speak for my experience at one conference, I can recommend something similar for other first-time conference presenters. You want to look nice and professional, but there is no need to go out and buy a full suit. However, despite the fact that I did see several people wearing more casual outfits, I would not recommend going the t-shirt and jeans route either. As a young academic, you have a lot to prove, and looking professional (but not like you are trying too hard) will really help you to look and feel confident and competent.

*update* as a now-veteran conference attendee (I have attended about a dozen conferences in the past 18 months) I can attest that something business casual, like what I wore to my first conference is perfect. I have seen people wear jeans and a nice shirt to conferences, but I think that this is best left for days when you are simply an audience member, rather than a presenter.

How to Pay

A few weeks ago, when I made the decision to quit my job, I did a quick audit of how much I could expect to spend on the conferences to which I have been accepted (I have a total of 7 within a 9 month period), and I was shocked to see that between travel, hotels, and conference fees, I was looking at several thousands of dollars in expenses. The average academic conference costs about $300 to attend and, apart from the conference that I am attending this weekend in DC, I will need to travel for each conference, staying out of town and/or abroad for several days for each.

I reached out to one of my professors/mentors for advice, and boy am I glad that I did! While his first suggestion (asking the department for funding) was unsuccessful, his second suggestion (taking my request to the Dean of my school) resulted in a huge financial relief. While I will not be able to fully fund my conferences through my school, I will be able to receive significant financial assistance.

Before you begin attending conferences, find out if your program or school is willing and able to financially assist students who are planning to attend conferences. If not (or if you need more assistance than your school provides), you can also apply to a number of scholarships for graduate students, which you can put towards your conference expenses. One of my favorite resources is ScholarshipOwl, but there are plenty of free lists out there with some potentially really helpful scholarships.

What to Bring

Business Cards – If you do not have any yet, have some made ASAP! I did not remember to bring any with me to UF, and I instantly regretted this lapse when I began connecting with other speakers. You will meet so many interesting and important people in your field at these conferences, and you want to make sure that they can contact you (and you them) afterwards. *NOTE* make sure that you collect cards from the people you meet and EMAIL THEM ASAP. You may make some valuable connections and you want to reinforce them before you become just another card in their wallet.

Extra Copies of Your Presentation – I have been using Prezi lately for my presentations and, even though it is a beautiful presentation program, I tend to get very stressed out when it is time to present because, with my free account, I cannot put my presentations on a flashdrive. I am thinking that, as I begin attending more conferences, I may need to shell out and pay for the upgrade that will allow me to save a copy of my presentations separately from the website. All that is to say, if you are smarter than me, you should have multiple copies on hand of your presentation, just in case there is an issue. I recommend, at the very least, emailing yourself a copy and having a copy available on a flashdrive, in case either copy does not work. I also recommend printing several copies of your script (if you are using one), in case one gets lost, damaged, etc. Murphy’s Law.

A Buddy – If possible, it is great to have a buddy there with you when you present, especially if that person is in your field. Not only will their presence help with emotional support as you put yourself out there, but it is also helpful to have someone in the audience who you can rely on to ask a question during the Q&A session. Of course this is not always possible, and only really applies to your first experience to help you through your jitters. I had my boyfriend with me for my first conference and, though I luckily did not need him to fill an awkward silence after my presentation, it was such a comfort to have him there silently cheering me on. When you are putting yourself and your work out there to be judged, it helps to know that someone in the audience believes in you.

What to Expect

I honestly had no idea what to expect before my first conference. My imagination pictured any and every possible scenario, from a huge lecture hall filled with peers, to a tiny classroom with two other people in it. In reality, I found myself in a seminar room with about 20 audience members of various academic backgrounds; about half were PhD students, about a quarter were faculty, and the remainder were a mix of undergraduates and family/friends of presenters.

What really surprised me was the relaxed nature of the conference. There was a set schedule, but everything seemed to be very casual and nonchalant; no one was concerned when the projector issues interrupted the schedule, or when one presenter was late so the schedule had to be moved around. It definitely took the pressure off to realize that the people presenting and listening were just people who were there to learn and teach, without making a show of professional superiority.

How to Prepare

Whatever you do, do not be like me. As I am writing this post, I am supposed to be writing my presentation for my next conference (which is happening less than two days from now), and I am procrastinating like you would not believe. The funny thing is, just a few days ago I was crying and yelling in a hotel room, where I swore that I would never procrastinate again, especially for another presentation. I swear to you, I woke up the morning of my presentation without a finished script, without a finished visual presentation, and without having rehearsed at all. I woke at the crack of dawn to get to work, and finally printed my finalized script about 30 minutes before I needed to leave for the conference. DO NOT DO THIS! I thought that I would learn from my first experience, but I have made this mistake over and over again. While my presentations usually go over well, the stress and anxiety are simply not worth it.

Try to have your presentation 90% prepared a week before the conference. This gives you time to practice, edit, and ask for revisions from your professor(s). Have a prepared script that goes over your research in depth and allow your slideshow to guide your talk. In my experience most presenters read straight from their papers, so while presentation skills are important, it is okay to refer to your paper as needed.

What to Do While You are There

Conferences should be as much (if not more) about learning from others as it is about presenting your own research. I have learned more from attending panels, lectures, and exhibits at conferences than in my 22+ years of schooling. Make sure to go through the conference schedule and circle anything of interest and GO! You will have paid an arm and a leg to attend this conference, so get every learning opportunity that you can out of it.

As I mentioned before, you should also be using this opportunity to network like crazy. I missed many opportunities for this during my first few conferences, but eventually one of my professors instilled in me the importance of forming professional connections outside of my own university. I have met and learned from dozens of grad students, faculty, and researchers, and I have managed to create small opportunities for myself along the way (such as chairing MLA panels and award committees). I have even gotten to squeeze my research into a special edition of a competitive journal coming out in 2020 because I had an opportunity to chat with one of the publishers about my research. Network people!

Finally, take this opportunity to visit the hosting city beyond the conference center walls. I have seen more of the USA in the past 18 months than I had in my past 26 years, and it has been a blast! I took my dad with my to Colorado for the RMMLA conference and we had a week of adventures, I visited Vegas (somewhere I never thought I would go but ended up enjoying), and I got to road trip with my (now) fiance to Florida and visit a great-aunt who I had not seen in 20 years. The world is your oyster and there is more to learn at a conference than what panelists have to say.

  *Note* at this point I have attended about a dozen conferences both in person and virtually.At this point I would say that everything in this post continues to hold true, but I welcome any suggestions for further advice!

How to Survive Your First Academic Conference **Disclosure** I wrote this entire post in order to avoid making my presentation for a conference...and forgot to finish it until about 18 months later.

[theblackbradshaw-blog]

What’s Next: Life After Achievement

After you’ve checked off every goal on the list, what then? If you are like me and get a natural high from achievement, how do you continually get your fix? If you’ve ever done any recreational drug, you know that coming down from a high can be painful mentally and emotionally, and in some extreme cases, even physically. So what do you do?

Most recently, like December 14, 2018, I reached the bottom of my goal list. This goal list I created for myself in my early 20s, and set it up to be completed before I turned 30. I’ve never been one to set lofty, unrealistic goals. I’ve only ever wanted for things that I need to take my life to the next level. Although my childhood was stable, it was still characterized by lack. I remember using Food Stamps when they were actually printed, colorful notes with different dollar amounts. So any time I’ve set a goal, it's been realistic, and in the pursuit of ensuring my basic needs are met.

I dropped out of college two years after starting. There’s a list of reasons I could give you that could apply, but at the root of it is that I didn’t know what I was doing. Going back to school was always on that goal list, to be achieved before 30, but so many of life’s stories slowed me down. I had my son, got into a long-term relationship that drained more from me than was ever poured back, and I lost both my parents. The road to achievement was paved with many obstacles, but somewhere in the mess, I barreled through despite those road-blocks. I sat down in my first class in seven years in January 2016 and completed my journey in December 2018.

Pride. Overwhelming joy. Accomplished. Just a couple of words to describe what I was feeling as I walked across the stage to the sound of my friends and family cheering my name. It was a true moment in time where I felt that I lived up to my daily mantra “I am THAT b*tch.”

A few days passed, and as I got ready to celebrate the holidays with good food, gifts, and a string of days off work, sadness overcame me. I had achieved one of my greatest goals but I couldn’t muster up the proper amount of happiness. I was listless, restless, and unsure of what to do next. For the last few weeks, I’ve been asking “what now?”

Normally, the response is to set new goals. Create a new list! This is the year I enter my 30s, I am in an entirely new decade of my existence. Why shouldn’t I create a new list to correspond to this woman I have become and continue to turn into? How will I become a better version of myself if I don’t lay the necessary groundwork?

Goals are the soul of achievement, this is true. Setting a goal is how you determine what you want from this life and how to get it for yourself. Reaching those goals brings a level of personal enlightenment you can’t get from anything else. But, what the four-weeks post-graduation has taught me, is that there is so much more to life than setting and achieving goals. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do in my 30s. There are things that I want to happen and right now I am in a space to let them happen organically.

I want to be less focused on creating a vision board that I stare at daily to direct me in life and more focused on living the life I envisioned for myself so many years ago. This is not a knock to vision boards and goal lists, they got me through tough times and out of well-dug holes. I am saying that I am simplifying the process from setting goals - > achievement. Going after the things on my vision boards often left me exhausted and gave me little time to do anything else. I was socially absent for the second half of my 20s because I was driven to tick off every box on the list.

I don’t want 30+ to look like that. In this decade, I am going to enjoy the fruits of those labors from my 20s. Spending insane amounts of time with my family and friends is most important because those connections drive me in their own way. Who knows what’s next? Babies? Marriage? Backpacking through Europe? Stepping away from a structured vision via a goal list will allow me to explore any and every option.

[megrimlocke]

In Which I Upbraid the New Years Naysayers

The simple turning of the year does not create some kind of clean slate that makes change or growth possible where it was not the day before.  There are some people who are interested in breaking out of patterns of stagnation and who take this to mean that they should begin immediately regardless of the hour and there are those who take this to mean that the magic of the new year is simply not for them and accept a continuation of the status quo.

Increasingly, I find myself disliking this second kind of person.  I understand full well that the new year creates a certain kind of unfair expectation, like a sort of annual high school reunion, especially now as we all see what one another are doing in the social media.  It’s the defeatist attitude that gets me, the notion that “new year same me” is simply the way that things are and if the magical new year cannot motivate one to grow then nothing can.

