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Welcome back and gather around Lakers for an especially frightening episode of “I’m Doing Fine” 

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In this episode, we are going to talk about some of our more personal fears and how they can creep into other aspects of our lives, especially during the spooky season that is midterm season.

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 And how to face our fears and use those emotions as tools rather than emotional jump scares in our lives. 

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So, I feel it's only fair, that I start off with my fears. 

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So, once again, my name is Bella. Pronouns are she/her/hers. And excited to be back for another week of awesome discussion. 

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So, jumping up into it, I will start where it all began - my fear of escalators. 

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*laughter” 

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I grew up just outside of Chicago, in a suburb called Schaumburg if you are familiar with it. 

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So we had a huge mall and I loved going to the mall. 

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Until one day I lost grip of my mother's hand and started tumbling down a rather large escalator. 

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And, so Woodfield mall is like the 11th largest mall I think in the world. So it is not a small escalator. 

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*laughter* 

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Umm, and I just kept falling forward.

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Umm but yeah that might have established my fear of like moving too fast in life but, or uncontrollable events, escalator, ceaselessly moving forward. 

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I feel that. I definitely… I feel like moving too fast is definitely something that I personally also have been struggling with, but on a lighter note, one of my other fears, by the way, this is Katie, pronouns she/her. Umm, back for another recapping about our fears and life in general. But, back to my fear, I also am afraid of spiders. If you’re my roommate and listening to this, you know that I jump out of my shower when there are spiders.

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 But what I really want to talk about is my general of being alone and it’s not just like being alone for a couple of hours, it’s just in life I generally fear just being alone and losing familiarity and friends, which I will talk about later, translates into my bigger life fears.

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Being alone with spiders?

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Yeah oh my god 

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*laughter* 

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Anyone else feel itchy? 

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No, I'm kidding 

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*laughter* 

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No, I hate bugs, ugh gross. 

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Hi, this is Keegan. Pronouns she/her/hers. I would say my more like lighter note fear is the fear of heights. Which kind of seems irrational in a sense because how often am I really that high up but like when I am in those scenarios I am very nervous, but I think that kinda relates on a deeper note to like my fear of like a lack of stability. Like metaphorically, the floor coming out from underneath me, you know? Like not having stability, whether it be with my schooling, or it be with like my finances, I think that’s something that kind of makes me nervous even if I don’t necessarily think about it all the time. 

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Absolutely 

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Yeah 

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I - This is Emily, and my pronouns are she/her/hers. And I think that I relate a lot to your fear Keagan, the lack of stability. Umm, just like the unknown is very worrisome to me. Like it kind of relates to my small fear of the ocean, not a big fan, umm. 

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*laughter* 

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And swimming because i like don’t know what kind of animals are out there and I just don’t know what’s underneath me. 

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Yeah and I’m afraid of jellyfish so 

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Yeah, and it doesn’t help that they’re invisible. You can step on them on the shore, you don’t have to go deep in the ocean. 

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It’s terrifying 

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*laughter*

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Yeah, but honestly like that fear relates a lot to yours. The lack of stability and also the fear of the unknown because when you don’t know what is going coming next it can be frightening, umm, and kind of worrisome if things aren’t, I don’t know, kind of crete, I don’t 

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Yeah, for sure 

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Absolutely, no for sure 

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That will relate to what we are going to talk about later. And as both Keagan and Emily have talked about with lack of stability and the fear of not knowing what is next, it kind of translates off to our smaller fears, all our smaller fears, kind of, build up and correlate to a larger fear of the future, and I mean the future is so scary, like we don’t know. We don’t know what is to come. And, for me personally, as I mentioned - being alone. It’s also being alone of like processes that get me to my future, which I struggle with because I know that I don’t have to be alone. When it comes to applying to grad school or even - I'm in the process right now of applying to my study abroad trip - I’m not doing it alone. There are advisors and so many people to help me and it’s just, I want to stay strong and independent, but I’m also afraid to ask for help, which is where that correlates, which I’m sure a lot of people struggle with because jumping from living in a uhh house, completely dependent on your parents to coming to college, trying to prepare for your future is terrifying because you don’t know exactly the right answers, you're going to make mistakes, but it’s just kind of that comfort that I can’t ask for help, which is something that I had to umm learn about. 

