That prev post reminded me how much it weirds me tf out when someone only interacts with specific subsets of a minority group and learns their associated niche behavior patterns, and then tries to apply those patterns to every member of that minority that they meet afterwards only to be shocked when it doesn’t work.

SHAME SHAME SHAME

everybody's people watchin' everybody’s punch clockin’

hey how are ya my name is emmy and i’m here to search for a new rp partner. a bit about me, i’m 22, canadian, work two part time jobs and attend uni full time and i go by she/her pronouns. i reside in the mountain timezone and i am thrilled to hopefully start writing with you. 

why should you write with me? because i promise that if i pick up an rp with you i’m gonna put 100 and 10 percent of my effort into our story. i’m looking for a long term gig, someone who i can really weave a plot with, someone who digs the cut of my jib. i want us to be able to sob over our characters together late into the night. i want us to exchange songs, playlists, posts found on the internet, aesthetic boards, whatever reminds us of our characters/our plot.

i will probably spam you with pictures of my character’s playby and i want to see mad pics of yours, too. i want us to go through our character’s struggles together as well as be able to cheer together when our characters get a hold on their situation and come up on top. i want us to inspire one another with our writing. it’s gonna be great. you & me honey. 

right now I'm looking for 1-2 new rp partners who are interested in something long-term and fully fleshed out. think 'mains'. 

gee, that sounds nice! i’m inclined to agree! but a few things you should know before you go any further: i write anywhere between full lit to lit + to novella style, so expect posts of at least 4 - 6 paragraphs baseline. sometimes i crank out 10. or just 5. depends entirely on what’s going on. i write according to situation, with a great amount of detail spent on what my character is thinking/feeling in response to yours. the replies you get will be fully fleshed out & enthralling. i am a stickler for grammar and spelling, though nobody’s perfect, i do occasionally have my slipups. all lowercase text is strictly kept to ooc communication. i can be sporadic with capitalization ooc but still keep good spelling. i will never pressure you into posting or writing ridiculous amounts just to match my post. i want you to have fun too! if i’ve had a bit too much to drink or am about to hit the hay, i’ll wait to post until i can give my post my full attention. usually i’ll be able to post at least once every week, sometimes multiple times a week depending on work & schoolwork. i'm available for ooc chat almost all the time. i also totally understand life happens and sometimes we just need a breather. ♥ i have bipolar depression, and sometimes my depression kicks my ass, but i’ll let you know when that happens.

oh goodness, what else? i write predominantly m/m pairings but i am open to m/f and f/f as well. i do not write high fantasy settings, sorry doll. my interests mostly align with modern day, slice of life kinda stuff, aside from the fandoms i do have. i don’t have many limits besides excessive gore, scat, mpreg, and writing smut for sake of smut. i love my romance just like anyone else does, but it’s got to have plot. our characters have to have chemistry or else i get bored. i haven’t doubled before but i think i’d be down for it with the right plot. usually i prefer that we play one character each, or we play multiple characters within a plot, but not usually more than one plot at the same time. but!!! i am totally willing to try new things!! just be patient with me as i learn m'kay? i have had several threads going at once with one partner which can be super fun. also most of my characters are pretty kinky but like, i prefer that we talk about kinks and limits one on one as opposed to airing out my character’s laundry. also- i wanna be your friend ooc. let’s chat. i find it’s so much easier to have muse and post if i enjoy the virtual company of the people i’m writing with.

ok but what do you write? 

what *don’t* i write? kidding. here’s a bit of fandom for ya. if i’ve got plots listed, they’re the ideas i have, but i’m totally open to yours as well. stars denote how much i’m craving them. i’ll list the canon characters i write after i list the fandom: 

mafia 2: vito scaletta  ***plot for mafia 2 a: we explore the dynamics of a relationship between vito and your oc. your oc could be in a position of great risk- think outside of the mafia, possibly a police officer, prostitute. some position where power dynamics could be played with. if the pairing is m/m we also deal with the themes of internalized homophobia and coming to terms with one’s identity. 

*bioshock 1, 2 & infinite: brigid tenbenbaum, andrew ryan, frank frontaine & eleanor lamb, sofia lamb & booker dewitt 

**marvel cinematic universe: tony stark, steve rogers

***greater marvel universe: logan howlett, carol danvers  ****random plot: we do a crossover and we ship sharon carter/carol danvers. i just. uuugh i have a lot of feelings about them and i have hella muse for these babes. lemme know if you’re down to give this a shot i will love you forever no word of a lie. 

but honestly where my heart lies is within oc rp. here are a few plots i have of mine, stars denote how much i’m craving them:

****(m/m) power & politics: my oc is a prestigious state senator, who lives a double life. he is currently in the closet with no intent on leaving it anytime soon. however, a certain someone falls into his life, making him question what he thought he knew for certain. your oc breaks down the walls my oc has put up and changes him into a softer, better man. however, with an upcoming presidential campaign on the horizon for my oc, the limits of the secret relationship will be pushed and pulled beyond what both parties have ‘signed up for.‘

****(m/m) the guardian: your oc is a newcomer to the nhl but is quickly making waves- think connor mcdavid style. he’s young and impressive, but mostly, impressionable. he starts to get battered around by both his teammates and opposing teams. after a few hard hits and fowl play within the game that have cost your oc bench and recovery time, the team’s coach calls in reinforcements to boost the team’s morale and serve as a protector to your oc. my oc is a player who hasn’t got the talent part but has got a huge heart. not to mention… huge hands. good for makin’ fists. good for fightin’.  my oc protects your oc during the games, coming to your oc’s aid, picking fights for your oc and protecting him on the ice. as such, the two players grow attached to one another.. perhaps too attached for the captain to be comfortable with. possibilities for a love triangle and other complications, for sure

