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thinkveganworld · 5 years

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Friendly Fascism

The following are updated excerpts from an article I wrote on “friendly fascism” in the U.S. This is information our schools should be teaching on history, so that the average citizen is well-informed enough to participate in the nation’s political life and make knowledgeable choices. The article relates to the Iraq War, but it also applies to fascism in the U.S. today. Not all kinds of fascism have to equate precisely to the classic form represented by Hitler or Mussolini. Fascism doesn’t have to involve mass genocidal slaughter, nor does it have to be equal in degree to the fascism practiced by members of the Axis powers. Traits of classic fascism include: strong nationalism, expansionism, belligerent militarism, meshing of big business and government with a corporate/government oligarchy, subversion of democracy and human rights, disinformation spread by constant propaganda and tight corporate/government control of the press. Today all of those conditions exist in the U.S. to a degree. Let’s focus on corporate/government control of the press, specifically corporate control of U.S. television news networks. According to a March 24 article, “Protests Turn Off Viewers” by Harry A. Jessell, 45 percent of Americans rely on cable channels as their primary source of news, and 22 percent get most of their news from broadcast networks evening newscasts. Only 11 percent rely on other forms of media as their principle source of war news.

Our corporate controlled TV networks might as well be state controlled, because they promote war and policies of the oligarchy fairly consistently and have virtually eliminated all dissenting voices. NBC fired Phil Donahue despite his good ratings, saying in an internal network memo they didn’t want to air Donahue’s antiwar views. Reporter Peter Arnett was fired for giving an interview to Iraqi TV and merely stating the obvious on a number of issues. For example, Arnett said media reports of civilian casualties had helped the growing challenge about the conduct of the Iraq war.

According to William Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich), the Reich Press Law of October 4, 1933, ordered editors not to publish (among other things) anything which tends to weaken the strength of the German Reich … or offends the honor and dignity of Germany.’ The Nazis forced dissenting journalists out of business and consolidated the press under party control. U.S. television news networks have been consolidated under the control of a handful of corporations. America doesn’t need a press law'prohibiting the airing of anything which might weaken the strength of U.S. war policies, because the corporate owners of today’s television networks are in total agreement with the state. It is irrefutable that corporate owners of American television networks want only pro-war opinions aired, because those are virtually the only views that are in fact aired. The Phil Donahue and Peter Arnett firings, especially when coupled with the NBC internal memo explaining the Donahue firing, also indicate this is true. Do the various TV networks do a good job of informing the public, or do they more often propagandize? Propaganda is aimed at the emotions, while news sources that disseminate factual information aim toward reason. In Nazi Germany: A New History (Continuum Publishing, 1995), Klaus P. Fischer says Hitler promoted a system of prejudices rather than a philosophy based on well-warranted premises, objective truth-testing, and logically derived conclusions. Since propaganda aims at persuasion rather than instruction, it is far more effective to appeal to the emotions than to the rational capacities of crowds. If you’ve spent much time watching the pro-war cable television news programs, you cant help but notice they manipulate (whether deliberately or not) the viewing audience’s emotions rather than appealing to viewers’ logic.That is, instead of providing the American public with a broad range of necessary facts and varied viewpoints about our wars, the TV networks exploit emotions by urging the audience to focus on and identify with the day-to-day plight of individual soldiers and their families. There’s nothing inherently wrong with empathizing with the troops. However, when that aspect of war news is heavily emphasized at the expense of hard facts and varied debate, the networks serve the purpose of managing the public mood rather than informing the public mind.

According to Klaus Fisher, the Nazis eliminated from state media any ideas that clashed with official views. He writes that permissible media topics for public consumption included war itself and the Nazi movement; support of Nazi soldiers; praise for Hitler and celebrating the thrill of combat and the sacredness of death when it is in the service of the fatherland.

Today’s war-promoting TV networks have also deemed only certain subjects permissible,‘as evidenced by the irrefutable fact that they only cover a narrow range of subjects. Coincidentally, the proverbial network list'would read virtually the same as the list mentioned above. Permissible topics include praise for U.S. war policies, support for our soldiers; and celebrating the thrill of combat and the sacredness of death when it is in the service of’(in this case) the homeland, even though there is no rational link between attacking countries designated for regime change and defending our soil.

Of course, who needs rationality or facts from TV news when the American public already has enough information about world events? In a March 26 article for Editor and Publisher, “Polls Suggest Media Failure in Pre-War Coverage”, reporter Ari Berman refers to a Knight Ridder/Princeton Research poll. This poll showed 44 percent of respondents believed most'or some'of the September 11 hijackers were Iraqis. Only 17 percent gave the correct answer: none. In the same poll, 41 percent said they believed Iraq definitely has nuclear weapons. As Berman points out, not even the Bush administration has claimed that. Berman also refers to a Pew Research Center/Council on Foreign Relations survey showing that almost two-thirds of people polled believed U. N. weapons inspectors had found proof that Iraq is trying to hide weapons of mass destruction.’ This claim was never made by Hans Blix or Mohammed ElBaradei. The same survey found 57 percent of those polled falsely believed Saddam Hussein assisted the 9/11 terrorists, and a March 79 New York Times/CBS News Poll revealed that 45 percent of respondents believed Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. TV news reporters have done little to correct the public’s misconceptions. On the contrary, network reporters and their guests have often helped bolster the false impressions by mentioning September 11, or the threat of terrorism by al Qaeda, and the threat posed by Saddam in the same breath.

Individual TV reporters aren’t always free to choose the information they pass along to the public. CNN now has a relatively new script approval'system, whereby journalists send their copy in to CNN chiefs for sanitizing. In his article, Guess who will be calling the shots at CNN,'British foreign correspondent Robert Fisk quotes a relatively new CNN document (dated Jan. 27), Reminder of Script Approval Policy.The policy says, All reporters preparing package scripts must submit the scripts for approval … Packages may not be edited until the scripts are approved … All packages originating outside Washington, LA or NY, including all international bureaus, must come to the ROW [a group of script editors] in Atlanta for approval.

William Shirer comments on the Nazi party’s control of press, radio and film, “Every morning the editors of the Berlin daily newspapers and the correspondents of those published elsewhere in the Reich gathered at the Propaganda Ministry to be told by Dr. Goebbels or by one of his aides what news to print and suppress, how to write the news and headline it, what campaigns to call off or institute and what editorials were desired for the day. In case of any misunderstanding, a daily directive was furnished along with the oral instructions.

In an interview with TomPaine.com, Janine Jackson of the media watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), said that the group examined two weeks of nightly television news coverage. FAIR found that 76 percent of all news sources or guests on ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS’s NewsHour were current or former government officials,'leaving little room for other diverse voices.In addition, FAIR found that only 6 percent of those sources were skeptical about the war. Jackson noted that on television news at night, there’s virtually no debate about the need to go to war. It would further public understanding if the TV networks would offer substantial debate on the following: The Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq has alienated many world leaders and lost this country the respect of millions of citizens around the globe. The Bush team has created instability in the Middle East and risked retaliation. They’ve undercut the U.S. economy with the financial cost of this endeavor. They’ve increased the likelihood that worldwide nuclear weapons proliferation will increase. And, according to a recent Red Cross report, they have likely helped create a horrifying number of human casualties and a rapidly expanding humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

The content of television news lacks range and diversity, but the way the news is presented is also disturbing. Television reporters often deliver news of the war'with apparent breathless excitement, as if they’re giving play-by-play descriptions of football games.

People are dying in this conflict. Civilians are caught in the middle, being blown to pieces or losing loved ones. Children are left behind when their soldier-parents are killed. Instead of presenting news of this war'with giddiness, wouldn’t it be more appropriate, more human, for network reporters to take a somber, respectful approach?

On TV, we see bombs dropping from a distance. Network commentators seldom offer the public close-ups. In his article, Military precision versus moral precision,'Robert Higgs, writes that the much-used JDAM bombs dropped in Iraq kill most people within 120 meters of the blast. According to Higgs, such a bomb releases a crushing shock wave and showers jagged, white-hot metal fragments at supersonic speed, shattering concrete, shredding flesh, crushing cells, rupturing lungs, bursting sinus cavities and ripping away limbs in a maelstrom of destruction.

Just yesterday I heard a TV reporter describe certain casualties with the sterile phrase, “This is what war does”.Well, it isn’t “war” that bursts sinus cavities and rips away limbs - nothing as nebulous as that. George W. Bush and his administration have done these things. They have directly ordered that these things be done. The bombs’ shredding of flesh and crushing of human cells didn’t just passively happen.

In an April 5 article for The Mirror, “The saddest story of all,” reporter Anton Antonowicz describes an Iraqi family’s loss of their daughter. Nadia was lying on a stretcher beside the stone mortuary slab. Her heart lay on her chest, ripped from her body by a missile which smashed through the bedroom window of the family’s flat nearby in Palestine Street. Nadia’s father said, “My daughter had just completed her PhD in psychology and was waiting for her first job. She was born in 1970. She was 33. She was very clever. Everyone said I have a fabulous daughter. She spent all her time studying. Her head buried in books. Nadia’s sister Alia said, “I don’t know what humanity Bush is calling for. Is this the humanity which lost my sister? It is war which has done this. And that war was started by Bush.”

Today we’re again getting a whiff of fascism from U.S. promoters of regime change war, including war with Iran, This isn’t the equivalent of Hitler or Mussolini - just sort of a creeping fascism light, and the corporate controlled television news networks are only one example of the way even light fascism undermines what little democracy remains in the U.S.

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freefromphe-blog · 6 years

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Palynziq Update

Hi guys, Kelly here. I'm currently getting my hair done so have a bit to type about my first week experience of injecting every day!

The beginning of the week was a bit tolling. My upper left arm was injected on Sunday which I also figured out was the first time I had injected two consecutive days in a row (Saturday then Sunday). My left arm blew up (so swollen) until Thursday. Today is Friday and I finally feel back to normal. My hand looked like someone put a latex glove on it and blew air into my knuckle area. My elbow was so swollen, the skin was stretched so tight, I could not bend my elbow for over 3 days. It was rough.

Monday I injected right arm and although some swelling as usual, nothing as compared to what my left arm was going through at the time.

Next I injected upper right backside (buttcheek I'm just trying to remain polite- know for when I say backside in the future). This was on Tuesday, I still (Friday) have a large hematoma over the entirety of that area.

Wednesday was left thigh and almost no reaction.

Thursday was left upper backside and got the swollen, red, itchiness but no hematoma to match its twin on the other side.

Friday which is today, I went for the right thigh and absolutely no sign of injection site (over 4 hours later, I'm used to seeing something by now for sure)

Morale of the story : going for the thighs from now on! That's a joke obviously but just an update on the first week. One more day of 10mg then Sunday I start injecting 20mg! Cant imagine the difference my brain will feel then.

I'm taking a steroid called prednisone to chill my immune system out. The hyperchondriac in me believes I have a new sickness every 5 minutes but let's hope it's not that case.

I plan to Instagram live my first 20mg shot, it's going to be a big deal!

Thanks to everyone that is following our journey, I hope this helps you in any way you see fitting and Courtney and I love to answer your questions (best on instagram).

Love to all

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redcreekstudios · 3 years

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Page 1-3 of jacksons studies: The shadowling

Page-1 Today in the town of red creek i studied a lot of the mysterious encounters, my studies lead me to believe im close to something, something dark that is but of course the town inst happy with me and my writing so i keep things at a close...however i did have an encounter not to long ago say a week ago maybe even yesterday a beast all black and slender taller than the average man say 6'6-8ft tall its skull almost bigger than its neck its body having shown signs of bones pressing up on the inside like its starving or as if it hasn't eaten, it shows sign of pain however screeching at every moment i poke it with a needle or a pin its childlike in a way, the creatures structure is all over the place its arms are long it reaches all the way down to its knees and hunches over Knuckle dragger? maybe but those are more brute like and have more distinct features of course and dont roam the mountains or woodland areas. studying the creature i have found new forms of strength apparently its capable of fading in and out of dark areas such as shadows at light strikes it uses it to its advantage like a fear tactic when hunting its prey. an encounter has led me to belive if i were to interact with it id die instantly but if i let it loose...maybe just maybe i could get more research on it that will wait till tomorrow ill keep this updated soon 5/12/1834 Page-2 Day two research on the creature, this being the first creature ive captured in my time here so i have officially named it shadow-ling as its not as strong as most creatures ive seen but it isn't as dumb as well its a smarter predator and finds creative ways to find food, seeing how it looks like it never eats i can only assume these things hunt in packs its the only way it could survive or it could eat the livestock of local farmers but i have yet to write its details so i will Head: Round with antlers on the top of it a wide mouth with teeth sharp and thin like pins no distinct face it has white eyes and white teeth outlining its mouth the antler are sharp and cut into maybe its a form of some kind? Torso arms hips: its neck is also cut along with most of its body thin skin along with seeing the spine from its back collar bone can also bee seen its arms are longer than its legs researching down to its knees normally its hands are big with long fingers also having marks on it as well. hourglass figure type hips malnutrition looks like the cause of this Legs feet: its legs however have meat on them being able to jump higher and run faster than most much like rabbis or a form of primate its feet are much like its hands big and bone like being able to crawl onto walls and other surfaces off the floor Unknown features: this creature is that of nightmare a black ish smoke leaves its body every now and again to make prey fear it or maybe its some form of submission but along with that it can shift its bones around making a healing process in which if it breaks a bone it can snap it back into place as if it were never broken. however its most grueling feature is that its jaw can open a foot wide and it turns more savage and beast like a more violent approach is given more rows of teeth and the smoke that comes off it is odd as well it screeches louder and just becomes a whole new problem to deal with

more studies will be conducted until then i should sleep and relax the creature...is fond of me i let it loose and it didn't run it crouched and just sat there looking at me...i dont understand why 5/16/1834 Page 3 final notes on the shadow-ling it is a dark creature one of nightmare and killing a predator that does indeed hunt in packs and marks territory as much as i would like to keep researching it i had to...dismiss it, the unknown source i was given was that of a blade with markings on it not known to anyone but the nearby tribes they told me its the work of devils and corrupt magic...much like the wendigos that inhabit the lands however i cant say i agree with it, but in time ill find another shadow-ling and test it once more. but to whoever finds this book...please dont let anyone read this it will bring a reckoning hide it or destroy it that is the question but whatever you do, do not continue studies unless necessary Thank you 5/23/1834

#please like and reblog #redcreek:darkrealm #writers on tumblr #my writing #writers #writing #original story #dont steal #story #origional content #fiction #horror #:) <3 #monster #Lore

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glowloading346 · 3 years

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Phpstorm Slow

Once upon a time, PhpStorm was the IDE I loved. I thought I would use it all my life, happily without looking at any other editor.

