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lazypeachsoul · 3 years

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I wouldn't want to spend a minute lovin' anybody else.

Warnings: this fic has some sad moments and mentions of the blip. also kind of AU because I'm completely ignoring Natasha's canon end.

Word count: 4,2k (i got very carried away with this fic)

Summary: · Meeting the right person at the wrong time can be life changing when it doesn’t work out the way we desire. But if it's meant to be it will always happen, right?

A/N: This is my fic for the "Women of Marvel xReader Exchange" created by @marvelxreaderfanfictionfest . It was created for @im-holding-ontoyou and I hope you like it! gif by @natasharomanovgifs 🌼 ALSO; i haven't watched Black Widow yet so I'm sorry if something in this fic doesn't fit the new info we got about natasha.

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New York, 2015.

When you received the call from one of your bosses that you had a new case you would have never imagined how big that case would turn out to be.

You had been working for one of the most important law firms in New York for a year now, and you were getting kind of used to reading cases that would be narrated in the papers for months. Rich and entitled men, big divorces were they fight over who gets the yacht, one or two murder cases... if it revolved around the powerful people of New York city, your firm would get it.

When you got to the debriefing and were told that Tony Stark, one of the firm's most important clients, asked your team for assistance in the creation of some legislation with the newly created “Advanced Threat Containment Unit” you were more than surprised.

The events that the Avengers had caused (or saved us from, there were different opinions going around) in the small country of Sokovia were known all around the and it was only time before the most powerful officials asked for the regulation of ‘superhero activity’.

You weren’t important enough to actually attend the meetings that took place with the government, seeing as you had only passed your bar exam a little over a year prior, but you were deemed cheerful and nice enough to act as a nexus between the firm and the client.

For months you spent your days talking to Tony Stark and other members of The Avengers trying to explain what was being talked about. The first few meetings were a disaster, seeing as the mood was somber for the lives lost and nobody really understood your legal jargon. But slowly you started to transform your language and really tried to make the meetings as easy as possible for everyone present.

But who were you kidding, they really didn’t care about the meetings or the silly attorney being sent to explain something that was way above their paycheck. Well, at least Stark was gracious enough to set a coffee station with some pastries for the meeting. You were pouring the hot liquid into your to-go cup when your hand jerked and the hot liquid splashed your hand.

You could feel the sting of the burn but avoided further sudden movements trying not to make it worse. Before you could reach for a napkin to clean up the mess you made, a more dexterous and manicured hand reached for them and exchanged the hot cup in your hand for the bunch of papers.

“Careful, Stark always serves boiling coffee. I think it’s to mask that it’s not the best quality.”

You lifted your gaze from your hand and found a pair of deep green eyes gazing back. You would have thought that spending numerous meetings in the company of superheroes would make you less susceptible to their powerful auras, but being this close to Natasha Romanoff made your heart beat a bit faster.

“Yeah, I found out the hard way.” You joked, lifting your hand a bit. “You would guess one of the richest people in the world would actually serve good coffee...”

Seeing her crack a smile made you feel less tense. Sometimes you forget they are still normal people. Normal people who could kill you with their bare hands and had superhuman powers. She placed your cup on the food table, apparently not bothered by how hot it must have been, and pushed her hand in your direction.

“I’m Natasha Romanoff.” You wrapped your hand around hers and shook it, biting your tongue trying not to tell her of course you knew her name. “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself in earlier meetings, we were all trying to come to terms with what had happened.”

“No worries, I can only imagine how hard it must have been for all of you.” You nodded and tried to show her sympathy, trying to avoid thinking about all the lives affected by the fight. “Oh sorry, I’m-”

Natasha quickly cut you off, speaking your name before you could even say it. You could feel your cheeks get warmer at the idea that they actually knew who you were, and she probably could sense your mood change because she quickly explained.

“I know who you are, you send us at least two emails a week about these meetings and FRIDAY always announces you before you arrive.”

“Who announces me?” You asked curiously at the mention of a name you recognized.

“FRIDAY. It’s the name of Stark’s AI technology. It works all around the tower and it’s there to make life easier for everyone.” She explained pointing around at the speakers strategically placed around the room.

“Oh, I get emails from Friday sometimes. Most of them are asking me to translate or explain something about the debriefing because Mr.Stark is not interested in legal terms.” Both you and Natasha laughed at the thought.

But she quickly recomposed and tried to look serious again when she heard her teammates coming in to get ready for the meeting.

“I wanted to ask you about that. Do you think we could schedule a meeting so that you could explain some things about the legislation of the A.T.C.U.?” She spoke lower than she had when the two of you were alone and you wondered why she didn’t want her colleagues to know about the meeting.

“Ye-Yeah, of course I can.” You were confused but thought it would be in your best interest, and the firm’s, to say yes to the proposal. And a meeting with a very attractive and definitely interesting woman was not something that happened constantly for you.

“Great, thank you.” She smiled warmly and squeezed your hand that you hadn’t even realized was still wrapped around hers from the introduction. “I can promise you better coffee.”

You could only hum in response, still trying to piece together what she might want from the meeting. But your thoughts were quickly cut off when Stark entered the room and you moved to start the reunion.

During the entire meeting you could feel the dull pain in your hand from the scorching coffee and the feeling of a pair of green eyes watching your every move.

Vienna, 2016.

The situation had only gone downhill from the Battle of Sokovia. The public’s opinion on the Avengers was at an all-time-low and that made terrorist groups bold. They knew that if they struck and caused enough chaos, the blame would fall on the good guys that tried to stop them.

The only thing that seemed to be a stable thing in your life was Natasha. Well, as stable as dating a superhero might be. She was busy a lot, but you understood the importance of her job and you were quite busy too gaining importance within the law firm.

And even if sometimes terrorists and criminals got in the way you still found a moment to spend together, wrapped around each other without having to think about how messed up life was.

You thought Lagos was the blow that would make everything tumble, the Sokovia accords were unveiled and it broke the Avengers, and your girlfriend. You could feel how torn she was at her decision of some of her friends to oppose the signing and go on the run, and her own decision to subordinate to the United Nations mandate. But you realized how small that had been when king T’Chaka was killed at the UN.

You had been at the UN as part of the USA legal team that participated in the writing and monitoring of the accords. Your participation in the negotiations almost broke your relationship but you were able to recover once you explained your position and Natasha actually came to an understanding of it.

Natasha was also in Vienna when everything went down, you hadn’t managed to properly see her because she was one of the signers and they sat at the assembly while other guests sat at the amphitheater watching the retransmission.

You hadn’t been able to properly see her all day, seeing as she took a detour before flying to Austria. You were only able to communicate through texts where you tried to make the situation more comfortable for her and she promised a peaceful european trip to celebrate the signing.

When the bomb went off and all hell broke loose the first thing you tried to do was look for her, she was at the epicenter of the explosion and you just wanted to see if she was okay. You saw her from afar when you were being pushed to the outside of the building while they swiped the perimeter.

She sat with T’Challa before he jumped from the bench and stomped away. Natasha looked around and your gazes crossed, immediately melting away some of the worry. You tried to push your way through the crowd to get to her, but police and security didn’t budge.

You never took your eyes off of her, scared that if you did she would disappear. But she did move her gaze to her phone and the look that crossed her face when she heard the voice at the other side told you it was a very important call.

Once the call was over and she looked at you again you knew that would probably be the last time you would see her in some time. You hadn’t known Natasha as long as some of her colleagues had, but you could proudly say you could understand what she wanted to say with just a look. And the look on her face in that moment read close to a goodbye.

New York, 2018.

It had been two years since the fall of Helmut Zemo and part of the Avengers was still on the run. And it maybe wouldn’t have had that big of an impact on you if it wasn’t because Natasha had also been on the run for that long.

You had heard about what happened at the Leipzig airport and how Natasha had changed alliances to join Captain America’s fight. You had been heartbroken at the news knowing that any resemblance of normality that you still hope for was destroyed.

You had spent months wondering what had made her change her mind. Had she thought about your conversations about the accords? Had she even remembered you, waiting for her back in New York, when she decided to go on the run?

A part of you tried to convince you of how selfish thinking about that was, why would she think about you when the future of her team and friends was at stake? But also you were her girlfriend, she should have thought about the implications that might have had for you.

In those years you had mourned your relationship and after the grieving period you tried to rebuild your life. New friends, a new position and new chances to take. And it went okay...at least until someone opened their mouth to talk about superheroes or The Avengers. Years down the line and it was still on people’s minds.

On special occasions you would receive anonymous gifts at your office or your apartment. The first birthday after the war you sobbed for fifteen minutes when you saw the bunch of flowers. There was no name or indicative of who might have sent them, that was until you looked better at the card and saw the small red hourglass painted in the corner.

The gifts continued. Every case you won, promotion, birthday or holiday a bunch of flowers would be delivered to you with the same note.

In a way it gave you a sense of peace knowing she was okay and still thought of you. But the more you thought about it the angrier you got at how she had left you.

You didn’t expect a message from your boss to run to the Avengers compound and assess some situation between Coronel Rhodes and Thaddeus Ross. Although the team had crumbled, your company was still hired to legally represent the remaining members and moderate situations that might arise with the government.

You entered the compound expecting another bureaucratic complaint about their activity but you found a trickier situation. The meeting room was filled with people you thought you would never see again.

Captain Rogers was sitting on one of the chairs sporting a new look that made you almost not recognize him and a tense demeanor. Next to him was Sam Wilson, looking around at the smallest of movements and trying to assess the situation. Wanda Maximoff was standing on the furthest corner of the room playing with her rings, meanwhile Vision was apparently being checked out for a wound. What kind of wounds a synthezoid could get was beyond your understanding.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, I might have angered Secretary Ross during a meeting.” Rhodey came up to you with a nervous smile.

You had gotten closer to him thanks to your job seeing as he was the one doing the dirty superhero work.

“Yeah, I got that much from the text. Nothing new then.” You tried to joke to diffuse the tension in the room. “It would have been nice to know you had guests though.”

“We are not guests. Last time I checked this was our home too.”

That voice made your blood freeze. You should have expected her there, all her friends had returned and the chance of her being back too was almost 100%. But hearing her voice again after two years was not something you expected.

You bit your tongue before you could talk about how it’s not a home if you abandon it, but decided against it. This was a fight between them, not Natasha and you.

“I need you to work with the government to avoid this situation becoming a disaster.” Rhodey explained and you scoffed.

“Rhodey, I’m a lawyer not a politician. I have as much power in this as you might have.” You tried to lay your point across but it was difficult with all eyes on the interaction. “Hell, I have even less power than you do.”

“Then I need you to distract them enough to get them off our shoulders.” He pressed. “Something big is coming and we need all the strength we can get.”

You thought about it for a moment. If it was true that something big was coming, the Avengers were the best option to fight it.

“I’m in.” You scoffed at his smile and sat down in one of the chairs of the meeting room. “I’m not ready for the world to end yet.”

The meeting went on for a while. You called bosses, government officials and everyone that would listen to your distractions. You sent emails that would flood their inboxes for days so that they couldn’t read any news that might reach them about what the superheroes had in mind.

It was late at night when a cup of steaming liquid was placed next to you. You looked at it and saw that it was some kind of herbal tea, probably made to relax the drinker. You followed the hand that was still holding the mug until you reached Natasha’s face.

You had done your best to ignore her looming presence in the room but now there was no distraction. Looking at her you could see tiredness in her face. She was platinum blonde now, a look that weirdly suited her, but her face still looked as welcoming to you as it always did.

You tried to stop the flashbacks to the last time you saw it in person in Vienna, but they kept replaying in your head until her voice broke you out of the loop.

“I thought you might need it, I remember how nervous calls used to make you.”

She was smiling but you could tell it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Yeah, I guess I got over it since I got my promotion. Now I spend a long portion of my day making calls.”

She hummed and sat down next two you, but leaving a chair in between you as a safe space.

“I read about it in an article, I sent you flowers to celebrate.”

“I got them. And the Christmas ones. On my birthday too.” You enumerated the times you had gotten the plants in the past two years. “You must have spent an awful amount of money buying me so many flowers.”

“You deserved it, you still do.” She shrugged and that’s when you noticed she had her own mug of warm tea in her other hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to celebrate with you.”

You laughed into your mug sarcastically. Out of everything you expected her to say this wasn’t one of them.

“Did you really? Because you didn’t seem to consider me much when you went on the run for two years.”

Natasha paled when she heard your tone. She probably wasn’t used to situations like these but you weren’t going to let her go without an apology at least.

“I was trying to do the best for-”

“-for the world. I get it, Natasha, I do.” You tried to contain your emotions but it was getting harder with every word. “Relationships are supposed to be teamwork. I know you are always too busy playing heroes and I never judged you for that, I just wish you would have trusted me enough to tell me before you disappeared.”

She was silent and knowing Natasha it’s because she was probably overwhelmed with the display of feelings. But she needed to hear how bad you had felt.

After minutes of waiting for an answer from her and getting nothing but sighs you shook your head and looked back at the computer screen.

“I guess it was a case of the right person, wrong time.” You shrugged trying to find distraction in the flurry of letters in your email inbox. “Or at least it was for me.”

She got up from her seat without a word and you grew exasperated. Why had she even approached you if then she wasn’t willing to have an adult, two sided conversation? She was almost at the door when you heard her voice again.

“Please never doubt how much I love you. I made some bad choices but dating you was not one of them.”

New York, 2024.

Time apparently flies by when you are erased from the face of the earth. One day you are in your office working late and the next you appear five years in the future with no recollection of what might have happened.

You were taken by authorities to impromptu camps and one by one examined to check your identities. The entire thing seemed to be something out of one of the dystopian novels you used to read as a teenager.

When it was your turn you gave them all the information you had on what had happened. You had given them your name and personal information and apparently had been a very searched person because the computer started beeping as soon as your name was introduced in the database.

You were moved to a secluded part of the camp and kept in an isolated room for god knows how long. Your stomach was in knots during the entire situation and you could feel the cold sweat on you. That mixed with the metallic taste on your tongue you knew this time your anxiety was justified. You were almost dizzy because of how hard you were thinking about the entire situation and trying to make sense of it.

When you heard the door of the room open you jumped up, discarding on the floor a makeshift blanket that had been placed on your shoulders when you got there. Your legs almost gave out at the movement and your heart felt like it was going to burst out.

The door opened enough for you to see who had been searching for you. Natasha stepped through the door still dressed in her tactic gear and with tiredness written all over her face. But that feeling seemed to almost disappear when she finally saw you.

With quick movements she stepped into the room and wrapped her arms around you tightly. For some reason that action was the trigger that you needed to let all your emotions consume you.

You started sobbing uncontrollably at the unknown. You didn’t understand what happened or how you are here, but feeling her embrace helped you feel safe in a way. It had been years since you last hugged her but it still felt as good as back in 2015.

You could hear Natasha’s soothing shushes in between your sobs and you moved to hold her tighter.

“You are here. I can’t believe I found you again.” She spoke softly and you didn’t know if she was speaking to you or herself. “It’s okay darling. I’m here and I’m not letting you go again. I promise.”

And with that promise a ray of hope made way between all the fear you felt.

Missouri, 2025.

Soft music could be heard all around the ground floor of the house. The soft beat was upbeat enough to get the morning started but not enough to be overwhelming if you had just woken up. You were sitting on the kitchen island looking at the news on your phone and having breakfast.

Mornings were usually very calm around the homestead and you couldn’ be more thankful for that. It allowed you to silently prepare your breakfast and coffee and get a headstart on Natasha’s breakfast too.

Since she had retired, Natasha had discovered a newfound love for sleeping in and you didn’t dare to take that away from her. She deserved it from all the work she had done in her life.

You, meanwhile, tried to get up early to scroll through the cases that you got in your new and smaller job and schedule meetings or emails.

It was a Saturday so work wasn’t a thing and you could actually enjoy your toast and coffee in peace. Or at least until a pair of arms wrapped themselves around your middle and pulled you back against Natasha.

“Good morning baby, how did you sleep?”

“Like a baby.” You could feel her smile when she kissed your cheek from behind. “You weren’t there when I woke up though.”

You shrugged before moving to get a bite out of your toast. Natasha tried to do the same but you quickly moved it away from her with a smile. She tried again and you moved as fast as your reflexes allowed you.

“C’mon baby, give me a bite” “No, it’s my toast. You can make your own.” “But it tastes better when you make it.” “No it doesn’t, don’t be lazy.”

The playful fight continued for a few moments until she got close enough to get a small bit but you moved it again.

“Don’t make me bite you, darling.”

You chuckled at her threat and plopped the remaining toast on the plate in front of you. Breakfast didn’t matter much anymore. You threw yourself into her arms and pressed your lips against hers. It wasn’t a slow and sensual kiss, it was closer to how small kids smooch their parents. But you knew it would convey your love more deeply.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Nat.” You spoke against her lips and squaked when you felt her playfully nip at your bottom lip.

“Is now a good time?”

That question had become recurring in your household, a nod to the phrase you said when you found eachother again after being separated the first time.

“I couldn’t think of a more perfect time.”

And you couldn’t. The rest of your life spent in a homestead with your girlfriend and whatever life might bring? It sounded absolutely delightful.

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moderndayshinigami · 4 years

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Here's chapter 2

So. All Might," She smiled over the top of her coffee cup. They were perched atop a building, watching the traffic below them. He glanced over, taking a sip as she collected her thoughts.

"Hhmm. I'm trying to think of things I can ask you that I can't just google... Umm... Favorite color?"

"Yellow. You?" He smiled.

"Mm, blue. How does your hair stay up like that?" She queried

"I lather rinse and repeat every time," he joked. She punched him in the shoulder.

"Why are you such a freeaboo?"

"A what?"

"What's with the American antics?"

He took another sip of tea and shrugged, "i grew up with a American hero movies. Thought it would be great."

"And?" She prompted.

"And?" He asked.

"Is it great? Being a hero?"

"...The best," he beamed. They sat in silence for a few moments, enjoying the sunshine and street noise. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and plugged in headphones.

"Am I being boring? Is she gonna leave? Oh shit, I blew it." All Might thought, panicking.

"Here," she offered a tiny earbud to him, scooting closer. All Might blinked and accepted it, confused.

"I love music, can't go a day without it," she sighed, scrolling through miles of playlists. She found one she liked and hit play, an unfamiliar American song played gently in the background as they returned to people watching. It added a touch of romance to the scene, All Might thought, leaning closer. She smiled and kicked her feet as they dangled over the edge.

"I used to be afraid of heights," she said suddenly, peaking down between her feet, "well, of falling from those heights, I guess."

All Might looked down too, all he saw were people and cars, nothing to be afraid of. He did spot a purse snatcher though. He gently handed her the earbud, "I'll be right back, don't move," he said, settling his drink next to her. He dropped to the street and apprehended the hooligan with little effort. Handing him off to an officer on the next block, he jogged back to their perch. He looked up. Her feet bounced in a rhythm while she listened to her music and sipped her drink. He jumped up to retake his place. She handed him his drink and shuffled closer than before, so he leaned back on his hand, casually placed just behind her far side. She offered him the earbud again and he accepted.

"Shit," she spat a few moments later, jerking out of the calm they had created, "what time is it?"

"Umm, 3:30?" All Might asked, checking his phone. She stood, earbud falling from his ear as she gathered them both together.

"I gotta go. I'm supposed to do this panel for new creators. Um. Hang on, here" she offered him her phone, "put your number in, we can chat." He hesitated.

"I'm not supposed to give out my number... Fans and all that..." He mumbled, smile fading. She looked away and replaced her phone in her pocket.

"Oh. Sorry. Misread... The... Um situation," she cleared her throat, "anyway. I guess then I'll see you later. Some time. You can look up my channel, Valkyrie Cosplays. I usually read the comments so... Maybe we can... Yeah. Anyway. It was really nice to meet you, All Might," she babbled, shaking his hand before turning and running for the far edge of the building, leaping out into the air. A few seconds later, All Might saw her rise far above the buildings and shoot off into the distance.

"Good going, Toshinori. Can't give out your number? What an idiot," he mentally kicked himself for blowing it, "the first girl you talk to in months and you blow her off because of some silly rule." He shook his head and lept of toward the agency to file his reports for the day. He thought about music the rest of the night.

