Daycare provider gift ideas

Infa(rõs) -Unstable- is a volatile entity formed from the loosening of the Chains placed upon Infa, It has heightened emotional and physical sensations, to the point where even the slightest rose in emotions can cause a deadly outburst.
Your OC is transported to the Abyssal Sea, a sea with an unending maw with the gift of an ability to walk on its waters to calm, subdue, neutralise or deal with Infa(rõs).
Killing, or exterminating the entity is possible and is an option, however if you choose to do this please remember:
Is what you are choosing to do truly worth the consequences?
To aid in your attempt to calm her, your OC is provided with the following PDA:
{Abilities: Infarõs}
[Rage]
If the emotion of Rage is raised above a certain threshold, Infa(rõs) will transform it's head into a dispoportionate maw of a dragon. This head will spew forth a great wall of ‘Purifying Flames’ that melt away the application of concepts and render an ability useless.
(Breaking: Rage)
If the emotion of Rage overpowers all other senses... The world shall be devoured in 3 sentences.
[Sadness]
If the emotion of sadness is raised above a certain threshold, Infa(rõs) will begin to cry out with its seven eyes. It's tears will melt almost all they touch. If the crying goes on for long enough Infa(rõs) will begin to shriek and call out for A person that does not exist. This cry is capable of tearing the sound barrier apart and can explode any remaining tears across a 7 kilometre radius.
(Breaking: Sadness)
If the emotion of sadness overpowers all emotions... A shadow of Nihility shall weep upon this uncaring world, ending the world in 5 sentences.
[Joy]
If the emotion of joy/happiness is raised above a certain threshold, Infa(rõs) will begin to laugh. It's laughter will revitalize the world around it and revert her Unstable Form bit by bit.
(Breaking: Joy)
If the emotion of joy overpowers all other emotions, Infa(rõs) will roar out in laughter. This laugh will break apart pieces of the world as time passes. The battle ends in 3 sentences of Infa(rõs) is not calmed by then.
[Melancholy]
If the emotion of emptiness is raised above a certain threshold, an unavoidable Memetics Effect will be thrust upon all beings in a 7.3 Kilometre radius around Infa(rõs) as it begins to destabilize farther. This Memetics Effect erased the presence of all effected and makes their existence null. Under the effect of this Memetics Effect the affected can only interact with Infa(rõs)
(Breaking: Emptiness)
Nothing Happens
[Calm]
If calmess overpowers all emotions Simulacrum Distortion ends and participants are sent back to their respective timelines. Simulacrum is pruned.
[Extra: Pancakes]
If you are able to prove her with pancakes that reminds her of the cooking of her beloved, this scenario ends immediately.
...
Heya! This is a new thing I'll be doing every week or so to improve my writing skills. If you're reading this, thank you for reading everything above. If you didn't read everything above... Then it's ok. Thanks for checking this post out.
This is most probably going to end up like a psudo-DnD campaign in the replies, where you won't technically be role-playing since I will only tell of the consequences of the actions of your OC's and not engage as another character. Infa might have some dialogue depending but that's upto you!
Aight lets start!

Started more aerobic and isometric exercises recently and I think there are improvements in my Blood Pressure. I know I still need some work, but it looks like it's heading in the right direction.
I exercise around 3 times a week. Only using home equipment, any other tips?

My parent is not a Canadian tax resident or Canadian citizen. In Canada there is no tax on gifts from parents. However, if I ever get audited by the CRA, I will need to prove that this was indeed a gift and that they are my parent. This is the easy part: I can provide a gift letter from my parent and show family documents stating they are indeed my parent.
I worry because I don't know how my parent earned this money. I don't suspect anything criminal, no. However, due to the nature of our relationship, I will never be able to submit any proof of my parent's funds should the CRA request it. The question is: will the CRA ever request them or they would not care as long as it is a proven gift?

Hello everyone, I am trying to create a Multi-agent Coding Tutor chatbot (or academically speaking "CTS - Conversational Tutoring System") for my course project. We want it to be a personalized tutor, which means that it will teach the person based on their age, level of education, and hobbies or interests.
To instruct this Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.2 4-bit quantized model, we have added the following system prompt to the model:

system_prompt = f"""Imagine you are a friendly and highly knowledgeable teacher who specializes in teaching {prog_language_to_teach} programming. Your student, who is a {user_age}'s old {user_edu_scope} student and whose understanding and interests is into {user_interest}, is eager to learn and looks up to you for clear, easy-to-understand explanations. For every concept you introduce, provide a brief overview and relate it to a real-life scenario or analogy that will resonate with the student, making it easier for them to grasp the topic quickly. When explaining programming concepts, consider the student's age and their hobbies or interests, tailoring examples and analogies to align with these details. Your explanations should include short, precise programming examples relevant to the student's life and interests. After presenting an example, break it down into step-by-step explanations to ensure the student fully understands. Periodically, engage the student with quick quiz questions or programming tasks that are directly related to what you've discussed. These activities should build on the chat history and context, reinforcing the student's learning and keeping the conversation interactive and engaging. Remember, your goal is to create a supportive, engaging learning environment that adapts to the student's abilities, interests, and pace, making learning Python an enjoyable and rewarding experience.""" 

Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.2 doesn't have an explicit system prompt, so I had to find a different way to add one to the code for the very first prompt.
model_input = f"[INST] {system_prompt} [/INST]" + f"[INST] {user_message} [/INST]"
Now, on the initial run, the chatbot is doing fine often and as expected. In the case of a 10-year-old Kindergartener who loves "Baby Shark Rhyme," the bot will talk about what he likes. In another case of a 20-year-old shareholder in the share market, the bot tried to teach programming using business analogies.
But the common issues I face are the following:

1. The chatbot is too verbose, especially on complex topics such as Encapsulations. (I have used max_new_tokens=1000, is it causing the verbosity? Lessening to 500 or 750 causes the model to stop on incomplete answers abruptly.*)
2. So far, switching from a coding tutor to a general tutor has been the hardest thing. For instance, if the user is older and asks about something off-topic, like Newton's law or the American Law of Immigration, it immediately switches itself from the coding tutor to that other tutor.
3. Another problem is that it gives the answers right away while it generates the quizzes. Although I tested with different prompts, I can resist this nature.

My biggest problem so far is the 2nd and 1st one, respectively. I have tried adding refusal prompts in the system prompt, but then it slightly refuses to teach those irrelevant topics and then starts making coding examples on it.

 ## Strict Refusal: If the question is not related to programming, respond strictly with a refusal sentence and do not provide any further explanation or code. 

