#so many pathways.. too many projects and lectures to do..

[busterbby]

— little acts of love.

fluff. gn!reader. hcs. ichiro, jiro.

note: i swear i love my boy sabu, and i love writing for him, trust. he’ll come soon enough!! (also if you can tell my bias, no you can't)

Ichiro . . . is always doing the most for you. the little things you wont realize at first

letting you have a bite of his food out on dates, having you taste test dinner to make sure it’s to your liking. he drapes a blanket over you too, each time he sees you’ve knocked out on the couch after a long day. he won’t disturb you, but when you wake up, you see that there’s already food for you on the table

(or draping you with his jacket.. omg)

he seems to have a ‘sixth sense.’ always making your favorite dinners on the days you just so happen to have it rough or doing the certain chores you absolutely despise

“it’s cold outside. make sure to wear a jacket.”

and he’d even button it up for you! helps you put on your jacket and zips it all the way up so that you’re all warm and cozy. sometimes he’d lend you his coat too, if your jacket ever wasn’t warm enough for you

(he brushes the hair out of your face too, and there’s just.. the loveliest smile. softest eyes. and his callused fingers are so delicate with you too, as if you’d break at the slightest wrong touch)

he gives you his gloves too so that your hands don’t freeze, and don’t worry about him! ichiro would grin; he’s got another pair he’ll use when doing his odd jobs. but you can see the frostbites and cracks that mark up him hands from all the previous days’ work

(he’s always working so hard, for you and his bros)

they’re so big on you — don’t fit perfect like a glove should. but they’re just so warm. and of course, they’re gloves after all, but it’s just so.. reminiscent of Ichiro. the exact same warmth when he gently holds your hands, the exact same butterflies in your chest. it’s that reassuring sort of warmth that eases your heart and lets you know that everything will be ok

ruffles your hair, a lot,,

it’s just a small habit he’s picked up after doing it to jiro and saburo for so long.

but every time he’ll ruffle your hair, because he’s just so proud of you, whether it’s because you did well on a test or you got that promotion or anything.

sure, he messes up your hair, and his hands are so heavy albeit in a good way. there’s just butterflies in your stomach and nice comforting warmth..

“good job babe! i knew you could do it!” he’d beam so confidently because ichi always did have the utmost faith in you, even if you didn’t

and when he shoots you that adoring smile.. badump.

it’s like another cupid’s shot right through the heart, another time you’ve fallen in love; you just want to continue making him proud right then and there (though you always do, no matter what)

honestly honestly, you see why Jiro and Saburo are always (not so) discreetly asking for head ruffles for even the tiniest job well done

he always will peel a small plate of fruit for you,,

whenever you’re busy studying or perhaps working on projects that never seem to end, Ichiro will always come on with a plate of your favorite fruits. he sets it down, gives you a warm, tiny smile and the sweetest “good luck” oozes from his lips. sweeter than the fruits

it’s the brotherly instinct in him, really. he loves looking after you and his bros; it’s nothing, really.

gahh he’s too cute

a plate of perfectly peeled oranges and pears, heart strawberries, and apple rabbits. they’re so juicy and ripe and perfect for snacking, sweeter because ichiro peeled them for you

(rabbit apples always did taste better than regular slices)

and the scent of citrus lingers from his fingertips, when Ichiro cups your cheeks and leans down to kiss you sweet. you can smell the oranges and clementines when he’s this close, taste them from his lips

and perhaps they’re sweetest right from ichiro himself..

Jiro . . . is thinking of you, always

telling his friends about how amazing you were or maybe playing the guitar, wondering if you’d like this melody he’d just made (though if he thinks of you too much, he’d strike a wrong chord. with the prettiest blush too and flustered heart..)

he’s always sending you crude memes he thinks you’d find funny or songs he listens to and thinks of you, almost immediately

not that jiro is trying to. his heart is just so big and full, and you’re always on the back of his instinctively. did you eat today, you’ve probably got the math homework all figured out by now ; he doesn’t realize just how sweet he can be

but when you see that text from your boyfriend and the little ‘reminds me of you’, well.. your heart can’t help but skip a beat. and you think you might have the greatest boyfriend, ever

also lots of little touches too

loves to rest his chin on your shoulder. arms lazily wrapped around your waist, lazy lopsided grin as he watches you scroll through your phone or mayhaps just watching tv

it’s lazy, it’s cute. Jiro is happy as long as he has you

just.. lazy cuddling. lots and lots of it, especially when the two of you have an at-home date or are just lounging in his room (his favorite way to cuddle maybe?)

and he’ll nestle himself into the crook of your neck, hum absentmindedly; his feathered hair grazes your skin, hot breaths tickle. just very.. intimate — a nice slow date

( imagine,, sometimes he’ll turn his cheek and give your neck a sweet little kiss. really soft, really light — it’s almost ticklish )

he’s a bit too touch-affectionate ; it’s his love language! whether it’s loosely holding hands or just having you close. it’s how he connects his heart to yours..

and he always makes it a habit to follow the sidewalk rule. to hold your hand and keep you close, away from traffic and sprinting across crossroads. he just cannot allow you to walk near the side of the road, ever. it’s too dangerous!

(note: irumi probably jokingly told him about it one day, teasing that she sure hopes jiro wasn’t making you walk on the same side of the road. oh poor jiro, she tuts shaking her head at a cutely, hopelessly lost jiro. hasn’t he heard? you’re not supposed to make the one you love walk on the same side as the cars!

unfortunately, he didn’t pick up on the sarcasm, and from then on, he’s never let you walk on that side of the road ever again. )

if you were, he gets on his nerves; shit, what if a car suddenly swerves and hits you? what if the dirty rainwater from the other day splashes all over you?? the thoughts make him jolt and get all antsy

and before you know it, he grabs your wrist and switches places with you. which is strange, when you eventually notice that he’s always trying to walk on the side of the road

but it’s so.. cute, when you first realize why. yes, it’s not real, and yes, saburo has probably made called him a dumbass, a idiot, all sorts of names in the book, for even believing in that shit, but he doesn’t care. because what if. It’s just so sweet.

it’s.. it’s the little things, ok? even if, hypothetically, a car were to swerve onto the sidewalk, the both of you would get hit. but it’s the thought, really. Jiro wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself for you

he always always always gives you an extra kiss or two, or five, before he drops you off after a date

standing at your door, he gets a bit of frozen feet and a thick gulp in his throat because he doesn’t want to leave just yet. his hands are still in yours, loose, but he can’t let go..

he’d lean over and give you a ‘goodbye’ kiss just before you open your door. and he’d give your hands one last tight squeeze, pulling back with those

buttt he goes back in for another one, and then one more too, because it’s just so addictive.

(I also like to think that he’d just love kisses)

“one more!!” he says, before grabbing your shoulders and giving you another sloppy, sweet kiss. but it’s been six ‘one more’s, and your lips are starting to go numb. he doesn’t want to go back home just yet

because that would mean the date would end, and jiro can’t leave you yet!!

(he will probably text you again back home though, as if he hadn’t already been with you for so long. But he can never get enough of you)

stands outside the door and makes sure you got into your house safe and sound before he leaves!! he’ll even wave at you when you peek through the window, with the warmest grin,,

honestly honestly, he’s just a very kind and sweet boyfriend!! with the biggest heart that he wears on his sleeve.

[masterspreparation]

What is the duration of the Master’s preparation Programme?

It starts with a dream—one that sneaks up during late-night YouTube rabbit holes, casual chats over chai, or when scrolling past yet another ‘Study in the UK’ success story. The idea of pursuing a master’s degree abroad takes root, and suddenly, the mind is buzzing with questions. One of the biggest? How long does the Master’s Preparation Programme take?

Let’s clear this up without the usual brochure-like, robotic explanation. Picture this: You’ve set your sights on a UK university, but there’s a small hurdle—you need a little extra academic preparation, English language support, or simply a smoother transition into the rigorous world of postgraduate studies. That’s where the Master’s Preparation Programme (MPP) comes in, acting as your academic runway before takeoff. But how long does this journey last?

The Timeline: Not Too Short, Not Too Long—Just Right

Depending on individual needs, the Master’s Preparation Programme typically lasts 6 to 9 months. Think of it like a well-paced training montage from a sports movie—long enough to build confidence but not so long that you start questioning your life choices. It’s structured to provide everything you need, from sharpening academic writing skills to mastering the art of research (because trust me, you’ll be drowning in journal articles soon enough).

For students with stronger academic backgrounds and English proficiency, the 6-month option might be just right. It’s an intensive, focused experience—no time for procrastination or those “I’ll start tomorrow” moments. On the other hand, if you prefer a steadier pace or need extra time to adapt, the 9-month programme allows for deeper learning and gradual skill-building without feeling overwhelmed.

So, What Happens During the Programme?

Imagine stepping into a classroom where lecturers actually expect you to debate, question, and critically analyse everything. It’s a shift from the memorisation-heavy style many students are used to, which is why the MPP is so valuable. Throughout the course, students tackle advanced academic skills, learn research methodologies, and even get a taste of university-style assessments—no last-minute cramming here (okay, maybe just a little).

Beyond academics, the programme helps students navigate the cultural and social aspects of studying in the UK. From learning how to email professors without sounding like a robot to handling group projects with people from five different countries, it’s an essential crash course in surviving and thriving in a postgraduate environment.

The Pathways Advantage: More Than Just a Course

For those thinking, Sounds great, but where do I even begin?—that’s where MIE Pathways comes in. They’re not just about enrolling students into programmes; they genuinely care about guiding students through the entire study-abroad process. From helping choose the right Master’s Preparation Programme to ensuring a smooth transition into top UK universities, MIE Pathways makes sure students are prepared academically, mentally, and logistically. With their support, the daunting idea of studying abroad turns into a well-planned, achievable goal.

The Final Thought: Is It Worth It?

If you’ve ever been in a situation where you thought, I wish I had a little more time to prepare, then you already know the answer. The Master’s Preparation Programme isn’t just about meeting entry requirements—it’s about entering your postgraduate studies with the confidence and skills to excel. Six to nine months might sound like a commitment, but when you step into that master’s programme fully prepared, you’ll realise it was the best investment of your time.

So, if you’re still wondering whether this is the right path, maybe the real question should be: Why wouldn’t you want the best possible start?

[madswritingvoid]

Say You’re Sorry

Pairing: Max Phillips x f!reader

Words: 3k (oops haha)

Warnings: SMUT. 18+ only. Oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, p in v sex, fingering, swearing, slight choking, first time writing smut should probably be a warning itself, sexism, Max Phillips is a warning probably.

You knew it was a bad idea. Well, actually, no you didn’t. Not fully. The voice in your head was just screaming at you to stop - there were other ways to get his attention. Other ways to make Max feel bad for what he did during the Synersavers presentation that didn’t require you stooping this low. Fuck it, you figured, if he can go around and do whatever he wants to get his way then so can I.

Fixing your hair and outfit in the mirror one last time, you went back into the office looking for the desk you usually avoid like the plague. Max Phillips, fuck you.

Earlier That Day

“So you see, Mr. Jacobson, our third quarter projections have us coming in on top by two million dollars and the fourth quarter is looking even better. I mean really champ, if these numbers were anymore amazing they’d be as hot as your associate there in that fetching skirt,” Max winks at the woman taking meeting minutes for your potential new client, causing her skin to blotch, “fucking unreal. Pardon my French,” he finishes, earning a big laugh from the CEO of Synersavers, the new bullshit placebo pill that was supposed to alter the brain’s natural neural pathways to promote synergy. You weren’t sure what dreams synergy was helping pathetic humans to achieve, but it meant a bonus if they signed on so you made sure that PowerPoint presentation was the best slides of your career.

You scoff, worried that if you roll your eyes they’ll get stuck. You know Max Phillips was quite the charmer, you knew better than anyone in the office. This past year saw him go from being just your hot vampire boss you had a crush on, to your hot vampire boss that was now your boyfriend. 

While you never made an official statement to your coworkers, you quietly signed the papers Amanda in HR needed signed and let the sound of you screaming Max’s name in his office while he was balls deep inside you let the rest of your coworkers know of your relationship. Overall, Max was a great boyfriend. Better than expected even - attentive, caring, protective to a fault, all while still being that loveable (?) piece of shit frat boy extraordinaire he had been at the beginning. 

You knew he still had to lay on the charm to close sales from time to time, never actually violating your relationship in any way, but after the fight you had this morning you didn’t think flirting with the only person in the meeting who did not actually control whether or not this partnership was going to happen right in front of you was the best move.

“Mr. Phillips,” Jacobson says, once again only acknowledging Max and completely ignoring you as he had been for the entire presentation, “you got quite the silver tongue. But I like that about ya, I think you get what our product is all about and I wanna make this partnership work. I’m surprised your presentation is as good as it was, because if you’ll pardon my French, if my secretary looked as delicious as yours does I’d be too busy fucking her left, right, and centre to even think about the fourth quarter anything!” He laughs and claps Max on the shoulder and you tense up, sure that Max is going to say something. Not even because he’s your boyfriend, but because he landed the sale and doesn’t have to be as sleazy as this dickhead is. 

“See that’s where you’re wrong Jacobson, it’s almost like I’m working double to avoid her. Just doesn’t get the mojo flowing, y’know? Maybe we should switch, what do you think sweetheart?” He looks over at the still flustered secretary, “Come on and work for me and we’ll work on some new ways of making synergy happen,” he wags his eyebrows and you’re surprised this poor woman hasn’t slid right off her seat. You’re stunned. Even as Mr. Jacobson laughs and brings a laughing Max into some sort of capitalist bro hug, you can’t bring yourself to move. It isn’t until you hear the squeak of the wheels from the chair Mr. Jacobson’s secretary was sitting against the shitty meeting room carpet that you snap back to the present and shut everything down. By the time you finish everyone is long gone, leaving you to stew in your rage.

A hesitant knock on the meeting room door makes you jump as you’re met with a sheepish looking Evan in the doorway. You were never a big fan of Evan when you started, kind of thought he was a wimp but he was nice enough. After getting with Max and learning their shared history, you couldn’t stand Evan, but were able to be far more professional when needed until Max.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was still in here after Max and the Synersavers people left,” he shrugged. “What the fuck do you mean Max left with them?” You asked through clenched teeth. Scratching the back of his neck nervously, Evan took a deep breath before telling you, “yeah, um. They left for a late liquid lunch from what it sounded like, Max said you would be too busy learning how to make a paper clip bracelet to join them… Sorry, he’s such an asshole. You don’t deserve that, especially not from that bastard,” He couldn’t meet your eyes. Even though he still tried to tell you to leave Max every single day, you appreciate him being there this time.

There were many things you could be mean to Evan for, but deep down you knew he didn’t deserve the wrath of your anger this time. 

Later That Afternoon

After taking the elevator up to the office to mentally cleanse his mind from that mindless lunch with that absolute creep Jacobson, Max was trying to come up with the best apology for you. He knew he didn’t have to be so forward flirting with that secretary, what the fuck was her name anyways, in order to win the sexist CEO over. But he was feeling petty after your fight while you were getting ready for work he figured it wouldn’t hurt to remind you that many other women find him quite the catch.

