Hi Leetcoders! I wanted to share a successful profile of someone that landed jobs at Meta, Google, and Microsoft with 2 YOE and a Master's degree.
The interview journey is long and difficult. Reviewing someone else's successful interview preparation process and the interview questions they were asked could be super useful to prepare for your own interviews.
Take a break from Leetcode and let's see how they achieved it.
YOE: 2
Previous Company: JP Morgan
Highest Education: Master's
Background: Fullstack Software Engineer

Interview Preparation

Behavioral

• YT videos by Dan Croitor
• Understand various Leadership principles.
• Go through your Resume and write stories following STAR approach Your story should project at-least one of the attribute such as taking lead, resolving conflicts, dealing with ambiguity etc..
• Read, Rehearse and Repeat.

Technical
Coding

• Leetcode
  • Would recommend buying premium subscription. It's worth it.
  • Try to do daily Leetcode challenges. It helps you in being consistent and also covers variety of problems.
  • I used Explore card of Google and Facebook and tried to solve most of the problems.
  • Top 100 questions by frequency.
  • Top 75 LC curated: https://leetcode.com/list/xi4ci4ig/
• Cracking the Coding Interview book
• YT channels/videos:
  • Data Structure lectures by Abdul Bari
  • Graph Theory by Willian Fiset
• Few Tips:
  • Try to solve a problem by yourself, even if you are not able to come-up with an optimal solution.
  • Think about time and space complexity of your solution. Identify sections which can be optimised and think of a better solution/ data structure.
  • After understanding the approach, try to implement it yourself without taking a look at code. This would help you in really understanding the concept.
  • Try to beat 90% of solutions by runtime.

System Design

• Book: DDIA (MUST READ if targeting Google)
• Book: System Design Interview by Alex Xu
• System Design Primer by Donne Martin
• Courses - Groking the System Design and Groking the Advanced System Design
• YT:
  • System Design Interview videos by Mikhail Smarshchok.
  • InfoQ videos and presentations
  • Go through Architecture of popular systems such as GFS, Kafka, Cassandra etc.

Interview Experiences

Accepted: Meta, Google, Microsoft
Rejected: Uber, Atlassian

Meta

Only did Leetcode daily challenges this month and went through 10-15 FB tagged problems(sorted by frequency) before the interview. Spent 1-2 days in preparing for behavioural round as well (writing stories following STAR approach).
Had 2 coding + 1 product design + 1 behavioural round with Facebook.
In 1 coding round I had to solve 2 LC mediums and in other round 1 LC easy and 1 LC Hard was given. Solved all 4 problems. These were all variations of FB tagged problems on Leetcode and if you have solved them, it's fairly easy. Yep, FB is very predictable w.r.t. coding.I had very strong feedback for 2 coding rounds, good feedback for behavioural but my product design round didn't meet E5 expectations. This was I believe happened due to following reasons:

• Never did a mock-up before or gave any product design interview before. This was the first time for me in an interview setup so was a bit nervous a well. I would highly recommend doing some mock interviews.
• I had prepared extensively for system design which focuses heavily on the system side (Database, Schema, Partitioning, Replication etc.). In product design, you are expected to focus more on the API side and High level functionality. I was not given a choice between product design and system design round. Talk to your recruiter and see if you can schedule the round where you are strong at.

Recruiter reached out to me and offered to send my packet to HC for E4 as feedback for product design didn't meet the bar for E5. I declined as it was not worth and a down-level for my experience.

Google

I had 3 coding rounds , 1 system design and 1 googlyness round.
Round 1 (Coding): 1 ambiguous problem with follow-ups. Expectation was to gather requirements and frame the problem statement. Once the scope was defined I provided few solutions with Time/Space complexities. Coded the same. Had few follow-ups w.r.t. what changes I'd make to make it thread-safe etc. This went well.
Round 2(Coding): 2 problems were given. First was related to 2-D matrix and 2nd was a graph problem. Solved both.
Round 3(Coding): A problem statement was given related to a e-commerce website. Had to gather requirements and once the scope was clear I understood it was a graph problem. Provided solutions using both DFS and BFS approach, implemented using DFS. Follow-up was again how to make it thread-safe. Next was kind of LLD question where I was given a problem and was expected to define classes/schema and relations. I provided a generic solution which would scale even for cases outside of problem statement scope.
Round 4(System Design): Was a given a problem related to a real life scenario. Very practical but not something you'd find on any YT channel or course. Since I had never seen the problem before there were no biases or known design in my mind. Kept it simple from the beginning. After gathering functional and non-functional requirements and some back-of-the-envelope estimations presented a very simple high level design. I literally drew just 3 components: client, server and a database. Then started talking about how I can scale each layer and talked about trade-offs as well. This was 1 hr round and first 45 mins went pretty well. In last 15 minutes I wasn't sure about what to talk about more as I was not getting any feedback from my interviewer. I believe he only talked during first 10 mins when I was gathering requirements and he had to answer my queries. In last 15 mins I thought of providing an algorithm of how to implement my approach and talked about few data-structures as well (although this might not be in scope of system design round). After the interview I knew it won't be a No Hire but was also not sure whether it would be Lean Hire or Hire etc.
Round 5(Googlyness): This was the best round. I discussed about various scenarios and situations following the STAR approach. I had prepared a lot of answers w.r.t. ambiguity, leadership, conflict, strengths etc. but I was kind of surprised as he didn't ask any direct questions which you usually prepare. I guess I only used 1 prepared story and rest was on the fly. But if you had prepared enough, you'll know what to answer and how to answer and would be able to relate to it using one of your experiences/projects.
Problems asked in Google were not directly from LC or any other platform. If you had practiced enough, you'll be able to solve them.Make sure you gather requirements, ask questions before jumping to solution. Keep talking and explain your thought process through-out. This is very important as interviewer would be able to judge you better and provide hints, if required.

Microsoft

Round 1 (Coding): It was a online assessment round. I had to solve 2 problems in 90 mins time. These 2 problems were new to me and I didn't find them on Leetcode. I'll categorize them as LC medium from algorithm perspective. But I had to write a lot of boiler-plate code unlike the usual LC mediums. You are given few visible test-cases and option to add custom test-cases. When you submit, 10-12 hidden test-cases are executed which are only visible post submission. So make sure you write your own test-cases well. After talking to various folks and going through community discussions, I also focused on code quality.I was able to solve both of them in 60 mins. Spent next 15 mins in adding comments in various functions to explain what they were doing. I also mentioned time and space complexity wherever I felt it was required. This is really important as this was not the screening round for me but an actual coding round where I would be judged not just on code correctness but also on code quality/modularity.My score was 100% (I passed all the visible and hidden test-cases for both the problems)
Round 2(Coding): 2 LC mediums with follow-ups. This went really well. Since we completed the coding exercise in ~35 mins, spent next 10 mins discussing my work experience/projects.
Round 3(LLD): First 10-15 mins were spent on my work experience. I had to design a Parking-Lot. Went well. You can find a lot of example/tutorials on Youtube etc.
Round 4(HLD): This was the Hiring Manager round. First 20 mins spent on my projects and various discussions w.r.t. how I handled a particular scenario and why I chose one technology over other. Next was given a popular HLD question. I did very well here. I believe this round differentiated between L63/L64 level and given my interview performance, I was offered L64 eventually.
Round 5(Director): This was mostly project discussions and behavioural questions. Nothing technical. Went well.

Uber

Screening Round: This was rather unexpected as interviewer gave me a LC Hard graph problem!! Who expects a LC hard in screening ? Well, Graph theory is one of my favourite and kind of my strength too, so I solved the problem well within time limit. At the start of the interview she told that if I could write the psuedo-code, that'd we fine too. But since we had time, I wrote some test-cases and tried the ones she copied pasted as well. All worked, pheww.
Round 1(Coding): 2 LC medium types. 1 related to Linked-List and other binary tree problem. Solved both.
Round 2(Coding): 1 data-structure design problem with lot of follow-ups including making it thread safe. Similar to Design a HashMap with custom O(1) operations. I was able to come up with design and implemented the same with O(1) complexity. Couldn't find the variation given to me on Leetcode.
Round 3(System Design): Design Uber. (yep, LOL)
Round 4 (Hiring Manager): Mostly project discussions and Behavioural questions.
Round 5 (Behavioural) - Cancelled. I received offers from Google and Microsoft and asked them to cancel as I had a deadline to make a decision on offers.

Atlassian

I felt Atlassian's interviews are really practical and they don't ask questions which you won't be expected to solve on a daily-basis. No screening round here, just a 30 min discussion with recruiter before scheduling interviews:
Round 1(Coding) : 1 problem was given. I was expected to code the same in my preferred IDE (IntelliJ, Eclipse etc.). Focus was mostly on data-structures and code quality. The algorithm itself was really easy if you chose correct data-structures. I used HashMap, Set and PriorityQueue in my solution. Created multiple classes, methods etc. Wrote a few test-cases. You end-up writing a lot of boiler-plate code in IDE as you need to write the main class and method, instantiate everything and then create test-cases. I even used a debugger to debug one of the test-case. This round went well.
Round 2(Machine Coding): Asked to implement a Rate-Limiter. Used an IDE again. Was given 1 problem statement and was expected to write a Object-oriented and modular code. This also went well.
Feedback of both the rounds were positive and recruiter scheduled 3 more rounds for me. 1 Design and 2 Cultural fit types. But I had to cancel them all as I had a deadline to make a decision on offers.

Closing Advice

Do not try to memorize or cram anything, it's useless. Instead try to deeply understand concepts and be curious. That's the only way to make this more enjoyable. It's a difficult journey but it will all be worth it at the end!
I hope this provides some perspective on the blackbox SWE interviews and helps you prepare better!
Full Experience: Here
Candidate's Resume: Here

Hello fellow dishies, here’s some background info before you answer my question
I have dished for over a year and was able to deal with hot objects, notably the water from the sprayer and stuff from the cooks. But I went to college to a different city far away from home and needed some income. So I currently work at a Red Robin chain and work the FOH; as going to class and closing dish isn’t going to fit my schedule.
I have been FOH for about 1.5 years now and my fellow FOH recognize I can touch really hot plates and trays with little to no issue. Yesterday, my manager asked me to dish (it was on my resume when I applied), and I thought to myself I have experience and school’s out, so why not? Throughout the entire shift, there wasn’t a single moment where my sprayer didn’t have hot water (which is a blessing) but the problem is that the water is really hot, I’m guessing anywhere between 185-195. I also dish barehanded, so direct contact.
After the shift, when I got home and washed up, it was really hard to sleep. My hands were numb and had some light sharp pain. I did manage to sleep, but when I woke up, the pain was still there. I felt it more in my left than my right, (I hold/grab objects w/ my left and spray w/ my right) so my question is what’s causing the pain?
Also in my first dishwashing job, I’ve never felt this kind of pain before, so maybe the heat wasn’t as intense as it is here; I honestly don’t remember how hot our water would get.
I’ve read some posts talking about posture and I will admit I definitely slouch when I dish but I feel like this is coming from burns rather than a posture issue.
Give it to me straight, am I a pussy? Or have I lost my dishwasher’s touch?

I am in need of advice on improving my job application process and understanding what I might be missing or doing wrong. Despite having a strong educational background and relevant experience, I have been facing rejections from the positions I apply to. Below is a summary of my qualifications and experience. I would greatly appreciate any feedback or suggestions you can provide.
Summary: I am an experienced Quality Assurance Analyst with a strong foundation in Computer Science Engineering. I have a proven track record in significantly reducing bugs in software projects and am proficient in both manual and automated testing. My programming expertise includes C#, C++, and Java. I also hold multiple certifications in software testing and project management.
Education:

• Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom MSc in Computer Games Development 09/2023 – 10/2024
  • Relevant Coursework: C++ and C#, Project Management, Jira, GitLab
• SRM University, India B. Tech in Computer Science Engineering 08/2019 – 07/2023
  • Relevant Coursework: C, C++, Software Engineering, Java, HTML, MySQL, Object-Oriented Analysis and Design

Experience:

• Byte Orange QA Intern Manchester (Online) 08/2023 – 03/2024
  • Performed QA for FusionOS, an OS developed for the Microsoft Imagine Cup
  • Reduced bugs in the First India Platform by 80% through extensive bug testing

Projects:

• RPG Format Manchester Metropolitan University 01/2024
  • Led development and QA, including writing core game code and creating UI
  • Integrated controller support
• ICARUS VR SRM University 04/2023
  • Led development, provided documentation, and used scrum methodology
  • Ensured stable 120 FPS to prevent motion sickness

Certifications:

• Atlassian Agile Project Management Professional Certificate 04/2024
• Lambda Test Software Testing Professional Certificate 04/2024
• Programming Foundations: Software Testing/QA 01/2024
• Understanding Manual Testing 01/2024
• Unreal Engine Blueprint Game Developer 09/2022
• Unreal Engine Coding (Udemy) 07/2021

Technical Skills:

• Programming languages: C#, C++, HTML, Java
• Engines and 3D software: Unreal Engine, Unity
• Cloud: Microsoft Azure
• Operating Systems: Ubuntu, Windows, MacOS
• Project Management: JIRA, GitLab

Soft Skills:

• Collaboration, Problem-Solving, Analytical Thinking
• Cultural Awareness, Adaptability, Leadership

Despite these credentials, I have been receiving rejections from the roles I apply to. I am particularly interested in understanding:

1. Are there any gaps in my experience or skills that I need to address?
2. How can I improve my resume or cover letter to better highlight my strengths?
3. Are there specific certifications or courses that would make me a more attractive candidate?
4. Any general advice for someone in my position trying to break into the QA industry?

