I recently received an admission offer for the MS in Computer Science program at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). While I'm excited about the opportunity, I'm facing some concerns and uncertainties, particularly given the current job market and the significant investment required for this degree.
A bit about my background: I am currently working as a Software Development Engineer in India. I've been with the company for three years, growing from an intern to SDE 2. Although my job is well-paying, I'm looking for new experiences. Pursuing a master's degree abroad has been a dream of mine, but given the current circumstances, I'm unsure if it's the right time.

Questions About the Program and Academics

1. Program Quality
   • How would you rate the quality of the MS in Computer Science program at CSULB?
   • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the program?
2. Faculty and Resources
   • Can you tell me about the faculty and their expertise?
   • Are there sufficient resources like labs, libraries, and research facilities?
3. Curriculum and Specializations
   • How flexible is the curriculum? Are there opportunities to specialize in areas of interest?
   • How up-to-date and industry-relevant is the coursework?
4. Class Size and Interaction
   • What is the average class size for graduate courses?
   • How accessible are professors and how often can you interact with them?

Questions About Career Opportunities and Networking

1. Internships and Job Placement
   • How supportive is the university in terms of helping students secure internships and jobs?
   • What is the success rate of graduates in finding employment in their field?
2. Alumni Network
   • How strong and active is the alumni network?
   • Are there opportunities to connect with alumni for mentorship and job opportunities?
3. Career Services
   • How effective are the career services offered by the university?
   • What kind of support is provided for job search, resume building, and interview preparation?

Questions About Campus Life and Support

1. Student Life and Community
   • What is the campus culture like?
   • Are there clubs, organizations, or activities for graduate students?
2. Support Services
   • What kind of support services are available for international students, such as academic advising, mental health support, and career counseling?
3. Housing and Living Conditions
   • What are the housing options like for graduate students?
   • How affordable is living in Long Beach, and what is the cost of living like?

Questions About Financial Considerations

1. Tuition and Funding
   • Are there any scholarships, assistantships, or other forms of financial aid available for graduate students?
   • How manageable is the cost of tuition and living expenses with part-time work or internships?
2. Return on Investment
   • Given the current job market, do you feel the investment in this degree has paid off for you and your peers?
   • How long did it take for you and your peers to repay any student loans?

Questions About Future Prospects

1. Market Situation and Future Outlook
   • How has the current job market affected recent graduates from the program?
   • What are the prospects for international students in terms of securing jobs and work visas?
2. Personal and Professional Growth
   • How has the program contributed to your personal and professional growth?
   • Would you recommend this program to someone in my position, and why or why not?

Personalized Context Questions

1. Transition from India to the USA
   • How was your transition from India to the USA in terms of academics, culture, and lifestyle?
   • What challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?
2. Balancing Work and Studies
   • Is it feasible to work part-time while studying to help with expenses?
   • How demanding is the program in terms of time and effort?

Any insights, experiences, or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
These are a lot of questions but if someone can spare time to get back with suggestions and answers I would greatly appreciate it.
PS: I had also applied to selective top colleges but couldn't make it in any one of them. UCs, Umass, UIUC, Purdue.
Thanks!

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 overwhelm 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

Successor : u/Intel81994
Hi,
I first found this subreddit and Neville's works in 2018 so I thought I'd share my success/experiences.
I've never posted here, only lurked... daily. I often see people post tiny wins in here like manifesting a test result or a few hundred dollars. I don't see many huge wins except occasionally, or multi-year life changing creations.
Well, I'm not where I want to be bc my goals have gotten a lot bigger, but I've come a long way and finding this work in 2018 changed my life so I want to share with you how.
Not to discourage, but small wins are nothing compared to the deep life changes and incredible abundance you can create in knowing who you really are - just think - there are people out there, several, who own $10M+ houses, multi-millionaires, many came from nothing.
I'm not saying that's the only thing worth striving for or even the source of joy, of course. But my point is anything you want, someone else out there has done it, they are just humans like myself and you.
So here's how my life turned around since 2018 and what I created. The HOW I did so is no different than what you already read on this sub every day.
Neville has been my favorite teacher and this is the MAIN sub I have read over the last few years. I own all of his books and have read them several times.
I regard his methods as most influential for me. This may come off as some motivational story but truth is I use Neville's methods daily and always try to understand and control my beliefs to grow.
Here is how my life changed completely after DOING the work:

• MONEY/TRAVEL : I went from -50k in debt running my own online fitness coaching business at my lowest point not knowing how I would pay rent (long story but I was young and not skilled enough in business at this time to really build a team and 7 figure business like I wanted),

to acquiring amazing skills being an intrapreneur working in a small startup online with a terrific mentor (I manifested this exact position with SATS), traveled the world a crazy amount in the exact places I had wanted to and met a ton of cool people (SATS), over 27 countries now, and grew my net worth to over 250k from 2018-2021.
To my current goals, this is really nothing now and I now surround myself with people doing a ton more than me. So I'm not preaching here, it's just levels to the game right.
I now work professionally in the crypto industry, but also have skills and knowledge to a few types of online businesses in the consulting & marketing space, as well as make money from markets/trading, which is a great vehicle because there are effectively no limits.
I can live anywhere I want, have plenty of cushion and money to live mostly how I want (have larger goals now), have time freedom as well, and most of all, love growth and feel great striving for more. I did SATS to get my current gig.
I've also been trading the last 2 years and no it's not easy, in fact you're competing against algorithms and the best minds in the world so the learning curve is quite steep.
Trading is not easy money, but the potential is there. Besides, trading is just one vehicle, it's not value-additive to the market like businesses are, so I believe it's best used in conjunction with a business/job, and investing longer term is better.
Anyway I turned <40k into ~350K in crypto, and a separate stock portfolio last year.
And yes a lot of that crypto growth was market timing and luck with everything going on, monetary policy and all, and I know people who turned less into several million and also plenty who got liquidated and lost millions. I still spent a lot of time and skill to create that, point is I created all of it in various forms.

• FITNESS/HEALTH: I achieved a more fit and better body than 98% of men have. This was a result of hard work plus these methods and was in 2018 when I decided to undergo a bodybuilding prep for a photoshoot. Great size, leanness, abs, I had been lifting for years but never gotten this in shape.

It was not easy, but I looked incredible, and the exact city/water background scene I had visualized for the photos happened. You can scroll to my IG posts from early 2018 for pics proof.
My health is impeccable and I've for sure made other physical changes, and I think I somehow changed my gf's looks to become better over time too. She was always quite cute though. I'm still very much in shape but now do yoga daily for last few years, as well as lifting.

• LOCATION/LIVING: I manifested the EXACT view I used to visualize in the center of my major city, with a gorgeous view of the ocean and city both, for a great price and have lived here for last 3 years now. In a luxury high rise. I can see ships and yachts right outside my balcony every day. It's literally grander than I even knew to imagine just 5 years ago.
  
• MORE FINANCE: Over the last 2 years my investments and more were doing so well sometimes - not always - that I often was able to have some months making 20-40k, point is I was not worried about work.
  

I also believe parallel realities are real and I used to visualize Bitcoin going to 50k back in 2019 when it had stayed below <10k for 2 years. This was not all due to bitcoin, but rather all sorts of investments, but yes crypto as well.
Some was luck, some was skill and work. All was my creation. I also got quite decent at trading and managing a portfolio that I not only managed to publicly call the exact day of the market TOP in november 2021 but also sniped the bottom in July. Intuition plus knowledge.
So I kept this money, it is not bleeding out in my portfolio with the market. I've devoted a LOT into mastering this craft but again, self concept and Neville helped.
I got hacked for 60k-70k a few months back and chose to give it new meaning and manifested a career change to crypto industry, landing a position making over 10k per month (I'm not happy with this at my current standards of income, but I'm grateful), that I am growing to 20k per month of active income now with other streams.
What's interesting in my recent career manifestation is I decided I want a position that basically pays me to do what I already do (I was independently researching and managing a multi-6 figure crypto portfolio... over a quarter million dollars combined money that I was managing. )
I now get paid a full time 6 fig salary to do nothing extra from what I was already doing and barely work on the actual job with plenty of time for other stuff.
I just decided it was done and that's it. Also of course it's remote... knowing what I know, I will only consider remote jobs (never worked in a physical office and I've actually never had a w2 job before this, always doing sales and stuff or my own thing).
I have been working on increasing my standard to 25k per month minimum of active income generation. Had a lot of ideas come through. I’m just not the type to have a job I think but I have to figure out what I can build again.
Compared to who I want to be at a later date that’s also nothing much. Again, levels to the game.
Now also working on growing a business in this space. This hack event was pretty traumatic but I now see how I 100% manifested it. And I can choose to also create something far greater out of the event now.
With every job I've ever had, I've never worked in an office. I've only ever been remote or online because this is the only thing I was willing to accept. Being a digital nomad has been my norm since I graduated college.
Be specific in what you want and do not settle.
I went to a top 5 US public university and even manifested myself to lead a large pre-med club on campus (I was a pre med student) before I knew Neville. I'm now very glad I chose to go my own route instead of medicine for several reasons beyond scope of this post but anyway.

• SP: Manifested my SP (gf) back in 2018 and we have a great relationship going on 6 years now (together since 2016). I focus more on self love and feeling I AM God rather than seeking it externally. My consciousness and inner connection is my source of sustenance.
  
• Honestly there are so many other crazy little things I can't possibly keep track. Every day I have synchronicities like crazy still. I don't give them much meaning but just take it to mean that I am aligned.
  

My best mental model/tips

• Delude yourself into knowing that imagination is MORE real than the 3d. The 3d is 'old news.' Meaning it's a shadow world. The real creation is happening in your imagination, and there is a time lag in this physical world.

Live in your imagination and tune out anything that does not serve keeping you in an optimal state where you feel in control. The more you focus on things that are meant to distract you or displease you, which state do you create from?

• I do SATS during the day, works fine for me, I don't think it matters much if day/night, but you need to do it. Follow a guided hypnosis session to get deeper into trance first if it helps.
  
• Act and trust deeply that life is leading you to what you want, and the meaning you give to events is literally what molds your future. Choose empowering meanings. Stop being a victim.
  

Make a resolve to never think of yourself as a victim of forces out there, the economy, evil people, whatever it is. You want to control your reality then act like it internally.

• Make a daily routine checklist and stick to it so you internally feel in control of your reality. Mine is: SATS or revision, meditate or breathwork, EFT or writing, cold shower, no phone in the morning, wake at 6am, and of course I exercise daily in some form. I use a spreadsheet to make sure I hit my routines for the day so I don't be a victim but rather stay in control. This is critical for me.
  
• As long as you occupy the realms of consciousness that you want, the result WILL come via downloads and hunches and thoughts, and insane physical things will happen that will 'seem like it would have happened anyway' so don't worry about the how.
  

Random Musings
The thing with manifesting is we sometimes take a passive route and wait for things to happen to us (and sure this is fine and still works), but think- if you don't grow your mental, emotional, skills container to deal with large amounts of money, or a team, or skills to sell and market and manage money... if you suddenly get 500K or 1M, how are you going to hold on to it?
If you lack personal power and execution skills, say you suddenly win 5M from the lottery, do you have the skills to keep it and make decisions at a level that can fluctuate several millions? It's stressful and requires thinking completely differently.
You have to 'stress test' your consciousness and expand your container.
I know that because I got hacked (stolen) ~70k it means nothing because the version of me who makes multi-7 figures a year deals with fluctuations of multi-6 figures in his portfolio all the time, it's part of the game. and I HAVE dealt with 6 figure fluctuations in my portfolio before this hack so it wasn't super new in that sense.
You know time is not real, it's all happening now, Creation is already finished, so you should also know that the way to 'hack' time is making decisions from a place of the future version of yourself you already are.
Make a commitment to stop playing small and settling for crumbs. Why would you get hung up on the one limited way your ego thinks that abundance has to manifest in your life, or love, instead of just feeling the emotions themselves, knowing it's done, and letting your life color it in in grander ways than you could have imagined.
Funny little manifestations and things happen literally every day that I just take it as reflections of me being in my creative power.
Something crazy/funny that happened was on our last trip, I told my girlfriend 'hey, how funny and weird would it be to see a parrot meowing?' - then next day we sit at a cafe and there is a parrot in a cage outside, meowing loudly. The most bizarre manifestation, I didn't even intend for it, just asked hey would it not be funny. Things like this happen so often, I can't keep track.
There is nothing new to learn. Just do the techniques and do self care rituals and get lost in your work. Feel the feeling of utter abundance and freedom now and it will happen.
We live in an advanced economy with the internet, it has never been easier to start or fund a business compared to even 50 years ago (see interest rates), distribution has never been easier, so if you know these tools, why would you not create the biggest dream you can imagine? Why settle for a free $200?
I realize there are levels people go through however so I don't mean to belittle, but now that I have been through so much and grown, I know there is nothing separating myself from multi millions and VC's and creators of large companies except belief, work, and time in this reality.
I have the knowledge, belief, and skills to not need a job if I don't want one. I can instead offer something to the market and be independent.
I'm telling you this stuff works and is sustainable. You can be as specific as you want and get whatever you want, and trust that with the turns life takes you through, it is a BRIDGE meant to turn you into the person to get and sustain what you say you want. Decide it and it is so.
I am someone who is a first generation American immigrant, my parents moved to the US from India when I was 5 and we had very little here. I grew up 'lower' middle class, and didn't have the best money programming from parents, but I always did well in school.
I KNOW I am going to be the first multi millionaire in my family. It's all in how you think about yourself/self concept and the work you do from that mindset. Do actions and shift your environment in accordance with who you want to be.
I always splurge on self care now and do things like fly business class or pay more for a better room because that's who I internally am. Just find a way to produce more and let it flow instead of shrinking yourself to be someone you’re not in your 4D
I don't try to scrimp and penny pinch, I let money flow. Even though getting stolen 70k was traumatic, oh well, I chose to give it a better, empowering meaning and my reality shifted.
That's all I have to say. Do the work. Stop procrastinating with learning. All the teachers, scripture, it's all the same Truth at the core. Learning is fine because you learn different mental models at different points of your life but you need to do the work.
I've been fortunate to not only have explored TONS of teachers and books in this realm, you name it I've probably read it or have a copy, I've also HAD mentors and WORKED directly under multi millionaires older and more experienced than me who know this work very well and knew Neville specifically, and it's the real deal. I did sales for someone in the online coaching space was was very well off and had decades of success and spoke of Neville very often, it was really cool.
Proof of the Law
I don't know what more proof you need that the Law is real. All religions throughout eternity have known this, Neville just distilled the same Truth through his own methods that work really well in my opinion and I personally love his interpretation of scripture.
The most successful people in the world are usually consciously (and some unconsciously) doing these same actions. Just do the work and focus on it coming from a good place of knowing that it's done. You don't need to know HOW but you just need to know the plane is going to somehow land one day.
I just come back to Neville every time, because his methods are simple and philosophies work well for how I think. I've done tons of psychedelic mushrooms over the years which luckily made me very open to this sort of thinking, before that I was very rigid and too '3d scientific' minded in my thinking. Keep in mind there is actually nothing 'unscientific' about the Law... modern science has its own limitations in that we cannot measure many things.
What used to be called magic in years past is now under the realm of science right? I'm not saying I don't value logic and science... I have a science degree from a top 5 university.
I'm just saying your ego mind which wants to keep you stuck and surviving uses the excuse of logic and science when that's actually not the full scope of how reality works, we are incredibly limited in our conscious understanding of reality.... we don't even know what we're doing here on a floating rock in infinite space and we can hardly see much of the light spectrum as it is.
So remember that when your ego tries to believe in your limitations and the 3d reality only. You being here is magic that even the most advanced science does not know the answer to. Do scientists know fundamentally why there is something at all instead of nothing?
Anyway, one more thing is I've never been shy of making relatively bold and fast decisions, investing in a mentor (for business) and just generally betting on myself.
Because getting around people who think bigger than you and don't settle is a hack and it's worth every penny. There is a reason millionaires hang with other millionaires.
I'm not saying to cut people out of your life (unless toxic) but rather to seek proximity and get around winners or pay to join some mastermind in business or whatever you need to do to network in your realm.
Just last week I invested 7.5k for get into a network of high performing young male entrepreneurs just because I want a better network in real life and work on business tactics and execution. When I was 23 I invested 25k that I did not have at the time (I made it happen and earned it back) to get a business mentor. So I use all of this in combo with Neville's methods primarily. I really like revision method as well.
The act of DECISION literally creates a parallel reality and becomes the new bridge to your manifestation.

This girl we can call Freya and I started uni together in the beginning of this year. Initially, she fancied me and asked me to date after a night out with our friend group. I rejected as we just met and I had previously gotten out of a relationship which needed some time to settle and move forward. I told her this as gentlyas I could and didnt mention it to anyone as to not embarrass her. We are also in a small class which isnt ideal when we are stuck together for 5 years if things go south, (she didnt mind). She took it well and we moved on with the year.
She got a bf that treated her not as well as she deserved to say the least but nothing too horrific from what I've heard. However it was clear she wasnt happy, she would always have this charismatic energy with me and we have really good chemistry too to be fair and enjoy each others company from what I could tell. Constantly laughing when we are together and etc. She broke up with her boyfriend about 4 months ago and the chemistry grew stronger between us over time along with obvious flirtatious energy, obvious enough to everyone around us. I believed it safe to assume she was still into me to some degree and I went from being 0% interested in a relationship with her to maybe 75% learning towards. As I was actually starting to have alot of respect and care for her as we got closer and spent hours on calls late at night, talking about random things. I wanted to clarify this situation with her as to not make a fool of myself, so I invited her to dinner like we both have done before just us 2 as friends. She initially jokingly said but we have alot of exams, which I took as her playing hard to get as that's the flirty vibe we both play on each other(prolly cringe but yea). So I asked her again after in person and she started discussing dates to which I said I'll give her a few dates when we are done with the immediate exams coming up.
Couple days later at a cafe with the class, we have a decently sized break so I try to suggest a couple dates and she says shes not coming. To which I'm obviously confused as we have this obvious energy and I thought we were past that point. It did upset me as I really was starting to like her alot and I'm usually really picky. So I was a bit silent as I was honestly shocked. When I got home she was messaging me alot, I needed some time to process so I didnt respond as fast as I usually do. She started messaging our mutual friends to ask if they know what's wrong with me and vent that I'm ignoring her. I did respond after a couple hours normally but not as flirty as she made it clear that's not what she wants or so I thought. She goes on to tell alot of people in my friend group that she turned me down for a date which it wasnt even meant to be a date I never used those words. Just dinner as friends to talk about whether we want to go any further. Fast forward we have a talk at my place and she says that her feeling are true for me and she does like me and that she wouldnt have acted in such a way if she didnt, but that this isnt the time and she wants to keep it at where it is and we probably wont be a thing because of being in the same class. She also admitted to telling our group friends about the situation which I told her was a violation of my trust as its inconsiderate of her to gossip to my friends and lowkey embarrassing. Completely the opposite treatment and courtesy that I gave her, she agreed and said it was inconsiderate of her thankfully.
The next day (today) I spent the day at home trying to study. She sends me an audio note and basically tries to break the ice at 2am with me and try to start a convo. I asked her what she wants indirectly and she responds with a voice note saying she wants to see what my breaking point is, to the point where I'm like "I've had enough of her". She also mentions that the only reason shes contacting me is because I'm the only one awake which I know is a lie she could very likely find another guy to entertain her at 2am, shes not bad looking at all. Why is she acting this way? What am I missing? Is she just as confused as I am or are we misunderstanding each other? Why is she trying to continue to flirt with me after saying it cant go further, and do you think shes toying with me?