Phpstorm Slow Cooker

Phpstorm Slow Ftp

Phpstorm Show Main Menu

Phpstorm Slow Startup

I was wrong.

I discovered the true love of my live, called Vim.

Are you confused? Are you yelling “why” to the deaf sky? What happened between PhpStorm and me? Why a PHP developer would use this… old smelly thing called Vim?

Phpstorm does a very good job of saving, importing, exporting settings so upgrading your Phpstorm version doesn't require you to redo all your settings. This is also beneficial if you are setting up Phpstorm on another computer or sharing your company coding style guide with other developers. Now you will be working with the terminal - you can use Window's cmd or the PHPStorm's terminal. I prefer to use the terminal built inside the PHPStorm - it is: better, faster and more intuitive. I prefer to use the terminal built inside the PHPStorm - it is: better, faster and more intuitive.

I was happy with PhpStorm. We had a productive relationship. Its basic rules was simple, as simple as many text editor in the computing world. You use a mouse, you click where you want to change or add something, somewhere. The basic editor. We are all used to that from the beginning of times!

PhpStorm provides the following main ways to upload project files and folders to deployment servers: Manually, at any time through a menu command. Automatically, every time a file is updated, or before starting a debugging session, or during a commit to your version control system. PHPStorm was and now is very slow under Linux (currently am using version 2016.2). All its versions were slow. Even at powerful computers with SSD. Jamming and sticking is a normal behavior for this program. It's a pity that authors do not pay attention to it. Running PHP storm on windows 10 is incredible slow. I'm running PHPstorm on my windows 10 laptop, where it is extremly slow. I made a screenshot showing the about information. I have a 64bit so I'm correct running phpstorm64.exe for this. During work I'm also using phpstorm on an.unix system, which is great. So I thought about buying a private license for me at home, but with the given performance I really cant work.

I loved the auto completion with PhpStorm! I loved the fact that you could find easily a peculiar file even within a massive codebase. I loved its stability. I liked the snippets. I loved its numerous options to refactor, generate getter / properties / methods using one or two handy shortcuts.

And now, I don’t use it anymore.

Firstly, I want to tell you my story with Vim and PhpStorm in order for you to understand how you can switch between the two.

Then I will compare the two and underline what Vim brings on the table.

Vim: the Hate before the Love

It was a newcomer who first showed me Vim.

He was a PHP developer hired in the company I was working for. I was curious, I began to look what tools and IDE he was using, expecting seeing the good old PhpStorm, like every good PHP developer who suffered too much with Eclipse.

“I don’t use PhpStorm” said the newcomer. “Vim is way better!”.

Vim! This dinosaur! This boring terminal editor! So complex nobody knows how to use it, except the perfect nerd without life / girlfriend / whatever real things!How can he compares the wonderful shiny PhpStorm with this relic?

At that point, I went in a crusade. I tried to show him how a good IDE with tons of features could suit his needs even better than this… Vim thing! Without success, I let him swimming in his ocean of mistakes, sad he couldn’t see the Truth as I was.

Time past. Days became years. Years became centuries. I began to understand that this newcomer was a very interested and knowledgeable developer. It astonished me. How can he be that good and use Vim?

Quickly we began to work on the same project: a tandem was born.

The Time of Mockeries

I mocked my work tandem. A lot. He was persisting in his mistake to use Vim and I couldn’t do anything to dissuade him.

I mocked the austerity of Vim’s interface. I mocked the fact that he had to configure everything in config files. I mocked that this configuration (in my opinion) was always broken. Who wants to code with a broken IDE? It was pure nonsense.

With hindsight, I may have been a bit jealous. He mastered a tool full of shortcuts in order to use the mouse as less as he can, and, without knowing it, I envied him.I envied him because I didn’t feel capable to learn how to use Vim in a reasonable amount of time.

More and more, my contempt toward Vim let place to curiosity.

PhpStorm and Me: the Breakdown

My attraction and curiosity toward Vim kept growing and growing.

The hate became love when I decided two things:

Quitting the company I was working in.

Learning to type like true crazy typists.

I wasn’t happy at that time, till I decided to quit the company I was working for. My decision opened new horizons and a true desire to learn more about everything.Moreover, I wanted to learn a maximum from my fellow work tandem before leaving for new and crazy adventures.

I wanted at the same moment to get rid of my very bad habit of typing with two or three fingers. I wanted to use typists techniques: using the home row keys and my ten fingers.

Quickly I began to understand the power of this typing method. You feel definitely faster and more in control of your computer. A very cool sensation!I knew as well that Vim was designed for this type of typing. Due to the pleasure I had with my new typing techniques, I slowly decided to give Vim a chance.

More and more, I asked tips to my tandem in order to learn how to use The Beast. At first, I just wanted to use it for editing configuration or text files, not for actually coding, too afraid that it would put down my productivity.

I stopped using PhpStorm in two weeks. Transfer from bitpay to coinbase.

Vim vs PhpStorm

Vim on the left, PhpStorm on the right. The clash.

Here we are finally: the comparison between PhpStorm and Vim. Do you want to replace PhpStorm with something more powerful and versatile? Do you want to be sure that Vim is the good choice?

I won’t cover here how to do a PHP IDE out of Vim since I wrote another article on the topic.

Who’s in Charge: You or Your IDE?

An IDE is obviously very important for developers. It’s the tool which helps us doing what we like: coding. It simplifies our lives, automatize all these boring stuff you repeat over and over again.

Therefore your IDE should reflect the way you are coding. It should give you the choice for you to do what you want, the way you want.

PhpStorm doesn’t really give you many choices: it is a bunch of tools and you have to stick with them.I never used 70% of it. I know a lot of shortcuts and I am able to navigates in the panels without even using the mouse. However I never used the composer tools / terminal / git GUI / database interface thingy integrated in PhpStorm.

I couldn’t configure that. I couldn’t choose to install what I wanted, what I needed. PhpStorm was choosing for me.

The result? Many panels and notifications popping, a lot of visual noise which was totally useless for me. Perfect to lose focus.

Some may argue that PhpStorm is really configurable compared to other IDE. It is nothing compared to Vim.

Vim has a great community who develop a LOT of plugin. Nowadays you can install them and get rid of them by typing two words. Not even command lines. Words.

You can choose exactly what you want and what suits you. You can even modify it easily and extends it. Vim can be bent following your wishes.

You are the master.

PhpStorm Only Allow You to Code in… PHP

Another point which was bothering me for a long time. Of course you can use it to write HTML / CSS but you won’t have many tools for those. And what about Go you want to learn so hardly? Ruby? Basic?

Vim is an editor, not an IDE, but you can make an IDE out of it for every language you want. Right now, I have very good auto completion systems for PHP, JavaScript, Go and Ruby.

Even better: the plugins can be activated depending of the file type you are editing. You will never have the Ruby autocompletion while editing a PHP file. Sweet, isn’t it?

I have tons of plugins for refactoring, creating snippets and so on. No need to change IDE and get use to different interfaces. With Vim I can switch from one language to another transparently. Believe me, it’s awesome.

When I open Vim, everything I need is there for whatever language.

Vim is Light

Each time I open PhpStorm I have the impress that my computer is running a marathon. And he doesn’t do well.

Even on my very lightweight arch linux / i3 system (running on very good hardware), everything suddenly slow down. Welcome to the Matrix, or the stop motion applied to computing!

Sometimes I like to open two projects at the same time to get some configuration or code from one to another. Sometimes I want to open even more if I need to work with multiple micro services.

With PhpStorm… you know what I am talking about. Your memory scream, your CPU burns some calories, your vans consume more electricity than your fridge.

In comparison, Vim is a feather. So light! You can run multiple instances of it if you want, your computer won’t slow down.Try to use Vim, then come back to PhpStorm and you will see what I’m talking about.

Your hardware will love Vim.

Vim is Fun

This is something I didn’t imagine: Vim is really fun to use. This is something my work tandem told me, and it’s so true: it’s basically the gamification of coding.

It is time to precise a bit how to use it. There are many modes in this editor:

The Normal mode is for executing commands (delete words, lines, paragraphs and a lot of others). Basically, it’s to edit your text (or code).

The insert mode is there for you to concretely write.

A simple separation of concern and, believe me, it’s brilliant!

This is Vim: you can learn to be productive with it in a couple of minutes (I promise). Get used to it may take a bit more time, and then you will learn new stuff all your life. The whole editor feel so logical that you will come up with new way to do things without even asking Google. Yes, by yourself, only!

Like: “Maybe if I press those keys, it will do that eventually. Yes it does! I’m a genius!”

Indeed, Vim is so sweet, you can talk to it like an old friend. For example: you want to delete all characters from your cursor till the coma? In Normal mode, type dt,, which means delete till ,. You can do as well dtf, which delete till f. Magical!

In comparison, PhpStorm is boring. To me, 70% of the tools are useless (by adding a useless graphical interface on top on very efficient terminal tools) and the editor itself use the mouse extensively, like 99% of the editors in the world.If shortcuts were invented, it’s because it’s more convenient and fast to use the keyboard to execute actions. Vim definitely nailed that.

If you want to build a complete Mouseless Development Environment, you might be interested by this book.

To be honest with you, I always have the impression I’m some sort of a hacker doing crazy things with my keyboard in three different Vim instances. Of course I am just writing down my shopping list but… who cares? The feeling is great!

I am always happy when I discover a new shortcut or way to do thing even more easily. It’s like finding a secret way to beat a video game even faster! Gamification, I tell you.

PhpStorm Cost Money

PhpStorm is not free, far from it. Even if it’s pretty affordable (around 100euro), you pay only for one year. Welcome to the era of renting instead of acquiring…

If you want a Go, Ruby or whatever IDE for whatever language, you have to pay. Again.

Vim is free, available on everything (linux, windows, mac).

You Might be Faster with Vim…

Honestly I don’t care that much if I’m faster with it. To me, being fast doesn’t mean being a good developer. Our brain is more valuable than our typing speed.

However you will feel fast and precise, which is a good cherry on the cake. Adblock plus google chrome. Especially when you have to move a bunch of classes and renaming namespaces again and again. You know, what we call refactoring: Vim can simplify that and many other things.

Vim Allow You to do More than PhpStorm

Here some examples what you can do with Vim but not with PhpStorm:

You can search through open tabs (“buffers” in Vim), files and entire projects very fast with the fzf plugin. Even faster than with PhpStorm.

You can go directly to php.net with a keystroke when you are on a method / function / whatever to see its definition. Very handy.

You can run Vim with a GUI or in the terminal. Doing the last will open a lot of possibility like the winning combo zsh / tmux / Vim. You will have a lot of flexibility and fun with those tools, I can guarantee it!

Since a tonne of plugins exist for Vim you can extend the possibilities as you wish. You can even write little functions which extend / alter whatever you want.

The possibilities are infinite.

A Great Community

A lot of people use Vim and will be happy to help you. You have access to a lot of plugins for every development language you dream of.

Some will argue (as I did) than Vim is too old. It is a strength! Think about it: what software is more stable than the one tested for decades?

It is very stable indeed, thanks to the community. If you are stuck, if you have a problem, you have tons of resources where you can found the solution.

Neovim!

Vim is old and maintained for a long long time, which means as well that its codebase is (apparently) not-that-goodish.That is why a bunch of people rewrote the whole editor. It’s called Neovim and it’s compatible with every Vim plugin available.

Even if it’s still in beta I didn’t have any issues with it. It works like a charm.

I want to be in love with Vim! Tell me how!

First you need to be motivated and learn how to properly use it. It is less complicated than you think.

You Work on Linux or macOs? Try Vimtutor!

First, go to your terminal.Then type vimtutor. Press enter.Here we are!

Vimtutor comes with a lot of linux-based distribution. It is a 15 minutes tutorial for you to learn Vim’s basics. After that, you can begin to use Vim for whatever need you have.

15 minutes! Who said that Vim was complicated?

You don’t believe me? Just try it!

Get Inspired by Other’s Configurations

Vim alone is a bit… too weak functionality wise. You need plugins, and the best way to find what you need is to look to configurations from other developers.They are most of the time hosted publicly on github.

Here my personnal config.

Be careful though. It is tempting to copy entire configuration from others but you will be lost very quickly. Vim needs to be personalized. It can suits you if you take the time to tune it depending on your needs.

Take the configurations available on the web as inspirations. Copy them little by little, plugin by plugin. Test it, try to understand what the plugin is doing. Take your time. Read the plugin documentations. In short: do everything with Vim you should do as a developer. Analyzing, acting step by step and see if it suits your need.

Vim Cheat Sheet

My advice for the beginning: having a cheat sheet printed you can refer to. You can find a lot of them everywhere.

It will help you memorising the basics of Vim and experimenting to be more effective and have even more fun!

Vim is a Winner! But… Do I Miss PhpStorm?

I hope you are now ready to try Vim, and maybe replace PhpStorm!

Now let be honest with one another:

Yes PhpStorm has some tool that Vim doesn’t. The search plugin I use for example has less options than PhpStorm’s search… but is so faster, you’ve no idea.

In PhpStorm the auto completion was slightly better… in 2017. In 2019, Vim auto completion plugins are as good as any IntelliJ plugin.

You need to spend time configuring Vim to have a powerful PHP IDE.However, it means as well that you can personalize it the way you exactly want it to behave. An IDE should answers your need, not imposing them!

After three weeks using Vim as my PHP IDE, I tried to reinstall PhpStorm. I used it for ten minutes… before coming back to Vim.

I won’t get back to you, PhpStorm. Never. Bartender for wedding near me. I am a faithful man to Vim now.

This section provides the list of solutions and workarounds for common problems with deployments in PhpStorm.

Collecting PhpStorm deployment logs

If your issue is not addressed in this section, contact our support engineers. If asked to provide deployment logs, follow the instructions to collect them.

Select Help | Configure Debug Log in the main menu.

In the Custom Debug Log Configuration dialog that opens, add the following lines depending on the issues you are experiencing:

Issues with deployment/synchronization: #com.jetbrains.plugins.webDeployment

Issues with issues with SSH/SFTP: #com.intellij.ssh

Click OK and reproduce the issue.

Locate the log file by selecting Help | Show Log in Explorer (for Windows and Linux) or Help | Show Log in Finder (for macOS).

