Hello again to Anthony's post-college sale. These are all new items! We start off with a scarce sycee from Yunnan Province and a more diminutive type (ex. Stephen Album), and two graded, VF 35 Fatman Dollars, including a Weak O type. These were all freshly graded. Another freshly graded PCGS coin is a XF 45 and golden toned Memento Dollar that I submitted raw. The raw coins are a Memento Dollar (AU Toned, old cleaning), a lot of 8 1/4 Yangs, a lustrous AU Yunnan 50 Cents, and a ink chopmarked with 香 HK 10 Cents. We also have two scarce 10 Cash, one of which is a well detailed Yunnan Szechuan 10 Cash--an elusive, two province type! We also have a ex. Daniel K.E. Ching 5 Cash, which is a rare denomination. Kraft envelope is included.
To be transparent, I have been trying to get some more Chinese and Annamnese (Vietnamnese) coins in the near future, so I have to offload some of my stuff to get towards my collecting goals.
Thank you all! I hope you all can enjoy these coins from my personal collection!
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/fjhgRG8
Please Private Message (and not DM) me to order. Also, be sure to put a comment on this post with a "PM" so that I can respond to it before and after the trade is verified.

• In terms of payment, I accept the following: Zelle (Preferred), PPFF (No Notes), Venmo, Cashapp.
• Once you place an order, please provide the following pieces of information for me: Name , Email , Shipping Address , Method of Payment.
• I will then send you an invoice from my email inbox to yours.
• In terms of shipping, I will ship each order with free, USPS Ground Advantage tracked shipping in a padded envelope, unless stated otherwise. For international orders, including Canada and UK, shipping is not included, and I will quote the actual rate via PirateShip. My handling time is 1(aka, the next business day) to, at most, 3 days. I always like to stay in touch with you all via email!

INVENTORY - Guaranteed GENUINE and Two are Certified:
LOTS
Lot 1: Lot of 8 pieces - aEF Korea 1/4 Yangs from 1898 (Kwangmu Year 2)

• Bought from an old collection in bulk. Nice patina, and circulated. Generally crude strikes on these copper nickel issues.
• I have unattributed them to any varieties. Good value for the money! :D
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/fVmbjyx
• Price: 65 40 shipped for the lot.

Lot 2: 1905 China Empire 5 Cash - Ex. Scott Semans ex. Daniel K.E. Ching

• Fine+, rare denomination from 1905 (cyclical date 乙巳) - first year of the TCTK Copper Coin system.
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/9urcw69
• Price: 12 shipped

Lot 3: 1906 10 Cash - Yunnan Szechuan (川滇) - double mintmark representing the two neighboring provinces. Graded XF Cleaned by PCGS. Much details and original color, old cleaning and retoning.

• A very scarce denomination from this one year of issue: 丙午 = 1906 for this 10 cash type. There is also a 20 cash type.
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/YrjGlVb
• PCGS Cert and Trueviews: https://www.pcgs.com/cert/48945705
• Price: 30 shipped

Lot 4: Yunnan Sycee (snail sycee) or yuansi with high purity silver; late qing and early republic （清末民初）. used for daily transactions and even the opium trade!

• A more uncommon sycee type weighing more than a tael (slightly) at 39.3 grams.
• Usual whorls on the top to indicate high silver fineness, aka the ripples. Nice and remaining luster present.
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/ZphQAil
• Price: 70 shipped

Lot 5: Sinkiang Hammered 5 Fen Tanga - RARE YARKAND TYPE - ex. Stephen Album Rare Coins - high silver fineness, nicely toned. Graded PCGS XF Environmental Damage

• A very nice piece and well centered in strike, the ED is usual for these types and this is a nice piece in an as struck condition.
• Guangxu Yinqian Type (guangxu silver coin) and undated, but approximated to be 1878.
• Yarkand or Yarkant Mint. Zarb left and mint name in Arabic to the right, lovely strike.
• Krause YA7.15 and Lin and Ma 665
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/mOWXvWV
• PCGS Cert and Trueviews: https://www.pcgs.com/cert/42761456
• Price: 60 shipped

Lot 6: SMALL and Diminutive Yunnan Sycee (snail sycee) or yuansi with high purity silver; late qing and early republic （清末民初）. used for daily transactions and even the opium trade! This is a 1/4 Tae type at 9.8 grams or so. Much more uncommon and smaller variety.

• ex. Stephen Album Rare Coins Auction 39. Lot 1106.
• Usual whorls on the top to indicate high silver fineness, aka the ripples. Nice and remaining luster present.
• Nice old time collection patina.
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/GErfzos
• Price: 60 shipped

Lot 7: Raw and Circy 1896 Hong Kong 10 Cents with RARE Ink Chopmark 香 = Hong in Hong Kong. A more uncommon ink chop--especially on this minor denomination!

• Grades about VF to low EF, with nice circy patina. Krause KM 6.3.
• Special 香 ink chopmark. Perhaps from a merchant or private stamp.
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/WJFRXFY
• Price: 12 shipped

Lot 8: TWO Pieces of Sinkiang Woodblock Printed and SCARCE Khotan 3 Taels Banknotes - Year 25 , plenty of original color

• Sinkiang Khotan District 3 Taels note (yr. 24) 1935 in the Gregorian calendar.
• As made and in nice condition, from an old American collection. Nice color and ink remaining.
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/QHuWw7g
• Price for the pair: 50 shipped

Lot 9: AU - Lustrous and slight toned Yunnan 50 Cents - early and high fineness 2 circles under pearl variety. A great starter for the Chinese struck silver collection. Minted at the Kunming Mint

• Grades low AU, larger sized type.
• Better condition for a raw coin compared to circulated examples.
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/vTVhJVX
• Price: 30 shipped

Lot 10: AU, TONED and Lustrous 1927 Memento - Old cleaning on obverse - Rare DDO!

• Classic Chinese crown with the bust of Dr. Sun Yat Sen; scarce DDO variety as we see doubling on the circles around the bust.
• Appealing, old cabinet toning, brought 3 or so years ago.
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/BjIHRH6
• Price: 90 shipped

Lot 11: NICELY TONED (golden patina) PCGS XF 45 Memento Dollar Nanking (Nanjing) Mint Variety

• Fresh from grading and graded PCGS XF 45.
• Nice residual and cartwheel luster on both sides, nice details, and interesting planchet dip on the obverse side (not a chopmark!)
• Nice eye appeal compared to other XF 45s.
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/GKkm6At
• PCGS Cert and TrueView: https://www.pcgs.com/cert/49511201
• Price: 140 shipped

Lot 12: NGC XF 45 BN - scarce Empire 20 Cash with 5 Waves under, central Hu Poo (Tientsin Mint) Issue - large head dragon

• Sharply struck 20 cash, a more uncommon denomination compared to a 10 cash.
• 1909 with dated cyclical date of 己酉.
• Problem free, chocolate patina.
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/ndzA4ou
• NGC Certification: https://www.ngccoin.com/certlookup/2874016-006/45/
• Price: 30 shipped

Lot 13: Circy and Problem Free Fatman Dollar - 1914 (Yuan DISCONNECTED) = Tientsin Type. PCGS VF 35

• A classic Yuan Shikai fatman dollar with nice and even circulated patina, problem free with nice details evident, as shown with the wreath side; epaulets are worn, as usual for this circulated piece.
• Freshly graded and sent in raw by me! Hard to come by problem free examples these days!
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/DqX1K33
• PCGS Images and Cert: https://www.pcgs.com/cert/49511199
• Price: 145 Shipped

Lot 14: RARE and ELUSIVE Triangle YUAN + Weak O Fatman Dollar - a variety that is hard to come by. PCGS VF 35

• Seldom seen "Weak O" variety. Nice details remaining and circulated as usual.
• There is the "O" mintmark right at the bottom left of the wreath! It can be seen!
• Straight graded by PCGS; the O is rather weak compared to other strong circlet O types, but this is actually rarer. A transitional type! Not minted, as usual, at the Tientsin Mint.
• Freshly graded by me with the same sub as the XF 45 Memento and the lot above!
• Images: https://imgur.com/a/2IxsCfx
• PCGS Images and Cert: https://www.pcgs.com/cert/49511200
• Price: 185 Shipped

Hello All!
I am new here, and would like some insight from people, who deal with achalasia already, and could give some guidence.
I am 35 years old female, non drinking, non smoking. For about a year I am dealing with seems like some mistery illness, and I cannot figure out the cause. I thought I have asthma, sinusitis, allergies, LPR and you name it.
My most deliberating symptoms are: -mucus in throat shortly after eating, some days more, some days less, it cause coughing and throat clearing -fullness in my chest after meals, feeling like I can't take deep breaths in, chest feels tight in sternum area and feels like lungs have no space to expand, it passes maybe about half an hour after eating, warm tea helps and rest helps to calm it down -with excessive throat clearing and cough, comes feeling like I always have upper respiratory infection, lots of rawness in throat, sensitivity to smells, and strong tastes. Feeling asthmatic. Many times I will keep coughing, feeling like something is there, but it is not providing any relief -difficulty swallowing, sometimes feeling like somethings tickles my throat or food is stuck -regurgitation of foods, many times undigested, feeling of food sitting in my chest -thick mucus in my throat, food getting stuck sometimes as I swallow, and I cannot tolerate any sticky, slimy foods, like yogurts, peanut butter, breads, chocolate etc -tounge feels swollen, raw, coated and I do have sour taste in mouth
I had done so far: -lung function test, and chest xray that was normal, waiting for chest ct -ent scope, saw lots of mucus and dr thought it's mix reflux and allergies, waiting for sinus ct scan -autoimmune panel, came back slightly positive and waiting for reumatologist
Waiting for GI visit in October this year and PH probe November this year. I am currently on Acid Watcher diet and not taking anything for reflux, trying to deal with it with dietary and lifestyle adjustment. I am really hoping to get barium swallow soon, and gastroscopy done in the future.
Could my symptoms be related to achalasia?
Thanks for any tips!

I have a huge craving for sweet shit. Pies. Chocolate. Anything sickly sweet. Fruit’s don’t work. I’m craving raw sugar. Please help me overcome this.

I benefitted a lot from the advice on this subreddit and used a lot of it to guide my approach to M3 year; now that I've had the chance to sit the exam, I wanted to create an exam write-up in the hopes that it will be useful to others. This write-up is lengthy, as I wanted to include advice for any new M3 students about how to maximize 3rd year, as well as some Step 2-specific strategies and advice.
A little about me: I am a non-traditional student (in my 30s) at a mid-tier US MD school. Pre-clinical grades were good (honored 2nd year, 0.5% away from honoring 1st year). Honored every rotation in 3rd year. I am a peer tutor at my medical school and was actively involved in tutoring 1st and 2nd year students throughout my M3 year and dedicated.
I am a big believer in students teaching students and the idea that if we all work together, we all become better students and clinicians. In that spirit, I welcome you to ask me any questions that you have below.

Overview

In general, my advice boils down to:

1. Don't try to use EVERY resource. Choose a few high-quality resources and really know them well.
2. Doing well on Step 2 (and shelf exams, tbh) requires active learning strategies and continually trying to think about what the next step would be. Practice questions are a great way to do this, but challenge yourself to go beyond what each individual question to build a broader knowledge base. That way, you won't only know the answer to that specific question, but also to a whole host of related questions.

General studying tips for 3rd year + dedicated
I am a big believer that the most effective study strategy involves four big components:

1. A question bank (UWorld) - gives you primary exposure to the material and helps to identify where your gaps are.
2. A system for continuously reviewing content - I used Anki (I discuss this more below). You can also use other strategies (note-taking, old school flash cards), but the important thing is that your review strategy needs to be ACTIVE (i.e., not just re-reading your old notes, but actively quizzing yourself and covering up the answers) and it needs to be CONTINUOUS. I did not pause any Anki cards during 3rd year, so by the time I got to dedicated, I had been actively, continuously reviewing content for months.
3. Resource(s) for primary sources - this is where you go when you need to refresh on pathophysiology, look up treatment/diagnostic testing for a disease, or understand the symptoms. I prefer UpToDate for this broadly, and used some additional resources on specific clerkships that I will discuss below.
4. Practice exams - NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms") and NBME Step 2 practice exams; do them timed to practice pacing.

A note on AMBOSS vs UWorld
A lot of people I know use AMBOSS and like it. Some people want an additional bank of questions to study from. I didn't personally use AMBOSS at all during 3rd year, and only used it for Ethics and QI during dedicated (and honestly, it was only marginally useful - may have gotten me 1 or 2 extra points on the real step 2 exam, but not more than that).
I think the smartest way to approach Q-banks is to make sure you have enough time to complete and thoroughly review at least one. For me, UWorld was more than enough to prepare well for each shelf exam and step 2 (honored every rotation). I think that a lot of people who try to use both AMBOSS and UWorld never finish either Q-bank in its entirety, or don't really review the Q-bank adequately. I decided it was a better use of my time and money to review only one but really know it well.
A note on Anki
Anki is a powerful tool that can really help with your long term retention, but it is dangerous if used incorrectly. I suspect that many people who don't find Anki helpful simply don't use it effectively.
The purpose of Anki is spaced repetition. In order for this to work, you have to keep up with reviews and you can't pause cards. I also caution students I tutor to be cautious of relying solely on a premade Anki deck; I used the AnKing deck, as well as this deck and a home-brew deck at my medical school.
During M3 year, I would start each rotation with UWorld from day 1, and as I came across each concept in UWorld, I would do a search through my Anki cards and unpause all the cards that related to that topic (so, for instance, when I got a question about diverculitis, I would then unpause all the diverticulitis cards). I found that doing this ensured that the new Anki cards I was adding were reviews of concepts I had just studied (via UWorld), so I was able to both reinforce the new content via Anki and also ensure that the new Anki cards I was adding were concepts that I was actually familiar with. I recommended this approach over the one that I saw many classmates using (just unpausing all the cards tagged for a clerkship at the start of the clerkship and "raw dogging" them, as my friend put it). It's also a good way to keep your daily new cards (and thus, your reviews) at a manageable number. On a typical day in 3rd year, I added between 50-100 new cards and averaged 250-350 reviews daily. I was nearly always able to complete my reviews while I was at the hospital each day, leaving my home study time free for UWorld.
More on how to effectively use Anki
A note on staying sane and prioritizing high-yield content
As others have said, I think that the best way to do extremely well on Step 2 CK is to approach M3 as a yearlong dedicated period. Doing well on Step 2 is not just about your preparation for the Step 2 exam, but also your learning during each rotation and your preparation for your shelf exams. Even if you're not at all interested in a particular specialty, there is a lot to learn from each rotation that will be valuable to you as a future physician. Additionally, each specialty has its own way of approaching medical decision-making, and paying attention to these patterns of thought can help you to reason through questions on exams, as well as be a better communicator with physicians in each specialty when you become a resident and attending.
As you progress through 3rd year, there are also a few things that I think it's wise to keep in mind:

