#(like for example middle schoolers might not like being called 'little kids' so student is like. the age-neutral form of address)

[birdmenmanga]

there IS a temptation to send my mother images of men having sex that I’ve drawn because I think it would honestly answer a lot of questions she has about me. but I say this while simultaneously feeling embarrassed about telling her my plans to make two guys roommates in a story. genuinely have no idea why the latter is embarrassing and why the former isn’t...

[shiny-procrastinates]

(re)Watching Magia Record S1 - part 4

part 3 here

Hello everyone and welcome back to our... I don't know how to call this really, I'm more narrating what's happening in the screen than anything, but in any case today we are continuing what we have been doing these last few days.

Last time, we had an episode focused on the Momoko trio, got handed even more mysteries and had a brief cameo of our favorite drill-haired mahou shoujo. So what will this episode have in stock for us? Only one way to find out! (these introductions are getting cornier and cornier, I'm running out of ideas here.)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record S1 episode 4

Today, Iroha's visiting a chinese food restaurant on Mitama's recomendation. Well, I suppose even magical girls have to eat sometime.

But before that, let's wind back a little bit.

After the op, we get a little monologue from Iroha about "friends". It's probably obvious by now that she's not the biggest social butterfly out there, but this scene basically tells us that Iroha had no friends besides her missing sister, which just makes this even more sad, honestly. The solitary atmosphere of the first episode was no coincidence.

While dropping by Mitama's, Iroha hears from Momoko the aftermath of the fight with the Chain Witch from last episode. Momoko says everyone who had disappeared had come back safely, and says that might've not been a witch, but something lurking behind the rumor. The trio brings up some other weird rumors while Mitama desecrates a perfectly good cheesecake.

“Mitama-san, why“

Iroha asks if there's some rumor where people went missing and Momoko guesses correctly that she's wondering if her sister didn't get caught up in one of those. Sadly, they don't know any other rumor where people went missing besides the Staircase of Severance.

Oh my god Mitama is eating that thing, looks like the Coordinator's will be closed for a while.

The girls try to brainstorm some ways to look for Iroha's sister but, well...

Like this, Iroha just looks like some weird girl who insists her imaginary younger sister is real... which she might be, I wouldn't put that possibility past this series, but for now we are assuming her sister actually existed.

Iroha pokes in and says she'll do it herself, since she has no idea where to start investigating now and it'll probably turn into a long search anyway. Momoko's not very convinced. Mitama then hands Iroha Banbanzai's flyer and now we are back to the present.

In Banbanzai we meet Tsuruno Yui, Kamihama's (self-proclaimed) Strongest Magical Girl. The size of the dishes are also the strongest. One has to wonder how does Tsuruno explain to her father the "magical girl discount" she has going on.

Iroha eats a bit under the expectant eyes of Tsuruno and, when pressured for a rating she says...

50/100, or 2.5/5 when going by the occidental style rating. Tsuruno's shock here is impressive considering that's Banbanzai's usual rating no matter what it puts out. Hey, consistency is good!

After eating, Iroha apologizes for giving such a low rating despite getting free food, but Tsuruno explains basically what I wrote. Yes, Iroha, you guessed right.

Tsuruno apologizes for not having any hints in regards to her sister and, after getting Iroha to call her by her first name, says she'll try to introduce her to someone that might help her with investigating the strange rumors. Tsuruno is hesitant on the phone at first but quickly gets excited as the person on the other side of the line agrees to meet them right away. And the person they go meet is...

Yachiyo, obviously. She's like "I have no time for this" at first, but is stopped by a crying Tsuruno and ends up telling them about the rumor she's investigating.

The rumor Yachiyo's investigating right now is about the Seance Shrine. Basically, there's a rumor saying that if you visit a certain shrine, write the name of who you want to see on a ema and pray properly, you will meet that person. However, you'll be so happy you'll become unable to leave.

Yachiyo says while investigating she found some posts of people saying they actually met who they wanted to meet who disappeared afterwards. Tsuruno wonders if anyone has been declared missing and Yachiyo points out that even if there was, no one would think to attribute a missing person to a rumor.

Tsuruno has a eureka moment and asks if the Seance Shrine is Mizuna Shrine, but Yachiyo says she already tried and nothing happened... wait, hey Yachiyo,  that's dangerous, what if it really was the right one? lol

Yachiyo says she already had low hopes, but if somewhere with so many visitors as Mizuna Shrine was the Seance Shrine, it would already be all over the news with the amount of people that would go missing... which is a very fair point.

So the girls have no choice but to go around and look for a less known shrine. For better or worse, there are a lot of them in Mizuna.

In one of them, Tsuruno finds a stamp rally going on in Mizuna Ward, and asks if that couldn't be a tip in regards to the rumor. Iroha's skeptical at first, but Yachiyo says they might as well do it, since it's better than looking around blindly.

While they walk around, Yachiyo tells Iroha the legend of the star-crossed lovers that was cited in the stamp rally paper. It's the tale of how two lovers of different social standings were separated by death (well, assassination), and then reunited after countless prayers from the princess. Iroha says that it's a lovely story, but Yachiyo doesn't seem to think the same.

Yachiyo then tells Iroha the hidden, true ending of the history, where the princess sacrifices all of the people of the town to their god in order to meet her beloved again.

and magical girls should know that better than anyone else.

A bit later, Tsuruno says doing this almost makes it feel like the old times, but Yachiyo just ignores her. Iroha asks if they've been close for a long time and Yachiyo says they used to be, but they're not anymore. Seeing from Tsuruno's behaviour, though, that's gotta be because of Yachiyo herself.

Iroha comments that even if it was a past relation, she's still jealous, since she's never had any friends besides Ui. Ui was everything to her, so now that she's gone, Iroha feels empty... it's a bit concerning that she feels like that when you consider her sister was ill enough that Iroha had to cure her with a wish. What would have happened had she not become a magical girl?

Yachiyo says, but this isn't the past to Iroha. She firmly believes that Ui must be out there somewhere, so she wants to find her as fast as possible. Yachiyo then tells her that if that's the case, she shouldn't be tied down by her past, she should become stronger, for her sister's sake.

Like that, they finally reach the Seance Shrine...

not. They end up back at Mizuna Shrine, which Yachiyo had already discarded as a possibility due to the number of people that would've gone missing if that had been the case. Yachiyo had thought that there had to be a connection between the rumor and the legend, so maybe they missed a hint somewhere. The trio doubles back for the day.

However, as they head back, something crucial dawns on Yachiyo:

She's a broke college student and today was 10xPoints Day.

Yachiyo gets Tsuruno and Iroha to help her and goes grocery shopping. Yachiyo tells Iroha about the points benefit, but Iroha has no idea what she's talking about, so Yachiyo says she's still a kid... yeah, but I think it would be weirder if a middle schooler knew about this stuff.

Being a magical girl sure is suffering. You get kidnapped from trains and buses, and can't even catch a sale without getting a witch as a freebie. There is no rest.

Here! I can finally comment that it creeps me out the fact that Iroha sleeps with a plushie of this thing. I know it's in this series' style to have weird things going on in the background, but still...

The fight starts and- Iroha why the heck are you going to the front what is that crossbow even for. Yachiyo tells Iroha to stay behind her, but Iroha's holding the idiot ball right now... partly because Yachiyo told her to get stronger, but still. Iroha shoots a few times at the witch, trips, misses espetacularly and almost becomes witch food. Great job, Iroha.

Now, while Iroha's hesitating about what to do, in comes Tsuruno.

Maybe not the best time to be striking poses, Tsuruno.

Iroha screws up once again and sends Tsuruno flying but, as expected of the (self-proclaimed) Mightiest, she still makes short work of the witch (also probably because we're running out of time for this episode).

I'm guessing Iroha's magic in combinations just makes the other person's magic stronger. Kinda lame when you think about the previous two examples, but I guess that's standard for light magic in games... it's already weird enough that their magic has attributes at all but, oh well, game logic.

In the end, poor Yachiyo missed the sale. However, thanks to not being blinded by shiny discounts, she realized something important they were forgetting about the rumor.

Sure enough, just like Yachiyo said, Seance Shrine really was Mizuna Shrine at night. When they walk in...

The extremely suspicious chibi Kyuubei appears. I was going to say it that it only appears in rumors, but the first time it appeared was in a witch Labyrinth, so that's not it either... wait, wasn't it singing a song about rumors the first time Iroha met it? Hmmm...

In any case, the group heads further in, and the rumor very kindly gives them some plaques. Yachiyo tells Tsuruno not to write anything, since they don't know what'll happen and they'd both write the same name anyway.

The plaques turn into something like familiars as soon as they finish writing, and Tsuruno is held back for not writing anything. Iroha hesitates a second with Tsuruno being attacked, but obeys when Tsuruno tells her to go ahead and take care of Yachiyo... I, uh... have a feeling the opposite scenario is more likely, though.

Yachiyo and Iroha go ahead and offer their prayers. Then, when Iroha opens her eyes...

they are at a different place, and what both of them see is...

The people they longed to meet.

Iroha's time has begun to move again.

---- x ----

Aaaand that was episode 4. This time, I wasn't dumb and actually checked the episode was over before starting to write the closing part.

This is probably true of the previous episodes too, but I particularly like how the colors are used in this one. The tale part had not really the same sepia tone of historical things, but more of a celestial yellow tone, and the part at the witch labyrinth in the supermarket has a cute candy-like tone to it. It's not the same subdued kind of realistic thing like in, say, SSSS.Gridman, but there are some good, calm parts in here.

During the rally, when Iroha was telling Yachiyo about not having anything besides Ui, the procession they were walking in the middle of is a reference to Kitsune no Yomeiri I think, but I couldn't really connect the situation or what they were talking about to the tale so I decided to not point it out up there. Do feel free to search about it and draw your own conclusions.

I forgot what else I wanted to say, so I guess I should tie this up now. Did you know? Writing the introduction and close-up is actually harder than writing about the episode itself so you'll have to forgive me for not being able to think up anything besides "see you next time". In fact...

See you next time, on episode 5!

[welcometomy20s]

February 7, 2021

This is Part two of the introduction of Nijisanji. I have written for an audience who has just gotten to know vtubers through hololive and wants to explore more. This part cover all of Nijisanji members who has debuted in the year 2019.

2019 Part 1 (Jan-Apr)

Warabeda Meiji - Another eleven year old, but likes FF14 and K-On! So frequently described as an 11 year old third season. But she is genuinely cute! And a really good singer, so much so that her K-On cover gets banned for being too close!

Gundou Mirei - Actually a teacher, but definitely a ditzy and lazy one, that is incredibly sexual to an uncomfortable degree, you know, a fan favorite, including of mine. Watch her 3D streams and you will be amazed. Has a ship with Shoichi as mentioned before, even though she’s a self-professed bisexual. It’s odd but, you know, it works!

Yuzuki Roa - Kind of innocent devil like Towa, but more like a kid than an older sister. Really like Belmond. Was friends with Chitose, a retired member, and got a costume based on her a bit, and maybe is retiring herself, considering she hasn't uploaded for quite a few months now. Well, whatever. She’s cute and innocent.  

Onomachi Haruka - Another of the rare, truly seiso people in the team, but can go wild if the vibe goes that way. Lost and found a llama in minecraft once.

Seto Miyako - Kind of a quiet girl who might be psychopathic... you know the type. Her true tendencies pop up during gaming. Also tweets a lot... make sense.

Kataribe Tsumugu - Basically retired, but her concept was so shocking that it took Naruse Naru’s return of old design to push her into the bottom of the list.

Otogibara Era - She’s a Cinderella if she has gone completely out the window. People routinely separate the original Cinderella side as Era, and her true side as Gibara.

God, how do I describe her. Gibara is just great. Her adult comments are something to behold, let’s say she gels with Tamaki very well. She returns to monke often, and does other types of screams too... seriously look at her gacha stream and witness Gibara in her full glory. Also incredibly lazy and definitely cannot live by herself.

But as you have guessed it, she is an incredible singer. (It might be the case that incredible singing is associated with madness) Had knockout hit with her 3D stream, trending number one on twitter and 30,000 US dollars in superchats!

Lize Helesta - Queen of Shizuoka, I mean Heleste kingdom. Usually behaves like an empress, but as with most royalty has a real competitive spirit, so she knows how to badmouth when she needs to. So, she’s a really stingy person as well... not really fitting for a royalty, but you do know some people that act like that.

