How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
+ a story about that power of the SYSCAhood that you will NOT BELIEVE!
Wowowowowowowowowow. It feels like SO MUCH LONGER than a week since I’ve come on here and talked to you all, and (as I’ve been telling Bel for that whole week) it’s made me feel really untethered and WEIRD?? It’s like my body misses you, and misses keeping up with the news, and misses a little sense of routine, which I guess makes sense considering the week I’ve just had. So to quickly fill you in:
I moved to Lisbon
My visa was delayed
My passport got sent to the wrong city so I nearly missed my flight out here
My flight from Houston to London was cancelled
All my other flights were delayed by over an hour so I nearly missed both my connections (from now on I want a minimum of five hours for a connection)
And then ALL MY LUGGAGE AND EVERYTHING I OWN GOT LOST
So I got to Lisbon and I was a bit of a wreck, Bel was an ABSOLUTE angel and had a little sign made for me at the airport, I collapsed for a second and then we made our way to our new home here which is SO CUTE 🥺🥺
The next few days sent me into a bit of a spiral because I couldn’t sleep at ALL, didn’t have a single outfit that I felt like me in (Bel and I literally found a random mall for me to buy just the essentials) and I was SPIRALING. I was like… is this series of signs (aka the fact that every single thing that could have gone wrong went so incredibly wrong) the universe telling me that I’m making the wrong decision? Or am I just being lemonied? (Bel’s definition for this new word is below.) But THEN the SYSCAhood reminded me that sometimes things can also be so incredibly right, like the way one of you helped me find my luggage in the middle of Houston airport. (MORAL OF THE STORY - NEVER TRAVEL WITHOUT AIRTAGS - THEY SAVED MY LIFE.)
Here is the story to end all stories
So, it was about three days after my entire curated existence got lost in some sort of baggage hell - and I hadn’t had any updates - so as you can assume I was getting more anxious by the day. In a last-ditch effort for some peace I asked on the SYSCA Instagram stories ‘does anyone have a contact for someone at Houston airport?’ (My Airtags were showing the EXACT location of my bags in Houston, so I figured if I could find someone who could just go and put eyes on them I would feel SO much better.) Here’s where we meet Tegan who will go down in SYSCAhood Herstory.
Tegan replied and said that her cousin Zach is a baggage handler at the airport and it turned out that he worked for United Airlines, which is who I flew with! So at 4:55am (told you I wasn’t sleeping) I replied back asking if there was ANY WAY I could give him all my info and he could help me. I then found out that Tegan was in MELBOURNE, I am in LISBON and Zach was in HOUSTON, so it really became an international summit to find these bags.
Tegan got all my details and the Airtags location and she told me that Zach was making a call, because he wasn’t at work (it was midnight) but his buddy was! This is where we meet Cucho, another hero of the operation. Cucho started searching and at 6:30am I got the DM that would change my life:
At this stage, I was actually on a phone call with Rubes and I literally teared up, because what is my favourite emotion??? Relief.
I then got a VIDEO of Cucho showing me exactly where the bags are, I get their EXACT location in the terminal, and I go away and update the people from the airline who are working on getting it back to me.
The next day Tegan and I continue messaging about the luggage, and even when I have no updates, her and Zach assure me that it’s going to get to me because they’ll keep following it up. While I’m messaging her at 3am one morning I go on and check my Airtags and see my bags are en route to London, and go online to the baggage tracing website they give you when you lose your bags and I can see that they’ll soon be on their way to Lisbon!!!
And then finally, yesterday, I got that sweet sweet relief of getting to hold my bags in my arms and sweatily spend the day unpacking and nesting, making it all feel real.
I’ll give you more updates on life in Lisbon in later newsy’s (I live here now, so there’ll be no shortage of Lisbon content) but I wanted to take this newsy to shout out Tegan, Zach and Cucho (who should all be getting raises/ promotions/ employee of the YEAR) and also marvel at THE POWER OF THE SYSCAHOOD TO MAKE GOOD THINGS HAPPEN. I love you all so fucking much 🥺🥺
Never has there ever been a better time to be a Close Friend because who could have predicted this saga?? But I really want to say the BIGGEST LOVE YOU to everyone who’s a paying SYSCA supporter - all your DM’s and messages and success stories about getting your luggage back really have made me feel so seen and safe, and if a problem shared is a problem halved, mine were tiny by the time you all held a little for me 🥺
How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
Tech support: If it’s anonymous it could be ominous
Bel Chimes In (a repost because it’s just so relevant): What to say when things go bad: You've been Lemonied
While I’ve been away:
Devastating floods have hit Libya
Russel Brand has been accused of rape and sexual assault
Billboard has launched a new official TikTok chart
How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
Ok so whilst I’ve been feeling incredibly untethered to the world, one of the things I couldn’t avoid was the trend on TikTok where women are asking their boyfriends how often they think about the Roman Empire. I can happily say that I think about it LITERALLY NEVER, but every time a dude gets asked this, they seem to think about it at least once every two weeks???? Here’s SYSCA designer and bestie Abby asking her boyfriend this question:
A few questions have arisen out of this trend:
there’s the obvious: WHY are y’all thinking about the Roman Empire so much?
there’s also: WHAT IS YOUR/OUR EQUIVALENT TO THE ROMAN EMPIRE?
