#and applied to school & just waiting for the actual program application period to begin

[mxgyver]

.

[fernpost]

Cycle 0 - Interviews

[read on ao3]

[next]

Taako Taaco. 114. Elf. Wizard; Specialization in transmutation and inventive magical applications.

Previous experience: Top of class at Tredore, Academy of Magics and Technology; recently graduated.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of petty theft.

Davenport likes to think of himself as calm and composed. It’s hard to throw him off. He has to be in order to have gotten this far in his mission as fast as he has.

But when he turns around from shutting the door to see his interviewee with his feet kicked up on the table, twirling a wand through his fingers, he’s a little shocked. He’s been doing these interviews for two days now, and even the more relaxed and confident people have held a bit more sense for decorum.

It’s a bit rude.

It’s also a little interesting.

He sits at his desk, pulling the elf’s papers away from his boots (shiny, and though they look expensive he can see they’re worn down and well taken care of) and glances down. “Tell me, Taako Taaco, what makes you want to explore the planerverse?”

“Bored.”

If the feet on the desk threw him off for a second, that floors him entirely. “Bored?”

“I’ve got nothing else to do on this plane, why not, you know?”

“No burning desire to go further than any being has gone before?” That’s one of the normal responses, the well-planned out speeches he keeps getting in response to his opening question.

The elf crosses his feet, leaning back somehow further into the provided chair. Davenport worries for a second that he may fall as he continues on, “that’s cool too, I guess. But I figure, why wouldn’t you want the great Taaco name aboard your ship.”

Davenport picks up a pen from his table and makes a small note on the paperwork, “no offense, Mr. Taaco, but you’re rather cavalier about this interview that determines whether or not you’re accepted into a program that may redefine our understanding of the world.”

The elf shrugs and takes his feet off of Davenport’s desk, flashing him a smirk, “you’ve seen my sister’s paperwork, yeah? No way you’re not going to accept her, and we’re a package deal. Says it right there in bold at the top of my application, my man.” It does, in fact, say that at the top. Cursive words noting how he refuses to accept any position on the ship if his sister isn't there too. When reviewing who he was interviewing today, he saw similar words on Lup Taaco’s paperwork.

“You’re very confident in your sister’s abilities.” Davenport begins, pausing for a second as he notes the way the elf begins to tense up before continuing, “however, I wouldn’t sell yourself so short. You also graduated top of your class, and excelled in the art of transmutation multiple times. One of your letters of recommendation even noted how you made many spells easier to cast, somatically speaking.”

“What can I say, I’ll find any short cut I can.”

Davenport makes another note on his paper. “Now, I do need to ask about your record of petty theft.”

“Oh, natch.”

Lup Taaco. 114. Elf. Wizard; Specialization in evocation and applied magic regarding planar research.

Previous experience: Top of class at Tredore, Academy of Magics and Technology; recently graduated.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of petty theft.

“Lup Taaco, it is nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Captain.” The woman in front of him smiles. The resemblance to her brother couldn’t be more clear, and though her demeanor is quite similar, she at least doesn’t have her feet on his desk.

Not that his desk is anything fancy, but the point stands. “I’m not technically the captain yet, you know.”

“Potato, potato.”

Davenport is fairly certain that’s not how that phrase is used. “You did research into the planes at Tredore, correct?”

“Quite a bit, yeah. I’m sure my brother told you?”

The slight tilt of her head and lit of her voice tells Davenport this is some sort of test, which is confusing and a bit disconcerting, considering he is the one conducting the interview. He checks a quick box on his papers. “He talked you up a bit, yes. But this is your own interview, and I wanted to discuss your own knowledge with you, personally.”

She smiles, a touch more warmth to it than her previous attitude. “Oh, of course. Did quite a bit of studying at Tredore. First real school we attended. Kinda boring at times, you know?”

“If you’re accepted into this program, it’s going to be four intense months of studying and teaching you the more complex workings of the ship. Plus the two months of actually being on the ship.”

“That’s the fun stuff. Not a third semester in a row of another language I already figured out most of years ago.”

“How many languages do you speak, Ms. Taaco?”

“Including common, five languages.”

“Impressive.” Davenport himself only speaks three. “Now, I would like to ask you about your criminal record, if you don’t mind?”

Her smile grew sharp as she laughs.

Honestly, he isn’t surprised. Her explanation is the same as her brothers. Grew up on the road, needed food and other items on occasion. Didn’t always run fast enough. Davenport can’t fault them, and certainly won’t hold it against them.

He glances down at her paperwork, about to ask another question about her education, when she speaks up. “I’ve got a question for you, Captain.”

“Oh?”

“The ship- we’re really going with the name ‘The Starblaster’?”

Davenport sighs. He knew this question was coming, but he was expecting it to come during a press conference from a reporter, not a potential shipmate. “Yes. To be fair, it was a communal name we put to a vote from everyone who worked on building the engine.”

Ms. Taaco smiles. “Dope.”

Barry J. Bluejeans. 37 years old. Human. Wizard; specialization in applied magic regarding bonds and planar research.

Previous experience: Current assistant professor at Duffman University of the Arcane, part-time employee at the Institute of Planer Research and Exploration.

Criminal Record: Previous altercations regarding necromancy; no crimes against the nature of life and death ever committed.

Mr. Bluejeans is an interesting man. By the look of him, you’d expect to see him fumbling his way through a PTA meeting for his two kids. Instead, Davenport is staring down the word ‘necromancy’ on his paperwork on an application regarding literal planar travel on a ship called 'the Starblaster.'

So far, the interview has been going well. He’d listened to the man explain his research into the arcane, and he’d understood planar travel as well as any of the current scientists and engineers at the Institute. He was called in often for conferences and meetings about the bond engine. He’d seen the man walking around on occasion. They’d never been in a meeting together before, but he’d seemed nice.

But he also had a history of necromancy.

Now, Davenport doesn’t like to judge people. However, being in an enclosed space with someone who needed to specify he had never technically committed “crimes against the nature of humanity” isn’t the most comforting.

But, he was a smart man. Easy to get along with, too. So far. Necromancy notwithstanding.

Best to get it over with, “so, Mr. Bluejeans. I do need to ask about your criminal record-”

“Oh! Yeah, I never killed anyone. Or un- killed anyone. Uh, resurrected, I mean. Just did lots of studying into the application of necromancy and necromantic spells. Got in trouble because I toed the line of ‘research’ and ‘bringing my cat back to life,’ but got a stern talking to. Didn’t try it again, and don’t plan on needing to deal with those types of authorities again.”

Okay, normal enough answer, far as the situation applies-

“My current research into it has stayed purely theoretical, and it won’t interfere with the mission at all.”

So the man is still into necromancy.

Davenport glances down at the man’s file, thick with it’s attached papers Bluejeans has done on planar research. He’s not even stuck up about his level of education, and that’s extremely rare for the field.

Holding back a sigh, Davenport asks, “Can you explain the paper you wrote on the outer planes interactions with the inner planes for me?”

It was a really good paper.

But the man is still into necromancy.

Lucretia. 20. Human. Chronicler; Specialization in journalism.

Previous experience: Due to multiple NDA, she is unable to give us the exact number and titles of books she has written, but she sent letters of recommendation from Duke Rensburg, Lady Norabelle, and Warren of the Seatree Clan.

Criminal Record: Acquisition and attempted use of a false ID.

“So, Ms. Lucretia, I understand you cannot provide us with most examples of your works, but from what you have provided, you seem to be very, very good.”

“I like to think so, yes.” The young woman in front of him seems polite. She’s quiet; he saw her waiting outside with a few others before her interview, and while most of them were engaged in some awkward small talk, she sat away from them. Likely partially due to her age- she is much younger than the people outside- but she also simply seems quiet.

Which wouldn’t be the worst quality in someone you would be sharing a small, enclosed space with for an extended period of time. But, if she couldn’t bond with the others sufficiently, the bond engine won’t work.

(Hell, the bond engine was already finicky, they figured out the tech only a month ago, and they only have four months to bond an entire crew to pilot it and-)

“Can you explain to me why you acquired a fake ID and tried to use it at a, uh,” Davenport glances down at the records in front of him, holding back a chuckle, “at the forbidden section of the Library of Runar?”

Lucretia looks uncomfortable for a second, and he’s sure if the lighting in the room were better he would be able to see her flush with embarrassment. She gives him a hesitant smile, “I can’t get into the explicit details, but I was working on a book for an older client whose memory was becoming patchy, and I wanted to confirm some details before I put their name to it. They wouldn’t allow me into the section without the proper documents, but my client refused to agree that I should double check his work, even though I was almost certain he was wrong, so I simply… found a way to get past their guard. I wasn’t going to steal anything and I was going to use the proper equipment to read through the documents.”

Davenport smiles, “pursuit of knowledge and truth is important to you, then?”

“I don’t think spreading lies, especially in that context, is very honorable, no.” Her hands are folded in her lap now, and she seems a bit more relaxed.

Considering the others he is planning on accepting, he may be wrong about her getting along with them. Anyone willing to break the law just to prove an old man wrong would at least get along with him. Davenport refuses to have any pushovers aboard his ship.

Magnus Burnsides. 19. Fighter; Specialization in protection fighting and mechanical engineering.

Previous experience: Current bouncer at Apex Club. Currently enrolled in Gallier’s Fighter Academy and College.

Criminal Record: One count of assault and battery, appealed for defense of another person present. One count of indecent exposure and public intoxication.

Davenport will be the first to admit it can be tricky to follow human aging patterns, but he knows he’s not mistaken in thinking the man in front of him is barely out of “child” territory. Nineteen is a very, very small amount of time to be alive. Also, a very, very small amount of time to learn important things, like how to run what is basically a ship right out of a science fiction novel- complete with breakthrough technology.

Despite this, it’s hard to not find the young man in front of him to be endearing, and mostly knowledgeable in the things they need him to be.

“Magnus. You’re very young, one of the youngest applicants we have. What makes you think you’re qualified as the head of security of the ship?”

The young man in front of him- Gods, he really is young- grins and lifts his arms to flex, a show of pride and ego almost unbefitting of an interview setting, “Have you seen my muscles? I’m very strong, and a very good fighter.”

Many of today’s interviews have been quite different than he was expecting.

“I was referring more to job experience.”

“Oh!” Magnus shifts in his seat, fingers drumming against the table as he thinks. “I worked as a bouncer for a club while I was in college and did, if I must toot my own horn, a very good job. You should have a letter of recommendation from the owner-” He leans forwards, reaching a hand out as if to look through his own files to show him the letter.

“Yes, I did read through it. She was very thorough in stating how eager you were to help.” Davenport glances down at the papers in front of him, holding back a sigh. It truly was a glowing review of this young man. While his grades from the aforementioned college weren’t the highest, especially in classes one might consider important for an institute of planar research, the two letter of recommendations he submitted from teachers of his explained how Burnsides was very persistent when he wanted to learn something he didn’t know. He also had taken quite a few classes regarding vehicles- not enough to claim the young man was an expert but enough to provide a solid basis to show him how things worked and could be repaired on the ship.

The kid’s attitude was something of a breath of fresh air in this place. However, there was one glaring concern.

“I was also a bit concerned about the criminal record we have on file for you. Assault and battery as well as the indecent exposure and public-”

“In my defense for the second one, I was drunk with some friends and maybe thought it’d be funny to streak in the lake. Who hasn’t been to a party that gets a little out of hand.” He holds his hands out as if to say “am I right?”

Off the record, Davenport is inclined to agree that he was right. On the record, he is choosing to ignore it. “And the assault and battery? The file says it was in defense of a young person.”

Burnsides grins, “that’s how I got hired as the bouncer!”

He waits a moment, expecting Magnus to continue. When it seems the young man is assuming that is enough explanation, he prompts, “by beating up a man outside the club?”

“Yeah! He was harassing someone outside, and I was walking home and passed by. I told him to step off, and he didn’t. So I decked him, and he was out right away.”

It lined up with the records he had, and honestly, seeing someone so ready to step up to the defense of a stranger was a good quality. Better than some of the older applicants who were much more… formal in their training. He wonders briefly how Burnsides would react to an altercation against someone with magic.

Glancing down at his records, he guesses he would run headfirst without thinking.

Stifling a small grin, Davenport continues, “Now, tell me. Assume we’re up in space, and something goes wrong with the bond engine. What would your course of action be, Mr. Burnsides?”

Merle Hitower Highchurch. 214. Cleric; Specialization in botany, religion, and medical treatment.

Previous experience: Current botanist at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. Professor of botany at Narvick’s University for four years.

Criminal Record: Multiple counts of loitering.

The door is pushed all the way open before Davenport can even call out the next person.

A short dwarf slides into the room with a wide grin, “hey Dav!” A mug of tea is pressed into his hands.

“Hello, Merle. You do know this needs to be at least a little formal, yes?”

“Formal schmormal. Ask me your silly questions already, bud.” Merle Highchurch, resident botanist at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, plops right down in the seat he’d taken to commandeering once a week, for the past three weeks.

Davenport had seen him around before, but a botanist in an institute designed for exploring other planes that had little capabilities to actually go to those places yet was rarely busy, and even more rarely called upon. He still barely knew the guy, but after the day they’d gotten stuck in the elevator for ten minutes when it broke down, the dwarf had come to his office for tea each Wednesday.

It was a bit strange, but the tea was good.

“Tell me about your work experience.”

Merle laughs heartily, “they barely have me do anything around here, ‘cept tend to the couple of plants they’ve grabbed from the ground plane.”

“It’s the Elemental Plane of Earth, and don’t sell yourself short, Merle. This is basically a job interview, you know.”

Merle slurps loudly at his own mug, “aren’t you planning on nepotism hiring me, because we’re buds?”

“That isn’t even what that word means, Merle.”

“Isn’t it?”

Davenport stares into the tea, “is this made from the Earth plant?”

“Maybe?”

Davenport. 276. Captain and navigator; Specialization in mechanical engineering and arcane components combined with contemporary technology.

Previous Experience: Crewmate on the Lady Blue for twenty years. Graduated from Grensville University. Current staff at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration.

Criminal Record: Unlawful resistance of orders from captain, raising of commotion on board ship while employed.

Davenport handed the six files over to Selune, “These are them.”

The halfling woman flips through them, eyebrows raising higher with each one she sees. “You’re sure you grabbed the right ones? A few of these I understand, but you do know we had the Issaiah Broler apply.”

