#I have thoughtful critics about the show and how its laziness is a detriment to the characters and the audience if anyone wants that

[mirrinbelde-shitposts]

Heyyy!

Here fr d game!

Umm im guessing ur an pisces mercury*hehe jst types wht comes to mind at 1st

Also i wont mind if u post it publicly or send me privately

Here is my birthchart(tropical)

Lawl SUSPENSE..Hehe

Anw Have a great day/night ahead🤍🥂

Guessing was fun tho..evn if i guessed wrng one💀🤣

Hey!! You did guess wrong, sorry about that xd but it's oki, don't worry about it! Have a good day too ^^

Welcome to your reading. Please remember to send feedback.

First impressions when looking at your chart: you don't have a lot of aspects, but a lot of them are exact: that wedge patter between Saturn, Venus and Mercury is very exact; you have an even distribution of planets among the signs and the houses; also, the angles (except IC) all conjunct planets or points

SUN IN AQUARIUS

As an Aquarius, you are quirky, aloof, dreamy and humanist. People may think you're awkward and detached, which is probably true for you since your Sun is at 0º of Aquarius. Your originality and uniqueness are probably the things you love about yourself the most. Your mind is also quite agile, which allows you to fulfil your dreams. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that the Sun is in Detriment in the sign of Aquarius. This means that the Sun can struggle here, making you feel confused as to who you are and how you can express yourself. You very much value your independence and your rebelliousness. However, you can be stubborn to a fault when it comes to your thoughts and opinions.

SUN IN THE 7TH HOUSE

The Sun in the house of Libra shows that you really enjoy socializing and that's also where you shine the most brightly. The Venusian influence gives you charm and elegance, which cause people to flock to you. Also, you may show your true colours in relationships, particularly romantic ones. Having someone close to you will allow you to achieve a better understanding of yourself. You do well when it comes to working with others; this placement helps the detached, independent Aquarius Sun to be more sociable and better appreciate others. Also, the Venus influence can make people look up to you and see themselves in you, something that doesn't really happen with Aquarius Suns in generally. You may do well in associations or organizations because you have a need to be in society.

MOON IN CAPRICORN

Once again, you have a planet in Detriment. Capricorn, the sign of Saturn, struggles to feel and voice the emotions they experience. Therefore, it is natural that the Moon finds this sign difficult. You think too much. Perhaps you had a complicated relationship with your mother, which may have caused you to repress your emotions. Capricorn placements, in general, tend to grow up and mature quite early, which leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms; you had to raise your walls up high, so you struggle to let anyone in. You may also be socially awkward. At the same time, you may seek validation from society, which is one of the things that may give you that emotional security that you deeply seek. You should work on letting your guard down; emotions are not the enemy, it's okay to feel what you feel. Let out your inner child once in a while.

MOON IN THE 6TH HOUSE

Here, the Moon is in the house of Virgo (but lying almost on top of the Descendant). There is a strong connection between body and mind. You seek emotional safety through your work and other acts of service; you want to be useful to people and to spend your time wisely. You may be a workaholic. Your routines are very important to you; you can get distraught if someone messes with your daily habits. Your health may be a concern to you, but since your Moon is harmoniously aspected, I'd say you're generally healthy. Nevertheless, watch for any hereditary diseases or problems with food or alcohol. The square with Mars suggests to me that you can quickly let out your anxieties. You like discipline, organization and cleanness; you are determined in the pursuit of your goals. You may have a vocation to work directly with people. Your moods may change quickly.

MERCURY IN CAPRICORN

With Mercury in Capricorn, you speak in a very structured, pondered way. You are very analytical and it shows in the way you communicate. You're a realist, but people may think you're more pessimistic. You definitely tend to be pessimistic at times, as well as distrustful and sceptical. You like to research, to gather information before speaking. You're concrete in your thinking, logical and organized. You take your time to make decisions; you weigh all the pros and cons carefully. Probably not the one to daydream or have many fantasies; you prefer the realistic and achievable. Although you're mostly serious, you can be playful sometimes.

MERCURY IN THE 6TH HOUSE

Capricorn Mercury is similar to Mercury in the house of Virgo. You are probably a perfectionist person, determined and organized. You analyse everything, yourself and your emotions included. You're very critical, especially of yourself. You hold everyone to high standards; once again, yourself the most. Like Capricorn Mercury, you can have pessimistic tendencies. You probably repress your feelings and rationalize them instead. Additionally, your knowledge can progress through daily life experiences and through your body. You should practice meditation and mindfulness because your anxiety and stress may have a direct effect on your bodily health.

VENUS IN PISCES

Venus is exalted in Pisces. This sign is intuitive, empathetic and emotional, which are traits that Venus likes. You feel everything and negative energies really get to you, so it's important that you find a partner that gives you emotional stability. You make a good lover, for you are caring and sensitive to people's needs, especially your partner's. Venus here gives you ethereal, alluring vibes. You can seem almost magical to people. You can be very protective of those you love, selfless; you can even sacrifice yourself for them. You're a daydreamer, you live in your own fantasy world. You have great aesthetic taste and you're quite romantic. However, be careful not to be taken advantage of; your too-good nature can land you someone whose intentions are far from the best.

VENUS IN THE 8TH HOUSE

Venus here acquires some Scorpio traits, namely the need to get a deep connection with someone. You are a person of extremes, not of middle-terms. In this sense, you can get effortlessly get people to open up to you, to tell you their deepest, darkest secrets. Since the (H also rules other people's money, you may get rich through an inheritance or a good marriage. Also, people may trust you with their money. In love, too, they aspire to learn everything about their partner. You seek transformative relationships, ones that will allow you to experience a different range of emotions, another dimension, even. Casual relationships are probably not your thing. You can get too controlling and dominating, so beware of that. Also, financial security is important to you; you may even have a job that has directly to do with money.

ARIES MARS

Here, Mars is in its rulership. You are quite reckless and impulsive in your actions. You like to be the first, to be the pioneer (much like Aries is the first sign of the Zodiac). You have a knack for leadership and people tend to be happy to follow your lead. You are quite competitive in just about everything; you can have a sour loser. You are quick to get mad, but after you explode, your anger will be gone in an instant. You are great at achieving goals because Mars helps you to stay motivated and determined; you are quite persistent and usually get what you want. You can also work well under pressure. Laziness is not in your blood. Your independence is quite important to you, as are your opinions. You can be quite stubborn and difficult to argue with, simply due to your relentlessness.

MARS IN THE 9TH HOUSE

Your Mars is in the house of Sagittarius. This placement allows you to acquire the necessary willpower for the journey to the expansion of knowledge and discovery. Your actions should help you with the acquisition of further knowledge, as well as ideas and strengthening your freedom. This placement goes against the need of routine imposed by your 6th house placements; Mars here wants you to get out there, be free, have fun, think about life, yourself and the universe. You have strong morals and philosophical ways. This placement may make you strongly seek, hunt, even, the truth of the fundamental questions. On another note, you can develop an attraction to foreign people and may wish to move away from home swiftly and without hesitation. This can be abroad too.

JUPITER IN VIRGO

Jupiter is in Detriment in Virgo. Whilst Jupiter is all about philosophy, the higher mysteries and expansion, Virgo seeks for the concrete, for what it knows, for the logical and rational. Therefore, this placement requires work. You are sceptical, you need to think and analyse everything before you come to a conclusion. Growth is achieved through responsibilities and being useful to others. A bit of idealism would be good, Jupiter struggles in Earth signs. You may think that you know more than you actually do, that you see the bigger picture when that is not true. Be careful not to grow an ego. Your beliefs will be challenged in this lifetime. You have a desire to help people, and in relationships too you want to do everything in your power to aid your partner.

JUPITER IN THE 2ND HOUSE

This placement generally brings good luck when it comes to money and other worldly possessions. You may also like to spend money, more on your loved ones than on yourself. You may be big into giving gifts. In order to reach that emotional security, you may wish to surround yourself with material items that, to you, hold great value and importance. Once you understand how better to acquire that stability, you may become rather generous with your money. You want a comfortable lifestyle. Like Venus in the 8th house, you may be good at managing your possessions, thus causing others to go to you for financial advice. You may not show it, but you have strong philosophical convictions, which may prove to be impossible to change.

