#i had a lot of unexpected health issues this summer so all my projects have slowed down. still working but slow.

[non-un-topo]

Prayer circle for me pls so I can get this bursary that I desperately need!! 🙏

[daveywankenobie]

As I write it’s dark and cold outside – but the days seem to be just a teensy bit longer all of a sudden.

It’s no illusion. The shortest one of the year (Sunday the 22nd of December) is now behind us – and from this point on the UK will only get lighter and the days longer.

I can almost feel the warmth of summer on my back.

That’s partially because (despite a rocky few weeks) I actually had a really active and on plan second half to the month.

It got worse before it started to get better though, because when I stepped on the scales at home on the 15th of this month (after some hefty emotional eating) they greeted me with a somewhat sobering 17st 9.5lbs.

I knew what was going on.

I’ve been quiet for a reason.

As well as encountering some unexpected health worries (which seem for the time being to be OK) the whole issue of not finding work has been eating away at my self confidence, and I’ve found it very hard indeed to not hibernate or eat away the upset it’s been causing.

That’s not to say that I’m not taking positive steps mind you. I’ve been working through a couple of self help books and looking at understanding what I really want rather than what I feel I have no choice about and should apply for.

It’s not easy though when you’v been turned down four times in a row for jobs that you know would be a walk in the park – but I guess if nothing else it’s character forming, and what will be will be.

It’s also Christmas, nobody is hiring and Brexit looms.

Even the job sites that were previously spamming me with unhelpful adverts have dried up over the last three to four weeks, and my inbox is mercifully devoid of mail reminding me that I’m not proving to be particularly successful in this area.

However – back to the scales.

Free from the self imposed guilt of being over target as man of the year I have now instituted a new regime.

I have up until recently focusing on my new project – which is feeling guilty about an out of target ex-man of the year.

The former guilt was because I should be a positive example of a man with a title and the latter because I don’t want to be seen to have ‘let myself go’ after everyone believed in me and looked to me for inspiration.

Sigh.

One day maybe I’ll stop doing this to myself…

However I know I’m not alone in such quagmires of spiralling thoughts – and it seems that as much as I’ve been amazed by the capability of fellow slimmers to change their shapes and life outcomes I’ve also been encouraged that they too struggle like heck at some time or another when it comes to maintenance.

Practically everyone of them I know (or just follow on social media) has posted some epic gains followed by a correspondingly epic loss – and almost everyone that’s achieved a measure of success is now differnent to the weight they were when they held aloft their local or national awards.

I’m not alone – so why feel any shame?

Thankfully at the moment I’m not.

Over the last two weeks I’ve managed to lose an entire stone (even though it doesn’t look like that in my book) and it’s been through sheer hard work and effort.

Dropping weight over Christmas has been a challenge though – and I’m not going to lie – this could have gone either way. During the last week I ate Stollen, Gingerbread, Cheese, Christmas cake, biscuits, an entire layer of chocolates from a box of Milk tray and a rather hefty roast and three mincemeat wraps on Christmas day.

I’ll be honest – had I been on my own I might not have celebrated this way – but this has been my very first traditional Christmas as ‘family’ (or probably more accurately a ‘couple’) and as such I really wanted to enjoy the experience as everyone else does.

With great food and awful jumpers.

The fact is though that whilst I enjoyed myself as much as I felt I could I also limited damage elsewhere as much as humanly possible (although it may not sound like it) as well as doing a rather epic amount of exercise.

Although I consumed a lot of naughty food on the 25th I also went for a TEN MILE WALK through the wilds of Warwickshire to make up for it.

If I add my daily active (anything I burn with exercise) and standard (2500kcal for an adult male) calorie burn together then I’ve been averaging around 4500 per day for the last two weeks, which is the main reason I lost weight after packing away cheese and cake.

A lot of this was due to swimming – which once again has proven to be my absolute saviour. This has been particularly gratifying when I look back on it because despite my reluctance to don my trunks and look like a human muffin in the mornings ( I hadn’t been for almost two whole weeks) I did it anyway.

It’s not been the only exercise I’ve engaged in though – and I’ve relied on an old friend to fill the gaps for me when the pool has been closed. My walking distance has remained consistently higher and at averaged over 10 miles a day for two weeks as well – despite driving to Sussex and back on Monday.

So – life is (for the moment at least) on an even dietary keel again.

Both myself and my better half are really in the zone at the moment – and she has been swimming alongside me every day as well.

It’s fair to say that her determination to improve both her swimming technique and stamina have been something of an inspiration to me – and on Sunday I found myself watching her swimming back and forth in the pool well after I’d stopped.

Consequently her loss over the xmas week was greater than mine (2.5lbs!!!) and she really deserved it.

I’ve been positively swelling with pride as I’ve watched her get better and better at swimming through sheer determination and grit – and there’s no small amount of warm fuzzy feelings inside me at the moment.

Christmas this year has been special in a way that no other Christmas has because although I’ve had long term partners before not a single one has ever resulted in a Christmas together prior to this point.

There’s always been a family reason or a break up to get in the way of that before and consequently words absolutely fail me when I try to encapsulate how much December 2019 has meant to me.

It’s not been about materialism or nerdy presents (of which there have actually been quite a few thanks to a new and very generous extended family) – but togetherness.

This manifested itself recently when we both headed out to see a new film – and both of us chose appropriate attire for the occasion.

It’s hard to overstate how much love a geeky guy can feel when he’s accompanied on a school night to a one minute past midnight screening of Star Wars by an adult woman not only voluntarily (and dare I say enthusiastically) wearing a Star Wars teeshirt but also a crochet’d Yoda ears beanie.

