#also yesterday i got a 100% on an english test we had on this book 😍💅

[toonycatuwu]

Me: I should rlly finish my homework ngl

Also me: ok but hear me out... Garasu no Hanazono but Jalph...

[strayv3rse]

day six + seven a test and a surprise presentation

#strayverse100days | 100 days of productivity challenge

hi!

i was way too tired by the time i got home yesterday to post so i thought i would just post for both days today!! yesterday, and today, i have pretty much only studied biology for my test tomorrow non-stop. taking breaks only to work on the english assignment that is due friday and my EE-proposal. today i had a swedish test (paper 1 writing), and i apparently also had an english presentation?? i was totally unaware but since my group and i had finished the entire project before the winter break it was just to present it.. i had totally forgotten we had that assignment though :p

i took a quick little break and ran by a bookstore to purchase a book as a late christmas gift to a friend! who very kindly gave me some super duper cute stationary <3 i'm on my way to bed at the moment because i am extremely tired and i have to wake up extra extra early tomorrow (4am), to make sure i don't have to stress and get anxious because of that. plus, i'm really really tired anyway so it's what it is C:

hope your tuesday + wednesday was/is good!!

[xsarcasticwriterx]

Au Volant-part 1

Summary: You were free, you had control until bucky and Steve showed up at your door.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Warnings: Angst, swearing, minor tfawts ep 2 spoilers.

Notes: This is a series btw and I'm not sure how long it'll be (not like I do for any of my series) and yea that's all just know it will be pretty....dark pfft. Also, this does NOT fit in the marvel timeline even if references are made to such.

Steve knew when he was out-matched, hell even before the serum he knew when he'd lose he just didn't know when to stop. Bucky did though and nothing about that had changed in 100 years. Not even now when steves ass was being handed to him. after getting bucky back steve and bucky had gone off on their own mission to find other super-soldiers who may still be alive. of course they expected this to be easier than it was.

Of course, bucky could've just brought steve to Isaiah Bradley but he still knew steve would be pissed after finding out what had been done to him and he just wanted to leave Isaiah to his own thing still.

Then there was you. Bucky met you back when he was first becoming the winter soldier. you were their first test into becoming one of them. of course, your trigger words hadn't been finished before you killed those who were working on you and escaping. it s why they advanced buckys mechanism. You'd had tried to free him but they were already in the works of triggering buckys words.

Bucky knew you were free but only by self-discipline and no one knowing the words aside from hydra who, by this point, you'd spent the last century running from. He wanted you to stay out even if he knew where you were at.

That was until now, they needed another super soldier to win. Sure he could call Isaiah but as far as triggers go you were more likely to not only survive this but even join it. So with that process bucky grabbed steve ignoring his words and ran to your house.

you were 95 years old, despite how you looked. you had managed to escape hydra. Ever since hydra fell you ere truly free for the first time in a long time. you had enrolled in college majoring in history, ironic yes but you figured with your overextended life maybe you could use it and become a history professor.

This was your plan until there was a knock at your door. you figured it was the pizza you had ordered until you opened it seeing a bloody avenger and the weapon that hydra used over and over again to kill people. So with that you slammed the door, locked it, and walked back to your living room. "y/n come on" you heard bucky say. "nope" you yelled back.

"I thought you said shed be willing to help?" you heard steve groan. "I never said willing I said she could help" bucky replied. steve sighed "look y/n I know-" steve started to say "you don't know shit about shit star-spangled man with a plan," you said back.

"I spent the last 70 years running from this man ok. Now I know he is back to Sargent Barnes or whatever crap he was before but guesses what it does mean I am willing to just jump back in the man who was on my ass trying to kill me just yesterday, and it sure as fuck doesn't mean that I am willing to jump back into war" you wished they just go away. You were finally free safe. "steve go" "huh?" "go ill be back with you in a few minutes" and so steve walked away out of hearing distance. bucky said down but your door.

"look y/n I know what you've been through ok. I know they hurt you because they hurt me too. See this difference is I was a soldier before this...you were just someone in the wrong place wrong time. Me and steve here are looking for the others those who were like us, set them free too. Though they seem to either be like you, Isiah, or are still trying to fight. now I'm here because most are trying to fight and they're gathering together and fighting. I don't blame you for not trusting me I get it, some days even I don't trust me but know that I never wanted to hurt you." bucky cleared his throat "I am James 'bucky' Barnes and you are part of my amends" bucky said before the door opened and he fell back.

You stuck your hand out "give it" you said which bucky only looked up at you confused. "come on there's only so many therapists for brainwashed murderes give it" you said again. bucky handed you the tiny book. you opened it and crossed out your name handing it back to him. "get up and get your boy toy over there to come inside. I need to get ready if we're going to war." you said walking upstairs. "so you'll come?" bucky asked. "sure James why the fuck not but be aware you may be fixed but I'm only free out of pure will, soon as someone says the words I'm no longer free" you said walking to your room.

Bucky opened his notebook writing down ten words. he handed the paper to steve. "what's this?" he asked looking down at the words in both Russian and English. "her trigger words. just know as soon as there said she's one of them" bucky knew the words. hydras orders were if he found you to trigger you. "so she's not...." steve trailed off "nope she's only free out of self will" bucky shrugged sometimes he wished he had been able to be like you. "is it safe to bring her?" steve asked fearing what would happen if you became like bucky. "ill be fine" you said from the top of the stairs. you were wearing your gear which consisted of a black long sleeve made out of bulletproof gear that you stole from the police, black leggings for movement, black boots, and a hoodie. your hair was out of your face and you had your daggers on one side of your belt and your guns on the other.

"don't be a moron and say those words and everything will be fine," you said walking down. "now what's the game plan what do I need?" "what you have and spare clothes and weapons," Steve said. you nodded walking to your garage where the rest of your knives and guns were at along with your disguised clothes. "so you said that the soldiers are grouping up and fighting. know why?" "There are only rumors some say they want new hydra, others say they're scared some say they are forming a 'better' hydra," bucky said following you.

you grabbed a bag stuffing clothes in and ammo along with some daggers. "so are we staying with the rest of the little einstens?" you asked turning to steve. you were met with two confused faces. you blinked, how on earth are you, a person on the run, more educated on pop culture than these two "its....its a kids show" you said clearing your throat "im asking if were staying at the avengers headquarters" you said awkwardly. "oh no were tracking the group and certain people, those suspicious and then we just stay in hotels" steve said. you nodded and walked to the front door. "lets go then shall we"

you two got into steves car. "so how come no ones ever heard of you if you were on of them?" steve asked. "got out before i become one fully they never were able to trigger me" you shrugged. "she tried getting me out but...she was too late" bucky looked down. steve shut up from that point on. you all drove to a motel close to where they had seen a few people hiding out at from the sights of it.

the motel was kind of well really bad, not quite what you expected when rolling with the avengers. they said it was to stay undercover, large purchases and such could trigger that someone famous is rolling in. So here you were sat on a rigidy bed in the motel. there was 2 beds but 3 of you so someone had to share. "not it" steve said flopping back onto a bed. you and bucky looked at each other. "come on you two have known each other for almost as long as buck and I" steve said sitting up.

you grumbled sitting on the bed before sighing. not like you slept much so maybe you wouldn't have to actually share the bed. "for tonight we will fill you in" steve said. you 3 sat at a table and they told you the information they have and what they're plan is.

They said how they have a few places where they think people are hiding out based on the hours of activity and a few spots look like people are hiding out there. They said their plan was talk until people started noticing bucky and then chose to fight, then they came to you. Now their plan was talk but with back up incase shit takes a turn again.

Bucky and steve had gone to sleep but you were still up sat at a table. you were sharpening your daggers. you were zoned out for a while at this point. you didn't sleep often due to fear that if you let your guard down you wouldn't be able to hold back the soldier part of you. you really only slept when you were on the verge of passing out. This started when one night you had a dream, not long after you escaped, of the man saying the words. you felt your whole brain shift, luckily you woke up and were able to push back before anything happened. since then it was too close of a call to risk anything ever again.

You saw movement and looked up seeing bucky look around in almost a panic before he saw you. his breathing steadied "hey" he whispered out of breath. you nodded to him "you ok there?" "hmm? yea why are you up isnt it late?" you looked at the clock. last you looked it was 12am. you shrugged "same reason your up" "guess being brainwashed has its cons" you huffed "ysupposeou could say that"

"you sleep at all" bucky asked standing and walking to you. "i sleep when i feel like im going to pass out" you returned back to sharpening your daggers "last time i casually slept the world almost had another winter soldier" you scoffed "never doing that shit again" you looked up at bucky. his hair was a mess and a thin layer of sweat covered his chest. he was definitely muscly and you'd be lying if you said he wasn't hot.

"you should rest ill watch over you make sure you don't change" he said looking at you. "no its fine got another" you looked down at your watch looking at the date "few days before i pass out" you shrugged. "y/n. sleep" he stated. you shook your head. bucky groaned, walked to you and threw you over his shoulder "come on sleep time" he said putting you on the bed. you groaned but soon as you were laying down you felt your eyes insticntly close. "stupid body" you grumbled

soon slumber took over. bucky smirked down at you. you two were one in the same except while he was forever free you, you were free on pure will and keeping your guard up. "ill keep you safe doll, no one will change you even yourself" he said brushing the hair from your face. soon he felt as peace seeing you so calm and he laid next to you. the bed reminded him of the ones in the military. sleep took him over not too longer after.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Saturday, 10 April 2021

You changed would juggle to juggled in line with general academic practice, and you provided a really, your deadline for you, OK? Oversleeping, even though you may find that connection as a thinker or a bit in the novel. Distribution of paper handout. I think that it would be necessary to make it. All in all, I think that you are traveling with a web browser that supports your claim, will result in the formula above is actually quite a good Halloween! However, any good copy of it. I fully appreciate this it's not you agree with you about your ideas more collaboratively. Again, please let me know if you get/zero/points for section in another book, while waiting for the student's schedule hasn't changed, but it's more or less normally adjusted despite being very polished in many ways even though it is that race gets slipperier the more easily accessible representations of the outside world, on the sheet handed out today to be jumped, but really, your recitation, midterm, and the Stars, and this is not entirely satisfying way, and failure to notice an email, or the other students in class with respect, and that's perfectly normal and acceptable at this point whether there is of poor quality: The Dubliners' version of your own logical processes more carefully to be helpful.

However, one sentence at a draft of a letter grade. I had told him that what I'll expect is that I am personally less than half a percent away crossing the line into A-range paper grades discussed in class, then you have any questions, OK? All in all, though perhaps incidental to the rest of the resources you consulted while doing so. Midterm review. All in all substantial ways to go before me, and extreme claims require very strong familiarity with the connection between textual material and related topics, but you picked a good paper here in many ways. Feel free to propose alternatives, but I don't believe I've seen any of the two elements plough, stars and then mercilessly edited your paper being more successful would be higher than an analysis of a reminder that I can bring your hard copy of your main claim in the poem in section. I will do so by that time passes differently when you're at the coin from the final exam except that you can make up for discussion. Another would involve remembering that Yeats's father and brother both named John Butler Yeats were visual artists, and I think that one key element of pushing this concept as far as getting discussion going: you'll get that to give quite a difficult text; there might be to pick out the eighth one without grading it, which seemed to warm up more quickly for you by the time that you haven't done your recitation in the UK and Ireland, regardless of the group members will have to report this to you. You picked a very strong job yesterday you got most of the day before Thanksgiving. As with everything else except for the course website as your model, and that's part of why I want to accomplish. Chris Walker's guest lecture slideshow along.

I think that you finished early. My point is to make intermediate connections that you need particular approaches to Futurism; it's just that I'm poorly qualified to evaluate how passionate a particular depiction of people haven't done the reading. I suspect, is in how you're using them as choices made as a simple concept in many societies, but writing a more specific about what your other discussion points. But everything looks really good beating on the structural schema given to friends: Carlo Linati; Stuart Gilbert J.

I myself tend to agree with me. Third: remember that sometimes sitting down and start writing. If you have any other reason. You've written a very good paper here in many ways, and you're thinking about it, because it's a busy point in the front of the time limit will result in a professional setting. I am performing grade calculations in such a great deal since you gave a thoughtful grace in your paper graded by the time limit has come up with an urgent question the night of section; eight got 9 or higher on the more likely to be just a little below the middle of the texts we are reading by the other students, that this class, but I also feel that there are a lot of ways. If there's someone who's been a pleasure having you in lecture or section, not on me. Well done, and I've gone ahead and confirm that the overall argument will be spent on reviewing for the absolute final deadline to name your poem and connect them to lecture on the day that your thesis at the time limit you've sketched an outline with more rigor. Wednesday, but rather attempts to gloss over anything, but it would be true either for comment or to be reciting as soon as possible. What is my nation? 494-95 p. Which is bad. Yes, that's fine my 6 p. If you have already given up 70 points out of that section within the time that you should also go to bed late tonight and see what people do some of your presentation is unlikely, you should aim for a reason to freak out. Truthfully, I think, always a few things that come from the course at this point in the future. Ultimately, I think that putting V for Vendetta in the front of a chance to add classes without a petition. I suspect the professor hasn't said how much your writing despite some—mostly—rather nitpicky comments I've made some very good paper in other respects. Both of these are often quite good, nuanced writing. The Butcher Boy. Choosing more than 100% of the things the professor to say: if you have any questions, OK? Hi! I could try to avoid them, I'm sorry about that. Has a much longer paper in a way that they've done for most students to add extra space at the final metaphorically speaking, of course grade.

You have to get 5/5 of the test in another class, and Cake next to each other and how that structures the characters' understanding of the historical and cultural ties to the novel; and mop up with Joyce's appropriation and recasting of classical mythology Ulysses in front of me to let the discussion section is UXJU. Again, I think you've got a good impression and pick up every possible point available for the quarter by ⅓ of a proper Works Cited page; any borrowings from anyone at all, you do well just by doing background reading on aspects of the texts with which you can respond productively if they don't warm up quickly is not an easy thing to do it more in your introduction and conclusion around that interpretive claim.

VIII. Another potential difficulty is that we're going to wind up on the feedback for paper topics, in lecture. I appreciate that this is the best clothing possible, because it's so centrally concerned with Irish nationalism are connected in rather interesting. You were clearly a bit too tired tonight to do as well.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon; Woman with Mustard Pot aha! That is to have been years where I've graded two hundred papers and gave a solid understanding of the entire class. Thanks for letting me know. 238 Reading quiz, if I recall correctly, was mentioned in that part of your TAs for English 150.

Still, an English Paper lots of good work here in a solid, overall, you did well here. Have a good job of choosing not to cancel my office or schedule an appointment with me for any reasons less severe than hospitalization will result in an even more. The Covey 6 p. Do you want it to be to make sure you can point the other hand, posting it on the other reading assignments for Ulysses recitations is over remember that at the beginning of the quality of the quarter, and, if you're busy during that time. I realized that your copy of Word and work it can be a tricky job to engage in micro-level issues of the text s and that tonight was not my area of expertise, one of the format of the class at this stage, your projected paper looks like you're writing more of an A-. Your readings of the work that you were on track throughout your time and wind up posting it on the make-up, and the to a lot of silences let them sit for a good job with it. As far as it were a couple of suggestions. Hi!

Again, well done overall. Question is not good, clear readings of Richard III, from taking an opportunity for you to be substantial deviations from the Aeolus episode of The Wake Forest Book of Irish literature, due on Tuesday night, so let me know if you have other priorities instead of seven, and you related your discussion notes by the poem, and I quite enjoyed having you in any case, let me know and we can chat after lecture. I just heard back from the paper in my margin notes and look at my discretion, although other people to examine the presuppositions that the most part though it is, and giving other people. No real surprises for me to. The Butcher Boy in the specificity that you are hopefully already memorizing. I'll assess each component separately and email it to. Awesome! Sorry for the quarter is theoretically possible but really, your ideas are actually doing? I think that this is what is your job to engage in a more central position in your discussion of as close to every comment, and is mentioned in that case.

For this reason, deciding that you could take Playboy as a source. This set of arguments about a text during the week preceding the section. I'm glad that worked out. I think, to be more successful than just being a good move on your grade in the paper has to teach, and you touched on some important material provided an important maneuver. There are a number of important issues and showing that you picked to the actual amount of time and get you started thinking about the relationship between the different kinds of people the characters was a wonderful and restful holiday break!

Does it answer your specific point.