SATURN IN CANCER

Saturn is in Detriment here, which makes it four planets in Detriment in your chart. You may feel a strong need for emotional safety, which could manifest as a fear of abandonment. There may also be some emotional blockages present that you struggle to overcome. Saturn retrograde, being the planet of Karma, may difficult your mission in life. You could be stuck on an unresolved trauma from a past life. This may be represented by a figure of authority in this life, perhaps your father. Instead of attempting to reconcile your past, try to accept the world changing around you. You may be too afraid to venture into the world and to open your heart; accept that it is part of life. Find people that give you that security, but don’t pour out your entire soul to them; find a balance. Not everything can be kept in our hearts, but not everything should be shared, either.

SATURN IN THE 12TH HOUSE

This is quite a strong and powerful placement: you have the planet of karma in the most karmic house. Also, according to Hellenistic Astrology, Saturn has its joy in the 12th house. You may be afraid to mess with the subconscious because your emotions may overtake you. Saturn is related to blockages and yours may be due to paranoia, which is characteristic of Neptune and Pisces. You may repress parts of yourself that you are not happy about, which makes you feel better, but, at the same time, paranoia can set in and make you wonder if that is the right thing to do. That aside, you may also struggle with poor self-esteem and doubts about yourself and life. There can be problems of guilt of some sort, perhaps even related to your life itself. It is very vague, but my thoughts about this placement are, in short, that, from birth, there have been deep traumas within you that have blocked your inner peace. What does are, I do not know. ⬛️

#astrology #game ask #my stuff

[claudia1829things]

“LITTLE WOMEN” (2019) Review

"LITTLE WOMEN" (2019) Review Ever since its release in movie theaters back December 2019, many moviegoers have been in rapture over "LITTLE WOMEN", filmmaker Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel. The movie did acquire several acclaims, including Oscar nominations for two of the film’s actresses, Best Adapted Screenplay and an actual Oscar for costume design. I never got the chance to see it in theaters. I finally managed to see it on the HULU streaming service.

Anyone familiar with Alcott’s novel knows that it conveyed the tale of four sisters from a Massachusetts family and their development from adolescence and childhood to adulthood during the 1860s. The first half of Alcott’s tale covered the March sisters’ experiences during the U.S. Civil War. In fact, Alcott had based the March family on herself and her three sisters. Unlike previous adaptations, Gerwig incorporated a nonlinear timeline for this version of "LITTLE WOMEN". There were aspects of "LITTLE WOMEN" I truly admired. I did enjoy most of the performances. Or some of them. I thought Saoirse Ronan gave an excellent performance as the movie’s leading character Josephine "Jo" March. I thought she did a pretty good job of recapturing Jo’s extroverted personality and artistic ambitions. I do wish that Gerwig had allowed Jo to convey some of the less pleasant sides to her personality. Do I believe she deserved her Oscar nomination? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Although I thought she gave an excellent performance, I do not know if I would have considered her for an acting nomination. But I was more than impressed by Eliza Scanlen, who portrayed third sister Elizabeth "Beth" March. Although her story more or less played out in a series of vignettes that switched back and forth between the period in which she first caught the scarlet fever and her death a few years later; Scanlen did a superb job in recapturing the pathos and barely submerged emotions of Beth’s fate. It seemed a pity that she had failed to acquire any acting nominations. One last performance that really impressed me came from Meryl Streep. I have always regarded the temperamental Aunt March as a difficult role for any actress. And although I do not regard Streep’s interpretation of the aging matriarch as the best I have seen, I must admit that for me, she gave one of the best performances in the film. The movie also featured solid performances from the likes of Emma Watson, Laura Dern, Chris Cooper, Tracy Letts, James Norton, Louis Garrel, Bob Odenkirk and Florence Pugh, who also received an Oscar nomination for her performance as the youngest March sister, Amy. About the latter . . . I really admired her portrayal of the older Amy March. But I found her performance as the younger Amy rather exaggerated. And a part of me cannot help but wonder why she had received an Oscar nomination in the first place. Jacqueline Durran won the film's only Academy Award – namely for Best Costume Design. Did she deserve it? I honestly do not believe she did. I did enjoy some of her designs, especially for the older Amy March, as shown below:

I found the costumes worn by Pugh, Streep and many extras in the Paris sequences very attractive and an elegant expression of fashion from the late 1860s. Otherwise, I found Durran’s costumes for this film rather questionable. I realize both she and Gerwig were attempting to portray the March family as some kind of 19th century version of "hippies". But even non-traditional types like the Marches would not wear their clothing in such a slap-dash manner with petticoat hems hanging below the skirts, along with bloomers showing, cuts and styles in clothing that almost seemed anachronistic, and wearing no corsets. The latter would be the equivalent of not wearing bras underneath one’s clothing in the 20th and 21st centuries. Someone had pointed out that many of today’s costume designers try to put a "modern twist" to their work in period dramas in order to appeal to modern moviegoers and television viewers. I really wish they would not. The attempt tends to come off as lazy costuming in my eyes. And this tactic usually draws a good deal of criticism from fans of period dramas. So . . . how on earth did Durran win an Oscar for her work in the first place? I understand that "LITTLE WOMEN" was filmed in various locations around Massachusetts, including Boston and Cambridge. A part of me felt a sense of satisfaction by this news, considering the story’s setting of Concord, Massachusetts. I was surprised to learn that even the Paris sequences were filmed in Ipswich, Massachusetts. However, I must admit that I was not particularly blown away by Yorick Le Saux's cinematography. Then again, I can say that for just about every adaptation of Alcott’s novel I have ever seen. There were scenes from "LITTLE WOMEN" that I found memorable. Those include Jo March’s initial meeting with her publisher Mr. Dashwood; Amy March’s conflict with Theodore "Laurie" Laurence over his behavior in Paris; Jo’s rejection of Laurie’s marriage proposal, and especially the montage featuring Beth March’s bout with scarlet fever and its consequences. However . . . I had some problems with Gerwig’s screenplay. As I have stated earlier, "LITTLE WOMEN" is not the first movie I have seen that utilized the non-linear plot technique. I have seen at least two adaptations of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel, "Jane Eyre". Two more famous examples of this plot device were the 1995 film, "12 MONKEYS" and two of Christopher Nolan’s movies – 2000’s "MEMENTO" and 2017’s "DUNKIRK". How can I put this? I feel that Greta Gerwig’s use of non-linear writing had failed the film’s narrative. It simply did not work for me. Except for the brilliant montage featuring Beth’s fate, it seemed as if Gerwig’s writing had scattered all over the place without any real semblance of following Alcott’s plot. If I had not been already familiar with Alcott’s story, I would have found “LITTLE WOMEN” totally confusing. I also feel that because of Gerwig’s use of the non-linear technique, she managed to inflict a little damage on Alcott’s plot. Despite the excellent scene featuring Laurie’s marriage proposal, I felt that Gerwig had robbed the development of his relationship with Jo. I also believe that Gerwig had diminished Jo’s relationship with Professor Bhaer. In the film, Bhaer had expressed harsh criticism of Jo’s earlier writing . . . without explaining his opinion. But he never added that Jo had the potential to write better stories than her usual melodrama crap. Why did Gerwig deleted this aspect of Professor Bhaer’s criticism? In order to make him look bad? To set up the idea of Jo ending the story as a single woman, because that was Alcott’s original intent? Did Gerwig consider the original version of this scene a detriment to feminist empowerment? I am also confused as to why Gerwig allowed the March family to push her into considering Professor Bhaer as a potential mate for Jo? This never happened in the novel. Jo had come to her decision to marry the professor on her own prerogative. She did not have to be pushed into this decision. Come to think of it, how exactly did Jo’s fate end in the movie? I am confused. Did she marry Bhaer after rushing to the train station in order to stop him from leaving for California? Or did she remain single? Whatever. And why on earth did she position Amy and Laurie’s first meeting after the former’s hand had been caned by her school teacher? Gerwig had transformed an incident that had taught Amy a lesson about self-respect and generated the Marches’ righteous anger against a schoolteacher’s abuse to one of comic relief and a cute rom.com meet for Amy and Laurie. What the hell? Someone had once complained that Gerwig may have assumed that everyone was familiar with Alcott’s story when she wrote this screenplay. And I agree with that person. Earlier I had questioned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ decision to award the Best Costume Design statuette to Jacqueline Durran and nominate Florence Pugh for Best Supporting Actress. But I also have to question the organization’s decision to nominate Gerwig’s writing for Best Adapted Screenplay. I honestly believe she did not deserve it. There were aspects of "LITTLE WOMEN" that I found admirable. I was certainly impressed by some of the film’s dramatic moments. And there were a handful of performances from the likes of Saoirse Ronan, Eliza Scanlen and Meryl Streep that truly impressed me. But I cannot deny that the other members of the cast gave either first-rate or solid performances. In the end, I did not like the movie. I believe "LITTLE WOMEN" should have never been nominated for Best Picture. Greta Gerwig’s use of the nonlinear technique did not serve Louisa May Alcott’s plot very well. If I had not been familiar with the novel’s plot, I would have found this movie confusing. Aside from Ronan’s Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, I feel that the other nominations and Best Costume Design win were undeserved. And a part of me feels a sense of relief that Gerwig had never received a nomination for Best Director.

