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guileheroine · 3 years

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hide and explode

In the middle of a party game, Zuko wrestles with his feelings about Aang and their time together in Republic City. / A piney one-shot written for @gemmica‘s Zukaang zine! 🧡 / 2.5k / ao3

“And then I said - I actually said - stay flamin’!”

The party roared and Aang slapped his knee, eyes twinkling, before lifting his chin to knock back more of the A.G. 16 vintage one of the clerks they frequently worked with had brought him earlier. Almost as old as I am! he had quipped when receiving it, beaming and bending — as he often did, because he was tall now — to give her a warm squeeze.

Zuko marveled at how all of them were laughing with, not at him, despite the fact that Aang was regaling them with his own absolutely excruciating foibles. It was like things that should have been mortifying for anybody else just rolled off him. Avatar privileges, he’d probably grin, if Zuko brought it up, though Zuko was certain it was just an Aang privilege, and one that he couldn’t help but begrudge sometimes. In any case, the group here all found Aang’s tale of that one time he infiltrated a Fire Nation school and taught them the meaning of freedom boundlessly entertaining. It was a party with several Fire Nation delegates, and almost no one that wasn’t considerably familiar with their culture. He supposed the story had special resonance for this team, mired as they had been for years in cultural transition politics and wrestling with the legacy of the Fire Nation. Zuko had heard the whole story before, of course, so his laughter lacked the fresh delight of the others’. But he couldn’t pretend it had lost much of its charm even now.

Aang’s nineteenth birthday party was being held in the reception rooms of the Republic City hotel they were staying in. Zuko wondered when, if ever, there would be a time where they didn’t find themselves here every few months, sorting out the newest hurdle in the establishment of their new world order, as Toph darkly called it. Granted, it had been some ten months since the last time they were here — a record. In that time, the modest guesthouse that they usually rented had been swallowed up by some of the city’s new residential developments. This hotel here was far better suited to hosting a gathering of twenty-odd people, but it still had the cozy yet lively ambience that Zuko and Aang both appreciated.

Though perhaps not tonight. The chatter rose quickly whenever Aang let a lull fall, bright eyes all around and sudden howls of laughter that chafed at Zuko’s temper more than they should have. It could have been the whiskey not agreeing with him, but Zuko found himself increasingly drawn to the door, to the stairway beyond, to bed. He hated that their time here was almost up, and the fact nagged at him — at his patience, his spirits, his conscience, more than he told himself it had any right to. And he never felt worse than when he caught Aang’s sunrise smile, which came all too easy tonight. It shouldn’t really have mattered. They had a little getaway planned with Sokka, Katara and Toph (and Suki, if she could make it) just next week, which Zuko was certainly looking forward to... But this was their last night together, just the two of them.

Somewhere out of Zuko’s line of sight, somebody piped up, “Hey! Let’s play a game!”

Murmurs of enthusiastic agreement went up around the group. Somebody whooped, and someone else exclaimed — in a tone that didn’t tell Zuko whether it was a serious suggestion or not — “Let’s play hide and explode!”

There were a few sardonic groans. Zuko, for his part, groaned inwardly, completely in earnest. Hide and explode was the stupid Fire Nation game that Aang had played with the pupils in his undercover story. It was a kids’ game. Was this guy serious?

But Aang took up the suggestion, and a spoon to his glass, almost immediately. “Perfect! Come on, everyone,” he said, dinging for attention. “Let’s play hide and explode! There’s no one else here to disturb this time of year, and I’m sure the manager won’t mind if I slip him a tip before we go tomorrow.” He winked.

As everyone stretched and made to stand, one by one, Bao, one of the advisers from Ba Sing Se, called out, “Wait, who’s going to be the seeker? We need a firebender, don’t we — what about you, Your Highness?”

Zuko had told him before there was no need to call him that, but now he shrugged evasively. “I don’t— “ He mumbled, looking for the easiest out, and then raised his voice a little to make himself clear, “I, uh, I’ve never played hide and explode.”

“You’ve never played hide and explode?” All of Aang’s attention turned to him like a ray, while a couple of other disbelieving whistles sounded around them.

“I, uh, don’t like the explosions...” Zuko continued, trying not to trip over his tongue.

Aang didn’t take any pains to hide the skepticism on his face, but he still tried to take Zuko’s words in stride. “Oh, okay, um… Look, why don’t you stick with me for this round until you get used to it, huh? Come on, Zuko.”

Zuko didn’t know what else to do but take the arm he offered, and truth be told, he didn’t really want to blow Aang off. Explaining himself was more trouble than it was worth, and it would put a damper on Aang’s night, too. He stood to attention while someone sped through the rules a little drunkenly, and then, once one of their firebending colleagues had been appointed the seeker, he let himself be led.

Minutes later, Aang and Zuko were crouched into a tiny closet at the end of one of the public verandas. By the dank smell of it, this was a cleaning closet.

“You remember the rules, right?” Aang gave a short cough, like he was trying to hold his breath, before speaking. “Not sure Linh gave the clearest explanation back there, she was the first to get on the wine.”

Zuko sniffed. “So everyone hides and when the seeker finds them, they have to make an explosion with firebending, right?” He had, of course, played the game in his childhood with Azula and her friends. But not often, and he never really enjoyed it when he did.

“Right,” Aang coughed again. “The explosion alerts everyone else hiding nearby, so they can disperse and hide better if they think they need to. There’s strategy, y’know.” The last person to be found won. Zuko nodded.

They stood close together, alert. Aang’s chest rose and fell evenly as Zuko watched. He was wearing the ivory pendant Katara and Sokka had sent him for his birthday. It lay over the tunic Zuko had ironed for him this very morning, for the last time.

He’d told the maids it was easier for him to do with firebending than it was for them to go to the trouble of heating the iron up. Zuko had never been one for domestic chores but he reveled in every feature of the morning routine he and Aang had made for themselves here. They would get up to have tea on the dusty roof adjoining their two rooms, meeting in the middle. Then they would stretch, the autumn dawn glowing like a halo on Aang’s head and over his bare torso. Sometimes he smiled when he meditated, his eyes closed, and in those moments Zuko drank him in like an oasis. Afterwards, Zuko ironed while Aang tended to Appa, before they went down to breakfast together, ready to face the day. It was mundane, but the kind of mundane that made you blind to how much you cherished it. Until it was gone.

“Hey, Aang,” Zuko blurted suddenly. “Let’s - it stinks here, let’s hide somewhere else.”

Aang nodded so vigorously that it should have made him dizzy. They crept out and slid into a fortuitously placed alcove behind it, out of view, but open to the cool evening air. It was empty save for a wicker broom gathering dust in the corner.

“Much better.”

After a moment, Aang slumped down against the wall. Zuko followed suit. The fresh air helped his stomach, but his heart was still uneasy with that unplaceable anxiety. Every time he looked at Aang, he felt their impending departure closing on him like a trap.

“Is Appa all ready for tomorrow?” he said, with an exhale that he tried to make as inconspicuous as possible. Just speaking was a fine distraction. In truth, he still had no idea what making Appa ready for travel even involved.

“Oh, yeah. I deep cleaned his saddle this afternoon.”

A minute or so passed, then Aang’s head flopped onto Zuko’s shoulder. Zuko startled, before schooling his breath. Aang’s neck had to bend quite a bit to fit into Zuko’s shoulder now, but it was such a practised move that the effort didn’t seem to register to him.

“I’m gonna miss you, Zuko.”

From the corner of his eye, Zuko could see that he was pouting a little. “You say that every time.”

“That doesn’t make it less true,” Aang said, perplexed for half a moment before he shrugged it off. “Besides, I feel like we aren’t gonna be back here for a long time this time.”

“Yeah,” Zuko all but whispered. That was really what lay heavy so on him — why he felt like he was running out of time. He stared ahead. “Well, I mean… we’ll hang out next week,” he offered, feeling a strange instinct to draw away from the subject now that Aang was the one broaching it.

“I mean just the two of us. It’s... different with everyone else there, you know?”

The questioning lilt of his words hung in the air. In the end, it was Aang who spoke again. “I like it here with you. I feel like we have a good thing going. And I hate that I never get to see you out of those stupid Fire Lord robes if I visit you back in the capitol. Now, I’m not saying I wanna see you out of your robes, Zuko, but it’s never really been a problem for either of us when I do. Wouldn’t you agree?”

He was being irreverent on purpose, but Zuko’s heart pattered even as his irritation flared. He saw from the corner of his eye that — wait, was Aang blushing? Maybe it was just the sunset. It definitely made for an interesting atmosphere up here.

Zuko was at a loss, which wasn’t unusual. But Aang was behaving a little strangely too, so he seized the moment. “Aang, I need to talk to you about something…” He was on tenterhooks beside him, it was probably plain from the tension in his body. Aang noticed, he raised a forearm as if to reach out. But before he could do anything with it, there was a boom!

The muffled explosion rang out from some way beyond the courtyard behind them. Aang’s head sprang from Zuko’s shoulder and the moment dissipated.

Aang sounded almost sheepish. “Whew! Should we move? What do you think?”

It was hard to tell what triggered Zuko’s heartbeat now. “No,” he said quickly, getting the word out before he second guessed himself. He cringed — it was painful, he knew it’d be, but Aang’s gaze meeting his was knowing, open, almost like a wound. And Zuko needed to dress it for both their sakes. “I - I like it here, and I wanna talk to you. They’re not gonna find us till they climb a couple of storeys anyway.”

“Okay,” Aang said. It was a cryptic okay. Zuko would need a moment to know how to proceed.

But he didn’t proceed, because the boom! that followed — thunderous and so close — shocked them both out of their moods, shrieking.

“Aw, what?!”

“How did they—”

There wasn’t time to waste. Aang sprang onto the parapet. It was simple enough to propel himself up over the next ledge using airbending. It was less pleasant for them both when he did it to Zuko, but nothing he wasn’t used to. And then there they were —

On their roof.

Except this time they had to hide. The doors to their suites were locked from the inside, but under the awning of one wall, which overhung a narrow sliver of roof, there was a nook that looked like it’d provide shelter from scrying eyes. They tucked themselves in, between the wall and the rail, not much more than an arm’s width of corrugated tin above them. Chest to chest, there was barely enough space between them for Zuko’s breath, shallow with adrenaline.

He tried to keep his eyes from meeting Aang’s, but the only other places for them to go were also various parts of Aang. When did he get so broad?

“Aang, if the coast is still clear in a minute or two, we should try and get somewhere with more space,” Zuko whispered in a rush, for his own sake.

“Sure thing, Hotman.” Aang shoved his chest lightly. It was only then that Zuko noticed that Aang’s hand was indeed caught between them, so intent had he been to keep the sensation of him at bay.

The hand stayed there. There wasn’t really anywhere else for it to go. Their breaths mingled. And when they bowed their heads to avert their gazes, it only helped their foreheads to veer dangerously close to one another.

The hand on Zuko’s chest twitched reluctantly, like it was sweaty. Or itching. Zuko forced his heart back down his throat. Repeatedly, trying desperately not to focus on the hand that was too heavy and too light at once.

Boom!

That one was pretty loud, but definitely farther out. Aang’s fingers curled in Zuko’s shirt as it hit, his shoulder curving instinctively as if to shield Zuko from the invisible blast. Zuko’s composure nearly crumbled.

“Zuko—”

“What, Aang?”

When he finally met his eyes, they were wide and glossy. “Zuko, your heart is beating really hard. I thought you were just being a wet blanket when you said you didn’t like explosions, but if it’s actually affecting you, I swear you don’t have to be embarrassed —”

Zuko blinked. “Yeah, Aang, it’s the explosions.” He sounded exhausted to his own ears.

