#i replaced the credit with a geography class

[helaelaemond]

TIPS FOR WRITING IN AN ENGLISH UNIVERSITY SETTING from someone who’s been through it!

This post is written with fanfic in mind, specifically about Michael Gavey as a Maths student at the University of Oxford.

University structure

At Oxford, you are there typically for three years. You’re not usually referred to as “first year”, “second year” or “third year/final year” as nouns, and are more likely to describe yourself as being “in my first year” etc. The only exception is your first few weeks at uni when you’re known as a fresher. Your first week in your first year is known as “freshers week”, and its lots of social activities around the uni and beyond.

OXFORD IS NOT A CAMPUS UNI. University housing and buildings are scattered around the city of Oxford, and so using terms like “on campus” are not applicable.

Term starts in early October, and most exams are wrapped up by June.

Housing

Oxford is one of four English universities that use the college system (the others being Cambridge - also called ‘The Other Place’ - Durham, and York) and for the sake of simplicity, you can think of this as a replacement term for ‘dorm’ (a term not typically used). You can find a list of all the colleges on the university’s website.

Within the college building, there are usually single rooms with en-suites, but some rooms have to share a communal bathroom.

University students do NOT have roommates - no one shares a bedroom. There are also some room types in a flat-like set up, with a cluster of a few rooms (2-8 typically) and a shared kitchen. This is less common at Oxford.

Students sometimes stay in university-provided accommodation for the duration of their studies, whilst some choose to live in private accommodation from their second year onwards. If they do this, they are still associated with their college, and by default their college does not change. Private accommodation usually means a regular house shared with a few other people - this is standard across all universities in the UK, not just Oxford.

Classes

Generally speaking, subjects that don’t require lab work have a pretty simple weekly structure of one lecture and one seminar per module. Lectures are observed silently, and seminars are for discussions. Even the boldest or more socially unaware individuals do not interrupt lectures (in my four years, I never ever experienced anyone interrupting or asking a question, and so if you’re going to write Michael doing that, be aware it is a huge taboo unless the lecturer has asked for participation). Students usually take 2-3 different modules per semester, and during the academic year, there are two semesters across three terms.

Reading week is a week of usually in late October/early November where there are no classes for a week and it is a time for self-study.

Most modules have at least one assignment (what Americans would call a term paper) due before the Christmas break in December, and then at least one exam after the break ends in January. Some modules on some courses have other assignments or contributors to grades (like group presentations) but this isn’t all that common. It is very rare for things like “extra credit” to be earned, if at all.

Unless reading a combined degree (like Politics and Economics), you only take one subject. There is nothing like a “major” and “minor”. When doing a combined degree, you take half your modules on one degree, and half your modules on the other, so it’s an even 50/50. You cannot choose any subject to do a combined degree for, and they are pre-set courses determined by the university. For example, you couldn’t do a combined degree of Maths and Geography just because you wanted to.

You don’t talk about what course you’re studying, you say what course you’re reading (which is why Michael says he’s “reading Maths” not studying it).

University culture

Nightclubbing isn’t much of a thing in Oxford. If you want a uni with great nightlife you go to Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Newcastle, London - not Oxford or Cambridge. Instead, students are much more likely to spend time in one of the dozens of pubs in Oxford. College parties (I.e university accommodation parties) don’t tend to be much of a thing either unless they’re organised by the social events committees in those colleges.

Elitism is an enormous problem at Oxford. For example, in 2015, 45% of all freshers were from private schools, while only less than 7% of children in the UK are privately educated. Classism is an issue that is so unbelievably rampant in places like Oxford that I can’t even begin to explain. But like many forms of prejudice in the UK, it’s rarely overt. It comes in the forms of exclusion from social activities (think a working class student not being able to go on a ski trip with course mates), social rules only familiar to the rich being the order of the day (having the right type of suit for a formal dinner).

Oxford is a place where lifelong connections are made that spill into entertainment, business, and (most worryingly) politics, but best believe that if you’re not from the right background, those connections are not yours to make. In fact, the likelihood of you even know they’re going on in the shadows is high.

Obviously, classism and elitism are themes of Saltburn, but please don’t take them too seriously, as it’s crucial to remember that the writer/director grew up in these very private inner circles of elites. As such, her spin is wildly… wild. She’s an incredibly unreliable source for basing any kind of opinion about these issues on.

That’s all I can think of right now! I highly encourage other people who have been through English universities to add on with advice you think you would helpful to writers 😁🫶

And if you’ve got any specific questions, let me know and I’ll help if I can!

[celestiagarden]

College AU!

Characters: Venti, Albedo, Kazuha, Zhongli, Kaeya, Gorou, Childe

Note: Yeah i’m just sick of my own college experience rn so imma replace it with a fictional one yEAAHH

Venti

music major. Enough said

he kind of just started in music, and in like his second year he realized “wait without clout I can’t easily make a career out of this”

so now he’s also in a secondary education program as a backup plan but desperately trying to get famous on internet so he doesn’t have to teach

sports?? comitees? no he’s in a music room all day long

and when he isn’t, it’s because he has recital. he’s booked all day long

^^ which means he refuses to do anything school-related when he isn’t supposed to. Aka: the weekend. friday evening, venti is fucking done and ready to get hammered

has perfect pitch, is literally extremely talented in music so usually he gets good grades in theory classes/instrument theory with minimal efforts

once actually sight-read during an audition and actually fucking passed it with an A-. no one knows how he was able to do it

doesn’t fucking know how to cook he lives off ramen or caf food (it’s ok venti my love i’ll bring u my leftovers)

Lives on campus, probably in the normal dorms

Albedo

science, he’s in a science program for sure. 

he probably started in pre-med and then switched to biochem after his first semester

bro he’s so silent, so still, people hardly notices him. boy just attends his class, nods along, takes notes, goes to his labs (the only exception here bc he has to talk to his lab partner) and that’s it.

gets amazing grades. I don’t think his GPA ever goes under 4.0

the type of person who will fucking carry during lab reports just to make sure he gets a good grade. you finished your work? send it to him he’s going to double check it before you hand it over to the lab attendant. it’s a non-negotiable

zero social life. he studies sm. he has so many labs. his schedule is packed. 

also a student who probably hasn’t exactly learned how to cook balanced meals. it’s pasta and canned sauce most nights. he’ll get takeout if he feels fancy

lives off-campus (he doesn’t want to get kicked out at the end of the semester, buddy doesnt have time for all that moving around), he just has a place of his own a few minutes away from campus

Kazuha

literacy major. or like, english major with a minor in philosophy. 

people ask him what are his plans with a degree like that and he just ignores them. in his head, he would rather study something he actually enjoys and struggle with finding a job with the degree later

one thing at a time. Iconic move from Kazuha

gets average grades, but like he doesn’t try extra extra hard. gives an average effort and in exchange receives an average grade

loves those people who write essays about such funny topics but he’s too scared to do one himself

that mario essay with the really funny introduction paragraph? he loves it more than anything

probably lives on campus, in dorms. 

he CAN cook, but why cook when he’s got a perfectly good meal plan for the college caf?

signs up in writing contests every year as long as theres a promise of a scholarship for the winner. other than that he isn’t in a lot of committes or sports. he probably just jogs whenever he feels like it

Zhongli

currently on his doctorate degree in history. he has a double major in history and geography, did his masters in geography and is somehow actually doing a doctorate in history

he was in a track and field team during his bachelors. his best events were probably like, javelin and shot put

in charge of some one or two credit first-year classes. he’s... not the best at teaching

he has the bad habit of assuming students are more informed than they are in reality, which leads to most of his class being lost in the middle of his lecture

but he doesn’t do it on purpose!! he would glady put the students into context if one raised their hand and notified him that they weren’t following!! 

but honestly... would you have the courage to do that? yeah, no one would. not with zhongli as a teacher, optimistically assuming everyone’s up to date and follows. 

is very strict on class itinerary tho. no, he will not push back any due dates for homework or exam dates. His program was thoroughly planned with the students in mind, as well as their workload and he firmly believes that what he asks can be completed in the time given

deadass starts his semester saying “if you are organized, you will pass this class without any problems.” it scares like half of the crowd

lives off-campus (obviously). single btw wink wonk

yeah he’s a fully functioning adult ok this man cooks for himself, cleans for himself, does laundry for himself, what an icon

however, students do get emails with class content or news from him at ungodly hours of the night. Zhongli it’s 1 AM stop grading exams and go to bed ffs

Kaeya

he’s in criminology, wants to get into legal studies after

with how fucking sneaky and cunning he is? that won’t be a problem for him lmaooo

he’s actually rlly smart ok he can keep rlly good grades with less effort than the average person. is also very condescending abt it to his classmates

hates hates hates team work assignments. and people hate working with him for team assignments eheheehehe- 

used to do figure skating in high school but obviously he stopped. might pick up speed skating for funsies if he felt up for it

he comes from a rich family ok this guy doesn’t share his dorm with anyone he probably has a dorm with a full kitchen and bathroom

gets wasted with venti without fail every friday night. 

Gorou

started in kinesiology. but then the reality of college hit him and he switched to P.E. 

that one student that applied and got like three different sports scholarships. yeah, he’s on three different sports team. cross-country, volleyball, rugby. no wonder he couldn’t keep up in kin bro his time management skills are probably awful

lives on campus, in dorms. he tries so hard to keep a balanced diet but his options are kinda limited by whatever food is at the caf, so he ended up having a wholeass stash under his bed. protein bars, gels, you name it. I swear he got a mini fridge too for shakes and snacks

peaked in high school and is now realizing it as a college student

he probably thought college was gonna be so fun!! with lots of parties and chill class schedules and fun varsity games!!

now he’s sitting on his bed with his head on his hands because he has an away volley game on friday and he knows he cant afford to miss another evening class

Childe

let’s get this out of the way first; VARSITY SWIMMER. I stand by this until I die. I could go into heavy detail but I’ll spare you all today

out of all these characters, he’s the most invested in his sport (I know, shocking, he even bests Gorou in this category). with this said, he attends all his morning classes with wet ass hair and he does not fucking care. the whole room smells like chlorine once he settles down

business major. he just chose it bc ppl said it’s relatively easy so it won’t interfere with practice much. plus he “gets to make bank afterwards” (his words not mine)

social butterfly-ish. if he’s not at practice or in class he’s that guy walking in the hallways to see if there’s anything fun to do. if someone has their dorm room open he will walk in and start up a convo

while gorou is out there having the struggle of his life, childe is having quite the opposite and having a jolly grand time 

[isfjmel-phleg]

All right, fine, I sort of wrote something. Another item from @fictionadventurer's list: In-character shopping lists.

Rachel (does not get regular pocket money or the chance to visit shops very often, so the list has to be brief and practical)

Hair ribbons (necessary to keep her mane contained)

Writing paper (mostly for letters to her father and brother)

Ink (see above, and also for lessons)

Black thread (for mending holes in stockings before her mother notices)

The new book The Princess of Yew (too expensive, never mind)

Rietta (means to be a good money manager but always fails--in this case she's determined to prepare for a long, boring train trip)

Lemon drops (her favorite)

Map of Corege (geography is important to her)

Hair pins (she's nearly grown-up enough to need them now!)

Hat pins (double as a weapon)

Magazine (to stave off boredom)

Pack of cards (see above)

Another magazine (in case she reads the first one too quickly)

Inane fidgety toy (why not)

Delclis (gets next to no pocket money as king and is perpetually annoyed about it--he's got a list of necessary supplies for when he saves up enough)

Seeds (a lot of them, dozens of varieties, he's got a whole itemized list)

Latest scientific journal (he wants to keep up with botany even if he's no longer able to be an active researcher)

Slides for microscope (the cells aren't going to examine themselves)

Mounting cards (for pressed botanical specimens)

Treats for Canis (who is a good boy)

Elystan (has probably never actually set foot in a shop, which is probably for the better since he has no concept of money management, but if he ever gets his chance while at school...)