Hi all -
Looking to get some thoughts on options for our system, where we have a leak and are trying to weigh potential next steps to learn more about and solve the issue, against the 'get this handled ASAP so you are not inhaling refrigerant!' argument that Google spits out. Background info below, looking for 'how I would handle this as a tech' and/or 'here's why I am/am not concerned about the health impact' responses. Oh, and sorry in advance for both the long post and 'dumb' terminology I'll be using - just getting up to and past the 'explain it to me like I'm 5' stage :) I'll throw a TLDR at the end. Oh, and feel free to poke fun or call out our lack of knowledge and any poor decisions. I won't take offense to any sort of 'you're not thinking about this correctly' responses. Thanks!
We live in a condo with a loft and have an air handler upstairs that also uses hot water for heating. Apparently these are pretty much all made by First Co. System is 2 ton and was installed for the prior owner around 8 years ago. To my understanding we are out of warranty (combination of time and new owner). Per a picture of the condenser the unit uses R410A and would have been factory charged to 3.87 LBS. The condenser sits nearly directly on 'top' of our unit - so no measurement of pipe lengths offhand, but shouldn't be a long run.
We've been juuuust a bit remiss on annual maintenance, and are ('were' - going to do better in the future) a bit slow to change the filter...but we've never noticed any issue with the system cooling our unit. About a month ago we heard an odd sound coming out of the in-unit component and found ice on the coil. Turned it off and haven't run it since, except for during tech visits. First tech comes out on a 60-ish degree day, tells us he thinks the system is low but suggests remeasuring later. On return (much warmer day; 80ish), numbers are still low, tech estimates we're down maybe 1.5-2 LBS, recommends replacing the entire system (and therefore strongly suggests we don't bother with a leak test). Also advises that our capacitor is low, but, again, don't spend on it, just replace everything. Since we don't have past test readouts (i.e. prior year maintenance), it seems we can't be sure if this has been a slow leak going on for years or something more rapid based on a recent failure...?
Brought out a tech from a second company (it was a cooler day and had rained/was still drizzling), he ran an electronic leak test at the evaporator coil (we haven't done any sort of dye testing at this time) and noted that there were measurable values at the coil (but didn't tell us what the #s were), but the system seemed 'dry' - no noticeable oil spills, etc. He looked at the condenser too; kind of got a 'it looks fine, but can't say for sure given the rain we just had' - I presume that meant he couldn't be sure if there was oil at the rooftop portion?
(Side Question Here: since we aren't sure if we have a 'slow' or 'rapid' leak, would the lack of oil in the handler (and potentially the condenser) support a hope/conclusion that the leak may be more of a pinhole?)
Tech's recommendation: Charge the system using refrigerant containing an additive that could technically (but zero promise) fill a pinhole leak, then use the system normally to see if there are any performance issues. Test again 1-2 years from now to see how we're doing. If we do this once or twice we could potentially get enough service life to the point where replacing the entire system is more reasonable based on typical lifespan. We like that idea from a cost perspective, though might want an earlier test since, uh, refrigerant leak bad? We also realize there's a time-frame in which it could be 'too soon' to test, given differences in air temp, etc. that could impact the #s.
OPTIONS:
1: Replace the whole system. Cost would be somewhere in the $12K range, and I guess technically we would want to first confirm that the issue isn't in the pipes between the handler and condenser...Would a dye test verify that? Building is about 20yrs old, FWIW.
2: Replace the evaporator coil. Cost would be in the $4K range. I presume (?) that this is 95%+ going to solve the leak issue, though it would obviously suck if the leak was elsewhere. What test(s), if any, should we do before going this route?
3: Charge the system and 'wait and see'. Probably in the $500 range, plus more if we replace the capacitor. Obviously we'd be continuing to use a system with a leak, so this only ends up making sense if the leak was so small that we could get multiple years (re-charge as needed) out of the current system. And hey, maybe the additive solves it?
4: Not discussed, but potential to charge the system (with or without the additive) and add some sort of dye that would enable a more complete/thorough leak test afterwards? I hear that's a thing, if I understand correctly...?
QUESTIONS:
*As mentioned earlier, would lack of oil in the handler (and possibly condenser too) be a solid indicator of a much more 'minor' leak in the system?
*If we did option #3 (or #4), how long should we wait to re-test? We'd want to wait long enough that any loss would be measurable, but are trying to balance that against any health concerns.
*Which brings me to the most important question: uh, how big are these health concerns? I presume we're helped by using R410A rather than R22? And if we're down, say, 2 pounds of refrigerant and the system wasn't charged to even 4 pounds is that even a lot? Is there a good source of information on this that splits the difference between 'I've seen much worse leaks' and 'you're going to die!!!!'? Etc.
*Anything else we should factor into our considerations?
TLDR:
8yr old R410A system is leaking. Not sure how 'big' the leak is. Concerned over health risks associated with refrigerant leaks, but also want to be 'logical' in how to approach this. What tests/'minor' repairs should we consider, or should we bite the bullet for a larger cost that we "know" won't leak?
Thanks for any thoughts!
Edit: Formatting (I think :))

After being here for almost 2 years and the recent events that transpired with enrollment numbers, I created this. I use the term “recession” loosely because it can either be economic or academic. Let me know that your thoughts are, past & current students. Feedback is highly encouraged.
Here’s why Rexburg, more specifically the university, will face issues soon:
Inflation * Apartment prices have risen exponentially (ex: $1200+fees to $1500+fees) creating strain on people who typically pay for housing themselves. This is making people stay home to work and save up for housing, often missing multiple semesters which reflects poorly on semester enrollment stats. * The inflation has also affected the wealth disparity. Most normal apartments are reaching the price points of luxury housing like NorthPoint and The Cove. This results in lower-earning families & students working or doing a trade instead of school.
Decline of living standards * Almost all student apartments in Rexburg have inept management and maintenance, often resulting in broken appliances, carpets, etc. and the companies that own the apartments could care less. This is probably due to the lax tenant laws in Idaho. * That the decline of living standards results in more people who don’t take care of their apartment because they don’t have incentives to do so.
Enrollment * More people are opting to take online classes because it’s considerably cheaper than in-person classes, which results in fewer in-person numbers. * The students in Rexburg provide the majority of income for big and small businesses alike. These places will begin losing money. Only places like Walmart will survive as they have the best prices in town. * Administration at BYU-Idaho are very concerned and multiple meetings have been held on how to improve enrollment numbers. The General Authorities actually want the campus to do something because it’s gotten that bad.
BYU * Updated their enrollment cap, which means that more people in Rexburg will be moving to Provo, or not even going to Rexburg in the first place, because they have a greater chance of being accepted.
Trends I expect to see * Fall Semester 2024 will have historically low attendance numbers for the typically busiest semester, and continue into the next academic year. * More people will be either working or attending different schools, with the main one being BYU Provo. * As the wealth disparity becomes greater, there will either: normal people who can afford $1800/semester or nerds. Normal people will be taking Business classes and nerds will be taking STEM classes. * Less and less people will be attending due to worse housing conditions, and companies will get desperate and try to lure people in by having promotions & sales, which will ultimately fail. * Prepare to see the number of people who play Dungeons and Dragons increase by 73% by 2026.
Other Observations * Rexburg is gaining residents who are moving from out-of-state but also losing students. As the number of students drop and out-of-state move-ins grow, the town will have no choice but to adapt and make changes. A short 5 years ago you wouldn’t find a legit coffee shop in Rexburg and within the next year they’ll be over a dozen places that offer coffee. * As for infrastructure, they’re improving the main intersections and highway exits anticipating future growth, but not for students. * A new temple is being built, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the students population is growing in numbers. This is simply people moving in from out-of-state.
Long-Term Predictions * While I don’t definitely know what’ll happen to the campus itself, we can surmise several things: * Tuition & fees will be raised because of the lack of students helping fund campus operations. This can be a 3%-8% increase, depending on department & college. Lately, the new President has made sure this won’t happen, but will have no other choice soon to protect the assets of the church. * The focus of big-earning stores in Rexburg will shift their focus to new residents rather than the students. * BYU-Idaho will still exist, but with very few degree offerings (half the numbers of what they have now) and most of the opportunity will be in Provo. Department budgets and course offerings will be slashed in-half and specific departments will be combined, much like the CIT/CSE departments. * It will become akin to a community college and nearly lose is accreditation. This will be the case in 4-6 years. * BYU-Idaho exists because the church has put a lot of money into it and it’s literally an investment. * Within the next 3 years, the school will experience an unprecedented amount of single students as the married students graduate and leave. This will lead to more incentives to date & marry. This has been evidenced by the recent Date Nights all CES campuses have hosted. This will continue to happen every semester.

Happy Thursday, Barkada --

The PSE lost 50 points to 6559 ▼0.8%

Shout-out to Albert R. for riffing on the "guy sinking in pond" theme of yesterday's meme, to Sadok Bey for cheering on OGP and gold stocks in general, to Jing for being old fashioned about AI, to Xavier for asking interesting questions about the REIT sector ("who's following [AREIT]?"), to @Banapin_phl_stk for asking if the OGP IPO was appropriate (yes, because it was a legal compliance IPO), to Cheerful2_Dogman210x for noting that REITs should diversify away from offices (agree, but MREIT?), to Adept-Ad-8635 for asking about GMA7 dividends (sorry I don't know anything), and to arkitrader for posting a classic GIF.
*** ANNOUNCEMENT ***
We will have to wait until May 21 to get our daily dose of REIT commentary from Ely (Your REIT Buddy), because he and his wife Gladys are away on vacation celebrating their 1st wedding anniversary! Please join me in congratulating Ely and Gladys Paclibar on this significant life milestone and wishing them many more happy milestones to come!
*** ANNOUNCEMENT ***
Congratulations are also in order Dax Lucas and Miguel Camus for launching their PH business news startup, InsiderPH. Both are veteran business reporters (previously from the Philippine Daily Inquirer) I trust and frequently link to while drafting Merkado Barkada. It's great to see more journalists break out on their own!

▌In today's MB:

• SPNEC crushed on MSCI deletion
• CREC changed IPO date for better "feng shui"
• AREIT declares largest div in company's history
• APL Q1 net loss: P7.9-M (up 32%)

▌Daily meme Subscribe (it's free) Today's email

▌Main stories covered:

• [NEWS] SP New Energy crushed on MSCI deletion... SP New Energy [SPNEC 1.06 ▼6.2%; 150% avgVol] [pdf link] fell more than 6% yesterday as traders digested the MSCI Global Small Cap review results that indicated SPNEC would be deleted from the index, effective June 3. Cebu Pacific [CEB 29.50 ▼1.8%; 113% avgVol] is also scheduled for deletion from the index, while ACEN [ACEN 5.00 ▲9.4%; 478% avgVol] was selected for inclusion. Aboitiz Equity Ventures [AEV 37.00 ▼3.5%; 458% avgVol] was deleted from the MSCI Global Standard index.
  
  • MB: While the majority of people that I know don’t specifically trade index rebalancings, we are all impacted by these additions and deletions to some degree or another, so I think it’s important to flag when these rebalancings happen to make the markets seem just a little less random. For those who are unfamiliar, if you consider all the potential buyers of PSE stocks as just one room of buyers in the global “building” of potential buyers, getting added to an index is almost like getting credentials to access an entirely new room of potential buyers. Adding new buyers to the mix will drive up the price of the stock since the number of outstanding shares has not changed, only the number of interested buyers. That’s what is often referred to as “inflow”. Conversely, losing those new buyers will cause a drop in the price as due to the selling pressure from their need to exit their positions in anticipation of the stock losing its “credential” to access the room. That’s “outflow”. I know it’s a goofy analogy, but it can help new traders gain familiarity with all this talk of “inflows” and “outflows” around rebalancing moves.
• [UPDATE] CREC changed its IPO date for better feng shui... According to a report by Miguel R. Camus of InsiderPH [link], Citicore Renewable Energy Corp [CREC 3.88 pre-IPO] CEO Oliver Tan said that CREC moved its IPO back by a week to June 7 after consulting with a feng shui expert. Mr. Tan said that June 7 is a more “auspicious” date.
  
  • MB: While I’m not a very superstitious person, I understand why these considerations can creep in where the difference between success and failure can so often be attributed to random chance. We’ve seen companies in the past set their maximum IPO price at a number that is thought to carry better “luck”, but it’s hard to look at the history of IPO results and see much good luck in all that red. Good reason? Bad reason? It doesn’t make that much difference to me as an investor, and it likely won’t make any difference to anyone a year or two from now when CREC is listed and the IPO is just a distant memory. Still, thought it was interesting to pass this along since I was lightly speculating on the reason for the date change yesterday.
• [DIVS] AREIT declares largest dividend in company’s history... AREIT [AREIT 33.95 ▲0.1%; 116% avgVol] [link] declared a Q1/24 dividend of ₱0.56/share, payable on June 13 to shareholders of record as of May 28. The dividend has an annualized yield of 6.6%, which is a little higher than AREIT’s pre-dividend annualized yield of 6.48%. The total amount of the dividend is approximately 90.3% of the ₱1.47 billion in distributable income that AREIT reported for the period. AREIT’s year-to-date stock and dividend return is now up to 3.32%, and its total return since its IPO is now 54.56%.
  
  • MB: That’s 16 straight quarters of stable or growing dividends from AREIT. Their management team has weathered all of the issues and problems that have plagued the commercial REIT sector since the pandemic in 2020 (COVID, inflation, POGOs, etc), and they’ve managed to actually grow the dividend 10 times while doing it. Sure, their yield is the lowest of the REITs on the PSE, but it’s low for a reason: risk (or the relative lack thereof).
• [EARNINGS] Apollo Global Q1 net loss: ₱7.9-M (up 32%)... Apollo Global Capital [APL 0.01 ▲10.0%; 6% avgVol] [link] posted a Q1 net loss of ₱7.9 million, which was actually 32% better than its Q1/23 net loss of ₱11.5 million. The company’s Management’s Discussion and Analysis section is still just a “Plan of Operations” because the company still has yet to earn a single peso of revenue from the offshore mining operation that it was supposed to have started in early 2021. APL’s current President, Bonner Dytoc, was appointed back in late 2022 after the company’s previous President resigned.
  
  • MB: Longtime readers will know how closely I’ve been following the trials and tribulations of the MB Siphon 1, the vessel that APL allegedly plans to use to eventually conduct its offshore mining. It’s now been 1199 days since APL reported that the MB Siphon 1 was “in position” and “ready to commence operations” before a series of storms, mechanical mishaps, financial transactions, big waves, and training outages conspired to keep the boat from its one and only purpose. I get the sense that even the PSE is getting fed up with the situation, which says a lot considering what they’ve been willing to tolerate from other companies; the PSE officially required APL to disclose the status of the MB Siphon 1 last month, and in response, APL said that the MB Siphon 1 is “currently undergoing its equipment maintenance and continuous enhancements to ensure safety, durability, and operational efficiency.” APL went on to say that it will commission another vessel to “supplement our operations for the year”. And the kicker: APL said that it is “on track to anticipate initial shipments within the second quarter of this year.” On track to anticipate? 60% of the time, that wordplay works every time.

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For the first time since his incarceration, Bankman-Fried described his daily life in a detailed interview with journalist William D. Cohan of Puck:

On a recent Tuesday, I went to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn for an intimate chat with America’s most famous prisoner, Sam Bankman-Fried. During our 75-minute conversation, we discussed everything from Caroline Ellison and the travails of his new life, to his regrets about the demise of FTX and his forthcoming appeal.
I got the distinct impression that Sam still doesn’t believe he committed any crimes, only that he was the one responsible for putting FTX in a position where it was vulnerable to a bank run and the devious actions of its competitors

WILLIAM D. COHAN -- May 9, 2024
On Tuesday afternoon, I found myself in the most unusual circumstances—sitting on a small plastic chair at a cramped table in the Metropolitan Detention Center, the federal prison on 29th Street in Sunset Park, in Deep Brooklyn. Outside, it was a gorgeous day, the sort of picturesque and slightly humid one that inevitably reminds longtime New Yorkers of the weather on the morning of September 11th. Inside the prison’s visiting room, however, there was no natural light, no sunshine, only the Hitchcockian buzz of fluorescent bulbs and three vending machines standing in a corner. Posters on the wall attempted to compensate for the bleak atmosphere by buoyantly welcoming visiting families.
I first met Sam Bankman-Fried in December 2021, during the height of his power and influence, when he was the richest person in the world under 30. My friend Anthony Scaramucci, a.k.a. The Mooch, had connected us. On a cold winter night at the One Hotel, on Sixth Avenue, I interviewed him for a documentary I am part of making about Bitcoin and its developer, Satoshi Nakamato. Sam showed up an hour late, in a black t-shirt and cargo shorts, apparently having just flown in via private jet from the Bahamas. A month later, Sam’s cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, would raise its final $400 million round of financing from a group of highfalutin investors—led by Softbank, Temasek, and Paradigm—at a valuation of $32 billion, making the company one of the most valuable in the sector. At that moment, Sam was said to be worth $26 billion.
This week, we reconnected amid very different circumstances. Sam and I arranged for this visit through his Corrlinks email account, at the suggestion of his mother, Barbara Fried, and the family’s prison advisor. We met on Tuesday around 1 p.m. because that was the only day that visiting hours are permitted at MDC, a hangover from the Covid era. Prisoners can have visitors for one of two sessions, either starting at noon or at five in the afternoon.
We were meeting later than noon because of the staffing shortage at the facility. I was allowed to bring in $1 or $5 bills, up to a total of $30, in case I wanted to buy Sam some water, soda, or snacks from the humming vending machines. I was told to put my $20 bill as well as my wallet and iPhone into a locker. Sam was not permitted to buy anything himself.
Following about an hour of bureaucratic snafus (I went to the wrong building at first, and I wasn’t wearing dark pants—although an exception was made for me) and other forms of prison processing (shoes and belt off, metal detection, sticking my hand in a scanner) I was finally allowed inside the prison, without a phone, a watch, a recording device, or even a pad of paper and a pencil. (I knew this in advance, of course, and set about preserving my recollections of our conversation immediately after leaving the facility.)
After a few minutes of waiting, I looked up to see Sam Bankman-Fried, over in the corner, dressed head to toe in a chocolate-brown prison jumpsuit, along with the still-wild frizzy hair that has been his trademark. These days, Sam looks considerably thinner than the last time we met—it appeared he’d lost 25 pounds, at least. But he looked better and fitter than I thought he would, to be honest—less pudgy, less manic, less fidgety, no bags under his eyes.
He was sustaining himself on rice and beans, he said, because the prison food was unsurprisingly inedible, especially the vegan entrées he was served, which his fellow inmates thought literally smelled like shit. He wasn’t complaining, mind you; he noted that he was just trying to make the best of a bad situation. The rice he buys at the prison commissary has become one of the currencies of the realm inside MDC. We joked briefly about how the arbitrage opportunities in jail were better than anything he experienced trading crypto at Jane Street Capital or buying and selling assets at Alameda. He looked me in the eye pretty much the whole time, something he rarely did with people in the old days.
After we shook hands, he sat down in his own plastic chair as a camera watched us from the ceiling. We were surrounded by a couple of other inmates, dressed similarly, facing their visitors. Sam declined my initial offer to buy him some snacks but ultimately agreed to a $4 bottle of water and a small $2 package of Wheat Thins, which he eagerly consumed.
We talked for the next 75 minutes or so, the first in-person interview he has given to a journalist since he was locked up in the MDC last August and then subsequently convicted of two counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud, commodities fraud, and money-laundering at his federal trial in November. In March, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Our chat, under these rather drastic circumstances, was a profoundly jarring and fascinating experience.

