#the highest i saw anyone else get was 42%

[philzokman]

GUYSSS I GOT MY EXAM RESULTS BACK :D

[koolcece22]

Enter Venomgirl

Ch. 24

Miguel’s Pov

I couldn’t breathe. I don’t know why. I was dreaming or if one would call it that, but for me they are normal. I felt like I was choking like I was drowning in a sea of darkness. 

“Miguel wake up!!” 

Miles? I heard his voice

“Miguel wake up, please. some…Shade…”

I tried to wake up but I saw only black in one eye. I look down to see a black liquid sparing across my body I look up to see Miles panicking to wake me up. I trying to figure out what the shock is going on. Till I try to turn my head to see Shade’s tendril wrapping around me and spreading all over my body, Jess, Peter, and 42 try to get them off of me and try to snap Shade out of it. She looks like she is in a trance as her eyes were pure red. Miles was trying to rip her tendril off of me but it clearly not working. I summoned my elbow blade to slice them off of me and quickly got away from Shade. Her tendrils were still aimed at me.

“Peter! Jess! What going on?!” I shouted trying to figure out what going on with Shade and dodging her tendrils at the same time. 

“WE DON’T KNOW!!” Miles said as he dodged the tendril as there now spreading and becoming more violent towards everybody. “I heard Lyla yelling in the room and next thing we know Shade is trying to absorb you! We have been trying to snap her out of it, but nothing working!!” 

“Miles and 42 get ready to shock her!” Jess said as one of the tendrils pinned her on the wall. Peter used his webs to try to wrap them but more kept coming. It is more than usual for a symbiote would have. Shade then turned her head towards me in a creepy way, with her eyes res as she slowly walked towards me.

“Shade! Come, man! I don’t want to shock you again.” Miles said as he and 42 were about to rush in to shock her but her tendrils pinned them on the floor. I had enough and rush at her and pinned her on the ground I figured she wanted me for some reason. And sure enough, all the tendril let go of everyone else but me as they quickly spread on me again. She was trying to take over me, but why?

“Miles! 42! Now!” I said before one tendrils wrapped around my mouth. Both 42 and Miles release shock the highest they can muster up and shock Shade in both her arms.

“ AAAAAAHHHHH!!!” Shade screamed which sounded like a symbiote in pain. She let go of me as she twitched from the pain. I unpin her thinking she snap out of it as her tendrils went into her body.  I looked over to the two Miles and both were shaken up. Both of them hate shocking their allies, Peter helps Jess up, and both confess all this. I was breathing hard trying to get my bearings, I summoned Lyla.

“Lyla, how long was Shade like this?” 

Lyla pops in with a worried look. 

“I don’t know. She went in the room like normal, I just by chance popped in to tell her you were resting here, and the next thing I knew she was in like trance state trying to absorb you.”

“She never did that before, right?” Jess asked Lyla, I was wondering that too. She half symbiote I thought she wouldn’t be capable of doing that. 

“According to the data I gather. No, she shouldn’t. unless she maturing.”

“What ?” we all said at once. What does Lyla mean by Shade maturing?  Symbiotes don’t change or adapt like this? We all heard a groan coming from Shade as she got up and rubbed her head. 

“W-What happened?” she asked, she was surprised to see us. Shade then grabbed her head as her eyes were turning red again telling me she was still not all there. Before anyone could react her eye rolled in the back head and change into silver. Guess Kuro took over.  But her reaction didn’t look right, she was shaking and crawled backward towards the wall.

“Kuro, what going with you and Shade-” Miles was about to walk up to Kuro slowly but he stopped and grabbed 42 who was behind him. Peter grabbed me and tendrils shot out of her body and hit the other side of the wall, stabbing it. Jess, Peter, and Miles’s spider sense went off to tell them to dodge. 

“ Get…away…why…I…why do…wh…” Kuro said as she shook harder. Her eyes kept flicking from purple to silver to red. 

“Leave…Leave… LEAVE!!” Shade roared as her tendril lashed out again we all ran out of the room before the lashing became too much.

“Lyla! Lock down the room so don’t get out.” I command Lyla. Lyla nodded as the red barrier was on the door. If it can hold me when my medicine doesn’t work it should hold her. I hope.

I look at Miles and 42 to see if they're ok. Miles’s arm got stuck making a gash, besides that, they were a bit shaken up from seeing that. Peter and Jess were also ok so I’m glad, at least…Shade won’t feel too bad. 

“Do you think this has something to do with the Compound R that is in her?” Peter asked, I Kind of wish he didn’t say that in front of the kids. 

“What Compound R? Is that something in Shade?” Miles asked, I sighed not wanting any of the kids to know about this. Similar to me and my DNA issues something I wish they didn’t have to deal with. 

“Well, Miles…ugh let's just say. It is a bit different from normal symbiotes.” Peter said trying to explain it but doing it poorly. As usual.

“Look, we're also in the dark on what going on with her. The fact that Lyla said that she is mature. I have a theory that she…might be looking for a host.” 

Everyone's eyes widen at my theory, I  hope I’m wrong on that. I would surely have to look at the data again, for an earth in the year 2023 it almost as advanced as my earth in genetics and DNA slicing deportment. l I need to help her get this under control. Who knows if this can hurt anyone or herself?

~

Shade’s POV

I don’t even know how long I have been in the room and I don’t care it's just safer if I stay in this room. I have no idea what was that all about. It was like I was drowning in a wave that I couldn’t swim out of. The fact that I couldn’t remember what happened made things worse. I can tell from everyone was freaking out and if I didn’t push them away I…I don’t know what I would have done to them. 

“Hey.” 

I looked up as I was hugging my knee and sitting from the far corner of the room with no light. When I looked up, I saw Lyla in front of me. She was the only one who had been checking on me to see if I was ok. At least I can’t hurt her.

“How are you feeling?”

I didn’t answer as put my head back down. Not in the mood to talk to anyone. I can hear her sighing, for an A.I. she really is acting like a real person. 

“So Dr.Andrea and Jess are going to check up on you. I can check your vials from afar, but it is best if she takes a look at you personally. Is that ok?”

I said nothing. I can hear the door being unlocked, I did figure it was locked once they left. I can tell just by the sound of who came into the room. It was Andrea and Jess, they stopped a few meters from me not getting too close. I don’t sense they are afraid of me their heroes they have probably seen worse things than me to be afraid of. But I can tell they are still weary of me.

“How you feeling Miss. Usagi? Andrea asked, I didn’t say anything just grip my knees together. It reminds me of when I was in the labs. How they poke me with stuff and threaten my family if I ever say anything to them about what the scientist did to me. 

“I here to just take your blood to see Carnage was the cause of it and-”

“He not in me anymore” I know he is not in me anymore. I feel like he is gone and this is all me. But I think he did something to me, like opening a door that I didn’t know existed in me. 

Jess steps forward a meter towards me “Shade, please let us help you. We know you weren’t hurting us on purpose. We think you just going through a change in your biology and we want to make sure it is not-

“Kill me? Good. About vucking time.”

I can sense the change in their emotion to more like sadness for me. I don’t need their pity. I hate getting pity.

“Shade, I know you don’t mean that. I can tell you want help. Look, I we seen this before.”

That annoyed me. I move so fast that the two spider-women don’t have time to use their spidey-sense or whatever to dodge my tendril as I pin them on the wall.

“No, you haven’t! Let's face it! I’m a freak compared to those symbiotes you say I am. I freak in my world and I’m a freak here! Haha! I’m starting to think I should start acting like one, right?” maybe I should? It is so much easier. I just don’t care anymore. I don’t even care I starting to look less nice. 

“Maybe, I will show everyone your corpses so maybe then I can finally be the monster that I meant to be.” 

“That's not you,” Andrea said calmly to me. I’m surprised that neither of them are afraid of me right now. I can feel my mouth is more exposed to show off my teeth and my tendrils have their blades out. 

“Look, you're having a bad reaction because you were trying to fuse and you couldn’t.”

“I think she is not in the frame of mind,” Jess said confessing what she talking about. I what they saying? I'm just trying to act like a monster and they are talking like I'm just some moody girl having a bad day?! 

“FINE!! Take my vucking blood!” I said as I grabbed one of my tendrils and pulled it as hard as I could and ripped it off of me too much of the two Spider-women surprise. “Just leave me alone!” I hissed as I unpin them a ran out of the room. I don’t know why, thoughts are so messed up right now. I just want to get away and find my…

‘Host’

“What? I stop running and try to think why I thought that “Kuro was that you”

“ Dude, no! I have been trying to calm you down but all I- I mean all you can think is to ‘find your host’. What the vuck does that even mean?!”

“ You are the one that is supposed to help me with my powers! How the vuck I know!?” 

“Shade? Are you ok?” 

I didn’t notice Miles and 42 was in front of me. Void, I didn’t notice other Spiders around me and all there staring at me. It doesnt help that my bladed tendrils were out. I can see Miles slowly walking up to and 42 wasn’t far behind him. I can sense everyone's weariness and their readiness that if I did something they’ll stop me. 

“ Shade, come on. let's get back to the lab and-” I didn’t hear the rest of what he had to say. I saw the wound Miles had on his arm.

‘Did I do that? no…no…I …host…need to find host…no, I need to get out here…find a host…leave…’

“Shade?” 

The next thing I did was jump out of the building from the window. I quickly used my tendrils to grab on the wall and start climbing up. I’m losing my damn mind! I can’t even think straight. 

I made it on the roof of the building it was nighttime on Miguel’s Earth so It was easier to hide in the shadows. I can hear Spiders searching for me and can hear them alerting each other, telling them to find me and try to capture me. 

‘ Shade, we need to go back. I’m… I’m freaking out.’ I heard Kuro said in my head. her? freaking out? I’m the one who is freaking out?! 

“There you are.” I heard a voice look up to see Miguel with Miles and 42. All three of them have their masks on and I can feel they worry for me. 

‘Host.’

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” I scream at myself trying to get this…whatever this feeling out of my head. WHAT THE VUCK IS GOING ON!?

~

Miles’s POV

“Miguel, what going on with her?” I asked Miguel. Shade is freaking out worse than before. At least she was not in a trance last time but now she is more aware and panicking.

“She going through host withdrawal.” 

I look at Miguel very confess on what he just. “What?”

“He says that since Shade was trying to become Miguel’s uh ‘partner’ and she didn’t fuse. her mind is scrabbling up right now. She freaking out because she lost her host. Didn’t you look at the symbiote files?” 42 pointed out and both he and Miguel looked at me with a disappointed look that didn’t study about villains. What? I have schoolwork to do.

“Anyway, 42. I need you to inject her with this. I’ll distract her since she wants me. And you're the best at stealth.” 

I huffed a bit “Hey! How about me? And isn’t that your injector?” I noted the injector he brought up but the vial was light blue, not the usual green he used. 

“It symbioate synthesizer. I used it before with Shade. It more stronger since we boosted it with her blood so it should snap her out of it. I hope.”  He threw at 42 so he could give the injection, 42 looked at it.

“And if doesn’t work?” he asked 

Miguel sighs “I inject her with my venom. So you two don’t have to deal with shocking her twice in one day.” 

I really hope it works, I hate shocking allies and so does 42. I still feel kind of guilty about shocking Miguel during the train chase. Almost got the dude naked in front of everybody! 

“ Host .” we all turned back to Shade who started to go into a trance-like state again her, eyes were red and cloudy like before and her tendrils were whipping around her but slowly. Miguel unmasked and put his hands out, trying to make himself look more willing to accept her. I backed away from Miguel and so did 42, slowly getting behind her. She was too focused on fusing with Miguel to notice us.

“ Host. stop. I need to. Host .” we can tell Shade is fighting it as she stumbles towards Miguel. It was hard to watch, she had no control of her body. 

“42. Do it now,” I told him. 42 tried to but Shade’s tendrils were still whipping around too fast for him. 

“Not yet!” we both look at Miguel wondering what he talking about. “Once she is near me she should be calm down. Got it!?” we both nodded as Shade had her hands up about to touch Miguel’s hands the moment she did her tendrils quickly spread across Miguel’s body, faster than before.

“Now!” Miguel shouted before he was completely covered. 42 stabbed the injector in Shade’s neck and we saw the blood liquid shot through her body. She gasped for air as her eyes changed back to the normal purple. Her tendrils quickly went back into her body and let go of Miguel who fell on his knees and coughing as he was basically drowning for a moment. Shade also fell on her knees as 42 to pull the injector from Shade’s neck. 

“Shade…Are you with us?” Miguel gasps as looks up. I was going to help Shade up till she swapped my hand away

“Why are you even near me?!” she shouted I was taken aback by that. Then I realized back in the lobby she must have seen my wound that had gotten from the earlier scuffle. I mentally curse myself for not hiding it better. Shade then walked back to the wall and sat, she was still shaken up. 

“Shade, It's just an accident you didn’t mean to hurt me,” I said as I was getting close to her, I’m not afraid of her. I know she is scared and freaking out. Miguel sometimes likes that when he goes into ’spider mode’ but I know it is not on purpose.

“I could have killed you all! I don’t know what that was about. I-I all I could think about is ‘my host’” 

“You were trying to sync for the first time.” We all turn to Miguel gotten up still feeling out of breath. “I must of…been compatible with you for some reason and you were trying to fuse with me.”  Miguel sat near Shade, he kept his distance just to make her feel comfortable since she just got out of her trance. Me and 42 did the same we sat there for a while till Shade could get her bears better. We sat there for a few minutes. 

“Uh, you feeling better?” I asked, her symbiote popping out onto her shoulder in its rabbit form. It also looks shaken up to the point Shade puts her on her lap. Shade pet her which is so weird for us to see.

“Heh, I thought you didn’t like being seen as a cute bunny.” I joked. Kuro growled at me and showed off her sharp teeth, it was kind of off-putting since she looked like a rabbit right now.

“Your lucky I’m not in the mood to kick your ass kick.” She sounds very tired and groggy. Wonder if it's because of the injection? 

“I’m fine Miles, actually feel better than I usually am when I’m…not stable.”  Shade turns to Miguel “What was in that stuff you put in me? Better ask now before it kills me any second now.” 

“No, it won’t.” Miguel pulls up a screen to show DNA and Shade’s blood cells. Weirdly,  her blood is pink. “I was able to quickly create a symbiote synthesizer for you specifically since your DNA is genetically a symbiote compared to a symbiote which is more cellular. It going to take a little while to create a more stable version since I only had like ten seconds to make one before went off to shocking where. Oh, and next time…” Miguel summons a jar with a piece of a symbiote inside. It looked like it was trying to go to Shade, the jar released it and it quickly went back into Shade who wasn’t really fazed by it. “Don’t rip off your tendrils like that.”

“What? I’m used to the pain.” Shade said nonchalantly, I’m getting the feeling she had done that before. 

Miguel sighed “Was there…anything that might have triggered this? How you want me as a host? Lyla and Miles said you just went into the room and saw me sleeping.”

“I saw you…a sleep that all. I was trying to be nice to tell you I’m here to rest and the next I knew I blacked out.” Shade said, we could tell she was holding back some information. “Look, I just go back to the room and you make something stronger for me in the meantime. I also, have apologized to the rest of you guys. And Andrea, Jess, and Peter.” she got up and so did we. Before anyone can say anything we heard a beep from 42’s watch. We turned to him as he looked at the watch and there was a message on it. 

