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hqbbg · 4 years

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still.

pairing: miya osamu x fem!reader

prompt: “I told you to stay still.”

genre: smut

word count: 5.3K (I got carried away, oops)

warnings: 18+, masturbation, some degradation, oral (f!receiving), fingering, some spanking, vaginal & unprotected s3x (make sure you wrap your presents, kids), like 2 seconds of cockwarming, uhm I think that’s it oop

author’s note: I'm back with another Haikyuu!! Headquarters collab piece! check out the master list of everyone else’s works here ✨ I hope y’all enjoy this!

The air in your room feels thick as you pant helplessly, feeling the familiar ache in your fingers as they begin to cramp up while plunging in and out of your sopping cunt. You feel so close to your own undoing, unable to control your thoughts as they drift to the man whose room is on the other side of your bedroom wall. You can’t help but think that it’s his fingers squelching within your warmth, though you’re sure they would reach much further than yours ever could.

You don’t do this often, touching yourself to the thought of your roommate while he’s out at work or running errands, but lately you’ve been frustrated.

When you had put out an ad for a roommate, you were hesitant. You didn’t have much of a choice, as your last roommate decided to move out in favor of moving in with her boyfriend, leaving you to scramble for a solution in order to continue to afford rent. As a full-time student with a part time job, it would’ve been inconvenient to move out in the middle of the semester, and it seemed reasonable to quickly search for a roommate to help with the bills until your lease was up.

Miya Osamu was hot, to say the least, though it wasn’t the main reason why you ended up choosing him to be your new roommate. On top of having manners and being financially stable, he knew how to cook and respected your space in the apartment. Unfortunately, you’ve been unable to say the same recently. The number of times his room door was cracked open as he changed almost made you consider that he was doing it on purpose, as if encouraging you to take a peek.

As you recall the way his back muscles flexed as he pulled his shirt over his head all those times you’d told yourself that you were just walking by, you let another moan slip past your lips. Your fingers begin to move quicker, toes curling, and you can feel your arm beginning to tire out. Your back arches as your other hand quickly moves to massage your neglected clit, rubbing harsh circles until your vision flashes white.

You fail to hear the front door open and close as your moans continue to fill the room. The memory of seeing Osamu stepping out of the bathroom in a simple pair of grey sweatpants with a towel around his neck is still fresh on your mind. You feel yourself clench around your own fingers as you recall your eyes briefly catching sight of the outline of his cock, the image practically ingrained within you. Too many times have you thought about how it would feel inside of you.

Another moan resonates on the walls and you bite your lip, though it does little to stop you from moaning Osamu’s name. Before you know it, you’re overwhelmed by pleasure and your whole body tenses before it relaxes. Your chest heaves as you lay there, trying to recover from your intense orgasm and you want nothing more than to sleep now. You hardly notice that your door is open.

Over the next few days, you can’t help but feel that something is off with Osamu. Though you aren’t particularly close, you’d like to think that you two have developed some sort of friendship with all the shared meals and evenings spent in the living room just chatting about life.

Did he hear you the other night? There was no way; you made sure to give yourself enough time before he was supposed to come home. Then again, you didn’t hear him come in…

Your cheeks begin to burn at the idea that he’d heard you. You let out a groan as you bury your face in your hands, leaning onto your desk. The little motivation you had to study has effectively disappeared and an unsettling mix of nervousness and shame begins to stir in the pit of your stomach.

Taking a deep breath, you try to push the dreadful thought out of your head and sit upright. An idea suddenly pops into your head and you abruptly stand up. You walk over to your door and poke your head out, scanning the area to locate your roommate. He’s conveniently in the kitchen, snacking on some leftovers he’d brought back from his restaurant the previous night.

“Hey,” you say awkwardly as you step out. He looks over at you and hums in acknowledgement, his mouth full. You decide to go ahead and speak, though your fingers fidget with the hem of your oversized shirt. “You’re not working tomorrow night, right?”

Osamu shakes his head, swallowing his food. “What’s up?”

“Well,” you hesitate, trying to find a way to come off as casually as you can, “I saw this recipe online for some salmon and vegetables, do you wanna be my guinea pig?”

“Sure,” he nods as he shrugs. “What time?”

“Dinner time,” you say, a little too eagerly. “How about seven?”

His lips quirk upwards into a small smile. “Sounds good to me.”

You watch as he takes another bite of his food before you realize you’re staring, clearing your throat.

“Okay, well, have a good night,” you say and quickly scurry back towards your room. Once you shut the door, you release a breath you hadn’t even realized you were holding in. You swiftly move back to your desk, your forgotten notes pushed even further aside as you begin to look for that recipe you’d seen all those weeks ago.

The following day, you make a quick trip to the store to buy ingredients and find yourself nervously counting down the hours and minutes until it’s a reasonable time to start making dinner. You step out of your room to see Osamu already perched on a stool at the small island in the kitchen. He’s slouched over, scrolling through his phone when you walk up. He glances up and greets you with a small smile as you place your phone down near the center of the island countertop.

“Okay, so before I start, I just need to say that I’m definitely not a professional chef in any way,” you say as you move to wash your hands. You can feel his eyes on you as you move around the kitchen, pulling the vegetables from the fridge. You grab the apron hanging on the pantry door and sling it over your head, tying it behind your back.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen ya wear that,” Osamu muses as he leans his cheek on his palm. His elbows are both propped up on the counter and you resist the urge to playfully roll your eyes.

“I have to make sure my shirt doesn’t get dirty,” you say, “it’s one of my favorites.”

He says nothing in response, opting for a light chuckle as you begin to wash the vegetables. Once you finish, you pull out the cutting board in front of him on the other side of the island, placing a carrot in the middle.

You open a cabinet and pull out a knife, giving it a quick rinse before positioning the blade to cut through the vegetable. Placing your fingers on the edge, you lift the knife just slightly.

“Hey, be sure to cats paw,” Osamu pipes up, pointing to the hand that’s on the carrot, “If yer not careful, you’ll knick yourself.”

“Huh?” You blink your eyes at him, trying to prevent yourself from sounding like an idiot.

“Like this,” he says, lifting his hand up and curling his fingers inward into a loose fist. You try not to focus on the veins lining his hands, tearing your eyes away and mimicking his motions. You see him drop his hand from your peripherals and finally attempt to cut into the carrot.

Before you know it, the knife slips from your grasp, making a shallow but clean cut across your index knuckle. You let out a curse and hiss as you drop the knife.

“Whoa, are ya okay?” Osamu stands as you begin to make your way to the sink, blocking your path.

“It hurts, but I’m fine,” you reply, looking at him curiously before glancing at your finger. You examine it for a moment, seeing the familiar crimson begin to bead.

“Let me take a look,” says Osamu, gently grabbing a hold of your wrist. He lifts your hand up closer to his face, his eyebrows slightly creasing as you do your best to resist the blush creeping up to your cheeks. “You should be careful.”

“Well, it’s not like this was intentional,” you grumble, unable to meet his eyes. He sighs softly and you glance at him, opening your mouth to say something. However, your train of thought is completely derailed when his lips wrap around the small incision.

You feel his warm tongue gently lick around it and you can’t help but stare at the way his lips look around your finger. He catches your eyes and pulls away.

“I used to do this to my brother whenever he’d get hurt or something when we were little,” he says, letting go of your wrist. Your face is burning as you drop your hand back down to your side. “Wait here, I’ll go grab a bandage.”

You nod wordlessly, mind still reeling as you try to figure out and process what exactly had just happened. You watch his retreating figure head towards the bathroom, disappearing for only a moment before resurfacing with a familiar pink wrapper with Hello Kitty’s face scattered across the outside cover, a gift he had received from his brother. He makes his way back over to you, pulling the tabs apart and plucking out the bandaid.

Without prompting, you lift your hand up towards him and watch as he moves your hand towards him with his pinky, wrapping it around your finger.

“There, all patched up. Is that too tight?” He asks, picking up the trash and crumpling it in his fist. You lift your hand up and examine his handiwork, nodding in approval.

“It’s perfect,” you say, feeling your stomach flutter at the self-satisfied smirk that’s found its way onto his face. “I still have to cut the vegetables, though.”

“Hand it over; I’ll do it.” He motions towards the knife.

You pout, making no indication to hand the utensil over to him. “I kind of wanted to cut the vegetables though.”

He raises a brow at you. “Are ya sure? Ya already butchered yer first chance; I don’t want blood all over my kitchen.”

“Your kitchen, huh?”

Osamu shrugs. “I hardly see ya in here, so it might as well be.”

“So are you gonna help me or not?” You raise a brow and choose to ignore his statement as you cross the kitchen to grab your phone, pulling up the recipe to skim through the instructions before placing it back down. “I’m supposed to Juliette these vegetables.”

Osamu stays quiet for a moment. “Do ya mean julienne?”

“Yeah, same thing,” you wave your hand dismissively, walking back over to the cutting board. You pick up the discarded knife, giving it a quick rinse. Upon returning to your original spot at the island, your hands position themselves once again, curling your fingers like Osamu had previously shown you.

“Wait, yer gonna end up hurting yourself again,” he says as he walks up behind you. “How thin are ya trying to cut this?”

“About this much,” you reply, positioning the knife towards the edge of the carrot.

“Okay, first things first,” he says as he wraps his arms around you. Your eyes widen as you feel his chest press against your back, his hands moving to hold yours. “Ya have to cut it in half and get a flat surface.”

He grabs your hand holding the knife and moves it to the middle of the carrot, wrapping his thick and long fingers around the handle, completely swallowing yours. He ensures that his grip is stable before pressing down, the blade making a sharp cut.

“Okay, so now that ya have this, ya said ya want to make them look like noodles, right?”

You can only nod your head, afraid that your voice will crack if you choose to speak. Your head feels fuzzy, your senses overwhelmed by the scent of his musky cologne hitting your nose and the way his strong arms continue to guide you. The heat radiating off his chest envelops you in an oddly comforting embrace and something about it feels very domestic. You try hard to keep your knees from buckling under you, shifting your weight between your feet. You immediately tense when you accidentally press your backside against his hips.

Briefly scanning the island countertop, you see that his phone is on the other side where he’d originally left it when you began cooking and try to ignore the sinful thoughts threatening to infiltrate your mind.

“Makes sense?” Osamu says, his lips dangerously close to your ear.

“I-I think so,” you stammer, though you bite your lip and mentally scold yourself for your faltering voice.

“Alright,” he says, taking a step back. You exhale slowly, trying not to think of the loss of warmth. “While ya keep doing that, I’ll prepare the salmon. Where’s the recipe?”

“It’s on my phone.” You nod towards it, setting the knife down. He walks over to the side of the counter you’d left your phone at and brings it over to you. “What’s yer passcode?”

“That’s classified information, sir.” You see his eyes darken for a moment as you pluck your phone from his hand, typing in the digits before placing it in his open palm.

“Never thought you’d be callin’ me that so soon,” he says offhandedly, locating the recipe in your browser. You feel your lips part to say something, but no words come out.

You simply resume cutting the carrot and grab more vegetables, shaking your head to clear your wandering thoughts. You see Osamu grab the salmon from the fridge, pulling it out and getting some seasonings you’d bought earlier.

“Hey, can ya grab a pan from that cabinet there?” Osamu asks as he points to one of the bottom cabinets in front of your legs.