The next morning All Might turned on the radio during his morning workout. The trainer gave him a look, but said nothing as All Might added weights to the bar.

"Goooood mooorning, ladies and gents! I'm your morning host, Present Mic. And heeree we go, kicking off another ten songs in a row to get you through that early morning commute. But first, let's take a caller! Hey, you're on with the Mic! What's your name?"

"Hey. Can I request a song? Can we do this again by NightOwl? Going out to a certain big hero I worked with yesterday. If he's listening, I left you something where we had coffee. Thanks!" The caller said, hanging up.

"Well, looks like some hero's got a secret admirer! Good luck to him and to you, caller! Hey hero! Don't let that one get away! Here's Can we do this again by Night Owl kicking off our ten in a row and maybe somebody's love story," Mic said as the music began. All Might smiled as he lifted to the bouncy pop song. Maybe he hadn't completely blown it yesterday. He'd just have to go find out.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Ok, if he doesn't show up by 9, he didn't hear it and isn't coming," Valkyrie whispered to herself from her perch across the street. She was watching the building they had sat on the day previous hoping to catch a glimpse of the big blonde hero again. She had called the local radio station at 6, hoping to catch him working out.

"A guy like that had to workout, right?" She scowled. "Maybe not; maybe his quirk was just that good."

She sat on the roof, back against an air conditioning unit, waiting, headphones in her ears. At five to nine, she stood, dusting herself off, frowning.

"Damn. Guess he didn't hear it," she grumbled, stretching her arms above her head and packing away her music, "should I take it with me?.... No, just in case." She thought, turning back briefly.

She turned away, taking off from the to roof with a great flap of her wings. All Might watched her soar out of sight and smiled. He stood from his own hiding place down the block and lept over to their spot. He found a flash drive sitting on the wall, "For AM" written on the edge.

He flipped it over, finding a phone number written on it. He smiled, tucking the drive carefully into a pocket.

When he returned home that night he grabbed his laptop and crashed on his couch. He skimmed his official message boards and agency email before turning to yo_tube finding his new favorite channel.

" Hey, Feathered Friends! I'm still here in beautiful Tokyo for the Tokyo Blast fundraiser! I met sooo many cool creators here! Lots of new cosplay ideas too, so new videos should be rolling out when I get back home. I also met someone my Japanese fans probably know, All Might!" She held up a tabloid magazine featuring a photo of the two.

"He was super cool and awesomely nice! Maybe I'll do a fem-cosplay for next year's Blast. It would be awesome to represent such a cool hero. Leave your thoughts in the comments! Any other heros to meet or cosplay?" She looked at the magazine. "I have no idea what this says. Someone translate for me? Thanks so much! Here is the video of the Create and Craft for Noobs panel I was on today! Lots of great tips for beginners! Also, today's tweet along song, Can we do this again by NightOwl, check it out in the description below. I hope a certain hero is watching. He should totally message me on my social media. Byebye! Catch you on the fly!" She winked and gave a peace sign again before the video went to her panel video. He backed up and paused on her face, studying it. He pulled out the little flash drive looking it over again before plugging into his computer. He navigated into the drive's contents, finding a group of mp3s and a video file. He clicked the video.

"Um... Hey! I guess my plan worked, you found the flash drive! I couldn't stop thinking about you, so," she cleared her throat, looking away and blushing, "I made you a playlist." She was sitting in a hotel room, cross legged on the bed, dressed in shorts and a tank top, hair a little messy, like she had been asleep just before. He studied her face as she gathered her thoughts before speaking again, still looking away from the camera.

"All Might? It would be.... Um... Do you think we could.... I want to see you again. Maybe we could take some time to... I dunno, see the sights? Maybe just get another coffee and chat? You're easy to talk to. It's been awhile since I felt like I had someone to talk to like that..." She looked at the lens, giving a small smile. He felt a small flutter in his chest as she ran a hand over her hair, swinging her legs off the bed to take the camera over to the window of her room. She turned the lens to view the Tokyo sky line, just as the sun began to rise. He had watched that same sunrise on his morning run.

"It really is beautiful here. This city is amazing. I wish I could see more of it," she sighed off camera, her profile barely visible in the reflection on the window.

"I... Sorry, I'm rambling. Anyway, there is my cell phone number, so text me. If you want. I'll be here... waiting. I hope to hear from you. Um, bye? I guess for now." She turned the camera back toward her face, smiling before the video cut off. He replayed the video again, watching her closely. She seemed... Sad? No... Lonely. That was it. He played through a couple of songs. He recognized the one they'd listened to the day before, and the song from the radio, and a few more popular songs from the States. He pulled out his phone as he listened, pulling up the contact he had made for her earlier in the day. He opened his messaging app, pausing to think of something to write.

It's fine now, why? Because I am texting you!

He hit send before he could rethink the message. He stared at the phone, waiting. Nothing happened. He pulled out the flash drive and checked the number again. It was correct. He refreshed his messaging app. Still nothing. He laid his phone down on his leg and went back to yo_tube.

"Hey, feathered friends! Tokyo Blast is drawing to a close! Just one more day! I almost don't want to come home, I love this city! The food is soooo amazing, and you all know how I feel about seafood"

She made a sour face and laughed. "I might have to extend my trip by a day or two to see some sights! Would you guys mind too terribly? I promise lots of pictures and cool videos? If this video gets 10000 likes, I'll even eat one of those live octopuses" she shuddered and made another face.

He clicked the like button while she continued on

"So, I got someone to translate the magazine headlines for me. Apparently, All Might and I are secretly dating. To be honest with you guys, I would not mind that," she winked, "you know my type."

A few images of her pointing at muscular blonde men photoshopped onto the screen flashed by, obviously cropped from previous videos.

"But unfortunately, we are not an item. Even if it would be great, I have to come home to you all and make more videos! If we were dating, what would All Might and my ship name be? Anyway, my plan is to take a couple extra days after Tokyo Blast finishes up to sightsee and then I'll be flying home, so videos should be going up in a week or so with new props as well as a gift opening vid when everything ships home. I'll also live stream a couple sights as well as the octopus if you guys are feeling mean! Leave your thoughts in the comments! Here is a quick video of some of the awesome people I met today! Today's tweet along song is Zero to Hero from Hercules. Check it out in the description below. Byebye! Catch you on the fly!" She said, with the wink and peace sign. He sat back as her video from the convention played. He had seen the magazines during the day, but no press had bothered him about it. He scrolled down to the comments.

Take all the time you need! We love you!

Show us ur b00bz

Winged Victory!

Val Might

Eat the octopus, valkyrie! >:}

Vallmight

Wingd vic0ry

God leave All Might out of this your just lookign for subs

You 2 wuld b so cut 2gether! Val Might 4eva

He snorted at a couple, frowning at the more rude comments. All Might shifted checking his phone again. Still no response. Maybe he should just text her again with a 'hey, it's me'?

His phone buzzed with an incoming text. His hands spasmed and he flung it onto the chair across from the couch. He took a deep breath, gathering his wits before setting his laptop aside and grabbing his phone. He unlocked the screen.

Hey, AM! U up for a nite out? New club opening 2nite downtown

~Mic

He sighed harshly. It wasn't even her. He left the message unanswered and went back to his laptop. He clicked through her page, looking for popular uploads. He watched a couple of videos before he worked up the courage to search the name he wanted. He pulled up a new tab, typing in "Val Might" to the search bar. Several links popped up. Mostly news shots of them together after the robbery. There was one still frame of them sitting together on top of the building. They were dangerously close together, closer than he had remembered. He felt the flutter in his chest again. He went to images, most were the news shots, the dangerous picture featured prominently too. What he didn't expect was the fan art. The fan art made him blush. He closed the tab and went back to his fan site message boards, answering a couple questions and listening to his new playlist.

"Maybe she can make me a workout playlist," he mused out loud, bobbing his head to the rhythm. He closed his laptop, standing and stretching. He changed into workout clothes and went for his nightly run. He returned and showered, trying not to think of her sleep shorts and tank top as he did. Failing that, he cranked the water to cold half way through the shower. He toweled off, falling into bed with his phone, scrolling through her videos again. He found her liked videos, most of them being music. The most recent liked video was an old video, the face in the thumbnail all too familiar. He clicked it

I can't believe it! It's only been 10 minutes! He's already saved 100 people!

HAHAHA!

There he is!

It's fine now! Why? Because I am here!

He rolled on his side, stopping the video and staring into space. She went searching for him online the same way he had been. She found THAT video too. Why that one? He started to doze off, thinking about saving her from some faceless evil. The way she would look at him as he swept her up in his arms and kissed her. Her arms wrapping around his neck. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he pressed her against the wall and he--

Jerked himself awake from the dream, taking a deep inhale and releasing a shaky exhale. He looked at the time on his phone, 1 am. He also had a message.

#bnha all might #bnha oc #winged victory #melody

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architectuul · 5 years

Text

Boxing Boxes

is a temporary associated project of the last Lisbon Architecture Triennial, which was accepted by the community of the Portugal Novo neighborhood and in such way became a permanent public installation.

A drawing of the installation by © Daniel Languré

The Mexican architect Daniel De León Languré started this process of the social cohesion of the community of Olaias, a marginalized area of Lisbon, creating an open-air gymnasium that involved local agents and inhabitants. We meet Daniel in Lisbon during the official opening of the installation.

Where did you study and what did you learn in Mexico City?

Studying in Mexico City is like a huge opportunity, as the city is one of the biggest in the whole world and there is always an opportunity for experimentation in the field of architecture and arts. After finishing my studies at the university I tried to develop an office, where I could experiment in these fields. There is always a sense of tolerance in the architecture of Mexico City, sometimes due to the earthquakes, but also because of the lack of planning. One could learn how to take advantage of these things and experiment with them in order to find new solutions and answers.

Does have an education in Mexico a double meaning while there is a possibility to study either at the public either at the private university?

I think that there are some very good public universities, where you can learn a lot from very well-educated professors, which also studied abroad. UNAM is a huge public university, where you can meet a lot of people with different interests and that can enrich your perspectives. You can’t have this opportunity if you frequent a private university as the faculties are smaller and you can’t compare the resources of private and public institution.

Official opening of the installation. | Photo © Fabio Cunha

In your projects you work with communities therefore are your social projects like an urban acupunctures than built houses; Why?

I was always interested in the public realm but as a junior architect I didn't had a chance to make project in a legal or formal way. At the beginning I started to experiment with my colleagues, first we did some small experiments mostly payed with our owns salaries. We acknowledged that if want to make some changes, that would last longer and with a greater impact on our community, we should start to think in the kind of commissions that could be the ones we should look for in order to had better and stronger consequences. Well, there were none, we didn't win no competition. But maybe that was not even the right question to ask or at least that was not the one that interested us the most, and we started to work in self-committed projects. The project doesn’t need to be just buildings, we could work more with experiments.

You have been present at the Lisbon Triennial of Architecture 2019 with a project Boxing Boxes?

The project is much older that you have seen it in Lisbon. It has started as a research and finished as a build installation; a continuous steel tubular structure placed in a sand box in the Northern neighbourhood in Lisbon. We use a “Boxing Boxes” name to avoid the gym term. It is not a gym but an open typology. Some people mentioned me Lisbon Architectural Triennial and how the team would be compatible with the project and that is how we started to think in Lisbon as a place to materialize the research.

It was very difficult for me to manage this project from so far away but the it was a great help that the Lisbon team, composed mostly by the local young atelier Gato Morto and Ensaios e Diálogos Associação, explain me more about places and problematics. We had frequent reunions via Skype with organizational team of the Lisbon Triennial, members of the neighbourhood of Portugal Novo, boxing gym managers, among others. The Lisbon team had reunions with the neighbours to explain which demands were included into the design.

You were entering into this public space of the specific neighborhood in Lisbon?

The project is located in the Portugal Novo neighbourhood, a social housing complex done in the 1970s that has never been completed. It left homes, areas, educational and recreation facilities unfinished. People have told me that today is almost the same situation as it was in the 1980s. There is a sense that time hasn’t passed in 30 years. Due the irregularity of those settlements a great number of vulnerable African, Indian and Roma immigrants have come to occupy the neighbourhood and had difficulty with communication and interaction.

Most of the strength of the project is due the location. In the beginning I had an idea that maybe the project could be placed in a more central place in Lisbon or even close to the main museums like MAAT Museum near the river. But later we felt that if it was there it could almost betray its own principles. We were searching for a place with the power of negotiation where community shall benefit from the project and accept it because they had a lack of infrastructure.

Just before we selected Portugal Novo as a definite point of intervention was the help with the Lisbon team that told me more about the neighbourhood, their experience in knowing some of the actual neighbors, the possibilities of a greater impact for both the team, neighbourhood and Trienalle and finally the interest associations such as Aga Khan Foundation had in the implementation of a temporary project there.

What is important in the planning of the project?

The most important thing I believe is the management. I was always afraid that the people from the neighbourhood might think on why should they accept a project from a strange Mexican guy, who has ambitions to experiment in their neighbourhood and invade their public space. Sometimes they were asking if they will need to pay for the use of the installation or if they will need tickets to use it. They also asked if it is going to be temporary or permanent and we were not clear about the answers. That shows how fundamental were the management skills of both Mexico City and Lisbon team towards the community. We involved their wishes into the design, supporting their needs to modify the installation if they want. I was also communicating with people after and before the inauguration not to make them feel being used as now the installation is theirs.

How did you communicate with the audiences to attract them into the project?

Online, with calls also writing many emails. We as a team from Mexico City and Lisbon try to present them the project together. For example: I made some architectural images in order to present the project, but these images were understandable only for architects and not for general public. Therefore, after some conversations I had to make some other images, texts and strategic communications thinking in a broader public.

I landed in Lisbon one week before the opening, the installation was built in four days. It was very quickly. I wanted to be there when the first type was installed because I could solve doubts and be able to meet and talk with the neighbours. I was able to take care of the installation but also to be aware of the people that were exploring it. In few days we were in Portugal Novo many hours per day trying to have the best results.

We organized some reunions, meeting and introduce the idea to the president of the neighbourhood and to some other important social actors. Finally the opening was organized as a multicultural lunch that allowed people to know each other with the Triennial organizers, journalist, architects, neighbours, people that worked there. We wanted to do it in the horizontal way so we shared the common meal and time.

To talk and to listen. How did you communicate?

Sometimes in Spanish as some of the Roma immigrants who live there have a strong connection with Barcelona. Most of them know Spanish. With Gato Morto I used to talk in English, and since I know a little Portuguese, they were very kind and helped me translating whenever I neighbor wanted to talk with me. Sophia, Maddalena and Claraluz were very empathetic in that sense, maybe because all of us were actually all immigrants from Mexico, Brazil, Barcelona, Cabo Verde, India, etc.

Is temporality an advantage or a disadvantage in the implementation of this project?

In this case temporality was both an advantage and a disadvantage. A disadvantage when you realize you can’t plan activities in a long term the activities because originally in two months from the opening the installation was planned to be brought out. You have to schedule all in a few weeks or months. An advantage when you know that the neighbours might be willing to accept the project if you tell them that it will be there just for few weeks.

Thankfully, after the opening they had so many good opinions they started to think that this remporary project could become permanent. We first asked the community what they think about it and when they saw that so many children and adults were interacting with each other and the public realm was not about fighting with the immigrant group but about having a place to discuss common themes as a community, they were willing to accept it as a permanent one but with a possibility to modify it.

The most important thing in the whole story is probably that you got trust from the residents?

I believe there was a coincidence of getting the trust for the project but also getting the trust from the neighbourhood and the local authorities. I believe there were also a happy coincidence of factors such as the creation of a new local association of Portugal Novo and the search of some legitimacy through some nice and quick results. We manage to integrate a team with them and the communication was therefore much easier.

What shows the Boxing Boxes installation is that you succeeded to connect different generations in the public space; did you plan this or it just happened?

Although we didn’t plan it, it was in the wish list. We knew that the ambiguity of the installation could facilitate such connection. In the general perception if we had to assign one to each, a playground is more for children and a sport facility is more for adults. One of the greater assets of Boxing Boxes is that its open design can join both adults and children to enjoy a space like this. We wanted to soften and blur the difference between playing and practicing sport since the place gives a chance to experiment with people from another age, another immigrant group and another neighborhood.

Do you have, besides Gato Morto, some other person or group in Portugal Novo that you are still attached and you still communicate with?

Yes, one example would be Nuno Furtado. He was the president of the neighbourhood society of Portugal Novo called AMPAC Olaias. His family is part of the immigrant group from Cabo Verde and he told me that when he was a child in this neighbourhood, he always had to move to another neighbourhood in order to play. He was very excited about the opening, telling us how well the kids were playing in the installation and how he enjoyed the situation because there was a lack of public life in the streets, which makes the streets feel insecure. With kids playing the parents are somehow forced to be occupy the plaza during the night. All of a sudden, the night was also this time of play, sport and integration. After that he also started to play with children, that was one of the best moments that we had.

Photos © Hugo David

#architecture #Lisbon architecture triennial #installation #experiment #interview

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iohourtime · 6 years

Text

Kiokuya (Memory Man) - Novel Spoiler (Part 1)

*While the most literal translation of Kiokuya (記憶屋) is “Memory Store”, XX-屋 can also refer to XX-man, like Koroshi-ya means hit man. Since the story about a mysterious person, Kiokuya, it is more correct to go with the second translation: Memory Man.

You may have heard about Yamada Ryosuke being cast in a new movie, Kiokuya, which was adapted from the novel of the same name written by Origami Kyoya. (Here’s the official website and twitter.) The novel was released by Kadokawa Horror Publishing but was also described as a “love story” or “sad love story”. Yamada himself said that he read the novel and rather than it being “scary”, it’s more of a “human love story”. So what is it?

I’ve just read the Chinese version of the novel and I will summarize (and fully spoil) the plot after the cut. I only read the novel once, so some of the plot might be a bit jumbled, but it shouldn't affect the story. (Or it’s the work of Memory Man! ) Based on the synopsis of the movie, it seems like there will be some changes to the novel. I don’t think they’ll change the ending though. Anyway… final warning. Close this if you don’t want to be spoiled.

Novel Spoilers are divided into 4 parts due to length. Here are the links for the other 3 parts:

Part 2 - “at present 1″, “Episode 2″, “at present 2″ Part 3 - “Episode 3″, “at present 3″ Part 4 - “Episode 4, “Epilogue”

Sorry, this ended up being almost like an abridged version of the light novel. I’ll post the remaining parts over the next week. One interesting thing is that the author is a lawyer by trade and a writer in her spare time. That’s probably why the chapter headings have legal terms. (They were originally in English to begin with.)

If you can read Chinese, here is the link for the ebook on Kobo (available to Canadians). It’s also available on books.com.tw and actual bookstores in Asia. There is also a manga adaptation released by Gangan. You can access the sample chapter on here, which basically takes us up to the end of the first episode. I just want to say that they could easily use Yamada’s personal wardrobe for this character.

…………

Movie Synopsis:

University student, Yoshimori Ryoichi (Yamada), just proposed to his older lover, Sawada Kyoko (Renbutsu Misako). For some reason, he was not able to contact her the next day. A few days later, he saw Kyoko again, but she had lost all memories of Ryoichi. Unable to accept this, Ryoichi went looking for the truth about Kiokuya with his childhood friend, Kawai Maki (Yoshine Kyoko), a senpai and lawyer, Takaharu Tomoaki (Sasaki Kuranosuke). Is this the work of the urban legend, Kiokuya, a person who can take away people’s unpleasant memories.

Prologue

The first time Ryoichi heard of the Memory Man was when he was 3 years old. It seemed to be a popular folklore among the older people. Whenever one of them forgot something, his grandmother used to joke that the Memory Man must have “eaten” their memory

....

He saw a man wearing a long coat and an elementary school aged child. As the man touched her forehead, Ryoichi screamed “run”...

...

“Ryo-chan!” Maki shouted, waking him up from his slumber. His MAC was still on the urban legend forum and Maki saw this before he could close the browser. Maki was 3 years younger than Ryoichi and was currently in high school. They grew up across the street from each other and were very close.

Maki said, “Oh Memory Man. You're interested in him? You even did a timeline and everything!”