#louisa may alcott #little women #little women 2019 #greta gerwig #saorise ronan #emma watson #florence pugh #eliza scanlen #laura dern #meryl streep #chris cooper #timothy chalamet #james norton #louis garrel #tracy letts #bob odenkirk #christopher nolan #u.s. civil war #period drama #period dramas #costume drama

[lowcarbnutrients]

If You Sleep Less Than 8 Hours, This is What`s Happening to Your Body Right Now

According to the docudrama, Sleepless in America, coproduced by the National Geographic Channel, 40 percent of Americans are sleep deprived. Many get much less than five hrs of rest each night. Percentage-wise, teens are among the most rest deprived.

The consequences are dire, not simply for the individual that isn't really getting sufficient rest, yet for those around them. While most individuals do not provide lack of rest much thought, there are in fact lethal consequences.

Notably, "professionals currently believe that sleep deprivation might have played a role in the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Staten Island ferry crash, and also the Three-Mile Island nuclear meltdown," the film states. Numerous individuals have actually also lost their lives to worn out vehicle drivers who merely fallinged asleep behind the wheel.

It's essential to understand that getting less compared to six hours of rest each evening leaves you cognitively hindered. Rest deprivation has actually additionally been connected to wellness results such as weight problems, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, 1and cancer. Anxiety as well as anxiousness conditions are likewise adversely influenced by absence of sleep.

The Importance of Staying in Sync with Nature

Maintaining an all-natural rhythm of exposure to sunlight during the day and also darkness in the evening is one critical fundamental element of sleeping well.

This was attended to in a previous interview with researcher Dan Pardi. In it, he clarifies how direct exposure to intense daytime functions as the significant synchronizer of your master clock-- a group of cells in your mind called the suprachiasmatic cores (SCN).

These centers integrate to the light-dark cycle of your atmosphere when light enters your eye. You likewise have other body clocks throughout your body that are integrated to your master clock.

One reason why many individuals get so little sleep, and/or such poor sleep, can be traced back to a master clock disturbance. In other words, a lot of individuals invest their days indoors, protected from intense daytime, then spend their nights in too-bright fabricated light.

As a result, their body clocks obtain out of sync with the all-natural rhythm of daytime and also nighttime darkness, when that happens, corrective rest ends up being elusive.

An approximated 15 million Americans also function the evening change, as well as the damaging health and wellness impacts of functioning evenings are well documented. As just one instance, 3 years of periodical graveyard shift job can raise your threat for diabetes by 20 percent, and also this risk continuouslies climb with time.

What Takes place When You're Rest Deprived?

What makes rest deprivation so detrimental is that it doesn't just impact one aspect of your wellness ... it impacts several. Among them are 5 major dangers to your psychological as well as physical wellness:

1. Reaction time slows: When you're sleep-deprived, you're not going to react as quickly as you normally would, making driving or various other potentially unsafe tasks, like making use of power tools, unsafe. One research even located that sleepiness behind the wheel was virtually as dangerous as drinking and driving.2

2. Your cognition suffers-- both brief- and long-term: A single night of resting just 4 to 6 hours can influence your ability to think clearly the following day. In one animal study, 3 rest deprived mice shed 25 percent of the nerve cells found in their place coeruleus, a nucleus in the brainstem related to cognitive processes.

Hence, if you're sleep-deprived you will certainly have difficulty refining information as well as deciding. This is why it's so vital to get a great evening's sleep before crucial occasions at the workplace or home.

For example, study reviewed in the film located that diagnostic blunders soared by 400 percent among medical professionals that had actually functioned for 24 successive hours.

Sleep denied clinical residents likewise reported a 73 percent rise in self-inflicted needle sticks and scalpel stabs, and also when driving home from work, they had a 170 percent boosted threat of having a significant automobile accident.

Research4 also suggests that individuals with persistent sleep problems might create Alzheimer's illness quicker compared to those who rest well. Among the reasons for this is due to the fact that rest is crucial for brain cleansing-- a procedure throughout which damaging healthy proteins linked to Alzheimer's are removed out.

3. Memory and discovering decreases: The procedure of mind growth, or neuroplasticity, is believed to underlie your mind's capability to manage behavior, including discovering as well as memory. Rest and sleep loss change the expression of a number of genetics and also genetics products that may be important for synaptic plasticity.

Furthermore, specific forms of lasting potentiation, a neural process linked with the laying down of learning and also memory could be evoked in sleep, suggesting synaptic links are strengthened while you slumber.

4. Emotions are heightened: As your reaction time and cognition reduces, your emotions will certainly be kicked into high equipment. This means that debates with colleagues or your partner are most likely, and you're probably reallying going to be at mistake for blowing things out of proportion.

The amygdala controls fundamental feelings like worry and anger. As talked about in the movie, an additional location of your brain called your frontal cortex, plays an essential part in the policy of feelings, and also rest is crucial for its function.

When you're well relaxed, your frontal cortex is well connected to your amygdala-- that deep emotional center-- and also functions virtually like "a break to your emotional gas pedal."

Sleep starvation triggers a detach between these two brain centers, permitting your emotions to run amok. Sleep deprival likewise plays an important role in mental disease, and has the tendency to cause even more negative psychiatric outcomes.

5. Immune function and also health wears away: Sleep deprivation has the same effect on your immune system as physical anxiety or disease, 5 which could aid describe why absence of sleep is linked to an increased threat of countless chronic diseases.

For instance, research study shows that resting much less compared to six hours per evening greater than triples your danger of hypertension, as well as females who get less than 4 hrs of slumber per evening double their chances of dying from heart disease.6

You Need Around Eight Hrs of Rest Every Night

The research studies are rather clear and most experts concur, you are seriously deceiving on your own if you believe you can do great on less compared to eight hours of rest. Eight hours of sleep is not 8 hours in bed. If you go to bed at 10 pm and also rise at 6 am, you might claim you've slept for 8 hrs. Actually, you probably spent a minimum of 15-30 mins going to sleep and also might have woken throughout the night several times.

With the development of fitness-tracking devices nonetheless, we now have accessibility to actual sleep information (as well as much more) from wristband customers. The data is rather beneficial on an individual level as well as they assisted me understand that I have to start obtaining to rest around 9.30 PM if I intend to obtain a full eight hours of sleep, which I currently normally do.

The Glorification of Sleep Deprivation

According to the 2013 International Room Survey by the National Sleep Foundation, 7 25 percent of Americans report having to reduce down on rest due to lengthy workdays. Typically, Americans obtain only 6.5 hours of sleep on weeknights, yet report needing 7.25 hrs in order to operate ideally. As noted in a previous article in The Atlantic: 8

" For some, sleep loss is a badge of honor, an indication that they don't require the eight-hour biological reset that the remainder people softies do. Others feel that maintaining up with peers needs sacrifice at the personal level-- and at least in the short-term, sleep is an undetectable sacrifice."

Modern male's propensity for equating sleep with unproductiveness (if not outright laziness) can be traced back to the heyday of Thomas Edison, that was understood for working around the clock. According to the highlighted post: 9

" Edison spent considerable amounts of his very own and also his team's energy on in publicizing the idea that success depended in no little part in staying awake to remain in advance of the technological and also financial competition." No one ... did even more to frame the problem as a simple choice in between efficient job and also unsuccessful remainder ...

