life | "¡Quiéreme toda; o no me quieras!"

Changing Times, Changing Perspectives

Posted on December 12, 2017 by pankeu

I caught a lot of flack for my private Facebook post.

I have a platform where I share my ideas, I share my anger and I share my opinions. Freedom of speech, am I right? Of course, it comes with certain conditions.

If you’re being edgy (e.g. sexist, racist and homophobic, etc) then it’s fair game and you’re entitled to whatever you say.

However, when you call attention to problematic behaviour, even if it’s not directed at anyone in particular, suddenly, freedom of speech doesn’t apply because it’s not poking fun at an oppressed or marginalised group and you’re being a Debbie Downer for not seeing the humour.

I found that dynamic intriguingly convenient.

Anyway.

The post wasn’t worded as ‘politely’ and wasn’t palatable for certain people, (because I wasn’t trying to be polite. I was frustrated and I wanted to vent on my own space) so some tried to take the primary point I was trying to make and skew it towards a more sinister perspective; that I was making generalisations towards white people that could (apparently) be applied to a marginalised group.

Of course, this is a baseless comparison and doesn’t bear the weight or nuance of historical and institutional racism.

The general gist of it was that I was asking white people to call out their racist family members when they spout their anti-immigrant rhetoric in this post-Brexit world.

People want to post their ‘Je Suis Charlie’ France Facebook flag filters and share videos with apparent outrage at the rise in fascism and white supremacist groups gaining traction but in real life, they don’t engage with racial aggression; micro or macro. I’m fed up with people giving their family a free pass just because similar blood passes through them; especially since I know that it can make a difference.

When my parents first came to London, their English was limited, so they did as the Romans did and learned the behaviours and idioms of the average British man, because that’s who my dad was around. This toxic masculinity and a staunch belief in perpetuating this representation included homophobia.

And apparently the word ‘git’. It’s my dad’s favourite term of endearment.

As the years went by, and I was raised and educated in North London, I started to develop social awareness; which started out with calling out sexism. My brother and I were a year and a bit apart, and social clubs at primary school were separated by gender, including football clubs.

Fortunately, I was allowed to be by my brother’s side at the boy’s football club and I quickly assimilated with the lads. This was a livesaver for my parents, because we were always together and it was easier for the both of us to go home together.

I remember practicing my kicks with my friends (mostly boys and one other ‘tomboy’) and someone tried to stop me from playing because I was a girl. A male teacher approached them and asked what the issue was and set them straight.

It was super important for me to see that; an adult male standing up against sexism and imposed gender roles. Why was football seen as a boys only activity anyway?

So, seeing that in action, I started to call it out at home. Same with homophobia, when I unlearned toxic behaviours and started educating myself on the LGBT community.

My dad used to pepper his sentences with derogatory terms for LGBT people, things I know he overheard in those exchanges with the everyday, blue collar white British men.

My father is a man in his 50s, born in Mozambique, raised in Portugal and now assimilating, at the time, into a very specific male British culture, which reflected how men, at the time, were told they should act.

For years, he saw me attend Gay Pride, he met my openly gay friends, I would have conversations about it with him and most importantly, I didn’t let anything slide. This was probably when I was in my mid-teens.

The other day, I had dinner with my dad, just me and him. We had beers, we had dessert and after, we walked the short walk to the station.

On the way, two men holding hands and sneaking a small kiss to each other passed us.

I held my breath, waiting for my dad to make a comment.

He quietly leant down and said “Isn’t that beautiful” in a really quiet, genuine voice, I assume because he didn’t want to call attention to himself. He waited until they had passed us and out of earshot, he said “How amazing it is, that in this country, they’re not persecuted. It is beautiful.”

Even though it is several years in the making, you can change people’s point of view. You can help them shed their toxicity and no matter what age or stage of life they’re in, they CAN change.

So pick up that phone and send your great aunt Kathy a Guardian article or two and start a dialogue with your family during whatever holiday celebration or reunion you’re having.

It might turn out for the best.

Quitting Time!

Posted on February 3, 2017 by pankeu

“Si me quieres, no me recortes:

¡Quiéreme toda… O no me quieras!”

– Dulce Mariá Loynaz

The day I decided to quit my job, I was actually late to work.