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And I think that’s important that you say that because I think when we try to be independent we sometimes try and hide that fear. So like we, it’s important to notice that we all are afraid. We all have our fears. Whether it be the ocean, whether it be heights or being alone, like we all have those fears and it’s important to know that you can reach out to different people and there is different resources. Like the counseling center, we have many different resources, different stress groups. I know there is a stress management group, right? 

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Mmhmm, absolutely. There’s “How to Worry Well”. There’s all sorts of self-help resources, there’s uh a calming aquarium that you can walk into. 

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*laughter* 

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And it can really help because sometimes you need that immediate distraction because fear is an emotional response, it gets you amped up and adrenaline coursing and you need to put all of that attention somewhere else. But, umm I really like what you said Keagan about, um, we all get afraid sometimes even if we try to hide that. Um, getting over that initial fear of judgment. That is a fear in of itself. Not only are we going through the fear of “oh my gosh I forgot about that homework assignment! What’s going to happen now?” And “how is that going to affect my grad school plans?”, and “how is that going to affect my literal living plans?”. Like, “am I going to be living in a house?” and “what kind of future do I have in front of me? ”. But, umm, just getting over that initial fear, kind of that exposure to “What if someone won’t help me?”. I-I always find myself amazed at how-how quickly people come to help you out. 

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Yeah and I definitely can relate. The fear of being judged is so high in our society. We are constantly held to being at a certain level, whether it’s clothes we wear, whether it’s how well we are doing in school, or if we have a plan for life. And it’s just like, sometimes it’s like, that judgment is something so intimidating to people because we want to live up to those expectations, as we kind of talked about in our last podcast. But also, it’s just like, okay to like ask for help, and know that we aren’t alone and we aren’t supposed to be alone. But sometimes it’s like getting over that initial fear of judgment to get over that, which is something that I was like, yeah. 

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If you’re like me and have a fear of the unknown, like postgraduate plans or applying to grad school. Umm, I think the same, umm, rules kind of apply that if you don’t try to put yourself out there or if you don’t try to find these resources, everything will be unknown. It won’t ever be resolved if you don’t look for these resources and get the help from others. So just make sure to check out the pages that the UCC has to offer or contact the UCC. 

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Such a good point, where the unknown can remain unknown. Another, just to emphasize it, if you ever find yourself experiencing more than just fear, but you are really just struggling, please visit the UCC. They would be happy to help you. Uh, but to kind of talk about that things remaining unknown, we can kind of create these horror movies in our heads. In the spirit of Halloween. 

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*laughter*

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I have the horror movie catastrophizing analogy for you where you have this fear of a test. Say you're not super sharp at your calculations like I am. And you have a very big research methods exam, and oh I’m starting to get a little too personal in this. But, you start to think to yourself, “What happens if I fail?”, and then you take yourself all the way down this track where that probably doesn’t actually exist and we have to remember a lot of horror movies, well, all of them, they’re not real.  Their actors and special effects and the camera angle is designed to make you nervous. Now we can be own horror movie cinematographers and, which we focus on the worst-case scenario and the worst aspects, but really if we can use that planning to our advantage, umm maybe focusing on the relevant aspects of a problem instead of catastrophizing it and letting it jump up and scare you. 

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Yeah, and as Bella brings up another Halloween-themed uh analogy, that I like, would like to bring up, is this idea of jumping right into the future. It’s almost like a jump scare, and like as you see maybe when you’re in a haunted house and you get that terrifying jump scare from behind that you thought you had passed, the future is also pretty similar. After you graduate, it’s like you're jumping right into the future and into adult life. You don’t have to go to classes, you don’t have a place where you are supposed to be and it is now up to you to figure it out. And there is something really terrifying about that because you’ve always, up to this point in your life, had an idea or had someone telling you what you're supposed to do and what you're not supposed to do. But even with that, it’s okay to not know what is next. I think it’s something that is really important to stress because it’s sometimes, like, the unexpected that are the best things that happen and it’s okay to like slow down, and even when you do graduate college, there are people, there are career counselors, there are so many umm resources to help you. Everything that is out there is to help you and I think it is important to recognize that. 