***(m/m) too good to be true: our ocs start out in the whl, both as promising wingers. their good chemistry is vital to bringing back their team’s success. however, one of our ocs starts to get too attached to the other, and when an nhl draft separates them, one of our ocs is all too eager to cut contact and try to forget. the two excel in their nhl careers without one another, and end up on nhl teams with a history of deep rivalry. occasionally, the gloves hit the ice, fueled by the tension of unresolved feelings and the pressure of the respective teams to keep up the rivalry. the two are reunited when they are both chosen to play nationally for the same team, and are forced to reconcile what they have both buried so deeply within them. 

***(m/m) big money: these two ocs play for rival teams in the nhl. while their teams have a history of tension, our two ocs take it to the next level. audiences are more excited to watch these two fight than they are to watch the game itself. there’s a market in the violence between these two, and a reputation to maintain on both ends. if the public found out that these two were secretly seeing one another, their careers would both be over. 

**** (m/m) sugar daddy: my oc is a law student studying in your oc's country in order to get their degree abroad. they're from eastern europe and uh. broke af. they settle into an arrangement with your oc where your oc agrees to ~pay him for his company after they meet while my oc does camming online to make ends meet. we could take it anywhere- your oc could whisk mine off his feet and 'save' him or. be toxic & trashy and make my oc's life hell.

okay and, here are just some general prompts that could be intertwined with the plots above, or could be something we use to springboard into our own rp:

my oc has serious commitment issues. they often go around ‘ghosting’ individuals after 4-5 dates, with little to no explanation of why. your oc falls for mine, and is the first to confront my oc about their shitty habits. 

your oc and my oc were best friends, but they lost touch over a stupid fight they had when they were preteens. they can’t believe that they’re seeing one another in a bar, halfway across the world from where they met. 

your oc and my oc were flames. my oc proposed to yours, but yours turned them down. they never spoke again… until they were sharing a crammed elevator, with my oc being completely intoxicated, and still confessing their feelings for your oc. 

your oc is a huge fan of my oc’s nhl career/political career. your oc wins a contest to meet and have dinner with my oc. while my oc expects a boring night out, my oc is completely surprised by how well they hit it off with your oc. 

my oc, your first oc and your second oc all grew up together. your first oc has always been pining for my oc’s attention, and is thrilled when my oc and your first oc finally get together. they develop a long term relationship, but my oc knows it would devastate your first oc if they told them that they have been seeing your second oc for most of the relationship. 

i recognize that a lot of these focus on the nhl/the lives of professional hockey players- please don’t be worried about hockey knowledge/nhl jargon/whatever else goes through your head! i’m more interested in sport as a realm for drama than i am for following the rulebook and being 100% accurate to life when it comes to hockey. there’s a lot i don’t know and am still needing to learn, myself! if you know a lot, great!! if you don’t, let’s figure things out together! as for general oc ideas, here’s a list:

professor x student

veteran x civillian

cop x criminal 

psychiatrist x patient

** OC superheroes (I have a lot of muse for this one!)

street racing, fast-and-furious-esque setting

rival gangs 

** nhl/hockey based (lol obviously)

small town canadiana or americana 

fun, fluffy romance based modern settings

darker themes such as addiction, abuse, etc - i find it cathartic sometimes to write about violent material buuuut this has to be really fleshed out between us

historical setting- preferably, the second world war/1940s-1960s 

light worldbuilding - new to this but wanting to learn

honestly whatever you can pitch to me that isn’t high fantasy :)

i can expand on and work with any of these ideas, these are just like, topics. whatever i do with you, i promise it’ll be fleshed out, with tons of opportunity for drama. 

hell yeah let’s do this pal 

if any, and i mean any, of this piqued your fancy, pleaaaase shoot me an email at 

↳ [email protected] ! 

i will respond! but please send me something thoughtful! i’d like to hear what part of my ad that you’re interested in/why you chose to contact me. i am most wanting to rp over email and talk over google hangouts but i can be open to skype, too.  i sure look forward to hearing from you!   ♥

emmy

Doing Conferences Differently

Ilya Afanasyev, Nicholas Evans and Nicholas Matheou on the possibility of another kind of academic conference:

...Conferences really should be a great deal more enjoyable, and a great deal more useful than they so often are. That goes for academic conferences, but also for gatherings of political organisations or activist groups that mirror academic practice. If you have attended either type, you will be familiar with the problems. Above all, they can be intensely hierarchical and competitive. Giving a paper, asking a question, making an observation, or approaching someone else whose work interests you during a break can be terrifying, and by no means only for graduate students or junior scholars. There are real reasons for that fear. But the feeling at these conferences isn’t always one of fear: it is often simply boredom. The composition of the room is likely to reflect tiresomely predictable racial, class and gender hierarchies, and the format reinforces them. This not only makes conferences intimidating and boring but also keeps many people out.

