#like that post about how much time you spend with your coworkers vs. friends and family over the course of your life? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

toastlab · 2 years

Text

Work Life Balance Vs. Work Life Integration: Which Is Right For You?

Dear reader, DJ school’s in session. Today’s class topic is the age-old debate of work life balance vs. work life integration. Buzzwords aplenty, but we’re gonna get to the nitty-gritty of it all.

If you’re like most people, you’ve probably struggled at some point with finding the right balance between your career and personal life. You might have even tried to merge the two together in an attempt to create harmony. But which approach is the right one for you?

That’s what we’re here to explore today – and I’d say it’s pretty timely. 2023 is only days away, and while I think you can refine your habits any time of the year – the onset of a new year is always a great motivation booster.

In this post, I’ll take a deep dive into the pros and cons of both work life balance and work life integration, and give you some tips for finding the right approach for you.

So, sit back, relax, and let’s get started on this journey to work-life harmony!

What’s work-life balance, anyway?

So, chances are you’ve heard the term work-life balance thrown around a lot. It’s a lifestyle buzzword. You see it all over TikTok and Instagram. You see your favorite creators close their laptops and seemingly not think about work from 5:00pm until whenever they log on again – and you’re probably a little envious.

Remember that those aesthetic videos take lots of work, and people usually are only showing an ideal online – not real life.

Let’s define work-life balance. Simply put, it’s the idea of finding a balance between your work and personal life. It means making sure that you have enough time and energy for both your job and your personal pursuits, such as family, friends, hobbies, downtime, and self-care. Yes, I think having downtime and practicing self-care are two different things, but downtime is a form of self-care.

Yet, here’s the thing: work-life balance means something different to everyone. For some people, it might mean leaning into the 9:00 to 5:00 lifestyle and having the evenings and weekends off to relax and recharge. For some, it might even mean starting their own business and setting their own hours – like I did. Trust me – finding that balance when working non-traditional hours took some work.

So, how do you find the right work-life balance for you? That’s the million-dollar question. It’s a process of trial and error, and it might take some time to figure out what works best for you.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

Set boundaries: Make sure you set clear boundaries between your work and personal time. This might mean creating a ‘Focus’ on your phone that limits work notifications when you aren’t working, setting limits on how much time you spend working, or even just taking a few minutes to decompress before and after work.

Prioritize self-care: Don’t neglect your own needs in the pursuit of work-life balance. Make time for exercise, relaxation, and other forms of self-care to help you feel refreshed and rejuvenated.

Communicate: If you’re struggling to find the right balance, don’t be afraid to speak up. If you’re a full time DJ, maybe it means taking a few less monthly gigs. Maybe it means outsourcing – which I talk about in this article. If you’re still working your day job, talk to your boss, your coworkers, and your loved ones about your needs and see if there are any adjustments that can be made to help you achieve a better balance.

In the end, and it might sound a little cliché, work-life balance is all about finding what works best for you. It takes some experimentation and communication skills, but – it’s worth it.

Plus, you’ve got to know your limits too. If you’re trying to build your DJ business while working a full-time day job, you’re going to burn out pretty quickly.

Set availability and communication expectations with your DJ clients and make sure your day job doesn’t suffer – you may need to do both for a while until you get to the point where you can leave your day job (if that’s your goal), so it’s important to keep things sustainable.

So, what’s work-life integration then?

Now that I’ve yarned about work-life balance, let’s dive into the concept of work-life integration.

The concept of work-life integration is the idea of blending your work and personal life together rather than trying to keep them separate. This will typically look like a work from home arrangement that allows you to take breaks during the day to run errands and take care of personal tasks. It can be pretty liberating.

It’s important to note that this sort of arrangement really depends on the job you’re working and whether your role is outcome based or a more traditional clock-in/clock-out arrangement. If you’re on the clock, it’s probably not cool to step out to grab a cappuccino for an hour.

The Pros and Cons

Now, work-life integration might sound like a dream come true for some people. No more rigid schedule, no more waiting until after work or requesting some precious PTO for personal appointments, no more feeling like you have to ‘choose’ between your career and your personal life.

However, work-life integration isn’t for everyone.

One potential downside is that it can be difficult to set boundaries between your work and personal time. You might find yourself working longer hours or feeling like you can’t fully disconnect from your job. It can also be tough to find the right balance between work and personal tasks, which can lead to feelings of burnout or stress.

That said, work-life integration can also have some major benefits. For one, it can be more flexible and allow you to have a better work-life balance. It can also give you the opportunity to pursue a side-hustle and other personal interests while still making a living.

Ultimately, whether work-life integration is right for you depends on your needs, life circumstances, and your personal approach to work-related stressors. That’s really key; if you can’t disconnect and tend to ruminate over work a lot, work-life integration may not be for you – and that’s okay!

Let’s connect!

When it comes to balance vs. integration, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons and decide what works best for you. Consider the nature of your job(s) as well – integration might be the only option for some folks, and balance for others.

Not sure what approach will work for you? No sweat. I offer 1:1 coaching sessions, and I leverage my near-twenty years of experience to help my clients identify and action their goals – even outside the DJ space, I gotchu.

If you’re ready to take the plunge and quit your day job to pursue building that DJ empire, check out The Lab. They’re DJ lessons, all online. We’ve got templates, worksheets, and super-valuable info. Plus – they’re useful for those outside the DJ space, just like my coaching services, and the videos never expire.

Ready to get started? Here’s our sign-up form here.

0 notes

kindness-ricochets · 3 years

Note

I’ve been seeing a lot of thoughts and hc of autistic wylan lately and you seem to also be a fan of the concept. May I ask why? Exactly? I could definitely kinda see it but wanna hear you thoughts you’re always so eloquent

Hey there anon! Sorry for the delay—I’m guessing you already found an answer to this elsewhere while I was off Tumblr for a bit, but just in case, here are my thoughts. This will be heavily personal, but… well, you can’t very well ask an autistic person about autism and expect neutrality!

Autism is different for everyone and can be difficult to pin down, so while Wylan is arguably autistic, he misses several beats that for me would have made him definitively and undeniably autistic. For example, when the bells start to ring, triggering black protocol—I work in a place with a lot of bells and am frequently caught too close to one and normally press my hands over my ears until it’s over because that sound is like shrapnel raking across my insides. All of them. Not just the ear and brain parts. Wylan doesn’t have that sort of visceral reaction, but that may just mean he doesn’t have the same sensitivities that I do, or to the same level. He also never, that I recall, eats meat—as weird as that might sound, eating meat is incredibly complicated with heightened sensitivities to taste and texture. I’m not sure how old I was when I realized it was strange to get up from the table to spit out my food because it viscerally repulsed me. So it might be that Wylan is autistic and has different experiences than I do. Those are things I would include in a story as major indicators of a character being autistic. This might also mean that his father’s way of raising him taught him to hide unusual reactions and stimming behaviors. It’s not that much of a reach to assume a man who tried to abuse the dyslexia out of his son would take the same approach to autism. (More on autism and abuse later.)

So while I’m going to lay out why I read Wylan as autistic, that’s why I think it’s valid to read him as not being autistic as well. Both are valid.

A final caveat, I am well overdue for a reread of the books, so I likely left something out or could have found better examples. Take this as a few of my reasons for a personal headcanon. Anyone who feels differently, that's fine! We can each read things our own way :)

1 - Hyperfixation: The way Wylan loves music

Most of the Crows’ backgrounds color how they see the world: Kaz’s shrewdness, Matthias’s tactical thinking and superstition, Inej’s faith and Suli wisdom, etc. That’s a sign of good character writing. But very little of Wylan’s upbringing seems to have influenced how he sees the world. It comes closest when he thinks about how his father would scorn his new friends, but we never see that scorn from Wylan.

The way a hyperfixation feels, it’s like you’ve always lived in a close parallel world, never fully been a part of the other one where it seems like everyone else lives, but suddenly there’s this bright shining piece of your soul laced through the other world. It lets you connect, it lets you exist in their realm, and you can’t help but filter everything new through that lens because it’s the brightest, most wonderful thing. (I had been between hyperfixations for a while when I started a new job; six months into that work, I read Crooked Kingdom. One of my coworkers thought I had fallen in love, it was that marked a difference.)

So, combining these: Wylan never really acts like he was part of his father’s world, and indeed is in some ways separate from the other Crows, but he parses everything through music, his hyperfixation. He sets words to music to remember them, like he does with the contract. Even his own anxiety is made sense of through music, when in his first narrated chapter, he sets it to music: what am I doing here what am I doing here…. When he’s overwhelmed, his thoughts are “a jangle of misplayed chords”. The Crows have backgrounds that influence how they react to the world, but Wylan’s hyperfixation is his means of experiencing and understanding the world.

2 - Literal thinking: Wylan responds to exact words

In this post, I went into detail on the line where Wylan suggested waking up men to kill them. Wylan is generally unsupportive of killing people—Oomen, Smeet’s clerk, his father… he advocates not-murder in each of these situations. Accepting his aversion to murder, his suggestion to wake men up and kill them seems like a genuine reaction to Jesper saying he doesn’t want to kill unconscious men. Wylan takes things literally.

This happens the most with Jesper, probably because Jesper talks to Wylan the most. Nina and Matthias don’t really register him past how he might be useful, Inej is usually quite direct, and Kaz is very deliberate when he speaks with Wylan. This really interests me because Kaz tends to vary his speech more than the others do, he adapts more to being around other people. He jokes a little with Jesper, spars with Nina, speaks more openly and more sharply with Inej, and he’s precise with Wylan. Kaz may not know what autism is, but he recognizes what’s effective with Wylan.

Another example is when Wylan is sketching the Ice Court plans and Jesper says it looks like a cake. There are plenty of valid responses here: pointing out that concentric circles look like lots of things, that it’s just a sketch, telling Jesper to stop looking over his shoulder. Instead, Wylan says that the Ice Court is sort of like a cake. That… doesn’t sound like something Wylan would normally say. He’s not addressing the whole situation, he’s addressing the specific words Jesper said.

One of the most heartbreaking examples of this (to me, anyway) is with Marya. Wylan does the same thing with his mother, when she asks if he’s there for her money and says she hasn’t got any, and his response is, “I don’t either.” We understand as readers that what Marya is communicating here is that she is so accustomed to being utterly ignored unless she is being used, and if she told Wylan that no one visited but to take advantage and she assumed he was here for the same reason, he would say it wasn’t the case. But he just responds to the immediate statement.

There are a lot of examples of this.

3 — 0% perception, 100% creativity

Wylan can identify things that don’t make sense or that he doesn’t understand, but at the beginning of the series he can’t make leaps, only ask questions. On the Ferolind, he wonders about the source of water at the Ice Court; though Kaz doesn’t say as much, he was clearly wondering, too, because he eventually figured out the underground river. There’s an interesting parallel here where, in the beginning of Crooked Kingdom, Wylan asks a question about how they’ll break into Smeet’s and Kaz tells him to use his eyes instead of running his mouth—at which point Wylan is able to figure it out. I don’t think this is because he never tried before, though, but because no one ever bothered to teach him. Kaz can be harsh but he gives harsh corrections rather than harsh rejections and Wylan learns from him.

It’s hard to understand the world for people with autism. The world is designed and run by and for people whose minds are fundamentally different from ours, whose thoughts and experiences are unlike ours. Imagine trying to learn English or Spanish or Mandarin or any other spoken language if your first language was olfactory. That’s sort of what it’s like for someone with autism to just get dropped into the world and expected to figure this out.

This can be attributed to Wylan’s upbringing, but I disagree with that because none of the others were brought up in the Barrel, either, and Wylan doesn’t understand trade or politics with any special skill. Kaz wasn’t born in the Barrel, but he managed to go from “stealing is wrong” to “wrong isn’t my concern” real quick; Colm Fahey didn’t raise his son on gambling and firefights; the Ghafas never expected their daughter to be away from the family. Only Nina has relevant training—and even that’s precious little, she left school way too early. The others figured it out; Wylan needed a bit more help. He also seems surprised by the way his father conducts business. Wylan takes things on face value—like the time he’s surprised someone would do something, simply because it’s unlawful. This is something he expresses to a group of gangsters. He’s never been taught the way of any world and these things are not intuitive to him.

But Wylan isn’t stupid.

He doesn’t know how to understand the world, but he does understand how things go together. Given a pointy diamond, a handle, and a screw, he cut through Grisha glass. He carries flashbangs and magic napalm, he recreates military hardware—Wylan understands how to make things interact for a specific result. But to me the most telling thing isn’t just that he puts together chemical pieces, it’s that he figured out Jesper controlled bullets. He saw the pieces and put them together.

Wylan can understand when things don’t make sense, but he can’t make sense of them—yet when he understands things at their basic level, he understands them without preconception, for what they are. This is a very autistic way of thinking about things, it goes back to the literalism. He can’t make the leaps of logic other people can, but he also doesn’t make the assumptions they do—“I’ve never heard of a bullet Grisha, so that’s not a thing” vs “Well Jesper’s an almost impossibly good shot and he controls metal and bullets are metal, so why not?”

4 - Broken brain/body connection

Wylan’s great at chemistry and drawing and playing flute or piano—but he’s something of a disaster other times. This is in particular contrast to the other characters, all of whom are physically adept. Meanwhile it’s a challenge for Wylan to climb a rope ladder and he spends a full paragraph trying to figure out what to do with his hands. It’s easy to say, well, he’s used to a sedentary lifestyle, but at this point he’s not. He’s worked in the tannery for months. He’s just physically awkward.

I have less to say on this point only because it’s about something I don’t fully understand myself. I don’t really understand what it would be like to have a body that just… does things? Like normal stuff? Without tics and stims. No idea. Only that Wylan’s discomfort in and seeming lack of mastery of his own body feels very relatable to me.

5 - Abuse

One of the most familiar things about Wylan is how he has been so thoroughly abused and broken down that he’s afraid to do or say much of anything. Again, this is a place his background can be an obscuring factor. Of course Wylan didn’t think to blow up the walls when the first met the parem-juiced jurda and got trapped, he’s a spoiled rich kid! Except, he also startled when Jesper said his name later. Wylan didn’t hesitate because he was spoiled, he hesitated because he had no confidence.

He also thinks Kaz would laugh at him for playing music at his mother’s grave. Now, personally, I can’t see Kaz laughing at Wylan—being indifferent, thinking it’s pointless sentimentality, shaking his head, maybe commenting sharply that they need to go if they don’t have the time. But not laughing. Kaz is a snarky, sharp-edged jerk sometimes, but he doesn’t go out of his way to criticize, he just lets people know when they inconvenience him.

Wylan has been trained to identify attention as negative by an overbearing abusive father who literally saw him as less favorable than a demon. Now, that may have been hyperbole, but Jan criticized everything he could about Wylan—art, music, emotion—and made clear that he was worthless and competent to nothing. (Jan Van Eck can suck a rotten donkey dick but that’s neither here nor there.)

