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aerii-korvatris · 4 years ago

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The Murderbot Diaries 1-4 Timeline

I suddenly was struck with the urge to determine exactly how much time passes in each of the first 4 novellas of the Murderbot Diaries and how much time passed total between them. I will probably go back and do Network Effect at some point, but the timeline information in that book is not presented as chronologically as in the first 4 Novellas, so it’s a bit trickier.

Spoilers for All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy of The Murderbot Diaries. The details are vague but contain enough information that you can tell what happened on each cycle, including the end of each book.

All Systems Red-

Approximately 35,000 hours since MB hacked its gov mod

On survey for 22 cycles at start of book

ASR 1 - Hostile 1 attacks Drs Bharadwaj and Volescu. Mensah and MB have first meaningful conversation

ASR 2 - MB repaired, awkward conversations are had, PresAux analyze the information packet

ASR 3 -

Trip to missing map sections occurs, presumably takes most of the day.

PresAux are unable to contact DeltFall

Rescue Team begin flight to DeltFall (as they flew through the night)

ASR 4 - Arrive at DeltFall habitat at dawn, presumably all events happen within the cycle

ASR 5-6 (?) -

MB wakes up, time unclear but at least 1 cycle had passed due to flight time between DeltFall and PresAux habitats

PresAux habitat abandoned

ASR 6-7 (?) -

PresAux setup their camp

More awkward concversations

At least one day passes as there is a rest period

ASR 7-8 (?) - "mid-afternoon the next day" starts drone recon, lasts until at least the night

ASR 8-9 (?) -

"appointed time next day" for GreyCris meet

all events prior to MB falling into “semi-consciousness” of Ch 7 happen on this day

ASR ??? - MB wakes up on PortFreeCommerce, at least a few weeks must have passed since the survey to accommodate wormhole travel, MB’s repairs, and whatever legal battle occurred that led to a court order

Total: 30-31 cycles since the start of survey until beacon launch, 8-9 cycles since book start to beacon launch.

Due to uncertainty of time between Beacon Launch and Waking up on PortFreeCommerce, total count of time passage for novellas will begin with Artificial Condition instead

Artificial Condition -

Note: MB mentions that “the inside of my head had been my own for +33,000 hours” and the Ganaka Pit Incident occurred “approximately 35,000 hours ago.” This is in conflict with timescales from All Systems Red. Could be related to the fact that MB is an unreliable narrator and did not want its humans to be able to find information about Ganaka Pit

AC 1 - MB leaves PortFreeCommerce, night cycle of last ASR Cycle

AC 7 -

MB disembarks from first transport (free agent for less than 7 cycles)

boards ART

ART introduction

AC 8-27 - MB and ART interactions, due to length of serials being unclear, exact dating is tricky

AC 28 -

MB and ART arrive at RaviHyral Mining Facility Q Station,

initial meeting with Rami, Tapan and Maro occurs later the same day

AC 29 -

MB + Tapan & Co take shuttle from Station to RaviHyral proper,

first meeting with Tlacey and consequences thereof,

Rami and Maro head back to Station while Tapan sneaks off to stay behind,

MB begins to head towards Ganaka Pit

AC 30 -

a slight guess, but it seems safe to assume a cycle has passed at this point since MB spent over 5 hours reviewing the ComfortUnits’ communications and that does not account for all the travel time.

MB meets back with up Tapan and they spend the night at a transient room.

ComfortUnit visits during the night cycle

AC 31 -

MB meets with “friend” and gets Tapan&Co’s files back

Tapan yoinked by Tlacey’s goons

Second Meeting with Tlacey on her shuttle and consequences thereof

ART, MB, and Tapan&Co go their separate ways rapidly to avoid being connected with the murders

Total: 31 cycles since end of All Systems Red

Rogue Protocol -

Note: Continuation of counting from AC will be in parentheses

RP 1/AC 31 - MB leaves RaviHyral (used as a starting point)

RP 8 (38) -

Transit time with “first friendly cargo transport” that lasted 7 cycles,

MB spends some time in a “private rest cubicle”, so assuming a cycle passes before next step

RP 9 (39) -

Boards transit to HaveRatton which is the transport with “Ayers and his bunch of contract-labor-bound idiots”

RP 35 (65) -

Transport arrives at HaveRatton

MB boards Ship who is going to head to Milu

RP 36 (66) - “Some twenty or so hours later” Gerth and Wilken board Ship

RP 56 (86) - Ship arrives at Milu station (trip took 20 cycles, which MB later notes as being “leisurely” in ES)

RP 57 (87) -

Adventures on the CombatBot invested Terraforming platform (Don Abene and crew took a rest period before their first assessment, which was supposed to last 12 hours)

Sad things happen :(

MB immediately leaves with Ship once the shuttle gets back to Milu station

Total: 57 cycles since start of novella, 87 cycles since end of ASR

Exit Strategy -

Note: Continuation of counting from AC will be in parentheses

ES 1/RP 57/AC 87 - MB leaves Milu station (used as a starting point)

ES 21 (107) -

MB arrives back at HaveRatton (20 cycles assumed from RP)

MB buys clothes,

MB learns that Mensah has been accused of corporate espionage by Grey Cris and is missing (kidnapped), and apparently went to TranRollinHyfa

MB boards first transport towards a “major hub” that can take it to TranRollinHyfa

Noted: news from Milu could have arrived before MB got back to HaveRatton due to faster ships not taking 20 cycles

Noted: Arada, Overse, Bharadwaj, and Volescu left for Preservation about 30 cycles before this (so AC 77ish), which is while MB was en route to Milu

ES 28 (114) -

first transport arrives at “major hub” (trip noted to take 7 cycles)

MB spends 10 hours on hub in a tiny room at a transient hostel

MB mails data clips from Milu to Mensah’s martial partners on Preservation

MB boards second transport to get to TranRollinHyfa

ES 32 (118)

Second Transport arrives at TranRollinHyfa

MB spends time looking for PresAux crew and finds their hotel

MB books at room at the same hotel (giant display surface), spends time trying to confirm PresAux presence and once that’s done, starts coding

ES 33 (119)

MB spends 5 hours waiting for Pin-Lee, Gurathin, and Ratthi to leave their hotel so I’m going to assume this ticked it over to the next cycle ?

Heist Adventure Time

MB’s memory crash occurs

ES 48/55? (133/140?)

In NE, Amena notes that the closest system from Preservation that isn’t Preservation is 15 cycles away (I believe) so this is a low estimate that adds 15 to 22 days to try to account for wherever the Gunship actually went and transfering to a Preservation ship

MB and PresAux arrive at Preservation

ES 50/57 (135/142)

37 hours (rounded to 2 cycles) since arrival, MB finishes its memory rebuilt

MB leaves the suite to explore Preservation Station

Ends up hanging out in Mensah’s office until the next cycle (mentions watching media in her office for 8 hours)

ES 51/58 (136/143)

Ending conversation between MB and Mensah occurs

Totals: On the low end, 51 to 58 cycles passed since start of novella and 136 to 143 cycles since start of Artificial condition.

Assuming 7 cycle weeks, that is 19.4 to 20.4 weeks since the end of All Systems Red.

Assuming 30 cycle months, that is 4.5 to 4.8 months

If we just look at cycles from end of ASR until MB met back up with PresAux, it’s 119 cycles, 17 weeks, or one cycle shy of 4 months

Other notes: Mensah was kidnapped while MB was on the way back from Milu to HaveRatton.

Assuming it would take at least 2 cycles for information to travel through the wormhole, the maximum amount of time she was held prisoner would be 31 cycles.

Based on when MB received the news (and assuming the newsburst went out a minimum of a day after the actual kidnapping), the minimum time Mensah was held prisoner would be 11 cycles.

So, while trying to keep these estimates conservative, Mensah was held prisoner for somewhere between 11 to 31 cycles.

#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #murderbot timeline #timeline #spoilers #murderbot spoilers #the murderbot diaries spoilers #til to not try to fix typos on mobile because it will mess up your entire post apparently

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astromechs · 4 years ago

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keep whatever it is (that's compelling you on)

HERE IT IS, my matrix resurrections spec fic, completed and in under the wire before the trailer! i think i'm ready to quit fussing over this, and i'm really excited to get it out into the world!

also here on ao3!

01.

Every single morning, Thomas A. Anderson is jolted awake at approximately 8:15 AM by the shrill of the same alarm, shovels in the same shitty cereal before stumbling into one of the same five shitty suits that he has to remember to get dry-cleaned, takes the same seat on the subway on the way to work — where he sits in the same chair for eight hours straight with minimal breaks, staring at his computer screen (or, more often, out into nothing) until it’s time to take the same subway back to his shitty apartment, order from the same rotation of shitty takeout, and find some mindless, banal distraction while he ignores texts that don’t even matter anyway before he falls asleep to eventually wake up and do it all over again.

It’s nothing special — just the average life of an average mid-grade programmer at the average tech conglomerate. Comfortable, sure, and a dream many would kill to achieve; he knows this, knows this every time he passes the poor old woman who’s feeding pigeons in her ratty coat from the battered metal bench on the sidewalk in front of his apartment building. He slips her whatever spare change he has on him — a $20 bill, on the days he’s lucky, but often less than that — and, without fail, she always accepts, with a warm smile and kind eyes that seem to stare right into his soul, seeing the deepest parts of it.

Like she knows him. And that’s what’s weird.

He tries not to put too much thought into it, because, honestly, he tries not to put too much thought into anything at all; he’s found that to be the most effective way to navigate the machine that systematically runs his rhythmic, mundane life.

But even so, there are things that he knows he can’t shake.

One afternoon in late February, when the cut of the wind had not remotely suggested that spring would just be a month away, he’d passed the woman on the bench as always, but he could’ve sworn that the whole flock of pigeons scattered on the sidewalk at her feet had frozen for a split second. Like they’d been… glitching. In a blink, everything had returned to normal, and he’d spent about three days (and three sleepless nights) trying to convince himself he’d been seeing things, that he’d just been spending too much time actually working on his assigned program for once and that maybe he should take some of his accumulated vacation days? And the following week, he had, but….

No time off to try to clear his head would ever change the fact that this hadn’t been an isolated incident.

Because sometimes — he swears he sees pieces of code fall through his field of vision; a blink and then they’re gone, but it happens too often not to be a pattern, and no matter how much he might want to for the sake of his own sanity, he can’t just brush that aside. Sometimes, flashes come to his mind like barely-remembered dreams, in idle moments and just on the edge of the line that separates sleep from waking consciousness, so real that he knows they’re memories. Dark tunnels that haven’t seen the sun for centuries. Cold, so cold that no amount of warmth, human or otherwise, can really combat. Running, desperately bounding up the fire escape to the third floor of a rundown motel, three men in sunglasses and perfectly-tailored suits in close pursuit, his heart pounding in his ears so loudly he can barely hear the phone ring from Room 303, the place he has to get to, because everything depends on it. A barrage of bullets in his chest, one right after the other, back slumping against the wall as his heart gives out, vision fading to grey and then to black, but a voice, reaching through it all to call him, tether him….

Neo.

There are things that he knows he can’t shake, and sometimes, he thinks he had another life. Another name.

Another purpose.

He’s haunted by the ghost of it.

It’s the second of April — at least, that’s what the screen of his phone tells him, because otherwise he wouldn’t know, or care to know. A Friday, and all the faceless commuters are packed like sardines into this subway car, headed home for weekends that are sure to be as inconsequential as his own. Today, he has to stand holding the rail for the ride home; a woman trying to juggle both a baby and two bags of groceries had just barely managed to stumble onto the train before the doors had closed, and he’d sprung up, more than glad to give up his seat to someone in greater need.