When a group of us (three white male historians, at early stages in our careers) decided to organise a conference inspired by David Graeber’s 2011 book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years, we agreed we would try to do things differently. We feel people in universities should try to engage in the public conversation that seemed to be opening up in the wake of the global financial crisis, but so far does not seem to have progressed very far. It seemed clear to us that the usual type of conference was not fit for this purpose. We had heard about the experience of a conference organised by the anthropologists Andrea Cornwall, Frank G. Karioris and Nancy Lindisfarne at the University of Sussex in Falmer in 2014, and thought we would try to adapt what they termed ‘the Falmer Method’ for our own event.[2]

We circulated a call for papers as widely as we could, inviting scholars and activists within (and beyond) the disciplines of history, anthropology and other social sciences to take up the challenge of Graeber’s book to analyse the relationship between debt, money and human society on the broadest historical and geographical scales. We asked people to submit proposals for short papers (max. 3,000 words) for us to circulate in advance of the conference. Once we had selected proposals, we would ask people to send in their papers and then divide the participants into groups. Participants would then read all of the papers from their groups (they were each assigned to two groups). During the conference itself, there would be no formal paper presentations: instead, people would draw on their reading of each other’s papers in round-robin discussions.

The ground-rules of a round-robin discussions are simple. You sit in a circle, with a facilitator, and each person speaks in turn for up to two minutes, and then passes to the person on their left. You can pass your turn, but you can never speak out of turn. If you have a question for another person in the group, then you ask it in your turn, and they can address it during their turn. If people stick to the rules – and it is the facilitator’s job to ensure that they do – then it is much harder for the usual suspects to dominate the discussion. This format was initially developed by activists within the civil rights movement and then later adopted by radical trade unionists.

Receiving the proposals, and then the pre-submitted papers, was exhilarating and a little bewildering. As we had hoped, we found ourselves reading papers on subjects far outside our areas of knowledge. We were learning a great deal, and could see we were going to learn a good deal more from the conference itself. When selecting, we did our best to ensure the diversity of both the attendees and the topics covered. While this basic level of awareness allowed us to get a decent gender balance, we clearly did not do enough to get more non-white people involved. One lesson is obvious: if we are to overcome structural inequalities engrained in academia, pro-active measures are necessary.

... The most important thing for us, though, was the group discussions. A couple of the participants wrote to us afterwards to say that they had been sceptical about the format, but had then been delighted to discover that everybody in their groups had read all of the papers. The facilitators interpreted their roles differently: some did not speak at all, others gently steered the discussion onto ideas that had emerged in papers not yet discussed. All of them seemed to make the participants feel comfortable. We would like to express our sincere thanks to them here. One thing we noticed happening was that groups simply waited for those who felt tongue-tied. This highlighted how many people sit in silence through discussion/question sections of conference sessions in other contexts. The way people formulated their ideas was also less cagey: people just talked, and listened.

... Graeber has suggested that ‘conversation is a domain particularly disposed to communism.’ By this he means ‘baseline communism’, the way in which humans help each other out without introducing notions of hierarchy or exchange all the time. In our experience, there isn’t very much ‘baseline communism’ on display in most academic or political conferences. We don’t think it has to be that way.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4028-doing-conferences-differently 

Does the NBA Draft Combine still matter?

The stars stopped showing up but there are still jobs to be won and lost -- for prospects and GMs — at the Combine.

CHICAGO — John Calipari was holding court by the baseline with a small group of writers. On the court behind him players wearing unfamiliar numbers and matching gear ran up and down in an endless 5-on-5 scrimmage while the men who hold their professional fate in their hands watched intently from the bleachers.

Surreal only begins to describe the NBA Draft Combine, a curious blip on the annual calendar in which the whole league gathers for two days at this West Side gym for the ostensible purpose of working out, measuring, and evaluating prospects. At its heart, the combine is a networking event wrapped around the middle of the playoff calendar. Everyone who is anyone in the NBA is here, and even unattached evaluators roll through town for the annual meet and greet.

Reporters position themselves for a bump and a side chat with GMs and information is the only viable currency. Writers want to know what the GMs are going to do, GMs want to know more about the players, and the players want to protect their interests. The players (via their agents) have come to understand that their information is so valuable that much of is not worth disclosing at the combine. It all makes for an awkward dance.

What was notable, but not surprising, about this year’s combine was who wasn’t here. Markelle Fultz, the likely No. 1 overall pick had already skipped town after a handful of private meetings with teams. Lonzo Ball, Josh Jackson, and Jayson Tatum didn’t even show at all. De’Aaron Fox, Calipari’s latest point guard prodigy, was in attendance and agreed to be measured but talk to the press until Friday.

Tough break for the scribes scrounging for a story, but then Cal appeared and all was well in our world. Observing the impromptu scene gathering around the Kentucky coach, New Orleans coach Alvin Gentry asked Cal in his deadpan manner if he could get him a chair. No need, the man was in his element delivering a delightful 20-minute back-and-forth that was part recruiting bluster and part improv comedy act for the grateful gaggle.

Cal pitched his players, sold his program, and even invited a writer to call him if he wanted to come to Kentucky to see the Wildcat madness for himself. He sliced his distinctions so thick he left a vapor trail of pithy spin and sharp-elbowed one-liners.

“I would never lie, but I’m not tilting it,” Calipari said about his conversations with NBA people. “There may be information that I’m not going to give them, but I’ll never lie.”

How do you do that, Cal?

Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports

“Have you ever been around me before?” he answered in mock seriousness to the writers who were clearly gathered around him. “You’d figure I’d have a way of doing it where nobody would be offended and they walk away saying, ‘What did he just say? Did he really say that? I don’t even know what he just said.’ Then they call me and I won’t pick up the phone.”

And if they lie to you about where one of your players might get picked?

