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umichenginabroad · 6 months

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Madrid Week 9/10: Viva Italia (Part 2… part 2!)

Hola a todxs! Niko here, back again from where we left off in the last post discussing my Spring break in Italy. Let’s jump right in.

Hitting all Cinque of the Terres

Cinque Terre is a region of towns on the Northeast coast of Italy. You’ve probably seen a picture of it at some point. Colorful buildings, seemingly tumbling down the mountain and falling into the bright blue of the Mediterranean sea. There are five towns, each of them are incredibly picturesque, and each of them have a similar yet distinct energy.

I first arrived to Monterosso al Mare. The day was a bit rainy/foggy (as opposed to the typical warm, sunny, summery energy you can glean from online pictures), which actually ended up adding to the vibe. Especially early in the morning when many tourists hadn’t arrived, I felt extremely at peace. I hadn’t been to the ocean for a really long time, and the salty air, rhythmic crashing of the ocean, and wind slipping across my face transported me to a somewhat movie-like trance where I could forget about time and just explore.

Around 2 and a half hours later, Shea, my host in Florence, met me in the next town over called Vernazza, and we explored it together. The same vibe carried through, and the sun even peeked through the clouds for us, creating glittery pockets of light over the ocean. Corniglia is nestled in the mountains as opposed to the sea, and we got delicious pesto there (pesto is famous in Cinque Terre). Manarola is the most picturesque of the towns (at least in my opinion -- the image of Manarola had been engrained in my mind of what Cinque Terre was like, and it was surreal to see it in real life), and we got some delicious fried fish and local wine in Riomaggiore.

The one downside of Cinque Terre: the tourists. Especially right when a train stopped, the amount of tourists seemed to overwhelm the skinny streets of the miniscule towns, taking away from the peaceful sea-village energy that was likely once very prevalent before Cinque Terre was popularized. It was an interesting thought, especially knowing that we were contributing to this tourist-caused shift in energy. How do we balance sharing the beauty of places like this with the world with the consequences that ultimately come with their discovery?

1 hour in Verona

Verona was a quick stop. I went there because I got a cheap flight out of the Verona airport to Madrid, much cheaper than any nearby city. I had basically an hour between when my train arrived and when I wanted to be at the airport, so I walked around with a huge duffle bag on my shoulder to see some of the sights (very tiring). They have a mini colosseum, the house that inspired Romeo and Juliet, and some pretty picturesque castle-on-a-hill views. Honestly, I wouldn’t feel the need to go back, but I’m glad I got to see it.

Reflections

All in all, spring break was incredible. Combined with my trip visiting Gaia earlier in the semester, I think that (barring the South of Italy, which is a whole world in itself and would probably require another week) I can say that I’ve experienced Italy and its culture. So many of the things that I saw were objects that only existed as images in my mind for such a long time, and last week, they materialized in front of my eyes. Not only did I have the opportunity to see them, but I had the opportunity to experience them, which I think I did mindfully — with some nuance, of course.

A day or two ago my friend sent me a Tik Tok while I was telling her about my trip that I wish I had seen beforehand. The main point of the video: most of us live our lives like it’s a to-do list. By the end of it, we should have a sense of community, engage in some great hobbies, land a fulfilling career, see the world and its wonders. A list of items to be checked off, so that we can say “yup, I’ve done that, I saw that”. This short video claimed that many of us live life like it’s a mission to be accomplished — forgetting to enjoy it as it happens. I think I agree. As cliche as it sounds, sometimes, we focus too much on the destination and forget to appreciate the journey. The journey is where life happens.

For those of you who know me, you know that I’m all about mindfulness, living in the present, staying grounded… inner peace woo woo type stuff. Also, if you know me, you probably know that I’m all about collecting new experiences. If it’s new, I want to try it — practice all the new hobbies that interest me, see all the sights (especially if they appear on some top 20 sights to see in XX list [this is how I made a lot of my itineraries this break]), experience the diverse cultures around the world. But if we’ve ever discussed this second point, you may have also heard me use that specific language: “collect” new experiences. Almost like they’re infinity stones to add to my glove, or items to be checked off of a list.

The Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum, the David, Cinque Terre, and more — these were the images that I held in my mind. This past week, I saw them, and I marveled at them. I really do think that I was present in these moments. I took the time to revel in their beauty, I remembered to pause and tune into how they made me feel, instead of snapping a photo and moving on to the next sight. The David was a strong example. I hope I never forget the chills that ran down my spine when I saw the statue at the end of the museum hall, shocked by the immensity, perfection, and humanity exuded by this sculpted piece of marble.

Over spring break, I enjoyed the journey. But simultaneously, I put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself throughout the week to see all of these things, to collect these experiences. An example: I built myself the narrative that if I didn’t see all 5 of the towns in Cinque Terre, I would have to go back at some point and see them, because something about visiting this place without capitalizing upon the opportunity to take mental snapshots of every view I’ve seen on Google Images didn’t sit right with me. As a result, I think that I rushed through them a bit so I could visit each one in the time I had, which didn’t allow me to fully bask in the energy of any one of them.

Writing this reflection, I’ve landed on this important conclusion: I have to make a conscious effort to live for myself, not for my ego.

The little voice in the back of my head that told me I had to see every village was my ego speaking: “Now you can say you’ve seen it, you’ve collected this awesome experience, you can tell others all about it and keep the memory for yourself and most importantly now you don’t have to return, you can move on to experiencing the rest of the world, because you gotta see it all!”.

The world is an amazing place. There are too many things worth experiencing, and not enough time to experience them. There are going to be beautiful things I'll never see, complex feelings I'll never comprehend, incredible people I will never meet, and that’s something that I will come to terms with.

It’s okay to have this hunger for experiencing the world. In fact, I think it’s one of my strengths. But as I continue to live, I need to remind myself to focus on the the actual process of living, remembering to be gentle with myself, giving myself space to appreciate the fleeting moments and feelings before they're gone.

I've gotten deep all of the sudden, must be the mindfulness club influence or something :). I’ll finish this section with a quote from the movie Good Will Hunting, a favorite movie of mine. It’s not 100% related, but it's pretty topical, talks about the Sistine Chapel and the meaning of life, and I think it's beautifully written. It speaks for itself.

___________

“Sean (the therapist) : [sitting on a bench in front of a pond in park] Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me... fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven't thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me?

Will (the patient) : No.

Sean : You're just a kid, you don't have the faintest idea what you're talkin' about.

Will : Why thank you.

Sean : It's all right. You've never been out of Boston.

Will : Nope.

Sean : So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right?

[Will nods]

Sean : You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.”

the movie clip from the quote

———————

Overall, Spring Break was incredible. As promised, I've made a list. This one is finalized for now, as I won't be going back to Italy anytime soon.

All of Italy Google Maps List (Milan, Asti, Turine, Rome, Bologna, Cinque Terre, Florence)

However, getting back to Madrid on Monday, I felt a big sense of relief. It felt a bit like I was returning home. I was getting tired of eating only carbs for every meal (and not being able to cook). I was so glad to be able to communicate in the country’s native language again — I feel much more comfortable occupying the space of “international student” rather than “tourist”, and I think speaking the language is a big component of that.

I also missed the energy of Spain and Madrid, a feeling I’ll use to remember to really appreciate the time I have left here. It’s going by fast. It’s April now, and before I know it, two months will fly by and it’ll be time for me to go home. Guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you all next week!

Ciao,

Niko Economos

Aerospace Engineering

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Madrid, Spain

[email protected]

#UmichEnginAbroad #IPEUC3M #NikoEconomos #IPEWinter24 #Spain

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saturnsummer · 3 years

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helpless.

han joon hwi does all he can to save kang sol a. kang sol a, for the first time, realises she’s not alone.

ao3 link

notes: this has been manifesting in me ever since i saw the scene of sol a fainting. i’m sorry it’s so long, but i hope the law school fans like it! it’s my first time, but i’m open to request and improvements. do share with your fellow solhwi fans if you like it! any grammar mistakes and all will be taken fully responsible by me.

edit: this is written by @inactiverat , which is MY secondary account. i did not copy this from someone else. both accounts belong to ME. i am republishing this on my primary blog to better manage.

words: 4130 words.

it’s been a terrible day for sol.

forget about a terrible day, it has been a week of horror.

she can’t remember the last time she laid her head on the pillow of her clean sheets and mattress. with her semester test coming on friday, she has spent the entire weekend cramming for her test. she has opted to sleep at her desk for no more than 10 minutes at a time. her eyes sting from the roll-on muscle relief ointment that she rolls on every few hours under her eyes. her head pounds and the only things she has eaten are ramyeon and black coffee. (no sugar, extra shots.)

sol sighs as she fixes another highlighter in her top bun. she’s been staring at the same question for hours. she looks over her desk, hoping to find peace by seeing a sleeping sol b, but only remembers that she went home. her tiger mom’s orders, since “she shouldn’t study with her roommate, who is at the bottom of the cohort.”

sol visibly frowned as she thought of that sentence. she doesn't need to be reminded every minute and second of her life that she’s the worst. that whenever she fails a test, the smarty pants are cheering due to the bell curve. that she barely scrapes through every class. that she blubbers and mutters answers like an idiot in every lecture.

that’s why she works so hard. to show that she doesn't need money or connections to succeed in this school. that a single parented girl, making enough to get by, holding a part time job can be like the rest. for her mom, she tolerated years of violent abuse, yet still being so strong for her children. for dan, who she so desperately misses and wants to find, even though she knows dan may never want to see her. for byeol, the reason why she decided to study law; the only human she loves in this lawless world.

sol knows she’s pushing herself too hard. yeseul made an effort to remind her to sleep via text. bokgi teased her once during a study group after mentioning she looks like a disheveled panda. even professor kim pulled her out of lecture to give her a talk to remind her to eat.

but joon hwi hasn't.

she internally scoffs. she doesn’t expect him to. (what does a second round judicial exam passer want to know about the worst student?) and maybe, she doesn't want him to. she wants to show him she can do it on her own. she can’t count the number of times he helped her with her grades and cases. studying alone without help was the smallest thing she can do to show him her independence.

thus, she found every moment to stay away. well, from him, in particular. she only came to lectures on time, sat at the back (as opposed to next to him) and left immediately. she returns to her dorm to study (ditching study groups with him in it) and only leaves in the odd hours to get drinks and food when she’s absolutely starving. she hears the buzzes and rings from yeseul and joonhwi, but only smiles when they ask about her inactivity. (“it was dead. i must have forgotten to charge it again.”)

she sighs in frustration and stands from her chair, grabbing her phone and keys out to the pantry area. she needed more caffeine, if she was going to survive this night.

what she doesn't expect to see, is han joon hwi, devouring his late night snack of ramyeon at the table. the shuffling of her furry slippers raises his head from his precious bowl.

“you’re still up?” he asks.

it’s too late to turn around and pretend she didn’t see him. so instead, sol just nods silently as opposed to her defensive remarks. joon hwi stops slurping his noodles and sets the bowl aside. preparing to walk to the staircase, his next question freezes sol in her steps.