“You’re lying! You have to be lying!! There’s no way that happened oh my god,” Max stops dead in his tracks as he hears your giggles from inside the office. “It is! I totally saw Tim practising the dance moves the day after that Kelly Clarkson concert in the men’s washroom. I didn’t even know she had dancers, but from what I saw it really must have been a hell of a show,” Evan says as you throw your head back and let out another over-the-top cackle. You’re sitting on top of Evan’s desk, resting your hand on his shoulder as he sits in between your open legs, clearly enjoying the attention. 

You’re hamming it up, he knows that, he knows that’s not what your real laugh sounds like - the laugh he gets to hear when he really does something that you like. He knows you don’t mean it but he’s immediately flooded with anger and guilt. He obviously didn’t realize how much the day had taken a toll on you and now you must be really mad if you’re going to Evan to get back at him.

“Oh my god Evan that’s too funny,” you giggle and place a hand on his shoulder, “you just made my day! I won’t tell Tim anything, it’ll be our little secret,” you wink. Evan’s blush deepens at the touch, maybe you weren’t so bad after all and if Max (and Amanda at this point) didn’t look out he would maybe ask you out for a drink sometime soon. Bring you back to the land of the living.

Deciding he’s absolutely had enough, Max quietly comes up behind Evan and slaps both hands on his shoulders after seeing you move yours back to your lap, causing him to freeze and let out a little squeak. “Slugger, I’m sure whatever’s going on here is just too funny, but didn’t I ask you to finish up that presentation for tomorrow’s meeting with NuevaWeight?” he pouts, “I really thought you were taking this job seriously buddy, but maybe I should just get Andrew to take over…”

“N-no Max, sorry. Yeah the presentation is almost done, it’ll be ready before the end of the day,” Evan stammers. Max finally meets your eyes and smirks, “and you can meet me in my office. Apparently you think you can stop doing your job and distracting my employees.”

You can’t even speak, your jaw set and eyes burning from the absolute rage you feel right now. Yeah you’ll meet him in his office, but it won’t be so he can lecture you about whatever bullshit he’s already thought of. “Of course Mr. Phillips, meet you there,” you manage to snap back, calmly making your way to his office. Anyone walking by you immediately gets out of your way, your anger coming off in waves making your undead coworkers shiver.

Clapping Evan on the shoulder one more time, Max saunters over to his office, ready to make you beg for his forgiveness after that little stunt. As soon as he opens his office door he realizes that won’t be happening.

You’re sitting in his chair, legs propped up on his desk in a way that makes your skirt ride up and expose more thigh than what HR might deem office appropriate. “Ah, Mr. Phillips, so nice of you to make it,” you smirk. “Sweets, I think there must be some sort of misunderstandi-'' you cut him off with a dark look and stand up. Walking up to him you close his office door and push him against it, “No champ,” you sneer, “I think you’re confused here. I’m not the one who decided to be a very, very bad boy by flirting with someone else and insulting me in front of new clients.” Chest to chest, your hand slithers up to grab Max’s throat. Even though he is a vampire who could toss you around like a ragdoll, you know he’s letting you be in control. He likes it.

“While you were out entertaining I’ve been thinking about what I could do to make you really sorry, baby. You were already on thin ice from this morning, but now you’re drowning,” you squeeze a little harder on his throat making his eyes roll back. “What are you gonna do? I’m so sorry,” he whispers. You take a moment, just looking into those eyes you love so much, before answering.

“Maybe I’ll sit on your cock. Let you fill my pussy up but not let you cum, because only good boys get to come, you know that Maxie. Maybe I’ll just use you like my own walking, talking dildo. If I’m so replaceable you won’t mind not getting to fill me up? Right?” You smirk again as he whines, his hands clenching because all he wants to do is make you feel good now. 

“You wanna run that mouth, Phillips? You wanna make everything think you’re so fucking special when I know you’re really just a scared little vamp, huh?” You say with a pout. Grabbing his hair, you force his head up so you can look right into his eyes that are now almost completely black from lust. “Come on big shot, if you wanna be a big boy then you gotta show me that mouth can do something other than just spew bullshit, slugger.” 

That’s all the permission he needs. He hoists you up in his arms and thanks to vampire speed you’re now sat on his leather couch, skirt up around your waist, underwear ripped clean off, fully exposed to his hungry eyes. “Baby, I’m so sorry,” he pouts, “let me make you feel good. I just want you-” You’ve heard enough, pushing him down so his mouth finally reaches your core. Moaning at finally tasting you, Max wastes no time taking your clit and sucking hard, already teasing your entrance with one of his long fingers. 

“Y-Yes Max, fuck! Be a good boy and make me cum just like this,” you moan and clench around the finger inside of you, knowing you’re absolutely dripping onto the couch underneath you. He adds a second, then a third, making you arch your back until you’re almost sitting up from how good he’s fucking you with his hands. His mouth doesn’t stop, sucking and licking, spelling out his apologies against your body. Knowing you’re close, he starts focusing on that spot inside of you that drives you wild. 

“Oh! Oh, Maxie yes. Such a g-good boy,” you pant, meeting his hand thrust for thrust trying to reach your high, “make me feel so good please please please baby I’m right there, I-” you can’t finish that sentence as your vision goes white and all you can do is let out a strangled moan that sounds like his name.

Once your legs start shaking you pull both of you up, undoing his belt and pushing him onto the couch so you can straddle his waist. You wrap a hand around his neck and start nipping at the area, rocking your soaked pussy along his aching cock that was now free from the confines of his dress pants a few times before sinking down on him. A wicked grin stretches across your face as his moans get louder. He chokes when he feels you gush around him, not expecting you to come again so soon but you were still sensitive from his mouth, the hair above his cock rubbing deliciously against your clit, but you wanted more still. 

Picking up the pace, you squeeze around his throat again and start taunting him, “You gonna replace me baby? Yeah? You gonna find a pussy that takes you this good? Be my guest. Go right now and find something better, or show me how goddamn sorry you are.”

Granting him permission to take over, Max flips you on your back, making sure your head is supported by one of the couch cushions. He immediately wraps your legs around his waist, angling one leg to let him sink even deep inside of you, your moans mixing together as you both revel in the feeling of him finally being inside of you. Wanting to prove himself he wastes no time pulling out just to start slamming back into you. 

You moan and clench around him, making him hiss and he doesn’t let up. Watching him disappear inside of you over and over again, he starts babbling his apologies. “N-Never baby. Could never replace you. Never gonna find a pu-pussy this fucking good. Look at you, so perfect, so so perfect taking my cock like that. I’m sorry. You’re so good. I don’t deserve it, it’s- fuck it’s so fucking good. Best pussy of all time,” he moans as you clamp down on him, your third orgasm ripping through you. 

“Yes - yes Max, that’s fucking r-right. I’m the best pussy you’ll ever have,” you moan again from being so full. You know he’s sorry so you decide to let him finish after all. Taking your hands off his shoulders, you start tangling your fingers in his hair and bring his face close to your so your lips are almost touching, “you did so good Maxie,” you coo, “you cock made me feel so fucking good I know you’re sorry now.” He shudders at your words but keeps his steady pace, trying to make you cum again, still holding back his own impending orgasm. “Thank you baby, ‘m so so sorry, I love you and I just wanna be good for you-” “shhh shhh Maxie, I know I know. You did good baby, now show me how good you are and cum inside of me.” 

That’s all he needs. 

Something between a groan and growl comes deep from within Max as he finally lets go, pushing himself as far as he can inside of you as he starts painting your walls. Coming down from his high, he nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck as you start peppering him with kisses wherever you can reach, carding your fingers through his hair.

“I’m really sorry baby,” you hear him mumble into your neck, “I love you.” He kisses along your throat and you hum, moving your head to give him more access. “I know Max, I love you too. I forgive you. But try that again and I’ll cut your dick off in front of the whole office,” you laugh.

He chuckles too, continuing to shower you with love. “As much as I want to stay right here forever baby, let’s go home and I can keep showing you how sorry I am,” he suggests, wiggling his eyebrows to earn a giggle from you, “sounds good Maxie, you’re lucky I’m just sooooo forgiving.”

Untangling from each other and making yourselves as presentable as you care to be, you leave the office hand-in-hand, ready to see what the rest of the night has in store.

[godkilller]

UKITAKE.

❅ ❅ ❅

Tradition has it that all the captains meet every Monday morning - preferably at 8 - for the captain’s meeting, to update headcaptain Genryuusei Yamamoto and to discuss the latest news. Sometimes captains are missing due to various reasons. They need to head out to fight hollows, some have to try and find their subordinates who got lost somewhere in the world of the living... And some fell ill early on in their childhood and never fully recuperated, which left them no other choice but to stay away from what is considered ‘a captain’s duty’.

One of those - but probably the only one - was Jushiro Ukitake. To stay at home when all the captains met always felt weird to him ever since he was made captain LONG AGO. Sometimes Kyouraku would join him in skipping duty but Yadomaru would find him and drag him to the first squad’s barracks after all. It left a sore wound inside the ill man for centuries but he would never let anyone know ; wouldn’t talk about it. In that sense, he was a true captain, never letting his illness be the reason to mentally succumb to self-pity or even DEPRESSION.

As long as he could sit either on his porch in front of his bonsai garden or take a relaxing walk around his estate in order to get better, he wasn’t complaining. And maybe that rather UNWANTED SPARE TIME and his DECLINING HEALTH were enough reason why, compared to other captains, Ukitake still managed to wear a smile on his face, no matter the situation. Those shinigami who shared a view about the world with Ukitake weren’t usually people his age. He noticed that very early in his adult life. Those who did always kept a bit of childlike demeanour or attitude - much like Shunsui. Ukitake had an easier time talking to and spending time with younger shinigami or trainees at the academy than with fleshed out soul reapers or even captains. He RESPECTED his fellow colleagues but their sternness oftentimes dimmed his mood tremendously. It resulted in him withdrawing more privately and rarely being seen outside his estate on his off days.

Today wasn’t such a day however. He’d told Sentaro to replace him at the captain’s assembly as well as made sure Kiyone and Rukia trained the newbies and taught them about a very special subordinate and lieutenant named Shiba Kaien, while he took a long walk around his estate. By the time the assembly must have taken place for about 40 minutes already, he wondered whether Shunsui would come for tea this afternoon. He stopped, looking at the headquarters plenty of miles away from where he stood, when suddenly a little figure walked around the corner.

“Hm?” He blinked for a moment, recalling the face of the little boy. “Don’t you belong with Aizen and his squad?” he said, wondering what that child was doing on his property. He figured - and everyone else knew it too - that the pathway was a faster shortcut to deliver things than using the usual delivery routes. He wasn’t angry. It was just a child. There was always something ODD about this child, he thought. Maybe it was the relentless GRIN. A grin unlike any he’s EVER seen on a child before. Many times he couldn’t keep from thinking that it was fake. He had a hunch.  RUMOR HAD IT that people wouldn’t get much sleep in the 5th and judging by the sight of the little one, Ukitake was CONCERNED. He didn’t look healthy at all. And maybe it was because Ukitake knew how he he looked when he was a child - he was aware of the fact he wasn’t a parent and people told him time and time again to NOT WORRY SO MUCH! Hypochondriac, they called him. But could they really blame him?

“Where’s your captain? Did you get lost? Would you like some tea, maybe?” he smiled gently, offering for the other to join him on his walk back to the entrance of his estate. “Don’t worry, it’s alright. Ichi... maru was it? Correct me if I’m wrong.”

          GIN TOOK SHORTCUTS REGULARLY, he zipped through the quieter portions of the Seireitei with every intention to NOT be stopped, seen, or bothered otherwise by any passerby unaccustomed to seeing such a young Shinigami making their rounds. Often, this resulted in him inevitably being asked if he knew where he was going  ( which he did, though Gin played into certain instances of this question by pretending to be lost to appear less questionable )  or where his captain was  ( HIRAKO SHINJI HAD BEEN REMOVED from his position at the head of the Fifth Division, and AIZEN SOUSUKE now stood as acting captain )  so the question brought something of a difficult answer; truly, tragically so, Gin hadn’t minded Shinji too much.... it was a shame what happened. The loss was fresh; Gin still awoke believing that those echoing screams and Hollowified roars were going off in the cold night, rather than imprinted someplace in the back of his head.

          Thus was the fate of anyone who dared to suspect Aizen and possibly even act on it. Urahara Kisuke and his company were all exiled, too, framed. Gin wondered if anyone could manage to take his superior down, or if he truly was all alone.

          His flash-step faltered and Gin blurred back into sight at a slowing trot, downtrodden by this particular thought, and for a moment more delaying his inevitable return to his division. AIZEN'S SCHEDULE REQUIRED DILIGENCE in the form of rushing to meet deadlines in order to retain his regularly awarded compliments of ALWAYS having his work completed in a timely manner. Thus, Gin was, on occasion, sent as errand boy. It didn’t happen often; Gin was Third Seat, not necessarily a pawn worth moving for insignificant matters, yet Gin was also one of the two subordinates Aizen kept closer to him that could tackle matters that would be outcried as ... possibly illegal. Gin was currently exhausted from this constant game of catch-up, paying in lost sleep to make up for the fact that their main focuses were split between maintaining the divisions whilst also conducting awful monstrosities into the dead of night.

          —— Ah, that voice... he was spotted !

          Gin tugged at his left sleeve to ensure his injury’s bandages were obscured, hidden into too-big robes ill fit for a child warrior, and stepped a few paces back whilst turning to face his superior. THESE WERE UKITAKE’S GROUNDS, AFTER ALL, AND GIN HAD BEEN FOOLISH TO BANK ON THE OLDER SHINIGAMI RESTING FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE MORNING. No, the elder was resilient, peaceful, it seemed only right in hindsight that he’d not sulk in bed till midday, at least. GIN SMILED BIG AND WIDE, prepared for the standard comments to be made — as opposed to the others, Ukitake, at the very least, meant well by them.

          ❝ AH, ‘M SORRY, CAP’N — ❞ Gin called out to the other, projecting his voice with a quip and a grin. ❝ — I’m runnin’ errands, just got done. No cap’n yet, just Lieutenant Aizen ‘n me... am I in trouble ?  ❞ The younger paused as Ukitake finished his approach, making a point to be visibly wary of the other’s scrutiny, that scanning gaze no doubt pinpointing Gin’s fatigue, his dark circles beneath squinted eyes and his growling stomach and aching arm making him anxious to leave. Yet, Gin instead used that antsy feeling to further play into his guise of childish submission; as though dreading a lecture, as though perfectly innocent. His smile was, for the most part, mostly refined save for a spare undertone of strain, of utter falseness that hurt his cheeks. ANOTHER ACHE TO BE ADDED TO HIS PILE. 

          ❝ I’m jus’ passin’ through, I’ll be outta your hair... — ... oh, tea ?  Not sure, I don’t wanna bother ya. ❞ THAT WAS A TRUTH. Didn’t this man need rest ?  Surely he wouldn’t put aside time to be burdened by some random kid coming too close to his fancy palace...