“Then I won’t let them in the gym,” he shot back.

Cal held forth on Malik Monk: “Malik Monk is special, folks. Special.” He endorsed his big man Bam Adebayo — “I’ll be stunned if he’s not a lottery pick” — and made the case for Fox by casually reminding us that he also coached John Wall and Eric Bledsoe without so much as taking a breath in offering this breathless critique:

“I asked John Wall about that. I said, ‘John, is he as fast as you?’ He said, ‘Naaah. I asked Eric Bledsoe. He said, ‘Naaah.’ But he’s fast. Let me say this, John Wall uses his speed as a weapon. Wasn’t as good with the ball, scoring wise at that age. De’Aaron has floaters. He’s not a great 3-point shooter. Neither was John. John’s thing was ‘I’m going to that rim and I’m going to dunk on you.’ This kid didn’t use it as a weapon. The whole thing all season, sprint the ball for layups and when he did it was like, ‘Oh my god.’ He doesn’t view it as a weapon. Yet. When he views it as a weapon, it’s a wrap.”

Then there was the curious case of Hamidou Diallo, a preps-to-pros prospect who enrolled at Kentucky but didn’t play. Because he’s a year removed from his high school class, Diallo is eligible for the draft but he hasn’t signed with an agent yet and is keeping his options open.

Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

Diallo wowed observers with his 44 1/2-inch vertical leap, but that’s just about all that anyone knows about the kid. Oddly enough, that may be his biggest advantage heading into the draft, along with that jaw-dropping vertical.

“Hami, they don’t know. Well, don’t show them,” Cal said. “They all like you right now without watching you. Good! The more you don’t play the more they like you, so don’t play! If someone takes him in the lottery, I will retire. There’s nothing more I can do. Four months, doesn’t play, lottery pick. I’m stopping.”

He’s not stopping, of course, not when he keeps churning out a steady supply of NBA prospects year after year. But then someone asked him the key question about this year’s combine. This week no less a figure than Kevin Durant suggested that the whole thing was a waste of time. Durant still harbors bad feelings about being embarrassed after he was unable to bench press 185 pounds a decade ago. There’s no way that in 2017 a player like Durant sets foot in Chicago, let alone subjects himself to a strength test.

“He may be right,” Calipari said. “For the guys if you think there’s anything here that will hurt you, don’t come. If there’s anything here that will help you, come. If you have to play to help yourself, come. If it doesn’t help you playing then don’t play. My job is to protect my guys. The job of these NBA teams is to get as much information as they can to get a great pick. So they would like to see every one of them play 5-on-5. It’s not the way it is for these kids.”

No, but then not everybody here is a top-5 pick and not everybody is a 5-star Kentucky recruit. For everyone else, which is most of the players here, this is a job audition. It’s the first step in a month-long evaluation process that will include countless meetings and coast-to-coast flights for individual workouts.

There are 30 guaranteed contracts on the line and 30 more opportunities after that to be chosen. The odds are stacked against many of these players having a career at all, let alone one that will endure. Emerge here with good measurables, solid play, and strong interviews and those odds can increase ever so slightly in their favor.

For a team with multiple picks, the combine is as good a chance to see these players up close. Nail these picks and a franchise’s fortunes can improve tremendously. Mess one up and it becomes that much harder to breakthrough in the future. So, yes, the combine still has value. It just depends on who you ask.

Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports

Consider Ivan Rabb, a 6’10 sophomore from California who was part of a celebrated recruiting class that included Celtics’ forward Jaylen Brown. Viewed as a potential lottery pick last year in a weak draft, Rabb went back to school and is now looking at the latter half of the first round. No regrets, though.

“I thought I needed it,” Rabb said. “The plan is to stick in the league for a long time, not get there as soon as possible. So I feel like I made the best decision for me.”

He added a bit of range, but his numbers didn’t improve noticeably and the Bears had a disappointing season. Without the proven ability to stretch the floor, Rabb lacks an obvious offensive role in the NBA. But he can rebound and rebounding translates across all levels. This is a chance to tell his story and he came across as prepared and focused.

“I changed my mentality a lot,” Rabb said. “I’m way more mature off the court, being able to say no to people. And on the court just knowing how to work. I did before but now it’s on a whole different level. I think people don’t know I got better. I was doubled every game so it was hard to show what I can really do. Now when I get in a setting where I’m not being doubled I can showcase my game.”

Then there’s Justin Patton, a 7-footer from Creighton who grew from 6’2 to 6’9 before his sophomore season in high school and took a redshirt season while he grew into his body. If Rabb is poised and confident, Patton is endearingly earnest. He plans to wear a bowtie on draft night because, “It’s kind of my signature.”

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Patton needed to be here because even though he’s viewed as a mid first-rounder, nothing in his basketball career has ever been guaranteed. He was barely recruited out of high school and as he noted, if he didn’t have that growth spurt he wouldn’t be here at all. His one season with the Blue Jays was a revelation, showcasing a long, skilled player doused with that magic pixie dust of upside.

“I wasn’t focused on anyone else,” Patton said. “I was just focused on coming here, getting better and putting my results in. It’s a good experience. I’ve never been through an experience like this. I have the chip on my shoulder because people didn’t think I was good enough. There’s still some doubt in people’s mind. My job is to do as best I can to eliminate everyone’s doubt.”

