#english tourism week

[eyetcsuffolk]

Visit Eye in Suffolk English Tourism Week 17 - 26 March @fleurs_artisan_florist @eyeflooring @eyeartsclub @eyecricketclub @eyehandyman @eyehairandbeautysalon @cocoamama_chocolate_cafe @bruhabrewing @lifesolesuffolk @jimmyslimoncello @tudorbakehouse @clothing_dream_on @theblossomcharity @thebankartscentre @dream_on_woman @thebank.vault @bar.14x @bartrumsroadservices @bartrumstraining @workwear_ltd @visit_suffolk @eastenglanduk @the_oaksmere @workwear_embroidery #english #tourism #week #weekend #eye #eyesuffolk #castle #visiteye #eyebusiness #church #walks #healingwoods #arts #history #historic #holiday #holidays #hotel (at Eye Market Town) https://www.instagram.com/p/CqD0fypIIk5/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry - 7 Seconds 1994

Youssou N'Dour is a Senegalese singer, songwriter, musician, composer, occasional actor, businessman, and politician. From April 2012 to September 2013, he was Senegal's Minister of Tourism. N'Dour helped develop a style of popular Senegalese music known by all Senegambians (including the Wolof) as mbalax, a genre that has sacred origins in the Serer music njuup tradition and ndut initiation ceremonies. He is the subject of the award-winning films Return to Gorée (2007) directed by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud and Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love (2008) directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. In 2006, N'Dour was cast as Olaudah Equiano in the film Amazing Grace.

"7 Seconds" is a song N'Dour wrote and performed together with Swedish-Sierra Leonean singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry. The song is trilingual as N'Dour sings in three languages: French, English and the West African language Wolof. The title and refrain of the song refers to the first moments of a child's life; as Cherry put it, "not knowing about the problems and violence in our world". N'Dour featured the song on his seventh studio album, The Guide (Wommat) (1994), while Cherry included it on her 1996 album Man.

It was a worldwide hit, peaking within the top 10 of the charts in several countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Paraguay and the UK. It climbed to the top position in Finland, France, Iceland, Italy and Switzerland. It stayed at number one for 16 consecutive weeks on the French Singles Chart, which was the record for the most weeks at the top position at the time. On the Eurochart Hot 100, the song reached number two. It won the MTV Europe Music Award in the category for Best Song of 1994.

"7 Seconds" received a total of 45,3% yes votes. :'(

[fatehbaz]

Seventy-five years after two nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan — killing hundreds of thousands of people in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — one small community in the Northwest Territories is still haunted by its connection to the blasts. Across Great Bear Lake from the 533-person hamlet of Délı̨nę sits the historic mining site of Port Radium. [...] [T]he Canadian government quietly called for uranium production as part of the country's involvement in the Manhattan Project. That uranium was sent south to help the United States with the race to build a nuclear bomb. [...] [N]ear Great Bear Lake, workers would eventually wonder about the risks they took delivering sacks of ore on their backs as they sent it south — without being told what they were about to be complicit in. [...] Days after the blasts, the Canadian government announced the country's role in the explosions, citing the Great Bear Lake mine's uranium as a key ingredient for the project, said Geoffrey Bird, a professor at Royal Roads University in Victoria who studies tourism and the history of remembrance. An English-language sign connecting Port Radium to the atomic bomb was photographed in Délı̨nę in December 1945. [...] While the Canadian government hasn't apologized to Délı̨nę, the community has apologized to Japan. [...] Locals in Délı̨nę say many ore workers and their family members developed cancer later in life. [...] In the book If Only We Had Known, which tells the story of Port Radium from the eyes of the Saht��ot'ine, elders remember workers' clothing covered with dust, windy days when ore was caught up in the air and children playing games in mine tailings.

Text by: Katie Toth. “Spectre of atomic bomb still looms over N.W.T. community 75 years after Hiroshima.” CBC News. 5 August 2020.

---

[O]n 6 August 1998, 10 members of the small Sahtugot’ine Dene community of Deline (Fort Franklin) in the ‘Northwest Territories’ apologized in Hiroshima for the atomic destruction of that city – and the death of over 200,000 civilians – exactly 53 years earlier [...]. Eldorado Gold Mines Ltd. [was] placed under state control during World War Two. They [the Dene] were allowed only to help it [uranium] on its long and winding way, 3,000 miles by river, lake, road and air, from Port Radium on Great Bear Lake to Port Hope on Lake Ontario, where, from 1942-45, the suddenly precious ore – the ‘new gold’ of the atomic age – was, together with ‘Belgian’ uranium from the Congo, refined and dispatched to Los Alamos, the desert lab in New Mexico secretly building the new, city-smashing Superweapon. [...] Beginning in the 1970s, and spiking sharply in the 1980s, many of the men who had handled and carried the ore – and the men who had mined it – began to die from cancer [...]. The “Dene,” the CBC ‘revealed,’ “were never told of the health hazards they faced, even though the government knew … as early as 1932 that precautions should be taken in handling radioactive materials”. Instead [...] “workers [were] dressed in casual clothes and uranium dust [...] covered the men like flour.” [...] [A]s detailed in a December 1998 article [...] in First Nations Drum: [...] [T]he mine was kept running at a very high pace [...]. The Dene were employed as ‘coolies’ packing 45-kilogram sacks of radioactive ore for three dollars a day, working 12 hours a day, six days a week. This at a time when the ore was worth over $70,000 a gram. [...] In 1998, the Déline Dene Band Uranium Committee released a 160-page [...] report, “They Never Told Us These Things.” In a 2011 article in Maisonneuve, Salverson recounts a community meeting in Deline to discuss the report, “where [non-Dene] lawyers delivered a year’s worth of uranium-impact research from the archives in Ottawa,” revealing that in “the mountain of papers we dug up … there is not one mention of the Dene, your people.”

Text by: Sean Howard. “Canada’s Uranium Highway: Victims and Perpetrators.” Cape Breton Spectator. 7 August 2019.

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

During my conversation with Richard Hanania about the 2019 Academy Award-winning film Parasite, I talked about how viewers and critics were quick to assume that Parasite was about a rich family and a poor family.

It shows how little people know about class.

This is how the director of the movie, Bong Joon Ho, characterized the Kim family:

“The father has accumulated numerous business failures, the mother who trained as an athlete has never found particular success, and the son and daughter have failed the university entrance exam on multiple occasions.”

This is not the profile of a poor or working class family. The Kims are not poor, they are failed middle class.

This is why, in an early scene in the movie, they were so bad at folding those pizza boxes.

In high school, I worked at an Italian restaurant as a busboy and dishwasher.

In his terrific memoir on slum tourism, Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell uses the French term plongeur—a person employed to wash dishes and carry out other menial tasks in a restaurant or hotel—to describe his occupation as he was struggling in Paris.

Plongeur sounds much better than “bus boy.”

Anyway, my coworkers in the pizza station were, like the rest of us in the back of the restaurant, guys from fucked up families. They drove beat-up motorcycles and had long hair and tattoos, or were stoners or community college dropouts whose highlight of the week was getting paid on Friday and drinking away the weekend.

The girls mostly worked as servers, and were generally more put together. Though there was plenty of binge drinking and drug use among them as well. Many restaurants function like this, with sweaty guys in the back cooking food and scrubbing pans and the cheerful women up front, serving food and interacting with patrons.

Guys I worked with could fold a pizza box with their eyes closed while stoned out of their minds.

So the Parasite scene didn’t make sense to me at first, until I realized what I was seeing.

Working class people would figure out how to fold pizza boxes and do it fine. Bitter middle class people think they’re too good for it.

The Kims middle class origins also explains why they were able to seamlessly interact with the well-to-do Park family (more on them soon).

Skeptical viewers have questioned why the Kim son had a friend who studied in a university. And why the Kim son was able to teach English to the Park daughter so well despite his poor background.

And astute critics have wondered how it’s possible that the Kim daughter who is obviously adept at graphic design (forging her art credentials) and interacts easily with the Parks came from a poor family.

The Kim son and daughter were raised by middle class parents, that’s why.

The Kim family represents a great fear of affluent people, including film critics: Downward mobility.

The Kims are middle class people who slipped down the economic ladder. The Parks are middle class people who ascended the economic ladder.

The Park mother is easily duped by the Kim daughter’s discussions of art and its therapeutic powers. This is because the Park mother is a philistine who doesn’t actually know that much about art. She’s not from some well-bred old money family. She and her husband have only recently arrived at their current economic station.

Parasite is not about entrenched class divisions. It’s not about a poor family and a rich family. It’s about a downwardly mobile middle class family and an upwardly mobile one.

Which is why resentment builds and explodes into violence. Envy is reserved for those who are similar to ourselves.

Working class people are generally not envious of the very rich. Nobody I knew growing up hated Bill Gates or Hollywood celebrities. They mostly envied well off people in town. People who had big houses or had a boat docked at the Shasta Marina.

Who envies the actual rich? Upper middle class people.

People tend to envy and resent those close to their social strata.