Prison Diaries

Sam began by answering my question about his life in prison. According to him, he lives in an area of the jail that was dedicated mostly to incarcerated women, save for the 35 men with whom he shares a dormitory-style existence in a big open room—bunk beds, no privacy, extreme boredom, and four television sets tuned to ESPN, Telemundo, BET, and a news channel. Sam said he could try to persuade his fellow inmates to change up the channel selection, but television bores him, so he has no interest in that challenge. He prefers watching a small selection of movies or playing some inferior video games on a tablet, without an internet connection, that the prison provides him and other inmates.
When I told him he seemed better than I had anticipated, he replied that he’d become good at faking it. So, yes, life inside the MDC is not the Bahamas. But, truly, I had expected to see him coping less well. At the MDC, Sam has mostly been permitted his prescription medications, and the cocktail he’s been allowed has him thinking clearly, he said, and energized for the legal battle he plans to wage soon against the verdict.
In the meantime, he told me, he doesn’t fear for his safety. He can use the bathroom and shower a couple of times a week in peace. He’s always been a light sleeper, and he’s still not sleeping soundly at the MDC, but mostly because people sometimes bug him during the night about those bags of rice, which they intend to use to barter. He has not been touched or abused, and he seemed notably thankful for that.
He acknowledged that he has a unique rap sheet at MDC, and his fellow prisoners indeed recognize him. He estimated that about half of the other 35 men in his unit were murderers who had been turned into cooperating witnesses for the prosecution in exchange for not serving a life sentence. In prison, many inmates consider cooperating witnesses the lowest form of vermin, lower even than child molesters. Sam also told me that some of the other prisoners tried to get close to him, thinking they would benefit financially from the proximity to a former billionaire. He doesn’t play along, he said.
We didn’t talk about his trial strategy or whether he intentionally siphoned off the $8 billion of FTX customer funds into Alameda. Both topics seemed moot at this point. We did discuss his onetime girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, whom he selected to run Alameda after lawyers kept hounding him about the inherent conflicts in him running both FTX and the hedge fund. (He chose to run FTX.) He acknowledged that he had asked a few other people if they would be interested in the role, but they turned him down. Ellison, he said, was a good manager of people and a good administrator but didn’t like making big investments and didn’t like taking risks. (Obviously, this seems like a bizarre aversion for a hedge fund manager, but I didn’t belabor the point.) In any event, Alameda ended up doing both.
He regretted that he had not tried harder to find another executive. He also said he should have ignored the lawyers and just kept running both FTX and Alameda, conflicts be damned, sort of like how Elon Musk oversees his various companies. Wishing he had ignored his lawyers’ advice emerged as a theme of Sam’s during our visit.

Legal Therapy

We did talk a fair amount about his appeal and about how he believed he was set up to be the fall guy—the victim of the old build-’em-up-only-to-tear-’em-down narrative arc. His theory of the case was that by the fall of 2022, it was every man for himself on a boat that looked to be sinking. By early November 2022, FTX was facing a liquidity crunch. Sam first sought a deal with Binance, which quickly fell apart or was never truly real, and was in the process of trying to raise billions in capital when his lawyers advised him to turn the keys of FTX over to John J. Ray III, which he did. Ray quickly filed FTX for bankruptcy and installed Sullivan & Cromwell, the company’s outside counsel, as counsel to the debtor.
Sam became the target of federal prosecutors, he told me, soon after FTX’s outside counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell made a presentation to them, on November 9, 2022, a day or so before the bankruptcy filing, about what they believed Sam may have engineered between FTX and Alameda, which has been described as the theft of $8 billion of customer money. In a sworn declaration about that meeting, S&C attorney Andrew Dietderich said he reported to the D.O.J. only what Ryne Miller, FTX’s U.S. general counsel, told him about a problem of “reconciling digital assets with entitlements” on FTX’s U.S. exchange, and nothing about Sam and his alleged transgressions.
Sam told me that had he not been persuaded by Sullivan & Cromwell and then by his personal attorneys to relinquish his job as C.E.O. to Ray, the company would not have filed for bankruptcy, and it would still be a thriving enterprise, worth $80 billion now. In this alternate reality, he would be worth $40 billion and he certainly wouldn’t be at the MDC. (S&C declined to comment on Sam’s theory of the case. It’s also fair to reiterate here that Sam was sentenced to 25 years in prison after a jury convicted him of the crimes described above.)
I got the distinct impression that Sam still doesn’t believe he committed any crimes, only that he was the one responsible for putting FTX in a position where it was vulnerable to a bank run and the devious actions of its competitors, not unlike how both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers failed in 2008. Why, Sam wondered, was he prosecuted when no one at either Bear or Lehman faced criminal prosecution? During our chat, Sam was contrite and certainly chastened, but not exactly apologetic: He was adamant about his innocence, aside from a few degrees of negligence—punishable, in his view, perhaps by civil consequences, not criminal penalties and a quarter-century sentence.
According to Sam’s theory, he isn’t in prison for commingling assets of FTX and Alameda. Instead, he’s an innocent guy who didn’t get a chance to negotiate a deal with the federal prosecutors, and wonders why he was even prosecuted at all for what he believes was a form of a bank run. Instead, they just presented him with his indictment and told him he could eat it— accept it and plead guilty and then get sentenced, or go to trial and try to fight it. Since there was no plea bargain on the table, he said, he fought the charges at trial, and lost. Unlike his fellow inmates, he told me, Sam speaks to his new attorney nearly every weekday for an hour or so, as the focus of his appeal comes into view. He expects to file it this fall. Yes, he will appeal, but most people think he faces long odds of success.
On the day of my visit, Sullivan & Cromwell, still counsel to the debtor-in-possession in FTX’s bankruptcy case, filed a first draft of a plan of reorganization that appears to give its customers and creditors all of their money back, plus a little more—a return of $15 billion on $12 billion of claims—in large part because of the investments Sam made through Alameda. The plan, which still has a long way to go before being confirmed, also gives Sullivan & Cromwell, along with other FTX advisors, “exculpation” from future lawsuits related to its conduct in the matter. This is not unusual in a plan of reorganization. But Sam has exhaustive thoughts on this subject, which I may explore with him in a follow-up conversation.

Go West, Young Man

I’m not sure how much longer Sam will be at the MDC, and neither is he. He has asked to remain in Brooklyn at least until the fall, when his appellate brief will be filed. But that’s not up to him, of course. If he gets moved, which could come at any moment without warning or explanation, I’m told, it would probably be to California, closer to Palo Alto, where he grew up, the son of two Stanford Law professors. At that point, the question will be whether he gets to spend his incarcerated years in a federal penitentiary, which are mostly nasty places filled with hardened criminals, or in more of a minimum security prison, as Mike Milken once did.
If he does get moved out of Brooklyn, his family and legal team worry, he could spend as long as four months on a bus, handcuffed to the seat, making his way, slowly, across the country. Such prison buses make frequent stops—picking up new prisoners, dropping off others—which explains why they take so long to reach their final destinations. There’s also a remote possibility that he could be placed on one of the many planes operated by the U.S. Marshals Service, a.k.a. “Con Air.” But he’s more likely to get the infamous “diesel therapy,” they fear. Either way, during this hypothetical cross-country journey, Sam would be completely incommunicado with both his family and his lawyers until he reaches his new home in California, deprived of the minimal access to the internet and email he now enjoys in Brooklyn.
Just as we were getting ready to discuss some knotty issues, such as his choices during his trial or the fact that many of the people who once worked for him had turned against him to save themselves, our visiting time was up. It was non-negotiable. We quickly shook hands again. Then Sam went back to his dormitory and I went back outside into a glorious spring afternoon.
Credits/Via: https://puck.news/exclusive-prison-chat-with-sam-bankman-fried/

I'm not really sure how to categorize this, but I've been working at the same place for 10yrs. I was diagnosed ADHD about 5yrs ago and through a series of events at work learned that I Am Not Great At Leading People, which in the end lead me to learn I'm auDHD. In the end I stepped down from my job. It wasn't just the auDHD burnout of all burnouts, but because I wasn't being treated with respect. Several team members never accepted my position as a lead even though I have been working in my department 2+ years and trained most of them. One of my biggest offenders was an 80yr old man that talks down to everyone, but I feel particularly bad with me.
I know this man is a MAGA because he went against company policy and brought MAGA merchandise into work. He was never written up for this, despite offending myself (open lesbian married to a trans individual also with ADHD) and several other openly queer, poc and workers with disabilities (another coworker was diagnosed autistic, but only told people he was comfortable with on an outside of work comfortability level)
Since I've made the decision to step down everyone has treated me better at least to my face. Except him. He constantly acts like I'm brand new when I ask for help ever after making it clear I don't need help and he always has to get the last word. I don't have a conversation where he doesn't talk down to me or isn't condescending to some degree, to the point I've caught him doing my work for me. When I go to my supervisor and manager about the way he treats me I feel like I'm being treated like I'm being a big baby and being asked to extend him grace for his advanced age because he's supposed to have retired already (and now telling everyone he is extending his retirement for another 3yrs).
When I've asked how come I was asked to change the way I talk to people (I was told I was too black and white, too robotic, other things that typically come back to the autism in the end), but why he isn't asked to extend grace in return. How come he can tell me he thinks of me as a child because im the same age as his daughter (im almost 40) and why he isnt told to change the way he talks to people in return. I was basically told at one point talking to HR won't do me any good because HR doesn't want to build a case for him because he's threatened to sue for discrimination over his age over another incident and tends to stretch the truth. I don't go a single day where i don't feel like he talks down to me, has to get the last word. Today he talked down to me for needing clarification on a note that was clearly unclear, my boss stepped in and gave me direction, but he still needed to come in and point out why i was wrong and that "because you were out" when I was out for FMLA purposes. I'm given twice a day a week for mental health and how come he can say things like that to me, but I know if I said the same about him taking FMLA he would have me strung up by HR so fast. And yet when I complain to my boss about him and how he makes me feel with the way he talks to me I'm treated like it's no big deal and that I'm making a mountain out of a molehill.
I just can't sit back and let this person continuously set me off, but he threatens everything about my way of life with his beliefs. I'm supposed to just sit back and take this man upsetting me, making me angry or making me cry pretty much every day of the week and I can't take it anymore.

Hello everyone! I'm super desperate...
I'm about to graduate as a M.Sc in Geoinformatics very soon, but I feel so worried that I did the 8 last years of studying in vain.
First, I worked as a surveying engineer, but then realized that I cannot handle all those sensory stimuli outside like loud noises on the streets. So, I switched to Geoinformatics. I never had problems with writing code, but I always hated debugging errors within code. I never had enough patience, if I couldn't solve an error within 20 minutes, it made me want to throw my laptop out of the window. I was always hoping that at some point I will develop more frustration tolerance, that's what kept me going. But now I realized that this will never happen. I cannot take it anymore.
If you're now asking yourself why I decided to study Surveying/Geoinformatics in the first place, my parents pressured me to do so and I gave in. My dream has always been to study Geography, particularly Human Geography, and I feel so much sadness, regret and self-hate that I wasn't strong enough to trust my intuition and stick to my dream. I tortured myself through the studying program and I will never get those lost 8 years back 😢
Now I at least want to make use of my degree somehow. However, I became more self-aware and realized that I have so much more emotional than rational intelligence. I want to do research about social problems and find new ideas how to solve them. I want to do interviews with people to understand their problems, hopes and dreams and I want to spread awareness about them.
I don't know who can help me, my colleagues at work and university professors try to push me back into jobs with coding or engineering, it feels like swimming against the currents. I know that programmers and engineers are heavily requested in the labour market, but I already went through burnout for 6 weeks. What's the point of staying in a job that society wants me to take when I know it will destroy me mentally in the long run?
Please send help...I need to find a new career path. I'd love to start a PHD in Human Geography in Europe, but I don't fulfill the requirements for that. Should I re-do a second master degree in Human Geography? I don't really wanna study anymore, but if I have no other option I am ready to do that.
Is there any media company that needs someone who can create and interpret maps? I'm ready to design maps for them, as long as it doesn't involve any coding, if they are ready to open the door into journalism for me in exchange. Unfortunately, I can't find such a company on the Internet.
Or do you maybe have other ideas? Other career paths I can take which allow me to understand human feelings instead of solving technical problems while still making use of my master's degree? Is it even possible to balance those two interests? What do you think?
I'm so sorry for the long text. I hope you get the dilemma I'm in now and can help show me a way out.

