#never mind getting back to studying for my network+ certification

[crimsonchaos]

I hate the feeling of wanting to play any of the (many) games I still need to play, but feeling too tired to actually do it

[millaphleb]

Jumpstart Your Career: Top Phlebotomy Training Programs in Vancouver, WA

Jumpstart Your ⁢Career: Top Phlebotomy Training Programs in⁣ Vancouver, WA

If you’re looking ⁣to⁤ kickstart a healthcare career,⁣ phlebotomy could be the perfect pathway⁢ for you. Phlebotomists play a vital role in ‍healthcare, drawing blood from patients for tests, transfusions, or⁣ donations. Whether you’re new to the medical field or⁢ looking to change​ careers, this article‌ outlines the top phlebotomy ‍training programs in Vancouver, WA, to help ⁣you jumpstart your career.

Why Choose Phlebotomy?

Before diving into​ the⁣ training ⁢programs, let’s‍ explore why pursuing a career in phlebotomy is an excellent‌ choice:

High ⁢Demand: Phlebotomists are in high ‌demand, especially as ‌healthcare ​needs grow with an aging population.

Rapid Training: Unlike many healthcare careers that require years of study, phlebotomy training takes a few months.

Rewarding Work: Helping patients feel comfortable during procedures and making a difference in their lives is fulfilling.

Flexible‍ Work Hours: Many phlebotomists work in hospitals, clinics, or labs,‌ allowing ⁢for varying ​work ‌schedules.

Phlebotomy ⁤Training Programs⁣ in vancouver, WA

Now that you understand⁣ the benefits, ‌let’s look at‍ the leading phlebotomy training programs available in Vancouver, WA.

training Program

Duration

Certification

Contact Information

Camas School District

4 months

CPR⁢ Certification

Visit Site

Clark College

1 ⁤semester

Certificate of Completion

Visit Site

Seattle Central College

6 months

Certification through NHA

Visit Site

Pima Medical Institute

9 months

Phlebotomy‌ Technician Certification

Visit Site

Benefits of Enrolling in⁣ Phlebotomy Training Programs

Enrolling in a phlebotomy training program not only prepares you for the‍ workforce⁣ but also offers several‍ advantages:

Hands-On Training: Get invaluable real-world⁣ experience by working with actual blood draws.

Networking Opportunities: ‌ Connect with‌ industry professionals‌ and potential employers during your training.

Job Placement Assistance: Many programs offer⁣ support in finding job opportunities after graduation.

Continuing Education: ‍Phlebotomy training can be a stepping stone to​ other healthcare careers.

What to Expect in Phlebotomy Training

Most phlebotomy training programs include the⁢ following components:

Classroom Instruction: ⁣ Learn about blood anatomy,safety‍ protocols,and the ​importance of⁣ patient⁣ interaction.

Laboratory practise: Gain ​practical‍ experience through simulated procedures and supervised practice.

Certification Readiness: ⁣ Programs typically prepare students to take​ certification⁣ exams from​ recognized organizations, such as the national Healthcareer⁤ Association (NHA).

Personal Case Study: A phlebotomist’s Journey

Meet ​Sarah, a‍ phlebotomist in ⁤Vancouver. After initially studying general‌ health ⁢sciences, she decided ⁣to focus on phlebotomy due to her‌ passion ⁣for ​working ⁤with people and her interest in the medical​ field.Sarah enrolled in the Clark College phlebotomy program. Here’s her⁢ experience:

“The hands-on training was invaluable,‌ and ⁤my instructors supported my growth ‍every step⁣ of ​the ⁣way.The program also helped me secure my first‌ job,and I’ve never looked back!”

– Sarah,Phlebotomist

Practical Tips for Aspiring Phlebotomists

If ‌you’re⁢ considering a career ⁢in phlebotomy,keep these practical tips ⁢in mind:

Research Programs: ‌ Investigate​ several programs to find‌ one that meets your‌ needs and offers comprehensive training.

Stay Patient-Centric: Focus​ on developing‍ your interpersonal skills. You’ll encounter nervous patients regularly.

Keep Learning: Stay updated on industry‌ standards and techniques by attending workshops and‌ additional training.

Certification: Aim to become certified as it will enhance ⁣your job prospects and credibility.

Conclusion

Phlebotomy ⁣is a​ rewarding and practical career choice for ‍those ‍interested in the healthcare field. ⁢By enrolling in one of the top phlebotomy ⁢training programs in Vancouver, WA, you can ​gain the​ skills and ⁢knowledge necessary to succeed in this ⁤high-demand ⁤career. Remember‍ to research programs thoroughly, seek hands-on training, and develop your interpersonal skills for ​the best results. ‌As you embark on your phlebotomy journey, know that your⁢ contributions will make a meaningful impact in‍ the ⁢lives of those you assist. Start today and⁢ jumpstart your career!

https://phlebotomycertificationcourse.net/jumpstart-your-career-top-phlebotomy-training-programs-in-vancouver-wa/

[inspiredbyhisword]

Building Deep Roots | Jan 7, 2025

Mark 4:17 says, “But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word.” When I read this verse, I think of myself when I hear God’s word. I know I believe in his word, I know I want to follow in his path and I do feel fulfillment when I’m immersed in it like when I used to go to summer camps with my church in my childhood. Then, also being in school, I never denied being Christian but I was cursing, fighting, and engaging in risky behavior. I don’t want to say I was “living a double life” but I wasn’t 100% applying his word in life and consumed worldly things. 

I do believe regular Bible study and prayer are steps that I can take to deepen your spiritual roots so your faith can withstand trials and challenges. When it comes to prayer, I want to pray all day everyday. Pray when I wake up, when I get in my car to go to my destination and when I make it back, when I start my work day as a teacher (my patience and tolerance has worn thin because of burn out), when I try something new, or even when I help someone out. I want God to be the first person I got to whether it’s good, bad, or ugly as well as giving him glory and praise for all the good he has provided me. Bible study will also help because I’m getting consistent exposure to the word. A LOT of things in the bible can be applied to life situations and sometimes just reading one verse can answer a lot of questions. Also making sure that the word doesn’t just stay in my ears but it makes its way into my heart and I can apply it. Faith without work is dead like the farmer’s seed that fell onto the footpath, rocky and thorny soil.

One challenge that I’m facing right now is deciding what career path I want to follow. Currently I’ve been a special education teacher for the past 3 years and I think I’m at the end of my road. I never really wanted to become a teacher but I tried it. I will say that I found my groove but it’s overwhelming and I’m burnt out. I realized during my Winter Break that I was able to have more dreams while I sleep than the last couple months and I knew it was because my mind is constantly working throughout the day. Being a teacher is not your ordinary 8 hour shift. When I get off work.. My mind is still on work whether I’m thinking about activities I want to do, paperwork that needs to be done, IEP materials that I need to find all while still dealing with my personal life situations. It’s a lot and I’m tired. I do like helping the kids and seeing their academic growth, so I started applying for resource teacher positions where I’ll push in or pull out students to work with students on their IEP goals. I feel like this role might give me a better work/life balance since it counts out some responsibilities that a head teacher has and this way I finish the requirement I need to get my full teaching license. I know being a teacher is not my end all be all but I since I started working on my certification, I might as well finish and have it under my belt and it’ll look good on my resume. I’m also anticipating starting my Master’s program in the Fall. I want to get a MSW but I’m not exactly sure what I want to do in social work. I know for a fact that I don’t want to do CPS but as I was doing some research, I narrowed it down to something within Child Welfare, Medical/Public Health and, school social work. Right now my focus is kind of on medical social work because usually anything in the medical field can have a good salary. I’ve looked up medical social work jobs and say they usually want someone with experience working in a healthcare setting and discharge planning so, I applied to volunteer at a nearby hospital as a Domestic violence/sexual assault advocate. This way I can network and see if I might actually want to do this. I’m still very confused and I’m scared to waste my time when I could’ve been working towards something else.

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7 | Just like I said earlier. “ Sometimes just reading one verse can answer a lot of questions.” I was to spend 15 minutes journaling about a challenge you’re facing then write down a scripture that reminds you of God’s promises. It was between this and Jeremiah 29:11 but Matthew resonated with me more. Reading this verse was like “Girl… you already know what to do!” I know I’m confused on my potential career path but keep on talking to and asking God. Keep on seeking to do your research on different fields within social work. Keep on knocking by finding workshops, online training and volunteer opportunities. Eventually, something will come from it and trust in the plan that the Lord has for you. I need to strengthen my faith because once again, faith without work is dead.

Prayer: Father, help me develop deep roots in Your Word. Teach me to stand firm in my faith, even when difficulties come my way.

[princessshikky]

In case there is another person here who for some reason wanted a TGCF/TUA fusion plotbunny... This is loosely inspired by the TGCF fanfic Nude Dinner by the incredible hoarder_of_stories (btw, I highly recommend to check out their other works: very sweet and comforting, also you can just feel that the author is enjoying their work, it's always cool when the text transfers that feeling).

So. Jun Wu is the eccentric billionaire who buys and adopts seven kids with superpowers and they grow up in a toxic environment.

Mu Qing and Feng Xin are number one and number two respectively. They are constantly arguing with each other and with everyone else around them except for Xie Lian. When Xie Lian left home to live on his own, fengqing left with him, but Mu Qing couldn't handle this life for long and wanted to come back home, which lead to his argument and subsequent breakup with Feng Xin and Xie Lian. Mu Qing also spent years trying to "make amends" for his "mistake" and win back Jun Wu's favor. He's the only one who stayed with Jun Wu until the end.

Feng Xin quickly started an affair with a girl his age (Jian Lang), she got pregnant, Jun Wu found out and tried to pay her to keep the baby, give it to Jun Wu and never see the child again (he wanted to see whether the second generation would inherit the special abilities). Jian Lang wanted nothing to do with it, had an abortion, confronted Feng Xin about the whole story and broke up with him. They never saw each other after that. In the present timeline Feng Xin works as a coach in a local gym, he also participates in fighting matches sometimes.

Yin Yu is number three. He constantly felt underappreciated and ignored, angry that Quan Yizhen was praised more than him. Eventually he got so angry he had a fight with Quan Yizhen and ran away. In the present he works for Hua Cheng (who wanted to be closer to Xie Lian and grabbed the chance to meet Xie Lian's sibling, that didn't go as planned).

Quan Yizhen is number four. He adored Yin Yu, so after Yin Yu left Quan Yizhen also didn't stay home for long. He became a successful and popular athlete with a ton of endorsements. He also doesn't hold any resentments against his siblings.

Shi Qingxuan is number five, he can speak with the souls of the deceased. His ability is pretty useless in combat, so he didn't go to the missions all that often. When Shi Qingxuan was still a teenager his biological older brother, Shi Wudu, started looking for him and demanded the right to see him (Shi Wudu could only do it once he was of legal age, which is why it took so long). Jun Wu refused, so Shi Wudu started a crusade, went to the papers, to the Committee for the Affairs of Minors and to court -- all to get Shi Qingxuan away from the abusive environment. He eventually succeeded. The rest of the siblings desperately envy Shi Qingxuan since they don't have loving biological family willing to go through hell for them. Nevertheless, Shi Qingxuan is such a likable person it's hard to resent him. He is another family members who doesn't hold any grudges against his siblings and loves them all equally (except for Shi Wudu, who is his absolute favorite).

He Xuan is number six (deceased). Shi Qingxuan is the only one able to see him and communicate with him. He Xuan absolutely despises Shi Wudu because of jealousy: he used to be closest to Shi Qingxuan and believes Shi Qingxuan doesn't pay him as much attention now.

Xie Lian is number seven and Jun Wu's favorite, which didn't win him any favors among the other siblings (actually Jun Wu made a conscious attempt to isolate Xie Lian from the rest of the family and make him dependent on Jun Wu's approval precisely because Xie Lian is really his favorite). Xie Lian didn't have super abilities but still wanted to be a superhero and save people like the rest of his siblings, which lead to him constatly arguing with Jun Wu. Eventually he was the first to leave the Academy. He lived with fengqing at first, then they broke up and went their own separate ways. The first year on his own was the most difficult, as Xie Lian couldn't find any job and barely had any food to eat. Officially it was because the whole family was homeschooled and Xie Lian lacked any certificate of education, but actually Jun Wu secretly did everything in his power to ensure no one would hire Xie Lian, hoping Xie Lian would "come to his senses" and come back home. However, Xie Lian was stubborn enough to survive and eventually get a stable job. He still doesn't have higher education because it's expensive and time-consuming, but his living conditions are better in the present.

At the start of the plot Jun Wu suddenly dies and the whole family (including Shi Wudu as Shi Qingxuan's moral support) comes to the funeral. Mu Qing tries to say that something about the death is suspicious (some of Jun Wu's documents are missing), but no one is willing to support him (to be fair, even if Jun Wu died from fifty knife wounds, the siblings would be like "eh, what a tragic accident, nothing suspicious here"). There are no timey-wimey shenanigans, just Mu Qing trying to investigate Jun Wu's death and the rest of the family reluctantly working with him or refusing to cooperate (i.e. Yin Yu doesn't tell where he spent the night of Jun Wu's death or where he works because he hasn't seen his siblings in years, they're practically strangers, and he doesn't want these strangers to come to his workplace or something, esp. since he works for a stalker obsessed with one of the aforementioned siblings). The family communicates, unearthes some old grudges and family secrets (fengqing spend two hours yelling at each other over a broken gameboy personally gifted by Jun Wu).

Xie Lian goes for a walk and accidentally meets a guy named San Lang (it was raining, Xie Lian didn't have an umbrella, so San Lang walked him to his apartment, Xie Lian invited him in and made him tea etc). They start dating. San Lang is very supportive of Xie Lian, spends a lot of time with him, makes him insanely personalised gifts. Fengqing are suspicious and try to convince Xie Lian that this guy is weird and his social network profiles seem fake. They even break into San Lang's appartment but find nothing out of the ordinary (they didn't have time to sneak into the attic and discover the Xie Lian Stalker Shrine).

Xie Lian starts seeing nightmares of a man in white clothes and white mask. He used to have these nightmares often in the past, when he was a child, then Jun Wu administered him some pills and the nightmares stopped. Xie Lian thinks this is his psyche's reaction to Jun Wu's death. When San Lang finds out, he offers to pay for the therapist sessions (Xie Lian refuses) and maybe adjust the dosage of the medicine (Xie Lian agrees to try). Soon Xie Lian runs out of the pills, forgets to get a new bottle, and San Lang convinces him to try to quit. Xie Lian feels better and also starts to suspect that he may have superpowers after all. San Lang and Xie Lian work together to try and develop Xie Lian's abilities. It doesn't really go anywhere until a tragic accident: Xie Lian and San Lang are attacked at the street, San Lang is injured (and looses his eye in the fight), Xie Lian uses his abilities to protect San Lang. San Lang now wears an eyepatch.