• Remember that you are a person first and a medical student/doctor second. I put this first because it's the most important. It's hard to learn when your basic needs aren't being met or you're so anxious, stressed, or depressed you can't remember anything. Find something that keeps you grounded and whole and sane and make that a priority. For me, it's distance running. I ran nearly every day of 3rd year and dedicated (often at 3 AM, before rounds). I finished 3 marathons during M3 and dedicated, including running the Boston Marathon 2 weeks before I took step 2. Running relieves anxiety, gives me an excuse to step away from studying, and evens out my mood. In total, I ran over 2500 miles during my M3 year. I don't think I would have done anywhere near as well in M3 without it.
• Get really, really good at preventive care. The US Preventive Services Task Force guidelines are highly tested on all shelf exams and on Step 2, and there really aren't that many of them. Before my family med rotation, I made an Anki deck of the A and B recommendations based on the most recent updates and kept those in rotation through Step 2 (about 150 cards total). If you're at the beginning of M3 year, (or really any point in M3) I would suggest doing this right now. Every time you see a patient in clinic, think about "what screening exams should this patient have". If you get in the habit of always doing this, by the time you get to the exam, those screening questions will be free points (and there are usually a bunch of them).
• Try to approach every patient encounter as though you are the sole physician responsible for that patient's care. Formulate your own plan independently of residents or attendings. Ask questions about all these things in your patient interview, and present the answers to your attending. You will learn more if you push yourself to try to think about management from the beginning of 3rd year rather than relying on plans from your residents.
• Pay attention to sensitivity and specificity of tests. This is becoming a bigger and bigger deal on NBMEs and Step 2. Knowing sensitivity and specificity can help you determine whether a given finding in a question stem is significant or not.
• Look up every imaging test and diagnostic procedure you come across, whether in clinic or on a practice exam. A good rule of thumb for whether you understand a test is "Do I know when this test is appropriate, when it is inappropriate, and could I explain it to a patient?". I had a surgery fellow pimp me on when to order an ERCP vs MRCP; this stuff is important because it prevents unnecessary testing and allows you to get the most "bang for your buck", both in terms of diagnostic accuracy and scoring points on the "next step" questions on exams.
• Pay attention to thresholds for follow-up observation vs treatment. If a patient has a AAA that's 3 cm, you do serial ultrasounds and watch it clinically; if it's 7 cm, you operate. Many, many conditions have similar thresholds, and you should look for the differences in how you manage a condition based on the thresholds. Sometimes this stuff is buried in the UWorld explanations, so when you see it, make a flash card or add it to your review.
• Know the USPSTF screening guidelines like the back of your hand. There aren't that many of them, and it's basically free points on every single shelf exam + step 2. Make a flash card deck with the most updated versions on day 1 and review it throughout 3rd year. Especially high yield on FM + IM, but they appear on every shelf.
• Think about what things a specialty "cares about" when you're rotating on that specialty.
  • OBGYN: gestational age, STI history/screening, social/fam Hx of risk factors for gyn cancers (breast, cervical, ovarian, endometrial).
  • Surgery: is the patient safe to take to surgery (comorbidities, heart failure, coagulopathies, meds, etc)? When is surgery indicated (i.e., do they have to go now, or can they wait)? Antibiotic prophylaxis (who needs it, and what antibiotics)? Post-op complications (the "5 W's", leaks, nearby structures that can be injured)? Normal post-op care/patient safety (DVT prophylaxis, catheter removal, infections, etc).
  • Peds: developmental milestones/normal development/growth curves, rashes (pediatricians love rashes), upper respiratory infections, stuff that gets treated differently in kids (ex. febrile UTI), neonatal hyperbilirubinemia (basically guaranteed to get at least one question on this on any peds exam)
  • IM: Preventive care/screening, vaccines, hypertension, diabetes, heart failure, ACS, liver failure/cirrhosis.
  • FM: IM + Peds + OBGYN, with a heavy focus on preventive screenings
  • Psych: Pay attention to timelines; think of every psych disease as a continuum (i.e., <1 mo = brief psychotic disorder, 1-6 mo = schizophreniform, 6+ = schizophrenia, schizophrenia + mood symptoms = schizophreniform). Find something that makes sense to you for the personality disorders (I personally mapped them all onto Harry Potter characters and now I will never have to re-learn them).
  • Neuro: Differentiating causes of stroke, multiple sclerosis, when to get an MRI (answer: always get an MRI in neuro), different types of dementia

Subject Review

This section is intended for those who are starting or still in the midst of M3 year. If you're already in dedicated, this section may be less useful.
For all rotations, my strategy was generally:

1. Complete the UWorld Shelf exam Q-bank with 1-2 weeks to spare
2. Make/unpause Anki cards as I worked through UWorld
3. Take timed NBME practice shelf exams regularly throughout the rotation(I sat down at the start of each rotation and planned these out every 1-2 weeks so they were evenly spaced throughout the rotation). Get through every practice exam by the end of the rotation. Doing them timed is important because it helps you to practice pacing. One 50-question exam at 90 seconds/ question = 75 minutes total. I also wrote down the diagnosis for each question so that when I reviewed the exam, I could see whether any wrong answers were a problem with making the wrong diagnosis vs knowing the next step. Doing the NBME shelf exams also gives you a good sense of what the "pet concepts" that tend to occur over and over are (for instance, SCFE vs Legg-Calve-Perthes comes up shockingly often)

Order of rotations:
I did my rotations in the order listed below and I really liked this order. I know many people advocate for finishing on Internal Medicine, but I was very glad I started with it, because I think it laid a strong foundation for everything else. As long as you have a solid strategy for reviewing the IM content continuously throughout the year, I think it's a smart choice for the first rotation, especially because basically every other shelf exam will have 5-10 IM questions on it.
Medicine
Resources: UWorld (IM shelf bank + 1/2 of Ambulatory), Case Files Internal Medicine (did ~50% of it), USPSTF A & B guidelines, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms"), Emma Holliday review
Advice: If you have free time 1-2 weeks before starting IM, get through as much of Case Files as you can. It lays a good base and helps you get into the mindset of IM. Once you start the rotation, crank through UWorld. I'd suggest trying to finish the UWorld Q's with 1-2 weeks to spare at the end of the clerkship in which you can review incorrects and/or shore up any weak areas.
Raw Score: 85
Neurology
Resources: UWorld, Case Files: Neurology, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms")
Advice: Case Files Neuro is a little in the weeds, but it will help a lot with some of the more off-the-wall pathologies that aren't really seen in the UWorld bank.
Raw Score: 90
Psychiatry
Resources: UWorld, Case Files: Psych, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms"). A lot of people swear by First Aid for the Psychiatry Clerkship; I didn't use it (but I think Case Files accomplished much the same purpose)
Advice: Pay attention to timelines + enjoy the psychation! This is the lightest rotation for most people. Take it in the summer if at all possible and enjoy the nice weather and free time. If you can, get it somewhere in the middle of 3rd year so you can have a little break.
Raw Score: 94
Family Medicine
Resources: UWorld (FM bank + 1/2 of ambulatory bank), Case Files: Family Med, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms"), USPSTF A & B guidelines, CDC vaccination schedules
Advice: Try to take FM after IM, if at all possible. DO NOT underestimate the family medicine shelf exam. It is the broadest shelf exam, and it's heavily weighted towards prevention, so plan your studying accordingly. Know the USPSTF guidelines and vaccine schedules like the back of your hand (this is at least 25-30% of the shelf exam).
Raw Score: 85
Surgery
Resources: UWorld (Surgery bank + EM bank), de Virgilio's Surgery, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms") for EM and Surgery, American College of Surgeons TEAM (Trauma Evaluation and Management) course book, Emma Holliday review
Advice: The surgery shelf exam focuses heavily on the pre- and post-surgical management of surgical patients, trauma assessment (hence the EM questions/CMS forms above), and knowing the indications for surgery. You will not be asked how to do a surgery on the shelf exam, but you will be expected to know when a surgery is indicated vs when medical management should be used instead (and also what that medical management is). De Virgilio's is a great and under-utilized resource that has a fantastic question bank at the end of each chapter. I would recommend reading at least the GI, vascular, breast, endocrine, and trauma sections (and honestly, as much of it as you have time for).
Raw Score: 85
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Resources: UWorld, Case Files: OBGYN, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms"), ACOG guidelines, UWise questions
Advice: OBGYN is all about timelines (at least, the OB part is). Pay attention to gestational age requirements for diagnosis of various conditions. Know the various labs that are used to diagnose Pre-eclampsia with severe features, and really pay attention to risk factors for the various obstetric complications. As one nurse midwife I worked with put it, "The biggest risk factor anything in L & D is usually a history of the same complication". I didn't really find the UWise Q-bank that useful, but if you have extra time, it's a nice source of extra practice questions, or a good way to reinforce any trouble spots.
Raw Score: 87
Pediatrics
Resources: UWorld, Case Files: Pediatrics, NBME practice shelf exams ("CMS forms"), CDC vaccination schedule, Emma Holliday review
Advice: Know the general trends of pediatric vital signs (what's normal for an adult is abnormal for most pediatric patients and vice versa), pay attention to rashes and dermatology, and review these as often as possible. It's well worth your time to do a good review of all the glycogen storage diseases, inborn errors of metabolism, lysosomal storage diseases, etc that you forgot after Step 1. For this reason, if you can do Peds as your last rotation before Step 2 it's kind of nice...then you only have to re-learn all this stuff once. This stuff is fair game for Step 2 (and I did personally get questions on it on my exam).
Raw Score: 91

Dedicated Study

I completed my first pass of UWorld during my M3 core rotations with an average of 74%. I did reset UWorld and begin a 2nd pass during dedicated, but I found that the questions repeated a lot of content that I knew well, and ultimately decided it wasn't a good use of my time. I only completed about 20% of my 2nd pass of UWorld with an average of 92%.
My main resources during dedicated were NBME practice exams (I did 8-14 timed), UWSAs, and the Free 120. I also listened to some Divine Intervention episodes on my runs and reviewed the Emma Holliday shelf exam reviews (I had previously listened to these during my M3 rotations). Of the podcasts, I found the Divine Intervention Free 120 review the most helpful, and would strongly recommend listening to those episodes after you take the Free 120. It did a lot to help me with some test taking strategies that I used on exam day.
General advice for dedicated:

• Keep on a regular sleep schedule, even on your days off. I went to bed at 10 and got up at 6 every day, because I wanted my schedule to be close to what I would need to do on test day.
• Take days off. I took at least 1/2 a day off every week. I also ran a major marathon 2 weeks before my test day, so that was a very light weekend in terms of studying.
• Keep exercising and doing things you enjoy. For me, this meant running a marathon (something I do regularly). You don't have to go as crazy as I did, but do something to get outside and stay active. It will help you keep the anxiety under control and see the sunlight every so often.
• Take practice exams regularly and spend plenty of time reviewing them. I made a google doc to keep track of incorrects and assigned each one to a category of "why I got it wrong" (i.e., "overthinking", "knowledge gap", "guessed wrong of 2", etc). This helps to identify trends. I found that I have a tendency to overthink questions, so identifying this helped me to address this weakness and gave me confidence to go with my gut instinct on the exam.
• Don't be afraid to adjust your study plan during dedicated. I started a 2nd pass of UWorld, but after about 2 weeks of dedicated, I felt like I wasn't really getting anything additional out of it and I was remembering too many of the questions from my 1st pass, so I just stopped using it. I spent that time on other resources instead (more practice exams). Take the time to really analyze which activities are actually helping your learning. Don't just do something because that's what everyone else is doing during their dedicated.
• Keep up with your review strategy. For me, this was Anki. I spent 2-4 hours every morning during dedicated doing Anki. At times, I worried that this was too much time on Anki, but part of what makes Step 2 (and all USMLE exams) challenging is the sheer breadth of content. The best way to prep for this is to keep consistent with your review strategy.
• If there's a concept you dread seeing in a question stem, STOP, do not pass Go, do not collect $20. Take a second to go to a primary source (UpToDate, a textbook) and review that content. Make some flash cards and review it regularly.
• Practice your timing. I came up with my exam day break strategy at the start of my dedicated, and every time I took a practice exam, I practiced my break strategy (at least, the first 5 blocks of my break strategy). This made it very easy for me to execute on test day because I was already used to doing 5 blocks in a row exactly this way. I took my lunch break after block 5 instead of block 4 (because I liked the psychological factor of knowing the exam was more than halfway done). Coming back for 3 more was no problem on test day.

My practice exam scores:
CCSE: 254 (my school requires this, and it was given a few days after the final shelf exam, right at the start of my dedicated period)
NBME 9 (30 days out) 269
NBME 10 (21 days out) 268
NBME 11 (18 days out) 262
NBME 12 (15 days out) 251
NBME 13 (7 days out) 264
NBME 14 (2 days out) 264
UWSA 1 (25 days out) 254
UWSA 2 (9 days out) 268
UWSA 3 (5 days out) 266
New Free 120 (3 days out) 85%
Predicted score: 265

The Day Before

Just take a break, for the love of all that is good. I went for a run, watched some old TV, read for fun, had a nice pasta dinner, and tried to go to bed early. Laid out everything I needed (lucky t-shirt, snacks, testing permit, ID, keys, etc).
Of course, I ended up tossing and turning most of the night and slept very poorly. When I woke up, I considered trying to postpone my test, but ultimately I decided I just wanted it over and done with and I wasn't willing to wait any longer. My point here is that even if you have anxiety and/or a single bad night of sleep before the exam, you can still do very well if you've done the work. As we say in the marathon world, trust your training.

The Test

Got to the testing center 45 minutes early. Made sure the last thing I did before going through security was to take a bathroom break. Brought plenty of snacks, headache medication, chocolate, and a healthy and delicious lunch (I think there's some psychological power in knowing you have a delicious lunch awaiting you).
During the exam, I took a break of at least 5 min after every block. Personally, I found the mental break was extremely helpful. On the whole, I found the exam to be quite reasonable.
Step 2 CK: 277
My last piece of advice will be that I think doing well throughout third year is the best thing you can do. If you've had a break after 3rd year or you are an IMG or someone coming from a non-traditional program, doing a thorough content review with the CMS forms before starting Step 2 specific practice exams is a good idea.
Ultimately, I think the most important things are:
1.) Choosing a FEW, QUALITY resources to review
2.) Continuing your ACTIVE, CONTINUOUS review strategy
3.) Keeping a consistent schedule with time for sleep, healthy eating, exercise, and something you find fun (ideally something other than TV).
4.) Staying off Reddit. Really, I mean it. Especially during dedicated, it's just a black hole of anxiety and angst and you should avoid it at all costs. Come back after you get your amazing scores and pay it forward to others.

