#my classes have a system where we make a discussion post on wednesdays and have to leave two responses by sunday and Jesus CHRIST

[emily-scstudyabroad]

Classes & Campus

I haven’t written about the classes I am taking since the 11-week semester began, so this post will be all about my classes and what my week looks like! I have four courses that started on February 27th and end on May 10th. All of my classes are in English but taught by Italians.

My Monday class is called Wanderlust: The Physical and Emotional Art of Walking, and it is a philosophy class that counts as a humanities credit for my Carolina Core. We meet on Mondays from 3:20 to 6:45, although we usually end earlier. Every week, we walk the streets of Florence and discuss topics such as nature, pilgrimages, and migration. I really enjoy the time we spend outside and how much I learn about the city. We also always take a snack break which usually means I get gelato!

We walked the length of the river when we discussed pilgrimages.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have Health and Fitness in the Mediterranean from 9:55 to 11:40, which transfers over as HPEB 321, and Ethics and Justice in Food Systems from 1:15 to 3:00, which transfers as a humanities credit. In my health and fitness class, we learned the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, power walking, and cycling. To go along with these topics we have done two power walks and biked to Cascine park.

Biking! We did 8 miles during class.

We also did a tasting of balsamic vinegar, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and Parma ham when we learned about the production processes. Up next is rowing in the Arno River and visiting the national soccer museum!

In my ethics and justice class, we learned about food deserts and inequality in the agricultural industry. We visited the Mercato Centrale and have three cooking labs. We also had the owner of the Women’s Coffee Project in Florence as a guest speaker to tell us about his organization.

My classroom for Ethics & Justice in Food Systems.

Eggs we made in our cooking lab! We have two more cooking labs coming up.

On Wednesdays, I take ceramics to fulfill my art credit. The class is from 3:20 to 6:45 and is my only Wednesday class. It is perfect to have in the middle of the week since it is a relaxing activity. 

The mug I am making and attempting to decorate with strawberries. It's a beginner class so as long as I do my best, that is what counts.

My course load is not bad. I wasn’t sure if it would be manageable since I travel on weekends and usually do not get any work done then, but I can get everything done each week before I leave. My homework typically consists of readings and short reflection assignments. I think it helps that I have a lot of free time since I don’t have three classes a day; I only have one or two.

None of the classes I am taking are for my major, but I am enjoying switching up my courses! I find them very interesting and look forward to them. One of my favorite things about my classes is that we do activities, and they are very interactive and more engaging than a traditional lecture.

The Florence University of the Arts campus is spread out among six different academic buildings. I have classes in three of the six. I go to the main building, the hospitality building (which also has a pastry shop), and the art building. The classrooms are very nice and modern.

The main campus building is so pretty in the spring!

Courtyard where I do work before meeting for class on Mondays.

The campus is very beautiful; I love to sit outside in the courtyard at the main campus building or in the garden of the pastry shop. The university also has many amazing amenities like a spa and gym!

The garden at Fedora, the pastry shop.

I like to get lunch in between my classes on Tuesdays at the pastry shop!

I am learning so much in my classes and getting to know Florence better through all of our activities in and out of the classroom. I have midterms coming up and I can’t believe I am almost done with the semester, I am going to miss being here.

#study abroad #florence italy #italy #firenze

[atlafan]

The Tutor - Part Three

a/n: alright, I think I have these two out of my system now. hope you enjoy! feedback is always appreciated, as well as reblogs! 

Part One Part Two

Warnings: fluff, SMUT, slight angst, slight spitting, partying, alcohol consumption.

Words: 18.6K

After spending like what felt a week in bed together, the spring semester officially began. Y/N was in a stage of just feeling giddy from how good Harry made her feel. Now that they had been together for a few months, she felt totally comfortable with him. She would often sleep naked, or lounge around in just her underwear she knew they would be alone for a while. Harry didn’t mind one bit. He liked how cute and sweet Y/N was, and he loved being loved on by her.

When she walks into their Art of Film class she scoffs when she sees him sitting in the second row. She walks right up to him and rolls her eyes.

“We are not sitting this close up.” She shakes her head.

“I like sitting closer, Y/N.”

“But if we’re going to be watching movies, then we should sit in the back.”

“This isn’t even a stadium style classroom, so that doesn’t make any sense. If you wanna sit in the back then be my guest, but this is where I like to sit.”

Y/N sighs heavily and sits down next to him. She didn’t like sitting up front in class, it just meant she would be called on more and she didn’t much feel like participating to the extreme in just a gen ed. She liked to save her energy for her major courses.

“You’re a little too studious sometimes, you know that?”

“Y/N.” He hums warningly and side eyes her. “Are you going to be able to handle sitting next to me? Or is this going to be an issue?”

“Golly gee, professor, I don’t know, maybe I should come to your office hours later to discuss it.” She smirks at him and he rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be mean.” He pouts. “I have a tough time concentrating in the back sometimes, so sitting up front is better for me. We’re in the second row at least.”

“I suppose that’s true.” She sighs.

Other students fill in. Billy from senate is in the class as well, and sits behind Harry. Y/N gives him a smile as well. The professor walks in, and sets his bag down on the desk. He gets his computer hooked up to the tech station so he can use the projector.

“God, please don’t tell me we’re going to watch Fight Club and Pulp Fiction.” Y/N groans.

“I didn’t see those on the syllabus.” Harry says, taking a few papers out. “Actually, a lot of the films we’re going to watch were directed by women, or have strong female casts.”

“You…already printed the syllabus?”

“Yeah, it’s what I did after I sent you home last night. I did it for all of my classes.”

“Good morning everyone, I’m Professor Robinson, feel free to call me Eric.” He smiles. “I’m really excited about this course, it’s one of my favorites to teach. We’re going to watch some great films, and learn about what goes into making them. I hope you all will get the book needed for class. It’s a little dense, but I promise I’ll be able to explain it in ways for you to understand.” He starts to go over the syllabus a bit. “One of the first films we’re going to be watching is Baby Face, it came out in 1933, and is considered a drama and a noir. This came out right at the beginning of when the Hays Code was being introduced, so we’ll be comparing this to Double Indemnity, which came out in 1944, another Barbara Stanwyck film. You’ll be able to see how differently the films were made, and even the difference in how female characters were treated. We’ll go over the Hays Code as well, but these two films will be great starting points. Now, you may have noticed that Wednesday evenings were put on your schedules from 7-9PM. These are optional meeting times. I will be showing the films here during this time, or you can watch them on your own. Whatever’s easier.” He smiles and continues on.

Y/N was captivated. She wasn’t sure what to expect from the course, and even though they would be watching a few black and white films in the beginning, the subject matter actually interested her.

“Alright, now, I hate doing the normal ice breakers where we all state our names, our majors, and a fun fact, and I know you all have made claim to your seats, so, turn to the person next to you, introduce yourself and talk about what you look for in a film when you go to the theater.”

Harry and Y/N look at each other and smile. Harry extends his hand out to her and she giggles as he shakes it.

“You’re so silly! Okay, when I go to the movies, like, if I’m going to pay to see a movie, I want to know that I’m going to laugh and not be bored. Like, I know it’s a good movie if I don’t check my phone the entire time. I like when the beginning is easy to follow along so I’m not confused.”

“Same here. I sort of like being sucked into another world, like, escape for a little bit. I feel like when I go to the movies, it’s one of the few times I don’t need to think too much about anything. It’s when I feel my least anxious.”

“Okay!” Eric says. “Glad you all could get to know each other a bit. I think we can end class a little early. Please make sure to check out the moodle page, there is a forum post do before Wednesday, and make sure you have Baby Face watched by next Monday. Thanks everyone!”

“This is going to be a fun class.” Y/N says to Harry as they walk out together.

“I think so too.” He kisses her cheek. “Where are you headed next? I have stats.”

“I’m heading to my Macroeconomics class, and then I have Organizational Communication, then I’m done for the day.”

“Alright, and then I’ll assume you have lifting?”

“Mhm.” She grins at him and pulls him aside.

“What?”

“Your birthday is this Friday.”

“Is it?” He pretends. “Had no idea.”

“Well, I hope you know I have a lot planned.”

“Is that so?”

“Yup, you’re going to be spoiled rotten, babe.” She gets on her tip toes to kiss him. “I gotta go, I’ll see you later.”

“Bye.” He chuckles as he heads upstairs to his stats class.

//

Y/N and Harry decide to be good sports Wednesday night and go to the formal viewing of Baby Face for their class. Most of the class actually showed up, so it made it more fun to watch. There was a scene where a man put his hand on Barbara’s knee, and she poured hot coffee on him without skipping a beat. Y/N loved her. She climbed her way up to the top by manipulating men, just as the men her life when she was younger had tried to manipulate her.

“I loved that movie!” Y/N exclaims as they leave the academic building. “She was so badass, taking no one’s shit.”

“Yeah, I really liked it too.” He yawns. “Christ, I’m tired.” He leads her in the direction of her apartment.

“Did I tell you me, Gina, Amanda, and Becca all signed a lease for an off campus place next year? We’re really excited.”

“That’s great! We’re all staying in the same apartment, which I’m happy about. It’s the perfect spot.” Harry walks Y/N up to her door and she looks confused when he stays outside. “M’gonna go back to my place, it’s late and I have an 8AM tomorrow…”

“Oh…alright.” She wraps her arms around his neck, and his go around her waist. “Thanks for walking me home.”

“Anytime, baby.”

They stand outside kissing for a while before he detaches himself from her. They both giggle and say goodnight before she goes inside. Louis and Niall were in the living room when Harry gets back, and he flops down onto the couch with them.

“Hey, mate, how was the movie?” Louis asks.

“Not too bad, actually. We both enjoyed it. I don’t think I’ll have the energy to go every Wednesday night, though. I’m pooped.”

“Did you go to the gym this morning?” Niall asks.

“Yeah, went for my usual run. Forgot how tiring going to classes all day were. Sort of miss just working in the law office.”

“I’m surprised Y/N isn’t with you.” Louis says.

“Nah, I walked her home and told her I wanted to come back here. I can’t get into the habit of having a lot of sleepovers during the week.” He hoists himself to his feet. “Well, I’m off to bed, goodnight.”

“Night, mate.” Niall and Louis say.

Harry gets cozy in bed, and then groans to himself when his boxers become uncomfortably tight. He rolls his eyes at himself. Did he have to press up against Y/N while they were making out earlier? Of course he was fucking did, and now he was too riled up to fall asleep. He wondered if the same thing ever happened to her.

Harry: can’t sleep

Y/N: thought you were exhausted

Harry: I was, but now I can’t stop thinking about you

Y/N: me or my parts, lmao

Harry: YOU

Y/N: not much I can do to help you from all the way over here…

Harry: picture???

Y/N: Harry!

Harry: you sent a ton over break!

Y/N: that was different

Harry: please??

Y/N: fine, I’ll send you a snap, gimme a minute

Y/N rips her blankets off her body, unsure of what sort of picture he was hoping for. She gets up and strips herself of her bed-shirt, and takes a mirror selfie, careful to hide most of her face, just in case, and sends it to him on snapchat. Harry was already stroking himself in anticipation. He grins ear to ear when he sees the notification pop up on his phone, and opens it immediately.

“Oh, fuck me.” He groans when he sees her naked body on display for him. She had squeezed one of her breasts, and he could just make out her biting her bottom lip. He knew she didn’t really like receiving nudes, even if it was from him, so he sends her back a pouty selfie telling her how fucking beautiful she was.

Y/N: you did this to yourself, you could have come up

Harry: I was trying to be good

Y/N: look at you now, giving yourself a hand job

Harry: don’t be mean…would you send another?

Y/N: yeah, hold on

She sends him a snap of her breasts pushed together, and that does it for him. He bites down on his knuckle while come gets on his other fist and lower belly. He gives himself a minute before cleaning himself up and laying back in bed.

Harry: thank you baby

Y/N: you realize you owe me

Harry: I’ll give you anything you want, you know that

Y/N: love you, goodnight

Harry: love you too, sweet dreams

He sighs happily as his eyes flutter closed. Y/N rolls her eyes and smirks to herself. Sometimes these moments were gentle reminders that even though Harry was a little more “woke” than most guys, he was still your average college guy. He wanted nudes from his girlfriend, and he wanted to sext even though he easily could have just come inside. She wasn’t annoyed her anything, and she didn’t want to be with his birthday so close. However, now she was left there, aroused at the idea of him simply getting off to a couple of pictures of her. She figures if he could do that, then she could do the same. She told him about most of her winter break, but what she hadn’t told him was about her new little friend. The girls had all gone to a sex shop, and she bought a little bullet vibrator. Y/N gets up and goes into her closet to use it. If he didn’t want to come in to satisfy her, she had other ways of getting around it.

//

Thursdays were days Y/N could meet up with Harry for lunch, so she happily goes to see him at the dining hall. She smiles and sits down with her food. He had his laptop out, typing away at something.

“How could you possibly already have something so important to do?” She sighs.

“Student senate stuff.” He says and then closes his laptop. “Thanks for your help last night.” He smirks and then kisses her cheek.

“You’re welcome.” She sips on his drink.

“Are you excited for your game tonight?”

“Mhm.”

“Are you upset with me?”

“No, why would I be?”

“You seem a little annoyed with me…”

“Not at all, Har.” She shrugs. “I just think that if you wanted to fuck me, you could have come inside.”

“I didn’t feel like spending the night.”

“I’ve told you before that you don’t need to.”

“You say that, but then you give me this look, and then I feel guilty…so I just don’t come in at all. It’s easier.”

“Mm, and then you get to conveniently rub one out.”

“Are you upset that I asked you to send me pictures?”

“No, I suppose it’s flattering. I just think I make things a little too easy for you sometimes. It’s not exactly easy for me to get off on my own, you know?”

“Aw, did I leave you hanging?” He genuinely felt bad.

“Nope, took care of it myself. Don’t exactly need you, do I?” She grins. “Made my back arch off the bed all by myself, no help from you whatsoever.” She bites into her sandwich, and looks innocently as his grimacing face. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re being mean. What are you saying, I don’t make you feel good anymore?”

“No, you make me feel plenty good. But I know a thing or two now, so don’t you worry about not wanting to come up and fuck me because I can handle it all on my own. In fact, let’s be like an old married couple who have sex nights and just do it once a week. That could be fun.”

“You are annoyed with me.”

“I’m not.” She leans closer to him so no one around can hear. “I just don’t want to be your personal porn star when you can’t fall asleep at night.”

“That’s not what I…” He sucks his teeth. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, you’re right. It was a little selfish, I’m sorry.” He pouts at her and hides his face in her neck. “Love you so much.” He kisses on her neck slowly, and she sighs.

“It’s okay.” She rubs his back. She really couldn’t stay upset with him when he was like this. He was just too cute. “I love you too.”

He sits up straight and pecks her lips before eating more of his food.

“I can hang out tonight if you want, no Friday classes this semester.”

“Me neither! Although, I’ll still have practice tomorrow morning. I’ll think about it. Maybe you could come to dinner after the game?”

“I’d love to.”

The girls ended up losing, so there was no community dinner down town, and Y/N was in too sour of a mood to have alone time with Harry, which he understood. Tomorrow was his birthday, so she’d rather start fresh with him when she was in a better mood.

//

“Shh.”

Harry’s eyes flutter open around nine. He usually never sleeps this “late”, but his alarm didn’t go off for some reason. His eyes snap open when he sees, Y/N, Niall, and Louis all creeping into his room. They were holding balloons and streamers and confetti.

“Happy birthday!” They all scream and dog pile on Harry. He laughs hysterically.

“Okay, okay!” He yelps. “Can’t breathe!”

The boys both get off the bed, but Y/N stays straddling him.

“Right, well, we’ll be whipping up some brekkie downstairs.” Louis says with a wink as he and Niall leave the room.

Y/N gets up quickly to lock the door and then she gets right back on top of Harry. His hands grip her hips tightly.

“What a nice surprise.” He smiles up at her. “Do you mind if I go brush my teeth and all that? Just woke up, you know.”

“You know what’s funny? With all of the excitement this morning, I forgot to take a shower.” Harry’s eyes grow wide at her. “What do you say, Har?” She says lowly.

“They’re home…”

“They’ll be busy making what I asked them to, and they’ve been told not to come upstairs. They just want you to have a good birthday, and so do I.”

“Do you even have anything with you?”

“Yeah, my bag’s right over there.” She points to it. “So…”

“Alright, yeah, let’s go take a shower.” He says excitedly.

Harry brushes his teeth while Y/N gets her hair up in a bun so it won’t get wet.

“Did you shower after practice?”

“I rinsed very quickly, not the same thing.” She takes her clothes off and presses her body against Harry’s. “This is much better.”

“I agree.”

He pulls the curtain back and helps her in. They both giggle as the water hits his back, and she wraps her arms around his neck. His hands slide down to her ass and he squeezes her. He licks into her mouth, and she happily glides her tongue along his. She bites his bottom lip and steps back, grabbing at his body wash.

“Which scrubbie is yours?”

“Oh, I just use these.” He holds up two gloves that are made from exfoliating rags. “They work much better and they’re more sanitary.”

“Learn something new about you every day, Har.” She grabs the gloves and puts them on, and squeezes the body wash onto them. “Turn around, gonna getcha all clean.”

“Wow, I’m really being spoiled today.”

He turns around and nearly purrs at the feeling of her scrubbing his back. She turns him around so she can do the same to his front and arms. She peels the gloves off and rinses them out.

“Thanks, baby.” He smiles as the soap rinses off him.

“Want me to wash your hair too?” She asks shyly. “Grew my nails out for you.” She holds them up to show him and he his mouth forms in an “O”.

“Yes, please.”

She giggles and get his shampoo lathered into her hands, and he bends down a bit so she can properly scrub at his head. He moans softly as her nails scratch at his head. She massages his scalp a bit as well before helping him rinse it out. Once he’s all clean, she gets on her knees in front of him, and starts stroking him up and down.

“Is this what you wanted the other night?”

“Yes.” He grunts. “Are you sure you feel like doing this right now?”

“Mhm.” She hums before swirling her tongue around his tip.

Harry mindlessly grips at the tile on the wall while she bobs her head up and down on him. She swallows around him and plays with his balls, doing everything she knows he really likes.

“Baby, please, let me touch you.”

She looks up at him and he nearly loses it. He helps her stand up and he pushes her up against the wall, and she gasps with surprise at his abrupt forcefulness. His lips sponge at her neck and across her chest. One of his hands slides between her legs and her head rolls back against the tile.

“We’re wasting water.” She groans. “Let’s get out, and then we can play a little more.”

“You’re not just teasing?”

“No, babe.”

“Okay.”

They both get out, and get wrapped in towels. Harry smells the food from downstairs, and his stomach growls, but he soon forgets he’s hungry when he sees Y/N drop her towel and shake out her hair.

“Come and get me, birthday boy.”

He drops his towel and nearly tackles her onto his bed. He nips at her lips and works his way down her body, biting and sucking where he pleases. He just wanted his head between her legs. He spreads her apart, and licks a flat stripe up her center.

“Jesus.” She shivers from that alone, and slots her fingers through his hair.

He sucks harshly on her clit, and swirls his tongue around it, nibbling a little before sucking on it again. She moans out a little too loudly and she covers her mouth with her hand. She didn’t exactly want to put on a show for the boys downstairs. That all goes to hell when he licks into her. She props herself up on her elbows to watch him. He looks up at her while he fucks her with his tongue, and the eye contact is too much for the both of them, but they continue through any embarrassment they may feel.

“Oh my god.” She pants as her head rolls back. His mouth moves back to her clit, and two of his fingers slide inside her, twisting around as he pumps them in and out. “Harry, fuck, oh my god.”

He curls his fingers up as he gets in knuckle deep, and rubs them against her g-spot, as he continues to suck on her clit. He groans against her when he feels her tighten around him.

“Gonna come?”

“Yes, oh my fucking god, shit!” She cries out as she pulses and vibrates around him. He takes his fingers out and laps away at her as she comes down from her high.

“Ready for my cock?”

“Please.” She breathes and nods.

He gets up and grabs a condom to roll on. He gets back on the bed, but she pins him down, pinning his hands on either side of his head.

“Let me take care of it, baby, just want you to feel good and relax.”

She lines herself up and sinks down on him. He moans out at the tight feeling. She brings her hands back down to his and intertwines their fingers as she keeps them pinned on his pillow. She rocks back and forth on him slowly, just getting adjusted, and then she starts to get a good pace going, moving up and down on him.

“Fuck, Y/N.” He grits his teeth and squeezes her hands. “You feel so good.” He was panting, watching her above him like this was really doing something to him, and he sort of speaks before he thinks. “Would you spit in my mouth?”

Y/N kept moving on him, but she looked down at him deeply concerned.

“You want me to what?!”

“Never mind!”

“No, I’ll do it!”

“Forget I said anything! I don’t even know why I-“

“Harry, you want me to spit? I’ll spit!”

“It’s weird, it’s too weird, I went too far!”

“Open your mouth!”

Harry’s mouth falls open, his tongue peeking out. Y/N wells up some spit in her mouth and leans down so her mouth was close to Harry’s. She didn’t want to spit harshly. She sort of just wanted her saliva to drip from her tongue to his. Maybe that could be sensual? So she does just that. She opens her mouth and lets the spit in her mouth roll from her tongue to his. She was moving on him in slow circles as she did this. He swallows it and looks up at her. He uses the power from his legs to thrust up into her since his hands were busy squeezing hers.

“Do it again.” He breathes.

She happily obliges and does it again for him. It was his birthday, she’d do anything he wanted…within reason of course. She supposed it wasn’t the weirdest thing he could have asked for. His tongue had been so far up her cunt, swapping spit was probably the least odd bodily fluid they could have shared.

She stays close to him, sucking on his tongue while they move in sync with each other. She starts squeezing and tightening around him. She was rubbing up against him in the perfect way, and he was about ready to lose it himself.

“M’gonna come, Y/N.” He groans.

“Me too, fuck, me too.”

She sits up straight and her back arches as she comes, and his release wasn’t too far behind. He feels like he explodes inside of the condom. She lets go of his hands slowly and he helps her off of him. He runs a hand through his hair as he watches her wobble around to get some pants and a t-shirt on.

“Just gonna go pee.” She kisses his cheek and slips out of his room.

He disposes of the condom, and puts his boxers and sweatpants on, not much feeling like a shirt at the moment. He was sitting on his bed, twiddling his thumbs, when she came back into the room. She sits down next to him and smiles.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah…I just, um, was that weird?”

“What?”

“When I asked you to spit in my mouth?”

“Um…” She blushes. “It took me a little off guard, but it’s really not that weird.”

“I don’t even know why I wanted you to do that, it just sort of slipped out.”

“It’s really not that different from kissing, I mean, we technically spit on each other all the time.”

“Guess that’s true.” He smirks and grabs his glasses. “It’s been quite the morning.”

“It’s not over yet.” She stands up and reached for his hand. “Come on.”

They both come downstairs, and Harry gasps.

“Yorkshire pudding?!”

“Got the recipe of Delia Smith’s website.” Louis laughs. “Hope it tasted good. We made eggs, beans, and bacon too.”

“Thanks guys.”

It was a nice breakfast for the four of them. Y/N hangs out with Harry all day. They paint each other’s nails, watch a movie, cuddle, and just enjoy each other’s company. He had gotten a little sleepy, so he was peacefully napping with his head resting in her chest. Y/N noticed that Harry was a stomach sleeper, but he liked having something to hold on to. It was really cute. She was playing with his hair while reading on her phone. It was a really nice lazy day, and a perfect way to make sure everything was getting set up for his surprise party at Ashley’s. She hears his phone start to buzz and sees it a FaceTime request from Gemma.

“Babe, it’s your sister.”

“Okay.” He mumbles and sits up. “Hello!”

“Happy birthday!” Gemma and Anne say together.

“Harry, are you still in bed?” Anne asks.

“Was taking a nap, Mum. It’s my birthday, I’m allowed to catch up on some sleep.”

“Are you doing anything fun?”

“Y/N and the guys made me breakfast, and then we watched a movie, and I think we’re going out tonight.”

“Is she with you now?” Gemma asks.

“Yeah.” He flips the camera.

“Hi, Y/N!” Gemma says.

“Hello.” She says shyly and waves. Harry flips the camera back to himself.

“I love you both, but m’all groggy.”

“Alright, honey, I sent you a nice package so hopefully you’ll get it soon. We love you!”

“Thanks!” He tosses his phone elsewhere, and pushes Y/N back down so he can put his head back on her chest. “So comfy.”