A lot of people with autism experience levels of bullying that have similar impacts. Or as the kids these days are calling it: we go to school. We go to school where we are weird. Where we look weird and move weird and talk about weird things and there’s a whole little bevy of asswipes to makes sure we know it. I got teased more for playing Pokemon and sitting alone reading than the kid who pissed himself onstage at assembly. (This was before Pokemon was cool. I’m old.) And that is not unusual for autistic kids. It’s also not unusual for this to be compounded by relatives or even parents who may be trying to help but don’t understand and can make things even harder.

So we can’t read social cues and we’re taught at a vicious age that everything that comes naturally to us is wrong. Imagine trying to interact in society with that background. There is no guide and most advice from neurotypical people isn’t actually what they mean. It breaks you down.

Wylan’s anxiety isn’t definitive of autism, but isn’t something that was incredibly familiar as someone whose neurodivergent experiences created a strong level of anxiety.

6 — High Compassion, Low Social Competence

Wylan isn’t very good at making friends. In fact, none of the Crows likes him much in the beginning, and only some of them soften toward him by the end. (Matthias and Nina come to respect his skills as a chemist but neither seems to particularly like him.) But you can see throughout the books that Wylan wants to connect with them and be one of them, he just… isn’t. He’s off-beat. He’s weird. He asks questions and mimics behaviors (trying to be cool and tough like Jesper, saying “mission” like Matthias does, imitating Kaz’s scheming face) but he doesn’t quite get how to adapt.

But he still cares about people. Not just them. Everyone. He cares about the people they leave in the ditch outside the prison wagon, he cares about Hanna Smeet, he cares about Alys. He cares about the people who’ll take a hit from Kaz’s sugar caper.

Wylan’s awkward social skills have undeniable big autism energy. I posit his compassion does as well. This is simply who Wylan is, and that means being someone who cares about everyone. I have nothing to back up that this is related to autism. I can say that it’s like me. (Not to brag.) I can’t turn off the part of my brain that says everyone matters. Individuals can opt out of that compassion, but they have it by default. There’s a certain agony in feeling a pull toward and love for just about everyone and yet an inability to develop meaningful connections with them, and that keen loneliness… it just burns.

Again, it’s not definitive of autism, but it’s very similar to an autistic experience.

I said in the beginning that I didn’t think Wylan certainly had autism and I stand by that, but he is a powerfully honest reflection of many people who do. So he can be understood to have autism, and that’s part of the reason some people have that headcanon.

#six of crows #wylan van eck #autism #actually autistic

63 notes · View notes

lnights · 2 years

Note

😈✨🎶💌❌🧐🎯🦅💞😬🤲🏻🤭 please! 💖 /🐍

Well good morning snake! This is gonna be a long one 😅

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

Not that I can think of right now...

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

No I'm am but an awkward bat! *Grumble grumble* ok people seem to like my writing I think I do ok balancing angst/fluff.

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

I actually don't usually play music when I write, but that's because it distracts part of me. Alive or Only Burning, Chucky vs the Giant Tortoise, and Bohemian Rhapsody have been my loop songs lately.

💌 How do you feel about comments and feedback?

They give me life! Please all the comments.

❌ What's a trope you will never write?

Major Character Death or on screen SA. Not happening.

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

Depends on the story but yes, I know more now about Finland's temperatures throughout the year, distance between cities, common names, etc then I ever thought I would.

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

I can't say I have had that happen yet? But similarly I did get an ask lately with a story suggestion and I told the person that it was something I actually already had in wip. They may have guessed one of the plot points in that 😳 I blame the single braincell.

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

Yes to both lol. I generally have an idea of what I want them to be or I get a scene in my head I want to build to, but I don't plan every chapter out.

💞 Who's your comfort character?

Tommi 🐻

😬 Which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?

Either of my two smut one shots 🙃

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

For you my dearest 🐍, you get two:

-While Niko and Joel held back Tommi, he had looked over to make sure his friends were okay and noticed Aleksi had practically pulled Olli onto his lap.

"We don't care what anyone thinks, right baby?" He asked sweetly, giving Olli's neck a light kiss while staring directly into the jackass's eyes with the coldest expression Niko had ever seen on the DJ's face.-

And!

-Joel was holding his hand the way a parent would with a small child's.

"Um Joel? Who is this?"

"He's a fledgling I found."

The fledgling was looking between the two of them widely.

"You can't just take other people's fledglings." Joonas said, nonplussed.

"I didn't! I found him alone and-"

"Ok," the fledgling said, "can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?"-

🤭 Do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works?

Blind Channel Ensemble/Blind Channel Ensemble 😏 lol otherwise hurt/comfort and implied sexual content (still working on writing smut but I will imply it all day long lol)

#answered asks #it's a danger noodle #i have so many wips

4 notes · View notes

mszegedy · 4 years

Text

30 Days of Autism Acceptance: Days 17-26

This is a list of questions by @autie-jake (full list here), where you’re supposed to answer one per day for every day of April. I keep forgetting to do these daily, so here’s all the days since my last post. My last post is here.

April 17: Have you experienced ableism before? If so, how did it feel and how did you handle it?

Yes! Actually, it made my childhood so bad that my brain decided to forget it. So, clearly nothing to write about here.

April 18: Discuss how you felt when you felt when you first learnt you were autistic vs how you feel now.

I’m not good at the whole “remembering how I feel” thing. My memories of my feelings are all semantic memory. I know as a 6th grader I thought autism was super cool and I read a whole autobiography of an autistic savant because I wanted to find out more about it (Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammett). After a lot of intense research, I decided that I couldn’t conclusively self-diagnose, and regretfully slinked away back into not understanding or advocating for my needs. Sometime later, an actually autistic coworker of mine looked at me for like five (5) minutes, and was like, “Hey, have you been diagnosed with autism yet?” I’ve since adopted her as my second mom, for that and other reasons. I’ve had very few moments in my life when I was sad to have an autistic trait, and I got over it fairly quickly.

April 19: Talk about scripting. Is scripting something that you normally do? What kind of situations do you have a script for? Does it help you?

People don’t like my apologies, so I have a couple apology scripts saved. Otherwise I tend to just wing it and fail spectacularly. The apology scripts tend to sound… scripted, but they’re better than just doing it myself, I think.

April 20: Discuss stimming. In what ways do you stim? What does stimming mean to you? What do individual stims that you do mean? Do you have any stim toys? What would you like people to know about stimming?

Pressure stims are the most important stims for me. I’m more likely to be squeezing a part of my body than not. If nothing else, I can cross my legs tight and squeeze them together. This doesn’t have any specific function; it’s just something I do that makes me feel better. When I’m stressed, I do it more.

I also do motion stims. Often my way of locomotion is more like dancing. This is a little strange, because I don’t otherwise dance. I always feel happy, relaxed, and in control when I do that. When I’m sad or tired, my feet are too heavy for it. I am also very animate with my hands when I talk. When I taught English in Hungary for the first time, the first question I was asked whether all Americans talk with their hands as much as I do. (I don’t think they do. I have it on good authority from at least one American I trust utterly that the way I use my hands is rather unique.)

I have two improvised stim toys for pressure stimming (a scarf for wrapping very tight around limbs, and a butterknife for applying waves of uniform pressure). I also recently found one of those head scratchy thingies, and now I use it every five minutes or so. It’s a little inconvenient with headphones on, but I’m rather creative with it, anyway. I don’t actually like light touch or tickles, but generally the head scratchy thingy can be given enough pressure to provide a substantial stimulus.

April 21: Give a shoutout to some of your favorite autism blogs/autistic bloggers

UM. HMM. Like 10-50% of the people I follow are autistic, but hell if I can remember any of their handles.

I reblog from @nonbinary-hawke and their native issues-related sideblog @finding-my-culture like multiple times a day but I’m pretty sure they kinda just tolerate me? I’m mostly cut off from the actual native community I’m supposed to be part of (the Siberian one), so I try to follow American native issues with kind of a “not my lane but I’m still sympathetic” vibe, and their blogs are most of my way of keeping in touch. But we have a lot of other random things in common too; similar age, similar neurotype, similar fandoms, etc. So I’m pretty much always gonna have a platonic tumblr crush on them, given that and how much I respect their principles.

@autisticadvocacy is ASAN’s official blog, I think, and it’s always posting useful and relevant articles.

@autisticjoy and @autismisaokay are two blogs I’ve followed for most of my time on tumblr. I get the majority of my autism-related content from them.

@autistic-noodle is the first autism-related blog I ever followed! I highly recommend her; if I haven’t unfollowed her after all this time, then that means that they’ve never reblogged anything that’s triggered me, which is pretty darn impressive.

@bogleech is my favorite webcomic artist, which is a vaunted honor coming from someone with ¾ of a special interest in webcomics. I’m not actually sure if he’s autistic, but he posts enough autism-related content to justify being on this list one way or another.

I’ve definitely learned at least one useful thing from @autisticlifehack. What was it? Who knows?

@autistic-flirting is very cute, if not very active.

Shout out to @tikibats and @dreamfriend, who I actually know IRL.

April 22: What are some social rules that do not make sense to you/that you don't understand?

I’m, uh. Actually not sure? I can usually explain stuff if I think hard enough. There’s some stuff I’ve never bothered to figure out, but none of it’s so pressing that I can actually remember it.

Oh! Actually! One night during freshman year of college, I went to the computer lab to do my homework in a not-at-all-revealing bathrobe. I’ve received several explanations on why this was wrong, but I don’t remember any of them.

April 23: Do you have any internal rules? What are they?

LOTS, wow. If I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t have any shred of consistency whatsoever. I am nothing but these rules. Some of them feel more like strong opinions that can be taken or left, like the ones pertaining to writing style, but even those I follow 99% of the time. They range from really foundational moral ones like, “Everything with a mind intrinsically deserves your friendship and understanding,” and, “Every neurotype deserves to exist,” to, “Always wrap code to 80 columns (unless it’s highly nested like Lisp, in which case consider 100 columns),” and, “When mixing fruit flavor tea, always pour the syrup before the tea.” It’s quite the hodgepodge.

April 24: Talk about community. What does the autistic community mean to you? Is it important? How does it feel?

I haven’t had much of a chance to actually participate in any autistic community yet. I don’t even really participate in the tumblr autistic community. It’s just sorta me, my second mom, and a couple random people I get to see occasionally. (Also, my dad, but we don’t talk about my dad.) Most of my friends are neurodivergent in some way, though, so I’m happy with the people I have. (Not that I don’t enjoy hanging around neurotypical people, too. But it feels good to not have to work to make yourself be understood.)

April 25: Do you know any other autistic people off the internet? Is anyone else in your family autistic or are you the only one? Do you wish you knew more?

See yesterday’s answer! I wouldn’t do this if I were doing these day by day, but I’m totally justified here, because it’s literally the previous paragraph.

April 26: In what ways can allistic people better accommodate you and other autistic people? What would you consider helpful?

It’s a broad question. My mom has been getting better at not punishing me for my autistic traits, but the other day she still antagonized me for stimming at the dinner table. (I’m 22. Nearly 23.) So it’d be great if she didn’t do things like that. Not even gonna talk about what my dad could do better. (The ways he does accomodate me seem unintentional.)

Outside of that, I appreciate it when people give me very clearly-worded instructions, broken down into small steps, with every possible detail specified. I appreciate it even more when those instructions are in written form, because I can only remember two or three of those when they’re spoken aloud.

I appreciate it when food places with complex menus have the option to just sit down with the menu, without a time limit, and make up your order. Sandwich and wrap places, like Subway, make me very uncomfortable for reason; Subway has an extremely combinatorically complex menu, and you’re expected to make up your order while they’re making the sandwich. I’d like to spend some time staring at a sheet with each sandwich ingredient listed and explained, and the ways they can be combined, first.

The current switch to online classes has been great for my ability to understand lectures, and terrible for my ability to do classwork and homework. Hearing the lecture through headphones circumvents most of my auditory processing issues, and seeing the lecture slides clearly circumvents most of my attention issues. But when it comes to doing classwork and homework, executive dysfunction rules me. I do wish my executive dysfunction were better accomodated for even in the case of normal classes (and probably careers), but it’s hard to guess what form that would take. I’ve run out of brainpower for good ideas.

For the rest of the month I will do these questions daily, one at a time. Hopefully.

#2020 #30daysofautismacceptance

4 notes · View notes

quarantinewithbean · 4 years

Text

Dirty vs. Clean

I think these terms are constantly consuming our minds at this point. At least, they are mine! I have always been a clean person, but this pandemic has brought my thoughts of contamination to a new level. When I get home from work, I take my shoes off outside of our house in our garage. I then walk into our entryway and set my bags on the ground, set my phone and keys on a table, take my coat off and hang up. I walk to the kitchen and get some disinfectant wipes and wipe down my phone, keys, bags, hang the bags, and wipe where everything was sitting. Wipe the door handles and light switches and anything else I may have touched. Then I throw the wipe away and wash my hands. Then I change my clothes. I also wipe down all hard surfaces, cupboard handles, railings, etc. in our house on a regular basis.

Any packages or mail are left out for a day to try and kill “dirty” virus germs that may be on them. And if we handle mail or a package, we are sure to wash our hands (for at least 20 seconds) when we are done.

Going to get groceries does not happen in person anymore as we get all groceries delivered. We put our order in ahead of time as we know it will take a few days, then we disinfect everything in our order and let it dry on the counter. Then we put it away, disinfect the counters, and wash our hands. God bless the Instacart delivery people who are in charge of shopping and bringing our groceries to us...we are sure to tip them well each time.

At work, I take even more steps to disinfect things. It’s almost distracting. Even though I am the only one who uses my office, I still wipe down my workstation with sanitizing wipes when i get in. Before eating lunch or snacks I wash my hands. I open any doors/microwave/fridge using a paper towel. As I think I’ve shared before, my office is in a small little building not attached to the main hospital and I typically only see 2-3 people when I go in, and all of whom are at least 6 feet away from me if I see them at all. I wash my hands just about every hour (as that is how often I’m having to pee now in my almost 7th month of pregnancy) and my hands are looking dry, cracked, and chapped. But at least they’re clean.

I feel like this invisible enemy is making me paranoid and I’m sure I’m not the only one! Even though I know it is the safest thing to do, I feel GUILTY assuming that any other person has the virus. It feels so abnormal. Every person I see I automatically think “Are they infected? Could they give this to myself and my baby?” It makes me feel judgy and I hate that feeling and pride myself on being the opposite! We aren’t even letting our family members come over to our house unless they have been completely isolating for at least 2 weeks, “just in case” they have been exposed to the virus. My dad has been building a crib for Bean and has been purposefully isolating himself from all other people so that he can drive it out to us safely and without exposing us - even putting off a carpentry job just so he can avoid being around others. Partway through his first attempt at isolation, he had to go into the clinic to have a procedure done, and started his isolation over. So he’s coming a week later. Because as we all know, if you are around one other person, you are essentially exposing yourself to the germs of EVERYONE they have been around, and we know people can shed/spread the virus before they are symptomatic, etc. etc. etc.