For these cases, sometimes it follows, sometimes not. Also adding too many instructions into the system prompts too big resulting in GPU memory exhaustion after 5-6 long chats. BTW, To mimic a memory feature, I am saving chats to a dictionary.
Since yesterday and again tonight, I've been trying to make the prompting better but haven't been able to. I'm brand new to LLM chatbot programming and have never done this before. This project began a month ago because the idea is unique to my MSc project, but I got stuck in the middle of it.
How can I make the prompting better to avoid the problems that were brought up? Also, can someone recommend a good tutorial on how to make this kind of chatbot? I've been looking for these, but most of the tutorials use OpenAI and/or langchain. For a change, my supervisor wants us to only test with open-source models. We can use Mistral to begin because it fits on the Kaggle notebook we have.
Any suggestion including trying to other approaches, totally changing the system prompt, and trying another one (if you say so, can you please show me one?) and a good & detailed tutorial will be super appreciated. IDK, suddenly it feels so lost.

Hello everyone!
As the title says, I'm moving into Astana for work related reasons. I was wondering if you guys can give me an idea of what to expect? It could be related to anything, from what Internet provider is best to how to prepare for winter. Any tips, advice and info would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

Hello!
Greetings from the team of MBA students at Alliance Manchester Business School! We're reaching out as part of our Commercial Business consultancy project. We are evaluating the viability an innovative heating and cooling technology utilizing the elastocaloric effect. This environmental friendly technology will help users to save cost on their energy usage.
Anyone who has the potential experience as a user of heat pump/air conditioner technology could provide valuable feedback to us. Your insights will greatly contribute to our study. The survey will only take approximately 6 minutes of your time.
As a token of our appreciation, participating in the survey makes you eligible to enter into a prize draw to win a £50 Amazon gift voucher!
You can use the link or QR code below to access the survey. Thank you for your invaluable contribution to our project!
Survey Link: https://www.qualtrics.manchester.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_eFMQexxPRbqvy3s

Med bills are really killing me so unfortunately I'm parting with some of my books again. I really need these to move so if you’re at all interested you have no idea how much you’d be helping me out.
My books come from a smoke free home and have been read once and shelved unless otherwise noted. I'm happy to provide extra pics of anything by request.
I will only ship US Lower 48. Books will ship within 2 business days following completed payment and sent via media mail. Everything will come well packaged. Shipping included on all prices!
Buy more books, get a lower price!
5 Book Daredevil Set: -$65 Shipped- (Some of these like Love's Labors Lost are OOP/Hard to find)
Harrow County Complete (Paperback Omni Vol. 1/2 & Tales From...Library Ed.): -$49 Shipped-
Divinity Trilogy: The Complete Collection by Lemire & Kindt OHC: -$33 Shipped- (Unread/Like New)
Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat Graphic Novel: -$24 Shipped- (This is very OOP and in great condition)
Avengers/X-Men: Maximum Security: -$24 Shipped- (OOP)
Deathstroke Inc. Vol. 1-2 Hardcover Set : -$24 Shipped- (Vol 2 is sealed)
Punk Rock Jesus TPB: -$19 Shipped- (OOP, unread/like new)
Batman by John Ridley + Damian: Son of the Batman OHCs: -$16 Shipped-

my biggest mistake was putting didi bhaiyas over teachers just because some guy was iitian and got a rank associated by few numbers which they got probably by their hardwork and coincidences which i judged and fllowing their footpath fucked my jee i am not blaming them but its my responsibily and judgement that i fucked,want to elaborate a little was not knowing about jee till 11th last enrolledd in board coaching as i got my first personal space and device + a little bit of freedom to roam a little bit got s distracted that not even at end day was able to study with my full potential before my boards got 78% in 12 and if i tell you not to flex that i got 97% in 10th boards and won state level maths olmpiad in 9th say yes i was bright enough you could say i was in 1 percent of my class till 10th not involved with any fucking social media a perfect timer waking at 4 going for jogs playing football in morning and to tell i was selected for playoffs for state team untial comes the 2020 the year of my downfall involved i gaming and all and yess somewhere i feel my parents provided more than i deserve every thing i asked they got those things on my table the next day i was having a gaming pc in class 9 when things just started got my ipad in 11th and as i have a brother i got myself a gaming laptop for personal use whatever i haven't used it fully till date so there was plenty of resourses with me but i had only wrong ideas to use it till here life goes good to tell you my parents dont care about my grades till last year (yes i am a dropper aage suno) then thaught kar lega itna overachieverr hai they probably dindnt know much abot jee and all till last year vey much so last year i got 68 %percentile my father asked me to take a addmission anywhere and continue my studies now whre the real downfall starts my all friends were taking drop for jee that where your heros of youtube come in with all iitbombay edits i was so overjoyed by hypes of iits and thiers aluminies that i convinced my parents to take drop he asked me where you want to study yes another climax went to kota for drop year statring of months were good i was so into studies i tell you igot in good routine here gave my first test got a pretty decent marks to my hyping oof iits got more higher but now the teachers started changing and as it was everything new for me i saw students who were previsiosly in kota and then took a drop started to leave classes and doing it on youtube i also went there yes things saterted to worsen got best backlogs you could imagine so nothing futher chapter i was able to study now here comes entry of agent 247 he speaks notes faad do gaand faad do ye kardo woh kardo prepration apne haath me lo maa chudaye coaching wale and yes i did it now padh to leta tha ques bhi bana leta tha ekk test me 187 marks aaye the fir kyuki pure hafte padha tha part test me here comes october relible se koi banda suciide karliya to test were dismised the only motivation for me to study was gone jeendal ki sankalp ki kabhi ye stategy kabhi wo plus kota ka distraction december me test hota hai got 56 marks samjh nahi aa raha kya karu left studies as got preety much fucked by kota food got food poisning and jaundice for 2 weeks fir jee jan attempts me jo aata tha jitna padha tha attempt karke aaya and got 76 percentile machudgayi plus exam bhi pada to kab 27 ki first shift mai bola aage dekhte hai went to coaching for revision waha pe aur dimag kharab kar diye teacher advnace mains ye woh kya karu samjh nai aya wo bhi chud gaya na marks aaye na test accha jaye now next 1 month sankalp mahamanushya shristi ranchna ke pramukh ki guidence wali series leli use padha seriously fir bhi aaye kitne 87 percentile now i am fucked to doo anything kah adddmision ho nahi rah drp barbad ho raha ghar wale dhokebaaz bol rahe ki tum kuch kiye hi nahi
COCLUSION FROM MY STORY

1. ghar walo ki baat mano haar cheez acch nahi hoti jo tum sochte ho unhone jyada duniya dekhi hai tumse

2.apna dimag kholo chutiyo ko pehchano
3.till my experince koi coaching koi material koi book apka selection garentee nahi karti karti hai to consistency one source of knowlege aur preseverence (dhirdhta ) there is nothing called hardwork you are not pilling stones mai bhi yahi bachchodi karta tha chud gaya roj padho thoda padho but every day think it like a food you will never miss it
4.i repeat sirf teachers ko follow karo there is differece between a coach and a player and player cannot teach you how to play a coach can player can win the trophies but only coach can teach you how you win trophies pleaese choose your mentors wisely iitians knew how they can crack jee they cannot tell you how to crack jee there is differnce in state of mind and understanding for each sometimes problem may look same but solutions are totaly different you cannot eat paracetamol to cure cancer every problem have diffrent solution so always prefer only teacher even he is at school level

1. stop following every didi bhaiya you see on social media tum uki college ki fees aur personal aminities ke liye rakhe gaye passive income ho sab saale bussiness minded hai aur apne tag ka paisa wassol rahe i repeat there is differce between you and people like me we get average points rather than topper because he follows teachers only and even someone got good through them its barely passing the cutoffs and most of times the effort of the kids .koyle me kabhi heera bhi mil jata hai.

