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a-spell-a-rebel-yell · 8 months

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August

oh my god i am sooo sorry for the super late reply yet again 😭 i swear this time the reason is very much valid: i got swamped with school work! oh well, i'll just do an August and a third of September recap hehe

also very much expected to get this amount of workload because: 1) it's a postgrad school, and 2) it's U of I 😂 i'm feeling that significant shift from undergrad environment of a private university, to a completely independent mode of a public university, though not that surprised with a culture shock phase because i'm used to hold myself accountable to a mainly prioritizing critical thinking learning system. so now when we get new task for every class, it’s not a big deal (the only major change is these tasks rendered me chronically offline aka i’m spending less time on twitter, who would’ve thought 😂) because it’s a discipline i’m interested in, reading numerous journals and finding new textbooks to read no matter how complicated feels like getting gifts, ha!

two weeks in and so far i'm enjoying everything, special mention to my ten wonderful classmates that are nothing but a joy to be around with. so it's fun engaging with them and straight away feeling like we're longtime best friends who haven't seen each other in a while.

here to proudly announce i've been made the class': interim manager, secretary, treasurer, archivist, publicist, photographer, timekeeper, and scheduling coordinator 😂😂😂 it's a lot, but i'm having fun taking care of stuffs and it's not like there are much to work on, since all eleven of us are always helping each other. since there's not many of us, naturally a close knit group was formed from the very first day, and i'm happy to have them as companions for the next three years.

what i notice these days is that my personality is slowly reverting back to my old cheery, bubbly, and super talkative self? it's funny to observe really, and if you know me from my elementary school days, you'll know which version of me i'm talking about hahaha i’m more carefree, taking more chances, overall extracting happiness out of everything.

rolling back a bit, my Brisbane cousin got married on early August! me and the fam went to Bandung and stayed at Bank lndonesia's guesthouse at Tubagus Ismail. was feeling so much nostalgia because that house complex is a place of so much childhood memories.

the venue for the wedding is an outdoor restaurant at Dago area, and the decor was ethereal! i love it so much, and Dago is famously known for its forestry and cool air, and alhamdulillah at that time the sun wasn't too hot, the trees provide a nice shade, and no rain despite heavy rain previous and next days after! my cousin and i have similar taste in esthetics, food, and music, so it was like being in my dream wedding party 😂 doing bridesmaid duty was easy, the EO made sure all we do is look good for the footage! also because i had to walk my cousin down the aisle, i had to wear heels (not my usual Dr Martens boots) and boy oh boy it was only a 3 cm heels but i suffered a lot on hour five 🥲 and again with the personality change i mentioned earlier: i literally participated in the fun games thing, and one of the games required me to run for my life with those heels (other competitors cheated by taking off theirs 😤) and i didn’t even win because the emcee changed the rules mid game!!! still quite bitter about it tbh 🫠 but then again i had so much fun with my cousins, Bandung trips are always to remember.

mid August marked the day me and the newbie ortho res met some of our seniors. next day we got our new shiny yellow jackets and took photos in front of the famous dean/Balairung building (goodness i still can’t pick them apart) then on late August we went through medical checkup, basic life support class, and skill station trainings. this time i got 'reprimanded' by the doctor who supervised the checkup, she said i'm way too skinny my body mass index is on the lower end of underweight... and i have anemia too 🧍‍♀️ i'm scheduled to see an internist later though!

first semester started on August 28th but we didn't have our first class until Aug 30th. every single class awed me in a way we do really have the best in the field as our teachers, and i learned a lot. my brain's gonna absorb as much as it can while being here. still can't believe that i'm a part of this huge thing, against all odds i still got in. this makes me want to do my very very very best and prove that i deserve the spot. such an amazing feeling to be able to study more and finding out knowledge is truly inexhaustible. then i realized yet again that my line of profession is never-ending learning process, i'm humbly glad to be on this exact place and time, a dentist and orthodontics resident. no words are able to describe how grateful i am.

in another good news, in 138 days i'll be seeing Coldplay in Singapore! doing mental countdown and using it as a motivation to study 😂 i can't wait to get barrier and scream out all the lyrics, thinking maybe i should get a strategy to be noticed by the social media crews (currently devising a head piece or costume lol) and maaaybe i'll end up on coldplay's instagram heheheh

a bit of sad news: this September it'll be my dad's last month ever working as a Bank lndonesia employee, which means i'm moving out of the Blok M/Panglima Polim house and back to Cibubur. though technically for my first year of school i'll be moving temporarily to my Brisbane cousin's home somewhere in Tanah Kusir, so yep, still a South Jakartan (born and raised! haha)

oh well. that's all the exhilarating run of the eighth month, it's 8/12 already!? time flies so fast, i'm about to turn 26 in three months 😂 see you on September post!

#first day of school!!!#sometimes i can't believe i put myself through this yet again #but i know it'll be worthwhile #bismillahirrahmanirrahim always #LET'S GOOOOO #alhamdulillah #a day in my life

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grocery-x · 1 year

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How to create a budget and stick to it

It is critical to create and keep to a spending plan in order to meet one’s financial goals. It is a simple tool that may help you recover control of your finances and avoid spending more than you make. Creating a spending plan, often known as a budget, is the first step toward financial stability and security. A well-planned budget is the most effective financial management tool. This post will go through how to create a budget and how to stick to it after it has been created.

First, figure out how much money you have. The first step in budgeting is establishing your income. This covers not just your regular pay or remuneration, but also any additional income you may get, such as dividends, investments, or rental income. When determining your revenue, it is critical to be realistic, as this figure will act as the foundation of your budget. Total monthly income may be calculated by adding all sources of income and dividing by 12.

Step 2 is to Determine Your Expenses. You should now itemise all of your costs. There are three categories of costs: those that are obligatory, those that fluctuate with the economy, and those that are at the discretion of the business owner. Rent or mortgage payments, car payments, and insurance premiums are examples of monthly fixed costs. Food, gasoline, and entertainment are examples of “variable costs” since their monthly totals alter. Dining out and clothing purchases are examples of discretionary expenses. A notebook, a budgeting tool or spreadsheet, or a handwritten spreadsheet record can be used to keep track of your expenses.

The third stage is to create a budget. You can construct a budget if you have a thorough understanding of your household’s cash inputs and outflows. To do so, subtract all of your expenses from your overall revenue. As a result, your anticipated savings have become a reality. Using the cash you have acquired, the next stage is to prioritise your financial goals, such as creating an emergency fund, lowering debt, and planning for retirement.

Fourth, stick to your budget at all times. The budgeting procedure is straightforward, but maintaining financial discipline is difficult. It is critical to set up reminders, such as calendar notifications or smartphone alerts, to ensure that you stick to your budget. You may ensure that you constantly save money by creating a plan that includes automated payments to a savings account, for example. Identifying techniques to cut your spending may be beneficial if you want to stick to your budget. One way to do this is to cut back on discretionary spending, such as dining out less frequently or cancelling unneeded subscriptions.

Phase 5: Examine and revise your financial strategy as needed. Your budget will continue to serve its purpose if you examine it on a regular basis and make any required revisions. The key to this technique is to alter your expenditures and earnings based on the intended quantities. Regularly examining your budget can not only help you find areas where you may be wasting money, but it will also allow you to make changes to your spending habits.

Creating and sticking to a spending plan is critical if you want to meet your financial goals. If you attentively read this essay, use its techniques and principles, and follow its recommendations, you will be well on your way to financial stability and security. Remember that a budget is merely a plan for your money; to keep it on track, you must review it periodically and make any required changes.

5 webpage hyperlinks 1. “How to Create a Budget” by The Balance — https://www.thebalance.com/how-to-create-a-budget-1289587 2. “How to Make a Budget” by NerdWallet — https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/how-to-make-a-budget/ 3. “Budgeting 101: How to Create a Budget” by Dave Ramsey — https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/budgeting-101-how-to-create-a-budget 4.Mint: “How to Create a Budget” — https://www.mint.com/budgeting/create-a-budget 5. “Staying on Budget: Tips and Tricks,” US News & World Report — https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/budgeting/articles/budget-sticking-tricks

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mirrinbelde-shitposts · 3 years

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Heyyy!

Here fr d game!

Umm im guessing ur an pisces mercury*hehe jst types wht comes to mind at 1st

Also i wont mind if u post it publicly or send me privately

Here is my birthchart(tropical)

Lawl SUSPENSE..Hehe

Anw Have a great day/night ahead🤍🥂

Guessing was fun tho..evn if i guessed wrng one💀🤣

Hey!! You did guess wrong, sorry about that xd but it's oki, don't worry about it! Have a good day too ^^

Welcome to your reading. Please remember to send feedback.

First impressions when looking at your chart: you don't have a lot of aspects, but a lot of them are exact: that wedge patter between Saturn, Venus and Mercury is very exact; you have an even distribution of planets among the signs and the houses; also, the angles (except IC) all conjunct planets or points

SUN IN AQUARIUS

As an Aquarius, you are quirky, aloof, dreamy and humanist. People may think you're awkward and detached, which is probably true for you since your Sun is at 0º of Aquarius. Your originality and uniqueness are probably the things you love about yourself the most. Your mind is also quite agile, which allows you to fulfil your dreams. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that the Sun is in Detriment in the sign of Aquarius. This means that the Sun can struggle here, making you feel confused as to who you are and how you can express yourself. You very much value your independence and your rebelliousness. However, you can be stubborn to a fault when it comes to your thoughts and opinions.

SUN IN THE 7TH HOUSE

The Sun in the house of Libra shows that you really enjoy socializing and that's also where you shine the most brightly. The Venusian influence gives you charm and elegance, which cause people to flock to you. Also, you may show your true colours in relationships, particularly romantic ones. Having someone close to you will allow you to achieve a better understanding of yourself. You do well when it comes to working with others; this placement helps the detached, independent Aquarius Sun to be more sociable and better appreciate others. Also, the Venus influence can make people look up to you and see themselves in you, something that doesn't really happen with Aquarius Suns in generally. You may do well in associations or organizations because you have a need to be in society.

MOON IN CAPRICORN

Once again, you have a planet in Detriment. Capricorn, the sign of Saturn, struggles to feel and voice the emotions they experience. Therefore, it is natural that the Moon finds this sign difficult. You think too much. Perhaps you had a complicated relationship with your mother, which may have caused you to repress your emotions. Capricorn placements, in general, tend to grow up and mature quite early, which leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms; you had to raise your walls up high, so you struggle to let anyone in. You may also be socially awkward. At the same time, you may seek validation from society, which is one of the things that may give you that emotional security that you deeply seek. You should work on letting your guard down; emotions are not the enemy, it's okay to feel what you feel. Let out your inner child once in a while.

