Written by both Heidi and Lita. Lita has to leave early for her internship so Heidi is posting this.
We had a very long, difficult, and important conversation with our mothers last night. We are posting this with their permission, hoping that it might help others like us.
It's hard for us to imagine any other 16-year-olds having a more wonderful year than we have had. How many people find their life partners at our young age? We trained our bodies, dove into our respective art forms, gained insight into our future careers, earned/saved a lot of money, made many friends, explored Buddhism, and joined two families into one.
But we were building a new family on a foundation of deceit and this is what had to change. Back to our conversation.
"We had led you to believe we met at school volleyball team practice back in September. We told you we discovered our soulmates and we were queer. From there we lived hard and well, became a family of six, and then everything else followed. We don't regret a second.
"We just left out one fact...we met and began our relationship one year earlier when we were in 9th grade. We had kept it secret from you. Sound familiar? It is like the story of Emma Nolan and Alyssa Greene in The Prom."
It is hard to describe the look in their eyes. We saw disbelief, shock, hurt, anger, and mostly a sense of betrayal.
Muma: How did you really meet?
Lita: Actually, we told you the story. In fact, we have been leaving clues all over the place kind of hoping we would be discovered.
Heidi: This goes back to September 2022. I was on the crosstown bus. I saw some boys get on. One stayed in the front and the others placed themselves in the aisle going down. The boy in the front grabbed a girl's phone and they passed it to each other. The boy at the end got the phone and walked out of the rear door. I had seen the entire thing and just followed him. He thought he had committed the perfect crime and I approached him. "I saw everything. I know your face, what you are wearing, and your sneakers. I know your friends. Give me the phone and I won't say a word." He did. I walked back to the bus and there was the girl with the bus driver and a couple of cops at the side of the bus. She was sobbing and they were trying to comfort her. I went up, told them what had happened, and gave her the phone back.
Mom: I remember the story. And you are saying that the girl you helped was Lita.
Muma: And the little heroine you told Pupa and me about was Heidi?
Lita: Yes. I was an absolute wreck, completely unconsolable. I felt violated and humiliated. The girl grabbed me by the arm and simply said "Come, let's sit down." She brought me to a cute ice cream restaurant she knew near Bloomingdale's. What's your favorite flavor? I said Plain Vanilla. What's yours? Chocolate. We looked at each other's skin and just had to laugh.
Heidi: I can't describe how I was feeling while we eating ice cream. Waves and waves and waves of emotions hit me.
Lita: All I could do was look Heidi in the eyes and hold her hand.
Mom: I remember that story very clearly.
Lita: We exchanged numbers and IG. Then came texts, calls, secret hookups, the first kiss, and the rest.
Heidi: It was like The King And I, "Hello Young Lovers."
Lita: It was High School Admissions time and I encouraged Heidi to audition for LaGuardia for the 10th grade.
Mom: So that was what that was all about?
Muma: But I don't understand why you felt a need to keep your relationship a secret for an entire year!
This was really the hardest part of the conversation. We talked about all the emotions we were experiencing. What, we are in love? We are lesbians? We are sneaking behind our parents' backs? We are watching lesbian porn and acting it out? What, I am with a black/white girl? All this shame at once and we couldn't figure a way out until Girls Volleyball. We even left some hints on this blog in case you read it.
Muma: What is most painful to me is that this was the time you needed your mothers the most and you went through the entire year all alone.
We are four strong woman. We were at a place far beyond "How dare you? This has to end. You are grounded. Scotland is off." There was thoughtful silence, long looks into each other's eyes, and then cuddling on the couch and watching The Good Doctor.
We all had the same thought. How are we going to tell Dad and Pupa?

I'm a student/part time photographer and recently I was very intrigued into purchasing the Tab S9 ultra as I really like the screen and the features it offers. I'm going to use it to edit and color grade photos and note-takings and also watching movies and YouTube videos. But Tab S9 ultra is already in it's second half lifecycle. With new technologies like tandem OLED and Snapdragon X series of SOCs on the line for the S10 ultra. I'm afraid that I might miss out on those features as I might not upgrade my tablet for at least 3-4 years.
Should I be waiting for S10 ultra to come out or should I get the S9 ultra rn? Thx!

I once read something here that mentioned how Greyhounds could go from elegant to completely derp in a matter of seconds, and I could not agree more 😂
In a similar vein - I've noticed the same around energy levels. When I take my girl out for a bedtime wee (literally just round the corner and back), her energy goes straight from 0 to 100 - from sleeping to hopping / galloping and I feel so bad to be providing such a limited experience and I wonder how I'm going to settle her.
We get back into the house and she takes herself to bed immediately and is completely KTHXBYE. Straight back from 100 to 0 with absolutely no graded scale all 😂
Wondering if you have seen the same with your noodles?

Recently my nmother decided to kick me out because I held a boundary with her. I refused to pick her up from work because an issue I wanted addressed was not addressed, so I allowed myself to say no and not have to explain myself.
My nmom's response was to have my enabler dad come upstairs and say that they think it's best I find somewhere else to live.
Next day I throw away half of my possessions because where I'm going I won't be able to take them, and pack what little I had left into my suitcases and left. Thankfully I had somewhere to go, and I am wanted and safe there.
My parents watched me do this. Watched me throw away items that I deemed "non-essential" because they would have nowhere to go.
Next day I get a long message from my nmom saying it was her decision to kick me out (no duh) and that it wasn't an easy one. She spewed off about her abusive past and how I don't have it half as bad as she did and blah blah blah. The problem is she ended the message the way I knew she would "we are proud of you and we love you and we want you to come home."
They watched me pack up my life in an instant, and leave. I called that this was going to happen. Why do they do it? I just cannot understand. One second I'm being kicked out, I actually go and they instantly want me to come back.
They deployed my flying monkey brother when I didn't reply to the message. I've realised now after all this time I have to be careful what I tell him. So I kept shtum. I knew if I told him I don't plan on going back it would get worse, so I just said I don't know what I'm doing yet. I have no intentions of going back, though.
Anyone else experienced this? Anything else I should expect? I never thought my parents would do this to me, but I'm beginning to realise I don't know what they're capable of.

So, i am a practically recent student started on spring 2024. I have done these 3 courses, ISYE6501 on micromaster , and CSE6040,MGT8803 on spring, got an A on all and want to share my opinion on them.
Also i am right now taking Simulation and MGT6203 any tips for them?
ISYE6501: My first class and my favourite from these 3, The professor was amazing and the class was the right one for introduction. The concepts are too general and i really love the ideas and the thinking behind the teaching methods, not focusing on the theory but on the practical use of the concepts learned. The homeworks and peer grading is strange, you will more likely get 90% with barely some work but it's comepletly hard to get an 100% you need a very good presentation not really matters what work you done , it's all about prospective of other students. The exames where tricky and some questions very strange stated, like they wanted you to get tricked. Midterm 1 was the hardest one while the next became easier each time. I would suggest to start studying early, and DON'T focus on the proofs and math types but try to understand how to use each model and what happens if you change a variable or what's the purpose of it? Also quizlet flashcards were a very big help. ( also the R part on homeworks was easy not really need to learn something complex)
MGT8803: Really don't like the many subjects in one class format, neither the every 3 weeks test . But to tell you the truth, everyone said too much to learn and such a memory class, i have a bad memory and got a 97% overall with average studying. Finance and accounting are the hard stuff, Finance was pretty hard to learn and put a lot of effort, accounting was the first class and was too much to learn in short period of time. But the exams are fairly easy, and the rest of the classes are like 4-5 hours studying per week and you are good to go. Watch the TA and professor recordings and you will be ready for most midterms and actually have a good idea of what's going to happen. Also Bob Mayers on supply chain is my favourite teacher till now , absolutely love this guy the live sessions with him were amazing. Overall easy class , with 2 hard subjects, study early for accounting and finance and use excel and learn how to solve every exercise from the self assesments and you will have at least a 80%.
CSE6040: Professor was good and when he did the classes actually had much fun watching them but the rest classes were blunt and not very informing about what we have to learn. This class was hard, you need to learn to be good on python , actually good not just copy paste master and you need to learn how to have a programming thinking. The midterm 1 was with average 10 so that's tell you enouth , second midterm they screwed up with the long memory and lagging issues and they put 100% SQL problems so that didn't go well but they did a generally curve. The last midterm was a little rough but for someone with no background python knowledge , i scored a 100% overall so that means if you study enough you can too. But be careful, this class need time commitment. The TAs were amazing and very helpful, the best on all classes till now. Also they had these bootcamp sessions every week that they teached and show step to step every coding needed to succed so you have no excuse that you didn't know how to solve something, also they hint many times what's important for the upcoming midterm on these sessions , so unless you are a pro programmer WATCH THEM,and also solve all the past midterms and homeworkds available and you will be on the go for an easy A.