She’s a strange person. Look at asphalt or a handstand in order to sleep. Friends with Ange, who was a childhood friend, even with an age difference. Also does radio stuff with Lulu as well. Reveres Mito, wonder why. Again, incredible 3D debut.

Ange Katrina - Nice low-middle voice with a smooth upper body, and surprisingly small but that got fixed as 3D started. Think she’s cute, but blushes when people agree. Just a cool gal who I enjoy very much... her streams, I mean.

Inui Toko - She’s a cerberus, and now works at a cafe. A little bit out there, but definitely a tsukkomi. Usually does little gaming outside Minecraft, so mostly talks and sings. A unique laugh and loves Ensemble Stars. Hangs out with red and blue people, like Lize, Ange, Roa, Ayame, Suisei and so on. Actually is boing boing, Ange felt betrayed.

And as mentioned above, a great singer, and can play many instruments as well!

Saegusa Akina - High tension singer, who is quite sickly and is terrible with girls. But he got better as time went on and the ship with his gen mate Manami started to sail. Actually he hangs around with many girls... maybe it’s just Manami?

Arizona Manami - Ito Life’s daughter... so you know what she looks like. Calls herself the queen of sensitivity, and yes she does very suggestive streams... but she’s pretty innocent and childish... so she’s kind of like Melody in a way. Has a very fond-looking relationship with Akina as mentioned above.

Suzuhara Lulu - Just your typical art student. She’s a rich girl, so she knows very little about the outside world. Definitely has stamina of a thousand horses, famously played 11 hours of Dark Souls, then straight onto 10 hours of Ring Fit, and never got phased. Seriously, she never gets phased. She rode the freaking snake without a problem! Apparently really beautiful in real life, really has large expressions.

There’s a rumor going around that she’s actually some kind of an eldritch god... and I don’t know where that comes from at all. Look at her, she’s such a sweet gal, look at her dancing and singing... she’s a true idol, that’s what she is... (don’t hurt me.)

Yukishiro Mahiro - First-year high-schooler. Good variety of content. Her personality is of a rude kouhai. One viewer described her as a bad-tempered chihuahua. Really likes Kanae, which is okay, I guess. There’s not much more than that.

2019 Part 2 (May-Aug)

Ex Albio - A hero from a different world. Originally portrayed as a rude snarky figure, much like Kazuma without charm or luck but with perseverance. Got his fame through his noob Minecraft experience, as with Minecraft servers, they are ripe with collab opportunities, so he started to collab especially with Ars Almal, which he thinks as a mentor... and so they both talk in high register. Eventually became a couple.

Has a thing where he questions something and immediately denies it, which is quite funny. Eventually got a dark alter version due to the imagination tournament I talked about earlier, which brings the fact that he can’t fight until tragedy occurs.

Levi Elipha - Actually only six years old, and apparently dense, like physically dense. Great singer and good physique, does some English songs as well.

Nui Sociere - A 25-year old witch, but more like a NEET with an addiction to horse racing. Very much like Megumi in terms of magic abilities, but capable of melee.

Kind of sounds like Doraemon when she screams... usually plays JRPG... and well, just look at her. Damn... well, least you have something to look forward to.

Hayama Marin - Hayame is Hayame. She’s just a little kid with a pure mind. Yeah.

Hayato Kagami - CEO of a toy company, so called that. Polite and diligent, but like a CEO of a toy company, completely becomes a boy when getting a bit excited.

Actually is a great singer, maybe a trained singer as well. As a good example of rich getting richer, fans have a tendency to throw red superchat, a typical stream might hit 10K USD, even though there’s nothing particular going on.

Yorumi Rena - Idol magician, but no actual proof of her magic abilities. Plays APEX a lot. Very much an outgoing person with lots of collab from everyone. Hakase calls her mama. Sleep promptly at midnight, except when ARK was involved.

Also makes 8-bit art proficiently, does all her loading screen. A bit of a lewd mind.

Hakase Fuyuki - HIgh school girl who likes to experiment, but it’s obvious none of it ever works. Tries to ship Yorumi and Kagami, and calls him papa. Just absolutely in her own world and everyone is just privy to it... also incredibly bad at gaming.

Mayuzumi Kai - A white hacker. Very cool, but has a thing for comedy, almost to the level of Joe Riikichi, but laughs very little himself. Make sense, since he lost his parents at an early age and lived in the system, therefore is a night streamer. Very good with kids as a result, and very kind and polite as well.

Ars Almal - A mage who specializes in lightning. Started out by apologizing, gets bullied for her round face, usually by Shiina. Cute voice with toxic words with a knack for pranks and taunts. Actually is quite boing boing. Good at Minecraft construction, but get rough and dirty under the wheel, as in Mario Kart. Became a kitsune, and then immediately got compared to Fubuki... much like Fubuki in a sense.

Aiba Uiha - Another idol who is a bit out there, has a tendency to be clingy. Also has a large physique... kind of a denatured Lulu is what I’m getting at. Sisters with Ara Chae, incredibly bad eyesight, apparently. I can see that, actually.

Eli Conifer - A flower fairy and maid with a unique phrasing. Likes to immerse herself in games, very knowledgeable, especially with teas, and also handy at housework, and superb at drawing and singing. Ryushen and Rion think she’s a badass, and they might not be entirely wrong on that aspect, actually.

Kokoro Amaiya - Dragonborn, I think. But there’s no dragon anymore. Has that mumble-speak that people really don’t like. She’s very much kid-like in a sense, uh, so get put into the loli category much like her fellow peer. Incredibly weak.

Ratna Petit - Adventurer with an independent streak. Does games and ASMR, tries to be grown up during collabs, but retreats into a kid in solo streams. Got the infamous random deletion of the account that Kiara famously got.

Nijisanji ID Gen 1

Taka Radjiman - Another CEO, this time a food CEO. Usually streams games, but much like other CEOs here, a pretty good singer as well. Obviously a good cook as well.

ZEA Cornelia - She’s an automata. ZEA is short for Z-type Executive Automation. Likes to sing, and sung many songs including La Vien en Rose by IZONE! I really like her, her streams are bit odd and ZEA can carry a stream like no another.

Hana Macchia - A design student, much like Lulu. Likes drawing as you expect, also like gaming as well. Does some barista stuff as well, a kind of the ambassador of Nijisanji ID, since her father is American and her mother is Japanese, and she lives in Indonesia.

Papa Macchia appears on stream from time to time, and apparently was the progenitor of Hana’s gaming prestige as he played Doom and Half-Life. She’s on the cute side of things, but blushes when she gets called that. Also cries in horror, but screams in excitement... just overall a well-rounded in strangeness. I really like her.

2019 Part 3 (Sep-Dec)

Sukoya Kana - Incredibly smart, but also has an otaku and perverted side. Likes acting, as you might have guessed and bad at housework. Has a quiet voice, but gets savage when a game is involved. Pretty good at english as well. Does a radio show as well.

Oh, yeah, likes to throw up. It’s a thing. Also plays drums. She’s pretty cool.

Shellin Burgundy - Before Kanata did her PPT intro, Shellin was the first one. Professes himself to be a detective, but little lightheaded for that. Good narration voice, though, which means he’s a good singer as well. I kind of like him. He’s good.

Hayase Sou - An outdoorsy girl who likes cosplay and road biking. Kind of talks like she’s middle age, but she acts pretty young. And of course she likes shotas.

Fumi - It took over a year for her to debut. She’s a hikikomori gundam otaku and a goddess. A bit airheaded and pretty bad at gaming, and since she is 67, gets called grandma infrequently. She’s fun to watch. Has a ship with Nagao.

Hoshikawa Sara - Half Japanese and half English. Definitely a cool and tough, ready to take whatever sex jokes and insults you throw at her. Hangs out with Mahiro a lot, or with male members like Yumeoi, Ebio, Shellion or Kanda. Has a wide voice range, with a wide personality as well. There’s a sense of healing to her, honestly.

Obviously gets fangirled by many, including Matsuri, whose frequently red superchats her much to her confusion and relative embarrassment.

Yamagami Karuta - She’s a tengou in training, since she is filled with desires, mostly to connect with people. This is real, apparently. Has a ship with a staff member...

Matsukai Mao - Smartest devil... no, she’s an airhead like the rest of them. Apparently she can spit out crude oil... which is pretty useless. Definitely an unlucky, miserable person who needs to be protected at all times, and she relishes that like the devil she is.

Hangs around with Luis a lot in real life, apparently. Also plays APEX and stuff.

Emma August - Demon Lord that was thrown in an uprising, living with Morinaka Kazaki, and got a new house in February of last year. An alcoholic and a masochist, who gets berated by Kazaki of all people. Definitely not a loli, that’s for sure.

Luis Cammy - An expert thief, which excites Shellin very much. Seen as the leader of the gen, but found out to be much of a kid as the gen mates, especially around Shellin. They are a couple now, apparently. Oh yeah, she did an Outlast stream with a cat outfit and invited Shellin because she was scared? Now there's a loli version of her... yikes.

Fuwa Minato - A host, but a teetotaler, because of health problems... yet drinks Monster energy like it’s no business. A bit out there, as Nijisanji people are. A bit of a trickster, a bad boy if you will... right there with being good at games as well. He’s pretty cool.

Shirayuki Tomoe - When I first saw her, she felt like one of those people in mahjong tournaments. Well, she’s a queen of the night, so night-time streamer, although she has daytime streams as well. Strong drinker. Talks about SM, but also effortlessly friendly and a lovely person. I think she’s attractive, but I can see why people call her cute. She hates bugs, loves cute things, odd thoughts... feels like an aunt to me.

Very bad at reading kanji, not that she’s good at anything else. Likes to practice, hence preserved her way in the Mario Kart tournament. Does talk and ASMR streams with a third of her viewers being women. Likes Mirei, makes sense. Oh, she’s a nudist.

And don’t forget the relationship between Kana and her. Purported to be the most real of the ships of any vtubers. I believe it’s called Crossick. I don’t know too much.

Gwelu Os Gar - Presenter for the elf kingdom, hired as a presenter, since Nijisanji got so big and there’s only so many Kakeru around. Unfortunately seen as boring, and transitioned into kind of a Maimoto character.

Already married, I don’t know why that’s significant but there you go. Oh, and an actual dad! That is pretty significant. Although Setsuna also has a child, and had to retire to take care of the little baby. Teaches math to others, so that’s cool.

Mashiro - Recent high school graduate. He’s a boy. Yes, he has heels and boobs, but he’s a boy. And yes, he is a bit out there, stealing candies from the office.

Naraka - Another oni, and a loli-baba. Obviously a fan of the fellow oni, Mikoto... which has a queen kid relationship. And yes, her chest is smaller than Mashiro... sad.

Kurusu Natsume - 19-year old college student who likes music and sheep. Very smart and very normal. Has an ASMR test stream, which was pretty fun.

Nijisanji ID 2nd Gen

Rai Galliel - An interdimensional policeman. Likes cheese, but hate porridge due to only eating one for four months. Likes baking, pretty cool personality, if a bit straight edge.

Amicia Michella - A freelance illustrator, so the drawing is superb. Like sleep but also sports. Also penguins. Likes to play horror games pretty calmly. Raises two dogs, well one of them passed away late last year. Sang a 10cm cover?

Miyu Ottavia - A business student, and likes otters and is optimistic. Mostly plays RPG and online multiplayers. Tries to be cool, but look at her! She’s very cute.

Riksa Dhirendra - A 24-year-old freelancer and works as an editor and translator. Looks mean, but is actually a very decent gut. He is pretty competitive. Plays RPG.

[incarnation-of-victory]

Bakugou’s Fear of Mediocrity and Human Weakness

It’s interesting to see Bakugou’s inner thought process here as he prepares to fight this villain (from the 1st chapter of the spin-off tie-in manga to the Heroes: Rising movie, “Deku & Bakugo: Rising”), especially knowing what we know now about Bakugou and his fears about him not actually being as great as he thinks he is.