Hello, I'm really hoping to get some help on eating healthier and having a more varied diet.
For some context, I'm 24 and have always been extremely picky. I suspect these sensory issues with food come from undiagnosed autism. I'm very happy to eat the exact same thing every day, mainly chips and chicken nuggets, and I find a lot of comfort in foods I view as "safe". I just feel like I'm gonna get ill if I don't change my eating habits. My pickiness was handled really poorly by my parents and this has caused a lot of anxiety with trying new foods on top of the pickiness. The thought of trying new foods makes me well up with tears sometimes because I dread it so much and it's a huge area of stress for me at times.
I'd really appreciate any recipe suggestions that are healthier versions of what I like, or ways to totally hide vegetables in them, or totally new things I dont mention in the info below.
Things I generally like: -Breaded or battered chicken/turkey/fish like cod -Potatoes (baked, roast, salted/original crisps, chips, hash browns) -White and brown bread, wraps -Fruits (mainly apples or grapes, I struggle with the inconsistency of fruits but I like most blended up fruits in smoothies and juices) -strawberry yogurts -sausages, plain cuts of meat, bacon -some brands of chicken instant noodles but i can be picky with them -im pretty ok with sweet things like chocolate and dessert and ice cream but I'm not looking to expand my palate with that stuff - plain ham sandwiches
Things I dislike -anything liquidy or "wet" so no sauces, dips, soups, gravy, dressing, spreads, butter. I really hate the texture of this stuff and find the flavour really intense most of the time -vegetables. I find them really bitter, even things like raw carrots that people claim to be sweet have a weird zingy taste to me. I can just about tolerate a thin layer of baby spinach if I hide it in a plain chicken wrap. I'd love a way to hide more veggies in things -pasta, I don't like the texture -cheese, I don't like the texture or smell -tomatos or tomato based, bad taste and smell -garlic, bad taste and smell -spicy stuff -rice. Stange smell and texture and I find it to be quite strongly flavoured even when people tell me it's just plain rice
Any questions or suggestions welcome! I might also be interested in seeking some professional guidance in the future for this so any stories or tips around that would be appreciated too, or suggestions of better places to post this. Thanks :)

WARNING! NSFW AND LONG POST AHEAD!
So yesterday sinamahan niya ako kunin yung blood test and xray results ko then nagpa follow-up narin ako. While waiting for my turn, he was asking if he can go with me inside. Medyo personal kase pag ganon pero wth crush ko naman siya so go lang pumayag na ako. While waiting, he's asking if when was the last time na nakapag HIV test ako. I told him naman na 2 months ago na then i asked him when was his last. Then he told me na never pa raw siya nakapag try mag test. I know naman when was his last but i asked if after the hiwalayan, meron ka pa bang encounter? He said meron daw 2 sa Canada and 1 here lang daw. I said "Weh? Di nga? 1 lang dito? Ooows?" He told me na oo daw. He wouldn't lie naman since he trusts me naman. So siyempre i believe him naman. Then i offered na magpatest kami since may testing clinic for free na malapit lang sa mall then pumayag naman siya.
So tinawag na nga ako ni doc and negative naman yung results pero nanotice niya na namumutla nga ako then heto nanaman ang extended LOA for 7 days and another tests nanaman po tayo! Then i complained about my lower back na sumasakit pag nakaupo or tumatayo then another xray nanaman tayoooooo! So another blood work and xray. Bilang andun naman na kami so ginawa narin namin yung tests and xray. Mahirap akong hanapan ng ugat sa parehong arms. He noticed na naka pikit ako then he started laughing kase takot daw ako sa needle. Then natawa nalang din yung nurse then i said "okay na? Masaya na kayo? Pwede na ba tapusin to? Baka lang naman noh at gutom na ako!" Hala tawa parin sila. Itong si ate nurse iba rin eh. Then in fairness nagawa naman ni ate sa unang try lang niya. Then, after naman nag xray na ako pero siyempre nag hintay nalang siya sa labas.
After namin sa clinic, nagpa HIV test na kami and i saw him na kinakabahan siya so ito na nga yung chance na makaganti ako then i laughed. He was asking why then i told him na takot na takot siya. Then he said "aah! Gumaganti siya!" Tinulak ba naman ako. Kaloka! So siyempre bilang ganti is tinulak ko rin siya pero medyo nanghihina na ako nun. Nasa clinic na kami then they gave us the form then the receptionist asked if mag jowa raw kami. He looked at me then said "hindi noh! Barkada ko yan!" Then si ate mong receptionist said aaah! Sige po then whispered "friend zoned?" Siyempre narinig ko yun noh! Sabi ko "sobraaa! Narinig ko yun ha! Yes magbarkada naman kase kami! Kaloka ka!" Natawa nalang si ate receptionist then said "sorry na! Char char lang!" Natawa naman tong si crush eh. Then pinalo ko siya sa braso then sabi ko "pwede ka namanag lie paminsan minsan lang! Char!' then he told me na adik daw ako. So he was called first then ako naman next. Thank God at negative naman pareho so there.
Nagpasama siya sa Rob Ermita para imeet yung college best friend niya para iabot yung pasalubong. Then tumawag yung cousin ko from the US and was asking if magkasama ba raw kami. So nag video call kami then kwentuhan. In fairness mag papadala yung cousin ko so nag request ako na Cadbury nalang mga 20pcs na malalaki. Nakipag tawaran pa 10 lang daw. Kaysa maging hangin lang pumayag na ako. Sayang naman din kase. Haha! After the call, he told me na sobrang fave ko nga yung Cadbury. I said yes naman to him. Then he asked if aside from Cadbury ano pa ba yung gusto ko. Then i jokingly said "ikaw!" Then we laughed then i told him na Hershey's w/o nuts and all. Then he told me na to open the glovebox then may chocolate dun na Hershey's. Sabi ko later nalang after ng lakad namin. Then he asked if kung ano ba raw meron sa dick at gustong gusto ng mga bex? I answered "parang straight men lang din na hayok na hayok sa keps, diba? Same explanation lang naman yun." Then he said "eh meron ka naman rin eh." Then i answered "ano to? Self suck? Acrobat mode kami pag nafeel na namin? Ganon?! Kayo? Bat di kayo magpagawa ng keps sa ilalim ng balls niyo para self lick and fuck na ang peg niyo?" Then he laughed so hard then i said "yung thrill nalang na you're doing it with a stranger diba? Like you're wondering if magaling ba yung person na yun sa bed? Or what does his dick or keps looks like? Mataba or mahaba ba yan if dick yan or if pag keps, malu ba si ate or meshikip pa? (Then natawa siya) Diba? Maganda or gwapo, maganda yung katawan, or sakto lang yan, if you're sexually attracted to them, aayan mo yan. Diba? Unless mas prefer mo nalang ngayon ang porn at ang right hand mo? Or left handed ka ba?" He answered right hand daw ginagamit niya. Then he told me na may point naman daw ako. Then he asked if may experience na ba raw ako sa straight guy. I answered naman yes to him kaso may bayad nga lang. Then he asked about a straight guy had an experience with the same, macoconsider na ba as gay yun? I answered na "IMO, if you're there for the experience lang, then no. Straight ka parin. Pero pag hinahanap mo na and it became a thing, then pwedeng curious straight ka na. Pero if you enjoy both sa male and female, you're considered as Bi. Pero pag nawala na sa system mo yung attraction mo sa females, then pwedeng gay ka na." Then he agreed naman. Then i asked him na was there a time na he wants to try it ba? He told me na when he was in Canada pa raw that time. Yun yung sa coworker niya na British. They're talking about keps and sex position and gay sex din daw pero he knew naman na his coworker is gay. Pero dumating din daw sa point that his coworker wasoffering him an experience and was teasing him daw then told him na "if you change your mind, you know where to find me." And it even came to a point na naalala niya yung convo nila regarding sex and then may one time na muntik na raw niyang imessage yung guy snd buti nalang daw tumawag yung ex wife niya. So i asked na may chance pala! Then he laughed and told me na it's a good thing na it didn't happen kase he learned that his coworker has a partner and ayaw naman daw niyang makasira ng relationship and all. And he said na it was a sign na hindi talaga for him. Like there's something that stopped me from pursuing it. Then i asked if inaya ko siya for the sake of experience lang, will you agree? Then he told me na I don't want to do it with you kase you're close to me and to my family. He doesn't want to have that awkward situation happening between us. As much as possible, he's protecting what we have right now. And if ever he wants to have that experience, then he will look for someone na hindi niya kilala. And at that he can easily forget it if ever. Pero wala naman daw siyang plan talaga na to have that kind of experience at all. He will let me know PAG dumating na raw yung time na yun. I hugged and thanked him kase for the kind thoughts and all. I answered na "tbh I'm happy kase nandun yung level of respect na binibigay mo sakin. And i would do that naman din to you. While hugging him and naka rest yung head ko sa shoulder niya, nirest din niya yung head niya on top of my head. like OMG guys kinilig ako ng malala dun. Then i jokingly said na so pwede na ba tayong mag tawagan ng babe? Then we laughed then told me na "ikaw babe in the city!" Grabe diba? I said "sobra kaaaa!" Then he laughed and grabbed me para irest yung ulo ko again sa shoulders niya.tigas ng shoulder eh naumpog ako eh. Napa aray nalang ako.
So nasa Rob Ermita na nga kami then i asked if pwedeng sa Jollibee nalang imeet para makaorder naman ako ng fam pan ko na spag. Pumayag naman siya. Then dumating na nga itong si best friend niya then nag kwentuhan sila. Nag coffee pa kami then the guy left na. Then he asked if gusto ko pa ba raw pumunta somewhere then sabi ko sa Ayala Malls pwede naman. Then nag Glorietta nga kami then na bored siya then nag MOA nalang kami. Sa Seaside nag lalakad lang kami then he asked if i have plans ba na to get married? Sabi ko yes pag legal na ang gay marriage sa pinas. Or pwedeng gusto ko nalang magka anak nalang then mag focus nalang sa anak ko. i asked him if may plan ba siya na ikasal again then he said gusto niya munang magpatest kung siya ba yung may problem or what. Then i offered na samahan ko siya if ever then he said yes naman. Then i asked kung kelan ba niya plan na pumunta ng Canada then sabi niya next month lang pero baka di rin daw siya mag tagal dun like 2 months or less balik narin daw siya dito. He's hoping na sana walang problem sa kanya para if ever magka anak pa siya. Then sabi ko don't worry! Ipray natin yan kay God and iclaim natin na walang problem! Healthy ka! Sing healthy ni junjun mo! Then namula siya then sinakal ba naman ako tapos tawa ng malakas then sira ulo daw ako then sabay akbay. Naubo nalang ako eh. Jusko yung mga tao sa paligid namin eh. Haha! Past 7pm na and mejo nagutom ako so nag aya ako ng mag mang inasal muna then nag aya siyang mag world chicken nalang daw. Sabi ko sayang yung extra rice kase pero pumayag nalang ako. Tawa nanaman siya. After namin mag dinner nag punta na kami sa parking then while walking, tumama yung kamay ko sa dick niya then napasorry naman ako. Then he said "ikaw ha! Pa simple ka diyan!" I said nooo hindi ko naman sinasadya yun grabe ka! Then he was teasing me na then he grabbed my right hand then kunwari papahawak niya uli then i was shocked and namula ako ng todo nun! Then he hugged me then said joke lang. Nasa car na kami then tahimik lang ako nun the he was nudging me and was asking if I'm okay lang ba raw then sumagot naman ako na okay lang. Then he grabbed my head papunta dun sa shoulder niya then he told me na alam naman daw niya na hindi ko sinasadya yun kase sinadya daw niya talaga yun just to get my reaction. Then i stared at him then told him na "talaga ba? So? Sinadya mo pala at natakot naman ako bigla! Jinoke mo pa na papahawak mo uli pero hindi! So? Tinease mo lang ako? Ganon? For that ipahawak mo sakin yan!" Then he was like "grabe! At least i know na hindi mo gagawin sakin yun and i feel safe with you naman! Pero sige one time big time lang pero walang awkwardan to ha?" I asked if totoo ba or joke nanaman niya. Then he said joke lang. I swear to God sinabunutan ko talaga siya. Tawa lang talaga siya ng tawa! Sarap ko raw asarin. So nasa bahay na kami then kinuha niya sa glovebox yung Hershey's chocolate then kumuha pa siya ng Cadbury sa loob then he told me na he's having a good time pag magkasama kami. Wag daw ako mapikon sa kanya kase ganyan siya sa mga close niya sa kanya. He hugged and thanked me for being there and making him comfortable since he's far from his family. I told him naman na punta lang siya sa bahay anytime if he's bored and he's a family naman to us always. Then i jokingly said na may utang pa siya sakin na hawak then he pinched my nose and cheeks then laughed. Hinatid na niya ako sa bahay then yun.
Another day, another experience with crush. Basta ineenjoy ko yung Hershey's ngayon. Bukas na yung Cadbury. Kelangan ko talaga itago yun or else mauunahan nanaman ako ni mommy. Hmp!

Bundle deals available! There are mostly samples, but there are some full-sizes as well. I priced to sell, but am open to reasonable offers. More details are on my spreadsheet. New items have been added recently.

• Most perfumes were received direct from the original store. If you want me to double-check, just let me know!
• All perfumes are kept in a cool, dark place. I live in a non-smoking and pet-free house.
• Payment via PayPal G&S. I will send an invoice. Prices are in USD.
• If buying multiple items that aren't already bundled, make me a reasonable offer for a discount :)
• I will ship within 7 days of payment, though I am often much quicker and will ship same/next day!
• Shipping is $13 tracked to Canada unless you're only getting a few samples, in which case it's $3 without tracking. Shipping to the US is typically around $13 tracked (I will provide a quote based on zip code).
• If purchasing >$50, I'll offer a 50% discount on shipping. If >$125, shipping will be free regardless of location!
• I'm mostly looking to sell, but will consider swaps for scents listed on my ISO tab. However, I'm looking to get multiple items (at least three) from one seller.

Fantome:

• Ivan the Fool: Golden figs, oakmoss, Siberian fir, well-worn Russian leather, cedar, warm wolf fur, juniper berries, sparkling bergamot
  
• Vasilia (FS): Clover honey, neroli, rich tonka, chamomile, dry hay, a flower crown of marigolds & sunflowers
  

Stereoplasm:

• Clemency (2 samples are available): Myrrh, clementine teak, thyme, photographic fixer, tobacco, suede
  
• Disco Stardust (both a FS and sample are available): Winter Mai Tais, roll-on lip gloss, expensive sunglasses, tanning bed oil and new car smell
  
• Excitation: Frothed Irish cream with rye whiskey, evaporated milk, wild honey and chocolate covered coffee beans
  
• Flowers in the Rain: Warm rain, carnation corsage, pink musk and passion fruit
  
• Gone Gnome: Top notes of cilantro and key lime rooted in fresh garden basil, english cucumber and melon blossom
  
• Kindling: Sweet jasmine incense, sunset musk, fresh sativa and strawberry wine
  
• Opaline: Iridescent and heavy stones of opalized amber, birds of paradise, frozen yucca and lacquered teak
  
• Perdotmint (both a FS and sample are available): Gems of concorde pear, crushed spearmint, iced green tea and classic jade accord
  
• Reverie: Frozen pollen, prickly gooseberry vine, raw cashmere wool and midnight blooming primrose
  
• Rickey: Old Tom Gin and muddled cilantro impress upon star wedges of Mary Ellen Sweet Lime in bubbly soda
  
• The Presents: A jar of homemade apricot jam, the worn pages of a favourite book, a golden yellow beeswax candle, a soft cashmere scarf to keep you cozy all year long.
  