During his interview process, one team asked him what he would do if he was driving and came upon a yellow light. Would he put his foot on the gas or slow to a stop? “Depends on where I’m going” was his answer, which seemed like a clever enough response. (Pressed on which team asked the question, Patton gave up the Timberwolves to which the assembled Chicago writers answered on cue, “Thibs!”)

Even as the top prospects were nowhere to be found, the combine endures with all of its fixation on wingspans, vertical leaps, and shuttle run times. For players like Patton and Rabb it’s their showcase and their stage to make a lasting impression. I asked Patton what he learned about himself during that redshirt season and he had a great answer ready for that one, as well.

“My potential is unfathomable,” he said. “I can go as far as I want to go. I learned there’s really no limit. I learned I can be ready for this.”

My life story.

My earliest memory was around the age of three, when I was staying at my father's mom's house for  the weekend.  Gran got home from work, and I was so excited that I bolted from the couch to give her a huge hug.  On the way to her wide-open arms, I tripped over something on the floor (probably my shoe lace) and bit a hole in my lip that required a dozen stitches in several layers.  There's an image of a memory before that, too.  I think it was my first birthday, because I remember feeling the annoying rubber strap around my chin when I recall the image.  Anyway, I was sitting in the floor of my mom's mom's house (I call her "Gran," too), and there was a plastic red and blue ball with a yellow handle, and some plastic yellow shapes all over the floor.  Of course, I didn't know that was "plastic," back then, but I recall the memory enough to know it was plastic.  I think they still sell those things at toy stores.  Probably at Wal-Mart, too.

I only have a scar from something I don't remember that almost changed my life.  I nearly cut my left thumb off while playing outside around sheet metal (where Mom told me not to play, of course -- that suddenly became the place to play).  They sewed it back on after resetting everything, and the doctor told my mom I'd never be able to use that thumb, again.  Glad to prove them wrong, as I am left-handed.  Incidentally, when I was five, I closed the car door on the same thumb.  It didn't hurt until Mom opened the car door.  We found out I was a pitch-perfect soprano at that point.

By the way, did I mention that I am accident-prone?

Church-wise, I split my time between the Church of Christ on the mom's side and the Baptists of my dad's side.  My mom's side didn't attend church regularly (if I remember correctly, they weren't active in any church), and my dad's side was loaded with clergy and elders and Sunday school teachers...and Uncle Erwin, who drove the Jolly Green Giant Sunday School bus for First Baptist Church of Abilene.  (on a side note, my dad's side is also loaded with military veterans.  So far as I know, nobody in my family is presently active duty).  I went to church because it was fun, and not  yet because I understood what it was about.

My life before second grade wasn't special, aside from all my early-stage clumsiness and multiple trips to the doctor for repairs. But in the second grade, everything changed, both for the better and for the worse.  I remember coming home to Gran(ny Hall's) house, and when I got off the bus, I looked up at the sky and said "God, are you real?"  Or something like that.  But I remember asking Him something like that.  Because all these kids and people and old people were always so happy to be at church and sing to this God guy, and I didn't get it.  Who's God?  Or, in my seven-year-old mentality: why the heck are all these people singing to some guy I've never seen at church? Doesn't he need to be there, too?  Maybe he needs the bus to come get him.

I got my answer in an unconventional way.  Shortly after my mom remarried a now-awesome guy (you'll understand what I mean by that, soon enough), I started attending a non-denominational charismatic church with his parents (who, by the way, I have a lot of love and respect for, as they taught me the power of embracing the way you perceive Jesus Christ as opposed to following the masses to the biggest church in town just because everybody else goes there -- I go to one of the biggest churches in town, so I'm not judging big churches).  Something else I noted at this church was the fact that people who claimed to be speaking in tongues during prayer were, in fact, speaking French.  I knew this because I watched Pinwheel's Playhouse specifically to see the segment that had Chapi Chapo in it.  (that was slightly sarcastic, but they were speaking French).

On one Sunday, a prophetess by the name of Nita Johnson came to give a "word of knowledge" from God to anyone who wished to receive it from her.  Not being bashful, I stood up almost immediately, and she started crying as soon as she touched my forehead.  This woman was getting upset.  Like breaking down in tears as if whatever she was hearing from -- again -- this guy named God who I'd never seen, before -- was telling her something that I suddenly wasn't sure I wanted to hear.

In a nutshell (I have the printed copy of what she said, somewhere, and when I find it, I will share it on here in the form of a separate post), she told me that I was about to endure tremendous pain at the hands of many, and I would not understand why they would do these things to me, and that I'd even taste death.  But somehow, I would learn to use what I went through to spread the Word of God.  That I'd come back to recall what she was telling me that night, and be blown away by what she said (this happened about 10 years ago), and that I would still not be shaken enough.  That I would have to witness His overwhelming spirit one more time before it finally hit me hard enough to seriously desire to seek Him.  He would hit me so hard that I'd be unable to speak.  This actually happened in mid-December of 2012, again, in the most unconventional of ways.

Life is good, right?  Well, not after this Word of Knowledge.  See, Nita, if you look her up on Google, has a lot of apologetics calling her out as a false prophet.  I am only going on what has happened to me, but so far, she is pinpoint accurate.  A week after this "session" with Nita at the now-disbanded Church on the Rock was the first time I experienced sexual abuse.  Not just by one person, but by two.  One of them is currently serving a sentence in Ohio for exposing himself to children.  The other one was a lengthy ordeal that happened on an almost weekly basis.  I won't say who did this, specifically, but I am sure you can gather by "weekly" who had access.  This one was also an alcoholic, and was fine until he was drunk.  I remember the details of what happened vividly, and I'm sure if I sat here long enough, I could recall all of the times they happened.  "Just do it and get it over with," I remember thinking.  I don't think it was the abuse that caused the emotional damage, though.  I think it was the fact that he kept saying "I love you," while it was going on.  That's not the kind of "love" that is supposed to happen in that kind of relationship.  And this is probably why I am still a virgin to this day...so maybe it has affected me more than I let myself believe.  Single for life, but only as a form of self-protection.