Aang’s expression fell in knowing sympathy. Zuko fell against his chest, trusting this ruse to cover for him just this once. When he did so, the hand on his chest slipped around to his back and rubbed comfortingly. It helped a lot, more than Zuko could have anticipated. Not with the explosions, obviously, but with his... dilemma. It was hard to imagine that Aang — however he actually felt — would treat Zuko’s whole thing with anything but the utmost consideration. Here he was cooing over him like a baby because he thought Zuko was scared of an explosion quieter than the volcanoes he’d made in geology class, for crying out loud.

Eventually, Aang said, “Hey, what were you going to say back on the veranda?”

Zuko was about to say nothing but he stopped himself.

“It can wait until tomorrow. Promise I’ll tell you.”

#zukaang #atla #**#zukaang fic #zukaang zine

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thesportssoundoff · 4 years

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When the inevitable happens, these will determine who the Cowboys next coach is.

Joey

December 2nd, 2019

When Jerry Jones stood outside a shouting and volatile Cowboys locker room, media onlookers said the proud owner had tears in his eyes. He spoke with absolute confidence in Jason Garrett and uttered the famous line that the only man who could take them to where he believed this team could go (That's the Super Bowl, fellas) was Jason Garrett. That's....actually true. If the Cowboys have any chance, as slim as it may be, to win the Super Bowl it's not going to become an actuality with an interim head coach. It's especially not going to come with no obvious choice on staff as Kris Richard's defense has fallen apart, Rod Marinelli has an endless loyalty to Jason Garrett (and his defensive line is not wowing anybody either), Kellen Moore is in his first year calling plays for a slumping offense and no obvious other choice on the offensive side of the ball. If there's any chance of any sort of post season success, it will lay with Jason Garrett and Jason Garrett only.

Having said that, understand that that comment is less about a faith in Jason Garrett and more about an obvious lack of options. If Jerry Jones or Stephen Jones or Will McClay felt as though they had an option in house, Garrett is probably gone around the Minnesota game when he held a private meeting with the players to fend off a potential revolt. Jerry Jones spoke of his confidence in Jason Garrett but it almost reeked of past tense. It came off like a guy whistfully battling reality while embracing the painful truth. Like a friend in a coma, Jerry spoke optimistically but with the pangs in his voice that this was over. From 2009 until 2019, Jerry held a belief that he had found his own homegrown head coach who would be the successor to the Landry and early 90s era of consistent coaching. Jason Garrett wasn't the guy and no amount of willing, no amount of coddling and no amount of firing him up will get him to where Jerry believed he would be. This marriage is just about done and it's all over but the crying, the paperwork and figuring out who gets to keep the dog. The Garrett Era will be a complicated one; underrated in terms of actual results (he has one season under .500 and led the Cowboys to their first actual success in the playoffs since the Chan Gailey one off in 1999 or so) but one where the gaffes, the post season flops and the inconsistency on a year to year basis will outweigh whatever successes he might've had.

So what now? In January the Cowboys will officially announce their desire to not bring Jason Garrett back and will embark on their first genuine coaching search since the end of the 2006 season. Coaching searches are complex and often times messy, especially with an organization as big and leak heavy as the Cowboys. What factors might determine or shape the coaching search? Well.....

Dak Prescott

Simply put, any head coach will be sat before the QB of the largest franchise in the world and will have to get the approval of the man who is about to be written a 30 million dollar plus a year guarantee each season. This team asked Dak Prescott to take his game to the next level and thus far on a whole he has despite the chaos around him. The Cowboys will not (and honestly nor should they) hire a head coach who cannot answer the most obvious question that'll be presented: What can you do to further elevate Dak Prescott? Every coach who has had Dak Prescott from his college day until year four in the NFL rave about his work ethic, lack of an ego and adaptability so I have a hard time imagining anybody NOT wanting to work with him. If we can be year five into Jameis Winston trying to figure things out, coaches will be toppling over one another to work with Dak Prescott. Hiring a coach who will hold the QB accountable but also embrace his strengths as a leader and as a developing pocket passer will win out over everything else.

Is it a rebuild? Or is it a reloading?

This will almost entirely be determined by the end of the season. How things end and what the Cowboys do over these last four games (or longer) will dictate where this goes. If the Cowboys finish it up at 9-7 or 10-6 and do SOMETHING in the playoffs, there's a fine chance the Cowboys will look at this team and determine that the ship is fine and the problems are entirely related to the captain and his first mates. If this is about Jason Garrett, Kris Richard, Kellen Moore and company not maximizing the potential of this team then the offseason can be dictated in finding a better captain. Maybe it's as simple as finding a stabilizing hand as a head coach; someone who has been here before, been successful at it and is just in need of a new place to operate. Maybe it's not the sexiest hire like a wacky college guru or a superstar college coach but a guy who has enough real time NFL successes to garner respect from players and not try to re-invent the wheel. Think of hiring a guy like Gary Kubiak in Denver a while ago or more recently Matt LaFleur who was essentially given the same parts and pieces that Mike McCarthy had and then went to work utilizing them better. Hell speaking of Mike McCarthy; maybe the Cowboys look at him, assume his failures were from a collision of egos and figure a guy who won a Super Bowl, flirted with a few more and simply ran into a Seattle juggernaut he couldn't figure out would be of interest. Maybe it's just about changing the guy wearing the captain's hat.

If this team craters then it could get ugly. Real ugly. If the Cowboys ownership and the brass who makes decisions determines that this team simply wasn't good enough then you're looking at potentially wholesale changes. Your veteran OL with a lot of money tied up in it could all be potential dead money inducing cap casualties. Your big money linebacking crew that has underachieved could be stripped and sold off. The Cowboys could tempt fate and let the likes of Amari Cooper go, not wanting to tie up a serious piece of their offense over the concerns of the fit. A LONG term rebuild; often painful in NFL years could be on its way. That also opens up your coaching candidates. If you assume for the sake of argument that a first year head coach needs at least one solid year to implement his own parts and brand his own identity as a coach then you're probably more willing to burn a year of the primes of Dak, Zeke, Amari and company IF you believe you're a ways away. That would in turn open up the Cowboys to maybe a few more "growing pains" options.

77.

When the Dallas Cowboys take the field in 2020, Jerry Jones will be 77 years old with his 78th birthday waiting in mid October. This will be in all likelihood the last head coach he hires with his own influence. 5-10 years from now, the role of being "the decider" for the Cowboys will belong to Stephen Jones likely with Jerry's son in law Shy Anderson or John Stephen Jones (Stephen Jones' son currently playing QB at Arkansas). My guess is that Jerry wants to nail this hire not just for the obvious reasons of the Cowboys success but to leave the Jones family set up with a head coach who will make the transition as seamlessly as possible.

Kellen Moore

Even if you account for a complete shutdown of the offense for the past two games, Kellen Moore's Cowboys offense is off to a really fine start. They've got the most yards in the league, average the 2nd most yards per drive, fourth most points per drive despite being last in the league in average starting field position so on so forth so on so forth. The Cowboys offense under Kellen Moore is actually bordering on prolific if we're being 100% honest. The Cowboys will have Dak Prescott in the midst of a career year, they've got a really good running back sort of kind of, they've got three wide receivers having fine years and are getting more production than recent years out of their tight end spot despite so-so production from Jason Witten and Blake Jarwin being mismanaged. As much as people want to shout from the heavens about hiring an offensive guru, maybe you'd like to give your 31 year old potential guru a chance to keep developing what he's doing? The Cowboys could easily give Kellen Moore a few more years to work his magic offensively while hiring a steady hand head coach to be a reliable proven presence while Moore continues to get his on the job training as a coordinator. The same could be said for QB coach Jon Kitna and ascending WR coach Sanjay Lal. They've all produced in various ways.

The Familiars and the influencers

Let's start with the familiars. Jerry Jones has been in charge of this operation for over 30 years, he's had multiple players eventually become coaches, multiple coaches become friends and advisors. There's a real good chance that with so much riding on the line, their first move will be to try and see if somebody they know, trust and respect might be up for the task of manning this ship. If you're an optimist, your eyes may light up at the fact that the Jones family is very familiar of Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley or that they have a very close relationship with New Orleans head coach Sean Peyton or that they have a great trust and admiration for Mike Zimmer. Dan Campbell was once a member of the Dallas Cowboys and the team tried to corral him to coach their tight ends after Campbell was let go in Miami. He wound up in New Orleans where he's been the figurehead for their impressive running game. Perhaps the fact that Mike Tomlin and Stephen Jones serve on the competition committee together excites you should the worst case scenario happen for Tomlin in Pittsburgh. Not sure if he excites anybody but the Cowboys have a close familiarity with Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. If you're a pessimist, John Fox and the Jones family are very close with one another. Jack Del Rio and Jerry Jones go way back, so much so in fact that Del Rio was called by Jerry Jones to discuss Amari Cooper before the Cowboys made the Cooper plunge. The Cowboys interviewed Ron Rivera for their head coaching job and he was apparently in the running up until the end when the finalists were Norv Turner, Wade Phillips and Mike Singletary. If one truly wishes to swallow some bile, the Cowboys have long had a respect for disgraced Cleveland Browns/Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley. Haley was a Bill Parcells disciple who coached wide receivers and apparently was one of the few guys who could keep TO in check.

Then you have the influencers. For better or worse, Jerry Jones has always been known to be rather...receptive of information sent his way. He has people who have his ear and considering he's been around for years on end, he's pretty much the most accessible owner in the NFL. And so the likes of Larry Lacewell, Bill Parcells, Nick Saban and others will play a heavy part in this process and will be sure to chime in with suggestions. How good of a salesjob would Pete Carroll do for Ken Norton Jr? Will Sean Payton stick his neck out for former head coach and current D-coordinator Dennis Allen? Will John Fox also do the same for his one time defensive coordinator? What's going to happen if Jerry Jones calls for an accurate assessment of Josh McDaniels from Bill Belichick? Who are the influencers outside of this organization who will find a way to impact the coaching search.

The decay of the NFL coaching tree

It's a copy cat league as they say and so coaches from successful teams are often poached away. After all if it's working elsewhere then why not snag and pick it up for your team? The problem with this philosophy is that eventually you'll run out of guys worthy of the spot. Case in point; Sean McVay has been poached to the point where there's nobody who immediately jumps out as being HC worthy. Shane Waldron? Well that's great except he oversees the passing game that has completely collapsed on itself. Wes Phillips or Skip Peete do anything for you? The general rule of thumb was to just raid whoever was on Andy Reid's staff but that too has been picked pretty much clean depending on your stance on Eric Bienemey (who should garner an interview in Dallas). The Doug Pedersen staff? That's just about done too as Frank Reich is in Indy, Jon DeFilippo is trying to figure things out in Jacksonville and the current core of Matt Groh and Deuce Staley have clearly fallen out of favor. You willing to take a bet on Josh McDaniels actually showing up to his next head coaching gig? Can any Saints coordinator be relied upon to run their own team given how much control Sean Payton has? With so many new coaching staffs in play, you're pretty much stuck with a decaying coaching tree to pick from.

#Dallas Cowboys #Jerry Jones #Jason Garrett #coaches #2020 #NFL

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firethatgrewsolow · 5 years

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Swiss Time - Chapter Sixteen

**The adventure continues (and this time it didn’t take ten years between chapters lol). Side note - it’s come to my attention that the little separator lines don’t work on mobile, so if the transitions in the chapter seem abrupt, that’s why. Apologies! Thanks for reading, and I hope you like it! <3**

Natalie jumped at the sharp crunch behind her, dropping the phone into its cradle. She spun around to find her aunt gnawing on a piece of celery, a devilish grin firmly planted on her face.

“How’s David? Enjoying the land of the rising sun?”

Nat’s mouth fell open. “Were you … eavesdropping on my conversation?”