MOON IN THE 6TH HOUSE

Here, the Moon is in the house of Virgo (but lying almost on top of the Descendant). There is a strong connection between body and mind. You seek emotional safety through your work and other acts of service; you want to be useful to people and to spend your time wisely. You may be a workaholic. Your routines are very important to you; you can get distraught if someone messes with your daily habits. Your health may be a concern to you, but since your Moon is harmoniously aspected, I'd say you're generally healthy. Nevertheless, watch for any hereditary diseases or problems with food or alcohol. The square with Mars suggests to me that you can quickly let out your anxieties. You like discipline, organization and cleanness; you are determined in the pursuit of your goals. You may have a vocation to work directly with people. Your moods may change quickly.

MERCURY IN CAPRICORN

With Mercury in Capricorn, you speak in a very structured, pondered way. You are very analytical and it shows in the way you communicate. You're a realist, but people may think you're more pessimistic. You definitely tend to be pessimistic at times, as well as distrustful and sceptical. You like to research, to gather information before speaking. You're concrete in your thinking, logical and organized. You take your time to make decisions; you weigh all the pros and cons carefully. Probably not the one to daydream or have many fantasies; you prefer the realistic and achievable. Although you're mostly serious, you can be playful sometimes.

MERCURY IN THE 6TH HOUSE

Capricorn Mercury is similar to Mercury in the house of Virgo. You are probably a perfectionist person, determined and organized. You analyse everything, yourself and your emotions included. You're very critical, especially of yourself. You hold everyone to high standards; once again, yourself the most. Like Capricorn Mercury, you can have pessimistic tendencies. You probably repress your feelings and rationalize them instead. Additionally, your knowledge can progress through daily life experiences and through your body. You should practice meditation and mindfulness because your anxiety and stress may have a direct effect on your bodily health.

VENUS IN PISCES

Venus is exalted in Pisces. This sign is intuitive, empathetic and emotional, which are traits that Venus likes. You feel everything and negative energies really get to you, so it's important that you find a partner that gives you emotional stability. You make a good lover, for you are caring and sensitive to people's needs, especially your partner's. Venus here gives you ethereal, alluring vibes. You can seem almost magical to people. You can be very protective of those you love, selfless; you can even sacrifice yourself for them. You're a daydreamer, you live in your own fantasy world. You have great aesthetic taste and you're quite romantic. However, be careful not to be taken advantage of; your too-good nature can land you someone whose intentions are far from the best.

VENUS IN THE 8TH HOUSE

Venus here acquires some Scorpio traits, namely the need to get a deep connection with someone. You are a person of extremes, not of middle-terms. In this sense, you can get effortlessly get people to open up to you, to tell you their deepest, darkest secrets. Since the (H also rules other people's money, you may get rich through an inheritance or a good marriage. Also, people may trust you with their money. In love, too, they aspire to learn everything about their partner. You seek transformative relationships, ones that will allow you to experience a different range of emotions, another dimension, even. Casual relationships are probably not your thing. You can get too controlling and dominating, so beware of that. Also, financial security is important to you; you may even have a job that has directly to do with money.

ARIES MARS

Here, Mars is in its rulership. You are quite reckless and impulsive in your actions. You like to be the first, to be the pioneer (much like Aries is the first sign of the Zodiac). You have a knack for leadership and people tend to be happy to follow your lead. You are quite competitive in just about everything; you can have a sour loser. You are quick to get mad, but after you explode, your anger will be gone in an instant. You are great at achieving goals because Mars helps you to stay motivated and determined; you are quite persistent and usually get what you want. You can also work well under pressure. Laziness is not in your blood. Your independence is quite important to you, as are your opinions. You can be quite stubborn and difficult to argue with, simply due to your relentlessness.

MARS IN THE 9TH HOUSE

Your Mars is in the house of Sagittarius. This placement allows you to acquire the necessary willpower for the journey to the expansion of knowledge and discovery. Your actions should help you with the acquisition of further knowledge, as well as ideas and strengthening your freedom. This placement goes against the need of routine imposed by your 6th house placements; Mars here wants you to get out there, be free, have fun, think about life, yourself and the universe. You have strong morals and philosophical ways. This placement may make you strongly seek, hunt, even, the truth of the fundamental questions. On another note, you can develop an attraction to foreign people and may wish to move away from home swiftly and without hesitation. This can be abroad too.

JUPITER IN VIRGO

Jupiter is in Detriment in Virgo. Whilst Jupiter is all about philosophy, the higher mysteries and expansion, Virgo seeks for the concrete, for what it knows, for the logical and rational. Therefore, this placement requires work. You are sceptical, you need to think and analyse everything before you come to a conclusion. Growth is achieved through responsibilities and being useful to others. A bit of idealism would be good, Jupiter struggles in Earth signs. You may think that you know more than you actually do, that you see the bigger picture when that is not true. Be careful not to grow an ego. Your beliefs will be challenged in this lifetime. You have a desire to help people, and in relationships too you want to do everything in your power to aid your partner.

JUPITER IN THE 2ND HOUSE

This placement generally brings good luck when it comes to money and other worldly possessions. You may also like to spend money, more on your loved ones than on yourself. You may be big into giving gifts. In order to reach that emotional security, you may wish to surround yourself with material items that, to you, hold great value and importance. Once you understand how better to acquire that stability, you may become rather generous with your money. You want a comfortable lifestyle. Like Venus in the 8th house, you may be good at managing your possessions, thus causing others to go to you for financial advice. You may not show it, but you have strong philosophical convictions, which may prove to be impossible to change.

SATURN IN CANCER

Saturn is in Detriment here, which makes it four planets in Detriment in your chart. You may feel a strong need for emotional safety, which could manifest as a fear of abandonment. There may also be some emotional blockages present that you struggle to overcome. Saturn retrograde, being the planet of Karma, may difficult your mission in life. You could be stuck on an unresolved trauma from a past life. This may be represented by a figure of authority in this life, perhaps your father. Instead of attempting to reconcile your past, try to accept the world changing around you. You may be too afraid to venture into the world and to open your heart; accept that it is part of life. Find people that give you that security, but don’t pour out your entire soul to them; find a balance. Not everything can be kept in our hearts, but not everything should be shared, either.

SATURN IN THE 12TH HOUSE

This is quite a strong and powerful placement: you have the planet of karma in the most karmic house. Also, according to Hellenistic Astrology, Saturn has its joy in the 12th house. You may be afraid to mess with the subconscious because your emotions may overtake you. Saturn is related to blockages and yours may be due to paranoia, which is characteristic of Neptune and Pisces. You may repress parts of yourself that you are not happy about, which makes you feel better, but, at the same time, paranoia can set in and make you wonder if that is the right thing to do. That aside, you may also struggle with poor self-esteem and doubts about yourself and life. There can be problems of guilt of some sort, perhaps even related to your life itself. It is very vague, but my thoughts about this placement are, in short, that, from birth, there have been deep traumas within you that have blocked your inner peace. What does are, I do not know. ⬛️

#astrology #game ask #my stuff

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thistle-and-thorn · 3 years

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my goal-setting manifesto

So recently @woodswit wrote a super thought-provoking post about struggling with the benefits of loving feeling fit and struggling with external validation regarding fitness and so this is kind of my reference guide for myself about goal-setting and the way *I* need to remember to think about it.

I minored in a very specific form of organizational management in college and a huge part of that curriculum was goal-setting. We were encouraged to make one-year, five-year, ten-year career plans, we learned how to set SMART goals, how to identify what steps were right for you, etc. Well, babies, I did not need this curriculum because in high school we had done this exact same curriculum. SMART goals, college planning, etc. Bitch, I knew how to plan my life and, bitch, I had it planned. I was a very high-achieving and ambitious student—I went after awards, AP scores, good grades, letters of recommendation. The school system I attended was very typical of an American school in that those things were the primary indicators for success and the “quality” of our grades determined our classes (and subsequently our social groups) and myriad other things. I was a “good girl” and bought into and benefitted from this kind of structure immensely.

Well. I also have struggled with severe anxiety and periodic depressive episodes that significantly interrupt my daily life and ability to care appropriately for myself. These disorders reached a critical mass at the midpoint of my college career and, after two very bad semesters (one of which ended with me getting a tiny sexy scar from fainting into a doorway), I realized I needed to make significant changes to my priorities. More specifically, I needed to examine the method by which I was defining and collecting achievement and validation. So, after much therapy (I love u Claire), soul-searching, several glasses of a very good local hard cider, I decided to write out the way I goal-set now that enables me to actually breathe and not spiral into self-hatred.

Why Do We Need Goal-Setting?

I actually think that goal-setting is deeply important. If you are a dreamer, I would even say that goal-setting is essential. Personally, I’m a planner/dreamer and enjoy setting goals. It comforts me. Getting a little organized around amorphous ideas like “I want to be a novelist” or “I wish I could travel the world” allows those things to become attainable.

Process and Product

I would say that there are two ways of thinking about goals:

1. Product-Oriented: This is the type of thinking that was taught in my management classes and is exactly what it sounds like. If you do these steps, then you will get x-result. An example of a well-written product-oriented goal is, “By Tuesday, I need to complete three research reports.” (This is true, and I completed them today motherfuckers.) It’s concise, attainable, and happens within a set timeframe.

2. Process-Oriented: This type of thinking focuses on what you will learn or benefit from accomplishing an activity. When I was teaching preschool, an example of this would be taking the kids for a nature walk or free drawing, basically doing an activity where there is no expected result. There is nothing to achieve, there is no medal. The work and the discoveries you make doing the work is the reward. A process-oriented goal would be, “I want to learn about characterization from writing this story.”

In woodswit’s example, she talks about the benefits that cardio exercise has on her mental health, how much happier and confident she is when she is doing a certain variety of exercise regularly. She also talks about how she used to do intense sports.

In this case, a product-oriented way to frame that discussion would be, “I want to get back to the weight I was when I was playing sports” or “I want to be able to lift fifty pounds again.” You will take smaller steps to reach that product—changing the way you eat, figuring out a plan for to work up to lifting heavier things. But the product-oriented way is ultimately a binary—you will either be able to lift fifty pounds or not, you will either reach the weight you were or you won’t. But the process-oriented way to think about these things would be, “I love biking and want to do more of it. Every weekend this summer, I will bike a different rail trail in my county.” The process-oriented method is less specific, but it takes that pressure away from your performance—in the biking example, the only expectation that is set is that you’re going to travel to different bike trails, not that you have to go to every rail trail in the county or that you have to complete the whole trail when you go or that you have to do it in a certain time, just that you are going to go.