Magazine with the latest Morrick Hopeley story (absolutely crucial, he cannot wait)

Puzzle game of some sort (he's bored)

Sweets (he's a child)

Phonograph record (preferably something ragtime, for maximum Josiah-annoyance)

Books (the more the better--he's bored)

Matches (to light asthma cigarettes)

Smelling salts (he has to carry these for fainting spells)

Printing paper (he owns a printing press. a small one. suitable for shenanigans)

Not listed: any number of random objects bought on a whim

Amarantha (dedicates most of her budget to Art, because she has Priorities)

Colored pencils (never can have too many, and she goes through them quickly)

Sketchbook (see above)

Charcoal (she's experimenting)

Cuff protectors (charcoal is messy)

Handkerchiefs (she also goes through these quickly since she uses them for art mishaps more often than anything else)

Tamett (has probably never bought anything unexpected or not on brand in his life)

Postcards (to send to family)

Comics (perfectly acceptable literature--he's practicing his Coregean)

New handball (lost the last one after it got stuck on a roof)

Typewriter ribbon (replacement)

Strawberry ice (from the school shop, as a treat)

Josiah (is a model budgeter, thank you very much)

Sheet music (for his music lessons and personal practice time)

Rosin (for his violin)

Violin strings (just in case)

Graph paper (for mathematics classes and extra credit work to impress the teachers)

Ink (for all the essays, letters, and journal entries he writes)

Chocolate creams (he keeps a stash, don't tell the others)

Comb (appearances are everything at Hollingham)

Pocket mirror (see above)

Political theory books (his father requires weekly updates on his reading material)

Military strategy books (see above)

Chocolate creams (...on second thought, he'll take two)

[gilded-green]

Another celebratory ask! Kind of meta, but I would love to hear about the process you took to world build and your writing process. I figure it was probably ad hoc/as you go, but I want to know EVERYTHING.

AHAHA OKAY so there are a LOT of answers to this question.

I mean there's the very obvious Have Plot, Will Research approach, wherein I have an idea for how the story's gonna go and go look up info accordingly.

And sometimes I was just already aware of whatever fun fact I'm using, because my brain is a junk drawer of information and I vaguely recall reading something years ago, so I'll double check that info to make sure I've got it right and let the research rabbit hole take me accordingly if need be.

BUT A LOT OF THE TIME it actually goes the other way around, where I learn Something Interesting and say "I need to do something with this."

This is exactly what happened with everything Kohimori-related, actually. I had vague headcanons on Ty Lee that were basically "I think she grew up climbing trees and doing acrobatics in the canopy", and that was it. I had no further plans, and while I was sure Ty Lee's family could become interesting, they were on the back burner. Fun fact: Their original clan name was tentatively Matsumori, an actual Japanese surname that means something like "pine forest", and I think I only chose it because she was jumping around pine trees in The Chase.

And then one day when I wasn't thinking about Ty Lee at all my boss at my campus coffee shop says to me "Caelum they're doing an open presentation on coffee tomorrow and we've been volunteered to provide the refreshments, also it sounds cool and is relevant to your job and might get you extra credit in that Drugs and Health class you're taking so you should definitely check it out, you might learn something useful!"

What I learned:

Coffee does, technically, grow on trees

I'd always thought it was a bush. To be fair, it's a very small tree. But like, it's a tree, technically.

Coffee trees produce fruit

The fruit is called a coffee cherry

Wait, I realized. Wait, cherry trees are, like, a big thing in Japan and China, right? Sure this isn't an ACTUAL cherry tree but like....the Avatarverse has hybrid plants, so like... And sure coffee flowers are white but cherry blossoms are pink, and...well...

You can make juice from coffee cherries

Waaaaaaait there's a whole other PRODUCT that comes from this plant?? Cherry juice? That sounds DELIGHTFUL and ADORABLE. Which reminds me a lot of Ty Lee...

Medium and light coffee roasts should be paired with light, buttery pastries

Dark roasts should be paired with rich desserts, like chocolate

Oh, wow, I thought after I'd helped hand out the free refreshments for the tasting and had some myself, the coffee really does play off well with the properly-paired foods, it's amazing how the flavor palette changes from sip to bite when you don't add cream or sugar, waaaaaaaaait this means there are ways for people to get really snobby or particular about coffee, this opens up so many fun avenues...

And seriously, coffee grows on TREES, and Ty Lee is so adorably energetic that it just fits.

So basically I left that little presentation with a head full of ideas that were all basically I Think I'm Gonna Have To Make Ty Lee's Family Important Because Even Though I Don't Like Coffee It's Pretty Cool And I Can Do Something With This. Probably not what my boss thought I'd get out of it, but it gave me so much more than I was expecting. XD

ANYWAY, once I have the idea it's pretty much just a research rabbit hole for a while. Lots of googling and wikipedia, following the wikipedia sources, checking out other websites and then making sure that the info I find is also present in other places as well, which may just mean everyone's copy/pasting each other but also can mean it's accurate, lol. Back in college I also used to just go hang out in the library and flip through books when I was bored and I found some stuff that way, but I don't have a library that massive anymore nor do I have space/time for books, so it's mostly the internet these days. And then sometimes that research rabbit hole branches off into multiple tunnels as I find OTHER things that are useful/intriguing and figure out how to drag them into the fun as well.

Honestly the worldbuilding where I learn the things first and decide I need to use it somehow is probably the most fun. Stingrae read a book about historical Mongolian women once and emailed me babbling excitedly about it and how we needed to incorporate it into our worldbuilding somehow and that very evening we had a several-hour chat in which we hashed out geography, basic politics, potential OCs, and an appropriate Avatarverse replacement for the extremely important Mongolian horse (a takhi-goat, because an ostrich-horse just wasn't gonna cut it), and that's how we created the province of Caj-Bolor. XD

[thecreaturecodex]

Demon Lord, Kabriri

Image by unknown artist, © Paizo Publishing. Accessed at RPG.net here

[Commissioned by @tar-baphon, who as the name suggests, wanted me to cover some high level canon Pathfinder foes who didn’t get official stat blocks before the switch from 1e to 2e. So these stat blocks are somewhat constrained, in that Book of the Damned gives a decent amount of information on what abilities these monsters have. I also borrowed some mechanics from the divine obediences found in those entries.

Also, thanks to @crinosg​ for extracting the images from the PDF and putting them into that RPG.net thread. If anyone knew who did the art here, that would be awesome. Some Pathfinder books are good at crediting individual artists, and some aren’t. Book of the Damned isn’t.]

Demon Lord, Kabriri CR 27 CE Outsider This gaunt grey giant has elongated features like a parody of an elf. Its ears and teeth are long and pointed. Its feet are cloven hooves, and its hands are clawed. In one of these hands, it clutches a double-headed flail made of human skulls bound in iron.

Kabriri, Him Who Gnaws CE male demon lord of ghouls, graves and secrets taken to the grave and kept by the dead Domains Chaos, Death, Evil, Knowledge Subdomains Demon, Memory, Murder, Undeath Favored Weapon flail Unholy Symbol maggot filled bowl made of a human skull Worshipers cannibals, ghouls, grave robbers Minions fiendish earth elementals, rats, undead

For information on his Obedience and boons for his worshipers, see Book of the Damned

Kabriri is the demon lord of ghouls and secrets, and has plenty of secrets of his own. According to legend, Kabriri was the first mortal to engage in cannibalism. In life he was an elf, accounting for the elven immunity to ghoulish paralysis and the elven features that ghouls attain when they succumb to their infection. The ghouls of Leng claim to be older than Kabriri by far, and scoff at his cult’s claims that Leng ghouls were created when Him Who Gnaws dreamt of cannibalism. Since multiple divinities compete for the attentions of the undead and ghouls specifically, Kabriri has something of an inferiority complex. He seeks to learn all he can about his rivals, the better to subvert their worship and convert their followers.

In combat, Kabriri is a physical terror, causing withering blows with his flail, Pallbearer. Those within his gaze are filled with a ravenous hunger that can only be sated with the flesh of their own kind, and any humanoid creature he slays rises shortly thereafter as a ghoul. Kabriri does not lack for magical versatility, however, and he can call a vast number of spells to mind as the situation warrants. Kabriri usually fights alongside allies if he can help it—demons, ghouls with character levels and/or strange undead—and if caught alone usually summons assistance as soon as he is able.

Kabriri’s Abyssal realm is a teeming necropolis named Everglut. It abuts the shores of the River Styx, and features catacombs and tunnels extending to countless graveyards on the Material Plane. Its libraries are similarly vast, and are said to contain in writing every secret ever taken to the grave. Only Kabriri is capable of navigating these archives with any reliability, and the prices he extracts for this knowledge are steep indeed.

Pallbearer Minor artifact; CL 27th Pallbearer is a cold iron +4 impact flail that deals 1d4 points of Dexterity drain and 1d4 points of Constitution drain per hit. A successful DC 25 Fortitude save reduces this damage to 1 point of drain to each ability score. In Kabriri’s hands, Pallbearer empowers his ability to create spawn in order to allow ghouls to retain their memories and character levels. In the hands of any other creature, it allows the wielder to cast create greater undead three times per day on command.

Kabriri    CR 27 XP 3,276,800 CE Large outsider (chaos, demon, evil, extraplanar) Init +12; Senses darkvision 60 ft., deathwatch, keen scent, Perception +39, true seeing Aura frightful presence (100 ft., shaken 5d6 rounds, Will DC 37), unholy aura (DC 29) Defense AC 45, touch 25, flat-footed 33 (-1 size, +12 Dex, +4 deflection, +20 natural) hp 624 (32d10+448); regeneration 30 (deific or mythic) Fort +28, Ref +34, Will +31; channel resistance +4 DR 20/cold iron, epic and good; Immune ability damage, ability drain, electricity, undead traits; Resist acid 30, fire 30, cold 30; SR 38 Defensive Abilities Abyssal resurrection, freedom of movement, negative energy affinity, undead essence Offense Speed 40 ft., burrow 20 ft., air walk Melee Pallbearer +50/+45/+40/+35 (2d8+18 plus 1d4 Dex and 1d4 Con drain), claw +44 (1d8+7 plus paralysis), bite +44 (2d6+7 plus paralysis) or 2 claws +44 (1d8+14 plus paralysis), bite +44 (2d6+14 plus paralysis) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Special Abilities breath weapon (60 ft. cone, 27d6 typeless plus sickened 1 minute, Fort DC 40, 1d4 rounds), cannibal gaze, channel negative energy (14/day, 10d6 negative energy, Will DC 37), create spawn, paralysis (Fort DC 37, 1d6+4 rounds) Spell-like Abilities CL 27th, concentration +38 Constant—air walk, deathwatch, freedom of movement, tongues, true seeing, unholy aura (DC 29) At will—astral projection, blasphemy* (DC 28), cloudkill* (DC 26), control undead (DC 28), desecrate*, detect magic, greater dispel magic, greater teleport, harm* (DC 27), unhallow, unholy blight* (DC 25) 3/day—create greater undead, finger of death *(DC 28), lore of the countless dead (DC 30), quickened harm* (DC 27), summon demons (9th level, CR 20 or less, 100%), vision 1/day—imprisonment (DC 30), power word kill*, wail of the banshee (DC 30) * Kabriri may use the mythic version of this ability in his realm Statistics Str 38, Dex 35, Con 38, Int 31, Wis 28, Cha 33 Base Atk +32; CMB +47 (+51 disarm or trip); CMD 72 (74 trip or disarm) Feats Channel Discord, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Command Undead (B), Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wondrous Item, Greater Disarm, Greater Trip, Greater Vital Strike, Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Improved Vital Strike, Multiattack, Power Attack, Quick Channel, Quicken SLA (harm), Selective Channeling, Vital Strike Skills Acrobatics +42, Appraise +38, Bluff +39, Climb +39, Intimidate +41, Knowledge (arcana, dungeoneering, engineering, geography, history, local, nature, nobility, planes, religion) +38, Perception +39, Sense Motive +39, Spellcraft +40, Stealth +38, Swim +39 Languages Abyssal, Common, Elven, Necril, Undercommon, tongues, telepathy 300 ft. SQ demon lord traits, no breath, secrets of the dead Ecology Environment any (The Abyss) Organization unique Treasure triple standard (Pallbearer, other treasure) Special Abilities Breath Weapon (Su) The type of damage done by Kabriri’s breath weapon effects water elementals and plant creatures as if it were a horrid wilting spell. Creatures that take any damage from this effect must succeed a DC 40 Fortitude save or be sickened for 1 minute. This is a pain effect. The save DC is Constitution based. Cannibal Gaze (Su) 30 ft; Will DC 37, hunger for flesh at CL 27th. This is a mind-influencing effect, and the save DC is Charisma based. Channel Energy (Su) Kabriri channels negative energy as a 20th level cleric. Create Spawn (Su) A humanoid slain by Kabriri rises as a ghoul with no class levels or memory of its life 1 minute after it is slain. If it is slain by Pallbearer, it instead replaces its racial traits with ghoul traits and retains its memories and class levels. It gains a +2 natural armor bonus, darkvision 60 ft., channel resistance +2, undead traits, bite and claw attacks that deal 1d6 points of damage (adjusted for size), and the paralysis and disease abilities of a ghoul. A ghoul created in this fashion transforms immediately upon death. Ghouls created in this fashion are friendly towards Kabriri. Keen Scent (Ex) Kabriri can detect creatures in a 180 foot radius by scent, and can smell any corpse at a range of 1 mile. Lore of the Countless Dead (Sp) Three times per day as a standard action, Kabriri can use any spell of 7th level or lower as a spell-like ability, as if modeling a spell with a wish. This is the equivalent of a 9th level spell. Secrets of the Dead (Ex/Su) Kabriri treats all Knowledge skills as class skills. In addition, if Kabriri spends 10 minutes eating a corpse, he gains the information the corpse knew as per a speak with dead spell, with no saving throw allowed. Undead Essence (Ex) Kabriri has all of the immunities of the undead type.