“Of course.” Another crunch rang the room. “Would you expect anything less?”

Natalie snatched the stalk away, tossing it onto the bar. “Has anyone told you how obnoxious you are?”

“I do my best.” Sue gingerly reclined onto the sofa, nursing her bloody mary. “So, what did you talk about?”

“Why don’t you tell me? Since you were listening to the whole damn thing.”

“I just caught the last part. Unfortunately,” Susan added with a wink. “I suppose you didn’t mention where you spent last night, huh? And that you barely made it here in time for the call?”

Natalie sank into the chaise next to the window. “No. I didn’t.”

“Speaking of last night, care to fill me in on the details?”

“Not really.”

Susan cocked her head. “You are on the pill, right?”

“Aunt Sue!”

“Just making sure you’re safe. After all, you’re quite the juggler. Last night with Robert and then our trip down under next week?” Sue’s lips curved approvingly. “My, my, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Maybe I don’t. Natalie’s eyes glided to the sheet of glass beside her. The sun was beginning its descent, casting shimmering shapes across the expanse of Lake Geneva. She watched the elegant crafts threading through them, her mind wandering. She hadn’t meant for things to escalate so quickly with either of them. Truth be told, the connection with David had been somewhat of a surprise. As was how precious he’d been to her. Promising to call and actually doing it. He always keeps his promises. Unlike someone else she knew. There was another truth, though, a painfully obvious one. And that was that it just didn’t matter. Robert could do or not do whatever he pleased, and she’d still be lost. The draw she had to him trumped everything. What am I getting into? What am I already in?

“Out of your head, Nattie. You’re not answering the question.”

Natalie met her aunt’s vexed gaze. “I’m sorry. What was it?”

“Do they know about each other?”

Nat hesitated, rolling her lips. “Kind of.”

Sue’s brow lifted. “That’s a no if I’ve ever heard one.”

“Not true. Robert knows that I … spend time with David.”

“Darling, you may spend time with David, but you spent the night with Robert.”

Nat shook her head. “But we didn’t do anything … much. Just watched a movie and hung out.”

“Hung out,” Susan repeated, barking a laugh. “I like it. Nice euphemism. I wonder exactly what was hanging out.” She grinned as her niece cut her eyes at her. “You do realize what you’re doing here, right? A game of cat and mouse with some pretty big egos.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sighing, Sue propped her feet up on the coffee table. “You know these aren’t boys from school, Nat. They’re grown men, and they’re not typically fond of sharing.”

Natalie shrugged. “There’s nothing to share.”

“You spent the night in Robert Plant’s hotel suite, honey. If that’s nothing then it’s a whole lotta nothing.”

“Bullshit is what it is. They have girls in every city. Probably more than one.” Nat crossed her arms. “Hypocrites, the lot of them.”

“Hypocrisy is the principle they live by. And you’re well aware of it. Look, all I’m trying to say is that you’re getting in a little deep. And that’s something, coming from me.” Susan rose, padding toward the bar. “You’re playing with fire, love. And somebody’s going to get burned.”

Nat’s attention returned to the glittering lake. Maybe Sue was right. It was a lot to handle. And she’d promised herself she’d not get involved. It was a load of trouble, but more importantly, a potential career killer, and she was just starting to gain real traction. The rattle of glass against crystal filled the air, and Natalie glanced at her aunt. “Isn’t it a bit late in the day for bloody marys?”

“My day just started, sweet. This is breakfast.” Susan tipped the vodka, pouring liberally. “Would you like one? I hate to drink alone, and seeing as how Christian’s stuck at the casino with your boyfriend-”

“My boyfriend? Really?”

“Well, one of them,” Sue drawled, capping the bottle.

“What’s he doing down there?”

Susan rifled through the swizzle sticks, finally opting for her discarded stalk of celery. “Why, it’s the soundcheck, darling. Don’t you remember?”

Oh, shit. Natalie stole a peek at the clock on the bookcase. “Sue, will you call a car? I’m late.”

* * *

“So, you shag her yet?”

Robert rolled his eyes. “It’s none of your business, Bon-”

“That’s a no.” Bonzo cackled, his gaze for an instant darting lower. “You must be in a bloody bad way then, yeah?”

The singer expelled a tense breath, partly in frustration at the lack of filter on his friend but mostly because he was spot on. The night had been magical … sweet, loving, and far from chaste, but not quite the scenario that he’d hoped for. Robert clenched his jaw as Bonzo droned on.

“Well, never mind that. We’ll be in the States before long. Plenty of birds there.”

The drummer spoke the truth, but somehow the words were far from consoling. Robert needed Natalie, not some random girl from the third row. He’d resigned himself to the fact that it was probably going to take time, and he wasn’t going to pressure her or speed things along. He wanted her to want him so badly she couldn’t wait another minute. He knew it would be worth it in the end, but, fuck, he wished the clock would tick just a tiny bit faster. Still, it had been a joy simply being with her, their playful kisses and quiet whispers as they explored each other. Christ, he’d never seen somebody get so wet. It drove him completely mad. She knew it, too, flashing him the wicked little smile usually reserved for when she got her way, which was most of the time. And how she would secretly study him when she didn’t think he could tell what she was doing. Absolutely adorable. Ahh, and her eyes, so big and dark, one second wide and nervous, the next sly, devious. And sexy. Fucking hell, so sexy. He’d watched them close as she’d fallen asleep in his arms, the moonlight finally melding into morning. She’d woken up in them, too, a tangly-haired, sleepy-eyed mess. His tangly-haired, sleepy-eyed mess. He clenched his jaw again, tamping his body’s response.

“Bloody fuckin’ hell, mate. You’re a fuckin’ lost cause.”

Robert blinked, finding Bonzo through the film of the reverie. “What?”

“Get out of your head. And I’m not talkin’ about the one on your shoulders.” The drummer lit a cigarette, blowing out a thin stream of smoke. “I was saying you’re a lost cause. And that your girl’s even later that you thought she’d be.”

Robert canvassed the clock hanging haphazardly above the catering table. Bonzo was right. She was going to miss the soundcheck. Damn it. For a moment, he considered ringing her, as he’d done earlier. Meh, it’ll probably still be busy. They must have it off the hook. He snagged a Chimay from the small aluminum tub they’d set up as a makeshift cooler. What was she doing? She’d been gone for over three hours. It didn’t take that long to shower and fetch fresh clothes. Odd, very odd. His stomach rumbled as the aroma of newly delivered short ribs wafted through the room, and with a sigh, he pushed the thought away.

Nat sprang out of the taxi, hustling across the street before the light changed. She rounded the corner, bound for the casino, stopping in her tracks at what awaited her. A throng of people encompassed it, packed shoulder to shoulder along the sidewalks. She scanned the smoky crowd, lingering on a trio of girls that were casing those around them apprehensively. They know they aren’t getting in. In truth, most weren’t. There were simply too many of them. Some were seemingly stoned enough not to care, but that wouldn’t be the case with everyone. Summoning her reserve, she dove into the thick of it, worming her way through with resolute determination. Weathering a few scowls and cross words, she finally reached the tall double doors that marked the entrance to the concert hall. She rapped on the glass, waving to Tom, who was in conversation with a security guard she didn’t recognize. She slipped through the crack he made for her, leaning back against the doors as they shut.

“You should have come around the other way.”

Her eyes flickered to his. “Appreciate the advice, Captain Hindsight. I thought this way would be quicker. I had no idea there would be so many people.”

“You missed the soundcheck.”

Nat waved her hand dismissively. “Couldn’t be helped.”

“Robert didn’t look too happy.”

She ignored the ribbing and the goofy smile on his face. “Are you going to get to film? I did my best.”

“Looks like it. But that Grant guy ... he’s, um-”

“Formidable. I know. Just don’t fuck it up, and you’ll be fine.” She smirked, brushing past him as he turned a shade paler.

She located the boys in the private anteroom adjacent to the hall. Robert and Bonzo were in the corner, hovering over one of the catering tables while Peter and Christian reclined on the sofa, discussing McCartney’s new band, Wings. John Paul and Jimmy were in opposite folding chairs, quietly tuning their guitars and sipping Heineken. Such a contrast to the wild sea of fans just meters away.

“You’re late. You missed the sound check.”

Natalie glanced toward the source of the grumpy proclamation, squelching her amusement. Robert was posing, hands on hips, pouting like an overgrown toddler. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me for having a life. I had to go back home at some point.”

The singer grumbled. “There was a song I wanted to do for you.”

“Sneak it into Whole Lotta Love. You put everything else in there.” She blew him a kiss, falling into the sofa next to Peter, who patted the top of her leg with a beefy hand.

“What’s it like out there, love?”

“It’s a madhouse. I mean, everyone’s being cool, but I bet there are four or five thousand people. And this place only holds two.” She caught Jimmy appraising her out of the corner of her eye. “Have you thought of maybe piping the sound outside?”

“Bloody hell, no!” Peter scoffed, crushing his cigarette. “We do that and there’ll be twenty fuckin’ boots on the shelves before it’s even bloody over.”

Natalie dropped her bag on the end table. “So what? Christian’s filming the damn thing.”

“Yeah, but he’s not trying to sell it.”

“Well, I think you’re making a mistake. These people came from miles away, and some of them are going to be pretty pissed off when they realize they can’t get in. You should give them something.”

“Peter, I agree with Natalie. They deserve it for travelling from so far away.”

She pursed her lips to quell her smile. The band leader had spoken, and that sealed the deal. With a grunt, Peter stood, gesturing to Christian, and the two men disappeared into the hall. Nat kicked off her sandals, curling her legs underneath her. “If it’s any consolation, I believe you’re doing the right thing.”

“T’was a good idea.” Jimmy angled his guitar against the sofa. “Peter’s a bit too protective at times.”

“It means quite a lot that you’re allowing Christian to film the concert.”

Jimmy rose, taking the manager’s former seat. “He’s promised us discretion and full authority to destroy it if we deem that necessary.”

“I see.” The cagey nature of the group was no secret. They ran a tight ship and a closed shop, the collaboration with Sandy Denny being one of the rare exceptions. If something didn’t show Zeppelin in the best possible light, it didn’t get shown. Or it disappeared. Nat had heard rumblings about an episode in Bath the previous year. The boys meant business. “Do you ever think you might regret being so heavy-handed about things like bootlegs? Maybe one day you might wish there were more.”

Jimmy met her gaze. “Regret isn’t in my nature. It’s wasteful. And I tend to believe that events transpire as they’re meant to.”

Nat had forgotten what a curious color his eyes were. Not quite green, but not quite hazel. There wasn’t really a name for it. “Like destiny, you mean?” She watched them narrow for a fraction of a second, his response lost to the raucous shouts behind her.

“Bonzo, you fucking git! You’ve ruined it!”

“I told you not to touch my food, mate.”

Nat twisted around to find an extremely furious Robert holding up his black bolero, which was slathered in a reddish-brown sauce. As Bonzo dissolved into a fit of boisterous laughter, she did the same, her hand sailing to her mouth.

“Fuck you, mate.” The singer shoved him mightily, stumbling backwards as his friend returned the favor.

Nat jumped up as they repeated the action, warily circling each other. “Cut it out, you guys.” She yanked the blouse from Robert’s grasp, surveying the damage. “Don’t be such a baby. This will come out with a wash. It’ll be as good as new by tomorrow.”

“Well, what am I going to wear tonight, then?”

“Who gives a fuck, Percy. Just prance around like you always do.”

Robert flew at him, but Bonzo was ready. With surprising agility, he skipped to the side, sending the singer straight into Natalie. She hit the ground with a resounding thud. “Goddamnit! What are you doing?”