Over time, kids's books as well as journals started to promote this sort of Edisonian asceticism ... Edison encouraged all Americans to follow his lead, asserting that resting 8 hours a night was a waste as well as also hazardous. "There is truly no reason why guys need to go to bed in any way," he stated in 1914."

This society of sleep deprival began with the innovation of the light bulb, and has just worsened with the proliferation of light-emitting electronic devices, which disrupt your all-natural waking-sleeping cycle. The complying with infographic, developed by BigBrandBeds.co.uk, illustrates just how your electronic gadgets damage your sleep when recruited before bedtime.10

The Importance of Attending to Rest Apnea

As gone over in the film, sleep apnea is another usual reason of rest deprival. Rest apnea is the lack of ability to breathe properly, or the restriction of breath or breathing, during sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea consists of the constant collapse of the air passage during rest, making it hard to take a breath for periods lasting as long as 10 seconds. Those with an extreme form of the disorder contend the very least 30 interruptions per hr. Not only do these breathing disruptions conflict with rest, leaving you uncommonly tired the following day, it additionally lowers the amount of oxygen in your blood, which can harm the feature of interior organs and/or intensify other health problems you may have.

The condition is closely connected to metabolic illness such as excessive weight as well as type 2 diabetes mellitus, and also according to research, 11 also a small weight decrease can stop the development of obstructive rest apnea. Shedding excess pounds could also cure it, according to one five-year lengthy study.12 That claimed, you do not have to be obese to suffer from sleep apnea. As discussed by Dr. Arthur Strauss, a dental medical professional and a diplomat of the American Board of Dental Rest Medication, factors such as the sizes and shape of your mouth, and the positioning of your tongue, can additionally play a substantial role.

If your rest apnea is associated to your tongue or jaw placement, specialized qualified dental professionals could design a customized dental appliance to deal with the issue. These include mandibular rearranging devices, developed to change your jaw ahead, while others help hold your tongue onward without relocating your jaw. Relief could likewise be discovered through speech therapy treatment called oral myofunctional therapy, which assists to re-pattern your dental and also facial muscle mass. To learn more about this, please see my previous interview with Joy Moeller, who is a leading professional in this form of treatment in the US.

How to Support Your Circadian Rhythm and Rest Better for Optimum Health

Making little changes to your everyday program as well as sleeping area can go a lengthy method to make sure undisturbed, relaxing sleep and also, therefore, much better health and wellness. I suggest you review my full set of 33 healthy and balanced sleep guidelines for all of the details, however to start, take into consideration implementing the complying with adjustments to make sure even more shut-eye:

Avoid seeing TELEVISION or recruiting your computer system in the evening, at least an hour or so prior to visiting bed.These gadgets give off blue light, which techniques your brain right into assuming it's still daytime. Generally, your mind starts secreting melatonin in between 9 as well as 10 pm, and these gadgets discharge light that could stifle that process. You can likewise download a cost-free application called F.lux13 that automatically lowers your monitor or screens in the night, which can assist decrease the damaging results if you have to recruit them in the evening.

Get some sun in the early morning, and also at the very least HALF AN HOUR of BRIGHT sunlight direct exposure mid-day. Your circadian system needs brilliant light to reset itself. 10 to 15 mins of early morning sunlight will certainly send a solid message to your body clock that day has arrived, making it much less likely to be perplexed by weak light signals during the evening. If you work inside your home, make a point to get outdoors for at the very least an overall of 30-60 minutes throughout the brightest part of the day.

Sleep in a dark room. Also the slightest little light in your room can interrupt your body's clock as well as your pineal gland's melatonin production. I recommend covering your windows with drapes or blackout shades, or using an eye mask.

Install a low-wattage yellow, orange, or red light bulb if you require a source of light for navigating during the night. Light in these transmission capacities does not closed down melatonin production in the means that white as well as blue transmission capacity light does. Salt lights come in handy for this purpose.

Keep the temperature in your bedroom below 70 degrees F. Many individuals maintain their homes too cozy (especially their upstairs bed rooms). Studies reveal that the optimal room temperature for rest is between 60 to 68 degrees F.

Take a hot bathroom 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime. This raises your core body temperature level, and when you obtain out of the bathroom it abruptly goes down, signifying your body that you prepare to sleep.

Avoid magnetic fields (EMFs) in your bedroom. EMFs can interrupt your pineal gland and also its melatonin manufacturing, and also might have various other adverse organic impacts. A gauss meter is called for if you wish to determine EMF degrees in various locations of your residence. Preferably, you must switch off any type of wireless router while you are resting. You don't need the Internet on while you're asleep.

Use a health and fitness tracker to track your sleep. Chances are you're not getting almost as much rest as you think, and using a physical fitness tracker that monitors your sleep can be an useful device to assist inspire you to obtain to bed previously so you can get 8 hrs of sleep. When I initially began making use of a fitness tracker, I was striving to obtain 8 hours of sleep, but my Jawbone UP commonly tape-recorded me at 7.5 to 7.75. Part of the equation too is going to sleep earlier, as the majority of us have to obtain up at a predetermined time.

#diet #health and wellness #lemonade diet #wellness

[vacantavern]

“My best friend is a parakeet” (Original Short horror story)

“Your bird’s stupid.” I turn to see my roommate, Shea, poking her finger between the bars of the bird cage. “Hey, leave her alone, she’s smarter than most of your boyfriends.” I shoot back. The bird in question, who I named Zig, squawks and flaps one wing. “But its strange isn’t it? It doesn’t really act like a bird. Its like it has something wrong in the head. It doesn’t even tweet right.” Shea waggles her finger at Zig.

I sigh and turn back to cooking dinner. She would never understand the bond we share. Zig has been a precious member of my family for the past six months. I remember seeing her through that pet store window; the cute, white and blue speckled parakeet was alone in a small cage at the front of the store. Her head was cocked so far to the side that her beak rested on the top of her wing. It reminded me of an owl. I didn’t even know parakeets could twist their heads that far. Those deep, soulful black eyes bored into me with a sharp intensity that almost moved me to tears. When I looked even closer, I could see small flecks of amber within the ebony voids. I decided then and there that I had to have her. I strode right into the pet shop and to the front desk. Immediately I noticed that for a pet store, it was oddly quiet. I stole glances at the other animals around me as I walked. The one ferret they had was in a large, circular glass enclosure. It sat on its hind legs in the center of the pen, its little arms held away from it’s body as if it was avoiding touching itself. The hamster on my right was hanging upside down on the mesh ceiling of it’s cage.

When I reached the front desk, a younger woman, maybe in her early twenties, greeted me with a larger than life smile. She had an eyepatch covering her left eye, and I wondered what had happened. I inquired about the bird, and if at all possible, her smile grew even wider. She was all teeth and grins as she told me all about how to care for a parakeet. When I told the woman I’d take her, she clapped her hands loudly in excitement before moving away from the register to retrieve her for me. When she strode past me, I noticed her gait was an awkward limp. The thought briefly crossed my mind that she might have some kind of skeletal deformity, and I felt pity for her. After I payed the surprising cheap bill, I left with a new sense of responsibility, along with a lightness I hadn’t felt in over a year.

Getting Zig was the best decision I ever made.

After losing my mother to cancer a year earlier, Zig had been a huge aid in helping me cope. After much research online about how to enrich a parakeet’s life, I waited on her hand and foot, spoiling her as much as possible. I know most people would say that she’s just a bird, but to me, she is a living creature who deserves love just as much, if not more than any human. She is my best friend. She was there for me when no one else was. After mom’s death, all of my human companions looked at me with pity or judgement. With Zig, there was none of that. I could tell her anything and she wouldn’t give me any criticism or harsh treatment. It didn’t matter that she was a little strange. What was normal anyway? Weird and normal are human constructs.