And...then there was the physical abuse that started about two weeks after that, when the dog got out and I was the easiest to blame.  This particular person is now one of the strongest supporters in my life, right now.  So I will again refrain from pointing out which "he" I'm talking about.  You can draw your conclusions if you know me, personally, but disclosing names of people who had problems some 28 years after the fact can be traumatic for those people, and this is my story, not theirs.  (in other news, 28 years ago, I was seven years old).  I was thrown about my room, beaten with a stick, and left immobile on my floor until mom came home.  Later that year, I was chased out of the house with a shot gun (some people deny this, but a bus full of witnesses -- including the driver -- saw it).  And in the winter time that year, I was made to stand outside in the snow until Mom came home for a reason I don't really remember.

All of these are from the first six months after that Word of Knowledge.  The sexual and physical abuse both carried on until I was old enough to leave the house.  But there were other abusers, as well.  When I was eight, the lady at the day care center chewed me out for not claiming kindergarten homework that belonged to an "ADAM" (name clearly written on the page).  The gas station attendant locked me in a closet until I agreed to do unmentionable things for him.  I was able to unlock the back door and leave.  A friend's father tried to lure me into his house.  The kids at school, who I'd been really good friends with, up to this point, suddenly became very aggressive toward me.  Even my softball team mates were rude and uninviting.  It was like everyone around me started shunning me.  And all of this started after that Word of Knowledge.  Which I'd completely forgotten about by my tenth birthday.

The funny thing about all of this is that I was already a natural loner. I spent a lot of time writing, drawing, listening to music, singing, playing video games, but I wasn't much of a socialite, though I loved to meet new people and make small talk.  I was, and still am, horrible when the conversation gets deep.  My conversations become massively one-sided, and come across quite like the words I am writing now.  Everything is like a grand story that needs to be told, no matter how mundane the topic.  I was fixated on the details of things.  For instance, with flowers, I loved to look at the pistils and anthers and how the grains of pollen sat in the center of the petals.  With bugs, I loved the ones who were iridescent in the sunlight.  And there was something about music.  I liked to try to dissect the instruments in each song.  I'd listen to a song over and over until I could focus on, for instance, only the bass or only the backup vocals.  Classical music was my favorite.  So, if the pain of dealing with people was a problem, I was, by my nature, making it hard to detect.

I was a straight-A student in school.  When I was nine, I stopped doing my homework.  I told my fourth grade teacher "I did this last year, why do I have to do it again?"  And that pretty much set the tone for the rest of my educational career.  I lost interest, and because of that, never put forth any effort, except for test time, where I aced it and still passed with a baseline 75%, since that is what is required to pass.  I was a teacher's nightmare.  Smartest, most active student in class.  Never did homework.  Never had a reason.  But give me a topic I am interested in, and I will research it into the ground until I am satisfied.  Then, I'll tell you all about it in the form of a six page dissertation.  Sometimes, I wish my fixation on things would be more technical, like cars or airplanes and not things that included people (like sports or cultures...or just people, for that matter).  Maybe I should have been an anthropologist.

Anyway, as a result of my "odd" classroom / interpersonal behavior, I was given several tests in the sixth grade.  I was 11.  The school district's counselor tested me for a lot of things.  Out of the tests came the discovery that my IQ was 147 (157, now) and a statement that I was too intelligent to have ADD or anything on the autism scale.  I swear to you that I have, at the very least, Asperger's Syndrome.  I was given a "PDD-NOS," which stands for "pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified," and sent back into mainstream education, where I continued to rack up goose eggs and ace my tests.  I graduated high school in the bottom 25% of my class, but with a 1580 SAT and a perfect 36 on the ACT, I was among the top 10% in the nation on national test scores.  And even though it took four and a half years to graduate, I have the words "graduating junior" on my diploma.  So it still looks good on paper.

The whole church thing was out of the window by the time I was in high school.  My mom started attending a Seventh Day Adventist church, and something about them saying "THE Church" (meaning the ONLY church) of God's choosing turned me off.  That, and the demand of getting baptized without taking time to consider it was odd.  Don't get me wrong, the people were very nice, and the pastor was awesome.  But...I just couldn't buy into what they were selling.  I'd tried out several different churches in Abilene (which was rumored to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for having more churches per capita than any other city at one time) on my own, and almost all of them required baptism into the church.  It seemed too much like "used car lot" tactics to me.  And there were a lot of places that claimed to know angels by names, places that looked pretty and welcoming on the outside, but made me feel very dark and fearful on the inside -- something I'd learn later is a spiritual gift I have called discernment.  Despite the church shopping and denomination hopping, with no success for a longterm fellowship, I stuck with my bible and developed an understanding on my own, avoiding anything that had to do with fellowship, since I just couldn't place faith in places that wanted submersion before submission.  To me, it needed to be the other way around.  Learn, then lean back, so to speak.