I'm from a NC DU College (Hindu) doing economics hons and currently in second year. During my grade 12th board exams, I had a really tough time because of my health and tough financial situation at home and ended up scoring 74%. But i dropped a year after that, gave improvement and scored 96%, and also got into hindu through CUET.
How will IIM BLACKI look at me, will my situation be a deak breaker for them?

My first best friend, who I'll call Melissa, and I met in kindergarten and were both 5 at the time. We both looked and smiled at each other. That was the day we became friends and it was the most happiest day of my childhood. I sat next to her and we were hanging out with each other every day.
We would do so many things at school with each other. We would sit on the carpet to play with the items the teacher put out for the class each morning. We would always do fun activities in the gym. We would sit at lunch, laugh about funny things we told each other, and hang out at recess every day. My favorite moment was when we were on the swings to see who would go the highest and just look at each other and smile. We did go to other parts of the playground but the swings was our favorite.
When we weren't in a classroom together with our teachers due to them having a different assigned classroom, we would still hang out in lunch and in recess because they released everyone at a certain time by grade level. For example, if we were in 1st grade and students were in a different classroom, the 1st graders would all be released at the same time while the other students in different grades remained in the same classroom. So even if Melissa and I were in different classrooms, we would always meet up and have a great time.
In 3rd grade, I found this girl who I'll call Leah. Leah and I would do pretty fun things together since we were in the same classroom and were hanging out with each other, but I'd still go and hang out with Melissa sometimes. I introduced Melissa to Leah and we basically became a friend group, or at least I thought it was a friend group.
During this time I was constantly having to pick sides with some of our things we were making up as kids. First, it was who I was to sit with at lunch. (Sometimes I wasn't lucky enough to sit with either of them because of a rule where we had to sit in a boy-girl pattern to apparently make everyone quieter during lunch time.) Then it was with some group or clan we made up during recess, Melissa was in "unicorn squad" and Leah was in "girl squad" (I made up the name of girl squad.) I would try to bring them both together but Melissa's friends and Leah's friends didn't get along too well. I had no other best friends besides the both of them and it kinda broke my heart to see them not get along as well as I was with them. Then on a very traumatic day in fourth grade that I still regret for the rest of my life, Melissa and Leah both came up to me and said "You have to pick one best friend." I said I wanted them both to be my best friends but Leah kept pushing that I only pick one. Then we made up a stupid contest to see who would win (my idea) and I was a little tired of it and made Leah win. I have never seen such a sad look on Melissa's face when we were about to leave for home. I ran after her and apologized, I tried to comfort her and I think it worked since we stopped the argument.
Later on in the year of 4th grade, Melissa and Leah had some new friends they were hanging out with. I was fine with it at first, but seeing as their friends were experiencing many joyful moments with my best friends without me, I grew hatred towards their friends. I became jealous of what they were doing. I tried everything as a 9 year old girl could possibly do to keep the relationship going between me and my best friends. I still sat with both of them at lunch and joined them in recess. When they were busy hanging out with their friends, I was left alone, wandering around the playground, doing the things my best friends and I used to do but alone this time. It became depressing just thinking about memories of me and my friends playing together in the past and having fun. Now I had to have fun but alone as I watch my best friends have fun with theirs instead of me. I became even more depressed and angry seeing other random friendships because they were having fun and not me. I felt so alone, hurt, betrayed, so much emotion. This grew into more extreme hate towards the friends of my best friends.
In 5th grade, I did everything I could to have fun with them, but for some reason, something felt off. We hung out less. We didn't sit at lunch every day. Then I found out something shocking. Leah was hanging out with other girls who would give her lunch money, (I gave her lunch money for quite a long time now so we would get snacks with my money I gave her) and was making videos with these girls. I then hated the girls because apparently in my mind, they were controlling and possessing my friend. They stole her away from me. Leah and I still hung out and I considered her my friend because I didn't understand the concept of being used for money. Leah would always invite me to make videos but I wasn't comfortable. I realized how much of a fake friend she was but I still gave her a chance to change but never happened. I went to hang out with Melissa more after this but this felt a bit off too. She was hanging out with this one girl a lot. She seems pretty happy to be with her instead of me more. Melissa was into anime and I wasn't, so that drifted us apart but I didn't see it. I wasn't really into any of my best friend's interests because I was still depressed and full of rage against these girls. I grew to hate everyone and everything and I only wanted to be with Melissa.
It was near the end of the year when I went to go with Melissa in the playground where we always used to go, the swings. She constantly kept moving away, switching swings of just walking away from me. This hurt a lot coming from a close friend like her. I went to hang out with Leah because I still had no friends besides the two of them. Leah as well, left me behind and I was there alone again. All this just fueled my anger against everything. I hated other people, I hated activities, I hated everything, including myself. I thought this was weird since I didn't express my hate that badly towards these other girls, although I did want them to through horrible and horrendous things because in my mind, they were stealing my friends. They took away the people who made me happy. I was getting worse from my mental health because I wanted nothing but my happiness and my best friends back. I had a few thoughts of kidnapping my best friends so they could be with me forever. I would be happy and experience all the happy moments we would share together again. It was pointless anyway because I was just a 10 year old and couldn't do anything.
During these final months before everyone was all homeschooled for a year, I noticed whenever I tried to be with Melissa, she moved away from me again. I tried many times to catch up with her but she continued moving away. I thought absolutely nothing of it because of a funny joke by the teachers saying we hung out too much and we should be separated. I found it funny because at the time, our friendship was strong and I thought nothing would ever separate us from having fun. So I just thought about it as if she was playing around with that joke. I gave up catching up after Melissa because I was tired and I thought she was playing the joke on me. It turns out, I overheard something she said and she said I was too clingy. I didn't know what it meant and I thought she said a funny word and thought nothing of it. Later on she asked me for a break. I said that it was fine and I thought she meant a break for one day (I thought breaks were meant to be short at the time) and we left each other alone.
It came a few days later where she said she didn't want to be my friend anymore. I then went to hang out with Leah, who I didn't hang out with for a long while, said she also didn't want to be friends with me anymore. I was broken by their words but I just thought it was all a joke to me, because I thought it was dumb to unfriend someone for hanging out with them every day.
Fast forward to 6th grade where we were homeschooled for a year, I was full of hope that I was going to be friends with Melissa again after a long time. Then came 7th grade where I was 12 and I continued to sit with her at lunch again, but this time I felt nothing. There were no fun conversations like we usually had back in elementary. I just felt like I wasn't meant to be there. I still felt the same loneliness, rage, and sadness back like I was in 5th grade. That's when I finally realized I was no longer her friend, and I had so much hate in myself for taking a year to realize I had been blind to all of this. I never felt so much sadness like that in my life. The two friends I had left me, I was really depressed by this reason, and now I constantly question myself wondering what I did wrong. I still grovel over them both. It's been a few years now. Did I do something wrong?

TL;DR: I have way less opportunities for building up ECs than one'd expect, residing in a close-to-vilage town; financially or otherwise. Do I have a chance for studying Biology (most likely PG) abroad (such as the US or UK)?
my_qualifications: ICSE 10th grade, 98.8% Bo5
Starting with what I mean by "situation" in the title, it, as a matter of fact, doesn't symbolize some excruciatingly painful or physically deranging position or anything even close to that; it's something a lot more commonplace (at least from what I've seen in real life): I reside in a pretty small and isolated town and this alone ticks off a lot of boxes for a reduction in chances I'd ever get out of India. What I have gathered over the course of my obviously inadequate research on the Internet that it is pretty inevitable that those who get in have exceptional academics, even out of the stipulated curriculum. - One that I've seen often being mentioned is the AP classes administered by the College Board; a typical applicant takes anywhere between 5 and 20 (!) AP courses and somehow gets a 5 in all of them – the highest score, I presume – all the while acing the exams held in their respective curricula. I was interested, of course, although I was stumped by noticing the testing fee for one AP itself; courses themselves are a whole another thing. - The other option I stumbled upon was Olympiads. Some googling led me to the official websites administering the regional, state, and national level Olympiads in different sciences. They were cool and all, but – as far as I understand – you'd need an educational institution or anything similar to apply for such a thing, which is most likely not possible to do here. I might be incorrect though, and while this is a clear tangent to the original question, I would like to know if I can self-teach myself the kind of skills different Olympiads like IPhO, IMO or IBO (or anything similar that would look fine on my resume) demand, as well as if I can apply for them by my own.
My academics? Just a "class topper" tag multiple times and winning a few very localised competitions. Haha.
Even with exceptional academics, it's only a barebones requisite for actually having a chance. I was acquainted of the fact that people who get in have gone out of their way to do stuff that's very unique - and I believe stuff like this is a differentiator for selecting people. Especially at the top Unis. - The most popular EC were starting / leading clubs or similar. An applicant usually started one on their own due to a lack of such an organised body at their schools for interested people. This is out of my reach, too – where I studied till 10th grade in did have clubs, but they were taken down on account of pandemic and since then the Principal has been hesitant to restart them. No real activity was happening in these clubs, anyway. - The other niche thing I saw was publishing research papers or participating in essay competitions where you formally put forth a unique standpoint about something. I'm once again incapable to do so, as far as I could see: my understanding is that you're supposed to conduct experiments or at least partake in a STEM-based research body that does these experiments, and either unanimously or otherwise publish the findings and conclude certain things. I might be wrong, again, but this is what I've come to know – and I definitely have no opportunities where I live to even start doing anything; more specifically, a bigger problem is that I have no idea what to do at large for getting into stuff like this. - Raising money for a cause? Nope. Nada. Zero possibility. - Starting public awareness camps / hosting conferences related to my major / NGO? Also not possible.
Now I know there are many (a lot many, I presume) cases where someone didn't have stellar ECs on their profile but still got in, which would allow someone to hurl back at me with the following points, in my opinion:

The AOs do not see a huge brag-list of near-perfect grades and out-of-the-world ECs; they only see if what you've done over your high school period is helpful.