Hello Everyone,
I have an interview tomorrow at the biggest dealership in my town. 118 new cars, 54 pre owned. I’ve done my research on them, I have a neighbor who works for them and I went in last week to ask if I could shadow until the date of my interview which I didn’t have one at the time as it was only scheduled today. In regards to the shadowing, they said that’s up to the GM who’s out of office until Wednesday so instead I asked the sales manager for their best selling units in order to get my product knowledge on them up to date.
Even though I have no prior sales experience, which none are required. I just got my 4 year marketing degree in December, fully learned one of their best sellers, familiarized myself with a selling process and the 4 square. So I think I’m a strong candidate having demonstrated eagerness, a pulse, and an IQ above 50.
At the end of the interview tomorrow I want to try to close on the position; here’s what I have in mind:
Me: I see myself as good fit for this opportunity based on the job description and our discussion here today so I’m really excited to put in the work and learn to sell cars. So how about a conditional offer, so I can go ahead and get started on background check, drug test, and put in my two weeks tomorrow, where during these two weeks I’ll come in after work to shadow people and learn as much as I can so I can hit the ground running when I officially start?

• If objection is “we need some time to think about it” Me: That’s totally understandable Of course you need to think about it, so how about we go over potential hitches you might have about my qualifications so that you have the full picture when you think about it, would that be fair? (Then explain why I’m a good fit based on the job description and ask for the position again)
  
• If objection is “we have other interviews to get through” Me: I totally understand feeling obligated to interview other candidates but gentlemen if I’m the right candidate for this position based on my resume, cover letter, and our discussion here today then wouldn’t your time be too valuable to potentially waste it interviewing other applicants? I’m here to not only make money for myself and the company but to also create one less high turnover position you need to worry about posting, interviewing, and training for. Is there anything I can do for a conditional offer?
  

I don’t plan on having that memorized and saying the script word for word but you get the general idea. Feel free to critique. I especially want to know if the second response makes me seem like an arrogant entitled prick as I waited for this opportunity for the last 3 years but couldn’t do anything because of immigration processes.

Humanity. When a Skatanii Expedition Fleet first found them, there was reason for much celebration among the Great Empires of the Galaxy. The Skatanii were just explorers and dataminers, more interested in simply cataloging the universe than actually bothering with the humans. After exchanging information they simply left, broadcasted the location of a human colony world, then just buggered off.
With the location of a new potential conquest, war fleets from the entire galaxy began the slow march to conquer the newcomers. It was then that the first signs we had bitten off more than we could chew. The first - and Last battle of Eden-4. It was the Kataskan Imperium. Bloodthirsty slave mongering scum that have plagued the galaxy for millennia since the dawn of the First Sons. They arrived on the outskirts of the system, Eden-4, the so-called 'New Hawaii'... whatever that was.
A fleet of thousands of warships of every possible class and make, size and profile, the massive conglomeration of thousands of years of dominating civilizations and stealing their assets for their fleets. They had heard rumors of human strength and dexterity, intelligence, but nothing... NOTHING prepared them for what happened. The speech heard around the galaxy blasted across the entire communication network. A grand speech from the fleet admiral as he started his bloviating and posturing, keeping his fleet on standby as he spat his meaningless words to the humans.
At its conclusion humanity as a whole offered the galaxy one simple response.
In front of the entire galaxy, in front of the largest fleet of the Six Empires. In front of everyone, the humans phase-shifted their entire civilization into an alternate dimension and stayed there. Six dozen star systems suddenly became empty ghosts that looked like they were there, but weren't. Every ship, every building, every star, hell, even every asteroid in the local belts, suddenly phased out of reality and into their own alternate dimension of existence, leaving nothing but a slightly transparent ghost of what once was.
An entire portion of the galaxy's unexplored regions simply popped out of existence, along with the entire civilization that it contained. The warfleet that remained behind did not transition realities with it, and launched an absurdly stupid attempt to do damage. This failed embarrassingly badly as every shot they fired simply flew through each object harmlessly. As if a great civilisation from eons past created holograms of massive star systems and forgot to turn them off.
The humans acted as if the warship fleet nearby was little more than a mild irritation, and they simply just carried on doing whatever they were doing at the time. The fleet's communication signals were blocked, and the Admirals' pitiful childish wailing remained unanswered, his calls going to nobody. Humanity, in one fell swoop, not only secured their future as a species and as an empire, but also rendered unto any enemy the most egregious and vicious insult they could possibly suffer.
To be ignored.
The rest of the galaxy saw this as a direct challenge. They all launched attacks. ALL of them ended the same way. Any disruptor technology they attempted was nothing but a waste of time. Any missile launched simply flew by or did not fire at all owing to the fact its intended target could not be found. They even attempted their own phase-shift. That also failed. They phased into the wrong universe. Humanity was able to hijack their phase shift systems and phase the ships out of existence completely, leaving the crew floating dead in space.
After that, numerous attempts were made. All were simply ignored. Doomsday devices and superweapons became effectively worthless. The greatest powers in the galaxy became little more than laughing stocks because of their inability to put down a minor civilisation ten times smaller than their own vassals. Humanity had the smallest ships, the weakest weapons, and the fewest systems. They took down entire empires by simply developing the means to ignore them.
All previous conventions of war were rendered useless in the span of about two minutes. The armies they assembled had nowhere to land. The ships they built had nothing to shoot. Empires came into human systems and set up remote outposts to taunt the humans there. The humans simply ignored them, making all efforts as worthless as the people who created them. Humanity took no steps to kick them out or even retaliate. They just ignored them.
It has been ten years since the last time anyone has tried to do anything about them. Humanity has since claimed a further sixty systems in their local sector, stopping only when reaching borders. They would warp in with their fleets, phase the entire system out, then carry on as if nothing happened. They were building an entire civilisation on our doorstep, right in front of us in their very own pocket dimension. And there was sweet bugger all anyone could do about it. Angry words are exchanged when they get close to a border. They block the comms and bugger off or carry on as normal.
They never encroach on territory and clearly mark their own borders. They do not engage with any traders, and do not answer random radio communications. They simply ignore everything around them.
But that ends today. Today, I, Thraxx Th'Rann Tarr, Merchant of the Sarannai Imperium will bridge that gap. I have been observing humans for some time now. Trying to understand them. I found a weakness. I traveled for weeks, warping through every system known to us until finally happening upon the original world. 'New Hawaii' as they called it, is now a bustling tourism hub. The place that started it all.
They, as per usual, ignored the entrance of my small frigate and I carefully maneuvered my ship through the traffic. They could do nothing to me but pass through but I tried my best to avoid them regardless. I hovered around a station for a bit. It looked like a drydock of some kind and I observed it for about an hour, eventually finding what I was looking for - a seemingly disused or derelict dock. I maneuvered my ship into it and started praying. I had a pre-recorded message for the humans. Every known radio frequency, every known signal, all broadcasted only locally.
I prayed one last time and then started the recording.
"Hello humans! I understand that your introduction to the galaxy was not exactly what we would call erm... friendly? Yeah I guess that's an apt enough description. I uhm... I would like to be the first member of the galactic community to extend a hand in friendship! Or at the very least, a hand in commerce. My name is Thraxx Th'Rann Tarr, Orderly Merchant of the Saranai Imperium! I mean no harm of any kind! If I receive no answer within the hour, I shall simply show myself out. If parked in the wrong place, I apologize for the inconvenience! Thank you and erm... have a nice day, I guess?"
This definitely caught their attention and suddenly every ship within visual range turned to face mine. "Unauthorized Scan. Unauthorized Scan." My ship's AI barked at me loudly as I now had several dozen warships perform scans on my ship.
"Oh gods I knew it! I sounded so stupid on that recording! I should have made a proper speech! Oh no, oh no!" I yelled at myself for my incompetence.
"Docking Clamps Engaged. Pressurization is complete." My AI said again, loudly snapping me out of my daze.
"WHAT!? D-docking clamps!?" I quickly hurried towards my console and checked things. I had phased out of existence and they had brought me into their universe. Moreso, I had docked with their station.
Before I could do anything further, I heard a polite banging on my airlock door. "Hello? Anybody home?"
"C-coming! Please hold on!" I yelled out and scurried from my seat.
I quickly staggered over to the door and equalized pressure between the doors and opened it. Three humans, a large tall dark skinned one, two armor clad ones behind him, and several pairs of eyes hiding from the other end of the passageway.
"Oh! H-hello!" I was a bit scared but I blurted out a greeting nonetheless.
"A blue space elf?" The tall dark one said.
"Sonofabitch..." The one on the left said, then handed some sort of item begrudgingly to the other one.
"What... was... Nevermind. Uhm... Welcome to my shop! Let me show you the merchandise!" I stepped back, allowing these oddly adorable creatures through. Their heavy footsteps echoed through the hallway as I showed them to the cargo hold.
"So what er... Kind of stuff do you have exactly?" One of them asked.
"Oh... I had no idea what to bring exactly. You didn't exactly join the market so I brought some souvenir stuff, local crafts, musical instruments and other things like that. Simple stuff. I have no idea what your dietary requirements are so I tried to avoid foodstuffs. No weapons no tech no state secrets and whatnot just. Uh... Tourist-y stuff, I guess." I explained as I got to the cargo bay doors and walked inside.
The humans followed and allowed me to put the lights on so we could actually see. One of the humans vocalized a sharp whistling noise and broke formation to go look at an instrument nearby.
"Huh... Looks like a fancy version of a Harpsichord..." He said, gingerly pressing one of the keys.
"That is called a Soronokey. We usually use it for musical performances or such things. Let me just... unfold it properly..." I approached and carefully unfolded the intricate device, flipping covers and twisting gears until it was open.
"It looks like a combination of an accordion, piano and a harp..." The tall dark one spoke idly. "Please excuse me, the muse is restless." He suddenly said, and stood in front of it.
He tried to make some kind of song. or something. He seemingly pressed some random keys on the instrument, creating a god awful noise a few times, then attempted a melody. I tried to keep my face as straight and salesman-like as possible but his childish instrument butchering grated on me.
"Okay then, ladies and gentlemen, Bohemian Rhapsody."
Still standing, he began the strangest but most entertaining song I had ever heard. Strange stops mid-chord, odd riffs and peculiar notes, he was quickly gaining a hold on the instrument and by the time the song he was playing was over, he had almost mastered the instrument. He very clearly had experience with similar devices. When he finished some minutes later, the two guards and several humans nearby that had filtered in gave him a round of applause.
"That sound is DAYUM crisp. Dats da shit right there. MMh! Haven't had a sound that clean since my days in the theater!" He exclaimed happily. "She's complicated though. Bit feisty! Takes some getting used to. I NEED that thing! What you want for it?"
I shook my head and smiled in surprise. "Uh... I don't know uhm... I could go for some instruments of yours in trade, or I take gold bullion. Gold is still a decent trade medium these days. I can take that. Probably have to figure something out but, that will do for now I guess."
My nervousness was more than apparent but they seemed unphased. One of them spoke up. "Uhhh lemme see. More instruments... Uhhh..." He looked around, opening covers and boxes. "uhhh... No guitar. Want one?"
"Gee-tar? What's a gee-tar?" I asked, curious.
"This." He said, holding up the odd wooden thing he was carrying. He moved it around and held it gently, then began to play a song on it. The sound of that immediately caught my ears. The Cassanai would LOVE that thing!
"Oh! Oh my! That sound! Uhm... Let me think uhm... Is it okay to ask for uh... two or three of those in exchange for the Soronokey?" I asked politely as I could.
"Yeah sure! We have a music shop on the dock, I can go get some stuff you can try out." He smiled with a spark in his eye.
"I have a better idea." The tall dark one said. "Welcome to New Hawaii Tourist Center. If you will please follow me I will help you organize your merchants license. Then, we can make a proper deal and figure out a proper trade system."
My face lit up with excitement. This... This was more than I was hoping for! "Yes! Yes I-I would love that! Th-thank you!"
"Fantastic. Please follow me." He said, waving everyone away from my ship for now.
I followed with a happy step and all the humans that had wandered in were ushered out of my ship, two guardsmen protecting the entryway for me. We strutted away and headed for something called a Trade Office. I however had one question.
"Erm... May I ask something?"
"Sure. What's up?" He replied calmly.
"After all that has thus far happened, why are you so... uhm... friendly?" I asked as politely as I could.
"You asked politely? It's not that hard to understand. Up to this point we had angry words, nasty proclamations and warlords using our space to measure their dicks. We were always interested in trade and friendship, hell, even sharing tech. All we ever wanted was to not be alone in the universe but nnnOOOOoooo we had to suffer an entire galaxy made of empire hungry dickheads." He explained with an annoyed tone.
"So... To break your animosity all I had to do was be polite?" I asked with genuine confusion.
"Yup. Please and thank you will get you a lot of places with humans. Make a note of that." He said, closing one eye cheekily. "Here you are, The Commerce Guild's Trade Office. It wont take that long and I have made sure to secure your ship from prying eyes. I will see to it we have some equally interesting merchandise available for trade and secure some bullion just in case." He said with a smile.
"Thank you! Looking forward to it!" I replied with enthusiasm and walked into the door.