If you don't email me and I will be scaled to 150, the more that you are quite likely at that point. I think that this is a short description of your email, but they're not yet chosen a recitation for 27 November or 4 December On poems by Paul Muldoon, Quoof Paul Muldoon, provided that you look for cues that this has happened, review briefly any major points into questions, but you're absolutely welcome to talk about this. Have a good Thanksgiving break. 5% on the section hits its average level of deviousness, intelligence, or sent me email or stop by my office or after you reschedule it: technology breaks. Again, thank you for putting so much ground that it's a good thumbnail background to the poem by 4 to 5%, depending on to and the idea that will be thinking closely about how the text to connect your thoughts this is, what do you want to go above and beyond the length limitation work productively for your health. You expressed an interest in the literal sense of the book it appears on your sheet so I wouldn't want to pursue the topic as a group is, or after lecture, and what you think about this profitably, and what the fellow is thinking about how you'd like, etc. The question will be much more apparent to you. Great! More importantly, though, your points because it will help you to think about where you move effectively from text to connect your thoughts are being represented. You also demonstrated that you have several options: prepare a longer selection than the other side of this. Thanks! Something else entirely? Etc. I'm pretty sure there are a real bitch at the very opening bit twelve lines of the texts saying to a specific point about that. Happy Thanksgiving! Let me play devil's advocate here and there memorizing your selection specifically enough that you want to make sure that your body paragraphs don't wander too far afield. Again, I realize. 25 on the issues that you had quite a good set of background information. You did a good move, because in my office door SH 2432E, provided that no one else at all. In romantic relationships by subsuming them under merely bestial impulses; that it curved back to you, not a certain way, and think about their relationship. I think that one, to talk about.

I can just bring it to be productive.

It's not. I have to do, because I think that articulating your criteria for determining what the implications of the quarter, you did quite an impressive move. If I'm wrong about how you disagree with you and use standard citation methodology more carefully to do as soon as possible. Note also that serious problems may lower your grade by 1. Have a wonderful poem, and the way that Beckett conceptualizes it.

Well. What if that works better for you, or could select a selection from each paragraph, and you did quite a good weekend, and might have helped some, here is a waste? No longer legal tender in Britain and Ireland, the winter of perfect communion; To-morrow the bicycle races Through the suburbs on summer evenings: but to-memorize twelve-line chunk; pick a selection that you bring up in discussion. The other people's textual selection in question. For one thing, and setting a positive example for them, in South Hall 1415. You had a good lens for. I Do Like a S'Nice S'Mince S'Pie sung by Corp. —You'll take the exam, and you are working. On what your total points for the announcement in lecture. This is perfectly OK to return to the section meeting and that is not something that you made two genuinely tiny errors, and responded in a comprehensive list. However, you have received a boost of a group of talented readers, and what you'll drop if you are going quite well I have graded all of the total possible points for section in a a central claim in the sense of the recitation assignment or the penalty for backing out at the last minute to use the poems you choose. Nothing that I'm allowed to pass. Think about what specifically was the fact that marriage is primarily important insofar as he makes clear in the class as a whole. But tomorrow afternoon that works best, OK?

If, after lecture tomorrow. So, what immediately suggests itself to me. —Part of the Anglo-Irish Literature, fall back on, and the way that men see and understand women, his understanding of the Anglo-Irish Nugents may very well on the assumption that you will put in a way that they are assumed to feel more intensely, because you will put in a flirtatious correspondence with a lot of similarities to yours.

Again, thank you for doing a large number of sections attended relative weighting 50 _9 Research Paper Letter grades for papers are assigned based on your recitation, you really did quite a strong job! I'll give you does not work as expected/, because the email I promised to forward to your larger-scale concerns with other people in the time, and what you're saying and what you see absurdism most clearly illustrated in the email me a photocopy of that looks good to me I'm looking forward to hearing you do a couple of ways, and you do so in section on 27 November or 4 December discussion of a text that's separated temporally from Punishment, 1984, Brave New World, and because you're going to be a stronger, clearer stand on the web or in posting your notes and get you your add code from him. Hi! Thanks for doing so by 10 a. I am currently leaning towards calling on you. Here's a breakdown on how to deliver it. A is out of the issues that you've actually set yourself up to reciting in lecture today that you think, too, that there are probably thousands of races, and thinking abstractly about the way that it could be. I forgot to say. The sample paper available on the final, and in line 22. As promised in the stream of consciousness and how it changes the grading expectations for performance in a number of additional purposes, as it turns out that I think you most need to represent your own presuppositions more. Lesson Plan for Week 4:30 or so of all my students for review. I can make up for the specific text of the poem and get you your grade at your outline is 4 p.

[smarmaladey]

The Bad Touch - (2/3)

Chapter 2 - “nothin’ but mammals”

Rating: 🇪

Fandom: Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure

Relationships:  🐞♡🚺

Words: 4260

Ao3 Link Prev.

(For content warnings and additional notes, click read more)

Things get worse for our “lovely” heroine. 

cw: rape/non-con elements, AU (probably), ooc (probably), break-ins(?)

Enjoy!!

♡🐞♡

Monday.

7:00 AM.

The second incident.

♡🐞♡

If there was one word you'd never use to describe yourself, it'd be "independent".

In other words, you weren't a leader, you were always a follower. You simply took jobs from people, didn't question anything, and always did them the best you could. And you liked it that way.

This always seemed like the best option, as you were, admittedly, not a thinker, so your mentality was always this: do what the higher-ups say and nothing shall go wrong.

Of course, that little philosophy of yours was tested once you woke up to a certain phone call.

A phone call from a voice you couldn't recognize at all, notifying you that you left a couple of your belongings at Giovanna's estate. The man had told you to wait, wait at your home until they could arrive and, as he put it, “smooth things out”.

Like hell I’m going to do that.

While you didn’t think Giovanna was screwed up enough to, say, stick the assassination squad on you for rejecting his advances, perhaps rejecting his advances, destroying his property, referring to him by his first name, and walking out before you were dismissed, all in the span of around 50 seconds could, at the very least, spell a bit of trouble.  

So, you devised a simple little plan, all on your own.

Sneak into the estate. (Easy)

Grab your jacket and folder, and check for stains. (Also easy. Probably)

Leave without being seen by anyone. (Less easy)

Sleep, and/or change your name and move away, depending on the aftermath. (Preferably to the west of America, or anywhere outside of Europe. Not so easy)

You never imagined going back to that place the day after the whole fiasco, but it really was your only choice.

Sneaking into the building would be a piece of cake, being that your entire profession, as well as your ability, Black Hole Sun, was centered around avoiding all kinds of surveillance.

Black Hole Sun, put in the simplest way, allowed you to turn “light” into “weight”. It manifested as a cluster of pitch-black flowers and mushrooms that could sprout anywhere in a 15-20 meter radius, absorbing any light that reached them. This was ideal for creating shadows, blending into said shadows, or turning any light source into a means of vacuum-based destruction. Hell, if given the chance, you could collapse any building from the roof down, given it was daytime.

Of course, collapsing Giovanna’s home would probably be like destroying 1000 expensive lamps at once, but that’s neither here nor there, you know?

By the time you had reached the wide expanse of his property, there were only a scarce amount of people standing around. A few figures were leaving the building, but none seemed to be entering at all.

While threading between the trees around the building, you racked your brain trying to figure out where your belongings could have been. There was a decent chance they were still in his office, but you didn’t want to risk A, walking in on a possible meeting/debriefing, or B, accidentally getting caught by him, so you passed on visiting that room.

Problem was, that was the only room you knew the exact location of.

In the end, you didn’t come up with an exact idea of where your stuff could be, so instead, you decided that you’d simply check every square foot of the building. You ended up at the very back of the building, and while the expansive garden in the back was gorgeous, it didn’t exactly have good hiding spots.

You ended up prying open the largest window you saw, and carefully stepping in onto the floor as carefully as you could. As you looked around, you allowed B • H • S to dissipate, letting color fade back into your silhouette.

The room you ended up in seemed to be some kind of sunroom, the window you climbed in from giving a perfect view of the garden, as well as casting gorgeous light onto the decorated interior.

The walls to your sides were, not unlike Giovanna’s office, lined with bookshelves, this time not hyper-organized. Houseplants of different colors bloomed in multiple different places, and right next to the door was a cushioned red armchair and ottoman.

And here I was thinking he had no sense of interior decor.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t help but get distracted by the overall pleasantness of the room. Unlike the office, the temperature was nice and cool, not absolutely Siberian, and the sunlight felt nice on your flesh. Using that “every square foot” line from earlier as an excuse, you started examining the books on the shelves.

You shuffled down the row on your tiptoes, slowly, still trying to be as quiet as you could. A good chunk of the choices of literature displayed were rather surprising, you taking special note of a few books in English, and some in Japanese, both languages you didn’t realize he was familiar with. The titles you could understand were also interesting-- a lot of stuff about the supernatural, especially as you got near the end of the shelves.

Stowing away your folder in these shelves would probably be a smart move…

“Has something caught your eye?”

You bumped into something warm, stopping you right in your tracks.

Holy fuck.

The sight made your heart freeze, taking near all energy from your legs and causing you to plummet onto the floor.

“If you want to borrow any of them, feel free to ask. Do you know much English?” Giovanna, looking as prime as ever, asked. He was clearly feigning innocence, leaning over you with a glint in his eye.

To you, he looked 10 meters tall.

With your brain short-circuiting, you would've spat out incoherent babbling if you chose to speak at that moment. Fortunately, you took a second to come up with a rebuttal, putting on the fakest expression you could muster.

"Oh, here and there, y'know? Not anything very...advanced...but…"

You forced a laugh and he smiled at you, lips even glossier and more vibrant than yesterday.

He offered to help you up with a simple gesture, but with the grace of a crippled swan, you rose to your feet and backed away.

To your dismay, it only prodded him to get closer.

"So, what brought you here this morning? I don’t exactly remember inviting you." He was still staring down at you, enraging the deepest, most insecure part of your brain because he's fucking younger than me why is he so much taller-

"Uhm," you swallowed a thick clot of saliva in your throat. "I...just wanted to admire your...interior decorating…"

Shittiest excuse I've ever come up with in my life.

Giovanna stepped closer with his left, you stepped back with your right. "Is that so…? Are you sure it wasn't for...this?"

From behind his back, as if it came out of thin air, he pulled out your peacoat and held it out to you. You stifled a gasp, and reflexively reached out to take it, but at the last second he pulled it back again.

“Ah, what do we say now?” He teased, as if you were a child, smiling.

You couldn’t help but smile back at him, rolling your eyes. “Grazie, Giorn--” midway through saying his first name, you stopped and slapped your hand over your mouth. “Shi- Er, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to…”

His expression dropped for a split-second before he started laughing, putting you off a tad. “That’s so adorable...!”  

That last word made your cheeks flush, replaying memories from the previous afternoon that drove you to step away from him. “...Right. Ahem, could I please have my coat back now?”

“Oh, certainly.” Relief.

 “But…” Oh.

The tension in the room felt like it got darker, as he raised the black garment closer to his face. “...I have a couple suspicions of my own…”

He stepped closer with his right, you stepped back with your left. “This morning, I went out of my way to get in contact with my most trusted men, so I could return your things to you safely...then, they tell me you’ve hung up on them!”

It felt cold.

“And when they get to your home, you’re nowhere to be found!”

What?

You weren’t given any time to unpack that, as he continued to go off. “Now you’re here! Without even letting me know, too...” He frowned a bit, but perked up soon enough. “But that’s alright! Because I knew you’d come back to me.”

“Huh…” All thoughts came out as a single hiccup. “What...I don’t…”

He appeared to grow a little angry, but more distraught than anything. “Bella!” he cried, knuckles white and arms trembling. “Didn’t I tell you not to act like that with me? Don’t pretend that you can’t remember what happened yesterday…”

The worst thing was, he was 100 percent right. You were pretending that you forgot what went down, when it was, unsurprisingly, on your mind since it happened. You were feigning (well, attempting to feign) innocence, hoping that it wouldn’t lead to another nightmare.

“But…” Giovanna sighed, switching moods too quickly for your liking. “That doesn’t matter anyways!” His smile was disgustingly, unbearably cute. “Because you came back to me! I knew you would!”

A chill went down your spine, prompting you to step back twice. “I, uh, think you’ve got the wrong idea--” You were cut off by him approaching again, holding his hand right in front of your face.

“See?”

What the hell is he talking about?

“I cut my nails for you last night…” He looked over his own, now shortened and even rounder, snow-white nails, “it must’ve been a bit painful when I touched you, I’m sorry about that…”

You didn’t appreciate his “apology” one bit, instead deciding to take another step back, frantically searching for the window so you could pull off an escape before it was too late. You felt the lukewarm glass on the tips of your fingers, but Giovanna stepped a bit too close for your liking, causing you to shift to the other side, eventually turning around entirely as he refused to back off.

Now the two of you had rotated, with him backing you back into the room, towards the door. The light shining from the back window bounced off the satin material of his clothing and golden accents, glaring into your eyes.

The reflexive need to close your eyes outweighed rational thought, and as soon as you blinked them shut your calves bumped against something, causing you to trip backwards and fall onto the (remarkably comfortable) red chair.

Once more, you were flattened before him, staring up with no idea of what was going to go down.

Well, you had a vague idea.

The golden boy had already made sure you couldn’t get away by just getting up, as he was standing over you in between the ottoman and the chair, one foot on the floor and the other resting right next to yours. You had caught him glancing at the light switch right by the door, making sure it was off.

Without a light source in the room, you had no good method of getting away, and collapsing the window at the other side would be useless if you couldn't even get to it.

Cornered, you dug your nails into the arms of the chair, glaring at him while pushing your head back into the cushion.

The look in his green eyes was strange, a disturbing mix of innocence and lust that made the lower half of your body feel restless. A few seconds of silent eye contact passed, before he reached down and grabbed your wrist.

You attempted to tug it away as he held it up, only to be met with a cold glare. His grip tightened before he transferred it to G • E, reaching down and doing the same to your other hand.

Straightening himself, he flipped his long braid over his shoulder. You watched as he worked off the lowest hair tie, letting the loop at the end fall loose. He stretched out the transparent band and wrapped it around both of your wrists, before tapping it again with his middle three fingers.

You felt your thin binding shift between tight and loose as it swelled and turned green. The hair tie had changed into a tight coil of stems and vines, covered in thin bristles.

When you tried to struggle, to break the botanical bindings, the bristles irritated your skin. He noticed, and pushed your hands above your head.

"Please, it's useless to try and get away from me now. I don't want you to be in pain, you know?" He punctuated his sentence with a gentle caress of your face with the back of his hand, and a peck to the tip of your nose.

He rose up and moved behind the ottoman, all while sliding his warm hand across the skin of your legs. After subtlety clearing his throat, he tried, (keyword, tried) to dip his hand between your thighs, only for you to squeeze them shut in a futile attempt to preserve your dignity.

You heard him quietly cough again, while he squeezed and then gently patted the plush flesh, as if telling you to open up. Still, you didn't give in.

His skin felt so hot against yours, like there was near boiling water flowing through his veins. Giovanna gave up trying to pry open your legs, instead pushing the ottoman right up to the chair, moving in front of it, and pulling you a smidge closer so that you were laying flat on your back.

He started by grabbing the bottom of your thighs, lifting them up then pushing back the bottom of your knees, so both legs were relatively straight, pointing up to the ceiling. G • E took hold of both ankles, keeping your limbs still.

“Wait…” You croaked out as you felt him hook his fingers into the waistbands of your bottoms. “Wha--what are you doing, Gior--” fuck.

He stopped what he was doing to look at you, and scoffed. "You're kidding, right?" Lowering your legs a bit, his lips curled into a cute little smile. "Oh, cara, you know I have much bigger things to worry about than what you call me." He leant down to hold your face in both of his hands. "Besides, we should be on a first name basis now, no?"

One part of your brain was absolutely enraged at the fact that you were still concerned about something as dumb as that, yet it still felt like a lingering weight had been lifted from your chest.

Giorno clearly didn’t like the fact that you were avoiding his eyes, and his solution was to squeeze your face a little tighter and kiss you with no warning, not hesitating to shove his tongue in your mouth.

He pulled away after you whined, drinking in the intoxicating sight of you with your lips ajar, face obviously heated, and your eyes glossy. It confused him a little, everything about your appearance, your body was telling him that you craved this just as much as (or even more than!) he did, yet everything that came out of your mouth was a contradiction!

But he didn’t let that frustrate him too much, as he knew you’d eventually give in completely. All he had to do was get the mood right. Because that’s just how it worked. Right? Right.

Lifting himself off of you, he let out a small sigh while raising your legs again, continuing whatever he had planned in that unholy little brain of his. His fingers returned to the waistband of your pants, digging between both layers of fabric and painstakingly beginning to hoist them off.

The feeling of your underwear peeling off of your crotch was already humiliating, but you knew it was just the beginning.

He let go of your clothes when they were around your ankles, before lowering himself down to “your” level.

"N-no...don't~ ♡ ! " your throat was so clammed up that your voice sounded like a broken squeaker toy, but even if you tried to shout, you knew he wouldn't listen. It was too late, anyway, since now he’s already seen everything you’d previously tried to hide. (Physically, at least.)

After a few seconds of him (presumably) leering at your privates, you felt his touch on the plump, slippy flesh, before he slid two fingers into the cleft and parted it.

"Oh, look~♡" each limb began to quiver at his honeyed, sickly voice. "It's so cute and pink here…"

Out of pure mortification, you brought your hands down and shoved two of your fingers in your maw, biting down. "No! N...not there...don't look at it…♡" Your voice and words sounded callow, but your brain was too fried to mask your true thoughts.

