Emergency absence letter

I'm stuck in bed. I had a terrible night involving an incredibly high stress situation and woke up with fatigue, aches, brain fog, and a telltale malar rash.
My primary GP left for another province at the beginning of the month. My rheumatologist is only available by appointments every 6 months and they come by letter in the mail. I've had so many flares since being diagnosed that I know the signs instantly. They depress me because I know I have to just live with this. A flu gets better. A cold gets better. This is never getting better.
So I reached out to a virtual healthcare service for a medical note because my work expects one for any and all absences, even just a day. My only other option would have been putting my compromised immune system at further risk by spending 10+ hours in an already overcrowded waiting room filled with sick and injured people.
The person I spoke to gave a note but expressed doubt that I knew what I was feeling was a flare, even when I explained that I've been having them for years and am very aware of my triggers and symptoms. I had to give so much information just to get a medical note. She asked me what I'm going to do to improve my health... When rest and sleep and anti inflammatory meds is basically all I can physically do.
I know it's stupid but I can't handle having to fight for this stupid illness all the time, just to be heard and helped. I'm not seen as a valued member of society anymore. I'm so depressed. I have very few friends and I just needed to get this off my chest.
Thanks to anyone who listens.

Introduction
Someone reading this book may wonder what sort of audience is being targeted here. They may also be confused as to what the endgame is behind such a book. The aim of this book is to parallel the different religious & mystic traditions & connect them to the tropes that we find near death experiences propagate. They often are reconnecting us with what ancient texts have said but in the modern secular world where materialism is the norm we have become numb to the meanings & impact behind such text. These texts are often considered archaic & primitive. Unable to contribute much to the modern world they may only be useful in prayer chants.
Thus I aim here to revitalise the spirit of these traditions and connect them to what many call the modern day scriptures. The study of near death experiences, neuroscience, consciousness & other paranormal phenomena.
The endgame of the mystic is to connect, achieve union, knowledge and self growth. Thus by approaching all these texts and the various evolving thought that emerged from it, we can explore the parallels and connections that bridge the gap between traditions. The beauty of mysticism and perennial philosophy is the freedom it offers in interpretation.
This book doesn't focus on the question of whether scriptures are divinely inspired, man made tools written for sociological and political agendas or some sort of corrupted divinity. That discussion is a debate that will never end. Rather the focus here is on the possible wisdom & theological beliefs which parallel and mesh together well in forming a higher meaning & connection to the divine. Whether it be a higher power, an all pervading source or a metaphysical truth. You aren’t required to literally believe the divinity of these texts. A simple level of curiosity & intrigue is sufficient.
However one may contend that it is easy to parallel traditions when they are in harmony but when they differ they directly contradict rendering these connections meaningless and superficial. Therein lies the limitations of this book. Therefore the following concepts won’t be discussed in here. These are mainly :

• Unverifiable supernatural claims such as ancient miracles for instance Moses parting the sea, Jesus walking on water, resurrecting etc. For someone expecting this book to be a source of evidence for a specific religion it unfortunately won’t be. However there are multiple correlations and connections and these may act as subtle signs of evidence for a specific faith or multiple of them.
  
• Reconciling contradictions between belief systems and scriptures. For example whether the Divine is a trinity or a unity. Whether a certain sage was superior to another. For instance comparing the personality of Jesus with Muhammad, whether the Bible is morally perfect or not & a plethora of other beliefs that may not agree with one another. The book simply assumes they all are imperfect systems.
  
• The scientific debate on whether NDEs are classified as hallucinations or genuine supernatural occurrences. Whilst an interesting topic in itself, it is out of the scope of this book with many other books discussing the science behind ndes. However when necessary nde claims will be contrasted with naturalistic explanations.
  

The primary focus is in following a don't throw the baby out with the bathwater approach. Some may also contend that this book follows a shopping cart style of cherrypicking from texts and discarding beliefs from texts one subjectively finds inappropriate. To this I would simply say that the approach here is one of finding the parallels that align well together and acknowledging when a belief doesn't align well. Not necessarily a pick and choose system. An approach I would call the rational mystic.
The rational mystic is one who is simply open to what may be beyond their senses. They may be mystically inclined, fascinated and open to the plethora of supernatural ideas. However they will not blindly believe any and all beliefs. They will discern using rational faculties what of mysticism is most compatible with reality, what the data or evidence shows & what is more probable than not. I believe people of all beliefs or no beliefs can fit this definition. Whether you identify by a religion, as spiritual but not religious, non religious, atheist, deist or agnostic. Thus a skeptic or believer may able to gain an appreciation for these belief systems.
This book dives into the verses and parallels of ancient texts such as the Old Testament, Gospels, Quran, Hadith, Bhagwad Gita, Dhammapada, Tao Te Ching & Gathas of Zoroaster. Other older parallels such as from Vedic India, Ancient Egypt, Greece & Mesopotamia may be referenced.
Alongside that are the testimonies of NDEs and how they may parallel or differ to these texts. This book also attempts to provide commentary on major philosophical themes & elaborate on various exegesis, mystical traditions such as Kaballah, Sufism, Advaita Vedanta, Neoplatonism & Chinese thought. Since mysticism is ultimately about experience it relevant and useful to enhance these discussions by contrasts to various scientific ideas, philosophy & pop culture.
NDE Filter Methodology
One of the problems with ndes is the fact that they are subjective experiences which we cannot objectively verify or replicate. This makes them a weaker form of evidence compared to empirical studies which can replicate the results. These present a challenge. An individual nde may therefore be subject to embellishment, fabrications & delusions. Therefore in picking our choice of NDEs here we can only look at ndes as a whole in terms of statistical patterns that form. This is the methodology used in NDE literature by various academics including neuroscientists & philosophers researching the phenomenon.
To elaborate we therefore will discard testimonies that appear embellished with fantastical details. These fantastical details may also be subjective from person to person. Calling an otherworldly journey fantastical is simply irony. However in following the certain patterns that appear cross culturally in ndes it is much easier to identify reports that are considered fantastical. The following tropes appear the most across multiple nde studies.

• Out of Body Experience
• Tunnel of Light
• Meeting deceased relatives or unknown beings
• Perceiving a highly luminous pervading light
• Feelings of absolute peace, comfort & love
• Arriving at an otherworldly place ie a meadow, garden etc.
• Life Review
• Border of no return
• Pluralistic message about love & wisdom

There are of course other concepts that ndes reference which appear from time to time. These allow ndes to be flexible and not rigid experiences. After all no two nde experiences are the same. However using these motifs listed we can filter through unreliable ndes. These include

• NDE reports that are highly coloured with religious fundamentalist tropes particularly tropes promoting an exclusivist attitude to religion.
• NDEs that appear too detailed, fantastical & unrestricted appearing more like a science fiction or fantasy novel. For example nde claims of multiple lives on other planets or large scale prophecies & apocalyptic predictions & generally things that differ wildly from the core themes
• NDEs that talk too much about one specific spiritual concept, portraying themselves as special, prophets or mediums turning their nde into a narcissistic or monetary agenda through spiritual coaching, multiple books etc.

Finally one may say that the chapters of this book attempt to hint at the veracity of a religion & this book is a subtle attempt to proselytize that faith. I will reiterate that this book isnt trying to prove any specific religion. There may be subtle signs from one faith that fit better with the nde phenomenon than others. The following theories I would say explain these subtle signs. I leave it up to the reader to decide what they feel is the best explanation.

• Universal Divine Theory : This is the idea that prophets, mystics & sages from different cultures have been inspired through revelation from the same source & this explains the shared insights of a religion & ndes.
  
• Mystic Wisdom Theory : This simply means that certain religious writers and founders were simply wise spiritual men, mystically inclined honing on their intuition & knowledge.
  
• Intertextuality Theory : Each new religious founder simply built of older religious ideas assimilating it into their theologies.
  

Whilst these theories may suggest a subtle spark of corresponding truths, generally NDEs dont explicitly point to any religion. Some say its simply the case that a Christian will see Jesus, a Muslim will see Allah, A Jew sees Yahweh & a Hindu sees Krishna. This of course is not entirely true. The portion of ndes that claim to see Jesus form a minority & interestingly they too dont point at specific doctrines. NDE experiencers may simply describe a sentient light they perceive to be God. This being doesnt tell anybody that I am Yahweh or Allah. Experiencers will say that religious texts fall short of describing this being. It is beyond what people are taught in religion.
Those who are familiar with NDE reports and studies will know that NDEs tend to be very religion agnostic and at best subtly imply a religious correlation but rarely do we find massive amounts of nde reports cross culturally presenting exclusivist dogmas such as follow holy book x or you will burn, believe Jesus died for your sin or you will burn for eternity. When an nde does present this its seen as a red flag since this doesn't occur with the majority of other ndes. The most we have are subtle religious correlations. However NDEs do present us with certain philosophical dilemmas when it comes to religion.

• If NDEs are vague about religion how are we to interpret these religions ? Are we to see them as man made socio-cultural constructs ? Are we to see them as inspired by God but limited to their time ? Are we to see them as partially divine partially man made scriptures ?
  
• If NDEs prove that religions are man made we must ask what purpose the creator has behind the nde. If the creator has allowed man made cultures to negatively influence and control the world throughout history and has not intervened or communicated with humanity one must wonder what point there is in a nde being a message in the 21st century. So on one hand the NDE presents us with a deistic God who doesnt intervene and let false religions begin and on the other hand the God of the NDE seems very personal, involved in human lives, keeps tracks, feels love and joy for humans etc
  
• If one, many or all religions are truly divinely inspired why do NDES never directly point to this ? NDEs seem more concerned in lessons but not in pointing people to a religion.
  

Some may ask what difference does it make that it doesnt point to a religion. if anything NDEs show us that God is far beyond the narrow confines of religions. It makes an immense difference when we factor the fact that religions have influenced entire cultures and civilisations in good and bad ways. Religions have been used to wage war, cause destruction, control the masses, brainwash, confuse and build fear into the human subconscious. And on the good side religions have given hope to the world that suffering isnt in vain, that life has meaning & that justice and ultimate happiness exists.
For alot of people the need to connect to the transcendental is insatiable and religion provides a whole structure of beliefs that one can organise themselves on. For some this is very restricting and enforces a cultural dogma on to everyone. They may prefer a shopping cart version of religion where they take whats good for them and discard what they disagree on. For others they prefer to deny all religious concepts as dogma and cultural beliefs. One could argue that humans need the cultural clothing of customs and traditions to keep their lives going, something which they can use to relate with to the divine. Not everyone can believe in an abstract deity that they cannot conceive of in the absence of symbols such as scriptures.
Religious texts provide at the very least a gateway to which one can relate through stories of heroes, morals and metaphors of the divine. Of course none of this leads us to whether said divine being has revealed these texts, whether they are inspired but corrupted by man or fully man made. These symbols act as aids in feeling like we have a piece of the divine soul with us thus giving comfort and hope. Thus whilst some have no need for religions, for the masses religions have immense value.
So why dont NDEs prove religion ?
There are no clear answers to this (unless somebody has an nde and asks whoever they speak with to tell them in specifics what religion is from God and whats not) all we can do is speculate. The ndes that do ask or do mention a scripture are so few that we cannot form any conclusion on this.

• The simplest answer is that all religions are man made for good or bad intentions but this would of course lead us to the philosophical deist dilemma.
• Perhaps the NDEs message focuses on the lessons and ideals itself and sees scriptures and religions as redundant (even if there is a divine hand behind some) After all these are mainly symbols and cannot compare to a direct mystical experience (something fundamentalists struggle with)
• Perhaps an attempt to promote any specific faith would lead to an assumption that the nde message is about exclusivist salvation and leading to the worship of scriptures/religions (something fundamentalists struggle with)
• Perhaps this proves that religions are limited to their century and context and that we should only look to them for the universal timeless message they offer not the specifics. After all all major scriptures teach the core values that NDEs have revitalised ie love, mercy, kindness etc

Do NDEs support materialism or not ?
While the aim of this book isnt to debate the afterlife or brain hypothesis, I will say that at the time of this being written, my view on ndes is to say that I consider them a plausible source of evidence towards consciousness surviving death & the afterlife existing. This view of mine may change in time towards either side. The following are some reasons I would argue for them being plausible.
1 Veridical NDEs : Numerous NDES report out of body experiences including witnessing of events in an environment when this should not be possible. More than 100+ veridical cases have been documented. Not to mention veridical cases from across different countries which further strengthens the case. We would have to be radically skeptical to consider all of these testimonies fabricated.
2 Lucid narrative : NDERS experience a highly lucid narrative that usually doesn't end in the middle or chaotically unlike dreams or hallucinations. Their ndes tend to be structured with a beginning, middle and end where they are either told, know or are sucked back into the body. This is quite a strange experience compared to delirium, delusions, hallucinations etc.
3 Deceased Relatives : Most NDES claim to see deceased relatives rather than alive people supporting the afterlife hypothesis. We should expect a mixed cocktail of alive & deceased people appearing in ndes if this was a case of dreams or hallucinations. The population that do claim to see a mixed group of alive and deceased is quite a small proportion of total ndes.
4 Intuitive Reality : NDERS are very convinced that they are in a hyper real reality that makes this world seem black and white, like a dream/illusion as some would say. They are intuitively convinced they are in something real the way we might be talking in person, as opposed to it being just a dream. In one study its believed that nders brain recollect their nde as if it's a real world memory.
5 ESP claims : NDERS may perceive no time at all, may experience a life review such that they can feel the feelings of others and recall memories long forgotten. They may feel like they intuitively know things without needing to learn. Some may report greater vision and detail than waking life, ability to hear thoughts, instantaneously appear, be in two places at once or pass through solid walls.
5 Religious Expectations : NDES often may contradict the beliefs of many Christians, Atheists and Muslims who have varying beliefs about the afterlife. Some may be surprised to experience the things they see & are particularly surprised at the ESP abilities as these are not predicted by religions. Particularly interesting are religious conservative ndes with more exclusivist beliefs who are surprised and end up becoming more pluralist and liberal.
6 Clinical Death Scenario : The best NDE studies focus on scenarios whereby the person undergoes cardiac arrest and thus clinical death. At this time a person has no heartbeat, no breathing, dilated pupils, no light reflex, no gag reflex and EEG reading of little to no brain activity. This is consistent with unconsciousness as no blood and oxygen can fully reach the brain. Furthermore the fact that most undergoing clinical death dont report any experiences means NDEs are odd occurrences & consciousness should not occur.
7 Transformation : NDERS often are transformed in their beliefs with less to no fear of death, detachment from the material, more interest in altruism and spirituality and are impacted by their NDE for decades, remembering it far more than a hallucination or dream. They see it as the most important experience of their life.
8 Double edged sword : The fact that not everyone has an nde may support the idea of nde being more than brain activity. After all if the nde simply was some evolutionary dying mechanism we would expect everybody to have one. This point could also support naturalistic hypothesis (See below)
However there is still uncertainty regarding the nde phenomenon and further data, & studies are required to build a case that is greater than just plausible. These are some opposing reasons to consider doubt in them valid
1 Embellishment : NDEs are unverifiable and therefore we cannot verify which ndes are authentic or which ndes are embellished over time with the nders own thoughts, interpretations or exaggerations. This makes it easier for fabrications and frauds to claim an nde experience.
2 Brain Activity : Since NDES happen during clinical death or unconscious states where a persons brain can be returned to living we cannot be sure that there isnt some deeper brain activity that causes an nde. We also cant be sure than an nde isnt happening in the window where cerebral blood flow hasnt ceased or in the window where CPR leads back to cerebral blood flow. EEG machines also have certain limitations such that they cannot detect deeper brain regions due to the skulls electrical resistance. EEG spikes may occur due to muscle twitches & electrical noise which can often make it harder to differentiate whether this is due to the NDE or not.
3 Cultural/Religious Contradictions : If we keep an open mind, its entirely possible that a Western nde could see Jesus, an Indian nde see Buddha or an Indian nde see Jesus & a Western nde see Buddha. It seems this can be reconciled by the idea that ndes are customized to fit what comforts people subconsciously. Japanese NDEs for example see a bridge/river symbolizing journey to another world, Westerners a portal/tunnel. Westerners relate best to Jesus, Easterners to other figures. However some ndes provide conflicting metaphysical views. This can be an issue with some ndes if nde 1 says they were told to keep reincarnating until they reach nirvana, nde 2 says something more fitting to abrahamic faith. nde 3 says hell doesnt exist and nde 4 says they saw hell realms.
4 Double edged Sword : This point can be argued for ndes (See above) but also against ndes. Only a small percentage 10-20% of those under cardiac arrest are said to have experienced an nde. This point leaves questions as to why aren't all people experiencing an nde. Should we not expect a larger proportion say more than half of people to experience an nde ? If there is a realm beyond the material should we not expect every person to experience an nde. A low proportion may mean that the nde is some sort of brain anomaly. We only have speculations as to why all dont get an nde.
5 Future Science : Current materialistic explanations may be inadequate to explain ndes but this doesnt mean that future understanding of the brain may not yield a new theory/explanation that explains it away. Thus it remains a potential argument.
All of these points are worthy discussions on their own and can be found in various other valuable books. The above points are simply a valuable framework by which the reader may be able to take away what they value out of this book. Everything written is simply my own research into the subject & I always advise people to take it with a grain of salt unless it makes rational sense to you & appeals to your intuition.
Diving into the depths
Spirituality & mysticism can be thought of as two sides of the same coin with philosophy the ring that runs the circumference of the coin. While spirituality deals with the human aspects such as soul, spirit, ego, morality & purpose, mysticism deals with the divine aspects of things such as essences, attributes, metaphors, realities, realms, entities, space, time, substances etc. We aim to dive into the following themes in this book.
The Divine Source : Everything relevant to defining the higher power & source of existence including essences & attributes.

Consciousness & Spirit : Everything relevant to the nature of consciousness, qualia, perceptions, the spirit & soul.
Reality : Everything relevant to the nature of perception, illusion, concepts, space, time, substances, modes, forms & realities.
Spirituality & Purpose : Everything relevant to the nature of human meaning, objectives, purpose & suffering.
Morality : Everything relevant to values, ideals, ethics & morals.
Knowledge & Truth : Everything relevant to the nature of seeking truth, seeking knowledge & attaining wisdom. These include concepts such as beliefs, truths, axioms, speculations, nature of inspirations & revelations.
Awakening & Dark night of Soul : Everything relevant to the nature of materialism, spiritual awakening, seeking inner peace, anxieties, depression, remorse, angst & layers of the psyche.
Divine Sorrow : Everything relevant to the nature of the eschatological souls corruption, redemption, purification, punishment, divine justice & mercy including modes & forms.
Divine Bliss : Everything relevant to the nature of the souls destiny, ultimate peace, happiness, bliss & divine love including modes & forms.

North Carolina House Bill 237: https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2023/H0237
Here is a list of 120 members of the North Carolina house, with names, parties, and e-mail addresses. I've personally written non-templated one-off letters to a few of the Republican legislators.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GpkGfaCko3h3G5xI_vLf51L0Qa90mzFo5lJm05ewDOg/edit?usp=sharing

My feeling is that we need to be strategic about this:

• Probably more useful to write to Republicans, esp. if they have a history of being moderate/centrist
• Regardless of how you feel on the protests, it is probably in our best interest to write sounding like we're "appalled by the recent rioting and law-breaking, and sympathize with efforts to rein things in", before mentioning the needs of masks for cancer survivors. Remember, we need to be strategic and smart about this and not have the entire message be discarded.

One thing that might have a better chance of working is a common-sense appeal to reword the bill (vs. just saying "please vote no"). A simple idea could be, "please clarify that masks can be worn by law-abiding citizens not involved in any 'disturbance of the peace', provided that they are carrying an ID and are willing to show it to a peace officer". (Yes, I don't agree 100% with these restrictions, again, it's about being strategic with R's in gov't and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good -- this is an emergency for the disabled and health-conscious community.)
We need to be smart and put all hands on deck. Sharing the list in case people want to write to a few. Don't write to all of them with a low-effort copy/paste template, instead make it somewhat personal. I'd suggest trying to find moderates and picking some people you feel might connect with your message. Not sure this will work, but honestly, not sure what else to do and feel we need to at least try.

For anyone who feels lost trying to apply for accommodations on the MCAT, you are not alone! I will try to keep this short with as much information as possible. Please feel free to DM me with any personal questions!
Accommodation History

• Junior year of HS, my ACT tutors recommended I get a neuropsychological evaluation for support for extra time on the ACT due to clear signs of ADHD and testing struggles.
• Received full 2 day neuropsych eval outlining my ADHD and testing struggles.
• Received time & a half on all standardized tests (SAT, ACT)
• Received time & a half on all college assessments.

