#which is why i wrote 300 pages of notes in preparation

[sublux]

i’m feeling soooo nervous for my assessment monday. we’re going to review my answers to the questionnaires i was given and i’m worried i’m going to clam up on the spot and not be able to justify myself at all

[bellaslilpapercut]

Oh boy New Moon! I've got some Thoughts a brewin' babey:

1. Smeyer: you do not need to remind your audience what happened last book, they aren't stupid. Imagine if SC started catching fire with ANOTHER explanation of what the hunger games are and that's the vibe of the first chapters of new moon. We remember james, we know what vampires are, we know that Bella is white, stop reminding us!

2. Bella has the worst self esteem of all time. Every bad thing that has happened to her since the Van Incident has been Edward's fault but she still blames herself and idk if this is Intentional Insecurity or if smeyer is protecting edward's "character" or both but gdamn it's depressing.

3. The reason I said Jasper was Inconsistently Written jumped out at me again. Smeyer dedicated a whole paragraph to pointing out how terrible jasper is at the diet or whatever but in the guide, smeyer tells us jasper actively tried to starve himself in the past because of how difficult his gift made feeding. He was one of only two Cullens to show bella empathy, he smelled her blood before, why does he attack her? The weakness of this decision is pointed out in the exposition: if it really were likely that Jasper would attack Bella, she wouldn't have needed a superfluous paragraph dedicated to telling us how bad he is at self control. If the story had convinced us of that beforehand, we would have believed the attack without the addendum.

4. The party is my least favorite part of the whole series and I will die on this hill: edward should have attacked bella. Bella should have tripped into something glass and edward should have lost it because he tasted her blood before and couldn't help himself. That way: edwards self loathing makes sense and he's forced to recon with his superiority complex from the ending chapters of twilight AND bella's self blame makes sense. A vamp who was able to starve himself before he even heard of the cullens should not have lost it around someone he spent days in close quarters with, building rapport and friendship. Edward got too high and mighty after he fed from Bella in Twilight, that should have had real consequence.

5. The writing is getting a little better as we near Edward leaving. "Better" isn't a good word actually but it's getting closer to the prose in twilight (which was flowery and annoying but at least it didn't constantly feel like being spoonfed exposition every paragraph). Hm wrote this blurb while I was still on chapter 3 and the vibe of being spoonfed reminders has not really dissipated lmfao.

We remember Sam Uley, smeyer, you introduced him four chapters ago. Just quick question: did anyone proofread this?? I think it's fair to say: when she isn't reminding us of things that we remember the prose is more similar to twilight. A little annoying but interesting enough to forgive the errors (or at least move past them easily enough lol).

6. I'm on chapter 8 now (I'm gonna break this up into three parts so I don't forget stuff like I did during the twilight reread) and there's a very heavy Vibe that smeyer is setting Jake up to be a parallel for twilight-era Bella. This line here is a pretty clear parallel for Bella telling Edward not to hold his breath in Twilight when he tells her she might get tired of him.

7. This line here "almost happy in a shallow kind of way" really jumped out. What Bella's narration says about Jacob versus her conversations with him (and her one paragraph about his happiness being effortlessly contagious) are at odds. It doesn't read like shallow happiness when she's with Jake. However, Smeyer is also a bad writer, she thinks the story she's telling us is literally what the narration says and not what the action shows and I think she realizes this in Eclipse (but obviously I'm not there yet so I can't say for sure).

8. I really can't get over the drop in writing quality. I know that she had already mostly finished Forever Dawn by the time Twilight was published (or was halfway done, I think her website said she had over 300 pages of forever dawn complete when she found out Twilight was getting published). I think the writing quality really reveals that she was not prepared to write New Moon. It's sloppier than Twilight in a way I'm not able to articulate (by that I mean I personally have a more intuitive than technical understanding of grammar and syntax so I don't have the language to break down the differences). Twilight itself is ripe with technical errors and plot errors and awkward exposition so it's not an overt drop in quality but I think it very much reads like a rushed writing job. She was committed to forever dawn, her publishers wanted New Moon, it shows.

9. I think New Moon was when I first started physically editing my copies of the saga lol. Even reading it now I'm so tempted to open up a word document and cut half of the useless shit out and fix all the grammatical mistakes. I can't even talk shit because I am also a comma-abuser but I hoped an editor would at least catch the errors before publishing. Guess not! Brevity is very clearly not meyers strong suit and this would have been a much stronger sequel if she had been able to reign herself in a bit. New Moon isn't supposed to be as narration heavy as twilight, there's already more action in the first seven chapters than the there was in the first 19 of twilight but she always delivers exposition via awkward dialogue or Bella's narration. Again, we already got a lot of the exposition in twilight, we know how vampires work et cetera. You can show us how bella feels instead of making her tell us and the story would run a lot more smoothly.

10. I'll end on a nice note! Little treat!

This is my favorite part of the book so far. I whited-out the useless dialogue tag because the line reads better without it ( line originally ends with "I emphasized" but she could have been brief and just ended the dialogue with an exclamation point for the same effect). The dialogue is natural and shows the J/B relationship that lives in my head way better than anything else I've seen on the page at this point. Like, I literally love this line more than any dialogue that preceded it (including twilight) lol.

[dillydedalus]

march reading

kinda forgot about this i guess. anyway feat. uh, magical ships, dubious mental health institutions (plural) & a parisian building with 99 rooms. 

the forever sea, joshua phillip johnson (forever sea #1) i firmly believe that more fantasy lit should be set on ships bc ships are inherently a sexy setting & you could have pirates which are extremely sexy. this has ships (and pirates) and also a sea made of grass? a magical plant sea on which ships sail via magical fires, so conceptually i’m very into it all. the plot is fine, but the protagonist kindred has a very bad case of Main Character Syndrome so prepare for mild annoyance throughout. also while i generally enjoy book magic vs wild magic i wish more works would treat them as two ends of a spectrum rather than ~book magic bad and boring, wild magic cool and *~natural*~. but overall i think this series has potential. 3/5

jagannath: stories, karin tidbeck ([partially?] translated from swedish by the author) really cool collection of sff stories by tidbeck, many of which veer into mild horror and some of which are influenced by swedish folklore and especially swedish fey stories. i enjoyed most of these a lot, especially the existential call centre horror story, the ‘god won’t let me die’ one, and a taxonomy of a cryptid that goes a little off the rails. 4/5

annette, ein heldinnenepos, anne weber a novel in verse about anne beaumanoir, a real person who was a résistance member during world war 2 and later supported the algerian national liberation front, for which she was sentenced to 10 years in prison (she escaped to tunisia and later algeria). she’s clearly a very impressive and interesting person & i conceptually enjoyed the idea of writing a modern hero(ine)’s epic, but i feel like the language could have been a bit more stylized to match the form. 3/5

salvage the bones, jesmyn ward (audio) bleak but ultimately hopeful novel about a black family in the days before and during hurricane katrina, although the focus is on the family dynamics, the 14-year-old narrator discovering that she is pregnant, and the kids trying to keep the puppies their dog china just had alive and well. enjoyed this, altho i did it a bit of a disservice but listening to it a lot of short chunks. 3.5/5

regeneration, pat barker (regeneration trilogy #1) set mostly at a military hospital for soldiers with shell shock during world war 1, this novel explores the existential horror of war, psychological treatment (& the horrible absurdity of treating traumatised men just enough so that you can send them straight back to Trauma Town), and the meeting between siegfried sassoon & wilfred owen. i find i don’t really have much to say about it, but it is very, very good. 4/5

how to pronounce knife, souvankham thammavongsa a short story collection mainly about refugees and migrants from laos to canada, many focusing on parent-child relationships and being forced to work in low-paid jobs, often ones that are damaging to their health. the stories are very well-observed and emotionally nuanced and detailed, but with 14 mostly very short stories, the collection as a whole felt a bit samey, which i guess is something i often experience with short story collections. 3/5

faces in the water, janet frame horrifying semi-autobiographical novel about a young woman stuck in new zealand’s mental health system, moving to different hospitals but mostly from ward to (more depressing) ward in the 40s/50s. while there is a shift in attitudes during her stay that sometimes makes the wards more tolerable, mostly the patients are neglected, abused, and the threat of electric shock therapy and lobotomy always hangs over them. 3/5

the upstairs house, julia fine fuck why did i read so many books about mental health conditions this month??? this is another entry in my casual ‘motherhood as horror’ reading project, in which a new mother develops post-partum psychosis & imagines the modernist children’s book writer she’s writing her dissertation on and her poet sometimes-lover haunting her and her child (margaret wise brown & michael strange, who are real people i was utterly unaware of). this does pretty good on the maternal horror front, but i wasn’t entirely sold on the literary haunting. 2/5

1000 serpentinen angst, olivia wenzel a very interesting novel about a woman struggling with grief over her brother’s suicide, an anxiety disorder, the (non)state of a (non)relationship and discrimination/marginalisation based on her identity as a black, east-german, bi woman (while also being, as she notes, financially privileged). much of the novel is written in a dialogue between the narrator and an unnamed (& probably internal) interlocutor, which was p effective for a novel more focused on introspection than much of a plot. 3/5

atlas: the archaeology of an imaginary city, dung kai-cheung (tr. from chinese by the author, anders hansson, bonnie mcdougall) fictitious theory about a slightly-left-of-reality version of hong kong and how maps (re)construct the city, very heavy on the postmodern poststructuralist postcolonial (and some other posts, i’m sure). in many ways my jam. unfortunately my favourite parts of this were the author’s preface and the first part (fictitious theory of mapping alternate hong kong); the rest felt very repetitive and not particularly interesting, altho i’m sure i was also just missing a lot of cultural context. 2.5/5

under the net, iris murdoch .........i liked the other two murdochs i’ve read (the sea, the sea & a severed head) quite a lot so either i was not in the mood for her very peculiar style of constructing novels and characters or, this being her first novel, she just wasn’t in full command of that peculiar style yet but man this was a slooooooooog. don’t stretch out your modern picaresque with an incredibly annoying narrator over more than 300 pages iris!!!! 2/5 bc this probably has some merit & i just wasn’t into it

the impossible revolution: making sense of the syrian tragedy, yassin al-haj saleh (tr. from arabic by i. rida mahmoud) collection of articles and essays saleh (a syrian intellectual & activist who spent 16 years in a syrian prison) wrote from 2011 to 2015, analysing the reasons for, potential and development of the revolution, as well as some background sociological discussion on the assads’ regime. very interesting, very dense, very depressing. wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as a first read on the topic tho. 3/5

angels in america: millenium approaches & perestroika, tony kushner the page to tumblr darling quote ratio in this is insane (”just mangled guts pretending” and so on) and also it just really slaps on every level. also managed to get me from 0 to crying several times. brilliant work of theatre, would love to see it staged (or filmed). 4/5

life: a user’s manual, georges perec (german tr. by eugen helmlé) 99 chapters, each corresponding with a single room in a parisian apartment block; some chapters are basically ‘here’s the room, here’s a long list of objects in the room, that’s it bye :)’, some are short insights into the lives of the people living there, some (the best, mostly) are long, absolutely wild tales that are sometimes only tangentially connected to the room in question. why are the french like this. 61/99 rooms 

sisters in hate: american women on the front lines of white nationalism, seyward darby (audio) nonfiction about women’s role in white nationalist hate movements, mainly based on the stories of three women who are or have been involved with various contemporary american alt-right/racist/neonazi hate groups, while also looking at general social trends and the history of white women’s role in white supremacy. interesting and engaging if you’re interested in this kind of thing. if you’re both politically aware and internet poisoned, it’s probably not much that is completely new to you but still worth reading. 3/5

starting in april i will be Gainfully Employed (ugh) & thus probably not read as much or read even more bc i have no energy for anything else 

[gaberoothekangaroo]

Yoooo okay I GOTTA ask about Witch Adam/Ronan, derek/stiles daemon au (!!!!), arranged marriage

no read mores! we flood the dash like men!

Witch (Adam/Ronan, 2k + words) [coincidentally, I never actually wrote anything between Adam and Ronan other than some dialogue around the prompt ‘What? I’m not a witch? Who told you that?’. So instead have what I wrote before I got to them: Adam meeting the women of 300 Fox Way]

The first thing he made sure to check was that there were no other witches in Pine Brook. He found a home that boasted psychics, but he didn't think they'd be actual witches. The home was old, lived in. Loved. It seemed normal aside from the porch full of plants. There was no over pouring of occult paraphernalia.

They could be.

Rolling back his shoulders and pushing up the sleeves of his shirt, he unlatched the worn gate and creaked his way up the stairs and across the porch. Before he could even knock, a woman with white hair appeared out of the darkness behind the screen door, smiling at him. It sent chills dancing up his spine.

"Magician, what brings you around?" She asked from within the confines of the house, giving him a faint smile.

Unsure of whether or not she was speaking to him, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure he was alone. When he managed to swing his eyes back to face her, she had opened the door and was looking up at him. He tried not to jump backwards.

"I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd swing by." She turned away into the house without waiting for him, disappearing into the dark. Hesitant, he let the door slap against the frame.

"Come along!" She cried from somewhere inside. 

He grasped the handle and moved inside, careful not to let the screen door slam again. It was dark in the foyer, coats hanging on either side of the hall before the stairwell that led up one side and the hall that seemed to continue on forever ahead of him. The woman popped her head out of a doorframe two thirds of the way down the hall before disappearing. He moved towards her at a brisk pace, not wanting to hang around in the hall forever.

She had led him into the kitchen where two other women were hip to hip at the stove making something. The kitchen opened up into a dining room as well with a very large table pressed up against the near wall of windows. The woman he had followed was sitting at the table, nodding to the space in front of her. Unsure of what to do, he watched the ladies backs as they moved about on his way to the table. They were somewhat behind him and to the side as he sat down.

When he turned to face the woman, she had leaned across the table and was staring very intently at him. He gave her a nervous smile, trying not to be rude.

"The Magician has come by to say hello. He also wanted to see how witchy we were."

He stilled, blood running cold. He sure as fuck hoped he didn't just insult an entire coven of witches. The clatter and noise at the stove stopped as the two women found their way to the empty side of the table next to him and the woman opposite him. He swallowed thickly, looking up at them.

"Ladies, I-" He began, before the shorter woman stopped him.

"Sugar, we're as witch as it gets. I don't want you causin' no trouble, y'here me?" He nodded quickly. "I need a 'yes, ma'am,' yu' understood?" Her eyebrows lifted in response to her question.

"Yes, ma'am. I understand."

She nodded once, turning back to the stove, throwing out a, "Good."

The other woman continued to stand there, arms crossed over her chest. Evaluating him? Reading his soul? Intimidating him? He had no clue, but he felt like a lizard under the watchful gaze of a cat. Any wrong move could be the end of him and no one would be the wiser.

"I want you to listen real close to me, young man. I don't want no tomfoolery going on in this town. You keep yourself clean and you keep yourself out of our affairs. I don't wanna catch you round this street again." She stared at him some more. It felt like she wasn't through. He didn't want to try to 'yes ma'am' her before she was through. "And keep that ruckus /down/." She emphasized as she too moved back to the stove.