There is space for both of these methods, and they are best used in conjunction with each other. Product-oriented is useful, especially in financial situations. A goal for 2022 is to visit my childhood best friend in her new home, halfway across the country. Say I want to go in May 2022 and I figure out that it will cost me roughly $2000. I should probably set a goal with steps to save $2000 by May. It’s also beneficial for the smaller steps to bolster your path to your big dreams—When I was a kid, playing piano gave me a lot of discipline and I would like to have that habit again. That is a process-oriented way of thinking about playing music, but you will probably need to set smaller, product-based goals to achieve it—you will need to select a song and learn to play it, within that song you will need to master it measure by measure.

When we are trained to reach for product, it is hard to recognize the value of process-orientation. A phenomenal example is my WIP. The story I am writing now has 3% the amount of kudos as my biggest fic. I also had a goal of updating every Tuesday. By product standards, that story is a flop. It has the least amount of engagement of anything I’ve ever written, and I haven’t updated it in like two weeks. However, why do I write? I write because I enjoy it, I write fanfic specifically to practice new skills. This story has stretched my abilities and I’ve grown from working on it. By process standards, it’s the most successful of my fics.

And in terms of bigger life things? Process-oriented is the way to go. Why? Because if the pandemic taught us anything, it is that life is not linear. It is nearly impossible to set a straight path—be it up a corporate ladder or a fitness goal—why? Because life sucks. Someone dies, you become ill, it rains, you fall in love, you fall out of love—minute inconveniences happen every day. Process takes the pressure off of your performance because you can’t perform all the time. This is essential in fitness goals because our physical state is especially ephemeral. Of course, it happens in other areas of life, too. An example: In the autumn of 2017, I fell into the deepest depression I have ever been in before or since. I could not remember to shower, let alone do my anthropology homework. As a result, for the first time, I was struggling to create the basic products—like, you know, homework—expected in my classes. That was even more devastating. Around the midpoint of the semester, I realized that product was not sustaining me and if I didn’t want to drop out or harm myself when I “failed”, I had to change my approach.

Once my classes became less about “I need to feel my Middle East studies requirement so I can get a History degree and get an A so I can get on the Dean’s List,” and I reconnected with, “I want to learn a lot about the Middle East,” the products came more naturally. They came more imperfectly, too, but I was able to complete the product because I put less pressure on making them to a certain standard. It became easier to recommit to my goal of being a college-educated woman when I remembered the why of receiving a college education. In woodswit’s original post, she acknowledges that the definition of intense exercise is different for every individual. But it’s also different for the individual at different points in their life and recognizing that intensity and success are arbitrary standards is an essential part of reframing your goal-setting as being process-orientated.

How Do I Goal Set Now?

I still goal-set and a lot of my goals could be likely defined as product-goals. However, they are all made with a long view in mind—if I set a goal to run a 5K, what am I going to get out of it besides just saying that I can run a 5K? Here are ways that I stay process-oriented throughout:

1. Goal Periods

I have three times of year when I set goals: January, June, and Lent. I will set a date on the calendar every year to sit down and just think about what I want to accomplish just in the next twelve-month period and what vision I have for myself in three to five years. No more than that.

January is when I set my personal goals and June is where I set my professional ones. I keep a spreadsheet throughout the year of experiences I would like to have. I will look to this list for inspiration. In January and June, while goal-setting, I check in with the opposing goals. So, in June, I checked in with my progression on my personal goals. I rethought if those goals were still realistic and if I was benefitting from them and in what ways. Then I recommitted to them or adjusted them to help me reach them.

2. Holistic Goals

Unless it’s curing cancer, there is no single goal worth putting all the rest on hold for. Each goal is a battle, and your life is the war. This is a deeply privileged example but: the goal of living independently the first two years out of college was probably achievable. But the effort to achieve that one goal meant that, like, six other personal and financial goals would not be met. So, I put off my career goals and stayed at home and taught preschool for two years. It meant a delay while it seemed like my other friends were growing up and achieving at faster rates, but the temporary strain of achieving a particular goal is sometimes worth it when it dominos into other opportunities.

3. Goal Bundling

I bundle my goals now as a part of my goals check-ins. An example of this is: I loved studying abroad and would love to spend more extended time in the country I studied in during undergrad. I would love to go to graduate school. Ipso facto, presto change-o, I should look at graduate programs in that country and see if that is an achievable goal.

This post is a good example of all of this lol. Why did I write it? there won't be an audience for it but the process of setting all of these thoughts on to paper was cathartic, creating a reference guide on this topic for myself when I am depressed is important, and that has to, has to, has to be good enough.

#claire is a saint and needs her own tag #personal #goals #goal: marry chloe sevigny

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palmett-hoes · 3 years

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7 for Andrew??

( ask game )

7. Exists as a pretext for the intellectual exercise of seeing how much textual support I can find for something patently absurd

okay well this isn't patently absurd it's actually a very sad and sadly very common story for a lot of kids, but i did spend a lot of time combing the books for evidence of andrew’s relationship with books and reading. him being a big reader is a super common headcanon in the fandom, and im sorry to tell yall that we pulled that one out of our asses. from what’s available in canon andrew hates reading and refuses to do it in front of other people. so, i concluded that andrew is in fact, dyslexic, and that reading is difficult and frustrating for him. he avoids it whenever possible, instead relying on audible information that seems to work best for his memory. it also tracks that he wouldn’t read around other people because it would be displaying weakness in his eyes for people to see him struggling

so, the evidence. i’ve searched the books by appearances of words like “book” “read” “paper” etc. most things i can think are related to reading yknow? and there’s not one instance in the entire trilogy of andrew reading anything, ever. in fact, he canonically hates libraries and refuses to go in them. one time he’s handed a packet of an opposing team’s stats and he crumples it up and throws it in his locker immediately.

to put it in perspective, most if not every other characters is shown reading at some point or another, it’s just in very short, missable scenic descriptors. aaron buying a book in the airport. kevin reading a magazine in the dorm. the upperclassmen hanging out and doing homework together. neil reading foreign news sites. it doesn’t seem like much but the fact that andrew is never actually seen reading anything at any point ever,, is actually somewhat conspicuous if you pay attention to the fact that well,, everyone else does.

there’s a handful of other details, mostly andrew’s phone. he has an older model that both essentially forces him to use it slower to type, as well as disincentivizes other ppl from texting him and expecting a quick response. he doesn’t text neil at any point except for the essentials of setting up the phone, and it doesn’t seem like he texts with anyone else either. he specifically tells neil to call him, not text.

so let’s backtrack. let’s talk about what it means for andrew to be dyslexic.

(um,, a lot of this is gonna be based on articles and studies i’ve read but i don’t really wanna make this an Essay i want to cut through the explanations and background info so i’m gonna be making some Statements. if you’re curious or confused pls send me a message and i’ll tell u what i had in mind/what i was drawing from)

thematically, when thinking about andrew’s background, the most important thing i keep in mind about andrew is that he has never been lucky, ever. he is consistently, over and over, handed the worst cards. he is born and raised in the foster care system, and even within this (basically inherently traumatic system) he is ONLY placed in bad homes. he says so. maybe they vary in their methodology, but they’re all bad. so then i have to extend this reasoning to the other parts of his life. he has bad teachers, bad foster siblings, bad case workers. no one CARES about this boy, no one looks at him, no one asks why he behaves the way he does. he gets written off, over and over and over again, in every part of his life. that is FUNDAMENTAL to who he is and what has shaped his views and personality as a person

growing up, no one helped him with his homework, no one read to him at night. probably he had very limited experience with books before he entered school. if andrew is dyslexic he would have struggled in school from very early on, and he would not be receiving any help or support at home. he never learned any skills or coping mechanisms for dealing with the fact that he mixes up his letters or that his head hurts when he looks at them too long, because no one is paying attention to him to notice these things. if he’d received help, if people had been patient with him, he probably could have learned to read just fine and could have done well in school with some accommodations. instead, he just learned to resent reading, to hate books, because people were always trying to force him into it the wrong way, when he was a square peg in a round hole and he needed to approach reading differently from the other kids. but no one saw that there was a problem that could be helped, they only saw HIM as a problem, so no one helped him. not his foster parents, not his foster siblings, not his teachers. so he has no positive associations with reading, it’s just a continuous negative in his life

his teachers especially saw his outbursts and his resistance in class. they didn’t see that he was an abused, traumatized (autistic) child with a learning disability who couldn’t convey to anyone that reading was frustrating and physically painful for him, that he only needed a little more time and a little more support. they only saw his “attitude” and the fact that he took longer than his classmates. so they labelled him a “bad” kid, a “stupid” kid, and they didn’t question that judgement further

no one saw that, if he was given that extra time to read and think at his own pace, that he was brilliant. that he remembered everything that was ever said to him, word for word. they didn’t notice his self-discipline. his skill at puzzles and mind-games. the way he could see right through people and predict with uncanny accuracy how they would act and react. how good he was at putting clues together. his incredible spatial reasoning. they didn’t start conversations with him long enough to realize that he was incisive and observant and clever. they didn’t notice that he was bright and inquisitive, if reserved. that because no one ever answered his questions he learned how to answer them himself. that he started trouble because he was bored and under-stimulated. all they knew was that he never finished his tests and that he couldn’t read aloud in class because everything in schools is levels and data and test scores and working under ridiculous time requirements.

so i don’t really like that common characterization of andrew as a bookworm who does well in school. we know that andrew is intelligent, it’s so obvious that he’s brilliant to us from reading the books, but that’s because we’re seeing him through neil’s eyes. neil who looks at and understands andrew more than anyone else ever has, who sees in him the things that other people miss. and that’s important, because people have missed the fact that andrew is smart. but reading books, getting good grades, eloquent essays, that’s all one of the most typical, the most universally recognized ways to be smart. and i think that’s an injustice for andrew as a character and what his story represents, because he represents all the kids that got missed and passed over and thrown aside for not operating “correctly,” for reacting to things the “wrong” way

there are so many ways to be smart, so many different kinds of intelligence that get dismissed and written off for not being successful in the very narrow set of skills the school system teaches. giving andrew the most classic and conformative and universally recognized signs of “being smart” (actively AGAINST his passive characterization in canon) is honestly a disservice to him. and that’s what i like about him being dyslexic, of him struggling in school, because he can still be smart, be BRILLIANT (because he IS brilliant) but in non-conventional ways

#txt #andrew minyard #my posts #im talkin #anon #anonymous #ask #ask game #cw ableism #dyslexic andrew minyard

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pikapeppa · 4 years

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Abelas/Lavellan modern AU: Competent Professional

Chapter 2 of Inadvisable (professor Solas AU) is up on AO3!