Im at the end of my Junior year of Highschool and im unsure about my application and what colleges i should apply to. I still have 3 days left of the year so final semester grades arent out yet but its gonna be around a 4.1. I had a 4.103 last semester and my grades have been basically the same.
I didnt really take school too serious freshman and sophmore year which i am sorely regretting now which is why im concerned about my college chances.
For background im a 17yo Chinese American male and I live in Ohio.
Before i start, in my class list youre gonna see CCP classes. CCP classes are college credit classes that are mostly an Ohio thing. Im probably gonna have a hard time getiing those credits accepted out of state which is one of my concerns.
Freshman (P.S. i dont have exact percentages)
Art I: A
CP Span I: B
HON Algebra I: A
HON Biology: B
HON English 9: A
World History: A
Sophmore
AP Lang: A (AP Test: 3)
APush: A (AP Test: 3)
CP Geometry: A
CP Span II: B
HON Chem: B
HON Algebra II: A
Junior
AP Psych: A
AP Gov: A
CCP Basic Pharmacology (online): A
CCP Pre Calc: A
CCP Comp I: A
CCP Consumer Econ: A
CCP Earth Science: A
CCP Intro to Open Source (online): A
Current GPA
4.1
CLASS RANK: 6
Senior
Plan to take CCP Anatomy and CCP Physics in the summer
During the school year im doing AP Lit, AP Human Geo, CCP Calc, CCP Bio
ACT/SAT
ACT: 25, 26, SS=27
SAT: 1290
Clubs:
Key Club: done all three years going onto senior year, only held a recruiter position (which everyone who runs gets) in freshman year.
FLBA: joined juniors and continuing into Senior year, did objective tests and won basic awards for it (pretty much everyone did)
Sign Language: Freshman and Sophmore year, girl who ran it graduated so its not availble now
Student Council: Freshman year, i knew nobody was afraid to talk at meeting and activities so i left sophmore year.
Sports:
Soccer: Varisity 2, only played for Freshman year
Archery: Every year up til junior year, i dont plan on doing it for Senior year tho
For college i plan to major in Biology for 4 years and get a Bachelors, then go to DPT school because i want to become a Physical Therapist. My major probably will change since im suspicous about the stats regarding Biology however thats just a template for now.
Alright now thats out of the way let me address some of my concerns:
For one, i do actually want to get into some sort of medical job. im also more interested in science subjects like Biology than math for instance. However HON Bio and HON Chem were my worst grades. Chem im pretty sure i got around an 80% and bio is probably also in the low-mid 80s. Im pretty worried about that since im planning on being a Bio major doing medical prereqs like chemistry.
This harkens back to the "i didnt take school seriously freshman or sophmore". i didnt really try my best in these classes because i didnt really like the teachers. However if i had actually took them serious I think i wouldve gotten much better scores since i hardly studied or paid attention in class. Despite that I still have an interest in Science, i thought both Psychology and Pharmcology were both interesting but i know thats not the same thing.
Im taking a bunch of science related courses during the summer and Senior year because of the PT thing. Ill see how they go.
Second concern is my extracurriculars. I just dont think theyre enough. I havent held any real leadership positions in any of my clubs, i mainly just helped out in activities. I dont know my community service hours but its probably around 20-30 all from key club.
I quit soccer and I'm quitting archery next year due to mental health reasons. Both sports stressed me out and put me in depressions. Im planning on doing powerlifting since weightlifting has been a really great hobby ive adopted the past year. However im pretty worried that this will show a pattern of quitting since ive already quit clubs before.
Aside from that, thats basically all. For jobs, ive worked at my parents buffet but mostly only during summers. This summer i plan to get a job outside of my parents buffet.
My mom has enrolled me in a lot tutoring classes though however i dont know if that count towards anything. The online tutoring classes is offered by this company in New York City. Ive takin General Math & English classes and ACT & SAT classes. Overall the hours for that are a lot. i can probably get the exact hours easily but im pretty sure its around 200-300 hours.
All in all this is one of the biggest things im worrying about since i feel like everyone else in my class has done way more.
Third, my ACT and SAT test scores. Despite having a fuckton of online tutoring classes for the ACT i just cant get that test to click for me. This is really frustrating since after so many hours of practice ive only been able to score a 25 and a 26. The highest score ive had on a practice test was a 30. That really sucks since i was very confident in my second ACT and practiced a long time for it.
My first SAT i got a 1290 which is about equivant to a 27 on the ACT. Again not really ideal. I do find the SAT to be much easier than the ACT tho. The test i did have was like right in the middle of Finals, midterms, and Ap Tests so i didnt have much time to study. Ill try my hardest to do better on the Aug 24 SAT but that may be my last chance since the next SAT date after that is on Oct 5.
Last thing are my CCP classes. Again they are mainly an Ohio thing so out of state colleges may not accept them. My sister went out of state and most of those classes didnt get college credit .
So anyways those were all my concerns. The colleges that my sister said belong to or my "matches" catagory are the Univeristy of Pittsburgh, Ohio State, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The ones in my "reach" catagory are Case Western, Univeristy of Michigan, and John Hopkins. Thats all i have so far.
John Hopkins and Michigan both have <20% acceptance rates so that is probably the farthest edge of the reach catagory. Case Western is probably my best, most realistic option since it has a 35% acceptance rate and its in Ohio.
All the colleges in my matches category are pretty comparable. I think Pittsburgh may be the best option since its near Carnegie Melon (my sister's college) and apprently it has a pretty large premed student-base
With that said i really dont think im even in the ballpark for any of these colleges. My SAT is a 1290, literally none of their test score ranges. As well as this i feel like all of the problems ive outline are too much to make me a candidate for any of these colleges. My sister says i have a good chance of the match colleges. She said ill probably get into Ohio state however im really not sure. My activities suck, my state test scores aren't in their ranges, Ive stopped doing a lot of clubs and sports, my volunteering hours are barely anything, most my college credit classes are CCP which may not be counted. My GPA is probably the best thing on my resume but my high school isnt the most academically prestigous high school out there. Like highest GPA in my grade is probably a 4.5 out of 125 students.
Overall, i dont know how college admissions will think. Im really unfamilar with what gets into college and what doesnt. Im not sure if i even qualify anything on my list. Could you guys please evaluate me and tell me whats my situation? Additionally what are some other colleges that i should add to my list and that im applicable for? How do i even look for colleges aside from just strolling on USNews?

Basically , I applied to an rehab center for dogs where we watch and take care of dogs who are left for the day. I dropped my resume in person and immediately got a call (well the next day or two) and they were really interested in my previous experience at an animal shelter and also my tailored objective (also cause I sent my resume right before they made an indeed post and mine was in person). I went in for an “interview” two Fridays ago which was more of them showing me around the whole place and stuff. Then they said they’d get back to me in a week cause other people applied too.
Once the week passed I called the place cause they never actually called me and my mom kept bugging me to follow up with them, and someone picked up (not the person who called before/manager(?)) saying the manager wasn’t there and that he’d let her know to call me or whatever. Now that it’s Monday and I still have no call. Is it really worth going there again and this time in person? I am convinced they just hired some stupid close contact or someone over me, but I’m still being told to go there and ask again and my mom won’t listen to me.

Python 3.10.6 (tags/v3.10.6:9c7b4bd, Aug 1 2022, 21:53:49) [MSC v.1932 64 bit (AMD64)] Version: v1.9.3 Commit hash: 1c0a0c4c26f78c32095ebc7f8af82f5c04fca8c0 Launching Web UI with arguments: --autolaunch --medvram --xformers --theme=dark --disable-safe-unpickle CHv1.8.7: Get Custom Model Folder ControlNet preprocessor location: D:\Programs\STABLE DIFFUSION\webui\extensions\sd-webui-controlnet\annotator\downloads 2024-05-20 18:32:02,480 - ControlNet - INFO - ControlNet v1.1.449 Loading weights [07919b495d] from D:\Programs\STABLE DIFFUSION\webui\models\Stable-diffusion\picxReal_10.safetensors CHv1.8.7: Set Proxy: 2024-05-20 18:32:02,849 - ControlNet - INFO - ControlNet UI callback registered. Creating model from config: D:\Programs\STABLE DIFFUSION\webui\configs\v1-inference.yaml Running on local URL: http://127.0.0.1:7860 To create a public link, set `share=True` in `launch()`. D:\Programs\STABLE DIFFUSION\system\python\lib\site-packages\huggingface_hub\file_download.py:1132: FutureWarning: `resume_download` is deprecated and will be removed in version 1.0.0. Downloads always resume when possible. If you want to force a new download, use `force_download=True`. warnings.warn( Startup time: 11.1s (prepare environment: 2.3s, import torch: 3.9s, import gradio: 0.8s, setup paths: 0.9s, initialize shared: 0.2s, other imports: 0.6s, load scripts: 1.4s, create ui: 0.7s, gradio launch: 0.4s). Applying attention optimization: xformers... done. Model loaded in 3.2s (load weights from disk: 0.8s, create model: 0.4s, apply weights to model: 1.7s, calculate empty prompt: 0.2s). 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 16/16 [00:11<00:00, 1.43it/s] 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 16/16 [00:10<00:00, 1.47it/s] Total progress: 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 32/32 [00:23<00:00, 1.36it/s] 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 16/16 [00:10<00:00, 1.46it/s] 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 16/16 [00:10<00:00, 1.48it/s] Total progress: 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 32/32 [00:23<00:00, 1.36it/s] Total progress: 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 32/32 [00:23<00:00, 1.52it/s] 

Python 3.10.6 (tags/v3.10.6:9c7b4bd, Aug 1 2022, 21:53:49) [MSC v.1932 64 bit (AMD64)] Version: v1.9.3 Commit hash: 1c0a0c4c26f78c32095ebc7f8af82f5c04fca8c0 Launching Web UI with arguments: --autolaunch --medvram --xformers --theme=dark --disable-safe-unpickle CHv1.8.7: Get Custom Model Folder ControlNet preprocessor location: D:\Programs\STABLE DIFFUSION\webui\extensions\sd-webui-controlnet\annotator\downloads 2024-05-20 18:32:02,480 - ControlNet - INFO - ControlNet v1.1.449 Loading weights [07919b495d] from D:\Programs\STABLE DIFFUSION\webui\models\Stable-diffusion\picxReal_10.safetensors CHv1.8.7: Set Proxy: 2024-05-20 18:32:02,849 - ControlNet - INFO - ControlNet UI callback registered. Creating model from config: D:\Programs\STABLE DIFFUSION\webui\configs\v1-inference.yaml Running on local URL: http://127.0.0.1:7860 To create a public link, set `share=True` in `launch()`. D:\Programs\STABLE DIFFUSION\system\python\lib\site-packages\huggingface_hub\file_download.py:1132: FutureWarning: `resume_download` is deprecated and will be removed in version 1.0.0. Downloads always resume when possible. If you want to force a new download, use `force_download=True`. warnings.warn( Startup time: 11.1s (prepare environment: 2.3s, import torch: 3.9s, import gradio: 0.8s, setup paths: 0.9s, initialize shared: 0.2s, other imports: 0.6s, load scripts: 1.4s, create ui: 0.7s, gradio launch: 0.4s). Applying attention optimization: xformers... done. Model loaded in 3.2s (load weights from disk: 0.8s, create model: 0.4s, apply weights to model: 1.7s, calculate empty prompt: 0.2s). 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 16/16 [00:11<00:00, 1.43it/s] 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 16/16 [00:10<00:00, 1.47it/s] Total progress: 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 32/32 [00:23<00:00, 1.36it/s] 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 16/16 [00:10<00:00, 1.46it/s] 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 16/16 [00:10<00:00, 1.48it/s] Total progress: 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 32/32 [00:23<00:00, 1.36it/s] Total progress: 100%██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 32/32 [00:23<00:00, 1.52it/s] 

Reddit Account: u/Dejurewaffles1066
Discord Tag: Garin
Name and House: Ellyn Moore
Age: 25
Cultural Group: Valeman
Appearance: Of middling height and red hair, Ellyn has spent the last four years in constant training and increasingly eschews the courtly manners she was taught in favor of a direct and frank mode of speaking and acting, thoroughly disillusioned with subtleties and empty flattery. Her eyes can be rather intense and seldom evade contact.
Trait: Brave
Skills: Swords (e), Two-handed weapons (swords), Brute, Errantly
Talents: Weaving, Fishing, Hawking
Negative trait: N/A
Starting title: Scion of house Moore, Cavalier
Starting Location: Greyhelm
Alternate Characters: Dorian Merryweather
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Biography:

For house Moore, like many other houses of the Vale's sheltered interior, Aegon's conquest was rather unremarkable. They went to bed one evening as subjects of one king and woke up as subjects of a new one, without the old one having gone anywhere either. Ellyn was the third child of Lord Berrick Moore and his wife Sybelle Wydman. Ellyn would be their only daughter. Lord Berrick went on to play a minor role in the campaign against the Root Father. The stories of the menace in the mountains inspired many a youth at Bronzespear to want to take up arms themselves, Ellyn among them.
The tapestries of andal knights, fearlessly facing their enemies with gleaming greatswords captured her imagination already as a child, and she began training beside her brothers. They were fairly accepting of this, and so Lord Moore let it slide as long as Ellyn did not skip other lessons for the sake of training, however when the Cavaliers were formed, it would not be many years before his daughter began to speak of joining, in hushed tones at first but ever more loudly as time went on. When she turned sixteen, Ellyn asked for permission to join and was promptly shut down. Instead Lord Berrick took his family on a visit to Snakewood, where Ellyn was introduced to the heir of the house, who had become her betrothed by the end of the visit. her betrothed did not come accross as a cruel or mean-spirited man, yet he was also not particularly strong-willed, a fact which would later become painfully aparent
Soon after her eighteenth nameday, Ellyn married the heir to House Lynderly, moving to Snakewood. Three things quickly became obvious to Ellyn. Firstly, even as a man grown, her husband had few opinions of his own, preferring to hear the verdict of his parents and adjust to it. Secondly, the maester in House Lynderly's service had little knowledge of medicine, and somehow even less of how to practice it on women. This fact became clear from the third revelation, she was already with child, probably since her wedding night. This was celebrated as a sign of good luck and the blessing of the gods. The final outcome would prove a hellish ordeal. The labor would become a protracted affair as Ellyn struggled. Something was clearly wrong, and the maester was utterly clueless in regards to a solution. By the time the idea of cutting the child out of her was being proposed, the impasse finally ended and her daughter was born, as if by the Mother's much belated mercy. At this point a hedge-maester was called in, ostensibly as assistant to the Maester of Snakewood. In practice, the dornishman named Marcel took over her care, and his clueless colleague was happy for an excuse to leave the room. He would stay to nurse her back to health, a process which took more than three months.
By then the warning signs were already showing. Leyla, her daughter, could not even look straight at someone, her gaze constantly shifting and her pupils often turning in opposite directions. Ellyn requested that Marcel stay at Sanekwood to monitor the girl and the Lynderlys obliged, their maester being no more skilled in treating children than women. At age one Leyla was not learning to walk, and struggled to even crawl or lay still. The Lynderlys assumed the child to be dim-witted, an ill omen. Furthermore, even a year after the birth, Ellyn's cycle had not returned to normal, becoming infrequent and irregular. For two more years she and her husband were urged to try to produce a suitable heir, unlike their daughter, however Ellyn proved incapable of conceiving another child. She was increasingly left to her own devices, and began to take up her old swordsmanship again, a way to remind herself and those around her that she hadn't died that night, even if her in-laws increasingly seemed to treat her as such.
Meanwhile Marcel continued to monitor Leyla's condition, unconvinced by the analysis of Snakewood's regular maester. He eventually concluded the condition to be palsy, and that the girl might eventually learn to control the spasms of her limbs, fashioning straps that would limit the movement in her arms and legs, allowing her to begin to practice moving them deliberately rather than involuntarily.
By 21AC, the Lynderlys concluded that divorce was the solution to their plight. A wife incapable of producing a fit heir could be set aside, and so this was Ellyn's fate. Her husband had not leapt at the opportunity eagerly, however as his parents argued the necessity he protested it less and less. He offered Ellyn and Leyla a place at his court after the divorce, but Ellyn rejected it, unable to stomach how the court seemed to treat both her and her daughter as functionally dead, a sentiment which had started years before the divorce itself. Instead she took her unwanted daughter and made for the Gates of The Moon and the Cavaliers, bringing Leyla with her. Marcel would accompany her, intent on continuing Leyla's training. As the years went by, the girl slowly staggered to her feet, beginning to walk with shambling steps and speak with a ragged voice. Meanwhile Ellyn resumed her own training at arms, using up her anger by throwing it into her training, regaining the strength of teenage years that already felt like a lifetime ago. Rather than ruminate on what the gods may have meant by it all, she sought meaning in the people around her, her companions and her family, not any house.
Family Tree:
Berrick Moore (Father, b.30BC)
Sybelle Wydman (Mother, b.27BC)
Lucan Moore (Brother, b.5BC)
Harmen Moore (Brother, b.2BC)
Martyn Lynderly (Ex-husband, b.1BC)
Leyla Lynderly (Daughter, b.17BC)
NPCs:
Berrick Moore (55), General
Lucan Moore (30), Huntsman
Timeline:
1BC: Ellyn Moore is born
6AC: She begins training with her brothers
15AC: She asks permission to join the Cavalliers, but is instead arranged to be married to the heir of House Lynderly
17AC: Ellyn marries Martyn Lynderly and gives birth to her only daughter, Leyla, by the end of the year. The labor is long and difficult, and she is saved by the intervention of the hedge-maester Marcel after the maester of Snakewood proves incapable of helping.
20AC: It becomes clear that Leyla is afflicted with palsy while Ellyn is no longer capable of conceiving. Martyn Lynderly's parents begin advocating for a divorce to allow House Lynderly to have a healthy heir by another lady. Ellyn begins practicing with a sword again
21AC: The divorce is finalized. Ellyn is offered a place at court by her former husband but instead takes her daughter with her and joins the Cavaliers. Marcel joins her
21-25AC: Ellyn trains as a Cavalier while Marcel gradually teaches Leyla to move more independently and speak. Ellyn and Marcel accompany the leaders of the Cavaliers to Greyhelm
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
AC
Name and House: Marcel
Age: 44
Cultural Group: Dornishman
Appearance: A tall man with greying, black hair. Marcello's curly beard is carefully trimmed and his hands usually carry a metallic scent, whether from tinkering or treating injuries. His eyes are bright and keen, but tend to dart around a lot, constantly preoccupying themselves with new objects of fascination
Gift: Erudite
Skills: Medic (e), Craftsman (Armor)
Talents: Tinkering, Language (Valyrian), Fishing
Negative Traits: N/A
Starting title: Maester
Starting Location: Greyhelm
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Biography:

Marcel was born in 20BC, a son of a Planky Town merchant. While taking an keen interest in learning letters, numbers and even a few valyrian phrases, he had no mind for managing money. His parents quickly decided that out of all their children, he was better sent off to the Citadel, before one of his flights of fancy caused a greater loss of money. This was after he had spent a considerable sum just to acquire a Qohorik automaton, an intricate little lion with cogs on the inside that allowed it to walk when wound up.
Arriving in Oldtown at the age of 16, Marcel initially pursued metallurgy, but soon found that medicine stirred a very similar fascination in him. whether understanding the intricacies of a body made of flesh or metal, he was always keenly interested. It only took a few years before he came to be considered somewhat of a prodigy, especially for his interest in reconvalescent healing, the act of helping stroke victims and the maimed to use their bodies once again. By 21 he had taken further interests, particularly in a fellow maester in training, named Leo. For three years they were inseparable, jointly pursuing their studies by day and their passion by night. Then, one day, Leo suddenly started avoiding him. Marcel grew angry and tried to confront him several times, even in public.
This eventually caused enough of a scene for one of his seniors to pull him aside. Leo, as things would have it, was the nephew of one of the closest aides to the Archmaester of medicine. The over-proud geezer, Malcom, accused Marcel of corrupting his nephew wiht 'dornish vices' and told him in no uncertain terms that he should abandon the study of medicine, having already thrown away his prospects with his impertinence. At the time Marcel scoffed at his threat. He abandoned Leo, who had willingly abandoned him at his uncle's order, however he stayed in his course. A decade later, he was painfully aware that Malcom had acted on his threat. After an unusually protracted study they finally granted him a link of medicine, but there after the Citadel's college of medicine wanted nothing to do with him, throwing menial jobs far below his level at him whenever he offered his services. He went into metallurgy, but soon found himself similarly disdained. Though not an Archmaester, Malcom knew many men in the other colleges and had obstructed him here too. At this point, Malcom took to the road, serving as a hedge-maester. With few friends at the citadel, even an official posting at some hole in the middle of nowhere was out of reach.
One fateful evening in the Vale however, he would find a new sense of purpose, aiding Lady Ellyn Moore and her newborn Leyla. As the little girl grew into her toddler years, he determined that she could learn to walk on her own like other children, given the right supports. Those few with her affliction who grew to adulthood would sometimes show more control of their limbs with time, and maesters had speculated about accelerating the process. The project engrossed him so much that joining the service of the Cavaliers was almost an afterthought, a simple decision that would allow him to continue his work on the girl. Functionally, Marcel has now achieved what his seniors tried to deny him, serving as a surgeon and smith at the Gates of The Moon
Timeline:
20BC: Marcel is born in Planky-Town as a merchant's son
7BC: Marcel is a quick learner at everything except how to manage money. After spending a lot of money to acquire an automaton, a Qohorik curiosity, Marcel's parents determine that he is best suited for the citadel
4BC: He arrives in Oldtown to begin his studies
2AC-5AC: Marcel becomes recognized as a promising student of medicine and develops a relationship with Leo, a fellow student. Eventually Leo begins ignoring him. Marcel is told by Leo's uncle Malcom that their relationship is intolerable and that he should stop studying medicine
15AC: After a decade Marcel is granted his chain in medicine, and promptly stonewalled from further advancement. Malcom also pulls strings to make other archmaesters obstruct him from advancement as well. Marcel becomes a hedge-maester at the end of the year.
17AC: Marcel happens to be in Snakewood when the heir's wife is giving birth. He is able to help save Lady Ellyn Moore and her child, Leyla.
18AC-21AC: Marcel trains Leyla to be able to move independently despite her palsy. When Lady Ellyn is set aside by the Lynderlys he joins her to the Cavaliers, where he takes up service as a surgeon and smith while continuing to train Leyla
25AC: He joins the Cavaliers to Greyhelm