If necessary, you can locate the log manually:

Syntax

%HOMEPATH%.<product><version>systemlog

Example

C:UsersJohnS.PhpStorm2021.1systemlog

Syntax

~/Library/Logs/<product><version>

Example

~/Library/Logs/PhpStorm2021.1

Syntax

~/.<product><version>/system/log

Example

~/.PhpStorm2021.1/system/log

The most recent log file is named idea.log; older files names end with a number, that is idea.log.1, idea.log.2, and so on. In most cases you need only the most recent one.

Attach the log file(s) to the issue or forum thread.

General troubleshooting

Deployment is slow or fails

Deployment can be a resource-intensive operation, especially if a project or a deployment server contains lots of directories and files. In the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, navigate to Build, Execution, Deployment and explore the following configuration options, which can speed up deployment:

Exclude directories that are not needed from deployment (for example, images). This can be done from the Deployment: Excluded Paths Tab page.

On the Options page, clear the Overwrite up-to-date files to skip uploading files that don't need to be uploaded.

Depending on the server, switching between active and passive transfer mode in the advanced FTP settings may help. This can be done by toggling Passive mode in the Deployment: Connection Tab for the server.

Limit number of concurrent FTP connections. This can be done by toggling Limit concurrent connections and setting the number of connections (usually 3-5 concurrent connections is OK for any server if you experience problems with a greater number of connections) in the Deployment: Connection Tab for the server.

File transfer becomes unresponsive

This can happen in case PhpStorm tries to resolve an IPv4 host via IPv6. By default, PhpStorm only listens for incoming IPv4 connections. To make sure IPv6 is disabled, check the PhpStorm JVM options:

Select Help | Edit Custom VM Options from the main menu.

In the .vmoptions file that opens, make sure the -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true line is present.

Restart PhpStorm.

Otherwise, to enable IPv6 support, delete the -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true line. In this case, make sure to add the IPv6 entry for your host to the /etc/hosts file.

Download/upload actions are not available

Download/upload actions may not be available because of a missing mapping. If a file or folder that you want to download is not configured in any mapping, PhpStorm will not download it. Mappings can be configured as described in the Map project folders to folders on the server and the URL addresses to access them.

For some actions, a default deployment server needs to be selected on the Deployment page of the Settings/Preferences dialog.

Some folders are not deployed

A common cause for folders not being deployed is when they are explicitly excluded. To solve this, in the Remote host tool window right-click the given folder and select Remove Path From Excluded from the context menu. Once this is done, the folder will be deployed.

This can also be configured from the Deployment page of the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S. Open the Excluded Paths tab for the server and remove the excluded path. Note that both the source and the target folders should be checked. Folders can also be excluded by name on the Options page under Exclude items by name.

Sharing deployment configurations between projects

Deployment Servers are configured at the IDE level: they are available for all projects and can be shared between them.

Note that only the name and connection details (specified on the Deployment: Connection Tab tab) are shared between projects: mappings and excluded paths are project-specific and have to be configured separately. Using this approach, connection details have to be entered just once, while mappings and excluded paths can be configured per-project, sharing the connection details. This can be useful when projects share the same deployment server and use the same connection settings. If connection settings are different between projects, they have to be configured for every project separately.

If necessary, you can set a server to be visible in a single project by selecting the Visible only for this project checkbox on the Deployment: Connection Tab.

IDE settings do not allow me to configure mappings

The default new project settings are used to configure the default settings for new projects and do not affect the currently opened projects. To configure settings for the current project, use the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S.

Can subfolders within the same folder have different deployment settings? Can a local folder be deployed to multiple locations?

When uploading folders and configuring mappings, note the following:

You can specify mappings for specific folders to different paths on the deployment server. This can be configured on the Deployment: Mappings Tab for the server.

You can exclude specific folders and files from being uploaded/downloaded. This can be configured on the Deployment: Excluded Paths Tab for the server.

You cannot upload the same folder (or subfolders) to different sites at once. A separate deployment configuration needs to be created for each of them and uploaded to each site one by one.

If this is what you want to do, we recommend automating the process with a capable tool. For example, Phing has an FTP task which can be used from PhpStorm. Within PhpStorm, you can use the Sync with Deployed.. command and select from available deployment servers for every upload.

I cannot assign a keyboard shortcut to the Sync With Deployed to My Server menu item

It is not possible to assign a keyboard shortcut directly to the Sync With Deployed to <server name> command, only to the generic Sync with Deployed to.. command, which will then display a popup menu with the list of servers. Refer to Configure keyboard shortcuts for details.

If you do wish to assign a keyboard shortcut to a specific deployment server, it is possible to record a Macro and assign a shortcut to it instead:

Select Edit | Macros | Start Macro Recording and start recording a Macro.

Select Tools | Deployment | Sync With Deployed to <server name> and close the sync window.

Stop recording the Macro by selecting Edit | Macros | Stop Macro Recording from the main menu.

Set the Macro name, for example Sync with <server name>.

Open in the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, select Keymap and find the Macros node. From the context menu of the new sync Macro that was just recorded, select Add keyboard shortcut and provide the desired shortcut .

How do I deploy a database using PhpStorm?

There are a couple of ways to deploy a database using PhpStorm:

Make use of the integrated database tools and run the required DDL and SQL statements manually.

Work with Phing and set up a DBDeploy task.

Can I run a script or executable on my files before the upload occurs?

Things like minifying CSS, optimizing images, encoding PHP files using IonCube and so on are actions that you may want to execute before an upload happens. The best approach to do this is run them not when the upload is started, but when the files are changed, by using File watchers in PhpStorm. When the time comes to upload them to a deployment server, upload the processed files instead.

Note that the Skip external changes checkbox must be cleared on the Options page for this to work.

Sometimes files are not uploaded automatically

By default, PhpStorm uploads the files if they are changed by some external processes (VCS, transpilers, and so on). If the files are not uploaded, make sure that the Upload changed files automatically to the default server on the Options page is set to Always and the Skip external changes checkbox is cleared.

Can I run pre- and post-deployment actions?

It's possible using Run/Debug configurations. You can create a fake Run/Debug Configuration, or a Run/Debug configuration that should be the last step, and add the required steps under Before launch.

As an alternative, we recommend using Phing or any other build system to execute complex sequences of steps.

FTP troubleshooting

FTP issue: Invalid descendent file name 'http:'

When a deployment server has been configured or when using the Test Connection button in the project settings, the Invalid descendent file name 'http:' error is displayed. Note that all file names with a colon : in the name will be considered invalid.

This can happen if a file containing http: Pioneer desserts. in its name exists in the project. The library that PhpStorm uses to connect to FTP (Apache Commons VFS) cannot read the contents of a folder containing such a file, which causes the operation to fail. The only solution is to remove the file containing http: in its name from the project.

PhpStorm seems to connect to the server but can't list files or perform upload

Phpstorm Slow Cooker

This may be because the deployment server requires a so-called passive FTP connection. To set this mode, select the Passive mode checkbox in the Deployment: Connection Tab for the selected server.

Phpstorm Slow Ftp

Limiting the number of concurrent FTP connections may also help in this situation. To do this, open the Deployment: Connection Tab for the selected server, select the Limit concurrent connections checkbox, and set the number of connections (usually, 3-5 concurrent connections is OK for any server if you experience problems with a higher number of connections).

Phpstorm Show Main Menu

Deploying files when changing branches using Git checkout

There are a couple of ways to go about deploying files when switching between branches using Git checkout:

One way is to configure deployments to always upload files and external changes. To do this, on the Options page, set Upload changed files to the default server to Always and clear the Skip external changes checkbox. Note that this will upload all files to the server when switching branches.

Use git-ftp. It performs minimal uploads and is also able to mirror file and directory removals.

Phpstorm Slow Startup

Known issues

Is rsync supported to synchronize files and folders with a deployment server?

No. If you feel this should be part of PhpStorm vote for this issue.

0 notes

winter-and-little-brunettes · 6 years

Text

85 Questions Tag

I was tagged by @vldrocketeer! Thanks, sweetie, sorry Im getting to doing this so late!!!

— What was your last…

1. Drink: Coca-Cola! And, Im about to go grab another can...

2. Phone call: My mom! I sent her some cute bird videos, and called her to hear her reactions to them.

3. Text message: A good friend I made in first year! His name is Colin, and he lived across the hall from me in residence first year. We’re both the same major (English Lit), and we both have similar interests in video games, so we got along great. I won’t post what I said, since we’re catching up and it was a long ass text message, but it was basically me explaining why I haven’t seen him around lately (since I’m usually holed up at work when I’m on campus)

4. Song you listened to: “Turning Page” by Sleeping At Last. It’s a favourite of mine!

5. Time you cried: Oh jeez... Uh, last month? March has been pretty stressful, and April will make me want to rip my hair out...

6. Dated someone twice: I almost did! But no, never actually dated the same guy twice.

7. Kissed someone and regretted it: Its hard enough to get me to kiss someone, let alone do it and regret it.

8. Been cheated on: I have. He was my first and only heartbreak (so far)

9. Lost someone special: Hmm... I think my best answer here is “yes”.

10. Been depressed: I mean, Im usually a pretty happy person, but everyone has their ups and downs. I cant say Ive been clinically depressed, but I have had a very dark part in my life, and I feel like another one is coming.

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: HAHAHA uh... no... I mean, that totally wasn’t me...

— Fave colours

12. purple!!

13. blue, like, a royal blue, yknow?

14. pink

— in the last year have you…

15. Made new friends: I have, fortunately!!

16. Fallen out of love: “I need to be in love for that to happen” god Erin, same

17. Laughed until you cried: Those are some of the best moments. I’m a loud laugher, and it happens like, once a week probably.

18. Found out someone was talking about you: I don’t do anything special enough to be talked about

19. Met someone who changed you: I feel like every person I’ve ever met has influenced me in some way or the other, so yes.

20. Found out who your friends are: Oh man, I certainly have. Fortunately, I have that cliche best friend story where I’ve literally known her since SK, went to the same elementary school, high school, and university together... And she lived around the corner from me when I still lived in my hometown.

21. Kissed someone on your facebook friends list: Well, considering my one ex is my friend there, I have to say yes.

— General

22. How many of your facebook friends do you know irl: Every single one. Although I’m never on facebook so don’t ever add me; itll take a month to hear back from me.

23. Do you have any pets: I have two cats! Well, one lives with me, and the other is at my parent’s place. But Perriwinkle is with me, my precious kitty, and shes all I need!

24. Do you want to change your name: Hmm... I do quite like my birth name, and I adore my last name, but my middle name... Im not super fond of “Marie”.

25. What did you do for your last birthday: hahahaha uh, well, Id been working at my new job for about a week at that time, so I was working on my 19th birthday.

26. What time did you wake up today: 11:35am

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: I was working on The Power of Faiths upcoming update! ;)

28. What is something you can’t wait for: to be done university... As much as it’s a cool experience and all, all the stress it brings is gonna kill me prematurely.

30. What are you listening to right now: “I Get To Love You” by Ruelle

31. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: I work with a guy named Tom. He’s a music major, he plays piano and is overall a super cool dude

32. Something that’s getting on your nerves: when people I call for my job pick up the phone on a Sunday and bitch at me that I’m calling on “the day of rest”. Like?? Bitch, you did not have to pick up the phone. You saw the caller ID, just, let it go to voicemail?????????

33. Most visited website: It’s a toss-up between tumblr and ao3

34. Hair colour: brown, like, chocolate brown I guess

35. Long or short hair: It’s long for some people’s standards (it comes to between my shoulder blades) but still pretty short for me. I’m used to my hair reaching the small of my back.

36. Do you have a crush on someone: Oh hell no, aint nobody got time for that

37. What do you like about yourself: Uh... You guys wouldn’t like my answer.

38. Want any piercings: I seriously thought about a tongue piercing, but idk.

39. Blood type: You’d think, from the amount of blood Ive had taken for allergy tests and the like that I’d know. But nope, I have no idea.

40. Nicknames: Sam, Sammy, Samserban, Pretties, Samuel.

41. Relationship status: Single

42. Sign: Gemini!

43. Pronouns: she/her

44. Fave tv show: Voltron

45. Tattoos: I’m looking into tattoo parlors to get my first tattoo over the summer. I’m gonna get a bunch of flowers on my back, over my heart, for my grandma <3

46. Right or left handed: Right

47: Ever had surgery: Nope! Worst I’ve had are x-rays

48. Piercings: I do have my ears pierced, just once.

49. Sport: Hahahaaaa not anymore, I’m lazy af. But I used to figure skate competitively, row competitively, and ride horses.

50. Vacation: I hardly ever travel. Ive been down to Florida twice, and been to England and Scotland around this time two years ago with my two best friends.

51. Trainers: ...no? Again, I’m lazy af.

— More general

52. Eating: I dont eat as often as I should.

53. Drinking: Coca-Cola. Or coffee. Not sure which I’m gonna get yet.

54. I’m about to watch: I mean, I should be working on papers or something... Or even writing... But I just finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood the other day and I loved it!!!

55. Waiting for: my English prof to give me my marks back for a paper I wrote.

56. Want: a lot of money so I don’t have to work as much as I do to live in my bachelor’s apartment with my cat.

57. Get married: Maybe..... It depends on if I ever find the right person. But if I dont, I am more than happy to be alone.

58. Career: I really reeeaaally want to get into a writing/editing career. I want to one day work for a firm to work one on one with authors to help them edit and publish novels!

— Which is better

59. Hugs or kisses: Hugs!

60. Lips or eyes: Oooh, eyes man!

61. Shorter or taller: Taller...

62. Older or younger: Older

63. Nice arms or stomach: Ooooh... arms...

64. Hookup or relationships: Definitely relationships, but I’m terrible at keeping them,,

65. Troublemaker or hesitant: Oh gosh, I mean, Im definitely more of a trouble maker... But like, a cautious one.

— Have you ever

66. Kissed a stranger: Oh hell no

67. Drank hard liquor: Im Canadian... Yes

68.Turned someone down: Haha, I sure have! I got asked out by two different guys on the same day before.

69. Sex on first date: Oh god no

70: Broken someone’s heart: Probably.....

71. Had your heart broken: I most certainly have!

72. Been arrested: Fortunately, not.

73. Cried when someone died: Yes. But, only once.

74. Fallen for a friend: I have no idea what this means???

— Do you believe in

75. Yourself: hahaha uh... No???????

76. Miracles: Id like to??

77. Love at first sight: I do, but not for myself.

78. Santa Claus: Nope

79. Angels: Oh god no

— Misc

80. Eye colour: like, a warm brown colour?

81. Best friends name: Kaylee!

82. Favourite movie: I love too many movies... But the ones that come to mind are Spirit: Stallion of the Cimerran, Stardust, The Swan Princess, and Toy Story!!!