“So, what’s for dinner?” Shea asks, interrupting my reverie as she throws herself down on the couch with a loud exhale. “Meatloaf.” I call back to her. Shea makes a choking sound and kicks her leg up in protest. I ignore her. If she wants something different, then she should go out and buy the groceries for once. Getting a roommate was an unfortunate necessity if I wanted to be able to afford rent in this overpriced hellhole of an apartment. After my previous roommate decided to move in with her boyfriend, I had tried to go it alone for a while. But my wage was just not enough to maintain the apartment. So I put an add in the paper for a new roommate. Shea seemed nice at first. Polite and respectable. That was until she got comfortable and began to show her true selfish, lazy colors.

As we sit down to eat, Zig makes a strange choking sound, similar to the noise Shea made earlier in response to my horrid meatloaf. “Weird bird.” Shea mutters as she picks up a forkful of meat. I smile at Zig. Good job, girl.

The next morning I sleepily trudge through the house, getting ready for work. Zig squawks loudly and her tongue falls out of her beak, her eyes rolling back into her head, showing the whites. I smile. “Good morning, Zig.” I slide my finger through the bars and pat her small head. A few feathers come away from my touch, revealing the pink skin underneath. Concern fills me. I had been noticing Zig was losing a lot of her feathers lately. Her little body was now decorated with small bald patches. I wondered if she was plucking them out. I read somewhere that when a bird is stressed, they sometimes pluck their own feathers. I would have to look more into that after work. I wave to Zig, and she flaps her wings unevenly, one of her talons gripping her perch at an awkward angle.

Work drags on as usual. My co-workers greet me with large, fake smiles that never fail to sicken me with every passing day. I put in my earphones so I don’t have to listen to their incessant gossip. When I finally open the door to my apartment later that evening, my gaze immediately finds the couch. And then I promptly shut the door again. I let out a frustrated breath and pinch the bridge of my nose. Shea is making out with some guy yet again. The two were so locked together that they didn’t even notice the door opening. We have a rule about bringing boys home. If you did, there was to be no fooling around in the living areas. But Shea seemed to think this rule didn’t apply to her. Sighing deeply, I walk over to the window and give it a loud knock. I hear startled gasps from inside followed by the rustling of clothes. I go to wait in front of the door, my arms crossed over my chest.

A minute later the front door clicks open to reveal a disheveled Shea, smiling guiltily. “Sorry.” She offers, trying to smooth out her tangled hair. I shrug and head inside. It’s not like she would listen to me if I scolded her anyway. I walk quickly to my room, not bothering to even attempt to greet Shea’s guest.

That night sleep eludes me. So I decide to go out to the kitchen and play on my laptop. I research birds and feather plucking, and try to come up with a reason for why she would be stressed, and what I could do to fix it. It upset me that my Zig was so stressed out. After spending another hour down the rabbit hole, I yawn, contemplating trying to sleep again.

As I close my laptop, a sudden, horrid choking and wheezing echoes through the room. “DO NOT WORRY, LITTLE ONE.” A deep, scratchy voice echoes into the room. The sound of it seems to reverberate inside my head. I smile and look up at Zig, who hangs upside down on her perch, her wings crossed over her body like a bat. A thin, clear membrane clings to her body, slicking what is left of her wet feathers down against her body. Her neck seems to be a little longer than normal. It almost looks broken, tilted at an awkward angle. Her beak is stretched open wide to reveal a set of tiny, razor sharp teeth. Her beady little eyes seem wider than usual, the golden flecks more prominent. The two black and amber voids are fixated on me, through me, with great intensity. Just like they did that first day in the pet shop. I look away and pinch the bridge of my nose between my fingers, closing my eyes against the headache starting there. “Thanks, Zig. It’s just so frustrating that she doesn’t care about respecting me or my space.”

“THE OTHER FEMALE IS SELFISH, DESTRUCTIVE, INDULGENT. A STAIN ON THIS WORLD, LIKE MANY OTHERS.” I sigh heavily, pushing back from my chair before walking over to Zig’s cage. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better.” I place my hand against the cold metal bars, hoping she will hear the sincerity in my voice. Her concern warmed me. “YOU MUST REMOVE HER. SHE IS A DETRIMENT TO US.” Zig coughs strangely and flaps one wing. “Don’t worry,” I say. “If she crosses the line, I’ll kick her out.”

“TOO LENIENT, LITTLE ONE. TOO LENIENT. SHE MUST PAY THE PRICE FOR DISHONORING ME.” I softly stroke the gelatinous membrane coating Zig’s wing with the tip of my finger and turn to look at Shea’s door. “Thats going a little too far, Zig. Don’t worry, I have this handled.”

Zig gazes up at me from her upside down position, one glowing amber eye drifting off to look down the hallway towards Shea’s door. “FOR NOW, I SHALL ALLOW YOU TO BE LENIENT. HOWEVER, AS THE TIME FOR ME TO EVOLVE APPROACHES, I SHALL TAKE MATTERS INTO MY OWN HANDS, LITTLE ONE.” I turn from the cage and go to collect my laptop, suddenly feeling exhausted, my headache worsening with the booming of Zig’s voice in my head. As much as I loved talking to her, I needed some rest. “Alright, Zig, I’ll let you handle it if it goes too far.” I head off to bed with a slight smile on my face. Zig always has my back.

#horror #short story #my short story #scary #story #halloween #creature #creature feature

[arkus-rhapsode]

What do you think of Black Clover's anime compared to its manga?

Oh boy the anime…

Rather than going into a long essay of thoughts and studio perriot bitching, I’m going to try and break the anime do into sections and talk about those like I did with Fairy Tail Dragon Cry.

Visuals: If there is one thing I love about the anime it’s the color. The color manages to be both bright, but still have a darker tone. Something the med evil aesthetic of the show really benefits from thematically. If is on no small part of the animation studio being veterans and really knowing how to polish the scenes. Regardless of their “made in a single week” product, it at least looks touched up enough. But that’s all in the pallet.

In terms of character models the anime can do characters like Asta, Noelle, Finral, Vanessa, Mimosa, and Yuno pretty well, but guys like Yami and Magna… Well they look all rubbery, as if their models aren’t properly rendered. Yami looks less like his anime model and more like a butter statue in a few shots. Then again, Perriot has a history of really wonky character models.

As for magic, well I like the way Perriot uses that experience it’s had to touch up ways the magic looks and add a bit more detail to it, like Magna’s fire and Yuno’s wind all looking very well done. I know I’ve made jokes about the color, but Sekke’s bronze looks good, BUUUUT then there’s the shitty cgi. Oh my god, it is awful. Like, Berserk 2016 bad. The chains in the first episode to the ice Heath use all look awful. Noelle’s water with stuff like the sea dragon cradle is such obviously lazy cgi that it hurts. In the manga, Tabata’s way of drawing water is amazing, it really looks great, but it’s the worst thing to look at in the anime. A1 pictures is also pretty cut corners themselves, but at least when watching Fairy Tail, I actually thought Juvia’s water looks like real water.

As for the layouts and lighting, they’re all pretty good. I actually was surprised to see the evening sun in the magic knights entrance exam. It was really effective.

Animation: The Animation in this fluctuates like crazy. There are times it looks pretty good and doesn’t have the Fairy Tail 2008 problem of trying to look so much like the manga it doesn’t actually try to have the attack connect, just use the reaction shot of the critical damage because, “Y’know, it’s like the manga”, even though the reason for watching the anime is to see fluidity and not stills. At times Black Clover does it okay with animation like Asta knocking Heath out, but then there’s the time Asta knocks out Lebutty and it looks awful. The anime really relies on blurry vision way too much.

I know BC is a manga and you basically use snapshots to tell the story, but in a different medium you have to make some level of change and mak it quality.

Soundtrack: It’s generic. Like it could go with any fantasy anime. I know this might seem lke over nitpicking, but this is the same studio that did the Naruto and Bleach soundtracks, which are great. Soundtracks really do matter and stuff like FT have shown me that even a generic fantasy setting can atleast have definition through music. Black Clover’s is just blah. Not memorable, not overly scored, just…  there.

Now the openings I rather enjoy. these OPs are pretty much the feeling of shounen distilled into music, it is rockin’. Not the greatest thing I’ve heard, but damn, it’s fun.

Cast: Actually I really like the cast for both the sub and dubs. Both are pretty unique in their own ways and all fit how I imagined these characters have sounded. I however have made separate posts on my thoughts on the actors specifically so I will not bore you.