“Sure,” you nod and take a step back, opening the cabinet door and bending over at the hips. You rummage around for a decent-sized pan, feeling Osamu’s eyes on you before you straighten up. He’s quick to avert his eyes as he holds his hand out to you. You place the handle in his open palm and he takes it, setting it on top of the stove.

The two of you fall into a comfortable silence as you prepare your own things, with you seasoning and cooking the vegetables while Osamu prepares the fish, searing it on the pan. As you both finish your portions, you decide to bring out your nicer plates for the occasion.

Opening one of the top cabinets, you stand on your toes to reach for the plates, wondering how they ended up so high to begin with.

“Need help?”

You jump slightly, startled when you feel his body pressed flush against yours with a hand on the dip of your waist as the other reaches above your head to grab two plates, placing them down onto the counter. You turn your head to look at him and realize just how close he is, his face merely centimeters away. His eyes are on your lips as you tongue pokes out to wet them before they flicker upwards to meet your eyes. You look up at him, anticipating his next move with bated breath, and feel his hand that had been holding the plates move to gently hold your jaw. He leans forward just slightly and your eyes flutter shut as your lips meet.

His lips move slowly against yours, though it’s nothing short of passionate. You feel his hand on your waist pull you closer to him and you lean into the warmth. His tongue swipes across your bottom lip and you open your mouth to welcome the warm muscle inside, letting him explore freely.

The both of you seem to run out of air at the same time, pulling away breathlessly. Before you can say anything, he kisses down your jaw to your neck as you crane your head just slightly so he can have better access and you’re not straining your muscles. He nips gently at the skin before dragging his tongue along, finding a particularly tender spot to pay special attention to. A hiss slips past your lips and you’re reminded of how close he is to you when you begin to feel something hardening against your backside.

“If ya wanna stop, ya have to tell me now,” he mutters against your neck as both of his hands settle on your waist, thumbs playing with the hem of your shirt.

“I’d rather not,” you admit rather shamelessly. You can feel Osamu’s lips curve upwards against your skin as his hands give you a slight squeeze.

“If ya say so,” he says before one of his hands reaches between the two of you to untie your apron. “If ya ever need me to stop, let me know.”

You nod your head absentmindedly, slightly dizzy from the reality of what’s happening right now. One of his hands begins to slide upwards from your waist, cupping your clothed breast and giving it a squeeze, while the other slips downwards under your apron and pushes past the waistband of your shorts, hovering over your panties. Suddenly very aware of the wetness between your legs, you move to close them a little.

“That won’t do ya any good,” Osamu mutters against the back of your neck. As if to prove his point, he presses his middle finger against your clothed slit and swipes upward, humming to himself. “Yer practically dripping and I haven’t even started yet.”

A moan slips past your lips and you can only bite your lip in embarrassment at your own shamelessness.

“It’s just the two of us; you don’t have to be quiet,” he says, as if encouraging you to be as loud as you want and disturb your neighbors. When you still refuse to make another noise, he nudges your legs open with his knees, almost forcing you to lean over the counter for support. As if to further prove his point, he pushes your panties aside and slips his middle finger in between your folds, causing you to let out a gasp of surprise at the sudden intrusion.

“Osamu,” you whimper as you feel him kiss his way towards the back of your ear.

“What is it, baby?” His finger is still and unmoving inside of you as you try to gain any sort of friction, attempting to grind your hips against him. His hand doesn’t move as you feel his tongue trace the outer shell of your ear.

“Stop teasing me,” you practically whimper as you ball your hands into fists on the surface in front of you.

“What do ya want me to do?” He sounds smug and you can almost visualize his teasing smirk behind your closed lids.

“Just fuck me,” you say. You fight the embarrassment heating your cheeks, too aroused to focus on anything else.

“I know we’ve been living together for awhile now, but let’s not forget our manners,” he says, beginning to slide his finger out.

“M’Samu, please fuck me!” It comes out too eagerly, too desperately, but you want him to just do something to you.

“That’s all you needed to say,” he lets out a soft chuckle before he slides his finger back in. You find yourself leaning completely on the countertop so you don’t buckle under him and moan when he slides another finger inside, stretching you.

You were right; his fingers reach so much further than yours ever could.

His calloused fingers continue to thrust in and out of you at a steady pace as his other hand that had been on your breast moves down to slip under your shirt. You bite your lip as you feel him expertly unclip the bra before sliding around to cup the flesh, nudging your loose bra aside. His fingers pinch your hardening nipple and you breathe out his name.

“Careful there, sweetheart,” he practically grunts, “if ya keep soundin’ like that, I won’t be goin’ easy on ya.”

Part of you has half the mind to take him up on the offer while the other is failing to form coherent words and thoughts.

A familiar tension begins to pull at your lower abdomen as you feel yourself getting closer to your orgasm. It seems that Osamu’s also aware, quickly slipping his hands out from your dripping cunt.

“Why’d you stop?” You whine as you turn back to look at him. He offers a smirk before removing his hands completely from your pants and lifting his fingers to his mouth to lick them clean. The way his half-lidded eyes are locked on yours as he swirls his tongue around makes you clench helplessly around nothing.

“Don’t worry, yer gonna thank me later,” he says, dropping his hand. He begins to lower himself so he’s on his knees on the ground before he pulls your shorts and panties down in one clean tug. The cool air hits your wet heat and you bite your lip at the sensation.

You watch him with anticipation as he leans forward, using both hands to massage your ass a couple times before spreading the cheeks apart. He nudges your feet so you can spread a little wider for him, which you wordlessly oblige, and inhale shakily as he leans forward and licks a fat stripe up your slit.

“Fuck, Osamu,” you hiss as you turn back to look at him. You use one hand to reach around and weave your fingers through his hair, fisting it as he begins to sloppily lap at your cunt.

His tongue dives in and out, the wet squelch echoing around the apartment. You feel your legs tremble as he angles his head to reach a bit further before opting to have his fingers rejoin the fun. Your moans sound nearly pornographic as you attempt to grip at anything, unable to get yourself to properly stand as Osamu wags his head a couple times, swirling his tongue in the process.

A sharp gasp leaves you when you feel his fingers angle themselves and hit a spot you didn’t even know existed, your walls beginning to clench and flutter around him.

“I’m gonna cum,” you moan, pushing his head deeper against you. You feel him hum against you as if to encourage you to release onto his face, so you do.

A strangled cry erupts from your throat as you feel every nerve ending spark up and you come undone above him. He lets you grind your hips against him a couple more times before he pulls away, breathing heavily as he stands up. He turns you around by your hips and you see your slick coating his lips and chin.

“Look at this mess,” he taunts you, wiping his chin with the back of his hand. You don’t say anything and wrap your fingers around the back of his neck, pulling his lips down to taste yourself. As you do so, he makes quick work to get rid of his sweatpants and pulls away to lift his shirt over his head. You go ahead and do the same with your apron, tossing it onto the island behind him and removing your shirt and bra to leave the both of you stark naked in the kitchen.

You take a brief moment to unabashedly check him out, admiring how toned and built he is. Chewing on your bottom lip, you let your fingers trace along the hardened and defined lines of his abdomen, trailing your fingers down to palm him through his boxers. You see the fabric straining and recognize the heat rising to your cheeks as you feel how hard he is, creating a slightly darkened and damp spot where the head of his cock is located. You glance up at him and meet eyes as you hook your thumbs on his waistband, pulling them down. His length practically springs to life, standing proud and tall before you and your mouth practically waters at the sight.

Wrapping your fingers around the base, you bite your lip as you drag your hand upwards to the tip and collect his beading precum, spreading it around generously with the pad of your thumb before using it as lubricant to continue stroking him.

“Fuck,” he moans softly as you lick your lips, getting ready to get on your knees to return the favor that he so generously had given you moments ago. He grabs your wrist to stop you and you look at him curiously. “As much as I’d love to see you suck my cock, I just want to be inside of that pussy of yours right now.”

The hungry look in his eyes is all you need before you kiss him again, this time much sloppier than the previous ones. He maneuvers you around the kitchen for a moment and before you know it, you’re bent over the island countertop with a leg propped up on the cool surface. You hear Osamu spit into his hand and look back to see him give his thick cock a couple generous strokes before positioning himself with one hand while the other holds your hip.

You feel the bulbous head nudge your lower set of lips apart before slowly easing in, your back arching at the pressure already building inside of you. A soft hiss escapes your throat as you try to take all of him, grateful when he pauses once he’s bottomed out within you. You take a deep breath for a moment and feel your muscles relax slightly as you adjust accordingly.

“Are ya ready?” Osamu’s voice comes out surprisingly soft as he leans over you, placing a kiss between your shoulder blades. You nod quietly before feeling both hands on your hips as he slowly begins to pull out. You realize just how thick he is when you feel empty, though it doesn’t last for long when he slams right back into you. A strangled mewl bubbles from your throat as he begins to thrust in and out of you. You lower yourself onto your elbows on the counter and ball your hands into fists, no longer caring how you sound; you’re too lost in your own wave of pleasure.

As Osamu continues his ministrations, you feel the counter buzz slightly and hazily look around with half a mind to simply ignore it. You see Osamu’s phone shaking across the surface next to your discarded apron, the screen lit up with an unfamiliar name.

“’Samu, your phone,” you say between moans, “your phone is ringing.”

His hips slow, though his thrusts continue to hit deep inside of you. He doesn’t have to reach far to grab it and glances at the screen.

“Shit,” he hisses under his breath. “Stay still for me, will ya?”

You halfheartedly nod your head, though you can’t help but whine at the loss of friction as he stills inside of you.

“Hello?” His voice is even as he answers quickly. “This is Osamu, yes.”

It’s hard to ignore the slight frustration bubbling in your chest as he uses one hand to keep your hips still while the other holds his phone. He continues to speak formally, so you assume it’s probably someone important or has something to do with work. You know better than to tease him in the event that this call is actually important, but you can’t resist the urge to just roll your hips a little.

There’s a slight hitch in Osamu’s voice before he clears his throat, though it sounds more like a warning to you than anything. However, that doesn’t stop you as you grow more bold, deciding to create your own rhythm of shallow thrusts. His grip on your hip tightens, though it’s not enough to hurt you just yet.

“Something just came up, so I’m gonna have to call ya back,” you hear Osamu say, his voice becoming more strained as each second ticks by. When he finally hangs up, the phone smacks onto the table, startling you to a halt.

“Sorry, I couldn’t w-”

“Ya think yer so cute, dontcha? I told ya to stay still.” His voice is dangerously low as he hunches over, practically growling in your ear. You whimper softly in response, feeling the heat radiating off his skin. You’re not sure if you should be as turned on as you are right now, feeling your walls clench around him.

He stands upright and reaches around to grab one of your arms, practically yanking you back so you’re also standing up. His other hand reaches around to grab your other arm, pinning your wrists behind your back.

“If yer gonna act like a slut, I’m gonna fuck ya like one,” he snarls lowly and you resist the urge to moan. He manages to reach for your apron and rolls it up, looping it around your elbows.

As one hand holds your newly bound arms behind your back, the other holds your hips before he begins to pull out of you. You feel his whole length leave you empty with the exception of the tip and you’re about to complain again when you feel him slam back in roughly.