Ryoichi made some excuse about researching a paper for university about how urban legends started and spread.

Maki said, “Wow, the first sighting of Memory Man was 50 years ago? I only heard of him about a year ago. It’s a really popular urban legend among us high school girls right now. Do you want me to help?”

Ryoichi played it cool and pretended to be disinterested and finally managed to kick Maki out of his room. However, he wasn’t doing this to be mean - he just wanted to protect her from finding out about Memory Man. He was very sure she was one of the three people whose memory was erased by Memory Man. They both saw something when they were really young and Maki was inconsolable, but the next day, she was completely OK and seemed to have forgotten about it. He didn’t link this incident to Memory Man until a year ago when the second person he knew had her memory erased. And then there was a third person.

1st Episode: Notice (1 Year Earlier)

Ryoichi was invited by his senpais to this gathering. He didn’t really want to go because he felt uncomfortable being surrounded by upperclassmen, but he went anyway. Suddenly, another senpai walked in and sat nearby. Long haired, pretty, and carrying a pink bag, but in her hands were textbooks on psychology and neuro sciences. “Such a gap, and just my type!” Ryoichi thought.

“Are you a psychology student!?” They started chatting. They happened to both like the same baseball team, movies, etc… In other words, they totally hit it off. Ryoichi was thankful to the senpais who “forced” him to come. Then out of nowhere, Kyoko said she had to go. Ryoichi was shocked and thought it was him, but the other senpais said she didn’t usually come to these events and if she did, she would leave before it gets dark. Ryoichi kicked himself for not even getting her email.

Luckily, they were in the same class and Ryoichi saw her again. They were chatting again and talked about the urban legends Ryoichi was looking at. She apologized again for leaving and explained why she left so suddenly: she was scared to walk home in the dark by herself. While normally kinda passive, Ryoichi got this urge to ask her out.

“If we go watch that movie we both wanted to see right now, we can be done before dark. That's OK, right?” Ryoichi asked.

“Sorry, I can't today”

“How about Monday?”

“Sorry, I have something i need to do.”

Ryoichi was dejected. Kyoko added “Sorry, but I am very happy you asked me.”

Ryoichi bumped into Kyoko on Monday at the hospital and she finally confessed - she had been seeing a psychologist on Monday to treat her phobia and she felt ashamed for being so scared at her age. Kyoko said, “So, do I lose any points?” Ryoichi said, “You know, let’s go watch the movie and I will walk you home. You don’t have to be afraid.” Kyoko agreed reluctantly.

It was dark. Ryoichi saw Kyoko pulled out a rape whistle and mace. As they walked towards her house, they passed by this dark alley. Ryoichi felt Kyoko’s body tensing, her grip on her rape whistle and mace tightened. She said (somewhat ashamed) that she was once attacked while walking down a dark alley. Even though a passerby managed to save her from being raped, she developed a crippling fear of the dark and could not walk home by herself once it got dark. She knew it was psychological and had been seeing a specialist but it did little to allay her fears.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if I can just have that memory taken away?”, Kyoko said.

Ryoichi said even though he had no experience with being attacked, he swore he would help her conquer the fear. Kyoko nonchalantly asked about his research paper on Memory Man. She thanked him and walked into her house.

Ryoichi researched more about Memory Man for his paper. He found an urban legend forum and joined the chat group. Usually, urban legends are based on local folklore, or a real event that was distorted. The popular ones typically have a being with an identifiable feature or they have a scary element, i.e. something that could happen to you. Memory Man was different. It was pretty lowkey and was only popular in a specific region - his city. There were no description of memory man and he might not be bad. “Why would senpai mention Memory Man?”

Ryoichi and Kyoko started hanging out regularly and they would stay out later and later. 8pm, 9pm, 10pm... and Ryoichi would always walk her home right to the door. He decided one day that maybe she was ready to face her fears. It would be like teaching a kid to ride a bike and letting go once they are riding on their own. He said he was going to be at this student event, but when Kyoko got there, she found out he was not able to make it. (But he was checking upon her.) It was too late for her to leave before dark, so she took the subway to the nearest station. But she was petrified when it was time for her to go. She tried leaving but was too afraid and kept turning back to the station area. She finally decided she would just stay the night at the 24 hour restaurant right by the station. Ryoichi panicked when he saw how bad her fear was. He ran up to her and she realized what was going on. Rather than be mad at him, she was just mad at herself for being weak.

After that time, she started talking more and more about Memory Man. She became even more untouchable. Every time they walked together, she would hold her rape whistle and mace tight. She threw herself into the research of Memory Man.

Ryoichi too, started became more active in the forums when Maki disrupted him to borrow a DVD. They talked about what the high school students know about Memory Man. What’s Memory Man? A world class hypnotist? A being that can “eat” memories? If it’s all psychological, shouldn’t Kyoko senpai be able to conquer this by herself? (Meanwhile, Maki was all like - is she your girlfriend?)

One day, Ryoichi asked if she wanted to go out. Kyoko said, “No, there is something I need to do alone.” Ryoichi knew she was trying to meet Memory Man, who supposedly only shows up to people who needs him and when they are alone. He called Kyoko later, asking her not to do anything drastic or place her hopes on this urban legend that is probably not true. He said he would walk her home for as long as she needs.

Kyoko said “You know, it's useless. I'm paralyzed by fear. Even when I was walking with you, I was afraid every second of it. I know you are a nice guy, but even though I know you won’t hurt me, I was still nervous. My guards are up. I am very happy you’ve been helping me get home and that you worry about me. But I can’t do it. I know I can’t face you like this. I don’t want to only look at you as someone I rely on to protect me. I want to be able to just have a normal relationship with you.”

Ryoichi wanted to tell her to trust him, but he couldn’t get the message out. He also knew he screwed up. That he just wanted to be a knight in the shining armour for her and forgot about her actual needs. He was an idiot and an asshole.

The next night, he walked over to her place to try and apologize, then suddenly, he saw Kyoko emerged from the dark alley alone. How could this be?

He walked up to her and said “Sawada senpai. Why didn’t you come to school?”

Kyoko looked at him and said “Sorry, who are you?”

Ryoichi was shocked. “I’m your kouhai. We are in the same class together. I walked you home before.”

Kyoko was apologetic, laughing that she didn’t realize she was too drunk to remember him walking her home. She was like a new person and even said it was not dangerous walking in the dark in the residential area, since she could just scream if anything happened. “Your name is Yoshimori?” She confirmed and that was the end of the encounter.

The feeling of being completely erased from someone’s memory was a bombshell to Ryoichi. He suddenly remembered an incident from the past. Maki was crying, so Ryoichi took her to her grandfather’s. The next day, he asked if she was OK, but she completely forgot. It was like the incident was wiped off her mind. Now it was happening again with Kyoko. He was completely gone from her memories. His chest tightened and he had this uneasy feeling, disgust even, about Memory Man.

Ryoichi saw Kyoko in class a couple of days later. She was talking with friends about going to an alumni speaker event. The speaker was a young lawyer and supposedly quite hot. Ryoichi followed her… for some reason, he didn’t have the urge to go up to her and ask her to remember him. The lawyer, Takahara Tomoaki, told the attendants they could ask him anything.

Ryoichi asked “If someone lost their memory and it was caused by this person, will there be consequences?”

Takahara said, “You mean, are memories protected by law? Ethically, if it was done without consent, then it is wrong. But since this is not within the boundaries of criminal law, it will not be punished.” Kyoko had no reaction to this discussion about Memory Man at all.

Over the next year, Ryoichi never really talked to Kyoko again. He also saw her less and less. Maki started to get more grown up, but she was still hanging around Ryoichi’s room like she used to. Did Maki’s meet the Memory Man as well? Is it possible that two people in his life had their memory erased? Ryoichi became obsessed.

Takahara called him out of the blue. “Do you want to talk about Memory Man? You live near XXXX, let’s meet.”

How did Takahara get his phone number and know where he lived? He didn’t remember giving Takahara his number. Did his memory also get erased?

Ryoichi realized he may be the third known victim of Memory Man.

Continue to part 2

#Kiokuya #記憶屋 #novel summary #episode 1 #It maybe published as a horror novel but it's not horror #yamada ryosuke #yoshine kyoko #renbutsu misako #sasaki kuranosuke #origami kyoya

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kpopfanfictrash · 7 years

Text

Cordially, Jimin

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: You / Jimin

Rating: R (mentions of sex)

Word Count: 6,175

Summary: When you start work in your new office, the last thing you expect is a distraction. Especially not one as cute, witty and impossible to handle as Park Jimin. A story told through correspondence. (fluff + humor)

From: Park, Jimin

To: Kim, Namjoon

Subject: Process Documentation

Tuesday, October 10th [10:23 AM]

Nonconfidential, Internal Use Only

Hey, Joon! I was thinking about the spreadsheet you sent over this morning. Do you think we should add some sort of documentation to it regarding the employee’s training status? Just in case there’s overlap between the sessions. Let me know what you think but otherwise, I agree with your changes.

PS, are we still on for lunch?

All the best,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

From: Kim, Namjoon

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Re: Process Documentation

Tuesday, October 10th [10:45 AM]

Nonconfidential, Internal Use Only

‘Sup, Park.

Yeah, throw the training into the excel spreadsheet. The executives will likely want to know.

Lunch is good, but I can only do a half hour. I’m leaving early to take the girlfriend out to dinner.

Fondly,

Namjoon

Senior Analyst, Communications

555-0912

From: Park, Jimin

To: Kim, Namjoon

Subject: Re: Re: Process Documentation

Tuesday, October 10th [10:59 AM]

Nonconfidential, Internal Use Only

“’Sup, Park”? Dude, at least try to keep things professional. Who knows what HR monitors in our email.

... and is tonight the night you and Fal finally... you know?

Sincerest wishes,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

From: Kim, Namjoon

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Process Documentation

Tuesday, October 10th [11:15 AM]

Nonconfidential, Internal Use Only

I just leaned over to ask HR and Kim’s response was: “f*** no, I don’t monitor your email. What do you think I’m made out of, free time?” Then she threw up the middle finger.

Also, shut your pie hole about me and Fal. Talk about inappropriate work conversation.

Warmest thoughts,

Namjoon

Senior Analyst, Communications

555-0912

From: Park, Jimin

To: Kim, Namjoon

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Process Documentation

Tuesday, October 10th [11:21 AM]

Nonconfidential, Internal Use Only

Why’d you use asterisks if they’re not monitoring our emails?

Hugs and kisses,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

From: Kim, Namjoon

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Process Documentation

Tuesday, October 10th [11:29 AM]

Nonconfidential, Internal Use Only

Oh, right. Swearing is monitored. It sends a warning to IT, which sends an email to your manager. This is also triggered by writing s*x, pen15, or the jolly, green giant’s name.

Steer clear of those, Jiminie and you’ll be fine.

Ardently yours,

Namjoon

Senior Analyst, Communications

555-0912

From: Park, Jimin

To: Kim, Namjoon

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Process Documentation

Tuesday, October 10th [11:34 AM]

Nonconfidential, Internal Use Only

I thought you were the jolly, green giant? Tall, relatively new to the office (green). It fits. Ha!

Anyways, for lunch I thought we could meet – oh, sweet lord. Who is that?

F***. Got to go.

Cordially,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

From: Kim, Namjoon

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Process Documentation

Tuesday, October 10th [11:37 AM]

Nonconfidential, Internal Use Only

What? What?? JIMIN. You can’t just leave me hanging. Who did you see? What did you see? Was it something outside of your office window? Is the Avengers finally happening? Is the city under attack?

... I’m going to k*ll you at lunch.

Impatiently yours,

Namjoon

Senior Analyst, Communications

555-0912

Tuesday, October 10th [11:45 AM]

Jimin: sorry, man. I just saw the most beautiful girl in the world. You know how my office overlooks the street and sees into the building next door?

Namjoon: you little sack of fungus. How dare you leave me hanging like that

Namjoon: … but yes, I do know. Go on.

Jimin: cool. So, there I was sitting in my office. Contemplating world peace, the usual.

Namjoon: translation – thinking about jacking off when you get home

Jimin: sometimes your words hurt, you know

Namjoon: apologies, jimini muffin

Jimin: I swear to god.

Namjoon: ok, ok – sorry. Tell me about this girl

Jimin: you mean tell you about my future wife?

Namjoon: you use that phrase too liberally, Jimin. Your dog walker is not your future wife. Your florist is not your future wife. This random chick across the street is not your future wife.

Jimin: no, Peaches’ dog walker is not my future wife; no, Fran is not my future wife. But this random girl is – LISTEN. She’s exactly my type, Joon. She looks smart. You think that she’s smart?

Namjoon: Is she wearing glasses?

Jimin: no

Namjoon: Then, no.

Jimin: she could be wearing contacts

Namjoon: Then, yes.

Jimin: okay, I’ll cave. Why are you basing her intelligence off whether or not she wears glasses?

Namjoon: wearing glasses implies she stayed up late reading in her youth, subsequently ruining her vision

Jimin: or… she didn’t eat enough carrots

Namjoon: or that

Jimin: I think that she’s new there – she must be; she looks really worried. It’s adorable, she keeps on biting her bottom lip. I think the Angry, Red-Haired Woman Who Yells a Lot is her boss because she keeps stopping by her cubicle to talk.

Namjoon: Big Red is her boss? Damn. Good luck to your future wife

Jimin: omg she has Gudetama pencils. Namjoon

Namjoon: Marry her, Jimin. Okay, enough creeping – let’s go and get lunch. I’m starving.

Tuesday, October 10th

Hello. I am typing. Typing, typing, typing.

Just typing on my brand-new LAPTOP the company PROVIDED for me! Granted, it’s to do my work, I know but it’s just so SHINY and NEW. Catherine even gave me a welcome package of office supplies when I got here. It has paper, pens (not as good as my Gudetama ones), a notepad, post-it notes. It’s adorable. Everyone has been so welcoming today – though the guy in the mail room did warn me that Catherine spits when she yells.

I’m not sure what to do with that information.

How do I shield myself from spit-yelling? Gah, I feel stupid for writing this note diary-format. I’m trying to pretend like I’m busy, since I haven’t been given any official work yet. Oh, wait! Catherine just sent over training for this afternoon. Perfect.

Hm. What now. What now, what now, what – OH.

Oh, god. Oh, yikes. HELP.

I am… looking at my laptop. I am looking at my laptop and concentrating on writing. I am not making eye contact with the very handsome man across the street.

Listen. You don’t know me, Laptop but I swear I’m usually a very level headed individual. It’s one of my best qualities – Y/N, the stable, the realistic. I don’t typically subscribe to the notion that looks make a person. But Laptop, wow. This guy. He’s – how do I describe? He’s got blondish hair. On the shorter side. I didn’t get a great look at his face, but from what I did see, he looked – kind? Is that a weird thing to say? His face looked kind.

I don’t know how else to describe him. He was stretching, arms overhead and I swear, Laptop, I don’t normally say things like this but – WHAT. AN. ASS. ON. THAT. MAN.

WOW. You could bounce a quarter off that thing.

Oh my god. What am I doing??

Okay. Okay. Catherine is here, we’re going to lunch. I –

Thursday, October 12th [3:45 PM]

Office Instant Message [3:47 PM]

Min, Yoongi: hey

Office Instant Message [3:48 PM]

Park, Jimin: hello, sunshine

Office Instant Message [3:49 PM]

Min, Yoongi: gag me. Listen, you want to shoot hoops after work?

Office Instant Message [3:51 PM]

Park, Jimin: yeah! Where?

Office Instant Message [3:52 PM]

Min, Yoongi: Bryant Park. I’ll drop a pin to your cell. John Cook is coming, so bring your A-game

Office Instant Message [3:53 PM]

Park, Jimin: … who?

Office Instant Message [3:53 PM]

Park, Jimin: wtf? Do you mean Jungkook?

Office Instant Message [3:54 PM]

Min, Yoongi: yeah, that’s what I said

Office Instant Message [3:55 PM]

Park, Jimin: you’re one weird dude, Yoongi. But sure, see you then

“Hey, sis, it’s me. Sorry, I’m leaving you a voice note – I know you hate those – but I’m currently walking with both hands full, so it couldn’t be helped. Now you can’t say I never call you back! Because here I am, calling you back! Anyways, the third day went well. A lot of training, some overly wordy manuals – you know, the fun stuff. I have my own cubicle though, which is exciting and I have a window. It overlooks – well, the street and an office building. Actually… there’s this really cute guy in that building, Megan. I know – it’s totally creepy to spy on him, but I can’t help it! He’s right there! And he has the most amazing smile, I – wait, oh my god. It’s him. It’s him, Megan, the guy from the window! He’s playing basketball in Bryant Park, along with a bunch of other guys and I, OOF –"

Thursday, October 12th [8:35 PM]

Namjoon: how’s that egg on your face?

Jimin: how’s that who on my what now

Namjoon: Egg on your face. It’s what you say when someone looks foolish or embarrassed. You, I imagine, look both right now

Jimin: choke on a dick

Namjoon: is that what you say to your friend who loves you

Jimin: to my friend who loves torturing me, yeah

Namjoon: I just keep on seeing your FACE, man. You just whammed that poor girl smack in the stomach hahaha

Jimin: IT WAS AN ACCIDENT

Jimin: fuck

Jimin: I didn’t mean to :(

Jimin: I was trying to throw the ball to Yoongi… and she was so pretty… and my hand slipped. THE BALL WAS POSSESSED

Namjoon: … you done?

Jimin: with living? Yes. With this conversation? Also yes.

Namjoon: cheer up, man. She seemed fine after

Jimin: god

Namjoon: Jungkook helped her off the court, it’s all good

Jimin: fucking John Cook

Namjoon: what

Jimin: nothing

Jimin: … do you think she was into him?

Namjoon: oh my god. Are you serious?

Jimin: no

Jimin: maybe

Jimin: fuck, what am I doing?

Namjoon: idk man, go to sleep

Jimin: it’s not even nine

Namjoon: shhhhh

Jimin: … ok, fine I’ll go to sleep

Saturday, October 14th [11:10 AM]

Jungkook: hey, Jimin

Jimin: hey, what’s up Jeon

Jungkook: not much

Jungkook: listen, you know that girl you hit with the ball on Thursday?

Jimin: … yeah

Jungkook: lol that was embarrassing

Jimin: do you have a point

Jungkook: she was pretty cute, right?

Jimin: yeah, pretty cute

Jimin: why are you telling me this, anyways? Is it sharing hour?

Jungkook: damn, man. Can’t I let my feelings out? Anyways – we’ve been texting and I was thinking about asking her out. Her name is Y/N, she works in the building across the street from yours!

Jimin: ok

Jimin: ... again, why are you telling me this?

Jungkook. Getting to that. When I told Namjoon, he said you have dibs

Jimin: what?? On Y/N?

Jungkook: did the two of you like, hook up or something

*Jimin has added Namjoon to the chat*

Jimin: Joon, wtf are you telling Jungkook about me

Namjoon: ‘sup, peons

Namjoon: nothing

Namjoon: just that you’re in love with a girl you’ve never met

Jungkook: wait, they’ve never met? Idk if that constitutes dibs, man

Namjoon: yes, it does. Dibs is granted unto whichever gentleman doth see the lady first

Jungkook: whoa, sees? That’s implied dibs! That goes against the whole spirit of the idea! You must call dibs, in order to have it

Jimin: this is the stupidest argument we’ve ever had

Jungkook: Agreed. No dibs

Namjoon: Jimin, what do you think?

Jungkook: Jimin, just let me bang her. Once. You can have her after that

*Jimin has left the chat*

Namjoon: don’t do it, bro. He really likes her

Jungkook: he’s never even TALKED to her!

Namjoon: respect the code, bro. Respect the code.

Namjoon: besides don’t you have like, a list of girls you can call

Jungkook: 😉

Namjoon: gross

Monday, October 16th

Week two at the office.

Everything is going well. No major screw-ups, which is good and I completed my first Excel assignment, so basically... I’m on the road to success. Who knew there were so many ways you can add? It’s hard to type though, since I screwed up my pinky finger. Well – I didn’t screw up my finger. I was walking home from work and this guy pummeled me with a basketball.