In his fascinating book Envy: a theory of social behaviour, the sociologist Helmut Schoeck wrote:

“The best means of protection against the envy of a neighbor is to drive a Rolls-Royce instead of a car only slightly better than his...overwhelming and astounding inequality arouses far less envy than minimal inequality.”

There are a couple of reasons for why resentment and envy are strongest for those nearest to us.

First, there's proximity.

Working class people work for, and take orders from, upper middle class professionals. This (sort of) describes the relationship between the Kims and the Parks in Parasite.

But upper middle class professionals work for, and report to, the very rich. We never see the father of the Park family at his job, interacting with much wealthier colleagues.

The second reason people reserve scorn for those close to our social strata is that they remind them of their failings.

When people have expectations for their lives that are not met, but they see others similar to themselves achieve the same things they desire, they experience resentment and anger.

This is why people feel the most schadenfreude, joy from seeing others’ misfortune, when the person experiencing the misfortune is similar to themselves.

Other research has revealed that similarity and domain relevance are key predictors of malicious envy.

This means that a person who is similar to ourselves and who is successful in a field we also aspire to do well in is especially likely to trigger feelings of resentment and a desire to take destructive action to sabotage them.

This is why critics and the chattering classes loved Parasite. The film allowed them to identify with resentful middle class people who are down on their luck, under the guise of sympathizing with the poor.

Parasite allowed identification with resentment and envy to masquerade as compassion.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (March 10-16, 2024)

"It looks as though its Japanese producers, assisted by a stray American—fellow named Terry Morse, who is an alumnus of Hollywood's Poverty Row—made a close study of the old film, "King Kong," then tried to do substantially the same thing with a miniature of a dinosaur made of gum-shoes and about $20 worth of toy buildings and electric trains." —Bosley Crowther, reviewing Godzilla, King of the Monsters! for The New York Times

"The special effects are hardly special, but hey, what do you expect in a Japanese monster movie?" —Tony Kiss, reviewing Godzilla 1985 for the Asheville Citizen-Times

"Sure it's bad filmmaking. Sure it's a guy—actor Tsutomu Kitagawa—clad in a nearly vintage latex Godzilla getup and stomping through Tokyo, knocking down cardboard mini-buildings and upending toy-sized cars with his gnarly feet. But that's the point." —Bob Longino, reviewing Godzilla 2000 for The Palm Beach Post

Godzilla Minus One won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards, sending a stunned Takashi Yamazaki (VFX supervisor), Kiyoko Shibuya (VFX director), Masaki Takahashi (3D CG director), and Tatsuji Nojima (VFX artist/compositor) to the Dolby Theatre stage. Said Yamazaki, reading from prepared comments in English, "To someone so far from Hollywood, the possibility of standing on this stage seemed out of reach." I could scarcely believe what I was watching myself, despite having given a presentation for a Wikizilla stream mere hours before on Minus One's very real chances of beating more expensive American contenders. Everything I said about its nomination goes triple for its victory; we'll be talking about this one forever. To those of us who remember when Godzilla was basically a joke in the American consciousness (including my Wikizilla colleague Darthlord1997, who had a speech of his own prepared), it's the ultimate vindication.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Takashi Yamazaki directed an ad for Ajinomoto about food waste which released this week. It features the unsubtly-named Foodlosslla attacking Tokyo and facing an Ultraman-esque defense team. As with Minus One, the ad's visuals are a clever combination of high-end (a detailed CG monster) and low-end (dropping plastic fruit on top of fleeing extras).

Last year, the 4Kids Flashback podcast interviewed Mike Pecoriello, producer and writer for the company's renditions of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Ultraman Tiga, and he delivered some major news about the latter. Although only 23 episodes of Tiga aired in the U.S., 4Kids dubbed the whole thing. At the time of the podcast's recording, he thought he made copies of all the episodes, but while that doesn't seem to be the case, he did provide 4Kids Flashback with the series finale. It's a good deal more serious than the episodes which aired, with the quips kept to a minimum. Let the hunt for the rest commence!

SciFi Japan has details on Kaiju Yarrow, a Japanese comedy doubling as a tourism ad for the city of Seki. The premise is very self-aware:

KAIJU YARROW! is set in Seki City, Gifu Prefecture. One day, 30 year old Ichiro Yamada, who works in the tourism department of a government office, is ordered by the mayor to produce a "local film.'' However, Yamada, didn't want to produce the typical "mediocre local movies'' that are everywhere nowadays, so he comes up with the idea of making a "monster movie'', which has been his life-long dream. However, his dreams develops into a major incident involving the city government...! Will Yamada be able to complete his life goal of making a monster movie??

Junichiro Yagi will direct; YouTuber Gunpee will star. Unknown quantities both when it comes to kaiju, so how this will turn out is anyone's guess.

Tickets for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire have gone on sale in the U.S.—and as a reminder, the brief GKIDS theatrical release of The End of Evangelion wraps tomorrow.

[didishawn]

stress relief pt2?? but like any of the barca players that you write for x reader

Stress Relief: the Remix (Gavi x Reader x Ansu) smut

(I took the request as the same setting, different players, please do reach out if this is not what you were referring to)

Warnings: threesome, Gavi is feeling on the top of the world, while Ansu is not, references to Ansu's performance since the injury, and mentions of the bad media, some Spanish here and there as I believe they both know some English from La Masía, smut, Gavi also touches Ansu's cock, so a bit of bi! Gavi and bi! Ansu

Masterlist

Gavi suspects he has somehow died and gone to heaven.

Being named as the MVP of the match on his first World Cup participation, a goal and two assistances and your pretty lips wrapped around his cock was not how he expected this week's to look like -well, the MVP part, he knew he would get his cock sucked by you one way or another.

Ansu is quite the opposite, well, it's not been a bad week perse, nothing completely horrible has happened, but he did use to think that when he got to be on a World Cup, it would be on the field, not the bench.

But he must admit, the feeling of your insides as he pounds into you does make him feel somehow better.

You are a mess in between the two friends, you didn't even have enough time to prepare yourself as they showed up with no warning on their free day to your hotel room, being all over you from the moment you granted them entry.

Other players prefer meeting their families, do some tourism maybe, Gavi and Ansu much prefer being inside of you, hearing your pretty moans and how you beg for them.

"Joder, estás tan apretada" Ansu moans next to your ear, his hands on your hips moving you as he wishes moments like this could last forever. (shit, you are so tight)

Gavi has a strong grip on your hair as he fucks your mouth, making it clear to you who the real boss is, nothing can get him down from the cloud 9 he currently is in. He groans when you moan, the vibration makes it all better, your hand massaging his balls have him close to extasis.

"Your mouth feels like fucking heaven around me, love, you are sucking me off real good" Gavi is almost whining, his voice a higher pitch than usual, you know that to mean he is close to cumming, the same with Ansu and his stronger grip and radical pace.

"She is so fucking tight too, has me seeing the stars" his cock reaches far inside you, almost kissing your cervix, he is throbing, his hips slamming into yours would have you screaming were it not for the cock inside of your mouth.

Gavi's cock throbs inside of your mouth, you take control off him and your lips are on his tip, your hands jerking off the rest, you suck into the tip and he is whining and moaning, all his body trembles when he cums, you taking it all and sucking everything from him and he breathes deeply, too sensitive.

You let go begrudgingly of his cock, his face and chest red from his high, his throat still letting out some groans and whines.

Ansu grasps the opportunity and he is laying back on the bed, strong grip still on your hips as he makes you ride him, enjoying the sight of your bouncing ass, gripping it and slapping it.

Gavi is back, enjoying what he has in front of him. He gets closer, he wants to see everything clearer.

He watches as Ansu's thick cock pounds inside of you, how there is a white ring on his base. Your clit appears to be throbing, it's red and sensitive, looking once more for a release. He is salivating at the sight.

Gavi's tongue is out from his mouth before he can think it clear, licking a stripe up from Ansu's heavy balls to your clit, both of you let out the loudest moans of the night. He does it again, watches as Ansu's balls tightens and looks up to see your over the moon expression.

He is back to working you both up.

His mouth sucking into Ansu's balls and whatever his tongue can reach from his cock, his fingers doing tight circles on your clit. His mouth is truly everywhere, on your clit, your whole, the other boy's cock and balls.

He doesn't even stop when Ansu's legs and hips start moving widely as he cums deep inside of you, your juices squirt everywhere, the two of you are screaming.

It isn't enough for Gavi though, he is having way too much fun.

He gets on his knees, his hands on your hips as he lifts you up, then as quickly and hard slams you down, making yours and Ansu's sensitive selves let out more screams.

Gavi doesn't listen to your pleads and pays no mind to you tears, he watches as Ansu's balls fill uip once more with cum, he sees the pleasure hidden on your gaze, he is in control.

He moves you up and down as if you were a rag doll, Ansu feels like a true sex toy only there for others' pleasures, his head has fallen back, his cock in love with your pussy, hips also start moving on his own and slamming up into you.

You are trembling when you cum again, falling back into Ansu as Gavi doesn't stop moving you both until the boy comes again deep inside you.