“why have you been avoiding me?”

his voice is gentle and nowhere near angry. but concerned and fearful, as if he’s done something wrong to upset her. for a moment, sol feels like she’s in her first lecture with professor yang and is left speechless. (only now, there is no where to hide.)

joon hwi wasn’t blind to her actions. he noticed her absence when she didn’t sit next to him in lectures. he noticed that whenever he was there for a study group session, she wouldn’t; but when he would ask the others, they would say she was there for the ones he wasn’t. joon hwi was certain that sol was avoiding him.

and he couldn’t understand why.

until now.

joon hwi’s eyes examine the young woman in front of him. he’s certain that a middle school student could figure this out; kang sol a is overworked. her dark eye circles are prominent, puffy and her bloodshot eyes do nothing but intensify her lack of sleep. he noticed just how pale her lips look, as he walks over to her. how has she gotten skinnier too?

joon hwi’s certain that she’s avoiding him not because of something he said that annoyed her. but because he knows that she doesn’t want him to see her in this state. his eyes soften and heart aches from the amount of effort she's putting in to her tests.

for sol, he knows how much the tests meant. it was like her entire life depended on it. that’s why he always wanted to help her. he didn’t want to see such a talented person fall behind. she has already proven herself worthy with all the cases she has participated in. but joon hwi knows that no matter how many times yeseul or bokgi or him say how smart and talented and how she’s doing great, she will never be satisfied in this cold, competitive prestigious school. she will always think she’s the worst and has no potential.

“sol.” his voice firm and serious. sol swears she felt a chill run down. she mentally braces herself for this conversation that she has tried all means to avoid. only one person dares address her as just ‘sol’.

“when did you last sleep? or eat proper food?” his eyes are serious, yet soft and glassy. his voice is gentle and soothing. she closes her eyes and lets out a silent sigh. she is nowhere the mock court, yet she feels like she has taken the witness stand and the oath. lying is perjury, she hears herself say.

“i’m doing fine. i just need to do well on this test.” she lies through her teeth. well, it’s a half true and a half lie. it’s just up to him to pick out which is the lie and truth. joon hwi isn’t an idiot, and can read her emotions with just a single look. it’s an utter lie.

“i’m getting coffee.” she mutters to herself. it was the whole reason she came out, anyways. her sleeve is caught by him but she yanks it away forcefully. she doesn’t even know why she’s being so harsh and angry to him. all he’s done is just ask how she’s doing.

“you need sleep. not caffeine.” he spins her around by her shoulders, his eyes serious and almost frustrated. she fails to meet his eyes, afraid of falling apart before him.

“joon, just let me be.” she says harshly and pushes his hands off before running to get that extra potent coffee. it was the first time she has ever called him that, and it falls out just as naturally as the word ‘sol’ does out of his. sol doesn’t notice how wet her eyes are until she’s downstairs, grabbing cans of coffee from the vending machine. (pathetic, she thinks, getting teary because of lying to her best friend.)

joon hwi doesn't follow. and sol isn't one bit affected.

not. at. all.

-----

the next time sol sees joon hwi is in the morning. he’s carrying his books and has his backpack slung over his shoulder, leaning against the wall. sol braces herself. she knows joon hwi to be protective and caring. but for him to be waiting at the entrance of their dorm was downright surprising.

sol’s not doing any better. when the caffeine and sugar stopped her from staying late, she resorted to stabbing her hand to keep herself awake. when her hand got too red and bloody, she switched to another spot on her arm. underneath her hoodie is her arm with dried blood and bruises all over. she’s surprised she hasn’t had blood poisoning yet.

sol flashes the most natural smile she can on her face, pretending as if her argument with him did not happen a few hours ago. her head was numb, but hanging on with the ointment she applied at her temples. she needed to act okay. just so he would stop worrying and leave her alone.

“sol.” joon hwi’s voice calls, going forward and grabbing her arm to support her. sol is about to create a joke, laugh it off and pretend everything is okay, hopefully convincing him she’s doing better (even if she’s far from it.). but what she doesn’t anticipate is his hand accidentally squeezing the sore wound of hers,

she hisses as his fingers dig into her wound and he immediately lets go. joon hwi’s eyes well in concern, not knowing what he’s done that caused her so much pain. sol’s eyes meet his, uncertain and afraid, as if a secret has been exposed. she pulls her sleeve down and is almost regretting that when joon hwi gently lifts her arm and lifts her sleeve up slightly to expose her arm and hand.

joon hwi takes her good hand in his and drags her to an empty staircase not far from where they were. joon hwi notes the dried blood on her hand and gives a disapproving sigh. just what was she doing to herself? she draws her hand back and pulls her sleeve down, hiding it away.

“sol, you need to take care of yourself.”

“joon, i’m doing okay, i promise. it’s not a big deal.” her voice upbeat and slightly more energetic. joon hwi is about to call her out from lying, but she flashes a smile. “come on, how can an exam defeat me?”

“i’m going to be late.” she says and runs ahead of him, joining yeseul and yebeom in front. sol feels a gnawing guilt in her heart for lying, but she momentarily forgets about it as yebeom sweeps them into a conversation.

i’m sorry, joon. i really am. but i’m not going to burden you any further.

joon hwi is left, helpless and broken, watching the back of the woman he loves stray further.

-----

it isn’t a secret that joon hwi and sol a are good friends. everyone on campus is always shocked. joon hwi, the school’s top student. sol a, the school’s worst student. everyone would have expected sol b when they heard ‘kang sol’. after all, it made sense, didn’t it? the two best students in school.

but what would be even more shocking is that han joon hwi, second round judicial exam passer, is deep in love with kang sol, the klutz with the top bun.

joon hwi couldn’t deny the joy he felt whenever sol was around. it started with study group and tutoring and messages about school. then it became lunches every moment they could. now, he couldn’t go a day without seeing her, hearing her voice or even a simple text. he can’t remember the moment he started falling for the clumsy woman, but when he realised it, he knew it was too late. he was in, deep.

and that's why he can’t bear to see her suffer. that’s why he spends late nights studying with her even though he doesn't need to. that’s why he insist walking her home, even though he installed the camera. (“i miss byeol! that smart cookie...” would always be his excuse.) that’s why he calls her ‘sol’, and he lets her call him ‘joon’, even though no one calls him that anymore.

sol locks herself in her room and buries herself under multiple books after her lectures. sol admits it, she’s tired. she can barely keep herself together and her body is so weak she doesn’t know how she managed to survive the week with less than two hours of sleep combined per day. she can’t remember the last nap she had that lasted more than half an hour.

the guilt from lying is eating her inside. when she closes her eyes, she can only see how hurt joon hwi’s face looks when he saw her arm. taking a shaky breath in, she doesn’t notice the tear running down her cheek. what was she even crying about? lying? hurting her best friend? fatigue? she slams her head against her books, shaking her thoughts out. it’s already 3am, and she doesn’t have much time left.

“kang sol a, you need to do this exam, you hear me? if you want to pass out, do it later on in the afternoon! you have 9 hours till the test.” she scolds herself out loud. stabbing her arm once again, she jerks herself awake and writes her notes over and over. just 9 more hours.

later on in the day, sol finds herself seated next to joon hwi. but she doesn’t notice him. her eyes are too out of focus to concentrate on anything but the paper and pen she holds. when the teaching assistant makes an announcement to start, she races against time and scribbles furiously. her head throbs, but she clings on to her last ounce of sanity keeping herself awake.

-----

she’s worse. joon hwi thinks. much, much worse. her skin is paler than normal and her eyes are fluttery. with her sleeve pulled up slightly, he notices the wound on her hand more bloody than it was. he visibly winces. but it’s nothing to the hurt in his heart. he knows that he should be busy scribbling, but his eyes are slightly glassy and all he can think of is her bloody hand.

all he wants to do is to drag her away. to take her far from this school. he wants to hold her small body in his arms and cradle her as he tends to her wounds. he wants to tuck her into a soft bed and stroke her brown hair. he wants to tell her how he feels, how she’s perfect, smart and beautiful in his eyes. how sol has already had his validation, and no matter how many kang sols there are, he will only have one in his heart.

as the clock leaves a minute or so to the end, sol struggles to keep her head from falling. she just needs to finish the last sentence. her eyes are blurred and her head has never felt more tight and woozy. her ramyeon from 4am is threatening to make an appearance.

“sol, you’re bleeding.” she hears an familiar echoed voice say next to her. instinctively, she brings a hand up to her nose, and wipes it, revealing the bright red blood. she can’t care for her jacket sleeve and carelessly wipes even though her arm aches. just a bit more, she tells herself.

the voices around her blur as she feels hands on her shoulder stopping her. she pushes them off weakly as she finishes the last word on her paper. she lets out a breath of relief and pushes her paper away from her. she’s finally done. she can finally breathe and have that nap. someone calls her name, but she’s too tired to respond.

then her eyes rolls back and she crashes into oblivion.

joon hwi manages to catch her head before it hits the table as she slumps sideways. he scribbles his name on his paper before chucking his paper and hers towards the teaching assistant. yeseul passes a tissue over to joon hwi and shakes her, eyes getting teary. he gently blots her nose, soaking up the blood. the other students leave unbothered, with only their study group crowding around them.

the next hour is a mad rush in joon hwi’s head. they are frantic for an ambulance, but joon hwi just cradles her body in his arms and runs outside. “it’s faster to run.” he says before taking off. she’s light, way too light for her frame, even with the layered coats that she’s wearing. when he reaches the hospital, she’s laid on a stretcher and sent for checks while the nurses ask him to wait for short while outside.

and for the third time, he stands outside, clutching to a bloody tissue, helpless.

-----

joon hwi wants to beat himself over and over. he should have been more forceful with her. heck, he should have done more than just watch silently. he should have sent packed lunches, compiled his notes, offered to stay up with her. even after when he knows how much sol is suffering, he only stood by.

his eyes are teary when he is allowed to see her. she looks so small under those white sheets. the doctor mentions that they had to take her hoodie off to patch her wounds and insert her IV drip. “dehydrated on caffeine, lack of nutrients and fatigue.” the doctor tells him. he only nods as the doctor leaves him.

his group chat is pinging with endless messages and he takes a moment to update them. he sends a quick text that he’ll let them know when she’s awake. his hand brushes the stray hairs out of her eyes and as best as he can, arranges her bangs the way she likes. his touch is as light as a butterfly as he lets his fingers brush pass her bandages.

with the curtain closed around him, joon hwi lets himself crumble silently, as tears run down his face, hands gripping sol’s stained hoodie sleeve. he wishes he could do something then just watch sol lie on the bed. he knows she is okay, but knowing that he could have prevented this worse case scenario from happening makes him upset. he gives himself a few minutes to compose himself before taking his own hoodie and layering it on her.

and for hours, joon hwi sits by her bed in his own thoughts, once again helpless.

-----

when she wakes up, her head pounds worse than the time she got the worse hangover in school. her eyes flutter, drawing the attention of joon hwi. her mind is cloudy as she starts registering the antiseptic smell and bright lights. her eyes come into focus as she turns over to find a pair of warm brown eyes looking at her.

“joon hwi...?” she says with barely any energy.

“you’re awake.” joon hwi lets himself sigh in relief knowing that she’s awake. it’s already 6pm. the others should be on their way over soon. he sends a quick “she’s awake” to the chat and shuts his phone.

“i... finished my exam right?” the words come tumbling out of sol’s mouth.

“that’s all you are thinking of now?” the anger in joon hwi’s voice catches her by surprise. she lowers her hand and avoids his eyes. she’s really done it, then. she’s really pissed him off.