And last but not least, Pacing: Oh lord this is what kills the anime for me. Every complaint I’ve had could be ignored and or possibly just the sin of being a weekly series, but the pacing just is awful. BC’s manga is very fast paced and it used that early on to its advantage, but the anime, the filler fucking takes forever. It thinks introducing character ill have more impact, but this is studio Perriot they don’t know how to deviate from the initial character source material. While Toei has a bunch of problem, it knows how to write its characters for DBZ and to a lesser extent, One Piece. But perriot just reuses the character’s known personality and doesn’t offer any new layer to the character. The filler just makes this a slog to get through, initially I wasn’t even that mad at the filler, I liked seeing young Yuno and Asta, but then I realized something, it isn’t saying anything new, it’s just a reaffirmation of how Asta and Yuno are friend and grew out together. Then there are just one sentence long events that get bloated like the Yami and Magna gambling scene.

Sometimes I get the filler, extending Yuno’s fight with that rich asshole, the boar hunting scene, but we don’t need the Sister Lily thing out the Rebecca cameo, because they aren’t important later down the story. Look at times Black Clover’s fast pacing is to its detriment, but it really benefits the series as a whole, but this anime just can’t pace itself.

As an adaptation, it’s bad. As an anime it’s just below average. I really would say check out the manga before the anime.

#black clover #anime

[salmagundimagazine]

ON GIRLS, ADDICTION, AND GROWING UP by Catherine Pond

from Salmagundi, Summer 2017 [The TV Issue]

[photo by Annabel Mehran]

   1

It was always winter that year, my first year in Brooklyn. Snow fell on the power-lines.  A grey tree shivered outside my bedroom window. I had many friends but none that I could call.

I wanted to feel connected to the city the way other poets had, like Frank O’Hara in his famous poem “Steps”— “oh god it’s wonderful/ to get out of bed/ and drink too much coffee/ and smoke too many cigarettes/ and love you so much”— but I didn’t smoke, nor did I drink coffee. I barely made it out of bed some mornings. It felt more like I belonged in Muriel Rukeyser’s poem “Empire State Tower”:

The far lands melt to orange and to grey. The city lies, quiet but for a rumor, A single voice. People are guessed. We hazard The world we know is there, below, unseen. And in the street the many beautiful Unstaring walk unwaiting the knives of doom…

   2

It was 2012 and I was 21, living in East Williamsburg in a two-bedroom on Frost Street with my roommate Paul. Paul treated the few women in his life poorly. He despised his girlfriend (uncreative, immature, and blank were some of the adjectives he used) but no matter how many times he dumped her, she’d be back again the next week, sitting on our couch, Paul avoiding eye contact with me. For her birthday, he bought her a $200 steak at Peter Luger’s. “Maybe you actually like her,” I suggested one day, and he shrugged.  

My romantic life was no less antagonistic. I often brought strangers home to have sex with, only to decide halfway through the act that I didn’t want them there, at which point I’d kick them out into the snow at some ungodly hour. Paul witnessed all of this but never brought it up, and I was grateful for that.

His great passion was television. He liked watching TV with his girlfriend; it was passive, I deduced, and allowed him to ignore her for long stretches of time. I didn’t understand television, and found it distracting and unsatisfying. His favorite show, still in its first season, was Lena Dunham’s cult hit Girls. Paul worked at a law firm and hated women, so this baffled me. When he turned it on, I’d note silently how obnoxious the girls were, then retreat to my bedroom to read Paul Celan.

   3

One night, unable to sleep, I wandered into the living room and watched the entire first season of Girls. Still, I made it a point to actively hate the show. I told everyone I could: “The girls aren’t smart, or driven, and none of them have jobs. I can’t relate.” Occasionally episodes would be filmed on my block, in my coffee shop, in my neighborhood bar. I’d continue my criticism to whomever would listen: “I don’t recognize the world they live in.” Each month a check would arrive from my father to cover my rent. “They’re such spoiled brats,” I lamented to Paul.

   4

Lena Dunham’s lime-green raincoat, dotted with pink flowers, falls open at the crotch. Her teeth are crooked; her lips bright red. It’s February 2017 and she’s posing on the cover of Nylon magazine, happy to capitalize on the character she’s developed: part-child, part-woman, all-provocation.  

Fresh out of college in 2012 and riding the success of her movie Tiny Furniture, Dunham launched the pilot for her show Girls to much fanfare. She snagged the dream network (HBO), the dream co-producer (guru Judd Apatow), and the dream co-writers (Jenni Konner & Lesley Arfin among them).

Girls invited both acclaim and criticism from the get-go.  Deemed “toxic” and “white girl feminism at its worst,” the show, set in contemporary Brooklyn, New York, features four protagonists: Hannah Horvath (Dunham), Jessa Johanson (Jemima Kirke), Shoshanna Shapiro (Zosia Mamet), and Marnie Michaels (Allison Williams).

Dunham is not the first to have the idea to follow four white girls around New York (see: Sex & the City) but she is the first to be held accountable for her show’s lack of diversity.  In The Atlantic in 2013, Judy Berman spared no mercy: “Dunham continues to cast non-white actors only when race defines their character—which is to say, she still doesn’t get it.”

Lena Dunham, sometimes to her own detriment, is not concerned with political correctness (“I haven’t had an abortion but I wish I had,” she said recently in an interview). It is part of what makes the dialogue in her show so accurate and brightly humorous, and it is also part of what might be deemed problematic about her public and professional persona.

Is there an upside? This insistence on accountability has encouraged a long-overdue dialogue about diversity in television. And Dunham herself has learned a little something along the way: “When I wrote the pilot I was 23. Each character was an extension of me,” she told Nylon. “I wouldn’t do another show that starred four white girls,” she added.

   5.

In the first season, Hannah (Dunham) has weird, sloppy sex with the overly aggressive Adam (Adam Driver); Jessa misses her own abortion appointment because she is getting drunk and having sex with a stranger in a bar; Shoshanna sets out to lose her virginity; and Marnie dumps her boyfriend of five years because he’s “too nice.” Later, Hannah takes acid in order to write a more interesting article, and Adam sends Hannah a picture of his dick wrapped in fur, then quickly texts, “That was for someone else.”

Despite this (or because of it) Hannah falls in love with Adam. Adam, for his part, seems drawn to Hannah, but disdains her, presumably because she evokes emotional reactions from him that he’s not fully comfortable feeling. In subsequent seasons, he dates ‘conventionally’ beautiful women, but finds himself defending Hannah, as in a scene where the stunning Shiri Appleby (whom Adam’s character degrades sexually, then dumps) bumps into Hannah and Adam at a coffee shop. Appleby sizes up Hannah’s body and exclaims, with lacerating cruelty, “That’s her?”

Late at night I considered my own body in the mirror. I had a proportional hourglass shape, with big boobs. But my body scared me. I preferred being thin and wearing baggie clothes, and it was my worst nightmare that anyone would learn I had large breasts.

I liked watching Hannah move through the world partially clothed, because I couldn’t, and her obliviousness, while sometimes problematic, seemed in this one sense a blessing.

   6.

As the show progressed, I expected a personality transformation in the characters much like the one I expected in myself: I assumed Hannah would eventually mature, stop loving Adam, publish some writing, make a real career for herself. I thought Jessa would stop doing drugs, get her shit together, that Marnie would become less obnoxiously privileged and white, that Shoshanna would shed her Jewish-American Princess prissiness and learn to take care of herself. I hoped Adam would have a functioning relationship and make peace with his demons.

I was pissed when this didn’t happen. I was angry when Hannah went to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and then left because she couldn’t live anywhere but New York City, and didn’t understand how to take constructive criticism. Her writing was self-referential and sometimes straight-up bad. When I first watched Jessa attend AA meetings, I thought it was silly. Jessa’s stint in rehab seemed futile, and she picked up drinking soon after.

When, on my 23rd birthday, I broke down in front of my brother and admitted I needed help with my alcoholism, I didn’t make the correlation to Jessa’s character. I was proud and vocal when I stuck with AA for one month, and then two.  And I was mortified and quiet when I stopped going and picked up drinking again, more heavily this time.