You and Ansu are sleepy as you cuddle, you open you eyes as Gavi clicks his tongue, his hands still on your hips as he pulls you in.

"What do you think you are doing? It's my turn to fuck you now"

You better believe Gavi doesn't let you go until the sun rises, and he still is on top of the world as he does, only lets you sleep for a bit, before he having you three fucking again.

The two boys are really energetic the next day, others are quick to figure out why by the marks on their necks, even Ansu is happier.

You really are magical.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not going to the beach with my family?

English is my second language so please excuse any mistakes.

My father (50), my sister (14) and I (16f) have been vacationing on a pretty small island for the past week and a half. It has the population of around eighty people, but gets quite a bit of tourism during the summer. There are two beaches that are officially marked, but you can go swimming pretty much anywhere (private beaches are illegal here).

My father's brother (54), his wife (53) and daughter (19) came to visit us for a day (they are on holiday on one of the surrounding islands) and my father wanted to show them one of the unofficial beaches. I opted not to go because my family is really physically active and I'm pretty much the only one in my family who's not. I don't hate spots but my asthma makes running and walking uphill hell. I didn't want them to wait for me because it always puts them in a bad mood and I physically can't walk faster.

My father said it's fine, but now both him and my sister are angry and disappointed because I didn't spend more time with them.

What are these acronyms?

[allinllachuteruteru]

i am very new to learning quechua and am having trouble finding resources to learn, do you know any? i also need some pointers on how to learn a new language from scratch since i dont really know where to start

Imaynalla kasanki :)

I have a few resources, although the vast majority of them are from Spanish (I see an Argentine flag in your bio, so I'm hoping that isn't a problem).

English resources:

This website has extremely basic survival Quechua and audio in English, along with the romanization of words and phrases to pronounce them.

Here is extremely basic vocab for Bolivian Quechua; words only.

This wonderful source has a basic internet course for Quechua and if you explore it a bit includes a ton of information about the language along with places and people to contact that can help teach you.

Here is a very famous movie in Quechua with English subtitles that you can watch for free.

The movie Retablo is free on Tubi. It's about a Runa boy in Peru discovering his father isn't actually heterosexual and the repercussions he faces in the community and his own family because of it. Subtitles in English.

The Quechua Collective of New York periodically offers Quechua classes on Zoom, if you're willing to spend $90 for a 12-week course.

If you are extremely serious about learning Quechua, there are multiple universities that offer online courses with 101/201 usually in the Fall and 102/202 in the Spring. Purdue University, Oberlin College, Indiana University, UChicago, UPenn, University of Michigan, Northwestern University, East Carolina University, and the Ohio State University all offer courses, with all of them for sure offering online options except for UPenn and UMichigan--those I'm not sure. Expect to pay no less than $1500 for each course.

Spanish resources:

This podcast series is on Apple Podcasts and can help if you have a basic level already.

Here is an app from the Ministry of Tourism in Peru that can help with basics.

Here is a free online course for Quechua Chanka.

This is an extremely tedious but helpful guide pdf from Spanish.

Online games making the learning process a little less painful.

If you really want a resource for the Collao dialect and don't mind dropping some coin, this course is about $15 and will give you a certificate at the end.

This is made by the same people right above in the Collao dialect, but free.

Here's a super rare audio course for Kichwa Inga made by Indiana University.

Here's an online translator that can theoretically translate from English too but works best in Spanish.

These Spanish Youtube channels teach some Quechua.

This monstrosity of a pdf that is half grammar/pronunciation and half vocab, in the Sureño dialect but the Peruvian one rather than Bolivian.

Here's a ginormous pdf of a Quechua-Spanish dictionary.

This pdf on Scribd. Scribd makes you do a free trial, but you can download as much material to your pc as your heart desires. I highly recommend that you do a trial, find and download as many relevant resources as you can, and then end the trial before the 30 days is up.

This wonderful human being's Instagram. T'ikita hasn't posted her usual reels and tiktoks lately but if you scroll back a little she has a ton of helpful videos in her Quechua Chic series with Bolivian Quechua. I also paid $25 a month to have Zoom lessons with her which we did using a mix of English and Spanish. She was amazing, but I feel like she would definitely prefer to teach in Spanish is why I'm putting her in this section. I think she may still do group classes but I'm not sure.

Wilfredo also teaches Bolivian Quechua from Spanish and has his WA number in his bio. My boyfriend took classes with him and seemed to enjoy it.

Qhalincha makes helpful instagram reels and offers group classes at an affordable price; I think she speaks Bolivian Quechua but I'm not 100% sure.

This is a general instagram account that teaches different dialects of Quechua.

This is like the above, but this Instagram has organized group courses seemingly at an affordable rate.

Peru's Catholic University has an online Quechua class (courses ranging from 1-2 months) that meets daily. The 2 month class is about $75.

Again, if you are EXTREMELY serious about learning Quechua, then the Centro Tinku program takes place in Cusco where you live with a Runa family and have the language taught to you in Spanish. If you're not attending a partner University with the organization, you may email programas@centrotinku.com to enroll directly with Centro Tinku. The cost is a whopping $4100, but Centro Tinku also offers 50% scholarships on tuition costs to Latin American students not eligible for other funding. UMich has more info about it here.

Bilingual resources:

This nifty lil page has a basic course.

This one is also like the above.

This SUPER beyond helpful Discord channel where you have speakers to actually talk to.

Here is an entire Google Spreadsheet of affordable online Quechua teachers.

Listen to Renata Flores. She doesn't have many songs on here at the moment and isn't a native speaker, but I love her rap. She's super popular in Peru.

Italki has super cheap Quechua tutors. While most of the tutors teach in only Spanish and Peruvian/Cusco dialects, there is at least one who can teach from English a range of dialects such Boliviano, Cusco, and even Ecuadorian Kichwa.

I also have pdfs for Quechua resources including the insanely rare and critically endangered Cajamarca dialect, but considering the source has been taken down every time I see it pop up on the internet probably due to copyright violations, I 100% don't feel comfortable posting it here. If you trust me enough, I can email it to you or whomever seriously wants their hands on it.

Now, as for learning a new language, I would say don't even try to start until you've organized yourself a bit and set up goals for what you want to achieve. Sure, you want to learn Quechua, but there's always more learning to do with language acquisition. Where do you want to be in 3 months? Do you want to be able to introduce yourself and count and know colors? Start small, and build from there.

I think ChatGPT may be useful here too with creating outlines for achieving language learning goals if you prompt it with something along the lines of "I want to learn Quechua. I will spent 2 hours a day, 5 days a week studying. Set me up an outline and schedule I should follow in order to be conversational." (Yes, I used that exact prompt and it generated me a pretty solid learning schedule).

I will also always swear by flashcards and physically writing down new vocabulary and concepts. Practice speaking out loud to yourself even if it feels ridiculous. The Hellotalk app is also helpful as long as you are confident you can avoid random people insistently messaging you on it, and instead use it for native speaker interactions and corrections.

Best of luck <3

[prototypesteve]

Solo Travel: Find Magic.

Venturing out on a solo vacation can be daunting. There’s a shit-ton of adulting you’ll need to do:

It’s up to you to make your flight. It’s up to you to not lose anything. It’s up to you to stay hydrated and healthy and mindful and motivated.

It can be easy to give in and say “hard nope” and stay home, even if you really want to start travelling solo.

How do you get past all that, and find the will to save up, plan, gear-up, get a passport or a reliable road-trip vehicle, and go? Magic. You believe in magic and you let yourself want it.

When I was in my late teens I was in a waiting room and idly flipping through a magazine (it was the late 80s). I turned the page and there was a two-page tourism ad with a massive photo of Lake Louise, in Banff National Park. Supernaturally milky blue water, tiny red canoes, backed by a colossal wall of mountain capped by an ancient glacier. I remember murmuring aloud, “I want that.” I wanted to feel what that photographer felt. I wanted awe. I wanted magic.

Years later, I finally had enough of my shit together to go there, and it was everything I expected, and it made all the hard adulting worth it. (I wound up moving to Calgary so I could go to Lake Louise any time I wanted to.)

Photo 1: Lake Louise, Alberta. (This is from 2012, and taken with an old iPhone 4S, but it most closely resembles the view I saw in the magazine ad.)

In 2003, I saw a video about Tofino and Pacific Rim National Park. By 2003 I had plenty of experience going on budged-friendly road trips to Vancouver, where I’d stay in the (at the time, affordable) Jericho Beach Hostel. But Tofino would cost more, require a longer vacation, and take me way out of my “there’s always a city close by” comfort zone. But I wanted to see real waves, walk through a real coastal rain forest, and see the ocean fog roll in. I wanted magic,

Photo 2: My (used) 1998 Pontiac Sunfire, and a budget kayak, and my mediocre Norco mountain bike, somewhere at a rest stop along the trans Canada Highway, in British Columbia

By 2005 I had the right gear, a decent budget, and enough self-confidence to drive out and hike down sketchy wooden stairs to Half Moon Bay near Uclulet and see the actual Pacific Ocean—not the Salish Sea between Vancouver and Vancouver Island—for the first time. That week I felt the magic of being at the edge of my world. It made all the adulting easy.