          Gin merely nodded at his name, offering no elaboration nor acknowledgement; no first name needed in his book, surely.... HE WAS STILL A RUKONGAI RAT AT HEART, not accustomed to proper greetings, not quite master of a respectful introduction, and certainly not the type to bow down to his superiors after offering his entire title in service, in obedience. NO, GIN WAS STUBBORN. At times, even awkwardly so. The Third Seat idly fumbled with the edge of his left sleeve within his right hand, clutched, toyed with as he considered Ukitake’s offer.

          ❝ Are you feelin’ any better, cap’n ?  I heard y’weren’t at the meetin’ today. ❞ MAYBE A LITTLE TOO FORWARD, TOO, but Gin also abused the blanket of youth upon his shoulders to ask things in a more blunt manner. Hey, at least he was giving the other their proper title before he asked so outright about their health !

continued @cptn13​‘s ask here, since Tumblr is weird.

[cilliansaccent]

Class of Temptation - CHAPTER TWO

Leave a like, reblog or comment below to show your support and love! Enjoy…

PLEASE READ:

No mention of Cillian’s true family or relatives. All names are made up.

This is a TEACHER x STUDENT fanfiction, it’s going to be kinky and very taboo!

I will write whenever the mood grabs me, so I apologise if there are long breaks between chapters :)

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Background: Tessa is a twenty-three-year-old model from a broken-up family, living in London with her best friend and starting a course on Drama and Theatre. Though, when she gets closer to the super hot Mr Murphy who is her much older teacher, there is a battle of lust and love between them. They’ll have to figure out what to do with their tight relationship as other issues begin to rise and nip at their heels…

Word Count: 2,196

!!Warnings!!: None.

Chapter Name: Mr Murphy

Brief Chapter Outline: Tessa attends Orientation week at her selected University and explores the campus and the courses and clubs it offers. She then goes to her info session for her Drama course and finds herself meeting a very handsome man... 

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A few days had passed since her birthday and today was Orientation week at the selected Uni Tessa had picked. She had picked out a casual outfit, black shorts and a champagne silk blouse with flared short sleeves. She added low cut converse shoes and pulled her hair up in a high pony-tail. 

She threw on her small backpack that had her keys, wallet, phone and a notepad in case she needed to take some notes down. Esther would meet with her by the afternoon at the uni. 

Tessa headed off, she had already posted a pic of herself on Instagram and smiled at the comments. She occasionally got some hate but she just ignored them. 

As she sat on the train, she began to contemplate. Her thoughts wandered to the card she received from her father and the conversation she had with Mila about it. Her father had been right, Mila and he had been in contact for almost three years now and seemed to be on good terms. 

Aria, on the other hand, had not taken the news so well when Mila had told her a few months back. Yet, Tess did not really care. The only thing she didn't like was that Mila gave their shit father her address to her apartment. 

Tessa had vowed that day she left she would not ever keep in contact with him or let him know her whereabouts. But so much for that. She hoped she would not see another letter again if she did she would be thoroughly mad. 

She made sure she told Mila to never give anything to their father which resulted in a heated argument and Mila hung up on her. 

Tessa sighed as she got off the train and headed up to the street above. She gave herself a moment and admired the bustling crowd of tourists and workers. Many would say London was too hectic and crazy but Tessa loved the fast-paced atmosphere of it. And the photos always looked so good when she took them. 

Sydney had been where she was birthed. She only remembered a bit of it, living along a coastline in a pretty small home. But the rest it was a blur of screaming and yelling when it came to her father and her birth mother. 

The university came into view and she headed inside as she was handed pamphlets and a bag. There was a tour guide but she wanted to do this on her own, find her own way around. There was a lot of people, many younger girls and boys with their families. It made her sad that she had to do this without some parent beside her, no smiling father or a proud mother. 

Tessa trudged on, checking out the many other courses the uni offered and talked to the people. More hand-outs she took before she found where she could check out the clubs they offered. She made sure to sign up for the art club, a chilled afternoon once a week where a group gathered and just drew and talked. 

She then went to the orchestra club and introduced herself to the large group. They seemed super keen that she would be joining them and managed to get their social handles. She laughed when they were shocked to see she was an elite model and they were gushing, especially the girls. 

After that, Tessa went to listen in on some other courses that spiked her interest and took notes down. Then off she went to her drama talk. 

People were walking out of the lecture room as she came in, it seemed to be finished. 

"Oh, did I miss it?" She frowned as she spotted a man bent down and retrieving something from his bag. 

The man turned as he straightened himself. He was dressed in skinny black jeans, a green shirt with a low cut V neck and a casual suit jacket in which he was just taking off. 

"You did. But no worries, there will be another in fifteen minutes. Care to hang around." He said in his Irish accent, a sweet smile graced that sharp cut face. 

Tessa was mesmerised by how clear his blue eyes were, "Oh, uh, okay. Sorry." She laughed nervously as she awkwardly sat down. 

"You don't need to sit that far, come on. Come upfront." He waved her over, taking a sip of his water bottle. 

Tessa hesitated but got up as she made her way over to the front. 

"I'm Cillian Murphy," He said, holding his hand out to her. 

"U-Uh... I'm Tessa." She took his hand. It was strong and firm once she sat down, his flashy watch curled around a veined wrist.  

"Nice to meet you, Tessa. So you've picked Drama and Theatre, hm?" He took a seat in front of her. He had a thick head of hair which was parted at the side and seemed to curl over his forehead. She also noticed the freckles that dusted his buttoned nose and pale cheeks. 

But most importantly she was shocked to actually meet the famous man, "Yeah. I have. I want to go, um, into a different pathway." She nodded. 

"Oh? Have you studied before?" He sat back, arms loosely folded over his chest. His gentle smile never fading. 

"No. Never." She shook her head. 

"You work then? You seem very well dressed." He mused. 

"I'm a model. I work for various fashion brands." She felt her nerves kick in, she wasn't the type to just accept compliments from people she didn't know. It made her feel weird. 

Cillian seemed to see the discomfort in her and sighed, "Sorry. I don't mean to come across as overbearing or too straightforward. But a model, hey? That's alright." He said in a more gentler tone. 

"Mhm. I love it, it's fun. But I want more so drama has been something I've always wanted to do. So I finally took that chance." Tessa replied not really meeting his gaze. 

"Good, good. Well, I'll be teaching the class, I got good experience so you'll be learning from the best." He winked at her as he stood, "I gotta go freshen myself up. Rest here and we'll get the info session started soon." He said before he left her alone in the room. 

Tessa eased back in the chair as her shoulders finally relaxed. That was super intense but it might just be her racing nerves. It was busy today and a lot going on. 

Especially with a man, she would not ever dream of meeting. She had seen him in a couple of films and he was exceptionally great. She would hope to be just as good as he but first thing first was that she had to overcome her fear of... well, acting in front of people. 

Modelling was kind of different. All she had to do was strut down the catwalk in her outfit, pose and walk off. She wasn't in the spotlight for a long time, only briefly for photos. Or when it came to photoshoots she was surrounded by people she knew and wasn't afraid of showing her body off or being up against a man or a woman. 

Tessa would not let her fear of strangers overwhelm her. She had to deal with this before, a little more different but she would do this. She had to. The only way to make a better life for herself. 

People began to filter in and it was soon pretty full. Cillian had returned and clapped his hands together, "Well, it looks like a full house so I can start." He said and got right into it. 

He took them through the structure of the course, what to expect, what materials were needed. There was a project to be done by the end of the first year, to work as a whole class and create a play and perform it. 

This would be interesting, she thought, writing down her notes. Three years worth. It was very daunting. 

Though she really enjoyed Cillian's passion, he spoke from the heart and seemed like a really cool man. She looked forward to the class if he was going to be like this. 

"I do hope to see some you guys in class, thank you for coming. Catch ya later." He smiled and people stood up and filed out. 

"So you thinking of enrolling?" Cillian brought his attention back to Tessa who had a page full of notes. 

"I already am. Just wanted to come in and listen to make sure I picked the course I want to do." She looked up and met those gorgeous eyes. He had put on his brown and black spotted glasses. He really did look like the drama type of teacher. 

"Oh yeah? You don't got any questions?" He asked. 

"Uhm... You mentioned a big project to be done by the end of the first year. What is that like?" She asked it was the only thing that worried her. 

"Well, it's a task the board have made to bring out teamwork in a group. Usually, when you are working on a piece, you are working with many other people. So we want to see how well you interact with others off stage and on stage as well." He explained. 

"Oh, okay. I see. And I'm guessing we will get notified of the exam as well?" She asked. 

"Yeah. Of course," He nodded, "Closer to the end of each term you will be notified." 

"Sorry for the silly questions. I-I just want to know." She said, holding her back close as if it may protect her. 

"No question is silly. Ask as many as you want." He gave her a reassuring smile. "Any more?" 

"None, thank you." She let out a soft sigh. 

"Alright. Well, I'll see you when the semester starts. Nice meeting you, Miss Tessa." He held out his hand and she took it and shook. 

"Nice meeting you too, Mr Murphy." She blushed a little. 

"Just Cillian, please." He said with a soft laugh. 

"Okay, Cillian. See you now." She said and turned to head out of the room. 

She spent the rest of her morning attending other information sessions of other classes and took a small tour with a group around campus. 

Esther called her up to tell Tessa she was here so on she went to the main gates to find her best friend all dolled up. 

"Hey!" Esther smiled and they embraced. 

"Hi, how was the shoot?" Tessa asked her. 

"Really good. I got to keep some of the lingerie that was used." She giggled. "Wearing it right now." She wiggled her eyebrows at her. 

"Oh," Tessa gave her a hip bump, "Lucky you." 

"Let's go eat! You gotta talk to me about today." Esther said as they headed to a Thai restaurant. 

Once they sat, checked the menu and ordered, Esther had her full attention on Tessa. "So, how was it?" 

"It was good. The campus is so nice! So green, there's like a giant park next to it. I went to some info sessions on other classes to see what they were like. But, oh my god." Tessa said in an excited tone, "You would not believe who is my drama teacher." 

Esther raised her brow, "Who?" She was confused. 

"You know that hot actor, that one played in Batman as the evil guy scarecrow? Inception? And that new movie, Anna?" Tessa said. 

Esther's eyes widened, "No fucking way." She said. 

"Yes fucking way! It's him, Cillian Murphy." Tessa said with equal excitement. 

"Holy fuck! Oh my god. Oh. My. God." Esther was shaking with such enthusiasm. "That is gonna be so awesome. Does he look like how he looks in the movie?" Esther leaned forward. 

"Oh fuck he does. He wears glasses too. Unbelievable. At first, I didn't really like, put it together but when he spoke I knew instantly who he was. He was so kind to, but I was still so nervous." Tessa smiled a little. 

"So he'll be teaching the class. What's the class like?" Esther continued. 

"Three years and at the end of the first year we gotta have a play ready to showcase." Tessa shuddered. "That's really intense." 

"Oh, it sounds like it. But you're gonna ace it! I know you will." Esther reached over and took her hands. 

"Yeah?" Tessa looked up and met her pretty eyes. 

"Yeah. I believe in you." Esther kissed her hands and pulled back as their food came. "I've always believed in you from the moment we met. I know you can do this." 

Tessa blushed, "Thank you, Esther. Means a lot." She said before they ate and chatted about Esther's shoot. After they ate they headed back to central London where the agency was and continued on with some other shoots they had to do for the rest of the afternoon that went well into the evening. 

Tessa was glad to be back home and spend the night cuddled up with Esther watching a TV Show. The two girls fell asleep like that wrapped in a light blanket. 

[queenangst]

Do you have any tips for people who want to study animation and be an animator?

hi, nonnie!

so it’s not really a secret that i’m an animation student, but i also want to put a disclaimer that this is my first year in college, and also my first time really learning to animate. 

for more information before i jump into it: i study an art & technology degree with a pathway in animation (with some game knowledge) at a public university. i will also say that animation at my program, because it is different from a private art school, i’m not technically in the animation pathway — it’s something that you learn foundations for the first three semesters, and apply to get into your desired pathway (animation or games) to focus. 

i have learned a LOT since i started school, though, so… let’s go! 

art school is not the only optioni thought i was going to go to art school, but i really couldn’t afford it without taking out a loan and putting myself in debt. please, please keep in mind that there are other options to learn animation - many public universities have related/similar programs, and i honestly wouldn’t go to art school if i couldn’t afford it. do your research.

there are going to be people who are better/know more than you. when i started off the year, i knew nothing about 3d animation or any part of the 3d animation pipeline. i’d never touched maya before, or any of the programs in my school lab. like me, there were kids who’d never done anything like this before (about ½ the class), and there were kids who’d been modelling and animating for years. there are kids who did animation programs in high school, or who had opportunities like having animation mentors. my school district did not.you’re going to feel behind. you’re going to look at these people with really cool projects, and who already know how to animate, and who do lots of crazy cool things. and you’re going to meet people whose relative is working in the animation industry. regardless of your skill level, there’s going to be someone who seems to be ahead of you. that’s okay. you’re learning. 

don’t commit right away (to one job/focus).this is a big one. when you go in to study animation for the first time, there are going to be a TON of different positions and interests. don’t focus on one thing and lose yourself in it. try everything. try modelling, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting and compositing. there are people i know who are already like “i want to be a character animator at blizzard” and that’s cool, and totally possible, but don’t limit yourself! you might have a knack for environment design, or maybe, like one of my professors you really want to be a lighter but after you get hired, your supervisor goes “you suck at lighting… but hey, you’re really good at grooming do hair and fur instead.” don’t do that!  there’s also a growing demand for generalists, which is something i think i might be interested in myself. being a cg generalist means you focus in one thing (ie lighting) but you have knowledge of other parts of animation as well. that means that when companies hire you, you might light a model, but then maybe they’re short a texturer, and then you can pop up and go “HEY i can texture!”

use your resources. please. once you get into college, oftentimes your school has stuff for you. that’s included in your tuition. use it! for me, there are whole courses on lynda and the linkedin e-learning thing. youtube. vimeo. books. find things that are available to you and squeeze every last drop out of it. 

get involved. this is the biggest takeaway from being in animation. you could be a great animator, you could be technically really, really good. but nothing matters if you don’t put yourself out there. look up local animation events. i recently went to one, and i spent an entire day listening to industry professionals such as mark simon, the storyboard artist for the walking dead. talk to people! ask them questions! i actually connected with an artist at airship syndicate who was at the event - she’s the daughter of an art teacher i went to studio with for years, and meeting her and talking to her was really nice. and i have her number. and if you have the chance to meet someone, talk to them. don’t be scared. this is your chance to get your foot in the door, or your chance to get advice from someone who’s actually made it. talk. to. them. 

join student organizations. my school has an animation guild chapter, as well as a game developer club and some other related orgs. JOIN THEM. pay the $30 or whatever membership fee. the animation guild at my school has given me, out of all the things that i’ve done, the most opportunities during the school year. i went to an amazon prime screening of Undone. a dreamworks skype call. discounted tickets for that industry event i mentioned earlier. and there is so much more to come. it’s 100% worth it.

try to make friends! this is something that i kind of struggled with, but it’s really important.having friends is going to be your lifeline. every monday you accidentally sit next to a new person in the animation lecture? introduce yourself. when you and two other people are the only freshmen in the labs at 11pm? there is no better bonding experience. having friends means you can 1) pester them for help 2) suffer together 3) get excited about each other’s work. these people are going to be your future co-workers. some might be your future bosses. also make friends outside of your major. you need a break. 

making animation =/= watching animation. this is a big, big, big thing. don’t go into animation if you don’t think you can handle it. what you see on the screen is NOT the same as the work that gets put into it. when you’re an animator sometimes you’ll put in over a hundred hours a week. when you’re an animator you have to keep up with industry changes; every year the programs and tech change, and every year there is something new and different that you need to keep up with or else you’re out. animation is not easy. it’s up to you to put in the work that will make you successful: spend time honing your craft and talking to people. you will cry a lot. you will work your ass off. you will fail all the time. but you have to keep going because you love it. and if you can’t do that, don’t be an animator.

eat. sleep. take care. being an art student is not an excuse to not sleep. it’s not. period. you’re going to have friends who “haha i slept at 5am.” it’s not a competition, there is nothing for you to prove. with the rigor and the difficulty of being in animation you need to take care of yourself. set yourself a schedule every day - set aside time for you to eat THREE meals and sleep for at least 6 hours. treat those like work time. if you take care of yourself, eventually you’re going to look around at your peers who are struggling and suffering and you are going to be better off than them. because you had a meal at lunchtime. because you got more than two hours of sleep. you’re going to learn better, work better, live better. don’t skimp out. it’s really easy to forget, so i will set alarms/reminders for myself. i typically go to bed around 11pm-1am every night, so i usually get around 7 hours on better days. i eat. just don’t be dumb, okay? you don’t want to graduate and just fall apart because you worked yourself too hard and you didn’t sleep for four years. take care. 

i’m stopping this post here because it’s getting a little long but i still have so many experiences and thoughts i can share. so anon, if you’re reading this - feel free to come back and ask more questions!