All of this is so much and so unpleasant to think about! I know it is necessary, but it is hard. It’s hard not to be social, not to give hugs, not to sit close to others, not to let friends and family touch my ever-growing bump. But I know it is for the best and won’t be forever.

I am VERY grateful that Aaron works from home and we don’t have to deal with him being exposed to anyone at an office. I’m also glad that we enjoy spending time with each other (still, somehow! lol). If you have someone to share this time in isolation with, consider yourself very lucky! It is so much harder for those who have no one else at home. Be sure you call and check on your loved ones who are all by themselves. I promise you they will be happy for the contact. Aaron and I have been doing some new fun things to beat the quarantine blues, including me teaching him how to play Mancala (my favorite childhood game), and watching a family of jackrabbits play in the field that is across the backyard from our house. They are ENORMOUS!! I knew that they were a mascot around here but was not aware of just how big they are in real life! We at first thought it was just a mom and dad and baby and named them Jack, Jill, and JoJo. Now we see that there are actually 3 little ones, so we have 2 more to name :) It is super fun to watch them tear across the field running after each other. I just cannot get over how big they are! We thought they were dogs or baby deer at first and then realized, nope...they are MegaBunnies. Aaron brought his rifle up so we could get a good look through his scope when we watch them. I also just ordered some binoculars online so we can have a better way of viewing them instead of having to hold up that rifle :)

I had my prayers answered this week when my supervisors and senior leadership approved my work from home request! I honestly never thought it would happen as they have not allowed hardly anyone to do so, but they made an exception for me because of my pregnancy AND because I already see the majority of my caseload using video/telehealth. I will still need to be in my office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but am not expected to go over to the hospital for in-person visits anymore and can just hide out in my safe little office sanctuary and see patients from my computer. This will drastically reduce the number of people I see on a daily basis as well as the number of potential exposures for Bean and I. We set up an area in the spare bedroom downstairs that is a perfect, private, quiet space for my workday. I even have a cute little coworker/sidekick that keeps me company when I’m not in session (see pic at the end of this post).

I can’t believe I will be getting into my 7th month of pregnancy this weekend! Things that are getting harder for me are: putting on socks/shoes, wearing pants, shaving my legs, dealing with heartburn, getting in a comfortable position to sleep in (and sleeping in general, which is weird as I’ve never had that issue before!), sitting up from laying down, and dealing with having to go to pee about every 5 minutes. Also, not sure if other people who have gone through pregnancy have had this, but it feels like I have to pee mainly when I stand up and not when I sit down. So I stand up, run to the bathroom, sit, and then feel like I don’t have to go anymore. LOL! Like, JUST KIDDING! I know that my doc says that is normal due to the pressure that baby is putting on my bladder and gravity but, man, it’s annoying.

I have my next checkup on Monday and will be going solo as the hospital I go to is now requiring patients to come alone unless under the age of 18 to stop potential COVID spread. Aaron has been with me at nearly every appointment so this will be a change. For my 32 week ultrasound I will Facetime him in so he can see Bean - and we always get printouts of babe from those appointments, too. I only have 2 in-person appointments left, one on Monday and then my 32 week, and all other appointments will be via telehealth. Thankfully we are not in an area of the country where they have outlawed spouses from accompanying mothers during birth - both hospitals here have vowed not to do so at any point in the future, either. It is just crazy to me that some places have done that!! I can’t imagine having to go through labor without my husband there. Although things have definitely looked differently for me during this pregnancy than I ever thought they would, I am just focusing on the fact that as long as myself, family (including Bean), and loved ones make it through this pandemic OK, I will be very very happy.

I hope you are all staying happy and healthy!

xoxo - Miranda

My cute little coworker. Don’t mind the floors, we have to redo them...

Taking a 6+ foot social distance walk with my mom, complete with masks.

There’s me wearing my mask and shield that I needed to wear in the hospital before they allowed me to work from home. I wanted a pic to show Bean someday the crazy time that preceded his/her birth!

The crib my dad has made for Bean!!

Aaron watching the MegaBunnies using his scope :)

1 note · View note

iamsampai · 5 years

Note

1-25 pls, UwU! also, what do you regret saying or not saying to someone you don’t talk to anymore?

Song of the year? - Bruno Major - Nothing

Album of the year? Taylor Swift - Lover

Favorite musical artist / group you started listening to this year? - Keshi

Movie of the year? - Stardust

TV show of the year? - Steven Universe

Episode of tv or webisode that defined the year for you? - Can’t think of any

Favorite actor of the year? - I don’t memorize actors

Game of the year? - Breath of the Wild

Best month for you this year? - January, March, August, and December :)

Something that made you cry this year? - Listening to Nothing by Bruno Major for like the 10th time and finally realizing how hard the lyrics hit close to home.

Something you want to do again next year? - Go to Cafe 86 in socal and stock up on ube everything.

Talk about a new friend you made this year - My ex coworker Dani and I got pretty close. We did a Rumba/Cha Cha/Hip Hop routine for work (I used to be a ballroom teacher) and I’m honestly super proud of it.

How was your birthday this year? - It was great because I got to spend it with my significant other.

Favorite book you read this year? - I don’t read books unfortunately. :(

What’s a bad habit you picked up this year? - Nail biting! I never really did it until I started sitting in traffic for so long and all of the other bad drivers would make me antsy.

Post a picture from the beginning of the year - I’ll post one separately.

Post a picture from the end of the year - I’ll post on separately.

A memorable meal this year? - KPot - Kbbq + hotpot with my boo. The food wasn’t particularly special, but sharing it with him made everything feel just right.

What’re you excited about for next year? - My S.O. moving in with me (hopefully it happens next year)

What’s something you learned this year? - There are entitled customers no matter what job you work at.

What’s something new about your place of residence (room, home, or general location) now vs the start of the year? - I got a new shelf to organize my stuff and moved my TV closer to the floor. Ended up using it so much because it didn’t strain my neck looking up at where it used to be. To bad my TV died. :(

Favorite place you visited this year? - Virginia/Maryland

If you could send a message to yourself back on the first day of the year, what would it be? - Don’t smoke weed in public lmfao.

Did you keep any New Year’s Resolutions? - Never able to keep them, so I didn’t make any.

Did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year? Describe one - Nope I’m boring. I guess I made me and my S.O. in the Sims?

2 notes · View notes

psychofactz · 6 years

Text

25 Ways to feed your mind, body, & soul

PRACTICE MINDFULNESS Mindfulness is an important practice to infuse calmer into your life. I find that being mindful encourages me to enjoy the little moments I would otherwise miss. If mindfulness feels like a struggle, make it easy with seven days of mindfulness prompts.

DETOX FROM TECHNOLOGY Sometimes we forget that there is an entire world beyond the internet. Lately, I’ve been feeling sucked into my laptop and phone too much, and I’m feeling the urge to take a break and get away from it. That could be one day a week without opening my laptop or setting clear boundaries for a technology-free time at night. Here’s a 7-day media detox challenge if you want to try it out yourself.

QUIET YOUR MIND Quieting your mind is so important for reducing stress. Whether it’s writing all your thoughts on paper before bed or meditating in the morning, make it a priority to quiet your mind at least once a day.

DIFFUSE ESSENTIAL OILS Essential oils can be great for stress-relief. Even though I love essential oils and I have more than one person rationally needs, I always forget to turn my diffuser on. I’m going to start making it part of my morning and evening routine so that turning my diffuser on becomes a habit.

MAKE TIME FOR SELF-REFLECTION Self-reflection is so important for our personal growth. It can be tricky to find the motivation to journal, but it’s worth it to let go of the thoughts floating around in your head. Self-reflection helps you explore who you are and create more space for positive thinking.

TWEAK YOUR MORNING ROUTINE Your morning routine sets the tone for the rest of the day, so try to squeeze in something that creates a sense of calm right away. Try meditating, journaling, drinking a cup of tea, or stretching. Little changes can help you start your day on the right foot. Here are some more ideas to makeover your morning routine.

READ MORE BOOKS When Netflix is calling your name, it’s easy to forget about the wonders of getting lost in a book. Create a healthy balance between the amount of time you spend watching vs. reading. Set a specific time that you want to read each day and stick to it.

LEARN SOMETHING NEW We know it’s important to quiet your mind, but it’s also important to challenge yourself and learn something new. Make time to continue your personal growth in areas you often forget to explore. Try watching TED talks, checking out a book from the library, or taking a Skillshare class.

GET SOME FRESH AIR Whether it’s during the day or at the weekend, getting some fresh air and Vitamin D is a great way to feel more refreshed. I like to go for a walk in the middle of the day to get away from my to-do list and come back to work with a clear head.

Our health is not one-dimensional. In order to find balance and well-being, we must nourish the 3 parts that make up our whole being: mind, body, and soul. Here are 25 ways to nourish your mind, body, and soul!

EMBRACE SLOW MOVEMENT Sometimes our bodies crave slow movement, like yoga or going for a walk. Often we get into the mindset that we have to sweat during a workout to make it “worth it”. Instead, be okay with taking it slow and not feeling the need to ‘sweat’ every time you work out.

REDUCE ADDED SUGAR I’m not someone who reads food labels, but I am starting to pay attention to how much sugar I consume on a daily basis. Added sugar is everywhere! I want to become more aware of this so that I can avoid sugar crashes which no doubt cause me to feel sluggish.

LEARN ABOUT AYURVEDA Ayurveda is a science of life. Its guiding principles are 1) that the mind and the body are inextricably connected and 2) that nothing has more power to heal and transform the body than the mind. Understanding your unique mind-body type (dosha) can help you feel more balanced. Deepak Chopra has a great article about it here.

EAT MORE VEGGIES We all know we should eat more veggies, but actually doing it is another story. Try finding ways to sneak vegetables into your meals without making a big deal about it. Put cauliflower or zucchini in your smoothies, snack on carrots and hummus, or squeeze some lemon juice onto plain veggies to make them more interesting. Also, choose meals at restaurants that contain veggies or ask for them on the side.

STRETCH Stretching is so important to keep our joints and muscles in good condition. The more I sit at my desk, the more I realize how inflexible I’m becoming. I know for sure that my posture is not the best, so I want to make more of an effort to stretch whenever I can.

SCRAPE YOUR TONGUE Sounds a little weird, but have you ever tried tongue scraping? It’s one of the most satisfying things in the world. Bacteria on your tongue can cause bad breath so a tongue scraper can get rid of the nasties. It’s a quick fix to help you feel refreshed after eating.

NOURISH YOUR SKIN Taking care of your skin is an important part of self-care. Not only does it help your complexion, a skincare ritual can allow you time to relax and unwind at the end of the day. I want to stick to a simple yet relaxing daily skincare routine and make sure I’m not skipping any important steps. If you need some inspiration for your skincare routine, here’s a peek at mine.

GET MORE SLEEP Sleep is one of the biggest factors in our energy levels throughout the day. Lately, I’ve been lenient with my bedtime schedule, but I want to make sure I’m getting a solid eight hours of sleep. If you’ve been staying up too late, check out this blog post about creating a nighttime routine.

START A PASSION PROJECT That random idea you’ve had in the back of your mind forever? Start it. As someone who has been blogging for almost four years, I’ve been able to turn my passion into my job. At the same time, I know there’s more to life than what I create on the internet. I want to explore other sides of creativity, whether that’s through drawing, coloring, or photography.

GO SOMEWHERE NEW Even though I preach about the importance of daily routines, it’s necessary to break away from your routine every now and again. Try a new coffee shop or restaurant. Go to a nearby city that you’ve never explored. Switch things up to keep life interesting.

CONNECT WITH OTHERS Connecting with friends and new people can provide such joy to our lives. My word for 2018 is ‘connection’ because I want to break away from my tendency to only spend time with myself. This means actually reaching out to people and making plans, as well as asking for help instead of trying to do everything by myself.

DECLUTTER Regular decluttering is good for the soul. Release the things that no longer need to take up space in your life. As someone who prides myself on not holding onto stuff I don’t need, I’m embarrassed that my closet has somehow morphed into a storage unit. Time to KonMari it!

CLEAN MORE OFTEN I honestly hate cleaning, but I’m noticing how much dirt can affect my mental state. Depending on how much space you have, you might want to clean more often than others. For me, it’s having one day of the week to tackle the dust.

CREATE WORK BOUNDARIES This is especially important for the self-employed, but it can apply wherever you work. Be strict with the times that you make yourself available to your boss and coworkers. Turn email notifications off on your phone after work. Better yet, don’t link your work email to your phone in the first place.

SAY NO Remember that no is a full sentence. You don’t have to justify your decisions to anyone. If you don’t want to do something, stand your ground and make sure your needs are being met first. If you’re ready to stop over-committing yourself, check out this post.

GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO RELAX It’s hard, right? But it’s so important to value your downtime and take advantage of it when you can. Make sure you’re maintaining a good balance between productivity and rest. Here’s how to make the most of your downtime when you get it.

#facts #psychology #psychological #psycho #psycho fact #psychological facts #psychology facts #educational facts #mood #counselling #mental health #health #disorders #help

531 notes · View notes

warehouse13pod · 5 years

Text

Show Notes 107 "Implosion"

Evil is afoot, Agents.

As always, you can click on this link or by clicking play on the embedded player below to listen to this week’s episode while reading the show notes.

Also, don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon!

This week's Writer Appreciation Corner focuses on Bob Goodman, a true asset to the Warehouse 13 writing staff. We love Bob Goodman and even featured a quote from his io9 article in our "Bonus 01 - Podcast 13 Season 1 Trailer,” linked here and embedded below.

You can follow him on Twitter as @b0bg00dman.

The episode starts with Pete imitating a dubbed Japanese samurai movie. This week's episode dealt a lot with a lot of ~heavy themes~ related to Japan and WWII, and interestingly those themes tie directly into the media history of samurai cinema. Pete was almost certainly imitating the action-packed samurai cinema films that were popular after WWII. And, in fact, most samurai cinema was set during the Tokugawa/Edo Period--exactly when the Honjō Masamune was crafted. You can find a list of some seminal works of Samurai Cinema from The Criterion Collection.

It's interesting that the episode focused on a Masamune being given as a gift to a US president after WWII, because a Masamune was actually given to President Harry S. Truman after WWII and currently resides in the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. That's a pretty direct allegory to a sword being given to Woodrow Wilson and residing in the Woodrow Wilson Museum of Peace.