First MCAT Attempt - Normal Timing
I took the MCAT with no accommodations on 6/17/23. I scored below 500 (which was not consistent with my practice exams, but I remember being extremely nervous on test day, really running out of time, and only being able to guess on the math questions because I had no time to attempt them).
Reasons For Not Originally Attempting To Apply For Accommodations:
AAMC requires a neuropsych eval that has not expired within 4 years. My eval had just expired. It is pretty expensive and time consuming to get this done.
Didn't want to spend the time and money on a new neuropsych eval.
AAMC accommodation process seemed tedious and intimidating. I almost felt like I would be using my time better by studying for the MCAT instead of working on the application.
The stigma surrounding ADHD/receiving extra time on tests - I think I wanted to try to "overcome" my disability because of the fear of being judged..Especially when thinking about how doctors don't receive extra time in the real world. However, I can confidently say that there is no reason to feel judged for finding what works best for you as an individual and as a test taker, especially in order to "level the playing field". And we all know the MCAT is not comparable to real life emergency situations.
Important Resources/Documents I Submitted When Applying for Accommodations:

• Received a new neuropsychological evaluation.
  • As I said before, this can be extremely costly. Unfortunately, I do think this is absolutely necessary.
    • AAMC posted this Lower-Cost Evaluation Option for those who cannot afford pricey testing: https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school/article/university-clinics
• Submitted previous neuropsych eval from 2017.
• I attended the same school from Kindergarten - 12th grade. I reached out to them and asked if they kept my report cards and notes from teachers throughout my academic career. I chose quotes from teachers that highlighted my ADHD-like tendencies throughout my time at the school.
• Reached out to the ACT to have them send my approval of taking the ACT with extra time.
• Submitted my ACT score when I tested with normal time & after testing with extra time (to show improvement)
  • a screenshot of your score is fine, just make sure your name is shown somewhere in the screenshot.
• Letters from High School + College explaining proof of receiving accommodations.

What I applied for (Applied on 10/24/23):

• Standard Time & 50% (This means testing over 2 days)
• Stop-The-Clock Breaks
• Extended Section Breaks (Only get one 10 min break per day when testing over 2 days)

First Decision Received by AAMC: (11/28/23)

• Approval for Standard Time + 25% (testing over 2 days)
• Stop-The-Clock breaks (30 min per testing day)
• Extra 5 minutes of break time for a total of 15 minutes, as opposed to 10 mins.

Wrote a Reconsideration Letter on behalf of myself & had my evaluator write a reconsideration letter.
Submitted this reconsideration letter on 12/22/23
Received Final Decision & Approval of What I Initially requested on 01/20/24.
This was a really long post and an extremely long journey. While I am extremely grateful that I have all these resources to share with you, I acknowledge that every situation is different. Please don't give up if you truly feel you deserve certain accommodations. The MCAT does not define you!
Good Luck & feel free to message me with any questions!!

My wife is a member of the NYC DOE and had the pleasure of navigating all the different red tape necessary for parental leave. Our daughter was born in early March. She applied for the 6 weeks of Parental leave and then 6 weeks of FMLA to stay on the insurance. We got an email saying she was approved, all was good. But then recently, we got a letter saying mid-April was our last day of insurance and asking if we wanted to enroll in Cobra.
After days of phone tag/being on hold/being rerouted, someone finally told us she was denied the FMLA because she had 18 absences (even though some of these were deaths in the family and approved absences), and so they put her on the unpaid parental leave which does not have insurance instead of the 12 weeks of FMLA (which the first 6 would have been concurrent with paternal leave)

1. Does anyone know of any rule or specific documentation saying you can't have 18 absences? We've looked everywhere and all we can find is that to be eligible for FMLA you have to have worked for at least 1 year and worked 1250 hours in the 12 months prior to the FMLA start date
2. Shouldn't they have denied the request in SOLAS? Why would they automatically change her to a different leave type with 0 notification and then approve it (I know why, because it's the DOE). Am I crazy in thinking this is totally absurd?

Any help with this would be appreciated. I am currently out of college, and my study permit expires in July Last week. However, my new one is on the way. I also have a visitor visa on my passport, valid for 10 years. I plan to return by the last week of June, and hopefully, my new study permit will have arrived by then. I need to leave due to an emergency. Is this possible, and what should I do when I enter the airport? Should I show an enrollment letter from my new university, and is there any specific process I need to follow?

Reddit Account: aelfin
Discord Tag: Bolt1219
Name and House: Dorian Hightower
Age: 80
Cultural Group: Reachman
Appearance: Once tall and strong and proud -- a knight of renown -- the passage of time has seen fit to humble Dorian Hightower. The gold-brown hair of his youth has bleached to silver, his countenance marked by wrinkles. He wears his hair long, often unbound that it frames his features. His beard is neatly styled. Despite the betrayal of his body, Dorian's eyes remain sharp and quick, and his smile is that of a younger man.
Trait: Mastermind
Skill(s): Devious(e), Espionage(e), Assassin
Talent(s): Napping, Meandering, Gardening
Negative Trait(s): Sickly
Starting Title(s): Beacon of the South, Defender of Oldtown, Defender of the Citadel, Lord of Oldtown, Lord of the Hightower, Lord of the Port, Voice of Oldtown
Starting Location: Starting Event
Alternate Characters: n/a
Biogaphy Early Life
In 55BC, under a golden sun in the bustling city of Oldtown, Dorian Hightower was born the second son to Lord Leyton Hightower and his wife Leona Bulwer. His early childhood was marked by a sense of curiosity and an inherent noble pride that was expected of a Hightower; against a backdrop filled with the sounds of the bustling harbour, the smell of the sea, and the sight of a forest of sails coming and going. Oft he would watch the ships as they sailed away and wondered where they went
From a young age, Dorian showed a keen interest in learning and the world around him. His education was that expected of one of his lineage; lessons with the Maester were as important as that of his martial education. At just ten, he was sent to Highgarden to squire for House Gardener. There, amidst the vibrant gardens and rich traditions of the Reach, he learned the values of chivalry, honour, and the importance of duty. His time at Highgarden left a lasting impression on him, fostering a deep respect for the knightly traditions that would shape his later life -- which would make the later actions of the Tyrells sting all the more,
At one-and-seven, Dorian’s path took a scholarly turn. Sent to study at the Citadel, immersed in the halls of knowledge, he began forging his maester's chain, dedicating himself to the studies of copper for history, bronze for astronomy, and iron for warcraft. His mentors noted a sharp intellect and strategic mind, qualities that would serve him well in the years to come.
The Heir to the Hightower
In 35 BC, a marriage united Dorian with Leila Tarly, a match both strategic and affectionate. At the age of twnety Dorian became a father, welcoming his first child, Garlan, into the world. Over the years, the Hightower family grew with the births of Garmund, Delena, Owen, and Lynesse. Each child brought new joy and responsibility, shaping Dorian into a devoted father and a wise lord.
The Stranger visited the Hightowers in 20 BC, when Dorian's older brother, Leyton, the heir to the Hightower, was lost in a shipwreck while returning from a journey to Braavos. At five-and-twenty, Dorian was thrust into the role of heir, a position he had not anticipated. Embracing his new responsibilities with determination, he began learning the intricacies of rule, administration, and justice from his father. Living in Oldtown, the heart of the Faith of the Seven, also imparted a deep spiritual awareness in Dorian. The more he learned, the more he was put into positions of authority. Initially undertaking a role as his father's Steward, Dorian learned quickly that he was much too bored by numbers to be anything close to competent. He was better at dealing with people.
Through his dealings his network grew, and this network, he recognised, could be turned toward the flow of information. The ships he had watched as a boy carried trade, but they also carried words from half the world away. If he could find a way to hear those words before any else, he'd have an advantage -- not only in trade, but in politics as well. Setting to work, Dorian used his House's name to tour as often as he could, finding those in key places that would serve his ends for the right price.
Life and Trials
As the head of House Hightower, Dorian instilled in his family a profound sense of fairness and the importance of knightly traditions. He stressed the values of chivalry and gallantry, ensuring that these principles were deeply rooted in the Hightower legacy. His household became known for its adherence to these values, earning respect and admiration throughout the Reach.
He was an avid hunter, frequently organising grand hunting expeditions in the lands surrounding Oldtown. Not merely for sport, these hunts also served as opportunities to bond with his children and vassals. One notable hunt saw Dorian bring down a formidable stag, a feat that became legendary in his household.
Dorian’s daughter Delena married Harlan Tyrell after a secret tryst, a match that Dorian did not initially support but ultimately was forced to accept. His youngest daughter, Lynesse, found a husband in Willem Ryger. A man whom Dorian had mentored in the art of espionage, and who would later go on to prove the most succesful spymaster in the country.
Feasts at the Hightower were grand affairs, known throughout the Reach for their opulence and hospitality. Dorian believed in the power of communal gatherings, often using these occasions to strengthen alliances and resolve disputes. The harvest feast was a particularly notable event, drawing his vassals to Oldtown to celebrate the bounty of the land, and to reaffirm their loyalty to House Hightower.
From the Ashes:
Family life, however, was not without its hardships, and the Hightowers not immune to tragedy. The House faced a profound loss when Garlan, Dorian's eldest son, was killed on the Field of Fire, turned to ash by dragonfire. This tragedy left Garlan's young son, Gwayne, as Dorian's heir, a heavy burden for the grieving boy to bear at such a young age. By then Dorian was a man nearing his sixtieth decade, not young by any stretch, and so particularly attension was paid to Gwayne's education near to the exclusion of all else. A small army of learned men were brought in to cover every aspect that would eventually be required of him. Dorian hardly went anywhere without his grandson in tow. The Seven Kingdoms might have been united, but the dawn of this new age was eclipsed by Dorian's fears that he would pass before his heir was ready, and he had known many a House felled by the poorly equipped.
Dorian levied from Lord Hightower against House Costayne of having refused the call to rally at Oldtown, backed by the word of the High Septon. A host marched on Three Towers but was met with denial from Lord Costayne who eventually demanded a trial by combat. Gyles Gardener offered himself as champion, and for his victory was given rule over Three Towers, with the fallen lord’s kin being exiled to Essos. Aegon Targaryen was crowned in the Starry Sept upon their return.
In 8AC, a band of sellswords by the name of the Black Roses arrived in Oldtown, headed up by Harlon Costayne, offering cheap mercenaries for the city and protection for its trade. Dorian put to them a challenge, a trial by combat to determine if the Seven stood with the Roses. Pit against a knight of Oldtown, the Black Roses emerged the victorious party, and Dorian issued them leave to remain so long as they served the Reach and her interests.
25AC
Life is a loan, and eventually all men's accounts are settled in full. Having passed into his eightieth year, Dorian Hightower knows the end is nearing for him. Age wracks his body, though his mind remains sharp. He has prepared his grandson as best as he could have done, and all that remains is the wait until his last, content in the knowledge. For the first time in a decade, the Lord of the Hightower has descended from his perch and travels towards King's Landing.
Timeline:
55 BC - Birth of Dorian Hightower

• Born in Oldtown under a golden sun, second son to Lord Leyton Hightower and Leona Bulwer.
• Early childhood filled with curiosity and noble pride, amidst the bustling harbor and forest of sails.

45 BC - Dorian Sent to Highgarden

• At ten, Dorian begins to squire for House Gardener at Highgarden.
• Learns values of chivalry, honor, and duty which leave a lasting impression.

38 BC - Scholarly Pursuits at the Citadel

• At seventeen, Dorian studies at the Citadel.
• Forges his maester's chain with links of copper (history), bronze (astronomy), and iron (warcraft).

35 BC - Marriage to Leila Tarly

• Dorian marries Leila Tarly, a strategic and affectionate match.

35 BC - 30 BC - Birth of Children

• Garlan Hightower is born when Dorian is twenty.
• Followed by Garmund, Delena, Owen, and Lynesse over the next five years.

20 BC - Death of Leyton Hightower

• Dorian's older brother Leyton dies in a shipwreck, making Dorian the heir at twenty-five.
• Dorian starts learning rule, administration, and justice from his father, becoming his Steward.

15 BC - 10 BC - Expansion of Dorian's Network

• Dorian uses House Hightower's name and tours frequently to build a network for intelligence.

10 BC - Dorian Becomes Lord Hightower

• Dorian instills values of fairness and knightly traditions in his family.
• Known for organizing grand hunting expeditions and legendary feats.

5 BC - Marriage of Daughters

• Delena marries Harlan Tyrell after a secret tryst.
• Lynesse marries Willem Ryger, a man mentored by Dorian.

5 BC - 1 BC - Grand Feasts and Gatherings

• Feasts at the Hightower are renowned for their opulence and hospitality.
• The harvest feast draws vassals to Oldtown to celebrate and reaffirm loyalty.

0 AC - Tragedy at the Field of Fire

• Garlan, Dorian's eldest son, is killed in battle.
• Garlan's son, Gwayne, becomes Dorian's heir, leading to intense focus on his education.

5 AC - Conflict with House Costayne

• Dorian accuses House Costayne of refusing to rally at Oldtown.
• A host marches on Three Towers; Lord Costayne demands trial by combat.
• Gyles Gardener wins and takes rule over Three Towers.

8 AC - Arrival of the Black Roses

• The Black Roses, a sellsword company, arrives in Oldtown.
• Dorian issues them a trial by combat; they emerge victorious and are allowed to stay.

25 AC - Dorian Prepares for the End

• Travels to King's Landing for the first time in a decade, content with his preparations.

AC
Name and House: Gwayne Hightower
Age: 30
Cultural Group: Reachman
Appearance: Gwayne stands the perfect example of the Hightower ideal; in him are the echoes of his father and his grandfather and the knightly traditions of the Hightower. He boasts hazel-hued eyes that are dominant green, alight with curiosity. His hair seems to shfit between a gold and a shade dark brown dependant on the light. Oft seen in the colours of his house; smoke greys cut with whites or greens.
Trait: Champion,
Skill(s): Swords, Andal Knight(e)
Talent(s): Hunting, Hawking, Harp
Negative Trait(s): n/a
Starting Title(s): Heir to the Hightower, Ser
Starting Location: Starting Event
Alternate Characters:n/a
Family Tree: https://www.familyecho.com/#view:SZ32K
Biography:
Born in 5BC, the firstborn son to Garlan Hightower, Gwayne was bathed in a viridescent light, anointed with the seven oils and named in the rainbow of light that filled the sept in the Hightower. This act alone is reserved for the heirs to the Hightower, a ceremony to mark them from birth as defenders of the Faith. His early life was a happy one, though he recalls little of the time. His mother and father were truly in love. Only two years later after his birth would his brother follow, and their two sisters after them. His grandfather's hall and hearth was filled with the laughter of children.
It was Garlan Hightower who held command of the Hightower host the fateful day that dragonfire swept across the Field of Fire, who perished there on the field, and whose bones were turned to ash and no longer able to be laid to rest. Gwayne was too young to grasp the reality of it, and before long his Grandfather had him learning with such intensity that he hardly had time to process the fact his father wasn't coming home.
Life turned into a steady routine of learning. His lessons consisted of how to act at court, his histories, his number and letters, and martial training in the yard. He would be woken before the dawn and not be permitted to bed until the sun had slipped away and night had fallen. Recklessly bold, oft he would attempt to climb the exterior of the Hightower and be scolded for the act if discovered.
His first true test at arms came when in the form of pirates. They had made their home in a cove and would strike out at ships fat and ripe with goods. Gwayne rode out with a small band of men, headed up by his uncle, Owen. For a week they scoured the coastline looking for signs of their quarry, and eventually, one night, sky unclouded and stars bright, they saw the fires. Come the dawn the charge of the Reachmen sent the pirates srambling for their weapons, and though they put up a fight, they were cut down to a man and their ships burned. Of those that surrendered, they would hang at the port in Oldtown as a stark reminder. For his bravery Gwayne was given their Valyrian Steel sword, Vigilance, upon his return.
He would seek out his glory in the lists after that, travelling the length of the Seven Kingdoms looking to make his name as a knight. Tourney followed tourney, but at each stop he remembered to paya visit to the local Sept and offer prayer. He lent a hand where he could. Sometimes he found friends, sometimes he found foe.
When the Orphans of the Fire descended on the Reach, Gwayne wished to march out and chase them down, but Dorian refused him -- and as well he did, for the chaos wrought by the Orphans might have claimed him, and Dorian was adamant that he would not lose another heir to fire. The inaction rankled at Gwayne, but he heeded his grandfather's words all the same.
Now, in 25AC, with Dorian ailing and a celebration called, Gwayne travels toward the event and prepares himself for what may come.
Timeline: 5 BC - Birth of Gwayne Hightower

• Born as the firstborn son to Garlan Hightower in the Hightower.
• Anointed with the seven oils and named in a ceremony reserved for heirs, marking him as a defender of the Faith.

3 BC - Birth of Gwayne's Brother

• Gwayne's brother is born, followed by two sisters, filling their grandfather's hall with children's laughter.

0 AC - Death of Garlan Hightower

• Gwayne's father, Garlan, perishes in the Field of Fire.
• Gwayne, too young to fully understand, is immersed in intense learning by his grandfather, Dorian Hightower.

1 AC - 15 AC - Intensive Education and Martial Training

• Gwayne's routine includes court etiquette, history, numbers, letters, and martial training.
• Known for his reckless boldness, he often attempts to climb the exterior of the Hightower.

15 AC - First Test of Arms Against Pirates

• Gwayne rides out with his uncle Owen and a small band of men to combat pirates.
• After a week, they locate and defeat the pirates, hanging the survivors in Oldtown.
• Gwayne is awarded the Valyrian Steel sword, Vigilance, for his bravery.

16 AC - 23 AC - Knighthood and Tournament Circuit

• Gwayne travels the Seven Kingdoms seeking glory in jousting tournaments.
• Pays visits to local Septs to offer prayers and help where needed, making friends and foes along the way.

20 AC - Orphans of the Fire Incident

• The Orphans of the Fire descend on the Reach.
• Gwayne wishes to march out but is restrained by Dorian, preventing potential harm.

25 AC - Current Events

• With Dorian ailing, Gwayne prepares for a celebration in King's Landing, aware of the responsibilities and challenges ahead.

First of all, I want to thank
CodingOnCaffeine
for their post. I cannot comment anymore but it was super helpful. Make sure to check it out as it is very comprehensive. I pretty much submitted everything they mentioned. We applied in NY for a marriage based green card in Sept 2023 (sent to USCIS Chicago lockbox). We got married in August 2023 and had been together for 4 years. I (Beneficiary) came to study to the US from Mexico in 2020 on a student visa and was on OPT STEM when applying. My husband (Petitioner) is an American citizen.
Checking the timeline on USCIS wasn't dependable as it would change from a 4 month wait to 2 months and then 4 again. We would also check this website and we could see who was getting approved and when they had applied. We tried not to check every day as we realized it caused us a lot of anxiety. What ultimately helped us was contacting our Senator and within a month we received the approval notice (no RFE and no interview). We received approval on April 25th '24 and the physical card on May 6th '24 (9 month wait total).
Here's what we included in our package:
1. G-1145 (also included one with each form)
2. I-130 (husband petitioning for me) a)Cover letter b) Check c) 2 Passport photos (husband) Form I-130 Form I-130a a) Copy of Petitioner's (husband) birth certificate b) Copy of P's passport c) Copy Marriage certificate d) Relationship statement f) Third-party affidavits from family/friends (5) g) Copy current joint lease h) Copy previous joint leases i) Evidence of joint checking and savings accounts j) P's investment account's beneficiary k) Copy of joint car insurance l) Copy of Beneficiary's (wife) emergency contact from employer m) Copy of B's individual statement account n) Joint travel documents o) Phone records p) Venmo transactions q) Splitwise transactions r) PPT of photos s) Whatsapp conversations t) Wedding caterer invoice
3. Form I-485 a) Cover letter b) Check (I-485 and biometrics services fee) c) 2 Passport photos (wife) Form I-485 a) Copy of B's (wife) passport and visa b) Copy of expired passport with previous visas c) Copy of B's birth certificate (with official English translation) d) Copy of B's most recent I-94 record and visa entry stamp e) Marriage certificate f) Copy of B's current EAD g) Copy of B's offer letter from current employer h) Copy of B's current and previous I-20 forms Form I-864 a) Copy of P's previous W-2s b) Copy of P's federal taxes (2 years) c) Explanations of P's lack of federal tax returns in 2020 (while a student) d) Copy of P's offer letter from current employer e) Copy of P's pay slips from previous employer f) Copy of P's offer letter from previous employer g) Copy of P's birth certificate as proof of US citizenship h) Copy of first page of P's passport as proof of US citizenship i) Copy of B's pay slips (3 months) j) Copy of B's W-2 k) Copy of B's 1040
4. Form I-765 (employment authorization - just in case green card didn't arrive on time - STEM OPT expiration date was Sept '24) a) Copy of most recent I-94 record and visa entry stamp b) Copy of passport and visa pages c) Copy of F1-OPT STEM EAD card
5. Form I-693 (medical examination and vax record)

• Eva Galstian in NY ($150 if paid in cash)
• DO NOT OPEN ENVELOPE

Make sure to keep a copy of everything and keep it as orderly as possible. From what I've read this helps with the process in general and in case you get a RFE. I read as much as I could online and watched Youtube videos explaining how to fill out each form. I also kept a Google sheet where I could track everything and add helpful links. You need a lot of time to check and re-check everything, get translations notarized, get affidavits, etc. so give yourself plenty of time. As stressful as the whole thing was, I enjoyed going back to our relationship and revisiting old photos and messages. Reading affidavits from our close ones also made me tear up. I do feel like I aged 10 years during the process and had a lot of anxiety so know that you're not alone! I will try to answer questions but I am not a lawyer and did the whole process w/o one, again - just reading online and getting information from USCIS.gov.

