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randomidiocyncrazies · 3 years

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2.43 ep 5 thoughts: Oda and Aoki edition

sooo as you all know i’m an Oda (and Oda/Aoki) stan, so I just wanna take some time to talk about Oda and Aoki’s dynamics in episode 5 and compare it to the book a little

as a note, I’ll be commenting using my translated copy of the novel, which I’m pretty sure is based on the tankobon edition of the first arc (‘S1′); there may be some revisions in the bunkobon edition that i don’t have access to

[2.43 BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD]

while i think the tension during the club activity suspension had been downgraded from “this is a huge blow to team morale :O” to “hm, i guess people are kind of annoyed?” and we didn’t get to witness Aoki and Oda flying off the handle, I do appreciate that the seniors are presented as a unit in handling the younger team members, especially that Oda was able to stop Aoki with a glance in the anime (as shown above).

this strong partnership also leads us to the scene where they are hanging out together on break at one of their houses and communicating with each other about the incident, even though they have different opinions about it: Oda believes in Yuni’s innocence, while Aoki is holding a grudge (based on his words and expression). (also, what a gorgeous house!)

there is no similar scene, or even a reference to something like this, in the book—this is because, as alluded earlier, the team suspension is presented as way more devastating to team morale than it was presented in the anime

in the book Aoki’s displeasure towards Yuni had a sharper edge; not only was Aoki the ‘lead interrogator’ during the team’s questioning of Yuni, but he also hauled Yuni up by his shirt collar when he thought Yuni’s refusal to explain what happened was him not taking this seriously.

Oda actually had to physically intervene in the book, and although Aoki reluctantly let Yuni go, he specifically says that Yuni had “betrayed [Oda’s] trust.” When Yuni insisted that he didn’t do anything that’d cause trouble to the team and “it’s you [seniors] who refuse to take my word for it”, Aoki basically threatens to kill him if he keeps looking down on them/refusing to take this seriously.

(Chika is also much more aggressive in the book; he tried to lunge at Yuni, but was held back by Kanno, who advised him to at least hear Yuni out, but also made it clear that they need an actual explanation out of Yuni instead of the wishy-washy stuff he’d been saying)

in the book, they make a note that Oda calming Aoki down is a rare sight that the underclassmen normally never see, which was kind of interesting in terms of how the 3rd year duo presents themselves to the team—Aoki is the cool cucumber while Oda is the excitable ‘heart’ of the team, so that line reinforces how unusual Aoki’s actions during the interrogation were. there’s also the implication that, since Aoki was so aggressive, Oda has to hold back and be the one who diffuses the situation this time.

as the argument over Yuni’s refusal to explain what exactly happened spirals out of control, Oda also reached his limit and snaps at all of them, including Aoki, to just resign if they’re just going to get in his way of playing at the Spring Tournament. this shocks everyone into silence, and Oda is so ashamed at his (”selfish”) conduct that he dismisses everyone, and it was heavily implied that he didn’t really speak to any of the team members during the month that club activities were suspended (horrified at his outburst during the last meeting).

in the epilogue (which timing-wise roughly corresponds to the after-credit scene in ep 5), it’s implied that Aoki was the one who reached out to Itoko’s friends in an attempt to figure out what went down during the incident, and Oda and Aoki have a rather touching reconciliation conversation.

essentially, Aoki walks in to the club’s supply office to see Oda taking care of the equipment. When Aoki pointed out that Oda doesn’t have to do all this as he’s the captain, Oda felt that it’s penance for “being the first one who gave up”:

“Nobody thought you’ve given up, you know.” Aoki sat down at the end of the bench, the worn wood creaking under his weight. Just as he was about to pick up one of the balls by his feet, he noticed—the “Seiin High School” written in marker on all of the balls are facing up in the same direction.

Oda isn’t the kind of person who’d deliberately make sure the equipment was laid out uniformly, so it was easy to imagine that he got in early to maintain the equipment, as well as the way he stared at the name written across each ball he cleaned with deep emotion before putting it down naturally, with the school name facing in the same direction.

“If you weren’t the captain, the team would probably be finished and unable to make a comeback. It’s because of you that everyone is willing to push through these circumstances. You should be proud of that.”

“That’s because you went around to help me make nice with the underclassmen in the background, right?”

“No, I didn’t do anything to soothe them at all. Besides, I was only doing it for your sake before.”

Honestly, Aoki wanted to smack the hell out of Kuroba [...] While the others were more or less sympathetic after the whole incident was cleared up by Kuroba Itoko, Aoki still couldn’t quite forgive him. If it wasn’t for that brat, things would never have gotten to such a state.

“On this topic... Aoki, are you sure? If you retire now, you’d have plenty of time to get ready for your entrance exams.”

“Shin, stop bringing such an ancient topic up.” Aoki rested his elbows on the back of the bench. “There’s no time for you to feel guilty. Isn’t this the practice you’ve been looking forward to for so long? You have to show them you want this more than anything. Come now, before the others show up, hold your head high.”

Dipping his head down to look at Oda, Aoki thought Ah, so we’ve become old geezers too. Every time he looked at Kuroba and Haijima, he couldn’t help but think that Oda’s skin had a healthier glow back then; is it because he had gotten skinnier... no, no, he had built up some proper muscles since then, so maybe it’s just his face that looks tired?

It had been two and a half years since then. The first time he saw this shorty was when he’d been poked in the back, Oda’s eyes glittering as he chattered away about the “super ace.” He had been unwavering in the pure, naïve belief that he’d grow and become a super ace back then.

“I’m... really blessed.” Oda said quietly with a sniffle. He wiped the corner of his eyes, and when he lifted his head he expression on his face was one of happiness, though it was mixed with faint embarrassment.

No, I think you’re pretty unfortunate. Aoki’s sure that, if he had been in Oda’s situation, he’d have given up on himself a long time ago. [...] Oda’s the type of person that, even when he’s forced to give up on his dream to become a super ace due to the unsurmountable challenge of his height, he’s still able to say he’s blessed with a straight face.

“Also, there’s one other thing I wanted to apologize for.” Oda hunched his back, clearing his throat sheepishly.

“What is it? Like I said, it’s fine.”

“I heard that you got a girlfriend, and went around on dates. I thought, ‘the team’s in a pinch and that guy had the time to play around with girls?!’ Honestly, I was really mad.”

“Pfft—” Aoki couldn’t help but laugh. When Oda looked at him in confusion, he covered his mouth with a hand and shifted his gaze away. “Don’t worry about it, there’s nothing going on.”

“You contacted the girls from the other school because you’re looking up leads for what happened with Kuroba, right? Still, even if you didn’t get a girlfriend, I think it’s only natural that you’d be popular; you’re really tall and smart after all.”

“Shin... can we just drop this?” Aoki interrupted, feeling his temples throb. He was a little angry, but... oh well, it’s fine if Oda doesn’t understand.

(2.43 S1 Epilogue part 3)

(Aoki is pining SO HARD he can be a frickin’ tree 🌲 he already has the height covered :V)

in a previous post examining the Oda/Aoki dynamic, I’ve talked about how they seem to be at cross purpose when it comes to understanding the other’s motivation—we’ve seen Oda being confused by why Aoki would devote himself to him back in Chapter 3 (it’s because he is in love with you thinks your pure drive is admirable); and now the “I’m really blessed”/‘no I think you’re unfortunate’ exchange from Aoki’s point of view shows Aoki’s blind spot. it’s not explicitly stated, but to me it’s pretty clear that Oda was talking about having the team, and more specifically about having Aoki’s support, which is what makes him blessed. Aoki, though he’s not wrong about Oda being an optimist, seems to have missed (or dismissed) what Oda was really trying to say here

all in all, both the anime and the book have shipping material for Oda/Aoki, but in slightly different ways; in the anime it’s more of a stable and straightforward dynamic (which makes it easier for the anime staff and the viewers to handle, since there’s no opportunity to devote precious run-time to an in depth exploration of their characters and dynamic), while in the book it’s a bit more complicated, where it feels like they’re on the verge of something but it’s never addressed explicitly

or, in the terms of fanfic tropes, in the anime they give off strong established couple vibes, while in the book they’re more about the pining and miscommunication

EDIT: lmao the staff sure knows their marketing huh. they really said "Dinner at the Aoki Household" huh. (I guess the implication is that Oda slept over that night? or at the very least had dinner at Aoki’s place)

honestly it's rly interesting to sketch out the dynamic i want to explore in Oda/Aoki fics, because i see them as an established couple in the anime (sir they DATIN’), while i maintain that they have not gotten together yet in the books (and won’t until after Aoki had gone off to college)

(also, just to be clear, i don't think Oda/Aoki would ever be 'canon' in the sense that it'll be officially/explicitly confirmed. i just like their dynamic and i’m having fun with it)

#2.43 #2.43 anime #2.43 seiin koukou danshi volley bu #2.43 seiin high school boys volleyball team #oda shinichiro #aoki misao #odaoki #aoda

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cautelous · 3 years

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Hi. League lore is a nightmare that contradicts itself and has the nasty habit of spawning fan theories that, while interesting and honestly sometimes more clever than canonical content, are most likely not intended to be canonical.

What I’m talking about mostly is this thing that I really started thinking about in earnest yesterday, although I think I’ve had it on the backburner for a while. The thing in question is people taking all of League’s lore to be simultaneously canonical - assuming that it’s part of a grand overarching plan, or treating it as if it was all written at the same time. This is... not a good way to approach League lore, although it may seem it.

Example one: the theory that I heard that Annie’s parents actually moved to the Noxian borderlands to keep Annie safe from the academy Rell was held in. (Annie wasn’t born at the time they moved, but magic seems to work along familial lines in League and her mom was a witch, so it seems a safe bet.)