• Toasted Matchimellow (FS): Bright green ice cream baked inside marshmallow meringue (usually found during summer months in cafe midi)
  
• Yellownog: Intoxicating bourbon-vanilla, cigar-smoked cinnamon, clementine stars, shredded coconut and Chantilly cream
  

CocoaPink:

• Black Voodoo: Rich amber resins, spiritueuse double vanilla, butterscotch, bourbon vanilla, hot butter rum & coconut crème
  
• Fear of Ghosts: Glowing marshmallow orbs and smoky vanilla spectral mists swirl aimlessly around an old bonfire in the Crisp October night air – Fresh vanilla puffed marshmallows, toasted marshmallows, hints of bonfire smoke among scattered sharp grains of white rice
  
• Full Moon: Blackberry, Coconut Milk, Marshmallows, White Chocolate
  
• Gooey Caramel: Real, old fashioned caramel, the gooey, salty kind made with real butter
  
• Handbook for the Recently Deceased: Wedding cake accord; sticky strawberries and raspberries; a shock of green melon and vibrant lime; an electric hint of mint and cilantro; grave soil; and a puff of smoke
  
• Pumpkin Kiss: Pumpkin flesh, soft bourbon vanilla, white and brown sugars kissed softly with pure cocoa absolute
  
• Warm Mittens: This fragrance evokes the memory of sitting around a campfire, holding a steamy mug of hot cocoa with marshmallows while wearing the woolliest, warmest pair of mittens.
  
• You'll Never Grow Old: The irresistible mingling of cotton candy, waffle cones, caramel popcorn, and candy apple is stalked by the tang of an oncoming storm, sea salt, freshly-dug dirt, and a primal, seductive musk
  

Possets:

• Mrs. Rabbit's Carrot Cake (FS): The most moist and vanilla drenched melting cake shot through with sugar encrusted rum kissed currents and golden raisins and crowned with the richest butter filled sour cream and ricotta frosting and trimmed with tiny spun sugar carrots, and grass
  
• Silver Narcissus: A stunning fragrance that combines the luxurious Possets' Silver Base with the iconic Narcissus flower, evoking the essence of a warm and vibrant spring morning
  
• Solis Anima: Blood Orange, Lychee Tea, Screwpine Flower, Tamarind, Cucumber, and Ginger, Tomato, Vetiver, Kadamba Flowers, and Sandalwood
  

Pulp Fragrances:

• An Accidental Interloper: Green tea, clary sage, rose geranium, evergreen boughs, white patchouli, vetiver and sweet amber musk
  
• Embrace: A kindly kitchen witch invites you in from the cold, feeds you pumpkin shortbread with butter, apricot preserves, and brown sugar & then sends you safely on your way.
  
• The Phantom Room: Cherry tobacco, honeyed almonds, red currants, cocoa butter, & vanilla balsam.
  
• Women In Dresses Running From Houses 2021: This year's version is smokier and sweeter: Caramellized sugar, a roaring bonfire, heliotrope, aged patchouli, and a hint of violet
  

Nui Cobalt:

• Hell Freezes Over: Decadent devil’s food cake, still warm from the oven, fluffy marshmallow frosting and the lightest dusting of crushed candy cane
  
• Little Brown Rabbit: Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against fluffy marshmallow, cottonflower, pink pepper, and a trace of carrot seed.
  
• Mendacity: Horchata: Classic horchata made from jasmine rice, demerara sugar, and true Ceylon cinnamon.
  
• Roll Initiative: Egyptian cotton, pale driftwood, white pepper, green cardamom, and a slender wisp of copal smoke.
  

Arcana Craves:

• Blueberries Crave Sunshine: Lemonade, watermelon, lime zest, golden gardenia, pearl musk, tiny blueberries, Black Dragon tea leaf, and blood red cedar

Sucreabeille:

• Alembic (FS): Sweet pumpkin souffle dotted with marshmallows and drizzled with buttery maple syrup. Tuberose wafts through the open front door

Arcana Wildcraft

• Witches Cavort with Cupcakes (FS): Pumpkin spice cupcakes are smothered in gobs of cream cheese frosting

Hexennacht

• I ♥ the 80’s: A Lisa Frank-esque powerhouse: tuberose, orange blossom, white amber, bubblegum, suntan oil, Aquanet hairspray, gummy worms, & fruit-scented erasers

Andromeda's Curse

• Strength: Coffee, Marshmallow, Milk Chocolate, Coumarin, Brown Sugar, Whipped Vanilla Frosting
  
• The Call of the Void: French Lavender, Nag Champa, Egyptian Amber, Sandalwood, Cedarwood, and Vanilla
  

Black Hearted Tart

• Autumn Sweater: Warm cedar, sweet vanilla musk, fallen leaves, crunchy acorns, pine cones, nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon
  
• Electric Feel: Sparkling lime, lychee fruit, rose, melon, grape, citrus glazed bundt cake, golden amber and sweet musk.
  
• Fade Into You: Bergamot, orange, lime, lemon, white and chocolate orchids, cocoa butter, sandalwood, and ambergris.
  
• Girlfriend In A Coma: Herbaceous blend of lavender leaves, flowers, vanilla musk, tonka bean, cedar, and sandalwood.
  
• Glory Box: Deep purple violets, brown sugar, juicy plum, fresh ozone, lily, heliotrope, dark musk, saffron, tonka bean and amber.
  
• Head Over Heels: Fresh apple, apricots, plum, citrus, pink magnolia, heliotrope, vanilla orchid, honeyed amber, marzipan, and sandalwood.
  
• Heart Shaped Box: Chocolate truffles made with cocoa powder, sweet cream, and a hint of vanilla bean.
  
• Honeybee: Buttery toffee, swirls of honey, and warm vanilla are brightened up with cheery bergamot and tart Brazilian orange.
  
• Melt With You: Scented in cocoa butter, raw honey, and chocolate notes.
  
• My Velouria: Red rose, peony, violet, amber, white musk, sandalwood, and woodsy cedar.
  
• Only In Dreams: White gardenia, calla lily petals, fluffy marshmallow clouds, and vanilla orchid musk.
  
• Piece Of My Heart: Lemony floral magnolia blossoms, waxy green tree leaves, sugar cane, cardamom pink pepper, vanilla bean, sandalwood and bitter almond.
  
• Pink Moon: Sun ripened raspberries, honeysuckles, pulps of juicy oranges, farm fresh peaches, and sugared pink grapefruit.
  

Poesie

• Nectar: These golden trumpet-shaped blossoms herald the arrival of summer. Nectar is the sweet scent of honeysuckle blossoms — honeyed, intoxicating, irresistible

Astrid

• Ensoleille: Orange blossom, bamboo, vanilla musk, lemon, sugar, palo santo, and litsea
  
• Whisper: Cherry blossom, a pair of patchoulis, sugar, and vanilla
  

Alkemia

• Vanille Armour (FS): Vanilla Infused with Warm Spices

Link again: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19URt2wyxl2xQd8XN2CPKzqBv0ZANl65yUTx9Gx_u0a4/edit?usp=drive_link
Thanks for checking out my destash!

I started an ice cream company where I take American classics and innovate them with flavors of different cultures. The cookies n cream is especially difficult because it’s more of a cookie dough, but people say it tastes like Oreos. Even though the texture is different can I still call it cookies and cream? I need to hear your thoughts on the names of the other flavors too!
Flavors: Chocolate Marble- black cocoa, black sesame, Madagascar vanilla ice cream
Honey Morning Bun- cardamom, masala chai, raw honey ice cream
Spiced Chocolate- cinnamon, piloncillo, Mexican chocolate
Three Milk Cake- whipped cream, dulce de leche, sweet cream
Prim Rose- rose and saffron
Pistachio H. Butter Cup- Brontë pistachios and sesame

Protein and Calorie dense prep on a restricted diet
Hey everyone, coming to this community hoping for some good ideas on some easy/healthy but somewhat dense meals that I can incorporate.
The restrictions: -I generally avoid gluten and dairy on a daily basis. I am not severely allergic, indeed I haven’t even been diagnosed with anything. That being said, I have personally noted a clear correlation over the past several years of being fatigued and experiencing poor digestion after consuming food with these ingredients. I don’t know why and I hate it, but that’s how it is.
-I try to eat about 200g protein a day. This is a bit over the scientifically backed recommendation for my bodyweight (~215lbs) but I struggle enough with gaining muscle that every extra bit is worth it.
-The primary reason I meal prep is to save myself time. I try to have all of my meals/methods as efficient as possible.
What I’m currently doing: -Ground beef and Banza pasta in the AM. This is the meal I most want ideas for, because it’s such a voluminous meal I struggle when I’m pressed for time to put it all down.
-Chicken thigh (I air fry this daily since I haven’t felt like marinating lately) with rice, roasted veggies and beans or potatoes
-Smoothie with PB, fruits, veggies, honey, almond milk
-Lately supplemented days I might miss a meal with chocolate egg whites
-Snack on vegan cookie dough, gf Oreos, tortilla chips w/ meals, etc when I’m not worried about calories
(Rough quantity estimates for every 4 days: 3lbs ground beef, 6lbs chicken thigh, 16oz raw Banza, 8oz dry rice, 3lbs potatoes, 4 bananas, 4tbsp pb, 4 smoothie packs, 2 cups almond milk, 3lb frozen veg, some other assorted ingredients)
I don’t really mind eating the same thing day in/day out for months, I’m just looking for some ideas to make things easier prep-wise that are relatively tasty, and don’t take me 30 minutes to sit down and eat a big bowl of.
Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone, coming to this community hoping for some good ideas on some easy/healthy but somewhat dense meals that I can incorporate.
The restrictions: -I generally avoid gluten and dairy on a daily basis. I am not severely allergic, indeed I haven’t even been diagnosed with anything. That being said, I have personally noted a clear correlation over the past several years of being fatigued and experiencing poor digestion after consuming food with these ingredients. I don’t know why and I hate it, but that’s how it is. -I try to eat about 200g protein a day. This is a bit over the scientifically backed recommendation for my bodyweight (~215lbs) but I struggle enough with gaining muscle that every extra bit is worth it. -The primary reason I meal prep is to save myself time. I try to have all of my meals/methods as efficient as possible.
What I’m currently doing: -Ground beef and Banza pasta in the AM. This is the meal I most want ideas for, because it’s such a voluminous meal I struggle when I’m pressed for time to put it all down. -Chicken thigh (I air fry this daily since I haven’t felt like marinating lately) with rice, roasted veggies and beans or potatoes -Smoothie with PB, fruits, veggies, honey, almond milk -Lately supplemented days I might miss a meal with chocolate egg whites -Snack on vegan cookie dough, gf Oreos, tortilla chips w/ meals, etc when I’m not worried about calories (Rough quantity estimates for every 4 days: 3lbs ground beef, 6lbs chicken thigh, 16oz raw Banza, 8oz dry rice, 3lbs potatoes, 4 bananas, 4tbsp pb, 4 smoothie packs, 2 cups almond milk, 3lb frozen veg, some other assorted ingredients)
I don’t really mind eating the same thing day in/day out for months, I’m just looking for some ideas to make things easier prep-wise that are relatively tasty, and don’t take me 30 minutes to sit down and eat a big bowl of.
Thanks in advance!

I've eaten and enjoyed all parts of the dandelion plant except the seeds, as I've never bothered trying them.
Roots: they can be cleaned, chopped, and roasted, and used as a non-caffeinated coffee drink. In my experience the kitchen smells like chocolate for some reason during the roasting process. Dandelion root is very similar to chicory, used in French creole coffee. Roast for 20 minutes or so, up to you. Longer roasts lead to a more coffee-like drink. Very lightly roasted roots produce a "barley tea" type drink. Both are good. Just put the roasted roots in a mug and add boiling/hot water as you would for tea.
Leaves: they are horrifically bitter but most of the bitterness can be leached out with some salt. Get a large bowl, a pound of leaves (about half a kg) and a tablespoon of salt. Knead the salt into the leaves and leave them in the bowl for 5-10 minutes. Wash the salt and bitterness away 3 times with some water, squeezing the leaves each time. Chop and cook with onion, add cooked diced beets and ground pork and any sauces you want, and serve over rice. At this point there's still a slight bitterness but it's an enjoyable one and no worse than many green leafy veggies. Great dish.
Flowers: you can just pop one off and eat raw. The bitterness varies but it's fun to do once in a while, or toss a couple in a salad. Some people make mead with the flowers but I've never done that.
Hollow seed stems: hold them at the bottom near the soil level between two fingers, working your way up, feeling for tenderness. Harvest the tender tops of the stems and remove/exclude the seed bits, wash, cut into bite-size lengths, boil, remove from water. Add butter and crushed+diced garlic to skillet and briefly cook, then add the dandelion, cook a few minutes longer, stirring. Add a spoon of black bean sauce from an Asian grocery store, mix in, cook another minute or two, and serve.
This year I've begun planting pink dandelion and I'm looking forward to trying that out.

