#but also like 3 different people told me i should teach classes

[milkweedman]

Helped bottle some honey today. Observed the comb uncapping and de-honeying processes which were very cool. Ate a little honeycomb. Haven't had any since I was very small, it's good.

They also had an indoor beehive. Which I love.

[cloudsmateria]

college roommate - leon kennedy x reader

nerdy!reader x leon kennedy

synopsis: you and leon have just started university, finding yourself in the same university visit, he comes and visits your dorm as he's been struggling in his classes. you kick it off, and you invite each other into your different, interesting lives.

words: like 4500

disclaimer: this isn't proof-read and i actually do need to proofread it and i will when i finish it, this also isn't finished. so if u don't wanna read it now and wanna come back to it when it's pristine and complete be my guest, the edit of this will be very edited like literally whole chunks of texts will be different, i just wanted to post something

content warning: kissing, bit of angst, slight smut/almost smut, sexual themes

A loud knock rings through your door, if it had come even a second later you wouldn’t have heard it at all as you were on a one-way path to passing out on top of your notes. 

“Come in.” You mumble, picking your head up off of the desk and watching as a dirt-blonde hunk of a boy you don’t recognise comes through. Maybe it’s one of the frat boys trying to get to know all the girls in his dorm house. 

“Hey. Can I ask a favour?”

“Who are you?”

"I'm Leon, I saw you in my engineering lecture the other day and you looked like you understood what was going on. Then I found out you were in my university building. So here, I am. Help. Please. I’m going to fail and we’re only 3 weeks in." His desperation makes you laugh, something you were shocked you could do in this dazed state after a mind-boggling 8 hours of completing work.

"Oh Leon, I'd love to but I think if I even think about that engineering class for another second right now I might actually drop down and die."

"It can wait, you busy right now? Other than you know, spilling drool all over your papers?”

“Yeah, I was just about to go spill some on my pillow too, I'm exhausted." You say, not entirely joking, and begin to gather your things.

“I get it.”

“We have another engineering lecture tomorrow anyway so you can just catch me then."

"You sure, though? I mean I'm already here." He shrugs and picks up a book from her bookshelf. "How do you read any of these? There are no pictures." You laugh again. 

"You're asking me how I read physics books when you take engineering… Are you sure you picked the right course? You know, you can read it if you want, and would probably benefit from it. If you can even read."

"No thanks, I'll just get you to teach it to me tomrrow. I’ll see you in a bit, Einstein.” 

"You should watch what you call me if you want me to tutor you, that’s usually not free."

"Oh, but the thing is I don't think you're actually going to make me pay for anything. You're too nice for that."

"That's a very bold statement to make to a stranger."

"You'll come round eventually."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

"Can I just ask you another question? I'm not going to stop annoying you until you answer it the way I want you to."

"Go on." You sigh.

"Have you eaten today? Cause I haven't and I'm hungry."

"Leon-"

"Please."

"Okay, okay, God, you're persistent. Gonna give me a headache." You groan and sit up.

"It’s worth it, you'll need me to keep you sane later in the year."

"Oh really? You think we’re gonna stay friends that long?"

"I know you've got your nerdy brain, but I've been told I have a great personality." You can't tell if he's implying something with that disgustingly stupid joke or if he really is just an idiot. To be fair, he's funny and managed to pull you out your the room you had been hibernating in for the past few days to get ahead of work. You suppose there are worse people you could be forced to talk to.

"Whatever. Just get out of here." You push him towards the door.

"You're not going to eat with me?" You roll your eyes and lock the door, getting dressed into something that wasn't your pyjamas.

…

Now here you were, eating outside with this boy from your lectures when you had just wanted to be at home sleeping. Although it was nicer than you thought it would be, he had insisted on buying you an energy drink to keep your eyes open as you were eating in some random burger shop.

"How come you're struggling?" 

"Been going to too many parties, I've got different priorities."

"..."

"What?" He says defensively.

"Don't make me slap you. You can't be stupid because you got into this university, you're wasting your potential."

"I am not!"

"You're struggling! We're only 3 weeks in! I mean, come on, Leon."

"I don't understand what your problem is, maybe you need to live a little."

"That is rich coming from you. You're going to peak in college and fuck up the rest of your life if you ruin your chance now. And I live fine right now, I go out often enough and put the rest of my time toward my course, like a responsible human being."

"So you're boring?"

"So you're an idiot and can't plan for the future?"

"No, I'm not." He smirks. "And also, I never said I couldn't plan for the future, just that it isn't the only thing I want to focus on."

"Okay, fine, that's it. This is your problem, I'm not tutoring you."

"Got under your skin?" He smiles.

"I'm serious. You're smart if you got into this school, but you're wasting your talent partying and sleeping around."

“You’ve only known me for 20 minutes and you’ve managed to start an argument.”

“I just don’t want to waste my time. If you want me to help with assignments you need to make an effort, and if you want to be my friend, you’re also going to need to make an effort because I’m not going to care about someone who can’t even care about themselves.”

"I care about myself. Why else would I come to you for help on this?"

"Because you can't do it yourself and your friends are too stupid to ask them for help."

"No... Well... Okay fine, yeah that sounds pretty accurate. But in all honesty, I do care about my grade, that's why I'm coming to you. Now you know my intentions, I beg talk about something else, this entire conversation is reminding me of my mom."

"Like what?"

"Like, there's a party next Saturday, and I think you should come with me. You’re pretty entertaining."

"Oh, Leon. You're so clueless, it's pitiful."

"You have to go to the party, it will be fun."

"I have been to parties, I've gone to 2 since the start of the semester. But we have assignments to work on this week."

"One more little party isn't going to kill you. It'll be good, and then we can do the work."

"That's a very backward mindset." 

"You'll thank me, trust me."

"You say the reason you’re struggling is because you’re going to many parties, and immediately proceed to invite me to a party." You shake your head and laugh. “You are something else.”

“So are you coming?”

“I’ll think about it.”

… 

You and Leon had been going to the lectures together ever since, having lunch at points when he wasn’t hoarded by his friends and even managing a few study sessions into his schedule. You came 5 minutes early for the engineering lecture the next day. Flipping through the textbook notes to top up on your pre-reading beforehand, you had right at the back as Leon begged you to over text the previous night to sit there rather than the front so he’d feel comfortable sitting next to you. It doesn't take long for people to start filtering in, and eventually, that blonde-headed boy pops up next to you, leaning his head on your shoulder immediately. 

"Didn't get enough sleep last night." He mutters.

"Up studying?"

"You know me so well." 

“I'm not even going to ask what you were doing." You sigh, fully believing he had either gone clubbing or to another party last night.

"I promise you, I was studying. And you can ask me all the questions you want, I'll try my best to answer. I did go a little off track and I'm not doing well at it but your inspirational speech convinced me to try a bit."

"Really?" You ask excitedly, looking down at him. "Leon, that's great!" You feel his cheeks crease into a smile against your shoulder at your enthusiasm.

"You're more excited about it than I am, that's cute." He chuckles. "Keep talking, my head hurts, your voice helps."

"The lecture starts soon."

"Don't care." 

"I’m not going to talk over the lecturer." You say, flicking his forehead.

"It's just a lot, okay? I'm trying my best, but I might have reached my full capacity last night." He sits up and sighs, rubbing his temples.

“Welcome to university."

"Yeah, whatever. Can we go back to your room after?"

"Sure."

"Thank you."

"Of course." 

The professor finally steps into the lecture hall, and everyone quiets down, preparing for the lesson.

Halfway through, Leon couldn't help but pass out on you again. Your body went rigid, trying to make sure his head wouldn't fall off your shoulder. You pick the paper off of his desk, dragging it toward you as you start to write notes on your own and his paper so he won't miss out on anything.

He's surprisingly cute when he's not cracking annoying jokes and snapping back with snarky remarks. He was even making you lose track of the lecture a bit.

After class, you wake him up and walk him back to your dorm with him, chatting and catching him up on what he missed briefly. When you think about it, you're surprised you only met him yesterday. He feels like someone you've known since secondary school, or maybe he just treats everyone this way. Either way, you wouldn't complain about spending time with him.

"So, we're alone. What do we do?"

"Study?" You say, throwing him a pencil and paper. "Don't ask me stupid questions like that again."

"Come on, we just got out of an hour lecture, we basically already studied."

"A lecture that you slept for half of-"

"And that you caught me up on after."

"We need to make up the time. Now come on, let's work."

"But-"

"Now, Leon."

"Ugh."

…

The next hour wasn't as bad as you had expected it to be, you could still get your work done while simultaneously teaching Leon that content he missed out on. His demeanour quickly became enthusiastic when he saw how proud you were when you understood a concept, and you were genuinely impressed, he caught onto things quickly. After an hour, you both took a break sitting on your bed, him replying to some messages on his phone.

"Hey." You say, poking his arm to draw his attention.

"What?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"Making the effort to try, even if it is just a little bit."

"You're definitely making more effort than me." He smiles, leaning his head on your shoulder again.

"If you want to sleep you should just go home, you must be exhausted."

"I'm not leaving you in this depressing room, I'm keeping you company."

"I’m not keeping you from anything? Your phone was blowing up a second ago I assume you have somewhere to be."

"They can wait, I want to stay around for a bit longer. I like the change for once."

"Change?"

"It's quiet, I can think for once. You’re different from the people I’m around smart and stubborn,”

“So you’re aware of the poor choice of people you hang around, you had me fooled for a while.”

“Wait I’m not done, and even after all of that, I can tell that you're a little shy which is adorable. Oh, and my favourite part is how easy you are to annoy."

"I am not."

"You're blushing right now, I can feel your cheek getting hot. Adorable."

"Don’t you even close your mouth?"

"You know I can't, come on, it's not like you mind."

"Oh my god."

"Admit it, I'm fun to be around."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Tell me what you think of me."

"What?"

"Tell me, come on. Please, I'm dying for validation."

"Well. You're nice, and I've never seen you without a smile on your face, it's refreshing.”

“A little more… I know you got it in you.”

“You're not as stupid as you make yourself out to be,. And I honestly can't tell if I'm special or if you treat everyone else this way because you make me feel way more important than I really would be for someone like you."

"You're special, trust me. And that's a stupid question to ask. Do you want a list of the people I've met? The people I’ve made friends with?"

"What?"

"I can count on one hand the real people I've managed to keep around and one of those is my dog. Don't worry about that, because I know you’re gonna be on that list too. I know you think that I have so many friends and I'm surrounded by people all the time, but they're all fake. They're just fun for parties and clubbing when you have nothing else to do."

"But-"

"It's true." He looks at you, his expression becoming serious for the first time since you've met him. "And I've got to tell you, you're different."

"Different?"

"Yeah, you're interesting. You're not fake, and you're actually doing something with your life."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that, I think you’ve just surrounded yourself with one particular type of person, and now you’re shocked when you meet someone who’s not an idiot."