Incidentally, there is no actual Woodrow Wilson Museum of Peace, but there is a Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum, and it is (at least partially) a house!

And since the episode got to the Honjō Masamune pretty quickly and led to an early introduction of our expert in the podcast, let's give her the same treatment here in the show notes! We are so grateful and honored to have had the highly illuminating Dr. Nyri Bakkalian as our Artifact Expert this week. She shed so much light onto a subject that I have just…no other knowledge of whatsoever. It was fascinating to hear all she had to say about the Honjō Masamune and about Japanese swords post WWII more broadly. You can find her on Twitter as @riversidewings, check out her blog, or support her on her Patreon for more information.

Dr. Nyri Bakkalian shared a cringe-worthy story of someone who stripped a samurai sword to the tang. If you know nothing about swords (like me) then you probably didn't know what a tang was--or that there are so many more parts of a blade than the hilt, tsuba, and that long stabby bit. For my fellow sword novices, here's some info on the anatomy of a sword. Here's some information specifically on Japanese swords. And here's some information specifically on tsubas and other Japanese sword mountings.

But guess what?!

Dr. Bakkalian was kind enough to give us even more information after Miranda's interview. She sent us a link to a Japanese resource that discusses the real Honjō Masamune--and that even includes a diagram of the sword itself. Dr. Bakkalian added that "the sword was appraised many times, but it was designated a National Treasure of Japan in 1939, so we're fortunate that we at least have a paper trail if not the blade itself."

While I don't know much about swords, I do know a bit about kitchen knives. And what I know about kitchen knives ties in--very slightly--with the history of swords. Specifically, the layering technique of forging Japanese steel blades. Here's a bit more information on how Japanese kitchen knives are made and how that ties into the history of sword-making in Japan. Not that anyone asked, but I'm a big fan of my hybrid knife set that has a Japanese steel blade but a piece of thick metal that extends all the way down through the hilt like a German blade. The knives have a nice thin, sharp edge like a Japanese blade but a comfortingly weighty, solid handle that makes me feel more in control as I cook. I've included pictures of them, because I love them and this is the closest I can come to being useful about anything related to blades.

This episode dealt a lot with the frustration that can come from poor communication between friends and coworkers. This is something that Artie struggles with a lot. Here is an interesting blog post for any managers or team leaders out there looking to foster better communication in their workplace.

In the stakeout scene in the parking lot of the Japanese Embassy, Pete makes a joke about how the goggles make him look like Kermit the Frog. I couldn't find a pic or gif of him in the goggles, but here's a pic of Kermit.

As we get further into the series of Warehouse 13, we're starting to encounter more and more artifacts per episode, which means that we may not have experts on to discuss every single artifact that an episode references or features. That said, we love this fan wiki as a resource to look into the artifacts that don't get as much airtime on Warehouse 13 or on our podcast.

In this episode, we don't spend a lot of time on it, but Artie uses a 14th Century Firework called an "Ice Flower" that mesmerizes onlookers by triggering a feedback loop in their optic nerve. You can find out more about mesmerism in our show notes for 103 "Magnetism." The fan wiki points out that the firework resembles a type of firework known as a Catherine wheel firework. Here's some more information about the history of fireworks.

In the hotel room with Artie, Pete, and Myka, Myka demands that Artie tell them exactly what the sword does. We learn that the sword turns the bearer invisible but splitting light in half. The bending and manipulation of light to essentially mimic invisibility is actually a thing that scientists are researching. There are lots of techniques they try, and you can learn more about them here.

In this same scene, we got another great detail from the brilliant art department on this show. As Artie is explaining the history of the Honjō Masamune, he pulls out a Japanese handscroll. Japanese illustrated handscrolls are a beautiful and intricate form of visual storytelling media and you can read more about them here. Personally, I learned about them from the video lecture series from Sunday at the Met entitled "Storytelling in Japanese Art." You can click the previous link or click play on the embedded video below to watch that lecture series.

You can find more lectures about art and history from The Metropolitan Museum of art on the museum's website or more directly, from its YouTube channel. I've found some truly amazing information there.

We made a reference to Kluger getting "dusted" (RIP Kluger). That was, you guessed it, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference.

Miranda referenced using the Oxford English Dictionary to look up the origin of the word "kabosh." The OED, as it is affectionately called is an amazing resource at whom's alter Miranda and I both worship. It's so much more than a dictionary. It gives the history and first use of every word you can imagine.

You can gain access to it with your library card number, so please: support your local library. Go and sign up for a card, so you can access this awesome resource.

Now that you have a library card (I'm assuming you dropped whatever you were doing to go support your local library and get a library card), you can now check out the books where the phrase "to put a kabosh on" were first used. The first was Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens and the second was The Wheels of Chance by H.G. Wells.

It is taking literally everything in my power not to post a spoilery gif of H.G. wells right now, but I'm committed to keeping major plot developments out of the show notes until we discuss them on the podcast, so instead here's a picture of me right now trying not to spoil things.

We also discuss how Artie's file said he was suspected of espionage but was actually arrested for treason. Small fact check, but espionage and treason are different crimes.

Outside the Wilson Museum, Pete and Myka have one of their patented heart-to-heart and Myka unintentionally reveals--much to Pete's delight--that she is a fan of Star Trek: The Original Series. Specifically, she and Pete discuss the trope of "red shirts."

We talked about how the orange vs. purple Tesla reminded us of lightsabers in Star Wars and Priori Incantatem in Harry Potter.

Miranda gave a Mini-Actor Spotlight on the actor who portrays Mrs. Frederic's bodyguard, Jung-Yul Kim.

Meanwhile, our main Actor Spotlight of the week focused on James MacPherson himself, Roger Rees. His IMDB is incredibly impressive, but his credits extend far beyond his work on the big and small screen.

Miranda recognized him from his turn as Lord John Marbury in The West Wing.

We also gave a shout out to Rees' husband, Rick Elice, an accomplished writer and actor in his own right. Sadly, Roger Rees passed from brain cancer in 2015. He was a powerful and talented actor who left an enduring mark on Warehouse 13. Rest in Pease, sir.

We referenced this hilarious scene with Pete and Myka's gesture-based discussion about needing to shoot unsuspecting Secret Service Agents with the Tesla...

…and how it reminded us of Spike knocking over the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign every time he entered and left town in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Another reference #TakeAShot)

We also take a moment to appreciate the importance of Leena to the Warehouse. She's great, and we want everyone to remember that she's great.

We also talk about how Artie's unwillingness to address the source of his closed-off nature ends up putting Pete and Myka in danger and making Myka very upset. She says that Artie needs to address his emotions instead of allowing his emotional scars to hurt those around him. Miranda and I support mental wellness and therapy. Please see our show notes for 103 Magnetism for a list of crisis resources.

The episode ended with a couple of quotes from the Talmud. You can learn more about Jewish Sacred Texts here. I haven't personally used this resource so I can't very translations or commentary or anything, but we always link to books we reference in the podcast--so, if you want, you can read the Talmud online here.

That's all for this week.

See you next time, Agents.

#wh13 #warehouse13 #Warehouse 13 #107 Implosion #podcast 13 #pc13 #podcast13 #roger rees #buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #james macpherson #bob goodman #daniel dickinson #Dr. Nyri Bakkalian #communication #talmud #jumblr

7 notes · View notes

yournewapartment · 7 years

Note

Do you have like a checklist or something of things that need to be done before you can move out? I have over a year to get ready, but I'm not certain what "ready" means exactly. What needs to happen before a person can live on their own (in the USA)? Thanks for answering, love your blog!

I’m realizing now that I have lots of posts that detail different parts of this moving into a new apartment process, but none that discuss everything. So this post is essentially a conglomerate of four different posts: Adulting 108, Moving (On Your Own), Living On Your Own, and Apartment Hunting 101.

But here they are, in step by step order! Enjoy!

Finding an Apartment (Apartment Hunting 101)

Overview: There’s no getting around it, apartment hunting is a stressful process. The waiting and wondering gets the best of everyone, so give yourself a break and remember not to be too hard on yourself. The more prepared and decisive you are, the better off you’ll be!

1. Step One: The most important step in this entire process is coming up with your list of “Need and Won’t”. This list can always be adjusted in the spur of the moment, but will act as a baseline to help you easily disregard impractical apartments. Before you even start your search, sit down with any roommates (SO or otherwise) and come up with a list. Here is my list:

Need: Dishwasher, pet friendly, heat included.

Won’t: First floor apartment, all or mostly carpeted apartment, no closet space.

2. Step Two: Decide your price range. The paycheck to paycheck life is not a great one to live, so try to find an apartment that still allows you to put anywhere from $100-$500 into savings every month. Figure out how much you make monthly, with taxes taken out. If you’re paid every other week, this is two paychecks. If you’re paid every week, this is four paychecks. Start with your total monthly income, and subtract the following expenses. Let’s say you make $1,000 with taxes taken out:

Rent - Let’s say you’re living with a roommate, and your rent is only $500 per month.

Electric - My electric expense is $60 a month for a one bedroom. Once again, you’re living with a roommate so let’s say that you pay half of that. $30.

Internet - $30 a month internet only. Please don’t waste your money on cable. Just use your mom’s Netflix account.

Travel expenses - I spend about $85 a month on gas. Let’s say you use public transportation and spend around $100.

Food - Figure you’ll be spending $100 per person each month. So that’s another $100.

Misc expense: Let’s just add an additional $50 worth of expenses on. Because you never know what’ll happen.

That leaves you $130 a month extra to put in savings or to use in the event of an emergency! That’s awesome. Substitute your own numbers in, and figure out how much you can afford for rent. Immediately disregard any apartments that do not fit in this budget.

3. Step Three: The best way to find dependable apartments is to consult with your fellow apartment renters. Consult with coworkers, friends, family- anyone who is currently renting in the area that you would like to rent in. Get the inside scoop on potential apartments, both their advantages and their pitfalls. If you don’t know anyone who is renting where you’d like to rent, here are some other apartment hunting options:

Craigslist: Obviously

Drive-bys: Literally drive around until you find a cool looking apartment complex. Find their rental office and go right in, this is how I found my first apartment.

Your college: The Dean’s Office will have a list of apartment offerings to give kids who don’t qualify for on-campus housing.

This Site: A list of the top ranked apartment hunting sites.

4. Set up an appointment: After finding a potential apartment, consult with the landlord or apartment representative to set up a date and time to see the apartment. Respond promptly to any email or phone call they leave for you. On the flip side, if they aren’t prompt in their response to you RUN.

The first apartment I ever looked at, my boyfriend and I showed up on time and the landlord wasn’t there. We called her and she said that she was running late, and told us that the apartment was open and we could show ourselves inside. Serious red flag, but we gave it the benefit of the doubt and went in. Long story short, she never showed up. She gave us a tour of the apartment over the phone and kept saying that she was five minutes away, but never came. We later found out that her rental office was two minutes from the apartment we looked at. Talk about flakey! We told her we weren’t interested, if she can’t even show up to show us the apartment, how the hell can we depend on her to fix any problems we might have? Because you’re young and inexperienced, some landlords will try to give you the run around. Your age is no concern of their’s, and has no bearing on how you will act as a tenant. Here are some red flags for flaky landlords:

Not contacting you within one day of leaving them a message. Disregarding the weekends.

Not showing up when they say they will.

Repeatedly telling you that you’re “young” or “inexperienced”.

Telling you that the apartment “is good for college kids” or “a good first apartment” (that just means it’s a shit hole).

If they tell you that the apartment has a large turnover (people are leaving for a reason).

If you speak with one person on the phone, and meet a different person who shows you the apartment.

If they can’t or refuse to give you the exact rent amount.

If they tell you that have to “run some numbers” based on your history. An apartment’s rent should be the same for everybody.

If they can’t answer basic questions about service providers for the apartment.

If you get a weird vibe from them. Listen to your intuition! This is the person who is going to be responsible for fixing all your apartment related problems, you will be dealing with them every month at least. If they seem unreliable, don’t sign the lease!

5. Step Five: Find your appointment buddy! Never, ever, EVER go to look at a potential apartment by yourself. I don’t care how friendly Wendy seems online, she may be a serial killer. There’s no way to tell. Here’s a list of people who can accompany you:

Your older brother

Your boyfriend/girlfriend

Your Aunt Meredith

Your second cousin

Your friend who can scream really loudly

Your Mother

Your Step Mother

Your old nosey neighbor who smells like cats

Literally anyone you can trust

Bribe them with chocolate, I don’t care. Take someone with you! If you absolutely cannot find anyone to go with you, then you need to take additional precautions. Here are some options:

Kitestring

“Share My Location” on your Iphone

Pepper Spray

Posting to Facebook the address you are going to and when you are expected to arrive and leave.

Rescheduling your appointment to a date and time when you can be accompanied

Apartment Checklist

A mental checklist is good in theory, but will you remember it when you’re actually at the prospective apartment with your Aunt Meredith? I think not! Make a physical list of some of the following points, and feel free to add your own. my list is super extensive, but that’s just who I am. I am detail oriented.

Tuck this list in your back pocket and consult it when the person showing you the apartment is not looking.

Expense related

How much is the rent?

Is the rent just the rent, or are there any amenities included? Some apartments include heat, hot water, or electric expenses.

Is hot water included (if the apartment has a washer/dryer in it, then the water is probably a separate expense)?

What Internet service providers are available?

What electric service providers are available?

Do I have to pay for garbage removal?

What is the average electric expense that other renters deal with?

Ask when rent is due. Find out what the rent check procedure is.

Basic

What type of heating/cooling is provided?

What appliances are in the kitchen? *If there is no oven or fridge and you are required to buy your own then run*

What is the apartment complex turnover rate?

Do you have a choice of carpet vs. hard wood floors?

Will window blinds be provided? *If the apartment complex won’t pay for something as simple as window blinds then the landlord is a cheapskate and can’t be trusted*

Is there a “curfew”? Most apartments have a time of night when all the tenants are supposed to be quiet. This is generally not enforced.

What will your address be?

Additional

Is any furniture included?

Is there a Laundromat in the complex? If not where is the closest one?

Similarly, is the Laundromat in the complex card operated or quarter operated? Do you have to pay a fee for the card? Is there a quarter dispensing machine?

Will you be given a free parking permit? *If parking is not free then run*

Ask about local shopping and gas stations.

Ask where your mailbox will be.

Ask what their pet policy is. (some apartment complexes charge an fee)

Ask what their policy on repainting/decorating is.

Ask what their maintenance request policy is.

Ask where the nearest dumpster is.

How often does the complex loose power?

Is there a nearby police station or fire department?

General check

Check all cabinets (for bug infestations or mouse droppings or that they open properly).

Open all the windows and check to see that there are screens installed. Especially important for us cat owners! If there are no screens- are they going to install screens before you move in?