My manager knew that I lived in the middle of nowhere and if I missed a train or one was cancelled, I wasn’t going anywhere for at least 30 minutes to an hour.

During the winter, trains started getting cancelled and on Sundays, there were none. So to make the Sunday shift, I would have to leave my home at 7am to get to Selfridges by 10am. Because of this, my manager and I had an understanding that she wouldn’t put me for a Sunday shift. *cue dry laughter here*

The only thing I asked is that she tell me two weeks in advance so that I could stay at my mother’s in North London and could get more than 4 hours of sleep. That’s all.

Anyway. This was in January. I was overworked and overwhelmed. My two year relationship ended in late October and I literally threw myself into being better at work – not that it was hard.

I tried to be a better co-worker, sometimes by doing things as simple as getting an energy drink for my supervisor who was on her feet from 7am that morning on a 10 hour shift or playing The Beatles to satiate another manager.

During the Christmas holiday period, I worked every single busy day, including New Year’s Eve and Day.

Which was a Sunday, by the way. I asked to have the day off to see my family for longer than five minutes and was promptly denied even though we already had an understanding that I COULD. NOT. BE. THERE. ON. SUNDAYS.

Which meant that I spent only Christmas Day with my family and I had to be in bed by 9pm anyway. So I got zero family time during this joyous retail hell that is Christmas.

Anyway, this day, I got the on right trains, I managed to get to the Underground without losing my mind or trying to murder slow walking tourists.

I get to King’s Cross and the train doesn’t move. At all. We stayed in a tunnel for about 20 minutes. I started hyperventilating.

Why, why me.

I hop off at the next stop and manage to use my mighty Londoner knowledge to make switches and dodge the disrupted lines.

I was in the throes of a panic attack in the changing room, ripping off my band shirt to nervously button up my ironed white shirt.

I literally ran up the escalators, tripping a few times and making customers nervous.

I get to the shop floor and we go in the back for the morning team to brief us, etc, etc. I’m breathing heavy, sweating, and about to start full on sobbing.

I hold it together just enough – until someone asks if I’m okay.

And then three months of angst, taking snide comments in stride and working myself to death for people who didn’t appreciate me came out in one fell swoop.

My supervisor cleared the room out and I, clutching the sink and trying not to throw up and meanwhile, I look absolutely pathetic.

As she’s comforting me, the manager sticks her head, hesitates for a moment to look at me and then asks if we can start the brief and get to work.

All I did was stare at her. I was in shock in how unfeeling, unsympathetic and rude she could be when she could see I was clearly in pain.

I spent that shift mentally typing up my notice and taking on the financial risk of quitting and taking a much needed break. I spent about a month researching universities to apply to for a masters degree.

I kept telling myself that I would never return to retail and I would only apply to jobs that were in my field.

However, a week or two into my unemployment, I found myself in an internship in exactly the right industry at exactly the right time. I dropped all talk of an expensive, useless masters.

A few months later, I picked up a part time job as a waitress when my savings dried up – I wasn’t able to take any of my holidays that had accrued over the 8 month period that I was sentenced to retail, so I had a hefty sum of money to live off of comfortably.

Looking back, I felt like it was the end of the world. I went into my last shift smiling and feeling like a goddamn Queen waving goodbye to my misery.

For the few weeks, every morning, I woke up in a panic; thinking I had overslept because it was 8am or having fevered dreams about cupcakes, cream cheese and mascarpone every night.

All in all, it was a gracious experience (especially eating cakes all day), but it was also tiring and often unyielding.

Note to all managers; your workers are human beings with human feelings and human families, not names on a rota.

8 months on…

Posted on November 20, 2014 by pankeu

Hey everyone. It’s been 8 months since the initial mourning period of my cat, Simba. I know it seems a little melodramatic to just up and change your entire lifestyle but that single moment lead to many internal elements of clarity.

A lot has changed since April, as you can imagine. I am now 6 months away from graduation and 6 months away from joining the unemployment line – how likely am I to get a job straight out of university? I guess we’ll see. I’m not going to apologise for not posting anything in such a lengthy period of time. I am human, susceptible to human error, therefore…And I fell victim to that thing we call life.

So here’s a month-by-month round up:
May brought on my father’s 50th birthday. I don’t know what it was about my dad basically being half a century old, but it made me see him in a new light and it compelled me to make some long-term changes in my own life.