Truly, I have very seldom come upon a person who started with a new year’s resolution and followed it through entirely.  This doesn’t really surprise me because the kinds of fundamental things people try to change in their lives all at once demand some extremes in discipline that I have always found I had to sort of ease into, gradually.  If you cannot quit smoking cold-turkey, what leads you to conclude that getting suckered into the planet fitness bargain is going to stick?

I will touch on fitness goals (though not exclusively) in this discussion because it’s such a common pick that I have some experience with, but more because I feel that the Planet exploits this misled idea of the clean slate in order to profit from working people.  The average PF facility is designed to allow about 50 people to do cardio at once and has benches, ropes, dumbbells and so on to accommodate perhaps a further 30 or 40 to be training with the weights.  The average membership of a PF facility is expected to be between 800 and 1000 individuals.  If every one of you committed to lifting every day you’d be stumbling over each other and waiting 20 minutes for the lat pulldown.  Every gym has crowding problems at some time of day, but the PF solution is to set the membership fee so low that slacking off doesn’t feel like a wasted investment.  They hope you will forget about being slowly bled the same way you might forget about that recurring Spotify subscription you forgot to cancel.

Am I saying you ought to go invest 300 bucks a month at a crossfit gym to be successful in your resolution?  No, but if you make the investment in a proper gym you are going to be motivated to get your money’s worth even if all the right reasons to go to the gym fail you on some occasion.  If you want to succeed dear new years resolution devotee - and I want you to, I am rooting for you- take your time in choosing a facility that will provide you with all the things you need to get where you want to go.  Or, maybe you have no idea where to go but you know you want to start walking, in which case you should look for one that offers a knowledgeable staff that can introduce you to several disciplines or sports that catch your eye.  Another thing the Planet profits off is the idea that other gyms are not inviting or interested in your success, and this is filthy lie.

I reckon the new year where goals are concerned to start on the 1st of November, shortly after my birthday and after I have completed my offerings to the Halloween spirits. As the shadows grow and my birthday approaches in late October, my Hour approaches when I will look upon the goals I have set since last year and decide where next to go.  After a fashion, this is my new years resolution time.

These aren’t all necessarily fitness goals- I set out to become a homeowner in 2016 at roughly the same time I decided to miss no weeks at the gym, last year I made a decision to plan a salsa garden for the spring and pay off my car.  This past October I resolved to compete at bodybuilding next year, rearrange my finances to tighten up my spending, and go back to school to pick up some new job skills.

Which leads me to today, roughly two months after making those decisions.  Firstly, I have concluded that practicing the compulsory poses is the most boring work I have ever done in the gym, but I appreciate the precision of it.  Secondly, I have just made my first payment on my schooling for the spring term because the thirdly part of realigning my financial posture succeeded when my paycheck came through this morning and I paid down my credit balance, bringing an end to some 2 months of carefully moving money around and executing some deliberately planned transactions and payments instead of just mindlessly dumping money into the bank.  Reclaiming some 150 dollars a month.

Now the cash that I have reclaimed in this way is not disposable, it just is what is necessary to allow me to continue meeting with trainers and also pay for school at the same time.  The cash is not the end goal, it’s a tool to let me do the things I want, and it didn’t just miraculously happen on the first of January any more than did my school enrollment or my abs.  It was the result of meticulous planning and careful execution of that plan, with the guidance and input of many people in my support networks.  Proper investment of time, careful planning, and right guidance is needed to achieve the difficult things, so don’t be ashamed if you don’t see the fruits of your resolution until March.

Which brings me back to the “new year same me” crowd.  I could not accomplish all these things if I didn’t have a personal cheer squad in my friends and colleagues or without the guidance of my trainers and bosses.  Therefor, if you are looking to pursue some kind of transformation or change in your life (I refuse to use the very-quickly cliched concept of the fitness journey) there are two ways that these folks are hurting you that you need to take action about.

If you are one of these people but you long to change something, if you’ve decided that resolutions are too mainstream, that you’re too cool for the whole thing, or if you’re honest with yourself enough to say that these attitudes are just excuses for your fear of failure, then stop it.  Instead of focusing on how very far the distance is between where you are at 95 pounds squat or a shitty karaoke solo, think instead of what plan is going to get you to all the way to 225 in a few years, what singing opportunities you have to practice with.  You can do that thing you want, and you are not too old or whatever those other people say that has been holding you back.

You’re not just getting yourself down and robbing yourself of precious time to do something you are passionate about, you are affecting the people around you with that attitude of resigned passivity.  Your friends and colleagues who do want to make a change of some kind, even if you do not, aren’t looking down their nose at you, and you’d do well to stop looking down yours because it does have an impact when you try to impose on other people your excuses for why you aren’t trying that thing.  Don’t rob someone else of their chance to succeed at a personal commitment of some kind by infecting them with your tired, predictable and frankly quite gauche disdain for effort.

[jstohl81]

CFF Beat Series - Part 3 (2008)

With a firm primitive handshake, we introduced one another and immediately flocked to the pinball game, Monster Bash. John Wray, also known as Tilt is one of the Founding Fathers of the Crazy Flipper Fingers pinball gang in Portland. “So, what do you want to know?” asked John while he placed four quarters in the machine and began his game. Wray plays like a henchman casually focused on his game while ranting about pinball.

He has a dense frayed beard, thick rimmed glasses, a shaved head and an array of tattoos among his arms. As he talks, his raspy voice increases in tone while he lets out roars of laughter At 36 years old, Wray has been tilting pinball games since an early age starting out in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is outspoken and seems to find thrills in telling stories. Before I could start note taking, John was spewing stories out like a coin machine does quarters.

He explains the essence of pinball, the satisfaction that occurs and why CFF is the best. He delves into tournaments he has competed in, saying that he won so many, “One time I paid my rent off.” His eagerness shows on his face as he plunges the silver ball down the board.

There are no other games at the Vern, just six pinball machines. He lashes out in hostility about video games for a second, how they tend to replace pinball games due to their financial success and then shows his allegiance to pinball by proudly announcing how he strictly adheres to pinball only with a tone of gusto. “Fuck video games, I only play pinball!” Wray says. He has a huge bitterness toward video games, specifically the golf and hunting games featured in numerous bars around Portland.

A week ago, the CFF had their bi-weekly meeting at the Goodfoot where I would find myself amidst a sea of black tees with CFF logos, wild chants, and an all out pinball competition among members. On the tables were a variety of beer bottles, glasses and a massive mountain of quarters. John told me that members and prospects are required to bring 10 dollars worth of quarters to the meeting, adding up to an overwhelming amount of $200-plus from the entire gang. The sight was epic and seemed to be guarded by one female member, Slammer, who mocked me as I grabbed a few coins. “What do you think you‘re doing?” she asked. “They told me it was cool,” I said.

John made sure I was introduced to each member, and slowly but surely, I met an assortment of pinball zealots with cheers galore. By the end of the night, the mountain of coins had been reduced to a pathetic amount of pocket change. Every 30 minutes or so, John would abruptly erupt in a loud banter yelling, “CFF . . .” then the entire gang would join in unity and ferociously call back, “Til’ death.” 

It was like being at a ball game where chants are thrown around endlessly. Members certainly hold Wray in high regard and admiration, in fact they look to him for advice on CFF issues and future undertakings. However, he doesn’t claim to be a leader of any sort. “I’m not the president or the leader of CFF, just another member,” he says with sincerity.

Members brought me into the gaming frenzy with heavy arms and comraderie. John was gazing about his gang with a grin and a glass of beer in his hand. “You’ve never seen me drunk have you?” John said with a smirk and hint of satisfaction. He looked content among his crew and gallivanted around to each member to tell stories or to lend enthusiasm.

One significant component of a CFF meeting is that their location have at least four pinball games. John told me how some bar owners would ask him what it takes for CFF to host a meeting at their spot. He simply replied, four machines will do. The Ship Ahoy did just that, and within a few weeks, they got four machines, and CFF started meeting there on a regular basis. Wray has clout in Portland. When CFF holds a meeting, they provide a lucrative business for the bar and pinball owners, while the gang unleashes a flurry of pinball passion. Any bar that doesn’t have four games, and the CFF won’t have their meeting their.

...A charismatic pinball aficionado.. 

Not only does he cook for the Vern, he bartends at Billy Rays over the weekend where he is the commander-in-chief amidst punks, metal heads, and locals. John is quite the avid fan of metal, thrash, and buttrock. He has the bar television tuned to the exclusive show, Metal Mania that only plays 70s and 80s metal, from Kiss and Slaughter, to Judas Priest and Dokken. Customers are smoking like a chimney, some are shooting dice, while others pound pints of PBR, all the while Wray keeps cool joking around and singing along. That it until a customer orders food.

“Motherfuckers and your fucking food,” he yells at a customer. Wray portrays a deep animosity toward having to fix food. It’s as if a pinball game goes dead during mid-play. He turns in spite and begins fixing a platter of nachos while mumbling obscenities and turning to me with a wild look of earnestness in his eyes.

While Wray prepares order after order of hotdogs and nachos, I go upstairs to play a round of pinball. Turns out, the machine Monster Mash shuts down during ball one without even allowing me to sigh. I go downstairs to alert John of the concern, and on the drop of a dime he grabs the phone at midnight, dials a pinball machine operator, and leaves a message explaining what happened on a machine. Wray seems content about the phone call and explains how him and CFF call operators all the time to report down machines. He expects it will get looked at in the next day or so.

Within a few minutes, the toaster oven begins to ringing and John hurries over to handle the hot buffet of melted cheese, jalapenos and a mound of chips with other necessary condiments. All the while his patience is growing thin due to some depressing emo band that has been blaring from the jukebox for the past hour, putting a major damper on the mood of John. It felt like the dead of winter with suicide rants on the forefront of the bar. He leans in close to me and says with a smile, “What’s the difference between an emo kid and a pizza? A pizza won’t cut itself.”

Wray is a joker, a keen story teller who can deliver jokes by the minute if necessary, or carry on fascinating stories that involve all sorts of absurd themes. He begins one dramatic story with enthusiasm that took place in his hometown, entitled “the night I was fucked.” Wray bluntly explains how he had just gotten pulled over late one evening.

“I had in my possession, a fuckin’ half-ounce of pot I had just got. I was shitface drunk. I had a 10-strip of LSD in the fuckin’ daily planner thing, in my book bag with every, every sketch book that I had with all graffiti shit. With every illegal piece I ever painted was documented in there somewhere. I had between 30 and 40 cans of spray paint in my fuckin’ van. My sketchbook had Fort Wayne Police stickers on them. I worked at a screen printing place that printed those stickers . . . I’m fucked, I’m like oh my God! I had a pipe, I had fuckin’ papers on me in my jacket, oh and I had another 10-strip in tinfoil in the pocket of my jacket, I’m fucked! Oh my god I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m so fucked . . . (the cop) finds the half-ounce of brick weed in my pocket, hauls over his partner . . . And then he finds the pipe. He dumps it out of the bag and is like, ‘grind that up real good’, smashes the pipe . . . He’s like, ‘you know why we pulled you over?’ no idea, ‘shots were fired in the area and you like a suspicious vehicle.’”