“Christ, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

Robert held out his hand, but Nat smacked it, grabbing Bonzo’s instead. “You’re like a bull in a china shop. Too rowdy.” She dusted the dirt from the back of her dress, freezing as she spied a newly formed rip in the sleeve of her cardigan. “Damn it! Look what you did.”

Robert picked up the discarded bolero, draping it on the arm of the sofa as he peered over her shoulder. “Did I do that? It’s not so bad.” He grinned as she glared at him.

“I just bought it.” Sliding off the sweater, Natalie inspected the tear. “And now I’ll have to get it mended.”

Robert tugged the cardigan away, his mouth curving as he admired the white and yellow daisies along the placket and collar. “This is rather nice. Blue, too, my favorite color.” He nibbled his lip. “I don’t suppose you’d consider letting me-”

“I want it back. Fixed.”

“You’re on, lads!” Peter’s voice rumbled through the room. It was time.

#robert plant fanfiction #robert plant fan fiction #robert plant fanfic #led zeppelin fanfiction #led zeppelin fan fiction #led zeppelin fanfic #swiss time

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etraytin · 6 years

Note

"do you have any feelings on the breakdown in season 6 - did Josh realize he'd pushed too far in Germany for propriety's sake? was Donna hurt that he turned cold, or did he just not give her the attention she'd given him after Rosslyn?"

I have a lot of feelings about this time period for Josh and Donna, as I'm sure pretty much anybody who ships them does. I've visited the subject a couple times before, most notably in Closure and Sirens, so if you've read those, you already know a lot of my headcanons for all the things that went unsaid during that time. But let's see what else I can lay on the table here.

Josh was thrown really badly by Colin Ayers showing up at the hospital in Germany. For a few brief hours, he thought he had everything figured out. The threat of losing Donna brought a lot of things abruptly into focus for him, like how completely lost he would be without her, how much she really meant to him. He was ready to call it love, right up until the point that he realized that Donna might possibly not be feeling the same way as he was, a possibility personified by a suave and handsome photographer who seemed to be more than just a friend. Josh is super-duper bad at talking about his feelings with anybody, including himself. He generally deals with them by either stuffing them into the backmost corners of his mind or channeling them into whatever sort of aggression is handy, whether that's dragging half of Congress to death to get his agenda through or going outside and yelling at the sky. Sniping at Colin passed the time but was ultimately unsatisfying, and he wasn't about to have a go at Donna herself, so he went the stuffing-down-his-feelings route. He got way up into his own head, where it's hard to see what's actually going on.

By the time Donna was awake enough to be having coherent conversations, Josh had convinced himself that what he felt for Donna was the same thing anybody might feel for a really good friend who'd been put into danger as a direct result of his actions. (Guilt is one emotion Josh is pretty much never able to stuff down.) Donna is adept at reading Josh, so she saw that guilt right away, hiding whatever might have been suppressed underneath it. The trouble with guilt is that it is a very needy emotion. It needs absolution, it needs forgiveness, and for the really stubborn flavors, it might need those things again and again and again. It didn't matter that Donna never blamed Josh; because Josh blamed himself, he needed absolution that at the same time he was convinced he did not deserve. There were only so many times Donna could tell him it wasn't his fault, only so many times she could watch him look miserable because she was hurt. She got stuck in the position where she needed comfort, but showing that she needed comfort just seemed to make Josh feel worse because he was so absorbed in the idea that it (like pretty much everything in the world) was his fault. She quickly started easing away from his efforts to help her because that was preferable to watching him go to pieces every time she couldn't bite back a moan of pain. They talked, sure, they talked everyday, but it was banter, patter, never anything too real or too deep even after Colin left. Josh didn't stay too long after that anyway, since he needed to head back for the peace talks.

There's a very squishy amount of time that passes before, during and after the peace talks before Donna comes back to work. A complex open femur fracture can take between 12 weeks and 12 months to heal, but the most intense period of physical therapy tends to be within the first four weeks after surgery. There is no possible way that Donna would be in a wheelchair and putting in full days at the office a week after surgery, but then again, there's also no way they put those peace talks together so quickly, so obviously there were several weeks encompassed in the montage that ends with Debbie straightening the place settings at Camp David. During that time, Donna completed initial recovery at Landstuhl, then flew home with her mom to Wisconsin and the really excellent orthopedic surgeons at the University of Wisconsin hospital in Madison. Josh pulled some strings to get her transport back to DC during Third Day Story so she wouldn't have to fly commercial with her leg the way it was, which is why she arrived at Andrews that day in pretty decent shape and not needing a lot of personal nursing care that would mean she couldn't live on her own. (Just go with me here, I know it's complicated but this timeline is all jacked up and I'm doing the best I can!)

In any case, by the time Donna got back to work she was getting better, but she was nowhere near better. Sitting or standing for a long time was very painful, and she'd still be spending a considerable amount of time each week in physical therapy. Add to that the incredible stress the entire White House was under during the transition between Chiefs of Staff, and it was not an environment conducive to mental health or healing. Donna understood that, she'd done enough research on stress and PTSD to recognize it in herself, though. Kate didn't have to lay it out for her for Donna to understand what she was getting at, or to be able to name her own list of symptoms. She didn't make Josh's mistake, she did get therapy when and where she could, but federal insurance isn't that great and there was never any time. As long as the symptoms weren't disrupting her life she could get by. As for the "get angry over everything, cry over nothing," well, nobody was responsible for making her feel better but herself, even though when the situation had been reversed, she'd put her life on hold to fix Josh. She tried not to be resentful about that, and tried to ignore the way that her resisting the offers he did make to help were pretty textbook symptoms as well.

Donna had wanted a change in her job even before everything had happened. She was a great assistant, but she was ready to be more than that. She had the brain to be anything she wanted, but she'd thrown away her college opportunities to stay with Dr. Freeride, and now she found herself seemingly in the same position, albeit a slightly more lofty one. She knew Josh needed her support, but so had her old boyfriend and look how that had turned out. Seeing Charlie graduate and get a "real" job with advancement potential was just salt in the wound. Yes he'd had to work hard, but the President had supported him, made room in his work schedule to make education happen, and was now encouraging Charlie to bigger and better things. There wasn't much opportunity for Donna to take classes in the fifteen hours a week she wasn't working or sleeping, and the one time she'd floated the test balloon of a new job or new position, Josh had shot her down so dismissively that it was pretty obvious he couldn't even conceive of her moving on. It hadn't been so bad back then, almost an extension of their endless banter about her wanting a raise, but in retrospect it rankled. By the time she started scheduling lunches with him she was feeling overworked, underappreciated, unheard, and like somebody who'd once been her best friend and more was a huge contributing factor to a lot of her problems.

Josh, for his part, wasn't totally unaware of Donna's problems, but they were nowhere close to being on the same page. Josh had more than enough troubles of his own to be dealing with during this time, reversals and disappointments both professional and personal, and a lot of weight coming down on his head. He understood, mostly, why Leo hadn't chosen him for COS but it still bothered him some, especially when he wound up picking up a lot of slack for CJ while she was getting up to speed on policy. He'd meant to help Donna with her transition back to work, but he found her hard to deal with when she was being prickly, and she didn't seem to want a lot of help getting around or carrying things. He figured she didn't like people thinking she was weak, a major concern he himself had felt after Rosslyn, and tried to back off to let her feel stronger. That was apparently not the right thing to do either, but damned if he knew what he was supposed to do, besides all the things that were very inappropriate for work and absolutely not right for people who were just good friends.

In the ever-shifting landscape of his priorities, Josh wound up doing what he'd been doing for years, shifting what he couldn't deal with to Donna and trusting that she would backstop him on whatever might fall through the cracks. Unfortunately in this case, one of the things he couldn't deal with was Donna herself, and shifting that burden was a mistake. Like the guy who doesn't check or rotate his tires as long as they're working because they've always been fine before, it wasn't until there was serious danger that he started taking notice at all. And like that guy, he made himself a promise that he'd fix things later and just hoped that if he ignored the problem, things would ride along okay for just a little while longer. A blowout was basically inevitable.

#the west wing #headcanons #josh x donna #fanfiction #josh lyman #donna moss #Anonymous

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thewestmeetingroom · 3 years

Text

Ep 49 Hart House Conversations Reunion

Broadcast Feb. 13, 2021

SPEAKERS

Nour, Kitsa, Rebekah, John, Sabrina

Rebekah: Hi everyone and welcome to this week's episode in The West Meeting Room. It's your host Rebekah. Today you will hear a round table reunion conversation that took place on zoom at the end of January 2021. But it is a follow up dialogue from a conversation that first took place during October of 2017. Four undergraduate students Kitsa, Nour, Sabrina and myself gathered with John Monahan, the warden of Hart House for a recording of Hart House Conversations almost four years ago as first year students, where we discussed our hopes and fears about our upcoming academic careers at the University of Toronto. Now, almost four years later, as we near the end of our academic programs, we all joined together once again in a very different world than when we first met. And now join us as we talk about the changes that we've undergone our revelations and as we open the audio Time Capsule to speak alongside our past selves.

John: Hi, everybody. Good afternoon, and good evening to some of you. How is everyone doing? Feeling? feeling tired? Well, I am. Yeah, I'm in a state of perpetual tiredness myself these days, kind of a fogginess. But I'm really grateful that the four of you are here. We have this really exciting opportunity this afternoon, to pick up a conversation where we left it four years ago, which is a fairly rare opportunity, but a really exciting one. And I'm delighted to be here with Sabrina, and Nour, and Kitsa, and Rebekah, all of whom were first year undergraduate students at the University of Toronto, when we sat down in person at the time to talk in the radio studio at Hart House at the University of Toronto. And now it is January 2021. And, as I said, almost four years have gone by, and the world is in the grips of a global pandemic. So, we are meeting virtually, we’re all relying upon the technology of zoom, and our headphones and our computer screens to have a conversation. But here we are, nonetheless. So, I just want to plunge in and ask all of you for the benefit of the viewers that didn't necessarily meet you four years ago. Would you be willing to introduce yourselves to whoever's listening? So, Rebekah, since your head is currently the largest on my screen?

Rebekah: Sounds great.

John: Will you introduce yourself?

Rebekah: For sure sounds good. Um, so my name is Rebekah, I'm a fourth-year student at U of T. This is my last year at U of T, it's hard to believe. That time has zipped by incredibly fast and also not at all in some cases. And yeah, I'm a double major student in History and Russian Language and Literature. And I have a minor in Practical French. And I also work as part of the Hart House Stories team as Podcast Producer on campus, helping to put together this little project. So that's me in a nutshell.

John: Thank you for your nutshell, Rebekah. And because you and Sabrina are both podcast experts, you're not allowed to judge me even though I'm technically working for you this afternoon.

Rebekah: No problem.

John: Kitsa. Kitsa, so you're next on my screen? Would you introduce yourself please?

Kitsa: Sure. My name is Guershom Kitsa. I'm a fourth-year architecture student - for moment I forgot what year - was like I'm in my fourth year? Ah, yeah, I think that's it. I don't know if I should say anything else. My name and my program.

John: Well, we'll, we might drag more stuff out of you later. But that's a good beginning. And I'm sure there's, there are many more layers to Guershom Kitsa that we will be peeling back over the span of the next little while together. Nour, please introduce yourself to us.

Nour: Hi, my name is Nour Bazzi. I am an Immunology and Physiology student double major and I'm in my fourth year. And I'm so excited to be here today.

John: Excited that you're here with us. And last but not least, Sabrina. And I, I'm looking at this picture of somebody who looks like they're on the top of a building and a red parachute outfit. Is that you?

Sabrina: Yeah, that is me and I think this is interesting because I was listening to the original tape and we also had kind of an aside conversation in the introduction then as well but that is me on top of the CN Tower when my brother bought Edge Walk tickets for him, myself and my mom two summers ago. So that's me hanging over the Toronto skyline.