Check that all the light switches work.

Check that the water turns on.

Flush the toilet.

Check all the closet space (for size, mold, and water damage).

Check how all the doors are set (some apartments will put doors in incorrectly and they’ll never close properly).

Check the outlets (bring a phone chord and plug it in).

Check any balcony access.

Take a look at the paint- is it chipped? Is it stained? Will they be repainting?

Knock on the walls to see how hollow they are (hollow walls require studs if you want to hang anything up).

Open up the oven and make sure it’s clean. If it’s not clean make it clear that it should be cleaned if you want to move into the apartment. It’s not your job to clean up after the previous tenant.

Check that none of the floorboards are sticking up/creaking.

Check for nails and screws in between hardwood floor, tile and carpet (I’m not even kidding).

Check your phone to see how much cell service you have.

Can you hear any neighbors? Could you hear them in the hallway?

Final Decision

If the apartment you visited fits all your criteria, feel free to tell the landlord that you’re interested in pursuing this apartment. This way they can advise you of the next steps. Before you sign ANYTHING, visit the apartment complex twice more to make sure that everything is kosher. Do NOT tell the landlord that you will be coming by.

During the day: Do a drive-by of your prospective apartment to see what it looks like during the day. Is it safe? Are there lots of people standing around outside? Is it loud?

During the night: Come back another night to check the safety of your apartment. Ask yourself- would I feel comfortable taking the trash out late at night? Having friends over? If the answer is “no” then run…

Applying to Rent the Apartment

Overview: After choosing an apartment that you like, there are lots of steps that need to be taken before you can actually move in.

1. Rental application. You will need to fill out some sort of rental application when applying for an apartment. You’ll be asked for previous addresses (if you’ve lived in previous apartment complexes landlords will actually call and ask about how good of a tenant you were), if you’ve been convicted of a crime, pay stubs, references and/or credit information. If you don’t have a credit score, some complexes will require you to co-sign the lease with someone who does, like a parent. If a landlord does NOT ask you to fill out any kind of application, I’d advise you to run for the hills and not rent from them.

2. Approval. Apartment complexes will mail you a packet of information after you’ve been approved. This will list your new address, what power company services are available, apartment amenities, school districts, local attractions, as well as your next steps. My current apartment complex also mailed me what Internet providers are available, which was a nice extra bonus.

3. Initial expenses. Your next step will be to put down a “security deposit”. This will either be exactly the same or very close to the amount you pay for rent monthly. This deposit ensures that you don’t destroy the apartment, if you do they won’t refund you. You will also be asked to pay your first month’s rent in advance. Most rental companies will only accept money orders for these initial expenses, you have to go to your bank to get these. They’re essentially checks that take the money out of your account right away.

4. Apartment check. After you’re approved for an apartment, ask to see the actual unit that you’ll be moving into. Make sure that you see said apartment before signing any lease. Notice how loud your neighbors are, how good of a cell signal you have, the condition of the apartment, etc. This is a pretty extensive list.

Before You Move

1. List it up. Make a list of everything that you will need to accomplish before you are ready to move. This includes items that need to be packed, people that need to be contacted, pet accommodations, etc. I love lists, but you may not, so use any organizational technique that works for you.

2. Divide and conquer. After you’ve made your list, organize items based off of how much time they’ll take you. Packing will be fairly time-consuming, so this is something you’ll want to invite friends over for and break up over several days. I like to have “moving” parties whenever I’m getting ready to move, essentially I buy some chips and dip, play some Trap, and invite my friends over to act as my minions. Something like canceling your subscription to Cosmo will take you very little time and energy to do, so it’s something you can do when you’re ready for a stress-free activity.

3. Contact companies. Speaking of canceling your Cosmo subscription, you will need to update your address with all of the companies you use. If you’re no longer going to be using that company, you’ll need to call them and tell them when to end your service. If you’re going to continue to using that company, you’ll have to call them and tell that you’ll need an address change. Give them the exact date you’ll be moving so that they can backdate your information. Some examples of companies:

DMV in the county you’re moving to (if you’re going to drive)

Your doctor’s office

Your college (even if you graduated, they send out alumni letters all the time)

Your credit/debit card company

Your bank

Your phone company

Any government programs you’re a part of

Any companies that you have loans with

Your health insurance company

Your auto insurance company

Amazon

4. Pre-move in List. Make a shopping list of all the non-perishable items you will need before moving in. I’m talking trash cans, first aid kits, toilet paper, laundry detergent, etc. I like to work on this list over the span of several days, and do a large shop before moving in. Your moving day will be stressful enough as it is, don’t add the stress of missing something you need. Here’s a pretty good list.

5. Electric set-up. Use the information packed your landlord sent you to find out who your electricity provider is. Call them, you’ll probably get a pre-recorded message. Choose the option that says something along the lines of “set up electricity”. You will be connected to an actual human being, who will ask you to read your new address. Tell them to turn on power to your apartment a couple days before you move in. They will set up a billing plan with you (ask to be put on a budget, it’ll save you lots of money) and give you your account information.

6. Internet set-up. Setting up your internet is similar to setting up your electric, but a bit more hand’s on. Most cable/internet companies always have some sort of deal going on, a year or two years of discounted service. Be aware of when this discount will end, and contact the company to see if they can offer you a new deal. If Verizon is offered in your area, I strongly advise you to use them for Internet service. i was on a two year plan with them that saved us $40 a month on internet service, and after it ended they put us on a new plan that is now saving us $42 a month. Fuck yeah! Also make sure to set your internet installation date for the day after you move in, so that you’re not stuck sitting in your internet-less apartment, unable to read my blog. Know that most internet companies charge installation and routers fees, and if you complain enough they’ll drop one or both of these. Just be like “I’m a poor college student” or threaten to go to another internet company.

7. Send ahead. If possible, send/drop off some of your items ahead of time. If you have a family member or a friend that lives nearby where you’ll be staying, ask if they can hold a few boxes for you. You can also mail yourself packages and ask your local post office to hold them for you, but you’ll need to arrange that ahead of time.

8. Forwarding address. You will inevitably forget something, so make sure to leave your forwarding address and contact information with your ex-landlord, college, ex-roommate, etc.

9. Signing the Lease. The last thing you will do before moving into your new apartment is signing a lease. You will be given a copy of the lease to keep, as well as the key to your apartment and/or laundry key. Keep your copy of the lease in a safe place, and make sure to get duplicates of your apartment keys.

During Moving

1. Take your time. Don’t try to unpack everything in one day! Take some time to explore your new space, and decide where to put everything in a leisurely way. There is no set schedule for moving.

2. Assistance. If you have friends/family helping you make the move, assign them specific tasks so that nobody spends their time pestering you and asking “what do you need help with?”. You can even decide these tasks ahead of time, during your plane or car ride over.

3. Be neighborly. You’ll likely meet some neighbors during this process, and make sure to stop and greet them, even if you’re in the middle of something. First impressions do matter, even when they shouldn’t, and spending thirty seconds to greet someone in a parking lot may save you a lot of hardship in the long run. Ask your neighbors to recommend local attractions, places to eat, what laundromats to use, etc.

4. Check everything. During your first few days moved into you new apartment, look around and make note of anything wrong. Outlets that don’t work, scratches on the wall, peeling paint, etc. Report these ASAP to your landlord to be fixed. This will give you a good idea of how put together their maintenance unit is. Make sure to offer maintenance workers water and be polite to them when they’re fixing anything in your apartment.

After You’re Settled (Specifically for Living Alone)

1. PKW. Phone, keys, wallet. Every time you go anywhere. Check twice. The worst part of living on your own is having to rely on yourself to never forget to lock yourself out or leave your wallet at a sandwich shop in a mall. Make absolutely sure you have duplicates of your keys (I would get a couple made) and give one to a friend who lives nearby who you can count on. I also like to keep an extra set inside the apartment itself in a secure place, just in case. Your landlord can let you in during office hours, but giving a key to a trustworthy friend helps you 24/7.

2. Cleaning routine. You don’t have to sit down at a writing desk and draft this out, but spend a few minutes coming up with a basic cleaning regime for you to follow. It’s definitely easier to do a little each day, but if that doesn’t work for your schedule set aside at least an hour and a half during your time off to get your apartment spotless. I don’t know about you, but whenever I deep clean my apartment I feel like I’m living in a hotel for a day, and I absolutely love it.

3. Make a “moving” shopping list. This is everything you will need (minus food) for your first week at your new place. Do a big shop, and get all the essentials out of the way: first aid kit, cleaning supplies, tape, cat food, etc. Your first week moving into your new place will be stressful enough, you don’t want to be halfway through setting up your living room and realize that you forgot to buy trash bags.

4. Secure yourself. I’m not the most agile or fast person in the world, and I do live in a mid-sized city that has a good deal of crime. The apartment complex I live in is very safe, but I still like to double lock my front door at night. It might be smart to keep some pepper spray or a baseball bat somewhere in your apartment, just in case.

5. Stay social. Even the most anti-social person gets lonely. Make sure to hang out with your friends, not just your co-workers, your actual friends. Get out off your apartment every few days and go see a movie, get a cup of coffee, go people watching at the park, etc. It’s easy to get depressed if you’re living alone and doing the same things the same way every day- allow yourself to mix it up.

6. Meal prep. It can be stressful and seem useless to cook complicated or “fancy” meals when you’re living on your own. Plan your meals for the week and make a list before going shopping. Get yourself enough food to make a variety of dinners that will only take you fifteen minutes. If you do want to go crazy and make steak and mashed potatoes for yourself, make enough for two meals. Also, nobody is going to think poorly of you for stocking your fridge with a couple frozen dinners.

7. Customer service. Living alone means that you are going to be doing a lot of talking to customer service representatives. Get comfortable talking to people over the phone. Tell the rep what you need as quickly as you can, and try to be polite because customer service at a phone center is a garbage job that doesn’t pay well. On the flip side, don’t be afraid to ask for a manager if you’re upset or unhappy with your service. Take their survey at the end of your phone call, tell them how unhappy you are. It’s someone’s shitty job to look at all those surveys, no complaint goes unheard. Companies with great phone service: Verizon, Apple, Amazon. Companies with awful phone service: USPS (literally the worst), electric companies, health insurance companies.

8. Guest space. This is not required, but it’s a good idea to have some sort of space for a friend to stay the night. A friend of mine had a bad breakup, showed up at my apartment with ten minute’s notice, and then fell asleep on my couch after an hour of crying. It as 7:30! Whatever, she needed it. Keep an extra blanket and pillow in your closet, I like to keep travel sized shampoos and conditioners in my bathroom cabinet on the off chance a guest wants to use my shower. I got these at a hotel for free, but they’re available at CVS and other pharmacies.

9. Toilet paper. Don’t let yourself run out of toilet paper! I like to buy more when I notice I only have one roll left. The same deal goes for paper towels.

10. Enjoy. Living on your own is simoltaneously exciting and exhausting, but an all around must-have experience. Enjoy the freedom to forget to make the bed, to decorate your bathroom however you want, to have ice cream for dinner, to watch reruns of Friends and cry when Rachel decides to move to France. Make sure to give yourself lots of space to move at your own pace, but please remember to eat three meals a day and to go to the doctor’s for a checkup at least once a year!

#new apartment #first apartment #apartment hunting #finding an apartment #moving out #moving alone #living alone for the first time #moving out of my parents house #diy #fyi #college student #being an adult #how to adult #how to move out #security deposits #landlord

11K notes · View notes

karmaversuslife · 6 years

Text

Last time I was here I was a completely different person

I am going through a phase. The phase is… complicated, as phases tend to be. To further complicate matters I am not going to tell you what it is. (PRIVATE) It’s not bad… I don’t think. It could be good, if I handle it correctly. It just… is. A phase. A shift. An adjustment. And how do I deal with phases... word vomit.

Sometimes when I am talking to people I ask them “what is your continuous improvement obstacle?” to say, what is the thing you always struggle with. It doesn’t have to be big. Usually it’s mental and it probably shifts and changes and adapts with you as life moves on.

If you asked me when I was 15 what my obstacle was I would have said ‘making friends’. (come to think of it, making friends and being the first to say hello is still a big obstacle for me. Maybe obstacles don’t change as much as I would like to believe. Maybe we just get better at adapting.)

If you asked me when I was 20, “what is your continuous improvement obstacle?” the answer would be ‘letting go’ and by that I mean, finding a reasonable balance between being responsible and taking risks (just eat the cake sort to speak). That one actually hasn’t changed much either*.

In my mid-twenties my life took an enormous left turn and my entire world shifted and everything I KNEW to be facts about living life tumbled out of my pockets like loose change and I was left sitting on my ass with a bruised ego and enormous amounts of scar tissue. Just great! My 25-ish age obstacle was spending too much time waiting for other people to recognize my potential. I needed people to feed my soul. I need somebody else to tell me that I was a good person, or making the right choices, or doing all the right things. I no longer trusted myself to decide these things. After all, my confidence was on the other side of the street and I was in no shape to do any kind of crossing. So – and coincidentally the beginning of all that is karma vs. life – I fled my known world, spent 18 hours flying in the direct opposite direction of my comfort zone and purposefully spent nearly a year by myself (half on purpose, half constricted by obstacle re: 15 years). By the time I came home I was completely independent and ready to take on the world, confidence in tow.

Now, in my 30’s if you ask me what my continuous improvement obstacle is, I would love to tell you it is public speaking, but I think that is just a thing I don’t particularly enjoy.** However, in light of my new phase I realize I still want people to recognize my potential and to appreciate the things I do; maybe just on a lesser scale.

I found myself this morning, in the midst of a particularly enlightened moment, being incredibly proud of myself. I like to think I am a good person. I was thinking about my podcast list and thought ‘I think I have a pretty good taste in all the things’. I have an incredible arrangement of music on my phone and listen to a mix of songs. I read; autobiographies and fiction and non-fiction. I am studious and curious. I am, and do, many things that lead me to believe I am a smart, knowledgeable person (despite my inability to ever spell ‘knowledgeable’ correctly the first time). I am proud of who I am. I am happy with who I am. And up until that very second it had never occurred to me that this is anybody else’s business.

Then, a little thought-bug crept into my brain space. “I wonder if anybody else knows how great I am?”

What the hell? I thought we were over this obstacle? What the heck is that noise? Where did you come from and why didn’t the trap at the door stop you pesky thought-roach*** from ruining my perfectly good thought.

The thought was there, it was too late. It isn’t that I want to toot my horn or stand on the rooftops and shout about how awesome I am. It’s something different. I think it is something that many of us are faced with in our daily lives. We are different people in different situations. So are we actually being real, for real though? Is that even a thing? My boss calls it ‘putting on the armor’. We are all different people in different situations and that doesn’t make us any less of who we truly are; it’s just a... necessary ... thing (word vomit fail.)