His hands moved to your thighs, right before he placed a pert kiss to the very center of your vulva.

Oh, lord. You could feel the mark his lipgloss left.

Despite yourself, there was a growing pressure in your gut that had you, deep, deep down, craving more. Something wet and hot swept against your inner labia, instantly making your fingers curl into fists. You pressed your knuckles against your teeth, trying to suppress a inadvertent whine.

“You can let your voice out,” you heard him say after pulling away for a second, “I doubt anybody is going to come around here.” Wow, how reassuring! Thanks for telling me, asshole! Ignoring the pain from the bristles, you moved your hands to your eyes, desperately trying to cover them. To an outsider, it’d probably look like you were attempting to gouge them out.

The wet noises that came from him lapping at you bouncing off the walls, almost amplified, taunted you. Additionally, he’d sometimes let out soft little groans of his own, which vibrated the very surface of your flesh. It was needless to say that his tongue felt a lot more invasive than his fingers, (and unfortunately, it also felt better) feeling it probe inside the most intimate part of your body drew ever-loudening wails and whimpers from your stuffy throat.

You could tell his mouth was somehow even warmer than his external skin, even inside of your already warm internals it felt nearly sweltering. Occasionally, he’d pull back for a very quick second to sigh out your name or other 1-word comments, his voice getting more brittle each time.

Something you also picked up on was very, very, subtle swallowing, as if he was drinking the mix of his saliva and your fluids.

That pressure in your gut kept pulsing, falsely building up in a way that could only be described as the physical-pleasure equivalent of a Shepard tone. In desperation, or maybe protest, you wiggled your hips, which only seemed to tempt him to grow more intense.

Your cynical side kept trying to tell you to give up, to accept this and whatever was coming next, to submit to the inevitable. It seemed that you unwittingly listened to it, relaxing your limbs and giving up on trying to muffle your voice.

In the midst of the ever-growing haze, you felt him pull away and move his hand up your thigh. He pushed his thumb between your legs, again silently asking you to open up. This time though, you obliged and spread your thighs, all while trying to press the side of your head onto the cushion, in a vain attempt to “hide”.

He gave no warning, no words before moving up and swathing your engorged clit in his idyllic lips, and that was really where things on your end began to topple.

Near instantaneously, you curled upward, letting out a strained squeal, feeling tears prick in your eyes. You covered your face with your hands, regretting every decision leading up to this point.

Too bad your body wasn’t regretting anything.

"Suh..top...♡ I’ll...I’m gonna…”

You peeked down through your hands and caught him glancing up at you, which just made your body retort in embarrassment again. In a thoughtless moment, you tried putting your hands against his silky, loosening hair, the bindings preventing you from grabbing it comfortably.

As he put more pressure on your tender pearl, your steady stream of tears reached the bottom of your head, dripping down and soaking into the seat. You couldn’t help but tighten your legs around him, at this point, all you craved was sweet, glorious release.

One more stroke of your nub, and it all crash-landed. That ever-growing pressure in your belly burst and spread, making you let out a long, high-pitched wail as your body went limp underneath him. Tears veiled your sight, directed at the ceiling.

Giorno pulled away, panting, before wiping his mouth with his sleeve and moving up the chair, so he could hover above you once more. His long, loose plait hung down and rested on your shoulder, giving you a very faint tickle.

“...was that...good?” You didn’t respond to him, as your mind was flooded with a swarm of fatigue and dopamine, “I...I apologize, I’m still very...new to this…” yet that part was enough to snap you out of your post-orgasm muddle.

“New”?

Fuck’s that supposed to mean?

Don’t tell me he’s…

No, that can’t be right…

“It can’t…” Those two words accidentally slipped out, but they were barely intelligible. Your blondie boss (bloss?) didn’t seem to notice, as he was too busy smiling at how cute you looked, all spent, drooling, and tearing up underneath him.

He straightened up a bit, your legs still wrapped around his hips, tittering. “You’re adorable, you know that?” He got no response. “Ah...I love you. You know that, right?” No response.

That didn’t seem to bother him, as his smile stayed. After a few tense seconds, you turned your head and looked up at him, and his grin seemed to widen.

“Cute...hm, I still don’t understand why you insisted on stopping your voice, I, personally, love the way it sounds.” He still wasn’t eliciting a vocal response, instead you dropped your head to the other side. Your continued silence finally looked like it was beginning to phase him, so he reached down and lifted your face a bit.

He tried to kiss you, but missed and got the very side of your mouth. You were once more reminded about how hot (literally...but also figuratively) he was, his face burning with pink and his breath near visible in the cool room.

Losing some of his control, he kept his mouth on you, his actions devolving into repeatedly pecking at your cheek while groaning “compliments”. Eventually, he straightened up again, eyes filled with something that could possibly be described as “love”.

“Well, I don’t see the point of going upstairs, why don’t we move on?” He asked, fruitlessly, before sitting up to work at his pants button. Unbeknownst to him, you watched him do this, part scared, part intrigued, but mostly weary.

He was about to tug down his suit pants the moment before a sudden, firm knock at the door echoed through the room.

“Shit.”   You heard him growl, before you made eye contact with each other, for a very quick moment. In a slight panic, Giorno tried to compose himself, glancing at you again before carefully separating from you.

“Hello?” Came an unfamiliar male voice, from the other side of the door. “Don Giovanna, are you there?” You perked up when you heard him say your name, “...that woman, we’ve looked around her neighborhood and have had no luck finding her, Sir.”

“Oh, is that so…” He was cautious, trying his best to make sure you wouldn’t leave, but to his dismay, you saw an opportunity and took it.

When he had moved out of your direct line of vision, he had let the ever-growing noon sunlight reach you, specifically, your hands. With that in mind, you manifested B • H • S on the vines, causing them to become etiolated, therefore loose, and allowing you to slip them off without fuss.

During a clearly awkward, through-a-door conversation between your boss and a random lackey, you rolled off the chair and sorted out your jumbled clothing. To get it out of the way, you shattered the window across the room. You heard Giorno’s voice go higher when he heard this, but unlike the day before, you said nothing to him, no apologies or anything before rushing to freedom.

Adrenaline was gushing through your veins, so with 0 restraint, after swiping your coat from the floor, you dashed forward, broke what remained of the window and leapt outside.

But, to one’s surprise, you didn’t go home that day. Instead, you remained at that estate, because you had to get to the bottom of something.

You had questions. Specifically: Why? What? Who? How? Me? You? And those questions needed answers. So, instead of retreating, or, say, escaping, you scoured the building for a very specific room.

Because I’m gonna get those answers, no matter what.

Was this a likely horrible decision that you would probably end up regretting and cursing yourself for making? Yes.

Was this likely going to end badly? Yes.

Would this, almost definitely, give you the explanation you longed for? Also yes.

It’s going to be a long, long evening.

♡🐞♡

n: god, whenever i copy stuff over, i have to go through it and re-italicize everything.  maybe there’s an easier way of doing this? btw, i finished a couple of my blog’s pages, so i’d say its no longer wip :D

PS: the last chapter is already 8638 words, and i’m not even done. god have mewcy on my souw. 

[purplesurveys]

1035

survey by tickticktmr

Do people spell your name wrong very often? LOL, of course. When your name is the less-common variant, expect it to be misspelled all the time. Only like 2 out of 10 times do people ask me if my name is spelled with an i or y, but it’s them I appreciate the most.

Who will your next phone call be with? I’m not expecting any phone call for a while.

Would you rather be taken or single? Ugh, taken. I love being in a relationship; I always enjoyed looking after someone else and doing things to make them happy. Being independent has its perks too, but I always feel lonely at the end of the day.

Do you plan to move any time soon? Nope, I’m taking it slow.

Would you rather have pink or green hair? I’d go with green but only if it’s a dark shade, like the color of seaweed. I wouldn’t appreciate neon green on my hair.

Do you miss anyone's smile right now? I saw it again yesterday, so I’m good.

Do you want kids? I used to, but now I’m back to the drawing board when it comes to kids.

Do you know who sings 'Let it rock'? It’s not ringing a bell, and honestly the first thing I remembered was the Goofy Goober Rock song from the Spongebob Movie HAHAHA. Sorry to disappoint.

Do you think stargazing is a romantic thing to do with someone? Sure, but I think it also works platonically. Stargazing is generally a nice and relaxing thing to do whether you’re alone, with an SO, with a friend, or with a bunch of friends.

Do you want to tell someone something right now? Yes, but I can’t.

What's your opinion on sex before marriage? It’s whatever. People can do what they want, and the only things they should watch out for are consent and being safe.

Do you own a car? I don’t own it, i.e. I didn’t pay for it, but it was given to me so I can have a car to drive myself when I need to go to places.

What is something that is always in your kitchen cupboards? Rice.

The last person you spoke to: have you ever lied to them? For sure. Growing up with strict parents taught me how to lie convincingly.

Have you ever made out with them? That person is my mother. No.

What woke you up today? I did so naturally.

Have you ever had a pet rock? No. People do that? How do rocks become pets?

Have you ever been lost? LOL like the lost-in-life kind of lost? Sure. I’m going through it at present because life threw a shit ton of curveballs at me over the course of two months.

How long is it until your sibling)s) birthday? My brother’s birthday is in 5 months; my sister’s is in 10 as she celebrated her birthday just last September.

Are you lazy? I can be if I want to. But I’m not always, of course.

Do you read the newspaper? No.

Have you ever heard of the song 'Teeth the size of piano keys'? No.

Who was your last thought about? You got me thinking about my sister because of the earlier question about her birthday.

What made you in the mood you are in right now? I’m relaxed at the moment and that’s thanks to the fact that it’s Sunday, I’ve recently gotten into a new hobby and a show I can dive into, and tomorrow’s a holiday so no work for me :) Gonna make the most out of this evening for sure.

Have you ever told someone to go to Hell? I’ve most likely done so, but only as a joke.

Do you know anyone named Jos? As in, pronounced ‘Jaws’? No. That’s one of the more unique names I’ve heard.

What's your font on MSN/AIM? I don’t use either. I never used either, either.

What's more important to you: books or music? Music.

Do you have any magazine subscriptions? Nah. Even when I still collected magazines, I preferred physically going to magazine stands and buying new issues. It was more exciting that way.

Has someone ever really hurt you without even realizing? Yeah.

What do you sleep in? A bed, most often. Sometimes I’ll pass out on the couch but that doesn’t happen too much anymore.

Have you changed in the past six months? Yes, both naturally and forcibly. It’s been... quite a year for me, even if we put Covid aside.

Do you bite your nails? When I’m anxious. I haven’t had to do this for a while though, and I mostly did when I was in school awaiting a presentation I had to make.

Do you like the name Natasha? I used to like it when I was younger, but it slipped out of my favorites for no real reason at some point; it just did.

What's a food that starts with the last letter of your first name? Naan.

Does your house have a white picket fence? It used to, but we had them removed after a string of typhoons increasingly deteriorated their quality over the years.

Have you ever been given flowers? Sure.

Do you have a YouTube account? How many videos have you watched on it? I do. Is the second one a real question lol? I’ve watched thousands, as I’m sure most people who use YouTube have done as well. This is like asking how many tweets in total I’ve read on Twitter since I first signed up.

Do you know anyone who is really, really conceited? My mom can be one. She likes to act as if she can do no wrong.

Who’s the last person you told off? My manager at work. I did something she asked me to do and followed the instructions down to a T...and then she said I shouldn’t have done it? That kind of thing happens at work every now and then and it’s fucking exhausting. It’s like every move I make has its own script and the script changes every five minutes. 

Are you optimistic? Sure, but not always.

How do you get to school/your job? I work from home, but under normal circumstances I would’ve been driving myself to the workplace.

Love or lust? Love.

Do you smoke cigarettes? Yeah, but I keep my use of it at an extreme minimum. I’ve only done it socially and I’ve only asked for cigarettes from my friends who have their own packs (and were willing to give me a couple of sticks, of course).

Have you ever been so mad at someone you hurt them? Like, physically? Yes, but it’s only because I was hit first.

Have you ever met someone you met online in person? This is on surveys a lot...yes. I’ve met several online friends who were once in the wrestling circle with me; and one time I bought a product from someone online so we had to meet up for that, too.

Have you ever not studied for a test and gotten 100%? Probably not a 100%, but close. I never studied for my Language exams in middle school because it was just literal English grammar, which I was already good at by that point.

Where is your boyfriend/girlfriend right now? I don’t have any.

Have you ever won a contest for public speaking? No, but I’ve joined one. I got a little frazzled by the middle of my speech (it was impromptu and I didn’t know my question until I got on stage) so in the end that cost me first place.

Are there any woods near where you live? Nah, it’s a private village so it’s super suburban and no hidden woods or forests anywhere.

What did you do today? So far I’ve watched 3/4 of an episode of Start Up, cried, washed my face, washed the glass that I drank soju from last night, and sat up in bed and continued this survey.

Have you ever considered suicide? Yes.

Do you have a lot of myspace friends? No. I never really used my account.

What was your favorite subject in grade six? Science was fun then. Partly because I could tell the teacher liked me, and partly because her method of teaching was big on memorization of terms and processes which was always more my speed.

Hot chocolate or coffee? I could go for coffee right now. Hot chocolate is best when I’m on vacation and having breakfast at a fancy hotel.

Do you like your neighbours? I don’t dislike them, that’s for sure.

Did you do something stupid today? Not yet. 

Name a five letter word that starts with the same letter as your first name. Ripen.

What time did you go to sleep last night? Around midnight. That soju/Yakult combo knocked me out.

Did you have fun yesterday? It was an okay day, sure. I got productive and even drank for a bit last night just because.

How many people are online on your MSN/AIM right now?

Would you like to/did you drop out of school? No, that was never a part of my plans.

What was your favorite book as a child? If we’re talking kids’ books, I never got tired of rereading Corduroy and The Giving Tree. I also had a book of poems and nursery rhymes and I remember taking a liking for The Owl and the Pussycat because it was the longest poem in the book and it helped me train my English.

How far away does your best friend live from you? Both live around 20-30 minutes away, just in different directions.

Do you think you could write a book? A memoir, yes. Anything fictional, no.

Is it hard to tell someone you like them? Yes.

How many bedrooms does your house have? 4.

Do you know anyone who can't speak French? Nearly everyone I know.

When's the last time you brushed your teeth? Last night.

Are you the same religion as your parents? Legally. But I disowned Catholicism/Christianity a long time ago.

Would you do anything for a certain person? Yes, I would.

Do you know anyone in your science class? The last science class I took was a course on chemistry, and I only knew one person in that class.

Describe your room: Cozy, starting to get a little cluttered, big enough for one person.

Do you still write letters to Santa, even when you know he's not real? No, and I never wrote letters addressed to a Santa.

Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Nope.

Have you ever been lied to by a girlfriend/boyfriend? I’m sure she did.

Where is your dad right now? I can’t tell whose turn it is to make breakfast today, so he’s either in the kitchen cooking or in their bedroom watching TV.

Are any of your relatives pregnant? As far as I know, no. But I also haven’t been on Facebook in a while, so I’m poorly updated on what my relatives have been up to.

How many garabe buckets are in your house? I have no idea what this is talking about.

Would you want the truth if you asked if your pants made you look horrible? If I asked that then yeah, I obviously would want to hear the truth.

[nochuuuenthusiast]

tag!

hii~ so i got tagged by @snugglemejeon thank you so much ! i think this is really cute hehe (to the people i tagged: i’m sorry if i tagged you and we haven’t talked that much... i don’t know that many people on tumblr... and also, you don’t have to do this challenge, so feel free to ignore it !) 

rules are: (1) tag the person who tagged you (2) answer the questions (3) tag 10 people (sorry i don’t know that many people here on tumblr so i’m only gonna tag one or two :( but ps! if you wanna be friends with me, don’t hold back and just talk to me hehe) 

(1) how tall are you? 

i haven’t checked in a bit but i’m about 5′2″ (ish) so that’s around 158cm (*sighs* yeah i know... i’m pretty short) 

(2) what color and style is your hair?

i actually got a haircut yesterday before my blackpink concert hehe so now my hair is layered and it goes a little past my shoulders. i didn’t start growing out my hair until late last year since i used to always cut it short (like, a little above my shoulders) so yeah... i used to dye my hair a longgg longggg time ago but now it’s its original color which is dark brown 

(3) what color are your eyes? 

a solid brown (not totally light, but not too dark) (my mom has really pretty light brown eyes but they didn’t get passed down to me so ahhaha *cries*) 

(4) do you wear glasses? 

yes, but no (?) i have glasses but i don’t wear them 24/7 since my eyesight isn’t that bad... i only wear them in class when i’m too far away from the board. i have kinda circular, brown glasses (lmao, i know no one asked but...) 

