Moose Musings

10:36pm: At the Women's Omnium (it's a Track Cycling Sport), coming into the last run of the event one of our Aussie ladies is in second place and then didn't even attempt to win or even place in any sprints and we ended up in 5th. I mean, maybe she was tired - the event involves like 4 80 lap races, but gee you'd think you'd give it a bit of a go rather than just let four people pass you, one of whom was a New Zealander :OP

Haha, I shouldn't be so pressed :OP after all, the Aussie men picked up silver and bronze in the Men's Kieran event that took place just before, so good on them.

Also the woman who finished last had -32 points, not sure how they managed that.

In other news, it's the last day of the Olympics, which is a bit sad, I do enjoy a good Olympics, but all things must end. Plus Australia is (as far as I know) still in 3rd place on the Medal Tally, which is mighty impressive, go us!

In other news, I did get the roast port for lunch at my parents place, although the traffic was strangely terrible, the cars in front of me apparently didn't know the speed limit 1of the road we were on was 60 because they weren't even doing 45. What's up with that? Plus I had to go to tow supermarkets because the first one didn't have any roast pork, weird.

After lunch I helped my mother dispose of some dead plants and put the left over soil into a big pot were so transplanted some...Fragipani I think?

I remain itchy, sigh, although the Sorbolene cream I bought yesterday seems to be helping a bit, I really ought to go to the doctor about this though, it's getting really annoying, plus I keep scratching enough to draw blood sometimes, which I'm sure could have very bad side effects if I get an infection or something.

I also need to remember to try get my fellow library peeps together to do Trivia, which I totally meant to do last week, but then got buried it work I kept forgetting to do so. Shakes head.


Anyway, it's past 11pm now so I better get going...but before I do...

The Friday Five

6/1/24

These questions were dictated over my shoulder by ahunter3 on LJ.

1. In what ways do you expect/hope this year to be better than last year? Well, I've gone so far back in the archives I'm answering this with over half the year over (booo!) but yeah, it's been a good year and I think I expected it, I went on a cruise to the Australian Open in January, so that was a good time!

2. In what ways do you expect/hope this year to be worse than last year?

Well, it is a US election year, which even as an Australian is still a big concern. Seriously, we don't need that shit. Also the weather is a lot more crazy, this winter has been so cold.

3. What year would you travel back to if you could? Hmm, I'm not actually sure TBH...maybe 2000 that was a good year, the Olympics in Sydney! :O)

4. What was your worst year? Hmm, I'm fortunate in that I don't think I've had a really terrible year... maybe when I lost my job that I got through my Grandparents because it took years to eventually get a long-term, secure, full-time job again (like almost 10 years O.o)

5. What was your best year? Hmmm, I dunno actually, I've had many a good year...maybe 2019 because that's when I got the Inter Library Loans Officer job at the library. Yaaay!

On that note, I shall be off!

Goodnight!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Olympics

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:25pm: To lodge an unsuccessful inquiry at the gymnastics? I'm pretty sure it does, but maybe it doesn't at the Olympics or maybe everyone feels more inclined to spend money because they're having them left, right and centre here at the Rhythmic Gymnastics All-Around Final.

In other news, the psychiatrist appointment went well, although I probably shouldn't have followed my Navman's GPS, because I think it lead me astray and ended up being a bit late, booo! Although my doctor was cool about it, I swear I've been scarred for life by one of my old boss's who was SRS BSNS about arriving even five minutes late to work. Although I am chronically late, so I really should do something about that.

Anyway, I was able to tell my doctor about the flying success to Fiji and we discussed the Metro - which I still haven't gone on because of the incident a few months back when the system glitched out and a number of people were stuck in the tunnels for two hours! As the Doc pointed out they've probably put extra precautions in place now so it's probably safe to go on it now.

I also asked him about the itchiness, he agreed with my colleague that it could well be winter related (it has been a particularly cold winter), on the other hand, I was itchy in Fiji too, so I dunno. :O/ In fact I'm itchy right now, it really sucks. I'm trying not to scratch because of the whole scratch-itch cycle, but it's really hard. Still wondering if I should go down to the bulk billing medical centre tomorrow. Or maybe just find some SRS BSNS moisturiser... I think the one I have might be like 10 years old and maybe doesn't work as well as it should.

