#Now this was 10th or 11th grade so like 16 year olds and maybe a few 15/17 year olds

[kaluawoo]

My question is What did Belkia think the power was!? Did he think Otogiri was doing drugs in the kitchen or something

Yeah my best guess is drugs. Gun powder is black so drugs would be the most common Dangerous White Powder...

[mr-shrimp]

It's September now, and I wanted to write about r*ssian schools, and I even had a draft about it, but I deleted it accidentally :(

Btw it's not a big deal, so enjoy this bullshit from typical r*ssian student <3

I want to do this bc I'm pretty tired of this, and I just want others to know that.

This post gonna be smth like QA format, bc it is a lot of easier to write ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Russian school core(I guess). Let's go!

First things first. How long do you need to study?

-> Well, if we talk about ordinary school, then you can study 9 years or 11 years(this is optional). In year it's 9 months for studying and 3 for rest(nice joke). After 9th grade you can go to the high school or go to the college and then to university as well. After 11th grade you can go right to university(but here is option to go to college after 11th grade). In university system is not different from European with Bachelor degree, but as I know in this year or maybe in the next one they want to remove this and make only specialty degree. It sucks bc your specialty diploma will be invalid in countries with Bachelor degree. And with specialty degree you need to study about 5-6 years.

How old must be child?

-> In most of the cases it is like 6-7 y.o. Some schools have pre-school studying, here children are about 5 years. In the end of your execution in school you may be like 15-16(9th grade) or 17-18(11th grade)

Does children also have such a fucked lessons table?

-> Nah, they have like 3-5 lessons about 35-40 mins. First 4 grades are such a relax, hah

What about exams?

-> in the end of the 4th year you need to pass two exams(as I remember): rssian language and math. In the end of 9th grade you need to pass 4 exams: rssian, math and two optional disciplines. And in the end of the 11th grade you need to pass at least 3 exams: rssian, math(base or profile), and 1-5 optional. Maybe now max number of optional exams has changed, but I don't care.

Which exams did you choose?

-> I gonna write biology and chemistry in any way, bruh. Maybe sociology, too, bc I also into law(not new laws they are bullshit) and this kind of thing. Or maybe I should be a designer, I like money and I like to draw:) my doodles pretty cute hah

What about rest? Holidays? Weekends?

-> Okay, this is pretty interesting. In most of moscow schools we have 5-1 system, which means 5 weeks of studying and 1 week of holidays. Also, we have a lot of holidays for all country such as new year holidays or may 1st and may 9th. It is really a lot of holidays in r*ssia, tho. Although I said it is 3 month of holidays, but for real you need to study and here. Why? It's pretty complicated. You need to read a lot of books, you need to practice all disciplines, you need to prepare to your exams and smth like this, bc if you not gonna do it... well, it would be sad. Weekends don't exist in rssia you just sleep. Really, you tired as fuck after this weekly five-day-in-a-row executing. And you even need to do your homework, but all that you can is sleeping.

What about study program?

-> It's hard. Really. I'm at the last grade, and this is my lessons for every week(in two versions, look at pics below). And if you want to know, math in r*ssian schools is like math in a lot of math universities in America or England or any of European countries. And it is not about math only, it is about all disciplines. Like, in 10th grade we learning about sinuses and logarithms(fckng bllsht)

-> In mscow schools we have special programs like medicine class(here I am), IT-class and more more others(Pic below, translate it by yourself). They call it "project classes". And for every project class it is its own main disciplines. For example, in medicine class it is chemistry and biology, but they added prof math for some hecking reason and I hate this shit, but BTW.

-> As for daily classes table, this is really tough. We starting at 8:15 a.m. and ending at 3 p.m. or even at 4:40 p.m. This is NOT optional. You must go for all classes even if you don't need physics or prof math. You just MUST. We have lessons every for 40 mins and breaks for 20 mins. And no, we haven't any special long break for eating. If you late to your classes you gonna be scolded, bc "why can't you eat faster???". Oh well, maybe because I just can't hah? Anyway you need to go from cabinet to another cabinet and try to eat if you want. And the most absurd that we have special breaks for eating, but they also lasts 20 minutes.

-> As for holiday, you can't relax either, bc this is a lot of homework. For example, my friend(from IT-class) in last year had about 400 mathematical equations to solve for homework for 1 week. Wild, isn't it? Ofcourse not all teachs like that, but anyway. Our literature teach said to write essay about 400-500 words(okay ngl she like to make us write it even if it not holidays).

What about food?

-> Oh yeah cockroach it my oatmeal and juice with water, love it. Not gonna lie, we really have cockroachs in our dining room at school. And I guess teachs like "well until cockroachs not fall from ceiling to children food it's alright"(no, it's not). I really like to eat, even if it just an apple, I like food, and food at school is really bad. You have a choice: first to not eat, second to eat at dining room, and third to bring your homemade food. In any case you don't have time for really enjoy the food :(

What about "ins" of school?

-> in mscow schools pretty okay, in my school we even have green room with a lot of plants, we call it "winter garden". Cabinets are okay, but light is bad like they older then me. But in other regions it like very old house that may fall at every second. And some of them don't have bathrooms. I didn't joke. Or it is a toilet like a.. erm.. hole in floor? Yea, something like this I guess. And some regions(villages, for example) don't have schools.

-> As for lessons, it is just very strict teachs and really hard program. Okay, let's talk about "conversation about important things". As you all know in 2022 rssia started a w*r with Ukraine, and from this moment in all schools started this shit. In short this is something like patriotic lessons where they just lie to you how good our country is and how good that we live here and how bad another world is. Well, smth like this was at ussr time, too, as i remember this right. But you know, this lessons are necessary even if they don't have marks for it. You just need to know that all people in the world are bad and only rssia are innocent and saint(/sarc). Fucking bullshit.

What about project classes?

-> Well, Idk for other classes, but in medicine class we have pretty hard program. You need to know all chemistry and biology, make an individual project, go to medicine college(uh um hello I go to high school bc I don't want to go to college guys what's wrong with u), go to lessons in university like RUDN, Pirogov RNRMU(rssian national research medicine university) and etc. And this is all after your ordinary classes, ofcourse :)

And what about college?

-> Nothing special, we just were riding the subway there 1 hour, then studied for 3 or 4 hours at college and were riding the subway back for 1 hour. And for sure it sucks, bc I returned home at 9 p.m.(or even 10 p.m.) every Monday. And our teach said that we were lucky bc they could make our college classes at Saturday. And in the end we can get our diplomas in the end of the 11th grade. Why? For what? Idk.

What about program? You always say this is hard, but why?

-> So, biology(molecular, botanic, anatomy, ALL biology), organic chemistry, prof math, probability theory, physics and more other. All this university level. And a lot of home work after which you don't even have strength for yourself.

What about attitude towards mental health? And health as well?

-I have diagnosed severe depression and I'm still studying full-time education program. No one cares if you can stand, even if you have a fewer. But at least tech can send you to nurse or back to home. In rssian schools no one really cares about your mental health, your pronounces and other individual things. Well not all teachers stop bulling towards kids, and some of them are bullies themselves. I think that's enough to understand this.

Well, that's all, I guess. It is really a lot of issues that I didn't say. Please repost or reblog as much as possible. As for living in rssia it is like, you know, living in "1984", just read latest news and new laws in 2022-2024 period and add to this w*r with innocent country.

And stay safe all of you♡

Yes somewhen I make this rq please don't beat me :(

[faeofheart]

@1396​ said:  Shipping meme : 2, 5, 8, 12 and 16! <3

SHIPPING MEME. ( hopefully this was the right one rip )

what sort of things does your muse look for in a partner?

it's funny, this one is kind of hard to answer because i don't actually have that many ships with jamie, and it also depends on the context. is this a serious relationship, with real feelings involved? or is this a relationship where jamie knows that feelings aren't really an option and will always ( most likely ) be one sided?

and for the most part, they aren't really... i mean, i could plot something out with somebody, we could develop something really cool and lovely and it seems like everything is working... but jamie just doesn't vibe, when it comes down to the roleplay of it. see, the most important thing to jamie with regards to relationships is trust. and yeah, that seems incredibly obvious, but trust is what marks the key difference between a casual relationship that won't go anywhere and true devotion. jamie has to trust you with all of themelf, and that's actually really, really rare. the raging wildfires and intense burn of summer, the overwhelming desire to rend and tear of the wolf, the longing to... sometimes just make someone decay and suffer, just for a comment, but more than that, the aching loss of their mother and the bitterness and resentment they feel towards their childhood. the good, the bad, the ugly, the seelie, the unseelie, the human, all of it. if jamie can't trust himself to be vulnerable with their partner, if they're constantly on such high alert that all you ever see is what they present, lest you take advantage, that's not a relationship to last.

aside from that, in terms of what draws jamie to a person, it can honestly be variable? because jamie is a being of change and choices, so their preference is never really... one thing ( aside from, yknow, men and masculine-identifying people. ) GENERALLY, though, they tend to be drawn to people who don't mind a little mischief and fun. in more supernaturally inclined people, they're drawn to those that make him feel safe, but also, those that take him seriously. if you're always looking down on them and acting like they're a puppy that doesn't know what they're talking about, you're just gonna piss him off. for humans, sometimes they just like... the normalness of it all. getting to feel like a human. they enjoy a stable presence, someone who can talk to them, reassure him, because jamie often gets caught up in his own head and blows things way out of proportion ( and holds everyone to a double standard. what he might forgive another for, as part of their nature, they have a little bit of a harder time forgiving himself for. )

oh and physically? while jamie doesn't discriminate, they do get a little bit hot and bothered by larger, stronger men or those who are confident and can be rather dominating.

PUTTING REST UNDER CUT BC THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG ONE APPARENTLY

 how easily does your muse fall in love?

"fall in love" or get crushes and attraction? because those aren't necessarily one in the same. jamie is someone who develops crushes easily. their childhood was... well, he didn't really get to talk to a lot of people growing up. they were homeschooled until they were fifteen, the only kind faces being their unwell mother and his sister, and the faces of the doctors and specialists he would be in to see regularly. jamie started attending public high school when he was 16, which would be the 11th grade (or maybe 10th? jamie is a late september baby, so their birthday is really early in the year ) if i remember right, and they were rather... well, high school can be rough.

so as a result, jamie tends to "fall in love" with... pretty much anyone who's kind to them for a relatively short period of time, who lets them feel comfortable and like they can be (kind of) themself. who doesn't mind when he's awkward ( which is always ) and rambly ( which is always ) and takes him seriously. though, jamie does at least have some restraint, they're not going to get crushes ( usually ) on someone in their fourties (visually. a supernatural creature that’s 1000 years old but looks 25 is fair game). thirties, however, isn't exactly off limits. and even then... that’s not exactly a rule. jamie could develop feelings for someone like that, it just feels weird since that’s like... twice his age. that said, these aren't... there's a reason jamie's usually so inexperienced in most verses: they like to flirt with those he's comfortable with, but jamie is at his heart a shy person. it's always a matter of " i flirt because nothing will actually come from this " and then when it DOES happen, he... doesn't know where to go from there.

actual, bonafide, "real" love though? that's not as common. jamie is quick to fall but slow to trust, so desperate to make people like him he doesn't want anyone to know the true jamie, lest they leave him like everyone else does. so jamie can't really fall in love without that security of knowing the person they're with knows jamie, in his entirety, and likes him anyway. and it can get rather complicated if the person they're with says the words first, because jamie's first instinct is to say them back so that there's no conflict, but he physically can't lie, so a workaround has to be found where he can say it without literally saying it.