He folds his hand in front of him, nodding. “I also know that during the interview he made me want to pour my tea on his lap. There’s no chance of getting the bond engine going with him. These are the six I picked. They’re all qualified- and the ones that are less educated in the specifics in the field I’m sure will pick up on the important information quickly. The Taaco twins already will give the bond engine a huge boost. Ms. Lucretia will ensure we have everything chronicled, something I’m sure you can appreciate, Selune. Mr. Bluejeans previous work shows he will thrive given the opportunities awaiting us. Mr. Highchurch is an educated man, and I trust him to keep the crew healthy and provide ample information on anything botany related we encounter, and I’m certain Mr. Burnsides will provide ample help in any task we show him how to do.” He sighs, glancing out the window of her office. There were a few people lingering outside in the courtyard of the Institute. “We have been given a tremendous opportunity to explore beyond what we can imagine, Selune. The last thing I want is to be bogged down by people stuck in their ways, who have been working in this field long enough to have their preconceived notions about what to expect and who will react badly when they’re proven wrong. I trust my own judgement in picking a crew, and I hope you trust my abilities to get these people ready to set sail in four months.”

What he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t want a bunch of stuffy jackasses on his ship. He’s not even sure picking all the over-qualified people would pass through the higher-ups' inspection of the crew. The people he picked were qualified enough to get a quick sign-off, but not too much. Anyone “overqualified” would probably get rejected. The ship had been built in basically six months. It’d get them off the ground, sure. It wasn’t going to explode on them once they got up there, but it wasn’t safe. There was a reason Davenport was the captain at all.

The six candidates in those files didn’t have a name for themselves as “important” to any stuffy scientific group or noble family. These people he picked were just that- people. A group of people who he believed deserved this opportunity. If anyone was getting the chance to make a name for themselves- to have the chance to redefine everything they know about the planar systems, he wanted to make sure they deserved the chance. A dangerous chance, sure. But what was science if not a little risky.

She sighs, opening the file on top. Her hand reaches for her pen, “Davenport, I got the final say on the name of the ship, I suppose the least I can do is give you final say on the crew.” She begins to write ‘approved’ at the top of the file, flipping through each one before giving him a pointed look. “But when I get angry calls about how you approved a bunch of nobodies and two people not even old enough to drink, I’m transferring them straight to your crystal.”

“And I will not be answering a single one.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, Captain.”

[hotmesshapa]

Hold On • Bang Chan

pairing: bang chan x reader

genre: some angst, a whole lotta fluff

word count: 1.6k

warnings: some strong language, descriptions of an anxiety attack

a/n: I started writing this at like 2am one night when I was in my chan feels, then homeboy played Michael Bublé during his last vlive and I took that as my sign to finish it lol. I also highkey recommend the song mentioned in this it totally didn’t make me cry while I was editing this noooo not at all 🖤

You pace back and forth in front of your front door, chewing on your bottom lip, occasionally checking the time on your phone as you impatiently wait for the mail to come. You try to distract yourself by scrolling through instagram and literally every other app you have, but your brain is too focused on one thing: an acceptance letter.

It’s a sunny but chilly Friday of what normally would be a regular week. This week, however, is the week universities send out their acceptance letters, and the first four days were complete agony of not hearing anything back. You had applied to one of the most prestigious graduate schools in the country, one that’s been around for hundreds of years and for some reason didn’t think it needed to upgrade its acceptance announcements with the current century. Honestly, you didn’t know people still sent actual letters anymore, but there’s something a bit comforting in receiving a physical copy of something that could be so important and life-changing to you. You had worked your ass off the day you started your courses in college, ultimately graduating two years ago with high honors and glowing recommendations from a few of your professors. Since then, you managed to score two internships in the film industry, all while working a part-time job and somehow not going completely insane. You did everything you could for a spot in that university’s graduate program, but despite everyone telling you that your acceptance is a sure thing, you still were insanely nervous.

To be honest, you don’t need to go to graduate school. Your bachelor’s degree and internships qualify you for any job you wanted in the industry, let alone your work ethic and resume you’ve built over the past two years. But you love learning, and this is the change to to meet new people and gain new experiences that you could only get from a graduate program. And sure, you didn’t need to apply to such a distinguished school, but the perfectionist inside you wanted the best of the best, and nearly all of your professors and friends encouraged you to apply, so how could you not?

After a few minutes of constant pacing, you check your phone again and let out a shaky breath, your nerves nowhere near being calmed. You sit yourself down in from of the door’s little mail slot and just stare.

“Baby,” Chan chuckles, watching you from the couch as he works on his laptop. “The mail isn’t gonna get here any faster if you stare at the door.”

“I know, but who knows, maybe the mailman will be able to sense my intense gaze from wherever he is and speed over.”

You hear your boyfriend rise from the couch and walk to where you’re planted, sitting behind you and wrapping his arms around your waist. “You worked hard for this, Y/N, they’d be crazy not to accept you. I’m sure you got in.”

You hum in appreciation and lean back against chest, smiling as he tenderly kisses your temple. Chan, being the actual angel that he is, was one of the main reasons you had managed not to completely lose your shit throughout the entire application process and waiting period. You two know each other like the back of your hand; anytime one of you (mostly you) would get stressed out over something, the other would always be there to help. But for Chan, it’s like he has a sixth sense for knowing when you’re going through it, because he’d be by your side within an instant. He was, and still is, your voice of reason, your comfort, your everything.

He takes your hands in his, gently rubbing circles against your palms. “Don’t worry, I’m sure the letter will arrive any moment now.”

The two of you stare at the door for a few minutes, before you can’t help but check the time on your phone again, and you release a worried sigh, beginning to impatiently tap on the floor. As if he could read your mind, Chan pulls you tighter against his body and snuggles his face into the curve of your neck. “Just relax Y/N.”

Once you manage to calm your nerves down again, he slowly gets up, eliciting a small whimper from you from the loss of his warmth, which only gets you a chuckle in response. “I’m gonna make some hot chocolate, want any?”

“Yes please, with a lot-“

“Of marshmallows, I know,” he laughs as he makes his way to the kitchen.

You smile, resting your chin on your hand, and turn your attention back to the mail slot. You wait as patiently as you possibly can for another five minutes, before you hear a crash from the kitchen. “You okay?” you call out, not taking your eyes off the door.

“Yeah, I’m fine… Just wondering, where do you keep your broom?”

“Christopher Bang, what did you-“

At that exact moment, the mail slot opens and you’re greeted with piles of letters and papers falling into your lap. With shaky hands, you sort through the mail, tossing a couple bills, a magazine, and some weird catalog from a brand you’ve never even heard of aside before finally digging up the letter you’ve been waiting for. You can feel your heart beating out of your chest as you frantically try to rip it open without giving yourself a paper cut.

“Was that the mail? Did it come?” Chan calls out from the kitchen, but you’re too in your own head to put words together to form an answer. 

You finally manage to open up the envelope, your hands trembling as you pull out the letter and slowly unfold it. All the words just seem to blur together, except the ones that catch your attention:

not accepted

In a matter of seconds, you feel yourself spiral. Your breathing begins to become more shallow and quicken, while your mind begins to race a million miles per second, trying to make of what you just read. 

What are you gonna do now? 

All that work, for what, nothing? 

Did you do something wrong?

Is there something wrong with you?

Are you just not good enough? 

A tear falls on the paper you’re holding, smearing the ink stating your failure, but you didn’t even realize you were crying until then. You furiously wipe them away with the back of your hand, but no matter what you do, tears just keep falling, and you can feel yourself beginning to hyperventilate, you whole body trembling. You know this isn’t the end of the world, but then why did it feel like it is?

“Y/N? Did you hear-“

You turn to your boyfriend, and the look on your face must have said it all, because the next thing you know, Chan is engulfing you in a warm hug, stroking your hair as you start to sob into his chest. “Hey, everything’s going to be okay. Y/N, please listen to me. Everything’s going to be okay. We’ll figure something out.” He kisses the top of your head and continues to let you cry as he hugs you close.

It seems like eternity, but you manage to calm yourself down a bit, clinging to Chan’s hoodie while listening to his steady heartbeat, and you finally bring yourself to look up at him. “I just… I just really thought I was gonna get in,” you say quietly, your eyes welling up again.

He gingerly wipes away the tears from your cheeks and offers you a sympathetic smile. “I know, baby, I know. I’m so sorry.” He pulls you back into a hug, rubbing your back to help ease the knots that had build up there from the stress. “Fuck them,” he mumbles against your hair. “It’s their loss for not choosing one of the smartest and hardest working people on this planet.”

You let out a weak laugh in response, grateful for his attempt to crack some jokes to ease the tension. You nuzzle your face into the crook of his neck, closing you eyes to try to get rid of the stress that lingered in your head.

“I have an idea,” Chan suddenly says, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen in the room. He gently pulls away from you, and you watch in confusion as he makes his way across the living room, taking his phone out from his pocket and placing it on the coffee table. 

The next thing you know, Michael Bublé’s “Hold On” fills the room, and a small smile forms on your lips as Chan turns to you, offering his hand. You take it, and he pulls up from where you’re seated and close to his strong body, putting his hands on your waist as your arms instinctively wrap around his neck. Slowly, the two of you begin to sway to the music, and you feel any remaining sadness and tension drain from your body as you dance with your boyfriend, and your smile begins to grow.

“So hold on to me tight, hold on, I promise it will be alright,” Chan’s smooth voice sings along with the music, and he’s looking at you with so much adoration, you can feel your heart swell. “Cause it’s you and me together, and baby all we’ve got is time. So hold on to me, hold on to me tonight,” he continues to serenade you, and you can’t help but giggle, causing him to start giggling as well.

You rest your head on his shoulder, releasing a sigh in content as he presses a soft kiss to your forehead. “I love you Chan.”

“I love you too.”

[ask-purpled-and-blued]

Vigilante

Not once has Purpled ever called himself a hero.

He wants that on record, wants to say it up front. He’s never had any delusions about what he is and what he’s doing.

He doesn’t have the license for it, doesn’t have the morals for it. He’s not even saving that many people.

He’s just some kid running around in pro hero cosplay with his shoddy homemade support gear.

So riddle him this: why the fuck is his vigilante name trending on Twitter under #Swag_forHeroCon?

(—This one’s got a high-stress moment and the briefest panic attack known to man somewhere in the middle. Mind the post’s tags and reply if it needs more.—)

—

It started about a year ago. It’s sophomore year and he’s looking at his options for next year’s classes.

Of course he’s taking AP Calc and everything he thinks colleges wanna see. That’s a given and a no-brainer and he’s not gonna go into detail about that.

No, what matters is that his junior and senior year let him take career classes.

Hero-related career classes.

Because not only is this a private nerd school that he needs his scholarship to afford. It’s a private nerd school that has a dual-enrollment type thing with a nearby heroics school.

And one with a pretty good support course that is now available to him.

He’s always been interested in math and engineering. Support courses are just using both of those to make cool shit for heroes and make hella money while doing so.

He’s done his research. Support gear can cost anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to an arm and a leg and both your kidneys.

And it’s his dream to make that kinda money.

So he talks to his counselor about it, fills out the applications and waivers, takes the program’s entrance exam. And within a week he’s got his new schedule that’s got an extra two hours slapped onto the end of the day.

It’s gonna be so worth it.

—

And it really was.

The beginning of the year was covering what they should make support gear for, how to take the quirks and ideas of the heroes they’re working for and make them actually work.

But also the design process, how to research stuff, lab safety. How to make something look nice while not compromising its utility, costume design, branding. Different materials and their uses, different materials and how to work with them. How to deal with mistakes and set-backs. Avoiding burnout and getting literally burn.

The class was amazing. But his favorite part came later in the year.

The final project.

They were given a made up hero student’s profile and were told to create a support item for them. The file came with their name, measurements, hero name, quirk description, and several sketches of what the fake person looked like and of them using their quirk.

They were given a few deadlines and some profiles came with design requests, but for the most part they were allowed to go ham.

And go ham he did.

His assignment was a kid whose quirk was being able to float just himself. He got a couple sketches of what the kid’s costume already had and it looked like there was a bee theme going on.

So, naturally, he decided to give this kid a pneumatic nail gun.

...

Alright so maybe that wasn’t as intuitive as he thought it was. But the kid didn’t have any sort of weapon on him in any of the sketches!

And there wasn’t any sort of close combat abilities listed in the biography like some of his classmates’s people had, so the further this kid could be from the action while still packing a punch the better.

Hence the nail gun he was designing to look like a stinger.

He did his research. Looked up where the body’s vital organs are and read up on acupuncture. Looked up the damage that stab wounds can do and how fast a thing had to be going to go right through you.

Printed out some human outlines and wrote up a couple sheets that pointed out the “no-no spots.” And basically wrote a manual on how to use the thing and half an essay on why certain safety features were implemented to keep him and the fake kid from being sued.

And then halfway through actually building the thing he got the idea to add a paralytic substance.

And then he hated himself a little bit because he had to find a substance that would be non-lethal and would have the desired affect. And then he had to go to his teacher during his office hours to sit down and explain that yes he had this idea but he’s not entirely sure if it’s a good one.

And he wrote another almost-essay about what he chose as the paralytic substance and why he chose it and what the max amount the average person could take was so that he wouldn’t be liable if it was used improperly.

And then he recorded himself reading all of his paperwork both for extra credit and because apparently the kid’s bio said he was dyslexic and the teacher wanted them to do this as realistically as possible.

Probably would’ve been easier to just change the font but he’s come this far, might as well go the extra mile.

He paints the thing. Gathers up all his research and his concept sketches and his blueprints and his explanations and his recordings.

And he dumps them on the teacher’s desk and enjoys the lull in the class as the final projects get reviewed and graded.

They get to watch movies and Netflix with the TA while the teacher sits in the other room grading them.

He loved this class.

—

He still loves the class but it loses points for the fucking heart attack it just gave him.

Apparently the hero students they made shit for we’re real hero students. Actual, physical people who applied to the heroics department and got in. And may possibly one day be heroes if they didn’t fail.

And were going to come in and see the shit they made that passed inspections. And would be given said shit to use as part of their hero costumes.

In hindsight it should’ve been obvious, but Purpled cut himself some slack there.

At least his guy was nice. A little too excited at 4pm on a Thursday, but given the fact that Purpled just handed him a gun and said he could shoot people, it was understandable.

Purpled felt really good as he walked this Tubbo guy through the instructions again. Apparently he’d already been sent the paperwork and the audio before this. So all that was left to do was remind him about it the important stuff and then taking five wide steps back and letting him shoot at a practice dummy.

...

Well, Tubbo’s aim wasn’t his problem.

F to any villains and civilians in his way.

—

At this point, there’s probably some confusion.

“Purpled, why did you become a vigilante if your support gear inventing future looked bright?”

He’s getting to that!

He needs to talk about his junior year to give context for his senior year.

Which sucked absolute ass.

—

For one, Purpled’s quirk came in.

Now, normally that would be a pretty good thing. Somewhere around 80% of America’s population had quirks.