“We should probably get up soon…”

“Why? What else you got planned?”

“Just dinner with friends. We should be there around seven.”

“S’only four now, plenty of time to keep chilling out. I never get to do this, it’s nice.”

“Okay, babe.” She goes back to playing with his hair and reading on her phone.

//

When it was time to get ready, Y/N put on some black tights that had a pattern on them, her black mini pencil skirt, and a long sleeve red crop top. Harry had a long sleeve blue button up on paired with his black jeans. He was putting his boots one when he watched Y/N zip up her own boots.

“You look so fucking sexy.” He says as he gets up and wraps his arms around her. “Are you sure we have somewhere to be, and I can’t just take this all off you?”

“Sorry.” Y/N giggles. “But dinner’s waiting.”

“But I’m only hungry for one thing.” He pecks at her lips.

“Didn’t you have enough of that earlier?”

“Never enough, babe.”

“Oh, Harry.” She swats a hand at his chest. “Come on.”

They both get their coats on and head out. She loops her arm around his, and leads the way. He realizes they’re headed towards Ashley’s apartment, but he doesn’t question it. She opens the door and everyone yells surprise. Harry laughs and walks in. They put their coats away and he’s amazed at the spread of appetizers there was.

“Thank you all so much, this is great.” He smiles.

All of his friends from senate were there, Louis, Niall, some other people from the soccer team, and other friends. And of course the entire women’s hockey team, but that was a given. A cake is brought out and everyone sings happy birthday to him. After settling down from the food, all of the drinks come out. Everyone takes shots of tequila, and then Y/N makes Harry a vodka cranberry, his favorite. That’s what he stuck with all night. He didn’t want to throw up from mixing drinks.

Y/N was off talking to her friends, but when the music starts to get good, Harry finds her, and yanks her towards him. She wraps her arms around his neck as they start to slow grind.

“Can’t believe you put all of this together for me.”

“Well, it wasn’t all me, the guys helped.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He presses his forehead to hers. “Love you so much.”

“Love you too.”

Harry was really drunk, like, more drunk than Y/N had ever seen him, so she was taking it easy on her own drinks. He stayed attached to her while they danced for the rest of the night. She indulged in making out with him, but there was no way they were having sex again when they got back to his place. Louis and Niall had to help walk him back because there was no way she could carry him. They help him up the stairs in and into his room.

“I’ve got it from here, boys, thanks.”

“Night, Y/N.” Niall says as he and Louis leave.

“Okay, let’s…Harry…” She giggles as he sloppily kisses her neck. “Come on, I wanna get you into bed.”

“Mm, me too. Let’s get you into bed.”

“No, baby, for sleep. Gotta get you out of these clothes for sleep.” He bites down on her neck and squeezes her ass and she groans for a moment before pushing him off. She puts her hands on her hips and looks at him. “We can do that in the morning, you’re really drunk.”

She steps forward and unbuttons his shirt, and gets his pants off. She sits him down on the bed while she gets her own clothes off. She throws on one of his t-shirts and flips the lights off. She climbs into bed with him, and he spoons her, pressing his bulge against her ass.

“M’so hard.” He whines.

“I know, but there’s nothing I can do about that right now.”

“You gave me such a nice birthday.” He holds her closer and nestles into her hair.

“I’m glad you had a nice day, babe.” She chuckles.

“It was the best.” He yawns, and not too long after…he’s out.

Y/N was grateful he didn’t get sick. She didn’t do well with throw up. She drifts off slowly after him. She wakes up a couple of hours later to the sound of his door opening and closing. She sits up immediately, hoping he wasn’t getting up because he was sick. He comes back moment later chugging water from his water bottle.

“Oh, thank god.” She breathes.

“Need some?”

“Yeah.” She smiles and takes the bottle from him.

��Sorry I woke you. I was fucking parched.” He crawls back into bed and takes the bottle from her. “Think I’m still a little drunk.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised, I let you drink too much.” She runs a hand through his hair.

“Oh, but I had so much fun. I’ll just sleep it off.” He gives her a few pecks before settling back down. She rests her head on his chest and he holds her close. This was the life.

//

The team made it to the first round of playoffs, but nothing further, so their season ended at the end of February. It was sad for the seniors on the team, but mostly everyone was happy for their break. No more early morning practices. They just needed to keep up with lifts in the late afternoons. This also meant that Y/N could stay out later most nights. Ashley and Megan had people over almost every night to drink. They weren’t raging, but Y/N was loving not having to worry about getting up at the crack of dawn. Harry didn’t always go with her, which was fine. He had 8AM’s on Tuesdays and Thursdays, after all.

There was one Tuesday night Harry was already asleep in bed when his phone started ringing. He saw Y/N’s name, and swiped to take the call.

“Baby?” He says groggily.

“Hey sunshine!”

“Amanda?” He sits up. “Why do you have Y/N’s phone?”

“Well, her head’s in the toilet at the moment. She really wants to go home, but it would look bad if one of us carried her. UPD would question us for sure.”

“She’s sick?” He sighs, already pulling some sweats on.

“Yeah, so is Gina. It’s no Bueno.”

“What the hell happened? Where are you?”

“At Ashley’s…we did shots, and then played slap the bag. Not a great mix.”

“Okay, I’ll be there soon.”

He rubs his eyes, grabs his glasses and heads out. He walks right into Ashley’s. Her apartment was filled with smoke and people. Harry partied like anyone else, but not so much on a Tuesday night. He walks to where he knows the bathroom is and doesn’t see anyone.

“Harry!” Amanda says. “She’s over here.” She tugs him over to the living room where Y/N was basically passed out on the couch.

“Christ, where’s Gina?”

“She’s crashing in Megan’s room. Come on, Y/N, Harry’s here.” She nudges her.

“Hm?” Her eyes open slightly and then they grow wide. “No! I don’t want him to see me like this!” She hides her face in her hands.

“It’s okay, babe, let’s get you home.” Harry says, lifting her up bridal styles. “I can’t carry her likes across campus, we’ll get stopped. Help me get her on my back, that’s less weird looking.”

Amanda nods and helps Y/N get situated so Harry could give her a piggy back ride. She was complete dead weight.

“She’s gonna kill me for calling you, but she didn’t want to stay…I’m sorry, I know you were sleeping.”

“It’s alright, Amanda. I’d rather her be safe. You guys have been going a little nuts lately, yeah?”

“We can’t help it. We’re not allowed to get crazy during the week during the season. Things will settle down soon. Spring break is coming up, you know? Last year we all went home and detoxed essentially.”

Amanda gets the apartment door open, and lets Harry take Y/N upstairs.

“Are you gonna spew again?”

“No.” She mumbles.

“Alright, well, I’m gonna put this bucket here.” He brings her barrel over. “Let’s get you out of these clothes, yeah?”

“Go home, you need to sleep.”

“I’m gonna take care of you.”

“No, you’re gonna be mad at me in the morning.”

“I won’t be.”

“Yes you will.” She pouts and her eyes start to tear up.

“Nope, none of that, come on.”

“I can take my own clothes off.”

“Okay, I’ll get your pj’s then.” He goes into her dresses and she lunges towards him, tackling him down. “Y/N! What the fuck?!”

“Don’t go in there! I have things in there you can’t see!”

“You could have just said that! You’re not on the fucking ice!” He gets them both up. “What’s in there that I can’t see?”

“Personal things.”

“Babe.” He pinches the bridge of her nose. “Get your clothes off, now, and I will get your pj’s.”

He goes back into where he knows she keeps her larger t-shirts.

“Harry!” His eyes grow wide after grabbing a shirt off the top. There were two different vibrators and a dildo. “I’ve only ever used the little one…”

“Put this on.” He hands her the t-shirt and closes the drawer.

She strips out of her clothes and he looks the other way to give her some privacy. She gets stuck when she tries to get her shirt on and he helps her.

“Fuck, I have to pee so bad.” She says, sprinting out of the room. He sits down on her bed and waits for her. She brushes her teeth while she’s in the bathroom too. “You’re still here?” She asks, shocked.

“Where the fuck am I going? I’m not leaving you like this.”

“But…you saw the things.”

“We can talk about it tomorrow, or never, I don’t really care.” She sits on his thighs, straddling his lap. “Y/N.” He sighs.

“I just…I don’t want you to think…I mean…I got them over winter break, and-“

“I don’t care, you don’t need to tell me, okay? Can we go to sleep?”

“You’re gonna stay?”

“I just said I was going to! Come on.”

“You’re angry.”

“I’m a little cranky, yeah. Your friend called me drunk to tell me your head was in a toilet while I was sleeping. At least tomorrow we don’t have class until 10:30, so I’ll have to get back and grab my shit beforehand. Now, lay down on the edge so you’re closer to the bucket.” He rids himself of his sweats, leaving himself in his boxers, and gets in with her. She turns to face him while he’s facing her. “You need to turn over.”

“But you’re so pretty.” She whispers and it makes him crack a smile as she pokes his dimple. “I’m sorry she called you.”

“I’m not, I’d come get you any time. I’ll carry you home whenever you need.” He strokes the side of her face. “You’ve done the same for me, it’s fine. Just lay on your stomach for me, okay? I’ll rub your back how you like.”

“Okay.” She smiles and does as he says. She falls asleep with him softly petting on her and it feels amazing.

His alarm goes off at 8AM and she groans.

“Up, let’s go.” He says, rummaging through her closet for her spare towels. “We’re showering quickly and then going to my place, and then we’re getting greasy breakfast sandwiches so you’re not hungover for class.”

“Eric won’t care, he likes me.” Y/N mumbles.

“A little too much if you ask me.”

“Oh stop. I could say the same about that freshman you’re tutoring.”

“How about neither of us play the jealous game?”

“Deal.” She stands and nearly vomits. “Ugh, I feel like shit.”

“You’ll feel better soon.”

“You came to my rescue last night?”

“Yup, that’s me, prince charming.” He rolls his eyes and tugs her out of her room.

She puts her hair up and they both get into the shower. Harry gets them both clean, and dressed. He makes sure she has everything for class, and then they head to his place. Once he has all of his things, and has new sweats on, they head to the coffee shop on campus for breakfast sandwiches.

“Harry…you’re wearing sweatpants to class.”

“I’m aware.”

“But you never wear sweatpants to class.”

“I’m a little fucking tired, Y/N, is that alright?”

“Please don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not…” He sighs and looks at her. “I just…I’m feeling anxious from things happening so abruptly. My entire routine got messed up and-“ He could feel his breathing quickening so he takes a deep breath. “It’s fine, I’m fine, we’re fine, let’s just go eat.”

They both get coffees and breakfast sandwiches and grab a table to sit. They had about thirty minutes before class, so they could take their time eating.

“Fuck, this was a good idea.” She moans as she eats.

“Yeah.” He agrees as he bites into his own. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Maybe go a little less hard at the parties during the week?”

“You got it. I hate throwing up, I’m not dealing with that again, nor am I going to do that to you again.”

“I wouldn’t care…it’s just…it was a school night is all.”

Y/N nods her head and continues eating her breakfast sandwich. Once they’re done, they head to class and sit down. Eric was there a little earlier than usual.

“Ah, Y/N, I’m glad you’re here. I wanna talk to you about your paper on your Bond comparative essay.”

“Oh…okay.” Y/N walks up to him and he takes her paper out. Harry can’t help but watch the conversation as other students come into class. “I know I’m not a very good writer…”

“No! You’re brilliant, actually. This is one of the better papers I’ve seen. You made a lot of incredible points. You got an A, see?” He shows her and her eyes grow wide. “I was wondering if I could if I could hang onto this and scan it to save as a copy. Students are always asking me for example papers, and I think this is a great paper to use.”

“Are you serious? Yeah, that’s fine with me.”

“Great, thanks.” He smiles. “Well done.”

“Thank you…” She blinks and sits back down. She looks at Harry in shock. “He wants to keep my paper to use as an example.”

“That’s great! You worked really hard on that one, Y/N, you deserve a little praise.”

Eric passes out the rest of the papers, and gives Y/N hers so she could look at any notes he may have made. Harry also got an A, not that Y/N was surprised, but she was happy for him nonetheless.

“H, what did you get?” Billy whispers from behind him. Harry turns to look at him.

“An A, what about you?”

“B+, not too bad.”

“Alright everyone, today, as a treat, we’re going to watch Austin Powers since we’ve just finished our Bond unit. Since we’ve watched a few films, you’ll see that this movie takes a lot from Gold Finger and Golden Eye.” He says as he starts the movie and turns the lights.

“Ugh, thank god. If there was ever a day to just chill in class, it’s today.” Y/N whispers to Harry.

“Agreed.” He whispers.

Eric clears his throat to get their attention, and they both sit back in their seats. There were plenty of laughs throughout class as the movie continued. Y/N stretches as she stands once class ends, revealing a little bit of her stomach. Harry catches Eric looking briefly, and puts his arm around her shoulders.

“Have a good stats class.” She puckers lips and kisses him.

“Thanks, have a good rest of your day. I won’t be able to meet up tonight, I’m doing a group tutoring session, and then I have an 8AM tomorrow…”

“Okay, well…thanks again for last night. I really owe you.”

“No you don’t.” He smiles and gives her a lingering kiss before they part ways.

//

Spring break was definitely the detox Y/N needed from all of the drinking she had been doing with the hockey team, although, she really didn’t want to go home. Harry would be staying on campus with any other students who couldn’t go home. He had projects he needed to work on, but he also thought it would be a nice time break to spend with Y/N. She couldn’t stay on campus, though, because she needed to work at the bar. She also needed to bring up going to Italy this summer to her mom.

“Great work tonight, honey.” Angie says to her as they wipe down the tables.

“Thanks…um…can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course!” She stops what she’s doing to look at her daughter. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine, I just…well, I’ve been invited somewhere this summer, and I’d really like to go.”

“Alright, where have you been invited to?”

“Italy.” She mumbles.

“Come again?”

“Italy.” She says a little louder. “See, Harry-“

“Oh, here we go.” Angie rolls her eyes.

“Mum, please, let me just explain.”

“Okay.” She crosses her arms and sits down.

“He and his friends spend three weeks in Italy every summer, one of their dad’s has a house by the water or something. They go end of July through early August, so it’s not like I’d be missing the holiday rush…I’d like to go the whole time, but I’d be willing to compromise, and I’ll pay my own way.”

“You expect me to let you take an international flight alone? What if you get abducted?”

“Mum.”

“Three weeks alone with your boyfriend is a long time…”

“Well, we won’t be alone, his friends will be there.”

“You know what I mean.” She sighs. “I really hate this whole you being an adult thing. I can’t really say no, you’re almost twenty years old, and it will be summer so you should take advantage and travel…” She takes a moment and looks at Y/N. “Could you go for two weeks instead of three? I think that’s plenty of time to spend together.”

“Yeah! I can definitely do that.” She smiles.

“And I’ll pay for half the ticket, that’ll be your birthday present. Your passport should still be good from high school.”

“Mum!” She squeals and hugs Angie. “Thank you so much, Harry’s going to be so excited!” She kisses her cheek. “I’m excited too, of course.”

“Well, I should hope so.” She chuckles, and they continue to close down the bar.

//

Y/N convinced Angie to drive her back to campus on Friday instead of Sunday. She dropped off all her things, and walked to Harry’s. She knocks on the door, and he opens it confused, but happy to see her.

“Hey!” He wraps his arms around her. “You’re back early.”

“Wanted to surprise you, can I come in?”

“Of course! Yeah, come on in.”

“Are you busy?”

“I was just working on a paper, but I can definitely take a break.” Hey both go up to his room, and he moves his things away from the bed so they can both sit. “Got a lot done this week, I’m feeling good.”

“That’s great! Okay, so, I have really good news that I’ve been keeping to myself because I wanted to tell you in person.”

“Oh? Please, do tell.” He grins.

“My mom said I could come to Italy this summer! Only for two weeks instead of three, but still.”

“That’s great!” He cups her jaw and pulls her in for a kiss. “We’re gonna have so much fun. I can show you what website to go on for the plane ticket, there’s this site that sells them for really cheap. I use it when I go home and stuff.”

“Sounds good, thanks. I think two weeks will be plenty, don’t you?”

“I mean, sure.” He shrugs.

“I wouldn’t want us getting on each other’s nerves being together 24/7.”

“We’ll be too busy to get on each other’s nerves, trust me. I can’t wait to tell my friends you’re coming, they’re dying to meet you.”

“Aw, that’s sweet. What are their names?”

“Well, Lou and Niall will be there, they came last year and are coming again. They go right from there to here for soccer. Then there’s my friend Adam, his dad is the one who owns the house, and Mike, Ben, and Clark.”

“Are any of them seeing someone?”

“Um, Adam brought a guy with him last summer, but they’re not dating anymore, so he may be going stag.” He shrugs. “When we were in high school we used to bring a lot of girls with us because we thought we were cool.” He laughs. “But Ben might bring someone, I’m not sure exactly. Sometimes we would just meet people in Italy to hang out with.”

“Hang out with.” She rolls her eyes. “Any Italian chicks I need to worry about.”

“Not that I can think of.” He taps his chin playfully. “You know me, I’m a real sexual deviant.” He says sarcastically and she nudges him. “Come here.”

He pulls her down to lay with him, and they both sigh. He rubs her back and she lays her leg over both of his, pressing into the bulge that’s growing in his pants. He tilts her chin up to look at him and she removes his glasses. He presses his lips to hers and she moves the rest of the way on top of him. He licks at her bottom lip, and she opens up for him. He has one arm wrapped around her back, and the other one around her ass, keeping her nice and close. Her fingers slot through his soft hair and she moans softly when she rolls hips her hips slowly on his.

“Missed you.” He says against her lips, taking her bottom lip between his teeth.

“Missed you too.” She whimpers as he presses his hips harder up towards hers.

Things started to get a little more heated from there, Y/N could feel her lips getting swollen from how hard her and Harry were kissing each other, and she was about ready to lose it in her pants from the way they were grinding on each other.

“Harry.” She groans. “Please.”

“Please what?” He moves her hair away from her neck and starts sucking on her soft skin.

“Can we please fuck?”

“Yes.”

He flips them over so she’s on her back, and he yanks her leggings and panties off in one swoop. She gets her shirt and bra off while he gets naked himself. He climbs back onto the bed and he wraps her legs around his waist. She slides her hands up and down his torso and chest.

“Have I ever told you how much I love your tattoos? Because I do, they’re so cool.” Her hands trace over the ferns on his hips.

“Thanks baby.” His hands knead her breasts.

Harry slides his hard dick over her folds and against her clit, causing her hips to buck up. He dips his head down to kiss on her neck and her hand wrap around his back, nails digging in.

“Do you wanna…put it in?”

She feels him nod his head yes, and before she knows it he’s pushing inside her. Her gasp turns into a moan. She bites down on his shoulder as he rocks in and out of her. He sucks on one of her nipples as he thrusts in and out.

“Feels so fucking good.” Her head rolls back into the pillows.

He pulls out and grins at her. She raises an eyebrow at him, and then he flips her over, pulls her up to her knees. She looks back at him as he slides in again. He gets an even pace going, and then he tugs her back to him, his chest flush with her back. He’s got one arm snaked around her, and the other rubbing slow circles on her clit.

“Fuck, oh my god.” Her head rolls back to his shoulder and she looks up at him. He slots his mouth over hers, and the both moan into each other.

“This why you wanted to come back early? Just really needed my cock?” He says into her ear and it has her pushing her ass against him.

“Thought about you every night.” She groans.

“Yeah? Did you bring home your little toys to help you out?”

“H-Harry, don’t-“

“Maybe I should use one on you sometime, would you like that?”

She was dripping all around his cock, she loved when he would just say whatever he wanted into her ear.

“Only wanna feel you.” She admits. It was true, she didn’t like having to use her vibrator, as good as it felt. She really just preferred Harry’s hands on her.

She feels him smile into her neck, knowing that was exactly what he wanted to hear. He picks up the pace on the way he’s rubbing her clit and he feels her squeeze around him. She hooks an arm up around his head to tug at his hair.

“Shit, Harry!” She cries out as she comes to her release.

He gently lets go of her so she can press her front to the mattress. He keeps his hands on her hips as he drives into her hard and fast. He had her panting, and he was panting too. He pulls out and comes on her ass and back before collapsing next to her.

“Fuck.” He breathes and then looks at her. “You have the most perfect ass I’ve ever fucking seen.”

“Shut up.” She giggles.

“Let me clean you up.” He kisses her forehead and then gets up to grab a rag to wipe her clean.

“Thank you.”

He gets back onto the bed and pulls her close to him. They lay there naked for a bit, just enjoying the time skin to skin.

“Do you feel like having a little date night tonight since you’re here? We could go downtown for dinner and then come back to watch a movie in the living room.”

“I’d like that. I’d just wanna go home and change first.”

“Oh cute, then I can come pick you up.”

“Always the romantic.” She kisses his cheek and gets up to grab her clothes. “Give me, like, an hour to get ready, yeah?”

“Sounds good to me, see you soon.” He smiles and kisses her as she leaves his room.

Harry was really happy that Y/N came back a couple of days early. He was trying to play it a little more cool, but she was such a source of comfort for him. He had incorporated her into his routine, so when she wasn’t around he would get a little anxious, which he knew wasn’t healthy, but there wasn’t much he could do about it right now.

He puts on a green sweater with the black jeans he knows she likes, and puts his contacts in. He runs his hand through his hair a few times, getting his curls to sit just right. He knew he needed a haircut, but he also liked when Y/N would really tug on his hair. His logic was the longer his hair the better the grip she could get on him. He left the bit of scruff he had grown out and put on some cologne. He heads down the stairs to put his boots on and goes into the living room.

“Going on a date with my girl, mind if we have the living room when we get back? We’re gonna watch a movie. You can join if you want-“

“And watch the two of you make out?” Louis scoffs. “I’ll pass, mate.”

“Same here.” Niall chuckles. “But we can definitely clear out of here.”

“Thanks, I just get sick of watching stuff on my little laptop screen. Are you guys doing anything tonight?”

“Might go see some of the girls from the other international house. I don’t see myself staying out too late, I went a little too hard last night.” Louis says.

“Yeah, I spewed in the bushes, so I won’t be drinking tonight.” Niall says.

“Alright.” Harry chuckles. “Well, see you later.”

Harry makes the walk to Y/N’s apartment, and he knocks on the door when he gets there. His cheeks immediately blush when he sees her. She had a dark blue thing sweater dress on, showing off all her curves. She paired with some black boots and black tights, looking cuter than ever.

“You look so pretty.” He pouts at her and takes her hand.

“Thanks, thought I’d dress up a little It’s rare that we get to go on a real date.”

“I know! I’m really glad you came back a couple days early. Meant it when I said I missed you.”

“I meant it too.” She loops her arm through his so she can cling to him a little tighter.

The end up at the local bistro, even though Y/N told Harry it would be too expensive, but he assured her it was fine. She talks about her week working at the bar, and he talks about what he might do for work this summer.

“I could always go back to the bakery, but I really want to take the rest of the semester to figure out what I actually want to do. I might go see my advisor next week. I literally have zero idea what I want to do with my life.” He sighs and pops a fry into his mouth.

“Does anyone?” She laughs.

“Well, you sort of do. You’ve got a job lined up right away after graduation.”

“Yeah, working for my mom until she decides to retire really sounds great.” She rolls her eyes. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wanna take over the bar, but I wanna do it more in a way where like I could open up multiple locations, you know? I could oversee multiple businesses across the country.”

“Wow…that would be really cool.”

“It’s just an idea, I don’t know if it’ll ever happen. People like small town bars with good food, and that’s what my mom has, I think opening up multiple locations could work, it would just take a lot of marketing and PR. I may pick up a PR minor, the classes double count in my major and I think that may be what I’m a little more interested in these days.”

Harry loved listening to Y/N talk about her aspirations. She really was smart, and he didn’t think she gave herself enough credit.

“Are you not interested in the law stuff anymore?”

“I don’t know…” He sighs. “It’s just such a big commitment, you know? It’s more school, and then you basically have to study and pass the bar where you want to live, and I have no idea where I want to live. I don’t know if I wanna stay in the U.K. forever. I’ve barely been able to explore America while I’ve been here, and there are parts of Europe I’d like to go to. I don’t know, maybe I’ll become a travel blogger or something.” He jokes.

“You laugh, but you’d hit it big.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well…” She blushes. “You’re insanely hot, Harry, so you have that going for you. People would follow you on a superficial level, and then there’s the fact that you’re smart and nice. You could talk about the country or town you’re in and say what you really liked and what you discovered.”