These rhythmic gymnasts also like throwing their towels down before heading out to compete, which is rather funny, I wonder when that started? Does it really help them perform better or is it just an excuse to make their coach pick it up? Gymnastics coaches are known for being hard asses so I can see they might be tempted.

Anywho, haven't done any writing on fan fic today, I should look at the prompts again and get some ideas...

Before I head off though...

The Friday Five

9/8/24

1. Are you and your birth family close? Indeed I am, for which I am most grateful for :O)

2. How far away do you live from your various family members? My parents and little brother are just a couple suburbs away (the former to the north, the latter to the south), Grandpa lives just up the hill, my Uncle Sam and his family are just a suburb away as well. My big brother and his family live in Japan though!

3. When was the last time you visited with relatives? Well, I was just over at my parents' place on Wednesday, we had steak for dinner, which was most delicious and then Mum and I watched our shows. It was a good time!

4. Do your relatives travel to visit you? Not often aside from my mother, which is a good thing because I'm a messy person and yeah I don't want visitors to judge me :OP

5. How do you stay in touch with family: phone calls, email, snail mail, texts, other? Phone calls, texts and email, mostly the first two since most of my family is local.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, one of the ways to get to my psychiatrist involves driving past my parents old house, I decided to pop by and take a look and they're doing some serious renovations to the place! Although they've already changed it a lot, it's a duplex of two houses, my parents owned both of them for a few years. They were brick, but now the one we originally lived in has concrete over the brick and a tin roof, although interestingly enough the roof on the other side still has tiles. It's an odd look!

On that note I better head off! Goodnight!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Mentality

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11:08pm: Yes, in contrast to the women's event, which had mostly teenagers, the men's event seems to be full of old folk, including a guy who's 51 years old! Talk about a contrast.

In other Olympic news there's also the Dinghy Final, where guys in tiny boats are trying to get around a course that looks quite confusing. The guy from Hungary just tipped over his whole boat and had to get it upright again, which he managed to do. It's rather exciting because we're in a gold medal position! We just have to finish far enough ahead of the dude from Cyprus. Although as I said it's kinda hard to tell who's in what place when the TV isn't showing it LOL.

Wait, they've just abandoned the race...there's not enough wind D: Well that sucks, although it also answers my question of what happens when there's no wind. How annoying though! We were about to pick up the gold medal. Dang.

Anyway...apart from that not much to report except I need to get my butt to bed since it's coming up on 11:30pm and I've been staying up far too late, last night for example I did stay up to watch the diving, fortunately, it didn't end at 1:30am (or maybe it did with the medal ceremony), but still.

The itchiness continues...a colleague suggested that it might be the winter weather, but I was also itchy in Fiji, so I'm not sure about that. And I've neglected to make an appointment with my doctor about it, I guess I should do that now.

On a final note, the Archery Club got back to me, they're having the next "Come and Try" session on Saturday 17th August, so I plan to attend that.

On that note I shall be off, goodnight all!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Itchiness

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10:16pm: I think I'm bad luck for gymnasts...I'm watching the apparatus finals and gymnasts are falling left, right and centre! Simone Biles didn't even get a medal on the Balance Beam! Zhang the favourite on the High Bar did a solid routine and then fell flat on his face on the dismount! Women's Floor is next, but I should probably go to bed because I've been staying up way too late these past few nights, plus you know being a jinx!

Strangely enough, Simone Biles got docked .3 points for not bowing to the judges which was part of why she lost out on a medal, which is hella weird and reminds me of that movie Stick It (I think it's called), I mean it's not like she gave them the finger she just didn't do the whole arms in the air thing. Harsh.

As a palate cleanser, so to speak here's Alexei Nemov being epic 20 years ago on the High Bar. We'll just ignore that he didn't even get a medal for this awesomeness :OP (I totally booed for 10 minutes from home along with the crowd).