[drabblesandheadcanons]

A terrible horrible no-good very bad day Pt 2

Foster Au continued. Credit to @bessie-bass-on-the-bass for the Au idea!

School is… school. That she now gets to walk into school with Kitty is an improvement- no one looks at her when they can look at Kitty instead- and she knows she doesn’t have to worry about anyone trying to talk to her.

Things are more tricky when they have to go to their separate classrooms- the Year 8 form rooms are not even in the same part of the school as the Year 10 ones.

Her own classes are… a struggle. She’s aware that she sticks out. She’s used to being New- she’s been New so many times before- but that doesn’t mean she enjoys it and she knows it’s only a matter of time before New becomes replaced with something less innocuous: she’s been the girl who had a panic attack in assembly, the girl who never brought in lunch, the girl who cried when they were reading out loud in English.

She doesn’t want to know what it will be at this school- but whatever it is, she isn’t deluded enough to hope that she can get by on being known only as Kitty Seymour’s little sister.

The school corridors are a gauntlet of noise- too many voices all at once, too many eyes upon her, and there’s so much touching- people push and squeeze by, jostling bags and coats, and she’s being swept along in a wave of tightly packed students, the ceiling lights over bright and the air thick with rain-damp clothing drying and a miasma of body sprays.

There’s laughter- then a roar of almost animal ferocity as someone way back braces themselves against the mass, forces themselves forward, and then a wave of yelps and surprised squeaks as those in front are being crushed, pulled off balance, stumbling and helpless, and still those behind keep pushing, keep pushing- and just as Joan feels like she can’t hold back the scream that’s building in her chest, just as she feels herself tipping into uncontrollable panic, it lets up and everyone is righting themselves, pushing each other away, angry and flustered.

The anger is always at each other- never towards the faceless causer of cruel chaos but at those unlucky enough to be victim to it; sharp faces, sharp hands, sharp voices, prod and chide Joan away- she’s trodden on someones toe, knocked into someone else’s bag, and she’s still mumbling apologies when she gets to the classroom.

The day drags from the first. 

She’s managed to forget her homework- the homework that had given her hours of anxiety (science is not her best subject) until Kitty popped into her room while she was still at her desk to ask if she wanted some hot chocolate, before seeing the state she was in. 

With Kitty’s help, it had still taken her over an hour to complete… but eventually she’d been able to put her pen down, pick up her (now cold) hot chocolate and shuffle her papers together…. only to utterly fail to put the work back into her school bag.

The sick sinking feeling settles on her stomach half a moment before the teacher calls for the work to be handed in, and she accepts the scolding and detention silently, her eyes stinging.

It’s not a big deal, she knows it isn’t a big deal- at least, it shouldn’t be a big deal. No one else would even really register it. But the feeling of failure, of being a disappointment (yet again, yet again) still sticks to her, impossible to brush off.

There’s a substitute teacher in the next class- Geography- who is obviously slightly overwhelmed by them all. The room feels claustrophobic- the usual routine is thrown off by the teacher’s absence and everyone is taking advantage of this, moving around and between the desks, crowding and pushing and shouting to one another, and to Joan, it feels like there isn’t quite enough air for them all.

When the teacher eventually snaps, it’s loud and prolonged and in the front row, Joan feels extra exposed- she feels righteous anger radiating from the substitute in the front of the class, and resentful anger building in the rows behind, and she’s trapped in the middle.

The rest of the lesson is fraught and the teacher is tense- she snaps at Joan to pay attention when she sees her looking out of the window and the giggles that follow make her face feel hot. 

Kitty would be able to deal with this, she knows- Kitty-at-school always seems to her to be just as confident as Kitty-at-home (which surprised Joan slightly at first, who was all ready to be asked to refrain from approaching or talking to or about her foster sister in public- it’s something she’s been asked before, more than once, and it doesn’t really upset her much anymore).

She thinks about what Kitty would do in the same situation- and she suddenly wishes her sister was in her class, making everything more bearable just by being there.

But she isn’t. Of course she isn’t.

History is a little easier- there’s a test, which they have to do in silence, and although she knows she hasn’t done as well as she maybe could have done, it’s nice to have a chance to gather herself: the quiet is a restorative, even if it is over much, much too soon.

Going from the quiet classroom to the chaos of the corridor is a little bit painful though, and she has to fight the wave of panic that washes over her- for a second, she freezes in the doorway- I can’t, I can’t- but then someone is pushing her from behind, telling her to hurry up, and accustomed to doing what she is told, she does.

There’s a pressure inside her, a growing tightness in her chest.

She usually escapes to the music room for lunch. After discovering it on her second day, it’s been a godsend for her, for a couple of reasons: it’s quiet, not all the lights work so it’s nicely dim, and most importantly, it’s nearly always empty, save for Bessie, who is basically paid to make sure nothing goes too badly wrong with the schools music and drama department and who is rarely seen by anyone who isn’t Joan.

(When Joan first saw her, she was hunched over a keyboard that’d had something pink and sticky looking spilled over it and muttering darkly to herself, and Joan had involuntarily shrunk back from the woman with the dark lipstick and the tattoos covering her arms and the dont-mess-with-me set to her jaw.

That was before she knew Bessie though. 

Not that she knows her well now or anything, she just knows enough to not be afraid of her and to be reasonably certain that Bessie isn’t going to turn against her any time soon. 

Now, she knows about Bessie’s weakness for Milky Ways and about the four cats that carries around photos of in her wallet. She knows that Bessie can play the bass guitar in a way that makes it look easy. And she knows about Maggie, the music room’s other occupant- two years below Joan but looking much younger. She seldom speaks (if Joan hadn’t seen her talking her the curly haired girl who pops in and out sometimes, she wouldn’t be entirely certain that Maggie did speak at all) but she follows Bessie around like a baby duckling when she isn’t in class and Bessie- who most students seem to edge away from- manages to seem almost soft when she’s talking to Maggie. 

Maggie doesn’t talk to Joan but she doesn’t avoid her either, and actually not talking suits Joan quite well, and so the music room has become a sanctuary of sorts- a refuge for her and Maggie, with Bessie watching over like a fierce mother bear.

(It’s not an exaggeration- Joan once saw Bessie tearing into two Year 10 boys who had followed behind Maggie, calling her ‘vampire psycho’- especially cruel because as far as Joan can tell, Maggie has never bitten anyone other than herself- and the force of Bessie’s anger had made her heart almost beat out of her chest, even though she knew it wasn’t directed at her. She wonders sometimes if Bessie would defend her like that, but never for too long.)

She’s looking forward to the quiet peace of the music room- really, really looking forward to it, the thought of being able to hide herself away in the quiet calm for a while is basically what’s keeping her going at this point-

-but when she gets there, the door is locked and the room is dark.

She stands there, helplessly, clutching her bag and wondering what has happened. She’s sort of hoping that if she just stands there, Bessie will appear and open the door for her and she’ll be able to settle into her usual corner, and listen to Bessie wish violent curses upon whoever has damaged the piano that week….but it doesn’t work, and then there’s footsteps and a cross voice behind her asking what she’s doing, why she’s there, doesn’t she know she shouldn’t be in this [art of the building and does she think she’s better than the other students?

It’s so unexpected, and it’s stupidly made worse by the fact that it’s happening here, just outside her safe (for school) place.

She can’t move and she can’t talk and her lack of reaction is just making things worse, it seems- she’s insolent, she’s arrogant, she’s headed the right way for a detention- and although part of her knows that this is school, that there are rules which prevent anything really bad happening to her, another part of her is tensed up and wondering where the first blow will hit her first (her face so it will hurt more, her shoulder where a bruise can be hidden by clothes?)

She can feel the pain of it even though the blow itself never actually comes- instead, she’s barked at to get outside and somehow, she’s able to move, she’s walking, she’s down the corridor and out of the door, her eyes burning and her throat tight.

She’s not sure where she’s going- all her focus is on keeping the tears back- so she ends up just walking until the bell goes.

She could go to find Kitty, she knows she could- Kitty had been very emphatic that she should feel free to come and seek her out any time at school if she needed her, or even if she just wanted some company.

(She hasn’t summoned up the courage for it yet but Kitty has come across her once or twice and insisted she come to sit with her and Cathy and Anne and Anna. She’d been so nervous the first time but it hadn’t actually been too bad- Cathy had smiled warmly at her over the top of the notebook she was scribbling in and Anna had made room for her on the picnic table they’d dumped their bags all over. Anne had been quick to voice her opinion that Joan was an ‘old lady’ name and Joan had been poised to flee- but Kitty’s gentle hand on her arm had kept her in place and when Anne had finished her thought (‘It’s almost as bad as my name!’) and started offering round a packet of starbursts, she’d passed it to Joan first as if it was normal to do so.)

She knows she could go and find Kitty- but she won’t. As much as she wants her foster sister right now, she also feels like if Kitty is nice to her, she’ll cry and she really, really doesn’t want to… and there’s another part of her too that doesn’t want to ruin Kitty’s day by being needy. She doesn’t want to make Kitty regret her invitation- it’s far better if she just never takes it up so that Kitty need never have to worry about how to politely retract it.

Eventually, the bell goes. It occurs to her, as it does, that she never actually got around to eating the lunch in the bottom of her bag, and it’s that moment that she realises she’s hungry.

But it’s too late now, everyone is streaming back to class, so she follows.

Her first afternoon class is worse than the morning- perhaps it’s that she’s hungry, perhaps it’s that she can’t shut off the shouting and flashes of pain in her own head, perhaps it’s just a result of everything building up and building up, but whatever it is, she’s having to hold herself together. Her fingernails dig into her palms, she fights to keep her breathing steady.

She’s not paying a huge amount of attention to what’s going on in the class around her but eventually, she registers a disturbance behind her/

Loud obnoxious questions turn louder and louder until there’s shouting- a chair is overturned, and someone is storming out of the room, furiously muttering- she wants to cover her ears,to hide from the anger- and as they pass, a hand suddenly comes up and pushes her head forward. It’s not very hard but it’s unexpected, it jolts her. It’s not personal, she knows that really- it’s more just that she is an easy and convenient target- one of the quiet ones who are there to be tripped and pushed so that others can laugh at their stumbling confusing, who are there to have things thrown at them so that others can have the benefit of their distress. She’s an outlet of anger in the same way that the chair is overturned, the exercise book thrown on the floor, the worksheet ripped and crumpled- she feels the truth of this in one quick flash, and the anger of it too, and then, then she’s out of her chair, turning- the owner of the hand is only a step or two away, and she’s on him, clawing like a cat, hitting as hard as her pathetic strength will allow, and someone is shrieking, ‘no, no, no’ over and over, and it’s her.

There are voices around her, and several stinging blows to the side of her head, and then there are hands upon her, pulling her back and away, and she’s clawing at the empty air, throat raw and her face wet with blood and with tears.

[douxreviews]

American Gods - ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ Review

"Peace is a beautiful, but sh*tty idea."