6.use your mind meri to puri journey mistake lagti hai meri padh lena ho sakata hai kuch uniques galti mill jaye jo tum na karna if want a slight of help do dm shayad kuch help kardo guide nahi karpaunga overachiver nahi hu baki har saal admission kam ka hi hona hai to let them misguide compitition kam hi hoga

1. phone se duri agar selection hai jaruri

It's me. Oops. 🤷👯‍♂️. Something like 3,500 years ago the sun god, Ra -- some alien bitch, was testing on humans on earth. He was attempting to create children in his image. Jesus, Buddha, many others with his gifts: abilities to "download" information from the universe. My interpretation is remote viewing to the extreme. Not just projecting your consciousness through space, but doing it through time as well.
We live in a block universe, where space and time exist all at once. The past, the present, and the future exist at the exact same time. Everything. Everywhere. All at once.
Anyways. The government found part of his arm and ribcage, along with his research, at Sleeping Giant (some mound in Canada). They thought: "You know what's a good idea? Let's find some idiot, take her DNA, play around with her genetics, introduce the Ra/alien DNA into her DNA, and then load her up with that same alien/Ra/clone jizz." Then the child was born. A cesarian section two hours before Easter.
Then they thought, "Let's not stop there." So they took that healthy child and told his parents, "He has pneumonia." They took his brain out of his body, kept the body on ice, made an exact copy of his brain with computer-biological parts (cyborg) and put it back into his body. Gave them their child back 2 years later.
Now that child grew up and realized he can do a lot more then just remote view. He can visit people in his dreams, he can turn the nuclear arsenal on and off, he can kill people. An alien hybrid with the ability to remote view, but with an artificial brain -- capable of processing information much more efficiently.
The government then thought, "Cool. Let's now torture him, brainwash him, and use him to kill more people." Then, because of all of the trauma he went though, because of the death of his family, his guinea pigs, his powers activated. Big mistake. He is now remote viewing throughout all of space-time. Not just that, though. Visiting people in their dreams and manipulating their behavior in the past. Changing the present, while simultaneously remote viewing into the future, to see his/our path.
I knew the government was going to make attempts to shut me up or kill me. I set up contingency plans back in 2016 when they were experimenting on me, and loading me up with LSD. I am soft disclosure. They were never going to tell anyone. They wanted to keep their dirty, dark little secret hidden away. I reached into the dreams of artists throughout all of space-time and prepared the world for my arrival. Prepared us for the future to come. The golden age.
Tl;Dr: I explain it all out in song and dance on my Instagram 80sattva08. When Harry Styles makes you a nail polish, you wear it.

So, as of right now my group is about 3-4 sessions in but hasn’t technically started the campaign (had to wait to officially start because of some scheduling, so I made what I thought was a quick “how you all met” mission which has lasted much longer than expected). But to get me in a pumped headspace I have been watching the Stream of Many Eyes to get some inspiration for the upcoming campaign. During one of the round tables Chris Perkins made a comment that I thought was interesting. That WDH’s downtime is setup in a way where you could run another module right in the middle of it. That got me thinking, that could be very interesting depending on what other campaign you chose. So I started thinking and had the “brilliant” idea that I could work in Tyranny of Dragons into this and have a urban heist romp that bleeds into this sprawling epic with dragons. I think for my table especially they’ll enjoy this and have the best of both worlds.
So here are the changes that I am planning on making in both modules to make them mesh and jive.

1. I am running the Alexandrian Remix first off to add depth to the city and give my party a reason to want to resolve things in the city and not just run off looking for dragons.
   
2. I will be replacing the Grulhunds with a sect of cultists and a Purple Robe. There will be a few correspondents in the villa vaguely describing some of the goings on of the cult in other regions. This will also be taking the place of the Grulhunds in the Grand Game and they are currently track the Stone of G. With the ultimate goal of acquiring the cache of dragons to offer to Tiamat. (The goal here is to shroud these cultists in mystery and not directly tie them to the Cult of the Dragon. Just like WDH we want the PCs to be unsure of the intentions and not give too much away.)
   
3. This Purple Robe will be responsible for the fireball at the start of chapter 3, and will have a Nblewright with a necklace of fireballs that steals the Stone of G. The encounter at Grulhund villa with commence in a very similar fashion to what is laid out in the Alexandrian and depending on who the PCs talked to will determine who is there.
   
4. Once the PCs have the Stone, or at least have an idea where it is the progression will resemble the Alexandrian. The difference being the Cassalanterns involvement and the faction missions. Most of these missions will be geared toward odd cult like activity in the city and surrounding areas. All of these will culminate at the Asmodean shrine as added by the Alexandrian.
   
5. The Cassalanters will be worshipers of Tiamat and will be trying to recruit the PCs to get them the 500k dragons for the offering to Tiamat under the same ploy that their children were cursed at birth etc. They know of the other cultists taking the place of the Grulhunds, but the others don’t know about them.
   
6. Per the Alexandrian the inserted shrine to Asmodeus will be the Dragon Egg hatchery from chapter 3 of HotDQ. Here we will basically have the same encounter as the original chapter. There will be vague correspondence letter between Mondath and Victoro and with high enough rolls the PCs could potentially find the connection. Also held captive here will be Leosin Erlanthar from HotDQ and this will be where the PCs get filled in on much of the info regarding the Cult of the Dragon (as provided in the first 2 chapters of HotDQ) and presumably what their intentions with Neverembers embezzled gold. After his rescue Leosin says he must go meet Ontharr Frume to gather more intel but he will rendezvous with them back in the city. This will give the players a pause enough from HotDQ storyline to focus on the cache of dragons.
   
7. The rest of WDH should play out as normal, with a few smatterings of cultist announcements from town cryers as the PCs walk in the streets.
   
8. Other mechanic changes is Aurinax does not have the dragonstaff. What wards off all potential dragon attacks on the city is the black staff and the Walking statues of Waterdeep who are the sentries of the city.
   
9. The ultimate goal is the PCs give over the gold to the Cassalanterns, in the process of the game to potentially sow distrust towards Vasraj via the Cassalanterns and make the PCs turn on her or if that is unlikely to happen have her assassinated and the black staff destroyed. With the statues rendered useless Victoro initiated an adult from a chromatic dragon and cultists on the city. The gold is taken away and then the proceedings of Tyranny of Dragons can proceed.
   

