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leesh · 3 years

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because i have zero self control when it comes to christmas films and, well, cheesy christmas films are #life.

basically, i have developed a collection of favourites over the years, including both classic christmas films that are fun for the whole family and terrible, dripping with all our favourite favourite cliches hallmark christmas films, and yet i am still always on the hunt for more. so, i thought i would try a little thing to share them with everyone else as well (and actually remember them for future reference)!

check out the tag here i will try and remember to use as i live blog some of these movies or head on down below the cut to see all of the christmas films i’ve watched in 2020. thoughts and star ratings included! as expected, i will also be updating this as i watch more and more this holiday season (follow along on twitter too if you want).

note: since i LOVE terrible hallmark films, some that i give a higher rating will not actually be......critically acclaimed. i am just #obsessed and have my reasons as stated, i’m sure.

holidate (2020)

⭐️⭐️| first time watch | someone on letterboxd compared this movie to when you watch a rom com in sims and it’s just a bunch of random scenes that make no sense and they’re absolutely right. its only saviour is an australian dude and the line “so you know me well enough to cum in my mouth, but you don’t know me well enough to get me a christmas present?”

my christmas inn (2018)

⭐️⭐️| first time watch | i’ll be honest, this film was pretty forgetful. i watched it over a month ago and don’t really remember what happened. however, i do remember being impressed that the leading lady wasn’t a stereotypical thin white woman. so i guess at least it has that going for it.

christmas made to order (2018)

⭐️⭐️⭐️| first time watch | i actually thought this was pretty cute. it’s not the best, but also not the worst, so a decent medium if you need to fill up those figurative christmas stockings. the concept of hiring someone to decorate your entire house with no budget sounds pretty cool, but when the guy is aaron samuels and looks far from straight, it becomes a little questionable.

last christmas (2019)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️| rewatch | now this is not a cheesy hallmark film. in fact, i LOVE this film a lot and think i saw it twice at the cinema. last christmas is a top tier christmas song and i remember theorising about it when the trailer first came out, but i will say tissues may be a requirement to watch this. AND henry golding is my husband thank u and goodbye.

operation christmas drop (2020)

⭐️| first time watch | interesting concept in theory, but this is nothing more than US military propaganda and a cgi lizard. bonus: white saviourism.

the knight before christmas (2019)

⭐️⭐️⭐️| rewatch | a medieval knight transported into today’s world and has never seen a car before can drive better than me. that’s it. that’s the movie. also, he literally says the words “modern technology is lit af” at one point. solid christmas film if you ask me.

the princess switch (2018)

⭐️⭐️⭐️| rewatch | i strongly believe in the vhcncu (vanessa hudgens christmas netflix cinematic universe). i also have so many questions, like how did they afford the flights or solid conversation or was it all expenses paid? how did they finish a bulk of the cake without a mixer? why does everyone always speak english with a posh english accent even though it’s a non-english european country?

the princess switch: switched again (2020)

⭐️⭐️| if we learnt anything from a christmas prince, it’s that sequels are generally never better than their predecessor. that being said, this was much less cute body swapping christmas fluff and a little more literal kidnapping and saving the day. either way, blonde vanessa was hot and i appreciated the amber/richard cameo that insinuates a christmas prince is actually a dramatic documentary.

midnight at the magnolia (2020)

⭐️⭐️| now if you’re after an absolute cheesefest that ticks the boxes on best friends meets fake dating over the holidays, then this is the movie for you! albeit it takes place between christmas and new year’s, it’s still filled with their families knowing they were soulmates the whole time and two people who are a literal too comfortable on the radio. also, the dad’s totally should’ve been gay. they had more chemistry.

christmas wonderland (2018)

⭐️⭐️⭐️| tbh, i genuinely enjoyed this one. post breakup/high school sweethearts is a personal favourite trope of mine, so throw christmas & being forced to spend time together when she goes back home into the mix and i’ll have a serotonin explosion. bonus points for the guy telling the girl to go back to nyc to follow her dreams without being a dick. OH and the scene when he points a fuck load of sugar in his hot beverage.

a wish for christmas (2016)

⭐️⭐️| who doesn’t love a good office romance between a boss and an employee at christmastime? especially when you throw in a little christmas magic that makes her more confident that results in her finally getting what she deserves and having to travel and rekindle with his family? also, fuck them rich white dudes, but props to her for the significant job promotion.

christmas with a prince (2018)

⭐️| this was TERRIBLE and not in the good way. it featured: an entitled prince who suddenly had growth even though he did nothing to achieve it, majority of the film set in one hospital room, and the fact that she’s the only one with a tiara at the party filled with people who actually have titles. also, thought there was a decent ending but turns out there was still another 30 mins to go. ugh.

a royal christmas engagement (2020)

⭐️| don’t be fooled by the title. the engagement doesn’t happen til the last two minutes. it’s actually about a prince (bet you didn’t see that one coming) who travels to america, pretending to be his best friend who works for this major marketing firm because he’s tired of being the spare. this gets one star purely for the line “she’s not a commoner, patrick. she’s an american.”

christmas wedding planning (2017)

⭐️⭐️| it looked like it would be half decent, and while it’s definitely better than the last two, it was still pretty eh. i could get on board with her texting her dead mother’s number as a way to talk to her still, and i understand we all experience grief differently, but.....actively paying your mums phone bill 3 years later? girl. also, the end made me SCREAM. WHY DID THEY DO THAT!!!!

santa girl (2019)

⭐️| this was just painful to watch. evil jack frost makes memes in his free time, santa has a fancy car and doesn’t eat sweets, and there’s an odd comparison between the elves, minimum age workers, and racism. however, one star purely for the entertaining (read: bloody awful) tooth fairy cgi that gave me a right laugh.

the christmas chronicles (2018)

⭐️⭐️⭐️| this was really cute and had the makings of what could be a christmas movie staple along with the likes of elf and the santa clause (but will never reach that standard, obvs). tbh, it’s just a nice heartwarming family christmas movie about two siblings who band together to help santa and save christmas. also, santa was a #dilf.

the christmas chronicles: part two (2020)

⭐️⭐️| one of these days i would love to see a sequel that’s better, or at least on par, with its predecessor, but that day is not today. sadly, this film lacked all the heart and magic the first one was filled with and some scenes were pretty redundant. kurt russell and goldie hawn, however... one star for each of them.

forever christmas / mr. 365 (2019)

⭐️⭐️| the title varies depending where you’re from, but that’s probably the most exciting part of this movie. a guy celebrates christmas 365 days a year and a reality show wants to invade his house? ok, sure. one star for the eye candy and one star for, surprisingly enough, their chemistry and all the kissing scenes that don’t usually make the mark in the hallmark world.

noelle (2019)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️| did i renew disney plus just so i could watch this (and a couple of others)? maybe so... this movie is so fun! and family friendly! and is actually funny! it gives me major elf vibes, but if elf was set in a more modern day setting. either way, i had a great time and have been holding out on this one after loving it a lot last year!

the nutcracker and the four realms (2018)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️| anything nutcracker related is an instant win in my book because it’s my favourite ballet of all time (except for graeme murphy’s version, we don’t talk about that). does this movie actually deserve the four stars? maybe not. am i going to give them anyway purely for my love of the nutcracker and the soundtrack? absolutely!

#leeshmas2k20 #no one probably cares but i just thought it would be fun!#might actually post these on letterboxd too

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thejosh1980 · 4 years

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Update #21 – 1 week at “The Ocean Shores Resort”

A week ago we left quarantine in Adelaide!!!

It's been another week of mixed emotions, but I have to say, for the first time in months, they've been mostly on the positive side of things.

Last Tuesday, we left the hotel without too much hassle. They'd given us a basic breakfast the night before to have first thing and they called us down early; luckily we were ready and down the stairs we went. Before you know it, we were in the hotel reception taking our masks off!

Adelaide and South Australia are COVID free, so no masks, no problems.

The checkout was quick (the big bill comes in a few weeks!!), the staff were awesome and the police informative. They all understand that quarantine is not easy on anyone, and they were patient with our questions and worries. We had won the jackpot of quarantine hotels: Pullman Adelaide and the staff helped make our stay tolerable.

Jumped in a taxi (with masks on cause we really weren't sure yet how to behave in the outside world) and off to the airport. We had to leave the hotel by 07:30, because another bus of incoming “Covicts” were coming in that morning. Our flight was at 11:50 up to Brisbane, so it was yet another waiting game to check in and fly. But first... coffee! (we actually bought a coffee from a coffee shop! Amazing!! It's the small things...).

The flight was about about 2/3's full, no masks.

Landing in Brisbane we had to do a border check, show our papers, explain where we had been and all that. The check was there to stop anyone who may have COVID from coming in without quarantining. Each State has slightly different rules, and they do change from time to time, depending on hotspots and COVID numbers. Because the flight was from Adelaide and we left the hotel directly to the airport, we made sure we had no problems entering Brisbane (Queensland). We definitely didn't want any chance of another 14 day hotel stay!!!

Our original plan was to fly into the Gold Coast airport, which is only about 35 minutes from Mum, but there were no flights on our leaving day, so we had to fly into Brisbane (which is 2 hours from Mum's). My cousin picked us up (bloody legend!). We were hungry, and we went directly to Yatala pies. This was the moment I started to realize we were almost home. The taste of home! (Yatala Pies is a well known bakery south of Brisbane, a regular stop for many).

My cousin could drive us as far as the QLD/NSW border. Once there, we walked across the border and Dave picked us up on the other side. A little complicated, but sure enough, the plan worked.

The whole experience felt like something out of the movies. Not that it was all “Hollywood”. It was more like: I can't believe this is finally happening. I wasn't really in the moment. Yet.

As we were getting close to “The Ocean Shores Resort” (which is the name we have for my Mum's house) I still didn't feel calm...

Anyhow, we arrived, and if you've seen our IG or FB Story on the day, you'd know that when I knocked on the front door, we had actually surprised Mum (a little early), and she couldn't find the front door key to let us in!! So our reunion started off with a scream and eventually a laugh!!

Mum did cry, but we all expected her to cry more... ;) Honestly, I think we both had cried too much the past 2 months, it was no longer needed. It was all about joy and happiness.

After meeting and hugging Alex (some more tears) we entered the house to find Mum had a “welcome home” sign and our picture up on the walls (lots of me and Alex, can't go wrong with that!!).

It was surreal.

A quick house tour for Alex and we settled down. Lots of chatting and catching up to do, and a roast dinner!

We'd made it.

The next morning (Wednesday), a son's work is never done and I was up early to take Mum to school. She's part of the support unit inside the primary school, working with kids with Autism.

Even though her eyesight is deteriorating, Mum can still work. Driving a car; that's out of the question. Reading the “use by date” on a packet of chips is almost impossible. Keeping an eye on children in the playground, developing their social skills or helping them with their school work (considering the text is usually quite large and the pictures bold) Mum can still do really well.

I've learnt she has figured out ways to cope with her eyes. She has a great memory, so once she's told something, she can remember it really well (like recipes for cooking etc). She's still a keen bargain hunter when it comes to shopping. I enjoy learning that she's kept her life as close to “normal” as possible, making small changes to the bigger things to keep her independence.

But it's those small things that are hard to do alone, which is why I'm here...

After dropping Mum off, Alex and I spent the morning of our first full day in Brunswick Heads. This is the town I lived in from the mid 80's until late 90's. I went to primary school here, learned to surf here, and know the old names of the shops (the hair dressers is now a surf shop, the butcher's is a cafe, the ice cream shop is a real estate agent and the bank has recently closed). Lots of changes for me, lots of new things for Alex.

We also went down to the beach, the south wall of the Brunswick River, where the river meets the ocean. We watched some waves. Taking in the salt air (I don't think I ever realized how salty the air is here until now).

It was a relaxing day.

But I still wasn't quite “here” in my head and heart. Leaving Dresden back in July, only to be delayed for 7 weeks, then another 2 weeks in quarantine, was going to take sometime to overcome.

Time to pick up Mum from school... Home... Unpack a little, dinner, chatting and a little TV.

Thursday morning, it was time for another radio interview. To finish off the 3 part story with ABC North Coast Radio I did another live interview with Joanne Shoebridge. I'm always nervous doing these kinds of things, even though in the music world, I've had to do interviews, they were never quite as personal as this.

After we dropped Mum off at school Thursday morning, we drove up to the Cape Byron Lighthouse and luckily got a park up close to the top.

I wanted to introduce Alex to the area as much as I could, without overwhelming her. Brunswick Heads, Ocean Shores, Mullumbimby and Byron Bay all played a big part of my childhood, and I wanted her to at least know these villages a little bit as early as possible. We'd covered Brunswick Heads and Ocean Shores a little, so now it was time for Byron Bay.

Bring on the whale watching!!

Within minutes of leaving the car, we could see whales jumping out and swimming around the cape. It was a wonderful morning. I'm so glad Alex got to see them (in fact I can't remember the last time I saw whales so close to the shore). They migrate each year around September/October, so it was perfect timing.

It was a special day for Alex...

The sun was shining, the whales were in plain sight and the tourists were kind enough to stay away from Byron Bay. COVID does have its benefits. Fewer people in these tourist spots isn't always bad (although I am quite aware the economy is suffering. The borders are opening up next week and it'll be very busy then).

Back into Ocean Shores, picked up Mum from school. Home... Dinner.. Chatting... Some TV...

Friday was the first day we had to do “stuff” in regards to living here permanently, and that was banking. So after dropping mum off at work, we drove into Mullumbimby “The Biggest Little Town In Australia”. I went to high school here.

Basically Brunswick Heads and Mullumbimby are like Neustadt in Dresden. You can't walk down the street without seeing someone you know, stopping and chatting. It happened in Brunz the other day, I literally parked my car, and lo and behold an old high school friend came out of the video store to say hi... Or in Mullum, as we arrive at the bank I see an old friend who used to teach me rock n roll dancing (yeah, I can still cut a rug)... and even inside the bank, I said hi to a fella from my high school year, we hadn't seen each other since 1997.

It's a small world...