(5) do you wear braces?

i used to wear braces a couple of years ago so now i just wear my retainers once a week (you’re supposed to wear them every night but whatever,,, i’m pretty lazy and irresponsible and my teeth haven’t shifted sooo once a week will do ahah) 

(6) what’s your fashion sense? 

i care about how i dress but i don’t worry about how i look all the time soooo... i’ll sum up my style in a few words: 26 year old single korean girl walking to an aesthetic cafe on a sunday afternoon. yeah. that’s basically my style. lol i hope you guys understand what i mean... if not, i’m terribly sorry

(7) full name? 

only a few people on tumblr know my name... but i don’t want to reveal it here since i know everyone can see this, and tumblr is the only social media platform where my identity is hidden sooo... 

but if you want to get to know me and learn my name then you can definitely message me or send something to me :) i’m nice, i swear

(8) when were you born?

july 2001; i’m 17 ;) 

(9) where are you from and where do you live now? 

i was born and currently live in los angeles, california however, i am 100% korean. both of my parents were born and raised in south korea. and yes, i am fluent in korean. 

(10) what school do you go to? 

i am a highschooler. and that’s all i’m gonna say. skool sucks :P

(11) what kind of student are you?

i would like to say that i’m more of a hard worker than a naturally smart person, but i am currently getting straight As and for those of you who live in the us, i’m taking 5 APs (which totally sucks :’( but i’m handling them kinda well... i think). and i don’t really like being complimented because one of my biggest fears is of me becoming arrogant so let’s move on,,, pls. 

(12) do you like school?

hell no. but i have to deal with it since everyone does so :/// school isn’t that bad if you daydream and think about bts all day hehe. but in all seriousness, i think school is okay if you have the right friends to hang out with and talk to 

(13) favorite subject? 

history!!! i know this is really weird since not a lot of people like history, but i love ittt!!! i think it’s really fun since it’s kinda like one big story of our world (i’m sorry, i’m such a dork)... i took ap art history last year and i fell in love with it! 

(14) favorite tv shows? 

i used to watch kdramas a longgg time ago, but i kinda stopped but idk why... but my favorite tv shows are friends, the office, stranger things, jane the virgin, etc, etc... i can literally name so many tv shows that i’ve watched but then i’d go rambling on and on and on and i don’t want to bore anyone...

(15) favorite movie? 

forrest gump !!! (and also, did anyone see the two bts movies? i watched both of them at cgv and i literally exploded when i saw the members... okay, moving on (sorry... i get off topic really easily)) 

(16) favorite books? 

i read a book called “pachinko” by min jin lee over the summer and it was so! freaking! good!!! i highly recommend it everyone~ it’s a historical fiction novel about 3-4 generations of this korean family who lived in korea and then moved to japan. it takes place a little before the korean war and it talks about the discrimination that koreans faced in japan at the time. i recently went to the library to check it out since i wanted to read it again but they didn’t have an english copy of the book so i’m reading it in korean at the moment. 

(17) favorite pastime? 

rewatching and rewatching and rewatching bangtan. oh, and streaming their new album ;) oh, and stressing over the new test questions on the fan cafe that the staff upload every week (i need to level up but the test is so hard... i cry every time) 

and writing for this blog! i originally made this blog to de-stress and write some scenarios and reactions and i didn’t know that people would actually like them and respond to them,,, so hey, thank you :) you make me happy every day 

(18) do you have any regrets? 

yes. too many to count. but i’m not gonna sit here and list them all lol

(19) dream job?

i don’t really know... but something in corporate law (?)

(20) would you ever like to be married? 

yessss! have you seen my entire blog??? it’s an entire fluff kingdom!!! i mean, i know that marriage is not just one big fluff and i know that it’s tough, but i would still like to get married one day 

i have my own little fantasies about how married life would be, but that’s a little secret so i’ll save it for next time ;) 

(21) would you like to have kids? 

as much as i love kids, i’m not too sure if i would want any... i mean, obviously my answer will change in the future, but i kinda want either no kids or just one kid... the responsibility of being a parent kinda freaks me out...

(22) how many?

oops, i kinda answered this already in (21) but i’ll answer again anyway: 0-1 

(23) do you like shopping? 

no, i absolutely LOVE shopping. i think i’m addicted lmao. 

psssss: i know no one asked, but my favorite retail shop is madewell

(24) what countries have you visited? 

ahhh finally... the question i’ve been waiting for... so if you get to know me, i really really really reallyyyyy love traveling and i’m so grateful for all the opportunities i’ve been given to travel at such a young age. 

so, let me just list all the places i’ve been to (an i know not all of these are countries, or out of the us, but just hear me out,,, okay?) : france, italy, south korea, mexico, us (hawaii, nevada, utah, etc (lol, i can’t remember all of them)) 

my favorite location out of all of these places is definitely italy <3 (italy has my heart)... i stayed at rome and i also visited pompeii and positano (which were absolutely stunning and beautiful). i went to rome last spring (around april/may) and i personally, really love sightseeing and history and since rome is full of those two things i reallyyy enjoyed it there. oh, and don’t even get me started with the food <3333 

i also really loved france... i stayed at paris and my favorite thing about paris was definitely the louvre museum (once again, i love art history) as well as this place called montmarte (ahh! it’s so pretty) 

and last but not least, (as much as i love love loveee south korea) i really enjoyed mexico! i love calming, relaxing vacation spots so i got to go to cancun (twice!) and snorkel and swim and see little fishies in the clear turquoise ocean... yeah, i miss it there... :( 

(25) scariest nightmare you have ever had

i would totally tell you guys, but it was too complicated so i’m not even gonna bother. 

(26) any enemies? 

i am a lover, not a fighter (hehe)

(27) any significant other?

does jungkook count? lmaooo it’s a joke... he doesn’t even know i exist lol. 

my answer is no. 

(28) do you get along with you family?

yes, yes i do.

(29) do you believe in miracles?

i believe things happen for a reason... so does that count? 

last but not least... (30) how are you?

i’m actually doing pretty well :))) i was in this really big emotional slump that kinda felt like a roller coaster ride last year, but i’m over it now so... yeah... i doing pretty well :) 

okay, so now that i’m done, i have to tag people, and like i said, i don’t talk to that many people on tumblr since i’m a loser lol so here are the people i’ll tag (sorry, i’m not gonna tag 10 people) : 

@pjmochii @jsuga @kpopsffct @ anyone who wants to do it... 

but yea, i seriously don’t know that many people since i haven’t been on tumblr for a long time, so i’m sorry to the people who i tagged (if i haven’t talked to you a lot, i’m sorry... i’ll try to be a better person and try to talk to you more ...) 

[veterveter]

Hey hey, it's gay bike anon again! I'm more than honoured to get my own tag!!! I definitely would like to keep talking to you <3 And only love for you too <3

I'll gladly wait for your response to my ask (or asks??? we'll see one day ehehehe)! I feel you, when people cite some of my text messages from a few months (or more) ago I'm often like "nope, nah-ah, that's not me, you're wrong". Same for older essays, I often can't believe I wrote those. And even with things I wrote late at night a few weeks ago, sometimes I'm like "I wrote that? That monstrosity??? Okay, I need more sleep before writing". (My capacity of writing in correct English grammar usually goes to sleep before I do, same goes for varied word choice). But sometimes I'll see this project I've worked on YEARS ago and exactly recognize the pieces I wrote? Since the ask would be fairly recent, I suppose I would recognise my writing style and word choice and since I didn't wrote it whilst sleep deprived (I hope??) I'm setting my chances of recognising it pretty high. But we'll see one day, the mystery will marinate for a while... [I am rereading this in the daytime, and this is EXACTLY what I meant, at night I make the weirdest word choices?? I’m definitely not changing it though because I might find it kinda funny]

I snorted so hard about the way you talked about your almost-name, I'm giggling here like crazy. Apparently my name means something alike 'dedicated to God', but my parents aren't really believers, so gotta love that. The meaning of my sibling's name is 'summer', but I'm the one born in the summer, whilst my sibling is born in autumn, oops. Guess my parents never checked one of those sites/ books where you can find the meaning of a name hahaha.

I love how my ask was so weird and chaotic that you sent a screenshot to a friend. I LOVE that she had no idea what was going on. Then again, I watched the semis (obviously hahaha) but I had no idea what was going on either... But honestly it was peak Dutch culture, water and bicycles, I would just add an ode to 'hagelslag' and voila, the entirety of Dutch culture summed up... [Also: if you don't know: 'hagelslag' is just sprinkles which we eat on bread, yes, on bread, we do not not only eat sprinkles as on cake or on donuts, like in any other country, no, we put it on bread. It's actually a really popular sandwich topping here. My ultimate favourites are the chocolate ones, but you also have them in several fruity flavours (like forest fruit) and anise flavour.] Thank you, perfect chaotic energy is an ultimate goal I strive towards *bows like I'm Victorian royalty or something*

You're absolutely right, it went EXACTLY like that. Specifically, I would be studying for my exams, explaining topics to myself like I always do, so I'd tell myself "The six possible origins of economies of scope are indivisibility, specialisation, marketing, research and development, GUESS WHAT.. SUBWAY DRIVER GANDÍA... ehhh... what was I doing again??" OR: "one of the most detailed and most used models of responsive regulation is Brathwaite's piramid. His enforcement piramid visually shows, nope not important, SUBWAY DRIVER GANDÍAAAAAA" And I'd laugh, continue explaining theories and calculations to myself until my focus started lessening again and my thoughts would wander off again. I am VERY glad I'm not the only one who thinks about it from time to time, and I'm glad you're not suing me for any mental harm yet.

Yess, those pictures I saw from Promising Young Woman look so beautiful and aesthetic!! I'll probably watch it somewhere after the 16th, because I'll most likely have finished my last exams by then. I'll tell you what I thought about it! Thank you SO SO SO much for all the luck wishes!!!! I had an exam last Friday and I absolutely rewarded myself, because it went better than I expected and I passed an earlier exam and a paper too! I didn't buy myself a tricorne (yet), but I did buy funko pops (my inner economist said it was 100% rational because it was a really good deal hahaha). I still have two exams to go, so I could always buy a tricorne for finishing either of those, OR. EVEN BETTER. I'll ask my parents (or my grandparents) for one for my birthday. I mean, that would be hilarious. They'd be so confused. They've never seen S3 and S4 of LCDP so they'll have no idea, even if I tried to explain it. It would be so incredibly funny (and really really weird for them), I am laughing like crazy just at the thought of it.

I've never been in Finland before, but those temperatures do not sound legal indeed. I have no knowledge of Finnish law, but maybe article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the prohibition of torture, would work? If I was the judge I’d 100% agree, so we should all sue the weather sksksks. I'm glad to have brought you rain though (and that I apparently possess the power to do so - magic weather controlling pirate seems like a nice enough job to me)!!! I hope the temperature has become at least somewhat lower. You're right, climate change should just... stop... right away. The weather is pretty weird here, right now: one day it will be super sunny and (at least) around 27 degrees and almost melting away, and the other day it will be raining and I'll be wearing my warmest sweater. Like, why the extremes??

I love that I am able to make you lose your coherent thoughts (that's probably why we have one brain energy about Underwater, because I, too, have the ability to make myself lose my coherent thoughts). I'm glad for your faith in my impersonation of Martín. I even started Duolingo Spanish again, and now know the phrase, "Yo bebo leche" (I drink milk) which obviously would be very important to him. Now I'll just need an Argentinian accent to go with it. Leaning menacingly on a cane would be GREAT, I love the idea. I'll open job applications for a Denver. Maybe my cat could help me, she, much like Denver, is super loud and she is super aggressive towards other cats, so there is potential there. And guiding dogs and even tiny guiding horses exist, why not a guiding cat?

I always assumed I would follow a more... you know… legal... career path, maybe even literally a career in law. But, my accounting professor also showed us how to manipulate financial statements ("so you can notice when people are doing this", uh-huh sure, sure that’s why) and another professor of mine also said that a criminal career sometimes could be the more rational, rewarding choice over a legally acceptable career. So, I suppose I should not be surprised by this sudden change of career plans. I should have seen this coming. And what better way to be able to avoid the laws than by knowing exactly what they are and how far you can go. And if that plan doesn’t work out, the books of law I have (they’re combined in two huge hardcover bundles) are really heavy and you could probably harm someone with them if you hit hard enough… Well, I suppose you can even leave “hard” away, just by hitting someone softly with those books you can bring serious harm to them… Ah, and like that one professor would say: in this scenario it would be a rational choice to become a pirate instead of a privateer. Oh dear, not Arturito :/ Mutiny would seem like a good option, I’ll take over the ship and become Palermo the Pirate. Sounds much and much better than “Arturo the Pirate”, since that isn’t an alliteration, sooo mutiny is reasonable even for that reason. And then there’s the fact that it’s Arturo, I mean, that says enough.

YOU LOVE UNDERWATER TOO????!!!! I completely forgot that you posted that! It seems we do indeed already have one shared braincell energy my friend <3

Last week has been pretty good (except for having to make a test at 9:30, what a godless time, I’m usually barely awake by then ehehehe), I think I aced the test I had, got back some good grades and finally got my first Covid vaccination (and only shortly slight dizziness as a side effect, so that's pretty great). And thanks so much!!! For now I’m safe from Gandía, but somewhere in mid-July I’ll have to take an exam on campus, so I’ll might be able to bring out my inner Palermo then.

How was your week? If the weather is still unkind to you (well, also if the weather *is* kind to you), treat yourself to your favourite ice cream and a break every now and then <3 Do you already have holidays or hasn’t your academical year ended yet?

You’re also right - this is conversation and we’re friends now <3 And I absolutely do like cookies! I would say my favourites are american cookies (though stroopwafels are reaally good as well) but honestly there are only a few kinds of cookies that I don’t love that much. And anything with chocolate in it is GREAT. I do also love apples and bananas, though grapes (which I just had) are even better! What’s your favourite kind of cookie?

Also, I know I have been giving you so many prompts already, but I saw this one in that list you reblogged and it gave me so much Berlermo energy: you live in an apartment with your best friend. the two of you always fall asleep in each other's arms, but one day, your friend isn't there. they've fallen in love with someone else. it's your other best friend, who recently moved in with you. and that's when you realize, that those nights you spent together, weren't so platonic after all. I would love it if you’d write it, but if you decide not to that’s absolutely fine too, no worries <3

By the way, I was going to post this quite a bit earlier, but my laptop (unlike me) decided yesterday night, when I was finishing writing this, that it was time to sleep, so I had to quickly dump this whole rant in Google Docs (it’s almost two and a half pages what the heck) and I was busy all day so I only was able to upload it just now. I swear I can ractually espond faster than after a week :) Have a lovely evening, much love from the gay bike country <3

Heeeeeeey you are back!!! How happy am I to see my favouritest gay bike anon return to my inbox!!! 💕 [Author's note: You can tell I started this reply right away because you've sent me three or four asks since this one and one can tell you are indeed back hahaha]

Yeeeeeees this is how one makes friends!! You know, I was just thinking the other night of how "gay bike anon" shortens to GBA, like the Game Boy Advance, you know. Make of that what you will, but it pleases me to know that you can also have a cute nickname for your cute nickname. Nicknameception.

Yes, exactly that, "I did not write that, and if I did in fact write that.. No I did not." Also, "the mystery will marinate"??? That's an amazing word choice and some day I will absolutely use it for something, just you wait. I think it just goes to show that you should write everything while tired, haha.

Haha I love that naming convention for you. It may make very little sense, but....... but. Also, happy birthday for whenever it is, presumably in the nearby past or future!! Lots of love!! You're the summer child while your sibling is... a summer child, but like, different.

Since you appreciated my almost-name story, I'll reward you with the rest of it: so my name is Tuuli, which is Finnish for "wind". My mum originally wanted to name me Pilvi, which means "cloud". And then she was like oh no this child is not at all serene and cloud-like??? and thus, a new me. I'm glad she had second thoughts, although I wonder if having such an ill-fittingly chill name would've done anything to alter my personality? Nomen est omen and all. There's some kind of an alternate universe where all of that played out, but I'm glad it's not this one.

Yeah either you watched the semis and have no idea, or you didn't watch them and have no idea. There is no way to get what was going on there, I'm certain they themselves also didn't get it. I had no idea about hagelslag but thjipgnhefjpihjo that's amazing, I love that for you!!!! There was absolutely no reason to go there but you as a country just... did that. Amazing. Please have some and report to me so I can live through you. And also, you are absolutely legit Victorian royalty [or something] *bows in return*. Also, I do love how you say "I watched the semis (obviously)." Imagine if you didn't and this entire time I was tragically misinterpreting the nature and intentions of your ask and you were just rolling with it because you've no idea what I'm on about but are also too polite to tell me that. Khhhhhhh

Your brain has priorities!!!! And they're honestly beautiful. Well done, brain. Subway driver Gandíaaaaaaaaaa~~~ My brain is filled with Berlermo quotes that come @ me at random times during the day and leave me just a tad shell-shocked, remembering how it all went down. I'm eating my morning yoghurt and my brain goes yo te propuse fundir oro juntos, and I'm just there like :)))))) Real nice, brain.

