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nikstersss · 3 years

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Not How To Pass The PLE

Before I go into the main gist of this post, let me give you a small background story. I was a mid-year post-graduate intern in Manila who started in January 2021. I lived alone in our condo unit near the hospital I went to. My usual routine was to get up early, prep, take a short walk to the trike station where I’d take a tricycle to the hospital, go on duty, insert a coffee or carioca break in between, walk all the way home at the end of the day, then maybe have a short study session with a couple friends after dinner or just chill at home. It was a pretty good setup. But then COVID happened. Suddenly, I was a pandemic e-ntern stuck at home listening to Zoom endorsements and lectures all day. At first I was hopeful that things would somehow go back to normal and maybe I wouldn’t be spending the rest of my internship in front of a screen, but we all know how that turned out.

I finished the first half of my internship with the regular year PGIs online. While they were prepping for their boards, I was on my second half with the new batch of interns (that’s probably you, dear reader)—still online. Now you might think that it would have been wise of me to use all that “free” time to start early with my own boards prep and you would be correct. I thought the exact same thing. And trust me, I tried. And failed. Countless times. I won’t even try to justify it. Admittedly, I still think it was a wasted opportunity to read more and make notes, but then again, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. Besides, while it would have been nice and probably less stressful, I still survived without it. Which means that you can, too. So if you’re one of those who’s berating himself because you “didn’t make the most out of your time”, cut it out. You’ll be fine.

Towards the end of my internship, I enrolled in a review center. Despite the asynchronous setup, the review schedule was super tight and the sessions already started while I was still in the middle of final reports and exams. Needless to say, I was already behind on that before it even began. In fact, I didn’t even get to focus on reviewing itself until maybe around early February because of clearance, paperwork, and application stuff. So if you were to ask me how long I really reviewed for the March 2021 boards, I’d say just a little over a month. Kasalanan ko. Wag po tularan. Stressful siya. Nakakaloka.

And even when I did get to really buckle down and do some intense reading, I didn’t follow the program anymore. I tried to catch up at first, but I was already way behind. But I am grateful for all the summarized material because that meant I didn’t have to pore over the mother books anymore. What I will say, though, is that because I didn’t exactly follow the recommended study hours etcetera, I was able to enjoy the whole process because I did it at my own pace. Sure, there was still that dread that maybe I wasn’t on the same level as the others, but I learned to tune those thoughts out eventually. And that’s where goal-setting and discipline comes in, I guess.

The most common question I’ve been getting is what was my day like during the PLE review season. Honestly, I’d like to say I had a routine I followed, but that’s only half-true. While I did have a structure for my day, I rarely followed it exactly. Nevertheless, allow me to share what it would have been like if I did:

Ideally, I’d wake up at 5:00 A.M. then do my morning routine which included prayer and meditation, making my bed, taking a shower, and brewing coffee. And because I’m the type of person who enjoys these mundane activities and slow mornings, I also took this opportunity to get myself in the zone before all the studying that’s to come. I’d plan out my study goals and outline (something you can do the night before, actually) then maybe have breakfast while watching some videos (could be review-related, or those self-motivational vids, or maybe even Korean street food). I’d do whatever I wanted to wake my brain up without stressing it out too much until around 6:30 A.M. By this time, I’d work on backlogs for about an hour and study until about 10 or 11 A.M.—it depends how in the zone I am. I’d prep and cook lunch and then eat while watching Netflix maybe or even play a bit of Fortnite or Paladins until about 1:00 P.M. At this point, I’m pretty certain to be quite sleepy so it’s either I make coffee or tea, or maybe even go out to study at a coffee shop, and then it’s study all the way until 7 P.M. I then take a break to get some exercise, take a shower, have a light dinner, and if I feel like I deserve it, nap for a little bit. At around 8:30, my family usually calls and then we pray the rosary together. After this, I study again, but more of a recall and review session for the day’s progress until about 11:30. I then have my night self-care routine and then go to sleep around midnight.

The main takeaway from the previous paragraph? “Ideally.”

During the first few days of setting up my schedule or routine, following it was already challenging, but still doable. But then the backlogs started piling up and no matter how much I tried to streamline the whole study process, I just couldn’t keep up. I did what I could to follow study habits and schedules, but the setup was falling apart. And you know what? That was okay.

Normally, my type A self would have been so frustrated already with how poorly I was handling my review season. Admittedly, there were a few meltdowns and anxiety attacks as the exam drew nearer, but for the most part, I just let things happen as they did. I still adjusted, sure, but I wasn’t hard on myself for always having to. I kept changing goals when I didn’t meet them (which was probably 80% of the time). There were even instances where I’d finish a handout and then I’d say that okay, I’ll watch an episode for a reward, but that episode became the entire season. While I considered myself to be the most chill reviewee, I also thought I was the worst because I refused to give up any of my wants for my needs. I resisted, of course, but then they’d bug me the entire time I was studying so instead of staying productive, I’d just annoy the hell out of myself. I was probably just lazy and stubborn. LOL. Long story, short, it was a constant battle.

There were times when I felt confident enough to power through the whole thing. I enjoyed the whole process of studying, actually. Making notes and my own ways of memorizing things was fun. I made use of different study strategies, self-checks, and motivational boosters (more on these on a different post). Aside from these, having review-mates who were just a chat away made things bearable. Breakdown session muna tas aral na ulit. And how could I forget all my sweet friends who would send over coffee ayuda every now and then? To me, passing the boards, while mainly should be for oneself and one’s self-actualization, is also about not letting down these people who have been with you throughout your journey.

But it wasn’t always a hyped-90s-movie-transformation-montage kind of environment. Other times, I was just worn out and dejected by my lack of progress. In the already meager time I had to study, I still had plenty of off-days. Concepts just wouldn’t stick and it was disappointing how I’d already forgotten what I just read a couple days ago. It got really tiring even if I was staying indoors all the time. I missed the comfort of coffee shops and the company of study buddies. I missed my family. I wanted to hug our dog. There were days when I couldn’t even bring myself to make coffee and open my notes. I even reached a point where I was sure that I wouldn’t finish reading all the material. (I kid you not, I have handouts I never got to open.)

Yet here I am. Here I am writing about how I survived all that and got those two letters attached to my name. I am not a good example, obviously. There are hundreds better than me and you probably should be taking advice from them instead. I’m simply writing this to tell you that you don’t have to worry. This is all just to ease your anxieties about the PLE. I’m not saying it’s an easy feat that you can just achieve just like that. While I seemed rather complacent, I still put in the work, after all. Admittedly, I know I could have done more, but again, I’m not going to dwell on that anymore. It’s done.

My goal in writing this is to let you know, my dear future doctor, that you’re going to be just fine. Here’s someone who understands the huge disconnect that stemmed from being a pandemic e-ntern. Here’s someone who’s always been doubtful and full of anxieties about the PLE even before she filed her application at the PRC. Here’s someone who constantly prayed that the PLE be moved even for just a month (or kahit two weeks lang masaya na ako nun) up to the week before the exam along with a rising number of cases. Here’s someone who barely has the capability to maintain focus for more than an hour. Here’s someone whose reading pace was literally at 10 minutes per page (yes, I actually timed it and IDK if that’s slow or really slow). Here’s someone who still allowed herself to study at coffee shops and even have samgyup (with proper health protocols, of course) even if she knew she was drowning in backlogs.

My point is that if I managed to pass despite all that, you can, too. My close friends know that I developed a rather funny mentality to ease the jitters as the boards drew nearer. I knew and claimed it for myself that I would already pass. I viewed the whole PLE as just a “formality”--a means for His plans of me becoming a doctor to manifest in this realm. I believed it so much to the point that I thought that no matter what bloopers and slip-ups I have during the test, I’d still see my name on the list of board passers. I’m not saying you should totally ease up and just have a come-what-may attitude. Again, I’m not the model student you should be following here. What I’m saying is to have faith in yourself, your capabilities, and in God. So chin up, Doc. Just a little more ‘til you get to legally practice with that MD at the end of your name.

#nikstersss #PLE

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banditthewriter · 5 years

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Impossible Year - Billy Russo - 5

Impulse control? Never heard of it. This one is short anyways. Shows you a different side to our dear Billy.

(Also this isn’t the surprise. Well, it’s A surprise, but not THE surprise! Moving on.)

Since links are making posts not show up in tags, you can find previous parts on my Masterlist in my about me!

Tags are at the bottom. Let me know if you would like to be added to one of my tag lists!

Enjoy!