83. Favourite actor: There are days I can barely remember my coworkers names, and I see them for like, 15 hours a week. Let alone someone I’ve never met???

84. Favourite cartoon: It’s Voltron ;)

85. Favourite teacher’s name: I dont really consider myself to have “favourite” profs. But I am fond of a few that I’ve had!

I’m gonna tag @forsakenangel88, @mardimari, @dumb-birdd, and any of my followers who want to do this! Just tag me, I’d love to see your answers <3

#me things #i was tagged?

3 notes · View notes

cheezlogerratum · 7 years

Text

A Persuasive Essay

☼

The two duos of half-plastic half-rubber wheels have remained, for the past thirty seconds or so, at rest. Kurtis Spottiswoode, preferably to him Kurt, the owner of the pack, has been repeatedly, over and over, scanning a sign off to the side of the asphalt path. In yellow, it's been telling him:

ATHLETIC EVENT

... with an appropriate arrow pointing to the left. Still, in that same spot, he stands. He can't necessarily tell whether he's trying to understand something he's missing or if he's just spacing out, knowingly looking like a moron, but too afraid to break out of what he believes is a commitment. Even still. Eventually, Mr. Spottiswoode catches onto the fact that the sun has long been set and that there are no "ATHLETIC EVENT"'s in session at this time. His feet succumb to the decline and start stepping across into the parking garage wondering if the sign was placed for a past "ATHLETIC EVENT" or a future one? This is all he seems to think about in the structure, the halides buzzing above and the rumble of the little wheels on his backpack don't even register in his mind. He unlocks and enters his used Camry automatically and realizes he's driving, somehow unable to shake the image burned into his eyes or maybe his head:

ATHLETIC EVENT

←

Mr. Spottiswoode arrived at his apartment complex at around 9:23pm, around a minute or two later than he usually remembers, and follows the rut path up to his apartment on the second floor. The residents on the first were shrieking, almost with no words, but it soon shifted into laughter and niceties he couldn't quite make out. He went to the bathroom, where he unzipped and went about his business looking at himself blankly in the mirror mysteriously installed right above, maybe a little crooked, the toilet. Kurt had small beady eyes and a large forehead mapped out by rows of remnants of brow folds and a receding hairline, brown and faint. The rest of his torso was adorned by a sport coat and a wrinkly plaid shirt, the rest is invisible. It was a lingering revelation in Mr. Spottiswoode's mind that he was wasting away, not really doing much, but he never wanted to address it head on in fear of possible sadness... but, as he undresses getting ready for bed, he wasn't feeling much now? Just sort of following what he'd always been doing and doing at as succinctly as he can, probably to occupy his mind from that "possible sadness".

☼

Kurt was traversing through the input and output population of students in flux all around him, talking into headphones and trading glances back and forth, when he realized—the sign was still up! "ATHLETIC EVENT". He felt a minuscule rush inside of him, slightly increasing the speed of his pace, and making him aware of his breath, of his life. He looked around with his head at anything and everything of interest, impulsively, excited. ECSTATIC! He thought he might be forcing this adrenaline onto himself, but he told himself to shut up. Shut up! He was loving it, and would remain loving it all the way to class, his wheels rumbling at a higher pitch.

Höffus Hall, room 488, was unlocked, dark, cold, and alone for the past thirteen hours or so. Mr. Spottiswoode, with his newfound motivation to live, flicked on the lights and plopped his computer bag onto the table offset at the front of class. He thought of himself as a bearer of life to the once dead or perhaps unborn room, mentally patting himself on the back as students came in at different intervals of time and frequency, totally unaware of their professor's enthusiasm. He unzipped his bag and brought out his old Dell laptop, gray and void of any personal touch. He logged in and fired up Microsoft Outlook, twiddling his fingers as more students populated the room. Outlook revealed itself, updated its folders, and notified the user of an "important message" he received. WOW! Kurt clicked the alert and he was brought to an e-mail sent by an unfamiliar address containing the following:

dear professor,

ive been thinking about alot of things like the paper we were made to write a few weeks ago. i know i haven't finished it and i bet its too late to turn it in now for any grade and i know im failing the class, but i cant fail this class and i think this paper is the only thing that will save me. i hope you understand. ill have the essay done by the start of class on thursday but if you dont accept it or give me a high enough grade to pass the class im going to kill you. i dont want to kill you but i also dont want to fail. i hope you understand.

best, your student

Kurt Spottiswoode read the message over a few more times, just to make sure, again, not knowing what he was feeling, but whatever it was it wasn't exciting. Before he even had the chance to reply, or give the message a sixth reading, or to think about what the hell, just what the hell he was going to do? he looked at the clock in the bottom right and saw it change from 11:13 AM to 11:14 AM right before his eyes, four minutes late. He looked up with a buzzy sharp air behind his eyes, at a loss of what to even do. What to say? Most importantly, WHAT?

"Uhhh," Spottiswoode emitted, "who was it that sent me an e-mail this morning?"

Blank. The look on the students' faces suggested that he had said absolutely nothing. Instead of reading the students for any kind of response, he started to read for any clues, any telling thing coming from any of their persons that might inform him of the presence of a possible murderous psychopath enrolled in his class. There were only 19 students on the registrar but only, after doing the math with his eyeballs for a few seconds, 11 students present. Both the fear of the anonymous student's absence and the regret of not making attendance mandatory via a sign-in sheet and a significant percentage allotted to "Attendance" in the final grade struck him like headlights he wasn't aware he was invading the path of. He quietly surveyed those present in class and what he knew of them. To his knowledge, only 3 students were failing the class, and one of them, Mehi Georgensen, was present, but he knew for a fact she turned in the last assignment. The prompt, by the way, was to write a persuasive essay supporting their opinion on the scientific studies surrounding the spike in American crime rates in the 1970s and 1980s and how experts believe that the trace amounts of lead found in gasoline sold during this time is directly related to the uptick in violence and aggression in people who are exposed to automobiles on a regular basis if not daily. Mehi's essay was roughly 85% blockquotes, 5% topic and concluding sentences, and another 10% dedicated to an enlarged, pixelated image of a red, turned dark gray by the printer, gasoline jug. No, Kurt thought, it can't be her. The other two names failing the class were Eloy Hewitt and Harold Skouras III, both with zeros in the gradebook, but that's all they were to Mr. Spottiswoode. He tried forcing himself to remember who these boys were, what they looked like, who the sick culprit could be. He started to sweat and realized so when a droplet fell from his nose and onto his knuckle belonging to his right hand cupping his mouth out of a side effect of vigorous thought, if you could even call it that. It was now 11:19 AM and Kurt stood back up, hands at his side, eyes open, looking again trying to recognize anyone. He knew who some of the kids were but couldn't remember others because of, what he thought was, a lack of in-class participation. He did, however, recognize Kevin, hands clasped together resting on the table up front, good posture, beaming at Mr. Spottiswoode. Kevin, politely responding to Kurt's gaze, cracked open a smile, unimaginably ready to learn. What a good egg Kurt thought, and looking at this kid, this bright and utterly innocent young man smiling undoubtedly at him, his spirits were lifted by a fraction of security, but that was enough. Kurt breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, clearing his throat, coughing, and began the day's belated lesson.

Sitting in his assigned corner of office room number 528, populated by a desk, a shelf, a disconnected phone with the cord bunched up, various handbooks on MLA, APA, and Chicago format, yesterday's ¾ eaten Subway sandwich, a stack of filled manila folders, a photo of Bruce Springsteen printed out on an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper taped to the wall, and a lamp—Mr. Spottiswoode sat leaned back in his office chair borrowed from the downstairs supply closet, staring, arms crossed, eyes serious, at his computer screen. The e-mail shone through the screen, he couldn't stop thinking. He followed a tangent marveling at the screen itself and its thousands of little pixels made by three columns, red, blue, green, each flickering at him performing as one chunk of some incomplete illusion, creating the image of something that is anything but. Kurt, at a loss, followed multiple tangents like that, perhaps, in a kind of unconscious fashion, trying to find some external excuse or explanation for all this. Surely, surely, it can't be real right? It made no sense, absolutely, completely, totally no sense whatsoever, that this array of pixels that have orchestrated themselves in varying degrees of dimness onto his laptop screen could spell out so plainly and absent of reality his own eventual fate. Well, it doesn't have to come true, does it? Kurt Spottiswoode couldn't believe that he didn't just think of giving in and offering the perp the grade he so desired. Yes. Yes! That was it! He didn't even take into account the circumstance of his academic honor, he had his life! Once again, "LIFE!" He was up, his fists were in the air, his legs were spread apart, and his breathing had escalated into a pant. Yu Quoque, or Professor Quoque as she vehemently prefers, in the opposite corner saw him and witnessing this side of Kurt she had never seen before, she stared, on the phone, mouth slightly agape.

"Where are you," over the phone, "what was...?"

"Nothing," Yu whispered, "just work."

☼

It was Wednesday, the next day, game day! Kurt missed whatever athletic event that happened the day before due to the fact that he was fearing for his life, but now, having found out what to do about the whole situation, he decided to treat himself to a nice, relaxing, athletic event, which happens to be a weeklong championship. Mr. Spottiswoode arrived at the makeshift ticket booth, which was a plastic table with a print out of ticket prices taped to the front side and a cheap cash box guarded by two girls, both with one earbud in whatever ear was facing away from each other, and inquired, "Hello! One ticket for the athletic event and please!"

"Eight dollars please," the girls in unison, almost in harmony.

Kurt immediately took to his various pockets in his coat, pants, and satchel, where he finally found a dilapidated ten-dollar bill with a frowny face drawn on Hamilton's face. The girl on the right snatched it, the girl on the left gave him the ticket, and the girl on the right gave him one dollar in change, but he was so ecstatic and overwhelmed by the butterflies in his stomach that he didn't even realize. He wobbled right up to the bleachers taking it all in, smiling, just like Kevin, and started down the steps. The sun was blaring but the air was freezing, a paradox Kurt pondered on fairly often before, but not today, game day! He found a nice spot just above half way down and sat down next to an incredibly buff guy with, who Kurt assumed was, the man's son wearing a black hoodie and buggy glasses. "Isn't this just great," Kurt broke the ice, "this is just... agh! It! You know?"

"I don't."

"What's your name?"

"... I'm Kurt! Err, Professor Kurt to you though, haha!"

"Goodbye Kurt."

And the big man got up, even more ginormous than he... holy shit—walked down the bleachers, stomping between other attendees and their picnics, to another spot. Kurt stared a while at the man and thought of his nerve, how someone can be so mean and... rude? but he caught himself in the act of negativity and tried to snap out of it, clamping his eyes shut as a reset mechanism of sorts. Upon opening them, he saw the faded green field, but the longer he looked, the more green it got. He started getting the hang of it and tried it on the trees, the bleachers, and even the jumbo man. The spark of an auxiliary cord boomed through the stadium and was shortly followed by T.I.'s "Bring Em Out" featuring Jay Z. "BRING EM OUT BRING EM OUT" The players jogged onto the field and started warming up, running around preset patterns of cones over and over. Just beneath the song blaring throughout the entire area, echoing off the apartments just next door, Kurt heard a voice, "What's today." Kurt felt it to his left and realized the voice was coming from the kid in the hoodie, still sitting where he first saw him.

"Wednesday?"

"And tomorrow?"

"... Thursday."

The kid hadn't even turned his head to Kurt, in fact, Kurt hadn't even seen the kids' lips, only his eyes bulging out of the edge of his hood. "I need you to proofread something for me," the glasses said.

"Do I know you?" Kurt inquired.

"It's important, it's my life's work."

"I can give you my office hou-"

"I feel twisty, I can't move correctly... I'd appreciate this greatly."

"... Ha ha, come on now, let's just enjoy the game?"

"It's only if I express what I mean and get my point across in a certain perfect way and if I have a clear thesis and purpose to the essay and I make myself believable to the reader that I will get an A."

"... Harold?"

"I just need a professional opinion."

"Eloy!?"

"It's not done yet I'm sorry."

And the glasses dropped 8 loose sheets of what Kurt can already make out as a poorly formatted essay and strode his way up the bleachers as swiftly as possible. The sheets were lifted by the wind and flew up down left right forward back, all directly away from Mr. Spottiswoode. Kurt scrambled to follow all of the sheets at once while the image of that hood and those lenses and his voice seared into his mind, playing in a loop, all floating in a superposition playing at the same time, over and over and over again. Kurt caught one of the pages, repeating, "one, one" and so on in his head, adding to the jumble, now worried, now realizing, all at once, that death was way too near. "Two, two two two" but what? He felt silly again, remembering he had a plan, a master one you could call it, but he still felt petrified, sad, wasting away, stumbling over people at an athletic event reaching desperately for pages of an essay a kid is threatening his life over. He lost track of all the remaining pages, looked around, drenched, and saw a page in the middle of the field. He ran down the steps, head bobbing, eyes on the sheet, feeling utterly lightheaded, and sprinted into the field, tunnelvisioned, and bonked heads with a girl swerving out of a row of cones. The audience's collective shocked, "Ooooohh" and a girl nearby's inhaling hissing sound of pain only made everything worse, and he felt like a kid. Mr. Spottiswoode reluctantly opened his eyes and looked at the girl rubbing her head and only thought of himself, how he looked, how people must think of him now, and, somewhat noticing, his stomach sunk. He tried, "I didn't... I'm sorry I'm sorry," under his breath. He grabbed the piece of paper, now grass stained, and made his way up the stairs, eyes down, only wanting to leave, only wanting to go home, and as the girl got up, ready to rumble, the audience broke out in applause.

←

Kurt couldn't even look at Sally Pilckner and her glasses without shuttering somewhat, or feeling some sharp sweat incoming, so for the remainder of her presentation, he looked down at her converse pretending to be following along when really, truly, he's completely lost. He had already taken attendance to no avail, had sort of thumbed through the essay, but hasn't been able to read it, not even knowing if he should or not. So here he is, Kurt, sat, in the back of a classroom, looking at shoes and contemplating his chances of life or death. The ginormous mega man played in his head over and over, torturing himself somehow just for fun, relatively. "Observe," he remembered "Listen, yes!" So he tried, forcing his brain to latch onto everything happening in the room, which—well, he didn't know—wasn't working. He attempted to consciously meditate on the PowerPoint slide stricken on the pull down screen, bleeding off to the edges onto the whiteboard, infuriatingly so, and thought about the words without reading them:

HUMANOID.