Not shared, nor my shade; but something to be weaved; just as the measure of disappointment became it's own solution. But I talked my way through things forbidden, just to find myself blind in bed with those who are dead. Clumsy, but altogether natural of course, because it's consciousness what you refer in the description, yet that's what we don't get a lot about. See your deeds the way you are seen, and then return to a restless place: and the question in-between sheets will be why. Well, I just can't motivate myself to work without hot bitches staring. And that's the truth. Sad but True
— Hearfelt comment for an instagram witch.
Del desprecio a ese descarte, no he visto muchas cosas. Así se pasa una más para las cuentas, y aquí otro más para los versos, por qué aquí no hemos sido vistos. Cuánto más querría uno, que sino lo cuentas ni mucho menos piensas: << lo de este pibe que cosa más horrible>>, haciendo eso lamentable, por qué en decirlo nadie ha mentido. ¡Es horrible! Que cara es entonces la cuenta de lo que le sale a uno vivir sin más complejos; mejor seria cobrarmelo, para así saber que de algo ha valido. Bloqueame.
— Heartfelt comment for a random supermodel-to-be.
The Spirit of Fire
Flames begone, flames in spite: their warmth I felt - so I closed my fist until I could feel the warmth of my blood in my hand. And in dreams Fire came up to me and said: who am I? And I said unto him: you are bound to my bidding, thus your name misery will be. But fire wretched as he was, got closer and asked: and who are you?
And I said unto him that the blood of David ran through my veins, as I was his heir; for the mother of God claim me from death as a son. So Fire tried me, and figured it out.
You are son of woman —said Fire unto me— but as Fire acknowledged the name, I extended my left hand, and took Fire by the neck throwing him into the gound. — You are going to lace yourself to the right hand of the beast, and you'll keep him steady, so I can cleanly take him down. And Fire stayed down, and with his forehead kissing the ground asked unto me —why would the heir of David do so to earthly man?
And I said unto Fire that the beast from the abyss had left no mother for God, so I was to leave none of his body left for his head; as I was going to make it bleed until the end of the end of times.
The Spirit of Earth
Shapeless and without body, but keen within her many numbers, Earth came up to me in dreams, and said: who am I? And posessed in spirit as I was, I said unto her, that God had made her maiden again, and that she shall become the coins that Judas never received, which were to become the due payment of man and women for the body of Christ. Then I extended my right hand, and grabbed Earth by her hair —which descended deep into the abysses of hell— and cut it short so the demons of Lilith would no longer had her gripped by her back.
You are now a woman, and I'm going to rise you from the grounds. You'll lace yourself to the left hand of the beast, and keep it steady so with one shot I can cleanly take him down.
The Spirit of Air
A dream shaped by written words, whispered down for years by the currents of this Montain, and it's requiem witnessed but by a few — the end of dreams. But from where I standed at the peak, I called upon the distant currents that went down, and asked them: who am I?
And Air came unto me as bird, which had thousands of letters for feathers, and in the tongue of dead men answered.
"Somebody who only a few will remember by strange deeds; as the burden on your back, is a past tainted by impossible dreams. You were a lunatic giving new names to folk, and folk never bothered to remember —so your name must be freak, as you died in a forgotten shack some short time ago."
And as Air said these things upon me, I called Misery —as I had dubbed Fire — and told him to get inside my shot. The burden as Air had said, became lesser as i took the shot from my quiver. And I said upon Misery; that he was to set ablaze this arrow, as I was taking down the bird of Britain, and that I would do so, so God would give the deeds of Earth some better names.
The Lord is making a bridge between the empire of strength, and the last empire of men. Now by God's grace, I'm making the tongue of free men, the tongue of Spain. You will be eventually bound to my bidding, and if not me, it will be to the one I'm preceding; for I'm giving you twenty years to attone your wrongdoing. Alas, now because of your wretchedness, my shot on earthly men won't be clean, for his left leg won't stay steady.
Your old name was apathy, now I'm calling you Cisma, which in the tongue of dead men means schism. So now by the will of God lay unto the ground and say the words you've been teached. And as the arrow blazed forward, it's bending motion pierced the veil hiding the secret ladder of men. The bird of Britain catched on Fire, and it's hollering resounded throught the ladders of the mountain until the depths of the abyss. A column of air turned into fire, then violenty erupted from the vowels of the bird, and the wild fire spread as a storm from west to east all throughout the five kingdoms of men away from its own fiery wings, with a gift of misery and a few words to say.
"The name of your woman or the name of your man, will no longer explain their purpose to a man, a woman, or God. Charred words written by thunder will now be the new ladder of men — but until then, darkness upon thee."
The House of Water
I head into the coasts, and the beautiful beaches in-between, to find the stranger who burns images in the skin of men. He is the stranger, and has adopted the body of a monster, and he is one who cannot be understood, so he went on to only go out home in stunts, for the burdens in his heart have become too great to bear. Through terrible pains he has given all he once was for an identity, and as I pick up on his past, i found familiarity in the feelings of his heart. Oh dear friend how we found looking in sadness to ourselves, after doing same but with different means, carrying into our shoulders the loneliness of this world. As you have in-skin the garments of the strange doctrine that I preach — I shall congrate you, for you truly have fought the world entire, for my doctrine is the words of those who shall defeat the world entire.
I may not have your strangeness in-body, but I have it in these words, and in the true feelings of my heart. And I say in admiration that there's no higher form of art, philosophy or religion: than those who perform the highest thing they can give a name about.
Now even within solitude, and at odds with what old dead men call God, I see you and I found strength in you, as I can see you are within me, and in that, you are within everything as it should be - as is meant in everyone who does something that touches the heart of another man. I call this the kingdom of God. Yet blind men and women will wonder how can the kingdom of God possibly be within two outcasts such as you and me.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Upong giving my regards and waiting for response, I found my way into a bench. It was a warm afternoon, and the wind carried the water of the sea. The bird of Britain came about down from the wind of north, and layed on the bench were I was sitting.
The bird asked: why hast thou become this?
And I said back to bird, scorched he was and nearing death, that it was me someone who was supposed to give names, yet for years I couldn't figure out one for myself. Then on went to being given a name, Alas all the wrong ones. Did Adan gave himself a name? - I asked the bird back. And there was no response from bird. Then I continued.
A man has the essence of his soul retained by what he is seen doing. Yet I did things nobody saw, so my soul wasn't with God but with something just as ancient, and nonetheless unknown by men in its true nature — then Satan as the better known devil, came about and pushed me into a hole. It was my own doing. Yet the things I did, I thought were seen. But nonetheless what I did was without contemplation on a posible return. Just as somebody who prints an image on their own skin. It's permanent. This is the essence of a memory in the soul of the man who's seen by others. But in the familiarity of a man who picked every irreversible decision like the Alien, I find myself feeling sympathy, for the man is still not what he has been seen doing, he shall redeem himself by what he decides to turn himself into.
Is this a way of saying that you want to get yourself a tattoo? Get a new look? - the bird mockingly asked.
And I gave the scorched bird no answer.
Then the bird said unto me: what about your career as a prophet, uh? And the things you said about returning with substance? Do you actually think this is substance?
And i considered what the Bird said, then I negated with a movement of my own head. It is not i answered, but i find the memories of me not making sense unbearable. For those mean the memories of a fool, un pendejo, an insane person, or both. And I will always try to amend what I don't do well. But now I wish for only one thing, and it is to be remembered as someone who makes sense, and who out of that sense, made good upon the world. I don't expect anything in return for what I do now, as it is merely an outlet to keep me sane while I finish editing my work. It's clear I'm too incompetent to be a competent influencer. As for once, I don't care about influencing anyone into what I think; but to perform what I think it's important.
Then every proverbial student is free to take classes so as they see fit, and to interpret such classes as their comprehension gives them grasp of what it's said. In such regard, this is what I offer now, while I make the journey to Madrid. And the bird tilted it's head so as to observe me with his left eye, then after a long impasse, it made a loud and painful caw, and finally flew away. Soon after the bird flew, I looked upon the stars in the nascent night, and confessed to them, that it was the memories of who we were, what often stumps us into wrong beliefs of who we should be, maybe even wasting an entire lifetime retained by that which other people remembered us as being. But we are not the owners of our own names, the place we go, and our destiny. That's the biggest lie the western world of hollywood heros tell you, as in truth is collective agreement what determines what we look like doing and thus the meaning we should comfort to, recalling that names are practical mechanisms to remember the purpose of things, their meaning, and how their motion is described in the world.
But making the task of beating that collective belief, akin to the Nietzschean ideal of the camel turning into the lion, so as to transform it's spirit and become something else. But if it's the golden dragon of all the huamn values which judges you insane, will you be prepared to wrestle with the entire culture so as to have your way?
As I layed my eyes upon each star counting up to the number seventeen, I confessed of being scared of those beliefs, as revisiting the past, became a painful deed — and as I prepared to leave, I uttered one wish on the seventeenth point in the sky.
Lord please grant me strength, the way you have given my friend strenght.
2.
The night deepen, while the sea tide sang its own song of breathing. Some time passed, and then on the stranger showed himself approaching at the distance. I waved my hand at him, and after the instant, he found his way into my bench while I welcomed him with an extended fist which he casually bumped - after the short acknowledgement the dark alien looked at my face in between it's cover of dark, and looking at it undiscernable in its true features, with suspicion asked.
— What is it that you want?
I acknowledged him as a friend, then mentioned my brief research, as I had come to know him as man looking for a job, yet nobody would hire for things mundane due to his appearance. I listened closely to the news, and came to understand that this was a man looking for a second chance.Then I saw the intent behind his doing, and two words came to stick to my own thoughts. The first one was <> and the second one was <>. I was admired.
In analytical psychology I figured this man was the ESFP —the personality archetype related to the performer and the entertainer—, possessed in an abnormal way by the spirit by which a person submits to it's contrary nature, seeking to integrate and find fulfillment through the chase of what's perceived absent. If he was the ESFP then doing the flip by following the radial axis of each Jungian function in the stack towards their opposite resulted in the INTJ. The mastermind. The architect. The genius yet awfully complex individual. That was the elusive spirit he was chasing.
But a spirit and a character that at its most pronounced embodiment in a person, would experience life as an eternal foreigner hiding from the light of other men. Such made sense to me, for I myself was the INTJ, and had at spirit the ESFP. Him. So where as this man chased the spiritual fulfillment of being a complex and deep individual, I chased the fulfillment of becoming simpler, so I could demonstrate with action the deepest desires of my heart. One who was born plentiful in means to be liked, becomes complex, mysterious and uncomprehended, meeting one who will be seen trying to make sense becoming simpler. For Carl Jung portrayed the anima and animus of individuals, as the sense of what its absent, yet deeply cherished an valued. So I said these things to the alien, while he silently listened to me.
— All of that sounds like bullshit to me. -Said the alien after some contemplation .— Sorry but the things you say, don't mean anything to me.
And alas for I expected such response, as if one thing was true about this journey, was that explaining the journey in and of itself would become it's grimmest task. I affirmated what he just said with a slight nod of head.
— These things I say and how they relate to each other, in its excercise are similar to doing stecheometric balance with equations in the head, but simpler I'm afraid. - Then I paused, looked back into the sea, and continued. — That's high school chemistry, but I don't expect everybody to pick up on it, nor like it, nor understand it.
— Now i have called you a friend, and where I came from we dub with this title the people we share destiny with. As far as I'm concerned, we are chasing the same thing, which is the hardest posible thing. We both innately understand that we are not home, as we want our spirit to return to us, and that's not what a lot of people ever honestly try to attempt in a lifetime; as such is anyone's call to feel complete.
— And very few people ever reach true individuality, beyond the name they are imposed at birth.
Then I looked into the black alien, and in-between his foreign facial features, I interpreted something familiar. Disturbance. And I continued.
— We have given ourselves hell as we lived chasing something hard, so we can avoid the same hell later on when we are finally back to our own house. This is a christian precept, altought a rundimentary one. Does that makes sense to you?
And after listening such, the black alien calmly looked at the veil in my face in silence. Trying to discern what my face actually looked like, but the night was dark. Then turned his stare back to the reflection of the moon over the waters, giving some thought to what I just said. I opened up my backpack, and drawed two cans of beer from it. Offered one to him, and he silently refused with a gesture of hand. I popped my can and gave it a sip, while I myself stared at the tides coming in and out of the shore.
— If you wan't a tattoo, we can work that out. But this sounds annoyingly familiar, and my interest is not religious. Are you religious?
I nodded in affirmation, and complemented saying. — But my doctrine is something nobody has heard nor seen. For its aim, is doing as Christ said, in perfect means. Yet its true that the teaching fits you, as it's the teaching of the future man; and there's nothing in common between the current man and the future man, as they may very well be different species. This is the precept of evolution.
The alien seemed surprised.
— These two men don't know each other, for the current man doesn't know where the future man comes from, for he himself doesn't know where he is going. Yet in deep realization of your own artistic concept, I think you might want new ideas to meet with your appearance. So tell me, are you curious about what truly happens to a man after he dies? Do you want to learn how to read someone's mind? Do you want to blast with words of fire the hearts of an amazed crowd?
But the black alien broke his calm contemplation of what I was saying, and slighty disturbed, aggressively rebuked after hearing such.
— But you mentioned 'Christ', so you must be christian. How can a christian even say anything interesting in this current time? Last time I asked, their sayings were dreaded by restriction - so why would anyone condemn themselves to a life of bore? Are you a christian?
And I nodded after the question, in silence. Admittedly, for I knew what the problem was with being what I was, and my new companion was bang on identifying it. Made a pause, then raised my sight to where it met with the sky and the stars in it, and I said back to him.
— I am, but not one of a type you have ever seen, for the Christ that comes, is a Christ of art.
2.
The riptide sang, in its secret dialect of earth and sea. I looked upon the coast, turned an eye blind, and saw the ocean as the scorpio, and the land as the taurus; as it was the struggle between two lovers, never meant to consume each other. Ideal love then - yet not to confuse with this partnership as it was whimsilcally tied by the means in which i arranged my current conversation; for my lady somewhere waited for me. Then i allowed my eyes to rest still.
The alien looked upon me, undiscernable in my intentions, and again figured for himself that my interest towards him wasn’t clear. In suspicion, and after the moment he collected his thoughts asked “In your weird words you dubbed me performer, so what is it exactly that you wan’t from me. To me it seems like you are gathering people for some form of religious clown show. When you forced this meeting upon me, was this a proposal you thought i would find amusement in?”. And after the statement my own stare wandered in my conversation partner. While as he had his say, i returned to my can of beer, and finished it with a long gulp. Tempered in an unwillingness to fall to my new found friend irritation, i said within my own thoughts: “The alien looks easy going, but he is barbed in wit”.
Then i opened the can of beer that the stranger rejected; the loud pop resounded in the relative silence, interrupting for a moment the steady chorus of the sea. Gave it a long sip, and said.
– Theres no proposal in place yet. But im certain of something, and that is that both of us are messed individuals which reached the bottom doing the same thing - but the way my understandment of the human soul goes: two people can act by mere interaction as reactives to each other, creating a new chemical compound after the fact.
– This new psychology is very much like chemistry. But it is not my intention to draw you into something, but to pull myself out of this «something» by doing right on another person and maybe that person reflecting the good back on me. I just need a conversation partner, thats all. And i will do this with you, and with many people more. Presidents included.
The alien reflected on it, and after the hiatus of a long standing position of suspicion he finally gave in, and eased up with a slight smile. A strange smile of relief. But the smile, was all too familiar for me, as i realized the man was a tortured individual: a person in long standing pain. I smiled back the way he did, and continued.
– Our pain has a common name, and is a name that can be written with words unfortunately. It’s the devilish mother of all spiritual ills and its foundation, rests at the concept of a past that wasnt solved. It’s called «inadequeacy», and for people like you and me, understanding one day that such inadecuacy had to be solved by our own means, lead us into an act where our name changed as the changes in our cover up act to solve our inadequacy did.
– We never honored the past or the present in our pursuit, as we desired in passion to find solution to the present, by matching it into the idealization of some future without ever realizing that the old or present essence of ones being would be crushed into non existance by said future.
– Then we found the realization of that new name, only to understand that its demands became a tyranny on the other faces of our soul: as our soul is not something that can be undestood in unity, but something that conceives in the beginning in multiple things which try to give shape to one thing. Theres many people in a village, and our minds, are no exception.
— But happiness is only achieved by those who have their soul entire - or those who are the same person regardless of the context and scenario. And we gave to much to somebody that wasn't us, as our spirit took possession and lead us down.
– This is this the essence by which someone goes to hell, only to do one thing over again, getting an ever lasting pain for all the things that were given up chasing that which was absent. The more someone is forced into being shaped by the thing that was concevied in lust, the more the individual misses the place they used to call home, for that is no longer within ones reach. Does this makes sense to you?
The alien left me with no answer, and as he contemplated the sea, a tear travelled through his strange face.
– In this state of anguish, affliction rarely ever feels company, as the very individual condition that was pursued, became a full suit and persona to be forced upon and wear. Hell, is one lonely place man because we only learn to speak a language, that only makes sense to ourselves. But i think we can find a way out of it. This is why I'm here.
“Look, what you’ve done, it’s not something i can see the way you can see my own doing on me.” The alien replied. “Besides the way in which i canno’t see your face in this night, you seem ordinary — but what you talk and the way you say it, evokes in every word regret. What is it that you’ve done that has you regret like this?”
As the alien finished speaking, I emptied the can of beer, layed my eyes on the irregular grooves that my feet had left on the sand, and then replied back to him, after making a recap of the story i had repeatedly told myself after falling down.
“My story, is the fairy tale of a guy who makes way for the new coming of a new man; a better man for the world, while he casts disarray upon the earth: much to his dismay, at the expense of his own soul as the people who become victims of disasters, were ones who this man deemed unfair; cruel, evil, despicable in past. That was at the beginning."
"Theres a pile of corpses behind that character — even in covid time, people as close as the local priest of the small town he lived in, would break their neck after falling in the shower, as he had the slightest suspicion of their secret deeds. All clean deads for that matter. Untraceable to nothing but sheer randomness. Magic as it seeems. But were this folk truly evil people or even guilty of anything? You may ask - the man never knew it for sure, as he never had faculties such as godly omniscience to actually know it; which has taken a toll on him, as the burden of justice is an unberable one for anything but a god."
"Which leads to another point: spontaneously picturing random numbers in the head, associating them with psychological compounds by angular momentum, and actually being bang on the suspicion. Truth friend, in its stochastic presentation: it's unberable.”
“Consequential of such attempts to rationalize his own story in the eyes of people such as close family, my dude became clinically diagnosed with referenced thinking. Which are fancy words for schizophrenia. Nobody believed the story as it was uttered."
"Yet the consequences are there for everyone to see, altought not visible in their cause and effect by anybody but this guy, which lead him first into regret over ever starting his quest as a reformer; and then repent.”
“Now before he realized of this lets call it «curse», he preached for years over the internet as the disasters started to slowly creep up. He preached in a fashion parallel to Niestzches Zarathustra; Zarathustra meaning a famous philosophical device artificied by the philosopher Niestzche, who’s aim was to portray the best posible man, as something he dubbed the <<Übermensch>> ”.
“Such concept being the seemingly more elegant brand of a humanist ideal for a not so distant future: today - albeit a wrong one, for this guy was not dyonisian himself. The backbone of his framework, is analytical psycholgy becoming a chariot for a true understandment of human nature: and ultimately a facilitator for love within light: not within ignorance; not within darkness. Most philosophers today though would mock anything analytical in it's aim."
"Then on the guy preached and dwelved further into the relative hole of his own doctrine: and became imprisoned by what he didn’t got right at first attempt, making him in the process the character that Nietzsche from the comfort of his own writers seat, never attempted to actually embody within realistic means: eventually figuring out within himself the ultimate Nietzschean aristocrat: a magic pen granted by being capetian by mother: from judah by father."
"But Alas, you have no idea how common suicide is within philosophers after they finish their best work. As language, becomes the ultimate barrier for understandment, and then to ones capacity to feel love. Difference — true saliency in ones individual destiny— leads to the gravest posible pain. Ironic isn’t it?”
“Besides technical work with a new form of psychology inspired by analytical chemistry, as that drawed from his efforts during the light of day, five years ago, once he felt the urge to try to reach out to the world from a position of what he deemed was greater understandment: he primitively preached during night his new set of ideas for people to behave beyond the limitations of manipulative psychology, albeit a harsh doctrine meant to clear the way for a better product: Christ himself."
"This is not a doctrine a human being can actually perform, as such its christianity at its highest capacity to bear fruit. It’s an impossible doctrine, yet solves the oldest problem posed in the bible. All which sounds very sci-fi bullshit-y but actual problems started for the protagonist in this tale, when the preaching matched with terrible consequences. Not figurative, but within tangible reality.”
“So just as we talk, theres a small legion of hackers pretending to be doing internet social experiments while talking in an artsy matter: much in my own style, entertaining the exact same concepts - a legion of dangerous monkeys, i have no control over."
"One of the many unexpected consequences being this, yet prompted by something evil; ancient: essentially replicating what my protagonist developed and then preached over the years, while these "hacktivists" lay their attention on things and people, as they select them and enforce upon them strict surveillance, to behave properly. Then to destroy them, as they did in 2020 with many corporations and institutions.A bizarre combination of theater actors to my own liking, and then cyber-security demigods: omniscient in their claims to surveill, and they are - derivative such of another device of what I've done; which is to build a theater so people can make-believe that they are infact performing within themselves something greater - but that's matter for another story."
“Most of the corpses piling up flat out dead, have no relation to him whatsoever; they became victims as my protagonist took measures to fight back the monster he found at the foundation of the known world. This is not an elaborate analogy for one's own unseen capacity for evil, as i mean this: a monster as literally as it can be. For these things friend, im doomed as in true strenght, i have nothing but the pen i use to write down what i think albeit always at danger of it’s eventual inversion. I have no real friends left. Not one who can understand, or help bear the pain: as friendship and love are all gated by understandment."
"The full story has many more vertients, but i think i’ve done it enough justice. This is the predicament of an insane man chased by his own shadow as he builds a better man: one who delivers heavenly things, and then a shadow stringed to deliver tyranny as the very strings behind him make the better man stumble while he tries to keep a grasp of his own spirit, and then of his own soul."
"That monster behind, is wicked smart — and cannot be outwitted nor overpowered but anything but divine smite."
“I’m heading now to a new country, to try to get friends from the only institution in the world who knows and adresses the current times being, and who by extension, might believe me. And to clarify, these being the end of times; but not the end of the world. Yet now i myself have a damocles sword pending over my own head, and i need to do something about it before it falls.”
And as i said these things, i reached out to my backpack drawing a third can of beer from it — besides my own super laptop, thats what my backpack had: an infinite supply of beer. Corona, Indio, Victoria, Dos Equis, Heineken; you name it. I popped the can, and gave it a long and definite sip as i emptied it complete.
The alien didn't try to show that he understood, but stood still in silence, with his sight in the sand below and pressing lips, knowing by my demeanor; that these things as I've said them was something that I needed to do. Then he said: "I don't follow man. You say you preach and then disasters occur. Like a prophet from the bible?"
"Yes. Then I preached to get rid of the things that are actually making the world worse, and something awoke soon after, and since then; everything I do is subject to being misinterpreted due to the diffamatory action of this thing. Now everytime I do something, it can be twisted and turned against my original intent. Right now the hackers are my worst problem: I may have a degree in computers but I have no fucking idea whatsoever of hacking. I earn my living as an A.I engineer.".
The alien raised his sight to meet with mine, and after doing some contemplation on the fact, quite simply said: "You are insane". Then lowered his own sight, and raised it again to meet with the sea and continued. "If you want a tattoo, we can work that out. But either way and whatever parts of your story are true and even worse; the ones you may be lying about: you sound dangerous in a delusional kind of sense, and my life is hard enough as is."
I pressed my fists, knowing then the old same thing had happened again. For I had never forced anything upon anybody, and I was willing to respect that until the bitter end. Then I released the build up of frustration with a loud sigh, and after this amend, I replied back.
"I understand and respect it. But let me just propose you that if you ever want to figure what is beyond life as it's lived by person who has never seen what is like to be someone you write a great story about; you can pin me, and I'll show you what's beyond that door. Give it some thought."
The alien; The Black Alien Project stayed there sitting, spechless but calm, almost expecting something else to be convinced about. But pointless, for i knew that nobody can be forced into anything without bringing a transgression into play – and i wasn’t one to taint myself in sin if it could be avoided. Not anymore.
3.
I made the distance at steady pace walking along the shore, until i found a small group of pines in-between the liminal space of the beach and the land. I sat with one of the pines trunk behind my back, and drawed the Schizo Pills from my eternal supply of traveller goodies.
Quetiapine 100 mg, and Olanzapine 10 mg, i made a smaller fragment from the olanzapine pill, and swallowed both complete. As their side effects were concerned, they would soon knock me out of conscience, as this little ritual was my own way of calling the day complete – then i layed there, vigilant, waiting for my own drowsiness to claim me into sleep - but the Bird of Britan came flying from above, and stood besides me.
\Chirp, Chirp, Chirp**
I watched the bird, annoyed, as its presence had become an omen for contempt. For me and the death people of my past. I frowned upon the little shit, and said nothing. The bird made a little nod, while tilting its head in excentricity the way birds do, and replied. — Hey Andrew!, do you remember when you tried to penetrate your own computer to make a universe grow inside of it? I just wan’t to know something: did your computer moan? Did it finally learnt how to scream your name?
\Chirp Chirp**
Ignoring the bird, i closed my eyes and stayed like that for a long moment, hoping to make the bird think i was asleep. Maybe that would make him leave.
— Can’t bullshit me like that Sweetheart. So please tell me something; why don’t you command one of your supermodels; these muses, to come here and warm the bed for you. It's a cold night and you seem lonely brah
. \Chirp Chirp**
I opened my eyes, and irritated, pointed menacingly at the bird turning my left hand into an imaginary gun. I had already failed at something today, and wasn’t convinced i needed the memory of the things i failed at before. Not now.