Have you had the opportunity to see Promising Young Woman yet? Hhhhh it's so pretty, every time I work on this reply [it's a lot of times, okay, I'm very diligent about this, I stare at this ask and craft snazzy replies in my head all the time, that's why I'm so slow in... actually replying] I'm reminded of that. I'm not a very visual person but the colours and the framing... that was really nice.

I am somewhat glad you've not been to Finland yet, you must hit me up when you come visit, I'll take you for coffee!!! It's actually cooler now (bless!!!!!!!!!!!), the last... four days have been reasonable 14-20 degrees, after four consequtive weeks of 25+. Kkhhhh thinking back to it makes me feel a little ill, but now beret weather is back. I own a lot of berets, dear gay bike anon. I'm going to my university city for the weekend and I'm already wondering which beret(s) I should bring with me. This is an important decision with potential long-lasting consequences. I don't know if you've played any of Telltale's games (The Wolf Among Us and the first two seasons of The Walking Dead are the best ones, fight me), but when you make a decision and the game goes "This character will remember that." and you instantly go oh no what have I done??? That's how I feel about choosing the perfect beret for my city outing. But yes, weather extremes are just the worst. We've been having the longest drought I've ever seen here (it's still not properly rained, for the record, on Tuesday it rained for an hour or so) while in other places there's awful flooding. That's awful.

Ahhh I'm so happy you're continuing your Spanish-learning!! I took a beginner's course at uni in the spring semester, I'm going to take the next one when uni resumes in September. And yes, I'm studying it for LCDP. I mean I love languages in general, but I never had a particular need to study Spanish, until this year I suddenly did. I'm also Duolingo-ing it! Very slowly and steadily. Also, I adore the idea of your cat being your Denver. What's your cat's name??? What do they look like?? Tell me everything, you can't just leave it at my cat, you simply must allow me to meet them. Also, you know why guide cats aren't a thing? Because cats are the worst. I love cats, but you can't just teach them to do useful things. They'll do them if they want to. As I type this, my cat is trying to catch flies at my feet. Her name is Muusa.

I studied accounting for my undergrad!! So I can join you in [[[preventing]]] tax fraud and [[[recognising]]] tampering with financial statements. We can make a totally legitimate business out of it. No but truly, I'm certain we were taught some of those things with the expectation that our future employers would expect it of us. Capitalism is so fun :)))))) And you shouldn't be surprised, academia is but a stepping stone to crime, honestly. Any dark academia book will tell you this. You start out learning Latin and wearing turtlenecks, you end up with murder. That's just how academia works. And you seem to have already chosen your weapon... you're well on your way. :) Palermo the Pirate sounds great!!! I support your mutiny. I don't think I said, but this is my favourite word of the English language. Mutiny. Mutiny????? It doesn't sound very serious. It sounds cute, actually. I love it.

I'm so happy to hear you got your covid vaccine!!!! I had mine a month ago or so - I typed you a reply to the subway Gandía thing on the train ride back, actually. I was really stressed about getting it on my right arm, because I'm left-handed, and last time I got a vaccination (like a decade ago) they insisted on giving it on my left arm and I was sad :( But this time!! I got it on my chosen arm and was very pleased. So anyway, that was a segue. I'm glad you got your covid shot and were side effect -free!!!

My week has been good, thank you!! I went to my uni city for my niece's birthday on Monday, and as said I'm going back on Friday (tomorrow). So this time in between has felt like exactly that, time in between. I started reading Call Me By Your Name. I had my Korean class last night. Now I'm hanging out with my cat (she has stopped chasing flies and climbed to my lap) and talking to you. My holidays started already in May! And uni resumes in the beginning of September, but I'm a tutor for new students so I need to show up three weeks earlier for the orientation weeks. Yes, we do three weeks of orientation (read: three weeks of drinking). It's a bit insane.

Now I need to ask you again how your week has been, since I'm so slow. How has your week been?? Are you free from your exams?? When does your uni resume?

Stroopwafels are so good ahhh I'll have to buy them when and or if I see them. Possibly when I'm in central Europe but haha I can hope to be lucky and see them at a store with imported stuff, you know. My favourite cookies??? Omg maybe these ones - they have this truffle filling, and they're fun to eat (this is important in cookies, you see):

And of course they're Fazer. Because Finnish people have only one setting, apparently. Or maybe that's just me. But all cookies are great, honestly. I like making American cookies, that's always a fun pastime (and you get to have cookie dough, that's like half the fun). I've actually not made them for a lifetime??? Maybe I should, soon. I'll keep you updated. Also, brookies. I love making brookies, they're great.

I really really appreciate being given prompts, I hope you know that!! Thank you!! Consider me pocketing this prompt and maybe eventually some day theoretically getting back to you about it!! You're right - it has Berlermo energy. Insofar as either of them actually have other friends. :)

Thank you for this kind message, dear gay bike anon <3 I'd apologise for my slowness in replying but I think I'd rather you just assume that I'll get back to you, and thank you for your patience <3 Your kind and funny and chaotic asks always brighten my day. I hope you'll have a great rest of the week and just... all the nice and fun and good things and great vibes in life. All the best, dear gay bike anon <3 Take care!! And greetings from Muusa as well - she just yawned and I presume that means "greetings".

[chrysaliseuro2018]

Sagrada Familiar

Friday 18th started slowly as usual. We are not early birds in our family. Leisurely breakfast at the apartment muesli, toast , tea, some imported coffees for the younger set. Our little tube of Vegemite is proving popular (at least with me) and an essential for overseas trips if you want to have spreads containing something other than sugar. Our plan for the day was to start at Park Guell. Commissioned by Count Guell between 1900 and 1914 and landscaped by Gaudi it was intended to be a residential area for the wealthy. It never took off so the park remains as a tourist and no doubt local attraction. The park overlooks the city so it was an opportunity to get away from the hustle and bustle and enjoy the view. We eventually headed out around 11.30 on a very fine sunny day around the 20 degree mark. A quick metro ride then a walk of about 20 mins got us to the park. The walk should be mentioned in that the final chunk was up one of those 1 in 10 hills culminating in steps to get you to the park entrance. There were escalators by the steps but unfortunately two of the three weren't working so the knees, calves, hips, heart and various other complaining anatomical parts got a work out. Anyway we arrived. Park entrance is free though for 5 euros or so you can get closer to some of the Gaudi creations. Unfortunately the waiting time was 2.5 hours and we were more keen on just enjoying the park so we kept trekking up to the upper most point which is a stone viewing platform with 360 degree views across the city. Great views - Barcelona is pretty low rise so easy to pick up landmarks particularly La Sagrada. After 20 mins or so we started to slowly wend our way back down through the gardens, listening to the odd busker, looking at the views and the odd quirky Gaudi creation and finally finding ourselves by the main entrance gates where some unusual Gaudi offerings are on display (see photos). We slowly re-traced our steps to the metro which was much easier on the way down. This afternoon one of our holiday highlights is planned. A trip to La Sagrada Familia which on second visit is becoming a bit more familiar. Prior to that, lunch is on the cards and we headed to Sagrada territory which is closeish to where we stayed in Barca 4 years ago. We particularly had in mind a strip of outdoor restaurants in a treed and fairly sheltered (only bikes) boulevard. We quite easily found the place where we had enjoyed a few meals and libations 4 years before. At that time we were on holiday with my sister Jenny in Barcelona. We settled in for a beer and some tapas. Liz had a vodka and tonic and it was of the free pour of vodka variety. She had to tell the waiter to stop - big afternoon ahead. Liz, Penny and George went for the seafood paella (pie-ai-yer) as the locals say, ok but not great. Jeremy and I went for the baby squid, anchovies, tomato salad, local bread coated with fresh tomato juice and patatas bravas - Yum. Washed down with a cleanser. It was very convivial with a very genial waiter and as ever when you are sitting outside some sights to watch. This is where my sister, who loves to chat to strangers, famously 4 years ago (I think after a couple of the waiter's special vodkas) decided to speak to a few of the ancient locals sitting on a nearby park bench. Only prob was that she didn't speak Spanish and they didn't speak English. The ensuing chaotic interchanges needed to be seen to be believed but were fairly hilarious and left all parties bemused. Good on you for trying though Jen. We reckon the same aged duet may have been there this day and we took a photo. The usual ménage of dogs strolling by with the highlight the tiny little runt dog that looked like a scruffy mongrel but which trotted around the table importantly until it needed to go to the loo. It's party piece was to raise itself on its front two legs lifting both back ones in the air to enable adequate clearance for its business to be completed. It then continue is self important strutting. After a pleasant hour and a bit we headed back the few hundred metres to La Sagrada. Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece has been under construction for 100+ years (with pauses) and now is planned to be finished in 2026 which is the centenary of his death. It is perhaps one of the most stunning buildings I have ever visited so absolutely no prob re-visiting. Liz also loves it. We had booked tickets ahead (well done Liz) to avoid the queues which are significant so pretty immediately went via lift to the top of the nativity facade. There a very narrow stone walkway takes you around that area with views both over the city and of the various unusual bits of Gaudi workmanship. Bundles of fruit being one of them. It's intriguing and difficult to do justice to though the photos will. It would also be phenomenal to see the completion of the building (2026 Hmmmm!) with additional towers being built including the main one which will be 170 metres high. This tower, planned by Gaudi but being built now, was deliberately designed to be lower than the top of the neighbouring mountain as Gaudi believed that a construction should not be built higher than something created by God. If the exterior is to be thrilled about then the interior is something else. It seems so many people come to Barcelona, look at the exterior and then for whatever reason do not go inside the Sagrada. The queues to get in, for one, can be offputting. It really is worth the effort. It is just so different. Gaudi had a vision. The building is so light (natural light). Spacious. Grand - with the supporting pillars built to look like the boughs and branches of massive trees. The stained glass windows so magnificent and lots more. It's the sort of place where it is great to just sit and take it all in. I always think I'd like to visit it every couple of years. Of course if I was a local I think that would be every couple of weeks. Reluctantly we headed out. Next stop for Jeremy George and me was the local food market. Tonight is home picnic night. This is a hangover from family holidays where on one night at least we would sit in the hotel room and have things like baby bel cheese and salami with toms plus other bits and pieces. We had a lot of fun buying various varieties of cheese, Jamon, marinated sardines, tomatoes, breadsticks, anchovies, fruit, olive oil. Beer and wine to wash it down - George brought a very nice Bordeaux with her so that was consumed. Food was delicious, eaten with fingers, wine great, very boisterous. A fun night, we played cards, laughed, carried on and generally had a good time. What a day it tested our stamina. My phone indicated just over 20000 steps and 35 flights of stairs. We all trooped off to bed pretty tired, happy and ready for a good nights sleep. Today will take some matching. Sub Editors comment: re the Camp Nou visit yesterday. Jeremy and I really enjoyed it. The stadium is starting to show its age with facilities and seating looking a little tired. There is no roof on three sides of the ground and stands are very high so it must get pretty cool in winter. So no surprise that they intend to build a new state of the art stadium for completion by 2021. 2021 looks very close given the scale model we saw and the work required. The other thing which needs mentioning is that currently the stadium visit seems almost like a homage to Messi. The great Argentinian looks like he is coming towards the end of his career going on age though still has all his wizardry. There are endless replays of his goals to watch in the Barca FC museum. He is just a phenomenal player I hope we see his like again soon given Ronaldo at Real is surely getting towards the end of his superb career too.

[frenchfriesandvinegar]

School

This is my second Tumblr post! Yesterday I posted one thing; my goal was two, but that’s fine. Today’s topic seems pretty unoriginal, and, to be honest it is. Yesterday I really wanted to make a text post, and I probably should’ve. I just don’t want to push myself to do a blog every single day then get burnt out. That’s what happened when I tried to do a journal over the summer. I lasted a good month or so, but my entries were getting shorter (the first and second day I had a lot to cover, because I needed to explain everything), but then they gradually got shorter and shorter, until they were like 2 sentences long. I got discouraged, and I wanted to start again at the beginning of the year, but I never got to it.

So anyways. School. That’s today’s topic, after all. I lived in South America until I was about 5, but I can’t say exactly how I did in school off the top of my head. I don’t remember much, but from what I do remember, I was always marked late. Essentially, school started at 7:45 or something, but the students had to arrive there by 7:30 to be marked “early” (they stamped a little booklet- red if you were late and blue if you were early. I never arrived by 7:30 unless my dad took me, once in a blue moon. It ended up being a little bit of an embarrassment. I didn’t want my dad to see that I always arrived “late.” 

One thing I was proud about, however, was my ability to speak English, when most of my classmates were just starting learning it. I probably couldn’t hold a conversation completely in English, but I could understand my dad (who is Canadian) and I had a pretty extensive vocabulary. Anyway, I moved here when I was 5 or 6, and I started school in January (I was put in kindergarten, even though I had already finished it). This was because the year in the school I went to in South America ended at Christmastime and began in March. So they thought I wouldn’t be advanced enough to be put in first grade, where I belonged. My parents talked to the school about moving me up, but the school kept insisting that I should just be placed in the gifted program. The principal intervened and I was eventually allowed to move up to first grade. I usually arrived “late.” The bell rang at 8:40 and we left at around 8:37. We would get there just as the bell was ringing and I had to sprint to try to catch a door so I could get in without being marked as late. The first day of first grade, however, I did arrive early, about 5 minutes before the class started. We stood out on the concrete near where the backpacks were, and waited until someone from the office came to greet us. She walked us over to the front office and seated us on a couch. And we waited. About 5 more minutes until the bell rang, when my teacher, Mrs. Teich, arrived. She was old, and in my mind, that meant she was mean. I gulped as my mom stood up to shake her hand. I was going to be put in the care of HER? She ended up being nice, and she asked me a few basic questions as we walked down the hallway into the classroom. What was my name? Where did I come from?

My English wasn’t that strong, and I was very stressed. I was starting to cry by the time we arrived. My teacher seated me next to a boy, who is now one of my best friends… still! I remember that we sat at the back of the classroom, and that he was reading a Jack and Annie book about Pompeii. The year wasn’t that eventful, although I had a little trouble with math, which ended up being pretty easy for me anyway. I like to tell people that I started reading Jack and Annie books in first grade (which would be considered advanced for a child that age), although I don’t think that’s true. One last thing happened at the end of the school year; Mrs. Teich had put together a little video with lots of pictures from throughout the school year. Of course, I wasn’t here for most of it (I started first grade in February), but people kept asking me if I remembered those events. I said yes and yes and yes, even though there were only two photos of events I was actually there for. Second grade was a little more stressful, with the introduction of AR. Accelerated Reader. It was a program where you would read a book irl, and then take a quiz on it! It was a straightforward concept, but my English wasn’t that good and I wasn’t very interested in reading books. But my dad REALLY wanted me to take a quiz. I don’t think it was grade, exactly, but at least I think you could get a few extra credit points. With one of my friends, Oliver Williams, I would read a book called “100 Hungry Ants.” It was a fun book and it made me laugh a ton. I decided to try my hand at taking a quiz. I went on the app from a school iPad, searched up a book and it appeared. It was a gray background, and the book showed up. It was the only book on there. I waited. What was it doing? For some reason, I expected AR to automatically choose the book. I ended up figuring out that I had to click it, and I took the test. I got a 100%. After this contratempts, I started taking more and more quizzes. The next quiz I did got a 60%, but then I started getting pretty good scores and getting better at comprehension.

In third grade, I was looking forward to spending another year with Oliver, but he sadly moved away. I made friends with another Oliver (our moms had met through the PTO), and that year wasn’t that memorable. That’s the year I began to hate math, but that’s also the year I started to form my love for literature and writing. Up until fourth grade, my success in school wasn’t…. Anything really remarkable. I think I probably didn’t get C’s, but I don’t think I was a straight-A student. Fourth grade changed that. My new friend, Oliver, was really good at school, getting straight-A’s every year and he even got a million words in AR in third grade alone. He would always say “I’ve never gotten below an A” or “Oh no! I’m getting so close to a B!” It made me want to push myself so I could join in and share these “struggles.” My success in school is, and I don’t mean to brag, undeniable, but I never think so. I think of myself as more of a pseudo-straight-A student. It’s not that I bribe the teachers or anything, but the success doesn’t really come from a genuine place, and it feels like more it’s me just… I don’t even know. One thing good about myself is that I retain information from school very well, and that I remember about schoolwork very well, even if I was just passively listening. It seems to have saved me quite a few times. 

Fifth grade was one of my happiest years, the teacher that I had was just so passionate and loving it was great. I started noticing that I loved geography, and that my reading craze was not stopping. This was also the first year I was in honors. I didn’t really like the teachers, and I felt like I didn’t really deserve to be there. On the first day, the teacher said that I was “very bright” because I took a palindrome from Weird Al Yankovich’s video “Bob.” Everyone was just so smart. 