John: Wow. So, we know that Sabrina is someone who loves to court danger. Introduce our listeners to the rest of you.

Sabrina: Yeah, So Hello. My name is Sabrina Brathwaite. I am in my fourth year and two credits away from completing my degree, a major in Philosophy and a double minor in French and Political Science. That is French and Political Science, not Political Science in French. That's a question I get a lot. And for anyone who listened to the original audio or the original episode, you would notice that my degree selections changed. So, I feel like that's going to be an interesting conversation coming up about changing hats and trying new things.

John: Absolutely. Now, I wonder if this would be a good time for the five of us to spend a few minutes listening to a mashup from our recording four years ago. So that we can all kind of be reminded together of what we said and what the vibe was. And we're not going to hold you to anything, if you want to completely change your story. You can. That's the beauty of this. This is a free form technology. But I'm going to ask our producer Braeden to play the mash up. And we'll all listen to it. And then we'll talk about it after that.

[The following is a selection of clips from the 2017 conversation with the speakers]

Kitsa: Because I came here earlier than, before the school opened about a week or two, two weeks before the school opened, okay. And it was extremely lonely, I had no one to talk to. I didn't know anyone, I didn't know anything. I couldn't go anywhere else. I was just in residence in Whitney Hall, all on my own, but then after a while, able to speak to different people, sort of like you kind of get what people are about and what they care about. And that's really amazing. Being able to connect with that. It's amazing. And I was having this, a whenever you're able to reach out to these people, not only do opportunities open up for you academically, but also so many possibilities are opening up to you. I was having this conversation with my success advisor. And she just, I had this thing that I really wanted to do. I was saying I wanted to change the world. And I was like, how am I going to change the world? And she actually put me on a path where I could see myself impacting other individuals and sort of like, sharing, I felt that at Toronto, and U of T specifically, it's the best university in Canada, one of the best in the world, there's so much diversity that is brought into place that we need to share this. And so, like having conversations with these people in power, it can, it kind of opens us up to how we can be able to reach out to more people and to new possibilities, more than just looking at a lecture slide or writing notes in class.

Nour: I think I speak for a lot of international students or students coming from abroad when I say the transition from childhood to adulthood, even when you're not, especially when you're not around your family, like you're so, when you're back home, you're so used to like, “yeah, I can mess up, it's fine.” You know, you have people that can pick you up. But now it's like, every action has a consequence. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, it's part of the transition, right? It's part of, of growing up. It's part of, it's exciting. But it's also something very intimidating. So, it's a little bit of both for me. No, I mean, like this is huge. This is like, the weather is different. The everything is different for me. And it's very, very exciting because I've never been so exposed to so much diversity, and it's very exciting. So, the learning here is not just limited to like textbooks or like, you know, facts, figures, you know, whatever you learn in class. It's like, just socializing and speaking to people kind of like this. You see people from like, all around the world, and it's so fascinating for me. Yeah.

John: And what are you studying?

Nour: Right now, I'm a Life Science student. I'm hoping to specialize in Human Biology next year. My end goal is medicine and hopefully surgery.

Rebekah: Being on a campus in another country, like outside the US was something that was really exciting for me because I wanted to be able to interact with people from all around the world. And of course, the universities in the states also have like international students. But I feel like in terms of, I heard a statistic before I came here that like more than half of the population who lives in Toronto was born like outside of Toronto, or even outside of Canada. So that seems super exciting to just get to like, get all these people's different experiences and just hear their stories. And I attended an international student orientation week before school started and just sitting around and talking with people and just hearing like, their life story and like where they grew up and stuff was something that I like never really thought that I could ever experience and it was definitely eye opening to me. I came to U of T in hopes of studying International Relations. But over the course of going to classes and you know, just figuring out the work, I found that like, my favorite class right now is Russian. I studied Russian in high school. So, I joked with my parents that I might end up becoming a Russian Language Literature major only because that's something that I really enjoy right now.

John: I mean, would it please them or tick them off?

Rebekah: No, I think they'd be, I think that's something they expect, actually. Because like, I love languages, so they they'd be pretty down for it. But I know they'd be more excited if I was an International Relations major.

John: Well, life is long.

Rebekah: Exactly.

Sabrina: So, coming to U of T, my intended major, hopefully, is Ethics, Society & Law, which is headed by Trinity College, with a double minor in Spanish and French. Something that I'm excited to kind of hone, I suppose is like networking and networking skills, which sounds really superficial on the face of it.

John: Oh, I don't think so. I don't think so at all.

Sabrina: Some people say like, you know, it's, you're just going to meet people, whatever. But if it's actually, I wouldn't call it an art. But it's a skill to be able to talk to people and be able to connect with someone in a way that like, you can get their number, get their Facebook and contact them even after months or years of not talking,

Kitsa: I need to learn that. I need to see you for that,

Sabrina: Especially in kind of this -

John: You've just networked. This is it you're just doing it.

Sabrina: in this job market and just kind of like financial climate, and I don’t want to throw too many buzzwords out. But a lot of the times with jobs and just opportunities, it's not so much the skills you have. There's 50 other people with the skills you have, but it's the people you know, and it's what the people you know know of you and what you in particular can bring into that position. The things that they know about you that the interviewer can't get out of a half hour, you know. So I'm just looking, really looking forward to just be better at talking to people and taking in what they're saying to me and remembering names, remembering details, and making actual viable connections.

[The end of the clips from 2017. Now back to the present conversation]

John: Thank you so much, Braeden. So, let me ask for first reactions. My question would be, do you recognize yourself?

Sabrina: Yeah, I do recognize myself. Even though there is there's like changes or the way that things have manifested themselves are different than now, I kind of stated them there. I think the energy behind those words is consistent in who I am now too.

John: Consistent energy. I like it. Kitsa - do you recognize yourself from four years ago?

Kitsa: I mean, it's always weird listening to a recording of yourself. You're like, “Who's that guy? Do I sound like that?” I hate listening to myself. But yeah, it's interesting how, Yeah, it's interesting how the dots kind of connected themselves over the last few years, because I think when I was saying those things, I really believed what I was saying. But sometimes through university, I kind of felt like I was not going in that direction at all. And now looking back, I'm like, Oh, hmm...

Rebekah: Yeah, I think for me, it was kind of interesting because I've listened to this tape before, before we started recording. And I could hear how young I sounded. Or at least in my brain, I feel like I sounded younger. I also could pick up a little bit of maybe shift in my accent, I don't know. Like, that's something that I also could hear listening like very finely. But I think there's just so much excitement behind my voice. And I'm, not to say that I'm not still excited, I just think that the excitement has kind of transformed into something else. Because I had no idea of like what the next three or four years is going to look like for me. And I could have never predicted that we were going to be in a global pandemic. And so just hearing the hopefulness that my voice is trying to make me think that maybe there should be some more hopefulness in my voice right now. Not knowing where I'm going to end up after this year, but just trying to be comfortable with that because she sounds excited and I want to channel that.

John: She does sound excited. Nour - how does, how does the Nour on the tape sound to the Nour who's part of this conversation today? Do you recognize her?

Nour: I feel like I sound so excited and maybe even naive in my excitement. Like, I was like, you know, trying to, I was trying to, like postpone listening to this to like the very last minute before the meeting because I didn't want to cringe. But I think it's like so much, I think um, so much has changed for sure. And I agree with Rebekah that I want to kind of channel that excitement and that energy and hopefulness because you know, I think we all need a little bit more hope during our times. And it's, it's good to think about I guess.

John: Absolutely. Just as I was listening again to the recording, a couple of things jumped out at me. Some commonalities between Kitsa and Nour, and then between Rebekah and Sabrina. And I could listen to it another time and pick up completely different things. But this time around, I really was struck that both Kitsa and Nour, you talked about the palpable excitement of being around such diversity, so many different people have different identities that you were encountering at the university, living in Toronto. And both of you have - Nour, I think you were born in Canada but spent most of your time growing up outside Canada, and Kitsa having been born in Africa and being raised outside Canada. This being a new experience for you four years ago, you both were excited about the variety and diversity of people. Has that excitement, or how has that excitement evolved, at all, if it has over the last four years?

Nour: I think I'm still very excited. But also, like, as I was settling into Toronto, I feel like I had this tendency to talk to or spend more time with people who reminded me of home, who can speak my mother tongue and who I can talk to about, you know, um, culture and, you know, just connecting on that I feel has brought me closer to feeling like I'm safe. And especially during times when I'm feeling overwhelmed with all the differences and, you know, all the differences between home and between Toronto, which slowly started to feel like home to me. But you know, just at the beginning, just sometimes you need to feel that things are not changing too fast. And I think if you connect with people who remind you of home, it can be a great way to slowly transition into a new environment.

John: Right. And diversity doesn't necessarily mean unfamiliar, right? So, it's, you can, you can still, I guess, appreciate the diversity and the variety of people and identities and stories in a particular place, but still kind of gravitate, to sometimes gravitate towards what feels comfortable, or what feels more familiar for, for that sense of home. Which I think everybody, or most people are looking for at some level. Kitsa, what about you, you talked about your appreciation of the diversity of Toronto, but before you talked about that you talked about the loneliness that you were encountering when you had, you know, in the first little while after you had just arrived in Canada. And you know, Canada is this frozen northern country and we're not known for being, you know, super emotional, or effusive people. And I'm just wondering if, well are you willing to share? What is your, how have your perceptions of the people in Canada? How have they evolved over time?

Kitsa: Yeah, I think one thing that I have learned to do, I would see - I'm an architecture student. So, I think I tend to get very picky about the most random things, like oh a new condo came out. It looks terrible. I don't like it. And so, I think, the only thing that really draws me to this city is its people to be honest. Like, thinking back to where I came from, I think one of the most - anyone talking about diversity, it's one thing to refer to diversity in terms of the people. I think the landscape, at least in the GTA is not very diverse. It's just flat and there's like pretty much nothing happening which was rough to adjust to. I remember driving to London, Ontario and for a solid three hours you are driving on a straight line. The sun was up, it was like 10pm at night. I'm like what's going on? And so, I think over the last three years, I have been sort of caught. I've been caught in between this tension of really feeling discontent with being in Toronto, but also really admiring the fact that in Canada, and I think this is not a common thing. You can really be 100% Canadian and one 100% true to your culture and where you come from. And I think that's what gets me really excited about Toronto. That's what really draws me back to this city, is that you get to meet many different people who are just as Canadian as whatever background they're from. And one of my favorite places, I think, is Chinatown. I just love getting through Chinatown and a lot of good food. But yeah, so yeah, in response to being lonely, I think everyone goes through it. It's just different people learn how to deal with it differently. And I do recall in first year, meeting a lot of different people. And that was a lot of excitement. Like Rebekah said, I think it kind of goes away. And so, in second year, I had to, in a sense learn to, have to relearn what relationships mean in the context of Canada, I think. And so, when I came here, I was coming with expectations from back at home. And I wanted, being I wanted my relationships with people here to look like what they did back at home. And so, the different value systems. I think a very simple one is that when you ask someone out back at home, you're like, “hey, let's catch up.” It's given that you're taking care of them. So, you pay for the food, it's all on you. But I think the first time I went to a restaurant with someone near the end and we were getting the bill. The person was like, “yeah, we're splitting the bill.” I'm like, then why did you ask me if you wanted to me pay for my own food? It was so weird. But I think once I learned what the culture was, and once I allowed the culture here to change some aspects of me, then I was able to appreciate it more. And I was able to appreciate a lot of these people who really did care for me, but because my, let's call it a love language. My cultural love language is very different than the cultural love language people use here. Yeah, it was just a bit of a learning process.