• Hol’ up cowboy ! you wan’t to bang my bird ass when you should be banging a bitch ass. What happened with Tyrone huckleberry? Did you managed to make him as impotent as you are right now? —I held steady my hand; and tired, the tempation to pull again the trigger on the bird was growing larger. I saw red roses in my own sight, making a terrible omen for a migraine forthcoming. Said nothing.

— The glowniggers are out there brah. You may not be a hacker – and its true, but i took notice of your last words: so now the glowies are going to instead dreambooth* people into every posible kind of scenario of extorsion, while they surveil like a motherfucker. Like you dream boothed yourself for your little ahem "art project". Then we will use Suno*, then Sora* when it open sources. Are you going to protect your hoes?
Said nothing.

• Alright cowboy, i will give meaning to that revelations verse. What was it? Ah yes. Revelations 9:6. Every single person with an internet history will be as paranoid as you were in 2020. Everyone will be diffamated into acts of political terrorism! Aren’t you am-

And as i pulled the imaginary trigger from the imaginary pistol, an imaginary arrow in the sky descended with a blaze of not so imaginary flames on the Bird of Britain, engulfing the little shit in heat, and making it’s body explode into a gore of scorched viscera. As if the bird was in a microwave oven. I inmediately gasped as the explosion was too close from where i was sitting - after the conmotion, stared at the red and burned stain in the floor, and left my sight rest there, as sleep finally found its way into my restless thoughts.
"No longer care for love unless it's between good friends”. Said to myself. There was certainly a migraine coming, but maybe my dreams would help convince it otherwise. And as far as the hoes were concerned, Furious Angels would be there for them. Like the Rob Dougan song.
4.
Found my own mind after the slumber – asleep, then awake. I realized several hours passed - at least enough to wake up and witness the sun rise above the sea. But as for dreams, the light veil of their memories wasn't something to rely upon. But i did remember something, and it was some overtone in dread; an atmosphere of fear – and a kind of dread sustained in it’s inevitability by the urgency that builds upon dearth.
Now what exactly was it though? I couldn’t remember from my dreams, but ever since i falled to my own death i had always present in mind the future succesion of events that would follow when things started to go very wrong. Iran, the U.S, Israel - now whatever was it in the news; the outcome would be the same. A thousand more cuts to an already languishing economy. Make that corpse bleed, and then fall off a cliff.
As such things would be cooked, just as the bird of britain. The bird was still there though: just in pieces and roasted like the contents of a dropped KFC bucket would. But the little shit would return - as it always did. The economy? Not so much.
Yet i digress. None of the world circumstances mattered as far i was concerned – i had built a small and portable solar system to power my laptop, and my beer supply was well, infinite - i made myself sure that i had my needs covered whatever happened around me. Not tied to even a house for that matter. I incorporated myself and gave my back a stretch. The morning breeze coming from the sea evocated in my memories some time that had long passed – late childhood. I rejected those memories as they beared with them things i didnt wan’t to remember - then wen’t on as usual in my morning routine scrolling through my instagram feed, figuring if there were any new hoes to maybe motivate me into doing my God imposed labour.
Labour which was to either write, or to finish the House of Water — then after scrolling i did in fact saw a new hoe; i dropped a Faux Pas comment. Maybe she would play along, maybe not. Whatever. Sometimes I would put in a lot of effort to do a rhyme. But the effort depended on the insta-hoe in question. I know. Not the best of habits, but back in elementary school i was the kind of kid that would only get motivation when the girls in the classroom were present in physEd. And then i would run faster: whole lotta faster. Run Forrest! Run! Women love used to fuel me; and the habit sticked — and at the moment, i was kinda done with the idea of female trascendence. Would rely on their love, but not on their validation. Not like a simp. Fuck that.
Furthermore, what results did i demonstrably mustered after pursuing true egalitarianism and sharing it? Exactly. A bitch gonna do what a bitch gonna do, and so does the human female. After publishing the comment, I locked my phone and walked towards the highway, as i was planning to pay a visit to somebody long forgotten - I had kind of a schedule that i was going to follow, before taking the plane to Madrid and become hispanic Jon Snow from the walgreens Nightwatch.

Hey everybody,
This is my first post on this forum and I wish I had done it a long time ago. I wanted to share my story in the hopes that others experiencing a similar thing will feel less alone in their struggles. This is going to be a long post because there is a lot to unpack but I hope it helps someone.
I'm a 26 and male and have been struggling with anxiety on and off my whole life and was only recently diagnosed. I grew up in a religious family with many siblings in Canada. I remember I've always had anxiety related to uncertainty or lack of control. I think it also didn't help that my mom was quite strict at home and expected chores to be done perfectly. There was lots of discord in our family between my siblings and my mom and I think that contributed to exacerbating whatever predisposition I had towards anxiety. I remember having these episodes when I was younger that would last weeks or months where I would hyper fixate on a worry but then eventually it would pass and I would feel happy and normal again. I worried about if god actually existed, if what I was told about religion was true and for some reason the thought that it might not be true really bothered me. I remember my sister telling me about someone who had committed suicide when I was young and that scared the hell out of me for weeks (I had to sleep in my parents room) because it didn't make sense to me and I was scared it would happen to me. Aside from these month long episodes I also never felt a close emotional connection with my parents and I think as a result I developed a need to pursue academic achievements in the hopes I would be recognised and loved even though my parents didn't pressure me to get perfect grades. I remember also getting anxious about existential things that looking back seem kind of silly to be anxious about. For example when I first saw inception I got so scared that my life was a dream and I had no way to prove otherwise.
Whenever I would get anxious, I would talk to my parents about it and the basic response would be for them to pray for me and ask god to take away the anxiety. It felt comforting in the moment and I think they were doing their best but it never really helped long term. I never learned the skills to manage my anxiety on my own and would always seek external reassurance. Talking to my parents now they never saw my anxiety as something I needed professional help with - it was just adolescent things that would pass.
In junior high things were pretty good, I was homeschooled and I remember sometimes gettting frustrated with school but not more than that. In high school things were really good, I think they were probably the best 3 years of my life (2012-2015) - I did really well academically, was nominated for valedictorian and had great friends. I can barely remember feeling bad at all during this time. However near the end of my final exams I remember getting very anxious that I might screw up my reputation as the perfect student and fail my diploma exams - I had no reason to believe that I would fail but I was terrified nonetheless. I didn't fail and did pretty well but this feeling of anxiety persisted throughout the summer and into my first year of engineering where it got really bad - I had anxiety all day every day for most of the first year of university because I was constantly afraid of failing exams. Everyone said that engineering was hard and that a third of the people drop out and I thought my world would end if I didn't do well. I got stuck in a rut of near-constant anxiety that lasted most of the 4 years of my undergraduate - I rarely remember being happy or relaxed during this time.
Looking back at that time is very painful for me - I passed all my courses and even did reasonably well and graduated but I was anxious most days. During the first summer of my degree I worked as a merchandiser at a hardware store because my confidence was so low I didn't even really try that much to get an engineering job. During the summer of my second year I worked as a sales representative for an alarm company and I really felt gross doing that work. But I didn't believe in my ability to get a better job so I travelled around Alberta using dirty sales tactics to try to get people to buy theses systems and I felt so gross doing it. Looking back now there are countless memories I have of feeling anxious in so many situations - at home, at school, at work - near constant. I'm actually surprised I did as well as I did at the time with all this going on. I wonder now why I didn't seek out professional help but I think for the longest time growing up the response was for my parents to pray for me when I got anxious and so that's what I knew. Mental health, therapy, and psychologists were never discussed and to be honest I never really considered them. At the time I couldn't believe I was anxious because I had been so confident and capable in highschool. I think I had an ego and thought I would just grow out of it, that if I performed well in school my anxiety would go away with time. I thought I just needed to perservere and push through it. I didn't want to admit I needed help and I think in the back of my mind I was afraid to seek help because I thought anybody I spoke to about this stuff would judge me and say I was crazy, and that I was too broken and couldn't be helped. I think I was also a bit scared to seek help because I thought maybe it would make my anxiety worse.
After university things got better year by year. I have never returned to what appears to me a blissful time in high school. I think there was an underlying current of anxiety but it was pretty okay and more focused on specific stressful events that occasionally occured in my life - but it wasn't constant and chronic like it was in the 4 years of university from 2015 to 2019. I thought I was moving beyond it and growing out of it because from 2020 to 2024 or so things were pretty good. I had a good engineering job, made good money, and had good relationships with friends. I was exercising, occasionally doing some meditation, and had even done a bit of work on cognitive behavioral therapy for myself, but I had never gone for professional help, I thought I was dealing with it successfully on my own. I knew anxiety was normal and I never expected to completely get rid of it, but at the same time I did expect that I was passed the point of feeling these long, chronic periods of anxiety.
But in December of 2023/Januray of 2024 I got the most anxious I have ever been and I think it was triggered by talking with my older brother David about his difficult experiences growing up in our family and how he was struggling with depression. I shared some of my stuff and I think that opened the floodgates. My anxiety came back and I was absolutely terrified and depressed by the thought that I would have to re-experience those 4 years of university with chronic anxiety. Its kind of crazy but up until that point I never thought I had an actual disorder and I always thought that as I grew older I would outgrow it and I would be fixed. In January it was the first time I realized "holy shit, this might be here to stay and I might have to live with this for the rest of my life". I was so scared and terrified of having to live the rest of my life like I did in university that I started having suicidal thoughts pop up during the days - I never acted on them but these thoughts only fueled my anxiety and sense of hopelessness. It was only during this dark time that I realized I needed help and started going to see a GP. I did 8 weeks of mindfulness and meditation but this didn't really help - it felt like I was treating symptoms and not dealing with some very deep, long-term issues that I had never really spoken about with anyone. After the mindfulness I got into cognitive behavioural therapy and it was the first time I spilled everything to someone, my whole life story and it was a relief and a scary thing. A relief to get it all out but scary to admit to myself the extent of my issues. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and am only now unpacking things. The last four months since January have probably been the hardest of my life - every day feels like a struggle to get through, the weight of all my past experiences and reliving all those anxious moments feels unbearable at times and the idea that I will have to live like this for the rest of my life is just too much. And I wonder if I'm too broken to be fixed. Despite the awful mood I've been in for months, the doctors in the Netherlands have been resistent to prescribing medication before trying therapy and CBT. I'm not eager to go on meds but it does get REALLY bad some days and I feel like I'm just adding more highly negatively emotionally charged memories to a huge bucket that's already overflowing and I wonder if the meds would be helpful. I'm grateful that during this time I have a lovely friend that I can call in tears and she understands and supports me, I've also opened up more to what I'm experiencing with my parents who are supportive.
I'm glad I finally opened up and sought help and I wish I had done this 10 years ago, if it had worked back then it would have saved me so much time, emotional pain, and suffering. But I also recognize I was doing the best I could at the time with the knowledge I had, and I need to practice compassion and kindness for my past self. But I want my story to encourage others to reach out for help. I'm still in the thick of things myself but day by day, I hope to get better. It's difficult because I feel like I'm doing all the health things - exercising, meeting with people, talking to friends and family about it and yet it's very rare that I feel at peace with myself and sometimes the weight of it all makes it hard to see a path out without ending things. To fix years of this anxiety its like having to open up a festering wound and clean it and purge it - it's gonna hurt like hell and I expect it will take a long, long time. I just hope I'm that somehow, despite it all, I can still be fixed and have a good life. I want to encourage others who may be too ashamed or embarassed or not sure about asking for help. Please do, the strongest and most courageous thing I have ever done has been to open up about these issues and ask someone for help. Don't wait like I did, don't try to push through on your own for years, ask for help and anyone who judges you isn't worth your time.
For myself I think it is going to be a long healing journey, not only to deal with my anxiety directly but to deal with the years of unprocessed trauma as a result of my anxiety. We can get through this together, stay strong!
I'm also curious to hear if anyone else relates to anything I have said here, its also nice to hear from others who have been in similar situations and how they got through it :)

DC Next Proudly Presents:

