#I was trying to make fun of prep school website language | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

byunbaekby · 4 years ago

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title — the things i know pairing — soccerplayer!jisung x female reader genres — angst, fluff, high school au, strangers to lovers au, first love au, long distance relationship, hurt and comfort, coming of age overall warnings — underage drinking, cancer, character death, language, mentions of hickeys, fainting, mentions and descriptions of hospitals, soccer inaccuracies, lots of angst (you’ve been warned!) word count — 14.8k summary — jisung has never been keen on growing up, or even understanding what adulting means. at seventeen, all he knows is: he loves soccer (and he’s damn gifted at it), and girls are very pretty but also plenty scary. then he met you, his first love who turned his life upside down and made his stomach roll like the soccer balls he loved to kick around the field. but when your cancer comes back after years in remission, jisung thinks, he doesn’t really want to grow up anymore. playlist — falling, harry styles ; your guardian angel, red jumpsuit apparatus ; my first and last, nct dream ; bye my first, nct dream ; orchid, jeremy zucker

additional — for the heartbreak hotel collab hosted by @nct-writers. my concept in the five stages of grief was “acceptance and hope.” thank you to my babes @suh-insane and @astroboy-lele for proof-reading!

The thing about knowledge is that you never know when or what you’re going to learn. There’s no way for you to predict what will be of your mind when you fall into bed that night, surrendering to the moon. In the morning, there’s no telling what knowledge your brain will choose to store away for remembrance over the course of the night, and what your brain will decide is unnecessary. What you decide not to remember is a memory you can’t even miss.

When you wake up every morning, you don’t know if you’ll go to bed having met someone who will change your life forever.

At seventeen, there are two things that Park Jisung knows. One, he loves playing soccer (and he’s damn good at it, the way his long legs carry him across the field in what seems to onlookers like seconds). Two, girls are very pretty but plenty scary as well.

The day starts out normally, like any other away game that the team plays.

He wakes up at six o’clock on the dot, and eats a large breakfast to hold him over for the game, then packs a few granola bars into his soccer bag and lets his sister know he’s leaving before he jogs the way to the park where the bus is waiting for his team. The ride is normally an hour long, so he either tucks his earbuds into his ears and tries to get in a short nap or he converses with his teammates.

Today though, the bus ride is three hours long. Crossing his hoodie-clad arms across his chest to act against the cold air of the bus, he focuses his gaze outside and watches as the town goes by.

“Yo, Jisung, check this out!”

At the sound of his name he turns his head, blinking when he sees a number of his teammates in the surrounding area nudging him closer. A few of them are leaning in towards a particular teammate, who displays a proud expression. “What’s up,” asks Jisung as he too leans forward toward his team member, curiosity slightly piqued.

Jaemin, the teammate in question, tugs the collar of his jersey down to reveal his skin. On the milky white curve of Jaemin’s collarbone, he sports a dark purple bruise, surrounded by a perimeter of yellow where the skin seems to be healing. There’s no question as to where that mark came from, and it definitely wasn’t from soccer.

“Ew, man, that looks sick!” comes from Donghyuck, along with a few comments from others, either approving or disturbed.

“Where’d that come from?”

Renjun slaps Mark on the chest, eyebrows furrowed at him. “Obviously, it was from Anne! Didn’t you see the way they were all over each other at last week’s game?” Jaemin grins, eyes going lovesick at the thought of his girlfriend.

Jisung’s expression contorts into one of disgust. “That’s disgusting, man,” he comments, nose still scrunched in distaste as he leans back into his original spot on the bus seat. Another thing he’ll never understand is why people are so desperate to grow up, as if giving hickeys and sneaking vodka into their Hydro flasks makes them somehow more adult.

He slips his earbuds into his ears, playing some light muzak to lull him to sleep with his head leaned rather uncomfortably against the cold window.

Jisung doesn’t think that he’s exceptionally smart; he’s gotten passing to above average grades his entire life. He’s not musically talented, nor is he particularly a smooth talker.

But hearing people call him gifted is a feeling he relishes every time.

With his long legs and strangely large and spacious lungs, soccer called the boy’s name from the time he could run. He dominated the peewee league, then the club teams until this point, at the ripe age of seventeen waiting to be scouted for college teams.

He wasn’t usually one to brag but today, he had shot the winning goal.

Everyone has their thing, the one thing that they excel at. For Picasso it was painting, for Yiruma it was piano, for Renjun it’s spending four hours every night researching alien conspiracy theories. For Jisung, it’s soccer. But he’s never been exceptionally good at speaking to people.

“What’s your name?” He hears a voice, cheery and upbeat, behind him as he’s grabbing his bag on the side of the field. The game is over, and the crowd begins to dissipate while the team members are gathering their things to return to the bus. Turning over his shoulder he sees you, wearing a bright smile. Cautiously he responds, “Jisung Park.”

“Oh, so you’re Korean then. I’m gonna write that down, okay? How long have you been playing soccer?” You ask next, and now Jisung’s eyebrows furrow in confusion.

“Write what down?” He asks, trying to keep his tone as polite as possible. Even so, how is he supposed to react to a random person at a game suddenly appearing to ask him questions? As he wipes his forehead with his towel he adds, “Who even are you?”

Quickly you say, “I write in the high school newspaper, and wanted to get a close-up of today’s star.” It’s then that Jisung realizes the camera slung around your neck and the notepad in your hands.

“Why are you writing about me? I don’t even go here.”

“Because,” you say, a slight sigh creeping into your voice now. “Our team sucked today. You straight up stole the show, and no one wants to read about a team that lost. I’d rather give them a peek at the star.”

“14!” His coach yells his number once, causing Jisung to look over his shoulder to the source of the voice, where his teammates are already beginning to pile onto the bus. The boy in question slings his bag over his shoulder and tucks his soccer ball under his right arm before finally getting a good look at you. “Shouldn’t you be writing something to raise your team’s spirit or something? Giving them support, maybe?”

You shrug. “I don’t like underdogs. Don’t like writing about them. I’d rather read about the heroes. So how long have you been playing soccer again?”

“Jisung!” Now it’s Chenle calling after him, and he really needs to go. Eyes flickering to the street where his teammates are gesturing for him to hurry, he looks back to you. Your eyebrow is raised expectantly, right hip popped out as you wait. Before he starts to run off, he manages a small, “I’ve been playing eleven years. Um… bye.”

Then he turns away and his long legs carry him to the bus a few meters away. Even so, behind him he can hear your loud, proud voice yelling after him with the name of your high school: “Check the online newspaper! You’ll see my article!”

What a weirdo, he can’t help but think as the team cheers for their star player getting on the bus back home.

A week later, it’s another Saturday night following a victorious win against another team in the local area when Jisung gets a call from Chenle. “What’s up,” he asks immediately, leaning back in his desk chair to throw his soccer ball up in the air and catch it with one hand.

“Wanna party tonight? Celebrate our win a bit?”

“Where?” asks Jisung. He’d never been big on parties. For one, his long legs that were great for running weren’t exactly skilled in dancing or anything of the like. Secondly, he’d definitely be expected to talk to girls and he’s not really in the mood to make a fool of himself.

“Taeyong’s house. Me, Mark, Hyuck, and Jaemin are going. Renjun’s busy, and Jeno wants to spend time with his cat. What do you say? Wanna join?”

Jisung sighs. He was honestly just exhausted. “Think I’ll pass. My sister’s been getting on me about my bio grade.”

Chenle groans on the other line. “Lame.”

“Next time, promise,” says Jisung.

“Fine. Have fun studying, looooser!” This is the last thing Chenle says before hanging up, leaving his best friend alone to shake his head with a small laugh. Then he remembers something, some words that a stranger had yelled out to him a week before.

Sitting up at his desk, Jisung opens his laptop and types in the name of your high school, along with your town. A few clicks around the website finds him at the online news section, plus a scroll or two past some questionable articles, there it is: a picture of him mid-kick, the winning one if he remembers well enough. His nose is scrunched in concentration and strands of dark hair cling to his forehead.

Soccer Superstar from the opposing team steals the show and the win!

A small scoff leaves Jisung’s lips, trying to humble himself as he reads over the first few paragraphs.

Our school’s boys soccer team faced a devastating loss on Saturday in the face of the opposing team’s ace player (pictured above). The game ended promptly when the superstar player confidently kicked in the final shot, though the result had been clear from the first half of the game.

A short interview with the hotshot player revealed that he has been playing soccer for eleven years! A senior from Neo Culture Prep, it is clear as day that the school is very lucky to have such a prodigy on the team.

Who is this superstar player, you ask?

His name is Jisung Park.

Geez, Jisung thinks. He knew he was good but not that good. The article did a good job of spicing him up, making him look like he was a lot better than he really was. There’s too much fluff; sure, he’s skilled and he knows it, but—he touches his cheeks. They’re warm—the article makes him sound like a soccer god, and it’s beyond embarrassing. Who even are you?

A scroll to the bottom of the page tells him all he needs to know.

Article written by: (Name) (Last Name).

He doesn’t return to your town for almost two months. There’s a tournament today, the hours lurching between games giving him more than enough time to psych himself out about how he’ll play.

It’s noon, the sun shining overhead causing a sheet of sweat to amass on Jisung’s forehead. His team has just won their second match of the day, and in waiting for their next game, his eyes are scanning the bleachers set up for observers on the side of the field. It’s not hard to find you, same camera hanging around your neck.

With his long legs, he jogs over to you towel in hand. You’re not at all focused on him, eyes pressed into the camera’s viewfinder as you attempt to capture a good shot of the current game.

“I don’t like the stuff you said about me in your article.”

His deep voice suddenly intrudes your thoughts, and you jump in your place. As you turn to him and drop your camera from your face, he catches sight of the way your eyes widen at his appearance. A flood of recognition replaces the shock before you tilt your head. “Why? It was all good stuff.”

Patting at his forehead with his towel, Jisung responds, “Yeah, exactly. I’m not that good. I could’ve played better that day.” This brings a small snort from you. “Really! They were narrowing the angle on me, I should have flanked or lofted.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“It’s—”

You cut him off before he can explain. “You’re good. Why are you so shy to accept that?”

“Why do you keep trying to paint me as the main character of the team? Everyone works hard together.” He questions, eyebrows furrowed.

“Because you are,” you respond matter-of-factly, focused enough to press your eye into the viewfinder again. A few seconds pass, and Jisung recognizes the click of the camera as you capture something on the field. “You’re clearly the best player on the team by a long shot. You’re the main character, the hero.”

At your response, Jisung shakes his head in disbelief and scrunches his nose. There’s really no getting through to you. “I’m more than the hero you think I am.”

You turn to him, facial features contorted into a mischievous expression. “I’m sure you are.” Jisung realizes then that you’re holding something out to him. Taking it, he observes it. A… business card? With your name and number on it. “(Name). Aspiring journalist.”

“You have a business card? Aren’t you like, seventeen?”

You shrug, smile tugging on your lips. “Never hurts to be prepared. Call me.” It’s the last thing you say before you flitter away on quick feet, leaving to interview the team which has just won their match. He watches you leave, wondering if you know what kind of effect you have on people.

“I don’t know, man. She seems kinda crazy,” says Hyuck from the seat next to him, leaning his head back. However, a sudden bump in the road causes the bus to jump, startling the boy a bit. Jisung had just shared his thoughts about asking you out with his friend, who immediately made a face and shook his head.

“Crazy?” Sure, you’re a bit forward and maybe slightly reckless, but he doesn’t think you’re… crazy. It’s been a few weeks since he last saw you and from the conversations you’ve shared over text and phone… he thinks he likes you. Like, really likes you. It’s goddamn terrifying.

“Yeah, we all saw her article,” Chenle speaks up from the seat behind him. “She’s obsessed with you.”

Jisung rolls her eyes. “It was one article. That doesn’t mean she’s obsessed.”

“I think you should do it. It’d be funny to get on camera in case you fail,” snorts Renjun.

Jaemin pipes in from in front of them. “But if you do ask her out, she lives three hours away. That’s a lot of distance.” He’s the only one in a relationship, so maybe he has the only opinion that Jisung trusts.

“Other people have done more distance.”

Now, it’s Jeno’s turn to pipe in. “But you’re not other people, you’re Jisung Park. You’ve never had a girlfriend.” Should he feel insulted? Chenle also adds, “Jeno’s right. You’re a senior! It’s your year, and you wanna spend it tied down to some girl who lives three hours away?”

But you’re not just some girl. Mark’s the only one who hasn’t spoken, and most of the time, he’s the most level headed. Jisung turns to him with a sincere expression and asks, “What do you think?”

Though he had been trying to stay quiet throughout the conversation, he stretches a bit in his seat before finally saying, “I think you should go for it.”

“I think you should too!” Jaemin says. “But I think you should be prepared for what it means.”

“Whatever you decide to do, we’ll hype you up.”

“I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?” Jisung asks. “If she rejects me, at least she’s three hours away, right?” There’s murmurs of agreement around the seven of them. He tries to sound relaxed, but the thought of asking a girl out for the first time causes his heart to thump loudly in his chest. Oh god… should he do it?

“So?” asks Hyuck after a few seconds of silence, and it’s then that Jisung realizes everyone’s looking at him. “Are you gonna do it?”

He gulps. “... No idea.”

A collective groan emerges from the group of boys. Hyuck, ever the genius, straightens his back with a glint in his eye. “How about this? If we win, you ask her out. You’ll be riding on a winning spree and it’ll give you confidence. If we lose then… there’s more girls back home.”

That… doesn’t sound like a bad idea. But oh god, he doesn’t know which option he wants.

For the first time, Jisung feels like his legs are knotting into each other, tumbling over his feet.

Soccer had always come easily to him, like breathing. But for some unknown reason, he’s totally off his game today. He knows the play, his strengths, and even the weaknesses of his opponents, but he trips over his feet.

No, that’s a lie. He definitely does know the source of his nervousness, and it lives in the form of a girl with a camera and a notepad sitting in the bottom corner bleacher. His breath is frantic as he zips back and forth across the field. The sounds of the game are ringing loud in his ear, and he can hardly even focus on the black and white ball being kicked around, let alone what the coach is screaming at them. They’re so close, one more goal should do it.

He knows what’s going to happen. Jisung Park had always been known for his ending kicks.

But what if he messes it up? What if he fumbles the kick or whiffs it?

Then again, does he even want to win? That’s a dumb quesiton—of course he does—but the question is: is he ready for what comes with the win? He really shouldn’t look, shouldn’t peek for just one look at you, but he does. You’re scribbling in your notepad, and he swears in that millisecond that you look so pretty.

Yeah, he wants it. He really wants it.

He’s ready, and—oh god, Sungchan is passing the ball to him. Suddenly Jisung is on high alert, winding up toward the goal. He captures Sungchan’s ball with ease, no longer tripping over himself as he makes his way to the end goal.

One kick, just nail this one kick.

He winds up, turning his body to the correct angle; he kicks it and…

Please go in, please go in, he’s begging.

The ball flies in straight past the goalkeeper, who jumps toward it but there’s no use. It all happens so quickly, and suddenly his team erupts into celebration when the referee blows his whistle. Still standing there, Jisung catches his breath and stares into the goal.

He won.

That means… He glances at you. You’re wearing a huge smile on your face, and without noticing it himself, Jisung has his own proud smile on his. His momentary peace is interrupted by his friends running toward him, nearly knocking him over in their celebration.

“Yeeahhh, Jisung Park, you’re the man!”

A few minutes later, Jisung tries to calm his nerves after thanking the opposing team for a good game. When he returns to the sidelines where his stuff is, he can barely get some water down his throat before Chenle is pushing a soccer ball into his hand. “Good luck, dude,” he says, and Jisung can feel the others’ eyes on him. Oh no, it’s time.

He steals a glance at you, and—Oh. You’re looking at him too. A bashful smile spreads over your lips and you turn away, focusing back to your conversation with your friend. His heart is beating so loud, but Jisung doesn’t think it’s because of the soccer game. Turning back to his friends, he groans, “I need a pep talk.”

“Okay, uh,” Mark attempts. “You got this, you know you’re the man. Um… if she rejects you, then it’s okay, there’s other fish in the sea!” A groan erupts through the group. “That’s not a pep talk, Mark!”

“Listen,” says Chenle suddenly, grabbing Jisung’s shoulders to stare at him. “She’s not gonna reject you. You’re Jisung freaking Park! The star of the team and my best friend! Go get ‘em, and don’t take no for an answer!” With this, he gives Jisung a small push in the girl’s direction.

“Actually, uh—I think no means no,” pipes in Jisung but everyone cuts him off with a collective, “JUST GO!”

Pink spreads across his cheeks as he slowly walks in your direction. At a good distance away, he places the coveted soccer ball down on the ground and winds himself up for a kick. Okay, he just shot the winning goal of the game. If he can do that, he can do this. Running forward the slightest, Jisung gives himself a silent pep talk as his foot taps the ball. It goes moving from its spot, flying through the air… and that’s when Jisung realizes his mistake. Instead of gently tapping against your ankle like he had planned, the ball flies straight in the air, knocking the side of your head rather harshly.

“Not that hard, genius!” Chenle chastises from behind him, and Jisung has to hold back the desire to actually groan in that moment. He immediately runs toward you, hands out in surprise. “Oh my god, oh my god, I’m so sorry,” he repeats, reaching out for you. You’re rubbing the spot on the side of your head where the ball had hit, and he wants to disappear right there.

He never should have done this.

Why was he born again?

“I’m so sorry,” he says again for the nth time, feeling shame and humiliation speed up his spine at the way you wince when you touch the side of your head. “Oh my god, go get me an ice pack,” he demands over his shoulder at his friends.

“No, no I’m okay,” you reassure everyone. Now all the eyes are on the two of you.

A few moments of silence pass as you eye the soccer ball which has rolled some distance away, crouching down to pick it up. Ball in hand, you scan the outside of it… and destroying all of Jisung’s hopes and expectations, you burst into laughter.

You laugh so hard, the boisterous sounds leaving your lips so vehemently that you have to cover your mouth with your hand. Jisung furrows his eyebrows. “I just kicked you in the head and you’re laughing?” Oh god, he must have done more damage than he thought. You don’t answer, the only sounds leaving you are giggles and guffaws. It’s only making him feel worse; geez, he wishes he wasn’t so tall so he could positively disappear right now.

You finally look up at him and meet his gaze, your own eyes crinkled in delight. Flipping the ball over in your hands, you present to him the ball. Written on one of the large white spots reads a firm, “Go out with me?” in black marker.

“This is why you kicked me in the head?” You ask, still chuckling the slightest. Bashfully, Jisung nods. You laugh again. Every time you do that, he feels like getting smaller and smaller. “Of course I’ll go out with you.”

Wait, really?

He says these words aloud, eyes wide at your ease. He hadn’t expected you to actually say yes! “Sure,” you respond with a smile. “Though I could’ve gone without the head injury.”

This brings a laugh from the both of you. He really had been worrying so much about nothing. His frame instantly relaxes, taking the ball back from you. “You sure you don’t need the ice pack?”

“No, I could definitely use an ice pack.”

The first date happens two weeks after that game, and it’s his first real date so he has no idea how to act. Everything goes fine—he takes you to the local arcade in your town, and though he’d deny it to the ends of the earth, you beat him in foosball.

“Ha!” You had screamed. “Superstar soccer player Jisung Park, and you can’t beat me in table soccer?” His cheeks had burned pink at the sound of your voice reverberating around the public arcade, but honestly the mirth in your eyes was worth it.

His cheeks are red but the air is cold on the walk home to your house. He had promised to have you home by nine, and it’s—he checks the time on his phone—8:45.

A look at you, holding the giant stuffed teddy bear that you had won (he hadn’t won it for you, because lord knows he’s horrible at skee-ball), and Jisung can see the air leaving your lips. “Hey, you cold?”

“Nah,” you shake your head, though you scoot closer to him on the sidewalk. His tongue laves over his bottom lip quickly, and he almost wants to hold your hand. But that wouldn’t do much to keep you warm.

He purses his lips, then immediately his hands are working at taking off his hoodie. That’s a cute thing, isn’t it? Boyfriends giving hoodies to their girlfriends? “Here, take this.”

When you take one look at the hoodie in his hands and roll your eyes, Jisung knows he’s in for it. “Seriously? You can’t fool me with some cheesy rom-com moves,” you laugh.

Ouch.

That hurt his pride. He was just trying to be nice, maybe a tad bit romantic, but you clearly weren’t having it. He should have known you would be so tsundere, and maybe he does.

He knows you act strong, like there is no way on the face of the earth that you would ever swoon for his lame attempts at flirting. But when you reach upward on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek before you step into your house, he knows you like it just as much as he does.

For the longest time, it’s been just him and his sister Naeun.

His parents passed away shortly after his birth, so they stayed under the custody of their aunt. When his sister became an adult, she became his legal guardian. Since then, it’s been the two of them against the world.

Though kids had sometimes made fun of him for not having a mom or a dad, Jisung never paid those kids much attention. Sure, he didn’t have a dad to teach him how to drive or a mom to attend his parent-teacher conferences, but he had his sister and she was all he’d never need. Naeun gave up everything for him: she didn’t go to college, she traded nights out with her friends to help him with her math homework, she worked two jobs so he could play soccer. She had worked so hard, perhaps sheltered Jisung so much that he had always lived a comfortable life.

It never occurs to him just how much she had struggled until the morning she asks him to get a job.

She sits across the dining table at breakfast, and over his cereal, Jisung notes how shaken and guilty she looks. There must be something on her mind, but that’s how his sister’s always been; she doesn’t like to worry him, and speaks up when she’s ready. When she finally tells him, he blinks, confused.