On the surface, cool theory! It works if Rell’s been in the academy since age 8, which isn’t exactly specified but is definitely possible. Annie’s parents could potentially have heard about missing kids and assumed something bad was up. Unfortunately, while it may make sense when you take lore as a combined bundle, it doesn’t make sense if you look at the out-of-universe timeline. Annie’s lore update came in 2018 and Rell came out about two years later. We know the champion production timelines are about a year (I think? Please correct me if I’m wrong), so Rell probably started taking shape in 2019. This means that the whole Noxian sigil magic evil academy thing probably wasn’t on Riot’s radar when they made Annie’s update - and, besides, her lore has always portrayed her as coming from an area adjacent to/on the outskirts of Noxus. It’s much more likely that Riot just rehashed elements of her original lore into something that worked in their modern setting, instead of them having this master plan where the true reason Annie’s out in the borderlands is to keep her safe.

Now, since Riot does often seem to have a habit of taking concepts from fans in one way or another... Maybe there will be another Annie lore that ties the academy in. It would certainly make the world feel more connected. But at the moment, it’s a fan theory that was probably 99.99% not intended to be canon, because the timelines don’t match up.

(Also, I think Rell lore could have been handled better. Not even from a “Swain wtf are you letting the Rose do” standpoint, but from a character standpoint from Rell. But that’s an aside. Also also, how long has Swain been in power? Annie’s lore has Darkwill in power 8 years ago. Also also also, I think a lot of people who subscribe to this theory might not think about the fact that Rell is 8 years older than Annie - they may see all the events as happening simultaneously, since there isn’t exactly a canonical timeline. If that makes sense?)

Example two: hi, Viktor and Blitzcrank lore.

Blitzcrank’s lore directly contradicts Viktor’s new lore, showing that Riot isn’t exactly interested in maintaining continuity. Maybe it’s just for champions that are less popular, but whatever.

Viktor’s lore update (which I think came in 2016, along with Piltover-Zaun unification? I wasn’t active in League then, so I don’t recall) describes Blitzcrank in the following manner:

In the midst of his studies in Piltover, a major chem-spill devastated entire districts of Zaun, and Viktor returned home to offer his help in the rescue efforts. By grafting a sophisticated series of cognitive loops upon existing automata-technology, he crafted a custom-built golem, Blitzcrank, to help in the clean-up. Blitzcrank was instrumental in saving scores of lives and appeared to develop a level of sentience beyond anything Viktor had envisioned.

Even with the spill contained, Viktor remained in Zaun to help those afflicted by the released toxins. With the golem's help, he attempted to use his techmaturgical brilliance to save those whose lives had been blighted by the spill. Their attempt was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing more deaths, and the two parted ways.

Blitzcrank’s lore currently (circa 2019) does this:

Useless to all but one person. The inventor Viktor discovered the abandoned golem and, seeing the potential still within the inert chassis, inspiration struck. Viktor began a series of experiments, seeking to improve the automaton by introducing a new element that would elevate it far beyond the original scope of its creation.

Hextech.

Implanting a priceless hextech crystal sourced from the deserts of Shurima into the chassis of the forsaken golem, Viktor waited with baited breath as the machine rumbled to life.

Zero mention of at what time this occurs. Zero mention of Blitzcrank being designed specifically for a rescue effort. The lore continues to diverge. The post’s long enough already, but you can read it and see for yourself. Blitzcrank’s 3rd lore (see wiki) is slightly more in line with Viktor’s, but still doesn’t make sense if you try to read it in concert with Viktor’s lore:

An ambitious young inventor known as Viktor longed to create a durable machine that could clean more effectively and eliminate the need for costly repairs. He gathered broken parts from the retired golems, avoiding the flashier components popular among his peers. Even employing an assemblage of unwanted materials, Viktor designed a more resilient machine.

He named his creation Blitzcrank, hoping the golem would quickly eradicate all waste and become far greater than the sum of his discarded parts. After instilling in Blitzcrank a relentless desire to serve the people of Zaun by removing the toxins in their path, Viktor sent him into the Sump to help.

What’s going on here? I don’t know. Also, it’s 2021 and I really wish Riot would stop using “golem” as a synonym for a robot. I know that fantasy generally does this, but like. Come on.

Example three: Talon’s lore.

It hasn’t been updated since 2015, man. I really can’t take the idea of Riot having some master overarching plan that everyone fits into when Talon (and I think some of the Void monsters?) hasn’t gotten an update since they snipped the Institute out of his lore.

TL;DR: League lore is piecemeal and any attempt to make any lore that came out about more than a year or two apart fit in with each other is probably not going to work. It may spawn some interesting theories, but those theories probably weren’t intended. It may also just directly contradict character backstories. It may also just be completely outdated and incoherent in the modern narrative.

Stuff like this is why I have trouble taking any lore analysis channels on YouTube seriously, because it really does feel like they don’t acknowledge the out-of-universe fact that Riot really doesn’t seem to have an overarching plan for more than about two years at a time. Maybe they have individual plans for each area - even that looks unlikely, considering Viktor and Blitzcrank’s issue - but something larger? I really doubt it.

Maybe this will all change with Ruination and Riot’s second attempt at doing a Big Event. Maybe they’ll realize that there’s at least one character lore contradiction (I don’t read all the lore, so while I have no doubt that there’s more contradictions I’ve really only spotted Viktor and Blitzcrank) and try to shore that up with minor edits. But at the moment it’s kind of a mess that sometimes feels like the fans think more about the impacts of the lore than the writers do.

#OOC ∵ ( outside the frame. )#idk what to tag this lol. it's meta so it's not hc.#wait. addendum. the other theory i saw that's similar to the annie example is that zaun's status as a shuriman city previously...#...is potentially why ekko was able to make the z drive. because zilean is shuriman and so his stuff could have made it to ancient zaun.#which like. um. doesn't make sense from the standpoint of when ekko was released and also really downplays him in a way i don't like.

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starchasertonight · 5 years

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Like you and everyone, I got very excited about the 18 tbt episode announcement. But now I’m getting that dreadful they don’t care about Kadena that much feeling again. NB hasn’t been to Montreal yet. I don’t know what episode they’re filming, but my guess is 4? If there are 18 eps total, my guess is Kadena will be in 8, if we’re lucky. What are your feels?

As far as I’m aware I think they’re only filming the 2nd episode so far. But then again I don’t track that as closely as others. I’m not that concerned because I appreciate what having 18 episodes does overall for the show and storytelling possibilities. There being 18 eps doesn’t make me expect Adena to be in 17 of them. At the end of the day, she’s not a part of the trio. I don’t think we can expect her to be a major feature in every episode. I think that, like before, there will be episodes where she’s involved in a major story, episodes where she has a less central role but is still present, and episodes where she’s not on screen at all. I think the fact that she’s now going to be a Scarlet employee and can be integrated beyond just being Kat’s love interest may decrease the number of no-Adena episodes. What matters to me is that we get this natural flow across 18 episodes instead of 10, so it doesn’t feel as devastating when she’s gone during an episode or not much major content happens. And net we will have more Adena content in s4 than in any other season by comparison. It gives space to not rush Kadena’s story. The other thing I’d point out is it’s also a matter of quality as much as it is quantity. Adena was only in 6 of the 10 episodes of Season 1, yet it remains the fan favorite season. She appeared in I think 8 of the S2 episodes (my memory isn’t as good there), but fans hated a lot of it. Though Adena only appeared in the last 3 episodes of S3, it generated more excitement than any Adena content from 2x04-2x10 partly because of how on point it was. So I don’t think we should think just in terms of number of episodes present, but also the quality of her presence in an episode. And under Wendy’s leadership, I trust that when Adena is present it will be good content. Even if Adena is only present in 12 of the 18 episodes, say, that will still be double the quality Adena content we’ve ever gotten in a season.

As for filming right now, it doesn’t make sense for Adena to be there as long as the Scarlet situation is still being resolved. Adena’s not going to be starting her job while Scarlet is on hold, and I don’t think Kat would intentionally see her outside of Scarlet right now when she’s trying to pursue her own growth and stability and Adena is the greatest temptation that would challenge that. And since they don’t have to rush this Scarlet story, I’m not expecting Adena to necessarily appear until the 3rd or 4th episode. We don’t even know what Adena’s start date for the job is supposed to be, and 4x01 will pick up with no time having passed. I imagine it would be at least a couple weeks within the show’s time before Adena starts her job, maybe a month, in a good scenario where Scarlet recovers quickly. And I think that’s a good thing, because then it won’t just be awful angst when Adena does show up. Hopefully by that point Kat has settled a bit and it’s more awkward and difficult than tear-inducing for them.

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kirakiraninja666-blog · 6 years

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my sad, sad love life

Everything mentioned here is true and all names will be left out. In kindergarten, there was this girl that I fancied. She was very cute and kind to me. I recall that one day she read a book to my about blue whales, she spoke about her wanting to be a marine biologist when she was older. Later in the year, I brought cupcakes for my birthday. I sat in between her and another girl. This other girl was extremely happy that I brought cupcakes and kissed me on the cheek. The girl I liked was shocked that she did such a thing during class. We giggled and quickly forgot about it.

Fast forward to 3rd grade and shit got intense, like real intense, my nigga. I had gotten close to this one girl, we messaged each other a lot on the app called “Kik Messenger”. We pretty much had a relationship over text. We would say, “I love you” and, “I miss you” and shit like that to each other. I recall this one moment where she went to go to something and I was texting her friend and she said that “[we were] cute”. One day at recess, one of our friends got us together to talk about our feelings for each other. This shit was awkward as fuck, my nigga. Like I mentioned earlier, this was a text-relationship. We never spoke about our feelings to each other in person. It was pretty awkward and we never admitted our feelings to each other. I don’t remember how it ended but it ended somehow.