The Linear Men

Issue Twenty:Family Reunion
Written by Dwright5252
Edited by Predaplant

< Prev. Next Issue > Coming Next Month


The Waverider
When she was growing up, Deirdre Harkness often thought about how things might’ve been different in her household if she had an older brother to take the brunt of her father’s attention. How her path through life could have been vastly different, her rap sheet a little more… non-existent.
Now that such a brother seemingly existed, albeit from another Earth altogether, she was starting to realize that maybe she was fine being an only child.
“Listen, this’ll go a lot faster if you stop being so obtuse, Deirdre,” Owen Mercer scowled, twirling one of his razor-sharp boomerangs deftly between his fingers as he paced the deck of the Waverider. Deirdre sat in the hot seat, the Linear Men staring at her on one side while her current and former romantic partners stood on the other. The multiversal children of Digger Harkness faced off in the middle, neither seeming to want to give any inch in their argument.
“Look, I’m just sayin’ I’d be able to find my friends better without some drongo stealing my schtick,” she responded casually, moving to take a boomerang of her own from her bandolier before remembering the new time cops had confiscated all her weapons. “Surely Jenny Sparks has someone better to send along.”
Was she being difficult? Absolutely. Was this petty argument preventing her from saving her missing teammates? Undoubtedly.
Did she want to take this pretender down a peg? You know it.
“Perhaps we can arrive at some kind of accord, beloved,” Ystin interjected, placing a hand on Deirdre’s shoulder. “I understand how jarring seeing this knave must be, but our comrades in arms are lost to time. Other priorities must take precedence.”
Sighing deeply, Deirdre fell back into the chair behind her, irked that this modified timeline removed all the progress she’d made in molding the chair to fit her form. She could see Liri wince at the force she had used to enter the chair, and felt a little bad about that.
God, she could be selfish sometimes.
“Fine. Fine, I’ll be a good sheila now. What is your plan, oh fearless brother o’ mine?” She felt the tension in the room let up slightly, and Ystin gave her a grateful smile.
Owen pulled out another boomerang of his and started pressing the buttons on it. A projection appeared, seemingly the timeline they were currently in. Biting back her instincts to make fun of her brother’s projecto-rang, she sat back and listened as he began to point at the timeline. “As you can see, this is the current stream that we’re in. You can see these discolorations,” he explained, pointing at the shades of red appearing in the mostly blue timeline, “that indicate the anomalies you’re normally after. Sure, they aren’t the best thing to have appear, but it’s within the Time Masters’ range of acceptable aberrations. From what Deirdre is saying, the kind of anomaly we’re looking for with this situation, with one team seemingly erased from time and another fully resurrected, should be lighting this up like a Christmas tree. That massive of a ripple effect from those changes would unmoor us into the Bleed, never to return.”
“But we’re clearly still here,” Rip Hunter said, scowling. “So you’re saying she’s full of it.”
“Not necessarily,” Owen replied, and Deirdre felt a slight pang in her chest as her brother came to her defense. He dialed in another setting and another hologram appeared, this time showing various circles floating around the timestream. “What do you know about time bubbles?”
Michael raised his hand, ever the teacher’s pet, apparently. “They’re basically pocket dimensions separated out from the timestream. The Time Masters use them sometimes to isolate threats to the stream or conduct experiments.”
“Gold star to you,” Owen said, and Deirdre rolled her eyes as Michael beamed. She missed Booster so much. “Yes, exactly that. So let’s say that these bubbles,” he circled a majority of them, “were made and accounted for. We’re left with a good dozen unsanctioned by the Time Masters.”
Deirdre’s hopes started to pick up before Rip dashed them. “But that’s also within parameters for a timestream. Nature abhors a vacuum and makes time bubbles naturally to fill in any blank spaces that appear. You’re grasping at straws.”
Owen turned toward the captain of the Waverider. “I’m sorry, did you want to run this presentation? I can go back to the Authority and leave y’all to your issues if you want.”
Before Rip could respond, Liri stepped in. “Rip, let the poor boy explain. You’re being an asshole.”
Deirdre blinked, surprised at Liri’s interjection. The AI she knew would never put the captain in his place like that. And even more shocking, she saw Rip pull back and motion for Owen to continue, clearly chastened by his crewmate.
Miracles did happen.
“You’re correct, the other bubbles not highlighted are indeed naturally occurring.” Owen pointed at them and expanded them. “But someone with enough access and know-how can commandeer these time bubbles and manipulate them for their own uses.”
Matthew Rider raised his hand. “So you’re saying our missing people could be inside these bubbles? But what about the damage to the timeline from removing them in the first place?”
“Good question. Like I said, this level of fuckery to the order of things should’ve made things completely unravel. That being said, it is possible for someone with a high degree of chronal knowledge and access to do it. It’d be damn risky, as one mistake could spell disaster. But… it's becoming more and more evident that whatever’s responsible for this isn’t an amateur.” Owen pulled up a blank file now, a glaring DATA NOT FOUND flashing in front of them. “You say you all saw Walker Gabriel vanish, and still have memories of him. He’s not in our databases anymore, and there’s not even a void left behind where he should be. This thing took him out and plastered over the timestream to remove any trace.”
Silence fell on the group as the idea of what they were up against sunk in. Deirdre pondered who or what could hate them enough to do something like this.
“So what’re our next steps?” Liri asked, typing away furiously at her datapad. “Should we search these time bubbles for our missing teammates?”
Deirdre smiled sadly as she heard Liri refer to her friends as teammates. This version didn’t even know these people, didn’t have any definitive proof that they even existed, and yet she took them in her heart as part of the team.
Owen shook his head. “That would take too long, and might tip off whatever’s doing this to our plan. We need more manpower for the search and a way to narrow down the field.” Roxy Rocket, who’d spent the entire conversation vlogging the control room with her camera, piped in. “Sciency stuff isn’t really my bag, but could you maybe look for people that interacted with these folks and trace them that way? Use their memories to bridge the gap or whatever?”
To Deirdre, it sounded like the kind of stupid thing that just might work. “I know someone that might be able to help us with that, and I can get some people together we could use.”
Hub City, Illinois
Something was wrong, of that Violet was certain.
Their journey had led them across the globe when they’d felt it happen, felt the universe attempting to steal another memory from them. Violet fought against the overwhelming vibrations that tried to steal the memory of their friend from them, using their powers to shield their mind and their heart. It took everything they had, rendering Violet unconscious for a day. But when they awoke, they still remembered Michael Jon Carter, Booster Gold. The first person in Violet’s memory that tried to help them.
It felt fitting, going from trying to discover their past to helping bring their friend back from oblivion.
The problem was, nothing was working.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Daniel Carter asserted, shifting on his crutches as he tried to close the door on Violet. They held their hand out to stop it, and felt fear trickle through Daniel’s aura.
“I do not mean to startle you, I am just trying to find some answers,” Violet explained, backing away from the door to give Daniel some space. “I know it sounds strange, but I am telling you only the truth.”
“Look, I wish you luck in… this whole thing you’ve got going,” Daniel said, “but I don’t have a clue about any future relatives of mine, whatever the hell that means. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready for a job interview.”
This time, Violet allowed him to slam the door in their face. It was no use. It seemed anyone they’d attempted to contact didn’t have any memories of their friend. Violet knew that if they could only use their aura to show Daniel the true way of things…
But no. That would be a trespass they were hesitant to employ. There had to be a way to bring Michael back without hurting anyone. They would find it, they were sure of it. “Well, if it isn’t the most colorful person I know,” a familiar voice said from behind them. Violet turned around to see Deirdre Harkness approaching them from across the street. Unconsciously adjusting their hijab, Violet ran towards their former teammate and enveloped her in a tight hug.
“You are truly a sight for sore eyes, Deirdre,” Violet said, tears running down their face as they took in their old friend’s presence. “I could really use a friendly ear at the moment. I feel as if I have gone insane.”
Deirdre pulled back from the hug to look Violet in the eye. After a moment of searching, she smiled. “You remember, don’t you?”
Violet’s eyes widened in shock and joy. “Tell me you are not humoring me. You truly remember our friend?”
A wave of relief washed over Violet, and it was all they could do to keep their aura in check as Deirdre spoke. “Not only do I remember Booster and Rip and the others, but I think I have a way to get them back.”
Radiance, Pennsylvania
Living in a mansion wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. For instance, the amount of upkeep required to keep it from becoming a dusty mountain of sadness was just completely unrealistic for one person to do. That meant hiring people to help maintain the grounds, sweep the floors, clean the bathrooms and bedrooms.
Mitch Shelley was not a fan of people.
“No, I said not to make the topiary look like a Soder Cola can,” Mitch insisted to his groundskeeper, an older man whose proximity to loud saws all his life made him hard of hearing. “It looks corny as fuck.”
The old man shook his head. “I think it looks fine, sir. Plus I know your corporate sponsors will appreciate it for that gala you’re holding next week.”
Goddammit. Mitch had been dreading that stupid party ever since he’d been asked to host it in honor of his latest sponsorship campaign for the Soder Cola company. Sure, he wasn’t too involved with the planning (at least, when he could dodge the phone calls and house visits of the party planner he’d hired) but it still took up way too much of his time. That wasn’t to mention the fact that he had to attend the thing.
In a suit.
Ugh.
“Maybe you’re right. Thanks, Joe,” Mitch said, handing the groundskeeper a generous tip. Joe was probably the most down-to-earth of his employees, and he wanted to make sure he was taken care of. Joe shook his hand appreciatively and walked out the door, brushing past a red haired woman dressed garishly in some sort of costume.
“You’re a week early for the gala, darlin’,” Mitch said, waving her away as he tried to escape to his theater room. “I’m sure whatever skill you have will be enough to entertain the suits coming to this shindig.”
“Har de har, asshole,” the woman said, her Australian accent giving him pause. What was an Aussie doing in Pennsylvania? “I’m actually here for Resurrection Man. Need his help.”
Mitch sighed, “Look, I’m sure whatever cat’s stuck in a tree will get itself out. If this is about Lazarus, tell that fucker he can come and face me himself rather than sending his new sidekick.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “Look, I know you. You’re a wild horse that can’t be reined in. You need adventure in your life, and I’m here to offer it. Ever time traveled before?”
Mitch stopped on the steps. “In a manner of speaking. What did you have in mind?” Maybe he’d hear this woman out. If anything it might last long enough to get him out of this fucking party.
Opal City
“Stargazer tipline, how can we help?” Jack Knight was surprised when the old phone line started to ring. Courtney had been right; most people used the app to ask for help. He’d almost forgotten the tipline was a thing, and it had startled him into dropping his tools as he worked on another upgrade to the Star Staff. His father’s laboratory made the ringing sound like it was coming from all over, so he’d almost missed the call when he couldn’t find the phone buried under all the schematics.
“Hello Starman, long time fan, first time caller,” a voice said from the receiver, the accent telling him this wasn’t an Opal citizen. “Need your assistance in a caper.” He was tempted to hang up the phone; no doubt this was some kind of crank call. “What’re the details of this… caper, ma’am?” He’d humor her for a little bit. Jennifer and Courtney had been on his case about crunch culture and making sure to take breaks, so maybe this could count as his allotted rest period.
“First off, I think I’m younger than you, so shove off with your ma’am,” the woman huffed. “Second, this isn’t a joke. Why don’t you come out of your little work shed and see what I mean.”
The line clicked, and Jack looked at the phone in confusion. What a weird call. There was no way anyone knew where he was at the moment, so he chalked it up to someone having a laugh at his expense. As he picked up his blowtorch to continue his welding, the intercom buzzed.
“Jack, can you please come up here and tell these yahoos to get their spaceship out of my backyard before they wreck my azaleas?” Jack heard his father’s voice resonate through the speaker. He jumped up to look at the outside cameras, and sure enough, there floated a spaceship of some sort.
He pulled out his phone and texted into the All Star Group Chat. “Hey, gang. Might need to be out of the city for a bit on a mission. I’ll keep you posted.”

Hear me out. I've got over a decade of experience since finishing college for web design and development. Html and CSS are child's play obviously at this point, and with JavaScript and PHP I can accomplish whatever is needed with little concern about running into time consuming problems. I've done web design/development and site management for a few companies over the years using various CMS (usually WordPress). I have college + certs + trainings. (Edit: Just to clarify I have taken several full stack boot camps over the years as well, but have only a tiny amount paid full stack experience. I've found that learning how to make full stack web applications was amazing for my understanding of dynamic content etc but never paid off beyond giving me best practices that made me better at my hobby of game development.)
As someone with this level of knowledge and experience, I can tell you that I do not personally have any confidence that this job is still a real job or career.
I do not feel that my skillset has much value in 2024, and I feel that it will have pretty much null value by 2030.
I see people on Reddit offering this strange toxic positive advice to people looking to get into this. They act like there is work. 10 years ago before Squarespace and Wix had grown to their current level of awareness, small biz still bought websites. Fast forward to today, the ratio of small biz that will buy a site vs have their lowest paid staff make a shitty one with Squarespace is pretty sad. And of course, AI will make the small biz DIY problem even worse.
In addition to that, agencies also haven't changed their ways in the last decade, simply offering mass produced garbage with zero interest in high quality or high performance. Now with modern automation tools their entire model can be replaced with a single sales person who knows how to use a tool to generate site samples and quick cheap sites when purchased.
As for tech... well if you don't have a cs degree and practice leetcode all day in your mom's basement you're probably not getting past the gatekeeper on this one.
So I sincerely am curious if anyone is getting the impression that this is still a real job, or that this job will actually exist in a decade. Why? How?
For those of you who agree that this ship was already sinking and is now springing more leaks by the year, where are you heading next?
Edit: Just to be more clear on the question, I mean any job/career that falls under the title of web designer, or web developer. I mean anything from true custom front end development to churning out page builder sites. I think the entire spectrum of skillsets is in deep trouble, not just "real" devs or "fake" devs. In the eyes of the majority of laypeople and smb decision makers, it's all the same to them.
I'm not saying YOU are going to lose your job. I'm saying someone else is, and then people who come after them will have a harder and harder time entering until a more accurate balance supply/demand for these skills is reached, at which point I believe it will be a much smaller, much less appealing industry.

TLDR sabotaging financially abusive nmother who doesn’t have my best interest at heart and only cares about herself wants to look over and take over my resume and I don’t want to her. Nmother will not listen to me and keeps demanding to see my resume. No is not an answer for her. What do u do?
Full post: It’s so annoying that now she wants to help me out when I want nothing to do with her. When I was younger, I needed her help with things and she didn’t wanna help me! She wanted nothing to do with helping me out but now 20 years later, she wants to “help” me??? Oh please. I know she’s either gonna turn it into it a “I helped you with your résumé so that means I got YOU the job so I AM entitled to YOUR pay check!” She will turn this situation into that type of thing! SHE WILL. ABSOLUTELY SHE WILL. UHUH, yes she will. Or she will constantly dangle over my head about the fact that she got me the job. If I went to a person that fixes and checks résumé, they wouldn’t be dangling any of that stuff over my head because that’s your job and this is the same thing for my narcissistic mother. It’s her job to help me so she shouldn’t be doing any of that toxic dominating ridicule stuff! She can’t do shit without being toxic! Everything she does even if she paints it as her helping me she’s gonna end up screwing me over and being a toxic asshole in the end! She’s not nice at all. I’m trying to my engagement levels to a very, very, very low level and her trying to look at my résumé and engage with me is just unnecessary to me.
When I worked my first job she wanted MY MONEY. She ruined that milestone for me, instead of having a proud happy mother she could care less that I got a job. She just wanted my money for herself. She’s just a nasty person, I want nothing to do with her. I’m trying so hard to get jobs and they’re requiring all these extra things like assessments and if I’m being honest, it’s a learning process for me. I just have to lie! I can’t control the company who doesn’t call me back, I have worked at two jobs, first one was at a gas station for one month, my second job was at subway for 2 months which she DOES NOT know about. If she found out she will BLOW. I’m not transparent with her at all because my privacy is legit my protections against her. ITS MY SHEILD, if she found out about my second job she would haggle me for my paychecks. And guess what? Since I didn’t tell her about my job she didn’t come to me at all for money. I’m only 20 years old, I graduated high school in 2022 with a diploma. I perused college for one year until I had to take a LOA cuz I couldn’t afford it. The reason why I got my first job was so I could pay for my schooling since my Nmom didn’t want to. She’s the reason for all of this shit, she’s the reason why i can’t attend college right now as she doesn’t want to help me with the FASFA. She stole my scholarships and wanted my paychecks. I couldn’t have fucking shit when it came to her. SHE WANTED IT ALL.
She keep acting like she wants all these good things for me but everytime I achieved good things she snuffed them out under me. It’s also fucking two-faced. Can’t want what’s best for your child and take it for yourself. You cannot help your child. You cannot not help your child go to college and proceeded to steal their scholarships and paychecks from them then have the nerve to twist the story and say “let me help you” when the parent is the reason why the child is in this fucking mess. That doesn’t fucking work you can’t go to the same thing that hurt you! Its common fucking sense! So now that you get a picture of how my mother is, I really don’t want her anywhere near my résumé. She wants the absolute worst for me and she is very selfish and entitled she only cares about herself.
As you all may know, the job market is absolutely insane! Half the population of the United States can’t get a job. People who have bachelors degree and even masters degree can’t find a job! There are tons and tons of local news articles being uploaded because of this! There is a legitimate job crisis going on right now. I tried to explain that to my narcissistic mother which obviously was futile because in her mind, since she has a job that means everyone else can get a job. It’s not that easy. I really didn’t want to engage with her. If I’m being honest, she makes me really overwhelmed and stressed out. She wasn’t even being nice and understanding about it. She was like very mean and just overly aggressive!!!!! Like she cannot approach things in a healthy manner at all because it’s just aggressive 24/7. She was blown up my phone asking me. Why can’t I find a job saying there’s something obviously wrong with my résumé and I’m not doing this correctly and she needs to see my résumé and I need to show her and she’s telling me to email my résumé to her RIGHT NOW. It was so over-the-top. Should I give her my resume? I’ll post my resume on some resume subreddit. I’d rather have strangers assist me than my own toxic narcissist mother. How do I stand my ground and tell her no? I feel like i’m being over dramatic ? Idk but I told her no. I won’t show her and she keeps pushing and pushin. She’s knows no boundaries, she said “No, show me it.” I told her no ans she said “send it to me.” She keeps pushing. If I had a healthy mother I would show her but based on History I have with my Nmom financially, work-life related I want nothing to do with her anymore.

I am a 21F who just finished my junior year at university. I am a business major with an internship lined up at a big tech company in San Francisco. I'm incredibly excited for where life is going to take me post-grad. However, in my rush to complete my degree as soon as possible (for reasons still unknown to me since I never seriously intended on graduating early), I basically finished my degree in 3 years and am staying one more semester to just wrap up some loose ends with my degree. With this extra semester (Spring 2025), I could travel with some friends (though I would most likely have to fund a lot of this myself), I could start a corporate job early, I could stay the extra semester and add on a marketing minor for the sake of it (my father is very gracious and pays for my living and tuition fees), OR I could try to get an apprenticeship at a bakery. I'm more inclined to follow traveling or a possible apprenticeship.
To give some more context, I LOVE baking. I wake up with dreams of desserts and baked goods and right them down on the notes app in my phone. I adore learning about why things are done the way they're done (high hydration vs low hydration doughs, cold ferment vs room-temperature, etc.). I listen to baking ASMR to fall alseep LOL. Even in my tiny little college apartment kitchen, I make homemade cookies for my friends who absolutely devour them. Baking is my happy place and hopefully, in the future, I plan on having my own bakery.
With this extra semester, I thought to myself "I am most likely never going to have a 5-ish month gap where I can do whatever I want with my life (to a certain extent). Why not spend it on something I love?" I am aware that working in a bakery is repetitive and exhausting. I know that bakers would be hesitant to hire me because I would only be able to work for 5 months since I would have to return to a post-grad corporate job full-time around May/June 2025. I just think that this would be an amazing experience for me to have.
I don't know anyone in the culinary/baking industry. I don't know any bakers. I'm honestly limiting myself to the US in terms of location because obtaining a short-term work visa seems like a pain in the butt. I'd ideally love to work in a larger-city such as Chicago, Boston, DC, etc. I want to learn and I'm eager for any advice on how I should approach getting an apprenticeship in a bakery. I'm mostly interested in bread and pastry making.

Hi everyone! I'm having a bit of a spiral in regard to wanting to change my legal first name to a name I believe suits me much more. The name I was given at birth has tormented me since elementary school - combined with my last name, it's one of the most embarrassing names I've personally encountered in my life. Obviously I don't want to share my legal name, but to give some context, the best I could compare it to would be "Shiney Everyday." Meanwhile, my younger brother's first name is completely normal!
Those who knew/know me agree it's a ridiculous name no kid deserves, and is more befitting of a pet fish. Not only did it cause me to get poked fun-at when I was in school (yes, even TEACHERS would laugh at my name and make jokes), as an adult, my name has made getting a job very hard. Companies have accused me of making up my name, thus discarding my application. I'm a teacher, and because my name is public to my students, I've gotten poked fun of by my own students (middle schoolers are brutal). Furthermore, I'm starting my master's degree, and will soon be having papers published in my name. I want to be an activist, a historian, and an adult that is taken seriously. Nothing about my name is serious. Thankfully, I have a pretty and normal middle name that I use at work/school, but it's still a hassle.
Despite this embarrassing name, my parents are incredibly proud. My dad gave me the name because one day, when my mom was pregnant with me, he said that she was (again, substituting my name with a different adjective) "shining." With this stroke of genius, my name was final. Further more, my parents INSIST that I was the one who chose my name.
I'm getting married in August (yay!) and my plan since I was 10 years old has been to change my first name as soon as I got married. Since I was 10, I wanted my name to be Rosa, the name of a special needs therapist my brother had for years as a kid, who inspired me to become an educator. To me, the name means so much. My friends call me Rosa, my fiancé calls me Rosa, strangers and coworkers call me Rosa. However, changing my first name will not only shatter my parents, but make them extremely angry. They might disown me. They might not come to the wedding. They said if I ever changed my name, it would be the worst insult to them. They even get angry when I use my legal middle name. Ironically, my own mother uses her middle name. Not even my dad calls her by her legal first name. Truly confused, lol.
I don't know what to do, or how to break it to them, or when the right time would be to do so. I love my parents and care deeply about what they think, but I know who I am and the name I call myself, and it's not the one they gave me. Am I in the wrong? Am I truly a terrible daughter? I'm distraught and confused, and I only have 3 months to get it together before the wedding.
Anything helps. Thank you so so much for reading all this. Lots of love to my fellow ottomans and comforters! Stay safe and stay healthy!
EDIT: I thought it was important I’d mention that I’m Latina-American, with a yeehaw-white dad and a South American mom. My mom and I share the same Spanish middle name, so Rosa would just be another latin name addition. I am also a cis-woman, so this wouldn’t be purely for gender-affirming purposes (although it does make me feel prettier :) ).
EDIT #2: I realized I forgot to explain why they believe I chose my own name. In the womb, my mom play music by her stomach and talk to me a lot. She originally wasn’t sure about “Shiney” being my first name, so she decided to “talk” to me and ask for my fetal opinion. She’d ask me for several weeks, “If you want to be named ‘Shiney,’ move to the left. If you want to be named ‘Samantha,’ move to the right,” and switch it up each time. No matter what, she swears I’d shift to whatever side that happened to be the “Shiney” side. They firmly, genuinely believe I choose my name. Yes, they are deeply religious. Lastly, for the first year or so of my newborn life, my dad refused to let my mom’s family see me. My maternal side of the family spoke only Spanish then, and because they struggled to pronounce my name, they’d call me nicknames instead. This enraged my dad so much he didn’t allow my only living grandparents to see me during my first year of life “until they called me by my real, beautiful, God-given name.”

