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leennaan · 4 months

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Alessia Russo// Take on the world pt1

Warnings: fluff, mentions of anxiety, sickness-corona, it gets a bit angsty at the end, English isn’t my first language so there could be some grammar and spelling mistakes, it got pretty long so I hope you don’t mind

This story is based on the song „Take on the world“ by You me at six. The song gets a bigger role in the next part so if you haven’t heard it before go check it out🙃

The first time that you had met Alessia was in 2019 when you started your Freshman Year at UNC.

Alessia being a Junior and also Captain of the Tar Heels soon took you under her wing.

The two of you became inseparable in a really short time.

The team started to tease you endlessly but you didn’t mind it.

Lotte was the one that made you realize that you felt a bit more than just friendship for Alessia. She came to you after a really intense practice and basically told you to make a move already. And you did. After you ignored her for a week because you got to much into your own head.

Alessia noticed your absence and forced you to speak to her. It was the best thing that she could’ve done.

„Y/N what happend? Did I do something wrong?“ She had cornered you after the last training session of the week.

You just shook your head, painfully aware of how close she was.

„Just say the word. Whatever it is. I can see, see the pain in your eyes. I care for you. You know.“

„I’m sorry. I just… it just got all too much and than Lotte got me thinking… and you are my best friend I don’t want to lose you…“

„Hey hey breath. Look in my eyes, I will never desert you.“

And you did. Her blue eyes were filled with concern and something else. Something that was reflected in your own. She was just as scared as you.

In that moment you remembered something that your father had said to you when you were younger.

„You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.“

So your took your chance, be damned the consequences.

You leaned in and kissed her, slowly and with out much pressure, prepared for her stepping back or even pushing you away but she didn’t.

Alessia tensed for just a second before she realized what had happened.

She was the one to deepen the kiss, pulling you towards her.

The both of you couldn’t help the smile that broke out on your faces, that ultimately made you both stop the kiss.

„You have no idea how long I wanted to do that.“ Said the blonde when you looked at each other again.

She pulled you into a bone crushing hug. Oh how you loved Alessias hugs.

„If I didn’t make myself clear. I really really like you Lessi.“ You whispered in her ear still scared that she was somehow only messing with you.

„I really like you too. Y/n I would love for you to be my girlfriend, i care so much for you.“

Instead of giving her a verbal answer you just leaned in again and kissed her . This time the blonde striker kissed right back. It felt so right. It wasn’t your first kiss, but it felt so much better than any other kiss you had before.

Lotte would later tease the both of you that she was the reason the two of you had got together but she would shut up when the two of you started to kiss each other in front of her.

„Alright alright I stop, I don’t need to see the two of you shoving each other’s tongue down the other’s throat. O what have I done.“ Lotte shook her head disgusted but the smile on her face betrayed her. You could see how happy the defender was for you and her best friend.

Your first year at college was one of the best years of your life.

You felt like you were on cloud nine. Alessia and you were stronger than ever, wether it be on the field or off.

Alessia scored the goals, you gave the assists.

So when the new year came you were exited for what was coming.

2020 started as good as 2019 had ended. Alessia and you had both been called up for the senior team for the first time.

It was the highlight of your young career, something that you hade dreamed of since you were a little kid. But boy were you nervous and you weren’t the only one.

The day before you were meant to travel to base camp was spent with Alessia.

The whole day you could feel how nervous she was.

At lunch with your friends she zoned out every few minutes, her leg bouncing up and down until you laid your hand on her leg in silent support.

But that didn’t stop her from biting her lip.

You didn’t comment on it, just silently supporting her. You knew that she was in her own head and that it wouldn’t help her to draw attention to her fidgety nervous self.

You were glad when Alessia asked you to sleep at hers and Lottes because you knew she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep otherwise and also because it would help you too.

She pulled you close once the two of you had settled in bed, silently rubbing her hand up and down your back. It was not only helping her but you too. The both of you relaxing for the first time today.

“Silence the voices, that haunt you inside.” You whispered in the blondes ear and you couldn’t see her smile slightly. Glad that the both out you knew each other so well.

“You deserve to be called up, you deserve this place. You don’t have to be great, hell you don’t even have to be anything. It’s our first camp, they don’t have any expectations. Just show them what you are made of, what you train for every day. And most importantly just be you.”

You smiled proudly at Alessia and kissed her forehead.

When she looked up into your eyes she could only see trust and love.

The national camps went better than expected for you as well as for Alessia.