Does anyone have anything similar they have gone through? I work 2 jobs, about 6-7 days a week just depending on scheduling. One is an office job at a finance firm, the other serving and bartending. I have anorexia. I’ve been in decline for awhile, but I have no external family support, and I cannot afford taking leaves of absence at this time without risking complete financial ruin. There is no family to help me. My therapist last Friday called me to her office in person (first time meeting ever face to face) and told me I had 7 days to check into an inpatient facility, or she would be involuntarily hospitalizing me, citing mental and physical issues. Obviously I’m depressed and anxious, but I’m not suicidal. I’m not in immediate danger. I’m not even UW. I have had some stomach issues and recent emergency room trips, but those were unrelated to my ED, but definitely not made any better by my ED. These are the “physical issues” she is citing. Come to find out after fighting for my life these last 5 days to not have to go on a leave, I find out through other providers AND the eating disorder IOP program I am in right now in my state, you cannot involuntarily hospitalize an adult for an eating disorder. I’m spinning in circles. I feel like my therapist lied to me to make it seem like I had to do what she said or else. This was her way of almost “tricking” me into treatment on “my own volition.” I couldn’t even look her in the eyes last session. I get she was doing what she thought was best, but what she did and implied to me was NOT LEGAL. I feel extremely uncomfortable and I have lost all trust with her. I don’t want to therapy hop, it’s exhausting to start all the way over again with someone new. And I really liked her up to this point. I never had any complaints ever. I’m just very lost and hurt. Has anyone - or any therapists out here, have anything they can give me advice on? Much appreciated :)

As far back as I can remember, I had always been passionate about the great outdoors. My love for the wilderness began when I joined the scouts, exploring the diverse landscapes of Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. I was never a huge fan of the dry, barren landscapes, but camping provided a much-needed escape from the monotony of Orange County suburbia.
The first time I visited the Pacific Northwest, I was enchanted. The scenery was breathtaking—majestic mountains, lush fields, and meandering rivers. It was clear that anyone who praised the desert's beauty had never laid eyes on the Cascades. Seeing grass and wildflowers growing without irrigation was practically a revelation.
When I was old enough, I moved to Washington state, immersing myself in nature every weekend. My adventures took me hiking through dense forests, camping by serene lakes, and occasionally taking mushrooms under peaceful waterfalls.
I joined several online forums dedicated to outdoor enthusiasts. One community that particularly fascinated me was the Northwest Tomb Raiders. This group of history buffs and thrill-seekers was dedicated to uncovering artifacts, whether Native American relics or treasures hidden in modern ruins. Many members were collectors, fencing their finds to museums and archaeologists, which made it a rather profitable side gig, should you be lucky enough.
In the fall of 2009, an intriguing post appeared on the forum. A user named Lokk claimed to have discovered a cache of artifacts with Scandinavian origins. He couldn't carry everything back due to the treacherous terrain and his age, so he shared the coordinates, hoping someone else could retrieve the items. I scrolled down to see a few posts of people planning to loot it in the Spring, when the paths have reopened. One user, Patagooner, planned on going as early as possible.
Excited by the prospect, I gathered my two friends, Carl and Noah, for the expedition. They weren't as enthusiastic about camping as I was, but after I told them how much a single arrowhead goes for on the black market, they were on board. It was the start of winter now, which had its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, the rangers would have a harder time spotting us. On the downside, the harsh conditions posed a serious challenge for two inexperienced hikers.
I must’ve blown about four grand at REI on gear for them, justifying it with the knowledge of how much more I would make with two extra packs. That is of course assuming there really were as many artifacts as Lokk had said, and Patagooner hadn’t beaten me there.
The journey began like any other. We met in the pre-dawn darkness and went over our supplies, ensuring we had everything we needed. By mid-morning, we were on our way, my pickup truck winding up the mountain paths. The roads of Olympic National Park were the epitome of the raw, untamed beauty of the Pacific Northwest.
They snake through ancient forests, where towering Douglas firs and Western hemlocks create a verdant canopy overhead. Mist clings to the trees, giving the landscape an ethereal quality. Occasionally, the forest would open up to reveal breathtaking vistas of snow-capped peaks and deep, shadowy valleys.
As we climbed higher, the landscape grew increasingly desolate. The dense forest thinned out, replaced by rugged terrain and jagged rock formations. The air grew colder, and the first flurries of snow began to fall, dusting the ground in a thin, white layer. The road became narrower and more treacherous, winding precariously along the edge of steep cliffs.
Finally, a road closure blockade signaled the end of our journey in the truck. We unloaded three dirt bikes—one mine, two rentals—and continued up the trail. The bikes roared to life, carrying us several more miles into the wilderness. The trail twisted and turned, cutting through dense underbrush and over fallen logs. The snow began to fall more heavily, blanketing the forest floor and muffling the sound of our engines. The world around us grew quieter, more isolated.
Eventually, the snow became too deep to traverse by bike. We dismounted and prepared to continue on foot. The silence of the forest was profound, broken only by the occasional rustle of branches in the wind. I checked my modern GPS, its screen displaying the coordinates and a relief map of our destination.
The cold air bit into our cheeks as we trudged through the snow-laden forest. The silence was almost oppressive, broken only by the crunch of our footsteps and the occasional call of distant wildlife. The GPS indicated we were close to our destination, but the dense underbrush and uneven terrain made progress slow.
Suddenly, Carl's excited whisper cut through the stillness. "Hey, look at that!"
He pointed to a small, furry creature ambling through the trees. It took a moment to realize what it was—a bear cub, innocently exploring its surroundings.
My heart sank. "Carl, get back," I hissed, my voice low but urgent. "Where there's a cub, there's a..."
Before I could finish, a massive shape exploded from the trees. The mother bear, easily three times the size of the cub, charged at Carl with a ferocity. She was a blur of dark fur and powerful muscles, her roar echoing through the forest.
"Run!" I yelled, but it was too late. The bear was upon Carl, swiping at him with her massive paws. He screamed as he fell to the ground, the bear towering over him. Desperation and adrenaline surged through me. I grabbed the nearest heavy branch and swung it at the bear, hoping to distract her.
Noah joined in, shouting and waving his arms. We had to be careful; one wrong move and she would turn on us. The bear snarled, turning her attention away from Carl for just a moment. It was enough for him to scramble backwards, clutching his bleeding arm.
"We have to get him out of here," I shouted to Noah, who nodded, fear etched on his face. The bear, still enraged, seemed torn between attacking us and protecting her cub.
Using the brief respite, we hauled Carl to his feet. His face was white, and he was clearly in shock. Blood soaked his sleeve, dripping onto the snow. "There's a ranger station about two miles from here," I said, my voice shaking. "We need to get him there. Now."
We half-carried, half-dragged Carl through the forest, every shadow and sound heightening our paranoia.
Finally, after what felt like forever, the small, wooden structure of the ranger station came into view. We had been avoiding the rangers to keep our expedition secret, but now it was our only hope.
Pounding on the door, I prayed for a quick response. The door creaked open, and a weathered face appeared. "What happened?" the ranger demanded, taking in the sight of Carl's bloodied form.
"Bear attack," I gasped. "We need help."
The ranger's expression shifted from suspicion to urgency. "Get him inside. We've got a first aid kit and a radio."
As we eased Carl onto a makeshift bed, the ranger inspected his wounds. "You're lucky," he said after a moment. "The cuts are deep, but they missed any major arteries. He'll need stitches, but we can handle that here. No need for an airlift."
The ranger's face darkened as he turned to me. "What the hell are you boys doing out here?”
I hesitated, "We... we were just exploring."
The ranger's eyes narrowed, his anger palpable. "Exploring? In a restricted area? In the middle of winter? Are you out of your minds?"
He worked quickly and efficiently, cleaning and stitching Carl's wounds. Carl winced but stayed silent, his eyes closed in pain.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous it is out here?" the ranger continued, his voice rising. "The storm, the wildlife... This area is off-limits for a reason! You should have known better." he said, pushing a finger into my chest.
"We'll stay here for the night," he continued, "The storm's getting worse, and it's too dangerous to move him now. We'll reassess in the morning. And count yourself lucky I don't arrest your asses."
Night fell quickly, the storm outside growing more ferocious with each passing minute. The howling wind battered the small ranger station, and the walls creaked under the pressure. We huddled in the main room, the tension thick in the air.
The ranger looked at us sternly. "I need to check the perimeter and make sure everything is secure. There are things out there you don’t want to encounter, especially in this storm."
"Things? What do you mean?" Noah asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
The ranger's expression hardened. "Just stay put. No matter what you see or hear, do not leave this cabin. Understood?"
We nodded, the seriousness in his tone leaving no room for argument. "We'll stay put," I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.
The ranger grabbed his coat and shotgun. "I'll be back in an hour. Do not leave this cabin." With that, he opened the door and stepped into the raging storm, disappearing into the darkness.
As soon as the door closed, I turned to Noah. "We need to go. Now."
Noah's eyes widened. "Are you crazy? He said to stay put."
"If we wait until morning, we'll be escorted out of here and lose our chance. This might be our only opportunity to find those artifacts."
Noah hesitated with uncertainty "But... what about Carl?"
"He'll be fine here. The ranger can take care of him. We have to do this now."
Reluctantly, Noah nodded. "Alright. Let's take what we can and go."
We quickly looted extra gear from the cabin. I checked the GPS one last time before we slipped out into the storm, the cold wind battering us.
The snow fell heavily, obscuring our vision as we slogged through the forest. The ranger was nowhere in sight as we made our way towards the our destination, each step filled with trepidatious excitement.
The storm began to die down as we approached the coordinates. We stepped into a clearing where the undisturbed snow lay like a pristine white blanket. In the center stood an ancient, weathered stone altar, encircled by intricate wooden carvings, delicate metalwork, and beautifully crafted statues. The sight was breathtaking, a treasure trove, a veritable museum of paganism.
Noah and I exchanged glances, our eyes wide with amazement. "Do you see this?" I whispered, barely able to contain my excitement.
"We're going to be rich," Noah replied, his voice trembling with awe. "These must be worth a fortune!"
We approached cautiously, as if the vision before us might disappear. The craftsmanship was stunning. I reached out to touch a carved wooden idol, marveling at the detail. "This is incredible," I said, my voice barely audible.
We began to load our packs with as many artifacts as we could carry, each one more exquisite than the last. It was beyond our wildest dreams. We were so engrossed in our task that we didn't notice the small figure watching us from the ridge.
It wasn't until I turned to leave that I saw her. A young girl, maybe eight years old, stood there, her blue eyes wide with curiosity. She was dressed in simple, rustic clothing, her blonde straight hair blowing gently in the wind. For a moment, we just stared at each other.
"Noah," I whispered urgently, nudging him. "Look."
He turned, his eyes following my gaze. "What the...?" he muttered, his voice trailing off.
The girl took a tentative step forward, her eyes fixed on the items in our hands. There was no fear in her gaze, only a quiet intensity that made my skin crawl.
"Who are you?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
She tilted her head slightly. "My name is Sigyn."
"What are you doing out here, Sigyn?" Noah asked, his voice shaky.
"I live here,"
"You live here?" I echoed, incredulous. "Is there anyone else around?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Where?" Noah demanded, looking around nervously.
"Everywhere," she said with a giggle.
The way she said it, so matter-of-factly, bothered me deeply. Noah and I exchanged a look, both of us trying to figure out what to do next.
"We can't take her back to the ranger," Noah started, "We'll lose everything."
I nodded, my mind racing. "Sigyn," I said slowly, "we need to know who else is here. Can you help us?"
She looked at me with her piercing blue eyes, then said, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" Noah asked.
"For what's going to happen to you," she replied, her voice tinged with sadness.
"You need to tell us what's going on," Noah said, grabbing her arm roughly. "Why are you out here alone?"
She looked up at him, unperturbed. "I am not alone," she said softly.
Before we could press her further, a loud, guttural mooing sound echoed through the clearing. We turned towards the direction the girl had come from, and there, emerging from the shadows, was the silhouette of an elk. As it approached, my stomach dropped. Its body was a grotesque amalgamation of life and decay. Its skull was fully exposed, the eye sockets dark and empty. Large patches of its ribs were visible, the flesh around them rotted away.
The elk's movements were slow and deliberate, its head swaying as if in a trance. It walked directly towards us, its hollow eyes fixed on Sigyn. The closer it got, the more the stench of death filled the air—a nauseating mix of decay and earth. I fought the urge to retch.
Sigyn stood up, her expression calm. The monster sniffed her gently, its nostrils flaring. Without a word, she climbed onto its back, mounting it like a horse. It was a surreal and horrifying scene ripped straight from a nightmare.
As she settled onto the elk, she looked back at us, "A thief in the night shall reap what he sows," she said, her voice carrying an otherworldly echo. "Beware the price of stolen dreams."
With that, the beast turned and began to walk away, Sigyn riding it into the shadows of the forest. We stood there, frozen in place. The realization that we were in far over our heads began to sink in. This started to feel like a trap.
We need to get out of here," My voice trembling. "Now."
We turned to leave, our packs heavy with the pilfered goods. But as we took our first steps, the forest around us seemed to come alive. Shadows moved among the trees, and whispers floated on the wind. I quickened my pace, glancing nervously over my shoulder.
"Did you hear that?" Noah asked sharply,
"Just keep moving," I commanded.
A figure emerged from the shadows, blocking our path. It was a man, tall and gaunt, his eyes burning with an intense light. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked, his voice cold and menacing.
"We're leaving," I stammered. "We didn't mean any harm."
The man smirked, and with a swift motion, he raised his hand. More figures appeared, closing in on us from all sides. We were surrounded.
"Run!" I shouted, shoving Noah forward.
We sprinted through the forest, branches whipping at our faces and legs. The figures pursued us, their footsteps silent and relentless.
Noah stumbled and fell, his pack spilling open. Statues scattered across the ground, glinting in the moonlight. "Help!" he cried, scrambling to gather the items.
"Leave them!" I shouted, pulling him to his feet. "We have to keep moving!"
But it was too late, their hands seizing us. I struggled, kicking and thrashing, but their grips were too strong. They forced us to the ground, binding our hands with rough, coarse ropes.
"Please," I begged, "Don't hurt us."
The man who had first appeared stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with amusement. "A thief in the night," he mocked.
They dragged us through the forest, the trees closing in around us like a cage. We were at their mercy.
In the distance, I could see the elk standing at the edge of the clearing, Sigyn still astride its back. Her eyes met mine, and for a moment, I thought I saw a flicker of pity. But then they turned away, disappearing into the shadows once more.
We were dragged into the heart of the forest, our struggles futile against the unyielding grip of our captors. As we broke through the treeline, a massive bonfire came into view, its flames licking the night sky. Shadows danced around the clearing, cast by the flickering light. A woman stood at the forefront, her presence commanding.
Her eyes were milk white, devoid of pupils, and her long, flowing white hair cascaded down her back. She was completely naked, her skin pale and marked with intricate symbols. Atop her head, she wore an elk skull, its antlers extending like eerie, skeletal fingers. She beat a drum emblazoned with more of the same cryptic symbols, each thud resonating deep within my chest.
Around the fire, about two dozen people stood, all drinking from crude, horned cups. Their faces were solemn, eyes fixed on the woman as she led them in a haunting chant. The atmosphere was thick with a mix of reverence and intoxication.
We were forced to our knees before the woman, who paused her drumming to look down at us. Her gaze was haunting, as if she could see into the very depths of our souls.
"Who are you?" Noah demanded, his voice trembling.
The woman ignored him, raising her arms to the sky. The chanting grew louder, the rhythm of the drum faster and more frenzied. The air around us seemed to vibrate with energy, the flames of the bonfire growing higher and more intense.
I glanced at Noah, fear mirrored in his eyes. The woman began to speak, her voice low and melodic, but filled with power, in a language I couldn't understand. Suddenly, she stopped, lowering her arms. The chanting ceased, and an silence fell over the clearing. She looked directly at me, her white eyes unblinking.
En tjuv i natten skördar vad han sår, akta dig för drömmar som du stjäl och får.
Hans skratt bevakar lundens gömda stig, där skuggor sveper över skogens liv.
För varje stulet andetag och svek, måste en tjuv möta sitt smärtsamma ödelek.
Tricksterns vilja, vår ande här, så i hans nåd, våra liv bär.
I was terrified and confused. She started again, softer, in a way I could understand.
A thief in the night shall reap what he sows, beware the price of stolen dreams.
His laughter guards our hidden groves, where shadows cloak the forest's seams.
For every stolen breath and lie, a thief must meet his painful end.
The tricksters will, our spirits tie, so in his grace, our lives suspend.
The crowd surged forward, grabbing Noah first. He screamed, his terror echoing through the trees as they pulled him towards a makeshift altar beside the bonfire. The woman chanted louder, her voice rising in a hypnotic rhythm as they began their gruesome work.
They stripped him of his shirt and bound his arms to a wooden frame. I tried to move, to help him, but the grip on my shoulders tightened, pinning me to the ground.
The woman approached Noah, holding a knife with a blade that gleamed in the firelight. She started to slice into his back, her movements deliberate and unhurried. Noah's screams pierced the night as she methodically carved the shape of wings into his flesh.
Blood poured from the wounds, soaking the ground beneath him. The crowd's chant grew louder, almost drowning out his cries. I watched in horror as the woman reached into the incisions, breaking the ribs and pulling them outward, creating a parody of wings.
Noah's agony was unbearable to witness. His screams turned to whimpers, his body convulsing in pain. The woman didn't stop until the work was complete, his lungs exposed and hanging grotesquely from his back.
They lifted Noah's broken body and placed him over the fire. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, making me gag. His life ebbed away as the flames consumed him, the once vibrant light in his eyes fading to nothing.
The woman turned to me, her expression devoid of mercy. "You will meet the same fate," she said, "He demands it."
The smell of burning flesh and the sight of his broken body over the fire was seared into my mind. Despair settled over me as I closed my eyes.
A deafening blast shattered the night. My eyes flew open to see the shaman stumbling backward, a gaping wound in her chest. She collapsed to the ground, her white eyes staring lifelessly into the void.
The villagers turned in shock as another shot rang out, this time hitting one of the men holding me. I twisted free from their grasp and saw the park ranger standing at the edge of the clearing, a pump-action shotgun in his hands. He fired again, the sound echoing through the forest, before one of them tackled him to the ground.
"Run!" he shouted, his voice raw and desperate. "Get the hell out of here!"
I didn't need to be told twice. I sprinted into the darkness, the chaos of the clearing fading behind me. Branches whipped at my face, and the snow underfoot made every step a struggle. I could hear the sounds of fighting and gunshots, but I forced myself to keep moving.
The cold air burned in my lungs, but adrenaline pushed me forward. I didn't stop until I reached the station, my legs threatening to give out from under me. I burst through the door and slammed it behind me.
Inside, Carl lay where we had left him, his face pale and twisted in pain. I stumbled to the radio, my hands trembling as I fumbled with the controls.
"Mayday, mayday!" I yelled into the microphone. "This is an emergency! We need help! Please, someone, come quickly!"
Static filled the room, punctuated by my ragged breaths. I repeated the call, my voice growing more frantic with each passing second. Finally, a voice crackled through the speaker. "This is Ranger Station Bravo. What's your location? Over."
I could barely form the words. "Olympic National Park! The ranger station near mount Christie! We're under attack! Please, send help!"
"Copy that. Help is on the way. Stay put and stay safe. Over."
I collapsed to the floor, my body trembling with exhaustion and fear. Carl moaned softly, his eyes fluttering open. "What… What happened? Where's Noah?”
Tears streamed down my face and I found myself choked up. “He’s gone, man. Help is coming.”
The minutes stretched into an eternity as we waited. The wind howled around the station, and every creak and groan of the structure set my nerves on edge. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched, that the forest itself was closing in on us.
The radio crackled again, this time with a different voice. "Helicopter en route, ETA fifteen minutes. Prepare for extraction."
I glanced at Carl, his eyes filled with confusion. "Hang on. We're getting out of here."
As the minutes ticked by, I couldn't help but think about the ranger. He had saved my life, but he hadn't made it back. My mind conjured up images of what might have happened to him, the cultists overwhelming him in the darkness. A sense of guilt gnawed at me, knowing he had sacrificed himself for us.
The sound of rotors cut through the night, growing louder as the helicopter approached. I ran to the window and saw its searchlight piercing the treetops, scanning for the station.
I helped Carl to his feet, supporting his weight as we made our way to the hatch. The helicopter hovered above, lowering a rescue basket. The wind from the rotors whipped the snow into a frenzy, but I didn't care. Salvation was finally here.
We secured Carl in the basket first, and I watched as he was hoisted up, disappearing into the safety of the helicopter. My turn was next. I realized that I was now alone and exposed. Fear coursing through me as I scanned around the edge of the forest, expecting to be grabbed and taken seconds before my rescue. But the moment never came. As I gripped the rope, I took one last look at the forest below. The flames of the bonfire still flickered in the distance.
I was lifted into the air, the ground falling away beneath me. The helicopter's crew pulled me inside, and I collapsed onto the floor still holding onto my pack, my body finally giving in to exhaustion. The doors closed, and the helicopter banked away, leaving the horrors of the park behind.
Weeks had passed since the harrowing events, but the memories clung to me like the bitter cold. I had returned to civilization, seeking solace in the familiar chaos of the city. I found a wealthy collector through a network of contacts. The artifacts fetched a price tenfold the cost of gear. The money was substantial, but as I held the cash, it felt like a hollow victory.
Noah's absence weighed heavily on me. His disappearance was chalked up as a missing persons case, and despite my best efforts to explain what had happened, no one believed me. The authorities conducted a search of the area, but they found no trace of the cult, the artifacts, or the clearing. It was as if the forest had swallowed up all the evidence.
I returned to the site where we had parked the truck. The dirt bikes were gone, stolen by opportunistic thieves, but the truck remained. I drove back in silence, the road winding through the dense forest. For a moment, I thought I saw the girl watching me from atop a ridge until I realized it was just paranoia. I stepped on the gas a little harder.
Back home, I checked the Tomb Raiders forum again. The post that had led us into the forest was gone, deleted without a trace. I messaged the mods, but apparently, they don’t keep records to maintain confidentiality. I wrote about our experience, detailing every terrifying moment, but the responses were skeptical at best. Most dismissed it as a work of fiction or a desperate cry for attention.
Time passed, and I tried to return to a semblance of normalcy. Yet, the wilderness called to me stronger than ever. It was my sanctuary, the only place where I could find peace amidst the turmoil. I spent more and more time outdoors than ever before, but now it always felt like I was just running from something.
Determined to prove what had happened, I returned to the forest with a camera and recording equipment. This time, I documented every step, capturing footage of the trees, the snow, and the eerie silence that hung in the air. I retraced our path, hoping to find the clearing again. But each night, as I reviewed the footage, something strange would happen. The files would be corrupted or entire segments missing.
I pressed on. I found the site where Noah had fallen, the ground still bearing faint traces of what had happened. I set up the camera and began to speak, recounting the events in detail. As I spoke, a cold wind swept through the clearing, and the camera's screen flickered. I finished my account and turned to check the recording, only to find the file corrupted once again, the footage replaced by static and a faint, mocking laughter.
I returned home, defeated and exhausted. My attempts to share what I had experienced were met with disbelief and ridicule. The files I managed to save were corrupted beyond recognition. It was as if the forest itself was conspiring against me.
Almost exactly one year later, as I browsed the forums, a new post caught my eye. It was cryptic, eerily similar to the one that had led us into the nightmare. It spoke of another trove of artifacts, hidden deep within the wilderness, waiting to be claimed.
The post was signed with a new name: Skygge. Different handle, same style. Another trap. They had taken so much from me, left scars that would never heal. I opened my drawer, my fingers brushing over the cold metal of my weapons. This was the moment I had been waiting for. This time, I'll be ready.
The forest’s secrets won't remain hidden forever.