The tale continues even further escalating with Wray in the back of a cop car weaseling the tinfoil 10-strip from his pocket to stash it in his shoe while the cops searched his suspicious van. He was certain he was going to jail when the cops started reading Wray his rights. Turns out they had wrongly identified Wray as a faux pizza delivery robber so the K-9 unit was called out. The K-9 unit cop happened to know Wray, vouched for him as a real pizza delivery man and they let Wray go just like that. 

He told another story about how his pinball craze developed at Bakers donut shop in Fort Wayne Indiana. It was here that John and his friends would buy 45 cent coffee with free refills and stock up on prized donuts while slinging quarters and pushing flippers. “They knew how to make my favorite donut,” said Wray with admiration.

Wray is more than the co-founder of CFF, he’s an avid pinball player who admires his members like they’re family and appreciates the time they spend together. He joins them in solidarity throwing chants out into the air like an umpire. “CFF . . . Til’ death!” Lined against the wall are a sea of CFF members shaking machines, sharing laughs and drinking beer. Each machine is flanked with black-clad pinball zealots bearing the CFF logo designed by Wray. He steps back up to No Fear with a grizzly bear stance while a cigarette smoke trickles up his face. This is his love, pinball, CFF and camaraderie.

[pogueman]

What I learned from my first total solar eclipse

I’ve always thought eclipse chasers—these people who spend thousands of dollars flying around the world to spend two minutes looking at a solar eclipse—were a little nutty. I mean, that’s a little extreme, right? If you want to see what a solar eclipse looks like, type solar eclipse into Google.

Of course, I get that an eclipse is supposed to be better experienced live, in the same way that seeing a band perform live is more exciting than listening to a recording. But the way these people talk? “Life-changing?” “Addicting?” “Spiritual?” That, I’ve always thought, was a little much.

A total eclipse of the sun is when the earth, moon, and sun are all lined up perfectly, so that the moon precisely blocks the sun for couple of minutes. (How come its silhouette is exactly the right size to block the more distant sun? Pure coincidence.)

That’s the moment of totality—where the moon is positioned fully between you and the sun, so that all you see of the sun is a ring of fire around a jet-black circle. It supposedly looks like this:

Here’s the kind of eclipse photo we usually see. It’s not accurate. (nasa.gov)

Getting to see a total eclipse is relatively hard. There were just 62 total eclipses during the 20th century. Even then, the moon’s shadow carves out a narrow path, only 70 miles wide, where you can experience totality. (Outside that band, you see a partial eclipse, where you see the sun with a rounded bite taken out of it—kind of like the Apple logo.)

So to experience totality, you have to be in the right place in the right time—and have the right weather.

Experts were raving about how rare and special this week’s eclipse would be. They called it the “Great American Eclipse,” because (a) its path would cross this entire country, for the first time in 99 years, and (b) the total eclipse would be visible only from this country. Totality would pass through 14 states, passing over the home of 12.2 million Americans.

The “path of totality” during this week’s solar eclipse crossed the entire United States. (NASA.gov)

It would also fall during the final days of school summer vacation. In other words, all the planets were aligned for me to make my own first trip to see a total solar eclipse.

Not for my benefit. For my kids. Obviously.

Where to go

NASA’s websites featured some great tools for planning a visit. Almost every state in the U.S. would be able to see some of the eclipse. But we wanted to experience totality if we could.

NASA’s interactive map made it clear that, for us, the closest spot would be South Carolina. So I booked plane, car, and a cheap hotel, and started getting my kids excited.

Three days before the eclipse, though, it became clear that South Carolina was not the place to be this time; almost the entire state would be covered by clouds on the big day!

Of course, a total solar eclipse is very cool even if it’s cloudy. You still feel a crazy rapid temperature drop, see the day rapidly turning into temporary night, and hear animals and bugs going crazy. But you miss the grand prize: Looking into the sky and seeing the eclipse itself.

Well, dangit. Now what?

Well, I’d come this far. I bit the bullet and canceled our reservations.

The next closest spot on the eclipse’s path of totality seemed to be Nashville, Tennessee—a great place for a family trip even without an eclipse. Better yet, the weather was supposed to be clear! Nashville was hosting all kinds of special events. At their science museum, for example, there would be talks and booths and exhibits. At the baseball stadium, the mayor was hosting a massive viewing party.

All the flights to Nashville were sold out. So we flew to Memphis instead, and drove the 3.5 hours to Nashville.

The night before, in our hotel room, my sons (ages 20 and 12) and I planned our strategy. Nashville would experience 1 minute, 55 seconds of totality; but smaller towns 30 miles away were closer to the eclipse’s center line. Gallatin, Tennessee, for example, would have 2 minutes, 40 seconds of totality. Jeffrey, my seventh grader, insisted that we skip the festivities of Nashville and go for the longer eclipse experience.

The closer to the center line, the longer the moment of totality. Gallatin was looking good. (greatamericaneclipse.com)

“You realize that, with all the traffic, we’ll have to sit in the car for two extra hours to get to Gallatin—for 45 seconds more eclipse?” said Kell, his older brother. But Jeffrey was adamant.

The big morning

We arrived at Triple Creek Park in Gallatin two hours before the start of the eclipse. This is a vast public park—acres and acres of soccer fields, baseball fields, field fields. There were lots of people there for the eclipse, but the park wasn’t what you’d call crowded in any sense; finding places to park our car and ourselves was easy.

Here and there, we saw people with telescopes or huge telephoto camera lenses. Everyone was incredibly friendly; there was a sense of shared excitement. The day was blistering hot, so most people found shady trees for waiting.

It was a hot August day in Tennessee, so most of us waited under the trees until the big moment.

The eclipse began at 11:28 a.m. For an hour, it was OK. You could wear your cardboard eclipse glasses, look up at the sun, and see the growing rounded bite taken out of its side. “It’s a Pac-Man,” said almost everyone. Interesting, but slow.

But then, as 12:29 p.m. approached, things began to get wild. We could feel the heat ease off fast, as more and more of the sun got blocked. The cicadas that had produced a loud, steady background rattle all morning suddenly went quiet.

My sons and I, moments before the totality that blew us away.

And then, with a minute to go, the magic began. The whole world began to dim. But here’s the thing—it wasn’t dark like nightfall. This darkness had a silvery-grey tint to it. It was as though someone had put a giant Instagram dimming filter on everything you could see. Completely otherworldly and strange and beautiful.

And then, suddenly, the eclipse hit totality: The sun was completely blocked by the moon. All around us, we could hear people crying out. These weren’t crowd noises like you’d hear at a circus, baseball game, or theater—it was gasps of awe and emotion, a collective sound I’d never heard from a crowd before.

My eclipse app’s guide voice announced that it was now safe to remove our glasses and look directly up at the sun.

Oh, my, god.

While we’d had the glasses on, all we could see was the bright yellow crescent of the sun—and around it, blankness. No color, no detail.

But with the glasses off…!!

Where there should have been the sun, there was a jet-black perfect circle, sharp and laser-cut. Around it was the corona—a blazing intense spill of the sun’s atmosphere. All of it was suspended against a deep blue sky. That’s what I remember: Intense black circle, intense ring of white, intense glowing blue.

Yes, there is color in an eclipse—vivid, iridescent, alien. Almost every solar-eclipse photo lies. All of those Google image searches? They’re baloney. They show a black ball against a black sky, and that is not what it looks like.

I’ve tried to Photoshop the right color scheme into this photo:

This is my Photoshop hack trying to show the blue sky.

We could see some stars—against blue, not black.

Here’s another reason why no photo can ever represent a total eclipse: Because a photo can show the corona only as bright as your screen (or piece of paper)! You don’t get any sense of how stunningly bright and pure and intense that fire is. It’s hundreds of times brighter than your screen.

Our eyes can detect a much greater dynamic range (the scale of brights and darks) than any camera can. What I learned that day is that a total solar eclipse is almost alone among the things we experience, in that you can’t photograph it. To see what it looks like, you have to be there.

When I looked around us, I saw a strange, gorgeous fake twilight. There was what looked like a 360-degrees “sunrise” around the entire horizon, and the sky ranged from dusky blue to deep violet.

When I looked up, though, my heart raced. The intensity, the dazzling colors, the freakishness of that sight—a jet-black hole where the sun should be! I’m not a touchy-feely person by any stretch, but this was a spiritual experience; I was so moved, and I could tell that my sons were, too. I could easily see why ancient civilizations assumed that some god or mystic force was responsible for total eclipses.

(I love this description by retired NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak, who’s witnessed 27 solar eclipses: “You feel something in the pit of your stomach like something is wrong in the day, something is not right,” he told Time. “As totality begins, and the shadow sweeps over you, the hairs on the back of your neck and arms stand up.”)

I’d been warned not to try to take pictures of my first eclipse; the last thing you want is to miss the magic while you’re futzing with your gear. So during the 160 seconds of totality, I allowed myself about 10 seconds to snap pictures (Sony a6000 SLR, solar filter, 210mm lens). They’re not great pictures—you really need much more zoom—but here’s the idea:

Even my SLR with a solar filter captured only the roughest idea of the eclipse. Remember: The sky was deep blue, not black.

As the moon began to edge out of the sun’s way, we were treated to a moment of the “diamond ring” effect as the sun breaks past the right edge of the moon:

The “diamond ring” moment, where the sun begins to peek out again as the moon moves on. And again: Imagine the sky deep blue, not black. (abcnews.com)

And then, as quickly as it had begun, the process reversed itself. Daylight returned, and the world’s colors faded back in. The temperature shot back up. The crowd cheered. People ran to check their cameras, or babble with their families, or wipe tears from their eyes.

The first-timers, in particular, had been somehow changed. We’d all seen something freakish, rare, beautiful, shocking, historic—and much, much bigger than ourselves.

I had set up a GoPro on a tripod to film the whole scene, hoping to capture the fading light and the sounds of the event. Unfortunately, I was too wrapped up in the event to notice that another guy set up his camera and tripod right in front of mine, partially blocking the shot. Sorry about that, but you still get the idea—you can see the light fall, and hear the crowds and the confused cicadas—in this time-lapse video:

The modern-age eclipse

Actually, this wasn’t my first solar eclipse. I can still remember my parents showing me one in the backyard in Cleveland when I was 7 years old—and using a stack of color film negatives to protect my eyes! (A little research reveals that, first of all, that’s not a safe way to view an eclipse—and second, we weren’t in the path of totality. But I remember everybody being pretty excited anyway.)