I’m sure that everyone out there is already throwing up in their mouth a little bit – but I’m sorry – I have absolutely zero shame on this score because we totally owned it in The Rise of Skywalker.

My Christmas has been everything that I’ve always wanted it to be but never dared to hope it ever would be.

For the longest time it looked like the picture below, and because of my habitual behaviour on this score I never once managed to get to the end of ET The Extra Terrestrial on TV.

In contrast this year the strongest drink I’ve indulged in is a caramel flavoured coffee, and I’ve not been alone and sad for a single moment.

I’ve shared the walks, talks and occasion with someone I care deeply about. Together we’ve continuously supported one another whenever we’ve hit bumps in the road and continue to do so.

Sigh. Over the last few days I’ve been reflecting on my happiness – but also on my past.

That bottle of Southern Comfort seems a long long way away now and it’s been a long time since this was my reality.

Other people may still be in a darker place though and as I type I’m conscious of this.

At this time of year there are many people on the cusp of giving up hope that life will ever hold anything for them but loneliness or despair. They suffer in silence and often succumb to darker voices that hide inside.

As well as hearing of other slimmers that have struggled recently I’ve also read about those that have been moved to other, maybe more destructive forms of self harm in the past and because of this as I write I’m left feeling sober in more ways than one.

There was a time that I felt similarly and when I sat alone at home (not just around Christmas time) there were many many moments when I no longer wanted to be around.

Had I been ‘braver’ (stupider?) I may have crossed a line that would have seriously curtailed my time on earth.

I contemplated this more than once – and now (on the wrong side of my forties) I have so much to be grateful for.

I’m left at times feeling as if I have no right to be as happy as I am – like I’ve stolen the joy that must belong to someone else, because there are moments that it all still feels very alien.

Life though is all about context – and finding this to gain perspective is something we all struggle to do.

There are many of us who (despite there often being much evidence to the contrary) choose to label ourselves as ‘lonely’, ‘overweight’, ‘failure’, ‘alcoholic’, ‘addict’, ‘loser’, ‘stupid’, ‘weird’, or consider ourselves simply ‘unlovable’.

With the new year looming, and many people who read my blog coming from similar places to the one I did (physically and emotionally) all I can say is that there is hope.

If you’ve followed (or are just beginning to follow) my journey then I want you to see and feel what I feel and see. Hopefully if you’ve travelled with me through both the light and the dark moments in the last four years then I’ll have left you with a sense of positivity and optimism.

Maybe your life isn’t going the way that you wanted it to – but in this blog is all the evidence that you need that it can surprise you.

With effort and determination you can change things – and good vibrations sent out into the world inevitably come back when you least expect them to but most need them.

Life is a collection of moments where you can fail more often than not – where it’s easy to think there’s no point – or convince yourself that people don’t need you around, when in fact they really really do.

They gain as much from having you in their lives as you do from having them in yours.

Although I’m not into sport particularly I can’t help thinking of a quote from Wayne Gretsky – the Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach of their National team.

He’s probably said a lot of forgettable things – but one that for some reason really struck me was this one.

‘You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.’

It’s true.

If you don’t try to be better then it won’t happen by magic.

So – 2020 is fast approaching.

What do you want it to be?

Personally I’d like it to contain everything you desire and need and wholeheartedly believe that it can do if you want it enough.

So – what are you waiting for?

Get up, put your coat on and make it happen.

Davey

100 percent of the shots As I write it's dark and cold outside - but the days seem to be just a…

[boyswanna-be-her]

it's weird because i used to have this life where i didn't mind telling everyone everything about what was happening with me. but as life got more complicated and i got older, there started to be pieces of me that weren't for public consumption--either because they were too precious or too awful. i think as i decided to put those parts of my life away for myself, i forgot that there's this vast middle ground that i used to talk about here but no longer touch on.

so here's my life update, i guess, with big canyons of details redacted so that i can give you some sort of narrative that might make sense.

i got fired from my job editing newspapers in march of 2016. i published my first gay romance novel a month later. and then another one the next month. and another one the month after that.

in the fall, i met some people who also write gay romance, and i started to actually make friends within my own community. i worked on a bunch of projects--not just my romance novels--and developed a lof of new skills.

in the winter, i actually got to go meet a bunch of those writer people. i took a trip to north carolina/virginia, connected with new friends and someone who i largely consider a new best friend in a circle of best and only friends. i got some more tattoos. i drove places that i'd never been to before and saw things i hadn't seen.

i've reconnected with my parents in unexpected ways. we haven't gotten along since i was 15, and now i find them respecting my boundaries, respecting who i am, respecting what i do with my life. it's incredible not to have to hide things from them. i love having parents again.

jonathan got incredibly sick last year (i’m not going into it in more depth than that here so save yourself the time of asking), and that continues to plague us somewhat. it's just a fact of life. he finally got a concrete diagnosis this month that essentially acknowledges that this is something that will never go away. it sucks and things were very, very rocky before that. but the bad times have only cemented my understanding that there's no one on earth who understands and loves me like jonathan does. so i'm here for it, and i'm here to be a caretaker when i need to be.

the caretaker role has been very difficult for me to adjust to. i haven’t blogged about it or actually talked about it to... anyone. it’s really scary at 32 to acknowledge like... yes, i’m going to be in charge of someone’s care for the rest of my life. i've started going to therapy specifically to address this, and to address my trauma surrounding him getting SO sick last year. it's not helping yet and it's very, very tough.

we traveled in march to go to california to see my dear darlings kyle and rhonda get married. i can say without a doubt that this ended up being THE best trip of my entire life. we went to reno, tahoe, sacramento, yosemite, and monterey and i fell in love with that part of the country even more than i ever had before. my wanderlust is absolutely turgid. i decided to write a book set in the stanislaus forest.

