#but here we grade tests w numbers not letters

[cringelordofchaos]

I

FUXKING

HATE

MY

LKFE

[puffstickers-moved]

icb i have to go back to school tomorrow oh my god

[elisaphoenix13]

Antlord Drabble 8

Drabble prompt: “Please don’t say that about yourself. Please don’t believe that. You’re so much more than that. You’re so...”

By: @daisypoisonpen (posted with permission).

Quill was having a difficult day, and now to top it off, he got the letter.

A stupid, innocuous letter with his name on it was bringing his whole mood down.

“Quill? What’s wrong? Oh—did you get it?”

Scott’s excitement was honestly the only thing he was still on this planet for. Normally he would have fucked off as soon as the clean-up with Thanos was over but something made him stay...this weird, fucked up family that reminded him so much of his own, the Iron Man and his spouse that Scott followed around like a lost puppy, their kids and the Avengers...he suddenly had the desire to stick around and re-establish his identity here.

Tony helped him—had his lawyers find the social security and birth certificate information, had him set up with a bank account and other essentials, signed him up for this.

He was only holding the closed letter but he could already feel the word “FAIL” burning his fingertips.

“I shouldn’t have done this,” Quill mutters. “I should... I should just go back to space where at least my skills are useful. Scott, how could I be expected to pass this?! I’m just that poor kid that got kidnapped by aliens in the third grade.”

“W-what?! No! Hey, that’s not true. You survived and you became a space pilot which is an impressive achievement in itself!”

Quill smiles a little. “The best space pilot, I don’t care what Rocket says.”

Scott pats his arm. “I’d trust you to fly me anywhere in the universe.”

Quill’s smile widens. “Thanks.”

Scott takes the envelope. “Want me to read it?”

Quill shrugs. “I dunno. I feel like it’s just going to say, ‘you’re a failure and you don’t know anything.’”

“God—please stop. Stop saying that about yourself! This test doesn’t define you, okay? You’re so much more than this. This is a bunch of numbers to determine what you’re good at and where you need some work, that’s all. And there are like 7 genuises in this building to help you so you’ll be okay.”

“Promise?”

Scott smiles. “You studied your ass off for this. You’re going to be fine.”

Scott tears open the envelope without further preamble, sitting up straight and scanning it quickly and smiling brightly. Quill watches him read and realizes in that moment that he’s falling for this man, this best friend he found in a roommate, that believes in him so unconditionally. Gods, he will never be able to look away from him again.

Scott turns the paper around to show him. “Look, this is how GED testing works. Blue is good, it’s a base passing score. Green is “you can get into college with this” which is better. Purple is “we’ll even give you college credits if you want, you nailed it.”

Quill nods and scans the paper. he knew his reading and language arts would probably be low because he dropped out of Hooked on Phonics when he was 8. But he studied hard and he was happy with the blue 158 under Reading and 145 under Language. He had lower scores in social sciences too but his maths and science scores were highlighted in purple.

“I did it,” he breathed. “I passed all the sections and I—“

“Congratulations,” Scott cheers, “you’re a high school graduate! We have to throw you a part—mmph—”

Quill leaned forward and pressed his lips against Scott’s soft ones, hearing him gasp sharply and then moan a little, clinging to his shirt.

When they break apart, Quill whispers, “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

[edh-a-to-z]

WAR - Best of White

Not every card is EDH worthy. 

Sure, I’ve played with plenty of Draft chaff for fun, or when I had no other option, but the cards below will be ones you’re happy to get in trades, and add value to your decks and collections.

Finale of Glory

Grade: B+

Home: Token Decks, Soldier Tribal, Angel Tribal, Ramp Decks

Range: Very Wide

The finale Cycle is a love letter to EDH.

At 4 mana, you’re getting 4/4 of stats, and it get’s more and more efficient as you pour mana in. At 10 mana, it also makes that many Angels. It also doesn’t stop making them if you keep pouring mana in. It’s good early game to stabilize, it can offer tremendous value later, and becomes a “deal with it or die” quickly.

For everyone else...bring your board wipes.

Gideon Backblade

Grade: C

Home:

Range:

Almost impossible to kill on your turn, and also hard to deal with on other turns, Blackblade is a solid, and cheap, addition to any combat heavy deck, or the every meme-worthy Gideon tribal.

Making a creature Indestructible, like your commander, to end of turn is a great +1, and permanent removal is a nice Ult for a 3 CMC walker.

God-Eternal Oketra

Grade: A

Home: Weenie Deck

Range: Wide

I find it kind of unfair to the original Oketra that this, at W more, is a massive upgrade over the original. Less vulnerable to exile effects, better tokens, no drawbacks.

Spam X or 0 or 1 cost minions to get cheap 4/4 Tokens, which are pretty impressive, even for EDH. Really goes well with any deck, as it’s hard to get rid of for good, and it’s a great resurrection target.

Grateful Apparition

Grade: C

Home: SuperFriends Deck, Proliferate Deck, Counter Deck, Infect

Range: Custom Niche

A nice color shift on Thrummingbird which works well in any deck where the bird fits. Not much to say, just a nice small creature.

Ignite the Beacon

Grade: C-

Home: Superfriends, Legendary Deck

Range: Narrow

White just gets the best superfriends deck toys. 

Outside of the superfriends deck, if you have ‘walkers that function as combo pieces, win-cons, or removal, it may be worthwhile to run this in a deck with 4+ PWs.

Grab this while it’s a penny rare.

Parhelion II

Grade: D+

Home: Angel Tokens, Vehicles

Range: Narrow

I’m a little prejudiced thanks to my love of angels, and this card is such Battlecruiser MTG, it deserved a mention. 

You crew it with an Angel (traditionally 4 power), it has angel abilities, it makes two angels a swing, it can play defense, it dodges some Sorcery speed removal. 

It’s also 8 mana, and without some Haste, it takes forever to take off - and you need value fast. It’s more for casual, big-spell magic, but I really love how big it is, and how big it gets.

Prison Realm

Grade: C

Home: Anywhere where O Ring works

Range: Very Wide

We lose some of the versatility of Oblivion Ring, but creatures and planeswalkers make up 90% of what we want to remove anyway. Tacking a Scry 1 is like half a card draw, so nice for white heavy decks.

Ravnica at War

Grade: D+

Home: MonoColor Board wipes

Range: Narrow

I view this as “kill most commanders/legendaries” than anything else. Most commanders are multicolor, and a lot of great creatures are too, so if you want to gamble or play casually, this has some merit. Exiling is also a nice touch, especially for indestructible creatures that often feature in commander.

Otherwise, it whiffs too often for my taste - it’s inability to be an actual board wipe hurts.

Tomik, Distinguished Advokist

Grade: A

Home: Land Tech, Hatebears

Range: Very Narrow

Solid body, and he’s amazing at what he does, but it’s very narrow. Unless Gitrog, Titania, and Omnath are trampling through your meta, leave it in the binder.

The D section - Just Meh

Ajani’s Pridmate - fine card for the lifegain deck, but only that

Bonds of Discipline - 5 Mana is a lot, but hitting every opponent is nice, especially if you want everyone to hit the player that just passed turn to you.

Defiant Strike - Solid combat trick for the Feather deck

Gideon’s Sacrifice - I know there’s some fun here with a tapped Boros Reckoner and blocking stuff, or other interesting damage plays. 

Law-Rune Enforcer - Decent, but limitations plus small body (and not scaling well to EDH) prevents this from being useful

Martyr for the Cause - Might find a home in a Proliferate deck, but it’s just a bear with upside.

Single Combat - feels better than Divine Reckoning, as it uses sacrifice over destroy, but I hate giving other players reasonable choices.

Sunblade Angel - A ton of fun abilities - that fails to pass the Lightning Bolt test.

Teyo - Planeswalkers will always have niche usage, especially with all the existing superfriends and proliferate support, but Teyo is so purely defensive, I find it hard to recommend him

The Wanderer - Nice abilities, but it’s a narrow use case, and limitations on removal hurt it.

Everything else is an F, and here’s why:

Battlefield Promotion - I always rate Combat tricks low - they don’t scale well to EDH. This does a lot of things, but winning one battle in EDH doesn’t justify this card

Bulwark Giant - I love giant GF, but she doesn’t make the cut. Giant tribal is pretty bad, so this doesn’t have much support.

Charmed Stray - Bad in Limited, bad here

Divine Arrow - Limited level removal, leave it in the bulk bin

Enforcer Griffin - Griffin tribal is nonexistent, vanilla flyer that could be replace by a Serra Angel or Baneslayer

Gideon’s Triumph - F- for the creepy art, and for the weak functionality 

Ironclad Krovod - Trash vanilla

Loxodon Sergeant - Vanilla with ETB

Makeshift Battalion - Battalion was a fun ability, but it didn’t work well for EDH in the past (small number of cards, required to rely on board, very aggressive in Multiplayer), and this isn’t special

Pouncing Lynx - Trash Vanilla

Rally of Wings - Trashy combat trick

Rising Populace - Cute, but not impressive.

Teyo’s Lightshield - A 1/4 is not useful.

Topple the Statue - Cute. Pathetic, but cute.

Trusted Pegasus - Tribal pegasus just isn’t there yet.

Wanderer’s Strike - Exile and proliferate are nice on paper, but Sorcery speed at 5 CMC doesn’t fly

War Screecher - Low impact, even late

[mcribel]

( ella purnell + 18 + muse 05 ) isn’t that maribel sawyer over there? i heard SHE joined faction one after they got back to west ham. it’s funny, ‘cause they were only on the service trip to do something kind. hopefully they fit in there – they’re TENDERHEARTED, but also BIDDABLE. oh, i’m sure they’ll be fine. ( james, she/they, 20, EST )

hello it’s me again !! i have really bad uuuhhhh self control so i brought in this sweetie !!

TW: PAST EATING DISORDER (MENTIONS ONLY), MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES.

a e s t h e t i c s

handwritten letters and ink-stained hands, vintage magnifying glasses and worn oxfords, knee-high socks and scraped knees, ribbons in hair and turtlenecks underneath dresses, dried flowers and locked up diaries, suede skirts and oversized cardigans, hot tea and cold coffee, flinching at loud noises, loud voices, record scratches and stumbles, stuttering words and beet-red faces, bitten nails and awkward stances, blankets laid out in the sun and the smell of newspapers.

general info !!

full name: maribel ottoline sawyer

nickname(s): mari, bell, lottie b/c middle name, etc. etc. just sawyer sometimes idk

b.o.d. - june 1st, 18 yrs old

label(s): the marionette, the demure, the obsequious, the allegiant, etc.

height: like 5′3″

hometown: duluth, minnesota

sexuality: ??? ??? ?????

stats TBD but her pinterest is HERE !

biography !!

born the middle child to a man in the air force and a woman whose passions laid among writing diet cookbooks and recording cooking DVDs, maribel was never anything extraordinary.

after all, her elder sister had a voice made for broadway, and her younger brother was writing sonnets before he’d hit middle school. and maribel was just maribel, another girl with middle child syndrome

her household was typical, conservative all-american, strict no matter where they moved. curfew before 9pm and family dinner every sunday, mandatory; better not miss out on those vegetables or you’ll be sitting there for hours. grounded for grades below their expected. the usual.

there wasn’t anything particularly interesting in her life for the longest time. she was just another shy girl who moved to school to school, quiet and seated in the very back of class, as if that’d allow her the coverage to remain unseen.

she couldn’t color in the lines, or follow the lines, or draw a straight line, the kind of gal who opened her mouth at the wrong time, whose voice got washed away by another’s interrupting. she got picked on at most schools, due to her size and her stumbling words, and she’d let it happen for the most part. always the wannabe, trying to be who she wasn’t.