Serendipity would have it that in the final stages of editing my manuscript I learn about the Berkley open submission call (thanks to u/cogitoergognome for that, by the way). Nothing like a deadline to focus my efforts! Plus, I've spent the past month or two analyzing and critiquing other people's query letters, and have learned an immense amount, so I want to fulfill my promise and offer up my own work in turn. A few questions I'd like you all to consider:
-Is it advisable for me to pitch my novel as having "picaresque elements"? It's the best descriptor I could come up with, given the novel's inspirations (for example, I would've put Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road as a comp if it wasn't too old). Is picaresque still marketable at this point?
-The most iffy part of the whole query for me is the last blurb paragraph, which I've struggled with. It's mostly there to convey that the novel has no central "antagonist" other than the main characters' own awfulness, and to a lesser extent the banality of the world around them. Do I need to modify anything about this paragraph to get that idea across, or just get rid of it entirely?
-I was considering the idea of mentioning in my bio that I'm on the autism spectrum, but I don't want to make it seem like I'm using that as some kind of gimmick or angle. Is it advantageous or disadvantageous for me to mention it, or does it not actually make much of a difference?
All right, enough of my stalling. Ladies and gentlemen, sharpen your axes:
Dear Berkley,
I am submitting this query to your 2024 open submission call. I hope it is to your liking.
KASURA: A TALE OF SURVIVAL is a 119,000-word fantasy novel with picaresque elements, à la Candide by way of Conan the Barbarian. It concerns a trio of misanthropes on a fruitless quest for purpose, navigating both a brutal desert world and their own personal failings. It will appeal to readers of desert fantasy such as C.L. Clark’s The Unbroken and stories with the grim atmosphere of Hannah Kaner’s Godkiller.
Gera knows better than anyone: in the desert world of Kasura, the only victory is survival. A deformed hunchback enslaved from birth to a subterranean prison-city, only two things have kept him alive: his aptitude for languages, and an alchemical alteration preventing him from speaking any falsehood. Embittered by a lifetime of abuse, his sole desire is a peaceful life on the surface.
Opportunity arises when Ayyad, a young one-handed amnesiac prisoner, disrupts the prison arena’s gladiatorial battles with forbidden magic. Gera takes advantage of the ensuing chaos by recruiting both him and another prisoner: Vn’ab, an exiled noblewoman with unparalleled fighting skills and a remorseless disposition. Together they mount a desperate escape to the world above.
Yet freedom is only the beginning of their woes. Kasura offers no safe haven, and to survive they enter into the service of an army traversing the endless salt flats atop an immense mobile fortress. Just as they think themselves safe, they witness firsthand their hosts obliterate an entire town with terrifying incendiary weapons. Fearing they will be their next victims, they flee into the wilderness, hoping to reach a settlement at the other end of a continent-spanning network of caverns replete with forgotten terrors.
Above all else they are their own worst enemies. Gera is damned by his own tongue, always truthful even when it compromises his safety. Vn’ab refuses to confront her past misdeeds, struggling with complicated feelings about her religious authority’s declaration that she no longer has a soul. She nearly kills Gera when he mocks her for it. Ayyad is even more troublesome. Not only does he periodically sacrifice what little remains of his memory to fuel his magic, but also comes to believe that he is the reincarnation of a mythical godlike figure. Gera must appease each of their delusions and failings as all three desperately claw at the world, seeking survival.
Bio: I am a [profession] who has presented at numerous science-fiction and fantasy conferences, and has contributed to the upcoming publication [name of scholarly publication], set to be published on [date], 2024. I will also be presenting at [name of conference] on [date of conference]. I am a lifelong devotee of The Twilight Zone, and enjoy tabletop role-playing games, medieval history, and watching competitive Tetris matches.
Best Regards, [name]
FIRST 300:
A thin sickly ray of light framed Gera as he stood behind the black iron gateway, peering out at the arena. There a gigantic spider, the length of two men end-to-end, devoured the swiftly-liquefying remains of a fighting-man. The spider, nicknamed “Old Hairfinger,” had been concealed in a pit beneath the sands, and its sudden emergence was startling to some, comical to most. A minor diversion at the start of the day’s bouts.
A minute ago, its meal had been “Urvam the Hawk-Snake,” mighty warrior of the canyonlands and would-be revolutionary. A “hero,” some called him.
Such was the fate of all heroes: to be consumed. As if they were never born.
Gera watched, somewhat disinterested. He heard, or felt, rather, the chants of the assembled crowd above, vibrations pulsing through the stone walls. The sun-dwellers from the surface had come down to the Pit, paying their entrance fee with bits of metal or shapestone. There, in the huge alcoves above, they came to see the strongest and most cunning of the undercity satisfy their bloodlust. To fight and, frequently, to perish.
None were there to see Gera, of course. They wouldn’t be. He was only a purpletongue, as imprisoned as the rest of the undercity. He was born a prisoner, and, he expected, would die as one.
He listened to their jeers, delivered in a dozen tongues, all known to him. His knack for languages served him well. Little else did: he was a most unsightly thing, with his misshapen hunched back, his flat nose, his bulbous eyes, his wet, jagged voice, and of course his tongue, deep purple and ever-wriggling.

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm which is on the subject of the existence of a society of animals living on the Manor Farm. One first thinks that this novel is about the animals living in a farm from the title. But as the story goes on, it gradually begins to make the readers understand the depth content of the workings of society in Communist Russia. George has accurately compared the society of human to the animals to the animals living in the Manor Farm. In this novel, author has compared the Russian revolution, where animals represent the significant personage and act as the leaders in the Russian Community. Animals are used to demonstrate the operation of the communist class system and how the citizens(people) respond to this and the effect of the leadership by early Russian leaders such as Stalin on the behavior of the people of Russia. For instance, the Old Major makes the speech to other animals about the idea of revolution. Since he dies before the beginning of the revolution, it could be compared to the Karl Marx, whose ideas set to the Communist revolution in motion. The seven commandments are consider as one of the important step in the revolution which changed by the rulers of the Farm. This paper talks about how the seven commandments were altered during throughout the story and whether it reflects the message of the Communist Manifesto.
After the rebellion took place in Manor Farm, it changed to Animal Farm where the set of laws was introduced to the citizens of the farm by the leaders. The set of laws which are known as The Seven Commandment are said to be “form an unalterable law by which all animals on Animal Farm must live forever after.”(Orwell) These Commandments were so important that they were painted by Snowball and Squealer “in giant white letters that could be read from thirty yards away.”(Orwell) The original Seven Commandments ran as:

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall sleep in a bed
4. No animal shall drink alcohol.
5. No animal shall kill other animal.
6. No animal shall wear clothes.
7. All animals are equal.

These commandments were to be followed by all the animals living on the farm at all times regardless. As one can think from the reading, the simplest phrase that explains these commandments is “Four legs good, two legs bad.” As time passed by, the commandments were altered by the rulers of the farm. Napoleon (the pig who emerges as the leader of Animal Farm after rebellion) who very cleverly broke the commandment and reintroduced as “four legs good, two legs are better” Even though the first two commandments state that anyone on two legs is bad and should not be allowed in the farm, they were wracked in the first year. Since the pigs started walking on two legs, the first commandment was violated and more over, the hero of the Battle of the Cowshed, Snowball turned into an enemy of the Farm as he was thrown out by Napoleon and allowing trading through Mr. Whymper resulting in violation of commandments .
The pigs moved back in to the farm house which result into alteration of the first commandments. The third commandment restricts animals of the farm to sleep in the bed which was forced to change by Napoleon with the modification of the commandment by adding “with sheets.” After the rebellion took place in the farm, the first commandment overruled which was being “all animals equal.” As we read thru out the story the pigs were keep on changing the “unalterable laws” for their comfort just like we saw above with sleeping in the bed. According to Napoleon, sleeping on beds is not a major change yet it was not allowed earlier since humans lived on the farm slept on the bed. The pigs changed the commandment so wisely that the other animals of the farm didn’t think as the violation of the commandment.
The next commandment to change is “No animal shall kill other animal”. This happens not long after the confessions and executions of animals on the farm that were supposed traitors and in league with Snowball. After these executions, again Muriel, Clover and also Benjamin plus some other animals felt this did not square with this commandment. Once again, the pigs have changed the Commandments in order to justify their actions. The animals read the Commandment they though did not agree, “No animal shall kill other animal without cause”, and then the animals see how really the Commandments had not been violated.
The next commandment to change is when Napoleon abuses his power and made life harder for other animals. The pigs impose more control while reserving privileges for themselves. Squealer justifies every statement Napoleon makes, even the pigs’ alteration of the Seven Commandments of Animalism. “No animal shall drink alcohol” is changed to “No animal shall drink alcohol to excess” when the pigs discover the farmer’s whisky.
One would never think that pigs ever made change to the commandment about the clothes as they were enough powerful to rule other animals. The seventh commandment explains that all animals in the world are treated equally without distinction. Instead of considering the commandments as “unalterable laws,” they were replaced by worthless slogan “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others,” which is totally opposite to with what they were introduced to other animals.
Orwell has used images to make his argument stronger. He has used events to help readers to understand his thoughts. While reading, we develop a feeling of sadness inside getting attach emotionally to the story. Orwell writes in a way to targets readers emotions because they have the ability to experience and feel the pain suffered by the animals in the farm. The following scene could create a strong sorrow to the readers “So Napoleon, with the help of his dogs, slaughters anyone who is said to be disloyal. The tale of confessions and executions went on, until there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon’s feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood, which had been unknown there since the expulsion of Jones.” To top it off, Napoleon outlaws Beasts of England, which had served as one of the only remaining ties between Animal Farm and old Major?” (Orwell 65).
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In conclusion, it is clear that George Orwell intended his novel to allegorically represent the figures and events of the Russian Revolution, and through the characters of Mr. Jones as Czar Nicholas, Old Major as Karl Marx, and Napoleon as Joseph Stalin, Animal Farm makes a profound statement regarding the abuse of power. The animals began their revolution with the best intentions. However, their noble ideas of a utopian society where “all animals are created equal” gradually deteriorated into a totalitarian state with a cruel and unjust dictator which, of course, mirrors the chain of events that turned Marx’s dream of a classless society into the nightmare of Stalin’s ruthless regime. This evil cycle of rebellion, power, and then corruption is best described by Barbara Tuchman: “Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.”
Work Cited
Orwell, George. George Orwell’s Animal Farm. New York: Nick Hern Books, 2004. Print
Coffin, Judith G., and Robert C. Stacey. Western Civilizations. 16th ed. Vol. 2. 500 Fifth Ave, New York, N.Y. 10110: Norton & Company, 2008. Print.

I apologize in advance for the detail but I want to provide nuance to get the best advice possible:
My boyfriend who I have been with for 3 years and have been living happily with unfortunately suffered from a bleed in his brain last month and had to have emergency brain surgery. He is now recovering in the hospital and at first things were pleasant with his parents (whom I’ve never met). His mother then let me know she didnt agree with homosexuality and asked me to stay away from the hospital. Additionally, I let his siblings come into my home to get clothes for him and they went through my things and found a letter from our neighbor who me and my bf both don’t get along with.
In this letter, this neighbor, who is very old and mentally ill, wrote us a letter after my bf and I had an argument and amongst a bunch of other crazy things claimed I had threatened my bf in the argument which is 100% untrue. The siblings found this letter in my drawer, took this letter from my home and are now trying to use it to paint me like I’m some bad person.
After this happened, I let my bf’s brother know that because of the letter situation, I no longer feel comfortable with them in the home and if they would like to take my bf’s belongings (he is going back to live with them while he recovers) they would need to do it on the last day of the month after I have moved out and I had already arranged for his closest friends to pack his things. The brother became hostile and said I dont have a choice in the matter. I didnt see the issue with my original arrangement because I was trying to avoid a confrontation but the father of my bf then reached out to my landlord and produced a durable power of attorney for my bf. How they lawfully obtained this POA is beyond me because 2 days before it was signed, the brother told me my bf was still having cognitive issues and you must be mentally sound to sign a POA.
I had emailed my landlord letting her know of the situation and when I had arranged for his stuff to be picked up. then she let me know that she arranged with the father to let them into my home this weekend claiming that the POA gives them the right to enter. I have seen the POA and nowhere on there does it say anything about entering the principal’s (my bf) and my home. Additionally I spoke to the police department and they told me the landlord does not have the right to allow a POA to enter without my consent. Our lease also does not have any provisions about letting people in during a situation similar to this.
I will be consulting an attorney tomorrow but I just wanted to know what my rights as a tenant are. I have no intentions of withholding my bf’s property, nor do I intend to damage or keep any of it, I just don’t want it to be collected while I am still living in the home as I do not want a confrontation or to escalate the situation. As far as I know, my bf is not far enough in his recovery to give any sort of consent because that is the excuse they’re using to isolate him from me and all of his friends so I’m not sure how he can authorize them coming when they please. I just wanted to know what rights I have as a tenant occupying the space because I feel like the parents are just trying to strong arm me rather than cooperate or propose an alternative date for me to approve. Does my landlord really not have the right to give then access to my place despite having a POA that makes no mention of entering his (our) premises? All it says in any reference to a living space is “Real estate transactions”. Any advice would be very helpful as this situation is stressing me out as I just want peace and for this family to stop trying to push me around.

Everybody is talking about it so let’s make it a discussion of its own. Who is on the IL? soler, Slater, lee in the outfield.
Ahmad, Bailey, Murphy infield
Snell, Cobb, Ray.
By the end of May, or even the third week,several return, so with addition will come subtraction. Here is my take on what could or perhaps should happen.I am Dealing with more immediate changes, so Lee, Ray, Murphy are more distant concerns.
Conforto returns I would send down Wisely, for the latter is playing very little anyway, and you have OF and IF coverage without him.
Soler returns, send down Luciano to give him more minor league reps. Alternatively, could send down Schmidt, but his defense at short is valued more, so if Luci is not playing other than to pinch hit, I assume he gets more reps in minors.
Lee is gone for at least a few months, so either Ramos or Matos stays. The latter is viewed more of a center fielder, but latter is an excellent fielder and doing well at plate, soot is a toss up, but …
Slater is supposed to return relatively soon. I see almost no upside in replacing either of the above rooks with Slater. First, if you want Matos in center, how could you send Ramos down, who has arguably been our best overall player since he’s been up, and has had more than enough time in AAA. Second , both are in the lineup against righties, whereas Slater only bats against lefties and although that is his strong suit , since the middle of last year with him playing almost exclusively against lefties his hitting has dropped off considerably. Thus, you have two young players who could be the future thrown in the fire against primarily righties doing better than a more discretionary batter who is in his last contract year. So in my opinion, as much as I value his past, Slater, also oft injured, is more expendable. Three, it would be demoralizing to young players who have nothing left to prove to just be put in storage until the next player gets injured.
Bailey return,this is a tough one. Sabol can hit and has improved his catching, but looking at ERAs, with various catchers, Bailey yields a 3.3, whereas Murphy, Sabol,and Rietz have ERAs in the upper 5s or higher. Thus, Casali makes sense since a key to our weak offensive team is to hold opponent runs down. Murphy wont be back for awhil, Reetz is an emergency anyway, Sabol has offensive value, but has options. Nominate Casali.
Ahmad, this is also tough. Several ways to go here. Could keep Schmidt depending upon his performance in Ahmad’s absence, and release Ahmad. Could send Schmidt down and keep Ahmad, or send Fitz down, despite versatility and allow Schmidt to provide versatility in the IF. The value of keeping Fitz is he plays the outfield as well, and is good in center, so that might be a need, particularly if Slater is gone. You could release Ahmad as stated, and keep the two younger players.
Those are my thoughts to open the discussion.

Chapter 1: the event
It was the fall of my intern year as I bean my off service trauma rotation. This month was ubiquitously notorious for being the most labor intrusive and least productive rotaion of our emergency medicine program. Knowing this I entered with the intention of simply surviving the month.
Another intern and I let’s call them A for sake of ambiguity, we’re the first emergency medicine residents to roste on the trauma services that year. A shaky start would be an understatement. In the words of chance the raper “like my grama with the Parkinson’s playing operation.” Would better describe it. Medically we did well. We were very competent and completed our work daily, but communication and coordination was non existent. Our Cheifs had informed us that Tuesday was our day of and the Trauma cheif residents had minimum communication with us, or our Cheifs as it seams when A and I did not report on Tuesday they sternly made their dissatisfaction known.
I have struggled with insomnia sense the age of 10. Had 2 sleep studies by this point in my life and been prescribed nearly every sleeping aid on the market. The 80-94 hr work weeks of our trauma rotaion only worsened my insomnia. My lack of sleep likely contributed to a less than prime adaptive immune system and 2 days out of my trauma rotaion I contracted strep like symptoms with associated nausea, requiring me to call for a sick day the next day. No the first day that I felt too ill to work. I was not fully aware of the reporting process. I reported to my Chiefs, but I did not believe I could come to work tomorrow with amble time and notice, however I was somewhat delayed in letting their Cheifs know, because the surgical chiefs rotated every few days and I did not know who my was going to be the next day. The second day which I had to call out sick I was able to locate the cheif for the next day and reprot according to our university’s protocol, which requires that if a resident feels they are not fit for work they must not come in and the university must have staff coverage without any fear or implementation of punitive actions.
I had finally survived to the last week of my trauma rotaion and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. What I could not see was the pile of stress, shitty diet, lack of mental well ness and sleep deprivation which I was pushing down to reach the light. By this time I had seen a psychiatrist regularly for sleep medication. I had mentioned to him that I had been experiencing more stressed lately and feel that I might be depressed. he reassured me that it was likely only due to my circumstances, given the difficulty of the trauma rotation and wish to reassess once the rotation was over. Looking back I had to fill the habit of drinking more than I usually do. My only on nights before I have days off became 1-2 beers every other night. All of this repressed unhealthy shit finally pushed bad on September 23rd. That night I was at work even later than usual, I stayed up later than usual and couldn’t seem to fall asleep. With the stress of only having minimal sleep and knowing I only had 2 more days of trauma left, I took an extra dose of my sleeping medication.
I opened my eyes to the fighting sight of sun beaming in my window and I instantly knew I was late. (Sense I hadn’t seen the sun in a month) . Due to my need for scrupulous sleep hygiene I have been sleeping with my phone of and away for me. I rushed to grab it and watched as the little Apple logo seamed to glow on the screen for an eternity. Then in conjunction with its fading I saw 3 missed calls from my director, a text from college A and 2 missed calls from the surgical director. Still, I was able to calm myself, knowing that resident A had been late to this rotation by a few hours 2 other days and nothing came of it. I called my director back and he asked me to report to his office where I was greeted by my director, my coordinator and another emergency medicine facility.
With the only explanation of: “we just want you to get better”, I was handed a letter, to my relief it did not entail my termination, but a declaration of administrative leave and a requirement to undergo an evaluation at a well known university in Florida.
Lake any other savvy millennial, I did my research. By research I mean numerous google searches and screeches thru the depts of redit. To my dismay I discovered that in order for a residency program to fire you, they must first initiate an administrative suspension. I would soon find out however, being terminated would have been a delightful outcome compared to what ensued.
I spend the next few weeks in the wallos of regret and depression. I indulged in higher qualities of alchohol then I ever have before. I all but ceased communing with peers, and abruptly stoped any physical activity I had once enjoyed. Frightened as I was I was ensured, it will be ok “we just want you to get better”
Chapter 2 The evaluation : guilty until proven innocent I did exactly as instructed and scheduled an evaluation, I supposed that this was either a mental evaluation to assess if I’m fit for work with plans of termination or it actually was an evaluation to better treat my insomnia. To this day I regret my ignorance, and wish I had researched the process more. The Hindi / sand-skrt idea of Hamsa 🪬 is that in order to do any good you must have full knowledge or else good intentions can result in harm. I truely believe my director had good intentions, however but him and I did not have full knowledge of the nature of this evaluation.
Looking back see how easily I could have avoided my troubles by asserting legal aid at this point or even by researching this evaluation process more in depth. If one searches impaired practitioner program which I now know this evaluator works for, the search entire will populate 5 or 6 layferms along side their home website and there is a valid reason for this.
If one every finds themself in this process I employ you to bring a DSM to your evaluation or at least be familiar with the most common use disorders in the DSM-5, because your evaluation will turn into a dance of questions where the evaluator attempts to trap you in a round about way to stating something that may qualify for one of the diagnosis. I have provided an image from the DSM-5 below outlining AUD, which the evaluator concluded that I had the most severe from:
Image
Example***** Here are 10 examples of how he fraudulently assessed me taken directly from his assessment note.