That's the most common point I see everywhere. While I do understand what it implies, I honestly don't think I ever had a chance to do so - my school, as it is now inherently deducible, is pretty dogsh*t at providing opportunities for stuff like that. On top of that, the place I live, and the contacts I have with people, have almost no knowledge of what it takes for someone to apply to abroad colleges. Therefore, the long and the short is, the number of notable activities I've undertaken during or before 9th grade is infinitesimally small.

You can try your best to have a very good CGPA in 11th and 12th and partake in international-level exams.

I certainly can ensure the first half of it; the second half? I don't even know where to start - I feel what I've gathered till now is just an innate cloud of tension and presumably erratic bits of information with no continuity.

You can move outside and study in an international board such as IB, A-levels, etc.; for the most part, these have a higher weightage in foreign colleges than ISC or CBSE.

Sadly not possible because those are waaaay outside my affordability.
I think that's a pretty feasible summary of the information I've congregated beginning from the past year up-till now. If there is any mistake or misconception that I might bear, please let me know! And going back to my initial question: Do I still have a chance to open up a whole new pathway to pursue studying abroad? Should I stick with being in India?

Gabriel, Lord of Patience:

Its essence is the fixation of states and responding to unforeseen situations.
Fixation: Allows the user to fix something into its current state, effectively locking it inside of temporal stasis.
Eternal World: A World System Skill that brings everything in the user's domain to an absolute halt, isolating, and locking them in place and nullifying all kinds of attacks. It is powered by the target’s power
Fate Weaving: This ability allows the user to peer into the past, present and future and manipulate their selves to alter events. (this one is not mine)
Temporal Manipulation: The user can manipulate time freely.
Info Management: Great Sage sub-skills but on the ultimate level
Cosmic Order: restore the target to their original state
Cultivation: a ritual that strengthens the target’s Ego to reach higher place through holding items that they originally possessed, it is a very slow and time-consuming process that requires the target to always be in control of themselves while in it. The plus side is that the target can still do daily activities like before the ritual without much difference

Raguel, Lord of Charity:

Its essence is Support that lies in the Enlargement of Effect that freely manipulates all energy or Amplification
Energy Domination: manipulate all energy of the world at will, amplify something infinite, giving them limitless power. When used on a person it can be used to either increase their strength to or past the limit of their bodies, resulting in living things being burned alive by their body heat or otherwise falling apart. When used on an attack, the result is unmistakably catastrophic, increasing its power to the absolute limit and creating the strongest offensive power. The true purpose of this one is the ability to uplift the state of one’s being to a higher place, when used on gear, it can make them a God Grade Equipment
Reality Vision: overseer the world’s events, and even potentially see one’s fate, also has Thought Acceleration effects
World Leap: a dog water version of Dimensional Leap
Luck Domination: idc about this one, you could made an explanation for it or whatever (Multilayer Barrier integrated into this)
Faith System
Wish Granting: manifest desires into reality, the limits being the strength of the desire itself. Also, it has unlimited potential as the user can realize anything.
Power Distribution
Art
Eden: a world of grassland filled with all types of vegetables, once consume the food in this world, the consumer will get their wounds healed and increase their power to an all-time high, reaching the pinnacle of their being at the present moment
Any suggestions or feedback are welcome.

I 24F have recently stopped being friends with a coworker 27F. A little back story. Both she and I let’s call her Penny started at our job last year. We were attached at the hip due to us both being new and teaching the same grade and subject. Penny was a little more experienced than me as it was her second year teaching and my first. Penny really was a role model to me and she helped me alot, and pretty much went to her for everything I would like to mention that Penny often got recognized by our principal and staff last year for how good she was. Mid-year I got close with another co worker lets call her Betty 26F due to us running the same after school program and that friendship carried into the current school year.
Now to the issue, this year was a bit rocky for Penny and I. We started off close but then started to drift. In my perspective I think it was due to jealously. First reason why is Betty and I grew closer and we got close with Anne 29F as well. I would like to mention that all 4 of us were always together. All was fine until Penny started making comments that “I like them better” I asked her to stop because it made me uncomfortable because I had a unique friendship with each of them. She did but it continued to be awkward. My second reason is this year I received a bit more recognition from our new principal and other staff where Penny really wasn’t anymore. (To make matters worse we both got nominated for teacher of the year. ) My final reason is she out of the blue became close with Sally. Who she initally talked bad about and also knew I wasn’t a fan of. Now Penny and Sally are attached at the hip posting each other on socials etc. In my opinion the friendship is fake. I feel that Penny just replaced the me from last year. The one who needed her, asked her for help, who thought of her role model. With Sally because Sally is new this year. I see the old me in Sally with way she follows behind Penny’s every move. That was me because I was so unsure of myself but this year I’m confident I’ve grown and I think I’ve outgrown Penny.
So AITA for dropping a friendship that only worked when they were being worshipped and I was on the bottom?

People from my neighborhood shaped me to think that I am just a second best. Hanggang grumaduate ako sa college, naging mindset ko na siya.
During my elementary days, never did I land top 1. There was always this girl who constantly landed the first place, and it was not me. The other girl's clan was way well off and may nga narating na sa buhay. That girl sure was brilliant without a doubt. Matagal ko na ring tanggap na hanggang top 2 lang ako o 'di kaya'y top 3.
Pero noong nag grade 6 ako, natuto akong tumino and was forced to mature early. Namatay kasi yung Lolo ko sa father side, nag abroad yung Papa ko para may ipang-aral sa aming magkakapatid, inaway ng kapibahay yung Mama ko dahil lang sa tsismis na hindi naman totoo. The people's allegations put a stain on my Mama's name. Our family was affected beyond repair (or so I thought.) The joke's on them, though, the moment the truth was revealed several weeks after the disputes.
I was so young but I already know what was happening. Basically, andaming nangyari at that time but I cannot contribute because I was just a kid. Everything I say had no bearing. At tanging maiaambag ko lang ay ang mag-aral ng mabuti.
To everyone's shock, grumaduate ako as the class valedictorian sa elementarya. Before our graduation rites, pauwi na ako no'n when I overheard the old ones talking about "what happened?" as to why it's me who landed the top and not the other girl. And that point something lang naman daw yung pinagkaiba (like some cents to the piso.)
They knew I heard them talking about it because one of them oldies saw me standing a few meters away from them. Tapos pinapatigil niya iyong nagsasalita kasi nga naririnig ko. Well, too bad I landed the top. I'm sorry it wasn't your bet who got to land the best spot.
I was also one of the top students during my junior and senior high school, then nag-iisang Laude na grumaduate sa irregular batch this year sa unibersidad.
Before I graduated in college, though, palagi ulit akong kinokompara sa Accountancy. Bakit daw FM yung kinuha ko kesyo wala daw board exam. Always the second best, pati daw yung organization kung saan ako naging officer. Pangalawa lang sa Accountancy.
But I realized, if good things are for me, ibibigay iyon sa'kin kahit ano man ang gawin ko. I am meant for greater things despite being just the second best. My life has been guided from the very beginning. That's why... people can be so cruel but I stand resilient.
Sobrang dami nang nangyari... that's why when one of the interviewers during my job application asked me as to ako lang daw ba yung honor student sa pamilya namin, naalala ko yung experience ko about my scholastic journey. Now, I've got a few offers in the local banks and mags-start na on June 3 at the one who offered me a higher salary.