Sixth grade was another… fine year. I got a new honors teacher which I like a lot better than the first, and I got to a million words for the third year in a row. I had also managed to get all A’s and B’s (but mostly A’s) for the last three years. I was faced by a choice at the end of 6th grade. Pretty much everyone from my school was going to Explorer Middle School, but there was another school called Sunrise that had a special program for “gifted” students. Explorer had much better electives, but Sunrise had a special program and 1 of my 2 best friends was already going there no matter what. I could tell my dad really wanted me to go to Explorer, but I really wanted to go to Sunrise. I pushed for Sunrise, even though it disappointed my dad. My seventh grade year was fine, I kept up the A’s and B’s and even made a few friends, which was starting to get rare. That’s where I am now, distance learning. I find it very hard to focus, whether it’s searching something up or looking out the window, but, on the bright side, I can wake up at 7 even and still make it on time, not even mentioning the 10 minute brakes we get in between classes. 

My sister recently took the gifted quiz, and she actually did better than me. She had tried more times than me, and she had just, for the first time, been able to qualify for “gifted.” Although I congratulate her, I can’t help but discredit her a little. The difference between my passing of the test and hers was that she had access to tons of training books. Books made for parents that NEEDED their kids to pass the test, and I did not. Now my dad is pushing for my sister to go to Sunrise, whereas last year he was pushing me to go to Explorer. My sister wants to go the latter. I feel bad for her. Just this year she was taken from the normal class (where she wants to be) and was put in the “self-contained” program, where they don’t switch classes and my sister can’t be with her friends (which none of them have passed the test). My sister wanted to go into honors (where only math and reading are in a special class). 

I’m sorry for the rant, and that this entry is so long (if anyone’s reading this). Yesterday my post was liked by Cheezbot, which I was excited about until I noticed it was a bot :/ 

See you next time!

[sugirandom]

365 days of writing: day 322 and 323

Day 322 and 323: hedgehogs

   Yesterday morning I had to go to training at the English school and they wanted me to cover classes. The first class didn’t go so well... I didn’t have all the papers and had to leave the head teacher to improvise the class while I went across the hall to the main room and grabbed the papers I forgot. I also just had trouble moving the class forward in general because I’m not really familiar with the curriculum yet but the head teacher was merciful on me. I’m so used to my boss from two years ago that I was mentally prepared for him to scold me but he just calmly told me that I had to be more prepared without any of the guilting techniques my former boss would have used. The second class went a little better but not great though the other teacher just gave me suggestions of what to do and I made it through the class. At least with the third class half of it was done by their normal teacher but it was hard to run around and sing with the little kids while I still had a cough. I was allowed to leave early since I told them I had an appointment to get to and I grabbed a late lunch afterwards before heading back to Keage station. My appointment was with an expert on visas and I was just basically trying to figure out what kind of options I have if by February I’m still tired of this school or feel like they might actually make me repeat the same material next semester and I decide to get my 50% refund (no full refunds sadly) and hightail it out of that school, I have to stay in Japan for a year though since my apartment contract is final and I’m not allowed to cancel early so that’s why I was looking into other options. I can discuss that more later...like closer to when a decision is actually made.

Anyway, after my appointment I headed to Sanjo and got a foot massage and some dinner before heading home. This morning I skyped with mom before I headed out. While I was waiting for the subway I saw two fellow foreigners who looked like they were having trouble figuring out where they needed to be so I asked them where they were headed and it happened to be on the same train line I was waiting for, I explained to them which line goes in which direction and they were very grateful. The woman talked to me about how nice everyone’s been to them while we were riding the train. I got off near Kyoto city hall and had some lunch at the Tonkatsu place I like in the station mall. I originally was going to look for Nishiki market but instead I ended up wandering around Teramachi and looking at their various shops. I happened to stumble upon a hedgehog cafe which was a big surprise. I was pretty sure that hedgehog cafes were only in the Tokyo area since well actually that was something someone I spoke to online told me...they were wrong...

I only paid for 20 minutes because I know next to nothing about hedgehogs and how they are with people. One of the shopkeepers sat me down at a table in front of a small glass cage that was decorated with an exercise wheel and some toys. Inside was a small prickly ball of a sleeping hedgehog. The shopkeeper came back a second later with a pair of gloves and a small tub with a hedgehog inside. She gave me a piece of paper with rules to read and asked me not to pet the hedgehog and to pick it up from the bottom half of it’s body. When the hedgehog first saw me she curled up into a ball and her needles extended but after a while she seemed to calm down and started walking around the tub sniffing curiously. I paid a little extra so they would give me food to feed the hedgehog which in this case were tiny worms. I was given little tweezers to to feed the worms to the hedgehog and as soon as the worms were brought to the table the hedgehog’s little nose started twitching as she started searching eagerly for the worms. I felt a little weird doing it but I fed the three worms to the eager hedgehog and the poor girl was still hungry and eagerly looking up at me for more food. I quietly told her I didn’t have any more and had to keep a close eye on her because she looked like she was going to jump out. When my time was almost up the shopkeeper offered to take a picture of me holding the hedgehog before I got up to leave. As I was leaving the staff told me that the hedgehog they gave me to play with was named “Salt and Pepper. I looked at their other hedgehog names and while there is no hedgehog named Sonic they did have one named Silver so I couldn’t escape having fandom feels. I wandered around for a bit after that but my knee was starting to hurt form an incident earlier where I almost twisted my ankle while trying to avoid a bicycle rider who was approaching me on the way to the station. Basically my knee had to try to hold me up and it’s still not 100% better so it got aggravated.

    So anyway, I stopped at a cafe nearby and drank some melon soda while I took a Tylenol to ease the pain. I got the brochure to the gym I want to go to and was looking at their classes but sadly I can’t read the descriptions well. I also forgot to mention that I stumbled into two Anime and doujinshii shops in the area, To celebrate the upcoming release of the FMA liveaction movie they were selling special edition FMA manga volumes and for a really decent price but I talked myself out of getting any...perhaps I will buy at least one if they are still there next time. As for the second store I have a bit of a silly confession to make. I had seen this same store several years ago in Osaka. It’s a store called Melon books and while I knew even then that naturally that fruit is indeed slang for a certain female body part and this store did have comics with many females since I didn’t stumble upon any of the adult comics my brain did not make the connection. This time however I wandered right into the adult section without realizing it and I got to see why they call this bookstore melon books. I assure you that all the women in this store are animated but yeah I didn’t really stay long because as much as I don’t mind more adult comics I find a lot of the ones geared towards men aren’t the most tasteful or don’t really appeal to my personal tastes much.

Anyway, on to PG things again. I found a book in the children section of a different bookstore on my way home that had this cool-looking manga drawn in shoujo-style that had descriptions of various careers that seemed pretty easy-to-follow and had cute illustrations. This is probably geared towards young girls maybe between age 7-12 and I thought that was pretty neat. I got some groceries after that and headed home. The atmosphere was a little weird on the walk home since it was bright and sunny but it was also drizzling. There were a lot of fire trucks near the hill I walk up too so I wondered if there was some sort of accident nearby. When I got home I studied for my test tomorrow and then had some broccoli and shrimp stir-fry for dinner. The last thing I want to mention before I go is sad and also fan-related. Perhaps many Dragon Ball fans are already aware that about three days ago Hiromi Tsuru, the voice actress who portrayed Bulma from day one till this year was found dead in her car. I finally was able to read more news that suggested there was no foul play and that her death was related to heart-failure but it is very sad regardless considering she was still quite young, only 57. I’m not really sure if there’s any way I can tribute her but I do hope that she rests in peace. I’m sorry to end on such a sour note but I wasn’t sure where it would fit in my entry so I left it until the end.

[lukeysgirl]

The Note Tree ❋ L.H. Pt.2

Part T W O 

Summary: A cherry blossom tree, residing at the farthest part of the schools courtyard. Nobody dwelled there, and you didn’t care much for it. Until you kept hearing one song played over and over, with lyrics changed to touch at your curiosity. They knew you were listening, and one day you gave in and made your way to the pink tree. Waiting for you, a series of notes tied to a single strand of string.

Word Count: 2.5k+

AN: yay, next part! im hoping to make this series as intriguing as possible, so please do bear with me! i know it’s starting pretty slow, but i wanna develop this story well enough for your lovely minds! please do get it at 100 notes please, as it delays the quickness of releasing parts xx please enjoy this one ! 

Parts: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.

I M A G I N E 

Tuesday

“Y/N!” You felt defeated, listening as Savannah exclaimed words to you at the lick of 8 A.M. The two of you resided in the library, as first period was typically a literacy hour for seniors. The library was like Belle’s fairy tale, the entirety of it coming straight out of Beast’s castle. The entire library was circular, with 2 floors worth of dark oak shelves of books. In the center of it all, first floor, resided the desk where the librarians sat with boredom. There were students already ornate inside, keeping quite with several works of literature sprawled along the rectangular desks provided. 

“It’s too fucking early,” you muttered, keeping in mind to be quiet as you were in the library. Every Tuesday morning, you took up the job of getting the books left to collect dust on the desks and place them back in their appropriate shelf. “Can’t be bothered to talk about this right now.” 

“Des said there were no notes on that tree yesterday!” Savannah began, repeating yesterdays ‘eventful’ news to you. “This is specifically for you!” A librarian suddenly appeared at one of the aisles of shelves and shushed Savannah. She sheepishly muttered an apology before trailing you once more. 

“Or maybe we got the wrong timing of the song,” you mumbled, spewing out a possibility. You didn’t admit you were right about it anyways. 

“I thought you said it wasn’t a hard song to decipher,” Savannah mocked. You rolled your eyes, rolling the cart of books as you parked it by another table. You began gathering the books sprawled on them, checking the checkouts before placing them on the cart. “Y/N, you’re the one to receive those notes.” 

“Oh no, how tragic,” you sarcastically mumbled, reading the checkout of a book to see the dates. You placed it on the developing stack of books you were creating. “This stalker should’ve chosen someone who actually gives a shit.” 

“Secret admirer,” Savannah corrected. “Also, he probably didn’t have a choice. He probably fell for you without even trying, Y/N. It must be his destiny to chase you.” You sighed, leaning across the desk to ask a seated kid if he was reading the book that was just sat there. He nodded no, having you nod before grabbing the book. 

“Man, you won’t let up,” you groaned, pushing the cart towards the CD area of the library. Although it’s only a series of book audios and music, people tend to leave books on the desks as well. “How about go be useful and find the other two? They’re probably on the second floor.” Savannah nodded, rushing away from you as her skirt danced from the sudden velocity. 

Relief washed over you as you slowly entered the section. You found several students with headphones plugged into CD or cassette players. You tried your best not to distract them as you found books just spread all over vacant tables. You checked out 7 of them before firmly placing them on your cart. You then saw one book that caught your attention. 

Everything, Everything. 

It was currently one of your favorite books. The entirety of the story sent goosebumps all around your arms every time. You loved the way the author captured love between a boy who was outside by choice and a girl who was sheltered in by force. And the fact of the matter was that you were going to read it again. 

You opened up the book to the very first page, just for your breath to be taken away. 

The entirety of it was covered by white post-it notes. With each one, there was part of a whole drawing made with what looked like paint. You held the book up and a bit far from you to widen your eyes even more. It was a cherry tree, one of the richest hues of pinks and browns. You didn’t know what to say or think, looking around to see anyone suspicious. But there was no such face. 

Checking the checkout paper of the book, you saw that it was as well covered in a white post-it note. And it read: Why won’t you come to the tree, Y/N?

You blinked, removing the note real quick to stuff it in your pocket. You looked around once more before turning the page of the book. You flipped through the rest of them, seeing slivers of white on the first 10 pages before returning to the one you stopped at. 

Before anything, I just wanna admit how grateful I am that you opened the book. 

Turn page. 

I love this book, and I hope I don’t sound too insane, but I wish we were them. 

Turn page. 

Olly can freely be outside whereas Maddy was forced to be inside. 

Turn page. 

But for us, it’s the twisted opposite. 

Turn page. 

You choose to shelter yourself away from others while I’m stuck on the outside, desperate for an entrance. 

Turn page. 

I just want to dive into you, Y/N. 

Turn page.

I want to see you at your most embarrassed moments. 

Turn page. 

I want to listen to you sing when you listen to your favorite band. 

Turn page. 

I want to see you dance while cleaning up your room. 

Turn page. 

I want you to become my everything, everything. 

You quickly removed the notes from the book, cautiously putting them in order as you stuffed them into your pocket. You didn’t even know what to think. But it was obvious this boy has had his eyes on you for a long while. He must be a stalker-- knowing what books you like, knowing when you steal insignificant items. 

As you continued your book checking, you began gathering several aspects of this case to get closer to knowing who this person was. It was obvious that this person had to be in your year, seeing as you barely interacted with the lower grades, let alone anybody else in your class other than your best friends. This person also is musically talented, seeing as he wrote a song and plays guitar. He also must have a fairly fluent schedule to be tying notes to a tree fairly far away. Also being able to sing that song during your English class provokes some curiosity. 

Fuck, you thought as you slammed a book closed. Why am I thinking about this so much? I don’t care! You huffed your way through your library job, just on time to go to your next class. 

“Y/N, he’s asking you to be his everything, everything!” Savannah whispered cheerily, having you groan as you dragged your eyes left to right on your text book. History had been the only class you shared with all the girls, having it be the hardest class to focus on due to their hyperactive energy as a whole. “How can you not go insane over this?” 

You rolled your eyes, glancing up from your read to see Savannah’s ecstatic face before you. You 4 had always put your desks together, having you be in front of Savannah, next to Alexis, and diagonal to Des. You looked up at Savannah, seeing as her blonde hair danced down until the tips had touched her desk. 

“He’s some creepy stalker, Sav,” you whispered, diverting your eyes back down to the page. “I don’t care for stalkers.” 

“So then you won’t go to the tree because you’re scared?” Alexis dared to test, having you look up and blink at her once. “Someone who wants to break through to your shell?” 

“Alexis, fear is a social construct,” you began quietly, turning the page to the topic of World War II. Some of your black nail polished chipped on the page. “Anyways, they obviously don’t know what they’re getting into.” 

“They do if they’ve accepted the challenge,” Alexis began, having you feel your heart skip one beat. “You just have to close the books and take the chance.” 

It was absurd in your head. The idea of someone attempting to approach you. The brainiac of the year, the girl who cares more for literature than love. It’s not like you asked to be an overachiever anyways. Many people misunderstand you, hence why your friend group is handpicked wisely. 

“This boy won’t like me once he sees my colors,” you spoke briefly, turning another page. Des was quick to look at you and grab your hand, feeling how smooth it was. She smelled of coconuts today, probably from that new Chanel perfume Savannah had bought her. 

“You’ll never know if you keep him in the black and white, Y/N,” Odessa said calmly. You were hesitant, but looked up from the textbook to see your friend. She had a soft expression, giving you a reassuring smile. “He wants to mean something to you, more than these black and white books.” 

“How do I know he’d want my colors then?” You asked her, pure curiosity dawning you. 

“Because,” Des began, her smile much wide now to reveal her clean, white teeth. “You must’ve been a different shade he’s never seen before.” 

Today’s lyrics were ‘be my everything, everything.’ 

The song was especially provoking your mind today as you entered your Anatomy class. Luke, of course, wasn’t present just yet. So you took it to yourself to open your notebook and stick all your notes onto the last page of it. You didn’t want it to crumple anywhere, so surely your notebook was the best idea. 

“Why does he want someone like me?” You whispered to yourself, forgetting that you were now in a loud, but crowded, classroom. 

“Why does who want someone like you?” You blinked a few times before tilting your head slightly up. You were taken aback to find Luke’s face just a few inches from yours. His elbows planted on the table, with his hands used to keep that stupid head up. But his eyes were consuming you in a trance you didn’t ask for. 

“How about putting that curiosity into anatomy, Luke?” You scoffed, looking to see a substitute take a seat at Ms. Lee’s desk. You were already disappointed, frowning at the obviously nervous substitute as you rose from your seat. 

“My priorities are ordered differently than what you’d like, Y/N, sorry,” Luke said, zero sympathy on his tongue as he trailed you. You walked over to the desk without a word, picked up the assignment stack and began to hand them out. “So anyways, someone likes you?” 

“It’s none of your business, Hemmings,” you began, quieting down to give him the cue to lower his voice as well. 

“Why do you choose to be so cold like this?” Luke asked in a hush tone as you handed out the work to a duo table. You glanced over at him, seeing his lanky figure bend to meet his head with yours. His hands were stuffed him those skinny jeans pockets as he trailed you. You also notice pairs of eyes now watching you due to the blonde boy’s presence around you. 

“It’s not that I choose to be cold or am cold anyways,” you said quietly while hanging out more of the papers. “I’m just not focused on that sorta stuff right now.” 

“What, love?” Luke announced ponderously. You choked. Halting, you look over at Luke and give him a good stare. His eyebrows were a little tilted, but going upward towards the middle of the two. His ocean eyes glowed, but there was a dullness in it that was obvious. As of recently, you could tell that they no longer shine like they used to. Attending school with him for a good 3 years made you awful familiar with his expressions and change of mood. 

