#but no matter where i'm working in january...... i need to do the exam

[chaoswillcalmusdown]

i keep thinking about how my (assumed) adhd symptoms have gotten way worse since i switched from a workplace i liked to one i really don't like. my motivation is at an all time low and the executive function is just gone. every day i'm like 'oh wow that's 5 things i need to do and now i have less time to do them. yay'

[devourbabydevour]

@jegulus-microfic, October 1st, Cemetery, 819 words, cw: light suggestions of violence and innuendo

Jegulus: Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU: "I May Be Dead, But I'm Still Pretty."

“Get lost, James. What part of vampire slayer don’t you get. See this pointy thing? This. Goes. Here. Quit skulking around here all the time. I am trying to work”

Regulus Black, cheerleader by day, vampire slayer by night (and also sometimes by day) points at James’s chest with an accusatory finger on the last word. A chest which is far too exposed for a cemetery after midnight in January.

Even though, it’s Sunnydale there's seasonally appropriate chill in the air and anyways Regulus does not need to be subject to potter’s pomposity — promiscuity even!

Whose chest glistens in the moonlight like that, anyway? It’s obscene is what it is. Regulus does not need these distractions. Between Barty’s latest demon related schemes and Evan’s dabbling in witchcraft, Regulus needs no more to deal with. That plus his parents ever increasing draconian punishments and restrictions he is constantly having to jump hoops to get around to keep up with slaying duties. His parents would rather bury their heads in the sand than face what's right in front of them-- and won't tolerate anything but the same from their children. Since Sirius left they were paying even more attention than ever to Regulus. He felt just about ready to crack. Plus exams are ever looming.

And to top it all off for some reason Potter seems hell bent on bothering him.

Pestering him--even. With small talk. And little glances. Always popping up, thinking Regulus needs something from him— be it a more accurate translation of yet another apocalyptic text (his own language skills are just fine enough to read: "you are all fucked, must be Tuesday" in many a language --thank you very much), or he'll try to help decipher the latest news of who might have come to town this week (but Regulus has that covered, knows a thing or ten about how to grease the right palms for information) --or worst of all --the incident last month with a last minute rescue from some damn vamps.

As If.

Regulus totally had that nest of vampires right where he wanted them --even if he was momentary tied up when James arrived.

Regulus has a damn job to carry out and he does it well. McGonagall and Dumbledore say he's best slayer in a generation. Thing is there's only one slayer in a generation. But a slayer's life is so short he supposes they've both seen their fair share of slayers by now.

He doesn’t need Potter’s help. It might not be a job he chose but a boys got to what a boys got to do. And Regulus has no say in the matter. When McGonagall showed up and spelled it all out for him Regulus — the golden child (the one his parents had created of convenience and their own desires for him) had resisted tooth and nail but ultimately when creatures of the night keep knocking down your door and the ones you care about are in danger -- It’s time to face up to the inevitable.

“Is that so? Then why don’t you do it already, love? And what was that? James-- that’s the first time you called me that-- used my name I mean. I think I'm seeing god right”

Scoffing "Well don’t get used to it Potter. And anyway I think that ship has sailed Potter. The already dead don't get to go to one of the nice places. But if you want to push your luck and continue trying to offer "your so called help" then I'm willing to bet there's a warm and cozy spot somewhere far, far away waiting for you that I'm happy to help send you to."

"Oh, love. I may be dead but I'm still pretty. And Regulus Arcturus Black, I don't think you need my help. I just love spending time with you. I like your quips and your threats and your power. It's incredible, I-- "

And no none of that. Regulus doesn't need Potter talking such nonsense. No. More. Distractions. Especially from conniving, meddling vampires who are also dirty brother stealers.

“Just give me one reason at all and you’ll be tasting wood. The only reason I haven’t dusted you yet is because Sirius likes you. And trusts you. For some reason. But make no bones of it—

James interrupts to start to say "I knew you still loved your brother, enough to spare me even."

Regulus pulls a dagger out of his thigh holster and presses the tip of it to James clavicle. Knocking him against a behemoth of a stone scene of the crucifixion. Name engraved at the base reads: “Salazar Slytherin”

“I will slice and dice and not think twice.”

“Kinky, pet. You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these nights” James presses a cold hand to his cold chest as though in awe.

“Fuck off, Potter. You don’t have a heart.” 