the main thing that gives me the ick about her is that she has a "situationship" with a guy in our class even tho she has a boyfriend of 7 years!! apparently they recently confessed feelings for each other, keep in mind my friend is 17 and the guy is 22!! they have been flirting since the start of the school year and they have been involved with several issues because a lot of people are speculating nga that she's a cheater. her boyfriend approached us one time to ask for advice on how to deal with the other guy, one thing led to another, she said she cut ties with the other guy but she's still flirting with him, sitting on his lap, hugging him before he leaves and watches longingly as he closes the door, etc. she constantly tries to convince everyone that she is not cheating on her bf and that her bg is fine with her and the other guy... honestly does she think we're stupid enough to believe that????
recently she's been acting up tho. idk she made one draft for the design of our class panel board and she's proud of it (even tho it's just meh) and can't stop bragging that it looks soo good. i understand its just a light joke but its been days and she's still mentioning na "i should join visual arts/creatives because my design looks so good guys" because no one is agreeing with her LMAOO. she never stfu about how petite she is and complains that everything is taller than her (fishing for validation, like how tara yummy acts lol). a while ago she distributed math papers and she gave my first paper -- that has a perfect score -- with a scowl on her face, not looking at me. when she gave my second test paper has a low grade, she inspects it for a while and mumbles something, then gives it to mewith eye contact HAHAHA fuck off inggitera. i could go on and on and on about what pisses me tf off but this will take forever lmao tahimik na lang me for now. 💖

Okay, here we go. Big rant incoming. This post is going to be extremely long and a bit whiny, but I would only write something like this because I really do love this game, and I am passionate about the decisions that go into game design & player experience. Feel free to skip to the TLDR. Obviously: SPOILERS
I'll start this off by saying that I have like 1000 hours in Valheim and I absolutely love the core aspects of the game. I also like to think of myself as a pretty skilled player compared to the average/target audience. I've done many Valheim playthroughs over the past few years, including a hardcore playthrough through Yagluth with no deaths, and a no-map/compass only playthrough. Even so, while the Ashlands as a biome felt "off" from even before the release, I generally blamed this on "skill issue", and figured progression would ameliorate some of the issues. After doing basically everything there is to do in the biome, I've come to the conclusion that it does not get better: the Ashlands gameplay loop is fundamentally anti-player experience. Here' why:
Mob density and lava is anti-exploration: Valheim, at its core, is an adventure & exploration game. If you take out the exploration, you're left with a resource collection simulator with awkward movement and basic combat. Like the Mistlands before it, the Ashlands presents immediate barriers to exploration. To even set foot into the biome you need top tier gear from the previous biome and an industrial grade multi-biome farm producing all of the best foods and meads.
However, while the Mistlands progression allows you to eventually overcome its barriers to exploration with the introduction of magic and new mechanical items (like the feather cape), the Ashlands never gets any less hostile. There are no lava-immunity boots, no anti-spawning beacons, no nothing. You just get a pretty okay gear upgrade, and a big fuck you. In fact, because of the unrelenting charred hordes, Valkyries, and marathon-running Asksvins, you're actually punished for exploring too far from your steadfast.
The only reasonable way to map the biome is by sprinting in Fenris armor with an Asksvin cape and Moder, which fundamentally destroys the immersion of the exploration anyways. After all this time in the biome, I've explored less than a half of a single of the Ashlands continents in my world. And why should I? What do I even gain from it? This leads me into my next big problem:
The Ashlands is unrewarding: To invest such tremendous effort into a biome there needs to be an equally tremendous reward. Spoiler: there isn't! You can expect to die a LOT in the biome, meaning your hard-earned skills are going to wither away, making you substantially weaker overall. What are you offered in return for this? Not much! The new heavy armor is the standard upgrade, extremely expensive, and generally slow. The Asksvin hide and magic armor sets are definitely not worse than the previous armor sets, but they don't really feel that much better. A couple of the weapons were interesting... but again, not enough to offset the pain.
The Ashlands really doesn't reward players for dealing with all of its bullshit. It's totally isolated, not very visually appealing, hostile from start to finish, and doesn't really introduce or accelerate any of the out-of-biome mechanics like previous biomes do (farming, sailing, new cooking stations, new crafting stations, fall damage negation, etc). By far the most interesting thing you acquire in the Ashlands is a staff that sacrifices half your health to spawn a charred troll, and they aren't even allowed to be on your team!!!
The whole war-zone aesthetic would be tolerable if the biome just didn't take so damn long to finish. Like seriously, because all of the limited visibility and constant mob clearing it's extremely slow to even locate the things you need to do, never-the-less even do them! At this point, I kind of think of the Ashlands as a chore you must complete to progress beyond it. That is fundamentally not a fun thing to do, and I believe the vast majority of players will not make it to the deep north for this exact reason. Which brings me to the biggest problem.
The Ashlands does not understand what makes difficulty fun: According to the devs, the biome is hard. Really hard, actually. They seemed extremely proud of making a biome that would really give the players a true run for their money! Naturally, I was extremely excited! Unfortunately, the Ashlands is not hard because of new strategic or mechanical learning curves, it is hard because it is clumsy.
Flametal mining is contrived and hostile. The pillars are a pain to climb with the game's terrible collision. Have you ever been crushed between the underside of a sinking flametal vein and your basalt bomb platform? 'Cus I have! Even worse, every time I actually whack a Flametal pillar (which by the way, wants to kill me even more than the monsters do) I'm personally inviting every entity in a 10 mile radius to form a mosh pit right below me.
Grapevine harvesting and planting is too slow. They take forever to find, even longer to grow, and cant even be planted in their natural biome without a shield generator? (What's up with that by the way?) I will admit that I love the way they look and depending on where you land you might get lucky and find them early, in which case this point is pretty moot. In my case, I had fully upgraded gear and had already cleared a fortress before I even found my first Vineberry.
Fortress "sieging", as the devs would like to call it, is kind of... useless? The siege weapons are clumsy and ineffective, and are immediately secondary to the brute force method of building a wooden staircase and bombarding the inside with fireballs until everything in it is dead. By the time you even reach a fortress, the relentless mob clearing just to get there has sucked all the fun out of the would-be battle anyway. (By the way, who though that it would be a good idea to make the only unique fortress mob a necromancer that summons even more of the most annoying mob in the entire biome?? Hurray, yet another swarm of reskinned, stat-boosted greydwarves!)
Honestly, I wouldn't even call the biome "hard". I would just call it painful. Things that are hard are generally things you can get better at. I don't think it particularly fits this category.
Lingering questions: While there are many things I like about the biome as a concept, I don't know if there is a single mechanic in the Ashlands that I actually think is well-designed. Now that I'm basically done with the biome, I look back and ask myself a number of questions about things I encountered. Were these really fun? or were they just tedious. I'll let you decide:

• Why is the only ship you can take through the spires so difficult to steer? If you want it to feel large and heavy, that's fine... but then why do spires spawn so densely that it constantly gets beached?
• Why do basalt bomb platforms only last for like 30 seconds? If you want them to not permanently mark the landscape, why not make them last at least long enough for players to reuse them for approaching and escaping from the pillars? Why make the player interact with the admittedly funky aiming mechanics to throw more platforms as the pillar is sinking?
• Why can the charred and Asksvins go in the lava if you can't? They're not immune to fire damage from a staff, but they can wade through lava? Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage players to use the lava as a risky resting place? Something like, "go out into the lava with basalt bombs to escape the horde briefly, but make sure you don't slip!"? Maybe then, once the player has cleared a fortress and acquired their first set of lava-immunity potions (or boots or whatever), they will have an advantage over the horde in terms of mobility. You know, like in every single other biome?
• Why are there no lava-walking boots?
• Why do tamed Asksvins animals not have a "passive mode", or a "follow" command like wolves, or at least some kind of hitching post? If the idea of asksvins is to be able to ride over lava to pillars, why make them run away from the pillars and to their death the instant the player gets off of them?
• Why are there no lava-walking boots........?
• Why make the step heights on flametal ore pillars only convenient/resonable to climb when wearing the feather cape that is extremely weak to fire? Isn't the idea of the fire weakness to discourage its use in the Ashlands? If you know your movement & collision mechanics feel clunky, why design the pillars in such a way that scaling them is necessary to escape certain death?
• Boots in lava no walking on it why tho........?
• Why make the spawnrate for monsters so uniformly high? The combat is extremely simple, and these monsters do pretty substantial damage in melee. This leads to a boring and frustrating "swarming" experience, where players have to run from monsters, inevitably picking up more monsters on the way. Couldn't you fix this by just have areas of extreme monster density like in every other biome which can be "cleared". Doesn't this work better with the power-up based combat your entire system is based off of? Doesn't this also double as another reason to actually explore in the Ashlands, as when players clear one area, they need to continue on to the next?
• If you want a new paradigm where defeating the horde isn't enough to "clear" an area, wouldn't you at least want to counteract this with some new mechanic that spawn-proofs/suppresses large areas? Or maybe a set of armor that reduces player-made sounds? Why doesn't that exist?
• Why not reward the player with outside-the-biome progression? Why not use this as the reason to go to the Ashlands in the first place? Teleporting metals is an obvious great example, but it feels like it was an afterthought made late in development so that the Ashlands would be even remotely tolerable, given that it's a nightmare to sail to. With an entire community full of dedicated players who love the game proposing extremely popular changes all the time... why not use some of those? (shield generators could also repair builds! Redbeard Dvegrs could offer unique item trading! New cores & metal could somehow accelerate or automate farming! Any of the above...)