Four out of every five people had some sort of ability or abnormality that ranged from being able to detach your ear to having super strength. Getting one that wasn’t detrimental to your health, even at his age, was generally a positive thing.

Except Purpled’s actually sucked. Sucked so fucking bad.

Yeah, he was lucky in that he didn’t suddenly grow gills and need to live underwater for the rest of his life or something. But he honestly wished he could go back to a week ago when he didn’t have this quirk.

When he wasn’t constantly being forgotten by the people in his life because of a quirk he couldn’t turn off.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the quirk counselor’s quirk let them detect the use of quirks, he would’ve thought he’d lost it.

People forgetting his face, his name, his existence over the span of a week was hell. He had to show his mother his birth certificate and social security card and his baby pictures so that she’s remember she had another son. Let alone everyone else in his life that he only saw at school.

Oh god his fucking school.

The lengths he had to go to to keep his fucking scholarship was fucking nuts.

Classes were a nightmare with the teachers forgetting about him by the end of the period.

Things eventually got easier when he realized it was an area of effect thing and that he could shorten it to affect people within a few feet of him.

From that point on he just had to social distance from people like his life depended on it. Because his social and academic lives did depend on it.

He didn’t experiment with his quirk beyond that though. He hated it. He did everything in his power to keep it as tightly controlled as he could.

Until the one time he didn’t.

—

He was out to get another notebook because he’d severely underestimated how many notes he’d need to take for one of his classes. It was just supposed to be a quick stop on his way home.

He’d sat on the bus home with his quirk pulled in tightly around him, the force of it a buzzing weight on his skin that he refused to let go of.

He got off at a stop that wasn’t his but was closer to the dollar store he had in mind. He honestly didn’t expect to take more than ten minutes.

Then a guy walked in and loudly told the cashiers to hand over the money.

Purpled wasn’t that close to the front, but he peeked around the aisle and watched the robbery unfold.

The dude had what looked like leaves for hair and was holding the cashiers at gunpoint. There were two of them at adjacent checkouts, neither of them with any visible mutations. They actually might not have quirks.

Purpled has no idea what to do with this information.

His best bet was to wait for the heroes to arrive and stay quiet-

One of the cashiers was looking right at him. Robber guy noticed.

Turned around and pointed his gun at Purpled. Told him to get out from where he was hiding and to kneel on the ground in the open.

And Purpled was scared. He couldn’t move, he’d frozen.

The guy got loud and mad and he still had the gun pointed at him.

Purpled was panicking. His chest felt too tight and his quirk was freaking out. Buzzing harder than it ever has.

He couldn’t hold it. He let go.

...

For a moment, everything was still and everything was quiet.

Purpled felt light, he felt more at ease than he had in months.

Because his quirk was free and loose and everyone else in the room looked so fucking confused. Like they had no idea what was going on.

Like they just forgot what was going on.

And then the heroes arrived. How they knew to be here was anyone’s guess.

Purpled should probably give his statement.

Purpled was probably in shock though. So he forgave himself for shoplifting and not pulling his quirk back in. For just walking right out of the store and down the street.

Nobody shouted at him or called him back, so he assumed they forgot he was there.

He wished he could forget he was in the store for that moment too.

—

There’s a lot of other little things that lead up to Purpled being a vigilante, but those things don’t matter as much.

He drops out. It’s not hard to make people forget he even went to school.

He regularly breaks back into school to steal tools and materials for his projects and just wipes the people who walk in on him doing that shit.

Makes a costume but scraps it and decides to make several replicas of the top twenty’s costumes.

Because he’s realized that the wider he makes his range the less of an effect his quirk has on all those in range. Vice versa.

So the pro gamer move here is to make people forget what they saw the person in the pro hero costume doing instead of trying to make them forget they saw an unfamiliar figure doing shit.

Memory is reconstructive after all. Easily manipulated even without a quirk like his.

And he’s good at making his costumes and altering his appearance.

He probably won’t always do a good job wiping people’s memories though, so he lets it stick that there’s a vigilante that impersonates pro heroes. One that constantly shifts their appearance.

He even gets bold and makes a name for himself.

Swag_.

...

Listen he didn’t say it was a good name-

—

He doesn’t stop a lot of crime. And the people he does save often think they were saved by someone else.

But there’s always that one moment after he managed to save someone where they look at him. And they see him.

And that’s worth everything.

It’s not a selfless motive. It’s not a heroic motive.

But it’s enough of a motive for Purpled.

—

He doesn’t know how he got a following. Doesn’t know how he never noticed.

But he likes it. After the initial shock of seeing himself trending fades, he lets himself soak up all the positive attention.

And then he gets back to work.

[pens-swords-stuff]

Before the new decade: A final 2019 update

Hey Writeblr! I can’t believe that 2019 is almost over (or over already for some of you in a different time zone!), can you? I hope the new decade brings lovely things, people and events your way.

Some of you might have noticed that I’ve disappeared off the face of this website — or maybe not, that’s fine too — and I didn’t want to let the year end without letting my favorite community know why I’ve been gone, apologize, and what you can expect from me in the new year.

TL;DR I’ve been absent because I’ve been extremely busy and stressed. You can expect me to slowly reintegrate myself into the writeblr community, starting small with queued posts.

What I’ve been up to:

November and December have been a really busy and stressful couple of months for me. People who kept up with my personal life know that I’ve been in the process of starting a new job. This new job has been a really mentally taxing process for me, mostly because I spent about a month in new job nervousness purgatory. I got hired as a Direct Support Professional which essentially means that I work with vulnerable adults — and that requires a lot of training before I was able to even begin working. I was doing various trainings for several weeks without having any real idea of what my new job would be like, who my coworkers were, what I would be doing, while the trainings all educated me on the worst-case scenarios that could happen and how that would impact me, the organization, the clients, and my future in the human services field.

I’m also applying for some graduate programs and that has been really difficult for me as well, especially because after being out of school for about half a year, my ability to write academically has taken a dip. There’s been a lot of other things going on as well like fighting with my ISP for weeks, grace period for student loans ending, but those were the two really big ones.

There was a lot of anxiety in response to those two things, and it manifested itself into fear of all forms of social media, most notably Tumblr and Discord. Any time that I accidentally opened either app, I would panic and immediately close it because I couldn’t even look at it without my heart rate skyrocketing. It wasn’t that something bad had happened here or anything, but for whatever reason I wasn’t able to mentally handle even looking at tumblr for a while.

I know that there were things that I said that I would do, and I know that a lot of you have contacted me on discord, sent me asks and DMs that I didn’t see until now. I’m really sorry for not being around and essentially abandoning everything here for a long time. I’m also sorry for not letting you guys know that I would be on hiatus for a while.

Fortunately, things are calming down a bit. Grad school applications are due in early January, so I’m almost done with them, and I’m finally actually working at my new job instead of just training and it seems really nice so far though I have a long way to go before I really know what I’m doing.

What happens now:

I think I’m ready to start dipping my toes back in tumblr! I’ll be a student again in mid-January while working and volunteering so I don’t know how much free time and energy to devote to tumblr quite yet, but I really missed you guys and seeing what you guys were up to, and I’m finally at a place where opening tumblr doesn’t make me have an anxiety attack.

For a while at least, I think I’ll start rebuilding up my empty queue for now and slowly get used to being on tumblr again and just seeing what’s up. What the heck I did on the internet while I was avoiding tumblr I have no idea, but I’m really excited to be able to waste time on this website again. While I’m doing that, I might make a couple of personal posts about whatever I feel like, and maybe start reblogging and commenting on people’s posts again. I have a few ideas for writing and writing advice related posts I can make, but I think those will be a little bit further off for now. I’ll also work on slowly responding to everyone that’s contacted me; slowly being the keyword here. 

And no, I did zero writing over the past month or so I don’t really have anything new to share. I do have some new ideas bouncing around in my head though and a potential new little project I might start working on for fun! I hope that as I get more comfortable with my new job, I’ll be able to free up some energy to devote to writing again because right now, I am just exhausted.

So basically, I’ll be around again! Maybe I won’t be super active with making posts yet, but I want to be logging in consistently again.

Thanks for bearing with this long post! I missed you guys, I hope you guys had a fantastic holiday season, I can’t wait to catch up with everyone and I hope that you haven’t completely forgotten me 💙

[chuwenjie]

My Story

After I posted my letter about starting a new job at Dreamworks I got a lot of messages and emails from people asking if I could talk about my journey more in detail and how I got here despite going to school in Pittsburgh for psychology and almost giving up on animation halfway through college. I know that I would have appreciated reading something like this a year and a half ago so I thought I’d share my story in the hopes that it might be able to help someone who is struggling. Plus: a detailed explanation of how social media has done so much for me as an artist.

Buckle in guys. Lots of text under the cut! 

starting college

I’d known for a long time that I wanted to make a living doing art, but understandably my parents were concerned about my future ability to support myself. While they’ve always been supportive of my decision to want to do art, they insisted that I go to university to get a “regular” degree so that I’d have something to fall back on if art didn’t work out. 

That’s how I ended up going to school studying to get an interdisciplinary degree in art and psychology. The majority of my classes were in the school of psychology, so most of my education consisted of statistics classes and writing research papers. While I did take art classes in college, they were very fine-arts oriented and not relevant to working in the animation industry. The way I’d describe the kind of art that the program favors would be like a pile of glass shards sitting on the floor of the MOMA. (Nothing against conceptual art- I enjoy looking at it and think it’s cool, but it’s just not what I’m interested in doing professionally.) 

the realization

About two months into freshman year, I suddenly felt like I’d made a huge mistake. I realized there were no resources or classes here that would help me with what I wanted to learn, and I started to panic. I decided that it would just have to be up to me to teach myself if I couldn’t get it from school, so during my free time I would constantly be drawing and working on portfolio pieces with the hopes of getting good enough to land a summer internship. Despite being in university where part of the experience is supposed to be to make friends and engage in the community, I didn’t have a social life for a while because all of my time not doing homework was going towards teaching myself how to draw. I started applying to internships and summer jobs. And that’s when I had....

The Worst Time Ever

I applied to every internship and job I could find, and I got rejected from everything. It didn’t matter if it was a big studio internship like Disney or a tiny indie game studio that no one had ever heard of. I applied to everything that I could find because all that mattered to me was getting my foot in the door and having something I could put on my resume. 

After 2 years of this, I started to give up hope and seriously doubt if I would ever be able to make it in the industry.  I thought for sure that if only I had gone to Calarts or if only I lived in LA, then maybe my situation would be different because I’d have access to people working in the industry and an actual entertainment arts education. I was full of panic because I felt like my time was running out, and soon I would be thrust out into the real world as a disappointment to myself and my parents.  

I was really depressed during this period of time, and just thinking about the future would make me cry, no matter what I was doing at the time or where I was. Everything seemed pointless, and I was in a lot of pain because I had attached my ability to draw to my own self-worth. I thought that if I wasn’t good enough to get hired, there was no point in even existing. (Of course, that’s not true at all and I know that now! But it was really hard to silence that voice in my head when I was going through this period of my life.) 

and then finally...

My situation finally changed because of social media. I'd been posting my work on Tumblr for a really long time, and as I gradually got better at drawing I started getting more followers and attention on my blog. 

My first major breakthrough came when the recruiter at Cartoon Network emailed me saying that someone who works at CN had stumbled across my blog and asked if I'd be interested in doing a background painting test for Steven Universe. I couldn’t believe it. I remember thinking it was some kind of elaborate prank at first and it took me 15 minutes of screaming and trying to validate the email by googling the email address before I finally believed that it was real. 

I was so thrilled because it felt like someone had finally recognized me. Even though I didn't end up getting the job, that little bit of encouragement helped to reignite my passion and gave me hope that I could make it. If someone had noticed me, then I just had to keep drawing and more people would notice too, right? I started posting on social media even more and making more ambitious projects and portfolio pieces. 

When spring rolled around, I applied to everything I possibly could again, except this time I finally heard back from Cartoon Network instead of getting rejected. I mentioned in my cover letter that I had done a background test and while I don't know if that's the main reason I heard back, I think it must've been at least a little helpful to get my application to stand out from the pile. Getting to intern there was amazing and eye-opening for me, and it gave me my first taste of what it would be like to work in the animation industry. My coworkers and fellow interns were so incredibly kind and talented, and it made me more resolved than ever to work hard so that someday I’d be able to come back.    

After completing my summer internship, I got discovered again on social media- this time through Twitter, and that's what ended up getting me freelance at Dreamworks TV, and eventually a full-time offer. I noticed the showrunner had followed me after noticing my GIRL GANG post, which had gained a lot of attention on social media. I’ve been a huge fan of his work for a while and I was really nervous about reaching out, but my boyfriend encouraged me to say hi so I messaged him through Twitter DM to say thank you and express how I admired his work. We had a short conversation and he mentioned that he was looking for new talent for his show, and that's how I ended up here. I’m graduating from school with my good ol psychology degree in two weeks, and I’m going to be moving out to LA to start working at Dreamworks TV as an artist! 

Advice

Social media was a huge part of my success and I truly don't think I would've been able to break in as an industry outsider if I hadn't been posting all of my work to the internet for so long. While I was at Cartoon Network, I also talked to the talent hiring staff and they told me that they actually keep tabs on all of the online artists they find. There's a huge spreadsheet where they keep the names and contact information of all these online artists, and they try to track down who's working and who's available so they know when to reach out when they're looking for new employees. This was totally mindblowing to me because it really goes to show how social media and the internet has changed the face of the game. Having prior connections helps a TON of course, but social media was what personally gave me my big break. 

You don’t need to go to the right school, or have the right major, or even go to school at all. So many people I met at CN and on the internet have been able to break into the industry with a lot of hard work and a little bit of good fortune. Everyone’s situation is different, and I can only speak for myself and my own experience. But for me, drawing a lot and sharing it online was what helped me despite knowing absolutely no one in the industry and living on the East Coast thousands of miles away from LA.

tldr;

I’m about to graduate from a university in Pittsburgh with a degree in psychology. After years of rejection I almost gave up on my dream of being an artist, but teaching myself how to draw and getting noticed on social media helped open up opportunities for me in the animation industry.

Whew! That was a lot of text, but I hope someone somewhere found that helpful. My final words of advice: 

1. Don’t be shy!! Reach out to artists you admire and say hi! 

2. Post your work online! Don’t wait until you make your life’s masterpiece to start posting because it’s never gonna happen. Keep sharing what you make and you’ll find that your following will grow as you get better!

3. Don’t be afraid of rejection. Speaking from experience, you can make it even if you get rejected a thousand times. A lot of times, getting rejected doesn’t mean that you’re “bad,” it just means you aren’t the strongest candidate at the time. Keep trying and growing and with a little bit of luck, your situation will flip around.