What’s different, of course, is time and technology. The internet made planning our eclipse trip a snap—we could see the path of totality and observe the weather. Phone apps guided us through the experience. Those cheap cardboard eclipse glasses made it safe to look up with confidence. Social media made it possible to share the experience around the world in real time—both the exhilaration of seeing the eclipse, and, for some, the heartbreak of being thwarted by unexpected clouds (as Nashville viewers ultimately were).

The next total eclipse will come to the Earth in July 2019, but most of it will be wasted on empty ocean. (You’ll be able to see it in Chile and Argentina, but it’ll be winter time, and therefore possibly cloudy.)

The next one to come to the U.S. will occur in April, 2024—seven years from now. It’ll fly up from Texas to Maine, like this:

nasa.gov

Take it from a guy with a changed attitude: You should try to be there.

I’ll be joining you.

More from David Pogue:

Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant is ambitious, powerful, and half-baked

Is through-the-air charging a hoax?

Electrify your existing bike in 2 minutes with these ingenious wheels

Marty Cooper, inventor of the cellphone: The next step is implantables 

The David Pogue Review: Windows 10 Creators Update

Now I get it: Bitcoin

David Pogue’s search for the world’s best air-travel app

The little-known iPhone feature that lets blind people see with their fingers

David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s @pogue. On email, he’s poguester@yahoo.com. You can read all his articles here, or you can sign up to get his columns by email. 

[havekiddoswilltravel]

A Long Weekend in Santo Domingo, DR With Kids - Trip Report

Mother – Daughter 13th Birthday Getaway – Yes Trip to Santo Domingo

My eldest daughter and I enjoyed a mother – daughter 13th birthday Yes Trip to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and I’m ecstatic to share our trip report. It’s kid 1’s 13th year of life and I spent months planning a way to celebrate this milestone in a memorable and affirming way. Check out my two prior posts explaining what a Yes Trip is and the reasons why every parent should embark on one with their child - by clicking here and here. Now it’s time for me to report back on our trip and share more details about what we did while on the island. I traveled with over 22 letters from women in our lives and started sharing those letters with kid 1 as soon as we were sitting at the airport in NYC. Throughout our trip, I would hand her a letter, allow her to read and ponder the wisdom shared by so many amazing women in our lives. I’m so grateful for every amazing woman who took time out of their busy lives to speak into the life of my teen daughter.

How we got there?

We departed from New York City - JFK airport on a 5 am direct flight to Santo Domingo. This meant that we left CT at about 12:30 am and drove 2 hours to Queens, NY. I parked the car right at the terminal 5 parking and walked over to the departure area. Both kid 1 and I have TSA pre check (please note that children 13 and over are required to have their own TSA pre check number, but children 12 and under are covered by their parent’s). We encountered no traffic on our middle of the night drive into NYC and arrived at JFK prior to the TSA pre check lines even opening. We decided that it was worth waiting for TSA to open up and were the first in line at 3:15 am. We breezed through security and arrived at our gate to wait patiently for boarding. Who knew that a Jet Blue flight leaving NYC at 5 am would be this popular, but let me tell you, terminal 5 was packed with tourists and Dominicans taking advantage of the off-season deal!

Dominican travelers are the best. They get dressed up like they’re going to a fancy event in order to travel back home. They lack boundaries and are overly friendly to complete strangers and I soaked up every single part of this experience. I found myself being engaged in conversations with so many people at 4 am and you would have thought that we were family. This was the first of many signs for kid 1 of what her experience in Santo Domingo was going to be like. I always have an emotional response to landing in Quisquella and experiencing an entire plane full people cheering and clapping. Kid 1 was convinced that we Dominicans are “extra” and I’m more than happy to own that claim.

Customs in Santo Domingo

Our flight was uneventful and we arrived to Santo Domingo 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, there was still a plane using our arrival gate, so we were held off from taxing to our gate. Toward the end of our flight, we were given Dominican Customs forms to fill out. There are two different forms, one for foreigners and another for Dominicans. My daughter was considered American and I was considered Dominican, though I am a US citizen and travel with a US passport. I was born in the Dominican Republic and they recognize Dominican dual citizenship. Once we disembarked, I was so glad that I had the Dominican form, as the tourist line was incredibly long and the Dominican line was significantly shorter. We were allowed to go through customs together, even though my daughter had a tourist form. We traveled with carry ons and were through customs and outside looking for our ride within 15 minutes.

Transportation in Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo SDQ – Las Americas International Airport is actually not located in the city proper, but rather 32 km or 20 miles east of the Dominican capital city of Santo Domingo. While on past trips, when on vacation with my entire family we have rented cars, on this trip I didn’t want to waste precious travel time dealing with the hard sales that happen at Santo Domingo rental car agencies. We’ve had some pretty bad experiences while arguing about rates and insurance with car rental agencies in Santo Domingo. I had arranged for family to pick us up at the airport and drop us off at our hotel and was planning to either walk, Uber or taxi around the city.  This is pretty safe to do, if you’re staying in touristy areas and have some street smarts.

Where we stayed

I’m a pretty brand loyal costumer and have spent time at various Marriott properties in Santo Domingo. On prior trips, we’ve stayed at the Renaissance Jaragua, the Courtyard Santo Domingo and for this trip decided to take advantage of the Marriott Bonvoy changes and booked the Sheraton Santo Domingo, located on the Malecon (road parallel to the ocean). My aunt and cousin picked us up at the airport and we were sitting in the conference room at their place of business enjoying breakfast by 10 AM. After breakfast, my aunt convinced me to take their extra car and kid 1 and I made our way alone to the Sheraton Santo Domingo - thanks to Waze. Wow, Waze really works in Santo Domingo, it will even give you directions through callejones (alley ways).

Check in is normally at 4 pm, but I was hopeful that my Marriott loyalty level would allow us to check in early in order to head out to La Zona Colonial (The Colonial Zone) and get our trip started. I had the currency converted app on my phone and used it to keep track of my dollars and pesos. At the time of our trip in March of 2019 $1 US Dollar = $50.59 Dominican pesos. Prior to our weekend trip, I had researched what we wanted to see and planned how many dollars I needed to convert. I took into consideration which restaurants and tourist locations would take American Express and attempted to minimize how much cash I traveled with.

What We Did

Day 1:

-          Arrived to Santo Domingo by 8:30 am via Jet Blue direct flight from JFK.

-          Checked into The Sheraton Santo Domingo by 10 AM.

-          Explored La Zona Colonial

o   We took a short drive from the Sheraton Santo Domingo – Malecon to the Zona Colonial, found parking a few blocks away and walked to the Calle de las Damas. We were headed to the Kahkow Experience, but I kept getting distracted by the amazing architecture, streets, windows and doors that date back to the colonial period. Check out my VLOGs below to see pictures of the colonial architecture.

o   We ran into a large group of school children entering La Fortaleza Ozama on a field trip and decided to join them and explore the historical site. Fort Ozama was built in 1502 by the Spanish at the entrance to Santo Domingo’s Colonial Zone and overlooks the Ozama river, after which it was named. The castle which is also referred to as “La Fortaleza” is the oldest formal military construction of European origin in the Americas. It’s a Unesco World Heritage Site and a nice place to spend an hour while visiting Santo Domingo. Pro tip: pack water and a hat, as even in March it was incredibly hot and humid. The entry fee was $70 Dominican pesos, which is less than $1.50 US dollars per person. There are guides that you can pay for a formal tour, but I just wanted to take some pictures and explore on our own prior to heading to our next stop. You don’t have to use a guide in order to explore, so skip the non-affiliated people, walk right in, pay a few pesos and enjoy as long as you wish.

o   Next on our agenda was a tour of El Kahkow Experience. The Kahhow experience was the perfect way for my chocolate loving teen daughter to kick off her 13th birthday trip. We took part in the English language tour and make your own bar add on option. The building in which the Kahkow Experience is housed is an old colonial property which was architecturally preserved. The entire experience is well done and it was one of the highlights of our weekend trip to Santo Domingo. The tour started with a video explaining the history of chocolate, harvesting and the process of making chocolate from cacao farm to consumption. We visited on a Friday morning in late March and literally had the entire place to ourselves. We were the only two in the beginning part of our tour and then joined six others for the chocolate bar making portion. Cost: $672 Dominican Pesos for 2 for the initial tour (equals 13.28 US Dollars) and $1440 Dominican Pesos for 2 (equals 28.46 US Dollars) for the make your own chocolate portion.

o   We then headed to the square in front of the first cathedral in the New World: Catedral Primada de America and a stroll through the coffee shops, restaurants and stores of La Calle Conde. By then it was almost lunch time and we were melting, so we decided to head back to the El Malecon for lunch at Adrian Tropical.

-          Adrian Tropical is a typical Dominican Restaurant which benefits from its location on Avenida George Washington on the Malecon near major tourist hotels including the Sheraton. We always enjoy at least one meal at Adrian Tropical when visiting Santo Domingo, because nothing says I’ve arrived to Santo Domingo like enjoying a traditional meal of rice, beans, chicken, sancocho and mofongo while drinking a fria (Dominican’s call their Presidente beer “frias”) and taking in the view of the ocean and listening to the waves crash nearby. Service was slow and leaves a lot to be desired, but that pretty much was the theme of all of our eating experiences on this trip. You’re in the Caribbean, I highly recommend heading to any restaurant to order food about one hour prior to you being really hungry.

-          After lunch, we headed back to the hotel and put on our bathing suits. We live in Connecticut and it seemed like we hadn’t seen the sun in months. We laid out by the pool and enjoyed some vitamin D before heading back to our room to shower and change for dinner.

-          Dinner with family at my aunt’s house. I have a lot of extended family that lives in Santo Domingo, but 4 days on the island with the intended purpose of connecting with my teen daughter, did not leave any time for visiting family. My cousin had coordinated for any family members who wanted to see us to join us for dinner at my aunt’s house in Santo Domingo, thus kid 1 and I jumped into our borrowed car and I endured rush hour driving to arrive at my aunt’s house for dinner. Wow. That was an experience. I quickly learned that using my turning signals was just a sign of weakness and making eye contact led to people cutting me off and blocking us in. Public transportation cars and buses constantly stop for passengers on the right-hand side and would just block traffic flow. Driving in Santo Domingo is not for the faint of heart. I’m accustomed to driving in Boston, NYC, DC and LA and while it prepared me for the lack of common courtesy, I still arrived to dinner with a knot in my neck. Somehow my teenager slept through much of the driving madness and only woke up a few times while I jerked to avoid a huge pot hole or a motorist. I was proud of myself for driving in Santo Domingo, though the lack of driving rules really stressed me out, as I’m a type A, uptight rule follower. Waze did save the day, as it was extremely reliable and even navigated me out of heavy traffic. We ended up enjoying hours of Spanish language practice, food and sweetened coffee and tea at my aunt’s house with over 40 of my extended family. I finally had to tell my family that I didn’t drink sugar in my coffee and tea and it’s still a running joke in my family WhatsAPP group chat. If you’re like me and enjoy your coffee or tea without cream or sugar, be prepared to get weird looks and comments from Dominicans. They drink their milk and sugar with a little bit of coffee.