Now, onto 4th grade. I had gotten feelings for the girl I liked in kindergarten again. To be honest, I kinda liked her throughout most of elementary school but she was kind of an on and off crush. Anyways, we were on a Skype call on my birthday and she had a friend over. They had known about my feelings for her and they said shit like, “The ship sailed a long time ago” which made me fucking depressed. I cried that night, on my BIRTHDAY. I slept that night with my iPad next to me hoping to receive a Skype message that she had changed her mind or something. But, alas, it never happened. I slit my wrists, the pain helped me to stop thinking of her. I attempted to hang myself with toilet paper, hoping to leave this miserable world. Unfortunately, it failed. Oh well.

5th grade was pretty fucking cringy. There was this new girl at school. She was smart, funny, cute. We talked and we became close. We developed feelings for each other. I talked about this to my friend, the same one that made me and my “ex” confront each other at recess in 3rd grade. She told me to stop liking her, that she was “weird” or something like that. So basically what I did was I wrote an e-mail to her, with my friend’s help, ending our nonexistent relationship.

In 6th grade, there was cute Asian girl I met in math class. We talked a bit and I ended up liking her. Unfortunately, nothing happened because she had a boyfriend.

In 7th grade, I had gotten close to a girl, an Asian girl. She developed feelings for me and asked me out and I said, “LOL, no thanks b, we’re better off as friends. Try again next year OMEGALUL.” And that was that.

Later that year, around December, I had gotten feelings for another Asian girl. I liked her quite a bit and I told too many friends and she quickly found out that I liked her. She stopped talking to me completely and it was really awkward between us. Looking back at it, it’s pretty funny. I stopped liking her because I figured that there was no hope. I started to like someone else and the Asian found out and we started talking again.

Spring time of 8th grade, I was pretty good friends with this white girl. She also started to develop feelings for me and asked me out. I told her that I didn’t want to date anyone at the moment and would’ve preferred to wait until high school to start dating someone. She walked away very sad which made me feel bad but, ya know, it sucks to suck.

So probably around May of 8th grade I wanted to ask out this one girl to the 8th grade dance, known as “Formal”. We were quite close and talked a lot. She was pretty good looking and boy, oh boy, she’s thicc as fuck, my nigga. Anyways, she wasn’t really into me and this other kid asked her to the dance before me. I was devastated, I opened up to one of my close female friends. I told her that I was suicidal, that I had the urge to just swallow my phone and hope that it would suffocate me. She was there for me, she saved me, she was my hero. I quickly fell in love with her. I decided that I would ask her to the dance. I had two of my friends make a poster for me that I would use to ask her out. It was a huge success. People in the hall were cheering, they yelled, “OH YEAH!”, there were fireworks inside the school, shit was amazing. We hugged, walked outside together, and took a picture. We waited for her bus and she gave me a hug goodbye. I was practically smashing that girl. The next day I asked her to be my girlfriend and she said yes. The following day, it was awkward as fuuuuuck. We worked together on this project for health and I’d talk to her, start a conversation, but they just wouldn’t last that long. She didn’t really want to to talk to me. Later that day after school was over, she broke up with me and told me that we’d be better off as friends. I was sad. I had gotten into my first REAL relationship, albeit probably lasted less than 24 hours. I had to get over her though, there wasn’t really any way that relationship was going to work. She probably ended it because she though I had moved on too quickly, that I didn’t really have feelings for her, or perhaps she just wasn’t really interested in me.

Although the summer started off a bit rough, it would later turn out to be pretty fucking amazing, kind of. Around the end of July (I’m thinking it might’ve been July 22nd or some date close to that), I boot up my computer to play with my friend that I played with pretty much the whole summer. We’d get on in the morning and play until nighttime. This day was different, for I had gotten on around noon. Not surprisingly, he was already playing. I saw that he was playing in a group and asked for an invite. He was playing with this GIRL, a fucking gamer-girl, can you believe it? Those girls are pretty fucking rare. Anyways, I joined their group and we had a blast together. The 3 of us became close, we were a group, the modern day Three Musketeers. One day, my friend left for a couple days, I believe he traveled somewhere. She was also gone. I thought, “Damn, so is this where it ends? Is this where she stops talking to us?” but then I thought “She probably just doesn’t want to talk to me by ourselves, she likes my friend more than me.” My friend returned on the weekend, I think, and that’s when she got back online. She said the reason she wasn’t on was because her parents didn’t like her playing on the weekdays and that she was at this camp (this is actually all true, she wasn’t lying). When school started, we still found the time to talk to each other. My friend and her would get into some really stupid fights, fights that were just a big fucking waste of time and shouldn’t of happened. But, it’s okay, for I had had benefited from them. You see, my friend was closer to her than I was with her. But thanks to these fights, this quickly changed. She would talk to me and vent about my friend. I would agree with her and say that my friend was in the wrong (which he actually was most of the time). We’d play together, just the two of us. We’d go invisible on Discord and on Overwatch. We became each other’s best friends. We all lived pretty far from each other, my friend lives in Vermont and she lives in New York City. We’d talk about meeting each other over the summer (which is the summer that is currently being written in, by the way). One day, her and her friend told me that I should go to their school. I thought it was a great idea and we discussed it. Looking back at it, I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking, I actually thought that it would happen. Newsflash, my nigga, that shit ain’t ever going to happen. I thought about moving alone to NYC and going to their expensive ass school, $50k YEARLY TUITION for grade school. Hell no, that definitely wasn’t going to happen. My parents laughed and said no. I was actually kind of bummed, like I dead ass thought that it might’ve happened. Over time, we developed feelings for each other. Her friend asked me if I thought that she liked me and I told her no. She asked her and turns out that she did like me, I was insanely happy. Moving on, later that month she told me that there was a possibility of her coming to Maryland for winter break. I was fucking hyped but she told me not to get too excited because it all deepened on her aunt’s roommate leaving so they could have a place to sleep. Sometime in December she confirms that she’s going. A couple of days before she comes to Maryland, we were talking to each other. We played this game that we had made where if one of us were to curse then the other would ask them 3 questions. These questions were to be answered honestly. I asked her questions about who she liked. She had knew that I knew that she liked me. I wanted her to admit it to me. She also asked me questions about who I liked. I, of course, described her. Now, I believe that she suspected that I liked her but she didn’t want to believe it. Later, she tells me that she has to leave. I decide to confess my feelings for her. I tell her that the girl I like would be coming to Maryland the next week, that we were going to see each other. She freaked out and I started laughing. She hung up the call and I just sat there in my chair, very happy. She arrives at night on Christmas. She’s in Maryland for 3 days pretty much (the 26th, the 27th, and the 28th), we hung out together on all 3 days. The first day was pretty awkward, not gonna lie. It makes sense though because this was out first time meeting each other. We met up at the National Gallery of Art and spent the majority of the day there. We didn’t really talk much at first but we later got more comfortable with each other and talked. After spending a day at the N.G.A., we ate dinner at this Chinese restaurant. It was fun, she tried teaching me how to use chopsticks but I wasn’t able to use them. Second day, I went over to her aunt’s house. It was a bit awkward for the first like 10 minutes but then everything was fine. We went ice skating but, here’s the thing, I don’t know how to ice skate. Her sister and her would hold my hand to try and help me keep my balance. After that, we returned to her aunt’s house where we played poker. Neither of us knew how to play so we had to learn. We played in teams. It was me and her, her sister and her mom, and her aunt and her aunt’s boyfriend. We turned out to be a pretty good team, we won a couple of times. On the third day, we went to ICE! at National Harbor. After spending a couple hours there, I suggested that we go eat at Rio. We arrived at Rio and for some reason her mom and wanted to go to Barnes and Noble. She didn’t want to go so I suggested that her and I walk for a bit. She happily and agreed and that’s what we did. I saw this as my chance, my chance to ask her out. I waited a bit and then I did it. She stopped walking and looked at me and said, “Are you serious?” to which I replied “Yes” and she said yes as well. It was fantastic except for the fact that my girlfriend would have to leave in about an hour to return to New York. We talked a lot over the next couple months, became closer to each other. One day in February, I got extremely lucky. I heard her dad tell her that they would be going to California for spring break. I told her that I’d be visiting New York for spring break. She told her dad this and her stepmom suggested that I go with them to Cali. We couldn’t believe this and we thought that she was joking. Nope, it was not a joke. I asked my parents and they allowed me to go. I arrived at New York on the 24th of March and left a week earlier. The first two days we were in New York. It was fun, we spent time together. On Monday, we left early in the morning to go to Cali. Now, to be honest, I don’t remember everything as it exactly happened, I tried forgetting these memories because it was just too painful to look back at. But here are the highlights of that week:

>lots of cuddling

>we kissed

>we went to some pretty cool places

So after the trip, we talked a lot for a couple of days. She slowly started to talk to me less, she said that she was busy with school work. It got to the point where if I was lucky we’d talk on the weekend (lemme elaborate here real quick, if I recall correctly, she was never busy on those weekends, we’d talk if she wanted to talk, not if she was busy or not). One day I accidentally pissed her off and that’s when it pretty much ended. I asked her if we were still together and she told me to give her a week to think about it. I acted super desperately, like super desperately. I thought that my acts of desperation would help me but it did the opposite. Honestly, if I was in her position I would not have given myself a second chance. I was too flawed and I had to learn from my mistakes. Now though, almost 4 months later, I feel like I am worthy of another chance. I feel that it is my time to try once again. I have reflected on my previous self and I have improved. I. Am. Ready.

to be continued...

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junker-town · 6 years

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NFL Dad, Week 14: Snow makes everything beautiful, even Colts-Bills

One father tried to watch seven hours of RedZone channel while parenting two young children. Here’s how it went.