John: That's, that's really rich. And by the way, it's been so long since I was in a restaurant, I just want to say that I would pay for all of you just for the chance to be in a restaurant, happily.

Kitsa: I'll keep that in mind.

John: Yeah, no, listen. This is recorded, so you can hold me to it. And Rebekah and Sabrina as I was listening to the two of you, and maybe I was listening for it to be quite honest, because I know a little bit more about some of your interests as they've evolved over the last four years. But you both talked about the importance of stories. In that little clip that Braeden shared with us, Rebekah, you talked about how exciting it was to be around so many different people and their stories. And Sabrina, you talked about wanting to develop the skill of networking in order to be able to talk to other people and to exchange stories with them. And I guess I'm wondering from the two of you, if your appreciation for stories, you know, how has that evolved over the last four years?

Rebekah: I think that's a really interesting question. Because I've always loved talking to people. And I used to joke that if there was a job where I could get paid to travel and talk to people, that's like my ideal job. Because that's all I want to do for the rest of my life. But I've gotten to meet a lot of people from a lot of random experiences, like pre- COVID days, when you can actually meet up in person and like stroll into a random event. Like that was my favorite thing was to just, you know, meet other people and just hear more about like their lives and like what makes them themselves. But I think another thing that I've kind of learned more about storytelling is like learning more about the history of like how stories kind of evolve. Because when I came to Canada, I was really ignorant to most of Canada's history, didn't know anything about it. And I could feel things like through osmosis. Like as I was navigating, you know, life in Toronto, like, Oh, that feels different, or that feels weird. Like picking up on these different nuances, but not really having like the knowledge or the receipts for lack of a better term of like why those interactions and why those encounters kind of situate themselves in that way. And I think through like coursework and through talking to other people and learning more about how they are situated in this place, I've kind of learned more about how history informs storytelling and how people go about expressing themselves with other people. So that's been really eye opening to see kind of coursework and like real life work overlap in that way.

John: Sabrina, what about you? What's your, how has your relationship to stories evolved over the last few years?

Sabrina: Yeah, I think my reverence for stories has only grown over time as exemplified by the fact that I keep reapplying and working as the Hart House Student Podcaster. And also, have just completely changed my career path towards like collecting, gathering and distributing stories. I think I've kind of come to a realization that like pretty much everything is a story. The way that we live our lives are informed by stories that we tell ourselves or that we've been told by others. And that's where a lot of sense of community and identity and self-exploration can come from. And also, I've seen what happens when you completely, when you create structures that are completely devoid of stories as well. And it kind of just turns into like goal-oriented, trying to hit the next milestone, but like not really knowing why. And I think there's like, there's not a lot of life in that. So yes, my respect and relationship with stories has grown a lot, I think, in the past four years.

John: So, Sabrina, you said something intriguing. So, let's stay with you for a minute. You, you mentioned that your career path, your career plans anyway, are changing. So, I'm going to ask each of you recap for us four years ago, what you thought you were going to be when you grow up, or what your plans were four years ago? And then tell us what your plans are now, and maybe account for that shift. So, Sabrina, you first. Four years ago, what did you think you were gonna do? What did you think all of your studies were going to lead to eventually?

Sabrina: I was dreading this question, because I feel like I'm gonna sound like a cliche. But four years ago, if you asked me where I was going, I would have looked you in the eyes, I would have told you that I'm going to become a criminal lawyer. And I'm going to work in the International Criminal Court in New York. And after U of T, I'm going to go to Harvard Law. And you'll live this like life helping people and like, I don't know, like taking names and like breaking down barriers.

John: Marry George Clooney, is that – or does - someone has that life already, I think.

Sabrina: [laughs] I think that that is someone else's life. Yeah, I just looked up Amal Clooney's whole biography and was like, wow, this could be me. And that is not what I would tell you today.

John: So, it's - so don't leave us hanging today. You would...

Sabrina: Yeah, I didn't remember. I didn't remember if that was the second part of the question. But today, in contrast, I’d probably tell you that I am very tired. And don't want to be in another academic institution for like, at least half a decade. So, I'm going to work in media and create audio and like, reconnect with plants and go on hikes, and hopefully get paid to do that, too. And just do like a bunch of things that make me happy on like a soul level. And like, take a nap too. That's kind of what I'm where I'm going now is to like restore my energy and take care of my body.

John: It is not the purpose of this conversation for me to give you advice, but if it were, [laughs] I would say taking a five-year break to reconnect to the soil and plants and yourself and build your soul could eventually make you a much, much better lawyer. And I say that as someone who took a number of years off between undergrad and law school. So, as I said, four years ago, and I've learned nothing in between, I keep saying it - Life is long. Nour, how about you now? Four years ago, you just told us on that clip that you were thinking about medical school, and you were studying Life Sciences? And tell us how that's evolved? You're now doing a double major in Immunology. And did you say Physiology? I forget.

Nour: Yeah, it was physiology.

John: Physiology. So where do your, how have your plans evolved over the last four years? And how do you account for that evolution?

Nour: Um, I was just listening. So, when I was listening to the audio recording of four years ago, I didn't actually remember that I had an interest in going for human biology. So, a lot has changed. I think when I started my undergrad studies, I thought of it all as a stepping stone to my journey into medical school. But it's not that anymore. And I think I came in with this blueprint. And as the years went by, this blueprint kind of changed. And now I want different things. And I was surprised to learn that I just love the science of it all. Like not just as a means to an end, but just in and of itself. And so, I'm hoping to start my master's in Applied Immunology this fall. And I'm really excited. And just to research. I think that's what really makes me so excited. And I really like talking about it. And I just feel very strongly that this is my calling right now.

John: Understanding that I've never taken a science class since grade 12, would, if I asked you to tell us what your area of or your research interests are, would I understand your answer?

Nour: I could try.

John: I am, I am very thick headed. So yes, you'll have to try, try really hard.

Nour: I came in wanting to be an OB GYN. I came into academia wanting to be an OB GYN and I had a very, like, I had an interest in, in children in the first few moments of life and in just the reproductive system of women. And, um, and I still do. And I just think I wanted to, like, do some research about the immunology of that. Like the immune system in relation to the uterus, the placenta. How, just how the microbiome affects fertility. And that's an area that's not very well researched. So, I think there's a lot of work to do there. And I want to be part of that. So, it's exciting.

John: It's, well, it sounds exciting and pertinent. And, like, you know, you - it sounds like a variation, but kind of a close cousin of what you were talking about four years ago. But a really important almost like a honing in on more of a focused way of doing what it is you wanted to do four years ago. Kitsa - What about you? And I remember four years ago, if I'm not mistaken, you were taking architecture related courses and hoping to get into the Daniels Faculty. And now you're a fourth-year architecture student? Am I right?

Kitsa: Yes, you are.

John: So, this would suggest that you are having some success in pursuit of your, your intention. Is that correct?

Kitsa: Debatable success [laughs]

John: Well, you tell us, you tell us. I don't want to put words in your mouth. But how have your, how have your aspirations evolved?

Kitsa: Yeah, um, I applied into the Daniels Faculty at end of first year. Got in. It was exciting. And since then, I've been in this weird situation of being in two years, and sometimes three years at the same time. So, I remember, I think, two years ago, I was like, I think it was last year, in my third year, I was taking classes with third years, fourth years, first years. And second year was basically taking the whole curriculum at the same time, and that was painfuI. But when I was coming to U of T, I felt strongly that I needed to take architecture. That was what I was aiming for. I'm glad that I got in. And I didn't quite know what I was going to do with it. But I think over the years, I've been drawn to storytelling, which a lot of people have been talking about in in this podcast. I think this year, especially. No, I just think of really random opportunities to tell stories and to listen to great stories over my four years at U of T that I would like to do some more of that and yeah, just tell stories. Not very specific. So, I'm hoping John, you can help me tune my answer so that people get something out of this.

John: Well, do you see architecture as a means of telling stories?

Kitsa: I think yeah. I think architecture is, and maybe to geek out about architecture for a bit, I'm more interested in architecture as a cultural object, as an object of shared meaning and what stories we tell through the spaces that we live in. And so that means that I'm drawn to certain types of architecture more than others. And I'm impressed about the more informal, the more organic. I think one of the things that really inspires me is that a couple of years ago, in a lot of different cultures, people designed and built the spaces that they lived in. And I'm always drawn that. Maybe I could end up doing some of that. So, I hope to apply for grad school in 2022. Because I need to finish my degree, and hopefully get in. But I think something that's become even more important for me right now is to, in a sense, create a platform for telling stories. And so just this week, I did a video. Like I did my first film, which was like a five-minute documentary on my background and, and on culture and on race and on why that is important. And it was being showcased during the Relevant Talks that were happening this week, the week of January 18th. And that was great. That was, that pushed me really hard. I stayed up a lot of late nights trying to get that going. And, yeah, that's what I’m trying to do now.

John: I'd love to see that if you're willing to share it after this conversation, I'd love to see. No, definitely, that would be amazing. And architecture, you know, like law, like medicine, it's a long-term commitment, right? Because now in order to practice, as an architect, at least in this part of Canada, I know, you have to have a graduate degree, right? It's no longer, I think years ago, it used to be a five-year undergraduate. And now you've got to have an undergrad and graduate degree. So, it's, you have to really commit to it and presumably love it, at least at some point, in order to make that commitment, right.

Kitsa: I love, I love architecture. I think I love this. I love space. I love how space defines and creates opportunities for people to connect with each other. I'm looking forward to that commitment. I think architecture really opened me up to seeing how objects can sort of be cultural markers and how I want to be part of that story. Or like, Yeah, can, creating that legacy through the objects in the spaces that we use. And I think - so architecture for me, I mean Nour has an amazing experience going into life sciences, and then really zooming in on this one specific area. I think, for me, architecture kind of opened me up to like, a million possibilities. And it's like, so what am I gonna do next? I think the options are limitless. Yeah.

John: Wow. That's exciting. And what about you, Rebekah, tell me about your options. Are they also limitless?

Rebekah: I'd like to believe so. We'll see how that actually pans out. But I guess if you'd asked me four years ago, um, it probably would have been in like the framework of working as like a linguist or translator. Or my parents really wanted me to come back and work for like a government agency and do like, you know, those kinds of analysis type of things. I'm realizing that's not something that I'm kind of reaching for as much. And I'm actually in the process of applying for a Masters in the journalism program. Because I really enjoyed the storytelling that I've gotten to do this year, and like the connections that I've made over the past couple of years in storytelling. So that's kind of where I'm at. But really recently, I think, maybe last week or so, I went to a Black Careers Conference online, that was hosted by the Rotman Commerce Student Association, and listening to some of the people, you know, talking about their trajectory, their, their careers, their platforms, and things like that. I encountered a consulting group, and I didn't know what consulting was. So, I was like, oh, I'll entertain this and see what they're talking about. But the more they were talking about their jobs, and like, how they get to problem solve and like travel and still meet a bunch of different people, I was like, am I now considering a career in consulting? Like, possibly, but not fully firm on that. But I also don't see myself having a career for like 40 years. I see myself like, pursuing these different like passion projects and getting a lot out of them, like for myself, and while also trying to like help other people. And then just kind of redirecting myself based upon like, where my whims go. So, I'm not sold on like being a journalist for 40 years, necessarily. I've just like Oh, maybe we'll try that out, see if it feels good. If it doesn't, then we'll try something else and see where that goes. Because I study history, and my parents really asked me, they're like, so what are you going to do with history? And I told them, I can do anything I want. Because I will be able to write research, critically think about all those things. And I think those are skills that I could apply to any kind of job. But kind of like what Sabrina was saying, like the idea of rest sounds really good. And I really would love to take part in that this year. But in this economy with this pandemic, um, grad school seems like the move because I'm not sure if I'll be able to find a job right after I graduate.