“Huh? I guess I’m heading out earlier. My mom wants to see me.” 42 said I guess his mom chilled out after he got a B on his last test. He did tell me he was here just to let her chill out. “Oh, Shade try not to kill anyone while I’m gone.” 42 said as he opened a portal to head back to his Earth. Shade gave him a sad smirk knowing he didn’t mean it to be so heartless. 

I was about to say something like ‘Really?’ but then my spider sense went off. Hard. I wasn’t the only one. Both Miguel and Shade’s eyes widen.

“42! Get away from the portal!!” Miguel yelled at 42 as red tendrils popped out of the portal and grabbed 42. Both me and Miguel were about to help before Shade’s tendril got us. 

“Shade! Let us go!” I yelled at her. Before she could say anything she was slammed into the wall from something. Soon something also grabbed me. It felt like something was choking me as I grabbed my neck. All four were about to be dragged in. We all quickly we can put on our masks as we were dragged into the portal. 

Once we are across from the other side of the portal. I knew then and there we weren’t on Earth-42. 

“Hehe, I caught a lot of fish this time, or more like two spiders, a wannabe, and the freak.” 

I got up with a groan and looked up trying to see where the hell we were my eyes widened as I saw Hobie, Gwen, and Pavitr pinned on the wall with red slime.  I heard Miguel and Shade groan as they were getting up. 

“Well, I guess I’m going to have some fun.” we turned to see Carnage holding 42 by the neck. If it wasn’t for his suit he would been crushed by the tendril but it not going to hold out for much longer. Carnage looks at us with a sick grin.

“This going to be fun.”

[writingwithciara]

Silent Auction (1) ~Topper Thornton~

summary: Kildare County High School decides to have an auction to save the arts programs. all the students are up for grabs and y/n is purchased by the least likely person. her worst nightmare. her nemesis. someone who doesn’t even attend the school.

word count: 1.4k

pairings: topper x reader, pope x kiara

warnings: fluff, enemies to friends (kinda)

a/n: i was watching zoey 101 and this idea popped into my head.

← previous next →

masterlist

“What’s with the assembly?” Kiara asked as she sat with the pogues sat at the back of the auditorium.

“I heard that someone went missing.” JJ laughed as he leaned over. y/n slapped his chest and pushed him back.

“Shut up, JJ.” she laughed.

“I heard there was a meeting last night and that one of the programs was being cut.” John B informed the group. “I heard it was the drama department.” 

“What? No. That’s entirely unfair.” y/n gasped. “If anything, it should be the History program.” she teased, knowing how much John B loved History class.

“Relax guys. I’m sure it’s neither of those.” Kiara smiled and looked through her phone.

The principal got up on the stage and propped the microphone at her level.

“Good morning staff and students. The purpose of today’s assembly is to discuss the problem we’ve been having with the funding.” she looked down at her notes and continued talking. “It has been brought to my attention that we’ve gone overboard on the budget for this years activities and that we need to cancel a program. At last nights school meeting, your teachers and I put our heads together and figured out what program wasn’t getting as much participants as the others, and therefore, has to be cut out of the budget.”

“It’s totally the arts program.” John B smiled and whispered in y/n’s ear. She slapped his arm as he laughed.

“Shut up, John B.”

“Unfortunately, we will be cutting funding for the arts department.” the principal spoke in a sad tone. Tons of people murmured to the people around them. “I know, I know. It’s a very sad decision but not a lot of students here are really all that interested in the department. I was shocked and thought it would’ve been the History department.” she sighed. “I love the arts program and it pains me to have to see it get taken away, but it’s what needs to be done.” she looked out at the sea of students and teachers. “That will be all. You may now return to your classrooms.” she ended the assembly and walked off-stage.

Y/n and Pope returned to their soon-to-be-cut Art class and sat at their stations. 

“Man, this blows. Just when I get good at art, they cut the program.” Pope sighed and picked up a brush. Their teacher, Mr Marzello, entered the room and sat down at his desk.

“I was not expecting that to happen.” he moped. “With the cuts, this means that this will be our final week together. I will miss you all.” he looked at all 11 of his students. Pope was undoubtedly the favorite, as he was the most improved, with y/n coming in a close 2nd. “Now, for your assignment, I would like you to do a painting that represents you. You can make it as creative, or plain as you wish. This will be your final assignment and will be due at the end of the week.”

“This really sucks.” Pope set his brush down and looked at the canvas in front of him. It was blank, aside from a blue dot sitting in the middle. 

Y/n admired his creativity and looked over at her own canvas. It was a pure white canvas. She couldn’t bring herself to even think about the class, knowing it was going to end. She tapped the brush on the edge as she thought of an idea to save the program. When she got one, she sat up straighter and smiled.

“I know that look.” Pope smiled at his best friend. “You’ve got an idea on how to save the program, don’t you?” As she nodded, both their smiled grew bigger and she told him her idea.

At the end of class, they were the last two to leave, as usual. They approached Mr Marzello’s desk with mischievous looks on their faces. He looked up and was startled.

“Hey, guys. What’s up?”

“We thought of a way we could raise money and save the program.” Pope began.

“And we’re gonna need your help.” y/n finished. She proceeded to tell their teacher everything he needed to hear.

As the final bell for the day rang, Pope and y/n met up with Mr Marzello and they headed into the principal’s office.

“Ms. Nickols, these two lovely students came up with a pretty neat fundraiser idea that may just save the arts programs.” 

“What’s the idea?”

“We have a silent auction.”

“What would we be auctioning?” the principal was in the edge of her seat as the three of them explained it all to her. 

“We’d be auctioning off a bunch of people. All we gotta do is find anyone who’s willing to be bought.”

“Okay. How would the silent auction work, exactly?”

“Easy.” Pope smiled. “We find the participants, and instead of having their pictures on the forms, we assign them all numbers. People can then bid on whatever number they think they’ll want and when the time is up, we sell the participants. They don’t have to be for dates or anything, either. The winners can use them for whatever.”

“That sounds brilliant. But we’ll need at least two supervisors, myself and someone else, for this event and it’s gonna take some planning.”

“I’m willing to be a supervisor and I know these two are already planning it. Look at them. They’re planning it as we speak.” the two adults looked at the teenagers who were whispering to each other.

“Okay. You got yourselves a deal.” the principal smiled and watched the trio exit her office in the happiest of moods.

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

4 days later, Pope and y/n had set everything up and they smiled at each other as they watched the auditorium fill up with people.

“I almost forgot.” y/n smiled and handed Pope a piece of paper. “I signed you up for this.”

“What a coincidence, because,” he smiled and gave her a number. “I signed you up too.”

“I bet I’ll get more than you.” she stuck her tongue out and continued signing people in.

“In your dreams, darling.” he chuckled.

After the 3 hours was up, Mr Marzello retrieved all the clipboards and handed them to Ms Nickols.

“Welcome to the first ever Kildare County High Silent Auction.” she greeted the crowd and it was met with tons of cheers. “First up, we have Jasmine Vingras.”

The night went on and it felt like it took forever for them to get through all 42 participants. Pope and y/n looked at each other and smiled.

“This was quite a turn out, tonight. I’m so happy that we’ve raised enough money to save the arts program and have enough let over to put away for next year.” Pope smiled. 

“Yeah. And we’re the last two participants so we’re gonna get a lot more.” y/n replied with a smile.

“And now, the first of our masterminds behind this auction, #43. Mr Pope Heyward.”

“Good luck, Pope.” y/n smiled as he climbed onto the stage.

“This lovely boy was auctioned for,” Mr Marzello looked down at Pope’s clipboard. “Wow. He was auctioned for $1500 to Ms Carrera.” 

Kiara stood up and smiled as he looked at her in shock. he climbed off the stage and walked over to the girl. 

“Why’d you spend so much and how’d you know it was me?” he chuckled.

“Because I like you, dummy. And I figured it was you when I heard you and y/n talking to each other at the beginning of the event.” she blushed.

“I’m glad you bought me.” he smiled and they walked to the side of the stage. 

“Now, time for the final participant of the evening. Ms y/l/n.” Ms Nickols smiled and the crowd clapped as y/n walked up on stage. 

JJ looked at his friends and smirked. “I put a pretty big bid down her sheet. I’m hoping it was enough to get her.

“Ms y/ln was auctioned off for a whopping...” Ms Nickols looked at the clipboard and her eyes widened. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the highest bid ever. The lovely young lady standing on stage with me, earned the school over 10 grand alone. She was auctioned off at a grand total of $15,000 to a Mr....” she squinted and looked at the paper. “Mr Thornton.”

The pogues all looked around the room and when they saw Topper standing and scratching the back of his neck, they were shocked.

Topper Thornton. Enemy to Pogues and Nemesis to y/n herself. This was unbelievable.

tags: 

@spilledtee​​​ @im-a-stranger-thing​ @ameeraaa21​ @jellyfishbeansontoast​​ @obxmxybxnk​​ @http-cherries​ @ijustreallylovethem​​ @maggiesrandomness​​ @softstarkey​​ @poguesgold​​ @jjouterbanks​​ 

[cinder-wulf]

Character Questionnaire: Cinder

Player Task 001: Character Development. 

BASICS

1. Height?

I'm 5'7".

2. Eye colour?

...green, though Haruhime called it forest green.

3. Do they need glasses?

I don't. I have a hunter's eyesight.

4. Scars and birthmark?

None.

5. Tattoos and piercings?

None. I was thinking of getting the same tattoos as Haruhime, though. Hers were amazing.

6. Right or left handed?

Both. (He is ambidextrous.)

7. Any disabilities? Physical or mental.

None.

8. Do they have any allergies?

I'm not sure. I got sick after eating crabs once but I did eat a lot of them that one time and I haven't gotten sick from eating crabs since.

9. Favourite colour?

Green. Sometimes red.

10. Typical outfits?

My kannushi clothes. My mentor Ryuki gifted them to me, so they're...nice.

11. Do they wear any makeup?

Nope.

12. What weapon do they use, if any?

I use my ceremonial scimitar, which is basically just a normal scimitar but with the Sai family's special emblem. They're very traditional, you know.

PERSONALITY

13. Are they more optimistic or pessimistic?

I'd say I'm both. (Nope, he's very pessimistic. He only gets optimistic for money.)

14. Are they introverted or extroverted?

Extroverted. (Nope. They were extroverted before but the Sai family tragedy has since turned them introverted. They do get extroverted for money or when drunk but by default they've since been introverted.)

15. What are their pet peeves?

...questions. Lots and lots of them. (Also, anything that smells bad. His senses are heightened somewhat.)

16. What bad habits do they have?

None...of your business. (They can be very moody and antisocial. Their habit of keeping secrets can be terrible as well, especially if it ends up to the detriment of their allies.)

17. Do they have any phobias?

I fear nothing. (He's afraid of spiders, well, getting surprised by them at least, and flying roaches.)

18. How do they display affection?

I don't. (He used to be very touchy and even wrote poetry for Haruhime before. These days, he rarely does, unless it's for money or when he's drunk.)

19. How competitive are they?

Eh, not very. (He is secretly super competitive but only with things like hunting, tracking, basically things that he associates he worth with.)

20. If they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be?

Nothing. I'm perfect the way I am. (He secretly wants to change his heritage. He sometimes believes that if he wasn't who he was born as, the Sais wouldn't have suffered their tragedy.)

21. Do they have any obscure hobbies or routines?

Nope. (He observes what can only be described as the equivalent of real-world Shinto worship to Melora. He also has a soft spot for incense, tea ceremonies, and for some strange reason, flower decoration.)

BACKSTORY

22. What are the names and ages of their close family members? Parents, siblings, etc.

The Sais, master Ryuki and Haruhime, were my family. Master was old enough to be my father and Haruhime was around my age when we first met. (Cinder never met his real parents, as he was abandoned as a child. He does not know where his parents are if they are even still alive today or if he had any siblings.)

23. Is their family alive and are they still in contact with them?

...no. (The Sais passed away after suffering a tragedy, and his last contact with Ichi, Haruhime's cousin, was three years ago. He has no idea if his biological family is alive, having never met them.)

24. Where are they from? City, nation?

I'm from the far east, where cherry blossoms bloom and snow falls.

25. Did they have a childhood best friend?

Yes. Her name was Haruhime.

26. Have they had any pets?

No. I am usually the pet.

27. Did they grow up rich or poor? What were their living conditions like?

I had to fend for myself growing up when my family abandoned me as a child. That was, until I met the Sais who accepted me as their own. We lived simply, neither rich nor poor, in the service of the Sai family shrine.

28. What is their educational background?

I was mostly taught by the Sais. (He was tutored, basically home-schooled, by the Sais. He is surprisingly very literate and well-versed in magic, which he refers to as his "okurimono," and religion, specifically everything involving Melora.)

29. As a child, what did they want to be when they grew up?

I wanted for nothing but to live with the Sais until my last.

30. What advice would they give to their younger self?

...to never leave the Sais' side and protect them at all cost, even if it means your own life. There is nothing else past them, only sorrow and despair.

31. Growing up, were they ever bullied or were they the bully?

Neither. (He was most definitely bullied for being a homeless runt...until the beast within scared his bullies off. Then he was chased away by concerned parents.)

32. Who do they look up to/who is their role model?

Haruhime...and Ryuki. (Cinder didn't just love Haruhime. He actually looked up to her as a role model and saw her as his hero, being everything he wished he could have. Ryuki was more of a father figure to him, having taught him most of what he knows, than a role model, but he does admire his patience and commitment.)

PRESENT

33. Do they currently have a place of residence?

...yes? (Technically, no. He does have a room at Lunacrest, sort of, but he's always scrambling to pay his rent. The only reason he still have it is because the owner takes pity on him after accidentally hearing his story from a drunk Cinder, extending his due date whenever he can. Cinder also often wakes up in random stables, sometimes right outside the gates, after nights of heavy drinking.)

34. What is their most treasured possession?

My kannushi clothes. My ceremonial scimitar. The things that remind me of home and the Sais.

35. What is their drink of choice?

...the Redheaded Harlot. (Deep amber red and thick like blood, this shot is supposed named after a tavern's best lady of the evening. Made from fermented berries, Tree Ent Root, and Deer's blood, the rim of its flagon or glass is usually also coated in honey and dipped in a red sweet powder that is to be licked before pounding down the drink. It is said that all who drink this become very charismatic towards the opposite sex for the entire time the drink is in their system.)

36. Which king/queen are they loyal to, if any?

Whoever will pay me the most, of course. My loyalty is for sale to the highest bidder.

37. Have they ever killed anyone?

... (He has, though he never speaks of such tragedies.)

38. What was their last promise and did they keep it?

... (He promised the dying Haruhime that he would live his life like she did hers, without bitterness and anger. Clearly, he has failed to keep it. He had tried before but he just couldn't keep to it.)

LOVE

39. What was their first kiss like, if they’ve had one?

It was...the best feeling I've ever had. (It was actually pretty brief, as it was an accidental kiss between him and Haruhime. She was trying to surprise him with a peck on the cheek but he turned to look at her, curious at what she was doing.)