the book business have been... strange this year. there's a project i won't talk about here. but i published a book in february that was my most successful so far. it launched me into designing covers, and also showed me how to connect with new audiences. it got a writeup on a usa today romance blog, which was kind of thrilling. most people read it as a disability story and liked it, some of them thought it was furry sizekink porn, and neither of those reads is even vaguely incorrect.

i also had an audiobook professionally produced. i'm too scared to listen to it all the way through. reviewers LOVE the production, but find the writing a little lacking. i'm kind of with them there.

i'm working on a book right now that feels really important. i keep asking jonathan to have faith in me, to have patience, because the book is taking forever. it's about 100,000 words right now and it's still got a lot more to go. i don't know what to say other than i'm in it deep with this one and it... yeah, feels important, like i said. it's something that was going to drive me crazy until i wrote it.

i have a few more of those on the horizon--books that are really talking to me. there are other projects--desining covers for other writers, more audiobooks, books that are marketable but maybe not as close to my heart.

in april, i went to this incredible convention in atlanta and got to meet the remaining new writers who i consider my best friends who i hadn't actually met in person yet. the experience was overwhelming. it's been a long time since i've been in a room with people who unequivocally understand and respect me, and it was a good feeling to have. we'll all see each other in october, along with one of my oldest friends who has joined my newest friendgroup and career path.

when it comes to my writer friends, i’m really up their butts and i don’t know what to do about it. oh well. i’m very invested in these people and it frightens me. it’s been a long time since i had a group of people i felt this close to. i keep waiting to fuck it up, like it happens with everyone whose butt i decide to crawl into.

jonathan and i are going to go to denver in october for a romance conference and then some vacation exploring. neither of us have been to CO, so we're losing it about how excited we are. we both want to travel more, but have agreed that we should probably only plan two big trips each year together. it's just so hard to travel at the same time because of the dog. if anyone wants food and a free place to say in florida in exchange for dogsitting for two weeks in october, hmu.

we're thinking the next two trips will be big bend and the pacific northwest so... yknow, hook it up, pnw crew.

in august/september, i'm hopefully headed to minnesota for the first time to join up with my writer people at what sounds like a disgustingly idyllic location on a lake. i'm so used to not looking forward to things that i'm trying not to look forward to it. i was supposed to visit two friends in DC in april and it fell through because of a health issue with jonathan and i was a little more devastated about it than i understood at first. so i get scared to plan stuff.

jonathan has his own business since last summer. we both filed taxes as business owners last year, so that felt pretty baller. jonathan does some projects like contracting/carpenter stuff, but mostly he's been able to focus on designing furniture. he's doing these incredible chairs right now that just melt my face off. he takes basic mid-century modern designs and then adds and subtracts until it's the same chair with a different feel. he feels self-conscious saying that it's his own design, but that'd be like saying that fanfiction isn't writing. it's definitely fucking writing, and his designs are definitely his.

overall, we've been incredibly lucky that we get to work for ourselves. i'm constantly thankful for that. i can't even explain how much working for myself has changed the fabric of my life. it is simply so much healthier and better, even with the struggles it presents.

my health, other than getting fucking pneumonia last month, has been really good. it's incredible how much changes when you don't hate every minute of your job every day. don't get me wrong--i'm still a depressed, anxious mess. but at least i have the energy now to cope with that sometimes. i don’t have to chain smoke and drink my way through the days because i DREAD waking up every morning. i think soon i’ll actually have recovered enough from all that bullshit that i won’t have a panic attack every time someone raises their voice and will be able to concentrate on reading text for pleasure rather than just skimming or editing.

otto the cat is still missed fondly. i named the main character in my california book after him. hector the dog is unimpressed with his internet success story (160k+ notes on tumblr). he started walking with a limp, so jonathan built him a ramp. poor old buddy. he's doing well with the ramp though! and the limp is getting better.

anyway, i think that's all i can think of for a life update. consider yourself caught up. :)

[jam2289]

Explorations in Business - Part 5 of ?

Challenges. In life you choose challenges, or they will be chosen for you. I may have made some significant strategic errors in life recently.

I had a writing group scheduled for today. It was what I was looking forward to most. It was canceled. If I really pursue leading writing groups for homeschoolers as an avenue of revenue I wonder how often that would happen? I don't really feel like taking the initiative to drive the process forward at the moment, although I've had interest from at least three other mothers.

The illustrator that I'm writing the comic book with is having health issues. I don't know what's happening with that project. I have to have the initiative for this project, and I'm not feeling it right now.

I only have two students to teach this morning. Which is not enough to make enough money for me to live. I also had to cancel classes with the very first student I ever had, from a few years ago, Parker. Everything was great. I had Parker above grade level in math, he was better at math in English than he was in Chinese. I had him at grade level in reading English even if he was going to school in the United States. We were working on writing and making good progress. Then, his mother decided that she didn't like the way that I co-select learning material with students, which Parker and I had been doing for over 2 years together. That was a bummer.

I'm way behind on editing stories for the "Horror Without Borders" project with my friend Oleg in Russia. That needs to get done. We have a publishing date at the end of September.

I'm giving four speeches at a Harry Potter festival in less than a month. I have all four basic ideas down, and most of the details for one. That still leaves three. One will involve another person, so that adds some complexity. I'm borrowing items for one demonstration from two different people. Hopefully that works out.

