#sana will be back shortly i miss posting here

[nguyenfinity]

Another project, a dozen drawings based on 3 rules you set for yourself!! mine were flower heads, shows the sky somewhere, and they're all different times of day

[stressedoutteenager]

Honeymoon

Waking up together, for the first time, is something Sana and Yousef both cherished and tried to enjoy as long as they could. Sana was lying in Yousef's arms with her hair sometimes covering his face. Did he mind? Not at all. 

Sana turned around to face him, immediately finding his hands and holding them close to herself. They are both tired, they arrived last night. The couple, now a married couple, left for their honeymoon right after their wedding. 

They keep staring into each other’s eyes until Yousef leans forward and kisses Sana shortly but sweetly and lies back onto his pillow. 

"You're beautiful, you know that, right?", Yousef says and is still mesmerized by her beauty like the first time he saw her. Now that they are married, he thinks to himself, he has the privilege to wake up next to her every morning. To see her in her most natural state. Her hair messily falling down her shoulders, her face bare of any make-up, eyes still a little sleepy. 

Sana's eyes only ever leave his when she looks at his face closely. The intimacy of being newly-wed, waking up in the same bed for the first time, makes Sana's skin tingle. Yousef's light fingertips on her hip contribute to that too. She knows he just woke up but his eyes still look so wide and bright. He has light stubble on his jaw even though the groom had his traditional appointment at the barber yesterday morning. 

"It doesn't hurt that you keep reminding me.", Sana answers with a smile. 

They end up lying there too long to still be able to have their breakfast at the hotel but they don't care. They take their time getting ready and when they finally leave the hotel Sana is overwhelmed by the hot weather. She has never been a hot-weather kind-of woman but it doesn't keep her from holding Yousef's hand and intertwining their fingers. Yousef look around and turns to Sana.

"What do you want to do first?", he asks her.

Sana laughs and looks up at her husband. "I don't know, it's my first time in Istanbul. What do I have to have seen of this city?"

She knows Yousef has been here many many times, with his family or with his cousins. Yousef looks down at his wife and thinks for a second. There is so much to see. Some big things he hasn't seen and he has been here many times. "What do you think about exploring the European side of the city today and the Asian side tomorrow? The days after that we can figure out what to do."

Sana nods and she doesn't answer verbally but looks at him in the same loving way he looks at her for some time. Yousef can't get rid of his smile but looks at her confused.

"What?", he asks laughingly. 

"Nothing.", Sana answers. "I'm just really really happy." 

Yousef immediately pulls Sana into hug and holds her close. He can't believe he's lucky enough to have married the most beautiful, intelligent, sweet woman he knows. "Is Sana Acar getting soft?" Sana loves how her newly changed name sounds from his mouth as much as Yousef loves saying it. 

"It's the last name. It has that effect on me.", Sana smirks.

When they part, he holds her hand again and pulls her towards a taxi stop. Yousef says something to the taxi driver but Sana doesn't understand. She just observes as he speaks Turkish. It has something special hearing him speak his mother tongue.

After their late and long breakfast Sana quickly learns that Yousef didn't kid around when he said they were going to explore the city. The streets of Istanbul are busy and so many different types of people walk past Sana and she definitely hears people speak more than Turkish. At one point Sana heard someone talking Arabic and she turned around so quickly that she ran into someone and almost fell over. She surely would have fallen if Yousef didn't catch her in time. Yousef didn't hesitate to make fun of her for that. But it's a weird feeling hearing your mother tongue being spoken somewhere else than at home. In Oslo she knows in which boroughs she can expect people to speak another language than Norwegian. Here it just surprised her. Especially because, in contrast to Yousef, she has no clue what people around her are saying most of the time.

"Babe, please don't do that again. I need you to stay in one piece.", Yousef says with a grin and they keep walking. Sana looks up at him and narrows her eyes playfully but when he looks at her and smiles she breaks out in a smile herself. She is almost too happy, too content with her life to even act like she is mad at her husband. Almost.