"Come on, I've seen the work you've done in these past 24 hours. You were working for at least 25 of them.” 

"You know how to flatter me."

"That's another reason why you should hang out with me more."

"Oh, and why's that?"

"I'm not afraid to admit how much I like you, Einstein. Makes you feel good, doesn’t it?"

"I can't even think about what I should say to that." You say, laughing and burying your head in your hands. "God, you're a mess."

“I suppose, yeah. You’re changing that though.” He lifts your chin up to face him, smiling at your red cheeks. “See? So cute.”

"Why do you have to keep saying things like that?"

"Because you react this way." He grins.

"I hate you."

"Let me ask you something again. Are you going to go to the party on Saturday?"

"I don’t think so."

“Since I’ve got the chance, I think I can change your mind.” He smiles and pulls your face a little closer, close enough for him to feel your shallow breaths against his lips.

"I-" You can't find any words, you're stunned. He's gorgeous, and you can't deny that, but the idea of kissing him feels wrong, you can't do it. Not right now. The thought of getting with someone you're starting to have feelings for is setting off alarm bells, the alarm bells imprinted by your bad experiences from secondary school of guys playing with your emotions. No matter how much your heart is screaming you want to, your mind is screaming no. 

"You're gonna go with me right?" He whispers.

"Okay." You say hoarsely, your legs desperately pressed together.

"Good girl." He smiles, getting up and putting his shoes on. "I'll see you on Saturday." He says, before leaving.

"I'm screwed." You mutter.

… 

Saturday finally rolled around. You weren't even sure how much time you spent with Leon the day before, but you knew you wanted more.  This was starting to become a concern for you. You remember last year, when you were hurt so bad you pledged to never fall for someone again. You can't do this, not with him. You know Leon is exactly that kind of guy, he’s charming, an athlete, with too many friends for his own good, someone who has no reason to be associated with you unless he wanted something, and was patient when it came to getting it. 

And yet, here you were, wearing a simple little black dress and the heels Leon said would match. You pray that the feelings are cut off here, hopefully he sees you as just a friend and just likes to tease. But a little part of you has a sliver of hope that maybe this is real.

Leon came to pick you up from your room, as he was only a floor away. When you opened the door you were met with Leon dressed in a black bottom down with the top two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up which definitely made you feel some kind of way.

"Leon, hi." You say, overly aware of the fabric hugging your skin, you rarely wore tight clothes. 

"Wow." His eyes were stuck to everything that wasn't your face.

"Hey! My eyes are on my face, not my chest."

"I know."

"Leon!"

"Just admiring the view." You ended up crossing your arms to try and hide a bit of your figure.

"Can you stop looking?"

"You look great, don't worry." He says.

"Whatever."

"No, I'm serious. I mean it, you look amazing. Just relax and have fun, okay?"  He puts his arm around your waist, pulling you close. "You look hot. And it's only going to get better. Just try to have a good time, I'll be by your side the whole time.”

"I've been to a party before, you don't need to baby me."

"I know it’s just this one is a big one. They always end in a mess. I've had a couple of close calls with the police."

"That's not what I'm worried about." I'm worried about what I might end up doing with you, she thinks.

"Just tell me if anything makes you uncomfortable and we can go." He smiles and leads you out of the dorm building and into the street.

"How far is it?"

"Only a few minutes away." He says, leading you along the sidewalk.

The walk wasn't too far, it was about 20 minutes of you both drinking from a wine bottle for some pre-game. Time seemed to fly by as you came to the house. Whoever was hosting this party, probably one of Leon's friends no doubt, was rich. The house was huge and the whole thing was vibrating with the music that blasted through it.

"We're here."

"I think it’s going to collapse.."

"Wait until you see inside." He grabs your hand and drags you in, the house packed. You didn't recognise anyone and felt a little intimidated as Leon led you through the crowd of people, pushing them aside. You couldn't believe there were this many students in the town.

He stops at the kitchen, handing you a drink. You hadn't gone to a party this big before, and that was voluntary, this was just too much. You drink it in one to hopefully get you drunk enough to gain a bit of confidence and hand it back to Leon for it to get refilled.

"I didn't know there were this many people here."

"There's usually a lot." He smiles, handing her another drink. "Don't worry, I'll be with you the whole night. You take a shot before starting to sip on the more tame drink Leon had gotten. 

"What do you want to do first?"

"Let’s go find some of my friends.He says, taking your hand and dragging you through the sea of people, most likely dancing, grinding, or drinking.

He pulls you into the living room, finding his friends from one of the lectures and joining in on their conversation. You're introduced and you talk with them, they're all quite funny and sweet. You were happy to have found a fun little group.

The rest of the night is spent with them, the five of you getting progressively drunker and drunker and talking about more and more stupid shit before someone suggests the group should go and dance, you immediately go and hide behind Leon. 

"Dancing is definitely not my thing." You whisper.

"You have to come."

"No way."

"Please." He says, looking into your eyes.

"Why?"

"I want you to."

"Leon."

"If you hate it, I'll make it up to you. Please." He whispers, and you sigh, giving in. "I know you'll enjoy it." He smiles and leads her by the hand into the living room where everyone is.

"Everyone's too drunk to be paying any attention anyway." He says, and the group joins in on the dance. 

After a few more drinks the alcohol started to hit.

"Isn't so bad, is it?" He says after the first few minutes, watching you find your rhythm.

"No, it's fun."

"See, told you."

"Don't let it go to your head, I'm just drunk."

He smiles, spinning you so your back is pressed against his, the two of you continue to dance. He leans down and kisses your shoulder, wrapping his arms around your waist and grinding into you.

"Leon-"

"It's hard to control myself with you, almost kissed you that time I convinced you to come to this party, could tell you weren’t sure though."

"Because I thought we were just friends."

"That never lasts long, does it? Did you really think it was going to stay that way forever?" He says, running his hand down your thigh.

"We're drunk." You mumble, leaning your head back onto his shoulder. God, you wanted it. You were trying with everything you had to rationalise with yourself. He knew what he was doing.

"That doesn't change the fact that you're irresistible. And that's not the alcohol talking. I've been wanting to do this for a while."

 He smirks, spinning her back around to face him and lifting you up, your legs wrapping around his waist.

"Let's go upstairs,"

"Leon-"

"Shh." He puts a finger over her lips and leads her away, finding the stairs and walking up. “Stop doubting yourself. One thing about you is that you always say no, or doubt yourself, let’s change that for once.”

He takes you to the first room he finds, happening to be a bathroom, opening the door and stepping in, kicking it closed and locking it. He sets you down and starts to kiss you, the alcohol making it a lot more forceful than usual. You kiss back, letting him guide you and set the pace, his hands sliding over her body. 

"You're so fucking beautiful." He mutters, his lips trailing down to your neck. You feel the pressure of his hands pushing you backwards. Your back hits the counter, he lifts you up and settles himself between your thighs.

"Leon-"

"Yeah?"

"Are you sure? About me?"

"Yes." He smiles, lifting his head. "Now stop doubting yourself, will you? You're too perfect for that." If you were sober, your mind would've had red lights blaring, trying to protect you, but the alcohol flattened out all thoughts. A hint of doubt crossed your mind instinctually. But his touch is so good, and he's making you feel things that you haven't in a long time.

"I-"

"Come on, tell me how much you want me."

"I really like you, Leon. It's just...I have this feeling that I'll get hurt."

"What are you so afraid of? What can I do to change your mind?" He whispers. "I'll do anything for you." He says, pulling your head down to kiss him. The sweet nothings bring back some bad memories, it's starting to feel a bit like deja vu.

"I've been hurt before, Leon."

"What's his name? I'll kick his ass."

"It was in high school, but it happened too many times."

"You have to stop thinking, just focus on me, okay?"

"Leon."

"Come on." He sighs, pressing a finger to your lips. "I won't let anything bad happen to you. I don't want to lose something because someone in your past ruined everything for you, okay?"

"I don't know."

He sighs. "Do you wanna head home ?"

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not upset. Come on, I'll take you back."

"I didn't mean to ruin the night."

"No, I'm not letting you leave thinking you ruined it. I'm sure a million more parties are happening this week if you feel so bad."

"I'm a mess, Leon. Why do you even like me? I'm not worth it."

"Of course you are." He says, cupping your cheek."You're the only person I can stand to be around for hours while sober. And you can't argue with that."

"Okay."

"I'll get us out of here and you can crash in my room."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Now come on, we're leaving." 

...

The taxi ride home was short and sweet,  but still awkward. You were scared he'd be mad at you for ending the night so abruptly, but when you got into the room he made sure to put his arm around you, whispering reassurement into your ear, stroking your hair.

"You don't have to worry. I'm not angry."

"Really?"

"I don't blame you for wanting to wait."

"It's just, the last time-"

"I'm not him, you can trust me. I've been trying to prove that to you."

"I think... Maybe I can learn to trust you."

"You will, eventually." He says, holding his arms open, gesturing for her to cuddle with him.

"Thank you."

"Anytime."

You cuddle him for a bit, the silence being cut by the sound of the two of you breathing. Leon leans down to kiss capture your lips softly, it feels a lot easier to kiss him back, pressing your body against him.

"I don't know why anyone would ever hurt you." He whispers between kisses. "You're perfect." He runs his fingers through your hair.

"I don't know about that."

"I don't know why you doubt yourself either. Go to sleep, you'll feel better in the morning."

[serxinns]

Yandere Bnha x scarlet witch reader part 3

H/c = hair color

F/c = fav color

Part 1

Part 2

Part 4

Shout out to @lady-ashfade for helping me!

The Big Three (Platonic)

• Mirio is an affectionate and sunshine Boy always give you hugs 24/7

•Mirio Loves to give you Big bear hugs or tickle you if he's in a very good mood if you not much of a hugger or tickle person that's ok! High fives are just as amazing as well! He would never overstep a boundary.

•Mirio loves to make you happy it's his number 1 goal! he loves to make you smile, laugh, or anything that brings positive emotion, and if you ever feel sad this dude turns into a whole-ass mom he make sure your are comfortable enough to tell why are you feeling that way and if some caused you to feel that way let's just say they're just gonna get more then a punch in the stomach

•He knows it is wrong but he likes to use his quirk to go through your walls and watch you sleep only uses his face tho he thinks it's adorable to see you all curled up in your blanket dreaming he always wondered what your dreams are like if he notices you waking up then he'll quickly back off if you have a bad dream he'll.cone making up an excuse saying how he heard you struggling in your sleep and comfort you

•Every morning Mirio would invite you to walk you to class and when you get to your class he gives you a hive five or a big hug before he leaves

•On educational class visits he always yells out a hello or runs to you giving a big hug even ignoring how he embarrassed you in front of the class

• speaking of the class mirror Always sense how Jealous your classmates are whenever he wants to talk to you your classmate suddenly appears and pulls you away from him he didn't think much of it once he realizes that they were doing it on purpose (expect for izuku) and in the morning after before he was gonna give u a big hug iida got in the way and told you that aizawa is almost here and you should sit down (Aizawa was 5 mins late) mirio saw the pattern and smiled wickly walking to his group with a plan

"two can play that game~"

•Tamaki is the obsessive and Protective type of yandere Is shy and anxious on the outside but deep inside this dude is obsessing about every little thing you do!