“aren’t you one bit concerned about your health? you could have literally died being so overworked.” his eyes are glassy. realising that he’s frightening her, he lets a sigh out. joon hwi helps her sit up and props a pillow for her. her fingers fiddle with the thin blanket of the bed. there’s no point being strong in front of him now, after all this.

“you know how much every test means to me.” she mutters in a voice so soft, it’s unlike her to be so...small. joon hwi knows under that strong woman with a fiery passion for justice, there’s a vulnerable little girl, insecure and uncertain. but this was the first time, he realised, that she’s opening up herself.

“i’m so tired, joon. i’m so tired of running this stupid rat race that i’ll never win. i’m so sick of putting everything into my grades and not receiving anything back.” her voice so small, staring at the bandages on her hand. was the pain worth it? she’s not sure now.

joon hwi doesn’t say anything back. how could he? this man was born for this system, to bring law back to the country. he can’t compare to her, who spends countless nights studying, while taking care of her family. all he can do is sit by her bed and provide comfort.

“my head hurts. my body aches all over. yet, i can’t seem to do well in my exams. tell me, joon. just how long must i suffer?” his heart is pierced with every word she says. she’s so broken. joon hwi then notices the small pearls of tears dripping down her face.

his hand reaches out and his thumb rubs away her tears on her cheeks. he doesn’t know what prompted this, but sol doesn’t swat his hand away. she lets him as her hand wipes her remaining tears away.

“i’m here now. you can rely on me.” he says softly to her. suddenly, he takes her small hand in his and squeezes it in comfort. sol’s slightly taken aback, but she doesn’t know why she feels fuzzy inside. she feels warm and for the first time, she feels her burden lifted. with much courage, she gives a small smile.

“noona!” they hear a familiar panicked voice ring and they instinctively draw away from each other. if joon hwi’s face is slightly red, sol doesn't notice. sol is swept away into arguing with bokgi with her health and a teary eyed yeseul. even jiho and sol b came, but stood by silently. (jiho notices joon hwi’s flushed cheeks and his too-bright smile that he finally realises is meant for kang sol a. he makes a mental note about it.)

joon hwi leans back as he watches yeseul and bokgi fuss with sol’s health. he suppresses a smile as he looks at sol’s light laugh, knowing how her burdens are slowly fading and lifted. that he’s finally managed to reach out for his soulmate as she sinks further. it was going to be a journey, but joon hwi will drag her, his sol, out from her darkness every time.

i’m going to be there, no matter what, kang sol. you will not fight alone. i will stay with you, even when you think you don’t deserve it. it doesn't matter if you feel the same towards me or not. if i can see you smile and laugh, it’s enough for me. your happiness is all that matters.

because kang sol, i just love you so damm much.

-----

sol doesn’t notice the switch in her jacket. when she leaves about an hour later with her friends to eat jjajangmyeon (extra pickles, she orders.), she assumes the jacket she has by her bed is hers. she doesn't notice the sandalwood and jasmine smell, as opposed to her pine scented fabrics. when joon hwi teases her and she argues back in annoyance, she’s carefree and light.

when joon hwi smiles at her with his sweet smile, she can’t help but think she’s so lucky that she has him, of all people, by her side. her heart skips a beat, and she’s certain that she feels more than friends towards him. that all this time, she has finally fallen for the cheeky and charming joon hwi behind his intellect.

she smiles back, teeth bared and eyes crinkled as they walk back.

after all, who is to stand against her now, when she has him by her side?

joon hwi, thank you for finding me no matter how much i try to hide away. thank you for believing in me when everyone didn’t. i know you like someone else, and it’s okay. because whoever that is will be so damm lucky to have you. to see you smile your charming smile is enough to put me at ease.

because han joon hwi, i admit, i have fallen for you. i’m in love with you.

-----

bonus:

“noona, they like each other, don’t they?” bokgi watches as sol a barks at joon hwi. joon hwi only runs ahead and buries his hands in his hoodie pockets while letting out light laughs and continues teasing.

“oh, they are so whipped for each other.” yeseul triumphantly says as she walks with the rest behind the not-so-obvious lovebirds.

well, this would be an interesting relationship to see unfold.

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sweet-steddie · 6 years

Text

Good Luck (e.d. & g.d.)

Summary: @slovakdolan requested that I write about the main character getting ready for the first day of school and the twins helping her get ready and dropping her off and maybe each giving her a kiss goodbye in front of everyone before they leave. Thank you so much for this prompt, I had a blast writing it! I hope you enjoy it!

A/N: The feedback that I’ve been getting on my other works has been incredible. So, again, I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read my stuff and actually enjoy it! I hope this one is just as fun for all of you to read!

3.1k+

I’m brushing my teeth and staring at the mirror above the sink just as Grayson comes sidling into the bathroom behind me. His eyes are a little puffy and his hair is tousled from sleep as he offers me a lopsided grin.

“Morning,” he greets in a deep voice, scratchy from a night’s worth of misuse. He rests his chin on my shoulder, resting his palms on the sink on either side of me, caging me in from behind as he closes his eyes.

“Good morning,” I garble through foamy toothpaste as he breathes out heavily through his nose. I carefully spit into the sink and rinse my mouth out a few times before heaving out a large breath of my own. It’s just simply too early to be awake and doing things at this hour. “I don’t wanna go to class, Grayson,” I whine, eyebrows furrowed as I close my eyes against the blinding fluorescent lights. Grayson begins rubbing my shoulders lightly, only deepening my sleepy state.

“I know. I don’t want you to go to class, honestly,” he agrees, “but it’s your first day back. You know you have to,” he explains gently and I groan because he’s right. I had already broken my own rule of isolation leading up to school, hoping to buckle down into school mode as the first day of the semester drew nearer. However, that plan quickly went to shit when I’d made the decision to leave my own, on-campus apartment in favor of driving the 30-plus minutes away from my place to Ethan and Grayson’s house several days ago. I only have one class scheduled this morning, at least, but that doesn’t override the fact that I’d much rather fall back into bed at this early hour. I give a petulant huff, even stomping my foot for good measure and I hear Grayson laugh sympathetically at my disgruntled state.

And the thing is, I know I shouldn’t have stayed up as late as I did last night. But stupid Ethan and stupid Grayson and their stupid, handsome faces and unbearable ability to convince me to do anything is how I ended up in a dog pile with the two boys at well past midnight, Netflix watching us as we ended up crashing on the couch. Grayson is cuddling me close to his warm, bare chest and it feels pleasantly similar to snuggling up near a furnace on this chilly morning. I have half a mind to shove him away in retaliation for keeping me awake for so long last night, but then I take into account that he voluntarily woke up early with me this morning even though he, himself, didn’t have to go to class and that makes me huddle in closer, instead.

We stay like this for a handful of minutes, just embracing each other in the quiet of the bathroom and struggling to keep from falling asleep on the spot. “You should probably start getting dressed,” Grayson murmurs eventually and I groan softly into his naked skin. “It’s just one class, baby. One class and I’ll bring you back here and I promise you we won’t leave the bed all day,” he bargains and my god, does that sound good. The ‘staying in bed all day’ part, not the ‘going to class’ part.

“Fine,” I huff quietly and he goes to disentangle our bodies so that I can begin getting dressed, but I whine softly and pull him back in tight. He smooths my hair back with one hand and cups my cheek with the other, kissing me firmly on my forehead.

“C’mon, sweetheart. I’ll sit with you while you get ready. Would that make you feel a little better?” he asks and I nod wordlessly, allowing him to pull me in the direction of his bedroom, where I’ve been storing my overstuffed overnight bag. True to his word, Grayson perches himself on the edge of his bed as I begin to rifle through the contents of my bag. As I peel through layers and layers of clothing, I quickly realize that my mind is anywhere but on the task at hand and I tell Grayson as much.

“I can’t even process what I’m looking at,” I croak out tiredly. “Help me pick something to wear,” I demand more than ask, but that doesn’t seem to bother Grayson too much, as he promptly rises from where he’s seated on the bed and joins me in front of my duffle bag.

“You sit and gather yourself for a minute. I’ll find something,” he promises, playfully hip checking me in the direction of the bed and I don’t put up an argument. I shuffle over to the mattress, careful to sit at the very edge so that I don’t accidentally retire back into my previous slumber. The room is peacefully quiet as Grayson sorts carefully through the clothes that I’ve packed. As expected, my eyelids begin to droop as I wait and, before I know it, I’m being gently nudged awake.

“Ethan?” I question as the boy, himself, stands before me, hand resting softly on my shoulder that he had gently shaken moments ago. His sleepy eyes crinkle at the corners a bit as he chuckles at my confusion.

“I know; I can’t believe I’m awake, either,” he answers the unspoken question groggily as he makes himself comfortable next to me on the bed. He slings an arm around me, situating me comfortably into his side as I rest my head on his shoulder. Not unlike Grayson, he radiates a pleasant heat that has my head lolling. “I wanted to make sure I saw you and wished you good luck on your first day before you left,” he explains, thumb running soothing circles over the skin of my arm as he and I watch Grayson continue to dig through my clothes.

“Thanks, E,” I hum, lazily pecking a kiss onto his shoulder in gratitude.

“Of course, babe,” he returns easily before asking, “are we picking out your outfit?” in reference to Grayson’s sifting.

“Yeah, dude. So far, I’ve got this top but I don’t know what bottoms to choose with it,” Grayson answers for me, holding up one of my shirts to show Ethan his dilemma. Ethan’s quiet for a moment, deep in thought.

“What about those black ones? The leggings,” Ethan points to a pair of discarded leggings on the floor near Grayson’s feet. Grayson pauses for a moment, seeming to give this suggestion some thought before he leans down to pick up the leggings, holding them near the shirt and nodding.

“Yeah. That’s a good idea,” he agrees, putting the whole outfit off to the side. “And what shoes?” he asks. Given the fact that the outfit is pretty simple - some leggings and an oversized T-shirt - I have a pretty good idea of the type of shoe that would match. Before I can give my input, however, Ethan interjects.

“The sneakers with the blue and gray. Easy,” he contributes and all I can do is shake my head at the ridiculously adorable situation at hand. Having these two pick out my outfit has to be near the top of the list of the cutest things they’ve ever done. I’m more than capable of picking out my own attire and doing a damn good job at it, but I simply lack the energy this morning and the boys can tell.

“Should we help you get the clothes on, too?” Ethan asks suggestively and I swat at his chest, giggling nonetheless at his advances.

“He has a good point,” Grayson chimes in, eyebrows raised as he shrugs his shoulders at me. “If you’re too tired to even pick out an outfit, who knows what else you might need help with,” he reasons and I feel Ethan’s shoulders shaking with quiet, smug laughter. I shimmy out from under his arm, feeling considerably more awake in my state of feeling so utterly flattered.

“Or,” I start enticingly, padding over to where Grayson’s set down the outfit and picking up the clothes, “I could do it myself.” I throw a playful smirk over my shoulder as I waltz back into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

————

No less than 45 minutes later and the boys and I are piled into Ethan’s Jeep, maneuvering side streets and back streets in order to get to my university in a timely manner. Ethan had surprised us all when he not only volunteered to accompany me to school this morning, but to drive as well. It’s the least I can do for making you stay up late last night. And I wouldn’t want you driving while you’re this tired was all he provided as an explanation and that was that.