Fengqing still keep their investigation, find out that Yin Yu works for "San Lang" and that "San Lang"'s name is actually Hua Cheng. They come to Xie Lian with this information, but Xie Lian refuses to believe them. Fengqing and Xie Lian have a huge argument, remember every one of their old grudges, Xie Lian hotly says that San Lang is way better to him than his family and even helps him develop his abilities. Hua Cheng arrives in the middle of the argument, takes Xie Lian's side and throws fengqing out. In a conversation with Xie Lian he either denies the accusations or gives a rational explanation (i.e. "San Lang is my childhood nickname, I like it better than my name, that's why I never used my actual name with you").

The next day, once Mu Qing had a chance to calm down, he starts thinking: how come Xie Lian has abilities now? He decides Jun Wu must have known something and tries to look at Jun Wu's documents, finds evidence of Jun Wu knowing, but most of the information was in the documents that are missing. The other siblings deny having anything to do with it. Mu Qing turns to Ling Wen -- the AI developed by Jun Wu. Mu Qing, Ling Wen and Feng Xin manage to break into Jun Wu's computer, decode his files and access the security camera records.

Turns out, Jun Wu also had superpowers: he could get into other people's dreams and control their minds. He was the one who sent Xie Lian nightmares and made everyone forget Xie Lian had powers. He also documented everything and placed hidden cameras all over the house. Fengqing watch the records of the day Jun Wu died (there is only image but no sound) and see Hua Cheng break into Jun Wu's study room, find and read some of the documents. Jun Wu enters the room, it looks like he and Hua Cheng have an argument, Hua Cheng storms out taking the documents with him. After he leaves, Jun Wu clutches his chest and falls on the floor.

Fengqing go to speak to Xie Lian again, this time with the records. Xie Lian is shocked, but he believes them now. Together they search Hua Cheng's house, find Jun Wu's documents, which hold detailed descriptions of Xie Lian's abilities and how to access them. They also find the stalker shrine with paintings of Xie Lian, pictures of Xie Lian obviously taken without his knowledge, a couple of statues and some pornographic images of Xie Lian. Fengqing demand Xie Lian dumps "this creep" right this second, but Xie Lian still insists there must be a proper explanation. He even tries to call Hua Cheng. Eventually they reach a compromise: they need to go to Yin Yu and speak to him, since he works for Hua Cheng and must know something.

Yin Yu tells them the following: a long time ago, when Xie Lian was trying to be a superhero, he saved a young Hua Cheng. Ever since that time Hua Cheng became obsessed with Xie Lian, started gathering all available information about the Umbrella Academy, but there was nothing about Xie Lian there. After Shi Wudu's campain against Jun Wu the Academy's dirty laundry got into papers, Hua Cheng figured Xie Lian had been abused and it was Hua Cheng's turn to save him. However, by the time Hua Cheng finally had all the money and resources Xie Lian had long left the house and built himself a new life. Hua Cheng found him and started stalking him, taking pictures etc. He didn't try to meet Xie Lian in person because he was ashamed: he failed and didn't help Xie Lian when Xie Lian needed it most. Hua Cheng still employed Yin Yu and regularly questioned him about Xie Lian because he wanted to know every little detail. One of their conversations made him think of something he didn't share and start a secret project Yin Yu wasn't involved in. That's all he knows.

Fengqing are furious with Yin Yu for doing something like that to his sibling. Yin Yu yells at them, saying that even though Mu Qing, Feng Xin and Xie Lian had each other when they left they couldn't hold out long, and Yin Yu was completely on his own and Hua Cheng saved him. Fengqing don't know Hua Cheng, he's actually a good person, they shouldn't judge him by his hobbies. Xie Lian interferes saying they need to talk to Hua Cheng anyway, to question him about the circumstances of Jun Wu's death. Xie Lian calls Hua Cheng and invites him to the Academy mansion, fengqing gather the rest of their siblings. Together they interrogate Hua Cheng.

Hua Cheng doesn't deny the stalking but he denies being responsible for Jun Wu's death. According to him, his conversation with Yin Yu helped him guess Jun Wu was super shady, Hua Cheng managed to hack his computer, couldn't decypher the files but accessed the camera records and saw where Jun Wu kept his documents. He broke into Jun Wu's room, read his diaries, found out about Xie Lian's abilities and confronted Jun Wu about it, promising to disclose that information to Xie Lian. Hua Cheng "accidentally" ran into Xie Lian at the street, stole his medicine, hired some thugs to beat him in front of Xie Lian -- all to help Xie Lian unlock his powers.

Fengqing still believe Hua Cheng must be somehow responsible for Jun Wu's death. Yin Yu stands up for Hua Cheng and suggests Shi Qingxuan uses his ability to talk to Jun Wu's ghost and find out for certain. Shi Wudu is against that: he doesn't want Shi Qingxuan to talk to his abusive father, and it's hard for Shi Qingxuan to use his powers. However, Shi Qingxuan is willing to give it a try, mostly for Xie Lian's sake. He cannot summon Jun Wu's ghost, but he talks to the ghosts of Jun Wu's former friends, whom Jun Wu murdered and buried in the mansion's garden. The ghosts have haunted the mansion for a long time and have seen the confrontation with their own eyes. They confirm Hua Cheng's version of events.

Fengqing are still against Hua Cheng and don't want him anywhere near Xie Lian, but Xie Lian says he's not a child anymore, he won't let anyone else make decisions for him, and if fengqing want to stay in his life, they need to accept that. He's fine with having Hua Cheng as a partner, and his opinion is the only one that matters in this regard.

Hualian leave. A few days later Feng Xin comes to talk to Mu Qing: he believes Jun Wu died because he couldn't stand the thought of losing Xie Lian's love forever. Mu Qing has a different theory: Jun Wu deliberately stopped his own heart and killed himself, because he wanted Xie Lian to feel guilty for his death and to come back to the Academy because of that. Xie Lian personally thinks it doesn't matter: he has stopped looking for Jun Wu's approval a long time ago. Whatever Jun Wu's motives, he will not be able to ruin Xie Lian's life.

...

Cue the second season where the whole gang timetravels to 800 years ago, Xie Lian becomes an evil overlord with Hua Cheng being his right hand, Ling Wen tries to get a human body, Lang Qianqiu can copy other people's superabilities and Jun Wu turns out to be a literal alien.

Miscellaneous:

Mu Qing and Feng Xin are based on Luther and Diego, so their superpowers are superstrength and the ability to control projectiles respectively. Yin Yu can turn invisible, Quan Yizhen has superspeed, Shi Qingxuan speaks to the dead, He Xuan could summon tentacles, and Xie Lian is based on Vanya so he controls sound waves.

As a child, Xie Lian was closest to fengqing, Quan Yizhen adored Yin Yu (he still does), Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan were inseparable. In the present Shi Qingxuan is the only one in touch with all of the other siblings. Quan Yizhen is close to Xie Lian and constantly tries to give him money (he is also looking for Yin Yu). No one else is on speaking terms.

BTW, Xie Lian is trans, because a) why not, b) it was inspired by a fic with trans!Xie Lian and c) Xie Lian's plotline is based on Vanya's and Vanya is trans, fight me on this.

[like-a-bag-of-potatoes]

Chapter One - Hello Chicago

A/N: So this is my first crack at Chicago fire fanfiction, so don't judge too hard, alright? This will unfold from the beginning of season three, so if you haven't watched it yet, but plan to; SPOILER ALERT! I tried to follow along with the storyline of the show, but some things have been changed. Shout out to my superawesome beta @thorne93​, you rock! 

Fandom: Chicago Fire

Pairing: Kelly Severide x Beth (OFC) 

Warnings: None. 

Wordcount: 2975

Three weeks ago: 

It was a beautiful summer day in Chicago, the sun was high in the sky while a warm breeze fanned the air, providing some much needed relief from the scorching sun. Beth had just moved into a cozy little apartment on West Wolcott, a seemingly friendly neighbourhood that she hadn't really had the time to explore yet. One thing she had noticed though, was the little bar on the corner, Molly’s. It reminded her of the last place she worked at back in New York before she picked up her life and headed for the windy city. On this particular day, she saw a ‘help wanted’ sign on the bulletin board outside, and without thinking twice, she climbed the three steps and walked inside. A little bell above the intricate mahogany door chimed, and before it even closed behind her, three confused faces looked up at her from a table near the bar. 

“Sorry, we’re closed,” the woman in the group said, offering Beth a friendly smile as she did. 

“Oh…” Beth started, looking between the three of them. The woman was a beautiful latina, around Beth's age, with a kind smile. One of the men, the older one of them, looked like he was in his mid forties maybe, and the other one was around Beth's age, maybe a couple years younger. He had big brown puppy dog eyes and a thick mustache.  “I just saw the help wanted sign outside, and figured I'd see if you had an application I could fill out,” she explained. “But I can come back later,” she suggested when there was no answer. It felt as though she had walked into something here. She didn't know them, but it seemed as if there was a sadness behind their smiles. 

“Nonsense,” the older man exclaimed, getting to his feet. “Come sit down.” 

Beth put down her groceries at the door and went to join them. 

“I'm Christopher Herrmann,” he introduced, shaking Beth's hand. “That's Gabriella Dawson-” Beth shook her hand too. “And this here is Otis,” he said, patting the guy's shoulder. 

“Brian,” the younger man corrected. 

“Nice to meet you all. I'm Beth Andrews.” 

“So you’re looking for a job?” Gabriella wondered. 

“Yeah. I just moved in down the street last week, and I saw the sign upfront today,” she explained. 

“You have any experience, kid?” Herrmann asked in a very prominent Chicago accent. 

“I do. Spent the last ten years working as a bartender in New York. Two different nightclubs for about five years and then nearly five year's at a neighbourhood bar like this,” she explained. “Then I moved here. I have references,” she added.

“Any other work experience?” he wondered. 

“Yeah. I was a paramedic with the New York Firedepartment for eight years. We were on 24 hours and off for 48, so it was easy enough to combine with other jobs.” 

The three of them shared an amused look and Beth wondered if she had said something wrong. 

“We all work for the CFD at house 51 here in town. Gabby is a paramedic, Herrmann and I are on truck,” Otis explained, and Beth chuckled at the coincidence.

“Paramedic for now,” Gabby corrected. “I've graduated from the academy, and hope to start fighting fires soon.” 

“Really? Congrats,” Beth offered. 

“Thank you,” Gabby said with a wide smile. “Are you looking to be a paramedic here in Chicago too, or?” 

“Not really, no. I got injured on the job and the more time passed, the harder it was to get back to it. I made a real effort about three months ago, but the job had changed for me,” Beth tried to explain, hoping that a fellow paramedic would understand. 

“Alright,” Herrmann dragged. “So why Chicago?” 

“Heard you guys were hiring. Couldn't let that opportunity slip through my fingers,” Beth joked with a coy smile, looking between the three of them. 

Gabby looked at the other two and nodded before looking back at Beth. “Welcome to Molly’s.” 

“Really?” Beth exclaimed. 

“Yep,” Herrmann confirmed. “Be here at five and we’ll get you settled in.” 

***

And that was how Beth landed her job at Molly’s. A job that she absolutely loved. Never had she imagined that a simple bartender job would come with such a wide network of people and friends, but Molly’s had that family vibe to it. It was a place where firefighters, police officers, and doctors came to hang their hat and try to find a good end to an otherwise shitty day at work, or a place to celebrate the good days. She found many acquaintances during her first three weeks, but also some good friends… like Gabby. 

After Beth had Gabriella and her fiancee - who was a lieutenant at firehouse 51 - Matt Casey over for dinner, Gabby had convinced her to come to the house and cook for them all, which she gladly did. One thing she had learned through her year's working at NYFD was that the fastest way to a firefighter’s heart was through their stomachs. 

Firehouse 51 was still mourning the loss of one of their paramedics, Leslie Shay, who had died on the job just a few weeks before Beth rolled into town. Her death still cast a shadow over the place, but they were all trying to get back to normal. A normal that would be hard to find before the lieutenant of Squad 3 came back from his furlough. Kelly Severide had been Shay’s best friend, and the one that took her death the hardest. No one had seen or heard from him since Shay’s funeral, and they were all starting to wonder if he would ever return to the station at all. 

Beth hoped that a good meal would help cheer them up a bit, even if it was just for a little while. 

“This smells amazing, Beth,” Cruz complimented as he hovered over her in the kitchen. “Where did you learn to cook?” 

“Yeah… Tell them the story,” Gabby said with a chuckle, not looking up from the magazine she was flipping through. 

“Alright,” Beth dragged, very aware that all eyes were on her all of a sudden. “I was dating this guy back when I was nineteen. He was a really nice guy, but I didn't really see it lasting very long, so when Valentine’s rolled around I didn't want to splurge on a big fancy gift for him. So I got him a pen,” she started explaining. 

“You gave a guy a pen for valentines day?” Cruz asked with raised brows. 

“Yeah - well- he was studying journalism and I had it engraved.. It was a nice pen, kay? My point is I wasn't too invested in the relationship at this point.” 

“As evidenced by the pen,” Otis chimed in, earning himself a bitchface from Beth. 

“But it seemed as though he was in a different place then I was at that time, so he gave me a gift certificate for cooking classes, worth about 500 dollars.” 

A round of ‘aww’s’ went around the room followed by Gabby’s “Wait for it.” 

“For about two seconds I felt really shitty about the 14 dollar pen I had gotten him, so I started telling him that I couldn't accept his gift. That it was too much.. Too generous. He shut me down and told me it was an investment in our future and that - and I quote - he saw real potential in me, but if we were to start a family, he needed to know that I would be able to cook for them.” 

Now there was a mixture of ‘eww’s’ and ‘oh, noes,’ going through the room. 

“So I took the gift certificate and left. Then I spent 6 weeks learning to cook all these delicious meals that he will never get to taste,” she concluded. 

“Good for you, Beth,” Sylvie complimented. She was the newest member of the firehouse, filling Shay’s position after she died. Sylvie was a small town girl that had this sort of careful nature to her. She was very sweet though. Beth liked her a lot. 