Ted- smiling widely before waving. "Hey there! I'm Ted, the head of marketing and HR. I'm so glad to see all of you new recruits. Before we get to the important stuff, lets get into some of the boring important stuff."
Laura- "Hey there, I'm Laura. I am in charge of administration and propaganda suppression. Please wave at your instructor."
Pause
Ted- Enters shot and stands next to Laura. "Thank you for your cooperation. If you waved you will now be shot. Next, Laura will go over the basic rules."
Ted exits to the right of the screen.
Laura- Smiling warmly while talking. "Rule number one: You may not leave at any time. You will be executed and your internals will be repurposed into product flavouring.
Rule number two: Do not spread propaganda(e.g, us killing people, us using executed people as food, any other true, compromising information, ect...). You will be sued, robbed and executed.
Rule number three: Maintain a healthy environment. We pride ourselves on a healthy workspace. That concludes the general rules."
Ted- "Wow! Laura sure knows what she's doing! But lets get on to something more important." Ted smiles before walking off camera, the shot switches to Ted standing in front of a facility map.
Ted- "I always like to begin by describing what it's like to be selected for machine use for the first time. It's so thrilling! You'll feel nervous at first, but then once you get sent into the processing chamber you'll be buzzing with excitement. Some people even run away screaming because they're so excited. I remember my first time..." Ted gazes off to the side as if reminiscing. Screaming sound effects and mechanical whirrs begin to play. Run... run... Ted returns to talking and you return to safety. The noise stops.
Ted- "Let's head over to see what Eugene is doing. He is head of Agriculture and Heavy Machinery at Maelstrom."
Eugene- "H-hey there. I'm Eu-Eugene Thomas. If you get selected for the machine, stay c-calm. Nothin' good comes from havin' a-a panic... And if you can, RUN! RUN AWAY AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN AND HIDE OUTSIDE OF THE EMPIRE AND COMMONWEALTH! THEY HAVE AGENTS EVERYWHERE!" The video cuts.
Laura- Unfortunately Eugene was a problem, so we eliminated him. Expect to see this a lot at your new job. We will use an AI generated course that we used to use instead of Eugene.
HELLO AND WELCOME TO THE MACHINE USE MINI TRAINING COURSE.
TODAY YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO OPERATE THE BASIC NECESSITIES OF THE MACHINE SO THAT THE MACHINE MAY FUNCTION PROPERLY. FIRST I WILL TELL YOU ABOUT THE MACHINE.
THE MAELSTROM EHC DEVICE ALSO KNOWN AS THE MACHINE IS A DEVICE USED TO CREATE THE CHOCOLATE DELICIOUSNESS THAT IS SHAPED INTO MAELSTROM BARS AND VARIOUS MAELSTROM PRODUCTS. IT USES THREE MAIN INPUTS THAT IT MERGES INTO ONE DELICIOUS CHOCOLATY MIXTURE. THE MIXTURE IS COMPOSED OF A FEW THINGS.
FIRST OFF IS THE MECHANICAL INPUT. METALLIC AND MECHANICAL DEVICES ARE PLACED INTO THE MIXTURE OF CHOCOLATE SO THAT THE PROBLEM DISSASEMBLY SYSTEM MAY BE IMPLANTED INTO ALL THE CHOCOLATE BARS AND VARIOUS MAELSTROM PRODUCTS.
NEXT IS THE ORGANIC INPUT. A COMBINATION OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL FLESH IS GROUND UP INTO A TASTY SAVOURY CONCOTION ADDED TO ALL MAELSTROM BARS AND VARIOUS MAELSTROM PRODUCTS. SOME ORGANS ARE KEPT IN TACT BEFORE BEING PROCESSED BY THE MACHINE OPERATOR.
FINALLY THERE IS THE FLAVOURING INPUT. THIS INPUT CONSISTS OF SYNTHETIC FLAVOURERS AND SWEETENERS. THIS IS WHAT GIVES THE MAELSTROM BARS AND SOME VARIOUS MAELSTROM PRODUCTS ITS SIGNATURE FLAVOURING.
IF YOU ARE THE PROCESSOR YOU ARE IN THE MAIN EHC DEVICE CHAMBER IN THE CENTRE OF THE EHC DEVICE. YOU MUST CONTROL THE VARIOUS CONVEYORS AND PULLY SYSTEMS WHILE COMPLETING INCOMPLETE CODES THAT ARE OUTPUTTED BY THE STRING OUTPUT TERMINAL IN THE CHAMBER.
RULES:
ONCE THE MACHINE BEGINS TO PROCESS YOU WILL HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO COMPLETE. YOU MUST BE S.M.A.R.T.
Super vigilant
Maelstrom friendly
Active
Rigorous
Terrific worker
IF ANY MISTAKES OR BLEMISHES GET THROUGH THE BATCH WILL BE RUINED DUE TO EXCESS [REDACTED].
PROCESSING IS A DIFFICULT TASK FOR OUR MACHINE, SO YOU WILL HAVE TO REPAIR IT FREQUENTLY DURING THE SIX HOUR PROCESSING SEQUENCE. NOT DOING SO RISKS YOUR OWN BODILY HARM OR DEATH.
UNKNOWN PEOPLE WILL TRY TO ENTER THE CHAMBER YOU ARE IN AND STOP THE MACHINE. THEY SAY THEY WILL SAVE YOU BUT THEY WILL NOT. DO NOT LISTEN OR RISK BODILY HARM OR LETHAL EVENTS.
IF SOMETHING BAD IS ABOUT TO GET INTO THE BATCH, EXECUTE THE KILL CODE. THEN THE BATCH WILL NOT BE RUINED. HOWEVER YOU MUST NOW DO DOUBLE MACHINE DUTY AND WILL GET A STRIKE ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD. FALIURE TO DO AS THIS RULE SPECIFIES WILL RESULT IN DESSASEMBLY OF YOUR MUSCULAR-SKELETAL PARTS.
REFRAIN FROM CONSUMING UNPROCESSED PRODUCT. HUMAN MEAT, TITANIUM ALLOY, ARSENIC, CYANIDE, BONES, HUMAN CRANIAL STRUCTURES, RAW FLESH, ASBESTOS, AND HAIR IS NOT SUITABLE FOR CONSUMSTION AND MUST BE SAVED TO CREATE DELICIOUS MAELSTROM BARS AND VARIOUS MAELSTROM PRODUCTS.
WHEN THE PROCESSING IS OVER YOU WILL BE RELEASED FROM THE CHAMBER. CRAWL BACK THROUGH THE MACHINE INTERIOR TO THE EXIT HATCH AND STATE YOUR FULL NAME, BIRTH DATE, PLACE OF BIRTH, AND EMPLOYEE NUMBER AND TITLE.
THAT CONCLUDES MACHINE TRAINING. THANK YOU FOR CO-OPERATING.
END PROGRAM(EHCDTRAINING)
EFFECTIVE IN_
3
2
1
PERMISSION FROM MealOS.
GRANTED_GRABSTATUS
STATUS == TRUE.
Ted- "Thanks for listening to us today!
Laura- "That concludes our lesson. Goodbye and:"
Ted and Laura- "Welcome to Maelstrom!"

Ted- smiling widely before waving. "Hey there! I'm Ted, the head of marketing and HR. I'm so glad to see all of you new recruits. Before we get to the important stuff, lets get into some of the boring important stuff."
Laura- "Hey there, I'm Laura. I am in charge of administration and propaganda suppression. Please wave at your instructor."
Pause
Ted- Enters shot and stands next to Laura. "Thank you for your cooperation. If you waved you will now be shot. Next, Laura will go over the basic rules."
Ted exits to the right of the screen.
Laura- Smiling warmly while talking. "Rule number one: You may not leave at any time. You will be executed and your internals will be repurposed into product flavouring.
Rule number two: Do not spread propaganda(e.g, us killing people, us using executed people as food, any other true, compromising information, ect...). You will be sued, robbed and executed.
Rule number three: Maintain a healthy environment. We pride ourselves on a healthy workspace. That concludes the general rules."
Ted- "Wow! Laura sure knows what she's doing! But lets get on to something more important." Ted smiles before walking off camera, the shot switches to Ted standing in front of a map showing a complex maze of narrow pipes, leading directly into a large chamber in the centre
Ted- "I always like to begin by describing what it's like to be selected for machine use for the first time. It's so thrilling! You'll feel nervous at first, but then once you get sent into the processing chamber you'll be buzzing with excitement. Some people even run away screaming because they're so excited. I remember my first time..." Ted gazes off to the side as if reminiscing. Screaming sound effects and mechanical whirrs begin to play. Run... run... Ted returns to talking and you return to safety. The noise stops.
Ted- "Let's head over to see what Eugene is doing. He is head of Agriculture and Heavy Machinery at Maelstrom."
Eugene- "H-hey there. I'm Eu-Eugene Thomas. If you get selected for the machine, stay c-calm. Nothin' good comes from havin' a-a panic... And if you can, RUN! RUN AWAY AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN AND HIDE OUTSIDE OF THE EMPIRE AND COMMONWEALTH! THEY HAVE AGENTS EVERYWHERE!" The video cuts.
Laura- Unfortunately Eugene was a problem, so we eliminated him. Expect to see this a lot at your new job. We will use an AI generated course that we used to use instead of Eugene.
HELLO AND WELCOME TO THE MACHINE USE MINI TRAINING COURSE.
TODAY YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO OPERATE THE BASIC NECESSITIES OF THE MACHINE SO THAT THE MACHINE MAY FUNCTION PROPERLY. FIRST I WILL TELL YOU ABOUT THE MACHINE.
THE MAELSTROM EHC DEVICE ALSO KNOWN AS THE MACHINE IS A DEVICE USED TO CREATE THE CHOCOLATE DELICIOUSNESS THAT IS SHAPED INTO MAELSTROM BARS AND VARIOUS MAELSTROM PRODUCTS. IT USES THREE MAIN INPUTS THAT IT MERGES INTO ONE DELICIOUS CHOCOLATY MIXTURE. THE MIXTURE IS COMPOSED OF A FEW THINGS.
FIRST OFF IS THE MECHANICAL INPUT. METALLIC AND MECHANICAL DEVICES ARE PLACED INTO THE MIXTURE OF CHOCOLATE SO THAT THE PROBLEM DISSASEMBLY SYSTEM MAY BE IMPLANTED INTO ALL THE CHOCOLATE BARS AND VARIOUS MAELSTROM PRODUCTS.
NEXT IS THE ORGANIC INPUT. A COMBINATION OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL FLESH IS GROUND UP INTO A TASTY SAVOURY CONCOTION ADDED TO ALL MAELSTROM BARS AND VARIOUS MAELSTROM PRODUCTS. SOME ORGANS ARE KEPT IN TACT BEFORE BEING PROCESSED BY THE MACHINE OPERATOR.
FINALLY THERE IS THE FLAVOURING INPUT. THIS INPUT CONSISTS OF SYNTHETIC FLAVOURERS AND SWEETENERS. THIS IS WHAT GIVES THE MAELSTROM BARS AND SOME VARIOUS MAELSTROM PRODUCTS ITS SIGNATURE FLAVOURING.
IF YOU ARE THE PROCESSOR YOU ARE IN THE MAIN EHC DEVICE CHAMBER IN THE CENTRE OF THE EHC DEVICE. YOU MUST CONTROL THE VARIOUS CONVEYORS AND PULLY SYSTEMS WHILE COMPLETING INCOMPLETE CODES THAT ARE OUTPUTTED BY THE STRING OUTPUT TERMINAL IN THE CHAMBER.
RULES:
ONCE THE MACHINE BEGINS TO PROCESS YOU WILL HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO COMPLETE. YOU MUST BE S.M.A.R.T.
Super vigilant
Maelstrom friendly
Active
Rigorous
Terrific worker
IF ANY MISTAKES OR BLEMISHES GET THROUGH THE BATCH WILL BE RUINED DUE TO EXCESS [REDACTED].
PROCESSING IS A DIFFICULT TASK FOR OUR MACHINE, SO YOU WILL HAVE TO REPAIR IT FREQUENTLY DURING THE SIX HOUR PROCESSING SEQUENCE. NOT DOING SO RISKS YOUR OWN BODILY HARM OR DEATH.
UNKNOWN PEOPLE WILL TRY TO ENTER THE CHAMBER YOU ARE IN AND STOP THE MACHINE. THEY SAY THEY WILL SAVE YOU BUT THEY WILL NOT. DO NOT LISTEN OR RISK BODILY HARM OR LETHAL EVENTS.
IF SOMETHING BAD IS ABOUT TO GET INTO THE BATCH, EXECUTE THE KILL CODE. THEN THE BATCH WILL NOT BE RUINED. HOWEVER YOU MUST NOW DO DOUBLE MACHINE DUTY AND WILL GET A STRIKE ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD. FALIURE TO DO AS THIS RULE SPECIFIES WILL RESULT IN DESSASEMBLY OF YOUR MUSCULAR-SKELETAL PARTS.
REFRAIN FROM CONSUMING UNPROCESSED PRODUCT. HUMAN MEAT, TITANIUM ALLOY, ARSENIC, CYANIDE, BONES, HUMAN CRANIAL STRUCTURES, RAW FLESH, ASBESTOS, AND HAIR IS NOT SUITABLE FOR CONSUMSTION AND MUST BE SAVED TO CREATE DELICIOUS MAELSTROM BARS AND VARIOUS MAELSTROM PRODUCTS.
WHEN THE PROCESSING IS OVER YOU WILL BE RELEASED FROM THE CHAMBER. CRAWL BACK THROUGH THE MACHINE INTERIOR TO THE EXIT HATCH AND STATE YOUR FULL NAME, BIRTH DATE, PLACE OF BIRTH, AND EMPLOYEE NUMBER AND TITLE.
THAT CONCLUDES MACHINE TRAINING. THANK YOU FOR CO-OPERATING.
END PROGRAM(EHCDTRAINING)
EFFECTIVE IN_
3
2
1
PERMISSION FROM MealOS.
GRANTED_GRABSTATUS
STATUS == TRUE.
Ted- "Thanks for listening to us today!
Laura- "That concludes our lesson. Goodbye and:"
Ted and Laura- "Welcome to Maelstrom!"

The cacao grown in Central America has many varieties. Criollo is offered on many websites, attracting tourists seeking ceremonial cocoa to experience or purchase, which would not be my choice for the reasons I will explain below. Cacao ceremonies around Lake Atitlan have turned into a commercial offering for money and have lost respect for the Mayan Culture. I felt this post may provide travelers with facts, not stories. I have included Cacao Producers I have known for many years. Trinitario a premium-grade cacao comes from the North or Rio Dulce. The process of harvesting. Wooden boxes of 1.2 x 0.95 m x 0.75 m with holes at the bottom and sides of the box are filled with wet beans. The boxes can hold one M.T. of wet beans. The beans are to be mixed on alternate days for the Fermentation process. The type of leaves used to layer the beans also affects flavor. Some processors add yeasts and/or enzymes during fermentation that destroy the physicochemical quality characteristics of cocoa however increase yield. The roasting process. Cacao prefers a “low and slow” approach to roasting (250 to 350 degrees for anywhere from 12 to 30 minutes). “Cracking” will happen intermittently throughout the roast, as it helps separate the outer husk from the bean. This is an art. We do not use computers. The cocoa paste is the natural product of ground nibs. Raw cacao paste (also called Cacao Liquor) is made by crushing raw cacao beans into a liquid. If machines are used the heat damages the quality. This liquid quickly solidifies at room temperature and the result is cacao paste.We sell cacao by the chemical compounds from testing, not by the pound. Trinitario is the best however only true chocolate experts know this. This variety of Cocoa butter extract consists of a combination of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. It contains approximately 60% saturated fat (palmitic, stearic, lauric, and myristic acids), 35% monounsaturated fat (oleic acid), and 1% polyunsaturated fat (linoleic acid).

• Four main types of cacao beans—forastero, trinitario, criollo, and Nacional—are cultivated for use in making chocolate.
• Criollo and Trinitario are the fine varieties prized for making chocolates. Criollo cocoa is often fruit-forward, very aromatic, and has very little bitterness. Trinitario is a hybrid of the other two with the best qualities of each.
• The word Criollo is derived from Creole, meaning native, authentic, and indigenous.
• Within the criollo variety, there are porcelain, chuao, and ocumare beans, referencing a particular terroir of the criollo bean.
• Forastero cocoa is a species of cocoa tree whose beans are used to produce chocolate. Native to Central and South America, it accounts for around 80% of the world's cocoa production.
• Couverture chocolate contains a higher percentage of cocoa butter – at least 31%. This high percentage of cocoa butter gives the chocolate a glossy finish and a firm snap when properly tempered.

When you visit a cocao producer or those offering ceremnoies ask questions.