40. Are they in a relationship/have a love interest?

... (Haruhime was the love of his life, and he believes he will never love another.)

41. Have they ever been in love?

...yes.

42. Have they ever had their heart broken?

... (Haruhime's untimely passing broke not only his heart but also his spirit. He hasn't been the same since.)

SPIRITUALITY

43. Do they follow a god, if so who?

I follow Melora, though the Sais know her by a different name. I used to know her by a different name as well, but names are less important than what they do.

44. What do they think happens to them after death?

I'll be reunited with the Sais again.

45. What is their spirit animal?

A wolf...or maybe a fox. Both?

[astarkey]

Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you would like to get to know better (or don’t it’s up to you!)

tagged by @alwaysupatnight Thank you lovely!!! 😁💖

Nickname(s): Ash

Gender: Female

Sign: Taurus

Height: 5’6

Time: 6:42 PM EST

Fav band(s): Silverchair, Deftones, Soundgarden, Incubus, Nine Inch Nails, Alice in Chains, Warpaint, Sneaker Pimps, Radiohead, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Drain STH, Pearl Jam, Nothing But Thieves, etc.

Fav solo artist(s): Aaliyah, Jeff Buckley, Banks, Jhené Aiko, Sabrina Claudio, Natalie Imbruglia, Utada Hikaru, Sade, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Sarah McLachlan, Chelsea Wolfe, Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton, etc.

Song stuck in my head: Eighties by Killing Joke

Last movie I saw: From Dusk Till Dawn

Last show I watched: Married… With Children

When did I create my blog: February 2012

What do I post: Music, tv shows, movies, video games, anime, art, basically anything I like (it’s a HUGE mess lol)

Last thing I Googled: styrial bluefin tuna (I’m trying to catch a fish in Final Fantasy XV haha)

Do I have any other blogs: My Silverchair fanfic blog, but sadly, that’s been inactive for a while.

Do I get asks: Yeah, but rarely.

Why did I chose my URL: I wanted my blog to be personal and my URL to be original, so I just used my name and rearranged them.

Following: 381

Followed by: 975

Average hours of Sleep: 7-8 Hours

Lucky number: 1, 7, or 9

Instruments: Piano, guitar, drums (I’m not the best at all of them since I’m still learning, but I can play some pretty cool tunes on the guitar lol :p)

What I am wearing: A black t-shirt that says “LOVE” on the front in pink, and my high school blue mesh shorts.

Dream job: Animator and musician (but animation is what I’m already doing, so that’s 1 out of 2 that came true lol.)

Dream trip: California or somewhere on the west coast, Australia, Japan, Canada, and France

Fav food: Mac & Cheese all the way!

Nationality: American

Fav song: I have WAY too many favorites, so I’m just gonna name a song that’s currently my favorite haha. Caught a Lite Sneeze by Tori Amos

Last book I read: I have no idea, I think it was probably A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris (I haven’t picked up a book in a while as you can tell lmao)

Top 3 fictional universes I wanna join: Harry Potter for sure haha, Cowboy Bebop, and Final Fantasy

I tag: @obsessivecompulsivee, @wishfulthinkingandfantasy, @msdeathhouse, @clarkebell, @eizagonzalezs, @grmy, @diivasataniica, @divinequeer, @punkrockromantic, @ambrosiaswhispers, @quaeveritaserum, @bloodychamber, @exhaustedmaddie, @sarahandrelouise, @wandering-around-the-world8, @maikmakridi, @the-highest-most-exalted-one, @davegahanarchive, @margaretophelia, @famousflowermagazine, @canarydown, @sowhatelseisblu, @dream-land-l, @mothdecay, @grantcary, and anyone else who wants to do this! (But everybody I’ve tagged don’t have to do this! 😊)

[leaves-of-three]

Day Three || Fucking Weird

Connor Murphy x Reader

Word Count: 2224

Summary: Reader runs into Connor during a vulnerable night.  [This is part of an in progress series. You can follow along here.]

Warnings: Talk/Mention of a deceased parent (mother). Mention of OCD/Compulsive Counting. Mention of drugs (pills) which could potentially hint at suicidal tenancies in the future. For now they’re just simply mentioned. If anyone ever wants something added to a warnings list, please don’t hesitate to ask. <3

Connor Murphy. It was the one name that continued to bounce around your brain as you stared up at your dark ceiling. Glow stars, plastered across the roof from your childhood, gazed back down at you. On nights when you couldn’t sleep you would count the glowing stickers above. When you were seven, there had been 65. You remembered that number because you would count them every single night. It had become almost an obsessive part of your nighttime routine. At seven, your mom had passed away. That was when your obsessive behaviors started to really become more present in your life. You liked to count things. The number of stairs, the titles covering a floor, objects on a desk, telephone poles lining the street, the amount of steps it took from your bedroom to the bathroom...anything. Knowing the number of things calmed you. It distracted you from your own thoughts whenever they got too loud. 23 stars. There were 23 green, glowing stars above your head now. Some had fallen off over the years. The passing of time would claim all of them eventually. Time was no match for cheap, factory stickers. 42 stars fallen over the course of ten years. Everything falls eventually. 

Connor hadn’t been at school today. It was only the third day. Three days. One, two, three. It couldn’t have been your fault, right? The look on his face when he saw you sitting with Evan yesterday was still burned into your memory. He seemed so...betrayed. He wasn’t your friend. You two were not friends. You had to stop overthinking everything. You needed to stop obsessing over this. Were you so desperate for a human connection that you would latch onto the first person who showed you an ounce of kindness? Let it go. Let him go. Leave the poor guy alone. His actions were not a reflection of anything you did. He was not your friend. Connor Murphy was not your friend. 

Evan, however, had the potential to be something real. After you two had shared lunch, you realized you also shared the same Photography and AP Physics courses in the afternoons. He had been nice enough to fill you in on everything you missed from skipping class on the first day. He was nice. You signed his cast. It wasn’t perfect, he was a little awkward, but you needed a friend. He needed one too. It seemed to just work. Why was it that the rejected, left behind people always seemed to find their way to each other? Like magnets being pulled together. An invisible force making sure no one is ever left alone for too long. What did that make Connor then? Was he alone? Maybe your magnets were too similar that they ended up repelling instead of attracting...

A hard bit of plastic hit your forehead causing you to flinch in surprise. A single glowing star slid down your face and settled onto your chest. The old sticky tack on the back finally giving up. Twenty-two. You exhaled a lungful of air and rolled onto your side. The red lights of your alarm clock on the bedside table read 3:07 am. You had to wake up in less than three hours for school. You shoved your face into your pillow and let out a stifled scream. Sleep was not going to happen tonight. The bedroom walls felt like they were closing in on you. You pushed away the anxiety of not being able to sleep and got out of bed. This house was too small. You needed open space. Fresh air. 

An over-sized hoodie, leggings, and a pair of old boots complimented your messy, unkempt, bedhead hair as you slipped out your front door. Your father wouldn’t notice you were gone. He never did. The chilly, wet night air filled your lungs. It had rained all night. Now the dark sky just spit out droplets of water at a more scattered pace. Your car rumbled to life with the turn of a key. The wipers jumped awake, flinging off the dotted layer of collected rain and wet leaves onto the driveway. You backed out and headed into the night. There was nothing more beautiful to you than driving alone in the dark with only the headlights to illuminate the way. You knew exactly where you were headed. No matter what roads you took, you always ended up at the same place. Everywhere lead to somewhere. And your somewhere was the lake. 

Cracked Rock Lake was a destination spot for your town in the summer. It was a moderate sized body of water, good for swimming in the summer, fishing in the fall, and ice skating in the winter. It’s name was born from the large boulder jutting out of the water a few yards out. The rock formation had a deep groove splitting it down the middle. Kids would always use the crack to climb up to the top and jump off. Your mom used to bring you here when you were young. It was the last place the two of you had gone the weekend before she passed. It was one of your last happy memories as a kid. It would seem silly to say out loud but you liked to imagine your mother still lived on in the soul of the lake. You like to talk to her there when no one else was around.

An hour passed before you arrived. You had decided to drive down every back road you could find to delay your arrival. The silence in the car felt as familiar as a warm blanket and you didn’t want to give that up right away. A few porch lamps from surrounding houses danced light over the still, gloomy waters. A thin layer of mist inched across the sand blurring the line where the water met the beach. For a few more moments, you remained inside your car, staring out into the view. You were afraid that if you left the safety of your car that you might walk straight into the murky depths and never return. Eventually you braved the unknown and left your vehicle behind. 

The rain had fully stopped now but you could still smell it lingering in the air as you walked over the pale sand. A small playground sat on the far right of the beach. It was nothing more than three swings, a metal slide, and a set of straight monkey bars but it was enough to entertain the children who visited the lake. At 4 in the morning, the playground would be all yours. You took a seat on the leftmost swing and rocked yourself back and forth. Your eyes closed as you allowed yourself to listen to each little noise. The lapping water, the creaking of rusty swing chains, your own shallow breaths...

“Hey, mom.” Your voice was nothing higher than a whisper. “I really miss you. This month really sucks. I wish you were here. I wish I could still talk to you...” 

The sound of a lighter clicking on caused you to snap your eyes wide open in fear. A flickering flame illuminated the end of a cigarette as it gave off a faint glow. Someone was sitting under the slide directly to your right. Your hands gripped tighter onto the chains of the swing. They had to have know you were there. They would have heard you talking. You weren’t alone. Shadows cast whoever was hiding into a cloak of darkness. Only the red circular glow broke through the black. It wasn’t until a hand lifted the cigarette to their lips did the light reach their face. 

“Connor?” You words fell out in disbelief. You fumbled for your phone in your pocket, turning on the flashlight and shining it directly into his face to confirm your statement. 

Sure enough, Connor Murphy sat huddled under the slide, cigarette in hand, squinting away from your light. “What the fuck, Y/N? Get that shit out of my face.”

“Oh, right, sorry.” you said as you dropped the light. A moment of silence passed before you spoke again, unsure of what to say. “...Why are you here?”

“I was here first. I could ask you the same damn question. Leave me alone.” He spit the words out at you. Your presence was obviously aggravating him. You tried not to let it phase you too much. 

You gently nibbled on your bottom lip. “I don’t want to go. It’s a public place. I have every right to be here just as much as you.”

You heard him growl in frustration as a response. A second later, something flew past your head, narrowly missing you, and rolled onto the soft ground. It sounded like a bunch of tiny pebbles stuffed into a plastic cup. In the moonlight, you could see a small, orange pill bottle sticking out of the sand. It was filled with an assortment of oval drugs. You glanced from the pills to the dark slide. “My three year old cousin likes to throw things when he has a temper tantrum too.”

His response was fairly predictable. A simple, “Fuck you.” 

You felt the corners of your mouth twitch into a smile. He wasn’t pleased you were here but he wasn’t leaving and neither were you. You walked your swing backwards until your feet could hardly touch the ground anymore then let yourself swing forwards. Wind blew through your hair the higher you pushed yourself. “Did you ever have that dream as a kid that one day you could swing all the way around the bar? Its pretty much impossible, especially with a slack chain. Still, kid’s never seem to stop trying.” He didn’t reply. You hadn’t expected him to. 

You pumped yourself up as high as the sing would allow. The moment you hit the highest spot forward, you let your butt slip off the rubber and you soared feet first through the air. You were airborne for hardly a full second before you hit the ground. Your legs gave out under you and rolled across the soft sand before settling on your back to look up at the stars. Your chest rose and fell with adrenaline. From the corner of your eye, you saw Connor poke his head out from under the slide. His cigarette held limply between his lips as he cocked an eyebrow at you, shaking his head. “You’re fucking weird,” he mumbled before going back into hiding. 

You stayed on your back, looking up at the world above. There weren’t too many stars to be found. The cloudy, rainy night had blocked most of them from view. Only the brightest of the bright were able to poke their way through. You followed them with your finger and invisibly connected the dots. You counted them as you did. One, two, three, four, five...the more you looked, the more stars began to appear to you. It was so much more beautiful than your bedroom ceiling. You eventually rolled onto your side, facing the lake with your back to Connor. He had stayed quiet and hidden from view anyway. His company didn’t pose a threat to yours though. It seemed you could both inhabit the same space without needing to interact. Your eyes floated across the water until they began to get heavy. Each time you blinked, your eyes would take longer to open back up again. At some point you decided just keep them closed.

The harsh sound of a car horn jerked you awake. Sun flooded your eyes and you groaned, turning to hide your face into your pillow. Instead of the expectancy off a soft pillow, you got a face full of sand. You sputtered and sat up, looking around. Confusion plastered your expression.

Lake. You were at the Cracked Rock Lake. The events of last night came back to you as the sleep was blown away with a soft breeze. Connor had been here too. You looked behind you, back to the slide. In the light of day it was easy to see that he was no longer under there. You turned to your other side and there he was. 

He was sitting an arms length away, his shoes planted in the sand, staring out at the water with hollow eyes ringed with dark circles. In his hand was the pill bottle he had thrown at you at some point last night. His thumb flicked the white cap open and shut. For the first time you noticed his nails were painted with chipped black polish. You focused in on his hands, tranced by the repetitive movements between the cap and his thumb. His skin was pale and his fingers were long and skinny. Piano hands. That’s what your mom would have called them. 

One, flick up, two, flick down, three, flick up, four, flick down, five, flick up, six, flick down. You waited for seven but it never came. His hand closed around the pill bottle and you realized he was staring at you. You blinked up to meet his gaze. It occurred to you that maybe the reason he hadn’t left yet was because of you. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to leave you alone on the beach in middle of the night. Maybe Connor Murphy was your friend. 

“...Do you want to get breakfast?”

A minuscule smile cracked his stony expression. 

[surveysonfleek]

542.

1. Have you ever had pink eye? i think i have as a kid. gross. 2. Do you really care how many friends you or anyone else has on Myspace/Facebook? haha no.  3. Does your significant other have any piercings? ear and nose. 4. What is the last song you listened to with “song” in the title? probably ‘the lazy song’ by bruno mars coz it’s the only one i can think of. 5. Is red rad? sure.