   7

Around the time the fourth season came out, I fell in love with an artist named Charlie, who had dated a friend of mine years earlier. This friend was particularly possessive of him.

I made lists of all the reasons why my attraction to Charlie was bullshit, why it wouldn’t work, why I should avoid him.  I assumed the attraction was based on some subconscious yearning, the fucked up parts of me attempting a ruinous self-sabotage. In a fury with myself, I used the money from a poetry prize to buy a ticket to France for a week. I decided in that time I would get over my bizarre crush and move on with my life.    

I fell in love anyway. I lost my friend. And eight months later, I lost Charlie too.

   8

In the fifth season of Girls, something surprising happens. Adam begins pursuing Jessa. As Hannah’s best friend, Jessa is furious to find herself falling for Adam as well. They date. Hannah finds out; Jessa begins to resent Adam.

“Y’know, people hate me,” Jessa confides to Adam. “I’m a hateable kind of person. I don’t know why, I can’t help it, maybe it’s because I have a big ass and good hair but I know, I know that I have principles and one thing I don’t do is steal people’s boyfriends. But you ruin that. Don’t you see that? We could die in the same bed and I will never forgive you.”

Adam, livid, replies: “Hannah is a lazy, entitled, manipulative, myopic narcissist who knows a lot less than she thinks she does. Why do you think I fucking hated you for so long? Because Hannah fucking hates you.”

Jessa whips her long blonde hair. “Welcome to having a friend,” she digs coolly, and Adam smashes a lamp against a wall.  

   9

As the other characters slide into caricature in the late seasons of the show, Adam seems actually to begin to mature, even playing guardian to his nephew after his unstable sister (the brilliant Gaby Hoffman) disappears. In this way he serves as Hannah’s foil, and his maturity highlights the ways in which Hannah fails to grow up with the world around her. Ironic that the character with the most interesting arc on Girls is a man.  

   10

I consoled myself a lot in my graduate school years by comparing myself to those I deemed less intelligent. I was convinced I could’ve written Girls, but better, and I protected myself this way, moving through the world with the conviction of my own gifts, and no awareness of the deep uncertainty I harbored inside. In the poems I wrote, I was at the mercy of everyone in the world who didn’t love me back.  

Girls, for all its flaws, anticipated and mirrored my own life in ways I did not want to acknowledge.  As I grew older and more forgiving of myself, I found myself more forgiving of the characters on the show, and their myriad missteps. Annoying, immature, adolescent—sure. But Lena Dunham had something I wanted: agency.  

It’s this that I think we all work towards as we get older.  Agency in our relationships, in our writing, in our careers, and in ourselves. I still want to be, as Hannah Horvath puts it in the pilot episode, “the voice of my generation. Or, you know, a generation.”    

   11

I haven’t spoken to Paul in years, but I think of him each time I watch Girls. How badly we behaved back then. How scared we were of being hurt.

I think of telling him how he saved my life with his dumb shows and giant flat-screen TV. How safe I felt, hearing him have hate-sex with his girlfriend through the wall. How I loved him, though I never said it. How I knew him by heart.    

When I walked past the other day, Frost Street was quiet. Three trees struggled under ice.

I live on South 3rd now, a street with small fenced-in yards, and a happily neutral name.

[justtryingandshit-blog]

Free Speech Hacks and Islamophobia

Another day another roundtable discussing the lived experience of Muslim women and Islamophobia.

“I was waiting for the tube and he spat in my face, ripped off my hijab and told me to go back to where I came from” one lady said, dabbing her eyes with a kleenex.

“I was walking down the high street and two white women started shouting “terrorist” and “bomber” at me. They eventually chased me down the street and beat me. I was wearing western clothes and no hijab, how could they know I was Muslim? I felt humiliated and broken. No one helped me”

“To be honest, I’m sick and tired. Nothing is going to change, why do I have to keep speaking out and reporting hate crime when nothing is going to change?” another woman professed before reclining into her seat.

This session was particularly heavy; brave mothers, young teenagers, and professionals all sharing their horrendous experiences of Islamophobic abuse. These were the kinds of stories I came across occasionally in the daily Mirror, yet every woman today had a story to tell, often with unintended tears. On the tube back I collected myself and scrolled through twitter; “Islamophobia is term used to shut down debate, we should use anti-Muslim hate instead” read one, “Islamophobia is a fiction used to stifle free speech” followed another, “Some Muslims have such a victim complex, all they go on about is Islamophobia, never accountable for extremists within their own ranks”. Most of these comments irked me more than usual, not just because of my roundtable engagement prior to this, but because these tweets all came from free speech advocates, white secularists, and rampant liberals. Trying to debate these sanctimonious hacktivists is a double challenge: overcoming the unwarranted labels of “snowflake”, “regressive leftie” and “peddler of victimhood” and then the debate itself. Debating online is useless and accomplishes nothing - a lesson I learned a long time ago - the hard way.

Many good articles have already tackled the arguments against the term “Islamophobia”, but I haven’t come across any that point out the irony in the appeal to “free speech” when activists wish to police the term Islamophobia out of existence. I’ve had a bone to pick with (white) secular/free speech movements for a while now but the use of this argument (almost wholesale by “free speech” hacks) is so ludicrously wrong and audacious in its use, I just can’t help myself.

Free speech is a human right, it’s an important benchmark of a free society. Asia Bibi has recently been released after almost a decade in prison for jumped up blasphemy charges in Pakistan - a true victim of the curtailment of free speech implemented at a state level. A chilling example of what can happen to innocent people if a state does not respect free speech within its constitution, or institutional practices. Some “free speech” activists in the UK have appropriated well-meaning movements that put truth to power to instead police speech that they find offensive because they’ve had a poor debating experience, usually online.

“Everytime I try and criticise Islam, Muslims tell me I’m being Islamophobic. They try and shut down debate by tarnishing me as an Islamophobe.” 

It’s not like Islam hasn’t been on the agenda for every major news outlet, talk show, political agenda etc. for the past two decades, naturally every day Muslims have become defensive over the years. There are institutions set up to research Islam, debate Islam and learn more about the faith in an academic fashion. There’s no doubt that harmful racist tropes about Muslims and Islam are being peddled by well meaning free speech movements that refuse to make room for critical thought or genuine challenge. 

Now western free speech activism involves sanctimonious whinging in regards to being able to criticise Islam (usually a thinly veiled excuse for anti-Muslim bigotry) or nazi apologia. See the recent example of an American school letting their students off the hook for big old fashioned nazi salutes in the name of free speech. It’s important to remember that Muslims being able to define a working definition of Islamophobia is never about anything else other than defining anti-Muslim racism, not about creating a magic word to invalidate free speech warriors online. Perhaps there have been instances of people wrongly accusing keen debaters of Islamophobia, but this is an incorrect usage of a word, not the word being problematic in and of itself. Why then should the term be policed out of existence because it offends people? it’s a a cheap cop out for lazy activists who fail to distinguish poor debating from actual curtailment of free speech. It’s doubly ironic that the debate surrounding islamophobia is frequently platformed on talk shows, online and offline. Even if Islamophobia was to be replaced with “anti-Muslim hate”, the repercussions of which would be detrimental to countering the true scope of Islamophobia. Islamophobia accounts for the institutional barriers that Muslims face in Britain; in education, employment and accessing services (as outlined by the recent Runnymede report). Anti-Muslim hate reduces the scope to hate crime and hate speech but fails to account for the institutional barriers faced by Muslims. Anti-Muslim hate is real; those women who bravely shared their stories of unwarranted hate and abuse weren’t making it up, it’s a scary reality for Muslims in Britain. But hate crime is a symptom of something far greater and deeply rooted in our society: Islamophobia. Report hate crime all you want but unless we challenge the institutional participation of Islamophobia by dismantling the systems that deliver poorer outcomes for Muslims, hate crime will persist. When a bigotry is institutionalised it then inadvertently gives a green light to that bigotry within civil society. Defining Islamophobia as a racism to qualify it under the Equalities act 2010, is the first step to challenging Islamophobia as an institutional barrier to Muslims. It’s, therefore, time we put this counter-intuitive argument to rest and root out those that appropriate free speech movement to validate their own bigotry (knowingly or unknowingly). Islamophobia isn’t about you, dear activist, it hasn’t been fabricated to silence you, nor does it shut down debate, for policing this term out of existence does greater harm than good for a hell of a lot more people than yourself, you selfish little hack.