“Is this what ya thought of when ya were touchin’ yerself?”

You hardly contain the cry of mixed pain and pleasure as your back arches, his hips snapping against yours at a relentless pace. You can barely process his words, though you know the embarrassment will hit you later; you simply can’t form coherent enough thoughts to care. The hand that was on your hip leaves but only momentarily before his palm claps against your ass. You yelp in surprise as he releases your arms.

“What, did ya never get spanked as a kid?” Osamu taunts as he rubs the reddening skin. You lean back over, supporting yourself on your elbows. His comment barely processes in your head as he does it again.

Coherent words fail to form as you feel your legs begin to tremble. You’re practically running towards another orgasm and you can tell Osamu is too, based on his unstable rhythm and sloppier movements. You feel one of his hands reach around you to play with your nipples while you let your own hand rub your clit, the sensations overwhelming you in a crashing wave of pure bliss.

As your walls tighten and flutter, Osamu pulls out and fists his cock a couple times before you feel hot ropes of cum paint your back and ass, a guttural groan leaving him.

“Holy fuck,” he pants once he recovers from his orgasm. You’re still shaking, bent over the island, breathing heavily.

A dull ringing can be heard in your ears from the intensity of your climax, but you faintly hear the sink running for a moment. Not long after, you feel a warm and damp towel wipe across the mess on your backside and Osamu’s gentle arm pulls you up.

“Hey, was I too rough on ya?” His voice is soft and you shake your head. He presses a kiss to your forehead as he hands you your clothes from the ground. “Do ya wanna eat now and shower later?”

“Yeah, I’m starving,” you sigh as your head begins to clear up. You look over to your forgotten food, your mouth curving downwards into a frown. “Wait, did you not turn off the stove?”

“I was a little preoccupied.”

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyū!!#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu x y/n #miya osamu #osamu x y/n #osamu x reader #osamu x you #haikyuu smut #osamu smut #hrnybbg

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siritoycollection · 3 years

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Why Do You Need to Stop Giving Mobile Phones to Kids?

One of the most common complaints of parents this decade is that their children are “addicted” to screens of laptops, computers, tablets and mobile phones. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and hybrid and distance learning models, most children are assimilating more screen time into their day. That's why it's more important than ever to minimize the use of electronic devices. In this blog I try to give ways to stop minimizing the addiction to mobile phones and how toys, especially educational toys can be really helpful for kids.

While gadgets are a part of today's culture, they have adverse health effects. This is especially true for children spending substantial time learning on mobiles, laptops and tablets. It's important to utilize break times to get in some much needed physical activities. The parents have a plan to leave away devices somewhere else and engage kids in other productive ways.

According to studies and research by several renowned universities “The average time spent on screens is seven to ten hours a day”

Considering the fact that maximum brain development occurs by age of seven and further building by age 12, what children see, do or hear at this tender age will design their entire future. But in today’s digital world where everything is online or will be online, is it ideal to take kids completely off screens? - This is the counter question many of them ask. Often, due to the limited time, parents give these gadgets like smartphones to engage with their children.

Before we dive further, let’s first understand the big thing — screen time. It has today become a dilemma for parents and guardians because today’s kids are ‘digital babies’. On one side, you can’t take them completely off technology — because it will handicap them in the future. And on the other hand, they shouldn’t use too much of it or rather misuse it! We need to strike a good balance between gadgets and other activities like engaging with board-games.

Screen addiction basically is too much screen usage that makes a child completely lost in it and they end up feeling that screens alone will make them happy and these screens are everything. They reach a point after regular usage of these phones, laptops or tablets where they always want to go back to it every time they are free! Yes, these devices in all ways provide the best of the best i.e visually, auditory, sensorially! With a wealth of apps, games, devices, and content, it's easy for kids to become reliant on these gadgets for entertainment. And nobody, not even their parents/siblings, can compete/replace it. But too much screen time can tremendously impair a child’s development immediately.

[Read about: Challenges faced by parents during Corona Pandemic]

And that’s not all, too much regular usage of mobiles especially can trigger the reward mechanism in the brain of kids – which makes the child more and more addicted. The reason this occurs is that screens in whichever form factor – tabs, smartphones, TV, video games, etc. are extremely stimulating.

Here are some impacts both immediate and long term of too much screen time on a child’s physiology:

1) Causes headaches

2) Leads to poor vision

3) Decline in physical activity

4) Affects posture

5) Causes obesity

So now let’s understand how can you as a parent nullify the impact that screen time has on children? How can you prevent your child from falling prey to this?

Foremost thing is that instead of relying completely on these screens to keep children engaged, parents have to focus on ways to improve their communication with the child. “Parents need to gradually draw them out of their comfort zone by talking to them to make them feel secure and confident. The key thing to understand is that children want to engage, and when there is no person around to do it, they begin to rely on devices and to stop these kids should have a wide variety of fun and educational toys in their shelves”

That said, you cannot expect kids, who spend hours on devices, to suddenly give it all up and chat with you. Don’t force them; just be around and they will gradually start getting comfortable talking and sharing things with you.

“Physical toys such as this from our collection Chota bheem & Friends and books support warm, verbally rich interactions and quality time for the parent and the child,” Ideally, parents should choose toys that are not over stimulating and encourage children to use their imaginations. When children solve real-world problems through casual games, social, emotional and behavioral skills will be developed and improved.

Encouraging your child to seek out and get involved in activities that don't need a screen like enjoying nature, playing soccer outside, or reading together a story-book, or even learning a new board game like chess are just a few ideas to name . It also helps to establish (and enforce) a daily schedule that everyone follows. Making it clear to your kids when they are allowed devices and when they are not, will help set right.

Keeping in mind the child’s interests and capabilities, start looking for alternatives, such those as mentioned below

a) Encourage hobbies – Hobbies help a lot in taking the child off screen. Pick up activities which are of interest to the children like dancing, singing, origami or painting.

b) Spending time for casual games – Toys play an important role in the learning process and overall-development of children. Sports and physical games always excite them. Casual Games and toys are the easiest ways to take the child off these gadgets. One such is our newest product Tangram Travel Game Magnetic Puzzle Book Game.

Get your children toys that are challenging, engaging and make them “learn through playing”. And it is through play that a child first learns to make decisions and solve problems. Some toys that would engage are:

A Mini Royal Enfield Bullet Motorbike model – This miniature toy is a wonderful way for children to experiment and learn about dynamics. Children can independently play the way they like it, in different directions, and adjust the speed to form interesting combinations. It improves the visual-tracking skills via the movement of wheels.

Thomas Train Track Set – Children love trains and traveling to reach the desired point. Each point on the number line depicts numbers and helps them understand that moving forward is addition. This toy not only keeps the children off screen but also is a great aid in development.

Parents are likely the only people in the world who are truly interested in what the child has to say and what the child feels. Engaging with them in fun-games and activities that are stimulating is a must to aid their development.

So parents, be smart and avoid devices that are likely to hamper your child’s development. I Hope that this blog helps you a lot in your parenting.

Check the Below Videos:

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#Toys for Kids #Diecast Cars #Miniature Cars #Diecast Model Bikes #Miniature Bike Toys #Educational Toys #India Map Wooden Puzzle #Magnetic Rings Fidget Toy #Wooden Educational Toys

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geekclubroc · 3 years

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Bezos: I avoid taxes, donate less money, and squeeze employees, but I am a good boy who invests in space for human civilization

In 10 minutes, how to make the world’s richest man spend 180 million?

Last night, Bezos and his manned rocket did it.

Swish and go up

10 minutes later, he came back with a smash

Bezos’ dream finally came true, thumbs up with satisfaction

But the audience who watched the live broadcast for an hour and a half was not satisfied.

Everyone has a long history of dissatisfaction with him. Before the launch, some netizens wished him a failure in heaven.

Someone initiated a joint online petition. As of the day of launch, more than 160,000 people did not want him to return to Earth.

There are even reporters asking questions during the mealtime before the rocket launch: Will this be your last meal?

What kind of hatred is this?

People complain about the richest man in the world, and it’s mostly about money.

The media ProPublica exposed Bezos’s fancy tax avoidance methods, and his actual tax rate during the five years of 2014–2018 was only 0.98%.

Other points of controversy are the news that Amazon continues to squeeze employees, such as not giving warehouse employees time to go to the toilet, using in-car cameras to monitor delivery drivers, and so on. And Bezos lags behind other rich people in charitable donations.

Regarding the latter, he responded generously: his main contribution to mankind is not reflected in charity, and investing in space is more conducive to human civilization and development.

Bezos is serious about investing in space.

He once claimed that he would sell Amazon stocks worth about $1 billion every year and invest his money in Blue Origin.

At the press conference after this short space trip, Bezos thanked Amazon employees and customers: I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, because you paid for this trip.

This remark was ridiculed by an American congressman: They did pay, Amazon employees paid the price of low wages, obstruction of the union, inhumane workplaces, and lack of medical insurance during the epidemic.

What Amazon customers pay is Amazon’s abuse of its dominant market position to harm small businesses.

Another senator, Elizabeth Warren, also choked: He forgot to thank those who really paid taxes to keep society running.

Launched at 21 o’clock, Bezos personally enters the battle

This time, Bezos’s entry into space is divided into two stages.

First, a rocket launches a spacecraft with four members to an altitude of 100 kilometers (Carmen line) close to the ground. This is also considered to be the edge of the atmosphere, above which is space.

Then, the spacecraft disengaged from the rocket and relied on inertia to enter space, after which the cabin will experience zero gravity for about 3 minutes.

The rocket on the other side also entered the atmosphere, turned on the engine to slow down when it was approaching the landing recovery field, and slowly landed on the ground.

At the same time, the spacecraft opened the parachute to slow down, and finally Bezos and the other four people returned to the ground safely.

Because the flight time was too short this time, netizens murmured: Although the time spent in space is a bit short, the environment in the spacecraft’s cockpit is still very impressive.

The passenger compartment will be pressurized to ensure the comfort of passengers, and the surrounding large windows allow passengers to observe the environment well.

Since all operations are fully automatic, there is no pilot in this crew cabin, and the seats are still very spacious: the safety measures for the crew cabin are also very complete, and three escape tests have been successfully carried out so far. According to Blue Origin, the escape system can be activated at any stage of the flight.

No wonder this time Bezos seemed to be able to do the whole thing.

Who else goes to heaven together?

Joining Bezos to complete the trip is his brother Mark Bezos, 82-year-old retired pilot Wally Fink, and 18-year-old high school graduate Oliver Daymen.

The age of the latter two allowed this flight to simultaneously break the two historical records of the oldest person in space and the youngest person.

Oliver, the youngest Dutch guy, just graduated from high school last year. To receive the training needed to go to space, he postponed his day of going to university by one year.

Oliver’s father, who opened an investment company, paid for him a ticket for the next flight. However, the anonymous passenger who paid the sky-high price of 28 million U.S. dollars for the first ferry ticket was adjusted to the subsequent ferry due to the time conflict.

Oliver thus got the opportunity to go to heaven with Bezos.

Bezos stated on social media that he had dreamed of traveling in space since he was 5 years old. Oliver was one year earlier than him, and has been obsessed with space, the moon and rockets since he was 4 years old.