6. do you have a lot of sleep debt? nope, back to regular now haha. 7. Do you like Adam Sandler? tbh he was funnier when i was a kid. 8. The last CD you listened to, from where did you get it? some girl was giving it out for free after a bryson tiller concert haha. it was by a local artist. 9. What are you doing on August 16th? no idea. 10. Last person/people to play (an) instrument(s) in your presence? Which? do turntables count? i was at a club on sunday. 11. When, where, and to whom did you lose your virginity? 2009, to my current boyfriend in his room. 12. Do you have any writing/drawings on you? nope. 13. What is your favourite day of the week? it changes every week depends on what days i’m working. 14. Favourite number from 1-31? yes. 15. When is the next [13’s answer] the [14’s answer]th, etc.? lol no idea. 16. Do you ever get bored of yourself? oh yeah. that’s why i do these. 17. How many different bands/artists have you seen live? honestly a lot. the last artist i saw live was drake last week. 18. How many band shirts do you own? Which? not many. 19. Do you go to shows mostly for the music, the moshing, or the merchandise? the music. 20. Last black person you hugged? knox. 21. Last song you sang in the shower? no idea. 22. Is life hard? yes. 23. Do you lift weights? no. 24. What is the EQ on your iPod set to? i use my iphone, i think it’s on r&b or something. 25. Do you eat your vegetables? yes. 26. Is Nutella amazing? yes! i haven’t had it in forever. 27. Have you ever had anything pierced that you don’t have now? the second holes in my ear. they’ve closed :( 28. Does someone telling you to have a good day/weekend actually affect your day/weekend? tbh i sorta filter it out. 29. How many albums do you own that came out this year? a lotttttt. 30. Do you sneeze every day? i don’t think so. 31. Would you consider yourself “tough”?  eh, nah. 32. Who were you with the first time you watched the last movie you watched? myself. 33. How many people do you know who are pregnant right now? two. could be more. 34. Have you eaten any fruit today? yes. 35. Do you have any twins/multiples in your family? Are they identical or fraternal? nope. 36. What is the highest number of jobs you’ve had at one time? two. 37. who is the youngest person in your family that you know of? my cousin’s kid. 38. Is your mom a good mom? yes. 39. What colour shirt are you wearing? grey. 40. How many shows/concerts have you attended? a lot now. i couldn’t even count. 41. Where is your S/O/crush atm? watching a soccer game. 42. how many houses have you lived in? four in total, but this one for the longest. 43. Do you pick up pennies off the ground? no. 44. Last thing you bought that was under a dollar? haha no idea.

45. Last thing you bought over fifty dollars? an early christmas gift. 46. What colour is the last lighter you used? orange. 47. Last thing you printed? tickets. 48. Last thing you threw in the garbage? an eye drops box. 49. Closest book to you? a notebook. 50. What are your parents’ and their grandchildren’s names? i’d rather not post my parent’s names and they don’t have grandchildren lol.

[yasbxxgie]

Black Marylanders are suffering disproportionately from the new coronavirus shows information released Thursday by the state for the first time, drawing frustration, but not surprise from area political leaders and observers.

The rate of coronavirus infections and related deaths is higher among African American residents than whites or other groups, according to the new Maryland Department of Health data, which mirrors findings in several other states and cities. In Maryland, 49.4% of those infected whose race was known were black, 36.9% were white and 13.7% were Asian or another race.

African Americans also account for 53% of the related deaths among those whose race was known, while 38% were white and 5.5% were Asian.

Maryland’s population is about 30% black and nearly 60% white, according to U.S. Census data.

In a statement, Gov. Larry Hogan noted the “troubling disparities” in the data.

“On Tuesday, I directed [the Maryland Department of Health] to begin publishing everything that is available on racial and ethnic breakdowns on COVID-19 cases, with updates as more data becomes available,” Hogan said. “Today, we are able to publish 75% of the currently available data, which shows troubling disparities and points to a persistent public health challenge that we must address.”

Race data, which is pulled from Wednesday’s count of 5,529 confirmed cases in the state, is not available for nearly 25% of Maryland’s confirmed cases, which rose to 6,185 on Thursday. But Hogan said Tuesday he is directing the state health lab to report such data from its tests and “be as proactive as anyone in the nation” in pushing private labs to do the same.

Today, we are able to publish 75% of the currently available data, which shows troubling disparities and points to a persistent public health challenge that we must address. pic.twitter.com/XAAoi4o7oo

— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) April 9, 2020

Hogan said significant data gaps remain because the private labs that do the most testing aren’t required to report on race. But state officials are supplementing their findings with patient information culled from a statewide health information exchange used by medical providers.

On Thursday, the state also announced there have been 138 deaths caused by the virus. Black residents account for 55 of the 103 cases where race was known.

As racial disparities have emerged in other cities and states, Maryland health officials have faced pressure for about a week from legislators and others to release the racial breakdown of confirmed cases.

State Del. Nick Mosby has been a leading voice pressuring the Hogan administration to release the racial breakdown of coronavirus cases, saying an early analysis of the data is the only way to spot and rectify disparities.

“Wow,” the Baltimore Democrat said after he saw the size of the disparity. “From the data, we should develop our response."

That race data alone, however, is not enough, Mosby said. Cases broken down by ZIP code would help officials target communities that are hit hardest with resources and information. In a segregated city like Baltimore, a person’s neighborhood determines so much about their predicted health outcomes.

On Thursday, when Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young said the city’s first drive-thru coronavirus testing center at the Pimlico Race Course will open Friday morning, the city launched an online dashboard that breaks down the numbers of local cases by ZIP code.

Pimlico is in the heart of the city’s heaviest hit ZIP code: 21215 in Northwest Baltimore, which has 64 confirmed cases of COVID-19. About four in five of the area’s residents are black.

House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A. Jones said she was hopeful the state would continue to press for more information from private labs to get a more accurate picture. Jones said she pressed Hogan last week when they met for a brief bill-signing ceremony.

Jones also would like to see cases broken down by ZIP code.

“That way, concentrated efforts can be put in those areas,” said Jones, a Democrat who represents a district in western Baltimore County.

It’s important to ramp up testing as well as education about social distancing in neighborhoods that have high caseloads, Jones said.

“Instead of being reactive, be on the side of being more proactive,” Jones said.

The data in Maryland add to a growing base of information from across the country that officials call disturbing. While race is known for only about 3,300 of the nation’s 13,000 deaths, about 42% of those were among black people, according to an Associated Press analysis. African Americans account for only about 21% of the total population in the areas covered by the analysis.

States reporting an over-representation of blacks included Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi and North Carolina, as well as the counties and cities of Washington, D.C.; Miami-Dade, Florida; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and New York City.

Public health experts who have long observed disparities between white and black neighborhoods say there is more than one likely reason for the coronavirus case imbalance. But they said it should push leaders in Maryland and elsewhere to take action in the short and long terms.

“It’s tragic, though not surprising, that African-Americans are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, because of systemic inequities that have resulted in long-standing health disparities,” said Dr. Leana Wen, a George Washington University professor and a former Baltimore City health commissioner. “Based on modeling, the D.C. and Baltimore-areas could be the next epicenters of the outbreak, and we should all be concerned about the disproportionate impact on communities that are already the most vulnerable and already face the greatest burden of racial and socioeconomic disparities.”

Darrell J. Gaskin, director of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, said any community that lacks access to health care and is on the lowest economic rung has been shown to be a prime target for chronic and infectious disease.

“There are a number of reasons why, in hindsight, this might have been predictable,” he said of the high COVID-19 cases in black communities.

Low-income black residents often don’t get appropriate primary care, which leads to chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes that exacerbate COVID-19. They often can’t stay home and properly distance themselves to avoid infection because of the types of jobs they continue to work even during a pandemic.

They drive buses, stock grocery shelves and clean, rather than work on their computers

“They aren’t given personal protective equipment; they get infected and take it home to their families,” he said. “We thought of a solution that works for a large segment of our society, but not those who are marginalized.”

Gaskin said he hopes the data spark improvements in the underlying conditions that are known to make people vulnerable. He said higher wages, stable housing and access to health care are all needed.

“This is a moment in which we could probably get the political will to do something big,” he said.

There are other things to do immediately, Baltimore City Council President Brandon Scott said.

He said officials need to counter the myth that he continues to hear about black people being unable to contract the coronavirus.

“I need every, every, every single person in Baltimore to understand COVID-19 is real, and I need black people in Baltimore to understand it 10-times over,” he said. “We can see across the country we are contracting and dying of COVID-19 more than anyone else.”

In addition to racial data, Scott said, officials need geographic data to understand disparities. He recently introduced a bill requiring the city health commissioner to report patients’ races and ZIP codes during a health emergency.

Others also are calling for that kind of geographic information, including the Democratic members of Maryland’s congressional delegation, which sent a letter Thursday to Hogan.

“We share your concern about the disproportionate impact that COVID-19 appears to be having on black Marylanders and believe that this initial data demonstrates a need for more granular reporting by ZIP code,” said the letter.

“Additionally, we urge you to report complete and comprehensive data for all patients as expeditiously as possible and ensure that this data is informing Maryland’s COVID-19 response efforts,” said the letter from Democratic Maryland Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen as well as Democratic U.S. Reps. Steny Hoyer, Dutch Ruppersberger, John Sarbanes, Anthony Brown, Jamie Raskin, and David Trone.

Baltimore County Councilman Julian Jones, the only black member of the council, added that more testing would be helpful. He’s heard from constituents who had coronavirus symptoms, but whose doctors didn’t order the test.

“That’s been a sore spot in the whole system from the word go, the lack of testing, the lack of available tests for people who need it,” he said.

Hogan mentioned the testing issue during a “town hall” program that aired Thursday afternoon on Fox 45 in Baltimore and WJLA in Washington.

He said the state had a large minority population, so it’s not unexpected to see more testing positive. The disparity, however, may be due to the level of testing in those black communities.

“In the Baltimore-Washington corridor, including Prince George’s, Montgomery County all the way through to Baltimore City, that’s where the highest concentration in numbers are and there’s definitely a higher percentage in the African-American communities,” he said. “We actually are doing far more testing in those communities."

He said the most testing has been done in Prince George’s County, followed by Baltimore City and then Montgomery County.

But, he added, “some of it is there’s a higher population and a lot more density and some of it is that disparity that we’ve been talking about all across the country.”

The state updated other demographic information Thursday, including age and gender data. Although women represent the majority of those infected at 53.7%, 85 of Maryland’s 138 deaths, more than 61%, have been men. By age, 86 of the victims have been at least 70 years old, with a death rate of almost 14% among those confirmed to have the virus who are over 80.

[fahrminbrahmin]

ED Questions: nobody asked for this but im bored lmao

1. which eating disorder(s) do you have? 

tbh nobody has said a specific name to me drs just say either ‘eating issues’ or ‘eating disorder’ so ednos?


2. when did you develop your eating disorder?

this is hard to answer bc looking back ive shown signs since ~early teenage years but ive been fully aware of it for about 2-2.5 years


3. are you currently in recovery?

im in therapy, its bought up every other session but i tend to avoid mentioning it so yes and no


4. honestly, do you want to recover?

again, yes and no. I often h a t e feeling like this but?? the pros out way the cons at this point


5. how are you doing today?

unhealthily? great! lol i hit my next gw this week and p much all my cals have been from alcohol lmao healthily? p bad ive only eaten a cruskit and some lettuce & im kinda depressed these past days but hey! idc


6. 5 safe foods?

lettuce! so much lettuce i can easily go through a head a day. honestly, its the only thing i can eat without feeling any semblance of guilt.


7. 5 fear foods?

tbqh, its such a long list everything p much. at the height of my fear of food i saw the word protein and freaked the F out so protein


8. do you count calories?

yeah but im really good at lying to myself about how many calories ive actually eaten lmao


9. what is your max calorie limit?

i say 550, but anything over 250 makes me feel like utter shit but then again, anything makes me feel shit lol


10. what is your height?

5′3″ / 161cm 


11. what is your ultimate goal weight?

it was 49.5kg! but i hit that so its 48.7kg atm itll go down again tho


12. are you trying to lose weight?

absolutely yes


13. have you ever been called “fat”?

honestly i cant even remember if i have or not


14. have you ever been called “too thin”?

ive been called ‘small’ but not too thin. the dream tbh


15. what is your current goal weight?

48.7kgs


16. what was your highest weight?

when i first started weighing myself regularly, 61kgs


17. what was your lowest weight?

49.1kgs


18. do you wish you were back at your lowest weight?

im there rn 


19. does your family know about your eating disorder?

yes, i dont talk to a lot of ppl and p much everyone knows


20. do your friends know about your eating disorder?

yeah, one of my best friends was actually the first person i told


21. do you wish you didn’t have an eating disorder?

yes and no, i hate feeling like this toward myself and food. but ive always hated myself so this is an improvement so its a really happy side effect


22. have any “free foods”?

lettuce!! lettuce lettuce lettuce. and tea


23. how often do you weigh yourself?

every day when i wake up. id say morning but i have a shit sleep schedule lol


24. thinspo or bonespo?

neither tbh im more of a i-have-an-ed-more-to-harm-myself-less-to-be-thin kinda gal


25. biggest problem area on your body?

my chubby chubby cheeks. the great irony is that my ed gave me chipmunk cheeks which hasnt helped any but  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 


26. favourite part of your body?

tbqh i like my waist. its not tiny but its p good imo


27. what kind of results do you want to see?

booooooones!!


28. do you purge?

:/ yeah


29. do you take laxatives?

yes but i have bowel problems anyway so its the constant struggle of do i take the reccomended amount or do i overdose lmao its always overdose


30. how often do you purge?

it goes in cycles, some weeks i purge every day, other weeks its could be 1-2 times a week.


31. do you binge?

by definition, no, but often times ill eat and say to myself its a binge


32. how long have you fasted for?

im SHIT at fasting, probably like 18-19 hours


33. who’s your biggest thinspiration?

hands around thighs really get me. also protruding rib cages thats the dream.


34. favourite eating disorder movie/show/documentary?

none! ive only seen maybe half an ed doc i cant get through one. But! I have a book of stories of girls w/ eds and there was one story about a white/polynesian girl with an ed with identity issues and she was l i t e r a l l y me i still have that book


35. favourite thinspo picture?

again, any pic of fingers touching around thighs. LUV it


36. can you post a photo of yourself/your body?

ive only posted 2 body checks lol, u can see them here


37. how does your eating disorder affect your life?

Im literally obsessed with food nd my body ive isolated myself from everyone/thing in my life and everything i do is a number i h8 it


38. what is your BMI?

currently, 19.1 
39. do you follow a diet?

yeah, as little calories as possible lmao


40. least favourite part about your eating disorder?

most if not all of it? its all i think about


41. has your eating disorder ruined any relationships?

yes? if we group my ed with all my other mental health problems, i isolate myself from everyone i havent seen one of my best friends in over a year so YA


42. do you have a “guilty pleasure” food? what is it?

c h o c o l a t e. it is very much a guilty pleasure lool


43. meanspo or sweetspo?

not about the whole concept tbqh


44. does anyone else in your life have an eating disorder?

the saddest part, most women i know have expressed r admitted to doing some really shitty stuff to themselves in order to be thin


45. ever been inpatient? 
/ 46. ever been outpatient? / 47. ever been in residential care? / 48. ever been in a psych ward?

nah but ive been threatened with it


49. are you currently in therapy?

yeah, individual therapy and DBT


50. what did you eat today?

a cruskit, 1 gummy lolly, ~4 leaves of lettuce and 3 glasses of wine lmao


51. are you scared about the holidays?

yes bc ill make a pavlova and ofc im gonna eat it rip :/


52. are your family/friends supportive?

kind of, if im in a healthy mind set i know they care but dont really know how to go about it. but they let me do a lot of shitty things to myself


53. have any other mental illnesses?

’severe social anxiety’, emotional disregulation, depression, maybe avpd and/or bpd?


54. looking for ana buddies?

nopenopenope ill never encourage this


55. what is your current weight?

as of this morning: 49.1kgs

[dipulb3]

'Pandemic pricing' is here. Rents are dropping across the US

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/pandemic-pricing-is-here-rents-are-dropping-across-the-us/

'Pandemic pricing' is here. Rents are dropping across the US

The two roommates were also given one month’s rent free and did not have to pay a broker fee, which typically would have cost them 12% to 15% of the annual rent.