“I can’t pay the bills alone. Not with soccer getting more expensive, and the landlord raising the rent—that bastard,” she mumbles under her breath, surprising Jisung. She hardly cursed. “It’s… It’ll just be for a short time. I promise.” She has tears in her eyes. Jisung furrows his eyebrows; she must feel guiltier about this than he thought. Immediately he nods in understanding. “It’s fine, Noona. Don’t worry about it. I’ll, uh, go out looking this weekend.”

He takes another spoonful of cereal into his mouth, thinking that the conversation will end there. But it doesn’t, his sister’s quiet voice reaching his ears. “Promise me you’ll go to college, Sung. Promise me you’ll make it. Make it all worth it.”

And it’s in that moment, in the way that his sister’s voice is on the edge of breaking, that it occurs to him just how much his sister has sacrificed for him. How quickly she had to grow up, having become his parent at eighteen, just a few months away from how old he was now. And he was nowhere near as responsible as her.

He swears in that moment that he’ll uphold his promise. He’ll get a scholarship, he’ll help his sister out. He’ll pay back everything she’s given up for him.

Finally, today you’re in town.

It’s the first time you’ve come to visit him in his town, and he’s so excited to show you everything: his school, his favorite ice cream place on the corner of the street from his apartment building, and even the park he grew up kicking soccer balls at. Even after all these years, him and his friends still came here to practice their soccer technique.

Today, the two of you are sitting underneath a tree at said park, his head in your lap. You’re running your hands through his dark hair, and wow, he’d never admit that it feels so good.

There’s a small laugh heard from you as you comb through his locks. “You should dye your hair.”

“Suddenly?” He asks. “I don’t even know what color I’d dye it.”

“You should do like, a blue or something. Oh, purple! Purple would be nice!” Your excitement causes him to roll his eyes promptly, sitting up. “I’ll dye my hair purple if you dye your hair purple,” he retorts to you.

“Maybe I will,” you say, standing onto your feet now that he’s gotten off of you. Wiping the grass from your legs briefly, you nod toward his soccer ball a few feet away. “C’mon, let’s play.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You wanna play soccer.”

“Yeah, is that so surprising?”

“Um, yeah, a little bit considering the fact that you said it’s boring and that you complain having to get up to go to the fridge at two in the morning,” quips Jisung with a laugh. You only roll your eyes in response. “I never said soccer was boring, I just said it’s only interesting when you play. And you’re gonna teach me right now, so stand up,” you say, extending a hand to him.

He takes your hand, rising to his feet before picking up the ball. “Fine,” he relents, a smirk making its way onto his face. “Try to keep up.”

For fifteen minutes, the two of you race up and down the park’s open grass field, chasing the ball in every direction. He evades you, long legs carrying him and the ball while you chase after him.

“Wait,” you say mid-sprint, slowing to a stop. Your chest is heaving, and slowly Jisung stops his running also. “You good?” He asks from a few feet away.

“Yeah,” you say breathlessly, reaching a hand up to wipe at your forehead. “Just… gimme a sec.” A minute passes of you catching your breath, but Jisung doesn’t pay it much attention—a person who didn’t play soccer and have trained lungs like him would struggle.

“Okay, okay,” you finally say, shaking your head a bit. “Let’s go again.”

“Are you sure?” He asks, worry seeping into his tone.

“Yeah, yes! Just—just go.”

So he does, beginning to kick the ball down field as he chases after it, stopping past center field to pass the ball to you. You’re racing after him, and though the ball is coming your way, you trip over it, falling straight onto the floor.

Your head hangs low, and he immediately rushes over to you.

“Hey, hey! You okay?” He asks, kneeling down but your eyes are closed. He swipes a hand over your forehead, and it’s that moment when he realizes your eyes are closed. Did you pass out? Had he pushed you too far? “(Name)?”

No response. Oh god, what is he supposed to do?

Is he supposed to check if you’re breathing? Where can he check for a pulse again? In his moment of inadequacy, he pulls out his phone and calls his sister.

She’ll know what to do, but it pains him that he doesn’t.

His sister arrives quickly, and immediately takes you to the hospital. According to her, you do have a pulse and you probably just had heat exhaustion. He sure hopes so…

For a few hours he sits in the waiting room as he awaits the arrival of your parents. They rushed over from your town, four hours away, and this definitely was not the impression he wanted to have on them. Head in his hands, he can’t help but worry about you.

You do wake up, eventually but he can’t see you until your parents arrive.

They take you back home. You’re walking and talking again, but as you shoot him a weak smile from over your shoulder, walking down the hall and out of the hospital, Jisung can’t help but feel that something has gone terribly wrong.

He swears he’s never been so tired.

Working at McDonald’s isn’t horrible, per se, it’s just different. But it definitely takes more out of him than soccer ever did. The second he walks into his room Jisung drops his backpack on the bean bag next to the door and almost collapses on his bed. Throwing his work cap on the floor, he runs a hand through his hair and pulls out his phone.

The best thing about coming home from work, is coming home to you.

He immediately fishes for his phone from his pocket and opens it to speed dial. Pressing on your contact, Jisung presses the phone to his ear and waits for his girlfriend’s voice on the other end. The line picks up.

“Hey,” he says, a smile spreading over his lips without him even knowing.

“Hi…”

Something’s wrong. Your voice is missing its signature excitement, the snarkiness he had grown accustomed to. He sits up in bed, eyebrows furrowed. “Is everything okay?”

Yes, you’re supposed to say. Everything’s fine. Everything’s just peachy.

But you don’t. “I got a call from the hospital.”

After you had fainted the other day playing soccer with him, the hospital had run a few tests to make sure you were okay. He knew this, you both did. They were supposed to say that you had been dehydrated, that you hadn’t eaten in a few hours. “I haven’t been completely honest with you, Jisung…”

“What, what is it?”

There’s a momentary silence on the other side, then a shaky breath. “When I was ten… I got really sick. I was always having nosebleeds, always tired—some days I didn’t even want to get out of bed. They took me to the doctor and they told me that… I had leukemia.”

Jisung releases a heavy breath, staring into his sheets. No… don’t say it.

“I fought it for two years, and I beat it. God, it was… it was really hard, and I got through it. It’s been five years now but—but the hospital called and…” Please, no. “My cancer came back.”

Jisung’s never felt this way before; like all the air in his lungs have been pulled from his chest, lost to the universe. Not even when he sprinted across the soccer field, not even when he had gotten punched in the chest. All those times, his chest burned with fire, be it anger or passion. But now… his chest feels empty and hollow and numb. He manages to spit out a few words.

It’s not supposed to be like this. You’re supposed to be okay, you’re supposed to go to prom together. Graduate. He’s supposed to get a soccer scholarship, you’re supposed to study journalism at the same school, and the long distance would cease to exist. You were supposed to be happy. “But it’s gonna be okay, right? You’ve fought it before, you can do it again.” Perhaps it was a bit selfish of him to ask for consolation when you were the one with the illness. But you were a journalist, never a liar. Your voice is weak, like you’ve already given up.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s up with you?” Chenle’s voice is almost worried, but Jisung wouldn’t be able to tell because his eyes are focused on the ground. He’s been kicking a soccer ball around with Chenle and Mark for a while now, but there’s clearly something very off about the teenager today.

“Yeah, is something wrong?” Mark asks.

Jisung blows some air into his cheeks. Should he tell them? It’s your private information but technically, you’re his girlfriend right? The news has been troubling him for a few days now, and he’s had no one to talk to. Surely, he can’t talk to his sister about it.

He should just spit it out. “(Name) has cancer.”

It’s like the world stops, his friends taking in his words. “W-What? What did you just say?” Chenle speaks first, then Mark quickly follows. “Did you say (Name) has cancer?”

Keeping his gaze on the ground, Jisung nods and gives the ball a small kick in Mark’s direction. “Yeah. She had leukemia when she was younger, and… the other day she went to the hospital and they said that it came back. Her cancer came back.” When he looks up, both his friends are looking at him with genuine concern etched across their faces.

“Seriously? Cancer? And you’re still dating her?” Mark asks, causing Jisung to raise an eyebrow in confusion. Did he just insinuate what he thinks he did?

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Chenle speaks up next, trying to defuse the sudden tension. “Jisung, you guys have only been dating like, a couple months. It was just like yesterday that you kicked her in the head asking her out!”

“And?” Jisung asks pointedly. Suddenly he’s in front of Chenle, and though he technically towers over the latter in height, Chenle’s chest is straight as he makes his point.

“Is it really worth it to stay on a sinking ship?”

Jisung’s voice reaches a new level of low, erupting from a place deep inside of him that he’s hidden away. It’s a place of rage, of anger sizzling and bubbling in his stomach. Suddenly they’re both chest to chest, unwilling to back down. “Now, I know you’re not talking about my girlfriend.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Mark interrupts, hands coming between them to tear the two boys apart. “Calm down. Both of you.”

“He started it,” accuses Jisung quickly, dark eyebrows furrowed in frustration. “My girlfriend is not a sinking ship. Neither is my relationship, and I don’t need you to comment on it.” He looks to Mark for guidance. Mark had always been the most logical one, the one he would look to for help, and though he thinks that Mark will agree with him, he almost looks guilty.

“But it’s true, Jisung. We’re worried about you. She’s just a girl. Is she really worth hurting yourself over?” He had trusted Mark to be on his side, but now Jisung just releases a scoff. He had been hoping for his friends’ support, but it seems like he’ll be going through this alone, then.

You’ve been avoiding him.

Of course, there’s not much that can be done to avoid him when you live hours away from each other. But you haven’t been responding to his texts, and when you do, they’re mostly short and taut. You’ve been cutting your phone calls short, often saying that you’re tired. Maybe you really are, but it hurts hearing the line cut off, not knowing how you’re really feeling.

Jisung can’t help but feel like he’s failing. He should be doing better.

It’s like your relationship is an hourglass, running out of time with every day that he spends going to school, work, or soccer practice. Like you’re getting further and further away with each short text message.

His entire life has been spent running. Speeding forward center field like a lightning bolt, long legs carrying him far ahead everyone else. But for the first time, Jisung feels like he’s falling behind.

It only takes a three hour bus ride (four, with the added stops) but in Jisung’s mind, it’s all worth it. It won’t be the first time he’s gone over to your house, but it is indeed the first he’s ever showed up unannounced, which is a strange appearance given that he lives three hours away. But with everything happening, he’s willing to give up the day and six hours worth of travel for you.

Sitting on the bus, he pulls out his phone. It’s early, like nine in the morning, but he knows you have a doctor’s appointment in a few hours so you’re definitely awake. He presses the facetime button, but you quickly reject his call. His eyebrows furrow, but lighten with an incoming text from you.

[ message from : (Name) ♡ ] : jisung, i’m using the bathroom rn. call you back in a bit.

He nearly rolls his eyes, but it’s a sweet one. You’re always so candid.

[ message to : (Name) ♡ ] : you act like you’ve never facetimed me on the toilet before.

[ message from : (Name) ♡ ] : wow, call me out more why don’t you

[ message to : (Name) ♡ ] : pick up my call, brat ♡

[ message from : (Name) ♡ ] : no, You pick up My call :p

Seconds later, his phone is lit up with an incoming facetime screen. A laugh almost leaves him at your tenacity before accepting the call.

The call opens up to the visual of his girlfriend, you in your PJs fixing the phone up against the mirror in the bathroom. He sees himself reflected in the mini screen, hoodie on and earbuds in wearing a boyish grin. “Hey pretty girl. Make sure you wash your hands.”

You roll your eyes at his remarks. “Hey ugly boy. I’m already doing that. What are you doing?”

“Just making sure, because I don’t think you brushed your teeth after you fell asleep on call the other night,” he teases, clicking his tongue as you’re the only person he can tease so easily. “I’m on the bus to practice.” A lie, but a white one at that. “What are you up to?”

You wack your still dry toothbrush in front of the camera, nose scrunching up in the slightest. It’s a habit of his that you’ve picked up. “I’m also doing that right now.” You wet the brush, putting some toothpaste on it. “I thought you didn’t have practice this Friday? Or was that next Friday?”

Your actions bring a low laugh to his lips, and his eyes momentarily focus on the passing landscape outside the bus window as he’s now three hours out of his normal perimeter. “Uh, Coach wanted to add in a practice today. Don’t you have a doctor’s appointment today?”

You nod at his answer, toothbrush in mouth. “I do, I think it’s like, in a hour or something.”

“Oh, okay,” he replies simply as the bus comes to a stop, your house only a short walk away. He stands, gathering his bag. “Gotta go, but I’ll talk to you in a bit, pumpkin honeysuckle,” he snorts, making his way to the front of the bus.

Your brows furrow as you give him a disapproving look through the screen, shaking your head slightly before moving to rinse your mouth. “Talk to you soon, don’t get hurt at practice or I’ll fight you.”

He scoffs as he steps out of the bus, into your neighborhood. “Like you could take me. Later.” You probably could, given your determination, but he gives you a nose scrunch before ending the call. He’s only taken a few steps when his phone rings with a text message.

[ message from : (Name) ♡ ] : you and i both know i could take you :)

A snort leaves him. Classic (Name).

When he arrives a few minutes later, he hesitates at the door, only praying that the person who opens up is you, not your parents or god forbid, your brother. It only takes a few hard knocks before he hears your voice on the other side, determined to see just who the hell had the nerve to interrupt your laziness this early in the morning. “Who the fu—”

He tsk’s in distaste. He shouldn’t have been surprised that the first words to leave his girlfriend’s mouth are cuss words. “You potty mouth. I thought you’d be happy to see me,” he says, opening his arms.

Jisung’s not quite sure what he expected. For you to jump in his arms? What a delusional boy. You blink for a few seconds, then suddenly you’re throwing yourself at him, fist first to land a deserved punch to his arm. “I thought you had practice? What are you doing here and why do you look so much cuter than when I last saw you?”

“Well, I lied,” he snickers, patting your head. “I’m here to annoy you, obviously. But you look too. For a—” A person dying of cancer, but he can’t say it. He won’t. “—person who barely got up twenty minutes ago.”

Your hand immediately begins rubbing the spot that your fist landed, worried that it might actually bruise in a bit. Jisung asks, “So are you gonna invite me in, or?”

“What are you, a vampire or something? I’m pretty sure you weren’t given permission when you entered my heart so just come in and cuddle me before my appointment.”

Your response catches him off guard so he blinks before entering in silently, sticking his hands back into the loose fitting pocket of his hoodie. Even after six months, he’s still not used to you saying those kinds of things. Hell, he still gets sweaty holding your hand.

“Hey Mom! Dad!” You’re grabbing onto his arm, tugging him into the kitchen. “Jisung’s here!”

After a small breakfast and conversation with your parents, he’s given the permission to go with you to your doctor’s appointment. The two of you take the bus, hands interlaced as you sit, and Jisung smiles awkwardly when an elderly woman compliments the two of you, calling you a cute couple.

He’s never really been in a hospital before.

For an arduous soccer player, he’s lucky enough to never have suffered a pain great enough to warrant a visit to the hospital, nor had he ever been sickly enough to send him there. It’s for that reason that he feels slightly out of place, tucked in his hoodie whilst trying his best not to gaze at the others in the waiting room. Instead, he tries to keep his gaze focused upon his girlfriend as you remain bright despite their surroundings. Your hands intertwined, he feels a comfortable warmth seeping into his veins, gold in color and feeling. Gold like the ring on your finger, and like your heart.

He’s so lucky to have you.

“I don’t really have anything planned,” he says softly, giving your hand a slight squeeze. It’s true that your itinerary is next to nonexistent for this impromptu date, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. If anything, a hospital is a strange starting destination for a date but your relationship is a bit strange. Quietly, he says to you, voice low in the hopes that no one overhears, “Don’t hospitals scare you?”

He knows that you spent a good portion of your time here; surely you must have grown accustomed to it, but Jisung was not. Hospitals were cold… white and bleak and much too quiet.

“Nah, not really,” you answer with a shake of your head. “Except for all the souls wandering around.”

Jisung blinks. “Souls?” He gulps.

“Yup. The souls of the passing.” You click your tongue, along with a wink in his direction now that you’ve successfully managed to creep him out. Do you ever stop making jokes?

The door to the waiting room opens and a medical assistant calls your name. “Hey, I’ll be right back,” you tell him, standing and releasing his arm. He gives a hesitant nod, watching as you leave through the door and disappear down the hall.

When you emerge, some forty-five minutes later, the mirth is gone from your eyes.

He knows right away: you didn’t get good news. His heart is pumping in his chest, like he’s waiting for you to collapse right there. Years could pass, and Jisung swears he’d never be able to erase that memory of you. “Are you—” Okay, he wants to ask. But you just give him a small smile and shake your head. It’s not the time. He cuts himself short, reaching a hand out to you with a small, albeit forced, smile. “Let’s go on our date.”

It’s a long afternoon, spent in the arcade where you had had your first date—this time, for memory’s sake, he gets another ring from the claw machine—then McDonald’s and ice cream. He treats you to lunch, courtesy of his employee discount, and the entire day is filled with laughter and mutual teasing. Everything feels like it’s okay again.

Jisung enjoys these moments the most.

The moments where he doesn’t feel like he has to be anybody: not the star soccer player, not the kind understanding younger brother, or a kid trying to look grown up at an adult party. With him he’s just you, awkwardness and quirks altogether. You’ve never hid yourself from him, and now he doesn’t have to hide himself either.

Now that the day is touching evening, the two of you sit at a park, relaxing mindlessly on the swings next to each other. Now that the romantic buzz is gone, the two of you have fallen into a comfortable silence.

“Thanks for coming this far, Ji. This was… nice.”

A small smile spreads over his lips. “It was nothing. I wanted to do it for a long time.”

“No, really,” you say, turning to him with a thankful smile. Your eyes are serious now, and Jisung feels the sunlight seep into his skin. “I really missed you.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. This moment feels heavy, like he’ll remember it for years to come. “... I missed you too. A lot.” You both turn back to face the sunset, watching the sun fade behind a hill. It’s setting, streaks of gentle reds and soft-spoken oranges staining the empyrean firmament. It’s then that Jisung feels his heart begin to sink, like the sun, into the pit of his stomach.

“Are you scared?”

A moment passes without you saying anything, then you speak up beside him. “Not really. I mean, it’s just the hospital. The only thing that’ll suck is not being able to leave. I never thought I’d say it but, I’m really gonna miss going to school.”

Did you think you were never going to return? “Are your chances good?”

The implications from earlier at the hospital return. What are the chances that things aren’t looking up? “They say so,” you breath out.

That’s not good enough. Anything could happen. Jisung needs clarification, confirmation. He doesn’t want to lose you. “What if you—”

“I might.”

A beat of silence.

Jisung feels like crying. It gathers in the back of his throat. “What would I do without you?”

There it is: the implication that you’ll be gone. That one day, Jisung will have to wake up and face a world without you in it, a world with less happiness and less passion. A world where there isn’t someone who will call him ugly when really they think he’s the cutest to walk to the earth, or where there isn’t someone to make fun of him the way you do. A world with less love.

Your voice is dry as you speak.

“You’d move on.”

“I don’t know if I’d ever love anyone like you,” he finds himself saying.

“L-Love?” You suddenly say, voice the smallest he’s ever heard. You’ve always had the loudest voice, most prominent in his brain, but his words seem to have caught you off guard. “Do you? Love me?”

He doesn’t know what love feels like. He’s just a teenager, what is he supposed to know about love? About loss? Is it all-consuming, like in the movies? Is it meant to hurt? “... I think I do. I think I love you.”

There’s a sniffle next to him, and he turns immediately, alarmed that he may have made you cry. There are tears in your eyes, but they don’t fall. Being a writer, you talk too much. Your words are eloquent and true, though sometimes Jisung has a hard time getting you to stop talking. But this time, you choose to abandon words altogether, instead leaving your swing to stand in front of him. Compelled by nature, he stands too. Instead of speaking, you reach upward on your tiptoes once more. Except this time, you kiss him.

Your lips meet, and everything is golden.

And against the backdrop of the setting sun, it feels like the closing scene of Jisung’s very own romance movie. But this isn’t the end, he knows.

When he walks you home, he offers his sweater again.

This time not out of obligation or the desire to appear more romantic than he is, but because you’re cold. Really cold. You’re shivering, arms wrapped around yourself not giving enough warmth.

“Here,” Jisung says, already beginning to take off his hoodie, but you stop him with a hand and a pointed look, though your chattering teeth cause you to stutter. “S-Still trying to woo me with cheap rom-com tricks?”

You’re stubborn. You’re so stubborn and he hates it.

“Just take it,” he says, pushing it into your arms.

“No,” you argue. “You have a three hour ride home, it’s late and you’ll be cold.”

It’s obvious your illness has made you even more sensitive to the cold, and for that reason, Jisung’s fine facing the biting cold as long as you’re okay. “You’re freezing, please just take it.”

“Jisung, I said no.” Your voice is stern now, and he gets the feeling that he’s upset you. He gives up, gnawing on his bottom lip in deep thought. He just wants to make you feel better, doing what he thinks will help but with you, it never does. You’re so independent, too much so and much too stubborn to admit you need his help… “Fine,” he says before putting his hoodie back on. If you won’t take his warmth, then he’ll give it to you.

He lifts his arm, placing it fully around your shoulders and pulling you to him so your bodies meet. “At least let me hold you,” he mumbles. Your frame freezes in his for a moment, until you wrap your arms around the circumference of his chest.