John: Yeah, and I cannot - listen, my heart goes out to everybody who's trying to figure this stuff out. Right now, in particular, there's lots of very accomplished people that have made a career out of consulting or at least have used consulting as an important stepping stone to the rest of their career. Um, I'm curious about, and Rebekah because I know that you are originally from the United States. That is your, your country of birth. I'm, and because as we record this, it happens to be the week in which the Biden Harris administration was, was sworn in. Thank God. And I'm just curious to know what, you know, at this point in your lives - I mean, U of T, university or not, I'm just curious to know, what are your perspectives on the world and how the world has been over the last four years? And how has that affected you? Just, you know, the events of the last four years. Could be the pandemic, could be, you know, political actors. Any number of issues, the climate crisis, which has really been attenuated. The heightening awareness of anti-black and anti-indigenous racism and violence. There are so many things that have really marked the world for all of us over the last four years. I'm just wondering, and Rebekah, maybe I'll start with you. How has the world affected the person that you are now compared to four years ago?

Rebekah: I think that's a really cool question. Because obviously, like 2020 was a whirlwind of a year and so many different things happened. And that's not to say that, like, other things didn't happen the years prior to that. But I think especially what I realized this year, looking back, but like the world, I mean, it's as cliche as it sounds. Like the world is a lot smaller than people tend to make it out to be. And there's a lot of issues that kind of translate across different boundaries and imaginary boundaries, and things like that. And something that comes to mind is like anti blackness. Like anti blackness is a thing that exists literally everywhere, across this entire planet. And so, seeing that kind of come to a head, especially over the summer, was really surprising to see that like, okay, maybe these are conversations that people are going to be more open to having. Maybe people are going to kind of not necessarily, will hopefully check their behavior, but also like, kind of check those assumptions and things that we've kind of just come to rely on as being fact without necessarily questioning where that comes from. Yeah, I've also like, you know, being an American in Canada, like I don't want to take up too much space, and not like kind of, you know conversation. But it's really interesting to see how Canadians sometimes position their own Canadian identity as like an opposition to like what Americans are like. Of course, America had its, all of its own issues happening over this last couple of years with the pandemic included. And I often hear like, oh, at least we're not like the Americans, or at least things are not happening here the way that it is there. And I'm like, a lot of these issues are also very deeply rooted in Canada's history. And they're also very intertwined. And so, I'm listening too, that has been sometimes like, kind of interesting, because even from an American context, like we don't learn too much about Canada, as like part of our history courses. So, there's an extreme lack of - ignorance, I feel like of where we come from on both sides of this coin. And they are a lot more connected than maybe people care to realize. And so, yeah, I just think that over the last couple of years, that's how my framework, I feel like I've just opened my eyes to how a lot of these problems are interconnected. Like, and a lot of them are deeply rooted in colonialism and like imperialist practices. And as a person who studied history, like that's something that I'm always thinking about. And that comes up in my own conversation. So, I think that's really impacted how I think about things.

John: And don't you think that Canadians can use that, that distinction between themselves and Americans as a bit of an escape hatch? Right, like, Oh, we don't have to face up to our own history, or our present practices of oppression, because of this ongoing comparison to the United States. It really is. You know, I think a lot of people fail to hold themselves to account because they have someone else they can point to. I'm curious, Nour, what about you? Someone who has, you know, lived on two sides of the world. And as you speak to us now, you're currently in the Middle East or in Dubai. But with so much that has happened in the world over the last four years, how has that affected you as you've lived your life as a student?

Nour: I think coming to Toronto, from the Middle East, I was mostly surprised by how people as individuals can be very - I mean, they can talk about whatever they want, right? They're allowed not to like the Prime Minister. They're allowed not to like certain things. They're allowed to advocate for social justice. They're allowed to say anything they want to say. And I know it sounds super like obvious to I think a lot of people listening but that this is the case because this Um, I think, like it's it just the way it is there. But in the Middle East. That's not the case. You know that transition, I found was very surprising, and in a good way, right? Because, um, I mean, there is, like, it's just very different I think and just being there, and being part of that and hearing all these different political views, and, you know, just made me feel like I'm being exposed to a whole different world of thoughts and rules, I think, about how to what you can and what you can't talk about…

John: Did the last four years seem particularly kind of tumultuous to you? Like, did you, have you had a sense of worry or, or kind of like existential angst, or? I'm just, I'm just curious to know, with so many dramatic political movements and economic movements and climactic issues, if you have felt those things affecting your ability to live your life, or do they seem kind of removed from you?

Nour: Um they did affect me. Because it's just a dramatic change, like in terms of everything. It's not just geographical, but also in terms of, you know, culture. Just, the weather. It was the first time for me to see snow in Toronto, just so many different things. And that huge transition is stressful. And I think a lot of us have experienced a lot of stress over the past four years, with everything going on. And yeah, I mean, it was it was something very different for me.

John: Sabrina, what about you? What about being a citizen of this particular globe over the last four years? Do you shut that off when you're focused on your schoolwork? Or does it all kind of blend together, and it's hard to escape the craziness that's going on?

Sabrina: Um, it does blend together. I feel like it would be disingenuous to say that I could shut it off. But I can - it's kind of like a yes and no, because I have a lot of privilege and access to resources. And that like, me for example, we've been in zoom University for almost a year now, or a couple months shy and like, I've had a fairly easy transition because of who I am as a person, but also because of like my financial status, and like my housing and all these things that other people don't have access to. So, I feel like even if I, myself were to say, I can shut it off. I don't know, I wouldn't want to also negate the fact that there are people who need more support and resources that they just aren't getting. And then it's, it's not, it's not an easy thing to kind of separate schoolwork from everything that's happening in the world. And I feel like a lot of workplaces and lectures and like even the university itself, is implying that, like, resilience is having the same output now as we had pre-pandemic. And I think that's, I don't know that is, is not taking into account that like, we're all like, this whole society is just made up of human beings, right. And we all are, like, super stressed and working through this kind of unknown time. So that's my answer, which is kind of all over the place. Because like, it's been all over the place, the experience has been all over the place.

John: Does that help at all? Knowing that, as you said, we're all going through this at the same time, given that we're also all very isolated, right? So, we can all, we can often normally say, Well, at least we're all going through it together. But it's hard to develop that sense of maybe going through it together, when we're all isolated in our own little rooms with our own little computers.

Sabrina: No, I agree. And it's like, it's kind of the post that I've been seeing mostly in response to celebrities being like, Oh, COVID is the great equalizer, and then Kylie Jenner is going to France. I mean, I'm like, I can't even walk to the grocery store. So, it's like, we're all in the same ocean. It's like the Titanic, right? Like some of us got on the lifeboats. And we're like, on the way to shore. Some of us are like, on that one door that Jack couldn't get some reason. And some of us are like, in the water, you know what I mean? So, it's like, we're not the same depending on where you are and where I am. And I think as like I relate to the rest of the world. I think it's part of why you were like, well, where are you going to go from here? And it's like, I'm going to rest and return to the land. I feel like there are ways in which I've been playing into a system that like, especially during the pandemic I'm seeing is not, it's not helping those who need those resources the most. Even in Canada, as much as we want to claim like, we're socialist and we do have like social safety nets, but it's still not. It's still failing a significant amount of people that I feel like would be easier to reach out to and help. And seeing the ways that like actual grassroots, like community movements have shown up for those people. And also the ways too that I've realized that like, the reason why I can pursue like, university and like, look at all these theoretical things and like, go on my computer and edit podcasts and stuff is like, even my own survival has been kind of offloaded onto other people, even with the like the fires in California and people not caring about like migrant farmers also, Canada, talking about like, Rebekah and how Canadians kind of ignore our own stuff, right. So, everyone's talking about the migrant farmers in California. Meanwhile, we have Trinidadians here and migrant workers that Canada was trying to kick out of the country with no support in the middle of a pandemic, right, so. And then we had like the Mikmaq Indigenous fishers on the eastern shore. And how all this stuff and me just realizing like, I don't have a connection to the food that I need to eat to like survive, right. Like a lot of my shelters, though, has to do with like other people and other institutions. So, like, due to, through work, I made friends with a Black queer farmer who's super cool. And like part of me returning to Earth is like literally starting to farm and like get back to like stuff that I need to survive that like I've been offloading onto other people, and also largely until like vulnerable populations as well. So that's been me just learning through the pandemic. Like you want to talk about essential workers are, you know, doctors who do get paid relatively well. But then also, nurses, like nurses in long term care homes aren't necessarily getting the support that they need. Personal support worker, also grocery store workers.

John: Grocery store workers, caretakers, the people responsible for all the cleaning protocols, right? I mean, yeah.

Sabrina: So I’m just sitting here up in my house, um, you know, not really worried about my finances. And I see all kinds of posts on Facebook of people who are like, I'm working mad hours at Loblaws, right? Or wherever. Maybe I shouldn't be paying rent, I'm working mad hours at insert store here. And like, you know, my managers just told me that like someone just tested positive for COVID. And then you send me an email, like, I came into work, and then they brought us into this room. And then they told us, and now I need to decide what to do. And I just feel like, yeah, a lot of things are happening in ways that they shouldn't be. And the people who should be, like respected not just in a performative way, but actually in like, a concrete way, are not being respected. Yeah, and I'm trying to figure out where I fit in that and how I can like change things. That was a long answer. I have a lot of thoughts.

John: Listen, it is a complex question and Kitsa, now I'm going to ask it of you. How has the world affected you? And your life as a student over the last four years? How have you managed to separate the world from your own life? Or have they blended together for you?

Kitsa: Yeah, I mean, I feel like I’d write a sort of like a hybrid or like a collage of everyone's experience before me right now, all of a sudden blended into one. I mean, the difference, moving from Nairobi to Toronto, to discovering that the world is so much bigger than I expected it to be, contrary to what Rebekah said. And then having to sort of like, pretend to bear the weight of all of that. And, and then dealing with, with my Blackness, which means a lot of different things to me coming from Africa to someone who's grown up in North America, and also means different things to someone in Canada versus the US versus the UK versus I mean - I think - I took sociology that was a class I was taking when we recorded the first section, and I'm really grateful for that class, grateful for that. If you ever listen to this podcast, I'm shouting you out again, because I remember I did it the last time. But intersectionality really, and I think something that I've been distressed about has been the way that we are socialized, or the way that we are taught to learn and believe the things that we learn and believe. I think, so this brief period of time, during the pandemic, after I finished watching the Social Dilemma on Netflix, where I had like this mini existential crisis and I was like, what if everything I believe and know is not me? What if I've been fed all of these things and that's just what I believe in? That's what I know? Sort of wrestling with that. I think I have been more overwhelmed than I would like to be, But I think at the same time, I have learned to be more grateful, to share gratitude. I have been overwhelmed because I think you hear about stories, you hear about people's experiences, and you feel so powerless, because you don't know how you can sort of begin to help and offer assistance or you can like, and I think when you hear one or two heartbreaking stories, you're like, Okay, I hope it goes well. But when you hear more than just two, and when this story starts to sort of pile on and you're like, wow, there's a lot of people going through a lot of different things. Though, I think the one thing that I would just focus on was the Black Lives Matter movement, that people were coming around during the pandemic. And I think I learned quite a bit from that because, for me, my relationship with race prior to coming to this country was non-existent. And my focus has always been on culture. And so, I think when things were happening, and when people were seeing things, I didn't know how to respond to that at first, because I did not have a type of a conversating, not knowing how to relate to that. And I think I went through this process of listening and learning and allowing myself to feel the extent of it, even though like, it's still somewhat a bit disconnected. And I think on to your comment, John, on Canada sort of offloading things because we are not as bad as the US. And I think that's what a lot of people like to see is that, hey, I'm, compared to this other guy, I'm decent. And I was seeing a lot of posts on Facebook, and they're like, I'm not that racist and, and a bunch of other stuff. But I think when we choose to really take upon other people's pain and let ourselves feel that I think it can change someone. I work at Starbucks right now. And so, every once in a while, I'll be in a store, and we will see some great people and we will see some not so great people. And I mean, oh wait, Brands... Sorry, I'll stop. But there's this training session we had last week, where we got this guy from the US. What is his name? I can't remember, he started the Home Boys initiative, if I'm not wrong. And industries, I think, and it's like I think it's a type of an organization that sort of tries to reintegrate people who have been previously incarcerated into society. And I think it's Home Boys Industries. And like, I think he's a, he's a priest or something. Anyway. So, this is what he said, he said that, when you go into the margins, when you're going to the minorities, when you're going to this group of people sort of being kept at the fringe of society, you're not going there so that you can change them. You’re going there so that they can change you. And that really blew my mind. Because I think that's the first thing I say even at our recap series that I want to change the world. But the truth is, the world needs to change me, and I'm the one that needs to change. And so that's how I've been processing and responding to a lot of these things. Yeah.