TLDR: After finishing the Ashlands I struggle to see why so many design decisions were made that make the biome so relentless, tedious, and anti-exploration. It's like they took all of the experiences and mechanics that people love about the game and replaced them with all of the ones people find painful and annoying. It is extremely disappointing, and will prevent most players from finishing the game, or even the biome itself.

"Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?"

The main reason Jesus died on the cross was to defeat Satan and set us free from his oppressive rule. Everything else that Jesus accomplished was to be understood as an aspect and consequence of this victory (e.g., Recapitulation, Moral Influence, etc.).
This understanding of why Jesus had to die is called the Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ is Victorious”) view of the atonement. But, what exactly was Christ victorious from, and why? To find out the answers to these questions, we have to turn to the Old Testament, as that's what the apostles would often allude to in order to properly teach their audience the message they were trying to convey (Rom. 15:4).
The OT is full of conflict between the Father (YHVH) and false gods, between YHVH and cosmic forces of chaos. The Psalms speak of this conflict between YHVH and water monsters of the deeps (an ancient image for chaos) (Psa. 29:3-4; 74:10-14; 77:16, 19; 89:9-10; 104:2-9, etc).
The liberation of Israel from Egypt wasn’t just a conflict between Pharaoh and Moses. It was really between YHVH and the false gods of Egypt.
Regardless of whether you think the aforementioned descriptions are literal or metaphorical, the reality that the Old Testament describes is that humanity lived in a “cosmic war zone.”
The Christus Victor motif is about Christ reigning victorious over wicked principalities and Satan's kingdom, and is strongly emphasized throughout the New Testament. Scripture declares that Jesus came to drive out "the prince of this world” (John 12:31), to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14) and to “put all enemies under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25). Jesus came to overpower the “strong man” (Satan) who held the world in bondage and worked with his Church to plunder his "palace" (Luke 11:21-22). He came to end the reign of the cosmic “thief” who seized the world to “steal, and to kill, and to destroy” the life YHVH intended for us (John 10:10). Jesus came and died on the cross to disarm “the principalities and powers” and make a “shew of them openly [i.e., public spectacle]” by “triumphing over them in [the cross]” (Col. 2:15).
Beyond these explicit statements, there are many other passages that express the Christus Victor motif as well. For example, the first prophecy in the Bible foretells that a descendent of Eve (Jesus) would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The first Christian sermon ever preached proclaimed that Jesus in principle conquered all YHVH's enemies (Acts 2:32-36). And the single most frequently quoted Old Testament passage by New Testament authors is Psalm 110:1 which predicts that Christ would conquer all YHVH’s opponents. (Psalm 110 is quoted or alluded to in Matthew 22:41-45; 26:64, Mark 12:35-37; 14:62, Luke 20:41-44; 22:69, Acts 5:31; 7:55-56, Romans 8:34, 1st Corinthians 15:22-25, Ephesians 1:20, Hebrews 1:3; 1:13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21; 8:1; 10:12-13, 1st Peter 3:22, and Revelation 3:21.) According to New Testament scholar Oscar Cullman, the frequency with which New Testament authors cite this Psalm is the greatest proof that Christ’s “victory over the angel powers stands at the very center of early Christian thought.”
Because of man's rebellion, the Messiah's coming involved a rescue mission that included a strategy for vanquishing the powers of darkness.
Since YHVH is a God of love who gives genuine “say-so” to both angels and humans, YHVH rarely accomplishes His providential plans through coercion. YHVH relies on His infinite wisdom to achieve His goals. Nowhere is YHVH's wisdom put more on display than in the manner in which He outsmarted Satan and the powers of evil, using their own evil to bring about their defeat.
Most readers probably know the famous story from ancient Greece about the Trojan Horse. To recap the story, Troy and Greece had been locked in a ten-year-long vicious war when, according to Homer and Virgil, the Greeks came up with a brilliant idea. They built an enormous wooden horse, hid soldiers inside and offered it to the Trojans as a gift, claiming they were conceding defeat and going home. The delighted Trojans accepted the gift and proceeded to celebrate by drinking themselves into a drunken stupor. When night came and the Trojan warriors were too wasted to fight, the Greeks exited the horse, unlocked the city gates to quietly let all their compatriots in, and easily conquered the city, thus winning the war.
Historians debate whether any of this actually happened. But either way, as military strategies go, it’s brilliant.
Now, there are five clues in the New Testament that suggest YHVH was using something like this Trojan Horse strategy against the powers when he sent Jesus into the world:
1) The Bible tells us that YHVH's victory over the powers of darkness was achieved by the employment of YHVH’s wisdom, and was centered on that wisdom having become reality in Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25, 1 Cor. 2:7, Eph. 3:9-10, Col. 1:26). It also tells us that, for some reason, this Christ-centered wisdom was kept “secret and hidden” throughout the ages. It’s clear from this that YHVH's strategy was to outsmart and surprise the powers by sending Jesus.
2) While humans don’t generally know Jesus’ true identity during his ministry, demons do. They recognize Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, but, interestingly enough, they have no idea what he’s doing (Mark 1:24; 3:11; 5:7, Luke 8:21). Again, the wisdom of YHVH in sending Jesus was hidden from them.
3) We’re told that, while humans certainly share in the responsibility for the crucifixion, Satan and the powers were working behind the scenes to bring it about (John 13:27 cf. 1 Cor. 2:6-8). These forces of evil helped orchestrate the crucifixion.
4) We’re taught that if the “princes of this world [age]” had understood the secret wisdom of YHVH, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8 cf. vss 6-7). Apparently, Satan and the powers regretted orchestrating Christ’s crucifixion once they learned of the wisdom of YHVH that was behind it.
5) Finally, we can begin to understand why the powers came to regret crucifying “the Lord of glory” when we read that it was by means of the crucifixion that the “handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us [i.e., the charge of our legal indebtedness]” was “[taken] out of the way [i.e., canceled]” as the powers were disarmed. In this way Christ “triumph[ed] over” the powers by "his cross” and even “made a shew of them openly” (Col. 2:14-15). Through Christ’s death and resurrection YHVH's enemies were vanquished and placed under his Messiah's feet, and ultimately His own in the end (1 Cor. 15:23-28).
Putting these five clues together, we can discern YHVH's Trojan Horse strategy in sending Jesus.
The powers couldn’t discern why Jesus came because YHVH's wisdom was hidden from them. YHVH's wisdom was motivated by unfathomable love, and since Satan and the other powers were evil, they lacked the capacity to understand it. Their evil hearts prevented them from suspecting what YHVH was up to.
What the powers did understand was that Jesus was mortal. This meant he was killable. Lacking the capacity to understand that this was the means by which YHVH would ultimately bring about the defeat of death (and thus, pave the road for the resurrection itself), they never suspected that making Jesus vulnerable to their evil might actually be part of YHVH's infinitely wise plan.
And so they took the bait (or "ransom"; Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45, 1 Tim. 2:5-6). Utilizing Judas and other willing human agents, the powers played right into YHVH’s secret plan and orchestrated the crucifixion of the Messiah (Acts 2:22-23; 4:28). YHVH thus brilliantly used the self-inflicted incapacity of evil to understand love against itself. And, like light dispelling darkness, the unfathomably beautiful act of YHVH's love in sending the willing Messiah as a "ransom" to these blood-thirsty powers defeated them. The whole creation was in principle freed and reconciled to YHVH, while everything written against us humans was nailed to the cross, thus robbing the powers of the only legal claim they had on us. They were “spoiled [i.e., disempowered]” (Col. 2:14-15).
As happened to the Trojans in accepting the gift from the Greeks, in seizing on Christ’s vulnerability and orchestrating his crucifixion, the powers unwittingly cooperated with YHVH to unleash the one power in the world that dispels all evil and sets captives free. It’s the power of self-sacrificial love.

Why Penal Substitution Is Unbiblical

For the sake of keeping this already lengthy post as short as possible I'm not going to spend too much time on why exactly PSA (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) is inconsistent with Scripture, but I'll go ahead and point out the main reasons why I believe this is so, and let the reader look further into this subject by themselves, being that there are many resources out there which have devoted much more time than I ever could here in supporting this premise.

"Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:"-1 Corinthians 5:7

The Passover is one of the two most prominent images in the New Testament given as a comparison to Christ's atonement and what it accomplished, (the other most common image being the Day of Atonement sacrifice).
In the Passover, the blood of the lamb on the door posts of the Hebrews in the book of Exodus was meant to mark out those who were YHVH's, not be a symbol of PSA, as the lamb itself was not being punished by God in place of the Hebrews, but rather the kingdom of Egypt (and thus, allegorically speaking, the kingdom of darkness which opposed YHVH) was what was being judged and punished, because those who were not "covered" by the blood of the lamb could be easily identified as not part of God's kingdom/covenant and liberated people.
Looking at the Day of Atonement sacrifice (which, again, Christ's death is repeatedly compared to throughout the New Testament), this ritual required a ram, a bull, and two goats (Lev. 16:3-5). The ram was for a burnt offering intended to please God (Lev. 16:3-4). The bull served as a sin offering for Aaron, the high priest, and his family. In this case, the sin offering restored the priest to ritual purity, allowing him to occupy sacred space and be near YHVH’s presence. Two goats taken from "the congregation” were needed for the single sin offering for the people (Lev. 16:5). So why two goats?
The high priest would cast lots over the two goats, with one chosen as a sacrifice “for the Lord” (Lev. 16:8). The blood of that goat would purify the people. The second goat was not sacrificed or designated “for the Lord.” On the contrary, this goat—the one that symbolically carried the sins away from the camp of Israel into the wilderness—was “for Azazel” (Lev. 16:8-10).
What—or who—is Azazel?
The Hebrew term azazel (עזאזל) occurs four times in Leviticus 16 but nowhere else in most people's canon of the Bible, (and I say "most people's canon," because some people do include 1 Enoch in their canon of Scripture, which of course goes into great detail about this "Azazel" figure). Many translations prefer to translate the term as a phrase, “the goat that goes away,” which is the same idea conveyed in the King James Version’s “scapegoat.” Other translations treat the word as a name: Azazel. The “scapegoat” option is possible, but since the phrase “for Azazel” parallels the phrase “for YHVH” (“for the Lord”), the wording suggests that two divine figures are being contrasted by the two goats.
A strong case can be made for translating the term as the name Azazel. Ancient Jewish texts show that Azazel was understood as a demonic figure associated with the wilderness. The Mishnah (ca. AD 200; Yoma 6:6) records that the goat for Azazel was led to a cliff and pushed over, ensuring it would not return with its death. This association of the wilderness with evil is also evident in the New Testament, as this was where Jesus met the devil (Matt. 4:1). Also, in Leviticus 17:1-7 we learn that some Israelites had been accustomed to sacrificing offerings to "devils" (alternatively translated as “goat demons”). The Day of Atonement replaced this illegitimate practice.
The second goat was not sent into the wilderness as a sacrifice to a foreign god or demon. The act of sending the live goat out into the wilderness, which was unholy ground, was to send the sins of the people where they belonged—to the demonic domain. With one goat sacrificed to bring purification and access to YHVH and one goat sent to carry the people’s sins to the demonic domain, this annual ritual reinforced the identity of the true God and His mercy and holiness.
When Jesus died on the cross for all of humanity’s sins, he was crucified outside the city, paralleling the sins of the people being cast to the wilderness via the goat to Azazel. Jesus died once for all sinners, negating the need for this ritual.
As previously stated, the goat which had all the sin put on it was sent alive off to the wilderness, while the blood of the goat which was blameless was used to purify the temple and the people. Penal substitution would necessitate the killing of the goat which had the sin put on it.
Mind you, this is the only sacrificial ritual of any kind in the Torah in which sins are placed on an animal. The only time it happens is this, and that animal is not sacrificed. Most PSA proponents unwittingly point to this ritual as evidence of their view, despite it actually serving as evidence to the contrary, because most people don't read their Old Testament and don't familiarize themselves with the "boring parts" like Leviticus (when it's actually rather important to do so, since that book explains how exactly animal offerings were to be carried out and why they were done in the first place).
In the New Testament, Christ's blood was not only meant to mark out those who were his, but also expel the presence of sin and ritual uncleanness so as to make the presence of YHVH manifest in the believer's life. Notice how God's wrath isn't poured out on Christ in our stead on this view, but rather His wrath was poured out on those who weren't covered, and the presence of sin and evil were merely removed by that which is pure and blameless (Christ's blood) for the believer.
All this is the difference between expiation and propitiation.

The Content of Paul's Gospel Message

When the New Testament writers talked about “the gospel,” they referred not to the Protestant doctrine of justification sola fide–the proposition that if we will stop trying to win God’s favor and only just believe that God has exchanged our sin for Christ’s perfect righteousness, then in God’s eyes we will have the perfect righteousness required both for salvation and for assuaging our guilty consciences–but rather they referred to the simple but explosive proposition Kyrios Christos, “Christ is Lord.” That is to say, the gospel was, properly speaking, the royal announcement that Jesus of Nazareth was the God of Israel’s promised Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The New Testament writers were not writing in a cultural or linguistic vacuum and their language of euangelion (good news) and euangelizomai would have been understood by their audience in fairly specific ways. Namely, in the Greco-Roman world for which the New Testament authors wrote, euangelion/euangelizomai language typically had to do with either A) the announcement of the accession of a ruler, or B) the announcement of a victory in battle, and would probably have been understood along those lines.
Let’s take the announcements of a new ruler first. The classic example of such a language is the Priene Calendar Inscription, dating to circa 9 BC, which celebrates the rule (and birthday) of Caesar Augustus as follows:
"It was seeming to the Greeks in Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: Since Providence, which has ordered all things of our life and is very much interested in our life, has ordered things in sending Augustus, whom she filled with virtue for the benefit of men, sending him as a savior [soter] both for us and for those after us, him who would end war and order all things, and since Caesar by his appearance [epiphanein] surpassed the hopes of all those who received the good tidings [euangelia], not only those who were benefactors before him, but even the hope among those who will be left afterward, and the birthday of the god [he genethlios tou theou] was for the world the beginning of the good tidings [euangelion] through him; and Asia resolved it in Smyrna."
The association of the term euangelion with the announcement of Augustus’ rule is clear enough and is typical of how this language is used elsewhere. To give another example, Josephus records that at the news of the accession of the new emperor Vespasian (69 AD) “every city kept festival for the good news (euangelia) and offered sacrifices on his behalf.” (The Jewish War, IV.618). Finally, a papyrus dating to ca. 498 AD begins:
"Since I have become aware of the good news (euangeliou) about the proclamation as Caesar (of Gaius Julius Verus Maximus Augustus)…"
This usage occurs also in the Septuagint, the Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures. For instance LXX Isaiah 52:7 reads, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news (euangelizomenou), who publishes peace, who brings good news (euangelizomenos) of salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'" Similarly, LXX Isaiah 40:9-10 reads:

"…Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos) to Sion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos); lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Ioudas, “See your God!” Behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with authority (kyrieias)…."-NETS, Esaias 40:9-10

This consistent close connection between euangelion/euangelizomai language and announcements of rule strongly suggests that many of the initial hearers/readers of the early Christians’ evangelical language would likely have understood that language as the announcement of a new ruler (see, e.g., Acts 17:7), and, unless there is strong NT evidence to the contrary, we should presume that the NT writers probably intended their language to be so understood.
However, the other main way in which euangelion/euangelizomai language was used in the Greco-Roman world was with reference to battle reports, announcements of victory in war. A classic example of this sort of usage can be found in LXX 2 Samuel 18:19ff, where David receives word that his traitorous son, Absalom, has been defeated in battle. Euangelion/euangelizomai is used throughout the passage for the communications from the front.
As already shown throughout this post, the NT speaks of Jesus’s death and resurrection as a great victory over the powers that existed at that time and, most importantly, over death itself. Jesus’ conquest of the principalities and powers was the establishment of his rule and comprehensive authority over heaven and earth, that is, of his Lordship over all things (again, at that time).
This was the content of Paul's gospel message...

Justification, and the "New" Perspective on Paul

The following quotation is from The Gospel Coalition, and I believe it to be a decently accurate summary of the NPP (New Perspective on Paul), despite it being from a source which is in opposition to it:

The New Perspective on Paul, a major scholarly shift that began in the 1980s, argues that the Jewish context of the New Testament has been wrongly understood and that this misunderstand[ing] has led to errors in the traditional-Protestant understanding of justification. According to the New Perspective, the Jewish systems of salvation were not based on works-righteousness but rather on covenantal nomism, the belief that one enters the people of God by grace and stays in through obedience to the covenant. This means that Paul could not have been referring to works-righteousness by his phrase “works of the law”; instead, he was referring to Jewish boundary markers that made clear who was or was not within the people of God. For the New Perspective, this is the issue that Paul opposes in the NT. Thus, justification takes on two aspects for the New Perspective rather than one; initial justification is by faith (grace) and recognizes covenant status (ecclesiology), while final justification is partially by works, albeit works produced by the Spirit.