Burying your face into his side, you relent into him. “Okay, fine.”

And later, he finds that you’re right. When he sits alone on the dimly lit train, he realizes that the warmth he had been feeling earlier, bathing in the sun’s rays with your lips, is long gone. All he feels now, is cold.

“You skipped practice the other day.” Jisung looks up from where he had been sitting on the bleachers, tying his shoes after practice. It had been a tough practice; he had missed quite a few passes and whiffed more than just a couple shots. He can only blame himself. He’s been distracted; alongside his worries about you, he also has a job to attend to and even more, the results for his dream school’s soccer scholarship is supposed to come out soon. His gaze falls on all six of his closest friends, looking down at him.

“Yeah, something came up,” he says easily.

“More like, someone,” retorts Donghyuck easily. “We know you ditched to go see your girlfriend.”

“And what about it?”

“I don’t know what’s happened to you, man. You never want to play ball with us anymore, you don’t want to hang out with us. Whenever you invite you to a party, you raincheck. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore,” Chenle spits out, arms crossed over his chest.

“Chenle,” says Renjun carefully.

“No,” interrupts the boy in question. Chenle looks straight at Jisung, who stands now to meet the others’ heights. “He needs to hear this. Ever since that girl came around, it’s like you’ve lost your way. You used to be all about soccer and friendship. Now you always have her on your mind, and—did you see the way you played earlier?—she’s messing you up. Your head’s not on straight.”

“Chenle, stop.” Donghyuck speaks up now, voice low as he tries to stop the younger from going off. “You’re not the same Jisung I met in peewee camp, and I don’t know if I like who I’m seeing,” Chenle finishes.

That’s enough for him. His voice comes out before he can stop it.

“You know why I never party with you anymore?” Jisung suddenly says, voice booming and clearly at his limit. “Because I’ve always hated partying. Because I have a job now, and because I don’t want my sister to stay up worrying about me while I’m getting piss drunk. I hate drinking, I hate trying to look cool while actually looking fucking stupid, because I don’t know how I can even think about partying when my girlfriend is fucking dying.”

A hearty scoff leaves his lips, as though he can’t even fathom the words he’s faced today. “You don’t even know me anymore? That’s where you’re wrong, because you never knew me. Not all of me. You only see me as the star player who’s gonna get you your win. She knows me, she knows all of me, and she doesn’t try to change me. Well, sorry that I’m not the same kid you met years ago who let everyone walk all over him. I thought you guys were my friends, but clearly you only want me around for as long as I can play.”

Those are the last fiery words to leave Jisung’s mouth before he turns on his heels, storming off the field and away from everyone else. He just needs to get out of here, away from everything before he ruins it. Mark and Hyuck follow after him, while Jeno and the rest hold Chenle back.

“Don’t listen to him,” Mark says, ever level headed. “We know what you’re going through.”

Though he appreciates their concern, Jisung spits, “No, you don’t.”

Both of them stop walking, no longer chasing after him as Jisung pulls out his phone.

A new email.

He immediately opens it, eyes glazing over the text.

Dear Jisung Park,

Thank you for applying to our university’s soccer scholarship. We reviewed every application with our utmost dedication and attention. Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that we cannot accept your application at this time. Our soccer program is one of the most competitive at this school, however we encourage you to reapp…

What a load of shit.

The past few weeks have been horrid.

Soccer is as tense as ever, though Jisung would be lying if he said that his fight with Chenle didn’t fuel him to work even harder during practice. His job sucks, especially after someone spilled a bucket of old oil on him (it was cold, thank goodness but still gross nonetheless). So far he’s gotten another rejection. Who knew that getting into college would be this hard?

He wishes that he could say his relationship with you is the saving grace, but it’s really not. You’re in the hospital now, and the two of you have been talking less and less. Even now with his feud between his friends, he feels even more alone. Today when he calls, you sound even more tired than usual.

“Hey, chocolate honeycomb bunny,” Jisung says, giving his absolute worst at giving a cringe-worthy nickname. It seems you’re too tired to even give a repulsed response.

“Hey.” You’re quiet for a moment, only your breathing heard across the line. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” sighs Jisung, running a hand through his dark locks. “Just exhausted. My coworker is getting on my last nerve.”

“The same one you talked about last week?”

“Who spilled the dirty oil on me? Yeah,” he responds with a roll of his eyes. “We’ve both been working the same amount of time, I just want to know why he’s so slow to pick it up.”

It’s characteristic of you to agree, seeing as complaining is one of your favorite past times. But you don’t, voice only coming out softly across the call, “Maybe just give him some time.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” he sighs. “How about you? Are you feeling better?”

“About the same,” you respond truthfully. God, you sound so tired. He almost feels bad for making you talk to him when you clearly sound exhausted. “Any more results?” You ask, regarding his college acceptances.

“No,” he shakes his head. He doesn’t understand. He’s a good student, he’s done community service. Just what more do they want from him? “You said I was special, but I don’t think the colleges see that.”

He can almost see your small smile in his mind. “You are special. Just ‘cause they don’t see it doesn’t you aren’t.”

“Eh, I don’t know,” Jisung says, playing with a loose thread on his bedsheet.

What you say next catches him off guard. “Maybe we can both be college-less, together.”

“What?” He asks, brows tightening in confusion. “Didn’t you get into the journalism program at that one university?” He’s caught you. You’re silent on the line for a few long seconds, but the quiet is deafening for him.

“I did, but Jisung, I…” You hesitate. “I’m not going.”

“What do you mean you’re not going?” He asks.

“I… I don’t know if I want to.” In a small voice, you continue, “I don’t know that I’ll make it that long.” What are you saying? What are you implying? Heart racing, Jisung tries to decipher these words in his mind. To him, it just sounds like the end.

“You’re giving up already, I hear it in your voice.”

“I’m not,” you say, a broken promise. “I just… want to be prepared for the worst.”

“The worst isn’t coming. You’re going to get through this. You’re going to beat it. I know you are.” It becomes blatantly clear in this moment that the person Jisung is trying to convince, is himself.

His pleas fall upon deaf ears, because you argue back in what seems like the strongest voice you’ve made in months. As though you’ve amassed all your remaining energy for this conversation. “I’m not a hero, Jisung. I’m not cut out for this. The doctors said it’s not looking good.”

“Then prove them wrong. You’re gonna beat it.”

“I don’t want to be the underdog either, Ji. You know I hate them.” What you say next has his blood boiling. “I don’t deserve it anyways, no one would want me to come back.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Jisung raises his voice now, volume growing with each word.

“No one likes me,” you spit out across the line, and he doesn’t need to see you to imagine how incensed you are at the moment. “I’m rude, I’m loud, I cross boundaries and I say things that hurt without caring about who it touches. And before you yell at me that no one thinks of me like that, these are things I’ve heard from other people.” Your voice breaks, as does Jisung’s heart. “If this were a movie, no one would root for me to survive.”

“I do,” Jisung says, voice strong. “I’m rooting for you. Every. Single. Day. And who cares about how other people see you? You’re rude? You’re crass? I like you because of those things, because you’re different from me. Am I not enough?”

“You’re different,” you relent, voice tired. “You’re the only one who matters. But I—“ You choke up. “I’m just tired of fighting. I don’t want to go to sleep every night not knowing if I’ll wake up the next morning. I want to be strong, and I want to face every day knowing that it could be my last… I don’t want to leave anything behind—”

“You’re not leaving,” he cuts in.

“—and I can’t go through every day letting you think that everything is okay, because they’re not. But I’m ready to let go, Ji. Because I’m happy with what I had, with what we had, and I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

Tears are falling down his cheeks now, suiciding off the surface of his face and staining his bed sheets. He doesn’t know if the tears are the result of sadness, anger, or the pain of loving someone the universe would never let him have, yet it hurts all the same. “But I love you! I told you that I loved you.”

“I love you too,” you cry, and the sound is heartbreaking. “But I just wish that were enough.”

A pregnant silence consumes both of you. All that can be heard is the sound of your mutual crying, along with your breathing that Jisung had learned to fall asleep to. When you speak again, your voice is steady. You had always been the stronger one. “I don’t think you should call anymore.” A few sniffles. He can’t even speak. “Goodbye, Jisung.”

Then the line dies.

It’s Christmastime. He knows it’s cold, probably even colder in the hospital where you are.

Now, Jisung knows you don’t want anything from him. You don’t want him around. In the past weeks he must have become someone even he wouldn’t want around. And though he gets the feeling that you’ll never need him again, he figures you could use a sweater. It’s nothing much, and really he thinks it could be better.

A hoodie, not fit to your size but slightly larger because he knew you well enough to know you’d like it like that. On one sleeve, near the wrist, a patch of a soccer ball. He had learned how to sew it on himself. On the other, his initials. JS.

He sends it in the mail, in a box to the hospital with your name and room number on it. There’s no letter, nothing. Just his bare soul in the form of an oversized cotton hoodie. He’d send it himself, appearing at the door to your hospital bed, but something tells him he’s run out of things to say.

His phone rings at three in the morning.

He knows what it means.

February 2nd, at 2:39AM. The world lost you.

It would never be the same again, and neither would he.

Grief is an interesting thing, someone once told him.

He doesn’t quite remember who it was, whether it was his sister comforting him after the death of their goldfish, the guidance counselor at his school giving him a required appointment after the passing of a student, or yourself. But as the hours go by, it feels more and more like a weight in his chest that has been sitting on a hollowed place in his heart.

Grief is indescribable, and Jisung doesn’t know if this is because his limited seventeen year old vocabulary hasn’t collected enough fitting words to even begin to verbalize his emotions, or if because it really is indescribable.

The first few days had been hell.

He had almost become someone that he didn’t know, barely stepping out of bed and perhaps worrying his sister out of her mind. It was his way of ignoring the world, dissociating himself from the irrefutable truth that you weren’t really gone. You were still laying in bed, three hours away as usual, struggling but still fighting. If he could lay in bed, sleeping the days away and ignoring his text message condolences from his friends, he could pretend for some time that things were the way they were, eight months ago.

Eight months before it.

Eight months before he lost you. Before your relationship, a burgeoning dandelion in the nook of spring. But dandelions represent rebirth, the reappearance of hope like a beacon after an arduous winter, and you would never have another spring.

He could not pretend, because every morning the sun rose again, and he would have to reach his head out from the burrow of blankets he had buried himself in. He would need to face it for himself that he woke up, and you didn’t. His friends texted. His sister knocked on his door and begged him to eat, even going as far as to cook his favorite foods as a means to lure him from the darkness of his corner. He ate. But it was never the same.

Messy bedheads, earbuds tucked in with muzak playing gently like the thrum of his heart which beat enough for the both of you, tear-stained pillow cases, knees to the chest, light failing to shine in through the blinds which remained closed, counting the seconds between each breath, dreaming insubordinate dreams.

The first few days went like that. Empty.

Then he was angry.

Angry because the world had given him a love worth changing for, then ripped it from his inexperienced hands. He had never had anything in his life! Not a mother, not a father. Could he not have this one lily, this flower which sought to remind him of the fragility of life? And even more so, he was angry for you. You were a fire—you were a bottle of passion bursting at the seams, a well of untapped potential, a boldness which no one else could emulate—and the universe crushed you beneath its foot.

And suddenly, the emptiness of your hollow space reflected upon him.

He should have been better, should have done more. A soccer ball proposition? A sweater? It was laughable; that was the least he could give? If only he had called, if only he hadn’t listened to you like the meek child he was, things could be better.

And above all, he was sad.

What would he do without you?

Moving on seemed useless. A light at the end of a dark tunnel which stretched for ages. An epiphany that you would never reach.

He just hoped that it was not cold. That you left the world in a ball of light, surrounded in the warmth of family and love, not the rigidness of the unforgiving world. Perhaps it was selfish of him, but he hoped that the soccer ball sleeve had been clutched to your chest, and that his hoodie could have provided just a little bit of that warmth.

The walking pattern outside his bedroom door is different from his sister’s. So is the knock on the door; his older sister’s is much more quiet, reserved, as though she was afraid to wake him. This one is harsh, and it reverberates through the room before the door opens.

The air in the room is still for a moment.

“Jisung.”

It’s Chenle. And Mark, Renjun, Jeno, Donghyuck, as well as Jaemin. They all take their seats either on the end of his bed, the floor, or his beanbag, but Jisung doesn’t move from his place underneath the blankets.

“What do you want?” He manages to groan out in a small voice.

Someone places a hand on his leg, a comforting gesture. He thinks it’s Jaemin from the gentle touch. “We’re here for you.”

Donghyuck comments, “You haven’t been to practice this week.” Of course that would be what they would mention first. Jisung scoffs. “I’m kind of going through something.”

“And we’re here.” Mark’s voice.

“We wanted to apologize.” Chenle speaks now, and despite being best friends since they were five, he’s the last person Jisung expected to say sorry. In their decade-long friendship, Chenle was the confident one, the one who charged forward without consequence while Jisung trailed behind, cleaning up his mess. “We’ve been… assholes, simply put.” Had he been in higher spirits, Jisung would have snorted. “We thought we understood what you were going through, and we thought it was dumb. To let yourself get hurt over some random girl… but we were wrong. We didn’t understand your point of view.”

“Not even a little bit,” says Donghyuck, head hanging low.

“Yeah, we’re supposed to be your friends. Your team! We’re supposed to lift you up when you’re down and… well, we haven’t been doing that. And we’re sorry. I’m sorry.” Chenle says. Slowly, Jisung lifts his head from below the blanket to face his friends. They all wear a variety of expressions, all somber. “And we know now… she’s not just some random girl.”

Yeah, they’ve all been assholes, some more than others, and Jisung can’t exactly say that they were any help in his struggle. But perhaps this was something he needed to go through alone. At the time, he needed you. But now… he just really needs his best friends.

Tears sting at his eyes for the nth time.

“Come here, you crybaby,” says Jaemin, opening his arms.

It’s Monday, meaning he has to go back to school today. He’s not ready, how could he be? It hasn’t even been a week since you… left, but he knows he has to go back. His sister, God bless her, had let him take the first few days off but now that the weekend has ended and school has rolled back around, he has no choice.

“You look like shit.”

Donghyuck has always lacked a filter. It would hurt if Jisung didn’t know that Donghyuck meant that in the best way possible. You look like shit, he says. So I’m glad you found it in you to come to school, is what he doesn’t say.

Jisung closes his locker with a sigh. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” snickers his friend, and Jisung turns his head to find Mark and Jaemin approaching. “Morning,” greets Jaemin as he taps the top of Jisung’s head, despite being shorter.

“Hi,” responds Jisung quietly, clutching his chemistry textbook to his chest. The three of them look at him with quiet and somber eyes, but don’t say anything. Mark places a comforting hand on his shoulder, giving it a small rub.

“You got this.”

The truth is, he can’t do this. The world feels quiet and empty, lacking a particular passion that you used to always embody. It could be worse. Thank goodness your relationship was rather private; he doesn’t know how he’d be able to function at school had there been curious eyes on him, if you had gone to the same school as him.

The day goes rather slowly, and Jisung busies himself with catching up on his work that he had missed. He could almost pretend like things are normal. It’s not until fifth period calculus that something strange happens.

An office TA pokes her head in and scrambles over to the teacher, who was in the midst of a very enthralling lecture on integrals that Jisung was definitely not paying great attention to. The TA whispers something into the teacher’s ear, then hands her a piece of paper. Mrs. Huang nods, then suddenly Jisung finds her eyes on him. “Jisung, Mr. Moon wants you in his office.”

Him? Why him of all people?

Mr. Moon is the guidance counselor at their school, and Jisung has a moment of internal panic—had he somehow found out about you? Should he prepare himself for a lecture about grief and moving on?

With a gulp, he nods.

Mr. Moon is a fairly nice man, with a friendly smile and a reputation for being a pushover teacher. Jisung had met with him a few months ago to discuss his desire to pursue a soccer scholarship but he highly doubts that’s the case now.

When Jisung enters Mr. Moon’s office, the first thing he sees isn’t Mr. Moon but a tall man with a stoic expression standing behind his desk. In contrast to the stranger, Mr. Moon wears his trademark smile. “Jisung, good to see you. Still getting a kick out of that old ball?”

Of course, Mr. Moon doesn’t know that Jisung skipped practice all last week to mope in his bed, but Jisung nods politely. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” responds the teacher with a smile. “Take a seat.”

He gestures to the chair in front of his desk, and cautiously does Jisung take a seat. The tall, bruff man is still standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, having not yet said a single word. Somehow the atmosphere is tense, and Jisung’s quite sure he knows what this is about.

“Now, Jisung, I’ve called you in today because—”

“Is this about (Name)?” Perhaps it’s a bit rude of him, but Jisung doesn’t want to be prodded at, at least not by people who think they know him. The last thing he wants is pity.

Mr. Moon’s eyebrow raises just the slightest, and he leans forward on his desk. “Why, yes, it is. How did you know?”

A scoff leaves Jisung’s lips, but it’s much weaker than he would like. “My question is, how did you know? Who told you?” Who was it that shared information on his personal life? Was it his sister? His friends?

“Nobody had to tell me, Jisung. (Name) sent the letter to me herself.”

Wait… what?

Jisung blinks, hands falling slack on his lap. “W-What? What letter?”

Perhaps his staring is a bit too obvious, for Mr. Moon gestures to the stranger in question with a hand. “Jisung, this is Johnny Seo.” Finally, the intimidating stranger has a name. “Johnny is the head coach of the soccer team at Greenwood University—” Wait, Greenwood University? That’s Jisung’s dream school—well, it was his dream school, until they rejected his application for a soccer scholarship. What would they want to do with him? “—and he wants to offer you a full-ride scholarship.”

What?

Jisung’s mouth falls open. What? What the hell? Hadn’t they just rejected him three months ago? His eyes must be bugging out of his face, so he blinks repeatedly, trying to find the words to say.

“W-Wait, what? A… A full ride?” He stammers, unable to find his tongue.

The man named Johnny only nods. “Full ride. Covered tuition, dorming, and soccer costs. All you have to do is keep your grades up and keep scoring those fancy goals of yours I’ve heard about.”

“But—But, you rejected me… why now?”

For the first time, Johnny gives a small smile. “Because of the letter.” There it is, that letter again that Jisung has no idea about. He looks to Mr. Moon for guidance. All the counselor does is open his desk drawer and pull out an envelope, which he slides across his desk. “(Name) (Last Name) wrote a recommendation letter to the university, and honestly, it was stunning. It was enough to make the admissions board… bend a little, to say the least.”

Reaching forward, Jisung grabs the envelope and examines it in his hands. It’s opened, but yes, on the front is your handwriting. He’s cried so much this past week that he doesn’t know how many times tears have touched his eyes, but they sting once more. This time, he doesn’t let them fall.

“She… wrote a letter. For me?”

“That she did,” responds Mr. Moon.

“She’s right,” says Johnny suddenly. “In our work at the university, we’re always looking for the best of the best. We should look deeper, sometimes.” The words sink in the room, and Jisung finds himself staring down at the envelope in his hands. What things had you had to say about him?

Honestly, all he can think about is his failure. How he failed to be there for you, how he cowarded in your presence when you told him to leave you alone. He bites down on his lip.

“So? Will you accept our offer?”

Jisung looks up again, meeting Johnny’s expectant eyes. “I…” His mouth suddenly runs dry. “I don’t know, I… I need to think about it.”

“You’re not graduating for another four months. Take your time.” Slowly, still in glassy-eyed disbelief, Jisung nods. His fingers find the edge of the envelope, tracing its pointed edge. You wrote that for him. From across the desk, Mr. Moon speaks up. “You should read that letter, Jisung, and realize what’s coming for you: good things.”

To Whom It May Concern,

Hello. My name is (Name) (Last Name), and I am a high school student writing this letter to appeal a rejection by your university. Not of my own application, but of an extraordinary person with the name Jisung Park. In my humble opinion, I believe that your institution has made a grave mistake in not offering a scholarship to Jisung. So, I write this letter to appeal such a rejection, and to do something that he hated, though it was what I always did best: write about Jisung.

Now, Jisung is a humble person who never speaks up about his struggles, but the truth is that of all students, I believe he is the most in need of this scholarship. His parents passed when he was young, and he grew up in the care of his older sister who raised him. Their small but strong family made sacrifices, gave up luxuries, and endeavored to survive.

In the midst of this crisis, Jisung found his one savior: soccer.

He is, without a doubt, the best soccer player I have ever seen in my entire life. He can sprint across the field in half a normal player’s time, and I’ve never seen him miss a goal or a pass. But his soccer prowess isn’t what makes him great. Moreover, Jisung is the person you want on a team. He believes in teamwork, but is always striving to be better. He doesn’t want to stand out, but does so anyways. He is never arrogant, nor boastful. If there is one person who deserves this, it’s him.

But, I am sure that you are thinking: why should this letter mean anything to you? I’m not a highly valued individual in the community, nor have I done anything significant for my name to mean anything. I’m only a seventeen year old student, a struggling journalist.

The answer to that question is, I know Jisung Park. You only see his grades, the shallow things on his application. You will never get to see the Jisung Park that I knew and loved.

In my time alive, Jisung Park made an impact on my life that will never be forgotten. Even when life seemed the darkest, not a beam of light in the field's view, Jisung picked me up and made me see the sunset. I know now, the sunset is beautiful, warm, and comforting—everything that Jisung is. He never left my side, and never for a single moment did I ever feel alone in his presence. The world often overplays the saying “a heart of gold,” but the truth is that Jisung has one.