I had finished my last assignment and now had all this free time. I dedicated it to my local food bank and volunteered to help out a bake sale at the Luton carnival with my flatmate and close friend/journalism colleague. We raised over £200 in that bake sale alone and it was fun to walk around and talk to locals.

Being from London, it’s hard for me to comprehend small town life and you become accustomed to certain customs; something as simple as making eye contact on the Underground is considered a social taboo and you’ll find yourself victim to a hard stare down or an awkward one. Either way, I wasn’t used to complete strangers wanting to have actual conversations with you.

Like whoa, trippy. Here’s some pictures:

I also found myself to have fallen victim to harassment. Again. It got exhausting.
I was stressed out and I had one exam to go before I could finally pack up and move home. It felt like everywhere I turned, I was faced with a threat and the spikes in adrenaline means my body couldn’t take it; I had to take certain steps to protect myself; recording myself whenever I left my room in case someone made a verbal threat, asking flatmates to accompany me to the laundry room or simply confining myself to my room for several days on end.

Clearly, this was no way to live.

I wasn’t living in fear of being physically hurt, but of the consequences that would follow if I were to defend myself. In short; I was not about to be dragged into a physical fight and then to be kicked out of an institution of higher learning and amass an overwhelming debt because a bunch of kids couldn’t back off. I was afraid of my own anger, which was building up and I felt like I was ready to snap at any point.

But I had a duty, not only to myself, but to my family. I had to pass, I had to get the grades, I have to graduate. So I kept my tongue in my mouth and I walked proudly. It reminded me of Elizabeth Eckford, clutching her schoolbooks and trying to walk past furious crowds of soldiers and angry segregationists threatening to lynch her. I felt like at that particular point in my life, I embodied the pain and the ache she felt, having to have that sort of resilience and internal strength when in the face of irrational racism and the very real threat of being executed for the crime of education.

One night, I walked out of my building to do laundry at 1am. I had a study group session all day and I find that whenever I do work, my room gets messy and I also found myself with hardly any clothes left. So I thought I could slip out, do my laundry and rush back in and finish up my revision. I found myself subject to loud and very angry comments about my weight; jeering the words “Nelly the elephant” (which was so entirely original and unique) and other accompanying insults that went along the lines of ‘fatty, fatso, fat.’

It wasn’t so much the words, but the fact that it was a large group of them and one of me. I very much doubt that any single person in that group would make the same comments one-on-one. There’s apparent safety in numbers.

I responded loud and clear:

I chose not to engage them. I just went through the proper channels, made my complaints and filed all the necessary reports. When I initially moved back here in September, I will admit to being nervous. Was it going to happen again? Of course not, because the people responsible had moved out of halls and into private housing, but some of them still went to the university. How did I know I wouldn’t bump into one of them at a student club or in line at Tesco buying my groceries? My safety wasn’t entirely guaranteed and I was anxious. Thankfully, I’ve been here two months without any incident to report.

In fact, people have apologised to me. I don’t know whether it was the alcohol or the fact that it was a new school year, but something pushed some people to seek me out and apologise. Whether or not the apology was sincere is a different matter altogether. To be quite frank; I graduate in 6 months and then I won’t have to look back on these juvenile moments with anything other than derision at my naivety and trust in the ‘system’. At this point, I’m willing to forgive, but not forget. I’m willing to forgive for my own sanity, not for the cleansing of the conscience of those who drove me halfway to being a hermit.

Moving onto June;

The end of Spring brought on the World Cup. We donned our red and green Portugal shirts (and our friend her red and yellow Ghana shirt) and played games of Fifa to get us into the spirit. The game went well for us, even though we both failed to make the qualifiers and one of the goals wasn’t even made by us. It was embarrassing and I all but threw my shirt on the ground – with me still wearing it. I could practically hear all of Portugal groaning simultaneously. We put too much faith in Ronaldo and our national pride hinged on whether or not he would recover from his knee injury. We put in months of work trash talking, for example:

(This came shortly after Spain’s defeat, and USA’s 30 second goal against Ghana. Natalie is the Ghana supporter. That all clear?)