Going to a university in L.A. meant that Ethan and Grayson rarely made campus visits, simply due to their notoriety around town. As I’ve insisted on the many occasions that we’ve hung out, I have no problem coming to them, instead, and that’s why the locale of most of our hangouts is at the boys’ house as opposed to my apartment. I remind them of this fact as we draw nearer to my campus.

“I really don’t want you guys to have to meet a million people just because you’re dropping me off. You can honestly drop me off a few blocks away and I’ll walk. Seriously, I don’t mind at all,” I stress, but am quickly shot down.

“No way. We’re not gonna dump you on the sidewalk and leave,” Ethan protests and Grayson is quick to back him up as he swivels around in the passenger seat to furrow his eyebrows at me where I sit in the backseat.

“Why would we do that? No, we’re dropping you off on your campus and whoever sees us, sees us. We’re here for you. If that means taking some pictures, then that’s ok,” Grayson reassures me and I can’t help but to smile at the sentiment he and Ethan are expressing. I simply nod my understanding, feeling an immense amount of guilty pressure lifting from my shoulders in the wake of Grayson’s and Ethan’s attitudes toward the impending situation.

There are about 15 more minutes of driving and chattering to pass the time before we arrive at our destination. In the haze of the first-day-back rush, there are plenty of people dashing too and fro in front of the campus buildings and cars and buses parking to drop students off. Ethan luckily finds parking along a curb and brings the car to a halt before he and Grayson turn to face me in the backseat almost simultaneously. My shoulders sag in defeat as I register that I’m here now and I actually have to go to class. After what felt like an endless summer break, returning for school is on par with pulling teeth right about now.

“One class, remember?” Grayson reminds me, giving me a soft smile that Ethan mirrors in my direction.

“One class,” I repeat back to motivate myself. I keep nodding as if to cement the mantra in my mind as I stare at the twins and they stare back for a few moments. “I can catch a ride back with a friend or something,” I tell them, remembering suddenly that my car is still parked at their house and that they would have to stay nearby while I sat in class if they wanted to pick me up afterward, too. Just like my last suggestion to increase convenience for them, this one is shot down.

“Nope. We’ll head to a coffee shop or somewhere else near here so we can be ready to pick you up when you’re finished. Just text us,” Grayson pipes up and I playfully roll my eyes at them both, but I end up smiling.

“Hey really though, thank you guys so much for waking up at the ass crack of dawn to take me to school. You really didn’t have to do that,” I let them know, using my hands to fondly stroke at their stubbled cheeks. They each nuzzle into the touch unconsciously.

“How about some extra good luck for your first day?” Grayson asks after a moment and I tilt my head slightly in confusion as I slowly drop my hands, waiting for him to explain. His lips helplessly twitch into a smirk as he side-eyes his brother. Their annoying twin telepathy allows them to reach a silent understanding, evidently, because Ethan is similarly smirking not a moment later before he and Grayson both fix their eyes back on me. Grayson grasps my hand and gently pulls me until I’m leaning over the center console and I suddenly understand the bigger picture just as he brings our lips together in a soft, sweet kiss.

I sigh into it as my eyes quickly fall closed and I rake my fingers through his soft hair. The kiss naturally deepens and, for quite a while, the only sounds heard in the car are the music seeping lowly through the speakers and the soft smacking of Grayson and I’s lips. He lands one more searing kiss to my lips before pulling away. I take my sweet time allowing my eyelids to flutter back open and, when they do, Grayson’s giving me that droopy-eyed stare that’s making it even harder for me to want to leave this car. Just as I’m thinking this, he swoops back in to give me one more quick kiss before pulling back for good.

I feel Ethan’s fingers tracing lightly up and down my arm, a gentle reminder that hey, he wants some love too and I’m more than happy to oblige. I turn to face him and he’s giving me that smile that I know and love so much. The one that’s so absolutely, unquestionably Ethan that it melts my insides. He cradles my jaw with one hand, using his thumb to trace over my lips for only a moment before he’s leaning in and sealing our mouths together. I fall into it just as quickly as I had with Grayson, fingers finding a home tangled in the unruly hair at the nape of his neck. Our tongues dance around together and I hear him moan quietly, causing me to unintentionally mimic the noise. I don’t even have the wherewithal to feel embarrassed as his hands burn blazing hot trails where he caresses down the sides of my neck and my shoulders.

This continues for several minutes until we pull away, slightly breathless with our eyes sparkling a bit and skin flushed beyond belief. “Good luck,” Ethan breathes, looking more than a little dazed and I hear Grayson laugh, startling me out of my reverie for a moment.

“Dude, you look so fucked right now,” Grayson teases and I watch as Ethan rolls his eyes, but it lacks conviction in his blissed out state.

“Whatever. You’re just,” he searches for a word and quickly gives up, settling once again on, “whatever,” and that causes Grayson and I to laugh in unison this time at the lame comeback. I eventually retreat to the backseat to gather up my backpack and I heave a big sigh, suddenly feeling more energized than I have all morning.

“I’m gonna get going,” I declare out loud and the twins nod their understanding. “I’ll see you guys soon,” I bid as a goodbye, deciding that it’s best to stick to a verbal farewell in fear of getting caught up again between the two boys and possibly missing my class.

“Bye, baby.”

“We’ll be right here when you get back.”

Both boys call after me as I open the back door and land on my feet on the pavement. I shut the door and take a moment to put my earbuds in and queue up a song before embarking on my walk to class. When I stare ahead of me, I notice that there are plenty of eyes already looking in my direction. Most people look downright shocked, to say the least. Others look mildly impressed. Others look blatantly jealous. I bite the inside of my lip to suppress a laugh as I quickly knock on the passenger window of Ethan’s Jeep. Grayson’s face appears as he rolls down the window, looking at me questioningly.

“Are these windows tinted?” I ask.

“No, why?” Ethan answers, leaning his head forward so that he can look past Grayson to address me. I hide my face in my hands, cheeks flaming up as I smile into my palms.

“Then I think everyone just saw you guys wishing me good luck,” I speak through my fingers. It’s silent for a moment as I keep my face hidden. A couple of seconds later, I hear Grayson’s signature guffaw, along with Ethan’s loud, husky laugh. The three of us share a laugh - the boys laughing mostly at my expense - before I slowly reveal my face again, cheeks still feeling warmer than ever before.

“As if the three of us need any more dating rumors,” I say, shaking my head at our antics. Grayson still sports a smile, teeth on display as he shrugs a shoulder.

“Wouldn’t be so bad,” he says and my eyes dart to Ethan’s face for a reaction, but he looks just as nonchalant as his twin. My stomach does a flip that would put somersaults to shame and I bite my bottom lip in place of responding. It’s quiet for a few seconds as both pairs of eyes in the car scan over me, their smiles simmering down into something a bit more smug and sultry. Before I can even think to splutter out a reply, I hear my name being called.

I look over my shoulder to see a friend of mine waving me over, clearly having just arrived on the scene as she looks completely unaffected in comparison to our surrounding peers. I nod back at her and whirl around to face my boys once more. “Bye for now,” I give them a coy wave before turning on my heel and walking toward my friend. As I reach her, we begin our walk to class and I feel the eyes of those around me following my every step. But there are two pairs of eyes that I can still feel burning a hole in my skin as I retreat and those pairs stand out pleasantly from the rest. My friend’s words become white noise as I slowly become hyper focused on how long I’ll have to wait to see the boys again. Something tells me that I’m in for a long morning and an even longer day after that.

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dramaphan · 4 years

Note

Response to Small Teaching Online: Chapter One

I remember when I stepped into my Freshman Experience class for the first time. I had taken a few duel-enrollment and AP classes held at my high school, but this was my first real college class since it fell on the first day of instruction that year. Armed with my laptop and fresh spiral-bound notebook, I was ready to sit and learn about City from the perspective of an art historian. While I learned many exciting things from that class, the history of the building of the City Building and the tour of the City Museum likely aren’t going to be touched upon again in my career. I began to realize throughout my first semester, and indeed the semesters beyond that class, that the focus of the course was not exclusively limited to the history of City and it’s art, but that it also encompassed being a student as a whole. College is vastly different from high school, in ways that are both obvious and more subtle. It takes quite a bit of reworking to get yourself in the collegiate mindset in general, which is part of what the Freshman Experience courses are designed to do: get you engaged in City and college as a whole, and to prepare you for the academic setting you’ll encounter for the rest of your time in college. My Freshman Experience course taught me about many things that weren’t just about the specific subject matter. I learned how to work independently without a teacher checking in on you constantly, as it happened for me in high school. I learned how to travel places in the city on my own to attend class meetings happening outside of the building. I learned that the desks in our lecture halls were too small for both a laptop and a notebook, and more importantly that I needed to focus on one or the other-my genius “two sets of notes” theory I had when I was excited to be able to bring my own laptop to class fell apart almost instantly. And overall, I leanred how to balance my Freshman Experience course with the rest of my courseload in a group of other freshman, as opposed to my other classes that had students from all age groups.

If you had told me that first day of the Fall 2019 semester that just one year later I’d be virtually joining another Freshman Experience class under such wildly different circumstances, I wouldn’t have believed you. This has become such a cliche at this point, but these circumstances are just so unprecedented that there was no possible way of seeing it coming. But alas, here we are. I’m a TA where only half of the class comes in each week, with the other half on Zoom projected onto about ten different screens across the large, spaced-out lecture hall. It feels so alien, like nothing could possibly be the same between their experiences and mine-I remember letting one of my friends drink from my water bottle in my Freshman Experience class once, which nowadays seems like literal suicide. However (germs aside), some things have stayed the same. For one, the course load seems to be similar to how my original course was. I know students across the country are complaining that work hasn’t lightened due to the events, but I have to admit that I like that the work hasn’t fluctuated much. Right now more than ever, I need to dive into things, and I also think the professors giving me less work would be patronizing. For freshman, though, it also makes sense to start them with a realistic amount of work, since this grace period will end soon and to slam them with huge assignments with no preparation would only hinder them further. Another similarity, though again this is different this year, are the group assignments that are being taught this year. Teamwork and collaboration are key factors to success in college, and especially since we are undeniably moving towards a more digitally connected world, we need to be able to teach students to communicate and work together on larger and smaller projects. A final similarity is that we are teaching students to adapt to focusing for longer periods of time. Most schools divide their periods up into time slots that range from 45 minutes to around an hour and a half, but college requires you to be focusing on learning the same thing for three to four hours. This was one of my main struggles I had with getting used to the college environment and schedule, but it’s one that students need to adapt to to succeed both at College and out on their own. In short, just because activities have changed, that doesn’t mean that the lessons we are teaching students aren’t the same.