She tries to thank him, profusely and repeatedly, but with where he’s standing, he would have to twist to keep facing her, so, with a nod and the barest hint of a smile, he turns away to spend the trip the way he always does: in solitude.

The route back to the station just down the block from his apartment building is never smooth, by any stretch of the imagination, but today, it’s bumpier than usual; the train car jerks and jostles, until, eventually, it sends him colliding into back of the passenger standing next to him.

He’s just about to stammer out some automatic, awkward apology, but then —

Blue eyes meet his, clear, crisp blue, and a jolt strikes him right to the core.

He thinks — no, he knows, he knows — he’s seen these eyes.

Neo. In the darkest corners of his mind, the voice whispers again.

Time freezes, glitches, around him, around him and this stranger with familiar blue eyes. He sees the light leave them, and then come right back. He sees warmth, what something is telling him had once been the only thing able to keep the cold of the real away; that warmth spreads through now, to the tips of him, and he has a sense, one he doesn’t entirely understand, that something has just clicked into place.

Behind sunglasses, another pair of eyes watches them from across the car.

“You all right?” Neo.

He sees brows knit in concern, and for the first time, he pays attention to the face that the eyes belong to. Probably the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen in… more than one life, he’d have to guess, is now in front of him; he isn’t so detached and disconnected that he doesn’t notice that. Her short dark hair is cut into a severe bob, and she’s dressed in black from head to toe — from her coat and gloves, to her boots. It suits her, somehow.

After a beat, he finally remembers to speak. “Yeah. I — sorry.” The subway jerks to a halt; he glances up, and adds quickly, after clearing his throat, “This is… my stop. Excuse me. Sorry.”

Pushing past her, pushing past everyone in his way, he disembarks to the station, and when his feet touch solid pavement, he takes off at a sprint. Up the stairs (third floor… Room 303….), down the sidewalk (agents, just behind… he can beat them, if he just runs faster than he ever has…), not stopping until the mundane certainty of his shitty apartment building is within his sights.

Just before he makes it safely inside, he catches a glimpse of the old woman on the bench watching him, her smile wider than he’s ever seen it. Maybe, even, almost inhumanly wide.

10.

Her name is Natalie.

That’s what he learns about a week later, when he bumps into her again in front of the grocery store on the corner down from the subway station, the one he always chooses out of convenience. Quite literally; he’s distracted, disconnected, and before he even knows what’s happening, he’s collided with another body, contents of the two bags under his arms spilling out onto the sidewalk. His apologies are hurried and stammered, but her hands are gentle as she moves to help, brushing his more than once. Her smile is soft when their eyes meet.

Over the next several months, he learns a lot of other things, too.

He learns that she takes her coffee with cream and no sugar, and that she always leaves the barista a generous tip. He learns that she’s a genius with tech, better than him and his two computer science degrees and half-cushy corporate job could ever hope to be, and has his whole apartment practically rewired in an hour one day. He learns that if he’s quiet and still, her black cat has no qualms with being his friend. He learns that her lips curve up in just a certain way and her eyes crinkle when she’s just about to laugh.

And he learns that kissing her feels like coming home, as familiar and peaceful as it is new and strange. He learns that with her, coming together, becoming one with another person, is like nothing else.

For the first time in what he can remember, he knows what it feels like to be alive.

(Only it isn’t… is it? The first time. Somehow, just like he knows that he sees the same person walk past him twice, like he knows that those glitches start happening on a near-daily basis, like he knows that the old woman on the bench is smiling at him more broadly than ever….

Their lives have collided, and given each other meaning, purpose, before.)

11.

In his dreams, he sees a city entirely built from light. Spires touch the sky like fireworks, blindingly bright, and with every step, flames ripple out from his feet, making the next one all too clear.

Inevitable.

This is where his path had always led.

In his dreams, he can’t see her face. He can only hear struggling gasps for breath, and a voice that only grows shakier. He can only feel the metal that pierces her stomach, the blood that pools on her shirt. The faint heartbeat he can do nothing to restart.

Inevitable.

(You were right, Smith. You are always right.)

He wakes with a start, drenched in a cold sweat (as cold as their last kiss), gasping for breath. Next to him on the bed, Natalie stirs and shifts closer; when he reaches out a tentative hand, lets his fingers graze over her stomach, she’s warm.

His eyes scrunch tightly shut. Code falls behind his lids like the rain that patters against the windows outside.

100.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary on this day in early fall. A breeze rustles the trees as they walk hand in hand through the park, and provides the first hint that cooler weather is on the way. Children’s laughter from the nearby playground fills the air. Dogs chase each other on the grass. Natalie sips her coffee, cream with no sugar; they enjoy the contented silence that falls between them, only punctuated by her soft smile.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary — except for everything that is.

They meet each other’s eyes, her blue to his brown, and in an instant, everything changes.

It’s hard to tell who sees it first, but — the flash of recognition envelops both of them. Vague memories, the ones that have floated over him like a constant cloud, just out of reach, are in his hands, in his brain, in his heart. He’d had another life once, another name. And it’d been —

“Neo.”

She whispers it on an awed breath, tears forming in her eyes. The coffee cup slips from her grasp, long since forgotten; she lifts that hand to his face, fingers tracing the rise of his cheekbone.

Tears swim in his vision, too, tears and strands of code, falling. Falling. Nothing makes sense and yet everything makes sense, no more so than when the name falls out of his mouth, the last piece of a particularly jumbled puzzle: “Trinity.”

But a thousand words he doesn’t know how to say don’t even begin to get a chance to form. He feels the eyes watching them more than he sees them; both hands drop to his sides, and he tenses, ready to fight.

He’s barely aware that the old woman who’s usually on the bench near his apartment building approaches on the sidewalk. She looks between them, nods, and:

“They’re coming, kiddo,” she tells him, voice severe, with none of her usual warmth, as she grips his arm. “You need to run.”

101.

At sunset, a man in a white suit, tall and imposing, joins the old woman on a park bench near the playground, but says nothing; from all appearances, it looks as though he barely acknowledges her at all. They remain, just like this, as people filter out one by one under the steadily darkening sky, returning to their lives.

They always remain through every iteration, the Mother and Father of the Matrix.

Preoccupied with purpose and the inefficiency of wasting time, as is his programming, the Father is the first to break the silence.

"I informed you it was a dangerous game.”

The Oracle says nothing in response.

She merely smiles.

#neo x trinity #the matrix #the matrix resurrections #neo #trinity #* fic #song title is from cascades by metric #which for some reason just feels like a ship song for them #anyway i'm so hyped for tomorrow!

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anerdinallherglory · 5 years ago

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Approaching Sun (27)

Author’s Note: I am SO sorry about how long this chapter took to update. Taking on master’s classes on top of work has been a rough transition. The majority of this chapter had been planned and typed a long time ago, but it just took me ages to organize it, detail it, clean it up, and fluff it with a fork. For those of you who have contacted recently, (and I probably have yet to respond) this chapter is for you. Without your encouragement, who knows how much longer this chapter would have taken.

Forgive me. Hope you enjoy.

Pairing: SasuSaku

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

Chapter 27: Confirmation

Sakura had fully intended on eavesdropping on Sasuke’s conversation with Satou; in fact, it was the only reason that Sakura had allowed the interaction to transpire between her patient and her teammate. After Sasuke had closed the door firmly behind her, Sakura had walked heavily down the hallway so her footsteps could be heard. Her next step was to take the stairs, walk silently up two floors, and listen in by opening the window directly above Satou’s. Sakura had noted that Satou’s patient room window had been cracked open. Surely her ninja skills would be well-adapted to a simple eavesdropping.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, as Sakura walked down the hall, she noted that her breathing was becoming short. Her chest was tightening considerably, a feeling that she dismissed at first to anxiety at the current situation. When she paused to consider it, Sakura tried to swallow past her itchy throat. A terrifying realization came over Sakura has she glanced down at her hands that held the freshly pulverized Ashuwa.

Shit.

Sakura covered the mortar, sprinted down the remainder of the hallway, and took a right. She held tightly to the Ashuwa despite the situation; she couldn’t afford to sacrifice what they had acquired in her state of panic. Sakura tried her best to remember the hospital’s layout; there was a drug storage room on every level, so thankfully Sakura wouldn’t have to take stairs in her compromised situation. Turning another corner, Sakura was relieved to finally stumble up to the door marked “薬” for medication. Placing the mortar of Ashuwa on the ground, Sakura managed to focus through her shortness of breath and perform the sign of the ram to channel her chakra to her palm. Placing it on the center of the door, Sakura nearly stumbled as the door received her chakra signature and swung open to grant her access to the room.

Sakura’s vision began to blur as she shuffled through the drawers and cabinets. She could barely read the itemized labels of the stored items. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. She felt lethargic and her throat was swelling quickly. She should have taken Mako’s warning more seriously. He had told her of the drug’s disuse in the medical environment due to many allergic reactions to it. This was what she had been testing earlier when she picked a generous pinch of Ashu from the ground and placing it in her mouth; however, her and Mako both had gotten distracted by the issue of Satou.

Sakura cursed at herself for being careless but felt confident in her approach. If only she could find the medicine. She narrowed her focus to the vials on the top shelf and coughed violently as she reached for one. Stumbling into the shelf resulted in several of them busting onto the ground. After locating the blue tagged bottle labeled “adrenaline,” Sakura threw open cabinet after cabinet until she found the drawer of packaged syringes. She was choking now, a fish out of water and she aimed the needle into the top of the bottle; her hands shook as she waisted even more time trying to draw the medicine into the plunger.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sasuke was trying to outwalk Mako, who was smiling kindly and attempting to make small talk as they quickly made their way down the hall from Satou’s room. Sasuke thought if he could just stride quickly enough, Mako might take the hint and part ways with him.

Sasuke frowned at Mako’s prattling of, “I have to admit. I was concerned with the whole genjutsu approach, but I think that it might be pretty effective. That was brilliant!”

Sasuke stopped his break-neck pace and narrowed his eyes at the medic, scrutinizing him carefully. “What do you want?”

“What do you mean?” asked Mako innocently, crossing his arms behind him.

Sasuke debated Mako for a second. Here was a skilled shinobi of medicine, an assistant to his friend, and Sakura addressed him casually. This trip was the first occasion that Sasuke had ever met him, yet Mako recognized Sasuke’s attempt at genjutsu before he had even performed it. Perhaps he was knowledgeable of the sharingan; many people were. It was Sasuke’s past of constantly being targeted that had the Uchiha wary. Was this the reason Sasuke was inclined to distrust him, or was it the fact that Sakura was involved?

Sasuke clarified. “I want to know who you are and what you want.”

Mako laughed and smiled nicely. “Well, I am a medic ninja here at the Suna hospital. I have been appointed to assist Sakura-san during her stay with us. Kankuro was pretty adamant about it.”

“Hn.” Sasuke responded before walking forward again. Mako sped to catch up.

“Honestly,” he continued, “Sunagakure owes a lot to Sakura-san. You have probably heard this before, but we have advanced due to her and the Leaf’s medical supervision and instruction. We are something in her debt.”

Sasuke didn’t respond. Perhaps that was all there was to it. Sasuke supposed it made sense that Gaara and Kankuro would assign the most ambitious learner and fellow medicinal expert as Sakura’s assistant. Sunagakure wanted to take advantage of every lesson and tip available. Sakura’s discipline and dedication to the medical practice made her share a common interest with the professionals here. Not everyone always had some double meaning to their actions like most ninja in the shinobi world.

As Sasuke and Mako rounded the corner to the left, they paused as several people ran past them in the opposite direction, back toward the center of the third floor. One man who bumped into Mako’s shoulder turned to look at him in recognition, jogging backwards. “Code 10. Haruno-san.”