For one, the line about “[m]ost of the top heroes show[ing] signs of greatness even as students” echoes the line Bakugou says in the very first chapter of the manga proper:

Both monologues get across similar messages, but I think the one from the spin-off is a little more revealing/blatant, especially with the line “I’m not just a normal middle schooler. I’ll show them I’m different and rise to the top.” This line from the spin-off suggests that Bakugou doesn’t quite think he’s unique from the rest of his peers yet, and that he’s desperate to use this chance to finally prove himself to everybody. Meanwhile, the line from the manga makes him seem more confident in himself, that he’s sure that he’ll be the only one to succeed, while simultaneously disparaging the rest of his classmates. Of course, his words contradict his actions here: Bakugou isn’t as confident in this outcome as he seems, since he goes out of his way to discourage Deku from applying to U.A. because he actually feels threatened by him. Bakugou being the only one to get into U.A. would be a way of him validating his belief (read: hope) that he’s the best after all. Additionally, Bakugou goes on about being the first and only hero/U.A. student originating from Aldera, which, in theory, would be an easy accomplishment, since the middle school is supposedly devoid of any promising hero applicants. This achievement of him being the only one to succeed would also make him seem all the more impressive and exceptional—a unique case, so to speak. His goal should be guaranteed... if it wasn’t for Deku.

So both scenes carry the same idea, but Bakugou is a little more honest to himself in his head (makes sense, naturally). There’s this kind of sad, desperate urgency I get from the spin-off that I don’t get from the manga. It’s just a weird train of thought to have when hunting down a villain, that he’s using this opportunity to prove to everyone (and himself) he’s the great prodigy they made him out to be his whole life. Even though he still needs to reassure himself that he’s not ordinary and is actually “different.”

This whole idea of Bakugou wanting to rise above everyone else stems from this fear of mediocrity. It calls to mind how the literal translation of “Quirk” from Japanese means “Individuality” (the word “quirk” itself also implies some unique trait). This means that your Quirk is essentially what makes you, you. It's what makes you stand out among everyone else. Because Bakugou does place a lot of faith in his Quirk getting him to the top, distinguishing him as someone special. 

The interesting thing is that Bakugou initially wasn’t really aware that he was just more naturally adept—sans Quirk—than other kids his age growing up. The way he comes off in his childhood flashbacks in the manga make him seem more naive, not really understanding why everyone else just can’t as easily grasp the skills he masters so easily:

(I would argue that even current Bakugou doesn’t notice his other good qualities/talents as much, which is probably why it’s so easy for him to twist them into something bad or forget them entirely, and instead fixate solely on his Quirk. This is especially important when it comes to Heroism as a career, and his need to take more things than just raw power into consideration).

The theory that he’s just “better than everyone else” doesn’t fully cement until he gets his Quirk. With this, Bakugou seems to think of himself as someone almost godly or invincible, as someone almost more than just... human. Which is why I think he’s so averse to any suggestion that he has any weaknesses—it’s a reminder that he’s indeed human after all. He’s mortal and fallible and need help sometimes. And being human brings him back down to the level of everyone else, but perhaps even further beneath them, which is exemplified in the infamous creek scene where Deku tries to help Bakugou. And again when Deku tries to save him from the sludge villain. And repeated other instances throughout their lives. Because if Deku, someone who doesn’t even have a Quirk or anything that makes him special, is somehow is able to do something for him, then what does that make Bakugou? If Quirkless Deku is somehow better than Quirk-holder Bakugou, then Bakugou’s power—which is something he built his self-esteem around—essentially means nothing in comparison. Bakugou ends up being just like everyone else, but worse: someone so weak that they need help from a “worthless Deku.”

Another important thing to note is that part of why Bakugou neglects to think of himself as human is because most people never really treated him as such. For one, everybody almost exclusively praised him for his superficial or material strengths that it gave him the idea that he was perfect and had no flaws. In turn, he carries himself this way around others, thus perpetuating how everybody else sees him: as someone who never needs help. I could write a whole other essay on its own of how many times people in the BNHA universe assume that Bakugou doesn’t need help, or that he’s stronger than he actually is. The time the heroes left him to fend off the sludge villain is but one example. Even when Bakugou fell off that log as a child, his other friends disregarded the possibility that he might be hurt, because he’s “strong.” In terms of emotional need, nobody, not even his parents, suspected that Bakugou was still suffering emotionally from the Kamino incident, and that he wasn’t handling it as well as everyone thought he was (Talk about a poker face! For someone so outwardly expressive, it’s stunning to see how well he hides his suffering. The greatest hint we get is him being unusually quiet). All Might even points out his failure to recognize this. As much as Bakugou is responsible for his own actions, others have failed him repeatedly too.

I know I said that “people failing to recognize when Bakugou needs help” could be another post on its own, but I want to point out one scene (or rather two) in particular that showcase how much Bakugou really does need emotional and physical help sometimes.

For one, when All Might and the rescue operation break into the LoV’s hideout to retrieve Bakugou, All Might’s first priority is to verbally comfort/reassure him, as per Nana Shimura’s adage to not only save a person’s life, but their heart/spirit as well. He gives the whole “We are here” line and tells Bakugou he’s okay...

Though he outwardly denies it, the truth of the matter is, Bakugou really was in trouble and needed their help, and he truly was scared. This is clear enough by his initial reaction, which he quickly covers up with a defensive response immediately afterwards. I can’t say for sure whether All Might’s words made him feel much better, but I assume it must have given him at least a little peace of mind.

A similar thing happens when Deku and company pull Bakugou out of the following fight. Again, Bakugou is initially grateful to the team because he really did need their assistance to escape the battle grounds. Though he goes back to grumbling and arguing with Iida immediately after, and denies their part in saving him after they’ve fully escaped, his grateful/relieved, perhaps lightly disapproving smile when grabbing Kirishima’s hand reveals his true feelings.

On a somewhat different note, when Bakugou is having issues, people address them in a poor and/or dehumanizing manner: see the way he was chained and muzzled at the end of the Sports Festival. And not to get too much into the Mitsuki discourse, but the way she tries to curb her son’s behavior does not seem to help either.

Because Bakugou is so ingrained in this mentality that he’s supposed to be invulnerable, he isn’t able to interpret basic human concern properly when it’s shown to him, notably when it’s one of the few people who ever treated him like a human being: Deku. Not only that, but Deku knew Bakugou before he got his Quirk, and admired him for his other traits as well, such as his confidence and determination. But Deku never blindly idolized his friend either: he notes several times (to other people) Bakugou’s bad qualities too. The distinction here is that Deku never paints Bakugou as a lesser or bad person for it. Instead, he accepts who Bakugou is as a whole, while still acknowledging him as someone worth looking up to.

An investment in being the best is fine and all on its own, but not when it starts to infest other aspects of your life, especially socially. Bakugou’s antisocial tendencies are probably mostly due to him just deeming activities that don’t allow him to prove himself as a waste of time, but I also feel that some of it is due to his fear of appearing as a normal human being—as someone who sometimes just wants to spend time with his friends purely for the sake of enjoying their company. As someone who needs other people. I think this also kind of applies to his inability to be emotionally vulnerable around others, as well as to accept acts of kindness and affection. It’s what makes him human. This is why Bakugou only comes to Deku when he needs to open up—because Deku is one of the few people who knows him for everything he is, who recognizes him as a flawed individual. And again, Deku never looks down on him for anything (despite Bakugou’s former belief). Not even when Bakugou cries.

All this really comes down to is Bakugou accepting other people’s help and relying more on collaboration than just taking on enemies solo. I think having him participate in other, non-combative activities, such as playing in a band in the School Festival Arc, is a good way to ease him into this methodology. Also, since it seems to be a trend at this point, it’d be nice to see him be hugged at least once without making a face. Though I do think it’s at least good that people are being more attentive to his emotional needs, whether it be in praising him (when it’s warranted), or comforting him (even if he thinks he doesn’t need it). Like yeah, I highly doubt Bakugou will ever be much of a touchy-feely person.  But at the very least, he needs to know that other people care about him as a human being, and that this concern doesn’t make him any less of a talented, powerful individual.

[meowvelousmayhem]

LOOKING FOR RP PARTNERS

Hey, you can call me Mayhem or M.M. for short. I’m not new to Tumblr, but I created this account specifically for my OCs and story ideas that I would like to RP. Amid this unique situation where I find myself with more time (as of March 15, 2020), I would love to RP with someone. I’ve RPed on-and-off for about 8 or so years now, first on DeviantArt, and most recently on Google Docs. But now I am looking for a roleplay partner/partners that are chill and just want to write some teen/young adult romance that may or may not be cliche and involve people getting/being famous and stuff or fantasy rps based off of fairytales or Greek mythology. I’m also open to RPing my story ideas or yours!

So, to begin with, I have some rules/things you should know about me:

-As much as I hate to say it, I’m a sucker for cliches. But I also like to develop original ideas, so my plots/stories will be a mix

-I am a college student, and while I may not be in class physically for the next few weeks, I do have class and a job, therefore I will not be available all of the time. However, I will always try to let you know if I’m having a particularly busy day and won’t respond more than three times. Generally, I do have more free time now so that should only happen on a test day or something. I’m in Central Daylight Time.

-I am okay with RPing characters that have gone through mature situations, such as those with histories of abuse, EDs, and etc. However, I will not write explicit smut scenes. I will fade it to black. I am okay with inuendos, flirting, and heavy makeout sessions though.

-Since there could be mature situations, I’d prefer my RP partner to be like 17+

-With my last RP partner, we mostly wrote dialogue. I think my style now leans towards at least one paragraph, or two. In your response basically, just give me something to work with, and not just dialogue all the time (occasionally, this is fine). Honestly, I’m really chill about this. I just want to have some fun romance RP times.

-I like to write romance, preferably f/m pairings, but will also do f/f and m/m. We can discuss how we both want things to go, I’m pretty flexible!

- I don’t normally do face claims, every once in a while I will, but it’s fine if you want to. For my characters, I will have a separate post for each OC with aesthetics (about 6 pictures that I feel like are my characters) and a short playlist of songs, as well as their backgrounds and pertinent info. If you want to RP with me, for your character, I would at least like background info, which you can do in a post or message to me.

- In terms of how we RP, I only am really familiar with Tumblr Messaging or Google Docs. I could do Discord if that’s your preferred. I just have no idea how it works so lol

Secondly, here are some things I like to RP, beyond just my story ideas:

YA RP (preferably older high school/college)

Fantasy RP (whether that be a modern fantasy in the real world, or a totally made up universe)

- for example: Modern Hades and Persephone, anything modern Greek mythology, something inspired by Legacies, mermaids, royalty, something like The Raven Boys, FAIRY TALES

Some tropes I like are enemies-to-lovers, best friends mutually pining but afraid to take the first step, sweetheart with grumpy, sassy energetic character with cold stoic character, and more. Like I said, I’m a sucker for cliches.

Finally, my story ideas:

- One of my ideas centers around a band consisting of four guys. I have a love interest in mind for each and a general idea of how they meet, but the plot can be up to me and my partner to flesh out fully. Generally, I’m up to either rp as the boy or girl, but I have two OCs I definitely want to write for in this story.

So, these characters are college-aged, and 4 boys in a band; the lead-singer, the lead guitarist (my OC Levi), the bassist, and the drummer. They’re gaining a following on YouTube and are planning a tour locally. I envision them at a college near a beach for some reason, preferably east coast since that’s what I’m most familiar with.

For Levi, the lead guitarist: he and his love interest met on some social media like Tumblr when they were middle schoolers, and didn’t know their true identities, but became friends after some initial misunderstanding. This communication continues for years, and they became best friends. However, one of them ghosted due to personal reasons, and never came back online. Years later, while Levi is in college and the band is becoming super popular, they meet again, but don’t know that they knew each other. Shenanigans ensue. Levi’s character post is here. I could see Levi’s love interest as male or female, your choice

For the drummer, his love interest is my OC, Arden. Arden is the roommate of the female best friend of the four band members. It is their first semester in college. The roommate is super important in getting Arden and her love interest together. In my mind, Arden has a history of emotional abuse from her previous love interest, and has an anxiety disorder and an eating disorder. If eating disorders are triggering to you, but you still want to RP with this character, she can just have the anxiety disorder. She is a photography major. Her character post is here.

For the lead singer, I imagine his love interest to be the female lead singer of another “rival” band. Some kind of twitter fued starts, but then they end up meeting in person. Female is not at all interested in his advances, but he totally has the hots for her.

For the bassist, I imagine his love interest as the female best friend of the band (Arden’s roommate). They’ve known each other for a long time, and both are pining, but are too afraid to approach the topic of becoming more than friends. Their love story might begin after the boys have “made it” and are signed to a record label and go on a world tour.