Okay, but get this – the guy who hit me? THE SAME ONE FROM THE WINDOW, LAPTOP. The guy I wrote you about on my first day! He’s even cuter in person but... ah, I don’t think he likes me. After the whole Basketball Incident, he barely even looked my way. It was his friend who helped me off the court – Jungkook is his name – he even gave me a band-aid and apologized for his friend.

Jungkook’s cute. He’s nice, I gave him my number and we talked a bit. But Window guy, Laptop. Window guy’s cheeks turned bright red haha it was adorable, I – oh, shit.

Don’t look now, Laptop (I SAID, DON’T LOOK!) but it’s him. Window guy is back. He’s standing in the middle of his office and stretching his arms. He’s lowering himself to the desk and holy shit.................. he’s doing push-ups. PUSH-UPS.

What did I do to deserve this?!

I – I’ll be back, Laptop.

From: Park, Jimin

To: Kim, Namjoon

Subject: Important!

Tuesday, October 17th [2:11 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

She has peonies on her desk. They’re pink.

Kind regards,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

From: Kim, Namjoon

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Re: Important!

Tuesday, October 17th [2:24 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

… are you kidding me? You can’t title the email important and then say that.

Your ex-friend,

Namjoon

Senior Analyst, Communications

555-0912

From: Park, Jimin

To: Kim, Namjoon

Subject: Re: Re: Important!

Tuesday, October 17th [2:28 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

That was important.

Thank you,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

From: Kim, Namjoon

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Important!

Tuesday, October 17th [2:32 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

Remind me to get you a dictionary for your birthday. That’s not what the word important means. So, does this mean you’re back to liking her? I thought you told Jungkook to have at her.

Cheers,

Namjoon

Senior Analyst, Communications

555-0912

From: Park, Jimin

To: Kim, Namjoon

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Important!

Tuesday, October 17th [2:40 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

Listen. I have no claim upon this woman. I do not own the beautiful, wonderful Window girl. She is a person unto herself, master of her own fate! If she wants to date Jeon Jungkook, so be it.

She should know though, that his feet smell.

xoxo,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

From: Kim, Namjoon

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Important!

Tuesday, October 17th [2:46 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

Ah, the high road. What’s it like up there? Lofty? Breezy?

As a gift, I found something for you: www.instagram.com/peoniesandparkas

Enjoy,

Namjoon

Senior Analyst, Communications

555-0912

From: Park, Jimin

To: Kim, Namjoon

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Important!

Tuesday, October 17th [2:50 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

What. Namjoon, how did you find this?

Where did you – oh, god. She’s adorable. She has a puppy, she likes chocolate. I like chocolate. Namjoon, its fate, its kismet, its meant to be. Our children would be so chubby.

Why did you send me this??

Pissed off and in love,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

Wednesday, October 18th [10:42 AM]

Megan: how’s the finger?

Y/N: not broken! 100% doctor confirmed, it’s just a mild sprain. Should be okay in a few weeks.

Megan: did the delinquent ever apologize?

Y/N: Megan!

Y/N: I told you yesterday, he did apologize. He just, you know… ran away after

Megan: like I said – idiot

Y/N: I doubt he’s an idiot, Megan. I can see into his office and he wears suits to work. That’s the indicator of a very important person.

Megan: wow.

Megan: I can’t believe you’re crushing on the guy who sprained your finger

Y/N: I AM NOT CRUSHING ON HIM

Megan: I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the sound of your love

Y/N: fight me

Y/N: I’m sorry, that was uncalled for

Megan: lolol

Megan: so, he works in the office next door?

Y/N: yeah

Y/N: sorry, was multitasking.

Megan: No problem. Have you ever thought about looking the guy up?

Y/N: what? Look him up where?

Megan: On LinkedIn. You already know his company, his face. Just… browse their list of current employees

Y/N: omg what!! That’s so fucking creepy

Megan: You’re right. Much less creepy to watch him do push-ups in his office

Y/N: … I told you that in confidence

Y/N: so much for sisterly love

Megan: dooooooo it

Y/N: … already am

Megan: YSE!

Megan: *YES!

Y/N: *drumroll please*

Y/N: Park Jimin, 24 years old. Senior Analyst of Internal Audit, joined the company two years ago. Is proficient in English, Korean and Microsoft Office 2013. Hobbies include: cooking, chasing his dog in the park for exercise and anime.

Megan: wow, what a dork

Y/N: You wouldn’t think that if you saw his ass.

Megan: omg

Megan: you love him so much

Y/N: asldfkajskldfa

Y/N: I DON’T EVEN KNOW HIM

Thursday, October 19th [1:00 PM]

Office Instant Message [1:01 PM]

Park, Jimin: well, Namjoon. It finally happened.

Office Instant Message [1:03 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: You finally got that growth spurt you’ve been hoping for?

Office Instant Message [1:04 PM]

Park, Jimin: I’m small but I’m feisty. I’d kick your a$$ in a fight

Office Instant Message [1:05 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: lol, no need for that. What happened?

Office Instant Message [1:06 PM]

Park, Jimin: I talked to her.

Office Instant Message [1:07 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: holy f*** WHAT?! When?

Office Instant Message [1:07 PM]

Park, Jimin: just now, over lunch. I went to that deli, you know the one?

Office Instant Message [1:08 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: the one with the cashier, Taehyung, who sings?

Office Instant Message [1:09 PM]

Park, Jimin: that’s the one. So, I walk in and she’s standing by the door. Confused as hell by Taehyung’s rendition of Take Me to Lunch (a poignant rendition of Hozier’s Take Me to Church)

Office Instant Message [1:10 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: well, sure. Who isn’t confused by that. Anyways, what did you say??

Office Instant Message [1:11 PM]

Park, Jimin: I apologized for hitting her, like twelve times. She sprained her pinky finger – can you believe that? I felt like complete shit when she told me

Office Instant Message [1:12 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: Wow. You are an idiot. What did you do next? What did you say?

Office Instant Message [1:14 PM]

Park, Jimin: God, I don’t even remember. It happened so fast. I just – she’s so pretty, Namjoon. Not in a cheesy, movie-star way but in an everything-she-does-is-real way. You know? God, I don’t even know. I just keep picturing her in my room… my car… my jacket

Office Instant Message [1:15 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: I thought you said not cheesy

Office Instant Message [1:16 PM]

Park, Jimin: shut up

Office Instant Message [1:17 PM]

Park, Jimin: I can’t stop smiling

Office Instant Message [1:25 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: Sorry, the boss stopped by my desk. Did you ask her out?

Office Instant Message [1:26 PM]

Park, Jimin: no

Office Instant Message [1:27 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: you’re the worst

Office Instant Message [1:28 PM]

Park, Jimin: I know this

From: Jordan, Elizabeth

To: Y/L/N, Y/N

Subject: Apologies

Monday, October 23rd [4:06 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

Hi Y/N,

I’m the one who messed up that PO form. It was my fault, but when Catherine asked who did it, I just froze. I couldn’t think, let alone speak and I know she blamed you for the mistake; I heard her yelling over in your cubicle. If you’d like, I can set things straight with her.

I’ll fix it; I promise to tell Catherine it was my fault.

I am so unbelievably sorry.

Thank you,

Liz

Analyst, Purchasing

555-1114

From: Y/L/N, Y/N

To: Jordan, Elizabeth

Subject: Re: Apologies

Monday, October 23rd [4:35 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

Hi Liz,

I appreciate the apology. I know last week was stressful and busy for everyone – a lot of things slipped through the cracks. I’d like to just let this go, but if something like it happens again – I’d appreciate the clarification. Here’s hoping for a better week, huh?

Best,

Y/N

Analyst, Training

555-0821

From: Park, Jimin

To: 9th Street Florist

Subject: Urgent Order

Monday, October 23rd [5:30 PM]

Non-Confidential, External

Hello Fran,

I’d like to place an order: one (1) bouquet of blush pink peonies, please.

Recipient name: Y/N

Address: 1010 LaSalle Street, Floor 16

Timing: Lunchtime, around noon if possible

You can just add this to my account. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

From: 9th Street Florist

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Re: Urgent Order

Monday, October 23rd [6:30 PM]

Jimin!

You adorable angel, of course! What would you like the card to say, dear? Oh, you know what – I’ll just give you a ring on your mobile.

Kisses,

Fran

555-8934

Co-Owner of 9th Street Florist

Tuesday, October 24th [5:42 PM]

Y/N: Megan, you’re not going to believe what happened today

Megan: What?

Y/N: Someone sent me flowers

Megan: Flowers??

Y/N: FLOWERS

Megan: But who??

Y/N: Idk. There’s no card.

Y/N: Wait, there is a card!

Megan: What does it say??

Y/N: It reads, “Here’s hoping your week gets better.”

Megan: … that’s all?

Y/N: It’s a very short card.

Megan: No name?

Y/N: No name. I have no idea who sent them?

Megan: Hm

Megan: Maybe from that Jungkook guy? You two were texting, right?

Y/N: yeah, but then he just stopped

Y/N: Asshole. I doubt it was him lol

Megan: What about hot window guy? Did you guys ever talk after that one day at the deli?

Y/N: No :( Idk, I thought our conversation was nice… but maybe I was boring.

Megan: Shut up. I hate it when you repeat anything that stupid, nincompoop ex-boyfriend of yours used to say. He’s a fucking turd. You’re amazing.

Y/N: Gah. Thanks, sis

Y/N: Either way, I doubt it was him

Megan: Maybe they’re from Mom. Did you tell her about your shit day yesterday?

Y/N: oh.

Y/N: you’re right. They’re probably from Mom

Megan: You sound disappointed. Who did you think they were from?

Y/N: nothing

Y/N: no one

Wednesday, October 25th [8:35 AM]

Office Instant Message [8:35 AM]

Park, Jimin: oh my god, I’m so stupid

Office Instant Message [8:40 AM]

Kim, Namjoon: sure

Office Instant Message [8:40 AM]

Kim, Namjoon: but why this time?

Office Instant Message [8:41 AM]

Park, Jimin: I forgot to put my name on the card

Office Instant Message [8:43 AM]

Kim, Namjoon: Wow.

Office Instant Message [8:44 AM]

Kim, Namjoon: You are stupid. How do you get out of bed in the morning without a map?

Office Instant Message [8:45 AM]

Park, Jimin: shut up

Office Instant Message [8:45 AM]

Park, Jimin: … very carefully

From: Wine, Fallon

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Life Advice

Thursday, October 26th [11:40 AM]

Jimin!

I’ve been thinking about what Joonie said to me last night.

He explained about your Window girl and Jiminie, you just need to talk to her! I know you did that one time in the deli – or was it two times? – but listen to me!

You! Are! Cute! As! A! Button! Any girl would be lucky to have you. I mean, half of my friends do want you, but that’s beside the point. You need to get over whatever this insecure nonsense is and just ask her out.

That’s all.

Love,

Fallon

PS, has she worn that coat from Instagram into the office yet? Is it really that bright shade of red?

From: Park, Jimin

To: Kim, Namjoon

Subject: What is wrong with you

Thursday, October 26th [1:15 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

You told Fal?? You showed her Y/N’s INSTAGRAM??

Whatever happened to boundaries

The opposite-of-warm wishes,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

From: Kim, Namjoon

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Re: What is wrong with you

Thursday, October 26th [1:31 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

Boundaries? Oh, the irony. Have you peeped through any good windows lately?

Devotedly,

Namjoon

Senior Analyst, Communications

555-0912

From: Park, Jimin

To: Kim, Namjoon

Subject: Re: Re: What is wrong with you

Thursday, October 26th [1:40 PM]

Non-Confidential, Internal Use Only

… I hate when my past wrongs come back to haunt me.

Embarrassedly,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

Thursday, October 26th [5:10 PM]

“Hey, Megan! It’s me, Y/N. Sorry to leave you another voice note, but I’m carrying home these peonies and my hands are full. Anyways, I was just – oh, hey!’

‘Hi.’

‘Uh, what are you doing here? It’s Jimin, right?’

‘Yeah, Jimin. Y/N, right?’

‘Right.’

‘I, uh – I’m here because I’m waiting for a friend who works in this building. His name is Hoseok, do you know him?’

‘Can’t say that I do, but then again – I’m new. He could just work on a different floor.’

‘Ah, right. What floor are you on?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Gotcha. Hoseok is on ten – but that’s funny.’

‘What is?’

‘Well, I work over in that building.’

‘That one on the corner?’

‘That’s it! I also work on the sixteenth floor. What are the odds? What side do you face?’

‘Right over… there.’

‘No way. Haha, my office is right … there.’

‘So close! I bet that if you looked, you could see me.’

‘I bet that I could. Maybe I’ll look for you tomorrow.’

‘That would be nice. I – uh, is your friend coming down, or…?’

‘Ah, right. Yeah, Hoseok shouldn’t be more than a few minutes. There’s this dog store by his place I’ve been meaning to go to.’

‘Dog store? You have a dog?’

‘Yeah, her name is – ah, this is embarrassing. Her name is Peaches.’

‘Peaches?’

‘Don’t laugh! Haha but yeah, Peaches. My friend’s girlfriend kept on calling her that as a joke and it kind of stuck.’

‘Ah... your friend’s girlfriend? Not yours?’

‘Nope. Me, I’m hopelessly single.’

‘Except for Peaches.’

‘Well, sure. Except for Peaches.’

‘Interesting.’

‘Yeah… those flowers are pretty. Peonies, right?’

‘Right… yes. Peonies. Thank you – they were a gift.’

‘Really? From your boyfriend?’

‘Nope. I think from my Mom.’

‘You think? Haha, isn’t that something you should know?’

‘Well, she keeps saying she didn’t send them – but come on. Who else would send me flowers?’

‘Well, I – ’

‘Jimin!’

‘Hey… Hoseok.’

‘Oh, shit! I’m still recording, how embar – ’

Friday, October 27th [9:37 AM]

Jimin: Namjoon. She left me a post-it note message.

Namjoon: a… what?

Jimin: A post-it note message. A message written entirely in post-it notes on her window.

Namjoon: what

Namjoon: what does the message say?

Jimin: “can you see this?”

Jimin: I can

Jimin: I can see it, Namjoon

Namjoon: oh my god, she’s just as dorky as you are

Namjoon: also, did I miss something? Since when do you two converse?

Jimin: since I took Fal’s advice and went to see her

Namjoon: you WHAT?

Namjoon: … there’ll be no living with her after this.

Jimin: Yeah, I went. I told her about Peaches and then chickened out before I could tell her about the flowers

Namjoon: wow

Namjoon: you’re still an idiot. But maybe only half of one

Jimin: thx man, I’m gonna cry

Jimin: … she left me a message

Jimin: 😊😊

Monday, October 30th [10:37 AM]

Office Instant Message [10:37 AM]

Jordan, Elizabeth: hey, Y/N! Coffee last week was fun. I was wondering if maybe you wanted to make it a daily thing?

Office Instant Message [10:39 AM]

Y//L/N, Y/N: yes, of course! Sounds perfect :)

Office Instant Message [10:40 AM]

Jordan, Elizabeth: amazing.

Office Instant Message [10:40 AM]

Jordan, Elizabeth: on a side note, have you looked out the window today?

Office Instant Message [10:41 AM]

Y//L/N, Y/N: not today, no – why?

Office Instant Message [10:43 AM]

Jordan, Elizabeth: ohh haha okay, long story. So, there’s this super-hot guy in the building next door that we all creep on. Today he’s wearing some sort of fuzzy yellow blanket and put this message in post-it notes on the window?? It’s the oddest thing

Office Instant Message [10:44 AM]

Y//L/N, Y/N: omg. Gudetama!! It’s a Gudetama blanket!

Office Instant Message [10:45 AM]

Jordan, Elizabeth: Gude-what now?

Office Instant Message [10:46 AM]

Y//L/N, Y/N: it’s hard to explain lol

Office Instant Message [10:47 AM]

Y//L/N, Y/N: it’s this beloved, depressed, Japanese egg

Office Instant Message [10:48 AM]

Jordan, Elizabeth: uh haha okay

Office Instant Message [10:49 AM]

Jordan, Elizabeth: what about his message? What do you think it means?

Office Instant Message [10:49 AM]

Jordan, Elizabeth: “I like your pens.”

Office Instant Message [10:51 AM]

Y//L/N, Y/N: asldkfjalskdjaf

“Hello, this is Kim Seokjin. You have reached the front desk of Bangtan Incorporated. For quality assurance purposes, the following phone call will be recorded and monitored. How may I help you today?”

“Hi, there! I need to speak to Park Jimin. He’s the Senior Analyst of Internal Audit for Bangtan Incorporated.”

“Absolutely, ma’am. To what should I say this is referring?”

“Gudetama.”

“Like – the egg?”

“Yes, Seokjin. Like the egg. Tell him that it’s very important.”

“I – uh, sure. I mean, wonderful – your happiness is our top priority. Connecting you to Mr. Park now.”

Monday, November 6th [9:30 AM]

Office Instant Message [9:30 AM]

Kim, Namjoon: why did you text Fal, asking her what kind of coffee girls drink

Office Instant Message [9:32 AM]

Park, Jimin: why do you and Fal tell each other EVERYTHING

Office Instant Message [9:33 AM]

Kim, Namjoon: get your own damn girlfriend if you want to keep secrets

Office Instant Message [9:34 AM]

Park, Jimin: I just wanted to know for science

Office Instant Message [9:35 AM]

Kim, Namjoon: I know you’re not seeing anyone right now, Jimin but you have met a girl, right? Get her normal coffee.

Office Instant Message [9:37 AM]

Park, Jimin: just… have Fal answer me, okay?

Office Instant Message [9:39 AM]

Kim, Namjoon: she says get her plain coffee but buy different creamers/sugar so she can make her own

Office Instant Message [9:40 AM]

Park, Jimin: brilliant. Give Fal the good lovin’ tonight, Joon

Office Instant Message [9:42 AM]

Kim, Namjoon: I’m going to kill you

Office Instant Message [9:43 AM]

Park, Jimin: Got to catch me first. I’m quick

From: Park, Jimin

To: Jung, Hoseok

Subject: Question

Monday, November 6th [6:50 PM]

Non-Confidential, External

Hey, Hoseok!

I was wondering if you could do me a favor. I need to drop something off at a friend’s desk in your building. Could you let me in tomorrow morning?

Sincerely,

Jimin

Senior Analyst, Internal Audit

555-1013

From: Jung, Hoseok

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Re: Question

Monday, November 6th [7:05 PM]

Non-Confidential, External

Sure thing! Just let me know the time.

Side note – Yoongi keeps asking when we’re playing ball again. Are you and Jungkook over your little spat yet?

Regards,

Hoseok

Lead, IT Security

555-0218

Tuesday, November 7th

Laptop – he left me coffee.

He keeps on denying it. I called him earlier (that Kim Seokjin at reception is such a sweetheart) and he said it wasn’t him – but Laptop, I could see him laughing through the window! He was grinning that stupid handsome smile, so I know it was him. I mentioned to him last week that my building was cold and what was his response? Drink more coffee.

I know it was Jimin – that’s his name, Laptop, Jimin – I just know it.

Laptop. I think I might be falling for him.

Wednesday, November 8th [3:01 PM]

Office Instant Message [3:01 PM]

Park, Jimin: I can’t stop thinking about her. I’m going crazy

Office Instant Message [3:02 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: then ask her the f*** out and stop bothering me

Office Instant Message [3:03 PM]

Park, Jimin: what if she doesn’t like me though

Office Instant Message [3:05 PM]

Park, Jimin: what if she just puts up with me because the flirting is funny, but when I ask her out – it becomes too real and she bails

Office Instant Message [3:06 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: Jimin

Office Instant Message [3:07 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: I am only going to say this once, so listen

Office Instant Message [3:08 PM]

Park, Jimin: okay, listening

Office Instant Message [3:10 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: You’re an amazing guy. This girl has been flirting with you for weeks. You like her, right? Even if she doesn’t like you – which is dumb, because she does – do you really want to live the rest of your life watching her from behind glass?