“Pandemic pricing,” as some agents call it, has arrived across the country as landlords react to the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. With many people either losing their jobs or working from home due to the shutdowns, many tenants have chosen to leave their apartments behind in major US cities.

And that has pushed rental prices lower in many places across the US. In May, according to apartment listing platform Zumper, the top four most expensive cities — San Francisco, New York, Boston and San Jose — all saw rents on median one-bedroom apartments decline from a year ago.

In San Francisco, the median rent for one-bedrooms is down 9% from last year to $3,360 and two-bedrooms are down 6% to $4,420, according to Zumper.

“I’m seeing rents are down 10% to 20%, with higher-end and luxury units taking the biggest hits,” said Dave Chesnosky, an agent with Compass in San Francisco. “But these drops are dependent on the location and uniqueness of a unit.”

Rents are dropping at the high end of the market first as people who are “renters by choice” bail on their apartments, said Jeff Adler, vice president and general manager at Yardi Matrix, which tracks the leasing industry.

“Younger, single professionals who weren’t attached to the city they were living in said, ‘If everything is shut down, why should I stay here? I’ll go back home.’ Or they doubled up with someone else,” he said.

As more apartments become available, owners have been forced to reduce their rent to increase interest, he said.

This has a cascading effect throughout the market as people in the price bracket below find these deals — perhaps a better apartment for the same price or even less — and vacate their own apartments.

“If you have a job and a stable income, now is not a bad time to look around and see if you can improve your circumstances,” said Adler.

Steeper drops at higher end

In Manhattan, the rents on the highest priced apartments are falling fastest. The median rent for a luxury apartment in May was $7,825 a month, a 10% drop from April, according to a report from brokerage firm Douglas Elliman and appraiser Miller Samuel. The median rent for all Manhattan apartments in May was $3,546, down 3% from April.

“No one is surprised the prices have come down slightly,” said Hal Gavzie, executive director of leasing at Douglas Elliman in New York City. “Landlords are doing whatever they can to get vacant apartments filled.”

New leases typically spike in May, but last month they were down 62% from the year before, according to the Douglas Elliman report. This is partly due to the shutdown, which prevents rental agents from showing apartments in New York City, said Gavzie.

But, he said, more apartments are also available because people just up and left their leases. While many left when the pandemic shut down the city, others left later when the protests over the killing of George Floyd began, Gavzie said.

Gavzie said that presents a rare opportunity for those staying in the city.

“Right now is probably when you’ll get the best deals you’re going to find,” said Gavzie. “Once we are able to show apartments in New York, the inventory will diminish and there will be more competition.”

During their apartment search, Freund said she and her roommate saw incentives on other rentals as well and every listing they saw waived the broker fee. Plus, the lower rents allowed Freund and her roommate to expand their wish list.

“We wanted to at least have laundry in the building,” she said. “As prices were decreasing, we realized we could get laundry in the unit. That was such a win.”

New wish list: home office, outdoor space

In New York, realistic landlords who provide flexible lease starts, pay the broker’s fee or offer incentives are the ones finding renters, said Kristina Paces, an agent at Douglas Elliman.

Paces, who leases buildings in lower Manhattan, said landlords she works with have increased their incentives from one month of free rent, to two months with a 12-month lease. In May, 42% of new leases had an owner-paid incentive, up from 35% in April, according to the Douglas Elliman/Miller Samuel report.

“No one is walking in saying, ‘Great, I’d love to pay full price,’ in this Covid-19 environment,” she said.

What people are willing to pay more for in a rental apartment building is changing as well, said Paces.

All those buildings with fancy amenities were competing with each other to offer gyms, pools and movie lounges. Not only are the perks not enticing anyone right now, many aren’t even open or usable.

Most in demand now: home-office space, an in-unit washer and dryer and outdoor space, said Paces. “People’s offices are closed until January and they are taking that into consideration when looking for apartments.”

After being indoors for so many months, outdoor space has become an especially attractive luxury. “It is a premium. Those apartments are going first,” she said. “In a normal market, you think, I might use that a bit, but now you know you’ll use it a lot.”

[paradox-oflife]

massive q and a post part 5 ignore this pls

(unless ur interested) 

1. Do you have a favourite mug? Not really. I had one that was literally so cute it was like a neko atsume art style and it was a cat going uwu

2. Do you know any self defense or martial arts? Yes, actually. My mom was pretty supportive for it because the women’s side on our family is all under 5′2″. I did Aikido and Muay Thai throughout from the beginning of high school to the end. I don’t have as much time in college anymore though, but I’m looking forwards to starting it again. I’ve had to use it one time in my life. Hey Angelica, if you’re reading this you should ask me about it. That’s a story for later though.

3. Who's your favourite movie action hero? uuuuuh Thor? idk

4. Have you ever ridden a motorcycle? Haha in Taiwan that’s the main form of transportation. It’s an electric scooter.

5. Do you collect anything? I wear retainers when I sleep so I have an ongoing collection of retainer cases. 

6. Is there anything you wished would come back into fashion? i was never really one for fashion haha

7. Do you stick to conventional fashions or like to try and be original? bro i literally wear like a sweater, tshirt, and black jeans.

8. Have you ever given someone a handmade present?  I did a woodburning painting of kermit the frog for my friend’s bday

9. Are you introvert or extrovert? I used to be an extrovert, then I turned into an ambivert. High school made me more introverted. So on the spectrum, I’m in the middle but more towards introvert now.

10. If you could have any feature from an animal what would you want? Hmmm. I’m not sure actually. Wings? But that’s kind of inconvenient when I want to sleep.

11. Whats your prefered swimming stroke? Freestyle all the way

12. Have you ever been scuba diving? No

13. Have you ever had a disasterous interview? So far, no, but an interviewer once said I seemed very nervous lol.

14. What makes you nervous? A lot of things really. Too many.

15. Which of the 5 senses would you say is your strongest? Not eyesight because I’m slightly colorblind. Not hearing because I was born with tinnitus. Maybe smell? Or touch? But how do you compare that to taste? Idk

16. What colour are your eyes? Your average asian dark brown

17. Have you ever been to an Art gallery? Yeah. It’s pretty nice, but it’s hard to enjoy it when your impatient brother thinks it’s boring and wants to move on 

18. Do you shout out the answers at the TV whilst watching quiz shows? All the time man. Granted that I actually know what the answer is

19. Are you a valuable asset on a Pub Quiz team? (equivalent to trivia quizzes) To a certain extent I suppose

20. Have you ever won any kind of quiz yourself? Yeah, name the countries. My geography isn’t too bad

21. Do you get over-involved with TV or movie plots at times? Um yes haha

22. Do you own any inflatable furniture? No, but I’d totally get one if it looked sick

23. Whats the highest hill or mountain you've ever climbed? Yosemite’s “Oh my Gosh Point”. The hike up there is so freaking hard because it’s like a 2 hour uphill climb. But the view is so worth it. It literally took my breath away.

24. Do you have a piggy bank? Nope

25. Whats the fastest you've ever travelled in a car? Not that fast. Like idk, maybe in an empty highway. 

26. Could you ever hand milk a cow? I mean... if I had to

27. Do you have popcorn with a movie? Yeah, if I’m hungry. But otherwise I stay off movie snacks because it’s hella expensive.

28. Whats the futhest you've ever got a paper airplane to fly? 20 feet.

29. Have you ever built an igloo? Nope

30. Can you play the harmonica? It doesn’t sound good but yeah

31. Have you ever made a ball of twine or rubberbands? One time, it took forever to make though. My brother and I were being a bit too careless and it somehow exploded.

32. If given the option of having sprinkles in your ice cream do you always take it? Nah. Some ice cream is so good without any added sugar.

33. Could you ever be a living organ donor? Uuuuh, maybe. God my answer sounds so pretentious but if I was a dead body, yeah, sure go for it! Do whatever.

34. Which was your favourite science? Biology, Physics or Chemistry? Bio and Chem were hard but I’m taking it rn so it’s fine. Physics was lowkey boring but it was easy due to being math based.

35. Would you ever go out with someone just cause they're rich? Nope.

36. Have you ever contemplated sueing someone? haha no 

37. Are you pretty devious? Only when it comes to fun games. If it’s a legitimate match in Martial Arts, or some type of thing like that I don’t cheat.

38. Have you ever had a surprise party? (that was an actual surprise) No, the parties I ever go to are just small get togethers.

39. Are you any good at giving massages? No, I kinda feel awkward when I do it.

40. Whats been your worst date ever? Haha imagine having a relationship ;w;

41. Have you ever slapped someone in public? My brother, but it was in a playful manner

42. Have you ever drawn on a sleeping or inebriated person? Yes. Good thing they’re pretty chill. Me and my friend were wheezing.

43. Have you ever warn clothing with the labels/tags still attached? Yeah, and I didn’t even notice until my friend pointed it out.

44. Have you ever slipped on a banana skin? No, but I have seen someone do it before.

45. Are you scared of the dark? Nah.

46. Do you have a lawyer? Nope

47. Have you ever been wolf whistled in public? Uuuh my friend did it out loud in public to me before and I punched her so hard.

48. Whats the worst pickup line you've heard? Something to do with chickens and impeccable?? Can’t remember exactly what it was but I remember cringing.

49. Have you ever been water skiing? Nope

50. Have you ever hopelessly failed a test? Omg yeah in Alg 2/Trig I bombed the HELL out of my first trig test.

51. If you had a year off, what would you want to do? Um, I guess there’s not much I can do because I’m not that rich.

52. How many sms/txt messages do you recieve on average a day? From my discord group chat, a lot. But actual direct text, maybe like 3.

53. How long did you last phone call last? 5 minutes.

54. Do you go to flea markets? Sometimes, if I have time.

55. If you saw someone drop a $10 note, would you claim it for your own or try to return it to them? Return it to them.

56. Have you ever helped someone across the road? No, haven’t stumbled upon that situation yet.

57. Have you ever been horseriding? Nope

58. Have you ever walked a tightrope? Nope x100

59. Have you ever demolished a wall or building? Yeah, it was a thin wall and I used a hammer.

60. If you and a friend both wanted the same thing would you let the friend get it first? Of course, they’re my friend and they deserve the world :)

61. Have you ever argued over who should pay for something? um YES have you ever been to an Asian dinner with other asian families??? The fight to pay the bill for your mates is a war.

62. Do you have any family heirlooms? Nah

63. Are you related or distantly related to anyone famous? No, but it’d be kind of cool.

64. Whats your favourite ocean? The pacific I guess? Idk there’s only seven to choose from

65. Do you correct peoples mistakes? Nah, unless it’s a super important one.

66. Have you ever helped out an injured animal? Yes it was a hummingbird that crashed into my window

67. Do you throw bread for the ducks? I did in New Zealand, but I found out that it was bad so...

68. Do you think babies are little bundles of joy or smelly noisey things? Both

69. Do you give money to street performers? Nah

70. Have you ever tossed your own pancake? Yup

71. Are you any good at egg and spoon races? Bruh i’ve never actually done it before but I’d probably be bad lol

72. Are you allergic to anything? High dosage of cortisone cream

73. Are you ticklish? If you taser me and squeeze my thighs

74. Do you prefer tea,coffee or cocoa? Tea all the way baby

75. Do you like Turkish Delight? If I’m thinking of the right thing, I think they’re alright

76. Do you buy people presents to bring back when you go on holiday? Only for those that ask me

77. Are you tired of answering questions yet? Not yet Angelica!! Keep ‘em coming

78. Have you ever been wheelbarrow racing? No

79. Do you ever forward or reply to chain mails? Never

80. Do you often have a tune in your head you can't name? YEAH it’s classical music so i can’t search up lyrics

81. Has anyone ever approached you thinking you were someone else? Yes. Their excuse was all asians look the same (?!)

82. Have you ever been approached by someone who knew you but you couldn't remember them for the life of you? Yes it was so awkward I kept calling them “dude” until they went away

83. What do you do to keep fit? All I really do is jumprope, some pushups, planks, that sort of thing

84. Are you the sort to step in and try to break up a fight? Depends on who’s in the fight. Sometimes if you try to get involved, they’ll start attacking you

85. Have you ever been in a fight? Yes, ask me about it

86. Have you ever started a rumour? Nah, ya girl aint like that

87. Have you ever heard any outstanding rumours about yourself? YES. Some boy said I got into a car crash. Then one day after school some of my acquaintances asked me if I was okay and I was like ???? what?? Weirdest rumor ever

88. Have you ever been in or had a food fight? Nope

89. When its your birthday do you always wear an age badge? I think this is another UK thing because i’ve literally never heard of anyone doing this before

90. Have you ever starred in an amateur or professional video? Nope. I mean, depends what you mean by amateur. I’ve been in a couple of school projects.

91. If you were comfortably rich would you work hard for more or rest on your laurels? Work, but in a laidback job. Like a flowershop keeper or something.

92. Have you ever been in a position of authority? Yeah, one time in elementary school when the teacher left for the bathroom, she put me in charge B)

93. Have you ever been caught in a compromising position? even despite a valid explanation? uuuh no

94. Have you ever tried to make your own alcohol? Nah because I’m underage

95. If you were ruler of your own country what would you call it? No idea

96. And what title would you give yourself? I’d be the founder, but leave the government stuff to other people. Like I’d be in textbooks, people will be like “Oh yeah, that’s esther she’s pretty cool, she founded this country.” But I wouldn’t do anything.

97. Have you ever had a dream you chased only to be let down when you achived it? Mm it’s comparable to buying an outfit and thinking it’d look nice on you but when you put it on you look bad.

98. Is there anything about the opposite sex you just don't understand or comprehend? How oblivious they can be sometimes. like learn to read between the lines man..

[saiorgseo]

chennai to shirdi flight packages

Precious Sayings of Shri Shirdi Sai Baba

 1. Action - Karma

This deha prarabdha (present birth) is the result of the karma (action) done by you in the former births.

2. Assurance

If a man utters My name with love, I shall fulfill all his wishes and increase his devotion. If he sings earnestly about My life and deeds, him I shall beset in front and back and on all sides.

3. Beauty

We have not to bother  chennai to shirdi flight packages   about beauty or ugliness of the person, but to concentrate solely on God underlying that form.

4. Charity

The donor gives, that is, sow  his seeds, only to reap a rich harvest in future. Wealth should be meant to work out Dharma. If it is not given before, you do not get it now. So, the best way to receive it is to give.

5. Contentment

One must rest content with one’s lot.

 6. Dakshina

The giving of dakshina (reverential gift) advances vairagya (non-attachment) and thereby bhakthi (devotion).

7. Death

None dies ; see with your inner eyes. Then you will realise that you are God and not different from Him. Like worn-out garments the body is cast away.

8. Illusion (Maya)

Whenever any idea of joy or sorrow arises in your mind, resist it. Do not give room to it. It is pure maya (illusion).

9. Destiny

Whosoever is destined to be struck will be struck. Whosoever is to die will die. Whosoever is to be caressed will be caressed.