“Not a very sustainable job though.”

“Have you ever thought about becoming a teacher? You’re really good at explaining things. You never once made me feel stupid last semester.”

“I think I’m better one on one. I feel like whenever I have to give a presentation I just word vomit. I’m also not on an education track, so again, more school. I ‘d need my master’s, and you need to take whatever tests there are in the state you want to work in, and that’s if I wanna stay in America. I don’t even know what I’d want to teach…”

“You could find a job like in a tutoring office like we have here. It takes someone really important to run those types of offices and-“

“Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Um…do you mind if we change the subject a little?” His leg wouldn’t stop bouncing. “I know this stuff is important to talk through and figure out, but it’s making me anxious.”

“Oh!” She reaches across the table and puts her hand over his. “I’m so sorry, of course we can talk about something else, anything else.” She smiles. “What movie do you feel like watching later?”

They settled on The Devil Wears Prada. It was something they had both seen, so it didn’t matter if they paid attention or not.  His arm was around her and they were lounging comfortably.

“I really like this dress you’re wearing.”

“Yeah? Thought you preferred me in sweats.” She raises an eyebrow at him.

“You could wear a paper sack and I’d like it on you.” This makes her burst out laughing and he smiles down at her.

They both adjust so they can lay down, and he pulls her body on top of his. She sucks on his bottom lip, and his hands slide down to her ass. His tongue drags of hers and she moans into his mouth.

“You’ll stay tonight?” He whispers. “Missed having you to hold onto at night.”

“Of course I’ll stay.” She stays. “No one else I’d rather have cuddles with.” She kisses on his jaw and moves to his neck.

“Leave a good one on me babe, mark me up.”

Y/N bites down decently hard on Harry’s neck and it makes him grit his teeth and squeeze at her harder, but god did it feel good. Truth be told one of his regular tutees flirted with him a lot, and even though he had mentioned Y/N over and over, she would still flirt with him. A nice new hickey may help her get the picture. Also, Harry just really liked getting them. He liked giving them too, but they just felt so fucking good.

//

“Did you have a nice break, Harry?”

“Yeah, Bri, thanks, did you?”

“Mhm, I got caught up on some things, but I’m definitely still struggling with Intro to Gen Psych…”

“Alright, well, let’s look at your notes from class.”

She reaches into her bag, and when she gets everything out, she notices Harry taking his jacket and scarf off. Her eyes bug out when she sees the giant welt on Harry’s neck. Now, normally he would want to be more professional, but at the end of the day, he was twenty and didn’t give a fuck.

“Everything alright?”

“Um…y-yeah, everything’s fine? Did you, um, go out over the weekend?”

“I did, yeah. Went to a party with some friends Saturday night. My girlfriend came back a couple days early too, that was nice.” He smiles and grabs her notes. “See, I think if you highlighted within your notes, like we’ve talked about, you would have an easier time finding things.”

“Right, um, sorry, Harry.”

“Don’t apologize to me.” He furrows his brows at her. “I already passed this class, it’s you who still needs to finish it. Tutoring can help a lot, but if you don’t take what we do here and apply it elsewhere, you’re not going to see any improvements.”

He was close to her, showing her what she should highlight, and it made her nervous, but in the best possible way. All of a sudden they hear some giggling, and it was a giggle Harry knew all too well. They both look up and see a good chunk of the hockey team. Many of the girls still got together to study like they would during the season.

“Oh, shit, is that Harry?!” Megan says. “Ow ow! Look at him on the clock.” She teases.

“Leave him alone.” Y/N swats a hand at her, and looks over to Harry, mouthing I’m sorry. He waves at them and gives them a half smile.

“Damn, Y//N, I would have tried to fuck my tutor too if it were him.” Another girl teases her and they all start laughing.

“Hey, uh,” Harry turns around in his chair and smirks, “we’re in a library, ladies.”

“Is that so?” Y/N struts over to him and looks at Bri. “Careful with him, he’s a little too good at his job.” She kisses Harry’s cheek and then goes off with the girls to the back of the library.

“Sorry about that, Bri.” Harry chuckles.

“So…that was your girlfriend?”

“Mhm.” He smiles proudly. “Now then,” he clears his throat, “let’s talk more about your note taking, shall we?”

//

It was hard enough saying goodbye to Ashley, Megan, and some of the other seniors on the team, but it was just about move out day, and Y/N cried every time she thought about not being able to just walk down a couple of streets to see Harry.

“We’ll see each other before you know it, and when we do we’ll have two weeks of perfect weather in Italy together.” He says as he holds her close to him in bed.

“I know, I’m just really sad.” She cries into his chest and he tries his best to soothe her.

“Please don’t cry, Y/N, you’re killing me.”

“I’m sorry.” She sniffles. “I don’t mean to be like this. The time difference just sucks, Harry.”

“I know.” He sighs.

“And you won’t even get to see me for my birthday.” It was in a couple of weeks.

“But we already sort of celebrated, remember the big party we had here last weekend?”

“How could I forget? You made me margaritas all night, and then fucked my brains out.” She chuckles and so does he. “Couldn’t walk right for two days.”

“Cause I know you like it like that.” He kisses the top of her head. “Look, I’m gonna miss you too. It’s not easy being away from your favorite person, but we’ll make it work. It’ll just make things better when we see each other again. I do have one favor, though?”

“What?” She looks up at him.

“You’ll have to leave lots of marks on me, really good ones, so that they’ll just barely have faded by the time I see you. The only thing is, my mum will be pissed if she sees my neck like that, you’ll have to be creative about where you put them.”

“Challenge accepted.” She gives him a devious smile and sinks down under his covers. Thank god Harry had an a/c in his room.

“What are you…oh!” He starts laughing when he feels her suck on his inner thigh, like he would normally do to her. “Why did you tell me this tickled so much?!” He rips the blanket away to look down at her.

“It doesn’t tickle when you do it to me.” She pouts up at him. She moves to kiss on his hip and then things feel less funny.

“Yeah, I like it when you do it there.”

She kisses up his chest and sucks a nice, dark mark on one of his pecs and then smiles up at him. Her eyes start to water again and she hides her face in his neck.

“What happened?”

“We’re not going to be able to do this whenever we want soon, and it just…” She cries into him again.

“Baby.” He coos. “Let’s just enjoy right now, yeah?” He rubs her back. “Want me to make love to you? Be all sweet and slow?”

“Mhm.” She says, muffled from the way she’s pressing further into him.

“Alright.” He rolls them both over and runs his fingers over her folds. Yes, they were both already naked.

He slides his middle finger inside her slowly, working his way in and out, sucking on her nipple as he does so. This helps her to calm down just like he was hoping. He sucks his finger into his mouth when he’s done and then rubs his hard dick against her clit. She groans and then he slips inside. He hides his face in her neck so he can kiss on her while he rocks in and out. They both just wanted to be as close as possible right now.

“Harry?”

“Yeah?” He moves to look at her and she puts her hands on his shoulders.

“When you get close, will you please come inside me?” She looks so innocent right now.

“If I say yes will you promise to tell me when you get your period?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, baby, I’ll come inside you when the time comes.”

She pulls his face down to hers to kiss him. Things are slow and sloppy and just perfect. He rubs her clit to help her along and she cries out as she comes. She nearly comes again when she feels him fill her up. It was the first time he had ever come inside her without a condom, and it felt so fucking good.

“I love you so much.” He says to her as he pulls out.

“I love you too.” She clamps her legs together to try not to make a mess on his bed, and she stands up. She throws on one of his shirts before heading to the bathroom.

They snuggle all night, and most of the morning. Harry helps her pack up her apartment, and he waits with her for Angie to come pick her up. It was a really difficult goodbye, but Harry tried to stay strong for the both of them. Of course the second the car pulled away he started crying. He calmed himself down, though. They would call, text, and FaceTime. Thank god she was coming to Italy.

//

“Shit.” Y/N says to herself.

“What?” Julie asks coming into her room.

“According to my pills, I’m going to have my period when I’m in Italy.” She groans.

“So?”

“So?! I’m gonna be swimming and stuff.”

“Just use a tampon.”

“I’m going to be with mostly boys, and I have zero idea if it’s a fancy boat with a bathroom on it. I’ll only have it a few days, but still. Fuck, and I’ll probably have it right when I first see Harry.”

“Do you guys not…do it when you have your period?”

“Don’t be gross.”

“It’s a valid question!”

“We did, like, once in the shower, but it sort of hurts, so it I didn’t like it and we didn’t do it again.” She sighs. “I miss him so much, I don’t think I’ll care when I finally see him.”

“Show me the new bathing suits you got.”

“Hey.” Cooper comes into the room as well and just stands there, munching on some chips.

“What?” Y/N asks.

“M’bored.”

“Wanna look at my new bathing suits?”

“Alright, yeah.”

//

“You have WhatsApp?”

“Already downloaded.”

“And you’ll text me updates, and you will take a picture of you and Harry together so I know you’re really with him?”

“Yes, mum! Please, I need to go get through security. I love you, and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”

“I love you too, have a great time.”

Y/N gets through security, and texts Harry and her mom updates. She had the window seat so she was able to get comfortable for her long flight. She wanted to look cute and refreshed, so she gets up to change in the bathroom of the plane. She puts on a pair of high-waist jean shorts, and a black crop top. Her hair is down, but she ties a bandana he had given to her in it, and touched up her makeup. She was feeling really good, despite being in the middle of her period. At least it would end in a day or so.

The flight lands on time, and Y/N texts Harry and her mom that she’s landed. She gets her backpack on, and manages to follow the signs to baggage. Luckily there were a lot of signs in English. Harry had “tutored” her a bit in Italian this summer, so she wasn’t totally lost. As she approaches baggage she squints when she sees three guys who look very familiar.

“Oi! There she is!” Louis says and Harry turns around, beaming at Y/N.

She runs towards him and jumps into his arms, wrapping all of her limbs around him. He looked so fucking good in his little shorts and t-shirt and tanned skin. Their lips collide and they almost forget their in the airport.

“I hate to break this up, but which bags are yours, pet?” Niall asks.

“Oh! The floral ones!” She points to them as they come off the belt. Harry sets her down and he grabs her bags. She gives Niall and Louis a hug as well. “Now, if we let you two sit in the back of the car together, do you promise to hold off on the groping?” He teases them as they walk out to the parked cars.

“Think I can behave myself for a bit, yeah, Y/N?”

“I’ll do my best.” She giggles. “How far away are we form the house?”

“Bout an hour, not too far.” Harry says. “We’re having dinner on the boat tonight, you’ll love it. Fresh steamers, you like those, right?”

“Love ‘em.” She smiles.

He puts his arm around her and keeps her close as Louis drives back to the house. She switches her gaze from Harry to out the window, unsure of what she preferred to soak up in the moment. Harry had a lovely tan, his hair was a tad shorter, but not by much, and he had definitely been trying to grow out his scruff. He was handsome as ever.

“You look really cute.” He whispers in her ear and it sends a shiver up her spine. “Is that the bandana I gave you?”

“Mhm.” She smiles up at him. “I wear it all the time at work.”

“Good, it suits you.”

They pull up to the house in what feels like no time at all, and Y/N’s jaw drops as she gets out of the car. It was beautiful, and private. There was a path to a private dock where the boat was, and there were a couple of other guys outside.

“I’m just gonna show Y/N to our room, and then we’ll come down for dinner.” Harry tells Niall and Louis as they make their way to the boat.

“Our room, huh?” Y/N smirks up at Harry as he carries her bags in. He stops short and looks at her.

“Shit, uh, did…fuck, did you not want to stay with me? I think we can-“

“Harry!” She laughs. “Jesus, I was kidding, why would I come all this way and not sleep in a bed with you?”

“I…don’t do that.” He side eyes her as they both go inside. She shakes her head at.

“Wow…even more beautiful on the inside.” She looks around.

He hums his response and gestures to follow him upstairs. There were a lot of bedrooms, both on the main level and second level of the home. Harry was the only one to bring a date this summer, so his friends granted him the privilege of the bedroom with the en suite bath.

“Here we are, love.” He puts her bags down and closes the door behind them. He lets her look around for a moment. She peeps her head into the bathroom and then she smiles at him.

“This is amazing. I can’t believe I’m really here.

“Me neither.” He cups her jaw and kisses her. She wraps her arms around his waist as he licks into her mouth. “Missed you, baby.”

“Missed you too.” He bites down on her bottom lip, and his hands start to slide farther south, but she stops him. “We can’t.”

“Dinner can wait.”

“No, I mean…I need two more days.”

“What?”

“I have my period, but it should be done soon. I’m sorry…”

“It’s alright.” He sighs. “Better to have it now than later when we’re camping, right?”

“Mhm.” She smiles and kisses him again.

“Besides, we’ve got that nice big shower.” He winks at her, and then leads her out of the bedroom.

He keeps his hand on the small of her back as they walk down the dock to the boat. She could already smell the seafood.

“Shit!” She stops short. “We have to take a selfie to send to my mom, she wanted proof I wasn’t kidnapped.”

“Alright.” He chuckles. She takes her phone out to snap the quick photo, and then they continue onto the boat. “Oi! Can I get everyone’s attention, thank you.” All of the boys look at Harry and Y/N. “Clark, Adam, Ben, this is my girlfriend, Y/N.”

“Hi.” She says shyly.

“Don’t look like a hockey player to me.” Ben says, jokingly. “Nice to meet you, finally.” He extends his hand and she shakes it.

“Don’t be fooled, she can really pack a punch.” Harry says, sitting down.

“It’s great to meet you, Y/N.” Adam says, giving her a hug. “Hope you don’t mind being with a bunch of guys for the next couple of weeks.”

“It’s not a problem.” She smiles.

“Harry’s told us a lot about you.” Clark says, shaking her hand. “Nice to actually see you in person. Harry’s always sending us pictures of you.”

Y/N turns to look at Harry, giving him a face.

“All tasteful, I promise. Come here.” He pulls her to sit on his lap. “How’s dinner coming along?”

“The steamers have just about popped.” Adam says. “We’ve also got crab legs. Do you like all that, Y/N?”

“Yeah, I love seafood, thank you.”

“Alright, now that we don’t need to drive anywhere else,” Niall starts. “can we get to drinking?”

“Read my mind.” Ben says, getting up to pull the cooler of beer over. “Do you like beer, Y/N? We have other drinks if you don’t.”

“Beer’s great, thanks.” She smiles and leans forward to grab one for her and Harry. “I guess this is my first legal drink, that’s sorta cool.”

“That’s right! You don’t have to second guess a thing here.” Harry says, cracking his beer open. They all clink their cans together and take a sip.

Adam brings the pig pot of steamers up from below deck, and Clark brings out the crab legs and butter. Louis helps with the cocktail sauce and plates. Everyone takes what they want and dig in.

“Mm, these are delicious.” Y/N says. “Thanks so much for making all this.”

“We thought your arrival would be the perfect night to do this, so thank you.” Adam says.

“So, you three have known Harry since high school?”

“Well, we call it secondary school.” Ben says. “But yeah, think you and Adam have known each other the longest though.” Harry nods his head. “We became pretty good mates after a school camping trip.”

“I think we started coming here when we were sixteen?” Clark looks at Adam.

“I’d say so, yeah. My dad’s had this house a while. I think sixteen is when he trusted us enough to come here a lone. Lotta good summers here.”

“How did you two meet again? You had a class together?” Ben asks.

“Nope, she needed a tutor.” Harry says.

“Mhm, and lucky me, I got paired up with the most studious one of them all.”

“H really is a bit serious, isn’t he?” Clark teases.

“Gotta be serious to get good grades.”

“So, how did Harry get all these tattoos, I’m not seeing many on you.” She says to three of them.

“That would be me, love.” Louis says. “You didn’t get them all with me, but I feel like freshman year we were constantly driving out to the tattoo shop.”

“Once I got one I couldn’t stop.” Harry says. “I went with these guys to get a few more, the ones on my arms. My mum was pissed.”

“Didn’t you say she nearly fainted when she saw the butterfly?” Clark asks with a laugh.

“Yeah, that’s why I got so many on my stomach in the first place so she wouldn’t see, but it was inevitable.” He shrugs. “Think I’m due for a new one while we’re here, I’d say.” He looks at his right arm. “Not sure where though.” He laughs.

“You should get a mate for your mermaid.” Niall jokes.

“She’s an independent woman, she’s all set.”

Everyone laughs and continues to enjoy their food. They all help clean up and enjoy more drinks by the fire pit after the sun goes down fully. Y/N was having difficulty staying awake. She was up early, had that long flight, and she really just wanted to shower and go to bed.

“Would you care if I went in?” She says to him. “Think I’m ready to for a shower, and I wanna unpack a bit.”

“Sure! Yeah, I’ll head in with you in a minute.”

“Okay.” She stands up. “Night everyone, thanks for a great first say.” She smiles and then heads inside.

“She’s really nice, H.” Adam says. “I like her a lot already.”

“Thanks.” Harry smiles. “I like her a lot too.” He stands up and heads up to their shared bedroom.

“You could have stayed outside if you wanted, I’m just getting my things settled.”

“I know…I thought you might need help with the shower.” He rubs the back of his neck.

“I probably could have figure it out.” She smirks at him.

“Well, maybe I need a shower too. Been outside all day, after all.” He steps closer to her and she can feel her cheeks heating up.

“Harry…I…I want to, but…” She bites her bottom lip. “Last time we tried to do it on my period it really hurt, and I didn’t like it as much as I may have led on.”

“You didn’t fake it did you?”

“No! I came, but…it just wasn’t super comfortable. I really wanna be close with you, I just need a couple more days, and then you can pound me into the mattress for all I care.” Harry chuckles at her statement and he nods.

“Well, can we still shower together without the funny business? I just really missed you.”

“Yeah, just give me a minute in there alone, you know the drill.”

He nods and watches her walk into the en suite with her toiletry bag. She gets the water going, and steps in, opting to get her hair wet to give it a good wash. She calls for him once she feels secure enough, and he comes in right away. They look at each other for a moment, and then he crashes his mouth to hers, pushing her against the wall. Her hands fly to his hair and she moans into his mouth at the feeling of his hard dick pressed against her hip. His tongue glides against her as he gropes her breast with one hand and her ass with the other. He detaches his lips from hers to get some air, and immediately starts sucking on her neck.

“Th-thought you said no funny business.” She manages to get out.

“I don’t find any of this funny, do you?” He says lowly into her ear.

“No.” She breathes and he continues his attack on her neck.

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna do anything you don’t wanna do.” He pulls away from her slightly. “I just couldn’t help myself when I walked in here, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She pulls him back, pressing their fronts together. “I really missed you too.”

After some more passionate kisses, they clean themselves up and get out of the shower. Harry leaves her so she has some privacy putting her underwear on. She runs the blow dryer through her quickly so it’s not sopping wet before coming to bed. She throws on a large t-shirt, and Harry can’t help but smile as he watches his cute girlfriend crawl into the large bed with him.

“So, are you not able to swim? We were hoping to take the boat out tomorrow.”

“Does the boat have a bathroom?”

“It does! It’s small, but functional.”

“Then I can definitely go swimming.” She smiles and cozies up to him. She sighs happily. “I really missed this.”

“Me too.” He looks down at her. “I think I sleep better when you’re next to me.”

She pouts up at him and slots her mouth over his. It felt so good to just be able to kiss and touch how they pleased. FaceTiming was great and all, but always left them with a sense of wanting and yearning. The physical touch was something they both craved from the other.

//

The morning sun creeps into the bedroom, causing Y/N’s eyes to flutter open. She feels like she’s in a dream, but things become real when she feels Harry’s arms around her and his pelvis pressing into her ass. She thinks to maybe take care of him, offer up a hand job or something, but before she can he’s peppering kisses to the back of her neck and then getting out of bed.

“Ready to start the day?” He yawns. “We gotta pack up everything we wanna eat for the day. There’s a mini kitchen below deck, which is nice. I stalked up on some things I know you like from the store.”

“Thank you.” She smiles as he walks into the bathroom. Y/N gets up and stretches a bit. She scowls when she feels a cramp roll through her lower body. She grabs her pills and swallows. She was on the first week of her new pack. “One more day and you’re gone.” She says to herself.

“Are you talking to your period?” Harry chuckles as he comes out of the bathroom.

“Maybe.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “Just started my new pack of pills, should definitely be over by tomorrow.”

“No worries.” He kisses her cheek and goes into the drawer for his swim trunks and a white t-shirt.

“Should I pack other clothes to change into?”

“Nah, we’ll come back here and get cleaned up. I think we’re gonnna go to a bar tonight, should be fun.”

Y/N nods and searches for one of her new bathing suits. She snatches and goes into the bathroom. She hated using tampons, especially this late in her period because things just felt uncomfortably dry, but it wasn’t like she could wear a pad with her bottoms, so this is what she needs to do. Once that’s all situated, she puts her hair up into a messy bun, and slides her bottoms on. They were navy blue, not super high waist, but not super low cut either, mid-rise. She grabs her top, and struggles with getting the back tied. It was a really cute floral string top that matched perfectly with the bottoms.

“Har?” She calls from the bathroom.

“Yeah?” He peeps his head in carefully.

“Could you tie the back of this for me please?”

“Um…sure.” He swallows as he steps closer to her and ties the back of the top. “Is that good?”

She looks in the mirror and adjusts her breasts.

“Yeah, should be alright, thank you.”

“That’s a really nice bathing suit.”

“Thanks.” She smiles. “I just got it, I wanted to have some cute ones for the trip.” Her breasts giggle as she lets them go, and he can’t help but watch.

“Thought you might wear a one piece or something.” He says as he follows her out of the bathroom.

“I can’t really wear those, my torso is long, and they make them way too high cut, it’s not cute on me.” She puts on a pair of jean shorts and a tank top over her bathing suit and smiles at him. “You’ve got sunscreen and all that?”

“Yeah.”

Harry knew he didn’t need to worry about Louis, Niall, or Adam really looking at Y/N. It was Ben and Clark. As good of friends as they were, and they were just as respectful as Harry was, he knew they would still look and gawk at her. He had zero control over it, and that’s the part he hated.

The kitchen smells like fresh coffee, and Harry can hear Y/N giggling as Ben pours her a cup and gives her some creamer. Here we go, Harry thinks to himself.

“Here, Harry.” Louis says, handing him a cup of black coffee.

“Thanks.” He smiles and takes it from him.

“Sleep well, Y/N?” Clark asks.

“Better than I have in weeks, yeah.” She looks at Harry and he looks at her.

“Alrighty then.” Adam says. “Well, I’ve got most of the coolers packed, got all the sunscreen we could need. I figure we could grill on the boat for lunch later. Sound good with everyone?” Everyone hums in agreement. “Perfect, let’s head out.”

Y/N puts her sunglasses on and goes outside with everyone. She sits down on the boat and watches all the boys while they work to get going. It was quite a sight to see Harry maneuvering the different ropes. Adam drives the boat out, and Harry plops down next to Y/N.

“He’s gonna take us out to this sand bar where other boats anchor. It’s a lot of fun, just swimming around, doing nothing. You can lay out on the other end too, work on your tan.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing?”

“Mhm.” He smiles. “I love sitting out in the sun.”

“Me too. It’s been great working at the bar because I can go to the beach during the day with my friends and stuff, and then just go in at night.”

“How’s the gang doing?”

“Oh, they’re great. Max has a girlfriend, and she’s really nice. She came to visit for a weekend to meet all of us.”

Harry felt slightly relieved knowing that Max was seeing someone. He never brought his uneasiness about him to Y/N, and right now he was especially glad he didn’t.

“That’s nice.” He kisses her cheek.

Once the boat is anchored at the sandbar, Y/N takes her cover up off along with the boys. Having basically grown up in a locker room, Y/N wasn’t really nervous to be so exposed around friends. If they hadn’t seen a boob or a butt cheek by now then that was on them. She takes a few photos on her phone. The view was incredible, and she felt so lucky to be there. Harry comes up from behind her and gives her a squeeze.

“Would you help me with the sunscreen?” He asks.

“Of course!” She sprays it all over him and rubs it in on his back and shoulders. “Do me?”

He nods and does the same for her, making sure to get under her straps so she wouldn’t be splotchy. They hear a few splashes. Louis, Niall, and Clark all jumping in.

“The water’s so warm!” Niall shouts to everyone still aboard.

“I’m not quite ready to go in yet.” Y/N whispers to Harry.

“You don’t have to…here.” He grabs a towel from a bag. “Lay out on this, I’m just gonna go in for a quick dip and then I’ll join you.” He smiles and kisses the tip of her nose.