He felt cool hands against his, turning his attention to the first woman. She carefully moved his palms upwards, dragging her nails lightly over the lines. Carefully placing them on the table cloth, she moved away and disappeared into the darkness of the hall. He looked at the backs of the other women, unsure of what to do. He felt very out of his element here. More so than usual.

He didn't have to wait long before she came back. She placed a small vial stuffed full of herbs on a long loop of leather into his palms. She carefully curled his hands over it and patted them.

"To keep the ruckus down."

"Mom, where's-" A loud voice entered the kitchen before it stopped. He turned to look. There was a wild girl standing in the doorway, painted nails digging into the wood as she eyed him. He was in a house full of lionesses, sharp teeth and poisoned words. He quickly turned his gaze away, placing it back on the table in front of him.

"Come along, little magician." The woman took one of his hands and led him past the girl in the doorframe and down the hall of coats to the front door.

She smiled and waved him goodbye before disappearing in the blink of an eye. As he stood there, confused, on the front porch, he could hear the loud voices of the women inside. He didn't know how to feel. He stumbled his way off the porch and through the gate, eyeing the 'psychics' sign in the yard.

Derek/Stiles daemon au (2 versions, mostly bullet point notes)

Version 1: de-aged + daemon. I think it was set post? season 1? pre? season 2? Some sort of shenanigans is going on with some monster of the week. Derek and his wolf familiar, plus alive Hale family and alive teen pack, end up finding de-aged Stiles and his de-aged hyena familiar near their property line. Derek’s stuck on babysitting duty while they try to figure out why the Sheriff’s kid is an even tinier kid. Derek having to awkwardly walk around Stiles’s questions about where his mom is at and why she can’t come pick him up. Scott and his familiar somehow get thrown into the mix in which Scott is Very Upset at having to find out from the rest of teen Hale pack that his best friend is now tiny!best friend.

This version had Derek being able to merge? with his daemon when he shifted into a werewolf. Have no clue if I planned to have the rest of the Hales and werewolves be able to do the same thing. 5+ years away from a 2am fic idea.

Version 2: daemon + adults/college. Canon divergent somewhere around season 2/3a? or maybe even season 1 before Scott and Stiles are on Hale property. Again, some sort of shenanigans/monster of the week. Stiles and Derek are both at the gym when their familiars get into a fight, spooking Stiles and causing him to leave the gym. On his way home he thinks he’s being followed and is run off the road/kidnapped. My notes become less clear here: either Derek is also kidnapped at some point and the two bicker their way out confinement and to safety or Derek and pack are there to save one of their pack members and Derek ends up saving Stiles, too.

Arranged Marriage (tbh i spent like seven or eight hours just absolutely writing like a mad man to get this out of my head and into a notepad. and once it was there i promptly forgot it all. had to reread it before i could summarize lol)

With the kingdom on the brink of war with neighboring nations, the king reaches out to form alliances. He promises his children’s hands in marriage, but many of the other nations aren’t willing to have to wait for the children to be old enough to be useful, so the king promises the hands of other members of his court. Gweyir, son of a baron, is to be wed to the kingdom to the north--a secluded land and people, cut off by a snowy mountain pass that sometimes doesn’t clear until mid summer. He goes from training with the guard to trying to study a language and culture his kingdom doesn’t know much about. He doesn’t know the name of the man he’s to marry, or his station; Gweyir is very unsure about whether or not men can marry one another because he’s never seen it before and is panicking. When the time came, he left at dawn, without pomp and circumstance, on horseback with as much as he could fit into his saddlebags and one of the knights of the court as escort. The pass hadn’t melted enough and they nearly fell to their deaths multiple times, but they eventually made it days later, ill prepared for the frigid weather. From the border onwards, he could only understand a few words here and there from the people he spoke with. Having arrived at the castle, they held a feast and dance; he awkwardly fumbled his way through the whole thing. In the morning he and the knight were escorted by a page to his new estate and to the waiting wedding party.

Roughly scrubbed clean by angry grandmothers, dressed in very fine but plain clothes after many minutes waiting naked on the cold stones, he was left alone in a room with chairs and a table near a large window. The door opened a couple times and he heard lots of hushed arguing before it closed again. After what seemed like half the day, he was led into a large ballroom or long hall with music tinkling softly and a good gathering of people whispering. He stepped up next to the man, broad shouldered and well muscled like a brawler with hair beginning to gray. Halfway through whatever marriage ceremony they were in, they finally faced each other and the man immediately led him, the page, and a slew of other men through a door on the other side of the room where he was promptly interrogated about who he was and why he was here--first in their language and then in his own when it became obvious he didn’t really know the language. Much arguing follows before the man sends the page to request a meeting with the king.

They meet with the king. And the court. And with representatives from his own land after what seems like months because of the still half snowed in pass. And they are to wed. The alliance has already been made, signed, and soldiers and supplies shipped off to the front lines.

Many, many, many words later, the husband is being sent to lead a war party and the estate is to be left in Gweyir’s hands. He’s left with the keys, including a small ring of keys to the husbands’ rooms and other doors beyond that--of which he is to not go within. And he doesn’t because it’s a retelling and the butchered bodies of Bluebeard’s wives aren’t the secrets behind the locked doors, but hidden behind the faces of the people at court who know his history and wish ill to the husband.

[tolkien-in-beleriand]

so a number of people is curious about PhD here in Brazil and as I have nothing else I want to do right now let me tell you about it

I’ll talk about the two processes I went through for my PhD (masters is kinda the same but a bit simpler)

as I already told you here in Brazil the best universities are free, it’s kinda hard to get in but if you do you have the best education available in the country and chances are you will get some kind of scholarship. in my case as I am poor as hell I had a scholarship since first year of grad school and also a place to live. yes, I was paid to live in a nice city away from my abusive family and to study in the best program of my field in Brazil

then came the masters in which I also had a scholarship

and then the nightmare begins

see as part of my scholarship I had to finish my masters in two years. what does it mean? it means that in my second year I was writing my masters dissertation, finishing papers, preparing for qualification, then argumentation, writing my PhD project and preparing for the PhD tests

and of course as you probably know by now I love complicating things so I applied for two PhDs programs. why? only God knows, but I did. now each university has its own way to deal with PhDs applications so I’ll tell you about the two kinds of tests I had to go through

first my home university:

first you write a project. 20 pages. must have: abstract, key words, title, introduction, methodology, cronogram of activities, bibliographic references. it must present a certain novelty in the idea, they want something new, a thesis (that I will later prove right or wrong in 200 to 300 pages). my thesis was basically “Fantasy is a literature genre and it IS NOT the same as fantastic literature (don’t get me started - I wrote a PhD thesis about it but I’m still bitter)”

you need to hand this project in September. then in October is the written test. in our field the written test (in this particular university, as I said it varies) is: they pick a literary topic, that is a surprise only reveled to us mortals the day and hour of the test, and we have four hours to write an essay about it, in a room like an exam, no researches allowed. the topic in my year was History and Literature. then they grade the essay 0-10 and you need at least a 7 to go to next phase.

fine, now the few people who got the 7 go to phase “analyzing the project”. you get a grade on that too. and you need a 7 to pass as well.

then if you are lucky enough to have your project accepted you go to phase “interview” when a board will make all kinds of questions about your study, project, plans, you know... to make sure you were the one who wrote the thing and know what you’re talking about (I just need to mention here that at my interview they said my project was perfect and made 0 questions because, and I quote, “we know your trajetory and we know what you are capable of and no one else studies Fantasy Literature here”)

then they grade the interview. if you didn’t get at least a 7 bye bye bird, it doesn’t matter if your project was perfect and you aced the written test, it’s goodbye

after this they add all the scores and divide by something and if your final score is below 7, that’s goodbye too.

then you need to do the language test because oh yes YOU DO NEED TO KNOW TWO FOREIGN LANGUAGES to be accepted in any PhD program here.

and that’s it for my first application. I passed first place. usually the good programs gets scholarships and our program was very good so we had like six scholarships every year for sure and then maybe more. they give the scholarships according to the final score so yep I got it

but... when I traveled for my second PhD application I still didn’t have any of my scores, I didn’t even know if I had passed the written test and let me tell you I was desperate and honest to God terrified I wouldn’t pass

anyway, now process number two:

they make things quite different there and they are way more demanding so I was just really terrifie that I would end the year with a crappy masters and no PhD perspective.

first test they do is the language one, a translation and ooooh boi do I hate translating stuff. but it was okay, I wasn’t worried about that part. the system there was very different. while at my home university the process was spread through months, here you had three days of tests and if you failed the first day you are not even invited for the next day. again, you need 7 to pass.

so first day: language test, 52 people applying. 20 passed for day two, me included.

second day, written test. I knew they had a different style from my home university but I was not prepared for that. they gave you 10 questions, all about literature. you had to pick five and answer. so you kinda had to write 5 mini essays on 5 different topics and the questions were like “in the page 25 of the essay Memory in Baudelaire by Walter Benjamin the author express a view on how experience play a central part in the story of the narrative genre. comment on that.”

one of them was to “comment on” the trajetory of the novel as a genre. I read the 10 questions then I started laughing. then I noticed the Professor in the class was the one I wanted as my supervisor there (she is like a big deal in Fantasy studies), the one who, in two months, would be in the board of my masters argumentation. I started crying. so much. I had to be escorted to the bathroom to “calm down”. well, I thought, it’s over, I better not even come back to the exam room and save me the embarrassment of looking the Professor in the eyes. but I couldn’t do that. I had to at least convince myself that I did everything I could. so I went back and started answering the ones I thought I had a shot at. we had four hours too and after doing my darnest to answer 4 questions I wanted to die before having to answer one more. so I chose the novel one because, you know it’s not that hard to trace a genealogy of the novel as a genre. but I was so tired. so incrediby tired and I thought I won’t pass anyway so I might as well have some fun. and friends, what did I do? I wrote a mini novel where my protagonist was the novel “living” through all its phases. I can’t remember a word of that but I did it.

when I was back to the hotel I started crying so much and felt so guilty, I was sure I would fail both programs. next morning the result would be on campus and honestly I only went there because I had spent too much money to just ignore the result, I would never have peace if I didn’t check. but I was really really sure I didn’t pass so I checked out the hotel, got into a taxi, asked him to take me to campus for two minutes, so I could check a thing, and then he could take me to the station

ooooh I have no words to describe my happiness when I looked to a list of FIVE names who had got through to the next phase and my name was there.

I still can’t believe it and until this day I wonder what kind of crap did people write because they considered my “novel is a protagonist of a novel” answer over other 15????

anyway so I was happy but fucked because I had checked out the hotel so I had no place to go and the interview would be only at 5pm so there I was full of bags wandering around the campus waiting for my interview.

interview time: board with two fucking specialists in the Fantasy field and an ass who thinks she is above this. I was very nervous, they asked a bunch of questions about my project (oh yeah I forgot to say you had to hand a project like in the other uni and it is considered part of your application as well) and then... last question... from the ass “why do you consider fantasy as literature” I froze, the other two smiled (they knew my reputation). I want to murder that woman. why do I consider fantasy as literature? WHY?? son of a motherfucking bitch. so I smile*** and ask “what do you study?” she answers “Goethe” with an air of superiority. I say “oh I love Goethe, he is magnificent and the way he.... bla bla bla” I was just showing off. then I say “now think about why you consider Goethe literature. that’s your answer.” I want to say that if I had a mic I would drop it but nah... if I had a mic I would probably make that bitch eat it.

they didn’t have score there, you only passed or failed. I passed. one of five. from 52. I got a scholarship there too, but I decided to stay home. my supervisor at my uni was amazing and a wonderful person and so so smart and funny and he is in a band and is super cool and nerdy, also one of my best friends and one of the most successful translators in Brazil

so yes. this is two of the possibles processes you can go through to get in a top PhD program. and that friends is the easy part. seriously, masters and doctorates are exhausting and it breaks you. neurotypicals get mental illnesses because of it and honest to God I don’t know how I managed it. neither does my doctors. no, actually I know. it was spite.

*** funny story: because of an incident in my masters interview, before my PhDs interviews my supervisor called me to “teach me how to interact with stupid people”. he basically told me I was not supposed to laugh at a stupid question, I was not supposed to death stare the board after a stupid question and, of course, I was not allowed to get up and leave. because I did all that in my masters interview and almost didn’t get into the program. then he made me pretend he was the board talking shit and I had to smile and take notes. his words “it doesn’t matter if you are writing a curse and planning that person’s murder, smile and take notes.”

in my defence I did all that because in my masters interview a Professor asked me if I knew that Tolkien was an author who died in the 70s and that The Lord of the Rings wasn’t just a movie. after I laughed and asked if she was joking she got mad and then I tried to explain that yes, I did in fact know that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, born in January 3rd, 1892 and dead in September, 2nd, 1973, was an author and wrote the book called The Lord of the Rings who inspired Peter Jackson’s trilogy. then I pointed out that my study had nothing to do with The Lord of the Rings, book or movie. I was in fact studying Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy Stories” and how critics point out The Lord of the Rings as the base of moderny fantasy without noting that Tolkien himself wrote the theory I consider the foundation of fantasy as a genre. then she said “that was done before” and I said “no it wasn’t, surprisingly enough people never came to this conclusion until now” and she looked me in the eyes and asked “are you sure? did you do a deep and careful research on the matter?” and I said “yes I did” and I swear to God she asked “did you try google it?”

yep I just got up and left. did I try google??? are you fucking serious? yes I did, when I wasn’t even at the uni yet you moron. google. can you believe it? I was reading papers from Oxford and Cambridge and this ass ask me if I used google.

I had a very bad score at my masters interview but my supervisor loved it anyway.

so that’s it. I hope it helps to have an idea how things work around here.

[demifiendrsa]

The Walking Dead comic book series ends with issue #193.

Robert Kirkman’s letter to fans with spoilers for the final issue omitted:

"This is the end of The Walking Dead.

"That's it... it's over... we're done.

"I'm sure you have a million questions... and I'm sure you feel as emotional about this as we do... if not more so. I'm completely willing to bet some of you are angry over this. I get it... I do. I mean... WHY didn't we announce this so that fans would have some time to prepare?

"Well... personally... I hate knowing what's coming. As a fan, I hate it when I realize I'm in the third act of a movie and the story is winding down. I hate that I can count commercial breaks and know I’m nearing the end of a TV show. I hate that you can FEEL when you’re getting to the end of a book, or a graphic novel.

"Some of the BEST episodes of Game of Thrones are when they’re structured in such a way and paced to perfection so your brain can’t tell if it’s been watching for 15 minutes or 50 minutes... and when the end comes... you’re STUNNED.

"I love LONG movies for that very reason. You lose track of time because you went in convinced that you’re going to be there for a long time, but the story moves at such an entertaining and engaging pace that by the time the movie’s wrapping up... you can’t believe it’s already over. SURPRISE, it’s over!