I used to think that love would be red, like the burning of one’s lungs racing down a soccer field, or black and white, made to be simple. But the truth is, love is golden. Golden like the sunset painting streaks against the floor, golden like Jisung. It’s a warmth that covers you from head to toe, relenting into a future that you don’t know.

He is my golden boy, and he can be yours too.

I may not have a future, but if there’s one thing that I know, it’s that Jisung deserves one.

I’m a journalist. I don’t write love letters, but perhaps this is the closest I can ever get. And should Jisung ever read this letter, I hope he knows that with this, I dedicated my last spark of sunlight to him.

Sincerely,

(Name) (Last Name)

Your funeral occurs on February 13th, a week and four days after your passing.

Jisung stands in front of the bathroom mirror, nose scrunched in concentration as he makes a feeble attempt on his necktie. This is surely not as easy as throwing on a soccer jersey. “Ugh,” he groans, fingers getting confused again.

“Need help?”

His sister’s dainty voice calls him from the bathroom door. Dressed in all black, she’s ready too. Turning his head, Jisung sighs. “Please.” She makes his way toward him, fingers coming to work on his tie already with steady hands.

“You’re too tall now,” she says softly, with a chuckle. It’s true; he used to look up to her, physically and figuratively, but now he’s an entire head above her. “You’ve grown up a lot.”

It was his eighteenth birthday just a few days ago but to be quite honest, he hadn’t had the heart to celebrate it. If anything, he had always thought that his eighteenth birthday would be like an epiphany for him. As though he would wake up the morning of, feeling like an adult with all the answers to the world.

The truth is, he’s eighteen now and he still feels like he has no idea what he’s doing.

“I don’t feel any different,” he admits. “I thought eighteen would mean something.”

“You’ll get there, trust me. And anyways, I always told you not to grow up too fast.”

For a moment there’s a silence as his sister swoops the tie in and out, weaving it to form the perfect knot. Feeling something scratch at the back of his throat, Jisung speaks. “... I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for, silly? I was the one who never taught you how to knot a necktie,” she chuckles.

“Not for that,” he says. “For last week. I… probably scared you.”

Suddenly, his sister is wearing that demure smile of hers again. The one that is small and polite, but always seems to carry more weight in it than he can see. “No. It’s okay, I knew you’d be better.”

Naeun finally finishes the knot, tightening it the slightest around Jisung’s neck. “There you go.” He offers her a small thanks as he turns to look in the mirror, and she begins to leave. A sigh leaves him; there’s no avoiding it now, he’s ready to go.

“You know, Jisung,” she suddenly speaks up from the doorway. “I’m glad that you met her. Even if it ended up like this… you’re different. In a good way, and I think she had a lot to do with it. Even if you don’t feel different… you are.”

In the months of your relationship, Jisung had come to learn your insecurities. You were loud and proud, but with that confidence came an unwavering insecurity that you were unliked by those you spilled your tongue to. At the funeral, Jisung sees that that’s not at all true.

People give speeches for you, place flowers on your grave. The school newspaper had even written an article to commemorate your presence on their team, and the president of the club reads it aloud. A number of hospital staff make their appearance.

Even Jisung’s friends show up, despite the clear memory of them calling you crazy early on. Maybe they were right, maybe you were crazy. But he probably was too.

It doesn’t rain a single drop, though it had been pouring for three days before. Instead, the sun peeks through the overcast clouds, gifting sunshine.

Jisung smiles.

He probably looks like an idiot, carrying the soccer ball around the entire funeral but he knows what it means to him, and what it means to you. When he places it on your grave, the grass still fresh, his eyes catch the carefully written words on a singular white spot.

I love you.

He knows that he means it.

At eighteen, there a lot of things that Jisung still doesn’t know. But even so, there are a handful of truths that he can hold onto forever. One, he’s still an incredible soccer player and girls are still very scary. But like soccer, maybe that just takes time and practice.

Two, growing up isn’t about a number. It’s not about partying or drinking, nor is it about rushing into relationships that have little meaning. For years Jisung had wanted to grow up, to face the world with no fears and be able to cruise through. But he knows now that growing up is about being strong in the face of sadness, pain, grief. About waking up every morning even if you feel like you have no reason to.

Love is the same.

Love isn’t about making out on the bleachers after practice or trying to copy the coy clichés seen in romance movies. It’s about the sacrifices, like four hour bus rides. It’s about communication and connection, like a recommendation letter traced in gold. Because of you, he’s moving forward. He can go to college, and the day will never come when he stops being grateful toward you and everything you’ve done. That’s love, and he will spend the rest of his life loving you. Maybe the love will change but it will always be love.

It hurts that you’re gone, it really does. Jisung doesn’t think it’ll ever stop hurting.

But the last thing he knows is that things will be okay.

Life moves on, and he will too.

#neowritingsnet #dreamwritersnet #nct-writers #neohbh #neothestars #park jisung angst #jisung angst #jisung fluff #park jisung fluff #park jisung fanfic #jisung fanfic #nct dream fluff #nct dream angst #nct angst #nct fluff #nct fanfic #nct dream fanfic

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painted-crow · 4 years ago

Note

What does a rapid fire Bird Secondary look like ?

Me!

I've talked about this a bit before, but I don’t like detailed plans, like step by step "here's what I'm gonna do." There are circumstances when I'll plan, but rather limited ones:

For fun. Maybe I'm interested in something but can't do the actual activity, so I plan it out instead. This plan might serve as a reference later, but I'm just as likely to discard it because I don't feel like using it or I have a better idea.

As a crutch. If I'm really inertia-struck with anxiety or executive dysfunction, making a plan or even just a list can be a hack to get out of it, but again, I'm likely to abandon it halfway through if I start feeling better.

"Formal" experimentation. I don't do this a whole lot, and usually I do this kind of thing in my head... but sometimes you gotta actually think the details through and write them down in advance.

But it's not how I like to work. To me, plans feel brittle and restrictive and usually boring. I lean towards other tactics:

Clever repurposing of something I learned/collected, or of resources that happen to be around me

Use of a tool I picked up thinking "this'll be handy at some point"

Bringing up weird knowledge I acquired At Some Point, possibly by accident, for fun, or while working on something else

Bringing up general skills I learned on purpose

Learning skills on the fly because the situation needs them; I prefer to know what I'm doing better than this, but reasonably speedy autodidacticism is one of my most prized skills and it's not a bad fallback.

(El Goonish Shive)

"Moooom! Paint is identifying with a mad scientist character again!"

Basically, I pull from my collection of existing skills, tools, knowledge, and current available resources to craft a solution on the fly, after getting close enough to the situation to get a good look at the problem.

This makes me feel very clever, it works really well, and I love doing it. Favorite way to do stuff, hands down.

Trouble can be, if people don't recognize how much prep work goes into these "instant" solutions, they're inclined not to believe they're real and will actually work. And I don't like pulling the "actually I studied this for six months" card because it feels like bragging :/ plus, for all the different things I can say that about, it stops sounding believable.

Truth is, I have almost no attention span for television (I'm aware this is weird but don't have an explanation for it), I hyperfocus easily, and I choose hobbies with lots of moving parts.

Like aquascaping. Do you know how many different bottles of chemicals you need to get the water chemistry right so the aquatic plants will grow? For me it was five, but a lot of people I knew online had waaay more (and fancy CO2 systems) because they kept demanding plants. If you kept the right balance of fish and plants, you ended up with this little ecosystem in a box. Like a tiny slice of a river! I was pretty good at it.

I still don't know how I got from "let's try making California rolls" to "afraid to run out of good mirin," but somehow I ended up really into cooking Japanese food and it's a permanent influence on my pantry and basically anything I cook now.

I do know how I ended up with so many oil painting mediums and solvents and so many paint colors that I have to have a list on my phone now to keep track of which ones I have in stock, though. Also did you know that acrylic paints also have mediums you can add and they make using acrylics SO MUCH EASIER? because I do and it seems like nobody else does and that's sad.

I also binge read nonfiction, especially when I'm depressed. It gives me something to focus on and feels vaguely productive even when I don't have the energy to do more.

Does this all sound like a lot of work? It's really just some of the stuff I do for kicks. We haven't touched on the novels I've written, the coding languages I know, the gardens I've kept, the professional design software on my computer (which I built myself from parts), the knitting and the baking and the graphic design and the candle making and the martial arts and the French language stuff from back in high school that I still kinda remember.

OH and then you have the weird stuff I carry around. *empties purse* here we have a multitool, lockpicks, a can of WD-40, some yarn or string, bandaids, a styptic pen, hand sanitizer, hairbands, screws I don't want to lose bc they belong to my couch, glasses cleaning wipes, a metal pen with a point that can break a car window, a bunch of fast food napkins, mini bottles of ibuprofen and acetaminophen, earbuds, comb, random lanyard, and four mini rubber ducks; all of these make sense to me don't ask why my purse is heavy

Plus all the ebooks loaded onto my phone, which I carry everywhere! And I have even more in my Humble Bundle library.

I list all these off to make a point: Birds' resource libraries can be HUGE. I don't know where mine exists on the hugeness spectrum, but I'm only 23, and older Birds' libraries are probably even bigger.

So yeah, as odd and niche as my interests can be, I have a LOT of them, and I can just go into situations without a plan because between all the skills I've learned and the books I've read and reread and the resources I carry everywhere and the hoard of supplies at home and the Bird masks and the Badger mirroring and THEN the ability to learn what I need on the fly if all else fails--

I don't need a plan.

I don't want a plan.

I'm more powerful without it.

I can react and pull from anything I've ever done or used or read. I can build things on the fly. Doesn't matter if I need to help cater an event or build a website or just prop open a heavy door--I'll have something relevant, or I'll figure it out.

There are situations where I won't be as capable, of course. For example, I know very little about cars, or writing music, or roller skating, or amino acid protein chains. But that's okay, because there are other people who specialize in those things, and I'll almost certainly come out of the situation having learned something and added to my library.

(Except the roller skating thing. I'm kind of phobic about skating of any kind. Cool when other people do it, but I get *eurgh* sliding in socks on linoleum.)

How do I end this... oh!

The fancy word for the act of making up a solution to a problem on the spot, using whatever materials and resources you have on hand, is bricolage, and one who practices it is a bricoleur. I learned that from a LiveJournal blog about writing that I used to read when I was 12, and I still remember it for some reason, which is very on brand of me.

#sortinghatchats #ravenclaw secondary #rapid fire ravenclaw secondary #paint speaks #asks #q

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forthegothicheroine · 4 years ago

Text

Opinions on Into the Dark Movies

I’ve seen a lot, though not all, of the Blumhouse series of Into the Dark, direct to Hulu horror movies themed around various holidays. Some of them suck. Some of them are surprisingly good! Most are mediocre. Still, I keep watching. Rather than try to rank these movies, I’m just going to give a few of them awards.

Favorite Movie: Pooka Lives

If you were there for the height of Slenderman blogging, this will hit you hard! The first Pooka movie was a psychological thriller and definitely interesting, but the horror-comedy sequel was the thing that touched my heart. It’s all about how the internet creates memes that completely change from where they start by the whims of each new viral art piece. While watching it, I said “according to Twin Peaks, this would be a a tulpa” at one point, and then Felicia Day said “I’ve got it, it’s a tulpa!” She heard me! Rachel Bloom kills Whil Weaton in the opening! All you really need to know going in is that Pooka is a stuffed animal bear-rabbit-monster who repeats words in a “naughty” or “nice” voice.

Most Effective Horror Movie: I’m Just Fucking With You

Somebody on the Bloody Disgusting website said the stuff in this movie is worse torture than Saw or Hostel- but the kicker is, the torment is mostly mental and emotional. An unlikeable internet troll checks into a sleazy motel, only to discover that the guy in charge of the place is a nastier troll than he’ll ever be. This bespectacled, southern-accented slacker just keeps pulling pranks, each one more mean-spirited than the last, until they escalate to murder and the total destruction of our hero’s remaining humanity. The constant neon-lit look of the motel is super intense, but the most important thing about this is that it shows you how really fucking annoying the Joker would be if you actually met him.

Sexiest Villain: Pilgrim

Look, I dunno. Brother Ethan is just the sexiest evil Puritan you’ll ever find, as small as that pool may be. He’s totally invested in what he’s doing, he fully believes in the lessons he’s teaching, he’s maybe a ghost or a trickster spirit or something, he has a great accent, he has a great laugh, and he has great piercing eyes. Also he has this ongoing dynamic with the final girl that’s maybe sexually charged or maybe isn’t, but the whole thing is definitely a battle of wills and beliefs between them and that is hot. Honorable mention goes to the hitman in The Body, but he only looked hot, he didn’t actually act hot, and there’s a difference.

Most Believeable Villain: New Year New You

Maybe the murders aren’t all believeable, but “Get Well” Danielle is! Once a loathesome high school bully, she has now found fame and fortune as a loathesome social media influencer, and a culture that supports vapid self-promotion is one she thrives in. Are the others in the movie any better, though? They hate her, but isn’t it partly because they want to be her? Don’t we all kind of want what she has, even while disdaining every part of her that got her where she is?

Movie I Could Have Written Better: Uncanny Annie

This movie about an evil board game sucked, but it didn’t have to! There’s so much a horror comedy could parody about the modern board game scene. It could have been an incredibly complex game with mutliple expansions where you’re two hours in and still haven’t gotten to using all the mechanics. It could have been a super artsy Euro game with stunning evil art but instructions that are very poorly translated into English. I work for a book and game store! Give me a chance, I could script a greatdark parody of the the Arkham Horror franchise!

Movie That Might Have Been Scarier Without the Supernatural: Pure

I actually really respect the whole setup of this movie. The notion of a “purity camp” father-daughter celebration is stunning and sickening, the fathers are holding their daughters to impossible standards and threatening to remove their love if they ever fair, the girls can’t trust that anyone they meet won’t reveal their secrets to the Reverend, and the camp itself looks like if that Midsommar farm was just No Fun Allowed. Anyway, I don’t think they needed a weird rewriting of Lilith. It’s a psychological cult horror, so let it stay that. The girls can kill their dads at the end without any supernatural power.

Best Cheese: School Spirit

As soon as I saw the trailer and realized this was a Breakfast Club pastiche, I was in, baby. You’ve got the prep, the class clown, the stoner, the nerd, and the delinquent all in for detention. They resist the mean disciplinary teacher, they bond, they share secrets, they get high, they see beyond their cliques, and a masked slasher murders them one by one. The villain reveal is ridiculous but kind of charming, a fun riff on the Norman Bates archetype, and the final girl’s speech to the killer at the end should be on all those “Good for her!” female character gif compilations.

Best Villain Outfit: Midnight Kiss

I love that giallo-killer-meets-gimp-suit look! So creepy, yet so believeable for a club scene! (Or at least, it would fit in with my memories of Folsom Street Fair.) The movie itself isn’t super interesting as murder mysteries go, but it’s not bad, the whole thing is super stylish, and it is neat that almost the whole cast of characters, from heroes to villains, are gay. But yeah, great costume, great party scenes, great beach house, shame about all the murders.

Movie I Wish I Hadn’t Sought Out Spoilers For: Culture Shock

I was trying to decide if I should see these movies and looked at lists of which ones were the best and then I looked into this one and...I spoiled the entire reveal. It’s a great reveal! I’ll try to avoid spoilering it here, but in this Spanish and English language movie, our heroine goes from dodging cartel men while trying to cross the border to existing in a beautiful, multicultural suburban town...where they dress like it’s the Tranquility Lane part of Fallout 3, and nobody will let her hold her infant son. One of the more serious attempts at making a good movie, and I think it succeeds.

Movie That Does a Plotline Better Than Hannibal Did: Flesh & Blood

This movie, while following a pretty typical “Lifetime Movie” style plot (she says, never having seen a Lifetime movie), it understands one important thing: a story about a girl struggling to escape the influence of a pseudo-incestuous serial killer father figure is her goddamn story. This will have to be my Abigail Hobbes fix fic.

Worst Movie: Tree House

Man, of all the horror movie characters not to get killed...

#into the dark #horror movies

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gordvendomewhore · 5 years ago

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BULLY OC MEME [CHRIS KATO]

hey!! so i meant to post this uh. MONTHS ago, but...later is better than never LMAOO

if you’ve been following me for awhile, you might’ve heard me mention chris and hollis before!! they are my ocs, and they’re actually from an original story of mine lmao they weren’t made for bully.

this is chris’s template!! hollis’s will be posted right after this!!

also fair warning im not,,, japanese so her japanese dialogue might not be 100% accurate and maybe even cringey but im basing all my info on google translate (ew i know), japanese websites, my friend who speaks the language, and my own experiences with mixing foreign languages into english lmao.

anyway, have fun reading this if you do!! and feel free to ask any questions you might have about chris uwu (photos of her are at the end!!)

[INFO]

Name: Christine Konami Kato (加藤琥波 Kato Konami)

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Lesbian

Clique: Non-cliques, but on good terms with the greasers

Personality: Blunt, indifferent, critical, philosophical.

Weapon/fighting style of choice:

- Chris can hold herself in a physical fight, but not well enough to actually win without any major injury (unless it’s against the Nerds, Bullies, or Non-Cliques).

- However, she is incredibly fast and has insanely accurate aim, which fuels her preference for projectile weapons.

- In fights, Chris will run away from her opponent and turn back to throw whatever weapon she has at them; It gives her the advantage of distance.

- Chris doesn’t really care about beating someone else up to the point of them passing out, she just wants to cause chaos and escape without a busted lip.

- While she’ll use any projectile weapon, Chris prefers firecrackers. She’ll also occasionally use marbles.

[DIALOGUE]

Greetings:

- Hey, Hopkins.

- What’s up?

- Nice seeing you around, Jimmy.

Saying Goodbye:

- I gotta go. My girl’s waiting for me.

- Hate to cut the conversation short, but there’s better things I have to do.

- Someone’s calling my name. See you later.

Chasing:

- Idiot, you really think you can outrun me?

- My parents had to run all the way to Japan to escape me, Hopkins!

- Can’t you run any faster? You’re making this too easy, Hopkins!

Out of Breath:

- God...maybe...I should cut back on the cigarettes...

- ちくしょう。。。(Damn it...)

- ...Whatever. There’s better things to do.

Walking around talking to themselves:

- I miss Japan.

- Can’t wait to see this place go down in flames. Metaphorically and literally.

- 彼女はとても可愛い。。。(She’s so cute...)

- Gotta check up on Hollis later.

- I miss おばあちゃん。(I miss grandma.)

- Don’t the jocks have better things to do than hunt me down?

- Do I have my lighter?

- Everyone in this 不浄な地 thinks they’re so great. (Everyone in this shithole thinks they’re so great.) (Note: the direct translation of 不浄な地 is “unclean land.”)

Conversing:

- You hear about Gary’s new pet? Now he has another weasel to go along with that runt, Kowalski.

- I hear Johnny Vincent’s having trouble keeping his relationship together. And his mental stability, but everyone already knows that.

- Ever light a car on fire?

- You hear about Gary’s big, bad plan?

- I’m not an arsonist! It’s not like I burnt down my entire middle school!

- Word on the street says Peanut has it real bad for the boss. Seems like every second in command does.

Conversation Response:

- I hope not.

- You did what?

- Yeah, no.

- Sure.

- Karma’s coming your way.

- Sure, doesn’t sound too bad.

- Mhm, yeah.

Complaining:

- I wish that Northwick kid would stop bothering me.

- Johnny’s just pissed because my girl actually wants me.

- I love Hollis, but I cannot stand another four hours of posing for one of her paintings.

- They couldn’t just take me back with them. They just had to send me to this hellhole.

- God, I need another cigarette.

- The greasers are so clingy.

Unknown/Cut Dialogue:

- Yeah, yeah, my girlfriend will pay you.

- くたばれ！(Fuck off!)

- ...Naked twister?

- Maybe the tooth fairy will give you a few dollars for the teeth I knock out.

- Who knew I’d be coming to you for help, huh?

- Don’t...drink hand soap? I feel like I shouldn’t have to tell you this.

Starting fight with Cliques:

[Bullies]

- Don’t make this any harder for yourself.

- Let’s make this quick, yeah?

- Your mom hit me harder in bed last night!

- Don’t you think you’d look so much cooler in a neck brace?

- ああ, 黙れ. (Oh, just shut up.)

[Preps]

- Pretend I’m daddy’s black card and run faster!

- Let’s see if your blood’s actually blue.

- Inbred freak!

- Boxing rules don’t apply when you can’t even touch me! [Laughs]

- 青鬼! (Blue demon!)

[Greasers]

- Come on, we smoke together, I’m basically one of you!

- I hope your hair products aren’t flammable.

- Is this because I don’t slick my hair back?

- Is this because I don’t wear a leather jacket?

- くたばれ! (Drop dead!)

[Nerds]

- I’ll let you take your glasses off before I break your face.

- You don’t want a repeat of Alexandria, do you?

- Roll that D20; It’ll decide how many of your bones I’m gonna break.

- 弱虫! (Wimp!)

- Maybe you should start taking that saying, “Hit the books,” more literally.

[Jocks]

- You can’t break my spine if you can’t catch me!

- ‘Roid rage alert!

- Work on your cardio, 下衆野郎! (Asshole!)

- You’re supposed to avoid the firecracker, not catch it with your face.

- とんちき！(Meathead!)

[Townies]

- Save your bitching for someone who cares.

- We’re both poor! Shouldn’t there be some form of solidarity?

- ばかげた! (Flunky!)

- Hit me if you can!

- Chase after the preps instead! They can get you free healthcare if you beat it out of them!

Requesting an errand:

- Hey, Jimmy, got a second to spare?