"You only say that because Baba and Elias would kill you if something happened to me. Especially during our honeymoon!", Sana exclaims and pulls away her hand out of his hand. He stares at her, looking deeply offended that she would do that and quickly walks over to her and wraps his arm around her shoulder.

"Not true! I plan on being with you for the rest of my life, so please don't sabotage that." Yousef can't stop smiling and starts laughing. Sana joins in with her own laughter but sobers up before Yousef. They've stopped walking. 

Once more she leans away from him and teases Yousef: "See, you're being selfish again! You're only thinking about your own life!"

One more time Yousef looks so offended. He knows that she's just joking but he just married the love of his life and even the slightest thought of not having her with him for the rest of their lives made his heart stop.

"Sana!", he exclaims. "Don't even joke about that! I'm not letting you go for the rest of our lives now that we're finally at this point!"

Sana melts at his words and can't even keep up her game to annoy him. It's so funny to get him all riled up. With a soft smile she gets on her tip toes and places a lingering kiss on Yousef's cheek. She wraps her arms around his neck and whispers: "I love you."

Yousef wraps his arms around her and rests his chin on her head. He wants to tease Sana about being so openly soft with him but he can't bring himself to do that. 

"I love you, too.", he says back and Sana loosens the hug to look  at Yousef. Her husband looks to his right and tells Sana: "We're here, by the way."

Sana follows his gaze and sees a big, old, beautiful building. It's a mosque but to be very honest, Sana doesn't know which one it is. She knows that Turkey in general but also Istanbul has many beautiful mosques. Until now she has only ever seen pictures, partly sent to her by Yousef, and was always mesmerized. 

"It's the Hagia Sophia.", Yousef says. "It was a church first, was changed into a mosque in the Ottoman Empire and is now a museum." 

Sana and Yousef walk up to the entry and the way Sana looks at the facade of the building, how fascinated and interested she is, makes Yousef fall in love with her even deeper.

Before they enter Yousef mentions:" I told you I would take you here sometime."

Sana looks at him, a little confused, with her eyebrows furrowed but as soon as Yousef opens his mouth it dawns on her. But she doesn't interrupt him.

"Years ago, when I missed your pre-Eid party because... well, I was here. You remember?"

Sana nods: "Of course! I can't believe you actually kept that small promise."

"Did I ever not keep a promise I made to you?", Yousef challenges his wife with a small smile. She shakes her head and wonders what she did to deserve this amazing man.

-

Lunch takes a lot longer than intended. Neither Yousef nor Sana minds though. It's funny actually. Apparently the shop owner that was walking around the restaurant to see if everything is okay got talking with Yousef and when Yousef told him that they were actually on their honeymoon, the restaurant owner waved over a waiter.

Sana could only watch as Yousef shook his head at whatever the older man with greying hair was saying. Their conversation ended with the waiter going to the kitchen and the restaurant owner patting on Yousef's shoulder and smiling politely at Sana.

Then, finally, Yousef turns back to Sana and smiles this distinct smile of his. He's happy but at the same time unsure about something.

"Mentioning you’re newlywed brings out a lot of generosity in that guy. He just told the waiter to go get us a bit from every dessert they have. And it's on the house.", Yousef explains. He manages to look somewhat guilty and honored at the same time.

Sana picks up the menu card and flips through the pages. She then holds up the menu to Yousef and points out: "This dessert list doesn't end!"

They both start laughing and later end up having a bit from every dessert that was brought to their table. Which was a lot because Sana barely was able to find place to put her phone on the table. She took a picture of all of it, featuring Yousef ducking down and grinning to fit into the frame and posted in on Instagram.

"I'm so full.", Sana says and rubs her stomach. Yousef agrees and looks exhausted, from eating.

Then they hear a call for prayer. Not from Sana's phone but from a mosque nearby. Sana and Yousef instantly look up and then to each other. Sana's smile grows and Yousef admires the happiness he sees in Sana's eyes.

Hearing a public call for prayer makes Sana insanely happy. That never happens back home. And it obviously makes sense. Norway is not a Muslim country, it's barely a dominant Christian country but rather secular.