However, this newer style of teaching does have it’s downsides. Though the course provides students with various course materials-podcasts, videos, text submissions, and more-a lot of our class is more dependent on being able to show that you can understand the materials. Could this lead to students learning to more carefully examine a text, or listen deeper to a audio lecture? Yes. But is there a good chance we’re also teaching our students how to filter through what Small Teaching Online refers to as the “white noise of text” in order to come up with the answers students know teachers want? I know that I myself am guilty of doing that, and I have to admit I find myself losing the essence of the course material by doing so, but in such a fast-paced environment it’s too tempting to resist at times. Along with this is multitasking. Of course, students have always worked on other assignments during class sessions, but with half the class online it’s easier to hide writing an essay for Cultural Studies when you can look exactly like you’re watching your professor on the same screen-and even more so if students turn off their cameras entirely. We may be teaching our students to look engaged rather than to be engaged. A final unwritten learning objective may be the opposite, however: with the lines between home and work or school so blurred these days, we may be setting students up for burnout faster than ever. I know that I work at least five hours a day, if not more, at my desk that’s about a foot away from my bed. The distinction between “work time” and “free time” grows less and less, and I find myself pushing myself harder than I did last year. For example, I have this conversation with myself at least once a week. Why wait to work on an assignment in a designated study time I’ve carved out into my schedule? To be able to go to an campus building, sI have to take a daily pre-check on my campus app. I then have to pack up all of my things and go to said building, where i have to show that I’ve done the pre-check, scan in, and get my temperature taken. Once I’m settled down in the building (making sure, of course, I’m safely distanced from other students and the space I’m using has been wiped down), I can get to work, but it’s stuffy and uncomfortable in my mask, and many building hours have been cut back, so chances are I won’t be able to do as much work as I’d like if I wanted to get started early in the morning or later in the evening. On the other hand, I can stay in my apartment, and work at my desk where I know I can switch to “work mode”, forgoing that whole ordeal. I can work as long as I like. And so I find myself at 9:30 at night, 12 and a half hours after I stared working for the day, writing this assignment with only a couple hours as breaks in between. It’s not the healthiest, I understand that. But if I can work now, and my desk is so close, than it’s hard to argue that I shouldn’t. I know I’m not the only person who this is affecting-students and people working from home across the nation are going through this very same thing. But it is undoubtelbly a lesson students are learning right now, whether we like it or not.

The strange thing about all of this is that I’m in the same boat as these students in my Freshman Experience class-though I’m a bit more accustomed to the college lifestyle, I still encounter the same lessons that they’re learning that aren’t included in the syllabi. I like the ones that I can tell are productive in helping me grow, and I hate the ones that are plaguing this semester. I don’t know what the solution is to only teach students the positive sides of this online learning environment, in fact, I’m suspicious of anyone who says that they do, since it seems to be such an individualized experience. All I know is that we have to be aware of all that students are learning this semester, and to be able to teach in favor or in disagreement of the ones that can either help or hinder these freshman’s college careers.

((had to change some wording so u don't stalk me))

I’m gonna be real I did not read any of this before posting but I’m very impressed at how long asks are now

#ask

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chrysanim · 7 years

Photo

I wanted a Triple Stryke toy, so I made one.

I decided to grind through the rest of my summer and finish this project I started back in March. Now he’s finally ready to be 3D printed as a small figurine. This is going to be awesome!

Programs used: Autodesk Maya 2016.5, Zbrush R47, View 3D

Story of how I made him below the break! It’s a little lengthy and has some jargon you may or may not understand, apologies in advance!

So I have this small 4 cm x 2 cm Toothless figurine, it’s a cute little thing that keeps me company while I work. Around mid-March, after I had watched newest season of Dragons: Race To The Edge (which featured some awesome Sleuther fight scenes) I looked at my Toothless figure and wondered “Hey, do they have a Triple Stryke figurine or toy?” and after a couple Google searches, I had my dismal answer. But at around that time I was taking an introductory Maya class, so my brave self decided to make one for myself taking this opposing challenge head-on!

I gathered some reference from show screenshots and concept arts and jumped right in! I started with the basic shape of the character a couple of cubes, some subdivisions and very little detail. After a week’s time, the model looked kinda promising; I had the head and body’s basic shape done. However, school was demanding a lot more of my time, so I had to discontinue it when I had just started work on the arm. I worked on and off on it throughout the rest of the semester, but when the end of the year came, I completely forgot about it, leaving only the project folder on my desktop as a reminder of what I started.

Eventually around mid-July I came back to the project with renewed vigor! I had just finished some summer classes and had nothing to do...Perfect timing! Picking up where I had started, I continued with the arm and pincer and after a two good day’s work, they has their basic shapes done. The only difference between working on this in March and in July was that I kept going. I did the legs in about the same amount of time as well. This project was finally coming all together...

BUT! Then a very feared and dangerous enemy of mine came by...

TOPOLOGY! *cue organ and lightning*

It was dreadful. Triangles everywhere! N-gons forming out of thin air! Edge flow...nonexistent. Pain-stacking hours were spent going over the model again and again, trying to retopologize, only to find that no method would work.

But there’s one program that I can thank for saving this project and my life...

ZREMESHER *cue choir and heavenly lights*

This little tool in Zbrush was a god send. I no longer had to slowly torture myself with using the Quad Draw tool and manually retoplogizing the WHOLE model because it wasn’t flowing right. Just a push of a button and boop! All done.

So from there, it was back and forth. Sculpting in Zbrush, ZRemesh, export to Maya, mirror the model, export back to Zbrush, sculpt again... repeat until the end of time. This workflow, as crazy and inefficient it was, got the job done and it was all I knew at that time so I just bit my lip and said, “Let’s do this.”

After quite an astounding amount of Maya, Zbrush, and OBJ files on my desktop later, I had finally finished the modeling process and it was just gruesome. I’d be up from 7 AM until 12 AM working almost non-stop on this guy every day from the end of July to just yesterday.

To give you a better sense of the time I took, I binge watched every h3h3 classic video, every danooct1 MS DOS Virus video, almost every YMS movie review video, and almost every theneedledrop’s album review video. Yeah, a lot of time.

But every hour spent working on the model, I learned something new, got better, and felt more and more confident in my ability to perform.

Now it was time to the rig.

This step only took about a day and a half since I just wanted something simple. I don’t think I’ll ever animate this guy unless I completely overhaul his model and rig. So I put some joints here and there and got something workable. After binding the skin, I posed him around and got what you see in the photos above. Now it’s off to printer for you buddy!

I expect the model to be roughly the same size a my little Toothless figure, he’ll fit right in I hope!

Thanks for reading my jumbled mess of an anecdote, if you did. Hope I didn’t bore you. Sorry in advance for grammar or spelling mistakes, I’m tapped out right now, gotta energize and rest for the incoming school year. Have a great day!

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cestudyblr · 7 years

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Hey there guys! I'm an English major and I do a lot of research papers for school, so I decided to do a post about it! I know a lot of people don't know how to properly do research for papers and it seems really hard, but it isn't so bad once you know what you're doing.

Note: the type of research I have experience with is biographical and literary! I have never done a research paper for anything STEM related so I’m not sure whether or not these tips also apply to those subjects!

Choosing a topic: Do:

Choose a general topic at first. This way you can base your final thesis off of what research you do.

Don't:

Be stubborn. You may have a really good idea, but there might not be a lot of research on it. Unless you’re willing to put in a LOT of work, you may end up twisting articles’ points to prove your point, which is not what researching is about.

Finding sources: Do:

Use the databases provided to you through your school’s library. Many schools (high schools and colleges) will have access to certain databases (ie. Jstor, Gale websites, etc), and librarians will generally be happy to help you figure things out if you need some help figuring out how to get to the sites!

Put in search terms that are specific enough to give you relevant articles, but general enough to not show any bias (see example below the cut).

Read abstracts/summaries if they are provided.

Check the sources from an article you love (ie. if you read an article that is perfect for your topic and you want more similar articles, go to the works cited page and try to find some of the articles cited).

Decide to scrap a source if you realize a few pages in it isn’t what you thought.

Don’t:

Put extremely specific search terms in. Just because you have the option to add five different terms to cross reference doesn’t mean that you should. It can make it so that a lot of different articles that could be relevant don’t pop up just because they don’t have every single search term you typed in.

Just choose the first articles that pop up in relation to your search terms and try to make those work. They won’t always be the most relevant just because they popped up first, and you may even find the perfect article way far down on the page just because your search terms weren’t perfect.

Reading the articles:

Do:

Block out chunks of reading for each day. For example, if you have a thirty page article, you can try to plan it out so you read ten pages a day, that way it doesn’t get too overwhelming.

Annotate the articles. Highlight really key points and make notes of your thoughts about how it could fit into your paper topic in the margins. This will make it a lot easier to write notes about the article and thinking about what you’ll take notes about helps you to be more engaged with the text.

Take notes on a separate document once you’ve finished reading the entire article, making sure to include the key ideas that could be relevant to your paper. You can take these notes, rewrite the sentences and put them right in your essay when you need to summarize a part of the article.

Don’t:

Try to sit down and read all of your sources in one go. Procrastinating is death when it comes to research papers; if you don’t have enough time you’ll probably end up only reading half of your article, and you could be missing really important information that would’ve been perfect for your paper.

Highlight everything. Try to keep it to only the things that are really important because if you are going back to reread the notes you wrote in the margins and the important parts you highlighted, you may find yourself having to reread the whole article because you over-highlighted.

Creating an outline: Do:

Create a thesis based off of the research you’ve done.

Take notes from what you already wrote about the various sources you found and organize them by topic for body paragraphs later on (see example below).

Include specific page numbers/quotes if you want to use them so that once you start writing your paper you won’t have to stop to check for exact wording and pages later on.

Don’t:

Plan to just summarize the articles in order. If your teacher wanted to read the articles you cited, they would. In a research paper, teachers generally want you to still have a thesis and therefore take a stance on whatever your subject may be.

Writing the paper: Do:

Skip over ideas you’re struggling with to come back to later. If you know that you have a solid idea in your outline, but you cannot for the life of you understand how to translate it into a coherent and scholarly sentence, just skip it for now! Move on to something else and come back to the point later; you may have some more clarity on how to explain it after writing something else.

Proofread your essay. I know a lot of people who just finish their essays and think it will be good enough to turn in. Odds are that you made at least a few little mistakes or wrote a sentence or two that doesn’t flow quite right.

Try reading your essay out loud (whispering or mouthing it works as well) to make sure that everything flows well. It sounds weird, but believe me it helps A LOT.

Don’t:

Try to write the entire paper in one sitting (if the paper is more than four pages). You will burn yourself out and your work will suffer as a consequence. Try to block out at least one day per three pages required to write your essay, and a few hours to edit (ie. if you have to write an eight page paper, round up and block out three days at the very least). This seems simple, but having a little breathing room to write your essay makes a big difference.

Citing your sources: Do:

Use easybib and then cross reference the citation with an online source (like the Purdue OWL lab) https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/

Organize them alphabetically by last name on your works cited page. This is a very easy thing to forget because it’s so small, but if you forget it could lose you points if your teacher cares!

Use a hanging indent (aka indenting the second line of citations). I find it easier to just hit return on the second line and manually add in an indent as opposed to trying to figure out where everything is in the page settings, but if setting it to a hanging indent in settings is easier for you, then do that.

Don’t:

Use easybib and trust that it will immediately be right. Sometimes the website messes up small things like where a comma or period should go, which may not be a big deal in reality, but some teachers are very picky and will take off points.

Forget to check your work! I know for me my works cited is usually the last thing I complete, but it’s definitely one of the most important. If you forget to cite something or cite it very incorrectly, you could be accused of plagiarizing which is an offense that most schools consider worthy of expulsion. Works cited are important!

Example process:

I’m going to use a research paper I wrote last semester for my Shakespeare class as an example.