Another interesting coincidence is that Bezos announced his dream to the world for the first time in his 18-year-old high school graduation speech:

In addition to space travel, he also hopes that one-day humans can colonize space and build colonies, hotels and amusement parks in orbit.

Thanks to the efforts of Bezos, Oliver got closer to these wishes at the same age of 18.

After completing this space travel, Oliver will study at Utrecht University in the Netherlands in September this year. His major is physics.

Space travel is also Wally Fink’s lifelong dream, but she has waited for it for 60 years.

In 1961, as an airplane pilot, she passed NASA’s selection and became the youngest of the 13 female astronauts trained by the “Mercury 13” project.

But before any of them had a chance to enter space, the entire project was canceled.

Failed to get into space, Fink’s subsequent career has always revolved around airplanes. She has worked as a flight inspector, aviation safety investigator and pilot instructor.

So far, she has independently trained 700 pilots and participated in the training of more than 3,000 pilots.

In addition to Blue Origin, Fink has also bought spaceship tickets for Virgin Galactic.

As for whether she will continue her space flight in Virgin Galactic, Fink has not yet made up his mind.

Among the four, Mark Bezos is the only one who is not too obsessed with space travel.

When he first received an invitation from his brother to go to space together, Mark was stunned. He didn’t even know that his brother had personally participated in the first manned flight plan, let alone invited himself.

Mark is a member of the board of the Bezos Family Foundation, a volunteer firefighter, and his brother Jeff’s best friend.

The spacecraft has 14 “experiences”

This time, the New Shepard manned mission, named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut to enter space.

This reusable, vertical take-off and landing (VTVL) rocket is completely controlled by the onboard computer. The rocket is 18 meters high and has only one stage overall. It uses a BE-3 hydrogen-oxygen engine with a thrust of 50 tons.

The space capsule it carries has 15 cubic meters of internal pressurized space, which can accommodate up to 6 people at a time, and the launch escape system can allow it to be separated at any time during the lift-off process.

So far, the “New Shepard” rocket has successfully conducted 14 test flights without passengers.

△History successfully launched

During the period, the company upgraded the spacecraft, such as improving the space capsule's sound and temperature adjustment functions, the crew display panel, and each seat is equipped with microphones and call buttons. In addition, the communication and security alarm systems have been tested.

Because it is mainly used for space travel, the test flight range is not long. Although the Carmen line exceeds 100 kilometers each time, it has not attempted an orbital flight of more than 300 kilometers.

The most recent was the “NS-15” mission on April 14. After the rocket separated from the spacecraft, the spacecraft carried the “Skywalker” mannequin to an altitude of about 106 kilometers, and finally landed smoothly with the booster.

On July 20, the “New Shepard” will be launched from Texas. This will be the rocket’s first manned flight.

△Bezos himself is also very concerned about the project

However, the rocket will not enter the earth’s orbit, but will carry several passengers to the edge of the earth’s atmosphere and space, that is, suborbital space with a height of more than 100 kilometers.

Passengers can experience weightlessness for 4–5 minutes and look at the earth from the windows of the space capsule and see the arc of the earth.

Subsequently, the space capsule will return with the assistance of a power reverse thrust engine and land with a parachute.

Musk turns on “Tucao” mode

In fact, Bezos “nearly became” the first CEO to go to heaven, but the boss of Virgin Galactic rushed into space on July 11th 9 days before he went to heaven.

Blue Origin laughed at Virgin Galactic Sky: Spaceship? It’s actually a “high-altitude plane”!

The same scene “repeats” between SpaceX and Blue Origin. On the eve of the launch, Musk also turned on the “Tucao” mode about Blue Origin’s upcoming space, and he was very concerned about the dynamics related to Blue Origin.

Musk believes that the blue-origin rocket just flies out of the atmosphere and does not have the ability to enter orbit around the earth. This ridicule was also made into an emoji package that went viral on Twitter.

Musk himself didn’t mind, and happily responded to the ridicule

The two people’s grievances lasted for 17 years. Since the first meeting in 2004, the space company founded by the two rich men began to compete secretly.

Although Musk SpaceX is more advanced than Blue Origin’s technology and has successfully sent NASA astronauts into space, Blue Origin is even earlier in founding the company.

When Bezos graduated from high school in 1982, he had the dream of becoming an astronaut. Out of hobbies, he founded Blue Origin in 2000.

At that time, Musk was still creating PayPal. After that, he earned 160 million US dollars by selling PayPal and creating SpaceX in 2002.

Recently, the two have forged a beam because of NASA’s moon landing contract.

Musk’s SpaceX became the NASA’s lunar module contractor, and he also mocked Blue Moon’s lunar lander, Blue Moon, as “Blue Ball” on Twitter.

In contrast, Bezos has always wanted to “disturb” SpaceX’s plan, lobbying the US government to allow NASA to provide more funds to other bidding companies, so that SpaceX is no longer the only supplier.

However, Musk expressed his blessing to Bezos before this launch.

It seems that space tourism is indeed a hot industry, and even CEOs have personally “spoken”.

Blue Origin is expected to conduct two more manned flights this year, the most recent one in September or October.

Its competitor Virgin Galactic will wait until next year for its first commercial manned flight, but there are already more than 600 people in line to buy tickets.

#news #space #technology #internet #jeff bezos

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spainlibra4 · 3 years

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Wellness & Mentoring Service

Boosting Gender Equity Within Sporting Activity Training Workforces

Content

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prettywordsyouleft · 4 years

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Love Error

milkandheonnie said:

I am probably too late (as always), but it's worth a shot: I dare you to write Woong in your Becoming Human world.

Pairing: Jeon Woong x reader

World: Becoming Human (read HERE)

Genre: robot au / fluff

Warnings: none

Word count: 3051

You weren’t too worried about the complications of taking your work home with you. Sure, you had been debriefed before leaving the lab and it was no secret within the company that falling in love with your work could be a possibility.

After all, your team leader was complete proof of that. Leo had fallen in love with Yerin and fought through everything that separated them from having an organic connection, one that indicated love could exist between anyone.

Even between a robot and human.

But when it came to you, well, you had no interest in love. You were married, for lack of a better term, to your job and held no desire for anything further than that. What made your heart beat faster was watching artificial intelligence mature. When a circuit board you had spent hours on got fired up for the first run and it’s successful. As a computer scientist, you had a love for facts. For things you could see occur before you.

Feelings weren’t something you dabbled in, even when it came to your job.

“I’ll be fine, you don’t have to worry about us,” you assured Leo as he hesitated in handing over the package that contained all the information about the Woong bot beside you. You took it from his hand and smiled. “I’m only going to be working on sharpening up his errors. Nothing more.”

“That’s what I said,” a voice interjected, smiling at you both before stopping beside her husband. Kissing Leo’s cheek, Yerin then giggled. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

You grinned, despite feeling confident that what had happened to them would never occur for you. “I’ll owe you if anything does!”

“Oh, make a list of rules, even so. You don’t know how long he’ll be staying for and…” Yerin turned to look at Leo in distaste as he regarded her with a dark look and then she sighed. “It’s always better to be safe than sorry.”

“I expect a full report by the end of the week of how your testing pans out, Y/N. Shall we, my hard to please wife?”

“For that, you’ll be cooking dinner,” Yerin remarked as the couple waved you off and you listened to their banter with a warm smile before turning to the bot beside you.

Kboy Cyborgs had taken off years ago, though with the advances in robotics thanks to Leo’s near human-like emotions, they had truly changed the world. Kboys were everywhere and the first line of Kgirls was already in the testing phase. You had been working on them for some time now, so it was going to be far too easy to work with Woong over the week out of the office. He was already an established robot, though he had malfunctioned during staff training. Although he was still running online, and as you gestured for him to follow you to the underground parking lot, in which he did with ease, you had a lot to fix before he could go out and be in the world. It wouldn’t take you more than the week to fix and even though most people liked the idea of having a relaxing time away from the office, you were looking forward to this additional project.

Woong cleared his throat and caught your attention once you were both seated in your car. “So are we off to your house now, noona?”

“We are,” you confirmed as you navigated the evening traffic. It was odd to have a travel buddy when you normally drove home in silence. However, Woong was curious and asked many questions on the ride to your apartment.

Which didn’t stop once inside your home. “Wow, do you live here alone?”

“Yes, it’s just me.”

“Don’t you get bored? Do you own a cat? My sources indicate a lot of people who are live alone have feline companions. A dog, given your dedication to the lab, would be impractical.”

You stared at the robot and then sighed. “No, I don’t have a cat.”

“Are you allergic? Would you like one? I could search through adoption advertisements right now-”

“No, I’m fine without one, thank you Woong.”

His lips pulled together with a slight purse before he smiled and walked towards your bookshelf. “Wow, may I read these?”

“Sure.”

He then darted into your kitchen. “Should I make us some dinner? I have the appropriate functions installed to eat food. We can share our first meal together!”

You didn’t respond, feeling exhausted with how he flitted about your apartment so quickly. Was this why Yerin suggested rules? Had Leo been like this as well? You had a lot to decipher about this bot, but with how much he was chattering, you did the best thing to solve the issue. Swiftly, you reached for the button at the back of his neck, sending him off to sleep.

And then you took in a deep breath, relaxing into the silence that enveloped you.

You had no idea how anyone could live with a Kboy full time.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t leave Woong offline to get your work done. So, once you were sufficiently fed and ready to, you turned him back on, his eyes blinking rapidly as he processed new information. He gasped at you noisily which surprised you. “I was offline for three hours?! Why would you do that?”

“Okay, Woong. Let’s get some facts in place. You’re here for me to work on. Not to become my friend or anything like that-”

“But I would like to become friends with you,” he mentioned with a pout and you heaved a deep breath, trying not to focus on his expression. You felt a surge of guilt over his surprise at being shut off and it was the last thing you wished to entertain today.

You cleared your throat. “We will begin work on your processing error. I’m going to attach my laptop to you and if anything feels odd as I work, I need you to mention it immediately, okay?”

“Of course. I want to be functioning at the best I can because that means one day someone will want to be my friend.”

You tried not to play into his pettiness, ignoring the way he folded his arms across his chest. You didn’t know a lot about the living Woong, but so far your experience with the robot form was definitely more than you had expected. He seemed so polite and quiet in the introduction video you had watched earlier. Right now, he was very playful and easily offended. You wondered if there was an error in his programming there too. Then again, Kboys had evolved into becoming their own sentient beings. Base traits were installed from the idol modelling, but each bot had the ability to grow their intelligence.

This Woong perhaps was just like this naturally.

Thankfully, he was incredibly helpful during your initial testing. Whenever he found a circuit that ran too slowly or diverted, he let you know immediately. You had developed a solid working relationship already that you could appreciate. This remained the same over the next three days, and if it wasn’t for his efficiency whilst you worked – which you chose to do for the majority of your time together – you were certain you would have gone insane with all his endless chatter.

Unplugging your laptop on your fourth session, you smiled at him. “Thank you, Woong. That will be all for tonight.”

“Will you charge now?”

You smiled at the endearing term for sleep. Nodding, you got up and stretched your tired limbs. “I will be going to bed. Please, don’t make too much noise like last night. Perhaps you could read the books as you requested when you first came to stay.”

“Charge well, noona,” he said with the widest smile. You blinked, it was so genuine and you were confused at why you chest tightened. “I’ll promise to be silent.”