"The Blue Mosque is up this street!", Yousef says and Sana nods. She takes Yousef's hand again.

While Sana prays, Yousef waits outside. The sun is shining, many people are walking around. And a lady that sells flowers approaches Yousef while he is sitting there and scrolling through Instagram. He comes across the picture Sana posted of their lunch with him ducking into the picture and is tagged in. He like the picture and comments a heart.

Sana comes back out and has taken her time praying to enjoy the beautiful atmosphere in the mosque. She immediately finds Yousef who is waiting for her with his hands behind his back and a grin on his face.

Will he ever get used to how beautiful his wife is? It's not only her outer beauty but also her inner beauty that makes her glow.

"Why are you smiling at me like that?", Sana asks him smilingly.

Yousef shrugs and holds out one of his hand for Sana to take and pulls her close to himself. "Let me be happy to see my wife."

"I haven't been gone for long.", Sana laughs and leans in Yousef's side. He draws out his other hand and holds out a rose for Sana. She quickly takes it from his hand and goes to smell it. She looks at Yousef and smiles lovingly.

"I know roses are not your favorites but I still wanted to get it for you."

Sana kisses him on the cheek; she is not a fan of PDA. "Are you kidding? That doesn't even matter. Thank you!"

As their last stop in the city for the first day, the couple goes to the Grand Bazaar. There is no way that they would be able to explore all of it in one day, in the last hours it's still open. But they still have their fun. Sana and Yousef go from store to store, from stand to stand. It's overwhelming at first because there is so much going on but Sana loves it. Yousef tells her this might be one of his favorite places in Istanbul because his grandma would always take him here when they were here.

They walk around but have to stop so many times because either Yousef or Sana sees something they need to get a closer look at.

Their last stop for the day at the Grand Bazaar is a huge sweets stand. There is so much different stuff in so many colors that it's hard to concentrate on one thing. Both look around and eat from a few samples that are given out.

Sana once again notices how someone starts talking to Yousef. She doesn't really listen because she won't understand much. Yousef has taught her a few words already but not nearly enough to understand a conversation. She still hears the woman at the other side of the counter say something after Yousef responded nodding the first time.

"Eşiniz çok güzelmiş, maşallah!"

Sana understands the last word but nothing else. She quickly looks at Yousef who is also looking at her and smiles. Then he looks back at the woman and nods. He responds but Sana doesn't get any of it.

"What did she say?", Sana whispers to him once the woman is preoccupied with another customer.

Yousef hugs her to his side and answers: "She just pointed out how pretty you are."

Sana furrows her eyebrows sceptically. Yousef laughs and kisses her on the top of her head. "Don't look at me like that. Everyone is appreciating your beauty!"

He makes Sana blush and she buries her face in his chest for a second. While Sana is more subtle in showing her love for him, he straight out just compliments her non-stop. Since they became a couple he lost all his filters when it comes to complimenting her. Sana loved that he cared so much but at the same time she is more reserved with showing affection and it made her nervous, but in a good way. Sana's friends just found it adorable.

Sana tilts her head back, her chin still on Yousef's chest, and says with so much adoration for him: "I love you."

Yousef laughs and nods: "I know and I love you, too.", and hugs her close. 

On their way back to the hotel that is very close to the Kilyos beach, both of them are on their phones, checking messages and social media. Neither of them used their phones much the whole day, they mostly just took pictures with them. They both sit in the back of the taxi and Sana starts reading the comments on the picture she posted at lunch.

"Please don't get diabetes! You should share with us to prevent that!", commented Isak.

" Ohh Ahhh!! I'm crashing the honeymoon if the food is so good!", commented Adam.

" Sana, you have the best view you could wish for!!", Noora commented.

"I'm jealous! My best friend and sister enjoying all that without me. I'm offended!", Elias commented. 

Chirs answered to Elias' comment: "Hey, don't give the love birds a guilty conscious! They're on their honeymoon!"