When I was three years old I was in a really bad car accident. I didn't know it at the time, but that singular event would come to define everything about my life moving forward. What I remember about the accident is mostly a collage of backdated comments I was able to reel out of my father in the following years. He was driving me and my mom in his old '91 Chevy Tahoe through the twisting backroads of Southern Illinois, weaving his way through the gnarled branches of oak trees which interlocked into a braided ceiling overhead. A fog had rolled in, giving the impression that we were driving through a cloudy tube. Everything was simultaneously bright and opaque. I didn't mind though, as I was in the back seat working on a coloring book. My mom was in the front, talking with my dad or turning around to entertain my completed pictures.
Although I was of the age where my memory was just beginning to mature, I still recall two things very clearly from the accident. First was the sensation of breaking. I remember feeling the way a plate must feel to be dropped: weightless at first, then suddenly meeting a much larger, more solid object—the air popped like a firecracker, and the entirety of my body shattered into hundreds of fractals. And then I remember a hand. It was my dad's hand pulling me from the wreck.
I ended up hospitalized for weeks after the crash. My mom was less lucky. The impact had killed her instantly.
As I've alluded to, I was young, and at the time I didn't fully understand the implications of what had happened. I knew something was missing, but it was like a word on the tip of my tongue, or the forgotten vanilla in a cherished cake recipe—coloring my experience, but not the whole of it. Not like my dad. For him, it was the whole fucking cake. He had somehow made it out with only a few scratches. I'm sure he had a really bad case of survivor's guilt, and frankly, looking back, I wouldn't have blamed him if he slumped into despair and spent his days drinking away his sorrow. But he wasn't that type of man. He got help. It took him years before he was able to recall anything that happened that morning, and most of it is still repressed, but he shared with me what he could. Or at least that's what I had thought.
My dad was a Middle School teacher since before I was born, and he kept his job until very recently. As a result, we didn't have much by way of resources. I grew up on Disney Channel and TV dinners for the most part, but I didn't mind. When I became of school age, his job actually made caring for me pretty convenient. Since our Elementary and Middle schools were connected, he was able to drive me there and back each day.
It was around third or fourth grade that I realized I was different. I didn't understand the other children or even the adults most of the time. They would say things then immediately change their mind, or they would talk about something and in the next breath forget its existence entirely. I remember one day at lunch, I had just gotten my tray of hot food and sat down with some friends. One of the kids, Alex, was talking about a stuffed bird he had won for getting first place in Mr. Curtis's pop-up math competition. We were all admiring its blue wings and white belly and sharp black beak and beady eyes. I left mid-conversation to get a chocolate milk. When I came back, I asked to see the bird again, and Alex said "what bird?" I was perplexed. "The bird—the bluejay you were just showing us." I remember all of the other kids looking at me like I was crazy. I figured they were all playing a trick on me, so I got up and went over to Alex's seat and crouched down, looking under the table, then I sprung up and tried to open his lunchbox. "What are you doing!?" he yelled. I felt so confused and embarrassed that I ran to the bathroom to cry.
And then there was another time a group of kids were laughing about a joke one of the girls, Taylor, had made about our homeroom teacher's face looking like a seal. I knew it was mean, but at the time I just wanted to fit in so I played along, but when I made a comment about her resemblance to the semi-aquatic animal, they all looked at me confused. "What are you talking about? We never said that…"
These misattributions kept happening, and it led to me being ostracized from most of the little childish cliques that popped up. I developed a quasi-standoffish temperament which I used as a shield against a chaotic world that I didn't understand. My dad eventually had me tested for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), but I passed the test. He asked if I wanted to move to a different town with different schoolmates, thinking that perhaps I was getting bullied, but I told him it was fine. Somewhere deep down I felt like no matter where I went, this problem would follow me.
You may think that I was simply coping with the absence of my mom, and while I'm sure that her absence has left certain holes in my life, kindly, no, that wasn't what was happening. You see, at first I didn't notice the instances of what I'll call "blinking". I simply thought that I was misremembering things: objects, words, events. They were all little things anyway. A bird, a joke, my pencil box. It wasn't until sixth grade that I realized the magnitude of the phenomenon.
I was in my dad's 6th grade Social Studies class and we had just been assigned our "Ancient Civilizations" project which involved creating a diorama of our chosen civilization and presenting its features to the class. My friend at the time, Claire, had taken my first choice of Ancient Rome (which we had a heated argument about at lunch), so I was left with Ancient Egypt. At the time, all I pictured for Egypt was a plate of sand. However, my dad and I went through some illustrated history books and pictures on the internet and he really built up the project for me.
Over the course of a couple months, he helped me shape three pyramids out of small wooden planks and a bunch of tan clay. We placed them in the center of a giant square shoebox lid which served as the container for the diorama. Then he bought some small wooden mannequin puppets and we dressed them up in cloth clothes (mostly kilts and tunics) and colored their eyes, mouths, and hair. We added a few obelisks and some small box-huts which were collected into a little village around the Nile. Finally, we added a light glaze of glue where we felt would be necessary and then covered the whole project with golden glitter.
As we worked on each part of the diorama, my dad helped me understand what we were adding and why it was important to Ancient Egypt. I loved the way he talked about history. He spun everything into a miraculous story. To this day, I don't think I've ever had a teacher who came close to his level of charisma and creativity. As a result, I became really proud of my diorama. I memorized all the little details and rehearsed my speech in front of the mirror for hours leading up to the last couple weeks of class. And then, two days before I was supposed to give my presentation, everything fell apart.
First, I need to apologize for deceiving you about an aspect of my story. I thought it might help you to understand what I was going through at the time. What I'm about to tell you is going to sound insane. I get that. But please hear me out. The truth is that I was never assigned to present on Ancient Egypt; everything else about Clair taking my first pick and dad helping me with the whole project and my excitement leading up to the presentation was all true, but it wasn't a project on Ancient Egypt, it was a project on Ancient Sidovan, which was a civilization located on the eighth continent called "Catalan" (the same name as the spoken language, but unrelated) which was due West of Australia in the Indian Ocean.
I know this sounds incredible, and if you want to believe it's all in my head, I get that, but I remember clearly all sorts of facts about it: the Malagasy, the same people who populated Madagascar, were the first peoples to discover Catalan and settle it. However, about five hundred years later, Indian ships would arrive and create the civilization known as Sidovan. A pidgin language formed between the indigenous population and new arriving Indians called "Hiesa" (pronounced: Hai-E-suh or Hai-ʔ-suh). Catalan had a warm climate with plenty of natural resources, but Sidovan had a dense enough population to require agricultural production. They grew rice, grain, sugarcane, vegetables, and even tobacco.
I remembered all of these facts and more. My diorama reflected the main features of the Sidovan civilization. And then two days before my presentation, I woke up and my diorama was entirely different. The hilly grasslands were traded out for sandy dunes. The Hindu statues and stone palaces became clay pyramids and large spear-like pillars. And everything was covered with the ickiest yellow glitter I had ever seen. Tears stung my eyes as I trampled over to my dad's room and banged on his door. "Dad! What did you do!?" I yelled.
"Honey?" He responded, rushing over to the base of the stairs. "What's wrong?"
"The diorama. It's ruined!"
"It's what?" he asked and ran up the stairs, leading me to my room. He looked over it for a few seconds, checking to see if everything was intact, then said, "I don't see it, honey. Where is it ruined?"
I was completely dumb-struck. What did he mean he didn't see it? "All of it!" I shouted. "The whole thing is wrong. Where's the grass and the stone buildings and the lady with the four arms and the elephants? Where is my project!?"
My dad looked at me in silence. "Lauren, baby, what civilization do you think you were working on?"
"Ancient Sidovan, of course! We've been working on this for months now! Dad, please tell me you remember."
He knelt down and put his hands on my shoulders. "Honey, your project was on Ancient Egypt. There is no Ancient Sidovan."
"Y-you're lying." I protested. "Books, you have books. On your bookshelf."
He took me into his study and showed me all of his books. None of them were on Ancient Sidovan. He even turned on his computer and typed in the name of the civilization, but all that came up was a near match "Sidon". I remember feeling the sudden urge to puke. My entire body felt like it was pumping battery acid instead of blood. "I—I don't," I started but suddenly my head felt very light, and I fainted.
When I woke up, I was in the hospital. I had lost consciousness for over half an hour, enough time for my dad to call 9-1-1 and have the ambulance transport me to the nearest ER. They ran all sorts of tests on me, but they all came back fine. After a couple hours of IV fluids and monitoring, they released me with my dad.
I ended up skipping the rest of school that week. My dad didn't make me present my diorama. In fact, he never brought the subject up again. Part of me was glad. I just wanted to forget the whole thing ever happened. But another part of me couldn't move past what was clearly the most absurd thing to ever happen to me. About a week after the incident, I tried to broach the subject, but when I asked my dad about it, he didn't seem to remember our conversation at all. He said I had fallen ill and that's why I needed to go to the ER and miss class. I felt like I was going crazy. If I was older, I probably would have voluntarily checked myself into a psychiatric ward. But I was young and helpless and alone, and I decided that if I just ignored the changes well enough, I could still get along. This proved difficult though, as the blinking would only exacerbate in the coming months.
Up until the time of the project, I hadn't been able to directly observe the phenomenon. It was always in retrospect that things disappeared. It was during the summer after sixth grade that this changed. I still remember the first time it happened. I had just gotten out of the shower and was drying my hair in front of the mirror. After it was dried, I threw on my clothes then went to tie my hair up in a ponytail, but as I went to set the elastic tie, I felt its weight dissipate in my hand. I gasped and held my hand out. The circular black band was gone.
Fast forward to seventh grade and the blinking had spiraled out of control. Reflecting back on it, most people would probably have assumed I was drinking psilocybin-infused water, as the delusions were somewhat consistent with psychedelic phenomena: except these distortions were real (at least they felt that way to me).
I'd wake up and grab the box of Special K but end up eating Cheerios. The McDonalds logo would look yellow and red one day, but purple and black the next. I'd be watching a show, and then a different show, and then a different one. It was as if the entire universe was a Christmas tree with millions of lights, and the lights kept shifting hues randomly, faster and faster, and I was the only one who could see their changing colors. I remember one night my dad made spaghetti for dinner and we went out onto the porch to eat it. While we were sitting, I saw our neighbor's house, a two story townhome, blink and become a single story bungalow. I gasped, and my dad asked what was wrong, but when I tried to explain he just gave me a strange look. For him, no matter what changed, the world was "always that way". While for me, it didn't have "a way".
The situation peaked when Clair, that friend I mentioned before, disappeared. I texted her (my dad had bought me a BlackBerry at the beginning of summer break) but didn't get a response. When I asked her other friends if they knew where she was, I got the usual "what are you talking about?" look. I knew right away what had happened, even though I didn't want to believe it. I went to the teacher and asked if there was a Clair in our class. She said "no". I broke down in front of everyone. I couldn't take it anymore. I ran out of school. The lady at the front desk tried to stop me, but I just barrelled past her. I kept running until I got to a big park across the street and bawled my eyes out until the police arrived and escorted me home. When they tried asking me what was wrong, I didn't say anything. There was literally nothing I could say that they would understand.
That night I prayed to God for the first time. My dad wasn't a religious man. He went to Catholic church with my mom when she was alive, but after she died he never went back. Still, I knew how to pray, even if I never did it. I copied some of the people I saw praying in movies and interlocked my fingers and knelt down on my bed, stuffing my head into a pillow. "Dear God," I said, "Please, please, please help me." I told Him about my struggles and asked Him to make them stop. I spent an hour saying the same things over and over again. And when I was finished, my little body was so tired, I fell right to sleep.
I knew something was different the second I opened my eyelids. I didn't only feel relieved, but I felt… embraced. I felt like someone was watching over me. I felt like I wasn't alone. I moved through my day with cautious apprehension. I didn't want to get my hopes up only to be let down. But to my surprise, the blinking had stopped. At least I couldn't remember any of the inconsistencies, and to me, that was a win. I began to pray regularly, and the more I did, the more I could feel the sense that someone was looking out for me. It was like I was getting a big hug from some cosmic force that loved me and wanted me to be happy.
I made it a habit to pray regularly. I asked my dad if he could take me to a church, and he agreed to take me to St. Mark's, the same church that he and my mom used to attend. Over time, I realized that the actual church services weren't as important to me as the praying. For whatever reason, there was something about praying that was like a glue for my brain, holding the entire universe together. As I got older, I considered that maybe it wasn't that the changes were no longer happening, but that I simply didn't see them anymore. In other words, maybe I was just becoming like everyone else. Either way, I didn't mind.
In my teenage years, I got into mindfulness meditation. I thought that I'd want to go into religious studies and become a theologian, so I started to learn about Eastern traditions in addition to Christianity. I joined a bunch of different school clubs to meet kids of different faiths: Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam. I tried to find a common thread which linked them all and would explain what happened to me as a child. The metaphors of Heaven and Hell, Good and Evil, the Taoist Yin and Yang—duality. Every religion seemed to speak about a way of being that would lead to a better place. In some cases that better place was a physical future existence, and in others it was merely being in contact with the perfection of nature or the present. Metaphorically, the teachings could explain what I had gone through in a kind of loose way, but there were no explicit statements about my condition.
***
I want to fast forward to why I've decided to write about this now. To give you an idea of where I'm at, I'm now 25 and working on finishing my MA in Computational Linguistics. I know that's a bit of a switch from what I was thinking when I was a teenager, but I really only interested in religion because of the value praying afforded me as a child. I didn't actually have much interest in the subject, itself. After my first year of college, I changed to an English major, which ultimately led to me taking a linguistics class and enjoying it so much that I switched tracks in my Junior year. Considering the state of the world, I thought minoring in Computer Science might help me financially in the future, so I ended up charting a path which I figured might lead to something like developing translation software.
Anyway, everything was going fine until a few weeks ago. I was out at an all-night diner with a few of my friends from the program. There was Jeremy, Martin, Bella, Jordan, and Macy. We had been working on a group project together involving modeling construction grammars by generating primitive 3D structures using C# and running the code through a game engine (it's a bit weird, but essentially we were trying to create a multidimensional model for language using a similar but more advanced concept than other LLMs), and just had a breakthrough. It was 2AM though and not a brain cell existed between the six of us, so instead we focused on a different problem: Macy's ongoing breakup with her semi-long distance trucker boyfriend. We tried to explain why Mike wasn't going to work out as we ordered a round of milkshakes and waited for the lone overnight kitchen worker to scoop out three balls of ice cream from the Deans carton for each of us, blend it, then have the server deliver the vintage diner glasses on a plastic tray.
I dug into my thick strawberry shake with a spoon. It was delicious. I kept eating but focused back on the conversation. I remember feeling something odd about one of the scoops, but I was so entrenched in Macy's story that I didn't notice the metal shard in my ice cream until I felt it against my lip. "P-tuh" I spat out the shard and ice cream all in one motion, then covered my mouth which I was sure was bleeding. The silver blade was probably as large as my thumb, and it had two jagged edges, as if it was fastened for the purpose of causing damage. "What the fuck!" I yelled.
Everyone at the table turned to see what was the matter. "Hey, Lauren, you okay?"
I spoke through a covered mouth, using my free hand to point at the table. "That was in my—"
But it was gone.
"In your… shake? Was something in your shake?" asked Jeremy.
I froze. In that moment, the stories of my childhood that I had only remembered as faint nightmares came back in a wave of crushing terror. How could I have been so stupid to think they would simply vanish forever? No, this isn't the same thing, I thought. But deep down, I knew it was. I drew my hand away from my lips and saw that it was dry—no blood. When I looked back up, all of the blood in my veins went cold. My friends were… smiling at me. Their lips were elastic like taffy, stretching to reveal their teeth. I could feel them radiating malevolence, as if the only thing holding them back from picking up their utensils and stabbing me to death was some thinly veiled force field. The moment lasted for what felt like half a minute, then Jordan said two words which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"Found you"
The words ricocheted in my now adrenaline powered skull. But just as he spoke them, the world blinked and my friends were back. Bella reached out and grabbed my hand. I pulled away, but when I saw her concerned expression, I relented.
"Sorry, guys, I think I'm going to have to call it." I said.
"You sure, L?" asked Jordan. "You look like you just saw a ghost."
"Yeah, thanks, but I just…" I stumbled for a lie, but when one wouldn't come, Martin stood up and said he'd walk me out to my car.
"Thanks," I said as I got into my little 2015 Jetta. "It's just been a long day."
"No problem, Lauren. You know, if there's ever anything—"
"I know," I said but didn't mean. Some things just couldn't be shared.
I drove for about five minutes before stopping at a gas station. I pulled in and parked near the back. Then I interlocked my fingers and prayed for half an hour. I apologized for not taking my praying seriously and asked to once again be granted peace. Unlike my younger years, I also drifted into other avenues of thought. I imagined my mom. I pictured the whole arc of my life, all of the little decisions that led me to where I was. I cried for a long time. I felt like that little girl again reaching out for help. I still felt so lost, so out of control; there were so many things missing, and I was so confused.
I decided then to take a trip back home and visit my dad who was now working as a private tutor. He made enough prepping affluent students for the ACT and SAT that he could spend his free time pursuing his real passions: reading and writing. When I arrived at his doorstep that weekend, he greeted me with open arms. "How are you, kiddo? It's been, what? A year or so?"
It was actually more like two years, but I didn't tell him. I just smiled and nodded.
"Well, come in."
The house was almost exactly how I remembered it. Linoleum floors, beige walls, a few scattered pictures, the scent of camomile. Everything minimalist. There was a quaintness, a prettiness to the way everything seemed to be well kept and in a perfect place. From the cherry wood chairs we'd sit in to eat, to the cream-colored loveseat. I felt at home.
I spent the drive thinking of what I would talk to my dad about, but ultimately I wasn't sure what I'd say. I loved my dad, but I think growing up it was easy to see him as naive. After all, arguably the most important episodes of my childhood were completely unknown to him. In that way, I kind of loved him from a distance. Maybe losing my mom also played into that. Maybe I just had trust issues. And after what happened at the diner… Luckily there hadn't been any blinks since.
I stayed for a couple days and he showed me around some of the different coffee shops where he'd tutor kids or write some of his stories. I met some of his friends, mostly other retired or part-time teachers who were in a similar place in life. I was happy for him. Then, on Sunday, he made me my favorite meal growing up: homemade carbonara pasta with chicken and broccoli. The sauce had a few different cheeses, butter, olive oil, and a raw egg yolk. It was the perfect blend of creamy, savory, and sweet. After we ate, he cracked open a scrapbook of some old photos and other clippings he had put together.
We reminisced about the past and laughed whenever I'd cover up one of my awkward pictures. He brought up some stories from school that I had forgotten, naming some teachers that I hadn't thought about in years. Apparently I had started at the end, because as I moved to the other end of the book, I kept getting younger and younger. I flipped to the last pages and noticed a couple pictures of my mom that made my heart sink.
"She was beautiful, wasn't she?" said my dad.
"Mmm," I agreed.
I flipped to the last page and saw a collage of newspaper clippings. One of them was related to the accident. It was headlined: "Two Survive Head-On Collision". After a cursory glance at the text, I noticed something odd. It said, "Both the husband and child, a three year old girl, sustained life-threatening wounds. The husband was found unconscious on the scene. The girl was found twenty meters away from the vehicle, crying." I swallowed, trying to remember back to what happened that day. The feeling of crashing, of the world slowing down, then breaking, returned. And then there was a hand. My dad's hand. Or was it? If he was unconscious, who pulled me out of that wreck?
I looked up at my dad. He was smiling.
I shot up and started backing up slowly toward the door. "No, not you, too. What is this? What's happening? Who are you?"
My dad, or whatever was controlling him, laughed."Oh, Lauren, Lauren, Lauren. You know who we are." he purred as he stood up. He lifted his hands and the lights began to flicker then bend in a way which shouldn't have been possible. Dark figures began to propagate from the shadows along the walls. The pictures nailed there began to blink out of existence. I turned to run toward the door but the handle was gone. Glass shards materialized all around me and swarmed like locusts. Certain I was going to die, I dropped down on my knees and once again turned to prayer, this time asking God to directly intervene and save me.
Everything went quiet.
"Honey? Are you okay?"
I didn't trust his voice. I knew if I opened my eyes, I'd see that awful smile. He was just toying with me. "It's not you," I said in between muttered prayers. "I know it's not you."
"Honey," my dad said, closer. I felt his arms wrap around me. This was it, I was going to be suffocated. I waited for the inevitable crushing weight of my chest collapsing. I waited to break all over again.
"I would never hurt you, Lauren. I love you more than anything in the whole world."
I burst out in tears. "No, it's not you, I know it's not you. You don't exist!"
My dad's weight dissipated. I opened my eyes and saw that he was no longer there. "Dad?" I called aloud. "Dad? Where did you go?"
I checked all over the house, but there was no trace of him. There were still pictures of him all over the house, so I knew he hadn't blinked out of existence like everything else, but somehow he was missing.
***
I left the house and got a room at a hotel, where I am now. I'm sure at this point that whatever is happening to me is no longer random. Something out there is actively trying to hunt me. Maybe it has been my whole life, but only now it can see me—however weird that sounds. If that's right, then God has been on my side trying to protect me from this demon or monster or devil or whatever it is. Regardless, the methods I was using when I was younger are not going to cut it anymore. I already posted my story in several other small circles and have gotten one reply. A man who goes by the name "Trent" (apparently it's an alias). He said that he has some insight into my "condition" and can offer help if I want it. I'm planning on meeting with him tomorrow. I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but at this point I need answers. I can keep you updated with my progress if that interests you, and to anyone who knows anything about what's happening to me, please… I could really use your help.
***
I was just about to post this when Trent sent another message. This is what it says:
Trent: We can do the \*** at **** O'clock. Also, if what you're telling me is true, your mother may still be alive.*