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For sure. 

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Absolutely. And kind of talking about that. 

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Go ahead. 

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Yeah, I was going to say that I think, just going off that jump scare analogy, the important thing is like you always make it out of the haunted house. 

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Yeah. 

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You always make it past those scares and you always make it out, as scary as it is in the moment, it’s like as much as you are freaking out, you always do make it out. 

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Whether you are walking or running out. 

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*laughter* 

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And that reminds me, I’m so glad you brought that up Keagan. Umm, does anyone else still struggle with nightmares? I used to get them so much when I was little and I still get them now especially stress dreams. 

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I feel like I personally get more realistic nightmares. Where it’s not like the typical like “oh monsters under my bed” but more like “oh I didn’t wake up for this exam”. 

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Yes, exactly. 

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I definitely. It’s so, it’s so common I think we stress ourselves out so much that it affects our sleep honestly. 

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Exactly. And even - I am very much an I ignore it, I go to sleep kind of person. So even like though my dreams are not always realistic, sometimes they really can be and I have to check to make sure that it is the day that I think it is and that I don’t have a failing grade in my Blackboard, umm but. I’ve always found it such a cruel trick that you’re sleeping you’re trying to rest off in dreamland and your brain is reminding you about your problems. It is reminding you about the things that you are afraid of and while that is frustrating to me, it reminds me of the point of fear that it is a guiding emotion just like how anger tells us when we’ve been wronged and or there is something that we feel needs to be corrected umm just as happiness lets us know something is going right and we should enjoy this moment. Fear kind of forces us to remember “hey, this feeling is bothering you.”, you need to confront it or forget about it. And so, it’s kind of that internal conflict that doesn’t feel so good but it can really help us in our lives and help us to make sure that some of those fears never happen because we’re being proactive. 

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And, whoops sorry, Keagan you go. 

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No, you’re good. I was just going to say going off of that like even if fear is not as pleasant of emotion as happiness, it is like a protective factor. Like kinda like what you were talking about, if you are afraid of something there’s probably a reason. Like a decent reason that you are afraid of it whether that be because you want to be successful or like you’re trying to avoid something, I think that as much as we try to avoid fear, it does have a good point. 

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I also want to add that I think confronting our fears helps us grow so much as a person because we’re afraid of maybe being alone or applying to grad school for so long but when we finally get there there's like that sense of relief, that comfort that we feel that we overcame our fears. And think that’s another point of fear, in general, is to know that it’s hard, it’s challenging, we’re not just taking the easy way out, but when we over that hump, over that fear it really does just relieve all the stress and everything we worked for and it feels good honestly. 

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Yeah, totally. 

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Yeah. And even umm if you use your fear to confront the more, like the things that are right in front of you, so like that one little test or things like that. Like I think that using your fear to your advantage is going to help you in the long run and you help prevent that like catastrophizing that can occur if you like continue to ignore those little things umm that you’re nervous about. It’s just going to build up or if you confront them right away it might help you. 

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Such a good point. And talking about confronting fears, I mean we, a lot of people are thrill junkies. They love going to haunted houses. Now please never go to a haunted house with me because I promise, this comes from experience, I will grip onto your shirt and rip it off because I am trying to stay close to someone, so that’s your warning. But, umm, you kinda bring up how we can get used to scary situations and almost come to crave it and, Katie like you said, how it shows us how we have come a long way. I don’t see a whole lot of kids really liking horror movies but adults and you know, people where we have come a long way in our lives, we seek those out as a kind of emotional release and catharsis and it brings us excitement. 

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I think you also bring up a good point that a lot of people hold themselves back because of fear and we like to just stay comfortable and kind of, reiterating, like, it is that we want to overcome that and umm push ourselves further. Fears are there to tell us that yeah, that’s scary but maybe it’s what’s going to help you and it’s not going to hinder you from staying, resting on your laurels, and just staying in what you think is comfortable and easy.