In which Athera Lavellan starts her new research coordinator job with Professor Abelas on the wrong right foot.

Adorable art by my elf-lusting partner in crime @elbenherzart!

~3000 words; read on AO3 instead.

- ATHERA -

Athera ran all the way from the apartment to the University of Orlais. Thankfully, it was only a twenty-minute walk, and by running she was able to cut the travel time almost in half. Still, showing up at her new job all sweaty and out of breath had not exactly been her plan.

She skidded to a stop in front of the history building and paused and to catch her breath. When she was no longer huffing and puffing like a bronto, she straightened up and smoothed back her hair. “Okay,” she muttered to herself. “You can do this. You’re a competent professional woman. They hired you for a reason.” No matter that she’d never actually worked as a research coordinator before.

Sure, she’d done all the duties of a research coordinator during the last couple years of working in Professor Kenric’s lab at Kirkwall University, but technically she’d still been a research assistant and not the coordinator, even if Kenric’s actual coordinator had been useless most of the time.

Athera squared her shoulders. I’m done with that, she told herself. I’m the coordinator now. She would be taking her new job super seriously, and she wasn’t going to be forcing any of the research assistants to do her work for her.

“You’ll be the best research coordinator Professor Abelas has ever had,” she told herself quietly. She quickly checked her watch — two minutes to spare, thank the Creators — and thus boosted, she made her way up the stairs and into the history building.

She headed down the east wing, following the shiny new signs for the Ancient Elvhen Studies program. The program was relatively new at the University of Orlais, having only been established about five years ago. Even in that short time, it had become both famous and controversial. The Ancient Elvhen Studies program was technically part of U of O’s history department, but even that placement had been something of a controversy since the program encapsulated a range of disciplines including history, art, literature, and even traditional healing.

When the University of Arlathan had finally agreed to collaborate with U of O, the Dean had originally wanted the program to be part of the school of fine arts. But Athera had heard that Professor Solas, Nare’s new supervisor, had insisted that they be situated in the department of history, and had refused to work at U of O unless the placement was made.

Athera had also heard that Professor Solas had a reputation for being… mercurial, for lack of a better word. Aside from his impressive credentials and his famous fresco work, there was shockingly little personal information about him on the internet. Student reviews fluctuated between compliments like ‘he knows the answer to everything even though he’s an arts prof’ and complaints such as ‘he never gives an A’, studded with a few scathing reports that he could be a downright asshole when people asked questions that he thought were stupid.

But Professor Solas wasn’t the one that Athera was worried about. Professor Abelas, the program’s director and the head professor of literature and history, was the one that Athera would be directly answering to, and he was the one that she most wanted to impress.

She still remembered their phone interview with a certain amount of trepidation. She was pretty sure she hadn’t said anything stupid, and she’d made sure to not talk too fast so she didn’t sound nervous, but Abelas’s tone still sounded faintly disapproving the whole time.

Maybe that’s just how he always sounds, she thought. She hoped that he didn’t always sound that way, since it wouldn’t exactly be fun to work with someone who always sounded slightly disappointed with everything she said.

In any case, it was sure to be an interesting job.

A minute later, she was facing the door to the Ancient Elvhen Studies lab. She took a deep breath — you’ve got this, you’re a competent professional, she told herself — then pushed open the door.

The lab space was pretty standard university fare: a main area with a large meeting table, filing cabinets and heavily laden bookshelves around the edges of the wall, a couple of impressively tidy common-workspace desks, and a small kitchenette. Two short hallways branched off of the main room toward the east and west, and there were three people sitting at the meeting table: two elves, and to Athera’s surprise, a dwarf.

They looked up at Athera’s entry. Athera smiled and tried not to look awkward. “Hi there,” she said. “I’m Athera, the new research coordinator.”

The petite elven woman hopped up from her seat. “Oh, another Dalish, how lovely!” she chirped. “Andaran atishan! Come on in, Professor Abelas will be expecting you, he’s just in his office.” She hurried around the table with her hand outstretched. “I’m Merrill, and this is Tamlen and Dagna. I’m in the fourth year of my PhD, and Tamlen is – oh, but listen to me babbling!” She patted her cheeks nervously. “You two should introduce yourselves!”

Tamlen chuckled and nodded a greeting to Athera. “Nice to meet you. I’m a part-time research assistant, doing my undergrad the rest of the time.”

Dagna waved cheerily to her. “I’m a PhD student too. Second year.”

Athera was already feeling more relaxed; they all seemed so nice. “Nice to meet all of you,” she said. “Are you Abelas’s students?”

Tamlen smirked, and Dagna let out a tinkling laugh. “Oh no, Professor Abelas doesn’t supervise students. Solas is our supervisor.”

Athera raised her eyebrows. “Abelas doesn’t supervise students?”

Merrill shook her head. “No. Too busy teaching and being the director, he says.”

Athera raised an eyebrow. “But he’s a tenured professor. How can he be tenured and not supervise students?”

Merrill, Dagna and Tamlen exchanged glances, and Merrill replied. “We don’t really know, to be honest. Professor Abelas runs the department and Professor Solas does the supervisor duties.”

Athera frowned. “That’s… really weird.”

“It has been working well since this program began,” a deep male voice said.

A hard stone dropped into Athera’s gut. Damn, she thought. She looked up at the east hallway to see a tall elven man standing there with his arms folded.

He was surprisingly built for an academic, with broad muscular shoulders that his tweed blazer didn’t quite manage to hide. An impeccable white braid coursed down his back — probably the style in Arlathan, Athera thought, since it certainly wasn’t a look she’d ever seen in Orlais — and he was very handsome.

Or he would be, if he wasn’t scowling at her. Unfortunately for Athera, his expression was just as disapproving as his smooth voice.

She swallowed hard. You’re a professional woman, she told herself. Even if you insulted his management style right in front of him. She offered him what she hoped was a professional smile. “You must be Abelas,” she said, and she took a step toward him. “I’m Athera, the research coordinator.”

“It is Professor Abelas,” he said. “Come this way. I will orient you to the lab.” He unfolded his arms and raised his eyebrows at Merrill, Dagna and Tamlen. “You have introduced yourselves?”

“Yes, professor,” Tamlen said.

Abelas nodded, then gestured for Athera to follow him and headed for the west hallway without stopping to check that she was following.

Damn and double damn, Athera thought gloomily. She forced herself not to look at Merrill and the others as she followed Abelas down the west hallway.

He gestured at a few closed doors. “These are graduate student offices,” he said brusquely. “A meeting room here for interviewing research participants. That room is the private library, including hard copies of research articles from the past ten years that are awaiting digitization and proper indexing.” He shot her a hard look. “Managing that will be one of your duties.”

“I’m aware,” she said, a bit more sharply than she intended.

His frown deepened slightly, and Athera forced herself to relax. “I’ll make that a priority,” she said in a softer tone.

He nodded, then pointed at a polished oak door at the end of the hall. “Professor Solas’s office is there.” He gestured for her to exit the hallway, and she obediently headed back down the hall toward the east hallway instead, with Abelas — sorry, Professor Abelas — at her back.

She tried to think of something intelligent to say, some sort of question that would make it clear that she knew her duties here, but her tongue was tied with awkwardness. Professor Abelas was so silent and stern, and his height was kind of intimidating, making her feel as though he was towering over her as he followed her down the hall.

When they were in the east hallway once more, he broke the tense silence. “More graduate student offices here. An archive of Elvhen artifacts is in this room, which is kept locked at all times.” He pursed his lips before going on. “I will give you a key by the end of the week. In the meantime, you will ask me if you require access to that room.”

Athera frowned slightly. Why was he reluctant to give her access to the artifact room? She would need free access to all of these rooms if he wanted her to do her job properly.

“My office is at the end of this hall,” he said. He gestured for her to follow him. “You should check with me before making any significant changes to the way things are run here.”

“I understand,” she said cautiously. She followed him into his office, which – unsurprisingly – was spotlessly clean and tidy. Austere, almost.

He sidled around his desk and pointed to a large whiteboard calendar on the wall, which was meticulously colour-coded. “Professor Solas and I have a shared calendar here. Our teaching schedules and monthly meetings are updated here, so you will know where we are at all times.”

“Why don’t you use an online calendar?” she asked.

His pale eyebrows rose slightly. “Excuse me?”

“An online calendar,” she said. “So you can share it between you and update it on your, um, on your phones…?” She trailed off at the deepening of his frown.

“Professor Solas and I have a system that has worked for over a decade,” he said. “We will continue to do it this way.”

She pressed her lips together, then nodded. If he wanted to live in the Exalted Age and use a whiteboard calendar, that was his prerogative.

He rested his fingertips lightly on his desk. “The students similarly use a whiteboard calendar to coordinate the use of the meeting room and other resources.”

Athera raised her eyebrows. “Okay, well, that just makes no sense. That has to change.”

Abelas recoiled slightly, but Athera pressed on. “Students’ schedules are changing all the time. With exams and deadlines, a shared online calendar only makes sense so they can input any changes immediately and have notifs — uh, notifications — to alert everyone to the changes. I’ll set that up immediately.”

“I did not give you leave to make such a change,” he said sharply.

“It’s a simple change that will streamline everyone’s schedules and increase the efficiency of your lab,” Athera insisted.

“That’s not how things are done here,” he retorted.

His tone was hard, and he was scowling at her now. The look on his face was making her heart race, but she inhaled slowly through her nose to keep her calm.

You’re a competent professional, she told herself. You might not have a fancy PhD and a post-doc and an entire lab under your belt, but you’re a professional too, damn it.

She boldly lifted her chin. “You hired me to manage the research projects in your lab and to take over a number of your administrative duties. Isn’t that right?”

He folded his arms. “That was indeed the job description.”

“If that’s my job, why don’t you trust me to do it?”

“You lack experience,” he said, to her surprise and dismay. “And besides, hiring you was not my choice. Professor Solas insisted that I required… assistance.”

Athera recoiled slightly at this. “Well, I’m not here to be your assistant,” she said firmly. “I’m not here to just do what you tell me. I’ll evaluate the way your lab is managed, and when I’m finished doing that, I’ll tell you how I think things should change.”

He glared at her. His unusual golden eyes were practically sparking now, his long elegant fingers tense on the surface of his desk, and Athera forced herself to breathe through her anxiety as she stared into his eyes.

He finally grunted and sat in his chair. “Fine. But you will change nothing without consulting me first.”

She exhaled slowly. “I’ll check everything with you for the first two weeks. You should let me use my judgment after that.”

He narrowed his golden eyes. “You are making a great number of demands considering that it is your first day here.”