4. Support your artist friends! Grow with each other and pull each other up.

5. If you are determined and you have the time, you can teach yourself how to do anything.

Thank you everyone for reading and sticking around to the end! If you have any more questions, feel free to send me an ask here, on CuriousCat, or shoot me an email (chuwenjie96@gmail.com). I want to thank everyone again for supporting me along my journey! My story is only just beginning and I am so excited to grow as an artist and find out what the future holds for me. To anyone reading this who is in a bad place right now, I feel your pain and I hope you never give up on your dream. You can do it!

Best,

Kat

[xgchristina]

just for a quick minute, i’m gonna spill a little bit about some of the things i've been stressing about this year.

1. once i finish up my contract here in korea, i’m gonna go back home and start school again for my credential and master’s. hypothetically, when i start my credential, which would be IMMEDIATELY once i return, i will need to purchase a new car (in addition to insurance and gas). enrolling in a credential program also means that i won’t have time to work, mornings will be spent student teaching and afternoons-evenings will be spent in class lectures. 

in order to even enroll, i need to have certain prerequisite courses completed. currently, i am in the process applying to two schools, in case my first choice doesn’t go through. for my first choice, there are two courses i need to complete before enrolling, and three for my second choice. of the total five courses, two have to be from a university while the other three can be completed at my local community college. 

the two courses i need to take are offered at different universities, which means i need to apply to two separate schools and then pay for those courses. because i am not a student of those universities, i am enrolling through their open university option, which means i have to pay for the course by the unit. both courses will be during the schools’ winter intersessions, which means the courses will be completed in a short matter of time but still cost me around $2,000. $2,000, ya’ll. i’ve already paid for one course a few weeks ago, so that one is out of my hair. but i have the other one to pay for and i am stressed the fuck out about it. i’m going to have to ask for help on this one and i don’t even want to. it’s nobody’s responsibility but mine to further my education and i am so fucking angry at myself for having to need to ask for help.

1.5. the actual credential program applications are kicking my butt. 4 different papers i need to write all with different prompts. i am a terrible writer. i hate writing. i hate it more than science. it is my worst academic skill. i have been trying to get myself to complete everything by the end of this month and i haven’t even completed half of my work yet.

both credential programs also start the very beginning of august and require in-person meetings prior to starting. i’m returning literally the last week of august. so, all this stress about prereq courses and paying for them, writing these goddam papers, and just applying to the programs might not even happen. if that happens, idk what i’ll do. i’m just trying to stay positive and not let it take over my feelings right now.

2. when you are a foreigner teaching english in korea, you are not given importance. i have all my vacation days ready to go, but i never know when i can actually take them. all other staff in the school know their vacation dates, but i usually have to wait until a week or two before my camp dates to be told when my vacation dates are. by that time, flights are extremely expensive and my wallet cries along with me.

because we, english teachers, never know our camp dates until a week or two prior to the start date, it’s difficult to plan our vacation. so this time, i took the liberty of just booking my vacation without knowing my camp dates. i based it off of last winter’s and thought it’d be better to just ask for forgiveness rather than permission beforehand. BUT, since i was able to find my prereq courses for winter intersessions, i need to change my flights to about a week later because they intersect with my vacation. they’d only be overlapping with the first week of vacation, but i wasn’t planning on flying with my laptop and leaving it around the hostel while i’m out and about. so there goes more money...

**IF YOU ARE GONNA BE IN SPAIN/GREECE ANY TIME FROM JANUARY 17TH-FEBRUARY 4TH, LET YA GIRL KNOW!!**

2.5. as an english teacher, part of our job entails a winter and summer camp, unless your principal is hella hella hella cool and doesn’t require you to do them. these camps are basically an extra week or two of teaching alone, usually only 2-4 hours/day (during the regular school year we-at least elementary school-always have a korean english teacher in the class). but instead of the curriculum from the textbook, we can choose to do whatever we want. it could be a camp about space, science, movies, reading, or literally anything. for the past winter and summer camps that i’ve already completed, i’ve been on top of them and had them ready to go at least 2 months in advance cos i didn’t want to stress about them when the time came. however, i’ve been so preoccupied with other things on my plate that i keep forgetting about it.

-----

actually, i think that’s it. i thought i had at least 5 things to list, and technically there 4 there, but i guess they’re all connected anyway. i’ve been holding up with the stress pretty well, but i think as the year is coming closer and closer to an end and deadlines are coming up sooner, i’ve been feeling the pressure so much more. i’ve been crying this whole afternoon about everything, including what i haven’t even added onto this list, and i just want this period to be done and over with. 

i don’t want to be that person, cos i know how goddam blessed i am to be where i am today and i am always consciously grateful, but i’m gonna say it just this one time. it really really fucking sucks to be broke and poor. i’m not even saying it like i’m trying to get sympathy or use it as an excuse to not give myself certain things, but it just sucks. growing up poor fucking sucks, and living poor fucking sucks. it sucks to have to depend on money to further any part of life cos it adds so much stress and takes away so much livelihood. 

okay. done with the self pity-party. time to get some more work done now.

[taxreliefrus]

EDUCATION TAX CREDIT NUANCES. DON'T LEAVE MONEY ON THE TABLE.

There are actually two higher-education tax credits. The American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC) provides up to $2,500 worth of credit for each student, 40% of which is refundable. The credit is equal to 100% of the first $2,000 of college tuition and qualified expenses and 25% of the next $2,000. The AOTC only applies to the first 4 years of post-secondary education.

The other credit is the Lifetime Learning Credit (LLC), which only provides a maximum $2,000 of credit (20% of up to $10,000 of eligible expenses) per family. None of it is refundable, meaning it can only be used to offset the taxpayer’s tax liability, and any additional credit amount is lost.

When it comes to these credits, it is easy to leave money on the table. Here are the reasons why:

Many students attend local colleges for the first two years and then transfer to a university for the remainder of their education. Knowing the university tuition will be higher, some parents take the LLC and wait on the AOTC, thinking they can use it in years with higher tuition and get a larger credit. What they don’t realize is that the AOTC credit is only good for the first four years of post-secondary education. Thus, it is always better to claim the AOTC in the first four years.

A special rule allows the tuition for an academic period that begins in the first three months of the next year to be paid in advance and thus increase the amount of tuition qualifying for the credit in the year the tuition is paid. This allows for planning when to make tuition payments to maximize credits, especially in the first partial calendar year.

Example: Cameron just graduated from high school and will be beginning college in September. Her tuition and credit-qualifying expenses for the semester covering the last four months of the year and January of the next year are $1,500. Her mother, Tricia, is aware of the 3-month rule, and in December she prepays Cameron’s $1,500 tuition for the semester beginning February 1 of the next year, bringing the qualifying expenses to a total of $3,000. The AOTC is equal to 100% of the first $2,000 of qualifying expenses and 25% of the next $2,000. Thus the AOTC for Cameron is $2,250 ($2,000 + 25% of $1,000). Tricia could increase the credit for the year to the full $2,500 maximum by purchasing $1,000 worth of course materials needed for “meaningful attendance or enrollment” in Cameron’s course of study.

Qualifying expenses other than tuition are often overlooked, especially in light of a recent tax regulation change that specifies for the AOTC that qualifying expenses include course materials needed for “meaningful attendance or enrollment” whether purchased from the school or an outside vendor. Previously, only course material purchased from the school qualified (and this is still the rule for the Lifetime Learning Credit). This is a significant change and opens up the possibilities of including expenses not previously allowed.

Taxpayers also often overlook another very important fact: Whoever claims the tax exemption for the student gets to claim the education credit even if someone else paid for the tuition and qualified expenses.

Example: Suppose Cameron’s Uncle Lee pays her tuition but Tricia, her mother, claims Cameron on her tax return. Tricia is the one who qualifies for and receives the credit.

What many also overlook is the fact that the AOTC is phased out for higher-income taxpayers based on their adjusted gross income (AGI). It phases out for AGIs between $160,000 and $180,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly, and between $80,000 and $90,000 for others. The LLC phases out a little quicker than the AOTC: between $112,000 and $132,000 for joint filers and between $56,000 and $66,000 for others. As an exception, married taxpayers filing separately aren’t eligible to claim either credit. (Note: the LLC phaseout ranges are adjusted for inflation annually, and the one quoted is for 2017.)

Thus, in cases when the parent claiming the student has an AGI above the phaseout range, regardless of who paid the tuition and qualified expanses, no one will be able to claim the credit. So it is important to consider the income of the individual who is claiming the student when there is an option of who claims the child, such as in cases of divorced parents.

Because of gift tax issues, a person other than the one qualifying for the credit, such as a grandparent, may hesitate to volunteer to pay a tuition expense. Where payments are made directly to the educational institution, they are excluded from gift tax rules. However, depending on the amounts involved, there may be a gift tax reporting requirement if a monetary gift is given to the student or the individual who is claiming the credit and then the gift money is used to pay tuition.

A question often arises as to whether tuition payments to a trade school or foreign university will count toward the education credit. To qualify for the credit, the tuition must be paid to any accredited public, nonprofit or proprietary post-secondary institution eligible to participate in the student aid programs administered by the Department of Education. This would rule out foreign educational institutions because they don’t qualify for the student aid program administered by the Department of Education, but it would generally include most accredited public nonprofit or privately owned, profit-making post-secondary educational institutions in the U.S.

As you can see, there are several nuances associated with the education credits that must be considered. Please call this office if you need assistance with education planning or the application of the education tax credits to your particular circumstances.

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EDUCATION TAX CREDIT NUANCES. DON'T LEAVE MONEY ON THE TABLE.

[biopsychs]

Don’t Let Calculus D(e)rive You Mad

I was always one of those people who thought some people were naturally good at math and if I wasn’t one of those people then there was nothing I could do about it. I thought I wasn’t “a math person” and would use that description as an excuse. Is math one of my weaker subjects? Sure but that’s mostly because I let years of bad habits get in the way of my current work. This caught up to me in my first semester of calculus (calc I) at university, where calculus was my worst class. Here’s the thing: if you’re not “a math person” make yourself one. In my second semester of calculus (calc II) I improved my mark by an entire letter grade (something I never thought possible). How? Through hard work and by understanding that I would have to work harder than some people because of my past study habits.

Know your pre-calculus well! You will struggle so much if you forget the basics. My prof said not having a good grasp of the basics is the number one reason why students will struggle with calculus. Invest time before/at the beginning of the semester to really review the stuff you learned in high school. (Khan Academy is the best way to review, in my opinion. They have challenge questions you can do for each section. Try a couple of questions for each section. If you can’t answer the question easily, watch the accompanying videos for that section first. Do this for sections you forget or know you struggle with.) Be confident in your basic mental math too, especially under pressure. I wasn’t allowed a calculator on any of my midterms or finals for calc and you don’t want to waste time on easy math that you should know lightning fast anyway.

Attend every lecture, especially if you’re even slightly confused. If you’re behind, try not to get even more behind by skipping class (obviously use your own judgement, but don’t skip unless it’s totally necessary). Don’t sit near the back of the class if you know you won’t pay attention.

Don’t just sit there and copy down notes. Be attentive in class and follow along with examples the best you can. If you get lost at a certain step in a problem put a star beside it. After class, study and attempt the problem on your own. If you still don’t understand, go to a TA or prof for help. They will be able to provide better help if they can see exactly where you got lost.

Keep your notes simple. I would use either blue or black pen for the majority of my notes and use one other colour to emphasize parts of my notes (indicate where I got lost, circle important follows, highlight which section of the textbook the class was at, etc.) Keep your notes neat and leave a gap, if you fall behind during a lecture (just remember to get the notes from someone else later). I also recommend using a grid paper notebook, for when you need to draw graphs.

Get a mini notebook! I bought a tiny notebook for cheap and filled it with a (very) condensed version of my notes, throughout the semester. I wrote down common derivatives and integrals, shapes of common graphs, important theorems and formulas, etc. This is especially helpful for calc II, because you’ll have all the necessities from calc I handy.

Advice for using Maple for math labs (if this applies to you): Pay attention to tutorials and ask questions. Complete as many assignment questions as you can in the lab/when a TA is present. If you have any other assignment questions to finish up make sure you work on them at least a few days before they’re due, so you have time to ask for help if you need it. Also, Maple can be a stupid program. You could be missing just one number, letter, or symbol and it won’t work. Or you could have it exactly right and it still won’t work (retyping your input in a new worksheet usually helps). To remedy these issues, I would work on assignments with friends and compare what our worksheets looked like. Oh and TAs love if you give your variables funny names or change the colours of your graph, because they’re all nerds (and so are you, so embrace it).

Do as many practice problems as you can. Calculus is a class where you learn by doing. Do questions till you understand the concept. If problems are recommended, treat them as if they’re actually due (otherwise you’ll just tell yourself you didn’t have enough time to do any practice problems). My number one mistake was not doing enough practice problems and just assuming I knew how to answer the problem (if you can’t answer the entire question from start to finish, then you don’t actually understand the concept).

Please don’t fall behind. Stay on top of things and prioritize what needs to be done (i.e. treat practice problems from the chapter you just learned on equal footing with the lab report you have due -- if you treat it as a priority, you will get it done). But, if you do fall really behind, don’t wait until it’s too late to ask for help. Just remember, there’s always something you can do (even if you feel like you don’t know anything and there’s not enough time for any practice problems before your midterm). Identify what you need to learn before you can do anything else (i.e. work on understanding basic integration before you try to do something more complicated like trigonometric substitution) and fit in as many practice questions as you can.

Don’t give up! If you don’t understand a concept right away you just have to keep trying! For practice problems, try to find an answer without looking at your notes. If you can’t figure it out from there, look in your lecture notes and textbook for any relevant formulas, examples, or similar questions. Try to answer the problem again. If you get it, be sure to fully complete another practice problem without any outside references. If you can’t figure out an answer then you should seek help from another person!

Don’t forget everything you learned at the beginning of the semester -- review, review, review! Check out this explanation on the curve of forgetting. If you continually review what you learned, for only short periods of time, you will remember so much more and save yourself time in the end!

Utilize the resources available to you. I have a list of online resources at the end of this post, but don’t overlook what’s right in front of you. Go to your prof’s office hours, ask a TA for help, and take advantage of any tutoring or study groups. My uni has a math and science centre where upper year students are always available to help other students with practice problems. If you join a course union, they sometimes offer free tutoring.

Study in a productive environment. This varies by person but personally I need a quiet environment, with ideally no noise or only instrumental music, bright/natural lighting, and nothing to distract me (I hide my phone and only have one pen or pencil out). If you like to listen to music when you study, math is one of those subjects where you can listen to music with words.