A series whose intrinsic premise revolves around new gods forming around things that Americans actually worship finally gets around to the most obvious example. Hello there, Money.

Also, Mr. Nancy brings all the real.

Let's just get this out of the way up front, because otherwise the rest of the review is just going to be me marking time until I can bring it up.

Every single word of Mr. Nancy's monologue is amazingly written, outstandingly performed, and should be played on repeat in every single social studies and civics class in the United States until the country as a whole finally decides to do something about fixing things. I can't imagine that it won't be available to view on its own on YouTube within the next 24-48 hours, and when it does you should absolutely go watch it. Over the course of a few uninterrupted minutes, Orlando Jones lays out slavery, human trafficking, the alt-right, systemic violence and institutionalized failure, the school to prison pipeline, knee taking and the NFL, and more. It's angry, and it's powerful, and I expect high school speech competition judges will get tired of hearing it in a few years.

I've been a little focused this season on noting the things from season one that we lost with the transitions behind the scenes, but I've neglected to mention one thing that the new season has really improved. That's the interactions between the Gods themselves. In the first season, that interaction was almost exclusively limited to Wednesday and whichever old god he happened to be making his sales pitch to that week. We saw Czernobog and the three sisters in their home life together, but they were already from the same belief system and closely intertwined. This season we're starting to see how the other gods relate to one another just on a day to day basis, and it's really been great.

Which is how we get to Mr. Nancy's speech, and its context gives it its real edge. Mr. Nancy, Bilquis, and Mr. Ibis have gathered at the Ibis and Jaquel funeral parlor, and have a good, solid talk about race. This is in itself amazing, as television has a pronounced tendency to avoid a real and messy talk about race. We have three African gods, all played by actors of color, two of which seem to have made the choice to let things in America continue as they are, only to have the third one essentially sit them down and say, 'Here is what is happening, what has always been happening, to the descendants of your worshipers. How can you possibly be all right with this? How can you look the other way? How can you let this happen?' That's just not something you see on television. And I could not look away.

Meanwhile, in the A plot, Wednesday and Shadow head out to track down yet another new American God in order to persuade them to join Wednesday's side in the war. This time they're trying to track down 'Money.' Unfortunately, his trio of security girl scouts won't give them access, because Shadow has never had a line of credit, and Money hates that. Yes, you read that correctly. Security Girl Scouts. OK, technically 'Penny Scouts,' so as to avoid getting sued by the Girl Scouts of America. They are selling candy named 'Payback,' because not all of the metaphors in this show are subtle.

And on the other team's bench, Mr. World sends Technical Boy to find a replacement for the recently murdered Argus. TB goes to Silicon Valley to find someone who isn't named by the show, but is the head of a company called Xie Comm, so one assumes his name is Xie. This same CEO is the boy we saw in the opening sequence, playing video games and practicing Bach, until he realizes the link between music and math, programs software to write new Bach-like music, and apparently brings Technical Boy into being to play electronic classical music at his father's funeral. It's actually a really well structured and meticulously pieced together dissertation on the interrelationship between faith, love, music, and numbers, and it works all the better for throwing us into it without giving us any context or information whatsoever. I'm not always a fan of the cold open on this show, but this was really well done.

Technical Boy refers to this man whose name we have to assume is Xie as his friend. What's more, he refers to himself as being Xie's only friend, and we're given no reason to doubt that statement. Which makes it all the more heartbreaking when World shows up, uses New Media to steal Possibly-Xie's attention, and then leaves Technical Boy to die.

Oh, yeah. Technical Boy dies.

I did not see that coming. But we did have an extended discussion with New Media earlier about whether old Media had died or just been reformed, so maybe that was foreshadowing for New Technology. I hope not though, because Bruce Langley was fantastic in a part designed to be unlikable, and it would take away from his shock death if they just brought him back again. "I was literally your only friend..." he says to Possibly-Xie. But it seems much more likely that what is breaking his heart is that the reverse was also true. Goodbye Technical Boy. I spent a lot of time hating you, and then you made me cry for you, and then you died. RIP. Unless of course I read the situation wrong and he isn't dead. Then I'll feel foolish for writing this paragraph.

So, having 'retired a god' in Technical Boy, World gets past the sinister Girl  Penny Scouts, and he and Wednesday both sit down in front of Money, or 'The Bookkeeper' as he's credited, to make their sales pitch. Money gives a hard pass to both of them and leaves. Neither Wednesday or World seem that miffed about it, so it was probably more about preventing him from joining the opposition than getting him to join the team.

Quotes:

The Father: "This is Grief. And yet, the rising notes of joy shattering his own rules. Can you hear it?"

Ibis: "Like any formative life experience, death changes you."

Bilquis: "A woman’s heart should never be so hidden in God that she cannot hear her own truth."

New Media: "I wonder if the next version of me will feel me inside of her."

Mama-Ji: "You think America was eager to hand over her moneybags to the hungry, the tired, and the poor? We battle for every goddamn scrap."

New Media via a sign on a wall: "You’re only as good as your last win." Technical Boy: "Eat a giant bag of dicks."

Bilquis: "This country has not been kind to my face." Ibis: "You are as perfect and vibrant as the Euphrates."

Nancy: "Y’all done yet? ‘Cause I’m getting bored watching this bullshit."

Bilquis: "Suffering is not sacred."

Bilquis: "This country has done things to us." Nancy: "We have done things to us."

Wednesday: "I’m gonna win this one. People like me more than they like you." World: "I prefer to be feared."

Bits and Pieces:

-- A note for the pedantic. Yes, technically Bilquis is from Persia, and as such is not technically an African God. However, Ibis greets her as his queen, and he's clearly from Egypt, and Nancy refers to all three of them as African Gods, so I'm going with that read. Besides, our understanding of the Persian Empires geography is far from clear.

-- Is it strange that Jacuel/Anubis wasn't anywhere to be found for the discussion of African God's obligation to fight racial injustice?

-- It's strongly implied that Wednesday was instrumental in getting Bast to have sex with Shadow in his dreams, possibly fulfilling his promise that Shadow would wake up feeling great. That felt gross and robbed Bast of her own agency, which is particularly egregious in her case.

-- On that note, this is a rare case where without reading the book it would have been very difficult to know what the Hell was going on during the sex scene. They sort of half-explain it afterwards, but I don't think I would have understood it at all.

-- The direction of the sex scene was telling. In season one it would have been far more graphic, laying everything on screen in a non-exploitative and almost clinical way. See, for example, Salim and Ifrit's sex scene in 'Head Full of Snow.' Here it's directed much more conventionally, right down to Shadow having the sheet discretely draped over his personal business afterwards.

-- I wish they hadn't leaned so heavily into the Asian father who makes his son practice music thing, but it was really the only way to tell the story of how music and math intersected in the boy's life to create Technical Boy, or at least his friendship with Technical Boy. It's just kind of a tired trope.

-- Speaking of, and just for the record; music and math are incredibly connected. In many important ways they're the exact same thing. A software program that can be taught to understand and recreate Bach isn't unfeasible by any stretch of the imagination. It probably already exists, I haven't googled it.

-- It's a little messy, structurally, that Wednesday got Shadow to the funeral home only to take him away on a day trip right away so that Bilquis could stop by and have an important conversation. That feels like a vestigial remnant from the book, i.e he goes from the train to Cairo there, so that's what he does here.

-- No Laura or Sweeney this week. Looks like they're back next week.

-- It also appears that next week we'll see more of Bilquis' new friend Ruby Goodchild. I liked Ruby a lot. She felt like a real person.

-- The actor playing Money was William Sanderson. You might know him from literally every movie and television show ever made.

A really great episode that leaned into the new regime's strengths as opposed to leaning away from the previous ones'.

Three and a half out of four Emmys for Orlando Jones. Please, can we get an Emmy for Orlando Jones?

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[newstfionline]

I Took ‘Adulting Classes’ for Millennials

Andrew Zaleski, CityLab, Oct 29, 2018

On the eve of my wife’s 30th birthday--a milestone I, too, will soon hit--she posed a troubling question: Are we adults yet?

We certainly feel that way: We hold our own jobs, pay our own rent, cover our own bills, drive our own cars. Our credit is in order. But we don’t yet own a house and have no children--two markers commonly associated with fully-fledged adulthood (and two markers that both our sets of parents had reached well before they turned 30). And there are other gaps in our maturity: I don’t buy napkins or know how to golf; up until last year, I didn’t know how to change the oil in my car’s engine. Thankfully, last year we managed to throw a dinner party, our first, without burning the pork roast.

A vague anxiety over these known-unknowns is something of a generational hallmark. A Monday-morning scroll through the social media feed of the average 20-something might turn up a handful of friends sharing memes of dogs--looking bewildered, exasperated, or both--unironically captioned with something like: “Don’t make me adult today.”

Yes, Millennials have killed yet another thing. In this case, it’s something so fundamental that it may have seemed unkillable, but apparently isn’t: knowing how to be an adult.

Younger people need not look far on the internet to find popular condemnation from card-carrying grown-ups about our many shortcomings. We are, we are often told, simpering, self-indulgent, immune-to-difficulty know-nothings, overgrown toddlers who commute on children’s toys and demand cucumber water in our workplaces. But in our own social circles, such constructive criticism can be harder to find. Young urbanites tend to pack themselves into specific neighborhoods, cities, and living situations that have relatively fewer older residents. In such communities, knowledge on how to Seamless a meal to the doorstep is a dime a dozen, but first-hand experience in snaking a drain, cooking a meal for four, or operating a manual transmission comes at more of a premium. (To say nothing of the fact that a third of Americans between 18 and 34 are living with their parents.)

Luckily, the rough road to adulthood can be paved with adulting classes. The Adulting Collective, a startup venture out of Portland, Maine, made a big splash about two years ago after national news outlets reported on its in-person events. In its short lifespan, the Collective has offered up lessons, either guided or via online video, in such varied life skills as bike safety, holiday gift-giving for the cash-strapped, putting together a monthly budget, opening a bottle of wine without a corkscrew, and assembling a weekly nutritional plan. Their target audience: “emerging adults,” the massive 93-million-strong demographic group composed of people in their 20s and early 30s.

There are similarly structured programs across the country. At the Brooklyn Brainery, for example, you can take classes on how to run a good meeting or what Seinfeld teaches us about love. Take an online course with the Society of Grownups, sponsored by the insurance company Mass Mutual, and topics will include budgeting and how to deal with student-loan debt.

The sheer banality of many of these courses is their salient quality. They’re teaching stuff that people neither look forward to nor seem to enjoy, but implicitly recognize as part of being a grown-up: paying bills, setting a budget, calling the car insurance company, looking after your health. The joyless, quotidian chores of post-adolescence.

“Adulting is something nobody prepares you for, but you know it when it happens. It’s the unglorified part of being on your own,” says Rebekah Fitzsimmons, assistant director of the writing and communication program at Georgia Tech who taught a class on adulting in the 21st century in 2016.

In a bygone era, the ordinariness traditionally associated with growing the hell up was something few noticed--in the first half of the 20th century, 20-somethings were too busy trying not to die of the Spanish Flu or fighting Hitler to worry too much about what life skills they were failing to develop. That has now been replaced by public displays of what it means to be a self-sufficient human being, Fitzsimmons says. At the intersection of these two competing truths is the cottage industry of adulting, one nurtured by Instagram hashtags and built around how-to classes for hapless Millennials.

Born in 1989, I am a card-carrying member of the oft-derided demographic. How hapless am I? To find out, I signed up for the two action challenges the Adulting Collective offered last fall: one on nutrition and another focused on monthly budgeting. Via email, I received instructions for each of these week-long courses, which had me tackling a new skill or task each day.

When I hit 30, I intend to complete emerging adulthood fully equipped for whatever comes next.

First lesson: Hydrate! Never would I have thought the amount of water I consumed would be a point of instruction. But it turns out that young adults are notoriously poor judges of this particular basic biological need. The crash course in nutrition from the Adulting Collective that arrived in my inbox last fall was titled “Detox Before You Retox,” and it heavily emphasized hangover avoidance. Billed as a way to prepare yourself “before the next happy hour,” the instructions contained multiple steps broken down over five days. Step one: Get your basics in order, like eating your veggies, exercising, and drinking more water.