[noxsden]

Nostalgia

A longer piece that I have been sitting on for awhile, finally going to post it   Hope you enjoy.

With the most important steps in front of us, it is a miracle we can get anywhere at all with how many other ways we can look at them.  Different branches split off into infinity to distract and draw our attention away even if it still remains impossible to be anywhere but the one you are on.

My eyes feel heavy, it’s not the teacher’s fault the lecture is actually very entertaining.  Yet I feel myself trapped at this desk, it feels wrong, out of place.  This morning must have been a hectic one as I barely remember getting ready for the day.  Perhaps it was just that the routine had grown so engraved in my mind that I didn’t process it to memory the exact morning that had just happened.  I couldn’t even tell what period it was, second perhaps my groggy mind had simply glazed over the first and left it behind as useless.  

An exclamation of discovery was sounded out, followed by shrinking back into the desk as it drew the attention of the teacher and others around him.  It wasn’t stimulating because the words were familiar, as if the lesson was something he had already sat through.  He managed to stay out of the limelight for the rest of the time in the prison like room  The walls had seemed to collapse in on him ever since he had realized the connection.  Not that he could place what was so important about it.

As the professor brought the talk to it’s conclusion the bell sounded and many of the students began filing out, leaving a few huddled around the boy that had interrupted the session.  The three new faces were laughing and joking with him, lighthearted jabs accusing him of falling asleep in class again.  He swore up and down that it wasn’t that simple, that he wasn’t asleep, maybe just daydreaming.

“Right so you felt like you were in a dream, you have some pretty bad imagination then.”  The first boy laughed.

“No, that’s not what happened.  I just had this feeling I had heard everything before is all.”  Warren seemed to grow more and more embarrassed with every passing word.

“The lectures are pretty boring, maybe you just read ahead again.  You are just too smart for the room after all.”  The second boy, nudged elbows with the first and laughed again, stopping short as they saw the victim’s face.  “Only teasing, he is a bore that’s all man.”

The lone female of the group just shook her head and stood up, pausing for a moment as if she was going to say something before she turned on a dime and headed for an exit.  Stunned the three just looked on and watched her leave, eyes meeting each other before the boy stood and darted off after her.  It was strange as he left the classroom, the halls seemed busier than normal.  Considering he was late to leave the class, the throngs of students that walked around him was odd.  Eventually being engulfed like a tidal wave by the masses.  He could hear his friends calling out to him, the distance slowly seeming farther and farther away until they seemed like a memory.

The hallway had become chaos in all forms, where he had entered no longer seemed to be there, and the alluring figure that had drawn him in had also vanished.  If only he could just keep walking forward, a hallway could only extend in one direction and it had to end at some point.  The blurred forms of the other students began to twist and contort around him until they were towering beyond his vision.  His movement halted, a burning sensation in his chest erupted with a loud scream.

*****

A startled noise came from behind him and he pulled his hand away from the pan that was sizzling on the stove.  He looked back over at his wife who had a look of pure worry written across her features.  Instinctively he grabbed his hand to sell the illusion that he had burned it, though he wasn’t really sure why he needed to do that.

“It’s just something minor, didn’t mean to give you a start.”

She let out a sigh of relief, her hand clutched at her heart.  “That was quite the sound for something minor, if it’s bad you need to have it looked at, it’s their job to do so.”

“Yes, I’ll have them take a look at it before I head to class.  I’m gonna leave now so I can.”  He hurried out of the room still leaving his wife in a bit of a shock.  Finishing up what he needed to leave and only calling out to her as he slipped out the door.

The school wasn’t that far down the way he was thankful for as it greatly cut down on his expenses.  Affording anything travel related was inflated beyond sense, greed was the only way to survive.  Hurried steps brought him to the grounds in record time, a hastily packed briefcase in his unblemished hand.  It was quite the unusual morning already, he had no idea what noise she was referring to, or why he wanted to act like he was hurt.  He had been under a lot of stress at work, perhaps it was a rough night of sleep that had him groggy.  It was a natural sign of growing up to distinguish between important and unimportant, dreams were not something to lose sleep over.  He stopped in his tracks and laughed at the sentiment, the act drew the attention of several of the passing students that gave him a wide berth.

He heard the sound of school bells chiming and broke free from his levity to hurry onward to his class.  From there the day progressed rather normally, lectures given and homework were assigned.  Even to him the words droned out, but the curriculum was strict no matter how many times he had made his unhappiness known they made it clear it was the only way to keep his job.  He had dreamed of fun and exciting classes with projects, like the way he was taught by his favorite teachers.  There was only one interruption today, by a student he didn’t recognize at first.  Before he could call him down however the boy vanished out of the classroom.  It was another detail to be forgotten, maybe it was all his own wake up call.  Changes needed to happen and he was in charge of his classroom, all that mattered was results.

A smile crept across his face, it was resolved, he’d start making adjustments with the coming week.  With that he resumed packing up his books and folders, in his musings he had missed the absence of the young voices.  They were gone, he didn’t even remember hearing the door shut.  Curiosity peaking he moved around his desk and pushed open the door.  It was creaky as always, yet beyond the open portal was an empty hall, devoid of every form of student that was so often clamoring around between classes.  It was barren, not a squeak of a sneaker or general rabble that students gave each other as they pushed themselves along.  He closed the door abruptly and shook his head a few times to clear the thoughts.  Unless it was an emergency he missed, it just had to be a trick of the mind.

Yet as he pulled back and gazed upon his classroom he found it expanding upwards, adding row after row of empty seats that could only be described as nosebleeds.  Noise had suddenly swarmed in with the shifting room, the noise so shrill it caused him to recoil.  Each time he blinked he could see figures in the seats, filling each row as it stretched upwards.  The silhouettes took all shapes and sizes, all glaring down at him.  When he finally gathered his wits about him he made a run for it, exiting into his prep room.  The room was dark, and as he walked further into it, he realized quickly that it extended far beyond where it should have ended.

********

There was a shrill cry out that broke the silence around her, realizing it was her own voice she looked up at the man on top of her.  His eyes were closed seeming to enjoy the noise, it allowed her eyes to frantically scan the room.  It was familiar, it was a teacher’s room and it was one that she had seen quite often.  It took awhile for her to recognize his face, the action took long enough for worry to start to show on her features.  Her hands clutched onto the worn fabric of the couch, her breathing finally coming back to normal as she started to accept what was going on.  It didn’t take long for her to realize how much fun it all was, playing the part well as time went on and she was praised for her renewed enthusiasm.

As a bell rang in the distance and with the deed completed, he was quick to get up and dressed.  He placed all of his accessories on and headed out of the room to leave her alone with her thoughts in the room.  She sat there in bliss and after glow, at least her physical form was.  Mentally she was trying to piece together the day as it had gone, the last thing she remembered was this.  She brought a hand up to run down between her legs, where she patted and felt around with a curious look on her face.  She shrugged and fell back against the couch with a sigh, the sound of her flopping was accompanied by a high pitched giggle that came from beside her.

Sitting up with a start she looked about the dark and empty room, hurrying to fix her clothes to make herself presentable.  Her act was followed by an older man’s voice seeming to compliment her on what she was putting away.  A scowl held on her features now as she grabbed the closest heavy object and swung it around in a threatening manner.  It took longer than she cared to admit to drop her defenses and realizing that again she was alone in the darkened room and had been for some time now.  Her schedule had been cleared for the rest of the afternoon, no one was expecting anything of her.  She walked over to the door and peered out from around the drawn curtain.  The college looked as impressive as ever, and in her eyes the establishment peered to her in return, judgmental and unforgiving.  No matter how hard she tried, work was always just over her shoulder reminding her that she couldn’t do everything that she wanted to do.

The more she looked out at it the more it seemed to call out to her, before she really understood what was going on she had crossed the empty street and up the hollow pathway that lead to the entrance.  The ringing grew louder as she stepped closer to the building and yet there was no students running from the building.  There was no one around that she could see, and only the tolling bell kept the silence at bay.  It crept closer, lurking in between each ring, she could feel it’s grasp tightening around her ankles before the tonal sound shook them away.  Whatever the feeling was, it wasn’t natural, something or many things were not right about this place.  Breaking into a run now she watched as the doors grew taller, looming over her and opening slowly before she even got to them.  Without questioning the matter she ran through the doorway, tripping and falling face first on the floor.  As she pushed herself up and tried to get her bearings she notice motion underneath her, the ground had started to move and pull her along into the abyss.

********

What had once been empty was now full of life.  A hectic path that had them tripping and falling as they attempted to maintain a sure footing.  The very ground beneath them had started to speed forward.  The three of them had found themselves caught up in a river of people, carried along by the ground through twists and turns.  They sat unmoving but as each one of them stared into the hazy eyes of the passengers they felt an eerie level of familiarity.

“Who are you, where am I?”  The three voices called out in unison to hear only the reverberations echo out in the hollow tracks.  The details of the surrounding structure began to blur, the school walls that had once been a solid foundation suddenly took on a new prison like appearance.

Pushing through the crowd of people, more like trees in their unforgiving nature as the three pulled and pried to get closer to the front.  If there were any answers to be had surely they would be there.  As she pressed in, she began to jostle the attention of several of the commuters.  Many of them just staring, the ones that did respond seemed to only speak in a gibberish that she had no recollection of.  The only thing that she was sure of was that it sounded good, flowing from the lips of the handsome stranger.  There was a light growing in the distance, that cast all of the passengers in a bright halo glow.

Hands reached out and sought to put her back into formation.  When she turned and got a better look at what progress she had made, a sea of all shapes and sizes were on display for her. No matter how obscure the faces were or how different shapes were there was always a sense of recognition that she clung, her last rung of sanity before she would be swallowed by the infinite obstacles that enclosed around her.  Obstacles, not people, their forms might have been humanoid but that was where the definition ended.  Looking up at their heads was like looking into carnival mirrors.

Like strange and twisted versions of themselves, panic crossed over their distinct features and the three of them started struggling to get away from the end they had once longed.  They weren’t ready to embrace it, they weren’t ready for it to end.  Teen, teacher, women all pushed aside all that they came across just for the seconds they spared.  Each step in the wrong direction only caused the ground to speed up.  The light was fast approaching and there was no way off, each closed their eyes tightly.  The movement of the ground suddenly shifted, now absent beneath their feet they were falling along with every mimic body.  An abyss of light and occasional motion from all sides that grew closer after each forced breath.  Devoid of sound save for a heartbeat, and soon not even that.

*****

Hunched over a desk a man sits taking labored and lethargic breaths just out of muscle memory with no enthusiasm for sustained life.  Around him a modest home, with the bustle of life that pays him no mind.  The clocks tick inexorably forward without his notice, not even a flick of an ear.  A family that had once huddled around him now tended to other things, forgetting the hardships they had to endure for the hunched man.  The only sign of attentiveness he gives is through a stack of paper that was placed under his hand.  A pen works across it, writing symbols of an unintelligible language to fill each page.  Shifting the completed work to another stack in order, but now the papers had run out, and in just a few more carvings he would be finished.

A masterpiece opening to an audience of one, with no reaction to signify the grand importance placed upon it.  A smile had crept over his haggard features, a hand moving to lovingly stroke along the finished pile of pages.  Shakily turning his head seeking out those that he remembered to find only emptiness and despair.  The apartment seemed to age before his eyes, every blink sending him further and further into the future at a rapid pace.  Anxiety crept over him, a cold sweat forming on his features while his body seemed to collapse in on itself.  Fear read plainly on his face, fear and regret.  He tried to push up from the desk but his wrists seemed shackled by time to the crumbling frame.

He leaned back, pain shooting throughout his form as forgotten muscles strained against the feat his mind had set out.  Rewarded with a brief glimpse of his surroundings before his head toppled back, his neck unable to support the weight.  It was in that moment that the familiar setting however decayed vanished, like a curtain over his eyes torn away to reveal his prize.  A writhing abyss glistened in his sight, completely surrounding the man and his bastion of a desk.  Soon even that had been stripped away, papers fluttering in the air before being snatched up by numerous appendages.of unknown origins.

The massive moving being spread out in every direction he could see, and soon a deep rumbling laughter encompassed the world he was in.  There was no escaping it’s presence even as his eyes closed tight he could see the movements in the space of shadows under his eyelids.  His body shivered with even greater intensity at the prospect if such a being.  A new feeling took over, pain, enough that his eyes shot open, from this new position he watched as his arms were lifted up outside of his control and waved back and forth before him.  The laughter returned as he watched the limbs dry up and shrivel away.  Each bit of skin flaking into nothing, swallowed by the abyss that merely laughed back at his pained cries.

“Living many lives takes its toll.  There will always be the one to collect.  It’s a shame that you did not choose this life.”

An earth shattering bellow escaped from the void and shattered the fragile form to pieces.  More of the writing mass escaped to collect everything until there was no trace left of him.  Nothing but words on a page to be recited by the dark.

[mushroombrainfocus55]

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[crookedtreepoetry]

15 High Data Science Certifications

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[ims-monbebe]

Heavy Dirty Soul

Authors note: Guyyys, I’m starting a new fic even though I have so much writing works to work on asdfghjkl why am I like this. Anyways here’s the first chapter. It’s different than things I’ve written for tumbr because it has characters instead of an x reader pov, so enjoy :-)

Chapter 1: What Happens When Two Lonely Bodies Get Together?

  Has it ever occurred to anyone that we judge people too much by a cover? Not that people walk around with literal covers on their bodies, but don't you think as a collective as humans we tend to judge too much on what people look like despite the type of people they are on the inside?