“Shit!” Mako cursed, chasing after the man who spoke. Sasuke didn’t know what “Code 10” meant, but to see a panicked response in connection to the name “Haruno” had Sasuke quickly following.

“What is it?” he demanded, matching Mako’s stride this time.

“Anaphylaxis” Mako said breathlessly as they rounded the final corner and nearly collided with several attendants outside a small room in the hallway. Someone was kneeling just outside the door and Sasuke couldn’t make out the questions they were asking before until he began to make his way through with Mako right on his heels.

When he came in line with the entrance, Sasuke froze. Sakura was on her back, broken glass surrounding her on a messy floor. A medic was kneeling down beside her and removing a syringe from her hand. “We need to get her into one of the rooms. Now.” Sasuke’s heart was racing as someone wheeled a gurney past him. Mako began pulling him away from the entrance to which Sasuke almost shrugged off.

Sakura’s pink head was closest to the door so Sasuke couldn’t get a good look at her face until they began lifting her onto the gurney and wheeled her past him. To Sasuke’s great relief, his medic friend was fully alert despite the hives across her face and swelling lips. When making eye contact with him, she raised her hand and waved awkwardly.

“Hey.” She said past swollen lips.

“Hey?!” Sasuke responded, irritation quickly replacing his concern. Was she serious?! Mako let out a surprised laugh at her casual greeting. Sasuke ignored him completely and began tailing the gurney as it rolled away with her.

“What the hell happened?” he asked her with pointed annoyance. After failing to mumble past her tomato mouth, Sasuke shook his head. “Nevermind.”

“I’ll explain,” Mako said from the other side of the swiveling table. Sasuke spent the next several minutes listening to Mako explain a basic understanding of anaphylaxis and staring disbelievingly at Sakura as they unloaded her onto a bed. They began to hook her up to an IV and other machinery that would monitor her pulse and blood pressure.

Mako continued his explanation, “Antihistamines are what comes next. Luckily, she responded to the epinephrine and doesn’t need intubation. We’ll have to monitor her for a few hours just to make sure she doesn’t have another episode.”

Sakura was nodding her blistered head in agreement at everything he said. Sasuke just glared at her.

“Why did you eat a plant you knew was toxic?” he asked crossly. She shrugged her shoulders, the only response she could really make at the moment.

“I should have stopped you, Haruno-san.” Mako bowed. “It is all my fault.”

Sakura began shaking her head to dismiss Mako’s apology. Then she began to gesture for Sasuke to come over to her bedside. When he was close enough, Sakura pointed toward his hand.

“What?” he asked, looking down at it. My hand? What about it? He sure wasn’t going to hold her hand if that was what she was implying. Especially not in front of anyone.

A word made it past her lips but Sasuke didn’t understand it. “Hn?”

“Rath,” she repeated, still pointing. “Da ya hath a rath?”

“Oh,” Mako exclaimed. “You were handling the Ashuwa earlier, Sasuke. Do you have a rash on your hand?”

Ah. Sasuke’s hand was partially gloved except for his fingertips, which were unmarred. It had been approximately 30-45 minutes since Sasuke had even touched the plant. Sakura had sampled the herb 10 minutes before that, so it was too early to tell if Sasuke would have a similar reaction. He didn’t have a rash on his fingertips though.

Another physician handed Mako a familiar mortar and removed his disposable gloves after touching it. Mako immediately pinched a piece out of it and offered it to the Uchiha.

Sasuke responded with a glare as Mako continued to hold it out. “You’re not suggesting I eat that?”

“We need to make sure that you don’t develop a similar reaction, especially if you plan on using the chakra pills that Sakura is making.”

Sakura was mutely nodding in agreement and Sasuke annoyingly spat out toward her, “Why? You want me to end up looking like you?” Her nodding turned to shaking.

She followed with, “He’th ight. Eat wow you ah here.” Sasuke scoffed and blinked in disbelief at her communication efforts. How was she even talking?!

This was an absolute lunatic idea. She wanted the BOTH of them in hospital beds in this village while Gaara was away handling potential psychos that were after them? It was already a concern that she was incapacitated; Sasuke sure as hell wasn’t going into anaphylaxis too by choice.

“I’ll wait until you’re better,” he answered, shooing Mako’s hand away from his face. As he did so, Sasuke pointed at the door, ordering Mako to just go and check on Satou’s kid. Mako blinked at him in confusion before taking the hint and exiting with that same excuse.

When the silence grew thick between them, Sasuke took a casual stance against the wall next to Sakura’s bedside.

“Ya are wathing time,” Sakura began, looking guilty despite her swollen mouth as she tucked her hands beneath the covers and looked around at nonexistent people in the room; anywhere but at him. She was right. He was wasting time, and Sasuke mentally shook himself as he realized his indifference to that. He was trying to remind himself of his goal but in that moment, Sasuke’s feelings were outweighing that purpose.

He turned his back and peered out the small window at the darkening sky. He glanced back at her briefly before turning back to the window. “Are you okay?”

There wasn’t a reply which had the Uchiha worried and he turned to see her wide-eyed expression at his question. The face Sakura was making looked as if Sasuke had grown two heads. “I mean,” he added quickly, “with a mouth like that, it looks difficult to breath.”

She immediately covered her mouth and frowned at him, obviously embarrassed at his words. “I ah fine!” she shouted in embarrassment into her fingers and turned her head. Sasuke resisted the urge to smirk.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

After the administration of the antihistamine, Sakura didn’t wait long before she began removing her own IV. She felt bad for the time that had been wasted today when she was supposed to be making the food pills. Sakura was just relieved that the Ashu had been tested before she gave Sasuke a drug that could potentially kill him.

“What are you doing?” Sasuke asked as she removed the monitor and turned off the flatlining machine before anyone came in at the sound. “They said it would be best to stay the night.”

“I’m ah do-ter” she told him. Yes, Sakura would have advised the same thing to her patients, but she was out of danger now and she felt anxious despite her drowsiness. She was troubling Sasuke enough by accompanying him on his mission. She didn’t want to get in his way; she was supposed to be making things easier.

Sasuke scoffed at her dismissive, mumbled declaration as she stood from the bed. She blinked heavily and managed to stand upright. It would still take a little bit of time for her to completely pass out from the side effects, so Sakura figured the time she had left awake could be spent productively.

The medic immediately went over to the cabinets and pulled out disposable gloves and a mask from the drawer. The mask would serve two purposes: 1) protect her from inhaling the Ashuwa as she worked and 2) hide her ridiculous “tomato” mouth as Sasuke referred to it. Ugh. Sakura could die from embarrassment.

“What are you doing now?” Sasuke grumbled irritably, following her as she moved. She immediately headed over to the mortar on the cabinet and pinched some of the yellow herb, skin protected from the substance thanks to the gloves.

“Eat.” She stated plainly. They couldn’t proceed further if Sasuke was likely to have a similar allergic reaction. Sakura would have to scrap their entire progress by disposing of the food pill batch. She would be back to square one and they would have to start all over by finding a new foundational herb with the correct properties to achieve the correct results.

“Forget it,” the Uchiha deadpanned before making to head for the door. Sakura caught hold of his hand, stumbling in the process and taking a hard fall on her knee. She winced visibly. That would bruise later. Sasuke immediately turned and helped her up and Sakura thanked her mask for hiding her blushing cheeks as well.

With the same hand Sasuke had offered, Sakura turned his palm up and placed the Ashuwa in his cupped fingers. “No time.”

Sasuke glared at her for what seemed like several minutes before reluctantly dumping it down his throat. They both knew he had to for his own sake.

Sakura nodded before trashing her gloves and retrieving a new pair. She couldn’t risk leaving traces around the hospital and anyone else coming into contact with the pollen if it was responsible for anaphylaxis. Mako had said that it was such a common reaction that they had stopped using it altogether.

Sakura halted in her steps, considered her plan, and decided to grab the entire box of disposable gloves. She handed Sasuke the mortar.

Sasuke gave her an expression that radiated annoyance but somehow was miraculously completely blank. If she could speak clearly in this moment, Sakura would have asked him how he managed that.

“Fowwo” she murmured through her mask-covered lips, pairing the word with a beckoning wave. “We’ll tesh your weaction why we wait.” She was shuffling out the door before Sasuke had the chance to say anything more.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sasuke trailed his teammate from the room, carrying the mortar of Ashuwa he had ground up earlier that day. This was one of the few times in his life that Sasuke somewhat regretted his decision to refuse the artificial limb that Tsunade had made for he and Naruto. Sakura was walking with one arm against the wall for support and Sasuke’s one and only hand was currently occupied.

It was well after dark now and many of the staff members were busy attending overnight patients, so they weren’t stopped by anyone as Sakura found her way back to the medicine room, which was now cleaned of broken glass and everything back in its space. She reached up and grabbed several bottles of adrenaline and then dug through the drawer for syringes.

“Sakura,” Sasuke began as she dropped some of the things she was holding onto the floor. “You need rest. We can finish this later.”

“We hafe to wait for weaction anyway. Might as well make the pills.”

“I feel fine.” Sasuke reassured her. It was true. Time had passed enough for his fingertips to develop a rash if there was going to be a topical reaction. He had yet to show signs from consumption.

Sakura strode past him again, this time walking backwards to face him. He could make out a smile beneath her mask which somewhat irked the Uchiha. She seemed awfully cheery despite nearly dying from anaphylaxis. Sasuke concluded that it had to be the medicine making her drowsy.

“Turn around before you fall,” he grumbled. She laughed as she began to walk slowly up the stairs. He hurried up behind her and offered her his elbow which she took thankfully despite his huffed “So annoying.” Her laugh was her only response.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sakura was practically nodding off as she watched Sasuke mix and prepare the batch of ingredients for the food pills. She felt relieved at finally seeing headway as Sasuke rolled the batter into 1-inch circular doses according to her instructions and placed them in the hospital’s oven. Sakura had tried to do so herself, but Sasuke had insisted she sit down to avoid screwing them up and risking their progress. Sakura allowed him to take the reins, praying desperately that the food pills would turn out and serve their purpose after such a hassle.

“Sasuke,” she whispered, immediately touching her lips behind the mask as she noticed the decrease in swelling. The ice Sakura had retrieved from icebox was doing its job.

“Hm?” he answered, trashing the latex glove he used to protect his skin and replacing his own. He turned to her then in the dim light, but Sakura couldn’t make out his expression because the only light in the room was a lamp over the counter workspace behind him. There was a shadow concealing his features and Sakura was too tired to try to make them out.

A lot easier now that her lips were shrinking, Sakura asked, “How are you? Any shortness of breath?”

“I’m fine,” he stated simply.

“Good,” she replied, thanking that ridiculous Uchiha blood of his for not reacting to the Ashuwa like her’s had. How ironic, Sakura thought, that even Sasuke’s genetics seemed to be working for him even in this circumstance. How superior he must feel.

Reclined across the small seating bench in the corner, Sakura placed her chin on her chest and inhaled the gentle night breeze that was coming from the opened window. It seemed to be the first night that the sand wasn’t trying to shatter the glass; to be honest, Sakura was surprised that the hospital windows even opened. Perhaps they were high enough on the fourth story to avoid the sand barrage.

Sasuke came to stand before her and Sakura blinked sleepily up at him in an antihistamine induced haze.

“Sleep,” the Uchiha before her ordered. “I’ll wake you when they’re done.”

Sakura wanted to argue that she could manage to stay awake for another 20 minutes while the chakra pills roasted, but she wasn’t that confident in her ability to do so. At most, she could manage maybe 5 more minutes if she concentrated hard enough. She wanted to ask Sasuke about the conversation he had with Satou.