And you’re being an ass, considering that it’s my first day, she thought belligerently, but she kept that salty thought to herself. “I’m just trying to do my job,” she said evenly. “A job that you hired me for, whether you wanted to or not.” She gave him a knowing look. “I’m going to make your life easier, you know.”

“That remains to be seen,” he said. He reached for his mouse and started clicking around on his computer. “I look forward to the results of your… evaluation.”

His tone was dripping with disdain. What in the Void was his problem with her?

“I’ll get to work, then,” she said. She shifted her bag on her shoulder, then realized something: she needed someplace to put her things, and to, well, do her job.

“Where’s my office?” she said.

“Ah,” he said. “An oversight. Here.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a key, then held it out to her.

She approached the desk and held out her hand, and Abelas placed the key in her palm. “The office next to this one is yours,” he said.

Of course it is, she thought glumly. Of course her office had to be right next to the grumpy director’s.

“Thank you,” she said. She took a step back, then toyed idly with the key for a moment. This whole meeting had been unfortunately antagonistic so far, and Athera didn’t want to leave it on such a sour note.

She decided to try to lighten the mood a bit. “If we’re going to be neighbours, I hope you don’t mind music,” she said.

A crease appeared between his brows. “Excuse me?”

“Music,” she said. “I listen to music all the time. It helps me to think. I, um, hope you don’t mind.”

His frown deepened. “What sort of music?”

“Dance music, mostly,” Athera said. “Pop, too, though I like more of the indie stuff.”

“Dance and pop music,” he repeated.

He was staring at her now as though she’d grown qunari horns. She could feel her face prickling with discomfort. Why had she even bothered trying to lighten the mood with him? He clearly didn’t have a humorous bone in his body.

She tried for a smile. “I’ll keep the volume down for now.”

“That would be for the best,” he said.

She nodded and awkwardly backed out of his office. “Thanks for the orientation, Abelas. Professor Abelas,” she said hastily.

He nodded. Already his eyes were on his computer screen, and Athera blew out a breath as she started unlocking her new office door.

“Athera,” he called.

For some reason, a shiver traced down her spine at the sound of her name in his voice. She’d never heard her name before in an Arlathani accent, with the soft vowels and the gently rolled r.

She swallowed hard and poked her head back in his office. “Yes?”

“Close the door behind you,” he said.

His eyes were still on his monitor. Athera frowned at his bluntness, then pulled his door shut without replying.

Ass, she thought. She opened her office and put her bag on the desk next to the computer, then draped her coat over the chair and trudged down the hall back to the main area.

Merrill and Dagna were still there, and their faces were sympathetic. “Don’t worry,” Dagna said soothingly. “His bark is much worse than his bite.”

“I cried on my first day here,” Merrill confided. “During my whole first week, actually. I have an extra box of tissues in my desk if you need them.”

Athera chuckled. “Thanks, but I’m okay. I’m just going to jump right in and get to work.”

Merrill beamed at her. “That’s the spirit! And it really is exciting to work here. The artifacts they have in the back room are just amazing! I’m doing my thesis on one of them, actually, on the broken eluvian that was found in the Brecilian forest ten years ago. That’s one of the reasons that the professors came to Orlais, you know, so they could work with U of O on the eluvian project — oh, but you probably know that already…”

“I do,” Athera said. “But I’m just as interested as you are, so you can tell me all about it.”

Merrill did a little hop. “Wonderful! Well, it was shattered, as you know, and I was actually part of the archeological party who went out to the forest two years ago to recover more of the pieces! Creators, I tell you, it was such an amazing trip…”

Merrill chattered on cheerfully about the eluvian, and Athera listened with one ear, but the rest of her mind was on Abelas and his bad attitude. The way he spoke to her was so unkind, like he thought she was just here to mess everything up. And the way he frowned at her with that scowl on his annoyingly handsome face, like she wasn’t qualified to make any changes to his precious lab…

He’ll see, she thought stubbornly. He’ll see how much more smoothly things will run here once I’ve gotten settled in. Athera was a competent professional woman, after all. She was absolutely qualified to do this job, and in no time, she’d learn the way the lab was run and she’d make it so efficient that Abelas would be sorry he ever doubted her.

I’ll show him, she thought. She was going to make this lab the most efficiently run place in the department of history, and Abelas wouldn’t remember what his life was like without her.

#abelas #abelas/lavellan #abelas x lavellan #abellan #professor solas au #inadvisable #pikapeppa writes #elbenherzart

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rokutouxei · 3 years

Text

the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

ikemen vampire: temptation through the dark theo van gogh / mc | T | [ ao3 link in bio ]

The challenge seemed pretty simple: to try to befriend the university bookshop’s most sour employee, Theo van Gogh. As a literature major with a boatload of book recommendations on her back, it ought to be a simple task indeed. But as she uncovers what lies between Theo’s pages, the more she finds it harder to become closer to him without having to put the feeling directly into words. What can she learn from Theo about what it means to stay—and how can she teach Theo about what it means to let go? | written for ikevamp big bang 2020!

[ masterpost for all chapters ]

CHAPTER 13 OF 22

The sadness of rivers is their aimlessness. Though the edge of the world invites them, they refuse to go beyond themselves.

- "The Sadness of Rivers", Maurya Simon

We’ll be able to rent a decent space with the amount, Theo had said.

It was never a we, though. Renting a space, holding an exhibit, submitting it for consideration for graduation requirements—those were all Theo’s ideas. The pool of money for it? All Theo’s—little bits saved from work, those that didn’t go to rent or food or his own needs. Sure, Vincent paid the bulk of everything, bills, groceries, he did part-time too, but for his own little artistic show? No. That was all Theo.

Theo always had good ideas. Somehow, he’s gotten it into his head that all his ideas are good, if his brother was part of it. Because Vincent is always a good idea to him.

But what about Vincent?

Their little study session ended way later than she thought it would.

Well, it wouldn’t have, if Dazai hadn’t spent a particularly astonishing amount of time picking at Isaac for bringing an apple pie to share—“It’s because of your stupid jokes! Now I get gifted nothing but apple things! Commiserate, at least!” “Oh, you don’t have to, Ai-chan.” “Dazai!”—but no matter. One apologetic text message to Theo later, she’s on her way to his apartment instead, to drop off the book she’d promised to lend him. An extra one, besides the one for their book exchange, because you can never have too many books. She would have gone to the bookstore, but at this time it’s already closed, and Theo’s already left to go do some groceries on the other end of town.

One thing about being close with the van Gogh brothers is that now, she can just drop in and out of their house unannounced. Theo will act irritable, as he always does, but he doesn’t really mind. Vincent is always pleasantly surprised. And when their little rented apartment is right in the middle of their small town, it’s just the right spot to hang out and crash.

(A great piece of information for her, and a terrible discovery for Theo.)

Maybe I should go in and chat with Vincent a little, she thinks, as she rounds the corner to the familiar house. Wait, no, Theo said he spends the late hours of the day painting. I shouldn’t bother. I’ll just drop this in the mailbox and tell Theo.

But the slightly-opened front door takes her by surprise.

Not open intentionally, to let the last rays of the sun enter the inside of the house, but just left a tiny bit ajar, as if it had been pulled on too lightly, the door not touching the frame, the lock not clicking into place. From the outside, she notices that all the lights inside are shut off, leaving most of the living room in unnerving darkness.

Vincent doesn’t like the darkness.

She knows because Theo told her.

“Vincent?” she cautiously calls out, gently swinging open the creaky gate door. No response. She pushes it back to place and takes careful steps up the open door, getting nervous with every crunch of snow. “Vincent? It’s me.”

Her hand hovers over the doorknob hesitantly, but then she grasps it and pushes the door open. True enough, the lights in the main area of the house are all turned off; the curtains are drawn; at 5:00pm, there’s barely enough light to see the silhouettes of the furniture.

“Vincent?”

She hears a sniffle.

A small one; hushed and guilty; as if it hadn’t meant to be heard.

Her heart breaks.

“…Vincent?”

She closes the door behind her, doing her best to keep it as silent as possible. The kitchen and dining area are empty, but the door to the studio is open just a peek. She puts the book bag gently onto the couch and then heads toward it. She doesn’t want to spook him; doesn’t want him to be scared of her; she just wants to be there right now. So as she walks down the hallway, she makes sure her footsteps are even, but not heavy. Prepares him for her arrival—tells him that she’s not there to harm him.

But it’s her that’s not ready for the sight she sees.

Vincent and Theo rent a small home in the middle of the university town. It’s not the biggest, but it’s still rather grand for only a pair of brothers sharing it. The most frugal of students could perhaps fit eight people in this house if there were four double-bunk beds with two bunks in each room.

But Vincent needs the art space.

The studio is the bigger one of the two rooms, and it doubles as Vincent’s working space and a small library, with small shelves of the brothers’ books.

The studio is Vincent’s holy place. This is where he spends most of his day when he’s painting indoors, perfecting what he’d started elsewhere. One entire wall of the studio room has been decked out with a ridiculously large corkboard, from which Vincent hangs all sorts of things, sketches and studies and inspiration. This is his art room. This is his safe space.

It doesn’t look like that anymore.

The corkboard has been pulled out of its place on the wall. Small cans and tubes of paint have spilled all over the wooden floor, making it into a multicolored mess, much of it having missed the protective newspapers. A multitude of papers are now unrecognizable, torn up, scattered around the room. The studio light Vincent was so proud of lies sideways on the farther end of the room, its bulb perhaps shattered.

And Vincent sits in the middle of the room, like a survivor amongst the chaos.

Sobbing.

Head in his hands, curled up in fetal position, pulling at his hair.

Hoarse.

“Vincent…”

Where should one begin?

Theo had told her about it. The reason his brother couldn’t finish his last project; why he couldn’t get past all this. The mood swings. The crippling strength of it. The way it turned him upside down, made everything impossible—sleeping, eating. And much less making art.

The cracks.

Vincent looks up at her like he’s been to hell and back; his eyes hollow.

The way he calls out her name as if it’ll break on his tongue.

She knows that expression.

She’s seen that somewhere before.

In a face more familiar.

Like in a mirror.

Making sure not to make much noise, stepping around the paint cans, she finds her way next to Vincent, and he scoots a little to afford her some space on the only dry, unstained bit of newspaper in the whole room. She’s sure her black skirt is still going to have some mad red stain on the butt, and for sure also the soles of her shoes, but that doesn’t matter right now.

What matters is Vincent.

They spend a long, quiet moment together, one minute bleeding into two, three, four. She keeps track of time with the tick-tock of the analog clock across the room, its glow in the dark clock hands proving useful in the quickly seeping night. At the five-minute mark, Vincent has laid his head on her shoulder, the golden mop of his hair ticklish against her cheek.