I believe what's called the "new perspective" is actually rather old, and that the Reformers' view of Paul is what is truly new, being that the Lutheran understanding of Paul is simply not Biblical.
The Reformation perspective understands Paul to be arguing against a legalistic Jewish culture that seeks to earn their salvation through works. However, supporters of the NPP argue that Paul has been misread. We contend he was actually combating Jews who were boasting because they were God's people, the "elect" or the "chosen ones." Their "works," so to speak, were done to show they were God's covenant people and not to earn their salvation.
The key questions involve Paul’s view(s) of the law and the meaning of the controversy in which Paul was engaged. Paul strongly argued that we are “justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law” (Gal. 2:16b). Since the time of Martin Luther, this has been understood as an indictment of legalistic efforts to merit favor before God. Judaism was cast in the role of the medieval "church," and so Paul’s protests became very Lutheran, with traditional-Protestant theology reinforced in all its particulars (along with its limitations) as a result. In hermeneutical terms, then, the historical context of Paul’s debate will answer the questions we have about what exactly the apostle meant by the phrase "works of the law," along with other phrases often used as support by the Reformers for their doctrine of Sola Fide (justification by faith alone), like when Paul mentions "the righteousness of God."
Obviously an in-depth analysis of the Pauline corpus and its place in the context of first-century Judaism would take us far beyond the scope of this brief post. We can, however, quickly survey the topography of Paul’s thought in context, particularly as it has emerged through the efforts of recent scholarship, and note some salient points which may be used as the basis of a refurbished soteriology.
[Note: The more popular scholars associated with the NPP are E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright. Dunn was the first to coin the term "The New Perspective" in a 1983 Manson Memorial Lecture, The New Perspective on Paul and the Law.]
Varying authors since the early 1900's have brought up the charge that Paul was misread by those in the tradition of Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers. Yet, it wasn't until E.P. Sanders' 1977 book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, that scholars began to pay much attention to the issue. In his book, Sanders argues that the Judaism of Paul's day has been wrongly criticized as a religion of "works-salvation" by those in the Protestant tradition.
A fundamental premise in the NPP is that Judaism was actually a religion of grace. Sander's puts it clearly:
"On the point at which many have found the decisive contrast between Paul and Judaism - grace and works - Paul is in agreement with Palestinian Judaism... Salvation is by grace but judgment is according to works'...God saves by grace, but... within the framework established by grace he rewards good deeds and punishes transgression." (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 543)
N.T. Wright adds that, "we have misjudged early Judaism, especially Pharisaism, if we have thought of it as an early version of Pelagianism," (Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 32).
Sanders has coined a now well-known phrase to describe the character of first-century Palestinian Judaism: “covenantal nomism.” The meaning of “covenantal nomism” is that human obedience is not construed as the means of entering into God’s covenant. That cannot be earned; inclusion within the covenant body is by the grace of God. Rather, obedience is the means of maintaining one’s status within the covenant. And with its emphasis on divine grace and forgiveness, Judaism was never a religion of legalism.
If covenantal nomism was operating as the primary category under which Jews understood the Law, then when Jews spoke of obeying commandments, or when they required strict obedience of themselves and fellow Jews, it was because they were "keeping the covenant," rather than out of legalism.
More recently, N.T. Wright has made a significant contribution in his little book, What Saint Paul Really Said. Wright’s focus is the gospel and the doctrine of justification. With incisive clarity he demonstrates that the core of Paul’s gospel was not justification by faith, but the death and resurrection of Christ and his exaltation as Lord. The proclamation of the gospel was the proclamation of Jesus as Lord, the Messiah who fulfilled Israel’s expectations. Romans 1:3-4, not 1:16-17, is the gospel, contrary to traditional thinking. Justification is not the center of Paul’s thought, but an outworking of it:
"[T]he doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’. It is implied by the gospel; when the gospel is proclaimed, people come to faith and so are regarded by God as members of his people. But ‘the gospel’ is not an account of how people get saved. It is, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ….Let us be quite clear. ‘The gospel’ is the announcement of Jesus’ lordship, which works with power to bring people into the family of Abraham, now redefined around Jesus Christ and characterized solely by faith in him. ‘Justification’ is the doctrine which insists that all those who have this faith belong as full members of this family, on this basis and no other." (pp. 132, 133)
Wright brings us to this point by showing what “justification” would have meant in Paul’s Jewish context, bound up as it was in law-court terminology, eschatology, and God’s faithfulness to God’s covenant.
Specifically, Wright explodes the myth that the pre-Christian Saul was a pious, proto-Pelagian moralist seeking to earn his individual passage into heaven. Wright capitalizes on Paul’s autobiographical confessions to paint rather a picture of a zealous Jewish nationalist whose driving concern was to cleanse Israel of Gentiles as well as Jews who had lax attitudes toward the Torah. Running the risk of anachronism, Wright points to a contemporary version of the pre-Christian Saul: Yigal Amir, the zealous Torah-loyal Jew who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for exchanging Israel’s land for peace. Wright writes:
"Jews like Saul of Tarsus were not interested in an abstract, ahistorical system of salvation... They were interested in the salvation which, they believed, the one true God had promised to his people Israel." (pp. 32, 33)
Wright maintains that as a Christian, Paul continued to challenge paganism by taking the moral high ground of the creational monotheist. The doctrine of justification was not what Paul preached to the Gentiles as the main thrust of his gospel message; it was rather “the thing his converts most needed to know in order to be assured that they really were part of God’s people” after they had responded to the gospel message.
Even while taking the gospel to the Gentiles, however, Paul continued to criticize Judaism “from within” even as he had as a zealous Pharisee. But whereas his mission before was to root out those with lax attitudes toward the Torah, now his mission was to demonstrate that God’s covenant faithfulness (righteousness) has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.
At this point Wright carefully documents Paul’s use of the controversial phrase “God’s righteousness” and draws out the implications of his meaning against the background of a Jewish concept of justification. The righteousness of God and the righteousness of the party who is “justified” cannot be confused because the term bears different connotations for the judge than for the plaintiff or defendant. The judge is “righteous” if his or her judgment is fair and impartial; the plaintiff or defendant is “righteous” if the judge rules in his or her favor. Hence:
"If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom. For the judge to be righteous does not mean that the court has found in his favor. For the plaintiff or defendant to be righteous does not mean that he or she has tried the case properly or impartially. To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is simply a category mistake. That is not how the language works." (p. 98)
However, Wright makes the important observation that even with the forensic metaphor, Paul’s theology is not so much about the courtroom as it is about God’s love.
Righteousness is not an impersonal, abstract standard, a measuring-stick or a balancing scale. That was, and still is, a Greek view. Righteousness, Biblically speaking, grows out of covenant relationship. We forgive because we have been forgiven (Matt. 18:21-35); “we love" because God “first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8, 10, Gal 5:14, Jam. 2:8). Paul even looked forward to a day when “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10), and he acknowledged that his clear conscience did not necessarily ensure this verdict (1 Cor. 4:4), but he was confident nevertheless. Paul did in fact testify of his clear conscience: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation [i.e., behavior] in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward” (2 Cor. 1:12). He was aware that he had not yet “attained” (Phil. 3:12-14), that he still struggled with the flesh, yet he was confident of the value of his performance (1 Cor. 9:27). These are hardly the convictions of someone who intends to rest entirely on the merits of an alien righteousness imputed to his or her account.
Wright went on to flesh out the doctrine of justification in Galatians, Philippians, and Romans. The “works of the law” are not proto-Pelagian efforts to earn salvation, but rather “sabbath [keeping], food-laws, circumcision” (p. 132). Considering the controversy in Galatia, Wright writes:
"Despite a long tradition to the contrary, the problem Paul addresses in Galatians is not the question of how precisely someone becomes a Christian, or attains to a relationship with God….The problem he addresses is: should his ex-pagan converts be circumcised or not? Now this question is by no means obviously to do with the questions faced by Augustine and Pelagius, or by Luther and Erasmus. On anyone’s reading, but especially within its first-century context, it has to do quite obviously with the question of how you define the people of God: are they to be defined by the badges of Jewish race, or in some other way? Circumcision is not a ‘moral’ issue; it does not have to do with moral effort, or earning salvation by good deeds. Nor can we simply treat it as a religious ritual, then designate all religious ritual as crypto-Pelagian good works, and so smuggle Pelagius into Galatia as the arch-opponent after all. First-century thought, both Jewish and Christian, simply doesn’t work like that…. [T]he polemic against the Torah in Galatians simply will not work if we ‘translate’ it into polemic either against straightforward self-help moralism or against the more subtle snare of ‘legalism’, as some have suggested. The passages about the law only work — and by ‘work’ I mean they will only make full sense in their contexts, which is what counts in the last analysis — when we take them as references to the Jewish law, the Torah, seen as the national charter of the Jewish race." (pp. 120-122)
The debate about justification, then, “wasn’t so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as about the church.” (p. 119)
To summarize the theology of Paul in his epistles, the apostle mainly spent time arguing to those whom he were sending letters that salvation in Christ was available to all men without distinction. Jews and Gentiles alike may accept the free gift; it was not limited to any one group. Paul was vehement about this, especially in his letter to the Romans. As such, I will finish this post off by summarizing the letter itself, so as to provide Biblical support for the premises of the NPP and for what the scholars I referenced have thus far argued.
After his introduction in the epistle to an already believing and mostly Gentile audience (who would've already been familiar with the gospel proclaimed in verses 3-4), Paul makes a thematic statement in 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” This statement is just one of many key statements littered throughout the book of Romans that give us proper understanding of the point Paul wished to make to the interlocutors of his day, namely, salvation is available to all, whether Jew or Gentile.
In 1:16 Paul sets out a basic theme of his message in the letter to the Romans. All who believed, whether they be Jew or Gentile, were saved by the power of the gospel. The universal nature of salvation was explicitly stated. The gospel saved all without distinction, whether Jew or Greek; salvation was through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Immediately after this thematic declaration, Paul undertakes to show the universal nature of sin and guilt. In 1:18-32 Paul shows how the Gentile is guilty before God. Despite evidence of God and his attributes, which is readily available to all, they have failed to honor YHVH as God and have exchanged His glory for idolatrous worship and self-promotion. As a consequence, God handed them over in judgment (1:18-32). Paul moves to denunciation of those who would judge others while themselves being guilty of the very same offenses (2:1-5) and argues that all will be judged according to their deeds (2:6). This judgment applies to all, namely, Jew and Greek (2:9-10). This section serves as somewhat of a transition in Paul’s argument. He has highlighted the guilt of the Gentiles (1:18ff) and will shortly outline the guilt of the Jew (2:17-24). The universal statement of 2:1-11 sets the stage for Paul’s rebuke of Jewish presumption. It was not possession of the Law which delivered; it was faithful obedience. It is better to have no Law and yet to obey the essence of the Law (2:12-16) than to have the Law and not obey (2:17-3:4). Paul then defends the justice of God’s judgment (3:5-8), which leads to the conclusion that all (Jew and Gentile) are guilty before God (3:9).
Paul argues that it was a mistaken notion to think that salvation was the prerogative of the Jew only. This presumption is wrong for two reasons. First, it leads to the mistaken assumption that only Jews were eligible for this vindication (Paul deals with this misunderstanding in chapter 4 where he demonstrates that Abraham was justified by faith independently of the Law and is therefore the father of all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike). Second, it leads to the equally mistaken conclusion that all who were Jews are guaranteed of vindication. Paul demonstrates how this perspective, which would call God’s integrity into question since Paul was assuming many Jews would not experience this vindication, was misguided. He did this by demonstrating that it was never the case that all physical descendants of Israel (Jacob) were likewise recipients of the promise. In the past (9:6-33) as in the present (at that time; 11:1-10), only a remnant was preserved and only a remnant would experience vindication. Paul also argued that the unbelief of national Israel (the non-remnant) had the purpose of extending the compass of salvation. The unbelief of one group made the universal scope of the gospel possible. This universalism was itself intended to bring about the vindication of the unbelieving group (11:11-16). As a result of faith, all (Jew and Gentile) could be branches of the olive tree (11:17-24). Since faith in Christ was necessary to remain grafted into the tree, no one could boast of his position. All, Jew and Gentile alike, were dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. As a result of God’s mysterious plan, He would bring about the vindication of His people (11:25-27). [Note: It is this author's belief that this vindication occurred around 66-70 AD, with the Parousia of Christ's Church; this author is Full-Preterist in their Eschatology.]