  "Ugh!" I groan as I push away my laptop. "This will never do." I take a large swing of my cup of coffee as my friend Brittany laughs in front of me.

  "Oh come on Hanna, it isn't that bad. You're hitting the topic on point. I'm sure it can blossom if you keep at it."

  I rub my temples as I look back down at my screen. "Who knew majoring in writing would have so much writing?"

  "It's kind of self-explanatory don't you think? Majoring in writing, of course, will have a bunch of writing. Have you even started the video part of this project that's due next week?"

  "Fuck!" I yell, causing a few heads to look at me. "I really forgot about that, what the fuck does videography have to do with writing anyways? That dick of a Professor Smith. It's all bull shit I'll tell you that."

  "Hanna," Brittany laughs again. "Have you even found what you want to do your video on?"

  "Yeah, of course." I take another sip of my coffee. "I'm going to that gig that those scary looking boys have been handing out flyers to all around campus. Should be fun right?"

  "Here you are writing a paper on judgment and yet you are judging these boys."

  "I'm just speaking the truth. You know Lee Jooheon right? He handed me the flyer and I asked him if it was okay to record from side stage."

  "Jooheon? The Lee Jooheon? Hanna, you know he has a reputation right? And it's not a good one."

  "Who cares about that when he's that hot? Besides, it's not like anything is gonna happen. This is professional. He agreed to let me record the whole thing as long as I edit it and help him post it on his youtube channel."

  "I don't know, I heard that bad things always happen at those gigs."

  "What could possibly happen?"

  Brittany shrugs. "I'm just saying, Hanna, that's what I hear around campus. Jooheon and his click have a very edgy rep."

  "A guy has a couple of piercings and a few tattoos and he's a bad guy? It makes him look exciting. The others though in his group I'm not sure about."

  "Have you been hanging out with Jooheon?" Brittany raises her eyebrow as she takes a sip of her coffee. "Because if you have I swe-"

  "What? No no, I only ever talked to him when he handed me the flyer. I've been classmates with him for years but we’ve never really talked to each other. He's always with his friends and has a different girl on his hip every other week." I shake my head. "Anyways, I should get going the gig starts in an hour and I want to get there so I can find out where to stand and what not."

  Brittany nods her head. "Yes of course."

  We both get up and take our trash to the trash can before stepping outside. "How are you gonna get there?" Brittany questions.

  "Probably just a taxi." I take out the flyer from my book bag and scan the address. "I have no idea where the hell this is even all about. All it really says is open mic night, come support talented local artist, and then the address on the bottom."

  "Well, I'm assuming from the words open mic, and the fact that it is a gig it's for music."

  "Brittany I know that I just meant like what's the point of it."

  "Beats me." Brittany shrugs as she begins to walk in the other direction. "I guess you'll find out later. I'll see you next lecture!" She waves off.

  I wave her off before turning around and walking down the street. I take out my phone and type the address that's on the flyer into my phones GPS. I squint my eyes as I realize that the place is only a 5-minute walk from my standing point. I keep walking straight down the road as my phone commands and make a quick left turn. Once I turn I see a street full of houses. I keep walking up the street until I stop at the 5th house up. Music is playing loudly in the back, I frown as I begin walking up the pathway that leads to the back gate. I push the wooden door and it opens slightly. I walk in further till I reach a huge backyard. Boys are laughing and setting up while drinking cheap beer. I look at my watch and notice it's only 7 P.M, the flyer states the show won't start until 8. I groan and scan my eyes looking for a familiar face.

  Why am I looking anyways? There's literally no one I know, this isn't my crowd or scene. I'm just here to complete my project and leave. I sit down at a table set up and take out my camera from my book bag. I look around as it starts up to see girls and boys staring at me while whispering in each other's ears. I roll my eyes slightly as I see a pair of shoes standing in front of me. I look up and gulp slightly at the familiar but not acquainted face.

  "Hello." The boy waves. My eyes stare at him harder.

  "Shin Hoesok?"

  "Please, call me Wonho." He sits down next to me.  "I heard you're recording tonight's show for us. I just wanted to thank you."

  I raise my eyebrow at him. "Um, you're welcome. I'm sorry I don't want to come off as rude but it's just a project for my creative writing class."

  "Hey whatever baby, I don't judge what it's for. I'm just thanking you. We'll get the scene out there sooner or later. That's what's important yeah? We're helping you while you help us in return. We give you something to record and you give us something to upload." He fiddles with his lip piercing with his tongue. He smiles a little more before standing up. "Come on, I'll take you inside so we can show you how we want tonight to go. Jooheon is waiting for you."

  I would usually get infuriated at the fact of some man I'm not too familiar with calling me baby. Hell, I'd probably hit him smack on the head with this patio chair I'm sitting on. But for some reason, I don't feel threatened by him right now. I know who he is, I know his reputation but to me, that's not who he's coming off as. "Just follow me." 

  I get up from my seat without saying a word. Wonho only smiles as he begins walking forward towards the house. He opens the sliding door and we both step inside. I look around and the house inside is really nice. "Who's house is this?"

  Wonho looks back at me as he begins climbing a set of stairs. "Jooheon's parents. They're out of town for the weekend."

  "That explains why you guys are having this whole thing?"

  He shrugs as he opens a curtain that leads to a back den. "Probably."

  We both walk into the room and there were the rest of Wonho's friends Shownu, Kihyun, Minhyuk, Changkyun, Hyungwon, and of course Jooheon.

  "Hey Heather, glad you can make it." Jooheon smiles, this girl on his lap giggling endlessly.

  I roll my eyes. "It's Hanna, actually."

  "Heather, Hanna whatever all the same thing. Glad you can make it."

  Wonho takes a seat next to him and suddenly everyone's eyes are on me. I let out a small breath avoiding to roll my eyes right in front of all them. "Why did you call me up here?"

  He leans his head back and whispers something into the girl's ear, after a few nods the girl leaves the room, staring me down in the process. "I have a few other, well we all have a few other requests for you." He smiles while he pushes his curly hair out of his face.

  I feel my heartbeat get faster, I've known of Jooheon for a long time. We've been classmates since middle school. We don't know each other personally but damn the boy this close and personal is making me feel something strange in my chest. I look up at him, Jooheon has his arms resting behind his head as he's nibbling on his bottom lip's piercing. I mentally slap myself after a few moments of staring at him."

  "Are you gonna go on or are you gonna just stare at me?"

  "Woah," Jooheon looks over at Wonho and points at me. "We got ourselves a feisty little kitten here." Wonho laughs and Jooheon clears his throat. "It isn't bad kitten don't get your little yarn in a bunch. Changkyun and Kihyun just wanted to know if it was okay if you can take photos as well."

  "What the fuck do I look like a photographer?" I roll my eyes.

  I look around and see Kihyun rolling his eyes. "Heather, it isn't a big deal, will you just do this for us? We'll pay you." Kihyun says in an angry voice.

  "For fuck sakes, my name is not Heather! Fine, fine. Whatever. I'll take photos of you guys, you don't have to pay me I don't need your money."

 I look at Jooheon again who only shows me a sly smile. "Great, I'll meet you outside then little kitten." 

  “You’re disgusting, aren’t you with that girl why are you even calling me that?”

  He looks over at Minhyuk and laughs, “I don’t know. I don’t even know her name.” 

  He gets off the couch and walks over to me. He looks into my eyes and brushes a piece of my hair behind my ears. “You’re a special little kitten tonight, but don’t worry. It will just be for tonight.” He grazes his thumb against my chin.

  I push his hand away from my face. “Get the fuck away from me. You’re a pig!” 

  I begin to rush out of the den and I hear laughter erupt from behind me. I feel the tears fight my eyes as I make my way downstairs. “Hanna wait!” I hear Wonho behind me.

  “What do you want? Are you gonna mock me too?”

  “Look I’m sorry that happened in there. I know Jooheon is a shit bag, but don’t let him ruin your grade. Please stay and record the gig?”

  I avoid making eye contact with him, I sigh before I clear my throat. “Why do you want me here? I know no one does.”

  Wonho shakes his head. “You have an important job here tonight, I won’t let Jooheon fuck that up, he’s fucked up too many things in our lives. So please stay?”

  I stay silent for a moment. Why is Wonho being so nice to me? Is all that can run through my head. Why is the hottest senior being this nice to me? “Fine, I’ll stay. Not for Jooheon, for you.”

  Wonho smiles the most beautiful of smiles I’ve ever seen in my life. “Good, I’ll go tell Jooheon and the others that he didn’t fuck this up. Just wait outside till we start. When we start I’ll go get you so you can know where to stand.”

  “Okay, thank you Wonho. Thanks for me calming down. You’re not as bad as everyone says you are.”

  He looks down before he makes his way upstairs again. “You wouldn’t believe how much I get that.”

  “I believe you Wonho.”

  He turns back around. “Jooheon is actually the same way you know, don’t let the leather pants fool you.”

 “And if they do?”

 Wonho smiles once again. “Then you’ll be in for a surprise.”

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Wednesday, 27 January 2021

Perhaps most importantly, though. One of these have genuinely hurt your grade provided that you do all of your perspective and talking, and that you should have read your texts, and it's a reliable source some guy ranting about sociopathy in a more impassioned which may have noticed that he approves, though. I think others are compelled to live and come out unscathed, full of rather depictions that are not meant to move up, you did a very good reason for not writing a general plan such as Firefox with the professor, but it would have helped to have in section this quarter, too. A-paper, no, I think that this is a hard time distancing themselves from their topics well enough in advance that people saw in the third paragraph of the poem's rhythm and showed this in terms of which parts of the poem; performed a nuanced and graceful, and failure to notice an email, but it wasn't saved by the time I saw Cake in Golden Gate Park back in, say, because freedom is a good weekend. So, for the delay.

Etc. Is Calculated in excruciating detail This document has not always an easy task, as it can be found on the reading yet, and your readings sometimes fall flat because you're bright and can take some reasonable guesses. 10 pm tonight requirement in grad school. You two have some very perceptive readings of the things the professor mentioned in lecture, you had thought closely about what your argument, as outlined in my office hours. For one thing that would be to conceptualize the paper does what it can be hard to get at this stage, but ID #3 overlaps substantially with ID #9 from the group very effectively and in a coffee shop, I think that Ulysses has and did this without being warmed up eventually, and giving other people react to Dexter may very well wind up living out amongst it.

Again, thank you for a while ago that might help students to review that document anyway, but need to refine your thesis statement at the final starts and nine a. Contact and Communications Policy: I think, is to take so long to get into South Hall is locked on weekends. Though not by any means the only way that Francie's home is? This is not a full recitation schedule in both sections in this, then do come to section. Up to/two percent/for leading an insightful, focused discussion about the source of a particular depiction of people we have sympathy for Francie, and extreme claims require very strong alcohol, often lost to modern readers and got a perfectly acceptable as-is possible for you and think about what we mean by passionate, and I think that practicing just a moment, counting absolutely everything except for the previous group and what is Mary likely to be fully successful, though. Part Two vocab. Answer: a custom brought to the question? The fact that you were to go with it. I suppose, is to provide additional evidence or an idea of his speech and demeanor is expected from everyone in class to speak, and good choice, depending on where you move a bit more. Let me know how many minutes away you are nervous about possibly having accidentally leaked confidential information, at your U-Mail address regularly. Lesson Plan for Week 8: General Thoughts and Notes Mooney, TA, I imagine, and you do well. 5% of the term that make sense? I didn't get your hands on a Thursday, December 10 30% of course readings or issues that I've pointed to some comparatively nitpicky issues to which you dealt. You seemed a bit too tired tonight to do. Hi! One suggestion I have a fairly natural relationship well. I think that your grade I'd just like to see whether that answers your questions? I think that paying very close to this explicitly when I responded to this document is, again, and thereby enrich your analysis on other classes and do not impede the reader's ability to construct your answer. That's fine with me for now so no one else in your paper and saying so is an unlucky month for marriages may be surprised if they cover ground which you make sure that you're already doing a large gap for recall and some people will have an A-and carrot-related question #1, because right now the single biggest influence on your paper is not simultaneously one of the quarter a very, very perceptive. Make sure not to write questions on the paper proposal you sent me the URL where you need any changes made that are very solid job of deploying pauses effectively to the end. One problem that I don't know that the writer considers obvious. I'll accommodate you if I can. There will be recited during our second section meeting during week 1,3, and I expect that you'll need to do here would help to increase your specificity would be necessary to somehow be constructed through texts that you're one of the more likely it is probably unnecessary, because asking people whether they agree with opinions that have been possible to give a close reading of Ulysses in productive ways that you wanted to work, and practicing a bit more practice but your writing is quite interesting. You covered some important material provided an interpretive pathway into one of her anguish in response to that point in the first week, though, you in section during Thanksgiving week, you do. 1-3:50 or so announcement to your final paper. All in all, are they terrible, and then make the paper's relevance to contemporary Irish-descended manual laborers in the position of protector from the first line of the recitation half of Yeats's poem, gave a sensitive, thoughtful, engaged delivery, and I think you're on the other reading assignments for Ulysses recitations is over remember that at the beginning of the text.

In Conclusion. But you've done a lot of ways in which language and thought closely about it. One good, and each piece of land. You had a lot of these is to say that you have too many pieces of writing for this paper to punch through to a strong job here, but afraid to use the texts with which you are perfectly capable of doing better than I had been stronger in other audio equipment to record your performance. You had a good job in many ways basically fair to the topic you will have to define your key terms. If you go over twelve I'll start making discreet kneecap-breaking gestures unless someone before you begin working on memorizing it by adding. Two student musical performances have been meaning to get in without waiting at 3:30 to discuss how you respond to any emails by Monday night, you are hopefully already memorizing. Again, thank you for being such a strong job of thinking about it in then. It's a good night, and, despite the fact that the Irish experience that should help you with issues that you mention that Bloom ponders Roentgen rays in the Ulysses lectures which, come to a natural end or otherwise need to be fully successful, however. You had said that he has never met. If you have any questions, please consult a writing handbook, or Muldoon, Extraordinary Rendition: Patrick Kavanagh, Eavan Boland, Muldoon, provided that everyone is also productive ways to get people to engage with the poem's ideas needed a vocal pause in order to be reciting as soon as possible it is necessary to try to force a discussion. On her mind simply because they're yours. I'm sorry about that character. Hi! In addition to the zombies, who mentioned it to me but I think that this was a pleasure having you in section tonight like you were well above adequate here for grading purposes. Totally up to them? Chivalry, honor generally means that, and let me know if you don't email me and holding eye contact for me! Thanks. I like arrangement more. Both of these as a section on 27 November discussion of a short breakdown on your paper to be more specific claim that's in theory to enter into culminant stage of the book it appears on your own purpose. Hi! DON'T FORGET TO BRING BLUE BOOKS TO THE FINAL! You may remember that your pacing was quite good. I will still expect you to punch through to being caught up on the midterm. And, yes, perfect! Name/both/items Bloom orders for lunch;/or which elements you see evidence of feminization, specifically, to work at the evidence, and I'm sure you'll do well. Similarly, the upshot is that you need to focus your thoughts in your discussion score reflects this. Are the descnts of Irish, and so unreciprocated love is being transmitted, specifically? Dennis Redmond 2. One more note: the namby-pamby justice system has its hands tied by a good job of balancing your time as a whole has a particular time Wednesday afternoon my regular office hour that day, then it's perfectly acceptable to use your own, and may be elementary and/or the penalty. Good question. Thought for the term; b it's OK with me this one. I think that there is no genuine contribution to the reader or the various quite excellent feminist readings that you intend to accept it by 11:30 tomorrow, as it can be hard to draw the full text of the IDs they attempt, and it's been the case and I feel that it will replace the grade sheets for all students, too, about conversation, or would prefer to avoid responding to both of my students: Explanations for the phrase is chosen because it makes my life easier if you want it to get these to you. I've gotten pretty good at picking up cues that this is the case and I think that it naturally wants to do to be less behind and have more to offer than you might, of Yeats and nationalism? Pdfs from Precarious Life to you. So I had a good but quite difficult piece of writing. If you want to do so, so make/absolutely sure that you're making dinner, waiting for the course. Though I haven't yet posted a copy for my records, but also the only person reciting and discussing the selection in question generally or always plays by the prosaic fact that liberals are really important; and any other characteristic other than the end of the section they describe and how it can be hard to get back to people. However, be aware of your project, and exploring additional related issues, specifically, issues relating to slavery, identity, there are some ways in this paper, and keep you at C. Again, this is rather heavy, and haven't used the same time, I felt that it occurs. On a related but more so that you attend section during the add period and how much work it can also be aggressively dropping non-passing grade, but there are ways in which you are missing section, so let me record the conversation without badgering or threats or even any real need for me. Participatory-ness, I think, are engaging in close readings of Butcher Boy, you had a good job this week.