“Want to talk?”

Vincent doesn’t speak at first. When he finally does, it sounds like he’s pulling out his voice from somewhere deep in him. Like he’s doing his best—the way he always does. “Theo might come home soon.”

“I’ll send him away,” she says, taking her phone out of her pocket. Vincent stares at the screen just long enough for her to type [ don’t come home yet ] before he turns away. She quickly follows up with [ get something nice for Vincent, but DON’T come home yet. tell u later ] before putting her phone face-down on her thigh.

As if to tell Vincent, the world is quiet now. No one will reach us here. It’s just you, me, and this room.

You’re safe here.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admits, gesturing at the stack of paintings on the other end of the room. The paintings he’d been making for his project. The exhibition Theo has been looking forward to. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”

When Vincent puts down his hands, she sees they’re ink-stained, like they always are. But they look different. Thinner. Has he not been eating? She tries to remember how much of Vincent she’s seen recently. How he looks much more tired.

“Did something happen?”

“I happened,” he says, with a soft, self-deprecating chuckle. “Theo should stop working so hard for me when I can never get this right. I should just drop out.”

She’s under a different unit, being a literature major, but she and Vincent technically are in the same college—the College of Arts. Sure, she’s in the Department of Humanities and he’s in Fine Arts, but still. She hasn’t been there long, but Vincent has, and he’s become some sort of legend in their already-small department. The genius, they call him, the prodigy; so many of his previous paintings hang in the dean’s hall to serve as an inspiration to current students.

But he had a problem—he couldn’t seem to finish his bigger projects. Couldn’t see his ideas to the end. The paintings get completed, but the entire collection never comes to shape. They’re always only shattered parts of a whole dream of his—a dream that everyone in the department is sure to be beautiful, but cannot rightly prove, because they never become real.

And so Vincent has never made it out of there.

She considers the correct things to say. The right ones, the factual things. Like how he shouldn’t drop out, actually, because he’s actually good. Like how he does have a vision, it’s just a matter of discipline and having faith in it. Like how everyone is watching him—not because he’s a failure, but because he’s so much greater than he thinks.

But then she considers better things to be heard.

The ones she would have wanted to hear.

“Art block?” she prods.

He shakes his head. “I wish it were.”

She nods, careful not to stir him. “It just doesn’t make sense, huh?”

He squeezes his hands into fists so hard, his knuckles turn white. She wants to take them in hers and unclench them, but she knows better. She counts the seconds. In half a minute, he releases them.

“I can’t get it right. It seems alright, and then I get midway through, and then everything crumbles. I’m not good enough for what I can see. For what I want to do.”

Who ever is, though?

She bites her cheek. “What are you afraid of?”

“Letting him down.”

She’d heard the story, but from Arthur, instead of Theo. That Theo was a star-student, gunning for honors. If he hadn’t stopped, if he hadn’t taken a break, he would have had higher chances of getting better awards. But after Vincent failed his first attempt at setting up an exhibition, Theo requested to take lower academic loads for the meantime, allowing him to get a job and to support Vincent. Theo could risk it because while Vincent’s scholarship didn’t cover the costs of an extra year—Theo’s did.

But he’d also lost precious starting years for that.

Which may not amount to much in the long run, but at the moment—it’s all they have.

Their youth.

And Vincent was taking it from Theo.

At least, that is how he sees it.

She knows for sure that’s not how Theo sees it.

She’s 100% sure.

But when in a place like this, a lot of times, what’s true doesn’t matter much—not when you’re chest-deep into the truth you’d made yourself believe already.

There’s no convincing Vincent out of this.

Only sitting next to him.

“What do you need help with?”

An artist to an artist.

“How do you just… keep going?”

She turns to him, his head still on her shoulder. Contemplates for a moment, then presses her cheek against the mop of sunflower-yellow hair. “I’m scared of stopping.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel like if I stay in a place too long, I’ll get trapped there,” she says. “It looks like motivation, but it’s not. It’s fear. It is, and always has been.”

Silence, again. But only the kind of silence between two people who understand what lingers in between the words. “Why are you afraid?”

“This place hasn’t been kind to me.”

He reaches out, puts a hand on her knee. A wordless I know what that means.

To be taught art in such a rigid institution is always a privilege, an honor, a badge that says, “I am trained for this”, but it also gets very choking. Very prescriptive—that this is what art is. That this is the minimum of what it should be. In many ways, it stops the very art it wants to cultivate from really flourishing.

Vincent finally breaks the silence. “I’m the opposite. I don’t think I’m ready to go away.”

To send him off—that had been Theo’s dream. To lend his brother wings. He’s always seen what Vincent is capable of, even when his older brother hides behind his fear of the rest of the world, of their eyes on him.

“You’re afraid he’s investing it all on you, but then you won’t be able to give him a good return.”

He hums in agreement, but does not clarify, does not expound. The clock on the other end of the room ticks for what feels like an eternity, as they weigh their words. The sun is long out of the sky. The only sources of light in the room are the clock’s glow-in-the-dark hands and a streetlight across the road; the room is awash in weak gold.

“I want to create something that will matter, to be fair to him. But I can’t. I haven’t ever been able to. I’m wasting both of our times.”

The confession is heavy in his lips and she can feel it. How hard it was to say it. How long he’d been waiting to put it out there, instead of carrying it around. There’s a certain relief when one admits a fault—one that can quickly be lost into its consequences, but a relief nonetheless.

“Whose definition of mattering are you using, Vincent?”

It’s the boldest question she’s ever dared ask tonight, the sharpest of all the knives, but there’s no getting around this: it’s one that needs to be asked. And Vincent knows that, too, if the way he doesn’t flinch or react to it is any clue. He knew it was coming.

Maybe he’d even been asking it to himself on his own, too.

He sits up, as if maintaining any sort of physical contact with her is too much. She takes no offense at it. Clutching his arms against his torso, he answers feebly, “The rest of world’s.” The art world’s. The real world’s. The out there which won’t be as gentle to his art as this small studio room, as his brother.

She takes a deep breath, letting the answer linger in the quiet. The longer it remains there unrefuted, the more and more it sounds silly. Who decides the standards? Who decides what’s art? Who are they to decide on this?

And just like before, there are better things to say, of course. But a good friend doesn’t only coddle. They nurture. And sometimes, nurturing isn’t pretty.

Isn’t gentle.

“The art department… they’re nuts,” she begins, and it gets a small burst of sympathetic laughter from Vincent. “They’re always dreaming up of this or that. I don’t know where our professors get it, but they’re always looking out for something better out there. Even if the ones we currently have and do are pretty alright as it is.”

Vincent nods, but does not answer.

“You know the multimedia arts room? That was the most ambitious project of all. And it seemed great at the start, to have this specific area that said we have to collaborate or else. The film students took all the writing majors who were good at screenplays and just attempted to make whatever came to mind.” She takes a deep breath. “You remember what resulted out of that?”

He nods again. “The film showing last Christmas.”

“Yes! The film showing last Christmas!” She says, laughing as she goes. “They weren’t supposed to show the films, but all the shooting caused such a hubbub about it… the others wanted to see what happened, of course. So the student council set up a film showing, which the head of the department wanted to block.”

“They said the students didn’t get permission.”

“Yes, that’s what they said. But they did! Then they said the films weren’t qualified for showing, weren’t up to standards, but when the students argued, the department had to back off because there weren’t any valid standards to begin with, except ‘if the Head enjoys it.’” She closes her eyes, memories of last year coming back. “And the film students didn’t even have to lift a finger. It was everyone else who was curious about what they’re doing who got it all running. And so everyone who stayed here watched it anyway, the morning before Christmas, and it was such a hit they had to send it to experimental film festivals and—they won.”

“Mmhmm.” The meaning sinks in as Vincent listens. He leans back toward her shoulder.

She lets him stay there silently for a few breaths, before asking, “You get what I’m saying, don’t you?”

And in a soft voice, he begs, “Tell me anyway?”

So she does. “A lot of us will never be satisfied with what we do. I’m never satisfied with what I do. And I’m sure you know that feeling, too.” she sighs. “We’re so engrossed in getting that thing in our heads right, when they come out of our hands, that—we rarely see how closely we’ve come from the nothing they come from. We both always start with blank canvases, Vincent.”

She sees him clench his fists, then release them.

“And maybe we’ll never be content with what we do, but they’ll still be art. If not to us, then to someone else. And there will always be someone,” she says. “I’ll always think your work is art. I’ll always think it matters.”

“Thank you,” he mumbles. Tries to not make it obvious that he’s crying. Tries not to make the sleeve of her shirt damp.

“And Theo will always think your work is art. I know because he never stops talking about it. And maybe—maybe the Theo in your head will say it doesn’t matter, but to the real Theo? It will.” She gently pats his head. At this point, she’s half-talking to herself but she goes anyway, saying, “You’re allowed to change your mind in the middle, you’re allowed to abandon what you do not love anymore but—you’re also entirely allowed to continue to love something even when others do not think it is good enough. Even when you think it isn’t good enough, because sometimes… that feeling just is.” She takes a deep breath. “And sometimes the thing you love, the thing you make, it won’t be as good as the last one. Sometimes it’ll be shit. But it’ll still be a step forward, you know? It still contributes to the bigger ecosystem of all the art ever created. Maybe you’re scared of what you’re going to make, that you won’t be enough for it, that you won’t be able to give it justice, but—you’re the only one who can give it to life the way you can.”

Vincent laughs, the small, amused laugh he usually makes, and this time, it feels lighter than any from earlier that evening. He doesn’t hide the next sniffle he makes, or try to be discreet about wiping his eyes. “Has Theo been making you read his philosophy books?”

She groans. “Yes, I feel like I ended up on the losing end of a bargain.”

He laughs, finally getting back to sitting up. “Well, your poetry books have certainly made him more colorful now, if that’s any comfort.”

“Colorful?” she turns to him. “What does that mean?”

But Vincent only shrugs, that very maddening van Gogh evasion that she’s long gotten used to, just with a different person. But that’s okay. What matters is Vincent is here now. She presses the warm palm of her hand over the back of Vincent’s, and they stay there, in comfortable silence, for a few more recuperative minutes.

She messages Theo, and he’s at the door in three minutes. There’s surprise written on her face but she doesn’t prod, at least not now, as Vincent emerges from the room. She and Theo share a look at each other in understanding: not right now.