[that-basket-case]

*in Fez's voice*

hello my Amedican friends, or friends from the west 👋 i am in need of your help

Can anyone explain to me how does the USA school system works, specifically how does the gang go through their school life, from childhood to end of high school (late 60s right? until 1978, right?) ? How long does it take to graduate? How do they graduate, how is it measured? How long is the holidays? Does age matter? And so on

Here's how where I'm from (southeast asia region) works, our system are based solely on the year and our age:

4-6 years old, kindergarten (non compulsory but extremely encouraged)

7-12 years old, primary school. Where for each age we call them "standard". School year starts from January until November of each year, with a couple of short term breaks in between. There's no long term break because by hook or by crook curriculum must be finished by November.

Age 7: Standard 1, age 8: Standard 2, age 9: Standard 3, and so on until your in Standard 6 (age 12) where you'll finish primary school with a compulsory national final exam, only then you can receive "finished-school-certificate".

13-17 years old, secondary school. Same time frame (Jan-Nov) but just change the term "standard" to "form".

Form 1: age 13, Form 2: age 14 and so forth.

You'll graduate ONLY after PASSING the national final exam which takes place from late November to December of the year of your Form 5 (everyone is still age 17). Does who don't pass must retake in order to receive their diploma.

So yeah, we focus on age and the year.

That's why I can't wrap my head around the USA system. I don't understand how grades work, how 18 year olds can still be in school, how LONG and frequent the breaks are, etc.

It bothers me cause FOR THE LONGEST TIME, this is the thing that keeps holding me back. I can't write my stories if it setting in/during school cause my understanding of the USA academic system is poor to zilch. The show's timeline is not helping at all lol 😭 I really appreciate all the help I can get 🥺

[hugee0715]

2018

January

2 weeks into the year I cut my hair, probably like 80% of it. Which I quickly regretted. It just seems like every year starts with me doing something to myself, except this one. This January there'll be no surprise, promise.

I also had to decide what schools and courses I wanted to apply to until the 15th. So being the person that I am, at 23:20 on the 14th I submitted all the forms. Earth science, civil engineering or software engineering? I had another 6 month to find out which path my life would take.

February

This photo was taken at around 6 in the morning when I was on my way to a nearby city to take a language certification exam. I was so nervous because I was going into the C1 level right away, basically blindly with no exam experience whatsoever. I remember arriving and meeting 3 other girls who were there for the exam too. We started chatting and they all said that they took the B1 level previously because their teacher advised them. One has already failed, this was her second time. One was there with a whole book of exercises. They all looked so prepared and for a moment I panicked. If I were to fail that day, I'd have had 40 less points for my university application. And a lost bet with my girlfriend. But I didn't fail neither of those.

I also got my girl into MBTI that month, which quickly became the new astrology of our relationship. ENFP-INTP pairing. Cute, huh?

March

This was the month where I kind of chilled down for a moment. It was totally unjustifiable but I still did, thinking I've got plenty of time still till exams would start. I was going to school, doing some small preparations but nothing major.

April

Now this was the month where I regretted all the laziness back in March. My days were counted and I know that makes it sound like I was about to be executed but that's exactly how I felt.

On top of that, in the middle of the month my mum got hospitalized suddenly. It was supposed to be just a check but they didn't let her leave after it. My days were spent with visiting her instead of going to school. She scared us shitless but slowly she started getting better with each day and by the second week she was already coming home.

May

Oh May. I had graduation right at the beginning of the month and 2 days later my week of exams started. A peaceful image of my table right before maths exam. 20 minutes later it wasn't as peaceful anymore.

School ended for good and we had a monthish time before the second part of it all, which are the oral exams.

June

So many papers, hundreds of pages littered everywhere. Stress, overthinking, contemplating why I even applied for software engineering when I was so sure I'd fail the comsci exam, procrastinating, some self pity and over all panic.

One of the exceptions was this day, my mum's work did a little event. They work with old people, helping handicapped elders. A school building full of people who long left the classrooms, doing all kinds of crafts, little games and even some shooting outside. We sat around painting on glass, doing things we probably haven't done together in like a decade.

29 out of 50 so be careful, sharp shooter right here.

July

The 25th came around and at 20:00 sharp the point limits went live. The website instantly crashed by the tens of thousands of people and my blood was loudly rushing inside my head. Once it finally let me in I was scanning through the names of the different universities, then different faculties and lastly the different courses. Earth science. 290. Less than the previous years. A lot less actually. I got into the place I wanted to so badly. I got in by a ridiculous amount of points.