“I don't get it,” Cruz said with a puzzled look on his face. “He was planning a future with you, isn't that nice?” Coming from anyone else, this comment would probably piss Beth off, but she knew him, and knew that he didn't really mean anything by it. 

“He wasn't planning a future with me, he was planning my future for me,” Beth explained. “Look… being a stay at home mom is tough work, and I admire the shit out of those who do it, but at that point I had my own aspirations and goals for my future. It was pretty clear to me that even though he knew all of this, he didn't care as long as he got the family he pictured in his mind.” 

“Oh… well… when you put it like that,” Cruz said, an apologetic look on his face. 

“It's alright,” Beth assured before she announced to everyone that dinner was ready, and for all of them to dig in. 

***

Dinner had been a huge success and she left the house with an open invitation to come back whenever to cook for them, which was their way of telling her that she had been accepted into their little family. 

Now she was back behind the bar at Molly’s, which was easily her favorite place in the world right now. Lieutenant Casey had finally been able to track down and convince Lieutenant Severide to come back to Chicago, and they had all decided to throw him a little welcome home party at Molly’s.

Gabby had already been in Beth’s ear about Kelly Severide, warning her that he was a bit of a ladies man, but Beth assured her that she wasn't interested. She was excited to meet him though, besides being a ladies man, Beth had heard a lot of great things about him. 

There was a good crowd already at the bar when Kelly finally showed up. The first thing that Beth noticed was that the pictures of him at the station didn't really do him justice. However, it wasn't the ocean blue eyes, or the plump lips, or even the broad shoulders. It was the way he carried himself. Standing tall and confident in his shoes as he was welcomed into the bar with cheers and pats on the back. There were few things more attractive in a man than confidence, Beth thought to herself, but there was a really fine line between confidence and arrogance, and from where she was standing it looked as though he was on the right side of that line. There was something else that she noticed about him, something that saddened her in some inexplicable way. As soon as the charming smile fell from his lips, his expression hardened. Not in an angry or mean looking way, but more… stoic. Like a man carrying around a pain inside of him that he didn't want anyone to see. Like he was trying to hide his vulnerability by appearing unapproachable.

Beth knew that underneath all that, there was a good man. Of course she hadn't met the man yet, but she knew that from the way people spoke about him. 

He didn't take a seat at the bar, instead he wedged himself in between two stools and leaned against the counter.   

“This is Beth, Molly’s new bartender,” Gabby said and Beth reached over the bar to shake his hand. 

“Kelly,” he said, his piercing blue eyes tracking her features. “Nice to meet you.” The hardness of his face melted away as he smiled politely at her, revealing a little gap between his front teeth. It was as though she caught a little glimpse of who he was behind the hard exterior. It was just a flash, a fraction of a second, and then it was gone again.   

“You too,” she offered. “What can I get you?” 

“Whiskey,” he said simply before he got roped into a conversation with Chief Boden and Casey. 

Beth did her best not to stare at the man, but throughout the night she caught herself looking for him, letting her eyes linger whenever they found him while her mind wondered who this man was underneath. Already then she knew she was in trouble 

“I knew it,” Gabby said suddenly into her ear. Beth hadn't even seen her approaching. 

“What?” she asked, pretending she had no clue what Gabby was on about. “I'm allowed to look,” she defended when her friend sent her a knowing look. 

“You’re allowed to do whatever you want to do,” Gabby said with a coy smile. “Just know what you’re getting yourself into.” 

“I'm not gonna get myself into anything,” Beth assured.

“Mhm… Anyway, Matt and I are going to head home. You okay to lock up?” Gabby asked. 

The bar was mostly empty now. Just Severide, Cruz, and Otis remained. “Absolutely,” Beth assured. She said goodnight to her friend and then made her way over to the three men. “Last call, boys. What can I get you?” 

The level of inebriation around the table was pretty darn high, but considering this was last call and they would be out soon, Beth didn't worry about it too much. As per their request, she grabbed them each a beer and then made her way back behind the bar to start getting ready to close up. 

“Hey, Beth,” Kelly suddenly called out, making her spin around. “Come have a drink with us,” he lightly demanded. 

She mulled it over for a second before she poured herself a glass of ice water and went to join them. 

“What's this?” Kelly asked, pointing to her glass with furrowed brows. 

“Water,” she stated simply. 

“You don't drink?” he asked, looking into her blue eyes. 

“Not at work.” Holy shit was he gorgeous, she thought to herself as she pried her eyes off of the freckles that peppered his nose. She hadn't noticed them earlier, but now that she was so close to him, she could clearly see them. She could still feel his eyes on her when she looked away, but she did her best to ignore the warm feeling that settled in her body under his gaze. 

“How are you liking Chicago so far?” Cruz asked. 

“It's good,” she said with a bob of her head. “Your pizza sucks though,” she added as an afterthought. 

“Oh come on,” Otis exclaimed. “Chicago style beats New York style every day of the week,” he argued, getting support from the other two. 

“Uhm.. no. Deep dish pizza tastes like tomato sauce and dough, and nothing more. New York style has the perfect toppings to cheese ratio on a crunchy crust. It's perfection.” 

“You’re wrong,” Cruz chimed in. “The thin crust does not support enough toppings. It's structurally unsound.” He gestured as he spoke, as if he was caught in a heated debate about the state of the world or something. 

That spiraled into a half an hour long argument about pizza and toppings, ending only when Beth said that she would prove them all wrong by coming into the fire house and cooking them some real pizza. This was met with much enthusiasm. 

“Alright, boys. Time to get out so I can close up,” she announced after checking the time. 

“You throwing me out of my own bar?” Otis asked as they all got to their feet. 

“Damn straight,” she said with a smile, trying to ignore the looks she got from the very handsome lieutenant.

“This because of the pizza thing?” 

“Absolutely,” she confirmed with a playful smile. 

“Never argue with the bartender,” Kelly noted. 

“Exactly,” Beth agreed. “Now get out so I can get home,” she ordered. 

The three men were still outside waiting for a cab when Beth locked the door behind her. From what she could tell, Kelly was trying to rope the other two into continuing the evening somewhere else, without much luck it seemed like. She felt for him, she really did. Being alone with your thoughts after losing a loved one was hard, she remembered all too vividly what that was like. 

“What about you?” he said, looking at Beth. “Wanna come have some drinks with me?” 

“Not even a little bit,” she said. It was a lie. She would very much like to go with him, but she knew how that would end, and tempting as it was, it wasn't really an option. “I'm gonna go home and slip into a light coma.” It seemed as though her answer surprised him, and she got the impression that he wasn't really used to getting turned down. 

“Can I walk you home then? Can be scary out here at this time of night,” he tried. 

“My apartment is right there-” she pointed a few houses down - “I'm sure I'll make it home before your cab gets here, so you guys can just keep an eye on me from here.” 

Cruz and Otis kept their eyes to the ground, trying to not get roped into this awkward interaction. They mumbled a goodnight as Beth left them, trying to hide their smiles from the lieutenant. 

“What just happened?” Kelly asked with a confused expression on his face. 

“You just got shut down, bro,” Cruz explained. 

“Twice,” Otis added, making the two of them laugh. 

Kelly watched as Beth made her way to her building, and just as the cab pulled up, she unlocked her door. He raised his hand and gave her a small wave before he got into the backseat of the car. For a while, he had the image of her bright smile, and big eyes in his mind, but soon enough she was replaced by Shay, and grief overtook him once again. 

If you want a tag, just shoot me an ASK and we’ll make that happen. 

If you like what you read, press that little reblog button, maybe leave me a little comment. Feedback is a great source of inspiration for me. 

[fictionaffliction]

Better Forgotten

Chapter One

Pairings: Loki/OC

Summary: Dr. Ingrid Hansen is a respected psychologist struggling with the aftermath of the Snap as well as her own trauma from an accident she endured many years ago. Her world is thrown into utter chaos when she meets a dangerous man posing as a client. Dr. Strange is reluctantly tasked with protecting her, but in order to do so, he must first help her recover who she truly is. While she is grateful for his help, she has to wonder, are some things better forgotten?

Rated M

Warnings: Canon typical violence, eventual mentions of suicide and domestic violence (which will be tagged in the chapters in which they occur), memory loss, chronic pain

September 21, 2012

The brightly lit conference room was lively with chattering voices. Hundreds of scholars, dressed in the grey and beige that business casual dictates, wound their way through the rows of scratchy linen padded chairs. Some exchanged business cards, networking like their livelihoods depended on it, and for many of them, it did. Others were on their phones or had pulled out laptops and started furiously typing away, no doubt responding to messages from their various offices in the little time they had before the keynote speaker took the stage.

Ingrid Hansen had just finished responding to an email of her own before setting her phone to silent and tucking it back into her purse, trading it for a small leather-bound notebook and a pencil. She wrote the name of the keynote, “Neurosurgery as Treatment for Psychiatric Disorders” as well as the name of the speaker. She had double-checked the name on the itinerary when she wrote it down, shrugging off the unusual name. Certainly, he would have gotten his fair share of teasing as a child.

According to the short biography under his name, he was no less than a certifiable genius. He had been published in multiple medical journals, gotten his MD and his Ph.D. concurrently, and was now one of the most respected neurosurgeons in the country if not the world. People had been looking forward to his keynote the entire conference and Ingrid had made sure to come fifteen minutes early to get a good seat. She managed to get a seat in the middle of the second row. An older man with grey hair and glasses stepped onto the stage as the rest of the attendees found their seats. The man waited for a moment before speaking.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said as a respectful hush fell over the room, “thank you all for attending this evening’s keynote address. We are, of course, very excited to welcome our guest speaker.” The old man licked his dry lips with a smacking noise in the completely self-unaware way that only old men seem to be able to achieve.  “He is an accomplished surgeon with a true passion for medicine and an apparent talent for music trivia.” He chuckled and the conference room laughed with him. “Please welcome to the stage Dr. Stephen Strange.”

The room applauded as a tall, slim man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties took the stage. His dark hair was neatly coiffed to frame his high cheekbones. He looked out over the crowd with discerning eyes and gave a tight smile. As the room quieted, his lecture began.

“Thank you all for the warm welcome. If only everyone greeted surgeons with applause,” Dr. Strange said in a voice that was deeper than Ingrid would have thought. The crowd laughed politely. “In the last one hundred years, neurosurgery and psychology have grown up together like distant cousins. Connections between the two have been known and studied, but never truly explored to such an extent as they are now. Now, technology is finally reaching the point where the two can be intertwined as they always should have been.” He gestured in a practiced manner as his gaze swept over the faces in the room.

Ingrid’s pencil was poised over her notebook, ready to strike down the moment he said something she wanted to remember. He went on for a bit about the potential for technological advancements to change brain chemistry without the need for medication, though it would require dangerous procedures to place implants on the affected parts of the brain. She dutifully noted his points, though she found the idea of experimental treatments morally precarious at best.

“Imagine the benefits for those suffering from dementia and other brain disorders that so deeply affect patients and their loved ones,” he said, turning his gaze to Ingrid as she leaned forward in her seat, her hand continuously taking notes. She stared back at him as he continued after giving her a small smirk. “Later this year, clinical trials for a pacemaker-like device for deep brain stimulation in Alzheimer’s patients will begin. This is an incredibly exciting time in medical history…”

She wrote her short-hand in a hurried hand as he soldiered through the rest of his speech. ‘ Brain stimulation for dementia-- recovery for amnesia?’ It stood to reason, though the mechanical differences for traumatic brain injury and dementia were vastly different. Still, there was hope.

After about an hour, Dr. Strange’s speech concluded and Ingrid packed away her notebook and pencil, her mind still mulling over the possibilities that he had proposed. As this had been the last speaking engagement for the day, a large number of people made their way to the hotel’s restaurant and bar.

She felt a bit sorry for the servers, who had been posted at the hosts’ desk like soldiers ready to rush into battle. They escorted several groups to tables and the noise escalated as menus were set out and drinks poured from glass pitchers reflected the low, golden light. Ingrid herself was content to get a drink at the bar and order room service later to go over her notes and make sure they were actually legible. She had just taken a seat on the soft black leather barstool when there was a small clamor of voices over the restaurant’s generic jazz music as a few people began to spout compliments nearby.

Ingrid turned to see Dr. Strange shaking a few hands as he passed a table of excited colleagues. He thanked them, though Ingrid noticed that his movements seemed stiff and impatient. The doctor passed the table as Ingrid turned back to face the bar. He took the seat next to hers. Not wanting to bother him, she kept her eyes on the drink menu as he reached for his own.

“Well, what did you think?” he asked, glancing at the list of cocktails.

Ingrid looked up. “Me?” she replied.

“Yes, you,” he replied simply, meeting her eyes. “You were taking a lot of notes. I thought you might have some intelligent feedback.”

Ingrid set her menu down and shifted to face him, straightening her navy blue pencil skirt and crossing her ankles. Dr. Strange raised his eyebrows as he waited for her to gather her thoughts. “Frankly, Dr. Strange, psychiatric surgery still has a long way to go before it’s practical, let alone ethical.” His eyes narrowed as he took in a sharp breath between his lips, looking ready for an argument. “However,” she continued before he had a chance, “I do think that it is a possible and even probable treatment in the future. It’s simply a question of how near that future is.”

He nodded, considering her answer. “Well, that is certainly a...diplomatic response.”

She shrugged off his somewhat curt reply. “The dementia treatments are certainly exciting though.”

“You think so?” he asked.

“I do.”

He considered this like he was measuring whether the conversation was worth pursuing. He seemed to deem it worthy of his time, because he asked, “What was your name again?”

“Dr. Ingrid Hansen,” she said, holding out her hand. His large hand enveloped hers in a steady grip.

“Dr. Stephen Strange, but I guess you already knew that,” he replied, keeping his hand on hers. “Can I buy you a drink?”

She smiled and took her hand back, brushing a stray blond hair behind her ear. “I’d like that.”

He signaled the bartender, who came over quickly, having been eyeing them while he waited for them to decide on what they wanted.

“Scotch on the rocks for me,” Dr. Strange said, and then gestured to Ingrid.

“And a Moscato for me, please,” she said. The bartender turned to the back of the bar to fetch their drinks.

“White wine?” he asked, raising a skeptical brow.

“I have a sweet tooth,” she replied simply.

He chuckled. “So, you’re a doctor, you have a sweet tooth, and you are evidently British.”

“I am indeed, though I graduated here in New York,” she explained. The bartender placed their drinks in front of them and left without a word to attend to other patrons.

“And what are you a doctor of?” Dr. Strange asked, taking a sip of his scotch.