And there are a few more from their friends. Sana laughs and shows her phone to Yousef. He turns his phone to Sana and shows her that he's been reading the same things. 

Instead of going straight to the hotel to eat, they decide to go on a walk on the beach. With their shoes in their hands they walk along the almost empty beach, good thing it's a week-day, and watch the sun set.

"You know, you really have to teach me more Turkish.", Sana says out of nowhere. Yousef looks at her with a smile and nods.

"Of course. You've learned some things already, though!", he had so much fun teaching her. Because let's be honest, he knows Sana is better academically than he is and being able to show her something she doesn't already know was very fun.

Sana laughs and goes closer to the water. "I only know a few words, how to count, more or less, and how to properly say the names of your cousins."

"But you do all that very well!", Yousef laughs and joins her going to the edge of the water.

Sana looks at him acting offended: "It's not enough! I want to be able to talk to your side of our family without you as a translator in-between!"

Yousef's heart grows ten sizes hearing Sana say 'our family'. "You haven't taught me enough Arabic either, yet! How am I going to talk to your side of the family?"

Sana kicks a little bit of water at Yousef and instead of running away from it he gets closer to his wife. She answers: "My problem is more urgent. We're going to see your family this weekend! It's going to be so embarrassing and they're going to think I don't care enough about them to learn the language.", she rambles on and waves around her hands. Yousef catches her hands and brings them close his chest first and then kisses them. He looks back at Sana and shakes his head.

At the end of their honeymoon Sana and Yousef will be visiting Yousef's family members that could not come to the wedding. Some of his and some of her family flew over to Norway to attend the wedding but not all of them could do that.

"Sana, I can assure you nobody is going to think that! They all love you!" 

"They haven't met me, yet. How would they love me if they don't know me?", Sana complains and gets overwhelmed with anxiety in that moment. She tried to be positive but now they are married and what if they don't approve and think she is the wrong person for Yousef. It wouldn't change anything about how Sana loves Yousef but she also knows that family is very important to him.

"Because..", Yousef answers, "I have told them all about you. They've seen you over skype and face-time before. We send them videos from our wedding. Mom and dad told them how much they love you. You have no reason to be worried."

Sana's face softens and she goes to hug Yousef. He also wraps his arms around her but then says mischievously: "Now that that's cleared, let's get back at you for kicking water at me.", and lifts Sana and spins in the water with Sana in his arms. She quickly wraps her arms around his neck and shrieks surprised. 

"Yousef, stop, o God. Don't let me fall!"

Slowly Yousef stops and looks at Sana. She's laughing by now and doesn't really mind this at all. 

"Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you. I wouldn't have married you if I didn't."

"Good. So we trust each other!"

"Yeah, we trust each other!"

Minutes later Yousef finds himself chasing Sana down the beach. Sana laughs uncontrollably which makes her slower than she usually is but that doesn't matter because the same goes for Yousef. Finding seaweed, that doesn't look or feel good, and putting it on your husband's head might make him chase after you. 

Yousef manages to catch her and with his hands around her waist he lifts her and twirls in the sand. When he lets her down, she is a little dizzy and wants to sit down and pulls Yousef down onto the sand with her. They end up lying there, directly on the sand. Sana leaning on Yousef, they're holding hands.

"In which language are we going to raise our children?", Yousef suddenly asks. They've been lying there and just enjoying the light breeze and each other's company without saying anything for the past minutes. 

Sana doesn't move from her position but thinks about it. She thought about having children someday, with Yousef, but never about this specific thing: "I... don't know, to be honest."

"Well, we both grew up bilingual. What if our children grow up with Norwegian, Arabic and Turkish?"

Sana realizes he must have thought about this before. She puts her head on his shoulder and looks up at him with a thoughtful expression. "I mean we grew up with two languages and it only influenced us positively so I guess so."

Sana can't help but imagine little children, their children, running around their home. She really doesn't rush to have children; she has a lot to do career-wise, as does Yousef. 

"We'll look into it when it's time.", Yousef says and Sana agrees with a 'Hmm'. Yousef is not quite done yet, though. "Which is hopefully sooner than later."