"All I’ve ever done, all a creator can really do... is tailor-make stories to entertain themselves, and hope the audience feels the same way. That’s all I’ve ever been doing... and it seems to work most of the time.

"THE WALKING DEAD has always been built on surprise. Not knowing what’s going to happen when you turn the page, who’s going to die, how they’re going to die... it’s been ESSENTIAL to the success of this series. It’s been the lifeblood that’s been keeping it going all these years, keeping people engaged.

"It just felt WRONG and against the very nature of this series not to make the actual end as surprising as all the big deaths... from Shane all the way to Rick.

"To be honest... it seemed like a really good idea at the time, but now that we’re here and the series is over, I’m having second thoughts. Not so much so that I’m changing course... that would be kind of impossible to do anyway. But... it’s possible, as much as I hate to admit it, that I’m genuinely feeling a sense of regret over this whole crazy plan.

"I want you to see what went into this though, I want you to understand why, if that’s possible. I feel like you all deserve at least that. So let’s pull the curtain back in a way... well, I usually try not to do. When it comes to the end of this series... here’s how the sausage got made.

"Way back in early 2015, Charlie Adlard turned in the cover for issue #142. He had taken my direction, of showing happy people at the Alexandria fair, the booths, the commerce... a very civilized scene, and he’d worked wonders with the concept. It was a cover unlike anything that had come before. To me, it was a real turning point for this series.

"The thing is... this was over four years ago at this point... but I knew pretty much every big story point that was going to happen all the way up to this final issue. A couple years prior, around 2013 or so, I’d even told Charlie at San Diego Comic-Con what the gist of this final issue was. [...] I just didn’t know exactly what issue that story would fall in. I knew the end... but I didn’t know where it would fall. I figured... somewhere past issue #300. As I’ve said publicly... I’ve always wanted to reach that number, that big, round Cerebus number that all the insane indy comics creators try to chase.

"But when I saw the cover to #142... it dawned on me. 'Oh, s***... we’re already at the fair! The Commonwealth is just around the corner... and... oh, man... there’s no WAY I’m going to make it to issue #300.' It was the first time I realized that I just didn’t have enough story worked out to get there. I didn’t know exactly how long we’d fight the Whisperers or how long we’d be spending in the Commonwealth before Rick would bring about his own demise... but I knew the whole run wouldn’t be another 150 issues.

"I started working things out... trying to figure out how long things would run... and it dawned on me... I had about 50 issues until I got to my planned end. I always have to keep collections in mind. Now that we do 48-issue compendiums (that are very popular, our most popular format), it would be really irresponsible to wrap this series up in a way that resulted in compendium readers having to buy a different format to finish the series. So I was happy that it appeared things would work out where this series would wrap up nicely in the fourth compendium.

"But I wasn’t quite sure it was time to wrap things up.

"I love writing this series. It’s been my life’s dream. So when I first came to this realization... my first instinct was, 'Well, I just need to come up with more story'. I even spent a few weeks trying to come up with new plot, new story detours to push the ending I had in mind back and keep things going... for a while, possibly even a long while... an extra compendium, maybe two.

"And... again, pulling the curtain back... this has happened before. I’d already abandoned one planned ending to keep the series going. Yep... that’s an exclusive I’ve never revealed anywhere.

"Let’s go off on a tangent for a moment. When the story got to Alexandria in issue #72, things were going to go pretty much as they did; Rick and his crew were going to have trouble fitting in because of everything they’d been through. That would lead to conflict within Alexandria, and it would eventually lead to Rick taking over. The big storyline NO WAY OUT ended with Rick proclaiming that Alexandria was a place worth fighting for, that they could no longer keep moving from place to place... they had to take a stand, lay down roots and start building from there. Their nomad days were behind them.

"Well, for years... that had been planned to be... the end. Rick would make his proclamation, and the speech would end with a big close-up on Rick’s face, you’d turn the page, and Rick’s face would be the same, only it was a statue... and you’d zoom out and see the full statue with some vines growing on the bottom of it... cracks forming... and you’d realize that it was quite OLD.

"We’d keep zooming out until we saw that the statue was in Alexandria, the same place where he gave the speech, but it was different. It was old and rundown, broken windows and missing doors. We would keep zooming out until a zombie walked by, then another... and we’d see that Rick had brought them to Alexandria, given this grand speech about rebuilding civilization and SUCCEEDED to the point that they built a statue to honor him... but in the end, the dead won, society crumbled again, this time seemingly for good... and that was it.

"It was a TERRIBLE ending. Bleak, sad... made the whole story pointless. What can I say... I was young and most of the endings I wrote or came up with way back then... were pretty bleak. So that ending... in hindsight was embarrassingly bad, but more than that, I wasn’t ready to end this series. Not by a long shot.

"You have to understand, when I started writing this series, I had no clue I’d make it to issue #12. So the thought of having a book that ran 100 issues was insane. So when this book really took off in its second year, I was able to make far reaching plans for the future, but even at that point, a 100-issue run still seemed impossible.

"So when I found myself staring down the barrel of a completed 100-issue series, I just wasn’t ready to let go. I was having too much fun. Think about how things would have gone if I’d wrapped things up then... no Negan, no Ezekiel, no All Out War, no time jump, no Magna, no Whisperers, no Commonwealth, no Princess... and a really crummy ending to boot.

"To top it off... shortly after I scrapped that planned ending and decided to keep going, I came up with pretty much the exact ending of this issue, which I felt was much more fitting and rewarding.

"I’m glad I made the decision I did back then. I have no regrets.

"This time though, things were very different. As I worked to come up with ways to expand the story, none of it felt right. Everything felt like an unnecessary detour... it was, for lack of a better word, filler. The harder I tried to come up with new places to go, the clearer it was to me that this is what this story needed... it needed to end.

"So like I said... it seemed like a good idea at the time. FOUR YEARS ago this plan seemed rock solid. Never tell anyone, keep it secret, and even go as far as soliciting fake issues that will never exist so that we can really surprise people. Oh, man... I thought this was going to be great.

"I worked it out with Charlie right away. He’d always been pushing to end on a high note. He was with me, all the way, as long as I didn’t run this series into the ground. Charlie just wanted to make this book special. If I had a solid plan for 300 issues, he’d have made it happen, but if I started turning in stories Charlie thought were lame... I would have heard about it and he’d have convinced me to end the series. So when we talked about the plan, Charlie was excited, his fear of us overstaying our welcome and keeping this book going well past its popularity were quelled.

"I’ll say it again, I love (loved... oh, god, I’m not ready for past tense) writing this series. I really don’t want it to end. In fact, I’ve been... kind of unsettled since I wrote the script for this issue. The whole thing just feels... weird.

"In a way, killing this series has been a lot like killing a major character. Much, much harder... but the same feeling. I don’t WANT to do it. I’d rather keep going... but the story is telling me what it wants and what it needs. This needs to happen. Whether I want it or not.

"It just feels right... while also feeling... terrible.

"The main point of all this is... well, I’m scared. Most of my professional life has been spent on this series. Countless hours are dedicated to this, month in and month out. More than anything in the last 16 years... this is going to fundamentally change my life. So I’m terrified.

"When my fingers typed out “THE END” on the keyboard as I finished this script... I thought I’d feel relief, or some sliver of pride in a job well done, but it was really just... dread. I wasn’t ready for it to be over... but it was.

"It is.

"Oddly, as unsure as I feel about ending the story, I feel confident in how I ended it. [...]

"I hope it makes you happy, too. Even if you’re upset at not getting to spend time in this world anymore.

"I’m upset, too. I’m going to miss it as much as you will, if not more so. It breaks my heart that I had to end it, and we have to move on... but I just love this world too much to stretch things out until it doesn’t live up to what I want it to be.

"I hope you understand.

"I hope you, dear reader, know how much I appreciate the gift you have given me. I got to tell my story exactly how I wanted to, for 193 issues, and end it on my terms, with no interference at all along the way... at any point. That’s such a rare thing, and it doesn’t exist without the unyielding support this series got from readers like you. Thank you so much.

"Thank you, Tony Moore, for drawing the first six issues. Thank you, Cliff Rathburn, for countless hours spent shaping black and white art with gray tones. Thank you, Rus Wooton, for turning my words into art month after month. Thank you, Stefano Gaudiano, for shaping Charlie’s pencils for nearly 100 issues. Thank you, Aubrey Sitterson and Sina Grace, for your time keeping this insanity in check. Thank you, Sean Mackiewicz, for seeing this project all the way to the end, despite thinking each compendium would be your last... and, y’know, doing a great job along the way. Thank you, Arielle Basich, for keeping Sean sane and doing the heavy lifting. Thank you, Andres Juarez, for keeping this book looking fresh after being on the shelf for over a decade. Thank you, Carina Taylor, for doing your part to do the same. Thank you, Dave Stewart, for making Charlie’s art pop on comic shelves the world over. Thank you, Dave McCaig, for you know what. Thank you, Ryan Ottley, for that amazing art in issue #75 that may never get collected. Thank you, Cory Walker, for your wise council before I even started this series. Thank you, Jim Valentino, for so many things, including saying, “Change the title so you can own it.” Thank you, Shawn Kirkham, for always having an ear to the ground for what this world needs. Thank you to the team at Skybound, who work tirelessly to bring you everything THE WALKING DEAD you could ever want and more. Thank you, Erik Larsen, for the undying support, even to this day. Thank you, Eric Stephenson, for the years of strategy sessions that made this series a continued success. Thank you to the evolving staff at Image Comics that was invaluable over the last decade and a half... especially the accounting department. Thank you, David Alpert, for your part in turning this into a truly worldwide, multimedia phenomenon, and all that came with it and somehow so much more than that. Thank you, Shep Rosenman and Lee Rosenbaum, for crossing the Ts and dotting the Is so I can keep all my Ts and not lose my Is. Thank you, Chris Simonian, for going to war and winning. Thank you, Allen Grodsky, for going to war and winning. Thank you, John Campisi and the team at CAA, for continuing the fight. Thank you, Frank Darabont, for going into House of Secrets in Burbank and saying, 'This one.' Thank you, Gale Anne Hurd, for helping turn “this one” into something real. Thank you, Charles H. Eglee, for being the original showrunner and setting us up for success. Thank you, Jack LoGiudice, for making me feel welcome in the writer’s room on day one... by being mean to me in the most entertaining ways. Thank you, Glen Mazzara, for keeping the fire warm. Thank you, Scott Gimple, for taking the show to new heights and for caring enough to say, 'No spoilers, dear God, no more spoilers.' Thank you, Angela Kang, for the future and beyond. Thank you, Greg Nicotero, for making the zombies (er, walkers) REAL. Thank you, Chris Hardwick, for telling the world every week that there’s a comic book worth checking out. Thank you to the ten thousand people who work on the now FOUR TV shows based on THE WALKING DEAD for pouring their hearts into this and loving this world as much if not more than I do.

"But most of all, thank you, Charlie Adlard, for sitting at the table, day in and day out, and devoting more hours to THE WALKING DEAD than anyone. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner. It’s been a dream come true to get to shape this world together, with you. This never would have happened without you. I can’t believe we made it all the way to the end, my friend.

"Oh my god... I can’t believe it’s really over."

-Robert Kirkman"

[rachelthompsonauthor]

Writing fears suck, don’t they? If you’re a writer, you have them, no matter where you are in your career. Yet writing fears are especially ominous when you’re first starting out. The endless loop of:

What if I’m not good enough?

What if people hate my book?

What if someone gets hurt by my book?

What if people write horrible reviews?

What if what I think is good is just crap?

and on it goes.

I can fully relate. I didn’t start my writing career until my forties (I’m 55 now) for many of those same reasons. I also didn’t know how to start – what’s the proper, right way to start? To publish? To market? It’s overwhelming for someone just starting out, especially if that someone is super process-oriented like me.

Are These Fears Valid?

Of course, they are. All feelings are valid, even if they aren’t always logical (like toddlers in the sandbox, thinking and feeling don’t always get along or agree). For more on this, here’s an article you might find helpful from Scribed Media: 6 Writing Fears and How to Beat Them. 

I work with many writers (as both a survivor and advocate, as well as in my BadRedhead Media business) who don’t give themselves permission to write because of these fears. Here’s what helped me – and it’s so simple it’s almost stupid. A quote. One quote. I’m almost embarrassed to share how enormous an effect that one little quote had on me; how it freed me from my mental fear prison, yet it did.

From Lorrie Moore, author and professor, via a widely quoted interview in Elle Magazine

“Compared with her students, who are often still deeply involved with their parents, Moore says she had a more formal, old-fashioned relationship with hers—which helped her make the “romantic and bloody-minded” decision to commit wholly to her art when she started writing seriously in college. (“The only really good piece of advice I have for my students is, `Write something you’d never show your mother or father.‘ And you know what they say?” she says, wide-eyed with disbelief.” `I could never do that!'”).

That’s it. I wasn’t even a college student – I was a full-grown adult with my own kids. There I sat with a pen and paper (okay, computer laptop) on my desk, journals at the side, ready to write about uncomfortable truths. Sexual topics. Surviving sexual abuse, sexual interactions with past lovers, relationships, PTSD, triggers, and other ‘things’ you don’t typically talk to your own parents about.

And I thought: Geez, Rach. You’re forty-fucking years old. Stop thinking about what other people will think (Nonfiction Writing 101: You cannot know what someone else thinks – only what you think). So, I went for it.

You’re an adult. Write like one. 

And with that, I started to write my first memoir/poetry book, Broken Pieces.

Drawer Of Fears

Take a piece of paper (I suggest a page in your journal or in your online notepad). Write down your list of writing fears. Write down everything you’re afraid of, whether it’s based in reality or sounds like something full of magical fairy dust. Whatever it is, write it down. Pages and pages, or three little bullet points. Whatever.

Okay? When you’re done, come on back. Oh, be sure to print out what we’ll call your Page Of Fears.

***

Good, you’re back. Now take that piece of paper with all your fears and put it away in your Drawer of Fears. Make sure that drawer has a lock (or needs a password). Physically give them a kiss, and tell them goodbye.

Don’t worry! They’ll still be there. You can visit them anytime you want to. However, for now, I want you to know that you have cleared them from your mind and body. Kinda like burning sage but without the burning. Or the sage.

Writers cannot write around clutter. It’s a known fact.

Let Go Of Your Perfection Fears

Your first draft is where you start. Your first draft of whatever it is that you want to write. You may not even know and that’s okay.

This stumped me at first. And when I say stumped, I mean I did not move from the doing anything about with my writing stage for years. Where do I start? How do I structure my writing? Don’t professional writers have official outlines and plots and characters with histories and plots all devised, etc? Well, sure, some do. However, some don’t. Plotters vs. Pantsers, etc.

This entire thought process alone sent me into Analysis Paralysis. What’s the right way?

As a creative nonfiction writer, I didn’t know how I wanted to format my writing. I did kinda sorta know my thematic structure (which, by the way, completely changed after my first developmental edit) – I also knew I planned to work with a structural (aka, developmental) editor, so I took that fear (see point number two) of how to make it “perfect” in the end, put that in my Drawer of Fear, and wrote what I refer to as my word vomit.