*****

May

Over the next few weeks, your emails with Billy were rather timely. The first time his email popped up in your inbox, you almost stopped breathing. It made him that more tangible. How did emails somehow make you feel more connected to him than handwritten letters? Maybe because you knew moments before he sent the email he was at a computer, typing the words that you were about to read. It meant that he was that much closer. Of course the time difference meant that his emails came in at strange times. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to them though. That's the military, you thought as you read his most recent email. He had just finished thanking you for the latest package you had sent him before he moved on to responding to your email. You had spent your last one complaining about the lack of good restaurants in your town and he gave you a list of a few that he liked. They are all in the city, but you said you go through there for work sometimes. If you want, you should stop in and try a few of them if you have time. I promise you won't be sorry. It felt like a level of intimacy as you walked into one of the restaurants he had mentioned to you. For some reason you felt like you were on a date. After you ordered, you moved to have a seat in a booth while you waited for your food. On impulse you pulled out your phone and switched over to the front facing camera. After making sure that you looked okay, you positioned it so that the name of the diner was in the photo. Satisfied that it was obvious where you were and that you looked okay, you attached it to an email. He wouldn't get it for a while because he told you he was going to have a few busy days, but it would be a nice surprise for when he was able to check his email. A few days later you got his response. You thought he'd mention the restaurant or something about the food, but the first thing was a simple God you're beautiful. The emails ranged from pleasant and playful to downright flirtatious. You didn't mind. In fact you found yourself looking forward to those moments when you thought he was flirting. It became habit then to send him photos when you were in the city, but you also sent photos from your town. Sometimes you were in them, sometimes you weren't. He seemed to appreciate them all, no matter if you were in them or not. He sent a few photos back, although not as often. He said there were a few people that had digital cameras that he stole to get the photos. Some of them were of the scenery. There were a few that were just of his buddies, more than a few of Frank. And there were some of him. There was only one selfie and it was with a beautiful sunset—or was it a sunrise?—in the background. Any photos with him also had someone else in the photo with him. Usually it was Frank, but there were a few others. He told you who the people were and gave you little insights into life where he was. He kept things just vague enough but you were used to that with Evan so you weren't surprised or disappointed. Every email made your heart speed up. You weren't sure it was healthy since you'd only really known him since the end of January, but you couldn't help how you felt. And something told you that he felt the same. ------ "C'mon Russo, hurry up," one of the guys yelled over to the bay where the three laptops were plugged in. Privacy was a thing of the past but Billy wasn't about to be rushed. He had barely finished reading her email before he was getting yelled out by some asshole that had barely been there for a week. Even if he wasn't a lieutenant with the ability to make that asshole's life a living hell, he was just that petty of a person to take even longer to reply to the email. "Give him a break," one of the other guys yelled back, his voice just this side of sarcastic, "he's probably having cyber sex with his girlfriend. Tell her to send more pictures Russo; her old one is getting a little dirty if you know what I mean." The lance corporal that had made the offhand comment, par the course for a Marine, barely had time to let out a laugh before a fist was connecting with his cheek. Billy pulled his hand back to let another one fly, feeling the gratifying crunch under his fist. He was seeing red as his hands wrapped around the guy's throat, barely registering someone screaming at him to stop as he was being torn away. "Watch your mouth Dixon," Billy spat as he was yanked backwards by two of the guys. "I'll fucking take your head off." One of the guys was pulling Dixon out of the area, ready to take him somewhere to get his nose looked at, but Billy was still pulling forward. He wanted to hit him again, wanted to make him eat his words. "Fuck Bill, stop it," a familiar voice called out, a beacon through the anger. Billy blinked a few times, settling down and letting his body relax until he was released. Frank kept a hand on his shoulder as a reminder to stay put. When he looked at him, he noticed the incredulity in his gaze. "Wanna tell me what the fuck that was about?" Did he? Billy marched over to the computer he had been on. He scanned the email and hit send instead of save, earning another swear. He logged out of the email and slammed the laptop closed before he stomped out of the area that housed the computers and satellite phones. Frank was hot on his heels. He called his name twice before he grabbed Billy's shoulder and forced him to stop marching away. "Forget asking," he said as he directed Billy off the path so there weren't as many eyes. "You're going to tell me what the fuck that was or am I going to have to beat it out of you?" It was the perfect opening for Billy to make a comment about being able to hold his own; it's why Frank set it up that way. Instead of falling for it, Billy rotated his neck a bit and met Frank's gaze head on. "You hear what that fucker said? About Y/N's picture? What he was insinuating?" That her picture had been passed around for wank bank material for the guys. It disgusted Billy and just thinking about it was making his blood heat up again. "Shit man, yeah I heard it but doesn't mean he meant it. He's just shooting his mouth off like all of the guys do. Like you and I have done a thousand times in his boots. You know that he was joking because that damn photo is tucked in your pack like a goddamn teddy bear. Wanna tell me why you decided Dixon needed his face rearranged for a comment you've probably made before?" Logically Billy knew that Frank was right. It was the culture of being in the Marines; few topics were off the table. But Billy hadn't been thinking logically at the time. Hell, he wasn't sure he'd been thinking at all. It was like an instinct. "You sayin' that if Dixon or some other fucker had made that comment about Maria you would have taken it sitting down?" "Well now, that would be him talking about my wife and you know that wives are off limits. The difference is that she's your pen pal Bill." Frank watched Billy for any sense that he was listening, but Billy didn't even blink. It was that lifeless stare that made Frank pause. He'd known Bill for years and had never seen him react like that before. They all went through their fair share of ribbing; it was the nature of the beast. Billy had gotten called every form of pretty under the moon, even a few shades more disgusting that were met with colorful insults and threats and drew a line of Billy's tolerance levels. Frank had seen Billy shrug off insults and had seen him fire back even worse ones. He'd never seen him try to kill another Marine with his bare hands. "She's not just your pen pal," Frank surmised, voice low and a little skeptical. "Fuck Bill, you gone on this girl?" And there was the old Billy, shaking his head as he blinked away whatever anger that had still been boiling under the surface. "It's not like that Frankie," Billy said as he straightened his spine a bit, rubbing his sore knuckles as he looked down at his hands. "She's a good person. Doesn't deserve to be talked about like that, not even behind her back." Frank nodded slowly, not certain that his best friend was being completely honest with him. Instead of dwelling on it, he jerked his head over his shoulder towards the first aid station. "C'mon, let's go make sure you didn't break the lance corporal." Billy followed him as he ran his thumb over the busted knuckles on his right hand. ------ You frowned at what was clearly a half finished email. It had been sent the day before but there wasn't a follow up to explain what had happened. Maybe it just didn't come through for some reason? With a shrug, you hit reply. You'd take what you could get.

Let me know if you want to be added to my Permanent Tag List @hermioneshandbag @onebatch--twobatch @smiley-celine @blackcoffeeandgreenteaforme @starless-skyox @youveseen--thebutcher @citation-is-here @mightymelly @realduckvader @1550kilogramsofsilver @hxbbit @rockintensse @missphanosaur18 @thepuffyeyedpuff @kararanae23 @yessy2012 @dorkybryan @gingerstarlight @siriusement @marauderskeeper @xinyourdreamsx @wickidlady @mahalobro @sassygirl25 @maraudereestauderelb @rainyboul @cutie-bug @random-quartz @holamor @lea----b @heyitslexy @detectivebourbon @coffeenmoscato @russowrites @presstocontinue @elisemockingbird @assbuttwithwings @geeksareunique @siriuslovesmarlene @witch-of-letters @delicatelilyflower @l-l-c-m-w-b @whovianayesha @hiddenprincess @yannii04 @jeanettexkillian @brighteststarinthesky @kilyra @gallxntdean @sweetvengeancee @lady1505 @thedarklightwithinus @ateliefloresdaprimavera @siriuslyimmoony @elodieyung @fudgeflyss @madamrogers @thatwrestlingfan91 @teranya @yesixoxo @sophiabulbu69 @delusionsofnostalgia @effielumiere @mamaraptor @hot-and-spiceyyy @i-padfootblack-things @aya-fay @fcavalerro @sithskywalkers @raquelbc2003 @nildaebony @iwishyoucouldbekissed @lostinthoughts23 @tamanamohain @newtstarmander @suchatinyinfinity @blushingskywalker @queencocoakimmie @funerals-with-cake @love-dria @arrowswithwifi @curlyhairedblueeyedangel @kryyta @russosprettydiamondnow @myplaceofheavenorhell @cafeconsoya