Day 2:

-          Traveling with a teen means that I got to enjoy lots of quiet time, because not once during our trip did my daughter wake up in time for breakfast. As a mother of four children ranging in ages from 6 – 13, It’s rare for me to enjoy a quiet breakfast, so on day 2 I got up and left kid 1 sleeping in our room while I enjoyed the included breakfast buffet at the Sheraton Santo Domingo. The buffet includes traditional Dominican breakfast items like mangu, queso frito, boiled yuca, salami and fresh fruit. After breakfast, I lounged by myself poolside while soaking up the morning sun. What a perfect start to what would prove to be an amazing day. Plans for day 2 included a road trip to Las Terrenas beach in Samana. My cousin, her husband and two kids picked us up in front of our hotel and off we went down the new highway to the Samana peninsula. My parents are originally from Samana and Sanchez and thus, I grew up taking long road trips to the Samana beaches, however with the toll road it only took us a little over 2 hours to arrive at a secluded and beautiful beach in Las Terrenas.

-          The beaches in the peninsula of Samana on the northeast coast of Dominican Republic are one of the reasons why I’m a total beach snob. The turquoise blue water is bath water temperature and perfect for a swim. The palm tree lined beach provide the perfect mix of sun and shade. It’s literally paradise. If you’re ever in the Samana area, ask a local how to get to Playa Marico near the piedras de las ballenas. You won’t be sorry and you can join me in the ranks of total beach snobs. Las Terrenas is known as a European settlement in Dominican Republic, but it seemed that all of the locals were recovering from a late night, because we enjoyed having the entire beach to ourselves for the morning, prior to heading to lunch.

-          Next, we headed to Restaurante Luis in Playa Coson. My cousin called ahead and reserved a table for 6 at the outdoor shack -restaurant, that was packed with locals and tourists. The restaurant consists of an outdoor kitchen – beach hut and outdoor plastic tables and chairs randomly placed on the sandy shores of Playa Coson. The kids literally played in the sand and swam while we waited for our meal. We hand-picked our fish and they cooked them for us while we sipped on pina coladas served in pineapples. I highly recommend eating fresh food while the ocean breeze cools you off and live musicians serenade you. Esa es la buena vida (that’s the good life)! Restaurante Luis is a must for anyone looking to experience Dominican Republic like a local. Just don’t tell too many people and spoil the exclusive vibe of this off the beaten path dive.

-          We had packed so much into our one-day road trip to Las Terrenas that we decided to stop by my grandmother’s country home (now owned by my uncle) in Las Garitas. I loved reminiscing with kid 1 about summer vacations running around the campo, eating mangoes right off the trees and spending hours playing outside with neighborhood kids. We drank coffee and ate snacks on the porch with my uncle and cousin while laughing hysterically about our shenanigans as young kids. We were off and back to Santo Domingo by 7 pm. We spent a total of 12 hours including travel time in Samana and were able to pack in a ton in that short period of time. On the way back to Santo Domingo we stopped at Helados Bon for ice cream, because one can’t visit DR and not eat their ice cream.

-          Our second day in Santo Domingo ended with what I call adventures in La Zona Colonial. Two of my cousins picked us up at 10 pm post a shower and nap and we headed to the Colonial Zone for a late dinner. Yes, I had my 13-daughter year old out at this time. This is DR and it’s Dominican time. In retrospect, we should have left their car at the Sheraton and taken an Uber to the restaurant, but our adventures in attempting to find a parking spot on a Saturday night in The Colonial Zone just gave us lots of opportunities for laughter. In true teen fashion, kid 1 fell asleep as soon as we got into the car and thank God she did. We drove around for over an hour prior to finding a government parking garage that was full, but the attendant agreed to allow us to park there as long as we were back by 2 am. We walked toward Calle Conde to Jalao Restaurant. Even though it was 11 pm, the Colonial Zone was packed and we quickly learned that there was not one available table inside the Jalao Restaurant, which had a live band and large groups celebrating birthday parties. We were able to score a table outside and ordered our dinner. Dominican Republic is not known for quick service, so we should have guessed that it was going to be a long night, when our waiter warned us that the kitchen was backed up and that we should order soon. It did take 1 hour for our food to come out and we did not make our way back to our car until 1 am. Thankfully, we were among family and we laughed and joked through dinner and loved people watching in the Zona Colonial.

Part 2 of my Mother – Daughter #yestrip will be forthcoming, but prior to signing off I wanted to share a couple pro tips about traveling to Dominican Republic with kids. Also, click here to see more pictures and lives posts from our Yes Trip to Santo Domingo. 

Check out my VLOG of Day 1 for many more pictures of our adventures in Santo Domingo.

Pro Tips:

-          Pack your patience. Americans, especially those of us from the Northeast cities are always in a rush and always have an agenda. Dominican culture is not like that. Even in a major city like Santo Domingo, people move at their own pace (unless you’re driving and then everyone seems to be in a rush).

-          Even in March, Santo Domingo is hot. Pack a hat, sunblock and a refillable water bottle like my extra-large hydroflask which helps keep bottled water cold longer in the hot DR sun.

-          Practice your Spanish Language skills. Santo Domingo is a bustling city and it’s helpful if you can speak some Spanish.

-          As aforementioned, Santo Domingo is a large city and as such I highly recommend that you leave your flashy jewelry and accessories at home. We were two women traveling alone and never felt unsafe. I travel with my favorite Ebag cross bag purse and leave my large wallet safely at home.

-          Unless you’re an aggressive driver and have a thirst for adventure, leave the driving to the Dominicans. Car seats and use of seat belts are not common. It may require you to take a deep breath and relax your expectations a bit on this issue.

-          Dominicans are friendly people and always ready to engage you in conversation. When traveling with kids, be prepared for total strangers to engage your family in dialogue. Everyone called us familia (family) or prima (cousin). Kid 1 is convinced that Santo Domingo is a city of extroverts.

-          Take time to slowly explore the cobble-stoned streets and architecture of the Colonial Zone. Take lots of pictures and make beautiful memories.

-          If you’re planning a trip to Samana, I highly recommend going in January and adding a whale watching trip to your itinerary.

-          Water is not safe to drink from the tap in Dominican Republic. The Sheraton provided 3 bottles of water per day, which I used to refill my hydroflask water bottle and we picked up bottled water whenever we were out. We had no issues with GI side effects and even ate street food. We travel often though, and as a Dominican I think my GI system is probably stronger than most. If you’re worried about illness, stick to bottled water, ice in hotels and major restaurants are safe to drink.

Day 2 VLOG with many more pictures:

[italktotheclouds]

Happy Asks :^)

1. What was the last thing that made you laugh?

My life. Nah, actually it was something on one of my friend’s stories on snapchat that may be hard to explain haha.

2. Who is your favorite person in the world?

I don’t have a “favorite” person in the world. You would think that it’s the person I’m in love with but I would be lying if I said it was. I love all of my friends and I care a lot about people but I don’t have a favorite.

3. Whats your favorite part of your body?

This is a REALLY difficult question and I’m not sure I have one.I can look at any part of my body and pick out all of the things I hate about it. I guess maybe my eyes? I think their color is really cool.

4. When you are feeling down, what always cheers you up no matter what?

Having a certain person hug me and then tell me a joke. If I’m alone then the movie Ponyo.

5. Describe one of the best days of your life.

I hung out with my dude (a nickname for one of my very good friends) and we hung out and watched a movie. I also got to meet his doggo and I was really really happy for that whole day.

6. What youtube video or vine always makes you laugh without fail? Link it!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRulxJNvqI4

7. What was some of the best advice you've ever been given?

Days are just days

8. What is the superior breakfast food of choice and why?

Lots of and lots of brightly colored fruit with cream cheese and croissants. It may not be the most beneficial breakfast but ohmygod it makes me happy.

9. What's one of your fondest childhood memories?

This is a really tough one because my head is clouded with all of the bad parts of my childhood, but I’ll try. I guess it could be my mom, my dad, and I going to Red Robin’s for my birthday one year. My parents were never married and they broke up not long after I was born, but it was very special for me to have that dinner with the both of them. Plus I got a hot fudge sundae and it was amazing.

10. Describe your dream home.

Okay okay I can’t decide between a castle or a just a nice house, but the main part is the giant tree that will be smack dab in the middle and the house will be built around it.

11. Everybody is good at something. What are you good at?

I guess I’m pretty good at art? I like doing it (when I don’t get frustrated at whatever project I’m doing) and I guess I just like to create. Oh and I would definitely think that I’m a good baker and a good cook!

12. Do you have any little party tricks that most people don't know about?

No, not at all haha

13. What was an instance that completely turned your bad day/week around for the better?

Listening to my dude play his guitar in person the day after I attempted suicide. He is the only one to ever know about that night. I guess until now for the people that might read all of this. I went to his house and after talking and just chilling, he was going to take me home but then I saw his guitar and without me saying anything, he picked it up and started playing. He was shaking but still played beautifully and I was crying like a little baby haha. I care a lot about him and I wish him the best when he goes to college and the rest of his life.

14. Name the first ten things that make you happy right now. Don't even think too hard about it just write whatever comes to mind first.

Clouds. My dog, Crixus. Puns. Hugs. Cookies. Certain person. My friends. Music. Drawing. Laughing.

15. What's the best pun you've ever heard?

Oh god, I have no idea. I am a sucker for them though.

16. What song always makes you happy no matter what?

Come On Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners

17. What is an inside joke that no one else would understand?

Bees frens

18. Tell us about a moment where you felt absolutely free and alive.

There isn’t one.

19. What's your favorite fruit?

Probably either peaches or starfruit. 

20. What is one of your favorite art pieces of all time?

I do not have a favorite. I love them all I swear hahaha

21. What is your favorite family tradition? Or a tradition with any group of people you are involved with if you don't have any family traditions.

Going to the Renaissance Festival every year since I was a baby

22. Have you ever purchased something expensive that you didn't really need, but it's made you so happy that it was worth it? What is it?