Just Start Writing

Nobody will see what you are writing unless you want them to. I repeat: nobody will see what you’re writing unless you want them to. It could take you a month, a year, or several years before you reach the point where your writing is in publishable condition.

Your ‘shitty first draft’ needs to be free-flowing, non-self-edited crapadoodle. You hear me, you little perfectionistic drones? Give yourself permission to purge your words. 

It doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to make any sense which, honestly, is why journaling is so great. It’s a wonderful mental purge and can be a great stepping-off point to your writing. (Need help getting started? Visit the fabulous Leigh Shulman. She’s got a free plan for you.)

Your first draft is not even your dress-rehearsal. It’s more like…practice. It’s just a draft. It could take 30 or 50 or 100 or 300 drafts before it becomes a book.

Then you keep at it. Writing isn’t a walk in the park. It’s work. It’s a job. It’s a career if you decide to make it one and you’re good at it. And you work hard to become a better writer. Whether you believe in the 10,000 hours concept or the old ‘How do I get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice,’ joke – either way, the only way to become a better writer is to learn how to become a better writer.

How did I get better? Even though I took a number of classes growing up (in high school and college), I didn’t feel that prepared me for how I wanted to write now. So, I read a ton of creative nonfiction books (some of my favorites are below) in the style that appealed to me. I took online classes that helped me improve my writing. I went to readings by writers I admired (most are free or cost the price of the book).

I continued journaling (as I had been since I was a kid). And I continued writing – all kinds of stuff – articles, short stories, poetry, ideas for articles, short stories, and poems. And I began blogging (in 2008). Blogging absolutely makes you a better writer and I’ll fight anybody who says otherwise. Rawr.

Investing in myself helped me get over my fears. To face my fears. To crush my fears.

Don’t Forget About Your Fears Completely

Everything I mentioned above took time. Just about every writer I’ve ever met wants their first book to be a massive bestseller right away, pay off all their bills with the royalties, sit on Oprah’s couch because of it, and have everyone reading it on the train a la Fifty Shades.

That’s all great. How are you going to make that happen?

Have realistic expectations. Have a plan. Write the most fantastic, professional book you can. Figure out what you don’t know about not only writing but also marketing and publishing, and then learn.

Above anything else, deal with your fears. They’ll still be in that drawer, waiting for you. Just like trauma, your fears don’t magically disappear because you’ve set them aside. They’ll pop up like that whack-a-mole game, except now you’ll have experience and time to hit them back with.

And yet…I don’t recommend hitting your fears back like an enemy. Change that paradigm. Make friends with them. How can your fears help you? What is it about a specific fear that’s got you so wound up?

Sometimes, it’s what we fear most that motivates us.

Just as I discuss how I made friends with Shame in my fourth book, Broken Places, do the same with your Page of Fears. Make your fear work for you so you can become the writer you want to be. You’ve lived through so much, writer friends! You can absolutely write about it.

I know you have it in you.

  Here is a list of my personal favorite creative nonfiction books (disclosure: affiliate links provided).* I also recommend reading short stories by Raymond Carver. He’s a master storyteller.

*Note: These are not books about writing creative nonfiction. That’s a future post.

Calypso by David Sedaris

Night by Elie Wiesel

First, We Make The Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety by Sarah Wilson

Cathedral by Raymond Carver

The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

The post How To Crush Your Writing Fears Right Now appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

via Rachel Thompson

[thecosydragon]

My latest blog post from the cosy dragon: Interview with Lillian Brummet

An Interview with Lillian and Dave Brummet, authors of One Small Garden

Lillian and her husband Dave are the team behind Brummet Media Group, high-fiving cheerfully as they pass each other on the way from checking off one item or other from their long to-do list. After moving to their dream location (in the Kootenay Region of BC, Canada), they have been methodically converting the abused lot over to the little park it has become – and in doing so have gained certification with bee, pollinator and wildlife organizations. Their home, too, has become energy efficient via the many upgrades they have done. Their business includes Dave’s music studio and percussion accessory products and graphic design work as well as numerous award-winning non-fiction books and popular blogs. Today we help them celebrate their latest book release – From One Small Garden, with over 300 delicious, nutritious recipes!

How many books or short stories have you written?

L: I’ve only written a couple non-fiction short stories, numerous non-fiction articles, bn oth product and book reviews, and a total of 7 published books, if you count an e-book (Jump Start For Writers) that no longer exists. Currently we have a 2-book series on green living (Trash Talk), 2 books of poetry (Towards Understanding; Rhythm & Rhyme) and there’s marketing advice for writers (Purple Snowflake Marketing). Our most recent release is a cookbook: From One Small Garden that, as you might derive from the name, focuses on recipes that help people take advantage of garden harvests and reduce food waste.

Where did you find all the sources for your research?

D: I do most of my learning online, for instance when it comes to understanding a new program for vector graphics I will comb YouTube for tutorial videos. Somewhere online there is a video explaining everything you need – and more usually. I would never have attempted repairs to household appliances or automobiles if I didn’t have access to tutorial videos. Learning how to do things yourself can save you a bunch of money as an entrepreneur too. However it also means that you have to be able to learn, have the patience and then actually apply that new skill. Not as easy as it sounds, believe me.

What do you do when you are not writing?

D: I play drums in a rock band when ever possible. I also teach both drum kit and hand drum lessons. I have an active repair shop in which I build, fix and tune djembe drums (among others) and manufacture a few percussion accessories as well. I enjoy doing the graphic design work for all our marketing and that is a never-ending learning journey in itself, but certainly an enjoyable one.

Who, or what, inspired you to pursue a career in writing?

L: The first writer I ever knew was my mother, who dabbled at the craft for a short time. Later, teachers would comment about my writing, truly moved by what I wrote. These were the earliest influences, slowly pointing me in this direction. Some of my poetry was published, then I won some writing awards… later I took some career evaluation tests and writing kept coming up as a career option. Dave’s emotional support and strategic skills have been of great value; having that strength, someone to mull over challenges with, split the work with, and just share the experience in general.

What have you learned about while working with your spouse?

We do some of our best creative work when we are just discussing stuff together over a cup of coffee during a break. And, we always have a note pad to jot down the ideas that come bursting out because, sure enough, the best ideas are the ones that slip your memory if you don’t.

Describe a typical writing day.

L: There is no real typical day for us; 2-3 days per month are dedicated to managing the blogs, about 16 hours are spent networking, advertising, sending out queries to media and following up on marketing opportunities every week, a few hours per week are spent managing social media. Any one day can also involve cleaning the office, workshop, studio… assisting Dave where I can. However, I’ll share an example of a ‘behind the scenes’ look at one day: upon waking, we have breakfast and coffee and deal with the fur kids, get some house duties done, check emails/messenger/text messages for any important communications, and after a brief discussion about what each other’s goals are for that day, split off in our different directions. I’m in the office responding to interview questions while Dave is in his office working on images and ad creations for our cookbook (From One Small Garden). After this interview, I plan to complete a few touchups to some articles we wrote last week. We always take a break to make lunch and clean up after. Depending on what Dave might need from me, I may take on the task of going through the emails etc. one more time, responding and dealing with what I can… or I might start some seeds for the garden and do some laundry. Perhaps I’ll be dealing with garden harvests or taking an online course during the afternoon hours.

How do you manage social media, what social media have you used, which do you like to use the most and why?

D: I personally use Facebook for networking with specific groups and for general announcements, YouTube for posting video content and blogging for building a presence and sharing information with followers. Lillian is the one that handles the blogs and a majority of the social media and I am happy for that as she is very good at it and knows the ins and outs. She has a lot of relevant connections already from over 20 years experience of promoting our business and books.

How do you go about choosing a book title?

D: For me the title almost always comes near or at the end of the writing process. If ever I have had an idea of the title first it was usually changed by the time the book was done. A title for me has to explain the book’s purpose or intent in some way. I like it to be catchy and not too wordy. Like a good melody that you can easily whistle, a good title should be memorable, appropriate and roll off the tongue easily.

What is your contribution to society?

D: As a drum teacher I hope to help the next generation of drummers by passing on the knowledge of drums and percussion I have accumulated in my career. I run a program called Drum it Forward that I was inspired to create years ago. I go to the schools and offer my services as a drum doctor armed with all the spare parts I have amassed along the way and fix their gear. The schools don’t have the budget to pay for this and the poor teachers don’t necessarily have the time or knowledge, so I do it as a donation. All I ask is that if they have any spare parts or pieces laying around that they consider donating it to the cause to perpetuate the program.

Tell us the process of creating the cover for your book.

D: From One Small Garden’s cover was a process that evolved over the years. By the time the final title was decided on the concept of what we wanted to portray was clear – How to cook with fresh produce. If you look at the front cover closely, in the background is an image of our actual garden ghosted out with dishes of prepared food in the foreground – from the garden to plate in a sense. The back cover concept is similar but with images of our freshly harvested produce in place of the food dishes. All from one small garden – is what we have lived for the past 30+ years as a life style and a health choice and we know it saves a bunch of money while having you eat like royalty.

Are you looking about more information about these authors? Here’s some social links for you to check out!

Website

Amazon Author Page 

FaceBook

from https://ift.tt/2WWURQn

[whatdoesshedotothem]

x Monday 12 May 1834

9 ¼

11 ¾

 Incurred the cross thinking of Miss W- just before nine. Fine but dullish morning – dressed and downstairs in 40 minutes to speak to Mr Shaw the plasterer who had waited ½ hour - to get lime and sand on Wednesday for him - his men to begin pointing west side of house on Monday and do over the north chamber sable-end in a fortnight or 3 weeks when the lime has stood long enough not to blister - then with Pickels and his men Dick and John Ombler who began setting the stone-posts and railing at the bottom of the Hall croft this morning - Charles and James H- helping John Booth to get the stuff down and Charles H-‘s nephew Carter preparing rails ends -  breakfast at 11 and [Marian] came to mend a tear in my pelisse and staid talking till 12 30 – about her living with Miss Mosey I recommending it rather than marrying Mr Abbott. Out at 12 20 till came back and saw my aunt’s ankle dressed a little after 1 – then out again pulling up the old hedge at the bottom of Hall croft and [with] John at it and had the horses and carted the old bits of walling into a lump near till 5 when came home to Washington - He paid me Miss W-‘s theatre divided £21.13.10 ½ (Mrs Sutherland having the same) speaking of Lidgate, I at last said it would be let – he valued it at £65 per annum house and 32 DW – the 2 large fields behind the barn very bad – stiff clay – said I valued it at £80 per annum – he said that rent could not be got – Lightcliffe a very dull place now since the Walkers’ trade was given up. Dinner at 6 ¼ then coffee in an hour – long in teaching Joseph how to wait - at my desk at 7 ¼ wrote the above of today and the following ‘Shibden Hall – Sunday evening 11th May 1834. My dearest Mary. I mean not always to be so long, and, I hope, I shall rarely, if ever, be longer than a week in answering your letters– your last reached me on Tuesday evening. I was beginning to fancy it might be your intention to wean me gradually for me expecting to hear from you so often as I have done, even the last 2 years – you have so long and so effectively taught me to yield your decisions, I was preparing to resign myself once more, when your affectionate pages came to give me hope, that perhaps my fear was groundless. Surely I have in no degree deserved to forfeit your esteem – why then should there be any interruption to that friendship which has already lasted two and twenty years and my last, to the great comfort of us both , at last, so long as you have no greater fault to find with than at present. Be our particular circumstances what they may, yours was the influence that moulded them to your present shape and, if one shadow of regret has ever flitted  across the path, remember you never whispered it to me, till time and deeply wounded feelings had made that whisper came too late

SH:7/ML/E/17/0031

 But cheer up my dearest Mary, better things await you than you think - you know not how anxiously and ardently I long for your happiness, and how fondly my whole soul clings to the belief, that there is one who can, and will make you happier than I could have done. You yourself doubted our being now suited to each other and, from the moment you succeeded in making me doubt it also, my mind was made up. ‘Fresh interests may squeeze themselves so pretty closely  by the side, but they have not and cannot  encroach’ - that the latter part of this sentence could not suggest itself to me, I am sure you will acknowledge,  if your memory serves you faithfully – you too well convinced me, that all your tastes were changed, and I still hope, you will by and by thank me for having better understood your welfare than you yourself understood it, and for having steadily acted up to the profession made on your marriage, that, if I could not promote your happiness - at least, I would not prevent it. Mary! You never trusted me enough, nor even as much as I deserved - we have both paid dearly - too dearly for the mistake. But much is still within our power, and friendship’s moonlight beam may be so bright, that the evening of one day may be more cloudless than its morning. Cheer up, my dearest Mary, I shall be a better source of happiness to you now, than I ever was before - your health will improve, and your spirits will be lighter  - and you will own with gratitude, that Heaven had ordered all things wisely, come what may, you can’t doubt my friendship, and regard and come what may, it will be your own doing if the measure of my most affectionate attention should ever seem less heaped up, and running over them at present you need not ‘feel awkward in writing to me’ - the fate of your letters,  is quite at your own disposal. Had you no objection, I might naturally read aloud a few sentences now and then - and you would have no reason to regret it - but if you think otherwise, you may be assured of my doing as you wish . I shall be in York on the 20th, but no longer than to take up my friend on our way for a little excursion to Richmond and its interesting neighbourhood. I shall be about a week away  and then have a few parting days of solitude and then my plans must depend much upon the state of my aunt’s health. She is so much altered, you would be shocked to see her now – she bids me tell you so, with her best love. She suffers much, a great deal, yet still, I fear her sufferings will be even greater, ere her place shall know her no more. Mary! The longest life is but, as it were, a spam long,  and, when the fullness of our time is come, God grand that we may all be not only ready,  but happy to exchange things temporal for those which are eternal! Monday evening. Mary! I think about you a great deal, and always affectionately – every feeling of irritation is gone by and I am only anxious  for your welfare -  assured of your happiness, my own would be as perfect as I could desire it should be. I have every reason to be satisfied. Few prospects are fairer than those which  open round me -  nothing is wanting but to see her whom I have loved so truly and so long  - to see her as comfortable as myself. Mary! It was you, not I who made our destiny what it is – I was but the tool you worked with. But I am resolved to think the work well done, and ,for your sake, even more than for my own. I am resolved to make it answer. Doubt still and forever,  that I could have made you happy. Nay! Believe I could not -  look up to those whose confidence you have kept inviolate. Gather up all the faults you ever knew me have, and set them against all the excellencies of your highly estimated friend. I shall yield the palm with pleasure and shall be thankful to Heaven for the boon of still being useful to you and, still being witness of your having done that best suited to ensure your happiness. I have no feelings towards you but of affection,  and believe me, my dearest Mary, always and invariably very especially yours. A. Lister’. Had written so far and sent off my latter (3 pages and ends and under the seal) at  9 10 to ‘Mrs Lawton, Lawton Hall, Lawton, Cheshire’ - read and shed many tears over my letter I did so also in writing it tonight and yesterday will she weep over it? What means all this sensibility now that all is over she having done it and I being really so satisfied? Am not I inconsistent as well as she? Had she been different should have been different devotion on her part would have kept my adoration thro’ life but is it not better as it is? Fine but dull morning - light showers between 3 and 5 - fine evening - with my aunt from 9 ¾ to 10 20 - note this morning from Mr John Waterhouse junior to say the next monthly meeting of the Literary and philosophical society would be on the 12th ie tomorrow. Pickels said on Saturday there would be about 300 yards of the Conery wood pithill and bringing it down to this side the new dry bridge between it and the entrance gate, at 1/per yard = £15 the old dry bridge fell in last night - crushed in by the great weight of stuff from the garden terrace, we have put over it. 