You awoke to a high pitched scream, jolting upright just in time for your bedroom door to be thrown open, Woong dashing into your room in terror.

You were completely distressed by everything that was happening, especially when the robot climbed up onto your bed and tried to hide behind you.

“What is going on?”

“Oh, noona! It’s GIANT!”

“What is?”

“The… the… oh my god, I can’t say it. But it’s so big and I was just sitting there reading my thirty-fourth book for the evening when it crawled my way and-” He let out an unintelligible whine, shuddering from head to toe.

You frowned. “A bug?”

“A BUG!”

“But Woong, you’re a robot. A bug shouldn’t scare you,” you explained, attempting to move him away from your pillows. You were too tired for this kind of interruption. Honestly, a bug?! A robot like Woong could kill it with ease. You knew you would have to report this behaviour to Leo, you weren’t aware of such a trait.

However, Woong refused to move off your bed. “I’m not going back out there.”

“Woong, I’m sleeping!”

“I’ll be quiet in here! Just don’t send me back out there to the bug!” he pleaded, and perhaps because you were too tired to remain awake for much longer, you waved him off, laying down again and rolling onto your side away from your work guest. Woong breathed out a relieved sigh and then laid down too. “Thank you for your acceptance.”

“I just want to sleep Woong, that’s all there is to it.”

And boy, did you sleep well. You had possibly the best sleep that you could remember. You were just the right temperature, not overly hot that you needed to kick off the blankets, and not too cold either. When you finally woke up, you didn’t quite want to get up. You were content.

It was during this moment you became aware of what was happening around you. Or, more specifically, what was on you. Opening your eyes quickly, you glanced down at the arm over your waist and felt a leg over yours. The firm chest that was imprinted in your back cradled your entire body and at first, you were surprised to find yourself so relaxed in the arms of the soundly sleeping robot.

And then you were frantic. “Woong!”

“What?” he mumbled, nestling in further. You gasped and slapped his arm off. “Why are you moving, I was comfortable.”

“You cannot sleep with me!” As soon as you were free to leap out of your bed, you did so, eyes wide when you found that Woong’s shirt had been removed. Darting your eyes to the ceiling, you attempted to calm yourself down. But your mind connected on a thought and you pointed at him incredulously. “Please tell me you didn’t infiltrate the old AI modes. You’re not in lover mode, are you?!”

“What is a lover mode? I was just charging. Besides, it was you who did it first. In the middle of the night, you turned around and snuggled into me saying I was the right temperature to cool you down and that you loved the sound of my system purring along.” Woong knelt upon your bed after fetching his shirt and threw it over his head. And then he smirked. “You even called me your cat. Are you adopting me, noona?”

“You’re making that up.”

He shifted closer. “Want to read my memory card?”

“No wonder Yerin warned me,” you breathed, shaking your head and then pointed to the door. “Out you go, it’s time for breakfast.

The humour fell from his expression, and instead, he looked concerned. “You’re coming right?”

“Why?”

“The bug, it might still be out there.”

“Oh good grief,” you chimed, heading for the door. Woong stepped in behind you, peering around you. After searching the entire space for the bug and coming up empty, Woong relaxed and started making you breakfast.

It was surprisingly a nice experience to share a meal with someone and it had become your favourite part of the day so far this week. You didn’t really talk, Woong was somewhat aware now of your prickly mannerisms, simply shooting you several smiles over the meal. You couldn’t help but feel comfortable around him by the time you were ready to work on his processing again.

Much like yesterday, you worked on his system directory and Woong helped you figure out the issues. You had already debugged three pathways and were working on the fourth when he yelped in pain.

“Are you okay?!”

“Ow, my neck!” he cried and you looked at the hand he had raised to cup it, gently reaching out to slip your hand to where it was. You gasped when you saw the bug there, darting your focus to Woong’s face. How had he felt the bite of the bug? Of course, being bloodless, the bug had just died upon contact, but it surprised you all the same.

“You, you really felt that?”

“What was it?”

“The bug, it bit you. It’s dead, don’t panic,” you added on as he went to move and he relaxed, frowning about his experience. You checked the area of his skin. “You even have a mark. How did that happen?”

“Well our skin is fired by circuits remember, it makes sense I would feel it if I can feel the touch of your hand on me as well,” he mentioned, his tone sounding thicker. You glanced down at him and away from where your hand resided, Woong looking up at you wholly. “I can feel you.”

Where it came from, even you were surprised. The words you had proclaimed to your team leader swirled around in your mind as your lips pressed to Woong’s, his own passionately moving against yours. Somehow, in the midst of the embrace, you found yourself pulled onto him, sitting in his lap as the kiss deepened. And just like the circuits you worked with day in and out, you felt a surge fire pathways throughout you. From your lips all the way to your toes, everything felt alive and open.

You were overwhelmed.

“I felt that the most,” he breathed when you pulled away, and you gasped, lifting your hand to your mouth in realisation. Woong smiled, tenderly pushing your hair behind an ear. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Remember what?”

“January seventh, twenty-nineteen.”

“That was my first day in the lab,” you replied immediately, brows knitting together. “How do you know that?”

“Because on your first day you made a mistake with a robot and cried about it.”

You stared back at him, the memory resurfacing. You had been given a simple task of placing a memory chip into a robot in your first assignment, accidentally hitting a main circuit in the process. You had been told to fix it before you went home and to learn all about why circuits were critical. That moment in time had led you to become the best at repairing circuits in the entire laboratory.

How did Woong know this though?

He smiled, gently rubbing your back. “It’s okay, mistakes happen and I’ll be fine. Just like right now, with the bug. I’m okay.”

His words felt familiar and you snapped your focus to his face. “It was you. I made the mistake with you.”

“I mean, it’s fair. I didn’t have this face back then. Or any face,” he replied, cringing at the memory. Then he smiled. “But I hoped you would remember me. You told me that I would be your favourite robot if I survived. And I have.”

“Why didn’t you tell me beforehand?” you wondered and Woong smiled. “You knew I wouldn’t let you come home with me?”

“For a closed off human, you’re pretty easy for me to read, Y/N. I think we’re meant to be.”

“Oh no,” you rebutted, shaking your head with a laugh. “I’m not about to go that far. It was one kiss.”

“We could have more,” he offered, leaning in closer. “I’ve always liked you, after all.”

You blinked rapidly, that thick tone was a curse and you were entrapped by it. Pushing Woong back, you laughed. “Easy.”

“Okay, so it’s too fast. I get it. Even though both times you’ve initiated everything, noona. Just remember that.” He laid back down and then pointed to your computer. A picture of complete innocence. You scoffed. “Aren’t we working right now?”

“What am I going to tell Leo on Monday?” you wondered aloud, heaving in a deep breath before leaning down to capture his lips again. After the kiss ended, Woong grinned up at you.

“Tell him there were more issues underlying the ones we knew of and that I need further testing.”

“Then he can do that in the lab.” Woong shook his head. “I only trust you inside my mind.”

“I don’t trust you getting inside of mine.”

“Why, are you afraid you might fall in love with me?” he mused, smiling up at you.

“Well, I did make a mistake with you in the past, and you’re still full of errors. I guess it is up to me to fix them.”

“One kiss at a time?” he suggested and you moved back to your laptop, working your way quickly through his memory bank to see your name clearly there from when his memory card was inserted. You smiled.

“Let’s just see how the rest of this week goes. I might want to trade you in for something better.”

“Hey!”

You glanced up, grinning wickedly. “Well, you opened my heart up to like more than just the circuits running inside of you. I should get a model that I find physically attractive.”

“Are you saying you… wow.”

You then wrote a code into his mind, logging it there permanently. It silenced Woong as he recognised it. “I have a love error?”

“Yep, my diagnosis is that your circuits are so messed up because of me. I’ll have to tell Leo, I’ve made an error that’s going to take a while to solve.”

Woong sat up and nodded. “And since you’re so good at figuring out how to work with my circuits, I’ll definitely make sure we share that same error by the time Monday comes around.”

_________________

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correresmidestinoweb-blog · 5 years

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How to Write a Paper in One Night

Being in college is a chore. It takes a lot of work, carefully planned over the course of a week, or a month, or a quarter to make sure everything gets done with the full attention it deserves….are you laughing yet? No one puts in the time "required" to properly complete their college work. No, rather it's a rush at the end every week or two to complete a 10 page paper or learn 200 years of ancient Roman history overnight. You all do it, I did it. It's probably a better training skill than all the random stuff you "learn", because honestly in real life do you think you'll have the time to sit and schedule everything that pops into your life ahead of time. Yeah…thought not.

Anyways, for those of you just entering college from the snore inducing boredom and ease of High School, you're probably incredibly unprepared for the shear amount of work you'll have to pull out in the last second. I'm not saying it's easy just because you'll procrastinate. No, it's still hard. You really should take the time to do your work properly. You just won't, and so you need to learn how to procrastinate. It's a fine art, in which I feel I've become something of a Renoir.

First off, make sure you've got all your books and notes. If you don't go to class, which is entirely likely for those of the procrastinating ilk, make sure you get them from a classmate. Also, double check and make sure your professor doesn't have a website. They'll usually tell you, but more than once I've found a class's notes sitting in an archive online, especially now that 90% of them put everything they teach you into PowerPoint presentations and then just read it to you for an hour every day (yeah, lazy). It's usually only an extra 30 seconds out of their day to put the stuff online, and then when they receive twenty plus emails a week asking for the lecture notes, they only have to point you to the website. Well, some are a bit more facetious about their pupils not even bothering to come to class and don't openly offer said notes. However, for sick students and whatnot, they'll put them online to save paper and all it takes is a couple of quick Google searches or an email to a sick student and you've got your notes. Or…just ask a classmate. But then you're relying on them actually paying attention.

You should have your books too. If you never bothered buying them because you would just take notes or go to sparknotes, then you'd better go buy them, because BSing your way through a paper is going to take at least some resources. You can't magically ascertain the information from just being near smarter people. School would be much easier if that were the case.

So, sit down and start reading. Yup, you're going to be reading a lot the night before your work is due. But, this is better than doing all the assigned reading, because now you're searching for specific information. Instead of general learning (which would only stick around and clutter up your brain later) you're doing targeted research. An eighth the time, and none of that pesky remembering it. You should have your topic at least. If not, start surfing message boards and snag one from someone smarter than you. Don't ever take their work though. The last thing you need is to get kicked out of school for plagiarism. It's lazy and embarrassing. Steal concepts, but never words. And if you steal a concept from the middle of their work, cite them. Your university will not take kindly to cheating. You'll be so red taped and black listed, you might as well go and get an application at Jack in the Box, and trust me you don't want to work in fast food.

You can't procrastinate now. You've done that for three weeks, so I'm sorry (I know it hurts), but in terms of actual physical writing time, you'll need at least three hours to type your paper, which speaks nothing of writing it. And writing it involves finding quotations and that ever so pesky chore of thinking. Sit down, grab an energy drink and a bag of chips, close your door and put some headphones on. No television, and put your phone on the charger. Now open up the word processor and just start typing.

You probably think you have writer's block. But, writer's block is completely unrelated to having absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You're stuck with the second one right now, so just keep on reading on your topic and finding bits and pieces to put together.