•When Tamaki met you thought Mirio always talking about this Student all the time both Neijire and he looked at him curious about who is the student that made mirio that way and when mirio introduced you to them neijire instantly fell in love while Tamaki was shy as usually but there was something different about u a feeling that makes him think he needed to protect you he tried to surpass his feelings but how could he your so adorable and ur in class 1a the class that the villain target!? Poor boy almost made himself cry when the thought of you being helpless getting kidnapped

•Tamaki loves to steal little things you don't care about and keep them in his collection either be pens and pencils or items that you never use he'll collect them and put them in a secret place only he knows

•Tamaki would occasionally compliment you every chance he gets so he can see you beaming with happiness

• whenever you're sad he's not exactly good at comforting people but he would give you comforting head pats or give you your favorite comforting items to calm you down and hug you if you need it but if someone caused you to be this way his whole mood turn he turns from an Anxious introvert to something even more threatening how dare someone hurt their baby sibling he was thinking the most horrible ways to torture the person who hurt you

•Sicne Tamaki is also friends and partners with Kirishima I would imagine Tamaki teaching Kiri to be more protective and be more supporting try to get the reader to date him he doesn't know much about love but he does know about protection and will try encouraging kiri and whenever kiri rambles about how amazing and manly you see he happily listens

•Tamaki Knows how jealous the class gets when it comes to you but he doesn't even care even when the time bakugo threatens him to blow him up if he and the senpais gets near you but all tamki did was ignore him and push pass him he wasn't gonna let anyone scare him especially if it his beloved sibling is involved

•Neijire is the Delusanional and Obsessive type of yandere she thinks every little thing you do means you're depending on them or you need to be protected

•When Neijire 1st heard about you from Mirio she was so ecstatic to meet this Student and when Mirio did she fricking SQUEALED she was pinching your cheeks saying how cute you were hugging you while jumping tamaki and mirio had to calm her down

•Neijire views herself as a older sibling and bestie to you can be controlling like spamming you demanding where you are or wanting to know who you're with but mirio and Tamaki will tell her off but at times she don't listen she needs to know where you are!

•if you notice how weird and obsessive your class or the big 3 is neijire will try to put on the "naive" mask just to think you're just seeing things

•when Neijire wants to spar you she goes all out to show off how strong she is to prove how she can protect you she shows off her fighting skills and her quirk and when this your turn oh she will scream complaints and try to hype you up like "you go y/n" and "Yea that's my little sibling!" jumping up in down like an excited child once you're done she'll rant about how proud she is

•Neijire is VERY protective when it comes to you she glares at anyone when you hang out with them holding your hand a bit tight when she feels uncomfortable if anyone tries to hurt you she'll use her sharp nails and pierce deeply into their skin until it bleeds threatening them to kick their ass the next time they hurt u

•Big 3 loves to make plans to hang out with you neijire is in charge of plans like having a sleepover or a study session or even the trip to the zoo ( Lol tamaki gets scared of the giraffe because he thought it was gonna eat his hand when it was just try a get the food out his hand)

Extras

•they calls you Sparks because whenever your using your quirk f/c like sparks come out of your hands and they think its cute

• Big 3 and Class 1a would fight to get your attention whether be who's the group you get to sit with, training and hanging now not only have you got 19 crazy teenagers wanting your love and attention now you got of the most powerful senpais wanting to protect their little sibling and baby you

•Tamaki never admits it but he adores your sneezes it sounds like a kitten (even if you sneeze loud people)

He'll form a small smile

•neijire and Mount lady have a rivalry of who gets to do readers hair and who's outfit you get to wear

Shinsou and Eri (platonic)

• Shinsou is a chill manipulative and more aware and the possessive type of yandere basically the only person you can deal with

•Shinsou and you likes to eat on the rooftop whenever Big 3 and class 1a start to have a war in the cafeteria and makes jokes about how they are to lighten up the mood

•Shinsou is a cool friend and a bug brother to you the two of you would go and do shenanigans like prank the teachers or Cause Chaos around school even mess with class 1b

•Aizawa would hire shins to keep watch of you so you won't do anything dangerous he may be more chill than the others but when someone messes with you it's on bro would find any info on the person and threaten to blackmail

•Shinsou would act like the normal one just to get closer to you and whenever you talked about how weird your classmates are he would try to convince you that ur just being a dummy

•Shinso nicknamed you le Bruja while you nickname him El Insomnio (hehe translate it)

•Shinsou Hate using his quirk on you but if it comes to danger or a villain he had to use his quirk to less you out of danger so he can protect you

•Shinso is secretly a cuddleler and you know it you and eri (eri is a yandere too) would cuddle up and watch movies together and if any of the UA or students caught this they'll secretly take photos but be careful if shinsou wakes up he would not be happy

•Eri is the Innocent but scary yandere she always dreamed when she grows up she'll always be a hero like you

•she treats you like you're her idol she's so amazed when you used your quirk in Battle or training, especially in training cause she gets to watch them in person jumping up and down and clapping her hands cheering for you

•Eri would fake cry whenever you don't give her enough attention she would try to distract you by buying ice cream or snacks for her or guilt trip you to make you lay attention to her more "Y/n I wanna go to the arcade" off the arcade you go to win her a prize "Y/N.. *Shows sad puppy eyes*" well no attention for the person time to cheer up eri!

•Eri would draw little doodles of you, shins, mic, and Aizawa like a family photo

•She loves it when you use ur quirk to do tricks and tries to mimic your moves as well to either izuku, shinsou, one of the big 3 aizawa, mic anyone while saying "Look I learned this from y/n"

•She would invite you, mirio, shinso, and Izuku to cute tea parties the boys are the butlers, and you and here are the royals (slay gurl slay)

[ptersparkers]

I'd love to see Aaron visiting his pre-school teacher girlfriend. I've got a kiddo at work hat literally melts in my arms when mom drops her off with me. Would love to see his response to such a thing. If I could request her being plus size! 🥺💖

hi hi - currently thinking about aaron with a daughter and my heart is melting. also i feel like i write my fics with little to no physical body descriptions (except shorter than aaron bc im short as hell and im kinda into the height difference) -- and i didn’t know exactly how you wanted me to write so i didn’t really lean into anyone’s insecurities, as some fics do, just bc i want to be inclusive since all bodies types are very beautiful. 

HOWEVER! may this blurb and all my future writing be something you can relate to.

fem!reader for those wondering <3

***

It’s one in the afternoon on a sunny Friday when Aaron picks you up from work.

It’s a half day, meaning you get off of work earlier and the kiddos in your class are more energetic than the rest of the week because they know they’re going home early. Your classroom is as colorful as ever, the walls lined with number and alphabet charts, science posters framing the doorway, and art projects from your students hang above their cubbies where their backpacks are stores.

You walk around the room with your hands clasped behind your back and observe as the children tidy their desks, four of which face each other. A few students have to be told to slow down when they start to run because they’re holding colored pencils. Others follow your instructions while a few choose to talk amongst themselves instead of cleaning up.

It’s when they’re reminded their parents are likely waiting outside do the students hurry to clean their spaces. You walk around, one by one, giving each student a high-five when they’ve tucked their papers in their desk’s storage and when their notebooks and other materials are neat and organized. Each student automatically begins to grab their belongings and file in a single line against the wall by the door when you’ve dismissed them from their desk with appraisal for their neatness.

When your students are lined and eager to leave with their hands gripping the straps of their backpacks, you can’t help but smile at the group of children. You swing the door open and remind everyone to walk at an orderly fashion and watch as they exit the front doors into the front area of the building where other teaching aids are waiting.

The kids disperse when they see their parents and you watch from behind as their parents check in with the teaching aids before they go. It’s always amusing to you to witness their little legs climb into their booster seats.

Mary, your longest friend at this school who teaches the third grade, stands next to you.

“Up to anything fun this weekend?” she asks, bumping your cardigan-clad shoulders.

“I’m having a quiet weekend in with my boyfriend and his son,” you say with a grin.

“Ah, the mysterious boyfriend,” Mary says with a laugh.

Aaron’s been a bit of a mystery to your friends at work—always aloof and has never been to teacher-student functions because of his work schedule. You see him quite often given the circumstances but some people think you might be making him up for an excuse to stay at home. Mary’s the only person who’s met Aaron before, but she likes to pretend that your boyfriend is just a figment of your imagination to watch you squirm.

“You’ve met him before, dummy,” you say with a laugh. “Although I’m sure Laura probably thinks I’m making him up.”

“Or she thinks he’s an absolute troll of a guy,” Mary snorts. “It’s no secret that she’s pissed at you for receiving the ‘Teacher of the Year’ award this quarter.”

“She should bring it up with the district, not me,” you say, dusting off your shoulders for dramatic effect. “It feels like she’s had it out for me since day one.”

“Laura has a stick up her ass,” Mary whispers into your ear, which causes you to burst out into a fit of giggles. “Uh oh, the Wicked Witch is here.”

Laura’s on the other end of the pick-up area and you angle yourself so that you’re not facing her. You get a text from Aaron at the same time saying that he’s parked and walking towards the school. You grin at your phone and Mary snickers.

“Shush,” you mutter, knowing you have a lovesick grin on your face.

You spot Aaron across the street, donned in a dark grey suit and expensive shoes and tie to match. His hair flows perfectly in the cool breeze and his strides are long and confident as he crosses the road.

Aaron spots you easily and you keep yourself from sprinting into his arms. Careful to keep it professional at your place of work, Aaron presses a kiss to your cheek and embraces you for a short while, but it’s enough to inhale his cologne.

“Missed you,” Aaron says.

“Good day at work?” you ask.

“Actually yeah, everything went surprisingly well with no hiccups.” Aaron turns his attention to your friend. “Hi Mary, it’s nice to see you again.”

“Hey Aaron,” Mary greets with a wave. “Long time no see.”

Avery, one of your students, politely taps your hip to get your attention.

“What’s wrong, honey?” you asked.

“Can I wait with you?” Avery asks. “Mommy’s late today.”

“Of course, Avery.” You grab her hand when tears start to threaten to spill from her eyes—Avery’s mom works a bit farther than the rest of the parents and it isn’t unusual for her to be a few minutes late to pick her daughter up. But for a child, it feels like eternity.