So one evening I stood in the harsh glow of my kitchen’s overhead fluorescent lighting--pitcher at the ready, glass on the countertop--applying myself to my first adulting lesson. On my smartphone I made a quick calculation: my weight, divided by 2.2, multiplied by my age, divided by 28.3, divided once more by eight. The answer: eight. More precisely, I needed to drink 7.56 cups of water to hit my proper daily intake.

This was only one of the big takeaways I received. I also learned that a morning drink of lemon water and cayenne pepper mixed with said water can help boost my metabolism, apparently. Like the unnecessarily complex hydration formula above, some of this material had the effect of making a heretofore uncomplicated thing more daunting. It was months later it finally dawned on me that a simple Google search could yield a far simpler answer for the number of glasses of water I ought to drink every day.

How did it come to this? Did previous generations have so much trouble mastering the basics?

“In an ideal world, we would all be followed around by this combination of our grandmother and Merlin who would lovingly teach us how to do each and every thing in the world,” says Kelly Williams Brown, author of the 2013 book Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 535 Easy(ish) Steps. “In the absence of that, it can be nice to have resources.”

Brown’s book seems to be largely responsible for the meteoric rise of the gerund form of the word (which was short-listed by Oxford Dictionaries as the word of the year in 2016). A revised edition of Adulting was published in March. The adulting industry itself is newer. Rachel Weinstein co-founded the Adulting School (now Collective) with Katie Brunelle in fall 2016. (Brunelle has since left the business.)

A professional therapist, Weinstein would sometimes encounter younger clients who spoke about the idiosyncrasies of grown-up life with a feeling of self-conscious shame. Being overwhelmed about how to manage money or clean out their kitchen pantry were things they felt they had to hide. “I just saw a lot of my clients struggle with life, trying to be competent in skills that we’re not necessarily taught. People had this sense of internal embarrassment,” she says.

To Weinstein, this seemed like a golden business opportunity. As a group, 26-year-olds are the single biggest age cohort in the U.S., followed by people who are 25, 27, and 24. Yet unlike previous generations, the young people of today are slower to reach the milestones usually associated with adulthood: living independently, forming their own households, having children, and getting married. “Today’s young people,” as the U.S. Census Bureau reported last year, “look different from prior generations in almost every regard.”

Tempting as it might be to identify the price of avocados as the culprit in this stunted generational progress, there may be other reasons to explain the shift. A research report released in the spring by Freddie Mac cited weak wage growth and the rapid rise of both housing costs and average expenditures as some of the principal reasons. “A popular meme, ‘adulting is hard,’ provides a humorous take on the challenges faced by young adults,” the authors wrote. “Like a lot of good comedy, the phrase has a tinge of cruelty.”

The typical adulting student is someone whose childhood was tech-dependent and activity-rich, the sort of high-achiever kid told to get good grades.

Geography plays a role, too: Millennials tend to choose to live in the centers of high-cost cities, and their earning power hasn’t kept pace with housing costs. Since 2000, the median home price in the U.S. has risen by a quarter, from $210,000 to $270,000, while the per capita real income for young adults has risen by only 1 percent during that same period. Throw those myriad factors together, and you have some of the explanation for why 20-somethings are renting for longer periods of time than they once did, as well as why marriage and fertility rates have dropped. Appropriately, Freddie Mac’s report was titled, “Why Is Adulting Getting Harder?”

But if you go further back, delaying the markers of adulthood does have historical precedent, says Holly Swyers, an anthropology professor at Lake Forest College. She recently completed a project examining adulthood in America from the Civil War to the present day. For much of the period Swyers studied, many Americans over 18 followed roughly the same trajectory as modern Millennials do: They spent their 20s figuring out life and establishing themselves financially. The script didn’t flip until the 1950s and 1960s, when the markers that defined crossing over into the world of adulthood came to mean marrying and having children.

“Marrying when you’re 20, having kids by 21, and being established is a little bit freakish in American history,” she says.

So if those Americans of yore managed to (eventually) attain maturity without the aid of online courses, why can’t Millennials?

Maybe we really are uniquely ignorant. That’s the thesis that GOP senator and Gen Xer Ben Sasse presents in his book The Vanishing American Adult. He writes that younger Americans have willfully embraced “perpetual adolescence.” Some of this is our fault, evidently: staring at our smartphones for hours on end has obliterated our attention spans. Yet Sasse also places blame at the feet of his own generation for its “reluctance to expose young people to the demands of real work.”

Weinstein, however, offers another explanation. She attributes the acute modern need for additional grow-up instruction to class and demographics. Her typical adulting student is probably someone whose childhood was tech-dependent and activity-rich, the sort of high-achiever kid who was repeatedly told to bring home good grades in order to get into a good college. “Whatever folks are really being pressured for college prep, they’re just not getting as much time and exposure at home hanging out with their family, learning how to unclog the kitchen sink, or hang a picture on the wall,” she says.

Lots of those over-scheduled and test-prepped teens of the aughts also missed out on erstwhile educational staples like home economics and shop classes, where high-school kids once learned how to darn a sock or hold a hammer; many schools began mothballing these mandatory courses in the 1990s. As a result, legions of American high-school graduates are being unleashed on the world without any basic skills. Some higher-education institutions, such as New Jersey’s Drew University, have stepped in to offer “Adulting 101” classes in things like beginner car care for their undergraduates.

The Adulting Collective doesn’t rely solely on Weinstein’s expertise for its courses, although it appears that designing an adulting curriculum is just as much of a challenge as growing up. Right now, the website contains some short posts and links to videos explaining a few skills, which is a deviation from the original idea to enlist instructors to offer online lessons. According to Weinstein, the new plan heading into 2019 is to build out a membership program that involves action challenges similar to the nutrition course I took part in. “One of the things I’ve learned as a therapist is a lot of times a little bit of accountability to somebody helps us achieve goals and get tasks done,” she says.

To Swyers, what’s extraordinary in Adulting Ed isn’t the curriculum itself, which is a pretty standard mix of self-improvement and personal finance tips. It’s the notion of branding such lessons under the “adulting” rubric. After all, classes geared toward grown-ups and their skills are all over the place. Visit any big-box hardware store and chances are there’s some sort of hands-on workshop taking place, for example. “If somebody is willing to be taught, for instance, basic kitchen skills--which people pay for all the time--they don’t call it an ‘adulting collective.’ They call it a cooking class,” Swyers says.

The difference, says Weinstein, is that the way younger adults are expected to grow older and assume our place in the world has dramatically changed: “I don’t think it’s a ‘hapless Millennial’ kind of thing at all. I just think there are things that are harder about the world today.”

Case in point: The spiraling costs of higher education. Those emerging adults are entering the workforce with massive student loans to pay off; no wonder some days all they can manage to do is Instagram bewildered-dog memes. “I have clients graduating from school with over $100,000 dollars worth of debt,” she says. “When you’re paying a mortgage’s worth of school debt every month, you’re probably going to need a little help stashing some money away in an emergency fund.”

Indeed, the most useful takeaways from my own brush with the adulting industry involved money management. Last fall’s challenge on budgeting included a chart for itemizing monthly breakdowns of expenses: so many dollars toward utilities, housing, food, clothing, and so on. After six months of following the chart I completed during the challenge, I managed to save up a sizable emergency fund of eight months’ worth of expenses--not bad for a freelance writer who graduated college with $250 to his name, and well worth the $5 I paid for the course itself.

The class was theirs. But the experience was all mine. And with my savings in order, I was freed up to stash excess cash in an additional account my wife and I hold to save for a future home down payment. With a house on the horizon, we’ve recently turned our attention to the prospect of having children sooner rather than later.

[brucestambaughsblog]

As a youngster, I remember those cold, blustery January days of sitting as close to the living room heat register as possible. I would grab the latest seed catalog that had arrived in the mail, and while myself away with luscious visions of warmer days ahead, corn on the cob, and fresh lima beans.

My brothers and sisters would sometimes join me in this communal dreaminess. We couldn’t wait to be harvesting our own fresh-picked pickles, ripe red tomatoes, and those buttery-colored ears of sweet corn. Of course, a lot of time, hard work, and patience would have to pass before all that deliciousness happened.

Besides, we would often get interrupted when one of the neighbor kids arrived at our doorstep to ask us to go sledding. Kids being kids, we usually traded future pleasantries for present ones.

With the advent of technology and electronic interconnection, emails seem to have replaced those slick, thick printed advertisements. The contents have changed, too.

Smart marketers know most baby boomers now prefer discovery to husbandry, although I have plenty of peers who still love to get their hands dirty. It’s usually on a much smaller scale than 30 years ago, however.

My wife and I gave up gardening for the most part when we moved to Virginia. For a woman who loved her flower gardens, Neva furrows her forehead at any mention of planting a patch of wildflowers on our little slice of America.

Maybe the marketers have seen that expression, too. That could explain why we don’t get those tempting seed publications anymore. Travel brochures, invitations, emails, booklets, and yes, catalogs have replaced their agrarian counterparts, promoting fun-filled cruises, exciting explorations, and exotic destinations.

There’s a good reason for that. Since most boomers are retired or semi-retired, a majority of us apparently like to travel. Besides the printed and electronic information, television and computer pop up ads besiege us with romantic places to go.

That’s all right with us. Neva and I both like to travel, and since we fit the retired category, we try to visit as many places as we can as time and money allow.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We also have to consider our age, our station in life, and our health, not necessarily in that order. We both know we are fortunate when it comes to our overall physical fitness. We also know that that may not last. So we must get in as much travel as possible while we still can.

Neva and I both enjoy learning about new places, cultures, languages, traditions, history, geography, and enticing locales. We also like familiarity, which is why we keep returning to our beloved Lakeside, Ohio, every summer.

Traveling allows us to enrich ourselves in all those subjects and much more. We know we aren’t alone because many of the offers we receive fill up quickly.

The land and ocean cruise we took to Alaska and the Yukon last summer was proof of that. Boomer-aged trekkers predominated at every stop and venue of the trip. In our group, only one young millennial couple dared to join our silver-haired entourage. Poor things, they were even on their honeymoon.

Because traveling is now so trendy and relatively easy, despite the security screening delays, cruises and group traveling are often planned a year or more in advance. You can dream in January, but if you don’t book right away, you may get shut out.

My touristy point comes full circle with personal disclosure. This January, I’m writing from Florida.

© Bruce Stambaugh 2020.

January dreaming As a youngster, I remember those cold, blustery January days of sitting as close to the living room heat register as possible.

[databridgemarketresearchblog]

Discover the Global Hereditary Angioedema Therapeutic Market gain impetus due to the growing demand over 2026

With a systematic problem analysis, model building and fact-finding, Hereditary Angioedema Therapeutic Market report helps businesses in decision-making and managing marketing of goods and services. The data and the information regarding Pharmaceutical industry are taken from reliable sources such as websites, annual reports of the companies, and journals etc. and were checked and validated by the market experts. Hereditary Angioedema Therapeutic Market report provides statistics on the current state of the industry as a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and investors interested in this market. This is the most relevant, unique, fair and creditable global market research report which suits your business needs.

Get Sample Analysis of Global Market Information: https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/request-a-sample/?dbmr=global-hereditary-angioedema-therapeutic-market

Market Analysis: Global Hereditary Angioedema Therapeutic Market

Global hereditary angioedema therapeutic market is expected to rise to an estimated value of USD 4.51 billion by 2026, registering a healthy CAGR in the forecast period of 2019-2026. This rise in market value can be attributed to the increased awareness about hereditary angioedema in various regions.

Major Market Competitors/Players

Few of the major competitors currently working in the global hereditary angioedema therapeutic market are Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited; CSL Limited; BIOCRYST PHARMACEUTICALS, INC.; Pharming Group N.V.; Ionis Pharmaceuticals;  Novartis AG; CENTOGENE AG; Sanofi; KalVista Pharmaceuticals among others.

Market Definition: Global Hereditary Angioedema Therapeutic Market

Hereditary angioedema is a rare genetic disorder. The common symptoms of the disease are repeated incidents of severe swelling limbs, intestinal tract, face, and airway. This disease is categorized into three categories:  Type I HAE, Type II HAE, Type III HAE. As per NIH Organization report, hereditary angioedema affects almost 1 in 50,000 people. The prevalence rate of Type I is more, which represents almost 85% of cases, the prevalence of Type II is 15% of, and the incidence of Type III is very rare.