And last, but the opposite of least, I've decided to resist some of the immoral and illegal activities that township politicians are doing in my area. So, over the last week I've taken the time and effort, and some money, that I would have put towards the business and put it into this grassroots political movement. I've gotten some criticism, and I will get a lot more. But, some of the criticism has come from unexpected places and that threw me for a loop yesterday. My stress levels are about as high as they've ever been, including when I was talking to a guy while we were stuck on a mountain cliff and seriously discussing if that was a stupid place to die, and when I was told I was going to die in Africa.

All of this brings us to the business. It's not getting an important little thing called attention. That's partially because my first little foray into trying to find a product/market fit fell flat and I was a little confused about what to do next. It's also partially because I know that I'm going to get criticism moving forward. I want to help people with chronic pain through meditation without all of the criticism. Just like I want to write without the criticism. That whole idea is impossible. The fear of rejection, ridicule, and criticism is what I think stops most people in most things in life. So... forward, always forward.

Plus, I really want to write some fiction stuff. Art refreshes the soul. Really, my ideal life would primarily involve reading and writing stories.

Plus, I think some of the philosophy projects I'm pursuing are important and could be extremely beneficial to people.

Plus, I want to do some adventures this year, like testing out motorcycle riding, flying in a plane, and riding a horse, and seeing if my spinal deformities will hinder me in these activities. And, I would like to go to several events, and travel to visit the Ark and the Parthenon in the Appalachian area this summer.

Plus, health and romance have to fall in there somewhere.

How can I possibly manage all of these priorities? That's what I need to work out. Now, if you bite off more than you can chew you have exactly one option, spit something out. I don't want to drop any of these things, so... can I chew them? Lol, maybe I carried that metaphor too far. I need to line things up on an importance/urgency scale.

Alright, I can't hold that many things in my mind at once. That's a problem. So, what are the most important things over the long term?

Business, art, philosophy, health.

What are the most important things in the short term?

Politics, "Horror Without Borders", Harry Potter, business, health.

I do not like the way those two groups line up. And I do not like the fact that things like the writing group, comic book, and adventures are not on either list.

Jack Welch calls making tough decisions having "edge." Maybe I just don't have it.

Alright, let's make some tentative plans and see if they seem like they would work.

Let the comic book sit until there is further word on the health issues and he's able to create some artwork.

Let the homeschool parents drive whether or not the creative writing groups will move forward or expand. I would love it, but I'm not going to push it.

I can do very little about my students and teaching. So, let that ride.

Edit, yes, I have to edit. They are short stories. Can I edit at least one story per day until I catch up? And some days I'll do a number of them. Or, is there a day where I can do a bunch of editing? I'll come back to this.

I'll write on the Harry Potter speeches tomorrow. I need to keep that ball rolling because that is only a few weeks away.

Politics. Ah, politics. The bane of my existence at the moment. What shall I do with you? I'm going to press forward. Full court press. Release several articles over the next couple of weeks. Write the appeal for resignation, write the resolution of support, make a speech, write the recall proposal, do it all. F' it. Don't tread on me.

Keep doing art as a hobby essentially, when and where it feels right.

Hold off on the philosophy, because that's intellectually intense.

Try to get the motorcycle riding experiment done, and not worry about the other adventures this week.

Maintain health, maintain health, maintain health. Sleep long, eat well. Sleep long, eat well.

Romance just gets forgotten. Classic.

And... the business. Oh, first I said I would come back to editing. Okay, one story a day at a minimum.

Now, the business. I don't know. Basically, I need to make the website into a sales page and then start reaching out to groups. That's what I need to do. That's all I need to do. If I can get a customer and satisfy them, I have a business. So, that's what I need to focus on there. And that's it.

That plan doesn't explicitly include hanging out with various people for fun and such. That also helps me to relieve some stress. That will probably just happen at points, hopefully.

To be honest, I don't feel good about the plan I just made. That's the point of this series. To honestly and transparently reveal the process of trying to go from nothing to something.

Dr. Dre was the first hip-hop billionaire. There's a great documentary on his journey called "The Defiant Ones". In there he talks about how he's made all of his decisions based purely on feeling. It's hard to move forward when the feeling is wrong. But, alas, I don't know what else to do.

I'm hoping that the FounderCo meeting tonight will help in some way.

________________________________________________

You can find more of what I'm doing at http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com

[patheticphallacy]

It was a busy bee month for me!

While I took a semi-break from blogging- which means I limited myself to only 1 or 2 posts a week, instead of my usual 3 or 4- I took that time to plan out future blog posts (June, specifically) and read a lot.

#PanelAThon happened, which was the absolute best time. I smashed my TBR, in my opinion. Comic-heavy read-a-thons seem to suit me best, so I know how to sort my TBR for future read-a-thons now!

I also started up a brand new Bookstagram which I’m very proud of, even if my sister is helping me with most of the pictures due to her better camera quality. It’s like a project for us both, really: I provide the books and the good cat content, and she helps me position the shots and take pretty pictures!

Towards the end of the month I went to a gig that my best friend’s boyfriend was doing with his band, which was a great time. I also moved my things out of my Uni house! Next year, I’m living in a flat by myself, which is very expensive but will hopefully be worth it.

In June, I’ll be predominantly reading LGBT+ books, which I talked about more in my Pride Month TBR post! I can’t guarantee I’ll finish everything, though, as my twentieth birthday is on the 18th June and I’ll be spending the last two weeks of the month basically with only friends and family for the entire time, which I’m really looking forward to.

Also, last off: all my posts this month are twenty themed. So it’s all lists of twenty things, catered around my birthday and also my general life. I really hope you’ll check the posts out as they come out, I spent a lot of time making the lists and formatting everything for maximum good content.