The year my daughter was born, the ensuing winter broke me. Newborns have a way of giving first-time parents cabin fever, and a prolonged snowy winter (I remember three separate snowstorms in March) only worsened that feeling. Having kids changed me from one of those people who says, “I like seasons!” to one of those people who says, “I swear to God I’m moving to California.”

It’s three years later, and I’m still in the same dumb place with winter. Occasionally, I’ll pitch a Fermi problem to myself: How many man-hours have my wife and I lost to winter since we had kids? How many cumulative hours have we spent cajoling my daughter to wear her hat? Or outfitting the strollers with those comfy little sleeping bags that keep the kids warm? Or just squeezing them into the boots and jackets and extra layers that the season requires? I figure I’ve lost entire days (weeks?) of my life to swearing under my breath while wrestling little toddler arms into sweaters.

Then it snows. A wet snow, clean and pristine, that sticks to trees but melts in the street. The city’s pace slows, its noise muffled. It’s beautiful.

And my daughter, to whom we’ve read The Snowy Day dozens or maybe a hundred times, picks up a stick and, like the protagonist, uses it to smack a snow-covered tree. When we go back inside, again influenced by the book, she tries to put a snowball in her pocket. I wouldn’t trade the moment for anything in the world.

Except California. I would definitely still rather live in California.

EARLY GAMES, FIRST HALF

— I turn on the games around 1:15 p.m. It’s better to wait a few minutes to let RedZone warm up. At the top of the hour, Scott Hanson is always showing off the Octobox while opposing quarterbacks shake hands and sideline reporters give final updates. I’d rather squeeze in a few extra minutes of parenting, and today it gives me the chance to put my son down for his nap.

— The kids are worn out from my sister and her family visiting this weekend. My nieces are 12 and 8 years old, and they are GODS to my daughter. So on Saturday night we let her stay up 90 minutes later than usual, which gave her a chance to spend time with her cousins and feel like a big girl. The fallout is that she’s cranky as hell today, and not rested enough to communicate her feelings with words.

— Eli Manning gets a raucous standing ovation from the home crowd. The first offensive play for the Giants is an Orleans Darkwa fumble. Erick Flowers recovers the ball, though, which is probably the first Erick Flowers play that Giants fans have appreciated this season.

— Touchdown Josh Gordon! His grab evens the game at 7, and afterwards he sports some sunglasses on the sideline.

Why don’t more players wear sunglasses on the sideline? Everyone looks cooler in shades. (This is rhetorical, I don’t need to be reminded of the NFL’s stentorian uniform regulations.)

— HOLY SNOW IN BUFFALO. YES. GIVE IT TO ME.

watching the game http://pic.twitter.com/smbTyWa2Os

— Jon Bois (@jon_bois) December 10, 2017

The visibility is so poor that the broadcast shows an Adam Vinatieri field goal attempt from the sideline view, rather than the usual view from behind the play. Vinatieri misses, because he’s only the best kicker in NFL history, not a god.

With the miss, the game remains scoreless. This should be a wild ride: I took the Bills as three-point favorites today without realizing that (A) the game would take place in a snow globe or (B) Nathan Peterman is starting for Buffalo. Never bet on anything.

— I read my daughter a book while she poops. Since last week, she filled up her poop chart, so we watched Moana together. It was a hit, of course. But now the poop problem has been flipped: Instead of holding it in for days at a time, she’s eager to squeeze out a poop even when she doesn’t have to go, because she knows she’ll get a chocolate and think it will lead to another Moana viewing, though my wife and I haven’t consented to that yet.

So it takes her 10 minutes or maybe more in the bathroom — time kind of dilates when I’m sitting on the floor of a bathroom encouraging someone to poop — and when we finally emerge, Kareem Hunt scores a short touchdown to put the Chiefs up 10-0 over the Raiders.

— It’s Week 14, which makes it the fantasy football playoffs for three of my four teams, which means I am ready to be filled with regret about every decision regarding a flex spot. Right now that means bemoaning my benching of Duke Johnson, who scores on a shovel pass to give the Browns a 14-7 lead over Green Bay.

(pokes Packers with stick)

— After my daughter goes down for her nap, my body starts shaking with hunger. A cool thing about parenting is tending to every whim of your child while ignoring every fundamental need of your own body. I make myself a grilled cheese because we have no other food in the house. I swear we JUST got groceries. Why have kids when you can invest in locusts?

— LeSean McCoy already has 15 rushes for 97 yards, and seeing him dance through the Colts defense reminds me of the 2013 snow game when he singlehandedly carried the Eagles past the Lions. McCoy’s built a career with jukes, but there’s something more refined about his style in the snow: He tends to make a single, decisive cut, and it devastates defenders. It’s like a pickup game where everyone’s wearing old sneakers, and McCoy’s the only player who brought cleats.

McCoy’s work sets up the first score of the game, a short fade to Kelvin Benjamin, who holds on to the ball as he falls into a snow bank. After the score, six Bills gather around the spot where Steven Hauschka will kick the PAT, which seems ill-advised. Nevertheless, Hauschka’s kick is true, and the Bills take a 7-0 lead.

— My daughter doesn’t want to nap. I explain to her that it’s time to rest, that it’s not time to get up yet. She says no, but I’m firm. As I walk out, she yells, “DADDY! DADDY!” Then she screams it.

I don’t go back in. I am resolute. I am a rock. I have missed a cool Dez Bryant touchdown.

DEZ! #DallasCowboys http://pic.twitter.com/BlOwe31V0B

— NFL (@NFL) December 10, 2017

— My wife leaves to get us groceries. With our daughter fighting her nap and our son already asleep for the last 80 minutes, I am definitely going to have to do some actual parenting today. But the other option is we all starve, and I don’t want to hear that much crying.

— With 10 seconds left in the half, Adam Thielen catches a four-yard touchdown on a fade in back corner of end zone with the sun directly in his eyes. It’s an incredible catch, and the Vikings lead Carolina 17-14 at the half.

A few minutes later, I look at scoreboard and the Panthers leads, 14-13. WTF? They overturned it? (shakes fist at sky) CAAAAAATCH RUUUUUUUUUUUULLLLLEEEE!!!

By the way, any time a catch like that gets overturned, some Johnny Mansplainer emerges from his toilet home to be all, “Actually, if you read the language of the catch rule, it’s obviously NOT a catch.” YEAH MAN, WE KNOW THE RULE. IT’S BAD. EXPLAINING THE BAD RULE DOES NOT MAKE IT GOOD.

— My wife has barely been gone when my son wakes up crying. Usually, when he wakes up from a nap, he’ll chirp a little bit but take his time waking up quietly. Not today. “DAD-DEE! DAD-DEE!”

I’m getting tired of this phase where he only wants Dad, and never Mom. Like, it’s great to be wanted, but I’m starting to feel more like an abused personal assistant than a beloved caregiver. Ask for Mom! She gave you LIFE. Show some gratitude, dude.

EARLY GAMES, SECOND HALF

— With my son cuddling next to me on the couch, Cam Newton dances away from pressure on 3rd and seven and flings the ball to Devin Funchess for a touchdown.

.@CameronNewton making a little magic happen! #KeepPounding http://pic.twitter.com/QhXcdHNu6L

— NFL (@NFL) December 10, 2017

Cam may struggle with accuracy and consistency, but when he’s at the top of his game, there’s nothing a defense can do. Just tip your cap and take the L.

— Ugh, RedZone just showed the replay of the horrifying fencing response Tom Savage exhibited after a hit. Naturally, he came back into the game five minutes later.

The NFL concussion protocol would of cleared JFK to reenter the parade

— PFTCommenter (@PFTCommenter) December 10, 2017

So now TJ Yates is under center for the Texans, and there’s really only one rule to playing quarterback for Houston: Throw it to Nuk.

Crazy @TJ_Yates pass. Unreal @Deandrehopkins grab. That's six. #Texans http://pic.twitter.com/ljSpNybwpY

— NFL (@NFL) December 10, 2017

The touchdown gives the Texans a 16-13 lead, but no lead is safe when Jimmy Garoppolo is on the other sideline. That’s where he was when his team came back from a 28-3 deficit in the Super Bowl. He does his best work there!

— Browns?

The Browns have a two-touchdown lead in the second half for the first time in the Hue Jackson era.

— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) December 10, 2017

Browns!

Yes, it’s the 4th quarter, and Browns lead the Packers 21-7. But it doesn’t last long: Brett Hundley capably leads a drive that ends with a short scamper by Jamaal Williams to cut the lead to seven. There’s still PLENTY of time for the Browns to Browns this up.

— With less than four minutes remaining in Buffalo and the score still 7-0, Jacoby Brissett scrambles for a first down on 4th and six to keep the Colts’ hopes alive. We’re gonna have a fun finish in the snow!

— My son has gotten antsy. After climbing down off the couch, he closes my laptop and says, “All done!” So that’s it, everyone. That’s the end of the column.

No, I join him on the floor for some coloring, although mostly he just takes crayons out of the box and puts them back in. I take game notes on my phone when I can.

— The Bengals are getting OWNED by the Bears today, and MAN would I hate to be a Bengals fan. The sheer breadth of ways that they can disappoint is incredible. Like, being a Browns fan is fine: you just lose. You can insulate yourself from losing when there’s no expectation of success. But the Bengals manipulate their fans with tiny glimpses of success, constructing a grand stage before falling through a trap door of their own design.

I have two friends from the Cincinnati area who grew up Bengals fans. One of them stopped following the NFL this year; he said the best thing about it is not following the Bengals. The other texted me after the Bengals lost that ugly, vicious primetime game against the Steelers: “This is definitely my last year watching NFL. Just can’t watch that shit any more.”