Photos 3 & 4: The first time I saw the Pacific Ocean without Vancouver Island or the Olympic Peninsula lining the horizon, and the first time I saw fog move in over Vancouver island from the Pacific Ocean,

Ever since my 8th and 9th grade teachers told us stories about the old Globe theatre, I’ve dreamt of seeing a play in the rebuilt Globe in London (back then, even rebuilding the Globe was still a dream that wouldn’t be finished until the late 90s). But I live an ocean away, in Canada, I’m introverted, and no matter how much money I make, I have always felt like I’m out of my class-depth at any social gathering. Wrong childhood neighbourhoods, wrong schools, wrong career field. It took me until my 2nd trip to England to work up the nerve to buy a ticket to see a play at the Globe. I wanted to be there like one of the people I imagined during English class as we studied Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, and The Scottish Play. I wanted the magic.

Friday night, August 23, 2024, I spent two hours almost dizzy with a flood of feelings I’m going to need months to process, because I sat in Bay H, Row C, Seat 29, at Shakespeare’s Globe, in London, and watched a beautiful, perfect, magical performance of Much Ado about Nothing, and like I said, I’m going to be sorting out my feelings about this for months.

Yes there’s the Osemanverse overlap, Much Ado appears in Loveless. There’s the Aroace angle, watching two seemingly aro characters get shipped by their friends and family, bla bla bla. There’s a lot. But whatever. For me the magic was being the adult who teenage-me grew up into, sitting there in my seat that I absolutely belonged in, on my trip that I put together for myself, to chase down dozens of my other lifelong dreams, sitting there, and feeling that I was allowed to be there, and then delighting in the magic of live theatre, compounded by the magic of loving myself enough to push through every excuse not to be there.

Photos 5, 6, and 7: The Globe Theatre (there’s no photography during the performance, and I don’t think I’d have bothered, if there was.

Find your magic. Thrive. It doesn’t have to cost a lot: My first solo trips cost me a tank of gas and a tenting campground fee, or a night’s stay at a hostel. It doesn’t need to be risky: Backpacker hostels and modern hotels often have more sophisticated security than your home or workplace. It doesn’t have to be ambitious: Maybe it’s lunch at a diner in a small farm town nearby, maybe it’s a low-key late summer concert in a park, maybe it’s building that sandcastle you never got to build because you grew up far away from water. Whatever it is, go find it! Let it change you.

[burningupp]

Fated Friends | lmh

skz masterlist

pairing: lee minho x f!reader

warnings: female reader (i'm sorry, i promise to branch out one day), reader has a kid, heavily based off of gilmore girls bc it's my comfort show, slight health scare, not proofread lol

summary: minho isn't a very outwardly emotional guy, and honestly, he's come to be comfortable that way. weird how the kind of person he's sure to be the bane of his existence ends up breaking that habit, huh?

a/n: this is going to be at least two parts... yeah. i'm sorry. anyway i hope you enjoy this, whatever it is. also, sorry for any eventual grammar mistakes; i am not a native english speaker, so be gentle with me pls 🙏 also, i have had this as a wip for a while so using this as an excuse to complete the november clownracha prompt! @wooyussy @sunnytaes

The diner was busy. Minho hadn’t been running it for that long, just two years and some change, but it had still become somewhat of a staple in their little town. There were regulars who came in almost every day for at least one meal, and even though he might not show it outwardly, he really enjoyed making them food they seemed to appreciate.

There was a routine to it all, and it made him feel safe. The first six months he’d had absolutely no idea what he was doing, and it had been terrifying. Once he got past the insecurity, he’d felt good. He had managed to do what his father had done before him and run a successful business. Granted, his father had been running a hardware store before he died, not a diner, but it was close enough in his mind.

Once a year had passed, he started to feel bored instead of good. He loved his diner, and he loved running it, but he felt like there was no excitement in his life (unless you counted burning himself on oil from the deep fryer, of course - that had definitely led him to an eventful few weeks without the use of his left hand). Since he was running his own business, there was practically no rest for him. He had taken a total of two days off since starting the diner, but only because he actually did have to go to the hospital (courtesy of the fryer-incident) and the dentist.

The days that the diner was busy were good. There was no time to think about how he missed fishing and camping, how he hadn’t flirted with a woman since all this started, and much less been on a date with one. There had been a few customers, mostly tourists passing through, who had flirted with him before. He had always been generally awkward, stuttering his way through the interaction and then suffered through the teasing of the older women who lived in the small town and had known him since he was in diapers. It was great, obviously.

And then someone showed up and broke his routine entirely.

It was a busy day, the town selectman had been arranging a festival of some sort to “encourage tourism” which meant that Minho had a whole lot more customers than usual. He was running around taking and delivering orders, refilling coffees, and wiping down tables as fast as he could. He inwardly sighs when he hears the bell over the door ring again, because as much as he loves running a successful business, he’s busy enough as it is.

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” he says over his shoulder as he’s wiping down a table.

“No but see, I don’t have a moment,” a woman’s voice says back, a sort of panicky twinge to it that makes him turn around to look at her.

She’s gorgeous. Her eyes are shining in the sunlight streaming through the windows, and her hair is a tangled mess. Her clothing is a bit rumpled, and she’s not wearing any make-up, but suddenly the urge to flirt has returned to him from the dead. Then he hears the bell signaling food is ready, and he’s snapped out of his brief stupor.

“Yeah, well,” he starts, moving toward the two plates readily waiting for him on the counter, “neither do I. Wait or go somewhere else for coffee.”

Once he’s grabbed the food and turned around to give it to the customers at one of the tables in the corner, he is immediately stopped in his tracks as the woman is standing two feet in front of him with a gleam in her eyes that somehow both intrigues and terrifies him.

“No but you don’t understand,” she starts, and Minho heaves a sigh as he dodges around her to actually complete the order delivery, “my coffee machine at home broke, and my five-year-old is sick so I had to stay up all night, and the coffee at work has run out and so I am here, desperately begging you for like five cups of coffee before I collapse in a heap on the street and it’s all your fault.”

The woman follows him to the table and keeps incessantly nagging, and the only thing he can think is wait, she has a five-year-old? She doesn’t look older than 20 or so, if even that. At least that gave him a reason to stop looking at her beautiful eyes, stop his stupid heart from wanting him to talk and flirt with her, because he cannot handle a kid. He kind of hates kids, honestly - they’re always sticky, and never have intelligent answers to anything, and always get on his nerves.

“Listen, it sounds like your day isn’t going particularly well and I have the utmost sympathy for that having had a few bad ones myself, but I have a diner full of hungry people, so if coffee is all you want I’m gonna have to ask you to wait.”

At this, the woman gasps out loud, her eyes widening and jaw dropping indignantly.

“Excuse you? Just coffee? This is classism! Discrimination! You’re the one who serves coffee in the first place, which I know by the way because I saw someone with a take-away cup with your logo on it, and if you don’t want my business then I guess I should just leave.”

This makes Minho snort out loud and turn to her bemusedly. “Fine by me.”

She lets out another indignant gasp and goes up to the counter, grabbing a newspaper that’s just lying there. He hears the bell signaling another order is done, and goes to fetch the plates, but he keeps her in the corner of his eye.

“You,” she says when he walks past her to take another order, “what’s your zodiac sign?”

He stops in his tracks and turns to stare at her. What in the world was this woman even doing in here? She must be some kind of crazy. Or many kinds, he mutters in his own head.

“Well if you’re not gonna tell me, I’m just going to assume which one,” she says defiantly, staring at him for a moment before huffing. “Okay, taurus it is then.” She then grabs a pen, writes something on the section of horoscopes in the newspaper and tears it out, holding it out to him. “Take it,” she says when he just keeps staring.

“Why should I?” He asks in confusion, and she huffs again.

“Because you should read your horoscope, of course,” she says in a tone that implies he’s being an idiot. Boy, does he feel like one when he takes the note. It says Give the crazy woman a cup of coffee, or she’ll never leave you alone. 

“What is this?” He asks exasperatedly, spotting the customers wanting to order becoming impatient.

“It’s your horoscope, duh,” she replies, rolling her eyes at him. “You should do what it says and keep it, I’ve heard that horoscopes have been updated to be the same every day from now on.”

“Every- just fix your coffee-maker, or better yet, get a new one!” Minho finds himself yelling back, and the woman just smirks at him.

“No, I like my old one, my kid put googly eyes on it and we named him Lambert. Now get me my coffee so I can get back to work on time!” Minho stares at her for a bit longer. “You do know that if you’d just given me the coffee when I asked for it I would have been gone already, right?”

He realizes that she’s right, even though he hates to admit it. He gives her a stern glance and goes to take the couple in the corner’s order first before quickly pouring four cups of coffee and handing them to her in a cardboard tray.

Once she gets them, she gives him a huge smile that makes his stomach do a flip before grabbing them and running out the door - not before giving him more money than the coffee is worth. He huffs, staring after her through the window for a moment before being pulled back to reality by the loud clearing of a throat - a customer wants to order.

