mirsaidsultangaliev

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

so i study decolonization, as in i studied it as part of my degree, and i thought I'd make a list of some readings/films that might offer additional insight about decolonization (it also helps if you're tired of the christian moralistic thinking)

occupation 101 (can be found on youtube i believe, it's about the history between isreal and palestine, it focuses on palestinians and it is quite comprehensive. there's live footage, there's interviews with palestinian children, etc. it's a must watch i think, regarding palestine. it points the finger squarely at the united states.)

the wretched of the earth, franz fanon. fanon is really well known in the decolonization sphere because he writes about it in a very succinct and clear way. to him, decolonization can never occur peacefully, and i think that's a really important key lesson. he also talks about how colonizers don't just take land, they reframe ideas, they take language, art, thoughts.

the battle of algiers, 1966. this is a fascinating film, it's sort of a documentary, they got the actual people to play their parts. it describes and interviews the main individuals involved in the fight for independence within Algiers. i think understanding how a nation can gain independence over its colonial forces is really important in the grand scheme of decolonialism.

unthinking eurocentrism. if you can get your hands on it, i love this text. it's so poignant and it lays everything out so clearly and it really shows how we center our worlds around eurocentrism and westernism.

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

10 cool rocks you probably didn’t know about

1) lepidolite

lepidolite is a variety of mica and is typically pink or lavender colored. when tumbled it is extremely glittery – pictures don’t do it justice!

2) ulexite

ulexite is also called “tv rock” and has a super unique optical effect – when placed over something it displays that image onto the top of the rock. it’s not merely opaque – the fibers within the mineral literally project an image onto the surface of the stone.

3) pietersite

pietersite has chatoyancy – much like tiger’s eye – that creates movement and shine through the surface of the stone. however, unlike tiger’s eye, pietersite’s chatoyancy is in swirls instead of straight lines. it’s incredible to behold – i recommend looking up pietersite on youtube and checking out videos of it under good lighting.

4) optical calcite/iceland spar

this type of calcite is actually completely clear, but refracts the light going through it in ways that create rainbows and other neat optical effects. isaac newton himself actually studied this rock to help better understand the nature of light itself & the phenomenon of optical illusions.

5) alexandrite

alexandrite is a variety of chrysoberyl that exhibits a color change! it changes from a greenish hue to a brilliant red depending on the type of light and the source. the color changes in alexandrite are phenomenal and rarely seen in other stones.

6) spectrolite

don’t let the image fool you – this stone is actually pure black. the brilliant colors it exhibits are just a flash (it’s actually called labradorescence, which is what the stone labradorite is named for). spectrolite is an uncommon form of labradorite mined only from finland. some varieties of high quality labradorite from madagascar can show a spectrolite play, but nothing is as dark with as brilliant a flash as spectrolite.

7) specular hematite

specular hematite is a variety of hematite that has a beautiful, glimmering surface especially when polished. much like lepidolite, the shimmer of specular hematite is caused by mica.

8) boulder opal

boulder opal is ironstone with cracks of brilliant natural opal running through it. these formations are entirely natural. opal has the most brilliant and vibrantly colored flash of any other stone.

9) enhydro quartz

enhydro quartz is a variety of quartz that was formed with naturally occuring water & air bubbles within them! in some specimens the water bubbles will actually move underneath the surface of the crystal.

10) fire agate

fire agate is actually a form of chalcedony, and is well known for having a beautiful rainbow effect caused by schiller, rather than flash or labradorescence. 

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

btw

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

How to have a conversation about a topic you’re not interested in or don’t know anything about:

Listen to what the other person has to say about the topic.

Ask a question about what they said. Asking them to clarify or explain something you don’t understand is great, but any question will do. All else fails, ask them to explain what they like about some part of the topic.

Listen to their responses and go back to step 2.

Do this until 5-15 minutes has passed, then change the subject to a topic of your interest, unless you are actually interested in learning more on this subject, in which case, go on for as long as you like.

Sometimes, they will say something like “I’m sorry to blather on about [topic].” This is an attempt at a conversational dismount. You can either say “no, it was fascinating, thanks” and then bring up your own topic, or you can say “no, it’s fascinating, please keep going” if you want to keep hearing about their topic. Note the tense difference (past -> moving on, present -> keep going).

I just thought I’d write a script for this, because someone who can’t / won’t do this came up in a Captain Awkward column, and listening about topics you have no interest in is a really useful skill to have and not often explicitly taught, particularly to boys and men.

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

friendly reminder that findtags is the best way to search tumblr’s absolutely destroyed tag system. it actually accurately looks through the tags without omitting results. it’s the only thing i use at this point because it’s the only thing that works

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

How to Handle Having TOO MUCH To Do

So let’s say you’re in the same boat I am (this is a running theme, have you noticed?) and you’ve just got, like, SO MUCH STUFF that HAS to get done YESTERDAY or you will DIE (or fail/get fired/mope). Everything needs to be done yesterday, you’re sick, and for whatever reason you are focusing on the least important stuff first. What to do!

Take a deep breath, because this is a boot camp in prioritization.

Make a 3 by 4 grid. Make it pretty big. The line above your top row goes like this: Due YESTERDAY - due TOMORROW - due LATER. Along the side, write: Takes 5 min - Takes 30 min - Takes hours - Takes DAYS.