"just trust people" i hear you saying, but he can't. to trust someone when you're a fae is a fools errand and a death wish wrapped up in a bow.

does your muse usually take the lead in relationships?

yes... and no. but mostly no. like i said, jamie is someone who likes to flirt when they're comfortable. and for the most part, there is intent there. an example of that is when jamie flirts with brock ( @fuckingvictus​ ), jamie likes to flirt and be all " why aren't we having sex " and shit like that. hell, on occasion, jamie might actually take initiative and go for the first kiss. but that's the exception not the rule. jamie lives in the world of " if i never risk it, i won't be rejected " and fails to recognise that this also means " if i never risk it, nothing will ever come of it. "

save this shy child.

what is your muse’s love language?

oh jeez this is a good one. i've never really thought about it in depth, actually. i think.... touch is a big one for jamie, both giving and receiving. they're a very physically affectionate person, and if they like you in any real way, you can expect him to lounge against you. it's very common for jamie to announce their presence by just... draping himself over your back ( but, if he knows you're liable to startle and experience panic or anxiety with this kind of thing, they'll probably tap your shoulder or make some noise while approaching first before lounging. ) in that same realm, quality time is pretty important to him, especially if you're one of the more.... shorter-lived variety, because they fear that one day... they just won't have that time. for receiving... i'd say probably touch, and maybe words of admiration? jamie rambles a lot when it comes to... well, anything, but they're always a bit too shy to express completely how they feel about someone. and if you ever wanna see them blush, all you gotta do is compliment him.

does your muse believe in soulmates?

no. at least, not unless there are very specific circumstance, like in the case of ely ( @spllcat​ ) where it's not so much "soulmates" and more " i am a familiar and in this life of mine i am bound to you " and it's like... it's not for a lack of romanticism. jamie is a romantic at heart, but it becomes a bit complicated when like... so a faerie like jamie can live an exceedingly long time. whether they can die of old age at all, jamie isn't really... sure? regardless, let's say hypothetically jamie will live for 1000 years. so this means, for 1000 years either:

jamie's soulmate is a human, born about 200 years after jamie. they live for a hundred years, and then die of old age. jamie now has 700 years left to live after the death of their soulmate.

jamie has no idea when their soulmate is born or dies, because they never once meet

jamie's soulmate dies in childhood

jamie's soulmate, of any race, is born when jamie is 900 years old. jamie has only 100 year with this person. he lived 90% of his life without this person.

it just doesn't seem realistic to him, even if they are a romantic. how can there only be one person for you? what if you're aromantic? what if you never meet? what if they die young? what if you actually can't stand them? they'll read fanfiction and watch anime and fantasize about the idea of soulmates, but they would never want them to be a thing in real life.

[siarven]

20 Questions Tag

I got tagged by @reinkings to do this tag game, thank you so much :3

1. Is there any scene from any piece you’ve written that actually scared you? If so, describe the scene.

Hm… I’m not really one for horror? I don’t really like watching or reading it so I haven’t really written any, either.

2. What genre do you feel most awkward writing?

Romance. I'm horrible at anything concerning flirting and stuff like that xD Horrible!

3. How many different types of writing do you write? Types of writing include novels, short stories, poetry, song lyrics, etc.

Mostly novel-length stuff, though they usually end up getting longer than just one book. Also short stories, and one-shots. I wrote poetry when I was younger (but I am probably rather bad at it). Also I never wrote a song, lyric-wise, only making up melodies etc without lyrics.

4. How old were you when you first started writing?

Writing as in writing stuff down, or storytelling? I can't remember a time when I didn't tell myself stories (out loud, until I managed to do it in my head later on). I started writing them down as soon as I could write, haha (so near the end of first grade). Most of the stories from that time are about "Feelie" ("Fee" means fairy in German...) who was, oh wonder, a fairy! And had veeery long hair. And a flying unicorn. xD The stories are kind of very cute and slightly embarassing, and very stereotypical XD Also there was Lisa, my next ... "OC". There were a lot of different iterations of her, because I never finished anything before getting a better idea and subsequently starting again from scratch XD

5. How confident are you in your writing?

Hm. Sometimes I am really sure that what I'm doing is amazing (usually when I just came up with a really mean plot twist or magic system or found the perfect solution to a plot hole) ... only that usually doesn't last very long XD I would be lying if I said that I don't care about what others think, but at the same time, I also don't? I'd love to be published one day but if it comes down to it, I'm writing for me, and only me. I feel so blessed to have found this community, and that there are others who are coming to love my characters as much as I do. But I would write these stories even if nobody were interested in them. So... I don't know, I think I'm getting better at the confidence thing :)

6. Have you ever written and posted anything that was very personal to you?

I don't think that I've ever posted anything? I write Morning Pages (sadly not as frequently as I should), which are 3 pages of stream of consciousness, first thing after getting up in the morning. It helps a lot. But it's also the sort of thing I won't ever upload anywhere cause it's deeply personal and I would feel very uncomfortable giving it to anyone. I've been thinking about uploading a cutesy (rather personal) short story, though. I wrote it for my mother as a birthday present some years ago :D

7. What inspired you to start writing?

I... have no idea? I've told myself stories before I could write, so... I have no idea. I should probably ask my mother if there was some sort of catalyst xD I didn't even start reading of my own free will until 2nd or 3rd grade, but since then I've never stopped so... xD Anyways, my father read me bedtime stories every night when I was small so maybe that? I never really watched a lot of TV until 10th grade when I discovered the mysteries of the online stream and suddenly had a lot of stuff to catch up to... and now I'm studying film xD (My parents are still confused by that because I was a kind of late bloomer concerning cinema and tv :D )

8. Which of your OCs do you relate to the most?

Uh... let's see. I think maybe Jouka? He’s from my wip firewings, and I love him a lot.

9. Have you ever written self-insert fanfiction?

Maybe not *fan*fiction but maybe self-insert fiction when I was young xD All that fairy and princess stuff... most definitely self-insert, haha.

10. What is your favorite piece you’ve ever written about?

Uhm… I haven’t written it yet? But when I’m done with Dreams and Shadows I’ll go and write Icicle Soul. It has some of my favourite characters, plot lines and plot twists in it and I’ve been looking forward to properly writing it since forever :D

11. How frequently do you actually sit down and write?

I try to write every day. It does not work. I always end up doing tag games instead because there are still so many to finish.

12. How many hours at a time do you do research on your writing?

Sometimes it escalates and I spend the whole day reading up on stuff on wikipedia and then end up source-riding until there’s no way back and I have 3000 tabs open. XD

13. Do you like to branch out in your writing or do you tend to stick to what you know?

When I was younger my stories tended to include a lot of the stuff I was interested in at the specific moment, and were influenced strongly by the things I’d read recently. Now I try to challenge myself a bit to write stuff that I’m bad at, or to use writing to explore things that I don’t really know yet :)

14. What would your antagonist of your current WIP say to you if they saw you in person?

I think that depends on if they know that I’m the writer or not xD If not I’d be far too insignificant. If yes, I would probably be subjected to a lot of threats, and curses. And assassination attempts, so they can wrangle control back.

15. Do you consider yourself your OCs’ god or just kind of a guiding hand (or other? If other, please list)?

Well. I’m not very good at being a god, I guess, since they always decide everything on their own. Or change, without me wanting them to. Or do something totally unexpected. So, I’m probably more like a guiding hand, haha.

16. What do you think you’d be doing with your time if you’d never gotten into writing?

Well, I do study 3D animation and do art, so I guess I’d be somewhat better at that because I’d have more time to practise. xD

17. Have you ever written a smut piece?

Nope. I'm very bad at romance and smut and stuff like that.

18. What was the first thing you ever wrote about?

Oooh. I remember a story about a tiger and a rabbit :D Also, the Feelie stories above… the first thing that ever got longer than a few chapters had no title and was vaguely like Eragon.

19. What is the most creative creature you’ve ever created for world-building?

Creatures are the best! Hm. The most creative creature… I don’t know, actually? They’re usually very plausible creatures because I want them to feel possible. Like, if that world really existed, it would totally make sense if the creature did, too, you know? I always think of evolution, too, and how it could have been formed by its environment and stuff like that. I have very big folders filled with that stuff :D I have bloodthirsty and very murderous unicorns in Morning Star, though, and for Dreams and Shadows there are tons of different kinds of dragons that I’ve put a lot of thought into. I have rebuilt Alearis’ ecosystem from scratch, and I just vaguely remember the horse-like creatures that exist in the world of Firewings instead of horses. Honestly, there are so many more but I have probably made more creative creatures for art-purposes.

20. Tell me one random fact about your WIP that you have yet to tell your followers.

Dreams and Shadows was born during German class in 11th grade. I had an image of a young boy in my head, standing behind his mother who was crying in front of his comatose body. It was only ever supposed to be a short story, and it was supposed to be this melancholic, sad and beautiful thing. And then I wrote it during NaNoWriMo and the original plot was done after 30,000 words but I still had 20K words left to write in order to win so Ava, his little sister, got a storyline of her own, and angels and demons entered the fray, and now Ava has somehow taken over the story and that slow, beautifully-sad thing has grown and become something else entirely :D It’s also no longer set in our world, the angels and demons have become something else, it’s one of my favourite worldbuildings yet and there are dragons! 200% better ;)

tagging: @madmooninc @romenna @asttralhell @lynnafred @authordai if you want to :D

[cthebooklover]

92 Question Tag not done check question

I was tagged by my amazingly wonderful friend @highwarlockofhogsmeade

Sorry this is really old but I wanted to do it so I did

The Last…

1. Drink: Green Smoothie

2. Phone call: My dad called and asked if my mom had called

3. Text message: @cj-bunni

4. Song you listened to: I don't remember something on the radio

5. Time you cried: I don’t know probably sometime this month over a character or something I saw on Tumblr

Have you Ever…

6. Dated someone twice: No

7. Been cheated on: Nada

8. Kissed someone and regretted it: No

9. Lost someone special: nope

10. Been depressed: never

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: Noooo

List 3 Favorite Colors:

12. Aqua

13. Teal

14. Sea green

In the Last Year Have You…

15. Made new friends: -Internet: oH YES! I love all my new internet friends! YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME AND ALWAYS MAKE ME HAPPY! -Places besides my house: yes :D

16. Fallen out of love: No

17. Laughed until you cried: Yes

18. Found out someone was talking about you: only when I hear my mom talking to someone and I hear my name and ask if she was talking about me

19. Met someone who changed you: yup a little change

20. Found out who your true friends are: yes

21. Kissed someone on your facebook list: No

22. How many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: all of them

23. Do you have any pets: 3 cats (ones technically still a kitten)

24. Do you want to change your name: no it is uncommon like my personality

25. What did you do for your last birthday: ate and hung out with my friends

26. What time did you wake up: 8:45

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: sitting in my bed on Tumblr and reading

28. Name something you cannot wait for: seeing my friends all together

29. When was the last time you saw your mother: an hour ago

30. What is one thing you wish you could change about your life: that my knees weren’t messed up and randomly causing me pain