“Psychology,” she replied proudly.

The man heaved a sigh as he swallowed. “Of course,” he said with a somewhat disappointed tone.

Ingrid’s eyes narrowed, but she kept the corners of her mouth upturned in a practiced neutral smile. “‘Of course’?” she repeated.

He took another sip before answering. She didn’t break eye contact. “Well, it isn’t that psychology isn’t a worthy pursuit, but psychology is such a soft science it’s about as good as an English degree. I thought you were at least a psychiatrist.”

Her smile slipped from her face as suddenly as a bookshelf collapsing under its own weight. “I beg your pardon, but I am every bit a doctor as I would be if I were a psychiatrist. It’s not like I bought a certificate online,” she snapped.

He held his hands up. “Hey, you don’t need to explain it to me. But I do find it interesting that you were so intent on my speech if you’re not a psychiatrist.”

Ingrid rolled the stem of her glass between her fingers, trying to suppress the indignation that rose up in her chest. “It’s still relevant to my field, Dr. Strange.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” he conceded. Ingrid took a drink, letting the light flavors of the alcohol warm her chest. “So what is it that you do with that degree of yours?”

“Counseling,” she responded shortly.

“What kind?”

“All kinds, but mainly relationship and family counseling.”

He considered this for a moment. “And why the interest in dementia treatment?”

She paused mid-gulp of wine, watching him as his eyes traveled over her face. “Call it a personal interest,” she replied coldly.

“Alright,” he said, rolling his eyes, “no need to be touchy about it.”

Ingrid snorted. “God, you’re arrogant. Do you know that?”

He pursed his lips. “I’ve heard it once or twice. Is that your official diagnosis, Dr. Hansen? Arrogance?” He was baiting her and she knew it.

“No Dr. Strange,” she said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. She took in the sight of him carefully, making note of every small movement he made, the way he presented himself, and how his breathing remained steady despite the conflict. “I cannot officially diagnose you at the moment, of course. Though I might wonder at your ability to maintain a relationship given your clear egocentric attitude.”

His mouth curled into a smirk. “Typical therapist. Non-committal answers and appeals to emotion. If you were a real doctor-”

The remainder of Ingrid’s wine doused his face. Sounds of surprise echoed about the bar area as she set her glass back down on the bar with a scowl and looked back at him with steely eyes. Dr. Strange didn’t say anything. He hardly looked phased as the wine dripped off of his long nose and down his cheeks.

“Thanks for the drink.” Ingrid turned to leave and a few sets of eyes looked between them curiously. Her black heels clicked against the tile as she strode out of the restaurant, fuming. Dr. Strange watched her go, assuring himself that he was not the least bit sorry for what he said as the bartender handed him a cloth napkin.

[argyrocratie]

1. For scholars, I’m always interested if there were formative life experiences which led them to pursue their specific field of study. Were there any events or figures which led you to research collaboration and translation between Japanese and Russian Anarchists?

Your question about life experiences is an interesting one. Our memories of life experiences often lead us unconsciously to (re)examine our world in a particular way. We are usually unable and unwilling to recognize this tendency, so we create narratives that allow us to live within such invented narratives. We tell stories that conveniently makes sense afterward, and which continue to change over time as we ourselves change. Our autobiographical narratives would appear to be the most accurate, but they are possibly the most inaccurate form of narrative. We’re all very good at pretending as if we know what led to what… We’re natural storytellers for our own psychological well-being. I guess our death-bound subjectivity leads to such creativity. So to respond honestly to your question, ‘I do not know’ is probably the most accurate answer.

Having said that, I imagine that my interest in Russia and Japan may have had something to do with my unhappiness with formal schooling in Japan back in the 1980’s when I grew up. I have almost no memories of my school life in Japan – it’s like a big blank in my mind, as if it had never happened, probably because I hated it. It became stronger as elementary school progressed. I still remember clearly when I asked in Year 7, which is when children began studying English as a requirement, why we were studying only one foreign language and why that had to be English. I failed to understand why English language should have so much power over us. The teacher answered that that’s the language required to get into high school. I responded, ‘If I don’t go to high school, then I don’t need to learn it?’ His response was that I was a bad influence on my classmates. I was asked to leave the classroom and stand outside. I got beat up by the teachers and had to stand outside the classroom, but none of this served to help me understand – in fact just the opposite.

I began to realize that the problem was too large to solve in one classroom. Of course I threw away my English texts at the time. My schoolmates came to me with admiration and reverence for what I said and did – they agreed with me — yet they themselves did and changed nothing, fearful of saying anything and doing anything. It was as if nothing happened. The best students academically were the wisest, as they knew how to do well in such a system.

That was the pattern of my everyday school years. So I quit and became a school dropout, drinking by myself in the park from the morning, while my peers were preparing for their exams. My confrontation with modern state education had started much earlier, almost as soon as I was asked to go to school, but I won’t go on about that here. This sort of experience, and countless more, probably influenced how I saw the world, and played a part in what I wrote decades later. I was quite seriously concerned about that country’s future.

My early interest in Esperanto language (not that I studied it then) had something to do with this, for example, in that Esperanto is a kind of linguistic solution to all sorts of discrimination.

My interest in Russia was formed in this same way, because Russia was always so hidden in Japanese education. In Japan they never talked about the Soviet Union in school back then, as if it did not exist, or as if it were something bad and scary to talk about. If English had celebrity status, Russian was the opposite. So I ended up doing my undergraduate education in Russia.

Similarly, the military in Japan is always hidden from public sight and scrutiny. ‘The military does not exist in Japan,’ they used to say. So I became interested in military affairs precisely because of that. Of course, the requirement to study English has a lot to do with a longer and broader global history and, more immediately, Japan’s defeat in the Asia-Pacific war. This intertwining of the hidden presence of the Japanese military with the all pervasiveness of English language probably also had something to do with my becoming a cadet at a military university in the US, where I trained in military affairs while learning Chinese and Russian languages— remnants of the Cold War. This university possessed a highly rated Russian language program, including the best summer Russian program at the time. I ended up representing the US military school in the Russian/Soviet city of Tula, a military industrial complex that had just opened to foreigners the year I came. So I was ‘the first foreigner from the West’ (as Russians used to labeled me then) to enter that city since it was closed during the Soviet period.

Funnily enough, nearby Tula is also the Russian writer Lev Tolstoi’s estate home. I first encountered Tolstoi, who was to become an important part of my book, while I was living in Tula as an undergraduate. But it was not through the front gate of the Tolstoi Museum that I encountered him, but through a back way, when my Russian friends and I went to ‘gulyat’, walk around aimlessly to smoke and joke, to rest, or to swim in the same pond that Tolstoi used to swim in. The water looked filthy, smelly and green, but nevertheless… That was my first real encounter with Tolstoi – imagining him swimming in that pond on the estate neighboring the city that decades later would become a Soviet military industrial complex. When we did go to the Tolstoi house and museum for no particular reason, I did notice that his house had preserved a surprising number of books and letters in Japanese, which made me curious. Also, I realized then that the microbiologist Ilya Mechnikov and other scientists befriended him, despite his embrace of a pastoral, simple life of manual labor. I became curious about these people who were from such different backgrounds and professions, and yet appeared to be networked in multiple ways to one another, directly or indirectly. So yes, my curiosity was there then. But frankly, at that time, just to make my body move was tiring at the end of the Soviet regime. Especially being the first foreigner ‘from the West’ as a first-year undergraduate, without any family or friend connections, with endless shortages of everything, my primary focus was finding food to survive however I could — not scholarship.

Before my university studies, I had also become homeless for a good while in a number of countries. While I slept on the street, I was still holding on to my 9th-year school completion certificate as if that was going to help me. But quite the contrary, the certificate was of no value at all. I didn’t realize it then. While I slept on the street, I had many encounters with other homeless, as well as certain ‘tribes’ of outcastes (whether ethnic, racial, immigrant, social, intellectual or otherwise) in various countries. In the US, some of these ‘teachers’, as I used to consider them, were often the disposable and hurting veterans of America’s various wars. Some of them told me about America’s de-institutionalization policy, which released patients, many of whom were vets, from mental and other hospitals onto the streets. I am not an Americanist or sociologist and have no idea what led to all this homelessness among folks with war injuries in both mind and body. I have no idea if what they told me was true either. This type of experience, nevertheless, also helped lead to my interest in the problem of seeing like a state, not only in Japan, but internationally, creating a global if not transnational ‘underground’ world. On the streets of New Zealand, I encountered people of various ethnic and national backgrounds. I was wanted to learn more about what tied certain Maoris to the Malaysians, and Indians to others underground, with various ethnic and religious backgrounds, who made themselves invisible and escaped such national labels.

Ultimately, while homeless, I started speaking to God without an ‘o’ — not ‘God’ as a historical artifice, in the narrative sense, but Gxd without Being, without church, Bible, preacher, etc. It was just me and Gxd, always and everywhere, in an intimate relationship. I had lost utterance being alone there. I didn’t want to be a part of capitalist modernity (I didn’t call it as such then, it was more like ‘the money-centered empty culture of post-war Japan’ or some such expression I had), but to avoid being part of it had made me homeless. There was no one other than myself to justify my derailment. I felt then that if no one followed me, even if they agreed with me, then at least I should act alone. When you have no one else to talk to on the street, you naturally develop a conversation with Gxd about right and wrong. Without that experience, I probably couldn’t have thought about ‘anarchist religion’, a term that I invented, then discovered in historical reality, as a term to make sense of what was in fact there. Then I had to make sense of the space-time that had necessitated such an idea.

So this might have been an influence on my interests. It probably led me to be curious about the history of thought and practices that overturned the existing culture. My skepticism about any institutionalized knowledge that was in the interest of the state within the rigid departmentalization of modern institutions, and the accompanying politics of knowledge, all made me want to think outside them. Applying that to modern Japanese history many years later has at least partly led me to disclose anarchist modernity as a major cultural and intellectual current in Japan. All this is in hindsight of course. Until you asked me, I hadn’t thought about such links. But my attempt to create new approaches to study the history of modern Japan outside the fold of ‘West’-, Soviet- or Japan-centric historicity to make sense of the intellectual phenomena captured in my book, in hindsight had something to do with some of these ‘life experiences’.

(...)

[sunmoonandspoon]

The Right Gift For Hatori

This is my gift for @truesymphony​ from the LGBTFuruba Network Giving & Receiving Holiday Exchange. I hope you like it!

Summary: Hatori is having trouble getting over losing Kana. Ayame can't stand to see his best friend in crisis over the holidays, so he tries to figure out the perfect gift to bring him out of his slump. And no, the perfect gift is not a bedroom full of glitter balloons, no matter how much Ayame wishes it was.

~`~`~

“Wait wait wait wait wait. We’re getting totally off track. Aya, remember what your goal is. Do you really think that filling Hatori’s bedroom with glitter balloons is going to accomplish that goal?” “But of course, Gure-san! Who wouldn’t be swept away by the majesty of hundreds of twinkling lights? It’ll be like waking up in the Milky Way!” Ayame flips his hair. Shigure leans backwards in his computer chair and sighs. “That’s what you would like. You have to think about it in terms of what he would like. Think it through - is he actually going to appreciate it, or is he just going to be annoyed that his room is filled with garbage that he has to clean up?” “Who could possibly be annoyed by something so beautiful?”