READING WRAP UP

      This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers– this was a very human look at the way teenagers would cope in the apocalypse, extremely dark and very upsetting, from the point of view of a suicidal girl. It did let me down in that I wasn’t fully immersed in the story, but it definitely picked up towards the end.

NENENE by Shizuko Totono– while I really wanted to love this, the massive age gap between the two characters really ruined it for me. It tries to make up for the age gap by saying the characters will wait till the main girl is 20, but that honestly makes me quite sick thinking that the only reason they haven’t done anything is because the rest of society are telling them it’s nasty, not because they have any understanding of the massive imbalance of power in that relationship.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin– I’ll be honest, I read this because of BTS’s Spring Day music video, but I’m glad I did. It’s a very dark look into a utopian-esque society that only thrives based on the suffering of a child. I really love the distant narrative voice in this piece. 

It Only Happens In the Movies by Holly Bourne– this is one of the most disappointing reads of all time for me. I did a long review of this on my Goodreads breaking down issues I had with the characters and the narrative that really ruined the whole experience. I know I don’t drop star ratings anymore, but this was a definite 1 star. 

      The Case For Jamie by Brittany Cavallaro– This had probably the weakest beginning in the series, with it not picking up until the 160 or so page mark as it relied a lot on info-dumping about Charlotte’s life and didn’t really have much happen. However, the last 150 made up for the weak start, and I really ended up enjoying this and I cannot wait for the final book!

The Unbreakable Code by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman– I really didn’t enjoy this and I am sad. I’m pretty sure it’s a ‘me’ thing, for the narrative, but I will say that there’s a lot of telling instead of showing, which really does lessen my enjoyment as we don’t see characters have any major realisations bar a few. 

By Night #7-#10 by John Allison– this series has flown by! There’s only two issues left now, and I’ll be very sad to see it go, but I definitely think it’s coming to its end.

Labyrinth Coronation #12 by Simon Spurrier– I AM DISTRAUGHT that this series has ended. So so upset. I’m not completely content with this conclusion because a character does something that seems very OOC for them, after their development throughout the series, but I don’t really know how I could have been 100% satisfied with a beloved series coming to a close. 

      Why Photographers Commit Suicide by Mary McCray– this is a poetry collection I’ve had for literal years, a lot based on space and Mars. I was disappointed with this one and didn’t really connect with it overall or gleam anything valuable from it, although there were a few decent poems in there.

Small Spaces by Katherine Arden– I love this! Very atmospheric and creepy middle grade horror about some kids, terrifying scarecrows, and a long history of mysterious deaths and disappearances. 

Nuclear Winter Volume 1 by Caroline Breault– Nuclear Winter is a fun story about a Montreal full of mutants that is in its ninth Winter after a power plant exploded. I love Flavie, the main character, and the art style is perfect for a slice-of-life adventure full of mutants, partying and bagels!

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell– God, I’m still scared of this book. It’s basically like the terror of the weeping angels, combined with commentary on female hysteria, and is one of the most Gothic settings I’ve ever read. It’s honestly a masterpiece.  

    Haikyuu!! Volumes 1-  by Haruichi Furudate– This is a GOD TIER sports manga, and probably my favourite, volleyball is just great. I absolutely adore these characters and their dynamics, the competitions, the illustrations– it’s all amazing. I have watched the first season of the anime, which means I was already familiar with most of these volumes, but I honestly do prefer the manga over the anime and highly recommend it.

The Walking Dead Volume 2 by Robert Kirkman– OK writing although it’s nothing special, but the art style change was very evident and I highly dislike it. Has a terrible case  of ‘tiny font’ that really ruins any reading experience for my short sighted ass, so I don’t know if I’ll carry on. I just don’t think I carry about the characters enough.

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James– this completely blindsided me. It goes from a sci-fi romance to a sci-fi horror survival story, and I think it’s great. Definitely my favourite Lauren James, she truly is the queen of UKYA sci-fi stories. Apparently her next one is a soft-apocalypse novel, which, YES. 

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson– really disliked this. I think I’ve grown out of the picture perfect beautiful YA characters. Clark never leaves the house and never exercises but apparently has perfect abs and the most chiselled of jaws. It’s just unrealistic, fellas! It doesn’t appeal to me at all. Also suffers from a case of ‘long-book-itis’ and is at least 200 pages of unneeded scenes too long, and is very predictable. 

    Lore Olympus by Rachel Smithe– this is a very pretty adaptation of the abduction of Persephone myth. The art gets better the further you get in, and I really do love the personalities of these Gods and other miscellaneous mythological creatures personified (EXCEPT FOR APOLLO APOLLO SUCKS). Content warning for rape and victim blaming, as well as a character being roofied (unrelated to the rape, though). 

Uzumaki by Junji Ito– very strong first two thirds, but a very dissatisfying conclusion. However it is suitably creepy and has stunning art, and Kirie and Shuichi have a great relationship that I loved seeing develop throughout the story. 

Welcome To Wanderland #1-3 by Jackie Ball– such a lovely series! It’s about fantasy realms and theme parks, magic and rebel princesses, and is very great. Unfortunately #4 won’t be out for a while as the illustrator had to leave for health reasons, but I’m hoping the new illustrator will be able to give this series a good end when it eventually comes out!

Go For It, Nakamura! by Syundei– a very cute manga about gay sixteen year old Nakamura and his pursuit of Hirose, a boy in his class. While this doesn’t end with a romance, it’s still a soft read seeing these characters become friends, and I can only hope another volume will one day be released.

    Coady and the Creepies by Liz Prince– not one of my favourites, but it was enjoyable to read. This follows triplets on the road with their punk rock band collecting pins from all the biggest punk venues in the country, and also has ghosts. Probably my favourite part was commentary on punk rock being inclusive and how so many dudebros have lost sight that the movement was built going against a a discriminatory regime, not upholding it!