31. What are you listening to right now: nothin

32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: yep

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: jerks who don’t care about all humans

34. Most visited website: YouTube and Tumblr

35. Elementary: does this mean what I’ve thought about from that time does it go through US middle school? because if so I’ve met new people who drive me crazy and learned things most of which I don’t care about

36. High school (in Mexico its 10th, 11th and 12th are high school): I’ll be a freshman this upcoming school year. 9th grade 

37. College/university: i’m not prepared

38. Hair color: dirty strawberry blonde weirdness. it looks different in different lighting

39. Long or short hair: medium long

40. Do you have a crush on someone: nope

41. What do you like about yourself: that I’m an approachable person

42. Piercings: I had my ears pierced a few years ago

43. Blood type: I want t know too

44. Nicknames: Chrissy, Christi, Sunshine bean, cremepuff, Sandra (long story)

45. Relationship status: Single since birth

46. Zodiac sign: Pisces

47. Pronouns: She/her

48. Favorite tv show: Voltron: Legendary Defenders

49. Tattoos: None but maybe I’ll get a fandom tattoo when I’m older, I kinda doubt it though

50. Right or left hand: Right

First…

51. Surgery: never had one

52. Piercing: When I turned 12 I got my ears pierced

53. (this question no longer exists I suppose)

54. Sport: I played soccer a long time ago I dance now

55. Vacation: New York to see relatives

56. Pair of trainers: these are sneakers right? or just shoes because I don’t know either way

57. Eating: nothing  

58. Drinking: nothin

59. I’m about to: finish this and do stuff until I want to sleep

60. Listening to: my laptop’s fan

61. Waiting for: the world to change

62. Want: to eat food, read, enjoy life with my friends, and meet amazing role model peeps

63. Get married: That’d be cool

64. Career: I want to code or work with computers or be an editor because then I’d read books and help people for a living and how cool would that be

Your Type…

65. Hugs or kisses: both but on the cuddly side.

66. Lips or eyes: Eyes ig. I don’t have experience to base these questions off of!!

67. Shorter or taller: I like being tall so I don’t know same height or slightly taller

68. Older or younger: I don’t really care

69. (Also is missing so another break lol)

70. Nice arms or nice stomach: Nice soul.

71. Sensitive or loud: um sensitive I suppose

72. Hook up or relationship: Relationship for sure

73. Troublemaker or hesitant: idek ???

Have You Ever…

74: Kissed a stranger: No

75. Drank hard liquor: Nope

76. Lost glasses contact/lenses: I don’t need them…. yet

77. Turned someone down: Once when I was in fifth grade he was a nice kid but I did not want a relationship

78. Sex on first date: I’ve never been on a date but NEVER EVER EVER

79. Broken someone’s heart: No

80. Had your heart broken: no

81. Been arrested: No

82. Cried when someone died: Yes

83. Fallen for a friend: when I was in first grade, the dude’s a jerk now though

Do you believe in…

84. Yourself: yes! :)

85. Miracles: yeah

86. Love at first sight: yes but I believe that it may not always be so clear, like the love is there but they don’t realize it until later and they think yeah, I always loved them

87. Santa Claus: well I did :’c

88. Kiss on the first date: I don’t know only if you really know you like them or you’ve known each other for a long time and never went out

89. Angels: Of course!

Other:

90. Current best freind’s name: Keltsey

91. Eye color: Blue/green

92. Favorite movie: I love so many movies but I don’t know why I can’t think of any I’ve watched this year that are my favorite. Maybe The Force Awakens (I know it’s not this year but it’s all I’ve got right now)

I tag you! only if you want too :)

@a-sad-and-lonely-traveler @phandomnoodle @cj-bunni

also any mutuals or followers who want to do it I just have to go right now but wanted to post this love you all!

[pisati]

there was this boy I knew in high school. sweet kid. kinda nerdy. he was in my spanish 2 class when I was in 10th grade, he was in 11th. I don’t even think we knew the other existed until our teacher sat us near each other one quarter, after rearranging our seats. 

I remember group work, vaguely. I remember him gently poking fun at me for something or other. I literally just remembered how sometimes I’d catch him looking and it’d turn into a staring contest. I remember one time in particular I caught him looking and I looked back and just. something clicked. not like.. crush necessarily. I just knew what he was thinking. 

and I wasn’t sure what I thought about it, honestly. I might have just liked the attention. he never said anything direct but I knew. 

I did like talking to him. we’d text here and there, and sometimes after school or on weekends he’d call and we’d talk for at least an hour. he’d play me something on guitar (and for being like 16 he was a real good guitarist), and occasionally if I was feeling up to it I’d pluck out something on my cello. I think we played songs from our ipods for each other too. 

I wanted him to go to my concerts and tennis matches. I was surprised one day when he actually did go to a match. I remember him telling me he’d have asked me to his junior prom but he didn’t have a car at the time and his parents would’ve had to drive us.. awkward. we did mutually agree to go to the homecoming dance together the next year (didn’t even ask, lmao. we were just like “ok, so we’re going, right?”). he got me this gorgeous red rose corsage, to match the red dress I’d gotten in Italy. I remember being kind of annoyed when we got there and he just went off with his friends, but whatever. we did get one dance in, I think. I’m laughing at myself thinking about it; neither of us knew what to do.

I remember being sad the summer he graduated. I knew I didn’t have many people left that made high school bearable. he went off to frostburg state at first, I think with the goal of being a park ranger or something. I don’t remember when he dropped out. maybe during or after his first year. I remember a few awkward conversations through facebook after I’d started college too. and then nothing. I realized later he’d unfriended me. then later than that, deleted his facebook entirely.

I don’t know if it had something to do with me mentioning that long-distance bullshit online “relationship” I had going at the time. I do remember that my first year of college was when I started posting some real simple soundcloud covers with my crap acoustic guitar, and he’d commented on my Black cover saying he didn’t know I had such a nice voice. I don’t really know what prompted his deciding to cut me out. but I can’t say it probably wasn’t for good reason.

I wasn’t sure how I felt. I knew how he felt, he didn’t even have to say it. I liked talking to him, I liked the company, I liked the attention. but it was probably shitty of me to just kind of ignore the elephant in the room. 

I only really remembered all this after digging up my old blog for therapy journaling a few weeks ago. I’d written about how I was excited that he’d told me he could go to a Joshua Bell concert with me (and my mom; it took GUTS to tell her I’d invited a boy, lmao). I’d written some vague “good things happened that I’m not gonna write out the details of :)” posts. I remembered how we’d kind of fallen off at some point and I’d texted him late at night after a shitty day; I was in florida with family at the time and I’d probably said something like “hey, I’m sorry”, and I remember being surprised that he replied, and replied as kindly as he did. he did mention that once when I was in college. couldn’t remember for the life of me why I had reached out. I remember him saying he thought he knew why. but he also never pressed.

I realized I still had his number when I accidentally hit the “add friends” thing on snapchat and decided to scroll through the list anyway. I don’t know if he uses it, probably not, but snapchat shows you the contacts you have that also have snapchat accounts. so it’s definitely him. I guess going from iphone to iphone since 2012 and just passing all my data between each phone, I’ve never felt the need to really dig through my contacts. 

I’ve been going back and forth with myself for a few weeks. part of me wants to shoot him a quick text that’s like, hey, I realized I still had your number, hope you’re doing well, blah blah. but the other part is still like... he deleted me off facebook for a reason. maybe he wouldn’t want to hear from me. would I even be thinking about reaching out if things weren’t so lonely and strange right now? I think I knew I never deleted his number; maybe I scrolled past it searching for someone else and was reminded very briefly. never really thought much about it. did I just remember that positive attention from before and decide I wanted to try and get that again? that would be just.. so shitty. 

but it would be nice to catch up, you know? it’s been.. jeez, just over 10 years since we met. I don’t think we’ve spoken since 2012. I’m sure a lot’s changed. I just don’t know if he’d want to hear from me. I’m reminded of how incredulous I was when that dumb boy who shattered my 18yo heart messaged me out of nowhere like 5-6 years later. but then again.. I did reply. I didn’t have it in me to be upset at him. I can’t imagine this one would have much to be upset at me about after 8ish years.

I don’t know. I’m probably going to keep sitting on it. no rush anyhow, I guess.

[soworthloving]

Alex's Recovery Story

By Alex Berthelot

My name is Alex and I am here to share my journey through mental illness and recovery!

My journey with mental illness began when I was a kid and diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It was really distressing for a while however as I grew older it began to get easier to manage. As the OCD started to get better, the depression kicked in at age 13. I began crying a lot at school and I wasn’t able to figure out why. All I knew is that I felt really alone and none of my peers seemed to quite understand what I was going through. 

I resorted to self harm in 8th grade and I so badly wish I could go back to that night, the moment before I hurt myself for the first time, and give my younger self a big hug and let her know that hurting yourself physically will not dull the pain on the inside, in fact it will make it much worse in the long run. 

Years went by and things got a little better, I switched schools in 10th grade and finally thought I found a school where I fit in with my peers. It didn’t take long for me to become involved in a horribly controlling relationship that was abusive in almost all ways you can imagine. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that abusive relationships can happen at any age. Just because my abuser was 16 years old doesn’t justify it, and it doesn’t mean it wasn’t abuse. I tried so hard to reach out for help over the course of that relationship but no one believed me for reasons which I still fail to understand. 

Thinking back to this time in my life is hard. It was such an incredibly dark time. My self harming behaviors became so severe that the people at the urgent care near my house knew why I would come in every time and the suicidal thoughts were overwhelming. The abuse was so bad that my body’s coping mechanism became to dissociate and detach myself completely from the present and live partially disconnected from daily life and my junior year of high school I spent more time in different psychiatric hospitals than I did at school. It became clear to my therapist and parents that I needed a higher level of care than I could receive at home and so when I was 16 years old my mom and I flew across the country to Utah and I was admitted to a residential treatment center there. I would not be standing here right now had I not gone to residential treatment back in 11th grade. I worked the program, worked hard in therapy and graduated and was able to move home after 8 months of living there. However, the month after I graduated that program I relapsed with self harm. 

The next 3 years are a bit of a blur, I still struggled with self harm and depression but I managed and I graduated high school and moved to college which are 2 things I never thought I would be able to do. The first year of college was not without its struggles but I managed to enjoy most of it. However my Sophomore year is when my mental health started to decline rapidly. Second semester sophomore year is when I became really truly incapacitated by my mental illness. I ended up experiencing a manic episode, which is something I had never experienced before. I was feeling so incredibly good, I thought I was cured from all of the pain depression and PTSD brought along so I quit therapy. Soon the good energy I was feeling turned into angry pent up energy and I was barely able to sleep for a week. I started taking too much of my sleeping medication to try and help me sleep and ended up crashing really hard and really fast. The depression was back but this was no longer functioning depression, this was not being able to get out of bed for a week other than to use the restroom type of depression. I forfeited everything necessary to survive such as food and showering because I literally was so incapacitated, apathetic and lethargic. My roommates were starting to get really worried about me (for good reason) however my depression convinced me that there was no problem. My self harming behaviors were out of control and the suicidal thoughts were becoming so loud and it really seemed like the only way out was death. I remember sitting on my bed staring at my prescription medication. I knew I was on medication that could really be dangerous in an overdose situation and I wish so badly I could go back to that night and tell myself what I know now. Even though my depression was telling me that I wanted to die, I know now that I just wanted to no longer be in such emotional pain. So often depression convinces you that the only way out of such pain is through death and so a year and a half ago I tried so hard to leave this world. The next couple of days are a blur, I woke up to the sounds of the hospital machines that were keeping me alive and just stared at the ceiling in disbelief. I never imagined myself alive at age 20, but there I was in a cold hospital room, hopeless but alive. It took almost a week for me to be medically stable enough to be transferred to a psychiatric hospital and after I was discharged from psych, I withdrew from school and moved home and began treatment at Skyland Trail. 