“M’surprised she’s not right in here with you.” Louis says as Harry swims over to them.

“She…uh…well, she’s got her period.” He whispers. “So I think she’s trying to hold off on going in for a bit.”

“Ah, say no more.” Louis says.

“That’s gotta be so annoying.” Niall says. “Did it just start?”

“No, she said it should end tomorrow, so she just needs to tough it out today.”

“We should have gone to the shops then…” Louis says.

“It’s alright, she can still swim, she just doesn’t want to have to deal with, uh, changing yet I think.”

“Changing what?” Clark asks.

“Her…you know.” Harry says, blushing. “Ugh, can we not talk about this actually?”

“Talk about what?” Ben asks as he swims towards them.

“Nothing.” Harry, Niall, and Louis all say at the same time.

They all hear Y/N laughing from the boat. Adam is sitting next to her on the deck.

“Look, Adam has someone to have girl talk with, this’ll be perfect.” Ben says.

“Oi.” Harry splashes him. “Don’t say shit like that. Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean he’s girly. We all paint our nails and wear jewelry for Christ’s sake, we’re not all exactly following gender norms here.”

“Okay, okay, fuck.” Ben laughs and splashes Harry back.

After his quick dip, Harry joins Y/N on the deck to lay out. She looked perfect to him. Laying on her stomach, he could see the cute curve of her bum. He lays down on a towel next to her, and boops her nose as she turns to look at him.

“How was the water?”

“Nice and warm, ready whenever you are.”

“Sun feels good.” She yawns.

“Good.” He smiles at her. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

“Me too.”

Y/N ends up falling asleep for a bit, which Harry thinks is the cutest thing in the world. He nudges her awake, though, and hands her a bottle of water. She shits up and happily takes it.

“Think I’m ready to go in now, I’m hot.”

“Okay.”

He leads her down to where the latter is, and helps her in by giving her a piggy back ride. She warned him that she wasn’t the strongest swimmer before the trip. Luckily, she could easily stand about belly button deep.

“Y/N, catch!” Niall tosses her a tennis ball, and she catches it.

Adam was hanging out on a float nearby with Ben, and Clark was talking with Louis about some soccer player. Y/N, Harry, and Niall get into a game of catch with the tennis ball. Once noon hits, someone has the brilliant idea to start drinking. Y/N goes up on deck with Harry and she pulls him aside.

“Would you come to the bathroom with me?” She whispers as she grabs her beach bag.

“Yeah.”

He leads her below deck and shows her the bathroom. She asks him to just wait outside and guard the door while she’s in there. He hears her grunt painfully before hearing the sink. She comes out with sigh.

“Alright?”

“Yeah…it just…ugh, it’s just annoying. It’s fine.” She takes a moment to look around. “It’s like a little apartment down here, it’s nice.”

“Yeah, the couch turns into a pull out, it’s pretty cool. We’ve all slept out on the boat before. One summer when there was a lot of us someone just used it as a spare room.”

“Who wants vodka?” Adam asks.

“Me!” Y/N says as her and Harry come back up. “Any soda or anything to go with it?”

“Cranberry juice.” Harry says with a grin and Y/N smiles wider.

Ben fires up the grill while everyone starts to drink. It was a delicious lunch that Y/N was grateful for. Everyone was getting a little tipsy, which resulted in Harry (and others) doing a backflip off the deck and into the water. Y/N had no idea Harry would even do that. He must really be letting loose.

Once everyone sobered up a bit, Adam drives the boat back to the house. It was the perfect day in the sun, but Y/N couldn’t wait to shower off all the sunscreen.

“Do you guys wanna, like, chill for a little while? I could use a nap, honestly.” Clark says. “We won’t be heading to the club until midnight so I’d rather sleep and then have a late dinner.”

“Agreed.” Niall says. “I’m exhausted.”

“Midnight?” Y/N says to Harry as they go up to their room.

“Yeah, things are open later here so we go out later. We’ll pregame and stuff like normal, but it’s sort of lame to be the first ones at a club.”

“Right.” She chuckles. “Well, I am in desperate need of a shower.”

“Alright, I suppose I’ll be a gentleman and let you go first.” He rolls his eyes playfully.

“You can come in with me.”

“If I do that I’m gonna need to fuck you, Y/N.”

“Oh.”

“You’ve looked so sexy all day.” He plays with the strap on the top of her bathing suit. “Don’t have much self-control left.”

“I’ll just, um, go in alone then.” She swallows.

She really wanted to have sex with Harry, but it just wasn’t time yet. She takes a quick shower, and he follows in shortly after her. She didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore, but she put a pad on anyways and a large t-shirt. She sinks into the pillows on the bed and waits for Harry.

“Think I need a nap too.” He yawns. “Swimming and day drinking really tires you out.”

“Yeah.” She laughs and opens her arms for him. He rests his head on her chest and gets comfy.

“This is the best.”

“Absolutely.” She plays with his damp hair and he feels like he’s going to melt into her.

“Oh!” He sits up abruptly and looks at her. “I had an epiphany the other night with the guys.”

“About what?”

“What I might like to do after graduation. We were sitting smoking and it just came to me.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say you were smoking?” She sits up with a surprised look on her face.

“I don’t do it during the school year because sometimes I wig out, but I was fine the other night. Anyways, do you wanna hear what I wanna do?”

“Of course, lay it on me.”

“Human Resources.”

“What about it?”

“That’s what I want to do, Y/N! I all of these ethics classes would really prepare me for that field, and I could literally work anywhere. I’d probably have to start out doing some customer service work and then slowly work my way up, but I think I could be good at it.”

“You wanna deal with sexual harassment stuff?”

“That’s not the only thing that HR reps do, there’s payroll, workplace compliance with dress code and safety. I’d be like Toby from The Office, only cool.”

Y/N smiles and giggle for a moment.

“Well, you’re clearly excited about it, so I think it’s great. Course, I think you’d be good at anything you set your mind to.”

“Thanks, babe. I know it sounds like a boring job, but I don’t think it has to be. Plus, you can make a fuck ton of money.”

“Is that the most important thing to you?”

“No, I suppose being happy is, but a decent salary would be nice too.”

“You’d probably have to wear a suit every day.” She bites her bottom lip.

“Mhm, probably.”

“Sexiest HR rep in the history of HR reps.”

He smiles as he leans in to kiss her. She pulls him on top of her, but keeps her legs closed. After a quick make out session, they decide just to cuddle and snooze for a bit. Harry wakes up to a lack of warmth. He sits up when he doesn’t feel Y/N next to him. She comes out of the bathroom and looks at him.

“What time is it?” He knuckles at his eyes.

“A little after six. What do you think we’re doing for dinner?”

“Ben said he’d make fresh pasta.” Harry yawns and stretches. “It’s his turn to cook.” He gives her a kiss on the cheek before looking for some clothes.

“What should I wear tonight? I have this cute red dress…” She pulls it out of the closet and his eyes grow wide. He puts his glasses on so he can see better.

“That’s…wow, yeah, that’ll look great on you.”

“I really like the cut out on the front. I’ll just put some shorts and a t-shirt on for now. No use in getting ready yet.”

“Right.”

Harry just throws on a pair of shorts and looks at her.

“Must be nice to just walk around shirtless all the time. Wish I could do the same.”

“Well, you could, but I wouldn’t feel terribly comfortable with all of the guys ogling you.” He smirks and she nudges him out of the room.

“Something smells good!” She says as she sees Ben over the stove. “You really made fresh pasta?”

“Yup, and meatballs. Mum’s recipe.”

Y/N was amazed at seeing so many guys just being domestic. Her freshman year of college she had made friends with a few guys on the men’s hockey team and their apartment was always gross. They never did their laundry and always ordered takeout. This was one of the things Y/N really liked about Harry. He was clean and respectful, and it was nice to see he surrounded himself with similar people.

“Oh my fucking god.” She moans as she takes a bit of the food. “That’s delicious.”

“Thanks.” Ben beams. “Hear that, mate, she likes my cooking.”

“Don’t get too cocky, she likes mine plenty, right?” Harry says to her.

“Of course, babe.”

“Babe.” Adam and Clark say together lovingly.

“Enough teasing.” Harry points his knife at them. “Get enough of it from these two at school.”

“Please, we hardly tease you.” Louis scoffs.

“You did when we first started going out, it was so annoying.” Harry rolls his eyes.

“You teased him?” Y/N looks at Louis and Niall. “Not very nice boys.” She shakes her head as she takes another bite.

“It was all in good fun.” Niall says.

After cleaning up dinner, the drinks come back out and everyone does shots of tequila. This was what Y/N had been missing. Just hanging out with people her own age without any parents around.

“Wait, so I need to ask.” Clark starts. “Why hockey?”

“I was too aggressive for soccer and lacrosse. No padding.” She takes another shot and sucks on a lime.

“Jesus.” Adam says. “Why were you so aggressive?”

“I had a lot of, um, pent up anger from my parent’s split…we had to see, um, well it was suggested to me that I try hockey. I already knew how to skate, so it wasn’t difficult for me to pick up.”

“She’s brilliant on the ice.” Harry says, putting an arm around her. “I bet you’ll be captain senior year.”

“Do you have siblings, do they play sports?” Ben asks.

“My younger sister does theater, she’s going to this school…um…AMDA in New York this fall, I’m really excited for her, she’s very talented. My little brother plays hockey too…for the same reasons. At least the boys get to hit each other.” She scoffs. “If there had been a female football league I think I would have done that, but it didn’t exist so hockey it was. Besides, I really do just love it. My mom was able to send me to hockey camp a couple times, and I got to meet some nice people that I still stay in touch with. It’s just a great sport.”

Pregaming was good, but it was getting to be time to change. Y/N takes her hair out of its bun and shakes it out. She had some nice beach waves from earlier. She touches up her makeup, and slips into her dress. It was tight, red, and had a cutout just below her breasts. It wasn’t something she wore often, but she thought a club in Italy would be a perfect occasion. She slips her white tennis shoes on, ever the practical person. Harry feels the wind get knocked out of him when she steps out of the bathroom.

He didn’t look too shabby himself. A white, silk short-sleeve shirt with the first few buttons undone, and a pair of black shorts. He looks her up and down after putting his contacts in.

“Jesus.”

“Isn’t it cute?” She spins around for him.

“Very.” He puts his hands on her hips. “Do we need to leave?”

“Harry.” She giggles. “We can get frisky when we get back.”

“Does that mean-“

“Mhm.” She winks at him.

The boys were all dressed and ready, and a few paid some compliments to Y/N. Harry keeps his arm around her as they walk to the downtown area. They’re able to get into the club with ease, and they all go up to the bar. The bartender gives Y/N’s hers on the house and she smiles.

The music was good, they all dance as a group, but Harry dances behind Y/N with his hands on her hips, which she didn’t mind one bit. His friends had seen him dance with plenty of girls, it wasn’t awkward or anything. They all drank a fuck ton as the night went on. Y/N was loving having her dance partner back. Her head was rolled back onto Harry’s chest while they grind together. He turns her around and pulls her close so he can kiss her, tongue immediately going into her mouth. She wraps her arms around his neck and tugs him as close as they could possibly be. This kiss is hot and forceful. Her fingers lace through his hair.

“Fuck.” He breathes. “Need to get you out of here.” He nearly growls. Y/N nods her head, too frazzled to speak.

Harry finds Adam and lets him know they’re leaving. They both walk quickly, hand in hand, out of the club. The walk back to the house felt like any other time they left a party to go get busy. They giggle and stop to steal kisses until they get to where they need to be. He gets her inside and lifts her over his shoulder.

“Harry!” She squeals.

“Shh, some of the boys could have brought people back.” He gives her bum a little smack as he carries her up the stairs. She laughs, but does as he says to try to stay quiet.

He gets them both on the bed, and she straddles him immediately, her hair falling into her face as she sucks on his bottom lip. He helps move it out of the way, and this his hand slide down her body to grope and squeeze at her ass. She rocks her lips against his, and at this point it just feels torturous for them both. He grabs her hips and gets her on her back.

“You’re really all good?”

“Mhm.”

He lifts the hem of her dress and bunches it up by her hips. His mouth falls open when he sees the red thong she had paired with the dress.

“You’re the devil.” He says, kissing her lips as he pets over her. “You’re good, you’re okay with this?”

“Yes, so okay with it, please.” She nearly whines.

He moves the thin material to the side, and slides two of his fingers inside her. They swallow each other’s moans. He uses his other hand to yank her breasts out of the top of her dress, something she wasn’t expecting, and then he sucks on one of her nipples while he fingers her. Her back arches when his fingers curl up against her g-spot.

“There we are.” He smirks. “Like that, baby girl?”

“Yeah, just like that, Harry.” Her head rolls back into the pillow. “Oh my god, oh my fucking god.” She moans.

“That’s it, let it all out for me.”

He was knuckle deep, and she couldn’t control any of the noises leaving her mouth. She cries out when she comes to her release. He gives her moment before pulling his fingers out. She looks up at him.

“Get your clothes off, now.” She demands.

“Yes ma’am.” He says, saluting her and getting up.

She helps him get his shirt off, attaching her lips to his stomach and sucking on his special spots. His hips buck forward. He tugs her dress off, and his pants drop to the ground at the same time. She wiggles out of her thong, and Harry rids himself of his boxers.

“Really wanna feel you, can we do that?” She pouts at him.

“Yeah.”

She pins him down and straddles him, lining herself up with him and sinking down. They both let out throaty moans at the contact.

“You’re so fucking tight.” He groans as he rocks her back and forth on him.

“Been too long without you.” She starts bouncing up and down on him slowly, and he rubs her clit. “Fuck, Harry.” She squeezes around him.

“Come as many times as you want, don’t hold back.” He says, rubbing her faster.

Her body falls on his and she cries out into his neck. He helps her move back and forth on him as she comes to. She knew she was overly sensitive from having not been touched by him in two months. He looks at her and opens his mouth. Her eyebrows raise, but then she remembers what he wants her to do. She wells up some spit and lets it drip slowly from her tongue to his. He swallows it and smiles up at her. A hand goes to the back of her head, and he yanks her face down to his so he can kiss her. Their tongue move around each other as he thrusts up into her.

“Need it from behind.” He says against her mouth.

She gets off him and gets in position for him. He gives her a gentle smack before sliding back in. His hands grip at her hips as he thrusts in and out.

“Gonna fuck you every day for the next two weeks, as many times as you want. You just say the word, and it’ll be just like this.”

“Fuck, Harry.” His words alone were going to make her lose it again.

“Don’t care where we are, if you want my cock, my mouth, my fingers, you’ve got it.”

She moans out as she comes again, and he loves the way she tightens around him, but he’s trying to hold on a little longer. He hadn’t fucked her in so long, and even though he knew they could do it again, he just wanted to enjoy the initial moment a little longer. He pulls out of her and gets her on her back, and in he goes once against. He takes her hands and pins them on either side of her head. He kisses her as he rocks in and out.

“H-Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“Oh, baby, I love you too.” He kisses her.

Things had turned from rushed and frantic to loving and sweet. She rocks her hips along with his, and it feels amazing. He slows down the pace to really just take her all in.

“Love you so much.” He whispers in her ear. He picks up the pace a little, and he can feel himself getting closer.

“Please, come inside me, Harry.” She whimpers. “Wanna feel all of you.”

He bites down on her neck while he comes and she moans out at the feeling of him filling her up. He kisses her cheeks and nips at her lips before slowly pulling out. She gasps at the loss of him at first. She gets up to use the bathroom quickly, and then gets into bed with him. He tugs her to lay fully on top of him. She nuzzles into his chest, leaving kisses every few moments. He rubs her back and moves some hair away from her face so she’ll look up at him. He opens his mouth to say something, but he feels good about the comfortable silence. He opts to just kiss her forehead instead. They both sigh with happiness.

As they fell asleep in each other’s arms, neither had a care in the world. They both knew this was the only time in their lives that they could be so carefree, and they weren’t going to waste it or worry. They wanted to be with each other right now, and that was good enough for the both of them.

#harry styles #harry styles one shot #harry styles series #harry styles imagine #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut #harry styles angst #college!harry #the tutor #tutor!harry #tutorry #hockeyplayer!y/n #college au #harry styles au

[addierose444]

A Typical Week: Spring 2021

Before getting into the actual content, I thought I would just point out that this is my 100th blog post! You can check out the full list here. 

As noted in my fall 2020 version of this post, my week is primarily dictated by my current course schedule. (To check out all of my past courses, click here). Furthermore, the way I write these posts is to focus on academics as they're a big part of my life, but also the most natural thing to write about publicly. This post should give you a realistic sense of the structure of my week and courses. I thought it may be useful to contrast expectations and reality when it comes to productivity. Early in the semester, I mapped out my idealized homework schedule around my meetings and assignment deadlines. The first row lists deadlines. The other rows are split by my meals (lunch and dinner). Even if I don’t strictly follow the schedule, spending the time to map things out is quite useful. To write about my real schedule, I actually looked back through data from my time tracking application, Toggl Track. I know this is a very long post, but it wasn’t really interesting enough to become a two-parter. 

A typical school day starts off with my 9:00 (or 9:10) alarm. I also often have a second alarm set for 9:15 as a backup. Here at college, I simply use the default clock app on my phone and have it play from my favorites playlist on Spotify. I very occasionally need to wake up earlier to finish up an assignment as midnight is my strict cutoff for doing work. I know a consistent sleep schedule is very important, but it’s definitely something I struggle with.

Monday:

My week begins with a 9:20 math class. The specific course is math methods which as previously explained is an applied math course from the physics department that is required for physics and engineering majors. We usually start off by going over the pre-class check in (PCCI) and/or other questions students have. This review is followed by a lecture on new material. Throughout the class, we work through example problems in breakout rooms (on Zoom whiteboards) and answer multiple-choice questions using the poll feature. (The poll questions are anonymous and ungraded). Partway through the class, we get a 4-minute break. One nice thing about this class is that we actually thoroughly go through the example problems when we regroup as an entire class. This is important because, without feedback, practice is of limited utility. Furthermore, going over the problem gives me a chance to get everything into my notes. The integration of lectures with practice is something I really appreciate about this course. In past math classes, the format has been a lecture followed by a worksheet of practice problems. While that model sometimes makes sense, I much prefer this integrated approach.  One issue with leaving practice until the end is that you sometimes run out of time and don’t catch knowledge gaps until the end of class. After math methods, I get a 20-minute break during which I often listen to the latest episode of The Daily (a short new podcast from the New York Times). 

Next up is my philosophy of logic class which starts with a few minutes of breathing and stretching. On the first day of class, I thought this was a really strange thing, but have come to appreciate it. Afterward, we go over any relevant announcements and sometimes debrief the previous class. This class is different from my other classes in that it is reading and discussion-based. We spend most of the class in the main room strengthening our understanding of the reading through full class discussions and mini-lectures. Even though the class is already very small (13 students), we also make use of breakout rooms to work through study questions. Our tests are pyramid style which means we spend one class period working independently and another class on the same questions in a small group. We also have short quizzes, called mini check-ins,  every few weeks. Next up is lunch during which I sometimes listen to a podcast or audiobook. You can check out some of my favorite podcasts and books of 2020 at the associated links.

After lunch, I have my computer systems lab. The teaching assistant of my lab section starts off with a quick introduction to the assignment. We then work independently and ask questions as they come up. Even though we don’t really work collaboratively the lab is sort of fun because it’s less formal than a regular class. For the first part of the semester, the lab assignments often took way longer than the allotted time (and sometimes longer than our projects) so I often spent more of the afternoon finishing up the assignment. Fortunately, the course staff was made aware of this issue and adjusted accordingly. Just for some context, this course is a UMass class which is why there is a whole course team and teaching assistants. To read more about Five College course registration click here. At Smith, while some classes have teaching assistants who help out during class, all of the classes are taught and run by our actual professors. We also have student tutors as an academic resource outside of class. To read more about academic support systems at Smith, click here. 

After finishing up my lab assignment, I start in on my math methods PCCI. A typical PCCI consists of reading a section or two of the textbook (written by our professor) and completing a short practice problem or so-called discovery exercise. Depending on the week, I either start in on my reading assignment for my computer systems class or logic class. At 4:00, I have my weekly one-on-one meeting with my supervisor for my ResLife job. Following the meeting, I relax by listening to music or an audiobook. At 5:00, I order, pick up, and eat my dinner. After dinner, I complete any remaining readings for my computer systems and logic classes. If I haven’t yet completed my lab assignment or have an exam the following day, I devote some of the night to circuits. Otherwise, I may work on a computer systems project or theory of computation assignment. 

Tuesday:

Tuesday’s are my busiest day of the week in terms of class hours. With that said, it’s nothing compared to my Thursdays last fall. I start Tuesdays off with my circuits class. During class, we learn new circuit theory and circuit analysis techniques. We also go through example problems. While we often run out of time to fully work through the extra practice problems in breakout rooms, fortunately, my professor posts videos going over those problems. After taking our feedback into account, we now get a break partway through the class. Each lecture covers a lot of material, so the brain/screen break is much appreciated. To check in on how the class is feeling about various concepts, our professor has us use the annotation feature on a scale from totally get it to totally lost. 

After circuits is my 20-minute break followed by my theory of computation lecture. The theoretical nature of the material means that it really is a lecture. While we obviously go through examples, there aren’t really practice problems as there would be in a math class. We use the chat to some extent in all of my classes, but to a greater degree in this course. Next up is lunch and a COVID test. At 1:40 I am back to circuits for the lab. Most of the labs are virtual with physical lab equipment, but a few have been in-person so that we could use special equipment. Ironically, one of our in-person labs was actually fully virtual in terms of lab equipment. (We were sitting on the lawn outside of Ford together and running circuit simulators on our laptops). Fortunately, we don’t usually need to stay until 4:30. I tend to just collect my data, ask some questions about the material, and then finish up the write-up at a later point in time. This time block is also the one used whenever we have an exam. 

I always start by doing the textbook reading for circuits. I don’t read super closely, but it’s still a good primer for the next class. In terms of other work, Tuesdays are a bit more unpredictable and really depend on how much I got done over the weekend. Specifically, while I usually finish my math methods assignment over the weekend, occasionally I need to finish it up on Tuesday evenings. Likewise, for circuits, I sometimes finish the last few problems on a Tuesday evening. At 7:00, I have a staff meeting with the other community advisors in my neighborhood and our supervisor. Our meetings usually take place over Zoom, but our most recent one was in-person with ice cream from Herrell’s which was a lot of fun. You can read about some other Northampton food locations (restaurants, cafes, and more) here. In weeks where I haven’t yet started my computer systems work, I do what I would usually have done on a Monday on a Tuesday. 

Wednesday:

Wednesdays are similar to Mondays without the computer systems lab and ResLife meeting. In the afternoon I often attend office hours for my theory of computation class to ask questions about the weekly assignment. Even though I don’t have my logic class until the following Monday, I usually just do the reading on Wednesday afternoon. On Wednesday evenings, I typically work through my circuits revisions. I also tend to do a good chunk of my computer systems coursework. This consists of watching lecture videos, taking notes, and taking lesson quizzes. Furthermore, I have definitely spent some Wednesday evenings working through computer systems projects. 

Thursday:

Thursdays are like Tuesdays without the circuits lab. Even though I have the whole afternoon free, unfortunately, I am sometimes having to finish up my theory of computation assignment. It’s also common for me to start working on the new math methods problem set. In the case of this Thursday, I played some guitar and then started writing this post. I also do my circuits reading for Tuesday and take the quick lab quiz. If I have any remaining computer systems coursework, I do that as well.  

Friday:

This semester I only have one class on Fridays, math methods. After class, I get a COVID test and an early lunch. I know it seems crazy how many free afternoons I have given that I am taking 22 credits and am a double STEM major. However, part of this is explained by my UMass computer systems course being asynchronous and the fact that I completed the one-credit companion course in C programming before my Smith semester started. My computer systems class was originally scheduled to meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. Even though I wish the class was synchronous, the flexibility of an asynchronous class has been much appreciated. Furthermore, the class was in a terrible time block that would have caused me to miss most of house tea. Back to what a Friday afternoon looks like! After completing my PCCI for math methods, I often rewatch the lecture videos for computer systems (on double speed) and then take the weekly quiz. I next pick up tea snacks from Cutter-Z and attend house tea at 4:30. After tea, I order dinner and often eat it in the living room with housemates. Fridays are definitely my least productive day and I have definitely taken a few weekly quizzes on Saturday after having planned to take them on Friday. Instead of doing real work, I often spend Friday afternoons writing blog posts. As for this post, I wrote most of it yesterday but spent a good chunk of Friday afternoon on it as well. 