Improve your test-taking skills. (1) On an exam, understanding a concept is no use if it takes you forever answer the question. Do lots of practice problems till you immediately know how to answer any kind of question. Speed can be key on exams. (2) My strategy is to flip through the exam booklet as I get it. I answer the questions I can do easily, first, and leave the really difficult ones till the end. (3) Show all of your work! Don’t lose marks because you didn’t show all of your work. (4) Expect your exams to be challenging and prepare accordingly. Overlearn the material. Prepare specifically for the exam by completing past exams/practice exams in an environment that mimics the test-taking environment.

Get every mark you can, because the little marks make a big difference. If you don’t know how to answer a question on an exam, write down any formula or theorem that could relevant. If you try to figure out a solution and know that it’s most likely incorrect, but don’t have enough time/knowledge to find the correct answer, just leave your work there (don’t erase it). There’s always a chance you could be on the right track or nice markers will give you a point or two for trying. Something is always better than nothing.

Focus on the applications of calculus (it’ll make the semester a whole lot more interesting)! A physics major won’t necessarily use calculus the same way a bio or chem major might, but that doesn’t mean some calculus isn’t useful for all of those majors to know. I’ve always planned to major in biology and looking ahead at classes I will need calculus for biostatistics and genetics classes. Never tell yourself something isn’t useful because then you’ll never treat it like it’s useful. Also, my prof taught a whole lecture about how calculus could be used to account for all the variables that could affect population if a zombie apocalypse ever happened, so obviously calculus has at least one really important use :)

Resources

A bit of advice: These are called resources for a reason. It’s okay once in a while to use some of the resources to find a full solution for a practice problem, but don’t abuse it. It is so so easy to just look up the answer but you’re only hurting yourself in the end.

Desmos (Online graphing calculator - I’ve made it through so far without actually buying a graphing calculator)

Khan Academy (Step by step videos and practice questions! You can go your own speed with the videos! My top recommendation!!!)

Paul’s Online Math Notes (If your prof doesn’t provide you with decent lecture notes, these ones are great!)

Symbolab (They have a calculator for derivatives, integrals, series, etc. and I like the way they split up the steps to solve.)

Slader (find your textbook on here and they’ll give you all the solutions to questions!)

Textbooks: I used the Single Variable Calculus: Early Transcendentals (8th edition, by James Stewart) and it was awesome. The way it was set up and all the examples really helped me (I just wish I had used it more)

This post by @quantumheels is seriously fantastic (and she has lots of good advice for other topics too, one of my favourite blogs)

My Other Posts:

AP lit tips, high school biology, how to ace intro psych, organization tips, physics doesn’t have to suck: how to enjoy and do well in your required physics classes, recommended reads, reminders for myself, using your time wisely on public transport, what i learned from university (first year), what i learned from high school

[gabriellamontoya-blog1]

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B.F. Skinner: How Pigeons Helped Behaviorism Take Flight

... authored by Larissa Escamilla-Ocanas, assigned by Dr. Tamara Caulkins for her course Sites for Science

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B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) was a renowned psychologist who, based on the work of colleague Edward Thorndike, is known for developing the field of behaviorism in psychology starting in the WWII era. Behaviorism is the study of an individual’s observable behavior(s) in response to the environment. It is an approach still widely researched and principles within the field are practiced to this day for varying reasons: namely, to aid individuals on the Autistic spectrum or to condition individuals into extinguishing maladaptive behaviors and instead adopting healthier behaviors. Unlike most other psychologists that worked with human participants, surveys and questionnaires, Skinner’s work experimented with people and live animals. Instead of beakers, vials, and chemicals, which is expected of a traditional lab setting, Skinner’s lab contained animals such as cubby holes, mazes, custom experimental apparatuses, rats, and pigeons. Most excerpts focus on how he conducted his studies rather than the environment in which he studied in. The settings of his labs were known largely because of photographs from his labs. Typically, settings of the labs of a psychologist or social scientist are located in either an academic, private, or federally funded institution; similar to the lab of a scientist who may be studying more physical science. Skinner worked in all of these types of laboratories at some point in his life. Without Skinner’s unique contribution in the lab setting, psychological behaviorism may never have gained traction as a field of study as well as it did during the time Skinner was conducting research: and the studies related to this field could be entirely different than what we know them to be today.

Skinner’s work had a profound impact during the time his research was being conducted. However, it is still relevant and important to this day in furthering our understanding of human behavior. Had the methods in which he conducted his research in the lab not been shared or even had a starting point to begin with, the psychological world we know today would not be the same. Many of the texts that I have found also seem to support this: most give evidence as to how outside factors influenced Skinner’s work in the lab, and how his lab work therefore helped shape the outside world. Knowing the inner and the outer workings of the lab, including what his lab actually looked like, will help answer the broader question of how Skinner was able to change and contribute to the growth of behavioral psychology, the attitudes towards psychology, and the world outside of his laboratory setting in general.

Timeline of Skinner’s Life

In order to better understand Skinner’s work in the lab and influences on his research, it is important to also gather a contextual background on the scientist. Burrhus Fredrick Skinner, or more commonly known as B.F. Skinner, was a behavioral psychologist with a simple beginning. Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania—a small railroad town just south of New York—on March 20th, 1904 (The B.F. Skinner Foundation, 2019). While his parents and extended family members had religious beliefs, Skinner adopted an atheist and scientific approach after his grandmother frightened him about God’s wrath. This is important to his outlook later in life when he would be conducting and teaching behavioral psychology in an academic setting (Skinner, 1976, p. 22). Skinner’s family was a wealthier, middle class family: this allowed him to enjoy several privileges and benefits, such as being able to spend more time reading and studying and less time worrying about financial income to sustain himself in school. 

Skinner grew up with a natural talent for creating and building new and interesting contraptions—some of which did not necessarily work as he intended, but were still considered innovative for a young man at the time (Skinner, 1976, p. 12). His talent for building odd contraptions would serve him well in the lab later in life when he designed new apparatuses to aid his process in studying behaviorism. Not only was Skinner a handy man, he was also a budding writer: taking inspiration from Frances Bacon, whose works motivated Skinner in exploring hypotheses via the scientific method. Spurred by Bacon’s work, Skinner believed that he was destined to be a writer and philosopher. This would later lead Skinner to publish twenty-one books, 180 articles, and write as a secondary author in several other works regarding his research in the lab throughout his life (The B.F. Skinner Foundation, 2019).

Skinner later attended and graduated with a Bachelor’s in the Arts in English literature from Hamilton college in 1926 (Skinner, 1967, p. 389). In 1931, Skinner received his master’s and his PhD from Harvard in psychology: specifically, in behavioral studies (The B.F. Skinner Foundation, 2019). Shortly after graduating with his master’s, Skinner attempted to write several novels, but a lack of popularity and sales disillusioned Skinner and discouraged him from pursuing a career in writing. He calls this period in his life “the Dark Years” (Skinner, 1976, p. 36). However, things turned around for Skinner after he began experimenting with animals and their behaviors in the lab, and discovered his “true calling” in the field of behavioral psychology (Rutherford, 2009, p. 22).

Laboratory Space and Conducted Research

Operant conditioning

Skinner believed that animal behaviors (and later human behaviors) could be completely reshaped and “trained” through the process of operant conditioning (positive or negative reinforcement or punishment) (Demorest & Siegel, 1996, p. 244). Operant conditioning is a process that relies on an individual connecting environmental stimuli with learned behaviors in order to produce a specific outcome. He noted that the two different types of reinforcements that could be learned (positive and negative) were different from reflexive behaviors (behaviors based on instinct: e.g. instinctively pulling your hand away from a hot stove to prevent yourself from being burned) because reinforcements could be trained. Positive reinforcers (+RFT) are any outcomes that produced desirable effects, and negative reinforcers (-RFT) are any outcomes that removed undesirable effects. Skinner also noted that the use of punishment was also a highly effective tool in training behaviors. Positive punishment (+PMT) is when an unfavorable outcome would be presented (e.g. scolding, spanking, going to prison), and negative punishment (-PMT) is when a favorable outcome is removed (e.g. taking away a child’s favorite toy, removing a food stimulus from an animal’s grasp) (The B.F. Skinner Foundation, 2019). Skinner used these concepts to form the basis of what we know today to be behavioral psychology. These different manipulations of the environments and the individual have been implemented in what Skinner calls “schedules of reinforcement.” The schedules include fixed and variable ratio schedules (the difference being how often the stimulus is rewarded within a period of time), or fixed and variable interval schedules (the difference being how much time determines the individual must wait in order to receive a stimulus) (The B.F. Skinner Foundation, 2019).

In reality, different aspects of behavioral engineering (operant conditioning, punishment, and different schedules of reinforcement) as a practice exists everywhere in our daily lives: individuals utilize the practice without even knowing it. In any situation where one provides an individual with an incentive (either rewarding them with something or taking away something aversive), behavioral engineering and behavioral psychology are at play (What is Psychology? 2019). These techniques are often used in behavioral intervention programs for troubled youth or in school settings (What is Psychology? 2019). These techniques are also used to aid individuals on the Autistic spectrum in adapting healthier and more functional behaviors while simultaneously extinguishing maladaptive traits (The B.F. Skinner Foundation, 2019; What is Psychology? 2019). Typically, applied behavior analysis (ABA) is used as a form of behavioral intervention for individuals with Autism. Without his work in radical behaviorism with animal subjects, ABA interventions may not have been discovered as an effective method of intervention in the real world until much later. Without Skinner’s work on behavioral psychology or the study in general, we would likely not be as knowledgeable of behaviorism as a whole. He is the leading pioneer in the field, and is often credited as the “founding father of behavioral psychology” (Skinner, 1977, p. 5; University of Iowa, 2019).

Skinner was best known for his work with the Skinner box (aka the operant conditioning chamber). The Skinner box is used to this day to investigate the “natural flow of behavior” (Rutherford, 2009, p. 8). There is typically some type of lever or key that is meant to be pulled or switched by an animal subject (typically a rat or pigeon). Doing so will reward the subject with a food item: thus, positively reinforcing the behavior of the animal. If the animal did not perform the task necessary for the food item, a small electric shock would be delivered to the animal subject (+PMT). The container is hooked up with electronic equipment to monitor the movements of the animal specimen, which allows for the “precise quantification of behavior” (University of Iowa, 2019).

Animal Subjects: Project Pigeon

Shortly after settling down with his wife and first-born daughter—Julie, who was born in 1938— Skinner was pressed for time to continue expanding and integrating his newly founded area of research into real world applications during the WWII era. Before the war, Skinner rarely made efforts to apply his research outside of the lab due to wanting to maintain “scientific purity” and a strict adherence to the academic commitment that the lab offered (Skinner, 1977, pg. 76). He preferred the experimental method and new breakthroughs in behavioral science with his animal subjects rather than involving human subjects.

However, after the war began, Skinner desperately wanted to contribute his research on behavioral engineering to the war efforts in a bid to tide the current flow of the war (Capshew, 1993, p. 839). He sought funding for what we now know as “Project Pigeon,” which aimed to train pigeons to guide bombs to enemy territory and reduce the number of allied casualties by misguided ally bombs (Capshew, 1993, p. 840). Skinner would place pigeons on an apparatus that firmly held them in front of a screen. The apparatus that held the birds would also make clicking noises every time an enemy torpedo was seen (as a speck) on the screen. The birds were separately trained how to peck the screen in front of them, while also recognizing the clicking noise. Soon, the birds learned to pair the clicking from the apparatus with pecking on the screen when enemies were present on the screen. The placement of the pecking on the screen determined where the bomb would be guided—if the pigeons pecked on the left, the bomb would move towards the left, or if they pecked in the middle the bomb would continue flying straight, etc. (Capshew, 1993, p. 840-843). The birds also had a much higher attention span than the rats, and they already had an affinity for heights and flying at high speeds due to their natural builds. Skinner was even able to train a pigeon to peck at the screen more than 10,000 times within 45 minutes (Capshew, 1993, p. 843). While the movements of these bombs via pigeon control was impressive, Project Pigeon (later known as “Project Orcon”) was suspended by the US Navy after the creation and verification of the effectiveness of electronic radar (Capshew, 1993, p. 845). Despite the cutoff of funding for pigeon-guided bomb attacks, Skinner found that pigeons responded and behaved more rapidly than rats, and that this made the animals excellent for research purposes—or even excellent ping-pong players (Cantania, 2002, p. 340; Bfskinnerfoundation, 2009). Skinner decided to only work with pigeons as his animal subject of choice for the remainder of his time in the labs.

In the photograph preceding, psychologist B.F. Skinner is seen in one of his lab areas with a firm, but gentle hold on a white pigeon slightly extended away from his body. Behind Skinner are several rows filled with small cages and other healthy-looking white pigeons inside the cages. These are some of the pigeons that Skinner used when conducting his research on behavioral engineering and the application of operant conditioning in the lab. Without his work, we may not have found evidence for the success of the effectiveness of operant conditioning until much later.

This contraption above was used to load birds into Skinner’s apparatus for testing during “Project Pigeon.” Without his work and without the idiosyncratic apparatuses he designed, psychologists may never have discovered the effective use of animal subjects in the lab.

In the black and white photograph above (taken sometime between the 1930s and 1940s: the peak of Skinner’s animal studies), a small pigeon is seen strapped in a small, binding vest of some kind: the vest is attached to a mechanism to keep the bird still while researchers investigate the behaviors of the bird in response to stimuli. The bird looks relatively calm: its eyes are half open and it is craning its neck towards the camera, and its feet are extended out behind it (largely due to the way the vest is holding it in place, but the bird does not appear to be struggling to break free—we can assume that this is probably not the first time that the bird has been used with the apparatus). Skinner designed many test-type apparatuses to assess the behaviors of his animals (Catania, 2002, p. 334).

In the colored photograph above, psychologist B. F. Skinner is seen in a lab working with two colleagues and a white pigeon. Skinner is wearing a collared long sleeve white button up shirt with a dark colored tie, and no lab coat (typical for the time period and for the profession: psychologists and other professionals in the social sciences typically do not wear lab coats unless absolutely necessary). There are wires/ cords coming from the top of the photo (perhaps from the ceiling) and Skinner appears to be holding them closely to one of the pigeon’s feet and appears to be investigating the bird’s lower extremities. Skinner was known for using electricity or sounds to stimulate behaviors from his animal subjects (Catania, 2002, p. 333).