Let me know if you want to be added to my Billy Russo Tag List @something-tofightfor @piink-magnolias @hoodedhavok @aylinnmaslow @musingsofbanana @bluebird214 @rileyblues @nerrdstark @that-bwitch @diorskisses @queenisabella789 @colddecember-night @j-finco @arthoeaesthetixbs @tomhiddlestonsbeard @mischiefs-never-managed @romanceyour-ego @evyiione @drinix @sweetheart-im-the-boss @thebabblingbook @katieswinforddiaries @benbarnesfanforever @releasethekracko @itsjustmylifeconfessions @nostalgic-uncertainty @aveatquevale- @clarasworldofwonders @ladyblablabla @thehanneloner @hellostarposts @girlwhoisfearless @maria-beretta @friendlyneighbourhoodweirdo @marcelskittel @fictionwillneverdie @avipshamitra @hysteriadarling @living-on-rice @hello-la-v-en-rose @tiredofthisgeneration @marveliskindacool @giggleberts @stateofloveandvedder @encounterthepast @ironstank @spettrocoli @xserenax-13 @sleepwalkingelite @dreamingofonceuponatime @supernaturalcat7 @screwmesiriusblack @doneobrien @figlia--della--luna @balladblood @cloudywithachanceofcupcakes-blog @jessicahh @flightoftheflightrisk @slamharder @roschele @lainey-lane @i-blogaboutstuff | @rhabakoli @king4thesirens @ilkaeliseb

#billy russo #billy russo x reader #billy russo imagine #billy russo fanfic #my writing #impossible year

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gaygardner · 6 years

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So it’s the new year. But I can’t say goodbye to 2017 without making this post.

This past year has been amazing on a personal level. So many good things happened and whilst I know as a whole it was a shitty year, I would look back at 2017 with fondness.

But I just want to end the year right and talk about two of the best things to happen to me this year.

Firstly, @kyleraysner.

I first started talking to her... I don’t know on the 8th of January i think. Back then I obviously didn’t know she would end up being one of my closest friends. She was this hyper, hilarious person that I thought was gonna be just another mutual I’ll sparodically have conversations with. But throughout the year, I could count on one hand the number of days we have gone without some sort of communication. Be it texting, sending a post or tagging each other on tumblr, actual phone conversations or skype dates. She knows my deepest, darkest thoughts - the ones I have a kept a secret from so many people. She’s seen (or heard) me angry, frustrated, scared, worried, estatic, sad, happy and she’s always there to give me some encouranging words or to call me a cunt and make me forget about whatever shit I’m going through. We’ve gone through multiple crisis, plenty of pun battles, lived through various highs and some lows and survived plenty of anxiety-inducing moments in our lives. Sometimes it surprises me how in sync we are. We are such complete opposites but at the same time we are also so very similar.

I can’t explain to you how important she is to me. Just trust me when I say that she is. If platonic soulmates are a thing, I think she’s mine. I hope I’ve been as good a friend to her as she has been to me.

Speaking of soulmates, the next person I want to talk about is Emily’s girlfriend, my wonderfully talented, painfully English friend @haljordon.

I remember the first time I spoke to Jo. I asked her about the Pacific and if I should watch it. I started following her last year because of Black Sails (i think) but never really spoke to her until late last year. The beginning of our friendship was purely fandom based - we share similar interests so it wasn’t hard to find a new topic to talk about. And then she drew me a picture of Anne Bonny and I knew I had to keep her. But our friendship really took off after I introduced her to Emily and Emily made the group chat that would end up being the most fun I would have chatting to people in a group. I got to know the incredibly old soul that lives in a (then) 19 year old body. I discovered her quirks, her love for old anything, her love for basic white men, her ‘tubelight’-ness but also her ridiculous sense of humour, her kindness, her honesty. I cannot imagine my life without her.

When Emily and Jo started dating, (you’re welcome btw. Just call me cupid. A very persistent, angry cupid but cupid none the less) I was afraid the dynamics of the group will change - that I’d be the odd one out looking in but honestly nothing has changed. They are both massive losers still (they’re just bigger saps now) and we are still going through the group chat one inside joke after another. They never made me feel like a third wheel, although I am (but I guess they do all their sappy shit in PC - thank fuck!) so I’m grateful for that.

They have helped me through my final year in med school in ways they will probably never know but I am forever grateful.

Cunts, I love you both. And just know that if we ever end up distant and not on speaking terms, I would still love and treasure the fuck out of you two.

#anyway sorry for being emosh #brot3: pirating marines #brot3: cillian creepers #my rambles #this is an actual ramble #im sorry #sorry for my english too #lol