“Ready to make history, baby?”
I looked over toward Sheila as she stood on the gangplank leading up to The Burger. I still couldn’t believe she named our research ship ‘The Burger’... emotional relevance be damned.
“It's not exactly history,” I corrected.
“Oh come on! If your survey is right, this trench might run even deeper than the Challenger Deep, and you’re gonna be the first person to explore it! How is that not exciting?”
“Might be deeper, we only have a limited amount of topological data. And even if it is deeper, we’re talking only a few hundred feet at most, it’s really not that im-”
Sheila silenced me with a kiss.
“Nerd.” She teased, and I found myself too flustered to reply. After five years of marriage, she still could leave me speechless with just a kiss. God… how did someone like me end up with a woman like that?
Then again, how did someone like me end up where I was in general? It was honestly a little overwhelming. Standing on the dock, getting ready to board that ship and join the ranks of Jacques Piccard and James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) as one of the few people to take a manned submersible down to the deepest parts of the ocean. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared too. Diving down that deep could easily be a one way trip if even the slightest thing went wrong. My submarine would be experiencing between 600 to 1100 atmospheres of pressure and while we’d tested it over and over again to make sure it would actually be up for the challenge, there was still a lingering iota of doubt in the back of my mind. All that needed to go wrong was one little thing, and that would be it for me.
The scariest part is that I probably wouldn’t even know what had happened… I’d simply be gone… and Sheila would be alone. The thought of that caused a momentary spike of panic in my chest that almost made me want to call this whole thing off.
Almost.
But, then I felt her hand close around mine. I looked up into her bright blue eyes, and saw her gentle smile.
“You’re gonna be okay, hun,” She promised. “You and your team have been running the numbers, right? It’s gonna go just fine!”
I nodded slowly.
“It’s gonna go fine…” I repeated, before she leaned in to kiss me, and gently pulled me by the wrist up onto the deck of the Burger.
She was probably right.
It probably would be fine.
Probably…
The trench I’d be exploring was a fairly recent discovery, located south of Greenland, in a vast stretch of water situated directly between Newfoundland and Iceland. It’d been uncovered during a topological survey in the area, and my team had taken an interest in investigating it further. At minimum, it was believed to descend to about 35,000 feet deep (over 10,000 meters), although the current theory was that it might have run even deeper. Determining the exact depth of the yet unnamed chasm was just one of the intents of our dive. The rest was studying the organisms that might be found down there, and how they might have differed from the ones found in other deep ocean trenches (some variation being expected given the isolated environment they were developing in.)
I had to admit, it would be exciting to see what new life might have developed in a place such as this, especially if it ran even deeper than our predictions… and that excitement was enough to make me chase the fear of the risks out of my mind, even if it was only briefly. While Sheila went to make sure we were ready to embark, I caught myself wandering out toward the rear of the ship where my submarine, The Tempura, waited for me. Did this submarine deserve a better name than The Tempura? Probably. But, this was my project, so I got to name it and since Burger was already taken, Tempura was the next best name I had. I liked to think that the subs namesake might approve… if she hadn’t died fifteen years ago. Shrimp don’t live very long.
As the ship began to depart, I caught myself reminiscing on how I’d ended up here… it really was all because of those damn shrimp, wasn’t it? Well… maybe not all because of the shrimp. But they were certainly part of it. Back when I was a lot younger, I never really gave much of a shit about anything at all. I guess I did have a thing for the ocean… the great, romantic vastness of it. The sense of adventure that it beckoned with. The endless mysteries that lay within its dark depths. I used to read about it all the time when I was a kid and I especially loved the classic adventures: Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and Melville’s Moby Dick… but that love was just confined to my books. I didn’t really have any interest in actually going out and seeing the ocean. Hell, the idea of going to a beach and standing in the sun with my toes in the sand seemed miserable to me. I was happier (although calling myself happy might’ve been a little disingenuous) alone in my room, enjoying the company of books as opposed to people.
Then came the shrimp.
One of my online friends kept them as a hobby. He used to post pictures of his tanks all the time, and I always thought they looked kinda cool. He said that if I was interested in them, I should try keeping some for myself, and during a particularly bad bout of depression, I figured that maybe it might be worth a shot. So, I bought a cheap tank and some cheap decorations, bought myself some shrimp… and promptly watched them die over the next few weeks. That… that bothered me. I don’t know why but… it really bothered me. I’m still not entirely sure how to describe what it was that I was feeling. Guilt? Defeat? Shame? Here I was, trying to set up a habitat for these creatures just to have something to do to keep the suicidal ideation at bay, and I’d failed almost right out of the gate.
Was I just that bad? Was I just that much of a failure? Was this just going to go to shit just like everything else in my life did, because I was just such an abysmal piece of shit who barely deserved the life she had? Had I just not tried hard enough? Was I too apathetic? What had happened? What went wrong?
It bothered me.
It bothered me enough that I made up my mind to just dump the remaining shrimp down the toilet and toss everything. Forget about it. Move on. End of story. But… that wasn’t fair, was it? The shrimp didn’t all deserve to die just because I couldn’t be bothered, did they? Sure, they were just shrimp, but they were alive too, just like me. They deserved to be alive.
I owed it to them to try and keep them alive, didn’t I?
So… I didn’t dump the shrimp.
Instead, I started doing some reading. Started looking into what I was doing wrong and how to do it all better. I actually got really into it and a few months later, I had a nice planted tank. Looking back, it was amateur shit… but it made me happy. I’d even picked out names for my two favorite shrimp. Burger and Tempura. They’d been the last survivors of my original batch, and they were the ones I ended up caring about the most. Caring for Burger and Tempura gave me a purpose. It became an obsession… and that little obsession drove me to finally start turning my life around.
Like I said, shrimp don’t live for very long. Burger and Tempura were long dead by the time I graduated with a degree in Marine Biology. But they were the ones who inspired me to finally get my life in order. Hell, the shrimp were half the reason that I met Sheila. She was something of an aquarium fanatic too… we’d met on a forum, and gotten to talking. I found out that she just so happened to be studying Marine Biology at another school, and we bonded pretty quickly after that. After graduation, I moved to California to be with her and after that, the rest is history. She was my rock. She was the one who always pushed me to be the best possible version of myself… and I loved her more than I ever knew I could love someone.
A glance back at the shore, fading into the distance tore me out of my reminiscing, and I shifted my focus to the present, going over The Tempura to perform some quick checks. My colleagues and I would be checking and rechecking the submarine over the next two days as we made our way toward the dive spot. Considering the danger that descending that deep posed, I didn’t want to take a single unnecessary risk.
I had too much to live for, after all.
***
The day of the dive, I couldn’t notice how excited the rest of the crew seemed… well… Sheila’s usual crew seemed excited. I guess to them, this was just another research expedition, no different than the ones Sheila usually took this ship out on. Lately her research had been focused on the analysis and study of whale calls. Her recent voyages had involved following their pods, recording their calls and playing them back to see how the whales reacted. It was fascinating stuff, but my research was admittedly a lot different than that.
My obsession had drawn me to the denizens of the deep sea. I’d used The Burger for expeditions before, although none of them had been on quite the same scale as this one. Up until today, the most ambitious thing I’d done was send down unmanned submersibles with cameras. Those submersibles had typically returned. We had lost a few early on due to technical glitches, but the past few years had been blissfully uneventful. Logically, this dive would probably be uneventful as well. But it was still hard to get the jitters out of my head.
My team and I did the final checks necessary to make sure that The Tempura was good to go, before setting up the crane to begin lifting it up. In less than an hour, I’d be inside of that thing, descending to the darkest depths of the ocean.
It didn’t feel real.
I felt Sheila’s hand on my shoulder, and looked over at her.
“Moment of truth, huh?” She asked. She probably meant it to sound encouraging, but it just sounded ominous.
“Moment of truth…” I replied.
“You’re gonna be okay, honey. I know you will.”
She reached out to gently squeeze my hand and gave me a reassuring smile that I meekly returned.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be okay,” I agreed, although there was an element of a lie in it. Statistically, yes. It probably WOULD be okay. But there was that lingering anxiety in the back of my mind that just wouldn’t go away. I looked quietly out at the submarine before me and couldn’t shake the thought that it sort of looked like a giant coffin. Unconsciously, I found myself squeezing Sheila’s hand tighter than normal. She just held me close and pressed a kiss to the top of my head, before gently rubbing my back.
“You’ll be okay,” She promised.
“Dr. Jenner, we’re ready for you.” I heard one of my colleagues say.
Moment of truth.
I took one last look at Sheila, and gave her a quick kiss on the lips for luck. She smiled at me, and I smiled back anxiously at her before heading over toward the submarine.
The crew helped me enter the cockpit and get myself situated inside. The cockpit of the Tempura was fairly cramped and not particularly comfortable. Space and comfort aren’t really luxuries you can afford in a submarine like this. The instruments I needed took up a lot of space, leaving little room for me in there… and I am not a very big person.
Once I was inside, they sealed the hatch. Then the diagnostics checks began.
“Grayson, can you hear us in there?” I heard Sheila say through the radio.
“Loud and clear,” I replied.
“Great. We’ll keep in constant radio contact, just to monitor the signal. In the meanwhile, how’s everything looking in there?”
“Green across the board so far,” I said, although I hadn’t finished running all my final checks yet. Ultimately, nothing was out of place.
This submarine was as good to go as it was going to get.
“I’m all good in here,” I said once I was done. “You can drop me when you’re ready.”
“You got it, honey. Let’s get you in the water, run one final round of tests and start lowering you down.”
A short while later, I felt the submarine begin to move as the crane lifted it off the deck and lowered it into the water. The Tempura honestly resembled its namesake in a way, being long and cigar shaped, only vertically oriented instead of horizontally oriented. We’d admittedly taken more than a few design cues from James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger. Why fix what isn’t broken, after all?
Once I was in the water, a 1000 pound releasable ballast weight would cause the submarine to sink. Releasing that weight was also my ticket back to the surface, and I could either trigger it from inside the cockpit, or, in the event that the release failed for any reason, it would trigger automatically after roughly 12 hours of exposure to salt water.
Ideally, this would be the first of a number of dives I’d be undertaking… and if all went according to plan, the Tempura could be the first of many similar submarines that would allow other researchers to safely and effectively descend to extreme depths. If all went well, this could be a massive leap forward for researchers like me, allowing us to better explore the deepest depths of the Hadal Zone and learn all we could about the ecosystems down there via direct observation.
If all went well.
If.
Through the viewport, I watched as I was lowered into the ocean. A few of the other crew members had donned diving gear to escort me down, and after they did their final checks and I did mine, we were fully ready to go.
“All’s green across the board,” I said into the radio. “You can start my descent.”
“I hear you, honey,” Sheila replied. “We’re letting you go. Have fun down there.”
“Yeah, I’ll try…” I said quietly as finally, my submarine began its descent.
I took a deep breath, and told myself again that everything would go fine. We had checked everything on this submarine. We’d tested it rigorously. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to set foot inside of it if I hadn’t personally assured that it was safe. But anxiety never really goes away, does it? The crew couldn’t accompany me far. After only a few meters, they fell behind me as I sank deeper and deeper into the infinite, empty blue of the ocean. Soon after, the tether was released.
I was officially on my own.
“60 feet,” I heard Sheila say over the radio. “How are you doing in there?”
“Good,” I replied. “Doing… doing good.”
The submarine continued to descend. Through the viewport, I could see a few stray fish, but nothing particularly eye catching. I almost felt alone down there… almost…
“120 feet…” Sheila said.
“Still doing good,” I replied.
The descent continued, as the waters slowly grew darker and darker.
“400 feet…”
Everything around me just kept getting darker and darker. Only a fraction of the light from the sun ever reached these depths… and I’d be lying if I said that darkness didn’t feel a little… oppressive.
“800 feet… still feeling good?”
“Yeah, still feeling good…” I said, although it was a bit of a lie. If anything, I was second guessing all of this, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud.
“1000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…” I murmured. “I hear you loud and clear.”
Deeper… deeper… deeper.
“1500 feet…”
Three miles. I was three miles away from home. Three miles away from Sheila.
“2000 feet…”
Still a ways to go.
“3000 feet…”
By this point, it was fully dark outside of my cockpit. Outside, all I could see was inky darkness. Even the submarine’s lights didn’t really cut through it. And the kicker? Relatively speaking, I wasn’t that deep. Fishing trawlers reached deeper than this. Better to conserve power until I was at the bottom. My descent continued.
“6000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…”
The check ins were becoming less frequent. My descent still continued… deeper… deeper… deeper. By now, I’d entered the Hadal Zone. But there was still so much deeper o go.
“8000 feet…”
This was past the depths that most whales would dive to… and I still had a ways to go.
“10,000 feet.”
This was close to where the ocean floor usually bottomed out… and yet there was still so much further to go. No. I was really only a third of the way there. How long had it been?Not much had happened beyond my descent and a few sightings out of my viewport, but time had been passing. A glance at my watch confirmed it’d been almost an hour since I’d started to sink… and I knew I wasn’t even close to the bottom yet. The submarine continued to descend, sinking ever deeper as I dropped into an infinite darkness that few had ever dared to witness.
“15,000 feet.”
This check in came later than the others. At this point, Sheila and the crew must have figured that no news was good news, and they were right. I just continued to sink peacefully, down into the crushing depths of the ocean.
These were the depths that one might normally find deep sea fish… and yet I was going somewhere even deeper than that.
“20,000 feet…”
So close…
I continued to sink.
“25,000 feet.”
Soon… and finally…
“30,000 feet. You still doing alright, honey?”
“Yeah… yeah, I’m doing good,” I assured her. I was so close…
By this point, my real work had begun. I’d engaged the lights and begun documenting what little I could see using the on board cameras. Granted, there wasn’t much life at these depths and what little there was, was scarcely documented. Most of what was down here consisted of invertebrates and microscopic life that seemed to float past my viewport.
The light seemed to draw a few creatures in search of food. Small, hardy things that resembled shrimp.
“How’s it looking, Grayson?”
“Dark,” I said, half joking. “We’ve got some life… shrimp. They’re translucent. Can’t get a great look at them… but we’ll see what the cameras pick up.”
“They’ve recognized you as a friend,” Sheila said. I could almost see the smile on her lips as she said it.
“Yeah…” I replied, “Tempura sent them a message, told them I’d be down. How am I looking on depth?”
“35,000 feet… you seeing a bottom yet?”
“No… not that I would until I was there.”
“Damn… how deep does this go?”
“It can’t go that deep…” I murmured, although I really wasn’t so sure about that.
The submarine continued to sink…
36,000 feet…
37,000 feet…
38,000 feet… and then finally, just past the 39,000 foot mark, I finally saw solid ground below me.
Looking through my viewport, I could see a familiar dark brown diatomaceous sludge, covering the seafloor. Microscopic life, likely similar to what had been observed in other deep sea trenches, such as the Challenger Deep.
I needed to gather a sample.
As my submarine reached the bottom, I extended the mechanical arms, pressed flat against the surface of the Tempura, and opened the collection port near the bottom of the ship. Slowly, I sifted some of the sludge into the port. My disturbance of the seafloor kicked up a cloud of the microbial colony, and I could’ve sworn I saw something wiggling through the debris. A pale, white thing, perhaps some sort of sea cucumber? I hastily angled my submarines camera to try and catch a glimpse of it, before returning to my collection. Even in this forlorn place, there was still so much to see! And here I was… completely forgetting my fear as the excitement took hold of me! Few people had ever been down to these unfathomable depths… and yet here I was.
It didn’t feel real but it was! I had reached the deepest part of the ocean!
“How’s it going down there?” I heard Sheila ask. Her voice was a little garbled. The connection down here was faltering.
“It’s beautiful…” I said. “I can’t wait for you to see it!”
“I’ll bet…”
“I’m going to do a sweep of the area, see what samples I can gather,” I said. “What’s my time right now?”
“Three hours. You’ve got nine before your connection to the weight deteriorates and you start to ascend.”
“I’ll make the most of it,” I said. The plan was only to stay down there for six hours, and I didn’t want to push that limit. Life support would only last me for so long, and one little error was all it would take for the ungodly pressure down here to crush me.
I began to move the submarine. Mobility was limited. This thing wasn’t built to travel far. But I still had some limited movement. I recorded all that I could, filming the shrimp that investigated my light, and the things that slithered and crawled through the muck, likely feeding on the carpet of single celled organisms that populated these depths.
The first two hours were… well… I hesitate to call them uneventful, they were actually very fascinating, but little of note happened beyond my recording of a few specimens.
Midway through the third hour though, as I was reaching one of the rock walls of the abyss, I noticed something just above the edge of my viewport swimming away from the light. I could’ve sworn I saw slender, pale tentacles of some sort. Was that a squid? Were there squid down this deep? I wasn’t aware of any species of known squid who could reach these depths… but in this unknown place, what use was the known?
I moved my light and my camera to try and catch another glimpse of it, but whatever it was, it seemed to be gone. Maybe I’d see another one. I still had plenty of time.
“You made a noise. What’d you see?” Sheila asked.
“Something big… I think,” I said.
“Down there? Like a fish?”
“Squid. You wouldn’t find any vertebrates down this deep… the pressure would crush their bones.”
“Jeez…”
I didn’t reply to that, still searching for the thing I’d seen. I shone my light up along the walls of the chasm and angled my camera up as far as it would go. I could see a few volcanic vents, spewing dark clouds into the darkness, and more diatoms. But not much else. Strange invertebrates crawled along the walls. Small creatures, no bigger than an inch long. Related to isopods, perhaps? If I could collect one as a sample, I would have… although taking any of those back to the surface would surely kill them. They were built to live under the impossible pressure of these depths. Taking them to the surface would rip them apart.
I went back to my research, and it wasn’t long until I saw something in the darkness, just on the edge of where my flashlight reached. Trailing white tendrils, snaking their way through the darkness. My eyes narrowed as I moved the submarine forward, trying to catch whatever it was in the light. I saw the shape move, its body turning… I saw its tendrils unfurling. Whatever this was, it was big. It was almost as big as The Tempura… although it was also slender. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought I was looking at some sort of floating debris, but this far down? No. And debris wouldn’t move like that.
This had to be a deepsea squid… or perhaps some other type of cephalopod? Something that preyed upon the various invertebrates down here, perhaps? It seemed to float, just out of sight for a bit, as I tried to get closer. I angled up my light to get a better look at it. The light seemed to shine through it, like some sort of ghost… but I did manage to get a look at it.
Although that look…
That single look made me freeze up.
This things slender tendrils certainly resembled a cephalopod of some sort, but the rest of it… the rest of it looked like something else entirely. Its body was thin, emaciated and translucent, yet despite that it still had characteristics that almost seemed… human. It wasn’t human! Not by any stretch of imagination, but the resemblance was there. It almost reminded me of an exhibit I’d seen in a museum once, depicting a preserved, fully removed human nervous system. I could see a similar shape in its translucent body. Its head seemed almost human as well… albeit with no eyes, and a lamprey like mouth I could only describe as fleshy yet crablike.
Still, despite having no eyes I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was looking at me. And that was when I felt something hit the submarine.
I felt a sudden jolt of panic in my chest. For a moment, I thought that the pressure had started to crush me, but no… no, everything was still fine. Something had just hit me. But what? It didn’t take long before I got my answer.
Another pale creature floated past my viewport, swirling gracefully in the cold dark waters. I watched it for a moment with wide eyes, before noticing its ‘head’ turning slightly toward me. Then, almost instantly, it launched itself at the submarine, darting toward me with blinding speed.
I heard a distinct THUD as its body collided with me, and I could see its pale tendrils pressing against the viewport, twisting and writhing violently. It was trying to attack me. The first creature that I’d seen lunged as well, pounding on my submarine with another THUD. And moments later, I could hear more impacts against the hull. There were more of them… and they did not like having me down there.
“What’s going on?” Sheila asked.
“Somebody doesn’t like me…” I said. “One of the animals down here… some kind of squid, it’s just started attacking the hull.”
“How bad is the damage?”
“Not sure… could be nothing, could be-”
I felt the submarine shake as I tried to move it. The thrusters that pushed me forward weren't responding. Had something gotten caught in it? One of the creatures perhaps?
“Grayson?!” Sheila asked.
“Lost propulsion…” I said. “Fuck… I can’t move.”
“Then drop the weight and come up!”
“No, it’s fine, there’s no other damage, I can still use the port and starboard thrusters to-”
“Grayson!”
I paused. There was genuine panic in her voice… enough to make me realize that even if these things stood little chance of actually breaching the hull, taking the risk would be a fatal mistake.
“I’m on my way up…” I finally said, before reaching out to disengage the ballast weights.
Immediately, I felt myself beginning to rise, although the tentacles clinging to my viewport didn’t disappear.
“We’ve got you…” Sheila said. “Rising up to 38,000 feet.”
The submarine continued to rise, but the creatures clinging to me went nowhere. In fact… I was sure I could see more of them. More pale shapes coming up through the darkness, and these ones filled me with dread. I thought I had been looking at some sort of eerie undiscovered life. But seeing what was coming up toward me now… I knew that I was looking at so much more. The creatures swimming up toward me through the darkness carried weapons… makeshift stone spears and daggers. Primitive tools… but tools all the same.
Signs that these were more than just undiscovered animals.
Much. Much more.
The word: ‘Mermaids’ crossed through my mind, but these were something far different than the ones I’d heard of in folklore. These looked like they’d swam out of the depths of hell itself. Boneless pale tendrils reached for me… and they were getting closer. The pale shapes reached my submarine as I rose higher. I kept praying to whatever God may be listening that the dropping pressure would force them off. The air in a submarine is pressurized, so during normal operation, there should have been no danger of decompression sickness for me.
For them… well… normally I’d feel a little guilty about subjecting an undiscovered species of deep sea mermaids to the horrors of the Bends. But given my circumstances, I didn’t have a lot of other options.
They didn’t let go, though.
They should have. But they didn’t.
What were these things?
I saw a splayed hand press against my viewport. Or… it somewhat resembled a hand. It had suckers on it, like a tentacle and the ‘fingers’ curled open like tentacles. The creature crawled over my viewport, clinging to The Tempura as it rose, and I could see the folds of its crablike mouth opening and pressing against the glass. I could see some sort of bile rising up through its translucent throat, before it secreted it all over my viewport. Was it trying to digest me? Was that how these things fed? How strong were its stomach acids? Were they strong enough to-
The window cracked.
My heart skipped a beat.
“No… no, no no…”
“Grayson, what’s wrong?!”
“They cracked the window… S-Sheila they… oh God… oh fuck, they just…”
“THEY DID WHAT?”
“It’s secreting some sort of enzyme… it’s on the window, it’s… FUCK… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die…”
“You’re not gonna die, baby! Just… just keep ascending, okay? You’re at 30,000 feet… just keep going…”
I nodded, and kept on rising, although the question of whether or not the rest of the creatures were trying to digest the other parts of my submarine floated through my mind. How much damage could The Tempura take before it imploded? How much longer did I have? The submarine still continued to rise… 25,000 feet… almost halfway home… almost… almost.
The creature outside of my viewport slithered along the glass, searching for a better area to try and digest. Past him, I noticed a few of his companions dropping off. Maybe the change in pressure finally was getting to them?
From the corner of my eye, I suddenly noticed a flashing light. A warning. The hydraulics on one of the Tempura’s arms were shot… what else was damaged?
I checked my oxygen levels. 32%.
I should’ve had at least 14 hours of air. I’d only been down there for about 6 hours… I shouldn’t have been this low.
31%.
No… no, no, no, no… they’d damaged the air tanks!
30%.
29%
“20,000 feet!” Sheila said. “You still with me, baby?”
“Y-yeah…” I said. I didn’t mention my air situation. I didn’t need to worry her further.
The submarine continued its ascent.
15,000 feet.
24%. I was running out of time.
The creatures still clung to the Tempura. How had the pressure change not killed them yet? My oxygen was dropping faster than before. I was hemorrhaging air. Another crack formed across my viewport. I let out a little, involuntary gasp before trying to force myself to stop hyperventilating.
“Grayson, what was that?”
“I-it’s fine…” I stammered, “It’s fine!”
“Grayson what the hell is going on down there?!”
“They’re still on the submarine… they’re still…” I paused, looking at my oxygen levels. “19%...”
“19% of what? Grayson what’s going on!”
I paused.
18%.
“Air… I’m… I’m losing air…”
“That’s fine, you’re going to make it!” She said, although I heard her voice cracking a little. “You’re gonna make it!”
I didn’t answer.
12,000 feet.
11,000 feet…
My oxygen level continued to drop.
15%.
14%.
12%.
9,000 feet.
The creatures still clung to me, as the submarine continued to rise. The one on my viewport was still there, slowly crawling along the glass again. I stared into its eyeless face and swore I was looking at the face of my killer.
7,000 feet…
Oxygen had dropped to 9%. It dropped to 8% before I even got to 6,000 feet. I was going to die here…
The viewport cracked again and I squeezed my eyes shut. The submarine rocked. I was sure one of the thrusters had been damaged. My ascent slowed.
“Grayson, what’s going on?”
“I’m sorry Sheila…”
Another crack spread across my viewport.
“I’m… I’m not making it back up…”
“YES YOU ARE!”
“I’m sorry…” The tears started to come as the reality of my death became clearer and clearer… this was it.
“YOU’RE COMING BACK UP, YOU HEAR ME! GODDAMNIT, I’LL BRING YOU BACK UP!”
“I love you…”
That creatures face pressed against the glass. It vomited more of its stomach acid onto the cracked glass, and I wondered if this might finally be what broke it. Part of me hoped it would be… the one good thing about dying this deep was that at least I’d die quickly. My suffering would be over. Then, the creature suddenly pulled back, twisting and writhing violently. I saw other shapes moving past it in the water, other ‘mermaids’ that had been clinging to the submarine.
Something was agitating them.
Something was scaring them off.
Then I heard it, over the radio… whale songs.
“What the hell…?”
“Grayson, are you still there?!”
“I… they’re finally breaking off. Sheila, what did you do?”
“I’m broadcasting some of the orca recordings we’ve been using. Are they still clinging to you?”
“No! They’re backing off! I… whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!”
The submarine kept rising.
5,000 feet.
4,000 feet.
4% oxygen.
I could still do this, right?
The submarine continued to rise.
3%.
3,000 feet.
2,000 feet.
2%.
1,000 feet… so close… I was so close…
I could almost see the surface through my viewport, rushing up toward me. I tried not to breathe. Tried not to move. All I did was hope.
500 feet.
I closed my eyes.
“Grayson we have your signal, we’re coming to pick you up!”
Sheila’s voice sounded so far away as my submarine finally breached the surface of the water… and with the last of my strength, I pulled the emergency release on the hatch, and threw it open, taking in lungful after lungful of fresh salty air.
I didn’t dare so much as touch the water beneath me… but I was topside again, and in the distance, I could see The Burger!
“We see you!” Sheila said, “We’ve got you baby… we’ve got you…”
“I see you too…” I said through the tears. “Thank you… thank you…” I didn’t have any words left in me after that.
As soon as I was back on the ship, I collapsed into Sheila’s arms, breaking down into tears as I clung to her, terrified that at any moment, some sort of unspoken other shoe would drop and I’d lose her all over again.
“Shh… it’s alright baby… I’ve got you… you’re safe… you’re safe…” I felt her fingers running through my hair and I knew that what she said was true.
I was home.
I was safe.
***
I left my colleagues to review the data that the Tempura gathered during its short expedition. As far as I know, they haven’t published anything. I have a few ideas as to why, but I’ll keep those to myself. Let’s just say that some people would rather this information not become public.
I have a feeling that the Tempura may not be diving again for some time, if ever. I will confess that I do consider that a bit of a shame. Despite everything… I would consider it a success. It endured far more stressful conditions than I had expected, and from what I heard, required fewer repairs than I’d thought it would. But, even if it was approved for another dive, it wouldn’t be me piloting it. No. I will never be setting foot inside of that machine again, nor will I ever be returning to what my colleagues have been quietly referring to as ‘The Jenner Trench’.
I can’t.
Every night, I wake up crying after dreaming of pale shapes outside of my cracked viewport, clinging to Sheila and sobbing. I can’t put myself in that situation again.
I can’t.
Instead, I think I’m going to spend the next few years on solid ground. There’s a teaching position available at a local university. I think that might be the best place for me right now. Who knows, maybe I can help some other deadbeat discover a passion for marine biology.
After everything, my love for the sea remains unchanged… I’m just a little more wary of it, these days.