— The Colts score a touchdown somehow (look, I’m parenting, OK?), but a PAT is too risky. Chuck Pagano opts to go for the win, and Jack Doyle catches the two-point conversion. Bills fans throw snowballs at him, probably because the three-point cover is hopeless now.

But wait. There’s a flag on the play, and it’s offensive pass interference. It’s too far to go for two, so the Colts will have to kick after all. And let me just tell you with complete sincerity that this is the most exciting PAT I’ve ever seen in my whole life.

Oh my goodness, @adamvinatieri. Got it! ❄️❄️❄️ #Colts http://pic.twitter.com/mQAhS5jjBe

— NFL (@NFL) December 10, 2017

TIE GAME! The Bills can still push with a field goal or cover with a touchdown. GAMBLING IS GREAT, EVERYONE SHOULD DO IT.

— The Vikings have staged an incredible 4th quarter comeback, but Cam successfully unlocked FULL CAM MODE.

.@CameronNewton, are you serious?! Just watch. #KeepPounding http://pic.twitter.com/y8FiDBju91

— NFL (@NFL) December 10, 2017

— I haven’t mentioned the Lions-Bucs game at all, so here ya go: With the game tied at 21, the Lions put together a drive that ends with a game-winning 46-yard field goal. You didn’t miss much besides a FAT GUY TD when the Bucs ran a tackle-eligible red zone play.

— DeAndre Hopkins may have had a monster game, but he also fumbles with his team trailing 23-16. The Niners recover and kick a field goal to go up 10. Ballgame.

— With time running out in overtime, LeSean McCoy breaks through for a touchdown, the win, and the cover. SNOW ANGELS FOR EVERYONE.

.@CutOnDime25 in the SNOW... Unstoppable.@BuffaloBills WIN! #GoBills http://pic.twitter.com/WnNmeYQXXc

— NFL (@NFL) December 10, 2017

Gotta love a good snow angel http://pic.twitter.com/AD4VHZDl7B

— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) December 10, 2017

— Moments later, Davante Adams scores a walk-off touchdown in Cleveland.

.@tae15adams. For. The. WIN! #GoPackGo http://pic.twitter.com/oxnkqC24yz

— NFL (@NFL) December 10, 2017

I know I’ve ridden hard against overtime in this column throughout the season, but these two overtimes gave me extra snow football and the possibility of Aaron Rodgers coming back and running the table to get into the playoffs. I can’t be too mad about it today.

LATE GAMES, FIRST HALF

— Five games on the late docket today: Titans-Cards, Jets-Broncos, and Washington-Chargers have already kicked off, while Seahawks-Jaguars and Eagles-Rams kick off at 4:25 Eastern. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that I probably won’t be taking many notes on those first three games.

Before the last two games start, I leave to take my dog for a walk (It’s my last chance for a clear head before I get mad about the Seahawks). My wife is unloading the dishwasher, and as I exit the front door, I see my son pull a paring knife from the silverware rack. There’s a reason this video went viral:

"let me see what you have.." "a knife" "NOOOOOO" http://pic.twitter.com/hJXO3YpO7Y

— no (@tbhjuststop) September 22, 2017

It is universally relatable to anyone with a son.

— Todd Gurley caps the Rams’ opening drive with a touchdown, and the Eagles respond by stringing their own scoring drive together. Carson Wentz caps it off with a short pass to Zach Ertz.

— While my wife prepares dinner for the kids, she hits the nuclear parenting button: She plays “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana on repeat. Now, I listen to the entire soundtrack from start to finish almost every day, but this is madness. We make it through the song three times in a row before she advances the playlist to “You’re Welcome.”

When my daughter and I watched the movie, she got upset when the credits came on the screen. “I can’t see Moana! I can’t see Maui!” I had to explain to her that the movie was over: Moana led her people on new voyages, and Maui went off to have other adventures.

It didn’t soothe her at all. She got up off the couch and started to walk away. As she started to turn the corner for her bedroom, she stopped and turned to me with her eyebrows raised. “Daddy, can we talk about it?” Wait ‘til I tell her about the internet.

— The Chargers are cruising. They already lead by 10, and they just picked Kirk Cousins, which leads to another field goal.

— Here are all of the notes I took when Josh McCown threw an interception with the Jets trailing 10-0:

Jets-Broncos: no

— Trailing 20-6 and facing 4th and four, Kirk Cousins has a receiver open but the ball falls off his fingertips, just out of reach. This isn’t Washington’s day.

— My daughter throws a tantrum at dinner table that is wholly the result of her exhaustion. She refuses to eat and demands that my wife turn off “Despacito.” BEFORE THE CHORUS. Come on! Can you just let your parents LIVE for four minutes?

— Trey Burton scores his second touchdown of the game to put the Eagles up 21-7. I like to make fun of Doug Pederson’s golf wig, but the Eagles went for it on 4th and one when they could have settled for a field goal on this drive. They have an aggressive game plan, and they’re executing it well.

— Before I had kids, diapers were the thing I feared most about parenthood. Which is stupid, because the thing you end up fearing most is entire world and your own mortality. Diapers are fine.

That said, I just changed a diaper filled with the scent of death and campaign promises. I’ve changed several diapers almost every day for more than three years, and there’s about one per year that makes me gag. This was it. A tip of my biohazard hood to my son for that one.

— Russell Wilson takes a deep shot to Doug Baldwin that gets picked by Jaelen Ramsey. Can’t say that I thought Wilson would throw an INT in this game before Blake Bortles, but hey, sometimes you have to ignore the tape and challenge one of the best cornerbacks in football by throwing a jump ball to a 5-foot-11 receiver.

— I play with the kids as Seattle finally puts a drive together at the end of the half. It’s a totally cliché act of dad-ness, but I chase them around as the Tickle Monster. In moments like this, fatherhood feels less like something I do as an individual and more like a series of shared experiences. I am Everydad.

Oh, and Blair Walsh misses wide right on 38-yarder in perfect conditions. The Seahawks trail 3-0 at the half. No problem, Seattle gets the ball first in the second half.

LATE GAMES, SECOND HALF

— My wife has the kids in the bath, and I take the opportunity to change out of my Seahawks t-shirt. Gotta change up the juju! When I come back out of my bedroom, it’s 30 seconds into the second half and — wait. Why do the Jaguars have the ball? AW HELL, RUSSELL.

Et maintenant c'est AJ Bouye qui intercepte Russ ! #Jaguars http://pic.twitter.com/hRK6l1em8n

— NFL France (@FirstDownFR) December 10, 2017

That interception leads to a Dede Westbrook touchdown, and the Seahawks trail 10-0. (I find that French commentary helps me deal with an opponent making highlights at my team’s expense.)

By the way, I have three Seahawks jerseys, four Seahawks tee shirts, and a Seahawks hoodie, and none of them are the prototypical “lucky” piece of fan gear. Every single one of them has been taken off at halftime after 28 minutes of ineffective running plays on 2nd and 10 before a two-minute drill to set up a field goal attempt.

— The Chargers get a short rushing TD following a flea flicker bomb to Keenan Allen. That makes it 30-6, Chargers, and I can happily ignore this one the rest of the evening.

— I have come to grips with a Seahawks loss, so I crack a beer to celebrate giving up. Wilson immediately hits Baldwin deep beyond the double coverage. An absolute dime of a throw, but the Jags defense stiffens, and Seattle settles for the field goal. Stupid Seahawks. Just lose! Stop trying to make me invested in this game.

— I help get the kids out of the bath and into their pajamas. I give my son his milk and read him “Where is the Green Sheep?” Sammy Watkins scores on a short pass play to cut the Eagles lead to 24-21, and my son hands me the book again. He wouldn’t sit through an entire book for the first year and a half of his life, and now he wants a reprise? It’s not even CLOSE to one of Mem Fox’s best books. “Seep, Seep,” he says. Oh, fine.

— RedZone cuts back to Jacksonville, where it’s 10-10. Wait, how did Seahawks score? What happened? I don’t get to enjoy the tie game, because the play is a 75-yard catch and run to Keelan Cole.

— I take an antihistamine, because sneezing fits are dangerous at my age. You can throw your back out sneezing, dislocate a rib. Getting old is the pits.

I come back to the TV and the Rams have taken the lead, 28-24. I only see a brief close-up of the guy who scored entering the end zone. It was a skinny player with a jersey number in the 20s. Did Carson Wentz throw a pick-6? That hardly seems possible.

Luckily, Twitter is always there for me*:

BLOCKED PUNT ALERT! And the @RamsNFL turn it into SIX! #LARams http://pic.twitter.com/CdxONvXdbg

— NFL (@NFL) December 10, 2017

*Twitter is always there for everyone, waiting to ruin your day. I deleted it from my phone, and the quality of my life improved dramatically.

— RedZone shows the Seahawks punting, and my blood runs cold. RedZone only ever shows a punt for three reasons, and two of them would be bad for me:

Huge return

Blocked punt

Returner muffs kick

It’s option 1: The Jags returner gets tackled at the 1-yard line, and Leonard Fournette punches it in on the next play.

I am only just learning that Bobby Wagner is out of the game with a hamstring injury. The Jags have scored three touchdowns on the three plays he’s been off the field. Cool. Cool cool cool.

— With the Cardinals leading 9-7, Marcus Mariota gets picked off, leading to an Arizona field goal. This is already too much information about this game.

— Carson Wentz gets hit hard while scrambling in for a touchdown, but there’s holding on the play, so it doesn’t count. Four plays later, he throws a touchdown on 4th down to Alshon Jeffery, who makes an incredible catch.

He caught it! This TD grab by @TheWorldof_AJ gives the @Eagles the lead! #FlyEaglesFly http://pic.twitter.com/6dOWB4Ne5m

— NFL (@NFL) December 10, 2017

The Eagles lead 31-28, and this game is delivering SO HARD.

