#or professional

[clonerightsagenda]

I think this is just a trend everywhere but I've been very frustrated this week by how much admin work is being outsourced to me as the patient/customer.

My orthodontist tells me I can make an appointment with the surgeon. I call the surgeon. They tell me I need a new referral. I call the orthodontist. They do a referral. I call the surgeon. Referral didn't come through. They tell me about their special unique system we have to use. I call the ortho again and walk them through the referral. I call the surgeon. They say the referral was missing some details so they have to do it again. I call the ortho.

The insurance company calls me about repair shops. I give them the name of the repair shop which I already gave them yesterday. They say they're not in their system but I can use them, but I have to call the repair shop to ask them to contact the insurance company. I call the repair shop and they say the insurance company is supposed to email them.

I feel like at a certain point these constant fetch quests become unreasonable?? Is it too much to expect these groups to communicate with each other instead of making me run back and forth between them???

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

He should be at the Adventurer's Guild.

[beaft]

worst part of getting into the traditional folk music scene is that you will hear a song in the wild and fall in love with it, and when you try to find it online you discover that there are 900 different cover versions and the only non-terrible one is a recording of a church hall concert filmed in 2002 on someone's nokia

[homunculus-argument]

Today in Probably Inadvisable Homonculus Crafts: can I fix my own shoes?

[ghostlypawn]

ROBBY DEALING WITH ADDICTS ↳ PROFESSIONAL VS PERSONAL

[awearywritersworld]

thinking of corporate executive!nanami nervously asking his wife if she'd like to fill the newly open position of his personal assistant.

your eyes widen with excitement, a small giggle passing your lips. "are you sure you won't get sick of me?"

he regards you incredulously. "don't be silly, sweetheart."

after that, nanami brags to whoever will listen. colleagues, clients, consultants, friends. no one is safe.

he goes on and on about his lovely wife and how lucky he is that you're willing to work with him.

the number of people who tell him they could never do that with their spouse, that spending so much time together would drive them crazy— it truly shocks him.

"oh no, not my wife," the typically stoic business man says dreamily. "honestly, it drove me crazy being away from her all day."

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

haunted houses being portrayed as "infested" with evil spirits....yes obviously the house is infested it has uninvited human occupants.

you get pests you call in exterminators, just how it works

[sunderwight]

I see your pre-transmigration Shen Yuan in a t-shirt and sweats and raise you pre-transmigration Shen Yuan wearing the fussiest rich guy outfits and cosplay and traditional formal wear because why not. He's rich he's bored and he looks good in it. Throw in some wigs and extensions and jewelry for good measure. It helps him feel a little more in control of his life when he's well dressed.

Also explains how he knows how to wear Shen Qingqiu's clothes and do his hair without much issue.

Eccentric clotheshorse Shen Yuan.

[sofas-can-read-ice-can-burn]

Happy Pride Month! It’s my first year celebrating and I decided I wanted to make an asexual cake! With the help of my extremely perfectionist mum, I think we managed to pull it off! I hope ya’ll are having an awesome pride month, whether you’re out, in the closet or somewhere in between 🏳️‍🌈

[kiddokori]

hes got something going on

[ID: Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint fanart. Kim Dokja shrugs casually and says, "Yeah I feel no connection to my name and barely recognize myself, honestly I feel like an intruder in my own body lol." Han Sooyoung stares at him with a thought bubble of the trans flag. Yoo Joonghyuk scowls at him and thinks "god he is just like me fr." Yoo Sangah looks worried and thinks of the Wikipedia page on dissociation. End ID]

thank youu @nebulations for the ID :]

[giantkillerjack]

I think Gastronauts on Dropout is the cooking show that has made me truly appreciate the skill of professional chefs more than any other cooking show.

Like I don't know if it's because the challenges are so crazy or the fact that the judges don't have any professional input whatsoever (they're all comedians), but the combination of how utterly stoked the judges are to be eating this food and how creative the chefs get to be really works to make you marvel at just how skilled a professional chef has to be.

Other cooking shows always have a level-voiced narrator listing out shit like,

"Rebecca is doing a praline-mint ganache with a Twiffly Street stir-up, combined with a gestelle Santa Maria sponge technique."