CORN.

BC.

And he just thought, tried to imagine. He pictured a humanoid in his head and saw wiggles and a form blinking, on and off. The harder he tried the faster it disappeared. Okay uhh, the corn! He saw a kernel, a nugget, perfectly formed, so well imagined he was impressed with himself. Mr. Spottiswoode sat with that little kernel suspended in his mind, projecting it in front of his eyes, over the words, bouncing it around the room, putting it over Sally's face. "UuuaAAAGGHHHCHOOOO!!"

"Bless you," in unison, harmonious monotone.

Kurt, looking at the culprit's face a bit too long finally realized the kernel had been erased from his mind. The panic struck him and the sweat kicked back in, trying and trying, squinting and bubbling his mouth. Mr. Spottiswoode needed a plan B, so he remembered:

BC.

Okay, this can do. He chugged into his noggin the image of rocks... rocks? And monkeys, for some reason, a wheel? He was doing his best, breathing in and out. "Knowing what uh... how corn was the main commodity in indigenous cultures, what would the world look like right now if we used corn for money?" Dead flat silence, but Sally didn't seem to mind. The class willingly sat in the hoisted dead noise of the room, adding to it every millisecond, everyone thinking someone else will talk, they have to, why aren't they? Why is everyone doing this? And Pilckner, Sally stood face to face to the excruciating silence, swaying, hands clasped behind her back, sniffling, heard a cough, grounding the silence to the utmost potency of bad participation skills. Kurt felt himself walking but didn't remember doing so, and somehow decided to stop right beside Sally, too close, she steps back, and those monkeys are still in his mind, swinging and hooting until they come across a kernel, a big one, glowing in the shattered sun shooting through the tall grass, or the banana leaves, either or? staring at this weird yellow coconut. It's here that they stop moving, their personalities and characteristics put on hold, freeze framed, with the class waiting and peeking under the rim of the table trying to be sneaky superimposed atop the scene before Christ, now at the same time, both immobile, not moving, freeze framed and dead. Kurt stood there until the clock struck 11:58 AM, close enough, and the irresistible sound of ruffling papers and backpack zippers filled the room, sparking some kind of Pavlovian response in the students telling them, "it's time to go", which was probably for the best.

Kurt Spottiswoode decided to keep on driving tonight, not a clear decision but merely allowing himself to do so. Millbrae now, by the BART station, the monumental Chase Bank shining blue up the columns, credit card slots blinking and egging him on, that Peter's Café across the street, still open, still not much business... but boy, oh boy... Kurt took a leap of faith and pulled an illegal U-turn across the yellow line, the toast in his sights. He parked haphazardly and sat for a minute or two, looking at the fog grow on his windows, and waited for it to completely shell his car. He was now encased, in his own little world he thought, free of anything and everything except him and the essay, now sort of dead within the new realm of his. It was only paper, just neatly formed, digitally stamped stains of ink on a page, saying nothing in particular. He wanted to marinate in this, get the feeling then go, and he went. The wet chill struck him as he left the stratosphere he created, and, with the essay in hand, walked into the snoozy joint.

A song he couldn't recognize right away was wrapping itself up, and right when he thought he knew the song, "HI welcome to Pete's Café!" She popped up from right behind the circular bar, knowing he was going to be there somehow. She slapped down the menu, the cocktail menu, and a freshly laminated dessert menu. "Freshly laminated!"

"Yep," Kurt sniffed the menu, "That's fresh for sure, hahahaha!" laughing more for himself than her.

"What can I start you off with tonight?"

"Just toast, please."

"Sweetie, just toast?"

"Yep just toast."

The look on her face spelled imminent harm, then immediately transformed into unconditional hospitality. "Vikas! Toast! Sure thing sweetie," snatching the menus in one swoop.

"Thanks uhh," trying to read her name tag but only caught a V.

He looked around the place, at the lighting hung in trios across the sloped ceiling, the booths hidden by CLINK... Kurt looked down and saw a plastic tumbler, blue and chipped, filled with water and weak ice cubes, but no V in sight. Noticing this, he noticed everything, which wasn't much, just a diner open for business, no patrons. He sat tapping his fingers in a kind of rhythm when "Is That All There Is?" by Peggy Lee jumps on the overhead speakers.

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames And when it was all over I said to myself, is that all there is to a fire

Is that all there is, is that all there is If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing...

Once that chorus kicked in he was humming along, eyes closed and drinking out of the mini cup. He opened his eyes and there before him was the essay, off to the side, right where he left it. He was lost in looking, only thinking about reading it, telling himself he wasn't afraid, and then the glasses appeared again, knowing that they belonged to the student, that the student typed this and printed it out, touched it, the net total of his movements to that moment of delivery resulted in the crimps and creases in the pages, the same on every page, again and again.

Let's break out the booze and have a ball If that's all there is...

His hand shot out at the pages and smacked them once, not knowing what to expect, just a release? Kurt looked up and saw V staring at him before she broke out into strides in his direction. He grabbed the paper and started reading it vigorously.

professor Spottiwoods

Rough Draft

Pedagogyy is the study of how tot each a class in school, anywehere, like elementary school or college. I have been in school for almost all of my life and I feel like I have a big say in how I should be taught in school. There has been much discusssion on what progressive pedagogy might look like, but it has always been discussed and taught in regressive pedagogical systems, which is something liek a paradox isn;t it? we seem to think education is the greatest good, it keeps us young, that's what Aristotle thought, but these systems are old, the teachers are old, and theyf ail to realize that they they are only apart of an institu

"SPOTTISWOODE?" Kurt froze in the middle of that word he knew was going to be 'institution', maybe spelled wrong, but couldn't help but feel several shots of adrenaline pumping through his body, his heart trying to compensate. "PROFESSOR SUPERWOOD IN THE FLESH!!"

Mr. Spottiswoode craned his shoulders around to see Zip Baltgalvis—he thinks? —and can only widen his eyes. Zip skips over to Kurt's seat lugging what might be three backpacks at full capacity while Kurt creeps back at the paper, wide eyed, blank, stuck on the same word. Zip spins into the seat next to Kurt's and side hugs him, not responding. "Duuude what's good Spurt? ... It's me!" Kurt turns his head, zonked out, to Zip, frozen in a smile with his fingers turned inwards into his chest. "Zip..." Kurt emitted.

"Ziiiff!" exasperated, "Ziff Baltgalvis! Twenty-fourtee-" leaning in closer for the whisper-shout, "Twenty-fourteen man! Duude! You're here!!"

"I'm... here."

"Yes! Yes!"

"Hey where's my toast..." slurring and directed in the direction of unseen employees.

Ziff looked down at the essay through the blonde frizz hanging in front of his face. "State huh? State huuuhh!!? MAN in the flesh! Front and center, late night!! You know, I've been working on things..."

"Things."

"Things mmhm... some futuristic things," nodding slowly almost to hypnotize Kurt.

"What things..."

"I've been thinking about those things, like to help the future out. Man, Kurt, your mind will be buhlown."

"Uhh... toast," again at the ghost place.

"Yeaaah man toast! You're brain'll fry man right on!"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh you just gotta come and see."

"See what Zip?"

A plate of burnt toast lands and swivels down onto the table in front of Kurt, on top of the essay.

"The future man..." nodding.

☼

Kurt Spottiswoode didn't even know he was fast asleep until his own drool cooled by the leather returned to his cheek, sliding his face into consciousness. Wriggling his fingers, cracking them, still on his side, his arm slept along with him. He was awake, but only with his eyeballs. Everything else was testing the waters. Every few seconds the interior would illuminate, sometimes yellow but most times teal-ish, and Kurt was in it and apart of it, an honorary component of the car. Kurt inched his head up off the seat to get a better look at the LED clock up front. It was 12:02, most likely AM. He plopped his head back down, scrunching his mouth to avoid the drool as he tried making sense of the situation he was in. This wasn't his car, he wasn't driving, he wasn't tied up, he was stagnant yet rumbling across asphalt barely any more than two feet from his wet cheek, as the crow flies. Mr. Spottiswoode liked it here, liking the most being able to pretend to be invisible, or to transcend the state everyone thinks you're in, knowing something no one else in the world knows. It was also the quiet of the interior which implied a disappearance of everything outside and anything in the future, just being able to lay... wait... future...

"COCKADOODLEDOO TEACH! Un-conked?"

"Muh... Zip,"

"Hahyeah,"

"Zi-," stuck on a clog in his throat.

"Honest man, be honest,"

"Where are we going?"

"Dude, you remember this!"

"I...?"

"You can think it man, you can access this,"

"Why was I..."

"If you just reaaally think,"

"Is it... Thursday?"

"Unrelated inquiry, unrelated inquiry,"

"Zip come on-"

"Patience is a virtue,"

"This is fuckin-"

"Woah, woah,"

"This is frankly, fucking stupid Zip!"

"WOOOAH WOOAH,"

"I wanna know! Where am I going? Where am I being taken to?"

"I w-"

"ZIP my foot is down it's being put down right now you got to tell me,"

Ziff looked back over his shoulder at Kurt, now up in his seat drenched in sweat, eyes locked and loaded. The light outside illuminates the car in red for a split second, distant honking. Ziff looks back and forth hoping he isn't seeing and hearing correctly.

"I don't like the way you look right now man,"

"Zip,"

"I don't friggin' appreciate those looks man!"

Ziff is nearly done pulling the car over to the side of the road into the grassy overflow of an empty lot next to them once he says this. The back of Ziff's head jerks about, trying to put the car in park while storming out of the car at the same time. "Jesus... ZIP!! ZIP!" Kurt yells at Ziff with the foggy passenger window in the way, trying to unbuckle himself. "ZIIIIIP!!" It was Thursday, it was without a doubt Thursday, and it all came crashing into Mr. Spottiswoode's stomach. Kurt didn't even consciously think these thoughts, but he knew somehow by the way his neurons scrambled to ignite, scrambling together as one, but the buckle is jammed. Kurt sits back and processes the vagueness of himself at this moment, unconsciously looking around, widening his eyes, tuning out everything in order to tune out himself, and the door closes. He looks up and sees the long hair splitting out from Ziff's head. "Zip, where are we,"

"Mr. Spottiswoode, it'd be really sick if you said sorry,"

"I'm sorry, now-"

"For what?"

"For yelling at yo-"

"And?"

Ziff turned his head around to look through the gap under the headrest, eyes worn and wet.

"And."

"..."

"Ziff."

"No, no no, slip of the tongu- er the mind. I'm sorry. My-"

"I really wanted you to see what I made Mr. Spottiswoode,"

"Sure-"

"When I saw you at Pete's tonight I thought that it was like fate, like that dramatic shit... right?"

"Sure yea-"

"I thought 'Hey Kurt's here, I bet he'd like to hang with me' you know? See me..."

"Yeah,"

"I thought you were gonna be like the guy who pretends he didn't make eye contact or something, and I was bummed out Mr. Spottiswoode. You were like the first guy... to uh... like really, you know, get me stoked on learning shit. And you were eating and I knew that it was like that fate happening maybe, like the universe collapsed on itself for that one time right?"

"Sure,"

"Do you get the same emotions too?"

"Maybe, I don't really know,"

"Cause like, the universe likes us...? Like it doesn't stop turning. It's like it keeps wanting us to know something, like..."

And Ziff stopped, seemingly lost in that universe that led him to what he thought was right now, but Kurt, on the other hand, was back on the paper. "Ziff, I need to sleep I'm sorry."

Ziff dug into one of the three backpacks he dropped in front of his front door to fish out the keys. Kurt was keeping his distance considerable out in the middle of a parking lot, by the car. Ziff tumbled the keys into the lock and cracked open the door, creaky to the point of filing a complaint with whatever de facto powers that be. The place was lit by strung lights around every edge, ceiling, doorway, floor, but only out of necessity of upholding the common courtesy to the household. Ziff lifted his arms in introduction of the place, "Uh, you can crash on the couch probably."

Pots and pans brought Kurt back to the waking world, seamlessly too. What amazed Kurt's brain, the first thought in his head this morning, was how shrill these utensils ringing off each other were and how, somehow, that comforted him. He rubbed the sleep off his eyes and got up to mull. He scuffled towards the kitchen a few feet away and stood in the doorway, drawing a blank at the kid with pleasingly messy hair, jammies, bare feet, flipping a piece of bread with a hole in the middle occupied by an egg. The kid felt his presence and gave a half-nod half-smile, what Kurt came to hypothesize as a newly evolved human instinct. Kurt leaned on this doorway, scanning the room for a clock or any other furnishing that might give him a clue of some kind. A group of kids passed by him, recalling, "...ea and his brother was a raccoon in the firs..." and further down the hall a burst of "pffff" and laughter bounced back to him as he tried logging the series of events in his brain. Looking, still standing, invisible again, superposed in this doorway and periodically thrusting his body off enough to fall back onto the wall. A printer fired up in a room somewhere reciting its rhythm of obeying the data it's been fed, music to his ears but merely instinct to itself. But now the printer was approaching...? It was getting louder and louder, its rhythms becoming more complex, fading into Kurt's range of comprehension, but the closer it got the less he knew, the more it wasn't printing anything. Kurt leaned his torso over to peer through the commons area and into the main hallway, footsteps thrown into the mix now too. An upright arrangement of plastic and spinning metal emerged from behind the opening to the room, then a rubber foot inched down onto the wood floor, and the robot was now recognized by Kurt alone. It continued forward, stopped, made minor adjustments to the placement of its feet, and made way straight towards Kurt. His stomach sank and kicked into some kind of action backwards and to his left feeling his way towards some cover of sorts. Kurt crouched behind the side of the fridge, peering out at the rest of the kitchen. The whirring got louder, again, and the robot emerged, again, stopped, repositioned, continued in Kurt's direction. Kurt stayed put this time only because he couldn't think of anything else other than the fact there was a fucking robot walking straight towards him. The robots innards became clearer and clearer as it approached, stopped, repositioned, and reached for the fridge handle, and pulled it, pinching Kurt's fingers. He freaked out for a split second but didn't want to make any sounds in an effort to preserve the invisibility thing that the robot may or may not have seen right through. The door closed and revealed a jug of soylent in the robot's plastic nubs, repositioning away, and inching back out of the kitchen. Kurt stood up and stared at the robot, mouth wide open, sweat flowing, trying to think of its thoughts and what it must be conscious of to do what it does, where it's stored, what it means to it, does it feel what Kurt feels, does it know? A poke arrived on Kurt's left shoulder and he spun around clockwise to whoever it must be, who turned out to be... "Sorry,"

"Nono I'm sorry," Kurt rattled out.