Walden Two & Modifications to Human Behavior

After World War II, Skinner didn’t feel the need to experiment with behavioral modification in animals: he wanted to apply some findings to humans. While he didn’t necessarily prefer to work with human participants, he did romanticize his findings of behavioral engineering with one of his well-known novels: Walden Two. In the novel, he toys with the idea of creating an environment for individuals to promote adaptive displays of behavior. In Walden Two, which takes place shortly after World War II, Skinner attempts to implement his findings in the lab on behaviorism in a futuristic, utopic, and communal setting. The society he wrote on focused on the aspects of communal health and beneficial societal behaviors. However, critics claim they did so at the cost of their free will. An example of the utopian way of living was the way that babies were handled. In the novel, babies spent the entire first year of their life either in their air cribs (which monitored the temperature and humidity of the baby’s immediate environment) to “slowly build up their resistance” (Skinner, 1948, p. 88). According to Skinner, the idiosyncratic invention was “designed to promote the physical and psychological health of infants” through the constant monitoring of the environment surrounding the infant (Capshew, 1993, p. 836; Skinner, 1948, p. 87). Only if their parents or other adults were healthy enough to not risk infecting the children could they spend time with them outside: this was meant to be a communal benefit to the children and the adults alike, because it would reduce the likelihood of sickness in general.

Controversies in Research

While Skinner’s work in the field of behavioral psychology was largely praised as being ingenious and a “necessary concept of psychological pioneering” (Rutherford, 2009, p. 46), many others criticized his work because of its controversial nature in ethics and controversy about applicability to humans in general. One main point of controversy about Skinner’s findings is that he would take the conditioned responses from animals in his laboratory setting and apply his findings to humans outside of the lab: when in reality, he could not possibly translate these laboratory findings to exhibited human behaviors in a naturalistic setting.

People also do not favor behaviorism because it does not account for the mental processes of the participant: it relies solely on the observable behaviors of the individual. Behaviorism does not account for the mental processes that one undergoes when deciding on how to act, as this is considered an “internal” process that cannot be measured through means of observation. Most internal processes are measured through questionnaires, surveys, or oral or written description from the participant. However, since nearly all participants in Skinner’s work consisted of animal participants, the measurements for internal processes are not able to be utilized (animals cannot necessarily voice whether they are feeling happy or sad). Rather, the external or “outward” processes are measured through behaviors that are displayed. For example, if an animal is happy, a behaviorist like Skinner would consider a lack of skittish or restless behavior as content. While this type of assessment may not necessarily be considered “incorrect,” it might be considered by other psychologists (who are not behaviorists) to be narrow-minded or ignorant of other potential internal explanations. For example, the same animal that might not be skittish or restless could be exhibiting this lack of affective symptoms due to a brain deformity where they may naturally be unresponsive to fear-inducing stimuli. This thought process can prove to be problematic for humans relying on behaviorism as well. For example, in ABA intervention being used for an individual with Autism, the intervention itself does not necessarily account for the mood of the participant: rather, it focuses on the effectiveness of completing a task through the encouragement (or extinguishment) of a certain behavior.

Despite these topics of controversy, it is widely acknowledged that Skinner contributed a tremendous amount of work to the study of psychology. He essentially single-handedly created the study of behaviorism: without his work – and his pigeons, who knows where we would be as a society?

Bibliography

Block, Ned. Readings in Philosophy of Psychology. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.

Bfskinnerfoundation. "BF Skinner Foundation - Pigeon Ping Pong Clip". Filmed [April 2009]. YouTube video, 0:38. Posted [April 2009]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGazyH6fQQ4

Capshew, James H. “Engineering Behavior: Project Pigeon, World War II, and the Conditioning of B. F. Skinner.” Technology & Culture 34, no. 4. (1993): 835-8.

Catania, A. Charles. “The Watershed Years of 1958–1962 in the Harvard Pigeon Lab.” Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 77, no. 3 (2002): 327–45.

Demorest, Amy P., and Paul F. Siegel. “Personal Influences on Professional Work: An Empirical Case Study of B. F. Skinner.” Journal of Personality 64, no. 1 (March 1996): 243–61.

Rutherford, Alexandra. Beyond the Box: B.F. Skinner’s Technology of Behaviour from Laboratory to Life, 1950s-1970s. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

Skinner, Burrhus Frederic. "A Case History in Scientific Method" American Psychologist 11, no. 5. (May 1956): 221-233.

Skinner, Burrhus Frederic. “B. F. Skinner.” In A History of Psychology in Autobiography, Vol V., 385–413. The Century Psychology Series. East Norwalk, CT: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967.

Skinner, Burrhus Frederic. Burrhus Frederic. Particulars of My Life. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1976.

Skinner, Burrhus Frederic. The Shaping of a Behaviorist: Part Two of an Autobiography. New York: Alfred Knopf : 1979.

Skinner, Burrhus Frederic. Festschrift for B. F. Skinner. New York: Ardent Media, 1977.

The B.F. Skinner Foundation. "Biographical Information." The B.F. Skinner Foundation. Accessed: November 15, 2019. https://www.bfskinner.org/archives/biographical-information/.

“The Flight from the Laboratory.” In Cumulative Record, Enlarged Ed, 242–57. Century Psychology Series. East Norwalk, CT: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1961.

University of Iowa, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. "Comparative Cognition Laboratory: Skinner Box." Accessed: December 2, 2019. https://psychology.uiowa.edu/comparative-cognition-laboratory/glossary/skinner-box.

Walden Two. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1948.

What is Psychology? "Operant Conditioning Examples in Everyday Life." Accessed: December 9, 2019. https://www.whatispsychology.net/operant-conditioning-examples-in-everyday-life/.

[fallingfromdepression]

10/14/20: something i wish i could post on my personal IG but never will

back in april of 2019, i watched spiderverse for the first (and so far only) time. it was also the first time since middle school i considered seriously a career in animation, in character-focused stories. i admittedly have not consumed as much western animation as i should have before making this next claim, but spiderverse was one of the first western animations i had seen which felt similar to the animes i watched that i felt pushed the boundaries of the medium (namely, mob psycho 100); growing up, i had seriously (but maybe not as seriously as some of my peers who did go on to schools specializing in the arts) considered growing up to be a manga/anime artist, but manga/anime as a career had always felt distant since it was based in japan, an entirely separate country and far away from me (yes i was aware western comics and animation were a thing but i didn’t care about /their/ aesthetics at the time even though in retrospect some of them do have very dope styles and animation). spiderverse was one of the first times that i felt maybe the style i grew up consuming and wanting to create myself was possible in the west where i lived, accessible to me and not unreachable in a faraway land (theoretically. it is only a plane-ride away and manga/anime very much do influence current western media/animation).

the rekindling of my interest in art as a career also came at a time when i was entering grad school for an industry i was not really sure i actually wanted to pursue (public policy). i had already had doubts about even going to grad school for this from the beginning of deciding to apply for the program, but as i had done no job searching or had any job offers waiting post-graduation, grad school seemed to make the most sense (as other people told me. and honestly i believed too as someone who had gone through college and yet never found my “passion”). i hoped that i would somehow fall in love with public policy, or at least learn to like it enough to drive me through the next 2 years. back in april, i had just recently either submitted my application to grad school or had just received my acceptance offer (i don’t remember which), so this rekindling did not come at a great time since i had to start priming my mind for a policy career rather than an art career. i’m writing this as me who is currently in my 2nd year of the public policy program, and i’m sorry to say to my past self that i still haven’t fallen in love with public policy as i had hoped (in fact, i had imagined being able to drop out of the program but it could only be in my imagination as it was ridiculous to quit after only 1 quarter in grad school. and a potential waste of time and money despite literally my microeconomics professor in that first quarter saying ‘if, theoretically, someone here were to regret coming to grad school for public policy ... it’s better to quit now rather than slug through the next 2 yrs in a program you don’t like’). in the past year, i have continued to struggle with the idea of pursuing art as a career... and with my own art.

this latter is a completely new struggle, as i have enjoyed drawing for, the most part, my entire life. while i did try to wean myself off of this interest in high school in preparation for my (assumed) future career as a medical doctor, i still went back to it at the end of high school/beginning of college and have been drawing on and off ever since. it really is just a hobby, as i do it in my free time and i don’t make money off of it. however in the last year, i have really struggled with keeping my art as just a hobby, especially with my desire/dream to do art as a career. despite my excitement in april 2019, i don’t believe i can ever make it in the art industry and this is a belief i’ve had since high school: i don’t have much creativity or unique new ideas to bring to the table (most of my current creative endeavors usually include fanart or being inspired by memes/someone else’s work that my own work is then based off of) and i don’t have the drive that i feel like i’ve seen from actual art professionals. depression and mental health issues that influence this drive aside, the reason i never pursued art seriously back in high school was because i didn’t think i had the ability. the people i know who did end up going to school for art had styles different from mine -- admittedly leaning on the photorealistic side, which now i consider a separate style from manga/anime and both are just as valid as art. but back then i didn’t think of it like that -- and they were thinking about art and creating almost all the time. (admittedly again, they did have more art classes in their schedules but i had my hands full trying to keep my grades and motivation up for science and math classes. obviously other things were at play here from that very sentence alone, but moving on.) all in all, i don’t think i have what it takes even though admittedly the drive i keep mentioning is kind of something i need in /all/ industries, regardless of whatever i’m producing for it... so time and time again i keep coming back to square one. i want to pursue a career but also i don’t/can’t. but well, you don’t have to go to art school; i’ve seen people online who manage to side-gig or get by by just posting online while doing other things academically/professionally full-time.

but in a recent attempt to do a month-long drawing challenge, i realized ... i don’t know what i want to do with my art. my frustration with my art during that challenge (which i only ended up doing a full week of before i stopped) coupled with me reading write-ups of artists talking about their inspirations to create made me ask myself ... what am i drawing for? what do i want to ultimately create? at this current point in time i’ve realized those reasons again, but during that challenge i thought that i didn’t have any reasons. i was just drawing just to draw... which is fine as a hobbyist but as a professional who is creating character-driven/focused stories? now, i said i’ve realized those reasons again, and they revolve around me wanting to create stories about mental health, stories with representation. except for the former i have never successfully drawn anything pertaining to my own mental health story bc i find it impossible to put down tangibly, and the latter i feel like i don’t feel as strongly about it as some other artists i follow (namely a specific artist who had talked about how important it was for them as a malaysian singaporean to represent muslim malaysian culture well. and you could tell through their writing how strongly they felt about it. it’s a level that i am not at admittedly with my own representation goals). and not having a strong sense of direction with my art is the same problem i have with public policy, in which i don’t know what exactly i want to do with it. i have a concept, ideas of what to do but i have no idea what it actually looks like in practice to execute. as someone who is most comfortable coming up with ways to execute other people’s ideas and not coming up with and executing my own, trying to figure out my own life trajectory for myself with a limited time frame (i’m in my 2nd year of grad school for christ’s sake) is a Feat to say the least.

in spiderverse, in the mangas i used to read and still do today, characters with problems like me get to see them solved linearly and with good endings. they struggle to get to that ending though, and so i should expect to struggle too. but as someone who has not maintained friendships through any period of my life (separate can of worms to open) nor has any concrete idea/desire for what i want to do in the future ... i’m already missing 2 major factors that the fictional characters i read about usually have to help guide them. i’m still struggling with this desire to pursue art as a career as i currently take classes on public policy, and with my motivation to draw. i’m struggling to draw now because i feel that there is no future in my art, that even if i keep it as a hobby it isn’t worth it. i get it, you don’t have to monetize your hobbies, and if it’s just a hobby you can go at it at your own pace and not compare to others. but being on social media more recently and looking at more art has been really damaging lately, even if i keep reminding myself that these artists are good because they’re either 1. younger and have more time to draw and churn out art to practice more or 2. have literal careers in art and have studied art and drawn repeatedly for essentially years ... it still hurts to see art and realize how much work you have to do yourself to get to that level. this fear of that amount of work is almost an entirely different issue than just a struggle on whether or not to pursue art professionally though... 

recently, in a fit of frustration, i considered just not drawing ever again and to try to forget about art and attempt to more seriously pursue public policy. but the idea of just not drawing ever again literally brought tears to my eyes, and i feel it’s because drawing has been a part of my life for so long (it was essentially my identity in middle school, and maybe that’s why i have such a complex with art) that i don’t know what i would do if i gave it up. drawing and my confidence in my ability to draw has been there for me through decades now, and i still like being able to visually depict others’ and my ideas. but sometimes i look at my art and i’m like ‘wow i’ve improved a lot since back then’ but sometimes i look at my art and think of everything i’m lacking compared to what i want my art to be like.

[speed-reiding]

Genuine Admiration

A/N: I’ve envisioned writing this as a series/long form for a long time but finally sat down to do it. Let me know if you have an idea for the title of the series. This is just chapter one.

Y/N had known she wanted to leave Connecticut for Washington, DC since she was 9 years old and learned about the government for the very first time. She had only applied to schools in the DC area and was thrilled with her acceptances to a few. She happily traded her large, well-decorated, private bedroom in her parents’ home for, first, a shared dorm room in college and then, when she continued at the same university for her masters degree, a small studio near the university’s campus. She loved it because no matter how little space she had or how much of her neighbors’ conversations she could hear through the thin walls, she was in DC. 

And of course, there was one thing DC had that Connecticut could never compare to: Dr. Spencer Reid. The young professor had 3 PhDs and worked for the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) of the FBI. While that meant he often had to miss a class or two a semester, his team was usually great about letting him assist remotely. He was the best professor Y/N had ever had. 

Y/N had taken her first of Dr. Reid's classes during her first semester of her senior year of college. Accidentally. She had had to drop a class that conflicted with a required course and she needed another one if she was going to graduate on time. Enter International Criminal Law, a class that sounded fascinating and fit her international relations curriculum- even if criminal law had not been her particular area of interest at the time. That class had drawn her in immediately and had shaped her graduate school applications.

Dr. Reid was brilliant. It didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eyes as well. He always wore formal clothing- usually a jacket and slacks. He also had a beautiful, warm smile, kind eyes that displayed his emotions and- well his body was slim but muscular. His voice was soft but commanding; when Dr. Reid spoke, everybody hung on his every word. 

Naturally, Dr. Reid’s classes were not easy; he expected a lot from his students- a lot of reading, a lot of preparation for debates and discussions and a lot of application on his exams. He didn’t just care that his students could regurgitate information, but rather would be able to apply them to various situations and create solutions- or at least think them through. This meant that his classes started out at full capacity- due to his name, profession and reputation- but about a quarter of the class dropped out during the add/drop period. Dr. Reid seemed to enjoy weeding out those unwilling to work. Y/N liked the challenge.

Y/N had aced her first class with Dr. Reid, unbeknownst to her getting his attention in more ways than one. When she had approached him to write a letter of recommendation to the same university’s graduate program- one that he primarily taught in- he had agreed readily. When Y/N had showed up in International Human Rights Law the following semester, Dr. Reid had noticed as well. Y/N had thanked Dr. Reid with a beautifully hand-written card and a small gift- a small porcelain elephant that resembled one he had mentioned losing in passing. She didn’t know he had followed up with her application and had noted that she would be attending as a member of the graduate school class.