Other ideas include:

- Sophie is the daughter of a famous musician, and she is also interested in music and becoming famous. In high school, she dates a person who’s a year older than her, but they break up when he leaves for college. She becomes famous through her YouTube channel and immediately after high school is signed to a record label and develops a couple of EPs, with an album on the way. Her success is huge. Her record label decides to have her open for a male famous musician, who resents that she “got famous just because she’s the daughter of a famous musician” in his mind. There are two ways this could go:

1. She gets back with her ex. Neither of them wanted to break up, but he felt it was necessary since she was becoming famous and he just went to college. The famous musician she’s touring with decides to get into a relationship with her simply for the fame and doesn’t tell her, and is abusive to her emotionally and forces her into a world of partying and drugs. She eventually drunk calls her ex, who’s super worried. Lots of struggles and angst.

2. She dates the famous musician. Her ex cheated on her, leading to their breakup. She believes that the male famous musician is a player, as he sleeps around, and has no interest in him at all. At first, he views her as a conquest, since she rejects his advances completely, and he also wants to knock her down a peg. Later, he starts to develop real feelings for her, and she reencounters her ex at some point and musician comforts her.

- Beck is a 16-year old boy who has been adopted by a wealthy family. He was previously in the foster care system, and during his time with one family, he developed a protective older-brother like relationship with a little girl who was one of the other foster kids in the home. He wants to eventually be able to help her out and form a family. His adopted family is best friends with another family who lives right next door. This other family has a child Beck’s age, who is pretty into him. No plot developed yet really.

- this post

So just shoot me a message if you’re interested/have any questions! Mostly I just want to have a fun time and write some fluff, angst, drama and romance!

[dyketectivecomics]

Hey hot stuff, I dont know if your requests are open, but if they are, could you possibly do something with the murder fam kids and them being protective of each other. Preferably when they were growing up

rem i love and appreciate you. and i was having some trouble with this one…. so i decided to mix a lot of elements into this and just make it Fun.don’t take it too seriously, lmao

…

Rose was the strategist. At least when she remembered to reign in her temper. If they didn’t catch her on a bad day, she could plot and scheme circles around any of her enemies.

Being all of twelve years old, however, those enemies were few and far between.

Raven, however, with not many more of her own enemies and being the same age as Rose, always needed a bit more help in that department. Especially when she found her sister out of commission.

She was in dire straits, and resigned herself to phoning in the next best strategist she knew. At least, the best strategist she knew to exact revenge against other middle schoolers.

But we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves here.

This particular incident was due to an unfortunate misunderstanding between passing period, which left Rose suspended, and a couple of kids sent home with injuries of varying fatality. Rose was not without her own injuries, but those were incurred while she was defending her brother’s honor. So she gladly, and rather proudly, endured their sting.

“You should see the other kids,” was a common sentiment that would be echoed around the halls when she eventually was returned to class, battle scars and all.

Even with a suspension on the part of every student involved in the incident, Raven heard enough of the whispers and gossip from all sides to know better. The only way to effectively end all of this nonsense, was to cut it off at the head, to make an example out of the ringleader.

In this particular middle school, that ringleader took the form of a bubbly blonde seventh grader who’s name need not remembering nor be worth the mention-

…

“Okay Dickens, get to the good part,” Klarion whined as he only paid partial attention to Raven’s story. Teekl swatted at his hands playfully, fully engrossed in their game as the cat switched between it’s owner and the small constructs that Miguel made to keep the other half of its attention. “Middle school drama. Rose is M-I-A. Now who’s the mysterious stranger you had to call?”

Duela punched the witch boy’s shoulder for interrupted. “Go on, Rae. Who was it?”

The empath cleared her throat. “You all might remember, before Rose and before Joey… Slade had another son…”

…

“The fuck do you mean I’ve got two whole-ass sisters now?!”

If Raven could describe Grant’s tone now, without being able to actually feel all of the disbelief that was likely emanating from his form at this moment, it would only be one word: incredulous. She’d just learned that word a week ago, and it was one that definitely helped this whole affair stick out like a sore thumb in her memory.

“I can see military school must be treating you well,” she scoffed, “But I didn’t call to exchange pleasantries or discuss familial ties. I need your help on exacting revenge against these kids and with ending this. Once and for all.” She took a deep breath before muttering darkly, “By any means necessary.”

“Sis, I don’t know you, but I like the attitude,” another pause, and Raven could hear muffled yelling on the other side of the line. She waited patiently for whatever argument he was having with another cadet to finish. “Hope you got a pad and a pen, because you’re gonna wanna take notes. No one messes with my little bro. But since I’m not there to help him, and since she was, I’m gonna help you. And that makes everything square, you got me? Don’t think this means you can just bother me whenever, got it?”

“Are you going to give me those instructions or not? Because this pad’s already almost full of doodles now-”

…

“Liar,” Eddie interrupted, “No way in hell you were that smooth as a twelve year old.”

The other Berserkers shushed their teammate. And Raven pressed on.

…

A plan in three acts.

Act one, the cafeteria. A school wide quote poisoning unquote of the soda fountain and milk cartons. No stone unturned. No beverage left behind.

No mercy for any of these unfortunate souls-

…

“Wait, I’ve see this one,” Miguel interrupted as the Berserkers groaned around him, “Poop-mageddon right? You’re the kid that made all those kids crap their pants and inspired that doc-”

“No fucking way!” “That’s impossible!” “But that wasn’t actually real-”

“Judas Hecking Priest! Will anyone just let her finish?!” Rose yelled over the chorus of protests, “Are we really gonna ruin another damn story like this? Do ya just wanna skip to the punchline? Yeah, Raven made them all poop their pants in a glorious prank! She made sure that bitch knew to back the fuck off of Joey! Just once can we have a story told around here with some poetry before y'all try to guess the end and ruin it! Christ!”

A silence befell the team as the fidgeted nervously. Some looked away in shame. And after a few more beats of silence, Conner found the bravery to ask, “So wait… did Raven actually make that happen or… were you messing with us right now?”

The half-demon only gave a devious smile.

“Every tall tale has elements of truth to them, Conner. That’s what makes a truly great story become an excellent one.”

“Yeah, but your execution’s gonna need a little work,” Klarion shot off one last time before Raven flipped his chair with a flick of her wrist.

[foundcarcosa]

“the ex gifted kid this is just an inherently privileged mindset“ (taken from this post)

See, the funny thing about this anon is that they’re talking about AP, which I didn’t even consider as a “gifted kid” thing -- the way I see it, AP was for high-schoolers who hit the books hardcore and were ambitious about their secondary education options. AP was generally a mix of hard-working students of pretty average intelligence and those hyper-intelligent slackers that coasted by on whatever it is that made their brains run like computers.

(cut for length)

I was pressured to take AP classes at the beginning of high school, but my apathy saved my ass -- I lacked the ambition to give a fuck about AP, and I started failing hardcore in regular classes (partially because I didn’t give a fuck and was preoccupied with mental stuff but also because I am just... not that fucking intelligent, not in an academic sense) which is bad enough but can you imagine how catastrophically I would have tanked in AP? Would have been a waste of everyone’s time.

Anyway, tangent aside, I know the misconception is that “ex-gifted kids” are those slackers they knew from AP who didn’t want to do all the grunt work but every once in a while they’d turn in a project and adults would ooh-and-ahh over it and laud them as a prodigy and a future Silicon Valley mogul and all this shit. And I guess there probably are some tumblr usrs running around calling themselves “ex-gifted” but having this background.

But from my experience, “ex-gifted” kids are often (often, I said; there are likely a fair amount of NT ex-gifteds too) autistic or otherwise-ND kids who were advanced in one aspect of brain development but also deficient in other aspects; the adults around them focused on the parts they were advanced in, usually flat-out ignoring the remedial development areas, or assuming that “of course they can’t socialise, they’re too smart for those other pleb children who are probably jealous*” -- and yeah, that’s a real fucked up mindset on grown folks’ part that probably doesn’t get addressed much either. I, for example, was hyperlexic and a bookish nerd to boot, and that’s apparently all it takes in the ghetto for a kid to be lauded as the smartest kid in their age group. My dad, being a damn Leo, definitely fed into this -- he was proud of me but he was proud of me for something I didn’t actually put work into doing. The things I loved doing -- drawing, for example, and singing -- didn’t get any attention because all anyone cared about was the fact that I knew the names of all the cloud formations (special interests, y’all) and I could pronounce and define multisyllabic words at age 5. (My reading comprehension was like baseline at best, though, but... no one noticed that part.)

Meanwhile, my social development was so remedial that I basically had to teach myself how not to be a raging spaz when I moved out at 17 after graduation and had to face the world at large without the guardianship of my father to fall back on. I didn’t actually start succeeding in that self-learning process until around 19-20, and right now I consider myself learnéd enough to get by, but I’m still weak in some areas, and I’m always going to be ND so that’s always going to be a struggle no matter what.

-- What first made me notice that the “gifted kid” thing was a crock of shit was when I hit high school. Shit just stopped making sense in school for me around that time; I think the one time I was on my classmates’ level was in middle school. Before that I was slightly ahead; after that I was markedly behind. Math I was all right at, I think (I just didn’t like it) but English? Science? Yeah, I couldn’t understand a goddamn thing. I got 0s on my English midterm and final in 11th grade. 0s, because I stared at the exam for 2 hours with a gaping void in my mind where the thought processes that lead to essay-writing should be. Suddenly, I might as well have been stupid, remedially stupid, because in comparison to my classmates I sure seemed that way.

That’s around the time when burnout seems to happen -- when one realises that the system and the adults around them have been lying to them. That being “gifted” is not really a thing, that we had some atypical behaviours as children, a little headstart in reading or a special interest in something that made us sound like Poindexters because we memorised the words in books and would parrot them at everyone in passing, or whatever, but that doesn’t mean anything once we’re not children anymore. That our parents (or whomever) ignored the things we were actually good at -- as in, worked at constantly because we enjoyed them, and developed real skill in as a result -- for some nebulous sense of “intelligence” that usually just inflated their own egos and gave them something to brag about at cookouts. 

That school is actually fucking difficult, and full of bullshit, and is sometimes impossible to perform in with any success if you also are struggling with nascent mental disorders, the universal hormonal surges of adolescence, and the fact that peer socialisation is only getting more and more difficult even as it’s becoming more and more important. (I happened to not have alcohol and drugs to deal with because my dad was hella strict, which I guess is a good thing in hindsight -- but I know plenty of kids ended up using those to compensate, and substances + still-developing brains = not a good look, y’all. It really can mess you up, in varying ways and intensities, and usually does.)

And then the adults around you, when you inevitably start failing, blame you for it. “You’re not working up to your potential!” “You’re so smart, why are you pretending to be stupid?” “You’re just being lazy. Just study harder!” (That last one is iffy. Sometimes we are being lazy, or apathetic, or preoccupied with like, idk, boys/girls or parties or the internet. But that’s because we’re teenagers. Duh.)

All these things combined plus a little hindsight when one is in one’s 20s can lead to some outrage. And a lot of former “gifted kids” are working through that outrage. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to be blaming their problems on that part of their life forever. But it does mean that brain development doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and everything contributes. This is one thing that often goes overlooked, probably because everyone assumes that smart people (or so-called smart people) don’t have problems and the world bends to accommodate them, or whatever. I don’t know what y’all think.

I came out ... relatively all right in this area because of apathy, and because other things in my life seemed to have more of an impact. Also because I have no interest in being “intelligent” or anything, so it doesn’t matter if someone thinks I am or not. But I see how this shit happens, and I promise you it’s real.

*Also, when other children do become envious of “gifted” kids, it has nothing to do with thinking those kids are smarter than them -- it has a lot more to do with those kids being set apart and given special treatment just because they can do math better or whatever, which enforces a “they’re better than you” mentality that sometimes fucks those kids over later. Everyone gets fucked by the gifted-kid system in some way.