"Just getting the uh," she reached up to the cabinet above Kurt's head, which he dodged as it swung open.

"Woo heheh,"

"Wanna sit?"

"Wuh,"

"Down?"

"Well okay yeah sure heheh,"

And he looked underneath and around himself and settled on sitting on the tile, criss-cross applesauce. "Do you go here?" she asked, eyes on the readymade pancake mix.

"A- me? No I uhhh... I don't, no. I uh don't. Do you?"

"Yes I go here."

"Pretty cool, pretty cool uhmm... for what?"

"Literature, but I'm thinking of changing,"

"To uhh... ?" shrugging, nervously laughing.

"Electrical engineering,"

"And uh, why's that?"

"I'm working on a project of my own right now with a team of people so I sort of just want time to work on it and E.E. offers independent study in their labs so,"

"What's the something?"

"I've been studying the stichomythia of reading common literature. Technically it isn't stichomythia, but it sounds nice to me for some reason and for what I do. So I study that stuff, the ups and down of laughter, contagious at moments and absent the next. Could you read a book or get its sense and flow from the mere knowledge of the progression of chuckles? Or guffaws? What does a 'guffaw' suggest in a story? This depends on the reader, though, which makes my job complicated. There's a flaw in studying and observing these things with people, who read and re-read, the speed increases and decreases, and this warps and distorts the nature of my work, the laughs and chuckles. Me and my team are now looking at developing a system which reads a book at an average pace, its text, and pinpoints or detects the humorous areas to give us a controlled, concise, perfect result of this landscape, the musicality that might be objective to itself and its language that the common subjective emotional someone simply lacks the capability of experiencing. This is what I do,"

Teams? Landscapes, chuckles, this was all he could pick up on knowing the robot was walking around the place with soylent in its hands. He tried to be interested, but his mind was firing on other cylinders and sputtering out in the process. He was looking at the pan, sometimes focusing in on his periphera and the figures wearing mute colors walking in and out and past in silence—but what was silence to him, Kurt Spottiswoode thought, might have been a universal language to them that he was left out of. "What do you think of that?" He forgot.

"Sounds pretty cool to me!" looking for something to catch his attention.

"Do you read?"

"I uh read lots of things every day yep,"

"Enjoy it while you can,"

"Well, you too heh! I'll uh see you around," offering a small wave and some kind of mouth movement he hoped would come off as normal. As he shuffled his way out, she started to mumble and hum the words to a song, loud and proud, making pancakes. He didn't know, he couldn't know if this was just himself projecting, but it sounded like she was humming the words to "Is That All There Is?", pushing himself away now, embarking himself into the house keeping his ears out for the bot. He stepped softly in hopes of the robot not hearing him, and he waddled and peered around and down the halls, doors open, now releasing lots of machine noise, almost every room. He walked up the stairs with his eyes locked on the chandelier which was smothered in webs and dust blocking the way of any light that might be wanting to pass through and offer itself. He was feeling his way upwards, and at the top he saw another commons area with a few couches riddled in no pattern whatsoever, and on one sat the robot, with its soylent in hand. Kurt sleuthed his way by way of his back to the wall down the hallway, soft stepping. "GOOOOOOD MOOORNIIING PALO ALTOOO," Kurt's body scrunched and searched for Ziff's whereabouts, leaning, dodging nothing, and finally finding it, papers and clutter reaching the ceiling and Ziff sitting in it all like a throne with his soylent in hand. "Where ya been buddy?"

"Ziff listen I have a lot of papers to-"

"Next on the program we have none other than English Composition extraordinaire-"

"Ziff,"

"Bonafide rager-maestro and chug champ 2000,"

"Ziff that rob-"

"AND honorary member of the fun boys themselves, Kurt 'Spurt' Spottiswoode!" as he started clapping by himself, clapping rang out from the rest of the second floor. He wheeled himself on his rolly-chair, stood up, and took Kurt by the shoulder leading him back down the hall. "We are utterly stoked to have you on this morning,"

"Heh I-"

"Mup, I'm asking the questions, I'm the teach... what is the future to you?" holding the air-mike up to Kurt's mouth.

"It's soon,"

"Would you say it's now?"

"No cause... now's the present?"

"But the now always changes right?"

"I guess, but-"

"Have you ever seen the future?"

"No,"

Ziff was now jogging over into the commons area, Kurt already knowing what the punchline would be. "Would you-"

"Ziff, I need to go home,"

"I gotta introdu-," taking the soylent out of the robot's hands.

"Ziff. I'm going," backing down the stairs.

"Kuuurt... Dude..."

And everything seemed to fade out, leaving only Kurt's mind reeling in place. He got out onto the street and started following it wherever it went, freezing cold outside. He replayed that robot in his mind a long while and kept zooming in on its soylent trying to find a semblance of a clue that would lead him to some peace of mind, but he couldn't, just stuck in replay. Whatever direction Mr. Spottiswoode was heading in, there were trains.

Kurt was staring while his mind rambled out the window. The train, he thought, was way too quiet, an environment that discouraged the cocoon of isolation he loved putting himself into. The tracks might as well have been non-existent, leaving Kurt the sole pleasure of listening to his own ears, ringing to themselves to avoid insanity, an instinct. For a moment, Kurt believed that the window his head was leaning on was nothing but another screen, extremely high definition, millions of pixels perfectly and spectacularly calibrated to fool passengers of any scenic route that might have been perceived. It had to be a conspiracy against the senses. What if the screen was hiding something grim and evil? Like an unforgivable violation of human's rights? Dwindling shacks, bodies slogging around awaiting their doom—if his eyes were to penetrate this screen, he wondered, maybe his eyes would meet someone else's, and maybe he would see something rapturous and impossible there in the shared misery, if that's what it was, only to witness it being cloaked by the train's comfy encasing, vanishing behind perspective.

The corridors of Höffus Hall, human activity simmering down to bathroom breaks and "bathroom breaks", stood in preparation of fulfilling its intended purpose. Direction, visibility, transportation, criss-cross applesauce. Kurt lunged himself up through the stairwell, leaning into the curves of the railing for momentum, his rolly-backpack skipping on the steps, and jumped at the last step for the 4th floor, expecting another. He nearly jogged down the hallway mouthing, "Thursday Thursday, this," as he exhaled every other step. He kept his eyes on his door, erasing anything else from his perception to maximize efficiency. The door opened and out came, rushing, faceless, a slew of students escaping Room 488, breaking off into different directions, unsure if their rut is scheduled correctly or not. The students walking towards Mr. Spottiswoode passed with no regard, purposeful or not, either being plausible he thought. His legs and tiny wheels kept on chugging, though, traversing the hallway renewed with activity indifferent to its origin. Kurt swung open the door and immediately saw Kevin hunched over, shuffling with something. Mr. Spottiswoode moved into position at the front of class, behind his tabletop podium, faux-mahogany desk, and in front of the broken projector screen hanging askew, whiteboard neglected by former courses teeming with information, and sat down in his plastic mold desk chair, which let out a rubbery whine as he landed. Kevin turned around revealing his backpack, filled with five 2" wide binders and what sounded like a load of pencils Kurt assumed were infused with varying increments of graphite intensity, pooling underneath the organization. Kevin became pale as he met Kurt's eyeballs, both of them caught in the act of something untold, implied. The kid, his face tense and vulnerable, who Kurt couldn't believe was the same one who beamed joyous respect at him every single day of class, a scholarly constant, dislodged the frog in his throat.

"Thank you for the semester Professor Spottiswoode. I wrote you a reflection highlighting how this course improved my ability to critically think about the world and how it presents itself to us and how I can express my personal perception of it through concrete argumentation and healthy sentence structure," digging into one of his binders from the top, sniffling, "I learned that writing a good essay will help you throughout the rest of your life, establishing pathos, logos, and ethos in order to engage the reader is key to allowing anyone to take what you say seriously, perhaps because deep down these elements and rules that go into a well written essay, like relevant topic sentences, presentation of evidence, and analysis of that evidence..." wobbling exasperation, "perhaps these are the fundamentals of life itself and why we love one another and why we make the decisions we make, even our mistakes. It's all one cosmic engaging, insightful, organized essay that we just can't read quite yet," carefully placing the quarter-inch thick packet on the table, "I learned that from you, and it's something I hope to pass onto my children and their children, and I hope to pursue a Master's so I can teach this truth to the next generation of students like you have. This is a part of my essay, I know it and can't control it, I can only proofread it," he picks up and rushes out the door, teary and red-faced, "You're the best teacher ever!" tripping on the door-stop, his sobs bouncing down the hallway in every direction, the most emotional energy this building has ever experienced, undoubtedly seeping into the firmament of the place, dormant and undisturbed, stored in a feedback loop.

The clock nailed into the wall above the doorway rotated into 11:29 AM, followed close behind by the internal clock in Mr. Spottiswoode's laptop, tucked away in sleep mode inside of Kurt's rolly-backpack. Kurt unzipped the biggest pocket and logged into his laptop, Outlook opening on its own, following orders. The inbox updated and there, waiting, was an e-mail from Ziff with the subject line, "vid of my creation!!!! ;D" Kurt Spottiswoode sat and waited, leaving the e-mail unopened, watching the screen, hand curled into a fist at rest supporting his head, eyes forward. Had he been paying attention, he would've heard the uproar of footsteps outside, vague murmuring, screeching chairs and tables in neighboring rooms to the left, right, upstairs, downstairs, the beeping of high-powered turbo-toasters, motorized longboards whizzing by, trucks backing up, something custodial collapsing, honking, keys jangling to each step, someone quietly running late to class, electrical cars humming, mysterious whooping, and a burst of applause amplified by the valley of dorms just outside the classroom window. Both clocks hit 12:00 PM at almost the same time. Kurt dragged his finger across the trackpad to click the refresh button. Nothing. He hit refresh again. Nothing. He hit refresh. Over and over and over.

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#big #writing #short story #fiction

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hellogreenergrass · 8 years

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Signy Island - Week Seven

22nd Jan – Sunday

Lie ins are lush. I feel renewed. This last week Ive been firing on ½ my cylinders I think. Not sure why, but after a month of full speed, I think I needed to take my foot off the peddle. I’ve been effectively part time this week, with days out to help Stacey not counting as work. But today I will end an easy week with a flourish. I will have A WHOLE DAY OFF. No lab, no thinking of work, no field treks. Just cooking, some rowing, writing and photography. Stacey took my early this morning as she had to get up early anyway to sort out some krill samples (she does this so the rest of us dont have to endure the stench that seeps out from her lab!). I owe her bigly. Oh yes, and Donald Trump was sworn in on Friday. I feel like we are entering a dystopian novel. He was greeted by ½ million people marching in protest through Washington DC. It will be an interesting presidency. A few weeks ago, we all made wishes as we threw wood into a fire and collectively decided that we wished a rapid and ultimately dooming impeachment upon him…

I’ve been drawing most days, but on the whiteboard in the living room as well as my sketch book. It started as a small pic of something for whoever was on earlies that day. Then Stacey asked for a woodland as she missed trees, and I drew a landscape of a birch stand next to a river that wound down from some hills in the distance. On the other side of the river stands an old oak tree with branches that reach out over a waterfall. Since then, each day I add something else at the request of whoever is on earlies. We now have bluebells and harebells, sheep, a wolf, a peacock, a monkey, highland cows, a llama, a rabbit, and a bear. Iain & Stacey drew me a small hedgehog and some butterflies last night. Looking at it one night, Matt said he’d like me to do something for the new base they are building in the next few years. He will give some thought to what. Nice to think my work would be here even if I am not!

Meowntains - new word combining two of my loves, cats and mountains. If there is a heaven …

24th Jan

This month is flying by! Cant believe its almost February. And Im almost 34. Jeez. Have been a bit slack at writing in this lately. I put my diary in a drawer in my room and whenever I have the presence of mind to remember it, I either couldn’t be bothered or get distracted en route. So now Im making an effort over brekkie.

The last few days have largely been lab/office based. I spent Monday trying to update my field plan for the coming month and reworking some experiments. The grid plan has had a reboot, less elegant now, but also less work. I hope. I’ve been reading the work of a chap called Smith (we don’t do first names in scientific literature!) who has been working on Marion Island in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean area. His work spans 30 years from a word mapped food web to today, actual raw data on the energy and nutrient flow on the island. I’d love to do something like that here on Signy. He compiled data on all the input from major wildlife contributors and how the plants use it or lose it. Where it runs off the Island or gets blown back in, and the likely fate of it in the oceans. Science like that makes me heart all a flutter!

Aqlima and I went out to look for adult midge on Monday, to no avail. Although she really enjoys looking for them as she works with essentially invisible bacteria, so bugs are massive and remarkably charismatic for her! I think the adults are finished now. Where they go to die I couldn’t tell you as I’ve stopped seeing them in my soil samples too. Add that to the bank of mysteries and unanswerable questions I am accruing this season. I’ve also started going out to collect a species of mite for Scott (my boss back in Brum). He wants to do some population genetics on them. But whilst Ive started collections, Im not sure we can amend my permit again to take them off the island. Can but ask though.

Iain and I spent a few hours out yesterday getting in the last of the soil cores. Sun shone, the wind blew and the innuendo flowed! Down at the site in the unfortunately named Gash Cove, we went down onto the rocks and stood in the sun watching the huge swell roll up a slope of glistening rock the colour of titanium and almost iridescent. It was a slab of mica-schist, mica being the mineral that gives the glitter to eye shadow. It had been buffered smooth by the waves who slid up the slope many meters and then recoiled back to the ocean excessively exposing an area of rocks and shore rarely seen, like the draw back of a tidal wave, or the curled snarl of lip. It was hypnotic. No furries around here, which is odd. In fact numbers have dropped off again, which Im told is unusual.

Im off to Gourlay today. Day out on my todd. The sun is shining, but its still blowing a hooley. I’ll collect that mite (Alaskozetes antarcticus) and spot sample the route for my midge along the way. Have lunch at the huts out there and see the penguins, then pop down to Cemetery Flats on my way home for more samples. Just me myself and I. Should be a nice day out J

26th Jan

I twisted my ankle!! Not even a little bit, but a proper sprain with swellings and everything! I’d been to Gourlay, hiked back and collected all the samples. Then as I stood at the top of the Stonechute, the final rock and scree descent to base, I recalled Stacey’s recent tale of her twisting her ankle just meters from base whilst carrying a heavy load. It was just a 2cm drop off a rock, but put her off her feet for weeks. I pondered this as I heaved my loaded rucksack on, weighed down by kilos of soil samples, decided not to withdraw my second walking pole and dove down the chute. Despite being just a few hundred meters from home and the first and last part of everyone’s day out, it is one of the riskiest bits. Not least because as well as being steep and loose, it is often full of fur seals. And it was furries that I was checking for as I misplaced my footing and went over on the side of my foot.