August

An accidental snapshot of my feet while I am having a mediocre melt down in the middle of a bridge over the Danube. The morning started horrendously, I left my student ID at home but I only realized it on the train. Which meant I couldn't buy discounted tickets but I didn't have enough money for the full price ones. So I called mum who called a friend who has a car that they have to come to the city with my ID within 20 minutes because if I miss the train I'll be late and won't be able to enroll to uni. That got solved last minute when they arrived 4 minutes before the train left, which then arrived to Budapest an hour late, the tram was out of service so I took one of the replacement busses but they only went till the Pest end of Petőfi bridge. Which meant I had to walk over when I was already running late so we could very well say that I was done at this point with life and everything.

September

With this picture we can confirm that I wasn't late for enrollment. This is the place most of my days are spent at. The days leading up to me having to move were filled with a weird type of anxiety. It wasn't the kind I was familiar with, it wasn't as scary. As consuming, as toxic. It was kind of exciting, like the feeling you get before getting on a roller coaster. My girl made it feel like that, the security of having her. If there's one good thing about LDR then it's the fact that I can literally have her anywhere with me and it feels like not much has changed. The calmness that this gave me was beyond understandable. I still had her, so there was no need to panic.

Of course it was still a little challenging, the whole change in our schedules and although it sometimes got a little frustrating, she was understanding and I need to thank her for being my safe spot, for making me so brave when I used to be so scared. Without her I would have never been able to do this and she knows that.

October

This is my view everyday when I go to work and back home. A city of so much magic and beauty and also a city that I can't wait to share with my love.

We had our first anniversary. A whole year of being together. I got off of work just in time before it turned midnight in the Philippines. I had a bag of cookies I made the previous day to show, cute, heart shaped ones. Maybe it wasn't the most ideal way or how I imagined it but the meaning behind it is still the same. A year of loving eachother, slowly changing, slowly realizing who we truly are as a team.

November

I made that! My job's description would most likely be miscellaneous. I stand at the counter, make coffee, help customers, sometimes clean or go to the post office, I'm responsible for the paper bags and cups, but on the weekends, I bake. I spend all my Sundays there quietly doing my job. Cookies, pies and as it was getting closer to Christmas gingerbread as well. I had the most tiring days, one time I spent 12 hours there building 6 of these trees and around another 400 of normal figures. My hands got inflamed by the end of the night because of all the icing I had to squeeze out. But nonetheless this is a good first job. I get to learn around really nice and helpful people. Not even mentioning all the free food I get.

December

A happy girl living a more challenging life than ever but still enjoying it like it's nothing.

Decembers are nice. I think back to all the things that happened this year and how different they were compared to last year. I was whining for 66.66666% of the 2017 post. And for the 2018 one all I can think about are the good good things that happened. None of the bad matters. I had one of the worst and one of the best years of my life after one another. No doubt about that.

So yeah,

2018 was a year that will truly be missed. I loved it. But no need to mourn anything because 2019 will give me even more things to write about at the beggining of 2020. Not to even mention 2021. This is far from the end.

[secret-realm]

I'm sorry for doing this after such a long time, but just now I actually came here to write.

During the first of January I was having my last exams of the term. Then, the week after (last week) I went on a trip.

On Monday, I went out to find a job (I wasn't lucky tho because they didn't call me, but I'll keep searching) and these last few days I have been here... Not doing much, which makes me feel bad because there're a lot of things I want to do. I haven't even posted any writing. Anyway, that's not the point...

>> What I want to say is that I hope you have a peaceful year. It doesn't need to be something out of this world, but good enough for you to always stay safe and healthy. I wish you all the best in this new journey. I hope for you to be able to overcome what pushes you down. It is not going to be easy, that's for sure. And it may take awhile to reach where we want to be, but it doesn't matter. This is not a race after all. So, let's take our time to keep working on ourselves to learn how to appreciate who we are.

I know how difficult it can be. Sometimes I too feel like there is no point in what I'm doing, and that I'm not enough. I really dislike the fact that the 'sometimes' may be more frequent than I would like to admit. But I know that I am capable of doing what I want, if I keep working. That is what I want to believe. Even when things get hard. And maybe we may fall back to the start at some point, but we must believe in ourselves, right?

I believe in you, lovely people. And I hope you do to. Maybe not now, maybe in the future. Hopefully sooner than later, but eventually everyone will reach the place where they want to be. We'll get there. So, let's go in this journey. I hope we all get good experiences from all we're going to learn.