“Did you like our lesson today?” you ask, bending down to her level while keeping your hands together.

“I really liked learning about dinosaurs!” Avery exclaims as if her worries were never there to begin with.

Aaron’s watching you from beside Mary, an adorning look plastered across his face. He’s too caught up in his fantasies about creating a family with you; Jack’s warmed up to you in the few years you’ve been dating Aaron, but he can’t help but wonder what you’d be like as a mother of your own.

You’re able to get Avery to talk about her interests to keep her from thinking about anything else. She obliges and you squat with a grin as she becomes animated with her storytelling. He makes small talk with Mary, who can clearly see how smitten he is with you, but he doesn’t think he cares too much.

“You guys would make cute kids,” Mary says to Aaron with a nudge.

“Mary,” he warns playfully.

“What good is a friend if not to meddle?” she chides before excusing herself to assist other students.

Avery’s mom arrives a few short minutes after Mary leaves and Aaron watches you greet her mother and send the girl on her way home. He watches with his hands in his pocket and accompanies you back to the classroom once your students have left the school grounds.

Aaron knows he wants kids with you. He just needs to ask you to be his wife first.

[fuckyeahhowardstark]

I just got the third part of the wartime epistolary fic by @ruquas in the form of handwritten letters between Bucky and Howard! This is a fill for @marveltrumpshate 2023.

Part 1 -- Part 2

I've included a transcript below the cut:

Page 1:

15th of Jan. 1944 Dear James, Thank you for granting me the privilege of calling you by your given name. I am happy to inform you that we are indeed headed the same way, so it might be, that I will reach you faster than this letter will. And in some way think it might be for the best. It is good to hear that Steve is well. And that he seems to enjoy it, too. I won't lie, in some ways it is a relief. Though I am sure everything is alright with that as otherwise Miss Carter would have already told us about any problems. Christmas was spent in a friendly manner at the base. Unlike you, we didn't get put with other civilians. And while this Christmas has actually been more pleasant than some I had to endure in the past, I do find myself longing that it had been spent with you and the others. If you would be inclined to it, I would love to hear more about it in person.

Page 2:

In regards of introducing you be assured, that I will gladly do so, James. And in regards what your sister said, it is true. The soldiers are celebrated as the ones that will end this war, calling each of you a hero. Which means that you will need to fend off more than one pretty dame should I introduce you as not only a hero of war but also a member of the famous Howling Commandos. So if you are willing to risk that, I shall watch them unleash an onslaught that even Hitler and his famous SS would run from. When we will talk in person, I will show your not only the sketches, but also the final version. And I will have a word with some people about removing important information that might be crucial to winning the war. But this, as important as it is, needs to wait until after our next stop. I have heard that the Italians are even more difficult than the soldiers, but I am not below admitting that I don't want to risk more time than necessary here. Colleagues told me that in that regard, the Austrians are a lot easier to get along. Funny, if you think about

Page 3:

how divided the country must be because of it. Another rumor I have heard is, that we will be very likely to be stationed longer at the new base. I have heard rumors about some of our allies wanting to discuss more joint operations. I am very curious if this will be true as it would give us a lot more time to not only catch up but also to talk about some of your plans for the future, James. I am fully aware that you don't want to take anything too serious, which is fully understandable given the situation, but I would be more than happy to talk about those details. I also heard that some of the finer arts and wines should be available for us, so I would be more than interested in trying to teach you the difference of some of those arts that I am still sure you know more about than you will let on. Steve mentioned you going to art classes, too. Though even if we both agree to disagree again, it will be a lot more fun than I have right now

Page 4:

Who knows, maybe we will not only have the option and time for you to give me input on the new design but also for me to put together a prototype that you can test out. And while we are at it, we might even have time for the promised shooting sessions. And please, if you allow me to call you James, I would love it, if we can be even with you calling me Howard. While I got used to the Mister Stark over the time, it will always feel like my father getting talked to, an association I would like to avoid with you. Sincerely and with high regards, Howard Stark

Insert:

To the brave soldier it concerns, we inform you that due to concerns of our all—especially your own and your fellow soldiers!—safety, all letters from and towards you will be opened -United States Department of War

Envelope:

To: Sergeant James Barnes

[nomouthedscream]

PREFACE: I AM A JAIDEN ANIMATIONS FAN, THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE A HATE POST OR ANYTHING OF THE SORT, ITS JUST MY SUBJECTIVE FEELINGS AND SORT OF MUSINGS

Watched jaidenanimation's new video earlier today, and Im torn. Cause on one hand I feel really happy for her for having made it to 10 years, and I understand the desire to do something else after having done a job for a while, to just relax and be yourself and possibly even rediscover yourself. But also the life she described after youtube is just not a realistic one, even for normal people. Part of the reason the job market is so utterly dogshit is because they work really hard to try and pidgeonhole you into certain positions and actively punish you for going against it. An increasing number of companies are requiring 2-3 years work experience for entry level positions (I wish I was kidding). They don't like it when your most recent job was in a different industry, even if it was for college. And any sort of gap in employment is blamed upon your laziness and lack of work ethic.

And colleges get increasingly pickier about your qualifications and if you should get money the older you are because they want that space youre taking up for some 18 year olds who don't know how to bargain or finacially plan well. My college has a secondary college specifically for "adults" (people over 22). Ive only met about 10 people over 22 in classes, and all of them were seeking masters, doctorates, or work certifications. I have only ever met 2 people over 30 who I took classes with, one seeking a masters while the other was working towards getting a work certification. There are people out there who get bachelors late or second ones after their first set, but they are a rare breed, and often times they either have to have a lot of money on hand or have to be willing to go into debt.

And if you go the self owned buisness route, you have the exact same problem that jaiden complained about with youtube, which is that it never actually leaves your mind, it is always there, a shadow at the edge of your vision.

I just, I dunno, I love Jaiden's content and I'm really happy for her, and I think its kinda sweet she idolizes the simple life. But I also think this video sort of epitomizes the fact that the people who got to make youtube a full time job sort of believe they live in a different world totally separate from ours, and they don't really know what normal is, at least not at the point jaiden's at. It felt like when cottagecore was really popular and people talked about the ideal of "the simple life" or when people were obsessed with van life and a bunch of people then had to come out and say "NO, ITS NOT ALL SUNSHINE AND ROSES". Youtube is a job that changes your lifestyle, but so is... any job. My friend whos gonna start student teaching next semester feels like they can't swear anymore or else theyre gonna slip up. My friend who works as an auctioneer basically has no time for his social life anymore. I constantly have work and college looming in my mind, and I've been repeatedly told to be prepared to dedicate all my time to my work since Im going into a stem field. Its all just sort of a part of growing up and taking on adult life. It's just all work in one form or another. It's incredibly difficult to genuinely retire at a young age now adays so if you want to no longer do a job you're going to have to switch instead. And there is no shame in wanting a job change, but it is always important to recognize what such a change will entail and if you're willing to undergo the hardship you will have to endure to get any sort of reward from it. So... yeah.

Tldr: Jaiden's new 10 year anniversary video reminded me that people really do think the grass is greener on the other side.

[juni-ravenhall]

whats ur non mainstream film taste then? genuinly curious to hear. as someone whos ended up in some weird ass corners of the film world like Neil breen Zachary Oberzan 0 budget stuff i love hearing what kind of weird indie corners other people have gotten into :3

i will talk a lot below that prob wont be interesting anyway, but i have to say first that i mostly stopped watching movies and now i mostly watch things @yasminewestbank chooses (not all the time but mostly) bc shes a movie nerd, so she picks movies that are usually either genuinely good or at least watchable, and if it was just me alone id prob not be bothering to watch those anyway, bc even a great movie just doesnt give me that much. i suffer from pretty severe apathy :( so if u want someone who hypes up genuinely good movies rather than me who is like "this is genuinely good but im still apathetic and dont really care" then yasmin is better to talk to. (im also generally more of a nonfiction type when it comes to video content, i could hype up Tasting History on youtube most days of the week but i struggle to hype up any movie at all. oh, and animated shorts, there are always some interesting student films and stuff.) the rest ⬇

my taste is usually "its [symbolic or not] critical commentary on something i care about" (feminism and misogyny, classism, bigotry, racism, the queer experience, abuse, trauma, violence, human self development, etc etc) or "its portraying human experiences [internal and external] in an interesting or just realistic way", like. realistic but in a highly specific meaning of realistic. i dont care about realism as a concept itself in art (realistic visuals or realistic setting or realistic costume etc i rly do not care about), what i mean is just about capturing a real essence of human brains and experiences, not copypasting stereotypical ideas without meaning. i can also enjoy some more abstract like david lynch bc its expressing human feelings and experiences in an appealing way. im really big on symbolic stuff and will just keep talking about what different parts of the movie meant or represented after i watch something w yasmin.

(edit to add... i should prob note that many of the movies i mention have adult content and heavy topics depending on who you ask? but i assume ppl who read this would already know to check ratings and warnings)

on the criticising / teaching side of meaningful, it would be for example, Poor Things [2023].... on the realistic / documenting side, for example Burning [2018] or Naked [1993], and i liked ryuusuke hamaguchi's movies Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, and Drive My Car (tho that one has a really badly written scene in it by the end that i hated) for the characters too. i dont know if those are the best examples its more just off the top of my head. theres also mainstream movies that fit my criteria, so for that criticising / teaching side, there's for example Pleasantville [1998], and Pretty Woman, which yasmin told me ppl tend to hate, but if thats the case i think ppl really didnt understand what it was about (it showed so much about misogyny and class issues, coated in such a way that you could get average boomers to watch it as a "romantic" movie without being aware of the actual meaning of what youre going into, the same way pleasantville can be watched as a goofy gimmick movie without being aware of the meaning youre going into, tho pleasantville is heavyhanded by the end, and i guess pretty woman manages to still fly over ppls heads? but not too surprising considering all those mainstream things now will literally just explain every joke and every meaning.... its like all of media is mickey mouse clubhouse, you know?)

i more or less prefer to watch an animated short or a weird animation on youtube/social media than watching a good live action movie. some animated shorts i really liked recently are Au Revoir Jerome, GLOIRE AMERE 40000, and BOLAVLK/WEREAWOLF, and vewn stuff. and i like those Molly Moon game tiktoks, as an example of like, low production stuff…. i dont care at all how much money or time went into something, but bc im usually not actively seeking fiction video content on my own, its more about what falls into my lap by chance, or yasmin/someone shows me.

i thought of listing more movies but its kinda hard for me to remember them after a while (re: apathy). i remember i liked another one from the Poor Things guy called The Favourite but i barely remember what happens in it. I liked one called This Must Be The Place, and one called Annette. those are movies yasmin showed me or that she picked for us to try together.

oh, one movie i saw on my own that i liked a lot is And Then We Danced. it has some less good parts, but overall it for some reason really lives rent free in my head. it felt like i went and lived in georgia with the characters for an hour, idk, it was done in an immersive way that impressed me and i found appealing. another one i remember from years ago is Lille Soldat (little soldier) which i really enjoyed the main character in. that stuck with me. ive tried to find this movie to show to yasmin, but its been hard to find.

i used to watch lots of random movies (from different countries, different times in history, i had a phase where i watched a bunch of really old horror movies) but most of its been forgotten and then i just stopped watching movies whatsoever bc the mainstream ones are generally unwatchably bad and i didnt have motivation to go out of my way to find good movies anymore. its still hard even with good ones. like, The Square, and Triangle of Sadness, i watched with yasmin and it was fine, but i had already tried watching The Square alone and had to stop after a minute bc it just made me cringe and feel bored. but watching it together with her was fine and i did enjoy the meaning. so thats why i say i might not even be watching good movies if it was up to me alone....

if u werent interested in that ramble i hope u stopped reading before now for ur own good :D i have an opportunity to express myself in rambles -> i will express myself in rambles

[teawitch]

What Does High Priest - High Priestess Mean?