it hadn’t helped that her mother was some sort of ... health food guru, a woman obsessed with image and the epitome of health - her practices were often forced upon maribel, especially, beginning in a long, difficult relationship with food.

by the time she was a freshmen in high school, her parents had divorced and, for a brief moment, mari thought she could finally settle down somewhere and become a normal teenager. this was until, of course, her mother enrolled her in a boarding school in nevada.

with her sister graduated and her brother still in middle school, mari was left alone in a strange school; the only constant being the cliques that surrounded herself and the money they waved around, as if it were nothing.

the only time she was ever really approached was because of her knack with forgery, a talent picked up after hours of mimicking others’ handwriting, an attempt to change every single part of her into someone likable.

often stayed in the computer labs during lunch and free periods, firstly because she’d never been allowed to have a computer at home (rots yr brain!) and secondly because she’d gotten into programming, and it was something she could actually ... see herself doing, potentially.

was alone in this until her sophomore year, when the next new kid found their way into the computer lab; the loser zone, the land of outcasts. this individual, despite their quirks and oddities, became maribel’s first genuine friend. they were a little too into conspiracies and mysteries, but that was alright.

soon enough, it started to rub off onto maribel, as well, who’d always been observant but not the kind of gal to put it to use. they became a tiny pair of investigators, p.i.’s without the certification, investigating petty school drama that was usually written on the inside of a bathroom stall.

essentially a less impressive nancy drew / scooby doo gang / veronica mars duo.

surprisingly ! beginning junior year, maribel got involved with the weed and underaged drinking and whatnot b/c her like, very best friend was doing it and she wanted to be...impressive, i guess?

so then they became stoner detectives. about halfway thru their junior year is when things got uuhh ... complicated.

one night they were just, y’know, getting high and other typical teenager things. and then someone started talking about aliens, and then area 51, and then they both became increasingly aware that they were living in nevada and Not Too Far from the airbase.

long story short, they attempted to break into area 51. they got caught, got charged with trespassing and had to be bailed out of county jail, maribel’s dad almost lost his job, and her best friend disappeared without a trace almost immediately afterwards. spooky shit !

this is when her mother packed up and moved them to west ham, kansas ! it was for a ~fresh start~ but really was just a way to keep her eye on maribel.

i mean, god, for the rest of her junior year maribel was miserable. she was a student at west ham high but like ... god, she hardly spoke to anyone. drug tested every week, essentially on some sort of form of house arrest.

wasn’t really allowed to get a job during this either ! so she made money by anonymously creating and selling fake I.D.’s b/c like ... yolo, y’know? why not?

her mental health deteriorated during this and by the summer before her senior year she was getting help for an eating disorder. she was essentially gone the entire summer, but like ... doubt anybody noticed tbh !

by the time senior year rolled around, maribel was in a better place and was like ... determined not to fall into a bad headspace again. her anxiety’s still pretty strong but ! she’s trying !

uuh started working for the school newspaper as a help column under a fake name b/c ! this was her way of branching out and getting to know students w/o actually doing it lmao.

took a few of her classes online so she could leave school earlier, just b/c it was a major source of anxiety for her and like ... she couldn’t eat alone in the bathroom again. her mom was a little less ... restrictive, so maribel got a job.

or well ... she got a lot of jobs. maribel, being maribel, can hardly keep a job b/c she usually ends up fucking up real badly in an almost comical manner and getting fired.

on the otherhand, she had earned herself a partial scholarship and was debating over majoring in computer science or investigative journalism (her parents were very disapproving of her doing computer science, however, so she was likely to be forced into journalism) ... until the trip.

she went as a simple act of kindness, y’know, to give back to the community that she hardly knew.

and now here we are !! joining faction one b/c she knows of everybody there and they’re all her age and like ... she can’t be on her own or she’d actually die lmao so !

personality !!

god ... she’s awkward. like just, straight up awkward. she’s real bad at talking to others.

always tripping and stumbling over her words, and occasionally her own two feet. she’s constantly jittery and just like ... fidgety b/c she’s usually nervous. touch her hand. it’s shaking. why? she doesn’t know !

however maribel is like ... very very very nice. tries really hard to be kind to everybody and tries really hard 2 be a good pal to whoever makes their way into her life.

sorta kinda like ... adjusts her personality 2 match whoever she’s talking to b/c she wants to be likable. oh, you smoke marlboros? me too ! proceeds to cough a lung after inhaling one (1) cigarette. that sort of shit.

used to smoke a lot of weed but ! didn’t really do it that much in recent months. might increase now that her mom isn’t around but you never know. uuhh the rare times that she does drink it’s like ... a complete flip in her personality. becomes ms. extrovert, a flirt of flirts. but that’s very rare.

very hesitant with befriending people even tho she ! desperately wants friends ! she’s just a little untrusting ... a little worrisome ... believes she’s cursed to be a friendless loser for the rest of her life. so she’s definitely like .. a try hard too.

i mean like i don’t think ‘no’ is in her vocabulary ! she’ll do anything if u ask and like .. sound like u really want it. really just is seeking approval whenever possible.

squeaks like a mouse :/

rambles ! when she’s nervous ! and apologizes a lot.

she’s just like ... insecure and doesn’t expect anybody 2 remember her from anything jskdfg

easily bends to other’s will, easily manipulative / easy 2 step on / etc. etc.

she does smile and like ... laughs a lot tho ! b/c she tries rly hard to come off as like happy and optimistic and like ... not having deep-rooted issues with herself. 

she’s a good kid, just a lil plain jane. can’t talk for shit but has given good written advice b4. is good w/ math n numbers but not much anything else.

she is really observant !! doesn’t rly use it to her advantage tho :/ she just makes mental notes ... writes shit in her diary b/c she 100% keeps n writes in her diary daily. 

sort of lies abt herself too ! like it’s nothing serious but like ... she doesn’t rly want others to know how lame she is sdifkg

can be ... ditzy , lacking common sense, a little naive ... just wants everything to be okay :(

loves vintage stuff ! owns p much only vintage stuff ! also listens 2 like ... records exclusively like the dork she is. like soft indie pop and other shit.

has probably cried 2 mitski but like ... who hasn’t :/

literally only turned 18 like ... a few days ago ... she’s baby ...

wanted connections !!

god okay ... so like obv i would like some friends for her ... varying degrees of closeness.

idk somebody she has crushed on before / is crushing on currently .. but like, from afar, like she’d never talk to them but she can look !! and dream !! and write their names together in her diary

somebody use her b/c she’s so naive n like ... usable. idk what for but ! anything ! get her to steal shit ! get her to wreck shit or to lie for you or whatever !

like ... fake friends ... ppl who’ll throw her away once her purpose is done

alternately !! something pure n wholesome.

ALTERNATELY srsly though. wreck her shit. convince her you care for her n then betray her !!

conspiracy pals ... for the rare times she gets high ...

someone she flirted with once while drunk at like a party and now she’s embarrassed and avoids them :/

an ex-tutor b/c ... don’t think school’s in session anymore ...

ppl who genuinely want the best for her and like ... care for her as a living person.

someone who just cant stand ! that she’s so weak minded and malleable ! and rather than use her they just ... clash with her. cause arguments even tho maribel doesn’t rly... do that.

like someone just yell at her sdikfg

someone has to get her out of a sticky situation and they’re like ... Annoyed. might not wanna admit it but ! and she just feels bad

ppl who she’s definitely given a fake I.D. to

ppl who literally forgot she existed dkfmghg

someone for her to follow around like a lil puppy and sidekick !! b/c she doesn’t have a single independent thought !! someone she’s just rly trying to impress

someone found her diary and oh no ! it’s embarrassing !

c o r r u p t  h e r. idk how ! seduce her ! make her look at the world differently ! ruin her ! DESTROY HER !

literally ... anything ...pleathe ... i’ll give u a penny. 

[prorevenge]

We got a backwards thinking professor fired.

Not sure if this qualifies as "Pro", but its definitely more than "Petty"... Set up is kinda long, so...

Late 90s, I'm taking my 2nd required semester of college physics. Almost immediately, I can tell this prof flat out SUCKS: he knows the material, but has no idea how to convey that to a bunch of college undergrads, most of which aren't physics majors, and repeatedly brushed off any questions during lecture, telling students to come by his office to ask them...too bad he was hardly ever IN his office. It didn't take long until a lot of students in Bad Prof's lectures to start attending Good Prof's lectures (couldn't transfer sections--Good Prof's sections were technically full, but there were seats empty in the hall for us to sneak into), and only going to Bad Prof's class when there were exams and homework to turn in.

Middle of the semester: I get a letter from admin informing me that I had been put on academic probation because I was apparently failing physics. This confused the hell out of me, since I kept track of my grades and as far as I could tell, I was getting a B. So, I went to Bad Prof's class, especially since we were getting our 2nd exams back...I was the only one to not get it back. Even more confused, I managed to catch him at the end of lecture, asking about my exam and the probation.

Bad Prof doesn't even bother looking at me as he's stuffing his lecture notes into his bag. "You didn't take the exam, so you're failing this class." I insisted that I had taken the exam, and repeated questions from the exam that I remembered, and asking how I could be getting an F because of one test. BP starts heading for the door. "You just saw those on the other students' tests. I don't remember grading your exam, so you obviously didn't take it. You're failing this class, and you'll be kicked out of college." And then he just left.

I did the only thing I could think of: I went directly to the Physics Department head. I explained the situation, pulled out my paperwork showing my grades, and told him how BP pretty much brushed me off. Department head gets this look on his face as I'm talking and he's giving a side-eye in the direction of BP's empty office. "Ok. I will definitely look into this, Ilickedthecinnabar" I thanked him, and headed off to my next class.

I get back to my dorm a few hours later, and there's a message on my answering machine. Its BP: "I, uh... I found your exam. You got an 87 (or w/e it was). You're still getting a B in class. Yeah..."

I muttered about it to my roommate later, and she got this weird look on her face. She informed me that one of her friends in a different BP section was going through the same thing. Roomie contacted her friend to do pretty much what I had done.

Next lecture (Good Prof's of course!), I asked a couple friends in that lecture if they had heard of people's exams going 'missing'. They ask why, I explain the situation, and they tell me that, yeah about 2 or 3 other students had their exams disappear on them during the semester...all of them female.

You should be starting to see what the problem is here...

The real kicker happened towards the end of the semester, and it made it very obvious what was going on. BP stated, out loud, during lecture, and I quote:

"Women do not belong in the physics field, or any science field for that matter."

BP was a mf'ing misogynist. We were too stunned by his words to even react.

End of the semester. Class review time. Before he leaves the room, BP tells us to only take one review sheet since a number of students were taking 4 or 5 of them. One kid looked him dead in the eye and tapped the back of the sheet, where were could write comments: "I'm gonna need all of this." BP could only stare.

By this time, EVERYBODY knew about his little declaration, and EVERYBODY knew about his little routine with the 'missing' exams (I later found out there were up to a dozen female students he'd pulled that on). We tore him a new on those review sheets, gave him the worse rating in every category we could, and spilled every one of his dirty little details and missteps.

The following fall semester, the Physics Department claims BP has been put on sabbatical and probably wouldn't return, but the students knew the truth. Redditors, we had gotten a fully tenured professor FIRED. A couple classmates occasionally looked him up online for a few years to check on his status. He never got another job in academia again.

I got my degree in Biology with high marks. Recent changed career tracks and just finished my degree in Geology with academic honors. Fuck you BP!

(source) (story by Ilickedthecinnabar)

[andthisisthewonder]

April Second

I just wanted to make sure I could still string words together to form semi-coherent sentences. I think I succeeded. Probably.

Here’s a little ficlet inspired by this Youtube video. Watch it before you read, or after you read, or never. Whatever. I’m not your keeper. It’s funny though.