I don’t have that kind of money.

23. What's your favorite place on your body to be massaged?

I’ve never really been massaged, but I love when people lightly run their hands up and down my back.

24. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

The world may never know.

25. Who is a person that has changed your life for the better?

Kami

26. Has anyone ever given you a compliment that was so meaningful to you and you will never forget? What was it?

Yes and that they enjoy my presence.

27. What are you proud of in your life?

My grades.

28. Post a selfie of yourself that you think is hot fire and needs to be appreciated (because you are so damn good looking)

Haha

29. What's your favorite video game ever?

The Last Of Us. I have never played it but I think it is outstanding.

30. What are you a fuckin nerd about that you could talk about for forever? Feel free to do a lil rant here about how much you love said thing and why it's awesome

I used to be able to do this for clouds but depression sure is a bitch.

31. You are in a powerful position, in charge and giving orders to people who all respect you for how good you are at your job. What would this job be?

Something to do with the weather in either the Marines or Air Force. 

32. You fall off a boat and wash up ashore on an island. Seems shitty but then you realize this place is a paradise with servants at your beck and call, a mansion, and every entertainment you can wish for. Also there are no bugs. You get to choose 3 other people to invite and have the time of your lives. Who are they? (These can be any currently living person in the world)

This is way too hard and I swear my friends change every year.

33. You get 1 million dollars. You are not allowed to save it or invest it, but instead are only allowed to use it to treat yourself. How do you spend it?

Go to school to study neuro-psychology.  Before I wouldn’t have been able to pay for school while also supporting myself and all that but with 1 million dollars then I would be able to.

34. What are you looking forward to currently??

My dude’s open house. I will be able to confront someone in person hopefully and face my fears while also being able to support my dude.

35. Describe your dream wedding (or if you aren't into that describe a dream vacation. Or do both who cares!)

Just simple I guess. I never really think about that stuff.

36. What's your favorite kind of animal to chill with?

A dog I guess?

37. What have you done that felt very fulfilling at the end?

Studying really hard and then getting a really good grade.

38. what's your favorite movie that leaves you with a great feeling at the end?

Ponyo

39. What was the most relaxed you've ever felt?

Probably never.

40. And finally, describe any one thing that makes you super happy. It can be a memory, an upcoming event, a person, a piece of art, a piece of clothing....whatever. as long as it makes you happy, then tell us about it!

Being in a hug and having it feel like home. Leaving the hug is where the happiness crashes.

[warlord-official]

1-104?

Ey fuck you Anon, you want me to answer all of ‘em? Fine, but I’ll do it in CHARACTER YOU STANK BIIIITCH

1. You woke up naked next to the last person you texted, what would you say?

I know not what texting is but I did once wake up next to @berserker-official after we drank late into the night and spent the evening carving runes into our leader’s ship. He wasn’t too happy with us.

2. What’s going on between you and the last person you kissed?

Well last time I was at a feast I tried to hit up Mama @valkyrie-official but she wasn’t having much of my shit at the time. 

3. If your boyfriend or girlfriend was into drugs, would you care?

BY THOR’S HAMMER WHAT SORCERY HAVE THE WEEBS CREATED NOW?! REMEMBER YOUNG VIKINGS GOOD MEAD IS ALL YOU NEED

4. Is your last name longer than six letters?

*Counts on his hands* W-a-r-l-o-r-d …yes

5. Was your last kiss drunk or sober?

Almost always drunk. But then again, I’M ALMOST ALWAYS DRUNK AHAHAHA

6. Have you ever wanted to have someone but you messed it up?

@official-peacekeeper and I almost had something beautiful but then I fell out of the boat I was trying to serenade her in. …she still laughs when she looks at me

7. What does your last received text say?

The last text I received was from my scout who told me THE FUCKING WEEBS ARE PUSHING BACK AGAIN TIME FOR A RALLY

8. How many times have you kissed the last person you kissed?

I honestly don’t remember. There was too much mead flowing through my veins.

9. Where was your last kiss at?

Probably an after-battle feast?

10. When is the last time you saw your sister?

@raider-official ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING OFF YOUR HANGOVER?! LEGENDARY!

11. What do you drink in the morning?

Mead. 

12. Where did you sleep last night?

My boat.

13. Do you think relationships are hard?

No! Raising noble strong warriors is a noble goal!

14. If you could go back and change something in the past 5 months, would you?

Less falling on my face after my drunken victory song

15. You’re locked in a room with the last person you kissed, any problems?

I still can’t recall the last person I kissed, but if I was drunkenly rude to any of them, maybe. They all are rather good at…well, stabbing.

16. Would you rather it be sunny or rainy?

A rainy day means I don’t have to wash my battle leathers!

17. Do you know anyone with the same middle name as you?

I don’t have a middle name! But all the warlords are some sort of distant cousin, I’m pretty sure

18. Are you wearing jeans,sweatpants,or pajama pants?

ONLY BATTLE LEATHERS, FOOL

19. Do you think you will be in a relationship 3 years from now?

If I don’t join my brothers in Valhalla, sure! I’d love to raise a strong warrior!

20. Does anyone like you?

Plenty of people like me! What’s that s’posed to mean?!

21. Have you ever kissed someone with a name that starts with an S?

I once tried to mack on Siv and got an axe handle to the face, so no.

22. Is the last person you kissed gay?

No clue. Still can’t remember that night. How many times do I have to answer this question?

23. Is there a person you CANNOT stand?

Filthy damn weebs…

24. Have you ever considered getting a tattoo?

Think about that one closely, and look at my arms lad

25. In the past week have you cried?

Only tears of JOY when my comrades went to VALHALLA

26. What breed was the last dog you saw?

Gunmundr’s wolves. Nasty snapping things.

27. Do you dry off in the shower or out of the shower?

You can’t dry off inside a rain shower, you fool!

28. Have you ever kissed a football player?

What is this foot-ball? 

29. Do you think you’re old?

Step carefully lad, lest I introduce you to the back of my hand.

30. Do you like text messaging?

Learning runes is hard

31. What type of day are you having?

One that is meant for battle, as are most days

32. Have you ever thought about getting your nose pierced?

I’d rather not have my nose pierced by an arrow, thank you very much

33. Do you prefer warm or cold weather?

Cold. It builds character

34. Is there a person of the opposite sex who means a lot to you?

All my female fighting compatriots mean a lot to me! 

35. Would you prefer a relationship or a fling?

I do like flinging weebs off ledges… wait, I don’t understand the question.

36. Are you a simple or complicated person?

Keep it simple!

37. What song are you listening to?

Drumbeats of battle!

38. When you say you’re sorry do you mean it?

Sorry!Sorry!Sorry!

39. Is there a girl that knows everything or almost everything about you?

I’m not sure if @valkyrie-official​ is actually listening when I drunkenly tell her all about myself…40. What made you start liking the person you like now?

Ferocity in battle!41. When did you last receive a text message?

When my messenger brought it to me! Why do you ask the same questions?42. What is wrong with you right now?

My sword needs sharpening43. How well do you know the last female you texted?

Very well! I sent @nobushi-official​ a message telling her if she was going to be a traitor, she should join us! I don’t know what the reply in her chicken scratch language means though…

44. Does anyone disgust you?

Mostly @orochi-official​ for running away all the time. 45. Would you date someone right now if they asked?

Battle first, then we can enjoy one another’s company!46. Are you in a good mood right now?

Yes! Daybreak means I can nurse this hangover with MORE MEAD!!!47. Who was the last person you talked to in person?

@berserker-official​ when I told the boy to bring me my flagon. Where did he run off to?48. What color shirt are you wearing?

Brown. It’s made of leather. It’s armor. What kind of question is that?49. Has someone recently told you something you didn’t want to hear?

I woke up to a message that the weebs have rallied, so yeah. It was terrible.50. Anyone you’re giving up on?

@orochi-official​ is a lost cause

51. Do you hate the person you fell hardest for?

Not at all! I respect her prowess in battle when she knocked me off that bridge!

52. Have you ever thought about giving up on someone but couldn’t?

@nobushi-official​, it’s not too late to switch to the right side!53. Do you like rain?

YES YOU FOOL WE’VE BEEN OVER THIS54. Do you care if your boyfriend/girlfriend drinks?

Only if they care that I do!55. Have you ever liked somebody and never told them?

Once in my youth, yes. They are in Valhalla now.56. Do you like to cuddle?

Papa Warlord has a lot of warmth to spread around!57. Are you shy?

Bahahahaha no!58. Do you get along with girls?

Yes! They respect me and I respect them! Then I get drunk and they tell me to stuff it! It works fine.59. Have you dated the person you texted last?

No, my scout must prove himself in battle before he is allowed any personal time.60. What do you carry with you at all times?

My sword and shield!61. If you were paid 1 million dollars to spend the night in a supposed haunted house, would you?

The spirits of the dead do not frighten me! I welcome the company of those I will join in Valhalla!62. Do you think you can last in a relationship for five months?

Yes. That’s how long I can be at war before coming home!63. Think back to October, were you in a relationship?

I seem to remember some sort of feast with women in masks…but then again most of the women I encounter are masked somehow!64. The person you like kisses you on the forehead, do you find this cute?

Cute does not become a Viking!

…but yes. Harumph.65. Did anything “cute” happen in the last week?

CUTE DOES NOT BECOME A VIKING

66. How old are the last three people you kissed?

I know not. They are grown men and women!

67. Would you rather pay to get your nails done or do them yourself?

A blade does a decent job trimming them, but they are great long for gouging out eyes!    68. Which do you like better- Zebra print or leopard print?

I have no clue what you are talking about. I only wear bear furs    69. Do you have any stickers on your car?

What is a car? I have mighty carvings on my boat!    70. Would you rather listen to Luke Bryan or Lil Wayne?

Who are these men?    71. Blackberry, Anroid, or iPhone?

What are these things?    72. When’s the last time you had pizza from Pizza Hut?

STOP MAKING UP WORDS    73. Do you like diet soda?

I SAID STOP    74. What color are the walls in your room?

My hut is the dark brown of the wood I fashioned it from    75. Are you 16 or older?

Yes, I am much older    76. Do you watch Pretty Little Liars?

Liars are rarely pretty, lad     77. Do you have a job?

My profession is leading the war parties to victory!      78. What are your initials?

W.O.    79. Did you ever have braces?

I have had to brace myself against walls during sieges!    80. Are you from the south?

Nay, lad. The North!    

81. What does your last status on facebook say?

What sorcery is a book of faces?!    82. Do you still talk to the first person you ever kissed?