[dcuglybooks]

A short story collection featuring stories that are either mean and ugly like that turd that thudded you in school, or sweet and cuddly as a little gloomy kitten; or puppy if you’re more of a dog person.

Stories Christians don't have to read backwards. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LGB4HGN/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_UIpaGb2VC4BBX

Here’s a free short.

WAP: WEIRD ASS PHANTOM

“There’s a ghost in this house. There’s a ghost in this house.”

Linda was getting tired of the shit. Every day at exactly noon her alarm would play this shitty overdubbed version of a Cardi B song. The original song wasn’t her cup of tea to begin with, this new version that sounded like drunk karaoke was even worse. Most times she would be sitting there and the sound of a drunk sorority girl would make her jump out of her skin. She couldn’t even find the song or alarm in her phone to do anything about it.

Linda and her girlfriend, Melissa, moved into this old house last month, the rent was so damn cheap; landlord said it was because it used to be a party house so he never charged much. The logic didn’t make any sense but at $300 a month and a mile outside of town, how were they not going to sign that lease?

“I think,” spoke Melissa one night while watching her phone float around taking pictures in the air, “the reason rent is so cheap is because it’s haunted.”

“You think?” Replies Linda while snatching the phone out of the air. “I just wish this damn ghost would stop posting pictures of our bedroom to our Instagram accounts. Did you see the caption last night?”

“Oh you mean ‘Pumpkin spice is almost here. Basic bitches, rejoice!’ The comma is what set me off. Why did she put a comma in that? Why bother? It wasn’t even used correctly I don’t believe.”

“We’re being haunted by a basic bitch.”

“I think that may be offensive.”

“I hear it all the time, it just...... yeah ok maybe. I guess I shouldn’t assume this ghost is a bad stereotype, I won’t say it again.”

“True, this girl may have more going for her than just these annoying social media posts from our accounts”

“Remember the mirror though?”

Last week as the couple were eating dinner they heard a clatter and crash from the upstairs bathroom. Running full speed ahead up the stairs and around the corner Linda saw all their makeup in a pile in the empty sink. She could see a pair of red lipsticked lips floating in the air while eyeliner was seemingly drawn onto the air in a cat eye shape. She sighed and said “What now?” These types of things had been going on since the first night so at this point it was old hat.

The lipstick went to the mirror and wrote “I am finally going to kill you.” Linda took a step back prepared to flee until the lipstick wrote below it “JK LOL YOUR FACE” and then the face floated off into the wall leaving behind the makeup like some sort of painting.

The first time anything strange had happened, a pizza showed up at the front door; delivery for an Amanda Perkins. The girl who moved out recently, they took the pizza because it was already paid for and assumed the girl had made a mistake. They were sure of this as they sat and watched old re-runs of home improvement and munched away; then they noticed the slice floating over in the air above the recliner and the chewed up pile on the seat. They screamed and ran outside, Melissa forgot her phone inside and Linda’s made a ding from inside her pocket.

“Hey I know this is really weird, it’s weird AF for me too. We can make it work though, ladies. I swear I won’t bother you, I already cleaned up my mess.”

They inched inside looking around like scared toddlers and sure enough the mess was cleaned up. After that they just rolled with the weirdness.

“Are you sure Amanda left, Mr. Morris?” Linda was on the phone with the landlord.

“Yes. Positive. Why would you think she still lived there?”

“There’s been..... some things.”

“Drunk college girl, she probably stumbled home one night and forgot she went home for the summer. Its no deal. Not big or small.”

“Are you absolutely positive there is no deal? Big, small, medium, or slightly larger than medium but not quite large?”

“What do you think? I know her ex and he killed her and then buried her body in the basement so now her ghost is haunting you. This is why I charge so cheap rent! No. I don’t believe what you think. I will be going.”

He hung up without ever realizing Linda never once mentioned any of that other stuff. Linda thought, Why does he talk like that?

Turned out that’s exactly what had happened. After doing a quick google of the ghosts name they found out she never came home. After a quick Facebook search they found her ex boyfriends page. After some scrolling they found a post that said “Amanda and I broke up again and I am going to kill her.” The post had six likes and four comments.

“Get her bro!”

“Bitch ain’t appreciate you anyhow bet!”

“U need any ting lemme no”

“Fuk gr8 ass tho. Mind if I hit her up?”

These people were insane. Did not a single one of these people see the part about wanting to kill her? Actually PLANNING to kill her.

The police found it interesting enough to look into it, they found reason to arrest the guy. After a long court trial Amanda’s ex-boyfriend, Brent, was sentenced to life in prison for murder. The body was exhumed and buried at a family plot. The rent got more expensive because Mr. Morris was in prison for helping cover a murder so his aunt took over.

You win some you lose some.

Amanda did not leave though. The ghost hung out still to this day four months later. The social media posts kept going. The pizzas kept getting ordered, only now from their pockets because Amanda’s parents closed her bank account. Amanda was irritated about that, she was cut off from her parents money and stuck living with two other people.

Linda and Melissa tried to make her feel as comfy as possible, they left a pen and notebook in each room so she could communicate with them. Usually the notes were always about how bored she was being a ghost and how if she tried to leave the house it got all bright and she started floating. Amanda was “for real afraid of flying” as she wrote on a notebook.

Amanda’s behavior got strange at some point. She began doing things like drawing stick figures on the bathroom floor in shampoo, she would wrap herself in toilet paper and roll down the stairs creating the illusion of her body disappearing, the worst of it was when she would lay in bed with Linda and Melissa startling them when she pulled the blanket. It was like living with an invisible insane person. Either her mind was slipping or she was just a strange character. She would turn the TV on and watch the same episode of “King of Queens” for ten hours straight while they were at work. They wondered what would happen if they deleted it from the DVR but didn’t want to face that at all.

The alarm kept going off too; Linda had to hand out awkward smiles and apologies when it happened at work or in public. One time she had to apologize to a middle aged woman when it went off in the cereal aisle while shopping and her son started singing the lyrics to the original version as loud as his voice would allow. The mother gasped at all the words her kid knew and knocked a shelf of maple syrup over. The bottles burst all over the floor, Linda tried to help clean it up but she was shooed away by a guy with a mop bucket and a face that said he wanted her dead as shit.

They asked her multiple times what they could do to get her to move along, to which she would always write “sno-cone” on her notebook with no explanation.

Linda woke up sick on a Tuesday and didn’t go to work, she came into the bathroom and seen a note written in lipstick on the mirror that read “Baby, all my life I will be driving home to you.” She blushed, Melissa had left her a really sweet note on the mirror. When Melissa got home she surprised her with a bout of some of the best sex they had ever had, despite Linda being sick she felt overcome with love for her partner.

“Wow. What did I do to deserve that?” Asked Melissa after.

“The note.”

“Oh yes. The note, got you good with that one. So, if it was so good mind telling me what it said?”

“You know what it said!”

“Of course I do.”

She didn’t know what it said. She had no clue, but she wasn’t going to raise a stink about what just happened. No way, no how. She got up and went to use the restroom, as she sat on the toilet she looked up and saw the words on the mirror.

“LINDA!” She yelled. “I DIDNT LEAVE THAT! THATS THE GODDAMN LYRICS FROM THE THEME SONG FOR ‘THE KING OF QUEENS!’”

Linda didn’t know what to say; she shook her head and internally accepted defeat on this one. The couple didn’t talk about it again, the ends justified the means on this one they silently agreed; thanks Amanda.

The trio had carried on life like this for months, seven to be exact, when they heard a bang and a crash from the front door. Assuming this was yet again Amanda doing some goofy nonsense they ran downstairs to clean up the mess only to find a man standing their pointing a shotgun at them.

“You’re the dykes who got me locked up, aintcha?” Said a freshly broke out of prison Brent. “You know, usually I’m cool with like loving whoever and like rights and like equality and shit but tonight is not your night. Go sit.”

They were tied together on the couch while Brent sat channel flipping on the TV.

“Amanda is still here,” spoke Linda “she’s a ghost, at some point she’s going to help us and you’ll probably get hurt. She’s probably posting pictures on Instagram right now so she’s a little busy, but I promise when she finds out she’ll come running.”

“No she won’t.”

“Ok? So you think her post is going to get a ton of likes then?”

“She’s afraid of me.”

“Ugh are you generic ‘I beat my girlfriend’ guy number seventy or not?”

“Not.”

“Then why is she afraid of you?”

“I’m bigger than her…… I guess?”

“She’s a ghost.”

“I’m still bigger.”

​“How can you be bigger than an incorporeal being with no mass or weight?”

​“See, she doesn’t way anything.”

“You didn’t think any of this through did you?”

“Not one bit.”

“It shows. Why did you kill her?”

“Hey I’ve never been what you’d call a planner. I killed her because she broke up with me for the fiftieth time that year and all my friends were giving me a hard time about how I would just crawl back to her. I said ‘can’t crawl back to her if I kill her!’ They all thought it was funny so I did it.”

“Ah………Makes perfect sense to me.”

“A guy has to watch his reputation, right?”

They sat there watching late night infomercials in silence for another half hour. Linda nudged Melissa as she seen a phone floating around taking pictures of a floating can of soup.

Of all the ghosts in the world, why was theirs like this?

“Brent, there’s some stuff on the DVR” Linda told him.

“Good I hate infomercials. Oh yuck, ‘The King of Queens.’ I hate that show, Amanda loved it. That fat fucking heifer guy gets to make it with that babe every night. Fucking loser ass UPS guy”

They could see the phone slowly lower and start hovering towards Brent. They let him rant.

“And that Deacon guy, what a fucking idiot, he leaves his wife at one point which is silly because she’s so fucking hot.”

The can of soup hovered behind him.

“That guy that dates the ugly chick from the bowling alley, now I can’t tolerate him at all.”

The soup can shook with rage.

“He ends up living with the other guy right? Like what the fuck? Are they like a thing or not a thing? I didn’t pay enough attention. I did pretend to though to get some action every now and again, show fucking sucks though. Here I’ll do you guys a favor.”

As he deleted the episode from the DVR the can came slamming down into his head.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

They heard a voice yell “MY BONES ARE GETTING WEARY! MY BACK IS GETTING TIGHT!” As the can of cream of chicken turned Brent’s head into cream of Brent’s brains.

After the violence stopped the notebook hovered in front of them and said “Sorry, I was on TikTok, I’ll clean this up tho.”

Much like the first night that’s exactly what happened. They were untied and they watched as the mess was cleaned up. Brent’s body floated over to the ground and the can of soup was laid on the table. The phone floated over to Melissa who dialed 911.

After the legal mess was cleaned up they decided that having Amanda around maybe was not such a bad idea. No one could really kill them, it was like having a built in security system. They did eventually add a third line to their cell plan and let her set up social media for herself as a reclusive twenty something who couldn’t leave the house due to a skin condition.

Her pages were ok, they didn’t get much interaction or followers but Amanda was happy. Sometimes people would say they wanted to hang out with her because they lived close, Amanda just said her skin condition was contagious AF. No one ever thought to say “Hey, what exactly IS your medical condition?” People could be so polite sometimes.

Christmas morning as they all opened gifts Linda and Melissa cried as Amanda opened the complete series collection of “The King of Queens.” The three sat on the couch together that evening and watched all of season one.

Baby all my life I will be driving home to you.

The next day they heard a familiar song. Together they both smiled and thought that yes, there was a ghost in this house.

[thousandmaths]

Masterpost: Index

Now that it’s no longer possible to experience OTAM as a “dose a day” math fix, I figured I’d try to get around to making a somewhat more accessible organizational scheme. This post is obviously something of a hack, but it was good enough for printed books for hundreds of years it can be good enough for little old OTAM. I’ve split post this into two parts: 

First comes a list of significant tags. This means reasonably small collections of posts but contain a high density of the most interesting posts.

And second, underneath a readmore, comes a list of posts (or drafted posts) which are significant in their own right but cannot be easily found from the tags. [The eight posts in this list marked with stars and italics are, in my opinion, the absolute highlights of this blog.]

------

Index of Significant Tags

The Archive: A single page containing tumbnails of every post

Conferences (semi-chronological)

All Joint Meetings Posts

Joint Mathematics Meetings 2015 (summary) (awards)

Joint Mathematics Meetings 2016 (awards)

Joint Mathematics Meetings 2017 (awards)

All Midwest Combinatorics Conference Posts

Midwest Combinatorics Conference 2015

Midwest Combinatorics Conference 2017 (long summary)

All Commutative Algebra Plus Posts

Commutative Algebra+ 2016 (summary)

Commutative Algebra+ 2017

Algebraic and Combinatorial Approaches in Systems Biology (summary)

Graduate Student Conference in Geometry and Topology 2016

Great Plains Combinatorics Conference 2016

AMS Central Sectional Meeting Fall 2016 (summary)

Southeastern International Conference yadda-yadda 2017 (summary)

Equivariant Combinatorics (school) (summary)

Local Cohomology in Commutative Algebra and Algebraic Geometry

Disciplines & Subjects

Analysis, but more usefully

Complex Analysis

Functional Analysis

Harmonic Analysis

Real Analysis

Algebra exists, although is not very useful

Algebraic Geometry (kind of long, but no useful subtags)

Combinatorics, but more usefully

Algebraic Combinatorics

Combinatorial Geometry

Enumerative Combinatorics

Geometric Combinatorics

Graph Theory and its strict subset Algebraic Graph Theory

Posets

Topological Combinatorics

Geometry (also kind of long; useful subtags already listed)

Group Theory

Invariant Theory

Lie Theory

Mathematical Biology (an admittedly very skewed picture of the field)

Number Theory (and Everything I Know About Algebraic Number Theory)

Pedagogy

Probability

Proofs (not proof theory)

Topology and its strict subset Algebraic Topology

Undergraduate Research

Effortposts / Sequences

Graduate Research Workshop in Combinatorics 2016 proposal talks

mathspeak (NB: I no longer endorse anything I wrote in these posts)

Math StackExchange answers (mostly mine) (and Math Overflow)

Naïve Set Theory

NOTSB-related

Summer 2017 Journal

Introduction to Cluster Algebras

Introduction to Coxeter Groups

Introduction to Homology

Introduction to Modules and Associative Algebras

Introduction to Schubert Stuff (and Other Schubert Stuff)

Back to Basics (a random assortment of introductory stuff; includes the Introduction to Modules sequence)

Big-Whatever Notation (on $\Sigma$, $\Pi$, and friends)

Math+

Math History

Math Jokes!