John: Wow. I just want to say I want to be all of you when I grow up, I really do. I'm learning so much from each of you. I really, really am. I mean that quite sincerely. I want to ask about success and failure. I'm wondering if your perspective on what success means has changed over the last few years. And then I want to know, if you have learned about failure at all during your time at the University of Toronto, and I'll – it’s not even confessing, but I'll just say that when I was an undergrad, I you know, I read the brochure that said U of T was great and smartest people go there and the smartest people graduate from there. And then I arrived here at the University of Toronto as an undergrad, and everybody was way smarter than I was. And I ended up doing really, really poorly in some of my early classes. And things evened out over time, but I really did have to kind of redefine what success and failure looked like for me over the course of my time at the University of Toronto, and I'm wondering if any of you have any thoughts to share about success and failure and how your understanding of those concepts have evolved over the last few years,

Rebekah: I would say for me, I think I've learned to kind of just like stay in my own lane, if that makes sense. So, like, not trying to compare myself as much to like other people, but comparing myself to like what I know that I'm capable of. So, the success for me would be like, turning in the paper that I feel really good about, and like, also getting a good mark back, but knowing that, like, I actually like worked on it. And then there's papers that like, I know, that I haven't worked really hard on and that I get marks that reflect the work that, like the energy that or the lack of energy that I put into those papers. And that kind of, you know, makes sense to me. But I'm also a residence Don. And so when I talk to my students about like, success and failure at New College, it's like, you know, finding things that you're really passionate about, those are going to be things that you tend to put more energy into, and you'll see more success in those areas. And then things that you maybe are not as passionate about you might not spend less energy on doesn't mean that you're necessarily bad at it, it just means you're not as passionate, and that might sometimes be reflected in how marks work. So, I think when students are choosing programs, I think it's important to pick something that you're passionate about, something that you actually enjoy, and like want to study because I remember first year I was taking an economics course, and I didn't understand it. Didn't like it, didn't want to like actually put energy into it. And that really reflected in my grade. But, you know, I realized that that path that I thought I was set out to be on, that I had come here for, was not actually what I wanted to do, was not what was meant for me. And so, I kind of redirected myself into a place that I actually felt more successful because I was, I felt good about the work that I was producing. And I felt good about, you know, how it made me feel, and it opened my mind to things. So that's kind of like where I'm at with success and failure. It's like a personal journey for me and try not to compare myself as much.

John: Yeah, and even finding something that you're passionate about, that in and of itself is success of a kind.

Rebekah: Absolutely.

John: Anybody else have thoughts on success and failure now that you are veterans at the University of Toronto, Nour How about you?

Nour: Um, well, my dad always told me that sometimes one step backward means two steps forward. And I really believe that and when I struggled with school, I told myself that I was going to measure my progress, not by my GPA, or what marks I was getting, but by just how much I was learning. And that was a game changer for me. Because this is what university is about inherently, it's about learning and just reminding ourselves, I'm just learning that that's what it truly is. And, you know, I had to let go of preconceived notions of who I was and what was expected of me and to understand that I'm a work in progress. And sometimes things will take a detour and my, you know, our paths are not linear. And while this is uncomfortable, it also enables us to build resilience and growth. And that really stays with us for a long time to come I think.

John: That's great. Kitsa, any thoughts on success and failure?

Kitsa: Um, I have learned to take them both. To accept both really high highs and really low lows and to keep going. Yeah.

John: And you need both.

Kitsa: And you need. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't. I guess you need both.

John: Like, I mean, in the sense that if you've never experienced failure, you can't really appreciate success.

Kitsa: No yeah, definitely. I think I have seen people, really, and I have struggled with bad results, I think. And sometimes it feels like you put in a lot of effort and a lot of energy into something and it just doesn't come through. And I think I've learned to be at peace with myself. There's a question I asked myself in second year, and I was like, hey, if you were to fail everything for the rest of your life, would you still be enough? And that was a difficult question to ask. But I think I came to the conclusion that if the answer is yes, then I can move forward. I can move forward knowing that my worth to myself is not dependent on the results that I'm getting. And then maybe I will get great results. Maybe I'll get terrible results. But I am enough. Yeah.

John: You’re enough. Sabrina, what about you, success and failure? What are your thoughts?

Sabrina: Yeah, I think I think I had a similar reaction to you. Or it's like, you come to the University, and then you feel like, you don't belong. Like everyone else is so much more prepared. I think what helped me in relation to how that manifests in failure is once I started talking to people, and not just other students, but also like, relationships I had with profs and like, actual like faculty, and they would also be like, I don't know what I'm doing. And I'm like, what do you mean you don't know what you're doing? You are like, 10 years older than me, like established in your career. Like, if you don't know what you're doing, like, when am I gonna know what I'm doing? And I think it's helpful to remember that it's like, I feel like no one really knows what they're doing. And we're all just trying to figure this out like one day at a time, whether you're 18, or 25, or 38, or 42, or whatever, or wherever you are in your degree, I think failure too is a learning opportunity, particularly about yourself. I think you get a lot of messages coming into an institution like the University of Toronto about how you should study and how much time you should spend on things and where your GPA should be at if you want to go somewhere else in life. And I think what was super helpful when I would face circumstances where I didn't, the word I'm thinking about is in French, and not in English, but where I didn't -

John: Impress us. put your mind to good use.

Sabrina: This happens every time. It's the word, réussir, I always -

John: Succeed.

Sabrina: Sure, yeah, to succeed - or not - where I haven't succeeded is looking up uncommon ways that other people have gotten to like where I wanted to go. So like with my example of like Harvard Law, if you don't have a 4.0 GPA, and you can think to yourself, like that's what you need. Like, go research other ways people have gotten into like top law schools, if that's really what you want to do. But you feel like you've strayed off of that path, because there's always that one person that's like, I don't know, I just kind of walked in and like, I went to class, and then they enrolled me. So now here I am.

John: Yeah, and they gave me a full scholarship. And here I am. Exactly.

Sabrina: Yeah, yeah. And then thirdly, I think, something I struggle with even today is like, just because you say something, and you tell people you're gonna do something you set your mind to do it, doesn't mean that you're not allowed to change course. Like it's not set in stone. I have problems with that. And like, everyone's gonna think I'm a fraud if I changed my mind. No one cares.

Nour: Yeah, you feel like you'll disappoint them, right? I feel the same way.

Sabrina: Yeah, no, exactly. And I think it reminds me that it's like, no one cares about the trajectory of my life as much as I necessarily think they do or judging me as much as I necessarily think they do. And I know like, like I, especially families can be overbearing, and like this may not really be someone who's like parents are like banking on like your life to be a certain way. But I'm talking about like, even just like friends and acquaintances, like someone that I talked to once on the first day of class, and I'd be like, well, I told them, I was going to be a lawyer. So, if I run into them five years from now and find out that I'm something else, they're gonna think I'm a fraud. Like that is not a rational thought. That's my advice.

John: So speaking of advice, and this is where I want to end, I wonder if very, in fairly quick order, each of you could give a word of advice to yourself before you started school four years ago. So think back to when we spoke, and then a few months before that, when you were just about to embark on your studies at the University of Toronto, but knowing what you know now, give a word of advice to that younger version of you.

Rebekah: Younger Rebekah, I would tell her to not talk so much and to just listen, because I love to talk. I could to talk to a wall. But you know, just take that time. Listen to what other people have to say before you jump in with your thoughts. Still working on that.

John: So Kitsa a word of advice to younger you.

Kitsa: Yeah. Sup Kitsa. You're cool. No, I'm kidding. Ah, yeah.

John: You're allowed to say that!

Kitsa: I mean - debate- Okay. You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. And treasure, the friendships and the relationships that you have now. If, and if they don't last forever, even if they're not what you thought they would be.

John: Nour, what about you, advice to yourself four years ago?

Nour: I would tell myself to please talk to my professors one on one. I would want to go to office hours and get to know them. And I think this is especially important when the time comes when you need a recommendation letter. But not only if you need a recommendation letter, I think in and of itself, it's a very enriching experience to speak to your profs and, you know, they were once in your shoes, and a lot of them are very, or they're very happy to help. And I think I urge anyone listening to take the time and, you know, get out of their comfort zone. And especially if you need a recommendation letter. I personally struggled to get some people to write for me. So, I would go back and I would talk to my professors.

John: Very practical and very valuable advice for everybody. But particularly for the younger. Nour. And what about the younger Sabrina?

Sabrina: Yeah, if I could speak to myself, four years ago, I would probably tell myself to, or I’d definitely tell myself to share my struggles and open up to where I was having issues, especially as a fourth year like navigating my own studies and the university as a whole. I think speaking to failures that I, that wanting to not appear like a fraud and wanting to feel like you fit in, I think makes a lot of people feel like they can't talk about where they are failing or are struggling, because then they don't want people to think that they're struggling like a struggling person. But I think, where I did fail, or where I did need, or where I didn't succeed where I wanted to, it would have been less painful and less permanent, if I was just like open about it. And I reached out to people and I was like I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what's going on, please help me. And I learned that the hard way. So definitely be more open about when you need help.

John: That's great advice from you. And from all four of you. You know, just recently, the film director Michael Apted passed away at the age of 69. And he was famous for a series of films that he made called the Seven Up series. And he was based in the UK. And he had a group of children that he interviewed, the same group of children. He interviewed and filmed them and did a documentary about them every seven years. So, when they were 7, when they were 14, when they were 21, 28. And he did that all the way up into their, I think into their 40s, 50s, at least. And then he passed away just recently, and in tribute to him, and I may not hold you to this, but I'd love it if you would all come back. in four years.

Kitsa: Let's do it!

Nour: Yeah, let's do it!

John: So that we can, so we can find out where you are. And we could check in on things like success and failure and give advice to, to the 2021 version of you and all of those sorts of things. And wherever you are, I hope that you are healthy and happy. And that you're smiling more than you're not. And I'd like to thank all of you for your time. You're being, you've been so generous with us. And on behalf of everyone at Hart House. We're very grateful.

[outro music plays]

Rebekah: Thank you for listening to this week's episode. I would like to extend a sincere thank you to John and the team over at Hart House for inviting us to participate in this conversation a few years ago and for agreeing to join us for this reunion piece. To Kitsa, Nour and Sabrina for reflecting on their experiences over these past few years. And of course, our amazing producer Braeden for interweaving this audio time capsule. Be sure to check out our other episodes @harthousestories on Soundcloud and Instagram and follow us on Twitter @hhpodcasting. Take care.

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