[2whatcom-blog]

How America’s Obsession with Early Success Is Hurting Late Bloomers

Wealthy Karlgaard was, as he put it, a late bloomer. He instructed Healthline he spent a lot of his 20s "incapable of holding a job greater than dishwasher or security guard." Nevertheless, issues started to alter for him after he took a job with an organization as a brief typist. It was there he started exercising after work with a number of of his colleagues, a bunch of engineers and venture managers who would go on early night runs collectively. Whereas on one in every of their group runs, an engineer requested Karlgaard if he aspired to do something greater than being in a temp typing pool. "I said I did, but I had no clue what. I felt like I'd never figured out the whole job thing," he stated. Although Karlgaard could not give his co-worker a lot of a solution on the time, the engineer noticed potential in Karlgaard and provided him some work doing technical typing. That is when one thing modified for Karlgaard. "It was like a lifeline from heaven, working with engineers and project managers, that opened my brain up to a world I'd never been exposed to," he stated. Right now, Karlgaard is the writer of Forbes journal, a famous writer, tv commentator, non-public investor, and board director. He believes he would not have completed any of this stuff if the chance he was given by that engineer had been provided to him when he was "21 or 22." "I wouldn't have made any use of it," he stated. "I was lucky in a sense." Karlgaard is aware of his story is not as distinctive as some might imagine. Many individuals bloom later in life after they're given the room they should develop. That is why he is made it his mission to assist folks perceive that late bloomers merely have totally different paths of discovery. In truth, a brand new guide titled "Late Bloomers," written by Karlgaard, is because of be launched by Penguin Random Home on April 16, 2019. It chronicles Karlgaard's personal late-blooming trajectory and compiles years of analysis to debate the psychology of late blooming.

How early blooming turned the gold commonplace

"The conveyor belt we've created that drives kids and teens to get great test scores rewards a different set of skills. There are so many more different kinds of human gifts that will flower in their own time. I want to start a national conversation around that," Karlgaard stated. As Karlgaard sees it, the issue is that our present society nonetheless views early achievement as a marker of success. "I have a theory about why that is," he defined. "If you look at the two most lucrative fields, they have been software and financing -- the Googles and Goldman Sachs of the world." Whereas he acknowledges there are clearly different paths to success, he sees these fields as essentially the most profitable and steady -- the fields which have minted essentially the most millionaires and billionaires. "These two industries are really quite ruthless about who they screen for and the kinds of employees they want. They want people coming out of elite colleges with STEM backgrounds. The kid who may have had latent brilliance doesn't get discovered," Karlgaard stated. As these industries have taken over, so has the stress youngsters face to realize as a lot as attainable, as early as attainable, to have one of the best choices for the longer term. Most of that stress comes from their dad and mom, deliberately or not, as they're additionally feeling the stress to see their youngsters succeed. This could typically be as a result of they both see that success as a illustration of how they carried out as dad and mom or just wish to know their kids are going to be able to taking good care of themselves later in life. Simply how far are some dad and mom prepared to go? The latest faculty admissions scandal, through which celebrities like Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin have been charged for paying massive quantities of cash to bribe their youngsters into elite colleges, proves some dad and mom will go to nice (and unlawful) lengths. Tales like these spotlight simply how immense the stress to be an early bloomer is right this moment.

The downsides of early achievement

John Mopper is an adolescent therapist with Blueprint Psychological Well being in Somerville, New Jersey. He additionally occurs to think about himself a late bloomer. After bouncing round between jobs in his 20s, he instructed Healthline it wasn't till he was 30 that he determined to pursue turning into a therapist. Mopper referred to as that call a recreation changer and stated, "Every day I'm having these conversations with my clients about what it means to be successful, and how society's version of success right now really boils down to a career path and money. But there are a lot of people who are 'successful' who aren't actually happy with their lives." He desires dad and mom to acknowledge that almost all youngsters aren't able to make long-term profession selections. "I think a very small percentage of 18-year-olds actually know what they want to do with their lives. Then there are some who think they know, but who will change their minds several times. And the majority don't have a clue," he stated. Mopper stated he was just lately having a dialog about this matter with a shopper who occurs to be a highschool pupil. His recommendation to that shopper, and to all excessive schoolers who could also be battling with uncertainty about their subsequent steps, is to go to neighborhood faculty and simply take 4 or 5 lessons they're actually eager about earlier than committing to a level. "I think a lot of people get stuck in the failure," he stated. "They go to college too soon, before they're really ready, and it doesn't work out. They've tried, and going to school now comes with a negative consequence. They feel like they've failed, and that really becomes a part of their identity. They don't want to experience those feelings again, so they can't bring themselves to try again." By permitting teenagers the time to actually uncover what it's they're eager about, what it's they wish to do, his hope is that extra can discover the sort of success that extends far past a paycheck.

Escaping the stress cooker

Dr. Margaret Stager is director of the Division of Adolescent Drugs at MetroHealth Medical Heart in Cleveland. She's additionally a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. She instructed Healthline, "The pressure is great for teens to not only succeed but also super-succeed. That pressure has moved down from college to high school and now even a little into middle school." She stated that youngsters are being anticipated to realize at youthful and youthful ages. "I'm seeing kids taking AP classes their sophomore year. That used to be something that didn't happen until senior year. It's really taken the fun out of high school for these teenagers who are having to accept that it's just a lot of hard work." She stated she typically tries to speak to oldsters about pulling again from these AP lessons and rounding out the lecturers with one thing the scholar loves, whether or not that be sports activities or music or one thing to do with their church or favourite nonprofit. "That's just as important to their development as AP chemistry," she stated.

Redefining success and failure

For his half, Karlgaard merely desires dad and mom to know that it isn't the tip of the world if a baby does not know what they wish to be at 18 years outdated. In truth, he'd like to see our society begin to acknowledge the advantages of other paths for younger adults, to incorporate neighborhood schools, expert commerce colleges, hole years, and even perhaps the adoption of nationwide service packages and necessities. "I really feel fortunate that it was easier to be a late bloomer when I grew up," he stated. "Today we are typecasting kids earlier and earlier and putting extraordinary pressure on them to get great grades and make great test scores, and when you look at the price we're paying for that -- the rise in student debt, depression, and suicide rates -- we've created this early-bloomer pressure cooker that I think has gotten really out of hand." Although it could appear that society's definition of success is shrinking, there are numerous examples of profitable adults who, like Karlgaard and Mopper, discovered success later in life. By telling their tales, maybe we are able to start to shift perspective and understand that what many in society see right this moment as a failure to launch might merely be a late bloomer who wants extra time to develop into the success they're meant to be. Read the full article

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#50: Season 3, Episode 20 - “Surf’s Up”

Recurring character Zack Estrada invites Twitty to go surfing with him and his friends. Out of jealousy, Louis, who was not invited — invites himself.. which causes all sorts of drama. Meanwhile, Ren meets and falls for a guy named Gil who she has reason to believe might be a merman.

Okay, so I just want to start off by saying… a lot of people don’t like this episode. I looked at some old forums from 2000-2006 recently and so many people were like “This episode sucked!” right after it initially aired, lol. I guess I can see why they felt that way, but this episode is actually one of my personal favorites. Why have I ranked it #50 then, you ask? Well, upon re-watching.. it felt a little flat and sort of dragged on. It wasn’t as funny or strong as I remembered, but I still absolutely love the basis for the whole thing. If we’re looking at what I’m basing my rankings on, this one probably meets only 2 of the 6 requirements - “personal favorite” and “quality plot line.” So, now that you know my reasoning... let’s dive in. (Pun intended.)

In the opening scene, we see Louis and Twitty at lunch when *dun dun dunnnn* Zack Estrada calls Twitty over and invites him to go surfing at Troubadour Point. Now, this episode actually marks Zack’s last appearance. So, without getting into detail.. Basically, Louis has always been super jealous of this dude. Like, incredibly jealous. The jealousy dates back to early Season 1 and spans 4 episodes throughout the shows run. I refer to it as The Zack Estrada Saga. And here, it continues. The third to last episode of the series, and he’s still jealous.

I know that feel, Lou. 

When Twitty returns to their lunch table he’s talking excitedly about spring break. Which, piggybacking off of what I said last week, is another reason why I fully believe these kids were intended to be high school students. Because, no middle schoolers I know go gallivanting off to the beach unsupervised for spring break, lol. But, hey! Maybe it’s different in 2017. Nah, yeah. Something’s telling me it’s definitely different in 2017. Middle schoolers look and act 25 years old these days, so.

Louis’ jealousy is very evident when he passive aggressively asks Twitty when he started hanging out with Zack and his friends. Twitty says he went surfing with them last spring break while Louis was at a temper tantrum workshop. This is the first funny moment of the episode. Louis responds by screaming at Twitty on the verge of tears, “nOW YOU LISTEN HERE! I EXPRESS MYSELF APPROPRIATELY NOW!” Louis decides to go ahead and invite himself to Troubadour Point even though he has no idea how to surf.

This episode was always somewhat refreshing to me, because it’s one of the only ones where we see our characters in an environment other than their houses or school. That’s something cool about early Disney Channel shows. They weren’t contrived or restricted to a sound stage on a fake beach like Hannah Montana, for example. They’re actually at a real beach and I love it. 

They make a point to show Twitty and the owner of the beach shack rub a sacred lucky surf idol tiki thing and say “Pray for waves!” Louis enters the shack with his surfboard (which is bad luck apparently) and knocks over the tiki. Yikes. This reminds me of The Brady Bunch Hawaii episode, lol. I was just waiting for the bad luck music to play. Zack was already a little annoyed when Twitty told him Louis was coming, so now… his dislike for Louis is pretty strong. 

Side note: I feel like Disney Channel totally typecast Brandon Baker as that ~ethnic surfer bro.~ For those of you who don’t know or never realized, he also played Johnny Kapahala (a.k.a Johnny Tsunami). I just came across this cute little followup series Disney did with him last year. Side side note: Brandon is actually biracial (white and fillipino) and they portrayed that accurately on screen in the Johnny movies! Random to mention, I know. But I’m biracial so I get oddly happy when I notice this stuff, lol.

There are actually two mini subplots in this episode, which might contribute to its “off”-ness. We have Tom who’s trying to build a perfect sandcastle. And we have Beans who’s metal detecting, but just ends up stealing people’s stuff. Beans really shouldn’t be there. His bit is useless. I understand it was most likely an attempt to get everyone involved in the fun beach location episode.. but, I feel like there might be too many things going on here.

Tawny is sitting by Tom, all covered up from the sun. Tom asks her why she isn’t helping with the sand castle and she’s like “Oh, I’m just waiting for a little more cloud cover.” And, Tom says “Oh. Right. Heaven forbid a ray of sunshine should touch your precious porcelain skin.” Tom is the best. But of course.. Twitty, Zack and the surfer bros go running to the ocean and step all over the castle. Louis is trailing behind them like a lovable uncoordinated doofus and ruins the remainder of it. Tom is so sad. Bless his heart.

Ren, Ruby and Monique are chilling on the beach too when some guys ask them to hang out. Side note: This one dude who Monique runs away with!! I always thought he looked familiar and as I was watching it again today — it hit me! He went on to be a member of fictional boyband Boyz N Motion from That’s So Raven! Omg. I looked it up just to make sure, and I was in fact correct. His name is Michael Copon. So, there’s that.

Ren is on the dock throwing pebbles and shells into the sea when a guy emerges from the water and throws shells back at her, lol ok. The two start talking and she finds out his name is Gil! Yep. THE Gil who breaks her heart in a pancake house in The Even Stevens Movie. Gil swims away, and Ren can’t help but notice the giant glimmering fin that splashes in the water. I’d honestly be a little confused, too.

My inner subconscious Social Justice Warrior came out a bit when Ren sees Monique and Ruby doing their hair and makeup and says “Ah! Makeup and hairspray at the beach. Very nice, girls. I thought you already met some guys.” To which they respond, “Yeah, and we wanna keep them.” NOOOOOO! Sorry. I hate to view things through that lens, but after spending so much time on Tumblr and Twitter (especially in the current climate of the country) it just rubs off on you! Ugh. You can’t escape it! Anyway, Ren tells them about Gil and the whole fin thing and they find it absolutely hilarious.

Out on the ocean, Twitty and Zack’s crew are bummed because there are no waves. Zack angrily says “Pfft! I wonder why…” And gives Louis the nastiest look as he comes paddling up to them all happy. I feel so bad. Zack yells at him for bringing his board into the shack and breaking the lucky surf idol. The gang desert Louis and head back to the beach for lunch. Twitty sides with them saying “sometimes I just need to do my own thing, man” and leaves Louis alone in the middle of the ocean. My poor baby. :(

I will not stand for this! Protect Louis Stevens at all costs. 