[mirrinbelde-shitposts]

I think aqua mercury

Iniyials:D.S

Hey!^^ Welcome to your reading. Please remember to send feedback.

First impressions when looking at your chart: 1st house stellium, two planets in an anaretic degree, bucket chart shape with Saturn being the focal point.

SUN IN PISCES

Pisces is the oldest sign of the Zodiac. The fact that your Sun is placed in this sign may imply that you've learned the lessons of all the other signs, which could make it easier for you to manifest the Sun's traits. It is a Sun sign often more concerned with others, rather than the self, perhaps due to being the last in the Zodiac. You're probably quite intuitive and dreamy, ethereal, even. Caring, sensitive and compassionate are words that are often attributed to this Sun sign as well. However, I've noticed that, along with Cancer, these natives often serve as the "therapist" friend. Nothing wrong with that, but, due to their nature, they can soak people's negative energies, which may severely affect their sensitive personalities. You should take care to balance the amount of time spent around these sorts of people; don't let others dump their traumas on you unannounced. You're quite the idealist, and your creativity is out of this world. You're probably very spiritual (astrology or other subjects).

SUN IN THE 1ST HOUSE

The 1st is the house of the self. It is ruled by Aries, the sign of exaltation of the Sun; therefore, it is a positive house for it. It balances nicely your Pisces Sun. Here, you acquire that optimism, confidence and positive self-esteem that Pisces isn't great at providing. It also makes it so that your personality is quite easy to perceive; in other words, your Sun shines brightly. This placement can grant you popularity and make you stand out in a crowd. Unlike Pisces, the Sun placed here could lend you that sense of leadership and taking initiative. However, like Aries Sun, you could, if you haven't developed the placement, show tendencies of egoism and vanity.

MOON IN LIBRA

Your Moon is in Virgo, although it's at the anaretic degree; therefore, it also takes traits from Libra. As a Virgo Moon, you should try to find activities that allow you to be occupied and to do good, which allows you to avoid thinking too much. Failure is a fear of yours. You can truly be your own enemy. You need to understand that there is no such thing as perfection in the universe and that you yourself are no different. There is a tendency to rationalize your feelings; know that to feel is to be human.

With Libra being so close, you may acquire some of its traits. You may shy away from confrontation and seek balance in every area of life.

MOON IN THE 8TH HOUSE

This placement goes well with your Pisces Sun, in the sense that it strengthens your interest in the occult and secret. It is a karmic position for the Moon; perhaps you have a very strong relationship with your mother. Additionally, it ties in with the idea of Libra's desire to find someone who balances you. You seek someone with whom you can form a deep emotional bond, someone with whom you can be vulnerable and share your secrets. It is also a good position for therapists because it allows you to connect well with people's feelings and needs.

MERCURY IN PISCES

Mercury is in detriment in Pisces. Whereas Mercury is all about rationality and logic, Pisces prefers to be creative and emotional. Therefore, your speech is very connected to your feelings and ideas. Once again, you're intuitive, but your rapid thoughts may cause your speech to be fragmented and incoherent. You may speak in a vague or poetic way. Daydreaming is a coping mechanism, so you may have trouble connecting to Earth. You may also struggle with other people's criticism.

MERCURY IN THE 1ST HOUSE

Placed here, you gain ease of putting your thoughts into words. You are curious and love to learn and may be versed in many different fields of knowledge. Talking to people is important to you. These abilities of yours may be quite important in your career, as networking is crucial to advance in any field. Open-mindedness and analytical thinking are other traits you may possess. However, you may be prone to distracting yourself with anything around you. Work on your attention span, it is important.

VENUS IN AQUARIUS

Here we have the second planet at an anaretic degree. In love, you are probably drawn to intellectual, quirky people. Aquarius Venus is known to be quite flighty and non-committal. That is just a stereotype. You can actually fall in love a lot; however, you may think that, more often that not, pursuing crushes isn't worth it. If you do decide that the relationship should be given an opportunity, you can be one of the most loyal and caring lovers. You want a partner who understands you and who won't judge you for being "different". Nevertheless, your personal space is important to you and your partner must respect your independence. You hate to be told what to do and how to think. Being friends first is probably something you value a lot. Like Virgo Venus, you should try to be less rational sometimes.

The proximity of Pisces may give you that ease of feeling and empathy that Aquarius doesn't have.

VENUS IN THE 1ST HOUSE

Here, Venus grants you a general sense of a harmonious, charming, alluring individual. You may focus a lot on the artistic and beautiful. You are probably someone who desires to connect and help everyone. However, you may struggle with accepting and loving yourself, which may cause you to "fish" for compliments from others. Loving yourself is essential. Additionally, you could use your charm and beauty to manipulate, even if you do so unconsciously. Finally, you may lack assertiveness and determination sometimes, which may lead to laziness and just waiting for good things to come your way.

MARS IN CAPRICORN

Mars is exalted in this sign. This is generally a good placement: Mars is about action and Capricorn is quite a determined sign. Your goals and ambitions are quite important to you; you have a natural way to achieve them because of your hardworking, disciplined nature. You set concrete objectives and deadlines for yourself and you usually achieve them. The downside is that you can be cold and detached. Aditionally, you have a deep desire of recognition. You love to work on your goals, but you also want to feel appreciated and that your work is meaningful. Usually quite in control of your emotions.

MARS IN THE 12TH HOUSE

This can be a difficult placement. On one hand, Mars can manifest in an unstable way, tricked by Neptune. Your emotions can be bottling up inside you and no one would ever know, until you explode. Something else that comes to mind regarding this placement is how you can spend too much of your energy thinking about how you can improve yourself; on the other hand, something can occur that makes you shift onto someone or something else. It is a bit paradoxal. I also associate this placement with people who go through situations of great importance, but whose outcomes may be tragic. You need a great deal of courage to deal with the challenges that life throws at you, which aren't few or small.

JUPITER IN LIBRA

You seek harmony and happiness. With your attuned sense of justice, you are the right person to find middle ground between two polar opposites. You draw a very clear line between what is right and what is wrong. You probably have good taste in just about everything. Relationships are important for your spiritual growth; however, your excellent and fair sense of justice does not apply to relationships. You may get into partnerships that seemed perfect at first but then disappoint you. Additionally, take care not to wander from relationship to relationship. Being in retrograde, you may withhold your true thoughts and opinions out of fear of hurting the other person.

JUPITER IN THE 8TH HOUSE

Traditionally, Jupiter ruled Scorpio, which corresponds to the 8th house. A theme of this house is money, particularly other people's money, as well as inheritances. You may get lucky in this department, or you may marry someone who's extremely well-off. People may even trust you with their money. Jupiter's philosophical side offers you a good understanding of human nature and its deepest characteristics, as well as the occult and religious matters. Lastly, like all 8H placements, you strive to find a deep attachment to people. Beware of getting seduced into entering sketchy and dangerous situations, for the 8th is the house that rules everything dark and deadly.

SATURN IN CANCER

Saturn is in detriment here. You may feel a strong need of emotional safety, which could manifest as a fear of abandonment. There may also be some emotional blockages present that you struggle to overcome. Saturn retrograde, being the planet of Karma, may difficult your mission in life. You could be stuck on an unresolved trauma from a past life. This may be represented by a figure of authority in this life, perhaps your father. Instead of attempting to reconcile your past, try to accept the world changing around you. You may be too afraid to venture into the world and to open your heart; accept that it is part of life. Find people that give you that security, but don't pour out your entire soul to them; find a balance. Not everything can be kept in our hearts, but not everything should be shared, either.

SATURN IN THE 6TH HOUSE

You can feel responsible for other people, especially your coworkers, even if you struggle getting along with them. There's a need to serve, to be of use to others; you may find it hard to relax. You are quite organized, so you'd do well to make use of it. You could also be the type to help others in the way to their goals. However, you should also understand that, sometimes, you should just let go and go with the flow. Not everything in life is about hard work, routines or responsibilities. Find something that excites you; try some meditation. There may also be some health issues, perhaps you had them in your childhood. ⬛

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