I Want To Eat Your Pancreas by Yoru Sumino– this manga literally knocked me TF out for absolutely no reason at all other than wanting to purposefully break my heart. The last 100 pages made this one of my favourite manga of all time just for how slyly it managed to make me care about these characters.

When I Arrived At the Castle by Emily Carroll– an erotic, Gothic graphic novel from a literal master of her craft. I love everything Carroll puts out, although I don’t think this ranks above Through the Woods. It’s very unnerving and has wonderful art, although I’m still just a tad confused by it. 

Nuclear Winter Volume 2 by Caroline Berault– I’m not putting this with volume 1 just because I didn’t like this one as much. It moved way too quickly and I wasn’t as invested in the storyline. However, I do enjoy seeing older-younger sister dynamics, and Flavie and her younger sister Elsie really reminded me of how I am with my younger sister. 

  Teen Dog by Jake Lawrence– an incredible, quirky coming-of-age comic with anthropomorphic animals, best friends, chess, prom, and a dope pug called Thug Pug! I really loved this, it’s one of my new favourite all-time reads. 

Honey So Sweet Volume 1 by Amu Megura– this was OK; not my favourite shoujo manga, and I’m not a big fan of this kind of art style, but it was fun to read and I like the softness of the main boy!

Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu by Junji Ito– SO TRUE TO LIVING WITH CATS. Cannot express how much I could relate to this, I giggled so much. Ito and his wife do have a little bit at the back talking about Yon’s passing, however, so prepare yourself for that, I ended up crying.

Fullmetal Alchemist Volume 9 by Hiromu Arakawa– I don’t want to talk about it. I’m heartbroken this series is over. I loved this ending, but I’m heartbroken. I cried so many tears of joy, especially at the ending it gives Hohenheim. 

  Smooth Criminals Volume 1 by Kiwi Smith– another OK read! It wasn’t really stand out in comparison to a lot of the other comics I picked up this month, but it’s a quick read, and it has sapphic spies and hackers, if that’s your jam!

Turf Wars Volume 2 and 3 by Michael Dante DiMartino– Finally picked these two volumes up after procrastinating for months! It’s a really cheesy and much deserved conclusion to this graphic novel series, and I’m very much looking forward to the next series coming out. I’m keeping my hopes out for Wu to return, I miss him.

Bungo Stray Dogs Volume 1 by Kafka Asagiri– Very funny detective agency manga where all the characters are inspired by famous literary authors, each possessing powers that aids them investigations. It quickly gets into the main arc and villains. My main issue is that it has that creepy manga trope of having that sibling relationship that’s a bit too close, just for laughs, and it’s something I absolutely despise, so it kind of ruined how much I was loving it for an issue.

My Hero Academia Volume 16 by Kohei Horikoshi– it’s the start of the Overhaul arc, properly! Some decent character development in here, especially for Tamaki, Kirishima and Fatgum, who are the ultimate team, to be honest. 

The Avant-Guards #1 to #5 by Carly Usdin– Carly Usdin genuinely writes some of the best diverse comic series currently. I love this as a sports comic, although I wish there were more issues to develop the characters and their relationships gradually as it does come across as quite rushed at points!

No.6 Volume 1 and 2 by Atsuko Asano– I really love the anime, so I figured it was about time to read the manga! It’s really fast moving, with great characters and a wonderful breakdown of the Utopia/Dystopia dynamic, and I really enjoy it. Shion is genuinely one of the best characters in manga in my opinion.

Faithless #1 by Brian Azzarello– A very dark new series about a woman who experiments in magic and accidentally summons something very dark. It’s strange and unsettling, and I really loved this first issue!

Slam Volume 1 by Pamela Ribon– This wasn’t that great, to be honest. It’s told in a very third person voice that stopped me from ever connecting with the characters, and although I love the roller derby parts and enjoyed the art, it’s not really a standout comic.

And finally, I read the Save Me Webtoon! Pardon my French, but this was so fucking good, and it’s really reminding me why I love both friendship-focused stories and time loop narratives. I think the art is great and I love the story, but I would not recommend this if you’re unfamiliar with the BTS cinematic universe and basic theories. Not all theories- I only knew basics so I could form an opinion on timelines, conclusions, etc.- but just the basics on the time loop theory. I talk more about all this later on in this post, though!

And my June TBR Jar pick is…. HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL by Carrie Brownstein!

ESSAYS/ARTICLES

I read this article analysing BTS’s Spring Day, one of my favourite music videos of all time, and it really hit me hard. BTS in general have stunning music videos, so I highly recommend them for anyone who wants interesting visuals and/or a brand new narrative to invest themselves in with the BTS ‘cinematic’ universe.

TV SHOWS/MOVIES/VIDEOS

BTS’s Spring Day music video. Are any of you surprised?

THIS AMAZING CYPHER PT.3 ANIMATION. There are so many little easter eggs! Fans are amazing.

Another BTS video: their Go Go dance practice video is amazing. They all dress up as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Literally my whole month was spent watching BTS videos. Their whole cinematic universe with their music videos? INCREDIBLE. It starts with the uncut version of I Need U (content warnings for most of the videos discussing suicide, abuse and has a lot of violence), and I realised later on once I’d watched them that the Japanese versions of some of the songs are part of the series! You can find playlists and lists online to help you navigate which videos to watch first. I look at Spring Day as being the conclusion to the cinematic universe with Jin finally saving them all by helping them save themselves, as dramatic as it all sounds.

MUSIC I’VE ENJOYED

I basically spent all month listening to BTS. Particular favourites include Silver Spoon/Baepsae, Answer: Love Myself, Mikrokosmos, Cypher Pt.4, and GoGo!