- You owe me, Hopkins. You know that saying, an eye for an eye.

- I have a favor to cash in. Uh-uh-uh, don’t try backing out of this.

Friendly Comments:

- Woah, you look half-decent for once, Hopkins.

- Maybe you can finally get a girlfriend now.

- New wardrobe, huh? Doesn’t look too bad.

- You finally fixed your looks! Now you just gotta fix your personality.

Unfriendly Comments:

- You make me want to light myself on fire.

- It’s cute seeing you follow in your mom’s footsteps, やりまん. (Slut.)

- Don’t even try making eye contact with me.

- [Loud Snickering] Oh, sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you! [Sarcasm]

[EXTRA]

Demanding flowers:

- Come on, you gotta prove you’re worth my time.

- You got something special for me, don’t you, Hopkins?

- Don’t you think it’s time you pay me back for my kindness?

- A little something would be nice...

After receiving flowers:

- Thanks, my girlfriend loves flowers.

- Such a gentleman, James. Too bad I’ve never had a thing for men.

- ...Are these from the Girl’s Dorm?

- It’ll be fun to burn these, thank you.

Before kissing:

(No matter what, Jimmy can’t actually kiss Chris)

- [Bad Japanese Accent] Uh, sorry, no English.

- I’d like to avoid getting cooties if possible, thanks.

- I got a girlfriend, Hopkins.

- Sorry, I’m allergic to boys.

@video-space this is 4 you....

#christine kato #my girl...i love her so much #original character #oc #bully oc #canis canem edit #bully canis canem edit #bully scholarship edition #cce #mine

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bimbostudies · 5 years ago

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hi everyone! here is a list of resources to help keep you sane with everything that’s going on. right now, it’s really important to take care of each other, so below you’ll find ways to spend your time that are productive and fun. i know it’s a privilege to be bored, as many are worried about their basic needs, so i’ve included a list of places to donate in this masterpost if you have the means and a list of resources to help with locating and accessing basic needs.

i hope this helps and please feel free to add your own!

basic needs resources (us primarily):

covidconnected.net (california)

covid19 mutual aid fund (masterlist of american mutual aid funds)

emergency resources for students

student mutual aid network

list of mutual aid directives

find your local food bank

homeless shelter directory

if you’re a university student, i’d recommend checking with your university’s basic needs center and seeing what resources they have available. many have systems similar to food stamps, emergency housing, etc. available

general resources:

i feel bad worksheet by me (note: i’m not a mental health professional; these are just things that help me)

u.s. suicide prevention/distress hotline

the trevor project, a hotline for queer youth in the united states

how to ask for an extension

soothe yourself masterpost

put your thoughts here

head to toe self care

how to survive bad days

social:

apps: house party, zoom (free through many universities and schools right now)

netflix party - watch movies with friends

letters:

prompts if you aren’t sure where to begin

little things to add to letters

play 800+ board games online for free

play cards against humanity and other card games with friends for free

things to do over a video call to make things less lonely:

study together! this is great as a standing appointment with your friends/family/SO because you can work together but it’s not a ton of work

watch movies: use an extension like netflix party to do this

play games like those linked above

start a book club and discuss the reading together every week/every few days/whenever you have time

invent a game to play with your friends

get dressed up and have a fancy dinner party together

a drinking game (if you are of legal age)

cook the same meal

learn a language together and practice with each other

writing buddies/art buddies: keep each other accountable for the goals you set

workout buddies: do the same home workout together

make playlists for your friends

food:

dress up instant ramen

19 pasta dishes to help you eat your way through your panic stock

mug recipes

more mug recipes

easy beginner bread recipe

free recipes in general

50 smoothie recipes

easy meal prep recipes

more meal prep recipes

recipes that use canned and frozen foods

study snacks by @areistotle

infused waters by @girl-studying-blog

cheap and delicious recipes by @kimberlystudies

also would recommend if you’re ordering food in please order from local businesses!

home workouts:

2 week get shredded challenge by chloe ting (no equipment!)

superhero workouts

30 days of yoga

song workouts!

beginner ballet workouts

best dance/movement workouts

productivity advice/challenges:

2020 quarantine challenge by @myhoneststudyblr

tips for working from home by @eunoiamaybe

managing energy by @eintsein

studying during quarantine by @cottagestudie

studying with a computer by @vanesastudies

being productive at home by @smartspo

essentials for a study space by @terhangus

eliminating procrastination and distraction by @simply-study

surviving online classes 101 by @starryeize

having discipline by @lovelybluepanda

how to study when you don’t want to by @cals-desk

sticking to your plans by @study-sprout

tips for online classes by @emmastudies

self studying by @areistotle

crafts to try/projects to start/ways to keep busy:

nanowrimo - write a novel in a month

watch all the marvel movies

start a garden

make a seed starter out of newspaper

11 craft ideas

move around all the furniture in your room!

32 crafts

home decor crafts

spring clean!

build a rube goldberg machine

100 things to do while stuck inside

21 crafts for when you’re quarantined

21 home improvement projects

20 easy crafts

start a bullet journal/junk journal/dream journal/just in general start journalling

dye your hair (please be careful and do research on the products you are using)

listen to a podcast - these are free on spotify, youtube, and the podcasts app!

free streaming services rn

help transcribe anti-slavery documents for this historical archive

transcribe other documents for the library of congress

latimes guide to the internet

start a dungeons and dragons game

habits to build:

enforce your time limits on your phone

go for a walk everyday (if this is allowed)

workout every day

stay organized

eat three meals per day

drink 8 cups of water per day

wake up early/go to sleep early

read every day

free learning resources:

mit

harvard

khanacademy

scribd made all its ebooks free

duolingo

learn graphic design

here’s a masterpost completely dedicated to learning things for free by @girl-havoced

language learning resources masterpost by @wonderful-language-sounds

masterpost of coding websites by @code-bug

free online courses masterpost by @studyllaire-blog

places to donate if you’re able:

covid-19 mutual aid funds: before i jump into orgs, i want to mention mutual aid funds, which are community-driven initiatives in places where the government response hasn’t been enough for many people, like the united states. consider donating directly to your community

similarly, local food banks and homeless shelters may be needing extra support right now in your area; consider looking into those as places to donate

here’s a guide on starting a mutual aid network in your neighborhood

it’s going down: organizing communities for community care initiatives

covid-19 financial solidarity resource sheet - directly help immunocompromised people or those who have lost their jobs due to covid-19

major orgs:

find your local foodbank (again, but this time, donate to it)

project c.u.r.e.

direct relief

alight - help refugees

actionaid usa

prevent child abuse

help the most marginalized:

immigrant workers: we count, donate your stimulus check, immigrant worker safety net fund

incarcerated people: national bail out, freedom for immigrants

indigenous americans: partnership with native americans, flicker fund, decolonizing wealth fund

workers: support for workers, above and beyond solidarity fund, donate personal protective equipment, feed care workers,

restaurant workers: one fair wage, rwcf

homeless people: coalition for the homeless

artists: foundation for the contemporary arts, artist relief

medical debt relief: healthwell foundation, ripmedicaldebt

another thing you can do! if you’re able to, consider fostering a pet from a local animal shelter (not a pet store) and caring for them during quarantine

positivity:

@archivesoflove this is kind of a self promo bc i run this blog but it’s just a hub of nice stories, sweet poems, kind works of art, etc.

some good news, by john krasinski

who’s the cutest?

how to fall back in love with life

good news network

little things that help moods

infinite jukebox

giant panda cam

#*#mine #masterpost #covid19 #coronavirus #studyblr #online learning #studying #school #university #college #uniblr #notes

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justsome-di · 8 years ago

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I Hate How People View My Major

No, I’m not going to be a teacher. That other field you’re suggesting is more complicated than you think and isn’t “fun”. And please don’t try writing a novel. Just don’t.

I’m an English major with a concentration in writing. I love it. I’ve never been so comfortable studying something in my whole. Writing has been a passion of mine since I was little, and I wrote almost everyday through elementary and middle school. Even as I was busier in high school, I still found time to work on projects. I was always writing. And now I’m studying how to do it better in college. It comes a little easy to me because of my experience and practice (and just total raw determination), but I also find some really good challenges.

But, people haven’t always been supportive of my area of study. I was asked by other high school seniors a couple years ago, “What kind of job are you going to get with that?” And I get asked all the time now by non-majors, “Oh, so you’re going to be a teacher?” It shows the total lack of value of English. People think that it’s only something that can be taught and never implemented in real life. Which is crazy. It’s literally the language a good chunk of the world speaks. You would think a degree in the analysis of beautifully crafted works and the writing of long papers in this language would be of more value to people. You would suspect people would immediately think, “If you’re good at writing and understanding language, you’re good to go in multiple fields.” But no. People only see boring teachers in classrooms, forcing their students to read books they couldn’t care less about. They don’t see the world of possibilities out there for English majors.

For starters, that also completely devalues English teachers. I can’t imagine the stress that goes behind being one. I could never grade the mediocre papers of students who didn’t even the books, try to pull some insight out of half-asleep students, and plan for these lessons every day. That’s why I’m not studying education at college. I’m studying English. Also, I don’t like kids. I could never work with them all day every day. Teachers are special people. Appreciate them.

It also shows the complete lack of understanding of what English is as a major. People imagine that it’s just students sitting around, talking about whatever classic book they read, making literary references that go beyond everyone else’s head for the sake of making others feel dumb, and not doing any real work. English is a tough major. The best way to make me happy and proud of myself and fellow majors is to tell me that you think English is hard. English may not have math or chemical formulas, but there is a certain science to it. It’s carefully peeling away the author’s words to understand why they chose to write that. Then, it’s pouring over notes and context and our laptops to write 5 pages on that subject. There’s theories behind literature. It’s complex. It’s not just reading and stating feelings. It’s not easy participation. There’s no area of academia that is easy. Let’s leave it at that.

When I tell people about the writing concentration part of my major, that’s when I get really upset. Now, I would like to say at this point of the rant that I do not get visibly upset. I nod and correct the person I’m talking to. I restrain myself and blow up in my head. I’m mature about it, but I would like people to still understand.

The response is usually that writing is easy. That everyone is a writer. That “it must be so much fun!” Yeah, it is fun, actually. For the most part. Not when you meet with your professor, and he tells you to scrap the majority of your project and start over with a different approach. It’s not easy when you’re pouring over your textbook, trying to understand the next step of your fake grant application. It’s not any of that when you get a 70% on a poem you worked hard on simply because you struggle to make your words flow without cliches. I can admit my weaknesses. Poetry and grant writing aren’t my areas of comfort. Writing is hard. Even when it isn’t, it is.

Before I started this current semester, my mom told me I should go into grant writing professionally. I flipped through my new grant writing textbook and made a face as a skimmed the pages of lingo and research methods. Why did she tell me to do this? Because it seems fun to her. It seems fun to apply for grants and help people get money. In a very idealistic way, she’s right. There would be some good, mushy feelings when you get a non-profit funding for their project. But she was forgetting that 1) grants are highly competitive. There would be more rejection than winning. And 2) grant writing takes a lot of work. It’s a lot of research, it’s a lot of backwards thinking, it’s a lot of writing, it’s a lot of shaping things to match the funder’s language, and it’s a very long process. It also doesn’t pay as well as she thinks. But it’s hard. It’s my least favorite writing class at the moment. It’s draining, and it’s complicated. I have a lot of wasted research right now, and I have to do more soon. Like in the next couple days soon. And you know what? I probably won’t use all the research I find. I’ll just have a lot of knowledge on conservative politician’s views on non-profit health clinics. It’ll be a fun party trick, but I don’t think it’ll be fun right now.

Just the other day, my girlfriend found out her university offers a writing major. She’s an art major, and she’s trying to find a second major to raise her chances of finding work. She writes occasionally. I read her stuff. I write with her. I love her stories. But she suggested she take up writing (or more specifically creative writing) as her second major. I advised against it because creative writing is a little too niche, I think. And also because writing isn’t a field you can just jump into. There’s also not a glamorous job market out there for creative writing. I love my girlfriend, but I had to tell her to not do it. Writing of any kind isn’t something someone can just pick up. It takes some years of prep before college, I think, to get ready. It’s like art. She’s been an artist for years. She’s been practicing for a long time. It’s a skill she’s picked up after years of dedication. I am so proud of how far she has come, and I’m even prouder thinking of all the progress she has yet to make. Art and writing aren’t like science or math. It’s not something you can go into with high school level knowledge and be ready to go with a little hardwork and Khan Academy. A lot of schools need portfolios before they accept you if they have a special program (the more elite schools at least).

I also always see people who think they can be a writer. I think that everyone has a right to write. I would never discourage someone from being creative. I love to encourage people, actually, to write. It’s a nice hobby. I see young teenagers post their writing online all the time. It’s nice to see. I love that. What I hate, though, is adults who think that because they have an edgy idea, they should write a book. We all know the joke on TV, write? The man whose been working on the next great American novel for years and has only gotten a sentence about how rainy it is outside? Yeah, I know people like that in real life. People can write. That’s fine. I can’t stress enough how much I love people being creative. But don’t think you’re going to be the next Stephen King, okay? Jack Whyte has a lovely entry on his website about this:

As an aside, I heard a lovely story about a retiring brain surgeon who, when asked what he would do next, said, “Oh, I think I’ll write a book.” One of his dinner companions, a female author in her fifties, laughed and said. “I hope you will. I can’t wait to read it. When I retire I intend to try my hand at brain surgery.”

English and writing are not things everyone is capable of. It takes time to learn. It’s not fun all the time. It’s staying up late and waking up early. It’s a lot of conferences with professors. It’s a lot of research. It’s a lot of boring stuff. It’s something I have a real passion for. I wouldn’t change studying this for the world. I’m very proud of my field. I love my professors. I love my peers (for the most part). I feel like I fit in with English. And when people say to me, “Good for you studying English! I could never do it!” I smile and thank them. On the inside, I think (maybe a bit offensively), “Yeah... you couldn’t.”

#rant #original

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spud-studies · 8 years ago

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hey everyone! i’ve decided to compile my favorite websites and tools i use for school and self studying. as someone who’s going into their sophomore year of high school, i would highly recommend all of these for any situation you may need them for. this will be updated regularly, so stay tuned for more. feel free to submit any you think should be on here, and i’ll check it out / give you credit if i add it to the post. links are all below. enjoy!

flashcard websites:

✧ tinycards - flashcards by duolingo: this is a great website by duolingo that lets you choose from collections of flashcards and follow categories for easy learning of the chosen topic.

✧ quizlet: one of my favorites. it’s probably the most used flashcard website, and it’s super easy to use; simply make a card set, and choose options to study.

✧ study stack: slightly older site, but it includes fun games to help you learn your information on the flashcards.

✧ cram.com: another great site that includes different categories of flashcards to choose from and study.

textbook / workbook answers:

✧ slader: this website is an actual lifesaver, but try not to use it to cheat on everything, okay? slader can have the answers to all the answers in your textbook; you just have to find your edition, and type the page number the problem came from. great for math books.

language arts / english:

✧ spark notes: one of the coolest features on this site is the inclusion of “no fear shakespere”, where you can read the full works of shakespere, as well as a simplified “modern” version right next to it; makes old english pretty easy to understand.

✧ cliffs notes: this site is very popular as well, and includes study guides and test prep for your next literature / written exam.

✧ no red ink: this site can help you improve your grammar and writing skills with mini assessments and practice; very handy for improving your understanding of grammatical usages.

✧ easybib: are you lazy and don’t want to take 500 years to cite your websites? just copy and paste the site link into easybib, and it’ll do it for you.

✧ short story guide: basically what it says; a collection of popular short stories for references or studies.

✧ purdue OWL: the purdue OWL (online writing lab) is a giant collection of information you can use to cite websites; not kidding, they have almost every situation you could ever need.

math:

✧ desmos graphing calculator: pretty self explanatory. i’m really lazy and usually don’t want to grab my handheld, so the online one is very convenient.

✧ symbolab math solver: if you have a math problem you can’t figure out, use this website. not even kidding, if you look for it, your type of equation or problem will be here; put it into the solver, and it will give you a step-by-step walk through of how to solve the problem. actual lifesaver.

✧ virtual nerd: i really love this site, because it has many video tutorials on basic math questions people typically ask. search for it, and you’ll most likely find what you’re looking for.

world language learning:

✧ duolingo: everyone probably already knows about this one, but i’m putting it here anyways. extremely popular site to learn many different languages.

✧ conjuguemos: very good site for learning tenses and verbs of languages.

✧ collins translator: i use this for translating languages instead of just plugging it into google translate, because it’s actually in dictionary format. very helpful.

sciences:

✧ late nite labs: this is a startup website that can let you visualize the school lab through virtual learning.

history / gov / geography:

✧ gps coordinates finder: not much explanation needed for this one. just put in the address(es) you have, and it’ll give you the latitude / longitude in decimal degrees.

✧ sheppard software geography: this site is a little bit kid-ish, but it works wonders if you’re trying to memorize countries, capitals, physical features, or states. definitely recommend.

independent learning / study:

✧ khan academy: this is possibly the most popular site on this list, but you can practically learn anything here. i really suggest creating an account.

✧ codecademy: this site is the reason i can make my tumblr blog look fancy, haha. it teaches you simple and complex coding, and i highly recommend you try this out, even if you’re not looking for a career in computer programming. everyone should know how to code even simple things.

other:

✧ rogerhub final grade calculator: this is pretty self-explanatory. just find the type of grade calculator you need, and plug it in.

✧ the college board: this should actually be at the very top, because if you’re not already in college, you’re probably going to need this as a requirement for the sat, act, psat, and more. if you haven’t already made an account, i suggest you do so before you take your next standardized assessment.

so yeah, that’s about it! remember, please chat reply or submit any more that you have, and i’ll add it to the list with an “@” to credit you. thanks everyone!

#studyblr #study blog #studying #inspiration #khan academy #masterpost #study masterpost #school help #school tips #studyspiration #weekly spread #bullet journal #motivation #bujo weekly #spud-studies #mine #spudstudies

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bigyack-com · 6 years ago

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How China CFA applicants keep beating finance’s hardest exam - education

For three gruelling years, Ranger Yu tipped out of bed almost every day at 6 am. and studied until midnight to prepare for China’s infamous college entrance test, known as the Gaokao. After that, he said, the trio of exams to become a chartered financial analyst were relatively pleasant.The Shanghai native used his old prep skills to study on his commute, after work and on weekends and breezed through all three levels of the English-only program on his first try, adding the letters CFA to his resume as a health-care analyst at a medical research group.Now, Yu may hold the answer to a question that’s arisen in recent years as professionals obsess over the pass rate: How is it holding up so strongly even as applicants facing a significant language barrier pile in?The CFA has long been renowned as Wall Street’s toughest test -- with questions spanning economics, derivatives, complex valuations and ethics written in a financial jargon thick enough to stump the average US college graduate. The Charlottesville, Virginia-based CFA Institute, which administers the exam, warns that each level takes about 300 hours of studying to pass. Aspiring charter holders spend years taking and retaking tests, a slog that’s spawned an industry of textbooks, classes and websites like 300hours.com where hopefuls trade tips, complaints and even conspiracy theories.In recent years, a trend appeared in the broad statistics published by the institute: applicants from Asia -- and especially China -- have been flooding into the exams, overtaking interest from every other region. At the same time, the global pass rate has edged higher.In interviews, CFA holders and applicants from China described surmounting the exams as a warm-down after spending their youth in the marathon run-up to the Gaokao. Many were unfazed by warnings about the hefty commitment, saying they were willing to spend much more than a mere 300 hours.Yu, who said “diligence is key” to getting ahead in China’s growing financial-services industry, carved out time before and after work, then spent weekends in the library or in an all-day class at Golden Education. That’s one of country’s largest CFA prep schools, many of which tout pass rates of 70% or 80% -- far exceeding last June’s global rate of 45%.Language BarrierAccording to Nick Pollard, Asia-Pacific managing director for the institute, the uptick in test takers tracks “a growing demand for financial talent” in the region. The average pass rate in Asia “is in line with the rest of the world,” he said.Golden Education and competitors try to make studying efficient by honing in on material that optimizes chances of passing. A program priced at more than $1,500 on Golden Education’s website starts with a crash course on financial English.“We have the language barrier,” said Niu Jia, a senior lecturer for the school’s CFA program. But there are also other challenges for Chinese test-takers, he said. “The exam relies on accounting principles and valuation models that sometimes differ than those most often taught in universities.”The school assigns every customer an “inspector” to track their progress through the curriculum and even prepares a lunch on exam day. It claims its customers in college have a CFA pass rate of around 80%. There’s no way to independently verify the figure.ZBG Education, based in the southeastern metropolis of Guangzhou, offers 15-day summer and winter camps paired with weekend classes and online courses. The program has achieved a roughly 70% pass rate, in part, because of the calibre of students who enrol, said Jason Pi, a senior lecturer. Even still, instead of 300 hours, he recommends at least 400.Top Students“Most of the CFA takers are top students in China,” he said. “For most of my students, a few hundred hours is really not a big commitment. It’s nothing compared with the efforts you need to make to squeeze in a top university in China.”The CFA publishes regional registration figures for its semi-annual exams in June and December, but only posts global pass rates. On its website, it urges aspiring charter holders to carefully examine prep services before signing up and offers a list of those it vetted and approved. (The dozens of approved services include Bloomberg Prep, a unit of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)“We encourage candidates to use approved prep-providers, and we provide information about how to select and research a prep-provider to meet a candidate’s learning needs on our website,” Pollard said in response to questions about the pass rates disclosed by schools. “CFA Institute publishes average passing rates every year, and candidates should use this information as their best guide to what is generally achievable.”China’s obsession with scoring well on the Gaokao is the subject of documentaries on the anguish young people suffer during years of intense cramming, sometimes at dedicated boarding schools far from home. Formally called the National College Entrance Examination, it’s known to induce breakdowns and even suicides. In 2019, a record 10.3 million students took the exam.The test, administered over a few days, grills students on a broad range of subjects, potentially asking them to prove the Pythagorean theorem, calculate the power of a crane given the size and speed of its load or write an essay in a foreign language introducing tea culture. A sample question published by the China Daily in 2015 required students to know the currents and wind direction they would encounter on a sailing from Fujian province to Venice via Mumbai.No FunYet it’s hardly Asia’s only epic test. In India, for example, top technology schools use the Joint Entrance Examination as a basis for admission, making it a widespread source of anxiety among young people. In Japan, it’s a test administered by the National Center for University Entrance Examinations.None of this is to say that people in Asia emerge immune to the emotional strains of preparing for the pass-or-fail CFA exams. For Priscilla Wang, who now works at a credit-rating company in Hong Kong, focusing her life around the test took a toll.“I had no time for fun,” said Wang, who grew up in China and attended college in the US. She headed straight home from the office every day to study, and found quiet places to read on weekends. “I had to say ‘no’ to a lot of socialising opportunities. Even when I did relax a bit, my heart was always heavy. I thought I should be studying.”One reason for the CFA’s popularity in Asia is that it offers a globally recognized credential to applicants who may not have attended a school with international name recognition, such as Harvard Business School or the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where costs are far out of reach for most people.Ronald Leung and Eddie Chung, both Hong Kong-based financial advisory managers at Deloitte China, estimate almost half their team is working on earning a CFA charter. The pair saved their money by eschewing prep schools, taking time off work and studying independently. Their employer chipped in an extra three days per level. Chung has one test left and Leung is finished.It was “very painful,” said Leung, who typically spent three months studying for each exam, passing the third on his second attempt. Even though he’s also a certified public accountant, he still isn’t done finding ways to burnish his curriculum vitae. “I would like one more professional title,” he said.(With assistance from Jeanette Rodrigues.) Source link Read the full article

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ladyhannahjane · 8 years ago

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Studying in Summer

It’s so so so so so so so important to keep your brain active in summer. We lose so much of the knowledge we gained during the school year (which makes it a huge effing waste of time) just by not reviewing. Studying when you don’t need to takes a lot of discipline though, but it is so worth it!