A few days later, it’s the middle of the afternoon lull. All the dishes are done, all unused tables are cleared, and Minho is filling salt and pepper shakers at the counter when the bell above the door signals that someone entered the diner. He looks up and immediately regrets it when he sees the crazy woman from before accompanied by a little kid.

He begrudgingly has to admit, he had been thinking about her a lot. Her eyes had been so captivating, and the smile she had given him before leaving had made him feel completely out of his depth somehow. Every time he poured a cup of coffee for someone, all he could think about was her. Which is crazy, because he doesn’t even know her name.

This time, her hair is let down and styled in gentle waves. Her clothes aren’t rumpled, and she’s wearing make-up. And yet, the one thing that pulls Minho in is her eyes. Well, that and her absolute angel of a kid. The kid’s eyes are the exact same shade as her mother’s, her cheeks round and rosy, her hair long and neatly brushed, and her bag so full of books it hangs slightly open due to the zipper not being able to close all the way around the sheer volume of them. Her mother helps her hop onto a chair at a table, taking the bag and placing it on the floor. The little girl immediately reaches to grab a book out of it, but her mother snatches it mid-air and places it on the other side of her own chair, out of her daughter’s reach.

“But mom,” the little girl whines with such an adorable pout Minho is sure he would have given in after 0.2 seconds flat, but the woman just shakes her head.

“I know you want to read, and I’m really really glad about that, but we’re gonna be eating now, honey. You don’t want those library books to get all sticky, now do you?”

At her mother’s words, the little girl gasps and shakes her head. It’s the cutest thing he’s seen all day. “I would never let them! That’s gross, and I would probably be fined!” Then she gasps again, her eyes even wider than before. “Would it get put in a record somewhere?!”

Minho expects her mother to simply calm her down, tell her that she probably won’t be put on some list of wrong-doers and that, even if she was put on one, it wouldn’t have any consequences other than a $2 fine.

“Oh yes, you’ll be put on a record. It might even go to the police,” is what she says instead, and Minho blanches. Aren’t you supposed to comfort kids instead of scare them?

“No way,” the little girl says, eyes still wide as saucers.

“Yes way,” her mother says with a straight face and a playful tone. “They’ll put you on a list, and then they will forward it to the police, and they will pay to have a man with a camera to follow you around and take pictures whenever you make a mess. Then all those pictures will be sent to Harvard when you apply.”

The story is ridiculous, and yet… Minho finds himself smiling. It’s kind of funny. Then he starts to fear that the kid is going to cry. He really can’t handle children crying, he hates the sound of it and never knows how to fix it so he gets all panicky and ends up leaving most of the time. (It also kind of breaks his heart, but no one needs to know that.) However, the little girl doesn’t cry. Instead, she grins at her mother.

“Ah yes, whatever shall I do.”

At her response, her mother huffs happily and ruffles her daughter’s hair. The little girl opens a menu and starts browsing through it, looking remarkably concerned as she reads it over. Her mother starts looking around, and suddenly locks eyes with him. She smiles awkwardly. That’s when Minho pulls himself together and realizes he should go take their order. He clears his throat and walks over to their table.

“You’re back,” he remarks in a monotone.

“Ah, yeah,” she says, looking down at her hands on the table. “What are the chances I didn’t act quite as crazy as I remember? Because what is crazy when you think about it, you know?”

“Well, I’m not a doctor, but I would say you qualify,” Minho answers before he really registers what’s going through his head. He freezes, scared that he offended her. She might get on his nerves (kind of), but he doesn’t want to be mean nonetheless. He might lose a customer, after all.

“I agree,” the little girl chimes in, looking up from the menu and grinning at Minho so brightly he’s sure it could have blinded him. He feels his heart squeeze tight. “Mom gets crazy when she doesn’t get her coffee.”

“Hm, well I don’t think you’re old enough to know whether I’m crazy or not, missy,” the woman responds, sticking her tongue out at her daughter, which the little girl does right back.

“I read more than you do, so I would say I am more qualified to make a judgment on that than you are,” the woman’s daughter bites back with a sarcastic grin, and Minho just stares as the woman rolls her eyes and calls her daughter a nerd under her breath with a proud smile through it all.

Having to move on for the sake of his sanity (because if he gets any more opportunities to stare at the woman’s eyes and demeanor and general presence he will absolutely lose it - out of frustration or attraction is unclear), he clears his throat a little and raises the notepad and pencil he has at the ready to take their orders.

“Oh, right,” the woman sighs, grabbing a menu and flipping through it quickly. “I’ll have a cheeseburger with fries, a milkshake, a grilled cheese, two donuts and a cup of coffee. Hana?”

Minho just blankly stares at the woman, shocked at the amount of food she had ordered just for herself. It’s 4pm and she ordered food for at least two people? Then again, he muses to himself, she did have a kid so there was probably a husband around somewhere. Maybe they were meeting up and having an early dinner before the town meeting that night?

He tries not to think too hard about the notion of her having a husband; it’s stupid to be disappointed, especially when he still doesn’t know her name or really anything about her except for her crippling caffeine addiction.

“I want a cheeseburger, too,” the little girl - Hana - says thoughtfully, chewing on her lip. “Oh, and can I have extra fries, please?” He can’t say no to her adorable angel-like face (just as he predicted), and just nods, so she continues. “I also want a milkshake and a chocolate muffin, please.”

Her bizarre order goes over his head first, as he is distracted by the little girl’s impeccable manners and the thought that maybe, just maybe, all children aren’t demons, but then he registers what she said and raises his eyebrows as high as they can go.

“Are you sure? That’s a lot of food,” he points out gently. She thinks for a second, chewing on her bottom lip again, and then nods firmly.

“Yes, please,” she says, and he just nods.

“Okay then,” Minho says, half expecting her mother to chime in and tell her that no, it’s a Wednesday and she can’t have that many sweets, but nothing comes aside from an indulging smile.

He goes to the kitchen, tearing the page he had written on out of his notepad  and handing it to the chef dazedly. Then he turns around to look at the table again, and just stares. There was no way that little girl could eat that much food, was there?

As it turns out, there was. Minho watches in astonished horror as the sweet angelic little girl puts away a cheeseburger, extra fries, a milkshake and a chocolate muffin. Who really takes the cake, however, is Hana’s mother. His theory about the father joining them had evidently been entirely false, as the food that already had been a tall order for thwo people to consume had been completely devoured by no one except a mid-sized woman and her tiny six-year-old. On top of that, halfway through their meal, the older woman had ordered an extra plate of chili fries. How in the world those were gone in ten minutes, Minho would never know, and he is pretty happy that he can escape that knowledge.

When they are done eating, Hana’s mother patiently helps her wipe down their table so she can take out her homework and get started on it. She then looks around until she finds Minho and waves at him to come over with a smile. He ignores the somersault his stomach does at the gesture.

“Want to pay?” he asks, fully expecting that to be the case.

“Uhm, not yet. Could I just have another cup of coffee?” the woman asks, and he decides enough is enough.

“You do know caffeine is horrible for your health, right? So are burgers, fries, chili fries even more so, donuts and milkshakes,” he points out, fully expecting a screaming match. To his surprise, the woman just smiles brighter.

“Sure I know that. So, my cup of coffee?”

He just blinks in pure astonishment. He then turns around and goes behind the counter to grab the pot of coffee, returning to their table to fill her cup. Then the little girl looks up.

“Excuse me mister, what’s your name?”

The way the little girl has him wrapped around her finger already is terrifying. His heart is melting, he feels the urge to be all sappy and ask her about school, her friends and her hobbies, and play games with her or something. Whatever would make her smile. He has no idea where that urge came from.

“Uh, it’s Lee Minho,” he answers dumbly, looking down into those innocently sparkling eyes.

“Okay. Mr. Lee, could I have some orange soda, please? I’m a bit thirsty,” she says, and he feels the need to save the poor girl from her mother’s habits. Not really, but he is a healthy man himself, and he wants a kid like her to live a long, healthy and happy life.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer some water, then?” he asks gently, but when she shakes her head, he just sighs. “Coming right up. Oh, and you can just call me Minho.”

“Okay. Thank you, Minho. My name is Hana, and this is my mom Y/n. It’s nice to meet you,” she beams at him, and he feels himself melt once more. Damn it.

“Nice to meet you too, Hana,” he says and goes to fetch her soda.

Since that first afternoon the L/N girls visited his diner, Minho sees them at least three times a week for the next 3 years. Well, he sees Y/n pretty much every morning for her regular coffee fix. Apparently they did manage to fix Lambert, but apparently his coffee was “better than anything Lambert could ever make.” They told him vehemently that Lambert could never know this, and he had to keep it a secret from him. They both now greet him by name, and they usually have a quick chat about what’s going on, just like he does with some other regulars.