It was about 1 month into my stay at Skyland that I finally realized that I either put my all into recovery or I die. I realized recovery is not going to work if I only recover for my family. Recovery is only going to happen if I want it. And so that is when I fully committed to finding my way back to the light, not because my family wanted me to, but because I wanted to. 

The biggest, most helpful realization I had at Skyland was realizing that recovery doesn’t mean the absence of mental illness, recovery means learning to live with it in a way that still allows you to have a full and fulfilled life. If you had asked me a year and a half ago if I believed that I would be able to live a life and experience happiness I would have laughed in your face. Now, a year and a half into recovery, I am still learning how to manage my illnesses and it’s still hard at times. In fact since I graduated from Skyland, I have been able to start processing through the trauma I experienced throughout that horrible relationship and this is by far the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life and I am so proud to say that even though talking about it is beyond painful, I am still 100% committed to using the skills I learned to help regulate my emotions and when I need more support, I allow myself to reach out for it which is something I have never done in the past. 

Something I really struggled with when I was in the depths of my depression was feeling like I didn’t deserve to be here and that I had no purpose in life. It’s still hard to find a purpose for all of this pain I’ve been through, especially when it comes to the abuse I endured but I am confident in saying that I did not fight through all of this pain and find my way back to the light only to stay quiet about it. I am here to share my story and to let others know that it is so possible to find a life worth living. 

At Skyland I was inspired to start keeping an art journal. 

Through journaling I came to this realization and learned that the reason I started self harming in the first place was because I was feeling so much emotional pain and distress and I didn’t know how else to convey how bad I was feeling, so I thought that maybe if I hurt myself on the outside, people would realize how badly I was hurting on the inside. That whole plan kind of backfired because I would self harm and immediately cover it up and not let anyone see. And before I knew it I was quite literally addicted to hurting myself. I am so thankful I began journaling and in my journal among random drawings is where I keep my poetry. I have found that even if writing doesn’t completely convey how I’m feeling on the inside, it is still much more effective in communicating the thought process in my head and helps not only me understand myself a bit better, but I also share my journal with my therapist and it helps her know how she can help me best. I found myself writing a piece on New Years Eve, which is typically the day I dread most out of the whole year. I have always detested it because in the past it always felt like a sick slap in the face because I spent a whole year sad. This year was different though. I found myself reflecting on everything that happened in 2016. It was most definitely the hardest year of my life and also the year where I allowed the most healing to take place. I wanted to share this poem with you all:

 “this year i found myself broken 

before i even knew i was breaking.

 sitting on the edge of my bed 

staring at the floor of my bedroom,

with a pain in my heart and a sickness in my head

that no living being should experience,

i tried so hard to leave this world 

and i came so close to being gone.

 i woke up to the sound of the hospital machines 

that were keeping me alive and spent the following days 

lying in an unfamiliar bed in a cold hospital room,

staring at the ceiling in disbelief.

 i never imagined myself alive at age twenty,

but there i was, lying in a hospital bed, 

alive, hopeless, but alive.

 through this brokenness i was brought to people

who believed i had the strength to piece myself whole again. 

and i spent so much of the time pushing them away

because i was afraid to fail at living, 

the same way i had failed at dying.

 but these people never gave up on me 

even when i had long given up on myself,

and soon i started to accept the help i 

had convinced my self i was so unworthy of.

 this year was brutal.

 even now there are times that feel impossible 

but in those moments, i remind myself that

even breathing is an act of courage.

 there are still days where i curse my sorrow

but i am learning that this pain is what has 

taught me compassion in the truest form.

 i have spent months unlearning the lies 

that years of abuse left me believing true

and planting a garden of self love instead.

 i had spent so long living in darkness 

that i believed i was beyond repair,

but i am learning that there is no such thing.

 i have a place in this world and

i am piecing myself whole again.

 i am growing, 

i am learning, 

i am rebuilding.

i am alive.

 and this is only the beginning.”

 A year and a half ago, the thought of living without self harm was a joke to me. I never thought I could live without harming myself in some form. I am 21 years old now, I started self harming at age 13 and in those 7 years I was never clean for longer than 8 months. As I stand here right now, I am so proud to say that it’s been over a year since I last cut myself. And if anyone reading this is struggling, I want to let you know that it is ok to reach out and ask for help and it is so possible to find yourself on the other side of all of this pain. If you are hopeless right now, I am lending you some of the hope I have because, I have enough hope for both of us. You are not weak just because you are hurting and you do not have to go through this alone.

Looking back on everything I wish so badly that someone had believed me when I tried to reach out when I was stuck in that abusive relationship. I was left to deal with the pain alone until I finally found a treatment team who believed me. The most powerful thing anyone has ever said to me is ‘I believe you’. So to anyone struggling through an abusive relationship or to anyone who is struggling in finding people who believe you no matter what struggles you are facing. I just want to say, that I do. I believe you. Your pain is real and your pain is valid, and I believe that you can get through this. Keep reaching out because you will find help just as I did. You are worth it, you are worth recovery and you are so worth loving. Hang in there and keep fighting, you’re going to make it through. 

[meanwhileinoz]

Students Shared The Most Frustrating Moments Where Teachers Graded Them Ridiculously

Scoring well on an exam can be very stressful for everybody.

Burning the midnight oil and studying the textbook inside and out, just to get that perfect score. What sucks the most is when the all-nighters become completely useless because you don’t score well on the exam. Even worse if the reason you didn’t score well on the exam is the teacher’s “out of this world” grading scheme. It just leaves you scratching your head in surprise. There are all sorts of valid reasons why you may not agree with the given grade. And all you want to do is storm to your teacher’s office for justice!

Here are a few of the most frustrating stories of students where teachers graded them ridiculously:

1. This teacher who completely missed out the point of education.

“I had a history teacher who wanted our test answers to be EXACTLY like the textbook.

I know it’s history, you can’t change facts or names, but this woman would not even let us change the grammatical format of the sentence.

For example, if the sentence was ‘he ruled from 1822 to 1840,’ and I wrote ‘his rule lasted from 1822 to 1840,’ she would deduct marks for that. Are you kidding me?

Moreover, if someone tried to argue, she’d deduct their marks for arguing with her. She was a senior teacher and was respected by everyone in school, so we students were really scared to complain. As a result, we had no choice but to mug up each and every word of the text if we wanted to pass!”

– Mahenoor Khan

2. This just leaves us to one question – Is that even a legit scoring system?

“In college I had a Physical Education teacher who on his tests had multiple choice questions where there could be more than one right answer.

If there were five possible choices, then the answer could be that all five may need to be marked, or none of them, or any combination in-between. Each question was worth 1 point, but if you marked all of the options incorrectly you would lose 5 points. Put another way, a twenty-question test was worth 20 points, but you could get very easily receive a negative score, going all the way up to -80%. Since 80% was the required score to pass, this meant that you needed a score of 16, so you could mark no more than 4 options wrong on the entire quiz.

I tried to point out to him that his multiple choice questions were really a set of five “true or false” questions where we had to get all of them right in order to score a single point. Thus, it would make way more sense for each option to be a separate question, meaning it would be a 100-question test worth 100 points, but he just couldn’t see it. He was really good friends with one of my math professors so I had my math professor try to explain it to him with the same result.

Fortunately the test was easy enough that most people were able to figure it out, but for some getting 96% right was virtually impossible. For me it was the whole principle of the thing.”

– Carl E. Zimmerman

3. Perhaps, it’s time to contact the wizards and hobbits.

“It was 10th and 11th Grade English. I had a teacher who was… unconventional. She was simultaneously loved and hated for her antics, wildly inappropriate stories, and oddness.

Unlike most English teachers, In terms of grading, she despised written exams; I remember once she had us do a 2-day written exam about a collection of stories we read, and the next week she came back and said, “Everyone gets an A because my neck hurts from reading all these papers.”

So she mostly stuck to the old multiple choice for her tests. Until she got this ‘fun’ idea.

Both years it was the same deal: the school curriculum said she had to teach us The Great Gatsby and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, so she’d start the year off having us read various classic books and plays. But here’s the thing: she wasn’t a huge fan of the curriculum. So invariably, halfway through the year (oftentimes in the midst of reading some required book) she’d decide to throw the curriculum out the window and have us read (then watch) J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and watch Lord of the Rings. And just as she threw out the curriculum, so too did she throw out conventional exams.”

– Austin R. Justice

4. At least she was straight up about it.

“I went to an alternative school where your homework for the semester was to write two-page essays on five or six topics.

After you finished your essays, you would take an essay exam that was based on whatever you wrote in your essays. Your grade in the class was entirely determined by that exam.

If you got less than a 90 on the exam, you were allowed to retake it (up to three times). If you got less than a 70 on the exam, you were forced to retake it.

Your exam grade was based on the number of sentences you wrote. A ‘C’ student would write four sentences for each question, a ‘B’ student would write six sentences, and an ‘A’ student would write eight sentences. The teacher told us this in advance.

This was how the grading worked for every class (except math, where the exams were computation-based). For PE classes, we had to write an essay, and take an exam on, the history and rules of the sport.

Honestly, I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

– Jessica Su

5. Bet you’ve never heard of this before.

“My teacher in sixth grade ended the year with a project that had a big impact on our grade. She decided that instead of a normal grading scale, she would grade us on her own scale and tell us what the equivalent letter grade would be. In her scheme, 75 and above would receive an ‘A,’ 60 and above a ‘B,’ something like that.

The only problem was that she still put those number grades directly into the school’s standard grade book (where a 70-80 was a B), so a student who she said got an ‘A’ with 75 would get a B in their official grades!

When I pointed this out and explained the problem, her reply was, ‘Oh, so that’s why students who have done well on the project in previous years  have had their grades drop.’

I don’t know how many years she’d been using this system for, but hopefully it ended with us.”

– Tyler Buchman

6. It leaves us wondering….

“I had a professor in 1973 who had a strange grading system, but one that we all understood. He had a lecture class with hundreds of students, and he had TA’s (graduate student teaching assistants) who graded the exams.

Unfortunately, with essay tests, different TA’s graded slightly differently, so it was possible for two people to give substantially the same answer yet get slightly different scores.

The teacher, though, had a unique solution. If you came up with your friend’s test and showed him that you should have gotten five more points on one answer, he would mark your friend’s test down that five points.

Since he told all of us that was his solution on the first day, nobody complained.

I might add that his grades were generous on average. I was getting a ‘C’ in his class, but probably didn’t deserve it. He ended up giving me a ‘B’ because I demonstrated my knowledge of the subject in verbal conversations with him. I was just lousy at writing essay answers. Nowadays, I’d do better, but we couldn’t use computers back then.”