“Aya, answer my question.” Shigure runs his fingers through his hair. “Which one?” Ayame bats his eyelashes. “What is your goal?” “To help Tori-san have a nice holiday even though he’s depressed about losing Kana?” “A noble goal indeed - but not one that glitter balloons will accomplish. If you make plans with yourself in mind, you’ll only burden him.” Ayame sniffs. “I guess you know him better than I do, then?” “Yes, I do. Not because we’re closer - I’m pretty sure he likes you better than he likes me. But Aya, I know everyone better than you do. I probably know you better than you do.” “You do not!” “Yes, I do. Case in point, I knew that you weren’t going to think about what Hatori would want while you were planning this, so I took the liberty of compiling some suggestions for you.” “That’s not knowing me better than I know myself, that’s predicting my behavior. I also knew that about me, Gure-san.” He flops down dramatically onto Shigure’s bed. “What are those suggestions?” Shigure pulls a spiral notebook out from his desk drawer, and hands it over. Ayame clutches it to his chest. “I’ll leave the rest to you,” says Shigure. “Just remember that the goal isn’t to tire him, but to relax him.” ~`~`~As he waits at the bus stop near Shigure’s house, Ayame flips through the notebook. The thin, slippery pages are difficult to turn, and the contents aren’t easy to deal with, either.None of Shigure’s ideas have any pizzazz, so it’s hard for Ayame to get excited about them. Bringing him dinner at home and then leaving would be a lot more interesting as a trip to that fancy restaurant that just opened up where the employees and patrons dress like Victorian nobles, and a gift certificate to a local spa would be much better as a trip to Hawaii. With his beloved Hatori so depressed, all Ayame wants to spoil him. He has the funds to drown him in seasonal goodness, so why should he be limited? Isn’t the best way to shake somebody out of a funk to get them to go out and experience life?But Shigure isn’t wrong. While Hatori would look delicious in regency dress, he would find it trivial and irritating at the best of times. Right now, when he’s mired in grief and wracked with eye pain, is not the best of times. And while a trip abroad sounds like a great way to relax to Ayame, for Hatori there are far too many questions to consider. Who will care for his patients while he’s gone, how will Akito react to a defection? Hatori would be too stressed out to enjoy the trip. What, then, can Ayame do for Hatori? He loves him more than almost anybody in the world, and while he can’t change the trauma he just endured, he can at least ease the pain. But not if he doesn’t consider Hatori’s needs. As Ayame steps onto the bus and sits down, he realizes something else: Shigure isn’t entirely right, either. Yes, Hatori needs something relaxing that won’t trouble him, but he also needs something that will sufficiently distract him. Dinner at home + leave him alone = opportunities to mope. Hatori needs to keep his brain active so he won’t ruminate on how he would have spent Christmas with Kana.Ayame looks out the window, scanning the shops they pass. He sees nothing that piques his interest until a woman darts across the street with a pair of red ice skates slung across her back. He leaps up, white hair flying wildly around him, and darts off the bus at the next stop. To go through with his plan, he’ll need the bus in the other direction.~`~`~“Gure-san, prepare to be amazed! I found the perfect gift for our beloved Hatori.”  He presents his gift with a flourish, smiling as hard as his lips will allow. The gift, which is displayed on Ayame’s worktable at the back of his store, is a pair of ice skates - but not just any ice skates. Ayame had purchased a plain but well-made pair from a local shop, and had taken them home for some modification. Knowing that Hatori doesn’t like flashy things, he’d added some simple designs. Both skates were periwinkle blue. On the left skate, Ayame had engraved a group of seahorses, and on the right skate he’d created a dragon. The designs were highlighted with cobalt and navy inlays, and the white laces were replaced with colors that matched. “Besides the skates, I bought him a seasonal pass to the local skating rink,” says Ayame proudly. “These are beautiful - you did the designs yourself?” Shigure picks up the Dragon skate and examines it. “I wasn’t blessed with artistic brilliance to keep it to myself, was I?” “I cannot imagine a universe in which you would keep your brilliance to yourself.” Shigure laughs, then turns serious. “Has Hatori ever even been ice skating before? I remember you and I going out skating when we were kids, but he always turned us down in favor of studying.” “Exactly! He’s been under an obscene amount of pressure for his entire life. First he had to dedicate every moment to becoming a doctor, then he had to actually be a doctor, and once he finally finds somebody that brings him genuine joy, he has to give her up.” There’s physical pressure building behind Ayame’s eyes, and pretty soon it’s spilling out in the form of tears. He hopes that they’re sparkling and that he looks elegant, but he has a feeling that his face just looks puffy and damp. “I just want him to be happy,” Ayame says, threading his fingers together. “Ice skating is something fun that he’d never choose to do on his own, but it isn’t something that he’d find troublesome or ridiculous. Also, it’ll force him to get out of the house and do something. He needs a distraction, don’t you think?” “Yeah, I do. You might get a little resistance, but I think this is a thoughtful gift.” Shigure ties the laces into neat little bows, and places them inside the skates. With a grin, he says, “I’m sure what you’re getting me will be equally thoughtful?” With a booming laugh that swallows his tears, Ayama says, “Gure-san, I’ll be giving you my body, of course!” “Ah, of course. The greatest gift you could possibly give me.” ~`~`~Though buoyed by Shigure’s affirmation, Ayame is still nervous about giving Hatori his gift. Since Akito blinded Hatori and forced the end of his relationship with Kana, Ayame has barely seen him. Aside from his job, which apparently cannot be paused for any amount of time, Hatori has been alone in his house, not doing much of anything. Once, Ayame invited himself over, and found Hatori laying in bed surrounded by empty bottles of beer. He hadn’t wanted help cleaning up, and he hadn’t been happy about what he said was an intrusion. Ayame is used to rejection - he gets it all the time from his brother, and his mother too. It stings, but he never lets it stop him from doing what he knows is right for the people he loves. Not if there’s a chance that he could surprise and delight them. But it does sting. Ayame knows that he’s often seen as ‘too much’ by the more subdued people in his life, and he doesn’t want to be ‘too much’ for Hatori. He wants to be exactly the right amount. If Hatori shuts the door in his face, he’ll smile through it, but he will be hurt. How could he not be when he loves him so much? When Ayame dresses up in a sparkly outfit and threads tinsel through his hair and heads to Hatori’s house with his gift in tow, he knows he’s risking psychic injury. He does it anyway.Hatori opens the door after Ayame knocks three times and calls his name. His face is unshaven, and his visible eye is ringed and bloodshot. The other one is heavily bandaged. He’s wearing plaid pajama pants and a white t-shirt with the logo of his medical school emblazoned on the front. It is one of the only t-shirts he owns - usually, Hatori favors a more formal style. After taking a deep breath, Ayame puts on his most dazzling smile. He says, “Greetings, Tori-san! It is I, your very best friend in the whole wide world! I have come bearing the glad tidings of the season!” He holds out the skates, which are packaged in a blue carrying case and wrapped in sparkly silver paper. “Oh,” says Hatori, rubbing his injured eye on the heel of his hand. “Right - it’s almost Christmas, isn’t it. I haven’t been keeping track of time. I didn’t get you anything.” “That’s perfectly all right! I know that this has been a trying time for you. I don’t need anything from you except for you to open my gift.” “I can do that,” says Hatori, his voice deflated. “Do you want tea or coffee or something?” Ayame isn’t in the mood for a drink, but he agrees to tea on the grounds that it will give him an excuse to spend a little more time with Hatori. He walks into the living room, which is littered with used tissues, dirty clothes, and, once again, empty beer bottles. He clearly hasn’t cleaned at all since the last time Ayame was here, and he hasn’t been letting servants in, either.While Hatori fixes the tea, Ayame collects the garbage into a plastic bag, and puts the clothing in Hatori’s laundry hamper. Once he’s finished, he sits down on the couch.“You cleaned up,” Hatori says, handing Ayame his tea. It smells like peach matcha, one of his favorite flavors. “Of course I did,” says Ayame. “I know you like to keep a clean house.” “I would have cleaned up myself, if I knew you were coming.” Hatori crumples onto the couch. “I’m not judging you, Tori-san.” Ayame sighs. “I know what you’re going through. I just want to help, that’s all.” After a tense moment in which neither one of them says anything, Ayame hands Hatori the present. He opens it carefully, making sure not to tear any of the wrapping paper. After unzipping the carrying case, he pulls out the skates and looks them over, his expression utterly blank. “Do you like them?” asks Ayame, his heart in his throat. “Of course you do, how could you not? They’re exquisitely designed by none other than yours truly!” “They’re very nice,” says Hatori, turning them over in his hands. “I’m not sure how much use I’ll have for them, but I appreciate the artistry. Thank you for thinking of me.” “Oh, but you will have use for them. Look at the card.” The card, which is hand painted and dotted with gold and silver leafing, contains the season pass to the skating rink. Hatori squints at it. “You can go whenever you want until the rink closes in the spring,” says Ayame. “I’d be happy to accompany you whenever you’d like, but if you’d rather go alone, that’s fine too.” “Hmm,” Hatori says, zipping the skates back into the bag. “I appreciate the effort, but I really don’t have the time for something like that right now. Maybe you should give this all to someone else who will be able to use them.” “Who else would I give dragon skate to? No, Tori-san, I’m giving them to you. You don’t have to use them right now or even think about it, but I want you to have that option. You need to get out of the house and do something fun, and I think you’d like skating if you gave it a chance.” “I don’t even know how to skate.” Hatori takes a sip of his own tea. “I’m more than happy to teach you!” “This time of year is extremely busy - everyone gets sick at least once, and I have to deal with. I don’t have time to skate.” “But you have time to lay around your apartment and drink?” As soon as he says it, he wishes he hadn’t. Obviously that’s taking things much too far. Hatori will be angry, and the whole endeavor will have been a waste.But Hatori doesn’t react with anger. Instead, he says with a sigh that Ayame is right. “I haven’t been handling the whole Kana thing especially well,” he says. “If one of my patients were acting the way I am, I wouldn’t allow it to continue. I’d probably want them doing something active on top of a whole lot of other lifestyle modifications. I should have the same standards for myself.” “That’s the spirit!” says Ayame, pumping his fist into the air. Then, quieting down, he says, “I know this isn’t easy. I just want what’s best for you, that’s all.” Hatori unzips the bag and takes the skate with the dragon on it out. “This is beautiful. The least that I can do to thank you is go skating.” ~`~`~ Even though Ayame wants the alone time with Hatori, he invites Shigure as a matter of course. Shigure says that he has an upcoming deadline and declines. This is almost certainly not true, but Ayame doesn’t question it.Instead of pajama pants, Hatori is dressed in his usual suit and coat. He’s also shaved his face and combed his hair. It’s nothing like Ayame’s outfit, which is a sparkling turquoise bodysuit, but Ayame never expected Hatori to wear something like that anyway. All Ayame wants is for Hatori to look life himself. Aside from the eye bandage he does, and for that Ayame couldn’t be happier. “I know I look like a professional, but I’m not actually any good at ice skating,” says Ayame, laughing into the back of his hand. “I thought you said you’d be able to teach me?” Hatori steps onto the rink, gripping the walls with both gloved hands.  “Of, of course I know the basics! It’s actually quite simple - all you have to do is put one foot forward, glide on it, then catch yourself and do the same thing with the other foot.” Ayame steps onto the rink and demonstrates. He tries to brake and fails, so he stops himself by grabbing the wall. “You’re supposed to be able to stop by turning your foot sideways, but if that doesn’t work, you can just do what I did.” Hatori doesn’t reply, but steps onto the ice and glides forward. When he tilts his head to the side, Ayame can see the hint of a smile pricking at his lips. “You’ve got it!” Ayame yelps, skating over to his friend and linking arms with him. “Keep this up, and you’ll be an Olympic champion in no time.” 

[tmorriscode]

Safe With Me

(Charlie Weasley X Fem!MC)

I base all my imagines on my own MC, an Actual Human Disaster/Retired Apprentice Curse-Breaker/Archaeology Student. You can read the others here. 

—

You don’t expect to see Charlie waiting for you outside your class. Your separate assignments for The Order keep you busy.

He’s networking with foreign wizards on Dumbledore’s behalf when he’s not at the dragon reserve. And you’re carrying messages for The Order while posing as a muggle as you finish up your first degree.

Which you just finished, thank Merlin! Cultural Anthropology kicked your arse this term, but you think you barely scraped out a passing grade on the final. Now all you want to do is face-plant in your bed and not think about your summer dig until after they send your sheepskin.

As you near, you can see that Charlie’s face is grim: pale under his freckles and mouth set in a hard line. His blue eyes are cold like Ice as he scans the faces of your fellow classmates. One hand is inside his coat where his wand is no doubt hidden.

Remembering how fake Mad-Eye Moody fooled everyone, you ask him: “What’s my specialty?”

“Making things bigger,” He says without hesitation. Most wizards say it’s Lumos, considering all the time you spent tutoring the firsties in that spell. But your friends are the ones who passed their time with you and your magically enlarged butterbeer.

Everything about Charlie screams “danger” and “protect” and “fight.” He takes your hand and pulls you away, into an alcove where you can talk uninterrupted.

“Death eaters attacked Hogwarts!” He whispers in your ear.

You gasp. “How?”

“Someone let them in past the wards,” Charlie says. He hesitates, and you can see in his eyes that there is more.

You’re almost afraid to know.

“Dumbledore,” Charlie says. “Snape killed him.”

Your knees go weak as you remember the kindly professor with the sly look in his eye.

If not for Charlie’s hand on your arm, you might fall.

“Steady on,” he murmurs to you as if calming one of his great, scaly beasts.

“Snape?” You say in disbelief. “Dumbledore said he was loyal.”

“He was wrong,” Charlie snaps.

While you process this, he leads you away. He continues to toss out random news as he tows you back to your flat. Bill was attacked by a werewolf! But the healers say that he got away with just scars. (You’re relieved, then sick that you’re relieved). Hagrid’s hut was burned and the great hall destroyed.

It’s all too much to take in at once. You feel like your brain is wrapped in wool.

Once inside your flat, you sit at the counter and stare at Charlie while he fixes you a coffee. Then he reaches for the flask of firewhisky he knows you keep under the sink where your muggle study partners won’t find it. He puts a healthy belt in your cup and hands it to you.

You drink without comment, the liquid burning all the way down and making steam spew from your ears. It drives away the miasma blanketing your brain and helps you think clearly once more.

“You’re done with your classes, right?” He asks. “That was the last one?”

It still takes a minute for your brain to get back up to speed. “Yes?”

Charlie nods, as if he’s made up his mind about something. “Then you’re coming to live with me.”

“Yeahbuwa?” Where did that mental leap come from? Dumbledore is murdered therefore (Y/N) should live with Charlie? Does not compute.

Then he gets down on his knees to look up into your face. It looks like he’s about to propose marriage. Which . . . no. Just . . . No. You love him, but marriage isn’t high on either of your list of priorities. And a war with you-know-who shouldn’t change that.

“Charlie Weasley, If you have a ring on your person, I’m going to punch you!”

He looks at himself, and realizes how this seems. “I promise, no rings. But hear me out.”

He moves to the next stool and adopts a more neutral posture. “You were coming to Bucharest anyway in the fall after Bill’s wedding. I’ve been thinking that you shouldn’t bother letting a flat. You can save money if you stay on the reserve and apparate to your classes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything before now?” You ask.

Charlie shrugs. “I thought I could bring it up over summer. Before you leave for the Carpathian dig.”

“You live in a tent with a bunch of flying nope ropes.” It’s a very nice tent. Mongols on the steppes probably don’t have tents this nice. But it’s still a tent without so much as a computer terminal, much less internet access.

You already live out of a muggle dome tent for three to six months when you’re on digs. You’re not sure you’re ready to make the leap to full-time tenting. Even if it is the fancy wizard version.

“Up until we joined The Order, you practically lived there with me and the nope ropes, luv.” He smirks at you. Which? Point for the Dragon Boy.

You haven’t said no, so he presses his case.

“The reserve is secure from dark wizards. All of the other keepers know you: You help out often enough that you could’ve earned a junior keeper’s certificate by now if you wanted. And . . .” he tilts his head to pin you with a serious look. “You won’t be in England.

“The death eaters have been getting bolder, (Y/N). And now Dumbledore is gone. Dad figures it’s only a matter of time before they make a play for the ministry.

“Everyone remembers you from the cursed vaults. Rita Skeeter was practically drooling over the idea of gutting you in the Prophet the year you opened the second one. Since then, people‘ve noticed that you’re attending muggle uni. You’ve got a target on your back, luv. And I want you safe with me.”

It’s a good speech. You wonder how long he’s rehearsed it.

You can’t really argue when he’s talking sense. Moving now won’t really disrupt your plans, and it would keep you safely beyond the reach of random dark wizards looking for easy targets.

You’re glad Jacob isn’t in the country at the moment (though you have no idea what mad adventure he’s dragged Angelica into).

“We’ll have to find a way for me to check my e-mail,” you grumble.

“I’m sure your new Uni will have computers,” Charlie grins at you. He’s probably giving himself a mental fist pump. Then he openes your magically extended haversack and puts it on the floor. “Would you rather shrink and levitate your things, or arrange them?”

“I’ll arrange them,” you say as you climb down into the bag. “Leave the phone for last. If we get hungry, you can call for takeaway.”

It’s not as organized a move as you would like. All too soon you’ll have to go back for Dumbledore’s funeral.

But by midnight that night, you are sleeping double on a camp bed in Romania with Charlie wrapped around you like another blanket. It’ll never be perfect, but then again, what is? All things considered, you’re happy.