Then again, he can’t exactly claim that he is quite as interested in the other regulars as he is in the mother-daughter duo. He asks them about work and school, and they pull him into their debates over stupid stuff (that Hana almost always wins), and he finds himself enjoying it. It must be something about their positive outlook on life, or how crazy smart Hana is, or just about how excited they are about seemingly dull and boring things. They talked about the little town’s makeshift cinema as if it was entertainment of the highest degree, better than most things you can do in big cities, despite it being someone’s living room with a cheap projector and a popcorn machine. He does not understand it, but it sure is refreshing.

He’s still just as smitten with Hana as he was the first day, if not more. She’s intelligent and funny, and even though she does certain childish things, she largely feels like an innocent grown-up. He had once asked her about a book she was reading, which turned into a (one-sided) debate on different classical writers and their influence on both society and one another, and he was lost in the first minute. He briefly wondered if her mother had any idea what she was talking about, but it quickly became clear that she did not.

Then one day, only Y/n comes bursting through the door of the diner, during mid-morning no less. She is almost frantic, breathing hard and fast, eyes wild and hair ruffled.

“Minho!” she exclaims when she sees him, body sagging in relief. “I need your help.”

He immediately sets down the pot of coffee, walking towards her with furrowed brows. “What’s wrong?”

“My coffee?” a customer says impatiently.

“Bite me,” Minho responds over his shoulder without hesitation.

“It’s Hana,” she breathes, tears welling in her eyes. Minho puts a hand on her shoulder as he feels his heart speed up to a truly concerning pace. He doesn’t know if he’s trying to make her feel better, or if it’s purely to steady himself, but he thinks it doesn’t matter. “She-she has this, uhm… this stomach ache, and a really, really high fever, a-and it won’t go away and I was, uhm, I was reading this book, and,” a breath leaves her in a whoosh before she gulps down another one, “and it said something about if pressure on her stomach makes her feel better, she should go to the hospital because it might be appendicitis so I was going to take her to the hospital, but my stupid car won’t s-start and I need…” she stops and takes a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment before looking at him with absolute fire in her eyes. “I need you to take us. Please.”

Minho’s brain is going a mile a minute. He thinks about nothing except for that poor girl in pain. He thinks about how awful he feels whenever he has a fever, and how much worse it must be for such a tiny, innocent little girl. And then he thinks about whether or not she’s staying warm despite her high temperature, because he heard something about keeping the temperature up helping the body beat viruses and bacteria and making you healthy faster. And then he thinks about what he should be doing in this position, because he’s never been a father bef-

And then he stops. He stops and thinks about the fact that he is not her father. He is not the person who should be worrying like this. He is not the person Y/n should be turning to, because she should have a support system in her husband, and he wonders why in the world her husband isn’t currently breaking a million traffic laws speeding down the highway to get his daughter into capable hands. And then…

He doesn’t like to think about it too much, but sometimes he can’t stop himself. Mainly when it’s late at night, and the town is quiet, and all he can hear is the hum of his broiler and the light shifting of the sheets whenever he breathes. That’s when he can’t stop his mind from imagining. Imagining being Hana’s father. God, how proud he would be. He imagines walking her to school, buying her gifts for her birthday and spoiling her without spoiling her too much because he still wants her to be a rational adult some day. He imagines cooking for her, imagines the day he gets her absolute favorite food right, and the way that Y/n would be in the kitchen while he cooks, sitting at the kitchen table in the house they would have, talking absolute nonsense with their daughter. He imagines waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of Hana getting a glass of water in the kitchen, only to roll over in bed and find Y/n, his wife, right there, sleeping soundly beside him.

That’s usually when he stops himself. But this time, he imagines that whole situation. And then he imagines Y/n, his (hypothetical) wife, asking another man to help her take his sick daughter to the hospital, and he can’t do it. So he does what he has been so diligently avoiding, and asks her.

“What about her father?”

Minho’s voice is gentle, and he looks into Y/n’s eyes just as softly. He wants her to understand that he would do absolutely anything for Hana, hell, he would do anything for her because he has no doubts that he is so in love with her he would marry her on the spot even though they’ve barely broached the basics about one another, but in this particular instant he really does not want to step on any toes.

But then, she scoffs. She scoffs at him, rolls her eyes, and her jaw clenches a bit. It’s a clear signal to him that her father is most likely not an option at the moment.

“Okay I know we haven’t talked about this and we really should, and I promise you we will, but please can we talk about it when my daughter is not in excruciating pain and needs her mommy? Please?”

So he lets go of all his preconceived notions and nods. He squeezes her shoulder once, then turns around and grabs his keys. He doesn’t even glance into the kitchen as he yells for his chef, Felix, to handle things for the rest of the day, even though he hears a startled and confused shout right before the door swings shut behind the pair of them, because he thinks that as long as Hana and Y/n are okay, his business could burn down for all he cares.

They get to the hospital okay, and Hana is immediately ushered into an exam room and then to an operating room. Minho isn’t in the exam room with them, but he does go to see the little girl off before the surgery.

“I’m scared,” she whispers to her mother, eyes shiny with unshed tears, but her mother just shushes her with a calm smile.

“That’s okay. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere except for the waiting room and maybe the cafeteria until you can come home with me.”

“Even if Channing Tatum asks you on a date right now?”

“Mm, I would have to consider it, but I think that if Channing can’t wait, we weren’t meant to be anyhow,” Y/n teases her daughter who just giggles in response. Then Hana turns to Minho.

“Thank you for driving us,” she says meekly, and he feels his heart twist and crush into a ball in his chest. “You really didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to, little one,” he smiles gently, and she reaches out a hand to him which he grasps immediately. “Thank you for letting me see you off before your surgery.”

“I’m glad you did,” she says back, eyes a little less teary. Then she gets a thoughtful look on her face. “Do you think I’ll have a cool scar?”

He can’t help himself and scoffs a little laugh, squeezing her hand encouragingly. He sees Y/n smile too, and he has somehow never felt as complete as he does in that exact moment. It scares him. It’s not real. But he will keep pretending for as long as he can.

“The coolest,” he answers before the doctors let them know that the OR is ready for them.

Minho and Y/n walk out to the waiting room and sink onto the chairs heavily. He is briefly impressed by how well she seemed to be handling everything, before he turns to her and sees her shaking, tears streaming down her face. She seems to be holding her breath, too, probably not wishing to openly sob in a hospital waiting room.

He briefly considers his options of hugging her or not before deciding that screw it, she needs comfort and he’s there so he will provide it for her. He smiles gently despite his heart breaking in his chest at her tears, and gets in front of her to half-crouch so he can give her a hug.

For a second he worries that he overstepped her boundaries, but then he feels her completely melt into his embrace and bury her face in his shoulder to muffle the sobs she no longer can hold back and shield her tear-streaked face from the other people in the room. She relaxes so much that they almost fall onto the floor, and Minho decides that it’s best to just pick her up in his arms and settle on one of the chairs with her in his lap.

It’s a horrible moment. She’s crying, sobbing, shaking, and he can’t do anything except hold her there. The woman who was so strong, so determined and so unique just crumbled in his arms like a tower of sand. He doesn’t say anything, just holds her. He puts a hand on the back of her head, the other remaining around her waist as she sits horizontally across his lap. He gently squeezes whenever her sobs get louder or her breathing picks up, just reminding her that he is there and he will remain there until she asks him not to.

After twenty minutes or so, her crying subsides into regular sniffling, and he feels her pull back from his shoulder to wipe at her face with the sleeve of her shirt. Then she clears her throat and sits up a bit straighter on his lap.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, voice still shaky.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just happy to help,” Minho says sincerely.

And it is sincere. There is nothing that has ever fulfilled him more than this moment, helping and feeling useful and needed and wanted. It’s a sad moment, awful even, but he feels like there is nowhere else he would rather be either way.

He has come to terms with the fact that he views Hana as family. He sees her so often, and she always talks to him, listens to what he has to say almost as if she admires him, and it fills his heart more than anything. When she gets full points on her homework, as she always does, no one (except her mother) is more proud than he is. As long as he gets to be in her life, he is happy.

“God, I’m sorry for bursting in there and just babbling and making you take us,” Y/n breathes out as if she didn’t hear him. “You really didn’t have to, but I pushed and now you probably hate us bo-”

“Impossible,” he interrupts, and Y/n stops rambling. “You two are part of my routine now. I care, you know?”

She gazes at him in shock, searching for any trace of insincerity. When she doesn’t find one, her face slowly melts into a fond smile despite the fear still present on her face. He briefly thinks that she never looked more beautiful, although he’s pretty sure he thinks that every time he lays eyes on her.

“Thank you, Minho,” she sighs out, slumping a bit again.

She seems to realize she’s still firmly positioned on his lap, and immediately gets up, clearing her throat. He immediately mourns the loss of her weight on him, but doesn’t say anything.

“So, I think I promised you a talk about Hana’s dad,” she says after a few moments of silence.

“Oh, that,” Minho says, suddenly feeling like a douche. “Look, if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. It has nothing to do with me anyway. I just wanted to make sure I don’t… make a situation uncomfortable.”

Y/n snorts, and he immediately shuts up. What’s that supposed to mean? Did he say something stupid?