Define your goals

Because summer tends to be less structured than the school year, you need some sort of game plan to follow. Personally I like to make a list of all of the goals I have for the summer, whether they’re school-related, personal, whatever -- and from there narrow it down to more easily achievable checkpoints. Having a written record of what you want to devote your time and efforts into achieving clears your head and makes it easier to decide how you want each day to go.

Without a goal, you can’t score. - Casey Neistat

My school-related goals this summer include reviewing all of the material I learned in biology and history, and also reading ahead to prepare for the next classes. Although I’m doing this more for fun, I am also trying to learn sign language this summer, and my fruple got me into coding, so HTML coding is another area I am learning the basics of. These four subjects should keep me just busy enough to make me productive (and keep up my studyblr, lol) but not enough to make me stressed.

Your goals should be a challenge that you know you can achieve.

Check out the #Wellness Wednesdays post about goal setting in other areas of your life.

Another life hack to motivate you toward actually achieving those goals: write them on pretty paper. Decorate it. Make it pleasurable to look at. (I used washi tape.) If it’s pretty, you’ll look at it more and then you’ll be more inspired to meet those goals.

Set aside time each day

Summer is for fun and relaxation -- or at least, more fun and relaxation than during the school year. Each day you should set aside some time where you say to yourself -- “I am going to get ish done.”

Maybe you’re more productive in the morning and you like to get things done out of the way. Maybe you’re a night owl who’s brain only wakes up when the sun is down. Personally, I prefer the afternoon. In the mornings I work and in the evenings I relax and do absolutely nothing. :D The afternoons are a great time for me to slay my to do list.

Reviewing

When you review what you have learned, typically it’s a lot easier to understand. Also, the more you review, the more likely that concept will live permanently in your brain.

To review, I go went through my textbook and/or notes, and made a list of all of the topics in there I had learnt. Then I starred those that I anticipated having a bit more difficulty to go over or those that I had trouble understanding in the first place.

Then I went through my notes and my textbook, basically rereading it. I skim the parts that I already have a thorough and fresh knowledge of -- for example, atomic structure -- and occasionally I rewrite some of my notes to be more clear and concise. I also use this time to organize my messy bundle of flashcards I accumulated throughout the semester and to basically make everything aesthetic and neat because it gives me life omg.

Reading ahead

Reading ahead and prepping is a great idea for those subjects you know you’ll be struggling in. You may not understand everything you will be eventually be learning in class, but you can get the general gist of it and, when the time comes for you to learn it, you will be much better equipped to learn it.

I’m taking a two-course sequence in biology (RIP me), so it’s easy for me to predict what what’s coming my way by using the next class’s book and Quizlet. I’m pretty much self-teaching, and this requires a lot of determination and focus, so you definitely need to set apart a separate time for this. Another great method is to google lecture videos on the subject or try to find the course on a website like Coursera and edX.

Staying motivated

The hardest part of studying is actually starting to study. There’s a lot of different ways to build discipline and stay motivated, but to be honest, the two main reasons to study in summer are 1. you keep your brain active and 2. you make things easier for yourself later.

Check out the last Studying Saturday post for a list of reasons and resources to keep you motivated to study.

Summer should be a time of fun and relaxation, but you don’t let your relaxation cross over into laziness.

Have a wonderful summer, everyone!

#study saturdays #mine #masterpost #my masterpost #studyblr #productivity tips

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jusadode-blog · 8 years ago

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Cool Cheap/Profitable Hobbies:

Wood/Soap Carving: We all have that one bar of soap we’re never going to actually use around the house. As for wood, if you live near woods and can identify a soft wood then it’s cheap as well. If you have limited supplies, it’s at least a few days worth of fun that might lead to a cool finished piece.

Gardening: All you need is a pouch of seeds or 'bad’ vegetables/fruit (such as tomatoes) so long as you don’t live in a clay/sand environment. If you want to plant them in pots, old busted trashcans that used to be in the bathroom but got too grimey do well--just don’t put vegetables in that one. You might get some vegetables/fruit you’d usually not be able to buy too often, just be sure not to accidentally plant a tree on accident. They can ruin plumbing pipes.

Reading/Writing: If you either live near libraries or have transportation to them, libraries can give you tons of fun or education. However, if you cannot there’s tons of free resources online, as well as links to learning useful skills (especially some of which I’ve mentioned on here.) On the other hand, some people enjoy writing. I personally despise it, but so long as you have wordpad on your computer you can pump out as many poems/books as you can imagine. No matter how bad your writing may be, you can publish it on amazon and tack on a 1$ price to make some side cash if you actually finish something. It’s free to upload to amazon (as far as I can remember), however they take like a 30% cut or something else huge. It beats paying 800$ and possibly not making back any money though.

Drawing: Although if you don’t already draw this may sound overplayed, art is a great way to pass the time and have fun without really wasting much money. If you can’t spare pencils/paper, paint is the general beginner’s tool, but there exists free art programs such as gimp that are quite a bit better but a LOT more complicated. You don’t need a tablet to be a good digital artist, and so long as you’re having fun it doesn’t matter how professional it looks.

Sewing/Knitting: Almost everyone somehow obtains a sewing kit in their life magically, you can make plushies out of old rags/shirts that were too damaged to donate as well as learn proper stitching methods to repair gently damaged articles. Knitting’s only cheap if you somehow stole your grandma’s items after spending the night at her house once four years ago, but it can still be a few month’s of fun depending on your amount of supplies.

Cooking: Learning how to make the most out of the littlest is a handy skill, and learning how to make it taste good is also pretty sweet. Most cooking stuff I see assumes you got the cash to buy a million semi-expensive ingredients, but you can test stuff on your own or just study recipes online to mimic them with alternatives. Mixing eggs with ramen is a quick and easy way to make a healthier, more delicious meal, without actually having much more.

Car Repair: Honestly, youtube/wikihow this shit and you can literally learn all kinds of simple things. You’d be surprised how easy it is to change your oil and how much cash you can save with this. It’s not cheap to start out, especially if you never accidentally stole your grandpa’s gear, but it’ll save you tons of money in the long run. Be careful though, you should practice with any friends who know what they’re doing first.

Plumbing: Learning how to fix that leaky faucet is another way to save money and pass time, but like car repair will cost money upfront if you don’t already have the supplies. Be careful though, hot water can cause severe burns and could literally burst out of the wall if you don’t know what you’re doing.

DIY Expert: Have a crap ton of art supplies due to your hoarding issues? Look no further then pinterest’s DIY galleries! You can turn any old collection of weird things into art and useful items with the right search. However, avoid spending money on DIY stuff to keep it a cheap hobby. With enough supplies and education into this, you can learn how to repurpose all kinds of old things and save tons of money! You may even be able to sell certain items you make if you learn the right stuff!

Photography: Anyone with a phone can be a photographer, however, did you know you can sell the rights to your photos to make comission on them on certain apps/sites? Most of them are scamey, and will take high cuts, and make sure you never have to pay first in order to use them. However, if you do find a good site you can sell on you might be able to make a bit of pocket change for your hobby! Different sites have different rates, so be sure you study up before selling your soul to any one company.

Studying: Do you have that one thing you just love learning about? Criminal Law? Psychology? Philosophy? Just google “(interest) (number such as 100, 200, 300, or 400 depending on complexity you’ve reached) quizlet” and you’ll find actual student’s study cards for classes. I searched up ‘Philosophy 300 quizlet’ and found a study guide for a test full of definitions and concepts I’d never heard of before. You can also search up “powerpoints” “homework” and other terms most college students use in order to find actual resources to learn from.Start off with the easier stuff, and work your way up. Some schools may have more complex names for classes (such as ‘ethics’ in criminal justice, as well as ‘social psychology’ for psychology), so play around with words that sound like they may be from a class! At the least, you’ll pass a few hours learning things you’d usually never have the chance to learn before! This hobby is a bit harder to get into if you’re not familiar with how to study in general, or do not know how to ‘maneuver’ through courses for whatever little things you’re looking for.

Learning Another Language: Duolingo is a free website that teaches you as many languages as you want/can learn, and honestly helped prep me for living in Austria for three months. Being bilingual is an incredibly powerful tool in the business world, and you can even link your duolingo to your linkdin account! Be sure you actually finish a language tree before you start using it though, and try watching/reading things in said language before actually writing it on your resume. I highly recommend reading/watching shows in another language with subtitles to ensure you are actually learning them well, and as you get better start trying to avoid subtitles. Listening to music in the language you are trying to learn is also incredibly handy.

Hope this helps someone find something fun/useful to pass the time!

#hobbies #hobby #cheap #profitable

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movedto-insom-art · 8 years ago

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hi!! i just found you while poking around for gobelins students on twitter and i love your art, congratulations on passing!! i was wondering if you have any advice on the written exam or tips on how to prepare for it? i heard that the written exam can be given in english if french isn't your first language...

I’ll try to be very concise about this andmaybe pin it to my profile because I was in your shoes exactly a year ago, andif I made it here I think you have a considerable chance of making it too as long as you’re willing to put work into it. I want totell you what I wish I had been told.

Disclaimer: I’m definitely not the best personto ask. I’m self-taught and my situation may and will differ a lot from yours,but on top of that, bear in mind Gobelins has a ~5% admission rate. During theinterview I shared room with a person who had a stunning portfolio and had been doing two years of prepclasses to get in Gobelins specifically and didn’t get in. I don’t even understand what brought me in, but I will try to at least give you a detailedguide of what *I* did to prepare.

Important: READ THE “MODALITÉSD'ADMISSION” DOCUMENT THREE TIMES AT LEAST. It has so much usefulinformation and so many points you can’t afford to skip. If your French isflaky, ask for a friend who speaks it fluently to help you out. You *must*understand it fully if you want to get in and avoid needless calls to theschool.

Also, keep an eye on the website often. Allthe information I provide here vis a vis dates only applies to a time periodthat’s already gone and I can’t predict if the dates will be exactly the sameevery year, so double check for yourself!

French

If you don’t speak French now start asap, anddo your Duolingo and “Apprendre le Français avec TVMonde” exercisesevery day. The lessons for the 4-year program are in French and while they canbe understanding with foreigners I just strongly recommend for the sake ofcommon sense that you pick up the language, just to make the most of the chanceif you’re given it.

However, you can def do the written exam in English! The exam will be printed and handed to you in both languages, it’s not so much a test to see your writing skills (ironically) than it is to prove your drawing ones.

If you pass that first round, while they won’t require any certification, they *will* test how good you are understanding and responding in French during the interview process of the second round.

I also recommend you take special conversational classeswith a private teacher or with a French speaker the couple of weeks before theoral exam to really gain fluidity, it makes a difference.

Mental Health

Preparing for all this will be sustainedstress over a long period of time. While it’ll be intensive and will demand alot of you, bear in mind that a mentality of “every minute I spend notworking on this is a minute lost” is only going to harm you. It’s alrightto take breaks, have a social life, and space for leisure while you do prepwork. It’s alright to not be drawing every single hour and rest your mind soyou can go back to work with all your might.

Try to be demanding and to pushyourself out of your comfort zone, but do it at your own pace and alwaysleaving space for breaks and stuff that will take your mind away from it whenyou need to, like friends, videogames, or just drawing for fun. A healthy business to leisure ratio is always between ½ and 2/3.

Meditate if you can, too, just 10-15 minutesevery day. I recommend the Headspace app and it has helped me keep my coolduring really tense moments.

Open Days

Go to the open days at Gobelins in January ifyou can! I took a plane for the weekend just to go, it was expensive but Ireally, really do not regret it. Here’s why:

DONOT MISS THE FIRST DAY. They hold portfolio reviews and while you may not haveyours ready just yet, it’s the perfect chance to get an insider point of viewof how well you’re doing right now and how far from your goal you are. Make aprovisional one (or do like I did and just make a tumblr blog and throw inwhatever you’d want them to assess) and arrive early to ask for a spot at thequeue.

Youget to talk to other first-year students, who will showcase their portfolio andanswer all your questions about the admission process, the school and whateverother questions you may have.

Youget to attend conferences where they explain each of their programs in detail,and the head of the department will also answer all yourquestions.

Admissions usually open right in the middle of the open days. By all means grab a seat at the computer room and save yourself a spot in the exam process asap.

Also,if you’re a foreigner like me, you should totally go to the international classand see if you can spot somebody from your same country (or who at least speaksyour language) to hang out with for a bit.

Site note: That international class is adirect entry to 3rd year specifically for English-speaking students who alreadyhave animation experience. I didn’t apply for that so I can’t tell you muchabout it, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you want in, they say it’seasier than the main track, too.

Preparing for the written exams

First off, draw every day. Even if it’s notprep work or studies all the time, you can indulge in your OCs, OTPs, whatevermakes your heart race, but draw it and do it every day. It doesn’t have to beideal or finished either, but what really matters is that you get used todrawing a lot and make a habit of it. Quantity, consistency and speed areimportant skills for animators to have as I’ve been told and they will be looking for it since one of the parts of the inteview includes evaluating how much paper you’ve filled in a year.

Grab all the exams you can get a hold of fromthe Gobelins site and do them in the specified time (they’re on the Concepteuret Realisateur de Film d'Animation class page). When you’re done with that do themagain. Ask for feedback from your teachers and improve on them. Take aperspective book (I recommend “Perspective for Comic Artists”), take a gesturedrawing book (“The Vilppu Drawing Manual” or “Gesture drawingfor animation”), take a storyboarding and character design class (I tookSchoolism’s, which are 15$/month per class, it’s very affordable) and that’llgive you a good frame of reference. And when you’re done with the exams andknow them by heart, make your own exercises. Then do the exams again. Andalways ask for feedback, critique to train yourself against every weak pointthat you don’t want the jury to catch you doing when you do the actual exam.

Sign up for figure drawing class right now,with or without teacher (I signed up to an art club without one), the soonerthe better, and go there frequently, once or twice per week, to the short posessessions (up to 15 minutes per pose, 2 to 5 minutes would be ideal). Don’tbother doing portraits or long poses because again, what you want is to producea lot, fast. Put a lot of focus on gesture drawing, movement and speed. It’llnot only be a big chunk of your portfolio if you do pass the first round, butit hones your draftsmanship like no other exercise. You can additionally trainat home with websites like QuickPoses or the New Masters Academy figure drawingvideos, but I’d really want to stress that live models work so much bettersince they force you to interpret a 3D person.

Go to your local zoo as well, once a week oronce a fortnight, and do animal studies. If you can bring a friend it’ll help alot making it more fun but try to get used to drawing shapes that are nothuman. Understand their anatomy and try to apply what you’re learning aboutgesture from the figure drawing classes.

Draw in the street, in museums, go to a placethat inspires you or that you find curious and draw it. Draw the people topractice your characterization and caricature skills. Draw buildings to showyour perspective skills. And just whatever catches your eye. Environments and perspective are important and I strongly recommend you start by drawing from observation.

If you have a cool idea in mind or find agood exercise on tumblr to try that isn’t this, do it! The teachers appreciateinterest in several fields and if you can showcase that you’re a curiousstudent with plenty of interests they’ll consider you more seriously. I didconcept art and digital painting on the side and it ended up being a mainthing of my personal project.

And finally, go to @gobelins andraid it for advice, it’s a great point of reference to start with as well. Goto the current @crfa20 and past CRFA blogs to see what the students are up to if youwant inspo and check their profiles too.

Do this for the whole year.

Admissions open inJanuary and the earlier you can sign in the better (especially if you are aforeigner like me, you must get the equivalence with French studies recognizedofficially asap, it usually takes a while to get and it’s necessary).

On a side note, for the written exam, simplifyyour tools. You don’t have much time to elaborate or fix your mistakes so Iwould recommend you do your practice with pens (so you get used to not erasinglines and being confident with your strokes) and pencils (especially if you canget both regular, mechanical and color pencils to layer your drawings forcomplex exercises like perspective). During the exam don’t even think aboutbringing pens in case you do make mistakes you need to erase though, they arejust really good training.

Side note: if you can, all this while, make space for personal projects.Nothing that you must finish, but just produce a lot of your own content. Pick apodcast and do visual development for it, do fanart, iterate on a movie’s shots, developyour own stories through visual storytelling, do character design, storyboards,comics. Steal ideas if you must to get the creative juices flowing (but don’tpost it or pretend they are your own :V). Get acquainted with projects, explore a fewideas so that the moment you’re out of the exam room when you’re done with thewritten exam you not only have a deck of projects to choose from but are alsoacquainted with the process of carrying one forward (and also have a littlework already done).

Preparing for the oral exam

The oral exam consists of 3 parts.

A first part in which you’re not present, andthe jury will judge your portfolio, sketchbooks and demo reel without you for 30 minutes.

A second part, where you must introduce thejury to an original personal project of your own made for the admissionprocess, and defend it (in French).

A third part, where the jury will just ask youquestions (they’re usually very friendly) and judge your viability as a futureclassmate. Just be yourself!

The portfolio should just have your best, besweet, short and to the point. There is a limit of 40 pages including coversand the personal project so choose your best pieces from between your projectsand your practice. It should also cover three main points

Your skillset, which should be covered byyour studies, schoolwork, observation work and partly (but not mainly) the rest of your artwork.

Your capacity for creation and personal vision(aka what your interests are as an artist), which should be covered by the restof your artwork and other projects of your own.

Your capacity to convey and develop ideas, messages andstories through visual narration, which should be your main, personal project.

I recommend you throw in both sketches andunfinished stuff along with your most detailed and refined pieces so the jurycan have a good idea of your process, your way of solving problems and how faryour skills go. Storyboards, animatics and comics will always be a positivesince you’re aiming to study a medium that is sequential.

Also, if you can, pick other students’ portfolios for reference. They don’t need to be Gobelins or even students though, if you find a good philosophy to build your portfolio around, by all means go for it. It’ll give you a good idea of what needs to be there and what can be left out.

Lastly, while they stress that you *don’t* need toknow animation to get in since that’s what you’re applying to, you can bring ina 2-minute demo reel. I made mine with an animatic and a few animationexercises on my own, but I want to repeat what they told me, the intentionisn’t to show how good you are at it already (then what can they teach you?)but to show that you’re interested in the medium and are eager to learn.

Final note

You’re applying for an animation school, keepthat in mind always. An animator is not an illustrator or a concept artist(even if they can easily become one), and what sets them apart in my opinion is the focus on speed, gesture, quantity, and most importantly, making drawings that feel alive andthat tell something. Understand the craft, ask other animators, read books onanimation, anything you can get your hands on will help.

One of the points that I feel are the mostimportant about all this is included in the Modalités d'Admission text, whichsays that they look into a quality that would literally translate to “opennessof spirit”. I think that speaks for how open minded you are to new ideas,to working with others, to learning and to considering new points of view.

Again I don’t have all the answers, but if youare “open of spirit” and really make an effort to dive into theanimation world, look for resources and friends in this world I’m certainyou’ll find them.

#gobelins #daeseungie

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nonevahed · 8 years ago

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A short online biography

Note: originally an essay written for English class. Final project is to submit revisions on four of my pieces, so any comments are apprciated.