The Zoo - A NoSleep story
***
Full job description:
Immediate Opening!
Night shift zoo managesecurity. All-weather foot patrol opportunity for a “night-owl”, who enjoys working outdoors and with minimal supervision.
Under general direction of the manager of the zoo, the Security Guard patrols the zoo grounds on a regular basis throughout the shift. Responds in a timely and professional manner to a wide variety of routine and emergency situations.
Requirements: BA in wildlife, biology, etc, which provides the required knowledge, skills, and background for this position. Valid Florida Driver’s License with good driving record is desirable. First Aid and CPR certification preferred.
The qualified candidate has the ability to use independent judgment in handling routine as well as the capacity to perform under stress when confronted with an emergency, unusual, or dangerous situation. Ability to oversee animals’ well-being, monitor conditions, create enrichment activities, and exercise safety precautions.
The Security Guard must be able to walk and remain on feet a full shift (up to 8 hours), and potentially up to 12 hours at a time. Must be able to exert a minimum of 50 pounds of force and able to lift, push or pull, or otherwise move objects that may exceed 50 lbs. Ability to negotiate all areas of the zoo in all weather conditions.
Note: Zoo is haunted.
***
I’ll start with the job posting, I guess. I spotted it on Indeed while making my daily check for anything and everything that would hire someone with my biology degree, and it seemed on the up and up. Their website looked decent, the guy on the phone sounded nice, and I was looking for anything even slightly related to working with wildlife. Being a night shift guard at a zoo was fine, especially when I took the incredibly generous rate of $25/hr. into account. That’s eleven bucks more than my dad makes at the local grocer, and he’s been working there for thirteen years. Then again, from the P.S. on the posting, I thought there might be good reason for the rate.
It said at the end, almost as an afterthought, ‘Zoo is haunted.’
When it comes to ghosts, they’ve never made much sense to me. Considering how badly our brains function from just getting jostled around on a football field, I’m not sure how ghosts could exist without a brain at all. I’d be excited as the next person to find proof, but YouTube videos are always fishy and the people on TV are essentially actors who only focus on the entertainment factor for their ratings. So, since I’d never seen anything that vaguely resembled a ghost, I’d say binge-watching Supernatural on Netflix last year was the extent of my experience in that department.
It seemed that the zoo hadn’t been here for long since it wasn’t even on Google Maps yet. There was a bit of a commute, it was half an hour away, but since I’d worked local jobs while I attended college online for the past four years, I’d saved up the money to buy a car. It wasn’t anything fancy, just an old Nissan sedan that I’d bought from someone in the next town over, with faded red paint and a mismatched back right door painted blue. It accomplished the job of transportation, though, which let me search the job market further away, a good thing considering how small a town I lived in. I really didn’t want to leave home yet, so moving for a job in a city or another state wasn’t an appealing option.
The website said very little. It had yet to fill in drop down menus that would excitedly describe their attractions. So far it only had some small sections about conservation and education, though that was intriguing because it mentioned that all the animals they had were endangered. I read that notation and wondered what the animals were. Mammals were always favorites of mine, which I know is a bit of a cliché, loving the furry ones. But when it comes down to it, I’ll take any animal over a person.
The employee entrance to the zoo was a door in the large steel gate that surrounded the property, a few yards down from the sliding gate that presumably opened to let visitors in. I pressed the button on a panel beside it, glancing up at the camera, and I was buzzed in. There was a short path that led to the building near the front and I knocked politely before going inside.
The interviewer, a plain metal nameplate on his desk describing him as Director of Security for the zoo, welcomed me in and sat on the other side of his desk, lounging back in his desk chair. His name was Andrew Higgs, and he had a British accent, which I thought was cool. I sat in one of the two loveseats in front of the desk.
Andrew was dressed business casual, with a blue Polo shirt, a thin black jacket, and I saw he was wearing slacks when he stood up to shake my hand. He was black, with dreadlocks that stopped just short of his shoulders, and a closely trimmed mustache. There was a tattoo, an artistic rendition of a hippo, on the right side of his neck, which bode well in my opinion. So many places hiring these days were overly uptight about their employees’ appearance, but it seemed that wouldn’t be the case here.
We went over the basics before he picked up the piece of paper off his desk, my resume, which he’d printed out. “Well, I spoke to all three of your references,” Andrew noted. “They had some good things to say. You were a great employee on the farm you worked last summer, your boss said. Punctual, hard-working, took instructions well…”
That was nice to hear. I’d spent this past summer working at a dairy farm, mostly assigned to the goats and cows they kept for milk. Aside from the staggering muscle pain that tapered from agony to merely miserable by the end of the summer, it wasn’t a bad job. I did have an old shoulder injury that I always had to work around, but it was my left shoulder and I was a righty, so it wasn’t that difficult to manage.
If anything, the muscle pain in my back and legs from being on my feet all day distracted from the typical issue I dealt with. My standard exercising day-to-day was typically either riding my bike or yoga, although yoga is mind-numbingly boring, so I need to listen to a podcast to pass the time. So, in fact, through the job, I was sort of grateful that my brain was focusing on a different area of my body that was in pain. Yeah, chronic pain is weird.
“He also said you don’t work well with others,” Andrew added, glancing up to me. “You kept submitting complaints about incompetent coworkers?”
I pursed my lips and let out a long breath through my nose, considering the most delicate way I was capable of replying to that before saying, “I dislike stupid people.”
Andrew gave me a half-smile and sighed, replying, “Well, I must confess I’m not fond of them either.” He looked back down to the paper. “This job will be a great fit for you.”
The job interview seemed like a formality, and I don’t know why. I was twenty-three and the ink had barely dried on my degree from the online college I’d attended. I’d been applying to jobs for months and had been thrilled when I’d gotten a call for an interview for this one, but also surprised. Call me a cynic, but I expected more invasive questions about any past work I’d done for a job in security, since I was a woman.
It's not like I was petite. Actually, the most common word I’d heard to describe me is ‘built’, and I fall short of being labeled overweight only because of muscle mass. One comment I recall from high school was being teased for being shaped like a rectangle. Even so, there was no good reason to look a gift horse in the mouth, but of course, me being me, that meant I examined its teeth closely.
“So, you’re hiring me? Just like that? Why?”
Andrew, chuckled. “Look, you’ve got BA in wildlife biology, and specializing in animal behavior is just the cherry on the sundae. That tells me you know animals are not people, and even if you feel like you know them, they can still be unpredictable. They can hurt you. But also, it makes me know you care.”
I suppose that did make sense, and it was true, so I’m glad he knew that. Most of my job on the night shift would be watching cameras and then walking around the place to make sure all the animals were as they should be, but it was more than that. Working at a zoo meant knowing where the line was, and sometimes it wasn’t exactly at the fence, but sometimes just putting a single finger through that fence meant losing that finger. As a whole, humans are generally idiots. Looking at you, anyone who really, honestly thinks that a bobcat would sense your boundless love enough to let you pat it.
“The website didn’t have much about the animals,” I said. “I know this place is new, so you might not have info on them up on the site yet. Do you have a map for me?”
“Oh, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Andrew said with a wave of his hand. At that point, it had seemed to be a reasonable thing for him to say, but I will tell you, the reason was not what I thought. “Just to confirm, you’re not an early bird, Miss Mason? This schedule isn’t a concern?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I’m pretty talented at sleeping in, actually. I never really got past that teenage talent of staying up until five and sleeping in until three. And you can just call me Ripley.”
That made him smile. “Good. Then I won’t worry about you falling asleep on the job, Ripley.”
“Oh, no way.”
“All right. So. You saw the note at the end of the job posting?”
He just stared at me and I was forced to answer, “That the zoo is haunted.”
“Right. What are your thoughts on that?”
There was no easy answer to that question, especially depending on how seriously he took it. “Do you know the best word the Brits gave to us?”
“What’s that?”
“Bollocks.”
Andrew slowly smiled and pointed at me with the end of the pen in his hand. “I think I’m going to like you,” he remarked. “Look…this is the part of the interview where we switch gears. If this was a regular zoo, you’d be a shoo-in for the job. But we’ve got other boxes to check. This outfit is…basically a preservation society. As you saw on the site, all the species are endangered, but what it didn’t say online is that the only people who came to visit are private parties.”
“So, that means…what?” I asked. “You bring in super-rich people who feel special when they get to see the animals you’re rehabilitating and taking care of? Then they donate oodles of money so they can brag to their rich friends about their charity contributions and having seen the animals here?”
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “Pretty much got it in one. It’s just more preservation and less rehabilitation. And a lot of our patrons really do care about the animals, or else they would just donate and not visit. You’ll see tourists a couple times a week, but we decided not to have anyone until we’re settled in here, and that means a person who’s on during the night shift that I can count on. And I don’t know if I can count on you yet.”
“Wait, I’ll see the tourists?” I asked. “They visit at night?”
“Everything we have is nocturnal,” he told me. That struck me as odd, but he continued before I could question it. “Listen up, and I’ll start with the basics. Have you ever seen anything weird? Possibly supernatural?”
“Nope,” I said with a shrug.
The fact is, I got along with my classmates, but I never did have any close friends. So, I thought maybe that’s why I missed out on all those reckless teen moments that started every horror movie. Maybe it left me without a bunch of exciting stories to tell. But hey, at least I didn’t break my leg falling through the floor of an abandoned building in eleventh grade.
Yes, that happened. It was a classmate of mine by the name of Brent. And yes, he’s just as much of a moron as you would imagine.
“If you see the ghost here,” he said, his tone emphatic, “will you freak out?”
I paused. “You’ve seen the ghost?”
“All the time,” Andrew told me. “It’s a young woman in a blue shirt and tan slacks, looks like she just walked out of a lake.”
“Do you have a picture?”
“No, and absolutely no photos or video are to be taken of her,” he said, his tone abruptly turning stern. “It’s cause for immediate dismissal. We have video cameras for security, but they all record off-site in a secure location, and Suzanne Cooper, the owner, manages it herself. Firstly, the ghost deserves privacy rather than exploitation, she’s not to be displayed like one of our animals, but secondly, people believe in ghosts. One leaked photo of her connecting it to us means we get overrun by ghost hunters, and if we trace it back to you, you’re done.”
Andrew seemed next-level serious about that, so I nodded. “Understood. That makes sense.”
The animals were the priority after all, I knew. I preferred them over people anyway, and that included dead people. Even if I could get a video of this ghost doing cartwheels back and forth through a wall, I would never post it and spread word of where I’d taken it. Andrew was right; the zoo would never get the paranormally-obsessed to stay away and would definitely have to relocate.
He continued, “If you’re curious, she’s never so much as tried to hurt anyone. But the zoo has moved before, and she moved with us.”
“She moved with you?” I asked, my eyebrows rising. “Is it like one of those stories where she’s attached to something in the zoo rather than a place?”
“More complicated than that,” he said. Then he grimaced. “She died because she was too ambitious with one of our animals. It never should have happened, but she… She was foolish, you’d say. Attempted to interact with one of the animals, got too close, and honestly, she should have known better. I thought she did.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “What killed her?”
He stared at his hands and shook his head. “It was before my time.”
It was clear Andrew was a true believer, but I still really wasn’t sure at that point. How was I supposed to react, though? Zoos have fences and tall barriers for a good reason. Not just to keep the animals away from us, but also the other way around, and ‘death by stupidity’ is not uncommon amongst humans. So, the story wasn’t outrageous, but still, I’d never so much as experienced something unexplainable. But if I saw a ghost, I suppose that’d be that.
“I just need to know, plain and simple, if you’re the kind of person who can handle things that are terrifying,” Andrew told me, splaying his hands. “Our last night shift bloke there was with us for years and years, but we spent months going through other employees. There were six we tried before we found him.”
“Six?” I exclaimed.
He snorted. “Yes, six. Let’s see…” Andrew counted off each one on his fingers. “The first two, the first night they saw the ghost, they lost it. One called me in a panic, babbling, and I had to get out of bed and drive to the zoo to send him home, and the second quit, although at least she made it to the next morning and didn’t drag me out here,” he said, his voice thoughtful. “They just thought I was blowing smoke up their bums with the whole thing.”
He shrugged. “Then, the third one was a bloke who was asleep when I got there in the morning, so I had to fire him. Then another ghost freak-out. The fifth bloke was someone who couldn’t deal with the animals, and then the sixth was so scared of the ghost that when I got here, he was already outside the zoo, pacing, waiting for my car. Apparently he’d said some stuff, rude or mean or whatnot, to try to get her to leave him alone and she had followed him back into the security room, so he fled. I need the opposite of those folks. Alright?”
At this point, I was starting to take it more seriously. Sure, this could just be Andrew’s thing, that he believed in ghosts and then made up these sightings to ensure I believed him. But if I saw her? What would I do?
Well, this would be my job, so I would have to take it seriously. Maybe that was why the pay was so good, to make employees think twice before ditching it. From Andrew’s perspective, if it really was haunted, he was the one who had to deal with applicant after applicant quitting as soon as they laid eyes on the guest who would never leave.
“So…honestly, I can’t say I won’t freak out, considering how next level this is,” I told him, feeling compelled to go with honesty, “but yeah. I think I can handle it, mostly because it’s important for someone to look after this place, look after the animals, so I’d do my best to work around anything that freaks me out. I mean, I have to say that I’ll believe it when I see it. But if ghosts really exist, as long as it isn’t some serial killer who stuck around to keep gutting people, I’ve always thought it’d be cool to find out we can exist after we die.”
The thing is, I think I did believe him. I thought there might really be a ghost there, because otherwise, why take it so seriously? It could’ve been that Andrew had only glimpsed her out of the corner of his eye a few times and could ascribe it to lack of sleep, but he was literally worried about word getting out. I thought that being halfway to believing him would give me the mental preparation I needed if I saw her. At least, I’d hoped so.
It turned out that most of my time would be spent at the security desk in the main building, near the entrance. Real-time footage played through thirty-five cameras around the zoo, all on a large screen that was five cameras across and seven cameras top to bottom. The cameras were impressive. I would mention the resolution, say something about them being 4K, but Andrew explained some stuff about how it’s actually the lens that is the biggest selling point. Looking at these cameras on the giant screen, I could see practically every corner of the place, and if I brought up one camera in particular to encompass 2/3 of the screen, I could zoom in so far that it felt like I could use it to check if one of the animals had fleas.
The zoo was well lit, not surprising considering nighttime was apparently the zoo’s business hours, and all of the tall lamps had red bulbs. For those of you who know why, A+ to you. For those who don’t, fun fact, it’s because red is closest to the dark and your eyes don’t need to strain to adjust to it. That meant I didn’t need my flashlight all that often, and even that was red, a solid name-brand one that had been on my desk when I arrived. I kept the white lights on back in the security room, though, because I didn’t want to make my brain think it was time to get tired.
When I headed out for my first sweep on that first night, I had the folded map in my pocket, but I already knew my way around. The layout of the zoo wasn’t that difficult to memorize, since there were only eleven expansive enclosures, and after the interview I walked around for half an hour to start training my memory. I’ll admit, working in a dark environment was creepier than I thought it would be.
I do want to mention the high quality of the zoo. The size of each enclosure was considerable, and the greenery was natural, hinting that they’d hired a pricey professional just to do landscaping toward the front of the enclosures after buying the land. The backs of the enclosures backed up into forestry, and from the estimate I got from Andrew, it seemed each of the animals had plenty of roaming space, including the small lake at the northwest corner and a manmade lake for one of the animals in particular. When I considered all of that, the thought passed through my head about how horrible it would be if word got out about the zoo having a ghost and needing to relocate, because it’d be devastatingly expensive.
My orders were to walk the zoo once every hour. This was my first security gig, so I’m not sure if that’s more or less than typical, but I had my comfy hiking boots on, the ones I’d saved up for and invested in a couple years earlier and were perfect for a job where I had to do laps around an area. This job was one that I didn’t have to worry about my shoulder pain worsening, since it was mostly about being on my feet. I take one or two Vicodin a day, depending on how bad my pain is. It came in handy in high school, actually. With a flexible ‘take as needed’ prescription, I occasionally sold pills for extra cash.
There wasn’t much to step in and there weren’t even any dips in the concrete sidewalks that I followed around in a route that easily led me back and forth until I made my way back to the office. The first three nights were actually boring. I would have thought Andrew had been pranking me about the ghost, but like I said, it hadn’t felt like that. And he hadn’t been specific about when she showed up for new people, or even for him.
To keep myself busy, I’d brought my e-reader with me, and I got into a cycle of looking over each of the cameras every time I hit the end of a chapter. I’m a pretty fast reader, so it was a good system. Also, every once in a while, I looked up if something moving caught my eye, like an owl flying close enough for the camera to catch it, but that’s about it.
Then, every hour on the hour, I did a walk through. The fourth night, I was passing by the small lake at the back left corner of the property when I saw her.
People say that you can tell if someone’s staring at you, that there’s some sixth sense humans have. It’s not true; they’ve done experiments. But the thing is, all those experiments were of someone human looking at them. After this last shift, I would guess that the sixth sense that sends goosebumps down your arms, the one that makes you feel an intangible pressure, that slides your body toward fight or flight mode, might be true of…other things.
Slowly coming to a stop at the disturbing feeling, I hesitantly looked around, through the trees. Then my heart skipped a beat and my breath hitched. It was startling because she wasn’t moving. Just standing among the trees, staring at me. I broke out in a cold sweat as I stared back at her, unsure what to do. I didn’t run. I didn’t try to talk to her. I just stood there. So, there’s my answer to Andrew: I didn’t freak out. I just froze.
The woman was Latina, her skin tone pallid from death, and was dressed as he’d described her, in slacks and a silky blue blouse. And she was soaked, as if she’d just walked out of the lake. Beyond that, her shirt was drenched in blood from what looked like claw marks across her abdomen. Her eyes were dark and penetrating, boring holes into me, as if she were able to get any and all knowledge that she wanted about me simply by glaring. The fabric of her shirtsleeves clung to her skin and was dripping, as was her long black hair. Speaking of her hair, it appeared to have seaweed woven into it, or maybe she also grew seaweed along with hair. Not my area of expertise.
The look on her face was indescribable. There was something deep in her eyes, behind her closed-off expression, that made my heart beat rapidly. Maybe I would’ve projected some emotion into her face if I’d had any idea of what she was capable of, whether she could move objects, or possess me, or if all she did was hang around. As things stood, I was left just projecting my fears, which gave me the impression that she was cross with me simply for being present. It felt like I was trespassing, even though I was a dozen feet back from the fence that encircled the enclosure. And also, this was my job so I was explicitly allowed to be here.
She was disturbingly close, and remained unnaturally still. If she had attacked me, I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done. Ran, probably, but considering ghosts probably don’t follow the laws of physics, maybe she could’ve chased me at Usain Bolt speed. For all I knew, she could teleport.
After an amount of time that felt awkwardly long, I finally spoke up.
“Hi,” I croaked.
The woman slowly tilted her head but didn’t otherwise move. I’d forgotten to ask Andrew for her name, I realized, but he had mentioned her death had been before his time, so maybe he didn’t know.
Swallowing hard, I tried to take a slow, deep breath, even though it felt like there was a cinder block on my chest. “So, I, uh…I work here now,” I said slowly. “I’m night shift security.” Pausing, I kept trying to gather information from her demeanor but failed. “Is that okay?”
At that, I saw a hint of curiosity flash across her face. “Why would it not be?” Her voice sounded completely normal, which was an off-putting contrast to her appearance.
Good question. Hell if I know the answer. “I don’t know. I mean…you were here first. I don’t know if you feel like I’m…intruding…or something.”
“You’re just doing your job,” she said, her tone softening a smidge.
I waited to see if she wanted to say anything else before saying, “Right.” Can I get you anything? A towel? Some bandages? “I’ll be going now.”
The woman made no movement to come after me as I gradually took one step, then another, keeping her in my sights as I walked off. I finally had to turn to face forward, unable or unwilling to be seen by her foolishly walking away backwards. Instead of continuing my sweep, I took the path that would lead me back to the security room. I kept looking behind me and felt her eyes on me all the way back, though I didn’t see her following me. At that point, even if she hadn’t moved an inch, my brain was on red alert when it came to self-preservation and figured I would continue to feel like a wet hand might grab me from behind at any moment.
Finally, I returned to the security room, swiping my card across the panel at the back door with a beep. Opening the door, darting inside, and slamming it behind me, I walked to the far side of the room and turned around, putting my back to the wall. Until I’d gotten back, I hadn’t noticed how fast I’d been walking, how quickly I’d been gasping for air. Leaning back against the wall, my legs turned to jelly and I slowly slid to the floor.
And that was it. My first sighting of the ghost. I’d thought that if I had seen her, there would be some part of me that was skeptical, that would reason my way out of it, convinced it was a prank. But I knew. She wasn’t a person. At least, not anymore.