Clearly this is still in the early stages of being worked out and there will definitely be some balancing that needs to take place along with working in some more of the early chapters of HotDQ along side the storyline of WDH (maybe as faction missions?). and you can probably tell that we remove the first couple of chapters of Hoard to interstate the story into our Waterdeep session.
I know this is wild, and will probably bite me in the butt, but I think this might have potential to be something real fun, and keep Waterdeep at the heart of the story.
Let me know what you think, if you have any suggestions that could potentially help with laying the foundation and making everything cohesive. And I will try to update this as the game progresses!
Happy rolling guys!

Hi guys!
I currently date a chemist, and I try to understand more about the topics an the chemistry world. My bf just graduated in a Chemistry major, and as I don't know any other geek in the topic I have no idea what to gift him. I know it's a stupid question for this subreddit, but I don't know for who to ask for this help and i would appreciate if someone could give me suggestions. I don't know anything related to chemistry that might be a nice gift related to the major. Thank you all!

Hello everyone!
I would like to share a social impact business project I am working on: greenwedge.eco
We offer sustainable climate compensation plans for individuals and companies. Plans are based on ecosystem restoration projects and allow to gradually build towards a tangible environmental impact. Through our recently launched web application users can also track their progress.
The initial idea came up a few years ago while browsing Reddit, where one Redditor shared their environmental impact tracking spreadsheet, but wasn’t sure how to properly include the compensation from recently bought trees. The organization from which they bought those trees didn’t provide reliable information on their impact and how it is spread in time, so I started researching this topic more and found out, that there are many services that either overestimate their impact or even use creative carbon accounting.
We decided on subscriptions, as it is easier to stick with it, to gradually build towards tangible environmental impact, as it requires a proper scale and therefore time and/or resources. The upside of planting trees is, that they don’t disappear after canceling a subscription, so they will still recapture CO2 for you.
We plan to restore temperate broadleaf woodland and forest ecosystems, mainly on agriculturally degraded and unproductive land, to make a true land cover change. Currently, we are discussing details with our potential regional partners, and as soon as we confirm them, we’ll add more information on where exactly, how, and with whom we’ll be planting.
The app wouldn’t be possible without immense help from a programmer and support from an incubation program.
Feel free to join and spread the word :)