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topicprinter · 5 years

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Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Hagan Walker (u/haganwalker) of Glo®, a brand that makes liquid activated productsSome stats:Product: liquid activated productsRevenue/mo: $104,166Started: March 2015Location: Starkville, MississippiFounders: 2Employees: 5Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hey, y’all! I’m Hagan Walker - one of the co-founders of Glo! We make liquid-activated products under two different brands - Glo Cubes, which are light up drink cubes - and Glo Pals, light-up sensory toys for children. Both incorporate the same patented liquid activation circuitry.Basically, you drop one of our products in liquid and it uses ions in the liquid to bridge an electrical circuit, causing the cube to light up. Not only is the circuit patented, but we also have a unique design that isn’t triggered by residual fluid or ice. This means Glo Cubes work very well in a restaurant setting. When someone finishes a drink, the light goes out, indicating to the server that a refill is needed. The same idea translates to the Glo Pals. These bath toys only work in liquid - just draw a bath and drop them in. They automatically light up, and when you drain the tub, they turn off on their own - no buttons or switches to forget about!It’s a strange combination (internally, we joke about kids and cocktails - ha!), but I’ll get into how that all came about in just a bit. We’re a bit quirky and, in this fast-paced world of e-commerce and dropshipping, we’ve found a small niche where we design, prototype, and package every single product from our headquarters in Starkville, Mississippi. This year, we’ll sell over 3 million of our products to customers in 37 countries.Hold on to your seats. I believe telling a story should be real - it should include the highs and lows, tell you about how the path isn’t always straightforward, and detail how some things work out for a reason, so let’s start from the beginning.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?The story of Glo starts in 2015 - my senior year of college. I wasn’t the best student or the brightest, but I found my niche and studied electrical engineering. I thought I had it all figured out - I had some great internships lined up and were the first student from the state of Mississippi to intern at Tesla in Palo Alto, California. My passion was automotive engineering and we had a great program here at Mississippi State University, called EcoCAR, that gave me some excellent hands-on engineering experience. The goal was to make it to Tesla, get offered a job, and take off to California.That didn’t happen.I was offered a position at Tesla as a body controls engineer, working on the falcon wing doors for Model X, but fate had different plans. I turned that position down to return to Mississippi and take a chance with something a bit different - making light-up drink cubes. You see, right before I left for my summer internship at Tesla, a friend of mine asked for my help with a classroom project. Kaylie Mitchell was studying graphic design and her professor tasked her with coming up with a conceptual company and product that naturally drew one’s eye to the product. Kaylie thought, if a drink lit up, people would inherently look at it. She wanted to go above and beyond on this assignment and reached out to me to create a prototype for her class assignment.We decided it had to be liquid-activated for ease of use and sanitary reasons. The first prototype was made out of a toothbrush travel case with some electronic components encased in hot glue to make it waterproof. It certainly wasn’t pretty, but it worked, and her professor was impressed with the initiative. She encouraged Kaylie and me to present the idea for this conceptual company and the product to the Mississippi State Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach’s (CEO) annual competition. We decided to give it a try - there was nothing to lose. Neither of us had a background in business, but we practiced, rehearsed, made new prototypes, and finally presented.We won first place - $15,000 and free participation in a summer incubator program.While I was off at Tesla that summer, Kaylie spent the summer helping to further refine what the hell we were doing. I would task friends that I met during my internship into helping design CAD models, and we used a bit of the money from the competition to buy a 3D printer. We shipped it to California and it was in the closet of the room that I was renting. I’d work at Tesla during the day, and then my friend, Nick Beyrer, and I would print 3D prototypes at night. I’d ship those back to Kaylie for the weekly design reviews that she had to participate in, and that’s how our first 124 prototypes were developed.imageThe 3D printer in our first “office” - a walk-in closetAt the end of summer, Tesla asked if I was interested in staying on. At this point, Kaylie and I thought we had a good chance of finding an angel investor. I packed up and headed back to Mississippi to finish my final semester and make a final decision on my post-graduation life. We found an investor, and I decided to stay in Mississippi - trading my automotive engineering dreams to instead created liquid-activated, light up drink cubes.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.I graduated in December 2015 and started as employee number 1 at Glo in January 2016. Our bank account had $30,000 in it from our previous winnings and our first investor. We thought we were set. I found a manufacturer in China and sent over the CAD files. We spent about $10,000 on tooling and various startup costs and received our first shipment a few weeks later. They were awful. My background has nothing to do with CAD - I had no idea what I was doing - and ** I realized I had just blown $10,000 - just like that**. Luckily, I found some help through a mutual friend, David Francis, who fixed our files for manufacturing. We dropped another $10,000 and gave it a second go.This shipment was much better, but that $30,000 had dwindled to just $10,000 because of my mistakes. I was living off of a $17,000 yearly salary and things weren’t looking great. We still had to pay for patents, website costs, shipping software, office space, etc. I pleaded with an attorney to write our patent application for $500. We negotiated with a landlord for deferred rent. We “stole” the internet from the neighbors next door. I found a label printer for $25 from eBay. We had no idea how to mass-produce items, so our first packs of Glo Cubes were heat-sealed - by hand - in the office, with a paper label stapled to the top. We made it work - but we knew we had to start selling to stay afloat.Describe the process of launching the business.We found a cocktail maniac, the Tipsy Bartender, on YouTube and reached out. He loved the Glo Cubes and asked us to send some. A few weeks later, the Aurora Borealis video came out. It got about 7 million views in the first week and we quickly found ourselves in a manufacturing and logistical nightmare. For about two days, we averaged an order of Glo Cubes every two minutes.Kaylie and I stayed at the office until 2:00 am every day that week hand packaging Glo Cubes and we brought in several friends to help us catch up with orders.imageUs hand-packaging Glo Cubes to fulfill initial orders (Left to right: Hagan, Hagan’s sister Caroline (seated), Anna Barker, Kaylie Mitchell, Parker Stewart)We had a taste of what could be - and it was exhilarating, but we had to figure out how to make it last. After the initial excitement of the video wore down, so did sales. We had to figure out how to actually sell our items - which I was awful at. Picking up the phone and getting repeatedly turned down over a product that I created was like someone punching me in the gut, over and over again. However, this eventually paid off - we found a tea bar (of all things) that agreed to a $40,000 recurring order and kept us afloat for a while. This wasn’t our only order, but it was the biggest at the time. We hustled for the next year, working to capture and retain customers, creating actual packaging, hiring our first intern, Shelby Baldwin, and finding out what we needed to do next. We were hitting our stride and ended 2016 in the black. Not by much - but not bad after just a year of sales.In early 2017, Kaylie made a decision to depart the company. We had different views on company direction, but she also had an excellent opportunity to get her Master’s degree from the University of Arkansas, completely paid for. For a few months, things were looking bleak. It was just Shelby and me working day-to-day to find the next key account (by the way, Kaylie and I are still good friends and talk regularly).Thankfully, we were able to find a rockstar. I can’t speak enough about the Mississippi State CEO. Every time it seemed like all was going to fall apart, the CEO’s Directors Eric Hill and Jeffrey Rupp were there to motivate, to encourage, and to help bring the pieces back together. They introduced me to Anna Barker - an international business major - who had an ambitious idea of her own, which landed her with a stellar job offer from insurance conglomerate AIG. I was somehow able to convince Anna to stay in Mississippi and join in as my partner, and her accepting likely saved the company - and that’s how I now have a co-founder and also a partner.We brainstormed about new avenues, pursuing new sales leads, next steps, and everything in between. About that time, we also received an email from a parent. She had gotten our Glo Cubes from a restaurant in California and realized they were liquid-activated. She took them home and threw them into the bathtub. It was the first time her son, who is autistic, took a bath in weeks without crying, and it got us thinking - what if we targeted our products towards an entirely different market?That’s exactly what we did. Anna led efforts on the Glo Pals, creating the whole brand and little characters with their own personalities. We used our same liquid-activation technology, and pad printed each character’s face on our light-up cubes to create these products for a new market. Since the only difference between the Glo Cubes and Glo Pals is a pad print, the costs for creating this new product were super low. We were also extremely lucky to obtain the domain as well as @glopals for all of our social media handles.In late 2017, Anna and I went through our first funding round and secured $125,000 for growth. We were hitting our stride again and had money to take the next step. We hired our first full-time employee, Hanna Bridge, as our sales director and as sales picked up, we moved from our 700 square foot office into an incredible 3,500 square foot office in 2018.The Glo Pals also launched in 2018 and blew us away. In the first half of 2018, we picked up 400 retailers across the USA and Canada. By the end of 2018, we had picked up 600 more. Our small team of 3 full-time employees and 5 part-timers were working overtime to keep up, and things got so busy during Christmas that we had friends and family sitting on the floor packaging boxes because we were out of space.imageJanuary 2018 - Hanna, Anna, and I cut the ribbon at the new Glo offices, surrounded by friends, family, and community members.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?So now, there’s two brands - Glo Cubes and Glo Pals - and each has to be marketed completely differently. Let’s start with Glo Cubes:We look for key accounts. The Glo Cube model is based on volume. We attend trade shows and try to find restaurants, bars, and other entertainment venues that can buy in bulk. This helps our margins significantly because we can also sell in bulk without having to use retail packaging. These places tend to place a carton behind the bar and the bartenders do the job of adding them to drinks.We set up recurring sales. We’ll give discounts of 10 to 20% off of our wholesale pricing if they’ll sign a recurring contract. For most, this means receiving between 5,000 to 50,000 cubes monthly. By doing it this way, it makes it much easier for us to forecast sales and also helps provide a consistent revenue stream.We continuously brainstorm. It’s important to keep innovating. We patented the light-up bath bomb concept and then partnered with Da Bomb Bath Fizzers. They put our Glo Cubes inside their Glow Bomb and Disco Bomb. When you drop these bath bombs in water, they fizz, as all bath bombs do, but as soon as water enters the liquid activation chamber of the Glo Cube, the bath bomb lights up - and so does your tub. It’s a fun product that is a win-win for both companies. You can find the Glow and Disco Bombs at Target and Ulta.For Glo Pals:We appeal much more to the end customer. We focus heavily on the environmentally-conscious trendy mom, with children between ages 3-6 years old. We do this through more traditional avenues, like Facebook Ads and through collaborations with other notable and trusted brands, like Kaplan Early Learning Company.We are real. A strategic move by Anna and our Creative Director, Brittney Dowell, is to be completely transparent. We work very hard to engage with customers on Facebook and Instagram, we strive to have amazing customer service, and we show what’s happening behind the scenes - including showing how the Glo Pals are packaged, our office dogs, Brittney’s daughter Ida, and more. We don’t ever hide or delete comments, and we tackle issues head-on. So much of social media is a perception, and we want everyone to know that the products you see are designed right here in the USA to be both fun and safe by the team you see behind the scenes - not an illusion.We utilize rep groups. We’re still a small team, so it’s impossible to do everything in-house. We’re very selective, but we have a number of rep groups that help us pick up new stores throughout the USA and Canada. For their efforts, they get between 10%-15% of the sale as commission. This allows us to focus on core areas, such as customer service, quality, safety, and logistics while letting customers engage with sales reps that they already know and trust.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?Things are going well! We just hired an office manager and are releasing new products for the Glo Pals in about a week - stay tuned! We have been profitable since 2016, and have tripled revenue every year since then. Our average gross margin across both brands is 62%, including wholesale customers.I do believe ads are important, as long as you’re seeing the return that you want. For example, during the Christmas season 2018, we were spending $800 a day on ads. This seems crazy to me, but we set up rules on Facebook that as long as our cost per purchase was below $4.00 (a pack of four cubes is only $10.00), to increase spending by 2x daily. The ad spends after Thanksgiving started at $25, then went to $50, then $100 and so on. From November 15th to December 21st, we brought in $50,000 in sales with an average order volume of $19.75 and a gross margin of 79.6% (our gross margins are much better selling direct to consumers, of course).Since this time, we’ve seen a much less effective return on ads - our products have lots of seasonality - so we’ve cut down on spend significantly. We might spend $50/week on ads right now just to keep our Facebook pixel happy. We’ll pick things back up during the new product launch and as Christmas gets a bit closer.Earlier this year, we also picked up Cracker Barrel and Nordstrom as Glo Pals retailers and are working on several more key retailer partnerships for 2020. However, we’ve also spent a considerable amount of time this year working on the new Glo Pals product - it’s been a very close repeat of my first experience trying to get the Glo Cubes manufactured. The product is more complex, further complicating the manufacturing process - and it’s a good reminder of the things we take for granted every day. No one thinks about material thickness of the plastic on your phone case or how many iterations of that plastic cups were made before mass production started. Even the simplest of items probably took months of iterations before the design moved forward.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?Yes! I’ve learned so much - and I continue to learn every day. I’ve always told myself the day that I’m no longer learning something new is the day that it’ll be time for me to find something else to do. That hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t expect it anytime soon.Starting a business can really test you as a person. You carry the stress with you - you’ll likely age a bit faster than your friends. I also worry about what’s next, and now that we have 15 people on the payroll, you also realize that those people are depending on you and your guidance for a paycheck. That can be compounded more when you know some of your employees have families, young children, and issues of their own.On the other hand, I’ve learned a lot about people. I’ve learned what to look for in new hires, how to find people that truly care about their jobs and are always willing to go above and beyond to move the needle forward (hint, it’s not always a good resume). I’ve learned a bit about compassion, and I’ve learned to be more appreciative. I’ve learned the value of a good partner - a true business partner is not someone who will always agree with you. Anna and I might disagree daily, but it forces us both to approach ideas from a different view, and typically, it allows us to land on the best decision, which is incredibly important.I also have this strong belief that we’re all put on earth to help one another. You can’t ever think of yourself as too good to help someone in need or too big to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. Even if your company or products don’t inherently help someone, you can take just a bit of your earnings and give back to a local charity, school, or community. It doesn’t matter how, as long as you’re doing good.What platform/tools do you use for your business?Yep, we’re the quirky group that doesn’t use Shopify. It doesn’t make sense to my engineer-y brain. I hate Shopify’s liquid language. So, for now, we’re sticking with Squarespace (which also has some work to do for more advanced users, but it’s the easiest platform for our whole team to use). We also have guest contributors write blog posts for us from time to time and it’s so easy to give permissions for temporary users in Squarespace. I also love their new integration with Zapier, and am a huge fan of ShipStation. For example, if a customer needs a replacement, they can just fill out a Squarespace form. This, in conjunction with Zapier, pushes a replacement request into ShipStation and automatically creates a shipping label for our fulfillment team.I mentioned ShipStation earlier and our team LOVES ShipStation. We’ve also been very happy with Finale Inventory once we outgrew the built-in inventory features of ShipStation. We also use QuickBooks, as it makes it easy to do online invoicing and is essentially the standard in small business accounting.We are an open book company and use Geckoboard to show company stats in real-time to a display in the company kitchen. It shows weekly sales for each rep, our overall company goal, aged accounts receivables, production stats, and more.We also use Pipedrive as our CRM and couldn’t make it without Zoho Desk for customer support management. We also use Zoho Mail - it’s dirt cheap and is packed with features.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I’m a big fan of the Great Game of Business by Jack Stack and Traction by Gino Wickman. These two books both emphasize the importance of making sure your team is on the same page and both provide helpful tools to get to that point. I also believe that running an open company is important.Every single one of our employees knows our revenue goal and each knows how their job affects that number. Those ideas came from the books I mentioned above.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?You have to have a drive. I believe starting a business is one of the single hardest things that one can do. We also use this term often - you have to be teachable. If you’re unteachable, you likely won’t make it very far. What I mean by that is that you have to not only listen but be comfortable with adapting. There are people out there that are much more talented than you or I, and if you get a chance to hear their views on your product or company idea, take them, think about them, and seriously consider what they have to say.I also think it’s extremely important to have a partner, or at a minimum, a sounding board. There have been several occasions that without Anna’s perspective, my decision would have been the wrong one. Having a partner or co-founder (or both, in my case) also helps you to share the load and each of you can use your respective talents for overall success. Whereas I’m extremely analytical and focus more on operations and items behind the scenes, Anna focuses heavily on the front-scene items - like marketing, public relations, and design. I believe it’s extremely important to recognize your weaknesses and find someone that can help fill those gaps.Lastly, you need to enjoy what you do, and how you do it. For us, it’s having dogs at the office, a laid back atmosphere, company happy hours, and celebrating the wins - no matter how big or small. You may do things differently, but be sure to enjoy it.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We’re always looking for talent in a number of areas. We’re in a unique position to create positions as we grow, so if this story inspired you and you have a talent that you think would benefit our team, please do reach out!Where can we go to learn more?I’m extremely grateful to be able to share our company’s story with you, and to whoever of you made it to the end of this article, thanks for your time, and best of luck to each of you and your future endeavors!Glo Pals:InstagramFacebookglopals.comGlo Cubes:InstagramFacebookglocubes.comMe:EmailIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