No, they have gone to Valhalla    83. Are you closer to your mom or your dad?

Mom used to whup me, but so did Dad. Both of them raised me to be a fine warrior, and I shall see them again in Valhalla    84. Have you ever done cheerleading or gymnastics?

I have led a cheer of victory!    85. What’s the last movie you saw in theaters?

What do those words mean?    86. Do you smoke?

Tobacco is not for me. Mead, on the other hand…    87. Would you rather wear heels or flip flops?

Your boots need a good heel, lest you fall in battle!88. Is your phone touch screen?

I told you to stop making up words!89. Do you normally wear your hair straight or curly?

Long traditional braids90. Have you ever snuck out of your house? 

Yes, when I was a lad I wanted to join the battle early. My Father was not impressed, and my ears and rear were red after he was done teaching me a lesson91. Would you rather swim in a river, lake, or pool?

A river is best for swimming.92. Have you ever made out in a car?

I know not what you are speaking of.93. …Had sex in a car?    

I attempted to woo the lady @official-peacekeeper​ in a boat but…well, I already answered that94. Are you single or in a relationship?

Single for now. The battlefield is my lady95. What were you doing last night at midnight?  

Sleeping off all the mead I drank96. When’s the last time you saw fireworks? 

During a raid on the weebs! They summoned reinforcements but we pushed through!97. Do you like the camera on your phone?

Ask me about this foolery again and I shall have to stomp down those foolish dreams of made-up things98. Have you ever had a friend with benefits?

Yes, there was a young lass who helped me become the man I am today99. Have you ever passed out from drinking?

…AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA100. Are you friends with people on facebook that you actually hate? 

Mention this book again, and I shall tie you to my mast!101. Have you ever had a pregnancy scare?   

Now you’re trying to insult me!102. Name your favorite Kesha song:    

WHO IS THAT?!103. Do you have any tan lines right now?    

No, the sun has not broken through the clouds in months104. Would you ever wear cowboy boots with shorts?

What ARE THESE THINGS

[wanderingaunt]

The Vulnerability in Asking

*This post was inspired by Marsha Shandur of Yes, Yes Marsha! After attending True Stories (Told Live) Toronto! on Zoom this evening. There were some captivating storytellers who dug deep and inspired to write stories for this blog post.

I walked into the kitchen and found an empty Instant Carnation coffee tin.

“This will be perfect,” I thought.

I left the room with my tin in hand and walked into the office. I took a white piece of paper and cut a small rectangle from it. I took a pen out and wrote the words “Donations” on the outside of it. I taped the paper to the outside of the tin and smiled.

“This will be perfect.”

I was probably 7 or 8 at the time. I knew all of the neighbors in our neighborhood and visited with them throughout the week. I collected my tin and eagerly stepped out the door. I walked around the neighborhood and went door to door knocking. Neighbors would open the door, and I would hold out my donations tin. Knowing me, I probably had some sort of speech planned that enrolled the neighbors in why it would benefit them to donate to my cause. My cause is still foggy in my memory. Regardless, I had a cause and thought my neighbors could support it financially.

House by house, my tin begin to fill with more and more change. When my tin was full, I closed the plastic lid on the container and skipped back home. I was so excited! I had collected so much change. I couldn’t wait to show my Mom.

Now this is the part of the story, where I’m not totally clear on the exact details, so I’ll share what I remember as stored in my memory.

I ran home and opened the door and showed my Mom my tin full of coins. I was so excited that people had actually given me money! Rather than being excited for me and cheering me on, I saw a look of horror pour across my Mom’s face. Suddenly I got the notion that what I had done was not okay. It was not okay for me to Ask for money, especially money from neighbors.

I was immediately filled with shame.

“It’s not okay to Ask for money.” Got it. I stored that message deep in my mind.

Fast-forward to a few years later. My Great Aunt Mimi had just come to town for her annual visit. I loved when Mimi came. She would play with us, read to us, and buy us toys. Neither my Great Aunt Mimi nor Uncle Charlie ever married or had children of their own. They would treat my Mom and her sisters as their children. As such, they would often take care of certain financial needs. Thanks to Mimi and Charlie, I was able to get braces, get new school clothes, and receive money for various trips or school activities.

When Mimi arrived, I was beyond excited. I couldn’t wait to receive Licorice Nips hard candy, and of course receive new toys! I always had this view that Mimi and Charlie were rich. “Rich” to a child is often different from reality. I don’t know what their exact financial situation was, but in my eyes they were wealthy. As such, that meant they had money to spare. I remember going into Mimi’s room while she was visiting. She had asked me to get her wallet from her purse. For whatever reason, likely out of curiosity, I picked up Mimi’s wallet and opened it. My eyes grew big. I saw a lot of cash tucked away in the wallet. I pulled it out and began to count. I was amazed. Mimi carried a lot of cash with her. I put the cash back in and carried it off to find Mimi. When I handed her the wallet, I said, “Woh! You have XXX dollars in your wallet!” I don’t remember the exact amount, but I’m sure it was more cash that I had held before.

Once again, I was taken aback. Mimi got this look of being violated on her face which then turned into anger. In her thick Jersey accent, Mimi looked at me and exclaimed, “You went through my wallet?! Did I tell you that you could open my wallet? Why did you think it was okay to count my cash?”

I was mortified and filled with shame.

“What were you thinking?? You never go through someone’s wallet and ask about how much money they have.” Got it. I stored that message deep in my mind.

These are two stories that have shaped my view of money and asking.

Lesson #1: It’s not okay to Ask other people for money.

Lesson #2: It’s not okay to Ask others how much money they have, and by all means never count it!

Shame became my underlying theme for my relationship to Money.

I stored these memories deep in my psyche. It wasn’t until a few months ago that these memories resurfaced while in meditation. It was towards the end of my yearlong coaching program. As part of our Retreat Leader Certification, we had to submit various calls and videos. When I first looked at the criteria for the certification, I remembered seeing “Submit a Successful Sales Call”. My heart sank. “How in the world am I going to submit a successful sales call?” I thought. Fear immediately consumed me. I naturally pushed my sales call off week after week.

Consider what you resist most is actually what you’re meant to lean into.

In March, I attended my final in-studio yoga class right before Stay at Home orders began. It was my favorite Soulful Sunday class with my favorite yoga teacher, Dustin. Dustin likes to crank the heat up in class so we’re already sweating before we start moving. Dustin always pushes us to our limit and reminds us how powerful we are. In that particular class, he guided us into this really challenging heart opening pose. It was similar to Camel pose except one leg was hovering off the ground. Camel is challenging on its own, and having to hover our legs made it all the more challenging. It is also a “Fight or Flight” pose which opens your heart and tests your very limit. I got into the pose on the first side, and was consumed with anxiety.

“I’m going to die! I’m going to die!” I shouted in my head.

I got out of the pose on my right side and caught my breath. When we got to the pose on the other side, I allowed myself to try again. I got into the pose once again, and felt the rush, anxiety, and emotion consume me. I got out of the pose and collapsed face down onto my mat and began crying.

“You’re not going to die. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re not going to die.” I thought in my head.

In that instance I realized, “This is what Asking feels like to me.”

Asking feels like I’m going to die.

I thought back on my life and recognized how not Asking or fearfully asking has impacted me. Asking is extremely vulnerable for me. And, at the core of Asking, is shame.

And it isn’t only with money. Asking for anything has hindered me. After making decisions as a child that “it’s not okay to ask for money”, I took this to heart. I decided that since it wasn’t okay to Ask, I would become self-sufficient and do everything on my own. I became a pro early on. I learned to take care of myself. If I needed money, I would earn it myself. When I started my period as a tween, I was too ashamed to ask my Mom or sisters for tampons, so I figured it out myself. When I wanted to do something and needed to ask permission, I would come up with some long story to enroll the other person in it. Even asking for simple things at my former job like, “Can I take a day off or go on vacation?”, was extremely difficult for me. I would add in humor to make the request seem less daunting. And let’s forget about asking for a raise. Luckily, I had a boss who would take a stand for me and ensure I got periodic raises. “Wooh, off the hook there.”

At the core of Asking, is the answer, “No.”

At least that was what I built in my head. If I asked for something, the answer would ultimately be No. So why ask? I learned to get clever at my leasing job. I would sell customers on my experience living at the apartment community, rather than asking them if they wanted to lease. So you can imagine what it was like when I decided to quit my job, go on my nomadic journey, and start my own business.

I would eventually have to confront my fear and shame around Asking.

Solo-traveling the world has supported me in learning to flex my muscle around Asking. However, it’s usually the last resort. I try every way to figure out the problem on my own before resorting to asking someone. The more I’ve enhanced my intuition and awareness, the better I’ve become moving through my discomfort around Asking.

So back to my Retreat Leader certification and having to submit a successful sales call. I was terrified. All of my anxiety and shame around Asking for money resurfaced. One of my coach’s support team members offered to do sales calls with us. I was excited because, I didn’t have to offer an invitation to potential clients. I had my call with Janet and felt a bit spacey, but pleased after the fact. I was proud of myself for showing up and taking on the challenge. When I got my score back, I saw that I failed the sales call portion. 3 out of 10. In the notes, my coach wrote: “I want you to spend one FULL DAY in which you cannot TELL anyone anything, you can only ask.”

Gulp.

I immediately broke into tears. Not only had I failed this portion and had to redo it, I now was challenged with only ASKING for a day?! Once again “Fight or Flight” took over, and I felt like I was going to die. Maybe this was my sign that this certification wasn’t for me. Who was I for thinking I could complete and pass this anyway? After a good 30-minute cry, I went downstairs and told my sister what happened. My sister who is oversees a division of the Introduction Leadership Program for Landmark Worldwide, validated my upset and asked me if she could share something with me. I said yes. She looked at me and said she has witnessed many people she’s coached up against a wall; a wall in which the person felt like they wouldn’t be able to break through.

The moment a person accepts a challenge and chooses to show up fully (with fear and all the emotions attached), is the moment that magic happens.

She told me this challenge alone could be the reason I was called to enroll in this coaching program in the first place.

I chose to accept my coach’s challenge and only ASK for a day. It was quite a challenge and practice! I constantly had to pause and be mindful about forming questions rather than telling anyone anything. I persevered and made it a whole 24 hours with only asking questions. I was super proud of myself for moving through my fear and resistance, accepting the challenge, and showing up fully for it. I do thrive off of challenges, after all.

In the end, I had a successful sales call (with my coach nonetheless) and passed my Retreat Leader Certification! I even got a sale from it! This challenge taught me to view Asking from a different lens.

When we ask questions, we’re taking the attention off of ourselves and allowing space for the other person to decide.