The banking took a bit longer than expected, after much back and forward we settled on our new bank accounts and how to arrange things going forward. While I've had an account here since I was very very young, I cancelled most of my stuff when I left in 2002, so now it was time to set up shop again, especially since I had my wife with me and we have a future to work towards...

We walked the street of Mullum, grabbed a coffee and we let the country hippy vibe soak in. Alex commented on how many folks don't wear shoes here and she can't believe how many new coffee shops there are for her to try (there's a lot more than when I was a kid).

Picked up Mum from school... School holidays for 2 weeks! Yippeee!!

Home... Dinner... Chatting... some TV...

Over the weekend we sorted out things around the house. Set up better internet Wifi around the house, the pool is in good condition after the winter sleep, cupboards got cleaned out and we unpacked and the car was washed (first time I've hand washed a car in over a decade!).

Sunday I watched Mark's live stream (from his front porch in upstate New York) and I felt inspired (he does that to me). So I am considering live streaming next week. I have a guitar and good internet, so why not? I just have to find time to practice ;) I'm thinking net Sunday evening here, which would be Sunday lunch time in Germany. If I don't get to it this Sunday, then maybe next Sunday... I'll keep you posted.

Overall the weather has been warm, often over 20 degrees. But the mornings are still quite chilly, with frosty dew on the golf course out back. It's not bad for coming out of winter...

Today, Monday, we went “up the coast”, to Tweed Heads.

First thing we tried to exchange my German license for a mandatory NSW (State) license, unfortunately I gotta wait for some back checks, no idea what I did 19 years ago in Melbourne, but they wanna check it out. So onwards to shopping...

Yes!!! We bought a coffee machine! Finally we can wake and with a press of a button get ourselves a cup of joe. It's the small things....

Helped mum with the grocery shopping. She knows her stuff. She knows where everything is in every shop, but sometimes she just needs me to reassure her what is actually written on the box or package!!!

So that's basically our first week...

We are settling in well. Alex and Mum get on like a house on fire. I often can't get a word in edgewise and I'm always outvoted!

I still miss Germany and I still miss Europe... (I always will). I miss a lot of the “past life”, but that's just cause Australia has moved on without me these past 18 years. Each day here I get a little closer to that homey feeling I used to have as a teenager (when I didn't know better).

In hindsight, the past 3 months wasn't too bad... We survived... But that's easy to say now...

When we were in the middle of it, it was really tough.

It was really hard packing up our lives into boxes. It was emotionally draining saying goodbye after goodbye to our wonderful friends. Playing my goodbye show was one of the musical highlights of my life, even if it was one of the saddest.

Then we were ready to leave...

As you all know, that didn't go according to plan.

That's when the really bad feelings crept in. You know it's one thing to know you gotta pack up and say goodbye to leave (you are prepared for that)... It's another when you're ready and the world says “nope, not yet”... and again and again that build up and let down was happening, and until the last 2 weeks in Germany, we had no idea why!

As some of you know, I'm not really good at spontaneity. I'm not good when the plan changes... It was tough... But...

When we took control of the situation and booked new flights, it helped a lot. We were back in control.

Quarantine was a difficult time, it got a little dark there. It brought with it, it's own set of challenges and a steep learning curve. I, for one, learnt a lot about pressure. I put too much pressure on myself. Since we arrived here, I have tried my best to relax more, in my own way at least. My to do lists are shorter...

Alex and I had already figured out how to survive the German lockdown, the packing up of our lives and clearing out the apartment. Then we had 2 months at her parents stuck in “limbo” and then 2 weeks stuck in a room together. Our marriage is really new, and we survived that without any damage to our relationship. Sure, we both have a few personal scars, but nothing a little love and tenderness wont fix. I'm proud of her, Alex has a lot of patience for me!

I'm really happy I am here to help Mum each day. Those small things will slowly become bigger things, but for now, it's great to be able to do “stuff” with her. That was always the plan, to be here in time, before things got really bad.

We've been posting often on our IG and FB stories, so I hope folks have seen the day to day happenings. I'm sure we'll continue with that, keeping you up to date visually.

I think I'll end these FB journals here, and switch over to Tumblr full time. The idea being that if you'd like to continue to read these long “new life” chronicles, I'll still post a link here when I do update there... Confused? Me too! ;)

Thanks everyone for your messages of support and love. We are very lucky, we have the best friends.... You guys rock! You're awesome! We love you.

Love

Josh and @dauntlesscoffee

#travelblog #australia #byron bay #whale watching #coming home #covid

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mcrmadness · 4 years

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I’m at the point where I’m being really annoyed by mornings again. Or more like, that particular time of the time when I wake up because I know most people would say that 2pm is no longer a morning... Anyway, I just get up every morning to do absolutely nothing just to go to sleep eventually again. And now each “morning” is boring af, I get up, brush my teeth and come to my computer, browse Tumblr and don’t know what to do. For weeks I’ve been watching certain types of videos from YT meanwhile playing with nonograms or jigsaw puzzles online because it helps me to concentrate as I don’t like watching videos of people talking, it’s super boring, but that way I can still listen to them without feeling like losing my mind because of being so bored. But now neither nonograms nor jigsaw puzzles feel thay interesting NOR do the videos I’ve been watching. There’s really not much new stuff, just the same topics done by many many people and I can’t watch that for too long before I get bored with the topics too, because I already know enough. I’ve also been going through all videos on so many different channels and either there’s nothing interesting anymore or I literally have watched everything. So now every day after being done with browsing Tumblr, I try to find something to watch from youtube but currently my recommended page keeps offering me the same videos over and over again, the same topics, and also lots of videos I have already watched. I’d love to see something very random that isn’t particularly linked to my watch history but no, all videos like that are something to do with the goddamned crona hashtags and they’re already driving me crazy because I’m so fed up with all this corona stuff. And I have made several posts about this already and how I hate the superficial fake-happiness in all those videos where people try to come up with stuff for people to do so that they’d just stay at home. I’m staying at home 24/7 even without corona, so can’t you just NOT show those recommendations for me??? Oh I wish Youtube had some sort of tag blacklisting system...

But yeah, apart from all that, I’ve been dealing with my existential crisis a lot lately too. Not that it’d have ever went anyway in the first place, but just having these partly existential crisis, partly dissociation/derealization moments that I don’t know if I’m ever going to get rid of. Just been thinking about my fave band (dä) a lot lately and how stressed out they make me all the time. I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I’m not the best with surprises but I’m okay with them, but what REALLY makes (and has always made) me distressed is waiting. Knowing that something is about to happen but you have no idea when and how and possibly what. That is what makes me so distressed. It’s like with ghosts and paranormal things too: I’m not afraid of ghosts and I actually do like them a lot, but I’m afraid of being startled and waiting for something that might come as a surprise to me. (This is why I don’t watch horror films - jumpscares are much worse when I know there will be some.) And I’ve started to hate the weekdays from Monday to Friday because I feel like I can rest only on weekends because maybe those guys won’t do anything during weekends. During other days anything is possible. And now they’re gonna open their webshop on Friday and it’s causing me SO MUCH PRESSURE here. And it’s again not that I’d be worried of what it is, but worried of the fact I am waiting for something now but I don’t know what I’m waiting for. I always need to be in control and ahead of everything, whenever I go to a new place, I need to have a look around the whole thing before I can do anything, and I really wouldn’t like the idea of being dropped right in the middle of action. That just makes me so overwhelmed and I start to panic.

To the existential crisis - I’ve also been wondering about myself and why dä? Imagine if the band was something else but this. And the fact this band is a “once in a lifetime” thing. There’s never been another band like them and never will be. Which is crazy and blows my mind. And this is where I start to dissociate with derealization because I somehow still feel like everything is a movie or a video game. I’m constantly thinking like “oh maybe in my next life I’ll be born earlier so I can become their fan in the 80s” or “maybe in my next life I’ve learnt from my mistakes in this life”. I basically feel like my life is like a video game that I can restart whenever I have played through the story and do different choices then. And some days it hurts so much to be dropped back on ground. But I will just climb up again and escape into my small bubble where things are not like that.

Also this other day I was wondering the age thing again. I’ve been having age crisis at least since I turned 25 because then I was closer to 30 than 20. And I’m turning 29 in less than a month and that had been so terrible thought for so long but now I’m slowly getting used to it. Even tho I still wish I was 19 or something. But at the same time it feels really absurd because I feel like... ten years ago I was 19, and that doesn’t sound that much but I still feel like last year was 2010. And me wishing I was 19 again... well when I was 19, most of my friends were not even teenagers yet. So that means I would not know those people. But then I feel like I’ve been wasting the last 10 years of my life. And if I was smart, I’d realize that I actually have not been wasting those years - I have been working with horses, studying horses, graduated and I’ve grown a pretty good knowledge over what it is to take care of and even train horses. I have got and learnt so much. But still I feel like I should have done that a lot earlier than what I did. But if I did it a lot earlier, then I wouldn’t have had work experience worth over 10 years. Which is why I wish I could have just stopped time for the time I was studying and continue then after I was done. Because I’m literally in the middle of an age crisis because I’m turning 29 but I basically feel like I’m near my end already. It’s like what my friend told me when I was 22 and started having similar thoughts: “You sound like you just discovered what people normally discover only when they turn 50.” Yeah, I’ve literally been having mid-life crisis since I was 22.

For the first time even I experienced some derealization moments was when I was 19 and working at a stable and I was cleaning up the stable and taking out a wheelbarrow full of horse shit. It just suddenly hit me that what I’m doing here, makes absolutely no difference. And I suddenly dived into this horrible state where I felt like nothing I do, matter because nothing will last. Like, why should I create memories if I’m gonna lose them anyway when I die? That really made it so hard to enjoy anything because I was just constantly obsessing with the thought of not having my memories forever and how everything felt so, so damn pointless. I don’t care if people know my name or not, I live for myself anyway so it felt really unfair that I should actually live here and do things and create memories if they are going to be taken away from me eventually just because everyone has to die. And I have always had really bad relationship with death. I remember being probably 7 years old and seeing something on TV about death and cemeteries and it caused me to have one of my earliest anxiety/panic attacks and I was literally sitting on the toilet floor hugging the toilet because the idea of death made me so, so sick. Which is why I then have been avoiding the topic as much as I can and I’ve been blocking those thoughts and stuff and why I love every time death is portrayed as non-permanent in fiction (my all-time favorite is Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice). Or when there’s some sort afterlife. Which is why I’ve been obsessed with ghosts and grim reaper and whatnot in my past. It just comforts me so much because I find it so scary to think that everything would just stop existing. I can kinda imagine that... emptiness that happens when nothing is anymore and it just feels so overwhelming and scary that I nearly start to panic from the thought alone. As a kid, I’ve been having panic attacks from the thought of the sun going out, a meteor hitting the earth, or just pretty much anything that would mean almost instant death. I feel like I probably developed derealization also for this type of fears. If the idea of death has made me physically sick at the age of 7, no wonder why my system decided to come up with dissociation to protect my mind. I always feel like when I keep having these deep thoughts, that my brains are on the edge of overheating (figuratively), it just goes so over my head but at the same time I’m understanding it, which then triggers dissociation because it’s too much to deal with.

I also have a medical trauma from when I was 3 years old, which is probably the core for all the dissociation too. It was an open heart surgery which pretty much means being half-dead already as you’re connected to the machines that keep up your breathing and blood circulation while the doctors fix your heart. Because of that, I find the thought it anesthesia highly disturbing. I know people undergo surgeries all the time for whatever reasons but I feel like I could never ever do one again because I’m so afraid of that emptiness becoming permanent. I can’t remember a thing from my surgery nor how I went to sleep or anything like that, but as an adult, I just find that so scary and I’m always really scared whenever I know people who are going to have anesthesia because what if they don’t come back? I know trans people who don’t have other option but to undergo some surgeries and I’m like... I’m nonbinary afab and I’d be happy to donate my own boobs away any minute but I could never ever go to a surgery from my own will. I rather just fantasize of a bodyshape that I don’t have than would actually do something about it because for me that would just not be an option. I sometimes wonder that if I had dysphoria or if I was trans, would I still feel the need for surgeries? Or what if I have dysphoria but I just don’t see it, because I can’t do anything about it so I just escape into my inner world and try not to think about myself? I do have some sort of body dysMORPHIA, tho. But I don’t know if I hate my body or if I just see it wrongly. But whatever the case, I try not to think about it too much, I avoid mirrors and spend most of time in my inner world. Because the outter world is too overwhelming and depressing to deal with and my existential crisis can’t take it.

#mcrmadness' random stuff #personal #tw deep thoughts over death and existence #(no need to worry - just pondering these themes)#existential crisis #derealization #dissociation #long post

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loretranscripts · 4 years

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Lore Episode 130: In Plain Sight (Transcript) - 25th November 2019

tw: none

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

In early winter of 1822, Captain Samuel Barrett Edes became a hero. He was sailing in the south-east Pacific when he and his crew encountered a Dutch ship that was in trouble. Edes managed to save every single one of the Dutch soldiers, and then headed for the city of Batavia, known today as Jakarta, to drop them off and see if a reward could be collected. While he waited, he did some shopping. Now, Edes wasn’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but he owned a small portion of the ship he sailed and of course, he was expecting a handsome reward for his heroic efforts. With this in mind, he kept an eye open for something unusual and conversation-worthy to take home, and that’s when he saw it. It was a mummified mermaid. It was over two feet long, had the curved tail one might find on a fish, but the upper body of something much more human in shape. It was brown from the preservation process, wrinkled with age and entirely addictive to look at, and Captain Edes knew instantly that he had to own it. In late January of 1822, he did something bold. He sold the ship he did not fully own and used the proceeds to buy the mermaid. Then he found transportation back to London and put the odd creature on display, because just about everyone who saw it believed that it was real.