Office Instant Message [3:12 PM]

Park, Jimin: huh

Office Instant Message [3:14 PM]

Park, Jimin: for being such a dick, you’re surprisingly insightful

Office Instant Message [3:15 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: annnd the moment’s over

Office Instant Message [3:15 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: go get laid

From: Min, Yoongi

To: Y/L/N, Y/N

Subject: Idk what to title this

Thursday, November 9th [4:00 PM]

Non-Confidential, External

Hi Y/N,

Listen. This is probably weird, since we’ve barely spoken. I got your email address from Namjoon, who got it from Hoseok – and now I’m realizing you might not know who either of those people are. Well. I’m sending this as a formal request to please ask out Park Jimin. He’s madly in love with you, and the stress is really throwing off his basketball game.

I need to win these games, Y/N. If we lose, the youth win.

Don’t let the youth win.

In summary: ask out Jimin, save my game. Oh, yeah – and have a good day

Best,

Yoongi

Manager, HR

555-0309

From: Y/L/N, Y/N

To: 9th Street Florist

Subject: Order

Thursday, November 9th [5:40 PM]

Non-Confidential, External

Hi there!

I’d like to place an order for one (1) bouquet of peach-colored daisies. I would like this order sent to Park Jimin, Bangtan Incorporated at 1011 LaSalle Street, Floor 16. I’ll stop by after work to pay. If the card could read, “I really loved the peonies,” that would be great.

Thank you!

Best,

Y/N

Analyst, Training

555-0821

Friday, November 10th [5:20 PM]

“Hi, you’ve reached Jimin. Leave a message after the beep. BEEEE – hahaha just kidding – ”

BEEEEEEP.

“Hey, it’s Namjoon. If you don’t change that annoying-ass voicemail of yours, I’m going to throttle you. I’m calling because we were supposed to leave for Seokjin’s happy hour together. Well, I’m in your office now – and surprise, surprise, you’re not here. Damn, your laptop and bag are gone, too! Did you just leave without me – oh! Shit! I just looked out your window. Oh my god, is that you? Is this it? Are you finally doing it? I see you – listen, Jimin, you should really trim your hair – but oh my god, you’re running. YOU’RE RUNNING – that’s her! That’s Y/N! You’re … tapping her on the shoulder! Oh crap, you scared her. You’re – YES, JIMIN! YES! FUCK, YES! Wow, man. That is some kiss. That’s Notebook-level shit, right there. Okay. You can stop. Fuck, man – are you scared she’s going off to war? I – oh. Alright. I see how it is. Nice, man. Ve-ry nice. I’m going to hang up now, because I feel super creepy watching this. Bye.”

Monday, November 13th

Hey, Laptop.

He got the flowers I sent him.

We kissed.

I – we’re dating.

😊😊

From: Wine, Fallon

To: Park, Jimin

Subject: Life Advice 2

Friday, December 15th [4:16 PM]

Jimin, dear. What kind of wine does Y/N drink? I’m going to the store after work and need your input. Red would probably go better with the pasta, but what kind of red?

Love,

Fallon

Friday, December 15th [4:34 PM]

Office Instant Message [4:34 PM]

Park, Jimin: tell your fiancée to stop emailing my work email

Office Instant Message [4:36 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: oh, please

Office Instant Message [4:37 PM]

Kim, Namjoon: I’ve seen the stuff you and Y/N send. You two think you’re sooo clever.

Office Instant Message [4:38 PM]

Park, Jimin: point taken

Friday, December 15th [4:42 PM]

Jimin: hey babe, what kind of wine do you want? Xx

Y/N: dry, sarcastic, red as blood

Jimin: cool. Totally normal, not at all scary

Y/N: lol tell Fal whatever wine she has is perfect

Jimin: that’s what I said! I told her you’re a lush and will drink anything in front of you

Y/N: yes, I will 😉

Jimin: holy fuck, I choked

Y/N: 😉

Jimin: babe! You can’t be dirtier than me, it’s not allowed

Jimin: god, when will today be over

Jimin: can you leave early?

Jimin: please. I need to be inside you at least once before tonight

Y/N: jimin!!

Y/N: … twice, if you’re lucky

Y/N: leaving work now

Jimin: good. I missed you

Y/N: haha I just saw you at lunch

Jimin: I’m not a logical man

Y/N: I accept all your shortcomings and love you despite them 😊

Jimin: I love you too, babe

Jimin: a lot 😊

Author’s Note: Hi. I hope you enjoyed :)) HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JIMIN!

#noonanet #kwriterskollection #kpoptrashtag #jimin fanfiction #jimin fluff #jimin one shot #jimin fantasy #jimin au #jimin #park jimin #bts jimin #q: jimin tag

3K notes · View notes

bangkokjacknews · 3 years

Text

Asian countries where the women want foreign husbands

Western males who are reasonably well off and in decent health, with either a good job or plenty of money in savings for retirement are considered a prize “catch” by many single women in poorer countries.

It does not really matter what you look like, only that you are readily able to care for a wife, perhaps also for her children from a previous marriage, certainly for her parents, and perhaps for some members of an extended family. You are the lucky prize as long as you can afford to be it. Middle-aged western guys who visit these countries find themselves getting much more attention than they normally receive in their home countries and will find beautiful younger women showing plenty of attraction towards them. The main reason for such attraction is the lure of having a better life with financial security. This is also where we need to introduce a serious word of caution. Most of the countries that are popular sex tourist destinations are also the places where white guys are most desired. Unfortunately, this means that if a guy is looking for more than just sex, he may run into the many scams that plague guys searching for a good woman to marry or looking for a long-term relationship. This article focuses more on finding a long-term relationship and/or marriage, instead of just the sex trade, although the two somewhat go together if you are a middle age white male looking for the female company of a beautiful younger woman. If you plan to look for a life-partner, it is best to get away from the popular tourist areas, live for awhile in the country where you find attractive candidates, and get to know the local customs as well as some of the language. It is a mistake to go to a foreign country with the expectation of returning with the perfect soul mate in one week, even if you have months of email correspondence and video chats prior to coming to the country. Scammers know very well how to play on men’s emotions and teach the women that they represent the evil ways of luring men in so that the men spend lots of money using “translation” services and then pay a fee for an arranged visit to find a bride. Many men have spent a fortune using Internet-based marriage systems or websites and even have gone to visit the countries, only to return home alone, broke, and deeply hurt emotionally. Do yourself a favor and do not fall for the scams. It is easy to find plenty of potential life partners without using such online scam services. However, you must plan to go visit the countries you fancy and stay there for an extended period to meet a nice woman in person. It is so easy to meet people. To avoid bar girls and street prostitutes, meet the community elders, volunteer to help on community projects, and attend events in the community, at Buddhist temples, and churches. These are good places to socialize and to find a good wife. If you find someone attractive, first ask if they are married. If they are not married, just ask them to show you around the local area. You will have a better time if you go to the areas where there are fewer tourists and there you will get lots of nice attention from the local women. If you do plan to get married, it is a better idea to live in the country for a few years with your new wife rather than try to bring her back to your home country right away. The culture shock and homesickness is too much for many who get married and soon thereafter relocate. Make trial visits together and go back and forth instead, between her country and your home country, for the best results. Here are the fifteen countries where middle-aged white guys are very desirable and good bets to find a wife. THAILAND Besides being the number one sex tourist destination in the world, Thailand is a great place to find a lovely wife. The Thai people have a very laid back attitude about sex. Older men are considered highly desirable by the younger women. A muscle-bound young guy will have less success with the Thai younger women than a middle-aged white guy with a big belly. They will think your beer belly is cute because you look more like the Buddha. Thailand is almost exclusively a Buddhist country and that makes their general attitudes about life compassionate and tolerant of others. There are three official genders recognized by the Thai constitution, which includes male, female, and transgender. Thailand has the famous “ladyboys” who look more beautiful that biologically born girls, so when visiting Thailand be aware that a pretty girl who catches your eye might have once been a boy. Agencies such as Absolute Angels in Bangkok cater for all types of relationships from the holiday fling to the long-term commitment All white guys get lots of attention from women in Thailand. In fact, you can hardly escape it if you walk through the red light district of Patpong in Bangkok or stroll around Phuket Beach. In Thailand, it is easy for you to be mobbed by gorgeous young women wanting to fulfill your wildest fantasies. Maybe you will want to do your version of the movie Pretty Woman and take one of the cute ones away from the life of prostitution to take care of her. If you have enough money she will readily go along. If that is not your cup of tea, then go up to Chang Mai and get away from the city life to find a beautiful Thai woman living in the countryside. If you see a woman that you like, simply say hello. That is all it takes to get a relationship started. Take it easy and have fun. Take some time getting to know her, before asking a Thai woman to be your wife. To marry a decent Thai village woman you will have to pay a dowry to her parents of a few thousand U.S. dollars at a minimum. This is customary and expected. Many expats live in Thailand because the living is so easy there when the guy has a beautiful Thai wife to keep him very happy. CAMBODIA Cambodia went through nine hells under the Pol Pot regime during the Khmer Rouge. During this time, millions were killed. This genocide sent the country back to the dark ages in terms of development. Because of this devastation, it is still is one of the poorest countries in Asia. Cambodia is rebuilding itself. Cambodian women are genuinely interested in foreigners, especially white males because of the chance to have a better life with them as husbands. Prostitution is common in Cambodia, especially in the capital of Phnom Penh. Cambodia also has a serious problem with pedophilia and human trafficking, which includes the sale of children. The age of consent for consensual, non-paid sex in private is 16-years-old. It is common for a Cambodian woman to marry a foreign man that is around twenty years older than they are. If you met a woman you find attractive first ask if she is married. Learn the phrase in Khmer, the Cambodian language, which is “tae anak riebkear haey ry now.” Then learn how and when to say “I love you” in Khmer, which is “khnhom sralanh anak.” Do not say this phrase casually. It has a deep, serious meaning in Cambodia and is the equivalent of the western marriage proposal when you say this phrase. A “good” Cambodian woman will only be with a man and live with him if he marries her. In order to slow down the marriages by western men of “child” brides, there are now requirements in Cambodia that a foreign man must follow, to legally marry a Cambodian woman in that country. He must be under 50 years old and have proof of monthly income exceeding US$2,500 per month. Here are the rules for U.S. Citizens. If you are older than this, you can either have a “fake” wedding, which has no legal status, but is acceptable by the people or take your bride to another country such as Thailand, if she agrees, and marry her there. If you plan to get married in Cambodia, which is very important for your bride, expect to pay for the traditional wedding ceremony and you will be requested to pay a “dowry” to the family as well as make a payment to the local village elders. The amount can range from about US$1,000 for a village woman from a poor family up to US$20,000 for a refined, educated, young woman who speaks English well and comes from a wealthy family. This is considered a respectful way to pay back the family for raising your bride and to give back something to the community. You do not own your wife and this gift payment is not to buy her. You need to treat her with respect and kindness in order to have a happy marriage. You also need to make sure to send a monthly stipend of money to her family (usually US$100 to US$300 per month). If you treat your new wife well, she will be very dedicated to you as this is the traditional way in Cambodia. VIETNAM Vietnam is making a strong comeback from the devastation it experienced during the Vietnam War. In the capital of Saigon, it is very much like Bangkok, Thailand. There is lots of prostitution. Just like in Cambodia, human trafficking is a huge problem. Chinese men from remote areas pay up to US$3,200 to intermediaries to literally buy a bride and even a “child” bride around 14 years old and have her shipped to the man living in China. The woman or young girl is forced into marriage without ever meeting her husband in person except on the day they get married. Asia has a history of arranged marriages and Vietnam is no exception. Vietnamese women, especially the poorest ones, go along with an arranged marriage if they think it will improve their lives. If they go along with the marriage voluntarily, the may actually see an improvement their lives and not have to work so hard just to survive. However, some others who live near the border of Vietnam and China are drugged and kidnapped and then sold as brides against their will. It takes years for them to escape and some never do. One other problem for white males is that some Vietnamese women have figured out how to use the divorce laws in other countries to their advantage. If a Vietnamese woman marries a foreigner in another country and the marriage is not registered in Vietnam, it has no legal effect in Vietnam. If a foreign man pays a big price to get a Vietnamese bride and takes her to another country to get married, she can, after a short time, run back to Vietnam where the marriage has no meaning. She can repeat the process with a man from a different country. Now that you are warned about the dangers, avoid the online marriage services as they are almost all scams. The best bet to find a nice young woman to marry is to visit the country for an extended period. Get out of the city and visit the villages with a translator you trust. Go to a university and hire a student as your translator. Make sure the student is not associated with any marriage arranging service. Be aware that to have a Vietnamese bride, the arrangement is made with her parents who will expect to be paid something. It is also better to have the marriage in Vietnam and you will pay for this also. Vietnamese women are very beautiful, dedicated, and loyal if you treat them kindly, so it is possible to find a very nice Vietnamese wife if you avoid the scams. INDONESIA You will have a very pleasant time if you go to Bali to look for a wife. Bali, Indonesia is one of the nicest places in the world and the cost of living there is really low, which allows staying long enough to find an honest Indonesian woman who you want to marry. Guys from Australia frequently go to Bali to find a wife and many are successful in doing so and very happy. The Indonesia culture is patriarchal and men are elevated in status over women. There is a marriage procreation guarantee under the Indonesian laws. If a wife cannot birth children he is allowed to easily divorce her or to take a second wife. The Balinese want their daughters to get married as soon as possible in order to start a family and hopefully to have a son to carry on the family heritage. The Indonesian people are very accepting of large age differences between the bride and her husband as long as his financial condition is sound and he is able to take care of his bride. Unlike a son, a daughter, when she gets married, no longer has the requirement to support her family. She joins the new family of her husband. This is a different sentiment that those found in other Asian countries where the daughter is still obligated to help care for her parents even if she gets married. The Indonesian people are warm-hearted, friendly, and as a general rule, they like foreigners. To have the best luck in finding a good wife, look for a family that has many daughters and few or no sons. Befriend the parents of the young woman in such a family and they will probably be very happy for you to marry her to have one less daughter that they are responsible for. Indonesia has a strange rule that two people getting married should be of the same religion. If you are not the same religion as your bride, one of you needs to convert to the other’s religion, at least temporarily. Atheists and agnostics need to pretend to be affiliated with their bride’s religion; otherwise, the government will not issue marriage documents. TAIWAN Many western men, who visit Taiwan for the first time traveling alone, are shocked (hopefully pleasantly so) when beautiful girls knock on the hotel door in the evenings to officially offer their services as a government-licensed massage therapist and prostitute. They even have identification cards, which they happily show to prove this to foreigners. Taiwan is another male-dominated society and women are, in general, very subservient to men. It is considered perfectly normal under the Taiwanese culture for married men to enjoy prostitutes as long as they take good financial care of their wives and provide enough money for their children. Men typically go out at night with their other male friends for “business” dinners where the company pays the tab. They enjoy a night of getting drunk and carousing with women and return home with no recrimination from their wives for being out late or coming home drunk. This subservient nature is not 100% uniform and there are some more modern style Taiwanese women. However, for the most part, the male dominance in this culture is what attracts foreign men to come to Taiwan to look for a bride. If you are not stuck on having only a young woman as a bride and expand your search to include older women, you will find many nice women who are interested in having a foreign man as a husband. You can enjoy dating many of them to help make a good choice. CHINA China is a country of many contradictions. There is an average of 118 men for every 100 women. This came about because of the “one-child” policy that was enforced by the Chinese government. One very unfortunate and horrible thing about this policy is that it caused parents to kill their female offspring; either as abortions or right after the girl babies were born. Estimates are that up to five million Chinese baby girls were killed during the time that the one-child policy was enforced. This off-balance ratio of more Chinese men than women makes it difficult for the Chinese men to all find brides. In spite of this, foreign men still have a tremendous advantage. Chinese women see foreign men as a treasure and also appreciate their generous endowment in the private area compared to the size of an average Chinese male. Foreign men will be approached by many young women if they simply visit China. It may be difficult to get married, once you realize how many beautiful women are available for foreign men. Even five-star hotels sometimes contain a brothel on the premises as part of the services offered to male guests. This is something that shocks foreign males who never before saw such openness about the sex trade. Nevertheless, it is very easy to get used to this and “feel like a king.” These excellent, readily available sex services from beautiful young women make it more difficult to choose a certain woman to settle down with and marry. However, if you are able to find a Chinese wife of the traditional style, she will not have any problem with your continuing to visit prostitutes for a boy’s night out on the town, even after you are married. JAPAN Over 89% of the marriage visas for those entering the United States from Japan are issued to females. Japanese women like to marry Americans and Americans love Japanese women. They make a terrific wife and they rarely get fat as they get older. They also have a very cute youthful appearance that lasts until middle age. To most Western men’s eyes, a Japanese woman looks ten to twenty years younger than her actual age. She may be 35 and look 18. The population in Japan is getting older and the younger Japanese men are choosing not to get married because they cannot afford to take care of a wife and family. White guys from other countries who marry a Japanese woman can find a very pleasant lifestyle living in Japan. Japanese women are very sophisticated about international things and easily adapt to living in another country. They are, in general, very intelligent. Many speak English extremely well. If a Japanese woman marries a foreigner there is still a bit of prejudice against this from the older Japanese people, so it may be easier for her to live with you in your home country to avoid this noticeable bigotry she will experience in Japan. A woman from an elite, wealthy Japanese family would bring shame to her family if she married a foreigner, so look for a working class woman as your best option when dating with the intent to find a Japanese wife. If you want a beautiful “porcelain-like doll” for a wife, a Japanese woman is a perfect answer. She will be fiercely loyal and at the same time allow you plenty of freedom to do as you want as long as there is enough money for a nice house and to take care of the kids. Lots of G.I. men who were stationed in Okinawa (an island near Tokyo) on the U.S. military base there found wonderful wives when marrying a Japanese woman. PHILIPPINES The Philippines, like Thailand, is a major sex tourist destination. A female prostitute costs only about US$20 for the entire night. There are many clubs in Manila where you can visit, have a drink, and see a bevy of beautiful girls, all with numbers on their lapel. You simply tell the bartender which number girl you like, pay the exit fee for her to go with you and take as many with you as you want. Read the full article

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years

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On the Day We Reopened Our Restaurant, We Had to Close It Again

A booth at Guerrilla Tacos | Colin Wolf

We spent a month preparing to safely reopen our restaurant. Five hours after opening our doors, the state made us close again.

This is Eater Voices, where chefs, restaurateurs, writers, and industry insiders share their perspectives about the food world, tackling a range of topics through the lens of personal experience. First-time writer? Don’t worry, we’ll pair you with an editor to make sure your piece hits the mark. If you want to write an Eater Voices essay, please send us a couple paragraphs explaining what you want to write about and why you are the person to write it to [email protected].

It is July 1, 2020, a little after 8:30 a.m. In just a few hours, we are finally going to reopen our dining room for the first time since lockdown orders went into effect in Los Angeles on March 16. Since Day One of the lockdown, we have innovated and adapted to keep the lights on in our taco restaurant, with a small takeout and delivery operation that employed 10 percent of our original staff. Now, I’m excited and nervous; these are uncertain times and we never know what’s coming next.

At 8:36 a.m., I receive an email from the Independent Hospitality Coalition, a group of California hospitality industry workers that I belong to. “Hearing from our people that the governor is going to announce that restaurants in some counties (including LA) will be closing indoor dining rooms at his noon press conference today,” it says.

I immediately grab my chefs and managers and tell them the news. There is silence for a while, during which I think about everything we did to get to this day to reopen. My stomach drops and I begin to rant. They never should have let us open, I say. We all knew this was going to happen.

I text my good friend and mentor, Melissa, the director of operations at République. She tells me that she is hearing the same thing. République opened not long after restaurants were first told they could reopen on May 29, and even as one of the best-run restaurant operations in LA, it has been hard for them. People are not ready to eat out, and too many of those who are are not taking the masks and social distancing seriously.

So I ask myself: Now what do we do?

In the two weeks leading up to this morning, we did 32 full hours of training on new COVID-19 protocols and safety measures and the importance of taking the pandemic seriously. We updated our menu, purchased the PPE required for reopening safely, invested in training, redesigned the restaurant’s layout, and did construction to create more space and incorporate plexiglass dividers. I could see, even through their masks and face shields, that my staff was excited and comfortable about reopening, and to have jobs again. We were doing everything by the book and taking the time needed to do it right. We had hope!