Saturday:

Despite my best efforts to have a consistent sleep schedule, I often sleep in on Saturdays until 10:00. I then have a leisurely hour or so of listening to an audiobook. At 11:00, I get an early lunch. As mentioned in the Friday description, I sometimes end up taking my weekly quiz for computer systems on Saturday. When I have tests in math methods, I typically take them on Saturday night. (The tests are timed but are self-scheduled over the given weekend which includes Friday). When there is not a math test, I often work on my math problem set in the afternoon. Every few weeks, I host POCheese at 4:00. This week we are actually going to be meeting at 5:00 for a ramen night! At 6:00 I have a uke club meeting over Zoom. In weeks where I have already finished my math problem set and don’t have a test, I start in on my circuits problem set.

Sunday:

Sundays start like Saturdays in that I often have a leisurely morning. At 11:00 I get a COVID test and an early lunch. Sundays are almost always devoted to my circuits. This includes working through the problems set, the lab writeup, or studying for an upcoming exam. If my Saturday wasn’t as productive as intended, I do the homework described in that section. At 6:00 I have a Society of Women Engineers (SWE) board meeting. At 7:00, I either lead a community meeting (part of my ResLife job) or attend house council. Afterward, I fill out my weekly report (also part of my ResLife job).

#college #Smith College #academics #schedule #week in my life #homework #spring 2021

[whats-the-story-tc]

9th of October, 2020

"The One with the Cards Laid Bare"

[INCREDIBLY LONG, SORRY FOR CLOGGING THE TAG]

There were very tense energies in our classroom before V's double class. We already knew she'd cried today, we knew where she'd be working from other classes, so we all knew what would come, and it still was bad. One of the boys said he heard that she hopes we're not all angry at her and that we won't hate her for her decision. There was not an inch of anger or hatred in any of us, just heartbreak. We knew how much we'd cry seeing her leave. We were afraid of this goodbye. But it had to come eventually. The last class she'll ever teach. The last two lessons she'll ever have.

She was late. Only a couple minutes, but seeing she's always on time, or even a bit early, it was worrying. I walked outside to find her, and when I did, I saw her, coming up the stairs with two boys from the class, fresh back from lunch. Immediately as she saw me, she raised her index finger and said: "No." I didn't really understand it, until she continued: "I'm not gonna cry. I'm trying to go at least two minutes without crying." My heart was in shambles, and nothing even happened yet.

She started by telling us an e-mail is not how she wanted us to find out. She wanted to tell us herself, but not until today, probably not until the end of class, even though she's known for quite a long time she wanted to leave. She didn't tell us, because she wanted these last days not to be chaotic, so we could still focus and do our best in class. There were signs, though. And I should have known. There's one in basically every post I wrote this year. Funny thing is, when I told you about how she was with the girl from the other class and I thought something was up, it was only my gut feeling. She hadn't told them yet. Only in the last 20 minutes of that double class.

She also told us who will be replacing her, just to get the professional part quickly over with. V said she expects us to treat them fairly, even if she won't be here to check on us. We keep this promise. Most of the time, it works.

Being a teacher doesn't pay well, and here, in our country, the profession itself is not respected the way it should be. 10 years of experience in the field means nothing, she said. The new education system is horrible, unbearable, and she's had enough of feeling like she's in a toxic relationship. Not with us, with teaching. She said she used to feel very anxious when she got here, and by now I know what she hadn't told us in that moment, that she still doesn't feel good thinking about school. She has to leave for her own sake, even though she feels incredibly guilty about it. Even though she'll miss us.

She said, through tears, constantly stopping to take a deep breath and gather her thoughts, that teaching is something she was planning to do her whole life long, but she has to step back now. Even though she has "the seniors, standing before their graduation exams, [us], whom [she's] bonded with", she can't do it anymore. And when one of the girls asked her if she really did love us, she said: "Would I have stayed so long if I didn't?"

We spent long minutes in class discussing the education system, and when I said I didn't know about something that supposedly came from the weaker one of the theatre universities here at home, V was surprised that I hadn't read it. She called me a nickname again, a new one. I've been babygirl and I've been fairy bug before, but not once have I been the name that translates to "my life". Spanish speakers, it's like when you guys say mi vida to someone you love. That's what V called me. I don't remember her ever having called someone that in class.

Between classes, Bandana Friend, who was sick, joined us via video call to speak to V, as she really wanted to say goodbye, at least like this. I stood right beside V as they spoke, out of the camera's sight, unlike my classmates, constantly goofing off in the background, making both V and my friend laugh a little. As I stood there, I couldn't help but marvel at V's eyes from up close, in the light. I don't think I've ever seen a more enchanting eye colour before, and I find nearly every pair of eyes I see pretty. Seriously, I wasn't overexaggerating in any of my posts. If you once catch her eye, you won't know when to stop looking.

After a while, though, my classmates got a bit much, still during the call, and there I was, gathering bravery and doing something I've never done before. I stroked V's arm for a second or two, like I've wanted to so many times before, to show sympathy. She didn't even look at me, didn't even flinch, she probably knew who was touching her. And, seeing how unresponsive, how calm she was about it, I couldn't help but think: "Is this something I could've done this whole time?"

Before the second class with her started, Debate Friend called her a derivative of her first name (though she made sure to say Miss with it), and V just told her not to be rude. Hours pass, and V lets her (and us all, indirectly) call her by her first name, which is something we're still adapting to, but I'm rushing too far ahead, let's slow down a little.

The second class went well, she wasn't crying anymore, on the contrary. We laughed a lot, she told us her honest opinion on a lot of us, who asked her what she thinks of them, and gave advice if needed. I didn't ask. I figured that if she wants to tell me something, she will. Then a very crazy chain of events happened.

She looked like she was gonna tear up again, and I couldn't sit and watch anymore. I stood up and walked right in front of her, not daring to ask for a hug, but hoping she'll get the message with arm gestures. It took her a bit, but when she did, she couldn't help but yell something that I would translate to: "[Specs] is jumping me!". The word she used here is something usually used in a romantic or flirty context. (Translation was never my forte.) You can probably imagine the laughter, and also my face as I realise that not even on her last day could she go without sassing me at least once.

But then. Oh, then. The next thing I hear as I turn towards her is as she says: "C'mere, Little Me." and before I know it, I find myself sobbing in her arms again, and thinking about how this happened. She seemed taken aback by or uncomfortable with the comparison the last time we spoke about it in March, before the quarantine. When did she accept it, or how? Now as I re-read that post, as I'm writing this one... could the turning point have been me calling her my sister? I had so many questions, but all I could do was cry.

Class was nearing the end when I finally managed to stop sobbing and ask her one thing I've been meaning to for ages: what her tattoos mean. "How much should I go into detail?" she asked with sparkling eyes. She wasn't even surprised I knew about the two on her shoulder blades — but I was, when she motioned with her fingers she actually had three. Before telling me about them, she jokingly said something along the lines of "I'm not gonna strip for you" (as all 3 are covered by clothes), and me being me, I immediately threw my hands up, face probably red, and said: "Nononononono, obviously [not]!"

Funny thing is, the two on her shoulder blades are actually quotes from the last book she had us read, the last thing we discussed with her in class on Wednesday. So this is what she meant when she said she had personal connections to it! After she told me which parts they're from, she jokingly added "Very English teacher [of me]...", to which I just laughed and responded "Yeah, very."

By the time I'm writing this, I already had to listen to the headmaster, one of V's replacements, as he bragged about knowing of these two tattoos. Heh. That's cute. It's still 2-1 to me, sir. Not only have I seen them partially before, which you said you haven't, but I also know about the one she most definitely never told you about. And the one I'm most definitely not gonna tell you guys about. Sorry. Some things just have to stay between V and I.

"Also, no one noticed that this is the first time since I came here that I've worn a band T-shirt!" she complains to me jokingly. "Well, I was used to your graphic shirts, so I didn't think much of it," I reply. She's very enthusiastic in telling me what exactly is on it, without me even asking. This woman put on a shirt that essentially disses Christianity — in a religious school. Unbelievable. I love her.

Somewhere around that time, I asked her to let me walk with her to the teacher's lounge, Bookworm Friend convinced her to take a photo with our squad (which had basically everyone I know, my own father included, telling me we look identical), I stroked her arm again (I no longer remember what the reason was, but she still must've felt it pretty natural, seeing she didn't react), and like 3/4 of the class came to hug V goodbye. Meanwhile, another girl I've been classmates with for ages, but never particularly liked, hugged me to try and comfort me. It caught me off-guard, but I've never felt more like our class is a community.

People from other classes came to talk as she walked outside, but I waited until she was alone, and most probably so was she. She promised, likely knowing that I wanted to talk privately, so we didn't leave until it was just the two of us left.

"Come, Little Me," she said again, as we got going. She liked this phrase so much that she repeated it in English. "Mini Me." Then I found out why the English. Turns out, her native English speaker boyfriend, who she name-dropped like it's second nature, as if she's telling a story to a friend (she's so whipped for him, it's adorable), knows all about this comparison, and had a good laugh at it. He knows who I am. I was important enough to mention at home to her boyfriend, something I always wondered about but never dared to ask her. Tears.

No, really, actual tears. I've told you before, I don't support confessing love to your teachers while you're still their student (I'd wait a year after graduation if I were you), and especially if you're underage, and I myself wouldn't do it either. And I didn't. My confession was a little different. My voice breaking from tears, I told her the one thing I wanted her to know most. "This is not how I wanted to tell you, but I've never got more (in life) from anyone..." The answer? The old classic. "Come on."

"[Specs], you really need to get more self-confidence" she tells me, as that's about the only thing I still need to get me where I want to be. "I have to," I reply. And I do. I'm trying. Funny thing, self-confidence. It comes up in both the first and the last conversation we have as student and teacher.

We get up, stand at the top of the stairs. Soon it's time to go. The memories get a bit hazy here, but I'll try my best.

She tells me she expected me to react this way, and was afraid of it, seeing what happened in January. I immediately corrected her. In January, I cried because seeing my classmates hurting and my teachers clueless and lost hurt me, whereas this time, it's personal. She doesn't say anything. I think she understands. I ask her if she'll be happy in this new situation, and she says she hopes so. Only time will tell.

"I probably won't be available at a moment's notice all the time, but if you ever need me, you'll find me," she reassures me.

My English (language) teacher walks outside in that moment, and starts talking to V like I'm not even there. V and I are both a bit uncomfortable with the interruption, but the teacher seems pretty fine with it. Fucking hell, woman, insensitivity much?

Anyway. When she's gone is probably the moment we realise this is it. That this is where it's over.

She reaches out, both verbally and physically, and there we are, hugging again, both of us stroking the other's back in an effort to try and comfort the other. "You always have your friends," she tells me. "Get a good rest," she adds somewhere during that moment. Then we pull away.

I don't reach out, I don't dare to. As soon as I step out of her arms, it's her, who takes a hold of my hand. Not clinging, just a gentle, meaningful hold. I have no idea what she was saying, as I focused on the fact that we were only bloody holding hands in plain sight — and another thing.

V's eyes were red, and full of tears.

She hadn't shed a single tear for the past 20 minutes or so. Yet there she stands before me, physically still holding on to me, and crying. That was all me. And all of a sudden, I understand everything. I no longer have the guts to deny that she loved me all this time.

That's where it ends. No grandiose confessions, nothing loud, nothing overly passionate. Just a scene of two women standing hand-in-hand, showing their true colours and not holding anything back for the first time since they've met, before Miss V, the teacher, forever disappears behind a glass door.

These two women, mentioned above, are the ones who laid the foundation for two friends, two equals to meet anew. They are just getting to know each other all over again as we speak, setting the tone for something to start that could possibly last a long time. And I don't think there's anything that could feel better than that.

~ S ♡

[Every story I share here, no matter how specific I get with my wording, depicts actual events from my own life.]

#tc #tcc #teacher crush community #female tc #female teacher crush

[econ23econlive]

Econ Live Project: Power in a Bus

Over the course of this quarter I have been working on a bus conversion; turning an old school bus into a tiny home. I started this because I am living at my parents home during the pandemic and do not know where I am going to end up living after graduation. The project has countless examples of economics. Even the decision to take on the conversion has some serious economics behind it.

That being said, the single item that has taken the most analysis so far has been the battery bank for the solar system. So I would like to use this project to present some of the research I did on batteries.

First is the decision to install solar at all: Here I find myself considering the supply and demand curves for power. My two real options are to buy power from CA or to use solar to produce my own (other options such as a generator do not fit my needs).

Buying power: This option has a very low fixed cost (the cost of a power hookup in my town is $10 / month) with the variable cost being 19.90 sense per kwh. This yields the supply curve of:

The downward slope of this supply curve is unusual (especially in this class) but not unheard of. It turns out that this represents a decreasing cost industry, which makes sense given that for me as an individual municipal power has a fixed cost of $10/ month and a variable cost of $0.19 per kWh of power meaning that power can be had less expensively the more I purchase. Similar supply curves exist in industries such as computer manufacturing [1].

Solar: Building a solar system into the bus has a higher upfront cost for the equipment, but no ongoing costs. One downside of this setup is that the system cannot generate and store more power than it is sized for, so there is a fixed upper limit of production. In economic terms, the supply is perfectly inelastic because once the system is built the power output cannot be changed.

The solar panels and chargers will cost around $1200, with an additional $900 per battery I install. The system and batteries have a 10 year guarantee, so I can expect to use the system for at least 10 years. This means I will divide by upfront cost over 10 years to find a monthly cost.

Each battery can store 100 amp hours, or 1.2 kWh, allowing me to consume that amount each day for each battery.

This means that a system with one battery will cost $2100 (1200 + 900) and allow me to use 1.2 Kwh of power per day, or 36 Kwh per month. If I divide the cost over 10 years it comes to $19.17 / month. This is around $0.53 per kWh.

Represented graphically this gives a supply curve of:

I created similar data plots for systems using 2 and 3 batteries as well which I will use below.

Next I needed to analyse my demand for power. Using a series of smart plugs I was able to calculate my power consumption. Next I ordered the items by convenience and therefore how much I cared about having them. Then, I placed monetary values on the various power usage. These are largely based upon the added inconvenience that not having each item would cause me:

From this I was able to construct my demand curve for power:

There are a number of steps taken to generate this plot. I dont want this post to be too detailed, but if you are interested please see the spreadsheet linked at the bottom for further details.

Here it is interesting to note that my demand for power is very inelastic up to about 100 kWh per month, after which it becomes far more elastic.

And here is everything combined!

This market is unusual because I am the only consumer and the producers cannot engage in price discrimination because one is actually a government regulated market (on a larger scale than I am considering here) and the other is just me and my own solar system.

Because of this, my consumer surplus is represented as the distance between the demand and supply curve. In my estimations it is clear that I will have a consumer surplus anywhere on the plot. This means that my willingness to pay is above the cost at all points which means I am getting a great deal however I decided to power my new home! But of course I want to maximise my surplus. For examining the plot, we can see that my surplus is maximised at around 75 kWh of power. From my spreadsheet I can see that this means I will be able to run a fridge, water pump and some computer and lights but not as much as I currently do.

There is one other factor to consider which is not represented in my graphs. That is the opportunity cost of using municipal power which is the ability to have my new home be mobile. As someone who likes traveling this is a big deal. Because of this, a solar system is worth the small reduction in consumer surplus to me.

Because of the above analysis I have purchased 2 Battle Born lithium batteries, leaving me with a great economic result:

Thanks for following my analysis! For anyone interested in the raw numbers, the spreadsheet can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14cyb9w07aggwegSQ6j5WQrQVFnVR_h2ah5bcQkH9oQA/edit?usp=sharing

[1] https://courses.byui.edu/econ_150/econ_150_old_site/Lesson_07.htm

By: Sam Hince (19295309)

Discussion Section: Wednesday 1:00 pm

[en241]

Revised Syllabus for Spring 2020

the long version (tl:dr version w/ specifics in next post)

PRINCIPLES

1. Nobody signed up for this situation - not for the disruptions to our own personal lives - not for the changes to our collective present and future - and definitely not for the changes for how we teach and learn

2. In spite of that, we have to carry on - you need assignments, grades, and course credits - I need to provide those in a way that fits the situation

3. The best response to difficult situations is a humane response, so here's mine: - I will prioritize you and your needs - I will prioritize simple solutions - I will prioritize communication & support - I will prioritize flexibility & accommodation

4. We can't just do the same things but do them online - some assignments are no longer possible - some expectations are no longer reasonable - some learning goals are no longer valid

PROMISES

1. I will not ask anyone to learn a new learning platform and nothing I ask you to do for this class should require anything beyond a smartphone

I will continue to use the class blogs on tumblr to post assignments and information

all reading and study assignments can be done using free materials easily available from the internet

you may turn in any work using email

any discussion opportunities will use free and basic social media

participation in any discussion will be optional

2. I will provide clear reading and study assignments on a predictable schedule

weekly learning and study assignments will be posted on Mondays

additional notes and information responses will be posted on Wednesdays and Fridays

I will also post answers to submitted questions on Wednesdays and Fridays

every assignment will be presented in a clear and consistent format

3. Under the current circumstances, the only thing I feel I can require for successful completion of the course is basic participation

I believe I have already taught all the essential skills, terms, and concepts in our courses -- it's all practice and improvement from this point on

I just ask that you stay in touch by sending me a question or comment on the course material as often as you can or wish -- preferably at least once a week  

it won't be a class unless I know you're out there, so I have to hear from you

if I don't hear from you, I'll have to assume you are no longer taking the course

if you can't stick with the schedule because of your circumstances, but still want to complete the course, contact me and I'll try to work something out

4. I will not change the overall course learning goals, but under the current circumstances I will reduce the amount of material I assign, and I will change the grading system

each assignment will always focus on a single topic with clear recommendations for study

I will also provide a few additional options or resources -- and if you, personally, want more depth or suggestions for further learning, ask me for them

the new grading system is basically a pass/fail system:

if you were present and completed at least some of the assignments in the first half of the term, you have already earned a B in this class

if you are present and complete at least some of the assignments in the second half of the term, you will earn an A in this class

if this seems like a gift, all right maybe it is, but I expect you have more important things you're dealing with than this class at the moment . . . so maybe pass the generosity on to someone else, ok?

5. Of course I will not change the basic academic expectations for higher education

plagiarism remains unacceptable

no claims without evidence

seek information from ethical, high-quality sources

any question or comment you send me must be clear, concise, concrete, and connected to the themes and issues of the course -- don't send me anything you wouldn't want to see posted on the blog

civility and respect for one another is essential -- practice good netiquette, not just in this course, but always -- (i.e. don't be a d*ck).

6. I will be here for you

I will be available via email, on twitter, and possibly via other social media (but not Tik Tok -- hard pass, don't ask)

I will respond to emails and other messages as promptly as I can

I will hold online office hours on a regular schedule, during which I will try to respond immediately to emails and messages

I'd like to expand my office hour availability using a face-to-face platform like Zoom or Skype, but I'll do that later

I can't be available 24-7 because I have stuff going on too -- but that's true for us all, right?

I will be posting media and informational snacks, comfort food, and nutritional supplements, because that's just what I do I can't help it sorry not sorry

HOPES

I hope you and all your loved ones stay safe and healthy and well

I hope we all come out of this feeling more connected instead of  more isolated

I hope you all know and remember that Caz is a special place where everyone is doing their best for you

I hope you will stay curious and value learning, and encourage others to do the same

I hope you use everything you know and everything you are to make your world safer, healthier, and better

I hope that this is all over soon

. . . and I hope that if I've made any errors in this syllabus, or if you have any questions about it, you'll let me know

PS - it would be great if you sent me an email saying you’d seen this

PPS - did you notice that I used the explainer format?

[abkdkzine]

Important Message About Recent Concerns

Hey there! Thank you so much for tuning in. This is Mod Ari. I want to apologise in advance because I wrote most of this around 3 AM and didn’t finish most of it until around 9 AM on Wednesday, so I’m afraid I may not be as articulate as I probably would have been hours beforehand. Since then, I’ve been trying to sort out all of the information I’ve gathered from people as well discuss everything with my mod team. I also apologise because this message is going to be very long. But, I come to everyone to address a concern that has been present since the very beginning of this project, and that is the presence of our finance mod Fiama/Fif.

Now, before I delve deeper into this topic, I want everyone to know that the issue I spoke of in a Twitter post I made a while ago isn’t exactly a true issue because it is more of a heavy concern found among a few people. I hope to defuse that by the end of this long message. The real issue is that I have failed to communicate to everyone about my decision to let her stay and that I have let these concerns grow until people have become uneasy with our zine’s management. In this message, I will discuss about the steps my team and I has taken in order to (hopefully) clear everyone’s doubts. Please bear with me and know that I speak with certainty, utmost honesty, and with respect to many people’s feelings about the matter.

First of all, I want everyone to know that this zine is the first one I have ever started on my own. I dove into this project while only being in the BNHA fandom for around 7 or so months, absolutely enamoured with the KatsuDeku relationship, and with no online zine modding experience other than being an artist in a few. The only experience I have comes from real life volunteer work as well as from my part-time job, so I opened moderator applications in hopes of getting some help and advice while being open to letting a few newcomers learn with me. But please do not think I was not capable of organising small projects and reviewing finances before this project because I was and I am. I learnt a little bit of financing from my own mother who is excellent at budgeting (as she has been through many hardships as a result of living in poverty), from my schools and classes throughout high school and current college career, and retail job (which is also where I learnt how to ship lots of packages and keep up with orders). It just never hurt to have another person, or a few others, who have previous experience help me along the way because zines are run very differently and I didn’t know how financing in zines usually worked. So, I joined other projects as moderators to see if theirs were done similarly and I wasn’t disappointed.

If I recall correctly among all of the mod applications, only two people had experience with handling finances, so I chose the one whom I thought was the better choice, which was Fif. Now, please remember that I was very new to the fandom especially in this ship (wherein back then, I only knew a group of people who I was comfortable talking to, and now I know whole communities!); and so at the time, I had no idea about who Fif is and the history she has with the zines listed in her application. This is relevant because when I revealed that she was a part of our team, two people immediately came to me and warned me about the zines she used to be a part of, what her behaviour is said to be like, and what is said she has been known to do.

I humbly ask everyone to understand that I was blissfully ignorant to the happenings within the zine scene because I was brand new to it all, but please know that I still heeded their warnings with high regards and proceeded to tell my editor/beta mod, Maj, about it (who was the first person I appointed as a co-mod and is a dear friend whom I know I can trust with everything). Both of us became cautious, but because I wasn’t sure what to believe (and I partly wanted to see for myself if the behaviour they warned me about is true), I allowed Fif to continue being in my team—but not without strongly reaffirming my position as the head of this zine. I asked for everyone’s cooperation with as much honesty as they can give me, and I told them they will receive everything I have to offer and more in return.

I believe it was at that point that everyone developed a sense of respect for one another because while we work in different areas, we all have the ability to interfere with each other’s works without needing immediate help from other people. We all had initiative and enough individual skill to make up for someone else’s errors. From then on, we communicated very often, and everyone follows the tasks I give them. We’re an efficient team with good communication, but the only unfortunate situation that had us scrambling about is that our schedules started to get out of sync due to us all being college students, which has caused us to delay completing the feedback emails (of which I personally apologise for because I am in charge of writing them).

The reason why I let Fif stay is because she has done nothing suspicious or has said (or done) anything to affect this fanzine in any way to make me believe that she is everything that people have been warning me about. I say this with complete honesty: I have seen nothing but genuine intentions on her part, and while I find it true that she is sometimes inactive, I never expected her to do any of the work I had already assigned to the rest of my team and she has always communicated to us all about the reasons why she has to be away for certain periods of time. She’s done as I have told her, answered anything I asked of her, gave her opinion when I needed it, completed the financial sheet decently, has explained to me her thought processes, let me review and check the numbers on my own, and that is all I needed from her. The rest is under my and the other mods’ control. Madin, Maj, and Grim can all attest to this, and if need be, we will provide evidence to anyone who does not believe it to be true. But after a long discussion with all three of them, we have come to a conclusion with an extremely difficult decision.

Fiama will no longer be a part of our moderator team. We have asked her to leave our project, not without remorse, and she has been removed from the server and all of our accounts.