For me, at work professionalism and privacy are very important pieces of my job. In my position, I don’t get to make friends with my coworkers. When I tell them about my day I tell them that my new puppy chewed up my husband’s sandals or that I am trying to reduce my caffeine intake so beware (haha half kidding… but really… be careful.) These are the types of things my coworkers know about me.

I am also not very close with my family. Don’t get me wrong my family is wonderful and I am close with them in that I call them mostly once a week and see them every holiday. But we are a very large family and I was significantly distant from them during many formidable years. And so, our relationships are relatively surface level. We celebrate in each other’s successes and we comfort/support each other during difficult times but ultimately, if you ask them anything about ME and my likes/dislikes, I am not confident they would know what to say and/or if it would be correct.

My husband is my biggest fan and my support system. Does he know that I blog, sure! Does he know I haven’t written a blog-post in over a year or that I have hardly written at all or even what I write about, probably not. Does he know that I use too many words and feelings, and he gets lost, when I am trying to talk to him about something important? Absolutely! (his opinion, not mine) Does he know that I spent hours sorting through and compartmentalizing my thoughts and feelings before I brought only the valid and important ones forward? Probably not. Does he know that my playlist contains everything from System of a Down to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and everything in between; including a great little fiddle number from Lindsey Stirling (that I highly recommend); probably not (actually he does… we’ve taken road trips). Does he know I even know what a podcast is or that I am a huge fan of both “S-Town” and “Chris Hardwick” or that I have a downloaded audible book called “The sex Lives of Cannibals” which makes me laugh and a book called “Every Note Played” by Lisa Genova that I know will make me cry; AND that I downloaded that one for the purpose of crying entirely on purpose; probably not.

And so, for a moment I allowed myself to be sad. The people I spend all my time with don’t know much about me at all. I worried that they don’t, actually, know how awesome I am at all.

But here’s the kicker.

Do I really need them to?

Did I do these things because I think that people will like me because of them?

Do I listen to “The School of Greatness” by Lewis Howes (ahem.. do it) because I think people will think I am cool when I do?

Do I have Carly Rae Jepsen on my playlist because it makes me popular and cool (I mean, yes … but actually, absolutely not).

Do I LOVE “The Night Circus” because I think it will come up in conversation and I want to know what I am talking about.

No.

I do these things because they make up all the little pieces of who I am. They are my fiber and foundation and they feed my soul. These are the things I do, the things that build who I am. These things (which as I write these out, am realizing are all word and art related things which is very much in the fiber of who I am… too many words or not.) teach me and allow me to be the - probably awesome - person that people do get to meet.

All of these things, the music, the reading, the podcasts, feed my creativity fire and inspire my ability to be the “great ideas fairy” I am known as at work.

The exposure to a thousand different things teach me to be open to liking different things and the exposure teaches me to understand others in a way that allows them to be who they are without fear of judgement. And to look at thoughts and actions from different perspectives.

The information I digest helps me, in turn, provide information to others and teaches me to do my research before forming an opinion.

There are so many ways people would describe me: (I know because I did a study once).

- Kind

- Thoughtful

- Patient

- Supportive

- Fun

- Creative

I think these are wonderful ways to be described. So, yes I think people DO know how awesome I am. (toot toot!)

Does it actually matter to me that people know I am kind because I listed to Kristen Bell talk about Happiness vs. Suffering in a podcast? Or that I am an avid believer in Karma so even when I am seething on the inside and have numerous characteristically horrible things I want to shout, I turn on Florence and the Machine OR Rage Against the Machine (depending on which level of angry I am), take a deep breath and fall on the lessons of Thumper to “not say anything at all” because what I was going to say was decidedly NOT nice.

Or is it actually important to me that people know I write (ahem…vomit words with no particular plan) when I am trying to sort out my thoughts and at the end of my blog post come to realize that my continuous improvement obstacle is, in all actuality, no longer an obstacle at all.

Nope.

*Fun fact: I married the most responsible, financially conservative human on the planet. Which, inadvertently, seems to have cured me of my obstacle to balance frivolity and responsibility as I am now the person who says “Oh come on! Let’s do the expensive thing!” and it is probably because he does the worrying for me. Otherwise, it would still be an obstacle.

** I am not entirely sure this is true. The ACT of standing in front of a group of people and speaking is horrifying and sweat inducing. The opportunity to use public speaking as a creative outlet, to speak what is written in my own voice, is pretty damn inspiring.

*** OMG! CAN WE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE start calling harmful, hurtful and negative thoughts “thought-roaches”!

#word vomit #personal #holy crap I'm back #thoughtroach #did you miss me #continuous improvement #learn and grow #inspirational #cleaning thoughts

17 notes · View notes

earwaxinggibbous · 7 years

Text

“Congratulations” VS. “Started From The Bottom”

Started as a bottom, now my whole team’s fuckin’ rears.

Self-aggrandizing rap and hip-hop anthems have existed since the genre was invented. It’s just a really nice, friendly way of saying, “hey! I’m better than you.” Generally speaking, whoever is on the track should have the power and clout behind them to make all of the bragging seem warranted. A great example is Eminem’s Rap God, which has a chorus that literally has Eminem saying he’s beginning to feel like a rap god. And we buy it, because hell, Eminem basically IS a rap god. Regardless of how you feel about him, especially as a person, there’s no arguing that his flows and style require an insane amount of skill. (Or at least, they used to.)

The other big rule, once again using Rap God as an example, as that the song should actually be good. Because if you’re bragging about being the coolest rapper with the most chains and bitches while rapping like complete shit, your point is pretty much moot. When Eminem speed-raps in Rap God, it’s essentially the proof that he is in fact the man named in the title.

There’s only one real problem with these songs when it comes to audience reception: They’re not relatable to anybody except other rich rappers and musicians. Which can be kind of a problem since that’s not really who the music industry is aiming to please. So in somewhat recent times we’ve been getting a different flavor of self-aggrandizing rap. Songs that, instead of saying “I’m super great”, they say, “Hey, I started from humble beginnings and worked my way to the top, and now I’m super great”. Which gives us viewers the idea of this sort of achievable dream that is nearly within arm’s reach.

Enter two very, very different hip-hop artists, at two very different times.

Drake and Post Malone, in my opinion, are both pretty good, in my opinion.

Let’s start with Drake. Drake feels at least a little more like a “real rapper” than Post does. Maybe because he was on Young Money, or because he doesn’t have that sing-songy flow that Post does, but he just feels more like somebody I’d describe as a rapper. If I had any reason, I’d say it’s because Post Malone’s music, even his ego-boosting shit, tends to sound stoned or morose the bulk of the time. Drake’s voice isn’t much fun either, but at least I can believe his ego based on his vocal tones alone. Post has a tendency to sound really, really sad, or just super high.

Now one might say, “Panda, you can’t compare these two songs. Started from the Bottom precedes Congratulations by four years.” But the reason I’m making this comparison is that, despite Drake being considered the superior artist by nearly everyone, Congratulations is basically the better version of its predecessor.

Let’s discuss this.

Now for one thing, I fucking hate the music video of Started from the Bottom. Not because it’s that bad, though depicting “working at a drug store” as “the bottom” is pretty fucking stupid, the video itself does a pretty good basic job at getting across what it wants. I just hate the skit.

I remember pulling up the song on YouTube and thinking, Jesus, this song is 5 fucking minutes long? Half the lyrics are just the title. Relax, past Panda, one minute of that video is a stupid skit that shows up randomly before the second chorus. A full fucking minute of two of Drake’s coworkers, not even Drake himself, but two of his coworkers at Duane Reade or something ogling some woman who’s checking out of the store. It’s not funny, it doesn’t really add anything, and the two guys can’t act. Drake’s body language is awkward and goofy in the music video, I doubt he’d be a great actor either, but that’s fine, he’s just the guy who made the song. Most of what he needs to do is lipsync along to the track and wave his hands around anyway. But the two guys are in a skit, an acted skit that requires acting to happen, and they suck.

It doesn’t help that it’s interrupting what is already one of the most monotonous songs that the lord hath graciously dumped on top of our collective consciousness like a weighty cow turd. The video actually tries to help the song by making it look like Drake really did work a crappy job with a bunch of assholes and was raised in a shitheap. But this isn’t true.

And I hate bringing the lives of artists into their music more than anything. Because ever since really getting into Eminem’s works, I’ve been seeing every musician’s persona as a character. Now some musicians characters, like say, Mary Lambert, are very close to their real-world self, or even identical. Others, like David Bowie or the aforementioned Eminem, are essentially entirely different people offstage. Then there’s incredibly creative people like ThatPoppy who sort of blur the difference between a musical persona and the person behind it. And honestly I find that way more interesting than ripping into an artist personally. (Unless it’s Taylor Swift.)

But Started from the Bottom is an argument against critics who don’t believe Drake ever really suffered or understands the lower class. And I’ve read about him, so I can say that he should. He wasn’t living in a complete shithole, generally Canadian shitholes are better than American ones, but he still dealt with a parental divorce, bullying due to his race and Jewish upbringing, and having to see his father arrested. But there’s two issues once we reach this point.

One. This song never mentions any of that. And two. After dropping out of school he got a TV job to act as a main character on Degrassi. And since this song isn’t about his childhood, I can only assume it’s looking back on his days as a working-class young adult.

NO, Drake. BAD hip-hop artist.

Being an actor on a TV sitcom is not the bottom. Not to mention that even when he left to start making music, he essentially had his career set. Once you’re an actor on television, if people watched your shit, you can almost definitely get a job in music afterwards. It worked for Miley, Demi, Ariana, and Selena, there’s no reason it wouldn’t have worked for Drake. Not to mention that he got picked up by Young Money, which is essentially a free win for anyone who’s better and more interesting than sentient iguana man Li’l Wayne. (Which was surprisingly rare, apparently. Where the fuck is Gudda Gudda’s next single, Wayne?!)

Yes, Drake, we know you weren’t rich. That doesn’t mean you were at the bottom. I live in a comfortable apartment in Midtown and my mom works a law firm, and we don’t even call ourselves rich. “Not being rich” is different from “the bottom”. “The bottom” is only owning hand-me-down underwear, living in a downturned umbrella and eating dirt for nutrients.

But lyrically this song doesn’t tell you anything. All the stuff I know about this guy is just from Lyric Genius and Wikipedia.

Wow, you only argue with your mom once a month?

Lucky bastard.

Also, really quickly I wanna comment on the uncle line for a second. “The keys” are specifically to his drop top Lexus that young Drake was borrowing. I don’t think you need me to say that people who are on “the bottom” don’t tend to own convertibles.

And, like, rich people work at night and get in traffic too. Just because you’re in a limousine doesn’t mean there’s no traffic. It’s just slightly more enjoyable traffic.

And then Drake just spends the rest of the song essentially sucking his own dick without expanding on his hardships, which was supposed to be the point of this track from the beginning. And I don’t get the whole “no new friends” thing he always says, this isn’t the only song he’s said it in. Drake, unless you’re gonna tell me that the entirety of Young Money and several other well-known rappers went to high school with you like some kind of wacky rap music-based sitcom, I’m pretty sure you’ve made some new friends. Either that or your obvious baby crush on Nicki Minaj is painfully laced by inconceivable amounts of mistrust.

So you’re either a paranoid asshole who just admitted to not trusting the people that got him into the game in the first place, or you’re a liar. Good to know!

Honestly this song makes me just kind of not like Drake as a person. Which is probably one of the worst things you can do as an artist. If you’re trying to make a song that allows people to sympathize with your plights or revel in your success, being this illegally unlikable while doing it isn’t helping your case in the slightest.

But honestly the worst part isn’t even the douchey lyrics, it’s just the song itself. It just feels like it goes on forever.

(Pictured: A hook, apparently.)

The chorus itself is so repetitive I’d rather listen to fucking Come and Get It, Drake has a really bad habit of sounding literally bored to death, and the beat just sounds like a Future song jacked off on GarageBand. Lame snares and lame backing tunes. One whole piano key. Wow, Drake, you’re almost as good at playing physical instruments as your mentor.

(Even he hates it.)

Sad to say the beat and production is probably the best part? Drake’s voice wrecks what was already a weak beat. Whenever he wants to be self-aggrandizing he just sounds fucking bored. Like the most self-aggrandizing thing about it is the fact that he doesn’t think he needs to actually try. In fact, The Motto (YOLO) had the exact same problem. I actually prefer that song. The beat still isn’t high art, but it’s got a little more snap to it. Kind of reminds me of Sage the Gemini’s Gas Pedal, which falls into the category of songs that aren’t that great but can be danced to if put on the setlist.

But this? It’s no fun. A hard 1 out of 5, and that’s only because its attempted premise was almost salvageable. But all I really got out of this song was that Drake is an asshole, he went to school with Lil Wayne apparently, his mom is really really nice since they only argue once a month, and he should just go back to desperately wishing his girlfriend would call him on his cell phone. You’re way better at being sad than--

Fucking... goddamnit.

Now Post Malone is kind of... different. In many ways. One time he said he doesn’t write rap music, and while normally I’d attribute that to him being a pussy who’s too afraid to contribute to what is and has always been a predominantly black genre and racism and he secretly doesn’t wanna be associated with them or whatever. But honestly I’m inclined to give Post Malone some leeway because really, he’s a singer. He makes notes. He’s singing with a hip-hop flow and occasionally has actual rap guests who... honestly end up doing a similar thing on his tracks. (In this case, it’s Quavo! Hurray!)

Oddly enough I actually went through a few songs to compare this to before settling on Drake. I considered Cheap Thrills, as they both sort of follow a similar concept of ‘today’s a good day, let’s go clubbing with only three bucks in our collective pockets’. Decided not to because really Cheap Thrills could be more accurately compared to a myriad of other songs. Considered White Iverson, his first single, but decided they didn’t really have enough in common to use it. I had options.

Really the only reason I went with this is because Congratulations succeeds in every place that Started From The Bottom fails.

Rather than attempting to detail Post Malone’s past suffering, it moreso discusses the actual rise to fame. And alllll the people who said he couldn’t do it.

Beatwise this one outclasses Drake’s already. I remember reading critics describing Started’s beat as “haunting”, which was apparently a good thing. I don’t get it. Congratulations, on the other hand, is carried by a sort of stoned, laidback tempo. Really speaks to the whole idea of “hey, we worked really hard, our album dropped, and now we can take a break and have some fun!”

Honestly if Post Malone wrote more songs like this and less straight-up luxury porn/self-aggrandizing rap like White Iverson or rockstar. (I feel like I’m a minority in not really minding either one of those songs.) Also I must say that Post Malone seems to be really good at picking guest artists. On rockstar he has 21 Savage, whose big thing is that he’s gangsta and shoots people and don’t fuck with him, which at least fits into the attempted tone. (Honestly Sav fits better on that song than Post does.) And in Congrats, we get Quavo.