I’m a 16-year-old male, and I still have a backpack filled with things I treasured from my first love relationship. (P.S. I’m really bad at explaining myself and bad with words, so bear with me. Also I’m leaving a lot of things out.) My girlfriend and I were together since the 6th grade and ended things at the beginning of my junior year. I have tried to get rid of this backpack filled with things I treasured, but I just can’t seem to do it.
I hated the way things ended because I felt like I could have done more. I froze in the heat of the moment and was lost for words when she told me she wanted to end our relationship. I just agreed and said, “alright then.” I honestly don’t know why I didn’t try to stop us from splitting up—it just happened so fast. I felt so much regret the following day; I just sat in bed for hours on end.
Two weeks later, I opened up Instagram to see her with another guy—her new boyfriend. This made me feel a mix of emotions. I couldn’t believe she moved on so quickly after so many years together. It made me question if what we had meant anything to her at all and if she really loved me all those years. I blocked her the second I saw her story. I was stunned. I then deleted everything in my camera roll that had anything to do with her and tried forgetting about her. But I still have this backpack filled with our things. After eight whole months, I still have it. What should I do?

Hi. I'm an international student pursuing a master's degree at Unimelb.
I enrolled last February and have already taken two classes. My grade for the first course is P for passing. I don't think about it too much since I viewed it as my 'trial and error' class and tried to view it as an adaptation phase from studying abroad. However, the result for my second course is out, and I'm just 2 points above 50 for passing, which is a close call for failing.
I can't help but think, what if all my grades merely pass and do not improve? I realised this was a negative thought and that I should improve myself, but this is my worry. What do you think of a transcript full of pass (P)? Will it affect the job search in the future? Also, am I that dumb not to even reach at least an H3 or H2B grade? Should I reconsider my coursework?
Thank you.

napakasakit. sobrang sakit. im such a failure i dont know how to face my family and friends.
for context, im a 2nd yr civil engineering student who is also working full time at a bpo company in graveyard shift.
i am the most studious person you’ll ever meet. alam yan ng mga kaklase ko, lalong lalo na ng mga kadorm ko. hindi ako natutulog, magdamag nakaupo sa table at nagsosolve. sometimes even while working, pinagsasabay ko pagsolve sa concerns ng customer while also solving my own fucking problem sets.
i have sacrificed hundreds of sleepless nights para lang makapasok ng maaga kinabukasan. i would always pull an all nighter for my quizzes and exams.
and yet, here i am. still a failure.
yung iba kong subjects na 3 to 5 points na lang para makaabot sa passing grade, hinabol ko sa mga prof ko at nanghingi ng mga pedeng gawin para sa adjustments pero wala eh. hindi na sila nagrereply, tapos yung iba matigas na talaga at di mapakiusapan. hindi na ako nagpilit. kasi alam ko sa sarili ko na hindi naman ako ganon, na hindi ko kailangan magmakaawa. pero bakit wala silang consideration? alam naman nilang working student ako. malate lang ng take sa quiz, zero na. hindi ba pwedeng deductions lang muna?
hiyang hiya ako. sobra. i’m the most vocal and passionate pagdating sa course ko, halos ipagmalaki ko sa lahat kung gaano ko kamahal ang course ko pero heto ako. wala man lang naipasa ni isang subject.
i just want to die.
ps. hindi ako nagfull units this sem, since hindi kaya yung tuition fee financially. ako lang naman gumagawa ng paraan para makabayad ako ng tuition. i only took 6 subjects, major pa lahat (in my uni’s curriculum, second year second sem has a total of 11 subjects, 9 majors and 2 minors- advanced math and PE). so 6 out of 6 subjects, bagsak.

I recently had an argument with my father regarding various issues in our family history and recent events. My parents separated when I was 3 because my father cheated and married another woman and kept my mother in disguise that he is a trueman. My mother raised me on her own until my father financially returned to support my education when I was in the second grade.
Things were beginning to normalize until my mother jokingly asked my father if we could stay with him for a while until we moved to a new city. I (GEN M OUT PUNJAB) have been accepted into the CS Thapar patiala. My father rudely replied that we should stay within our "aukaat" (status).
I was furious at the way he has been speaking to my mother but didn't respond at that moment. However, during an argument on Sunday, he said he no longer takes responsibility for us and that we should do whatever we want. Although I apologized the very next day for the way I spoke but I stand by the facts I presented and have no regrets for saying anything.
Thapar is a prestigious college, which in itself speaks to our capabilities and "Aukaat". Now, I am considering if it is enough to satisfy my ego or if I should take further steps to challenge my father’s inflated ego. Ultimately, I plan to become independent once I start earning, but I feel a small victory now would be beneficial.
I didn't study for the JEE Advanced or the BITS first session. Do you think if I even get into BITS he will improve himself and I will have a ground to say further more? Given this situation, what do you think I should do? Please help me!!!

Myquals- (12th grade) so I completed my 12th in cbse school and I’ll be joining college of commerce soon it has second language compulsory since I didn’t have second language durning my 11-12th plus and I don’t score well in languages prior 12th durning 1st to 10th grade and now my college students offers Sanskrit Hindi will they teach from basics I mean Sanskrit in college? Please reply asap it would be really appreciated thank you.