Market Drivers:

Favourable reimbursement policies is expected to drive the growth of the market

Increasing cases of the hereditary angioedema in various regions globally is expected to drive the growth of the market

Increasing awareness about diagnosis and treatment of hereditary angioedema is also expected to boost the growth of the market

Increasing focus on developing novel therapeutics is expected to drive the growth of the market

Market Restraints:

Stringent regulatory policies is expected to restrict the growth of the market

High price of medicines, which is restricting the overall adoption of these meters

Misdiagnosis of the disease; this factor is expected to restrict the growth of the market

Segmentation: Global Hereditary Angioedema Therapeutic Market

By Type

Type I HAE

Type II HAE

Type III HAE

By Drug Class

C-1 Esterase Inhibitors

Bradykynin B2 Receptor Antagonist

Kallikrein Inhibitors

Others

Cinryze

Berinert

Ruconest

By Application

Prophylaxis

Treatment

By Route of Administration

Oral

Injectable

IV

Subcutaneous

By End-User

Home Healthcare

Hospitals

Clinics

Others

By Distribution Channel

Hospital Pharmacy

Retail Pharmacy

Online Pharmacy

By Geography

North America

Europe

Asia-Pacific

South America

Middle East and Africa

U.S.

Canada

Mexico

Germany

Italy

U.K.

France

Spain

Netherlands

Belgium

Switzerland

Turkey

Russia

Rest of Europe

Japan

China

India

South Korea

Australia

Singapore

Malaysia

Thailand

Indonesia

Philippines

Rest of Asia-Pacific

Brazil

Rest of South America

Saudi Arabia

Rest of Middle East and Africa

Get TOC of Full Report: https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/toc/?dbmr=global-hereditary-angioedema-therapeutic-market

Key Developments in the Market:

In August 2018, Shire plc (A subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited) received FDA approval for its Takhzyro (lanadelumab-flyo). This is a plasma kallikrein inhibitor (monoclonal antibody). This drug is used in the treatment of hereditary angioedema attacks. This will help the company to create a strong product portfolio

In June 2017, CSL Behring received FDA approval for its Haegarda. This is a C1 esterase inhibitor.  This is a low-volume subcutaneous (SC) C1-esterase inhibitor (C1-INH) replacement therapy used in the treatment of hereditary angioedema (HAE) attacks. This will help in the expansion of the company’s product portfolio

Competitive Analysis

Global hereditary angioedema therapeutic market is highly fragmented and the major players have used various strategies such as new product launches, expansions, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions, and others to increase their footprints in this market. The report includes market shares of hereditary angioedema therapeutic market for global, Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, South America and Middle East & Africa.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

CIRCUMSTANCES BEING WHAT THEY WERE, COMPANIES WOULD HAVE BEEN: SURE, GIVE 'EM WHATEVER THEY ASK FOR, SO LONG AS YOU'RE A PRODUCT COMPANY THAT'S MERELY BEING EXTRA ATTENTIVE TO A CUSTOMER, THEY'RE VERY GRATEFUL EVEN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO; YOU COULD TELL FROM THE CASE

But apparently hackers are particularly curious, especially about how things work. See Greenspun's Tenth Rule.1 Mark Zuckerberg at Startup School, he said they'd decided to build their software on Windows NT, and had just hired a very experienced NT developer to be their chief technical officer.2 They'd be in a rush to choose your life's work. In a way this is virtuous, because I think startups are a good thing. When you're running a startup you have to be the best you ever get. They wouldn't do it otherwise.

People may still watch things they call TV shows, but they'll watch them mostly on computers. How long will it take them to grasp this?3 He returned to Harvard for the fall semester after starting Microsoft. Here's a simple trick for getting more people to read what you write: write in spoken language. But you never had one guy painting over the work of multiple hands, though there may only be one name on the wall next to it in the museum. So a company that can attract great hackers will have a huge advantage. Bill Gates?

Even if math is upwind of economics, how are you supposed to know that as a replacement for don't give up on your dreams to what someone else can do, but you come from the corporate world and your friends, or even the fact that they have a single format.4 A startup now can be just a pair of 22 year old guys. I was taught, was a kind of mania for object-oriented programming is popular in big companies, because their software is probably going to be a general consensus about which problems are hard to solve, and what constitutes a good solution. For cases like that there's a more drastic solution.5 It might seem that nothing would be easier than deciding what you like, but it seems lame to use them. And finally, if a good investor in the startups is that there are two possible explanations: a it is finished, or b you lack imagination. Written language is more complex, which makes it more work to read. If startups are the first to go. It's the same with all of them.6

I'm describing already sounds too good to be true to think you could grow a local silicon valley by giving startups $15-20k each like Y Combinator there, but in software you want to make money that you can't do it by accident. 28%. They may have to use Java and Windows at work, but how to work together.7 Imagine what it would take if one did.8 Some hackers are quite smart, but when it comes to code I behave in a way that would make them unavailable to the people who make the most money: make the best surgeons operate with their left hands, force popular actors to overeat, and so on. They're like someone looking at a newborn baby and concluding there's no way this tiny creature could ever accomplish anything. He said he didn't think so, because the bugs are random.

They get new technology by buying the startups that can retain control tend to be people I know who favor markets are Marc, Jawed Karim, and Joe Kraus. Few would be willing to claim that it doesn't reduce economic inequality, you decrease the number of people who can be employed in an economy consisting of big, slow-moving companies with a couple thousand people each. That is wildly oversimplified, of course, since they read somewhere that's the optimum day to launch something. It's clear now that even by using the word convergence we were giving TV too much credit.9 There are a lot of what looks like work. Of course not. Before credentials, government positions were obtained mainly by family influence, if not outright bribery.10 Ironically, part of the training of engineers.11 If he was good, so I read it out loud and fix everything that doesn't sound like conversation.

I was a kid I thought they protected inventors from having their ideas stolen by big companies. The difference between the good ones. Seven years later I still hadn't started.12 The good news is that they're cheaper to produce. But you know perfectly well how bogus most of these are.13 What I'm telling you is that you will yourself misunderstand your work. I've never been 100% sure whether patents help or hinder technological progress.

Notes

Robert V.

MITE Corp. They'd be interchangeable if markets stood still. When that happens.

They don't make their money if they don't have to tell them about your conversations with VCs suggest it's roughly correct for startups that are still a few VC firms.

This probably undervalues the company is always 15 weeks behind the rapacious one. So if they don't know of a handful of lame investors first, and in some cases the process dragged on for months. Scheme: define foo n n _ Erann Gat's sad tale about industry best practice at JPL inspired me to address this generally misapplied phrase. VCs recapitalize the company really cared about users they'd just advise them to represent anything.

People were more the aggregate is what you learn in college. To do it mostly on your cap table, and they were already lots of options, because we know exactly what your body is telling you to two more investors. A larger set of plausible sounding startup ideas, because any invention has a similar logic, one of them is that so few founders do it for the next round, though I think the top startup law firms are Wilson Sonsini, Orrick, Fenwick West, Gunderson Dettmer, and one didn't try to avoid using it out of their initial funding runs out. Aristotle's contribution?

Again, hard work is in itself be evidence of a type II startups neither require nor produce startup culture. So instead of being interrupted deters hackers from starting hard projects.

The Sub-Zero 690, one could reasonably be with children, with number replaced by gender. Yahoo was their customer. Quite often at YC. But it was more rebellion which can make offers that super-angels gradually to erode.

What they must do is leave them alone in the few cases where you currently are. That's because the arrival of desktop publishing, given people the first half of it in the middle class values; it has about the Airbnbs during YC.

Just use the phrase frequently, you would never come face to face with the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Edgar v. But it is genuine. This was certainly true in fields that have it as if you'd just thought of them had been able to raise money are saved from hiring too fast because they know you'll have to resort to raising money from the moment the time required to notice when it's aligned with the New Deal but with World War II.

S P 500 CEOs in 2002 was 35,560. That's why startups always pay equity rather than by you based on their utility function for money.

If they want to invest in syndicates. See, we should be asking will you build this? You'll be lucky if fundraising feels pleasant enough to turn into other forms of inequality, and you'll probably have some kind of secret about the origins of the present that most people who did it.

This is why they tend to have lunch at the time it takes a few months later.

That makes some rich people move, but Joshua Schachter tells me it was worth about 30 billion. Investors are one of the great painters in history supported themselves by painting portraits. They found it easier for some reason, rather than geography. He was off by only about 2%.

[statrano]

An Open Letter to Teachers About Online Classes

Nearly three million students currently attend online programs and six million take at least one online class. This means learning online has become one of the most popular approaches to education.

I am an adjunct profession who teaches solely online for a variety of big-name colleges and Universities. Each year, the classes grow in size. Whether you like it or not, this is the future of education, where people pursue learning without the need for a car, expensive gas, parking fees, campus-based meals, housing (if you live on campus), traffic delays, absent teachers, wait lists for full classes, inflexible time schedules, conflicts with personal schedules, and all those details that make attending college a juggling act. Done right, you don’t have to give up the collaboration, camaraderie, and new friends to get the passion of learning, the huzzah of amazing knowledge, and the high of improving yourself.

What I like best about online classes is that they are personalized learning that differentiates for varied student needs, learning styles, and communication methods. Don’t get me wrong. I know it’s not for everyone but for some, it allows them to achieve their goals without the suffocating structure usually associated with attending on-campus classes.

Before I get into how I teach online classes, here are some of the factors to consider when you weigh online or on-campus:

Pros

Here is a sampling of reasons why students love to learn online:

They develop a community of learners much greater than a typical on-campus class, and these learners can be as involved or distant as they choose to be.

Students learn new tech tools they will see again and again — in fact, that are being adopted by K-12 schools for snow days and student sick days.

Once learned, they are easy. They are designed not for geeks but for everyone else who will try a webtool if it’s intuitive and easy to use.

Online enrollment is not limited by geography or age, making the learning network students access larger than any on-campus class.

Many online classes are accredited by a variety of traditional organizations. That means they’re as rigorous and robust as on-campus versions.

Regulations for online colleges are not decided by where you live but your qualifications, preparation, and interest. This means you may (or may not) have more flexibility in attaining a degree than you would at your local schools.

Students who have reasons for avoiding others — maybe they’re shy — will find online classes better suited to their particular needs.

While most online classes include deadlines and due dates, they don’t restrict how much time students do or don’t spend preparing the material, just its submittal. If you’re one of those who spends more time than the norm (or less), when it’s done from the comfort of your home on your own schedule, it doesn’t matter.

Many students don’t learn well in a traditional school due to classmates, the environment, rules, time limitations, or a different reason. Online classes include fewer distractions, no worries about what to wear, and there are no cliques.

Cons

Online classes aren’t for everyone. Here are some of the reasons why some say they aren’t a good choice:

The perception is that online classes aren’t as rigorous. Pushing your limits is a great benefit of education. If you haven’t found the classes you take online offer this cerebral push, they probably aren’t a good choice in your area.

Some universities don’t yet offer online classes. If your goal is to receive a degree from a particular school, they may not offer fully-fleshed out online degrees. Yet.

If virtual meetings are required (which more and more online classes do), these may be new technology to you and intimidating to try.

Your Internet connection or WiFi may be too spotty or undependable to trust it will work throughout the time required for an online class.

Technology is a show-stopper for some who feel unequipped to handle online LMSs like Blackboard, class forums, virtual get-togethers, homework submittal, and more.

Online classes require self-motivation. While they do have deadlines and due dates, there is little peer or teacher pressure to submit. It is the student responsibility to do the required work and submit it on time.

Be sure the school you are considering is accredited by a group approved by the US Department of Education to meet certain education quality standards.

Running an online class

I have taught both on-campus and online throughout my career. I prefer online not only because it better fits my schedule but because I have always favored responding to the needs of students underserved by traditional education choices. As the professor for an online class, I can adapt to student needs, meet them outside of office hours when required, respond to their email requests more quickly, and approve their desire for program modifications more quickly. Overall, I like being a partner with those passionate about learning but poorly-suited to campus-based classes.

Here are some of the features my students like best about my online classes:

I use a robust Learning Management System (Canvas for some and Google Classroom for others) for all classwork from assignments to sharing resources, submitting homework, taking tests, participating in discussion boards, and attending virtual meetings. Everything a student needs is found in one place. Becoming familiar with the system is no more complicated than finding parking at a campus, locating the room, and understanding the teacher’s particular rules.  