The thing here that most people don't realize is that the standard writing process isn't in effect for you. You're not drafting, or brainstorming. That's the stuff you should have done two weeks ago. No, you're writing your paper, so make sure you've got your idea and just start writing and keep writing until you create a thesis somehow.

I usually start as broad as possible, and just start talking about something. If I'm writing about the Hero Quest of Pip in Great Expectations, I start by talking about Greek Mythology and the origin of the classical hero. Working my way down, I'll talk about the modern hero, then about the alterations made in the industrial age, and how Dickens rewrote archetypes for his comedy, and finally start talking about Pip. By now you should have a general idea about what you want to say. It might be general but you'll clarify in your next few paragraphs, and then come back and rewrite the first paragraph.

Paragraph one is almost always trash. Especially with this method, because your weary, angered professor after reading 30 of these lovely last minute essays will put a big red X through anything that doesn't have to do with your paper, and those first few grasping sentences are completely unrelated. But now you can start stealing from the text. Snag a quote and make a point. Snag another quote and make another point. If your thesis ends up as something incredibly broad and useless like "Pip's quest from anonymity and worthlessness into a position of wealth and power in London mirrors the classical hero quests, but works through Dickensian views of industrial England" you're still good. It sounds intelligent and has a lot of promise. Now just find specific quotes and build a narrative. Start at the beginning of his change, talk about his childhood, then go to when he changes, then compare to the Hero quests of old, then show how they're different.

Almost any paper, if written quickly can boil down to something simple and incredibly easy to write, a compare and contrast paper. You choose a prominent theme from the book you just "read". Find a source that mirrors or better yet foils this theme and compare the two. Don't just list how they're different though. That's high school stuff right there. You'll want to write exactly how the outside source changes what you think of your book. It sounds hard but jus think about it. You've got Great Expectations. It has a main character who goes on a kind of quest. Now you have a classic archetype of which there are hundreds of sources to draw on. You take a basic outline of this archetype and apply it to Pip's quest and how he fits it, and when he doesn't fit it. Now you finish your paper by describing why he doesn't fit it sometimes. Which gets you back to the Dickensian views part. You've just pretty much written a paper that says, Pip's quest is classic but different because Dickens was writing about a different time in human history. Incredibly simple; you're not telling anyone anything new, but three things will guarantee a good grade.

If you write well at all. You've got to be a halfway decent writer, which if you're in college I'll assume you are.

Professors love outside references. It shows initiative and research and makes it seem like you did extra work (which you didn't). I've written papers overnight without drafts and without ever reading them back to myself and received comments that I must have spent hours working on it. Not quite.

Confidence in your assertions. Say everything with absolute certainty, and back it up with a quote. Do this enough and even if you're wrong, it'll seem like you've made a decent point, which gets you brownie points.

Writing a paper is a tumultuous task but it's also a scalable task that can be made incredibly quick and easy if you know how. My second to last quarter of college, I wrote three order thesis papers in two days; two of them 10 pages, and one 25 pages, and received a 3.8, and two 3.7s. It's a matter of confidence and above all else an unmitigated fearlessness to be incredibly lazy.

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mahlerrasmussen35-blog · 5 years

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Top 3 methods To Grow Your Business

Draw up your process - White boards out the whole customer experience from start to close. You require a map so you can know the stops along the path to becoming a customer of your company. This will also give you some insight on any glaringly obvious steps you are missing out on that are triggering prospects to fall out of your sales funnel. Then it nicked him again. He was getting desperate and starting to swell up. The ranger station at this point was close by. He squeezed more difficult and harder and finally choked the snake to death. In order to promote and market your printed publications, you needed to invest thousands of dollars. This is now a story of by-gone days. You have digital books and can market them at lower cost online. This offers help you make more revenue margin. This is merely what all you want for your aidan parallel profits review overtime. Much like a lot of courses in school, you have to make and set up time for study and classes. see page of online classes remains in the ease of access and its versatility; you can quickly access materials at any time and research study. However, up until PARALLEL PROFITS WEBINAR make out specific durations, chances are that you would quickly be swamped with the workload. So, schedule about 3-4 hours a day for your classes. It is way better and simpler than being in class 8am-2pm. In a research study on time management, each minute spent in planning resulted in reducing the time required to complete an activity or project by three or 4 minutes. Investing 10 minutes in preparation can minimize job completion time by 30 - 40 minutes, while one hour of planning can reduce conclusion time by 3 - 4 hours. Properly made use of, 10 minutes of planning can successfully control your time for an entire day. For example, I went to a party not too long ago. It was a dress-up type of affair, and I need to admit, I felt a little out of place. That is, up until I met a couple who were from my hometown in Ohio. At one time, they even went to church with my moms and dads! Getting there or growing https://rosalessilver0.phpground.net/2018/11/13/how-twitter-marketing-can-bring-you-online-profits/ there may require that you break your own inertia and take some action. The action I recommend.Get Coached! Get Training Systems, sign up with a Mastermind or employ a private coach. However do it quick due to the fact that the world is not slowing down while you consider it! Too often decisions are made when things aren't working out. You may have lost sight of your vision for personal or little business success. In teaming up with individuals, self-employed company owners, solo experts and business owners I think that when things aren't going right they feel stuck.

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the-wellbeing-warrior · 3 years

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Q&A- Rob Stephen Grow Ireland

Ireland has some terrific mental health organisations nationwide. Over the next couple of weeks, the Wellbeing Warrior will bring you a series of Wellbeing focused Q&A’s with some of the people who help run these brilliant organisations.

Up first is Rob Stephen, former chairperson of Grow Ireland.

GROW in Ireland is a national organisation that provides a peer supported program for growth and personal development to people with a mental illness and those people experiencing difficulty in coping with life’s challenges. For more information on Grow please visit their website at www.grow.ie

Rob kindly took some time out of his busy schedule to tell us about life working with Grow and how he looks after his own personal wellbeing. If you would like to support Grow in continuing their wonderful work, please do so by visiting: www.grow.ie/donate

ROB STEPHEN – GROW IRELAND

1.What does a day in the life of the Chairperson of Grow look like?

I served as a trustee (director) on the board of the Grow Mental Health charity from 2011 through to their 50th anniversary celebrations in 2019. During the last three years of my term I served as chairperson. All charity trustees are unpaid volunteers so from Monday to Friday I do have my main paid day job as a software engineer. As chairperson of Grow, I would have generally devoted time at the weekend, normally Saturday, to catch up on Grow related work. About once a month this would entail travelling to Dublin for a 2-3 hour board meeting followed by a catch up with fellow board members from all over the country and the CEO. All meetings have since moved online to Zoom which certainly take up less volunteer travel time but the personal connection is not quite the same. The weekend prior to a board meeting would be spent preparing the agenda and digesting reports for review at the meeting. The weekend after a board meeting would be spent ensuring that minutes had been captured and following up on any action items, such as communicating any decisions or updates to the relevant people within the organisation.

From a personal point of view I would have had my share of good days and bad days. The bad days being those where unpleasant but necessary decisions had to be made which might have upset people, so in those cases a degree of diplomacy and empathy would be required. The good days were when I might hear of some success or positive impact which Grow was having in someone’s life, and those were the days which made the effort worthwhile.

One of the key cornerstones of Grow is the development of leadership skills. Examples of this are when a new person comes to Grow and first does a reading or shares their story, then they progress to leading (facilitating) a meeting. They might then progress to take on a role within the group (e.g. Organiser or Recorder). Some Grow members then choose to serve on regional or national teams (committees, including the national board). When someone first attends a Grow meeting in a fragile state, possibly with low self-esteem, progressing to a leadership position may appear way beyond their capabilities, but, with help from the Grow Program this does happen and it is by pushing the boundaries bit by bit that we grow.

2. Tell us about your organisation and what it does in the promotion of mental wellbeing

Grow was actually founded in Australia in 1957 and first came to these Irish shores in 1969. The Grow movement is loosely based on Alcoholics Anonymous in that there are peer-led weekly meetings which are structured around a 12 step program of recovery. In Grow we say “you alone can do it, but you can’t do it alone” which sums up how Grow works. Our recovery from a mental health illness or the improvement in our wellbeing is ultimately our own responsibility, but often we need the support of others to help us, and who better to help than someone who has walked in our shoes and come out the other side? The principle of “mutual support” is very strong within Grow – sometimes we receive help but at other times we can offer help and this makes for strong peer relationships. These relationships differ greatly from those a Grow member might have with their doctor or therapist.

The three key points, I think, about Grow are this: Someone attending a meeting for the first time initially gets a glimmer of hope from hearing others talk about their experiences and how they overcame challenges - this sense of hope sustains them in the early period. Then as they attend their weekly meetings, they share problems and are given tasks by the group to help tackle their issues one by one. This is where the magic happens as they slowly start to create order out of disorder and build confidence out of low self esteem. This can be a long, slow process and it involves plenty of hard work but the group is there to support the individual on their journey. Finally, as a member of their group and of the Grow community, the person develops connections with other human beings and this breaks the cycle of isolation which is so much a feature of mental unwellness.

3. As Chairperson of Grow Ireland, I can imagine you have a heavy work schedule, while at work do you have any wellbeing practices to support you in between all the emails, zoom meetings and phone calls

Coincidentally, around the time I got involved with the board of Grow I also gave up smoking. I then found that I was snacking a lot and getting out of shape so in a moment of New Year’s Eve enthusiasm I signed up for the Great Limerick Run 6 mile event in 2013. I then found that I really enjoyed running and the buzz of participating in big running events – I went on to complete my first marathon whilst I was chairperson. The idea of having a goal and then training to achieve it is very satisfying. I started to notice that the days when I went for a run I just felt more alive, more relaxed and indeed more confident. Conversely, If I didn’t manage to get out for a run, I found that my energy levels were low and my stress levels were high. So keeping active – running in my case – is my main wellbeing practice. A knock on effect of this is that running provides a means to connect socially with others, which is good for me as I am by nature quite reserved. Quite apart from the “feel good factor”, being active outside in nature gives my brain a time to relax and to meander and perhaps to untangle itself and sometimes I compose limericks (five line poems) whilst running.

From a purely practical point of view, I find making “to do” lists an important part of my routine. This ensures that I don’t miss important things and enables me to prioritise my time and ultimately helps to reduce my stress levels. I also enjoy cooking and try to make a habit of preparing food from scratch rather than buying ready-made meals or takeaways. This also means that I have a reasonably healthy diet which contributes to my positive mental health.

4. It can be difficult for people supporting a loved one with mental health difficulties, would you have any specific tips or advice for those people in minding their own wellbeing while supporting others?

Most of us have not flown for a long time but when flying the cabin staff will remind parents, in an emergency, to put on their own oxygen masks before attending to their children. That holds true for life in general – we are not much use to another person if we ourselves are not in a good state. When caring for others, be that someone with a mental health difficulty or perhaps an elderly relative, it is very important to make time for yourself. By that I mean getting a break and doing something you enjoy – and for me that is getting out running. It is vitally important to not feel guilty or selfish for indulging in this self-care activity.