Math Philosophy

“Masterposts”, i.e. Single-Post Tags

the social justice conversation surrounding JMM 2017

differential topology (Part B) prelims solutions (+a little) (single page view)

websites for collecting mathematical examples

a very small list of poset properties

a very small list of topological vector space properties

a launching point into non-enumerative combinatorics 

Federico Ardila’s video lectures

Personal Life

failure

grad school

learning

math friends

motivation

new year

thanksgiving

Professional Life

academia

blogging (and mad blogging experiment)

CRP

outreach

senior thesis-related

studying

talks with Vic

teaching (parts of this tag are more relevant than others)

writing (and math writing)

Social Justice

Becoming a Responsible Academic

Diversity

Women in Math

Index of Significant Posts

All-Star talks

** Mathematics for Human Flourishing (Francis Su)

Introduction to Cluster Algebras (Gregg Musiker)

Reflection Groups in Combinatorics (Theodosios Douvropoulos)

Advice Posts (from #advice, and otherwise)

** how to read math I

** how to read math II

** why you should go to talks

writing math 101 (external)

how to mathematicize your biology education (tumblr)

giving your own first talk

“Advice to a Young Mathematician” (out of undergrad, esp.)

regrets (MIT senior)

save money for grad school, and other things nobody tells you

grad school (reddit)

teaching 101

teaching 201

advisor selection (in the sciences)

my own advisor selection (sub-masterpost)

stuff I don’t actually know about

day[9]’s starcraft advice as math advice

and do the exercises

post-grad-school as a mathematical butterfly

doing research

making time non-mathematical passions

promoting diversity

Current Events & Community News (chronological)

Mirzakhani passes away

the IMU EC debates changing the name of the Nevanlinna Medal (no outcomes yet)

the Cap Set Problem is solved

Wiles wins the Abel prize

people are starting to understand IUTT

the Erdős discrepancy problem is solved

the rational shuffle conjecture is proven

Grothendeick passes away (slightly before the blog started)

From Very Nearly Nothing Posts

Rank Two Cluster Algebras

The Bruhat Order (for $S_n$)

The Shi Arrangement

My Mathematical Work (reverse chronological)

Homework/Interests

Infinitary Combinatorics

Tucker’s Lemma

Research

Counting Your Way to a Ph.D. (guestpost; anticipated oral paper)

GRWC project

Poster! (undergrad research, presented to the GPCC 2016)

Kastelyn’s solution to the dimer model (senior thesis)

Talks

preparing a seminar talk (GRWC project)

Counting to Cosine (GRWC project, to the undergrad math club)

Ego (a note on a seminar talk which I did not write up elsewhere)

Recommendations, blogs (from #blogs I like, and my drafts folder)

** Calculus VII (interesting, accessible problems)

** Mathematical Gemstones (OTAM but better)

neverendingbooks

Sketches of Topology

Theories and Theorems

Math With Bad Drawings

Grandma Got STEM

Alien Number (probably defunct)

John Baez (an nLab guy)

John Cook (consultant)

David Eppstein (apparently, a Game of Life guy)

The Inner Frame (math and photography)

dy/dan (pre-university math education)

Frederik de Boer (university math education)

AMS blogs

grad students blogging

inclusion/exclusion

the rest of them

via tumblr

matan-matika

1ucasvb (updates very infrequently, unfortunately)

canmom (previously canonicalmomentum)

szimmetria-airtemmizs

maxwellsequations (math/physics sculptures)

engineeringtldr

fuckyeahfluiddynamics

Recommendations, non-blogs (mostly from drafts folder)

** Discrete Analysis (journal; at least for the summaries)

** What do Grad Students in Math do All Day? (quora Q&A)

3blue1brown (high-quality YouTube animations)

Paul Graham’s essays, especially:

Procrastination

High School

College

loving the tenure track life (article)

A Mathematician’s Lament (essay)

------

Just for Fun

Round-Number Posts:

100 (Day 162) [senior year]

200 (Day 236) [summer]

300 (Day 379) [yikes]

400 (Day 501) [yeah when I realized this, that was a wakeup call]

500 (Day 578) [also summer]

600 (Day 684)

700 (Day 784)

800 (Day 877) 

900 (Day 954) [man, that was a journey (summer)]

1000 (Day 1000) [literally first day I was caught up since Jan2015 >.< ]

Top Contributors:

Posts dedicated to the work/talks of Theo: 123456 78 9 10 11

Posts dedicated to the work/talks of Vic Reiner: 12345 67 8 9 10

Posts dedicated to the talks of Laura Escobar: 12345678 9 10

It looks you three lead the pack by a longshot; I had some ideas but ultimately I couldn’t find anyone doing better than Maria Gillespie who has 123 45 with the last two being a little bit iffy. But if you don’t count that then it looks like it’s just lots of people tied at three posts 

(I thought Brubaker had four but apparently not; Dmitriy Bilyk also has three, with a weak but not totally implausible claim on six).

[easyfoodnetwork]

How to Run 13 Food Businesses in the Middle of a Pandemic

Zingerman’s Delicatessen | Zingerman’s

As the co-founder of one of the country’s largest independent food companies, I’ve spent the past 38 years trying to plan for the future. Now, I’m taking my cues from history

This is Eater Voices, where chefs, restaurateurs, writers, and industry insiders share their perspectives about the food world, tackling a range of topics through the lens of personal experience. First-time writer? Don’t worry, we’ll pair you with an editor to make sure your piece hits the mark. If you want to write an Eater Voices essay, please send us a couple paragraphs explaining what you want to write about and why you are the person to write it to voices@eater.com.

Over the 38 years we’ve been in business I’ve worried about, talked through, and planned for hundreds of strange scenarios. I’m a planner, and here at Zingerman’s we’ve been forecasting and budgeting and organizing for so many years I can barely remember when we began doing it. But, as Mike Tyson once famously said, “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.”

I don’t think anyone I know in the food world has ever thought about preparing for a pandemic. Having talked to dozens of colleagues around the country, we all seem to be pretty much in the same boat, struggling to answer the same questions. How do we deal with unexpectedly having to lay off dozens/hundreds/thousands of people that we’ve worked with for years? Are we providing better community service by staying open, or by closing? Can we figure out what the 900 pages of the CARES Act really mean? How does unemployment really work? What’s the difference between a furlough and a layoff? Can we survive for six months on limited menus for delivery and pickup? How long will this go on? Will it ever end? If it doesn’t end for a year, how do we handle that? If it does end, what will happen next? Just writing these questions, I can see why I — and probably most of us — have felt overwhelmed, pretty much daily, for the last few weeks.

On the evening of Tuesday, March 11, we had a sold-out fundraising dinner at Zingerman’s Roadhouse for SafeHouse Center, the place in town that provides shelter for victims of domestic abuse. It was a great event. The next morning, Wednesday, March 12, was a day that will probably live in infamy in the food world for at least a few decades. It’s the day that almost every restaurant in the country felt a shock that I can only equate to what it must have felt like when the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929.

It’s only been six weeks, but it seems like six years. We furloughed nearly 300 of the 700 staff members in our company, which comprises a community of 13 different food businesses. Normally at this time, we’d be ramping up for our busiest weekend of the year: the University of Michigan commencement, which was scheduled for the first weekend of May. Instead, our total organizational sales numbers are now running about 40 percent of plan. Who would imagine that we’d already have adjusted our expectations down so much, so quickly, that we’re celebrating as a “good day’s business” what a month ago we would have thought of as an unremarkable Monday lunch in the slow season of the year? It’s hard to remember the last time I was happy to see a $7,500 day at Zingerman’s Roadhouse, which has 150 seats — but now it seems like a decent weekday’s sales!

March 12 was a day that will probably live in infamy in the food world for at least a few decades.

The effects of the pandemic are felt differently across the company. Our events space, training business, and food tours have seen their sales drop nearly to zero. At our three restaurants (where we continue to do takeout and delivery), bakehouse, creamery, coffee, and candy businesses, sales are somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of what they would normally be this time of year, though wholesale sales to supermarkets and our mail-order business are helping keep us afloat. The bright note for us is that mail order is very busy — about twice what sales would typically be this time of year. And also that we’re still being kind and collaborative and cooking and serving (I mean delivering) good food. We’re following the CDC and local health department guidelines — constant handwashing, keeping plenty of distance between staff and guests (who are in very limited numbers inside our bakeshop, our creamery, and our coffee company), checking staff temperatures before they begin work — and, in the last week or so, wearing masks. For now, at least for us and for so many others, that’s our new normal.

As an erstwhile history major, two thoughts play around in my head. One is that it’s generally said that no war with a foreign power has ever been fought on American soil. I haven’t lived through one so I’m not sure the analogy is accurate, but this does sort of feel like what I imagine that living through a war would be. Life as we knew it has been drastically altered, perhaps for years. Within a few days of the “invasion,” everything was turned, seemingly, upside down. The craziness of the restaurant world that we all love and have learned to live with and actually kind of enjoy now seems stable and calm compared to this world where the coronavirus is calling the shots and we hope and pray that we, our colleagues, and our businesses can survive.

The other piece of history in my mind is that, while none of us have been through this before, humanity has, many times. Annalee Newitz recently wrote a great piece in the New York Times about the 1666 bubonic plague in London. Over the course of the year, the city lost over 15 percent of its population; across England, 750,000 people died. Newitz’s article reminded me of what I already knew: history always repeats. The good, long-term learning from Newitz’s article is that, as we know, the world did keep going when the plague receded. While it was a horrible year, and things didn’t just return quickly to normal, England did recover. The plague did go away. And there were restaurants still operating at the end of it. (On a lighter note, Newitz shared that Samuel Pepys buried a wheel of “Parmazan” cheese in his backyard when the city was evacuated.)

In our 38 years at Zingerman’s, we have worked through massive inflation, the tragic upheaval of 9/11, and the instability of the recession of 2008. Looking back, I can see that we survived the fear and uncertainty by staying true to our values, taking good care of our customers, communicating caringly with our crew, staying in touch with vendors, and maintaining quality. We continued to talk things through collaboratively, to work cooperatively, to stay as grounded and centered as we could under the circumstances. And this time around, we’re doing the same.

Eventually, like World War II and the plague of 1666, this will start to end.

If I’d gone to med school like my grandmother wanted me to, I might be trying to save lives in a hospital or doing research in a lab to find a vaccine or a cure to end this crisis. Unfortunately, I have nothing to contribute on either count. So all I can do is work to keep our community and our organization as healthy as possible. Try to figure out creative and caring ways through the darkness. Try to listen and be empathic and share struggles as best I can. To keep calling colleagues all over the country, hoping that someone smarter has come up with some great solutions. To stay in touch, and keep energy focused on safety and sanitation — and, at the same time, what we have left of service, sales, and staff. And then keep my fingers crossed, think positive thoughts, rub my rabbit’s feet, and, as with all long walks through darkness, hope like hell we can get through to the other side together.

Eventually, like World War II and the plague of 1666, this will start to end. Every day I wait to hear good news, and at some point there will be some. When it does come, we can say something along the lines of what Winston Churchill said as the British turned the tide of a very long war by defeating the Germans in Egypt in 1942. “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end,” he said. “But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Whatever happens, I feel incredibly fortunate to have worked with so many great people both here in our own organization and in the food community across the country and around the world. To have bought, sold, served, and eaten so much good food, to have had a positive impact on so many people’s lives. I’m not ready to give up yet. And I’m reminded of something one of our line cooks shared with me from her previous job: As they used to say during really rough shifts, “See you on the other side!”

Ari Weinzweig is the co-founding partner of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3aJu5fI https://ift.tt/3bIaSMN

Zingerman’s Delicatessen | Zingerman’s

As the co-founder of one of the country’s largest independent food companies, I’ve spent the past 38 years trying to plan for the future. Now, I’m taking my cues from history

This is Eater Voices, where chefs, restaurateurs, writers, and industry insiders share their perspectives about the food world, tackling a range of topics through the lens of personal experience. First-time writer? Don’t worry, we’ll pair you with an editor to make sure your piece hits the mark. If you want to write an Eater Voices essay, please send us a couple paragraphs explaining what you want to write about and why you are the person to write it to voices@eater.com.

Over the 38 years we’ve been in business I’ve worried about, talked through, and planned for hundreds of strange scenarios. I’m a planner, and here at Zingerman’s we’ve been forecasting and budgeting and organizing for so many years I can barely remember when we began doing it. But, as Mike Tyson once famously said, “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth.”

I don’t think anyone I know in the food world has ever thought about preparing for a pandemic. Having talked to dozens of colleagues around the country, we all seem to be pretty much in the same boat, struggling to answer the same questions. How do we deal with unexpectedly having to lay off dozens/hundreds/thousands of people that we’ve worked with for years? Are we providing better community service by staying open, or by closing? Can we figure out what the 900 pages of the CARES Act really mean? How does unemployment really work? What’s the difference between a furlough and a layoff? Can we survive for six months on limited menus for delivery and pickup? How long will this go on? Will it ever end? If it doesn’t end for a year, how do we handle that? If it does end, what will happen next? Just writing these questions, I can see why I — and probably most of us — have felt overwhelmed, pretty much daily, for the last few weeks.

On the evening of Tuesday, March 11, we had a sold-out fundraising dinner at Zingerman’s Roadhouse for SafeHouse Center, the place in town that provides shelter for victims of domestic abuse. It was a great event. The next morning, Wednesday, March 12, was a day that will probably live in infamy in the food world for at least a few decades. It’s the day that almost every restaurant in the country felt a shock that I can only equate to what it must have felt like when the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929.

It’s only been six weeks, but it seems like six years. We furloughed nearly 300 of the 700 staff members in our company, which comprises a community of 13 different food businesses. Normally at this time, we’d be ramping up for our busiest weekend of the year: the University of Michigan commencement, which was scheduled for the first weekend of May. Instead, our total organizational sales numbers are now running about 40 percent of plan. Who would imagine that we’d already have adjusted our expectations down so much, so quickly, that we’re celebrating as a “good day’s business” what a month ago we would have thought of as an unremarkable Monday lunch in the slow season of the year? It’s hard to remember the last time I was happy to see a $7,500 day at Zingerman’s Roadhouse, which has 150 seats — but now it seems like a decent weekday’s sales!

March 12 was a day that will probably live in infamy in the food world for at least a few decades.

The effects of the pandemic are felt differently across the company. Our events space, training business, and food tours have seen their sales drop nearly to zero. At our three restaurants (where we continue to do takeout and delivery), bakehouse, creamery, coffee, and candy businesses, sales are somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of what they would normally be this time of year, though wholesale sales to supermarkets and our mail-order business are helping keep us afloat. The bright note for us is that mail order is very busy — about twice what sales would typically be this time of year. And also that we’re still being kind and collaborative and cooking and serving (I mean delivering) good food. We’re following the CDC and local health department guidelines — constant handwashing, keeping plenty of distance between staff and guests (who are in very limited numbers inside our bakeshop, our creamery, and our coffee company), checking staff temperatures before they begin work — and, in the last week or so, wearing masks. For now, at least for us and for so many others, that’s our new normal.