Louis goes back to the beach and once again walks right through Tom’s sandcastle. Come on, man! You could’ve walked around it, lol. It’s not even like he was running.. he was casually walking. I can’t. He goes to the dock and finds Ren with binoculars looking for Gil. The two of them have a “conversation” that’s not really a conversation. It’s just them going back and forth ranting about their own problems without actually listening to the other. It’s a cute sibling moment, haha. I actually really love Louis and Twitty’s friendship, though. They’re like an old married couple in this episode. I think it’s adorable. During this scene Louis is so fed up with Twitty ditching him for Zack, so he decides to go surf on his own. Meanwhile, Ren is ranting about Gil being real, knowing what she saw and that she’s not crazy.

“At least your best friend didn’t ditch ya. He’s hanging out with his ~new~ surfer buddies. They’re probably having a good’ol time. Laughing, eating onion rings. Twitty doesn’t even like onion rings! Ya know?! So, it’s weird. He’s probably faking like he likes them!” I love this.

Ren decides to go out on the ocean in a boat and call for Gil by making dolphin noises. She brought sardines to lure him with and everything. This is pretty funny and one of my favorite scenes because it’s rooted in miscommunication. Plots with comedic miscommunication are one of my favorite things ever and it’s executed really well here. Naturally, Gil pops up from the water. Like... I’d believe he’s a merman, too. Why is he out there in the ocean all the time?! What was he doing underwater?! How long was he under?! How was he breathing?! All valid questions. 

How creepy is that?! lol

He swims over to Ren and tells her he was getting Lobsters for his dad, King Neptune. I’m dead. She’s like “Wow. So you really are a sea person…” - “Yep, born and raised!” he says. This is gold. Then we get a super cringy, awkward moment. After a tiny bit of flirting, Gil proceeds to dramatically kiss Ren????? Slow your rolls, buddy. That’s a little fast for Disney Channel, don’t you think? They just met 2 hours ago at the most, and Ren is in middle school. I’M TELLIN YA! THESE KIDS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE JUNIORS AND SENIORS IN HIGH SCHOOL, I SWEAR! It’s the only logical explanation for certain stuff. 

Beans is a freaking idiot who hovered his metal detector over peoples’ pocketbooks and crap all day and stole their personal belongings. But he refers to it as “buried treasure.” How stupid can you be?! Like I said, he’s pretty useless here and did not need to be included in the episode. Plus, you know I’m not the biggest Beans fan. Finally, we see him hover the detector over a tip jar in the shack. He goes to steal all of it before Tawny stops him. Tom comes over and announces that the Lost and Found is open, yelling out all of the items in Beans’ bag lol. There’s one bit where Tom shouts “ONE GOLDEN……. oh geez, this is mine” and sneakily puts it in his pocket. Uh. What the heck was it?! Do I even want to know? Can anyone tell what that is?

While everyone’s in the shack sulking over the lack of waves, Twitty decides to go out and attempt to surf again. While he’s sitting out there, a freaking giant wave comes out of nowhere and sweeps him away. Louis notices and runs to Twitty’s rescue! They don’t skimp on the dramatics here. Louis kicks into full Baywatch slo-mo mode with an 80s knockoff power jam “You can count on mEeEeeE, I will always beeee thereeee for youuUuUuU” playing in the background. So good.

One thing I really like about Even Stevens is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. They’ll throw in giant computer generated waves, and a terrible green screen job - but it doesn’t matter. It’s not supposed to look good, it’s supposed to be funny. It doesn’t need to look real to sell the moment on this show. (Christy said something similar on the movie’s DVD commentary!) If this scene looked realistic, the episode would pull a 180 and turn into a drama. That’s not what they were going for, haha. 

A totally not superimposed Twitty getting swept away.

Louis cracks me up. Literally anything out of his mouth is funny because of the way Shia phrases it. Once he rescues Twitty he says “You know what’s funny to me? That the worst surfer in the world is havin’ to save Hot Shot Surfer Boy over here.” They proceed to argue like an old married couple some more. Twitty says he never called himself Hot Shot Surfer Boy. Louis calls Twitty two-faced and insists he buy him a Philly Cheese Steak to apologize. It’s so petty, I love it so much. When suddenly… ANOTHER WAVE COMES OUT OF NOWHERE! We get a wonderful Louis Scream as they frantically paddle. They end up briefly surfing the wave together. 

Twitty: “DUDE THIS IS SO AWESOME THIS WAVE’S LIKE… 10 FEET OVER OUR HEADS!” Louis: “DON’T CHANGE THE SUBJECT, TWITTY! I’M STILL MAD AT CHUUUU!”

Louis falls off and disappears into the sea, which is hilarious looking. But, also awful because if this was a drama, he would’ve died. But, anyway. Twitty comes riding up to shore and everyone surrounds him with praise for conquering that gnarly wave all by himself. Meanwhile, Louis washes up to shore covered in seaweed. This poor child. The two of them share one of those conflicting ~emotional~ moments where one person knows they’re being a jerk and looks off sadly at the person they’re letting down. :( Thankfully, Twitty tells the truth when Zack asks him how he caught the wave and everyone’s shocked that Louis actually did something right.

Ren’s sitting on the beach when some guy approaches her, and she realizes it’s Gil…? But, he’s walking? With legs? And then everything gets cleared up. “King Neptune” is the name of his dad’s seafood company, and he swims with a uni-fin flipper. I almost wish there were more layers of miscommunication! It could’ve been even funnier.  

Louis and Twitty end up having a heart to heart while sitting in Tom’s sandcastle. It’s precious. I wish I had a friendship that tight. Instead I’m sitting here, indoors, blogging about a fictional friendship. Twitty apologizes for ditching Louis, and Louis apologizes for inviting himself. But, Twitty says he’s glad he did because he might not be alive. “Yeah… The whole save your life thing. Whatever, it’s all in a day’s work.” I love Louis. How could you not be this guys friend?! To this day, I wish I had a friend as funny and chill as Louis. Dang. Twitty even bought him a Philly Cheese Steak! Aw. They split it and it’s a nice moment. But, as they’re eating.. they have to throw in a bad line. “Huh. It’s a little dry, isn’t it?” Louis asks. Cue another giant CG wave. Get it? Now the sub isn’t dry anymore! Hah..hahaa..ha…? I never thought that line was particularly funny. It’s almost on par with this terribly cheesy (and insensitive) deleted scene from Titanic. But the visual of them getting hit by the fake wave while sitting in a sandcastle is one of those things that will always cheer me up. I can’t look at that without laughing.

And that’s it! The episode ends with a random Twitty-Stevens Connection music video "Dawn Patrol" lol. The song always gets stuck in my head. Ugh. It’s so cringy in the best way. I actually love some of the bloopers they included. But, hey! Who’s the rando on bass? Beans became their bassist earlier in the season. They use Beans for a throwaway metal detector plot, but don’t have him play bass in the band he plays bass for. Okay. Also according to the episode credits, AJ Trauth actually wrote the song! Haha, awesome.

So, yeah. My opening statements pretty much sum up my feelings towards this one. But, one distracting thing I feel like mentioning is that this episode uses one too many unflattering fish-eye style close ups? WHY?! Look:

One too many! ONE TOO MANY! Paul Hoen directed this one. He still directs for Disney today, btw! I wonder what made him decide on this? It really stood out to me and gives the episode a bit of an offbeat, quirky feel. 

Thanks for reading guys! I feel like these posts are getting longer and longer. I have to reel myself in here. (Okay, no pun intended there.) As usual, chime in below. Are you one of the people on that old forum who thought this episode sucked? I personally like it a lot and was tempted to rank it higher!

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Houston-area schools adopt mindfulness practices to increase learning

Houston-area schools adopt mindfulness practices to increase learning Originally published July 31, 2019 in the Houston Chronicle. By Allison Bagley You don’t need a mat to get the centuries-old benefits of yoga, experts say. As the school year approaches, districts across Houston are incorporating basic chair-based yoga movements, intentional breathing and other mindfulness practices into the daily classroom routine. https://ihtusa.com https://ihtusa.com/houston-area-schools-adopt-mindfulness-practices-to-increase-learning/ Originally published July 31, 2019 in the Houston Chronicle. By Allison Bagley You don’t need a mat to get the centuries-old benefits of yoga, experts say. As the school year approaches, districts across Houston are incorporating basic chair-based yoga movements, intentional breathing and other mindfulness practices into the daily classroom routine. [caption id="attachment_19221" align="alignright" width="500"] Getty Images[/caption] The techniques are calming and lead to better learning. The benefits extend to teachers, too. “In the classroom, you’re not going to break into downward dog,” says Helen Wagner, physical education and wellness coordinator for Humble ISD. However, when children spend about three minutes stretching from their chairs, it resets their mind and helps them to better focus. She trains teachers on movements that direct kids to physically cross the body’s midline and engage their core, such as a small twist with both hands to their left side, then their right. Another simple practice is ankle and wrist rotations. Kids are taught basic breathing exercises, such as a deep inhale while holding up their arms. Once the practices are learned, students can practice the calming exercises on their own when needed, Wagner says. “Something is stressing me out,” she imagines kids thinking. “I’m working on a problem that’s difficult. When that tension begins, what are some techniques I can use so I can be a better thinker?” Students benefit when they can self-manage and regulate their own behavior, she says. Yoga helps with all three types of learning — visual, kinesthetic and auditory, she says. In Humble schools, some physical education classes have added yoga units, with positive feedback from students. After a few minutes of mindful breathing and stretching, perhaps with the lights turned off in the gym, middle schoolers will tell their instructors, “Wow, I just needed that time to slow down, take a breath and relax,” Wagner says. “They felt like they reconnected with their inner self,” she says. “To me, that was extremely powerful.” They’ll return to class ready to learn. In the classroom, Humble ISD allows kids opportunities to get out of their chairs for movement to increase memory, recall, attention and focus. This kinesthetic-based learning is used only for reinforcing lessons, Wagner says, not for new learning. To get the blood flowing to the brain, kids can stand and use a balance board while practicing math facts, for example. Some rooms offer standing desks and other flexible seating options. Stretch bands, juggling scarves and fidget busters are on hand in others. “We know when people are moving they’re engaging more,” Wagner says. Movement strengthens neural pathways, which “makes the learning stick,” she says.

Yoga off the mat

As the founder of Yogiños: Yoga for Youth, Houston-based Beth Reese has trained teachers and staff on mindfulness practices at independent school districts in San Antonio and Corpus Christi. Locally, she works with Montessori schools including The Post Oak School. “I often joke ‘yoga’ in school was like a bad word,” Reese says, explaining the “dramatic shift” she’s observed in the past decade of more schools adopting yoga-based and mindfulness practices. The practices result in better attendance, better test scores and less after-school detention, she says. She tells teachers it’s the frequency of the practices, not the duration, that makes a difference. In this way, it’s not unlike practicing spelling words or lifting weights. When she leads professional development, teachers sometimes tell her they’re worried the practices will take away from instruction time. Reese says the opposite is true. Teaching self-regulation to kids will decrease the time teachers spend managing behavioral issues and interruptions. Adults often realize they benefit from the practices, as well. Teachers get tired, anxious and frustrated, too, Reese says. Practicing what she calls “yoga off the mat” calms the nervous system. One example is pausing to give yourself a bear hug. Or, before or during a test, kids can do a simple twist in their chair. “It helps your body to wake up a little bit,” she says. At some schools she works with, the principal incorporates the practices over the loudspeaker during morning announcements.