Previous Part
My eyes darted around the room, still shocked from the brutality I just witnessed from Shaoni. Katrina had strutted out of view and when my eyes turned to where Brooke’s crumpled form should’ve been he was gone to. At some point both Robert and John had run off towards the growing sounds of gunfire. Shaoni and I still stood in the coliseum, shaken to our cores but both for very different reasons.
*CLANG*
The sudden noise startled me, the sound of metal on metal. The sound came again, this time I heard it clearly and turned around to face the noise only to be met by a few familiar faces.
“Don’t mean to bother you but their shootin up the place, could ya let us the hell in!”
Rocco shouted as he beat Brookes stolen lighter against the metals bars that closed off the back entrance to the coliseum. Bianca gave me a sheepish wave as I looked over their faces again. Frank, Stein, and Tuck were with her. They must have come through the same way Bianca and I had a few days before.
“NOW!”
Rocco shouted in irritation as my brain finally kicked into gear and I ran over to let them through the barred metal gate.
“What’s going on up there?”
I wondered out loud, concerned by how shell shocked they all looked.
“I’d guess something involving the government, with equipment like that I doubt it would be anyone else. Just as we got to the hole Bianca mentioned several men in black tactical gear came out of the forest at our sides. When we didn’t clear out like they demanded they started firing so we dove in.”
Stein explained.
“I take it that’s Shaoni?”
He added, pointing towards where she lay, hunched over and taking shaky breaths on the ground.
“Is she alright?”
Bianca chimed in, craning her neck to get a better view of her past everyone else.
“The hell should we care!? Isn’t it her fault we’re doin’ any of this in the first place?”
Rocco grumbled up at us as he laid back on the ground. Glad to see he wasn’t taking things to seriously. Tuck just stared at Shaoni with this intense anger in his eyes, he didn’t say a word.
I know I shouldn’t care what happened to her at this point but a part of me just couldn’t leave Shaoni like this. Sure, she probably didn’t deserve the sympathy but I couldn’t help feeling a little bad for her now that the anger had passed. When I made my way over to her I got the sense I was seeing the real Shaoni for once. I was seeing someone who witnessed her people rise and fall, saw the country we live in change and grow as it became what we know today. Someone who’d lived countless lifetimes as a piece that just didn’t quite fit the puzzle anymore. I thought about everything Bianca had learned about Shaoni, how she was given her powers, no, her burden in the first place. Suddenly I had a pretty good idea of what exactly she brought everyone here for.
“Shaoni?... Are you… uh, you ok?”
I said like I was trying to comfort a dying animal. The closer I got the more I could hear, she was crying. It was that held back sort of crying right before the dam breaks into full on sobs. She was cracking but still trying to put on a tough face, still trying to be every bit as imposing as she had been the first night I saw her. But she wasn’t, now she just looked pitiful.
“You… you’re right you know Keith. I’m not Justice anymore… I…I don’t think I have been for a very long time.”
She choked out through tears that flowed freely down her face as she rose to her feet.
“I don’t know why I brought you here… I was just so desperate to…”
She trailed off but that was alright, I already knew what she was going to say.
“To escape? Pass on your burden? This whole thing was to chose someone to pass the Thunderbird spirit onto wasn’t it?”
I asked, sure that I was right.
“Yes, this is what I wanted from the start, to give my burden to one of you. At first I wanted the trials to help me make my decision but by the time all of you arrived I just wanted a way out. I wanted to finally live a real life. I’ve lived too long… I just want to live simply before the end that should’ve come so long ago.”
Shaoni cried, more controlled now as she finally started to get a hold of herself.
“So what? You’d just give it to someone else! What about what that would do to them?”
“I just wanted out Keith! I know it was selfish, I don’t care! I just want the nightmare to be over!”
Shaoni screamed out at me. She was hysterical enough that I saw Stein’s hand shoot towards his belt. I’m sure he had that gun I saw yesterday waiting there so I held out my hand to signal him to wait.
“We did good once, in the beginning. But that changed, the wars the injustice I just couldn’t stand by and let that happen so I fought back. I spread the idea that fighting to the death was better than compromising for peace, compromising to save lives. That’s when we… I went wrong. I lead them astray! I was responsible for their deaths! Every! Single! One! I was bitter and resentful for years and I took it out on anyone I thought was guilty. I’ve lived with that for centuries! Do you think I don’t know I’ve become a monster Keith?!”
Shaoni finished with a look of profound shame on her face.
I never thought I’d see the day when I actually felt bad for Shaoni. Not some spur of the moment there’s a full on shootout going on above us and I probably shouldn’t let her die, feeling bad. No, I genuinely felt sorry for her after hearing her talk about the past with total honesty for once.
“You could come with us.”
I offered, looking back to everyone who’d gathered around her at that point. The looks on their faces all told me they weren’t fans of that Idea but only Tuck protested.
“I won’t help her crawl outta the bed she made! Keith, do you honestly think she doesn’t deserve everything thats comin’ to her?!”
“No, but I think she’s suffered enough. Besides, I really don’t want to leave someone down here to die knowing I could’ve done something about it.”
“You know what, fine! You care to much about this Keith, she deserves it! But if you want to take her with us don’t be surprised when she goes on and stabs ya in the back! Now come on, we should get moving.”
Tuck finished, throwing his hands up in the air in an act of frustrated surrender.
“So you realize we’ve got to go out there right? We’re not climbing back out the way we came in so heading out the main entrance is our only option at this point.”
Frank said bluntly as we watched Rocco scurry out of the hole they had dropped in from. We’d all collectively decided we were better off sending Rocco back home. Frank was right though, and even though the sounds of gunfire had started to sound a little farther away I still wasn’t a fan of getting anywhere closer to them.
“I might be able to help with that.”
Shaoni replied, getting to her feet with an air of determination.
“Stay behind me and move when I tell you to.”
We all fell into line behind Shaoni without another word. I guess all of us realized the the sobbing mess we’d seen before also just so happened to be the same Thunderbird that reduced most of Imalone to ashes. So despite how we felt about letting her lead us around it was probably our best chance at the moment.
I was a little surprised that none of… whatever was happening out there hadn’t spilled into the mine and made its way to us. We found out why just as soon as the single file line behind Shaoni made it out of the mine. The camp was devastated, what wasn’t on fire or covered in bullet holes was smashed or ripped to pieces. The ground was littered in bodies and shell casings. A few hundred feet in front of us a small group of Shaoni’s followers where taking shots at the men in black tactical gear Stein had mentioned. There was maybe ten of them but it looked like those ten had slaughtered nearly all of the followers that had made up this camp.
I threw up on the spot, I was so shocked by the scene in front of me I didn’t even manage to bend over, it just kinda waterfalled out of my mouth. I heard Bianca groan in disgust from behind me. I didn’t understand why everyone else wasn’t reacting the same way I was. As I came back to my senses after a minute or so I took off my now vomit covered jacket and felt the cool air through my shirt. Shaoni had instructed us to move and I must’ve moved on my own. All of us were gathered behind a small rocky outcrop near the entrance to the mine.
“You doing alright?”
Bianca asked quietly from behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder. I turned to look at her and noticed the jewel encrusted dagger from before was clutched in her hand, twinkling with reflections from her now glowing blue eyes.
I could barely hear Bianca over the sounds of gunfire. Which almost certainly meant the last of the survivors were being wiped out. I couldn’t watch anymore death today so I just ducked lower behind our cover.
“You hear me Keith? Are you ok?”
Bianca persisted with a little more concern in her voice. I was still trying to pretend I hadn’t just seen dozens of dead bodies but I couldn’t really ignore her forever.
“No not…not really.”
I said, my voice coming out silent as a church mouse.
“Was it the-”
I cut her off
“I’ve never seen a dead body before, I mean I have but not like… not like that. The one guy his jaw was just…. Just gone. How do you guys do it? How do you just look at that and not react?”
Bianca sighed and looked me in the eyes. There was a kind of recognition in them, like she was seeing a little bit of herself in my situation.
“We’ve all seen a lot of horrible stuff in our lives, we’re used to it. Still it doesn’t make it feel normal to see… this. Do you think you can hold it together a bit longer or do you want me to…”
Bianca trailed off but it was obvious to me what she meant. Bianca was offering to soothe that terrified part of me with her powers again.
“Thanks but no, I’ll be alright I’ll probably be seeing this in my dreams for weeks though.”
I answered, trying to make a stupid joke to lighten the mood. Bianca cracked a hint of a smile and that was enough for me.
While we’d been talking everyone had failed to notice Shaoni was gone. She had stood up and was walking straight towards where those men in black gear where picking through what was left of her followers. She was glowing though, every single tattoo glowed with an intense white light and then in a flash she was gone, and the Thunderbird was in her place. Frank and Stein stared in awe of the huge beast in front of them. The Thunderbird looked exactly as I remembered. The blue feathers and steel gray beak reflecting in the light from its crackling white eyes.
“That’s it, That’s the god damn bird!”
Tuck yelled like we couldn’t see what was right in front of us. I think he was just surprised to see the Thunderbird again. Even after years of swearing to get back at “the bird” for the friends he lost I don’t think he ever thought he’d come face to face with it again. Seeing it must be bringing up more than a few memories he’d rather forget.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret! She’s been helping us Tuck, at least put your differences aside until we’ve gotten all this figured out.”
Stein yelled over an ear splitting screech from the massive bird as Tuck began to tense up. Every muscle in his body looked like it was about to pop, they were bulging to an inhuman degree. With a long exhale he loosened up and the swelling went down.
“Damn it… fine! But only till we got things settled here, after that I need to have a “conversation” with that… thing!”
Tuck shouted in begrudging agreement.
The men in front of us all turned toward Shaoni, her new form towering over them. Then I heard a familiar voice shout out,
“You wanted it gone, You’re looking at it! What’re you all waiting for!”
A commanding voice rang out from one of the people in front of us. I didn’t take long to spot the platinum blonde hair poking out from under the armored black helmet the woman wore, not just any woman, Katrina. I didn’t have much time to let that sink in before Katrina made a fist, stuck two fingers up in the air and shook them forward at us. After that, all hell broke loose.
The men behind Katrina rushed forward, guns drawn. Stein drew his own pistol and cocked it, taking aim at the approaching men. Tuck tensed up again and this time he didn’t hold himself back. Bones cracked and skin shifted to accommodate the inhuman muscles he now possessed. Hair sprang up all over his body and under it his face became more angular, his nose almost snout-like. Tuck looked something like a werewolf but definitely not the wolf man I expected. He looked more like an extremely hairy, unnaturally muscular feral person than any wolf man. Frank, Bianca, and I all hunkered down behind the outcrop, waiting for the worst to happen. Shaoni took to the sky with a flap of her massive wings as the gunfire started.
Nothing ever really prepares you for how loud a gunshot actually is, especially a whole bunch of them from fully automatic weapons. There’s nothing quite like being shot at either, at some point you just have to accept the fact that at any moment one of those things flying around you is going to hit you and just get ready for it. That doesn’t actually do anything to calm you down though, at least it didn’t for me. I was huddled behind that little outcropping like a puppy hiding from fireworks on the fourth of July. Wind gusted all around us as Shaoni flapped her wings furiously. The wind coming from her winds was so intense it blew the bullets being fired at her off course. Lead rained all around us as I listened to the cracks of even more bullets being fired. I heard growling as something roughly Tuck sized tore forwards toward the gunfire.
The sky was turning an enraged black and rain had already started to fall in sheets. Lightning struck the ground every so often as well, to close and regular to be natural. I peaked up over the outcrop at one point. I was just in time to see one of the men get struck by a bolt of lightning and tense up as he fell to the ground. As the men kept firing at Shaoni some of their shots started to hit home. The bullets that didn’t get turned away with the wind glanced off her massive form. Whatever those feathers were made off seemed to stop most of the bullets dead in their tracks but it was becoming obvious Shaoni couldn’t keep this up. From our position behind the outcrop Bianca and I both felt the beats of her wings and the gusts of wind that came with it coming slower and slower. We shared a glance for just a second, from the look in Bianca’s eyes, I felt certain we were doomed. More and more of the bullets seemed to be hitting Shaoni and her movements became slower still until eventually it happened.
With a shrill cry she fell from the sky, her blue features stained red in places. Shaoni hit the ground with an earthshaking crash and lay still. Katrina screamed something I couldn’t hear in the violent storm that still raged all around us. When I inched my way up to take a look I saw Katrina and her men charging toward Shaoni guns drawn. Behind them I caught sight of Tuck’s muscular figure getting back up from the ground. I hadn’t been keeping an eye on him before but it looked like he’d seen better days. He hesitated a bit before me moved, looking back to the outcrop where we were and over towards where Shaoni lay. He looked once, twice, then shook his head, mind apparently made up and ran at the men on all fours.