But shortly after the international break everything became a lot messier.

In early March you watched the news at one training, seeing how the whole world started to shut down.

You could see the uncertainty in a lot of your international teammates.

Lotte and Lessi also looking on in concern, especially when pictures from the hospitals in Italy were showed.

You could see the worry in Alessias eyes, so you pulled her into your arms, squeezing her tight.

The next evening you walked with Lotte to her dorm after class.

When Lotte opened her dorm room you saw Lessi sitting on her bed, talking on her phone, tears silently running down her cheeks.

You immediately walked over to her, pulling her into you and silently supporting her.

“Yeah mum, I… look into flights… I try to be home as soon as possible.”

She said and your heart sank.

Lotte had come over as well and had sat down on your Girlfriends bed.

Alessia ended the call and sunk into your arms.

“My Nonno got covid, he was admitted to the hospital yesterday but my Nonna said that they don’t have enough rooms anymore so he ha sto stay in the corridor.

My Mother is scared for him, the situation in Italy is escalating so quickly. She wants me home before we are not allowed to travel home anymore.” She said and you watched as more tears streamed down her face.

“My mother called me this morning. She wants me back home too.” Said Lotte and pulled her best friend into her own arms.

You remained quiet.

Of course you understood that Alessias and Lottes parents wanted them home. The virus was spreading quicker than anyone had anticipated.

But you couldn’t help but feel a bit selfish. You didn’t want them to go back to England, to leave you here in America, but most of all you were scared what that would mean for yours and Lessis relationship, but you loved her and you knew that it was the best for her to go back.

„I don’t want to leave. I know I am selfish and that it’s best to go home and be with my family but I don’t want to leave you.“ Alessia was close to tears again when she looked at you, her lip quivering.

„I know Baby, I don’t want you to leave either, but it is the right decision.“

You noticed that Lotte had slipped out of the room to give you some space and you were grateful.

You kissed her soft lips, trying to convey your own feelings, your love for her.

„Love, I think over the last few months was fortunate to get to know you and I would say that I sometimes know you better than you know yourself.“ You were glad when Less chuckled.

„Do you remember what you said to me that day, we got together? Look in my eyes, I will never desert you. I say the same to you now. I know it will not be easy, but you just need to say the word and we will take on the world together, okay?!“

The smile on Alessias face was all you needed for you to know that whatever may happen in the future the two of you would be alright. You knew that even around 6.500 kilometers wouldn’t destroy what Alessia and you had.

Still you were not prepared for the day were Alessia and Lotte actually left.

It was one week after that fateful evening. Lotte and Alessia had talked with your coaches and teachers and they weren’t the only international students that were leaving campus.

The Virus had only spread and even your own family became increasingly worried. So you too were thinking about leaving campus to go back to your family in New York.

With the pressure of international flights being canceled left and right, the English girls had booked the next possible flight. So with in 5 days they had packed their thinks and were now standing with you at the airport, luggage by there side.

All three of you had tears streaming down your faces. No one knew what the next few days, weeks or even months would bring.

„I will miss you guys! Just promise that whatever happens we stay in contact, okay?!“

Alessia was hugging you her face hidden in your hair, hands grabbing your shirt as if she could take you with her.

„I love you so much! No matter what ok? We will call and face time and we will back in no time.“ Your heart shattered hearing her broken voice. And you couldn’t help but just nod. You pulled Lotte into your hug, you would miss the brown haired defender almost as much as Alessia. She had become one of your closest friends over the last year.

„I am just one phone call away. No matter the time difference. Just call me whenever alright? You too Lotte! You don’t know how much the two of you mean to me.“

„You too Y/n. We will see each other soon.“

With one last hug you said goodbye to Lotte before pulling Lessi into you for one last time.

„I‘ll miss you so much!“ You whispered and kissed her hard. A promise of Love and forever.

„Remember, we will face the world together ok? We will be alright.“

Alessia was looking into your eyes with so much love that you could only smile before kissing her one last time.

With a heavy heart you watched as the two girls left for security. One last wave from the two and they were gone.

Gone for an unknown amount of time

—————

Pt 2 is already in the works so stay tuned 😀

#arsenal women fc #alessia russo #alessia russo imagine #alessia russo x reader #alessia russo x y/n #lotte wubben moy #unc tar heels #unc #woso x reader #woso #women’s football #uswnt

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huntunderironskies · 3 months

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A Call to Action

Hi all.