Sometimes I work from a textbook but more often, I teach from carefully-selected topical articles, videos, and resources that I collect from what’s available online (legally).

I require weekly Discussion Board participation and I grade student involvement with their classmates. This activity not only replaces the typical classroom socialization but provides students with the start to their own ongoing Professional Learning Network, a valuable resource they take away from classes. I treat the Discussion Board like a faculty lounge where students/teachers stop in, chat, ask and answer questions, and share what’s on their mind.

In most of my online classes, I require attendance at a weekly virtual meeting that lasts between 30-60 minutes and is graded. These are delivered via Canvas’ Big Blue Button (which is fully integrated into the Canvas LMS), Google Hangouts, or Webroom.net. I assign questions that summarize class learning and provide a basis for conversation during the meeting. Virtual meetings give all of us an opportunity to see each other, pursue conversations started on the Discussion Board, and ask about issues from the weekly material. Because I want to encourage lifelong learning, students can join these meetings from anywhere — their home office, classroom, a family picnic, even the car ride to a social event. 

I’m always available for questions or dedicated virtual meetings. But before I help with tech issues (like how to use the virtual meeting or the discussion boards), I ask students to try to solve the problems themselves. I want them to realize that the required tech 1) isn’t that hard, and 2) is within their ability. They are problem-solvers even if they don’t know it. And, how they learn the required tech is a model for how they can expect their students to learn it. 

Did I miss any details you’d like to know? Ask in the comments!

Oh — BTW — if you’re looking for an interactive online class, I have four starting in June on Differentiation (MTI 563), Tech Tools in Class (MTI 562), Building Digital Citizens (MTI 557), and Using Tech to Teach Writing (MTI 558). They include great resources, are project-based, and offer lots of opportunities to interact with classmates and build your own Professional Learning Network.

More about online classes:

Certificate/College Credit Classes

Remote Learning: Tips for Thriving in This Ecosystem

15 Takeaways from Online Grad School Classes

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of two tech thrillers. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

An Open Letter to Teachers About Online Classes published first on https://seminarsacademy.tumblr.com/

[corpasa]

An Open Letter to Teachers About Online Classes

Nearly three million students currently attend online programs and six million take at least one online class. This means learning online has become one of the most popular approaches to education.

I am an adjunct profession who teaches solely online for a variety of big-name colleges and Universities. Each year, the classes grow in size. Whether you like it or not, this is the future of education, where people pursue learning without the need for a car, expensive gas, parking fees, campus-based meals, housing (if you live on campus), traffic delays, absent teachers, wait lists for full classes, inflexible time schedules, conflicts with personal schedules, and all those details that make attending college a juggling act. Done right, you don’t have to give up the collaboration, camaraderie, and new friends to get the passion of learning, the huzzah of amazing knowledge, and the high of improving yourself.

What I like best about online classes is that they are personalized learning that differentiates for varied student needs, learning styles, and communication methods. Don’t get me wrong. I know it’s not for everyone but for some, it allows them to achieve their goals without the suffocating structure usually associated with attending on-campus classes.

Before I get into how I teach online classes, here are some of the factors to consider when you weigh online or on-campus:

Pros

Here is a sampling of reasons why students love to learn online:

They develop a community of learners much greater than a typical on-campus class, and these learners can be as involved or distant as they choose to be.

Students learn new tech tools they will see again and again — in fact, that are being adopted by K-12 schools for snow days and student sick days.

Once learned, they are easy. They are designed not for geeks but for everyone else who will try a webtool if it’s intuitive and easy to use.

Online enrollment is not limited by geography or age, making the learning network students access larger than any on-campus class.

Many online classes are accredited by a variety of traditional organizations. That means they’re as rigorous and robust as on-campus versions.

Regulations for online colleges are not decided by where you live but your qualifications, preparation, and interest. This means you may (or may not) have more flexibility in attaining a degree than you would at your local schools.

Students who have reasons for avoiding others — maybe they’re shy — will find online classes better suited to their particular needs.

While most online classes include deadlines and due dates, they don’t restrict how much time students do or don’t spend preparing the material, just its submittal. If you’re one of those who spends more time than the norm (or less), when it’s done from the comfort of your home on your own schedule, it doesn’t matter.

Many students don’t learn well in a traditional school due to classmates, the environment, rules, time limitations, or a different reason. Online classes include fewer distractions, no worries about what to wear, and there are no cliques.

Cons

Online classes aren’t for everyone. Here are some of the reasons why some say they aren’t a good choice:

The perception is that online classes aren’t as rigorous. Pushing your limits is a great benefit of education. If you haven’t found the classes you take online offer this cerebral push, they probably aren’t a good choice in your area.

Some universities don’t yet offer online classes. If your goal is to receive a degree from a particular school, they may not offer fully-fleshed out online degrees. Yet.

If virtual meetings are required (which more and more online classes do), these may be new technology to you and intimidating to try.

Your Internet connection or WiFi may be too spotty or undependable to trust it will work throughout the time required for an online class.

Technology is a show-stopper for some who feel unequipped to handle online LMSs like Blackboard, class forums, virtual get-togethers, homework submittal, and more.

Online classes require self-motivation. While they do have deadlines and due dates, there is little peer or teacher pressure to submit. It is the student responsibility to do the required work and submit it on time.

Be sure the school you are considering is accredited by a group approved by the US Department of Education to meet certain education quality standards.

Running an online class

I have taught both on-campus and online throughout my career. I prefer online not only because it better fits my schedule but because I have always favored responding to the needs of students underserved by traditional education choices. As the professor for an online class, I can adapt to student needs, meet them outside of office hours when required, respond to their email requests more quickly, and approve their desire for program modifications more quickly. Overall, I like being a partner with those passionate about learning but poorly-suited to campus-based classes.

Here are some of the features my students like best about my online classes:

I use a robust Learning Management System (Canvas for some and Google Classroom for others) for all classwork from assignments to sharing resources, submitting homework, taking tests, participating in discussion boards, and attending virtual meetings. Everything a student needs is found in one place. Becoming familiar with the system is no more complicated than finding parking at a campus, locating the room, and understanding the teacher’s particular rules.  

Sometimes I work from a textbook but more often, I teach from carefully-selected topical articles, videos, and resources that I collect from what’s available online (legally).

I require weekly Discussion Board participation and I grade student involvement with their classmates. This activity not only replaces the typical classroom socialization but provides students with the start to their own ongoing Professional Learning Network, a valuable resource they take away from classes. I treat the Discussion Board like a faculty lounge where students/teachers stop in, chat, ask and answer questions, and share what’s on their mind.

In most of my online classes, I require attendance at a weekly virtual meeting that lasts between 30-60 minutes and is graded. These are delivered via Canvas’ Big Blue Button (which is fully integrated into the Canvas LMS), Google Hangouts, or Webroom.net. I assign questions that summarize class learning and provide a basis for conversation during the meeting. Virtual meetings give all of us an opportunity to see each other, pursue conversations started on the Discussion Board, and ask about issues from the weekly material. Because I want to encourage lifelong learning, students can join these meetings from anywhere — their home office, classroom, a family picnic, even the car ride to a social event. 

I’m always available for questions or dedicated virtual meetings. But before I help with tech issues (like how to use the virtual meeting or the discussion boards), I ask students to try to solve the problems themselves. I want them to realize that the required tech 1) isn’t that hard, and 2) is within their ability. They are problem-solvers even if they don’t know it. And, how they learn the required tech is a model for how they can expect their students to learn it. 

Did I miss any details you’d like to know? Ask in the comments!

Oh — BTW — if you’re looking for an interactive online class, I have four starting in June on Differentiation (MTI 563), Tech Tools in Class (MTI 562), Building Digital Citizens (MTI 557), and Using Tech to Teach Writing (MTI 558). They include great resources, are project-based, and offer lots of opportunities to interact with classmates and build your own Professional Learning Network.

More about online classes:

Certificate/College Credit Classes

Remote Learning: Tips for Thriving in This Ecosystem

15 Takeaways from Online Grad School Classes

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of two tech thrillers. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

An Open Letter to Teachers About Online Classes published first on https://medium.com/@DLBusinessNow

[endevia]

An Open Letter to Teachers About Online Classes

Nearly three million students currently attend online programs and six million take at least one online class. This means learning online has become one of the most popular approaches to education.

I am an adjunct profession who teaches solely online for a variety of big-name colleges and Universities. Each year, the classes grow in size. Whether you like it or not, this is the future of education, where people pursue learning without the need for a car, expensive gas, parking fees, campus-based meals, housing (if you live on campus), traffic delays, absent teachers, wait lists for full classes, inflexible time schedules, conflicts with personal schedules, and all those details that make attending college a juggling act. Done right, you don’t have to give up the collaboration, camaraderie, and new friends to get the passion of learning, the huzzah of amazing knowledge, and the high of improving yourself.

What I like best about online classes is that they are personalized learning that differentiates for varied student needs, learning styles, and communication methods. Don’t get me wrong. I know it’s not for everyone but for some, it allows them to achieve their goals without the suffocating structure usually associated with attending on-campus classes.

Before I get into how I teach online classes, here are some of the factors to consider when you weigh online or on-campus:

Pros

Here is a sampling of reasons why students love to learn online:

They develop a community of learners much greater than a typical on-campus class, and these learners can be as involved or distant as they choose to be.

Students learn new tech tools they will see again and again — in fact, that are being adopted by K-12 schools for snow days and student sick days.

Once learned, they are easy. They are designed not for geeks but for everyone else who will try a webtool if it’s intuitive and easy to use.

Online enrollment is not limited by geography or age, making the learning network students access larger than any on-campus class.

Many online classes are accredited by a variety of traditional organizations. That means they’re as rigorous and robust as on-campus versions.

Regulations for online colleges are not decided by where you live but your qualifications, preparation, and interest. This means you may (or may not) have more flexibility in attaining a degree than you would at your local schools.

Students who have reasons for avoiding others — maybe they’re shy — will find online classes better suited to their particular needs.

While most online classes include deadlines and due dates, they don’t restrict how much time students do or don’t spend preparing the material, just its submittal. If you’re one of those who spends more time than the norm (or less), when it’s done from the comfort of your home on your own schedule, it doesn’t matter.

Many students don’t learn well in a traditional school due to classmates, the environment, rules, time limitations, or a different reason. Online classes include fewer distractions, no worries about what to wear, and there are no cliques.

Cons

Online classes aren’t for everyone. Here are some of the reasons why some say they aren’t a good choice:

The perception is that online classes aren’t as rigorous. Pushing your limits is a great benefit of education. If you haven’t found the classes you take online offer this cerebral push, they probably aren’t a good choice in your area.

Some universities don’t yet offer online classes. If your goal is to receive a degree from a particular school, they may not offer fully-fleshed out online degrees. Yet.

If virtual meetings are required (which more and more online classes do), these may be new technology to you and intimidating to try.

Your Internet connection or WiFi may be too spotty or undependable to trust it will work throughout the time required for an online class.

Technology is a show-stopper for some who feel unequipped to handle online LMSs like Blackboard, class forums, virtual get-togethers, homework submittal, and more.

Online classes require self-motivation. While they do have deadlines and due dates, there is little peer or teacher pressure to submit. It is the student responsibility to do the required work and submit it on time.

Be sure the school you are considering is accredited by a group approved by the US Department of Education to meet certain education quality standards.

Running an online class

I have taught both on-campus and online throughout my career. I prefer online not only because it better fits my schedule but because I have always favored responding to the needs of students underserved by traditional education choices. As the professor for an online class, I can adapt to student needs, meet them outside of office hours when required, respond to their email requests more quickly, and approve their desire for program modifications more quickly. Overall, I like being a partner with those passionate about learning but poorly-suited to campus-based classes.

Here are some of the features my students like best about my online classes:

I use a robust Learning Management System (Canvas for some and Google Classroom for others) for all classwork from assignments to sharing resources, submitting homework, taking tests, participating in discussion boards, and attending virtual meetings. Everything a student needs is found in one place. Becoming familiar with the system is no more complicated than finding parking at a campus, locating the room, and understanding the teacher’s particular rules.  

Sometimes I work from a textbook but more often, I teach from carefully-selected topical articles, videos, and resources that I collect from what’s available online (legally).