As for the second question, for me, it’s:
the Sister Squad and what happened between Emma Chamberlain, The Dolan Twins & James Charles
any Fleabag scene at any time
the Tom Holland lipsync to ‘Umbrella’
literally anything embarrassing I’ve done in my life ever
PLEASE comment your version of the Roman Empire below!!
Tech support: If it’s anonymous it could be ominous
This section was brought to you by our mates at One New Zealand, who are helping New Zealanders stay safe online!!
Why I ever willingly signed up to ask.fm will always be a mystery to me. I mean, for the most part, it was just people asking for opinions on themselves anonymously (don’t lie, you definitely did this) but every now and again you would encounter the most horrific bullying you’d ever seen, and you literally… signed up for it? Sites like this still exist, though they no longer have the popularity that they once did (thank god), but being susceptible to privacy breaches and anonymous hacks online is easier than ever. Here are a few of your stories:
Ask.fm
“Ask.fm was so huge at my high school. I got TORMENTED on that site. Once, I spent the weekend begging my mum to buy me a TopShop parka (it was peak Tumblr days lol). I was so excited and I wore it to school for 3 days before someone wrote on my ask.fm that I should stop wearing it bc I “look like a big fat green marshmallow” - I never wore it again </3”
“I got this really mean (almost cruel to be kind vibes??) message basically saying that I’d given up on myself and I could be so much better than I am right now. It plagued me for months, then randomly I was clearing out my iPod touch that I had loaned my best friend and went on ask.fm to check my questions - but it wasn’t logged into my account - and I saw that it was HER who sent the message !!!!!!!!! On my damn iPod touch!”
When it gets really serious:
“A girl found “me” on pornhub. All my info - full name, workplace, school, date of birth, and pictures from Facebook and Instagram. It had explicit videos uploaded against the account (which weren’t me) but the title of the video used my name. The account was interacting with people and was pretty gross overall. Pornhub took it down and it popped up again a few times. We had to keep asking them to remove it. Long story short, we reported it to the police and the police found the guy who did it, he went to court and I got money!”
“Once this guy from an all-boys school spread around that I sent him nude pictures of myself, and essentially started the rumour that I was “desperate” and “easy”. What the pictures actually were was my knees made to look like cleavage because I didn’t want to send my actual boobs…”
Tech Support with One NZ:
Ok first of all, if something is happening to you online that is illegal, or feels unsafe, CERT NZ and Netsafe both have resources available to help you.
Report, report, report. You can use the Reporting form for businesses and individuals, and CERT NZ also has links to international agencies if you or the suspected source are not in Aotearoa
Keep screenshots/records of anything harmful, because you may need it to build a case.
TURN ON 2FA (TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION) OR AN AUTHENTICATOR WHEREVER IT’S POSSIBLE. These tools are just another layer of security for you, and are offered by most big apps these days in settings!
If you have any stories like this I wanna hear them! Reply to this or comment them below xxx
Bel Chimes In (a repost because it’s just so relevant): What to say when things go bad: You've been Lemonied
This section is written by my crush, the refreshing-as-a-house-chardonnay-on-a-steamy-day, Bel Hawkins. She also writes our Sunday newsletter ‘No News is Good News’ which all our paying supporters receive. Upgrade your plan to get her newsy here!
Ok, so remember that book (and movie) series Lemony Snicket: A series of unfortunate events, about those orphan kids who just have a consistently gnarly time moving around from house to house and bad things just keep happening?
Enter one of my personal favourite words: ‘lemonied’, which means a string of bad things has happened to you in a small space of time.
You know those days when like, you’re running late, your phone dies, you’ve been ghosted, work is bad or hard, you come home and then there’s a power cut? That's when you can say ‘I’ve been absolutely lemonied today’.
The good thing is that there’s hope because in the books things always turn around, the same way life eventually does too :)
While I’ve been away:
Devastating floods have hit Libya:
A massive flood which hit Libya’s northeast about three days ago has killed at least 11,000 people and left 10,000 missing. More on this here.
Russel Brand has been accused of rape and sexual assault
The BBC and Channel Four have launched investigations after British comedian and actor Russell Brand was accused of rape and sexual assault. In response, Brand posted this unhinged video on TikTok about how it’s all a ploy from the mainstream media who want to bring him down. More on this here.
Billboard has launched a new official TikTok chart
The new chart is a “weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the US based on creations, video views and user engagement” and lists the top 50 songs of this criteria. SkeeYee by Sexyy Red is currently at number one, but you can see the whole chart here!!
I’m really excited to get back into all of this newsletter business and thank you for being there through the trials and tribulations of, idk, moving to the other side of the world? Ugh, what would I do without you?
If you wanna:
Become a Close Friend on Instagram
Become a member of our 📚Book Club📚
AND get Bel’s Sunday morning newsy ‘No News Is Good News’
Please consider becoming a paying supporter 💌
My equivalents of the Roman Empire are the Tudors (especially the wives of henry the eighth), Greek mythology and Greta Gerwig's version of Little Women
i've got to be honest and say i do actually think about the roman empire every day. this is PURELY because i study classics at my sixth form and it's the biggest topic. no other reason!!