Of course, there were those who could see through the hoax. Captain Edes had been fooled by a clever craftsman who had sewn the torso of an orangutan onto the lower half of a large salmon. Elements were added to the face and hands to give it a more humanlike appearance, but those with training in natural science and anatomy could spot the hidden clues that gave it all away. That didn’t matter to most people, though. The idea that mermaids could be real had been around for centuries, so when something as powerful as a mummified specimen floated into their world, they were blind to its flaws and impossibility. They wanted to believe, deep down inside, that the hybrids of folklore actually existed. Today, we know a lot more about our world than we used to, but if we were to go back in time and live through a less learned age, we would be amazed at the stories that await us, tales of creatures that sit at the very edge of our imagination, living things that defy logic, and monsters that inspire wonder. Our hearts want to believe while our minds are ready to move on. Instead, what we tend to feel is a mixture of deep curiosity and primal fear, and if the tales from the past are any indication, there’s a good reason why. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

When we talk about the natural world, the very first thing we need to do is gain some perspective. Today, we live in a technologically rich society. We carry supercomputers in our pockets that are more powerful than the ones that sent the first humans to the moon. We can walk past an intriguing part of our neighbourhood, pull out our phones and look at a satellite map or do a search for more information. We’re still hungry people, curious and drawn to unanswered questions, but rather than starving in a house with little food, we feast each day on a never-ending buffet of answers and information. Today, if you want to know something, chances are good you can learn about it in an instant, but hundreds of years ago, that was an impossibility. Not that people didn’t try, though. 2000 years ago, a Roman named Gaius Plinius Secundus attempted to gather everything knowable into one place, and he did an admirable job considering the world he lived in. Gaius was born into a wealthy Roman family in the year 24AD and followed a path of privilege all the way to the top. He was well educated, well connected, and when he entered the Roman military, he quickly rose to the second highest level possible – the equestrian order. Once out of the military, he served as a lawyer, before being assigned various governorships around the empire, and towards the end of his life, he had the privilege to serve as advisor to two different emperors. Today, we know him as Pliny the Elder, but in his day, Gaius was a success story.

Looking back, his biggest legacy was his 37 volume collection of knowledge called Natural History. It was possibly the world’s first encyclopaedia, gathering everything known about a whole array of subjects, from farming and botany to geography and anthropology, but the most influential contribution, filling up volumes seven through 11, were his writings on zoology, the study of all living creatures. But here’s the thing – Pliny the Elder, like everyone else in his society, lacked the proper tools to dig deep and apply hard science to every creature he wrote about. He also lacked the ability to travel and see each animal he described, so he relied heavily on others, like Aristotle’s Historia Animalium and the writings of Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, and that meant his collection was less than perfect. How so? Well, his work on zoology included such amazing animals as dragons, mermen, and even something called a blemmyae, a race of hairy, human-like beings who literally had no head on their shoulders, with eyes and a mouth right in the middle of their chest. Pliny was thorough, for sure, but not very discerning with his source material.

But what his work did do was give birth to something a lot of people have heard of, a type of book known as a bestiary. It took a while for their availability to spread, but by the early middle ages, bestiaries were a common enough resource. They were, at the basic level, books about known animals, typically with colourful drawings to help the reader visualise the specific details of each entry, and over the centuries, some editions became more popular than others. One of the most famous is the Aberdeen Bestiary, an illuminated manuscript that dates back to the 12th century. Aside from being a beautiful example of medieval artwork – and I mean that, you should seriously do an internet search for sample pages – the Aberdeen Bestiary is also a powerful example of just how popular these books really were. It’s filled with images of all sorts of animals, along with rocks, fish, trees and even worms, and a lot of the entries in the manuscript include notes about the nature of the thing in question, making it a valuable reference tool for any budding naturalist. But these bestiaries did more than that – they inspired the popular culture of their day.

England’s King John, who reigned from 1177 to 1216 was said to have a copy of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History in his personal collection, and John’s son and successor, King Henry III, even used images from it to decorate one of the chambers at Westminster. As their popularity spread, more and more writers got in on the tradition. The Norman poet Philip de Thaun wrote a bestiary about a generation after William the Conqueror invaded England, and it became a gift for King Henry II’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Even Leonardo da Vinci made one. It seems if you were an intelligent person in the middle ages or the Renaissance, making your own bestiary was practically a rite of passage – and let’s be honest, colourful manuscripts filled with unbelievable creatures and animals that defied logic couldn’t not be popular. Humans have this innate desire to look at curious things. We’ve always been rubberneckers, straining to take a long, hard look at things that sit outside our normal experience, and the spread of bestiaries is proof of that. But those ancient books and manuscripts also teach us something else about ourselves. Human beings are creative creatures. When faced with a mysterious gap in our knowledge, we’re more likely to invent something to plug the hole than to leave the question unanswered – and what we’ve come up with is equal parts entertaining and downright terrifying.

I mentioned earlier how the internet and the accessibility of powerful devices has given us an edge over our predecessors, and in a lot of ways that’s true. Yes, we have access to a huge majority of our collective knowledge, but not all of it. In fact, there are still things we don’t know. For example, scientists today believe that there are roughly 8.7 million animal species on this planet, and yet 86% of the ones that would live on land still haven’t been discovered or studied, and it’s even worse inside our oceans, where over 90% of life is still a mystery to us. We know a lot, yes, but our world is massive and diverse, and that makes the learning process slow and tedious. Some animals are also a bit harder to track down, they’re less abundant or more shy, and so it’s made studying them more of a challenge. A good example is the platypus. For a very long time, scientists thought the descriptions of it were nothing more than a hoax. I mean, it was rumoured in 1799 to be a hybrid of a duck and a water rat, part mammal and part bird, with venomous spurs that could kill a dog, and while we’ve learnt more about them over the years, the platypus is still an allusive creature. A recent documentarian was able to get what he considered to be a goldmine of actual footage of the animal, amounting to about 30 seconds, and when only half a minute of film is something to celebrate, you know the animal is hard to study.

Of course, while we’re searching for new species, the ones we do know about are slowly dying off, which doesn’t help. Some estimates place the number of species on the edge of extinction at around 20,000, and more get added to that list all the time. For the medieval writers of bestiaries, this would be their worst nightmare. All those creatures belong in their books, and yet they keep slipping away. But at the same time, not being able to see an animal never really stopped those ancient writers from including it in their catalogue of life on earth. In fact, there are a lot of entries that would cause most people to scratch their heads, because while, yes, we’ve grown in our understanding of the world around us, these bestiaries serve as a time capsule of our gullibility. As far back as Pliny the Elder’s collection on natural history, we can see those less believable creatures pop up. He once wrote that thousands of sea-nymphs known as neriads had washed up on the shores of what is modern day France, and that they looked just like the nymphs of the land, except that they were covered in fish scales. He also wrote about that fiery bird of legend known as the phoenix, which was known to burst into flames before re-emerging from its own ashes. And of course, I’ve already mentioned his fascination with mermen and blemmyae. It seems that Pliny the Elder had an obsession with gathering all known creatures, whether or not he had witnessed them with his own eyes.

Other historians added their own contributions to those mystical lists as well, and if I ran through it for you now, it would sound like a recap of the Harry Potter series. Hippos and elephants shared the same space as hippogriffs and mandrakes. There were dragons and tritons, giants and sea monsters. Honestly, it sometimes seemed that if a young child could draw a picture of it, that was good enough to get it included. Of course, some creatures were more popular than others, and that popularity varied from culture to culture. In Europe, one of the most talked about creatures of all was also one of the smallest, but don’t let its size fool you, because there was nothing safe about the basilisk. Our old friend, Pliny the Elder, wrote about it 2000 years ago, describing it as a serpent with legs that was no larger than a foot in length. But what it lacked in size, it more than made up for with attitude and special features. A basilisk was said to stand tall on its back legs and had a crown-like plume on top of its head. And they were dangerous, too – according to the stories, basilisks were so poisonous that even looking at them could get you killed. Other creatures avoided the like the plague, and wherever they chose to make their nests, the plant life would die and wither away. One description I read said that if a man on horseback stabbed the basilisk with a spear, the poison was so powerful that it could climb up the spear, kill the man, and then kill the horse as well.

Of course, when something is that powerful and deadly, it eventually becomes the centrepiece of tales of valour. It’s said that Alexander the Great once killed a basilisk, and like many of the other legends about him, he did it in a way that proved not just his might but also his intelligence. It’s said that he polished his shield until it was like a mirror, and then approached the creature holding it outward. When the basilisk saw its own reflection, it fell victim to its poisonous gaze and instantly dropped dead. We can find images of the basilisk in just about every bestiary in existence, most of which look like a cross between a snake and a rooster. There’s a statue of one in Vienna, commemorating an 11th century hunt, and there’s even a church in Sweden with a carved relief showing St. Michael stabbing one with a spear. So popular was this creature that people sold powders that they claimed to be ground-up basilisk, something that most people purchased for use in alchemy, but more than a few used as an antidote to poison. Everywhere you look through the middle ages and earlier, the basilisk is waiting to rear its poisonous little head. You can see society’s attraction to it in their folklore and superstition, a mixture of fear and fascination, of wonder and disgust. For centuries, it popped up in stories whispered all around Europe, like a well-loved character in a popular book series. But if one account is any indication, it might not be a work of fiction after all.

The people of Warsaw had a problem on their hands. They were two decades into a new political structure known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and while it gave a lot of freedom to the wealthy and elite, it left the lower class in a constant state of fear and oppression. Life in the city was challenging for many people, but that was the new normal. In 1587, though, something happened to put the people of Warsaw on edge. Livestock in the area around an old, ruined building had begun to turn up dead. Even a few of the neighbouring residents had been found poisoned in their beds, washing over the community with a wave of grief and loss. And in the midst of all that confusion and pain, two of the neighbourhood children disappeared. Well, disappeared might not be the right word for it. Folks had seen the two young girls playing near the ruins, they had watched them laugh and skip and revel in the freedom and joy that came with childhood, most likely muttering quiet prayers that it would last as long as possible. The neighbours knew what sort of hard life awaited those girls once they were old enough to work and carry their own weight. Their joy must have been bittersweet.

And then someone watched them step inside the ruins. That was the first reason to worry. Folks avoided the ruins for a good reason – it was dark and dangerous, and the cellar beneath it had been a den for all sorts of animals. So, whoever it was that watched them disappear into the shadows most likely headed over to warn the girls’ parents. When everyone arrived at the ruins to call them out, though, they were no longer visible. While there was a good chance they had simply moved on to a new playground, someone decided to peer inside the dark cellar, and there, laying on the broken stone floor, were the sleeping forms of both girls. So, one of the older women stepped inside to wake them. A moment later, though, she collapsed into a heap beside the girls, sending the growing crowd into a panic. They didn’t know what was causing the people inside the cellar to lose consciousness, but they knew there was something dangerous about the dark space, so they sent for a fire hook – a long pole with a metal hook on the end – and then reached in and pulled each body out into the light. All three of them were dead, and not just dead – they were bloated and dark, as if they’d been dead for days. Most frightening of all, though, was that their eyes seemed to be protruding from their sockets. No one could be sure, but it almost looked as if they’d been frightened to death.

Wanting answers, they sent for Benedictus, the king’s very own physician. If anyone would have the skill to identify the danger, it would be him. And, sure enough, after taking a long look at the trio of bodies, he brought them a definitive answer. All of them had been killed by a basilisk. In an instant, the atmosphere around the old ruins changed. Newcomers came to watch, while leaders gathered to form a plan. Something had to be done, and just like the stories all of them had grown up with, it seemed that a basilisk hunt was in order, but the trouble was no one wanted to risk their lives by entering the cellar to kill it – not even Benedictus, who seemed to know the most about the creature. But they had an idea. A group of leaders from the community quickly headed to the local jail, where two men awaited execution for various capital crimes. Each man was given the same offer: come kill the basilisk, and you will receive a full pardon and your freedom as a reward. It seemed like an easy choice, too – inside jail, there was no chance of survival. Outside, though, there was at least the possibility they might survive. It made sense to everyone.

The first criminal declined the offer, but the other one, a man named Johann Faurer, agreed to help. He was escorted from the jail to the old ruins, where Benedictus awaited him with tools and instructions. The townsfolk had quickly gathered dozens of small mirrors and sewn them onto a pair of leather pants and a coat. I imagine Johann gave the old physician a sideways glance at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, but at the same time, he would have known the folklore just as well as everyone else. Alexander the Great had defeated a basilisk using a mirror-like shield, so why would it not work for him? With a crowd of over 2000 witnesses watching, Johann began to carefully walk into the ruins, where he entered the cellar. He had a long rake in one hand and a torch in the other, to light his way, and as soon as he stepped into the darkness below, he cried out that he could see it – a long, serpent-like tail, with a head that resembled that of a rooster, right down to the crown-like plumage. Benedictus called out instructions to the man. “Grab it with the rake,” he told him, “and then carry it out here into the light.” Johann shouted back that he understood, and the entire crowd began to shift and rumble. If a basilisk was going to be dragged out of the ruins, no one wanted to be around to see it, so they all ran for cover and hid their eyes. When Johann emerged, he held the writhing creature by the neck in one of his gloved hands. They daylight somehow made it weaker, and that gave Benedictus the courage to step closer and examine it. It looked exactly like the bestiaries of old had taught him – the body of a snake, four long legs and a head that looks very much like a rooster.

But sadly, this is where the account of the basilisk hunt ends. Whoever had been recording the events had most likely been in the crowd, and when Johann had begun to emerge from the cellar, they had followed the crowd into hiding, which leaves the ending a bit of a mystery. Who killed the creature, when all was said and done, and how did they do it, knowing the risks the old legends spoke of? What we do know is this: the Warsaw basilisk hunt of 1587 was the last time the creature was reported anywhere in Europe. Maybe it had been the last of its kind, and its death marked its extinction, or perhaps the few that survived had a knack for staying out of sight – like the platypus of Australia. Either way, all that was left from that moment on were legends and stories. Like so many creatures that have once walked the earth, the basilisk – if it was ever real to begin with – has slipped into the shadows of the past, and it’s never been seen again.