Very shortly after I graduated, I moved to Durango, Colorado to work for my uncle at his construction business.  Talk about epic job.  My title was “Executive Assistant,” and my job duties were just about everything one could think of.  I took care of the house boat, the house, the bulldogs, and carried thousands of dollars in cash to the bank for the company.  I’d assist my aunt with various um…personal needs.  By that, I mean I’d go shopping with her and carry all her bags (and get my own outfits, out of the deal, too).  On Saturdays, I’d clean the office and make sure certain supply orders were properly placed.  On weekends, it was almost always at Navajo Lake or Lake Powell, depending on the time of year.  And Lake Powell – wow.  The scenery is so awesome, and the fishing was second-to-none.  I even caught a 60lb striper, there.  Well, it caught me – after a tiresome 45 minute fight, I fell over the rails on the stern of our house boat and into the water, but I got my hands wrapped around the beast.  Just couldn’t save myself and the fish at the same time, so I had to let it go.  I lost my Diawa rod and reel, too, in the whole mess.

But Durango, the year and a half that I was there, was such an amazing experience.  I called the scenery “car crash beautiful,” because you’re always looking up at the La Plata mountains and you often forget to watch the road.  And the residents were awesome.  You knew everyone, and if you didn’t, you almost always had a one-degree connection.  Which, being a small town, meant that if someone got into trouble, everyone knew about it within a week.  I likened it to church gossip.  People didn’t talk to be mean; rather, they talked because they actually cared…and to pass the time.  Or, usually because there was nothing else worthwhile to talk about than other people.  

Anyway, sometime while I was in Durango, and I don’t recall the trigger point, nor do I remember actually doing it, but I “came to” at about 6:30am on a Saturday, and my legs were aching and wrapped in towels.  There was dried blood all over the place, all over my hands, all over the floor.  What happened?!?  I was clueless and scared.  I took the towels off my legs, revealing very long, deep gashes.  Some were still bleeding and in need of medical attention.  I drove myself to the ER and got a hundred or so stitches while the nurses and a chaplain calmed me down and talked with me.  This was my first personal exposure to self-injury.  Actually, up until that day, I hadn’t heard of it.  I didn’t black out due to drinking — I was very much so a non drinker, because I saw how negatively it affected family members, and how it turned a few of them into monsters.  I did not want that lifestyle or problem for myself, so I avoided alcohol like the plague.  But why on earth would I want to harm myself?  I knew my stress levels were through the roof, and had been building for some time, but why would I ever want to do something like this to my own body?  It served no purpose, other than to hurt like hell and leave some nasty scars.  I started counseling shortly after this, but I was far too deep into denial in regards to my problems for anything to work.  After a year and a half in Durango, I left for home.

When I returned to Abilene, I went back to a counselor I was going to shortly before I moved to Durango.  I’ll call her J on here, if she comes up in future posts.  She’s a friend, now, and I’d like to keep our counseling relationship private for that reason.  But in our counseling, I was able to gather some reasons for why I would do this to myself.  We noted that, at this point, I’d done this once.  But through the sessions, it was noticed that it happened every 6 months, usually in April or May and  October or November.  These were when the seasons change.  And it also seemed like I would contain my stresses until I literally could not hold them, anymore.  I’d let these things pile up around my mind until my head would pop.  Being that I was so accustomed to being the guilty party all of the time as a child, I blamed myself for everything that happened around me as an adult.  So when I popped, I ended up punishing myself  and getting stitches for all of it.  It was, then, very important for me to learn to let go of these small problems as they happened, lest they grow into a pile so big that I could not handle them.

The last time I cut myself was April 19, 1999.  I remember the date because it was the day before the shooting at Columbine High School.  And again, I don’t remember the trigger, except that everything was so piled up that I couldn’t handle it, and I popped.  I ended up with over 300 stitches and 127 staples in my arms and legs.  Odds are, the trigger was something small like dropping the shampoo bottle in the shower, but out of the hundreds of thousands of other tiny straws that I’d piled up on myself, it was the straw that broke my inner camel’s back.  And, for some reason, cutting seemed like the proper punishment for all of these small nuances that happened in my life.

I had a friend, who I was very close to, suggest that I go to church with her, which I did.  It was a Church of Christ — and one of my favorite churches to this day, though I don’t go there very often, anymore.  And I wasn’t a “regular,” though I was a member.  Through my own study, along with the sudden influx of really nice people in my life from this church, the whole ‘relationship’ aspect of my Christian faith started to click.  I began to pray regularly (read: all the time.  In the car, when I woke up, hugged people, took a shower, went to bed, etc).  I began to be very open about my beliefs.  Everyone started to take notice of how much I was glowing about it, too.  I felt really good, and it poured out onto others.  Someone said “Suzie, you’re truly filled with the spirit!  Everywhere you go, you light people up!”  I wasn’t so humble to brush it off.  I was proud of myself. But not in a prideful “look at me!” sort of way.  I was doing things right, and it was showing.  This was the first time I wrote a testimony about my life, and also the first time I shared it from the pulpit with a church fellowship (that was scary).