1. Evaluator: Have you ever stoped drinking in the last year.

Me: yes I stoped every week day, I was only drinking on the weekends, until two weeks ago.
-Evaluator uses stoping and starting every week to qualify for 2 or more unsuccessful attempts to stop in the last year “There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control alcohol use.”

1. Evaluator Have you ever had withdrawal symptoms

Me no
Evaluator Well Have you ever had a hangover? You know that’s a from of acute withdrawal
Me: yes in college, I had a few but that was years ago and I’m pretty sure the pathophysiology is different.
Evaluator uses this to count for withdrawal symptoms even tho is was more than a year ago

1. Evaluator: Have you even taken your sleeping medication on a day or night which you drank? Me: Yes, I took my prescriptions are prescribed but I never drank close to bed

Evaluator: qualified this as dangerous behavior with alcohol (where the DSM gives examples such as unprotected sex and drunk driving). The sleeping medication I was on is not a benzodiazepine therefore it is not deadly with alcohol. I personally have seen many patients in the ED who have taken their entire bottle of the medication and drank copious amounts, we just monitor them over night and rehydrate them

1. Evaluator Has anyone told you you drink to much or been worried about you Me: No I drink much less than my friends

Evaluator what about your girlfriend? Me: well she actually doesn’t drink at all she doesn’t like it. She often buys me beer for The Weeknd’s tho. One time we went to a movie and she got a little irritated because I waited for beer then complained about them not having any craft beer. So she said, “you couldn’t have just said no” and drank something else. However, she apologized after and said it’s worth waiting if it’s my only day off.
Evaluator said this qualifies for continued drinking despite causing significant relation consequences, ie divorce.

1. Evaluator : you have sleep issues I hear, and your chart says you’ve had depression in the past, don’t you know that alcohol can effect your sleep and mood Me: yes that’s why I never drink within 3 hours of sleep.

Evaluator but you knew this and still drank
Evaluator: qualifies for drinking despite unwanted physical or psychological effects (this should be recurring to effects the alcohol is causing, I have had insomnia sense the age of 10 long before I took my first sip)
7 evaluator you were late for work and told my you had a drink the day before
Me: Yes but I was late because I didn’t sleep and took double my sleeping meds, I will never do that again
Qualifies for 2 significant work or school issues in the past year ( a therapist and other psychologist ensured me that being late on or a few days doesn’t count they typically are getting fired or failing) ( moreover, this would assume I was late do to drinking it’s self and also assume if happened more than once)

1. • Alcohol is often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended

He never once asked anything related to this question yet said I qualified in his final report 9. A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain alcohol, use alcohol, or recover from its effects. The evaluators logic here was sense I was late for work and I had 2 beers the day before I must be taking long to recover from it (this is assuming I missed due to alcohol)

1. Tolerance drinking more to require the same effect: this he checked as true in his final note however it was never even discussed in our evaluation. I did mention to him that I’ve been drinking more than I had earlier in the year frequency wise, but they said nothing to do with quantity or needing more.
   
2. Wanting to drink so bad you can not think of anything else: this is the only qualification of SAUD my evaluator said I did not have.
   

Moreover, without legal help I was not aware that I could obtain a second evaluation or even oppose going to get evaluated at all, but that wouldn’t have mattered seeing I still thought this was for my health and wellbeing as seen when I was asked why do you think you are here to today, to which I replayed “so that I can be evaluated to see what is needed to get back to work”.
To maks the ordeal more infuriating the evaluator continues to ingratiate himself and lie through the process telling you, “it will be fine as long as you are 100% honest”, “anything you say in here is between you and me” or “you slipped up once with your meds, I know your residnecy program they will probably just want a few more out patient tests”
Two weeks later I received a phone call right before I left for an out of state vacation to visit my nice for her birthday. During the call I was informed that I would be required to complete a partial hospitalization program (PHP) lasting “6-10 weeks” which would coast from 15-50 grand not including doctor visits or housing which is billed separately. I suppressed this inconvenience, enjoyed my vocation and reported when I returned, knowing that I must complete this soon so I may return to work with due to the fact that my payed time off would soon be diminished. At this time I had not yet heard of the organization PRN.
Chapter 3 Guilty till proven innocent: The diagnosis
Shell shocked I arrived to a in patient psychiatric unit and was rapidly cleared to progress to treatment without detoxification. During my 90 day of forced rehabilitation I met a few other individuals who were unjustly and fraudulently forced into treatment. I began to look up to one of these such members of the men’s community, who I will refer to as patient X for ambiguity sake.
Unlike me patient X did have alcohol use disorder. He spent many clinic days drinking to avoid alcoholic withdraws. The curious component of his story is that he admitted his depravity, saught help and through his own journey became sober. The bodies at be, namely his local physician, Health monitoring program, rejected his personal path to sobriety and forced him to undergo 90 days of in patient treatment before he could practice medicine again. When he checked in to rehab he had been sober for over a year.
Ask for Stories of people from online
As for me I spend many sleepless nights pondering how consuming a legal substance in a moderate amount could throw me into significant legal financial issues. My labs my toxicology, my story and my collateral from colleagues from colleagues all indicated light to moderate alcohol use but my evaluators word stood as the word of God.
More frightening was the director of this rehabs acknowledgment of this. The director who happens to also coincidentally be the evaluator, stated to me as well as to staff on multiple occasions: “ I suggest inpatient treatment for everyone who is reported”. “This is safer for me not to miss anyone who could harm patients, and I figure there must be a reason someone reported them.”
I am still elucidating the reason why I was determined guilty and proven innocent, however I can say from my 90 day stent that the majority of the patients at this rehab needed to be there. This program is saving lives of both providers and patients, however it is destroying the lives of those wrongfully accused.
Chapter 4 your lisense rehab or jail : Upon arivil I was sent to a detox hospital underwent a medical examination and was “one of the lucky ones” who required no detoxification and could report directly to PHP. Like everyone else, I spent 90 days in a PHP, being as 6-10 weeks is simply a lie they tell patients to decrease the change of resisting the treatment. When discussing the topic one therapist sated “if we told patients 90 days they would never come.” She then attempted to justify the treatment by outlining the story of a patient she had called who “didn’t make it to treatment” and killed themselves”. It is my belief that it is not the lack of PHP which impelled such professionals to take their life, but them realizing that they now will be obliged to undergo 90 days of PHP, 5 years of PRN monitoring with a loss of autonomy and hundreds of thousands of dollars taken from them that induced their hopelessness. For even if these professionals were truly mentally unstable in their addictions, in every case it was only following a phone call where they were informed they must undergo treatment that they took their life’s. By this time I still haven’t the slightest clue what PRN was.
Despite the security these programs provide for many my 6 main issues with them can be summarized in : 1. Kick backs: evaluators are directors of treatment clinics 2. The reported are guilty till proven innocent 3. The price, the overflow of money these places drag in from both patients and state universities is appalling, they charge separately for every visit and test 4. Although they make the claim that they are individualized, they are anything but. Every patient gets the same stay and treatment from the doctor drunk on the job and the one who was late to a shift 5. They force voluntary treatment. remember that friendly evaluator who promised he had your best interest at heart, so you opened up and told him everything about your substance use/ developmental / family history, well if you don’t stay for 90 days he will be “normally obliged” to tip the board of medical off to you.

1. The programs have overstepped their intended jurisdiction. -these programs work well if they function how they were intended at their inception. Cite original purpose. Originally these programs were designed to protect physicians and civilians from impaired practitioners; being healthcare workers who were impaired at work. Over the years, these organizations have extended their authority to encompass individuals with substance use disorders When not at work and also those who are in training to become healthcare professionals. Take for example myself compared to a physician who is impaired at work. A doctor who arrived for duty under the influence would surely benifit from the extensive testing, therapy and accountability enforced via these programs. In accordance the 20,000$ per year cost is appropriate when only making up roughly 7% of their yearly salary vs nearly half of a residents. In my case with my loss of income from employment, coast of treatment and monitoring, this year I will be required to pay 20,000$ to work. Yes, I will be losing money to work. Even if did indeed have a substance use disorder this level of monitoring wouldn’t not be considered appropriate.

Dispite all of the miscomings of this System My time spend in PHP was indeed helpful, as I believe it would be for anyone. Time for exercise, a reprieve from work and weekly counseling. A sample structure of my day to day schedule is provided below for insight:
Structure The general structure of these rehabitation centers is as follows: 1. One week of orientation phase, where you are not allowed in electronics or contact with the outside world world. Therefore, if you’re going, bring some things you would like to read or study. 2. In phase 2, you can use your phone however you cannot leave campus. You must stay in the dorm on campus. These shitty 1 room run down apartments with two other roommates will cost you about $1000 a week, they are required for at least four weeks and they are billed separately, no insurance will help you out here. 3. In phase 3 you can commute to campus if you beg your therapist and live very close. Whether you’re on campus or living off-campus, you are allowed to leave up to four hours per day. If you commute, you’ll be required to take a sober link decide you must Breath, alcohol test into every 6 hours. Like everything else in this program you must pay for this separately, a few hundred dollars a week. You advanced to other phases by completing assignments, however, assignments are limited by required built-in time, intrusive, scheduling, and reviewing. Therefore, if you do everything as rapidly as possible phase 1 will take one week phase 2 will take three weeks.
Every day schedule:
7:30: wake up, report to the front desk to inform them that you haven’t ran away yet and take and prescribed medications. They keep all your medications and require that you report to take them; for me this was antidepressants in an attempt to dispel the depression I contracted from being forced into treatment and whatever off label medication they were attempting to treat my ADHD with, since control medications were forbidden.
8 am: community group assessments This consisted of other patients presenting their assignments amongst the large group, on the weekends this was often an hour later and 12 study regularly took the place of assignment presentation.
10 am: process group. This was a two hour group therapy session with 6 to 12 other professionals in a therapist and training or occasionally a licensed mental health therapist.
1 pm: recreation This was generally about an hour of some sober themed craft or activity. Once a week this time slot was used for yoga.
2 pm: this was another time slot used for patients to present assignments as well as for individual therapy sessions. Each patient had one individual therapy session lasting 30 minutes per week.
3pm: This was time allotted to work on assignments or go to the gym on your sex specific scheduled gym day.
5pm: this time was used for guest speakers or another 12 step study group.
6 pm : this was generally an off-campus 12 step group
10 pm: report to the front desk and let them know you still haven’t ran away and take and Medication which are prescribed to take at night, then return to your cot bed in your room with 1-2 other roommates.
I found the community to be one of the most beneficial aspects of the PHP program. I was in a cohort of chill ass professionals of the same occupation who were always there to help each other.
Assignments The curriculum of the PHP consisted of assignment based on every step of the 12th step program. Generally, a patient would be required to complete an assignment on their own, review it with other patients, then faculty and finally present the assignment in front of the whole treatment group. You’re only given one assignment at a time and there are multiple steps to each which all requires scheduling this ensures that no matter how determined a patient is a full 90 days of treatment is required to complete all the assignments.
AA structure -the obsolete nature of AA has been verified in numbers studies, but I will refrain from divulging here and lend that endeavor to Dr. Lance Dodes very thorough discussion on the subject,in “the sober truth “
In all sincerity, if I truely did have a severe use disorder this experience could have been life saving. I only wish I could have used my 50 grand for someone who has spent their life time In addictive without reprieve. My first conversation when I was given my phone back was how I wish my father could be able to attend this PHP.
Chapter 5 reporting and PRN Self reporting What they ask you What you should tell them
There’s a third-party agency called professional resource network. Every state has their own. This agency works as a liaison between you and whatever credentialing service your occupation requires. Essentially they ensure your monitoring after treatment. Stake governments and licensing boards trust them, mainly because they monitor with the highest level of intrusiveness. This alleviates much work for state governments and licensing boards because once an individual is being monitored by a professional resource network, then they are deemed appropriate for duty and no further investigation/litigation needs to occur, as long as the monitored individual completely complies.
Because I was never impaired at work I was never reported to this agency. The general workflow of things someone would report you to professional resource network, then the resource network would contact you, and then you would be required to report for an evaluation at a treatment center, which would inevitably result in a suggestion I’ve treatment at that given treatment center. In my case I was sent to the treatment center without PRN being involved. Thus, two weeks into treatment. I was notified by my therapist that I needed to call PRN and self report. I attempted to resistance given that I did not have a problem and was not individually seeking help. I asked what happened if I didn’t self report. I was told that in order to stay in the treatment program I had to report to PRN. This meant either I report to PRN or I get kicked out of the treatment program and lose my job.
When you report to PRN they will ask you why you are in treatment. They will then list off every substance imaginable, asking you if you have ever tried the substance and when your last use was. Ultimately, they will obtain your discharge information from your treatment center, so it is in your best interest to report only what was found in your biochemical testing. If it wasn’t in your hair, I would argue that you don’t have a use disorder regarding that substance and it’s not relevant. I don’t believe it’s important for them to know that you smoked weed when you were 12.
Chapter 6 The contract:
Before being discharged from a treatment facility, a professional resource network will have you sign a contract. A little known fact which I was oblivious to is that contracts can be negotiated. Though this isn’t it possible, it is highly improbable that you can negotiate your contract since PRN has a power to delay your clearance to return to work.
Contractor almost never personalized, and I have not heard of a contract which is not a five-year agreement. You will sign releases of information so that PRN has access to all of your information which was gathered at the treatment facility. You must have a therapist, psychiatrist, primary care, doctor, and a addiction, medicine psychiatrist. You assign releases of information for all of them. You will be required To commit to: 1. three mutual aid meetings a week which you must log. I log smart recovery meetings. 2. Weekly therapy sessions with an approved mental health therapist from their list 3. Monthly doctors appointments with an addiction medicine psychiatrist 4. Yearly appointments with a primary care physician 5. Monthly appointments with a psychiatrist 6. Daily check-ins on a random drug testing app ( you will agree to weekly urine tests, a peth test 4 times a year, a hair test twice a year and a little caveat that says anything else they deem, clinically reasonable) 7. Quarterly update reports which you are required to obtain from a workplace monitor, therapist, addiction, medicine, psychiatrist, primary care physician and any other doctor you are seeing. 8. You must upload all of your prescriptions into a mobile application every single time you get them refilled and are not allowed to take them until they are approved. 9. Attendance of a PRN group via zoom. This is a local group you are assigned along with other monitored practitioners. There is a fee of roughly 130$ a month to attend this required group. For me all of these requirements coast around 20,000 a year. If you ever have a positive test even if it is the result of contamination from rubbing alcohol or unintentional ingestion of alcohol/ allergy medication your contract will rest to 5 years from the time of positive test. Once your five year contract is completed, you must ask to be released from monitoring. At that point they will search for any reason to keep you under monitoring. This could be dilute urines, daily check ins or a week where you did not attend mutual aid meetings. Every certification and license which you apply for will likely ask you if you were under a monitoring program/ have been treated for substance use. You must give an explanation and check yes. As far as licensing programs are concerned, if you were under the monitoring of PRN, you are safe, however they group practitioners who have had behavioral issues with practitioners who were diverting drugs from work. Therefore, keep in mind that you will be labeled as a sever addict.
7 Back to work and only work. During treatment your only goal is to return to work, however when you return your experience will be drastically distinct from what you remember. For me, I was now working in isolation. Missing six months of my training meant that no other Resident was on the same rotation as me. My coworkers at all formed friend groups. When I returned I was greeted with much concern for my well being. No one would speak to be about my absence, however everyone knew there is only one reason a resident would leave for 6 months then return. My Accdeemic meetings were consisting of attending telling me “I have a target on my back now” and “ I have to preform even better than others” in the light of my time missed. If this wasn’t alienating enough, the majority of Resident events, sponsored by recruiters and my university revolved around alcohol to which I had to give some excuse to why I can not partake with others. I’m fortunate that I do not have an addiction, because these stressful conditions along with the daunting amount of dead and requirements imposed by PRN are enough to make any addict relapse. While I was at treatment, I was in the dative with Samyr stories a physicians whose addictions got the best of them. Physicians who did not make it to treatment, often taking their own life. These stories were presented as a warning. Your addictions will kill you without our treatment was the message. When, in reality I did not hear one story in which the addiction killed physician. Every physician who didn’t make it to treatment took their life after being told they must report to a treatment facility. Perhaps they knew what this entailed and it was not their addiction or getting caught which caused them to end their lives, but the unmanageable and often unreasonable burden that treatment would put on their lives.
9 How to escape So your fucked your in PRN and should be or you should and now your recovered and want to terminated your contract.