It’s heavy and hard to swallow but Theo knows that she’s right. He does his best to swallow down all his questions, as he sees his brother’s red-rimmed eyes, the tenderness of the smile on Vincent’s face. Instead, Theo focuses on the things he can do—it’s his turn now. He serves the still-warm pancakes from Vincent’s favorite shop as Vincent’s appetizer. When the silence begins to thicken, he switches up the banter with her, throwing biting phrases (softened with their mutual understanding) at each other like they’re hot, Vincent unable to keep up with his little reprimands. Theo cooks up an actual meal for the three of them from whatever is in the fridge—and it turns out to be fish, which isn’t his best dish, but it turns out edible anyway, so that’s what matters.

Theo gives her the bigger slice like an unsaid thank-you, and she raises a biteful in his direction in acknowledgment.

When they’re done eating, Vincent turns to Theo as he’s bringing their plates to the kitchen sink. “You should walk her home, Theo,” he says. “It’s late and too dangerous to go alone.”

It’s just eight o’clock, which isn’t exactly that late, but there’s no arguing with Vincent when he goes full big-brother mode. Theo knows that, too.

Instead, Theo says: “Where’s your bike?”

“I lent it to Dazai,” she answers, cringing just a little bit. “Just today, too.”

So after exchanging thanks for the meals and good nights—and a full, tight, caring hug for Vincent, for good measure—she and Theo are already on their way to her apartment building, walking down familiar streets only lit by lamps and the moonlight.

Once they’ve turned the corner, she finally speaks.

“I know you want to ask me about it, but I don’t think I can.”

Theo instantly relaxes—a held breath let go, one he didn’t know he was holding until she had spoken. “It didn’t feel right to ask.”

“It doesn’t feel right to say, either,” she says. “Just… be there for him, okay? I know you’re looking out for him and that’s why you’re doing all this, but you have to be there too.”

Theo doesn’t need to answer for her to know that he will do as he’s asked.

It’s a 20-minute walk from the brothers’ house to hers, and Theo is prepared to only share silence with her the rest of the way. He has nothing to say, nothing to ask, just here to give her the least bit of thanks he can for being there for his brother when he wasn’t. A part of him is panicking about leaving Vincent alone at home. But a larger part of him wants to be here, a foot away from her, like being in her presence might just be enough to clear his head, to help him consider what he has to do.

When they get to the main boulevard at the halfway point, she speaks while they wait to cross the street.

“I can’t tell you what Vincent said, but I can tell you what I think.”

The pedestrian sign turns green.

“Anything,” Theo says, suddenly out of breath. She starts to walk ahead of him and he tries to catch up.

She doesn’t speak for a while, as if rearranging the words in her head. When she finally does, she’s walking next to him so she can give him a proper look in the eye. The feeling of her gaze on his makes Theo feel a little more vulnerable than he would have liked.

“I think… sometimes, even when you have the best in mind… it can read different,” she says softly. “It might feel like you’re saying it’s what you expect. Like you’re saying it’s what you deserve out of it.”

Theo bites back the denial bitterly building on his tongue.

“You’re a cheerleader, not a strategizer.” She turns away from him. “The battle is on the fighter. If they lose, they already face the sting of the loss—they don’t need to carry the excess guilt of disappointing you.”

Theo takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

Punching him lightly on the shoulder, she says with a smile, “You ought to talk to Vincent.”

“How do I talk to him about this?”

She shrugs. “Sometimes even the worst of talking makes the difference, you know? Good difference though.”

Theo hums in agreement.

They walk the last five minutes of the journey idly, pointing at different things they pass by and talking about something or other. Theo has an answer for every comment like he hadn’t just walked out of a situation that made his view of her change altogether. Like he still feels a little raw from how succinctly she’d held his heart in her hands and told him how he could do better. Like he wasn’t still sitting on the look on Vincent’s face when he arrived, the recognition that she could see through Vincent as he could.

Something is changing.

So when they finally get to the front door of her building, he is eager to go and sit alone in his thoughts. Theo mutters a small “Good night” and turns around to leave when her hand encircles around his wrist before he can go any further.

He turns. “What is it?”

“Your brother is the world to you, isn’t he?”

She asks, as if she doesn’t already know the answer. Used to Arthur’s teasing, Theo bristles. “And if he is?”

Her grasp on his wrist loosens; she holds his shaking hand in hers gently. “I just wanted to make sure you know that he’s lucky to have someone as constant as you around,” she says—and then, before Theo can say anything else, she lets go. “Thank you for dinner, see you soon,” she bids goodbye while having already turned away, already going up the stairs.

Theo would have wanted to have something to say, but nothing dares come out of his likely traitorous mouth.

Instead, he looks down at his now-steady hands.

Lets the warm feeling settle in his stomach.

And the fear that comes with it.

Oh, he says, in his mind, as it clicks.

Oh no.

He sighs.

#the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart #ikemen vampire #ikevamp theo

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kendrixtermina · 3 years

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The funny thing is that with almost all of the over the top drill seargeant abusive “discipline” I got, I can’t even remember what the argument was about.

I just remember the pain, fear & humiliation. I was in survival mode - there was no space in my head for complex thoughts or learning.

Also mom’s husband would sometimes yell at/ mistreat me for no reason, because I just came into the room at a bad moment or he was mad at mom & wanted to hurt us to hurt her.

& the mistreatment for “punishment” and for just existing would be indistinguishable.

So not only is it evil & cruel, it didn’t even do the one thing it was supposed to do.

Humiliation is always an ad hominem becase you do it TO the person & their dignity; It#s not intrinsically related to bad behavior by cause & effect.

If I think back to moments in my life that were actual moral learning experiences, the big emotion wasn’t shame or guilt or fear but surprise, the underappreciated sixth basic emotion.

Respected adult shows dissaproval or negative feelings (Example: Like I’d repeated an offensive joke from school & expected mom to laugh, but instead she would explain how it’s not funny. Thanks mom, for saving me from being an asshole) - The surprise here is that the response was negative rather than positive or serious rather than just annoyed.

Respected adult explains why something is bad (Like saying we have to help clean our stuff so we won’t be clueless as adults) The surprise here is the bad consequence you didn’t think of.

Adult makes me aware of a fact I didn’t consider (example: a Teacher informed me that “the ‘weird’ way that boy is talking is not something he’s doing on purpose, but a medical condition”... she didn’t have to convince me to apologize & never do it again, I wanted to do it myself since you don’t criticise ppl for things that aren’t their fault). The surprise here is the different conclusion that you come to if you consider the fact.

(Of course ppl also learn from their own reasoning & experience but they don’t need the parents for that, they’re meant to supplement what you dont notice on your own)

Note that most of these require that you already respect the person who is doing the scolding - you believe facts from someone you think is wise; You don’t believe a fool. You want a good person to approve of you & to not make them mad/sad/umcomfortable, but you don’t care if an asshole is mad.

I also remember that even if my mom was super pissed at/ not talking to be she would still let me hug her & would like half-assedly pat me, like “I still love u, but u fucked up”. Like a few rare lapses aside she never completely ignored me. (So, instead of worrying that she hated me, I could actually absorb that she was mad because of the bad behavior)

Meanwhile I wouldn’t even have THOUGHT of going near her husband when he was angry cause I’d be terrified of him. He had previously broken my belongings & done things that, reasonably or not, made me afraid for my life.

#feelings

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frvyas · 4 years

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「olivia holt & cis female」⇾ nilsen, freya, the junior radcliffe student’s records show that she is a leo and 21 years old. she is studying marketing, living off-campus and can be assured, exuberant, facetious & remiss. when i see her i am reminded of a missing mother’s found necklace, sleeping through well-intentioned alarms, automated ‘to accept this call, press 3 now’ messages seemingly on loop.

ella again! with her second character. again if u would like to plot, smash that like button and i’ll hit u up!!

(addiction tw) freya’s comes from a family that has plagued lovell for years with their stunning reputation! father, conrad nilsen, was a menace and there was more than enough stories about him from his heyday. mother, holly koch, came from a family where everyone was constantly at each other’s throats. holly dealt with the drama of it all through drug use. as was common in holly’s family, an accidental pregnancy was the next step and thus, freya was born. their happy family of three didn’t last long. the reasons as to why her parents just ditched her are plenty if you wanted to explore them! a real baby is scarier than the idea of a baby, conrad had non-baby plans and holly wanted to follow after him, and finally, addiction is a bitch. freya grew up in her aunt fiona’s care for the majority of her life.

it’s not as if her parents suddenly disappeared from existence, although freya prefers pretending that they did. it’s easier to deal with them as nondescript figures in her life. and, at the end of the day, they ditched her. in reality, collect calls from correctional facilities let her figure out that her dad’s been locked up. memories of a woman in youth that looked so much like her and so much like fiona proved that holly was still in and out in lovell. freya also remembers that holly never acknowledged her as her own before disappearing once more. she never figured out if it was done purposefully or if it was because that’s just the way her mother functioned. that being said, all potential contact with either parent was short and brief and freya learned to not let it mean anything. there hasn’t been any substantial contact for years now either way.

as for freya’s aunt, she was on the younger side when she took freya in and as she was being raised, it was more of a weird friendship/sibling sort of relationship rather than a proxy mother-daughter one. that meant freya had too much freedom, but it also meant there was a lot of screaming matches between the pair and a lot of times freya was left directionless. her aunt also loved serial dating so there was a lot of strange men in and out. not the most reputable guys either, but truth be told those men were providing them with financial support, so fiona was never quick to let them go.

very independent. freya has a lot of practical smarts, although most of the time it’s used for nothing good (knows how to shoplift without getting caught, can talk her way out of most things, knows how to get what from who). she’s someone who does what she wants! discipline is foreign to her and god forbid if anyone tries it. in typical teenage fashion, heightened by the fact that life was set up for her to fail, she’s always had this aura of apathy. her general approach to life is to accept it as it is but make sure she’s having so much fun as well. of course, as most people do, there was an inkling of yearning there. the shiny gold possibility that she didn’t have to become another nilsen-koch lovell deadbeat staple hung at the back of her mind. that she could possibly get out and have some dreams was encouraged by a few teachers. so she ended up trying as much as she could possibly try in her last few years of high school and proved to herself that she wasn’t completely useless. although, it was soon clear that getting into a good out-of-state college requires more than just making an attempt -- extracurriculars and money and other obvious yet non-obvious things that freya lacked. at the end of the day, her best option was the local college at radcliffe, which wasn’t a defeat by any means cause she had made it and it was college. still, she was stuck in lovell. she decided to major in marketing after her sophomore year. good at numbers and can talk the talk baby.

kind of always has her foot out the door though. it didn’t take long for freya to fall back into old habits because her life is her life. there’s always a lack of money, another man fiona’s caught up in, another wrench thrown in the works. her education has been spacey and has cracks, and i’ll be honest, i don’t think she’ll make it to graduation but she’s here now! unfortunate bc she’s the kind of person who could accomplish things if she cared or tried, but the problem is that she does not and no, she will not ask for help! she refuses to take anything seriously.

other fun facts is that she’s a leo! she knows how to have fun and knows how to track down a party. i don’t think she’s someone that would ever bring the mood down. like i said she doesn’t really get Deep about things so if your muse needs someone to fuck around with freya is your girl. if your muse needs help with something serious, she is not your girl! her general relationships and friendships are all over the place. i think she’s someone who doesn’t make much of an effort in anything, but will also be totally fine picking things up weeks later. there’s a handful of relationships she holds closer than the rest, though. careless with people and things. catch her in your muse’s favorite sweatshirt that went missing a week ago. currently working at the local diner, which she has been for a few years now. been known to pick up shifts in place of classes. follows paris hilton’s advice of screwing things up the first time so you don’t have to do them again. currently living in an off-campus apartment with lana, maggie, and rosa and lana frequently covers her part of the rent (blows her a kiss).