I’ve thought about the necessary precautions in case we decided to keep her, with all the initial warnings in mind, but recently an acquaintance of mine who I also co-mod with in another zine has come to me about his experiences and is extremely worried that this zine will also be affected by so many possibilities. He has given me enough information about the zines Fif used to be a part of and how they were all handled, so I respect his opinion very highly because he was in the direct line of fire when Hallowzine happened. 

A few of our contributors has also expressed their worries to me, and now that a potential customer has also done the same, I wanted to assure everyone that we have already discussed our decision with Fif herself. The information I gathered from my own research and from talking to a few sources held enough weight for all of us to become reasonably wary. So, I have communicated my own suspicions to Fif herself, and she undoubtedly understands, and I hope that everyone currently reading this message does as well, that I do not tolerate malicious intentions of any kind and that I am a woman of my words—that while I may be an amicable person, I am not weak and I will always persist in my decisions.

That being said, I want to give everyone some insights, and although small as it is, I hope it brings anyone who reads this message a sense of comfort that we are running our zine as smoothly it can.

For starters, I had established in the beginning that I will be the one handling money in this project. The payment systems I have created are both connected to my personal bank accounts, but I am allowing my entire team access to it so that they, as well as everyone else involved in the zine, can have the reassurance that I do not hold any malicious intent with the money sent to those accounts. However, if anything suspicious happens to the money at anytime during the pre-orders period, rest assured that anyone in the team or I will be closing the accounts immediately and freeze this project momentarily until we find a solution to whatever issue that may arise. I highly doubt that any of my moderators have the desire to steal money for personal and evil purposes, but I want everyone to know that I can be trusted too.

Secondly, I have contacted an acquaintance and a colleague from my part-time job, both of whom are accounting majors, to help me look over the financial sheet. My acquaintance and I have reviewed it together a few days ago, and we did not find anything suspicious or wrong with it; and before that, I had reviewed it several times myself to see the progress made on the sheet. My friend has done so as well yesterday and shares the same thoughts. So, I believe it is safe to say that the budgeting is done correctly, but because we have officially removed Fif from the project, we will have to make slight adjustments to the sheet. It is still under discussion, but one of the options I presented to my mods is that we can invite my acquaintance and help us out for a bit, at least to re-organise the sheet. It’s only an option however because we have yet to see if she’s needed or not. As previously mentioned, the team and I are all capable of handling the job ourselves, but we’ll definitely give out more information about what we’ll decide on doing.

Lastly, in an ask I had answered previously, an anon wanted to know if there were any funds saved for emergencies or for the contributors, and I want to relay what I said in here too: I have $800 saved up for this project, or more specifically for the contributors, but I can and will use it to cover anything lost should there be any unfortunate events in the future. This $800 is my investment and testament as to how seriously I treat this project, and I know that the rest of my mods (as well as close friends) will do their best to pitch in with anything they can offer.

In the end, we have done all we could to ensure the safety of this project, our contributors, and our potential customers. I support the absolute validity of all their concerns just as I fully respect everyone’s opinions. The rest of the team has their own reservations about Fif’s zine history, but we were absolutely prepared and had precautions set just in case we decided to let her stay. Either way, even without her aid, Wanderlust will continue to run strong because I believe that the team I chose is capable on their own feet and are versatile enough that I believe they can handle everything even without my presence in this project. 

It shakes my morality to the core knowing that Fif did not do anything wrong during the course of this project, that it is not entirely fair of me or the rest of the mods to do so; but we will always hold the safety of our contributors and future customers with the highest priority.

To end this long and arduous note, I can only humbly ask everyone to place their trust in us—in Madin, in Maj, in Grim, in ME. Because while I know we have our own faults to improve on, being in this team has already helped teach us things we need to know in any future projects. We will continue to be as transparent and honest as we have been since the very beginning. We’re just so, so sorry that this has and is causing so many people to doubt us, but I cannot blame anyone for it. I can only place that blame onto myself for not knowing her background when I should have been more responsible and researched it. For that, I want to apologise for ever causing such a feeling to surface. To the people who has seen and felt the consequences of the fallout regarding Hallowzine or any other zines that ended in a similar light, I want to apologise as well because I’m sure that those situations must have been incredibly difficult to deal with, and it must have been uncomfortable knowing that the possibility of history repeating itself again was plausible.

I hope that you all may have the heart to forgive my oversights and that you do not place any blame onto my team. Know that I will take full responsibility and accountability in the event that our project fails for any reason—however, I am absolutely certain that it will never happen because I trust my three co-mods with all my heart. It’s only up to you now to decide whether we are still worthy of your trust, and whether I am worthy of that trust. 

I’ll end my statement with this: Wanderlust will remain strong so as long as I or the rest of my team are here to run it. 

If there is anything else we can do to reassure you, please let us know and we’ll try our best to address this.

In behalf of my moderator team and with great sincerity,

Mod Ari

#update #important message #mod ari speaks

[buzzdixonwriter]

Avengers, Disassemble!

I’m going to tell you a story to make a point, a true story, but in the words of the late Jack Enyart, I will change the names “to protect the innocent and confound the guilty.’

. . .

Once upon a time, w-a-a-a-y back before we had word processors or the Internet or even bulletin board systems, Producer Pete got the rights to do an Avengers TV show.

All of us who worked for Producer Pete Productions kvelled at this idea:  The Avengers!  Marvel’s mightiest heroes!  We couldn’t wait to jump on it.

…and we didn’t have to wait.  Producer Pete got the rights on a Monday, called the network on Tuesday to pitch the idea to them, the network said send us an outline for the pilot and some sample art and we’ll let you know.

Send it by Thursday.

This Thursday.

In the morning.

First thing.

(Oh, did I mention Producer Pete was in Los Angeles and the network suits were in New York?  I didn’t?  Well, keep that in mind -- along with the fact we had no such thing as the Internet or emails back in the day.)

Producer Pete appraised us of this late Tuesday.  A complete detailed outline and production art in 36 hours.  A tough challenge…

…but it could be done.

First we hammered out a format for the show: An hour in length, not a mere half hour, and thus with six segments instead of three.  Each episode would tell a big overarching story, but segments 1 through 5 would be standalone adventures focusing on just one of the Avengers while segment 6 would wrap everything up in a big bright bow.

We quickly came up with a story idea and even called in a couple of freelance writers and artists to get everything done by 6pm on Wednesday, which was the latest we could drop the material off at FedEx and hope to get it to NYC first thing Thursday.

The Avengers team assembled.  Producer Pete put me in charge of shepherding the project.  I gathered the writers and art crew around noon on Wednesday and ran them through the broad strokes quickly:

“Al, you write the Captain America segment,  That’s our opening.  Make sure Cappy does A by the end of the segment so it can tie in with Bob’s segment.

“Bob, you write Namor’s segment.  Take A and add B to it so Carol can pick up where you leave off with the Vision.

“Carol, you take A and B, add C so Dave can add D; Dave, pass A, B, C, and D to Ed; Ed, you make sure to add E and when you’re all done I’ll go over the entire thing and write the last segment where all the Avengers assemble and do A through E together.”

I then gave out similar assignments to the artists.  They didn’t have to reflect exactly what any of the writers wrote, but they needed to make sure Cappy did A, Namor did B, etc.

Six writers, six artists, six hours.  It could be done.  We were off and running…

…except for Bob.

Bob was a talented writer, wrote very funny stuff, but he was as deaf as a post and vain about his condition.

I went over the beats at least twice with everybody in the room, each time asking the assembled crew:  “Have you got that?”

And they all nodded and said they did.

Even Bob.

And I also told them that if they had any problems, come straight to me, I’d help work ‘em out ASAP.

Six writers.

Six artists.

Six short written segments.

Six pieces of art.

Six hours.

Piece o’ cake, right?

Bob did not hear me telling the crew to come straight to me if they ran into any problems.

Instead he went to Producer Pete and said, “I can’t figure out what this thing is regarding Namor and B.  Howzabout if instead of B I did 2?”

“Sure,” said Producer Pete, sealing our fates.

Four o’clock rolls around.  The preliminary art looks great, the artists are inking and coloring.  Al and Carol and Dave and Ed turn in their segments, and everything fits together perfectly.

Bob drops off his Namor segment.

The segment with 2 instead of B.

“Whoa!  Whoa!  Whoa!” says I.  “What’s this?  Bob, we need Namor to do B not 2.  Go back and fix it.”

Bob goes back, but he doesn’t fix it.  He looks up Producer Pete instead.  “Buzz doesn’t like your idea about 2, he wants to do B.”

“Tell him to do 2,” says Producer Pete.  Once he put his mark on a story, it was going to stay that way, regardless of what had been discussed and agreed upon earlier.

Bob relays this news to me.  I go see Producer Pete.  Producer Pete listens to my explanation why we need Bob to write B instead of 2, nods, and says, “Do 2 instead.”

Well, this throws a monkey wrench in the proceedings, because we can’t have the Avengers doing A, B, C, D, and E in the last segment, can we?

The writers are ready to leave but I corral them and explain the situation.  They are not happy, but they know what needs to be done and get back to work.

I intercept the artists and explain they need to redo the art to reflect 1 through 5 instead of A through E.

They are even less happy than the writers, but they start redoing the almost completed art.

I alert the office manager and tell her she needs to keep a couple of typists on duty (remember, this is before word processing; we writers handed in rough drafts, frequently corrected with red pens or literally cut and pasted together, and a secretary or typists would need to retype the material in presentable form).

They’re even less happy than the artists (who at least have the benefit of chemical enhancements).

But there’s more bad news: Because the art needs to be redone, we’re gonna miss the 6pm deadline for regular FedEx service.

Fortunately, the office manager has a replacement -- more expensive, but available.  If we can get the work done by 7pm, we can take advantage of a special courier service used by banks and big businesses.

Well, ya gotta do what ya gotta do, right?

And Bob?

I told him he’d done a great job and that he could go home.

Wasn’t gonna keep him around to screw things up again.

(Don’t think I bore any grudge against Bob; I realized the fault lay with me not making sure, not him failing to understand.  I worked with him a couple of times after that, but never on any projects with crucial deadlines.)

We plunge ahead.  Now we’re getting desperate (well, not the typists; they’re merely getting cranky).

Producer Pete needed to attend some function that evening so around 6:30pm he starts heading out the door.  The office manager and I intercept him with a vital question:  If the artists haven’t finished all six pieces of art by 7pm, can we got with what we’ve got?

“No.  I promised ‘em six pieces of art, they’re gonna get six pieces of art.”

So off he went, and back I went to do what I could to speed the artists along.

You can only lay down inks and colors so fast, and this was not merely a case of new art but old art to be retouched in order for the new to go over it.

And that didn’t include mounting said art on large boards for a professional looking presentation.

7pm starts breathing down our necks.  We’ve got four pieces done.  We contact Producer Pete at his function and ask if we can go with four instead of six.

Long pause.  “Is the final segment among the four?”

=groan= No.

“Don’t send it unless you can include the big climax.”

7pm zooms past.  We do not notice the lovely sound Douglas Adams claims it makes.

Now we’re really at wit’s end.  Contact Producer Pete at his function again.  He is not happy.  Explain the situation.

Fortunately the office manager found an even more expensive solution:   A special service that will send a personal courier across the country via red eye flight to deliver the presentation first thing in the morning.

Not only does it cost a huge hunka cash to hire this service, but said courier must fly first-class round trip.

I tell Producer Pete he can buy me an economy round trip ticket and I would personally deliver the presentation.

Producer Pete asks me to put office manager on the line.

Tells office manager if necessary, she is to shoot me to prevent my having any face-to-face encounter with the network.

Fortunately the last two artists finish their pieces just minutes shy of the super-expensive super-exclusive courier’s 8pm deadline.

He shows up at the front door, we thrust the presentation into his arms, spin him around, and shove him into the cab.

He makes it to the airport, catches the flight, delivers the presentation the next day as contracted.

The art crew and I and a couple of writers who wanted to see if we’d make it or not decide we need to blow off some steam.

Problem: Producer Pete’s studio is w-a-a-a-y out in the boonies; there are no nearby places to get a meal or a drink.

Solution: We commandeer Producer Pete’s liquor cabinet and drain it dry.

P.S.: The network rejects the show.

P.P.S.: Producer Pete buys a liquor cabinet with a lock on it.

. . .

So why tell you all this?

I get criticized a lot for being extremely specific and precise in my details.

Now let me state, this isn’t true 100% of the time.

I don’t need to micromanage everything.

But if I know what I want, then I want that, not something close to it, not something approximating it. 

If the final product doesn’t need to fit a precise need, I’m typically fine with letting people do what they feel best.

But when I give explicit instructions, I’ve got a reason.

And sometimes why I want it is so involved and complex that’s it’s just easier for me to say “Do it at 700dpi” than explain we’re anticipating the artwork being repurposed at some point in the future.

Just.

Do.

It.

…or refuse…

But please don’t say you will then ignore what I tell you I need.

. . .

Ironically, the exact opposite of this scenario also plagues me.

If you include a detail in your instructions, I assume that detail is important.

If you tell me to contact Jane in the accounting department, I’m gonna contact Jane even if there’s a half dozen other people who can help me just as easily.

Don’t distract me with superfluous details.

“Contact the accounting department” not “Contact Jane”, comprende?

(I’m not the least bit surprised I need to explain this to many of you…)

 © Buzz Dixon

#comics #Marvel #Saturday morning animation #animation #cartoons #The Avengers #writing #Jack Enyart

[whipplefilter]

Fic about the life of a Carsverse Subaru test car?

So, for context! My friend recently started working for Subaru R&D and he found out that manufacturers crush their prototype cars–probably so like, state secrets don’t get out or whatever. But anyway. THE HORROR. DDDDD: This fic is slightly modified from that premise. It seemed like a good day to explore some potential Sally backstory. 

Content warning for somewhat discomfiting discussion about at what point a car becomes a car–like, an actual living machine–and not an appliance.

They’re not alive, Sally reminds herself. Not really.

She watches another car go through the crusher. It comes out with its grille still distinctive, though the engine bay is only half as tall as it used to be and everything from the hood up is gone and flattened.

But it’s not a car, she reminds herself. It’s a prototype.

This is no different than sending the bodies of wrecked cars through, after their ghosts have gone and all that’s left is wire and metal, rubber and glass. A car is more than its parts and these prototypes are just parts.

“I mean, they’re basically toasters,” says Jayden, whom she’s shadowing. Jayden is the most junior of the corporate lawyers at Subaru R&D, and therefore it falls to him to entertain the most junior of Eckel & Barnes’s new recruits–that is, Sally. She passed the California bar eight months ago. Top of her class at Loyola. She’s a Porsche, he’s an Audi. And he is interested.

“I wouldn’t waste your tears on ‘em, sweetie,” says Jayden. He gives her nearest tire an encouraging nudge.

“I’m not crying,” says Sally.

They watch another prototype drive flat out towards a test wall. From one end of the building to the other, it’s probably a couple hundred feet. He’s easily going 45, maybe 50 before he plows into the wall without ever once lifting.

His front explodes piñata-like, fascia catching air as it unclips and fenders bowing out. It looks nasty, but it’s supposed to be like that, Jayden’s already explained to her. It’s dispersal of force. It’s supposed to save more critical components. Body panels can be replaced, after all; but subframes are harder. Still, things don’t go right. There’s a hiss, a billow of steam as the radiator takes the hit. Sally can see the coolant running out, writhing towards them like a glistening snake.

Jayden sidesteps it neatly as he goes to inspect the crash. Sally stays put.

Jayden whistles. “Oh man, yeah. Not good. Like, the entire engine’s pushed through to like… we’re talking past the front diff. That wouldn’t fly at all–major opening for a lawsuit. Sally, come over here. This is the kinda stuff we need to look for! HQ’s gonna have a cow when they read my brief. Ha!”

Sally blinks rapidly. She can’t get the sound of screeching tires and shattering glass out of her mind. She stares at the prototype until her eyes glaze into soft focus.

There wasn’t any shattered glass. There hadn’t been any screeching tires, because he’d never touched his brakes. Not this time, and not this car. The sound comes back to her anyway.

She can feel a lump at the back of her throat, pricking at her tongue. It feels as sick and green as the snake of coolant still coming for her.

“Look,” Jayden says suddenly. “I mean–it’s not– It’s not really a crash, you know? It’s a crash test. This is a prototype. They do this kind of thing so when the new models go into production they can be as safe as possible no matter what life throws at them. They dump tons of money into these prototypes so 2005’s hottest new… sports utility sedans or whatever the heck these things’re supposed to be–so Billy and Jane Outback can live nice long lives even if they launch into a few walls. This is saving lives. And as lawyers, we’re making sure that saves their asses.”

Sally watches the next prototype line up, dark eyes vacant, lips slightly parted. The prototype blinks. Sally looks away. She just–

It’s breathing. Blinking. Its engine’s rumbling. It beeps as its doors lock and its headlights flick on–it’s not dark, it’s just an autonomous reaction, a piece of a system that’s wired but not quite programmed–and it’s not alive she knows it’s not but it just feels so, so–

That time the prototype does brake, too late and too brief–it plows into the wall just like the one before it, but askance. Its right side catches more of the damage, crumpling sideways. From Sally’s vantage point it almost looks like he might’ve been okay, though of course Sally knows better. His A-post is bent, and Sally knows that means there’s a lot more wrong–a lot more that doesn’t get fixed easy.

He blinks slowly.

Doing 90 in the cul de sac. He’s a 911, showing off for the kids. He’s fearless until he isn’t, until he realizes he’s made a mistake, and then all Sally remembers is tires screeching. Glass. Then nothing. She remembers being locked in the garage with her cousins for a long, long time.

By the time they’re let out, everything is cleaned up and quiet. That tree had always been a stump, and don’t worry about the branches waving from the Dumpster. Don’t worry about the glitter to the pavement when the light hits it just right.

“They don’t feel pain,” Jayden assures her. “Was a little weird, though. We’re not doing braking tests ‘til next Thursday. Huh.”

Sally already knows they don’t feel pain. They’re not alive. They’re not yet cars. She’s reminded herself a thousand times. She’s still not sure if it matters.

She wants to ask the prototype if he’s okay. He’s just sitting in the rubble, blinking. Mission accomplished.

She’s afraid he’ll answer.

“When does a car become a car?” Sally asks. “Like, is there a set point where we start being–you know–us? What if right before–”

Jayden snorts. “Man, you know I can’t answer that. I’m not a scientist. We’re lawyers. If we start asking questions like that, we’re probably doing the client a disservice.”

Another prototype lines up at the end of the test trip.

It’s just a machine. Basically a toaster.

But what if, in an instant, she’s not? What if–

Screeching brakes, the moment you’ve realized your mistake.

Or what if she would’ve come alive tomorrow? Or next Wednesday? The moment she puts out, drives through that wall, that’s all gone. All those maybes–they don’t matter. They hiss up like radiator pressure, and vanish.

“Sally,” says Jayden, suddenly sharp. Like he’s decided he lies his job more than he likes the idea of going out with her. “We’re looking at the big picture here. We’re talking thousands, tens of thousands of lives banking on these tests, and these noble, mindless little machines. We’re not looking at that one in a million outlier of a chance that–”

“I know, I know,” Sally interrupts. “We’re not focused on the one in a millions.”

Jayden relaxes. “Good. If you can focus on that, you’re gonna last a long time in this business.”

–

The next morning, Sally follows the signs for I-40.

#sally carrera #cars fandom #cars headcanon #cars fanfic #whipple words #asks #the-kings-tail-fin

[wrestlingisfake]

Best of the Super Jr. finals preview

This show features the New Japan debut of Jon Moxley/Dean Ambrose, so everybody is expecting a lot of first-time NJPW viewers to watch.  The show airs live on NJPW World at 5:30am Eastern time Wednesday morning.  If you can’t stay up that late or wake up that early, you can always catch it on-demand like you would on WWE Network.  (If you need help, ask around.  New Japan Tumblr has been pretty active about offering help for newbies.)

Shingo Takagi vs. Will Ospreay - This is the final match in the Best of the Super Jr. tournament, between the winner of A Block (Shingo) and the winner of B Block (Ospreay).  There is no time limit; there must be a winner.  The victor wins the tournament, a cool trophy, and the right to challenge IWGP junior heavyweight champion Dragon Lee at Dominion on June 9.

Shingo debuted in New Japan back in October, filling the void in the LIJ stable when Hiromu Takahashi was injured.  Since then he has never lost a fall.  Admittedly, for much of his run he’s been in tag matches with BUSHI, who could get pinned or tap out when they needed to lose.  But then he entered this tournament--the pinnacle of singles competition for New Japan junior heavyweights--and went on an impressive 9-0 streak.  Someone has probably advanced to the finals of this type of tournament without losing even one match, but it’s rare enough that it’d take some work to find out.  If Takagi wins this match, and closes the entire tournament at 10-0, he’ll be a frigging legend.

One year ago, as Ospreay was preparing to defend the junior heavyweight title against the 2018 BOSJ winner Hiromu Takahashi, he discussed some chilling comments from Dave Meltzer about his high-risk style.  Shortly thereafter, Ospreay began adjusting to a more grounded style, adding muscle and entering openweight competition.  The changes have paid off with a NEVER openweight title reign and big wins over Taichi, Kota Ibushi, Bad Luck Fale, and Lance Archer.  It looked as if his ex-buddy El Phantasmo was going to overshadow him in B Block, but ELP collapsed near the end to allow Ospreay to win the block with a 7-2 record.

What should make this interesting is that Shingo is controversially on the edge of the weight limit, giving him a size and strength advantage, but Ospreay’s openweight run proved he can beat far bigger men.  It’s as if Ospreay’s shift in tactics has been designed to find the solution for Shingo where luchadors, technicians, and cheaters could not.

A win for Shingo here will probably lead to a long title run and extend the “who will beat him?” angle for months.  If Ospreay snaps the streak here and now, it’s already been built up enough that I think it signals big things for Will.  I could easily see Ospreay winning the junior title from Dragon Lee and taking it into the G1 Climax heavyweight tournament, to fulfill his goal of competing in both weight classes.  But for any of that to happen, he has to beat Shingo, and no one has in New Japan.  I just can’t pick a winner.

Juice Robinson vs. Jon Moxley - Robinson, best known to WWE fans as CJ Parker from NXT, is defending the IWGP United States championship.  Back on May 3, Juice was celebrating a victory when the lights went out and a video package appeared on the big screen.  The video showed a man carving an hourglass shape while watching Juice wrestle, ending with the messages “Time’s up” and “June 5.”  The “Time’s Up” videos continued to follow Juice to every show he appeared on, until Jon Moxley tweeted a version revealing that the hourglass symbol represents “MOX.”

Moxley, who once held the WWE world championship as Dean Ambrose, left WWE in April and dramatically debuted for AEW on May 25.  He’s all over the place lately and this will be his first post-WWE match.  It hasn’t yet been explained why he would target Juice, and I don’t buy Juice’s narrative that Moxley expects Juice to still be the rookie he knew in FCW years ago.  We probably won’t learn Moxley’s agenda in New Japan until his post-match interview.

This should be a wild brawl.  Juice is primarily known for his striking and big impact moves, not for technical finesse or flips.  And Mox is Mox.  They both lead with their hearts, although Juice’s heart is pure and dedicated to Shin Nihon Puroresu, and Moxley’s heart is filled with whiskey and cigarettes.

Everybody’s counting on Moxley to straight up murder Juice, and that’s a safe bet.  But listening to Juice talk about this match, I sure want him to prove himself to all the people who are gonna wonder who this goofy weirdo is.  The one thing that puzzles me is why this match was made for this show, and not Dominion four days later.  That makes me think they want to quickly get the US title on Moxley to move him onto something else for the #2 show of the year...but what could it be?

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jay White - This is a rematch from February 11, where Tana lost the IWGP heavyweight title to White.  Later, at the Madison Square Garden show on April 6, Tana wrestled his last match before taking time off for elbow surgery, while White lost the championship in the main event.  Then on May 4, Tanahashi announced he’d be returning at this show to start pursuing the title again, but White didn’t like the sound of that and attacked him.  So both guys are trying to recover from their big title losses earlier this year, and they have to go through one another.

Tanahashi is basically the John Cena of New Japan, the biggest/winningest babyface in the promotion, who carried the company on his back for years, but now he’s getting older and seeing new stars slowly overtake him and talk about putting him out to pasture.  White was a jobber three years ago, but a huge push in 2018 elevated him to be the top heel and leader of Bullet Club.  You hate White for getting too much too soon, and then you realize he’s talented enough to thrive at that level and you hate him even more.  He’s really great.