— My daughter’s sitting on the toilet before bed, again convinced that she can poop even though she just did it a few hours ago. She wants to count all of the hearts on a house in a book, and she nails the first baker’s dozen. Then: “Thirteen, fifteen, eleventeen… Daddy, you can count the rest.”

I come back to the TV after putting the kids to bed, and the Rams are back in front, 35-31. Carson Wentz is limping into the tunnel, and Erin Andrews reports something with a look of gravity. It would probably be useful if I listened to RedZone with the sound on, instead of a playlist of Christmas music.

— The Seahawks, by dint of a bomb to Tyler Lockett bomb and a subsequent defensive stop, will get the ball back with a chance to win the game. They absolutely have no business being in this game.

— Chris Long gets to Jared Goff for a sack-fumble, and the Eagles get the ball with short field down 35-34. Time for Nick Foles to do some handoffs!

— The Seahawks don’t get an obvious call, and their drive stalls before it can really threaten the Jags. Then there are fights and ugliness that I don’t care to explain, defend, or even really think about.

— Sometimes I get sick of RedZone by the end of the day. When there are only one or two games still in play, RedZone’s assault of highlights I’ve already watched feels drains what energy and attention I have left. I’d rather have the steadiness of one booth calling a single game, cutting to commercials I can tune out.

So I click over to FOX for the last bit of Eagles-Rams, where the Rams’ last-ditch attempt to score via rugby laterals ends up as a defensive score for Brandon Graham. It’s a Pyrrhic victory for Philadelphia, which tightens its control on a playoff bye but loses its star quarterback to a torn ACL. The sky darkens over the L.A. Coliseum and the surrounding wildfires, creating a palette of red and purple that awes the fans.

Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

It isn’t beautiful the way that snow football is, but it doesn’t need to be to inspire awe. In a way, it’s all the same: The sun sets, snow melts, bodies are broken, and everything beautiful comes to an end.

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telashar · 7 years

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Better help post to my counselor 7-29-2017