When I was three years old I was in a really bad car accident. I didn't know it at the time, but that singular event would come to define everything about my life moving forward. What I remember about the accident is mostly a collage of backdated comments I was able to reel out of my father in the following years. He was driving me and my mom in his old '91 Chevy Tahoe through the twisting backroads of Southern Illinois, weaving his way through the gnarled branches of oak trees which interlocked into a braided ceiling overhead. A fog had rolled in, giving the impression that we were driving through a cloudy tube. Everything was simultaneously bright and opaque. I didn't mind though, as I was in the back seat working on a coloring book. My mom was in the front, talking with my dad or turning around to entertain my completed pictures.
Although I was of the age where my memory was just beginning to mature, I still recall two things very clearly from the accident. First was the sensation of breaking. I remember feeling the way a plate must feel to be dropped: weightless at first, then suddenly meeting a much larger, more solid object—the air popped like a firecracker, and the entirety of my body shattered into hundreds of fractals. And then I remember a hand. It was my dad's hand pulling me from the wreck.
I ended up hospitalized for weeks after the crash. My mom was less lucky. The impact had killed her instantly.
As I've alluded to, I was young, and at the time I didn't fully understand the implications of what had happened. I knew something was missing, but it was like a word on the tip of my tongue, or the forgotten vanilla in a cherished cake recipe—coloring my experience, but not the whole of it. Not like my dad. For him, it was the whole fucking cake. He had somehow made it out with only a few scratches. I'm sure he had a really bad case of survivor's guilt, and frankly, looking back, I wouldn't have blamed him if he slumped into despair and spent his days drinking away his sorrow. But he wasn't that type of man. He got help. It took him years before he was able to recall anything that happened that morning, and most of it is still repressed, but he shared with me what he could. Or at least that's what I had thought.
My dad was a Middle School teacher since before I was born, and he kept his job until very recently. As a result, we didn't have much by way of resources. I grew up on Disney Channel and TV dinners for the most part, but I didn't mind. When I became of school age, his job actually made caring for me pretty convenient. Since our Elementary and Middle schools were connected, he was able to drive me there and back each day.
It was around third or fourth grade that I realized I was different. I didn't understand the other children or even the adults most of the time. They would say things then immediately change their mind, or they would talk about something and in the next breath forget its existence entirely. I remember one day at lunch, I had just gotten my tray of hot food and sat down with some friends. One of the kids, Alex, was talking about a stuffed bird he had won for getting first place in Mr. Curtis's pop-up math competition. We were all admiring its blue wings and white belly and sharp black beak and beady eyes. I left mid-conversation to get a chocolate milk. When I came back, I asked to see the bird again, and Alex said "what bird?" I was perplexed. "The bird—the bluejay you were just showing us." I remember all of the other kids looking at me like I was crazy. I figured they were all playing a trick on me, so I got up and went over to Alex's seat and crouched down, looking under the table, then I sprung up and tried to open his lunchbox. "What are you doing!?" he yelled. I felt so confused and embarrassed that I ran to the bathroom to cry.
And then there was another time a group of kids were laughing about a joke one of the girls, Taylor, had made about our homeroom teacher's face looking like a seal. I knew it was mean, but at the time I just wanted to fit in so I played along, but when I made a comment about her resemblance to the semi-aquatic animal, they all looked at me confused. "What are you talking about? We never said that…"
These misattributions kept happening, and it led to me being ostracized from most of the little childish cliques that popped up. I developed a quasi-standoffish temperament which I used as a shield against a chaotic world that I didn't understand. My dad eventually had me tested for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), but I passed the test. He asked if I wanted to move to a different town with different schoolmates, thinking that perhaps I was getting bullied, but I told him it was fine. Somewhere deep down I felt like no matter where I went, this problem would follow me.
You may think that I was simply coping with the absence of my mom, and while I'm sure that her absence has left certain holes in my life, kindly, no, that wasn't what was happening. You see, at first I didn't notice the instances of what I'll call "blinking". I simply thought that I was misremembering things: objects, words, events. They were all little things anyway. A bird, a joke, my pencil box. It wasn't until sixth grade that I realized the magnitude of the phenomenon.
I was in my dad's 6th grade Social Studies class and we had just been assigned our "Ancient Civilizations" project which involved creating a diorama of our chosen civilization and presenting its features to the class. My friend at the time, Claire, had taken my first choice of Ancient Rome (which we had a heated argument about at lunch), so I was left with Ancient Egypt. At the time, all I pictured for Egypt was a plate of sand. However, my dad and I went through some illustrated history books and pictures on the internet and he really built up the project for me.
Over the course of a couple months, he helped me shape three pyramids out of small wooden planks and a bunch of tan clay. We placed them in the center of a giant square shoebox lid which served as the container for the diorama. Then he bought some small wooden mannequin puppets and we dressed them up in cloth clothes (mostly kilts and tunics) and colored their eyes, mouths, and hair. We added a few obelisks and some small box-huts which were collected into a little village around the Nile. Finally, we added a light glaze of glue where we felt would be necessary and then covered the whole project with golden glitter.
As we worked on each part of the diorama, my dad helped me understand what we were adding and why it was important to Ancient Egypt. I loved the way he talked about history. He spun everything into a miraculous story. To this day, I don't think I've ever had a teacher who came close to his level of charisma and creativity. As a result, I became really proud of my diorama. I memorized all the little details and rehearsed my speech in front of the mirror for hours leading up to the last couple weeks of class. And then, two days before I was supposed to give my presentation, everything fell apart.
First, I need to apologize for deceiving you about an aspect of my story. I thought it might help you to understand what I was going through at the time. What I'm about to tell you is going to sound insane. I get that. But please hear me out. The truth is that I was never assigned to present on Ancient Egypt; everything else about Clair taking my first pick and dad helping me with the whole project and my excitement leading up to the presentation was all true, but it wasn't a project on Ancient Egypt, it was a project on Ancient Sidovan, which was a civilization located on the eighth continent called "Catalan" (the same name as the spoken language, but unrelated) which was due West of Australia in the Indian Ocean.
I know this sounds incredible, and if you want to believe it's all in my head, I get that, but I remember clearly all sorts of facts about it: the Malagasy, the same people who populated Madagascar, were the first peoples to discover Catalan and settle it. However, about five hundred years later, Indian ships would arrive and create the civilization known as Sidovan. A pidgin language formed between the indigenous population and new arriving Indians called "Hiesa" (pronounced: Hai-E-suh or Hai-ʔ-suh). Catalan had a warm climate with plenty of natural resources, but Sidovan had a dense enough population to require agricultural production. They grew rice, grain, sugarcane, vegetables, and even tobacco.
I remembered all of these facts and more. My diorama reflected the main features of the Sidovan civilization. And then two days before my presentation, I woke up and my diorama was entirely different. The hilly grasslands were traded out for sandy dunes. The Hindu statues and stone palaces became clay pyramids and large spear-like pillars. And everything was covered with the ickiest yellow glitter I had ever seen. Tears stung my eyes as I trampled over to my dad's room and banged on his door. "Dad! What did you do!?" I yelled.
"Honey?" He responded, rushing over to the base of the stairs. "What's wrong?"
"The diorama. It's ruined!"
"It's what?" he asked and ran up the stairs, leading me to my room. He looked over it for a few seconds, checking to see if everything was intact, then said, "I don't see it, honey. Where is it ruined?"
I was completely dumb-struck. What did he mean he didn't see it? "All of it!" I shouted. "The whole thing is wrong. Where's the grass and the stone buildings and the lady with the four arms and the elephants? Where is my project!?"
My dad looked at me in silence. "Lauren, baby, what civilization do you think you were working on?"
"Ancient Sidovan, of course! We've been working on this for months now! Dad, please tell me you remember."
He knelt down and put his hands on my shoulders. "Honey, your project was on Ancient Egypt. There is no Ancient Sidovan."
"Y-you're lying." I protested. "Books, you have books. On your bookshelf."
He took me into his study and showed me all of his books. None of them were on Ancient Sidovan. He even turned on his computer and typed in the name of the civilization, but all that came up was a near match "Sidon". I remember feeling the sudden urge to puke. My entire body felt like it was pumping battery acid instead of blood. "I—I don't," I started but suddenly my head felt very light, and I fainted.
When I woke up, I was in the hospital. I had lost consciousness for over half an hour, enough time for my dad to call 9-1-1 and have the ambulance transport me to the nearest ER. They ran all sorts of tests on me, but they all came back fine. After a couple hours of IV fluids and monitoring, they released me with my dad.
I ended up skipping the rest of school that week. My dad didn't make me present my diorama. In fact, he never brought the subject up again. Part of me was glad. I just wanted to forget the whole thing ever happened. But another part of me couldn't move past what was clearly the most absurd thing to ever happen to me. About a week after the incident, I tried to broach the subject, but when I asked my dad about it, he didn't seem to remember our conversation at all. He said I had fallen ill and that's why I needed to go to the ER and miss class. I felt like I was going crazy. If I was older, I probably would have voluntarily checked myself into a psychiatric ward. But I was young and helpless and alone, and I decided that if I just ignored the changes well enough, I could still get along. This proved difficult though, as the blinking would only exacerbate in the coming months.
Up until the time of the project, I hadn't been able to directly observe the phenomenon. It was always in retrospect that things disappeared. It was during the summer after sixth grade that this changed. I still remember the first time it happened. I had just gotten out of the shower and was drying my hair in front of the mirror. After it was dried, I threw on my clothes then went to tie my hair up in a ponytail, but as I went to set the elastic tie, I felt its weight dissipate in my hand. I gasped and held my hand out. The circular black band was gone.
Fast forward to seventh grade and the blinking had spiraled out of control. Reflecting back on it, most people would probably have assumed I was drinking psilocybin-infused water, as the delusions were somewhat consistent with psychedelic phenomena: except these distortions were real (at least they felt that way to me).
I'd wake up and grab the box of Special K but end up eating Cheerios. The McDonalds logo would look yellow and red one day, but purple and black the next. I'd be watching a show, and then a different show, and then a different one. It was as if the entire universe was a Christmas tree with millions of lights, and the lights kept shifting hues randomly, faster and faster, and I was the only one who could see their changing colors. I remember one night my dad made spaghetti for dinner and we went out onto the porch to eat it. While we were sitting, I saw our neighbor's house, a two story townhome, blink and become a single story bungalow. I gasped, and my dad asked what was wrong, but when I tried to explain he just gave me a strange look. For him, no matter what changed, the world was "always that way". While for me, it didn't have "a way".
The situation peaked when Clair, that friend I mentioned before, disappeared. I texted her (my dad had bought me a BlackBerry at the beginning of summer break) but didn't get a response. When I asked her other friends if they knew where she was, I got the usual "what are you talking about?" look. I knew right away what had happened, even though I didn't want to believe it. I went to the teacher and asked if there was a Clair in our class. She said "no". I broke down in front of everyone. I couldn't take it anymore. I ran out of school. The lady at the front desk tried to stop me, but I just barrelled past her. I kept running until I got to a big park across the street and bawled my eyes out until the police arrived and escorted me home. When they tried asking me what was wrong, I didn't say anything. There was literally nothing I could say that they would understand.
That night I prayed to God for the first time. My dad wasn't a religious man. He went to Catholic church with my mom when she was alive, but after she died he never went back. Still, I knew how to pray, even if I never did it. I copied some of the people I saw praying in movies and interlocked my fingers and knelt down on my bed, stuffing my head into a pillow. "Dear God," I said, "Please, please, please help me." I told Him about my struggles and asked Him to make them stop. I spent an hour saying the same things over and over again. And when I was finished, my little body was so tired, I fell right to sleep.
I knew something was different the second I opened my eyelids. I didn't only feel relieved, but I felt… embraced. I felt like someone was watching over me. I felt like I wasn't alone. I moved through my day with cautious apprehension. I didn't want to get my hopes up only to be let down. But to my surprise, the blinking had stopped. At least I couldn't remember any of the inconsistencies, and to me, that was a win. I began to pray regularly, and the more I did, the more I could feel the sense that someone was looking out for me. It was like I was getting a big hug from some cosmic force that loved me and wanted me to be happy.
I made it a habit to pray regularly. I asked my dad if he could take me to a church, and he agreed to take me to St. Mark's, the same church that he and my mom used to attend. Over time, I realized that the actual church services weren't as important to me as the praying. For whatever reason, there was something about praying that was like a glue for my brain, holding the entire universe together. As I got older, I considered that maybe it wasn't that the changes were no longer happening, but that I simply didn't see them anymore. In other words, maybe I was just becoming like everyone else. Either way, I didn't mind.
In my teenage years, I got into mindfulness meditation. I thought that I'd want to go into religious studies and become a theologian, so I started to learn about Eastern traditions in addition to Christianity. I joined a bunch of different school clubs to meet kids of different faiths: Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam. I tried to find a common thread which linked them all and would explain what happened to me as a child. The metaphors of Heaven and Hell, Good and Evil, the Taoist Yin and Yang—duality. Every religion seemed to speak about a way of being that would lead to a better place. In some cases that better place was a physical future existence, and in others it was merely being in contact with the perfection of nature or the present. Metaphorically, the teachings could explain what I had gone through in a kind of loose way, but there were no explicit statements about my condition.
***
I want to fast forward to why I've decided to write about this now. To give you an idea of where I'm at, I'm now 25 and working on finishing my MA in Computational Linguistics. I know that's a bit of a switch from what I was thinking when I was a teenager, but I really only interested in religion because of the value praying afforded me as a child. I didn't actually have much interest in the subject, itself. After my first year of college, I changed to an English major, which ultimately led to me taking a linguistics class and enjoying it so much that I switched tracks in my Junior year. Considering the state of the world, I thought minoring in Computer Science might help me financially in the future, so I ended up charting a path which I figured might lead to something like developing translation software.
Anyway, everything was going fine until a few weeks ago. I was out at an all-night diner with a few of my friends from the program. There was Jeremy, Martin, Bella, Jordan, and Macy. We had been working on a group project together involving modeling construction grammars by generating primitive 3D structures using C# and running the code through a game engine (it's a bit weird, but essentially we were trying to create a multidimensional model for language using a similar but more advanced concept than other LLMs), and just had a breakthrough. It was 2AM though and not a brain cell existed between the six of us, so instead we focused on a different problem: Macy's ongoing breakup with her semi-long distance trucker boyfriend. We tried to explain why Mike wasn't going to work out as we ordered a round of milkshakes and waited for the lone overnight kitchen worker to scoop out three balls of ice cream from the Deans carton for each of us, blend it, then have the server deliver the vintage diner glasses on a plastic tray.
I dug into my thick strawberry shake with a spoon. It was delicious. I kept eating but focused back on the conversation. I remember feeling something odd about one of the scoops, but I was so entrenched in Macy's story that I didn't notice the metal shard in my ice cream until I felt it against my lip. "P-tuh" I spat out the shard and ice cream all in one motion, then covered my mouth which I was sure was bleeding. The silver blade was probably as large as my thumb, and it had two jagged edges, as if it was fastened for the purpose of causing damage. "What the fuck!" I yelled.
Everyone at the table turned to see what was the matter. "Hey, Lauren, you okay?"
I spoke through a covered mouth, using my free hand to point at the table. "That was in my—"
But it was gone.
"In your… shake? Was something in your shake?" asked Jeremy.
I froze. In that moment, the stories of my childhood that I had only remembered as faint nightmares came back in a wave of crushing terror. How could I have been so stupid to think they would simply vanish forever? No, this isn't the same thing, I thought. But deep down, I knew it was. I drew my hand away from my lips and saw that it was dry—no blood. When I looked back up, all of the blood in my veins went cold. My friends were… smiling at me. Their lips were elastic like taffy, stretching to reveal their teeth. I could feel them radiating malevolence, as if the only thing holding them back from picking up their utensils and stabbing me to death was some thinly veiled force field. The moment lasted for what felt like half a minute, then Jordan said two words which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
"Found you"
The words ricocheted in my now adrenaline powered skull. But just as he spoke them, the world blinked and my friends were back. Bella reached out and grabbed my hand. I pulled away, but when I saw her concerned expression, I relented.
"Sorry, guys, I think I'm going to have to call it." I said.
"You sure, L?" asked Jordan. "You look like you just saw a ghost."
"Yeah, thanks, but I just…" I stumbled for a lie, but when one wouldn't come, Martin stood up and said he'd walk me out to my car.
"Thanks," I said as I got into my little 2015 Jetta. "It's just been a long day."
"No problem, Lauren. You know, if there's ever anything—"
"I know," I said but didn't mean. Some things just couldn't be shared.
I drove for about five minutes before stopping at a gas station. I pulled in and parked near the back. Then I interlocked my fingers and prayed for half an hour. I apologized for not taking my praying seriously and asked to once again be granted peace. Unlike my younger years, I also drifted into other avenues of thought. I imagined my mom. I pictured the whole arc of my life, all of the little decisions that led me to where I was. I cried for a long time. I felt like that little girl again reaching out for help. I still felt so lost, so out of control; there were so many things missing, and I was so confused.
I decided then to take a trip back home and visit my dad who was now working as a private tutor. He made enough prepping affluent students for the ACT and SAT that he could spend his free time pursuing his real passions: reading and writing. When I arrived at his doorstep that weekend, he greeted me with open arms. "How are you, kiddo? It's been, what? A year or so?"
It was actually more like two years, but I didn't tell him. I just smiled and nodded.
"Well, come in."
The house was almost exactly how I remembered it. Linoleum floors, beige walls, a few scattered pictures, the scent of camomile. Everything minimalist. There was a quaintness, a prettiness to the way everything seemed to be well kept and in a perfect place. From the cherry wood chairs we'd sit in to eat, to the cream-colored loveseat. I felt at home.
I spent the drive thinking of what I would talk to my dad about, but ultimately I wasn't sure what I'd say. I loved my dad, but I think growing up it was easy to see him as naive. After all, arguably the most important episodes of my childhood were completely unknown to him. In that way, I kind of loved him from a distance. Maybe losing my mom also played into that. Maybe I just had trust issues. And after what happened at the diner… Luckily there hadn't been any blinks since.
I stayed for a couple days and he showed me around some of the different coffee shops where he'd tutor kids or write some of his stories. I met some of his friends, mostly other retired or part-time teachers who were in a similar place in life. I was happy for him. Then, on Sunday, he made me my favorite meal growing up: homemade carbonara pasta with chicken and broccoli. The sauce had a few different cheeses, butter, olive oil, and a raw egg yolk. It was the perfect blend of creamy, savory, and sweet. After we ate, he cracked open a scrapbook of some old photos and other clippings he had put together.
We reminisced about the past and laughed whenever I'd cover up one of my awkward pictures. He brought up some stories from school that I had forgotten, naming some teachers that I hadn't thought about in years. Apparently I had started at the end, because as I moved to the other end of the book, I kept getting younger and younger. I flipped to the last pages and noticed a couple pictures of my mom that made my heart sink.
"She was beautiful, wasn't she?" said my dad.
"Mmm," I agreed.
I flipped to the last page and saw a collage of newspaper clippings. One of them was related to the accident. It was headlined: "Two Survive Head-On Collision". After a cursory glance at the text, I noticed something odd. It said, "Both the husband and child, a three year old girl, sustained life-threatening wounds. The husband was found unconscious on the scene. The girl was found twenty meters away from the vehicle, crying." I swallowed, trying to remember back to what happened that day. The feeling of crashing, of the world slowing down, then breaking, returned. And then there was a hand. My dad's hand. Or was it? If he was unconscious, who pulled me out of that wreck?
I looked up at my dad. He was smiling.
I shot up and started backing up slowly toward the door. "No, not you, too. What is this? What's happening? Who are you?"
My dad, or whatever was controlling him, laughed."Oh, Lauren, Lauren, Lauren. You know who we are." he purred as he stood up. He lifted his hands and the lights began to flicker then bend in a way which shouldn't have been possible. Dark figures began to propagate from the shadows along the walls. The pictures nailed there began to blink out of existence. I turned to run toward the door but the handle was gone. Glass shards materialized all around me and swarmed like locusts. Certain I was going to die, I dropped down on my knees and once again turned to prayer, this time asking God to directly intervene and save me.
Everything went quiet.
"Honey? Are you okay?"
I didn't trust his voice. I knew if I opened my eyes, I'd see that awful smile. He was just toying with me. "It's not you," I said in between muttered prayers. "I know it's not you."
"Honey," my dad said, closer. I felt his arms wrap around me. This was it, I was going to be suffocated. I waited for the inevitable crushing weight of my chest collapsing. I waited to break all over again.
"I would never hurt you, Lauren. I love you more than anything in the whole world."
I burst out in tears. "No, it's not you, I know it's not you. You don't exist!"
My dad's weight dissipated. I opened my eyes and saw that he was no longer there. "Dad?" I called aloud. "Dad? Where did you go?"
I checked all over the house, but there was no trace of him. There were still pictures of him all over the house, so I knew he hadn't blinked out of existence like everything else, but somehow he was missing.
***
I left the house and got a room at a hotel, where I am now. I'm sure at this point that whatever is happening to me is no longer random. Something out there is actively trying to hunt me. Maybe it has been my whole life, but only now it can see me—however weird that sounds. If that's right, then God has been on my side trying to protect me from this demon or monster or devil or whatever it is. Regardless, the methods I was using when I was younger are not going to cut it anymore. I already posted my story in several other small circles and have gotten one reply. A man who goes by the name "Trent" (apparently it's an alias). He said that he has some insight into my "condition" and can offer help if I want it. I'm planning on meeting with him tomorrow. I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but at this point I need answers. I can keep you updated with my progress if that interests you, and to anyone who knows anything about what's happening to me, please… I could really use your help.
***
I was just about to post this when Trent sent another message. This is what it says:
Trent: We can do the \*** at **** O'clock. Also, if what you're telling me is true, your mother may still be alive.*