And now, this morning, we still have a restaurant to open. But all I can do is wait for the governor’s press conference, which is still 90 minutes away.

At 10:45 a.m., our GM, Gretel, does the line-up as if nothing is wrong. Spirits are so high among our staff, and we don’t want to bring them down. But I can’t stop thinking about what’s going to come next.

At 11 a.m., I go hide in my office. My partner, Dan, arrives at the restaurant to console me. The staff was so excited, and now I’m going to have to furlough them all again. I can’t take it, and I start crying. For the last four months, I’ve been on the verge of a mental breakdown, and now I think Dan is concerned that this will push me over the edge.

When LA County told us that restaurants could reopen on May 29, I also heard the news from my friends in the Independent Hospitality Coalition. I didn’t believe them: There was no way we could reopen without any warning. Well, I was dead wrong — we were given the green light to reopen on the “honor system,” meaning that if we followed all of the county’s guidelines and safety rules, we could open that same night.

Less than an hour after the announcement, I got a message from my landlord’s broker. “Congratulations on being able to reopen,” he said. My heart sank as my mind translated his message into: “Send the check when you can!”

Shortly after, I was on a call with the Independent Hospitality Coalition. No one I spoke with was feeling ready to reopen. Our dining rooms had turned into dry storage, our staff was furloughed. But our members were already driving past restaurants that had reopened, hastily “complying” with the guidelines. How could anyone have done it safely in 24 hours? We knew this was a problem: With no lead-in time to prepare, restaurant operators were being rewarded for rushing to open, and their prize was making as much money as quickly as possible.

I wanted to stay closed. However, as other restaurants began to open their dining rooms and people grew more eager to leave the house, our takeout business started to fall steeply. With our PPP funds drying up, I had to make the call to reopen as safely as humanly possible. As we began preparing, the team spent so much time thinking about our customers and our staff: How do we keep them safe? How do we behave as responsible members of our community?

With no lead-in time to prepare, restaurant operators were being rewarded for rushing to open, and their prize was making as much money as quickly as possible.

But even as we were holding ourselves to this standard, we had empathy for the operators who had just rolled the dice and said “fuck it” and decided to open. It is desperate times for restaurants, and many of us feel as though we have no choice: As operators, we work 12- to 14-hour days and typically haven’t been able to pool enough of our time or financial resources to be in the back pocket of the politicians making decisions.

Now, as I wait for the governor’s announcement, I ask myself what’s changed since May 29. Back then, our county didn’t meet any of the state’s requirements for reopening. And we still don’t. I feel completely abandoned by our leaders, and like we’ve lost for trying to comply and be as safe and careful as possible.

Recently, there was a bill in the California State Senate that really could have made a restaurant industry comeback possible during COVID-19: SB 939. It basically required landlords to enter rent renegotiations with tenants, and it would have given tenants and small businesses leverage to walk away without consequence if they couldn’t make it work. Members of the IHC, myself included, reached out to state senators, and many spoke with us. But when the bill reached the appropriations committee in late June, it was killed by real estate groups with money. Before the committee voted on the bill, we could not even get a Zoom meeting with state Sen. Anthony J. Portantino, its LA-based chair. We — the small businesses that employ almost half of California’s citizens and are on the ground trying to work with our landlords — mattered too little to him. When IHC contacted him after the bill died, he said he had no clue that landlords were not negotiating with tenants. We’ve since met with many politicians who have echoed the same sentiment: They truly believe that most landlords are working with tenants. In my experience, this is not the case.

Our elected officials’ total lack of consideration for a whole industry is unforgivable; anyone who loves going to restaurants or grabbing a drink after work should be pissed. If I was feeling petty, I would suggest every restaurant refuse service to politicians. Instead, I’m focusing on the Restaurants Act, a new bill being proposed in the Senate in Washington D.C. that could save us; it would establish a $120 billion relief fund that would be used to provide grants to independent restaurants. My true hope is that we can mobilize the restaurant industry to get it passed. Enjoying good food is a bipartisan issue.

As a woman of color, it feels wrong to be upset about this, given the systemic racist bullshit that is being protested around the country, and the basic equality and liberty that some of us are denied as its citizens. I am pulled back and forth between being upset as an operator and being upset as a non-Black person of color.

At 12 p.m., I listen to the governor confirm the earlier rumors: Restaurants are closed again.

Again, I ask myself, what do I do now? I am just out here trying to survive, trying to build generational wealth, trying to employ a great team of people. I am angry. As a woman, I am angry. As a small business owner, I am angry. As a non-Black person of color, I am angry. There is no winning for the little guys. We are under the boot of big business, politicians with price tags, and a system that has set us up to fail. Before the pandemic, it was easy to ignore these long-standing truths; I was busy and hustling. But now, it is impossible. And it’s one reason that Dina Samson, the co-owner of Rossoblu, and I, have been working on a project we tried to start before the pandemic: a guide to help educate our local leaders on how difficult it is to operate a restaurant in the city and how they can help. The pandemic has forced us to make time to do it.

At 4 p.m., we close our dining room. After a month of planning, it was open for five hours. We’re back to where we were before May 29, but now with less funds, too much inventory, and the dashed hopes of 45 people.

At 4:34 p.m., the chefs, managers, and I are sitting around a table. We’ve been here twice before: when the lockdown orders were announced in March, and when the dine-in orders were announced in May. We’ll adapt again. We always do.

At 6:13 p.m., the managers call our employees to furlough them again.

Brittney Valles is the longtime managing partner of Guerrilla Tacos, a restaurant in Los Angeles.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3jAZKpk https://ift.tt/30w5Cat

A booth at Guerrilla Tacos | Colin Wolf

We spent a month preparing to safely reopen our restaurant. Five hours after opening our doors, the state made us close again.

So I ask myself: Now what do we do?

And now, this morning, we still have a restaurant to open. But all I can do is wait for the governor’s press conference, which is still 90 minutes away.

With no lead-in time to prepare, restaurant operators were being rewarded for rushing to open, and their prize was making as much money as quickly as possible.

At 12 p.m., I listen to the governor confirm the earlier rumors: Restaurants are closed again.

At 6:13 p.m., the managers call our employees to furlough them again.

Brittney Valles is the longtime managing partner of Guerrilla Tacos, a restaurant in Los Angeles.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3jAZKpk via Blogger https://ift.tt/3juvagP

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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artdjgblog · 4 years

Video

vimeo

Innerview: Sarah Benson / Kansas City Star - Ink Magazine

March 2010

Video: DJG & PJC Note: Questions about David Seume’s Will Ya Be My Friend music video.

01) Is this the first music video you’ve ever done? Have you ever animated before?

This is my first music video. I’ve always wanted to do one and would love to venture more. It was a great opportunity and exercise in collaboration and in personal patience as I typically can’t allow art projects to take up a lot of my time per day job, life stuff and other art projects. I’ve never animated before per lack of resources and know-how, but my flat work has always been animated inside of me. It’s so nice to fully translate this in video form for everyone to see. But, it’s not just my video. My friend Philip James Cheaney is animator/co-director and additional artist on David Seume’s “Will Ya Be My Friend” video. This is Philip’s second full-length music video, the first being for The Winston Jazz Routine. I believe he has another one in pre-production for Joel Kraft. He also has several short films under his belt while stationed in Portland, OR. Currently, he is studying for a masters degree at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. I hope this video lends him extra credit as he captured my insides, enhancing them greatly. We’ve known each other for over a decade and work well together, even completing each others sentences most of the time. And David’s wonderful song made it that much easier. David was so kind to let us pick the song that truly sung to us and it was a treat. Three years prior to working on this video with Philip, he and I actually swapped some fairly extensive brains on an animated short film starring Abe Lincoln that we look forward to getting to in the future. I hope to learn some tech or hands-on trickery by then. Philip also has two other short films featuring my art that are on the back burner. Our back burner is actually a bonfire. 02) How did the collaboration between you and David come about? David connected with me on email out of the blue in late November of 2008 while I was in Texas. We had never talked before and I didn’t know about him, but he somehow knew about me. Coincidentally, he was booked to play a set of music, as well as release his debut album “It Is What It Is”, the same night of my 6th annual December art exhibition at The Brick in Kansas City, MO. He commissioned me to make a poster for his show and I knew instantly via email and after meeting in the flesh at the show that we were on the same page in life and art. I believe it was the same night at The Brick that we talked a little about the prospect of a music video. So, it was only fitting we chose to have the “Will Ya Be My Friend” video premiere and video art production on display at The Brick…with extra special thanks to Sheri! 03) The video was released last weekend, right? The video was officially released on Friday, March 12, 2010 at The Brick and on the internet right away. It’s been fourteen months in the making, and apart from my production work online and a handful of news items on David’s site and my site, has been fairly tight-lipped/tight-eye’d. It’s really neat to finally get it out there, share with the public, and see our year-plus of work fly by in four minutes! Hopefully, it’s four minutes that people will come back to visit multiple times! Tell your friends! 04) How much of the imagery is drawn vs. found? There is a very large percentage of found imagery pieced together in collage. There are also some hand drawn elements and characters. The core landscape I made of multiple ink jet printed overlays of found medical/science and floral illustrations and photos. There are also blow-ups of actual locust wings that make lovely hills. The original landscape, which we call “the scroll”, is made from all these layered collage pieces. The scroll is roughly 22″ wide x 25′ long (give-or-take as it is hard to properly measure the length) , based on the landscape I had in my head and from early sketches that I drew/timed to the flow of the landscape of the song. At one time I thought about the prospect of shooting the video on a continuous scroll cranked by hand, sorta old-fashioned and in tune to how I like to do things, but I’ll save that for another something down the road. Going back to truly visualizing the music, I had a vision of the landscape going on one continuous shot with multiple zooms up ‘n’ down and back ‘n’ forth and with the ability for the viewer to see the entire landscape at once during certain moments to see the scope of the world, or at least the part of the world that we were showing. It was probably a little more adventurous and in-depth than what could have been done, but what we ended up with is great as Philip really captured it well and found great ways to compromise and add his own flavors. I’m very pleased! Once the art and my notes were in Philip’s hands, I didn’t worry about it because I have faith in his abilities. I just hope he gets well rested after this! 05) There are a lot of insects and anatomical drawings in the video. Where did that concept come from? In my initial video thoughts, and something I think about quite frequently, I wanted to not only visually stamp the song “Will Ya Be My Friend”, but what the music might sound like on the inside or outside. Whether it’s the soul or makeup of the song itself or any body or vessel in which the song is played into, anything, even that of the external, in-between or over yonder. The original idea actually incorporated a live-action scene that lead into what you see for the final. There was also an idea of capturing David in full body movement and inserting him into the video world. But, being a little limited, and with David and me in KCMO and Philip, our chief motion man being in NYNY, we slimmed our ideas down some. I did a simple action photo shoot of David and then got to work on the final art. Though, Philip did a great job with the introduction of David in the opening credits and a humorous fall into the video world, so he partially captured some of the initial blue print. In terms of conceptual makeup of the landscape, I love seeing split levels of earth layers and what might be under the surface. So, the medical/science/anatomical imagery just made sense with this and also with the idea of seeing the guts of the musical landscape, human landscape or in-between world landscape. I had a couple of underground or cave-like-dip-down moments in mind fused with an almost Super Mario Bros. feel and this idea of seeing more than what’s just on the surface worked well with it too. The insects included just made sense in complimenting the anatomy and floral arrangements. The introduction of “Will Ya Be My Friend” has locusts and I wanted to play off of that, not only with an animation of an actual one whose skid mark David is after, but a few others in interaction, so the insects and microscopic critters blown-up, worked well, as well as the skeleton hands that act insect and critter-like. The song also ends with the voice of a child singing along and we wanted to capture childlike innocence, wonder and discovery from many aspects of the journey. We wanted a video that would be seen as more than just a video for the song, but more like a personal adventure with an identity that anybody might attach to or become attracted towards. We also wanted to lay the foundation of creativity and imagination and a connection to something larger. In particular, that feeling of experiencing something that can live beyond borders, that can make a person wake-up at any point in a day and get wheels turning. Something that can keep breathing. Something all around us that we often overlook, even sometimes the most important elements of life. Even though online time goes by in a flash, and an overloaded four minutes of video time at that, maybe it will get people to come back for more or rewind to get a better view of something buried beneath the surface, or grab a friend to show them. Maybe even it will get people to be thinking or look at non-video life in new ways. Friendships, life, art, whatever, all have extra things and treasures buried beneath. Of course, there are always chances of the not-so special things lurking. But, faith in the extra good ones can cancel them out, we must hope. 06) Are those Paul McCartney’s eyes on that lion? Good question and shows you were watching and came back for more! No, those aren’t Paul’s eyes. Though, if I had to choose the eyes of a Paul, it would be Newman or Buzan. Actually, those are David Seume’s eyes! And actually, as David exits the cave, a picture of himself that makes up the landscape composition is in the ground. It’s the picture those eyes came from. Up until late in the production art I just had the regular “Lion Guy” eyes there, a frizzy-haired chap I came across in an old thrift store text book. I’m not sure what kind of book, maybe psychology, but this guy was chosen for something and then I chose him. He gave me a giggle with that lion mane hair of his and I found a frame to hang him and then drew a body. He makes for a good friend. I wonder who he is though. I’d like to meet him and hope he doesn’t sue me for extending his likeness because I just like him. 07) Have you found anything good recently? (I remember last time we met you had a cup that said “Your dumb” on it) I’m constantly walking with my head down for keepsakes that other people discard, or trash that turns into animals or art when I walk by, so my pockets always have things in them. There are some great weathered handwritten garage and estate sale signs out there left to dissolve. Also, since we’re finally all thawed out from the winter (maybe?) there is good pickings for pieces of cars that wrecked and weird pieces of trash that was chucked. Much of the stuff I’m finding will all fit well together in a singular piece of art, once I get it all spread out and find the right time for it. This town needs a good, hard rain to wash it up some, but it all makes up the city’s landscape. And for now I’ll take what I can get and make something pretty, at least to me. Thanks! -djg

#interviews #innerviews #musicvideo #design #illustration #kansascity

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worldjeongguk · 7 years

Text

Smeraldo: What we know so far lol

The source code of the blog contains words like 스메랄도 = smeraldo and 석진꽃 = seokjin flower Ok, so the things I’m about to say are NOT PROVEN to have a relationship with BTS’s comeback, but the possibilities are high so stay with me cause I'll go quick in 5,6,7,8 (I’m so sorry)

THE STORY OF SMERALDO

credit to: @ / rosoidae on twitter! https://twitter.com/rosoidae

There's a story called, 'La Città di smeraldo' that takes place in a small town in Italy in the 1500s-1600s. The story's about an 'ugly' man who hid in an old castle alone. Because of his looks he received lots of hate & cruelty while growing up, he never opened his heart to anyone. Whenever they tried to approach him, he hid in anger. His happiness was to plant flowers in his garden.

One day a woman appeared near the man's castle. She jumped over the garden fence and stole a flower. this angered the man at first, so he watched his garden all night. But when he fell a sleep, the woman took another flower. This continued for several nights.

The man pretended to be asleep and watched the woman steal a flower. He started becoming curious about the woman. He began waiting for her without realizing he kept waiting for her to come and the next day seemed a little brighter.

Following after her one day he realized that she was selling the flowers that she stole from him to make a living. The man desperately wanted to help the woman, but he was afraid she would be terrified by the way he looks. He knew she would not love his 'grotesque' appearance.

He came to a conclusion that the only way he would be able to help her is to let her continue stealing flowers from his garden. The man decided to make a flower that doesn't exist on the planet, so that the woman could sell them at an expensive price.

He began to make the flower in his castle. After many unsuccessful attempts, the man made a flower that didn't exist and filled his garden,but the woman stopped coming. No matter how long he waited, she never came to his garden. He eventually found out that the woman had died.

BigHit representatives revealed that bts' next comeback's theme will be about loving yourself. In the story the man did not love himself. If he had loved himself he could have showed his face to the woman, and helped her before she had passed away.

THE RELATION TO BTS’S COMEBACK! (This is messy pls stay with me lol. AGAIN: CREDITS TO ALL OWNERS, MESSAGE ME IF YOU WANT ME TO TAKE IT DOWN! :)) For the upcoming paragraph, credits to: @ / rosoidae on Twitter

Jin tweeted a selca today, holding the Smeraldo flowers. These flowers were, according to a screenshot, discovered on june 12, 2013; the day of BTS’s debut showcase stage. The screenshot:

It's 석진시 (seokjin o'clock = 12:04 because his birthday is december 4th) at the top of this screenshot (credits to @ / xuichi on Twitter)

On Instagram, there is an account called flowersmeraldo (https://www.instagram.com/flowersmeraldo/)

It has posted a picture, that says in korean: “The true feelings that could not be expressed” The handwriting looks oddly like Jin’s writing, check for yourself:

This account is believed to be owned by BTS, posting hints.

With the (fake) discovery of this smeraldo flower, the florist "Testesso" is gonna "open" a flower shop mid-september, I smell a comeback. (Check their captions and bio for more info since my Korean is very very poor!)

The name of the blog is “te stesso”. If you translate the Italian phrase: “Ama te stesso” into English, you get “love yourself.” Haven’t we heard this before, guys?

In every post, there’s a link to a certain website: www.flowersmeraldo.com This website leads you to a Korean Naver blog, which is also (obviously) believed to be owned by BTS.

The name of the blog is “te stesso”. If you translate the Italian phrase: “Ama te stesso” into English, you get “love yourself.” Haven’t we heard this before, guys? Also,the meaning of the Smeraldo flower is "non potevo dire la verità,” which means "i couldn't tell the truth" or "the truth i couldn't tell.” They also have that phrase repeated on both the IG page and the blog itself.

Apparently Hobi once posted the source of the blog, and

( credits to @ / ctrlbeat on twitter!) (upcoming info completely comes from their account!)

the source code of the blog contains words like:

스메랄도 = smeraldo, and

석진꽃 = seokjin flower

The blog posted an event asking people to submit stories with confessions to family or anyone and 7 people's stories will be relayed. The winner’s will receive a special gift (Apparently a bouquet and a card or something? I’m not sure and also tired)

The stories have to be emailed and submitted before august 15th, 10pm kst. The last Bon Voyage episode also happens to be on this day. Maybe it’s a special date? :)

There are 7 episodes on the blog explaining the history of Smeraldo and the 5th mentions a "William Ashbless" who is a fictional character, and a poet. The fictional William Ashbless from Italy created playing cards and the blog mentions "The flower card", influenced by Smeraldo flowers.

The Smeraldo flowers were supposedly discovered in "La Città di smeraldo" = "The emerald city", commonly known from Wizard of Oz.

Lastly, this blog was created july 4, 2017, on the same day the BTS logo video was released.

THE SMERALDO ACADEMY // FACEBOOK

It’s about to get even more confusing, I’m so sorry~

Well, The Smeraldo Acadamey, TSA for short, is a fictional academy. The academy was originally founded on sept. 12th 2013, on Rap Monster’s birthday. The first attendee was ‘Inbloom BTS’ Screenshot:

As you can see in the screenshot, their fourth anniversary is this year. So is BTS’s. Coincidence? I think not.

if you email academysmeraldo@gmail (from the TSA FaceBook page) you get a reply from "Ashbless Will"

On the FaceBook page, there is also a post about Hawaii. Bon Voyage, I guess?

(credits to user @ / nvrwlkln on Twitter)

Here is the conference schedule:

(credits to user @ / beiataehung on Twitter)

RANDOM CLUES!

We have arrived at the last paragraph of my longest post in the history of Tumblr, I’m proud of you for getting through all that!

The flowers on the edges of HYYH part 1 and 2, may be Smeraldo’s.

(credits to user @ / shinebrightRM on Twitter!)

In the I Need U MV, do you guys remember Jin holding flower petals. Right. You see where I’m taking this. Also, they used EXACTLY the same flowers/flower petals in the I Need U shoot. Here are some pictures:

(credits to user @ / namjoonned on Twitter!)