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Definitely. 

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Yeah, and I think... Yeah, I think that it’s really just important, like you said Katie, that we acknowledge the fear and that we try and work through it I guess. 

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And not run away. 

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Absolutely. 

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No, for sure. 

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Unless it’s a spider. 

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*laughter*

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I’m gonna step on it! No I’m kidding, I’m kidding.

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I think going off of that, to stay in the spooky season, we wanted to talk about our peer pics, of course with the Halloween theme. We’re celebrating a little early here during our podcast. 

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Celebration of things fearful and spooky. 

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*laughter* 

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Yes. So to start off, I am not one of those people to typically enjoy fear. You're not catching me at a haunted corn maze or a scary movie screaming anytime soon, but, I do like Halloween movies that are not scary. I can’t lie, I’m a sucker for like the Disney Halloween movies and like Hocus Pocus. 

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Halloween Town. 

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Halloween Town. 

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That one is really good. Im going to watch it. 

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But yeah, for Halloween, umm my costume, I’m going as Cosmo. My friend and I are going as Cosmo and Wanda. I think that’s kind of exciting. What are you guys up to? 

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Ooo. I, for the first time, am going to a Halloween party. I’m so excited. I normally would have parties with my best friend back at her hometown, but since I started college, I haven’t really done those kinds of events but I’m dressing up for the first time in a while. I’m going to be a witch. But yeah, I have just really been enjoying the season. I just got all my dollar tree Halloween decorations hanging up, getting, honestly, I think I need decorations to make my life a little bit better to kind of celebrate those festive moments. 

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I agree. 

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I personally really like decorative candles. 

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Yes! I’m in a dorm so I can’t agree with you but…

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*laughter* 

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Oh, yeah so umm I don’t know what my Halloween costume is going to be yet. Umm, I’m thinking that me and my boyfriend are going to go as the two people in the ocean spray commercials. So we’re going to wear like overalls and have an ocean spray cranberry bottle. Umm, but I wanted to mention my favorite horror movie which is kind of silly. Umm, Scream. It’s kind of an old one but, I don’t know I don’t really think it’s that scary, I think it’s more funny but like the people, I don’t know, just what they do is –

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Sometimes it’s so ridiculous like you cannot be scared. 

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Exactly. Obviously, if you go into this dark room 

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That’s the monster of the black lagoon for me. Have you ever seen it? 

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No. 

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Oh it is another old horror movie that you watch it today and like the modern light and it’s like, first of all, how is a fish running that fast, second of all, like, it’s just hilarious. 

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Yeah, but I also umm. Two days ago, I carved pumpkins, so that was pretty fun. And i bought some little pumpkins that I’m going to paint, I just haven’t yet. So hopefully I’ll get to during fall break.

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What are you going to paint them? 

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I don’t know yet. 

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The unknown. 

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*laughter* 

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That one's not scary. 

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And then for my peer pic, I for Halloween, and for just Fall in general, I really love going to apple orchards and carving pumpkins, going to corn mazes, apple cider, donuts, all of that. I don’t know if any of you guys are from Kalamazoo but Fall Meadow Farms has a special place in my heart so you guys know. It’s literally so fun. And kinda in keeping with your horror movie theme, I’ve been recently - I binged watched, and then there’s a new one out, they’re literally called Halloween, the scary movies with like Micheal Myers. They’re like actually, they’re so terrifying. I’m like they’re actually so realistic too, which I really like. And there’s some thrill about it that really just I love, especially during this time of the year. I don’t really like watching it during like summer when it’s bright out. I like watching it when it’s dark. 

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You’re on difficult mode. Like instead of easy mode when it’s springtime. 

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Well that sounds like a lot of fun and hopefully, my dear Lakers, we have given you some ideas on how to celebrate the end of the October season. It’s honestly one of my favorite times and I hope that you all feel the same and are doing okay. 

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I hope you guys have a nice fall break. 

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Yes! Enjoy that. 

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Wohoo! Enjoy our rest and thank you again so much for choosing to spend your time listening to us. So, bye