The Men's High Bar has finished and there's a tie for bronze! And Zhang from China got one of them, so good for him, although the other bronze medallist is from Taiwan, which feels a bit a awkward, wonder how that's gonna go in their two respective countries!

Also a kid from Colombia got silver, so that's cool too.

But yeah, I should get to bed because once again I've neglected to write any McFly July prompts primarily because I had a raging headache when I got home from work. Fortunately the ibuprofen helped it out, but that's like the second evening in a row. Concerning!

Before I go, it was back to work today and alas I was a bit late as usual, and it proved to be a busy day for me indeed, now that the deliveries of new books have started up again I have to match the packing slips to the invoices and that can take a very long time indeed! Plus the Inter Library Loans and there was also a Zoom Meeting of NSW Inter Library Loans people too.

So yeah, better wrap this up, I have to get my masks out of the washing machine and hang them up so they're dry for tomorrow.

Also the Friday Five...apparently they're looking for help, because at the moment only two people are doing the questions. I wonder if I should put my hand up, but I dunno. It seems others have put their hands up so that's cool.

I can't remember now where I was up to with it!

I think it's was...

The Friday Five

16/2/24

In Celebration of President's Day

1. Have you ever been the president of anything? Hahahaha, oh Hell no!

2. What do you think is the most important leadership trait? Humility and a willingness to listen to others, especially if they know better or may have expertise you lack.

3. What time period did you find the most interesting to learn about in history class? Ooo, that's a toughie...I enjoy studying history in general! I do enjoy finding out about the Georgian period and also the Victorian period.

4. What's something you think about doing, but you haven't gotten back into in several years? Well, I'm back into writing these days, which I'm most relieved about because there was a period when I didn't write at all and it was not cool.

5. If you could add one more random holiday to February, what would it be? Um, BBQ Day, because that how we roll here in Australia. :OP

Some of those questions look familiar, but others' don't so yeah, apologies if I have done that one.

Right so the Floor Final is on, the women seem to be doing all right so far... apparently this has been an unusually long Gymnastics comp - they had a break in the middle for the Trampoline competition, so maybe that explains the falling rather than me. :OP

On that note though, I gotta run!

Goodnight all!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Gymnastics Crazziness

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11:15pm: So the archery has started at the Olympics, during Tokyo for some strange reason I really got into watching the archery. I think I realised the reason why today, it's one of the only sports where glasses wearers can wear their glasses while competing! A lot of athletes actually do wear glasses, but obviously not while engaged in their sport. I for one feel solidarity with my glasses wearing brethren.

In other news, the Men's Apparatus Finals at the gymnastics, although at the moment there's also the Men's Road Race, and one of the commentators is Phil Liggett - whoo! :OD So I'm kind of flipping between the stream and the Road Race on TV (it's available on a stream as well, but last time I went on there were different commentators, but maybe Phil was just taking a break).

I'm also reminded that I need to make that Doctor's appointment regarding the itching issue, it hit with avenagce this evening and that really sucked. I'm a bit concerned it might have something to do with sausage rolls, because I ate one tonight and the itchiness happened shortly after. I'm pretty sure that was just a co-incidence though.

Anyway, I'll have to make this a short entry because I need to do my Duolingo before midnight, but I finally realised what was wrong with my cupcakes. Well, there were two issues, first of all, I didn't beat the butter and caster sugar properly and secondly...call me a dummy, but I totally didn't realise that baking soda went out of date. The baking soda I had was out of date by about 13 years... Yeah major fail.

So I made a new batch and even broke out my cupcake maker, which turned out to be a good plan because for some reason the ones I put in the oven didn't rise. Very odd.

The only downside, I didn't realise about the baking soda until I already put the old stuff in...I did put the newly purchased stuff in as well - and as said it worked a treat, but I'm a bit concerned because to my palate the cupcakes have an oddly salty aftertaste, although Mum and the people at the retirement village said they tasted delicious, so it could just be me. There's about 11 of them left over (because there were quite a number of cakes at the event), so I'll be taking them into work, so fingers crossed it really is just me.