There’s also a Twitter account to match the blog and the Instagram account, https://twitter.com/FlowerSmeraldo . This account has posted something just 11 hours ago. Sadly enough I can’t really read Korean. Their last post said something about being open in September (I can SMELL a comeback)

(END OF POST. ALL CREDITS GO TO ORIGINAL OWNERS. I CLAIM NOTHING OF THE ABOVE AS MY OWN (despite the shit that I figured out myself thx). IF YOU WANT ME TO REMOVE STH, MESSAGE ME! I WILL REMOVE YOUR CONTENT! THANKS FOR SHARING THIS INFO WITH US!

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY MADE IT TO THE END AND AS OF NOW, YOU ARE COMPLETELY UPDATED ON THE ONGOING THEORIES! I hoped you enjoyed reading it because I put A LOT of time and effort into translating, looking up, and overall typing to create this post. Let me know what you think about their upcoming comeback, because I’m super excited :)

And to BTS, if you’re reading this you owe me some aspirins (and some love) because I got a headache of all this typing damnit i love you bye

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

Text

THE LAST 10 YEARS HAVE REMINDED US WHAT MOORE'S LAW ACTUALLY SAYS

I wasn't looking for it. So Web-based software, because you're paying for the hardware. Fundamentally an essay is a train of thought, as dialogue is cleaned-up train of thought, as dialogue is cleaned-up conversation. It's possible you could meet a cofounder through something like a user's group or a conference. This is one of those 10,000 startup founders into the country. To do so is homophobic. Why did desktop computers take over? So I say get big slow. Would it be so bad to add a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down.

Fortunately, once you arrive at adulthood with heads full of lies. Dartmouth, the University of Vermont, Amherst, and University College, London taught English literature in the 1820s. When he was 19, he seemed like he had a quadruple bypass. You can also be in the best position to conquer the rest of the market. Back in the days of fanfold, there was no way anyone could have known this in advance. There's an intriguing middle ground where you build a semi-automatic weapon—where there's a human in the loop. And eventually I'd forget that Hilbert had confirmed it too. But even that may be overrated. We put little weight on the idea. They're just a couple guys, either with day jobs or in school, you're surrounded by potential cofounders.

What prevented most serfs from leaving was that it was, in fact. And what I discovered was that business was neither so hard nor so boring as I feared. But there is another set of customs for being ingratiating in print is that most essays are written to persuade. We knew that everyone else was writing their software in C or Perl. With Web-based software assumes nothing about the client, they can't tell which ones are good. Another unusual thing about Lisp—people who know that Lisp is a computer language, and have a compiler translate it into machine language for you. Back when desktop computers arrived, IBM was the giant that everyone was afraid of. But even failure will get you to the ultimate goal faster than getting a job. NET turns out to be very accurate. Imagine an American president saying that today.

And while 110 may not seem much better than that. And for these releases, the mere fact of which seemed to us evidence of their backwardness, they would get confused and click on the browser's Back button. And so you can't begin with a statement, but with a question. And the second could probably be hushed up, and in it, so I stopped worrying about it. Why do it if you're trying to do in an essay. They are programs that write programs? I think if you looked inside the average Windows user you'd find a huge and pretty much untapped desire for software meeting that description. Lisp's syntax; running code at compile-time, compile-time, and growth has to slow down eventually. When everyone feels they're getting a slightly bad deal, that they're doing more than they read on the teleprompter.

The place to look is where the spread of literacy and the arrival of block-structured languages, but by then it was too late. There is one reason intranet software will continue to work for them. McCarthy, who was on the Algol committee, got conditionals into Algol, whence they spread to most other languages. Would the city be described as a marketplace usually has to start in a small market that will either turn into a big company on the way down, grasping at straws. And this wasn't just random error. They wouldn't seem bad to the city officials. The amounts of money involved are larger, millions usually. With a desktop application, you can write substantial chunks this way. That solves the problem if you don't find it. Need for structure I'm told there are people who need structure in their lives.

Even Bill Gates, who seems to be increasing. Our competitors had cgi scripts. Startups are too poor to be worth suing for money. It let them build great looking online stores literally in minutes. Those who bet on economies of scale generally won, which meant the largest organizations were the most successful startups, including Google, ignored revenue at first and concentrated exclusively on development. Patent trolls are hard to solve, and what constitutes a good dessert, but about the obstacles blacks faced in his time. They're like property management companies run by madmen. Formidable is roughly justifiably confident. We have some evidence to support this. But in the late 19th century. Sun did this to mainframes, and Intel is doing it to the manufacturers of specialized video editing systems, and now that we were decoding their Enigma traffic or something.

Web-based application is not a single piece of code. But as the founders of Google knew, brand is worth next to nothing in the search business. There's no controversy about which idea is most controversial: the suggestion that you aren't, then you only have one page of ideas. If they win, they win big. Maybe the advantage of software will be good this time around, because startups rarely get sued for patent infringement before they'd even released a product. Plus you have to ignore what other people are doing, and consider only what will work the best. Ideally this meant getting a lot of them wrote software for it. You are whatever you wrote. Eric Raymond has written an essay called How to Become a Hacker, and in fact had lived its whole life with, to live in could make itself one of the more adventurous catalog companies. If your terms force startups to do things that don't scale. But that's another issue.

As a standard, you couldn't wish for more. The Mac was popular with hackers when it first came out, and a server collocated at an ISP. And we loved them, because when they showed up for tuesday dinners they'd always just flown back from somewhere. It seemed such a novel idea to us that investors were too conservative here—that they wanted to. They will give you major coverage for a major release, meaning a new first digit on the version number, and generally didn't know much more than they read on the teleprompter. Fundamentally an essay is a train of thought—but a cleaned-up train of thought, as dialogue is cleaned-up conversation. And when there's no installation, you don't have to be even faster, and more accessible CNC milling are making hardware easier to prototype. Will they be able to resist, or at best a way to start a startup? The Pebbles assembled the first several hundred watches themselves. To understand what McCarthy meant by this, we're going to make a new web-based email. If investors are impressed with you as founders, they say Great, we'll send you a link. Some larger merchants were reluctant to use Viaweb because they thought customers' credit card information would be safer on their own server.

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travelworldnetwork · 6 years

Link

By Mithila Phadke

11 February 2019

As a newly minted Beijinger, there were certain things my brain quickly scrambled to make room for: the exact time I needed to leave home in the mornings to avoid being squashed into human dumpling filling on the rush-hour subway ride; the location of the best spots for mala xiang guo (a stir-fried version of hot pot); to never flush toilet paper; and to never, ever attempt eating a soup dumpling by putting it straight into your mouth (poke and slurp, people!).

One task, though, seemed impossible: remembering my QQ number, a string of randomly assigned digits that served as the user identification for the QQ messaging service our office – and many others in China – used.

It seemed living in China meant being constantly bombarded by numbers

As the only foreign employee in my department, I was also clearly the only one with this problem. My Chinese co-workers had no difficulty rattling off their own 10-digit, or in some cases nine-digit, IDs. No-one else felt the need to run over to his or her computer like a total idiot to check every time someone asked them. In case you didn’t realise, that idiot was/is me. Since that day two years ago, when a colleague helped me set it up, I’ve never once signed out of my QQ account, nervous that I’ll not be able to log back in at all. If you asked me what my QQ ID was, after more than 104 weeks of living in China and using this messaging service, I would not be able to tell you.

I once asked the British guy working in the office next to ours if he remembered his. He did not. Neither could my two American friends. “What do those numbers mean?” we’d whined to each other. “There’s no order of any kind to them. Why not just use letters?!” I had been tempted to place the blame squarely on our collective terrible memories but turns out, there was possibly more to this. None of the locals we’d asked seemed to find anything unusual about remembering not only long strings of QQ digits, but also various other sets of numbers in other areas of their everyday lives. They turned up in website domain names. They were part of internet slang. Certain numbers assumed significance in cultural beliefs: some were auspicious; others were to be fled from at all cost. Once I started looking, it seemed living in China meant being constantly bombarded by numbers, much more so than in other countries and cultures. And none of my Chinese co-workers or friends were quite sure why.

View image of Upon moving to Beijing, writer Mithila Phadke noticed the prevalence of numbers in daily life (Credit: Credit: jeremy sutton-hibbert/Alamy)

“I’ve heard the train fares on the CTrip website are kinda high,” my Sichuanese roommate Panbi told me, back when I first moved here, as we discussed my Chinese New Year travel plans. “Why don’t you try 12306?”

You may also be interested in: • How India gave us the zero • Japan’s unusual way to view the world • The country that can’t slow down

“Um. Is that a helpline number?” I’d asked, adding that I wasn’t sure my Mandarin skills were up to scratch yet. Turns out, no, it wasn’t a helpline. 12306.cn is China Rail’s official website and app. You know, just like email service websites 163.com and 126.com. While trying to find out exactly why all of them were named thusly, I found a very puzzled (non-Chinese) user’s post on a software company’s forum. “Are 126.com and 163.com fake email addresses?” he asked, with some consternation. “I noticed a number of email addresses for our members with [these] domain [names]. From what I've been able to tell via limited research, these domains could potentially be fake.” Other users quickly clarified that they were legitimate addresses. No-one, though, explained why.

Or wait, almost no-one. Turns out the reason was likely the same as the one behind every one of my life choices: it involved the least effort. As Frankie Huang, a writer and strategist based in Shanghai, told me over email, numbers are far easier to type for purposes like websites’ names, as compared to pinyin, the Romanised system for Chinese characters.

“Not everyone in China has perfect grasp of pinyin. If websites have pinyin names, it might actually be difficult for some people to figure out which letters to write,” she said. A string of numbers is easier to commit to memory than words in a foreign language.

Also, because numbers involve just a single keystroke, you can type much faster. “This was a particular advantage back when phones had real keypads and you had to hit number keys multiple times for letters,” Huang added. “Nobody has time for that.”

View image of Numbers often appear in website domain names as they are easier to type (Credit: Credit: Lou Linwei/Alamy)

Unlike the QQ IDs, the digits in a website name usually aren’t random, explains Christopher Beam in his New Republic essay. For instance, 163.com is the website address of Chinese internet company NetEase. It’s a throwback to the days of dial-up, when customers had to enter 163 to go online. “The phone companies China Telecom and China Unicom simply re-appropriated their well-known customer service numbers as domain names, 10086.cn and 10010.cn, respectively.”

This is also where homophones get involved. Among e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba’s various platforms is 1688.com, with the numbers pronounced ‘ee-lio-ba-ba’ in Mandarin. Get it?

Some, like McDonald’s (phonetically translated in Mandarin as ‘Maidanglao’, until they changed their name in 2017) decided to get more creative. You can order your McMuffin online by typing 4008-517-517.cn because ‘517’ in Mandarin is ‘wu yi qi’. Almost like ‘wo yao chuh’ or ‘I want to eat’ (‘chuh’ is the closest phonetic spelling for ‘chi’, the actual word for ‘eat’). Website 51job.com sounds awfully close to ‘I want a job’, and the ‘6’ in video-streaming site 6.cn’s address is a near-homophone for ‘to stream’, writes Beam. All Chinese digits are monosyllabic, making them easier to remember as sounds, or a short, catchy chant.

View image of McDonald’s allows its customers in China to order food by typing 4008-517-517.cn (Credit: Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy)

While this societal fascination with numbers truly becomes apparent once you have lived in China long-term, it’s often something tourists might notice too. The first time I encountered the cultural quirk was years ago, on my first trip here. I was in the city of Taizhou, spending a few days with my dad. He worked there, flying back and forth between Taizhou and Mumbai every couple of months. On my way up to his apartment, I noticed the lift panel had no fourth floor. There was 1, there was 2 and then there were 3A and 3B. Months later, when I had moved to China myself, I kept coming across elevators that had resolutely decided to not acknowledge 4.

The reason is that the pronunciation of the word ‘four’ in Mandarin sounds way too close for comfort to the word for ‘death’. Which, in the case of the more-orthodox Chinese people, necessitated banishing the number entirely. A co-worker gently suggested I remove one of the four hand-painted coasters I had brought from India for my boss before presenting them to her. My real estate agent informed me, strictly off-record, that often, apartments numbered 4 or 44 tended to be rented out to foreigners. “Many times, the local Chinese people don’t want to live there,” she said, instantly making me remember house 44 inside Qianmachang Hutong in Beijing, where my very American ex-boyfriend had lived.

Huang says her apartment building in Shanghai is “an extreme example of numerical superstition”. It ascribes to not only Chinese, but also Western numerology. Along with leaving out floors 4, 14, 24 and 34, it has also done away with 13. “Once, I was looking at our building from the outside with my husband and we tried to figure out which floor was ours by counting up,” Huang recalled. “[We then realised] that the floor numbers are meaningless as they're all wrong.” 13 was actually 14; 23 was actually 20.

View image of Oftentimes in China, apartments numbered 4 and 44 are considered less desirable (Credit: Credit: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy)

Number 8, on the other hand, is the luckiest, as it sounds like the Mandarin word for prosperity. Car number plates with multiple 8’s have likely been paid a fortune for by their owners, and the ornate ‘88’ building number outside Mr Shi’s Dumplings in Beijing is essentially an announcement to any potential competitors that they are doing very well indeed, thank you very much. If you happen to get an 888 in your phone number, you could likely sell it for a pretty good price.

Numbers also lend a sense of solidness, apparent from the government’s fondness for incorporating them into official policies. There’s the ‘Four Comprehensives’ put forth by Chinese President Xi Jinping, another heartening moment of redemption for the number 4 after Chairman Mao advocated for the ‘Four Olds’ – Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits – in the 1960s. Because official policies are kept separate from cultural superstition, it’s irrelevant how “lucky” a number is. Former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Jiang Zemin had the ‘Three Represents’. Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao had the slightly more bluesy-sounding ‘Three Supremes’, but then made up for it with the very serious ‘Eight Honours and Eight Shames’ – also the title of the lecture my Indian parents gave me the second I hit puberty.

View image of Numbers have also become engrained in Chinese internet slang (Credit: Credit: Education & Exploration 3/Alamy)

Then there’s the wide, wild world of Chinese internet slang, where dodging censors (or just nosy parents) means homophonic numerals are popular. So 748 is telling someone to go to hell, 555 basically means a crying emoji, 233 means you’re laughing, and 520 is ‘I love you’. And if you wanted to really kick it up a few notches, there’s 2010000, which means ‘I love you for 10,000 years’. How’s that for your Valentine’s Day Instagram hashtag?

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prideguynews · 6 years

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Gay Iraqi Ghazwan Alsharif of “From Baghdad to the Bay” enjoys his liberty putting on an American flag turban. Image: Courtesy “From Baghdad to the Bay”

Gay Iraqi Ghazwan Alsharif’s story about his journey to liberty has been a ten years in the producing. Up coming 7 days, Bay Region audiences will have the opportunity to see the award-successful documentary “From Baghdad to The Bay.”

The documentary, by award-successful unbiased filmmaker Erin Palmquist, who is the director, cinematographer, and producer, will be screened at movie festivals in Mill Valley, Oakland, San Francisco, and Palo Alto on pick out dates Oct thirteen-21.

“I am thrilled, joyful, [and] fired up,” explained Alsharif, 47.

He’s been happy with audiences’ responses at previous screenings previously this 12 months and the 3 awards it is garnered so considerably.

Palmquist, 41, is a straight ally and Oakland resident.

“It is a surreal working experience to have arrived at this milestone,” she wrote to the Bay Region Reporter in an email job interview. “Considering the fact that we premiered, we have seen viewers impacted in profound means.”

The documentary follows Alsharif via his struggles, likely from his loved ones and countrymen to aid the U.S. armed service as a translator throughout the Iraq War. His choice puts his loved ones in great hazard. Finally, it still left him ostracized from them and his region, leading him on a journey to set up a new daily life as a refugee in the U.S.

Possibly one of the most dramatic times in the movie is when Alsharif was imprisoned for 75 times soon after getting accused of espionage by the exact same armed service he was supporting. The reality was the only solution he held was that he is gay.

Alsharif was saved by Colonel Bobby Nicholson of the 4th Infantry Division of the U.S. Military, for whom he served as a translator. In the movie, Nicholson shares his story about vouching for Alsharif and receiving him out of solitary confinement in Iraq.

Alsharif came to San Francisco as a refugee in 2008.

He met Palmquist for a one-hour job interview that turned into a ten years-lengthy journey for the two of them that culminated into the sixty eight-moment movie.

The documentary was supported by individual donations and grants alongside with some own funding, and many volunteers, wrote Palmquist, who has not accomplished the final accounting.

“Ghazwan’s tenacity and his perception in himself had been the features that impressed me to see it via to the finish line,” wrote Palmquist. “In telling a story as challenging and traumatic as Ghazwan’s, it is not astonishing that the procedure has also been layered with problems and sacrifice.”

The documentary focuses mainly on Alsharif’s working experience doing the job with the U.S. armed service, his time getting detained, and his struggles starting off daily life anew in San Francisco. It wasn’t the goal of Alsharif or Palmquist to include things like his sexual orientation in the telling of the story due to the risk, but circumstances modified their perspective.

A 12 months soon after Alsharif came to the “gay mecca,” headlines commenced to arise about the torture and murders of mainly gay Iraqis in 2009. The news prompted him to do some thing remarkably unconventional for LGBT Middle Jap individuals at the time — he spoke out and grew to become visible.

In 2015, Alsharif and other Iraqis spoke to the Bay Region Reporter about daily life before the tumble of Saddam Hussein’s regime with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The “Never Ask, Never Explain to,” way of daily life for LGBT Iraqis was considerably diverse from the severe realities of daily life for them only a couple several years afterwards with the rise of anti-American and anti-gay sentiment and the Islamic Condition of Iraq and Levant. Their stories echoed LGBT and human legal rights experiences about what was taking place to gays in Iraq and unredacted U.S. Condition Section experiences from 2009 launched by WikiLeaks.

Funding problems caused Palmquist to stick to Alsharif’s journey much longer than initially expected.

“This permitted for he and us to mature into a place in which we could not omit this sort of an important portion of who Ghazwan is, as perfectly as definitely witness the journey that he has traveled to be in which he is currently,” she wrote.

Alsharif praised Palmquist’s capacity to capture his struggles, daily life, and identity in the documentary. It touches on his pain getting separated from his youthful son, who life with his ex-spouse in England, and adopting a new homeland. He grew to become a U.S. citizen in 2014.

He’s come to be a chef, showing on the Foodstuff Network’s “Guy’s Grocery Video games,” and a 7 days in the past started off his new placement as govt chef at the California Academy of Sciences.

In August, his son came to pay a visit to him for the very first time since they had been separated following his divorce from his spouse. His son stayed with him for forty times.

“I was battling from depression, battling to endure this city, battling to know the society, to get a career, to establish a career,” explained Alsharif. “I did try out to do silly things to myself beforehand when I experienced depression listed here, but I was solid more than enough to feel in myself and transfer on.

“Now, I’m wanting at myself and how happy I am to be big and prosperous,” he ongoing.

Palmquist echoed Alsharif’s hope that audiences are impressed and locate the bravery within on their own. But she also hopes to “challenge people’s perceptions and paradigms” about “human legal rights, immigration legal rights and LGBTQI legal rights, to what it implies to be Arab and gay, as perfectly as the armed service working experience” and spark discussions.

“San Francisco is Ghazwan’s property and he has contributed so much to this city,” wrote Palmquist. “It is definitely amazing to be sharing his extremely important story with the community local community.”

The documentary can be seen at these festivals: Oct thirteen at 2 p.m.: Mill Valley Film Competition in San Rafael. Oct fourteen at 2:fifteen p.m.: Mill Valley Film Competition in Mill Valley. Oct seventeen at six p.m.: Arab Film Competition in San Francisco, with an soon after-occasion at Slate Bar. Oct 19 at 5 p.m.: Arab Film Competition in Oakland, with an soon after-occasion at Double Common. Oct 21 at 4:30 p.m.: United Nations Affiliation Film Competition in Palo Alto.

For a lot more information and facts and to see the trailer, pay a visit to http://www.frombaghdadtothebay.com.

Romanian anti-LGBT constitutional referendum invalidated The simply call to protest the polls labored for Romanian LGBT advocates.