Yousef leans up a little and sees Sana smile to herself when he says that but a few seconds later Sana says: "Yousef, we already have a child in our marriage.", she looks at him and smile innocently, "You're mentally a child sometimes."

Yousef gasps in an overly dramatic way: "I'm hurt, Sana Acar!"

"And I somehow still love you.", Sana laughs and sits up. 

Yousef does the same and pats away the sand that's stuck on Sana's light blue hijab. "You better! Because we still need to figure out in which language to raise our children!"

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/who-are-the-victims/

Who are the victims?

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption A spate of attacks has claimed hundreds of victims across Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is in shock after a wave of bombings targeting churches and hotels left at least 321 people dead and about 500 injured. Churches were hit during Easter Sunday services in the cities of Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa.

Most of those killed are Sri Lankan nationals, but officials say at least 38 foreigners are among the dead – including British, Indian, Danish, Dutch, Swiss, Spanish, US, Australian and Turkish nationals.

The government temporarily restricted some social media networks to try to halt the spread of misinformation, so details were initially slow to emerge.

But this is what we know so far about those who lost their lives.

Shantha Mayadunne, a Sri Lankan celebrity chef, and her daughter Nisanga

One of the first victims to have been identified was Sri Lankan celebrity chef Shantha Mayadunne.

Her daughter Nisanga Mayadunne had posted a picture of the family having breakfast in the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo shortly before the explosion there.

One of their family members later posted on Facebook confirming that both Shantha and Nisanga had died, saying “no words can describe the pain”.

Five members of the same family in Negombo

Rangana Fernando, his wife Danadiri and their three children all died in the attack on St Sebastian’s church in Negombo, north of the capital.

Skip Twitter post by @yogital

A beautiful family lost in the violence of Easter Sunday. Rangana Fernando, his wife Danadiri, 6 yr old daughter Biola, 4 yr old daughter Leona and eleven month old son Seth, pictured here on Seth’s baptism. Today is their funeral. Unimaginable grief here in Negombo. #srilanka pic.twitter.com/I8UezkdA77

— Yogita Limaye (@yogital) April 23, 2019

End of Twitter post by @yogital

“Farewell Danadiri and family, we will remember you all in our prayers,” read a tribute from her colleagues.

“She was a dedicated and diligent worker, but above all a kind and caring soul. She will be dearly missed.”

The couple’s eldest child Biola (below, third from right) was six, Leona four and Seth just 11 months.

Unicef says at least 45 of those who lost their lives in the attacks were children.

Four Sri Lankan servers at the Cinnamon Grand hotel

Four Sri Lankan staff members at the Taprobane restaurant in the Cinnamon Grand hotel died in the attacks.

“It was a busy morning. It’s Sunday morning during buffet breakfast so it’s one of our busiest periods,” the Cinnamon Grand hotel spokesman told the BBC.

“They were servers at the restaurant. One of them was working at the live food stations making hoppers [a Sri Lankan pancake].”

They have been identified only as Shantha, Sanjeewani, Ibrahim and Nisthar.

Three staff members at the Shangri-La

The Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo announced in a Facebook statement that three of its staff were “fatally injured in the course of their duties”.

No further details are known so far.

A rickshaw driver, his wife and her mother

Tyronne Gulding, 56, went to Easter mass with his wife, Gayani Fernando, and his mother-in-law Mary Anaslyn Silva.

All three died in the blast at St Sebastian’s church in Negombo. A neighbour who was with them and survived says they were standing very close to the person believed to have detonated the bomb, but did not see his face.

Tyronne’s friends say they called him Sana. He drove an auto-rickshaw and ran his business from outside Negombo hospital. His wife was unemployed and mostly took care of her mother and 18-year-old son.

He did not attend the mass with them as he had gone for midnight vigil the previous night.

Asos billionaire’s children

Three children of Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen died in the attacks, a spokesman has confirmed to the BBC. The company was unable to reveal any more details at this time and asked for the family’s privacy to be respected.