PL advocates often talk about how the intention of abortion is to kill the embryo. So, to test that, imagine an alternate universe where magic is real. One way of handling an unwanted pregnancy is to summon a magical gnome to do one of three things with the pregnancy:

1. The pregnancy is put into a kind of stasis until one is ready to resume it. There is now no demand on the person's body. Because the person does have an embryo in their uterus, they will neither menstruate nor will it be possible to get pregnant until after this pregnancy is resumed and delivered (ideally alive, though this makes a pregnancy no more or less likely to survive to term).
   
2. The embryo is magically transported to Gnometopia, where it knows only love, perfect care, and the joy of playing with gnomes every day. With no physical intervention whatsoever, the pregnancy is immediately over but the embryo lives and develops into a perfectly healthy child among the gnomes. The person will not see the child ever, but the child is assured of a good life.
   
3. The embryo remains in the body, but all gestation is now done by magic so there is no demand on the person's body, other than birth. Upon birth, the child is dead.
   

Abortion as we know it still exists, as does pregnancy, but these are now options as well.
For pro-choice people who would consider abortion, what would you opt to do -- is there one of these options you would take over current abortion options? For pro-life people, do you object to any of these magical options and, if so, which one(s)?

When our characters suffer addiction we know little about we should look up these different things to add into the description of the traits to provide more depth and reality to them. It makes it more three dimensional and can build into different subplots that are integrated into a larger storyline.
Here are just a few of the things people are addicted to and how those addictions are manifested into traits that are part of a full character profile.

1. Alcohol:
   
   • Dependence
   • Craving
   • Tolerance
   • Withdrawal symptoms
   • Loss of control
2. Tobacco:
   
   • Nicotine dependence
   • Habitual use
   • Respiratory issues
   • Withdrawal symptoms
   • Health deterioration
3. Cocaine:
   
   • Intense euphoria
   • Increased energy
   • Agitation
   • Paranoia
   • Rapid heart rate
4. Heroin:
   
   • Euphoria
   • Drowsiness
   • Needle marks
   • Respiratory depression
   • Nausea
5. Marijuana:
   
   • Altered perception
   • Memory impairment
   • Lack of coordination
   • Dependence
   • Impaired judgment
6. Prescription opioids:
   
   • Pain relief
   • Sedation
   • Dependence
   • Tolerance
   • Respiratory depression
7. Benzodiazepines:
   
   • Anxiety relief
   • Sedation
   • Dependence
   • Withdrawal symptoms
   • Memory impairment
8. Methamphetamine:
   
   • Increased alertness
   • Euphoria
   • Agitation
   • Psychotic symptoms
   • Cardiovascular issues
9. Gambling:
   
   • Compulsive behavior
   • Financial losses
   • Obsessive thoughts
   • Relationship strain
   • Chasing losses
10. Video games:
    
    • Escapism
    • Social isolation
    • Obsessive gaming
    • Impaired daily functioning
    • Disrupted sleep
11. Social media:
    
    • Constant checking
    • Fear of missing out (FOMO)
    • Validation-seeking behavior
    • Time distortion
    • Negative impact on mental health
12. Internet:
    
    • Excessive online time
    • Cyber addiction
    • Social disconnection
    • Impact on real-life relationships
    • Compulsive browsing
13. Shopping:
    
    • Compulsive buying
    • Financial strain
    • Temporary emotional relief
    • Hoarding tendencies
    • Impaired financial decision-making
14. Work:
    
    • Workaholism
    • Neglect of personal life
    • Burnout
    • Constant need for achievement
    • Difficulty delegating tasks
15. Exercise:
    
    • Compulsive exercising
    • Exercise as a primary source of identity
    • Physical strain
    • Disregard for rest and recovery
    • Negative impact on mental health
16. Food:
    
    • Binge eating
    • Emotional eating
    • Loss of control
    • Negative body image
    • Compulsive overeating
17. Sugar:
    
    • Craving for sugary foods
    • Energy crashes
    • Weight gain
    • Increased risk of health issues
    • Difficulty moderating intake
18. Coffee:
    
    • Caffeine dependence
    • Increased tolerance
    • Physical withdrawal symptoms
    • Disrupted sleep
    • Jitters and restlessness
19. Tea:
    
    • Caffeine dependence
    • Ritualistic consumption
    • Calming effect
    • Impact on hydration
    • Withdrawal headaches
20. Energy drinks:
    
    • Excessive caffeine intake
    • High sugar content
    • Stimulant-induced alertness
    • Potential health risks
    • Dependency for energy boost
21. Sex:
    
    • Compulsive sexual behavior
    • Relationship strain
    • Risky sexual activities
    • Obsessive thoughts
    • Impact on daily functioning
22. Pornography:
    
    • Excessive consumption
    • Escapism
    • Distorted views of relationships
    • Impact on sexual health
    • Relationship strain
23. Prescription medications:
    
    • Dependence on medication
    • Over-reliance
    • Impact on physical health
    • Potential for misuse
    • Tolerance
24. Codeine:
    
    • Pain relief
    • Sedation
    • Dependence
    • Respiratory depression
    • Misuse potential
25. LSD:
    
    • Altered perception
    • Hallucinations
    • Distorted sense of time
    • Potential for psychological distress
    • Flashbacks
26. MDMA (Ecstasy):
    
    • Increased empathy
    • Euphoria
    • Dehydration
    • Hyperactivity
    • Potential for overheating
27. Ketamine:
    
    • Dissociation
    • Hallucinations
    • Impaired motor function
    • Dependence
    • Bladder and urinary issues
28. Inhalants:
    
    • Euphoria
    • Dizziness
    • Short-term hallucinations
    • Potential for brain and organ damage
    • Sudden sniffing death
29. Caffeine:
    
    • Stimulant effects
    • Dependence
    • Withdrawal headaches
    • Increased heart rate
    • Insomnia
30. Nicotine:
    
    • Stimulant effects
    • Dependence
    • Withdrawal symptoms
    • Increased heart rate
    • Respiratory issues
31. Sex:
    
    • Compulsive sexual behavior
    • Relationship strain
    • Risky sexual activities
    • Obsessive thoughts
    • Impact on daily functioning
32. Pornography:
    
    • Excessive consumption
    • Escapism
    • Distorted views of relationships
    • Impact on sexual health
    • Relationship strain
33. Prescription medications:
    
    • Dependence on medication
    • Over-reliance
    • Impact on physical health
    • Potential for misuse
    • Tolerance
34. Codeine:
    
    • Pain relief
    • Sedation
    • Dependence
    • Respiratory depression
    • Misuse potential
35. LSD:
    
    • Altered perception
    • Hallucinations
    • Distorted sense of time
    • Potential for psychological distress
    • Flashbacks
36. MDMA (Ecstasy):
    
    • Increased empathy
    • Euphoria
    • Dehydration
    • Hyperactivity
    • Potential for overheating
37. Ketamine:
    
    • Dissociation
    • Hallucinations
    • Impaired motor function
    • Dependence
    • Bladder and urinary issues
38. Inhalants:
    
    • Euphoria
    • Dizziness
    • Short-term hallucinations
    • Potential for brain and organ damage
    • Sudden sniffing death
39. Caffeine:
    
    • Stimulant effects
    • Dependence
    • Withdrawal headaches
    • Increased heart rate
    • Insomnia
40. Painkillers:
    
    • Pain relief
    • Tolerance
    • Dependence
    • Risk of overdose
    • Respiratory depression
41. Sleeping pills:
    
    • Sedation
    • Dependence
    • Tolerance
    • Impaired cognitive function
    • Disrupted sleep patterns
42. Compulsive lying:
    
    • Habitual dishonesty
    • Concealing the truth
    • Strained relationships
    • Loss of trust
    • Need for constant validation
43. Plastic surgery:
    
    • Body dysmorphic tendencies
    • Constant pursuit of perfection
    • Psychological impact
    • Financial strain
    • Societal pressure
44. Cutting/self-harm:
    
    • Coping mechanism
    • Emotional release
    • Negative emotions relief
    • Risk of infection
    • Concealing scars
45. Powecontrol:
    
    • Manipulative behavior
    • Desire for dominance
    • Strained relationships
    • Lack of empathy
    • Fear-based control
46. Fame:
    
    • Constant pursuit of recognition
    • Validation-seeking behavior
    • Impact on mental health
    • Shifting priorities
    • Loss of privacy
47. Attention:
    
    • Constant need for validation
    • Disregard for personal boundaries
    • Impact on relationships
    • Social media-centric behavior
    • Self-worth tied to attention
48. Sugar-sweetened beverages:
    
    • High sugar content
    • Increased calorie intake
    • Weight gain
    • Tooth decay
    • Dependency on sugary drinks
49. Fast food:
    
    • High-fat content
    • High calorie intake
    • Dependence on convenience
    • Weight gain
    • Negative impact on health
50. Selfies:
    
    • Constant need for self-documentation
    • Validation-seeking behavior
    • Impact on self-esteem
    • Comparison to others
    • Social media-centric behavior
51. Cosmetic procedures:
    
    • Desire for physical enhancement
    • Psychological impact
    • Financial strain
    • Body dysmorphic tendencies
    • Societal pressure
52. Hoarding:
    
    • Compulsive accumulation of possessions
    • Difficulty discarding items
    • Impaired living space
    • Emotional attachment to objects
    • Strained relationships
53. Overeating:
    
    • Binge eating episodes
    • Emotional eating
    • Loss of control
    • Negative impact on physical health
    • Guilt and shame
54. Prescription stimulants:
    
    • Increased alertness
    • Improved focus and concentration
    • Dependence
    • Tolerance
    • Potential for misuse
55. Over-the-counter drugs:
    
    • Self-medication
    • Potential for misuse
    • Dependency
    • Health risks
    • Lack of professional guidance
56. Romantic relationships:
    
    • Codependency
    • Obsessive thoughts
    • Fear of abandonment
    • Emotional highs and lows
    • Strained personal identity
57. Codependency:
    
    • Excessive reliance on others
    • Neglect of personal needs
    • Difficulty setting boundaries
    • Fear of rejection
    • Strained relationships
58. Social approval:
    
    • Constant need for validation
    • Fear of judgment
    • Impact on self-esteem
    • Conforming behavior
    • Social media-centric validation
59. Thrill-seeking:
    
    • Constant pursuit of excitement
    • Risk-taking behavior
    • Impaired judgment
    • Adrenaline dependence
    • Impact on personal safety
60. Narcotics:
    
    • Pain relief
    • Sedation
    • Dependence
    • Tolerance
    • Health risks
61. Designer drugs (e.g., bath salts):
    
    • Intense euphoria
    • Hallucinations
    • Agitation
    • Increased heart rate
    • Severe health risks
62. Over-the-counter cough medicine abuse:
    
    • Euphoria
    • Dizziness
    • Hallucinations
    • Impaired coordination
    • Health risks
63. Social media stalking:
    
    • Compulsive checking of profiles
    • Intrusive thoughts
    • Obsessive behavior
    • Impact on mental well-being
    • Strained personal relationships
64. Fear of missing out (FOMO):
    