I am so sorry about how long this is. Once written I thought about not sending it to you or somehow boiling it down for you. But I think I really needed to get all this out. But I think I also really want someone to understand me. So I have decided to send the whole thing to you. I know it is long and most likely a big rambling that in the end you might not get anything useful from. But I kind of hope you do. So good, bad or ill here it is. (oh and I certainly don’t expect quick flash of insight, brilliant, glib or other response that deals with all this. Though brilliant flash of insight is always welcome.) ……….. I have been busy and thinking. In part I tried a council before you and that was not work. I takes quite a lot for me to talk about thing for a few reason. First is the whole exposing yourself thing, revealing inner personal things. 2nd It take quite a bit of effort to even think of what to say and how to express it. It all becomes jumbled and confused, it’s hard to explain. I know believe this is related to the autism. So first I have to figure out what I need to express and then I actually have to explain it in such a way to minimize confusion. It can cause confusion when people expect to hear one thing and you're saying another. For example there are times what I feel in response to a situation is not the same as what most people generally feel. For example after I learned my husband was cheating and we were breaking up, came over to get some of his stuff. When he was leaving his car got stuck in the driveway (lived in Michigan and it was winter.) Well he was trying to get it out with no success. I couldn’t stand watching him struggle, so I went out and helped him push the car out of the driveway. Everyone one of my friend were totally surprised I did this and everyone of them said they wouldn’t have gone out and help him. And I understand their responses, I mean this is the time most would be throwing his stuff out in the snow, yelling and screaming at him and in general doing whatever to express their hurt, anger and pain at the person that just hurt them in the worst way. So how do I explain to them what I did? So it was very hard to explain to them how it was far worse for me to watch him struggling then to just go out and get him out of my driveway. Of course it can be explained and expressed but it take more effort than if I had just left him in the driveway because that is what people expected because they understand anger far better than anxiety. And anxiety is what was more powerfully me at that moment. 3rd There is the actual communication issues. When writting I am a horrible speller and I tend to think far faster then I write so I can end up something hard for the other person to read. If I am talking I have issues with eye contact, stumbling over words, not hearing tones correctly, not speaking in the correct tones because I don’t hear them. All those typical autistic kind of issues. This all mean even the act of seeking help can greatly increase my anxiety and I can will hit a point of burn out where I need to withdraw. And the last therapist didn’t work because I would go through all this and she responded with the equivalent “un hun, go on” We that doesn’t work for me, I need more feedback, more direction in the feed back. For example she might respond, ‘That is to be expected, as it is normal to feel that way.” but a response like that can leave me dangling. I may not actually know what feeling she is referring to. Also I believe most people feel comfort in feeling like the herd? but I don’t get any comfort from that. Knowing others feel the same can help me in understanding others and that can be helpful when dealing with others but it doesn’t help me in dealing with me. (This is one of those areas that is very, very hard to explain. I have found other autistic people get what I am saying but i find more atypicals don’t.) I spent a long time not even understanding this myself. I only learned I was autistic when my son was diagnosed in his senior year of high school. So I have only known for like 8 years, which might seem a long time it really isn’t. Everyday I still learn of new ways I am not like the majority of people and how it impacted my life and still does. You know how teens feel like no one understands them, they are different, a freak, all those normal growing pain kind of things. Well that is how my whole life has been. I now know that is how all high functioning autistic people feel. In some ways I am fortunate in that I recognized the fact that I was different from most other people early on (I think 6th grade is when I really, really understood that fact.) I didn’t know how I was different or why I was different but I knew for a fact I was. And because I knew that was a fact I was able to accept it. In some ways that made my teen years easier than some of my friends. I didn’t feel I fix in any better then them but I had accepted it so I didn’t even really struggle with trying. Instead I just looked for those that I would naturally fit with and be myself in many way. (When starting a new school which I did a lot, I just looked for the freaks and geeks and found friend actually pretty quickly.) So how does this matter today? in many ways. It is far harder to find the “Freaks and geeks” at 51 then 16. All my peers are not gathered in one building for me to observe and spot the individual i can relate too. And those I might relate too are most likely high functioning but selective in where they hang and who they hang with. So if i go to a meet up that is focus on exercise I am less likely to find a kindred soul then if I go to a game convention. But at a game convention most of the people are going to be half my age. Now I am not opposed to young friends but does present it’s own issues. In fact I do have one friend I see once a month or do. She is my daughter's age but we click very well. But she is harder to hang with because she has a far more active lifestyle. Also it hard to talk with her about thing like my kids or even my divorce because she is at the beginning of things and I am at the end. She in the flowering of her marriage and I have suffered the devastating end of mine. Of course all the communications issue listed above make things challenging as well. I only figured out recently that even though I might my time at the meet-ups I have been attending, they were still causing social burnout because they also generated a very high anxiety state. So I might have a great time but after say three event I would be burned out for a week or more. This week was a good week. Your response helped and seems to be the kind I am looking for, that is a positive. I have finished 2 big projects at work, lowering stress levels, I went to fun game previous friday and then another on thursday. Went to the water park with my daughter (I love the water.) I had lunch with my co-works this just past friday. But still anxiety is up and this morning i woke up all emotional. I was crying and obsessing about all I had lost. My friends, my husband and the life I knew and understood (or at least I thought I did.) I now know this is a response to anxiety. So I have to step back and re-coup at home. I also have to watch my buying habits because of late I think I am internet shopping in response to stress. What I don’t know is how long it will take me to re-coup. It can also make planning future events hard. If I plan things but then end up burning out an cancelling that really doesn’t help much. I am also not sure how much is going to lead to burnout. New activities are certainly going to cause more anxiety than things I know but I really am not at the point of having any routine activities with other yet. The only one I really have is once a month i go to an autism for adults support group. So far it is the only activity that really, really helps me. Even when there are issue at the meeting I still feel “at home.” I don’t feel like a fish out of water there. And I can really be myself in many ways I can’t anywhere else. This all started with me wanting to just explain why it was taking me so long to respond to you. I don’t even know if i have succeeding in do that I do now know I really needed to explain all this stuff to you. I have spent lot of time trying to get help in the past but because I didn’t know what what my needs and challenges were and those trying to help didn’t understand a lot of time was spent spinning wheels. Like with the last councilor. I would tell her I was frustrated, that i didn’t know how to proceed, etc… but she just didn’t get it and couldn’t find an effective way to connect with me and thus couldn’t help. I can say that at least at this age I have learned to spot spinning wheels quicker. When I was 19 I spent a month in a nice psyche ward. No one there had a clue of what to do with me and how to help, myself included. Very typical, especially in the 80’s that no one recognized I was a high functioning autistic, mostly because I was female because I had a ton of red flag. But it did mean that everything, including the med medication they finally settled on for me (we went through at least 4 different kinds) didn’t help me at all. What did help and why I finally showed signs of improvement was simply the time out for a month. I really suffering from extreme burnout for anxiety. So having a month of being pretty free from most social interaction and l social interaction that did occur were very structured and controlled, it allowed me to destress enough to somewhat deal with the real world again I saw the same kind of thing happen with my son. If I had know we could have gotten him better help and I think he would be at a better stage now. If nothing else his high school like would had been better, I am sure of it. So now I know not to wast time in a pointless direction or worse a direction that will only make things worse. I also think you should know how I found your response helpful and makes me hopeful. You gave me something concrete to research, learn about and explore in maybe understanding myself better, (The of needs i didn’t know about.) You asked direct question? It gives me a way to respond when i am at a lost. Direct question also tell me if you're getting what I am really saying or if some form of miscommunication is going on. Just restating what I said doesn’t mean someone is getting what I said but if they ask question about it I can then get a clue i they are in the same ball park as me. Finally, I promise some more direct answers. meet-ups I have attended: DFW gamers social happy hours ( like these as it is fellow gamers meeting at various bars, just hanging and talking geek stuff. I like these but they are random on when and how often they occur. Plus most have been on the dallas side of area, a bit far for me.) Beginner meditation: Was good but organizer ended it and I haven’t found a replacement like it. Barnes and Noble board game meet up: Again like it, have been to one so far but it is only monthly autism adult support group: Best for me but only meets once a month (really wish it was more often.) Shadowrun roleplaying game: Just been to the first one, it went well and it meets twice a month. It is a new group of people for everyone, so traditionally it really need to meet at least a few months before you know it it will continue or fall apart. (private home) DnD league playing at Game Store: This meets every thursday and i have been to 4 of these. It is going well, so far it has been the same players and same GM. (this means it socially stable for me.) Events like this can be trying for me on a weekly bases if games, players or gm change all the time, like they can at this kind of event. i have been looking for some kind of craft class or group I could join but so far I haven’t found one. Mostly it has been an issue of time and/or focus. A lot of them meet during the day, while I am work. And focus is often for young mothers learn crafts for kids and that kind of thing. But I am still looking. REVIEW OF GOALS It is very hard for me to give you things I want to do or achieve. As one of my big issue is that I really can’t find much that motivates me anymore. Though in you asking it did make me suddenly realize in part why my creative energy is so low. It that I have no one to share with. Sharing creative energy really gets things cooking and I really do thrive in bouncing around that energy but currently I am doing everything in a vacuum. I post to FB but get little feedback that way, usually some “like” hits. But no really exchange on the project. I thought maybe it was praise I was lacking but now I know it’s not that at all. It is that back and forth, that sharing of excitement, of developing and growing the ideas that I am missing. So when my battery runs out I have nothing to plug into and recharge it with. I really, really like what I do for a living. I don’t always like the job but I like what I do. I don’t want to move up because that changes what I do. I don’t want to manage people or even project. If I get bored in my career it is usually be cause what I am designing I can do in my sleep and it isn’t innovate or teaching me anything new. In that case I usually have to move to a new job. (If a company builds widget A and that is all they do, there comes a time you have to go to a company that builds widget B.) Currently I work for a company that does almost all custom work so all my widgets are different to some degree. Plus it is in a growing field/technology so there plenty to learn and grow with, without going into management. Though I love to learn and I am always open to going to training, classes, and self learning I see no benefit to a higher degree at this stage in my life. In general I have enough work experience that a higher degree give me little career benefits (unless I want to move into management, which I don’t) So from time to time I will take a college course for personal interest but it’s not a goal thing. I thought about traveling, but to be honest my social anxiety is so high these days travel something I dread more than look forward too. I have a passport so if there comes a day the bug bits I think I could just take off but for now it just make me nause to think about going abroad. I use to love camping but Texas has some many things that can kill you, snake and the like I am not sure I can reconnect with nature here. (I have always really, really hated snakes but at least in michigan if I encountered on I didn’t have to worry about any real danger. Not to mention scorpions, and the like you have here.) So day trips are about all I am up to these days. Plus camping is more fun with people and I have no one to camp with. I have thought about volunteer work but again couple of issues. 1st Social anxiety high so this could just ramp that up. And there are thing I am not emotionally ert ipped to deal with. for example I love animals but things stay with me. so if I offered to help with the local reque I would have to deal with the emotional trauma of the evil, cruel and sad thing that happens to these animals. But those things stay with me, I mean really I will remember them for life and they will haunt me. 2nd There is a jaded factor in me that I don’t know if i can get over. I have volunteered for various organizations in the past but over time I have become somewhat embittered with them. I see the waste and cons going on and find it hard to ignore. Basicly I find I can’t drink the cool air any more. For example I was a girl scout from 11 to 18 and then I was a Troop leader. But as a leader I was the national council push cookie sales like made. Basicly a troop meets 9 months out of the year. The second month in the council will start the campaign at the leader meetings to get the girls ready for cookie sale. Troops will then spend almost 2 months in cook sales and orders. then when orders comes in they will spend another month on delivery, rewards and booth sales. After that the council then spend at least another month debriefing leader on the sales. So for the girls a min. of 3 months out of 9 are focus on cookie sales. For leader the focus is at least 5 out of 9. What really kills with this is most troops could make more money in just 1 alternative fund raiser, like a 1 day bake sale. Most of the money still goes to National and mfg. As for national then spending the money back on the troops, well 5 months of that support is spent on cook sales promotion, paper work, and distributing. They do help fund the camps but Girl Scout camp really isn’t any cheaper than other camps I sent my children too. Plus only a small percent of girls actually go to the camps. They don’t supplement the price of uniforms and badges like boy scouts do. In fact you can often buy the uniform cheaper at a local walmart then you can from troop stores. As to the so called skill the girls learn selling cookie. Most could and more could have been learned by organizing small local fund raisers like a car wash. In fact cookie sale has devolved into shelling to friend and relative and those in turn taking form into work. The girls are not suppose to do door to door sales. The forms are just line item fill so not really math or account skills are needed. National supplies all the promotional and marketing. So what I was a corporate level organization getting a free sales force, giving back the mim it could. It had nothing to do with the girls. And there is a lot of pressure for leader to play ball the national way. So after a year as a local organizer I gave it up. I have encounter this with several volunteer organizations and I am now jaded about them. I think it is because i trust and really believe in the good work line and i don’t know how to deal with realization that maybe the good work isn’t as good as I thought or the fact that those higher up are lying to those below. I just don’t know how to see past that and believe once I see the neg. A very long way to say, if I found the right kind of volunteer opportunity I would be for helping but I am not driven to find one. Love: I am not driven to find a love of my life. I thought I had that and then after 27 years I learned, not so much. In fact not only was I not the love of his life he was able to lie to me, accuse me of things I never did, make me feel ugly and double who I am even down to the core of my feeling. As far as I can tell the love of his life is a woman 10 years younger then me, slightly dumber than me (barely graduated high school), into kinky Daddy/little girl S&M, her goal in life is to be a stay at home mom (yet when she had a baby, by her first husband, was willing to let the baby sit in a stinky diaper for ½ hour waiting for her husband to come home and change it and she ordered delivery pizza for her lunch on a regular basis), Knows how use makeup, wants to do craft things but doesn’t does none of them. I know in the end he dumped me because she gave him kinky sex and made him feel all manly because she would never beat him in anything he did with her. But do you know how hollow that make one feel. I mean if you meet my X you wouldn’t think he was that kind of man. You wouldn’t believe he need a woman who can be perceived as less than him is what he needed to feel better about himself. And on the face of it all it seemed like we were a good match and happy with each other. It wasn’t just me that was fooled to believing otherwise. I use brag about him at work, saying how I choose wisely. When I had a job with an hour community, he would make dinner. He didn’t get on me about doing thing like house work. In fact once a friend commented on the messy house and he pointed out that he was currently unemployed and by all right the messy house was his fault not mine. We did fight but no all the time and all the big stuff we seemed in agreement, religion, politics, money and kids. We shared the same friends. We did things together all the time, weekly games with our friends. Social parties and hangout with them on regular basis. Time to ourselves, dinner, movies, occasional weekend trips. Separate activities and interests, like I crafted and he liked to play Wow and civilizations, paint miniatures, read some of the same books and read different ones and share. The one failing most likely was sex. Supported him in all he wanted to do. First Navy, then school to get his journeyman but when he discovered he really hated that kind of work I support the change and he went back to school and got a degree in English. I didn’t look down when he was under employed for 2 years and then unemployed for another 2 years. I support the change to becoming a casino deals, which he was very excited about. But that too changed and he found it soul sucking so he took a temp job tech writing. I think he finally found a job he liked (unfortunately temp) so there were period of unemployment but I didn’t give him crap or blame him. An I would encourage his writing fiction which I truly liked. But he never was motivated enough to sell it. I personally think in the end he would have been happy as an editor but he has never pursue it. We had a sex life but I could have put out more often I just found doing it three times a week a bit hard because I was so tired after work. but I was willing to work on it. He said he was too but by the time we got to that point I didn’t realize it was too late because he really wasn’t interest in fixing things with me. I of course didn’t know that. I even did the Daddy/little girl thing with him. there were some things I rather liked, really but what I could do was be manipulative. I have learned that in the SM world the true power in the Daddy/Little relationship is in the Littles, they are very manipulative. It is there way of making the dominate feel in charge and in control but really it is all about them the submissive. This is something I am really, really bad at. So even if there were thing I enjoyed I couldn’t really give him what he wanted. He wanted to feel in charge of thing without really being responsible for anything. An example is an effective Little know when their Daddy wants sex and when they don’t (that in itself was hard for me to know.) The Little will then pick her time for approaching. See because the Daddy can turn the Little down but the Little can never turn the Daddy down. Also with en effective Little the Daddy never has to ask for sex either. So the little knowing the Daddy wants sex will ask before he might desire too. The turnly manipulative part is when she doesn’t want sex and the Daddy doesn’t she should then ask for sex knowing the answer will be what she truly wants. But this also give her banked credit. So down the line if there is a time she really wants sex but think the Daddy doesn’t she still might get sex because he will recall the times he has turned her down. But what about when she doesn’t want sex? Well in truth they are some of the best fakers and most likely the masters of fake it until you make it. Plus they seem more driven in keeping the Daddy under control that weather they really want it or not matters little to them (kind of like a porn star). Now this may not always be true but since this is what my x was into and I was willing to give it a go. I did a lot research, so I read it over and over on the porn/daddy/little blogs and the like. I also saw in person with other couples he introduced me to and I even saw it with him mistress in person with him. ( spent a year of crazy trying ot make things work and agreed to a three way relationship. Yeah stupid, big mistake but I really, really was not in my right mind. My friend really should have stepped in and discouraged it. Many knew but I think in their own way they really couldn’t believe it and want to see us work. They were open minded enough to see it possibly work but really didn’t look at if it was a healthy choice I was personally making.) Logically I think what really killed out marriage was all the years we didn’t understand I was autistic and he has borderline personality disorder. On my side it means I could perceive myself but was poor as expressing how I perceived him. I am guessing he saw me as cold at time but I didn’t even realize this because I could not tell and he didn’t say anything. There were likely times my tone of voice alone might have cause him to take hurt and I didn’t know it. By the same token because of his BLPD he was looking for me to be a mirror, to reflect back how I saw him so he could know who he was but I was a poor mirror. I remember reading up on BLPD and crying because they would give examples how best to communicate with someone with BLPD and I didn’t see how I was going to do it. It would be like telling me to save my marriage I had to keep eye contact with him all the time when talking but because of I am autistic eye contact if very hard to do and actually it can make it harder to listen to people. So I could keep eye contact but not hear what was said or hear what was said but the person wouldn’t feel like i heard. So lose, lose for me. This is the kind of issue I think lead to the down fall without me even seeing it coming. I don’t think he saw it either in the end. He was all emotion and reaction and that is why he really didn’t even want to try once he found someone that could meet reflex back the Big Strong man image he so wanted. So again a very long way of saying I am very, very damaged from my divorce and can’t see trusting anyone, let alone loving anyone again. Other goals It hard to come up with goals because I don’t know I am. This is really hard to explain with proper impact. I have always as far I can remember to the age of 4, known who I was. I have self identity, self away, what I liked, what I thought, what i cared about and what I didn’t care about, how I thought and why. I was sure of all these things, always. What I didn’t know was how I fit in the world, I often didn’t understand the world or the people in it. It was something the doctor had a hard time with whenever i was in therapy. Even when I hospitalized for that month after attempted suicide. They would talk about self esteem, confidence, blah, blah. The self harm really confused them back then (though I think they may understand it better now.) As a cutter they believed it had to be from some form of self hate. But it wasn’t, it was about anxiety relief. Somehow feeling physical pain and seeing the red blood soothe ed me. I would physically and mentally relax. (of course back in the day I didn’t understand what drove it and I still don’t fully understand it, especially the addictive quality to it) but they really didn’t get it. I liked myself, I thought I was a good person, a good friend and not to hard on the eyes. Yeah I was fat and wish I could lose weight but certain not worth killing myself over. (What is was overwhelming burnout that drove me to want to die. It was just to hard to do anything to the point the thought of nothing was stronger thing living. Again something I know know but I didn’t then and none of the doctor knew either.) But now after 46 years of know who and what i was at the core of my being I don’t know. It is one of the most disturbing things for me. I feel no really joy though I have had happy or content days now. Food overall is bland to me, which is a big improvement from the ash it use to taste like when my world first fell. We discussed the craft things, I not driven or excited by any project even when I do get an idea. I mean how do I set goals when I don’t know what I like or enjoy? I can only guess and take a stab at it. I guess in the end that is the overall goal. Know myself again, know my center so I can move outward and onward. GOALS I DO HAVE: BUILD SOCIAL NETWORK KNOW WHO I AM AGAIN FEEL JOY AND PASSION AGAIN