Not only do Quavo and Post sound really good together on this, as their vocal range seems somewhat similar implying some kind of bro-type unity shit. Honestly this song gives me more band vibes than rockstar does, albeit a very different kind.

You know, you just started your band, you’re waiting to hit it big, you’ve put in all this effort with barely any money, you’re living in a shitbag apartment with 4 other sweaty dudes and you all have to sleep together and Quavo keeps rolling over and shoving his nuts in your face. It’s completely garbage and your drummer has to whore himself out for money, you accidentally get paid for a gig in beer tickets like in that one episode of Metalocalypse, and then finally, FINALLY, you drop a tape that hits big. You get on TV, you meet a record exec, and you’re calling your mom during the afterparty and you’re all celebrating because it’s been so LONG since you could just have a BREAK and now everybody’s SAUCIN’.

EXACTLY.

The lyrics work perfectly for this, but not only that, it’s to show all of the naysayers who insisted they couldn’t do it. All the haters who are now suddenly super gung-ho about how they used to be friends with Post Malone even though they actually shoved him in a locker literally every day. This somehow manages to be super-laidback and super-hype at the same time, which seems to be Post’s general style. Candy Paint has sort of a similar feel. That’s also a fucking great song. I love Post Malone. There. I said it.

But the biggest difference between these two songs is that I somehow get some feeling that Post Malone started somewhere. When I hear Congratulations, I feel like he actually had to put in some effort to get where he is. His first big hit only even got released because somebody leaked it. Nobody was ever expecting it to be as big as it is. Stoney in general is an insanely personal album, and it all feels surprisingly honest for the genre despite the drops of luxury porn and self-aggrandizing.

Basically, TL;DR: Drake cares more about the destination than the journey. Post gives us both the conflict and they payoff. Drake’s beat lacks texture or purpose, whereas Post manages to meld his melodic voice with a smooth backing track. Also, Post occasionally bothers with wordplay! Lyricism in a melodic rap song? Who would’ve thought?

Hell, it even manages to fix the “no new friends” idea displayed by Drake by sort of re-interpreting it as “no fake friends”.

And fuck, I almost forgot to mention Quavo.

Oh Quavo. Your verse may be short, severely lacking in punchlines and technically mediocre, but you just... you sound good. You sound good with Post. Somehow Post fucking Malone manages to totally outclass one of the Migos on this track. But Quavo does pretty well. I kinda like the “Huncho Houdini” line and a few of the football puns. In the end his verse is a little too short to really judge as anything more than decent.

(Also, the music video is great.)

But yeah, who would’ve thought this white stoner with braided sideburns would manage to completely slam Drake, the god of the late 2010′s? I’m honestly tempted to give this thing a 5 out of 5, but due to a few not-rhymes that nearly slip past due to Post’s mild drunken slur, I’d have to drop it into a 4.5/5. Still, I love this song. I love this song, I love Post Malone, fuck it. Judge me if you want. I have yet to hear a Post Malone song I don’t like.

Which I guess doesn’t mean much since he only has an album and an LP out, but...

It’s more than can be said for Drake at this point.

#song vs song #post malone #drake #song review #panda posts #music criticism

3 notes · View notes

webmarket01 · 4 years

Text

People Are Sharing Small Changes They Made That Helped Them Lose Weight (47 Tips)

New Post has been published on https://weightlosshtiw.com/people-are-sharing-small-changes-they-made-that-helped-them-lose-weight-47-tips/

People Are Sharing Small Changes They Made That Helped Them Lose Weight (47 Tips)

45 million Americans go on a diet every year. Moreover, Americans spend $33 billion each year on weight-loss products. The numbers are staggering, having in mind that two thirds of society are now classified as overweight and obese. So where did it go wrong?

Well, humans tend to overthink and end up trying too much. From counting calories to judging ourselves for a piece of cheesecake, some lose the simple joys of life, while others get fed up with their diet just not working.

But what if weight loss, like any other journey in the world, starts from some simple little steps? What if one or two basic changes in our lifestyle are all it takes to find the balance we crave? To find out, we looked at the little weight loss tips shared by people who genuinely claim they really worked. And no, you don’t need to give up on pizza any time soon.

Make your couch a no-eating zone. I found that when I sat in my overused, sunken-in spot in the couch with food, it turned into a mindless binge-fest. Sitting at a table or kitchen bar with a plate and silverware made me more mindful and present when I ate, which in turn helped me to listen to my satiety cues and stop eating when I was full. Lost over 100 pounds in a little over a year.

Just doing something in the gym everyday is better than nothing.

This advice helped me so much. It really reinforces that this is a lifestyle change by forcing you to just go be active everyday. It also helps just in the sense its objectively true doing 10-15 minutes on the treadmill is better than nothing if you really arent motivated at all. The biggest way it helps though is on the days you are unmotivated, once you start you will often just do your full workout.

Image credits: totalloserx

Don’t try to ignore your cravings — just find healthier ways to satisfy them. I will never be the girl who says no to pizza or bread. Embracing it and not hating myself for it was the first step. Then I was able to find ways to satisfy those needs in a better way. For example, Cauliflower pizza crust pretty much satisfies my need for pizza. (I know, it doesn’t sound believable but it’s true!)

Image credits: Deb Nystrom

In the past few years, there has been a surge in what’s called the mindful eating trend, which is all about staying present in the moment and enjoying it. This approach gained popularity because it doesn’t focus on restriction, but instead aims at changing our relationship with food.

Mindful eating is opposed to mindless eating, which is all too common these days. The latter refers to eating past fullness, eating out of boredom, emotional eating, eating and multitasking, and eating to gain comfort and soothe yourself. Conversely, mindful eating refers to eating when your body tells you to, enjoying eating, thinking about where food comes from, listening to your body, and stopping when you feel like it.

Give up delivery and start preparing your own meals instead.

Stop weighing yourself as a means of measuring your progress. For a while I was focused on making my weight number constantly decrease. When I stopped looking at that and just focused on being healthy — eating right, fruits and veggies for snacks, exercising — that was when I started losing weight and feeling better!

Swap “boredom eating” with other mindless (or productive) tasks. [I stopped] snacking when I was bored, became more aware of what I was doing, and I soon realized I wasn’t actually hungry. I was just restless and wanted something to do while I relaxed. So I replaced snacking with painting my nails. It’s also become kind of a fun thing I do for myself. When I’m at the store and trying to make healthy decisions, I will reward myself with a new color. Essie has become my preferred reward, as opposed to a ‘cheat meal’!

You can practice being more mindful in the way you eat simply by slowing down and concentrating on your plate. Let yourself be immersed in flavors, textures, tastes, and smells. Think of how the bite melts into your mouth and what kind of nutritional value you get from it.

Also, you need to learn to trust your body. Our bodies are smart mechanisms that can signal both hunger and fullness, except we sometimes prefer not to listen to them. In reality, when the mind tells you to grab another piece of cake, you may ask your body if it really wants one. You may be surprised by the answer.

Skip escalators and elevators. I took the stairs EVERYWHERE! I worked on the sixth floor when I started this endeavor. I had to start getting to work earlier than normal just to make sure I’d make it up in time without being disgustingly sweaty. I lost 40 pounds in the first eight months and now I’m running half marathons multiple times per year!

Water is your friend

Image credits: stop_being_ugly

Cut down on sugar. “Trying to eat healthier foods” is good to do, but it’s also vague. For example, I’ve seen people go on strict low-carb diets and drink insane amounts of Gatorade. There are tons of things you wouldn’t expect to have a lot of sugar in them, too- it’s not always the obvious stuff like cookies.

Image credits: foreverfremdshamen

#10

Ditch the soda, seriously. I decided to give up soda for Lent since I had one almost every day at lunch. After the first two weeks I lost 10 pounds! When it was over I honestly didn’t even crave it all at anymore. That was years ago and now the taste of soda is always too much sweetness in a drink for me.

#11

There are no bad vs good foods.

Try to eat a balanced diet of fruits and vegetables, but if you want a donut and it fits into your daily caloric intake, eat the fucking donut. Don’t demonize food. Learn about nutrition, drink plenty of water, and exercise.

Image credits: trolldoll26

#12

Ditch friends who sabotage you or try to keep you from progressing on your goal. If you’re 180 pounds of fat and they say you’re getting too skinny they’re not trying to help you.

Image credits: _ImperialScout_

#13

Buy smaller plates.

I don’t hear this one too often, but it’s basically an aide to the common “Eat smaller portions” advice. Willing yourself to eat smaller portions can be difficult, but a smaller plate can look full with less food on it, and that can have a very real psychological effect. You still get that “I cleaned my whole plate” satisfaction, but you’ve eaten less to get it.

Image credits: Gluttony4

#14

Patience. Losing weight (especially a significant amount of weight) takes a considerable amount of time.

I lost 60 pounds, but it took upwards of 16 months of constant work. It was a shade under a pound a week.

Image credits: Neb810

#15

Stop forcing yourself to go to the gym if you hate it, and find an exercise you actually enjoy. I gave up trying to enjoy the gym and found things I actually like doing! What a difference! I’ve lost 30 pounds simply by finding exercise I enjoy, such as hiking, biking, yoga, swimming, snowshoeing, and kayaking, among other things. Now I crave exercise and can’t wait for my next workout session, because nothing feels like a workout anymore!

#16

Start taking your coffee black. Started drinking black coffee instead of having it with cream and sugar or the flavored creamers.

#17

Full disclosure, am still fat (currently 301 pounds), but I have lost 50 pounds since my highest weight and am working on the remainder. Here is what is working for me: 1.) Track everything. Get an app, or a journal. Write down everything that goes in your mouth. You don’t need to track calories at first if you’re not used to it. Just write down what you eat. Be honest, don’t cheat. 2.) Learn your triggers. What makes you eat? Is it normal hunger? Did you have a bad day at work? Did you fight with your SO? Are you “treating” yourself because you accomplished something? 3.) Redirect yourself. Don’t be idle. If you sit in front of the TV and snack, start cross-stitching, knitting, paint-by-number, F**KING SOMETHING that gets you occupied while sitting and watching the latest mind-numbing crime drama. 4.) Make a plan. Meal plan for a week, or be ambitious and do a whole month. Plan what you’re going to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Make a grocery list. ALWAYS GO GROCERY SHOPPING WITH A LIST. Never have to ask yourself “oh what’s for dinner? what do we have anyway? am i going to have to buy x ingredient? f**k it, I’ll just order a pizza”. Include eating out in your meal plan. 5.) Move a little. You don’t have to run a marathon. Just move more. Walk further. Do yoga in the morning. Just something to remind your body that it has a purpose. All I do is yoga in the morning and walk to and from the bus stop. 6.) Start small. Don’t make a goal to lose 100 pounds. Make a goal to lose 5 pounds. That’s a bag of potatoes. Those are huge and heavy! 5 pounds is a huge accomplishment. I never set a goal for myself except to lose 5 pounds at a time. Lose 5 pounds, drop one pants size, walk around the block without stopping, jog for 90 seconds. These are tiny goals that when added to incrementally make a HUGE DIFFERENCE. 7.) Ignore everyone else. Don’t buy some junk your Aunt Marcy promises will cleanse your colon. Don’t let your coworkers tell you “oh you look so good you don’t need to lose weight”. Don’t let your family say “but grandma made this chocolate cake just for you”. THIS STEP DOES NOT APPLY TO MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS SUCH AS A DOCTOR OR CERTIFIED NUTRITIONIST. The world wants to sabotage you. Listen to people that you pay money to to take care of you. 8.) Forgive yourself. This is the most important step. Love yourself as you are now. You are beautiful. You are loved. You are important. You are a human being. You will move forward but you will have bad days. You will struggle and you will hate yourself for making a bad choice. You will fall down sometimes. But life is a series of failures and lessons. Life is a long journey and weight loss is a lifestyle change, a transformation, and those don’t happen quickly. It will take longer than you think it will. And that’s OKAY. You are doing your best and you will reap the rewards SOMEDAY. Don’t be in a hurry. Enjoy the journey.

Image credits: bigdamncat

#18

unless you’re Chris Traeger you’re gonna f**k up. it took me two years of trying to get the momentum I needed to lose 110 pounds. I’ve got 50 to go and I’ve lost that momentum and it’s taken me a few months to get back in the swing of it. [Messing] up is a part of progress and progress isn’t linear.

Image credits: MichyMc

#19

The 70% rule

Eat 70% of the meal. Take a break and talk for a while drink some water and enjoy the moment for a bit. You’ll find that the majority of the time the food will settle in your stomach and you won’t be hungry anymore.

Edit: many are saying it’s a waste of food but I never said that. Get a to-go box and take it home.

Image credits: Pizanch

#20

Remove the sugar. Once you do that, it’s stupid easy. It’s not a secret, but it’s rare for people to really do it. We all scramble around trying to find a trick to avoid doing just that. Lost 60lb and kept them off. For the past year and a half I’ve been eating less than 10 grams of added sugar per day, no exceptions. After the first 2 weeks, it gets pretty easy. After about 2 months, the idea of eating sugary [crap] feels pretty repulsive. After a year, it’s a no-brainer.

Image credits: fixittillitbreaks

#21

It’s a lifestyle change. It’s not something you can do for a while and then be done with it. You need to continue to eat mindfully and exercise in order to maintain your weight once you’ve lost the excess.

Image credits: LeftWren

#22

Don’t drink calories

Image credits: LordTachanka_LmgMaL

#23

My mum says “Motivation helps to lose the weight but discipline is what keeps it off.”

Image credits: Rithims

#24

Walking. It’s so underrated. Anyone can do it, can be done anywhere and it’s free.

What I’ve been doing is leaving early for my bus to work and walking 30 mins along the route before catching my bus. On the way home I’ll get off early and walk 30 mins home again. Adds an hour of walking a day with very little disruption to my daily routine. That plus eating better and I’ve lost a stone in about 5/6 weeks

Image credits: JiMMyCCuDDa

#25

Meal Prepping. You would be surprised how much control you give yourself over your calories when you plan ahead. It also saves a lot of time and money.

Image credits: totspur1982

#26

Don’t look in the mirror. This was sophomore year of college and my roommate didn’t have a full-length mirror to hang in our room, and neither did I. Without it, I discovered that I could mark my progress based on how I felt rather than how I looked. This was great because it prevented me from being discouraged when I didn’t see results right away. Looking back on it now, not having the opportunity to constantly glance at my reflection actually played a pretty key role in my success. I ended up losing around 40 pounds total.

#27

Treat yourself really well. Be easy and gentle with your thoughts, then the decision to eat healthful foods will be easier to sustain.