The sudden ringing of a cell phone cut Professor Crane off mid-sentence. A flash of annoyance marred his features as he surveyed the room, looking for the source. Everyone looked at everyone else, wondering who had screwed up this time.

A notorious hardass, Professor Crane had no patience for interruptions. Whenever this happened, he forced whoever owned the phone to answer it on speaker. While the brief conversation was usually tame -- it had only happened twice in Katniss’s class -- there were rumors of mortifying experiences from past years.

Katniss always silenced her cell before Professor Crane’s class, so it came as a complete surprise when he stopped in front of her.

“Miss Everdeen? It seems as if someone is trying to reach you.”

“But I--” She pulled the phone from the front pocket of her tote bag. An unfamiliar phone number lit up the screen. Cheeks stained red, she glanced at her roommate, Johanna. Jo had borrowed her phone right before class started, insisting she had an extremely important call to make that absolutely could not wait another fifty minutes. Had she accidentally turned the volume back on?

“Well, Miss Everdeen?” Professor Crane prompted.

She sighed. If she ended the call, Crane would dock her most recent assignment a full letter grade. Asshole. She didn’t want to risk her GPA for what was likely a wrong number anyway.

She tapped accept and then the speaker button. “Hello?”

“Is this Miss Everdeen?” a vaguely familiar voice asked.

“A little louder,” Professor Crane said as he returned to his desk, arms folded across his chest. “The students in the back row can’t hear.”

Katniss rolled her eyes as she turned up the volume. “Yes, this is she.”

“This is Bethany from the Pregnancy Resource Center. Per your request, I’m calling to inform you that the test results have come back positive. Congratulations!”

A wave of panic crashed into Katniss. “Excuse me?”

“I know you told us the father is no longer in the picture,” the voice continued as if Katniss hadn’t spoken, “but we will be in contact with you throughout the whole process.”

A few students snickered behind Katniss. She looked up at Professor Crane to find all the color had drained from his face. She wanted to look at Peeta, Crane’s T.A., but she had been avoiding his gaze since the start of class. No point in breaking her thirty minute streak now.

“I just want you to know we provide counseling and other maternity services at no charge,” the voice said.

“I don’t think--” Katniss tried to speak, but the caller spoke over her.

“If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call,” the cheerful voice said. “Have a great day!”

Silence fell over the classroom as the call ended. With shaking hands, Katniss picked up the phone, but instead of returning it to her bag, she stared at the screen.

What the hell had just happened?

“I…” Professor Crane cleared his throat. “I want to publicly apologize, Miss Everdeen, for making you take that phone call in front of everyone. In the future, if you’re waiting for such an important call, please let me know ahead of time, and I’ll let you take it outside.”

Before Katniss could say a word, her roommate Johanna patted her on the back. “It’s okay, Katniss, we’re here for you.”

“Jo, I’m not--”

“I even know what you should name the baby,” Johanna said, interrupting. “For the first name, how about April? And for the middle name...Fools?”

Katniss glared at her roommate, her knuckles turning white as her grip on her phone tightened. “It’s April second.”

Johanna burst out laughing. As realization dawned on the class, others joined in.

“Are you serious, Miss Mason?” Professor Crane asked. He leaned back against his desk, rubbed his forehead with one hand, and waved the other in the air. “Class dismissed.”

Everyone jumped up and gathered their belongings before Crane could change his mind. Despite their speed, Crane was the first one out the door, his briefcase and notes abandoned on his desk.

“Sorry, but Crane had to be taught a lesson,” Johanna said as she stood up.

“What about me?” Katniss asked. “You didn’t consider my feelings when you planned this?”

“You suck at lying. You needed to look genuinely embarrassed.” Johanna shrugged. “Besides, I prank you every year. It’s basically tradition. Two birds, one prank, or whatever.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

Johanna rolled her eyes. “Relax. Everyone knows it was just a joke.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Whatever. It was an amazing prank, and eventually you’ll look back on this, and be glad you were a part of it.” Johanna headed toward the exit. “You thought it was funny, right, Mellark?”

Peeta, who had lingered near Professor Crane’s desk as he packed up his messenger bag, glared at her. “Hilarious.”

Johanna rolled her eyes. “I see working with Crane has destroyed both your spirit and sense of humor.” She let out a huge sigh as if the lack of appreciation for her genius was the greatest tragedy the world had ever seen. Then, finally, she left.

Katniss slammed her textbook shut and shoved it into her tote bag.

“Katniss?”

She took her time putting away her pen, notebook, and phone. She couldn’t face him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“Katniss?” Peeta repeated.

She stood, hiking the straps of her bag up over her shoulder. “I didn’t know she was going to do that, I swear.”

“I know.”

“And I’m not pregnant.”

She stared at the dry erase board directly behind Peeta’s head, mortified that her first words to him in two weeks were about whether or not he had knocked her up. She hadn’t intended on speaking to him today. Or ever again. She had hoped, of course...

“I know. But when I heard that woman say you were pregnant, I thought…” He shook his head.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It wasn’t real. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does though. For a second, I was...relieved.”

She took a step back. How he had felt anything other than overwhelming panic or fear was beyond her.  “Relieved?”

“Yeah. The decision was made for me. Everything was decided.”

Even though he was once again expressing doubt about his future, a future that didn’t include her, she winced. This conversation had ended two weeks ago. She had made sure of that.

“There is no decision,” she said. “You’re leaving in six weeks. Nothing’s going to change that.”

“That would. You think I’d just leave you to deal with that alone?”

“Of course not.”

“So you’re saying you wouldn’t tell me? You would just let me go?”

Johanna was right about Katniss being a terrible liar, and a baby was a huge secret to keep. But she had managed to lie to Peeta just two weeks ago when she told him she didn’t love him and didn’t see a future with him. He left for his fellowship at the University of Oxford in less than two months. No matter how desperately she wanted him to stay, she knew she had to let him go. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. It was why she had lied in the first place and why she never would have told him if she was pregnant. At least, not right away.

But it didn’t matter. She wasn’t pregnant, and they weren’t together. Not anymore.

“Why are we even talking about this? I’m not pregnant. Nothing has changed.” She tried to walk past him, but he mirrored her movement, stepping back as she moved forward.

“So that’s it?” he demanded. “We’re just never going to speak again?”

“You’ll be back next summer, right?” She shrugged, unable to meet his eyes. “We can talk then.”

The fellowship was only for a year. It wasn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things, but it was long enough. While she knew she could wait for him, she wasn’t sure she wanted him to wait for her. She couldn’t stand the thought that he would leave and find someone new, someone better, or worse, decide waiting wasn’t worth the effort. Despite all of his promises, a few months from now, he would call her and break her heart from four thousand miles away.

“Katniss, I don’t want to leave it like this.”

She knew they should have never started seeing each other. There weren’t any hard and fast rules against relationships between T.A.s and students, but there was definitely a conflict of interest that could put his T.A. position and her GPA in jeopardy, even if he made sure never to grade her essays.

They were careful. No one knew, not even her roommates. She didn’t know why they risked it. Their relationship was only a couple of months old. Too new and fragile to base any life-altering decisions on it.

But they had a shared history too. They had grown up in the same town, attended the same schools, and ended up at the same college. Peeta was only a year older. There had been a few conversations in high school, a couple of shared classes, and one amazing slow dance at Peeta’s senior prom even though both had come with different dates.

None of it had added up to anything. The conversations, the glances, the sliver of space between their bodies as they swayed under lights strung up to look like stars...none of it had meant anything until last December.

One run-in at the public library had turned into coffee between friends, which eventually turned into dinner and drinks and a slow, lingering kiss in the front seat of his car.

Just like that, their entire history had been rewritten, filtered through feelings Katniss had never wanted to admit to having. Feelings she never realized Peeta reciprocated. Suddenly, all those shared moments meant something.

For a little while, they meant everything.

“Leave it like what? I’m happy for you.” Underneath that impenetrable layer of misery and regret, she really was happy for him. Proud, too.

He frowned. “You’re happy?”

“That’s not what I said. Of course I’m not happy you’re leaving. But I know you worked hard for this. I know that this is what you want.” She grabbed his hand. The warmth of his touch, the reminder of the comfort it used to give her, felt like an arrow lodged in her chest. It hurt so much more than she thought possible.

“What you said before, about not seeing a future with me, about not...feeling the same way…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but she heard the question in his voice.

No matter what she did or said, she was going to break his heart. Her own, too. She might as well give him the truth. It was the least she could do.

“I was just trying to make this easier for you,” she said.

His expression brightened, although she didn’t understand why. Wasn’t this worse? Instead of just leaving friends and family, he was leaving her behind too.

“So if I wasn’t about to leave the country,” he said, “if nothing was changing, you and I would still--”

“This is what I was trying to avoid. There’s no ifs, okay? You’re going. This was all just bad timing.”

He dropped her hand, and she felt the finality of the gesture. After years of dancing around each other, they had finally reached their ending.

But instead of walking away, he moved into her. There was the briefest of pauses before his lips touched hers, enough time for her to put a hand on his chest, push him away, run back to her dorm. There were so many reasons to stop this, least of all that the door to the classroom was open.

All she managed to do was drop her tote bag, so she could more easily wrap her arm around him.

“I don’t accept this,” he said a moment later, his forehead resting against hers. “I refuse to be the couple who couldn’t make it work because of timing.” He tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear before running his fingers along the bottom of her braid. “I told myself over and over again that it wasn’t the right time when we were in high school. Then I left, and you were two hours away. When you ended up here too, I still made up excuses. She’s adjusting to college life. We’re both busy with classes. And you know what? It was bullshit. All of it.”

“Peeta…”

“We can’t just wait for the stars to align for us. They won’t. There’s never going to be a perfect time for us to be together. We just have to do it anyway.”

His words filled the empty spaces inside her with hope. She wanted to listen to him, to agree, but the situation still felt impossible.

“I just don’t see how this will work,” she said.

“If you really don’t love me, if you really don’t see a future with me, then fine. We say goodbye now, and it hurts, but it’s over. We don’t have to wonder what could have been. But if this is just about timing…”

Katniss stared at her feet. She was afraid of holding him back, of disappointing him, of not being good enough. But he loved her. And right now, losing him was so much scarier than any other fear.

Maybe he was right. Maybe all of these excuses were bullshit.

“I love you.” She said it to the ground before meeting his eyes. “I love you,” she repeated.

“Then come with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Just for the summer,” he said. “Let’s really give this a chance.”

“And then what?”

“I’ll be home for Christmas. You can visit during Spring Break.” He kissed her again, soft and quick. It felt like a whisper. A promise. “We can’t give up now. We just started.”

“You’re really optimistic.”

“I’m actually just really in love with you.” He grabbed her tote bag and handed it to her. “Think it over, okay? Just consider it. Please.”

As she watched him walk toward the door, panic swept through her. It was one thing to imagine him leaving. It was something else entirely to actually watch him walk away, knowing it could be for the last time. The hurt she felt after their last conversation, when she told him she didn’t love him, was nothing compared to this. The pain burrowed inside her, taking root. It would only grow with time.

“Okay,” she said, loudly enough to reach him in the hall.

He turned. “Okay?”

“I want to try. I want to come with you this summer.”

She took a step toward him, but he was already there, arms wrapped around her, his lips pressed against her hair.

He was right. They couldn’t trust that it would ever be the right time, that her fears would disappear, that their hopes and plans would perfectly sync up.

But right then, as he held her close, she felt the rightness of it. For a moment, for just a handful of seconds, she was certain that the universe was unfolding as it should.