“Sit with me,” she said, but it sounded more like a question. There was a minute of silence as Sasuke observed her. The bench wasn’t roomy, but Sakura was too drowsy to be apprehensive about their proximity. Sasuke must have not been either, because he sat and exhaled when he did so. Perhaps he was tired too.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Sasuke tried not to lean away from her as she settled into his side. He cursed her medicated self for such confidence in a small, darkened space. He counted down the time in his head; he would only have to stay seated here for 17 more minutes. For some reason, that time seemed both entirely too long and entirely too short.

“Satou,” Sakura began, reaching up to take off the medical mask on her face. Sasuke tried not to smirk at the lips that were still puckered despite having minimized in size. He blinked past the image to focus on her words.

“Hn,” he responded sourly, thinking of the man whose name had just been dropped between them like a heavy, unwanted stone. Sasuke didn’t particularly feel like talking about that man. He had, had enough of Satou for one day.

“How did it go?” his teammate probed politely despite being nosey.

“Fine,” he replied shortly, not wanting Sakura to find out about too many details. How would she react if she knew he had used his Sharingan on him? Probably not well. Sakura would continue to dig for more specifics if Sasuke didn’t bring an end to the topic promptly. “His son needs to be sent to Konoha.”

Sakura nodded, not seeming too surprised at Sasuke assessment. Perhaps she had been thinking similarly. “Thank you for talking to him.”

It wasn’t much of a talk, but Sasuke wasn’t going to tell her that, so he just responded again with a finalizing “Hn.”

Sasuke couldn’t help but jump when Sakura’s fingers touched his right hand. “Sasuke,” she began, almost in sleepy inquiry as she brushed his palm with her thumb and index. There was hopefulness in her voice and Sasuke cursed her medication again for her damn self-assurance.

“I..” she began, but Sasuke cut her off before she continued. Sasuke was almost absolutely certain that he knew which words would come next.

“Shh,” he replied, leaning comfortably into her side as his answer to her unspoken confession. “Just sleep.”

After a few breaths, and when Sakura’s head nodded onto his shoulder, Sasuke scooped up her hand into his, finding the courage to splay her fingers with his own and fasten them into place. Even when he would let her go in 15 minutes, Sasuke would lock the moment into his heart to last him the rest of his life.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

When he counted down to the last second in his mind, Sasuke counted a few extra seconds. And then a few more. He thought about letting the doses of chakra pills burn to a crisp in the oven, but he decided against it, reluctantly releasing Sakura’s hand and pulling away from her heavy head.

Making sure that Sakura wouldn’t wake, Sasuke silently rose, turned off the oven and retrieved the pills from inside. He placed them on the counter quietly and turned to lean against the counter. He watched Sakura’s sleeping form for a few minutes, considering if he should wake her as he promised or let her sleep longer. What was the possibility of sitting beside her and stealing a few moments more?

Sasuke knew he was playing a dangerous game. Tomorrow, the Uchiha would test the chakra pill nearby and he and Sakura both were aware of what would happen after that. With the issue of his chakra reserves addressed, he would return to the desert to attempt cross-connecting dimensions again. They both realized Sasuke couldn’t waste any more time.

And with that thought, Sasuke’s stern resolve slipped. He would distance himself later, he thought. He would put the space back between them tomorrow. Tonight, Sasuke wanted to be next to Sakura.

He sat back down beside her and softly took up her hand again. Just for a little while longer.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Sakura woke in the middle of the night from the pain in her arched neck. She blinked past sleep and realized that she was folded into Sasuke’s side with her knees tucked and Sasuke’s head leaning against hers. Not only that, but Sakura froze as she realized her hand was entwined with Sasuke’s between them. The moment was fragile, and Sakura almost cried of joy and then heartbreak as it shattered when Sasuke responded to her shifting.

The weight of his head on hers lifted and Sakura tried not to grab desperately at him to keep him from moving. Instead, Sakura pivoted her eyes to his as his sleep faded and realization appeared on his face.

Sasuke released her hand and stood hurriedly, saying nothing despite how Sakura’s heart wanted answers. She wanted to know if this moment was genuine or if she had been the one to hold onto him in her sleep. Sakura wanted to believe desperately that Sasuke had allowed himself to be transparent for just a moment and had secretly revealed his true feelings for her by holding her as she slept. Had that been the case? Was she being too optimistic? This wouldn’t be the first time their hands had touched. Had he been supporting her as a friend, or did he feel something more? She had to know.

“Sasuke,” she began, but he cut her off for the second time that night.

“Good. You’re awake. Let’s go.” He declared, hastily placing the finished chakra pills in an open travel container on the counter.

Sakura stood then, heart racing and adrenaline pumping as she worked up the courage to come up behind him as he worked. She wasn’t going to confess this time. She was going to ask Sasuke if he had been confessing to her while she slept?

“Do you… love me?”

Sakura was almost certain that he stopped breathing altogether as he paused his task. The Uchiha took a minute to compose himself before exhaling. “When are you going to stop that?”

The statement was meant to be cold, but the fact that it came out so desperately low gave Sakura a rare feeling of hope despite the words. “When are you?” she responded calmly in a whisper.

“What?” he asked incredulously, finally turning to her.

She gradually took the last few steps between them and stood carefully in front of him. “When are you going to stop pretending that you have no feelings for me?”

Sakura expected a scoff, a ridicule, but what she got in return was painful fear in Sasuke’s usually expression-less eyes.

It was true, she realized. Sasuke did have feelings for her. There had been so many signs, but Sakura had been unsure about all of them until this very moment. But what had just passed between them was confirmation. Sakura almost lost her breath at the realization.

“You’re mistaken,” finally came the blunt retort, but it was too late.

Sakura was already closing the inches between them. Her fingers were already brushing his cheeks as she brought his face to hers. She hesitated. Just for a second. Just long enough for him to pull away from her. But Sasuke barely took a breath before Sakura touched her lips to his.

#approaching sun #sasusaku #sasuke and sakura #sasukeshinden #sakura hiden #Sasuke Uchiha #Sakura Haruno #ssfanfiction #sasusakufanfiction #blank period #naruto #naruto fanfiction

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livingouttheworsttimeline · 4 years ago

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Why am I so tired all the time?

4:30 am: youngest child wakes up after wetting the bed. change child, change bedsheets, replace drinks, turn night time music back on, convince youngest child that it is in fact still night time. Climb back into bed a 4:55.

5:00 am: eldest child comes to tell me that youngest child wants to play. I am aware, because I have heard her loudly declaring such since I left their room. Tell oldest child to go back to bed. Pray that, somehow, for the very first time, they will put themselves back to sleep.

5:05 am: give up on hopeless prayers. Get up and take both children to the living room. Change the youngest into underwear. Log into tablets and override the “do not turn on until 6 am” setting. Wait for coffee to finish brewing.

5:23 am: extract self from underneath 2 children and a dog to pour first cup of coffee. It’s half caff, because spouse has a heart condition. Remind self that I can have several cups with impunity.

5:45 am: Eldest child is unhappy with the pre-made breakfast provided for him the night before. When asked what he would like to eat, he responds, “bacon, chinese food, or pizza.” Explain, again, that we need a variety of foods for our bodies to grow strong. Spend 15 minutes convincing him to eat $5 worth of blackberries as a compromise.

6:12 am: Finish 2nd cup of coffee, realize that eldest child’s night time pull up is overflowing with poop. Usher him to the bathroom for a bath. Feel humbled when I realize that I spent 10 years in grad school, and yet I am still reduced to wiping shit off another person. Calmly remind eldest child that he is capable of using the potty, and that I have confidence in him.

6:30 am: Spouse awakes, complains that he slept poorly. Roll eyes and go back to drinking 3rd cup of coffee, in between being elbowed in the stomach and explaining that no, I do not know how to work the video game you just downloaded 15 seconds ago. Remind self that I am their physical and mental safe place, which is worth the literal bruises and mental stress.

6:45 am: extract self from pile of children and dog by physically lifting each dependent off my lap. Verify that spouse is up for supervision duties, collect running clothes, and start treadmill.

6:47 am: stop treadmill because youngest child has entered the room and decided that I will not run today because it’s not fair. Remind self that arguing fairness with a 3 year old is the definition of futility. Gently remind her that I love her, she is a big girl, and she can play independently while I run.

6:49 am: start treadmill again. Nagging calf pain seems to be back. Scale back workout, remind self that value of the run is not the distance. Do extra core workout to compensate.

7:30 am: shower. Mediate 2 sibling fights from shower. Fortunately, children are camped out in the bathroom with me, so I don’t have to leave a trail of water through the house to interact.

7:35 am: Marvel at the thought that spouse takes a 45 min shower. EVERY DAY. Note gratitude that I am working from home, and no longer have to style hair and makeup.

7:36 am: Refill kid drink cups for the 3rd time today. Spend 30 minutes convincing, cajoling, and bribing kids to put on clean underwear. We no longer try for clothes.

8:06 am: turn on work computer. Respond to a weekend full of emails. Handle 5 pressing tasks for side hustle, reasoning that if I get them out of the way, I can push the rest of that to do list to after working hours.

8:45 am: Answer persistent pounding on locked office door. refill drinks and provide snack. Reassure youngest child that mommy is still here, but she needs to work.

9:03 am: debate whether going to the bathroom is worth leaving the office and the begging that ensues. Make wrong choice either way.

9:15 am: morning meetings get shuffled later, because childless coworkers “are running late this morning.” Marvel at the concept of 9:15 am being early.

9:30 am: solid wall of meetings until noon. Update team on status at end of last week, despite not remembering what you just ate for breakfast. Realize that you haven’t eaten breakfast. Run training and introduction for new team member. You are the only woman on the team, so you get do the training because “you’re so good at explaining things.”

12:00 pm: Call youngest child’s preschool, make sure you can bring by her supplies and still adhere to Covid protocols. Preschool is also side hustle, so cram a parent and employee meeting into a single hour. Explain that new registration system will, in fact, be more efficient than old paper system. Remind preschool staff that we committed to going paperless. Make small talk with preschool teachers until the hour is up. Hop in the car and speed home.

1:00 pm: children adhere to my side the second I walk in the door. Spouse is in the shower. Children have eaten approximately 3 bites of their pb&j sandwiches, and demand different lunch. Remember that you have not eaten lunch yet. Refill drinks for 4th time, provide reasonable lunch alternatives.

1:25 pm: Remember that you scheduled a meeting for 1:30, and. you need to be present. Calculate that extraction from children is not possible in 5 minutes, and take meeting with youngest child on lap. Despite having weaned 1.5 years ago, youngest child decides that you’re still nursing, and pulls down top on video call. Spend most of call switching on and off mute. Catch every 3rd word.

1:45 pm: apologize to team, promise to reschedule a follow up with more focus. Hang up, extract youngest child’s arm from shirt. Refill drinks for the 5th time. Bribe children to get in bed for a nap with the promise of a visit to nana and pop this afternoon.

1:48 pm: children’s beds have been stripped, due to accidents last night, but spouse “doesn’t know where the clean sheets are”, and so hasn’t remade beds. Children petition to nap on the floor. Explain floor is not comfortable. Find clean sheets, make 2 beds, take everyone to the potty, tuck both children in.

2:20 pm: Realize that you have 40 minutes of actual work time left today, outside of meetings. Try to prioritize, with the knowledge that whatever you get done will not be enough. Deny request for drink refill.

3:00 pm: kick off afternoon meeting block. Try frantically to make the 40 minutes that you did get to work sound like a whole lot more. Wake children up during bathroom break so that they’ll be able to sleep tonight. Refill drinks for 5th time.

3:45 pm: Curse the fact that youngest child has inherited your distaste for waking up. Gently coax her awake in between meetings.