As an erstwhile history major, two thoughts play around in my head. One is that it’s generally said that no war with a foreign power has ever been fought on American soil. I haven’t lived through one so I’m not sure the analogy is accurate, but this does sort of feel like what I imagine that living through a war would be. Life as we knew it has been drastically altered, perhaps for years. Within a few days of the “invasion,” everything was turned, seemingly, upside down. The craziness of the restaurant world that we all love and have learned to live with and actually kind of enjoy now seems stable and calm compared to this world where the coronavirus is calling the shots and we hope and pray that we, our colleagues, and our businesses can survive.

The other piece of history in my mind is that, while none of us have been through this before, humanity has, many times. Annalee Newitz recently wrote a great piece in the New York Times about the 1666 bubonic plague in London. Over the course of the year, the city lost over 15 percent of its population; across England, 750,000 people died. Newitz’s article reminded me of what I already knew: history always repeats. The good, long-term learning from Newitz’s article is that, as we know, the world did keep going when the plague receded. While it was a horrible year, and things didn’t just return quickly to normal, England did recover. The plague did go away. And there were restaurants still operating at the end of it. (On a lighter note, Newitz shared that Samuel Pepys buried a wheel of “Parmazan” cheese in his backyard when the city was evacuated.)

In our 38 years at Zingerman’s, we have worked through massive inflation, the tragic upheaval of 9/11, and the instability of the recession of 2008. Looking back, I can see that we survived the fear and uncertainty by staying true to our values, taking good care of our customers, communicating caringly with our crew, staying in touch with vendors, and maintaining quality. We continued to talk things through collaboratively, to work cooperatively, to stay as grounded and centered as we could under the circumstances. And this time around, we’re doing the same.

Eventually, like World War II and the plague of 1666, this will start to end.

If I’d gone to med school like my grandmother wanted me to, I might be trying to save lives in a hospital or doing research in a lab to find a vaccine or a cure to end this crisis. Unfortunately, I have nothing to contribute on either count. So all I can do is work to keep our community and our organization as healthy as possible. Try to figure out creative and caring ways through the darkness. Try to listen and be empathic and share struggles as best I can. To keep calling colleagues all over the country, hoping that someone smarter has come up with some great solutions. To stay in touch, and keep energy focused on safety and sanitation — and, at the same time, what we have left of service, sales, and staff. And then keep my fingers crossed, think positive thoughts, rub my rabbit’s feet, and, as with all long walks through darkness, hope like hell we can get through to the other side together.

Eventually, like World War II and the plague of 1666, this will start to end. Every day I wait to hear good news, and at some point there will be some. When it does come, we can say something along the lines of what Winston Churchill said as the British turned the tide of a very long war by defeating the Germans in Egypt in 1942. “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end,” he said. “But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Whatever happens, I feel incredibly fortunate to have worked with so many great people both here in our own organization and in the food community across the country and around the world. To have bought, sold, served, and eaten so much good food, to have had a positive impact on so many people’s lives. I’m not ready to give up yet. And I’m reminded of something one of our line cooks shared with me from her previous job: As they used to say during really rough shifts, “See you on the other side!”

Ari Weinzweig is the co-founding partner of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3aJu5fI via Blogger https://ift.tt/3cQhhFJ

[oumakokichi]

why did Ouma choose to play the villain role in particular rather than just laying low like Tsumugi did? it interests me that he chose to play a role that he probably knew he'd get so much hate for

I’m not sure if these two asks are from the same person orjust about the same topic specifically, so I decided to answer the both of themtogether!

This is a very interesting question, and understanding theanswer requires understanding a lot of the general way Ouma’s mindset works. It’salso, in my opinion, one of the biggest tip-offs that he’s not nearly aschaotic or antagonistic a force as he likes to pretend to be. After all, formost liar-type characters, the obvious choice for how to play the game would beto try and fool other people into thinking they’re not a threat. It’s a lot easier to lie to people in order toget them to like you and think of you as harmless than it is to lie in order toget people to hate you, distrust you, and be generally pissed off at you allthe time.

Ouma’s antagonistic and villain-like role is something hetakes upon himself intentionally for a number of reasons. The first is that hereally does wholeheartedly believe that cooperation and talking about the powerof friendship and working together is not going to work. Having studied thekilling game thus far, and having picked up on the fact that Monokumaintentionally comes around whenever the group starts talking optimistically andcooperatively to share a new motive, he wants more than anything for the groupto realize that naïve optimism is only going to get them killed, all the whilecontinuing the killing game for even longer.

He comments on this directly as early as Chapter 2. Even atthe beginning of the chapter, when everyone is relatively certain that thekilling game as they know it is over because no one would dare to kill againafter what happened to Amami and after Kaede’s sacrifice, Ouma knows that thisis simply naïve denial of the facts at hand. And he’s nothing if not a realist,at heart. As much as he’d like to be an idealist (he hates killing and murdersarguably even more than the other characters do), he knows that the killing game is going to keep continuing, becauseMonokuma is going to keep playing on that optimism of theirs and giving themnew motives to kill.

At various points, he actually says under his breath thatbecause they keep talking so naively about wanting to cooperate together andactually thinking that’s going to work and that there won’t be any moremurders, that’s exactly why Monokuma pops up to ruin things. He actually says thismore than once in Chapter 2, the first time saying the group is getting “takenadvantage of” by Monokuma, the second time saying Monokuma shows up “to tormentthem.” And he’s disappointed that no one else noticed this fact.

In a game solely based around the premise of entertainment,cooperating normally and holding hands and having a game without killing isboring. Monokuma shows up to present motives on a regular basis whenever thegroup starts talking about these things because it is absolutely essential tomake sure the killing game show keeps entertaining the audience. And Ouma,perceptive as he is, realizes this extremely early on and tries using it inorder to mitigate the situation and to try and get the others to realize thesame thing.

By acting the part of the villain and seeming super chaoticand antagonistic for no reason, Ouma willingly acts the part of an entertainer.I have no doubt he was probably a fan favorite on the show for the ndrv3audience, and probably one of Tsumugi’s favorite “characters” to have aroundtoo, up until he started showing his true colors and snatched the game awayfrom her in Chapter 5. But up until then, he was so blatantly playing the roleof “a character you love to hate.”His way of flying under Tsumugi’s radar itself was to act like he was enjoyingevery minute of the killing game, always trying to make it more “interesting”and “fun.”

Doing so also served the twofold purpose of making sure thatTsumugi never actually caught on to the fact that he wanted to stop the game,not encourage it. By acting like the person who was the least opposed to thekilling game continuing, he made it easier for himself to investigate. Hisvillain role ensured the fact that no one, not even Tsumugi, could havepredicted that he would cooperate with other members of the group and had awhole ensemble of plans behind the scene to try and stop the killing game onceand for all. His temporary alliance with Miu, as well as his victim-culpritcooperation with Momota, completely blindsided Tsumugi, and you can tell prettyeasily on a reread.

By acting so openly distrustful and suspicious, he wastrying to teach the group very bluntly about the need to doubt others—as wellas keeping them at arm’s length so that he didn’t trust any of them too muchhimself, since he couldn’t afford to do so. Making himself into an easy targetto hate also was his attempt to try and get the group to focus their dislikeand hatred on him, rather than turning on each other and constantly resortingto murder the way they kept doing.

There’s also the fact that… well, to put it simply, Ouma can’tact like Tsumugi because the boredom of doing so really would kill him. He’s manythings: intelligent, extremely analytical, fun-loving, terrifying when he wantsto be, and extremely quick to get bored.I’ve talked a bit in various posts about the fact that I suspect Ouma has atleast some version of SHSL Analysis very similar to Junko and Kamukura’s (thelevel of prediction he’s capable of seems to back this up, especially the300-page script he wrote in about two hours). And like Junko and Kamukura, Oumais constantly, continuously seeking an escape from boredom.

Laying low like Tsumugi was never an option for him becauseit’s something he’s so completely incapable of. Where Tsumugi excels at playingthe role of a bystander, never getting truly involved with anyone’s lives orfeelings because she really does think of them all as characters in a show,Ouma can’t stay away from the action for more than five minutes. Even at thebeginning of Chapter 5, where he laid low for a period of a few days after thegrand villain speech he gave in the Chapter 4 trial, it turns out that he wasactually coming by to snoop and check in on the rest of them periodically, eveneavesdropping outside the cafeteria, which is how he found out that they wereall going in ill-prepared to try and fight Monokuma once the Monokumerz wereall dead.

For all that he’s extremely calculating and excels atpredicting the behaviors and thoughts of others, the part of him that cravesattention is genuine. Like with any trickster character, Ouma’s tricks and liesare attempts at entertaining both himself and others. He’s compared on morethan one occasion by Kaede and Saihara both in his FTEs to “a kid trying toplay,” or “a kid who wants attention.” Ouma can’t stop putting on an act,lying, or otherwise trying to interact with the group simply because stayingaway or trying to lay low would be so incredibly boring.

I’ve made plenty of Umineko comparisons before, but “boredomis the poison that kills all witches.” Ouma is different from Junko in a numberof ways, but it’s true that just as Junko stood no chance at actually hidingand laying low amongst her classmates because she’d have stood out too much,Ouma pretty much runs into the same problem. So the best alternative for himinstead, as he knew, was to pretend to be the ringleader, to mislead the groupentirely by utilizing exactly how attention-grabbing and impossible-to-ignorehe was.

Finally, by Chapter 5 especially, there’s a certain elementof self-deprecation to Ouma’s whole villain act and the encouragement he givesto the others to hate him. His speech in the Chapter 4 post-trial in particularcarries a note of what Saihara describes as “malice”—aimed pretty clearly on areread at the ndrv3 audience, but also just as clearly at himself. “There arepeople like that in this world too, there are people who enjoy spreading malicefor no reason,” is a line which draws a comparison between the audience andhimself, as does his line about him being “the Supreme Leader whose personalityis corrupted.”

After having resorted to getting two people killed in orderto stay alive, Ouma knew that it was something he “had to do,” but also pretty obviouslyhated himself for it. After crossing his one moral code, he felt there was verylittle difference between himself and the real ringleader of the game, becausehe was something who could do such cold and ruthless things and look at it asan “interesting show.” That disgust, for both himself and the horrible, twistednature of the killing game they were all in

This doesn’t excuse his actions, of course, nor does Oumahimself ever try to act like it does. If anything, his self-hatred is somethingthat fuels his villain routine even more, and in the following parts of Chapter4 and Chapter 5 both he constantly encourages the group to blame him for everysingle thing imaginable. This, of course, obviously ties in with his plan topretend to be the ringleader and the leader of the cult which wanted to stopthe Gopher Plan, but it also feels a little bit like a self-inflictedpunishment. In Umineko terms, it’d be encouraging people to “blame the witch”for every single mishap, mystery, or murder that happened, rather than havingto open one’s eyes to the “horrible, unchanging truth.”

These are most of the reasons I can think of to explain whyOuma acted the way he did. Lying to the degree he did, bluffing, settinghimself up to be hated, it was all part of a pretty brilliant attempt to bothblindside the ringleader and make the rest of the group realize that naïve optimismwould only be a weakness which Monokuma would exploit in the killing game. Buthis downfall, as I’ve pointed out, was in being too suspicious and too far onthe side of “doubt everyone, trust no one.”

Ouma’s inability to really open up to anyone and hiscertainty that doing so would only expose unnecessary weaknesses is part of thereason not many (if any) of the characters could really see his real intentionseven after his death, and it’s one of the things that makes him fairly tragicin hindsight. He’s an extremely morally grey character who did horrible things,yes, but he’s also interesting and fascinating precisely because he knew thesethings were flaws and hated himself for them, never once trying to act the partof a tragic hero or acting as though his actions were excusable.

Given his obvious charisma and skill with lying, it wouldhave been so much easier for him tofool the whole group into thinking him harmless and friendly, if he’d reallywanted to. Had he truly been evil, he could’ve tricked them all effortlesslyand sold them all out in a heartbeat—he knew how they thought, could predicttheir actions with terrifying accuracy as the script he wrote shows. And yet hechose actively to try and stop the killing game, to keep them all alive, evenat the expense later of sacrificing his own life.

I hope I could answer this question pretty well! Thank youfor asking!

[tmmsradio-blog]

President Trump Directed His Attorney To Lie To Congress | It Is Impeachment time

Trump received 10 personal updates from Michael Cohen and encouraged a planned meeting with Vladimir Putin. Trump received 10 personal updates from Michael Cohen and encouraged a planned meeting with Vladimir Putin.

Jason Leopold BuzzFeed News Reporter

Anthony Cormier BuzzFeed News Reporter Posted on January 17, 2019, at 10:11 p.m.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters Donald Trump and his longtime attorney Michael Cohen. President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter. Trump also supported a plan, set up by Cohen, to visit Russia during the presidential campaign, in order to personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations. “Make it happen,” the sources said Trump told Cohen. And even as Trump told the public he had no business deals with Russia, the sources said Trump and his children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. received regular, detailed updates about the real estate development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project.

Help us reveal more stories like this. Become a BuzzFeed News member today.

Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying about the deal in testimony and in a two-page statement to the Senate and House intelligence committees. Special counsel Robert Mueller noted that Cohen’s false claim that the project ended in January 2016 was an attempt to “minimize links between the Moscow Project and Individual 1” — widely understood to be Trump — “in hopes of limiting the ongoing Russia investigations.” Now the two sources have told BuzzFeed News that Cohen also told the special counsel that after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie — by claiming that negotiations ended months earlier than they actually did — in order to obscure Trump’s involvement. Got a tip? You can email tips@buzzfeed.com. To learn how to reach us securely, go to tips.buzzfeed.com. The special counsel’s office learned about Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents. Cohen then acknowledged those instructions during his interviews with that office. This revelation is not the first evidence to suggest the president may have attempted to obstruct the FBI and special counsel investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. But Cohen's testimony marks a significant new frontier: It is the first known example of Trump explicitly telling a subordinate to lie directly about his own dealings with Russia. On the campaign trail, Trump vehemently denied having any business interests in Russia. But behind the scenes, he was pushing the Moscow project, which he hoped could bring his company profits in excess of $300 million. The two law enforcement sources said he had at least 10 face-to-face meetings with Cohen about the deal during the campaign.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters BuzzFeed News first reported last year that Cohen and an associate, Felix Sater, had continued working on Trump Tower Moscow through June 2016. Sater communicated with Russian bankers, developers, and officials connected to the Kremlin. That revelation was confirmed in Mueller’s filings against Cohen in court last November. Attorneys close to the administration helped Cohen prepare his testimony and draft his statement to the Senate panel, the sources said. The sources did not say who the attorneys were or whether they were part of the White House counsel’s staff, and did not present evidence that the lawyers knew the statements would be false. An attorney for Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel who reportedly gave about 30 hours of testimony to the special counsel, told BuzzFeed News: “Don McGahn had no involvement with or knowledge of Michael Cohen’s testimony. Nor was he aware of anyone in the White House Counsel’s Office who did.”