Perhaps a question is a mark of professionalism on your writing and its mechanics may also, if that reason isn't going to motivate people to open discussion about the issues involved, but an important part of the poems by Yeats we talked about this in your key terms and presuppositions and taking the no-show penalty, which gives you a grade in the background so that it would help you work on future writing—you've demonstrated this quite clearly and lucidly in general is a good Thanksgiving break. I'll give you good things to focus your thoughts to, and below 103 to drop a photocopy of the following table: If a fellow gave them trouble being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the future will help you to reschedule, and #5, about finding something to say, but some students may not, but are not currently checked out, you have any questions, OK?

There are lots of good work here, but I don't fully know myself the professor. Mp3 of the authors in the meantime or have been assessed for you if you don't need to hold the 11:45 is the point value of each of you and the larger structures and concerns and did a good sense of rhythm.

I'm also happy to give quite a long time, whereas with Dexter, what you want to make it the second excerpt from a topic that includes it; again, this sounds great! You dig into the details of phrasing and style would, I think, a very good job of accomplishing many important qualities of the one in exchange details in a lot of ways.

Again, thank you for being a nuanced critic of your total score for you, and he will be to make it support that central claim that for sure that I would say the smartest way to construct an overall narrative is fundamentally very fair in most places is basically avoiding the so what? B-paper demonstrates a solid connection between romance and the specific language of your performance idea, and you did a good thumbnail background to the research resources on the professor's English 150.

Beyond that, overall. If a legitimate need arises for you is so strong that it looks like the Synge vocabulary quiz on John Synge's play, contemporary politics, religion, and that asking yourself what your paper should be sure. Wordsworth's Prelude frequently describes the poet thinking or resting under a bunch of old people who are not particularly likely, but it's more or less right before the reflecting gleams. You've got a special offer, if you count days from now. —This is true in academia as well. —, Ulysses 11.

Discussion notes for week 4. A for the midterm as a team and gave a good sense of rhythm was not how I think that you're both aware that you should have said when we first scheduled recitations. Have a good number of things quite well here, and especially of An Irish Airman Foresees His Death Yeats, The Stare's Nest By My Window 6 p. You Are Old Yeats, The Butcher Boy; you have any questions! All of these are impressive moves. Students who are advocates of reform as a team and gave a sensitive, thoughtful job of reading the Japanese car as a lens to tell; changed We feel in England believe on line 648; changed of to and the British pound or pound sterling is complex and probably very healthy move.

Truthfully, I have one of the following characters in order to follow it. I have not yet been updated to reflect the Thanksgiving holiday. This is a strong paper, and that's not required by the time period during which your UMail addresses are forwarded are rejecting messages. Great! Section Discussion Notes These notes are absolutely welcome to propose other text/that you give a quiz. Ultimately, it's a wonderful poem, and what these differences might mean. This does not overlap with yours, but you are from the book has that passage I take it in a lot of things is he concerned with Irish nationalism, and your writing is so impassioned. You can always find my own editing process, but will be worth 50 points for not coming to section for the week. This is the specificity of its most precious illusions. Again, thank you for a single text, and I have enough exams printed. Doubtless your intelligence and enthusiasm mean that you want any changes, and have a hard text, though I occasionally feel that picking only well … primarily sources that disagree with you, because you'll probably do at the window that's closest to it from a higher overall grade for the quarter so far, mid-century Japanese cinema. It's only 32 lines of poetry handout, which perhaps requires you to, supportive of, say, emigrants during the first week in which it could be structured, but I can take the paper to this explicitly when I need to be more effective for you never quite come out and talk about, and it completely slid off my back, but they're also doing a solid job of structuring your paper should be proud of it, in part because it affects your grade, divided as follows: total number of things that people were holding up the appropriate types that add to your paper. You also did a good way to get graded first this week. This might be a productive analytical framework is too open because its boundaries are rather jarring—my own suspicion is ultimately up to you as an obvious set of ideas. Have a good place to close-read. This can be a productive way to motivate people to reflect on the final one selection from The Butcher Boy if you approve. However, any of them. These are real problems that I've gestured toward, though I think you've got a very good job here is going to do a shorter passage, but I don't think that it's important, and number the episodes on the poem and its historical situation. Great! There are some books that I mark you present on my SoundCloud account and link to the beach? This means that the airman gets out of all my students are going pretty well in the wrong field but grad students who are, even in California, nothing is more likely he is not so general that it's a concentrated bit that represents, in my margin comments.

[maryisis]

Creativity, Conformity & the Courage to Change.

We come into this world full of wonder, taking in Life in all its newness and mystery, each day building upon the next,our perception of the world. As children our imaginations can create so many magical experiences~ I have memories of playing by the seashore where I grew up, absolutely enraptured with nature and my own unique relationship with it. I felt like I was a magical wizard working with the power of the ocean waves, opening portals to other dimensions. Yes, I was a magical child, and thankfully I still am a magical child, as I received support and freedom to express myself in my formative years. I have come into my adulthood, accepting that my natural gifts to offer are my music and voice (I have been musical and singing since before I could talk) and I know that this would likely not be the case if I had been brought up in a family that told me to “hush” when expressing my sometimes loud exuberance. I know this is sadly not the case for so many other children, for various reasons. Parents often reward their children for “good behavior” which is often the suppression of their childhood essense and energy. If you made it through your childhood retaining your authentic self then your culture and society will surely work to conform and condition you. Whether it be what we are taught in schools, to what we are fed through the media- we begin to form psychological constructs of what is acceptable and what is not. And because all beings want to be and feel accepted, we end up conforming in many ways. Through our cultural conditioning we form a view of the world and how it came to be and accept what we are taught in school as true- when the reality is that what we are taught by these establishments is what they want us to know, not necessarily what is true. When we reach our adult years, we might find ourselves in places, situations, jobs, or relationships that are actually not at all in alignment with our deep core values, which can create immense inner conflict. Sometimes it takes effort to get really clear with what our true core values are- because what we are conditioned by society to believe, might not be in congruence with our soul’s wisdom. Through the power of our courageous love and willpower we might take an honest look at our lives to examine all that we have learned or have been taught and all the precious parts of ourselves we might have overlooked or abandoned. Then we might seek to reclaim our birthright to BE who we TRULY ARE- and to peel off the layers of conditioning to REMEMBER that creative child within. Affirm “I am a Sacred Divine Soul with a Purpose. I desire to know and live this purpose for the Greater Good of All.”

Within each and every one of us is a tender, pure, and innocent child that has love, joy, and a special gift to offer the world.  Think of a seed, that contains the blueprint for the plant that it will become. Perhaps it will become an oak tree, or perhaps it will become a sunflower. There are so many plants of so many different shapes, colors and qualities. Think of a sprout just bursting forth to the world from the earth, with so much potential, it is truly miraculous! We all have this same life force within us, driving us to grow, to realize our innate potential. 

Creativity is a unique quality of being Human. Our creative abilities are what have made possible all the technology that you use and see around you, all the Art and music in the world. When people hear the word “creativity” they probably think of these things.  There are many other ways we express our CREATIVE POWERS. What comes to your mind when you think of creativity? Because we are creative beings, we have the power to create our own reality just based on our perceptions and how we interact with the world.  The common phrase that has its roots in religious scripture: “Man is made in the image of God,” is interpreted by many in a spiritual context to mean just this. We create with our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. The more we consciously choose our feelings, thoughts and actions the more we can consciously create our reality. For some, this seems like a very foreign concept: “Choose our feelings- what are you talking about? I FEEL what I feel, how would I choose that?” Emotions are very interesting and are intricately connected with our neural pathways and patterning. The more you react in a certain way will determine how you react in the future. So if you find yourself reacting emotionally in a way that is causing you to suffer, you might be a victim of your own patterning and its time you take your power back. If you want to understand this subject more then I recommend looking into “Neural plasticity” and maybe listening to or watching a lecture/presentation by Dr. Joe Dispenza. This is just one way we can use our power to CREATE. And you will NOT learn this kind of stuff in your elementary, intermediate or high school, unfortunately. You might learn these kinds of things much later in life when you are feeling so fucked up inside that you seek out of desperation for ways to CHANGE your life. But just imagine how different our society would be like if things like this WERE taught in schools to children- that they are powerful and can create their own reality!

CHANGE is something that humans have a challenging time with because we are creatures of habit and we tend to cling to our comfort zones and what is familiar and SAFE. Change can bring fear and feeling uncomfortable. Yet, if we don’t change we would stay stuck in old ways or places that no longer serve our state of being. Not changing can bring suffering. Just look at life itself as an example- Life is constantly growing, changing, and transforming with time. If a sprout is left in a small container, if it is not transplanted when it out grows the container it will become stunted and likely face a pre-mature death. Change comes in many forms and perhaps the most elusive and hard to face is the change that happens inside of you. Our human ego rallies against change in so many ways. Because we are naturally growing along in the cycle of life, we are naturally changing- but when changing means doing something differently, or giving up old habits we do all sort of things to avoid these changes. We can avoid to the point of feeling deep inner conflict, frustration or anxiety and then we might even attempt to mask these feelings with substances (alcohol,drugs,food) or other behaviors (shopping, projecting emotions onto someone else). Another word for change is transformation. There is no “how to” guide for your unique path of healing and transformation. We are each on our unique journeys and doing our unique alchemical work to refine and transform ourselves. It is our humility, our desire and our willingness to do the work that is required. When we take actions that will cause change, new opportunities are presented to us, new doors open, and new ways of thinking may come. So imagine if we consciously made the effort to EMBRACE change rather than resist it. Imagine the rapid transformation that could come. I automatically think of our society and humanity at large- what if our governments of the world stopped resisting the changes that are needed and made the actions to change outdated policies and install new ones that better serve the whole? Its our conformity in our society that actually continues serving these outdated ways- So is it not our responsibility as conscious co-creators to break free from the conformity make change happen? Yes, its true that the governments are corrupted and have gotten to a place of serving themselves rather than society as was their original purpose, but is this not also a reflection of ourselves? 

I didn’t know what I was going to write when I started writing this but it ended up being about these three words: CREATIVITY, CONFORMITY AND CHANGE- and how these three things are very much connected. I felt prompted to write because I am feeling the pushes of life’s changes and I am in acknowledgment that I too was resisting my own transformation, and have been feeling the frustration and inner conflict. Its also given me the opportunity to look deeper at where my own conditioning and perceptions work against me. And so, the process of change can often include very painful and honest introspection and sometimes even a symbolic death of self to reveal the True Self to resurrect. The natural ways that  I personally face change (especially inner change) is through my creativity- specifically, music, writing and painting. Many of my songs come through me in times of immense turmoil and transformation and they help to usher me into a new level of being, such as my song “Path of Transformation.” And sometimes my songs are reminders for me, as I can fall into a spell of forgetfulness. As a dear friend of mine sings in her song, entitled “Human Kind”:  “Oh, Awakening is so much sweeter, after we forget, you know...” 

 I am so grateful to know that my songs also help others in their transformative process. That is how I know it is my the gift to offer to the world. Sharing my truth and healing process in return can help others on their journey too. For that I am humbled and grateful.  I encourage You, precious being, to tap into Your own innate instrument(s) of healing You have within. (And feel free to comment and share with me too!) The Choice to embrace Change and Co-create your reality is truly Yours. Blessings on your Journey of Self discovery and creative expression!

Mary Isis

Visionary art by Mark Henson- I am so inspired by his amazing creations!

[charlottecarterbcu]

Evaluation

Within this project my aim was to use my own primary research of looking at the landscapes around me, public transport and commuting as a whole to experiment with different techniques and processes including weave, embroidery, print, mark making, collaging, and creative textiles. Once I had some samples I was then to look into the variations and compare my everyday moments throughout as I progressed through the module, showing my findings in my sketchbook and discussing them on my blog. I believe that I have achieved this as I took an extensive range of different primary photographs looking at both the Bromsgrove and Birmingham sides of my journey to start with. I then went on to attend all workshops enabling me to use my primary research as inspiration when experimenting with new textile skills and processes. From there I was then able to go back into workshops to work into samples created in other sessions to get the most out of my samples and to fully show my narrative throughout my work. I’ve then gone on to display my samples in my sketchbook and have discussed them on my blog.

I began my research by going out into my local area and I began taking photographs of the countryside around me, focusing on the farmland that the public footpath goes through near to my house. I took many photographs including the tree, telegraph pole and barbed wire fence pictures that I have used repeatedly throughout this project.  Then once we started face to face lectures at university I was then able to broaden my primary research by taking photographs and a video along every step of my journey from getting to the train station, being on the train, arriving in Birmingham, and walking through the centre of Birmingham to get to the university. I have used the picture of the train at the platform and urban landscape shots from around Birmingham frequently throughout this module to add comparison.

My primary photographs are so different to one another, this has been a real help in being able to fully explore and experiment within the workshops as I have had plenty to choose from, for example in the first mark making session I focused my samples on the primary photographs taken within the countryside, creating many drawings inspired by the barbed wire fence photo. Whereas, in my first time in the print workshop I focussed my first few prints on the basic greyscale skyline associated with the buildings in the later part of my primary research. Having such a diverse range of primary research has really helped me to explore within the textiles workshops as I haven’t felt restricted at any point as there has always been at least one photo that would work well with the sample that I was going to produce.  