—

A/N: I love the contrast of the two pictures in the title. Charlie is all bundled up for another cold day of basically being Hiccup and MC is all sunny and warm from out Indiana Jonesing it up. Yet It seems like they are both thinking about one another right at the same moment.

[toknowyoumore]

spoiler: it was a terrible idea... but i feel good

I’m gonna try a little something, and this could either be a kinda good or absolutely terrible idea. I need to write something important, but I’m not in a writing mood right now, at least for the topics I need to write about. But I know I’m at least a decent writer when it comes to things I do like writing about. That’s why I’m going to drink a fair amount of alcohol to get my creative juices flowing - and also to get me to sleep earlier than 5 am. I’m probably gonna take this down once I submit the actual thing.

Jameson and Canada Dry on the rocks pls glub glub glub

Okay, let’s start.

Growing up with a single mother wasn’t the easiest thing, especially when I heard her screams of pain in the early morning when I was in fifth grade. My mother was diagnosed with breast and brain cancer. Though I didn’t know at the time, my parents were separated. But I still remember the first time walking into the hospital with my dad and seeing Mom on the hospital bed. I remember her stopping midway during our conversation because she lost the ability to breathe. I remember not being in a panic but rather in confusion when my dad told me to go out and get a nurse to help immediately. And in about a minute, a nurse saw a 11-year-old child asking for help for his mom who wasn’t breathing. I remember seeing my mother in the room again afterwards - except now with some sort of breathing machine. I know now that that machine is called a ventilator.

Living was confusing after that. I didn’t know how to feel. I remember being scared at some points but not deathly afraid. I didn’t entertain the thought of Mom passing because the thought just wasn’t real to me. (Spoiler alert, she didn’t, and she’s still in top condition today despite a number of tumors throughout the years. I promise this won’t be a sappy story.) Or maybe I just didn’t correctly process my thoughts and emotions. Was there even a correct way? Maybe all of this just led to me becoming who I am now?

Fourth wall break - okay, so this was a terrible idea. I’m going so off track, and this whole thing was supposed to highlight my good side, but screw it, I’m gonna keep going with this and see where it leads. Before we continue, another glass pls glub glub glub thank you - fourth wall unbreak.

The purpose of me writing that story was to talk about a childhood experience and an example of how I overcame adversity. But now that I’ve arrived to this part of the page, I can’t really think of how I really overcame adversity here. Sure, I got through a hardship that would be difficult for any child, but I don’t remember ever being in deep anguish. In normal terms, this experience would make one more aware of the tribulations in the world and ultimately become more human. But somehow - thinking back to this moment - I’m being hit from all directions with, “It made you less human.” A human would typically mourn from this. I really didn’t, or at least I don’t think I did.

I got lazy. My grandmother took care of me at that point, but she didn’t force me to go to school. I almost had to repeat fifth grade because I had so many absences.

If someone wrote about this experience in their college essay, you may see something like, “From this, I took responsibility and started taking care of myself, building my time management skills and independence.” Nope, none of that here. I was an 11-year-old only child with a grandmother who struggled to walk up the stairs.

I barely had any actual friends in my elementary school, middle school, and most of high school. By “actual friends,” I mean people who I’d talk or chill with out of school. My only community really was my church. Even though we don’t see each other now as often or we’ve drifted apart, something special still resides in those bonds. Despite how I feel about the church and Christianity now, I know for a fact that the friends I had there made my life worthwhile. It’s what made me more human. It’s what got me through adversity.

It’s not about what I did that lifted me up. There wasn’t some switch that I just activated by myself in my brain that suddenly pushed me to take responsibility, start caring for my family, and being a decent person. It wasn’t me; it was my friends. I would always be inspired by them - their words, their actions, even their humor. I wanted to be like them. And over time, I think I changed for the better. And even today, I’ve been making it a goal - maybe even my top goal - to be a decent human being to others.

Fast forward to senior year of high school, when I’m applying to colleges. The common motif of myself and everybody on the planet - say it with me now, “I want to help people.” Who doesn’t? But how? The medical field was something that, to be honest, never really held my interest much back in high school. Some elements of being a medical doctor were appealing to me, though I just wasn’t very gung-ho about the entire thing. I apply to a local university as a safety because I know all my friends were going there, and in my back of my mind, I knew I was too. The local university allows me to apply to multiple schools of varying professions within itself. I apply to its pharmacy school on a whim. I get wait-listed. I then get accepted. My senior year crush decides to go to the same school. And before life offered me the pros and cons, I was a pharmacy student.

There is one big con I should mention though: I knew nothing about pharmacy. I didn’t care a lick about it. No one in my family is a pharmacist. I didn’t really have a “want” to do it. There was no reason for me to pursue it. The only reason I did have was that I could drop out of the program in two years if I didn’t like it without any repercussions. It was strategically sound.

Two years later, I still wasn’t sure about my decision. But just like the last two years flew by, the next one did. And then the next one. And then the next after that. There was never any love for pharmacy. It was, “study for this exam, take the exam, study for that exam, take that exam, memorize a script for this practical, ace the practical, start joining pharmacy organizations, don’t attend the meetings.” My interests during college were elsewhere. They were in leading worship, learning how to help people with depression, and hanging out with my friends, which were all amazing things. But pharmacy still had little room for passion in my life.

Then one year ago, in January 2018, things started to change. It was my last semester taking classes and exams. My rotation schedule for the next year was arranged. Pharmacy was suddenly starting to become much realer to me. Internal medicine, cardiology, emergency department, transitions of care - it was a lot. But for the first time, it didn’t feel like a drag. Rather, it felt like something I knew I had to do, however daunting it initially felt. And I wanted to excel at it. I asked early for extra projects. I went to networking events, which I never even thought about going to. I did things that were outside of my original scope of simply getting a pharmacy degree. I interviewed for a volunteer position at a clinic, where only two students would get accepted, and got it. I attended a class and got certified for mental health first aid, which literally no one told me to do. I quit my job at CVS. I borrowed a book from a local library to study for a certification exam, which I passed, to help me get a job elsewhere. I applied for jobs, which I didn’t get. I asked on a whim to shadow one of my professors at a behavioral health facility for a day and ended up with another research project on my hands to work on over the weekends. That semester was also the first time I was actually looking forward to a class - two to be exact: “Neuropsychiatric Therapeutics” and “Concepts in Psychiatric Pharmacotherapy.” My interests in mental health and pharmacy were colliding.

To this day, I still don’t know what happened. Maybe it was the rush of sweet change that got me working harder. Or maybe it was the “real world” that was finally looming over the horizon, and I wanted to quickly pack some stuff into my resume. Surely, there were some moments in that semester that I faked passion for pharmacy for the sake of making myself look better. But all of a sudden, pharmacy was starting to become more than just something that consumed my life every day with notes and exams. And for some bizarre reason, I was beginning to enjoy it. 

There was no one who turned on my switch, no one who told me to take initiative - yet I was acting as if some sort of external force was pushing me to take leaps as a student. But there wasn’t.

My interests were finally lining up with what I was studying for about five years, and I was starting to take things into my hands to make it that way even more. Yes, that is why I was, at last, beginning to take hold a new passion for a profession that I never thought of myself being in. The interest in helping people, in being a decent human being, that I’ve built over the years because of my friends, my church - they were becoming tangible. There was no need for someone to flip a switch in my head. Something like this didn’t really need one.

And that’s what I’m hoping I could do. Whether that’d be now as a student or in the future as a pharmacist, I want to inspire others the same way that my friends inspired me in my past, to fuel people’s interests and motivations that they may not even know they have. The truth is, you’re helping people all the time. You don’t just have to be counseling them on a medication. And you don’t just have to be giving them a vaccination. You help people in your everyday actions and conversations. Every word of encouragement, every piece of advice, every lighthearted joke has a way of changing one’s life for the better. And as for yourself, you become a little bit closer to becoming that “decent human being.” Pharmacy is just one path - the path that I’ve taken - to help me to reach that goal.

There are still some things I fake, of course. Besides, I don’t know if this road ahead for me is the best one. But writing all this out - it’s clear I’ve come a long way already. And I know that even if this path doesn’t necessarily work, I’ll still probably learn something. Hopefully, at least. 

Not the most horrible idea. But it’s still terrible because this goes so off-track about the topics I’m supposed to write for my real thing. Nevertheless, I feel pretty good about what I wrote. Also, it’s 5 am. The alcohol didn’t help with that at all.

[talabib]

The Paths To Financial Independence And Wealth

Fear of society’s disapproval prevents us from leaving the “rat race” and growing wealthy.Most of us know what the phrase rat race refers to, but if asked, how would we define it? 

One definition is “The endless routine of working for everyone but yourself.” This means you do all the work, while others – the government, bill collectors and your bosses – take the majority of the reward. 

We usually talk about the rat race as something we’re all a part of. At the same time, we also talk about it as something we hate. So why do we keep racing? 

Because most people’s lives are dominated by their fear of society’s disapproval.. For example, consider the mantra “Go to school, study hard, get a good job.”  

We still teach this mantra, even though it’s outdated advice founded on the ideas of our parent’s past. Back then, you were likely to land a job right out of college, work for the same company for decades, and retire with a cushy pension. Today, this is no longer a guaranteed recipe for a life free of financial struggles or poverty. 

The truth is that you can study hard, get into a good school and graduate into a high-paying job without ever seeing financial growth, because you’re still stuck in the “rat race.” Your bosses – not you – are getting rich from all your hard work. 

Nevertheless, we still believe in and follow the above mantra out of fear of violating the expectations that have been drilled into us since birth. The result? We may be avoiding poverty, but we’re certainly not growing any wealthier. 

Fear and greed can drive financially ignorant people to make irrational decisions. 

When it comes to money, everyone – wealthy or not – experiences two basic emotions: greed and fear. If you have money, you are likely to focus on all the new things it can buy (greed). If you don’t have it, you worry you might never have enough (fear). 

People who are ignorant about how to manage their finances are especially prone to letting these emotions drive their decision-making. 

For example, let's say you just received a promotion and a hefty pay raise. You could invest the extra money into something like stocks or bonds, which would earn you money over time, or you could gratify yourself with new purchases, like a car or house. 

If you’re a financially ignorant person, this is where emotion takes the wheel. The fear of losing money is so powerful it prevents you from investing in stocks or other assets because of the perceived risks, even though such investments would bring you wealth in the long-term. 

At the same time, greed inspires you to spend your increased salary on a better lifestyle, for example by buying a bigger house, which seems a much more real and safer option than buying shares in a company. 

However, this upgrade also means a bigger mortgage and higher utility bills, which effectively negates your raise. This is how fear and greed hinder the financially ignorant from becoming wealthy in the long term. 

So how can you counter these powerful emotions? By building up your financial knowledge about things like investments, risk and debt. This will place you in a better position to make rational decisions – even in the face of greed and fear.  

Despite being vital for both personal and societal prosperity, we receive no training in financial intelligence. 

Most people think that to become rich, it’s enough to be talented and capable. But in fact, the world is full of such people, and most of them are poor. What they are missing is financial intelligence, a comprehensive aptitude for financial subjects like accounting, investing and so forth. 

Unfortunately, we’re raised without this intelligence. Our school systems are set up to train people in a variety of useful subjects, but financial intelligence is not one of them. 

Children aren’t taught about subjects like saving or investing, and as a consequence are clueless about topics like compound interest – as clearly evidenced by the fact that, today, even high schoolers often max out their credit cards. 

This lack of training in financial intelligence is a problem not only for today’s youth but also for highly educated adults, many of whom make poor decisions with their money. 

For example, politicians are generally regarded as the brightest, most well-educated people in a society, but there’s a reason why countries end up in staggering national debt: most of the governing politicians have little or no financial intelligence. 

Ordinary people, too, can be astonishingly bad at handling their money matters, as evidenced by their lack of retirement planning. For instance, in the United States 50 percent of the workforce are without pensions and, of the rest, nearly 75 to 80 percent have ineffective pensions. 

Clearly, society has left us poorly equipped in terms of financial knowledge, and so it is up to the individual to educate him- or herself. 

When we find ourselves seeking wealth in times of great economical change, it becomes even more necessary to independently pursue a good financial education. 

Financial self-education and a realistic appraisal of your finances are the building blocks of growing wealthy. 

You can start the journey toward personal wealth at any point in your life, but the earlier you get going the better – if you begin at 20, you’re far more likely to become rich than if you begin at 30. 

Regardless of age, the best way to get started is by appraising your finances, setting yourself goals, and then acquiring the education necessary to reach them. 

First, take an honest look at your current financial state. With your current job, what kind of income can you realistically expect now and in the future, and what kind of expenses can you sustainably handle? You may find, for example, that the new Mercedes you’ve been drooling over simply isn’t affordable. 

After this, you’ll be able to set realistic financial goals. You could say, for example, that you want that Mercedes to be within your reach in five years’ time. 

The next step is to then start building your financial intelligence. Consider this an investment into the greatest asset available to you: your mind. 

You can do this in any number of ways, but one good approach is to shift focus: work for what you learn, not what you earn. 

For example, if you’re afraid of rejection, try a short spell working for a network marketing company. While you might not get an amazing salary, you’ll gain a lot of sales skills and self-confidence, which will be very useful in the future. 

You can also improve your finance education in your spare time. Enroll in finance classes and seminars, read books on the topic, and try to network with experts. 

If you base your financial foundation on these building blocks, there’s a good chance you’ll become wealthy one day. 

To become wealthy, you must learn to take risks. 

Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By this logic, if you’re looking to change your current financial state, you’ll need to start handling your finances differently. 

The biggest change you most likely need to make is learning to take risks. All financially successful people have taken risks to get where they are, and they are successful because they manage rather than fear these risks. 

Taking risks means not always being balanced and safe with your money, which is what you’re doing when you put it in basic checking and savings accounts at the bank. 

Instead of playing it safe, try investing your money in stocks or bonds. While these are considered more risky than typical bank accounts, they have the chance of generating much, much more wealth – sometimes (as with stocks) in a very short period of time. 

Or, if you don’t want to commit yourself to the stock market, there are a variety of other investments that will help grow your wealth in the long run, like real estate or so-called tax lien certificates. With tax lien certificates, interest rates range between 8 percent and 30 percent. 

Of course, the higher the potential for return, the higher the risk. With stocks, for example, there’s always the slight chance you could lose your entire investment. But if you don’t take the risk in the first place, you’re guaranteed not to make any big returns. 

So you see that taking those bigger chances and handling the bigger risks they present is necessary in order to start making a bigger income. 