Reducing school-day stress

Some districts are incorporating mindfulness practices most heavily at the elementary and middle school levels, but Amanda Thompson says it’s crucial for high schoolers as well. Thompson is a licensed social worker contracted at Stratford High School in Spring Branch ISD through Communities in Schools. “The stress level, I believe, for high school students is so extremely high,” she says. “The expectations are so high, thinking about college and just trying to balance everything on their plate.” In addition to schoolwork, some students have after-school jobs or are responsible for babysitting their siblings, on top of extracurricular activities. Students visit counselors experiencing panic attacks, high anxiety, burnout and depression, she says. Staff are trained to incorporate mindfulness activities that make the students aware of their five senses, she says, to reduce heart rate and blood pressure. In one group counseling session last year, Thompson led a group of girls in guided meditation. She also launched Stratford’s first Wellness Week. Part of Wellness Week was a one-hour yoga class. The optional session took place between lunch periods and was attended by about 50 students. High schoolers tend to be boisterous, Thompson says. Most of them arrived in packs of friends and as the session started, there was a lot of laughter and jokes. “By the end, it was totally calm — there wasn’t a noise to be heard,” she says. The kids might have been as surprised as she was. “They said they felt so incredibly relaxed and felt more in tune with their bodies and better prepared to handle the rest of the day,” she says. “It was something they hadn’t felt in a long time.” On other days during Wellness Week, students made stress balls by filling balloons with flour and decorating them. They popped away stress with bubble wrap and blew childhood-era bubbles. On “Keep Your Cool Day,” they enjoyed popsicles. Another morning, doughnuts were served with the message “Donut Worry About It.” At all the events, kids received flyers with quick stress-reducing practices. Along with practicing positive self-talk, all of these are forms of self-care, Thompson says. “Mindfulness is really about being self-aware of the thoughts that you’re having,” she says. “Society is having an epidemic of burnout and stress. We’re in this culture of busy-ness and we don’t take the time to check in with ourselves.” For its part, HISD began incorporating mindfulness training for staff in 2015, says Felicia Ceaser-White, the district’s manager of health and physical education. In the upcoming school year, many teachers of core curriculum will begin class by leading simple breathing techniques while the kids close their eyes and hear verbal affirmation and motivational messages. “Kids come to school with a lot of things,” Ceaser-White explains. Across the nation, she says, opportunities for students to be physically active during the school day is decreasing. Teachers are looking for chances during the day for physical movement to propel learning. During recess, some HISD instructors walk or run the track with their kids. Seeing their teacher exercise encourages the students to do the same, Ceaser-White says, and the teachers feel reenergized when they return to the classroom. “Students are ready to learn and teachers are ready to teach, just after a brief moment of physical activity,” she says. Pairing that with lessons in nutrition helps HISD develop a “whole child,” she says, rather than focusing only on academic success.

Putting the practice to paper

Adiaha Spinks-Franklin is a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at Texas Children’s Hospital who works with patients with developmental disabilities and behavior disorders. She says the practices she uses in a clinic setting can be applied to the classroom to reduce anxiety, worry, temper outbursts and self-control. Yoga-based exercises and breathing techniques calm the sympathetic nervous system, she says, which activates our sense of fight-flight freeze. That “survival mode” is triggered by physical, emotional or psychological stress, she says. Kids need to turn off that response to think more clearly, and she recommends the 4-7-8 technique. It’s a practice of inhaling for four seconds, holding the breath for seven seconds, then slowly exhaling for eight seconds. The exercise should be repeated at least five times to be successful. It’s helpful with test-taking anxiety and before a performance, speech or concert, she says. “It’s very easy. Heck, I even do it in traffic.” Another practice Spinks-Franklin recommends is gratitude journaling. Emerging research shows this deliberate form of journaling produces endorphins the developing brain craves, she says. On a daily basis, she tells kids to write down three things they’re grateful for. It might be as inconsequential as seeing a butterfly or sitting next to their best friend at lunch. The practice forces the brain to process positive thoughts, in addition to negative thoughts adolescents might be feeling. Patients tell her the journaling decreases their worries and helps them sleep. “The more they journal, the more things they can think of they’re thankful for,” she says. Not unlike yoga-based movements and breathing techniques, the key is daily practice. “It’s good for the mind and the mood as well.”

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Merge Cube Mania in Middle School

Karen Bosch on episode 288 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Karen Bosch explains why Merge Cubes are so hot, how they are being used in classrooms, and how she’s using them to build critical thinking and creativity in her school. Join Merge Cube Mania!

A big thank you to Karen. She couldn’t stand that I wasn’t able to get the Merge Cubes in my local Walmart and sent me one! I got in the mail TODAY (Tuesday) as I’m prepping this post to go live. Thank you Karen for not only being an amazing educator but a kind, thoughtful person.

Legends of Learning has awesome free science games and activities to celebrate earth day on April 22. coolcatteacher.com/earth Check out their NGSS aligned Science games for grades 3-8.

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Enhanced Transcript

Merge Cube Mania in Middle School

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e288

Date: April 11, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking to Karen Bosch.

She, I just found out, was MACUL 2017 Tech Using Teacher of the Year. So she is in Michigan. Today we are talking about Merge Cube Mania in middle school.

So, Karen, what is a Merge Cube?

Karen: So, a Merge Cube is an augmented reality device. It looks like a cube, a black cube. It’s squishy, foamy, very flexible. And it looks like it has a QR code on each side of the cube.

See also Merge Cube Mania Blog post by Karen Bosch

A Merge Cube is a 3D augmented reality device

Those codes serve as a trigger. When you scan the cube with your mobile device — it will work with an iPhone, an iPad, and it works with Android, but you have to have the Merge Cube app on it.

When you scan the cube, and you’re holding the cube in your hand, when you look at it through the iPhone, instead of seeing the cube, you’re going to see something else in your hand. It might be a human heart. It might be a fire. It might be a castle.

But it is very, very cool to see something else being held in your hand. It’s a little bit different than a lot of other augmented reality. A lot of times, with augmented reality, you have a trigger that you print out and you scan it flat.

But because this is a three-dimensional object, you can turn it and interact with it. So it’s pretty interesting.

It allows you to take photos and videos of what you are seeing

And it also has, within the apps, the ability to take photos and to take videos. So you can actually video and document what it is that you are seeing through the augmented reality.

Vicki: So we’re kind of looking through the screen — and we’ve done shows before that we’ll link to about augmented reality. You’re looking at this cube. And it probably doesn’t look like a cube.

Other Resources:

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in the Classroom

Aurasma and Augmented Reality in the Classroom

MetaVerse for Augmented Reality and Breakout in Augmented Reality

Engaging Kindergarteners with Technology: Augmented Reality, iPads, QR Codes and More

Karen: It doesn’t.

Vicki: It could like like all different kinds of things. So what’s an example of something it might look like?

Karen: So there are things where it will look like maybe a castle, or an aquarium, or it might look like a human skull. They have probably about a dozen or so different apps that you can download — and many of them are free.

There are several apps for it, and most of them are free

Some are interactive games.

So you might find something like Tiltball, where there’s a marble that’s rolling down the different faces. As you turn it, the marble rolls different directions.

Or there’s a Starfighter one, where you’re actually doing like a little space battle. As you turn the cube, your little starfighter will move in different directions.

They’ve also got apps — one’s called Dig. It’s kind of like a little mini Minecraft, and you can actually create things by tapping onto the cube and you know, build holes and different things will appear.

One that I really like is a Choose Your Own Adventure Story. This is called 57 Degrees North. It starts out, the cube looks like a crate.

But as you turn it, the story opens, and you see inside of the cube you see a scene, and you hear a voice of somebody talking and narrating the story.

As you turn the cube, it will say, “Which direction do you want to go? Do you want to do this or do that?” As you turn the cube in that direction, then that box opens to show you the next scene.

I would LOVE to have my students be able to program something like that and create their own stories. I think that would be pretty neat.

They also have interactive — more learning type games — called Mr. Body, where you see a human body, and as you tap on different parts of the body, the organs will open up, and there will be some information about it. Again, with the cube, you can turn it so you can see the things, all from all different angles and sides.

My favorite one is one called [Galactic] Explorer, which is a solar system. It actually looks like you’re holding a spinning solar system in your hands. I was doing this one last week with some preschool students, and I said to the teacher, “You’ve got to come over and see this!”

My favorite one is the one about the solar system

And she was just blown away, because she’s been trying to help her preschoolers visualize what the solar system looks like.

And you know, a poster on the wall is one thing, but to be able to take this cube, and use the augmented reality.

She was projecting it up on her screen, and now she can tap on Jupiter, and Jupiter will come up. She can turn it, and they can see the moons and all the different aspects of the different planets. So that interactivity is pretty, pretty neat.

So there are a lot of things that you can do with them that’s pretty cool!

Vicki: Incredible! OK. Now, we had never heard of Merge Cube, and now all of a sudden, everybody started talking about Merge Cube.

So how did this Merge Cube mania start?

This Merge Cube mania came out of nowhere! What happened?

Karen: About a month ago, I started seeing stuff on social media. I saw Leslie Fisher first talking about it, and then I saw all of my friends talking about it. The Merge Cube was originally about $15-20.

But WalMart had an overstock, and so they were selling them off for $1.00 each.

Vicki: (laughs)

Karen: And so, you know? Technology is expensive.

But when you can — for $1.00 each — put something into the hands of everybody? You don’t have to share. You don’t have to do it in stations. You don’t have to have partners. You know, for a dollar, you can’t go wrong.

So everyone was out buying hundreds and hundreds of these Merge Cubes. I ended up buying 32 of them. I figured even if I just do one lesson with them, I can get my dollar’s worth of use out of each one. So that’s kind of how it started.

Did you get any of them, Vicki?

Vicki: I couldn’t find them in my WalMart.

Karen: Oh no!!!

Vicki: Of course, I’m in the middle of nowhere. And I’m like, “Why do I not see these things?” And they just weren’t there. And by that time, there were pretty much just pictures of educators with them in their shopping carts everywhere, you know.

Karen: It was crazy.

Vicki: So here’s the question. If apps for the Merge Cube are limited right now. You said there are like eight or so apps…

Karen: Yeah…

Vicki: How…? Your favorite thing is the solar system. Do you have any other ways that you are using it with your middle schoolers?

What can we do with these, besides marvel over them?

Karen: Well, what I decided to do is… It’s not so much right now what you can learn with the cube, but I think that there’s a great learning process that you can go through with your kids, again because in their hands, everyone has one, and the threshold to get them started takes about 3 minutes.

I demoed it. I said, “Skip the activation code. Skip the login. Say, “YES,” when it asks if you want to use the camera and the photo. Here’s the little tutorial. Run through that.”

That basically was all the instruction I needed to give. Then I said, “OK! You’ve got a bunch of apps on your iPad. Figure it out yourself. Explore. Find out what you can do.”

And so they basically were learning to use the technology themselves, which is what they’re going to have to do for the rest of their lives.

So I didn’t have to put together tutorials. They just explored.

And what I started seeing happening was, “OH! How did you do that?” or “OH! Did you know you could do this?”

They started discovering things. “OH, we can download this. We can do that.”

They were just totally engrossed in learning how to use the cube, just exploring all the depths of it.

That was Part 1. That was Day 1.

My students played one day, and then I had them write reviews of it

Day 2 was they had to document it. So each of my middle school students has a blog. So they had to write a review. They had to include media in the review. They had to tell what they learned about how to use it. They had to give some examples. They had to give their opinion of it. What were some of the plusses? What were some of the minuses?

They started putting together the media, again because they could just take photos and videos through the apps themselves. So some of them just put a lot of videos and pictures and clips in. But some of them said, “Could I combine a bunch of videos together in iMovie?”

“Oh, sure!”

Or you know, “Could I use the Apple clips app?” And that was even better because then they started adding narration onto their videos. They added titles. They added annotations. They added closed captions.

There were a variety of different ways that the students put together their reviews. But again, it wasn’t so much WHAT you could do with the learning right now, but it was just that whole process of learning how to use it, and then being able to document it in a way that you could share with an audience.

Vicki: Yeah!

You know, so my students have programmed in augmented reality using something called MetaVerse, which is awesome. But this really gives a way to anchor physical objects into your augmented reality app.

And then the other thing you’re doing is you’re app smashing…

Karen: Absolutely!

App smashing is where it’s at

Vicki: So you’re combining things that you can do with the cubes — with other apps — to kind of make these fantastic new experiences where the kids are in it, but they’re interacting with objects that it looks like they’re holding, but they’re not necessarily holding.

Karen: Absolutely. I’ve seen some people use the solar system one as a background for green screen. I’ve seen people using the solar system as part of clips where they’re, you know, giving reports on planets.

But again — yeah! Because you can record media with the apps, there are just a lot of different ways that you can use that to smash it together.

Vicki: So, we can link in the Shownotes to the Merge Cubes, but this is augmented reality, and it’s continuing to grow as so many of us are learning about it, playing with it, and really helping our kids with that computational thinking of experimenting, app smashing, trying things out.

So let us know how you’re using your Merge Cube.

How are you using YOUR Merge cube, teachers?

Karen: (laughs)

Well, for me, I just played with it. It was just very fascinating to see.

It IS a big wow, where kids can hold something in their hand and then look at it, and it looks like something else. I’m hoping, maybe, to be able to have these older kids bring them in with younger kids and partner with them to get them started.

And then I want to do this whole exploration thing with some of my other grades — with my 3rd and 4th and 5th graders — where they just “go at it!” and learn about it on their own.

Because I do think that that’s part of transfer of skills. Taking skills that they’ve learned in one area and then learning how to successfully navigate a new technology but finding similarities with what they already know and putting it into a new context. That’s pretty important for kids today.