Divide ALL your tasks into one of these squares, based on how much work you still have to do. A thank you note for a present you received two weeks ago? That takes 5 minutes and was due YESTERDAY. Put it in that square. A five page paper that’s due tomorrow? That takes an hour/hours, place it appropriately. Tomorrow’s speech you just need to rehearse? Half an hour, due TOMORROW. Do the same for ALL of your tasks

Your priority goes like this:

5 minutes due YESTERDAY

5 minutes due TOMORROW

Half-hour due YESTERDAY

Half-hour due TOMORROW

Hours due YESTERDAY

Hours due TOMORROW

5 minutes due LATER

Half-hour due LATER

Hours due LATER

DAYS due YESTERDAY

DAYS due TOMORROW

DAYS due LATER

At this point you just go down the list in each section. If something feels especially urgent, for whatever reason - a certain professor is hounding you, you’re especially worried about that speech, whatever - you can bump that up to the top of the entire list. However, going through the list like this is what I find most efficient.

Some people do like to save the 5 minute tasks for kind of a break between longer-running tasks. If that’s what you want to try, go for it! You’re the one studying here.

So that’s how to prioritize. Now, how to actually do shit? That’s where the 20/10 method comes in. It’s simple: do stuff like a stuff-doing FIEND for 20 minutes, then take a ten minute break and do whatever you want. Repeat ad infinitum. It’s how I’ve gotten through my to do list, concussed and everything.

You’ve got this. Get a drink and start - we can do our stuff together!

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

in light of recent news about spotify trying to overshadow Pro-Palestinian posts on social media by releasing wrapped early and it's CEO being a zionist piece of filth, it's very very easy to crack premium for desktop

All you need to do is download and run the file off this GitHub

it's literally that easy

Enjoy your free spotify without ads

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

“Get scared. It will do you good. Smoke a bit, stare blankly at some ceilings, beat your head against some walls, refuse to see some people, paint and write. Get scared some more. Allow your little mind to do nothing but function. Stay inside, go out - I don’t care what you’ll do; but stay scared as hell. You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.”

— Albert Camus, from Notebooks, 1951-1959  (via plantofail)

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

Hey guys, you know about the Same Energy website right? has someone made a post about that? Cuz otherwise im gonna sing its praises to high heaven for its artistic references

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

Treat anything on Discord as media that will be lost

Do not use Discord to host your files. Do not rely on Discord to preserve your text. DO NOT RELY ON DISCORD FOR ANY KIND OF PRESERVATION OR HOSTING!!

It CAN be lost, it WILL be lost! You must consider Discord as a part of the Core Internet, controlled by one company that hosts the servers.

I thought it was impressive at first that it replaced IRC, but now I am horrified. If the company behind Discord went under today, how many friends would you lose?

How many relationships? How much writing?

You may think this won't happen, but I remember when AIM went down and along with it, entire novels worth of interaction with my oldest friend.

IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. NO COMPANY IS INFALLIBLE.

Back up your files! Download anything you've saved to Discord NOW, before the API changes go into effect! And DO NOT RELY ON THEM FOR HOLDING IMPORTANT FILES!

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

Download this easy DIY clothing repair guide (only 10 pages) from Uni of Kentucky

link to PDF

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

I hate that I’m always trying to find cool biology themed stuff to wear but all the “nature inspired” clothing companies just have like two crossed arrows or a minimalistic mountain on a sweatshirt. Fucking lame, that’s barely even nature-adjacent. Put the life cycle of a salamander on a jacket, put hyena skeleton patterns on leggings, put a damn field guide of birds of prey on a peacoat and THEN you can have my money. Do NOT give me a shirt with a leaf on it that says “stay wild” or some bullshit I would much prefer clothing that broadcasts to everyone around me how many teeth an adult Jaguar has or how some pitcher plants can catch and digest rats.

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

tshirt that says NO LIVE ORGANISM CAN CONTINUE FOR LONG TO EXIST SANELY UNDER CONDITIONS OF ABSOLUTE REALITY

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

I needed this drag. Let’s change guys and not look back

[mirsaidsultangaliev]

So, Peer Respites are a not-very-well-known alternative to psychiatric hospitalization. They are 100% voluntary and staffed by peers, AKA individuals with lived experience of mental illness/emotional distress/what-have-you. Generally, they are a homelike environment where you can come and go as you please, and there is lots of voluntary programming like groups, art, yoga, etc. You can bring your own food or cook meals together with staff and other residents. Stays are usually anywhere from five days to two weeks, depending on the respite house and also your own wants and needs. There are no restraints, strip searches, or seclusion.

They're also on the rise!! I know this because I've spent all day today compiling data on peer respites in the US so I could create this fun graph for ya'll.

In the past ten years, at least 38 new peer respites have opened in the US. The data for 2023 is incomplete, but at least one has already opened, and another is scheduled for a soft opening later this year.

Some things about the data:

I did not include peer respites which were permanently closed (2) or could not find an opening date for (1)

I used the National Empowerment Center's Directory of Peer Respites, along with some internet sleuthing to find a few more (and to find the opening dates for each one). Because of this, I may have missed a few.

There were a handful of peer respites for which I could not pin down a for-certain, exact date for. I did include these in the dataset as I was able to find rough estimates.

I have also not done a deep dive for all peer respites that were unsuccessful, which may skew the data a little bit.

I included Soteria Vermont as well, as it technically fits the definition despite being specifically for people with psychosis

If you would like to help get a peer respite off the ground, I would recommend donating to Peer Support Space Inc.'s Orlando FL Peer Respite. Their soft launch is November 2023, and they are scheduled to open to the public in January 2024. This is really important, because Florida's only peer respite has recently permanently closed.

If you're interested in starting your own peer respite, the National Empowerment Center has a list of resources here.

If you are interested in seeking help from a peer respite, there is a directory of most of them here. You can also look at the Google Doc I created to compile my data, which has a few more/is slightly more updated - though it's not nearly as nicely put together as the other one!

If anyone would like to add any information, non-US peer respites, etc, feel free to!