I also still have the flat as a pancake ones left over, although I used up all the frosting, so I'm considering making another batch of frosting for them. Or I might have to throw them out.

Right, it's past 11:30pm now so if I'm gonna get my Duolingo done I better haul!

Goodnight!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Cupcakes

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:10pm: I haven't actually forgotten my journal, of course, I just keep neglecting to update it due to a lack of interesting news. Although I probably could have done more this past fortnight because the Winter Olympics has been on! And whilst Plushy never did make his comeback, there's a lot to watch and not just figure skating wise! I've been enjoying a wide range of sports, I never knew they had so many snowboard events, seriously they've expanded into everything! Just today I was watching the Snowboard Big Air - which is like ski-jumping on a snowboard except with somersaults and twists at the end, as well as the Parallel Giant Slalom.

There's also the Speed Skating Mass Start which is like the Kieran or whatever it is in cycling, they've got 16 skaters going around the long track at a time with the aim of not running into each other, LOL. I'm looking forward to the final because the semis called for a more careful approach.

Unfortunately, they've just moved to hockey, which I don't care for. I still don't know why Channel 7 isn't using more than one channel to broadcast this, man, get with the program Channel 7.

As for the figure skating, my favourite Russian pairs skaters not only missed out on gold, they missed out on a medal altogether! Disaster! I felt so sorry for them I even cried - which as my regular readers would know is a terrible idea for me, because all I got for my trouble was a thumping headache and dry eyeballs. Grumble, grumble.

I was all ready in a bad mood because our Aussie pair, the junior Worlds and Junior Grand Prix medallists didn't make the free skate! They were totally lowballed.

At least the North Korean pair did great, they're a really awesome team, I look forward to seeing them in the future!

The Men's figure skating proved to be historic! The defending champion from Sochi finally did what no other man has done in 70 years...win the gold back to back! What a thrill! Also, there was our Aussie skater, Brendan Kerry who after finishing last at Sochi and not even making the free program got through this time and finished...I don't remember where now, but not last. LOL.

The Ice Dance was a nail biter! The Canadian legends Virtue and Moir had returned to get a gold medal (they actually already had one in the Team event, but they wanted the individual too), but the French Team was really giving them a run for their money this year. Unfortunately, for the French a wardrobe malfunction meant their short dance wasn't nearly as smooth as it had been and the Canadians managed to get the gold with an absolutely epic free skate. It was awesome!

Slightly less awesome, was the Russian favourite in the ladies not getting the gold after being so dominate for years. I didn't much care for her when she came on the scene, but I've grown to like her. She was beaten by her teammate, who's only 15! So crazy stuff right there.

Once again, our Aussie lady Kailani Crane did awesome finishing 17th the highest any Aussie lady has done since 1998 in Nagano!

In less positive news, my panic attacks have raised their ugly head again, on Wednesday for no real reason that I can discern I had an absolutely horredous on, that had me calling my mother and begging her to come and help me (fortunately she managed to talk me down) while I was freaking out in the parking lot of the Flower Power nursery! Worst of all, I scratched myself up again. :O(

I thought the worst was over, but on Friday morning the same thing happened again! Not quite as bad, but I ended up re-opening the scratches from the day before. :O(

Suffice to say this is not very good at all, I have no idea what could have set this off...the only thing I can think of is because of all my Olympic watching I haven't been doing my usual exercise. They do say that exercise is good for your mental health.

Also maybe I'm not getting enough sleep...or it's hormones - I hope it's not the later though, I don't need that shit, man.

Anyway, that's pretty much everything I want to say right now, and I still need to do my Japanese and Russian before midnight so I better haul butt and do that. The Mass Skating Ladies Final is on right now too!

Goodnight all!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Olympics

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

9:50pm: The GOAT of course meaning "Greatest Of All Time" and in this case it refers to - who else - but Roger Federer, the Fed-Ex, the man! He's here at the final of the Australian Open looking to win his 20th - count that - 20th Grand Slam! He's up against Cilic who he beat at Wimbledon last year - although Cilic was injured at the time, but he's not now. The Fed-Ex had a great first set, but lost the second during a tie-break, won the third and now in the fourth it's on a pretty even footing - the Fed-Ex broke serve early, but Cilic took it back and now there's another chance for Fed-Ex if he can break the deuce!