There is a strong chance the winner of this match will receive an IWGP heavyweight title shot later this year, but it’s not clear when.  New Japan has big shows in Melbourne on June 29 and in London on August 31, so those are likely candidates.  I’m kinda thinking Tanahashi needs the win, but I can’t really imagine them hotshotting Okada vs. Tanahashi for one of those shows.  (Then again, Okada might lose the title beforehand, but I wouldn’t count on that.)  So my guess is that White beats Tana again to renew his unstoppable mega-push.

Kazuchika Okada & Rocky Romero vs. Marty Scurll & Brody King - Okada is the IWGP heavyweight champion and Rocky is his little buddy.  Scurll is the last guy left from The Elite following their exodus to AEW; he has since recruited King and PCO to form Villain Enterprises, which currently holds the ROH trios title.  The BOSJ tournament has been Brody’s first tour with New Japan, but since he’s a heavyweight this will be his first significant match on the tour.  This will be a good chance for King to turn some heads and leave a good impression, so that NJPW will want to bring him back soon.  But Okada has a big title match in a few days, and I expect he’ll win this one.

Kota Ibushi & Togi Makabe & Toa Henare & Tomoaki Honma vs. Tetsuya Naito & EVIL & SANDA & BUSHI - Naito’s team represents Los Ingobernables de Japon, the Japanese offshoot of the famous Mexican stable.  Naito will be challenging Ibushi for the IWGP intercontinental title on June 9, as part of his quest to hold both that title and the heavyweight championship.  Ibushi’s team features three of the midcard babyfaces--former top guy and current minor mainstream celebrity Makabe, up-and-coming rookie Henare, and recent neck injury survivor Honma.  LIJ is putting up a much stronger lineup for this one, so I expect them to win and for Naito to taunt Ibushi heading into their match.

Minoru Suzuki & Taichi & Zack Sabre, Jr. & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & DOUKI vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Jushin Thunder Liger & YOSHI-HASHI & Toru Yano & Tiger Mask - Suzuki’s team represents Suzuki-gun, and they’re basically the assholes too cruel and unlikable for Bullet Club.  Taichi has a title defense scheduled against Ishii on June 9, and there are Suzuki vs. Liger and Sabre vs. Yoshi feuds that may get settled at that show as well.  Interestingly, Douki is not a member of Suzuki-gun, having been brought in as a substitute for the injured El Desperado; the ending of this match could help us learn if he’ll be officially added to the group or turfed out once they have no further use for him.  Douki’s score in the BOSJ tournament was disappointing to say the least, and it’s fairly clear New Japan wanted to tell a story about an outsider being outclassed by the talent they have under contract.  With that in mind, I think he’ll lose the fall in this match.

SHO & YOH & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori & Robbie Eagles - Sho and Yoh are Roppongi 3K, the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team champions.  Normally Rocky Romero would team with them as their coach, but Romero and Taguchi have both been doing the coach gimmick and recently agreed to share those “duties” among the babyfaces.  Phantasmo’s team represents Bullet Club, and if they can score a fall over either Yoh or Sho that would set up a fresh junior tag title program, which would be very overdue.  There’s been a slow burning story with Eagles questioning his allegiance to Bullet Club, particularly as it relates to ELP, so I’m betting on Eagles getting the win here and Eagles/ELP pursuing the title shot.

Dragon Lee & Titan & Shota Umino vs. Bandido & Jonathan Gresham & Ren Narita - Lee is the IWGP junior heavyweight champion, so it’s a little odd that he’s in the opener when the main event is to determine his next challenger.  Lee and Titan are imports from Mexico’s CMLL, while Gresham and Bandido are imports from ROH in the US.  Umino and Narita are two of the “young lions” in New Japan’s developmental system, which means they they’re here to learn and do jobs.  I’d think Dragon Lee’s team should get the win here.

#njpw #best of the super juniors #jon moxley #shingo takagi #will ospreay #juice robinson

[mregalaphotos-blog]

Assignment 2: Journal

I have decided to just keep a continuous log with thoughts and ideas and if I explore an artist or concept deeper, I will mention it and make a write up separately. I will post them all at the end. I have had issues with Tumblr deleting posts while I type that out or submit this so keeping them in a document makes sense to me. Apologies for what I assume will be an incredibly long post.

DART 1130 Journal

Monday, March 18:  After presentation of our works, we got into discussion of Assignment 2, Make What Will Happen. We discussed multiple different aspects of making the photos unique. I was especially interested in double exposures as an approach. It would be a very difficult thing to do but could lead to interesting juxtapositions of images and ideas. I may explore that further in a deeper dive of the concept. An example of this using an outline to mix concepts is seen below in Andreas Lie’s work.

Friday, March 22: For me, I think nature photography is once of the more interesting and beautiful parts of photography. When you get out into nature, you are no longer shaping the world but experiencing it. The only purely human element in the image and the experience is yourself and the camera you are taking the picture with. The only things you control are how you frame the picture and what parts you choose to capture. I will do a few deep dives into nature photographers and what they draw inspiration from and see if any of what they mention resonates with me and my past and present experiences.

Saturday, March 23: The first nature photographer I will explore is Ansel Adams. A deeper dive will be posted when I post this all, but Ansel Adams is a photographer well known for his images of National Parks in the United States that led to a greater conservation movement because of their profoundness. As someone who has spent much of their lives traveling and hiking the parks, I owe a lot to him.

Monday, March 25: This week is study week for the Paddington campus. I need to expose some images for next week’s class to get a start for the project and be better prepared to develop film. I am going on surf camp this weekend, which I think would be a great time to get some cool and unique pictures. I can capture the human elements with one of my favorite places in the world, the beach. As someone who has grown up on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it has played a major role life and why I decided to study abroad in Sydney. Another interesting thing that I am exciting to take pictures of is sunrise. For most of my life, I have been getting sunsets on beaches as I have lived on the west coast of Florida. On my first morning in Sydney I woke up early (mainly due to jetlag) and figured out the bus system in order to go to the beach and catch sunrise. In many ways it was symbolic of a dawn of a new experience that would be very different yet share some similarities with my past. This could be an interesting thing to explore as it explores my new environment and how it relates to me.

Wednesday, March 27: Discussion of sunrise and sunset made me think I should look at some photographers who take pictures of sunrise and sunset themselves. I will do a deep dive into a photographer and his work and post more on him. Tacita Dean, whose video on chasing the green flash was an interesting introduction to the topic but I want to look into another photographer… After looking around on the internet I have settled on award winning photographer Paul Reiffer. He tells of a similar story to me where he was up early due to jet lag and so took an amazing picture of the Sydney Harbor, as seen below.

Additionally, I went into the campus gallery and checked out what they had. There was an interesting exhibit that played with various shapes and was supposed to tell a story. I had difficulty following along but it seemed like a very interesting storytelling feature in a 3D environment. Another collection showed these black and white pictures that would be most similar to what we are working on class. However, it appears that the artist also used/recreated images from video games or other similar works to make their pictures. In the end they looked pretty demented, but their ability to invoke that kind of response in me was an interesting feature of the art.

Friday, March 29: A short update but I checked out a camera for the weekend. They gave me the Nikon rather than the Pentax K1000. I will see how it goes because it is different from the short introduction we had to the camera. I will take 36 pictures and see how they turn out on Monday. While at Paddington I did a little research for the library activity and looked at Zoe Leonard.    

Monday, April 1 (pre-class): A little update on how the weekend went. I got a few candid photographs of some friends I made during surf camp. There are a bunch of good day time images of things like people, signs, birds, and the scenery. I was too exhausted from surfing to be up early enough for sunrise during camp. So, this morning I woke up early and bused down to Coogee and took some sunrise pictures at the beach and finish off the roll. I ran into some issues where it was very difficult to get the camera to wind a little over 20 images in. I rewound the roll a little and it seemed to fix whatever jam there was. Here is a picture from my digital camera from the morning.

There was a beautiful mixture of colors/lighting levels that I am interested to see how it turns out. I think I got some more of the sun in those photos compared to this one.

Monday, April 1 (post-class): In class we developed our pictures, and were supposed to create our proof sheet before the next week. I figured out why the camera lever was not working right when I was working on developing the pictures. I foolishly assumed that the roll of film was 36 frames, but it was actually 24. Therefore, the second half of the roll was double exposed at full exposure and was completely unusable. The reason I was not able to create the proof sheet was that I ran out of time. It took Maria and I a very long time with a lot of struggles to load our film in the complete darkness. By the time we were done we were quite behind the class. After all was said and done, I only had a few workable frames, all from surf camp. I think some got fogged while developing as well or there was some error or another.

Wednesday, April 3: I do not have much time to work on photography this week because I have major projects/presentation and an essay all due on Friday. However, I came into the photography lab to print the proof sheet so I was not completely behind for the coming week. A picture of it can be seen below. There are not many frames to work with and I am not sure I want to incorporate it into the final project but I will at least be able to use the pictures to learn the techniques involved in printing from negatives. 

Saturday, April 6: With a little respite from projects I continued to think about interesting ideas and concepts to explore for the final project. While browsing on the internet I came across this photo of a long exposure of a departing train.

It was a very cool picture to me because it expressed this movement of light with a dark background. You can see each point of lights distinct path as it travels. This made me further interested in long exposures and how it can allow you to see interesting things. In having a think about that it led me to think about the many images of the night sky I have seen where the Milky Ways and other stars are incredibly visible and beautiful. These are captured with long exposures and so I thought it would be an interesting concept to explore. Because of that, I looked into Milky Way and long exposure photographers such as Dave Morrow. These kinds of pictures could be a potential thing to explore as I am currently planning a road trip in New Zealand where at night I would be camping in places with very little light pollution. The addition of a thinner ozone layer means I would get pictures I would be unable to get back home in the US.

Monday, April 8: In class I was able to print two negatives from the roll. These were both done using a filter of 2, the largest aperture, and an exposure time of 4 seconds.

Image 1: My thoughts on this are that it turned out much better than I imagined. The lettering on the sign is backwards which I think was interesting and added a little flair to it. The contrast and coloration of it turned out pretty well in my opinion. I really like how the border looks. It gives it an almost 3-dimensional look as if the picture is solid and its own thing.

Image 2: This image was a little bit rushed. It is not as in focus as it should be. The actual image itself was of a bird, which at the time I was exploring using different shutter speeds similar to what we had seen in the first lesson on using the cameras. In the end I don’t think this is really what I wanted to explore in the project.

In class Izabela talked about the piece of paper you use to determine the lighting conditions and camera setup for night time photography with me and Nicole. It is good to know that there is a tool like that to use.

Tuesday, April 9: I needed to go pick up more film so that I could get a better roll of negatives to work with and develop next week. I made sure to verify that this roll had 36 frames to work with. It was the same Ilford brand and ISO 400 that we had used previously so things should be relatively similar.

Friday, April 12: I had some spare time so I thought I would check out a camera and explore Paddington and take some pictures. Unlike the previous roll I had no issues with the camera, both with cocking the lever or rewinding the film. I took pictures of various subjects, ranging from trees and shrubbery to cool things I saw along wall surfaces especially related to lighting. I also got some pictures of streets and street signs similar to the sign I had printed earlier. There was a cute cat that walked up to me so I got some frames of her as well. I will hold on to the frames and see how they turn out on Monday.

Monday, April 15: We discussed an interesting concept in class, the dodging and burning. Using those to block out subjects or only focus on one is really interesting. It explains how some images I have seen such as the bear one from a few weeks back get their distinct outline. This technique could be a very useful tool when it comes to double exposures, where you could use something like the outline of a building and capture nature in the second exposure.

We also took a trip the Art Gallery of New South Wales to see Izabela’s works. I really loved the prints she had on the metal surface. It added an extra element to the work where each leaf in the work had this little shine on it like it was capturing the sunlight and reflecting it even though it was just a picture. Another very interesting takeaway from the work that I enjoyed was being able to see the grains in the picture. It was blown up to an incredible size and so the details didn’t come incredibly sharp but instead you can see the texture to which the medium applied to the work. I also really enjoyed the way the images were presented in a 3D space, with the folds distorting our view as I imagine the view was distorted due to diving and having limited light. A lot of thought was put into the presentation of the work and added to it greatly.

On a separate note I did not know that we would have class off next week and class the following weeks when I was planning on traveling. Due to this I will not be able to attend class in week 11 so all future interaction with this course will be outside the classroom.

Thursday, April 18: I am leaving for Cairns until Sunday. Due to the lending policy I cannot check out a camera for this trip as I would have to return it on Friday. So, instead I will take what photos I can with my digital camera and just reflect on them. I will be seeing some wildlife there and then scuba diving. Another limitation of the camera is I cannot take it underwater so there is really no reason to bring it.

I believe I know what I want to photograph for the final project. Izabela and I had discussed on Monday more about the self-reflection and relating the pictures to myself. I had previously talked about the sunrise and sunset and how they played a major role in my life and my trip to Sydney. So, I will try to capture sunrise in various places on various days with different subjects to illustrate my journeys and experiences with the first light of the day. I will get a long-term rental of a camera for New Zealand and try to photograph sunrises next week. I will bring two rolls of film and hopefully some of those 72 images will turn out well and I can help build a cohesive story around them.

Sunday, April 21: Just a few photos from the Cairns trip.

Monday, April 22: On Tuesday I will be leaving for New Zealand so I have just been preparing. I got an extended loan form singed from Izabela so I can check out a K1000 for a week. I went to Ted’s Photography and picked up two rolls of film to use, same brand.

Before I leave, I wanted to focus on a specific topic for once, which is how to take photos in a way that is aesthetically pleasing and have good compositions. A couple of rules, suggestions, and ideas will be shared in an accompanying post.

Hopefully I can use those rules to make more aesthetically pleasing photos.

Monday, April 29: Disaster has struck… For the past week I have been off the grid due to not having a phone plan while traveling and only being in a camper van during it so no Wifi. I ended up only taking one roll of photos while there due to a combination of sleeping in after exhausting days of travel as well as very poor weather preventing any picturesque sunrises. That would have been all good and fine and possible to work with but there was an issue unloading the film where it got fogged. I had pressed the release button and wound the film back up until it was loose like I had before. However, when I opened it up the film had not rolled up at all and the whole roll was a waste. There go all of those pictures from Wellington to Napier to Taupo to Waitomo to Tongariro to Wairarapa. I will attach some photos from my digital camera from the trip but obviously I cannot use those in the project. I had a lot riding on those so I am going to have to improvise and work fast to make up for the loss. I checked out a camera again to take more pictures. Here are some pictures from the trip that I took on my digital camera.

Tuesday, April 30: I woke up early to take the bus to Coogee beach to get some photos of sunrise. It was a beautiful morning to take pictures, with the lighting elements working out great and providing great layering and levels. I was really excited to use these photos. Sunrise had been a great decision to use for the project and I was excited to develop the photos and begin printing…

The same thing happened as before. I rolled it up, it got completely loose and so I was sure the film was ready to be taken out and of course no, it did not wind up and another roll was fogged. This was very frustrating.

So, I had to go to Ted’s again to buy more film. At this point I am running low on money and film is not cheap. I am also starting to run low on time as I was hoping to have had much more time for prints by then. I checked out a camera again because I am anything if not determined to get quality pictures of sunrise.

Wednesday, May 1: Taking pictures this morning was no issue at all. I had great pictures of sunrise, the cliffs and the waves and once again I was excited to develop pictures. Sunrise and its colors were even more beautiful than the day before and these pictures would turn out really well…

Everything changed when the light nation attacked. I had gotten back to the Paddington campus and everything was going well. Like always I was having difficulties loading the film into the reels. But I got it done and began the rest f the developing process. After the long time of doing so, the moment of truth came and I finally pulled them out of the container. They were all black. I don’t know when or how it happened but some light must have gotten on the film and ruined it. This was another day lost, but at least I had become even more cautious and I knew the routine. I could reasonably give myself Thursday to develop and get the first round of prints done and then Friday to reprint any with flaws.

As I was out of film, I was saved by Melvin who gave me a roll of his Kodak ISO 400. Tomorrow’s roll is realistically my last good chance.

Below is a picture of today’s sunrise.

Thursday, May 2: Things finally turned out much more positive. The bus I took ran late so I missed the best parts of sunrise but I still got some quality pictures. When I got to Paddington there were no issues developing the film. It was the best feeling I had in a while. So, I became very efficient in the dark room for the next couple of hours. I selected promising pictures from the proof sheet I made and started making prints. For the early sunrise photos I used a 2 filter for most of them as I already had some great contrast. When I got to later photos I found that that was not enough. I bumped it up to 3 and got much better variation in the blacks and whites. I was efficient and got many prints in.

At the end I checked the photos again and found little imperfections on the paper. They were minor marks that I wanted to rerun. It seemed like the paper was scratched at some point or perhaps the negatives had specks of dust on the. Either way I am going to rerun the prints tomorrow.

Another note and a point of concern was that as I ran my prints it was towards the end of the day. Those who had been printing earlier started saying that they noticed that the fixer was not quite working right and perhaps it had been used up or contaminated. It was changed by the resource center but not after I had run my prints. I will have to look at them tomorrow and see what I can do. Although not the greatest thing to happen, I am not extremely concerned as the slight pinkness may actually add to the images as they are of sunrise and those are the colors you typically see at the beginning of sunrise.

Friday, May 3: This is the last day I could print. I isolated 10 of the most promising photos from the day before and set out on reprinting those with the flaws I had noticed yesterday. I did see some slight pinkening from poor fixer so I will look at them later. Due to missing filters and interest in bumping up contrast even slightly more I went up by half for this days prints. Overall I was happy with they turned out. For those with better lighting there is great gradation and others with capture the essence of the first light show less of that and show more of the gray’s representative of their nature at that time.

Stylistically I like the slight pinks in the colors. They fit the theme well. Embracing the flaws is a good thing and letting them say something of the work helps add to it. Overall, I am happy with the reprints. I got a good effect of the sunlight on the water for parts of them

Now, with all of the prints done I need to focus on the presentation and putting them in a way where they relate great. I have quality images of sunrise and I have quality images of its effect on cliffs but the lighting looks very different because half is of the source and half is of the subject. Perhaps I will present them so as they are facing each other as they do in real life. The observers of the mare much like what I was in photographing them, as something in between them to see and interpret their interactions.

[addierose444]

Academic Advice for First-Years: Part I

Last week I posted some general college advice for first-years. Here I will delve into my academic advice. This post got really long, so I decided to break it up into two parts. In this part, I will provide some general advice on course selection, note-taking, and homework. Next week, I will be exploring the academic support systems on campus. I will first address a reader question that I received.

What is your favorite computer science course you have taken at Smith College? Thanks :)

That is a great question that I am unfortunately unprepared to answer as I have only taken a semester’s worth of computer science at Smith. The courses I took were How the Internet Works (CSC 102) and How Computers Work (CSC 103). (You can see a full list of my courses here). While I don’t want to perpetuate the notion of “humanities people” and “STEM people”, I do think that these introductory courses are best suited for someone curious about computer science but who is quite intimidated by it. Namely, these courses have a math designation for Latin Honors but are way less “mathy” than say calculus I. With that said, I still think the best place to start is Introduction to Computer Science Through Programming (CSC 111). Why? First of all, because you will learn programming rather than just theory. Secondly, CSC 111 is required for the major and minor whereas CSC 102/103 cannot be applied to a minor and do not serve as prerequisites for any other courses. It is worth noting that despite recommending CSC 111, I myself haven’t taken it because I was able to test out of it. While I’m sure that this wasn’t the answer you were looking for, be sure to keep an eye on the main blog for another Smithie’s response in the near future.

In terms of course registration, here is a post I wrote a few months ago. While that post was quite thorough, circumstances have definitely changed in intervening months. Specifically, you may now elect to take three courses (instead of four) in the fall and an additional full credit course during interterm. This may make sense in that it allows you to spread out your course load and to have something interesting to do during interterm. Really it just comes down to if any of the course offerings pique your interest. It is also worth thinking critically about which classes may be best to take this fall as opposed to in the spring. As building community will be more difficult this year, I more than ever would recommend enrolling in a first-year seminar. First-year seminars are great because of the small class size (caps of 16-20), varied topics, and writing focus. This writing focus is important because all first-year students are required to take a writing-intensive course and because writing is a crucial skill. 

Course selection ties nicely into my most general academic advice which is to build a strong relationship with your advisor and to learn to write effective emails. This relationship is important because it will improve the entire advising experience and efficacy. You can read more about advising at Smith here. In terms of emails, they are a key form of communication between you and your advisor, other professors, and your employer / prospective employer. In addition to proofreading papers that you submit, be sure to take the time to proofread carefully anything you send via email. In terms of the format, it is usually best to start with Dear Professor Last Name. If it’s someone you haven’t communicated with previously, be sure to introduce yourself. I like to include my first and last name, class year, and depending on the context, my majors. From there explain the situation and relevant questions. If there is a deadline or key question, bold text may be useful. Effective use of whitespace (paragraph breaks) and a concise but informative subject line are also important.  

In terms of actual classes, be sure to attend every lecture. College is different in that not all courses take attendance and grade participation. Obviously, if you are sick, definitely don’t attend class in person. If you are more severely ill, it may be necessary to completely miss class. Here is where effective emails and positive relationships with peers come in. This is also part of why attendance matters in the first place. For instance, say you routinely miss class for illegitimate reasons and then actually get sick. If you need some motivation to actually get up and go to class, consider the extremely high cost of tuition and subsequently high monetary value of an hour of class. 

Courses vary in how/if you should be taking notes. Courses that are discussion-based may require written preparation before class, but minimal in-class note-taking. In general, if the professor is lecturing you should be prepared to jot down the main ideas. The trick is to remain present in class. Namely, learn once by actively engaging with the material rather than trying to teach yourself later from verbatim notes. In terms of paper or digital notes, I vastly prefer digital notes. But between typed and handwritten notes, handwriting is better for actually learning and retaining information. This may sound like a contradictory answer, but my solution is writing on an iPad. You can read about the technology I use in college here. I also have a few posts on how I organize in college that can be found here. 

Actively participating in class means contributing to class discussions and asking questions when you are confusing. Seriously, do not be afraid to ask questions. This is key for your own learning and will likely benefit your peers as well. It is only if you wait too long to express your confusion that your question may end up being “stupid.” 

In terms of homework, the good news with college is that it is fairly predictable. First of all, key dates for exams and/or papers are outlined in the syllabus. Furthermore, courses often have a repeating structure for assignments. For instance, for my physics class, we had to read and virtually discuss the textbook by class time on Wednesdays and Fridays, we had a problem set due every Sunday, revisions due the following Wednesday, and a weekly quiz on Thursday. This predictable schedule allows you to better schedule when you will work on different assignments. Task management along with a study schedule help to keep you from getting too overwhelmed with all of your assignments. You can click here to read about a few task management systems I have used. 

#college #Smith College #first-year advice #academics #course registration #asking questions #homework #academic advice #bts2020 #advice

[nikokova]

Changes: Chapter 1

So I think I’m going to try to keep an update schedule where I post Tuesday or Wednesday, but I’m a mess so who really knows.

Prologue

Summary: Logan Summers: One friend, a 4.0, and a huge secret. He wouldn’t have it any other way. Virgil Mathews: barely surviving high school, let alone possibly being moved away from his one and only friend just so he gets to experience what its like to “Have a family”. Patton Pennington: can’t remember having a friend in real life, hopes that his parents taking in a foster kid can change things for him. Roman Royal: Arguably the most popular boy in school, but when he hears that the high schools are merging next year, will he be able to mend his checkered past?

Pairings: slow-burn pining analogical, slow-burn royality

Warnings: Anxiety, mentions to past bullying, food mention, foster system mention, bad writing

Word count: 2126

Tags for Changed: @zaisling @heir-of-the-founders (Send an ask or comment if you’d like to be added)

***

16-year-old Logan Summers really only enjoyed 3 things in life. Books, a schedule, and his best friend Virgil Matthews. Lucky for him, all three were a part of his daily life. He would wake up, go to his college classes, then his high school classes, and walk with Virgil to the library once school was over. He did this every day, other than the weekends which he spent all day cleaning, studying, or at the library.

“Earth to Logan.” A deep voice snapped Logan from his thoughts. His head jerked up and away from the book he wasn’t actually reading. There was a pale this face looking at him, observing him. It's dark russet eyebrows furrowed, contrasting against the pale skin. “What’re you thinking about?”

“I have a test next week, I'm trying to find out what amount of studying would give me the best grade. Then I also need to find out how to adjust my schedule to accommodate.” Logan responded with a shrug, his voice higher but not as soft as the others.