“Minho, how many times have we been at your diner in the past few years?” she starts, an unreadable look on her face. He thinks it’s unnatural how she manages to look beautiful even in hospital lighting. “I can’t count the amount of times. If her dad was around, don’t you think that he would have shown up, or we would have mentioned him at least once?”

He casts his mind back over the years, and realizes it might have been a stupid question. Then again, some fathers weren’t very present in their children’s lives. Maybe he lived out of the country, or he worked night shifts so he was always asleep during the day. He had no way of knowing.

“I don’t know,” he answers after a few moments. “Some people are just like that, I guess.”

She slowly nods, mulling over his words for a second. “I suppose,” she then says, smiling faintly. “He kind of is, actually. Either way, to set the record straight; her father - Changbin - isn’t in the picture.” When he failed to mask his intrigue at the answer, she just laughed a little. “I got pregnant at 16. He wanted to get married, but I didn’t. Kind of glad now, to be honest - I doubt he will ever grow up.” Her words hold an edge of irritation, but she is evidently trying to push that feeling back. “He talks to Hana on the phone sometimes, when he gets the time. Last we talked I’m pretty sure he said he was in Ibiza? It doesn’t really matter. I have Hana, and she has me, and we’re okay like this. We learned not to expect too much from him long ago - not that we were expecting much in the first place.”

Minho listens until Y/n stops talking. He struggles a bit to figure out what he thinks of the situation. At least the man had offered to do the right thing, he supposes. Then again, from the sound of it Y/n had made the right decision in not marrying that guy, whoever he is. He comes to the conclusion that it doesn’t actually matter. Like she said, the two of them have one another, and if they say that’s enough, then he believes them.

“Okay. Thank you for telling me, and letting me know I wasn’t severely pissing some dude off for acting like a father to his daughter for a few hours,” he jokes mildly, and then regrets it. He shouldn’t have said father. Just because he sees Hana as a sort of surrogate daughter does not mean that she or her mother feel the same way, or even think that it’s okay.

But then Y/n smiles softly again, and he can relax. “Yeah. She’s lucky to have someone who does.”

His heart feels like it’s beating in his throat, his body warm from the inside due to all the feelings filling his chest. God, he wishes he had the courage to offer to do it always, to move in and help Y/n with raising her daughter because he knows that she must have it hard at times, no matter how angelic Hana is. But he doesn’t. So he just nods and smiles.

[minglana]

a few weeks ago (afaik) google maps removed a bus line from the barcelona map, and miraculously, the buses have cleared up and locals can finally use this public bus line without crowded buses... this is how dire tourism makes things

"[Video translation from Catalan: "Not a trace of tourists in the 116 bus neighborhood line. It has disappeared from Google Maps as an option to go to Parc Güell. This [bus] line was very saturated with tourists... until now."

(Tourist speaking in English): "We took the V19 bus to get here, Google Maps I found it." (Another tourist): "I am searching Google Maps for Catalunya or La Rambla, and I am going downstairs and take a bus to Catalunya center."

The neighbors celebrate that the buses will now be emptier: (Local woman talking) "We were very skeptical on if this measure was going to work, but now surprisingly we've seen that it has worked amazingly." (Another local woman talking): "We've noticed it a lot. For Easter week I was here and I had to go by the [Parc Güell] main entrance, which the bus passes by, and no one got on the bus."

Now tourists use alternative routes.

Closing credits by Betevé. End video"

[bengiyo]

Dangerous Romance Ep 3 Stray Thoughts

Last week, Kanghan took his bullying to maximum levels, but got dunked on by his own grandmother when she called out his bullshit in front of the principal and then hired Sailom as his tutor. Kanghan continued to lose to Sailom, so fucked with his money by accusing him of being a sex offender in the parents’ chat. Kanghan took a gun to Sailom’s house to try and intimidate him only to find him being beaten by debt collectors. Kanghan scared them off, and we left at Sailom still in shock as his brother arrived late.

Oh, good we’re picking up with the gun. Let’s not forget that he took a fucking gun to Sailom’s house. Perth’s characters waving guns around dangerously is the GMMTV theme of the year.

Compensation for losing your job? Look, I read a bunch of negative takes on Sailom of Wedding Plan for fucking with Nuea’s money when it wasn’t actually a big deal there. It is a big deal here! Kanghan was actively fucking with his money! Kanghan called Sailom a pedo and cut off his tutoring gig!

Kanghan went to the library smelling like soccer? I don’t know about that.

I love them putting a PS5 on a coffee table so we can see that Kanghan has money as he talks about how he’s not going to study. It’s not even plugged into anything!

Kanghan seems really nervous around his dad. It feels a bit out of sync with the way his dad seems to have no expectations of him.

I don’t know how I feel about the implications that Sailom has had feelings for Kanghan already with the way he’s nervous about holding onto him, and then smiling about it. I really hate stories of gay boys having crushes on their bullies.

Oh, so now we're buying fancy dinners for Sailom? I see you, Kanghan.

Did he really just order meat and no veggies? He is such a boy.

Speaking with others casually is a low-stakes way to learn a language, but I'm with @shortpplfedup that this sounds like JoJo Tichakorn learning English to flirt with tourists.

Yes, let's try to deceive our way into the bar. Incredible.

Oh, so we're going to acknowledge in English how thematically linked their names are? Sure, why not!

Pepper is about to turn into Claire Huxtable. "You ain't paid me back for that loan but you decided to go out and have big fun with the Wretched?"

Chimon really makes incredible facial expressions. He and Perth are well-matched.

Sailom continues to see through all of Kanghan's bullshit.

Kanghan may not be great at English, but he knows how to tell people to fuck off. Was curious if a GMMTV show would reference sex tourism at some point.

Kanghan also clearly watches too many movies if he immediately resorted to kissing to blend in with just ONE other couple.

I appreciate that Kanghan sensed that something was amiss in his house right away.

LOL! Sailom also thinks Kanghan watches too many movies!

That is a seriously good portrait of Perth. Goddamn.

Pretty fucked that his dad got him the thing he wanted but not on the terms they agreed.

Oh no. Please tell me that Sailom has not been crushing on this boy since middle school.

I don't know, y'all. I like Chimon and Perth a lot, but I'm not that into this dynamic. I do like a cross-class romance as much as anyone else, but I was hoping things would be a little more contentious between them. I feel like we're moving past some things quickly.

[useless-catalanfacts]

An important reminder of the disastrous consequences of touristic massification.

I translated another article about the housing emergency in the Balearic and Pityusic Islands.

The Balearic Islands are Mallorca (sometimes known in English as Majorca), Menorca (sometimes known in English as Minorca) and includes the Pityusic Islands, which are Eivissa (usually called Ibiza in English) and Formentera. All of them are found in the Southern Europe, in the Mediterranean sea, and are extremely popular holiday spots, particularly for German and British tourists, but also tourists from the rest of the world. Their local language is Catalan, in which this article is originally written.

Sad is he who without love has to search for a home (in the Balearic Islands)

Opinion piece by Sebastià Alzamora

The housing emergency in the Balearic and Pityusic Islands has existed for some time and it's taking more dramatic tones every day. From teachers who have been destined to Eivissa as a substitute and spend their weeks in the island sleeping in their car (because with a salary of 1,000€ it doesn't make sense to rent even just one room for 700€ or 800€ per month) to the situation showed by a recent Caritas report on poverty in the Balearic Islands: many low-income families, or with uncertain incomes (often hotel workers) who cut the money they should spend on food to be able to pay rent (with all the consequences of cutting short your food, specially for children). Also, the explanation of the "no vacancies" mysterious phenomenon that the Balearic Islands, and particularly Mallorca, achieved last summer: since everyone knows that the housing prices in these lucky islands are unfeasible, hotel owners this season take advantage of local workers (paying them a salary so low that doesn't allow them to move out of their parents' home or, even worse, their ex-spouse, as it also happens often).

It was precisely at the beginning of last summer that the Valencian and Balearic governments met to work together on the housing emergency. [...] they agreed to ask Sareb to give them some flats to be used as public housing. In fact, the Company for the Management of Assets Proceeding from the Restructuring of the Banking System (also known as Sareb, also known as the bad bank) has over 8,500 houses in the Valencian Country and over 1,000 in the Balearic Islands. Since Sareb took these apartments when their inhabitants were evicted as a result of the trash mortgages given by banks during prosperous years, it makes sense that now they will be destined (at least some of them) to housing.

I don't know how these good intentions have evolved, but the search and/or building of protected housing, even though it might be necessary as an emergency measure, is nothing more than a palliative or a patch to a situation with well-known causes. This is what's behind the problem: the overexploitation of the land, the urban speculation, a market with out-of-control prices, and a touristic saturation that makes guiris [tourists] literally invade the towns, neighbourhoods and areas that not so long ago were still the indigenous population's.