I'm seeing the terms (more often high priestess) showing up more and more on social media and I think perhaps it is time to talk about them and their meaning in modern witchcraft. (As opposed to the ancient world.)

I think part of the issue is that we're in a period where most witches are solitary and therefore don't have the framework available to feel they can ask the right questions.

I want to set things up by asking you to consider a term, probably nearly as contentious  - professor.

In the US, if someone calls themselves a professor, it implies 2 things. That 1) they have an advanced / graduate level degree and 2) that they teach at a college or university.

I earned my MA but work in the corporate world, so it would be odd for me to call myself a professor. A friend who has taught elementary school for decades but doesn't have a graduate degree isn't considered a professor. Another friend who has a PhD and teaches at a university is a professor and will avoid at all costs being placed in charge of a room full of elementary school kids.

Overall - it is term that indicates a level of learning that leads to a profession or vocation. A professor can be considered to be in service to education and learning.

Now lets consider High Priest (HP) and High Priestess (HPS) as they very generally applies to modern initiatory witchcraft and occult practices. If someone calls themselves a High Priest or High Priestess, it implies 3 things. First that they have completed a cycle of study / degree levels in a tradition that uses those terms. Second that they have been awarded those titles within their tradition. And third (and probably somewhat contentious) that they are currently working in service to that tradition.

Note: the title doesn't necessarily transfer. Being a Gardnerian HP, doesn't mean you automatically become a Feri HP if you change traditions. Though you might be granted certain considerations if you undertake studies for an HP/HPS,

Different traditions have their own processes in place for attaining the degree of HP/HPS and their own expectation of what each HP/HPS does. So there isn't always a one-on-one comparison between traditions. But, I think it's important to note that this is a title held within a tradition. Much like a professor is expected to be teaching at a college or university, a HP/HPS would be in service to their tradition.

The service part does get a bit contentious as there are people out there who like to collect degrees/titles for other purposes. For example, using it on author biographies or setting up their own tradition / classes. And in many cases, people may simply have moved on from a tradition they pursued in early life.

Can someone not in a tradition be a HP/HPS?

There isn't much need to be a solitary high priest or high priestess. You are already (or should be) sovereign in your practice. Being solitary doesn't present the opportunity to take on the additional roles and responsibilities of a HP/HPS. Much like calling myself a professor at work would be odd because that's not the work called for. 

What does this mean on social media or in the larger witchcraft sphere?

ASK QUESTIONS!

Look, if someone showed up at the office looking for a job and told me they were a professor, I'd expect to be able to ask them where they taught, what subject, for how long, etc. I'd be somewhat suspicious if they dodged answering those questions. (You would be surprised.)

So if someone shows up offering to teach, asking to have you join their coven, wanting to tell you how to practice because they are a high priest or high priestess, feel free to ask them -

What tradition?

How long have you held the title?

Are you still part of that tradition?

What responsibilities do/did you have in that tradition?

What was the process you followed to earn the title?

Also potentially  -

Who else can I talk to about this tradition?

What is the process for joining this tradition?

What are the core practices/beliefs of the tradition?

What part does sacred sexuality or going sky clad play in this tradition? (Not all traditions have the same practices but I want to know these well in advance.)

I'm X (gender, sexuality, etc.) what does that mean in this tradition.(Example - If I'm non-binary, what happens to the term high priest or high priestess? Answer - this would vary by tradition, but in general by the time you reach the level where the decision has to be made, you and the tradition should know each other well enough to make a comfortable decision.)

Some questions may be considered personal and not answerable. For example - can you describe your initiatory experience? Which is somewhat different than - can you describe how initiation happens? But if someone is using the title, they should be able to explain why.

[maxwellsuperbien]

Art school and mental health.

I think I decided to really become an artist in 2014. At the time, I was in high-school and the idea of trying to enter an art school came from seeing how little practice was in the art curriculum at a french university.

Not knowing anything better I submitted an embarrassing portfolio consisting of things I saw in the videos of people wanting to go in the

𝓒𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓯𝓸𝓻𝓷𝓲𝓪𝓷 𝓘𝓷𝓼𝓽𝓲𝓽𝓾𝓽𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓐𝓻𝓽𝓼

My portfolio neither had the quality to enter what I now know as an animation school and clearly wasn't focusing on concepts enough to go into the kind of school we have in France. I was motivated but my parents aren't artist, I didn't know any art student and my art professor pushed going to a university.

Instead I went into a preparation school that helped me understand what type of art school they are, what they wanted and how different from one another the teachings there can be. After that I tried 3 different schools and got 2 to accept me.

While I had nothing against the 3rd one at the time, knowing I fucked up during the entrance exam, learning how pretentious the professors were and how they treated not only my classmates but the students as well, pissed me of.

I wasn't mad they refused me because I already had the privilege of choice with the 2 schools I wanted. I was mad because despite not liking this particular classmate, they treated her condescendingly and mocked her in a very stressful situation.

She instead went to another school, less prestigious sure, but at least more adapted to what she did and wanted. I'm glad for her but that moment marked me and gave an idea of how little art school were concerned for the mental health of their students.

Nobody comes out, at least in France, of an art school intact, some people are traumatized, some left with severe burn out, some became the professor's black sheep (for good or bad reasons). I went there, excited to meet so many people, met the one person that was super manipulative, got social anxiety and never got any real friends.

Sure, I learned a lot of things about art, techniques, others and myself. However, I also learned that despite my best attempts at socializing, I felt unfulfilled, frustrated and developed a depression. I cried each birthday I had from my situation, had suicidal ideations, didn't quite understand what happened to me.

I felt like I never did enough for people and my professors made me feel like it. I got my diploma with the jury telling me I could have developed my ideas deeper and should step out of my comfort zone.

How do you step out of your comfort zone when it's the only thing making you survive and feel safer ?

You don't. You're mentally ill and you need something to cling unto while experiencing traumatic events.

I was isolated but each time I talked about it, people who told me they would make steps didn't or were too busy working on things of their own.

Trust me, I don't want to repel anyone from entering art school.

Be careful about who you meet and who's competitive mind is full of negative self-value. Inform yourself on where other students live and get near them, try to not be isolated or isolating yourself (if you can).

Your work might be amazing but if people only value you because of it, it's not right. You're a whole person, your feelings matter and friendships are VERY important to your art school experience.

I think what made me not quit, was mostly from the mindset I grew up with and the solidarity the class showed towards shitty things professors did to us. We legit scared the teachers because we would NOT shut up about how wrong and immature they could be.

I became aware of many things during these 3 years. Like my needs, gender identity, social issues... My experience was intense and honestly ? I don't recommend being me.

I don't speak for everyone there, I'm sure many got more positives than negatives but while I'm on friendly terms with my old classmates, I've never really been friends with them either.

ANYWAYS. Here's a picture of a scorpion-fly from this april :)

[sylvie-brett-two-ts]

Boden has his favorites and should be a thing to be addressed on the show, can you imagine if anyone but Stella caused a accident, falling sleep while driving? I bet their job would be at risk and their ability to lead would be questioned. On the other hand, imagine what others house must think, because 51 as a whole it's his favorite.

Thanks for the ask, this is only my 2nd one ever. Here comes a very long response lmao.

I agree that Boden has his favorites and it definitely bothers me from time to time. I certainly wish it was different or that they called it out, but I think a fair amount of it is also just lazy writing and doing what they need to in order to make the short-term story fit.

For example, it has always bothered me that Boden basically made fun of Hermann for asking for officer’s quarters and shut him down immediately when he asked about the blue office. Yet, in S10, he offered the blue office to Pelham no problem. A year later, Kidd is making the laundry room into officer’s quarters because the blue office apparently isn’t an option anymore. The reality is that his apparent preference for Pelham over Hermann and Kidd was really just because it worked for the comedy plot in each of the 3 episodes.

As far as Stella causing the accident in S8, I disagree that if it were anyone else that their job would be at risk. Why would someone lose their job for getting in a car accident in their own vehicle and when they weren’t on the clock? I also don’t get why her ability to lead should be questioned. She wasn’t in a leadership position at that point, unless you’re referring to teaching classes at the academy? She was busting her ass and doing everything she could to keep up. Should she have asked for help and told Boden that it was too much to handle? Absolutely, but she’s human and makes mistakes. She also did learn that lesson and outright said that she now knows her body’s limits and won’t make the same mistakes again. And she hasn’t.

I definitely won’t argue that Stella is one of his favorites, but I just don’t agree with that being an example of him showing favoritism. He certainly favors 51 as a house and 2nd shift over the others at 51, but that’s partly because those are the people we see all the time and the show centers around their perspectives.

This might be a hot take, but I will say that overall it seems like Boden does not have the same level of appreciation and perhaps even respect for Sylvie professionally as he does for other long-running characters. I think a big part of it is actually just that he doesn’t value the paramedics the way he does firefighters, and besides Gabby, he kind of sees them all as the same. His attitude every time there was an opening since Sylvie has been PIC was just “fill it with whoever, it doesn’t matter.”

He supported Hermann, Casey, Kidd, and most recently Joe in professional growth and leadership opportunities, but hasn’t once shown any interest or awareness of professional growth for any of the paramedics. I get that’s because he’s a firefighter, but he constantly calls it his firehouse, so theoretically he should care about all of their careers. It’s really unfortunate that the show focused so intently on Chief Hawkins as just a love interest and chose to use his role as paramedic field chief in a negative way (showing favoritism to Violet, getting blackmailed by Emma, etc.), instead of using him to add more focus to the EMS side of the CFD.