“Oh, lit.” His friend leaned back in his chair and looked around at the school libraries bookcases surrounding them. In doing so he almost missed the way Logan's brows furrowed in confusion, “Don't tell me you don't know what that means.”

“I-I do not-”

“It's been around for months. It means like cool or whatever, but like its just ironic to say it now since it's so old.”

“Virgil, you are aware that keeping up with slang is incredibly difficult for me.” Logan mumbled, a blush slightly on his cheeks. Virgil raised an eyebrow,

“But memorizing 40 words for an English class in one night is easy?” Virgil asked,

“Yes, it is.” He sighed. Before he could add anything else the sound of a bell cut their conversation short. Logan sat up straight and started to move the things from the table to his bookbag.

“I don’t want to go to 4th hour… Mr. Jones is gonna yell at us all hour.” Virgil groaned sinking down in his chair. Logan rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to remark on Virgil’s statement but is interrupted by an announcement.

“Will all teachers please excuse their students to the auditorium at this time.” The voice from the speaker said

“It appears you will not have to deal with Mr. Jones’ annoying voice today.” Logan slings his bag over his shoulder and glances at his now even paler seeming friend.

“Yeah, I just have to deal with the crowded auditorium, full of other people all cramped together, what if we have to sit in the front? Or they want volunteers and they choose me and everyone looks at me and-” Logan places a hand on his friends head to stop them.

“You don’t even know what we’re going to. I’ll make sure we sit in the back, and I’ll volunteer for you if needed.” He reassures, Virgil nods his head and takes a couple deep breaths. “We should head down before it starts to get too crowded. Are you okay now?”

“Umm, sorta.”

“Would holding my hand make you feel more comfortable?” Logan suggested, Virgil's face reddened but he nodded. Logan slowly took Virgil's left hand into his right and helped his taller friend up.

Logan had been the tallest of the two for a majority of their friendship. Though in the summer before 9th grade Virgil had a major growth spurt that rocketed him to 6’½”, leaving his best friend below at 5’5. Logan didn't appreciate this development. Though, neither did Virgil. Most of their childhood Virgil had spent hiding behind Logan when the anxiety became too much to handle. Because of his height, he wasn't able to do that anymore.

So, after some experimentation, Logan came to the conclusion that Virgil's anxiety seemed to reduce when they shared physical contact. He assumes it's because they have been friends for so long, and physical contact is a stress reliever for some.

Once they were ready, they made their way to the front of the library, keeping their entwined hands hidden between them. After Logan shared a wave with the librarian, they left.

The hall smelled of body odor and various smelling perfumes as they blended into the mass. The students were all heading to the right side of the hallway, which leads to the stairs near the auditorium. Logan lead their way through the crowd, nevermind the fact that he couldn't really see over the other students like Virgil could. All that really mattered was Virgil's tight grip on Logan's hand, like he was afraid of getting lost if he didn't hold on.

The tiled floor was an off-white color, Logan wondered if this was because of their age or if they were produced like that. He knew the white and bright lights of the building is part of what made Virgil so uncomfortable, and they often attributed to his migraines. Also the fact that the stairs were so steep everyone always felt like they were going to trip and fall. The group seemed to thin into small lines as they reached the different doors to the auditorium.

“Would you prefer to sit in the back?” Logan asked quietly, Virgil only squeezes his hand in response. Logan nods and chooses the shortest line to stand in.

Once everyone was sitting down, the principal climbed up the stairs up to the stage. Logan noticed that the green of his tie was lighter than the green on the rest of his suit. Principal Hepburn ran his hands through his short hair before walking up to the microphone. It took a couple minutes for the room to quiet, when it did he cleared his throat.

“I'm afraid I have some bad news,” he began, a murmur of concern swept across the crowd. “due to some, well I really shouldn't be saying this. But, due to some not superb financial planning, the school district doesn't have the funds to keep this building open next year.” The concerned murmurs quickly turned into concerned conversations.

Logan felt the grip on his hand tightened and he looked over at the taller boy. Virgil was now bouncing his leg and biting his nails on his other hand.

“Virgil, everything's going to be ok I'm sure they already have a plan.” Logan reassured, gently rubbing his thumb across Virgil's knuckles. The principal stood on the stage and waited for the room to quiet, he continued when it did.

“This summer they will be renovating our sister high school, Sanders Sides, and you should all be moved there next fall. Transportation will be provided for the whole district.” Hepburn finished.

“See, we’ll still go to school together, and that school is only a little further from the library than this one.” Logan whispered, giving Virgil's hand a comforting squeeze before they got up to exit the auditorium.

***

Patton's hands dug into the pockets of his jeans as he walked out of the school. He had been in a good mood all day, until the assembly ruined it. He had done his best to convince his parents to send him to Sanders Sides High so he wouldn't be in the same school as him. He walked down the sidewalk outside of the brick building to the parking lot furthest from the school, where he had asked his dad to pick him up.

The silver car was easy to spot in the near-empty parking lot. Especially because of the stuffed animals kept on the front and back dashes. He could hear the early 2000’s music from a couple feet away as he slipped his backpack off of his shoulders, leaving it hanging on one arm as he opened the door.

“Hey, kiddo!” His dad smiled, chocolate eyes identical to Patton's own seemed to sparkle. His dad was always in a chipper mood, his mom said that Patton had gotten that from him. Along with his curly hair.

“Hey dad, is mom home?” he asked flopping into the seat and setting his backpack on his lap.

“Yep.”

“What about Pa?”

“He won't be home till later. Had to stay back and tutor a student.” His dad explained, Patton nodded and looked out of the window as they pulled out of the parking lot.

“So, umm… Can we have a movie night tonight?” Patton asked quietly, his eyes locked on his fidgeting hands.

“Alright, what happened today kiddo?” His dad gave him a sympathetic glance. Patton hesitated before answering,

“You know the boy, the one I finally told you guys about last year?” His dad nodded but Patton noticed the color drain from his already pale face. “Well, I guess next year all the students from that school are moving to this one. So..”

“Do you want us to switch your schools?” his dad interrupted, looking at him with concerned eyes as they waited at a stop light.

“What!? No! I-I like my school, I'll be ok!” Patton reassured, trying to give his dad a bright smile.

“Pat, you know it's not a problem for us. We just want you to be safe and happy.” His dad sighed, the traffic moving forward once more.

“Really, it’s okay. I like my school, I’ve made friends,” that was a lie, “and he probably won’t even recognize me.”

“Alright, but we are going to discuss it with Pa and Mom later okay?”  Patton just nodded and went back to looking out of the window. In truth, he hadn’t really made any friends. Sure, he had lots of acquaintances, but none of them were close enough to be called a friend.

Still, Patton found lots of reasons to be happy. He had an amazing and loving family, cats and dogs existed, he did pretty well at school, and he had some online friends. One was named Talyn, they were cool and liked dying their hair. The other was Valerie, she liked singing. lastly, there was Terrance. Talyn had added him to the group chat only a week ago, so Patton didn’t know much about him yet.

>>>

Dinner was quiet as Patton pushed his food around with no intention of eating it. He had hoped that his mood would have gotten better as time passed, but it hadn’t. His eyes wandered up to his parents, how they each sat on a different side of the table, smiles on each of their faces. They all loved each other. Sure, it was strange at first, when he was first introduced to his Pa, Ryan. He was only in 3rd grade then, but he and Ryan grew close very fast. His mom and Ryan had met when his mom decided to go back to college, he was in almost all her classes. Now his dad and his mom had been together since they were in middle school and got married a couple years before they brought Patton into the world.

“Patton, honey are you ok?” His mom's voice broke him out of his trance.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine.” He lied pulling a smile on his face. He noticed how his moms face faltered and her slight glance towards his male parents.

“Well, we have something we need to discuss with you. But, if today isn’t a good day we can always just talk about it tomorrow.” She suggested, she ran a hand through her red hair that was a little blonder than Patton’s.

“No, today’s a good day. I guess I’m just a little tired is all.” He shrugged,

“Alright, well you know how we’ve been trying to get matched with a kid to foster for a while, right?” Pa asked. Patton turned his head to the tallest in the room.

“Yeah, did we get matched?!” He asked excitedly, the clouds in his head seemed to lift.

“Yes, all we know for now is that its a boy around your age.” His dad said, but Patton couldn’t stop smiling. What would having a brother be like? They could become best friends, and maybe he could get him to try his food…

“We don’t want to say a definite yes to anything if you aren’t completely comfortable with the idea.” His mom pushed her plate away to fold her hands together in its place.

“We don’t want you to say yes because you feel like you should. Your happiness is our priority, alright bud?” Pa smiled, Patton just nodded and sat back. In all honesty, Patton often felt lonely even with all of his parents. Maybe it was because he had no friends, and maybe this foster sibling could be a new start for him. This time Patton would face his fears and try to make a friend.

“I… I would like to have a sibling.”

***

A/N: Ooooh, weak ending. I’m sorry. I promise that Roman is going to be in the next chapter. Maybe we’ll get an explaination on why he acted the way he did as a child, maybe not.

Next

#analogical #royality #sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfiction #virgil sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #tw: bullying #tw: food #nesa writes

[meloinmilan]

The Dorsal Stiatum

I am back! I went to Rome as I mentioned in my last post (I think) with my dad and siblings. But just got back Monday evening.

Day 16. Time 21:20, currently listening to Pyjma Pants by Cavetown.

It is true, I am home again and am able to blog some more. I realized from the last time I wrote that I won't be able to blog every day. This means that you should not expect me to post every day and that I might have to take some breaks from writing. Nonetheless, I will keep writing while I have the time.

What is that feeling called when you feel deep while listening to music? Smelling something familiar from the past is called nostalgia (which I have written about before) or having a deja-vu is having a strong sense of familiarization. Or... Why do I feel music so deeply? The answer is that empathetic, people have a reaction in the dorsal striatum (I like brains and psychology) when a familiar song plays. This is part of the brain's reward system, and means that listening to a familiar song is more pleasurable for empathetic people.

I thought it was fun to research and write about as it is something I often have experiences with. Onto a different subject, my holiday to Rome for the Halloween break.

As I mentioned in my second-to-last post, 'Rollerskating After Homework' the upper-school part of my school had a day where everyone could dress up for Halloween. I dressed up as Beetle Juice and my mom left the same day for Greece. The week after that was a holiday for Jason (my sibling) and I, but not for our smallest sister. So Jason and I hung out at home and went out (not saying I didn't blog during that time). Then our (step) dad got my smallest sister out of school Friday so we could all leave Thursday.

Jason and I left Thursday morning by train and arrived around 11:30 am in Rome. Our two best friends, who are also siblings (not ours), were there ready to pick us up for lunch. Let's call the sister, Till, and the brother Rayne. They live in the Netherlands (where I used to live), but came to Rome for the holiday, visiting grandparents and because it's Tills birthday that week, for Halloween. We just mist her birthday but still got to hang out. Rayne's birthday is exactly a week after that, the 7th of November. My (step) dad and my smallest sister arrived in Rome around 18:45, when they got there went to my Nonno (grandpa) & Nonna's (grandma) house.

I also have a feeling this is going to be a long post, maybe to make up for the last post? That's fine. For my Personal Project, as I have mentioned in a previous blog, my Biology teacher is my supervisor. The week we made an appointment for this Wednesday, to discuss what I have to do so far. But she came up to me this morning and asked if I could meet her after school today, I said I could.

After school at 15:30, I had my first Personal Project meeting. I got some homework from this but won't mind doing it because my Personal Project is about something that interests me, phycology, physiology, and building/ creating things. Didn't have much other homework except for working on a couple of presentations for Art and Biology class.

Tomorrow I will talk more about these subjects and the Personal Project I am working on. Write you then!

02-11-2021

[rekamohcs]

The one about mental illness in academia

Assignment due Tuesday.

Test on Wednesday.

Presentations Thursday.

Two reports due Friday (for the same class!).

Class all day, work all night, homework some time in between.

Social time? Maybe Saturday. Sleep? For the weak.

Just drink some energy drinks.

Don’t worry about properly nourishing your body

or

exercising it.

Being overworked leads to stress.

Stress leads to anxiety.

Anxiety, depression.

Depression to more stress.

It’s a spiral of negative positive feedback.

Where does it

End?

How does it

Stop?

 At some point in the line, mental illness has become the Status Quo in academia. It is expected that undergraduate and graduate students are going to be stressed, riddled with anxiety, malnourished, underpaid, and depressed at some point in their academic careers. If a student makes it through the four years of undergraduate education without experiencing any of these things, it is rare. It is even rarer for graduate students.

I personally have had superiors say to me, “When I was in graduate school, I often stayed at work until 2am and didn’t get a lot of sleep because of everything I had to take care of, so I have no sympathy.”

Oh? I’m sorry, just because you had to go through it means I should go through it as well?

This mindset is tragic. There is no reason why any student should be pushed to the brink of mental illness. We shouldn’t accept this fate. As a future professor, I wish to fight against this norm, yet the only way I know how is to start a conversation about it. I care about my peers and my students. I want to see them succeed in their academic (and non-academic) careers, but more importantly, I want them to learn how to take care of themselves, how to manage their time, and how to deal with the many stressors of academic life because these skills will help them dominate any path they decide to follow. And we’re not even discussing the fact that most undergraduates are still teenagers when they begin college, and most of them have no idea what they want to do with their lives, what they’re passionate about, or who they actually are – it’s like having an identity crisis or an epiphany while you’re continuously piled with work, expectations, and debt.

I think a lot of this stems from the fact that many departments try to “weed out” students that “don’t belong” in a given program for whatever reason. I get that to an extent – attending college has become the “norm” in our society. Many academic institutions are accepting more and more students to college and have become less selective in the admittance process (even though they claim the opposite). Because of this, we have more and more students filtered through the academic system, many of which are only there because that’s what the “next step” in life is. We have stopped teaching our students that not attending college is 100% acceptable and okay. College isn’t for everyone! Especially because increasing the student population results in larger class sizes, less personalized time between students and professors, and more work for the students overall as we try to “weed them out”.

And don’t even get me started on how we keep telling students that their futures ride on their GPAs (perhaps my next drabble-rant will be called: “the GPA – a load of bullcrap that convinces growing minds that their self-worth depends on an institutionalized number”). In case there are any students out there, if you take nothing else from this post, please remember this: you are more than your GPA, and prospective bosses, graduate directors, and professional school administrators ultimately care about your experience the most (disclaimer: no, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take your classes seriously or fail them; I’m simply saying that the algorithm for “future success” is much more complex than just the GPA).

The point is, we need to talk about this more. The expectation of mental illness in academia is absurd. We should be emphasizing self-care tactics, time-management skills, and overall positive health tips for our students instead of trying to “weed them out” and see how much stress they can handle before they break.

Sincerely,

A very frustrated future professor that is tired of watching her students deteriorate

#drabble diaries #rekamohcs writes #my writing #unpopular opinion #teaching #teaching philosophies #mental illness #academia #graduate students #undergraduates #the gpa is a load of crap #there I said it #get some sleep kids #and eat a well balanced meal #lets talk about this #fight the good fight

[margaretbeagle]

When Taking Fridays Off Can Help Our Team Get More Done: An AMA on the 4-Day Work Week

Since we first kicked off a 4-day work week in May 2020, people have had a lot of questions about it. What day are we taking off? How long will we continue this practice? Is everyone really working four-days a week or are some people working more? Some of the answers to these questions have changed over the last few months, and I’m sure some will continue to change and evolve as we learn more about operating within a four-day work week. A little while ago, I decided to answer questions about our four-day work week policy on Twitter, and I got a fantastic response. I’ve included a high-level recap in this post, but feel free to check out the whole thread if you’d like to see every reply. Without further ado, here are some of the questions I got about the four-day work week organized into a few top categories, along with my replies and those of Caryn Hubbard, our VP of Finance, and Åsa Nystrom, our VP of Customer Advocacy, who contributed to several answers.

Why a 4-day work week?

Pranay asked: Why did it take a pandemic to implement it and why is a 4 day work week matter - cant it just be about the work itself instead of timing it? We've thought about it for years, and I have a fundamental belief that 5-day workweeks aren't necessarily optimal. The pandemic meant added stress for all of us, especially for the parents in the team. I wanted to get through it with the team, mentally, in the best position. I believe that many businesses that are squeezing every last drop they can get out of their companies in terms of profit, productivity, etc. suddenly ran into issues in the pandemic. Growth goals to hit and no profit margin, meant layoffs for many companies. And when you make layoffs, you erode trust significantly with your team. That can take years to build back. I wanted to build trust with my team through the pandemic. This was one of the best ways that I thought to do it.

How does it work?

Niel asked: Does everyone take the same day off? Or is it up to the individual? Or is it based on teams? Or something more nuanced? In the beginning, we experimented with teams deciding the day, but knowing which day and having adequate time for cross-team collaboration was a challenge. Frankly it felt quite chaotic. Now, we do Fridays other than Customer Advocacy which rotate the day. Shubham asked: Which 4 days of the week do you work? M - TH or Tu - Fr or something else? Do you find that the team tries to fit in 5 days of work in 4? For the majority of the team, we do M - TH. In the beginning I tried Wednesdays as my day off, and enjoyed that but I prefer Fridays now. 3-day weekends are very powerful. I think overall, the team tries to work smarter. Perhaps trying to fit 4.5 days into 4. David asked: woah didn't know you were doing this - love it what would your reasons be for going back to 5 day? The reasons would likely be not achieving our goals, which would be sad because I fundamentally don't believe it's putting in hours that will get us there. And, one key thing is that over time, we've realized that 4-days should feel like a privilege, not entitled. So, if you get your tasks and goals for the week done, awesome - take that day off. If you didn't quite do enough for us to reach our goals, spend part of Friday working. Scott asked: Doing a 4, 10’s type of deal? Or not tracking exact hours, rather output and movement? Not tracking exact hours, and more focus on tracking output. The goal is to achieve the same if not more, in less overall hours worked (more along the lines of 4 8's). Gaya asked: That’s awesome! Hopefully more companies will follow to normalise this. Q: Did the salaries stay the same? I know people who are holding back from working less because of decrease in pay No change to salaries at Buffer with our 4-day workweeks. It's less hours for the same pay. I don't believe in same hours in less days, because for me 4-day workweeks are really about a more fundamental belief that hours worked are not correlated with results. Stone asked: Love that you did this! Do you build in any deep work/no meetings time as well? Do you think the pandemic was needed for the transition/will you keep@it when offices reopen? How confident are you that people aren’t working longer 4 days or actually taking Friday off? For many years we've had discussions and focus on deep work, and many teams have a day with no meetings. I don't think the pandemic was needed to do it, but it was a motivator. I'm confident we'll keep at it after, too. We're already 100% remote so no actual offices. I'm confident in most cases people are taking the Friday off. That said, we also don't actively discourage working a little on Friday, if the team member feels that is needed to achieve our goals. We have big ambitions for what we can do for customers *and* innovating culture.

How do specific teams and teammates manage a 4-day work week?

Dwija asked: Do you have mothers working as full time employees? If working hours of those 4 days increase - how do they manage? I know it depends on them but just curious. Females are taking a hit - BIG TIME in Covid. ( For example: Yours truly) From Caryn: We have many mothers and fathers at Buffer. Our shift to the flexibility of a 4 day workweek has been one of the most key things keeping my family of 5 healthy & safe this past year. The trust & flexibility to work the schedule that works for me & my family is everything. From Joel: To add to the great insights Caryn shared, our decision to try a 4DWW was very much with parents in mind. Working hours haven't increased. We work hard as a team to strive to achieve our goals without regularly working more hours. More here. Mark asked: Does customer support participate in the 4-day week? If so, how do you stagger hours / meet customer expectations? Yes, they do, but we still want to serve customers to the same high level. Over time, we've tweaked our 4-day workweek to drive us to push ourselves in the 4-days and feel like we've really earned that day off, not entitled to it. Our customer support team is the one team that switches up the day off in order to make sure we maintain coverage for customers. Stefan asked: Are the customer-facing teams doing 4-day work weeks as well? If so, are they all off on Fridays? If so, are customers’ emails/calls not answered till Monday? No, we have to take a slightly more unique approach in our customer service team. We're fully committed to providing world-class service, and we know the world works M-F (and even weekends). The specific day is different per team member, so more of a relay in that team. Have y’all had any issues with a handoff from one team member to another in this relay system? From Åsa: Jumping in to help with this q. No issues! We work in four-day blocks and use an assigned inbox flow to keep consistency in our customer communications. Our team covers most of the globe and are in constant communication across the week to keep on top of issues etc. Jean asked: Do you have a strong customer support team in terms of number of people? Are you also applying this formula to tech team? Our customer support team is 21 people out of 85. All teams adopt the 4-day workweek, but we also have goals we strive for and we see the 5th day as something earned not entitled. Mercer followed up with: Does that mean that your support team doesn’t always get the same time off? How do you strive to protect the time of your customer-facing teams (who so frequently don’t get the same blessings as the other teams around them)? It's not necessarily that different for our support team, but it's often more measurable for a support team. So we aim to be mindful of that. But we also have engineering teams that will work the 5th day if they don't feel on track. Most teams work 4-days now. From Åsa: Everyone on the CS team works a 4-day block & has the same days off every week to make sure we have the same ability to disengage and recharge! Being customer-facing doesn't mean we can't participate in company initiatives like these, it just means we need to plan a bit more. Sllyllyd asked: Do the more senior team members stick to four days? In general, yes. Often the more senior team members are the ones who feel the most accountability and energy for goals, and so we sometimes work the extra day to get make sure we're on track. It's not the norm, though, and when we do it's usually just a couple of hours. From Caryn: There's a high level of flexibility and trust that we'll meet our shared and individual goals w/in the schedule that works best for us. As a mom of 3, my needs look different than fellow colleagues but I thrive with that mutual respect & trust. Sometimes I choose to work 5 days.

How is it going?

Daniel asked: What’s better than you expected? What’s worse than you expected? Better: The extra day builds in reflection time that we often don't make room for, where many of us solve problems. So in many ways, we do more meaningful work. Harder: Purpose becomes even more important. We need to feel driven to do great work in the precious 4 days we have. Purpose on an org level or individual level? Both. Especially with the past year we've had. The real magic is when org purpose feels intertwined with a personal sense of purpose, something worthy to go after that can really make a difference. If org purpose feels like it serves society, individual purpose usually follows. Jesse asked: Are people get as much done? Do you have hourly staff? We have no hourly staff, which is important. This isn't less hours for less pay, it's less hours for the same pay. In terms of productivity, that's hard to measure in this wild past year we've had. But, things look promising. Philosophically, I believe we can get as much done. Awesome. Are people happier and more excited to come to work? Boost in moral? Did you see it level off? Yes, to all of that! You nailed it. We've not felt it level off yet, there's still a ton of gratitude for the 4-day workweeks 9+ months in. André-Paul asked: What are the biggest changes you've noticed within your team? Any new routines/behaviours/processes? Well, there's definitely a new level of gratitude. We're here, trying out this wild new thing, and gaining this extra day for family or ourselves. It's awesome. And with that, a sense of alongside gaining flexibility, giving flexibility too. What I mean by gaining flexibility and giving flexibility is, especially as a global team, we need to be open to meetings once in a while earlier in a morning or late at night, to make everything happen. Especially with a 4-day workweek. So, a renewed sense of, we're lucky to have this extra freedom but let's be smart about how we work in order to make 4-day workweeks really work for us as a company and for customers, so we can keep having them. Ali asked: Has the rate of burnout gone down? It's hard to measure, but I believe absolutely, it has. Or rather, 2020 was a year that drove much more burnout than most years and we minimized the amount in part through implementing the 4-day workweek. Michelle asked: I can always find more to do. Are people self-disciplined enough to really take Friday off and are people good enough at knowing how much they can really get done in a week or do they set goals that are too lofty and usually end up working Fridays? Great question. I think it's somewhere in the middle. I genuinely thing most people now take Fridays off. But, we still have big ambitions as a company and so once in a while we need to work a Friday. The real magic is when the Friday off helps you actually get more done. Luthfur asked: How are you measuring productivity? Put another way, how do you intend to make the decision on whether this is going well or not. Ultimately, we will make our decision based on whether we achieve our goals as a company. I fundamentally believe though, that the 5-day workweek is a relic of the industrial era and not necessarily the most effective way to work. So I believe we can achieve our goals in 4DWWs. One of the benefits we have, is that investors do not control our company. We can take longer term stances and decisions, that we believe will lead to great results in time. — If you or your team are trying a 4-day work week send me a tweet to share how it’s going for you, I’d love to hear about it!

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