[love-skincareroutine]

How To Choose Concealer For Dark Skin

New Post has been published on https://skin-care-routine.com/skin-care-routine/how-to-choose-concealer-for-dark-skin/

How To Choose Concealer For Dark Skin

A. How To Choose The Right Concealer – Tips On Shades And Formulas

Have you always wanted to master professional concealer tricks to get perfect coverage? Here’s the concealer – it’s the most essential item in your makeup routine. It can be a total turnaround if you know how to use it correctly, but one wrong move can make your makeup look disastrous. With color correction corrections in the photo, this can confuse many of us.

I have some important beauty tricks to share with you – from using concealer before or after foundation to choosing a formula that works for you. These are useful tips to help you improve your makeup game and clear up your confusion. Concealer of things.

1. How to choose a concealer formula

Let’s start with the basics. The choice of concealer will depend a lot on what is right for your skin type and your concerns. Before going out to buy a concealer, make sure you know exactly what you are looking for.

a. Liquid concealer

A liquid concealer is the most versatile of the lot. It is perfect for normal, oily or combination skin. It is easy to apply and the cover is buildable, varying from light to full. Liquid concealers come in a variety of styles, such as: B. matt, moist and satin. This type of concealer is the least likely to clog your pores. So, if you have sensitive skin and are prone to acne, I recommend that you try one.

b. Cream concealer

If you have a dry or mixed skin type, the cream concealer will work well for you. The cover is buildable and varies from medium to full. You can choose one with a creamy or satin finish. Its formula and consistency are great for hiding discoloration. Sometimes cream concealers tend to wrinkle with prolonged use. You can prevent this from happening by setting your concealer with a little bit of compressed powder.

c. Adhesive concealer

Stick concealers are a boon for dry and sensitive skin. Depending on the product selected, they may have a satin or matte finish. I found that this type of concealer has coverage that can be expanded from medium to total.

2. Color theory and choosing the right concealer shade for every skin problem

What nobody talks about concealer is that different skin problems require different colors and textures. To suit your skin tone, choose a concealer shade half shade lighter than the base shade. Pay close attention to words like “neutral”, “cool”, “warm” and “beige”.

You can make the most of color theory with concealers. In the color wheel, the colors opposite each other in the spectrum are opposite. Therefore, when used for color correction, they cancel out.

Green is the opposite of red

Orange is the opposite of blue

Yellow is the opposite of purple

Let me simplify it further with a little more explanation.

a. Eliminate your dark circles with concealer

When it comes to dark circles, prefer “warmer” shades to avoid obvious white circles around the eyes. Purple and bluish dark circles are best hidden with an orange to yellow concealer, which is a lighter shade than your skin tone. This will help to mask the discoloration and brighten the skin under your eyes. If, on the other hand, you have brownish circles, use a peach, salmon or orange concealer.

b. Disguises and redness with your concealer

Green concealers neutralize redness on the face – like blemishes and red spots. You can also use it to cover up acne, rashes and red acne spots.

c. Hide dark spots with concealer

Orange and peach color graders can be used along with your regular concealer to effectively cover dark spots caused by acne, aging, sun damage and even freckles.

d. Cover pimples with concealer

To hide the pimples, it is important that the concealer has a thick, dry consistency. You can also use a cream concealer. They usually come in a pot or tube. To remove redness from the Zit, use a green gradation concealer before starting the foundation and cream concealer.

If you’re curious to try the color grading palettes that work wonderfully, check out the Bobbi Brown BBU palette, the Stila Correct & Perfect All-In-One color grading palette and the NYX color grading palette. Make Up For Ever also has these color correction pots that you can buy in different colors to help camouflage dark spots, redness and other problems.

3. How can you hide in the right way?

However, if you want complete perfection, you need to take a step before applying the primer, and then color correction concealers come into play.

After adjusting the color and applying the product, gently press the base with a makeup sponge and then press the concealer. Pressing will ensure that the color concealer remains in place. It is also important to remember that less is more. Therefore, you should only use small amounts of concealer where necessary. You can adjust your makeup with a compact powder to make it last longer.

4. Corrective Hacks That Will Instantly Change Your Makeup Game

These simple tricks go a long way in creating a perfect foundation and will completely transform your beauty routine. You only need one thing – concealer!

a. Apply concealer in natural light

Poor lighting is responsible for the days when you thought your concealer would match your skin and it really wasn’t. The best place to apply concealer is near a sunny window, so that natural light can reveal the performance of your concealer.

b. Triangular concealer trick

Draw a triangle with the concealer and blend it with a small brush or makeup sponge instead of spreading the concealer over the eye area. This helps to completely cover the area and instantly creates the illusion that your face is rising.

c. Concealer on your eyelids

If you don’t want to invest in eye shadow primers, apply a concealer on your eyelids to prevent the shadow from falling off your eyelid or wrinkling. A concealer works just as well as a eyeshadow primer.

d. Concealer for problem areas on your body

A pimple on the back or chest can be easily covered with a small concealer that exactly matches your skin tone. Refill with a little translucent powder to prevent wear.

e. Pop your lipstick

I love using lipstick and I learned that you can prevent the color from draining by covering the outside of your lips with a fine brush and concealer. This will also help to improve the shape of your lips and make them more plump than ever.

f. Contour and highlight with concealer

With a concealer two shades darker than your skin and two shades lighter than your skin, you can contour and highlight your face to further improve your makeup game. A pencil concealer has more control over placement – use the darkest to shade areas that are naturally shaded and the lightest concealer to highlight areas that capture light naturally.

g. Wipe with a tissue

Did you notice your concealer hardening in the lines around your eyes? Take a handkerchief, divide it into two layers and remove excess makeup. You will be surprised at how well this simple step works!

h. Highlight your eyebrows

A concealer that is a shade lighter than your skin tone can be used to enhance the eyebrows. This instantly raises the eyebrow and enhances the eyes even more!

i. Perfect your winged eyeliner

We all make mistakes when we get the perfect winged eyeliner. During periods of crisis, dip an angled brush into the concealer and use it gently to cover any imperfections. It’s easier and faster than starting over!

Now that you know how a concealer is a wonderful and versatile makeup tool, it’s time to try some of these tricks. You may not get it right the first time, but remember – patience and practice are essential!

  B. Best concealer for darker skin tones 2021

Looking for the best concealer for darker skin? As a black woman, I can tell you how difficult it is to reach a makeup counter to find the perfect concealer shade, and you wonder what to choose. You are faced with a range of colors, some with warm tones, some with cold tones and some just neutral. It is no surprise that the beauty industry is still catching up on diversity / inclusion and how to keep women (and men) with richly pigmented skin.

Choosing the shade of the concealer will often not tell consumers how the concealer will oxidize. This means that it darkens on contact with air. Therefore, it is important to be aware of this. To mitigate this, test the concealer on your skin and wait for about 20-25 minutes (you can browse other products while you wait) to see how it changes and whether you are happy with the result.

Best base

Best Makeup Brushes

Best perfumes

However, for deeper skin tones, the first thing you need to get your skin tone right is. You can determine this using this policy:

Warm tone: means that the underlying colors of your skin are gold, peach and / or yellow

Cool tone: it means you have blue and red spots under your skin

Neutral: This means that you have a combination of the above, hot and cold

Generally, when looking for corrective or even foundations, the packaging indicates a skin undertone in the form of undertone letters; H. W, C and N followed by the color number. You have probably seen this before, but you may not know what it means. You can also try the old school trick of trying on jewelry. If silver looks better to you, it means you have a cool tone, and if gold looks better to you, it means you have a warm skin tone. If you can’t really see the difference, it just means that you have a neutral tone.

I have been looking for concealers for my skin color for a long time and I was looking for concealers and, although I found my tones perfect (a concealer that matches my skin tone that I can use to highlight it in a more glamorous effect) I found that problems are mainly in the formations, that is, being very dry, breaking easily or incompatible with translucent powders. I also talked to other women with deeper skin tones and made a list of the top five concealers that serve and complement women with deeper skin tones.

1. Fenty beauty pro filts immediate retouch concealer

Fenty Beauty changed the makeup industry after Rhianna launched a baseline of 50 inclusive colors. The concealers in this line are light and can be built depending on the desired coverage. Most people in the reviews mention that they never found a concealer shade for their skin tone until this line was launched, and mention how many concealers they bought since launch. Personally, I bought some from Fenty Beauty and have been using them for a year. I have to admit, I never saw a concealer that had the perfect shades for darker skin tones.

2.Pat mcgrath: skin fetish: sublime perfection concealer

This product is a high coverage formula that contains a Vita Serum Complex that repels expression lines. It is also available in 36 shades, which means you can find the shade of your skin’s real complexion concealer and make it stand out. Others who have done evaluations said that this product applies smoothly under the eyes, without wrinkles or fine lines, while others said that it looks buttery and is easy to use with a concealer brush or a mix of beauty blender. There are so many colors to choose from if you are looking for more than just concealer and something to contour your face as well. You can really choose how you want to use this product.

3. Beauty bakarie instabake 3-in-1 hydrating concealer

The advantage of this concealer is the moisturizing element, since most people do not like concealer, as it can easily dry the skin under the eyes. Contains the active ingredient of cassava in the product, which comes from the botanical’s water-binding powers. Ideal for those who suffer from dry skin, are always on the move and just want to work with a product that combines skin care and makeup in one. Reviews on the website show that most people love this product because it is light and very easy to mix with a sponge and not easy to wrinkle. It is loved because it is stain-proof and long-lasting.

4. Blackup: without transfer of transfer

Known for neutralizing dark circles, covering imperfections, this product has a natural matte finish that prevents the product from being transferred to clothing. I personally used this product after someone recommended me to withstand the heat and provide a moisture / sweat-proof appearance in hot climates. It is an ideal product to store in your makeup bag on vacation and want to have a glamorous look at night. The only negative aspect of this product, like many concealers with a magic wand, is that it is not hygienic to put the product on your face and then put it back in the tube and repeat.

5. Longwear mac pro broker

Who hasn’t used this concealer? In fact, it was the first concealer I bought when I was a teenager, and I was attracted to MAC by its color palette. It is old, but one of the favorites of all time for many. In addition to providing great coverage, you can always find your tone, regardless of the depth of your skin tone. Most makeup artists and influencers always have this in their kit, and it’s a great staple. The only negative point about this product is that it looks very heavy, but you can control it by choosing the coverage you want, that is, H. From light to medium or total coverage.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

If it’s possible to sum up a presidency in a single number, that number would be the president’s approval rating — or the share of Americans who approve of the job he’s doing. Arguably, that simple percentage can determine the fate of an entire presidency.

For instance, a high approval rating can marshal support for a president’s agenda and minimize his party’s losses in the midterm elections — not to mention help the president himself win reelection. But a low approval rating can be electoral poison and imply that a president has lost the mandate to govern entirely.

This, in a nutshell, is why we at FiveThirtyEight track the president’s approval rating (and its glass-half-empty cousin, disapproval rating) in real time — first for former President Donald Trump, and now for President Biden. According to our average of all the Biden-approval polls we have so far, Biden starts his administration with a 53.9 percent approval rating and a 35.1 percent disapproval rating.1 (If you look at only polls of likely or registered voters — which you can do using the dropdown menu in the top right of the interactive — the numbers are similar: 54.4 percent approval, 36.0 percent disapproval. Same with polls specifically of all adults: 53.2 percent approval, 31.6 percent disapproval.)

These are strong approval numbers compared with what we’ve grown accustomed to seeing over the past four years. But they also probably won’t stay that high, since presidents typically experience a “honeymoon” period of inflated popularity during their first few months in office. As my colleague Geoffrey Skelley wrote on Tuesday, some experts believe that political polarization has made presidential honeymoons a thing of the past, but, for now at least, Biden appears to be enjoying one: He has a +18.9-point net approval rating (approval rating minus disapproval rating) after winning the election by only 4.5 points.