One of his children had four days ago posted a picture on Instagram that was geo-tagged Sri Lanka.

Mr Povlsen, 46, owns the Bestseller clothing chain and is the largest stakeholder in the hugely popular online retailer Asos.

Eight British nationals

Image caption Anita Nicholson and her children Alex and Annabel died in the Shangri-La hotel bombing

The deaths of eight Britons were confirmed by the UK’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, James Dauris.

Three members of one family were among the victims.

Anita Nicolson, her 14-year-old son Alex and 11-year-old daughter Annabel were killed in the restaurant of the Shangri-La Hotel.

Her husband, Ben Nicholson, who survived, paid tribute to his “wonderful, perfect wife” and “amazing children” who “shared with their mother the priceless ability to light up any room they entered”.

Brother and sister Daniel and Amelie Linsey, 19 and 15, who were at college and school in London, also died while on holiday. Their father has described his attempts to save their lives.

Two other Britons who have been named include former firefighter Bill Harrop and his wife, Dr Sally Bradley, from Manchester, who had been living in Australia and were also on holiday. They were described as “soulmates” and much-loved and respected colleagues.

Ten Indians, including seven from a political party

Ten Indian nationals, some of whom were political party workers from Bangalore, died in the bombings at the Shangri-La.

The party workers have been identified as KG Hanumantharayappa, M Rangappa, KM Laxminarayan, Lakshmana Gowda Ramesh, H Shivakumar, A Maregowda and H Puttaraju. They were all members of the Janata Dal Secular (JDS).

The JDS workers were on holiday in Sri Lanka after polling for the Indian general elections ended in the state on 18 April.

The chief minister of the Indian state of Karnataka, HD Kumaraswami said in a tweet that he had known some of the party workers personally, adding that he was “deeply pained”.

The Indian High Commission also identified two more Indian nationals as Vemurai Tulsiram and SR Nagaraj.

Another Indian, Razeena Khader Kukkady was killed in the same blast.

The 58-year-old, who was originally from Kerala, lived in Dubai with her husband but travelled to Colombo to meet her relatives.

He left for Dubai on Sunday morning and she was due to leave Colombo on a later flight on the same day.

“He had left by the morning flight and she had finished her breakfast when the blast took place. We are all in a state of shock,” Usman Kukkady, her brother-in-law, told BBC Hindi.

Turkish engineers Serhan Selcuk Narici and Yigit Ali Cavus

Two Turkish nationals were killed, state news agency Anadolu reported.

Engineer Serhan Selcuk Narici moved to Colombo in March 2017, according to his Facebook profile.

His father, Baba Memhet Narici, told Anadolu that his son was an electrical engineer. He had last been doing some work at the US embassy building in Sri Lanka.

“He sent me a WhatsApp message this morning at 5am saying ‘Good Morning'”, said Mr Narici. “That was the last I heard from him.”

The other victim – Yigit Ali Cavus – was also an engineer.

“He was a brilliant child. He graduated with honours from the Istanbul Technical University and spoke two languages,” said his father.

It is not yet clear where they were when the attacks took place.

Australian mother and daughter

Image copyright Facebook/Lucien Pereira

Image caption The mother and daughter attended church every Sunday at St Sebastian

An Australian mother and her 10-year-old daughter were killed during the Easter Sunday service at St Sebastian Church, in Negombo city.

Manik Suriaaratchi and daughter Alexandria attended the church every Sunday, along with her husband Sudesh Kolonne. He had just walked out of church ahead of them when the bomb went off.

“I heard a huge noise… I saw my daughter on the floor and I tried to lift her up, [but] she was already dead. And [then]… next my wife is there,” Mr Kolonne told ABC news.

The family had moved from Melbourne to Sri Lanka in 2014 after Ms Suriaaratchi started a business in the country.

The grandson of a Bangladeshi politician

The grandson of Bangladeshi MP Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim was killed in the attacks.

Mr Selim’s grandson – who is himself a prominent member of the Awami League political party – died in an explosion in the hotel where the family was staying, according to local media reports. It is not clear which hotel this was.