(Hey Natalie, if you’re reading this…30 seconds. ;))

July brought on Portugal 2014. Myself and my best friend Jenny jetted off to Portugal and travelled up and down Portugal for a month. The first week, we spent in Porto, which was the birthplace of Harry Potter – something I had never really known/researched! I was naive about small towns and I thought Porto wouldn’t be much fun, but I found it to be the place I missed the most. We made friends while we were over there (and we miss you guys so much!) and we can’t wait to visit them (or have you guys visit us!) in the future.

I took a super cheeky picture of the library (Livraria Lello) in Porto that inspired JK Rowling for the Hogwarts library. If you guys want to read more about that….here you go.

Our second week in Portugal was spent in an amazing apartment in Bairro Alto, Lisbon. Our friend Liza joined us for the next three weeks of our holiday. We spent that week in and out of museums, we visited the Moors Castle in Sintra (which practically had its own colony of cats), I got to visit my aunt who lived on the other side of the bridge (which is widely twinned with the San Francisco bridge and named after the Carnation Revolution in 1974)

Our adventures in Bairro Alto introduced us to our new favourite; CaipiBlack! Which is basically a caipirinha but with black vodka. We visited a metal/alternative bar (Boca Do Inferno) owned by three very cool-looking siblings.

(We played Connect 4 – which was left in the apartment. I got a little cocky with my win; I lost lots of games shortly after.)

We walked so much – and in the heat! No wonder I came back thinner than how I left!

Week three in Portugal was spent in Sines, which is where my family lives. Sines is a little sea-side municipality. But to be honest, we just loved the fact that the house was a short walk away from the beach. And the dogs! There was a huge gorgeous yellow labrador called Jack who strolled the neighbourhood (I assumed he was owned by one of the neighbourhood kids) that was my favourite.

Here’s us washing my cousin’s dogs, Lil Mama and Escuro! Well, Lil Mama. Escuro was smart and he ran away and left Mama to deal with us. Jack was looking a little sad because it was the morning we were leaving Sines.

The four and final week was spent in Faro with Jenny’s family. This entire week felt like one of those family holidays that you only get to relive in fuzzy home videos. Mostly because Jenny’s parents flew in from London (After flying from Angola). I’ve always had a close relationship with them and most of the time, I refer to them as my aunt and uncle to simplify explaining it to other people.

We went on a kayaking tour in Lagos and got to see caverns and caves. At one point, we got to stop at a beach and I got to swim in crystal clear water for what felt like forever.

Our last night in Portugal was spent in style – my aunt, aka, Jenny’s mother, paid for us to stay at an amazing 5* hotel. This was my first time in one (a 5* hotel, not a hotel period) and the whole sophisticated affair took my breath away. The lobby, the shiny uniforms, the cute porter, it was all magical. We were all sad to leave Portugal and eager to return again.

The rest of August was spent preparing to return back to the world of education. September 21st came and I saw off my only brother to University. I cried so much the week running up to him moving out and on the day, I couldn’t hold it back. I hugged him and refused to let go…much to his discontent:

I was incredibly hungover though. That might have added to the crying. I woke up after two hours of sleep after a night of celebrating a close friend’s 21st, gathered my stuff together and walked home to say goodbye to my not-so-little brother.

A week later, it was my turn to move back to my home for the next 7-8 months.

We can do it! We shifted an SUV full of my stuff – full length mirrors and several wicker baskets of makeup and hair products – up four stories and six flights of stairs.

My new flatmates and I; who are absolutely insane! We have fun whenever we’re together, and the conversation is never boring.

Well, that wraps it up, really. 8 months, 2000 words, several pictures and three different hairstyles.

Would it be incredibly narcissistic of me to end this post with a selfie?

*technically, it’s a selfie gif.*

Five Things I Learnt About Being An ‘Adult’

Posted on February 24, 2014 by pankeu

1. A 12-month gym membership is not going to make you want to go. No matter how expensive it is. You’ll slowly see the monthly amount drain out of your account and you’ll slowly resent yourself for not using every second of it. You would think that knowing that you’re paying for it would make you want to use it, but nah.

2. Your family replaces your friends. The moment I left Sixth Form (and there was that awkward in-between period where I was displaced and had no idea what to do with myself until I started university), my friends were suddenly sick of me. I was being stood up, cursed out and isolated. People have yet to tell me what their problem is.

So I did them a favour and removed them from the picture. I had a two-strike rule; if I could prove that you were being a scumbag friend, e.g. standing me up for drinks and posting a picture of you out with ANOTHER friend at the movies (the picture of the ticket, with the exact time and date also helped me identify how much of a rat you were), constitutes as two.