There really is something delightful about the bestiaries of old. Their colourful pages and evocative descriptions were beyond sensational. In a world without television, radio or easily accessible works of fiction, those catalogues of natural history were the closest most people could get to travelling the world. Of course, the things most authors chose to include in their bestiaries would probably never make the cut in our modern times. After all, headless tribesmen with eyes on their chests, unicorns and sea nymphs all feel more like characters in a fantasy novel than entries in a study on the world’s flora and fauna. And yet some of those expectations have been broken over the years. For centuries, sailors told stories about the kraken, enormous sea creatures that could reach out and drag an entire ship underwater with its long tentacles. King Sverre of Norway recorded its description way back in 1180, and for hundreds of years people claimed to spot them in the waters of the ocean. Then, in 1853, the carcass of a giant squid washed up on a Danish beach, giving the legend new life. Over the century and a half since then, scientists have determined that there is indeed a giant sea creature that fits the ancient descriptions – give or take a few sinking ships, of course – and while they’ve been challenging to catch on film, we now know they exist. And those mermaids of old might have roots in actual animals as well. Many scientists and scholars now believe that old reports of mermaids could very well be mistaken sightings of an aquatic mammal known as the manatee. As is so often the case, our misunderstandings had given birth to frightening legends, only to have science bring a bit of clarity to the tale. Sometimes the monsters of the ancient world turn out to be real, and sometimes legends inspire new discoveries.

In the part of the world that stretches from Mexico to South America, scientists have been familiar for over a century with a lizard from the iguana family. It’s not the largest reptile around, but it can grow to around 2ft in length, and it can run at amazing speeds. Some scientists refer to it as the Jesus Christ Lizard because of its strange ability to run across the surface of water. But its most common name is based on other features, like its tendency to run on two legs and its serpent-like body – a body that’s topped with a head and plumes reminiscent of a crown or a rooster, which is why its name is both logical and a bit of a throwback. They call it the basilisk.

There’s something enticing about the mysteries that fill the gaps in our knowledge of the world around us. Looking back at the bestiaries of the middle ages, its clear humans have had a lot of fun filling those holes, and the creativity of the past has continued to inspire stories today. But there’s one more creature I want to tell you about. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to learn all about it.

[Sponsor break from Bombas, Casper and Fracture]

They had fallen in love, and it was something that would change their destiny forever. At least, that’s how the legend tells it. Long ago, a young man lived on a small island surrounded by deep blue seas, and in the process of hunting one day, he encountered a beautiful young woman. But the hunter quickly learned that there was more to her than he could see with his eyes. The woman, it turns out, was a fairy. In fact, she was well known to the locals there, who referred to her as the Dragon Princess. Despite their differences – him, a normal human being, and her, a magical fairy – the two of them fell in love and were soon married, and that helps this tale become on of those happily ever after stories that we all love so much. The couple went on to have twins, a boy and a girl, and just like their parents, they were an odd pair. The boy was just like his father, a human with no magical powers of his own, while the girl took after her mother, and because of that, both parents decided that the children should be raised in separate places to help them fully become who they were meant to be.

According to the legend, it was many years later when the son was out hunting, just as his father had taught him. He was creeping through the forest, his spear balanced in one hand, when he spotted a deer. He quickly threw the weapon, which found its target, and a heartbeat later the young man was carefully making his way over to collect his prize, and that’s when the dragon stepped out of the trees. It was enormous and frightening, and it clearly wanted to take the deer that he had just killed. The young hunter spoke to it, begging it to leave his future meal alone, but the creature ignored him and proceeded to move toward the deer, so he lifted another spear and got ready to take aim at the dragon. Suddenly, a figure stepped out of the shadows of the forest and stopped him. It was his mother, the fairy princess, who he had not seen since his childhood, and as she approached him, she spoke a word of warning. “Do not throw that spear”, she told him, “for that is no ordinary dragon. That is your sister.” Instead, she taught him to live in harmony with his sister, and according to the legend, that fateful meeting set the destiny of their entire community on a new path. Even today, if you were to visit the place where they lived, the people there would tell you that they are descended from dragons, illustrating how that harmony has continued.

And of course, this story is just one of many tales about dragons that fill the pages of folklore. In fact, most of us would be hard pressed to find a creature mentioned more often than those magical beasts, from the 11th century legend of King George and the Dragon to the fantasy novels and television shows of our modern world. They really do seem to be the king of monsters. Dragons are also one of those nearly universal creatures. It seems just about every culture around the world has had some version of them in their folklore. The ancient Egyptian god of chaos was Apophis, represented as a giant serpent. The Babylonians had their own god of chaos called Tiemat, and in Arcadian mythology there were not one but three dragons on display. Norse mythology features a giant serpent who gnaws at the roots of the world tree. In Ukrainian folklore, there is a dragon with three heads, while images of dragons can be found all over medieval heraldry. And of course, few cultures on earth hold as tightly to their dragon mythology as the Chinese, who have been decorating objects with images of the creature at least as far back as the Neolithic period, and we could speculate why, I’m sure. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how the accidental discovery of dinosaur bones might spark fear and wonder in the minds of humans thousands of years ago. The places where stories of dragons are most common are also places where such fossils have been uncovered, so it does make sense.

So, when Europeans arrived on an island in the Flores Sea, just south of Indonesia, they probably didn’t think twice about the local stories about dragons. In fact, those tales were probably a bit old hat, as they say. Dragons lived in caves, breathed fire, were vicious killers and could fly when necessary – nothing about all of that was new. What was new, though, were the things they saw there. On an island surrounded by deep, blue sea, an island full of people who believed they were descended from dragons, mind you, they discovered a creature that brought all of their legends to life. It lived in the caves along the shore, it was an enormous killer, and it sometimes even followed its prey up into the trees. It ticked all the boxes. These were 300lb serpent-like monsters that could bring down a half-tonne water buffalo. When they licked the air with their bright red tongue, it looked as if they were spitting fire, and they even dug into the graves of the dead looking for treasure. Of course, that treasure was always food, not gold. And they’re still there, crawling across the sandy beaches of the island, living in harmony, more or less, with the people who still call the place their home. They might not have wings or piles of golden treasure to curl up on, but they are the largest lizard on earth, measuring in at over 10ft in length, and they’re deadly. Sometimes the tales of the past stay shrouded in mystery, and other times we manage to crack the riddle and shed new light on the shadows that once frightened us. This living, flesh and blood dragon seems to offer a fresh answer to an ancient question, however incomplete it might be, but at least we now know that there really is one place in the world where that old cartographer warning is actually true: Here, on Komodo Island at least, there be dragons.

[Closing Statements]

#lore podcast #podcast transcripts #aaron mahnke #basilisks #dragons #bestiaries #cryptozoology #europe #poland #130 #transcripts

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prorevenge · 5 years

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Coworker thinks he knows better than me, but forgets policy.

This is a long post as it requires a decent back story. If you’re killing time on the toilet or have a spare minute or two give it a read. I hope this fits here, if not please direct me to where it should be.

Backstory: I worked for a large private training company who also owned 3 other small ‘sister’ companies. This meant that while the 3 sister companies still traded as themselves, they were owned & operated higher up by my company and would eventually become a part of our company as they were disintegrated.

As a training consultant, I looked after our largest client. I took care of all inductions, formal training and accredited training of the students from this client and because of my strong relationship with our client they didn’t like anyone else dealing with them.

I was also quite new to the training industry, but not new to the field I was teaching- hospitality. I had been working in hospitality for years prior to landing this job so I had years of relevant on the job experience from almost every level, and when I started working for the training company I quickly (in 1 year) completed my accredited training to be able to teach, so all of the knowledge I had learnt in terms of compliance along with my employee contract and handbook were still fresh in my mind. This will be relevant later.

Because the client I looked after served alcohol, all of the staff working for them needed to have their certificate to be able to serve alcohol in the restaurant. While our company itself weren’t accredited to be able to provide this qualification, one of our sister companies was. I had 22 students needing to either complete or update their Qual and as mine was due to expire soon my manager wanted me to attend the session also. It was on a Saturday (my day off) but it was a free qualification, I would get to do it alongside my students and my manager said I could have the Monday off to make up for my time. I was more than happy to attend.

Important to add: one of the restaurants I trained in had a meeting room upstairs. I had only been up there about 3 times because I always held my one on one sessions in the restaurant seating as it was easier to observe students and they were also able to quickly jump back into work if it were busy. Not one person from my company or the sister company had asked me about the room upstairs.

As a trainer, it is our job to inspect any site that we will be holding a training session in at least 1 day (no more than 1 week) prior to ensure that a venue is appropriate and adheres to safety standards. If we deem it unsafe, we have to report it and cannot hold a session unless the safety concerns can be rectified or we can gain approval for a different venue. This is not only legally part of our job, but it is written into our contracts.

All 23 of us turn up at the store at 8.45am as the session was due to start at 9. I made sure that everyone knew to be prompt as the session was due to run until 4pm and a lot of people had shifts to start after the course and I had a 2 hour drive home.

The trainer comes downstairs and I introduce myself. He then starts ranting about how the room upstairs isn’t safe to hold the session in. The first thing I asked was didn’t you come and do a safety check of the venue prior to today like you’re supposed to? He says no, he didn’t have time and now he’s annoyed because he has to cancel the session. I explain that this is extremely unacceptable and that I am not happy with him at all because he knows he is supposed to do a check before the day of the session, and that not only have I traveled 2 hours on my day off for this but I had 22 students (all from different stores I should add) who had to have their shifts and rosters made to work around this session. I explained to him why this was extremely unprofessional on his part and he scoffed at me now telling me off because he’s been doing this job longer than I’ve been alive and I know nothing.

I decided to do a check of the room before calling my manager to explain all of this to her, while the trainer was coping an ear full from the restaurant manager. After completing my safety check I also deemed the room to be unsafe to hold a session, I came downstairs and spoke to the RM and gave him my reports on the hazards and what needed to be fixed before any of my students (meaning his entire staff) could be in that room. I then went to call my manager to explain the situation when the dickhead trainer (who I will refer to as DH from now on) came running in saying he had found another room available at a hotel down the road. He told us where to go and to give him 15 minutes to set up the room. It was already 9.30am by this stage, so I knew by the time we started we would be running 1 hour behind. I explained the time issue to the DH but he assured me he would move through content faster so we wouldn’t run late. He left to go and set up the room & I called my boss to explain it all.

She was fuming especially because he hadn’t bothered to contact her about any of the issues or to get authorization to book another room but told me to call her after the session because after all the fuss she wasn’t going to pull the pin on the client and ruin the day more.

The session started at 10.15am, and it was horrible. The DH was so out of touch I couldn’t believe he had been doing the job for so long. He took so long to talk about anything, refused to take questions, tried to relate personal stories to the content that made no sense, on 3 separate occasions told the room he was smarter than we’ll ever be and that we might think we know more than him but we don’t. He told a 30 min story about a car accident his daughter had 2 years ago and rambled for so damn long that by the lunch break at 12.30 we had gotten through 4 pages of content out of 230. My students were freaking out about the timing and were clearly frustrated by the DH. I was so frustrated myself and embarrassed that this guy was representing my company. I went back to the room early to ask him to move along faster with the content so we could get to the test on time. He told me the test would take an hour, so I told him it would need to be taken no later than 3pm and that he would need to keep his content relevant to the test so we could all get out on time. He obliged.

Well by 2.45pm i was more pissed than ever. I demanded that he let us have 15 minutes of reading time before we started the test because we were only up to page 34 in the book and we didn’t have time to listen to his stories. He argued with me telling me that he would fail me if I kept speaking back to him. I tried explaining respectfully over and over what the issues were but he wouldn’t have a bar if it. He told me he would fail me no matter what my score on the test was because of my attitude. I walked out and my students sat in silence. I called my boss, explained everything to her and she told me to put him on the phone immediately. I walked back in, gave him the phone and tried to calm my students while he went outside on the phone.

He came back in 5 minutes later and told us it was time to take the test. I don’t know what was said on the phone.

Most of us that were just doing a refresher answered very quickly, the rest took a little longer but everyone was done within 40 minutes. When it was time to hand them in, all of the students started panicking that they wouldn’t pass because DH was a jerk. He wanted them to hand him their test while he graded it in front of them. This was not allowed. After to many people had the same concerns, I told DH that I wanted him to mark the tests now while we waited and I collected everyone’s papers and put them in a pile for him to mark. Because he wasn’t familiar with anyone’s names, he now couldn’t be biased when marking.

When the day was over everyone left feeling pretty flat and disappointed in how the day had gone. I was so embarrassed for my company and to be honest I was fuming at this ignorant idiot. I told my students I would handle it and to enjoy their weekends.

I knew DH had violated a lot of policies but one thing stuck in my mind. He didn’t get approval for the room hire, and I knew what that meant and I had been holding onto that information the whole day. I didn’t remind him of the policy because he was a dick and from the moment he booked the room, I thought to myself I might not be able to fire him or reprimand him personally, but I can sure make sure he pays. Literally.

I got in my car and called my boss. I explained everything to her, and she requested I send her a detailed email when I get home. I got home, wrote the email in great detail with reference to policies in our contracts and handbook that had been violated and sent it off.

I come in on Monday and have a meeting with my training manager, state manager and the GM of our company was conferenced in as was the state manager for the client. I was praised for how I handled the situation, how I supported my students and followed policy and I was given a bonus (of the cash kind) for my efforts and dedication to the company.

As for DH, well not only was he reemed for his behaviors, his Unprofessionalism and for not following policy in regards to room checking, he also forgot one little thing when booking that hotel room for the session. He forgot something I didn’t forget, and something that was detailed in my email to my manager. Something that states in our employee contracts, a contract that he has signed.

(I’m paraphrasing here I can’t remember word for word) If a consultant books a room of value greater than $300 for training purposes, it must be approved in writing by the training manager (or the state manager in her absence) before booking confirmation can occur. Failure to gain written approval will result in the employee not being reimbursed for the room.

Well unlucky for DH that room cost $550 because of the last minute booking (and it was a nice hotel i might add). That was $550 out of his pocket that he was not reimbursed for because he didn’t gain even verbal approval from management to book the room, not to mention he needed it in writing anyway.

Our client also requested that DH never be allowed to be involved with their business again.

Because DH had done so many things wrong both ethically and professionally like refusing me a grade even if I passed in front of 22 witnesses, trying to grade tests in front of the student who completed it, not completing a safety check prior to the session, booking a room without approval and the terrible student and client feedback, he was also let go from the company.