Please stay safe and healthy! Take care! 💜

Lots of love. Xx

-L🪐

ps. Last Saturday was my birthday (which reminds me that I must update my info because I'm now 22 🥳 and yes, of course I was looking forward to Mammon's call the most. Although, you could have guessed that, huh?) and I bought a new set of colours, so I'll try to start drawing those ideas I've had at the back of my head since a while ago.

I'm not good at drawing yet because I only draw sporadically, but I'll try to do my best when drawing my beloveds.

ps 2. The amount of times I've trying to post this from my phone?? I hope now it works since I'll do it from my laptop.

[selfcarecap]

Bless you, love. You're too sweet, I love talking to you as well. I'm literally always on here and see your posts. Even hearing you thinking of me makes my heart burst. How small interactions through anonymous messages have such a tremendous impact, to form some sort of companionship, will never cease to amaze me.

Yet after my little freak out the other day, where I got all anxious and panicky, I started getting reluctant to contact you. You were incredibly kind, and your reaction was nothing but thoughtful. I even prepared a novel-like response, in which I explained my sudden outburst and apologised for the inconvenience, as well as thanked you for your immediate comforting reply.

However, I felt too overbearing and conflicted with myself, which is why I threw this draft overboard and decided to provisionally stay out of your asks, at least for a little while. (= me still explaining where I was last week without reopening the novel-like draft no one asked for)

I hope you're doing okay? How's your second semester going? Did your initial anxiety die down, or are you still experiencing it? How did you adjust to your new schedule?

-sparkles

Sparkles 🥺 you don’t need to worry about stuff like that with me omg <3 ik easier said than done but :( this is gonna sound weird to say about myself but I’m genuinely a kind and forgiving person, I mean you didn’t insult me or anything (i genuinely don’t even remember what it was about... wasn’t it just a bit of a Meinungsverschiedenheit? (lmao) that’s nothing you have to worry about or nothing that makes me not want you in my asks :( you can always message me and if i have a problem with you, you’ll notice 😭 but i can’t imagine what a kind person like you would have to do to really make me dislike you, if i already like you as much as i do i can’t imagine changing my opinion about you any time soon

I’m okay! I still get nervous about my only in person class even though it’s one of my favourite classes! Otherwise my anxiety has gone away SO MUCH within the last week and I’m so so relieved. I don’t want to be too optimistic but it makes sense that my anxiety is slowly dying down now that it’s the third week of uni (??) and I’m getting used to it. I’m still unsure about my classes though. I signed up for more classes than I’m supposed to this semester and I was thinking of dropping out of a few classes once the semester starts and I know which ones I like or don’t like but it’s currently not as much work as I thought it was going to be and I don’t really want to drop out of any classes in case I don’t get into them again next semester </3 I’ve written down when I have all my exams and how many assignments I have and how much I have to write and I honestly can’t tell if it’s going to be too much work or not. I don’t know the topics of the assignments yet either and have no idea if they’ll be more research based or I just have to talk about my opinion and interpretations which would be a lot less work. So I’m kinda struggling with that because I don’t want to overwork myself because it’ll just lead to bad results, but I don’t want to wait until January (which is when I’ll know all topics for my final assignments/papers) to decide if I’ll do all of them? Because I don’t want to go to classes for 3 months only to not do the final exams and maybe not get into the class next semester. Idk if I’m explaining it well but I don’t feel like going into the administration stuff of my uni xsldjsk😭

Another thing is my minor subject (I never know how to translate Nebenfach) that I started this semester (art history).... I’m very undecided. It’s just the third week but so far I’m not really enjoying it. It’s very weird because my professors are so great and the actual subject matter is so fascinating to me and yet I hate going to those lessons and I can’t imagine doing that shit for five semesters. I’m not a fan of any of the minors that my uni has for Anglistik but I have to choose one and I really enjoyed art in the Oberstufe so I thought I’d like it at uni too but I’m really not sure. The only other minor I’m interested in only starts during the winter semester so if I really realise that art history isn’t for me I would have to wait til my 4th semester (end of next year) to start that minor (I can’t really say what it’s called because it’s very specific to my uni and I’m already not the most careful person when it comes to personal information so sixhsksjsjs). I’d definitely have enough time to complete it especially with new covid rules regarding how long you’re allowed to study but :( I just wanna find a minor that I actually enjoy. And also I think I’d have to pause Anglistik for a semester or two to catch up on my minor and I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea. This is probably all really confusing and doesn’t make sense and I’m thinking way too far ahead, maybe I’ll start enjoying art history soon and it’ll all be fine anyway. (Lol that was a lot of... talking about myself shsks how are YOU?)