I knew immediately that it was not good as I sat trying to catch my breath that had just been dragged from me by the rushing and unweilding pain. Not again I thought. Just last July, I’d gone over on my left leg and torn any remaining shreds of ligament and cartilagein my knee whilst up in the mountains of Norway and out on my own. At least this time I had VHF radio and base in sight. I realised I was going to need help. No way was I carrying that bag across the boulders of the high-tide route. I called in and Alex and Stacey came out to help me back down. I slowly and carefully negotiated my way back, and an hour of ice and elevation followed by a shower seem to have eased it a bit. As have the painkillers. And the 2 glasses of gin I just had. So now I feel just fine!

27th Jan

Woke to stiffness and a substantial amount of pain this morning, but thankfully this eased as the day went on. Although the swelling has peaked and there is some bruising coming through now. I’ll be a few shades of purple soon. At least I actually did something, hate to think Im being melodramatic! I have to try and go out to do some field work tomorrow though, not sure how likely that is, I can’t walk properly. I’ve prepped the ion-exchange membranes already and they have a limited amount of time to be used you see. I did the last of the work whilst watching Seven Years in Tibet tonight in anticipation of being able to at least stagger along in the field with some back-up tomorrow. Great movie, and by God that man. I swear Brad Pitt must have hovered up all the good-looking genes in his family for the best part of a century. The mind boggles. Speaking of good looking men, I spoke to K today. He’s been offered a new job! Interview was at 11am, with two others to follow him and by 2pm they’d made up their mind and called to offer him the position. I’m not surprised, he has that effect on people ;-)

Wind is still blowing hard and finding its way into the cracks and gaps in the seams of the cabin. Makes the whole place scream and whistle all the time. Some flights from Punto Arenas in Chile to Rothera on the Peninsular have been delayed. I wonder if they have the same weather system. Few thousand km away though. Its been quite unstable the last few weeks, but we are about to enter the warmest month of the year soon, so at least it may stop snowing even the wind keeps up its run of 20+ knots!

#antarctica

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survivorathena-allstars · 7 years

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Ep. 3: “Shrek Can Heck the Heck Off” ~ Duncan

So tribal occurred and I guess expectingly, everything went as planned. I was really nervous and I don't know why... probably since it's All Stars and everyone is here to not only impress, but to play. We're the recruits and it means that in the past we've shown definitive reasons as to why we had the chance to bypass the application process and immediately enter. It's wild. Overall, i'm fine with tribal. I would've enjoyed Julia a big longer and wouldn't have minded if she stayed, but when so many people are like "you've been so disconnected" etc, there's only so much I can personally do to reroute that. I really am hoping our tribe pulls through in this upcoming immunity. I just don't want to deal with the stress from last time, and i'm scared that I could be in danger. There is an alliance of 7 (now excluding only Duncan & Sam) but EVERYONE talks to Duncan - including myself, he's really nice - and Sam is just generically popular for whatever reason. They're both extremely active, maybe not as much in PMs as the tribe chat, but still are. This then creates the potential of a flip. I would be totally down to do so in the event that it's just... an easy thing to execute. When looking into long term, there's many people who despite how much I like them personally, are huge threats due to their connections on the other tribe. Of course I have Dana, who will work with me but obviously we'll cut one another if the time comes. But there's bigger cliques of people I guess. Emily is mutually friends with EVERYONE - and I adore her so much that it sucks. Ashvika is a legend, also really liked. Duncan has friends on the other side. It's just like... there's many groups of two-four people and it's an interesting dynamic to put as an obstacle. I guess we'll see how things go and how well people think around this and plan accordingly. Also the archipelago is RUDE! thank you.

Ali Update! So, I survived tribal, but I've officially been hexed so I guess I may as well give up! But ultimately, while it was ugly to vote out Julia, I think going into a swap, we don't want to be the totally dominate tribe in numbers, so perhaps losing a member (or potentially two, even though I have no idea who that would be) could work to our benefit? Who can ever be sure! With that said, I am concerned going into another tribal, in that the options are either our alliance of 7, Duncan or Sam. And like.... all those options are ugly. I don't want any of those happening.... So, (and it looks like we will need to win two challenges to do this) we need to win the next two challenges basically! Which has like a 25% chance of happening, but I do think a music video challenge does actually favour our tribe, so hopefully we can win the next one too! With regards to the swap, it does look like we are gonna have an #ugly four tribes of four swap, but my theory is for each tribal at that stage, two of the four tribes will go to tribal? So it'll be tribals of like 7 or 8 people! we will see I guess, but right now, I am focusing on not having the awful task of voting out another member of this phenomenal tribe! Toodles ALSO I HAVE A VIDEO CONFESSIONAL THAT IS TAKING YEAAAAAAARS TO UPLOAD, ughhhh.

Well my plan went off without a hitch this round. I was able to get an alliance formed with Ali, Ashvika, Emily, JD, Ruthie, and Zachary to have the majority going into the last vote. We also made sure to keep Samuel and Duncan looped in so that it was a nice, easy, vote out for Julia. I love controlling votes, yes I do. So far I haven't found anything in the Archipelago. I can't spell that and I'm not going to look it up so I'm going to call it the Islands of Death. Every time someone has searched we've gotten a notice saying that they were tired but mine never have. Where are they going? What are they doing? Suspicious. I do know that whatever advantage was with the artifacts is gone now. Someone completed the task faster than I did. I have a feeling it might have been something dumb like a double vote so I'm not that worried. Based on the rules, I think there's only going to be one hidden immunity idol and you're going to have to work your ass off to earn it. Athena, Charlotte, and idols don't go hand in hand. I'm only good at finding them in other games. Looks like we're just going to have to keep winning so I'm never at risk!

I’ve said this already but can lily be on my tribe thanks I want a tribe swap

I love my majority alliance yes I do! Honestly this game feels like one where I'm gonna make some solid friends, and even though I'm inevitably gonna have to make some rough decisions if I wanna make it to the end again, I'm gonna be close with these people for a while. And that feels really good!

the hosts hate me. they truly do. a music video challenge. my tribe is doing Shrek. and I am doing suffering.

I have been so frickin unlucky in the archipelago. It really sucks. And I feel like I've searched the whole thing already like wtf! Ugh. Anyway, I'm super excited about our challenge. I love music videos and as long as everyone can go all out, I'll be happy! So far I have Charlotte's videos but that's it. I don't mind though because um I haven't recorded my stuff either lmao! But we're winning and that's that on that.

Everyone: loves All Stars and is having a great time Me:

Lily is (still) talking shit about me and whining in people's pms all because "i haven't talked to her." Fun fact: I DID!!!! That's right- I, the person who was targeted immediately and grew a social game to survive, struck up a conversation with a person who voted me out. And you know what the wildest part is? It went well!! I thought ok maybe we made progress and we'll be chill and cordial from here on out. But apparently that wasn't enough for her. We're strangers!!! What do you want good morning and goodnight texts?? Get over yourself- like what are you 16?? Oh wait she is, which would explain why she has all these great expectations and why me not moving heaven and earth to be her best friend bothers her. I got news for you sis: I'm doing my best goddammit while you rely on a bunch of relationships from prior seasons. Yeah I said it and I can back it up: I knew 1 person on our tribe when all stars began and yet turned the 9-1 vote against me in the FIRST FUCKING ROUND to 6-4 me staying; I built a solid alliance of 5 (we poached Cameron lol); I give every challenge my all; and I maintain decent relationships with 85% of the tribe. But because Lily happened to fall in that 15% and hasn't gotten a fruit basket, I have to put up with her shit until one of us leaves

Also I walk on eggshells in this tribe and I can barely breathe without someone having a fucking opinion. Talk to this person, make more of an effort with that person even though they're being immature, don't work with this person, trust that person, change your part in the music video even though there's nothing fucking wrong with playing Gingy from Shrek, don't mind us as we change OUR ROLES every hour because it's fine who cares if the clock is ticking. I love my tribe and they mean well but I'm 23 years old my gameplay isn't a democracy. Speaking of democracy, Elaenia is back to flopping because we can't make any executive decisions about our music video!! So here I am, mentally preparing myself to talk to everyone in the tribe tomorrow so Lily's campaign against me, which she'll whip out once we lose, will fall on deaf ears. You see what I'm talking about?? This is ONE of 2 orgs I'm in that I've been in for 6 DAYS while my job is trying to kill me. HOW HAS IT NOT EVEN BEEN A WEEK

Am I seriously about to get my second idol? I'm SCREAMING. For THIS idol, what I need to do is not talk in any public chats for 24 hours. So, I sent this lie to the whole tribe that I was silenced by someone on the other tribe and honestly I'm screaming. I've evolved and become a complete liar, this is disgustening. But now I am gonna feel less bad about telling Emily about my idol (even though I don't actually regret it that much!) I feel like telling someone about me having an idol is smart, that way if I am getting votes, they can clue me in! With this now too, I can have my own second layer of protection that they dont know about mwahahahaa. I honestly cant believe how much of a liar I have become!

I made a video confession but I was angrier than I should’ve been and so I’m typing this out because it’ll probably make more sense. So earlier today, Ali messaged me and tells me that he accidentally went to the bridge instead of clifface and I didn’t think much of it. So when I go archipelago searching, I row > path 1 > climb > complete the challenge > clifface > climb > do the simple task. NOW. The simple task is to not talk in the tribe chat for twenty four hours. HUH. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but then I remembered Ali got a very similar disadvantage only he said that someone ELSE gave him this disadvantage. So at first I’m like. Oh. This is a little weird. But I go ahead and message everyone and tell them about my disadvantage and how I won’t be talking in the tribe chat anymore. Then something occurs to me: Ali could be??? Lying to me??? So I sent him the quotes from my host chat and he immediately confessed to lying. And I tell him it’s totally fine. I’m not upset. I understand what he did and like? I can’t be mad because I was going to do the exact same thing. Now Ali is saying he’s going to give the idol. So this is amazing. I’m getting an idol no matter what so yeet. We’re talking about what to do with Duncan now. I think he’s gonna come clean. And like nskwbwjwjwjw this is such a mess! But I gotta help Ali and get him out of this predicament because this is what FRIENDS are FOR!!! Whew. Anyways I’m gonna drive home now goodbye.

i dont deserving anything, especially jaybee in other news, my game is a mess and im the mestress. emily also got silenced... I'd be shocked if my whole tribe even remotely trusts me, and I feel like a complete flop. emily is being so nice about it, but if I was her, i'd never trust me ever again ________________________________________________________________ Over the past 24 hours, I have completely ruined my game. Duncan quite rightly doesn't trust me anymore, and I'm so mad at myself for not trusting him sooner. This is the third game in a row where I've been mad at losing someone's trust and I'm so disappointed in myself. I don't want to be, but I deserve to be voted out next. 100%

I don't think I've made a confessional in awhile and I want to do this before I get called out so. I'm hoping we'll win the music video thing just because I...don't want to go back to tribal. Not with this group of people at least. I myself feel safe and secure, but then again I felt safe and secure at the first tribal and then the tribe as a group assassinated me, like a meaner Murder on the Orient Express situation. I don't think I'll go home but??? I never know with these demons. So anyway I found this...thing in the Archipelago. To get it I have to make sure we lose the next challenge. Not really sure how I'll do that but I guess we'll have to find out. It's kinda a win-lose situation because...like I said...I don't want to go to tribal. But maybe this can help me...maybe. I'm like completely in the dark so I don't really know anything but anything will help!

hhhhh WOW I'm so worried! I took a look at our final video for the lip sync and while it generally looks good, theres also the issue that... i filmed in portrait mode. shit. i REALLY hope that doesnt cost us the win, because i know people despise that (and for good reason) and I dont wanna deal with tribal because I dont know shit about filming, since I'll probably be made a target for that (if not me, maybe jack bc he didn't do anything but also idk if i'd wanna do that because he did say he was uncomfortable with it)

FUCK WE LOST! AND FUCK SHREK TOO!