Men quite often like to solve problems so if someone comes to me with say a mental health related problem, my first instinct might be that they are telling me their problem because they want me to fix it. There are a few things which I try to do in this situation which will help both me and the person confiding in me. It is firstly very important to just actively listen and then perhaps offer a few questions which might help the person get some clarity. Quite often when someone is upset they might not be thinking clearly, hence Grow’s Step 8 is “we learned to think by reason rather than by feelings and imagination”. The second point is that though we can support another person, ultimately it is their problem and we should not try to “own” or take on their problem – if we do that then it is likely to have a negative impact on our own health.

5. If someone was to ask you for one piece of wellbeing advice, what might you say to them?

There is a saying in the Grow Program - “Meaning generates energy, lack of meaning depression” – which has always resonated with me. I believe that humans fundamentally need to have some kind of meaning or purpose in life in order to live a life of contentment. For me, that meaning comes from spending time with my immediate family; my job, which is both challenging and satisfying; my running activities and my involvement in an altruistic activity (i.e. involvement with the charity Grow). To broaden this a bit, I would recommend that readers should check out the proven Five Ways to Wellbeing which are: Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Give. Jim Lucey has an excellent new book “A Whole New Plan for Living” which touches on this subject.

#grow #wellbeing #q&a session #growireland

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wineanddinosaur · 3 years

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EOD Drinks With Garrett Oliver, Brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery

In this special episode of “End Of Day Drinks,” VinePair’s editorial team is joined by Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery. Oliver is a man who wears many fancy hats, but the past year has seen him stuck inside like the rest of us. This, he explains, led to the launch of the Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing & Distilling.

Oliver tells us how 2020 events sparked a realization that being Black and “seen” isn’t as good as actively bringing others into the fold. He sees formal education as the key to long-term careers for BIPOC in beer and spirits.

Listen online

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Or Check out the conversation here

Cat Wolinski: Hello, and welcome to VinePair’s “End of Day Drinks” Podcast. I am Cat Wolinski, VinePair’s senior editor, and I’m joined today by VinePair’s editorial team including Joanna Sciarrino, Katie Brown and Emma Cranston, and Elgin Nelson. Our guest today is Garrett Oliver, who many of us know as the brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery. He’s also the author of “The Brewmaster’s Table,” editor in chief of “The Oxford Companion to Beer,” a James Beard award winner, and lots of other things. Garrett, welcome to the show.

Garrett Oliver: Thanks for having me.

C: I really appreciate you calling in today. I know it’s not as fun as having you in the office over some beers or some cocktails, which I think you also tend to enjoy.

O: Hopefully pretty soon. I’m fully juiced up with Moderna. I’m so happy to actually see people again.

C: I am very excited for everybody who’s getting their shots, so congratulations! There are a lot of things that we would like to hear from you about today, from the Michael J. Jackson Foundation, the Museum of Food and Drink exhibition, and the Brooklyn Brewery, of course. The new beers, the continuing growth abroad, including in Chile. Now, what I really like to start with is: What does a day in the life of Garrett Oliver look like? How has your role as the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery changed over the course of the last year through the pandemic?

O: Well, I would say that thankfully, I have not been ill at all. I haven’t even had a common cold. Outside of that, my wife might have been more radically changed, I would say, than most people, because my normal year would have included about 10 countries and meeting thousands of people. It’s certainly bizarre to go from that to being stuck inside your own house. I was actually traveling so much that, even though I didn’t really complain about it, I actually wanted to spend more time at home. Watch out for what you wish for, because I got a lot more of it than I was bargaining for. I tried to, as everyone has, make the best of it, but it’s been a bizarre year.

C: Yeah, I was going to say I can’t imagine how a globe-trotting, dinner-party-hosting man of mystery like yourself has been operating in these circumstances. I know one of the big things that you were able to accomplish this year was launching the Michael J. Jackson Foundation, and you recently announced the first five award recipients. I would love to hear more about the foundation, how you created it, and how these scholarships will honor the legacy of your good friend.

O: Oh, well, thanks for that. I didn’t lose 10 pounds, I didn’t learn French or read the great book if I ever had the time. In the wake of the social movement that we saw last summer, these were plans that I already had. But with the globe-trotting part, came a difficulty in focusing on a task this large. It’s a strange thing. It gave me the opportunity to actually focus on the founding of the foundation. Now, what the Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing and Distilling does is actually pretty simple. We provide funding. Let me go back, I will say we award scholarship awards for technical education in brewing and distilling. I was just being interviewed about this today by some folks from Brazil, and they were asking about what the American brewing industry looks like. Even though various racial groups that are not of European extraction are nearly half the country, they make up only a couple of percent altogether of people working in brewhouses and distilling houses. There are lots of historical reasons for this. People tend to think that this is because African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, and indigenous people are not really into craft beer, which is not true. This was something that people made up. Not true at all, number one. Number two, there are a number of reasons why this has happened. Many of us in the industry have actually participated in the perpetuation of this situation, even without intending to. I think what we’re doing with the foundation is simply moving one toggle. One of the barriers is that you need to either have experience, or you need to get an education, a technical education, if you want to work and have a future in brewing or distilling. Education is very expensive. It is worthwhile but very expensive. African-Americans, for example, have 10 percent of the family assets of European Americans in the United States. I want to repeat that. Ten percent. People find that difficult to believe but it’s true. I’m not talking about income. I’m talking about money that you might put your hands on to pay for something. Ten percent. So when you have a course that costs $10,000, $16,000, this becomes a nearly insurmountable barrier for the vast majority of people of color in the United States. You will also hear this barrier of wanting somebody with two or three years of experience. Well, where are you going to get those? If there’s nobody there, then nobody can have two to three years of experience. If you can’t afford the education, you can’t get there. This means perpetuating the situation essentially forever, so we’re looking to break that cycle.

C: Yes, and you’ve awarded some really interesting and inspiring individuals who you can talk more about, if you like.

O: They’re inspiring and amazing people. We are expecting that in future years, we’ll get to a point where we are going to be able to take people who don’t even have a foot in the door of the brewing industry or the distilling industry and bring them in at this early stage. We’re starting with people who have a foot in the door. Maybe they’re even doing well, but they don’t have a technical background that will give them a career. It’s similar to working in a kitchen. You can become a good cook in a kitchen being taught by the chef, by rote. If nobody ever took you through all the backgrounds of things and how to make all the foundational sauces, it is going to be hard for you to advance and become a great all-around chef. It’s possible to be a great cook without actually having the training to be a great chef. Now, it’s not the only way that you can become a great chef, professional training, but it is one path. It is the professional training path that we are facilitating for people.

Joanna Sciarrino: Hi, Garrett, this is Joanna. I was wondering what the process was like in finding these recipients?

O: First, we put it out, and we did it entirely over social media. They went out in two rounds, so when people got in touch with us, then they were let through a gate to a place where they could upload all sorts of stuff. We tried to lower the barriers so it wasn’t a complicated thing to do. People could upload videos that would then go into a file for us. We have nine board members. We actually spent hours and hours reviewing every one of 100 or so applicants that came in. It came down to about 14 finalists and we interviewed all of them. Then, there were just many hours of discussion before we arrived at five individuals. It’s also important, I think, to note that I hope I’m going to be able to live up to and we will be able to live up to this as an ambition. If people did not get this particular scholarship at this time, we don’t view that as the end of the process of trying to work with them. As I was saying, there are many paths. There are other scholarships. There are people we know who are offering internships. There are all sorts of things that are going on, and what we’re looking to do is to use the access and connections that we have to help out anybody who comes in front of us and is serious. Even if someone did not win the scholarship, that does not mean they won’t hear from me next week with three other opportunities that are not directly through the MJF. I regard the work that’s visible as being the 20 percent of the iceberg above the water in the cliché, and the 80 percent is below the water. The 80 percent is actually the bulk of the work which is not the part that people are donating money for, which is paying for technical education, but it’s at least as important. We have already, well before this, gotten people jobs where they have been offered equity as brewers in new breweries. That is at least as important as what we’re visibly doing.

C: Yeah, it seems there are more of these internship opportunities. We had Beer Kulture working with several organizations. We had Tiesha Cooke and the Bronx Brewery on the show recently with these technically focused training opportunities, which is certainly a barrier. It makes sense to me, too, coming from the Brooklyn Brewery, as a much larger organization and one that is focused on future thinking in terms of quality control and learning those basics. The rules that you can’t break and then the ones that you can, in order to become successful in these fields.

O: Yeah, and there are a lot of people who came up as I did the old-fashioned way. Some people start as the dishwasher or they are behind the bar or they get an opportunity to work in the brewhouse. They show some aptitude and work their way up but possibly when the time comes and someone says, “OK, I would like you to change the recipe so that it’s much more bitter, the color goes this way, and it’s slightly less sweet.” That person may or may not know what to do, because they’ve been taught how to brew, sure, but they haven’t been taught the underlying science. One way or another, you need to fill all that in if you’re actually going to have a career rather than a job. Jobs are great, but we are hoping to help people build careers, and the people to whom we’ve given these scholarship awards, we expect to see them in positions of influence where they are going to be able to hire other people. Eventually, I hope, we will see tasting rooms and taprooms that actually look like America. Because right now, we all know that they don’t. As I’ve said to many people, “OK, imagine this. If you are a person of European extraction, suppose you love natural wine and you’re really into it, or you love cocktails, craft beer, but every time you wanted to have these things in a public setting, everybody in there was Black. You were the only white person in the whole place, every time. How would that be for you?” If the answer to that is, “Oh, that would be fine,” one, you’re probably lying and two, you’re a bizarre person. No, it’s not normal. It doesn’t look normal, it doesn’t feel normal. That’s the world that people of color live in this country and in this business. When we walk in, we’re often the only one in the room, and it’s bizarre.

C: I am heavily nodding my head, but you can’t see me. Yes, that does sound super uncomfortable.

O: Yeah, when you reverse it, people say, “Ohhh.”

C: Exactly, then you notice.

O: Yes, you notice. If you’re white, you never noticed that there was only one Black person in the room. You’re there with your friends. You’re doing what you’re doing. Why would you notice that? It is the truth of what goes on, especially at the higher end of food and drink and whatever else in the United States. It’s not that people aren’t interested, it’s not that they don’t have the money, in many cases, to at least afford a beer in these places. It’s partially that there is this vibe being given off that you’re not welcome in here. Part of that vibe is not actually hiring anybody or having people in the business who might bring their friends and relatives to your business and spread the love of what’s supposed to be going on in the world of drinks.

C: I totally agree. It’s something I found really interesting with some of the biggest leaders around racial equity and equality in beer over the last year. We heard this with Marcus Baskerville from Weathered Souls around the “Black is Beautiful” campaign. You didn’t know you’d end up an activist. You start looking into your own experience and then realizing you have this role or job where you didn’t face that much adversity personally. Then, you realize there are so many reasons behind you being the only one there in that room. Is it accurate to say that you had a similar feeling around the time you launched the Michael J. Jackson Foundation?

O: Absolutely. I have to say that to a certain extent when people would talk about intersectionality, I didn’t really understand what it meant when I read the word, but I didn’t really understand a lot of parts of what it truly meant in real life. Look, there were times when I was poor, where they came and turned the lights and gas off. I mean, poor poor. But by and large, for most of my life, I grew up fairly middle class. Yes, I had teachers say and do racist things to me, but I grew up in the ‘60s. We powered our way through a lot of situations.

C: Wow. Did you grow up in New York?