10. Discrimination

There are two sorts of things - the good and the pleasant. Both these things approach a man for acceptance. He has to think   and choose one of them. The wise man prefers the good to the pleasant but the unwise, through greed and attachment, chooses the pleasant and thereby cannot gain Brahma gyana (self-realisation).

11. Devotee

He who withdraws his heart from wife, child, and parents and loves me is My real lover or devotee and he merges in me like a river in the sea.

12. Devotion

Knowledge of the Vedas or fame as a great jnani (learned scholar) of formal bhajan (worship) are of no avail unless they are accompanied by bhakthi (devotion).

13. Differences

People differentiate between themselves and others, their properties with others' properties. This is wrong. I am in you and you are in Me. Meditate on the self with a question "Who am I ?"

14. Duty

Unless a man discharges satisfactorily and disinterestedly the duties of his station in life, his mind will not be purified.

15. Egoism

The teachings of a Guru are of no use to a man who is full of egoism and who always thinks about sense-objects.

16. Enemy

Who is whose enemy ? Do not say of anyone that he is your enemy. All are one and the same.

17. Equanimity

Let the world go topsy-turvy, you remain where you are. Standing or staying at your own place, look calmly at the show of all things passing before you.

18. Exploitation

Nobody should take the labour of others' gratis. The worker should be paid his dues promptly and liberally.

19. Feeding

Know for certain that he who  feeds the hungry, really serves Me with food. Regard this as an axiomatic truth.

20. Food

Sitting in the masjid (mosque) I shall never, never speak untruth. Take pity on Me like this : first give bread to the hungry and then eat yourself. Note this well.

21. Forbearance

Our Karma is the  cause of happiness and sorrow. Therefore, put up with whatever comes to you.

22. God

God lives in all beings and creatures, whether they be serpents or scorpions. He is the greatest wirepuller of the world, and all beings, serpents, scorpions, et cetera, obey His command.

23. God’s Gifts

What a man gives does not last long and it is always imperfect. But what my sircar (God) gives, lasts to the end of life. No other gift from any man can be compared to His.

24. God’s Grace

You must always adhere to truth and fulfill all the promises you make. Have shraddha (faith) and saburi (patience). Then I will always be with you, wherever you are.

25. God’s Will

Unless God wills it, nobody meets us on the way ; unless God wills, nobody can do any harm to us.

26. Goodness

If you act in a good way, good will really follow.

27. Greed

Greed and Brahma are poles asunder ; they are eternally opposed to each other. Where there is greed, there is no room for thought or meditation of the Brahma. Then how can a greedy man get dispassion and salvation.

28. Guru

Stick to your own Guru with unabated faith, whatever the merits of other gurus and however little the merits of your own.

29. Guru’s Grace

The mother tortoise is  chennai to shirdi flight packages  on one bank of the river and her young ones are on the other. She gives neither milk nor warmth to them. Her mere glance gives them warmth. The young ones do nothing but remember (meditate upon) their mother. The tortoise glance is, to the young ones, a downpour of nectar, the only source of sustenance and happiness. Similar is the relationship between the Guru and his disciples.

30. Humility

Humility is not towards all. Severity     is necessary in dealing with the wicked.

31. Happiness

If others hate us, let us take to nama Japa (chanting of God’s name) and avoid them. Do not bark at people ; do not be pugnacious. Bear with others' reproach. This is the way to happiness.

32. Help

If someone begs anything and if that be in your hand or power and if you can grant the request, give it. Do not say, ‘NO’. If you have nothing to give them, give a polite negative reply but do not mock or ridicule the applicant nor get angry with him.

33. Hospitality

No one comes to us without Rinanubandha (some previous bond of give and take). So when any dog, cat, pig, fly or person approaches you, do not drive it or him away with the words ‘Hat - Hat’, ‘Jit - Jit’.

34. Inquiry

Inquire always : Who am I ?

35. Introspection

We must see things for ourselves. What good is there in going about asking for this man or that for his views and experiences.

36. Liberation

Service at the feet of Guru is essential to attain moksha (liberation).

37. Lust

A person who has not overcome lust cannot see (realise) God.

38. Name Chanting

If you do this - chanting ‘Raja Ram’, your mind will attain peace and you will be immensely benefited.

39. Non-possession

Everything belongs to us for use. Nothing is for us to possess.

40. Omnipresence

I am not confined within this body of three and a half cubic height ; I am everywhere. See me in every place.

41. Oneness

The dog which you saw before meals and to which you gave the piece of bread is one with Me, so also other creatures (cats, pigs, flies, cows, et cetera.) are one with me. I am roaming in their forms. So abandon the sense of duality and serve Me as you did today (by feeding that dog).

 42. Poverty

Poverty is the highest of riches and superior to Lord’s position. God is brother of the poor. Faqir is the real Emperor. Faqir does not perish, but empire is soon lost.

43. Quarrel

If anybody comes and abuses you or punishes you, do not quarrel with him. If you cannot endure it, speak a simple word or two, or else go away from that place. But do not battle with him and behave like this.

44. Questioning

Mere questioning is not enough. The question must not be made with any improper motive or attitude or to trap the Guru and catch him at mistakes in the answer, or out of idle curiosity. It must be with a view to achieving moksha or spiritual progress.

45. Reality

Brahma is the only ‘Reality’ and the Universe is ephemeral and no one in this world, be the son, father or wife, is really ours.

46. Saints

Daily take darshan of Siddhas, i.e., perfect saints. Live a moral life. Then you will be pure even in death.

47. Self-realisation

The idea that "I am the body" is a great illusion, and attachment to this idea is the cause of bondage. Leave this idea and therefore the attachment, if you want to reach the goal of self-realisation.

48. Service

Seva (serving) is not rendering service while still retaining the feeling that one is free to offer or refuse service. One must feel that he is not the master of the body, that the body is Guru’s and exists merely to render service to Him.

49. Sin

Inflicting pain on others by body, mind and speech is sin, the reverse is merit, good.

50. Support

Come what may, stick to your Support, i.e., Guru, and ever remain steady, always in union with Him.

51. Surrender

It is my special characteristic to free any person who surrenders completely to Me and who does worship Me faithfully and who remembers Me and meditates on Me constantly.

52. Truth

You should have  truth always with you. Then I will be always with you, wheresoever you are and at all times.

53. Unity

Rama and Rahim were one and the same ; there was not the least difference between them ; then why should  chennai to shirdi flight packages   their devotees fall out and quarrel among themselves ? You ignorant folk, children, join hands and bring both communities together, act sanely and thus you will gain your object of national unity.

54. Vicissitudes of Life

Gain and loss, birth and death, are in the hands of God. But how blindly people forget that God looks after life as long as it lasts !

55. Wordly Honour

Do not be deluded by wordly honour. The form of the deity should be firmly fixed in the mind. Let all the senses and mind be ever devoted to the worship of the Lord.

 chennai to shirdi flight packages

[myshirdi9seo-blog]

chennai to shirdi flight package

Precious Sayings of Shri Shirdi Sai Baba

 1. Action - Karma

This deha prarabdha (present birth) is the result of the karma (action) done by you in the former births.

2. Assurance

If a man utters My name with love, I shall fulfill all his wishes and increase his devotion. If he sings earnestly about My life and deeds, him I shall beset in front and back and on all sides.

3. Beauty

We have not to bother about beauty or ugliness of the person, but to concentrate solely on God underlying that form.

4. Charity

The donor gives, that is, sows his seeds, only to reap a rich harvest in future. Wealth should be meant to work out Dharma. If it is not given before, you do not get it now. So, the best way to receive it is to give.

5. Contentment

One must rest content with one’s lot.

 6. Dakshina

The giving of dakshina (reverential gift) advances vairagya (non-attachment) and thereby bhakthi (devotion).

7. Death

None dies ; see with your inner eyes. Then you will realise that you are God and not different from Him. Like worn-out garments the body is cast away.

8. Illusion (Maya)

Whenever any idea of joy or sorrow arises in your mind, resist it. Do not give room to it. It is pure maya (illusion).

9. Destiny

Whosoever is destined to be struck will be struck. Whosoever is to die will die. Whosoever is to be caressed will be caressed.

10. Discrimination

There are two sorts of things - the good and the pleasant. Both these things approach a man for acceptance. He has to think and choose one of them. The wise man prefers the good to the pleasant but the unwise, through greed and attachment, chooses the pleasant and thereby cannot gain Brahma gyana (self-realisation).

11. Devotee

He who withdraws his heart from wife, child, and parents and loves me is My real lover or devotee and he merges in me like a river in the sea.

12. Devotion

Knowledge of the Vedas or fame as a great jnani (learned scholar) of formal bhajan (worship) are of no avail unless they are accompanied by bhakthi (devotion).

13. Differences

People differentiate between themselves and others, their properties with others' properties. This is wrong. I am in you and you are in Me. Meditate on the self with a question "Who am I ?"

14. Duty

Unless a man discharges satisfactorily and disinterestedly the duties of his station in life, his mind will not be purified.

15. Egoism

The teachings of a Guru are of no use to a man who is full of egoism and who always thinks about sense-objects.

16. Enemy

Who is whose enemy ? Do not say of anyone that he is your enemy. All are one and the same.

17. Equanimity

Let the world go topsy-turvy, you remain where you are. Standing or staying at your own place, look calmly at the show of all things passing before you.

18. Exploitation

Nobody should take the labour of others' gratis. The worker should be paid his dues promptly and liberally.

19. Feeding

Know for certain that he who feeds the hungry, really serves Me with food. Regard this as an axiomatic truth.

20. Food

Sitting in the masjid (mosque) I shall never, never speak untruth. Take pity on Me like this : first give bread to the hungry and then eat yourself. Note this well.

21. Forbearance

Our Karma is the cause of happiness and sorrow. Therefore, put up with whatever comes to you.

22. God

God lives in all beings and creatures, whether they be serpents or scorpions. He is the greatest wirepuller of the world, and all beings, serpents, scorpions, et cetera, obey His command.

23. God’s Gifts

What a man gives does not last long and it is always imperfect. But what my sircar (God) gives, lasts to the end of life. No other gift from any man can be compared to His.

24. God’s Grace

You must always adhere to truth and fulfill all the promises you make. Have shraddha (faith) and saburi (patience). Then I will always be with you, wherever you are.

25. God’s Will

Unless God wills it, nobody meets us on the way ; unless God wills, nobody can do any harm to us.

26. Goodness

If you act in a good way, good will really follow.

27. Greed

Greed and Brahma are poles asunder ; they are eternally opposed to each other. Where there is greed, there is no room for thought or meditation of the Brahma. Then how can a greedy man get dispassion and salvation.

28. Guru

Stick to your own Guru with unabated faith, whatever the merits of other gurus and however little the merits of your own.

29. Guru’s Grace

The mother tortoise is on one bank of the river and her young ones are on the other. She gives neither milk nor warmth to them. Her mere glance gives them warmth. The young ones do nothing but remember (meditate upon) their mother. The tortoise glance is, to the young ones, a downpour of nectar, the only source of sustenance and happiness. Similar is the relationship between the Guru and his disciples.

30. Humility

Humility is not towards all. Severity is necessary in dealing with the wicked.

31. Happiness

If others hate us, let us take to nama Japa (chanting of God’s name) and avoid them. Do not bark at people ; do not be pugnacious. Bear with others' reproach. This is the way to happiness.

32. Help

If someone begs anything and if that be in your hand or power and if you can grant the request, give it. Do not say, ‘NO’. If you have nothing to give them, give a polite negative reply but do not mock or ridicule the applicant nor get angry with him.

33. Hospitality

No one comes to us without Rinanubandha (some previous bond of give and take). So when any dog, cat, pig, fly or person approaches you, do not drive it or him away with the words ‘Hat - Hat’, ‘Jit - Jit’.

34. Inquiry

Inquire always : Who am I ?

35. Introspection

We must see things for ourselves. What good is there in going about asking for this man or that for his views and experiences.

36. Liberation

Service at the feet of Guru is essential to attain moksha (liberation).

37. Lust

A person who has not overcome lust cannot see (realise) God.

38. Name Chanting

If you do this - chanting ‘Raja Ram’, your mind will attain peace and you will be immensely benefited.

39. Non-possession

Everything belongs to us for use. Nothing is for us to possess.

40. Omnipresence

I am not confined within this body of three and a half cubic height ; I am everywhere. See me in every place.

41. Oneness

The dog which you saw before meals and to which you gave the piece of bread is one with Me, so also other creatures (cats, pigs, flies, cows, et cetera.) are one with me. I am roaming in their forms. So abandon the sense of duality and serve Me as you did today (by feeding that dog).

 42. Poverty

Poverty is the highest of riches and superior to Lord’s position. God is brother of the poor. Faqir is the real Emperor. Faqir does not perish, but empire is soon lost.

43. Quarrel

If anybody comes and abuses you or punishes you, do not quarrel with him. If you cannot endure it, speak a simple word or two, or else go away from that place. But do not battle with him and behave like this.

44. Questioning

Mere questioning is not enough. The question must not be made with any improper motive or attitude or to trap the Guru and catch him at mistakes in the answer, or out of idle curiosity. It must be with a view to achieving moksha or spiritual progress.

45. Reality

Brahma is the only ‘Reality’ and the Universe is ephemeral and no one in this world, be the son, father or wife, is really ours.

46. Saints

Daily take darshan of Siddhas, i.e., perfect saints. Live a moral life. Then you will be pure even in death.

47. Self-realisation

The idea that "I am the body" is a great illusion, and attachment to this idea is the cause of bondage. Leave this idea and therefore the attachment, if you want to reach the goal of self-realisation.

48. Service

Seva (serving) is not rendering service while still retaining the feeling that one is free to offer or refuse service. One must feel that he is not the master of the body, that the body is Guru’s and exists merely to render service to Him.

49. Sin

Inflicting pain on others by body, mind and speech is sin, the reverse is merit, good.

50. Support

Come what may, stick to your Support, i.e., Guru, and ever remain steady, always in union with Him.

51. Surrender

It is my special characteristic to free any person who surrenders completely to Me and who does worship Me faithfully and who remembers Me and meditates on Me constantly.

52. Truth

You should have truth always with you. Then I will be always with you, wheresoever you are and at all times.

53. Unity

Rama and Rahim were one and the same ; there was not the least difference between them ; then why should their devotees fall out and quarrel among themselves ? You ignorant folk, children, join hands and bring both communities together, act sanely and thus you will gain your object of national unity.

54. Vicissitudes of Life

Gain and loss, birth and death, are in the hands of God. But how blindly people forget that God looks after life as long as it lasts !

55. Wordly Honour

Do not be deluded by wordly honour. The form of the deity should be firmly fixed in the mind. Let all the senses and mind be ever devoted to the worship of the Lord.

chennai to shirdi flight package

[marcusssanderson]

Winston Churchill Quotes on Democracy, The Arts, and Leadership

Looking for famous Winston Churchill quotes that have stood the test of time?

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was an important figure of his time. Through his assistance and leadership, the Allied forces, together with the U.S. and the Soviet Union, gained victory against the Axis powers during WWII.

A beloved statesman and writer, he was also a key individual in crafting post-war peace.