Nightmare by Halsey is top notch, I got really into Halsey’s hopeless fountain kingdom again this month literally a day before Nightmare came out, so I recommend her! Obviously Boy With Luv is great too, I decided to get into BTS just because the Boy With Luv MV was so great and now look at me!

OTHER POSTS I’VE DONE 

Graphic Recommendations: #PANELATHON

TTT: Characters That Remind Me of Myself

TBR Alphabet Tag

MM: Playlist Book Tag #2

TTT: Books That Should Be TV Shows

Panelathon TBR

TTT: Favourite Books Released in the Last 10 Years

June 20th Announcement

May Wrap Up & June TBR Jar Pick It was a busy bee month for me! While I took a semi-break from blogging- which means I limited myself to only 1 or 2 posts a week, instead of my usual 3 or 4- I took that time to plan out 

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Martenizing the Unified District

Cindy Marten's fortune: leading San Diego Unified forward while suffering personal setbacks

Fortune #1,082: “You will have good luck in your personal affairs.” Years ago, Cindy Marten started finding fortunes — not the cookies, just the tossed-aside slips of paper — in random locations: under her seat at a Mexican restaurant, inside a supermarket, outside a gas station.

Marten, the San Diego Unified School District’s superintendent, catalogs these messages. Some are encouraging.

Others seem to be mocking her. That “good luck” fortune? She found it soon after losing control of a scooter on a city sidewalk. This May 12 accident sent her to the emergency room with a broken right arm, cuts and bruises.

Three days later, she was released from the hospital. “She comes out on a Tuesday at 10 a.m.,” said Mel Katz, a friend. “She’s had surgery, there’s a metal plate in her arm, a gash in her head — and she goes to her 3:30 p.m. board meeting.”

She stayed to the end of the six-hour session. “People think she is going to pass out,” Katz said.

But Marten, who next week marks her fifth anniversary as superintendent, was determined to honor her personal credo: “Work Hard, Be Kind, Dream Big! No Excuses.”

“You be there for joy and for pain,” she said. “You show up for it.”

In this position, showing up for five years is a major accomplishment. To lead California’s second-largest public school district, a mammoth enterprise of 181 schools and about 106,000 students, is to defy fate. This is a meat grinder of a job, a destroyer of reputations, a graveyard of bold plans and high hopes.

In the 10 years before Marten’s hiring, the district was led by four permanent and three interim superintendents. The position seemed so unworkable, the board of trustees debated scrapping it in favor of some less-punishing arrangement.

But roughly 24 hours after another short-term superintendent resigned, the board offered the job to an elementary school principal with decades of classroom experience: Marten.

Fans say this experiment is now showing signs of success. In April, the district topped the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often called “the nation’s report card.”

“San Diego Unified School District blew the socks off this cycle of the Nation’s Report Card, which measures progress on reading and math at grades four and eight,” said Mike Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, representing 69 of the country’s largest urban public school districts.

“No other city in the country saw gains in both grades in reading and math like San Diego.”

Graduation rates have risen to 91 percent. Marten seems to have won over her five-member board and many of the district’s 12,900 employees.

“The good thing is she’s been a teacher,” said Myriam Pedersen, who retired this month after 30 years of teaching in the district. “It makes a huge difference when they talk about, ‘here’s our goals, here’s what we will do,’ if they’ve been a teacher.”

Still, budget cuts and layoffs are perennial issues. An achievement gap between students of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, while narrowing, persists. There are still under-performing schools.

While juggling these professional challenges, Marten has been hit with personal crises. In January Marten’s mother, Fern Siegel, the former president of Jewish Family Service of San Diego, suffered a heart attack. Visibly scarred from her scooter mishap, Marten bears invisible scars from the deaths of her father in 2014 and her husband in 2016.

“None of it affects her job,” said Katz, who is on the board of one of the district’s charter schools, the C3 Academy. “She has such a positive attitude and really, really believes that we are doing great things for the city.

“We are just starting to see what Cindy can accomplish in San Diego.”

Fortune #592: “You will find good fortune in love.” Marten is 51, two years younger than her brother, Charley Cohen — “the love of my life,” she calls him. As a young girl, Cindy rapidly surpassed her older sibling in most academic subjects, as he is developmentally disabled.

“I’m certain I became a teacher because of my brother, Charley,” she said. “I wanted to teach him.”

The Cohens moved from Chicago to San Diego when Cindy was 11, so Charley could enroll in California’s special education program. The family prized education — the father, Donald Cohen, was a lawyer and certified public accountant who spoke several languages; the mother, a CPA and community activist, was president of a synagogue (Temple Emanu-El in San Carlos) and led a campaign to build a residence for the mentally ill (Chesed Home: Hope Village in Escondido).

Cynthia Minette Cohen, the couple’s middle child, is the only one who was adopted and the only one without a serious disability. Her younger sister, Laura, was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic as a young woman.

Cindy attended local public schools — Hardy Elementary, Horace Mann Middle — before enrolling in La Jolla Country Day. For her senior project, she interned at the Aseltine School, then a special education academy where Charley had studied.

She idolized Aseltine’s energetic principal, Marian Grant. Years later as a young teacher, Cindy Cohen took Grant to lunch.

“What’s your secret?” the fledgling educator asked her mentor. “How do you avoid burning out?”

“You’ll never burn out,” Grant predicted, “because you are curious.”

Armed with a teaching degree from the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, Cohen began her career at Beth Israel Day School in 1991. That same year, she married her longtime boyfriend, a dashing hotel manager from Mexico City, Sergio Marten.