Y/N knew that most of Dr. Reid’s female students tried to flirt with him and expected that they would one day garner his affections. She knew of one specific student who’d had to leave the class after inappropriately offering the professor her contact information and an idea that she would happily perform for him should he raise her grade. She liked Dr. Reid more for not only not accepting such an offer, but for kicking the girl out of the class. While Y/N was not so delusional as to think the professor would ever play hot-for-teacher with her, she hated the idea of him spreading anyone else over his beautiful mahogany desk. 

God, she needed to get laid. Problem was, she wasn’t interested in just sex. She never had been, really; Y/N was a relationship or single person through and through. While this called for many ‘lonely’ months, she never felt the emptiness or regret her friends seemed to when a one night stand proved his intentions to be just that.  

Now, it was the first day of her first semester of graduate school and Y/N was getting ready for Dr. Reid’s class. She was taking 3 classes in total, while vying for a teaching assistant position and working at the university’s writing lab. She couldn’t deny that she was putting in more effort than she would for either of her other classes, but tried to justify it as a first day of class thing, instead of a Dr. Reid thing. She settled on a tasteful raspberry dress with short sleeves and a scoop neck that hit a couple inches above her knee paired with brown ballet flats. It was simple and didn’t look like she had tried too hard. She spent an extra few minutes blow-drying and tousling her dark hair- which had grown significantly longer over the summer- and spritzing on a little musky vanilla perfume. 

Checking her watch, Y/N realized she had less time than she had imagined and entered Room 211 with only a few minutes to spare that Tuesday evening. She chose a seat in the center of the second row of the small room and took out a notebook and pen. She much preferred paper to computer notes, especially when notes were only about conversation. Dr. Reid provided an outline template of all his notes as he believed attendance to be a personal choice for regularly scheduled lectures.

She was the only one in the room until Dr. Reid walked in. He was dressed impeccably- in a dark grey suit with a lilac shirt underneath. His hair was longer than it had been too, and less clean. He had a little bit of scruff on his face. Damn it, he was ever better looking now. He removed his jacket almost instantly and hung it on the back of the chair in the front of the room. Was Y/N making it up or was he giving her a once over.

“Good afternoon Y/N,” Dr. Reid said pleasantly and Y/N glanced over at Dr. Reid, figuring she had definitely been making it up in her head. 

“Hello, Dr. Reid! How was your summer?” she responded with a smile that Dr. Reid immediately returned. He took a moment to answer though. 

“It was lovely, thank you. How was yours?” he finally responded. In his own head, Reid had panicked for a moment. How could he say that he had spent all summer distracted by thoughts of Y/N in his head and that the time had passed painfully slowly as he had just been waiting for this day to see her again. How could he mention that he had spent the whole summer dragging his then-boyfriend to places that Y/N might be, just so that they might run into her, even though that’s where the plan ended. It sounded thoroughly un-genius of him and it had also probably cost him his relationship. How could he tell her that he didn’t mind that his now-ex, Jason, had noticed his odd behavior, given him an ultimatum and, eventually, left. That was not before class conversation. 

“It was relatively monotonous,” Y/N responded, “I was an intern at a small NGO and worked crazy hours. They were significantly understaffed. I think they may have held onto the hope that I’d push back grad school to stay on full-time but alas.”

“Definitely their loss, but I’m happy you chose to return,” Dr. Reid said before he could stop himself. By this time, the other 20 or so students had arrived to the seminar- Y/N supposed no one would actually miss the first day. She was surprised to see Ronnie, a girl she had met during a pre-college program, in the room and made a mental note to catch up with her. 

With that, Dr. Reid started the class. It was engaging as ever, though he spent the beginning discussing the syllabus, work load and expecations. As Y/N was used to, fear struck the eyes of some around her, but she supposed since it was graduate school, fewer than usual seemed likely to actually drop the class.

---

Y/N stared at her screen in surprise. She had, in fact, been chosen as a teaching assistant for an undergraduate course this semester. The class, however, was a writing-intensive course- all undergrads had to take two in their disciplines- so the class was capped at 20 students. And the professor was no other than Dr. Spencer Reid. Since the class met twice a week- Monday and Wednesday- she would be spending three days a week in the presense of Dr. Reid.

Y/N couldn’t deny how excited she was for it, but she was definitely confused. She had been in talks with the coordinator to serve as one of six TAs in a 200 person introduction to international relations course. In that setting, she would have had to lead her own weekly session and deal with freshmen. Now, her students would be primarily upperclassmen and her workload would be more intense, but less annoying. And the pay was higher. How had that happened?

Dr. Spencer Reid would not have admitted it if you asked him, but he had lobbied hard for Y/N as his TA when he’d seen the list. The first problem was that he hadn’t requested a TA- preferring to do his grading and teaching alone. The next had been that Y/N had already been assigned a class. The final problem had been the potential conflict of interest, which was quickly negated by assurances that Y/N had been his top pupil two semesters in a row and that all of his grading was completely blind. Nevertheless, Dr. Reid knew he was owed more than one favor and called that into play. One intense email thread later, it was confirmed. Even as the pull made itself more obvious, he refused to admit how he felt about Y/N. 

At their first “introduction” meeting in the TA coordinator’s office, Y/N was told- according to Dr. Reid’s instruction- that a scheduling conflict had changed her role. It was the following Monday, the week before the undergraduates would flood campus again. He had justified it to the coordinator as a means to take the pressure off the TA, and the lie sold easily. Y/N just shrugged.

“Sure you won’t get sick of me, Professor?” Y/N sing-songed as the meeting ended and they were packing up. The coordinator had left swiftly to attend another introductory meeting. 

“Sure you won’t get sick of me?” Dr. Reid shot back, mentally kicking himself for how flirtatious he must have sounded, “oh and Y/N?”

“Yes, Dr. Reid?” 

“You can call me Spencer now that we’ll be working together, Y/N,” Spencer said.

“Well then, Spencer, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Ah, but in that class, you can call me Dr. Reid,” Spencer laughed, raising his eyebrows. 

“Gladly, Spencer,” and with that, Y/N was off. Spencer wondered if he had scared her away but in reality, she sped off to stop herself from anymore foolish flirting. She was not about to get her heartbroken because she was making up signs of reciprocity. There was no way her brilliant, modelesque professor was interested in her. 

---

“There’s no way she’s interested, Morgan,” Spencer said over a beer with his BAU colleagues. They weren’t travelling that week but had gathered at a bar to catch up and unwind. 

“What makes you say that Pretty professor?” Derek Morgan smirked at his new nickname while JJ and Prentiss rolled their eyes. 

“She has this innocent, pragmatic way about her. Not the type to fall for a rousse, but she’ll believe the best in you unless you show her otherwise. She is truly the most beautiful person I’ve ever known”.

“Spence, you know I’m the last person to encourage sleeping with a student,” JJ started, and Spencer’s face fell, “but you never spoke this way about Jason. I know you were enamoured when you met him and I know you trusted in him, but you never talked about him like this. I think this girl is special.”

“Yeah, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a lovesick Spencer Reid puddle. It’s not a good look. Tell her how you feel,” Prentiss insisted, “and also, do a shot with me!”

And so the night continued like that, Spencer wallowing and taking a drink every time he did. Soon, however, the others had to head home. Spencer, renting a place nearer to campus now, had far shorter of a commute and found himself sitting alone in a booth until past midnight, just dreaming that Y/N would walk in. Around midnight, he paid his tab and poured himself into a cab. Luckily he didn’t have work until his evening class the next day because he knew he would be waking up to a headache. 

The real surprise came when he arrived home, made it to the lobby and the elevator opened to reveal a startlingly under-dressed Y/N. She wore short black flowy shorts, a tank top that exposed her midriff -without a bra- and her beautiful long, dark hair was piled on her head. For a moment, Spencer thought he must be imagining the entire thing, but Y/N appeared equally as surprised. “Dr. Reid! Uh, Spencer, what are you doing here?” she asked, subtly trying to use her arms to cover her exposed middle. 

“I, I live in this building,” Spencer said, glad he’d switched to seltzer once he was alone. He knew he looked tired but at least he wasn’t really drunk. “So do I,” Y/N said simply, “hold the elevator?”

Confused, Spencer did as he was told as Y/N dashed out. He told himself his eyes didn’t go straight to her ass but who was he kidding. He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. Another minute later, Y/N was back in the elevator carrying a pizza box. 

“Late night cravings,” she smiled, blushing a little, “I’ve gotten a bit off schedule these days. Working into the night, sleeping in, you know?” Spencer could just picture it. He selected the button for the top floor where he lived, and Y/N reached across him to select the floor just below his own. Spencer wondered if the elevator always felt quite so warm.

“Yeah, happens to me all the time when I teach graduate school and work is slow,” he managed to get out, trying not to stare directly at her body. Y/N nodded and looked up at him. She must have sensed his lust and admiration for her, because she unwittingly drew her bottom lip into her mouth and rolled it between her teeth. Spencer must have been a touch drunker than he realized, because his eyes followed her lips like they were glued to them. Damn she was gorgeous.

“Oh screw it,” he heard himself say. Her eyes widened as he closed the gap between them, arm slinking around her waist. She stood on her tip-toes to meet his lips with her own. Then, they were kissing- all lips and tongues crashing into one other as they drew each other closer and closer in. And they stayed that way until the elevator reached his floor.

[theselfcarestudio-blog]

A New Path: From Darkness Into Light

I feel like I woke up on a new side of the bed today. Like the lemons I squeezed and tried to make lemonade with a week ago was finally somewhat drinkable. Like the earth plates are shifting. Like a darkness was starting to be greeted by some more light. And even though the sun is not out today I am feeling brighter and lighter and of course one hundred percent connected to the sky and the stars and the equinox.

The full moon tonight is a Super Worm Moon, rare of course. Although I feel like almost all full moons are “rare” in some way, a reason for people to blog. A reason for news channels to tell you to look out your window. And rightfully so. Because they are all rare. Each new moon brings a chance for you to set new intentions and beliefs and goals and watch them grow. And each full moon is a time for celebrating all that you have culminated in that cycle.

As this sinks in, I am absolutely floored by all that I have culminated since the last full moon in February. Since the last new moon just two weeks ago. Life is moving rapidly and it almost feels like I am not in control. Like a force larger than me is pulling the strings above me and digging into my chest and helping me say words and connect dots and make realizations that I have not been able to articulate maybe ever.

So today, I have a lot to celebrate. And I want to be transparent. Because I believe in owning your shit. And maybe, just maybe, me opening up about my own shit and my recent “a-ha!” moments would help one other person out there tap into their “a-ha!’s” as well. Maybe, just maybe. And if not, that is okay too. Regardless, I usually get the urge to write when I need to get it out of my head, and into words. The psychical. Writing for me is a way to mark time passing. It is my own personal calendar. A way to look back down the road and say remember when. The path of healing has so many turns and curves and much like that game where you pause on a thought and go backwards to figure out how you got to that current one - there are reasons for the unraveling, the tangents, the side-steps, the a-ha!s.

So here it is. From the bottom of my heart. The recent evolutions for me in a nutshell and the reasons that I am making a decision to reroute, and go down a new road starting today. On this spring equinox.

Several months ago I applied for this self-care residency hosted by Art Inside Out that is to take place in Sweden for eight-weeks beginning at the end of April. Despite there being over 600 applicants I truly believed that I had a good shot. The description of the residency felt like it was written FOR ME, TO ME. I put a lot of energy into the application and then redesigned my life to tell the universe that I was holding space for the opportunity and would be ready to pick up and go if necessary. I viewed the residency as an escape from a life that I have felt somewhat stuck in, feeling like my identity had been built in a certain way (by me) that I didn’t know how to un-do. Ever since I wrote and self-published my book I feel like I have built this identity of healing through trauma and loss and mental illness but only from a certain place. Healing as if it is always happening (and it is) but never moving onto the next phase of letting certain parts of me or owning that certain parts of me can be HEALED. Taking an eight week pause across the Atlantic ocean seemed like the perfect way to escape without having to make major life changes. But of course, that isn’t how it works. And I am grateful that the easy way out didn’t manifest like I was hoping for.

As I was working towards clearing space, that meant focusing more on jobs where I could create my own schedule. I found Door Dashing (the better version of Uber Eats or Postmates) and fell in love with that method of making money. I devised a plan to listen to podcasts and trick myself into believing that I was making money for learning and listening to podcasts. As I burned through TED Radio Hour and all my other favorites I was looking for more. One day I received an intuitional nudge to look up Law of Attraction and Manifestation podcasts. Thinking that that would absolutely boost my vibration and frequency and make me an energetic match for this residency. I was trying hard to tell the universe that I was “ready” in every direction. But the universe had a different plan for me. Of course. And it is/was/will be divine.

As I downloaded podcasts about law of attraction and manifestation and started to listen to them while I was Door Dashing I was feeling GOOD. Tapping back into a part of myself that I had left behind after I had read The Secret in high school and after I lost my Aunt Anne AKA my Law Of Attraction buddy to suicide, I had a long period of feeling like “What is the point?” So, to find it again was a humbling return. And by the day I was becoming more and more open to making that return to say the least.

Many of the podcasts consisted of interviews with life coaches and strong individuals who were using the law of attraction and manifestation to make shit happen for themselves and for their clients.  I began to learn more about NLP (Neuro-Linguistic-Programming), EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique, or Tapping), Hypnosis, and TIME Techniques. Everything was coming back to the power of how our subconscious mind operates, the beliefs we hold deep down, and the patterns of thinking that have been so deeply engrained in us that are so hard to unlearn on a conscious level. But here - was this network/community of people that I stumbled across (divinely) who were getting FREE.

First I was listening to Mikayla Jai and her Mindset Magic And Manifestation Podcast. Then she interviewed the amazing Brooke Alexander about NLP and her approach to manifestation. I started listening to her. I became obsessed. I found out that she had gotten this training that covered ALL OF THE THINGS THAT I WAS BECOMING INTERESTED IN AND OBSESSED WITH. Then, she interviewed the person that she received the training from, Reese Evans. Who founded the YES SUPPLY METHOD and offers trainings where you can get certified in NLP, EFT, TIME Techniques, and Hypnosis in one place for under $3,000.

Now, after I was released from my first mental health hospitalization I truly felt like I wanted to become an art therapist. I started taking steps to do this, but all of it was too fresh at the time and I couldn’t make it through the psych courses I needed at my local technical college and I dropped out. I began to do whatever I could on my own and used the amazing inspiration of art therapy in my work and with The Self Care Studio. The desire to go deeper has always still been there ever since I dropped out. But it felt like a thing that would take so much work and be so far away and limit me to a very specific area of healing in a clinical setting that I just wasn’t 100% sold on as my path. I knew I wanted more. But I didn’t know what that was.