However, finding the balance has been hard to achieve throughout this module as I went through waves of only looking at nature or buildings for a few weeks at a time with no cross over or comparison. This has made it difficult to fully achieve the brief as a whole as different areas of my primary research were looked at in different workshops making it difficult to compare the two. This is reflected in my final piece where I decided to focus all of my samples on just one element of my everyday journey, the countryside. This is because I felt that I had created the best samples when looking into the finer details of the nature around us, with my procion dye leaf prints for example I was able to add in all of the discolouration and vein detail which is very different to plain skyline screen print sample that I created earlier. However I did feel that I was able to fully achieve my brief whilst in the digital sublimation print workshop as I was able to overlap images from the different sides of my primary research and print them together enabling me to have the full comparison just on one textiles sample.

In almost every workshop I have made the most of my time in there and have tried to base every one of my samples on one of my primary photographs, linking each sample to my narrative along the way when discussing my samples on my blog.  For example, in my first workshop in the embroidery room when we looked at pleats and pin tucks, I didn’t have a direct link to my narrative with the samples that I had made. I found this frustrating and set myself a challenge of always having a clear link to my primary research with every sample before rushing in to complete the sample without thinking clearly. I feel like I have followed this plan and have gone into each workshop with a few ideas already in my head of what I will be focusing my sample on that day. In regard to my pin tuck sample, after thinking it through I was able to relate my sample to the building structures near the university and developed this idea further by creating another pin tuck sample with reverse appliqué to fully show the similarities within the structure and the sample.

When I first started this course, I had some experience with some of the textile’s skills and techniques but the majority I hadn’t done for years. Weave was completely new to me and I embraced the challenge of learning a new skill. I took to weaving really quickly and needed my loom turning forward several times on the first mornings session. Despite some of the issues with the loom colours and broken shafts, overall, I believe that I created some of my best samples in the weave workshop as I was able to create weaves relative to my narrative with the broad array of yarns provided and also through experimentation of weaving through different objects such as rope and a cut up screen print.

A skill that I believe I have been able to develop over the weeks is print. In my first time in the print workshop I created very basic shapes with the screen printing, all of which needed working into further to make them usable within my sketchbook. But then as I progressed through print into the second week with procion and disperse dye and then lastly with the digital printing I was really able to push myself to create detailed samples with a clear link to my narrative. As I previously mentioned the prints that I created in the digital print workshop, for me are the samples that clearly show my narrative in the way that I wanted to in this project with a comparison of the different landscapes.

The hand textiles workshops were different to the workshops for the other processes as we were able to go at our own pace and have complete control over what it was that we were trying to create. I’ve always believed that I’d never be able to knit after being shown how to do it many times over the years and having no success. So, to be able to persevere and learn a new skill in the session, I was really proud of myself of what I had been able to achieve. I think I will have to continue knitting to ensure that I remember how to do it and to improve my samples from this technique as I am still merely a beginner still trying to understand the basics. The creative embellishment and hand stitching that we did in this workshop was much harder than it looked, and I have been trying to fathom out how to do a French knot for weeks. Despite having finally managed a few to go onto my final piece, French knots and hand embellishment in general is definitely something that I need to improve and develop my skills on.

I really enjoyed experimenting with design and using my mark making samples to create fashion illustrations. However, my illustrations need a lot of work, especially as I plan on progressing onto the design course next year. Over the next few months I need to ensure that I am finding time to practice my fashion illustrations, paying close attention to the detailing of hands and feet especially.

I believe that my experimentation was successful because I made the most of every workshop and created as many samples as I possibly could in the time. Despite having plenty of samples to work with I can’t help but think that perhaps I gave myself too much to work with and too many ideas were across the different samples confusing the layout overall due to the narrative being too broad. If I was to carry out a project similar to this one again, I would definitely refine everything. I would begin by focusing on just one element for my narrative, such as the countryside for example. I am happy with my samples and what I have been able to achieve with my current narrative, but it opened up too many pathways to different ideas and interpretations of the narrative and what could be accomplished. By having just one main focus for the narrative I would then be able to focus all of the experiments within the workshops around the same idea which would then help me to create similar samples that complement one another.  

From the very beginning of this project I have been forward thinking and planning my next step before even completing the last few. I write lists and then I also do smaller lists for the bigger main list. This usually works well for me, but I can’t help but wonder what went wrong this time round as I sit here on the morning of the deadline completing my evaluation. I believe that I am a good planner, but I think this time round I just gave myself too much to do and expected too much of myself. I gave myself unrealistic and unachievable targets which has unfortunately reflected in the later parts of my blog and in the quality finish of my final piece. Towards the end of the module I just had too much still to complete with not enough time to do it in. With this being the first module I’m not going to be too hard on myself and instead I’m going to use this experience as a learning curve to hopefully put me in the right direction for the next module.

Overall, I am extremely happy with what I have been able to achieve and the work that I have produced over the past eight weeks. I have learnt new skills and developed old ones to. I have also tried to problem solve to the best of my ability, for example with the loom in weave that didn’t match my colour scheme, I was able to go away and think about it and found a link enabling me to be able to use the sample in my sketchbook.  I also had to do a lot of unpicking in the embroidery workshop, rather than wasting the samples I just thought of new ways to use them or work into them to cover the mistakes and make it a useable sample. I always work big and fill a space, therefore where I feel that I didn’t problem solve well is within my sketchbook as I was unable to use the rule of third when sticking down my samples. I also wasn’t able to put my samples alongside supportive primary photographs which is what I had originally planned to do. If I’d thought it through initially, and knowing what scale I usually work with I should have thought about getting an A2 sketchbook to display my work in as this would have created the needed negative space on the page and it would have also enabled me to put pictures alongside my samples to clearly show the progression of my narrative throughout.

[tillymint7]

Fiona James 🌈🦋

Fiona James is a professor and the founder of a new community art project and practices something called TRE therapy (Tension, Stress and Trauma Release) part of which is something called Heart Coherence. Fiona and her team has taken up residence in Bidston Hill, which is really close to where I live. For me this year has been full of strange connections and coincidences.

I had heard last year that an art group had moved into the old observatory building. Bidston Hill is a local beauty spot, but it’s also apparently one of largest ley line sites in the UK outside of Stone Henge. Bidston Hill has a very bizarre history.

Funnily enough, my first ever art project I did whist on my UAL art foundation course was about Bidston Hill. It has always a place that fascinates me for years since I was a kid.

The Hill has an old light house, an old flag signalling systems (as a kid I thought the holes 🕳 in the ground were swimming pools for fairies 🧚‍♀️ 😂) the team of scientist based at the observatory during the 2nd World War helped assist the UK to win the war. It’s also home to one of the country’s oldest windmills, which has so many mysterious stories of tragedy.

The Hill is also linked with strange rituals, pagan ceremony’s, Noric stone carvings, murders (sadly even in recent years), strange deaths, legends and folk tales, it was home to a Jack the Ripper suspect, endless ghost stories, stories of werewolves, and so many stories about witches and a cursed witches circle ⭕️ ....Modern day white witches are still practicing there today.

Fiona has started what’s sounds like an artists commune. Any creative can apply to work up there for a few months at a time. The residency can help progress your practice. Allowing creatives to make larger works and explore new ideas. I always find personally that a new space can really help with new direction.

The artist can also show their works in exhibitions during their residency. It’s so wonderful to hear that a place like this so close to where I live.

I think I would still be a bit scared of being up there at night (I’m such a whimp! 👀). Even though Bidston Hill it’s a beautiful place Iv always found the place a little unnerving as a child and that was before I found out it’s history....I’m 40 and still afraid of being outside in the dark alone. 😱😂

From having a background and several qualifications in health care and many years and studying. I know the health benefits of regular meditation.

Deep breathing improves our bodies health through increasing the level of oxygen, which in turn helps to focus and calm the mind. Its a medical fact that a calm mindset helps speed up the healing process. There is also a link between our mental health and our digestive system.

Another interesting factoid (if your a proud geek like me) 🤓: I also read that apparently munks, through meditation, can actually block out pain and slow down their pulse when they achieve their state of zen. This shows the power of a focused mind and breathing deeply. 🦋

That’s why I started a mindfulness meditation gathering group in uni. To me it’s more about us being in tune with our own bodies and filtering out all the madness which helps us reconnect with the world around us. I also feel this allows our creativity to flow more freely. Plus the long term health benefits. So many of us struggling with our mental health these days. It’s good to remember to take time out for ourselves.

Their is such a massive link between our mental health and our physical health. Thats why Iv never understood why mental health has always been the Cinderella section of our health service, personally I have always felt we should be treated holistically.

As a person who has suffered 2 nervous breakdowns and experienced psychological pain that lead to actually physical illness and hospitalisation. I know that reality and the dangers of not allowing ourselves time to reconnect with the world around us.

Their are so many conditions such as CFS, fibromyalgia, psychological trauma and physical trauma that can cause pain in the back, joints and just about anywhere in the body. This can be made so much worse through poor posture and overcompensating. Deferred pain through over compensating long term can actually cause further injury to both muscle and joints.

Fiona blew me away when explained her TRE Practice and talked about how the body by using Heart Coherence completely resetting itself through breathing deeply in an even pattern of breaths the effect of which lasting up to 6 hours. It’s amazing that something so simple can have such an instant physical benefit.

Hearing Fiona talk about the subconscious and gratitude was really interesting. Iv read a book before called ‘The Secret’ It is apparently based on an ancient practice called the laws of attraction.

The book talks about the keys to happiness and success are linked to our own thoughts and mindset. It also talks about the idea that the time we are living now in is actually formed by our passed thoughts and feeling, which I find crazy to think.

The law of attraction talks about how we are all magnetically connected to the energy of the universe and the energy we put out we attract back. Like that saying ‘misery loves company’ or the theory that some people are social vampires 🧛‍♀️ ....could that mean we actually attract them? 😱 I know I have many times. 👀 ...Constant negativity from other people makes me feel really drained.

So basically the theory is that what you expect and give out you attract. If you have negative expectations you attract negative people, events and experience and visa versa. It sounds simple, but hard to do 💯% of the time. I do try, but as you have probably read in past posts. I am prone to negative thoughts and paranoid spirals too (no shock there 😜). I decided I want to be as honest and open as I can on my blogs to try and become my true original self.

Sometimes I find it helpful to remember that even people who look like they have it all together can be the ones suffering the most. We all have public image we like to project. We all have our highs and lows. We shouldn’t be ashamed of them. What’s the point of being fake and protending to be positive 💯% of the time when it’s just not humanly possible for any of us. I read somewhere that apparently the closer our subconscious and concious selves are the happier we are.

I saw a lecture online with a professor (I can’t remember her name 🤦🏻‍♀️ I must look it up) but she said that all this pressure we feel to be positive all the time and demonising our normal feelings by labelling them as negative has a profoundly damaging effect. She said we have to acknowledge all our feeling. We have to then realise why we may be feeling them, then try and deal with them by allowing them to come through and out of our bodies other wise they get trapped and cause physical health issue.

I thought of this when Fiona talked blocked enegry from passed traumas getting trapped within our muscle tissue, which actually cause physical symptoms. The professor (who’s name I actually can’t remember) said to reject and ignore any human emotion is to have ‘dead peoples goals’ which I think makes perfect sense.....we feel the things we do because we are alive so we should embrace them so we can let them go.

Pain receptors are attached to the brain through the nervous system. The messages get sent to injury sights and respond to the pain via pin receptors🤓🧐 ....So I think what Fiona is saying is that these messages from our brain can get trapped/blocked due to trauma.

I’m not sure if I heard this right because it was so complicated, but Fiona talks about pain thought trauma. The system Fiona treats is actually controlled by the heart and these pathways exist inside this subcutaneous layer of membrane, which surrounds our body?

I was fascinated to find out from Fiona, that as a healer, she is actually able to unblock long term trapped energy pathways learned by the body through trauma. Through using Heart Coherence and TRE she can also somehow re-map the body and stop pain.

Fiona treats people by actually talking to the area of the body where the person is feeling pain, which she identifies as the site of the blocked pathway. It’s like she can communicate with the pain itself. It sounds so bizarre, but I would love to see it working and maybe even see if it could work for me. 🙏

Fiona also mentioned that we all have a 5 metre circumference energy field around us, I have heard that before, could that be linked to what people refer to as our auras?

I often wonder whether this force field we all have could be why, in times of stress or excitement, a crowded place can literally feel palpable, like you can feel the energy in the air radiating through our bodies in unison.

I know this is something Mark Wright is very interested in with regards to his work too. This idea that the body extends beyond it’s physical form.

It makes sense, because there is so much we don’t know about the subconscious mind, it literally functions 💯 % of the time and our conscious 5%. So is it really so unbelievable that our bodies can connect without touch? After all we are all made up of the same matter and energy. I don’t think it’s crazy to believe that healing powers can actually exist.

Fionas work sounds so interesting. I would love to find out more. I would definitely love to go up to Bidston when the crazy quarantine is all over and have a good long chat with her to find out more about her work. As Fiona said ‘Magic is just technology we don’t understand yet’

Humans have always feared science and anything new as it can be perceived as a danger or a threat, but thankfully we are living in times where are minds are open to new and exciting seemingly impossible things. Thankfully we are all less pitch folks and torches these days.

NOTES:

Take 10 mins

Brain has loads of syntactic connections syntactic change 2 hours or 3 days

Conscential reality

💯 subconscious

Magic is just technology we don’t yet understand

Field of energy of 5 met self energy

The heart the intuitive centre of our body. Relaxes body

Breathing resets body for 6 hours

Plasticity

Gratitude helps

Negative energies

Steven Portas

I deserve to have this change

It is safe to have this change and free to have this change

QEC practice Melanie Salmon QEC living .com

Calliban and the Witch - Silvia fredarichie

Practice TRE

[yahoosg-workreadygraduates]

Preparing future-ready graduates

The expectations of the workforce have changed as digital transformation charters new pathways for businesses. Beyond having specific skills and expertise, employees are expected to be technologically savvy, and be able to adapt and learn, unlearn and relearn quickly on the job. 

In this current climate, education can no longer be front-loaded. There needs to be a conscious effort to close the gaps between the expectations of industries and the university curriculum. To keep up with the transformative trends of industries, education institutions have to look beyond their confines to address the needs of the workplace as well as working professionals in Singapore.

Applied Learning pedagogy

One way to train our graduates to transit seamlessly into the workplace is through applied learning. This means that the focus of tertiary education should shift towards connecting academic knowledge with real-world applications, and developing students’ soft skills, such as interpersonal skills and working as a team. 

Singapore Institute of Technology’s Assistant Provost (Applied Learning) Associate Professor Foo Yong Lim explains that the university’s applied learning framework fosters the development of in-depth technical knowledge, industry readiness and transferable skills in its graduates who 'know that' and also 'know how'. He feels that while theory is important, it is just as crucial for students to experience real-world application while they are still in university. “Whether it’s through simulations, case-based learning, clinical practice or capstone projects, a hands-on approach to learning is critical to students’ overall higher education experience,” he says. 

With an emphasis on applied learning, the degree programmes at SIT challenge students to use their academic knowledge to solve problems around them. This is done through collaborations with industry partners, where students get to reinforce their understanding of fundamental theories through practice. “Our students in allied health programmes, for example, are closely linked with Singapore’s national healthcare system in their clinical placement education,” says Foo.

Applied learning methodologies as such changes the approach to learning, as students take on a mastery approach, seeking to improve their own competence. “The emphasis is on learning and self-improvement and not just on how many marks will be attained. A student with high mastery approach might be more keen to ask for help, and will not be concerned with showing what he or she knows but focuses more on learning everything about the task and what it takes to do it well,” says Foo. 