Choosing a topic:

My chosen topic was Ophelia’s descent into madness and subsequent death in Hamlet. (This topic doesn’t have an obvious bias, which is important)

Finding sources:

When I started researching, I kept my search terms more general and used “Ophelia” and “death” because I didn’t want to specify whether Ophelia’s death was accidental or purposeful, as I knew it would be a point of debate in some articles.

When it came to finding sources, I looked through about five before settling on my final three sources. There was one that I thought would work, but after downloading it and reading the first page I realized it wasn’t what I needed, and I ended up scrapping it.

Reading the articles:

I made sure to block out a day for each source. I realized after the fact that I should have allowed myself more time, which is why for future papers I made the ten page a day rule for myself.

Here is an example of the notes I left in the margins of the articles:

Creating an outline

I tried to organize the information from the different articles into a few topics

I also went through the scenes in the play that included Ophelia and included any quotes from the text that could be relevant to my points (you can do this for almost any literary paper, for biographical research papers this isn’t as relevant).

Writing the paper

Honestly, I started this essay two days before it was due. However, since I had done so much work on my outline and reading my sources beforehand I managed to finish it with a day and a half worth of work and I used part of the second day and the morning the paper was due to proofread and edit it a lot. I probably read this eight page paper about ten times in total, and it definitely paid off (I think got a B+ in a top level english class for this paper I wrote in a day and a half). Starting earlier might have helped out with making sure that everything was more coherent, but I also know my limitations and my professor’s grading process so I know this was a good grade for the class and the amount of work I put in.

Citing your sources:

I kept my citations in a separate document and made sure to double check them before printing them with my normal paper.

If you do make your works cited in a separate document, make sure you make the page number at the top match where it would be in the document (ie. if you wrote an eight page paper, make sure your have “Lastname 9” at the top of the page).

This only applies for MLA though I believe! That’s the only format I am familiar with though, so I may be wrong.

Good luck with your paper! If you have any questions, my ask box is always open, and so is my messaging!

#how to research #how to write a research paper #research #paper #studyblr #studying #finals #papers #paper writing #writing tips #researching tips #how to #my post

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arsnovac12 · 6 years

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Blog Post 1

I go on runs from time to time when I’m back in Burbank, I enjoy keeping active, but it’s mostly an excuse to get out of the house. When I come home on holiday, I become confined to my parents house without any means of viable transportation. I have my drivers license, sure, but no car. My parents can’t afford to buy me one, and I can’t afford to get one myself. In fact, even if I could afford a car, I certainly couldn’t afford the insurance to go with it. Anyway, all this is to say I go on runs so I don’t feel too confined to my house.

That’s not very interesting, is it? Some things just tend to be that way. The life of a poor twenty-one year old white kid is never all that interesting in the first place. My life, my story, whatever it is, is not irregular. In fact, it’s one most people in America know very well, because it gets championed whenever one of us poor white kids gets rich and famous. Surprise, surprise, it happens pretty frequently.

So why write about it? I don’t know. Does it really matter if no one sees it in the first place? Maybe not. I guess I backed myself into a corner. If you’re reading this (if anyone is reading this) you’re probably expecting me to dive further in. Ultimately, you might say, there’s no point in agonizing over whether or not you’re going to talk about your life, because you already started writing a blog post about it, and it has to go somewhere. It does, doesn’t it? So why start with a lengthy preamble full of rhetorical questions? Besides being a clear literary crutch I’m struggling with, I think I feel indebted to having a conversation or dialogue about these things, as if to hide from some private guilt I have in telling any personal story. Writing has clearly become some sort of therapy to me, where I play both doctor and patient. The results are always inconclusive.

Anyway I should get back to the bullshit lede about running. Look, I like running, and it’s when my head is its most clear, so forgive me for using it as a starting point. Most of my ideas come to me when I run, so it was only fitting that it become the brief anecdote that starts a blog post that holds the kernel of what I’m going for. Which, now that I’m thinking about it, I didn’t really get to. Look at me, whining before I even finished my “insignificant thing is contorted into something profound” anecdote. Okay, I’ll finish the story:

I like to go on runs. I feel trapped at my house, and I like to get out. Anyway, whenever I run, I take the same path. It leads away from my house towards the park in the hills where people would take their prom photos back in high school. The path mostly runs parallel to the major streets and hits several large intersections on its way. In all, the run from the house to the park and back is about five miles. Yesterday, I reached the park and stopped for some water. This wasn’t irregular or anything, but I took my time and drank more that I usually would. Then, something compelled me to keep running. The hills in Burbank are filled with expensive homes, and near the top of the street, sort of tucked away, there’s a pretty large mansion that’s almost gothic in its design. Anyway, I guess it was my curiosity that drove me to keep going. To get a look at that mansion, and the others around it.

So, I kept running for another half mile or so to see this mansion. On the way up, the houses got larger and more impressive looking, and I was filled with a mounting sense of dread. Eventually I reached the cul-de-sac with the house on its end. Naturally the street, called Viewcrest if you can believe it, was the most decadent one yet. Their driveways were filled with expensive cars I don’t know the names of, carefully manicured lawns, and about ten security cameras lining every porch. I got closer to the end of the street where the imposing mansion was, but it was tucked away from the front and hardly visible. I didn’t get much closer than fifty or sixty feet. The drive way had a large black Hummer sitting in it; another, more psychological warning sign for someone like me to keep away.

I left pretty quickly after I got there. No one was out, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being unwelcome. Before I turned the corner and left the street completely, I had the strange desire for someone to come out of their house and scold me for even coming there. In this fantasy, would I stand my ground, or run away as is fitting for my station? My brain firing it’s typically small amount of synapses couldn’t quite make it that far. Instead, I was caught up in the swell of what righteous injustice such a thing should muster.

This story isn’t very interesting, I know. Nothing really happens in it and there isn’t much imagery to it, but it caught me off guard as I thought about it again today. I had the idea to write about the experience soon after it happened while I was still running, but I, ever the proactive one, put it off. In sitting down with it today, I realize how full of shit I am.

Before I go on, I’ll give a little more context for my life. As mentioned briefly before, I’m a poor white kid. My parents are loving if occasionally abusive, or maybe abusive if occasionally loving. We live in my (deceased) grandmothers house and can’t afford any necessary repairs on it to make the place livable. My dad lost his job about a year and a half ago that was going to take him to retirement, now he works at target. My mother is a hoarder, not to the extreme you may have seen on television, but certainly well beyond what the general society might deem as healthy. She works just enough hours at the Disney Corporation’s day care so that they don’t have to give her full time benefits.

Two of my adult brothers still live at home, crowding the house further. They could, should they allot their funds correctly, afford to have their own place, but my parents discourage that sort of thing. Coming from lower middle class families, both of them have really only known economic uncertainty their whole lives. To have their children live lives separated from themselves means certain uncertainty. Plus, when you don’t have the kids at home, there’s no one left to accuse of being a burden.

I, more than any of my brothers, struggled against my parents to have a normal life. For a while I was pretty damaged; my parents fundamental conservatism really did a number on me. I was a hateful kid, saying cruel things to people that didn’t deserve it. When I got to high school, it took a little while, but I became a better person. Still prone to bouts of selfishness, I began to try a little harder for things. I quit running competitively in high school to join the theater, much to my parents chagrin, and also started dating. Naturally my parents tried putting a stop to both.

By the time I finished high school, I had cut ties with most everyone that knew me there. By its end, I had partially realized that I hadn’t progressed all that much as a person and was still rather selfish. My assumptions that people did not like me were eventually proven correct when I had finally done something that had made me worth disliking. I receded further into myself, even more aware of my deepest flaws.

Eventually I made it to college where I became more depressed than I had ever been before. Towards the end of the semester, my mom ordered me to call after weeks of ignoring her. During that phone call, I told her that I wanted to kill myself. Horrified, she said that they could afford to send me to therapy, I said no, it would be too much of a hassle and it would get to be too expensive. She was relieved and thus the matter was settled and never spoken of again.

So today, I sit in my crowded bedroom in my decaying house (yes, there are rats now) and try and write a story, a true story, about how running in the rich part of town made me sad. So often I am desperately seeking a new lede, some way to ease into the story of my life, so I come up with the flimsiest ones imaginable as opposed to just starting from the beginning. I’m no one I tell myself, so why bother in the first place? No one will read it anyway. But so often, I’m met with the same dull idea that I have a story worth telling. The cynic in me is so embarrassed to want to explain away my life that it has to invent a dialogue with no one to justify wanting to tell an over told story. The poet in me wants to make something beautiful out of my life, and will find any excuse to do so in the most meaningless of events. The realist is here with you trying to make sense of these two voices.

I am obsessed with artifice. Look anywhere in my life and you’ll see it. I’m a theater performance major. I sit at home alone and watch movies that very few people like to gage some sensationalist position on. I go running by major streets hoping that someone, anyone from my past will see me and say hello. I run to the park I took my prom pictures at for the hope that some ounce of high school happiness will be absorbed back into myself, so that I can pretend I didn’t lose all my friends from those years by being selfish. I run further into the hills because deep down I know it might lead to something worth writing about. Only to now finally realize there wasn’t much of a story there to begin with. There, or anywhere.

Self pitying is probably what most people would call this. I’ll probably call it that too. Maybe it’s a cry for help. Maybe. Or maybe it’s a desperate plea for attention from an empty audience, because the author thinks that’s most poetic of all.

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cyberdelusionphilosopher-blog · 6 years

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"Montezuma North Carolina Cheap car insurance quotes zip 28653

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My mom seems to think it's not based on what she heard almost 10 years ago. We currently have Allstate which is costing us $265/mo whereas Progressive could cost us $171/mo. IDK why she won't even try it

Car Insurance....Help?

Hiya!!! i am 17, jus passed my test, got pass plus aswell, am male and a full time student...does any cool dude out there no of any cheats on how to get the cheap car insurance coz for a 1.2 fiat punto costs me 2800 and i jus havnt got that money!!!! any help really would be appreciated :) :) :) thankssssss x""

Where can i find a free insurance company that won't rap me off?

i need a website that i can get a insurance for medical and dental. where can i go

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Cheap Cars for cheap insurace??????????

I am 18 a new driver and i am looking for a used car with a budget from 400 to 600 iam trying to find a car with a cheap insurance and are Diesel cars cheaper to insure????

Insurance Quotes????? Please HELP???

Can someone Please explain to me........... What is an Insurance Quote?? How does it work? Why is it important? Why do we need it? I want a good health and car Insurance and so i dont know about the quote stuff so Please help me to understand. Thank u all so very much.

What is to stop people from taking the fines instead of paying for insurance?

it seems like they are not much different then a high deductible insurance plan

Will my speeding Ticket affect my insurance rates?

I live in Iowa, I am 17 years old, and I just got a speeding ticket from a state trooper for going 84mph in a 65 zone. I am insured with State Farm and have no history of any accedents or tickets. Right now I am recieving the good students discount and the safe driver discount and I was woundering if this would affect my insurance rates on a 1996 Mercedes-Benz black with aproximately 210,000 miles. Thanks""

How much will it cost to add me to car insurance?

how much will it cost for my parents to add me on there insurance? I know you can't give me an exact number but just a rough estimate. We have allstate and we have 2 cars but I will be added to my moms car a ford taurus not sure what year it is. I live in West Palm Beach, FL and I'm 17. Just an estimate or how much you think it will cost. Thanks guys!""