– Dave Williamson

7. Is this a part of the test?

“This happened with my brother when he was writing an exam.

Before he began, the teacher placed a book in front of everyone’s desk and said, ‘In this book are the answers to your test.’

My brother was flabbergasted. What was going on? He was GIVING away the answers to the test.

Now, my brother is incredibly smart. And has a sense of honor. The test had two possible solutions, one being detailed in the book.  He decided to use his wits, and solve the test the second way, instead of taking the easy route. He solved it successfully without the book.

Two weeks later, everyone got back their results. 60% for all students.

That was the teachers last month at that college. Maybe he wanted to be remembered for messing with his students one final time. Or saving them, for those who didn’t study.”

– Daniel Bauwens

8. I would like to meet this guy.

“I had a College level Theology class where our final examination was worth 95% of our grade and consisted of showing up and finger painting for an hour.

This occurred during my Freshman year at Southern Illinois University. The only class that properly fit into my schedule was a pan-religion theology course taught by a very eccentric hipster teaching assistant in his mid 20’s. He looked sort of like Hagrid from the Harry Potter novels.

This teaching assistant was not a fan of the ‘system,’ or ‘the man.’ In his class we learned such valuable things as conspiracy theories and the salary of our school administrators. If the weather was bearable we’d have class outside.

Anyhow, due to budget cuts the University was considering cutting quite a few majors and classes.”

There’s more….

“The pan-religious theology course was on the chopping block and my professor had a bone to pick with the administrators. He would attend all of their meetings and lobby in favor of the existence of the courses he taught. During one such meeting, apparently a school administrator said to our teacher’s face that the school needed to generate revenue and classes that taught ‘finger painting’ like his would be the first to go. Ouch.

I think our teacher sensed that his days at the University were numbered. However he still had our class and the course’s grading policy was entirely at his discretion. As a parting gesture of defiance he announced that our final would consist of a fun finger painting hour. We all showed up for the final, paints were passed out, and we took our examination. I painted a scenic picture of a sailboat in the ocean. For this I received three college credits and an A+ in pan-religious theology.”

Michael Jones

9. I’m going to duck you marks for that.

“In my freshman year, we had a single class that combined History with English, and had a teacher for each respective subject. They decided together that they would grade us with ducks.

Allow me to explain. They had a 4×4 chart where the leftmost top duck was the happiest and the rightmost bottom duck was the saddest. For every assignment, you received a different ‘duck grade.’

Though strange, this does seem fine in principle as you would think you could still tell around where your grade would be. However, it didn’t really work out that way…

Despite many people getting a majority of leftmost top ducks (including me), only one person in our 40 ish student class actually got an A first semester, so the system proved to be a bit misleading.

When I went in talk to the teachers, along with others in the same confusing situation, we all got the same response. They told us what to work on for next semester, and wouldn’t address the confusion. So, we all tried to do better second semester, and a few did, but the system still felt unjustified to many in my class.

I hope they don’t still do this. Many in my class thought they did this on the basis of favoritism or something discriminatory, though I just think it was a flawed system. If we must have grades, they should just be the straight forward traditional kind that keep everyone satisfied, at least to know the truth.”

– Murphy Rodriguez

10. The perks of studying mineralogy .

“I had a mineralogy professor at Michigan Technological University in 2000 who was a character. He was a grizzled-looking guy in his sixties, bald-headed and with an unkempt gray beard. He was a smart man and a nice guy, but a difficult teacher.

Anyway, I was doing ok in the class. Not great, but alright. I had an 83%. Almost a B, probably a BC under Michigan Tech’s weird grading scale (a BC being half way between B and a C, like a combined B-/C+). There were students from two very different departments in the same class, each comprising around 50% of the class. Half were geologists, of which I was one. The other half were mining engineers.

No one had an easy time in the class, but the mining engineers really struggled badly. As the professor explained at the end of the semester, he was faced with a grading dilemma.

‘All of the geology students have grades between 96% and 83%. All of the mining engineers have grades between 60% and 18%, with a mean around 32%. If I leave the grade scale as it stands now, all of the geologists will pass and every last mining engineer will fail.”

That’s not where it ends….

“My professor went on: ‘I can’t just fail an entire department, though. If I slide the grading curve down the scale to pass most of the mining engineers, then every geology student will get an A and that will raise alarms with the school. Instead, the only fair thing I can think of is to expand the bell curve.

And that’s what he did. An A was 100–96%, an AB was 95–92%, a B was 91–88%, a BC was 87–84%, a C was 83–28%, a CD was 28 to zilch.

I got the short end of the stick. Not only was my grade lowered from a BC or maybe even a B down to a C, but I ended up with the same grade as people who had originally earned a fraction of mine. In what world does a person with an 83% get the same grade as someone with a 28% in a class? Well, in mineralogy at Michigan Tech in Fall of 2000. Kind of a poor incentive for hard work.

I didn’t complain in an official capacity because the professor has the right to choose a grading scale for his/her class and, by his chosen scale, I got the grade I deserved. Hasn’t stopped me from complaining about it almost two decades later, though!”

– Craig McClarren

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[lookingformyron]

little restaurant in town

he was just 10 yo when life handed him a little more than any 10yo could handle. loved and cherished by his parents, he was the treasure in their eyes. being the only child, ron was a quiet and timid boy. He was okay with being alone, but he also get along with the other kids. although he’s only 10, he’s got more kindness and genorisity than any human could possiply posses their whole life. 

His parents owns a successful noodle restaurant, they live a pretty comfortable life. Thanks to his mom’s recipe the restaurant picked up the moment it started after his birth. Ron was always around his mom in the kitchen, helping her mixing the the flour for their noodles. Or at least to him, he was helping out. But to his mom, he was a hazard waiting to happen. She love his company regardless. His father takes care of the business aspect of the restaurant and deals with customers. Ron was more like his mom, preferred to be alone most times. 

His happiness didn’t last too long, after his 10th birthday, was the last that he was able to celebrate with his parents. One busy lunch time at the restaurant a customer was complaining about his food and services. Ron remember hearing arguments and screaming in the back, he was scared so he stayed pretty close to his mom. the fight lasted for about 20mins and then the whole restaurant fell into a complete silence. Next thing he remembered was the cops coming and took his father away. His father has hurt a man out of rage. He was at fault b/c he was the first one to struck the man. The judge ruled in the man’s favor. Ron was told he could no longer see his dad until he turns 18. He knew then, his dad must have really hurt that man. he was mad at his dad. why couldn’t his dad just control himself, then non of this would have happened. it was all his father’s fault that his mom grew frail by the days. They sold the restaurant to help with his father’s legal fees. His mom has to run north and south to take care of everything. His mom would have given up her life to help his dad. Regardless of what happened, one thing that will never change is their love for ea. other. Even at just 10yo, ron could see that every clearly. he was once jealous that his parents might love ea. other more than they love him, but his mom assure him that was not the case. It doesn’t matter anymore, his mom can’t see his dad anymore. and she was sad. 

a year or so after his father was taken away, his mom was re-hired by their restaurant to be their cook. W/o his mom’s recipe the business was not doing well, ppl were their for his mom’s bowl of noodles. It was something she would never sale, she wanted to give it to her future daughter in law. However the new owner was ruthless business ppl that treated their employees more like slaves then anything else. his mom was working 12+ hrs a day, with barely enough pay to keep the rent. She grew weaker and weaker day after day. There wasnt much laughter in the house anymore. just two ppl trying their best to survive. a few days before ron’s 11th birthday, his mom sat him down to have the hardest talk of their life. 

She can see that he’s was on the verge of being malnourish. Her son was not like other healthy kids. Ron was always tired and sleepy w/little to no energy to do anything. And she could not afford to send him to school anymore.... She got on her knees and started crying in front of him. She had to give him up so that he could have a better life. she was not capable of taking care of him anymore. She said once he get to the orphanage, there might be better suited parents that might want to adopt him. And he should go with them for a better life. Ron didn’t say anything. He didn’t cry. He did what he was told. he felt like he was a uneccessary baggage that his mom has to carry. it would be easier for her if he wasn’t around. And so he quietly started his new life at the orphanage. 

he celebrated his 11th birthday with a bunch of kids he didnt know. Ron isolated himself now more than ever. Ron was a small orphanage on the outskirt of town. The place was run by sister Kesson, she was a kind nun but with a stern personality. rules are rules and are not ment to be broken. That didn’t bother Ron all that much, he doesn’t do much anyways. He just did as he was told. 

2 years later, Ron is now the oldest kid at the orphanage. Kids comes and goes through the orphanage, but he stayed. There were a few nice couples that wanted to adopt him, but he didn’t wanna go with them. He wasn’t really waiting for his mom to come back either, he didn’t want to be a baggage to her or anyone else. He thought his parents would just toss him away once things gets hard, b/c he was disposable. Plus the orphanage needed him. Sister Kesson was already in her late 60s and she was running the place by herself. She didn’t complain much, or ask for anyone’s help. In a way, they were pretty similar. He liked that he feels peaceful around her but most importantly he felt needed. Ron helps take care of the younger ones, he became way too mature for his age, and he was okay with that. Ron was the older brother to everyone at the orphanage, he was the handy man when things goes broken, and he was the a shoulder everyone could lean on. 

After ron turned 16 he is now old enough to get a part time job. He wanted to go into town, he wanted to see how his mom is doing. But only from afar. What if she doesn’t want to see him, but would she recognize him? maybe he can just be in the background watching her. That would be enough for him. But he also need money to help sister Kesson, the orphanage relies heavily on donation but for the past couple of years it wasn’t sustainable. More ppl are donating to the bigger orphanage so that they could be reconized by the media as humanitarium. The media doens’t really go into the outskirt of town to cover any stories. Sister Kesson agrees to let him get a part time job, as long as his grades doesn’t suffer. 

Ron took the bus and went straight to his parents restaurant. He sat down for a bowl of noodles. His mom still works here... holding back his tears, Ron finished his bowl of noodles, he wanted so badly to see her. But what justification does he have to visit her? Ron doesn’t want to make his mom cry like she did years ago. he decided to start his job hunting... As he was walking out the doors, a flyer caught his eyes. they’re hiring. he applied. 

Ron started working the next day. The pay is minimum wage, there’s regulation now, the owner can’t risk being looked into by the IRS. It only took but 5mins at his new job, to see his mom again. She’s aged, but still as beautiful as ever. he debated if he should walk up to her or not. NO. he already decided to keep his distance. She was focus on her task, not once did she took her eyes off what she was doing. That works out. 

Its been two months, and she didn’t hasn’t notice her son, who comes in and out of the kitchen to bring food out.. It was around 10pm one night, and she was on her way out heading home when the owner asked if she can take the trash out with her before she leaves and lock up. Ron was in the restroom, when he headed out the whole place was dark. They must have thought everyone was gone. He headed to the back door to leave, and saw that his mom as struggling to pull the big bag of trash that was almost her size. Without hesitation, ron reached for the bag to help her. their eyes meet. Instantly her eyes were filled with tears. Hot burning tears. 

He’s failed. Once again, he mad his mom cry. 

‘im sorry’ -he said. 

His mom was confused. What does he have to be sorry for? she was the one abandoning him! 