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

ugh just remembered when I was in that useless fucking social services job hunting workshop.... and the presenter, when she called me for my resume consult basically told me I was liar when I had the usual complaint that "oh just about EVERY entry level job where I am is DEMANDING that I have anywhere between 2 to 5 years experience already before applying"... and instead of confirming that is the problem with the job market today, she instead condescended to me saying "oh no honey that's bc they're HIGH LEVEL admin jobs demanding that and NOT ENTRY LEVEL. learn to read."

actually, no, sandra (not her real name). they're NOT high-level jobs. they're run of the mill front desk reception or call centre jobs, which are also basic data entry jobs.... that only 20 years ago (probably) would've been a walk-in off the street and be employed tomorrow thing, or NO experience needed, we'll train you!" type shit if you applied online.

now these positions are DEMANDING 2 to 5 years experience AND sometimes a combined traineeship for 1-2 years in business admin, pr that you ALREADY have the tafe cert III in business admin, bc they don't want you wasting time studying or waste their time training you. that's why I keep applying for traineeships bc half of these positions already come with one, or "the chance to take on a traineeship" which means, "we'll make you do it anyway and not reduce your workload to accommodate study time". if the job is advertised as a full-time position without the traineeship attached in the title (like a junior admin officer job or something that i've applied for at a local lawyer before).

just. I hated how dismissive this woman was all around. I know I should probs complain tk social services about her, but idk if anything would actually happen. and plus she'd be all like "oh everyone else in that class loved me, why don't you? just keep vibrating at 70htz in loathing and resentment and GET NO OPPORTUNITIES EVER bc of that. why did my teaching not get the IMPORTANCE of vibrating at 500htz ie. LOVE AND PEACE AND ACCEPTANCE is the ONLY thing that'll give you abundance and opportunities, through to you????"

uh maybe bc I see job hunting as a practical thing and not all the batshit reiki shit that I like in asmr for entertainment.... and the vision board mumbo jumbo of self-help internet is great coming from youtubers like Anna akana.... but NOT in a jobhunting working shop.... where you're guilting people about this mumbo jumbo is exactly why they'll never employed ever again. and esp since my old workplace tried to fire me for "ruining the positive family vibe of this workplave bc you rolled your eyes at me twice and are sarcastic from time to time 😥" during my performance meeting in November 2022. so obvs, I'll refuse to take that side of it seriously.

anyway my point was originally that im pissed of that this woman insisted that entry level jobs that are advertising 2 to 5 years experience aren't "entry level jobs, they're high level." when she was posed as an "employment expert" for this course.

no. they're NOT high-level jobs the bulk of the time. they're fucking run of the mill data entry which really only requires minimum skills in microsoft office and admin etc and a professional phone manner etc.... but instead they're asking for 2-5 years experience and intermediate to advanced microsoft office skills (or google suite etc) bc they want the applicant to do 25 jobs in place of 7 different people. which is shit I should be able to do with an arts degree. you're the one who really knows nothing.

but instead they want to drag me through another whole ass certificate 3 course and ANOTHER traineeship bc apparently an arts degree and a years worth of actual solid office experience isn't enough to man phones, do data entry, do front office reception and whatever dumbass shit "done with minimal supervision superhero" tasks they write in the job description on seek et al

[unexpectedyarns]

RANT

I’ve been home two days and haven’t gotten one f*cking thing that I need to do, done.

Yesterday I had to take the kids to several stores bc son 3 needed items for his cosmetology class. Also I needed to return a Christmas gift and get something different, which I sure didn’t want to attempt next week.

Then I spent several hours at the laundromat bc Kid 7 had left something in a (shared) bedroom that then had molded. Both kids having respiratory problems so everything made of fabric in that room had to be washed.

I was supposed to have a local-anaesthetic, needle biopsy this morning. But because of hospital CYA principles, the nurse said she needed a blood test “to see how fast I bleed or clot,” which I consented to. But then she left the needle in the bend of my arm, “in case we need an IV,” which I did NOT consent to, having had a VERY traumatic experience in that same hospital with IVs put in both arms at the bend in my elbows, thereby prohibiting movement of both arms.

I told her so, and asked her to move the stent further down my arm so I could bend my arm, and she refused. Called the doctor (whom I’d never met before) in, who said, “then we can’t do your biopsy.” I asked if moving the stent 3 inches away, still in plain sight, was an unreasonable request. He said I was being a combative patient (not that word but I can’t think of the one he used) and that if I didn’t like their policies, I shouldn’t have scheduled the procedure there. I said I didn’t, my doctors office did, and not only did they choose the place but also dictated the time. But is my request unreasonable?

So he goes to the foot of my bed and tells the nurse. “So we need to get this IV line moved…” (like still, why do I need an IV line for a 5-minute local procedure but ok). Then he goes, “You know what? NO. I’m not doing this procedure. And leave the computer file open so I can notate the patient’s defiance.” Then he said, “I’m just not going to biopsy that thing in your neck.”

I told him it is on my clavicle, and I’ve had to explain to a dozen people that the mass is on my clavicle, not in my neck. And he said, “YOU don’t get to tell ME where the problem is. That’s part of your neck. I’m sick of LAYPEOPLE coming in here and thinking THEY should teach ME about anatomy.”

Like motherfucjer if I plopped you in the middle of my job, you’d look stupid too. But also, when what you’re doing is without my consent and is scaring me, my bodily autonomy supersedes the consent for treatment. You’re not God, or A god.

Came home. Two baskets of laundry from yesterday are damp and need to be further dried.

I can’t make Christmas cookies because apparently we are out of butter even though the kids made a grocery order while I was gone AND I WAS AT 5 STORES YESTERDAY but nobody told me we’re out of butter.

I need to go to storage (23 miles away) to get Christmas stuff out but wolf needs to fix our other car and needs (the only working) one here in case he needs to go for parts. That is once he gets back from taking Josiah to a Dr appt an hour away and takes him to the college.

Everything that belongs under the kitchen sink has been sitting in the floor for a month bc the kitchen drain is clogged and in trying to fix it, the handyman caused the drain to leak so there’s a bucket under there. And no. Apartment management haven’t fixed the leak OR the clog. We can do 5 dishes until the drains back up, and then takes hours to drain. For a month now.

We have 2 loads of truck laundry that need to be done before Wolf leaves on Sunday morning. And I need to make truck food (see above, can only wash 5 dishes at a time)

I have 5 households of Christmas presents to wrap for adult kids. I need to go to a Christmas tree lot to buy the smallest tree in the world.

Everywhere I look is mess (the kitchen. Laundry waiting in the dining room. Growing stack of boxes to be mailed. Wrapping station in the living room).

Merry f*cking shitscram.

// end rant //

[khaleesiofalicante]

DANIIIII

HIII

*rant alert* please skip if you want to 😭

So I recently joined college and suddenly all my professors want me to write research papers and make projects? It's so annoying and they literally didn't give us any guidelines, they told us to find a topic on our own and I don't know why I'm coming up so blank. I have never done anything like this in high-school and I'm just so confused. I don't know what to do man, I have been trying to research and read about how I should go about it but nah

For context, if you could maybe help in some way-

1. Subject-Microeconomics

Basically I have to choose anything that is happening around me and relate it to things like demand, supply consumer and producer behaviour.

For example- why is popcorn so highly priced in movie halls? (Can't take this one obv) but something like this that happens to us all the time but we don't realise it

2. Subject- Quantitative techniques

I basically have to perform 5 types of statistical data analysis on any topic. It's my first time doing something like this and I really impress them but I just feel so useless.

*rant closed*

Even if u didn't read this, I just wanted to say that sometimes u feel like my personal diary ❤️

Hey bb,

I've seen this issue with SO MANY college kids and that's because our secondary education system (like high school) absolutely does fuck all to teach kids about writing essays and creating projects and doing research. We're just used to memorizing text and filling in blanks and answering MCQs.

Sigh. Anyhoo, other than my qualms with the education system, let's see how we can help you.

So, what you're being asked to do (if i am not wrong) is to come up with a hypothesis. If you are expected to run a statistical test, then you need a hypothesis and variables.

A hypothesis is something like (if i sell my popcorn in a movie hall, i will have more sales). Then you test this hypothesis by running experiments (for eg you can sell popcorn in a few different places including the theatre and see where you made the most sales). But you need to make sure your data collection is consistent (for eg, you need to sell the same type of popcorn, sell it on the same day and time (Saturday 4 pm etc).

3. I was using the popcorn thingy as an example obviously. If your topic is about microeconomics, try to pick an easy topic you can work on since this is new to you. For eg: people are more likely to buy a product that has celebrity endorsement or why are hygiene products for women mostly in pink?

I think a good place to start is to speak with your lecturers and get some clarification. Trust me, this is so much better than assuming what they want and doing the wrong thing.

Perhaps as a first step, you can write down things you are unclear about regarding the assignment?

For example, i am not sure if you are expected to work with primary data (do your experiments and get your own data) or use secondary data (google something and write a report on it).

For example, for the popcorn thing, do you need to run some experiments (sounds like a lot of work but i am not sure how else you can run statistical tests without access to data) or just do a lit review on the topic and write an essay.

If you have an assignment brief or something, read it thoroughly. You can also ask some people in your class how they understood the assignment to see if they understood it the same or differently.

Good luck with it!

[kurazaru]

Ive never been the first choice for someone. Ive never been anyones crush, nor will i ever be. Ive never had anyone compliment me fr my looks, coz im kindof ugly. Ive never been on someones profile pic either, not even mine lmao(except LinkedIn lololol). Am i not good enough? What am i lacking... I tried to join a discord server for venting today but couldnt find any. My fucking roommates drive me crazy. Those fuckers are so fucking ungrateful even though they use my notes and thats the only reason they even pass the midsem exams. EVERYONE is ungrateful. They use my fucking notes which i made fr myself nd have the FUCKING AUDACITY to complain abt my handwriting. Ok, if u dont like my handwriting, DONT FUCKING USE MY NOTES :) U were being a stupid dumbfuck not caring abt the future while i was in class listening nd learning. I was kind enough to share my notes with you, even though i could hv totally lied nd told i didnt take any, nd then u behave like that? Honestly this is actually way better than how my roommates treat me. I give them the notes nd help them with A LOT of stuff, and what do i get? Them talking shit abt me to my face. I fucking hate them. And fr some reason i hv become the teacher of the entire fucking college COZ WHERE EVER I GO PPL ASK ME TO TEACH THEM STUFF? I taught 4 ppl EEE from scratch, 3 ppl Maths frm scratch, and 5 PEOPLE TINKERCAD FROM SCRATCH. I ALSO NEED TO FUCKING STUDY ?????I ALWAYS END UP STAYING AWAKE LATE JUST SO I COULD FINISH MY PORTIONS ON TIME BECAUSE I WAS BUSY TEACHING OTHERS. "Well if u teach other ppl that means u should hv learnt it while teaching right?" Yes. I learn to an extent. BUT TEACHING THE SAME THING 3 DIFFERENT TIMES takes up SO MUCH TIME that i barely hv any time to do extra things, like solving more types of sums and increasing my speed, and its basically a waste of my time AND SLEEP. Istg i need a fucking break frm these idiots.