After a stint in the Poway district as a teacher and literacy specialist, Marten moved to San Diego Unified and City Heights’ Central Elementary. There, she was a teacher, vice principal and principal.

She assumed that last position in 2007, just as her husband suffered a massive stroke.

“I had 1,000 kids counting on me, our son was 12 going on 13, and my husband, my soul mate, was in the ICU and we didn’t know if he would live or die,” she said.

To maintain her emotional balance, she vowed to take one photograph a day for a year, focusing on something that made her grateful.

Nature supplied most subjects — butterflies, sunsets, ocean vistas — but homey images sometimes appeared. Her feet, for instance, kicking off her shoes after a long day.

“The world doesn’t change,” Marten said, “but the way you look at the world changes.”

When the year ended, Marten continued this practice. She still does today.

Fortune #1,083: “An unexpected visitor will bring you good blessings.” Under Marten, Central was cited as a successful inner city school by experts local and national. The principal advocated smaller class sizes, established clear, measurable results for her teachers, and provided staff with additional training and resources.

When Richard Barrera, a local labor leader, began his successful campaign for the school board in 2008, he spoke with students, teachers, staff and administrators.

“Cindy was the most articulate educator I met in this whole process,” said Barrera, secretary-treasurer of United Food and Commercial Workers’ Local 135. “She was able to take me and show me and articulate at her school how to create an environment where kids were thriving.”

When Superintendent Terry Grier resigned to lead Houston’s school district, Barrera tapped Marten to serve on the search committee for a successor.

“She became a leader in that process,” Barrera said.

That process resulted in the June 2010 hiring of Bill Kowba. Less than three years later, when he announced his retirement, Marten became the trustees’ unanimous choice without a search committee or any community testimony.

This was “virtually unheard of,” the Union-Tribune reported, and some were upset by the move. Marten disturbed some district employees and parents early in her tenure, as she replaced close to 75 percent of the district’s principals.

“She wants strong principals who support and hold accountable the teachers,” Katz said. “It’s all about proper training and doing the right things — supporting your teachers, giving them the tools they need and holding them accountable.”

Those tools include special teams dispatched to schools to share the latest best practices on math or reading instruction.

Observers say Marten benefited by inheriting a board of trustees that, unlike many earlier boards, is not split into warring camps. There’s an agreed-upon mission, to tackle racial achievement gaps and to provide every student a broad and challenging curriculum.

“We’re all pulling in the same direction,” Barrera said.

“I think we’re getting a lot accomplished,” said Sharon Whitehurst-Payne, another trustee. “We want every child reading by third grade and we're working on that. We want every child to graduate and we’re working on that.”

Part of that work involves the superintendent regularly briefing the trustees and keeping the surprises, good or bad, to a minimum.

“We meet weekly,” Whitehurst-Payne said. “That’s good access.”

Fortune #619: “You can be trusted to keep a secret.” In his retirement, Marten’s father became known as "Don the Can Man.” A longtime runner and bicyclist, Don Cohen often scoured San Diego’s streets for aluminum cans, keeping meticulous count of how many he had grabbed and recycled.

On his 80th birthday, Oct. 14, 2014, he scored his 4 millionth can. His goal was 8 million cans, but he would never reach that number. While bicycling near San Diego State University that fall, he was hit by a car. He died from his injuries on Nov. 7, 2014.

Marten had little time to mourn her father, as her husband’s health was deteriorating. In the summer of 2016, while in a rehab center, he seemed to be recovering.

Marten called him early on Aug. 21, 2016, the day of the America’s Finest City Half Marathon, which she had entered. He sounded fine, an impression reinforced by a positive report from the rehab center’s staff, and promised to see Marten after her run.

“I was running to honor my father,” she said. But the race soon took on an even darker hue.

At Mile 7, Marten’s cell phone rang. Sergio Marten’s heart had failed, and he had died at the age of 57. He and Cindy had been husband and wife for 25 years and a couple for 33 years.

Days later, the 2016-2017 school year kicked off with a rally.

“I went to school, went to the meetings,” Marten said. “I could have been the grieving widow, but you go.”

Her emotions were profoundly mixed — “there’s this great joy because the beginning of school is such an amazing time” — but she didn't want her own sorrows to cast a shadow over that special day.

“If I need to cry,” she said, “I cry.”

Even now, she tears up when discussing the Job-like series of calamities that has hit the family in the last four years. She mourns, but she also takes comfort in the loved ones who remain and the chance she has to move this district ahead.

“This district”? Scratch that.

“I don’t think of this as working for the district,” she said,. “I think of this as working for my community.”

As superintendent, she’s privy to inside information about principals, teachers, counselors, secretaries. Some of this is joyful — Marten is known for writing notes to staff, marking birthdays and anniversaries — and some is not.

On June 13, she testified for an hour in a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by an investigator who says he was fired after refusing to alter his reports on a sexual assault incident at San Carlos’ Green Elementary School.

On the witness stand, Marten was asked if she had urged anyone to “whitewash” the report by the investigator, Michael Gurrieri.

“Absolutely not,” she replied, “of course not.”

In an interview, Marten said she could not comment on this case, as a decision is still pending.

Intense scrutiny comes with this job, for better or worse. Tyler Cramer, a San Diegan who serves on the board of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, was present when superintendents from the nation’s top four urban public school districts spoke in Washington, D.C.

“Cindy did her presentation on math and she was amazing,” Cramer said. “You can see her panel on Youtube and she’s a knockout on it. This is playing in the major leagues at the playoff level.”

That’s one characteristic of a champion — the ability to play and win, even when hurt. *Reposted article from the UT by Peter Rowe of June 24, 2018