‘im not here to be a burden. Its just a part time job. But if you dont want to see me, i can quit’ 

A burden?! has he been thinking this all these years? thats whys he left him at the orphanage? more tears roll down her cheeks. and she fell to the ground. her body numbed. her poor son. her ron. all these years he quietly stayed at the orphanage b/c he didn’t want to be her burden. 

‘my son, you are not a burden to him. you never were. i dont think i could have go on w/o knowing that one day we will be reunited. I wasn’t financially capable of taking care of you. And rather than having the states take you away from me, i wanted to put you with Sister Kesson, at least then when i come back for you, even if you are adopted she could tell me which nice couple became your parents. At least then i could find you. you are NOT my burden. you’re the best thing that happened to me and your father.’ 

Hot tears starts to roll down his cheeks now. 

‘then why didn’t you ask me to wait for you to come back. you wanted me to go with other ppl and be their kids. you didn’t want to be my mother anymore. and didn’t want anything to do with me!’ 

as those words come out his mouth, all the years of resentment and sadness could be heard behind those words. no mater now mature and understanding ron is. He was scarred, and its going to take a long time for him forgive his mom. he was mad. and he needed someone to take the anger out on. His mom could see that. she nodded. 

‘yes, be mad at me. as long as you’re healthy. Im okay with it. will you catch me up with your life? we haven’t seen each other for six years.’ 

‘no. do you still want me to quit? if i make you uncomforable 

-work with mom. she’ll get sick. and dies. 

-becomes sucessful, fund the orphanage, buy the resturant, run both places. 

-real interests in writing, and it looks like to can leave the business to his friend (childhood friend at the orphange) to travel and write

-reunite with father. who comes by the resturant to see how its doing. did some reaseach on his son. and understand the story

-business and everything was looking good. but the orphanage was being threaten to be demolish. sister kessson is stressing out and dont know what to do. turns out the land belongs to the gov. which  was sold under the table for some politician personal gain. 

-to save the orphanage ron has to give up his parents restaurant. and join corporate

[junker-town]

Oklahoma football expectations remain as high as ever, with Lincoln Riley in charge

Bob Stoops’ Sooners had a habit of surprising. What will Lincoln Riley’s Sooners have in store?

Note: This is an updated version of a preview that was posted in May, two weeks before Stoops’ unexpected retirement.

Bob Stoops created quite a legacy by zigging when people thought he was going to zag. That continued right on through his surprising June 2017 retirement.

For most of the 2000s, the now-former OU head coach had the program most likely to hit expectations. Stoops’ Sooners were ranked between first and third in the preseason AP poll each year from 2001-04 and finished in the top six each season. After a blip in 2005 (preseason No. 7, finished No. 22), they grew even more accurate: they started 10th and ended 11th in 2006, started eighth and finished eighth in 2007, and started fourth and ended fifth in 2008.

The second stage of Stoops’ career began in 2009 following OU’s title game loss to Florida. It was successful but far more rocky.

In the last eight seasons, OU won at least 10 games six times, won four Big 12 titles, and finished sixth or better in the AP poll four times. We all wish we could have such up-and-down fortunes. But getting a bead on what OU was about to do became impossible. They began 2009 third in the preseason polls and went 8-5. They began 2014 fourth and finished unranked. They began 2015 19th and ended up the No. 4 seed in the College Football Playoff.

By comparison, 2016 was downright stable — they started third and finished fifth, only the second time in eight years that they finished within nine spots of where they began. But 2017 has already seen a massive curve ball. Stoops suddenly announced his retirement on June 7, with 33-year old offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley named as his replacement.

No matter the head man, OU will begin with expectations. The Sooners are projected fifth in S&P+ and likely would have begun the season somewhere around sixth before the coaching change. Stoops made them the surest thing in the Big 12 and retired having won his final 16 conference games. What changes now?

OU already had to replace three of its most talented skill guys of the Stoops era — running backs Joe Mixon and Semaje Perine and receiver Dede Westbrook — and is maybe coming off of its worst Stoops-era defensive performance.

Baker Mayfield’s presence will help. A two-year starter and one of the two preseason Heisman favorites, Mayfield could almost serve as offensive coordinator at this point. The Sooners will also have the best, most experienced offensive line in the conference. They have the defensive experience that they somewhat lacked last season. Even with turnover in the skill corps, they will probably remain an overwhelming favorite to win a third consecutive conference title.

But for all Stoops can talk about a seamless transition, there’s no such thing here. The last time someone not named Stoops led the Sooners onto the field was November 1998, when Riley was 15 years old.

From a projections standpoint, S&P+ expects six of the other nine teams in the Big 12 to improve this coming fall. Texas has a chance to surge into the top 15, Oklahoma State into the top 10. An experienced TCU could look a lot more like its 2014 self. Baylor is capable of any number of things, good or bad. Kansas State is experienced in all the ways a Bill Snyder team needs to be.

(Snyder, by the way, has outlasted another former protege.)

OU likely remains the 2017 Big 12 favorite, but to say the least, Riley’s first season features plenty of hurdles.

2016 in review

2016 OU statistical profile.

A conference title is not to be taken for granted, but when you’re coming off of a national semifinal appearance, and you’re expected to contend for another Playoff bid, beginning the season with two losses in three games is crippling. OU was not up for the challenge of either Houston or Ohio State.

But there’s still something to be said for dominating when the pressure is off.

First 3 games (1-2): Avg. percentile performance: 70% (~top 40) | Avg. yards per play: OU 6.9, Opp 5.6 (plus-1.3) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: minus-14.2 PPG

Last 10 games (10-0): Avg. percentile performance: 87% (~top 15) | Avg. yards per play: OU 7.7, Opp 5.9 (plus-1.8) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: plus-8.1 PPG

The Sooners weren’t awful early. They held Houston to just 5.1 yards per play and lost mostly because of field position and special teams. And against Ohio State, they moved the ball well (5.9 yards per play, 403 total yards) but fell victim to the best half of Buckeye receiver Noah Brown’s career and were forced to play catch-up against an Urban Meyer team.

The Big 12 might not have been amazing — per both S&P+ and your own eyeballs, it graded out as the worst power conference — but they still beat seven top-50 teams by an average of 16.4 points following the Ohio State loss. They still closed out a conference title by beating 10-win WVU and Oklahoma State teams by a combined 94-48. They still looked like the team they were supposed to be once Ohio State left Norman.

Well, it wasn’t quite the team they were supposed to be. The offense was even better than expected (first in Off. S&P+), and the offense was truly disappointing, at least for the first half of the year.

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

Safe to say, Stoops got his money’s worth bringing Riley to town. The former Texas Tech quarterback and East Carolina coordinator was tasked with reviving an OU attack that had lost its way two years ago. The Sooners had plummeted to 44th in Off. S&P+ in 2013 (a downfall from which we were distracted when they torched the Bama defense), and while they rebounded to 17th in 2014, they still weren’t back to the top-10 level that they managed in 2007-08 and 2010-12.

Riley has established a partnership with another former Tech QB — Mayfield — that has benefited both greatly. Mayfield has twice finished in the top four of the Heisman voting, and, well, Riley now gets to occupy the big office in the OU facilities.

In two years with Riley, Mayfield has thrown for 7,665 yards, 76 touchdowns, and only 15 interceptions. OU improved to seventh in Off. S&P+ in 2015, and with the further emergence of Mixon and Westbrook, surged all the way to first last fall. They averaged at least 7.4 yards per play in eight of 13 games and gained a patently absurd 854 yards in 76 snaps against Texas Tech.

(Yes, Tech’s defense was upsettingly bad. But 11.2 yards per play would have been impressive against Lubbock High School.)

Even in an offense-friendly conference, OU was the gold standard.

So now what? Mayfield is back for his senior season, which means we’ll have to wait to see what blue-chip Texas A&M transfer Kyler Murray might do in crimson and cream. But in Perine, Mixon, and Westbrook, OU has to replace 2,435 combined rushing yards and 2,168 receiving yards.

The new de facto production leader is tight end Mark Andrews, who caught 31 balls for 489 yards as a complement to Westbrook. The second leading receiver is walk-on slot man Nick Basquine. The leading running back is Abdul Adams, who gained most of his 283 yards in garbage time against ULM and Kansas.

Translation: OU needs a lot of new pieces to step up.

Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

Rodney Anderson

Running backs: Sophomore running back Rodney Anderson is a former four-star and had a lovely spring. If he can stay healthy — he hasn’t yet been able to in Norman — then he and Adams could form a solid combination.

Veteran receivers: Seniors Jeffery Mead and Jordan Smallwood and juniors A.D. Miller and Dahu Green combined to catch 30 of 54 passes for 436 yards and five scores in 2016 [update: Green has since left the team]. Mead was particularly interesting, combining 15 yards per catch with a 56 percent success rate. He also made eight of his 10 catches in the last five games, including a 42-yarder against OSU and scores against Iowa State and WVU. He scored on a 70-yard bomb in the spring game, too.

Transfers: Jeff Badet caught 82 balls for 1,385 yards in three seasons at Kentucky and averaged 20.9 yards per catch as a play-action threat last fall. Meanwhile, Marquise Brown is a bouncy four-star JUCO transfer whose stature — he’s listed at 5’11, 157, and word is that might be overstating things a bit — is a reminder of former transfer-turned-star Jalen Saunders.

Newbies: Stoops signed three four-star freshmen in the receiving corps: receivers CeeDee Lamb and Charleston Rambo and tight end Grant Calcaterra. One will need to fill at least a backup role.

In the absence of knowns, you want options. And despite the turnover, a backfield of Anderson/Adams and Mayfield, combined with a receiving corps of Andrews, Badet/Brown, Mead/Miller/Smallwood/Green, and Lamb/Rambo will be just fine. Not first-in-Off.-S&P+ level fine, but good enough.

Plus, to say the least, the presence of Big 12 lineman of the year Orlando Brown, plus four other honorable mention all-conference guys, is a boost. Mayfield will be well-protected, and the RB of choice should have his choice of holes.

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Jeff Badet

Defense

Stoops proved willing to make bold changes in the name of keeping his program fresh. Those can work beautifully; he did dismiss a solid coordinator in Josh Heupel to nab Riley.

Other times, though, the results were less brilliant. He parted ways with longtime coordinator Brent Venables following a run of three straight top-10 finishes in Def. S&P+ (fourth in 2009, seventh in 2010, 10th in 2011), allowing Venables to move to Clemson and bringing his brother Mike back to town. There was talk of a stale marriage and whatnot, but the results under Venables had been stellar.

The OU defense has been mostly fine since then — between 19th and 33rd each year — but it hasn’t been elite. And in the first half of 2016, with Clemson playing at a top-6 level for a third straight year, the Sooner D was downright mediocre.

First 7 games: Avg. defensive percentile performance: 48% (~top 65) | Avg. points per game: 36.7

Last 6 games: Avg. defensive percentile performance: 72% (~top 35) | Avg. points per game: 19.7

After the ultimate come-to-Jesus moment — allowing 59 points and 854 yards to Texas Tech — the Sooners rallied. The WVU game (in which the Mountaineers averaged 8.9 yards per play and Justin Crawford rushed for 331 yards) was a reminder that there were still plenty of ongoing issues. But OU’s defense still allowed fewer than three touchdowns per game over the last six games of the year. In that conference, that’s more than good enough.

Assuming no defensive coordinator change in the near future, can the Sooners not only maintain last year’s improvement but build off of it? I think so.