After a long wait I can say I know what I was waiting for. This. This was it! And one week before I was supposed to hear back about the results for the residency in Sweden I learned that the next in-person training would be in May in Toronto. Instead of thinking - “Oh, I’ll catch the next one.” My first thought was, “Oh my god, I will miss it.” I knew something was shifting there. And I made a promise to myself that if I didn’t get the residency that I would sign up for the training and go full force with monthly payments on the tuition and make that training in Toronto WORK.

I only told several people this. I felt nervous to announce that I wanted to take this next step. That I wanted to dig further into my healing and gain more tools that could help me help more people once I was certified. I wasn’t nervous to take a chance on myself, but I was nervous to tell people I had made that decision. I felt as though I was so deep into the identity that I have created for myself here in Milwaukee, as “the bipolar power girl” that I would potentially get backlash from people who would say “why do you think you can do that?” or “you’re not ready to help anyone else heal” - CUE ALL THE NEGATIVE INNER DIALOGUE YOU COULD IMAGINE. But despite all that fear. Despite all those limiting beliefs, you better believe that when I got that email from Sweden that I was not selected a week ago Monday that I knew what I had to do.

It took me another five days to actually sign up, but I did it. And I am ready to tell YOU, whoever YOU are. And I am ready to tell MYSELF that I am actually doing this. I signed up on Friday, almost a week ago, and I have only told the two people. I have had opportunities and open doors to tell others, but haven’t. This fear is all the more reason that I know I need to go to this training and go through this process. So I can work on my confidence and dig into my limiting beliefs of feeling stuck and not good enough. I AM going to Toronto the third week of May and I AM honoring the path that was being laid out for me the whole way through. Before I even saw it or recognized it, the universe was putting me into perfect alignment with my next steps and paving the way.

So, with that, on this Super Worm Moon Equinox, I am happy to announce that I am moving from the darkness that remains inside of me into light. I am already experiencing the shift since making the decision. And I am hoping this announcement will be my first step towards a deeper sense of confidence within myself. I am signed up and ready to dig into all of the tools that have helped so many people get free. I am already feeling the amazing benefits of what this healing experience will be. And I am so excited to turn what I learn into material that I can share and help others on their healing journey with all the new tools I will posses.

I am worth it. This duality is vibrant. And I am beyond grateful for the darkness that has fueled me, pushed me, and propelled me into this new chapter of light. In divine timing, with the arrival of Spring. Sometimes the path we think we are on will lead us to a door that is closed. We have a choice to interpret that as a dead end, or to walk through it into the next chapter.

Lets grow. I am walking through this door.

[lilygirtonfl-blog]

My Life This Month: July

As I become engrossed in my passion, it becomes more and more of a priority to me. With that said- my focus this month has been (selfishly) nothing but myself.

Last summer I spent eight weeks in Umatilla, FL (the middle of nowhere) as a camp counselor. The timing was perfect; I was a lonely upcoming junior, still discovering who I am and what I love. I had nothing to lose and plenty to gain. It ended up being a great experience for me. I met tons of new people, found my self-confidence and progressed in the journey of discovering myself. 

This February, I applied for the camp again. Being that I had such a great experience last summer, I was so anxious to head back and forget about all of my struggles at home for another eight weeks. During my interview, I answered simple questions, one of them being the age group I preferred. Last summer I was put with the oldest group (13 year-olds). I had an awesome time and connected with them really well, so I asked to work in the same age group this summer. Another question they asked me was which age group I didn’t want, so I answered with the youngest kids (9 year-olds). I said this because I’ve never actually worked with this age group before, and I wasn’t comfortable starting at an overnight camp. 

The school year flew by, and camp approached. I said goodbye to all my friends, packed my bags and headed out to my second home- the middle of nowhere. I was so happy to be at the place that I’m genuinely myself, with people I love.

As I arrived, I checked in, finished up some paperwork and finally found out which age group I was going to be with. And when I found out I was with the 9 year-olds, I couldn’t help but think how awful of a prank it was. But the worst part was that it wasn’t a prank. After deliberating how to handle this, I just took it as a challenge, to see how great of a counselor I am. I accepted the challenge. Besides, maybe my co is just as hardworking as I am. Maybe the other counselors I’m with are similar to me. Maybe I meet some amazing children and change their lives forever. 

As all of this was setting into my mind, staff week was beginning. I met my co and fellow counselors with an open mind and allowed myself to get to know them. But as the week progressed, I felt more and more isolated. I wasn’t connecting with my group which was giving me anxiety, the opposite of how I felt last summer. I’ve never felt so homesick in my home. 

I discussed this with my boss and he basically told me to sort it out within myself or quit. I didn’t want to end my eight years of camp like this, so I decided to give it another week. Besides, the children may make the staff more bearable, and I might feel more at home with them present. 

Sunday rolled around and the children arrived. I had such a good attitude all of check-in and I was super excited to meet the kids in my cabin. I finished up checking everyone in and went to the gym to meet my campers. All seven of my campers seemed normal. The counselors receive a medical sheet, explaining anything we should know, such as dietary restrictions, sleeping habits and if they take any medicine. All seven of them had nothing on their sheets. I assumed this would be an easy week for me.

As the week progressed, I cried a total of 14 times, cleaned up seven wet beds (whether it be poop, pee or period blood), opened about 28 ketchup packets and wrote up eight different situations. Those situations consisted of: a child falling off the top bunk, a child refusing to put a pad in because she wanted to swim in the pool, a child telling me that people tell her she’s autistic, multiple cases of bullying and the classic “she said the F word”. I know it can be rewarding to work with children, and the affection they showed towards me is unparallel to any I’ve received in my entire life, but that wasn’t the point. 

I was losing myself in the place I once found myself. I got a two-hour break once a day, which I typically spend sleeping because of the exhaustion from the kids. I was so focused on providing for these kids, that I wasn’t focusing on myself at all. But that’s not a bad thing. It’s perfectly acceptable for a mother, teacher or other childcare providers to lose themselves because of the attention they give to children. But I’m not a mom, I’m not looking into a career involving 9-year-old children. I lost myself in one of the most important times for me to know myself. 

I went back and forth about quitting for days. I didn’t want to abandon my co or miss out on the experience of helping shape young children’s lives, but I had more important things to deal with; such as my writing, college applications, clinical hours for my medical class, volunteering and working a job that pays much more. As I thought to myself, I kept trying to find what was keeping me there. Nothing. Nothing was keeping me there besides the fact that it was where I planned to be, and I was too scared to be somewhere I didn’t plan on being. 

I texted my mom throughout the week about my struggles, and she advised me to look into jobs at home. I applied for a few, but I didn’t think I’d ever have the courage to actually quit working at this camp. The next day my mom called me, telling me she found a one-week journalism program at the University of Florida. This was exactly what I needed, a week doing what I love, meeting people just like me, getting the experience I need for college. My mom said it starts Sunday (the beginning of the next week of camp, perfect timing for me to quit Saturday- my day off), so if I get accepted, I can quit Saturday and head straight to UF. 

I waited anxiously, contemplating if I really wanted to do this. And I really did. I love journalism, I needed the experience, I needed to be selfish and most importantly, I needed to go out of my comfort zone to benefit myself. The next day my mom notified me that I’m all set up to go to the camp. All I needed to do was quit my job at the end of the week. This scared the shit out of me. I was going to risk so much to do what I love. I’d no longer receive the letter of recommendation my boss would write me, the pay, the friends I made and I was ultimately terrified of looking weak- like I couldn’t handle the kids, when really I was being strong and following my passion instead of my obligation.

Saturday came and I did it. I quit. I told him everything I was feeling and how I was going to the journalism program at UF. He wasn’t mad, he wasn’t anything actually. All he did was admit I was placed poorly and told me to leave the laundry bags the camp provided for me on my bed. So I did, and I headed out to UF for my next adventure.

I wouldn’t change a thing. UF was a much-needed experience for me, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. And who knows? Maybe the summer would’ve gotten better if I stayed at camp. But ultimately, no matter how good the summer was, I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. This time of my life is valuable, and so is prioritizing myself. I’m glad I gathered up the courage to do what makes me happy, and I hope this experience benefits me when settling into my future career.

[survivinglu]

Following up the OSAP application video that I made a couple months ago, I figured I would write a quick OSAP FAQ for students so that you can have any questions you might have answered here directly. Note that you can contact me if you’d like a more detailed explanation for your exact situation, and you can contact financialaid@laurentian.ca for information pertaining directly to your application.

• To guarantee your funding arrives on time, you must apply for OSAP up to two months before the semester begins. OSAP states that applications can sometimes take six to eight weeks to process; students who apply less than two months before the semester begins risk having their funding arrive late. Laurentian is understanding if funding arrives late if you applied more than two months before September, since in that case any late funding is OSAP’s fault and not yours, but they are not as lenient about funding that arrives late because you simply applied late. The school is understanding, however, if you have an individual situation as to why your application was submitted so late (for example, last year I had some issues with my SIN and could not apply until mid-September, so my funding didn’t arrive until October).

• OSAP is released at the beginning of each semester, sometimes the weekend before this, however it can take one to ten business days to actually arrive. This is the reason why OSAP students who have selected on their application to have OSAP pay the school directly have a deadline of the second week of each term to pay their fees (September 15th specifically this year); sometimes you will see your remaining OSAP (what’s left over after your tuition is paid) in your bank account as early as one day after OSAP is released, sometimes you won’t see it for two weeks (weekends do not count as business days).

• OSAP is released in two different groups: federal funding and provincial funding. They will not appear in your bank account at the same time, so do not fret if you do not have all of your OSAP (what’s expected after tuition is paid) in your account at the same time; one will often take several more days, sometimes even a week, longer to appear in your bank account. This is completely normal, and you do not have to panic or call OSAP when you notice that you have less money in your bank account than you were expecting.

• As already mentioned, students who selected on their application to have OSAP sent directly to the school to pay their fees have a deadline of September 15th to pay their fall fees. If you selected instead to have your OSAP sent directly to your bank account, you must still adhere to the August 4th deadline for tuition. The only reason that the deadline is September 15th otherwise is because students are then waiting for OSAP to come in before they can pay their fees; students who select to have the funding sent directly to them are believed to be using OSAP for purposes other than tuition (such as rent, school supplies, living expenses, etc). If you would like to change this on your application, email financialaid@laurentian.ca before August 4th.

• Some people have received scholarships or bursaries after they applied for OSAP, and therefore they are not included on their application. Do not worry about contacting financial aid to update this; OSAP will demand at the end of December that you update your income for 2017, which includes updating whether you received any scholarships or bursaries. This will potentially decrease the amount of funding you receive for second semester, as you will suddenly need less money in their eyes, so if you know that you have received a scholarship or bursary already, plan to save whatever OSAP you receive in your bank account after tuition is paid in September to carry over second semester. You can also contact financial aid if you need additional funding requested (OSAP will accept such requests if there is an emergency situation).

• Scholarships and bursaries are not typically received before school begins, and therefore will apply to second semester’s fees. Entrance scholarships and Dean’s Honour List scholarships are typically released into your Laurentian account in October, and any bursaries received during the fall term are released into your Laurentian account in December; the bursary application will open in early September and be available until mid-October, and you will be notified in late November to early December whether or not you are receiving one. You are able to apply to up to thirty bursaries; even if you do not qualify for some, it is highly recommended that you apply for thirty nonetheless, as if you are the highest qualified applicant, you may receive one anyway.

• If you receive any extra money in your Laurentian account before OSAP comes in - more so in second semester than first - and your OSAP is set to be released directly to the school, do not fret: your OSAP will be released directly to you if your fees are already paid to the school. They will confirm how much you owe when the term begins, and if that amount is already paid, then they will direct the money straight to your bank account; if that amount is partially paid, then they will still pay the remainder, and everything that is left over will go straight into your bank account. In some cases, the OSAP still ends up in your Laurentian account - such as if you make a payment after OSAP is released but before it is received - in which case you can email studentfees@laurentian.ca to request a refund.

• You can apply for OSAP until ninety days before the end of your study period, so typically up to ninety days before the end of the school year. Although most students apply during the summer, some find themselves in financial binds after school has begun and suddenly need assistance to get them through the school year; if this happens, you can still apply for OSAP even after school has begun, but just remember that it might still take six to eight weeks for your application to process.

• There is currently a no-loan option on the OSAP application; the amount given in a grant has increased in 2017 due to the ‘free tuition’ offered by OSAP, and therefore they attempt to cover your tuition with a grant while giving you a loan separately. In the past, this grant may have been anywhere from a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars, whereas now it can equal or exceed the amount of your yearly tuition. If you want to receive only a grant so that you have no loan that needs repayment afterward, there is an option on the application to receive only the grant, and this can be changed on the OSAP website after your application has already been submitted (on your Funding Summary page). You do not need to email financial aid for this.

• You can only receive full-time OSAP if you are taking 60% of a full course load or higher (40% if you are a student who is registered with accessibility services for issues such as a disability), which translates to eighteen credits (twelve if registered with accessibility services) or more in the school year. A full course load is thirty credits for most programs, and as full-time first year students many of you will likely have full thirty credit school years, but note the amount of credits needed for full-time OSAP; if you find yourself stressed out and need to drop courses and take fewer during the year, you will need to have your OSAP application updated with financial aid should to drop below eighteen credits. This is also nine credits per semester (six if registered with accessibility services); if you intend to remain a full-time student, you cannot take fifteen credits one semester and six the following semester, but you must still take at least nine credits each semester. This applies for both your student status at the school and for your OSAP application.

• If you choose not to receive OSAP in following years, you will still be required to fill out an application on the OSAP website under ‘Continuation of interest-free status’; this is simply to notify OSAP that you are still in school and therefore are not starting repayment, since you are not required to start repayment until six months after the end of your study period. This not only staves off your need to enter repayment, but prevents interest from being added to the amount you owe.

If there is anything that has not been covered by this FAQ, feel free to contact me directly either on Facebook (Ryan Michael Wildgoose), Twitter, or by email at rwildgoose@laurentian.ca; I have been receiving OSAP for seven years now (with a two year break at one point, during which I was in repayment) and have encountered a number of different situations with my own funding and applications, so I have quite a bit of experience that I can share with you to help answer your questions in great detail. Note that you should contact financialaid@laurentian.ca if there is specific information pertaining to your application that you need addressed, and for confirmation of anything I might tell you (since OSAP does change over time, and while they do update their website, the school sometimes changes processes and does not provide that information online).

I hope this helps everyone out, and enjoy your first year at Laurentian!

~ Ryan.