1. You ask to be released early done at 1/2 time ( good luck)
2. You have “good reason” (no one has ever been let out of contract because of this reason, the verbiage is far too vague)
3. You serve all your time and they let you out(maybe, as discussed earlier, they would do everything they can to keep you in your contract as long as your practicing)
4. You can’t practice medicine anymore

10 Layer up butter cup : I cannot emphasize the extent to which legal help is required in this process. You much seek it and seek it early. Lawyers can provide many avenues to you early in the process. Once you have committed to treatment, gone for evaluation or are in a PRN contract , this is very little that you or legal help can do. Spend a few thousand dollars when you are accused and save the 20-30,000 later.
After you have been evaluated if you disagree as I did, then this is the process you must undergo. 1. Hire a occupation, defense, lawyer 2. Prove you don’t have an addiction, this is done by having an alternative evaluator with similar credentials state that either you don’t have an addiction or that PRN’s level of monitoring is not medically appropriate ( this will need to be a multi day neuropsychological evaluation, which will cost about $5000). 3. Your lawyer must draft in writing that the medical level of monitoring is not required such as another medical professional and send this to PRN 4. PRN will tattle on you to the board of medicine. 5. The board of medicine will conduct an investigation. 6. At the end or when they believe they have enough reasonable evidence to the board of medicine will suspend your license or claim, you must comply with the PRN contract to practice. 7. At this time your lawyer will defend you in the state court against the board. This is costly but much less than the coast of a 5 year PRN contract 8. If you win you will likely suggest an alternative level of care such as gonna get therapy every week. If you lose, than you wasted a fuck ton of money and are still bound by your PRN contract.
Overall this entire process has coast me Over all coast:
My finances for this year only including PRN and rent are as follows:
120-200$ every week for testing 480-800/ month
65 every week for therapy 195/month
125 every month for PRN group
About 50-69 every month for 2 doctor apts
So at least 745$/month at the lowest
Treatment at the recovery center coast 20,000 for me out of pocket and
I wasn’t payed for 6 months with no FMLA because I am a first year. At the 1 year mark I will have made 26,000 this year after taxes And payed About 29,000 on PRN alone
Rent is 1,000 so that’s 12,000 a year
Just in rent and PRN alone I will be at 26,000- 41,600 -15,600.
I will be in debt by at least 18,000 at the 1 year mark
Coast of treatment center 20,000 (with insurance) For each year of PRN roughly 20,000 Add that to 6 months of attending salary which was delayed due to my treatment time: at least 150,000 Layer coasts along with other evaluations 25,000 Missing 6 months of residency pay 30,000 Coast of 1 year in monitoring: 245,000 Coast of 5 years 325,000
If my case progress to a trail I will require an extra 20,000 in court coasts
Chapter 11 My secondary eval: Dr sushi After I arrived at my treatment center I challenge my evaluation multiple times. Each and every time I was discharged and often accused of alternate mental health/ substance abuse issues to discourage my advances. I was never given the opportunity to undergo alternative assessment, however PRN guidelines state that you can obtain a second option within 7 days of your first. This is a mute point, however, because you will not receive the results of your evaluation until over a week after it is conducted and the second evaluation must be conducted by another PRN hired evaluator of their choosing. During my stay in rehab I contacted PRN multiple times to attempt another evaluation/ legal help. They warned against both stating they were a “waste of money” and “pointless”.
After completing my treatment with the guidance of many addiction, experienced physicians, mental health counselors and psychiatrists recommendations I sought in a secondary evaluation. I chose a highly qualified professional with over 30 years of experience to conduct an extensive neuo psycho social evaluation of me. One that I was sure would be more extensive than the evaluation I received at treatment and more importantly an unbiased evaluation.
The results from my evaluation not only showed that I did not have a substance abuse problem warranting PRN level monitoring, but also that PRN was falling to allow adequate treatment of other conditions such as my ADHD. My evaluation showed my ADHD was not only untreated by PRNs attempt at using non controlled medication, but also in the top 3% most severe presentations of ADHD. My evaluator went on to explain my results by questioning why my treatment center even mandated I undergo neuro cognitive evaluation. The only neurodiverse findings were my IQ, my dyslexia and my ADHD. However, a neuo cognitive examination can be billed separately by treatment centers, therefore they always recommend one.
Chapter 12 Amongst its greed, intrusive nature and faulty accusations, professional recourse network function highly proficiently at the task they were designed to; protective physicians and patients from physicians who are impaired at work. In this domain they save lives, offer second changes and protect the public. When they act beyond their intended jurisdiction by imposing unnecessary monetary demands on practitionersin training, accuse practitioners without proof or act on behavior exemplified outside of a work setting they unjustly and inappropriately attack the week and innocent.
Proposed reform: As a trainee my universities malpractice insurance covers me for mistakes made at work. If a learner mistakenly harms a patient, then the university stands on their behalf. If the learner does something wrong under a teachers direct guidance, then the teacher is at fault. This makes sense logically as well as pragmatically. The state entrusts large amounts of money to hospital systems and universities to train resident physicians. A portion of this money is allocated to malpractice insurance. This should extend to accused impairment.
Suppose a training university was required to cover rehabilitation and monitoring of a resident of whom they claim is impaired. Alternatively they have the option of firing the trainee. This would reduce the number of innocent trainees being accused of impairment, make the process of rehabilitation more fair and provide a better use for tax payer derived dollars, which hospital systems are given to train residents. The truly impaired could still seek help, less false accusations would be made and with the employers having the ability to fire at the moment of impairment, there would be less chance of impairment at work.

(continuation of part 2)
III. e) The Mobius FF x FFVII collaboration
Alright, back to our suspension world-hopping! Let’s visit the realm of Mobius FF, —more specifically, the collaboration between Mobius FF and FFVII—, where I found the most substantial evidence for my theory.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the Mobius FF (MFF) world and games, let’s begin with a bit of a summary of the parts relevant to us. The story takes place in a world called Palamecia, to which people from other worlds are inexplicably summoned. The vast majority of those who are brought there don’t remember anything from their worlds of origin or their lives before Palamecia except their names: these amnesiac people are called Blanks. The main character is Wol, accompanied by a guiding fairy of Palamecia named Echo. Echo knows a lot about the mechanisms of Palamecia, as she’s tied to the realm. The leader of this world is Vox, a being who manifests only as a voice. The first thing all Blanks remember before they wake in Palamecia is Vox telling them the rules of the realm. Incidentally, the crystals of the MFF world are teleportation crystals.
III. e) i. Devs’ Statements
Let’s review some of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration devs’ statements before diving into its story.
For both the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration and the Remake project, Kitase took on the role of producer while Nojima supervised the screenplay and wrote the scenario. The project leader was none other than the Remake trilogy’s Hamaguchi, who told a SE interviewer the following:

“We would love for you to play the [MFF x FFVII] collaboration event as you look forward to [Remake’s] release” (“Celebration of the Overseas Release of the Steam Version and FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Collaboration Event”, Square Enix).

He later hints at the collaboration’s storyline:

“This collaboration is focused on Cloud, so the other characters will not make an appearance. Players will join Cloud, who has gone astray in Palamecia, on his adventures and see how the story unfolds based on his decisions. Content-wise, FINAL FANTASY VII fans will surely become fraught with emotion as events unfold in-game (laughs).”

Kitase concurs on the emotional aspect of the collaboration in the same interview:

“When it comes to the story, I seek two things– ‘mystery’ and ‘[…] emotional impact’.”

Clearly, fans of FFVII are supposed to react emotionally to the events of the collaboration. With these statements in mind to give us perspective, we can get into the plot points relevant to our analysis. MFF x FFVII Remake comes in two parts, the relevant plot points of which I will describe and analyze one at a time.
III. e) ii. Eclipse Contact
1) Fact-Finding
Part one of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration event is called Eclipse Contact. It came out in 2017 on Aerith’s birthday, February 7th, and its release campaign ran until March. In Eclipse Contact, Palamecia welcomes someone new: Cloud Strife appears in the realm with very little recollection of his core world of FFVII.
Cloud isn’t a Blank, since he recalls the mako reactors in Midgar upon his arrival in Palamecia, and also remembers that he was hired by Avalanche to blow them up:

“Echo: How did you end up in Palamecia?

Cloud: I… That day... I remember now. A job. I had taken a job. I was hired muscle protecting clients. They wanted to stop the reactor... We used a train to get past security... Was it at night? Something happened... Next thing I knew, I was floating through darkness. Then [I woke up here]”.

This piece of dialogue reveals that Eclipse Contact Cloud’s memories end at the very moment when Avalanche arrives at reactor 1 in OG (disk 1, chapter 1): the very beginning of the game. Consequently, Cloud does not remember anything that happened from the beginning of the OG timeline onwards.
Wol and Echo are intrigued by Cloud’s strange case: non-Blanks rarely arrive in Palamecia. The following text appears on the screen shortly after they meet:

“Perhaps he is not truly who he thinks he is.
Perhaps everything is illusory, a dream.
Only one thing is certain, that he must press on, one step at a time, toward the light that shines from the promised land.”

Just like he did in FFT’s Ivalice, Cloud feels the need to find the Promised Land in MFF x FFVII, despite the fact that he lacks memories of the OG timeline. Though Cloud doesn’t remember anything beyond the train ride to reactor 1, he does remember the Promised Land (at least somewhat). This is odd, given that in OG, Cloud didn’t learn about the Promised Land until several chapters into the game.
Wol and Echo agree to help Cloud figure out why he’s here, since there’s clearly something strange going on with his presence in Palamecia. In fact, Cloud brought Midgar’s mako reactors with him somehow, transplanting them onto the landscape of Palamecia. The group decides to bomb these reactors, following Cloud’s instincts in the hopes that it will jog his memory.
Now for my favorite part. After blowing up another reactor, the group is surprised by the appearance of a crystal. A piano rendition of Aerith’s theme begins. When Wol tries to touch the crystal, something akin to a force field rejects him. When Cloud approaches it, however, the crystal responds to his hand by flashing with light. As it begins to glow, Wol concludes that the crystal is linked to Cloud and Cloud alone. Let’s examine the resulting dialogue:

“Echo: This is the light in your memories. The light of home.
Cloud: Home? But I don’t—
Echo: If you don't remember… then your home is lost to you.
Cloud: Then my memories are gone.
Wol: Do you want to reclaim your past?
Cloud: Not interested... I am what I am now. Not what I was.
Wol: Then tell me… This light. If you can’t remember it, what does it mean to you?
Cloud: It's a warm light... I feel at peace. If this place —home— is as warm and peaceful as this light, then I want to go there.
Echo: You can't go there... Not back to the past.
Cloud: I see.
Echo: But even if you can't go back to the past, you can go forward. If you wish for it strongly enough, the crystal will show you the way. The way to a new world. The way to your Promised Land. […]
Cloud: So... Should [I] take [my] chances and make a wish to this crystal?
Wol: Go ahead. It’s your crystal.
Echo: I should warn you that once you start on this journey, there's no coming back.
Cloud: The past is the past. I want to go to a place where everything is new. I’m ready.“

What follows is a moment I call the wishing scene (13:43-14:34). Cloud closes his eyes and wishes on the crystal. It flashes, and suddenly, rainbow-colored ripples of light appear around it. Aerith’s theme is replaced by a slightly modified version of “Midgar, City of Mako”, the track that plays during the opening cutscene of Remake. You can recreate the modification by listening to “Midgar, City of Mako” from 2:00 to 2:23, then skipping to 3:00 and listening until 3:18. You may recognize the musical motif that kicks off the wishing scene as the Lifestream motif, which has become symbolic of the mysteries of the Remake trilogy, as it often plays during scenes where unexplainable plot deviations from OG occur— more specifically, deviations involving multiverse shenanigans. For instance, it plays during MOTF 4. It also plays in Rebirth after Cloud blocks masamune as Aerith is shown dying anyway.
Cloud disappears with his crystal, after which Echo speaks to Wol about Cloud’s journey:

“Echo: Each person gets the Promised Land they justly deserve, not the one they really need. If you’re a bad person, you go to a bad place. If you expect nothing, you get nothing. Even the journey there makes you look deep within yourself to find out who you really are. Cloud should be facing his own past as we speak. It’s cruel, but necessary. That battle was a long time coming”.

Apparently, at least in the context of this collaboration event, the Promised Land can be a reward or a punishment, depending on which you deserve. Echo explains that Cloud will have to face himself and his past on his way to his Promised Land. This means that the Cloud that appears in Eclipse Contact must next embark on a journey that will confront him with his past, test his mettle, and ultimately lead him to the Promised Land he justly deserves.
III. e) ii. 2) Fact Analysis
There’s a lot of vital information to dig into here, mostly provided by Echo. She claims that the crystal’s light is linked to Cloud’s memories of home; Cloud has to have known this home in the past, as it could not otherwise exist in his memories. MFF Cloud must be a post-OG Cloud. Unfortunately, Echo indicates that whatever Cloud’s home is, he’s lost both it and his memories of it. Despite this, Cloud describes his home as warm and peaceful, concluding that he wishes to find it. Though Cloud can’t return to the past, Echo tells him that if he wishes it strongly enough, the crystal can guide him toward a new world, where his home and his Promised Land exist in the future. The fact that Aerith’s theme is playing all throughout these descriptions of Cloud’s lost home, his Promised Land and the past that he can’t return to makes it extremely obvious that these concepts all point to Aerith. Aerith is Cloud’s lost home. Wherever Aerith is, that’s his Promised Land. The time spent with Aerith before her loss is the past he tragically can’t return to. You might have clocked the similarities between Eclipse Contact’s mention of Cloud’s lost home and DFF’s mention of Cloud’s lost dream: in both these titles, Cloud’s home and dream are equivalent to his Promised Land. It’s confirmed yet again that Aerith is the one Cloud hopes to return to, just like every soul returns to the Lifestream. At this juncture of my research, I was curious as to why the last thing Cloud remembers before waking in Palamecia is the run-up to the Reactor 1 bombing mission in OG (disk 1, chapter 1). This mystery will have to persist for a while longer.
The alarm bells in your head might’ve been triggered by the mention of the wishing scene’s rainbow ripple effects— and rightfully so. This visual cue has sparked passionate debate in the fandom since its appearances in Rebirth, as seen in these pictures:
Zack Choosing To Get A Cure For Cloud, Rebirth Chapter 14; Creating a New World/Timeline
Aerith Pushing Cloud Out of that World/Timeline, Remake Chapter 14
Cloud Blocking Masamune, Rebirth Chapter 14; Creating New World/Timeline
You might have read or heard that this rainbow effect signifies that a character has entered another timeline, created a portal to another timeline, created a new timeline or is being shown different timelines. Indeed, whenever the OG timeline is deviated from in a significant way, this effect appears. The pictures above present multiple examples of these shifting realities.
One might propose that the rainbow ripples in Eclipse Contact and Rebirth are unrelated because of the long period between their respective release dates. This long in-between period indeed makes it likelier that the effect was used without forethought in Eclipse Contact, forgotten over the years, and incidentally reused in Rebirth as a plot-important visual cue with no connection to Eclipse Contact. I’m inclined to disagree since the crystal is specifically described as a vessel that can take Cloud “to a new world” by Echo, which is a bit on the nose. Regardless, it’s plausible that there’s no connection. That is, it would be, if the rainbow effect didn’t show up in Remake too.
When the Whispers are finally defeated in chapter 18 of Remake, a burst of the rainbow ripple effects indicate the emergence of multiple worlds, newly freed from the restrictive clutches of fate (1:16:36-1:16:47). Shortly thereafter, Sephiroth takes Cloud to the Edge of Creation and invites him to join forces with him. Cloud refuses, and Sephiroth says the following:

“Seven seconds till the end. Time enough for you. Perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see.”

The question “What will you do with it?” implies that the answer is unknown, meaning Cloud is no longer bound to the OG timeline by fate: many alternate futures lay ahead. Sephiroth is telling Cloud and the audience that now, the mystery of the Remake trilogy has become “Which future will Cloud bring into existence? Which among the infinite possible timelines will his choices result in?” After pondering this aloud, Sephiroth leaves Cloud alone to consider the rainbow effects in the sky (1:19:23-1:19:36). Because they generally represent alternate or changing timelines, it’s safe to assume that the rainbow ripples here represent the myriad of possible worlds that Cloud’s actions in those seven seconds could generate. After all, Sephiroth was just talking about them, and chapter 18’s description in Remake reads as follows:

“In a world beyond, Sephiroth shows Cloud a vision of the planet seven seconds before its demise. Having strayed from the course destiny set for them, they strike out on a path towards an unknown future."

This explains why the player is shown Cloud staring at those colors in the apocalyptic sky at world’s end, directly after hearing Sephiroth’s cryptic words: those are all the alternate “unknown future” timelines ahead of him, now unravelled from fate. Amongst those rainbow ripples lies the answer to the question “What will you do with [the seven seconds]?”
Given that Remake was released in 2020 and Eclipse Contact came out in 2017, the major story elements of the Remake trilogy —including the eventuality of alternate timelines— had to have been planned out at the time of Eclipse Contact’s release: while the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration was being made, Remake was also in production. Also recall that the collaboration event and the Remake trilogy share a codirector in Hamaguchi, a writer in Nojima and a producer in Kitase. Based on all this, it’s more than likely that the rainbow ripples in the Remake trilogy and inEclipse Contact represent the very same thing: alternate worlds and timelines. All this to say that when the rainbow effect appears around the crystal in the Eclipse Contact, it means the crystal is acting as a vessel to another world, just like Echo said.
But that’s not all Echo said: she also mentioned that this other world would take Cloud to his home, to his Promised Land. We’ve already established what that means for Cloud, what it’s meant since two whole decades at the time of Eclipse Contact’s release: this crystal will take Cloud to Aerith. So, where exactly did the crystal take Cloud? In what world can he meet Aerith again?
The music that plays during the wishing scene gives us a huge hint. As I noted before, the track playing in the background is a slightly modified version of Remake’s “Midgar, City of Mako”, which plays in the introduction cutscene of Remake. This is a musical cue that the ending of Cloud’s journey in Eclipse Contact and the very beginning of the Remake trilogy are closely related. Add the fact that the devs wanted players to experience this collaboration event before playing Remake, and it becomes undeniable: the crystal that appeared to Cloud in Palamecia —which offers to lead him to his home and Promised Land, meaning to Aerith—, took him to the world of the Remaketrilogy.
Eclipse Contact is huge. The whole crux of my theory lives and dies right here. However, we still have part two of the MFF x FFVII Remake collaboration event to analyze as well as its promotions to look into before I can drop the thesis on you, so bear with me in order to receive the most thorough analysis of all this possible! I want to give you every drop of proof I can!
III. e) ii. MFF x FFVII Remake Fatal Calling
1) Fact-Finding
Fatal Calling came out February 1 of 2018, and its release campaign ended in March. The game opens with a cutscene: Cloud is floating, seemingly unconscious, through a sparkling, green current of light. The current flows into a circle of bright, white light, surrounded by rainbow ripple effects as Cloud is driven toward and into it. An orb floats along with him. The Advent Children theme “The Promised Land” plays, a choir of mournful, aching, mutedly desperate souls engaged in a lamenting prayer. Sephiroth’s voice echoes:

“Sephiroth: It’s time. You may turn your back on the past, lock your memories away. Hide reality beneath a layer of illusion. But destiny will not die so easily. Yes. At memory’s end you may plead for it all to go away. But the past is a curse, binding your soul. It’s time. Wake to your fate. Rise to your destiny.
Cloud: (In a half-conscious grunt) Reunion…
Sephiroth: The light will lead you. Wake to your fate. Rise!”

Sephiroth’s mentions of Cloud hiding under an illusion and repressing his memories are no doubt allusions to Cloud’s past, which was complicated and darkened by Hojo’s experiments. It makes sense, then, that Cloud responds with “Reunion”. Fatal Calling indeed focuses on Cloud’s relationship to his past, his identity and Sephiroth. Everything involving Nibelheim —where everything started—, Sephiroth’s manipulation, and Hojo’s experiments are on the table. Also noteworthy if not out of place is Sephiroth’s evocation of fate.
Cloud enters a battle with Sephiroth with the help of Wol and Echo, who are surprised to see him back in Palamecia. Cloud tells them about the orb seen floating along with him in the opening cutscene: though he calls it a materia, he doesn’t know how or when he acquired it. Based on his behavior, it appears that Cloud remembers just as little about the events of OG as he did by the end of Eclipse Contact. Wol informs Cloud that whoever he heard speaking to him on his way here was probably Vox pretending to be Sephiroth.
As the group advances, Cloud recalls Midgar and decides they should go there next. At one of Midgar’s mako reactors, the group encounters Sephiroth, who speaks to himself:

“It's still not enough. This... this is but a pale imitation of the power I desire.”

Once Sephiroth has disappeared, Cloud explains what he remembers: Sephiroth was the greatest SOLDIER of all and a hero to Cloud, though Cloud can’t remember what exactly ended this admiration. As players of FFVII OG, we know the event in question is the Nibelheim incident, wherein Sephiroth slaughtered the town’s residents, including Cloud’s mother, after learning of his past. The former war hero also severely injured Tifa, whom Cloud presumed dead when he found her in the old mako reactor with a vicious slash on her chest. Cloud is agitated by the gaps in his memory, so the group resolves to follow Sephiroth for answers. When they find him again, Sephiroth causes Cloud to experience a piercing headache with the mere mention of the Reunion. They fight, but Sephiroth is too powerful— he skewers Cloud with the masamune and taunts his unconscious body:

“Sephiroth: A puppet. I won’t kill you. Not yet. Not until you know true despair.
Wol: If you want despair, we got plenty to go around. Palamecia’s full of it.
Sephiroth: Yes, this planet knows suffering. But it is not the world that was promised to me. I must go home. Tell Cloud, if he wants to see me again, he should face his memories. I will await him there, in the land of memory, where it all began. In Nibelheim.”

Sephiroth darkens Cloud’s materia, turning it black. Later, Wol explains to Cloud that Sephiroth stole the light from his materia, taking Cloud’s strength along with it.
Once Cloud has woken up, the group travels to Nibelheim to uncover the truth about Cloud’s memories. Cloud slowly gathers pieces of his past, shown to the player as titled, diary-like text written from various perspectives. Cloud learns the truth about SOLDIER, Jenova cells, Sephiroth, and what happened in Nibelheim. Let’s examine a few of these diary entries:

“A Warrior’s Tale: There's a girl in Nibelheim I think about. Warm. Cheerful. More grown-up than a child. Haven't talked to her much, but she seems nice. She's going to be leading the SOLDIERs to the mountain reactor. Maybe if I get into the survey team I'll get a chance to talk to her? Nah. She's out of my league.”

Young Cloud’s crush on Tifa is on full display! This must be a memory from his time as an infantryman accompanying Zack and Sephiroth to Nibelheim.

“Tale of the Nameless: I drift along in the mako, asleep. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Give me a number. I… I… I am… The Reunion. The Reunion must happen.”

This entry could be taken from any one of the Nibelheim survivors’ perspectives, as they were all bathed in mako and turned into Sephiroth clones. I would venture to say this is Cloud’s perspective though, given the reference to this iconic line from OG:

“Cloud: Professor... please give me a number. Please, Professor...
Hojo: Shut up, miserable failure.” (disk 2, chapter 2).