my bf (23m) and I (22nb) have been together 4 years this month. we live together and have shared an apartment for almost 2 years, after he offered himself to pay the rent if I helped out with groceries or any bills he needed me to pitch in on, but with the job he had when we were first together it was never an issue. I'm currently in school and have had trouble keeping a steady job because of my schedule and part times typically being pretty atrocious environments. he has always been understanding of this and has never made it a requirement that I need to work, just help out with the apartment.
last year he found out the plant he was working for was closing. he was making $25 an hour and doing great. he would play chess, read, and take me on dates. he has an amazing work ethic as much as I hate capitalist terms like that. every time he's done work for my dad/someone else they remark on how great he is at doing it and how quickly he gets it done even if he's paid hourly.
since he found out he was being layed off it was a struggle. his buddy immediately found a job through an Internet provider where they update people's Internet as independent contractors. he says he loves the job but from an outside perspective it is terrible. the pay is decent, he can make almost $1200 in one week; except, they barely keep him employed. it's always a fight between his bosses to get work and he only finds out last minute, he doesn't even know if it's going to be a day shift job or a night shift job. there have been several days where he found out only 3 hours before (if that) he had to go out to work that night then was told he'd have to go out the next day. there are times where he's forced to switch to night shift and he gets out in the field and suddenly they can't access the work they were specifically assigned, or it was given to another team, or maintenance had to shut it down and they won't get access to it for "a week" (which has sometimes turned into a month of waiting). the job depends on the weather, and things like the Superbowl happening. if it's raining or a certain event is happening he can't work. and it has been raining and storming close to nonstop the past few weeks. and when it finally is perfect weather for him to work in? it goes to maintenance for "updates."
at first he was looking for more jobs in the field he was last in, because he is so good at it and the pay is good. but he gave up because working in that environment is so toxic. I've worked in warehouses, and I understand more than anyone because I was a janitor and literally everyone bullied me. there were times I told my parents I either quit or I will kill myself. at least at his job he was working with his entire friend group, it was just his bosses giving him trouble, and that's what he doesn't want to deal with again: people he's gotta do their job for them bitching at them while they sit on their ass. there are also issues like the particulate/pollution he'd be breathing in, but I literally have respirators I've offered to give him and he refuses because no one else wears them.
he passed up a job opportunity months ago that would've put him back at $25+ an hour. paid for his certifications and he got a raise with each one he got. possibly a company truck. per diems. gas paid for. offered to help with his truck maintenance if he needed to drive his own. hotel rooms paid for when he has to travel. it's literally a job we talked about him wanting and dreaming about so we could travel a little more. and he passed it up. he said he'd rather stick with the job he's in now and pick up a side gig like, qdoba or being a waiter again (his first job was food service). and I said okay, as long as you make it work. since passing up that job he has not applied to food places like he said he would.
previously he talked about wanting to be a peer counselor. he's sober and it means a lot to him to help other people out after he struggled so hard. my dad's friend at work is married to a woman in a facility that does that kind of work. she said to give him her card and call, text, email her and she'd give him work immediately. the card is still sitting on the shelf in our bedroom. every time I ask if he's contacted her he goes "I've been on night shift and tired." i have to walk away every time he does that.
every time I bring up work or try to point out his current job is treating him like shit, he gets upset. it doesn't matter how gentle I am about it. as soon as I bring up work he gets agitated and says things like "it'll work out." or tries to get me to leave him alone or laughs it off or smiles and acts like I'm stupid. I know he's been depressed but recently he told me it's because he's only working with one friend, the rest of them gripe, and he has no time for friends now. he's been getting upset with me because I have friends inviting me out and he can't come with, and I've tried explaining it's rude to be invited on a whim and then ask to bring other people my friends aren't close with, that there will be more opportunities. i literally just started getting invited to things and making friends myself in college so it's been hard, I never got a social life in highschool so I'm only just now figuring it out in a city that's so cliquish and hellish you'd think I'm making it up. but, he tells me find despite also saying he keeps this job so he has more time with me and his friends. but family has also been an issue, there have been major events with his dad (life threatening towards both of us) and that side of the family beginning to shun him for not coming around as much despite them being toxic. his mom's side has also started telling him less about things and inviting him over and I can't really fathom why, but his mom at least is very supportive and loving of him and us both. he knows how the corporate world is so I know that's what's keeping him from looking for work. but I can't believe he passed up the opportunity from a place that actually seemed normal and decent and everything he wanted even if it's an industry he wants to leave; and not only that, a woman offered him immediate work he'd been dreaming about and he passed it up too. i even offered the idea he just gets started at one of these places and gets some money coming in at an actual normal pace and he can figure out what exactly he wants to do, he doesn't have to sell his life away to them. he just waves it off.
he's sold all his guns. we've dropped our grocery bill to $30-50 every two weeks. i have an art degree and our school refuses to help us get jobs and internships so I work jobs like being a barista that I can't even stay longer than 3 months at. I'm hoping this job I just got is more permanent but it's $9 an hour, and I plan on putting my head down to graduate with my thesis review coming up this fall because I've had so many circumstances push it off.
i don't know how to approach the conversation. I don't know how to tell him he is pissing away opportunities that will treat him better when he doesn't believe me. I've cried to my best friends about it, I broke down talking to my mom about it after she demanded to know what's going on with his job search. my parents are putting a lot of pressure on me because they want me to be with someone that can keep their promise to take care of me, like he said he would. he gets so angry when I mention my parents have asked about his job and say they're concerned. I don't want him to have that pressure because he's my boyfriend, not my caretaker, but he's genuinely causing me to be depressed in tandem to him not caring about anything. he at least still helps around the apartment but gets agitated when I come home from class after he hasn't worked in days and insists I should've gone to the store or should do dishes. i think he finally started doing things when I explained how mentally and physically exhausting for the hundredth time my classes have been because i have literally been fighting with professors that have been disrespectful to me left and right and my thesis review is coming up, and I have also literally been doing physical labor for them.
every time he comes home from being sent out just to not have work, or wait for him to be assigned just to be told he doesn't have work for an entire week, I want to cry. i want to put my head in my hands and cry. i want to shake him and ask him how this is better. i genuinely don't know how to approach this anymore.

Hi everyone. I hope you can help me.
a family friend applied to UK universities. She got a sponsorship late last year and started applying to degrees/colleges in UK coz she needs a Foundation, but she had already enrolled at a local university (Sep 2023). She did this to have a routine, keep learning, and stay busy instead of staying at home doing nothing.
The degree she’s studying at home and which she will be studying in UK are the same (STEM).
She is now looking to start Foundation in September, but Her favorite option is demanding she has to quit her university in Angola and show evidence of it before they consider her application. She did mention she was enrolled at a local university at some point I don’t know why. She used one of those companies that connect you to many foundations. She already paid a deposit, has very good grades and overall a very strong candidate.
I’m wondering a) why would a university ask for a student in a foreign country withdraw from a course in a different country just to stay at home. Idle hands and all b) do they actually have the right to demand this?
What if things don’t fall thru? She would need to re-do her 1st year locally
The school year at home will end in June, so it’s not like she would have to leave her university here half way thru a year when she travels to UK in September.
Any help?

I'm a director running a consulting/managed services delivery team. I've been doing this for 7 years, albeit only at the director level for 2-3 years. Old boss left last year, new boss started in November.
This man is killing me. He is an insane micromanager, has the most out of control untreated case of ADHD I have ever seen, no work/life balance and very few boundaries for everyone else's, and just an all around bad hire. I would quit today but I have a bunch of vested stock options that are close to payout. So I want to find a way to deal with this.
1) He calls me constantly. Multiple times a day, never with warning. I start my day at 6am. He'll call me at 6:30pm. These calls are always long and usually pointless. Stuff like reviewing a powerpoint for the 10,00th time while I just silently watch him make changes. Why the fuck do I need to be on a call with him while he works? Beats the fuck out of me. I do decline them outside of my working hours usually, but he's just going to keep calling until I pick up eventually. On the flip side, he no-shows on 1:1s more often than not and is usually late to the calls he does show up to.
2) He "coaches" me on the most obvious shit to the point it's insanely condescending. I talked to another leader in my department and he does the same to her. We all run highly specialized teams that he has no experience in. I will give him a quick summary on a sale I am working with a rep on like "they're debating outsourcing vs. internal hire" and he'll say "we should pitch that outsourcing is better." Thanks buddy, this is my first day on earth so I had no idea that's what I should do.
3) Geniuses in the c-suite hired a sales guy to run a delivery team. Sales support has always been part of the job, but just that - sales support. The entire team is frustrated beyond belief because he keeps pushing them to do everyone's job but their own. He wants us sourcing new clients, running the sales cycle, running marketing campaigns, etc., to the point we're well over capacity and struggling to keep up with client delivery. I have brought this up with him multiple times and he backs off for a day, then right back to it. We are a 1,200 person company, not a scrappy start up. We have entire departments dedicated to this stuff for a reason.
4) While forcing us to be sales reps alongside delivery, he inserts himself into every deal and micromanages it to the nth degree. He's called my 7 times in the last 24 hours about a pitch he very clearly does not understand the scope of as if I am the one that needs coaching. What's worse is I can tell you right now, this deal isn't going to happen. I told him yesterday that I am going to keep this simple, high level and focus on scoping. No deck. Overnight, he built a deck and now he's pissy that I am refusing to use it because almost all of it is inapplicable to this project. He also wants us to micromanage sales people, which I am just not going to do. Relationships matter and telling someone I know how to do their job better than them is bullshit.
5) He simply does not pay attention. ADHD, I bet you anything. He'll get on my ass because I'm not attached to a deal. We mainly serve two client profiles. One (which is most of our business) is my area. The other, my services do not apply to. He will get on my ass for not being attached to a deal. I will point out that they are the second type of client which you can literally tell by the client name alone and he is somehow surprised.
I think a lot of his micromanagement come from anxiety, but that's not my fucking problem. How do you get to VP level if you can't trust your directors?
Any advice on how to deal with this? My best people are getting burned out with this and, like I said, communicating that only changes things for a day. He chalks it up to me being in a bad mood. Shit, I'm getting burned out and I am afraid I am going to snap at him if I don't find a productive way to address this. I'm reluctant to skip-level him because his boss is not receptive to feedback and my boss was his hire.