Moving back more of a 4-3 base seems to fit the personnel well — new Jack end/linebacker Ogbonnia Okoronkwo is custom made for a flex position, and while Neville Gallimore is big enough to play the nose on a three-man line, he’s agile enough to do damage in gaps. The rest of the line has enough options (experienced guys like D.J. Ward and Matt Romar, high-upside youngsters like Du’Vonta Lampkin and Mark Jackson Jr.) that finding a solid starting four is likely.

Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

Ogbonnia Okoronkwo (31)

Meanwhile, the back of the defense should be far more stable. Injury and attrition meant that Stoops and Stoops were spending most of the year trying to find a decent rotation. That, plus the loss of a couple of key attackers up front, resulted in a change from 27 takeaways in 2015 to 17 in 2016. You think nearly one turnover per game might make a difference in your defensive effectiveness?

While free safety Ahmad Thomas is gone, seniors Steven Parker (strong safety), Will Johnson (nickel or free safety), and Jordan Thomas (cornerback) are all back after combining for 7.5 tackles for loss and 28 passes defensed.

Sophomore OLB Caleb Kelly is both less green and flexible enough to play some nickel back if need be. And a few of OU’s most well-regarded incoming freshmen — OLB Levi Draper, corner Justin Broiles, safety Robert Barnes — could find both opportunity and success.

Still, since Venables left town, OU’s defense has ranked above its offense in S&P+ just once and hasn’t ranked better than 19th. A No. 19 defense would allow the Sooners to run away with the Big 12 this year, but that’s the bare minimum for what’s required if we’re to treat the Sooners as a national title contender. It’s also 36 spots higher than what they managed last year. Expecting a defense that good takes more than a little faith.

John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

Jordan Thomas

Special Teams

Dede Westbrook ripped off a 71-yard punt return against Kansas. OU’s other 11 punt returns gained a total of 51 yards. Mixon had a 97-yard kick return, and Westbrook had a 63-yarder; the Sooners’ other 33 KRs averaged 19.8 yards. Austin Seibert didn’t make a single field goal over 39 yards.

Despite excellent, unreturnable punting from Seibert, this was an inconsistent, unreliable special teams unit, one that ranked 54th in Special Teams S&P+. That’s not awful, but it could be better. We’ll see if there’s a steadier return threat in the mix this year—consistent 30-yard KRs or 15-yard PRs is better for you than a single great return.

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 2-Sep UTEP 126 42.1 99% 9-Sep at Ohio State 2 -5.7 37% 16-Sep Tulane 94 33.4 97% 23-Sep at Baylor 28 11.3 74% 7-Oct Iowa State 57 21.9 90% 14-Oct vs. Texas 16 8.1 68% 21-Oct at Kansas State 35 12.9 77% 28-Oct Texas Tech 66 23.1 91% 4-Nov at Oklahoma State 22 7.6 67% 11-Nov TCU 21 12.4 76% 18-Nov at Kansas 107 31.5 97% 25-Nov West Virginia 69 24.7 92%

Projected S&P+ Rk 5 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 1 / 39 Projected wins 9.7 Five-Year S&P+ Rk 16.9 (6) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 11 / 14 2016 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* 0 / 3.4 2016 TO Luck/Game -1.3 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 67% (60%, 73%) 2016 Second-order wins (difference) 10.8 (0.2)

Coaching change or no, when you’ve won 16 conference games in a row and gone 22-4 in two years, you get some benefit of the doubt. OU will likely remain the conference favorite, and justifiably so.

It’s easy to see how things could go awry, though, for a team that is breaking in a new head coach but living with the expectations of the last one. We don’t know that the defense will improve much, and we don’t know that the skill guys around Mayfield will be anything better than replacement-level.

Mayfield, the offensive line, the experienced secondary and linebacking corps, and the fact that OU has recruited better than anybody else in the conference tells you why OU should still be strong. But with a schedule that features early trips to Ohio State and Baylor and later trips to Kansas State and Oklahoma State, it’s not that hard to see the Sooners tripping up and falling out of not only national title contention, but Big 12 contention as well.

And here we thought Mayfield getting tackled by a cop was going to be the biggest offseason distraction in Norman...

Team preview stats

All power conference preview data to date.

[z-corner]

HITTING THE TARGET -- By Zack Elkhaldy (Photo: Sam Forencich/Getty Images)

This past November was my first time visiting Portland, OR.  Just a really beautiful city with a community that is jointed by three things: breweries, healthy diets and Trailblazers basketball.

It was so strange to see such an alternative city support their professional sports teams (they are also huge fans of the MLS team, the Portland Timbers), but all throughout the city, people alike were wearing a player t-shirt with the red or white number zero on the back, as if they were all moving targets.   The last name above the number read "Lillard", as in the All-Star point guard Damian Lillard.

**************************

The 2013 Coach of the Year and now retired NBA coach, George Karl, wrote a book, releasing on January 10th, "Furious George: My Forty Years Surviving NBA Divas, Clueless GMs, and Poor Shot Selection".  Karl did an interview with New York Magazine in late December to publicize his book. 

One of the quotes in the interview was about the head coach of the Trailblazers, Terry Stotts, and the Portland's beloved Lillard.

"I was watching the Portland Trailblazers play, and I was trying to figure out, 'What the hell is wrong with this team?'" Karl said, "My conclusion is that Damian Lillard is getting too much attention.  Who controls the team? The coach and the point guard. And that team is not working. I think their coach, Terry Stotts, is a great coach. So I’m going to say the problem is Lillard."

Ok... Fair assumption from a guy that has been in the league for forty years, right?

Karl has dealt with some selfish, bad tempered players, both on and off the court - Shawn Kemp, Carmelo Anthony and DeMarcus Cousins to name a few.

But with the case of Lillard... Maybe Karl's just jaded as hell.

"I owe a lot to George. I got my start in coaching with George. I wouldn't be here if not for him," Stotts said, in response to Karl’s comments. "But when it comes to my team and my players, he needs to stay in his own lane.

"He doesn't know Damian Lillard. He doesn't know how coachable he is. He doesn't know what a great teammate he is. He doesn't know how much Damian cares about winning and how important he is to this franchise. I thought his comments, however well intended they may have been—which I can't understand—I can't tolerate."

Lillard is in his fifth year, and is averaging 26.8 points and 6.3 assists a game this season.  Aside from Lillard, the only other star player the Blazers have is shooting guard C.J. McCollum, who's averaging 23.3 ppg. 

Other than that, Portland has been lacking in their frontcourt since the departure of forward LaMarcus Alridge two offseasons ago.  While the original one-two punch for the Blazers was an old-school method of having a stellar guard and a solid big man, McCollum has stepped up in Alridge's absence to create one of the most intimidating backcourts in the entire league. 

Last year, the Blazers didn't miss a beat, as they had a 44-38 record and were ousted in the second round of the playoffs by the defending NBA champions, the Golden State Warriors.  Ultimately, if the team had Alridge, they would've suffered the same fate with maybe a few more wins in the regular season.

This year, the formula is not working.  The Blazers are teetering out of the playoffs with a below .500 record, 16-22.

And it's not because of Lillard, who's 11th in the league in offensive real plus-minus stat at 4.50 through 33 games.  Nor is it Stotts, who would have won Coach of the Year in 2016, had it not been for Golden State's record breaking 73 win season. 

The problem stems from the unavoidable void of their frontcourt.  The Blazers’ most notable forwards (Maurice Harkless, Al-Farouq Aminu, Ed Davis) and centers (Miles Plumlee and Meyers Leonard), based on the heavy minutes they are out on the floor, are the true kryptonite.

Plumlee is leading the team in rebounds with 7.6 a game, followed by Aminu at 6.4 rpg.  That’s not exactly impressive for two guys who are each averaging 27 minutes a game. 

Not to mention that aside from Leonard, the rest of the frontcourt are terrible free throw shooters.  Harkless is 69% from the charity stripe this season, Davis is 66%, Aminu is 60%, and Plumlee is at a shaky 54%.  As we remember from school, anything that’s 60% is a ‘D’, and that’s not a passing grade.

The Blazers are also 28th in the league for points allowed, by surrendering 111.2 a game, which is the whole team’s problem.  However, if the frontcourt cannot rebound, shoot free throws, or even defend, then that should have stuck out to a basketball mind like Karl. 

Now granted, it looks as if whoever gets the eighth seed in the Western Conference will have a below .500 record.  And currently, it’s a race between the current eighth seed Blazers, and the last two teams Karl had coached, the 15-21 Sacramento Kings and the 14-22 Denver Nuggets.

But, as long as Lillard stays healthy, then the Blazers can realign their expectations of the season and just make it to the playoffs.  Then look to improve their frontcourt woes in the offseason, or consider sticking to their guns and hoping that the frontcourt players will all mature (the average age between the five core players is 25 years old).

Everyone but Karl can see it though; it’s not Lillard’s fault.  And even though he may have a giant target on the back of his jersey, there are so many coaches, players and fans that would come to defend Lillard.  It takes a certain level of respect to be that kind of leader.

[junker-town]

Bob Stoops’ retirement was a surprise, but expectations remain as high as ever for Oklahoma

Stoops’ Sooners had a habit of surprising. What will Lincoln Riley’s Sooners have in store?

Note: This is an updated version of a preview that was posted in May, two weeks before Stoops’ unexpected retirement.

Bob Stoops created quite a legacy by zigging when people thought he was going to zag. That continued right on through his surprising June 2017 retirement.

For most of the 2000s, the now-former OU head coach had the program most likely to hit expectations. Stoops’ Sooners were ranked between first and third in the preseason AP poll each year from 2001-04 and finished in the top six each season. After a blip in 2005 (preseason No. 7, finished No. 22), they grew even more accurate: they started 10th and ended 11th in 2006, started eighth and finished eighth in 2007, and started fourth and ended fifth in 2008.

The second stage of Stoops’ career began in 2009 following OU’s title game loss to Florida. It was successful but far more rocky.

In the last eight seasons, OU won at least 10 games six times, won four Big 12 titles, and finished sixth or better in the AP poll four times. We all wish we could have such up-and-down fortunes. But getting a bead on what OU was about to do became impossible. They began 2009 third in the preseason polls and went 8-5. They began 2014 fourth and finished unranked. They began 2015 19th and ended up the No. 4 seed in the College Football Playoff.

By comparison, 2016 was downright stable — they started third and finished fifth, only the second time in eight years that they finished within nine spots of where they began. But 2017 has already seen a massive curve ball. Stoops suddenly announced his retirement on June 7, with 33-year old offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley named as his replacement.

No matter the head man, OU will begin with expectations. The Sooners are projected fifth in S&P+ and likely would have begun the season somewhere around sixth before the coaching change. Stoops made them the surest thing in the Big 12 and retired having won his final 16 conference games. What changes now?

OU already had to replace three of its most talented skill guys of the Stoops era — running backs Joe Mixon and Semaje Perine and receiver Dede Westbrook — and is maybe coming off of its worst Stoops-era defensive performance.

Baker Mayfield’s presence will help. A two-year starter and one of the two preseason Heisman favorites, Mayfield could almost serve as offensive coordinator at this point. The Sooners will also have the best, most experienced offensive line in the conference. They have the defensive experience that they somewhat lacked last season. Even with turnover in the skill corps, they will probably remain an overwhelming favorite to win a third consecutive conference title.