4:00 pm: Wrap up last task from meetings, make list of all new tasks. Realize that today you have checked off one task, and received 7 new ones. Promise self that you’ll get your work laptop back out after the kids are in bed. Ignore the sense of despair that threatens to overtake you.

4:20 pm: Bribe children into putting on clothes with promise of fruit snacks at grandparent’s house. Feel mildly guilty as you put on your second round of workout gear. Load children in double jogging stroller, jog to grandparent’s house.

5:00 pm: collect children to head home for dinner.

5:10 pm: threaten no more fruit snacks if children don’t put on their shoes. Grandparents go get them more fruit snacks.

5:23 pm: explain that the sun is going down in 24 minutes, and that we have to leave now to get home before it gets dark. Remember that time is immaterial. Wish for that blissful sense of ignorance.

5:37 pm: push 100 lbs of toddler and stroller up giant, hilly driveway. Spouse greets us with “what’s for dinner?” Politely remind him that he promised to plan and make dinner while we were gone. Grit teeth at his “I didn’t know what to make” response. Quickly run through available, easy, acceptable options and make dinner.

6:15 pm: serve dinner. Eat own dinner in 2.5 minutes, then spend rest of meal refilling drinks and plates, heating up or cooling down, and cajoling children to eat anything at all.

6:45 pm: Announce that tonight we don’t need to take a bath. Youngest child immediately melts down, because she wanted to take a bath. Eldest child melts down because, even thought he didn’t want to take a bath, he wanted to taunt his sister while she was in the bath.

6:53 pm: Loose temper for 1st time today, scream that children need to brush their teeth. Step away to calm down. Spouse gets upset because “You can’t handle the children without yelling.” Bite tongue all the way through to avoid snarky reply.

7:10 pm: read 2 story books. Read one more. Explain again, that mommy cannot read anymore, and daddy will come read for a little while. Extract self from pile of children, and tuck both in. Hugs, kisses, and fist bumps. Twice. Then once more, after you’ve left the room.

7:15 pm: contemplate second shower. Decide that you didn’t really get that sweaty on the walk, and it’s not like you’re going out. Collapse on sofa with phone and mindless tv.

7:25 pm: spouse comes into the living room after harrowing duty of reading for 10 minutes. Hand over the remote, pull out side hustle lap top and finalize tasks for the day.

8:30 pm: remember that you promised to do main job work. Bring out that laptop to run some code while you continue side hustle work.

9:15 pm: Finish side hustle work, give up on main job work for the evening. Mentally apologize to team for not making more progress, promise to self that you’ll be more focused tomorrow.

9:30 pm: tell spouse that you need to go to bed. Endure his eye roll and disappointed face. Apologize for needing to go to sleep so early, and reassure him that you’re doing the best you can.

10:15 pm: eldest child has night terror. Comfort eldest child until he’s calm. Comfort youngest child, who is upset at brother’s screams. Realize that spouse is still watching tv in the living room while you comfort children.

11:00 pm: listen to youngest child cry for 10 minutes until spouse begrudgingly tends to her. Remind self that it is not solely my job to comfort our children. Try to go back to sleep.

3 am: eldest child wakes up with question about mushrooms that is vitally important. Answer to best of middle-of-the-night ability, acknowledge that you appreciate his curiosity, but that there are times when questions are not appropriate. Get him back to sleep.

4:30 am: youngest child wakes up.

#working mom #why am i so tired

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nikolapavlica · 4 years ago

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What code I’ve contributed towards other projects since beginning of my IBDP

Name of activity: FOSS project code contributions (so far)

Date(s) of activity:

2019: December: 30, 31

2020: January: 6, 8 March: 21, 29, 30 April: 8, 30 June: 19 August: 17 September: 3, 20 October: 4 December: 10, 13, 14, 20

2021: January: 11

Approximate # of hours: 11 hours and 45 minutes

This activity is: Creativity, Service

Learning outcomes: Strength & growth Challenge & skills Initiative & planning Work collaboratively with others Showing perseverance and commitment Global engagement Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

This list includes only code that I’ve directly contributed to other projects, be it because I wanted it to be there or because I’ve been frustrated with something like a bug or lack of a feature.

The list of said contributions, divided per project:

Kanshi (https://github.com/emersion/kanshi) - A utility used that sets up displays as described per config file (used mainly in SwayWM and alike sessions)

Since video games often tend to break due to kanshi, I wanted to add a feature where one could load different config files by specifying it in the command line. However the dev found a better way to fix said issue (using include directives), which is why he rejected my request (https://github.com/emersion/kanshi/pull/74) - About 30 minutes was spent on this one

Kitty (https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty) - A GPU accelerated terminal emulator for Windows/macOS and Linux

Some guy I knew was having trouble running this terminal on his machine, and since I immediately recognized the problem, I offered a solution which I used in my own project (XAVA) - 15 minutes - https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/3154

Xst (https://github.com/gnotclub/xst) - An unimaginably lightweight terminal for systems with Xorg/X11

https://github.com/gnotclub/xst/issues/114 - Basically when resizing a font within the terminal it reset to default, which basically broke my use-case. It took an hour to detect from where the issue stemmed.

https://github.com/gnotclub/xst/pull/116 - When setting a custom “scroll rate” it broke some code down the line, causing over-scrolling issues - this also took an hour to find and fix

QEMU (https://www.qemu.org/) - A piece of software that either emulates or visualizes a virtual system (or computer, in layman’s terms)

A whole series of back and fourth communications trying to achieve the goal of having custom refresh rates on systems with GPU acceleration (Can be found here: https://www.mail-archive.com/search?q=Nikola+Pavlica&l=qemu-devel%40nongnu.org). This was especially difficult since the project had a release schedule you had to meet and building QEMU took for ‘effin ever. Not gonna lie, this was too much code to process since the project is so huge. Approximately 8 or more hours spent on this alone. Not to mention having to wait a year and still not having the darn issue fixed. For an detailed explanation I recommend looking at this: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg670335.html

AUR (ArchLinux User Repository) - https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/?SeB=m&K=nik123true - On ArchLinux (and alike) programs are installed using packages, which are files that you install on your Linux PC in order to get a certain program running. Just like regular installers on Windows although a bit more abstract. On my AUR account, linked above, I maintain a series of packages making it easy for other people to download said packages/programs and to save them the hassle of installing those programs manually (be it through compiling or otherwise)

discordlogin-git (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/discordlogin-git/) - Basically a program that emulates a normal discord web login so that 3rd party clients can obtain a login session key (a unique password required for discord to work)

Creating it took me an hour

15 minutes to add and test the missing webkit2-git dependency

gtkcord3 (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gtkcord3/) - Basically a discord client written in Go using the GTK UI libraries

Creating it took me an hour

The whole libhandy0 debacle costed me an additional 30 minutes

Resolving the ``-git`` conflict with the other packages - an additional 15 minutes

gimp-plugin-deskew-git (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gimp-plugin-deskew-git/) - A plugin for the popular image manipulation program GIMP. What this plugin did was when you had multiple images in a single image, such as a digital photo scan using your own scanner, it separated them and saved the accordingly. This is extremely useful when you have thousands upon thousands of family photos back up from their physical to an digital format.

Since somebody already took the hassle of creating this package, my job was to fix it and renew it for newer Arch-based systems. That job took me about an hour.

Reflection:

Written above per project.

#somuchwork #foss #opensource

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kitchenremodelingatlanta41 · 5 years ago

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Determining a Kitchen Remodeling Budget

Kitchen remodeling atlanta

It is crucial to determine a financial budget for almost any do-it-yourself project, and kitchen remodeling is no exception.

A thing of caution: I spent many hours researching kitchen remodeling cost and budgeting online to gather data just for this article. I ran into a couple websites that gave size pricing for kitchen remodeling. Although I commiserate using attempt to find an easy method to discover remodeling pricing, this type of advice is just not operating out of reality. Remodeling jobs in general are really specific towards the conditions in the building and tastes from the homeowner that no square footage pricing will ever starting point. Also i bumped into many websites that didn't provide you with any real details about starting a budget but basically interpreted Hanley Wood's Remodeling Cost vs. Value report that is published each year. You happen to be much better off visiting the Cost vs. Value report web evaluating the results by yourself.

home remodeling marietta

Like whatever else on this planet a kitchen remodel is going to are more expensive than you thought it would and the sky is the limit on the it may cost depending on you. There are multiple factors which are into determining a remodeling budget.

There are many web sites you can check out assist you to begin a basic budget number to start with. My personal recommendation is Remodeling Magazine's Cost vs. Value Report which is released by region and major city every year. The truly nice point about this report is it offers a description in the "average" project to help you gauge if your kitchen remodel will almost certainly fall below or above the benchmark. Also i find their average pricing to be a definative reflection with the pricing for the company, so by recommending to clients before I even meet with them which they investigate this report these are prone to generate a realistic budget we can easily work within to provide them a fantastic kitchen.

Custom Hutch developed with Semi-Custom Cabinets

While Remodeling Magazine's report is extremely helpful, it is still an incredibly one size fits all approach to generating a budget. Read on if you would like try and hone your numbers somewhat.

Get out a pad and paper and take note of a number of notes about each factor as you go along through their list:

Factor 1 Home Value- Consider not only what you think your property is worth, but the price of similar homes in your town that already have updates. The best site to check house values is zillow.com, simply enter your address and you also receive an interactive map with house values as well as other information listed directly on the map. Pay attention to which homes are of similar size to yours, happen to be purchased lately, but have a higher value, then peek inside their windows to see just what the house appears to be. Ok, seriously, I was only kidding. If you don't know them perhaps it's time to meet the neighbors and request a fast tour.

Factor 2 Wow! - It has everything to apply your objectives and motivations. Jot down each motivational factor which can be important to you within a kitchen remodel. Below are a few possible examples: Kitchen is fallling. You want to cook and also the layout doesn't suit you. You love to entertain and wish to start the kitchen as being a place to gather. You'll need a kitchen that wows your guests. You are getting prepared to sell your home as well as the kitchen is often a sticking point with buyers... Now that you have your list, determine what motivations are most crucial and relist them in motivational order. Imagining your financial allowance from "the middle" be aware of which factors might slowly move the budget up or down...i.e. attempting to remodel to encourage a sale might slowly move the budget down, remodeling to wow guest might max it out...etc.

Factor 3 Did someone say AGA? - List any "must haves" for any kitchen remodel to get worthwhile to you. Possible examples: granite counters, hawaiian isle having an extra sink, an extra dishwasher, a commercial quality gas range, etc.

Factor 4 Longevity- Determine on the better of your ability just how long you plan on owning the property.

Factor 5 Size Matters- Evaluate which percentage of your house your house encompasses. A sampling of over 100 modern home floorplans of 1000 to 3000 square foot homes revealed the typical kitchen sq footage to be 7% of the home's sq footage. In case your kitchen is larger or small compared to this average you might need to decrease or increase your budget accordingly.

Factor 6 Layout- in the event you know already you will want the sink moved, hawaiian isle sink added, an inside wall moved plus an exterior door added, then you need to incorporate money in your budget well past that of a basic facelift would cost.

Tricky layout: the decorative column conceals a good wrapped drain pipe

Factor 7 Funding- Determine the most money you can manage to spend. Should you be financing your project you can calculate what a lender will probably lend you. Lenders are interested in a debt to income ratio(DTI) of.36 or fewer. Your DTI created by subtracting all your monthly debt obligations (bank card payments, automotive loans, mortgage, etc.) and dividing from your monthly income. To find out your maximum safe monthly debt multiply.36 times your monthly income. Now subtract your existing monthly debt from this number and you have a month-to-month budget maximum. Here is a connect to a calculator that will perform the math for you personally: mortgage calculator

Putting it All Together

The key to managing your finances are choosing the percentage of your home's value you should use being a budget guideline. While researching this article I came across recommendations to make use of percentages which range from 10% to 25% of home value. For the kitchen remodel of the substance that also includes new flooring, appliances, cabinets, sink/faucet, lighting and bringing electric approximately code I find anything below 15% becoming a very dubious number. Perhaps over a big house 10% will be a workable budget, but on a 200k house a 20k finances are marginal at the best for a complete kitchen remodel.