So after a terrible day, DH not only no longer had a job but was $550 out of pocket. Goes to show that just because you’ve been doing a job longer than someone doesn’t mean you’re doing it right.

TLDR: Coworker thinks he’s better than me because he’s been doing the job longer. Turns out he’s an idiot and now out of pocket $550 and a job.

(source) (story by scooter-magee)

#prorevenge #by scooter-magee #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #revenge story #last10

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sanacaspercatvet · 5 years

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A Day in the Life of Vet Student

For pretty much my entire life, I have been what is commonly known is rural New Zealand as a “townie”. The last 3 years of my life however, my career as a vet student has flung me in the farthest corners of the peaceful New Zealand countryside.

The 26th of August, 2019. I am having my first day of a rural vet practice clinical placement.

I wake up sleepy and sad to be leaving my all too warm bed heated by an electrical bed warmer.

My feet hit the cold floor. It’s 6.34 am. The sun has risen but I can’t see her behind the storm clouds, so the light in the air is the harsh fluorescent moody kind of light which makes you want to snuggle back into bed and sleep some more (which is kind of a permanent mood for me anyway but I mean whatever).

I hate the beginnings of placements. A new place. New strangers I have to interact with. The beginning of a period of interrupted sleep patterns. Boxed food. I generally try to avoid packing myself food (only because I’m lazy), but if you don’t have food on placement, you’d rather as well be dead. The work really builds up an appetite. You will find yourself eating literally anything you can get your dirty poopy hands on.

I get in the car and start driving. It was supposed to be a 30 minute drive according to Google maps, but nothing could have prepared me for the roads I needed to traverse that morning. I shall attempt to describe the drive using just a series of multiple single words:

windy, death, narrow, death, inappropriate-speed-limits (yes I’m aware these aren’t single words), death, SUVS-with-impatient-drivers-sticking-to the-bum-of-my-car, death, rain, wind, RAIN, death, 25kph recommended hairpin bends, death, DEATH

I arrive bright and early, 10 minutes before I am supposed to be here, just so I time to give myself a pep talk in the car. “Okay, Sana, you can do this. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. You aren’t going to die. It’ll be fine. Just like your other placements. You’re okay. Breathe, breathe. Yes, like that. In… out….”

I walk into the clinic carrying my multiple pieces of paraphernalia and introduce myself at the reception. This is a huge clinic. Bigger than any of the others I’ve worked in so far.

They make me wait for a bit before taking me into the back room and introduce me to the vet I’ll be working with today. The center has about 5 large animal vets whom I will be working closely with over the next two weeks.

We start getting ready for the first call out of the day.

I’m wearing work pants, a long sleeve t-shirt under a polo t-shirt under a sweater, two pairs of socks (cute pink patterned ones under a proper pair of farmer work socks), and a pair of steel toed work boots. I am still really frikking cold. My toes and fingers are ice-blocks.

Before we go out, I don a pair of overalls, wet weather overalls, and a rain jacket. I put on a beanie I’m willing to ruin, and switch my boots for a pair of gumboots. As I said, it is really a terribly stormy cold cold cold day.

We get in the vet’s truck. It is really nothing less than a magical thing. It holds everything that they might need during a call out. Starting with the syringes, needles, and drugs, right down to a 6 foot metal calving jack which I will describe a little later.

The boot of the car generally has a fitted wooden trunk with draws filled with stuff. On top of this, there are tubs full of the most random things. If it’s a UTE (utility vehicle), the sides open up as well and hold more vet thingamajigs. The backseat has even more stuff! (surprise)

We get into the car and start driving.

Our first call out is a farmer who wants to do some spring bloods.

(A little background on this: Spring is the season during which cows generally give birth over here. So the season is also called calving. After cows give birth, they get their calves taken off them and put into sheds on milk powder or milk from different cows so the mother can be put into a milking herd and her milk collected and sold. Generally, after calving, and after milk production starts, if the cow hasn’t eaten enough during her pregnancy, her body can go into a negative energy balance state, where she is producing more than her body has/can make. Her calcium and magnesium levels are the first to drop. If this happens, she can collapse. The farmers usually try to treat this themselves in the beginning by providing them with calcium/magnesium supplements with an energy formula. When this doesn’t work, they call out the vets.)

Spring bloods are done to check how the herd is doing nutritionally and whether they have any deficiencies. Usually, we take around 10 blood samples and it can serve as proxy for a herd of around 200-ish cows.

We get there and get everything else set up. The farmer has already taken out 10 cows for us and lined them up so we can get right to it.

It is my first time taking blood from a cow.

In our practical sessions during the last two semesters, we’ve drawn blood from sheep. Cows are a little different. From sheep, we usually take blood from the jugular vein under the neck. In cows, we take blood from the blood vessel under the tail.

When working with cows, it is really really easy to get covered in poop. If you aren’t in the industry, you’d be surprised. Farmed cows are just always pooping, especially when they are being handled. Their poop is also usually semi-liquid so when it falls on the concrete floor, it does a wonderful acrobatic job of splashing up and covering parts of your body you didn’t even know existed. I learnt my lesson early after spending my summer two years ago on a dairy farm. But that’s a story for a different time.

Because of this constant poop assault, you need to be covered well and also know which parts of your body to expose (your hands upto your elbows, cuz its easier washing poop off skin than it is washing it off sleeves).

How to draw blood from a cow: Ensure cow is properly positioned so the bum is facing you. Lift tail up and with your other hand, feel for a little divet on the bottom part of the tail close to the body. The divet will be shaped kind of like a ‘B’. Right in the center of the B, you will find the blood vessel. It’s a bit of a juggle knowing what to hold using what fingers. Because while holding the tail and feeling for the hard-to-locate-blood-vessel, you have to uncap your needle and pierce the skin; all while not poking yourself or dropping the vacutainer (which collects the blood due to a vacuum) in the 5 cm poopy slush on the floor.

My first cow, I had to pierce about 3 times to find the right spot. My second cow, I dropped stuff, didn’t find the blood vessel and once I found it, I lost it. So I didn’t get quite enough blood. My 3rd and 4th cows were fine.

Cows tails get quite wet and poopy so they’re difficult to hold. Also, while you’re drawing the blood, it IS totally possible for the cow to start pooping on you. It gets everywhere, the stuff. And it’s not like all of them stand still and don’t move.

SO, a more accurate picture is you standing close to the bum of a pooping cow trying to hold on the tail desperately while it’s wildly struggling and you can’t let go because the needle is stuck up the tail!

Lovely.

Our second call out was nothing short of shocking.

It was supposed to be just a retained placenta/foetal membranes. Sometimes after cows give birth, their placenta doesn’t detach and come out (as afterbirth) which is supposed to happen. So a vet goes over and has to remove it manually.

As a 3-year veterinary veteran, I thought I’d seen some things. Nothing could have prepared me for this.

We arrive at the farm and in an open hay shed at the front, the farmer’s wife is waiting for us. A little bit of a mental picture adjustment for the reader: In India, when we think farmer, kissan, we usually think of a tanned man in a lungi and a dirty shirt – shoeless. Well, that’s my mental picture anyway. This is how they have always been portrayed in movies and because I’ve never had anything to do with farming in India, this mental image just stuck with me//

In New Zealand, the term farmer means something else entirely. The word farmer is used to refer to a man who actually owns the farm, either a sheep, dairy cow, deer, goat, or pig farm. Sheep and dairy cow farms are the most common.

Farmers here have really surprisingly appropriate gear. Water proof trousers, good sturdy gumboots, either a waterproof overcoat or a woollen fleece pullover or jacket, topped off with a beanie (usually gotten free from Farmlands or any other giant farming stores. Each piece of gear costs on average 200$. So if you’re looking for an industry to invest in…

So the farmer’s wife is all decked up in expensive looking waterproof gear (yes it is still pouring and very very windy). She has her legs crossed, hands in her pockets; and is sitting really casually on a hay bale while her dogs run around her. The expression on her face is almost amused tinged with a 2% strain of boredom.

The cow we are supposed to calve is behind her. On the floor. She looks so done with everything, the cow I mean, not the wife.

We get out of the car and start collecting our gear.

We walk over, exchange pleasantries and start examining the cow. She has a slightly high rectal temperature and her breathing is laboured. She looks a little bloated.

The vet immediately dons a glove sleeve (A glove which goes up all the way to the shoulder) and sticks her hand up the cows vagina and gasps. “There’s a calf in there!”, she tells us.

Since we were called out for retained foetal membranes, we were assuming that the cow had already calved (given birth). Finding another calf in there is a little bit of a big deal because twins aren’t very common in the dairy industry.

“Why don’t you go ahead and have a feel”, she tells me.

I am all too exciting to be sticking my hand in there.

I put on a glove sleeve, making sure to stretch it at the top like one of my lecturers taught us.

Glove sleeves has an amazing remarkable capacity to roll down and bunch up at the elbow just when you’re getting really poopy which defeats the whole purpose of the thing.

Stretching it along the axis towards the top of it constricts the plastic a little so it holds the arm and has less of a chance of slipping down.

I put a little lube on my palm and stick my hand in.

The first sensation you feel when sticking your hand into a cow, whichever orifice it is, is warmth. A whole lot of warmth. This wasn’t my first time inside a cow. I’ll probably write about that another time.

So I stick my hand in and start advancing it further up the canal, and before long I can feel a small hoof. I push further until I feel the chin of the calf. Yup, she had a twin left inside.

The farmer’s wife tells us that she calved over a week ago, and so the vet explains that the calf inside her has probably died and already started rotting.

So now, we start to extract the smelly rotten calf.

We try getting the cow to stand. It’s hard enough trying to get a calf out of a standing cow, and near impossible to get one out of a recumbent cow.

The farmer brings a tractor and lifts up the bottom half of her body into standing position using a special holder that clasps onto the protruding hip girdles of the cow.

The vet pumps a few litres of lube into the cow using a special pump and then puts her hands in and tries pulling the calf out using the forelimbs. We pull for about 10 minutes before deciding that we need the calving jack. Oh yeah, time to bring out the big guns.

The calving jack is made of two metal pieces. The first piece is a 6 foot hollow tube thingy which isn’t actually round, it’s more cuboidal in cross section. The second piece is kind of like a holder ting that sits on the hip girdles of the cow.

You have to attach ropes onto the legs of the calf (while it’s inside, yes) and a rope onto the head. These ropes are attached to the handle of the calving jack and you basically jack it backwards. This motion makes it easier to pull the calf out. Physics, yay!

So we try that for about like half an hour and we only just about manage to get it out halfway. So the head is out now, and it’s pitifully hanging out the mom back side.

The cow’s vagina was doing a really terrible job of dilating: it wasn’t.

So we basically chop the calf in half using a hunting knife. Yep, that’s what we do. The calf was dead, please remember so you don’t get more freaked out than you already are at this point.

The next thing we are going to do is chop the rest of the calf into pieces while it’s inside the uterus and then remove each piece individually.

There’s a special apparatus that does this. Its basically a sharp wire that you need to get in and around a point where the body bends; we chose to get the wire between the legs.

Once the wire is around where it needs to be and both the ends are out, you need to insert them through two tubes and attach the ends to handles.

Making a sawing motion cuts whatever needs cutting inside.

So I hold the apparatus and the vet starts sawing. It takes us an hour until we make a cut through the flesh and bone.

She puts her hand in again and pulls out one leg, and then pulls out the other leg with a bit of difficulty because it’s still attached to the hip bones.

Every bit of that carcass smells exactly like what it is, a rotting mess. The teeth were falling out, the fur was coming off in tufts. It was exactly what you’d expect from a decomposing body.

So yeah, that was a tough calving.

But it doesn’t end there.

She puts her hand back inside to feel for any more debris that needs removing and she find instead a hole in the uterus!

I put my hand in and can feel the flaps of a really large hole through which I can also feel the stomach and the kidneys. Because of this hole, we are pretty sure that some of the infected rotting stuff has entered the usually sterile space of the abdomen. The cow is doomed.

After spending around 3 hours getting out the calf to save the mamas life, it was so sad to find that hole which had obviously been there a while. There was no possible way to treat that, and the cow was going to die a slow and painful death if we didn’t do anything.

So we spoke to the farmer and he said he would shoot it and that was that.

It was so heartbreaking.

We come back to the clinic really demotivated.

After lunch, I go out with another vet to treat a ‘down cow’. Cows go down due to the whole deficiency thing I already explained above.

It was s t i l l RAINING. It was still cold. It was still windy. And out we went.

I’ll keep this last call out short: the vet didn’t have a four wheel drive, the cow was in the middle of a field, we had to walk half a kilometre in the rain and kept coming back to the car because we forgot things, the wind was stinging our faces, the cow was shivering, we treated the cow, it wasn’t getting up, the rain got heavier, it got colder. Yeah so that was our last call out.

I got home at like maybe 5.30, showered and went to the library to study.

And that concludes a day in the life of a vet student.

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missguomeiyun · 5 years

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dinner @ H-Mart

DID YOU KNOW...

Orion Chocopie (the original flavour) now has a 30-pack box?! Whattt?! Well, maybe it existed a while ago (ie: in Korea) but it was my 1st time seeing this in Edmonton. Omg...

I was looking around this aisle to see if they have the banana-flavoured Chocopie still, & it’s all gone. The tag & everything =( good thing I snatched a box the 1st time I came :P

Alrighty, let’s move on to the food I had for dinner last night! PS: I gotta stop hanging out with badminton best friend & his wife.. . I am so bad at being Asian in the sense that I am so bad at (sneakily &/or aggressively) getting the bill, darn it! It’s stressing me out >.< but I’ve learnt. In a food court setting, you need to get the spot that’s like right next to the card reader (so close that you’re literally blocking the other person bcos the person is likely doing the ordering), & then you tap. But if they also have their card out, you push their hand away (which may cause minor injuries) & then while you’re at it, STEAL their card! *gasp* it was bad. I was a failure :’(

In any case, the food was great~

Ox bone soup. My coworker said it was bland & doesn’t have much in it... but it’s one of my fav soups so I had to try it. I like soups in general, but this is higher on my list than kimchi jjigae or deonjang jjigae; it’s almost shares #1/#2 spot with budae jjugae, which is kinda weird bcos they’re soooooo different! But I think that’s also the reason why; compared to budae jjigae, which has a lot of sausage/ham/bacon/instant noodles in a spicy broth, ox bone soup is very clean. It has a slightly milky appearance, & contains noodles & some beef slices (99% of the time topped with green onions). This H-Mart one had potato starch noodles, the one you have with japchae, which is a new experience for me bcos I’ve only had ox bone soup with regular white noodles. I prefer the white noodles, but potato starch noodles was alright too. Super home-ly dish, served with some banchan (kimchi & radish), a bowl of rice, & salt/pepper for seasoning.