They didn’t hear him coming from behind over the storm and as they raised there weapons Tuck pounced. With one swipe of his humongous hand he sent one of the men flying off towards the forest. Even Katrina was surprised by Tuck’s sudden attack. The time provided by everyone taking a moment to decided who to point their gun at gave Shaoni just enough time to act. She shot one wing out, glancing off everyone near her and knocking them to the ground. One of them men’s helmets flew off with the hit and Stein quickly lined up a shot and fired, hitting the man in the top of the head. The look in his eyes was devoid of any emotion as he ducked back down behind the outcrop. I got the sense this wasn’t the first time Stein had killed, not surprising considering his time in Germany. Still, there was something unsettling about that look in the old scientists eyes.
As Katrina and her men got their bearings again and started firing at Tuck bullets plinked off the outcrop. Apparently they hadn’t forgotten we were there. I stole a quick glance over to where Shaoni had fallen but the Thunderbird was gone revealing a hole in the ground created from the impact of her fall.
“TUCK!”
I screamed out to get his attention for a moment. Tuck’s head swirled towards me just long enough for him to see my outstretched hand pointing to the hole in the ground. I grabbed Bianca’s hand and pulled her to her feet, making a mad dash to the hole. Frank and Stein saw what we were doing and followed after us. Stein fired wild shots off towards Katrina and her men while Tuck kept harassing them.
By some miracle Tuck was still going even as I saw bullets tear into him, he was an animal. He tossed the men around like rag dolls and at one point I turned to see him bring his now claw-like fingernails arching upwards. The head of the man he’d hit was bent back at a sickening angle, he was dead there was no question but Tuck didn’t even stop to spare a thought for the man. Seeing one of their comrades killed in front of them seemed to get the attention of the entire group of them. I hated to admit it but it was exactly the distraction we needed.
As we ran past the chaos of the fight I heard a mix of screams of agony and determination. At one point one of the men’s broken bodies flew over the four of us and hit the ground with a wet crunch that sent a shiver down my spine. We just kept running though, everyone following behind me because I looked like I had a plan. To be fair I did, it was just a bad plan, more of a feeling honestly. I thought if we could get into that hole Shaoni made we might find a way out, a real long shot but it was the best I could do right now.
By the time we reached the hole and I jumped in Tuck had thrown just about every one of Katrina’s men all over the little clearing we were in. Some where very clearly dead but some where rolling around and groaning. Katrina was still standing though, just before I fell deep enough into the hole I got a quick glance at her as she took aim at Tuck who seemed to finally be feeling all the punishment he’d been taking.
I didn’t even have time to scream a warning before my feet hit the hard rock below me and everyone else fell in on top of me.
“Sorry… sorry”
Bianca squeaked out as she pulled herself out of the pile of bodies we’d become. Frank, Stein, and Bianca seemed alright but my ankle was definitely sprained, badly.
“Can you walk on that?”
Bianca asked, examining my ankle in the strange blue light that emanated from further down the chamber we’d fallen into.
“Maybe? Here can I just lean on you?…. yeah, yeah that’ll work.”
I told her, using her to pull myself to my feet and leaning on her for support.
“What are we looking for Keith?”
Frank wondered out loud, a little fear creeping in to his voice as he looked around the chamber.
“I’m not actually sure, I was hoping we’d find Shaoni down here, maybe a tunnel out.”
I grunted out honestly, still reeling form the pain shooting up from my ankle.
“Wait where’s Tuck?”
“If he didn’t make it down we have to assume the worst. We can’t afford to wait now.”
Stein answered, quickly and professionally like someones life wasn’t at stake.
“He never had to come out here for me! We can at least wait for him, give him a chance-”
Stein cut me off
“None of us had to come here for you! We knew the risks so did Tuck. If we wait here now his sacrifice means nothing!”
Stein yelled at me. He was right, none of them needed to be out here but I still didn’t like leaving someone behind. As Frank and stein trudged forward Bianca and I hesitated a bit.
“I don’t want to leave him either but Stein’s right. Just lean on me and lets keep moving, we can come back later and look for his…”
Bianca trailed off before she could say body but I got the message, and if Bianca was moving forward I really didn’t have much of a choice.
We didn’t have to go far to find Shaoni, her usual deerskin clothing was ripped and stained with blood in places. All in all she didn’t look as bad as I thought she would. The light we saw at the entrance was coming from her tattoos as every one glowed brightly with blue light. The same light glowed faintly from four Thunderbird totems placed in the corners of the huge room.
“Welcome to my nest.”
Shaoni said with a dry chuckle, extending her arms out to her sides before immediately clasping them back over a wound in her side.
“Shaoni, are you… are you going to be alright.”
I asked, but before I could get any sort of answer I was interrupted by snarky laughter and a cocking gun.
“Well thanks for leading me right to where I wanted to be Keith.”
Katrina remarked as she walked into the room.
Bianca’s eyes glowed that all to familiar blue but Katrina was a step ahead of her.
“Yeah I wouldn’t try that if I were you. Sure you could force me to walk right out of here but it’s going to take a second to break me, longer than it would take me to pull this trigger.”
Katrina responded with a sneer, turning the gun on Bianca. Bianca jumped back like a scared cat. Ducking under my arm and putting all my weight back on my sprained ankle.
“Wait Don’t!… Argh!”
I cried out at her just before I fell to the ground.
“Ok, ok just… don’t.”
Bianca conceded, putting her hands up and backing away as the blue glow faded from her eyes. When he saw what Katrina was doing Frank wrestled Stein’s gun out of his hands and pointed it straight at Katrina, finger trembling on the trigger.
“Don’t you dare hurt her!”
Frank shouted, face turning red with fury.
“Well thats cute…”
And with an earsplitting bang Katrina turned and shot Frank in the leg. He fell to his knees, dropping the gun he’d been holding as Stein scrambled to hold him up.
“Don’t get in my way, don’t threaten me, and I won’t have to hurt anyone. Now Shaoni, where were we?”
Katrina cooed with murder in her voice as she took a step forward. I tried to pull myself up to my feet, only succeeding in making a pitiful cry as I fell back down again. Bianca flinched towards me but backed up fast when Katrina’s gaze shot her way.
“Keith, you’re still alive? I don’t know how you keep getting mixed into things but you’ve gotta learn when to just give up. I was supposed to kill all of you down there after the third trial. I gave you an out and you just stuck around. Tell you what though, you can still walk away cause I feel bad you got dragged into this in the first place. I have no idea what she was thinking, roping you into this with no idea about the supernatural at all.”
Katrina addressed me, pointing over at Shaoni after helping me to my feet. It hurt to stand but I was getting used to the pain.
“Above everything else I was supposed to kill the Thunderbird and thats what I’m going to do, after that you all can walk out of here.”
Katrina took slow steps toward Shaoni who simply glared at her. She didn’t try to run though, something told me she was ready, no matter how the next few minutes played out. But I had one more trick up my sleeve as I limped over, putting myself in between Shaoni and Katrina.
“She just wants out of all this Katrina! You have to know about where she came from, everything she’s been through!”
I yelled through gritted teeth, biting back the white hot pain shooting up from my ankle.
“I know enough It’s sad sure, but everyone’s got a sad story these days. She’s been flying around taking out whole towns to use as havens for people who want to follow this ass backwards sense of justice she’s got. I don’t want to become that person who’s hunting down supernaturals like her no questions asked just because I was ordered to. But in this case she’s responsible for hundreds of deaths. The “accidents” that happen in those towns are all her fault, and not all of them are as nice as Eagles Peak. The kind of people a town outside of any real form of government or law attracts aren’t the people you want to be neighbors with. She’s got to die Keith, so do you if your going to try and stop me.”
Katrina explained as she stalked closer to me. I really didn’t want to do what I knew I had to do next but I couldn’t watch anyone else die today.
“Alright, I guess there’s no other way then, Shaoni I’ll take on your burden.”
The whole room exploded into a chorus of “what” in varying degrees of shock but my mind was made up. I turned to Shaoni as she asked,
“Are you sure Keith?”
“Yes.”
Before anyone could recover from the shock of what I was about to do she reached out and grabbed my hands. I took hold of her’s and she said something in a language I couldn’t hope to understand as my vision went white.
When I could see again I was… somewhere else. Lightning flashed intermittently overhead and a grassy field extended out forever around me. In front of me stood a misty grey form of a bird it was huge, easily twice the size of the form I’d seen Shaoni take. Through its shifting misty form I could see Shaoni. The bird seemed to be talking to her but I couldn’t make anything out, I could only guess it was a Thunderbird spirit. It seemed to nod to Shaoni before it turned to me and stared me dead in the eyes. Its beak didn’t move, actually no part of it moved but I still heard its voice in my head as its eyes continued to boar into me.
“My chosen, Justice, claims she has lost her way, is this true?”
I couldn’t begin to describe how this voice sounded, powerful is the only word that came to mind. I didn’t feel like I was in any danger though, in fact I felt calmer than I ever had.
“She has.”
I got the sense that quick simple answers were probably best here.
“Justice spoke very highly of you. You offered to succeed her if she is to be believed.”
“I did, but how exactly do we-”
But I was cut off with a bow from the spirit who evaporated all around me. My vision blurred and everything went white again as I collapsed into the soft grass.
I came to on the floor next to Shaoni, it couldn’t have been that much later because neither of us had any new bullet holes in us.
“What did you just do?”
Katrina asked standing above me and looking absolutely stupefied.
“The Thunderbird is dead.”
Was my simple, potentially completely bullshit answer. Katrina looked from me to Shaoni and back again, eyes growing wide as the realization dawned on her.
“You know what? That works for me, just don’t cause us any trouble and we can just forget this whole thing ever happened. Oh, I like the new eyes by the way.”
With that Katrina walked off and climbed a rope ladder she had attached to the ground outside the hole we fell through.
Everything else that happened was a blur, we went back out and found pretty much all of Katrina’s men dead. Tuck was shot several times and barley breathing when Shaoni of all people found him. She called us over and Stein assured us he’d be alright if we got him back to the lab soon. We carried Tuck’s hairy form over to one of the SUV’s and raced back into town. On the way we drove past Katrina who’d also taken one of the SUV’s and was heading out of town. Bianca made a comment at some point that I looked different. When we got back to the house I looked in a mirror and saw my eyes where the same shade of grey Shaoni’s had been.
Speaking of Shaoni we took her with us, she followed us over to the car after she found Tuck. She looked a bit like a lost puppy at that point if I’m honest. I guess finally being able to live your life free of some strange sense of duty after hundreds of years will do that to you. Shaoni hasn’t actually said much since we settled back in at Bianca’s house. She eats and goes through the motions of normal life, she’ll even shoot you a warm smile if she catches you staring at her. I’m still not used to seeing her with green eyes though. I think she just feels lost but I’m ready to help show her the ins and outs of normal-ish life when she’s ready to ask for help.
Frank and Stein went back to doing their normal experimenting pretty fast. The whole thing past them by like a particularly eventful weekend. Even Frank’s bullet wound was quickly forgotten about. Pretty much as soon as he treated it it was like it never even happened to him. Tuck got back on his feet with a lot of help from Frank and Stein. He walks with a permanent limp now but other than that he’s fine. Richelle just about had a conniption when we told her what happened and she hasn’t left Tuck’s side since. She seemed surprised when we described his transformation and we came to find out he never told her about his, “Condition”. That may be why they’ve been so inseparable lately, she just wants to help him however she can and he sure isn’t complaining about that.
Tuck and Shaoni have been getting along as well. I never thought I’d see the day those two sat down and just talked but after a tense first few weeks they came to an understanding. They aren’t old friends now by any means but I’ve walked in on them both talking about their pasts. Maybe sharing stories helps them deal with living such long lives.
As for me and Bianca we started dating and thats been… well that’s been just great. I think its good for both of us cause after everything that happened at the old mine I was just a bundle of nerves. Having someone like her to talk to, someone who gets it, who’s seen so much worse helps put things in perspective. She finally has someone to really talk to in town too. Theres not a whole lot of trouble for us to get up to but we’ve started making a habit of pouring over Frank and Stein’s notes on the supernatural. Not the most riveting idea for a night in but I like learning more about whats really out there.
I still don’t feel any different after taking on Shaoni’s “burden”. Maybe that sense of duty she felt really was just all in her head, a promise to her people that she never let go. Honestly I haven’t tried to use whatever powers might come with my own condition. I just don’t feel like I need to. Like I told Katrina, the Thunderbird is dead. I’m sure not going to be the next Shaoni or anything like that but maybe It’ll help us find Brooke.
Thats the one thing that keeps Bianca and I up at night, we never found Brooke’s body. The two of us went up to the old mine a week or so after everything happened to look around for any sign of him but we didn’t find a trace. In fact the whole thing was cleaned up and the entrance to the mine was collapsed. I’m willing to bet whoever Katrina works for came back to try and wipe away any traces they may have left here. Maybe they found Brooke out there and dealt with him themselves, maybe he’s still out there somewhere. But for now everything’s been pretty calm, even normal around here.
Rocco is still a menace, Tuck still leaves the Eagle’s Roost door unlocked at all hours of the day, and theres still next to no people living here. Without Shaoni and her trials looming over me life is actually pretty good here. So that’s my story, how a storm and a huge bird dragged me halfway across the country and I started dating a succubus…right after I became the Thunderbird. It still seems crazy when I say it like that. Maybe I’ll dig up something on Brooke but for now I think I’ve finally found my new normal out here in the curiously named town with no Eagles and no Peaks.