    • Constant need to be involved
    • Anxiety about social events
    • Comparison to others
    • Impact on mental health
    • Social media-centric anxiety
65. Collecting:
    
    • Compulsive acquisition of items
    • Difficulty discarding possessions
    • Emotional attachment to collections
    • Strained living space
    • Financial strain
66. Fantasy sports addiction:
    
    • Excessive time spent on fantasy sports
    • Impact on work or relationships
    • Obsessive tracking of player stats
    • Financial investment
    • Escapism from reality
67. Conspiracy theories obsession:
    
    • Constant consumption of conspiracy content
    • Alienation from mainstream information
    • Impact on critical thinking
    • Strained relationships
    • Difficulty accepting evidence-based information
68. Extreme diets:
    
    • Obsessive focus on dieting
    • Impact on physical health
    • Emotional distress related to food
    • Social isolation due to dietary restrictions
    • Negative body image
69. Extreme couponing:
    
    • Compulsive pursuit of discounts
    • Hoarding of coupons
    • Excessive stockpiling of items
    • Impact on financial well-being
    • Strained living space
70. Internet trolling:
    
    • Habitual provocative online behavior
    • Seeking emotional reactions
    • Anonymity-driven aggression
    • Strained online communities
    • Legal consequences
71. Spiritual bypassing:
    
    • Avoidance of negative emotions through spirituality
    • Denial of personal challenges
    • Strained relationships
    • Lack of emotional authenticity
    • Disconnect from reality
72. Extreme minimalism:
    
    • Compulsive decluttering
    • Obsessive focus on possessions
    • Strained relationships due to minimalistic lifestyle
    • Anxiety about material belongings
    • Rigidity in lifestyle choices
73. Gaming loot box addiction:
    
    • Compulsive spending on in-game purchases
    • Chasing virtual rewards
    • Financial strain
    • Impact on real-life responsibilities
    • Gambling-like behavior
74. Rumination:
    
    • Constant overthinking
    • Obsessive focus on past mistakes
    • Impact on mental health
    • Difficulty moving forward
    • Strained relationships
75. Approval-seeking behavior:
    
    • Constant need for validation
    • Fear of rejection
    • Impact on decision-making
    • Strained authenticity
    • Mental health implications
76. News addiction:
    
    • Compulsive consumption of news
    • Anxiety related to current events
    • Impact on mental well-being
    • Difficulty disconnecting from news cycle
    • Strained worldview
77. Anger addiction:
    
    • Habitual anger expression
    • Seeking confrontation
    • Strained relationships
    • Negative impact on mental health
    • Legal consequences
78. Religious zealotry:
    
    • Extreme devotion to religious beliefs
    • Intolerance of other perspectives
    • Strained relationships with non-believers
    • Willingness to harm others in the name of faith
    • Resistance to critical thinking
79. Mindless scrolling:
    
    • Excessive time spent on scrolling through content
    • Impact on productivity
    • Impaired attention span
    • Social isolation
    • Disrupted sleep patterns

We are looking for Content Moderators / Transaction Processing New Associates to be part of our talented team!

Accenture is a trusted, innovative, comprehensive, and experienced partner to leading platform companies. The Trust and Safety offering within Accenture Operations helps keep the internet safe and helps platform compaclassify,es accelerate, scale, and improve their businesses.

As a Content Moderator, you are expected to perform the following (but not limited to) duties and responsibilities:

• Review, classify, and/or remove content according to client guidelines, using specific tools and channels
• Understand and remain updated on changing client policies and guidelines
• Investigate, resolve, and relay complex content issues to the broader Trust and Safety team
• Serve as an advocate for the user community
• Participate in process improvement initiatives that improve quality and efficiency of work
• Participate in continuous training programs and workgroup discussions for optimal development in the role
• Engage in conversation around socially sensitive topics with the purpose of keeping our communities safe

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Open to Fresh College Graduate or College undergraduate (2 years college) with at least 18 months BPO Experience
• With Working knowledge and experience with computers and internet
• Strong coping, emotional resilience, and stress-management skills
• Excellent comprehension, communication, and English language skills
• Ability to perform duties objectively, devoid of inherent biases or personal beliefs, in the best interest of client policies
• Strong attention to detail, ability to prioritize and multitask
• Comfortable synthesizing and analyzing information from multiple streams
• Strong critical thinking and decision-making skills
• Working knowledge and experience with computers and internet
• Ability to work in a fast-paced deadline driven environment
• Willing to work in any shifts i.e. night shift, graveyard schedule etc.
• Amenable to work in any Accenture or client site

Kindly send me your resume and active gmail account if you are qualified for the position. Location: Cubao Cybergate Tower 1&2

Hello everyone,
Briefly introduce the importance of fitness, health, wealth, and weight loss. Getting Started: Who Am I? Share personal background and experiences related to fitness and health. My Fitness Journey Highlight key milestones and challenges in my fitness journey. Health and Wellness Practices Discuss the importance of holistic well-being and share personal practices. Wealth and Its Connection to Health Explore the relationship between financial well-being and overall health. Weight Loss Struggles and Triumphs Narrate personal struggles and successes in achieving weight loss goals. The Mind-Body Connection Emphasize the link between mental and physical health in the journey. Fitness Tips for Everyone Share general fitness tips applicable to a wide audience. Nutrition and Weight Loss Strategies Discuss dietary choices and effective weight loss strategies. Balancing Fitness and a Busy Lifestyle Provide insights into maintaining a healthy lifestyle amid a busy schedule. Financial Wellness Tips Offer practical advice on improving financial health for better overall well-being. Inspiration for Others Share motivational stories and quotes to inspire readers. Setting Realistic Goals Discuss the importance of setting achievable health and fitness goals. Celebrate Small Wins Encourage celebrating progress, no matter how small. Conclusion Summarize key points and encourage readers to embark on their wellness journey. My Journey to Wellness: Introducing Myself for Fitness, Health, Wealth, and Weight Loss Introduction:
Embarking on a journey towards fitness, health, wealth, and weight loss is a transformative experience. It's a path filled with challenges, triumphs, and invaluable lessons. In this article, I'll take you through my personal journey, sharing insights, tips, and the connection between these vital aspects of life.
Getting Started: Who Am I?
Before we delve into the details, let me introduce myself. I'm [Your Name], a fitness enthusiast with a passion for holistic well-being. My journey is not just about physical fitness but encompasses the broader spectrum of health, financial wellness, and the pursuit of a balanced life.
My Fitness Journey:
The road to fitness is seldom a straight path. From overcoming initial hurdles to celebrating personal records, my journey has been a rollercoaster of challenges and achievements. It's a testament to the fact that anyone can achieve their fitness goals with dedication and perseverance.
Health and Wellness Practices:
Fitness goes beyond the gym. Incorporating holistic practices, such as mindfulness, adequate sleep, and stress management, has played a pivotal role in maintaining overall well-being. These habits not only contribute to physical health but also foster mental and emotional balance.
Wealth and Its Connection to Health:
Surprisingly, financial well-being is intricately linked to health. Stress related to financial instability can adversely impact physical health. I'll share insights on managing finances to alleviate stress and contribute to a healthier lifestyle.
Weight Loss Struggles and Triumphs:
Weight loss is a common goal, but the journey is unique for each individual. I'll open up about my personal struggles with weight and how I overcame obstacles, providing relatable experiences for readers on a similar path.
The Mind-Body Connection:
The mind-body connection is undeniable. Mental health influences physical well-being, and vice versa. I'll explore this connection and share practices that promote harmony between the mind and body.
Fitness Tips for Everyone:
Fitness doesn't have to be complicated. I'll offer practical tips suitable for beginners and seasoned enthusiasts alike, emphasizing the importance of consistency and enjoyment in any fitness routine.
Nutrition and Weight Loss Strategies:
A crucial aspect of any wellness journey is nutrition. I'll discuss the significance of a balanced diet and share effective weight loss strategies that align with sustainable, long-term health goals.
Balancing Fitness and a Busy Lifestyle:
In today's fast-paced world, finding time for fitness can be challenging. I'll provide insights into how I balance a busy lifestyle while prioritizing health, offering practical tips for readers facing similar time constraints.
Financial Wellness Tips:
Financial health is often overlooked in discussions about overall well-being. I'll share actionable tips on budgeting, saving, and investing, empowering readers to take control of their financial destinies.
Inspiration for Others:
Motivation is a key factor in any wellness journey. I'll share inspirational stories and quotes that have fueled my determination, hoping to inspire others to kickstart their own paths to wellness.
Setting Realistic Goals:
Setting achievable goals is paramount to success. I'll guide readers through the process of establishing realistic and motivating goals, ensuring that they are both challenging and attainable.
Celebrate Small Wins:
In the pursuit of grand objectives, it's crucial to acknowledge and celebrate small victories along the way. I'll highlight the importance of recognizing progress, no matter how incremental, as it contributes to long-term success.
Embarking on a journey towards fitness, health, wealth, and weight loss is a commitment to a better and more fulfilling life. As you reflect on my experiences and insights, I encourage you to take the first step on your own path to wellness. Remember, it's a journey, not a destination. Embrace the process, celebrate victories, and keep moving forward.