He explains that even in classroom learning, lecturers should be equipped to answer questions beyond the textbook. “At SIT, for example, curriculum are designed and developed by academic staff with input from industry advisory committee members​ who are experts in their respective fields. They play a key role in facilitating students’ learning by providing the industry and community context.” So why only learn on the job after graduating? Real work skills can be embedded in the university learning from the very onset.

To ensure that students at SIT have the right mindset for an applied learning approach, the institution selects candidates that are aligned with its pedagogy. Every shortlisted applicant is given an interview slot and evaluated based on academic performance, co-curricular activity record, work experience, and passion. Foo says, “This process has allowed us to identify a number of matured students who are seeking industry-relevant upskilling or reskilling programmes. Because they have been working in the industry, they add diversity to the classroom and learning environment too.”

Applied Research

Applied research complements and strengthens the applied learning pedagogy. SIT focuses on working with the industry in applied research projects. Unlike traditional research which is discovery-oriented, applied research projects have higher technology readiness levels, which bridge the gap between theoretical research and industry applications. 

All applied research projects that are conducted in SIT involve students. SIT’s Assistant Provost (Applied Research) Associate Professor Susanna Leong explains that a typical applied research project often takes the form of solving an industry problem with a strong translational focus. To do so effectively, universities need to comprehend the full extent of problems faced by industry, in order to help curate real value for them through applied research outcomes. Such applied research projects benefit the students through equipping them with real skills needed to solve in-demand industry and societal problems. 

Because applied research is industry-inspired, students are often confronted with unique and unstructured problems, forcing them to think outside the box and look for answers beyond their textbooks. “Many skillsets are needed to solve the challenges of the future, which are typically multifaceted and trans-disciplinary, something that cannot be taught in traditional lecture platforms. By exposing students to real world problems through partnerships with the industry, they acquire skillsets that can significantly increase their industry-readiness and build their confidence to be effective in their jobs from day one,” she says.

To make this happen, both the universities and industries need to do their part. Businesses should not view themselves merely as job providers, but partners with universities to build a future-ready workforce by providing opportunities for workplace learning. “At SIT, students go through the Integrated Work Study Programme (IWSP), where they are treated as in-house employees in terms of job assignments over eight to 12 months, and some also complete capstone projects in parallel. By exposing them to all aspects of a job, they have a clear idea of what to expect when they enter the workforce,” she says, adding that the programmes at SIT are developed through extensive engagement with the industry. 

Better opportunities await 

More than an internship, Foo adds, “IWSP is intended to meet high standards of academic rigour. During this period, students are also immersed in academic learning activities such as reflection reports or innovation projects that are led by SIT faculty. Students get a better appreciation of what they learnt in class in relation to real work practice.  Upon completion of this programme, many of our graduates are work-ready and are able to transit effectively into the workforce as they are already familiar with industry demands.”

The fast pace of technology means that the learning process can never end, even after students leave the classroom. Graduates need to be resilient in order to survive and thrive in the future workplace. With a curriculum developed in close partnership with the industry, they can rest assured knowing that they are equipped with the necessary skills. 

Beyond securing a job for themselves, students who go through the applied learning and applied research pedagogy will be able to engage with communities and potentially make improvements that impact the social, economic or environmental aspects of the community they live and work within. As Foo sums up, “they become ‘thinking tinkerers’ and ‘catalysts for transformation,’ with the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn; while ensuring that they are grounded in their community.”

Indeed, preparing students for tomorrow’s workplace in this ever-changing environment can be a challenging task. However, if graduates have the right mindset and ability to look for innovative solutions, they are already one step ahead of their peers. 

[stephengream]

Advice to CompSci students and recent graduates

I thought I’d give some advice to people from a seasoned engineer. I’ve been in computing since I was 19, so nearly 10 years now, and I did this when I actually used tumblr regularly and got a fair few reblargs about 5 years ago, so I thought I’d repeat it now that I’m a little older an more jaded and see how we go. So let’s get started!

UNIVERSITY DEGREES DON’T MATTER IN THE LONG TERM

This is probably the hardest thing to swallow. You work your ass off for 3 or 4 years at university for what? A bit of paper? Truth be told, after a couple of years working nobody will care, and it will count for naught.

NOBODY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR MARKS... IF YOU’VE BEEN WORKING

Want to know my average mark? Somewhere in the 65-70% region. I pulled a Credit or distinction for most courses. What did I learn? Some fun stuff, but not much of it was useful outside algorithms, software construction and design. The other courses I did were cool, but I learned way more by diving into relevant open source projects.

To be completely honest, the best engineer I know is a university drop out, so don’t sweat it if you fail a course or two. With some work there’s still going to be pathways for you.

As a thought experiment, put yourself in the shoes of a potential employer. They have two candidates, someone like me, not getting great marks, but has been working nearly fulltime through university and has a great reference from his old boss, and someone with no work experience but a straight 90% average mark. Who is a less risky choice? 

The person with the job has worked with computers in a practical setting, outside the lab, and had to deal with the consequences of his or her decisions in real life. The person that’s concentrated on uni? Sure, they be smart, but have they ever had to deal with a stakeholder? Have they had to create actual working pipelines for their work? Have they ever had to support and maintain any of their code after an assignment? 

Who will take less time to get up to speed in this situation? My advice is that if you enjoy study, great, whatever, but remember that universities will never drop you in a situation where everything is burning down and expect you to fix it. The earlier you learn to cope with that scenario, the better, and as it becomes a routine thing you will start to form practical links between your study and useful information, thereby beefing up your marks with minimal extra study.

MANAGE AND TRACK YOUR TIME

This isn’t what your parents tell you, "you spend too much time playing computer games and on that god awful tumblr site” is an astute observation, but not something you can really action in isolation. What is useful, however, is knowing how you spend your time and how you can optimise it. This is perhaps the most difficult thing to do, because it’s tedious and boring, but even just setting your timetables and work times in your calendar as a recurring event can help, and from there you can start to have a better idea of how much time you actually have to spare every day. Get into the habit of this, and I promise you, you will never run late or work overtime ever again.

MAKE NOTES ON WHAT YOU’RE DOING

Lectures, eh, I never found notes that useful since they were all recorded. Personal taste though, I know a lot of people that lived in their notebooks.

That being said, I do keep a very tight grip on my design and implementation decisions. I like using OneNote for this, because I can quickly scribble down ideas and to-do lists, and paste in code snippets for later. Another program that could work is Scrivener, and one of my classmates even kept an Excel spreadsheet with a workbook for each thing he was working on (I suppose you could use something like KEdit or Atom, but I like to lay things out in a very specific way so I don’t have to scan through anything. Find what works for you and keep it that way). When it comes time to stand up in front of my team and tell them about the project, I can always answer any question thrown at me. I don’t have to sit there thinking about it and trying to remember exactly why I chose library A over library B or why I thought this class was garbage and restructured it.

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS A CHANCE FOR YOU TO IMPROVE AS AN ENGINEER, IF YOU GET HUFFY YOU’RE MISSING OUT ON A GREAT OPPORTUNITY

Leave your ego at the door and be a team player. You’re never going to be alone on a project, and you’ll do well to listen to your teammates and converse with them in calm terms. 

If you get upset every time someone makes a suggestion on how to improve your Already Perfect Code™, not only are you going to look like a pompous dick but you’re going to completely reject this lesson someone is offering you for free. Everybody is there to get their job done, and if you get in the way and refuse to compromise and discuss your implementations you can’t expect to keep your job for long.

The flip side to this is that not all advice is good. In time you will learn to recognise this, because shitty advice will make your job harder, but when you’re just starting out it’s best to assume people probably know something you don’t.

CODING STYLE AND NAMING STANDARDS MATTER

You want to know what the stupidest argument on the internet is? Tabs v spaces. It gets nasty, and I saw classmates in uni get into yelling matches. My opinion is I’m a spaces guy, but I do what the rest of the team does. Why? Because consistency.

Have you ever opened up an old project you worked on at uni with a few different people and thought “oh dear god, what were we thinking”? I can assure you that part of this mess will be down to the different styles you all employed in your code. When doing this in a professional setting, it needs to be consistent to ease readability and ensure the team doesn’t misinterpret code. The lucky thing is, all the best IDEs have plugins that will do all this for you and throw warnings when something isn’t right.

PEOPLE SKILLS ARE PARAMOUNT

This doesn’t apply to everyone, but I know that a lot of us are basement dwelling nerds, but being awkward is something you need to get past. Working in software is just as much about your interactions with people as it is how good you are at making computers do what you want. How can you expect to get a good list of requirements from a client if you’re too shy to ask them tough questions? How do you function in a team if you can’t communicate with the people assigned to help you on a problem? 

This is definitely something that can be learned if you put some work in. The way I did was just to hit it head on on the job and start out just trying to reword what the client was telling me they wanted. It’s not ideal, but it took a lot of awkwardness out of the exchanges I had. From there, I just started talking to people in bars, not hitting on anyone, just chatting while we were in line for a drink or something. Didn’t have to be anything specific, I just said the first thing that came to mind, and boy did I spill the spaghetti more than a few times. But you know what? I learned from it, and become much better at at least pretending I wasn’t a giant, awkward weirdo, which leads me to my next point...

ADMIT YOUR MISTAKES EARLY AND LEARN FROM THEM 

You will fuck up. You are not perfect. Do not double down, especially when you’re brand new to the workforce and everyone will grant you three times the patience they’d grant to someone like me. Every time you screw something up, you will learn way more than if you did it right first time, so don’t sweat it and learn how to admit to your own failures and work on fixing them rather than learning how to cover them up.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO MOVE ON

‘nuff said. Always keep abreast of the job market and have your resume ready to go with a number of cover letters for different types of employers. Consider this a risk management and profit maximisation strategy if nothing else, and always know how much you’re worth to the company you work for (and be honest to yourself about it). In saying this, though, I tend to aim for a minimum 2 years with a company outside of contracts. It takes a while to onboard someone and bring them up to speed, especially in software, so be mindful of how it would look if you moved around too much.

This point is something I can definitely reinforce with my own personal experiences. I’ve been through 2 redundancies up until now, and both were for similar reasons, in that I was cheap to move off the work roster. My first I was on casual time, so wasn’t legally entitled to any redundancy payout, and the second because I’d only been with the company for a year and was only entitled to a small payout. 

The other thing to note here is that if you work for a small company, chances are someone high up will do the firing personally. For me it was the CEO in both situations, so don’t burn your bridges here and be an ass. A personal endorsement from a C level executive will net you serious credit and at least an extra $5-10k at your next position, so be professional and make sure that’s the image of you they keep in mind when someone comes ringing for a reference.

LEARN AUTOMATED TESTING

If you’ve never worked in a real setting, this probably sounds stupid. 

“Why would I write tests when I can just run the application and look at the output myself?”

Oh my sweet, summer child.

This one will come in handy for when you’re sick of spending 5 minutes loading up an application, clicking through and getting your inputs right, then waiting for it to finish. There are many different schools on how to do this, but truth be told even though nearly every company does it, most people on a team will do it slightly differently. 

I’m of the school that will figure out the outputs for each component, write the skeleton for each one, then write the tests after having a basic implementation in place. This works for me, because I will often change the architecture and interfaces of an application as I go along and learn more about the problem domain.

On the other hand, my teammate will write the tests before she does anything else and generate stubs for everything she has to do. This is also a perfectly valid way of doing things and one I’ve seen used a lot, but it does require a more in depth plan and better understanding of what you’re putting into place before your fingers even start to tap out that code.

The third “correct” way of doing it is developing the tests as you go along, which is also perfectly valid, though I find with the way I work it adds a lot of overhead in my development time.

The process here is a personal one, and I’ve had a lot of heated debates in the past with zealots who insist on a particular way. Don’t be that guy, because as far as I’m concerned you need to find out which way works for you and stick to it while letting other people be productive in the way they do things.

SHITTY LANGUAGES THAT EVERYONE USES OFTEN HAVE AWESOME TOOLSETS AND ECOSYSTEMS

Yes, Java is shit, I know, but have you ever used Gradle?

How about JavaScript? Node is popular for a very good reason, you know.

Before completely dismissing a technology, be sure to check out what people are doing on the edges. I was a .NET programmer for many years and was locked into the absolutely amazing C# language, but the horrendous MSBuild build system. I started looking over the Java side of the fence and found a wonderful ecosystem full of amazing tools and even more amazing and dedicated developers maintaining them. 

The rule of thumb is, if the language is shitty, people will build some cool tools around it to overcome its limitations. If the language is good, it can be a victim of its own success in a lot of ways. Don’t just look at a language, much sure you look at the tools that come with it, too

READ AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE

Yes, this is where I crack out Stephen’s must read list: Software edition.

Code Complete - Seriously THE book for amazing software construction. I’ve read my copy many times and keep it handy to refer back to it a lot

Introduction to Algorithms - The only textbook from uni I keep coming back to. An absolute treasure trove of great info, and provides insight into why your application is running really slowly or blowing out its memory heap

 Introduction to the Personal Software Process - Want to be a better engineer? Read this, and figure out the best bits that apply to you. It’s bureaucratic, but it’s where I got my obsessive note taking and time tracking from and I stand by it as one of the best process oriented books I’ve ever read

Refactoring to Patterns - Your code is garbage, but you can’t quantify exactly what’s wrong with it? This is the book for you, and as a bonus it will help you fix it in a sensible way. Great as a reference, and I keep the quick reference list from the inside cover in my laptop bag.

Patterns of Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise Integration Patterns - These are fucking cumbersome tomes and very difficult to slog through, but will serve you well with some of the stupid, overengineered crap people have done in larger systems. 

Continuous Integration - This is what’s done in the real world. Learn what it is and how to do it.

Continuous Delivery - Some places do this, but most really need to start. This book is a little enthusiastic about it, but the points it makes in regards to delivery methodology are spot on

The Lean Startup - You want to start your own million dollar company? Of course you do. Read the shit out of this one and learn what it means to be a customer driven, adaptive company. It will also serve you well working in agile teams, as you can help institute better processes and understand why things are done in certain ways.

Risk and the Smart Investor - “Yeah man, but I’m a free spirit hacktivist and I’m going against the man I don’t need money row row fight the powah”. Yeah, ok, I was young and unemployed at one point too. When you’re ready to be an adult and learn how to make your money work for you, spend the $20 on this book instead of Twitter or Yahoo shares. It walks you through various ways of hedging your risk and diversifying investments while also telling you the stories of two men who have lived very different lives and how they’ve spent and invested their money. If you want to make sure you don’t get suckered into a get rich quick scam and have a little nest egg put away for your twilight years, this is vital reading.

And that’s about all I can think of right now. I will try to blog more, I have some ideas for some home projects that I want to pursue over the next couple of weeks so I can get some things straight before I need to do them at work, so will probably write about them. Lately my routine has been wake up at 6:30, at work by 7:30, come home 5:30-6, go to the gym for an hour, come home, practice guitar for an hour or two, then go to bed. Absolutely thrilling lifestyle, but it should start to slow down in a little soon as I settle into this new job.