I wish I had better news to give. I thought long and hard about whether or not I should share this because I will be functionally doxxing myself when I do. But I've had several days to sleep on it and think about what to do. I've come to the conclusion that this is more important than me. This will be a long post but I urge you to read all of it. I'm afraid I have to be thorough here given the situation.

I think everyone who has been following me for more than a week knows how much I love religious studies as a field. It is my single greatest passion in life.

Unfortunately my school, UNC Greensboro, is trying to eliminate our department under claims of it being "not financially justifiable," among others (including anthropology and all Korean language classes.) These claims are highly spurious. Debunking this in full will take some time but I'll try to cover as much ground as I can in the relatively short space I am given and provide some sources. If anyone needs further elaboration, I'll report to the best of my abilities.

This is all to lead into the fact that I would like to provide some opportunities for people to help us out over here, which I will cover at the end. The shortest possible version is: please signal boost this. I do urge you to read it in full, though.

With the first introduction out of the way...

A Second But Very Brief Introduction to Religious Studies and a Justification of Its Presence in Academia (Given the Natural Bent of this Site is Sometimes Towards Antitheism)

Feel free to skip this if you have any familiarity with religious studies as a discipline, I'm putting it here because I find that it's often confounded with theology and every time I talk about it someone asks me if I'm going to be a priest (no.)

To be clear, religious studies is not theology. It does not purport the existence of any higher spiritual powers or presences. It is strictly the study of religion and spirituality as a force in human culture. This falls under both negative and positive effects, and covers everything from historical impact to individual psychology to macrosociological effects of religion to the simple understanding and study of mythology and folklore.

While internalized cultural norms are of course an issue that must be overcome by any scholar, for a religious studies scholar the Catholic Worker, the Sikh ragi, and the long-dead Sumerian ašipu should all have their beliefs and inner lives treated with the exact same sort of gravity and understanding, no matter how far their own beliefs might be from our own. It is, in my subjective opinion, the most humanizing of all the humanities because we are forced to operate on a deeply personal, vulnerable level.

I wish I didn't have to explain why these sorts of skills are important, especially given the current climate of intolerance that has been growing across the world and the growth of anti-intellectualism. I recognize that I might have to but I don't want to linger on that given everything else I have to cover in this post. Go ahead and ask as I do love talking about my field but I might take some time to answer.

A Brief Summary of Events Beforehand

My school has hired a firm known as rpk Group (lack of capitalization true to actual title) to restructure school funding financially with a focus on eliminating programs deemed to not earn enough for the school. Here is a brief explanation from the source itself. I apologize if the school website's CSS is still broken and it's difficult to read due to the social media icons being about thirty times the size they should be. Apparently they couldn't find the funding to pay a web designer instead of an expensive financing firm.

Those of you who have kept up with news in American academia may recognize this as the same group that forced cuts at West Virginia University. Please keep that in mind as we go forward.

Here are the high points:

Religious studies attained a passing grade under the rubric set out by the school. There have been active attempts to hide the scoring system from anyone but faculty. The spreadsheet in which the data was published has been password protected (source, which also contains several other refutations to the chancellor's talking points.)

For those who wish to keep score, anthropology did as well and our anthropology program is known for being quite good. This is without going into the other benefits the anthropology program provides the school with, which include such things as a community garden.

There were lower scoring programs that were kept. In other words, the decision-making process has been entirely inscrutable.

This is supported by the fact that the administration has been giving out incorrect numbers regarding program attendance to both news outlets and students, with some programs proposed to be cut having their student enrollment off by several factors.

Religious studies had over five times as many students as was originally reported. The Chinese language minor was reported to have zero students when there were thirty-six. To operate with this level of error from alleged professionals beggars belief and undermines any faith I would've had in this process.

The administration has claimed that they used the correct numbers in their rubrics. As they will not publish further data to myself nor the public, I have no evidence this is actually true.

They were going to cut Korean language as a minor. We don't have a Korean language minor. We do have a track of Korean language and I am given to understand as of this semester, culture courses. Which are operated solely by one professor and are consistently full or close to capacity due to popularity. There is no evidence they are losing the school money and I have several testimonials that the Korean culture-related programs have drawn students to UNCG as it is a unique niche the school gives not just over other UNC schools but over other colleges and universities.

Faculty and students were given information about what programs would be cut at precisely the same time, through an email sent schoolwide. Many students and faculty were in class at the time this was sent and had to proceed as if they weren't about to have their programs eliminated.