I’ve quickly found that my mother and best friend of almost two decades have become closer to me the past two years. I graduate next year and I can’t wait to officially start in the ‘real world’. I’ve found that whenever I needed support, I could rely on my mother, my cousins, my best friend and her family, who are technically my second family. I could never rely on a friend. They would almost always let me down and then selfishly turn around and ask for my help when it got sticky. I’ve become quite practiced in turning away from these fair-weather people.

3. Marriage is not a ‘happily-ever-after’. The week after Valentine’s Day, I heard stories of teenagers getting proposed to…When I say ‘teenagers’, I literally mean 18-year-olds who clearly think marriage is a fairy-tale ending rather than a serious commitment and a compromise on both parties. Marriage usually dictates a desire to start a family; a first-year University student who has just gotten on board with a commitment to a three-four year course with almost £60k in debt who is intending to drop said course commitment in order for another commitment…that’s like being the mistress, expecting the cheating husband to drop his wife for you and suddenly become faithful.

The hypocrisy is unbelievable.

4. It’s possible to be an adult and enjoy games and animated films. They always made it seem like once you hit your 20s, you have to quit playing the games I enjoy so dearly. Pop culture and Disney animated films are out of the question. What I realised quickly was that adults always make excuses to go do these things under the guise that it’s for someone much younger than them; example being my almost 50-year-old father insisting on taking my 11-year-old sister to see Frozen at the cinema. He pretends it’s for my pre-teen sister, but I know he not-so-secretly likes them too.

So the next time someone shames you for watching ‘The Lion King’ or singing along to ‘Mulan’, you remember this anecdote.

5. Being an adult means dealing with the choices you made. I know people who are wasting their lives away; some with drug abuse issues, some who can’t get themselves back into education simply because they waited too long, some who are stuck in a dead-end relationship with a kid that is growing up in the midst of an unstable relationship. I don’t think I’m better than these people, I just acknowledge that we all made different choices and some turned out better than others.

That’s what it all comes down to; choice.

The Student That Loathes Student Life

Posted on October 29, 2013 by pankeu

Thank God. I can go home every two weeks.

I live in London, one of the greatest metropolitan cities of the world, in my opinion, and I am a second year at the University of Bedfordshire. If there wasn’t an option to disappear for a weekend every fortnight, I think I’d have a mental breakdown.

Student life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; the glamorous wake up calls at 4am when everyone is returning from the club and you, the responsible adult who has a 9am lecture and a 5pm finish, is kept awake by the revellers. I suppose I did bring it upon myself; choosing student accommodation, I did know what I was signing up for.

We’re heading into the middle of week four of the academic year and I’ve showed up to my Tuesday morning lecture exhausted – yet again. I have to thank every faceless deity there is that I have a sympathetic lecturer who listens patiently to my end-of-adolescence whining. I am sensible; I go to bed at a sensible time Monday night and decline invites to go out.

Let me make this clear; my flatmates are not the problem. We live on the top floor of a block in Lea Halls and my flatmates are possibly the kindest, cleanest, most respectful individuals I’ve ever lived with. No one plays their music out loud at ridiculous times at night, everyone minds their own mess (we do get the occasional dish in the sink, but nobody’s perfect!) and we all get on well.

The problem is that because we live on the top floor; we have one fire door, whereas everyone else has two. It does more for soundproofing than it does for security and it means that when the clock strikes four, the drunkard Cinderella’s and Prince Charmings come stumbling home, noisily climbing stairs to get to their flat.

Oh no, the party doesn’t stop there though. Then comes the sound that serenades me in my sleep; the musical slamming of doors. This amazing orchestral tune goes on until the early hours of the morning. It finally stops around 7-8am. By this time, I have gotten little to no sleep and have to down two-three cups of Nescafe just to stay awake.

Whenever I talk about it with people, they just seem to shrug their shoulders and the phrase I’ve come to dread has become a justifiable excuse for raucous behaviour amongst these nearly-adults; ‘Student Life’. Ughh.

Personal Post

Aside | Posted on October 19, 2013 by pankeu

It’s funny; the things we get into when we can’t sleep. It’s currently 7.06AM here in London and I’ve been feverishly typing away at my laptop, burning the midnight oil and wrecking my semi-perfect sleeping pattern.