Nope, Cilic is one up! I rather hope we don't end up doing a five setter because I work tomorrow morning and thus can't stay up too late. We'll have to see.

Anywho, I've been slacking so badly on the journaling, mostly due to a lack of excitement, but also because I've been really busy with lots of extra shifts at the library. I may not have got either of those full-time jobs, but I'm still loved :OP

In other news, my fitness tracker isn't working! Like WTF?! The battery was flat so I changed it, only to find I couldn't get the thing to synch up with the app. I've tried everything! I have no idea what the problem could be, I mean the lights still come on and all that, the app says it can 'find it', but then won't pair. Bad news is the company that makes the fitness tracker Jawbone no longer supports any of its devices, so emailing the support people won't do much. I can buy a new one I suppose, but after a while it's kinda not worth it. So I'm seeing if I can get my Aldi one up and running again.

Oh dang, it's going to five sets, I hope it doesn't go too late and I hope Fed-Ex can re-group! He'll be serving first which is a positive! You can do it, Fed-Ex! We believe in you!

On a final note, I've been investigating the upcoming Olympics, less than a fortnight now and dang me if everything isn't on in the morning rather than the evening - which is when you'd expect it. Obviously this better for the the US audiences, but it does make things irritating. I won't be able to see stuff live - I can only hope I don't get spoiled :OP

Oh man, Cilic's got a break point in this first game of the fifth set, I am alarmed! I'm also thirsty, but I don't want leave before seeing how this game goes. Or maybe I should, sometimes I think I'm bad luck :OP

YAS! Fed-Ex hold on! Oh I hope this bodes well! Go Fed-Ex, go!!!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Fed-Ex Excitment

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10:29pm: Seems they are because their women's team is currently winning against our Aussie team over at Rio. And I for one am confuzzled, isn't Poland basically landlocked? Or at least doesn't get warm enough for beach volleyball? I suppose maybe they train in some other country as many athletes do.

In other news, it turned out to not be a good day for me, for the past few days I've had a sore throat, but I've felt generally OK. However, today after working with Mrs S I headed off to the library for my shift which started off quite well, but about an hour and a half in I started feeling really icky and dizzy. It got so bad that I had to tell my co-workers and then went out back to sit down and try to feel better, but alas I only felt worse. I felt so bad in fact that I didn't think there'd be any way I could drive home, so I tried to call Mum but she was out at a church event and didn't answer, then I tried Dad but he's still battling his own cold and was in no condition to pick me up.

So in the end I had to spend about fifteen minutes lying on the floor of the Library Manager's office with a blanket over me (because I was really feeling quite dizzy) by which point after trying Mum for like the sixth time she answered and I no longer felt so badly dizzy that I would have been a danger in a moving vehicle.

So, I went home sick, which I guess can't be helped, and if I'm going to have a sick day Sunday's the best day because there's four of us on the shift. The problem, though is that as I've mentioned I'm the only one who works every weekend, the Librarian on Duty rotates, and you might also remember that a few months back I had to leave suddenly on Sunday before (although in that case it was a panic attack) and that was the with the same Librarian on duty! :Oo

She's perfectly nice and was very sympathetic, but that can't be a very good look...also I'm a bit worried that I've run out of sick days, or just days off in general because I have two days I want to take off before the end of the year. I mean I could take them off without pay (and would need to because these are important events) but that'd suck pretty hard.

So I ended up going to my parental unit's after meeting up with Mum (at the service station where she decided she needed her car washed so that took quite a while), which I'd planned to do anyway to go through the box she and Dad bought back down from my aunt's place last week. I had also planned to go to church - after missing last week - but alas that didn't happen. I did at least go through the box, there were a few things in there I wanted to keep, but the rest was fine to throw out.

I'm a bit worried how I'll feel tomorrow, but fingers crossed I'll be OK, I finally got around to eating a mandarin and you know what they say about Vitamin C.