Independent, strategic, and strong, his ideals remain invaluable to this day. Like many successful and historic figures, his life was not without obstacles.

Who would believe that during his early years, he in fact, performed poorly in school? It took him three tries before getting into the British Royal Military College.

His mother rarely saw him at that time as well. His father, seldom present and someone he knew only through reputation, died when Churchill was only 21.

We can glean a bit of wisdom from his life as a well-known statesman and writer. Whether you’re after success, are fighting for change, or you simply need a bit of motivation, here are some of the best Winston Churchill quotes for you.

The Greatest Winston Churchill Quotes on Democracy and Leadership

1.) “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” ― Winston S. Churchill

2.) “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” ― Winston S. Churchill

3.) “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” ― Winston S. Churchill

4.) “Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.” ― Winston S. Churchill

5.) “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” ― Winston S. Churchill

6.) “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” ― Winston S. Churchill

7.) “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” ― Winston S. Churchill

8.) “Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” ― Winston S. Churchill

9.) “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” ― Winston S. Churchill

10.) “The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.” ― Winston S. Churchill

11.) “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” ― Winston S. Churchill

12.) “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” ― Winston S. Churchill

13.) “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” ― Winston S. Churchill

14.) “To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.” ― Winston S. Churchill

15.) “We are all worms, But I do believe that I am a glow worm.” ― Winston S. Churchill, ‘Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches’

16.) “We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.” ― Winston S. Churchill

17.) “Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.” ― Winston S. Churchill

18.) “We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.” ― Winston S. Churchill

19.) “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” ― Winston S. Churchill

20.) “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.” ― Winston S. Churchill

Winston Churchill Quotes on Never Giving Up

21.) “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” ― Winston S. Churchill

22.) “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” ― Winston S. Churchill

23.) “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” ― Winston S. Churchill

24.) “If you are going through hell, keep going.” ― Winston S. Churchill

25.) “Never, never, never give in!” ― Winston S. Churchill

Famous Winston Churchill Quotes

26.) “It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.” ― Winston S. Churchill

27.) “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” ― Winston S. Churchill

28.) Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” ― Winston S. Churchill, ‘Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches’

29.) “For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.” ― Winston S. Churchill

30.) “Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.” ― Winston S. Churchill

31.) “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” ― Winston S. Churchill, ‘Alone: The Second World War’ (Condensed) Series, Book 2

32.) “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” ― Winston S. Churchill

33.) “When you get a thing the way you want it, leave it alone.” ― Winston S. Churchill

34.) “Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.” ― Winston S. Churchill

35.) “Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.” ― Winston S. Churchill

Quotes by Winston Churchill about the Importance of the Arts

36.) “My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.” ― Winston S. Churchill

37.) “Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.” ― Winston S. Churchill

38.) “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” ― Winston S. Churchill

39.) “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope” ― Winston S. Churchill

40.) “Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.” ― Winston S. Churchill

More Winston Churchill Quotes

41.) “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.” ― Winston S. Churchill

42.) “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” ― Winston S. Churchill

43.) “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” ― Winston S. Churchill

44.) “There is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.” ― Winston S. Churchill

45.) “You create your own universe as you go along.” ― Winston S. Churchill

46.) “This paper, by its very length, defends itself from ever being read.” ― Winston S. Churchill

47.) “You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was meant to be wooed and won by youth.” ― Winston S. Churchill, ‘My Early Life’, 1874-1904

48.) “Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.” ― Winston S. Churchill, Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches

49.) “To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.” ― Winston S. Churchill

50.) “This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end; this is just perhaps the end of the beginning.” ― Winston S. Churchill

Winston Churchill quotes to live by

51.) “We shall not fail or falter. We shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.”― Winston S. Churchill

52.) “It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”― Winston S. Churchill

53.) “Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.”― Winston S. Churchill

54.) “If one has to submit, it is wasteful not to do so with the best grace possible.”― Winston S. Churchill

55.) “We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.”― Winston S. Churchill

56.) “The most important thing about education is appetite.” ― Winston Churchill

57.) “Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.” ― Winston S. Churchill

58.) “There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.”― Winston S. Churchill

59.) “Eating words has never given me indigestion.” ― Winston Churchill

60.) “No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.” ― Winston S. Churchill

More Winston Churchill quotes to inspire you

61.) “There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right and not to fear to do or say what you believe to be right.”― Winston S. Churchill

62.) “It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them.”― Winston S. Churchill

63.) “All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honour; duty; mercy; hope.”― Winston S. Churchill

64.) “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, it’s also what it takes to sit down and listen.”― Winston S. Churchill

65.) “When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”― Winston S. Churchill

66.) “It is no use saying ‘we are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”― Winston S. Churchill

67.) “If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future. ” ― Winston Churchill

68.) “We have not journeyed all this way because we are made of sugar candy.” ― Winston S. Churchill

69.) “It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.” ― Winston S. Churchill

70.) “Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.” ― Winston Churchill

Did you enjoy these Winston Churchill quotes?

Hopefully, you have found one or two of his wise words to inspire you. You don’t need to be statesman to fight for what is right: these battles are fought everyday. As long as you give your best and do what you believe is true, you are brave.

The post Winston Churchill Quotes on Democracy, The Arts, and Leadership appeared first on Everyday Power Blog.

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What Happens When A Truck Carrying Radioactive Material Gets Robbed In Mexico?

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/what-happens-when-a-truck-carrying-radioactive-material-gets-robbed-in-mexico/

What Happens When A Truck Carrying Radioactive Material Gets Robbed In Mexico?

Last December, a truck containing lethal radioactive cobalt-60 was stolen outside Mexico City, briefly causing an international panic. Then, almost immediately, the story quietly disappeared — but the questions surrounding it didn’t.

On the morning of Dec. 3, 2013, Francisco Sanchez, a farmer on his way to work in Hueypoxtla, a rural town near Mexico City, found a pile of old machine parts strewn in the field behind his house. One piece, which resembled a water pump or a large diving bell, was so big and heavy he couldn’t move it. There was also a metal box with a scratched-away label that he couldn’t read, and a cylinder about 3 feet long, which Sanchez thought he could use to split firewood.

The other farmers hadn’t yet arrived, so he grabbed the cylinder with both hands and heaved it over his shoulder, carrying it a few yards over to the corn husks that had been piled in the field to dry. He was sure no one would find it in there.

Sanchez hadn’t yet heard the news, but these were parts of a radiation therapy device that Mexico’s Social Security Institute was replacing throughout state hospitals, stolen from a truck the day before. Even though the machine was considered obsolete as a medical device, it contained 3,000 curies of cobalt-60, a Category 1 (the most dangerous classification) synthetic radioactive isotope — more than enough to kill anyone exposed to it.

View this image ›

The Pemex in Tepojaco where the robbery occurred. Photo by Mary Cuddehe for BuzzFeed

The hijacking had taken place 12 miles away in Tepojaco, a town popular with truckers traveling in and out of Mexico City. The driver was en route from a public hospital in Tijuana to a nearby disposal site for hazardous waste and had pulled off the highway to sleep in an unlit spot across from a Pemex gas station. At around 1 a.m., he heard a tap on the window and saw two men with guns standing outside. They forced their way into the cab and bound the driver’s hands.

The driver’s partner was in the back and heard the noise of the driver being tied up. He managed to slip away without notice. Security footage revealed little else; the robbery had taken place in the middle of the night. Armando Ramos, a federal agent who responded to the scene, told me that the truck, a white 2007 Volvo, could be made out pulling into a spot directly behind another truck, which obscured it from view. Soon the truck pulled away; the culprits were never seen. There was also no way to guess where the truck had gone.

The hazardous materials were being transported without security, and though the truck was, according to some early reports, outfitted with GPS, it hadn’t been turned on — which looked suspect. Initially, said Ramos, “we assumed the driver had something to do with it.” According to one study, 10,000 highway cargo thefts occurred per year between 2006 and 2010, a rate of 27 per day, and the highest concentration is in the towns encircling Mexico City — and autorobo, when companies are in on the robberies to take a cut as well as collect insurance, is also commonplace.

That theory was ruled out against the more mundane reality that the hijackers didn’t know what they’d taken. Instead, the thieves had followed a standard script: Rather than hurting the driver, they simply let him out down the road, alive, and continued on, another night’s work. They would have known that no one was watching them and believed they would not be caught. Victims of crimes often don’t bother reporting them to police, who aren’t likely to solve them, and who may have a stake themselves. According to Amnesty International, complaints of civil rights violations at the hands of authorities have increased 600% between 2003 and 2013.

But this robbery broke through, ascending to an increasingly rare category in Mexico: that of a notorious, headline-making crime. The hijackers who thought they were pulling off another score instead had pulled off the most brazen theft of radioactive materials in memory. Twenty-four hours later, the world knew what they’d done.

Major U.S. networks devoted coverage to the missing “ingredients for a radioactive dirty bomb,” in the words of one headline. The White House said it was “closely monitoring” the situation. Juan Eibenschutz, the director of Mexico’s National Commission for Nuclear Safety and Safeguards, who’d flown straight home from Paris to handle the crisis, made a public plea: “If anyone finds a big chunk of metal with radiation symbols all over it they should notify us immediately.”

In the world of nuclear safety, stories of mishaps and misidentification abound. The most infamous case involves a Brazilian man who was so mesmerized by the cesium-137 capsule that turned up in his junkyard that he opened it up and passed out the contents to neighbors, who rubbed it on their skin. Even in Mexico this had happened before: A source of cobalt-60 was melted into rebar that became dining table legs bound for the U.S. market; they weren’t discovered until a delivery truck took a wrong turn in the vicinity of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and triggered alarms.

But this was a theft, not an accident, perpetrated in the midst of a vast economy thriving on the traffic of illicit, dangerous things. What if the cobalt-60 was removed from its protective encasement, sold, and harnessed for a dirty bomb — an apocalyptic twist straight out of Dr. Strangelove? Mexican officials privately believed that a terrorist plot was as unlikely as the Doomsday Machine. But as long as the cobalt-60 was missing, the possibility couldn’t be dismissed. The International Atomic Energy Agency deemed the teletherapy machine “extremely dangerous.” Eibenschutz added, “It’s almost absolutely certain that whoever removed this material by hand is either dead or about to die.”

And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared as the latest crisis on the evening news, the cobalt-60 was safely recovered and the story vanished. A year — and zero known radiation-related fatalities — later, it’s still not clear who was behind the theft. And whether that’s a cause for relief or a cause for greater worry is up for debate.

View this image ›

Illustration by Adam Setala for BuzzFeed

Removed from the country, it’s easy to think of Mexico as suffering from a single form of cartel-related bloodshed. But up close, a more insidious form of violence has crept in. Criminal organizations once devoted to trafficking drugs have diversified widely: A single recent operation against La Familia Michoacana, a militant group with a mythically devout ethos, revealed that the group had sold 1.1 million tons of illegally extracted iron ore in China for $42 million. In 2012, Mexico estimated that in lost wages, foreign investments, and public health bills, crime at large had siphoned $16.5 billion, or 1.3%, from the GDP. Overall killings are down, but in a recent self-reported survey, kidnapping and extortion were up. And everyday crimes are the ones that pull at the social fabric, making life and labor miserable. Perhaps most instructive of all: The perception of violence has risen. More Mexicans feel less safe.

President Enrique Peña Nieto recently attempted to address the problem by unveiling a special economic crimes task force composed of fresh-faced officers who, as a selling point, had never before worked for the police. Though, as one analyst told the Associated Press in a report about the new gendarmerie, “We have been creating new police forces for decades — armored police, ‘incorruptible, super-trained police.’” But to little effect.

In the aftermath of the December hijacking, little focus went to the thieves or the farmers who found the cobalt. The five men arrested allegedly belonged to a truck theft gang centered in Zumpango, a commuter town on the Mexico state–Hidalgo border, booked within days of the robbery. Local police had rounded up the suspects and handed them over to federal agents. The Mexican government often trumpets its marquee arrests, but the attorney general’s office couldn’t even dig up a press release when I called. And so, along with the culprits, the other issues surrounding the hijacking that had roused public attention — the fact that government contractors were transporting lethal radioactive waste through gang-rife territory without security or even GPS — were soon forgotten. People were understandably less interested in some common thieves than the specter of a dirty bomb. There’d been no media parades showcasing the suspects, no presidential tweets, only a quiet booking. The men were shipped off to a federal prison in Tamaulipas to await judgment.

Five months after the hijacking, I flew to Mexico City. I hired a driver, Marco Callejas, to get around the towns outside the capital, and he picked me up in front of a Starbucks on a sunny morning last May. Marco wore a sporty uniform of track pants, sneakers, and wraparound sunglasses like the kind off-duty police officers wear. His car was an old maroon Tsuru, Mexico’s ubiquitous Nissan Sentra. The taxi company had randomly assigned him, so when Marco said he’d grown up near Pachuca, the capital of Hidalgo state, which forms a triangle with Tepojaco, where the cobalt-60 was stolen, and the cornfield in Hueypoxtla where it was found, it felt comforting, like good luck. Marco patted the front seat, the only one besides his with a belt. “Come on up!” he said. I climbed in.

As Marco and I drove out of Mexico City, I asked if he remembered the hijacking. “Gosh, it would be so easy to cross something like that over the border.” Marco shook his head. “It’s a good thing the Mexicans and the Arabs aren’t friends!”

We took a road veering off the highway and drove for a long time on dirt roads, passing through small towns. The countryside looked like an old Western stage setting with cacti and mountains in the distance, except for the billboards advertising a hotline for kidnapping victims and the highway sign riddled with bullet holes. None of the addresses we plugged into the GPS seemed to work. So we stopped a man on a horse for directions.

In Zumpango, we pulled up to the scrapyard belonging to one of the alleged thieves, Luis Angel Torres. His father, also named Luis, was standing in front talking to a customer with his arms crossed over a black T-shirt that read “The Queen of Convenience Stores Works Here.”

He led us through the scrapyard’s receiving garage, which opened up to a large sorting area where workers were crushing metal into perfectly compressed squares. According to the family, Luis Angel was accused of, among other things, dismantling the stolen truck, crushing it to pieces, and selling it off. (Luis Angel is facing charges relating to organized crime and abandonment of radioactive materials, according to the family’s attorney; repeated requests for information about the hijacking from state and federal officials were denied or ignored.) The office was painted bright lavender and had a large shrine to Jesus.

Torres made himself comfortable. He put his feet up on the desk, over a collage of family photos overlaid with plastic. Torres said he was a family man. Scrap metal was all his boy had ever known, he said.

Luis Angel, who was 25 at the time of his arrest, was the youngest of Torres’ five children, a father of three, and the fourth generation to work in chatarro, a business his great grandfather had started out of a pushcart. Now the Torres empire extended to four or five scrapyards. Three months before his arrest, Luis Angel had opened his own.

The way Torres told the story, on the afternoon following the hijacking, Miguel, a childhood friend of Luis Angel, showed up at Luis Angel’s new shop with a large wooden crate for sale. “There was nothing on the outside marking it,” Torres said. The next day, Luis Angel’s 16-year-old part-time employee Andres opened the crate and began to unpack the contents. Dust poured out of the box, and he peered inside, noticing a small radiation symbol. Luis Angel and Andres suddenly felt a wave of nausea — an early sign of radiation poisoning — and rushed to a local clinic.