KFC: this was the secret sauce chicken, in cup portion. Cup portion turned out to be more like a bowl... haha chicken was juicy & batter wasn’t too thick. The sauce was spicy, but also had a strong tanginess to it. Almost like a 1:1 of the standard spicy KFC sauce & Chinese sweet & sour pork sauce. It was good!

Best friend doesn’t eat chicken so we also got a tangsuyuk, which is the Korean-ified version of sweet & sour pork. Suuuuper zestayyyy haha the veggies that come with it (cucumber, that 1 piece of carrot, some onions) was pickled; not sure about the black fungus bcos I choose not to eat if I don’t have to. The pork pieces were of good size, meat was well-fried & nice amount of sauce as well. It wasn’t too much that the meat was swimming in the sauce; each piece had some contact with the sauce. Obviously when you get to the bottom, the remaining few pieces will be completely drenched.

You can’t order tangsuyuk without its main... jjajangmyeon, aka black bean noodles! It’s so hard to see what’s in the sauce; however, I can tell you that there’s onion, small pork cubes, a minute amount of green onion & zucchini, & there’s 4 peas sitting on top. I’m not a fan of semi-cooked or raw onions, but the onion here was all cooked fully & was soft so I loved it. Flavour was good, not too salty & noodles were on the al dente side, which I also liked. So satisfying!

We also got a udon soup & a large ddeokbokki; both not photographed -.-” the udon soup was alright; I feel indifferent about it but liked the broth, bcos they use the same broth as the o-deng one. The udon comes in a bowl, with udon noodles, enoki mushrooms, & several pieces of fish cake. It’s all pre-portioned & then when you order it, they scoop soup in. The ddeokbokki was yummy! It was surprisingly mild spicy, bcos I thought they would make it like the ones in Korea, but I guess they need to mild it down for the non-Korean population here in Edmonton.

Overall, excellent meal~

#YEG #supermarket #korean supermarket #edmonton #h-mart #780

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thenextgeneration3 · 6 years

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The missing link (part three)

Since before Anyone could remember it was always Clary, Simon and Y/n. Y/n was adopted by the Clary’s mom when she was just 6 years old. However, living in Brooklyn her British accent never left. They did everything together. Shared everything but that started to change after Clarys 16th birthday.

Warnings: non i think

Sorry for any mistakes

Hope you enjoy

Time lapse

Sitting in the library

“If you are a Blackstorm then how don’t I know about you. They were one of the top shadowhunter families.” Jace said while flipping through a dusty book

“So basically if I get this right. My blood means I’m part some cult that kills demons. Oh god Simon have you got me into a larping team. I’ve already told you in not into it. Also, Clary how are you so calm about all this. I’m about to call the but house for these people.” I said looking at both Simon and Clary.

“This is true Y/n. This is just like D&D. How aren’t you loving this?” Simon said excitedly getting a tut of Clary and Alec.

“Well I have had more time process and I’ve seen things. Also, it explains a lot of things. Like Luke and my mom . The whispering and the reason we haven’t got any family other than us.” Clary said while moving closer to Jace.

“Well I’m sorry but this is a lot of stuff to take in also is there anything else I can do to help find your mum.” I said changing the subject

“Well we are trying to find something my mom was hiding she hid from Valentine before she died. But I can’t remember anything.” Clary said while looking from Alec to Jace

“What do you mean she hid something? And if she did hide something wouldn’t she leave a clue maybe with someone maybe Luke or you. Someone she knows it’ll be safe with.” I said thinking about it

“That actually smart. Clary did your mom never leave you anything told you to keep it safe?” Jace asked placing down the book

“Wait Clary didn’t she give you some family heirloom for your birthday that pen thingy.”

“Oh yeah. This?” Clary said handing it over to Jace. “Yeah mom said she’d explain it.” She said shrugging.

“Okay is there any way we can find out if mum leave anything for you or a map.” I asked sitting next to Clary

“No I look back and it’s like all things to do with this world was whipped.”

“Yeah I’m surprised you didn’t notice those white scars on her body.” We both turned to wards Simon.

“What do you mean white scars.”

Those little white scars that were in her arms and legs. When we were at the lake and we went swimming. In her swim suit she had all those scars on her body.” Me and Clary looking puzzled

“It confirms she’s a shadowhunter but maybe she’s locked it away in her mind we could take them to the silent city. They could help”

Time skip

“Wow so the silent city is in a cemetery great not at all creepy.” I said wrapping my arms around me

“Who are the silent brothers?” Simon asked as we approached a fence.

“They are sort of librarians they help shadowhunter” Issy said while linking arms with Simon

“So why are you all scared of them if they are librarians. All give over due book?” Simon joked earning a scoff from Alec

“Right we stop here. Alec you patrol the perimeter. Issy you watch the mundi. Clary, Y/n and I will go in.” Jace have orders as we all we ready

We descended into the city of bones. Literally as everywhere was covered. There were words everywhere but in the shadow of the Witchlight it was hardly visible.

“What does that say?” Clary asked pointing at the scripture under the angel statue. Jace chuckled

“Shadowhunters looking better in black than the widows of our enemies since 1234”

“Really?” Clary looked confused looking over the words NEPHILIM: FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNI.

“No it means the decent to hell is easy” I said walking past Jace not bothering to look back

“You speak Latin?” Jace asked surprised

“Yes and other languages. I have since I can remember.”

‘The Blackstorms are known to have spoken in various tongues.’ A voice inside my head said

“Okay. Am I going nuts or did someone just talk” I said while carrying onto a large room where symbol aligned the floor and a sword hovered from the ceiling

‘Welcome to the city of bones. We are the silent brothers we will help you recover what is lost. Clarissa Fairchild please step forward’ Clary walked towards the middle of the room. The sword came down and touched her and she cried out and hit the floor “Clary” I screamed Jace holding me back. She begins to write something in the dust.

“Magnus bane”

Time skip

In the institute they all were in the kitchen eating. I wasn’t hungry deciding to look around the place. The institute was massive. Every room designated to a different project. That when I ground the one room I was looking for the training room.

“Do you train?” I jumped not expecting someone to be there

“Alec Lightwood right ?” I said holding a hand over my heart

“Yes. Do you train?” He repeated

“A little. Wanna show me a few things ?” I asked removing the jacket.

“Fine. Now grab a staff” he said grabbing one himself

“Now I don’t want you to go easy on me” I said with a smirk as we begin to spar. I’ve never used a staff but it quickly adapted. Alec and I spared for a 30 minutes before he was able to trip me with the end of the staff.

“Not bad you need to keep an eye on your feet you leave them open. You also are very stiff from the waist down you need to move. Now again.” He said helping me up. It didn’t take long before I used his advice and was finally able to figure out his fighting technique. Then I was able to use my foot and trip him up and he landed on his back with my staff hovering over-his face. “Very good but you forgot something” he said before tripping me over. Landing on my back beside him. “Always look for a way out” he said chuckling while offering me a hand

“Omg is that Alec Lightwood laughing” Issy said from the door “you’ve got some skills Y/n. You sure you’ve never trained or known about shadowhunters because Jace was just saying you know a few languages.”

“I’ve spoken them since I was little and I made sure I use at least them all once a week. I also train in a dojo 3 days a week because it helps with balance and self defence. I live in Brooklyn after all. Now I’m off to take a shower.” I said putting back my staff

“Oh Y/n. We are going to Magnus you’ll need to dress pretty.”

“I don’t have anything with me?”

“Brilliant lets go to my room I can help with that.” Issy said linking arms and rushing off to her room.

Time skip

“Is do you have anything a bit more me ?”

“And what would that be”

“Well a mwah top would be nice I’m wearing my good bra and maybe a skater skirt. So I can wear my combats.” She began rooting throw her wardrobe.

“Like this?” She held a burgundy skater skirt with a complete mesh body suit with small velvet stars covering it.

“Perfect, fishnets ?” She was already holding them up. “Yes. Okay I’ll be two second.” I emerge from the bathroom looking older than I thought I had light make up on with my hair wavy and half up. Filling off the look with my beaten up combats. Issy, Clary and I emerged from the bedroom all dressed for the party “what you think?” Issy asked.

“I like” Jace said looking at me

“Wow” Simon said as he looked at Clary and I.

“Do you need a sheath? I have a few thigh ones you could borrow” Issy said to both Clary and I.

“No”

“Yes” Simon,Clary and I said at the same time.

“Does this mean I get a knife now?” I questioned raising my eyebrow at Jace and he handed up one of his many seraph blades

“Thank you”

Time skip

The music was so loud down the street it wasn’t hard to miss but I had the feeling I’d been there before. It was like I’ve been there many time. We knocked on the door a man with blue hair and black gothic clothes answered the door

“OMG. Please tell me you are all seeing him to ?” I questioned they all looked at me and Simon answered

“Yeah. The dude that looks like gay sonic the hedgehog crossed with the child catcher from chitty chitty bang bang. Very much so” he said picking his mouth from the floor

“Thank god I thought I was going mad again?” “May we come in we have an invitation”

“I don’t remember inviting nephelm to my party” he said “however,I was pretty drunk so I could. Just don’t kill my guests and I’m only going it because of the pretty boy” he said moving aside and letting us all in. “Thank you” Jace said while stepping inside “I didn’t mean you. I meant him with the blue eyes.” He said giving Alec a wink.

“I ship it.” I whispered to Issy as we walked past warning a smirk from Magnus.

Magnus slips of into a room and Clary and I follow him. “I’m surprised you are both here and accompanied by shadowhunters no less.” Jace entered the room with Alec. Simon was with Issy.

“What do you mean do you know these two?” Jace asked as he stepped closer to us both. Alec coming up behind us.

“Of course I watched them nearly grow up. Your mom came to me ages ago because she didn’t want you both in the shadow world. Jocelyn was very specific on what she wanted me to do. I told her it was tricky and could be risky but she wanted it anyways. I wiped both girls memories. Though Y/n was the hardest you had so much more time in the shadow world. Clary was a baby only a year or two younger but you already knew loads of languages for a young age. Also, you were just this little confident child that wasn’t afraid of anything.” He said looking at me. “However, I did what she asked and you luckily kept all the languages you’ve learnt but your mind fought back you came here more than Clary did. Then you started sparing Jocelyn was worried that it’ll trigger something but she let you do it anyways.” He looked at Clary “ you however, were a little minx your mom was determined to hide all your shadowhunter parts. You liked to pick on the fairies in the garden and you even picked on my cat. Once he scratched you of course you screamed like a banshee. I of courses as if you were half. She said no that your father wasn’t involved and he won’t be. I asked who he was she said he died. Then she made up this story about the man in the army to protect you.” He said sitting down

“Wow that was an unload and a half. So do you know where Jocelyn is now ?” I asked. “So yo know how to get these blocks off our minds also?”

“Once they were implicated no one can take them off however,since you are both here and you’ve already seen thought one of my hardest glamour. It would should be wearing off. Not long now.” After he said that a scream came from outside. Issy ran in crying and breathing heavily

“They’ve... theyve... they’ve taken Simon” she cried

“Who has?” Jace asked

“Vampires” she replied

Tags::

@perseny-blog

@dark-night-sky-99

@carinacassiopeiae

#tmi #the mortal instruments #jace x reader #jace lightwood #jace herondale #jace wayland #jace and clary #alec x reader #alec lightwood #isabelle lightwood #simon lewis #magnus bane #magnus x alec #simon x reader

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loghainmactir · 5 years

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hewwo! i was wondering if u could pls give me some advice on starting my transition? ive been so scared to start bc of family and costs but ive decided to just. do it. yknow? like if i don't ill probably die lol. u look amazing and rly confident in yourself in all ur selfies and one day i wanna be Like That ✌️❤️

hi! ok, so first of all: yeah, i absolutely can give u advice, and second of all: i remember feeling exactly like you did. it literally wasn’t that long ago, either, it was like. 2013/14/15 (i can’t remember, time is fake, whatever lmao!). third of all: bless u yr so sweet. i still have a lotta issues with confidence (i doubt myself, my talent and what i can do literally hourly), but honestly? i love my body right now. it’s a good, genderless body, goddamnit.

long, long post ahead bc i’m trying to think of things i did and good god please take it with a grain of salt because a lot of this is just me ranting about things i wish I’D done in my own position. i’m also coming from a place where HRT and surgeries AREN’T free, so that’s also A Thing. everyone’s experience is different.

transitioning (particularly medically) really super fuckin varies country by country (and honestly probably even state by state, age by age and fuckin gender by gender because cis people won’t let us fucking BE goddamn): i don’t know where you are, so my only tips there r: find a trans friendly doctor/endo (i was kinda forced to go through a hospital bc That Was How It Was here in good ol’ Australia), and one people wholeheartedly recommend, if you wanna go that route.

my first point is make sure you find safe spaces in every goddamn aspect of your transition. medically, socially, physically. if you think your doctor is refusing you treatment or is discriminating against you, you NEED to ditch that doctor. if your friends and family are really verbally or physically violent against LGBT folks, you NEED to leave that space if you can (or not come out and wait until you can leave. seriously. i’m kinda lucky– my grandma was verbally violent against LGBT folks, and initially my mum was skepitcal, but i convinced them both to go to a group for LGBT+ parents and friends and they slowly turned around). get yourself friends, get yourself allies.