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kaitlynkearis · 7 years

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Essay 1- Media and Culture

This essays main focus was to write about media and culture. It was our first essay that we had written for the class. As you look through the portfolio I think you will see that my work has really changed and gotten better over the course of the semester. Out of the four we have done in total this is not my most favorite essays but one I would rather share. Enjoy.

Social Media and Our Lives

Everyone uses social media differently, we all have different opinions of what should be posted and what should be kept private. That being said, not everyone uses social media for the best or most positive reasons. Social media may have a negative impact on our daily lives which changes how we act in social situations as well. Therefore, social media affects not only our social lives but our daily lives as well by taking us away from living in the moment, making us less social, and making it easier to exploit others.

We are all guilty of being on our phones way too much and not being as present during time with family or friends. Depending on the situation you may be out at an event and spend most of the night worrying over capturing the perfect picture to post on social media later. Over the last few years since the GoPro came out and has evolved, they have become more popular especially for people into extreme sports who want to capture those moments. While you can’t necessarily take your phone, say skydiving with you, a GoPro is small enough and built to withstand extreme conditions just like skydiving. In the article “We Are a Camera” by Nick Paumgarten, it mainly discusses the wide variety of uses for a GoPro camera and the background of the camera. Paumgarten starts out the article with a story of him and a couple of his friends out mountain biking and how they choose to use their GoPros. They both lead off into the idea that a GoPro isn’t just for surfing or sports, it is also a great way to take amazing outdoor videos or pictures to create memories as well. Although I am not big on taking pictures, nor is photography any hobby of mine, I enjoy taking pictures to commemorate special memories. That being said there are times where I am finding myself focusing more on the picture/video taking than I am taking in and enjoying what is going on around me, much like Paumgarten’s friend. Paumgarten explains that his friend, Chase, while on a trip in the mountains had his camera rolling the whole time. While they were out on a bike ride the had encountered a herd of elk running along the trail and chase followed them. “So you’d think that, cameras on or not, he’d remember the moment with some fondness. But no. ‘It was hell,’ Chase says now” (Paumgarten 332). Since he did not capture the moment on camera, Chase thought of the whole run as pointless and thought of it as one of the worst things he has done. That is the mindset many carry and attributes to how we are constantly on our phones at events, such as concerts.

I have been to a few concerts and each time I find myself on my phone trying to get the perfect picture or video to remember the night by. As I don’t realize I am doing it in the moment I find myself regretting it the next morning or days to come. When I look back on these photos I realize I don’t remember much from the actual show as I spent it all on my phone. It is a problem that happens to a lot of us as we have so many different apps we can all access with a couple of swipes on our phones that we forget to take in our surroundings. We don’t always try and spend quality time with the people around us to make memories even more special. Pictures may be a thousand words but a memory is something more personal and more intimate to only share it with the few people you got to experience it with. While taking pictures of favorite artists when seeing them live in concert is still amazing and getting the perfect picture of them is even better, I still have regrets of not just enjoying the moment and make a point to do it more often when I am out with my friends. As I have learned, taking the pictures in the moment seems so important when really I never go back to fully look at them and reminisce on the memories that way.

Our everyday pictures usually do not lead to consequences, at least we think they don’t. There are occasions where pictures we take can lead to legal punishments. For instance, in the article “Why Kids Sext” by Hanna Rosin, there was an entire high school in Virginia that basically got busted for sexting. Girls had gotten caught up in sending “sexts” to their boyfriends or to boys they liked in order to impress them. Those boys eventually started to send the pictures to their friends and they started circulating to an Instagram page where they were all posted. Major Donald Lowe, who is brought on the case after one of the students tells the principal about the account, finds as almost every single girl from that school had been a suspect of sexting. He had a hard time figuring out how to go about the case and how to punish all the students involved (389). As Rosin talks with Lowe she writes that Lowe’s “characterization of the girls on Instagram morphed from ‘victims’ to ‘I guess I’ll call them victims’ to ‘they just fell into this category where they victimized themselves’”(Rosin 389). Most of the girls Lowe talked to did not feel any remorse over their actions. They had thought nothing of the sexts since to them they were consensual but because of their age it caused them a decent amount of trouble.

A situation related to sexting happened at my high school when I was a freshman although I was not personally involved and it was not on the same as the high school referenced above. It had been just one girl who I had happened to know at the time who had started to get involved with a guy who was a senior and a couple years older than she was and he used that to his advantage. Now nothing was mass posted on social media like the article but as the police got involved it became a bigger situation for her personally and she did not think it was going to be as big of a deal as it turned out to be. Yet situations such as this can and will most of the time escalate to severe punishments. Also just like many of the older girls in the article who Lowe told Rosin about, this girl had a mentality that she should not be in trouble because it was all consensual and did not understand the legal trouble she could have been in or the severity of it at all. At a younger age it is hard to think about all the consequences your actions can have, but the thought of going to jail is one of the easiest and scariest to remember. Once a person gets caught in the act of something that has heavy consequences it can be hard to process it. No one expects someone they trust to post such intimate pictures or to talk about them in a negative way over social media yet it happens more often than we think. Rosin was told by Major Lowe that a group of boys in an act to prove they were not committing any terrible crime, “showed him that he could type the hashtag symbol (#) into Instagram followed by the name of pretty much any nearby county and then thots (that ho over there), and find a similar account” (389). While the social media accounts like this may not be the most known or the ones popping up in the average person’s Instagram feed everyday, there are groups of kids who use and follow them. We are all familiar with the cyber bullying and probably have seen direct effects of it. There are still people who may post things without the person the post is about knowing. This causes the person who originally sent the sext to regret their decision and feel betrayed. Trust being broken by a close friend/significant other could be even more devastating since you have a stronger emotional connection with them.

Social media overall impacts our lives by keeping our attention, giving us easier means of impersonal communication and no strict limits on what can be posted. We use it to upload all of the pictures we take to show off the things we have accomplished to others when we capture a perfect shot. Some people definitely have photos they take that are personal to them that they may share with others that they trust. Sometimes that trust can be broken and there are negative consequences that could come to both parties. It still shows how we let our social media and our phones consume our everyday lives. We have all experienced using our phones to help get out of socially awkward situations and to most the phone has become a type of security blanket in a way. We can get so caught up in our phones that it can inhibit our social skills and how we go about our lives on a day to day basis.

Works Cited

Paumgarten, Nick. “We Are a Camera.” Emerging Contemporary Readings for Writers,

by Barclay Barrios, 3rd ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016, pp. 331-41.

Rosin, Hanna. “Why Kids Sext.” Emerging Contemporary Readings for Writers, by

Barclay Barrios, 3rd ed., Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016, pp. 388-402.

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