The trio encounters Sephiroth near the old Mt. Nibel mako reactor. Because Sephiroth stole the light from his materia earlier, Cloud goes into the confrontation already drained of his strength. However, when Cloud lifts the materia in his hand, it lights up and creates rainbow ripples in the air around him, similar to those seen in Eclipse Contact and Rebirth. Cloud is healed of his injuries: he closes his eyes for a moment, wearing a peaceful expression. Sephiroth is displeased, but recovers quickly:

“Sephiroth: The guiding light… it healed you.
Wol: […] here, near the mako reactor, the materia regained its light. And your strength returned […]. [Sephiroth]’s here so he can steal the power you've stored inside that materia.
Sephiroth, with a short laugh: I have all the power I need. Cloud. What strength you’ve regained is yours. Use it to fight me. It’s time. Let’s decide this, in this land lost to despair. The prize is home. The Promised Land. There to answer the call of destiny.”

With this second evocation of fate, Sephiroth disappears.
Cloud, Wol and Echo find Sephiroth at the Northern Crater. He mocks Cloud for believing the orb in his possession is materia. Sephiroth waves a hand and his signature black and purple fog surrounds Cloud, immobilizing him. Sephiroth claims that the power Cloud regained at the Mt. Nibel reactor was Sephiroth’s all along. Now that it courses through Cloud’s veins, Sephiroth controls him. He calls Cloud his puppet and finishes with the following before the two vanish, leaving Wol and Echo alone:

“Now, let us return. Back to the Promised Land. The time of the Reunion has come.”

After Cloud finally breaks free and defeats Sephiroth with the help of Wol and Echo, the villain makes a final threat:

“Very good, Cloud. You’ve destroyed an illusion. But the time will come to abandon your illusions and face reality. Then, you will know true pain.”

Sephiroth disappears for the last time, his body surrounded by his signature dark fog and the rainbow ripples. A piano rendition of Tifa’s theme begins. Cloud’s orb rises into the air and becomes a crystal, with the same shape and glow as the one we see in Eclipse Contact. The following dialogue is illuminating:

“Cloud: I will fight. The light will lead me where I need to go.
Wol: You sure? Wasn’t that [crystal] Sephiroth’s?
Cloud: I heard Sephiroth's voice, at the end. Inside me. Whatever he put in me, it’s still in there. Someday I’ll settle that score. If I can't avoid destiny, I might as well face it head-on.
Wol: Yeah. That was quite a speech, Cloud. Surprised you made it through without laughing.
Cloud: Yeah, forget I said it. I will too.
Echo: Forgetting won’t make it go away. Even if the words fade from memory, your dream will never disappear. Not until it becomes real.“
The crystal shines as though in response.
“Echo: See? See, that's how the light of hope works. Hope can turn your dreams into reality.
Cloud: Yeah. I guess so. I might forget this world, but I won’t forget hope. And my reality, that’s for me to live.”

Tifa’s theme ends. Cloud approaches the crystal, and disappears in a beam of blinding light. Once Cloud has vanished with the crystal, Aerith’s theme begins playing. A few pale feathers with a slight orange tint (the color of MFF) float down onto the floor where he stood seconds before. The image fades to black. The credits roll, and Aerith’s theme continues all the way through.
Once both the final name in the credits and Aerith’s theme fade, we’re surprised by a sudden, troubling image: Sephiroth appears in a frightening flash, standing amidst the flames of Nibelheim. When his image fades to black, the collaboration title *“Final Fantasy VII x Mobius Final Fantasy”*appears on the screen. The FFVII title is accompanied by the 1997 meteor logo. Then, a flash of light: the titles reappear, except this time, they read “Final Fantasy VII REMAKE x Mobius Final Fantasy”. The new Remake Meteor logo replaces the 1997 version. As soon as these changes to the FFVII title and meteor logo occur, Aerith’s theme returns. It plays on until the game ends a few seconds later, the screen fading to black.
III. e) ii. 2) Fact Analysis
The introduction cutscene shows that MFF Cloud travelled from Eclipse Contact to Fatal Calling via Lifestream. It’s unclear how much time has passed in between, but the atemporal nature of the Lifestream makes the question irrelevant. My theory that MFF Cloud has died is corroborated by the way he’s depicted in the opening cutscene: his eyes are closed and his body is limp as the Lifestream carries him.
Eclipse Contact ended with Echo’s claim that Cloud will face his true self and confront his past while he journeys to his Promised Land. This description resembles what Cloud experienced in the OG Lifestream sequence (disk 2, chapter 8). Indeed, Fatal Calling revolves around the same topics the Lifestream sequence addresses: the truth about the Nibelheim incident, Hojo’s experiments, young Cloud’s crush on Tifa, etc. The opening cutscene shows Cloud being transported to his Promised Land and facing his past on the way there, just like Echo said he would.
Let’s now take a long detour to examine the song that plays during the opening cutscene of Fatal Calling: “The Promised Land” theme from Advent Children. The title and general subject of this song are obviously relevant to the cutscene, but there must be more to its inclusion than that. Perhaps the lyrics can help us understand its appearance in the opening cutscene of Fatal Calling. Here are the unofficial English lyrics (translated from the original Japanese lyrics by an anonymous fan and verified by me via DeepL):

“Why do we cling together?
Why do we give punishment to lesser hearts?
The planet did not forgive us
Did not forgive us
The planet did not forgive us
Did not forgive us
The pulse of veins flows through the earth
A faint, faint pulse
Of a heart drawn to death
A gentle life returns to the planet
Is it necessary to sacrifice souls?
Why do we cling together?
Why do we beg for forgiveness
In the Promised Land?” (“‘The Promised Land’ (theme)” by Final Fantasy Wiki).

The song appears to be a regretful lament of human behavior, expressed by the repetition of “Why do we […]?” questions. The behaviors listed are all typically human ones: the terms “[clinging] together” and “[giving] punishment to [the] lesser” express the uniquely human nature of tribalism and the consequences of the fear and hatred it can generate, and “[begging] for forgiveness in the Promised Land” is likely a reference to the human hypocrisy of only feeling sorry for one’s crimes when judgement day arrives. This last line describes a scenario where someone remains passive or ignorant in the face of something important, only to realize its essentiality once it’s too late. The repeated“The planet did not forgive us” lines reflect the fear of being condemned forever because of one’s mistakes, as though the planet is a deity one has sinned against. The lyric describing a pulse in the earth is obviously about the planet being alive— a reference to the Lifestream. But the pulse is faint and weak and the planet is dying, perishing because of mankind’s greed. This is an indictment of mako energy. The line “A gentle life returns to the planet” refers to an innocent’s soul returning to the Lifestream after death, while the next lyric “Is it necessary to sacrifice souls?” protests the “sacrifice” of the planet’s soul energy for mako production. In all this darkness, this song’s mention of “forgiveness in the Promised Land” leaves a modicum of hope for a better place, however meek, even though mankind might not deserve it. The song “The Promised Land” is both a lament of mankind’s ways and a plea for mercy, with religious and/or spiritual undertones. The song’s themes seem to be: the Promised Land itself, regret and shame, the sins and foolishness of mankind, the death of innocents, grief, Cetra spirituality, and a meek, quiet hope despite it all. The most interesting aspect of the song is its antithetical portrayal of death as a thing of both despair and hope, condemnation and salvation, cruelty and mercy, suffering and relief. Maybe we can glean more information about this theme’s significance in the world of FFVII if we examine the contexts in which it appears.
Importantly, the song plays in Marlene’s introductory narration of Advent Children, meaning its themes are related or similar to the film’s. I highly recommend listening and watching it again, even if you remember this iconic segment. Marlene references Aerith’s sacrifice as the image of Cloud lowering her into the water is shown. Note that Marlene says “Sadness was the price to see it end” (2:36) after we are shown Aerith’s death and her subsequent unleashing of the Lifestream (1:49-2:24): Aerith’s innocent life was sacrificed for the planet’s survival. The lyrics “A gentle life returns to the planet” and “Is it necessary to sacrifice souls?” suit Aerith’s situation quite well.
The theme also plays in Advent Children as Kadaj dies in Cloud’s arms (1:45:00-1:47:55), hearing Aerith’s gentle voice and reaching up to take her invisible hand. Here is what Aerith says to him in his dying moments as “The Promised Land” plays:

“Aerith’s voice: Kadaj?
Kadaj: Huh?
The dark sky has gone with Sephiroth. Healing rain starts falling from bright clouds. The rain no longer hurts Kadaj.
Aerith’s voice: You don’t have to hang on any longer.
Kadaj: Mother! Is that…?
Aerith’s voice: Everyone’s waiting, if you’re ready.
Kadaj nods his head slightly in acceptance. He holds out his hand, and slowly evaporates into the Lifestream. Cloud watches […]” (Advent Children).

Kadaj is brought into the Lifestream by Aerith as she provides rain from the Lifestream. All those with geostigma are healed by the rain, and Tifa feels Aerith’s presence as the party celebrates:

“Tifa, looking out at the falling rain […]: Somehow, I knew you were there. Thank you” (Advent Children).

Cloud stands in the rain with a smile —his first in the whole film—, closes his eyes and basks in Aerith’s healing with his face upturned. He is finally at peace:

“Cloud’s expression is one of peace as the [Lifestream] rain patters against him” (Final Fantasy VII Advent Children English script, “[83] Atop the Shinra Building”).

One thing is clear: the track “The Promised Land” accompanies Aerith. It only makes sense, since we’ve seen overwhelming evidence that she is Cloud’s Promised Land, and since she occupies the Lifestream —which some consider the Promised Land as it is where souls go after death— during the events of Advent Children. Note that when the piece plays, Cloud is shown either mourning Aerith and releasing her into the river at the Cetra capital, or basking in her presence, smiling with relief at the peaceful feeling that she’s somewhere near: these two opposing scenes reflect the song’s antithetical portrayal of death.
Additionally, the song’s themes of regret, shame concerning one’s sins and a small hope perfectly describe Cloud’s character arc and feelings in Advent Children. Cloud regrets his inability to save Aerith, which he considers a sin. Further, he only realized how important she is to him once it was too late to tell her. And of course, he harbors a fragile yet important hope that he’ll be reunited with her in the Promised Land:

“‘Can sins ever be forgiven?’ — Cloud asks this to Vincent, who mutters a brief answer. For both of them, ‘I couldn't protect my loved one’ is the sense of guilt that they carry, so their words resonate with weight” (FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania Revised Edition, “Chapter 2: Character in FFVIIWorld”, “Vincent Valentine”, “In Advent Children”, page 72).

&

"’It is my sin that I couldn't protect my loved one’ — under this assumption, Cloud closes off his heart. What will the reunion with Aerith bring him? ‘I... think I want to be forgiven. Yeah, I just want to be forgiven’” (FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania Revised Edition, “Chapter 2: Character in FFVIIWorld”, “Cloud Strife”, “In Advent Children”, page 40).

&

“Cloud, after seeing Aerith’s hand reach for him through the Lifestream: … I think I'm beginning to understand.
Tifa: What?
Cloud: An answer from the Planet… the Promised Land... I think I can meet her... there” (disk 3, chapter 3).

Just as the song and Marlene express in the introduction of the film, Aerith was innocent, and her sacrifice generated great grief. Cloud finally experiences peace when he feels her presence in the healing rain, and he smiles: he’s glad to be with her again, even if it’s only for a brief moment of tangential respite.
The scene depicts Aerith guiding Kadaj into the Lifestream as the song plays, tying her to the concept and theme song of the Promised Land once more. This connection is later solidified by Tifa’s thanks to the late flower girl. All of this evidence shows us that this musical theme is intimately linked to Aerith, as it never plays in her absence. After all, the song speaks of sins, the death of innocents, forgiveness, grief, a small sense of hope, regret and the afterlife: all themes relevant to Cloud’s feelings surrounding Aerith’s death in and outside of Advent Children.
The Remake OST also includes a version of this piece called “The Promised Land - Cycle of Life”. This iteration of the theme begins playing in the wake of the first bombing mission, right after Sephiroth taunts Cloud with his mother’s dying words in Sector 8 (chapter 2). Sephiroth appears to Cloud surrounded by flames, evoking the Nibelheim massacre, and the theme begins playing in the background once he disappears, continuing (13:17-15:30) as Cloud walks through the sector, encountering fires and destruction all around him. This version of the Promised Land theme is meant to emphasize the deaths of the innocent Nibelheim townsfolk and the innocents in Sector 8. This dreadful atmosphere is amplified by the cries of despair that ring all around as Cloud passes by NPC Sector 8 residents. Perhaps the themes of tribalism and mankind’s sin are relevant to this scene as well, since Shinra and Avalanche are two distinct and warring groups whose quarrels, regardless of their necessity, result in the deaths of innocents. The theme of guilt also emerges, reflecting the Avalanche members’ feelings upon seeing the unintended collateral damage of the explosion. “The Promised Land - Cycle of Life” plays until Cloud encounters Aerith on Loveless. So it seems in this scenario, the heavy weight of death and despair is lifted when Cloud meets the lively, cheery Aerith. Once more, Aerith is central to the musical theme of the Promised Land, as well as to the concept itself.
I also noticed that a version of the song plays as Cloud and the party ready to enter the Forgotten Capital to save Aerith in Rebirth’s chapter 14: it truly adds the weight of her upcoming death to the scene.
Back to Fatal Calling, the scene where Cloud regains his strength is quite mysterious. Wol says Cloud’s orb regained its “guiding light” light because of its proximity to the mako reactor. In the moment his strength is replenished, Cloud is shown tilting his head back and closing his eyes: this is reminiscent of the scene in Advent Children when he stands under Aerith’s healing Lifestream rain, feeling at peace. The rainbow ripples shining from the orb indicate that something is crossing the boundaries of worlds. Since the mako reactor pumps up the Lifestream, being near a reactor also means being physically near the Lifestream. This means Aerith’s spirit is within proximity. In my opinion, Aerith was able to heal Cloud from the Lifestream, just like in Advent Children. However, Aerith is not in Palamecia with him: her healing had to travel there through the Lifestream, transcending the boundaries of worlds, hence the rainbow ripples.
Let’s now address the appearance of Tifa’s character theme in Fatal Calling. Since Fatal Calling is all about discovering Cloud’s past in Nibelheim and then in Hojo’s lab, it makes lots of sense for Tifa’s theme to play as the crystal appears. In OG’s Lifestream sequence (disk 2 chapter 8), she’s the one there helping Cloud sort through his past instead of Wol and Echo. Cloud even picks up a piece of his childhood crush on Tifa in Fatal Calling as a shard of his memory. After all, this crush was the catalyst for him joining SOLDIER, and everything that transpired in consequence:

“Cloud: That was the first time I heard about Sephiroth. If I got strong like Sephiroth, then everyone might... If I could just get stronger... Then even Tifa would have to notice me” (FFVII OG, disk 2, chapter 8).

Additionally, it’s fitting that her theme should begin right after Sephiroth speaks of “[abandoning] your illusions and [facing] reality”, considering that Cloud’s false persona was concocted by Jenova using Tifa’s mistaken impressions of Cloud:

“While being tended to by a station worker in the Sector 7 Slum train station, [Cloud] was reunited with Tifa, and using the abilities of Jenova’s cells, formed a new personality” (FFVII 10th Anniversary Ultimania Revised Edition, “Chapter 2: Character in FFVII World, “Cloud Strife”, “Cloud Behavior Record, Compilation of FFVII”, page 40).

&

“(Image caption:) A new personality takes shape the moment he sees Tifa” (FFVII Story Playback, “Story Check: Tifa’s Flashback”).

&

“Tifa (to Cloud): Deep down, you're a pretty nice guy. Didn't see it when we were kids, but...” (Remake, chapter 14).

(Continued in part 4)