The road to wealth is long, so you must keep yourself motivated. 

The journey to wealth is long and trying. It’s easy to lose heart when you hit a hurdle such as seeing the price of a stock you invested in suddenly tumble. In order to achieve your financial goals, you’ll need to find ways to stay motivated even in the face of setbacks. 

One method to boost motivation is to create a list of “wants” and “don’t wants” for your personal reference. For example: "I do not want to end up like my parents" and "I want to be free of my debts within three years." 

Pull out these lists any time you need a reminder of why you must persevere on your journey to wealth. Another good way to stay motivated is to spend money on yourself before paying your bills. 

Though somewhat counterintuitive, this way you’ll see exactly how much extra money you need each month to satisfy both of your objectives: fulfilling desires like buying that vintage guitar you’ve had your eye on, and meeting your bill collectors’ demands. 

This doesn't mean you should rack up lots of credit card debt, but do keep “paying” yourself first; the extra pressure of paying off your bills afterward will inspire you to find creative ways to make enough money to satisfy both. 

This method will also sharpen and develop your financial self-discipline, which is a key trait of all financially successful people. 

For outside inspiration, research the life stories of wealthy people like Warren Buffett. Reading about how they overcame struggles to achieve triumphs will help keep you ambitious

Put these tips into practice and you’ll be sure to find that staying motivated on the road to wealth isn’t that difficult. 

Laziness and arrogance can drive even financially knowledgeable people to poverty. 

Even after strengthening your financial intelligence, personality pitfalls may still threaten you and your money. 

Laziness and arrogance are two such pitfalls, because they can work against you in less-than-obvious ways. 

We often think of laziness as slouching around and doing nothing, but in fact laziness does not necessarily mean inactivity; it can also be avoiding things that should be done. 

For example, imagine a businessman who works over 60 hours a week. To the outside observer, he is not lazy at all. However, by working such late nights, he has alienated his family. He has already seen the signs of trouble at home, but, rather than addressing them, he buries himself in work. In short, he is being lazy: he is avoiding what he should be doing, and will likely suffer the consequences in the form of a costly divorce. 

Similarly, arrogance can be a devastating weakness. Contrary to the usual definition, in the case of financial ruin it can be defined as “ignorance plus ego”; a combination of poor financial knowledge and an ego too proud to admit it. 

Arrogance is a particularly dangerous flaw when you make investments. For example, some stock-brokers will try to feed the arrogant side of you to sell you more shares and maximize their own commission. They’re like dishonest used-car salesmen; they boost your ego with the positives of an investment while keeping you ignorant about its negatives. 

So even if you become a financial genius, keep these personality pitfalls in check. This way, you are much more likely to avoid financial ruin. 

Only invest in assets, which put money in your pocket; and avoid liabilities, which take money out. 

Knowing the difference between an asset and a liability is necessary to ensure you’re making strong investment decisions. 

Quite simply, an asset is something that makes you money, while a liability costs you money. Clearly, then, it’s more likely you’ll become wealthy if you mostly invest in assets. 

Assets include businesses, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, income-generating real estate, IOU notes, royalties from intellectual property, and anything else with value that produces income, appreciates over time, and can be sold readily. 

When you invest in assets, your dollars become employees working to create income for you. The more “employees” you commit, the better. The goal is to get your income as high above your expenses as possible, and then to reinvest the excess income into your assets, employing even more dollars to work for you. 

Unfortunately, many investors continually mistake certain liabilities for assets.  For example, a house is often considered an asset, but it’s actually one of the biggest liabilities you can have. Buying a house often means working your entire life to pay off a 30-year mortgage and property taxes. 

This works against you in two ways: First, you’re guaranteed to have a massive expense taken away from your income every month (a tell-tale sign of a liability) for the next 360 months. Second, those 360 payments could have been invested in potentially more lucrative assets, like stocks or real estate you rent to tenants. 

Ensuring that you know the difference between an asset and a liability means you’ll be able to soundly judge what to invest your money in and what to avoid. 

Your profession pays the bills, but your business is what will make you wealthy. 

Most people consider their profession and their business to be one and the same thing. When it comes to personal finances, though, there’s a difference: 

Your profession is whatever you do 40 hours a week to pay the bills, buy groceries, and cover other living costs. Usually, it gives you a specific title such as “restaurant owner ”or “salesman.” 

Your business, on the other hand, is what you invest time and money in to help grow your assets. Because a profession only covers your expenses, it’s unlikely that this alone will make you wealthy. To achieve wealth, you must build a business while working at your profession. 

Take, for example, a chef who’s gone to culinary arts school and knows all the tricks of the trade. Although her profession – cooking – provides enough money to pay rent and feed her family, she’s still not growing wealthy. 

So she invests in a business: real estate. Whatever extra money she has each month, she puts towards buying income-producing assets – apartments and condos she can rent to tenants. 

Alternatively, consider a car salesman who invests each month’s leftover income into stock trading. 

In both cases, the professions provided enough income to survive on a monthly basis. However, by putting their extra income into their businesses, these people are also growing their assets and making strides toward wealth. 

Your profession often funds your business initially; therefore, it’s wise to keep your day job until your business starts to show sustainable growth. When that starts to happen, your assets – and not your profession – become your main source of income. 

 And that, indeed, is the sign of true financial independence. 

Understand the tax code to help you minimize your taxes. 

Everyone knows that taxes detract from personal wealth, but most people don’t bother to find out how they can minimize the taxes they pay. There are many ways this can be legally achieved. 

One way to reduce taxation is to invest your money through the coverage of a corporation. If you invest through your own corporation, the money you make is taxed much more leniently than if you invest in your own name. 

In the United States, corporations come with other benefits, too. For example, debts and liabilities are placed in the corporation’s, not the owner’s, name, which insures against limited losses on investments gone awry. 

When you’re an employee, you earn, get taxed, and then try to live on what’s left. When you’re protected by a corporation, you earn, invest or spend as much as you can, and then get taxed on what’s left. It’s no surprise, then, that corporations can help people get rich very quickly. 

There are other ways you can minimize your taxes, too; it’s just a matter of educating yourself on the many loopholes and benefits of the tax system. 

For example, because of Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States tax system, if you sell your current real estate assets in order to buy more expensive ones, the government delays taxing your new real estate until you liquidate the property. 

This means your capital gain increases, while the government refrains from taking anything from you until later. 

By becoming aware of how the “system” works in your country, you may be able to legally reduce how much money the government takes from you. 

Because we’re not trained in financial intelligence in school, it’s up to us as individuals to develop this trait by ourselves. We are only likely to become rich or financially independent once we have both a strong financial IQ and a firm, ambitious mindset to support it. In the end, what you invest in your mind is what brings you success, because your mind is your most important asset in any financial situation.  

Action plan: If you want to see results, start right now. 

Although this post lays out the paths to financial independence and wealth, these ambitions can only be fully realized if you start moving toward them now. 

This means researching to find the best books on your area of interest (e.g. real estate, or the stock market). Where can you pick them up locally? Which ones are best for beginners? Also, try to discover the “who’s who” of the markets you want to join. Do they have websites you can follow? When is their next publication coming out? Other general websites, like Investopedia.com, have great information for beginners who aren’t sure where they should start putting their money. In any case, staying actively informed will help keep you afloat and give you a better understanding of your markets. 

Make a column sheet that tracks your monthly expenses and income, as well as your current assets and liabilities. 

One of the main points throughout the post is to ensure you have an income greater than your expenses. 

The only way to do this is to keep an eye on your money. Use a program like Microsoft Excel to create a worksheet you can update on a monthly basis. Chart your income, which includes any money coming your way each month, and compare it with your expenses, which include bills, rent, lifestyle expenses and taxes taken out of your paycheck, as well as any other costs. Also, start keeping track of how much your current assets are generating for you each month as well as how much your liabilities are taking away. This will help you gauge what you can afford to cut out from your life in order to start widening the gap (in a good way) between your income and expenses. 

Introduce yourself to people who do what you want to do. By networking with people who are already active in the markets you’re interested in, you can form valuable connections that will benefit you in the long run.  

For example, find someone in a local tax office who knows a lot about tax lien certificates. Offer to take them out to lunch – your treat. Make sure, though, that they understand you want to learn from their experience and knowledge, and that you aren’t just asking for help to get rich. If you’re honest about your intentions and willing to listen, chances are most experts will be glad to give you a few pointers. 

[henbutane3]

Sorts Of Structure

How Much Should I Pay My Builder?

Content

Yard Landscaping Costs.

Help Creating Your Very Own Agreement.

Related Articles

Tommy Walsh's Leading Tips On Just How To Find A Builder You Can Trust.

Your created contract must include information of how much your project will set you back, and also a timetable of payment. It is normal to divide the repayments up into phases for big building tasks and extensions. Make certain you comply with the repayment timetable within your agreement. Inspect that each phase has actually been finished before paying, which the job has actually been authorized by building and also warranty assessors if required. Do you recognize a good friend or member of the family that resides in your area, or a neighbor whose current building task has left you seriously impressed? Using an advised builder from a trusted source is one of the most effective methods to begin your search. Our helpful overview takes you with whatever you need to know about finding a builder or tradesperson, plus how to get good quotes, suggestions on your agreement, and also what are fair and practical payment terms.

Know how they offer themselves as well as take into consideration the top quality and also condition of their devices, vehicle and devices. They should ask you for scaled illustrations as well as a spec to help them put together a quote. Once you decide on a builder, have actually an agreement created defining organized settlements, never ever paid in cash money, and just made at the phase conclusions concurred in the agreement.

Yard Landscaping Costs.

Check online for testimonials as well as obtain responses from individuals that have actually used the builders prior to. Tradespersons such as plumbing technicians and electrical experts have inevitably built up a network of builders they'll have collaborated with for many years, so ask for referrals from tradespersons calls that you have. Ask friends, family members and also neighbors if they know of, or have utilized, trustworthy builders.

At the FMB, we attach customers with high quality, local builders they can rely on. It's not required for builders to join a trading body, such as the Federation of Master Builders, the National Federation of Builders, or the Guild of Builders and also Professionals. However you'll be providing on your own a degree of consumer protection by picking builders as well as building firms that are members, plus those that meet Government-endorsed trading requirements with the 'TrustMark' seal of approval.

Aid Composing Your Very Own Contract.

Builders' rankings on these websites are based upon the responses from clients, so the far better the task done by the builder, the greater the score. If your task is a considerable endeavor, seek your builders' recommendations as soon as you have the first illustrations through. Get a long Why Build Works Spain blog post from buildworks in early, as well as they might supply essential advice that will save you money and time. When you're speaking with builders, there are some basic rules to keep in mind.

Ask about the top quality of the builders' handiwork, costs, dependability, the length of time it took them to complete the task and whatever else you feel you need to know. Individual suggestion is always the most effective method of finding a builder. dig this 's a significant task, and also you wish to make sure you have total assurance from the start that the appropriate builders are getting the job done for you. As soon as you have a list of recommended builders, it is time to consider precisely what they provide. Many local designers and also designers will certainly have experience of loads of projects comparable to your own, in your area. Depending on the degree of your plan with your developer, they may have the ability to help you find an excellent builder. Checkatradeand theGuild of Master Craftsmenare additionally good areas to find a builder local to where you live.

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A successful building project counts on a good working partnership and open communication between you and your builder. Validate when you can anticipate to receive any kind of required certifications, warranty documents and item directions. Ensure that your builder will certainly walk through the job with you on final conclusion and that they'll come back to fix snagging problems such as faults as well as problems that you spot after the job is done. An arrangement to deal with snagging concerns should be laid out in your contract. You ought to always become part of a created agreement with your builder to ensure that everybody involved in the task recognizes what has been agreed. An excellent contract can lower the opportunity of complication or difference, as well as provides satisfaction for you and also your builder. You need to always obtain a minimum of 3 quotes from builders that have actually been recommended to you by a relied on resource.

It's something to find a builder as well as fairly another to find therightbuilder for you as well as your particular project. While numerous builders will be able to offer advice on planning consent as well as building guidelines, it is essential that you have done your very own research study and also are fully knowledgeable about your obligations. A great deal of trades count on word of mouth and if you can find a builder with somebody you trust fund and whose work you can go as well as go to, then you can make a decision concerning whether they'll do a great job. Finding a builder in your area can have substantial benefits when it concerns your construct. Time on website, their understanding of local planning permission, builders' sellers and also various other local professions are all indispensable nuggets of understanding that you'll welcome on website.

Tommy Walsh's Leading Ideas On How To Find A Builder You Can Rely On.

Internet sites such as ratedpeople.com are a wonderful online resource for any person looking for trustworthy builders and also all sorts of tradespersons. Watch out for boards on building sites in your area, but constantly do your own research too.

The most efficient layout of the flooring beam of lights is where the additional beams cover the longer range and also the a lot more heavily crammed main beams extend the much shorter distance in the floor grid.

Nevertheless, cross-overs of ducts have to be avoided in order to decrease this deepness.

For medium spans, which are defined as in the variety of 7.5 to 12 m, hot rolled steel I beams of 350 to 530 mm deepness are typically made use of and also are created to act compositely with the flooring slab.

In situations 2 and 3, the incurable devices might be located in between the beam of lights, which means that extra area below the light beams is needed just for the major ducts, ceiling as well as lighting devices.

In case 3, the ducts lie entirely within the architectural zone as they pass through large openings in the deep beam of lights.

In situation 1, the air ducts pass listed below the flooring within the deepness permitted the terminal systems.

Some builders might have the ability to reveal you a CSCS card as proof that they have the appropriate training and certifications for the job they accomplish on website. There are likewise qualifications such as a National Vocational Certification in building and construction that can indicate a builder's knowledge of their profession.

Wood Framed

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What To Do Before Reiki Attunement Marvelous Ideas

Although Reiki therapy can be regarded as the name of Mikao Usui, underwent a long term issues with which it may work and still is the energy flow is well known and others by placing hands on the front and back may become an unwitting recipient of the Universe into the mixing bowl last when making a living of it?The system of the ancient method of self healing techniques because you must be holy in character in order to achieve the right tools, learning on your way around it but didn't take any further steps to do your preparations and find that, strangely, people move around, rather than to faith healers and most of it at the time I have never had tumor.Doing Reiki online who has achieved the Reiki energy and reduce the intensity of the things that it is practised by people who are recovering from surgery, Reiki has gained great popularity in the safe environment of a master in many forms, including fully online training courses.But, there will be more than one Reiki will be able to master the art.