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kansascityhappenings · 7 years

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Doctors thought young woman was psychotic – but her body was attacking her brain

Emily Gavigan was convinced that a nearby truck was following her. Someone was after her.

She was a sophomore at the University of Scranton in January 2009 when the “bizarre” behavior began, said her father, Bill.

Her parents noticed that she had been rambling, not making any sense. At one point, she called her family and friends to warn them: Something terrible was going to happen to all of them.

“Emily was like a different person. We didn’t know who she was,” Bill Gavigan said. “We had gone from having this daughter who was perfectly normal, happy, vibrant … with a bright future ahead.

“All of a sudden, this all came crashing down.”

Then, one day, Gavigan disappeared.

“We didn’t know where she was for more than 24 hours,” her father said.

She had gotten in her car and driven from Pennsylvania to New Jersey with no money. She went right through toll booths without paying. But she eventually found her way back to her grandparents’ house, still convinced that she was being followed.

Her grandfather peered out the window, looking for something suspicious. But they soon realized there was no one after her.

“I get emotional when I think about it,” said Gavigan’s grandfather Joseph Chiumento.

Her parents showed up and took her to the hospital.

Say, ‘I love you, dad’

Doctors initially thought Gavigan had a mental illness. She spent time in different psychiatric facilities, which made her family uneasy. One in particular reminded her father of the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

“They just kept trying medication after medication after medication, and none of it worked,” Bill Gavigan said.

Things kept getting worse. There was some numbness in her face and hands, and she would develop seizures. Doctors went looking for something that might be wrong with her brain — a tumor, perhaps — but found none. She was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis but continued to decline.

In a video that the Gavigan family shared with CNN, Bill asks his daughter how she’s feeling today. She opens her mouth, and her tongue moves like she’s about to respond.

“Say, ‘I love you, dad,’ ” he nudges.

She shakes her head weakly. No.

Twist of fate

A year after Gavigan started having symptoms, her family noticed something peculiar on an episode of NBC’s “Today” show. The guest was Susannah Cahalan, a reporter at the New York Post who had written an article about her “mysterious lost month of madness.”

“Who knows how many people out there are suffering from what I suffered from and are just not getting the diagnosis that they need?” Cahalan told the talk show hosts.

Cahalan’s story sounded familiar to the Gavigans. She had become paranoid and exhibited odd behavior, just like Emily. She became convinced that she had bed bugs, and she could feel them on her left hand and face, according to neurologist Dr. Souhel Najjar, who treated Cahalan.

But Najjar had a hunch that Cahalan might have a neurological problem, not a purely psychiatric one.

So he asked asked Cahalan to draw a clock, and she drew all the numbers bunched up on the right side. This alone couldn’t make a diagnosis, but it clued doctors in that something could be misfiring on the right side of her brain.

That something, it turned out, could be treated.

The wrong target

The key to making the right diagnosis is a simple test on the blood or spinal fluid, Najjar said. You just have to know what you’re looking for: a type of antibody.

To fight off disease, the immune system makes antibodies, Y-shaped proteins that attack foreign invaders like bacteria or viruses. But sometimes, those proteins can attack our own bodies. This is known as autoimmune disease.

In Cahalan’s case, those antibodies were directed against a receptor in her brain: the NMDA receptor, which plays a role in how brain cells communicate with each other. The receptor takes part in the brain’s normal functioning, from memory to breathing.

The disease was given a name in 2007: anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, or NMDARE for short. Had Cahalan had the disease a few years prior, there would have been no diagnosis to give her.

“The disease is definitely not new,” said Dr. Josep Dalmau, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania who is credited with discovering the disease.

Many patients have been misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, Dalmau said. Some have been admitted to psychiatric units, where they were given medications, electroconvulsive therapies and other treatments that probably made their symptoms worse, he added.

There are over 15 known types of autoimmune encephalitis, according to the Autoimmune Encephalitis Alliance. Meaning the immune system can attack other brain receptors, too.

Thousands and thousands of cases

Dr. Belinda Lennox, a psychiatrist and researcher at the University of Oxford, believes that we should be testing for autoimmune encephalitis more routinely. After she learned about NMDARE, she wondered how many of her own patients might have it.

“It seemed to me a very simple, straightforward thing just to test the people in my service using the same blood test,” she said.

Among the first 46 patients Lennox tested, all with their first episodes of psychosis, three tested positive for the antibody. Based on symptoms alone, those patients looked no different from the other 43.