Shortly before a final paper with pre-assigned topics was due for one of my last courses at Columbia University, our professor sent us an email telling us to forego the previous parameters of the essay, and to instead write about the events that had occurred not even forty-eight hours earlier, as well as our reflections on them, to be done in any manner we chose. Here is a very lightly revised version of what I submitted: read it, ignore it, upvote it, downvote it, hate it, love it.
I am prefacing this essay by stating that it is the culmination of several intense emotions that I have been dealing with over the last few weeks, more specifically, the last several days. It is a free-form expression of the many things occupying my mind, and, as such, it may seem overwhelming or disjointed. Nevertheless, I will do my best to convey my feelings into something representative of my beliefs, and my time at this institution.
My time at Columbia University has been bookended in an almost comically bad way; it started with Zoom classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, and now it ends with Zoom final exams due to the lockdown of Columbia’s campus after protests regarding the Israel – Palestine conflict reached a fever pitch not just within Morningside Campus, but the international stage. My classmates and I missed in-person orientation, and now, given recent developments, we will not have a University Commencement, a fact I found out not from Columbia, but a New York Times alert, somehow lowering my opinion of this administration’s handling of recent events even more. While the circumstances around my time at Columbia have now both begun and finished in the same manner, I am proud to say that I have not. I do not mean that Columbia has simply made me a better writer, a more critical thinker, or more well read, although it certainly has done those things, sometimes forcing me to when I was not particularly in the mood to do so, but those improvements pale in comparison to the maturity and empathy my time at this university has given me.
When the decision to transition to remote learning during the Spring 2020 semester was made, occurring only a short time after I had received my acceptance letter (email), my first thought was how the pandemic would affect my transfer from community college to Columbia in September. Admittedly, this was a selfish perspective, considering the tremendous challenges that many would endure during the ensuing lockdowns and other upheavals of life. My concerns were solely focused on myself because I was on a simple track to graduate, place my degree on my resumé, and continue my trajectory of military service to college to employment, leaving little else to consideration, to include other people who were not in my immediate circle. Sitting here now, two weeks from graduation, with a job at a Fortune 500 company lined up, I should be happy, with the plans I had made years ago coming to fruition. Yet I cannot help feeling a sense of sadness and concern for the school I have spent years of my life at, and for the world as a whole.
James Hatch, a former member of the United States’s elite Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU, for short, more commonly known by its nickname, Seal Team Six, famous for its involvement in the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the rescue of the Maersk Alabama Captain Richard Phillips from pirates, amongst other things, spent over twenty years in the military. After being wounded on a mission to rescue American serviceman sergeant Bowe Bergdahl from enemy forces, he was medically discharged, and would eventually attend Yale University. While there, he wrote a piece titled My Semester with the Snowflakes (please give this a read, it will help people who have never been in the military understand its culture, along with some of the challenges veterans face when transitioning to college), where he details his initial discomfort with being in a vastly different environment than the military, surrounded by individuals who possessed opinions and beliefs contrary to the ones he was accustomed to. He recalls witnessing a student protest the country he spent over two decades serving by coating her hand in red paint, and leaving a palm print on an American flag, and details his shock when a classmate of his explained to him what a “safe space” was, as well as his pride when he began to understand the nuances of life both inside and outside of the nation he dedicated twenty-six years to.
I can relate to Mr. Hatch, (despite my service paling in comparison to his, as well as the fact that Columbia is far superior to Yale), because, like his friends who make fun of him for attending college with a bunch of “snowflakes,” mine do the same. More significantly, however, his personal growth during his time at school is something that I have experienced myself. When I started at Columbia, I did not even know which major I would choose, and was largely lost in a world very different than the one I had come from. Despite this, I made the decision to avoid communities such as MilVets and the students who made it very clear that they came from a military background, with their style of dress and demeanor, not because those organizations and individuals are a detriment; I know for a fact that MilVets has helped countless students succeed at Columbia and beyond, and the veterans that I have relationships with are all phenomenal people, but because I wanted to pressure myself into being exposed to something different. I was uncomfortable at first, but this turned out to be the right decision. I learned as much from simply talking to people whom I would normally never converse with about topics and ideas that I had never encountered as I did during classes about great works of art, polar and Cartesian coordinates, literature, astronomy, the list goes on.
If the protests about the Israel – Palestine conflict had occurred when I first started at Columbia, I would have been frustrated by the students taking up space, forcing us to be funneled on to campus by restricted access points and identification checks. Likely irritated by the disturbance of the quiet during finals season, I would have agreed with the people who called for students to simply focus on their assignments and stop inconveniencing others by shouting about something occurring on the other side of the world. Instead, I decided to learn about the conflict, educating myself about both sides of a war that has roots extending back millennia. While Columbia University did not agree to the demands of the protestors, they achieved something else they surely desired, reaching a goal they did not state to President Shafik and her advisors: they brought attention to their cause by educating at least one additional person about it.
After reading, talking to people, listening to input from students within various classes, and understanding that things such as the intertwined nature of financial workings, as well as conflicts not just in the Middle East, but all over the world, are a level of complexity that baffles some of the most brilliant minds of ours and previous generations, I will leave my thoughts about Israel and Palestine separate from this paper. I recognize that it is important to choose a side, as remaining impartial helps no one. However, when every news agency, group and individual makes their voice heard, satirical sources such as The Onion make these kind of posts, or Adult Swim’s Rick, the nihilistic, narcissistic, psychopathic, misanthropic lead character from the series Rick and Morty, addresses the conflict in this manner, I feel that it is better to relegate myself to a much smaller part of this debate, namely the occurrences on Columbia University’s Morningside Campus.
During basic training for the United States Army, a sense of brotherhood and camaraderie is hammered into recruits’ identities. When you graduate and are assigned to a unit, one where you could be thousands of miles from home on the opposite side of the country, or even in a completely different country, serving on one of the international bases, approaching someone who you have never met before is easy. Talking to them about shared experiences and stories you have in common, and the bonding that occurs, is the product of an indoctrination process and lifestyle that has existed longer than any of us have been alive, and is proof of its effectiveness. This sense of familiarity tends to continue even when one leaves the military. The Veterans of Foreign Wars community is a place for prior servicemembers of all conflicts to share a drink, a laugh, and sometimes a tear. When I go to the Veterans Administration Hospital for periodic check-ups or the occasional injury, men and woman wearing hats commemorating their service during Vietnam waiting for their appointments greet me with a smile and a handshake, as if we have known each other for years. While working at a golf club’s greens department before I transferred to Columbia from community college, a coworker of mine who had served in the Gulf War had heard from our supervisor that I had been in the Army, and he introduced himself to me on my first day, before anyone else, telling me that if I needed anything, I only had to ask. This camaraderie has expanded to encompass not just veterans, but first responders such as firemen, EMT’s, and the police as well.
Underneath the picture on my driver’s license, the word “veteran” is emblazoned next to a star, written in bright red text and all capital letters. I know for a fact that this one-and-a-half-inch indicator has helped me during interactions with law enforcement on multiple occasions. Only earlier this semester, during Presidents’ Day weekend, I went upstate to spend time with my family. While driving back, in an effort to make the seven-hour trip at a reasonable time, I was stopped for going twenty miles-per-hour over the speed limit. The officer who pulled me over, initially reserved, became noticeably more friendly when I handed him my license and registration. Ultimately, he gave me what amounted to a parking ticket for my actions, rather than the point-incurring, heavily fined moving violation he could have charged me with.
The ‘Thin Blue Line,’ as it is known, is a reference to the idea that the police are the barrier between law abiding citizens and criminals, order and chaos. The most common representation of this concept is a black-and-white American flag, with a single blue line in the place where a red or white stripe would normally be. This style has been expanded to include numerous other colors representing other first-responders: green for the military, red and white no longer to be interpreted as the traditional stripes of the American flag, but instead meant to represent the fire department and paramedics, and even grey for corrections officers. Seeing the appropriation of one of the most iconic symbols in the world, one that flies above the White House, schools, homes, national and international events, and even the Moon, I can say, as someone who has been unwillingly entangled within that appropriation, is nothing short of terrifying.
The fact that these entities and their supporters have literally sewn themselves into the fabric of the symbol of our nation makes one think that there is little room for the countless other occupations, aspects and people that make up this country. The idea of the police being the sole protectors of our society is patently absurd, and all one must do is point out the many instances of police brutality occurring over the years to refute it. I find myself thinking of how much power the officer who stopped me just three months ago had over me. Initially, I was happy that I had received a slap on the wrist, but recently I have found myself wondering what if my license did not state that I was a veteran, would he have charged me with a ticket that would have had much more serious implications? What if he was simply having a bad day, and he decided he did not like the look of me, or the color of my car, and I was the one who he ultimately decided to vent his frustrations on? This traffic infraction, an incredibly small incident compared to all the turmoil in the world, one that involves two strangers, supposedly bonded by our professions, on the side of a quiet, New York highway, serves as a metaphor to me, reminding me of the power structures at play on a much larger scale.
On April 22^nd, 2024, I received this email, one of the many Clery Crime Alerts that students are automatically sent. An affiliate of Columbia University had their car stolen at gunpoint by two masked men on Claremont Avenue, not even a five-minute walk from campus. I skimmed the report, and almost immediately forgot about it, recognizing that crime is an inevitability in major cities, and that I needed to start my commute to school. Days later, on the night of April 30^th, 2024, I received another email from Columbia, containing one of the most ominous messages I had ever seen, one that put the kind of fear in my heart that not even the alert of an armed carjacking could. Columbia’s Emergency Management Operations Team, offering no explanations, specifications, or even a greeting or sign-off, wrote in bold letters these three sentences: “Shelter in place for your safety due to heightened activity on the Morningside campus. Non-compliance may result in disciplinary action. Avoid the area until further notice.” Due to the protests on campus during recent weeks, President Shafik testifying before Congress, Columbia’s role as one of the main catalysts for student protests around the country, and the occupation of Hamilton Hall occurring in the earlier hours of that day, it was not hard to figure out what the email was referencing. Over the next several hours, I followed news agencies, remained glued to the Columbia subreddit, and listened to WKCR, in awe of these eighteen- to twenty-two-year-old students putting themselves at risk to deliver on the ground, accurate, unbiased coverage of one of the most significant events in the school’s history.
While tracking the events from multiple perspectives, to include the social media accounts of those near and on campus live streaming them, I held out hope that the university would make good on their promise from several days earlier to not invite the NYPD back, but a frightening picture began to unfold, one that I was intimately familiar with. One WKCR reporter stated that 114^th street had so many officers on it that he could not see the asphalt of the road beneath them, and I knew that the staging area the NYPD had chosen was one of the best routes for moving towards what the military, and presumably law enforcement, would call an ‘objective.’ The officers cleared the smaller ‘objective,’ the largely unoccupied tents in front of Butler, and then moved towards Hamilton Hall, ordering even those not associated with its occupation to disperse, raising my stress levels and likely those of others, as it is rarely a good sign when police do not want their actions recorded and archived. After the initial entry to campus and clearing of areas and people in the immediate vicinity of Hamilton Hall, came the Long-Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, a device that makes a megaphone sound like a whisper, and one known for its crowd-control potential, capable of producing sounds loud enough to cause damage to ear-drums, nausea, and headaches, ordering individuals to clear away. The NYPD began its execution of tactics in a way that my fellow soldiers and I used to rehearse, tactics I never dreamed that I would witness outside of the military, and certainly not by police officers who vastly outnumbered unarmed students on their own campus. The NYPD created a perimeter, or a ‘second layer of security’ to both provide reinforcements for the officers entering the building, and to prevent the fleeing of what are called ‘squirters,’ or individuals who attempt to escape the building after the raid begins. While the ‘breach’ team moved towards the front doors, using tools from a ‘hooligan kit,’ such as bolt cutters, hand-held battering rams and crowbars, a siege machine was brought in to allow access from a window; when taking over a building, the idea is to enter it from as many different directions as possible to better disorient and overwhelm its occupants. Flash-bang grenades, described as non-lethal, but known to have harmful effects, were thrown inside, presumably before entering any room, hallway, or otherwise enclosed area to minimize the resistance of anyone unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of what can only be described as an assault on the visual and auditory senses. According to the Manhattan District Attorney, one of the officers inside Hamilton Hall had what is called in the military a “negligent discharge,” meaning his firearm went off unintentionally. While no one was hurt, the question remains why at least one, and more likely, numerous other officers were carrying guns loaded with live ammunition in the first place, when they so drastically outmatched the protestors in numbers and equipment. Additionally, a negligent discharge is an act of incompetence that would result in an active-duty soldier facing serious consequences, and derision from his peers. So far, the officer remains defended by his coworkers, and unpunished by his superiors.
As all this unfolded, I communicated with my friends from the past and present. My friends from the military checked on me to ensure that I was okay, as did my friends from school. The difference in how they viewed these events highlights what I believe is the change in myself that I stated I am most proud of at the beginning of this paper. My friends from the military were commenting that the assertion of order and control by way of militarized tactics was necessary, not concerning themselves with the human toll and destruction of trust that came along with it. Conversely, my schoolmates lamented the brutality and overstepping of boundaries that the NYPD and Columbia’s administration committed, one that turned a place meant to be a beacon of free speech, expression, and ideas, into what is now a police-state with strict control over who enters it.
My education inside and outside the classroom at this institution has challenged, thrilled, and changed me. Sitting here now, at the end of this paper, the end of the semester, and the end of my time at Columbia University, I am left feeling confused and sad regarding recent events, but also hopeful for the future. I know from experience that the students, teachers, and culture of this school have the power to encourage critical thinking and initiate personal growth. If it did those things for me, surely it can do the same for others

III. Changing Modes of Making It: From Horatio Alger to the Happy Hooker
…
From “Self-Culture” to Self-Promotion through “Winning Images”
In the nineteenth century, the ideal of self-improvement degenerated into a cult of compulsive industry. P.T. Barnum, who made a fortune in a calling the very nature of which the Puritans would have condemned (“Every calling, whereby God will be Dishonored; every Calling whereby none but the Lusts of men are Nourished: …every such Calling is to be Rejected”), delivered many times a lecture frankly entitled “The Art of Money-Getting,” which epitomized the nineteenth-century conception of worldly success. Barnum quoted freely from Franklin but without Franklin’s concern for the attainment of wisdom or the promotion of useful knowledge. “Information” interested Barnum merely as a means of mastering the market. Thus he condemned the “false economy” of the farm wife who douses her candle at dusk rather than lighting another for reading, not realizing that the “information” gained through reading is worth far more than the price of the candles. “Always take a trustworthy newspaper,” Barnum advised young men on the make, “and thus keep thoroughly posted in regard to the transactions of the world. He who is without a newspaper is cut off from his species.”
Barnum valued the good opinion of others not as a sign of one’s usefulness but as a means of getting credit. “Uncompromising integrity of character is invaluable.” The nineteenth century attempted to express all values in monetary terms. Everything had its price. Charity was a moral duty because “the liberal man will command patronage, which the sordid, uncharitable miser will be avoided.” The sin of pride was not that it offended God but that it led to extravagant expenditures. “A spirit of pride and vanity, when permitted to have full sway, is the undying cankerworm which gnaws the very vitals of a man’s worldly possessions.”
The eighteenth century made a virtue of temperance but did not condemn moderate indulgence in the service of sociability. “Rational conversation,” on the contrary, appeared to Franklin and his contemporaries to represent an important value in its own right. The nineteenth century condemned sociability itself, on the grounds that it might interfere with business. “How many good opportunities have passed, never to return, while a man was sipping a ‘social glass’ with his friends!” Preachments on self-help now breathed the spirit of compulsive enterprise. Henry Ward Beecher defined “the beau ideal of happiness” as a state of mind in which “a man [is] so busy that he does not know whether he is or is not happy.” Russell Sage remarked that “work has been the chied, and you might say, the only source of pleasure in my life.”
Even at the height of the Gilded Age, however, the Protestant ethic did not completely lose its original meaning. In the success manuals, the McGuffey readers, the Peter Parley Books, and the hortatory writings of the great capitalists themselves, the Protestant virtues - industry, thrift, temperance - still appeared not merely as stepping-stones to success but as their own reward.
The spirit of self-improvement lived on, in debased form, in the cult of “self-culture” - proper care and training of mind and body, nurture of the mind through “great books,” development of “character.” The social contribution of individual accumulation still survived as an undercurrent in the celebration of success, and the social conditions of early industrial capitalism, in which the pursuit of wealth undeniably increased the supply of useful objects, gave some substance to the claim that “accumulated capital means progress.” In condemning speculation and extravagance, in upholding the importance of patient industry, in urging young men to start at the bottom and submit to “the discipline of daily life,” even the most unabashed exponents of self-enrichment clung to the notion that wealth derives its value from its contribution to the general good and to the happiness of future generations.
The nineteenth-century cult of success placed surprisingly little emphasis on competition. It measured achievement not against the achievements of others but against an abstract ideal of discipline and self-denial. At the turn of the century, however, preachments on success began to stress the will to win. The bureaucratization of the corporate career changed the conditions of self-advancement; ambitious young men now had to compete with their peers for the attention and approval of their superiors. The struggle to surpass the previous generation and to provide for the next gave way to a form of sibling rivalry, in which men of approximately equal abilities jostled against each other in competition for a limited number of places. Advancement now depended on “will-power, self-confidence, energy, and initiative” - the qualities celebrated in such exemplary writings as George Lorimer’s Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son. ” By the end of the nineteenth century,” writes John Cawelti in his study of the success myth, “self-help books were dominated by the ethos of sales-manship and boosterism. Personal magnetism, a quality which supposedly enabled a man to influence and dominate others, became one of the major keys to success.” In 1907, both Lorimer’s Saturday Evening Post and Orison Swett Marden’s Success magazine inaugurated departments of instruction in the “art of conversation,” fashion, and “culture.” The management of interpersonal relations came to be seen as the essence of self-advancement. The captain of industry gave way to the confidence man, the master of impressions. Young men were told that they had to sell themselves in order to succeed.
At first, self-testing through competition remained almost in-distinguishable from moral self-discipline and self-culture, but the difference became unmistakable when Dale Carnegie and then Norman Vincent Peale restated and transformed the tradition of Mather, Franklin, Barnum, and Lorimer. As a formula for success, winning friends and influencing people had little in common with industry and thrift. The prophets of positive thinking disparaged “the old adage that hard work alone is the magic key that will unlock the door to our desires.” They praised the love of money, officially condemned even by the crudest of Gilded Age materialists, as a useful incentive. “You can never have riches in great quantities,” wrote Napoleon Hill in this Think and Grow Rich,” unless you can work yourself into a white heat of desire for money.” The pursuit of wealth lost the few shreds of moral meaning that still clung to it. Formerly the Protestant virtues appeared to have an independent value of their own. Even when they became purely instrumental, in the second half of the nineteenth century, success itself retained moral and social overtones, by virtue of its contribution to the sum of human comfort and progress. Now success appeared as an end in its own right, the victory over your competitors that alone retained the capacity to instill a sense of self-approval. The latest success manuals differ from earlier ones - even surpassing the cynicism of Dale Carnegie and Peale - in their frank acceptance of the need to exploit and intimidate others, in their lack of interest in the substance of success, and in the candor with which they insist that appearances - “winning images - count for more than performance, ascription for more than achievement. One author seems to imply that the self consists of little more than its “image” reflected in others’ eyes. “Although I’m not being original when I say it, I’m sure you’ll agree that the way you see yourself will reflect the image you portray to others.” Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
<The American Religion by Harold Bloom (California Orphism)>
The Apotheosis of Individualism
The fear that haunted the social critics and theorists of the fifties - that rugged individualism had succumbed to conformity and “love-pressure sociability” - appears in retrospect to have been premature. In 1960, David Riesman complained that young people no longer had much social “presence,” their education having provided them not with “a polished personality but [with] an affable, casual, adaptable one, suitable to the losing organizations of an affluent society.” It is true that “a present-oriented hedonism,” as Riseman went on the argue, has replaced the work ethic “among the very classes which in the earlier stages of industrialization were oriented toward the future, toward distant goals and delayed gratification.” But this hedonism is a fraud; the pursuit of pleasure disguises a struggle for power. Americans have not really become more sociable and cooperative, as the theorists of other-direction and conformity would like us to believe; they have merely become more adept at exploiting the conventions of interpersonal relations for their own benefit. Activities ostensibly undertaken purely for enjoyment often have the real object of doing others in. It is symptomatic of the underlying tenor of American life that vulgar terms for sexual intercourse also convey the sense of getting the better of someone, working him over, taking him in, imposing your will through guile, deception, or superior force. Verbs associated with sexual pleasure have acquired more than the usual overtones of violence and psychic exploitation. In the violent world of the ghetto, the language of which now pervades American society as a whole, the violence associated with sexual intercourse is directed with special intensity by men against women, specifically against their mothers. The language of ritualized aggression and abuse reminds those who use it that exploitation is the general rule and some form of dependence the common fate, that “the individual,” in Lee Rainwater’s words, “is not strong enough or adult enough to achieve his goal in a legitimate way, but is rather like a child, dependent on others who tolerate his childish maneuvers”; accordingly males, even adult males, often depend on women for support and nurture. Many of them have to pimp for a living, ingratiating themselves with a woman in order to pry money from her; sexual relations thus become manipulative and predatory. Satisfaction depends on taking what you want instead of waiting for what is rightfully yours to receive. All this enters everyday speech in language that connects sex with aggression and sexual aggression with highly ambivalent feelings about mothers.
In some ways middle-class society has become a pale copy of the black ghetto, as the appropriation of its language would lead us to believe. We do not need to minimize the poverty of the ghetto or the suffering inflicted by whites on blacks in order to see that the increasingly dangerous and unpredictable conditions of middle-class life have given rise to similar strategies for survival. Indeed the attraction of black culture for disaffected whites suggests that black culture now speaks to a general condition, the most important feature of which is a widespread loss of confidence in the future. The poor have always had to live for the present, but now a desperate concern for personal survival, sometimes disguised as hedonism, engulfs the middle class as well. Today almost everyone lives in a dangerous world from which there is little escape. International terrorism and blackmail, bombings, and hijackings arbitrarily affect the rich and poor alike. Crime, violence, and gang wars make cities unsafe and threaten to spread to the suburbs. Racial violence on the streets and in the schools creates an atmosphere of chronic tension and threatens to erupt at any time into full-scale racial conflict. Unemployment spreads from the poor the white-collar class, while inflation eats away the savings of those who hoped to retire in comfort. Much of what is euphemistically known as the middle class, merely because it dresses up to go to work, is now reduced to proletarian conditions of existence. Many white-collar jobs require no more skill and pay even less than blue-collar jobs, conferring little status or security. The propaganda of death and destruction, emanating ceaselessly from the mass media, adds to the prevailing atmosphere of insecurity. Far-flung famines, earthquakes in remote regions, distant wars and uprisings attract the same attention as events closer to home. The impression of arbitrariness in the reporting of disaster reinforces the arbitrary quality of experience itself, and the absence of continuity in the coverage of events, as today’s crisis yields to a new and unrelated crisis tomorrow, adds to the sense of historical discontinuity - the sense of living in a world in which the past holds out no guidance to the present and the future has become completely unpredictable.
Older conceptions of success presupposed a world in rapid motion, in which fortunes were rapidly won and lost and new opportunities unfolded every day. Yet they also presupposed a certain stability, a future that bore some recognizable resemblance to the present and the past. The growth of bureaucracy, the cult of consumption with its immediate gratifications, but above all the severance of the sense of historical continuity have transformed the Protestant ethic while carrying the underlying principles of capitalist society to their logical conclusion . The pursuit of self-interest, formerly identified with the rational pursuit of gain and the accumulation of wealth, has become a search for pleasure and psychic survival. Social conditions now approximate the vision of republican society conceived by the Marquis de Sade at the very outset of the republican epoch. In many ways the most farsighted and certainly the most disturbing of the prophets of revolutionary individualism, Sade defended unlimited self-indulgence as the logical culmination of the revolution in property relations - the only way to attain revolutionary brotherhood in its purest form. By regressing in his writings to the most primitive level of fantasy, Sade uncannily glimpsed the whole subsequent development of personal life under capitalism, ending not in revolutionary brotherhood but in a society of siblings that has outlived and repudiated its revolutionary origins.
Sade imagined a sexual utopia in which everyone has the right to everyone else, where human beings, reduced to their sexual organs, become absolutely anonymous and interchangeable. His ideal society thus reaffirmed the capitalist principle that human beings are ultimately reducible to interchangeable objects. It also incorporated and carried to a surprising new conclusion Hobbes’s discovery that the destruction of paternalism and the subordination of all social relations to the market had stripped away the remaining restraints and the mitigating illusions from the war of all against all. In the resulting state of organized anarchy, as Sade was the first to realize, pleasure becomes life’s only business - pleasure, however, that is indistinguishable from rape, murder, unbridled aggression. In a society that has reduced reason to mere calculation, reason can impose no limits on the pursuit of pleasure - on the immediate gratification of every desire no matter how perverse, insane, criminal, or merely immoral. For the standards that would condemn crime or cruelty derive from religion, compassion, or the kind of reason that rejects purely instrumental applications; and none of these outmoded forms of thought or feeling has any logical place in a society based on commodity production. In his misogyny, Sade perceived that bourgeois enlightenment, carried to its logical conclusions, condemned even the sentimental cult of womanhood and the family, which the bourgeoisie itself had carried to unprecedented extremes.
At the same time, he saw that condemnation of “woman-worship” had to go hand in hand with a defense of woman’s sexual rights - their right to dispose of their own bodies, as feminists would put it today. If the exercise of that right in Sade’s utopia boils down to the duty to become an instrument of someone else’s pleasure, it was not so much because Sade hated women as because he hated humanity. He perceived, more clearly than the feminists, that all freedoms under capitalism come in the end to the same thing, the same universal obligation to enjoy and be enjoyed. In the same breath, and without violating his own logic, Sade demanded for women the right “fully to satisfy all their desires” and “all parts of their bodies” and categorically stated that “all women must submit to our pleasure.” Pure individualism thus issued in the most radical repudiation of individuality. “All men, all women resemble each other,” according to Sade; and to those of his countrymen who would become republicans he adds this ominous warning: “Do not think you can make good republicans so long as you isolated in their families the children who should belong to the republic alone.” The bourgeois defense of privacy culminates - not just in Sade’s thought but in the history to come, so accurately foreshadowed in the very excess, madness, infantilism of his ideas - in the most thoroughgoing attack on privacy; the glorification of the individual, in his annihilation.
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Standing-Reserve.
Note a lack of the “Greek” in Lasch.
Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939 by Georges Bataille, Edited by A. Stoekl, Translated by A. Stoekl, C.R. Lovitt, and D.M. Leslie Jr.
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