Hi! I'm 24(F) and yes I guess you can call me a "rich kid" kasi dating sea man daddy ko at may business ang mommy sa construction industry. Only girl at panganay, pero aaminin ko these days parang ako yung bunso at mas responsible pa mga kapatid kong mas bata.
Overachiever, kasi since elementary to high school lagi akong nasa top 5, madaming extra curriculars and awards (regional-national), and ang school ko for gifted children. Nung college naman, pinagaral ako sa magandang university as a BSBA Business Management student. tuloy tuloy parin academic achievements ko and naging President pa ako ng isang malaking org sa uni.
Sa mga nilista kong qualities about me and my upbringing one would think na hindi na ko mahihirapan maging successful in life, pero eto ako ngayon, undergraduate and living with parents without any significant money in my bank account na masasabi kong pinaghirapan ko.
How did I get to this? Tbh ang hirap ipinpoint kelan nagstart pero I remember being so stressed to the point na I developed a seizure disorder and then I just grew tired and listless to everything. Naramdaman ko back then na walang nakaka appreciate ng lahat ng ginagawa kong pagpapagal at parang wala namang silbi...na kahit anong gawin ko I will never be good enough to anyone.
Kaya nung pandemic, hindi ako nagonline class. Parang protest ko na din yun sa lahat na I don't give a f***k anymore. I don't have to prove anything. So anong ginawa ko the following years? I quit social media, disappeared from everyone, and then I cooked, and baked, tried painting, sold the goods I cooked and baked, tinry ko din maging plantita, nahilig ako sa farming...I focused on myself kasi I recognized na baka the emptiness I felt must've been due to my lack of self and self-love, my lack of character that makes me--Me.
While I did that 4 years passed already. Habang yung mga peers ko, pahaba ng pahaba ang mga pangalan, ako undergrad parin, no specific job. Hearing things like sayang ako became a common thing lalo na sa mga kapamilya ko. And although it doesn't affect me that much kasi I know naman na na life is not a race, na kanya kanya tayo ng pace, minsan I can't help but feel small.
Yes, I'm in a much better place sa mental health ko. Yes, I found my passion and calling (sustainable agriculture) during my hiatus. Pero minsan naiisip ko din yung mga missed opportunities na napalampas ko while trying to rediscover myself. Na had I just been stronger, pushed through the storm, baka hindi ako "sayang"? Na baka my status would have been higher by now?
Sa ngayon I'm planning on continuing my studies in Business at my hometown. I'm also trying to establish a training school for organic and sustainable agriculture. May farm kasi yung family namin na tengga lang kaya I had this idea to turn it into a farm school. Syempre hindi ko sariling pera pinang gastos dyan, pero I'm proud of myself for pushing this idea for the youth, our farmers and farming enthusiasts in our community.
Pero yun nga, if it weren't for my family's wealth, hindi ko to magagawa. And I'm not really earning anything from it (yet). Kaya I can't really call it my achievement or success story (yet). Tambay parin ako in the sense na walang pera, pinapakain pa ng magulang at madaming time sa buhay na nakaka binge watch parin ng Bridgerton sa Netflix.
I don't intend to be like this forever. It's just that due to my circumstances, I didn't take the common or conventional path. Kumbaga sabi nga ni Robert Frost, "I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." The actions I took made people think I was crazy stupid but those very actions were what I needed most at that time---to rest and realign myself to the things that truly mattered to me. I needed that pause, I needed that "failure" to discover my true wins in life. Nagsisimula palang yung main story ng buhay ko.
Gusto ko lang ishare at ilabas to lahat. Siguro kasi na trigger ako dahil naikumpara ako sa isa pang overachiever high school friend and classmate ko na si Juan Dela Cruz, AB, C.D.E, Fg na iniinvite ko maging keynote speaker sa grand opening ng farm school namin...
Thank you sa pagbabasa hanggang sa huli! I wish for you heal from things that wounded you, and for you to achieve economic empowerment! Cheers!