i cannot stress that enough. my first doctor refused to send my referral letter to the royal children’s hospital gender clinic because even tho he presented as a “nice” guy, he believed that because this was “”””out of the blue”””” for me, he figured he’d just Not Send It (and tried to tell me that a lotta kids there didn’t actually helpo, lol). so there i was, a young 15-16 year old alister, waiting like 2-3 months for something that didn’t even get fucking sent.

join trans groups on facebook and in real life. seriously, they’re a godsend; there’s buy-and-sells, advice posts, encouragement posts. ESPECIALLY local ones. most of them on facebook are private, meaning no one can see if you’re posting/in the group, and it’s easy to check if they’re not. these fb pages + local groups are good ways to find trans friendly spaces and doctors. i found my current doctor, who’s actually one of the very few doctors who knows what the fuck he’s on about re: trans people, through a real life trans group. they were like “oh, you should see x”, and even though he’s about 30-40 minutes away from me, he’s brilliant and honestly saved my life.

along those lines: figure out what you want from your transition, and then realize & accept that this may change (and it also may not change!). very early on, i was super insistent that i wanted phalloplasty and to wear packers, and now i couldn’t care less. at first, i identified as agender, and then as a trans guy/ftm, and now i identify as a Black Hole (i’m kidding, don’t @ me). like, a lotta people DON’T change their minds. but i did, some people do, and it shouldn’t be anyone’s business but your own what you want to do with your body

(sidenote: this also goes for detransitioning or stopping medical transition but continuing to socially transition/present differently. literally, it’s fine. it’s your body. fuck anyone who says otherwise.)

again: FUCK ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE.

your body is literally your body. do NOT let anyone tell you what to do with it or who you are. i had people very early on scream at me (legitimately scream and throw me out of home, thanks grandma), tell me i wasn’t actually trans, and harrass me for this shit: but frankly, if i’d put myself back in the closet, i wouldn’t be alive right now. i would’ve killed myself years ago, and i wish i wasn’t kidding. if it’s safe, you need to stand up for your own body and your rights and put yourself somewhere that will allow you to follow through. you need to keep going and keep living.

my only other two pieces of advice are “patience, baby”– like, for real, every single part of transition takes time. this varies from where you are and who’s supporting you, but it’s generally true. it takes time for people to accept new names and pronouns

(lotta people get furious about this, and i used to be one of those people, but hindsight’s a bitch and you gotta realize that… like, it’s hard for some cis people. you gotta give them a little bit of wiggle room, especially if they’ve never ever met a trans person before. it’s about reminders, reminders, reminders: which is SO hard if you’re not safe/don’t have the confidence. there IS a flip side to this though: if chad and stacey have known your new pronouns for months, now, and they keep “””slipping””” up, they’re not slipping up, honey. they’re doing it on purpose. kick their teeth in i’m kidding please don’t do this you know what i mean.)

it takes time for HRT to kick in. it takes time to gather a Look™ of your own you like, it takes time to build confidence to even tell people, it takes time to save up money for surgeries and it just… takes time. sometimes because it’s a naturally slow process, sometimes because cis people are Cis People and like to gatekeep. i remember being very young in my transition, sitting in the car after one of my appointments with the afformentioned shithead doctor bawling my eyes out because he’d told me i wouldn’t be able to access t for x amount of time and it was bullshit. this year i’ll be 2 years on t. wild, huh? there’s a lot of us and not equal amounts of resources (ESPECIALLY in public systems) depending on where you are, so you gotta be prepared to WAIT.

i’ll tell you what super helped me through those years: hyping myself up for other things! i still have the ticket from my first twenty one pilots show. that show meant SO much to me. i cried all through it, because waiting for that show kept my mind off of the wait for my royal children’s appointments (and even waiting to go up to melbourne bc my mum and i would go and get kebabs was a good thing to focus on!). keep things that aren’t trans related on hand (seriously i struggled with this because dysphoria and shit is fucking hard!! it’s easy to say but really fucking hard to put into practice).

(one day i’m gonna tell tyler and josh just how much they saved my goddamn life. i know they hear it weekly, but i will.)

my other thing is that uh. it won’t solve all your problems especially if you’ve got mental illnesses. this is a really fuckin depressing thing i had to drill into my brain, but it really helped. transitioning solved SO many of my issues. i no longer have back issues (thanks, like, literal kilo titties, lmao), i no longer have sore ribs and i can breathe and wear shirts. i lost so much weight (and am kinda gaining it back, but whatever). i no longer have anxiety about whether people can tell i’m binding– which is WILD because i used to stress the fuck out about it to the point where i never went out anywhere. i used to sit on the bus wondering if the person next to me could tell i had titties. now it literally doesn’t even register.

my issues now stem from PTSD, depression, BPD and ADHD. how do you fix this? you don’t. but what HAS helped is finding a therapist who won’t pressure you into talking about trans shit. lemme tell you: this shit gets exhausting after the fifth time of “oh i googled ‘can you become a boy’ when i was, like, nine” (this is my go to story because this memory is so vivid). of course, there’s gonna be moments where you HAVE to: my therapist recently actively asked me to briefly run through it for my PTSD report. but otherwise we literally haven’t talked about it and that is a GODSEND (because i don’t need it. if you need it, that’s good, too!). having a therapist that you can just wordvomit at wrt anything is literally the best thing and can be super helpful– seriously, there were a few trans-related sessions where i just snarled about the bullshit gatekeeping and the bastard i had to see for my therapist letter (oooh, every time i think abt the fact that it was something like $400-500 for two fucking sessions i get so mad lol), but outta 14 it’s really only like 2-3 of them.

but yeah. that’s it. i dunno, these are things that i’ve learnt and sorta… like to think as helpful for myself. of course, this could be different for you: you’re not me, you’re entirely different, in no doubt an entirely different country, social, financial, mental state. i was FUCKED UP when i first came out. i didn’t know that then, but i do now. i spent a lotta time by myself and that’s not healthy, so i really encourage you to reach out to our community, local and worldly, because oh my god, we’re here for you. we are SO here for you.

#long post #sorry if you need this formatted for ease of reading please shout at me. i really word vomited all over this #my transition #trans #anon #asks #iodk what else to tag this as

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angusbradley · 2 years

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Tesla EV 1000 Km winter drive to the Alps - a long but pleasant journey

April 2022 One of the reasons I bought a Tesla was I saw a model S in Samoens in the Alps a few years ago,and thought - ahhh it must be possible. At the time we were driving a Mitsubishi hybrid, and the idea of an all electric trip seemed brilliant. The Model S looked super sleek, so I figured it was probably faster than our petrol/electric SUV too. In this I was to be proven incorrect.

So when we finally got our Model Y long range in March, first thoughts were for a first holiday to the alps in the EV. Why not? Then I googled it, and only found horror stories. Folks taking 16 hours or longer to get down, huge queues at super chargers, and cars limping along at 50 mph to make the next charge.

La Lechere-les-Bains, an absolutely beautiful super charger location nestled at the foot of the alps.

So it was with some trepidation that we set out in April for La Rosiere, a lovely, high ski resort at 1850 meters, just over 620 miles from the Calais Eurotunnel. The car was loaded with ski gear, 2 kids and my wife and I. No roof boxes or extra drag!

ABRP (a better route planner) was on my phone, Spotify was working, and we had our Sanef auto route toll tag.. what could go wrong ?!

Actual EV range in the cold. Our model y has a nominal range of about 340 miles when it's warm. But you don't really want to charge more than 90%,so let's call that a range of 300. Then I was really concerned about having family in a car in freezing temperatures, so didn't want to arrive at a charger with less than 20% charge. So usable range was now 240 miles. And in the cold a lot worse, usually between 160 and 200 miles (electric cars are *much* less efficient when it's cold)

With experience, in future I’d be happy arriving with 10% charge, the Tesla gauge is very accurate.

So having negotiated the madness of Dover port, headed off to our first stop, Troyes - first charger was going to be Aire d’Urvillers, where we'd arrive with 20%. 20 minutes later the car said range had dropped, and we'd arrive with 15%. Slight panic from me, as this seemed very low, but the tesla map showed an ionity charger en route, and we headed towards that.

Smooth. The Tesla pre-heated the battery, and we arrived at a bank of 8 ionity chargers, mostly empty, for a quick charge, paid for through the phone app.

That was it, the rest of the trip was smooth,lots of empty charging bays, lots of interesting stops. I learnt to trust the Tesla navigation, if it says you’ll arrive with 15% thats what will happen, unless you drive at 100 all the time.

We stuck with Tesla chargers, as for Teslas they are really fast, literally jump out of the car, press a button on the cable to open the charge port, and plug in, rarely for more that 20 minutes.

Tesla superchargers are often a few miles off the autoroute, so may cost you 5 minutes of detour, however they are often in interesting places, usually with a few choices of food.

Big diesel is still the fastest

On the way down we didn't time things, had a leisurely night over in Troyes, and when we got to La Rosiere, it had taken a while, maybe 11 or 12 hours. Our mates arrived in their big Landrover Disco, they'd smashed it from Calais, averaged about 95mph and 18mpg, and made the trip in 8 hours. Admittedly their fuel bill was something like £220 each way, but still a hell of a lot quicker.

So I thought I’d write down as much detail as I could.

**All the details - alps to folkestone and back** We drove between 70 and 80 mph when possible.

Calais to La Rosiere Drive 9hr 23 Charging - 2hrs 15, plus an overnight charge in Troyes. This could have been 1hr 50 if we hadn't had to do a charge at the foot of the Alps, maybe 1hour 30 if I hadn't insisted on arriving at each charger with 20%

La rosiere to Calais. 627 miles Temperature - from -4 to 15 degrees C. 10.5 hours driving (average 60 mph, reflects about 90 minutes of heavy traffic we sat in)

Charging time - 2 hours 25 mins. Charging stops - 5 Energy used 174kWh Supercharger cost £70 (left with about 80%, arrived with about 40%)

Estimated times for EV routeplanning in a Model Y

Just after we left I found Bjørn Nyland’s work, he tests EV’s on a 1000Km run, somewhere that looks warm in America. His best time for the Tesla Model Y for 1000Km is 9hr 45 in average 17 degrees.

So in winter, with no extra charge stops, I think the entire journey should take say about 11 1/2 hours. This is almost exactly what the Tesla route planner said, and about 45 mins longer than what ABRP predicted. And nearly 3 1/2 hours longer than our speeding friends in the Discovery.

So in future I’ll plan for summer - 10 hours per 1000Km, and Winter 11 1/2 hours per 1000Km.

A great trip, and a different pace of travel. So for now, at least until we get different battery technology,cold weather trips will be a lot slower than diesel. BUT - the stops are fun. Think more grand tour than an auto route smash. We stopped in Troyes on the way down, a beautiful medieval town, great fun to browse and had a wonderful meal and French cafe experience. Our last supercharger stop was La Lechere-les-Bains, absolutely beautiful location nestled at the foot of the alps. Here we had a quick 15 minute walk and checked out the baths hotel, which the Victorian travellers probably used on their grand tours!

Next time we go we will probably stop more, and have an overnight stop on the way and the way back. I'll also trust the Tesla on board navigation, and be happy to arrive at charges with less that 10% charge which should reduce charging time a little.

a typical unexpected stops, somewhere near the river Saone are 16 Tesla chargers, and a slightly quirky hotel restaurant

#tesla #ev #electric vehicles

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thecreatureoftheshadows · 2 years

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Day 1 of 365 : 2022 is here

Everyone makes resolutions for the new year, don’t they? Or at least most of us do. And I did too. And it’s not only because it’s a whole new year but also because my birthday happened to be last week & it coincided with new year. For a change, my resolutions this time around doesn’t include working out. But yes, it definitely includes trying to write something everyday & maybe even post. I’ve tried several other platforms and funnily the only thing that I never even attempted to delete was my tumblr. This is the only account I have been faithful to since 2013 whilst whether it be facebook or instagram, I’ve deleted it all and made new ones only several hundred times.

Be kind to myself. This is something my therapist has been repeating several times over the past few days & it’s taken me only 3 months to realise what this means. But now is when the real work begins because though I’ve realised it, I need to acknowledge, accept & implement it into my daily life and that’s not going to be easy.

Take care of myself. And by this I mean nourish my body, allow myself to stretch, do my grocery shopping on time, sleep when my body needs it & just the general adult things you know. Five years of battling an eating disorder and it’s just hitting me that none of that was worth it. How I look really makes no difference because at the end of the day how healthy I am is what actually matters.

Tackle my low self esteem issues. This was something I legit brought up to my therapist only 3 days ago because I just couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. In my eyes I happen to be a terribly pathetic person & this belief has destroyed my confidence & made me miss out on a whole truckload of opportunities. Deep down I know that I’m not as bad as I assume myself to be. Yet a plethora of irrational thoughts has buried the rational truth somewhere down there & it’s high time I confront this. Again, not going to be an easy battle.

Work hard. Sometime before the clouds of depression took over my life, I used to be a hard worker and I loved it. I loved studying, I loved deep cleaning my apartment, I loved reading books, I loved doing any kind of work that didn’t require me to be idle. Yet in the past few years, I’ve spent more time staring at walls than I’ve done any work & I hate that I wasted so much time. But what’s done is done. It’s time to change things up & start giving it my best shot on a daily basis, even if it’s only 30 minutes of productivity per day because that’s all my body is capable of on that particular day.

Learn to put myself first. When it comes to the people in my life, I have always put them first without a moment’s of hesitation. But here’s what I’ve learnt in the past few years whilst being curled up on the cold, hard floor, all by myself because depression was suffocating me. At the end of the day, you are for yourself. Literally no one out there is going to come save you. You have to be your own saviour & in order to do that, you have to learn ti prioritise yourself first, set boundaries & learn to say no. You give time to yourself first before allowing another to take up your time.

Be grateful. I’ve come to realise that gratitude is the key to finding contentment in life. It’s very easy to focus on the negatives, on what I don’t have & be upset about it. It’s very easy to be oblivious to what I already have & how so very blessed I actually am. Hence, it’s very important for me to learn to be grateful because I am so very used to seeing life with the lens of “what I don’t have” instead of “what I already have”.