[fizzingwizard]

Recently:

So at the end of last year (school term), my boss came to me and informed me that, this year, some classes would have only two teachers. I teach preschool - all our students are under 3. Our teacher-student ration is supposed to be 1:6. But when I took the job I was told that even if there were fewer than 12 students, we would still always have 3 teachers in a class.

This is CRITICAL because this job is designed around the idea that there will be one foreign teacher and two native speakers. There are way more tasks than can be done by just two people - and that’s WITHOUT factoring in actually supervising the children. Literally, you’d think as a Pre-K teacher, watching the kids would be Task #1, and it is, but only when something goes wrong and management needs someone to blame 😇 of course!! Then they’re all “The safety of the children should come before anything else!”

But any other time, they’re like, “Why haven’t you finished tasks 1-50? Also here are 20 more tasks we’re adding, on top of the additional 20 we gave you this time last quarter, because unless we’re constantly demanding more of you we feel that we as management are redundant 😇😇 you should easily be able to do all this in an 8 hour period with no breaks even though that’s illegal 😇😇😇”

and yeah we’re not getting breaks ^^ when do I sit down? Gee, if I have a 15 min chunk of “prep” and the person taking over my shift is a couple min late, meaning I actually have only 10 min and can’t do anything with it so I might as well just sit and stare at the wall.

By the way, it’s illegal. Our contracts say we get 1 hour prep, 1 hour break every day. It’s not a matter of “Sometimes things are tight and we can’t manage it.” It’s a matter of “Things are so tight EVERY DAY that we can NEVER manage it.” I got this amount of break only once: the beginning of 2020. But I never had it before and never after, and at this point we’re luck to even get 1 hour total which means it’s PREP time and not break time. We don’t even get lunch breaks: we eat with the kids. If you wanna wait till you’re off to eat, have fun eating lunch at 3:30.

Also we are responsible for cleaning the whole school every day, and when do we do that? During our... drum roll.... BREAK time! So now we are cleaning during PREP since we have no BREAK, meaning we have even LESS TIME to prep, meaning we prep during class time whenever we can, which we’re not supposed to do because 1) task no. 1 is watch the kids, and 2) it “looks bad to prospective parents visiting the school” OKAY, WHEN AM I SUPPOSED TO DO IT. WHEN AM I SUPPOSED TO BUY, PREPARE, AND ORGANIZE THE MATERIALS FOR EACH OF OUR STUDENTS TO MAKE THEIR CRAFTS AND DO THEIR SENSORY PLAY. WHEN. WHEN. WHEN.

Also! They rounded us up to pick up the slack from ANOTHER SCHOOL which lost a teacher. So now me and my coworkers are taking turns doing an our overtime twice a week at a completely different school. We get paid for that hour at least, but alright, it’s too much to get into but basically it’s teaching a class with no format and no lesson plan at all. Weird enough if you’re the one in charge, but with that divided up among four different teachers it’s like... seriously just cancel the class until a new teacher can be found. If you don’t have a sub and have to foist it on a totally different school which is already full of overworked, understaffed teachers, CANCEL IT. Are the students learning anything?? I have no idea. I am sure that I’ll get an earful from management if they complain though!

Why doesn’t the school cancel it? THEY DON’T WANT TO REFUND THE PARENTS OF COURSE. They don’t want to refund them for the class where their kids aren’t learning anything, because the teachers 1) weren’t trained to teach them, 2) have more than enough of their own shit to do (I already teach multiple classes at my own school and don’t have enough time  to prep for those!) and 3) are used to teaching 2 year olds, NOT 10 YEAR OLDS.

Anyway! I’m ranting about that 2 teacher thing. Because when my boss told me, at the end of the year, I said, “I don’t want that. Don’t put me in a class with only 2 teachers.” Of course I don’t have the clout to demand it, but because I teach 2-3s, that means I already knew more or less how many kids I’d have because of the number of kids in the 1-2s class. So I did end up getting 3 teachers because of the 1:6 ratio: we are over 12 kids and here it is illegal to have fewer than 3 teachers in that situation.

But the 1-2s had no such guarantee because it was all dependent on how many students signed up, which management can of course control. So they started the year with less than 12 kids and just 2 teachers. In terms of ratio it’s fine. Let me tell you. Pre-K teacher-student ratios are STUPID. Out of this galaxy stupid! These teachers have worked so hard, picked up so much slack, again with no breaks!!! They really, really care about their kids and go above and beyond to the point that we have had very few incidents (child injuries etc) and nothing major. (We are also rather lucky in this year’s group bc normally we have kids who bite and hit but for some reason this year we don’t have any aggressive types. But that is just a fluke, a fluke we’re very grateful for!! but it’s totally typical of this age for some kids to bite and scratch bc they can’t talk and communicate in any other way.)

So they care and work so hard and management just keeps adding new students. And these kids are YOUNG and need everything done for them. My kids are 2-3, a little more independent, and even WE struggle. We have 3 teachers like I said, but because of the crazy situation, one of us is often sent away to help the 1-2s, so I have taught a lot this year with just 2 teachers like I told my boss I did NOT want to happen. It is STRESSFUL. We have TOO MUCH to do. If our tasks during the day were decreased, so that we could let one teacher watch the kids and one teacher take care of classroom tasks, then I wouldn’t care so much. But despite the number of teachers decreasing, the task load has only gone UP. It is IMPOSSIBLE to watch the kids and get everything done.

In the beginning of the year I had three kids with issues. One was out of control due to a very difficult family situation. This kid had zero stability and the only thing he wanted to do was run around and bash into things. Toys didn’t interest him, books didn’t interest him, I’m not even sure if cartoons could keep his attention because it just wasn’t there. He needed a teacher with him all the time.

Kid number two is the easiest because he is only difficult when he has tantrums. If you can calm him down, he’s alright. His problem is that he needs everything to be THIS WAY and canNOT handle it being THAT WAY. Which in a room with 13 other kids who all have differing needs is NOT doable, but he is two and can’t be expected to understand that. He used to run as well, but he has since grown used to us and our routine and gotten better. Currently he’s regressed though and we’re dealing with that all over again.

Kid number three was HUGE for a two year old and AGGRESSIVE. He attacked any other kid provoked or not (he imagined they were provoking him by existing nearby, basically). I am not exaggerating at all when I say he would try to attack another child, or sometimes a teacher, every five minutes. He 100% needed a teacher with him simply to calm him down and prevent him from hurting people.

So. Three teachers, 14 kids (last year, btw, we had 18! 😇). Two kids who need one teacher’s full attention 100% of the time, one kid who needs a teacher’s full attention half of the time - and 11 other kids who, while normally doing okay, are also only 2-3 and have 2-3 yo needs and get tired and cranky and need hugs and help learning how to share toys...

HOW WERE WE SUPPOSED TO DO IT?? And if WE couldn’t do it, how are the two teachers with the 1-2 yos supposed to even begin to do it?

And on top of that: all those classroom tasks I mentioned! Who’s going to do THEM?

Do you know how my class got by? Well, kid one and kid three ending up LEAVING THE SCHOOL! That’s how! Kid one left for home reasons. Like I said, his home situation was awful and all I can do is pray that things got better thanks to this change. He was very difficult for us to handle, but we would never blame him or any child for that. It was obviously the result of having no home stability. (To be clear, we never suspected abuse of any kind. The circumstances were more out of people’s hands. Deaths in the family etc and the kid being sent from one relative to the other and custody battles. Of course if we suspected abuse we wouldn’t have said nothing.) So we are sad to lose him and hope he goes on to a wonderful life. But, yes, the class is much easier without him.

And kid number three left because, when we tried to talk about ways to help him deal with his constant aggressive behavior with his parents, they flipped out. At first they seemed receptive, but you know, parents are very sensitive and feel that any discussion of their child’s behavior is us pointing our finger at them and saying they’re bad parents. Mom took the kid to a specialist who said that he has a delay of some sort, but he’s too young to say what it is specifically, and that all we can do is what we are already doing (watching him like a hawk). Mom tried to work with us, but then dad got involved, and suddenly both parents didn’t like anything the specialist said and didn’t want anything to do with us. When the situation in our class didn’t change (amazing how doing nothing leads to... nothing!), they decided to switch their kid to another school. Well, all the best to him. We have not heard boo from them since. My class calmed down SIGNIFICANTLY as a result of this kid leaving because before, we never had time to focus on any of the other kids. It was always simply “Watch Kid 3, watch kid 3, negotiate with kid 3, take kid 3 outside to calm down, give kid 3 as much special attention as possible because  the minute you even look at other child he will start attacking someone.” I told my adviser I felt like I didn’t even know who the other kids in my class were.

So my class is doing as well as it is because we sometimes have 3 teachers and we no longer have 2 out of our 3 difficult students. If we still had all three of those kids, what would things be like now?

Because here’s what’s going on: those 1-2 yo classes with two teachers each? Well, one of them had a teacher who constantly called out sick. At first it was a few times a month. Then it was at least once a week. Then it got to a point where she was only showing up maybe two days each week. It’s medical circumstances so I don’t know the details. I don’t doubt that she’s sick or blame her for needing time to recover. That is life, getting sick isn’t anyone’s fault, and it’s impossible to do our very physical, on your feet all day, no down time at all job if you’re in constant pain. The problem isn’t the sick teacher: the problem is the management WHICH DID NOTHING TO REPLACE HER. NO-THING.

Instead of sending a sub when she was out, or negotiating for her to stay home long term and give us a long term sub in her classroom, management did NOTHING and let US, the already critically overworked staff with no breaks, who area already picking up slack for that other school, pick up the slack for this teacher as well. Me and my coworkers were just rotating days leaving our own classes to take care of hers. (So I didn’t have 3 teachers most of the time, is the effect.) Sometimes you’ve have Teacher A help for one hour, then Teacher B for 30 min, then teacher C... or maybe an admin with no teacher training!

That class has one other teacher who’s been with them all year, and she is a saint in my eyes, because she has basically had to do EVERYTHING: all the craft prep, all the activity planning, all the communication with parents. It’s ALL on her. The sick teacher wasn’t in enough to help, and subs can’t take over those things. She finally, FINALLY broke down about it last week. I told my leader, if it were me, I’d have broken down months ago.

Management’s response? Well, her class is FINALLY getting that sub... except, they don’t have a sub, for some reason. IDK why, other schools do! In fact, one sub’s home base IS our school, and yet instead of letting her stay here, they send her to other schools... IDK man I really don’t know!!! So since there are no subs, two teachers are tagteaming to help this class. At least it’s no longer one of us, but it’s still far from ideal, because the regular class teacher still has do all the prep herself. But at least she’s getting slightly more consistent help??