But for all Stoops can talk about a seamless transition, there’s no such thing here. The last time someone not named Stoops led the Sooners onto the field was November 1998, when Riley was 15 years old.

From a projections standpoint, S&P+ expects six of the other nine teams in the Big 12 to improve this coming fall. Texas has a chance to surge into the top 15, Oklahoma State into the top 10. An experienced TCU could look a lot more like its 2014 self. Baylor is capable of any number of things, good or bad. Kansas State is experienced in all the ways a Bill Snyder team needs to be.

(Snyder, by the way, has outlasted another former protege.)

OU likely remains the 2017 Big 12 favorite, but to say the least, Riley’s first season features plenty of hurdles.

2016 in review

2016 OU statistical profile.

A conference title is not to be taken for granted, but when you’re coming off of a national semifinal appearance, and you’re expected to contend for another Playoff bid, beginning the season with two losses in three games is crippling. OU was not up for the challenge of either Houston or Ohio State.

But there’s still something to be said for dominating when the pressure is off.

First 3 games (1-2): Avg. percentile performance: 70% (~top 40) | Avg. yards per play: OU 6.9, Opp 5.6 (plus-1.3) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: minus-14.2 PPG

Last 10 games (10-0): Avg. percentile performance: 87% (~top 15) | Avg. yards per play: OU 7.7, Opp 5.9 (plus-1.8) | Avg. performance vs. S&P+ projection: plus-8.1 PPG

The Sooners weren’t awful early. They held Houston to just 5.1 yards per play and lost mostly because of field position and special teams. And against Ohio State, they moved the ball well (5.9 yards per play, 403 total yards) but fell victim to the best half of Buckeye receiver Noah Brown’s career and were forced to play catch-up against an Urban Meyer team.

The Big 12 might not have been amazing — per both S&P+ and your own eyeballs, it graded out as the worst power conference — but they still beat seven top-50 teams by an average of 16.4 points following the Ohio State loss. They still closed out a conference title by beating 10-win WVU and Oklahoma State teams by a combined 94-48. They still looked like the team they were supposed to be once Ohio State left Norman.

Well, it wasn’t quite the team they were supposed to be. The offense was even better than expected (first in Off. S&P+), and the offense was truly disappointing, at least for the first half of the year.

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

Safe to say, Stoops got his money’s worth bringing Riley to town. The former Texas Tech quarterback and East Carolina coordinator was tasked with reviving an OU attack that had lost its way two years ago. The Sooners had plummeted to 44th in Off. S&P+ in 2013 (a downfall from which we were distracted when they torched the Bama defense), and while they rebounded to 17th in 2014, they still weren’t back to the top-10 level that they managed in 2007-08 and 2010-12.

Riley has established a partnership with another former Tech QB — Mayfield — that has benefited both greatly. Mayfield has twice finished in the top four of the Heisman voting, and, well, Riley now gets to occupy the big office in the OU facilities.

In two years with Riley, Mayfield has thrown for 7,665 yards, 76 touchdowns, and only 15 interceptions. OU improved to seventh in Off. S&P+ in 2015, and with the further emergence of Mixon and Westbrook, surged all the way to first last fall. They averaged at least 7.4 yards per play in eight of 13 games and gained a patently absurd 854 yards in 76 snaps against Texas Tech.

(Yes, Tech’s defense was upsettingly bad. But 11.2 yards per play would have been impressive against Lubbock High School.)

Even in an offense-friendly conference, OU was the gold standard.

So now what? Mayfield is back for his senior season, which means we’ll have to wait to see what blue-chip Texas A&M transfer Kyler Murray might do in crimson and cream. But in Perine, Mixon, and Westbrook, OU has to replace 2,435 combined rushing yards and 2,168 receiving yards.

The new de facto production leader is tight end Mark Andrews, who caught 31 balls for 489 yards as a complement to Westbrook. The second leading receiver is walk-on slot man Nick Basquine. The leading running back is Abdul Adams, who gained most of his 283 yards in garbage time against ULM and Kansas.

Translation: OU needs a lot of new pieces to step up.

Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

Rodney Anderson

Running backs: Sophomore running back Rodney Anderson is a former four-star and had a lovely spring. If he can stay healthy — he hasn’t yet been able to in Norman — then he and Adams could form a solid combination.

Veteran receivers: Seniors Jeffery Mead and Jordan Smallwood and juniors A.D. Miller and Dahu Green combined to catch 30 of 54 passes for 436 yards and five scores in 2016. Mead was particularly interesting, combining 15 yards per catch with a 56 percent success rate. He also made eight of his 10 catches in the last five games, including a 42-yarder against OSU and scores against Iowa State and WVU. He scored on a 70-yard bomb in the spring game, too.

Transfers: Jeff Badet caught 82 balls for 1,385 yards in three seasons at Kentucky and averaged 20.9 yards per catch as a play-action threat last fall. Meanwhile, Marquise Brown is a bouncy four-star JUCO transfer whose stature — he’s listed at 5’11, 157, and word is that might be overstating things a bit — is a reminder of former transfer-turned-star Jalen Saunders.

Newbies: Stoops signed three four-star freshmen in the receiving corps: receivers CeeDee Lamb and Charleston Rambo and tight end Grant Calcaterra. One will need to fill at least a backup role.

In the absence of knowns, you want options. And despite the turnover, a backfield of Anderson/Adams and Mayfield, combined with a receiving corps of Andrews, Badet/Brown, Mead/Miller/Smallwood/Green, and Lamb/Rambo will be just fine. Not first-in-Off.-S&P+ level fine, but good enough.

Plus, to say the least, the presence of Big 12 lineman of the year Orlando Brown, plus four other honorable mention all-conference guys, is a boost. Mayfield will be well-protected, and the RB of choice should have his choice of holes.

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Jeff Badet

Defense

Stoops proved willing to make bold changes in the name of keeping his program fresh. Those can work beautifully; he did dismiss a solid coordinator in Josh Heupel to nab Riley.

Other times, though, the results were less brilliant. He parted ways with longtime coordinator Brent Venables following a run of three straight top-10 finishes in Def. S&P+ (fourth in 2009, seventh in 2010, 10th in 2011), allowing Venables to move to Clemson and bringing his brother Mike back to town. There was talk of a stale marriage and whatnot, but the results under Venables had been stellar.

The OU defense has been mostly fine since then — between 19th and 33rd each year — but it hasn’t been elite. And in the first half of 2016, with Clemson playing at a top-6 level for a third straight year, the Sooner D was downright mediocre.

First 7 games: Avg. defensive percentile performance: 48% (~top 65) | Avg. points per game: 36.7

Last 6 games: Avg. defensive percentile performance: 72% (~top 35) | Avg. points per game: 19.7

After the ultimate come-to-Jesus moment — allowing 59 points and 854 yards to Texas Tech — the Sooners rallied. The WVU game (in which the Mountaineers averaged 8.9 yards per play and Justin Crawford rushed for 331 yards) was a reminder that there were still plenty of ongoing issues. But OU’s defense still allowed fewer than three touchdowns per game over the last six games of the year. In that conference, that’s more than good enough.

Assuming no defensive coordinator change in the near future, can the Sooners not only maintain last year’s improvement but build off of it? I think so.

Moving back more of a 4-3 base seems to fit the personnel well — new Jack end/linebacker Ogbonnia Okoronkwo is custom made for a flex position, and while Neville Gallimore is big enough to play the nose on a three-man line, he’s agile enough to do damage in gaps. The rest of the line has enough options (experienced guys like D.J. Ward and Matt Romar, high-upside youngsters like Du’Vonta Lampkin and Mark Jackson Jr.) that finding a solid starting four is likely.

Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

Ogbonnia Okoronkwo (31)

Meanwhile, the back of the defense should be far more stable. Injury and attrition meant that Stoops and Stoops were spending most of the year trying to find a decent rotation. That, plus the loss of a couple of key attackers up front, resulted in a change from 27 takeaways in 2015 to 17 in 2016. You think nearly one turnover per game might make a difference in your defensive effectiveness?

While free safety Ahmad Thomas is gone, seniors Steven Parker (strong safety), Will Johnson (nickel or free safety), and Jordan Thomas (cornerback) are all back after combining for 7.5 tackles for loss and 28 passes defensed.

Sophomore OLB Caleb Kelly is both less green and flexible enough to play some nickel back if need be. And a few of OU’s most well-regarded incoming freshmen — OLB Levi Draper, corner Justin Broiles, safety Robert Barnes — could find both opportunity and success.

Still, since Venables left town, OU’s defense has ranked above its offense in S&P+ just once and hasn’t ranked better than 19th. A No. 19 defense would allow the Sooners to run away with the Big 12 this year, but that’s the bare minimum for what’s required if we’re to treat the Sooners as a national title contender. It’s also 36 spots higher than what they managed last year. Expecting a defense that good takes more than a little faith.

John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

Jordan Thomas

Special Teams

Dede Westbrook ripped off a 71-yard punt return against Kansas. OU’s other 11 punt returns gained a total of 51 yards. Mixon had a 97-yard kick return, and Westbrook had a 63-yarder; the Sooners’ other 33 KRs averaged 19.8 yards. Austin Seibert didn’t make a single field goal over 39 yards.

Despite excellent, unreturnable punting from Seibert, this was an inconsistent, unreliable special teams unit, one that ranked 54th in Special Teams S&P+. That’s not awful, but it could be better. We’ll see if there’s a steadier return threat in the mix this year—consistent 30-yard KRs or 15-yard PRs is better for you than a single great return.

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 2-Sep UTEP 126 42.1 99% 9-Sep at Ohio State 2 -5.7 37% 16-Sep Tulane 94 33.4 97% 23-Sep at Baylor 28 11.3 74% 7-Oct Iowa State 57 21.9 90% 14-Oct vs. Texas 16 8.1 68% 21-Oct at Kansas State 35 12.9 77% 28-Oct Texas Tech 66 23.1 91% 4-Nov at Oklahoma State 22 7.6 67% 11-Nov TCU 21 12.4 76% 18-Nov at Kansas 107 31.5 97% 25-Nov West Virginia 69 24.7 92%

Projected S&P+ Rk 5 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 1 / 39 Projected wins 9.7 Five-Year S&P+ Rk 16.9 (6) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 11 / 14 2016 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* 0 / 3.4 2016 TO Luck/Game -1.3 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 67% (60%, 73%) 2016 Second-order wins (difference) 10.8 (0.2)

Coaching change or no, when you’ve won 16 conference games in a row and gone 22-4 in two years, you get some benefit of the doubt. OU will likely remain the conference favorite, and justifiably so.

It’s easy to see how things could go awry, though, for a team that is breaking in a new head coach but living with the expectations of the last one. We don’t know that the defense will improve much, and we don’t know that the skill guys around Mayfield will be anything better than replacement-level.

Mayfield, the offensive line, the experienced secondary and linebacking corps, and the fact that OU has recruited better than anybody else in the conference tells you why OU should still be strong. But with a schedule that features early trips to Ohio State and Baylor and later trips to Kansas State and Oklahoma State, it’s not that hard to see the Sooners tripping up and falling out of not only national title contention, but Big 12 contention as well.

And here we thought Mayfield getting tackled by a cop was going to be the biggest offseason distraction in Norman...

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