If resale value is vital to you it is shrewd to keept the expense of your house renovation project within 20% of the present valuation on your home. Staying in this particular range insures that almost all the new kitchen's charges are recouped in increased home value immediately, as well as the remaining cost needs to be recouped within Five years since your home appreciates.

Ok, let's run through an example. Bear in mind, there isn't any exact formula here. We're simply doing our best to become as informed as you possibly can making a good plan regarding how much to pay on the kitchen remodel.

For the example let's use the home. It's a 50's cape cod with a modest sq footage of 1500.

Factor 1 value: Zillow provides me with an estimated value of $167,500, however, I notice zillow hasn't yet updated and included the one family homes that had been recently integrated the area behind us with a starting tariff of $270k. Zillow also has our square footage listed for less than 1200. Looks like the previous owner did a bit remodeling without having a permit. I will base my budget on a expense of 180k which is analogous with houses locally which are exactly the same size.

Factor 2 Goals: My wife and I wish to entertain guests. To make a kitchen remodel worthwhile for us we should instead lose an indoor wall to open up inside the kitchen and dining nook to the family area. I'm going to add 1% to plan for this.

Factor 3 Most important items: Being a former chef two most important items personally certainly are a new oven plus a really nice propane range(no propane service here), preferably an industrial range modified for use at home (real commercial ranges don't have insulation round the oven, critical for home safety). I'll add another 1% to my budget to make certain there is enough money to obtain me my range and propane installation.

Factor 4 Longevity: We plan to live in our home at the least 4 years. Usually of thumb it requires Several years for the majority of remodeling to comprehend and recoup all of your money. Since we might be right here at least A few years I am not planning to penalize this, but as there is a pretty good possibility we'll move right around Several years That's not me going to increase it like I'd personally as we were staying for a long time.

Factor 5 Height and width of Kitchen: Our kitchen is all about 140SquareFeet(SF). That's over 9% in the SF of the home, 2% above average. Obviously this kitchen is going to require some additional material and cabinets. I am going to up the budget 1% with this, I hope it's enough.

Factor 6 Layout: We are going to change the layout of our kitchen pretty extensively. Supermarket use a cooktop peninsula. The stove will probably go on a differnet wall and also the dishwasher will turn to the peninsula, though we might ditch the peninsula, slowly move the fridge and add an island instead. The only thing that won't move will be the sink. I'll add another 1% to my budget, again hoping $1800 (1% individuals 180k value) is sufficient to cover the electrical and plumbing changes.

For my base I'll use 20%. Because i previously mentioned, there are gonna be people who will argue when camping with that, but going lower often doesn't provide you with workable budget numbers for full blown kitchen remodels. I'm adding 4% according to my factors in the above list. I adjusted my zillow.com estimated home value to 180k depending on the comparable sq footage and expense of other homes around me. Thus giving us a working budget of 24% x 180k= $43,200 While i compare this to the Cost Vs. Value report I see that in the centre Atlantic Region a significant Kitchen Renovation is $59, 098. It appears as though my budget may be bit low, especially ever since i really would like granite countertops along with the Cost Vs. Value specs require laminate tops. On the other hand my kitchen is substantially smaller compared to their 200SF benchmark, therefore i think I'll opt for my budget number to see what my contractor can do for me because budget.

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the-creativist · 5 years ago

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California BBS Requirements Towards Obtaining a Professional Clinical Counseling License

In this post I’m going to talk about everything I had to fulfill to get my Associate Professional Clinical Counselor (APCC) registration number and what requirements I have left to move onto the next step, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC). This will include all paperwork, fees, additional courses, etc. At the end of the post, I will include the approximate total of how much everything has/will cost me.

✔ = What I’ve completed so far

My comments are in bold.

Information about the California Board of Behavioral Sciences’ (CA BBS) requirements per https://bbs.ca.gov/pdf/forms/lpc/lpc_app_oos_01012016.pdf

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Application Fee for Associate Professional Clinical Counselor Registration was $100

Fee for LiveScan Fingerprinting $32. I think I paid $150 for something fingerprint related?! It’s been a year and I can’ even remember...I’ll find out eventually.

How much it cost me to get fingerprints done at my local county jail- $20

Physical transcripts mailed to the CA BBS 3x (I had to send it multiple times because the CA BBS told me they did not receive it) $36

EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS

✔ Master’s degree or higher that is counseling or psychotherapy- I earned my degree outside of CA, so my university’s Program Chair and I had to submit a Out-of-State Degree Program Certification form (in addition to some course syllabi).

For me, the cost of my degree was about $21,000 in student loans with ~5-6% interest per loan. The $21,000 was for graduate in-state tuition alone and this total was after factoring in approximately $10,000-worth in scholarships/stipends. I’m not calculating rent and living costs. Although, it was fairly cheap since I lived in Emporia, Kansas- a town with a whole lotta nothing (except for some kind, helpful mentors and peers).

✔ Courses to take in addition to having a Master’s:

Initially, I thought I would have to spend hundreds of dollars on courses offered at accredited colleges or universities. However, I found a cheap, online continuing education website called AspiraCE through the California Association for Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors (CALPCC) website. I bought a one-year subscription for $129.99. So over the course of a couple months I would plough through these additional courses during my work breaks and weekends. I haven’t found a cheaper option for these courses yet, but if I do I’ll post it in this blog.

✔ a) Suicide Risk Assessment and Intervention 6 hours of coursework or applied experience All applicants submitting an application on or after January 1, 2021 (otherwise will be required upon license renewal). See BPC section 4999.66

✔ b) Human Sexuality 10 hours Instruction must include the study of the physiological, psychological, and social cultural variables associated with sexual behavior, gender identity, and the assessment and treatment of psychosexual dysfunction. See BPC sections 25 and 4999.62 and Title 16, California Code of Regulations section 1807

✔ c) Spousal/Partner Abuse Assessment, Detection and Intervention 15 hours Instruction must cover spousal and partner abuse assessment, detection, intervention strategies, and same-gender abuse dynamics. See BPC section 4999.62 37A-642A (New 01/2020) 4 5. ADDITIONAL COURSEWORK LPCC OUT-OF-STATE APPLICANTS (continued) Course Length Content Required

✔ d) Child Abuse Assessment and 7 hours Instruction must include detailed knowledge of the Reporting in California California Child Abuse Neglect and Reporting Act (CANRA). It must also include assessment and methods of reporting of sexual assault, neglect, severe neglect, general neglect, willful cruelty or unjustifiable punishment, corporal punishment or injury, and abuse in out-of-home care. The training shall also include physical and behavioral indicators of abuse, crisis counseling techniques, community resources, rights and responsibilities of reporting, consequences of failure to report, caring for a child’s needs after a report is made, sensitivity to previously abused children and adults, and implications and methods of treatment for children and adults. See BPC sections 28 and 4999.62 and Title 16, California Code of Regulations section 1807.2

✔ e) Aging, Long Term Care and 10 hours Instruction must cover aging and long-term care, Elder/Dependent Adult Abuse including biological, social, cognitive and psychological aspects of aging, and instruction on the assessment and reporting of, as well as treatment related to, elder and dependent adult abuse and neglect. See BPC section 4999.62

✔ f) Mental Health Recovery Oriented Care and Methods of Service Delivery 45 hours or 3 semester units Instruction must cover principles of mental health recovery-oriented care and methods of service delivery in recovery-oriented practice environments, including structured meetings with various consumers and family members of consumers of mental health services to enhance understanding of their experience of mental illness, treatment and recovery. See BPC section 4999.62

✔ g) California Cultures and the Social 15 hours or Instruction must include an understanding of various and Psychological Implications of 1 semester California cultures and the social and psychological Socioeconomic Position unit implications of socioeconomic position. See BPC section 4999.62

✔ California Law and Ethics course (included in AspiraCE) - Counselors from other states must take the 18-hour course in California

APCC REGISTRATION ANNUAL RENEWAL COST- $100

EXPERIENTIAL REQUIREMENTS

3,000 hours of post-master’s supervised counseling experience. 1,750 have to be Direct Client Contact hours. I’ve completed 6% of my post-master’s hours as of last week. I would have been much further in my experiential hours, but it took almost a year to receive my APCC registration number. After going back and forth with the CA BBS, my hours officially began on March 9, 2020. I was working with patients at least 6 months prior to that, but unfortunately, I had to discount those hours.

I found a supervisor that would see me for $50 and another that would see me for free. While I was looking for a supervisor, I talked to people who were going to charge me $150 per hour of supervision. In my opinion, that is outrageous. I understand that as a qualified, accomplished supervisor, you’d want to charge for the quality of supervision. HOWEVER, if I was a supervisor, I’d do it as cheap as possible. Getting a license is super expensive and it’s rare to meet a trainee who doesn’t have student loans. Anyway, I’ve probably spent about $2,000 this past year on supervision. I know that seems like a bummer since much of it couldn’t count towards my clinical counseling hours, but my supervisor is also an art therapist so I just counted everything towards my art therapy certification. And YES! Hours can simultaneously count towards clinical counseling and art therapy (this is for another blog post).

EXAM REQUIRED NCMHCE – taken after experiential requirements have been fulfilled. It costs $275 to register for the NCMHCE.

AND

California Law and Ethics/Jurisprudence Examination– taken while acquiring supervision. I am trying to register for this, but #COVID. Also, the initial exam fee cost $100. It must me taken every year for APCC registration renewal and I believe it costs $100 to re-take it.

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So, let’s talk about my overall cost. In-state tuition was approximately $31,000 (my total cost in student loans and scholarships/stipends). It cost me $467.99 to register as an APCC with the CA BBS. My first year of supervision costs $2,000. From graduate school to obtaining an LPCC, it would cost me about $39,042.99. For people who just want to know how much it may cost me to get licensed post-graduate school, it’ll be about $8,042.99. That’s on the cheaper end too because I’m pretty frugal.

After listing the requirements and costs, I’m thinking, is it all worth it? For me, I’ll say, “Sometimes no, but overall, yes!” I will answer my own question in the next blog post. Frankly, I’m exhausted from running these numbers.

#ca bbs #clinical counseling #licensure #progress #process #additional requirements #requirements

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needthistextsubmission · 6 years ago

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Dear [manager], re: your wondering about scheduling the next server-synch, and uneasily pointing at the steaming pile of unfinished tasks we have left that I've had zero help with:

I'm just wrapping up the 'EWF' (which you drafted the spec for) that took about 2 weeks to do properly rather than the ~8 hours that you tagged it as needing. I'm not overjoyed to be getting a call for info about all of the other things that were set to one side in order for me to focus on the DS-creator that would bear immediate fruit. Each in turn, when other things are ready, you'll see them in the appropriate repo since I actually push my commits on a relatively regular basis (unlike you and [the data-manager]). It often bothers me that I have to write you separately with duplicate information that you could just read in the commit-logs; either you're too busy to bother reading anything more (meaning you value your time more than you do mine), or you're not interested in learning to speak my language (which is English). In either case this seems dysfunctional given we’re part of a team.