The administration alleges that current students will be able to finish their degrees. I have little faith this is the case for reasons that will take a while to get into but, to summarize as briefly as possible, completion of a degree here requires certain high-level classes that may be difficult to obtain with faculty cuts.

The chancellor alleges that Jewish Studies and Islamic Studies will not be affected by the elimination of religious studies, despite the fact that they are hosted under the department and Islamic Studies uses the same funding. As such, I believe that the highly technical and academic category used to refer to this sort of thing is "a blatant lie."

The administration has tried to quietly edit out any errors in original reporting. I am pleased to report that, as many of us intensely online people know, the Wayback Machine exists. Here is the original statistically incorrect press release that was given, which they have tried to bury.

While they have held forums, these have largely been ceremonial gestures rather than serious attempts at communication. At the one I went to, all non-administration speakers were given only two minutes to speak while the chancellor and dean were given as much time as possible to respond. Their responses to concerns were often dismissive and rarely addressed the necessary issues. I believe any person present will back me up on this, though I am not currently in possession of a voice recording.

I must operate within the evidence I am given. The best-faith interpretation of their actions is that the metrics they were using to determine what cuts should be made are incorrect and must be re-done before going through with any sort of program cuts, and that the administration's collaboration process with the group they employed is poor to nonexistent given the scattershot information provided. There is very, very clearly a communications breakdown somewhere along the line that raises this entire procedure into question.

I think it goes without saying it's all downhill from there. The level of arbitrariness with regards to cuts, lack of professionalism, and total lack of transparency would lead a reasonable person to believe there are heavy political motivations involved here and not simple brute facts. You are welcome to draw your own conclusions anywhere along this spectrum, of course. I encourage you to be skeptical.

Lastly, if I can't convince you that it's worth stopping this process to save religious studies, think about the anthropology department. Think about the languages that are getting cut. Think about physics or mathematics. A large-scale public university without a physics program is quite frankly unreal and the fact it's primarily humanities being targeted runs parallel with some sinister trends within American education. This process should, at the very least, be halted for time being.

What You (the Reader) Can Do

Firstly, be aware that we have until February 1st before decisions are finalized. I apologize for the short time limit. Myself and other members of the community were taken completely by surprise as well, and once again as I mentioned above it has caused some level of cynicism around the motivations of the administration.

With that out of the way...make noise about this. The school administration is making all efforts to keep this quiet. I can say the good news is that according to other people on the ground, they are beginning to lose control of their narrative that they are making difficult financial decisions to keep the school financially solvent.

Believe it or not, the farther removed you are, the better. If this hits a national scale then the school may be finally forced to acknowledge they are rapidly causing the otherwise prestigious UNC system, typically considered to be one of the best public university systems in the US, to be a national laughingstock and that they will lose money as their reputation declines in a way that they would not have if they'd simply carried out this process in a more reasonable way.

You can sign our petitions here and here. Easy enough, takes about three minutes, self-explanatory.

Finally, reach out to an academic or any passionate learner in a specialized field today. A lot of us feel understandably threatened and demoralized. Again, this is not just about me or even about my school. This is about trends within the American education system. Explaining the hows and whys in full detail is not within the scope of this post, but I think a reasonable person can conclude after looking at the current evidence that there is a dismantling of American schools in favor of a corporatized existence. For those of us who love knowledge and learning, this is incredibly sinister. Knowledge should not have a price tag put on it.

A Final Word

I and several other people have Chancellor Gilliam on record saying that he has dedicated his life to working at the collegiate level and towards students. While he and the administration have tried to ensure that their statements outside of highly controlled environments are not easily accessible, I should be able to provide a clip if needed given that this statement was livestreamed and North Carolina is a one-party-consent state in regards to recordings.

They have consistently characterized this process as having to make hard decisions to keep the university afloat. The chancellor is currently the highest-paid employee within UNCG itself and the fourth highest-paid member of administration within the UNC system as a whole (source.) Please be aware this does not include other benefits, which in 2022 put his salary above $500,000 (source.) As others have, I must ask why these "difficult decisions" within the school have not included a salary cut for himself if he is so dedicated to improving the lives of students.

Thank you for your time and consideration. If you've gotten this far, you've already listened more than anyone outside of the academic departments have and that means a lot to me in and of itself.

#religious studies #mythology #college #studyblr #college life #university #north carolina #theology #religion #unc #tagging in as much stuff as i can think of lol #anything is worth a shot at this point #academia

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