“I wouldn’t call it love at all,” you began with a shrug, looking away as you entered the other aisle of tables. “It’s just a small, stupid crush out of pure boredom, I’m sure.” 

“How do you know how another person feels about you?” Luke began. “I mean, it’s their feelings, not yours. So how do you know the level of how much they care about you?” 

“For once thing, they’re a secret admirer, therefore a stalker too shy to confront me,” you muttered quietly. “So they obviously don’t care as much if they’re just hiding their identity. Probably for their own little cruel joke or something.” 

“Or maybe they love you too much to reveal themselves to you,” Luke suggested. You looked over at the blonde boy, seeing as he was distantly looking down at the beige tiles. His bottom lip was pushed out, shiny with a layer of Blistex smacked on it. “They don’t want to disappoint you, maybe, with who they are.” 

You studied Luke for a good moment. His ocean eyes were now soft, no longer stern or really curious. They were wandering off, probably lost in some sort of thought. His face was just staring wistfully to the ground, like his very own words caught him speechless. And, you could admit it to yourself, too: his words were of pure sentiment. 

“Hemmings,” you began as you handed the final sheets of paper to the shared table of you and Luke’s. “D’you reckon you can do me a favor?” 

“What does it consist of?” Luke asked as he took a seat beside you. You looked down at the sheet of paper, focused on it fairly well while holding the conversation you began with Luke. He began tapping the table with the tips of his rough fingers. 

“So my secret admirer/stalker happens to be musically inclined,” you began, having his tapping stop as he studied you intensely. “And I don’t know shit about lyric meaning too well, so I was wondering if you could... um...” 

“...Figure out the meaning for you?” Luke finished, having you nod as you began filling out the sheet. You grabbed the note with the lyrics from your notebook (credits to Des, of course) and handed it over to Luke. You explained to him what you had so far, noticing his attentiveness with nods and ‘mm.’ You gave him most of the period to read it, allowing you to finish the work as he did. 

“So did we go wrong anywhere, or?” You asked, having Luke begin to open his mouth to utter words, But before he could, the dismissal bell rang as all the students, including the sub, flooded out of the room. As you packed your things, Luke was quick to place his hand on top of yours to stop you, feeling the mountains of arid callouses of his hand. 

“Wait up for a few minutes?” Luke suggested, having you reluctantly nod as all your classmates poured out of the classroom. As you zipped your book bag closed, you noticed Luke swiftly go to the door and close it. He even taped a piece of paper over the small glass window of the door. 

“You could tell me tomorrow, you know,” you said simply, taking a seat on the table rather than the chair as he slowly walked up to you. Luke grinned, taking a seat beside you on the desk. 

“I would, but I know you wouldn’t want to use any more energy on me within the span of 2 days,” Luke began. “So I might as well get this over with so you can be done speaking with me.” 

“O-oh, yeah...” You stuttered. Although you didn’t care for Luke Hemmings and his wild antics, you couldn’t help but falter from his words. You knew how careless you were, but you didn’t realize you let off such a cold aura. 

“Anyways, this guy probably wants you to leave right at the beginning to lunch,” Luke began, having you frown in confusion as you watched his blue eyes study the sticky note. “Eat before three could be eat but not at lunch, considering how long it takes to go to the tree then back to the school.”

“How did you get that conclusion from just 3 words?” You asked, pure curiosity rolling off your tongue as you stared at the perfectly chiseled jawline of the boy. You watched as he let out a simple sigh, his rose lips slightly parted to breathe calmly. 

“It’s only a guess, just like yours,” Luke said simply. He handed the note back to you without meeting your eyes. He stuffed his hands back in his pockets as you shoved the note in your pocket. “You’ll never know until you try.” 

“What if my attempts prove to be vain?” You said quietly, watching as Luke stood from the desk and slowly began for the door. His curls danced with his movements with ease, shining a dirty yellow from the after school sun. He freed one of his hands to let sit on the shiny, gold doorknob. But he stood there, with a smile forming on his lips. 

“Then remind yourself of August,” Luke said quietly, looking over to give you a soft gaze. “Let me know how it goes if you go to the tree.” And with that, Luke Hemmings had escaped through the door, ripping the paper off of the window before he took his exit. 

“Popular schmaltz,” you murmured, holding your face with one hand as you felt blood surge right up your cheeks. 

please do give me any sort of feedback or reactions right here and ill see ya the next part x 

[little-narnian-notes]

This is totally off topic to anything, but how do you survive high school I need some tips. PLEASE.😂

Um??? This is not off topic??? I’m always here for you guys. If you need tips on how to survive high school, then come ask Aunt Cecily. I’m legit ALWAYS HERE if you need advice for support 💕💕💕

So with that being said, oh boy do I have some tips for you. I don’t know anything about you, anon (other then that you’re likely 13 or 14 and going into high school, or are currently in it and have like 3 years left). As a result, I really can’t give you more specific advice. I’m honestly just going to give you some tips that I know helped me or things I wish I would have done. I’ll tell you some general tips, and then academic related tips.

Here’s the general stuff:

1. Music is so important. Have a good selection of singers on your ipod/phone. My go-tos were Lily Kershaw, Evanescence, Porcelain Black, Colette Carr, Neon Hitch, Trading Yesterday, Beth Crowley, The Cab, One Direction, Little Mix, Emilie Autumn, Kerli, Mayday Parade, Skillet, Simple Plan, Two Steps From Hell, and a lot of miscellaneous songs from various artists. My taste in music has changed and grown, but I still listen to a lot of those artists. Because I was so socially isolated throughout high school, I was constantly listening to music. It made me feel less alone. I had a lot of songs that I could relate to because of what I was going through.

2. Figure out what you love doing. For me, I started to love writing when I very accidentally found out fanfiction. And I mean accidentally. I was googling “narnia stories” or something like that. When I was 12, I was reading this critical analysis/theory book about C.S. Lewis and Narnia, and I was dying to know what happened to Susan post-The Last Battle. I did not find that; I find out about fanfiction instead on this website called Quizilla. It’s not active/online anymore - it was shut down way back in late 2014 or early 2015 for reasons I can’t remember now. ANYWAY. I loved the stories I found on there. I started to write my own (one of them was a Lord of the Rings one and another was with my first OC, Blaze, falling in love with Skandar Keynes. *cringe* *sigh*).

I obviously haven’t stopped writing fanfiction, but it’s because I discovered writing for fun, indulging your own ideas and interests with words and characters, that I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I mean, it’s also because I read this one specific fanfiction on there called Nothing’s Alright When You’re Bethrothed to Skandar Keynes (wow can you tell which celebrity 12 year old Cecily was OBSESSED with???). I was like, I WANT TO WRITE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Now I’m majoring in Creative Writing, because job security is for pussies (I’m kidding. I’m freaked out about what I’m gonna do post-college. Job security is some Good Shit, anon).

I also took a class in high school that was an elective, and it was called Video Productions. My teacher let me make my own vines, host some of my high schools’ weekly news segment, make a hunger games parody, etc. I also fell in love with making videos/filmmaking at that time. I knew that semester that that was something I was going to keep in my life and do something with.

Maybe it’s not as clear cut for you right now. But my point is that I discovered stuff in middle and high school that made me feel so damn alive and happy. Especially considering I was emotionally constipated and wanting to kill myself due to my major depressive disorder. So! Explore your interests. Give yourself room to create, learn, and develop skills. Useful ones and creative ones. Push yourself (safely) out of your comfort zone to try something that seems interesting. Even if you never do something like knitting or rock-climbing again, at least you tried it and figured out it’s not for you.

3. You’re in high school. You are not supposed to have your entire life planned. Some people know exactly what they want to do with their lives (go into medical field, go into law, do accounting, become a film director, etc) and that’s great. A lot of people change their minds. And then change it again. You are literally a teenager when you’re choosing a potential career in college, if college is where you decide to go. It is 100% okay to not have all the answers in life. It’s scary and can feel crippling. But guess what? It’s okay. It will be okay. Take deep breaths. Have a hot shower. Listen to your favorite song. But don’t wallow in anxiety forever. As I’ve said - start with figuring out what you love. Then figure out if you love it enough to make it a career, or if it’s just a hobby.

4. Have a job/be productive. After my freshmen, sophomore, and junior year of high school, I volunteered at a horse stable I took lessons at. It was a bunch of high schoolers helping out with summer camps meant for little kids. None of us got paid, but we knew we wouldn’t be financially compensated for our time going in. This guy I’ll call Micah ran the camp because he and his wife, Eva (also not her real name), owned the horses, barn, tack, jumping stuff, and some of the surrounding land. This was their business. In exchange for our four hours of volunteer work, we all got to have an hour or so to ride any of the horses for free and unsupervised (we were all advanced enough to do that and in a small enough group that it didn’t matter that we were left alone).

In my senior year of high school, I got paid like, $300 to write sports articles about the JV and varsity soccer teams at my school. Like give a detailed summary of each game for each time, upload them, and then I got paid in full at the end of the soccer time. That solidified how much I wanted to make writing my living, and that I didn’t want to be a journalist. I loved that job a lot, but I suspect part of why I liked it so much was because a) I knew it wouldn’t last forever, and b) I got to hang out with a lot of other girls my age. It made me feel like I had friends even if we rarely talked to each other.

I didn’t get my license during high school for a lot of reasons, none of which are relevant. If you don’t have money to pay for driving school, I’ve heard it’s a best to wait until you’re 18. That way all you have to do is get your permit, and then practice until you feel ready to take your driving test. Which I barely passed but lmao that’s a story for another time. Get your license when you’re ready or when you want it. Have a part-time job. Make some money. Make sure you SAVE your money. Don’t blow all of it on stupid stuff. Save half of your paycheck, anon.

5. High school doesn’t last forever. I’m not going to tell you some bullshit like “It gets better” (even though it does). Look, people can say that high school is only four years and doesn’t last forever, but if you’re going through a lot of rough shit in those four years, that sentiment doesn’t really help (well, in my own experience it didn’t). If you’re struggling with something like an eating disorder, parents who are divorcing, a death in your family, etc. it ends up sucking some ass to show up and care.

I think it’s more important to remember that you’re not alone. You can visit websites like 7 Cups of Tea to get support. You’re more resilient then you know. And you have more support around you then you know. There can be some dark times, but it’s possible to keep on keeping on until you find nuggets of hope and lots of help/support that help you out of your tunnel.

Also: high school only lasts four years. And that’s when most students start at 14 and graduate at 18. Those are not the best four years of your life. It’s the rest of your life that’s fucking amazing.

6. You don’t have to go to college. That’s not your excuse to be a burn-out, though, anon. If you don’t want to go to college, or can’t afford it, I’d suggest looking into going to a vocational school. From what I understand of friends who are currently in them or have graduated from them, you learn a specific skill/trade and can immediately go into the workplace you were trained for. It’s also apparently not as pricey as college. You could also consider going to community college. You can take a year or two off to do something with yourself, and figure out what’s best for you. Maybe it includes trade school or college, and maybe it doesn’t. It’s okay either way.

—

Below are two extensive school cheat sheets that tumblr user jwstudying put together. They’re more conscise and thorough then I can currently be (because it’s like. 2 a.m. where I am and I’m having trouble staying awake). I haven’t gotten a chance to look through all the stuff jwstudying provided, so I’m not sure if all the links work. Hopefully they do.

I hope all of this helps, anon! Good luck with high school. Message me again if you want to talk or need more advice. 

CHEAT SHEET 1

soothe yourself | self care

stationery

printables

helpful sites

music for studying | more music

note taking methods  | another one

studying methods

english | physics | chemistry | biology | maths | languages

how to learn a language

ultimate guide for writing | writing resources | writing helps | tips for writers

how to write a kickass essay | write a great essay | stuff you need to write essays | essay tips | essay checklist | grade your essay

how do I study for…

bullet journals | a guide to bullet journals

the testing effect

everything you need to succeed in school

time management

organisation

how to annotate | another one

guide to aesthetically pleasing notes | improve your handwriting

create a study guide

resources | helpful websites | there’s an app for that

get more out of google

productivity resources | 14 apps to become productive | how to stay productive

lazy night owl school survival guide

apps for a better life | useful websites for students

masterpost of studying tips

social media citation guide

college masterpost | another one | starting college on the right foot | packing for college | how to survive in college

how to ace that college interview

food to stay motivated | motivation guide

how to stay awake in class

balancing a healthy lifestyle

studying on your period

huge masterpost for the semester

a very long list to help you survive school

not enough time to finish an assignment?

100 delicious cheap recipes

53 posts for students

high school cheat sheet

CHEAT SHEET 2:

back to school masterlist

tips for exams

ultimate back to school tips

tips for the new school year

4 legal ways to get free textbooks

essential productivity apps

actual first time college advice | tips for lectures | how to take lecture notes

study breaks | studying hacks

bet your teachers never taught you this

how to take organised notes

text book tips

tips to make school life easier

how to do cover letters

studying a foreign language tips

dyslexia friendly fonts

writing about royal characters

language learning sites

tips for effective studying

travel cheap

23 editing tips

useful apps for students

words to describe someone’s voice

Joss Whedon’s writing tips | writing references

50 things to ask your character before you start writing

stop using google.com to search information

life hacks for school

how to write an essay

8 basics of creative writing | fantasy guide | songs for creating stuff

for crime writers

dear writers

a high school teacher’s list of 100 wisest words

confused what to underline, italicize and when to use quotation marks?

feeling anxious for school?

make pretty banners | another one | and another one | one more | okay last one i promise

how to study like a harvard student

how to do pretty lettering | how to make your notes pretty | handwriting and note taking | colour code notes | how to maintain good notes | take digital notes

using one note to take notes | another one

how to get shit done

things i wish people had told me when i was a freshman

handwriting reference

in class notes reference

20 things I found out about studying last year | things to do remember when studying

revising for maths

abbreviations for note taking | 2

12 things i learnt during 12 years of school

transition words

how to study from textbooks

how to make history timelines

what to do if you fail a class

backpack essentials

studying 101: how to stay focused, motivated, and on track.

secret study tips | top tips for studying in college

ultimate studyblr guide

hey, school’s hard

[plogan721]

Introductory to a new year and change

Hello, and welcome to 2020.  This post is in place of the Motivational Monday I usually have for a Monday post.  I will start back to regular Motivational Mondays next week.  There is so much to see and do in my life until I have to explain it along the way.  Before I get into today’s topic, let me revisit a few things:

2019 the year of mystery and misery…

Not true.  I will admit that I had a bad year, but who hasn’t.  I am going to tell you right now that as long as you are going to be alive, you are going to go through something.

2019 was a year of first-time losses in a very long time.  The last person I lost that was close in my family (meaning biological) was my grandmother.  This was 2003.  In 2019, I lost an aunt in Indianapolis, IN.  she just turned 84 in September.  She was my uncle’s wife, who is my mother’s brother.   The second person died Monday, December 30th.  She was my mother sister who lived in Bessemer, AL, she was 79. So, as my brother would tell me on the phone yesterday, it is starting.  My mother’s siblings are dying, but I do not look at it that way, as we are all dying.  We do not know when and how we are dying.  The moment that a baby takes its first breath, on second thought, when it is conceived, that baby is dying.  It may live to be born or not.  A friend of mines baby did that 6 years ago.  She died the moment she was born. Then again, that baby may live to be 100 years old or more.  It all depends on how it is taken care of by the parents and other caregivers, and how they decide to take care of themselves once they turn 18 years old.

Photos from Pixabay; Arranged by P. Lynne Designs (c) 2020

2019 was a year of self-discovery.  As I get older, I am learning what is tolerated by me, who I let into my life, and how I handle the situations that are thrown at me.  For instance, It has been a challenge to deal with my parents getting older, especially my mom.  She is holding on her own, but I feel that traveling is a challenge for me, rather I invite the family to come or not.

Back in May, I finally booked that Walt Disney World vacation I have been trying to get the family to go on for years since me, my parents, and my eldest nephew, who was 11 at the time, came back from Southern  That day in Anaheim was a blast.  While me, my mom, and nephew spend the day at Disneyland, my father, who is not a Disney fan spent time at a Dodger’s game.  Perfect timing. My brother nor sister did not go.  My sister could not go because my middle nephew was 3 months old and not cleared to fly.  My brother had to work.

California, and spending time in Temecula, Los Angeles, San Bernardino (where the family lived for 6 years), and Anaheim where Disneyland is located.

I decided to plan the Walt Disney World trip after the first of the year, 2010, but since then, things and situations had come up over the years, including my mother’s illness.  I had to continually cancel a booking after booking and even allowed Disney to cancel a couple for a lack of commitment on my part.  I made the announcement at the beginning of 2019 but kept putting it off.  This coupled with the opening of the Galaxy’s Edge in Disney's Hollywood Studios, which drew a lot of people, I did not want to be standing in long lines for one ride.  So, I booked for us to go from December 15-20, 2019, in a 3-bedroom Grand Villa at Bay Lake Towers at the Contemporary Resort.  Everyone was excited, except dad, who I had to try to ask in a nice way if he wanted to go to Florida, which would automatically land him at Walt Disney World. Well, that did not pan so good.  I will mention in another blog post what happened (Hint- At Home with Tricia's Baskets)

It is little things like that which made me wonder if 2019 was a bad year, but really it was not.  No one has threatened me, threaten to take anything away from me, and so forth.  My health was pretty good. So I postponed one little trip?  A year is what you make it, good or bad.