I'm trying not to even think about doing any kind of server-synch in the near future; the tightness of our development-cycle is ludicrous; there's approximately no time for robust testing, and no time for code-review, sprint or project retrospectives, or even for refactoring bad or duplicative code. My choices right now are either to gird myself for another set of 'workends' and all-nighters, or just walk. These synchs are physically and mentally taxing on top of being a (bad,) nonstandard practice, which I pointed out well before we adopted our current workflow. I was then blithely ignored. It's injury to insult to insult that I have to hold everything together every time this nerve-wracking process is required, despite having explained that it was going to be dirty to operate this way. On top of that, a server-synch is never so much 'scheduled' as "careened into at dangerously high speed". So again, I don't want to think about it.

More broadly, the pressure of this job pretty much never *ever* lets up; even when I ask for time away it's loaded with stipulations about what has to happen not only before I can go but also while I'm gone. The time itself is garnished with minor rescue-missions and messages asking about status that to me read like signs of mistrust, inattention, or both. I can't go off-grid and I can hardly sleep in without worrying that something's gone wrong without my constant attentions. I know it's your job as a manager to crack the whip on everyone, but this turns toward the negative when I generally feel neither respected nor heard. Since you know maybe 15% as much as I do in terms of coding, you also can't offer sensible tips as to how to be more efficient. You basically only tell me to write slippery hacks or stopgaps to finish things faster if you think they’re taking too long

I've raised flags before (in person and writing) about basically everything I've mentioned in this message, including that our team is unbalanced in terms of important skills (and the corresponding workloads). For years now, these observations have pretty much entirely fallen on deaf ears at least from where I stand. Although the pay-raise you and [the bossman] managed for me recently was a good gesture, money is just part of the picture; quality of life is lacking, which I'm losing my ability to cope with; I continually find it difficult to just *get away*. Getting a web-developer in isn't ultimately going to help, since – even if we find someone good who won't need babysitting – they will not have the ops experience to handle crises, and they may be out the door anyhow by the time they do, since we couldn't secure funding for more than a year for them. Introducing another teammember is also going to be an ops and security fiasco, stemming largely from the fact I can rarely get time to work on a build-system for the database, as setting up a local stack for experimentation is a days-long process, rather a simple shell-script that would handle the steps. You wouldn't understand this because you don't really care about security, or the lengths I go to smooth things out for everyone else.

All that said, I'm hereby #done. Do enjoy dealing with all the things you drove me to neglect while I was with y'all, and with all the hours you'll wish you spent working and learning side-by-side with me, rather than riding on my back most of the way.

Sincerely,

[Seldom]

#text #irl #srs #vent #programming #manager #managers #bad managers #work #i just wanted to vent #i didn't actually send this to him #though i'm pretty sure i'll quit soon

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pinarsckaesslerqa24insuranc-blog · 6 years ago

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lindoig4 · 6 years ago

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Chicago - Part 2 - 12-15 July

12 July

We ordered breakfast from room service again – a smaller single serve, but again, we could not eat it all between us!

We walked downtown to where we were to join an architectural tour on the river. It was hot and the walk was quite a way, but interesting to see so many things so different from Oz – and some that reminded us of previous visits to the US. We were a bit early for the tour so sat in the shade and had a drink before joining the rapidly forming queue. We were in the queue for a while before we discovered that we had to exchange our pre-purchased voucher for a ticket at an office a little way away. We had been anxious to board early because there was very little shade and the sun was really burning – so I raced back to swap our voucher and that took longer than expected. I ran back to rejoin the queue and Heather wasn’t there. I was starting to get a little concerned when I heard her calling me from on board the boat. They had come down the line while I was away and told Heather to go to the very front (still don’t know why unless it was our advanced age – most people were quite a bit younger) and then ushered her straight on board. Then they saw me coming and ushered me on board too – just ahead of the hordes of other people in the line. Maybe there are advantages in looking old, hot and bothered!!

The tour itself was quite fascinating, but the guide/raconteur spoke a little like a machine gun and pumped out so much information that I was quite lost 15 minutes into the tour. The boat took us downstream to where two more rivers flowed in forming a big Y that has become a symbol of the city.

The river itself has an intriguing history in that it used to flow the other way - into Lake Michigan. In the early days, the abattoirs and other dirty industries were in that area and all the waste was dumped into the river, blocking it and polluting the lake quite horrendously. To resolve the problem, they dammed the river near the estuary and dredged a huge channel to make the river run in the opposite direction to pollute St Louis instead. There were lots of big court cases to try to reverse the decision and to make Chicago pay compensation but there is still a deal of ill-will over the issue 100+ years later.

Despite not remembering much of the commentary on the tour, it was a great way to see a lot more of the city and its buildings. We got a lot more history and numerous amusing anecdotes along the way, but recounting them here (even if I could recall them) probably wouldn’t make much sense out of context without the buildings in front of us. We took lots of photos and many of the buildings have fascinating histories or stories about them and it was quite an entertaining 2-3 hours.

Our tickets entitled us to a free antipasto plate at a nearby restaurant and we were desperate for a very cold drink so took advantage of it - and enjoyed watching a bit of baseball in the sports bar into the bargain.

Refreshed and revived, we took a circuitous route back to the hotel, stopping for another drink when the going got hit and hard again. We then went out again to acquire some victuals to get us through the night and came back with a pizza (not really like a proper Aussie pizza) but nonetheless tasty and nourishing and we ate it in our room and washed it down with our bottle of Aussie red. (Incidentally, pizzas are called pies over here!)

13 July

We had a wrap for brekky (bought it on our way home yesterday) and spent the morning in our room sifting photos and writing up our blogs. I even had some bills to pay!

We gave lunch a miss because we had our pub crawl tour early in the arvo. We caught a cab outside the hotel to go the mile or so to the tour rendezvous. Big misteak! Gridlock and detours everywhere because of the Taste of Chicago food festival that is on until Sunday and is based just across the road from here. The cabbie tried really hard, but we could easily have walked the trip in half the time. We rang to say we would be late but actually got there just before proceedings really started. Average speed roughly 2 Kph!!! But the driver was really on our side, did a few interesting manoeuvres to speed our trip and then wouldn’t take a tip at the end of the ride. Unusual, but really nice!

The walking tour was really interesting. Our guide (Jen) melded architecture (which she teaches at University), social history and plain old good fun (sometimes perhaps a little fanciful) and was always entertaining. We stopped at several places while she talked about the buildings, their history, the architecture and their place in the social development of Chicago and I found the context quite fascinating. Just as San Francisco’s present was heavily dictated by its Earthquake and fire history, the Great Chicago fire is one of the overwhelming factors giving rise to the city as it now is.

It was supposed to be a tour highlighting the seedier side of Chicago, particularly back in the early 1900s, featuring Prohibition, crime, political corruption, Al Capone and so on and she brought it alive for us with her anecdotes (some of which may have contained an element of truth). I just suspect that Chicago really was a good deal more seedy that her more extravagant stories – a lot of fun and definitely some ‘seed’ but I don’t think she wanted to leave us with the impression of how bad it actually might have been.

We stopped for a drink and mini-burger at the Billy Goat pub (rich and evocative of the time), followed by a drink and some locally-special crisps in a wonderful bar in the old rebuilt Lawry Mansions and finally on to the Intercontinental Hotel for a drink and the most delicious toast smothered in blue cheese sauce you can imagine. I take that back! It was so good you simply couldn’t imagine it!! The tour lasted almost 3 hours and it was fun and educational from go to whoa. Highly recommended!

After walking back to the hotel, we relaxed for an hour or two and went out to find a restaurant for dinner. After walking quite a way, we eventually opted for some Chinese takeaway, just as they were closing, and took it back to our room. Not quite what we intended, but deliciously spicy nonetheless.

14 July

Today we had breakfast just down the road, then hopped on the Hop On Hop Off bus for a loop around the city. It took almost 2 hours to complete and the temperature was in the low 30s so we were hot and sticky before we returned to the start of the ride. We had a milkshake near the bus stop but decided not to brave the heat for another trip to any of the other places along the route because our ticket gave us the second day free and we thought we would fill in part of tomorrow doing that.

Despite the heat, we strolled……. We called in at an interesting pub for a cold one on the way home. All pubs seem to be interesting, rich in history and character, decorated in ways that probably reflect local pride and culture and the range of available embrocations seems endless. As it turned out, this was the pub we set out to find before settling on our takeaway the previous night. It was just a little further along from where we walked - under the El.

Chicago has the El – an elevated railway with the famous Loop around the main Downtown area and with 8 or 9 lines running off it to all points outside the city – all colour-coded to make it easier to find your way. We have read quite a few Sara Paretsky books and the El and the Loop always feature in them, so we decided to ride the Loop just for fun. We were told how to do it – catch one line out and another back so we could go all the way around – so we did, but we went quite a few stops further than we had to but it was hot outside and not quite as bad inside so it was worth it.

Then back to our air-conditioned room for an hour or so before we went out for dinner.

It is the Taste of Chicago food festival here at present (finishes tonight!) so we went across with the idea of sampling a few goodies and checking out the scene. Well, let me tell you that being a couple of older people in a massive, crowded throng of hustling bustling young things all bent on feasting and having a good time is just not my thing. They had maybe a couple of hundred stalls selling food and drinks of all descriptions (plus dozens of non-food stalls) and approximately ten million hungry families eager to stoke the internal fires - it was not a happy place for me. The event closed numerous streets around the hotel and occupied several complete ‘city blocks’ of what was otherwise roadways and parkland and it was really a matter of shuffling along wherever the crowds went and hoping that we could work our way to the edge of the human torrent to where the food was. You first had to line up to buy strips of 14 tokens at $10 per strip and then use them at the stalls to make your purchases. Each serve was priced at from 4 to 25 tokens (that I saw) so you had to juggle your choices to ensure you had enough tokens - or lose you place in the queue while you trekked off to buy more tokens. We ended up with 3 dishes for 42 tokens and escaped back to our room to eat the spoils and drink our bottle of Aussie wine.

15 July

Checkout day today, so after we finished a few Sudokus, it was breakfast, repacking, showers and a bit of tidying up and then sorting photos and writing until noon when we had to be out of our room. We cloaked our bags and walked down to the HOHO bus-stop and hopped on for the ride around to Navy Pier where we had decided to have lunch. It was in the mid-30s but felt even hotter to us so we were very glad to get inside the Pier buildings where it was cooler. We checked out the shops and food court but settled on a slow pub meal in air conditioned (relative) comfort. Then we strolled through the rest of the complex into a huge cool glassed-in atrium with trees and numerous clever water features (a bit like Crown used to have) and then out into the Fun Park with a Ferris wheel, a couple of merry-go-rounds and some good views of the Lake - if you could tolerate the Sun!

We hopped on a little free trolley for a 2-3 km ride to State Street and back before catching the HOHO bus home. Big problem! Our ticket was not valid! It seems that we were sold the ticket for the wrong bus company yesterday and despite having ridden on that bus before, we were told we had to ride a different bus - and the last full route for that one had finished for the day. When that bus did arrive, it was only going one more stop and would then finish until tomorrow. The driver and guide saw our disappointment and asked where we were staying - 7 stops (at least 4-5 miles) further along. The driver and guide had some secret adventure ahead of them so offered to get us to our hotel, despite the problem. They then also picked up 2 more stranded passengers and dropped them a few stops along - but delivered us to the door of our hotel. Not to the nearest stop – absolutely to the front door. It was so hot, we thought they were angels and had no compunction about giving them a tip!

We had time to kill so sat in the hotel foyer - and froze! From about 40 degrees outside, the A/C was set to about 15 inside and it was blasting straight down where we were sitting. We rugged up and sat there for an hour or so until we could get into the restaurant for dinner.