Health insurance for non-residents of US?

My cousin is from Mexico and she is staying with me becuse her parents can not care for her anymore over there. She only has a Visa, she is not a resident. She is also a type 1 diabetic, the other day she got really sick with diabetic ketoacidosis, I had to take her to the E.R and now I am being charged 7000 for her care. Is there any way I can get some type of health insurance for her even if she is not a legal citizen of the Us and she is not my child? And could I get any goverment or any help to pay this bill? Thank you in advance.""

Best public health insurance plan in nyc?

I've been traveling after college and won't go back to school for another year. I've been volunteering only and haven't worked for over a year. I don't qualify for ...show more

""How much is the yearly average insurance for a sixteen year old in LA, California.?""

How much is the yearly average insurance for a sixteen year old in LA, California.PS. Liability only. And if you need to know the car and insurance corp its an 1995 Ferrari f355, and 21st insurance. Please give real averages and i am serious so please real and serious answers. What i mean is please tell me the price only for a year. Please only serious and real answers.""

Need cheap & affordable Health Insurance?

I have a friend, Yes a Friend, She and her husband are paying $160 a month for Health insurance & its, Medi-cal, Which is Welfare, So I told her that there has to be a GOOD Insurance out there that is cheaper, She needs help, Can she find anything thats better then $160 month.""

How much for an 18 years old car insurance?

I will be turning 18 in august, and i was just wondering how much my car insurance will be. I have to wait till august to get my license, My GPA is about 3.50gpa, I'm planning on buying a used scion tc. Can someone give me a estimate how much i have to pay for 6 month insurance?""

""I am about to quit my job, need advice about insurance?

I am quitting my job in a couple of weeks to start my own business. I am shopping around for individual health insurance plans and have found a couple that will suit my needs. The problem is that the plans are both Anthem (Blue Cross California) and that is the same insurance that my employer carries. I'm worried that contacting Anthem to start the process of getting coverage will alert my employer that I am leaving. Should I be concerned?

Services offered by insurance companies?

general services offed by insurance companies

Cost of getting motorcycle insurance for 20 year old?

I am probably goin to get a sports bike. I have had my license since I was 18. I have no tickets and clean driving record. I currently pay $140 a month for insurance on my truck. I was looking into getting a bike older than 2003. How much will motorcycle insurance be for a sports bike?

Motorbike insurance confusion?

I'm looking to get a new motorbike in January and am looking at quotes online. Where it says where is the bike kept overnight I have put: on a public road. Then where it says Address where bike is kept overnight I have put my home address. However I want to take it too uni and that's obviously a different address, but it won't let you have two. I have put on the form that my current address is my home rather than uni. Do I need to tell them that it's going to be at uni with or not because it'll be at both places for extended periods of time? It's also 400 more expensive to put address as uni - though cost isn't the problem just confused. thanks. Sorry if it was confusing, if you can't understand then I'll try and make it clearer.""

Honda CBR 600 insurance...should i get collision?

I just bought a 1995 CBR F3. My first bike I got last year was a klr250, rode it since last summer all year (no car for me), even rode in the snow for the hell of it. For the KLR250, my insurance was 200 a year all minimum with only like 500 for comprehensive. For the CBR, my insurance im looking at is going to be 200 a year without anything, only the minimum liability. I like the fact of how cheap it is, but even though I have great experience with motorcycling, should I just go ahead and get bare minimum insurance? Bike cost me 1800 dollars, awesome condition. valves all good, just putting in a manual CCT this week. Its cheaper than the KLR (i got it for 2k), but i dont know why im feeling i need so much more coverage this time. Maybe cause the bike is CLEAAAAN. What yall think?""

Do employers have insurance to cover lost or stolen items of their employees if items were lost/stolen on job?

Something of great value was lost/stolen at my job. What can I do?

Car Insurance????

Hi does anyone know any cheap car insurance companies. Thankyou

How much does it cost to have a baby in California with no insurance?

With or without epidural, c-section or otherwise, with possible hospital stay? Near Sacramento if that makes a difference. Thanks!""

Do you get your credit checked for car insurance quotes?

Motorcycle insurance in MA ?

Hi i have called several insurance companies about insurance for a motorcyle in MA. i havent found one that offered it. Geico, even nationwide and allstate dont offer it. i dont understand how Allstate doesnt offer motorycle insurance in all states but any suggestions or cheap insurances for a single 18 y.o in MA would help. thanx""

Something in lieu of insurance?

I have been working part-time for a company and about to become full-time. One of the concerns that was raised is that insurance will be expensive. He pays 100% of everyone's insurance for their families. I suggested that we can revisit the insurance in a year and do something else in lieu of the insurance. Less costly. He also pays for parking for the employees. I'm not sure of what to ask for though. I was thinking a gas allowance but I wanted to have a few ideas to present in case he shoots one or more down.

""How much does house insurance cost on a $500,000 house?""

How much does house insurance cost on a $500,000 house?""

A question about car insurance?

My mom is afraid of her car insurance going up once I get my license, so she wants me to get the car in my name and get my own insurance, but can I still get my license first before all of that? What would be the sequence of which to obtain first? Thanks!""

Which car insurance is cheaper a brand new car wi the same engine size or an old car wi the same engine size?

btw i live in uk and simply say i want to buy a corsa 1.0 and which insurance will be cheaper a old 1.0 corsa or a brand new 1.0 corsa? thanks for the help

Insurance company wants to total my car/not insure it.?

So my dad rear ended someone really softly, but it was a truck that he rear ended with a hitch or something that damaged the grill and the bumper. Problem is, I put a total of $2700 to have transmission replaced and the engine repaired after the timing belt broke and caused damage over the last 2-3 months. It is a 2004 dodge neon and the body to these things are flimsy to begin with. I'm taking it in Monday to get it looked at better, but they said from what they could see it might be a total loss. Which means its only gonna be worth $2000. they said they have to replace the hood, the grill, and the bumper and other stuff which is **** because I know people who could fix these problems for less than $500. they aren't even visibly bad, a few dents in the places i mentioned but when i took it in they reacted like i had been in a head on collision going 50 mph. It runs perfectly, we wouldn't have even reported it except we were worried the guy might claim injury after the fact (which he did). What can I do? This is my only car, and I am already in debt from student loans. $2000 isn't gonna buy me a new car. How can I convince them not to total it when I take it in?""

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Why the health insurance are different than car insurance?

I mean insurance is protection and give you money when you got into situation that cause loss or expenses. But why car insurance are less picky and more willing to give money to pay out than health insurance? Why more rules and more restriction and more reject the coverage with health than car? I mean I understand insurance is business and for profit so they has to refuse the claims if loop hole. But it shouldn't be any different on health or car coverage.

""Rear-ended, can I ask car insurance to compensate for inconvenience of not having a car?""

Got rear-ended in NJ by a woman and my car was determined a total loss. Her car insurance took over a week to come to a decision that they would take 100% liability for the accident. They made me an offer for the dollar amount of value of the car which was honestly more than what I thought the value was going to be. I have 2 questions... Can I ask for compensation for the inconvenience of not having a vehicle during the time that they were making their decision? And two, I went to the hospital after the accident but haven't received the bills from that yet. If I accept their offer for the damage done to the car can I still get reimbursed for my medical bills later?""

Is motorcycle insurance manditory in california?

if you own the bike?

Whose insurance is a new baby supposed to go on?

I am currently 32 weeks pregnant and my husband and I have seperate insurance policies but both through Blue Cross. Does is matter whose insurance she is supposed to go on or are we just supposed to pick one?

What insurance company will give me the cheapest full coverage policy on a sportbike?

I'm 23, I have one year of riding experience, and i have no traffic convictions. I'm looking to go no higher than a 600. I live in an apartment, and I will have a lojack installed. I can't seem to find a policy for less than 3,000 bucks a year.""

Cheapest auto insurance company?

Are we required to have health insurance?

is it true in 2014 we are required to have health insurance otherwise there fine for whose who don't maintain a insurance? My insurance was threw my husband and just got divorced few days ago in jan 2014 will I still have insurance until end jan will they offer me cobra plan i can buy.

What company provides a good low cost life insurance policy for older people?

My father just retired, but he is stubborn and against getting a life insurance policy. I would like one to cover expenses he may leave behind and to take care of his wife, but he just doesn't see the need for some reason. His wife (my mother) is also the same way and they are too old fashioned and set in their ways to change their way of thinking. My parents are not rich and does not have a lot of money saved up. As a result, I may have to pay it myself even though I am supporting my own family on a single income. Obviously, the older one gets, the more expensive a life insurance policy becomes. Does anyone know of any good, reliable low cost life insurance companies out there? He doesn't have any major problems, but it would be best if there are some that doesn't require any health checks.""

WHAT INSURANCE WILL HELP MENTAL HEALTH?

so i lost my health insurance at 19 and im trying to go on one by myself, i got to an outpatient program called High Focus for anxiety and depression and were paying out of pocket for this which is extremely expensive, can someone tell me an insurance that would cover this High Focus center its a private place and does not accept medicade, medicare, or state funds.""

If I just got auto insurance?

If I just got auto insurance for my car but my car was crash before hand, should I still let the auto insurance company know even if I wasn't the driver?""

What is the difference between ordinary life insurance and term insurance?

I heard about term insurance whose meaning is not clear to me. Can anybody please explain what is the difference between ordinary life insurance (like those offered by LIC) and a term insurance? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the two?

""Where can l find low cost Dental care in Orange County,CA?""

I would like to find low cost dental care in O.C,but the one l find on the net is called Medical Discounts International,Inc, l don't believe it's a government program and l have my reservations. Is government programs better than private ones? Any agencies that are reliable and good? Thanks.""

How much do you pay for your car insurance? 10pts?

I have Geico and my vehicle is a lease...Jeep Liberty 05...I was charged $55.72 for this months insurance, it's always low but UM wtf??? How much are you paying? Do you own your vehicle/ lease? Year /Model? Thanks!""

How much is it to rent a car per day in costa rica w/the necessary insurance [of course-4 wheel drive]?

Will a 9 mph over speeding ticket effect my insurance in NC?

I got a ticket for 53 in a 35. When I went to court the DA lowered it to 44 in a 35.. 9 mph over. Will it effect my insurance? I live in NC.

Can i switch my health insurance policy -?

hello, i work for a small consulting firm , < 10 employees..on their w2. they provide me a group health insurance for my family (me ,wife and < 1yr old kid) and i pay around $900 every month without vision and dental coverage..all my contribution..and it is with united health care group now - with this new obamacare what options do i have 1. if i switch , will i get a cheaper coverage ? 2. what is that policy exchange ..i hear this a lot these days 3. if i had to switch my policy.who should i approach.. what would you advise for me..pleae advise me on getting a cheaper coverage""

What would happen if you show proof of full coverage to a lender then drop to liability?

Would the lender ever know that you dropped to liability? I am looking to finance a motorcycle and they require proof of insurance (full coverage), but the cost is insane.""

I am 22 Years Old. I Live in Ireland. How can I buy cheap car insurance?

Can I still use my mom's health insurance?