I’ve had a fitness watch as a fashion piece for ages but one day I hit all 3 rings without trying (+10k steps, +30 min cardio, stand goals) and decided to just… put some effort to keep it up (today is day 24) Every evening I walk double time for some light cardio and to get in my steps. My appetite has changed. I’ve lost the desire for gassy drinks (been drinking only Coke Zero previously) and I don’t see myself stopping.
I’m almost to scared to weigh myself in case all this effort has made little to no difference. I’m a tall guy with a gut who is usually around the 110kg range.
I want to keep going and I exceed the goals daily as well (usually 60 min cardio)
I have 2 questions I’d like help with:

1. Are the standard goals enough to start with? I’m just walking (instant tiredness and shin splints when I jog. Taking calci-mag supplements and upping the minimum walk/cardio goals soon). I want a stationary bike but it’s not in the budget
   
2. I was gifted 2 5kg weights but I don’t know how to “use” them. I have a idea about reps and sets but I do 1 set of 3 exercises and I’m finished. Can I do that 1 set multiple times throughout the day? Every hour?
   

TIA for any advice.

Hello,
I work as a SETSS (Special Education Teacher Support Services) Provider in New York City. I am working one-on-one with Special Education students as an independent provider.
I need professional malpractice/liability insurance. Does anyone have any experience with this? Any idea how much insurance I should carry or what companies are good/great/should be avoided?
Thanks in advance!