I require weekly Discussion Board participation and I grade student involvement with their classmates. This activity not only replaces the typical classroom socialization but provides students with the start to their own ongoing Professional Learning Network, a valuable resource they take away from classes. I treat the Discussion Board like a faculty lounge where students/teachers stop in, chat, ask and answer questions, and share what’s on their mind.

In most of my online classes, I require attendance at a weekly virtual meeting that lasts between 30-60 minutes and is graded. These are delivered via Canvas’ Big Blue Button (which is fully integrated into the Canvas LMS), Google Hangouts, or Webroom.net. I assign questions that summarize class learning and provide a basis for conversation during the meeting. Virtual meetings give all of us an opportunity to see each other, pursue conversations started on the Discussion Board, and ask about issues from the weekly material. Because I want to encourage lifelong learning, students can join these meetings from anywhere — their home office, classroom, a family picnic, even the car ride to a social event. 

I’m always available for questions or dedicated virtual meetings. But before I help with tech issues (like how to use the virtual meeting or the discussion boards), I ask students to try to solve the problems themselves. I want them to realize that the required tech 1) isn’t that hard, and 2) is within their ability. They are problem-solvers even if they don’t know it. And, how they learn the required tech is a model for how they can expect their students to learn it. 

Did I miss any details you’d like to know? Ask in the comments!

Oh — BTW — if you’re looking for an interactive online class, I have four starting in June on Differentiation (MTI 563), Tech Tools in Class (MTI 562), Building Digital Citizens (MTI 557), and Using Tech to Teach Writing (MTI 558). They include great resources, are project-based, and offer lots of opportunities to interact with classmates and build your own Professional Learning Network.

More about online classes:

Certificate/College Credit Classes

Remote Learning: Tips for Thriving in This Ecosystem

15 Takeaways from Online Grad School Classes

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of two tech thrillers. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

An Open Letter to Teachers About Online Classes published first on https://medium.com/@greatpricecourse

[evnoweb]

An Open Letter to Teachers About Online Classes

Nearly three million students currently attend online programs and six million take at least one online class. This means learning online has become one of the most popular approaches to education.

I am an adjunct profession who teaches solely online for a variety of big-name colleges and Universities. Each year, the classes grow in size. Whether you like it or not, this is the future of education, where people pursue learning without the need for a car, expensive gas, parking fees, campus-based meals, housing (if you live on campus), traffic delays, absent teachers, wait lists for full classes, inflexible time schedules, conflicts with personal schedules, and all those details that make attending college a juggling act. Done right, you don’t have to give up the collaboration, camaraderie, and new friends to get the passion of learning, the huzzah of amazing knowledge, and the high of improving yourself.

What I like best about online classes is that they are personalized learning that differentiates for varied student needs, learning styles, and communication methods. Don’t get me wrong. I know it’s not for everyone but for some, it allows them to achieve their goals without the suffocating structure usually associated with attending on-campus classes.

Before I get into how I teach online classes, here are some of the factors to consider when you weigh online or on-campus:

Pros

Here is a sampling of reasons why students love to learn online:

They develop a community of learners much greater than a typical on-campus class, and these learners can be as involved or distant as they choose to be.

Students learn new tech tools they will see again and again — in fact, that are being adopted by K-12 schools for snow days and student sick days.

Once learned, they are easy. They are designed not for geeks but for everyone else who will try a webtool if it’s intuitive and easy to use.

Online enrollment is not limited by geography or age, making the learning network students access larger than any on-campus class.

Many online classes are accredited by a variety of traditional organizations. That means they’re as rigorous and robust as on-campus versions.

Regulations for online colleges are not decided by where you live but your qualifications, preparation, and interest. This means you may (or may not) have more flexibility in attaining a degree than you would at your local schools.

Students who have reasons for avoiding others — maybe they’re shy — will find online classes better suited to their particular needs.

While most online classes include deadlines and due dates, they don’t restrict how much time students do or don’t spend preparing the material, just its submittal. If you’re one of those who spends more time than the norm (or less), when it’s done from the comfort of your home on your own schedule, it doesn’t matter.

Many students don’t learn well in a traditional school due to classmates, the environment, rules, time limitations, or a different reason. Online classes include fewer distractions, no worries about what to wear, and there are no cliques.

Cons

Online classes aren’t for everyone. Here are some of the reasons why some say they aren’t a good choice:

The perception is that online classes aren’t as rigorous. Pushing your limits is a great benefit of education. If you haven’t found the classes you take online offer this cerebral push, they probably aren’t a good choice in your area.

Some universities don’t yet offer online classes. If your goal is to receive a degree from a particular school, they may not offer fully-fleshed out online degrees. Yet.

If virtual meetings are required (which more and more online classes do), these may be new technology to you and intimidating to try.

Your Internet connection or WiFi may be too spotty or undependable to trust it will work throughout the time required for an online class.

Technology is a show-stopper for some who feel unequipped to handle online LMSs like Blackboard, class forums, virtual get-togethers, homework submittal, and more.

Online classes require self-motivation. While they do have deadlines and due dates, there is little peer or teacher pressure to submit. It is the student responsibility to do the required work and submit it on time.

Be sure the school you are considering is accredited by a group approved by the US Department of Education to meet certain education quality standards.

Running an online class

I have taught both on-campus and online throughout my career. I prefer online not only because it better fits my schedule but because I have always favored responding to the needs of students underserved by traditional education choices. As the professor for an online class, I can adapt to student needs, meet them outside of office hours when required, respond to their email requests more quickly, and approve their desire for program modifications more quickly. Overall, I like being a partner with those passionate about learning but poorly-suited to campus-based classes.

Here are some of the features my students like best about my online classes:

I use a robust Learning Management System (Canvas for some and Google Classroom for others) for all classwork from assignments to sharing resources, submitting homework, taking tests, participating in discussion boards, and attending virtual meetings. Everything a student needs is found in one place. Becoming familiar with the system is no more complicated than finding parking at a campus, locating the room, and understanding the teacher’s particular rules.  

Sometimes I work from a textbook but more often, I teach from carefully-selected topical articles, videos, and resources that I collect from what’s available online (legally).

I require weekly Discussion Board participation and I grade student involvement with their classmates. This activity not only replaces the typical classroom socialization but provides students with the start to their own ongoing Professional Learning Network, a valuable resource they take away from classes. I treat the Discussion Board like a faculty lounge where students/teachers stop in, chat, ask and answer questions, and share what’s on their mind.

In most of my online classes, I require attendance at a weekly virtual meeting that lasts between 30-60 minutes and is graded. These are delivered via Canvas’ Big Blue Button (which is fully integrated into the Canvas LMS), Google Hangouts, or Webroom.net. I assign questions that summarize class learning and provide a basis for conversation during the meeting. Virtual meetings give all of us an opportunity to see each other, pursue conversations started on the Discussion Board, and ask about issues from the weekly material. Because I want to encourage lifelong learning, students can join these meetings from anywhere — their home office, classroom, a family picnic, even the car ride to a social event. 

I’m always available for questions or dedicated virtual meetings. But before I help with tech issues (like how to use the virtual meeting or the discussion boards), I ask students to try to solve the problems themselves. I want them to realize that the required tech 1) isn’t that hard, and 2) is within their ability. They are problem-solvers even if they don’t know it. And, how they learn the required tech is a model for how they can expect their students to learn it. 

Did I miss any details you’d like to know? Ask in the comments!

Oh — BTW — if you’re looking for an interactive online class, I have four starting in June on Differentiation (MTI 563), Tech Tools in Class (MTI 562), Building Digital Citizens (MTI 557), and Using Tech to Teach Writing (MTI 558). They include great resources, are project-based, and offer lots of opportunities to interact with classmates and build your own Professional Learning Network.

More about online classes:

Certificate/College Credit Classes

Remote Learning: Tips for Thriving in This Ecosystem

15 Takeaways from Online Grad School Classes

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of two tech thrillers. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

An Open Letter to Teachers About Online Classes published first on https://medium.com/@DigitalDLCourse

[realestatedigitalsales]

Real Estate - Three Ways Blockchain Technology Will Revolutionize Real Estate in 2019

Real Estate - Three Ways Blockchain Technology Will Revolutionize Real Estate in 2019

Real Estate - Three Ways Blockchain Technology Will Revolutionize Real Estate in 2019

By Hunter Perry   Real Estate - Blockchain is poised to redefine how we make transactions in the same way that the internet has redefined how we communicate and share information. It was originally created a decade ago to support the cryptocurrency bitcoin, but has grown to be so much more. Blockchain has lead to the creation (and loss) of millions of fortunes, the launch of hundreds of new companies, billions of dollars in investor funding and, most commonly for the non-technical, a lot of confusion around its true benefits. In its most basic form, blockchain makes it possible for the first time ever for people and companies to make major transactions without going through an intermediary. Intermediaries like credit card service companies, stock exchanges, banks and governments can make transactions expensive, slow and illiquid and may open opportunities for fraud or crime. Access to deals, the amount of time it takes to close, property title mistakes, high fees and fraud bog down the real estate industry. It is the largest asset class in the world and has had minimal innovation in the way of increased efficiency during transactions. Blockchain poses major opportunities for innovation in real estate. Here are three innovations that will change how real estate is done for the better in 2019. Tokenization Historically, owning the most lucrative hard assets required investors to already be wealthy and have the luxury of being able to wait years to liquidate. That changes with tokenization. Tokenization democratizes ownership of assets by using cryptocurrency to split assets into tokens that are stored on the blockchain. Someone who wants to invest in a trophy real estate project now has the luxury of being able to resell their share on the open market through secondary trading. Also, people in different geographies and tax brackets now have access to attractive investment opportunities that they previously would not. Landlords now have the ability to sell off just a portion of their property to the crowd. In 2019, I believe we will see a major migration of real estate ownership moving to the blockchain. One of the pioneers in the space is Templum Markets, the first federally regulated marketplace for the primary issuance and secondary trading of security tokens. It recently closed what is thought to be the first digital security tokenization of a trophy real estate asset: Investors had the opportunity to invest as little as $10,000 in the St. Regis Hotel in Aspen. Unlike with most major real estate investments, owners are not locked in until the building is sold. They will be able to sell their portion on the secondary market. Smart Contracts The current state of property agreements have a lot of moving parts and middlemen. A transaction using a smart contract is completed entirely between the buyer and the seller (or renter and landlord) and has no human interaction. Transactions can be done in far less time with far less chance of fraud. The seller includes all of the details of the property and the buyer puts all of their necessary information on a 100% encrypted and secure block. Computer protocols check the legitimacy of the transaction and no agreement can be completed until all of the terms are met. Propy is one of the most well-known incumbents in the space. It has built technology for buyers, sellers, brokers, title agents and notaries to come together through a suite of smart contracts on blockchain to facilitate transactions. Real estate purchasing can be a very emotional decision for people. I believe that middlemen such as brokers and attorneys earn their commissions for people making potentially the largest financial decision of their lives. While smart contracts are currently being built to replace middlemen, I believe this technology will ultimately be utilized to make advisers in this space more efficient. Property Title Title insurance has grown to be a $15 billion revenue per year industry by ensuring buyers that their property is clear of old liens and debts. Every municipality has their own way of storing property data. Some cities and towns have put records online while others still use printed paper. If all property title was decentralized on the blockchain, an immense amount of time and money would be saved and, potentially, it could eliminate the need for title insurance altogether. It could also be possible to add information about construction, damages and improvements to the title, almost like Carfax for homes. This will help make it so that people truly know what they are buying. Unfortunately, while having all title on the blockchain would be great for property buyers, inputting this amount of data from every municipality is an extremely laborious and expensive undertaking. There are a few exciting technology companies in the space, like State Title and Jetclosing, but it is unclear if they are up for the task. It will be interesting to see whether governments, corporations or a combination of both cough up the dollars to enhance the data quality for where we live, work and play. The coming year will be an inflection point for blockchain usage in real estate. Private investment has been flowing in real estate technology, cryptocurrency wealth is massive, real estate professionals are being increasingly aware of blockchain and the underlying technology is improving. When it comes to the potential growth and adoption of blockchain technology, we are in the first inning. Similar to using the internet, blockchain usage may soon be so common that you forget you’re even using it. Read more   https://global.goreds.today/real-estate-138/   Read the full article