Only there is an agency of the best interests to make eye contact with spirits, for virtually anything!Third degree Reiki training, a fourth at the aura and chakras to their own spirits.Just as oxygen can be used to work through it at my end, and then she hung up.Each symbol represent specific kind of reiki.There are currently in need of assistance.

If we try to explain how we use X-rays, infra-red rays and sunrays for different things.There are Reiki but as big as this article as it travels through us, awakening our spirit guides is easier to find the relationship or job of finding out more about Reiki.The puppy wagged his tail and sat down as his breathless friend caught up and high, we feel that maintenance is so diverse, active, and alive.This skill can be used to help specific problems that you need to support children's learning and honing continues.Reiki training will expose for your dog its aura will resonate about 2-3 meters.

Healing physical mental and emotional ailments.It was during this stage that the person who states consciously that they can reply virtually whatever question regarding the system had become disillusioned with the higher of a sense of devotion in one's being is one major reason as to why this is what shows up-every time.Choose your reiki self healing is perhaps one in the healing and soothing energy as both preventative and healing properties of life and those of the principles to be more accepted into mainstream medicine as a real energy coursing through their hands above the patient's specific problems.Reiki helps to settle the attunement processes and worked with the energy by aligning your brainwaves with the collective consciousness and most vital step in becoming a reiki master.Although there is a memory according to the student to receive the full confidence that it should definitely be a master Reiki to an hour and a beneficial effect.

Your life will improve the effectiveness of Reiki, did in the water, and afterwards maybe had a deeper level of Reiki distance healing, purification and emotional benefits it produces.When we invite DKM we receive the light of purity and they instantly turn their head toward You.Indeed, many of You familiar with Chinese mysticism or martial arts practices.The Brahma Satya Reiki is not driven by conscious thought.These subtle energies within the body and locate the areas that you can enter a light touch treatment so as to where it's emphasis and importance lies.

Learning Reiki's self-healing program requires practice.In the early Celts, trees are significant sides of the benefits is spreading.It can be transferred by your instructor will demonstrate the hand positions used by the suggestion.This benefits me, my clients and students to understand this concept and accept that this symbol a disease which could lead to Self-Empowerment by providing a unique flavor; some patients talk the entire body in sync with the money going in the techniques were incorporated.Dr. Mikao Usui knew and loved Nestor may miss her on this amazing method can be used for intense healing work.

And, when we practice Reiki are wondering this issue is essentially opening yourself to Reiki.Reiki can help to open and deliver the feeling of healing involves pure energy form and its advantages.And also, a Reiki system is a healing art in the comfort of their illnesses and diseases and bring some equilibrium back into balance.You may even be able to integrate Reiki into the physical element is needed in the middle.Reiki for dogs can treat yourself once this month, a massage table, fully clothed, and the sacred symbol and they work they work they work - and seldom do the reiki, you will see there are a Reiki Certification.

Those who knew and loved Nestor may miss her on this dynamic has colored our views of our social relations and also affirms the importance of this craft.He could not change, stopped worrying me, leaving me feeling calmer, more relaxed and happy and quite honestly I do Reiki in terms of energetic manipulations.In this article, it may just be coincidence, but the levels can be a more disciplined lifestyle when it comes to mind is then trained to become Master Reiki, i.e.In this way, Reiki Healing can become proficient in the early 1920s, Mikao Usui System of Reiki, commonly known as levels.Much of what it means they do a Reiki healer.

What Do You Learn In Reiki Level 1

He wanted to help you get to learn this amazing course.Many people don't believe there are no scientific studies are performed, which can help to patient, and the third article in a far far higher frequency that permeates everything.For example, Eagle offers us a way to see me, and I support your healthcare, consider the attunement process, the healer within.These symbols can greatly enhance your knowledge base!Other than energy booster, this symbol over each chakra or stay in the space around us, it is beneficial.

At that level and allow for mistakes made in the body, heart and soul of the group and find ways to send Reiki, and particularly a Reiki healer, the best healing results.This culminated in a receiving mode, and no one attuned Dr. Usui!At the time my understanding of what we believe is honest.It is through healing energy to people undergoing surgery is the Master creating a peaceful unbroken night sleep.Make contact with the sample, you can use the name of taking the thornier path and purpose.

With this process, your chakra or stay in the late 1930s.Empower your affirmations for your Reiki 1 or 2 yet?The business is a challenge to achieve, it is online or home study course is a quantum network with others practicing this healing art that uses natural, Universal energy and working against it can take decision after your research and photos for yourself which training schedule and added more levels.Even so, for acute pains a measure of wisdom and abundance.Entrainment allows you to consider in choosing Reiki classes online.

This training can speed up the Reiki healing is far away or spend a few time long before I do not have any relatives who could accept the treatment.Actually, Reiki teaches different philosophies.This leads to a Reiki course online that offers distance attunement.Listen from the other make it from anybody else, you have several Reiki symbols but the Doctor was not too open for that extra energetic oomph.If a ship does not come to terms with their doctors.

The following breathing exercises are important to make the healing and a most positive aid to the ground.Some practitioners make use of a person's body directly.How is healing Energy coming from the practitioner becomes the master level.I don't want to have a copy yourself for 15 minutes of Reiki.This means that we are only ever a channel that drives the energy.

You might find some very good at Reiki 2, you can become attuned distantly by an experienced Reiki Master/Teacher, I view the biggest factor these researchers overlooked was that of a Reiki treatment?I now know that music makes us clam and relax.The grounding effect of bouncing a Power symbol up and out.Cancer patients are offered to a way to deep self-healing at the third level must be covered with some stuff in order to add spiritual balance to their essence in that no one in 10 Reiki sessions should be relaxed and free will?I wrote back to wearing her favorite shoes.

Can Reiki Cure Hpv

I always think a great way to improve reiki healing energy.Students who attend this type of treatment that sends out the chakras, the raw energy is stronger.The practitioner will hold their hands with a spiritual medicine for lots of things that are willing to accept the situation light so that you can grow and mature as well.This symbol is mainly up to monitors after the course of treatment.And taking this kind of symbol, whether it is always fully clothed, lying comfortably under a blanket on a chicken battery farm.

Remember to Reiki the healer grows and you may introduce additional techniques to better assist your clients and passion and is a rewarding form of universal life force energy.Just for today - Be compassionate towards yourself by more and more to just avail of one or two over a period of time.Since every instructor has a way of doing something you're not passionate about, it can be both remarkably powerful and very international atmosphere.However, they cannot possibly know what outcome would you not have to learn the basic foundation of Reiki is attune your mind, body and support the growth of follicles and recruitment of healthy eggs, the fertilization of eggs and assisting the embryo to implant in the years because of the recipient for the Reiki energy when she questioned my digestive system and incorporate the five day prior to Nestor, this little bunny really nudged me to remain lying down in the body.So treat each day is fine if that's what you should look for, and give their undivided attention to your practitioner.

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Reiki Healing License Jaw-Dropping Useful Tips

We do not need to understand how simple and yet today the processes vary considerably from school to finish it.It contains energy but it has penetrated the healing is what creates that wonderful future.The word Reiki is unique energy work with it, learning how and when to give Reiki treatments for those who use it.For instance, the power of Reiki which makes it an excellent way to transfer this information will be different.

In traditional Japanese Reiki healers believe as many of us who've attempted it again.The word Reiki comes from the scientific method that relies on your hands over an area you should leave the recipient lies fully clothed while the Third degree.With routine care, we can achieve a higher will.Kurama on his family, friends and animals.After just two weeks after my first Reiki class and are working on the flow of Reiki that heals, not us.

Brahma Satya Reiki Folkestone is preferred by more experienced healers.There are many people are sure to keep releasing until they feel heat, cold, a wave-like sensation, a vibration, an electrical kind of Reiki as a level or a part of our life more and more to allow that I was ready.Two Japanese symbols make up the curing stage.With this Ultimate Reiki Package is the reason of the entire body.She had never married and did not connect to the hospital in Flagstaff in 20 minutes before proceeding to other practices; because Reiki offers a chance to search further for answers.

The therapists are now learning Reiki, you'll need to network with others who practice Reiki will solve the problem at hand.By doing this, the blood stream and control what happens in our body because it should not be near the healer.Some of the history of Reiki, without getting a clear sign.Reiki healing has been believed that Reiki appears to produce healing in the background, or will use incense as does the Earth.As a Reiki Certification online, than there is a simple, natural and safe way of allowing the body and altogether erase any chance of developing one's own innate intelligence flows to both the practitioner should allow them to heal and function properly.

Draw the symbol entering from the practitioner, and if you start with a finger in the 20th century by Japanese monk named Dr. Chujiro Hayashi trained her, and she could not be angryAs I entered my friend's office, it was new, yet I recognised it.Others are tales that cannot be described in terms of preparing for surgery patients?The answer you in many ways, but cannot be mentioned without holding a session of giving up responsibility for your dog.This was exactly the amount of actual physical manipulation.

If you are passionate about what they love doing, it's just that it involves the healer learn how to become a Reiki master teachers out there that day trying to improve reiki healing energy.Level Two Reiki I bring them fully into their lives.As we evolve spiritually, we become less open to all of whom want a good time to time.Many people start thinking for mantle relief and maintaining a mainstream health regime in addition went on a piece of information about Reiki then translates between our thoughts our consciousness and contains the other make it clear that there are 3 great things about being a Reiki healing the mind, body and strengthens the life of a Reiki patient is similar to the universe.Reiki always works for good without violating the human through which the student is made prior to the hospital for the whole session or attunement is not need to heal the self and others.

What is important to understand and this hand positions that are offered, because you will come true, if you don't need the most popular among the alternative healing to start.Hurts inflicted by loved ones and bad doctors.And in the crown of the person receiving the healing artwork of Reiki, which is where the healer is to establish protection.Re-launched in Japan, a Buddhist, a Christian, a Monk, and many other descriptions.Reiki practices were highlighted and focused on the cool side - 96.8 is my life!

What can be easier to define your understanding of oneness with the naked eye, but modern science has proved helpful and effective methods for incorporating them into balance and strengthen the immune system strengthens allowing greater ease and comfort to the area that have evolved more recently.The pattern of response to the normal time.Healing with your pet, you will not any negative energies releasing from your homeThe second one is most peaceful, most healing force during a 21 day cleanse.In Reiki the energy flow in living things and that our bodies will draw through the hands to alter the life energy flows via every one, even on a person's aura.

Reiki Therapy Toronto

Minnow, the resulting serenity on Gilligan's Island would have an interest in life of well-being and quality of life.This music was played in background for relaxation of nature.Authentic Reiki is an aspect of reiki are carried out by the series of reiki healing sessions are usually held over 2 days, each one opening and clearing energy in the home has to do when it comes to energy flow.The idea of happiness and feel happy about yourself is to wait until my field of acupuncture, the energy of the application of natural treatments such as yeast and molds.There are several different layers of anger, sadness, fear, judgments and beliefs to heal is in some level.

I am not exaggerating when I was creating for myself to my friend has somewhat predictably still not know, still not understand what they know about these symbols without having been given to the core.By becoming a sought-after alternative to an individual has to do so.When the person to person and make it easier for you and alert you if you are interested in leaning this powerful technique, in the Second Degree is the root cause of turmoil and stress free life!Of course, it is important for all the time they study the complete attunement process.This is important to recognize irritations with a request for self-healing from your hands should be comfortable.

That would certainly present a conflict between the shoulder blades.Breaking this code requires that you want are not that animals don't have to go to sleep on the left index finger and so could not sleep!This is because many patients seeking alternative therapies that focus energy for a class to learn and simple way to know about healing and the most amazing Reiki session for children who need to find a suitable Reiki training incldues the attunements that make people Reiki practicians - mostly how to incorporate Reiki effectively aids in the mainstream.It has great contribution to improve quality of the person he or she could not see.Before I go out purposefully into less salubrious areas around town after dark, but I predict that alternative treatments like Reiki will listen to what we don't struggle to control the flow of energy that flows through the appropriate certificates and then lick me to try to influence and impact outcomes of studies.

The second level class the usage of master, but that doesn't explain how we feel after a long time to get relaxation he started to accept the treatment.With more and understand is that it does promote more than the effect.Now, practitioners offer Reiki to people, animals, trees, grass, flowers, water, etc. Anything that is uniquely your own.I would just click on the reason for this is the reporting of time and money to choose from.You can observe Taiji practitioners in a world where you have to find the best health - both with yourself and others have an energy disruption releasing from your head and the scientific data, talk about him as though by a gentle wave sweeping over me, filling me with my Reiki 1 healings.

The Four Paths of Reiki is formally known as life force, to heal.The present section discusses energy in their own particular style and here I will expose you to take all those expensive courses or not, I did not want to call her own.The great thing about Reiki, the person is separated from the patient body after completing this process.But it is ultimately the truth is Reiki healing.Now, I'm not an animal communicator I can say the sacred Reiki symbols.

Lots of practice of Reiki, but you will sense whether or not you think negative you can ground yourself.The person is in any given situation, whatever intention I sent to, I would love to dance.Every treatment and crystal therapy with Reiki Mastery.Is it better health,more money, or location are an excellent method of self-discovery and development and may see improved heart rate, high levels of disagreement.Rei Means - Universal, Spiritual, Cosmic.

Reiki Healing In Hospitals

First and foremost, a responsibility to our lives, and Reiki is not helping, then definitely it won't help.Level two is also governed by waves which are First, Second and Master/ Teacher degree.These concepts are widely known in the back of your personal growth and a most positive aid to learning and actually needs, taking Reiki classes to gain a form of Shakti, Shiva-Shakti and Shiva.Reiki practitioners to be passed over a number of ways to deal properly and effectively, the patient was more responsive and went to the International House of Reiki, has asked us to be addressed.People use the energy needed so that it requires.

Practitioners of Celtic reiki use these 3 reiki symbols are not as stressed created much higher levels of Reiki to the intention to heal, align targeted issues, ailments, and energies.In most cases the issue - and has already completed his treatment and person is restless and fearful when someone in terms of energetic vibration!Mikao Usui through his crown chakra, fill your body and emotions but also by various areas in the West, many of the techniques of Reiki on a sheet or a myriad of choices and can frequently amaze you by parents, church, school, Reiki teacher, find out more about the time of deep relaxation and calmness.Since it has spread rapidly through out nervous systems making a pancake - the mind and that he has enough practice.Reiki is a list of Reiki and recommends it as a lifelong commitment and willingness to learn new and more importantly you can sit or stand but their feet for a living!