Perfi just can’t seem to open the packets without slipping on the wrappers or accidentally launching them across the room like a pawn launcher on auto-fire, but here we are.

• Standard latex with vanilla mint flavor: the all-rounder akin to ordering a vanilla mint latte at a bar it's standard reliable and mildly interesting great for a basic layer of protection in any scenario including anal sex though it might not spice up the night like a tzar tank rolls into a battlefield, be careful of the splash on this thing, its bound to hit friendlies!
  
• ultra-thin condoms of watermelon splash: as close as you get to raw Perfi(R) without the worry offering heightened sensitivity that might just make you think you’ve reached the watermelon cortex of pleasure particularly good for feeling every detail without sacrificing safety—key in more intimate encounters when your commander is going for the back line!
  
• ribbed and textured condoms, suitable fororange zest: adds an extra 'oomph' to every thrust into enemy lines, protecting you from dragon's teeth and advanced walls alike, its also designed to enhance pleasure like an armada enhances naval power for that under-the-surface penetration attempt - the texture can be quite the game changer—just ensure your partner is as excited about the orange zest as Perfi!
  
• flavored condoms (strawberry banana chocolate) - lemon pie: adding a bit of zest to your test because who doesn’t want their naughty bits to taste like lemon pie ideal for oral encounters but remember the sugar content might not be the best for other types of play unless like Perfi you enjoy playing with yeast
  
• glow-in-the-dark condoms - starfruit delight: why not light up your nightlife like a neon sign at a bar adds a playful twist to encounters and if you ever lose your way well your starfruit delight will guide you home not just a party trick but also a practical choice for making sure everything’s covered properly when you have cloak enabled, just make sure to watch out for Perfi's little spy bots!
  
• non-latex condoms (polyurethane polyisoprene) - cool mint: no latex no problem and now with a hint of cool mint as if your nether regions went to a spa excellent for those with allergies and anyone appreciating advanced fusion of flavor with function—because who said hypoallergenic needs to be boring
  
• warming and cooling condoms - spicy chocolate: turn up the heat or cool down the fires—like controlling the climate of an* ancient armada fleet of big bertha's* on the high seas adds a unique layer of sensation that can be quite exhilarating or as surprising as finding out your partner is secretly a tzar tank enthusiast
  
• extra strength condoms - peach thyme: thick enough to withstand the most vigorous activities like a bar fight but for your bigger 'eco' parts ideal for when you need that extra assurance particularly in more robust sessions with back and forth between the front lines...
  
• extended pleasure/performance enhancing condoms - mint julep: last longer than ever before and not just at a bar quiz night the numbing agent ensures the show goes on while the mint julep keeps things fresh it’s like having an advanced fusion reactor powering your endurance—just more enjoyable
  
• female condoms - blackberry sangria: a staple of Perfi's man-purse, make sure to pop it in early like those big arm commanders always do, this battle protection offers control and protection suitable for all kinds of intimate engagements, especially suited to the tip of the engagement before everything blows up.... yes yes ok its a bit festive and sophisticated like a CUUK at a high society event, surely a Perfi favourite.
  

each of Perfi's choices brings its own little twist to the engagement —literally and figuratively whether you're looking to enhance sensation prolong the experience or just keep things safe and sound there's a condom out there that’s perfect for the job and with these flavors who says safety can't be delicious?