I’ve been dealing with some issues down at university, for example, I have no idea what’s going on one of my lectures and we have an assessment in two weeks which is 10% of our final grade, so, no pressure whatsoever there.

So for two hours, I skimmed the whole brief, as well as done some original research, which I hope will help. I need to learn how to educate myself rather than impress the educator. I seem to do that a lot.

A week on WordPress!

Posted on August 18, 2013 by pankeu

I would like to thank my 35 followers for their support and comments; it’s been a fun week so far! I made the change from Tumblr to WordPress because I wanted a more sophisticated base for my writing and you guys definitely supplied it!

I can feel myself growing as a writer and progressing as a person. I like to think that my fellow writers are letting me absorb their life experiences. I feel extremely well-travelled!

Thank you guys so much, and let’s hope I can keep up!

Posted.

Posted on August 18, 2013 by pankeu

Unless you live in the woods like a lumberjack or don’t have a fixed address, you get post, right? Do you ever get the feeling you might’ve pissed off your postman?

We’ve been living at this same house for 17 years. We’ve probably had this same postman for just as long. When you become domesticated, you have to learn to be civil and polite to everyday people you encounter; the lady behind the cashier at the supermarket, the contractor who comes to fix your boiler, the IT guy that comes to install your broadband.

The social norm dictates that you invite them in, offer them tea or coffee, make meaningless small chat and then shrivel away into the background and let them do their job.

Taken from ‘Google Images’.

In the UK, we don’t have mailboxes, so on a daily basis (except Sundays! No post on Sundays!), we hear the mailbox flap open and close loudly. Our postman, however, seems to have a slight attitude issue. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out a reason why he slams his fist against our door obnoxiously, at the ungodly hour of 8AM to deliver a package. The doorbell works fine. So does knocking like a human being.

I’ve begun to dread hearing “There’s a package going to be delivered at,” so-and-so date and time because it means keeping an eye out for these rude awakenings.

I wonder who HIS postman is?

Flaky Friends.

Posted on August 16, 2013 by pankeu

Getting stood up sucks, right? But do you know what’s even worse? Getting stood up by a friend who has known you for a decade. Getting stood up by a friend who has know you for a decade and hasn’t apologised. For a month.

I wish I could say I was being immature and that I was overreacting to my friend’s first offence, but this friend is a repeat offender. Time after time, I have been disappointed by this friend, who has run out of excuses to cancel and now is resorting to simply avoiding me.

This friend, we’ll call them ‘X’, called me up a month ago and said:

“Hey Naomi, let’s go meet at ‘Z’ in 20 minutes?” (It would take me 15 to get there and I was already dressed. So sure.)

I get there and I’m waiting at the train station. I call ‘X’ over and over again and the phone just seems to ring on and on without anyone having any intention of picking up. I sigh. It’s happened again. They stood me up. I called X before I left and they told me they were already there. I heard another’s voice on this phone call and I knew that X wasn’t alone.

So what did I do? I walked around the area, went into a few shops, occasionally checking my phone to see if X answered or even sent a custom “I’m sorry!” text, but to no avail. I was window shopping for about an hour or so when I decided to go to McDonalds. I was hungry and alone, so I thought “Fuck it.”

It seems the stench of being stood up followed me all the way up the front entrance, to the cashiers and to my table because it seemed that I was having a pity party of families watching the sad, lonely girl eat by herself.

The worst part?
‘X’ either doesn’t realise or doesn’t care that I’m upset; I got another text, probably trying to pave their way into making plans to break plans.

Sorry, X. This time, I’m turning off my phone.

Daddy’s Cure.

Posted on August 16, 2013 by pankeu

It’s strange; when I’m in my moods (which is, to my annoyance, becoming more and more frequent), I tend to frustrate my parents. They can’t shake me out of my surly attitude and they get annoyed and lash out at me. This time was different.

My dad is the only one here at the moment (SEE; Missing Mama) and he did something remarkably out of character; he cheered me up. It was something as simple as dancing and singing along to my Bob Marley playlist, while handing me a big plate of chopped up chouriço assado.

My dad and I have a strange, rarely-strained relationship that, over the years, has grown slowly so we hardly ever clash any more. At least, not to the extent like it used to be.