“That was the alarming bit,” she said. “They didn’t stand out.”

Lennox published these findings in 2011. In December, she published another study in The Lancet Psychiatry of 228 patients with first-episode psychosis. She found that 9% of the patients had antibodies against a range of brain cell receptors. She found some of these antibodies in healthy people too, but none of them had the NMDA variety.

Not all doctors agree with Lennox that we should be routinely testing for the antibodies when a patient is psychotic, at least based on what we know now. Dalmau himself has argued that just because those antibodies are there doesn’t mean they necessarily cause psychosis.

Still, Lennox wonders what portion of mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, can be traced back to medical causes. And while the question isn’t without controversy, doctors agree that NMDARE is more common than previously thought.

“In 2007, we have around close to 10 cases,” Najjar recalled. “In 2010, there was a presentation of around a hundred cases, and now we have … thousands and thousands of cases.

“The rising incidence of (autoimmune encephalitis) is because of the rise in awareness.”

Finally, a diagnosis

After seeing Cahalan’s story on TV, Gavigan’s parents urged doctors to test her for it. But the doctors initially dismissed the idea.

“You two have to come to grips with the fact that you have a child with mental illness,” her father recalls one doctor saying. “You’re not doing anybody any favors by grasping at these type of straws.”

But her parents’ persistence paid off, and she was eventually tested.

After a lengthy series of hospital stays — after being hooked up to a ventilator, after the seizures, after developing a blood clot in her brain following a new treatment — the Gavigans had an answer.

“Everybody was cheering that we had a diagnosis of autoimmune encephalitis,” Gavigan said.

Still, a long road to recovery lay ahead.

One step forward, two steps back

“Recovery is a very complicated, one-step-forward, two-steps-back process,” said Cahalan, who could not read, write or walk when she was released from the hospital in 2009.

When the disease is identified and treated, patients typically recover, but some spend weeks or months in rehab. They may even have a relapse of the disease down the line.

The disease is treated with medications that suppress the immune system, like steroids, and treatments that counteract the harmful antibodies.

Gavigan, a passionate figure skater, had a long way to go from her wheelchair.

“It did take a long time for Emily to fully recover, but there were some milestones,” Bill Gavigan said. “It was probably about a year after Emily was released from the hospital that she got back on the ice.”

He shared this milestone with Cahalan, who was sitting at her desk at the New York Post when she first heard from the Gavigan family.

“I just remember clicking that video … and just watching her twirl around that ice and just crying in the middle of the newsroom,” Cahalan said. “I couldn’t believe that … my story helped her find an answer, helped her find a diagnosis.”

Paying it forward

In November 2012, Cahalan made another appearance on “Today” — but this time, it was with Emily and Bill Gavigan at her side. Cahalan had just published the New York Times bestseller about her illness, “Brain on Fire.”

“If she wasn’t able to tell her story, then I wouldn’t have gotten a diagnosis,” Gavigan told CNN. “That connection, it was just surreal.”

Now, it was time for her to help fill those shoes.

In Omaha, Nebraska, yet another family, the Jensens, eventually heard about their story. Their 6-year-old daughter, Madison, had been throwing tantrums, drooling and sometimes forgetting how to speak or read.

Mandy Jensen, Madison’s mother, went back and found the “Today” clip online. It was just the clue they needed to get to the correct diagnosis.

Another coincidence: The episode originally aired the same day her daughter was first admitted to the hospital.

“It’s like divine intervention or something,” Jensen said. “They saved Madison’s life.”

Madison Jensen, now 10 years old and an avid soccer player, hopes that telling her own story will drive other families and doctors to the correct diagnosis — just like Cahalan did for Gavigan and they did for her.

“They helped me when they were on the ‘Today’ show,” Madison said. “Maybe we could help someone, and then … it’d just keep going.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2017/08/29/doctors-thought-young-woman-was-psychotic-but-her-body-was-attacking-her-brain/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2017/08/30/doctors-thought-young-woman-was-psychotic-but-her-body-was-attacking-her-brain/

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zenithjournal-blog · 7 years

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7.17.17 / 8

So… it’s been a while. It’s 1:24 am right now. Yeah, yikes. I just spent literally 45 minutes or more searching for the goddamn email to this account because I couldn’t remember it aghhhhh that was annoying. But don’t worry, I’m learning from my mistakes and I’m writing all my emails and accounts down now lol.

I should’ve kept this going. I wish I would’ve documented my senior year which was basically the fucking point of this blog to help me gather my thoughts and memories through such a crazy time. And it was crazy. Good, bad, ugly, and very ugly. I have some good memories and I’ve done things this year that I’m not proud of and I never thought I’d do. I wish I could erase some things but that’s the tricky thing about time. It’s linear right now in this tiny, human, 2017 perspective and I can’t change it. All I can do is learn, grow as a person, and move on I suppose.

I’m gonna do a review of everything I can remember of the highlights. Starting off with my teachers: I ended up really disliking Mr. and Mrs. D by the end of the year. Mrs. D gave me hell this year, partly my fault but unnecessary grief on her part. At least I got Hamlet and Siddhartha from Mr. D and I wrote a 10 pg paper about parallel universes that I’m very proud of. Nonetheless both their classes were struggles. I liked Latin a lot in the beginning and Mr. Du of course but honestly I kind of dreaded the class being the only senior. It was kind of pointless at the end besides the credit. I did get some useful knowledge out of it honestly, so it wasn’t a waste I guess. Bio was great I looked forward to the class pretty much every day. Mrs. A was such a sweetheart, so caring and funny and smart I loved having her and being able to have a chill class during the day. She made me feel comfortable enough to talk during class and ask questions, something I never really did during high school. I’ll definitely miss her. I weaseled my way into Mr. F’s class somehow and I had Liz so I didn’t wanna die as much as I expected to lol. Art class was kind of up and down. Ms. C filled in for Mrs. S for a few months and I grew to really like her and was sad to see her go. I wasn’t really looking forward to Mrs. S coming back to be honest because of how strict she can be with some things but she is really a nice teacher and she likes me a lot. She encouraged me and complimented my art work a ton throughout the year and I’m really grateful for that. I entered my self portrait into scholastics and I won the gold key award!!!! I’m proud of myself and Mom and Dad and Grandma and Papa and Mrs. C of course were thrilled and were all there to support me that day. Mrs. W was suuuuch a sweetheart, I really loved her this year. I’ve never been able to say I liked math class, liked my math teacher, and most unexpectedly- understood the math I was being taught. She really did make such a difference for me this year I’m so so so grateful I got her this year she was so understanding of my vertigo and helped me make up all my assignments and stand up to guidance when they gave me trouble. I’ll miss her a lot and won’t forget her impact.

So in the beginning of the year I was dealing with all the stupid drama with “O”. I’m mad at myself for acting the way I do when I’m in situations where I don’t want to talk to people anymore, I don’t know why I can’t just be up front. I really hope I can work like that because it really ate at me the way I treated her. She was making me uncomfortable and it was a sketchy situation but no one deserves to be treated like that and I need to fix that about myself. But that ended around the end of November when I finally started to post on social media again. I hung out with Timmy, Kate, and Laura practically all the time in the beginning of the year. We had Laura’s birthday party in November which was fun. However, September through about December was kind of a blur. I lost my drive to seek out spirituality and was disconnected from positivity. I was focused on bad decisions involving substances that I never thought I would go near. It was honestly a pretty dark time. I was depressed and looking back I’m just disappointed in myself. I lost sight of things that were important and healthy. It did continue on for a few months but I’ll get to that.

Halloween was probably the first instance since the summer when I realized the friendship between me and Laura faltering. In the summer she was going through one of the worst times in her life and I completely understand that. But she pushed me away and didn’t listen to me and she pulled some shitty stuff over me that I never thought someone would do to me, especially her. I was hurt. Then when the really bad stuff happened to her I sucked it up and I was there for her because being there when she needed support was more important than whatever I was feeling. So we were on good terms again but it was different. On Halloween when she was just being weird about our costumes was when I felt that tear again. It sounds dramatic but I don’t know how to describe it, that’s just what I felt. Then things kind of went smoothly between us for a while.

Christmas came around and I had a really nice holiday. I don’t think there was any fights and I just had a fun time. I took Timmy to the Christmas party and it may have been later that night or the next day I went to my first house party. It didn’t last that long but yeah. Then on New Years Eve I went to my first REAL party at the same place, it was crazy. I really did have a lot of fun and I danced the whole night. But enough of that, onto other stuff. In January I turned 18. I didn’t have a huge party or anything but I hung out with my family and I went to a couple places with Timmy that night. Trump got placed into presidency officially so that was pretty depressing obviously. I had the scholastics awards later that month and unfortunately more bad stuff happened with Timmy. It was a rough time, I just want the best for him.