We took a cab to Union Station and found it crowded with hundreds of Amish folk - at least we think they were Amish from their odd ultra-conservative clothing, beards, hats and so on. They are obviously in a number of families or clans, each with its own uniform. We had a few of them on our Zephyr train so maybe there is a convention on, but it is a bit disturbing to see so many very young bonneted short-haired girls in long black dresses, each with several kids in tow and all the guys standing around with their strange hats and peculiar beards.

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bi-dazai · 6 years ago

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Hey! You! Yes, you!

Do you like fantasy stories? Of course you do.

Do you enjoy stories of teenagers trying to deal with the typical emotional hardships of being a teenager while also handling a revolution that involves swords, magic, occasional gods chiming in to help, and the power of friendship and learning to be confident in yourself?

And do you like the promise of not one but several endgame gay pairings? Fantasy gay pairings?! Of course you do!

Then my new online serial is for you!

Priyana is the story of three teenagers - Nik, Rada, and Kane - who find their “fate on fast forward” when the most annoying yet strangely likable character I’ve ever written cruel Prince Leander arrives in their small town. After the prince captures Amarandos (the man who raised the trio), burns their home down, and vows to destroy the escaped three kids, our trio find themselves thrust abruptly into the destiny which they thought they would be following much later on. Vowing to rescue Amarandos and reclaim the throne from Prince Leander and the evil King Olbert, they venture across the land of Priyana, learning about the true, hidden history of their country and their family, and making friends, enemies, and mending a scarred populace on the way.

The first book, Soul, follows the trio as they attempt to recapture Amarandos and struggle with the strange new existence they have been thrown headfirst into. With nothing but each other, they must learn to work as a team and not just as three moody teenagers raised by the same man. They journey to the mountain-enshrouded city of Nahvsenn, where they encounter a passionate, well-established underground rebellion simply awaiting the moment to finally take their city back from the evil King Olbert’s reign. Could our trio be the herald of that moment?

Priyana takes strong inspiration from Avatar: The Last Airbender in terms of the exploration of themes, worldbuilding style, our main characters’ relationships with the history of the land, and character development. It is written by a bisexual non-binary with an adoration for fantasy, the written word, and using fiction to criticise the ills of the society we live in.

A recommended minimum reader age would be approximately 10-12 years old, as the work contains some death, minor violence, and minor strong language.

Priyana will be published as an online serial, with the first 4 chapters published on the 12th January, 2019, the 5th chapter published on the 19th January, and the rest of the 19 total chapters of Book One: Soul being published fortnightly (every two weeks) from the 2nd February. It will be available as a PDF with occasional sketches for the series on a Google Drive (I will post the link to the folder on my Twitter and on this blog each time it is updated) and as a text-only version in the Original Work tag on Archive Of Our Own.

Chapters range between 2000-10,000 words, so it will only take 10-20 minutes out of your day to read a chapter. Sweet! And even better - it’s totally free. That’s right. A cool fantasy story, easy to read, not to long and overbearing, for free! *Keanu Reeves voice* Whoa.

And good news! If you are just so hyped for this series that you find yourself at the edge of your seat in anticipation for mid-January, well guess what! The first chapter is currently available as a sneak-peek preview! Nice!

Check out the first chapter here! It will only take you about 10-15 minutes to read, and even less time to reblog and share the news! Because this is the only form of advertising this thing has!

Even more information available under the cut:

I’ve been working on this almost exclusively over the last two years. Everything is so insanely thought-out and I’m sure I must have gone over everything over a million times now. So to say this means a lot to me is an understatement.

Certain tropes in this story are criticisms and deconstructions of common fantasy tropes, particularly tropes rooted in misogyny, racism, and xenophobia. Certain character beats are familiar to character beats in other stories that I wasn’t entirely happy with - for example, in Book 2A, there’s a character beat in Rada’s arc which is remarkably similar to a character beat in Sakura’s (from Naruto) early episodes. However, I never liked how Sakura’s character change from that beat (hint: when her hair gets chopped off) was so minimal, and often she would be acting like she would when she was first introduced. Rada is probably the best example of me using different character beats and subtly implementing them in hers to, at least in my opinion, show would could be instead done with said character beats.

So yeah, this story is in essence, a lot to me. If you’ve read and shared the news, it means the world to me. Each person that reads it I am eternally thankful for. Each person that shares it and recommends it even more so.

This isn’t my first major writing project - I’ve been writing long-form chapter books all throughout my teens, with my first chapter book having been written when I was 10 years old (sidenote - that one is a preteen mess in which I introduce vampires out of absolutely nowhere and include a wizard called Carrot-Eye). However, this is the first project I’ve written with the intent of being seen by eyes other than those in my close community of friends and family, and instead being published for those all over the world.

I struggled for a while with whether or not I would charge for this work. I’ve spent so much time and effort on it, and every day has been spent buried in Priyana, that it almost feels unfair to myself to release it for free. But as my first work, and as a poor person with few industry contacts and no industry contacts that could help me in this format, I realised it would be unwise for me to charge for it, and would make it accessible to other poor people like me. Free stories, yall!

That being said, if this project reaches a certain level of success, I’ll happily open up a Patreon, Ko-Fi and maybe a few other routes of donation. It’s my dream to be a full-time writer, and I’ve poured so much of my heart into this project already that I’m fully sure this is what I want to spend the rest of my life doing. I want to make people think with my stories, but I also want them to enjoy them and escape from real life. I want people to fall in love with my characters, to experience their emotions and to connect with my work. I hope I can do that for as many people as possible.

I’m going to now set some promises, as this series is going to be published for many years to come and my promised gay pairings are, as I mentioned, endgame, so they will be happening later on. So the following things, I promise here and now, to uphold in this series:

- there will be both a WLW and a MLM pairing with major characters

- there will be time spent exploring the dynamic and romance of said pairings

- there will be a trans girl (hint, hint: sister girl) major character with a major character as her love interest

- there is a nonbinary character from the first chapter, who although starts as a villain, undergoes a long arc in which they eventually decide to redeem themselves on their own terms

- i promise not to demonise the gender, ethnicity, race, or customs of any minority or minority-coded characters

- at least two major characters are mixed race, with issues of race, immigration, generalisation, and xenophobia explored from the perspective of racial minorities

- issues such as the above are explored with a mindset of long, long hours and days of research into real life scholars of race, gender, sociology, etc, and especially their perspectives on fantasy and allegory

Thank you for reading this, and if you did, thank you for reading that chapter and sharing!

-Natalya

#priyana

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thisnerdsadventures · 7 years ago

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semester update

oh hi friends im still alive, if you can believe it

remember that checkerboard schedule from the beginning of the year? well that got filled up

well i accidentally signed up for too much so i’ve been working 15 hours a day for around 6 days a week and i’m tired! :D

fun things i’ve done hm ok

went to DC for an onsite! last year i also went, and visited the white house and washington monument. this year i went shopping around georgetown area. did i get the job this year you ask? no!

went to NYC for an onsite! third time i’ve been to new york in my three years of college - also got to actually work in the new york public library this time, in one of the reading rooms people take touristy pictures of. Also went to chelsea market, saw a friend, and got very fresh noodles, which were very fresh. did i get the job you ask? stay tuned!

held fall formal - ended up being 200 people in a room that probably shouldn’t hold 200 people, but it turned out well somehow! also a freshman came up to me afterwards and thanked me for the job well done and social chair is often a thankless job and i have lots of feelings about this :’)

here’s a list of really insane work things that i’ve done

this past weekend I worked 20 hours on the same pset and wrote almost 2k lines of code (for reference, i wrote around 4k lines of code for my internship. my whole summer internship.) sometimes it be like that

i had 6 interviews in the past week and a half, which is....you guessed it....really horrible!

worked from 6pm to 3am on the same class one night. was i tilted? yes!

went from drinking coffee a couple times a week to almost twice a day

and finally, here’s how my life went to shit this semester (Bc there’s always a point where your life really derails each semester, and you never see it coming)

so i looked at my calendar and i wasn’t studying/prepping for interviews/psetting in waking hours for approximately three hours last week! one hour was spent exercising, one was spent watching netflix, and the other hour was spent crying!

well to be honest, the week before that was also bad. i think M-Th I just didn’t take a break and then Friday I took the night off

ok so apparently acocrding to my calendar, the last time i actually had my shit together was October 8th. ok thats fine!

this semester, a two week span of 8 interviews, one exam, and a mess in one of my classes was ultimately what derailed my life (the mess being a really hard unsolvable pset, having to write a completely new section in the class notes, writing an NIH style project proposal, present it, and review three others in the span of around a couple weeks with some to no prior warning or erratic rescheduling of each and every single one of these assignments)

so i ended up dropping a class (a 6 unit one) to save myself, and hopefully it starts working soon. also imposter syndrome has been real (has never been this bad before), and unhelpful replies to my “im really really tired and stressed i cannot make it to x” texts have (surprisingly!) increased my stress, and now i just want to sleep. good news is i haven’t completely dropped all of my extracurriculars like i always end up doing, but my urop has really dropped off the radar, but as i said before i’ve averaged around 3 free hours a week for the past month, so oops

i had a thought to just cancel all my other interviews, but im literally taking 3 classes, and i’m having trouble figuring out why my semester has just been really bad so far. in new ways from last semester, my technical confidence and personal confidence have really been tested and are pretty low at the current moment. This past week feels like I’ve just been told from all sides of the table that whatever I put out on a personal and technical level hasn’t been good enough, in every single class and from the company I just interviewed with. Working nonstop with no end in sight and being told its not good enough is really rough guys

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astromechs · 4 years ago

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this is the start of an idea i had... i keep telling people it was six months ago, but i actually think it was a year ago that i first thought of this, and i kept sitting on it too scared to write it because i didn’t think i’d do it justice. that being said, i’m actually kind of proud of this excerpt, and since i’m feeling soft about one of my oldest and most beloved fandoms today:

i bring you what is — basically my matrix 4 spec fic.

(i do eventually plan on posting this to ao3 as a complete piece when i finish the other parts that i have in mind, because i have plans for this... oh, i have plans.....)

01.

Like she knows him. And that’s what’s weird.

But even so, there are things that he knows he can’t shake.

No time off to try to clear his head would ever change the fact that this hadn’t been an isolated incident.

Dark tunnels that haven’t seen the sun for centuries. Cold, so cold that no amount of warmth, human or otherwise, can really combat. Running, desperately bounding up the fire escape to the third floor of a rundown motel, three men in sunglasses and perfectly-tailored suits in close pursuit, his heart pounding in his ears so loudly he can barely hear the phone ring from Room 303, the place he has to get to, because everything depends on it. A barrage of bullets in his chest, one right after the other, back slumping against the wall as his heart gives out, vision fading to grey and then to black, but a voice, reaching through it all to call him, tether him….

Neo.

There are things that he knows he can’t shake, and sometimes, he thinks he had another life. Another name.

Another purpose.

He’s haunted by the ghost of it.

He’s just about to stammer out some automatic, awkward apology, but then —

Blue eyes meet his, clear, crisp blue, and a jolt strikes him right to the core.

He thinks — no, he knows, he knows — he’s seen these eyes.

Neo. In the darkest corners of his mind, the voice whispers again.

Behind sunglasses, another pair of eyes watches them from across the car.

“You all right?” Neo.

Just before he makes it safely inside, he catches a glimpse of the old woman on the bench watching him, her smile wider than he’s ever seen it. Maybe, even, almost inhumanly wide.

#* fic #the matrix #neo #neo x trinity #(tagging this with the pairing is probably not a spoiler for the fic lmfao)#(if you're like... following me here you know where i'm going with this)#watch me wake up and delete this tomorrow out of self-consciousness #this is the first thing i've written for this fandom in #at least ten years #probably more #AAAHHHH SHRIEKS #(also i promise i'm getting back to writing prompts!!)#(i just took a little detour....)

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