The famous quality tourism has turned out to be European multimillionaires, often with fortunes of a suspicious origin, who buy or order to build their mansions with heliport for exorbitant prices, bursting the local price for square meter. This is the strict market logic, but if the market logic isn't somehow corrected, we can find ourselves in a triple massive migration: for climate reasons (the Mediterranean is one of the places in the world where global warming is most noticeable, and the Balearic Islands are one of the most heated places in the Mediterranean), for the lack of job opportunities (also for the young people whose university degrees aren't about tourism, and who can't find work here), and for lack of access to housing.

[yeoldehetalian]

💘 - What's the most obscure pairing you've got a soft spot for?

@hetalia-rarepairweek

Hetalia Rarepair Week 2023

Day 7 – Free day

Cameroon and Macau!

(the above is just a simple edit with canon art by Himaruya, the meat of the post is below:)

So, “Macaroon” eh? – more than just a dessert item, it could also be a delightfully obscure Hetalia rarepair! I've never seen anything with this pair before (maybe I just missed it), so I made them a bit of an introductory post.

There may be controversy over macaroons vs macarons, which word to use for which exact dessert, but here’s what shouldn’t be controversial – how good these two look together!   Aren't they just so handsome? 

But a ship should have more than just looks, right?  Of course! Let’s start off with some things they have in common:

-described as being like a “big brother”

-described as being easy to get along with/easy going

-both seem fairly relaxed, personality-wise

-despite the above, both have serious sides that can come out

-are tall

-wear glasses

-would be close to the same age

-both nations got their current English names via Portuguese traders/explorers in the 1400s-1500s

Other things I would like to bring to your attention:

Due to the Portugal connection, they may have been aware of each other for some time before they actually met in person. Maybe Porgutal introduced them to each other some how. Macau is much more closely tied to Portugal, though, I don’t think Cameroon has much of a tie except the history of his name – but I could be wrong.

I feel that these two would get along well even if they don’t share all the same interests. Some compelling contrasts here could be – Macau is expert at tourism with his economy almost solely dependent on it, and Cameroon is looking to increase tourism, so there could be some collaboration there.  Likewise, Cameroon has much more land, with a diversity of beautiful landscapes, lots of farming, animals, etc, something that Macau lacks (Macau is tiny, land-wise, despite his height!) so he might like to go visit there to relax in nature.

Cameroon seems like he is great with kids – he is seen playing football (soccer) with kids and seems to have a fun-loving side.  He also seems to be good with animals.  Macau was described as doing some toy manufacture (though in reality this seems to be declining) and being very hospitable, and he seems to get along pretty well with his neighboring nations/family. And both seem chill and easy going.  This all adds up to: potential to be a super domestic!  I mean, whatever you do, don’t envision Macau bringing out some delicious treats and drinks for Cameroon and all the random kids he was playing with outside all afternoon. It is just too adorable! Don’t think about Cameroon taking Macau out into his nature for a secluded picnic in the shade of a tree on a sunny day.  Surely you would not want to consider them just having the most chillax relationship ever simply because they are naturally so easy to get along with and have zero reason to interact in kind of antagonistic way as nations.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a huge amount of canon material for either of these two (You can find most of it by going to https://hetarchive.net/ and typing in a name in the search bar).  So I have a lot of unanswered questions, like what does Macau enjoy doing for fun/relaxation?  What are Cameroon’s interactions with his neighbor nations like?  What were they both like as young nations? Do either of them have “human” names?

That’s about all I have for you now, please give Macaroon some consideration!  Maybe you can add some headcanons in the tags.  Or send me some :D  Go for it!

[lastweeksshirttonight]

My boyfriend has decided to start watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from episode one to see how it evolves. So in case you were wondering if he and I are similar-minded folk...

Last Lee Tonight (wherein Lee gets slightly personal) Season One, Episode Eight

(original air date: 6/24/2014) Major topics covered: Monarchies, Dr. Oz

Trigger warning: brief discussion of Kevin Spacey/sexual assault; medical issues

"Let's deal with the elephant in the room tonight. I'm sorry that Game of Thrones is not on anymore."

Y'all. It has happened. We have reached the first episode where the only clip of the show on the LWT YouTube is the main topic.

This marks an exciting new era of these recaps... for now. Next week the videos seem to be a bit more scattershot again. Whatever, progress towards the future is being made!

Another major milestone is hit in this episode, as it is the first time that John wears something I would categorize as daring. Let's get "Lee's outfit review and thirst corner" out of the way - pink and purple checkered shirt with dark navy (almost black) coat and matte slate gray tie. I'm giving this a 9/10 because I feel like a shiny slate gray tie would have given it that extra 'oomph', but it is still an excellent look.

We start tonight with me really noticing the Ferris wheel in the corner of the screen for the first time. It's a bold ass Ferris wheel. Was that there before??

Jesus that's a neon Ferris wheel.

This episode starts similarly to modern LWTs, except John says "Quick roundup of the week" instead of "quick recap of the week" to kick us off. I did not realize how ingrained some of his speech patterns and word choices are in my head until this specific phrasing. It's one thing to see something completely different from what you're used to, like in past episodes of the show; this is a tweak I feel like few people would notice, and yet it stuck out like a sore thumb to me.

We start in Iraq, wherein Baghdad has fallen to ISIS. John makes a joke about Kevin Spacey's sex dungeon being the former scariest place in the world that got a huge laugh - three years before Anthony Rapp came forward with his story. His behavior was such an open secret, it's so gross.

The opening segment bounces from Iraq to Thailand, where a coup just occurred and the new regime has started a "happiness campaign". This is the kind of story John loves, absolutely ridiculous on its face with a very real undercurrent of torment because of its origins.

Finally in our early stories, Antarctic tourism! That phrase makes me vaguely ill. John is on top of creating the anti-tourism trailer for them:

Interesting to look at this short bit in comparison to a much larger exploration of a similar topic years later, Mt. Everest expeditions. Obviously that was a full episode segment as compared to the 3-ish minutes Antarctic tourism gets here, but it's a good illustration of just how much more in-depth John is allowed to go on these kinds of niche topics as the years wear on.

John then speaks about the King of Spain abdicating the throne. ("Who needs decapitations or poisonings when you have a 76-year-old man peacefully resigning?") This gives John the opportunity to mock monarchy, his favorite sport, and to mention the LA Kings, something I did not expect. This transitions into speaking about the general idea of monarchy, how just about every European royal is related to the English crown, and Middle Eastern royalty. He ties it back to the Thailand section as well, to discuss the Crown Prince of Thailand, who is, according to the news, "a buffoon".

Next is "And Now This", which discusses "Political Figures Telling You What They Are Not". Fucking Michele Bachmann shows up again, as does professional dingo Tom Wheeler. Christ I hate Michele Bachmann.

With that, about halfway into the episode (13 minutes), we now get to our main story. Truly, this is the basic structure of a modern LWT!

The main story is about Dr. Oz, someone who time has made much, MUCH more odious. It's not like Dr. Oz wasn't a complete shithead at the time of this episode - his pitching for huckster diet solutions and miracle pills towards vulnerable people is disgusting. I have so much loathing for people who do this. A huge part of why my health problems are so bad is because, around the time this episode aired, I, and people around me I trusted, were influenced by guys like him, guys selling folksy cure-alls or "conventional wisdom". In my case, this influence caused me to not seek medical treatment for obvious, glaring, red-flag stomach issues for nearly two years, at which point I was actively dying. (I wish that the key for me to go see a doctor had been this episode, but it was not.)

But Dr. Oz got so much worse as time went on. I'm glad that, aside from one joke early on about Dr. Oz's (relative) attractiveness, John puts Dr. Oz's feet to the fire the entire segment. And not just him!

I remember learning about how the FDA is not allowed to regulate vitamins and supplements and being absolutely flabbergasted. Everyone knows that there's hundreds of deaths connected to tainted or irresponsible dietary supplements, and John firmly roasts senators Orrin Hatch and Tom Harkin for taking huge amounts of campaign contributions from the supplement industry and them subsequently killing attempts to regulate said industry. I appreciate the work put in here.

I love how silly the pandering demonstration is. Puts such a massive smile on my face. I would be remiss to not remind you that John Oliver fucking loves t-shirt cannons, and his obvious delight and power trip at holding and using one makes me beam every single time I see this.

Other notes:

Lee, you already did the suit review: Yeah sure I did. But consider the way that John says "regulatory zeal" at 9:52 in the Dr. Oz clip while snapping his fingers and barely restraining his anger.

"Check This Shit Out with Some Guy Named Mehmet" is an amazing title for a show.

I can't believe I can't find the GIF of John getting nailed with a t-shirt cannon from The Daily Show. I think Wyatt shot him with it. I'm glad I remember literally everything about this except where to find the GIF itself.

Sorry about getting a bit personal in this one. I know I don't talk much about my personal life, aside from being like "damn I'm at work all the time", but rest assured I am much better now and in good health. I have chronic illness so I'll never be 100%, but I am leagues away from where I was when my untreated illness was at its worst. <3

[segretecose]

Hi, why should we stay away from tourism? Everyone is pushing me to get into it because i speak english and am unemployed :/

it depends a lot on the area where you live/work i guess but in super touristy areas working as a receptionist during the summer is like working in retail except it's sales week for three and a half (almost four) months