Shortly after this, my workplace had a FISH! Philosophy seminar, and I was reeled in — hook, line, and sinker (pun) — to the whole “leadership” phenomenon.  I started to reflect the four standards of the FISH! Philosophy (among them were “be there” and “have fun”).  I worked at a hospital, and it seemed like a corporately-thankless job — but there was so much mutual gratitude between peers, patients, visitors, and nurses that it more than made up for the lack of attention from upper-management.  The patients must have loved me, because I earned a “You’re A Keeper” award, complete with my own Pete the Perch, which is something the hospital gave out to employees that the patients nominated.  Mine was for customer service and leading from my position (which was far from a leadership role). So far as the self injury was concerned, I had gone from that day in 1999 to July 31, 2002 without any hint of wanting to do anything to myself.  I give massive credit to learning to talk to God about everything, and really putting my faith where He was, which at this point, I placed Him everywhere in my life.  An interpersonal conflict at work forced me to feel the need to quit, which was devastating.  My side of the story is that I trusted a person way too much, and she tried to force me to go from Patient Services to the dish room.  For the first time in my life, I was torn between being the people-pleasing girl who was scared to make anybody mad and standing up for what I loved (helping the patients) and saying no (which meant letting someone down).  I said no, and it went downhill from there.  I ended up feeling so much shame over it that I quit on July 31.  I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting outside with a razor and arguing with myself over whether or not I should condemn myself yet again to that kind of punishment.  I felt like I deserved it.  In desperation, I shouted out “If I am useless, Father, then kill me.  Please kill me.  I am worthless like this.  If I am useful, then make me useful!” I woke up the next morning, and for some reason decided to open to Isaiah, where for the first time I read chapter 53 verse 5:  He was wounded for our transgressions.  He was bruised for our inequities.  The chastisement for our peace was upon Him; by His stripes we are healed.  That was the last time I considered self injury as an option.  I’d already been talking with the pastoral staff of my church, and and through our discussions and a LOT of prayer, I made a commitment to Christ and was baptized on my birthday, August 7, 2002.

With a lot of effort (and a little bit of luck), I landed a great job with the federal government.  It was  September of 2002, with a new administration created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.  I felt like I was finally able to do my part to keep our country safe.  And after some of my experiences with this admin, I feel like I did just that — there is almost no greater fear than that of when you’re standing next to a bag with a possible IED in it.  I learned even more about leadership, there, too.  Since I loved to write, I started suziehall.com to share what I was learning, translating it to a more personal level, so that anyone could use the skills that were so instrumental to my own development and recovery.  I wrote for my administration’s regional newsletter in a section called “Keep it Positive!” and got a lot of compliments for it.  I also got employee of the year 2006 for my efforts, which I took as a sign that, again, I was doing things right.  All glory to God!  In 2007, I transferred to Denver, where I realized being an introvert in a place that was like Black Friday at Wal-Mart all the time wasn’t so bad; actually, it was kinda fun!  I was right at home in such a stressful environment, and was frequently called on to diffuse tense situations.  I got several awards and recognition for my customer service skills, and was promoted to a real leadership position in 2008.  Everything was going so well!  I was on top of the world doing something that I love to do (helping others in any way I can).

On Christmas Day 2008, several of us were working together to get around a server issue on the computers, and I got the phone call  that would change my life forever.  My mom said “are you sitting down?”  “Yes,” I answered, knowing that when Mom asks this, it means something very bad has happened.  She told me that my uncle David was in the hospital, and that he had a heart attack.  Now, I haven’t mentioned him, yet, but David was my hero.  My best friend, closest confidant, the only person in my family that actually knew me well enough to answer me before I spoke.  We could get into the kind of fights that were full of — pardon my language — “F*CK YOU!” and would end with “hey, wanna get a pizza?”  And we’d gotten into an argument around my birthday that was so bad that we weren’t talking.  On the way to work that morning, I was driving down Pena Boulevard, blasting Chris Tomlin, praising and praying to God, telling him to wish David a Merry Christmas, and that I’d call him as soon as work was over.  I couldn’t wait, because it was a good day to forgive someone and ask their forgiveness as well.  But when Mom said David was in the hospital with a heart attack, she couldn’t bear to tell me that my grandfather found him dead in his house on Christmas morning.  There are no words to relay the immense hole that immediately filled my heart.  Only that I felt such deep sadness that the tears couldn’t climb their way out for another month. His favorite song was New Years Day by U2, and it was almost appropriate that his funeral was on January 1.  I met so many people from his life that I’d only heard of, up to that point, and had several of his coworkers laughing hard – even at his funeral.  One told me I was just like him, with my ability to make even the saddest days slightly enjoyable.  That was a sincere compliment.  David had this unique ability to make the darkest days a lot brighter.  He was a firm believer in Christ, and we’d spent so many nights playing dominoes (aka “bones”) and doing bible trivia, and praying for my very skeptical grandfather’s salvation.  David’s biggest fear was that he’d see my grandfather (I called him Peep) die an unbeliever.

The day David died, Peep began to read the bible, and he started taking it seriously.  He asked me a LOT of questions.  With my ability to retain information like a sponge, I was able to answer the majority of them, and even squelch his ideas about religion being created for the sole purpose of greed.  While I agreed with him to an extent (that people use it as an excuse for war and seizing land and oil rights), that’s not the reason for religion — it’s a method of conveying the dire need for us to have a relationship with God.  A relationship that, up to this point in my life, was on a baby-needing-milk maturity, even though I was on fire for it.  Peep was already saved (at age 13), but he was finally affirming it in his early 70s.  Sometimes it takes that long, but David’s pleas and prayers to God were not unheard — he never saw Peep die an unbeliever.  And Peep did not die an unbeliever.  A year and a day after David passed, Peep died in his sleep of natural causes.  These were the first two deaths in my family — the only deaths, actually — that I was old enough to comprehend.  I’d just turned 30 in 2008, and this was not how I expected this decade of my life to start, and I was not at all prepared for what would happen, next.