My Mom has Anthem Blue Cross SISC III. I am married but 19 years old, and under the Affordable Care Act, children 26 and under are still supposed to be covered, married or unmarried, unless the adult child has another offer of employer-based coverage . My husband is a Marine, so I have the option to use Tricare, but I do not have my OWN employer-based coverage, so can I still use my mom's insurance? Her insurance plan is a lot better than Tricare.""

How much life insurance coverage do I need?

I am a single mother, and have 1 child (she is 2 years old). I am in my mid 20's and healthy. I have no debt besides a small student loan, and do not own a home. My parents are fairly young (late 40's), and would be more than capable of taking care of my daughter if I die (they are upper/middle class). I'm not quite sure how much life insurance I need to carry in my situation now, or if I were to purchase a home etc. Right now I am insured for $50,000. Is that too little? How much coverage would I need? I want to have a good level of coverage, but I can't afford to pay more than $25 a month premium right now.""

What is the best car insurance for teenagers who got their first car?

It's an older model car and I'm 19. One of my friends pay I have a friend who has state farm and pays 100 a month. Also believe it or not I have another friend who got insurance under her parents insurance company and she got a discount for it.. She is under Progressive and pay 50 dollars a month. I'm a male and I can only dream of my insurance being $50. That isn't going to happen.

How can i get cheaper car insurance at 17?

How much is car insurance for a car with an antique tag?

Im thinking of buying an antique car but im not even quite sure how the insurance and registration works. I live in florida im not sure if it varies per state.

Average rate of malpractice insurance for nurses?

So I want to be a nurse and I was wondering how much it costs. And do most nurses have it or not? Also I live in TX and will be a nurse here so any info will be appreciated thanks :)

How much is a ticket for not having car insurance in California?

Freeway Insurance just called me and told me that my insurance was not paid last month and that it got cancelled. I could swear that I did pay and my bank overview says I did pay. This is the second time they call me to tell me that. I think those ****** bastard just want money. So I'm just wondering how much a ticket cost because I'm gathering money to open another policy but with another Insurance company.

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https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/filing-claim-raise-both-insurance-rates-carter-freeman/"

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ichhabeschwein · 6 years

Text

TestDAF Schreiben

In this post, I’m going to cover all the most general information about how I prepared for the TestDAF and how the test was actually administered.

This TestDAF is a language test, which serves as one of the acceptable means of certifying your German language ability for the workplace as well as Universities. I decided to take the TestDAF as opposed to other tests, which are considered to provide equivalent language certification (Telc, DSH, etc.) because I’d heard from German instructors that the TestDAF is the most reasonable of the options. The test is more straight forward, and you don’t have to prepare for as many tricks.

I decided quite late in the game that I was going to take this test for one of the Masters program I’m applying for in Hamburg (Uni Hamburg), since this specific program (Kosmetikwissenschaft) is small, and therefore only taught in German and only allows students to start the program with the winter semester, this didn’t leave me many options for when I could take this test. I found out that I needed to prove my language proficiency by October, in the case that I’m given an acceptance, and after completing the test, it takes up to 6 weeks to get your results back. This meant that I could only take the test in May if I wanted to be able to submit my documents in time to apply for this upcoming winter semester. I looked online, and the the majority of the testing centers had already been filled, so I ended up having to travel to Halle (an hour away) in order to take the test. So make sure you sign up early! The seats fill up fast! After I paid the 200 Euro for the test, the clock started.

When I had made this decision, I had about a month to prepare for the test, and this was basically my one shot for this university. So I asked my lovely instructor from my intensive language training, who also teaches a prep course for this test, which materials are worth buying and using for preparation. She recommended the Fit für den TestDAF book and the practice tests 1-5 from Hueber, as well as the Prüfungstraining book from Cornelsen. There are also 2 practice tests available on the TestDAF website complete with audio data for the listening comprehension and oral portions.

Here’s how I organized my month of studying so I could be as prepared as possible with the time I had. I wrote out a studying calendar and attempted to write in the equivalent of one whole test (3 hours in total without any breaks) on every other day in the month until the exam, with the days in between being reserved for studying and bettering my recognized weaknesses. I didn’t end up really sticking to this schedule, since it was hard for me to find 3 hours chunks of time in my days, but it at least gave me a feel of how much time I reasonably had to work through the materials.

The order in which I worked through the materials was optimal, in my opinion. My instructor recommended me this website/worksheet, which lays out the all-important Grafikbeschreibung redemittel. Being able to describe charts and graphs is a main focus in this test, as they’re trying to assess your readiness for the academic or professional world, so I read through all of these phrases and words and picked out the ones that I wanted to memorize/master for the test and wrote out sentences with them repeatedly as my first study task.

https://www.wirtschaftsdeutsch.de/lehrmaterialien/redemittel-diagramm.pdf

After this, I worked my way through the Fit für den TestDAF book in order to further practice these phrases/words. This book walks you slowly through the test and gives a lot of exercises so you can improve your test skills. In this way, the book gives a good introduction to the test and allows you to build your test taking strategy very early on. Because, at the end of the day, the people who correct this test are looking for specific signs and phrases so they can accurately place you, and if you don’t know exactly what they’re looking for, you won’t score very high. The exercises also offer many new ways to formulate the sentences that the TestDAF expects to see, so you’re able to show that you can vary your language. After you’ve built this vocabulary, grammar, and strategy through this initial worksheet and prep book, you can move on to solidify these skills so they come easily, and importantly, quickly to your pen during the test.

At this point, you should be able to recognize where your weaknesses in the test lie and therefore, what you should focus on. For me, the reading and listening comprehension were gravy, and also easy to score, so I was confident in my ability in these portions. The writing portion is difficult to score yourself, but easy to improve on in a short amount of time. The oral portion was the worst for me because of the way they administer this portion. In a room with maybe 15 other students, you all listen to the same radio playing the speaking prompts, and at the same time, you all speak your response into your personal voice recorder. This makes the testing situation very hard to simulate, and makes everyone quite nervous, since it’s so unnatural. In noticing this, I decided to focus on the listening and writing portions more so than the listening and reading portions in the following prep book.

I continued on to the Cornelsen book, which is much more hands-off in its approach--it focuses more on giving a lot of examples of the exercises more so than giving learning material. For this reason, it’s good to use this book as a way of honing the skills established with the Hueber book and the initial Grafikbeschreibung reference sheet.

Once these material have been worked through, there are 5 practice tests from Hueber that are certified from TestDAF. As a side note on their quality: I come from a scientific background, so the diagrams they ask you to describe drive me crazy. You have limited time and they are very poorly labeled sometimes, making it difficult for you to be able to understand, let alone describe them in the allotted amount of time.

As for prep test tips, always work with a timer and stay strictly by this. So when the time is up, you put your pencil down and move on, just as you would have to during the test. I made sure to score the score-able portions of the test once I completed them and to go through the writing and oral portion afterword as well to give myself critiques. Of course these portions are very difficult to give an absolute score, but after completing the prior prep materials, you will at least know what is expected from these portions and will be able to recognize if you forgot a piece they’re looking for, etc. by going through this yourself. This also means you should record your oral portions so you can listen to them afterword. Although this seems silly, I at least become noticeably more nervous when a recorder is switched on, and this showed in my results, so it’s good to get used to the presence of a recorder while preparing.

I left one or two days before the test for just relaxing and reviewing vocabulary and the scripts that I’d more or less prepared for the writing and oral portion. I also booked and Airbnb in the city I was taking the test in so as to avoid the stress of traveling before taking the test and any unforeseeable delays due to public transit.

Taking the test

I was sure to get a full night of sleep and bring some good brain food for the test, which you’re allowed to bring into the room with you. I brought some nuts (good for brain function) and a banana (easily digested sugars to keep your energy and stamina up!) as well as a bottle of water. They give you 15 minute breaks between each portion of the test, so don’t worry about drinking too much coffee before the test and having to pee or something. You’re also able to go into the room where you keep your personal belongings in this break time in case you want to bring anything else, but you’re not able to access your phone during the entirety of the test.

One thing I did not anticipate in the reading portion of the test, is they did not time the different portions of the reading comprehension, but instead gave you 50 minutes in total to complete all three portions, and an additional 10 minutes to indicate your answers on the answer sheet. Because the reading portions increase in difficulty as you go through, this meant I could use the time I saved in the first task on the last task, which I liked. At my test center, they didn’t have a digital clock, which I didn’t like so bring your own watch if you prefer digital clocks, like me, but the test administrator did give time warnings.

The listening portion is played nonstop from a CD, so the timing of everything is exactly as you’ve practiced in the previous prep material.

You then get a 30 minute break so you can eat, decompress, review (if you’d like), and mentally prepare for the rest of the exam.

In the writing portion, you’re given 5 minutes to read the prompt and then 60 minutes to write. If you’ve done all of the prep material, you know this is often not a lot of time, depending on what kind of Diagram they give you to describe. Being prepared, however, you should be able to write about half of your introduction during this 5 minute prep time, and there’s no rule against you doing this. For this portion, I had memorized my catch-all introduction sentence and transition sentences, as well as the Grafikbeschreibung grammar/vocabulary and well formulated sentences for the argumentation. The faster you can write out this sort of fill-in-the-blank formulation of the paper, the more time you have to figure out what opinion is the easiest to write a lot about and how best to formulate it for your paper. At the end of the day, they don’t care what you argue, they care what words and grammar you use to argue it and how you formulate your argument.

Once you finish the writing, you have another 15 minute break, or longer, depending on how they split everyone up for the speaking portion. As I found out through some online research, TestDAF does not listen to your answers for all of the Mündlicher Ausdruck Aufgaben. They actually start by listening to your answers for the TDN 5 tasks, which are Aufgaben 4 and 6. Only if they aren’t sure after listening to your answers for these two Aufgaben do they listen to the TDN 4 Tasks. For this reason, I worked especially hard on tasks 4 and 6 and had memorized a format to put my answers into so I could be sure that I covered the prompt well. I would also recommend bringing earplugs during this portion if you think the surrounding chatter will disturb you. I actually found it to be quite comfortable, because when a group of people all speak at the same time, you can’t make out the words of a single person, and your brain therefore can’t be distracted by any single word from a single person.

My overall impression of the test was that it was way easier than all of the practice materials. The difficulty definitely changes with the exams, so you can’t count on this, but they chose topics that were very easy to grasp, the diagrams were all very easy to understand, none of them had sources at the bottom that you had to write out, which saved you time, and in the writing portion, there were no opinions written out that you had to reformulate and write into your paper, so Nominalisierung and Verbalisierung skills weren’t needed. If these features will stay the same in future exams, however, I have no way of confirming, so it’s best to practice these skills nevertheless.

If you have any additional questions about my experience, feel free to ask!

LG Megan

Update:

I got my results from the TestDAF back on July 4th, and I passed with better scores than I was expecting!

Here’s the breakdown of my scores:

For those of you not familiar with the grading structure, I’ve included the schema(tic) below:

Truth be told, after I wrote the written portion and there was discussion among the other test-writers about the topic and what they wrote, I realized that I straight up did not read part of the prompt and did not explicitly answer that portion of the prompt because of that. I’m guessing that that’s at least part of the reason I received a 4 on that portion, as well as the fact that I didn’t have time to read over what I wrote and catch the dumb mistakes before handing in my essay. But hey! That just goes to show that you can make those mistakes, and if you write with a high enough level of organization in your paper and include the language you know they’re looking for, you can still get a score that all German universities will accept!

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