#28

Make sure you’re actually drinking enough water. I realized I was terrible at it and it’s so stupid. I bought some 32-ounce bottles and put labels on them, so I have to drink 8 ounces by certain time points, fill up the bottle and do it again to get 64 ounces in a day. I feel a lot better and have an easier time exercising now that I’m not chronically dehydrated.

#29

Quit fad diets for good. I had lost weight before on really restrictive diets like the Dukan diet and then just gained it all back as soon as I was allowed my regular foods again. By deciding to quit the fad diets and eating smaller portions and mostly unprocessed foods, I found it was a whole lot easier to lose weight, I felt much healthier and the weight stayed off!

#30

Replace “I wish” with “I will.” I used to always say, ‘I wish I looked like that.’ Or I would look at people on Instagram who had lost 100 pounds and I would think, I wish I could do that. And then finally it just hit me. Stop wishing for it and just do it. Replacing ‘I wish’ with ‘I will’ has helped me make actual goals that I am on the way to achieving. I have been working out six days a week and watching what I eat for over a month now and I have lost over 20 pounds. I am so excited to see where I WILL be in a year!

#31

Chew flavored gum to keep your mouth busy and overcome eating addiction. It’s so much easier to quit chewing gum I find.

Image credits: unknown

#32

Do simple exercises like push-ups and sit-ups every night. Start out with low numbers and by the end you’ll be able to do 100+ push-ups a day. It’s just involves making it a part of your routine.

#33

Realizing that you CAN actually control your body weight. You are in the driver seat. Eat 2000 calories but burn 2500 calories a day? You WILL lose weight.

There is no secret to losing weight. End of the day it’s Cals in vs Cals out. The control and results are addicting.

Source: Lost 50 pounds in the past year.

#34

Stop buying your go-to unhealthy snacks so you’re not even tempted. The only snack food I keep in the house now is cottage cheese, Triscuit crackers, fruit, hummus, English muffins, and veggies.

#35

I think a lot of people go into dieting with a mentality of “I’m going to diet constantly until I hit my goal weight” and either end up stopping along the way or putting the weight back on within a year or two of reaching their goal. What I have found that helped me was stopping my diet every 3-4 weeks and having a period just trying to maintain that particular weight before I start up again on my diet. It has helped me keep things under control and it’s nice to have a little break from a diet every once in awhile.

Image credits: ElPapiGrande

#36

Be prepared for the psychological barriers you will face if you are dieting. People will pressure you to eat badly all the time without really realizing it – when you go over to your parents’ for Thanksgiving, when your co-workers go out for drinks and wings after work, when your partner wants to go out to eat and celebrate something, when you go over to a friends’ house for a dinner party.

People think they are being nice to you when they say that one piece of cake or big meal won’t kill you and you should just go for it. In other circumstances, they just won’t realize that are making you feel like a diva or a wet blanket when you don’t eat what they clearly want you to. You have to be prepared for these curveballs or they can undo everything.

Most diets are designed for you to be able to construct your meals basically from scratch at home, or consume something prepackaged. But for many people their lifestyle and social life just can’t accommodate that enough. You need to learn to have backup plans that don’t make you feel like an ass or a killjoy. Plans can involve eating before, deciding what you eat when you get there, and how to talk to other people about it so everyone is comfortable. It takes some effort, but you get the hang of it pretty fast if you work on it.

Image credits: zazzlekdazzle

#37

(Not fat, just had a brief “chubby” phase in my teens, but I cured it fast.)

My tip: don’t snack. it’s easier than you think.

Eat your breakfast, lunch, dinner. In between those, stay the hell out of the kitchen and eliminate snacking as an option at all. Stay busy with life and fun. Don’t wander around your house bored and depressed until you find yourself making peanut butter toast with cookies or chips. Just GTFO of the kitchen and into a life of some sort.

The bulk of the magic is in the diet, not exercise. It’s a hell of a lot easier/quicker to refrain from eating 500 extra calories than it is to eat it then try to burn off 500 extra calories.

So when you’re done a meal, brush your teeth and get on with your day.

#38

My trainer wanted me to run, but I just could not for the absolute life of me get into the habit of running. So I would do this walking / running interval. I still hated it

So I decided to just cycle instead. Yes it burns fewer calories than running but you know what, I actually do cardio when I’m cycling. With running I wouldn’t really do it, I’d be like “meh I can skip it today.”

#39

Cut down on beer.

Drink only water

Burn more calories than I consume

Eat smaller meals

Go hiking as much as possible in preferably challenging terrain.

Pull up bar.

I’ve went from 198-163 since the end of May and I look pretty damn fine now.

Also, mind numbing depression helps with the hunger…

#40

Don’t stop at home before going to the gym after work or class. I cut out the middle step of going home before working out and started going to the gym straight from work. If I set foot in my apartment, all intentions of going to the gym fall by the wayside because my bed and Netflix always sound like better alternatives. Going to the gym straight from work helped me get into a routine, and in just over a year, I’ve lost 45-plus pound

#41

Ditch alcohol

#42

Cut back on foods with added sugar. I got rid of added/extra sugar during Lent one year. This meant no desserts, no soda, no syrup, etc. Fresh fruit was OK and I used yogurt with the least amount of sugar to satisfy my sweet tooth. In 40 days, with minimal exercise outside of gym class in high school, I lost 20 pounds.

#43

Feeling hungry for a bit won’t kill you. Drink water and deal with it.

Image credits: Kitehammer

#44

Soda has to go, period. Sure you could balance it into you calorie counting but why bother when you could fill it with stuff that makes you feel better

#45

If you want to lose weight, start by honestly counting your calories. You dont need to cut back what you eat, just keep track. Keep doing this for 2-3 weeks. By doing this, you are showing yourself just how much you are consuming.

From there, establish a small goal for yourself, e.g. 2100 calories per day. Keep track and measure your calories honestly. It’s okay if you dont meet your goal every day, but aim for most days.

Once you are comfortable at that level, lower it a bit further down, to say 1800. Keep this up and repeat until you reach 1600, 1400, or 1200 calories per day.

Take time to work your way down. Dont deprive yourself of a once in a while treat. The end goal is not to hit a point and then go back to eating how you did when you started, it’s about changing how you eat permanently. Sustainability for how you eat is what it’s all about.

Personally, my goal is 1300/day and after doing this for 2 years, it has become normal. A bad cheat day for me is 1600-1900 calories, which is in line with what my body needs (BMR).

The hardest part of this process is being honest with what you are eating and sticking with your goals.

#46

Treat working out as a social activity. One of my friends got a Groupon deal for a gym, and about five of us signed up. I joined purely to hang out with the boys after work instead of going home and browsing the web. We started going every evening, and within a few weeks I started noticing significant differences (as all beginners can relate).

A month later, I signed up for a gym closer to work and started eating better. Now, four years later, I have lost 100 pounds of fat, and put on over 25 pounds of muscle.”

#47

“You can’t lose weight unless you are hungry.” Accept it and deal with it.

Image credits: reddit

This content was originally published here.

0 notes

wsiebizsolutions · 5 years

Text

Facebook vs. Instagram: Which is Right for Your Business?

As you delve into exploring the world of social media for your business, I’m sure these questions have crossed your mind: “Which platforms should I use?” and “How do I know which social media platform is right for my business?”

Before you get ahead of yourself and leap onto one or multiple social media platforms for your business, it’s key to establish your business’ marketing goals first. If you don’t have set goals and objectives for your marketing strategy, it’s a lot harder to achieve social media success in 2018.

In this blog post, we will be looking at Facebook and Instagram, and which of the two social media platforms is right for your business.

Now you may be thinking “Oh, nobody uses Facebook anymore. The only people on Facebook are my parents and their friends showing off pictures from the cruise they went on last summer. So of course Instagram is the way to go right?” or “All the millenials are on Instagram, so I totally should choose Instagram for my business.”

Before you jump to these conclusions, let’s take a look at this Facebook vs. Instagram debate. We will be exploring the strengths and weaknesses of both platforms from a business standpoint, and how you can determine which platform is right for your needs. Chances are you may have the capacity to implement both platforms into your business’ marketing strategy. However, it is completely okay if you decide to only choose one over the other.

I’m not here to tell you that one platform is better than the other. I will let you decide which platform is right for your business once you’ve reached the end of this post.

Facebook

Facebook currently has over 2 billion monthly active users, and there’s no doubt that more and more businesses are considering Facebook for their business’ marketing efforts. With such an endless audience to market to, Facebook is definitely a platform many strive to be present on.

However, you may be well aware that Facebook has been through a lot over the past few years. With the misinformation scandal Facebook faced last year, as well as the scrutiny from the media and the public, what does that mean for the future of marketing? As Facebook continues on the road to recovery, the future of marketing is only looking brighter from here.

Despite this bump in the road, it doesn’t change the fact that Facebook is probably one of the top social media platforms for businesses.

Facebook Strengths

Increased Brand Awareness Looking to build your online presence? Look no further because increased brand awareness is one of the many benefits that come along with choosing Facebook for your business. Facebook can help you build your brand loyalty. With over 2 billion users on this platform, the opportunities to reach a wider audience are endless. As a result, more brand awareness means more (potential) customers!

Efficient Communication Channel

In any relationship, communication is key. Whether it be with your significant other, family, friends, coworkers, you name it. As a business, building a strong relationship with your customer base is no different. Ideally, you also want to understand why your customers want to chat and how it can change your business. Luckily, Facebook is an efficient channel of communication. It is an excellent platform to post announcements and engage with your customer base. Many businesses even look to Facebook as an interactive platform for customer service.

Effective Targeting

Another unique feature about Facebook for business is that it allows you to target specific demographics. This is particularly useful when you’re setting up targeted ads or if you’re considering boosting your Facebook posts. If you’re looking to grow your following and reach a wider customer base, Facebook allows you to set specific parameters and target by region, gender, age, social activity, and pretty much anything else you can think of!

Drives Website Traffic

Smart social media marketers will most likely use Facebook as way to drive traffic to their websites. This is another strength of choosing Facebook for your business. It is easy to include links on posts because Facebook’s full-width thumbnails are have a high likelihood of being clicked. As a result, you can easily link to blog posts, articles and other pages from your website. Market Research and Facebook Insights

Facebook is also a great platform to conduct market research. Interested in seeing how you’re performing against your competitors? You can easily see what your competitors are up to on Facebook and tailor your social media marketing strategy to maintain a competitive edge. Facebook Page Insights also comes in handy when conducting market research because it is an effective tool for you to gather information on your page viewers. This gives you a better understanding of demographic you are reaching.

Facebook Weaknesses

Time and Resources

Setting up a Facebook page for your business takes time. At the beginning stages, you can’t expect people to like or follow your page right away. Keep in mind that you get what you put into it. With that being said, maintaining your business’ Facebook page also takes time. It’s not as simple as you think, and you have to take into account that whoever is managing your Facebook pages is knowledgeable about the platform. You might need to consider hiring someone who has to experience to drive your marketing efforts forward on Facebook.

Budget

If you want to make the most out of Facebook for your business and take your social media marketing to the next level, setting aside an allocated budget to spend on Facebook advertisements is key. It’s also important to understand why social ads should be part of your marketing strategy. However, it may not be feasible for some businesses because not everyone can afford spending for social media.

Dealing With Negative Feedback

Just like in our everyday lives, we can’t expect to be liked by everyone. There will be instances where you’ll have to deal with negative feedback on Facebook. People may criticize you and disagree with you. In these situations, maintaining a degree of professionalism is crucial.

Instagram

It’s crazy to see how much Instagram has evolved over the past few years. Nowadays, more and more businesses are exploring Instagram as a medium to expand their social media marketing efforts. Instagram recently launched its Business Account in 2016, providing business users with tools to help understand their current and prospective customers. According to Instagram, there are over 25 million business profiles worldwide, and I have a feeling that this number will continue to rise. Moreover, over 2 million advertisers are now using Instagram to share their stories and drive their business results.

Instagram Strengths

Visuals, Visuals, Visuals!

Instagram is strictly a visual platform, which is one of the strengths that separates Instagram from other social media platforms. Instagram is solely comprised of photos and videos, providing opportunities to ignite your marketing campaigns. Video content especially is becoming increasingly popular on Instagram right now – so popular that there has been an 80% increase in the time spent watching video content on Instagram. Ultimately, this social media platform provides a highly visual experience for its users.

Increased Brand Awareness

Similar to Facebook, Instagram helps businesses increase their brand awareness. The use of hashtags are extremely popular, and is one of the driving forces for businesses and brands looking to be discovered by a wider audience. There’s no doubt that Instagram has undergone many updates and launched new features one after another in recent years. Features such as Instagram Stories and now IGTV gives rise to more opportunities for businesses to promote their brand, product, or service.

Collaborate With Influencers

Instagram has transformed into a hub for influencers looking for opportunities to collaborate with different brands and businesses. As the number of influencers on Instagram continue to grow, businesses should take this as an opportunity increase their brand exposure. Many businesses are already hopping on this trend, such as beauty and fitness brands.

Instagram Weaknesses

Instagram Algorithm

Instagram’s changing algorithm has caused a whole lot of mixed feelings over the past few years. “Why are my posts not showing up on some users’ feeds?” Remember when the posts on your Instagram feed appeared in reverse-chronological order? This is one of the main challenges you may face if you decide to adapt this social media platform for your business. Every time the algorithm changes, you’ll need to reevaluate and alter your existing Instagram strategy (e.g. when to post).

Difficult to Drive Traffic to Website

Unlike Facebook, it is a little more difficult to drive traffic to your website using a social media platform like Instagram. While you can easily directly link to different webpages with each Facebook post, Instagram has not gotten to the stage yet where they’ve enabled clickable links for their posts. Other than the “swipe up” option for Instagram stories and the link in your bio, businesses are unable to use clickable links in their posts. If you include a link, users would have to copy and paste the URL into their web browser.

Targeting Specific Audiences May Be Difficult

Instagram is a social platform that is mainly dominated by a younger age demographic, typically by millennials or Generation Z. Although there are older users on Instagram, it may be worth considering if Instagram is worth the investment for your business if your target audience is much older. Because chances are, they might not even have Instagram.

At the end of the day, neither platform is better than the other. Both Instagram and Facebook have strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, it all comes down to which of the two platforms you think aligns best with your marketing strategy and your business objectives and goals. If you’re having a hard time deciding how to enter the world of social media, or which platforms to use, we’d love to discuss your social media marketing strategy with you.

WSI was founded in 1995 and is an innovative digital marketing agency with offices in over 80 countries. We’ve spent over 20 years helping more than 100,000 companies and large global brands unlock the full potential of their business by leveraging the Internet and its many unrecognized opportunities. We’d be happy to help do the same for you and consult on your digital marketing strategy. Simply give me a call or email me at [email protected] to learn more.

The post Facebook vs. Instagram: Which is Right for Your Business? appeared first on WSI eBiz Solutions.

0 notes