I share these stories as a way to connect my resistance around Asking, and to share the heavy interpretations about Money and Asking that I’ve carried with me. Asking for money, a sale, or offering my services is still a block for me. I am working through it, and want to acknowledge that it’s still present for me at times. I have a beautiful website. I have a beautiful offering of services that I truly believe will change the world one person at a time. I have created beautiful art through my photoshoots and writing. When you see me post about a new offering or service, know that I have to move through many barriers to allow these spirited offerings to be known.

I offer anyone else who struggles with Asking or has shame around money, to take heart. You are not alone. Allow yourself to acknowledge your discomfort, create a mantra or say some affirmations about your worthiness, and step out into the light. It may be scary. It may feel personal when no one responds, or someone says, “No.” Keep showing up. Believe in yourself and your offerings or desires, and trust that the right people will come. Ask for support from others when you’re feeling scared, stuck or full of shame.

Host a Girl’s Night Inward

In August, I am on a mission to impact 100 people by Asking for people to host a Girl’s Night Inward. Girl’s Night Inward is a fun and enchanting evening for your tribe to come together in safe space for individual oracle card readings. We live in a world where at the core of our being, we all want to be seen and heard. Girl’s Night Inward provides a safe space for you and your tribe to be seen and receive messages tailored to each specific person. Would you consider being a host and inviting your tribe for a unique, fun, and enchanting evening via zoom? Send me a message or if you know you’re ready to host, reserve your spot here.

Love Donation

If you’ve been enjoying my 30-day Blog Challenge, would you consider offering a Love Donation? I write and produce all of my content for free. While I enjoy writing as a self-expression, I would appreciate any financial support you wish to offer. Thank you.

[rancidtomatoes]

IRONMAN 70.3 Indian Wells – La Quinta – Race Recap

* A video version of this race recap can be found on my YouTube channel here.

A triathlon is a game of contradiction.

You spend hours, weeks, months training for something that lasts moments of your life. Improve at one sport by mastering three. Train slower to race faster. Race slower to race faster. Do it alone, surrounded by people. Never see a finish line as the end.

One of the most challenging contradictions is the trap of identity. To do well, you have to immerse yourself in training for long periods of time. It can become you; consume you. And then what is objectively a meaningless act of physical exertion assumes a station in your life that it never deserved. And you are left with nothing but finish times and medals, to gather dust because nobody cares.

I thought about these contradictions a lot during my training for my first Ironman 70.3 race in Indian Wells – La Quinta California. It seemed fitting in this vein of contradiction that I would train in the cold and snow in order to race in the warm desert. I hoped that by recognizing the contradictions inherent in what I was doing, I could avoid that most challenging trap, and come away with an experience, rather than just another race.

After Musselman in July, I took a break for a few weeks, and then started training again. I had a few minor injuries, which were challenging, but for the most part my training was consistent. I did some bike fitting and got a set of aerobars on my bike. Winter arrived early in Vermont; we had snow on the ground before Thanksgiving. So most of my riding was indoors. I ran outside as much as I could. And weather doesn’t matter in the pool, of course.

Swimming was a major area of focus for me this fall. I got a second swim analysis and really worked on my technique. I was able to take another ten seconds off my 100-yard time, and by December I was swimming faster on average than I ever had.

I had also been trying to eat smarter, both to be healthier and to drop extra weight. With the help of a friend, I definitely had some success here, though it added some stress to our family routine. Kids like what they like.

I was a little concerned about flying my bike to California, because I had only done it once before and I didn’t have to assemble it myself when I arrived that time. So I broke it down and packed it up at the bike shop so I could get guidance with questions that I had and hands-on help from Darren, my friend who owns Vermont Bicycle Shop. I felt a lot more confident once it was all ready to go.

The flights were pretty uneventful, and we made it to San Diego in one piece — including my bike. One of the first things I did was put it back together; I wanted to make sure I would have enough time to solve any problems that came up. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any and the assembly went pretty smoothly.

The Catamount, my custom Orbea Terra, ready to ride

We spent a few days with my brother’s family in San Diego, hiking at Torrey Pines and playing on the beach. It was a nice way to get acclimated to the environment. It wasn’t as warm as I thought it would be, but it definitely was a lot warmer than Vermont. Locals on the beach were dressed in winter coats and hats, but our girls thought it was the perfect weather for swimming in the Pacific.

Before long it was time to drive to Indian Wells. The amazing scenery on that drive took us all by surprise. We stopped for a moment but the day before the race was very busy so there wasn’t a lot of time for sight-seeing.

After getting the family settled at the hotel, I had my first Ironman athlete check-in experience and got to see the pro panel, which included the eventual race winners Lionel Sanders and Paula Findlay. I checked my run gear in to T2, a little overwhelmed by the enormity of the transition area. Then it was time for a half-hour drive to the swim start and T1, to see the swim course, check in my bike and decontaminate my wetsuit before hanging it on the racks where it would stay until race morning. I made sure to mark it well so I wouldn’t have any trouble finding it.

My day would have gone quite differently if it hadn’t been for my teammate Lacy. She and her husband gave me a lift to the shuttle buses, which was already a great help by itself, but when she mentioned her water bottles I realized I had forgotten something at the hotel. Specifically, all of my hydration. It was still sitting in my refrigerator. They drove me back so I could retrieve them and I was so grateful. Luckily we were up early enough that it didn’t affect our day — we got on a bus with no waiting and were off to the start area.

I knew the water would be cold. The reported temperature that morning was just under 59 degrees. There was no warm-up swim. We stood in line at the rolling start for a long time before finally getting into the water. And then, finally, after everything, I was racing.

The first one or two hundred meters were tough. I was hyperventilating from the shock of the water temperature and struggling to relax and find my rhythm. I expected that, but it didn’t make it any easier. Finally I settled in, though, and found my zone. It was clear pretty quickly that I should have seeded myself further forward; nobody around me was actually swimming at the pace they lined up for. I was crawling over people all the way. My goggles half-filled with water but I ignored it since I could still see. When I finally crawled out of the lake, I had a personal best time of 34 minutes. By my watch, I had swum ten seconds per 100 yards faster than my first 70.3 in July.

As I mounted my bike, I readied myself mentally to face the biggest contradiction of the day. I had programmed the wattage target my coach and I agreed on into my bike computer, and I was going to stick to that number like superglue. The paradox of my plan was that the number was low. It was lower than I had expected. It was lower than it was at my first 70.3, and it was low relative to my power profile. It was so low that it meant I’d be doing what amounted to a zone 2 ride for the entirety of the bike leg.

The plan was predicated on the knowledge that the course was pancake flat, and that triathlons succeed or fail on the run. We would conserve energy on the bike, allowing my inertia to do most of the work, and hopefully get off the bike with enough in the tank to really drop the hammer.

So what the bike ended up being was a test of patience, rather than fitness. My heart rate stayed low, peaking only at the very start during the excitement of transition and climbing a tiny hill out of transition. I spent a lot of the time focused on avoiding drafting as much as I could, but it was pretty difficult considering that the roads were absolutely packed with riders. That forced me to surge occasionally, but it was okay because the course was so flat.

The first 20 miles flew by so fast that I was actually surprised when I saw the mile marker sign. At 30 miles I felt no worse; very comfortable and just cruising along. It was a strong contrast to my last race, where the 30 mile marker saw me doing pretty solid work. I began to get excited about the paradoxical plan as evidence in its favor continued to build. That naturally inclined me to want to push harder, but I redoubled my efforts to stay focused and in my target zone.

The highlight of the bike course by far was the Thermal Raceway, which is a private racetrack for cars that we got to ride around on. My watts went up on that section for sure, but it was a match that was worth burning. It’s a unique experience to ride your bike around a banked track with perfect pavement, designed for million dollar super cars. I had a lot of fun there.

The rest of the course was technically uphill but the gradient was so gradual, I barely noticed. I rode into T2 just 2 watts over my target. My family was cheering at the dismount line, which was a nice boost going into the start of my run.

After racking my bike and strapping on my running shoes, I started out on the final leg, to see if the contradictions would be resolved. Here I was, running in the heat and sun after training for months in the cold and snow. Here I was, having biked slowly on purpose to see if I could do a faster race. And here I was, after weeks of training at a jog, pushing my legs to go fast, and stay fast.

I have always run fast out of transition, because it takes a mile or two before my legs really feel normal and I can tell how my body is actually doing. At my first 70.3, I slowed that pace after the first aid station, feeling that I would have to conserve energy to make it through the run without shutting down. This day, though, I felt strong. I felt no such impending decline. I felt like I could hold the pace. So I didn’t slow down.

The run followed asphalt roads for a couple of miles before turning off onto a golf course, where it tracked around the greens on a winding, undulating path that was a mix of concrete, dirt and grass. There were no long straightaways, no places to hide from the course. It was highly dynamic and constantly changing.

A conclusion I had drawn from my first 70.3 was that I had been underfueled. This time, I ate and drank everything I could get my hands on during the run. I think I probably ate two or three whole bananas, a half at a time, plus several gels and all the coke, gatorade and red bull I could grab. I didn’t slow down during the aid stations; I didn’t want to lose my inertia. At one point I took a cup of ice, dumped it in my hat and packed it onto my head. The contrasts had never been more stark — at home I had been wearing winter hats to keep the snow off my head; today, I was deliberately packing ice onto my scalp.

It was a two-lap course which meant that I had to run agonizingly close to the finish line at around mile seven, only to have to turn around and do the entire thing one more time. Now I knew what to expect, though, and I knew where to push and where I could relax. Now all I had to do was hold my pace.

When the second lap of the course started to beat me, I focused on my family, waiting for me at the finish, and steeled myself in the resolve to make this all worth it. What was the point of asking so much of them, to support my training, to spend an entire day of our vacation standing around, if I didn’t make it worth it? I wasn’t going to slow down for anything.

The last couple of miles were hard and my pace started to slip a little bit, but I was still moving faster than I had ever really expected. I found my family just before the finish line, gave everybody high-fives, and then took it over the line. It was a personal best by a long margin, with personal records in every part of the race. I almost couldn’t believe it, but there it was.

If there’s one thing I learned from this race experience, it’s that you can’t always see contradictions as obstacles. Sometimes, they are puzzle pieces in a larger pattern that you can’t fully recognize until you’ve put it all together. You can’t always resist the things that don’t make sense; sometimes, you have to lean into them, make them part of your plan and see them through to the end. And that’s when you can find clarity.

We closed out our trip with a drive through Joshua Tree National Park, marveling at the natural beauty of the desert before boarding our plane to fly back into winter. With California behind us, it was time to look forward to a new year, and new contradictions.

Watch the video version of this race recap:

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