Also, being at my parental's means I can use the internet here, thank God...I sure hope that the internet situation at the Granny Flat gets sorted out, I've all ready resigned myself to having to cough up another $15 this month for going over my mobile data limit.

Anyway, I'm gonna wrap this up because I don't want to stay up too late, vitamin C and a good night sleep is the prescription to lessen the problem with colds.

So goodnight!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Health

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

10:46pm: Indeed so! Always an exciting time, although I missed the Opening Ceremony because I was at work today. However, the news did replay some highlights, including the Tongan Flag Bearer who's taken the world by storm, LOL!

Right now, I'm watching the Road Race with Grandpa, Phil Liggett is commentating, yay! It's gokna be a very long race though, seven hours! So obviously we won't be staying up for all of it. But with any luck one of our Aussie's will do well and maybe pick up a medal!

It also has to be said that Rio looks really pretty from the aerial shots, which is nice because there's been a lot of doom and gloom in the lead up. Good to see the Opening Ceremony highlights, since even with the tight budget there was a lot of excitment and the caldron for torchy was amazing! :OD

In other exciting news, I won Canasta against M this afternoon! OMG! Even more than that, actually, I kicked some serious butt. Whoot! Hooray me! There's gonna be a rematch tomorrow morning though, so who knows what will go down there.

Not much else to report, although I didn't end up meeting Mum at the display suite of the apartment building that's going up in Brookvale, which was a good thing because I never would have made it! Not sure what's happening, apparently Dad's been investigating options too, maybe he's found something nicer! I'm still wondering about that one bedroom myself, although I probably can't afford that one.

Not much else to report except Uncle Sam dropped by this afternoon with a two quarters of a chocolate mousse cake, one for me and one for M and Grandpa, yum! Although, I haven't actually eaten any of my yet, I tasted some of M and Grandpa's piece.

Uncle Sam also got me onto this game called "Letterplex", we're playing a game right now, don't think I'm gonna win against him, at least not the first game.

Right, it's after 11pm and I haven't done my Russian! Better haul, I do need to get up at a decent hour tomorrow after all.

Goodnight all!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Canasta

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

10:45pm: So I get the sports channels on the Foxtel here at the Granny Flat and I was just randomly flipping through and I found a doco about Golden Moments at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, always the best Olympics. All the events were sold out, so it was a fabulous atmosphere and all that jazz. Plus we did really well in swimming that year, unlike 2012...which turned into a bit of a train wreck.

Although now I'm wondering if I can get any figure skating on these sports channels, except of course the season's kind of over, so whoops, I guess I won't know for some time. :OP

Ha ha, even the wrestling was sold out in Sydney...as well as the Dressage...I only got to see one event, the trampoling - which they've been talking about taking out, but shit son, if they're going to put golf in 2016 that would just be unforgivable. :OP

I am, however, procrastinating a bit here, I'm supposed to be working on a cover letter for a very promising job that's for a position at the US Embassy, a Visa Clerk position! It sound pretty cool and quite important - although obviously I probably won't have the final say on giving people visas, I'll just be part of a chain.

But yes, I met with the Career Coaching person and we spoke about it and did some visualation of what corporate-me would look like and she has tasked me with writing up a kick ass cover letter as well as spruce up my resume. So...I've been trying to work on the cover letter from scratch, but...I haven't got too far yet, I need to send it to her tomorrow though so she can look over it and provide any necessary critique. The job closes on 5pm Friday so I have to get it in! But yeah, I've been slacking...I need more dynamic writing here! Come on me!

In other news, the Giro is on! I am saddened by the loss of the great team of Euskaltel-Euskadi, there's no team with such alliteration, totally depressing. Although the Australian backed team - Orica Greenedge is having a good race so hey that's cool and of course Cadel Evans is still in the pink jersey, yay!

Aaaand I should probably wrap this up now and head to bed so I can get enough shut eye to be ready to hit the cover letter writing tomorrow. Plus I don't actually haven anything else to say, LOL.

Oh! And fingers crossed my IBS seems to have settled down - knock on wood - so here's hoping these trends continue.

Goodnight all!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Cover Letter

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