Mr Selim’s personal assistant told the Dhaka Tribune that the boy’s father was also injured in the blast.

Rui Lucas, Portuguese electrical engineer

Rui Lucas was on honeymoon with his wife, Portuguese media report. They had been married just over a week.

Mr Lucas, believed to be in his early 30s, died in the attack on the Kingsbury Hotel, where the newlyweds were staying. His wife survived the attack.

He has been described by one of his colleagues as “a person with a huge heart, a great friend”, Portugal’s publico.pt website reports.

Monique Allen, Dutch national

Image copyright Courtesy of Lewis family

Image caption Monique Allen was on holiday with her family in Sri Lanka

Monique Allen was on holiday with her three sons and husband Lewis when the Cinnamon Grand hotel was bombed.

She was having breakfast downstairs with one of her sons. Her husband and two of her other sons were in their room. The rest of her family members survived the attack.

“My son and my wife were sitting right next to each other [when] the explosion happened,” Mr Allen told the BBC.

“[He] blacked out for a few minutes and he woke up and saw his mother with a big head wound and lots of blood.”

Mr Lewis found his son injured at his hospital and only later found his wife when he checked the mortuary.

“[At the mortuary] they were pulling back sheet after sheet. I was praying let that not be Monique,” he said.

“Then they lifted the sheet on one and that was my wife there… she was the best wife and the best mother.”

‘I was praying let that not be Monique’

Sri Lanka faces scrutiny over bomb warnings

Two other Dutch nationals also died – a woman aged 48 and her daughter aged 12 who had dual nationality, reports say. It is not clear where they were killed.

Kaori Takahashi, mother of two

Ms Takahashi, 39, had been living in Sri Lanka with her husband and two young children.

He is a chef in the city and the family were having breakfast at one of the hotels targeted. Her husband is among four Japanese citizens injured in the blasts, officials say.

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported Ms Takahashi had been due to return to Japan in May.

Dieter Kowalski from the US state of Colorado

Forty-year-old Dieter Kowalski, a Denver resident, was in Sri Lanka on a work trip. On Friday, he had posted on Facebook: “And the fun begins. Love these work trips. 24 hours of flying. See you soon Sri Lanka!”

Mr Kowalski worked for Pearson, an education management company, as a senior technical operations lead. The company confirmed to NBC News on Monday that Mr Kowalski had been killed shortly after he arrived at the Cinnamon Grand hotel.

“Colleagues who knew Dieter well talk about how much fun he was to be around, how big-hearted and full-spirited he was,” Pearson chief executive John Fallon wrote in a letter to employees.

Mr Kowalski’s brother, Derrick, also shared on Facebook: “We have all lost a brother today.”

The US Department of State has confirmed at least four Americans were killed in the blasts.

A Washington DC elementary school student

Kieran Shafritz de Zoysa, a fifth grade student at the prestigious Sidwell Friends school in Washington, was another American killed.

Kieran had been on leave for the year in Sri Lanka, the Washington Post reported.

“Kieran was passionate about learning, he adored his friends, and he was incredibly excited about returning to Sidwell Friends this coming school year,” the school said in a letter to families.

Two Saudi nationals

The Saudi embassy in Sri Lanka named two citizens who were killed in the bomb attacks but gave few other details.In a Twitter post on 23 April, the embassy named the two victims as Ahmed Zain al-Jaafari and Hani Majed Othman.The embassy offered its prayers for the victims and their families and to the government and people of Sri Lanka.Earlier, Saudi Arabia’s national airline said two of its crew members were unaccounted for, and that one had been admitted to hospital with minor injuries.

The statement did not mention the nationalities of the missing and injured or where they were at the time of the blasts. Other reports said the crew members had been staying at the Cinnamon Grand hotel at the time of the attacks.

A Spanish couple

Two Spaniards from Galicia lost their lives. Maria Gonzalez Vicente, 32, was visiting her boyfriend, Alberto Chaves, 31, who was working for a frozen food firm in India and was on holiday at the Kingsbury hotel in Colombo.