That said, that’s a less impressive honeymoon than most past presidents have enjoyed, suggesting that partisanship is taking its toll. For reference, at this point in their presidencies, Bill Clinton had a +36.3-point net approval rating, George W. Bush had a +32.0-point net approval rating and Barack Obama had a +39.3-point net approval rating. Trump is the only president to have started his administration with a lower net approval rating than Biden: +2.0 points on Jan. 27, 2017.2

Although Biden’s approval rating is somewhat on par with Clinton’s, Bush’s and Obama’s, his disapproval rating is much, much higher, reflecting the built-in animosity that many Americans already have for him. (You can compare Biden’s approval rating, disapproval rating and net approval rating to past presidents all the way back to Harry Truman by scrolling down to the bottom of our interactive.)

How do we boil down dozens of approval-rating polls into a single number? It’s not a simple average! We use an empirically tested, weighted average that accounts for poll quality and uncertainty. It’s the same methodology we used to calculate Trump’s approval-rating average and similar to the approach we take in our election forecasts and other polling averages; here’s a more detailed explanation.

First, our indefatigable team of poll researchers collects every national poll of the president’s approval rating; we don’t disregard any legitimately conducted3 scientific polls (this is because we don’t want to be in the position of making subjective judgments about how “good” a poll needs to be in order to be worth including), although we do assign them different weights (more on that in a moment). You can see these individual polls listed just below the main graph on the approval-rating page and download them via the link at the very bottom of the page.

(One quick housekeeping note here: Sometimes, pollsters release numbers for the president’s approval rating among different populations — for example, all adults vs. registered voters vs. likely voters. In this case, we default to the result that represents the broadest swath of people — so adults over registered voters, registered voters over likely voters. However, as previously mentioned, we also have versions of the average that compute the president’s approval rating among only polls of adults or only polls of voters.)

Next, we determine how much weight to give each poll in our average. First, polls conducted by pollsters with higher FiveThirtyEight pollster ratings — a letter grade measuring how accurate and methodologically sound pollsters are4 — are given more weight. Second, polls with bigger sample sizes also count for more. Finally, we downweight polls by pollsters that survey approval rating very frequently (i.e., more than once per 20 days) so that no one pollster is exerting too much influence on the average.5 Each poll’s pollster rating, sample size and ultimate weight in our average are displayed next to it in our list.

From these weighted averages, we then calculate a trend line of the president’s approval and disapproval ratings over time using local polynomial regression — basically, drawing a smooth curve over the individual data points. (But not too smooth — you don’t want the average to be unresponsive to movement in the polls. We choose our smoothness settings6 based on what has historically best predicted a president’s future approval and disapproval ratings in polls since 1945, which visually turns out to not look very smooth at all.)

But wait! That first trend line we calculate isn’t the one you see on the page. Instead, we use the initial trend line to see if a given pollster’s polls are consistently better or worse for Biden than the weighted average — in other words, if the pollster has a “house effect.” Polls from pollsters that systematically over- or underestimate Biden are then adjusted in order to remove this house effect.7 For example, Republican-aligned pollster Rasmussen Reports has an anti-Biden (and had a pro-Trump) house effect that must be taken into account when judging its polls. Accordingly, our model adjusted its recent poll that gave Biden a 48 percent approval rating and 48 percent disapproval rating to 50 percent approval and 43 percent disapproval.8 Each poll’s adjusted approval and disapproval ratings are displayed in the rightmost column of the approval tracker’s list of polls, just after the poll’s raw, unadjusted numbers.

From there, we just rinse and repeat: The adjusted polling numbers are used to calculate a new trend line, which is used to calculate new adjusted polling numbers, which is used to calculate another new trend line — and so on. The final result, once the cycle is complete, is the main approval-and-disapproval-rating graph you see in our interactive. And you can use that graph to check not only Biden’s average approval and disapproval ratings as they stand today, but also what they were at the end of any day during his administration.9 (Note that those daily ratings are based on polls released by that date, not necessarily polls conducted by that date; we don’t go back and recalculate the average for past days once more data becomes available.)

You can also download Biden’s average approval ratings for every day of his term, as well as every poll that goes into the calculation, by clicking the appropriate links at the very bottom of the page. This document also includes upper- and lower-bound estimates for Biden’s approval and disapproval ratings,10 which are depicted in the interactive by the shaded green and orange areas around the main trend lines. This represents the fact that there is uncertainty in our approval-rating average: Both polls and our average have a margin of error.

We calculate this uncertainty by measuring how well our approval-rating estimates for past presidents (all the way back to Truman) have predicted future polls of their approval rating. Things that make the confidence intervals wider (i.e., things that make us less certain) include a dearth of polling, a high level of disagreement in the polls we do have, and a lot of volatility in a president’s approval rating over the long term. Things that make the confidence intervals tighter include lots of polls, highly consistent polls and a very stable long-term average.

We set the width of our confidence intervals such that 90 percent of future polls should fall within that range. And we even offer a tentative forecast for which direction the averages will trend; toggle the switch that says “Today” to “4 years” at the lower right of the graph in order to see it.

Because approval ratings have historically tended to revert to the mean, and also to deteriorate slightly over the course of a president’s term, we expect Biden’s approval rating to decline and his disapproval rating to rise (as represented by the dotted lines on the graph). But as you can see, the 90-percent confidence interval for both approval and disapproval gets much wider the further you go into the future, meaning a wide range of outcomes are possible for Biden’s long-term popularity. Even in this age of intense polarization, circumstances and actions can still affect the president’s approval rating, so Biden’s political future is at least partly in his own hands.

So that sounds like a pretty good reason, if we do say so ourselves, to bookmark our Biden approval tracker and check back on it often. And if you have any questions about our methodology, comments about the interactive, or missing polls we need to add, don’t hesitate to drop us a line at polls@fivethirtyeight.com.

[immcrtuos-a]

G I A N T . C H A R A C T E R . S U R V E Y

[ tagged by ]: @eloquated [ tagging ]: @eyerevived @dcmonblooded @remembcr and everyone else who wants to

G E N E R A L

[ name ]: Raphael Ortiz Santiago [ nicknames ]: Rafa (only by certain people he’s close to) [ birthday ]: June 19 [ birthplace ]: Zacatecas, Mexico [ age ]: 84 (looks like 19) [ eye color ]: Dark brown, almost black [ height ]: 1.75m / 5′7 feet [ weight ]: Fairly muscled [ nationality ]: Mexican [ astrological sign ]: Gemini [ location ]: Hotel Dumort [ siblings ]: four brothers and one sister, all deceased [ pets ]: None [ in the morning i’m ]: Sleeping [ all i need is ]: the Clan [ love is ]: Apparently, a good thing [ i’m afraid of ]: Loved ones dying [ i dream about ]: Not much, unless nightmares are counted too

H A V E . Y O U . E V E R ?

[ pictured your crush naked? ]: No? [ used someone? ]: Yes [ been used? ]: Yes [ been cheated on? ]: No [ considered cheating? ]: No [ been kissed? ]: Yes [ done something you regret? ]: Of course

F A V O R I T E

[ food? ]: Can’t eat anything anymore, so does it matter? [ fruit? ]: It used to be cherries [ candy? ]: I don’t have one [ color? ]: Red  [ number? ]: 3 [ animal? ]: Cats [ drink? ]: Blood, obviously [ soda? ]: I preferred coca cola [ book? ]: Macbeth or Julius Caesar [ room? ]: Bedroom [ movie? ]: I don’t have a favorite

D O . Y O U ?

[ have a boyfriend/girlfriend? ]: No [ like cleaning? ]: No [ have a tattoo? ]: No, though I admit they can be nice [ have any piercings? ]: No [ cheat on tests/homework? ]: I don’t remember, probably not [ drink/smoke? ]: Sometimes, with Magnus or Lily [ swear a lot? ]: Probably more than I should [ like watching sunrises or sunset? ]: I wish I could [ pray? ]: Of course  [ go to church? ]: Not anymore, although I used to go every week [ have secrets? ]: Naturally [ have a best friend? ]: Lily and Eliot (and Jack @eyerevived ) [ like your own handwriting? ]: Sure

A R E . Y O U ?

[ obsessive? ]: About certain subjects, I suppose [ excited? ]: Not particularly [ bored? ]: At the moment, yes [ happy? ]: Not really [ missing someone? ]: Yes [ confused? ]: No [ tired? ]: No [ mad? ]: At certain people, yes [ sleepy? ]: No

D O . Y O U . E V E R ?

[ wait around just to talk to someone? ]: Sure [ write about those ‘special’ moments? ]: No, I don’t need a diary to remember [ wish you were a member of the opposite sex? ]: No

W H O . W A S . T H E . L A S T . P E R S O N . W H O ?

[ you talked to? ]: Lily and Eliot [ you hugged? ]: Magnus [ you kissed? ]: That’s unimportant [ sent you a letter? ]: The Los Angeles clan leader [ you sent a letter to? ]: The Los Angeles clan leader, in return [ you laughed with? ]: Eliot [ slept in your bed? ]: Myself [ you shared a drink with? ]: Lily or Eliot   [ you went to the movies with? ]: A group of the Clan, a few years ago [ yelled at you? ]: Camille [ you called? ]: Magnus [ you kicked? ]: A Shadowhunter [ you saw? ]: Lily

W H O . I S ?

[ the most handsome person you know? ]: Objectively, probably Magnus? Although, Isabelle Lightwood is also beautiful. [ the weirdest person you know? ]: Simon Lewis, without a doubt the most confusing person I currently know [ the funniest person you know? ]: Eliot [ the loudest person you know? ]: Loud in volume is Lily, loud in character is Magnus   [ the quietest person you know? ]: Aurélie, a clan member [ the sweetest person you know? ]: Johannes, another clan member [ the most serious person you know? ]: Every person from the Clave  [ your best friend? ]: Well, that used to be Ragnor [ the person you hate the most? ]: Valentine Morgenstern [ the person you see most? ]: Lily and Eliot [ your soul-mate? ]: Soul-mates don’t exist.  

W H A T . I S ?

[ the first thing you thought of when you woke up? ]: Everything that needed to be done tonight [ the song that best describes you? ]: I don’t know [ your best feature? ]: Physical or in general? [ your most treasured memory? ]: Any of the ones with my hermanos

I N . T H E . F U T U R E

[ what is the age you hope to get married? ]: I’m not going to be married [ number and names of kids? ]: I won’t have any  [ where do you see yourself at age twenty? ]: I’ve surpassed twenty by a few decennia now  [ describe your dream wedding? ]: I already said I won’t have one, so it doesn’t matter [ when and how do you want to die? ]: Preferably a long time from now and quickly [ what are your career plans? ]: Keep leading the clan [ some place you’d like to visit? ]: I would like to go back to Zacatecas.

L A S T . T I M E

[ last time you went out of state? ]: Clan business a few months ago [ last time you were outside? ]: Yesterday night [ last time you had a snowball fight? ]: Years ago [ last time you were listening to music? ]: A while ago

O T H E R

[ how many people would you say are good friends of yours? ]: Three [ what hurts the most, physical or emotional pain? ]: Emotional. [ have you felt this recently? ]: Yes [ what do you wear to bed? ]: Sweatpants and a t-shirt [ when’s the last time you slept with a stuffed animal? ]: As a child [ have you ever used a ouija board? ]: No [ how many rings before you pick up the phone? ]: As soon as I can find it

[carriejonesbooks]

Seriously.

I know people lie all the time. I know these people get powerful, get fame, get money, get whatever… I know that their lies are there to shelter them, protect them, because they are afraid that their past mistakes or inadequacies  will make people love them. Or just because they are ashamed of what they’ve done and who they are.

I know that we all do it.

That we all lie.

Sometimes.

I’m not talking about the white lies where you tell someone their butt looks good when it doesn’t.