Over the years after I received first computer in 2nd grade, online communities played an increasingly important role in my life. It began with only the occasional visit, to forums about Pokemon, or Star Wars. As I moved to a new home in [city], and no longer had friends that lived in my neighborhood, the frequency of my visits to these forums would increase. I would discover fan fiction, and dive into further tales of the worlds I loved, even if said tales tended to be of low quality. And yet, for some reason, for those first few formative years, I never participated in these communities. Maybe, I felt that my young mind had nothing to contribute. Maybe, I took to heart my mom’s ridiculous paranoia about Strangers on the Internet. Maybe, of all the rules in the world to pay attention to, I took seriously that clause in the terms of services of most websites about not signing up until you’re thirteen. No matter how it happened, I ended up learning the habit of being silent and watching.

Sometime in 6th grade, I stumbled across the forum Civfanatics. I got into following a particular series of forum roleplaying games, where they’d play as created countries instead of people. The rules were generally more about enabling conflict resolution than power gaming; the meat of the game was in creating and developing the story of a nation, and in negotiating with the other players. The writing was usually of rather low quality (not that my younger self minded), but the real fun was in seeing how the various creative visions of all these players meshed together into one world, like a thousand little colored square pixels coming together to form an image. Here, a political thriller of backstabbing and betrayal, there a comedy of a joke nation based on a meme. It was the joy of watching all these little amateur writers, people who I could identify with, come together to form this shared , creating narrative from the twin drivers of the dealings between the players, and the stories they told about their world. Eventually, after a few months spent staring into the screen, pouring over game after game, I built up the courage to join, and enjoyed playing, for a few months. The sense of community, of friendship, of joining in the communal project, and continuing on to chat in the chatrooms about the games, politics, lives, was joyous.

However, when doing homework, it was so easy to just go off and wander elsewhere on the internet, scrolling through Wikipedia, or TvTropes, or reading new fan fiction, and then by the time I finished my homework and was ready to start writing, it was 10. And so, eventually, I’d let the game slip a turn. And then I’d feel embarrassed for not coming through on the work I was doing with my alliance partners, or just feel frustrated over the whole thing, and miss another turn. And then I’d leave. I think this first happened around the beginning of 7th grade. I would try and come back after a year or so, then after two years, wasting massive amounts of time reading archives of the games I wanted to join before actually joining. But, then, I’d eventually get bored of doing the work after a few turns, and leave once again. And so, I let the community I sunk so much time into, where I’d even started to make friendships, slip away from my fingers.

Over the years since then, I’ve spent countless hours reading through the logs of various roleplaying groups, various forums, and so on and so forth. Occasionally, I’d try to get involved, but I’d usually end up not producing or saying much of anything, never having the energy to put forth sustained effort, or feeling like I had something to add. You only get back what you put in, after all. In 9th grade, I’d get into playing Diplomacy on a small GMed server, and start to get to know the regulars a bit, but it wasn’t the same kind of collaboration as back on Civfanatics. And it would eventually be rendered moot by the hand problems I picked up during the summer of 10th grade. In 10th grade, I would get into following a tumblr and blogging community focused around philosophy, politics, and technology, which I found I enjoyed reading. The extreme diversity of viewpoints, and the relatively high caliber of discussion, made for interesting discoveries. And yet, once more, I’d end up not participating very much. I usually felt like I didn’t have anything original to add, and on top of that my hand problems discouraged me from writing unless I really, really felt the urge.

In 11th grade, I would become big fan of the anime Legend of the Galactic Heroes. With the deep themes and length of the show, and the relatively small English-language fandom, I finally was in a community where I felt like I really had something to contribute, that there were topics to discuss that hadn’t been done to death by better writers, where I could really have conversations with people. And there weren’t deadlines to get stuff in by. And so, I would write a little. I would have some conversations. I finally had ideas of things I wanted to write, analysis, that didn’t feel already done, or stupid. And yet, when I’d finally really hit off on somewhere where I wanted to contribute, my hand problems discouraged it.

And so, finally, we come to the present day. With the end of the college rush and the slight improvement in my hand problems, I’ve started really writing again. I’ve had ideas building up in my head for the past year, for once ideas that I feel are worth expressing, and I want to finally get them on paper, instead of letting them rot away in my head. I want to speak my thoughts aloud, to be part of a community, instead of just a consumer and a lurker. I don’t believe that internet socialization, internet friendships are necessarily any weaker than those forged in real life. I’ve seen many close friendships bloom on the internet; in fact, some of my friends at [prep school] have themselves made friendships this way. The problem of my interaction with the internet, with my great wastes of time, is not something in the nature of the internet, but rather a flaw in the way I’ve approached it, as an observer, consumer, eternal.

#personal #effortpost

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teacherkmd · 7 years ago

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Second Week in QuFu: Small Victories

Week 2

Since having my schedule rearranged, I have found myself with a lot of free time. I am having fun listening to the military training that all my freshmen students have to go through. It is also “fun” to walk around campus and have them get in trouble for staring at me when they’re supposed to be listening to their drill sergeant. (All freshmen in university go through mandatory military training lasting from 2 weeks to a month). My classes will start the last week of September.

(Good camouflage)

The English department finally met up with us to talk about expectations and regulations. Since I am teaching all 6 sections of Speaking and Listening 1 for freshmen, I basically get to do what I want. I have textbooks, and there is a loose “use 50% of the books” rule. After looking at those textbooks, I’ll most likely be using them as homework and for support material. This course will basically be a conversation class. The textbooks seem to cover things like making appointments, answering a phone, how to end a conversation, how to begin a conversations, and ordering food at restaurants, etc. This all seems like very low level stuff compared to what the sophomores were capable of doing during the single class meeting I had with them.

I’m hearing whispers of a school sponsored trip to the Confucius temple this month, so look forward to more on that soon. We (the other foreign teachers and I) have also finally gotten the ball rolling on Chinese classes to begin next week. We picked up our textbooks this week to give approval. My book is an HSK5 (proficiency exam) prep book. It basically contains like 8 practice exams. I’m interested to see how the tutor will spend “class” time to help me prep for it.

Since last week there have been quite a few exciting developments.

The foreign teachers all had a potluck. The new teachers (Kim and I) didn’t have much to contribute since we are still figuring out where to get ingredients and kitchen supplies. We did cut up a lot of fruit though. Sharlyn (another Fellow) made some bread, coleslaw, and some yummy veggie pasta. Karen, a short term visiting physics professor from Canada, brought some bread and baozi. Jordan, a French teacher (from France), brought some wine and an interesting perspective to our political talks about Trump, healthcare, and other things affecting Americans and Canadians. Mike (the host) had prepared another pasta dish, and some banana pudding. It was good to connect with the other foreign teachers on campus.

I met a senior physics student (who likes to point out how young I am). Since 1) I don’t teach seniors, 2) physics students don’t take English, and 3) she’s only 3 years younger than me, I felt safe agreeing to hang out with her. This hangout session comprised the first real test of my Chinese proficiency other than small talk or asking for service in stores in restaurants. She took me on a scooter ride around QuFu. Next to the Confucius temple is a shopping/eating district. Apparently, it is where all the young people go to hang out in town. We ordered some vegetarian (much to the regret of my new friend) noodles, some frozen fruit yogurt, and did some shopping. They (her friend showed up at this point) were very interested in how I would look in Chinese fashion. Unfortunately for me, this meant trying on a lot of clothes I knew wouldn’t fit simply because our bodies are shaped differently (particularly, Western shoulders will almost never comfortably fit into Chinese shirts even if your chest and rest of your torso manage to fit that size). Afterwards, we went to a street next to a shopping center I’ve visited before. This shopping center has a KFC and a Watsons (think Walgreens or CVS with no medication). The cool thing, though, was that this street, apparently, turns into a night market. I would have never guessed. They set up carnival games and have lots of street vendor foods. Afterwards, they drove us back to campus and we shared a meal in one of the school’s many cafeterias. This turned out to be very nice because I had been too overwhelmed to enter the flooded cafeterias on campus thus far. After eating dinner, they wanted to see my apartment. This might sound weird to some people, particularly those going “whoa don’t invite students to your apartment.” However, this curiosity is borne out of the fact that there is a huge difference in where the local staff and students are housed and where the foreign teachers and students are housed. I showed them my apartment to which they lamented that I live in a castle. I asked if they would let my friend (another foreign teacher on campus) see their dorm since she hasn’t any experience with Chinese college campuses. They agreed after warning me that it would be very messy. After collecting the other teacher, we went to see the student dorms.

I didn’t take any pictures as it would have been rude. Just imagine a building from a post apocalyptic zombie movie. There are bars on all the windows (I assume to prevent suicides or accidents or both). The lights in the hallways don’t work. There aren’t showering facilities anywhere in the buildings and students resort to sponge bathing. All the doors look like prison doors, short, metal, and inset into thick walls. All the doors are locked with padlocks if no one is in the room, and left unlocked if a student is inside. Each roommate has a key for the padlock. When you open the door to the dorm, you will see a room smaller than most people’s bedrooms back home. On the left side of the room are bunkbeds to accommodate four students and the right wall is lined with desks. There is a small porch for them to hang laundry. There is barely any room to walk and definitely no semblance of personal space or privacy. In some dorms, there are 6 beds (four on the left wall, and two high rise beds on the right side that have the desks under them).

After showing us their dorm, they wanted to show us where the graduate students stay on campus. The difference is night and day. They have a completely newly renovated building. It has an elevator (my building doesn’t even have an elevator). Central heating and air-conditioning. Motion detecting recessed LED lighting in the hallways that turn on and off as you move down the hall. A fancy restaurant like cafeteria in the basement. Only three students to a room, each room containing their own shower and bathroom. Lockers are next to each of the beds for them to put their personal belongings in. They had an even better porch than my apartment, with laundry drying racks that elevate and lower from the ceiling.

Anyways, that ends the “hang out session”.

Monday the 10th was Teacher Appreciation Day. Sad for me since I no longer have students. But not really, since students still used WeChat to send me messages and found me to give me chocolate. One of my students interviewed me about my love life (I was under the impression it was only going to be sent to my students) and then published it on the school website for a “teacher highlight.” Now faculty and staff all know about my love life so that is fun! If not extremely awkward. But the page also included student comments about what they think of me as a teacher. Since I only had one class with them, a lot of the comments are that I smile a lot, I talk loud (#AmericanProblems), and that I’m pretty.

I also finally got paid my living stipend by my university. And since nothing is really available in stores around here (like measuring spoons and cheese and butter), I am happy to announce I have figured out how to have things like this delivered through the Chinese version of Amazon (TaoBao). I may or may not have also purchased a popcorn popper for the microwave (anyone who knows me won’t be surprised by this).

This week also included my first trip to the gym. The other foreign teacher and I joined the most “western” gym we could find. They send us the group class offerings in a weekly WeChat message. Not that that helps either of us since she can’t read Chinese, and I don’t know any workout language in Chinese. However, after doing some conversions from miles to kilometers and figuring out what speed I needed to be running at… I can now report it is extremely hard to run in polluted air. You really can’t breathe. The weight machines are also a trip, because the weights don’t list what weight they are, not in kilograms or lbs. I might take a silver sharpie and just write my best guesstimate. I maxed out one of the machines though, so I’m pretty sure they’re not calibrated the same way they are in the US. Watching the guys faces though when I put max weight on the leg machines was #priceless.

Yesterday, Tuesday the 11th, I observed a local teacher’s English class. It was a group of junior students doing intensive reading. Their text was about hurricanes and the destruction they cause in the US. So naturally, this North Carolinian had to keep her sh*t together and try not to let her anxiety about Hurricane Florence’s approach mess with the observation. The teacher called on me multiple times during class to explain things like the Salvation Army, portable classrooms, and if “returnees” meant the same thing as refugees in the text. The actual teaching of the class was not as bad as I thought it might be (based on what I hear about Chinese teaching pedagogy towards intensive reading word by word). The teacher still did 98% of the talking, but she focused on language choice (“what words show the power of the storm?”) and article structure (“why would the author choose to break up the narration with this paragraph here?”, “Why are so many of the sentences short and elliptical? What effect does this create?”). The major concerns for me were the lack of student interaction in English (when they did work together it was in Chinese) and the fact that all the students had a reference text which included the article written in Chinese with answers to all the questions and exercises. I talked to the teacher after class and she seemed really open to working together to come up with solutions for these problems which she agrees are problems. She also seemed open to the idea that part of my job and hopes for my role on campus is to hold workshops.

All the teachers in my office (the linguistics office) are really open and friendly. I think the fact that I have relatively proficient Chinese abilities is helping me here. I hope to keep observing classes till my freshmen classes start so that I can keep building connections and relationships with the other teachers in my office and the literature and translation offices. That way, when it comes time for me to actually suggest things like workshops or MOOCs or other professional development opportunities, maybe some one will actually make time in their already overbooked schedules to hear what I and other teachers have to say.

That’s all for now!

(I know I promised to be better about pictures…. but next week really I promise… I really will be better. Below are some photos I took while on a walk out of the North gate of my campus.)

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charllieeldridge · 5 years ago

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5 Steps We Took to Reach Location Independence (+Tips For You)

In this article, I’m going to share the 5 steps we personally took to go from budget backpackers with no jobs, to fully location independent business owners — while learning a variety of useful skills along the way.

It’s been 8 years since we became location independent, and we’re incredibly grateful that we took the leap into a life of remote work and financial independence back when we did.

It seems that now in 2020, remote work is becoming the norm rather than the exception.

These days, more than ever, it’s imperative to have financial freedom and the ability to work from anywhere in the world. I hope this information gives you some tips and ideas while shedding a little light on the current climate of remote work.

This is our story and our experience, with actionable steps and information to help you on your journey as well!

Us in the Philippines in 2012 – we’ve come a long way since then!

1. Teaching a Language

Changing someone’s life by showing them the gift of language is a very rewarding feeling.

For us, that language was English, but you could teach your native tongue as well. There are many companies that you can teach online (some, you don’t need a Bachelor’s Degree).

Volunteering

Our first teaching experience came when we were in the Southeast Asian country of Laos in 2009. At a cafe, we saw an ad posted for volunteer work and jumped at the opportunity.

In between exploring the historic city of Luang Prabang in the morning and wandering the vibrant night markets in the evening, we would sit with children and teenagers and help them with their English conversational skills — through chatting and reading books.

Where our love for teaching started! Us in Laos 2009 reading and speaking with teenagers to improve their English.

The second experience was when we were in Myanmar in 2012. We met up with a small group from Taiwan who were there to teach English to the children in a rural village near Hsipaw.

They welcomed us to join, and the next 7 days were spent in the village teaching everyday vocabulary words to our students through physical objects, drawings, games, and songs.

Teaching in our makeshift classroom in rural Myanmar – one of the best weeks of our lives.

Evenings were spent dining with the villagers while enjoying the homecooked meals they prepared for us.

The lessons took place on a tarp on the dirt ground, with pigs and chickens roaming through the classroom. The excitement, interest, and giggles from the Burmese children were priceless.

Those two volunteer jobs that we took on really gave us a love for teaching. Aside from travelling, this became our new passion. But, in order to live and travel around the world, we needed to earn an income from this profession.

So, we moved to China in June 2012 and got a job in a private school.

Dinnertime in the village in Myanmar. So much fun preparing food, and it was delicious!

Teaching English and Living in China

Yangzhou, China would be our home for one year while we taught children aged 4 – 16. By actually moving to China rather than teaching online, we were able to be fully immersed in the culture and made many lifelong friends along the way.

Finally, we were earning an income, and returning to our home in Canada for work wasn’t necessary.

At the time, we were able to make around $1,400 per month each from working 20 hours a week. Housing, healthcare, taxi costs, flights to and from China, a year-end bonus of $1,000, and our TEFL certification were included in our contract.

We were happy with the position and enjoyed our year in Yangzhou! Teaching English really was the catalyst that sparked our life of fulltime travel and remote work, and we’re forever grateful that we decided to give it a try.

Having fun with some of my students in class in Yangzhou, China

Actionable Steps to Take

These days, teaching online (rather than in-country) is a much more common way to teach. With many schools, you can work from your laptop, while living anywhere in the world.

Teach students from your villa in Bali, or your house in the USA, it’s up to you!

If you want to move abroad and have a more immersed cultural and teaching experience, you’ll want to make sure you get your TEFL certification through a company that offers job placement and assistance.

There are many reasons to get TEFL certified, but knowing you’ll receive help with finding work is a big one.

Here are some of our best teaching posts to get you started:

7 Best Online TEFL Courses For Aspiring English Teachers

10 Best Companies To Teach English Online

Teach English Online Without a Degree: 10 Companies That Pay

If you’d like to learn more, have a look at our teacher interview series:

Teaching English in China and Cambodia (and online!)

Teaching English in Nanjing, China

Teaching English Online While Living in the USA

2. Starting a Website

Creating this website was the best thing we ever did.

As teachers, we worked for someone else, but by becoming digital marketers, travel bloggers, and content creators, we’ve been able to generate income through our own sources and be our own boss.

Starting Goats On The Road

Back in 2012, we read an article from a fellow blogger who said he was earning around $2,500/month from his travel blog. To us, this was a lot of money and we couldn’t believe it was possible to earn an income from sharing travel stories!

We bought the domain name, www.goatsontheroad.com, while travelling in the Philippines, but it wasn’t until a few months later when we were teaching in China, that we used much of our free time to actually build up the website.

The first photo we have of blogging! 2012 in El Nido, Philippines

We shared musings from the road, information on how people could travel to the places we had been, and photos and blog posts on what it was like living and teaching in Yangzhou.

Goats On The Road is our baby and our flagship site. Everything (well, almost everything!) that we’ve gone through in our lives since 2012 has been written about here. As our travel style and lifestyle has evolved, and as we’ve grown, so too has this website.

Earning an Income Through Blogging

We earned our first money in 2013, and from there, this website has grown to be one of the top travel blogs online, with a large and loyal readership.

There has been a wide variety of ways that we’ve diversified our income streams through blogging. Our most profitable ones are affiliate marketing through SEO, in-content advertising, sale of digital products that we’ve created ourselves, and press trip opportunities.

One of the coolest press trips we’ve had – creating a new trekking route in Kyrgyzstan

We’ve been fortunate to earn enough money from this website to travel full time, live abroad, and save money for our future. We’re proud of the business we’ve created and are grateful for the continued support from our “Tribe” (that’s you!).

Actionable Steps To Take

Think of a topic that you’re knowledgable and passionate about. Are you into fashion and beauty? Cooking and meal prep? Tech? Animals? Golf?

If so, start a website around that topic and share your useful, first-hand information with the world — while earning an income along the way.

Do you have a skill that you want to turn into a business — construction, landscaping, pet sitting, hair styling? If so, you’ll want to start a basic website to show what you can offer to your clients.

Many people think that having a website is simply for blogging and telling stories, but as you can see, that’s not the case!

One of the many blogging offices we’ve had

If you’re interested in starting a website today (in any genre), you can get your website up and running in around 10 minutes. If you use this link, you’ll receive our Beginner Blogger Course, and blogging tips ebook for free.

By starting a website and creating content in the way that the course outlines, you’ll see an audience grow over time and you can earn money from your site in as little as just a few months (as Nick has proven with his newest website).

3. House Sitting & Pet Sitting

Can you imagine living in a penthouse in New York City, on a vineyard in Italy, or a beachfront bungalow in the Caribbean? Well, it’s possible through house and pet sitting, and those are all job opportunities that we’ve personally received!

Our Experience House Sitting and Pet Sitting

While we were on the road, we started to hear about house sitting but didn’t really think much of it. After our teaching contract in China was up in July 2013, we travelled on the Trans Mongolian and Trans Siberian Railway into Central Asia and Iran.

We weren’t sure what to do when that 5-month trip was over. So, we set up our house sitting profile with Trusted Housesitters and crossed our fingers.

Sunset in the Kaluts of Iran. We set up our housesitting profile during this trip

Within a week, we had received an offer to “Take care of a Divine Dog in the Caribbean”. We took the job and spent a good portion of 2014 in Grenada. And yes, he was the most divine dog.

Since then, we’ve taken care of dogs in Barbados, Grenada, and Costa Rica, while enjoying free accommodation and wonderful experiences along the way.

While we haven’t utilized the house sitting platform since 2016, it was a great way to supplement our income when we were getting Goats On The Road off the ground.

The best part, however, was being able to have a pet for a while — something that isn’t conducive to our nomadic lifestyle.

The diving dog, Spare. So many adventures with this sweet boy.

Why House Sitting?

When a homeowner goes away for a holiday or other reasons, they need someone to take care of their beloved fur baby and property. Most of the time there is an animal included in the job, but there are some cases where you’ll just be there to take care of the home.

In exchange for loving and caring for the pet(s), you’ll receive free accommodation in the owner’s home. Depending on the job, you may also receive a vehicle for you to use and payment.

The perks of this job are endless. Live and travel around the world for free while fully immersing yourself in the country and living like a local, rather than a tourist.

And, of course, enjoy the company of a furry friend!

One of our house sitting jobs in the Caribbean

Actionable Steps to Take

If you love animals, travelling around and are a responsible individual, then house and pet sitting may be right for you. Not all gigs are in exotic, tropical destinations — many are in the UK, USA, Australia, and Canada.

Create your house sitting profile with all of the required information (and video). The homeowners will contact you, or you can reach out and apply for the job.

We’ve always utilized Trusted Housesitters for our gigs. Have a look at the current jobs on offer, and sign up here to receive the latest housesitting jobs directly in your email inbox.

4. Freelance Writing

A great way to make an income from writing is through freelance gigs — either in print or online. This is another one of the stepping stones we utilized along the way to earn an income remotely.