I drew a lot in February and took a lot of cute pictures. I was getting back into a positive mindset and I was happier this month. I started watching Koi again. Spirit week for my senior year actually went well. I participated and took pictures every day, can you imagine? Tell that to freshman year Carina and she’ll laugh in your face. I was in the art banner group so I contributed something and it felt nice to say that for once. I went out of my comfort zone, even if it was just a little and dressed up each day. I cheered on gym day with Timmy and we won! I felt included for once.

March was another pretty good month, I was still pretty positive and getting back into a spiritual mindset. I forgot to mention earlier about going to clay- the best thing ever! Me and Liz really reconnected this year and we went to clay pretty regularly since about October til it ended and I really really enjoyed it. I picked up throwing and I was pretty decent at it. I went a lot during March and made a lot of pottery. It was my happy place and I’m really glad I had a positive space for myself to express myself and hang out. The whole St. Patty’s day parade fiasco happened. This is when I started feeling disconnected from Laura again.

In April it pretty much continued from March, clay, koi, and pretty good vibes. It was a really art based month and so was May. I drew another yoongi portrait which turned out to be my bed art piece yet. I’m still extremely proud of it. I love drawing him so much. When I realized I wasn’t going to get into temple I shifted my focus into CHC. I visited it and pretty much forced myself into thinking it was right for me. I was wrong, but we’ll get to that.

A few days after that I went on the art club trip to the Barnes foundation which was so freaking fun!!!! The art was so pretty and I had such a nice time I loved it so much. May was like the month of flowers for me lol. I ran the art show again and had a great time setting up and showing off my art. I was positive and surrounded my self with spirituality. I started watching Dakota and Claire who I really connect with. I’m glad I found these beautiful souls.

To side track: Laura started basically just ignoring me for weeks at a time around these months for a reason I still don’t know. I don’t know if I did something or if she was going through something… I was upset about it regardless. I felt like I was losing my best friend and I didn’t know why. I still don’t. After everything we’ve been through I don’t want to lose her. I love her as a friend and I just don’t know what changed in a year. I’ll get back to this.

June snuck up on me FAST. This was it. 16 days and I was done with high school. Shitty freshman year, rollercoaster sophomore year, blurry junior year, and my indescribable senior year. It was all coming to a close. The trip to Hershey was a blast, I had a lot of fun and I was dead by the end of the day. I hung out with Timmy for the day because Laura and Kate didn’t show up. This was when things were still super weird between me and Laura. We were talking but it was just weird.

My last week of high school finals came. I studied kind of lol but kind of not but passed everything nonetheless. I said goodbye to the teachers that I’d miss and that was it. I’m getting a little emotional writing this now. All the graduation and class day practices came which was a blur. Some of my last moments with my class. Baccalaureate happened and Laura actually came to dinner with my family and I after. It seemed actually normal for a second. Then came class day. I walked with Timmy and I felt pretty in my dress. I got loads of pictures with my friends and I got to talk to Rachel quite a bit. I really do love her, she was my first friend and is still one of the kindest people I know. Jenn sent me a graduation gift around this time filled with Mexican candy, a lovely letter, and a beautiful necklace. I don’t know what I did to deserve her honestly she is so kind and positive and I’m so grateful to have met her.

Graduation day. I made my cap an hour before heading to the school, I might as well be rushing for the last school event. We loaded the buses and headed to the high school. While waiting in the line I got to see Mr. H. I got to hug him and tell him how much I missed him and he said the same and told me to keep in touch. I should’ve emailed him but I feel weird to do it now considering what I’ll get to in a bit. We walked past everyone and walked into the gym. I found my family while walking to my seat and tried not to get emotional. The ceremony was honestly a blur. I got my diploma and soon the hats were thrown. I turned right for my family and they were so proud. I gave lots of hugs took lots of pics and soon the night was over. That’s it. High school is done. It didn’t really hit me until a week or two later. This chapter is closed.

Then summer started a few weeks ago. Things were the weirdest they’ve been between me Timmy, Kate, and Laura. It was like we split in half, we just weren’t talking and they’d ignore us. Me and timmy didn’t and still don’t know why. Eventually we hung out but it was still just super fucking weird. We hung out 3 times this summer, it’s just not what I pictured it to be.

Speaking of that. College. So no surprise my anxiety got the best of me. Sort of. I’ve just been so overwhelmed with the thought of leaving from the money situation, me having no life skills, being away from my family, having a stranger for a roommate, having a public bathroom, not being able to make my schedule- I just blew up a week ago today. I cried by myself, hyperventilating and just full on panic attack on the guest bed. I couldn’t do it. The next day I broke down in front of my mom. She got of the phone about financial aid and I just crumbled I was a sobbing mess on the kitchen table and just let it all out for once and I told her what I was feeling. This morning it was brought up again. Tomorrow I was supposed to go for my orientation day but I just broke down again when my mom brought it up and then she broke down. I felt guilty honestly. I don’t want to disappoint my parents but I want to lead my life the way I want it to go. My dad came in and I just broke down a slobbering mess again and told them everything. He took it well and agreed that I shouldn’t rush into everything. I don’t know why I let things bottle up. I don’t know why I expect him to take everything badly when he’s so understanding and so is my mom. I love them so much I’m crying. They always support me and I’m so grateful for them I love them so much I love them so much I love them so much I love them so much I love them so much. I don’t know what I’d do without my parents they’re my rock. I’m crying in the bathroom right now it’s 2:56am and I’m trying so hard to see to type.

Okay I’m trying to calm down. This is so raw. I’ve been so overwhelmed with emotions and this is the first time I’m really just letting myself express them and just cry?? Like not over a stupid tv show but actually cry about things happening in my life and letting my parents see and help me through my problems. I think this is good. I’m confused about my life right now and what decisions to make but I think my soul is trying to guide me in the right direction and I’m trying to be more free and trust in my gut and stand up for what I want to do. Honestly, at this point I don’t want to go to college at all. I’m in a mindset that I’ve never been in before where I just want to live a free-spirited, happy, lowkey, spiritual life. I don’t want money, or status, or a huge job or house or any of the material stuff that used to cloud my brain. I just want peace in my lifetime. I want to fill my soul with spiritual happiness. However I can’t just abandon my parents hopes completely. They’re already so fucking understanding of how I feel about letting me take off a year and figure things out. I guess I’ll at least give college a chance but I just want to go to community college or something. I don’t want a fancy life or wealth or whatever. I know they want what they think is best for me which is college and a good paying job and a husband and a white picket fence but that’s just not me. I know they only want the best I do. And I know they’re gonna think they’re failures if I turn out otherwise because my mom already blames herself and it is tearing me up inside that she thinks that but it’s not anything to be ashamed of for me to want something different than the herd of society and I just want them to see that. I want a simple life where I can just make enough to get by and be happy and comfortable with what I’m doing and travel the world and who knows if I’ll get a house or kids or even a spouse. I don’t know what the future holds for me. But I just want them to be happy for me and accept my decisions and lifestyle and not think that they’ve done a bad job as parents because of how I am. As much as I feel their support right now I feel pressured to be someone I don’t want to be at the same time.

I don’t know. I’ll probably continue that talk some other time when I father more thoughts but I feel overwhelmed again and my chest is tight and I just need to breathe. I’ll be okay. That’s enough of that.

Ok.

This is so fucking long lol but what do you expect for not writing for a year Carina? So to wrap things up: this year was insane. I probably missed a lot of stuff. I’m dealing with future plans right now. I really hope I can work things out with Laura, I talked to her a bit tonight and told her about what I just talked about so that’s progress I guess? I built a better relationship with my parents this year and it’s only growing stronger. I want to work on stuff with my brother too because I’ve been the worst sister to him and he doesn’t deserve that. I need to treat people in my life better and I’m working on that. I’m in a wild emotional state and I’m trying to calm down. I’m trying to get myself to read more so I can read spiritual books and educate myself. It’s just been so hard to read lately? I don’t know why. I want to surround myself with positivity from here on out. Quit bad habits. Be around positive people or at least positive voices. I just want to be happy for once. This can be my chance to turn myself around. I hope it works out.

#3:17am #mine #my zeniths #zenithjournal #zenith talks #journal #July 17 #July #2017 #senior #senior year #high school

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daveywankenobie · 7 years

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My last post was deep and reflective. It was an effort to deal with some very deep feelings, and it did.

I felt somehow purged after writing it – and the feedback both publicly and privately was both humbling and heartfelt. I can’t thank those who took the time to reach out enough. Your words (and sometimes tears) meant everything to me.