And it's fun to pretend like, 'Ah, yes. Of course! A classic of the genre! She'd be a fool not to!' as though I know anything about cooking or baking.

But on Gastronauts, it's a bunch of comedians who would really graciously appreciate some fancy food, watching chefs cook and going, like,

"What is that? What is he doing?? It's like- like a swishy thing! Like a fancy swishy thing!!"

"OH MY GOD YES, HE'S USING ONIONS."

"Ooo! Crunchies!??"

And then the chefs get to come out and formally present their food, which makes them look very smart. And these actors who generally can't afford Michelin star cuisine are just :DDDD!

And it's like, oh yeah. This is about my level, yes. This conveys how normal people who don't eat good food for a living would actually react. And it's super chill. It's good vibes, that show. 👌

[pocketdogs]

this is a normal sitting position for him btw

[clumsypuppy]

this has been plaguing my mind for days

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I think the reader's response to this post is probably going to either be "That's incredibly minor" or "Holy shit YES I'M ALSO PROUD", depending on people's personal experiences with academia, but:

Today I am incredibly proud of one of my students.

In the interests of disguising identities, let's call them Ceri. Ceri is one of my third year undergrads (meaning their final year, for anyone unfamiliar with UK uni systems.) They transferred to us last year, and within two weeks I was giving them the contact info to get to Student Services and get themself screened for ADHD; they have some mental health struggles, but I clocked pretty quickly that they STRUGGLE with procrastination, and punctuality, and attending 9am lectures in particular. Naturally, as is the way of my people, it took them a further four months to remember to go to the screening. Lol. Lmao. Rofl, in fact.

But, they did it eventually! Their screening lit up like a Christmas tree at the ADHD section, and they got a free laptop and optional one week extensions and a study support worker named Claire. This has helped tremendously, and although mental health + until-then-unsupported ADHD meant their academic profile had slid sideways somewhat, with the new tools available and a couple of resits they passed the year and hit this year running.

Until, that is, the last fortnight.

Now, I take them for a Habitat Management module that has two assessments: an academic poster presentation before Christmas, and a site-specific management plan in May. Naturally this means we are at that happy point in the year for the poster presentations. I give out the briefs at the start of the year, so they've had them since October; I've also been periodically checking in with them all for weeks, to make sure they don't have any major burning questions. The poster presentation was to pick a species reintroduction project, pull the habitat feasibility study out of it, and then critique that study; Ceri chose to look at the hen harrier reintroductions proposed for the southern UK. All good.

Which brings us nicely to today! Ceri's presentation is scheduled for 2.30. At 11am-1pm, I am lecturing the first years on Biodiversity, while Ceri is learning about environmental impact assessment with a colleague I shall call Aeron. This means we are separately occupied during those same hours.

Nevertheless, Aeron messages me at about 12.

"I think Ceri needs to see you after your lecture," he writes. "They're panicking, I genuinely think they might cry. I'm worried. Are you free at 1?"

I say I am. At 1, I get lunch and sit in the common area; Ceri comes to see me. To my personal shame, imagine all of the following takes place while I stuff my face with potato.

Now: this part is going to be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has ever tried higher education with ADHD, especially unmedicated. It certainly was for me. All I can say is, I never had the courage to take the step here that Ceri did.

"I have to confess," they said quietly, and Aeron was right, they were fighting back tears. "My mental health has been so, so bad for the last fortnight. I've left it way, way too late. I don't have anything to present."

"Nothing at all?" I asked.

"I've been researching," they said helplessly. "I found loads on the decline of the hen harrier. But it wasn't until last night that I finally found a habitat feasibility study to critique. Generally... I've been burying my head about it, and it just got later and later. I thought I should come in for Aeron's lecture, and I should at least tell you."

This part is a minor thing, right? But honestly, I remember being in the grip of that particular shame spiral. I never did manage to tell my lecturers to their faces. I just avoided. I honestly can't imagine having the courage it took them to come in and tell me this, rather than just staying home and avoiding me.

"I think..." they said hesitantly, "I know I can submit up to a week late, for a capped mark. I think I need to do that, and apply for extenuating circumstances. But then I'll have both Aeron's assignment and yours due at the same time."