Drew Angerer / Getty Images Former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II in the lobby of Trump Tower in 2016. His attorney told BuzzFeed News that McGahn “had no involvement with or knowledge of Michael Cohen’s testimony. Nor was he aware of anyone in the White House Counsel’s Office who did.” After Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the matter, Mueller’s team filed a memo in court saying he had offered them “credible” and “useful” information over the course of seven interviews. The special counsel wrote that Cohen had provided details about his contacts with “persons connected to the White House” in 2017 and 2018 and about how he had prepared his statements to Congress. The White House did not return detailed messages seeking comment, nor did an attorney for Donald Trump Jr. or the Trump Organization. A spokesperson for the Office of Special Counsel declined to comment. Cohen also declined comment — but the law enforcement sources familiar with his testimony to the special counsel said he had confirmed that Trump directed him to lie to Congress, and also that he had provided details of his conversations about the project with the president and Ivanka and Donald Jr. Those three members of the Trump family have distanced themselves from the Moscow project, saying that they had little knowledge of the negotiations. But a picture of their deep involvement is now emerging, as FBI agents and prosecutors pore over witness interviews and internal documents from Cohen and other Trump Organization officials and executives. Trump was even made aware that Cohen was speaking to Russian government officials about the deal. The lawyer at one point spoke to a Kremlin aide as he sought support for the tower. Trump also encouraged Cohen to plan a trip to Russia during the campaign, where the candidate could meet face-to-face with Putin. BuzzFeed News has previously reported that text messages and emails show Sater — a real estate developer, convicted stock swindler, and longtime asset for US government intelligence agencies — worked furiously to arrange a trip for Cohen to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, where he was supposed to meet with top Russian bankers and government officials. Cohen told Sater that to advance the deal, Trump himself would also go to Russia, after the Republican National Convention in July 2016.

Melissa Lyttle / Melissa Lyttle for BuzzFeed News Felix Sater, who worked with Michael Cohen to get Trump Tower Moscow built, at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2018. The trip to St. Petersburg never took place and the plans to build Trump Tower Moscow never came to fruition. But the negotiations occupy an important place in Mueller’s investigation, as agents try to learn whether it is connected to the Kremlin’s interference campaign and whom Trump associates were in contact with to close the deal. Got a tip? You can email tips@buzzfeed.com. To learn how to reach us securely, go to tips.buzzfeed.com. After Cohen pleaded guilty last November, Trump defended his continued involvement in the Moscow project during the election, telling reporters: “There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won, in which case I would have gotten back into the business, and why should I lose lots of opportunities?” Federal agents looking into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election also tried to clarify the roles that Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. played in the Moscow tower negotiations, the sources said. In his plea deal with Mueller’s team, Cohen acknowledged that the conversations he had about the project with Trump exceeded the three short briefings he testified that he gave the president and that he also held more extensive discussions about it with other members of the Trump family. The sources said Cohen gave Trump’s children “very detailed updates.”

Provided to BuzzFeed News An architectural rendering of the proposed Trump Tower in Moscow. Ivanka Trump was slated to manage a spa at the tower and personally recommended an architect. She also instructed Cohen to speak with a Russian athlete who offered “synergy on a government level” to get the Moscow project off the ground, in another aspect of the deal first revealed by BuzzFeed News that later was affirmed by the special counsel’s sentencing memo. Cohen rebuffed the athlete’s proposal, which angered Ivanka Trump, according to emails reviewed by BuzzFeed News. A spokesperson for Ivanka Trump's attorney wrote that she was only “minimally involved” in the project. “Ms. Trump did not know about this proposal until after a non-binding letter of intent had been signed, never talked to anyone outside the Organization about the proposal, never visited the prospective project site and, even internally, was only minimally involved,” wrote Peter Mirijanian. Donald Trump Jr., meanwhile, testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 7, 2017, that he was only “peripherally aware” of the plan to build a tower in Moscow. “Most of my knowledge has been gained since as it relates to hearing about it over the last few weeks.” The two law enforcement sources disputed this characterization and said that he and Cohen had multiple, detailed conversations on this subject during the campaign. Cohen will testify publicly before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Feb. 7. ● Source: President Trump Directed His Attorney To Lie To Congress About The Moscow Tower Project Read the full article

[topicprinter]

Hi everyone, I've generated some buzz with a few of my past posts on the /r/startups, /r/entrepreneur, and /r/marketing subreddits so I figured I'd write something else useful that you all might appreciate. I'm huge on content production and content marketing strategies so I want to provide a simple case study of a piece of content I produced earlier this week.It's probably not the most interesting piece of content, but I'll highlight the relevant points and reasons why I structured the content the way I did. In the first 3 days, this piece of content has already ranked on the first page of Google for some long-tail keywords and has generated some traffic. For only being 3 days old, that's not bad at all and I expect this piece of content to rank in the top 3 for a wide-variety of search terms.The bolded text is blog content so you can disregard reading it if you don't care to read about why there are more bugs during summertime and how to get rid of them! Full blog post here for those who are interested.Why are There More Bugs During the Summer? 4 FREE Ways to get Rid of Bugs! So this is the title of this piece of content. the main things I'm trying to rank for are "why are there more bugs during the summer" and "free ways to get rid of bugs". With ranking long-tailed terms like this, it will give a lot of variety and I might rank for similar long-tailed terms. If you search "Why are there more bugs during the summer" this blog is actually on the first page already. Additionally, if you search "free ways to get rid of bugs", you might not see this on the first page, but this blog is already ranked #4 in the past year for that search term. I anticipate it will rise pretty quickly. The last thing to note is the number in the title. I've noticed higher clickthrough rates with numbers in my titles and think they are eye catching to a reader.Summer time is right around the corner. For some of us, that means more time around the pool, time with family, vacations, and fun in the sun! For all of us, summer means more bugs. So why are there more bugs during the summer and how can you get rid of them? Take note of the last sentence. I asked a question, and word for word wrote out the keyword I want searched. This improves the keyword density and improves the relevancy of the content to appear in searches.The easiest thing you can do is get a price quote for pest control services and let a professional take care of it. While this solution is convenient and your best bet to win the battle against bugs, it can also cost you over $300. Before spending that kind of money, use some of our free ways to get rid of bugs during the summer time. I actually have an internal link on my website to get a price quote for pest control services since my company provides that service. I wrote this paragraph as a partial call-to-action, but more for the purpose of gaining the reader's trust.Why are There More Bugs During the Summer? This is my first header. It's different from the title, but again, this is word for word what I want to rank for on search engines.Bugs don’t like the cold so it’s only natural that you see more of them during warmer months. During the winter, it’s much more common for bugs to conserve energy and stay underground below the frost line. Generally, it’s much warmer underground and they have stored food or body fat in preparation for the colder season. Information about bugs...not much great info to point out. It's relevant to what the reader is here to learn about.During the summer, the hunt for food and water resumes which are another reason bugs are much more visible. Summer months tend to produce more rainfall which attracts bugs and helps produce food for them as well. More relevant information to the reader about bugs4 FREE Ways to get Rid of Bugs This is my second header. Headers are very important and let's search engines know what the content is about. I made this a header and included some of these terms in the title as well since I want them to rank. As stated earlier, this blog is already #4 in the past year for the term, "free ways to get rid of bugs"1. Mow your lawn. It sounds simple, but it actually does work! Bugs love the heat, but they don’t want to sit out in the sun and roast. Keeping your grass mowed to prevent bugs from having access to a safe haven from the sun. I started a list here. Lists give your content variety and readers love them. Readers love them and stay on your page longer which looks good to search engines! Search engines like lists in general so implement them when you can!2. Clean up spills and fallen fruit. Bugs love anything that provides them sugar. A small amount of sugar can provide bugs enough food and energy to last them for weeks. If you have a sugary spill on the inside or outside of your home, clean it up before it attracts bugs. The same goes for fallen fruit. Fallen fruit rots when it disconnects from the tree which means it naturally breaks open and decomposes. Bugs will be all over that piece of fruit as soon as they can access the contents on the inside. Info for the list...nothing too important here3. Clean up fallen leaves too! You’ll be sure to find plenty of bugs in fallen leaves so it is in your best interest to clean them up! If those leaves begin collecting on the side of your home, you’re increasing the risk of bugs coming inside your home as well. Info for the list4. Turn your hoses off. Remember how I mentioned bugs searching for water during the summer? Turn your hose off so that you don’t make it easy for them to get water! It may seem like common sense, but as you leave your hose on and a small puddle begins to form, it won’t take long for bugs to find you. Info for the listExperiencing Bug Problems? This header isn't as relevant for search terms, but more to wrap everything up and add a call-to-action for the readers.If you are still experiencing bug problems, please don’t hesitate to contact us. If you answer a few questions, up to 3 of our professional pest control service members would be happy to provide you with a free price quote. Great Pros is Arizona’s leading startup servicing home owners with all of their home projects. All professionals carry to proper licenses and qualifications so you never have to worry about the job that is being done. Full call-to-action. We are a lead generation company for contractors and we love when our readers convert to project requests! Our content is all built with a call-to-action and we are seeing great success. In Phoenix alone, we have generated over 1000 project requests in 3 months. Content marketing works and it's one of the most critical aspects of our business. If any of you have any questions, I am more than willing to help!

[felixmaxwell317]

writing an about me... it’s good for psychological development to occasionally define oneself...

i’m an artist. i’m a stoner. i’m a writer. i’m an adult. i’m creative. i’m innovative. i’m a philosopher. i’m an intellectual. i’m spiritual. i’m psychic. i do yoga. i work out. i meditate. i play guitar. i sing. i play jazz, country, metal, classical music, folk music, contemporary pop, indie music, shoe gaze, avant-garde. i’m a comedian. i like watching t.v. and i like films. i like turner classic movies. i like skateboarding. i like fashion. i like fashion magazines. all the cute girls are in there. 

i want to get back into skateboarding again. i haven’t skated in years. when i was younger, like in elementary school, i used to skate like literally all day long. i felt like i was really happy then. like skateboarding was really fulfilling.

playing guitar is more interesting though, there are more notes.

writing some aggressive country music has been really interesting and fun lately... i never really wrote any country music but i’ve been enjoying it lately. i’ve got to find more stuff to write about though... i wrote about firewood and cutting down trees, that was good.

the book i’m writing is called magazine t.v. i’ve got like 250 pages done, and i think i’m gonna stop at 300. i guess it’s taken me about a year to come up with all the stories that are in the book. it’s like seven different stories that all come together. it’s sci-fi, like the twilight zone or the outer limits but with lots of time travel... i’ve got to find a publisher or some people who know publishers...

and by the way, i’ve had this tumblr for the last year but i haven’t been that social on here. i guess it’s because i’ve been traveling and then i was looking for a job and trying to figure my life out so i was really caring about talking to people on here but is anyone online?

i’m not necessarily bored but it would be cool to talk to people on here again, years ago i used to have like a set group of friends but then my tumblr got deleted... like randomly, everything was gone and there was a picture that some hacker put up which said something about like them wanting me to be peaceful or something? idk it was really weird, i was also posting a lot of anarchist stuff then and idk maybe they put up my blog after like a few months but it was gone for awhile...

anyways, yeah... i totally lost like all of poetry then. years and years of writing, all gone in one day. i had like hundreds of selections, and i was on the verge of having enough to put it all into one book. since then, i haven’t really written any “poetry” but i’ve graduated to writing books, and longer stories... short stories about 20 to 50 pages or so...

all of the poetry i used to have up there was really good. i remember one sentence i wrote for a prose book and it was like super good. something about a flat black table and some kind of paper weight made of elephant bone, and maybe a description of a tree. i was going to write the whole book in the most elaborate prose style i could figure but it was just really complicated. i was reading east of eden around that time. i wanted to write about life on a farm but then i was like, no that’s like east of eden. but now that it’s been a few years i feel comfortable writing about life on a farm.

east of eden by john steinbeck was just really good.

thinking about that book makes me think about a girl i dated then named annamarie. she’s super cute, and super rich. her parents had a house out in the country like twenty minutes from a nearby college town. she had a nice car. and she was just super nice, really comfortable to be around. we ended up breaking up when i was drunk because of some shit about some parties or something. i miss her. she was really cool. 

since then i’ve dated a few girls, and i moved in with one but she was super cool. 

we only dated for four months but that was a good time. and she was rich.

like she was pretty rich.

i was totally drinking and smoking bud all the time and working my ass off to pay for my car, rent and buying music equipment for my band. having a rich girlfriend was really beneficial then.

that was a good time.

she was cool for a lot of reasons, not just because she’s rich. she was really encouraging about my music, and she got along with everyone in my band and everyone in band thought she was cool. like, no one hit on her but like, everyone got along really well. it was good that she was friends with my friends.

i don’t know if i’ve had any girl friends who weren’t friends with my friends but maybe it’s because my band was almost about to release an album and then she was there and we were all excited and i was like in four different bands then. my band, my friend parkers band, another band named polyphia... yeah the famous one, i was gonna play guitar with scottie and tim. that was back when brandon burkhalter was the drummer. idk what he’s doing now. 

man, that makes me want to write some more metal. 

i’ve just been working on that country stuff. it’s a new band called ego. like the whole concept is a really strong country guy who is really intellectual, like most of the lyrics are about stuff in the country mixed with psychology. 

“ideas, ideology, the reason for my beliefs, root myself in something deep, the inside makes me feel alive to reason with myself, myself... down to the last of the woods of winter, burns at the bones of tree trunks, all that’s left on my collection wheel just days before i am to leave, who knows the truth. soon, i’ll be driving in my car again down that old dirt country road to the city...”

stuff like that... and that song is actually about when i was staying at my friends house in the country and then right as i was about to leave, i noticed that there was really only enough wood for the few days i was going to be there. firewood that is. and i kind of felt like it was weird, because why would my friend who has been living out there in country for years gather up only enough wood to be burned during my whole stay there? like he would have prepared more... or idk but it was weird. felt like a dream, or like destiny that there would only be enough firewood on his farm for me to burn.

anyways, writing metal would be good. i guess i should do that. it just takes a long time. like hours and hours to write everything because twenty notes gets played in a few seconds when someone is playing technical metal, and to arrange twenty notes in a unique dissonant fashion can be challenging sometimes... i knew a few people who it used to take them like six months just to write a few songs, like three or four... i normally write a little bit faster but it’s still takes a long time...

i’m gonna write some music.

i’m supposed to buy a car in a few days.

i’ve still got to find one... there’s a few in the town i live in for the price i’m looking for...

after that i’ve gotta find a room to rent...

hopefully i’ll get my book published soon...

does anyone know any publishers or anyone who has published a book?

my name is elliott by the way... find me on Facebook if you have Facebook. it’s elliott raisler.