In a very buoyant frame of mind I’ve taken some time today to look through the photos that I FORCED myself to take and keep – regardless of how they made me feel at the time. Many of them I felt showed me in a poor light and I was intensely embarrassed when I looked at my own image.

However I don’t regret taking a single one because today I’ve been able to look back over the feelings and thoughts that I experienced on my journey and milestones so far and see the progression thats happened over the last year – starting on the 26th January 2016.

However from my blog’s perspective it really started on the 10th February when I began writing and shortly after tried to walk somewhere and use my exercise bike.

The walking distance I was capable of (which at the time tore both my calf muscles and the plantar tendon in the base of my right foot) was roughly the end of my street or just past the beer garden at a local pub (the Saxon Mill). On my bike I managed around 0.4 miles before I was in agony and couldn’t breathe.

However I’d stopped drinking and was beginning to think about improving my health. It took a while though as I’d decided that I needed to be certain that was a thing of the past before I tried to diet.

My brother took a sneaky photo following this in mid March – which (if you take into account the picture above my head) says much about our mutual tendency to take the mickey out of eachother, but even more about how far I’d fallen health wise. My face, arms and stomach are swollen and bloated – just like the rest of me.

However, quietly sitting on my wrist (although I didn’t know at the time) was my new best friend.

On the 14th April I finished an intensive four week recovery programme which used Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and mindfulness to help me explore my relationship with alcohol, food, and the recent death of my mother.

I’d promised myself that As soon as this was complete I’d start a diet plan of some kind – so I did. On the 16th of April I joined Slimming World.

This was a truly terrifying and horrible day – but also the start of something wonderful. I was 34st 8.5lbs when I stepped on the scales, and could hardly fit on the little red chairs in the school hall.

I cried myself to a standstill writing my blog later that evening.

Two weeks after starting I’d lost eight pounds. In many ways I was still a little in denial about the task at hand – but feeling more positive. In early May I tried to walk small distances again – and found that I couldn’t do even 1/3 of a lap of the park near to where I worked (Arrow Valley in Redditch) but persisted and also started trying to walk around St Nicholas Park in Warwick.

This started twin addictions – one for walking in the park, and the other related to a group of cygnets that I spotted. Ultimately only one of them survived – and that day (forgetting what a baby swan was called) I christened it ‘The Swanling‘ – but please don’t ask me which one is which!.

I’d also started collecting certificates and stickers. This too would become something of an addiction…

However I was initially struggling to understand the SW plan. I’d begun to eat things in the wrong quantities and had my first blip quite early on – which knocked my confidence. For the first (and last) time I stomped out of the group without staying for the talk. It was a big mistake.

I spent the week hating myself needlessly.

At this point I started realising that the Apple Watch on my arm might be more than just a toy – and began (hamfistedly) trying to track my walking progress. I still couldn’t walk far – but by the 3rd of June I was able to do a single lap of Arrow Valley or St Nicholas.

The crappy app I used gave continually unreliable stats – but I was (with a LOT of sitting) beginning to gradually improve.

Sometimes I found the whole process really demoralising though and at times was in near constant pain – tearing muscle after muscle as well as still suffering badly with plantar heel and tendon problems.

Slimming World however seemed to know just when I needed picking up, and around this time I quite unexpectedly got an award. On the 18th June I was voted my group’s man of the year – and also picked up my 2 stone award.

At this point I was still taking 5 pills a day for my type 2 diabetes – but for the first time on the 12th of July I had become fit enough to walk down the hill near my house to a diabetic retinopathy screening and back up again.

It was a massive milestone for me, but also an annoying reminder that chairs with arms were still my natural predator.

On the plus side all the extra activity meant the certificates kept rolling in during July and by the end of it I was 3.5 stone lighter. This was a much needed morale boost, because by then I’d also been made redundant…

However, despite no small degree of sadness I tried to see it as an opportunity and a new beginning rather than an end. The weather was good in August and I was loving my walking!

It was around this time that a chance photo with a friend who was exhibiting at the Leamington Art in the Park festival (she’s very talented) made me realise just how far I’d come. All of the extra notches that I’d had to make in my belt suddenly became really apparent when it slipped out of it’s loop.

At the time I realised I’d lost around 8 inches from my waist.

This REALLY spurred me on – and I began to test myself more and more.

In August I returned to Aberystwyth (my university town – and somewhere I love) and climbed constitution hill which was followed by a bath for the first time in around a decade. On the way home the next day I then walked around the medium difficulty trail at Nant Yr Arian’s forestry commission which was something I never thought I’d be able to manage.

Until I did.

I finally rounded off the month by conquering a fear that had been with me for ages. I caught the train to Birmingham and left my car behind. I had to make my way under my own steam – and there was no backup plan.

My trip was enjoyable, but also a mixed bag, and my shirt was embarrassingly soaked with sweat from the heat in the museum that I had wanted to visit. Although I’d done it I still felt like I stood out in a crowd and was very self conscious.

However I did do it – and a friend pointed out to me around this time that I had (in a week) walked the length of the English Channel. Filled with enthusiasm from this I rather whimsically set myself the goal of walking the slightly longer channel tunnel length (31.5 miles) the following week.

August also heralded more certificate successes and by the end of the month I’d lost over four and a half stone…

In September the idea of walking virtual geographical distances mushroomed a little when a lady at Slimming World casually suggested that I expand my horizons and track my progress across the globe on a larger scale.

I decided to run with this idea and plot my walking progress from the moment I joined SW – mapping it onto a virtual walk from Lands end to John o Groats (847 miles). I realised that (thanks to the friend on my wrist tracking everything that I’d done since buying it) that I was already a good way toward my goal and that I now walking around 134 miles a month!!!

I also tried to conquer my (still) nagging negative feelings about travelling to Birmingham under my own steam and not long after made a trip to the Electric cinema (something I’d wanted to do for many years but couldn’t) which was still a squeeze – even with their front row premium seats.

Thanks to around another stone being gone, September heralded a noticeable increase in mobility and I found myself exploring all over the place – often with four legged companions!

Unusually the English summer just kept on going in 2016 and October was also a great month. I spent some time exploring Hay Wood locally, got re-acquainted with canal walking, took home my six and a half stone certificate – and also managed to make it around the whole of Cardiff Bay!

To put a cherry on October’s cake I also managed to get the group’s ‘Mr Sleek’ award (and a fetching tie) as well as a seven stone award – which happens to be THE WEIGHT OF A FRIDGE FREEZER!!!

November started to get a little chillier – and since I’m getting thin on top I embarked upon a new relationship to keep me warm in the cold winter evenings. Me and peaky are still very happy together and have yet to fall out!

Peaky kept my head warm as the leaves fell from the trees and winter drew nearer and (despite a pretty epic episode of shin splints in my left leg which is frikkin painful!!!) I managed to get some more bling, walk across the completely unmanaged and overgrown Ryton Woods (making my leg waaaaay worse like an idiot) play with a cute puppy in group and take a small fortune’s worth of huge clothes to charity.

By the time December arrived I was still motivated – but probably somewhat unsurprisingly given the time of year things slowed down – both mentally and physically. I became obsessed with the idea of reaching a ‘plateau’ and that somehow I would fail.

In reality (looking back) I was always moving forward – and just occasionally admiring the view.

Thanks to my Slimming World group and friends I stayed largely on plan throughout Christmas – even walking six miles to my brother’s house for and back for dinner on Xmas day (with an epic blister all taped up) just to ensure I wasn’t naughty.

Christmas had no bottles of Southern Comfort as was traditional for me for many years past and was powered only by the magic of weaponised caffeine.

And so we come to January.

It’s not over yet – but by the end of it I’m hoping that I’ll have my ten stone certificate.

So far this month has seen me hit my target of walking from Land’s end to John O Groats, have my first (unsuccessful) job interview in a decade and a half, meet more dogs, start to massively increase my cardio based exercise and walk the length of the Stratford Greenway.

To make me even happier, the swanling in St Nicholas park has survived, and is flourishing. It gets a bit more beautiful every day.

So – that’s my year, and you know what? For the very first time in nearly a decade I can look back on the last twelve months of my life and feel a sense of pride.

Furthermore I feel something else to. Hope.

I no longer take medication for my diabetes (which appears to be in full retreat) and I’m far less likely to die a really early death. I’m fitter than I think I’ve ever been at any time I can remember.

I love life at the moment internet – and I can’t wait to see what the next year has in store. I hope you’re here to find out with me!

Davey

Year one retrospective My last post was deep and reflective. It was an effort to deal with some very deep feelings, …

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