Which meant they would crumble under the pressure and likely struggle to pass both; so me, being as noble and heroic as I unarguably am, stopped eating potato and said, "Let's make that plan B."

(It was good potato. I am a hero.)

So, we made plan A: I moved their timeslot to 4.30, giving them three and a half hours. The shining piece of luck in this whole thing was that this was the crunch time assignment - if it had been Aeron's, they'd have had to try and write a 3000 report in that time. But for me, all they had to write was an academic poster, and those things are light on words by design. We found them a Canva template, and then we quickly sketched out a recommended structure based on the brief: if it's habitat feasibility, look at food availability, nesting site availability, and mortality risks in the target release site. Bullet point each. Bullet point how well the study assessed each. Write a quick intro and conclusion. Take notes as you go, and present the poster itself at 4.30.

"You think I should try?" they asked doubtfully, looking like I'd just asked them to go mano-a-mano with a feral badger.

"If you run out of time, so be it," I said. "But your brain is trying to protect you from a non-existent tiger. That's why you've procrastinated - it's been horrible, and you've been shame spiralling, and your brain is trying to shield you from the negative experience; but it's the wrong type of help for this situation! So while you're sitting there working on it, hating life, every time your brain goes 'This is hopeless, I can't do it', you think right back 'Yes I can, it just sucks.' And you carry on. Good?"

"Good," they said. "I'm going to mainline coffee and hole up in the library. Enjoy your potato."

And then, of course, I had to go and watch the other students' presentations, so that was the end of me being any help at all. I spent all afternoon wondering if they were going to manage it, or if I would be getting a message at 4.25 telling me they'd failed, and would have to submit late and hope for an EC.

And Tumblrs

Tumblrs

Let me FUCKING tell you

They turned up at 4.15, fifteen minutes early, wearing a mask of grim, harrowed determination and fuelled by spite and coffee, and they pulled up that poster and started presenting and yes, okay, I'll admit their actual delivery was dramatically unpolished and yes, they forgot to include the taxanomic name for the hen harrier on the poster and yes, fine, I admit that there were more than a few awkward moments where they lost their place in their hastily scribbled notebook but LET ME FUCKING TELL YOU -

They smashed it. It was well-critiqued, it had a map, it had full citations, it had a section on the hen harrier's specific ecology and role in the ecosystem, it had notes on their specific conservation measures. They described case studies they'd read about elsewhere. They answered the questions we threw at them with competence and depth. There was analysis. All that background research they'd done came right to the fore. They were even within the time limit by 15 seconds.

You would never have known they'd produced it in three hours, from a quivering and terrified mess fighting the bodily urge to dehydrate via tear ducts. After they left, the second marker and I looked at each other and went "So that was a 2:1, right?"

I caught up with Aeron downstairs and he was beaming. Apparently Ceri had seen him on their way out, and had gone over to talk to him. Aeron said the difference between the Ceri of this morning and the Ceri of then was like two different people; in four hours, they'd gone from their voice literally breaking as they admitted the problem, ashamed and broken, to being relaxed and happy and smiling.

"I reckon I've passed," they apparently told Aeron, pleased. "Maybe even a 2:2. There's things I wish I'd had the time to do better, but I'll be happy if I passed."

They won't know until late January what they got, because we're not allowed to release marks until 20 term days after hand-in, and the Christmas holidays are about to hit. But I'm really hoping I can be there when they're released.

But mostly, I'm just... insanely proud of them. I cannot tell you how happy I am. And I know, I know, obviously this is not a practice I would want to see them do regularly, or indeed ever again, and it only worked because they were fucking lucky with the assignment format, but like... when life is just punching you in the face, and you hit a breaking point... isn't it nice? That just this once, you pull off a miracle, and it's fixed? The disaster you thought was about to ruin you is gone? To get that relief?

Anyway. Super super proud today.

[prokopetz]

It's not, like, the biggest example of media where you had to be there to really get it, but I feel like André the Giant's turn as Fezzik in The Princess Bride loses something if you didn't experience the sheer weirdness of him being arguably the most famous professional wrestler in the world at the time. Like, this isn't a case of a retired wrestler transitioning into acting years later – the dude literally headlined at WrestleMania III the same year The Princess Bride hit theatres. The contrast between his wrestling persona and his character in the film was intensely surreal.