An initiative to constitutionally ban exact same-sex relationship unsuccessful to garner more than enough votes to transfer any further in the political procedure, in accordance to a news release from OutRight Action Global.

Only twenty percent of registered voters forged their ballot throughout the vote Oct six-7, instantly voiding the referendum, which wanted at minimum 30 percent to be valid.

The evaluate was passed by the country’s parliament in September and was backed by a ruling by Romania’s Constitutional Court docket. Even so, a 7 days before the vote the court docket ruled Romanian exact same-sex couples ought to have the exact same loved ones legal rights as straight couples on September 27.

Presently, exact same-sex relationship isn’t really legal in Romania. The region decriminalized homosexuality in 2001, in accordance to the Equality Index.

LGBT Romanians take pleasure in some legal protections.

Dwelling Dems urge reversal on new exact same-sex spouse visa plan Democratic leaders in the Dwelling of Associates have urged reversal of a new plan that denies loved ones visas to the exact same-sex domestic partners of diplomats posted in the United States and gives all those previously in the region 3 months to marry or eliminate their visas.

In an Oct 5 letter to Secretary of Condition Mike Pompeo, a lot more than a hundred Democratic Dwelling members urged him to reverse the plan, stating it “sends the incorrect information that the U.S. is not welcoming of all individuals.”

The plan adjust, announced in a July twenty memo, was to “assure and boost equal treatment method,” in accordance to officers.

It went into effect Oct one.

The plan affects a lot more than just diplomats serving in the U.S. and Us residents serving abroad. It also affects all those who work for the United Nations, the Entire world Bank, North Atlantic Treaty Corporation, and other groups, noted the New York Times.

A senior administration official talking anonymously to the Times and Washington Article explained that one zero five families at the moment in the U.S. are affected by the modified plan, fifty five of whom are connected with global corporations.

“The United States must sustain its moral leadership on all human legal rights issues, like all those influencing LGBTQI individuals,” the associates stated in their letter.

Bay Region Democratic Associates Ro Khanna (San Jose), Barbara Lee (Oakland), and Jackie Speier (San Francisco/San Mateo) signed onto the letter, which was spearheaded by Consultant Brad Schneider (Illinois).

The associates pointed out that “only 26 nations — a mere thirteen percent of U.N. member states — make it possible for exact same-sex couples to marry.”

They lifted worry about the department’s failure to acknowledge that a the greater part of nations about the environment really don’t make it possible for exact same-sex domestic partners to marry. On top of that, they expressed worries about the policy’s effect on U.S. diplomats, as many nations provide reciprocal visas. They argued the new plan could put many U.S. diplomats at risk, opening them up to likely retaliation.

“Denying visas to exact same-sex partners of overseas diplomats and U.N. officers is a discriminatory reversal of a plan that acknowledged that not all exact same-sex couples about the environment have the liberty to marry and unfairly targets LGBT families,” gay Consultant Mark Takano (D-California), told the Article.

Takano urged the administration to reconsider a “risky and bigoted plan.”

LGBT advocates also expressed their worries about the new plan following its enactment.

Hyung Hak “Alfonso” Nam, president of U.N. Globe, which represents LGBT staff members at the United Nations, explained he is anxious about partners of diplomats who arrive from nations in which some individuals could be vulnerable to prosecution. He explained it will produce obstructions for couples thinking about a putting up at the U.N. headquarters in New York.

Samantha Electric power, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., tweeted her objection to the new plan, calling it “needlessly cruel & bigoted.”

There would be a “restricted exception” for diplomats who arrive from nations in which exact same-sex interactions are illegal on a situation-by-situation foundation, in accordance to Condition Section associates.

The point out office commenced issuing visas to domestic partners of exact same-sex diplomats in 2009 less than former Secretary of Condition Hillary Clinton. Former secretaries of point out John Kerry and Rex Tillerson ongoing the plan.

The plan wasn’t extended to single heterosexual couples.

Obtained global LGBT news tips? Call or send out them to Heather Cassell at Skype: heather.cassell or [email protected].

From Baghdad to The Bay Teaser from Erin Palmquist on Vimeo.

The post Gay Iraqi’s story hits Bay Area film festivals appeared first on PrideGuy - Gay News, LGBT News, Politics & Entertainment.

#gay #gay news #lgbt

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bangkokjacknews · 3 years

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Asian countries where the women want foreign husbands

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wbouldingblog-blog · 7 years

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Hello, dear readers. This is strange. We’re not on the move. We’ve been in the same place for 6 days, so there’s not been a natural break in proceedings to update you AND we’ve got another 2 days before we finally make it to New Zealand. Most importantly, we’ve crossed the equator and are now having to do handstands all the time here in the southern hemisphere and wear special harnesses to stop us falling off this side of the flat earth. Here’s how we made it.

After an uneventful night in a windowless hotel room in Ho Chi Minh (apart from a second cheesy foodgasm experience in Pizza 4Ps – we couldn’t get enough of it), we were checking out and, of course, it was at this moment, 2 hours before our flight to Singapore left, that the credit card machine stopped working. Luckily, as is often the case in HCMC, there was a guy with a scooter available to take Henny to another branch of the same hotel to pay there, where the machine was actually working. Henny was returned on the same scooter, and we hopped in a fresh-faced (couldn’t have been more than 22) Uber driver’s car and wove through the traffic to the international terminal of the airport.

Once inside, we played a game of ‘Where’s The Check-in Desk?’, followed by a lightning round of ‘Which Queue Is The Fastest?’, where the plot twist was that they were all glacially slow. Once at the desk, we were offered emergency seats (fistbump – legroom!) and made our way to immigration, where the authorities made sure to line everyone up to have their passports checked by smartly-dressed sloths. We eventually made it through and got through security (where more attention was paid to the football on the TV than to the x-ray machine) and found a little café, where we grabbed a baguette (I wanted more pho but there wasn’t enough time ☹), and sat down at our gate just as they started boarding. Once we’d finished our food and climbed on board (the extra legroom was aaaaaaaaamazing), we settled into our travelling routine of dozing, reading and listening to music. Before we knew it, we were at the gloriously modern arrivals terminal of Singapore Changi airport.

The difference was immediate and superb. The information desk spoke an English better than most of south London. The airport was spacious, with great big relaxation gardens featuring Koi carp-filled ponds and chirruping cicadas, an entire entertainment deck (as if we were on a cruise ship) with consoles, ‘jam room’, and cinema, and more shops in one place than I’ve seen in a terminal building. The catch? The price. Our first set of coffees outside of cheap Asia was in the 15 euros range (I did, admittedly, have a sausage roll too, but that was the cheapest of the three items). We’d gone from being able to live like royalty (if we’d wanted to) to being able to just sit quietly and sip at our coffees, trying to maximise the enjoyment.

We were going to be here for 12 hours. We wandered around looking at things we will never be able to afford, booked ourselves on the free city tour for the evening and even crossed into a different terminal to see if there were any major differences (none apart from the air conditioning being three degrees lower). We wandered some more, marvelled at the gardens, went to the loo (still not able to beat my shopping centre experience) then looked at phones, as mine was about to give up. I found a good few models, but they’re all still a bit too expensive at the moment, particularly as I’m not sure what my job situation will be in the next few weeks. We went and attempted to play on some games on the entertainment deck, but the computer was slower than I’d thought. After some button-mashing on street fighter II (Henny must have been cheating – I lost convincingly both times) and Henny being devoured by the ghosts on Mrs Pacman, we headed over for our tour, which took us to two major sites in Singapore. First was the Merlion, a new fountain which represents the wealth of the city pouring out of the lion’s mouth. The word ‘Singa’, we found out, means ‘lion’ and ‘Pura’ means ‘city’ (a prince saw a lion on a hunting trip here, so the tale goes), so the lion symbol represents the city itself, the fishy tail its marine economy. Second stop were the Gardens by the Bay. These newly-created, eco-aware gardens are fantastic for getting lost in (as a French couple displayed by being 15 minutes late to the pick-up point) and for getting good sunset pictures of the Marina Bay Sands hotel. After two hours of walking and seeing new sights, we headed hungrily back to the airport, skipped through security and went to a food hall, where I had some Thai green curry and Henny had some Korean barbecue.

Once we were gastronomically satisfied, we headed to the cinema, where we caught the action-packed finale of Fast and Furious 8, and I got an email about another translation, which was to be submitted in 2 days (or whatever it was after taking into account the time difference – this has really messed up my perception of time). I went to charge the laptops and begin work on it while Henny watched the beginning of Boss Baby (the only film in the cinema’s repertoire that I’d wanted to see, but hey ho). The hour before we needed to get to our gate disappeared into a flurry of typing and it was soon time to say goodbye to Changi and hop on a plane which would take me over the equator for the first time.

Our seats were, sadly, not in the emergency escape aisle this time, and we were surrounded by people who seemed to want to cough up their insides every five minutes, or sniff at 20-second intervals without using a tissue. This continued through most of the flight and is what I blame for my currently-annoying throaty cough. We slept through most of the flight though (it only lasted 7 hours) and were suddenly on our way down to land in Melbourne. We got off the plane, ran to the immigration barriers and, after a brief moment of panic when the automatic gate didn’t recognise me, I engaged in some sport-based banter with the immigration official and was let through unmolested. We had to wait for a bit for our bags, but eventually got them, Henny purchased her new-country sim card and we hopped on the express bus to take us to the city.

We trundled along the freeway (the Aussies seem to have taken the American word for this one) and, at some point along the journey, we turned a bend to see the towering heights of the Melbourne skyline spread out ahead of us. It was fantastic – a moment for a Hans Zimmer score, maybe from the Gladiator soundtrack.

We hopped off the larger bus at southern cross station and onto a smaller bus (more like the local ones we get in England – Surrey peeps, think the 465 to Kingston) to take us the United Backpackers hostel, where we’d be spending the next couple of nights. Through the small yellow entrance which you’d just walk past if you weren’t looking for it, the hostel was clean and bright and everything you could wish for from a place that wasn’t a hotel. Henny claimed a top bunk and I took a bottom bunk (on the other side of the room; most beds were already taken in our dorm) then, after a refreshing let’s-not-smell-like-plane-any-more shower, we headed out for Henny to show me briefly what there was to see in our little corner of Melbourne, including a glimpse of federation square and Coles, the supermarket chain. I initially baulked at the prices, but soon did the maths for the exchange rate and worked out that it was just like inner-city London prices; high, but manageable as long as you were careful.

Henny had been liaising with her former au-pair mum and the girls, and so arranged to go and meet them at their hotel (they live in Canberra but had come to stay in Melbourne for the weekend) while I finished off a particularly urgent translation and made some friends at the hostel at the same time. After I’d finished my translation, I headed off to meet the ladies at their hotel. The girls are diabetic and have a beautifully cute and patient dog called Molly who is also a registered assistance dog; she can smell when their blood sugar levels are dangerous and will alert Adrienne (mum) or their carer at school so that they can take action. After lots of stroking the dog and hearing about their adventures so far, we headed out for dinner, little Molly Polly trotting along alertly beside us.

Everyone wanted sushi, so we walked the 15-or-so minutes it took to get to a particularly well-rated one in a shopping centre near the central shopping area of the city. We’d finally found somewhere to get to the sushi conveyor belt which would sit all 5 of us (Molly could stay on the floor), when a man, who looked as if he’d taken inspiration from Ken (of Barbie fame) for his plastic-moulded hairdo, flatly, yet with an apology or two, refused us service, citing the fact that our dog couldn’t be in the restaurant. Despite Adrienne’s best efforts, showing him the assistance dog card and explaining the need for him, the man (like his hairdo) was not for moving.

Flinging a threat of legal action in the court of human rights over our shoulders along with some Paddington-esque Hard Stares, we left the centre and headed to the David Jones (think an Australian John Lewis) food court for some reduced-price (it was the end of their trading hours) sushi and fried chicken, which was lovely. The girls had a minor spat over a sip of milkshake (apparently the other’s spit would still be in the straw and original owner needed a replacement), which escalated and gave Adrienne a chance to highlight the differences between antipodean and middle-class British parenting approaches – there was no messing around with her. Direct and to the point, with a hint of frustration in her tone and vocabulary, she told the girls that there would be no replacement and that was that. Our sushi eaten and milkshake-wars in a state of ceasefire, we headed out to the street and parted ways, arranging pickup times for the morning after next when we were to head to the zoo for the day!

Before heading to the Zoo though, we had much to see of the Melbourne CBD, so the next morning, we went on a walking tour, learning about the history of Melbourne, the meaning of various sites and their importance in the development of the city, as well as some of the more notable citizens, including a particularly nefarious Robin Hood-inspired Irishman by the name of Ned Kelly. He and his gang were bank robbers and did the common people a service by combining their raids with the destruction of personal loan documents, which, unsurprisingly, made them rather popular. We saw the laneways where countless street artists had applied their skilled hands to jazz up the between-streets, and ended up with a beer in the pub. Here, Henny took her leave to go and see an old friend from her previous time in Melbourne, and I went on a lovely long walk around some other parts of Melbourne with some of the guys from the walking tour. When we’d had enough (the sun was baking), we headed back to our hostel and had a game of pool over a beer, which I lost (the pool that is, not the beer).

Once I’d got over the loss, I chilled in the aptly-named ‘chilling room’ until my evening’s entertainment arrived. Steph got to the hostel around 7 and we had a drink at the bar, whilst realising that it had been 7 years since we had last seen each other – she had been a supervisor at the farm a long time ago. She now works for Victoria Zoos and had managed to wrangle us free tickets for Melbourne Zoo for the next day. The free stuff didn’t stop there; she’d also won a competition at a Chinese dumpling place and had free dumplings for a year! The dumplings were excellent and I added some crisp pork belly to the order too, which was fabulous – melt-in-your-mouth tender and crunchy where you wanted it to crunch. Afterwards, we headed to what has become one of my favourite places in the world. A bar called Bartronica – a heady mix of retro-gaming awesomeness, pinball and beer. We played and lost heavily at Mario Kart (I was so good back in the day!), then I started kicking some serious gaming butt at smash bros., where Link sword-spun his way to secure me victory countless times. I had a go at Family Guy pinball, the Who song running through my head the whole time (… a pinball wizard’s got such a supple wriiiist… but not from holding a pint of beer), but couldn’t quite engage my inner Tommy to dominate the leaderboard.

We returned briefly but unsuccessfully to the Super Smash Bros., but I couldn’t emulate my previous success against much stronger competition (sorry Steph!) and so we headed our separate ways, promising to meet up again before Henny and I jetted off to Kiwiland.

The next day was full of excitement – we packed up our things, moved out of the hostel and headed downstairs to be picked up by Adrienne again and taken to the zoo. It was a baking hot day, so I wore my England rugby cap (carefully chosen to do maximum damage to local sensitivities after last year’s tour) and a pint of sun cream to keep out the ozone-free rays.

The girls (and Molly) raced around the zoo, the girls flitting like freed butterflies from one exhibit to the next, Molly following suit, a little perplexed by the richness and variety of scents coming her way. Molly was only allowed in certain areas, marked in pink on the map, so Adrienne took care of her at those times. We saw lions, tigers, sea snakes, African wild dogs, pelicans, monkeys (but no gorillas – they were hiding from us, we decided), iguanas, macaws, meerkats and penguins. We also saw a lot of Australian wildlife, which the girls weren’t as interested in as I was, having seen it all before; kangaroos, wombats, emus, kookaburras and a platypus were all fascinating to me but old hat to them.

The girls did, however, manage to spend some time (and a decent amount of their poor mum’s cash) in the gift shop, much like I’d done at the tender age of 10. Adrienne then drove us to our new home with Chris and Leesh, at their flat in the trendy suburb of Collingwood near Fitzroy, Melbourne’s answer to Neukölln or Shoreditch. They are renting a comfortable, modern 2-bed + open-plan kitchen/diner/living room flat in the former Yorkshire brewery, which has been redeveloped into a large housing complex complete with rooftop garden (with a BBQ, naturally) and gym. We said hello, dumped our stuff in our lovely little room, and headed back outside to meet Adrienne, who took us to Lygon street, a famous foodie street. It is a street, it is full of food, but 90% of it is Italian ristorantes, whose borderline aggressive front-of-house teams all seem to emulate Vietnamese street sellers (“You come eat here, I have very happy customers, I give you good deal, best price best price”). Not quite in the mood for pizza, we opted for a very tasty fish and chip place and tried all the deep-fried delicacies they had to offer. Things almost kicked off with Molly again, but the waitress was nice and understanding and Molly could remain under the table.

By the time we’d polished off the last of the nice thick chips, it was time for the girls to hit the hay and for us to go and meet Chris and Leesha at one of their friend’s gigs, where he would be playing funk/soul/r’n’b beats from 11. The bar was called Boney and the décor took us the 16,000ish kilometres back to Berlin. Arty things hung from walls, lighting was minimal and red and the patrons were suitably (under)dressed or just in the black-jeans-and-beard hipster garb necessary in this sort of place. We grabbed a drink with our hosts, headed upstairs to see his friend play to a room packed to the rafters with smoke from a smoke machine and not much else – we were the only four who had come to see him so far. Gradually though, other acquaintances dribbled in and the music got louder with each new audience member, so much so that we couldn’t really get acquainted with the newcomers, and decided to dive back downstairs. C&L joined us later, then left for their next gig. We called it a night (‘This is a night!’) then went back to our new room (possibly stopping for a McD’s 10-piece chicket nugget box) and slept until it was socially acceptable to wake up.

The next day dawned, but in our quiet, dark, cool cave of a room we didn’t notice until it was almost too late. We were supposed to meet the girls at 10.30 at the Victoria Markets (yay more shopping), which would take nearly half an hour to get to. Luckily, the girls and Adrienne had already headed to a different set of markets before, so we made our leisurely way down to the markets and had a breakfast of bacon and egg bap for me (plenty of ketchup, thanks) and a beetroot and feta salad for Henny. Just as we were polishing off the last morsels, we felt a familiar fluffy presence next to us and found that the girls had found us. Off we went on a zig-zag path past all the stalls with their various trinkets and tourist tat. I found a new adapter for my chargers as well as 2 decks of cards for 5 dollars (bargain). The girls found a few things that they liked, including a fake diamond-encrusted name tag for Molly and a set of earmuffs for themselves, in preparation for the harsh winter ahead.

We had to do some shopping for our promised (my fabled) roast dinner, so we almost tearfully parted ways with the girls for the time being and made our way around to find some decent veg and wine. We then toddled back to C&C’s and, after a while chilling out on the roof (Henny had to finish off her Hoi An post) and a couple of visits from a territorial pug, we prepared for the night’s entertainment: an outdoor cinema extravaganza with a picnic and Get Out. We took a nice ride in a taxify (similar to Uber but better for the drivers and customers apparently), and got to the botanical gardens, where we walked down a dusky path to a great big blow-up screen, in front of which a crowd of people were lying on the grass. We set up camp, tucked into our picnic and opened bottle after bottle then a box of wine, while the events of Get Out (a very, very good Black Mirror-like film) played out in front of us. But that wasn’t the only thing I was watching. As the sun had set, hundreds of crow-sized fruit bats had started winging their way to their twilight dinner above us. I sat, captivated by the slow, graceful movements of the huge bats. Luckily, I managed to pay enough attention to both and, once my wine-addled, bat-distracted, Get Out-head-blown state was brought to a close, we got in another taxify and roared home, where someone (Chris? Was it you?) decided to watch Whiplash (a film about a drummer – awesome) on their projector, just to keep the cinema feel going. It was fantastic – so much was relatable in the film, though maybe I had yet to experience the stresses of being a professional drummer like that. Tapping my legs in time to the music still bouncing around my head, we went to sleep and ended our second night in Collingwood.

This is also where I’ll leave you guys for the time being; there’s plenty more to come! For now though, I’ll just try and keep my eyes open – I’ve just taken some cough medicine and it’s one of those ones with ‘do not operate heavy machinery after use’ or something like that. Do laptops count as heavy machinery?

Yours drowsily,

Boulders

Superb Singapore + marvellous Melbourne (part the first) Hello, dear readers. This is strange. We’re not on the move. We’ve been in the same place for 6 days, so there’s not been a natural break in proceedings to update you AND we’ve got another 2 days before we finally make it to New Zealand.

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