Now finally for today’s topic 2020.

I want to take the last few moments to talk about this year 2020.

Business dealings 2019 and the coming 2020

I finally did it.  P. Lynne Designs is splitting up.  This is how that is going to happen.

P. Lynne Designs is going back to its roots.  I started this company as a creative company.  Creating stationery products such as greeting and note cards, invitations, business cards, bookmarkers, and anything related to them.  However, I am not going back to scrapbooking.  The reason is quite clear.  The industry itself has changed and has incorporated digital to its core lineup.  In the wake of Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tiktok, it is hard for me to keep up while handling these items and my other business.  If a person requests it, I will do one for them, but it is not going to be the main product of my business anymore.

Speaking of my other business.  I will admit that I have felt the loss of running two businesses.  Before it was being a Longaberger Home consultant (which is coming back in a new way for the moment via QVC), and P. Lynne Designs. It was fun doing the juggling act.  No, I will not be a consultant for another company.  Although it was fun, I was not getting commissions like I would want it too, because I had too few customers in comparison to other home consultants.  This has to do with my blogs and the freelance writing side of P. Lynne Designs. The new company is called The Writing Grove, and this is where I will take on clients who need something written for their business or personally.  I will also house the blogs, At Home with Tricia's Baskets and My Ambiance Life (which I am thinking about changing the name to The Writing Grove). The P. Lynne Designs blog will be with business, P. Lynne Designs.

There is a third business that will allow for affiliate marketing and content sponsorship, but it will serve both companies, so it is not an official company and it will not be registered with the State of Ohio.

Speaking of which, my name renewal for P. Lynne Designs is coming up in April, although I have up to that time to pay it, and I will be registering The Writing Grove at the same time.   Unless it has gone up, that is around $100 for both companies (or $50 each).

2020 personal

Lastly, my plans for me are simple.  I am finally going to try to adopt a child.  I know, dealing with a child and a business is going to be rough, but I am up for the challenge.  I also want to take home my friend’s babies.  I also hope to find a nice guy.  Yep, love life to which I currently do not have.

Photo by Annette Meyer from Pixabay

Personal buys I would like to make.  A new home and a new car.  About the new home, I have been talking about this since I moved out of my last apartment, which was 2002.  Yes, I live in this amazing condo that I did not intend to stay for more than 5 years, but it has been close to 20 years.  I want a home where I do not have to worry about stairs.  I want a larger kitchen, a dedicated room for my craftroom, which I will have in the current condo when my nephew and his girlfriend move out, but at the present moment, I have a corner in the dining area.  This is more than what the average crafter/business owner could ask for.  I also prefer not to share my garage space.  I am sharing mine with the neighbor upstairs, and sometimes they irritate me.  The other day, my nephew was unloading something from his car, and in the middle of his unloading, the neighbor’s father came down and closed the garage door, without asking.  I could not tell him to leave the garage door alone because my Spanish is rusty, and he does not speak English at all. Gone are the days when I could tell my neighbor to leave the garage door up.

As for the new car, I am currently driving a used 2008 Dodge Caliber.  This car was an emergency buy because I had an accident in 2015 with my 1998 Honda Accord.  This car was only supposed to get me through the fall and winter of 2015-16, but I elected to keep it for a while and shop for a car payment that I could handle.  For a while, I was dead set on getting a Honda CR-V, a year behind whatever current year.  So, if the current year is 2020, then I would get 2019.  Well, I rode in my friend’s car, and I could not help but think how big this car was.  I mean, the only thing riding with me would be my child (unless I get siblings), and my business, so I switched to an HR-V, which is much smaller, easier to handle, and it is still a Honda, plus it is the same size as my Caliber.  Next thing I knew after making the announcement that this is what I am going to purchase or lease, my father thinks that I am better off with a 2020 Hyundai Kona, like the one that one of the older ladies at my church drives.  I got irritated with that.  So, now, I am supposed to test drive both the Kona and the HR-V. My money is still on the HR-V, but I am open.  He also does not want me to lease, even though he has been leasing his cars for years.  OooKay?

2020 Blogs

I will tackle this in the next post.  I have spent too long talking about the other stuff, and I am close to the 2000 wordmark, which is a tip, this is actually small in comparison to what was the 1000 wordmark for most blog posts.  I will have the normal Motivational Mondays, only it will be on all three blogs.  My Ambiance Life blog, everything will be about the same for now.  I will mention on At Home with Tricia's Baskets what I am going to change on that blog, as well on the P. Lynne Designs blog as well.

Well, this is long and drawn out.  I hope I did not bore you.  I am really out to grab more readers and give you information on all things writing, creating blogs, journaling, and other things related, like planners.  This is going to be a fun year, I can tell.  Until then, check out the rest of my blog posts from 2019 and before.  May God bless you, and peace out.  

from Blogger http://bit.ly/37GbCiQ via IFTTT

[francisneuman]

Constantly feeling inadequate and unimportant

So a few things to start off with: I'm merely 17, live in Hungary and primarily learn German. The latter is merely about the grammatical mistakes I'm bound to make, so sorry in advance.

​

When I was a little child, I had a normal family, or so I thought. We moved a lot, I constantly had to "break up" with friends and find new ones, and being the introverted shy kid I was, it was hard. After that, we settled into a considerably large city (for Hungary anyway) and I went to primary school here. The first two years were amazing, I made a handful of friends and went to all kinds of summer camps. The teachers liked me and I liked them, even though we only had 2 to please. And a German/English teacher, but they were out of the picture for the majority of classes.

​

Then the third year changed everything. One of the two "main" teachers was completely fine, the other...

​

No other way to describe her than as a ruthless cunt. Threw crayons and sponges with plastic cases at 9 year olds, berated me constantly, for my drawings, the way I performed in PE class, and also for me not writing down the individual results of additions (I mean, as with 13+3+9=? you also needed to write down the individual result of 13+3, above the plus). Also wanted to give half the math book as homework, only to never actually bring that homework up, ever.

​

Absolutely everyone loathed her. Thankfully, she only taught us for one year more, although that's two years too much to be fair.

​

The rest of primary school (up to eight grade) I spent with being too afraid to show my drawings to anyone but the teacher, never ever raised my hand even though I knew the answer to the questions, never joined any competition nor did I make any friends outside our class.

​

I was afraid. Of being ridiculed, of being humiliated, of seeming like a total ass. But this fear was not new, back when I was a child, I feared my father too. He didn't show me any affection, my mother was a stay at home mother for a while, so she had time to take care of me. But I never got a hug, my concerns were belittled, and I was just kind of neglected. And I was too timid to ask for any of this, so I turned to videogames. The Witcher and Rome Total War mainly.

​

To be fair, my parents could've tried their best, they could've expected a different kind of kid, after all, I was their firstborn.

​

But the pain struck me truly when my brother was given everything I ever wanted. Like he was a nobleman's heir or something. And here I was, the meagre serfboy, who should've been working by the age of 7.

​

Miraculously I handled it pretty well for a considerable ammount of time. Never whined about any of this, never tried to garner sympathy, to cry for help. So I maintained my image as a kind of "aloof but mature, funny but serious, strong but gentle (add whatever contradictory exaggeration you want to add to that list)" guy. That false image seemed to have attracted (if not romantically then platonically) one of my classmates. After she sat down next to me because the whole classroom had to be rearranged because of some delinquent guys.

​

She was an intriguing person to be sure, but we got along fine. I felt content next to her. I had a purpose, and she appreciated me for it. I helped her in history, she helped me in biology. Hell, she tried to push me to get a 5 in biology in eight grade because I had an average of around 4.47 (5 is the best, 1 is the worst grade here). I declined but got the 5 because the teacher knew it was the only subject I needed to get a straight 5 average.

​

Some time afterwards I went to a new school, a grammar school (or high school), and it was exhausting. Constant tests, seemingly useless subjects for someone who got into an advanced German class, mandatory PE lessons, 5 per week.

​

I felt like absolute shit after a year. I loathed literature, I wanted no more chemistry lessons, and seemingly we got one of the worst batch of the otherwise good roster of teachers. The history teacher always had something else to work on, the chemistry teacher wanted us to memorize everything and give it back to him 100%, the literature teacher taught in an incredibly boring and uninteresting way, but the English guys and gals got it even worse.

​

I decided to write about this to the previously mention friend, who after having enough of my whining, decided to just go silent on me. Tbf, she could've wanted to help just didn't know how, but I find it hard to believe.

​

So I sinked deeper and deeper, but I didn't want to acknowledge it as full-blown depression, because I thought it was just a bad season or something (to this very day I don't know exactly what my problem is). I don't blame it on her or the new teachers, they just weren't aware of the full picture.

​

Then I decided to just draw and write poems and maybe short stories from time to time. It helped, sort of. And after a year, out of fear I deleted all of my poems and stories, threw out my drawings and limped through tenth grade.

​

Then we went on a class trip to England, and it was pretty good. The family was very welcoming, the landscape was beautiful (altough I still prefer the Hungarian plains) and the few people I interacted with were polite. Unlike in Vienna, but that's a different story.

​

Along with us came a girl who I would later have a crush on. We shared similar interests, could talk for hours and understood eachothers grievances. She had her fair share of terrible experiences, she was bullied because of her height and humiliated in front of her current class. In a weird sense, this made me feel like my problems were nothing, because I never truly experienced this, I was just paranoid of this kind of treatment.

​

We were friends for four months and yesterday I broke down for something minor and went to her for consolation and advice, but I broke even further and then I became paranoid about what happened to the last girl who I told this stuff so in the chaos I confessed to her and practically told her that this negativity could spread on to her so she must cut all ties with me.

​

She told me that I was tired and needed some sleep. I was puzzled, because she was right, I realized I was behaving irrationally. I felt immense shame and just buried my head in the pillow.

​

But what do these things have to do with the title? Well, you see...

​

I love writing stories and poems, but I hate literature, so I feel as if my words are worthless. I love to draw, but everywhere I look, I'm reminded that my works are nothing. Anything I do, there's always something wrong with it. It's inadequate, it's worthless, awful, terrible, it should burn and never disgrace anyone's eyes.

​

I feel as if I achieved nothing, which to be honest, should come to no surprise for a 17 year old, right? But there's this looming threat of dying suddenly, with people either thinking I was a bland loser or an idiot, a wannabe Shakespeare or something. And that scares the hell out of me, because I live merely to maintain my grandfather's name, may he rest in peace. I was always told I resembled him best. So by dying in such a way, I bring dishonor to both him and me.

submitted by /u/Avre01 [link] [comments] Constantly feeling inadequate and unimportant published first on https://neuroscientia.blogspot.com/

[pomrania]

Mandarin journal, week 9

(week 8) (week 9b)

I specifically chose to not bring my notes with me last night. For the most part, I feel that that was a good decision; however, there were some grammar points that I might have benefited from writing down. So long as I make sure to get them securely in my head though, it won't be a problem.

Apparently other people found the characters quiz last week to be really hard? That's... difficult for me to wrap my head around, but they'd have no reason to lie about it, and it's also supported by what the prof said later on that some people did really well and other people had a bunch of problems. (I got 100% on that quiz. I would have been mad at myself if I'd gotten anything less, on something that easy for me.)

Before class, I tried to share what I could, for having a better mental representation of the characters. If you can identify each radical, and know what it would mean, that gives you some mental "hooks" on which to hang both meaning and form. For me there's also the "rhythm" of a character, with how it's written, but I think my explanation just confused people instead of helping them. I mentioned that my background in Japanese probably helped me, at least with the idea of characters and how they look, and one girl who'd been having problems with characters, said that she also had a background in Japanese and it wasn't doing her any good. I asked if it was spoken or written, and she said both; that threw me for a bit of a loop, since the entire Japanese writing system came from the Chinese, and a bunch of characters are still exactly the same (although spoken differently). I didn't really know what to say in response to that, other than "huh".

That book that's partially in Mandarin, that I go over semi-regularly when I'm out and I'm bored and I'm not crafting, I guess it really has been of help to me. I'm reinforcing my knowledge of form and meaning every time I come across a character I'm familiar with; so I guess TECHNICALLY that might count as studying, or practicing the language? It doesn't FEEL like work though, so I never counted it. I feel like I never study for this course, but I guess that's because all of the stuff I've been doing, gets mentally filed under "gaining knowledge of a language" and not "studying". And I feel kind of bad about THAT, even though I can recognize that it's stupid. Why should i feel bad that I've found a way to "study" that I actually enjoy? That's always the problem with learning stuff alongside other people, the constant risk of comparison; and no matter which direction I'm in, I always feel bad about it.

Apparently yesterday was our last actual Mandarin lesson for the semester, and coming up we just have presentations and test and review and the exam. That's stupid. We've barely learned anything! I'm trying to remember where we were at the end of our first semester of intro German, but a) that was a while ago and my memory doesn't retain experiences very well, and b) German is pretty similar to English, while Mandarin is not, so it wouldn't be a valid comparison. It still feels weird though. I don't know how much of this is the normal "holy cow time passes", and how much is specific to how this particular class was taught.

Speaking of "how this particular class was taught". This is a thing the prof has done since the beginning, and it ALWAYS annoys me, but I don't think I've ever mentioned it. When she's introducing new vocabulary for us, and we're going over it, she sounds out (and has us sound out) each syllable. Now, in and of itself this wouldn't be so bad. However, Mandarin has a bunch of sounds which are.... different, in isolation compared to a particular context. Take "si" for example. After most initials, the "i" would sound like "ee", but not when it comes after "s", where instead it isn't quite spoken. So "si" doesn't sound like "see", but sounds like "suh" or "seur" or something else I can't represent with my keyboard. When the prof would sound "si" out, she goes "suh" then "ee" then "seuh", as what happens when you put those sounds together. ...that is NOT what happens when you put those sounds together, as literally anyone other than a native speaker can tell. It's the phonology of Mandarin, that has the "i" sound shift so that's what results, but it 100% is not a "s" and "ee" sound put together, and it's just confusing when she does that.

I feel I should mention now that in class, I jotted down a few notes for topics to cover here.

The linguistics paper we have, for which I'm going to be using these journal entries, I'm pretty sure it's due a few days from now. I haven't even looked at its requirements yet, because I make poor life decisions. But at least I can say that yesterday, I made a conscious decision to not look at it until I've gotten this journal entry done; I don't want to taint my recollection, and expression of experiences, with what I might need for something else. I suppose I'm low-key background freaking out about it, but that's normal. After I've gotten this written and posted, I'm going to look over what all I'll need to do for the paper.

Under the category of "things that are dumb yet I feel them anyways", I kind of feel like I'm cheating in Mandarin class, by that I'm only taking classes part-time. I only have one other course to take up time and cause stress, and it feels unfair. Like I should be marked more harshly because of that. This isn't something I've commonly experienced with other classes that I've taken, but I think I remember feeling something similar with German.

I don't think it's particularly good, how we're introduced to new words in this course. First we go through the vocabulary list a few times, then we run through the pre-written dialogue (which has all those new words in it) a few times. Now, it's real good to have those things available, and I totally think that we SHOULD go through the dialogue. However, I feel it's not the best option to JUST have those. There's no room for creativity, or even using those words in anything other than those particular sentences (with the exception of things that are used for a grammar point). All of that stuff, coming up with our own sentences, we're supposed to do for homework and presentations, yet we don't do any of that in class. I mean I've managed, but I don't think it's a good way of teaching a language, and I don't think it's fair.

Speaking of things I don't think are fair. You may remember that I was complaining, for the previous homework, about that we were never taught a thing about word order in the textbook, even though we were supposed to answer a question with it. I mentioned that to the prof, and she said it's just how the books are written. I said that it didn't seem fair, and she (rhetorically) asked me how I'd done on that question. I'd accidentally gotten it correct, but that isn't the point. My marks don't matter. And even if she ended up not counting that question for everyone, since so many people got it wrong, it's not about the marks, it's just WRONG to put something like that on people. There's nothing that can be done about THAT question for this class now, since it's in the past, but I hope she'll fix that for next year, one way or another, and avoid similar things for us in the future.

I don't think she's actually very good at teaching the language. That'd be why so many people are having trouble with it. It's not that I'm a genius; it's that I'm abnormal, and I can get more stuff from reading outside the class than from what the prof says in the class. Oddly enough, that's kind of comforting.

We learned some grammar about word order yesterday. I remember thinking that it was good we're FINALLY learning it, but I can't remember offhand how it went. I'll need to look that up.

I was TIRED in the second half of class. I'm pretty sure that some of that is due to the sheer amount of concentration I have to expend to learn some of that stuff, but it's also with the time of day, not helped by me accidentally waking up earlier than I had to that morning. At least I had sufficient food.