I’m talking about the lies we create to try to dig ourselves out of humiliating experiences. You know what I mean right? When you mess up on your job. When you mess up in your book. When you mess up in your relationship.

Those kinds of lies.

Lying makes you sick. It makes your heart sick. It makes your body sick. I don’t want you to be sick.

I knew a man who was in an insufferable marriage. Before you judge, just know it was bad. He had an affair and then he had eczema, terrible eczema. He finally divorced his wife and the eczema was gone. Yes, correlation doesn’t always equal causation. I get that. But I also get that lying messes us up.

According to an article in the Atlantic, people lie about 11 times every week. It’s no wonder we as a society have forgotten what truth is, right? We lie an average of 572 times a year. And sometimes, telling the truth is seen as the act of the unsophisticated.

Yeah. I am not cool with that. I’m not cool with lying to get ahead or lying to get out of trouble or lying so that your public persona seems better than it is. Because I know that lying hurts your insides. I want your insides to feel good, darn it.

In Gunderman’s story for the Atlantic, he writes:

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame followed 110 people over a period of ten weeks. Half of the participants were asked to stop lying over this period of time, and the other half were not. Both groups took weekly polygraph tests to determine how many times they had lied in the previous week. Those who were able to reduce by three the number of lies they told had four fewer mental health complaints (such as feeling tense) and three fewer physical health complaints (such as headaches) than those who did not.

So how do you not lie?

Sign an ethics agreement with yourself.

Avoid conflicts of interest

Realize that if you lose your job, or mess up big-time, people can and still love you. They’ll relate to you because it’s happened to them, too. And if they can’t? If your act of imperfection is unforgivable to them, then move on honestly. It will be better for you in the long run.

For some people writing down the Ten Commandments or similar articles of behavior is a reminder to be honest and helps prevent dishonesty.

Don’t pick a job or a lifestyle or a relationship that rewards dishonesty and encourages it. Here’s an old story about that with Wells Fargo.

Lying and Writing

The perception is that all writers are liars. We construct these fictional worlds that aren’t truth. Therefore we must be lying, right? We must be suffering from the same health effects that liars-in-real-life do.

Yeah. No.

Writers create entire worlds. Yes. We fabricate details. Yes. We make people up. Yes.

But we aren’t experts in lying. We’re experts in truth.

“Wait… What…?” you’re probably saying.

But here’s the thing. Writers create worlds. But we create worlds out of truths. We put in key details. We focus on being believable. But what we’re doing is using art to tell the truths of our own stories, of the world’s stories, which is the truth of people’s stories and existence.

The best writers are the best truth tellers because their story matters to them. The depth of what they’re writing about (grief, racism, oppression, love, justice) is the truth that needs to come out of their soul. That’s the opposite of lying.

So, go write. If you’re writing your inner truth? That’s only going to lift you up.

Do Good Wednesday

Make a pact with yourself to tell the truth as much as you can. It’s that simple.

  WRITING NEWS

Yep, it’s the part of the blog where I talk about my books and projects because I am a writer for a living, which means I need people to review and buy my books or at least spread the word about them.

I’m super good at public image and marketing for nonprofits but I have a much harder time with marketing myself.

So, please buy one of my books. 🙂 The links about them are all up there in the header on top of the page on my website carriejonesbooks.blog.  There are young adult series, middle grade fantasy series, stand-alones for young adults and even picture book biographies.

Time Stoppers

Flying

Moe Berg

Write! Submit! Support! Begins Again in July!

  It’s not easy to create a thriving writing career in the children’s industry, but what if you didn’t have to do it alone? Write. Submit. Support is a six-month program designed by author and Writing Barn Founder Bethany Hegedus. Classes are led by top creatives in the children’s industry field; they’ll give you the tips and tools you need to take both your manuscripts and your developing career to the next level. Think of it as an MFA in craft with a certificate in discovering (or recovering) your writer joy! – Writing Barn 

More about the class I specifically teach? It is right here.

Here is what current students are saying:

Carrie is all strengths. Seriously. She’s compassionate, funny, zesty, zany, insightful, honest, nurturing, sharp, and…Wow, that’s a lot of adjectives. But really, I couldn’t praise Carrie enough as a mentor. I’ve long respected her writing, but being talented at something doesn’t automatically mean you will be a great mentor. Carrie just happens to be one of those rare cases of extreme talent and excellent coaching. Aside from the specific feedback she offers, she also writes letters in response to the process letter and analyses. These letters have been so impactful for me as I writer that I plan to print them and hang them up. Creepy? Maybe. But they are so inspiring. And that, in the most long-winded way possible, is how I would summarize Carrie as a mentor—inspiring.

Look. Lying is Bad for Your Health and Authors Stink At It, No Matter What “Experts” Say Seriously. I know people lie all the time. I know these people get powerful, get fame, get money, get whatever...

[jihoonslattee]

library study dates! park jihoon

DEDICATED TO MY BUNNY ANON BC EVEN THOUGH SHE’S ON HIATUS IMA WRITE HER THIS TO MOTIVATE HER ON HER SEMIFINALS

sypnosis: park jihoon, someone that you’ve never really thought you would interact with suddenly asks you for tutoring sessions for the upcoming finals [ long prologue sort of ??] [update lmao nvm i thought it would be long but then i finished it DHFLD]

~~~

you used to be best friends with jihoon 

oof yeah you two were basically inseparable when you guys were near the diaper ages like basically ever since elementary school you both were kicking it together and like making it known that you two were the ultimate besties 

like in elementary school projects you two would paint stuff and then give it to each other 

you more than jihoon bc you had a cute crush on him like awe it was so cute even your mom thought it was the cutest thing because you would go up to her and show her the painting jihoon gave you gushing about how much you liked it 

ANYWAYS that all ended when you parents needed to move for your dad’s job to japan (not your cpu of tea because you were in full crush mode with jihoon)

and the worst part was you both were in the middle of middle school and your parents hadn’t given you phones yet so all you had was an address 

you would totally send jihoon letters every week or something and he would instantly reply back, one day though he didn’t respond so you just assumed he didn’t want to talk to you anymore so you both naturally stopped communication 

THEN as fate had wanted it to happen you and your mom had moved back! you dad stayed behind because he wanted to keep making that good money for your family but your mom also got a really good paying job that tbh in your opinion payed more than your dad >.>

~~~~

on your first day back you had just joined this art school named sopa (high school) since you discovered your new found talent in singing and playing the guitar (does someone know how to play the guitar pls teach me ur skillz dlfjh)

when you entered your class to introduce yourself to everyone you locked eyes with a specific person 

park jihoon

you could’ve sworn air ran out of your lungs and you were stuck on his eyes for a good couple of seconds before breaking eye contact and looking around the rest of the room 

“hi! i’m Y/N and i hope to get along with all of you!”

the class clapped and you sneaked a glance at jihoon but he didn’t really have an expression, which disappointed you 

the teacher directed you to the back of the class near the window in the corner 

later on in the day you kept on looking at jihoon to see if he remembered you or would at least GLANCE at you as if you were familiar 

he didn’t though, and you were just hit with the sudden thought

“yeah why would he remember me? he was the one to stop sending letters, i shouldn’t be gripping over this” 

so later on in the year you slowly stopped really thinking about whether or not jihoon forgot you 

you two did have interactions! like he would go up to your on questions about some subjects and you would answer and he would thank you and then leave, literally the bare minimum or possible interactions 

also like you didn’t realize it on the first day you came back but like wow 

jihoon was so handsome?? like he was so cute and adorable before but now that you see him again after who knows how long you were totally taken by his beauty 

you told your friend Woojin about Jihoon and your and he literally almost yelled in class

“WITH JI-”

in the middle of naming jihoon’s name you literally covered his mouth with your hand and just sighed in anxiousness

“jeez woojin i know you’re like best friends with jihoon but like can i just like tell you this without you high key screeching in this class where the person i’m talking about is literally on the other side of the classroom?”

“who are you guys talking about?”

you turned around and basically jumped seeing jihoon standing right behind you guys in curiosity

“gosh jihoon you were literally on the other side of the classroom what did you do teleport?”

muttering under your breath you turn back towards woojin and just give him that stare they do in the dramas like “better not say anything”

“w-we were just talking about the finals that were coming up! wanna join us in the discussion my fellow pink sausage?”

jihoon laughed in response and pulled up the chair to join the both of you while you were there just looking at them in confusion 

“pink....sausages ??” 

instead of saying a response woojin just laughed while jihoon started turning a bit red 

“we both wore pink sometimes on accident on the same day to school so people naturally started calling us pink sausages! jihoon didn’t really say if he likes it or not but i totally for it!”

woojin looked so proud while explaining the meaning of how their name came to be and you couldn’t help but laugh 

“hey i wasn’t said i was against it! i was just surprised because we did match on purpose! You even asked me the night before if you could match me so it wasn’t an accident!”