O: Yes, I grew up in Queens, New York. Growing up, I had parents who really drove home the importance of education. I saw many people who were every bit as smart if not smarter than me, who had wonderful families that got shoved to the wayside by the tremendous drag forces of this society trying to put you down. Just because I managed to claw my way here is not in some way indicative. It’s like people saying “Oh, well, things have changed, Obama has been president for eight years.” Well, look around. That has not done anything for the average person walking up and down the street. It was awesome, but it hasn’t fundamentally changed people’s lives. I came to realize that representation was not simply being there and being visible. It’s great to be visible, but that does not mean that we’ve done anything for anybody.

C: You can still be doing very much and inspiring people. Obviously, you accomplished many things in your 27 or so years at the Brooklyn Brewery, but yes, it’s also looking at how you can bring more people in.

O: You get to a point where you have political and social capital of some sort. I watched, over the past year or so, people who have a voice out there, like Tom Colicchio, whom I’ve known for 25 years, speaking out on social issues. I would say to myself, “Well, if I have a platform and people are going to listen, then what are you going to do with it beyond being able to get yourself into reservations in places that are tough to get into?” The fact that the chef will take your phone call is awesome, but are you actually using that only for yourself, or are you going to do something for somebody? It became important to me over this last year that whatever position I might have achieved becomes meaningful beyond me. Michael Jackson, who we’re talking about — obviously, your listeners will know that we are not talking about the pop star. A lot of people don’t really realize at that point, years on from his prime, what a massive figure he was in food and drink in the 20th century. Craft beer as we know it worldwide almost certainly would not exist without his writings. He sold about 15 million books in 20 languages. Nobody came anywhere close to him. I don’t know whether the old wine writers of the day like Hugh Johnson ever sold that many books, but I doubt that they were that influential, but they were big names in their day. Michael was very distinctly and noticeably anti-racist, and he did things about it. Sometimes it shocked people, including in 1991 or 1992 when he almost single-handedly put me on a panel of six people to choose the Champion Beer of Britain. You had a bunch of people sitting there in that room in London, a room where no Black people had ever been, and you had a young Black guy from Queens. “Who is this guy and why should he be here to choose champion beer of Britain?” At the time, Michael was basically a deity. He would say, “Garrett is the guy.” It was things like that, the wind in my sail, that helped me get to where I am now. The American ideal of the self-made man is a truly corrosive and ugly thing. It is not true, it’s a lie. It’s always a lie. I think that we should be relying on one another because we have to.

Katie Brown: Garrett, this is Katie. I have a question that relates to this. I was wondering what you think that breweries and beer drinkers can do to follow in those footsteps and be anti-racist. This past year, there’s been a lot of beer collaborations and there have been ways to donate. What do you think are the most helpful ways and the best things that people are doing to help?

O: Well, I don’t know who it was that said it, somebody a lot smarter than me, but they were talking in this case about Black people. You can apply it to whatever group you want to try to bring some benefits to. What they said is, “OK, whatever it is that you’re doing, you feel like you’re doing, if Black people can’t use it to get a job, eat it, drink it, spend it, or live in it, then the person for whom you were doing this work is you.” When you think about that, you understand that things are not tangible. For example, the notion of “Oh, I became president, I did this. I did that.” Yes, I went to a couple of marches, too. I’m not saying people shouldn’t go to marches, but don’t fool yourself into believing that is direct action if nobody can do anything with it. Then, you are not bringing the benefit that you thought you were. When I went to approach this, I said what would be actually effective? What would actually change somebody’s life? What would actually put them in a position of power within this industry where they could affect change? The MJF has turned out to be very streamlined in its focus, and we are not at all saying that this is the only path. There are 20 different paths. We’re just choosing one because to say we’re going to do everything is, one, a function of the ego because you’re not going to save the world. You’re not going to do everything for everybody. Why don’t you just try to do one thing as well as you can? That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to mostly do this one thing as well as we can, and we think that it will make some difference. Then, you will have 20, 30, 50, or 100 other organizations who will make some difference, and together we’ll all get something done.

Elgin Nelson: Hi Garrett, this is Elgin. This is a perfect segue to what I wanted to touch on, which is mainly about the Museum of Food and Drink. For our listeners that are familiar, the museum uses exhibits to change the way people think about food and drink. I know the museum holds exhibits that highlight African-Americans in culinary, brewing, and distilling. Much to that effect of the National Museum of African American History and Culture that serves the same way with the Museum of Food and Drink. Can you speak on your experience and your role with that?

O: Well, it’s certainly been exciting preparing for that exhibit, which is called African American: Setting the Nation’s Table. We were just about to open that exhibit at the top of Central Park on Fifth Avenue and that’s when the pandemic struck. We had just about finished the exhibit when the pandemic prevented us from having our opening gala and then, of course, from opening the exhibition at all. Now, what the exhibition is about is the largely untold history of African-Americans and American food. People tend to think that, “OK, the African-American contribution to the American food world is in soul food and barbecue,” which is absolutely true. What people don’t know is that even haute cuisine was brought into the United States, practiced, taught, promulgated, and developed entirely by Black people. If people have this idea like, “Oh, some dude must have come over from France in 1790,” no, there was no French dude. It was James Hemings, who when he arrived back — still enslaved to Thomas Jefferson after Thomas Jefferson’s stint in Paris as our ambassador — he had been put through all the major kitchens of Paris and came back as by far the most accomplished chef in the United States. Then, he started to pass that down, and then it moved up through the hotel systems, which is where haute cuisine comes from in the United States, including the Grand Hotel, which basically had an all-Black staff. That input is something that came to us entirely through African-Americans, and we have been cut out of the story that we actually told. The same is true in brewing, where African- Americans did almost all the brewing in the United States up through the Civil War. Who do you think was actually brewing the beer? Every single African society in the South, East, or West, traditionally, is centered around brewing. Brewing is central to all African societies. Yet beer is seen as European. We have a partial history told in so many things. This is actually not only an inspirational but fascinating history, because people have been told that they were not part of and their families, were not part of something that they were, in fact, integral to. The Museum of Food and Drink did a great job telling the story of Chinese food in America, which is totally fascinating. That story was also tied up in racism, politics, etc. A lot of people had never heard of the Chinese Exclusion Act until they came to an exhibit that was ostensibly about Chinese food in America. Then, they were reading about how we ended up having Chinese food as a major American food to the extent that it is the most popular type of restaurant in the United States. People will look at it, and say, “Well, wait a minute, that’s interesting, how did that happen?” Somehow, Asians disappeared personally from this scene. You go back to the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s when you can start to hear about great chefs, and you don’t know any Chinese people. Almost nobody does. They became the top propagators in that type of restaurant in the United States, and nobody ever heard of them. That’s what America does. It wipes out a lot of people’s histories. Part of one of the many things the Museum of Food and Drink is doing is telling people the truth. That truth — which is often fun, interesting, sometimes disturbing, but always enlightening — about their food.

Emma Cranston: Hey, this is Emma. I just want to circle way back really quick and ask one last question for the listeners at home. Especially for those looking to learn about beer and brewing through the internships or programs you’ve discussed. I’m curious about how they can study up at home or outside of a brewery. I read that you’re the editor-in-chief of “The Oxford Companion to Beer,” so how can people harness that text, whether they’re beginners or pros at home? What role does the text play for both those who are essentially self-taught, as well as those who may be training to be cicerones? Also, how do you feel that text influences the larger beer world?

O: Well, thanks for the question. I’m certainly gratified by my first book, “The Brewmaster’s Table,” which came out in 2003. That book is still in print and sells more than it did 10 years ago. I think that speaks to the development of craft beer in the United States and people’s interest in it. The fact that what we used to call the gas station beer list, where they have had a few of the major brands, which you would see in top restaurants, is no longer the beer list you’re going to see. It may not be as developed as it should be, but you’re going to see some good stuff on almost every restaurant list which you didn’t use to see. Both of those books, “The Brewmaster’s Table” and “The Oxford Companion to Beer” are widely used, which is great. There are a number of other great books that are out there. We’re reading Randy Mosher’s “Tasting Beer” and a number of other ones. Cicerone is doing a great job of basic education all the way to advance education for people, especially those who are going to be on the serving side of the equation of beer, which is, frankly, where the rubber meets the road. Having young people in the restaurant and sommeliers as well, understanding the world of beer. I think these days people tend to think that a sommelier is a wine waiter. That’s not a sommelier. An actual sommelier is not a wine waiter. The sommelier is somebody who’s supposed to curate your experience of drink. That includes beer, wine, and cocktails. Real sommeliers like Roger Dagorn, who was at Chanterelle in those major years. Eric Asimov and I went there once about 15, 20 years ago, and Roger took us through the most amazing tasting of sakes. At the time, I didn’t really know anything about sake. I drank sake, but he was taking us through sweet, dark, and aged sakes. He knew all about these, plus he could talk his way around beer and knew his way around a cocktail. That’s a sommelier. You don’t see those as much as we used to. Juliette Pope was another one when she was at Gramercy Tavern. A real sommelier. I think that these books are helpful when it comes to building that culture back into the drinks culture. There are so many online resources as well. We’re just learning the basics at home. The great thing about beer is that, frankly, your entry level is about as easy as it possibly could be. You can have a good article, go to Whole Foods, spend $20, and get yourself a good beginning education in four, five, or six different beers, and understand style. The great thing about that is if you understand a little bit about beer, what it tastes like, what the various types are, and how you might want to do stuff with them and with food, your life will become slightly better every day for the rest of your life.

C: Oh, so true!

O: Isn’t that the best you can possibly do? There are many things in your life that are going to make things a little bit better everyday. You discover jazz, and your life becomes a little bit better every day for the rest of your life because now you discover jazz, whereas maybe a few weeks ago, you’d never really listen to jazz. Things are better. That is the critical thing that we’re able to do is learn something brand new. When I discovered fermented fish sauce and I really discovered how to use it at home and cooking, it changed my life.

K: It is such a game changer.

C: Oh, my gosh. All very true words.

O: Beer is the secret sauce.

C: Beer is a secret sauce to all things. That’s a really great way to end our conversation. Thank you, Garrett, so much for sharing these pearls of wisdom. I hope — and I know that the rest of the team hopes — that we can share a beer with you sometime in person soon.

O: Absolutely. Thanks for all the great work you guys are doing at VinePair. I’m reading your articles and stuff online all the time. It’s great to see people out there doing the work, because Lord knows, we need it.

C: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of “EOD Drinks.” If you’ve enjoyed this program, please leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps other people discover the show. And tell your friends. We want as many people as possible listening to this amazing program.

And now for the credits. “End of Day Drinks” is recorded live in New York City at VinePair’s headquarters. And it is produced, edited, and engineered by VinePair tastings director, yes, he wears a lot of hats, Keith Beavers. I also want to give a special thanks to VinePair’s co-founder, Josh Malin, to the executive editor Joanna Sciarrino, to our senior editor, Cat Wolinski, senior staff writer Tim McKirdy, and our associate editor Katie Brown. And a special shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, VinePair’s art director who designed the sick logo for this program. The music for “End of Day Drinks” was produced, written, and recorded by Darby Cici. I’m VinePair co-founder Adam Teeter, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks a lot.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article EOD Drinks With Garrett Oliver, Brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/eod-drinks-garrett-oliver-brooklyn-brewery/

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