Our First Freelance Writing Jobs

During our first house sitting and pet sitting job in 2014, we were growing Goats On The Road. In order to get our name out there, we decided to reach out to a few online travel magazines and companies to see if we could share our travel stories with them.

Working from a hammock – not the most ergonomic, but Nick loved it

Our first freelance gig was with a well-known travel website where we received a twice-weekly column! We were over the moon. At the time, we earned $50 per article from them.

A couple of months after that freelance job, we received another consistent offer with a credit card and finance website. We wrote 4 posts a month for them while receiving $250 per article.

Our articles were also published in the Southeast Asia Backpacker Magazine, The Globe & Mail newspaper, and the Vancouver Sun newspaper in Canada. We were thrilled to see our names in print!

We received a few more writing jobs back then in 2014 and 2015 and for a while, we were writing 30 articles a month. This gave us a great income boost, and combined with house sitting, we were able to travel around Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

Working with wine in the evening – had to get those freelance posts done!

Actionable Steps To Take

No matter what topics you’re interested in, there will be a company that you can write for. Freelance writing is a great way to promote your brand, gain links back to your website, and earn an income.

Of course, even if you don’t have your own website, you can still be a freelance writer.

We’ve compiled a list of the top websites that pay aspiring travel writers. The pay varies depending on the magazine (in print and online), but you can find a gig that pays upwards of $4,000!

Another great way to find writing opportunities (on a variety of topics), is through the company called Solid Gigs. They siphon through all the online freelance job boards and only send you the top 1% legitimate, well-paid gigs to your inbox each week. To find out more, click here and use promo code GOATS2 to receive the first month for just $2.

Finally, you could sign up for Upwork and see what sort of writing jobs are available on that platform.

5. Creating Digital Products

Why not create a product that you own and can sell to your audience? Work hard to create a useful digital product, and reap the benefits of selling it for years afterward.

After a few years in the blogging world, we started to realize that we were quite knowledgable on the topic and that we were able to quickly and easily grow and monetize websites.

So, we decided to teach new bloggers how to start a website, and how to then turn that website into a profitable business. We created digital products to share with our audience to ultimately help them on their path to blogging success.

Nick working on his course for Goats On The Road

The eBooks

First, we started with what seemed easiest at the time, an online book. Ebooks were really popular (and still are), but even more so back when we created them in 2016.

We chose to make our first ebook free for people who sign up for our weekly newsletter. It’s titled: 101 Ways to Earn Money and Pay For Travel and you can still get it for free if you sign-up.

That was our first ebook and once we got the hang of it, Nick decided to put all of our best blogging tips together into one place. The second ebook is titled: “The Absolute Best Blogging Tips: Advice For Making Money From Your Blog”.

Initially, we were selling that ebook on Amazon, but since then, we’ve changed and it’s now available on our site for $4.99.

Online Courses

From ebooks to online training! We kicked it up a notch and went from writing to video. Virtual courses and training are much more interesting, and valuable for students.

We remember all too well the mistakes we made when we first started our website in 2012. Our Beginner’s Blogger Course aims to help bloggers and website owners start their sites quickly, and correctly. We wish this was available when we started out!

It took a while to get it “right” and to figure out how to do a video course vs. just a simple ebook.

Nick updates the course from time to time to keep it current, and ultimately, it’s been our top product to date. We offer the course for free when people start a website through our link. Or, we also sell if for $69.

Start a website through our link, get a discount on hosting, and our course and ebook for free

The second video course is more advanced. Once you have your website up and running, you’ll want to take it to the next level by learning how to monetize it and have your content seen. The best way to do this is through search engine optimization (SEO).

Nick created an actionable, useful digital course and has received amazing feedback from his students! Check out the free 1-hour mini-training, to see if it’s right for you.

Actionable Steps to Take

If you feel comfortable on camera and are somewhat savvy when it comes to computers and all things digital, then I recommend skipping the ebook stage and heading straight for online course creation. It’s more lucrative as well.

But, if you feel you want to ease into creating digital products by making an ebook first (like we did), then I recommend Canva. It’s free, easy to use and there are quite a few graphics and design options available to make a nice book.

When it comes to online courses, we use and recommend the program Teachable. It’s easy for you as the course creator to set up, upload your content, and manage. And, it’s really simple for the course students to navigate as well.

Create your own digital products and give yourself the freedom to work from anywhere in the world…such as Argentina.

Initially, we had a membership plugin attached to Goats On The Road. It was very difficult to set up, and in the end, it wasn’t compatible with our website and we had so many issues! Stick to Teachable and save yourself the headache and to keep your own website running fast and smooth.

In Conclusion

There you have it! The past 8 years of our lives in a nutshell. I hope you found our story and the steps we’ve taken to get to this point in our lives useful and inspiring.

As you can see, our journey to location independence started long before the creation of this website. Every step of the way we’ve learned something new, been inspired to try another creative outlet, and have always followed our Personal Legend and the path of least resistance.

Thanks for reading and being a part of our Tribe!

If you’re searching for ways to work remotely and become more financially and location independent, give some (or all!) of the ideas in this article a try. You never know what you may discover. As always, thank you for reading.

The post 5 Steps We Took to Reach Location Independence (+Tips For You) appeared first on Goats On The Road.

5 Steps We Took to Reach Location Independence (+Tips For You) published first on https://travelaspire.weebly.com/

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kennethherrerablog · 6 years ago

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Attention, Teachers: Need Cash This Summer? Try One of These 26 Side Gigs

While many of us dream of having the summer months off, some teachers prefer to use their vacations to earn extra cash.

According to a Penny Hoarder analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, the median salary for teachers (elementary, middle and secondary) is $51,000, and the starting salary comes in at $35,800. So it’s no surprise that one in 10 educators works a second job during the summer. Not only that, teachers are twice as likely to work a second job than people in any other occupation.

Working during the summer can help you keep your teaching skills sharp and can even help you learn a few new things — preferably with someone else footing the bill.

You’ll find no shortage of summer jobs for teachers or educators. Many of these opportunities will give you a modest income without a lengthy commitment. When the summer’s over, you can resume your day job without having to worry about quitting or keeping a second job.

Ready to find your new summer job?

Jobs That Will Keep You Teaching

For some teachers, summer is a time to get away from their regular day-to-day work. But for others, teaching is what gets them going in the morning. These jobs will bring in extra income while fulfilling that desire to keep teaching.

1. Teach English as a Second Language

Want to strengthen your teaching skills while earning extra money? Look for opportunities to tutor English as a second language (ESL) students locally and online.

You can contact large corporations in your area that may relocate foreign employees to your city and inquire whether they need a freelance ESL tutor to help their staff brush up on their language skills. Or go online and connect with students all over the world through sites like GoFluent and QKids.

One former public school teacher earned over $500 a week teaching English to Chinese students through VIPKID.

2. Offer Tutoring

School may be out for the summer for you, but that doesn’t mean students don’t still need a helping hand. If you just don’t get enough of teaching during the school year, tutor in your subject to make extra cash.

If you want to offer in-person tutoring, start by spreading the word with your students’ parents during the school year so they know who to call when summertime rolls around. And of course, shamelessly publicize your tutoring skills to friends and family who have children.

A great thing about tutoring is you can set your own rates, with tutors typically charging anywhere between $30 and $90 per hour, depending on the subject, according to Tutors.com.

And if you’d like to tutor without actually having to leave your house, consider online tutoring instead. There are a ton of websites that hire online tutors. Here are some of our favorite online tutoring companies.

3. Become a Test Prep Instructor

This is similar to tutoring, but with a little twist. As a test prep instructor, you can still flex those teaching skills but take a little break from teaching the same stuff you do during the regular school year.

Depending on your area of expertise and skill level, you can earn income over the summer helping students prepare for the ACT, SAT, LSAT, MCAT or GRE.

Again, you can simply spread the word through friends and family to tutor locally, which means you can set your own rates. Or you can turn to a national organization that is regularly hiring, such as Kaplan Test Prep, where tutors earn anywhere from $17 to $28 per hour, according to Glassdoor salaries.

4. Teach Abroad

Why limit your summer job search to the U.S.? You’ll find many great opportunities for teachers to work abroad during the summer months.

While paid short-term positions can be hard to come by, volunteer programs, especially those teaching English, are plentiful in certain regions of the world — plus, you’ll get to travel. Some programs will even pay for your expenses. Go Overseas lists a ton of volunteer teaching opportunities abroad.

5. Coach Youth Sports

Coaching youth sports during the summer is another opportunity that allows you to continue working with and instructing children — just in a different way from your regular job. Sure, it’s not teaching long division, but spending the summer imparting athletic and teamwork skills to children can be just as challenging and rewarding.

Plus, you get to watch kids run around playing sports, which is always adorable. A 6-year-old in an oversized, bobbling baseball helmet? Forget about it.

Check with your community recreation centers, churches and camps to find open jobs.

6. Work as a Nanny or Baby Sitter

Technically, this isn’t a teaching gig, but as a nanny or baby sitter you’ll still be working with children and informally teaching them along the way.

You can either find a regular full-time nanny job working for parents who prefer that to traditional day care or just pick up baby-sitting gigs here and there when you feel like making some extra cash.

Start by spreading the word through friends and family, and be sure to mention your teaching position so you have an edge over teenagers willing to do the job cheaply. You can also check out sites like Sittercity to find jobs in your community.

Online Summer Jobs for Teachers

Looking for a summer gig that earns you some extra cash — but doesn’t require leaving the house? We’ve got you covered.

7. Sell Your Lesson Plans Online

I love opportunities to leverage what you already have for passive income. You’ve already done the work. Why not make the most of it?

Take those lesson plans and worksheets you created during the school year and upload them to a site like Teachers Pay Teachers. You will earn 60% to 85% on each sale of your education resources. And this is an opportunity that can continue to bring in additional income year-round without any extra work.

“I only sell digital products, so I don’t have to mail anything,” Meredith O’Neill, a middle school teacher who sells her resources on the site, told us in May 2017. “The sale and the transfer of my work happens automatically. The payment goes straight to my PayPal account after TPT takes its cut. It’s extremely easy once your store is created and your work is loaded.”

8. Write and Edit Resumes

If you’ve got writing skills, you can earn extra cash writing and editing resumes. For some (read: a lot) of us, crafting a resume is like pulling teeth, and people are willing to fork out funds for a final product they feel will help them land a job.

This is a good summer job to pursue if you’re interested in part-time work that you can pick up on your own time.

Your personal network is a good place to start, and your teaching background will give you an edge. You can also list your services on freelance platforms such as Upwork, Thumbtack and Fiverr.

Fiverr user Charmaine Pocek started writing resumes and cover letters for $5 a piece. Within six years, she was charging $30 to $800 for her services and has since earned over $2 million through the site, according to Fiverr.

If you’re interested but need a little refresher on resume writing, check out this step-by-step guide.

9. Work as a Website Tester

You probably already spend a good amount of time browsing the internet and using phone apps, so why not get paid for it? Companies want to know how users interact with their websites and what can be done to make them more user-friendly.

All you have to do is browse and navigate websites and then provide honest feedback. You won’t get rich testing websites — expect to earn between $5 and $10 for each test.

UserTesting pays $10 for every 20 minute test; UserFeel pays $10 for every 10-20 minute test; and User Test pays around $10 per review.

10. Look Into Work-From-Home Jobs

You spend the school year commuting, so consider spending the summer earning extra income from the comfort of your own home. You’d be amazed how many companies regularly hire work-from-home employees, and with such a broad selection you can find an opportunity that fits your skill set.

Customer service, copy editing, travel consulting, coding, part-time, full-time, seasonal, freelance… honestly, the internet is your oyster. You can start with our Work-From-Home jobs portal to find a gig.

And if you’ve never forayed into the remote work life before, take some time to go over our work-from-home guide. It covers topics such as insurance, scams, taxes and how to find a job that fits your lifestyle.

Summer Jobs in the Great Outdoors

It’s summertime and you probably spend the rest of year cooped up in a classroom. Why not spend your months off in the great outdoors and earning extra cash at the same time?

11. Camp Counselor

If you love fresh air and sunshine, consider getting a job at a summer camp.

Writer Amanda Simkin spent three summers working at a summer camp during her eight years of teaching. “Working at a summer camp is a great supplemental job because sometimes you just want to get away from the classroom and interact with kids in a more fun-focused and laid-back way,” she explains.

Here’s how she recommends you find a job. “I learned about openings through word of mouth, but nowadays you can use social media, such as park district websites, Facebook, even Craigslist to find openings,” she says. You can also check with your local YMCA, community organizations and churches.

12. Local Tour Guide

Know all of the hot spots and hidden gems in your city or neighborhood? Then consider becoming a local tour guide. It’s a great way to enjoy the weather, the scenery and good company (hopefully) while earning extra cash.

Another neighborhood-based gig that’s similar to becoming a tour guide is Yelp’s community ambassador program. The company hires people in each city to host events, partner with local organizations and act as an online moderator. It’s a flexible gig, usually 15 to 20 hours per week.

13. Whitewater Raft Guide

This is the perfect job if you want to work in the great outdoors but you’re also looking for an adventure. But be warned: The job is intense and physically-demanding. It also requires long hours and certain qualifications, depending on your state.

Hiring for river guides really amps up around June and July, and recreational hiring in general grows an average of 68% in the U.S. around this time, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The river-rafting season typically runs from June to September, making this a perfectly complementary job for teachers looking to earn a summer income. In fact, Idaho river guide Hardy Bender says a lot of guides seek out teaching jobs purely so they can have the summers off to hit the river.

14. Lifeguard

Like river guiding, this summer job for teachers gives you the perks of getting paid to enjoy the water and sunshine but in a more controlled environment.

Summer is the busy season, so check with city-operated pools, recreation centers, water parks and country clubs for seasonal lifeguarding jobs. Or if you’re blessed enough to live on the water, you can spend the summer working on the beach.

The pay for lifeguards varies depending on your location, skill level and employer, but you can earn anywhere from $9 to $25 per hour, according to Glassdoor salaries. Just remember, there are certain certifications and training to complete before you can get that telltale red suit and whistle.

15. Dog Walker

Honestly, who doesn’t want to get paid to hang out with dogs in their spare time? Well, maybe cat people… but they don’t count.

Start by offering your services to friends and family who don’t have the summers off. They may jump at the chance for someone to take their beloved pups out for a walk on long work days.

You can also sign up for Rover.

The online network connects dog walkers and sitters to local dog owners through its 4.9-star-rated app, so you don’t have to staple flyers on every utility pole across town.

Rover says sitters can earn as much as $1,000 a month.

Rover dog-sitter requirements vary by location. In general, you must:

Be 18 years or older.

Pass a background check.

Have access to the Rover app (iOS or Android).

Here’s how it works: You’ll create an online sitter profile where you’ll answer questions about your experience with puppers and your schedule availability.

You can choose to offer a variety of services, including dog walking, overnight boarding at your home or theirs, and daycare. Boarding is the app’s most popular service, so offering it can get you more gigs. You set your own rates. (Rover keeps a small percentage as a service fee.)

Dog owners will reach out to you. Accept which gigs you want, then start snugglin’ pups. As soon as you complete a service, you’ll be paid within two days.

And if you don’t want to just stick to dog walking, you can expand your services and become a full-blown pet sitter — check this out for more information.

Jobs That Offer a Change of Pace

Maybe you want a summer job that breaks away from the standard tutoring gig. Here are some options all across the board, we’re sure at least one will catch your eye.

16. Drive for Uber or Lyft

If you want to make some extra cash without committing to a full-blown job, driving for Uber or Lyft is a legitimate option. Demand for ride-sharing has been growing like crazy, and it shows no signs of slowing down. To be eligible, you’ll need to be at least 21 years old with a year of driving experience, pass a background check and own a car made in 2007 or later.

We talked to Paul Pruce, who had been driving full-time with Lyft for over a year and earning $750 a week as a driver.

Best of all, he could do it on his own time. You can work days, nights or weekends — it’s up to you.

Because it’s easy to switch between apps, Lyft drivers often also sign up to drive with Uber.

17. Rent Out Your Driveway

No one wants to worry about feeding a meter while on vacation. If you live near an event center or stadium, rent out your driveway using sites and apps like JustPark or MonkeyParking — or go old school and simply post a “Parking” sign in front of your house. You may only earn $20 per day, but $20 is $20.

18. List Extra Space in Your House

Have a spare room? Might as well try to earn some money by listing it on Airbnb.

If you’re a good host with a desirable space, you could add hundreds — even thousands — of dollars to your savings account with Airbnb.

A few simple steps can make the difference between a great experience and a less-than-satisfactory one. We talked to Terence Michael, an Airbnb superhost based in Los Angeles.

Here are some of his tips:

Break out the labelmaker. “I have the entire house loaded with labels,” Michael says. “They look nice; they’re modern. This helps people feel less helpless.”

Be a good host, and stock your place with the toiletries you’d expect at a hotel — toilet paper, soap and towels. Here’s a little hack from Michael: “I order on Amazon and have it delivered when people are there.”

Be kind to your neighbors. “I say, ‘I’m not going to put anyone here who I think won’t be good for you,’” Michael explains. “And I turn a lot of big groups away, especially in Nashville. I don’t want anyone going to the cops or the city.”

(Hosting laws vary from city to city. Please understand the rules and regulations applicable to your city and listing.)

19. Rent Out Your Car

If you put Uber and Airbnb together and mix them up, the result is renting out your car for extra money. You’re earning extra income from your car, but in the passive way you rent out an extra room — you just have to be cool with strangers driving your car around.

One service to start with is Get Around. When signing up, you’ll list your car and its availability —plus, all cars on Getaround include primary insurance during rentals. Another to check out is TravelCar, a service that allows you to rent out your car while you’re on vacation.

20. Host Trivia

Consider yourself a “Jeopardy!” nut? Combine your love for trivia, wealth of teaching knowledge and ability to command a room to become a part-time trivia contest host. After all, coming up with a set up trivia questions isn’t too far off from crafting a quiz for your students.

Check with your local restaurants and bars to see whether they’re in need of a trivia host. Sure, you might find yourself working only one night a week, but it’s a fun way to flex your brain muscles and earn extra money.

This math teacher in Florida told us he earns $125 per week hosting trivia (and he also offers tips on how to do your best Alex Trebek impersonation).

21. Rent Out Baby Gear

Renting out baby supplies — what will they think of next? There seems to be a rental service for just about everything these days, and this one is great for anyone who can get behind earning some extra cash off of that unused baby stuff taking up storage space.

Companies like BabyQuip allow traveling families to rent strollers, car seats, cribs and other baby items instead of lugging around their own gear. So if you have baby equipment you’re not using, you can list it for rental.

Manuela Madrid, a stay-at-home mom in Brandon, Florida works less than 12 hours per month renting out her gear through BabyQuip, and earns between $120 and $180 with each fulfillment. BabyQuip users keep 80% of each reservation fee, but 100% of each delivery fee.

You can sign up for BabyQuip here, or check out these other options: Babies Getaway, goBaby and Traveling Baby Company.

22. Officiate Youth Sports Games

Aside from coaching, another way to get involved in youth sports over the summer is by officiating games. Plus, officiating gives you the involvement in local youth sports without having to offer as much commitment that coaching would demand.

One option is working as a youth baseball umpire, a gig that can earn you upwards of $50 per game, which are usually less than two hours long. Aside from directly reaching out to youth sport programs, you can reach out to your local umpire association to inquire about open positions.

Summer Jobs if You Want Some Me Time

Look, if you want to spend your summer months catching up on some much needed alone time, we definitely don’t blame you. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t earn some extra money along the way.

23. Write Book Reviews

Here’s a dream scenario: Spend your summer months getting paid to stay curled up with a good book. Freelance book reviewing won’t give you J.K Rowling-level finances, but it’s a great way to earn extra cash while doing something you love — and were probably going to do all summer anyway.

How much you can earn will vary depending on the publisher and your skill level, but you can typically look to earn anywhere from $5 to $100 per review. Plus, you’ll probably get the book for free. Score!

Here are some reputable websites and publishers that will actually pay you for book reviews.

24. House Sitter

If your summer months are going to be spent picking up odd jobs and side hustles, house sitting will fit into your schedule quite nicely — and it’s a great opportunity for some alone time.

Whether you’re spending the night in the home or just stopping in for a short while each day to bring in the mail, house sitting is a pretty easy way to put extra pennies in your pocket.

Sure, you can go through friends and family, but the chances of that avenue offering paid gigs is slim. Check out professional sites that can connect you with potential clients in your area, like HouseSitter.com.

25. Transcriptionist

A transcription gig is perfect for teachers who just want to throw on a pair of noise-canceling headphones and block out the world for a bit.

You can typically find transcription jobs in three categories: general, medical and legal. Note that the latter two might require additional training or requirements, but that will depend on the employer.

Most transcription jobs are independent contract work, so you can set your own hours and work when you want. Just note that transcriptionists are usually paid by the audio hour, so the amount you earn in comparison to hours worked will depend on your transcription fee.

26. Deliver Food

We already talked about driving for Uber and Lyft, and this is kind of the same thing… except you don’t actually have to talk to people beyond the “Here’s your food, you’re welcome, bye.”

Working for food delivery services gives you the opportunity to pick up side-gig work when you feel like earning extra cash — while enjoying some me time. Uber Eats offers flexible food-delivery opportunities, as do GrubHub, Instacart and Shipt.

Kaitlyn Blount is a former staff writer at The Penny Hoarder.

Angie Nelson also contributed to this article.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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