“shhh no one is supposed to know”

~~~ so after what seemed like such a short lunch period the bell soon rang and class was started again 

at the end of the day while you were packing you noticed a pair of feet approach you (bc you were looking down while packing yknow)

“hey Y/N i know you haven’t been at this school for a good while yet but you already know what you’re doing, do you think you can tutor me for the finals coming up?”

you stopped while packing and just looked at jihoon in confusion with a slight smile 

“uh have you seen my grades? I get the concepts but it’s hard for me to really explain them or remember then well on tests. I guess my notes are okay?”

his face brightened and he nodded enthusiastically while scribbling down something onto his notebook and tearing it out 

“great! Here’s my number, can i have yours?”

all you could really do was nod and give him your phone number

while you were at home studying-

lmao srry not studying i mean watching videos of your favorite kpop artists

moving on, you had received the text from a random number (forgetting that jihoon had ur number lmao)

jihoon: hey Y/N! I was wondering if you would like to start meeting up tomorrow? 

you: yeah of course, warning i’m not the best teacher 

jihoon: anything to help my grades lmao lets meet up at the library after school?

you: sure

you kind of took this as an opportunity to try and see if jihoon remembers you? like maybe you could just start mentioning your past and maybe he’ll pop in like 

“oh my gosh you’re my old best friend!”

and even though you thought you had given up on seeing if he remembers you 

you low key wanted to make him remember because wow you still kind of had a crush on him? 

anyways the next day came and here you were sitting down at one of the tables at the library looking like a loner (which is me everyday >.>) 

sooner or later though jihoon comes and sits across from you and takes out all of his notes while smiling 

“what are you smiling for?” 

you gave him a curious look and he just shrugged 

“just excited to get a good grade on the exams this year~ anyways, lets start with some chemistry!”

 while you guys were studying jihoon started cracking some jokes here and there while were both cringey but funny at the same time 

it made you feel warm inside because it made you think of when you both were younger and just had tons of fun making weird jokes 

somehow while you guys were studying you both came upon the topic of just talking about life

 “so what was your life like before you came here Y/N?” 

jihoon casually asked while scanning over your notes and his own making sure that there wasn’t anything important he was missing 

“well actually I’ve lived here before,”

“really?”

“yeah, I actually had a best friend here before but we lost touch, I miss him though we were inseparable”

“that sounds adorable!”

he laughs and leans on the table with his arm looking like he was thinking 

“that sounds similar to what happened to me and my best friend before hmm anyways can you help me out on this problem?” 

you literally in awe like wow you both were so close to finding out how you both are actually best friends before but he switched the topic so quick? like did he not want to admit it?

but you brush it off and just continue helping it 

over the two weeks before the finals you and jihoon start getting close where you start texting each other regularly and spend a lot of the times at he library talking rather than studying 

one day though jihoon suddenly says he cant make it so you drag woojin to the library with you 

bc you already told ur parents to pick you up at a certain time and just wanted to chill at the library for a while 

“i don’t even know why you’re tutoring jihoon-”

“are you about to insult me right now woojin?”

“no omg i was gonna say that i don’t know you’re helping him out because he’s one of the smartest students in our class, especially during exam times”

you were starting to get genuinely confused 

“umm? why would he ask for my help then?” 

then all of a sudden as if the gears in woojin’s head started winding he smiled 

“i have an idea”

woojin quickly gets up and literally runs out of the library leaving you speechless 

no more than 20 minutes later he arrives with jihoon smiling sheepishly rubbing the back of his head holding a poster in his hands 

“jihoon?”

you tilted your head in confusion and woojin just sad jihoon down in front of you and then sat down next to jihoon, making a gesture like “do your thing man”

“what are you doing here? i thought you were busy?”

“well woojin here all of a sudden decided to hunt me down and being me over here for some reason”

he gave a small glare to woojin and woojin just smiled because he knew, all the pieces had clicked in his mind 

“jihoon just show her the poster already”

he sighed and just opened the poster in front of you 

to your surprise it was a bunch of photos of the both of you when you guys were little up to the picture where jihoon’s family said bye to your family at the airport 

“i wanted to finish this by tomorrow to show you but i knew from the second you stepped into the room that you were my childhood best friend that i had a crush on”

he mumbled the last part but before you could ask him to repeat it woojin spoke up for him

“he said he liked you when yall were little”

“okay ruining the moment woojin”

you laughed and just felt yourself turning red 

“i liked you when we were little too jihoon, i think i like you now too if you like me too”

jihoon set down the poster and just looked down in shyness and you could see his ear turning slightly red 

“you’re so cute jihoon oh my gosh” 

you accidentally let out your thoughts and you just turned away from them because wow you feel so embarrassed now 

before you would turn back towards them you looked to see jihoon sitting right next to you and woojin leaving the library grumbling 

“i like you too Y/N maybe instead of studying we could have mini library dates?”

“that would be great, maybe you could tutor me instead because a little birdie told me that you were one of the top students?”

jihoon just sighed and put his hand to his forehead

“woojin sure has a big mouth, he told me that you recognized who i was and that i should make the effort to get closer with you again”

you were literally about to say something when jihoon’s eyes got big and he started waving his hands around 

“n-not that i didn’t want to talk to you again! it’s just that i thought you wouldn’t remember me and it would be awkward to go up to you like ‘hey we were besties when we were like 4 do you remember me?’“ 

you simply laughed in response and leaned forward to give jihoon a hug 

“i’m glad you remembered and that you like me too, but why did you stop sending me letters?”

he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly 

“i moved and i somehow lost your address and letters along the way, i feel super bad about it” 

you gave him a weird look and just pulled out your phone showing him a nearby boba place 

“you could make it up to me by buying me boba and then we could continue studying?”

jihoon just smiled and nodded his head while taking your hand sicne you both stood up to walk to the boba place 

“if by studying you mean start our first date at the boba place and then relax at the library then i would be happy to” 

not proofread but thank you for reading~

[felinehypocritical]

Can you write about Richie being mute (because irony) but Stan still liking him anyway.

yes i can!!!!

Stan Uris loved his job.

Well, he wouldn’t call it a job- it was more of something he volunteered to do.

Stan Uris loved his volunteer work.

Since the early fall, Stan had been volunteering at his local community center to help tutor kids from first grade to ninth in mathematics. Stan, himself, was in eighth grade, but he was taking trigonometry classes and sometimes sat in on pre-calculus on testing days, if he got done early. Stan liked math for the easiest of reasons: numbers don’t lie. Numbers don’t up and change on him.

Stan had one student in particular who he loved hating to work with; a mute boy named Richie Tozier. He was short, peppy, wiry, and exceedingly smart, although he usually refused to work.

And most interestingly, Richie could not speak.

The first time they had met, Stan had risen from the circle table he sat at, and stuck a hand out to shake Richie’s. Richie had taken it, not responding to Stan’s hello, before dropping his hand like it was hot and reaching into his bag for a ring of cards. He flipped through them quickly, holding a finger up to an affronted Stan’s face, before producing cards written in a messy scrawl that had been encased in laminate. It read as the following:

‘Hello, my name is Richie W. Tozier, but my friends call me Rich. You can call me Richie. [laugh here please] No, I don’t hate you. Yet. I’m not shy, either, you’ll see!!! I’m mute. I can’t and will not speak, so just go ahead and shut your trap if you’re thinking about trying to train me, kiddo.’

Stan had taken a look at it and at Richie’s grinning, sorta-kinda-cute face, and smiled. He’d introduced himself, taken out his book, and gotten to work.

Stan’s help wasn’t set back by things such as not speaking. He rather liked it, actually.

This was now twelve weeks in, and Richie was up two letter grades and was happy to come to the community center every Thursday.

Today, Richie had finished all of his problems very early, and was looking very proud of himself. Stan had only found a few mistakes, and he was praising Richie like crazy for it.

“Good job, Rich,” Stan said approvingly, marking some things Richie needed to work on later, before clasping his hands neatly and looking at Richie next to him. “You finished…. wow. twenty minutes early.” He sounded impressed and a little surprised, and took a good look at Richie’s smiling face for any trace of mischief.

He found none, and instead found his heart melting a little towards Richie’s happy features. His pale skin was dotted in the usual scatterings of freckles, his gapped front teeth grinning in pride as he looked at Stan with bright blue eyes through his huge glasses. Richie’s fingers were tapping up and down the table in his usual, hyperactive manner, and he quickly grabbed his pad of paper and pencil to write something down. It read, 'gee thanks stanny!!! does that mean we can go for icecream? you know, like you promised????’ Richie almost never capitalized any letters or wrote with either no or all the punctuation in an effort to get his thoughts out as quickly as possible. Richie seemed very earnest in his attempts to be heard, even if all he had to say was a joke. He was desperate for attention and an outlet, and Stan supposed if writing quick and making crass jokes was his outlet, he could deal with that.

What he couldn’t deal with was Richie’s wide, smug smirk upon Stan remembering a promise he’d made a few months ago, that if Richie finished earlier that he would take him for his food of choice- which was, in this case, ice cream- on him. He’d done it not because he’d thought Richie couldn’t do it, but because he figured Richie would forget it with everything that must go on in his head.

Evidently, that was not true, and Richie was now pulling the tutor out of his seat and grabbing his papers, stuffing them haphazardly into his bag and slinging it over his back, grabbing Stan’s as well and twining their fingers together so that they were holding hands much too tightly as Richie tugged the pair down the street without another moment.

“Now, wait, Richie, are you sure?” Stan pressed, hoping Richie would reconsider, but his attempts were hopeless. Richie nodded his head emphatically and pulled them to the front of the Derry Ice Cream Bar- a place that Richie associated with both good ice cream and fear, and he reached up to the left lens of his glasses subconsciously to see if it was shattered like it had been three, four years ago. It was not, thankfully, and anyway, he was older now and he was bigger now and Gard Jagermeyer couldn’t get him now. The feeling of unease passed as quickly as it had come, and Richie pushed into the shop eagerly.

Stan followed suit, letting Richie drag him to the board of flavors above the counter; Stan recognized with the instincts of a best friend that it was better to let Richie do whatever he wanted right now, and maybe, just maybe, he’d run empty and put slowly to a stop. “Which do you want?” He asked quietly, hoping the din of the rest of the bar would keep their conversation quiet. Richie pointed to the chocolate fudge (Richie was always partial to fudge), and Stan nodded.

“How many scoops?” he felt rather silly asking a fourteen year old these basic questions, and as if he was infantilizing poor Richie, but the silent boy seemed fine with what was happening, okay with letting Stan take control so he didn’t have to put in effort, har-de-har, and held up two fingers that he wiggled under Stan’s chin, smiling. Stan looked pained, knowing that each scoop was an extra ten cents and that he’d only brought a dollar fifty that was left over from bus fare, but whatever. He held out his hands, saying once more, “waffle cone or sugar cone?” Richie tapped the sugar cone hand twice, as if saying, 'beep beep!’ and gave Stan a thumbs up.

“All set?” he asked, and Richie nodded exaggeratedly, his black curls bopping around his face, and he clasped Stan’s hands between his own, screwing his features into a caricature of a devout prayer and bowing low. Stan drew him back up, rolling his eyes and sitting up at the counter on one of the barstools to wait to order. They were asked for their orders quickly, and Stan started speaking as quickly as possible.

“Yes, so, I’s like a waffle cone of vanilla, and two scoops of fudge for-”

“Gee, man, let the boy talk!” The server started amiably, and Stan’s mouth set into a thin line.

“He doesn’t do that,” Stan said curtly. His hand went to Richie’s instinctively before continuing, “two scoops of fudge on a sugar cone, please and thank you.” The server nodded, barely acknowledging Stan’s snippiness and starting their orders after he paid, tossing a half-hearted dirty look at Richie for the extra ten cents he’d been made to pay.

Richie, again, brought out his legal pad and scrawled, 'wow, my hero, stan the man uris himself’. there were hearts all over the page, and Richie laughed when Stan looked up, affronted at Richie’s message. 'be still my beating heart’, he continued to write.

“Well, I’m sorry for helping you,” Stan said irritatedly. Richie just ignored him and took the pad back, writing delightedly, 'stanny, have you ever heard buddy hollys song youre so square?’

Stan slapped Richie’s arm, making Richie almost double over in laughter. “I’m no square,” Stan protested. “You’re just crazy, Rich.”

Richie moved his hands in a shrugging, tipping-scales-like motion, as if to say, 'maybe so, maybe so.’ Stan snorted through his irritation and took the cones from the man at the counter, thanking him shortly and giving Richie his towering monstrosity of an ice cream. Derry Ice Cream Bar certainly didn’t skimp on their scoops, as their slogan read. No one could stay mad at Richie- he was too charming, even if his charm sometimes tuckered you out. And especially not Stan, who appreciated Richie’s spirit and excitement about life. It offset his own pessimism and love for the littler things nicely.

They finished their ice cream cones fairly quickly, and they headed outside, not sure where to, but sure they were going. “Park or back to the community center?” Stan asked; he was holding his hands out automatically. Richie slapped the hand for the park, and Stan flapped it back and forth, hissing between his teeth. Richie hit much too hard at every opportunity, and especially on Stan, since Stan responded perfectly to Richie’s torment.

And so they started off, Richie alternating between skipping and jogging backwards, Stan running after in short bursts to keep up. They were a funny-looking pair, but somehow it was just right, Stan stately and graceful, Richie scrappy and clumsy. Maybe opposites really do attract, Stan thought suddenly, but pushed it away. Richie didn’t, and couldn’t like him. They were best friends. That was all.