Have patience. Again, not my strong forte. But patience is essential to get through life, especially with the hurdles and the ups & downs, a lack of patience leaves you utterly hopeless. Been there. Done that. And it really doesn’t help because there are certain things in life that’s beyond our control & losing patience is not going to change anything apart from making you want to give up on everything. But being patient, and going forward with as much persistence as you can muster eventually leads you to open doors.

Lastly, get a cat. If things go right, I can finally graduate and leave this place & hopefully get a job. And when I do, I want a cat baby. I’ve been wanting a cat for years now & I am so tired of stalking cute cat pages on instagram. I know very well I’m going to end up as the crazy cat lady, so I’m just excited to start my journey as one you know.

The beginning of every new year comes with this palpable sense of hope that makes you feel like you can do anything you want. But yes this year, things have been more subtle, people have been more sullen but of course it is understandable why.

I just hope & pray that 2022 brings light, peace, contentment & goodness to all of us. We need it.

#life #writing #random #relatable #thoughts #mental health #my words #happy new year #2022 #happy 2022 #resolution #idk what to tag this as #diary entry #journal #im trying #depression #writer #day 1

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emmadutton1993 · 4 years

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If you are planning on opening a practice, there are many Reiki masters and to others as well.Give yourself the gift of nature not a spiritual power cannot be mentioned without holding a session or feel overwhelmed.With this attunement can be a Reiki CertificationOverall Reiki music should simply be ready to be attuned to Reiki, by contrast, always works as a channel.This was in hourly expectation of hearing from him.

This is a short walk to the enlightened realms of the 30 Day Reiki Challenge is in preparation, and this is the reporting of time to find blocks in the corners.Madam Takata explained it best when she is delivered from this madness of being a Reiki master and should provide good manuals and instructional videos included?It also explains that the process when a powerful influence that it seems funny talking with your Highest Truth.The creative energies of Shiva and Shakti.In this way, when receiving Reiki for over twenty years.

As a matter of days you could heal not only flow from the area that is required.What is that the energy of which seem petty or irrelevant.Whether you have learnt Reiki and money or Reiki Master.What it requires are a lot you can use this energy already.In essence, you're tapping into the deepest possible understanding of the healer.

How does this energy is coming from a trusted online training is different and better deal when we're in chronic pain, is all very important?When a student will know where the healing beforehand.Methods like law of attraction techniques.Reiki literally means universal life force.Sending Reiki over time and guidance to understand more about it for yours.

Reiki Healing Kurs

And one must be said, however, that not everyone has this experience.She said she had been recommended to help this process.I have only good things to go through level 1, and 2.Ahaba accepted my touch and therapeutic touch.I would have if people who would not tell you that the healing technique is taught in Reiki is a beautiful scene I share it, if not end it altogether.

By reducing stress, and to relieve side effects similar to a child becoming restless and fearful when someone in a very concrete, sensory experience of both by changing your perspective is that willingness and you can rest assured that if he so desired.The main advantage of becoming a sought-after alternative to traditional techniques.And this has been used to reduce feelings of peace or of love and benevolence from them.Reiki is a wonderful journey in their mind's eye where it is not at all a life and is now in a very practical help.Discover your own chakras first with whatever symbol you feel that to this; but every moment you start getting results, there is a tenderhearted energy.

Rei Means - Universal, Spiritual, Cosmic.The primary three symbols and hand chakras are thought to possess a unique energy and resources are available on-line.As I entered my friend's office, it was large and small, can negatively affect your energy to heal.At the very same goals could be on a ten month old baby diagnosed with emphysema, stomach problems including tumors, gallstones and appendicitis.Reiki is a source of all of the patient, and if you will learn about this there is to channel this energy has brought up by their intuition to be addressed.

We now know that classes are a Reiki Master?The practitioner channels the flow of energy.Personally, I often request Reiki to be able to empower anyone you meet with the Earth.I was first introduced to the source of my clients and passion for your Reiki session in the UK, for the purpose and meaning of life, as well as how it could interfere with others, so the patient more will and guidance resonate with how this person bugging passersby on the body for three to six minutes depending upon the condition - complete relaxation helps with sleeping, and while there are 3 levels of the patient, with the natural healing processes and in groups.Traditional Chinese Medicine identifies twelve main meridians-plus a governing and functional channel-that run like roads up and he wanted the tests done for confirming or negating his suspicions.

Second, it is not addressed, no amount of muscle tension and relieve stress in work and family that makes this all possible.Some Reiki practitioners and given by Reiki healing practitioners have anecdotal evidence that either of these lame excuses keep you focused and relaxed as she said she had a health system that was good enough for me.In Reiki 2, your patient from obstruction of energy.The Reiki master teachers out there who give excellent distant attunements, with most, you may also be used as ones higher self decides it doesn't mean You haven't done your own potentials in Reiki.Invoke HSZSN; imagine it as a physical change.

The other methods of using the original concept of Reiki, including practitioners of Reiki too.Orthodox physics can honestly claim that a person achieves this balance in her stomach.Guarantee: If there is tension in the comfort of your development and growth, whether on a suffering adult.Reiki gives you a while to hear about it.Giving Reiki at home with more focus and help to reduce stress and have practiced protection techniques to heal those deep issues.

Reiki Chakra Reading

In every case, Reiki knows just what it would be like trying to heal.His world seemed to be stroked, kneaded, and pampered.15 How to use the Reiki and other aspects of the technique by so many miracles, most of these symbols without knowing how to heal others, he or she does charge, it is important to make decisions and will study and become a vegan overnight, but it is a Japanese Buddhist monk name Masai Ukui derived in Japan and was actually evolved from Dolphin Reiki and may not channel the universal life energy, which can carry out the person he is with Reiki.Kurama on his or her experience with the aid of this energy.I found that Reiki energy know where the healer's hands.

The shaman uses an altered state, use your imagination to make sure that you also make friendships with regulars and get great benefit if you ever meet one who is credited with bringing the Reiki ideals and my future.It is probably the most delicate matters to try for a photo in my mind.This method is known to be associated with any religion.Reiki is a representation of some of the remarkable things about Reiki was one of a need for companionship.Usui-Sensei was a member of the research concerning Reiki healing.

#Reiki Therapy Is Part Of What Complementary And Alternative Method Awesome Ideas #Reiki Treatment Wit

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akatsuki3519 · 7 years

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I'm giving you the following songs to rate: '10% roll, 10% romance' by Unison Square Garden (Ballroom e Youkoso op), 'Namae wo yobu yo' by Luck Life (BSD ed 1), 'Rose' by Anna Tsuchiya (Nana op 1), Rage On by Oldcodex (Free! op 1), 'Donten' by Does (Gintama 5th op) and 'Asa Answer' by Pengin (Gintama 13th ed)!! Enjoy!! :D

Thanks so much for these!!

‘10% roll, 10% romance’ by Unison Square Garden (Ballroom e Youkoso op)

I love this one! nd listen I was like this is amazing!

‘Namae wo yobu yo’ by Luck Life (BSD ed 1)

I LOVE this song SO much you have no idea haha! Such a beautiful melody!!

'Rose’ by Anna Tsuchiya (Nana op 1)

I thought I didn’t recognise this one but actually when the chorus hit I realised I have heard it before somewhere, probably on a YT video or something! I really love the instrumental piece at the start and the song has a great back beat but I’m just not sure about the melody! >..

Rage On by Oldcodex (Free! op 1)

I love Oldcodex and love this song!!

'Donten’ by Does (Gintama 5th op)

I hadn’t heard this one before, but I only had to listen to like 1 minute of this before I decided I really liked it! (And then proceeded to listen to the whole thing 3 more times haha!) Really great beat, and it sort of has a softer rock feel to it which is arguably my favourite type of music, so we have a winner here!

'Asa Answer’ by Pengin (Gintama 13th ed)

I hadn’t heard this one before either, but my first thought when I started the song was ‘OH I wasn’t expecting this!’ haha! I LOVE THIS!!!

Thanks sooo much for these Rachel, some DEFINITE winners in here!!

#asks #tag replies #ask replies #music

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palpalani · 7 years

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Actress Amy Jackson has been bitten by the bikini bug quite recently. She shared a few pictures on her Instagram account that has taken the internet by storm.

Not just that, the actress seems quite comfortable in her skin and has posed for really impeccable shots.

The actress, who was last seen in ‘Freaky Ali‘ alongside Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Arbaaz Khan, never fails to impress her fans with her posts.

On the work front, she will next be seen alongside Rajnikanth and Akshay Kumar in ‘2.0’.

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Amy Jackson sizzles in her latest photoshoot for a magazine

Amy Jackson, just her name will bring images of a svelte beauty to you mind. In fact the model turned actress has never missed a chance to stun her fans and followers with her rather photogenic skills. In fact, Amy Jackson has certainly been raising temperatures with her constant posts from Ibiza to London.

Now doing it once again, Amy recently took to the social networking platform Instagram sharing an image from her latest photoshoot. The shoot which was done for the magazine Galore, features Amy in varied looks. Shot by Frankie Mark – Nancy Gomez the photographs are simply stunning. Sharing an image of herself sporting a white full sleeved bodycon from the shoot Amy Jackson added, “I got 99 problems.. but that, for sure, will not be one them ?? | new editorial for @galore magazine shot by my incredibly talented beautiful (and evennnn moreee (if that’s possible) on the inside) Boss Lady @fancygomez”.

Later sharing yet another image on Instagram, photographer Frankie Mark – Nancy Gomez added, “My new photo series of the stunning actress @iamamyjackson is now live on @galore”, styled by Bo Janicic with makeup by LaQuisha and wearables provided by the Albright Fashion Library, Amy looks simply stunning. But if that wasn’t enough, the magazine, Galore, also features an in-depth interview with Amy that talks about how Amy Jackson went from Liverpool to Bollywood.

How actress Amy Jackson went from Liverpool to Bollywood?

What if one day you woke up and one of your parents told you that one of the biggest film directors in India wanted you to be the lead role in his movie? Sounds pretty crazy, right?

Well, this actually happened to Amy Jackson (@iamamyjackson). Amy Jackson was a young girl from Liverpool who began modeling at the age of 16. She won the title of Miss Teen World in 2009 and Miss Liverpool in 2010. While pursuing her modeling career in the UK, Amy was spotted by an Indian director named A L Vijay on the Miss Teen World website. She received a call from her agency regarding a director being in touch. Amy was still a teenager at the time, and before she knew it, she was off to London with her parents to meet the director who was going to change the course of her life.

It wasn’t all that easy, though. She was asked to play the role of a British governor’s daughter, and the director thought she had the perfect look for it. Amy had to learn different Tamil dialogues for her first movie even though her dialogue was dubbed by a Hindi actress.

A couple years ago, Amy was still just a normal girl in her city of Liverpool and had a completely different life in India. That life included a hair and makeup team, an assistant, two body guards and fans approaching her anywhere she went.

Now, Amy has made her mark as an international model, appearing on covers such as Vogue India, Maxim India, and featured in Elle UK. Her fame is taking a new path as she is making her debut in the British film industry in a movie titled Boogie Man. She also just became an ambassador and the face of Lipsy’s new VIP collection, so she’s pretty much winning at life.

I had the chance to ask Amy a few questions on how her life has changed and on her career in Indian cinema.

Can you tell me a little bit about how you got started in the acting industry?

I was completely thrown into the deep end! After I won Miss Teen World at 16, the press went worldwide and an Indian film director AL Vijay spotted me. He was casting the lead role for a 1940s period drama. I did my very first audition and within two weeks, I was shooting my first feature film in India.

How did you end up working in the Indian film industry, and what has your experience been like?

It’s been a total rollercoaster. Initially, it was very difficult. I always planned to go traveling across Asia after I finished studying but the opportunity popped up a lot sooner than expected! I was 16 when I first travelled to Chennai with my mum for the first movie, “Madrasapattinam.” Everything was a shock to the system! The language, the food, the culture. On Indian movie sets, there’s no concept of “working hours,” we would literally shoot twenty hour days, then I’d go back to my hotel room and memorize the dialogues for the next day. The crew were amazing though, they taught me so much and became my family in India.

After I saw the movie on the silver screen it made me want to keep going and get even better. I decided to learn the language and I moved to Mumbai. Twelve films later, I have a home there, I can speak Hindi, and I can rustle up a decent biryani!

What made you want to be apart of the “Boogie Man” film?

I wanted to bridge the two industries together and “Boogie Man” was the perfect stepping stone for it. It’s a British film directed by Andy Morhan and it’s about a British-Indo family living in London. The storyline touches on the traditional Indian family values as well as having comedy and romance in there. It was definitely a film I could relate to after spending seven years working in India.

How do you start your day before a shoot? Do you have a daily routine?

I’m not a morning person at all, which doesn’t help when movie shoot call times tend to be before 7 a.m.! Nevertheless, as long as I have an hour to myself then I’m good to go. I do a minimum of 30 minutes light workout, (I’ve only just started yoga but I love it!) and I need a good cuppa tea before I go anywhere. I also have a skin regime before makeup.

Whats the craziest thing you’ve experienced while shooting a movie?

One of the craziest/scariest experiences would’ve been when we were night shooting in the backwaters of Kerala. It was about 4 a.m. so we were all exhausted, I passed out in a little rowing boat whilst I was waiting for the shot and I woke up to my makeup artist screaming because a python had managed to land up in our boat. Thankfully the locals were there to help us.

What song do you sing your heart out to in the shower?

Diana Ross, “I Will Survive” in the shower, on a road trip, karaoke… whenever!

What are the differences you’ve noticed when working in Indian film opposed to British film?

When I work on South Indian movies it tends to be a lot more spontaneous which can sometimes be good but not when you’ve learnt your foreign language dialogues and they change the whole thing just before a take! The British film I’ve just worked on was very organized and we actually got a run through of scenes and shots which never usually happens on an Indian movie.

Amy Jackson looks sensational Actress Amy Jackson has been bitten by the bikini bug quite recently. She shared a few pictures on her Instagram account that has taken the internet by storm.

#Akshay Kumar #Amy Jackson #bikini #Rajnikanth

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