As Torres was talking, his daughter wandered into the room. She was also dressed in black. She waved a hand over her soiled shirt and said something about “getting our hands dirty.”

Torres continued. Returning from the clinic that night, Luis Angel was frightened. News of the missing materials was making rounds on the radio and on the evening news, and he would have known what he’d purchased by then. He and Andres loaded up an old Dodge truck and headed out of town. After a while on the dark road, skirting the main highways, the field in Hueypoxtla must have seemed desolate enough.

Dumping the material was Luis Angel’s mistake, Torres said, not stealing it. “We say we’re innocent. But who’s going to listen to us?”

The following afternoon two men arrived at Andres’ house claiming to have been sent from the public health administration. Upstairs they found Andres, Luis Angel, and a cousin of Luis Angel. In fact they were ministerial police. They had received a tip from the clinic about two men exhibiting signs of radiation poisoning. All three were taken into custody.

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“This whole story about a dirty bomb is a bunch of fantasies.”

Back in Mexico City, I had gone to see Juan Eibenschutz at his office in the center of the city. The building sat on a quiet leafy street not too far from tony Reforma Avenue, where the federal police work in gleaming towers. Evidently nuclear safety wasn’t receiving the same funding as organized crime was, but Eibenschutz seemed as unconcerned with status as propriety. “What really scares people, in particular the authorities” — he emphasized the word — “is the psychological damage a terrorist could inflict if he says, ‘I’ve got a source and I’m gonna activate it and everyone’s gonna die.’”

“But wasn’t it considered a Category 1 source? And isn’t that considered highly dangerous?” I asked.

He smiled at me, the way that an adult smiles at a child. “It’s highly dangerous. That’s what I’m telling you! If you have this thing at, say, one foot during half an hour, you’re dead.” But, he said, the material wasn’t an ideal choice for a bomb. “You pack a bomb with dynamite or conventional explosive, surround it with highly radioactive material and explode it. … Most of the material gets dispersed.” He went on: If anyone wanted to use the cobalt, they’d have to extract it safely first, and the pellets had been properly sealed.

But what if they did?

“Well,” Eibenschutz chuckled, “I don’t have the mentality of a terrorist.”

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Illustration by Adam Setala for BuzzFeed

After a couple of days in the car together, Marco had started to feel less like a hired driver than a co-conspirator. He talked about the way this gang or that gang operated, and pointed out landmarks. “There used to be a lot of assaults here. Truckers would pull onto these dirt roads, and a lot of women were raped,” he said one afternoon as we passed an empty street. He seemed to enjoy being an investigator. He asked a lot of questions, and offered theories of his own. It occurred to me that Marco might have worked in law enforcement. But when I asked, he said, “No way. Mexican cops are symbols of corruption and mediocrity.”

Francisco Sanchez lived outside Hueypoxtla on communal farming land. When we pulled into his driveway, he was outside in the shade of a giant flowering prickly pear cactus, the plant that jutted out of the earth everywhere. Sanchez’s house, like all the houses there, was a hodgepodge of brick, stone, mud, and corrugated tin. The indoor space blended into the outdoors. Hueypoxtla is a windy, dry place, but it’s never too cold, and the climate is good for growing crops like barley and alfalfa. Marco pointed out that the maguey plant grows wild there. The maguey is the plant used to make pulque, the ancient Aztec spirit, which, also according to Marco, the poorest residents of the region sometimes feed to their children when there’s nothing else to eat.

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Photo by Mary Cuddehe for BuzzFeed

That afternoon, Sanchez pointed to his perch under the prickly pears and disappeared into the house, re-emerging with the boxes of the medications he has had to take since he got sick and pictures of his radiation burns that his wife, Yolanda, who was washing dishes in their outdoor sink, had snapped in the hospital. Sanchez had been hospitalized for six weeks with radiation poisoning and still wasn’t able to expose his skin to sunlight for very long. He was only 41 but looked like an old man, sun-weathered.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt and had a large bandage covering his left shoulder and another taped over his hand. Radiation sickness can be fatal, but Sanchez said he’d had on a thick jacket that morning and had only carried the cylinder a few meters. “Look,” he said, then slowly peeled the bandage to reveal skin that was still seared and pink. Normally, he said, he would have been out in the fields preparing for the summer rains, but he hadn’t worked since that morning in December. As we were talking, his 9-month-old son wheeled by on a mobile high chair.

The cornfield was only a couple of kilometers away down the slope of a dusty road, just past the Marie Curie kindergarten. “Crazy about that name, right?” I said, as we passed the school, to silence.

I had noticed empty canals lining the fields, and Sanchez explained that effluent from Mexico City was pumped out there, which the farmers use to irrigate their crops. I imagined the wastewater-fed crops being sold back to the capital and being consumed and then surging back through the pipes to Hueypoxtla like some giant closed-loop digestive tract.

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Photo by Mary Cuddehe for BuzzFeed

We reached the field. Stepping out of the car, Sanchez seemed possessed by his memory. He retraced his steps, circling the place he’d found the cylinder. He had noticed six deep tire ruts that morning, indicating to him that whoever discarded the materials had labored to do so. One of the tracks was still visible, baked into the earth. He straightened his back and swept his arm, motioning to the emptiness. “Why would anyone leave this here?”

After he hid the cylinder, Sanchez had felt ill and experienced what he called “a tremendous vomit,” but he hadn’t made the connection, so he went back to work, and he didn’t tell anyone what he’d found. Throughout the day others had tried to move the parts. The biggest piece, the shield, was too heavy, and night fell with the pieces as Sanchez had found them.

For the first week, Sanchez had been afraid to talk about what was happening to him, even as 100 Marines, federal agents, and local police cordoned off the field and dispatched a robot to retrieve the cobalt. He watched the evening news, clutching his son tightly, and asked Yolanda to rub ointment on his shoulder. Finally he let on to a friend. “I was dying of panic,” he told me. “People ask why I waited so long, but what they don’t understand is that I was totally blocked.”

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A neighbor, Mauro Moya, a truck driver, took a walk to the field with his son and son-in-law and circled the objects like the farmers had done the day before, measuring and weighing them with their eyes. The biggest piece couldn’t be lifted with a wheelbarrow or a tractor. But they estimated that the metal was worth $400. It was enough to cover the family’s expenses for two weeks. Moya hurried back up the hill for his truck. He hooked chains around the shield and dragged it up the road to his property, kicking up a trail of shimmering dust. With the shield safely on his lot, the ecstatic Moya family took turns posing for photos, squatting down beside it, making peace signs, sitting on it, laughing. The celebration didn’t last long. Someone from the community had already called the police.

The Moya family soon began to think of their discovery as a curse. Three weeks later, the son-in-law, Juan Antonio Saldivar was arrested in a separate incident for stealing a cement truck. The attorney his family hired told me that the arrest glared with irregularities, chief among them the fact that it preceded the actual crime by half an hour. Officers rifling through his phone saw the photos of the shield and, in an apparent attempt to bolster their profile of Saldivar as a seasoned hijacker, stated in charging documents that he had been “detained” by authorities “in relation to the cobalt-60 theft.” Authorities questioned his family after the cobalt was recovered at their home but didn’t arrest them. Saldivar has now been in jail for 11 months and is facing a sentence of 16 years for the cement truck theft.

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Photo by Mary Cuddehe for BuzzFeed

Later that day, as we were getting ready to leave Hueypoxtla, Marco pulled up a photograph on his phone of him in a federal police uniform. “I was a federal police officer for 10 years,” he said.

I stared at the image. It was definitely him. He had his back to the camera and was flexing his biceps. “Policia Federal” was emblazoned on his shirt; a pistol was sticking out of his belt.

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“I’ve been suspended,” he said, quietly. “I’m being investigated for corruption.” He began to tell me a story about a friend who was involved with the narcos and had implicated him but it was all a lie, political stuff. But I couldn’t absorb any of it. The realization dawned that I’d hired a stranger who might or might not be a crooked ex-policeman to ferry me around the hijacking epicenter of Mexico in search of bandits with possible connections to organized crime or even terrorists and that I was now stuck alone with him in the country. But I wanted to go back to Zumpango to find Andres. Marco knew how to get there.

I had already gone by the place a couple of times. The story that Torres had told me implicated police officers in a corruption scheme and painted his son as an innocent man. But when I’d asked to see the truck that Luis Angel had used, he said the family had sold it. There was a third employee in the shop with him that day, but he had disappeared. Miguel was also nowhere to be found. Other details didn’t add up. Andres had been released by authorities on account of his age.

At Andres’ house, salsa was blaring and a big red truck was parked inside the gate. A tiny old woman in an apron answered the door. She said no one was home.

Down the street from the house, I had seen four men drinking cans of Modelo under an awning. “The truck was right there,” said one, pointing to a spot down the street, in front of Luis Angel’s shop, the one that had been raided by police. Torres had told me police had taped it off and the family was stuck paying the rent, but it looked open; a couple of cars were parked inside.

“Why was the truck sitting outside?” I asked.

“There were too many trucks in the shop already!” said another. They all laughed and continued dishing about the Torres family. According to them, Luis Angel had a chop shop. One of Luis Angel’s co-defendants, a man Torres had told me was a new acquaintance, in fact worked with him, they said, painting the stolen vehicles.

“I live across the street and sometimes there were so many trucks in there they had to park them outside,” said one of the men.

What about Miguel? I asked.

“There’s only one Miguel in this town,” the man said. “He went to the United States 15 years ago.”

The woman from Andres’ house walked down the street toward us. She passed the group in silence, looking straight ahead.

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Photo by Mary Cuddehe for BuzzFeed

Julio Cesar, the Torres family’s attorney, had an office in a development outside Mexico City. The place had a disorienting bleached-out quality, like a condensed version of the Inland Empire, and his office was in a row house that looked exactly like all the others on his street.

Cesar swung open the door. He was short and round, like an egg. He had on a pink shirt, a pink tie, a blue sweater-vest, and blue slacks — Danny DeVito and Mr. Rogers at the same time. His partner, a pretty blonde with big brown eyes in a brown pantsuit, descended the stairs. Cesar invited me to have a seat on a brown-and-white leather sectional. I stared down at a zebra-print rug and, to my right, a pair of electric guitars upright in stands, at the ready.

I had hoped Cesar would give me a copy of the police report and charging documents. Such things can be tough to come by in Mexico, even after a case is closed. The files would clarify the questions I had about the Torres family’s story and the official versions that police had furnished to local press.

“So,” Cesar began. “Do you know how justice works in Mexico?” My heart sank as he went on. “If the courts find out that you’re interviewing witnesses — believe me, apart from affecting the defense, there’s juridical revenge. You start seeing stuff in the newspapers, on the radio, on TV. It just gets very complicated.”

He stood up. “What this case needs right now is for things to cool down.”

He showed me the door.

Back home, I followed up with him for a while, but the answer was always the same: He needed more time.

Not long after, Marco, who had added me on Facebook, posted the photo he’d shown me in the car of himself in uniform. The comments suggested that Marco’s friends didn’t know he had ever been a police officer. “What clothesline line’d ya steal that uniform from?” read one. “It’s not from a clothesline. It’s rented!”

I thought back to going to a federal police campus in Mexico City, where Marco told me he’d been “noticed” by one of the officers, who observed the particular way he jumped out of a van. A normal person — me — would exit facing forward. But Marco climbed out sideways, a reflex, he explained, from all his years carrying a long firearm. They’d spotted him and knew he was one of them.

Had Marco invented that story? Was he not a police officer accused of corruption? I thought it over for a couple of days. But I decided it was better not to ask him. I didn’t think I would get a straight answer.

On June 8, another source of radioactive material was stolen from a warehouse near Zumpango. This time it was a source that authorities considered less dangerous than the cobalt from the December heist. Police weren’t able to track it, but 10 days later it turned up in a garbage bag by a sewage canal. A security guard who spotted it believed the bag contained a body. Reports said it had sat by the canal untouched for several days, free for anyone to haul away.

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Wasting My Life

1. Have you ever had pink eye? I think when I was really young? 2. Do you really care how many friends you or anyone else has on Myspace/Facebook? haha no. 3. Does your significant other have any piercings? ear and nose. 4. What is the last song you listened to with “song” in the title? “Adam’s Song” 5. Is red rad? no

6. do you have a lot of sleep debt? forever. 7. Do you like Adam Sandler? yeah he was funny, until I saw Click and he made me cry. No I can never see him the same again. Fuck you, Adam. 8. The last CD you listened to, from where did you get it? Myspace Mix Tape 9. What are you doing on August 16th? being dead 10. Last person/people to play (an) instrument(s) in your presence? Which? long time ago, but had someone play their dj setup for me. it was actually pretty cool and really interesting. 11. When, where, and to whom did you lose your virginity? 2004? their friends house. no one important.  12. Do you have any writing/drawings on you? yes 13. What is your favourite day of the week? 

Tuesday I guess?

14. Favourite number from 1-31? 18 15. When is the next [13’s answer] the [14’s answer]th, etc.? September 2018 is the next Tuesday that lands on the 18th. 16. Do you ever get bored of yourself? oh yeah. that’s why i do these. 17. How many different bands/artists have you seen live? a lot. i lost count a long time ago 18. How many band shirts do you own? Which? I used to own a lot when I was younger.  Now I have like 4? Rings of Saturn and Thy Art Is Murder.   19. Do you go to shows mostly for the music, the moshing, or the merchandise? music and moshing 20. Last black person you hugged? i have no idea haha wtf 21. Last song you sang in the shower? “Goddamn I’m Dead Again” 22. Is life hard? extremely 23. Do you lift weights? when I had more time yeah. not anymore though. 24. What is the EQ on your iPod set to? custom 25. Do you eat your vegetables? yes. 26. Is Nutella amazing? it’s aight 27. Have you ever had anything pierced that you don’t have now? lip 28. Does someone telling you to have a good day/weekend actually affect your day/weekend? it makes no difference 29. How many albums do you own that came out this year? not many 30. Do you sneeze every day? nope 31. Would you consider yourself “tough”? depends on situation. 32. Who were you with the first time you watched the last movie you watched? myself. 33. How many people do you know who are pregnant right now? hmm..two? 34. Have you eaten any fruit today? no 35. Do you have any twins/multiples in your family? Are they identical or fraternal? nope. 36. What is the highest number of jobs you’ve had at one time? two. 37. who is the youngest person in your family that you know of? i don’t know 38. Is your mom a good mom? yeah 39. What colour shirt are you wearing? black 40. How many shows/concerts have you attended? to many to keep track of 41. Where is your S/O/crush atm? at home probably. 42. how many houses have you lived in? 3 43. Do you pick up pennies off the ground? no. 44. Last thing you bought that was under a dollar? iced tea

45. Last thing you bought over fifty dollars? new clutch 46. What colour is the last lighter you used? white 47. Last thing you printed? organic chemistry lab report sheet 48. Last thing you threw in the garbage? redbull 49. Closest book to you? lab notebook 50. What are your parents’ and their grandchildren’s names? i’d rather not post my parent’s names and they don’t have grandchildren.