Vicki: Awesome.

Thank you, Karen!

Karen: You’re welcome! It’s been fun talking to you!

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

Karen Bosch Is the PreK – 8 Technology Instructor at Southfield Christian School in the Metro Detroit area, a position she has held since 2001. Her roots are as an elementary classroom teacher where she utilized technology as an integrated part of the learning environment. She enjoys helping both students and teachers to creatively use technology tools to extend and share their learning in meaningful ways. Her recent learning adventures with her students have included exploring sketchnotes and 3D printing.

Karen is a 2007 Apple Distinguished Educator. In 2016, she was selected to be a Dremel 3D Printing Ideabuilder Ambassador. She was named as a 2015 PBS LearningMedia Digital Innovator and serves as a Book Creator Ambassador. Recently, she was recognized as MACUL 2018 Technology Using Teacher of the Year.

Karen’s website called “Creative APP-titude: iPad Multimedia Tools for Creativity” contains a wealth of iPad resources and student project examples. You can locate her resources at http://tinyurl.com/ipadcreate/. To learn more about how her students used Merge Cubes, check out this blog post at her Middle Pages blog: http://blogs.southfieldchristian.org/middlepages/2018/03/merge-cube-mania/ .

Blog: http://tinyurl.com/ipadcreate

Twitter: @karlyb

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Merge Cube Mania in Middle School appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e288/

[aira26soonas]

Merge Cube Mania in Middle School

Karen Bosch on episode 288 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

Karen Bosch explains why Merge Cubes are so hot, how they are being used in classrooms, and how she’s using them to build critical thinking and creativity in her school. Join Merge Cube Mania!

A big thank you to Karen. She couldn’t stand that I wasn’t able to get the Merge Cubes in my local Walmart and sent me one! I got in the mail TODAY (Tuesday) as I’m prepping this post to go live. Thank you Karen for not only being an amazing educator but a kind, thoughtful person.

Legends of Learning has awesome free science games and activities to celebrate earth day on April 22. coolcatteacher.com/earth Check out their NGSS aligned Science games for grades 3-8.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

  ***

Enhanced Transcript

Merge Cube Mania in Middle School

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e288

Date: April 11, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking to Karen Bosch.

She, I just found out, was MACUL 2017 Tech Using Teacher of the Year. So she is in Michigan. Today we are talking about Merge Cube Mania in middle school.

So, Karen, what is a Merge Cube?

Karen: So, a Merge Cube is an augmented reality device. It looks like a cube, a black cube. It’s squishy, foamy, very flexible. And it looks like it has a QR code on each side of the cube.

See also Merge Cube Mania Blog post by Karen Bosch

A Merge Cube is a 3D augmented reality device

Those codes serve as a trigger. When you scan the cube with your mobile device — it will work with an iPhone, an iPad, and it works with Android, but you have to have the Merge Cube app on it.

When you scan the cube, and you’re holding the cube in your hand, when you look at it through the iPhone, instead of seeing the cube, you’re going to see something else in your hand. It might be a human heart. It might be a fire. It might be a castle.

But it is very, very cool to see something else being held in your hand. It’s a little bit different than a lot of other augmented reality. A lot of times, with augmented reality, you have a trigger that you print out and you scan it flat.

But because this is a three-dimensional object, you can turn it and interact with it. So it’s pretty interesting.

It allows you to take photos and videos of what you are seeing

And it also has, within the apps, the ability to take photos and to take videos. So you can actually video and document what it is that you are seeing through the augmented reality.

Vicki: So we’re kind of looking through the screen — and we’ve done shows before that we’ll link to about augmented reality. You’re looking at this cube. And it probably doesn’t look like a cube.

Other Resources:

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in the Classroom

Aurasma and Augmented Reality in the Classroom

MetaVerse for Augmented Reality and Breakout in Augmented Reality

Engaging Kindergarteners with Technology: Augmented Reality, iPads, QR Codes and More

Karen: It doesn’t.

Vicki: It could like like all different kinds of things. So what’s an example of something it might look like?

Karen: So there are things where it will look like maybe a castle, or an aquarium, or it might look like a human skull. They have probably about a dozen or so different apps that you can download — and many of them are free.

There are several apps for it, and most of them are free

Some are interactive games.

So you might find something like Tiltball, where there’s a marble that’s rolling down the different faces. As you turn it, the marble rolls different directions.

Or there’s a Starfighter one, where you’re actually doing like a little space battle. As you turn the cube, your little starfighter will move in different directions.

They’ve also got apps — one’s called Dig. It’s kind of like a little mini Minecraft, and you can actually create things by tapping onto the cube and you know, build holes and different things will appear.

One that I really like is a Choose Your Own Adventure Story. This is called 57 Degrees North. It starts out, the cube looks like a crate.

But as you turn it, the story opens, and you see inside of the cube you see a scene, and you hear a voice of somebody talking and narrating the story.

As you turn the cube, it will say, “Which direction do you want to go? Do you want to do this or do that?” As you turn the cube in that direction, then that box opens to show you the next scene.

I would LOVE to have my students be able to program something like that and create their own stories. I think that would be pretty neat.

They also have interactive — more learning type games — called Mr. Body, where you see a human body, and as you tap on different parts of the body, the organs will open up, and there will be some information about it. Again, with the cube, you can turn it so you can see the things, all from all different angles and sides.

My favorite one is one called [Galactic] Explorer, which is a solar system. It actually looks like you’re holding a spinning solar system in your hands. I was doing this one last week with some preschool students, and I said to the teacher, “You’ve got to come over and see this!”

My favorite one is the one about the solar system

And she was just blown away, because she’s been trying to help her preschoolers visualize what the solar system looks like.

And you know, a poster on the wall is one thing, but to be able to take this cube, and use the augmented reality.

She was projecting it up on her screen, and now she can tap on Jupiter, and Jupiter will come up. She can turn it, and they can see the moons and all the different aspects of the different planets. So that interactivity is pretty, pretty neat.

So there are a lot of things that you can do with them that’s pretty cool!

Vicki: Incredible! OK. Now, we had never heard of Merge Cube, and now all of a sudden, everybody started talking about Merge Cube.

So how did this Merge Cube mania start?

This Merge Cube mania came out of nowhere! What happened?

Karen: About a month ago, I started seeing stuff on social media. I saw Leslie Fisher first talking about it, and then I saw all of my friends talking about it. The Merge Cube was originally about $15-20.

But WalMart had an overstock, and so they were selling them off for $1.00 each.

Vicki: (laughs)

Karen: And so, you know? Technology is expensive.

But when you can — for $1.00 each — put something into the hands of everybody? You don’t have to share. You don’t have to do it in stations. You don’t have to have partners. You know, for a dollar, you can’t go wrong.

So everyone was out buying hundreds and hundreds of these Merge Cubes. I ended up buying 32 of them. I figured even if I just do one lesson with them, I can get my dollar’s worth of use out of each one. So that’s kind of how it started.

Did you get any of them, Vicki?

Vicki: I couldn’t find them in my WalMart.

Karen: Oh no!!!

Vicki: Of course, I’m in the middle of nowhere. And I’m like, “Why do I not see these things?” And they just weren’t there. And by that time, there were pretty much just pictures of educators with them in their shopping carts everywhere, you know.

Karen: It was crazy.

Vicki: So here’s the question. If apps for the Merge Cube are limited right now. You said there are like eight or so apps…

Karen: Yeah…

Vicki: How…? Your favorite thing is the solar system. Do you have any other ways that you are using it with your middle schoolers?

What can we do with these, besides marvel over them?

Karen: Well, what I decided to do is… It’s not so much right now what you can learn with the cube, but I think that there’s a great learning process that you can go through with your kids, again because in their hands, everyone has one, and the threshold to get them started takes about 3 minutes.

I demoed it. I said, “Skip the activation code. Skip the login. Say, “YES,” when it asks if you want to use the camera and the photo. Here’s the little tutorial. Run through that.”

That basically was all the instruction I needed to give. Then I said, “OK! You’ve got a bunch of apps on your iPad. Figure it out yourself. Explore. Find out what you can do.”

And so they basically were learning to use the technology themselves, which is what they’re going to have to do for the rest of their lives.

So I didn’t have to put together tutorials. They just explored.

And what I started seeing happening was, “OH! How did you do that?” or “OH! Did you know you could do this?”

They started discovering things. “OH, we can download this. We can do that.”

They were just totally engrossed in learning how to use the cube, just exploring all the depths of it.

That was Part 1. That was Day 1.

My students played one day, and then I had them write reviews of it

Day 2 was they had to document it. So each of my middle school students has a blog. So they had to write a review. They had to include media in the review. They had to tell what they learned about how to use it. They had to give some examples. They had to give their opinion of it. What were some of the plusses? What were some of the minuses?

They started putting together the media, again because they could just take photos and videos through the apps themselves. So some of them just put a lot of videos and pictures and clips in. But some of them said, “Could I combine a bunch of videos together in iMovie?”

“Oh, sure!”

Or you know, “Could I use the Apple clips app?” And that was even better because then they started adding narration onto their videos. They added titles. They added annotations. They added closed captions.

There were a variety of different ways that the students put together their reviews. But again, it wasn’t so much WHAT you could do with the learning right now, but it was just that whole process of learning how to use it, and then being able to document it in a way that you could share with an audience.

Vicki: Yeah!

You know, so my students have programmed in augmented reality using something called MetaVerse, which is awesome. But this really gives a way to anchor physical objects into your augmented reality app.

And then the other thing you’re doing is you’re app smashing…

Karen: Absolutely!

App smashing is where it’s at

Vicki: So you’re combining things that you can do with the cubes — with other apps — to kind of make these fantastic new experiences where the kids are in it, but they’re interacting with objects that it looks like they’re holding, but they’re not necessarily holding.

Karen: Absolutely. I’ve seen some people use the solar system one as a background for green screen. I’ve seen people using the solar system as part of clips where they’re, you know, giving reports on planets.

But again — yeah! Because you can record media with the apps, there are just a lot of different ways that you can use that to smash it together.

Vicki: So, we can link in the Shownotes to the Merge Cubes, but this is augmented reality, and it’s continuing to grow as so many of us are learning about it, playing with it, and really helping our kids with that computational thinking of experimenting, app smashing, trying things out.

So let us know how you’re using your Merge Cube.

How are you using YOUR Merge cube, teachers?

Karen: (laughs)

Well, for me, I just played with it. It was just very fascinating to see.

It IS a big wow, where kids can hold something in their hand and then look at it, and it looks like something else. I’m hoping, maybe, to be able to have these older kids bring them in with younger kids and partner with them to get them started.

And then I want to do this whole exploration thing with some of my other grades — with my 3rd and 4th and 5th graders — where they just “go at it!” and learn about it on their own.

Because I do think that that’s part of transfer of skills. Taking skills that they’ve learned in one area and then learning how to successfully navigate a new technology but finding similarities with what they already know and putting it into a new context. That’s pretty important for kids today.

Vicki: Awesome.

Thank you, Karen!

Karen: You’re welcome! It’s been fun talking to you!

Contact us about the show: http://www.coolcatteacher.com/contact/

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

Karen Bosch Is the PreK – 8 Technology Instructor at Southfield Christian School in the Metro Detroit area, a position she has held since 2001. Her roots are as an elementary classroom teacher where she utilized technology as an integrated part of the learning environment. She enjoys helping both students and teachers to creatively use technology tools to extend and share their learning in meaningful ways. Her recent learning adventures with her students have included exploring sketchnotes and 3D printing.

Karen is a 2007 Apple Distinguished Educator. In 2016, she was selected to be a Dremel 3D Printing Ideabuilder Ambassador. She was named as a 2015 PBS LearningMedia Digital Innovator and serves as a Book Creator Ambassador. Recently, she was recognized as MACUL 2018 Technology Using Teacher of the Year.

Karen’s website called “Creative APP-titude: iPad Multimedia Tools for Creativity” contains a wealth of iPad resources and student project examples. You can locate her resources at http://tinyurl.com/ipadcreate/. To learn more about how her students used Merge Cubes, check out this blog post at her Middle Pages blog: http://blogs.southfieldchristian.org/middlepages/2018/03/merge-cube-mania/ .

Blog: http://tinyurl.com/ipadcreate

Twitter: @karlyb

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Merge Cube Mania in Middle School appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e288/