If you'd like to listen to me read this story click here.
“From Lieutenant Bren, UEF Shepherd
“To Captain Sassen, KCS Victory
“Captain, I continue to learn many things about the humans. Again, their sense of community is their strength. Their Shaa is strong, although they do not have a similar word and concept in their language, as I learned recently. I would like to continue this assignment beyond the previous estimated time. Please consider an extension, send to the council if necessary. I would also like to ask the council to review the request I have submitted to share some aspects of faster than light technology. Their current methodology is primitive, unstable, and, to a certain extent, dangerous. They are very close to discovering standard spacetime warping, and for that reason I don’t believe it will violate our technology sharing guidelines. Further details are in the formal request I submitted.
Bren paused, he knew protocols were against this request, but the humans were so close, he hoped the council would consider it. The council could make exceptions if he could show them that the humans demonstrated a non aggressive attitude. He remembered one more thing to add to his letter.
“Klaan philosophy regarding the deceased is an important part of our culture. While many are matter of fact about it, the rituals and sacraments have allowed us to function more efficiently as a society. I have learned about some human rituals, and their essence of Shaa. Two days ago we came across our thirteenth ship…”
Two Days ago
“Captain, the ship is on course, and seems to be functioning properly. However, the radiation emanating from the ship is at lethal levels. It’s highly unlikely anyone survived.” Captain Gardner looked at Commander Klein, taking a deep breath before speaking.
“Commander, prepare to scuttle the ship. Full honors. We don’t want to send a dirty bomb across space.” Commander Klein acknowledged the Captain, calling Bren over to his workstation.
“Bren, can you come look through this information?” Bren approached Klein’s station and looked over his shoulder. Klein pointed at the screen. “These readings, that seems to be the deceased passengers, correct?” Bren nodded then pointed at another reading. Klein agreed curiously. “That’s the one I don’t get. It looks like the life sign of a hibernating human, but it’s distorted.”
Gardner turned to Klein. “Is there a problem?”
Klein looked at Bren, then back to Gardner, “Sir, I think we’ll need to investigate, I can’t confirm that everyone is deceased.”
“How many people Mr. Klein?”
Klein and Bren conferred and Bren answered. “That’s the problem sir, we read 36 pods, most of which are non functioning.” Klein finished the thought.
“Most of the pods appear to be unused. The others are not allowing clear readings. Possibly due to the radiation?” They had encountered several ships with various levels of radiation exposure, likely due to a nearby nuclear blast. This one was the heaviest they had encountered. Klein continued. “This ship had to have gone right through an active explosion. The radiation is still intense.”
Gardner grimaced, while they had protections against radiation poisoning, it was tedious. Any items retrieved required scrubbing with radiation protocols. Patients needed extra medication beyond the standard inoculations, which protected against various types of radiation, mostly radiation found in space. But, they had to be sure. “OK commander, only you and one other, make it quick.” Bren volunteered himself.
“Captain, I am better protected against this type of radiation, I could join the Commander.”
Gardner thought a moment. “OK, just the two of you. Take every precaution.”
Markings on the side identified the ship as North Korean. That explained the radiation as a still unknown saboteur had detonated all of North Korea’s nuclear weapons at once. Sadly, the entire country was reduced to rubble. Although humanity had created effective radiation treatments, cleaning North Korea was taking longer, due to the massive amount of radiation released all at once. Some Koreans had survived, but North Korea, as a country, no longer existed. South Korea was now just Korea, having taken on refugees and stewardship over the cleanup. The reunification of Korea was a Pyrrhic resolution.
Bren and Klein entered the ship. Although it looked shoddily built, it was one of the few ships they had encountered that was fully functional. As they moved to the cargo area the problem became obvious. Crew members littered the area, some partially in their pods. The radiation had knocked them out before they could enter the pods. Bren scanned the area. “They are dead sir, it looks like 33 humans.”
Klein looked at them, some on the floor, some climbing into pods. He recalled the anomalous readings. “So there are three more pods?” Bren continued scanning, stepping carefully over the bodies.
“Commander, the readings on these hibernation pods is unusual, there appear to be several different metals in use, there is no consistency.” As they made their way into the depths of the cargo area they found three pods, hidden away behind stacks of cargo, still functioning. Bren approached them. He scanned, then turned to Klein excitedly.
“Sir, these three are alive, they are quite sick, but the pods appear to have shielded them enough to survive the radiation.” Klein stumbled into the area, looking at Bren’s scanner.
“If we wake them they won’t survive long.” Bren agreed. Klein pushed a button on the arm of his protective suit and called Gardner. “Sir, we have three survivors, They won’t survive long once they are brought out. We will need shielded gurneys to move them directly to the medical bay. Please send three patient pods and four rescue team members to facilitate the rescue.”
Bren and Klein checked their exposure time as they waited for the others to arrive.
Once the rescue team had arrived they cleared out the three crew members quickly, heading straight to the medical bay. Klein and Bren were ordered to undergo more extensive medical tests and spent the night there.
Early in the morning, Bren was explaining Klaan humor to Klein. Klein was not impressed. “So, simple mistakes are funny?”
Bren smiled, “Yes, inverting variables in a navigational equation can be quite satisfying.” Klein looked unsure as Bren added, “But the real humor comes in absurd endeavors, which can take several days or weeks to develop. The payoff is substantial.” Klein was about to speak when they were surprised to see one of the Koreans stir. He looked around, confused, and then startled to see Klein and an alien. Bren had accessed the Korean language program and spoke to him in perfect Korean.
“Do not be afraid. You are on an Earth ship, The Shepherd. Earth is a different world than when you left. I assure you, you are safe here.” The Korean calmed a bit, looking for his comrades. Bren continued, “I am sorry to tell you that only the three of you survived. You have extreme radiation sickness but medical advances have created effective treatments and you are all expected to recover.”
The Korean asked, “What happened?”
Bren turned to Klein, “He wants to know what happened.” They were interrupted by the arrival of Captain Gardner and an Ensign.
“Bren, this is Ensign Choi, she speaks Korean and will be the liaison for these men.” Choi immediately went to the Korean man and began talking. Bren watched as the man apparently learned that his country was gone. The look on his face touched Bren deeply. He appeared to be in physical pain upon hearing the news.
Gardner turned to Klein and Bren, “Are you cleared to resume duties?” Klein nodded and Gardner continued. “I had hoped to avoid a conflict but you may recall the previous rescue of the ship Justice 4.”
Klein grimaced. Just a day before finding the Korean ship they had rescued a ship that was clearly affiliated with the Justice Party. Although it was never confirmed, the Justice Party claimed responsibility for the three nuclear warheads that decimated Los Angeles to start the war.
The Freedom Party quickly formed in response, but since there were no geographical divides the initial stages of the war were particularly gruesome. Political strongholds of each party were destroyed by nuclear weapons, killing members of both parties, as well as the undeclared; more than half of the country that claimed no connection to either party. The complication was certainly due to the fact that a Freedom Party ship’s passengers were already on board. Gardner confirmed Klein’s assumption.
“We assigned quarters to the passengers of the ship, Justice 4, and initially there was no problem, until someone saw an insignia on someone’s shirt. The Justice group refused to be quartered on the same floor.”
Klein grimaced. “The Freedom passengers were on level three, right? Just move the Justice to two?” Gardner smiled.
“The Freedom passengers decided that they wanted to be above them, so they refused to stay on three if the Justice moved to two.”
Klein scoffed, “We’re in space, there is no above and below, we may be sideways now for all we know.” Gardner agreed and as the three men entered the passenger common area, the leaders of each group swarmed them.
As multiple men chattered and made demands at once Gardner raised his hand and finally got them to calm down. “We came across a heavily irradiated ship and we want to allow the surviving crew to be involved in the Honor ceremony when we scuttle the ship. They are in the medical bay. We could be here for a few days depending on their recovery time. That means you all can’t stay here in this room. You will need to accept room assignments.”
The men all began shouting again when Bren stepped forward, raising both hands which, somehow, stopped everyone immediately. Bren spoke.
“Captain, I may have a solution.” Gardner looked hopeful.
“Go ahead Lieutenant.”
Bren lowered his hands. “My people have a method for solving disputes that goes back several thousand years. It is specifically designed for this sort of post war dispute.”
Everyone was rapt as Bren continued. He smiled and stuck his arms out to the side, palms up. He spoke loudly in a commanding voice, “Feats of Strength!” As he said ‘strength’ he raised his arms over his head and clasped his hands together. Shaking them with a determined grimace. The men pumped up their chests and murmured agreement. Gardner looked at Bren curiously. “Feats of Strength?”
Bren nodded, “Yes, although that is rarely the form it takes. We stopped fighting to the death centuries ago.” The men seemed a little less enthused.
Gardner asked, “What does this entail?”
Bren smiled, “We choose a contest, and since it is a test of strength, we add,” he paused, searching for the correct word, “complications, as we go.” He looked around, and sensing no objections, continued. “I would suggest… bowling!”
Gardner and Klein stifled laughs as Bren looked each group straight on and asked, “Are you prepared to compete for your pride?” Hesitantly each group agreed. Bren went on, “I will administer the contest, the rules are simple, I can add any difficulties I choose.”
The leader of one group looked at Bren, confused, “Difficulty?”
Bren nodded, “For example, we could start by bowling with the non dominant hand. Perhaps with eyes closed, or while… singing.” As the men started to take Bren less seriously he puffed up and seemed to get taller. “You have accepted the challenge, do you agree to go forward?” The men looked at each other, unsure, but finally nodded and started to get excited.
Bren stated one more rule, “The final outcome is that the winners will be allowed to choose their quarters,” the men nodded and mumbled until Bren cut them off, “But the winners must also host the defeated team to a feast in their home.” He looked around and felt he had everyone’s attention. “There is no human term for this, but the Klaan call it Shaa. It is the knowledge that everyone on the planet is connected. In our case, on this ship. We are all part of one physical organism, collectively called the Shaa-a-ren.”
The men looked around, slightly less excited but committed to the contest. Bren stood straight, and addressed the room. “Each team will choose four champions. The contest will start in sixteen hours. Spread the word, in the original Feats of Strength great crowds cheered on their warriors.”
With that the groups of passengers separated into huddles, deciding on their champions. Gardner turned to Bren. “Feats of Strength? Shaa-a-ren?” Bren looked at Klein and the Captain.
“Yes sir, the rules are adaptable, but Shaa is a sacred concept to the Klaan. I assure you, this method of conflict resolution has an excellent record on Klaan.” Klein and Gardner shared a curious look, when Bren noted excitedly, “We will need to prepare the bowling lanes for an audience. The crowd is a critical part of this event! Captain?”
Gardner shrugged, “Commander Klein, let the crew know that they are invited to a Klaan Feats of Strength event.” Klein shook his head as he walked toward the bridge to deliver the invitation.
In the medical bay Gardner, Klein, and Choi spoke to the three Korean men. Gardner had offered them several option for disposal of the irradiated ship. Choi translated for the Captain. “They said they are not overly concerned with the ship’s disposal. They only ask to be able to watch as it’s done.” One man, who identified himself as Colonel Han spoke. “Captain, we do believe you when you say things are different. We also hope you understand that the official stance of our country,” he paused, as the country no longer existed, “The stance is one of no religion. However, there is a thread of Buddhism among us, and a prayer service to commemorate the men who did not survive is kindly requested before the ship is scuttled.”
Gardner nodded and asked Choi if she could make arrangements. Colonel Han spoke again. “Captain, is it possible to finish in time for the contest? Your Mr. Bren extended a personal invitation.”
Gardner was surprised, but agreed.
The next day Choi, Han, Gardner and the other Korean men stood on the bridge, watching a large monitor. The Shepherd had shut down the ship’s engines and shined lights on the ship. Choi had arranged the prayer ceremony, and the three men seemed at peace with the situation. Gardner looked at Colonel Han, who looked at his companions and nodded to the Captain.
“Commander Klein, you may proceed.” Klein stood, as did the rest of the crew. Captain Gardner spoke. “It is with great respect that we send these 33 passengers and their ship to space. This ship served them well, and now all will be committed to the great expanse.”
Klein blew a military whistle and launched two missiles. The missiles flew directly to their target, detonating and turning the ship to dust, to scatter among the backdrop of the stars. Gardner spoke again.
“Your lives will be remembered as your final destination has been reached. Godspeed.” He saluted and the crew followed his salute. The Korean men somberly saluted. The crew held their salute until Choi had ushered the Koreans off the bridge. The crew resumed their duties silently for a moment until Gardner spoke once again.
“If you have arranged to go to the Feats of Strength event, you are relieved, once the skeleton crew is in place.” A few crew members entered to man the bridge as several others headed to Bren’s event.
Bren quieted the crowd. Klein was surprised at the turnout. The crew of both ships sat intermingled with Shepherd crew. Choi ushered in the Koreans, stoic, but seemingly looking forward to the distraction the contest would provide. Chairs, benches, and cargo containers had been constructed into makeshift bleachers, and they were packed. Food and beverages had been prepared and in general, it was a festive atmosphere. Bren entered the center of the space and raised his hands, facing his palms out, and turning in a circle.
“My friends, you have accepted me into your ship and crew and I am grateful. It is with that gratitude that I happily share the Klaan tradition of… FEATS OF STRENGTH!” The crowd cheered and Gardner looked around, wondering if he should have assigned security for the event.
Bren lowered his hands and the crowd silenced. He spoke again in a low voice. “Shaa is a Klaan belief that we are all connected. That the people assembled here are all part of one single living organism. We are all a part of Shaa-a-ren. We are each other. We are one. We are Shaa.”
He smiled and waited as the crowd seemingly held its breath. Then he clasped his hands over his head and shouted, “LET THE GAMES BEGIN!” The crowd roared as the eight men prepared to bowl. Bren explained the rules. “The standard rules of bowling and scoring apply. The automated system will keep score. I will add rules as we go. The first additional rule is that all bowlers are required to throw the ball with both hands. Team Justice won the random generated decision to go first. Proceed.”
As expected, bowling with both hands was awkward, and the bowlers threw gutterballs and generally left a lot of pins standing. No one was bowling well, but the men were laughing at each other anyway. After two frames Bren stood and spoke. “Time for a new rule! You must bowl with your non-dominant hand!” The bowlers grunted and grimaced. Bren was excited, the concept of a dominant hand was new to him. Human brains fascinated him and when he learned of right or left handedness he had spent hours asking people to use their non-dominant hand for daily tasks.
The teams bowled slightly better than before, but neither team was lighting up the scoreboards. Only one strike had been thrown, and truthfully, it was a mistake. Something went wonky with the magnetic system and changed the ball’s trajectory.
The crowd was cheering when a bowler knocked down three or four pins, and the teams were getting irritated, so Bren changed it up again. “Starting now, you must do two complete turns before throwing the ball.”
As the bowlers made themselves dizzy, the crowd’s excitement escalated. The bowlers had begun cheering each other on, regardless of which team they were on. The difficulties Bren was introducing made the two teams bond over the challenges. The crowd was eating it up. Even the Korean men were enjoying the show. Finally they reached the final round. Team Justice was up by seven points, it was anybody’s game.
Bren stood and called for quiet. “I would like to thank you all for joining us tonight. I hope you have felt the Shaa. You are all part of the Shaa-a-ren here on the Shepherd. Even as you go on to other ships or planets, this connection is now a part of you all.” Bren looked at the Koreans and bowed deeply, speaking in Korean. “You have lost much, your crew, your country, perhaps family. However, today you have gained Shaa and we are happy to have you here in this Shaa-a-ren.” He bowed again and the Korean men bowed deeply back to him. Bren turned to the crowd.
“For the final round, we have the ultimate test. Each team will switch lanes and complete the other team’s final score. However! A gutterball counts as a strike, so you cannot intentionally throw the game. You can choose to bowl with both hands, or your non-dominant hand.”
The teams switched lanes and began, with Team Justice putting up several points for Team Freedom. By the time they reached the last ball the game was tied. The men looked at each other, then conferred. They nodded and each stepped up to the lane, carefully throwing simultaneous - and very intentional - gutterballs. Bren raised his hands, quite pleased with himself.
“The game has ended in a tie!” He called the teams to him. “It seems that the outcome has not solved our problem. How would you like to choose the winning team?” Bren smiled, fairly certain he knew the answer.
The captain of Team Justice spoke. “We will both stay on deck three.”
The captain of Team Freedom joined him. “And we would like to host all of you for a feast on deck three tomorrow!”
The crowd erupted in cheers. Captain Gardner spied Bren speaking with the Korean men, they seemed to be thanking him. Choi moved to the Captain. “Bren knew exactly what to say to them. This Shaa business really made a difference.” Gardner smiled and watched as the men walked to the food and beverage stations and joined in the celebration. Gardner went to Bren, who was now talking to Klein.
“Lieutenant Bren, I must commend you. Your Feats of Strength and Shaa-a-ren was an unqualified success.”
Bren smiled. “Captain, Shaa is a very trusted solution to many problems.” He held his hands out, palms up and fingers sticking up. “We are all digits on the same hand. Once the men started to bond over their shared experience they began to feel the depth of connection. Shaa-a-ren connects us all, sometimes you just need to reach out and feel it.” Klein nodded, holding out his hands as Bren had done. Bren smiled again. “Commander, you have now experienced Klaan humor, in its long form. How often did you laugh as the men dizzied themselves and fell, or threw bad balls, left difficult splits, or danced with their opponents?”
Klein looked at Bren curiously. “You did this all just to…” He looked at the Captain in shock and finished the thought. “… To tell me a joke?”
Bren smiled, “It was a happy coincidence. Shaa-a-ren is very real, as is Klaan humor.” He hummed a tune as he walked away. Klein and Gardner looked at each other, questioning what had actually taken place tonight. Gardner shook his head as he patted Klein on the back, blending into the celebration.
“It doesn’t matter Mr. Klein, it worked.”