Two Swiss nationals

Switzerland said two of its citizens, one with dual nationality, had died in the attacks.

It did not name them or say in which of the blasts they died.

One Chinese national

China’s embassy said one Chinese national had been killed, five others were wounded and five were missing after the attacks.

[draco-omega]

So... what do I do with myself?

As I alluded to the other day, I haven’t seriously worked on a creative project in a long time now. I put Prayer and Starlight on hold back in January, dabbled with some dungeon generation algorithm work for a week or two in February, and that’s basically it for 2017. As someone who has generally always been tinkering on some project or another, this is an awfully long time away from things. I miss that headspace.

Unfortunately, my brain still feels like it’s running on half-power and I’m still juggling a ton of stress (and working on creative projects has historically only brought me more stressed, sad as that is). I don’t feel capable of producing anything at the level of competence I’ve come to expect from myself and I feel so emotionally brittle that even the thought of trying sometimes feels overwhelming. Yet I think the very fact that I’ve been away from it for so long is what’s allowed so many fears and doubts to entrench themselves as deeply as they have; avoiding something you’re afraid of tends to only make it worse, after all.

So it’s probably an important step towards recover to try working on something. The question is... what?

Prayer and Starlight

My novel-length Chiyuri/Sanae fic (with 84,000 words already written). I definitely want to finish this at some point, but there’s still a huge amount of work involved and I feel more than a little intimidated by it (and also beholden to keep parity with the quality of the rest of the story, even though I’m super rusty and probably can’t, which risks making me feel even more inadequate by contrast.) Also, nothing here would be publishable without many more months of work which doesn’t offer much short-term encouragement (and I probably could use some).

More Touhou Randfics

On the plus side, these are short and can potentially give a modest sense of accomplish in a short timeframe. On the other hand, they’re probably even more stressful than Prayer of Starlight specifically because of the short turnaround – the time between ‘I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing’ and ‘I’m putting a finished work out in public’ is very small and it’s surprisingly taxing to turn many prompts into anything I feel comfortable standing behind – as it is, most of the ones I’ve already published felt wonky on some level.

ToK

A semi-traditional dungeon-crawler I was working on until I took a break to write Prayer and Starlight instead (ironically, because it was something I could finish more quickly and get an immediate sense of accomplishment. We can see how well that worked out....) Progress was extremely slow and painstaking and I hadn’t even managed to produce something playable after more months of full-time work than I care to count, but I think most of this is because I became mired in getting every facet of interface just right as soon as I came to it, rather than ever using placeholders for anything; probably 75% of my time was spent on visual design and I can’t even draw.

If I were to return to it, I would definitely try emphasizing playable features over presentation polish and return to the latter once there was an actual game to present. The engine was at least in a state where actual gameplay could probably be added to it fairly shortly, but it’s still a huge project overall.

A different game project

Back before everything came undone, I’d floated the idea of starting work on an entirely new game using an approach completely unlike ones I’d taken in past. The idea was to get something minimally playable up and running immediately and then iterate on it publicly, rather than endlessly mull over design details until I was satisfied with them and then try to make a game from them – use placeholders and ‘strictly functional’ interfaces, regularly post playable demos before any of it was ‘ready’ or even any good, but at least get it out there instead of trying to make sure everything was just right before showing any of it off to anyone.

I still think it’s a good design exercise and also a good perfectionism-desensitization technique, but it’s also really daunting to take on something that’s still a large project and also requires rapid regular updates from me. However, letting myself tinker slowly on this without forcing myself to put it out there sort of defeats the spirit of the idea.

Something else entirely

That wizard’s tower forensic investigation Twine game? (Which is shorter than Prayer and Starlight, but almost certainly much longer than I expect it to be and still very skeletal)

Write a couple game design opinion pieces?

...I’m kind of drawing a blank here for ideas that aren’t ‘clearly worse versions of what’s already on this list’ - things with even greater scope and less groundwork already laid