When they finally reached the park after what felt like forever, Richie led Stan, again, to a bench next to the lake. This was the grownup’s park, and Stan knew it well- he usually went here to watch birds, after all. But he’d never sat by the lake, since ducks and geese didn’t interest him much.

As they sat, Stan asking Richie simple yes or no questions that Richie answered eagerly, and Richie occasionally mocking Stan and writing something down on a legal pad, Stan started to wonder what Richie’s voice would sound like could he speak. He figured it would be individual and funny, just like Richie was, maybe a little grating, even, like it’s owner. It might be high, like Richie’s laugh was. Stan figured that either way, he would never find out, and anyway, he didn’t really care too much.

Looking at Richie’s excited, sparkling eyes and the way Richie looked at him, Stan figured that he had all he needed.

[yorkulife]

My test results are in but In the student ID column the ids start with letters and mine is just all numbers... am I missing something here ??

Unfortunately, anon, we have no way of knowing how your professor did it. You’re correct in that your student number is a nine-digit number (as printed on your YU-card). If you’re not sure what your grade is, my best advice would be to ask your prof. Other than that, I’m not aware of any changes to student numbers.

- W

[nursetina]

In Philippine law schools, students are expected not just to answer their exams well. They need to WRITE them too in, at least, a readable format.

And believe it or don’t, handwriting is one of the major factors that determine a Filipino barrister’s chance of passing the bar.

Not sure with other legal education systems, but from where I come from, we still do it the old-fashioned way in answering the bar exams.

We still do it the handwritten way.

This trend still stands and I feel like this won’t change anytime soon.

Good thing, I didn’t have a hard time adjusting to this culture because I did a lot of writing during my time as a nurse. Writing legible endorsements, nursing diagnoses, and nurses notes were all part of my training as such.

Otherwise, I could have killed a number of my patients before. (God knows what could have happened if another health care team member reads my handwritten note “diphenhydramine” as “DOPAMINE”!)

5 Simple Ways to Improve Your Handwriting

If you wish to improve on your handwriting for your law school exams or bar examination, then this blog post might just be the one you need.

Let me share with you the following handwriting tricks that I learned and had been doing constantly since I started my law studies:

(1) Write bigger

Law professors and bar examiners alike despise lilliputian handwriting.

Here’s Charles de Foucald’s handwriting. Yes, it is beautiful. However, it is too small. (Source: Personality Traits in Handwriting by Dr. Lydia Fogarolo)

It sends them headaches, which may greatly influence the way they appreciate and grade your answers.

Don’t make your professors pick a magnifying glass or microscope just to decipher your small handwriting. Make it bigger before it’s too late.

If you have never or hardly tried writing in bigger letters and symbols before, you have to start doing it NOW. Before you know it, it’s already your turn to take the bar examinations. You cannot just experiment when that day comes.

On the other hand, some of you may ask, how big is “big”?

I asked some of my law professors on that matter. Most of them tell me, “the bigger, the better” as some bar examiners might be in their senior years and have poor eyesight already.

In my opinion though, your handwriting should be large enough to be read clearly, but must still fit the spaces in your test booklets.

I do my best to make my handwriting big. However, I ensure that all sentences are within the line spacing as much as possible.

(2) Use your old law school test booklets, composition notebooks, or anything that has large line spacing

Law school booklets are all similar in terms of lines and spaces. Well, at least, that’s the case here in the Philippines.

From what I’ve heard from lawyers, they look a lot like the actual bar exam booklets. Unfortunately, law students use these booklets only when they have their midterm and/or final exams.

Instead of buying new test booklets to write on, I compile all unused pages from my old exam booklets. This way, I don’t have to wait until the exams to practice my handwriting.

Every exam has 10 essay questions on the average. (I do have a law professor who asks 100 questions, but that’s probably something I can talk about in another blog post. Lol.) So, I still have a good number of unused pages from each test booklet.

Another alternative would be composition notebooks that we used to write on during our high school days. Composition notebooks are somehow similar with our law school test booklets in terms of line spacing.

Source: Annalouiseyy Carousell Shop

If you are feeling a little fancy, you may try out thicker binder-friendly notebooks with large line spacing like this one I got for my Evidence class:

This was something our Evidence professor suggested for taking notes in his class.

(3) Get a good pen

It doesn’t have to be an expensive pen, though it has to be a good one.

Admit it or don’t, a pen has a lot to do with your handwriting. A bad one spoils your handwriting at anytime.

Some of the good yet affordable stuff I’ve tried, which are locally available, are the holy grail Pilot and Pentel sign pens. They come in various ball point sizes, giving you some options. People normally choose the 0.5 point, but being the deviant that I am, I love using the 0.7 ones.

Recently, I also grew fond of using fountain pens. I love using them too because they just make your handwriting legible, beautiful, and large without trying so hard.

TWSBI Eco and Lanbitou are my favorite demonstrator fountain pens in the world.

As for fountain pens, it doesn’t have to be Montblanc or anything on the high-end side (Though that would be nice!). Believe it or don’t my first fountain pen was a small, on sale, and cheap Parker fountain pen, which I got merely in compliance with one of my previous law subjects. Fast forward to 2019, I am now hooked and I have a bunch of them already in my collection, which you may read about here.

(4) Practice, write by hand A LOT

Make your own notes or handwritten handout.

Write your case briefs or digests.

Write your love a love letter (I and my Jumel do this a lot!).

Keep a law school journal.

Find time to write in your diary, if you have one.

Write. Write. Write.

Just write.

Writing is both a therapy and past time for me.

I believe CONSTANT practice makes perfect. Our goal here is to make handwriting your second nature. So, keep writing until you reach that comfort level when it doesn’t feel taxing anymore.

(5) Get rid of your correction tapes or fluids and friction pens

Correction tapes or fluids, and friction pens, encourage you to become complacent when writing. Obviously, if you know you can undo your handwriting errors and getaway with it,  you will not strive to practice and improve your handwriting endurance.

Correction fluids and tapes are those you put over a handwritten error to cover it. They usually come in white. (I had to tell this just in case some of you aren’t familiar with them.)

Meanwhile, friction pens are those with erasable inks. They are good to use in the beginning, but since its ink may be easily erased on paper, it also fades easily over time. So, when your law professor decides to defer checking your test booklets to a latter time, you have a big problem!

So, the lesson here is: practice and get used to writing without them as soon as possible.

Ditch them. Write on your notebook, journal, or planner WITHOUT THEM.

You’ll be okay, I promise!

In order to avoid erasures though, it’s best if you think your sentences over before writing them on your notebook or test booklets. This may take quite some time in the beginning. But if you’ll do this every time, it will be easier eventually.

Should you commit any mistake, you are not completely deprived of the prerogative to make erasures, provided you do it the “neat way”.

Putting a line over or striking through your mistakes, like this is the “neat way”.

Throughout my four years in law school, these simple techniques helped me achieve the handwriting that I have today. Nonetheless, I’m still looking for other ways to improve it further. There’s nothing wrong with self-improvement and pursuit of excellence, right? (Lol.)

How about you? Do you have your own techniques that may help others improve their handwriting?

Let’s help our fellow law students, or even friends, to improve theirs by commenting them down below.

  xoxo,

Tina

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Law School Tip: How to Improve Your Handwriting in 5 Simple Ways In Philippine law schools, students are expected not just to answer their exams well. They need to WRITE them too in, at least, a readable format.

[princessnijireiki]

like honestly 1000% fuck mike rowe, BUT he is not wrong in terms of wanting to remove the stigma from blue collar work (even air quotes “blue collar work” that should, by like the criteria of requiring higher education or w/e, be “white collar,” but it’s too gendered, gross, or racialized for ppl to see it that way*) & vocational ed…

I mean, he’s coming at it in terms of social stigma + a push for nationalist capitalism… more work for ppl domestically is good, as is self-sufficience, but this goon supported donald “union buster” “we need more coal mining” trump— which, side note, we stopped using as much of in america & in the west in general bc of environmental impact AND its relative inefficiency as a fuel source ESP. in costs-benefits analysis including both energy generated & environmental/health dangers in use + acquisition— so, it’s either a “more work but fuck your lungs & poisoned drinking water” angle, or a “more work bc fuck all those FOREIGNERS stealing our jobs here or via outsourcing**” angle, and fuuuuuck that…

but if the idea, or at least the SALES PITCH of the idea of education is to prepare people for various stages of workforce readiness— and the idea people like who dislike vocational ed in k-12 cling to is that you want people to have the tools to aim high, try things & be whatever they want to be, rather than merely “settling” for what they are limited by in terms of education/capability— then more options is good, a portable skillset you can do with your hands/body/physical capability in order to support yourself wherever you go from there is good; NOT emphasizing a narrow curriculum/theme to education that forces everyone to tread a narrow path (whether that’s “one lane” narrow or “but you had stuff to pick from!!!!” when it’s a 3- or 4-option, if that, multiple choice “question"— french or spanish? algebra now or algebra later? music or art, but not both?) for over a decade before cutting them loose & watching them struggle while the seats in that next probable point on the one line of progress they’ve been trained for are fought over, filled up, or never existed… is good

like even just in terms of 1. don’t starve. 2. psychological well-being. and 3. until such time as all employers and/or the state must provide healthcare to all persons (citizen & non-citizen alike), you may need to aim for either gainful enough employment to afford your health needs (whatever they may be) on your own; the professional expertise or access to such care as a perk, a favor, or something you can do for yourself; or employment that typically DOES provide that healthcare and/or worker protections, esp. if you can also unionize. that is like… way more fucking important than analysis of walt whitman or the fucking sats, ykwim?

and then on top of that, it’s institutional subjugation tailor made to normalize an incredibly poor, toxic & exploitative work-life balance, where like… the books you wanna read. art. music. meeting people. expanded horizons. THAT’S where the walt whitman should go.

there is learning a skill for work/skilled labor, and there is learning for love of a thing, and there is learning for growth, and tbh there should only be a grading criteria for one of those things anyway. I’m not saying like abandon grammar & math classes, tools of language are important, and 2 + 2 does generally & consistently equal 4. but I didn’t learn my colors for a bubble test on them… I didn’t learn what letters and numbers were by force, or under pressure of evaluation, I learned them to try and understand the world better as a little kid.

and like… between these hours for school— which were traditionally specifically set to line up with a GROWN ADULT’S work day, aka, not for any efficiency, or for benefit to, or for appropriateness for the child— and even then, Bee Tee Double You, unions had to fight HARD to keep work hours within those limits + mandatory breaks/meals in SOME, not ALL, states (while many school districts also practice carrying student lunch debts, meal shaming, grade repercussions or not releasing student documents for carrying debt; or assignments asking what kids ate as a way to monitor who’s not getting fed, not in order to feed them, but to call dcf)— and the stringency of classes as they are designed, the kinds of thing curricula force vs. omit vs. ban even before teacher bias enters the picture, the time demands of at home work + study + pressures for extracurricular performance in order to have a "better chance” in education-/job-eligibility-as-competition…

people don’t have time to just be fuckin’ people. they don’t even have time to learn what that’s supposed to MEAN, let alone what it might ACTUALLY mean to THEM, without their “performance” (!) suffering, or “risking their chance to succeed,” as if it’s one chance, and as if there’s one success.

—

* (in the same way as I’ve dealt with my fair share of incompetent or just cruel teachers— and considering academia, that’s v. telling in a stanford prison experiment kind of way— there’s A LOT of competent nurses, ARNPs, and PAs out there doing a lot of work covering for ignorant, cruel, oblivious, and lazy doctors’ asses out here in the world, including protecting patients FROM those same doctors. I’m not saying doctors are all bad or don’t know a lot of shit, I’m not saying all nursing staff are angels or that there’s not a hierarchy WITHIN those other medical worker rankings. but that a nurse with a 4yr degree & a decade of hospital experience could be considered blue collar while a resident fresh off the school bus, not even graduated from med school, is considered white collar, is a fucking disgrace & incredibly fucking weird.)

** (people who complain about outsourcing & esp. the ways devaluation of the products of others’ underpaid labor are affecting their income— even when they complain about low cost items, though it’s generally with an implication of lower quality work by “foreigners"— hell, even the people who DO bother to complain about or decry sweatshop labor conditions or low worker wages in comparison to wealthy ceos— are almost always, universally, CONSTANTLY silent abt prison-industrial complex slave/underpaid labor "insourcing,” or human trafficking victims’ exploitation into debt slavery as a human rights matter, or, like, the cheapness of bananas or canned fruit or rice as an extension of globalized agribusiness’s exploitative practices… it’s not JUST a matter of “the work americans don’t want to do,” it’s that they’d rather not have to pay for it or think about it at all while collecting a paycheck themselves, and they blame the “injustice” of not getting their way on that on “foreigners,” bc xenophobia is easier than campaigning for workers’ rights locally + worldwide, or criticizing the wealth disparities of free market capitalism & labor devaluation.)