Literally just cried because of how wholesome the video Amanda Lynn made is, like that just made my night and I know this isn't related to the game but I really just love this cast and this game so much and I'm so happy to be a part of it :')

Me? Forgetting that confessions are a thing very briefly? Yes. I was like... how can I get out all my anger about the music video results? Um? I can CONFESS since I can't FUCKING TALK IN THE TRIBE CHAT! God damn I'm so upset about these results I'm not even kidding I could... rip my fucking hair out. I worked so hard on that video and I'm not saying Cameron didn't work hard on his but I am saying that our video was 10x better. Yes theirs had a theme but like,,,,,,, we were so enthusiastic and cute and positive and wholesome the whole vibe to our video was fun and LILY RECORDED IN PORTRAIT I LOVE HER SHE'S MY WIFE BUT COME ON LILY DON'T DO THAT and like the quality was bad too!! And I just... what the fuck we were really honestly truly robbed. Like I loved Owen as the Fairy Godmother that was hilarious and Will as Prince Charming really was so funny but also FUCK THEM IM SO FUCKING MAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO AMOUNT OF EXCLAMATION POINTS CAN EXPRESS MY ANGER RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOW I HAVE TO GO TO TRIBAL AND IT'S LOOKING LIKE SAM IS GONNA GO AND LIKE I UNDERSTAND BACK HE DIDN'T LIKE CONTRIBUTE A WHOLE LOT TO THE CHALLENGE AND ALSO HIS SOCIAL GAME IS KINDA SHITTY BUT DUNCAN IS REALLY PUSHING TO NOT GO FOR SAM AND GO FOR LIKE JD OR CHARLOTTE AND IM LIEK FDLKFKLSDDAS STOP IT??????????? I DONT KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH THIS VOTE BECAUSE I LOVE AND CARE ABOUT EVERYONE AND EVERYONE ON THIS TRIBE HAS PULLED THEIR WEIGHT IN SOME WAY AND PROVEN THAT THEY DESERVE TO BE HERE BUT FJKLSDJFKLSDJLFSDLKFSLKDFS I AM GONNA SHIT MYSELF okay sorry to be all in caps for a little bit but Vireao was just fucking robbed know THAT also we have 100% participation SUCK IT!!! Also I called it that Jack wasn't gonna contribute I knew that boy hated music videos and I was RELYING on him not contributing and like losing his tribe points. But we still lost. And the judges made mean comments except "Except for the axe welding earth destroyer. Real star of the video there. Did you make an earth just to destroy it?? I'm nervous!" that made me feel good. I'm an axe welding earth destroyer lol... but I'm also a fucking loser. Okay long ass confession done goodbye cruel world

Ok so I shouldn’t be up but like y’all know I get off work late and play catch up for like 2 hours + don’t sleep normal people hours so I’m really happy we won, mainly because that means I’m 100% safe. That’s how you’re supposed to feel but when you’re paranoid, facts help you sleep better at night. I went from comfortably being Gingy to taking one for the team and stepping up to be Shrek hours before the deadline; so even if we had lost my logic was that I contributed enough deep in the clutch to be seen more as a saving grace rather than a threat or dead weight. Highkey I feel like I’m playing harder than I really want to but these hoes backed me into a corner and every time I try to go under the radar people start running their mouth. Elaenia was branded the underdogs but I feel like the underdog of the underdogs. Yes I’m on varsity and yes I can sit with everyone at lunch but is it enough? Almost being first boot really did a number on me and I literally play day to day. I am not 18th place and I’m even happier that one of the Goliaths will fall- it truly puts a smile on my face My gut is telling me Karen wasn’t the source of getting me out; I think I just want to believe that so I can be at ease but it couldn’t be that simple. The next logical choice is Lily or Kevin buuuuut what if it’s not? What if one of these people who voted with me actually started the entire chain of events? Is Jack lying and does actually know who the source is? Is Lily not the messiest person on Elaenia? Am I justified in watching my back and being wary of everyone, allies included? Reasons why I can’t with this game. It’s a mind fuck and my brain is a whore lmao

I just took a nap now i'm regenerated. 2 hours? WOO! I think it's my time. Maybe i'm just hallucinating and paranoid - but I tend to have decent awareness of what's going on and how people interact with me, but at the same time I have a huge habit of over reading situations. Point is, everyone's being very short with me. Duncan, a person who is usually exciting and lovely, is responding with one word excerpts. Perhaps he's tired but... yeah. Emily is also similar. She hasn't changed her speech patterns in my opinion, but in the manner of what's been happening, it's just more noticeable. If I could just you know... have a say - why not Sam? I understand the 7 person alliance is not going to remain unitedly intact, but that's one easy vote. Not only did he send a 4 second clip (then a 9 second lipsync) to Emily in the last two hours, but he's been the most inactive. I do think he's a great guy, I really do - but it's stressing me out. I think Emily maybe wanted to flip though. I always mention Emily in every confessional I make but that's for a few reasons. First, she's really sweet and enjoyable and I like her. Second, she's really well connected and like a spider web of relations, so being good with her could maybe put me 1-up. Third, i'm literally being her so-called lapdog (by myself, that is). But it's all with good intent of course. Point is before I rambled was that she suspects that our group isn't tight and that we soon will require to flip since a 7 person group is a gigantic majority, and despite the fact that an upcoming swap is glooming in the distance, it is a threatening perspective. If she wanted to flip on someone, unless it was one of a few people (Ashvika... and Charlotte, I guess) I would easily be on board. I like the others, Ali and Ruthie and everyone, but i'll play cutthroat. I'm here to get myself one day further!!!! Not really. Kind of. Who knows. Nonetheless it's a great thought process, and i've been interested in it myself prior to her acknowledgement. I don't want to be blatant cause for some dumb reason I think i'm walking on thin ice, but it's there... it's a potential possibility. Duncan's very well connected so I sincerely doubt anyone would vote him out next, after Sam. Hmm... Also, I really love boulders so i've been trucking on through and now I just need 5 more days (after the 23rd) to search and i'll either find something or realized i've been wasting my time, with higher probability on the latter option.

youtube

So I was really hoping that it wasn't going to come to this because I don't wanna vote out Sam and Duncan ciao know that they are numbers for me over Charlotte... Which for me is what this game is coming down to, me Vs Charlotte, I dont even care who wins the series so long as I can take her out lol. But I wonder if that was why she left them out of the alliance chat she throw me and Ali in. Cus she knew that with such a small number on the outside that it would be easy to get rid of the people I would most likely work with.... She claimed not to be strategic but I know better.

I'm so frustrated. I understand tribal is not a fun subject kiddos but it's something that needs to be done and no one is talking to me. Perhaps they all unitedly agree to vote me out, but I really hope not and I don't think that'd be good for various reasons!! Who knows though. Well, people know, just not me. I'm going to try to encourage a Sam vote or a potential flip but... that'll be whatever the others want.

Fuck I’m pissed that we lost! Grrrr. I literally never want to watch shrek ever again. Shrek can heck the heck off

Upset we lost immunity, hope it’s an easy tribal

AH FUCK NVM WE DID IT AAAAAAAAA IM SO PROUD I was especially flattered that Milissa enjoyed the growing nose thing for Pinocchio, I was really proud of that idea ;w; now if only I had filmed horizontally

I’m out of town. Didn’t help with the challenge. We still won. Interested to see who goes on the other tribe. My social game is weak. The end.

WE ARE SHREK ICONS

This vote is going to be beyond crazy. I’ll update you once I actually figure out what is going on

So I just filmed a video confessional, but I think I need to write out my thoughts since I'm so conflicted. God, just write murdered by Shrek on my tombstone. Anyway, first things first... How blessed are we all to know Emily? Oscar-worthy director, sane person, just inspiration. She helped handle the mess that was my silence idol challenge confusion. She is honestly the best ally I could ask for, and I am so blessed to know her, as a friend and ally. Soppy time over. Time for GAME AKJLFDAkljafd. So, I have decided I need to reassess my core allies. In this game, I need to realise that everyone is of course gonna have an agenda, so its important to coalesce with all the people with motivations similar to mine. Because we share our info, Emily definitely falls into that category, which is why she is my main ally right now. Beyond that, I feel really good about Zach atm. He is so nice and great to talk to, and I think in an alliance sense we really click? So that's why I am really here for the "EAZy Votes" alliance (Me,Zach & Emily) because I really feel those are two solid allies I'd love to work with going forwards. From that point, I also get great vibes from Charlotte & Ashvika as people I'd like to work with going forward in the game. Charlotte is a smart cookie, she knows her stuff, is super sociable and a great person to work with. So like... I'm down to clown with Charlotte. Ashvika is the only person left on the tribe who I didn't have some sort of relationship with preseason, but she is honestly just so nice. She is someone I'd truly love to work with going forwards. Ruthie, my cracked disney queen, is someone who I think would be a great and loyal ally, and like... who doesn't want some Ruthie in their life? That leaves my Emathia chums Duncan,JD & Sam. Sam is a great guy, and someone I always have a place in my soft hort for, but I just think he has for some reason struggle to ingratiate himself within the tribe, which has just made him such a target and means keeping him is like... a big move. Duncan and JD are so conflicting for me. JD has become much more cracked since Emathia, and I am down to crack some eggs, but not the whole batch... So she is scary to work with long term. Duncan I find really hard. As a friend, I love him SOOOOO much, and I always will do. I just get super freaked out, because his agenda is very different to mine (as is JDs). They don't know Zach or Ruthie while I do, which makes it hard to find plans that we agree on? Like with Julia, it was easy, but now it gets harder..... ACK, I dont know. Basically, this whole game is too much for my poor soft hort.

This is going to be the most dark sided season of survivor. This round sam is going home (according to what I know) and I actually don’t want him out. Apparently San has just not been putting in the work in order to make friends with everybody. And I’m like sam! This is all stars! You should be performing your ass off in all aspects. Now granted I have Emily to look out for my ass but I’m also looking out for myself. It’s just Ugly because the one time I want to work closely with Sam and make amends I won’t have the chance to. JD made an emathia alliance chat so I think she wants to save sam but she isn’t pushing for it and people were being indecisive. So after thinking about it for about 12 hours I decided fuck it. It’s premerge, I cannot make any big moves rn, I’m not going to play my idol on sam. And sam is not my closest ally right now so I can’t stick out my neck to save him. JD told me she didn’t care to work with zac Ashvika and ruthie and t shook me. I’m the only one left not in that seven but that’s the only crack I need to survive another round if we were to lose again. Sidenote? I’m not happy with Ali like at all. He and Emily both found the path to the idol but couldn’t speak in the tribe chat or any alliance chats for 24 hours. Emily told us the truth but Ali told us before Emily found the path, that he was being punished. Like this makes me feel better about being closer to Emily in the game. I’m really hoping to survive the night obviously, and it’s going to suck to see sam go but this is all stars so I guess All is Fair in Love and War. And I want to win this war.

AHHH MAYBE I HAVE FOUND SOMETHING!!! I'm mid little mini challenge and I love mastermind, SURELY I can crack this quickly! I really need to win something, our tribe is dwindling down and i don't feel safe at all!

wiiiiiiii I am going to submit a Better Confessional when I get home from Christmas just making sure I get something in this time :) I’m happy we won the music video!!!!! And I’m so excited to see who goes home from the other tribe oops!

hello sweet confessional. I don't have much 4 u, but let me say that Owen as the fairy godmother and Autumn cutting her onion made our video iconique as fuck. Made me love my alliance that much more. I keep forgetting to pretend to socialize with the other people on my tribe so they don't want to vote me out, like i'm doing a TERRIBLE job. With the exception of Autumn, the rest of my alliance is also close with people on the outside of our group, which lowkey sucks but..wig! Catch me getting idoled out honestly. Also i'm probably getting voted out because i'm friends with Zach and like umm no. Idk yall i'm paranoid and I took an exam today so like thinking? it's a no from me.

i love emily so much she could wear stilettos or cleats and do the cha cha slide (two stomps this time!!) on my face and i would thank her

hey so i'm about to save the world by doing a challenge!!!!! aaahhhh!! i don't know what'll happen if i win, but I need to repeat verbatim a phrase from everyone in the tribe chat. kind of thinking that i'll just do it all at once. we'll see you on the other side! oh yeah and it has to be done within the next hour.

HOWDY YALL SOOOOOO I was kind of worried that the other tribe would go fuckin ALL OUT in the music video but our shrek strategy really paid off??? Now that Julia is gone it's going to be super interesting seeing how the dynamics of that tribe split up. I don't think it's going to be another unanimous vote. If Ali and JD stick together, probably with Sam.... And Ruthie/Ali were close af in festive. Emily seems good with everyone. Idk???? I can't see Charlotte Duncan or Zach going either? Ashvika could be in danger tbh but that's so fuckin ugly. I don't want any of them gone but if I had my pick I think JD going would be good for me. She's an obstacle in my relationship with Ali. But who knows! My tribe is really lucky we pulled out a win. I think tension is still rising surrounding Lily being a threat but there's been talk of Jack or Lily having something from the archipelago. SPEAKING OF WHICH I FINALLY FOUND SOMETHING OMFG DSKADJFHKJ so at the beginning I was exclusively looking under these boulders and I started going in phone number order..248-7....then I stopped. I caved and grabbed a torch bc there were only two left. But then I realized a bunch of people prob grabbed the torch and got everything from there so I stressed out and returned my torch in order to go BACK to the boulders...and did the next digit of my phone umber....AND HAD TO DO A CHALLNGE! I basically got an extra vote that can only be used at f14 or f7 which is kinda useless to me for a while but it's better than nothing. And it is also a legacy thing I believe so I'll pass it down. nice. I feel like I've been getting even closer to Will this round. I like him a lot and I think he hopefully trusts me as well. I thought I'd be closer with Dana and Cameron but Will is someone that I really wanna go far with and he's the first person I told about my vote thing. I told Cameron too, he's my first ally and rn prob my best ally. Autumn and Dana I've continued to talk to too. I haven't messaged Jack that much oops but he a freak !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! fjskahdfj not rlly but I dont want to work with him. I would if I had to but for now I want him gone! Sorry! Although I like how presst he seems to be that Emily cut him. I'm trying to make a snapchat group with my alliances bc teams that snap together stay together. But I'm scared of a swap coming soon :( i love our tribe and the other people I do rlly wanna play with but I want them to kill each other a bit more first. also I've been tyring to figure out why the other two premerge buffs are completely different fonts and designs but i cant do anythin about it rn so might as well not worry about it! if the game changes up I'll change with it

like okay i'm gonna succeed in the challenge but uh it's blatantly obvious that i'm going for something. but this is ALL STARS Y'ALL GOTTA RISK IT TO GET THE BISCUIT RIGHT??? (pls let me win this game)

Ack, I'm really scared Duncan is gonna idol Sam! Also, I feel bad for Sam, he is doing my parroting challenge :( [04:31] Duncan: in every season [02:33] Samuel Rutan: in every season

This vote has been an absolute roller coaster because Duncan has been pushing hard to save Sam and like... people aren't budging. Except JD is actually so cracked? She made an Emathia alliance now she's voting out Sam? And Charlotte messaged me saying she thinks that JD would flip on us??? And honestly this whole vote has been so nerve wracking and like I pretty much feel safe because I worked so hard on that music video but also? I contributed a whole lot to the scavenger hunt in Crossroads and they VOTED ME THE FUCK OUT so I mean WHO FUCKING KNOWS they could be plotting to get me out I don't KNOW!!! But I've been talking to Zach a whole lot more and he's such a nice person and I love him and I want to work with him going forward. FUck tribal is starting I'm so fucking scared

YOU GUYS I AM SO ASHAMED THAT I THOUGHT SAM'S NAME WAS FREAKING SAMUEL like what the heck, what's wrong with me? WHY AM I SUCH A DING A LING???? UGHSDFLJDSFLSJFLSDFJ

I don't really have much to confess right now but I love building my edgic!! It's interesting that our tribe is very divided right now in terms of majority/minority alliance and that the other tribe has had two unanimous votes...very interesting...But as the days go on I feel more and more connected to my alliance of five and can see that the other 4 have made basically no effort to talk to me since the Karen vote (like we've talked about things aside from the game) but like...Kevin doesn't talk to me at all, Madison's lowkey sketchy even though she's a queen, and Jack and Lily haven't talked to me since I apologized for keeping them out of the Karen vote. Also a note - anyone can say "I would've voted with you" and that's an easy lie to tell. So it doesn't really sway me when they tell me that about voting Karen out.

Sam becomes the 3rd person voted out of Athena All Stars in a 8-1 vote. You can see Sam’s preseason interview here.

#NotAllFunAndGames

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