#ruhqintro #addiction tw

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steenbergwynn4 · 2 years

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HBBO Spells the Excellent Life - Portion 2

To get compensated, you must be P. A. I. D. if a person want to get a successful Home Established Business Owner. Not any! That's not some sort of play on terms, but a shorthand way of enjoying and remembering some sort of foundational principle regarding home based organization success. The phrase stands for Designed Action and Intensive Discipline. P. A. I. D. will be the first of some sort of set of several such acronyms of which summarize 20 effective principles I've learned to master throughout the past up to 29 years, since I launched my first business in February 1979. I may discuss each set involving these acronyms in this five-part series about home based enterprise success. The shortened forms are: one S. A. I. Deb. Planned Action [and] Powerful Discipline. 2 . N. I. C. Electronic. New, Innovative, Imaginative and Enthusiastic considering. 3. R. Elizabeth. A. P. Identify value, Embrace energy, Acquire skills plus Purchase technology. 5. R. A. G. E. Responsible relationships, Accountable actions, Thorough commitments and Enterprising economics. 5. P. L. U. H. This acronym summarizes your HBBO perspective and stands with regard to a Person Learning Unlimited Success. First, you should recognize that I recognized none of these kinds of principles when We launched into enterprise initially in February 1979 after resigning as being a staff author with all the Charlotte (NC) Observer. I seemed to be married to some great woman, and acquired two young kids, one five-years-old and even another two-years-old from the time. We had been with all the Observer, one involving the South's main newspapers, since September 1975, a position I actually landed just more effective years after staying released from the North Carolina prison division. In about 5 years, I experienced progressed from your common assignment reporter, which often meant I covered and wrote about whatever editors came up up with, in order to a county specialist, plus then an downtown affairs reporter. Issues were going well. We were earning more cash than any senior high school dropout deserved also because my wife from the time was obviously a department level boss with the Town Of Charlotte, we all were doing alright financially. This despite, I itched to be able to free-lance full period. The free-lance creating "bug" bit me personally back 1969 whenever Guy Munger, well then the Sunday Capabilities Editor together with the Reports & Observer, inside of Raleigh (NC) purchased an article through me on the particular afro that the weekly editor My partner and i worked for experienced rejected. I got hit by the idea that two editors looking at the same write-up could arrive with such vastly distinct conclusions. I got including more struck by the fact that a single editor paid myself $75 per week for about five features and media stories that I actually were required to enterprise (that's journalese for appear up with the ideas myself), and even another editor paid out me $75 for one feature article. We dove "headfirst" figuratively into free-lance creating and could have got wallpapered a bed room together with the rejection characters I received. Regarding the Spring associated with 1971, I decided to stop running within the rejection letter treadmill machine and began learning the free-lance journal writing industry. Following about a yr of intense research, I learned three power lessons related to this amazing industry. Consider the a few lessons: 1. The key to successful issue letters is to be able to place the right idea on the best editor's desk about three to six a few months before he or she needs it. 2. Learn to master "vacuum research" so that you will get about three or more additional history ideas from every single research excursion. 3. Discover how to adapt your current writing style, not really only to the essential principles of good quality professional writing, but also to the different demands of a specific publication. Inside other words, a person learn to write down, not necessarily just what a person prefer, but exactly what editors pay money for. Using those lessons, My partner and i began selling content regularly to quite a number regarding regional and national magazines and newspapers. So at the conclusion associated with 1978, I determined that the simply thing that prevented me from getting more money because a full-time free-lance author was your 40 hrs every week I worked for your Observer. I actually resigned and gone into business. My partner and i named my "company" The Writer's Team. I rented the office, bought office furniture and equipment, and also hired a receptionist. Big mistakes! In about 90 days I learned the particular sad truth associated with the mantra: they who does not program plans to get corrupted. So I did not necessarily begin with the idea of having a home based business. I was compelled to have one main mainly because I became virtually broke and had to be able to use all the skills I can muster, including working as a dee jay and "Polaroid" photographer in area night clubs only to help keep foodstuff on the table and bills paid. Additional research trained me that prosperous business people plan their particular work and work their plan. Above the years, I have learned that a new quality plan--literally the business operating system, includes the pursuing components: 1 ) Some sort of vision statement--what your current venture looks like at some future moment. 2. A mission statement--a summary involving why you--the business--exist. 3. A philosophy--a statement that summarizes your fundamental belief(s), the energy, in case you will, that fuel your company endeavor. 4. How to Prevent and Handle Temper Tantrums of attainable objectives. 5. At least two or perhaps three methods for each objective. 6. A new strategy you work with to communicate the plans to others, e. g. vendors, customers, partners, etc. 7. A timeline that prevents handlungsaufschub. So I moved my business to our home, and quickly learned another lesson. In the contemporary mind--child and adult alike--at least inside the 1980s, working online neither looks nor sounds like true work. Everything all-around the house, like my family, grew to become a distraction, basically because I had been right now there. I had in order to bargain them for production time, those periods of the day that we was "at work, " though I used to be in the particular next room, and family time. Loved ones time was if I closed the home office, and concentrated my partner plus the children. Neglect this simple approach so you could grave your property based enterprise almost as rapidly as you kick off it. So inside the Spring of 1980, I started planning my free-lance writing business. Guess what? The ideal laid plans of free-lance writing rarely end up like an individual plan. By way of example our vision statement declared: "It's 1989 plus about 80 per cent of my function is published throughout national publications, this kind of as Ebony, African american Enterprise, American Training, etc. Assignment bank checks average $1, 200. Enter income! Just explained, cashflow means you must possess money when an individual need money, not really when busy, usually overworked, editors bypass to sending your invoice to typically the business office. Quickly My partner and i learned to my chagrin that although I actually had to believe around 12 several weeks ahead to offer stories, I also was required to usually wait 90 days to six a few months to obtain paid. Therefore in the mid nineteen eighties, I changed my personal vision statement to be able to say: "It's 1999, and about 75 percent of the work is posted in local plus regional publications, and the lag time among submitting an post and being paid out is 30 days or perhaps less. By sad experience I learned the difference between current and the particular future value associated with money. Quite simply, the $1, 200 I actually made for an average of eight articles published locally and regionally was more beneficial to me when compared to the way the $1, 2 hundred a national syndication paid for a single article. It has been exactly about time and productivity. Local and even regional articles required less complicated analysis and fewer interviews. I could normally query and get hold of assignments within days, even several simultaneously, while national tasks required around sixty to 90 days before I recognized one way or perhaps the other. For publications within easy driving distance, I could arrange payment about delivery which designed that I did not possess to tie upward my expense money for so long, but could recycle my expense account to help financing additional work. This specific experience taught me a valuable lesson regarding business budgeting. For example , I had to be able to set an expense ceiling. In my finances planning I learned to ask plus answer the following questions: 1 . Just how much gross revenue did I desire to target regarding the coming a year? Let's say the particular answer was $30, 000. 2 . not Precisely how many hours would certainly I work to create that revenue? Parenthetically the answer was 2, 500 annually, or 50 hrs weekly for 40 weeks. Thus I established a $12 hourly rate. three or more. The amount is I ready to spend for every dollar of revenue? I answered: bucks. 30. Quite simply, 30% was my expense ceiling. Those answers became policy assertions for my residence based business of which I always hold by even right now, though free suerte writing now makes up less than 10 percent of my revenue productivity. So if typically the editor of yankee Training, for example wanted me to move to New Orleans to write in regards to a Parent/Child Development Middle, funded by the particular US Department involving Education, and offered to pay $750, it was clear that I can not deliver that will story by using a cost budget of $225. So I would either have in order to reject the project or find some way to increase the revenue. And so i queried another national magazine--Sepia--about two articles, one on Elgin Baylor, then coach of the New Orleans Jazz, and other on Marc Morial, the initial African Us mayor of recent Oleans. The editor accepted both queries regarding $500 each. Today I was around $1, 750 found in assigned revenue, and even an expense price range of $525. Practically there. Further exploration revealed a local controversy between your Town government, the organization that operated the relatively new Superdome and some African American small businesses proprietors concerning contracts to offer hommage and parking regarding the thousands which flocked to of which facility to observe football games. I actually got on the telephone and 45 editors of dark weekly newspapers decided to pay me personally $75 each intended for various versions associated with that story, pegged to specific nearby interests in their own circulation areas. Thus now, I had formed $4, 750 in tasks and an expense finances of $1, 425. Off to Brand new Orleans. Relating to this time, I had furthermore learned that company survives, not upon revenue alone, but more on the supervision of outgo. I also learned that I had formed to pay out myself, the business enterprise and contingencies. After a few experimentation on this idea, I chosen typically the formula I even now use. I pay myself 50 % involving expense adjusted income. I pay typically the business 40 per cent and I set 10 percent aside in order to pay for numerous contingencies, those activities and occurrences that will crop up throughout business that no plan could foresee. Here's how this worked with the brand new Orleans assignments, by way of example. I reimbursed my personal production expense bank account $1, 425. My partner and i paid myself $1, 662. 50. get more info paid the organization $1, 300, and even put $362. 55 into my concurrent account. That type of intense economical discipline produces solvency, a vitally important atmosphere in any business, large or even small, work from home or otherwise. Solvency energizes longevity and longevity provides the important ingredient you need to stay throughout business for typically the long term, lengthy enough to succeed. Therefore, you see to get a successful home dependent business, you must become P. A. We. D. to get paid out and to keep around long adequate to enjoy the knowledge. Next, I am going to examine what being D. I. C. Electronic. means to running a successful house based business. I possess spent almost forty years mastering typically the principles of precisely how to remain out of crime and prison. I am right now an expert and even I want to talk about this expertise using others. To learn more, make sure you visit [http://miltoncjordansr.com]

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