And THEN. Here is where things really fall apart.

Remember we started this year with 2 teachers fewer than usual. Now, the sick teacher is not coming at all anymore until she recovers, which is expected to take months. So that’s minus one more. Then one of my coworkers got covid, so she has no choice but to quarantine for 10 days. We have one new teacher in the second 1-2 yo room, but that’s because they now have 15 students, many of whom are new and need tons and tons and tons of help. We have the sub in the other room, but sometimes they only stay for actual class time, ie, not morning or after care, so we can’t rely on their help during those times.

So basically this week we are down FOUR TEACHERS. Plus - before any of this happen there were teachers who requested to take this Friday off. It’s a popular time to use PTO because today, Thurs, is a national holiday. They requested this day before any of this shit hit the fan and were given permission. So actually. Guess what. We are down not four... but SEVEN TEACHERS tomorrow. And guess what else... we can’t make the 1:6 ratio no matter how hard we try!!!

We are getting some help from another school... or we WERE... because at least one of THOSE teachers coming to help just came down with covid and can no longer come! X’D hit me with a hammer!!!!! please!!!!

Not only did we spend this week trading teachers from room to room like we have been all year, but I have to keep sending my own students to other classrooms just to make ratio. I HATE doing it. We try to only send kids who won’t have trouble adjusting. Some kids feel separation anxiety or maybe that being sent to another class is a punishment, so we never force any kid to leave. There’s usually a kid who is very easygoing and will just see it as a fun field trip. That’s the kid we send. But it still sucks, just personally for me because I like my class and love all my kids and want them together.

But more relevantly, it sucks because we’re in a situation this Friday where like I said, we don’t have enough help, so kids in MULTIPLE CLASSES will be playing musical classrooms just to make ratio. It’s bad enough when just one kid has to move to another room. Multiple is a recipe for a disaster. All my childcare instincts are against it. When you shake things up like this, especially in an environment like ours where routine is what keeps things going, you are taking MASSIVE RISKS with child safety. We all know about the kids with allergies or medical issues in each class - but of course the classroom teacher naturally has the most PRESENT knowledge about their own students. It is dangerous to be sending kids around to different rooms and switching things up - we had a situation once where there were kids in the room who weren’t usually and therefore weren’t on the snack checklist - meaning we could easily have given snack to a child with an allergy to the snack! Of course we noticed and got it sorted before giving the kids food. But imagine if we were all new teachers just learning the ropes. And even with us being experienced, this meant our timing was backed up 10 min... and we DO NOT HAVE WIGGLE ROOM.

Why don’t Pre-K classes have built in wiggle room, you ask? SEARCH ME. Seems to me to be an obvious necessity when kids are this young, needy, and unpredictable... but I guess nope!

And allergies/dangers aside. It’s so much easier to misplace a water bottle, a kid’s bag, or accidentally send two kids home wearing each other’s pants, or any of the myriad other situations that occasionally happen even when things are relatively normal just because teachers are tired or communication broke down etc. Now you want to throw everything in the blender as well. That kind of things is WAY more likely to happen if you do that.

And bottom line. This year we have had very few incidents. Not even sending kids home in each other’s pants :P Do you know why? It’s because my coworker are rock stars. Even the new ones have been exceptionally hard workers for being new. We all care so, so much about these kids and want them to feel none of the stress that their teachers are in. Why do I keep at this job despite everything? I seriously love my kids and I enjoy what I do. I don’t expect perfection, I know most every job has annoying management and an overload of tasks - that’s one reason I don’t try to switch bc I imagine I’ll have a lot of the same but minus the hugs from my kids and getting to do adorable crafts with them. That being said, it has gotten unreasonable. There’s expecting too much of people and then there’s expecting the impossible. I can’t even cover the required material in my lesson plan. I don’t have time. I don’t have money because they cut our stipend for materials. I don’t have anything. Actually, this year in particular, we’ve been short on: diapers, disinfectant, wet wipes, paper towels, EVEN BOTTLED WATER. i don’t know the reason. It’s just been that way all year. It may have to do with our new school manager, who is nice, but new, and basically learning by trial by fire. I feel bad for her. I like her but yeah, having a brand new school manager has not helped the disaster that is this entire year.

But what I mean to say is we are only doing as well as we are because we are working our asses off and helping each other and doing our best to stay positive. There have been a couple tiffs between teachers especially recently. I told my coworker, it’s not because the teachers are unreasonable, it’s because they have been under so much stress that they’re finally blowing their lids. That’s why this happened. Because I know all these people and have seen them in stressful situations before and they don’t lose it. They don’t argue. We figure it out. This is not a pattern of getting angry, it’s an exception. Exceptions should be noted AS AN EXCEPTION. What caused it? Shitty policies, reduction of resources and staff, no one listening to us asking for help. So we end up with no one to rely on but each other - but we’re all only human and can only do so much and can only take so much.

What I don’t understand is why we can’t do the obvious to fix things. At least it seems obvious to me! First, stop taking new students. Yeah, the school needs money, I get it, fuck off. The school should have planned better. Also neither us teachers nor our students are seeing any of that money. So no more new kids. Two, we should have fewer tasks during the day. Anything that isn’t essential should be cut for now. We can bring it back some day when we have a full staff. That should mean 1-2s don’t need to “gargle” after lunch (Idk but Japan is obsessed with gargling. It is the key to Never Ever Getting Sick. Well, our kids still get sick plenty, and also they manly just drink the sink water. Idk how a 1 yo is supposed to gargle.) If the 1 yo teachers didn’t have to bring them all two by two to gargle, that would free up so much time for them after lunch. I would like do to the same with me 2-3s, but they are also potty training, so I do have to bring them to the bathroom anyway, so they might as well gargle and brush teeth while they’re waiting for the other kids. Three: less paperwork. Yeah, like management will ever agree to that lol! But seriously, enough with the bilingual newsletters and emails and posters and all the other things we have to do constantly and get translated and then proof-read and then signed off before we can post them. They take so, so much time and we only have so many computers (they used to be SUPER SLOW but this year got replaced by new ones that are fast which THANK HEAVEN FOR THAT.) Other things: we don’t need to do all the cleaning we do every day. Mop the floor should be once a week. Gathering garbage: each class should gather its own and garbage duty should be divided so two teachers can do it in half the time.

Admittedly these changes wouldn’t help all that much, but they’d be something. Since we don’t have enough people, that means we are doing each other’s cleaning on top of our own too. Which means even less prep/break time. Basically, it means that the schedule might say you have 1 hour and 15 min non-consecutive break/prep time, but since you spend 30 min cleaning, it’s actually only 45 min.

like my dude, I don’t sit down between 7:30-3 pm most days these days. I’m up and down and standing and squatting and running and carrying kids and going up and down stairs and carrying lunch and cleaning up and mopping and chasing the escaped 1 yo down the hall and getting punched in the nose by a kid throwing a tantrum (one threw my glasses across the floor the other day lol) but I am NOT sitting even for five min.

And I still have a better situation than some of my coworkers.

I can’t even express the level of exhaustion right now. We just got told that we will be able to say what we want to management at the end of November. Well, I’ll say something, fat lot of good it will do. More likely I’ll be seen as someone who can’t cooperate with others and a complainer. Like I don’t bite my tongue and cooperate over and beyond every single day.

Every year I wonder if this will be my last year at this job, but there are so many factors to consider. The main one is, if I leave this job, but want to stay in Japan, where will I go? Because I can’t do eikaiwa again. I fucking hated it. And I don’t want to be an ALT again. After having my own class, I can’t imagine teaching in any other way, but especially not as an assistant to someone else, unless we were very, VERY collaborative and not restricted to lessons in some crappy English textbook.

My thought is my only option will be to go back to school and get a Master’s so I can teach elementary school here. By the way, what is a bachelor’s degree for? Seems to be worth literally nothing. You should skip bachelor’s and go straight to Master’s these days, lmao. But I just paid off my debt from undergrad and am very, very loathe to take on more when I have so little in savings. Like, my savings suck. I have saved up more by Not Going Home To The US, but uh, I would like to see my family again some day, you know?

also the yen freaking tanked so right now if I told you what my salary is in US money... you’d be like “go make more at mcdonalds” bahahaha

well I’m glad I ranted here so my poor boyfriend will hopefully not have to put up with it. He’s so nice and always listens but boy can I talk when I get started, especially when I’m this frustrated. So I feel bad doing it. Same thing when I call my mom. But I’m so like, I just can’t deal with it all by myself, I gotta tell someone, but I feel like they’re probably annoyed just hearing about how tough things are. Things are tough for everyone, Fizz.

There are good things too, though, so I’m gonna rant here and try to be more upbeat on phone calls.

Just gotta get through November and then I have a break. It’s a terribly, terribly busy November and I cry just thinking of it. But yeah. Then there’s a good long break till January. I’m going to do so much sleeping x’D

[intolerancecare]

Fuck cum laudes here are not true. Out of thousands of nursing graduates, they made our crazy, suddenly angry gay high school classmate a cum laude! NOT SO EFFING ACCEPTABLE!

They put a failing grade to my sister who was at magna standing then. So, she can be like them. Pawns.

My CT, they said a cum laude, Duh! I can't see. In her 6 years of teaching she still doesn't know her lesson. Effing told me that I need to rush her class because they are 1 week left behind. Fucking 3 day activity that she did.

1st day

Nervous system

CNS, PNS, Brain, spinal cord, somatic, autonomic, sensory, motor, sympa, parasympa- dictionary definition then tagalized. Epic question " What is the difference of spinal cord and spinal column" Effing not spinal nerve? I asked the kids, they thought SC is part of the nervous sytem. F* I didn't here what she answered. It's just effing bone.

2nd day.

All word repeated, then feedback mechanism and homeostasis added. Dictionary definition, translated to filipino. NOT EXPLAINED.

Then she asked the student to group. Create a song about Nervous system. They all looked at their phone, creating songs with lyrics like:

Brain, central processing unit...

Spinal cord, somatic...

3rd day, she made them perform.

Wise decision if your class is one week late with their lesson? I now need to compress my time which is supposedly enough for the original plan.

I also have to review. Their lesson is not something that is usual during my days. They can't say that I have advantage. She puts so much time beautifying her powerpoint and making entertaining acivity for recitation. Like 2 claps if right, 1 clap if not. I even saw comics and spongebob. All are recitation. SHE SHOULD STUDY HER LESSON. SHE IS TEACHING EFFING 16 YEARS OLD STUDENTS, NOT KINDER.

They made her laude. You know, her name is popular too. She doesn't know them but they are actors, politician and one married to a businessman. FUCKING WAITING. They might bring me to rehab again to make her look rich. Back in the apartment where we don't have beds. I know, this is how they effing promote people.