#like no fucking shit we learned about other countries in school but teaching us the the history of egypt does nothing to help us understand

[egberts]

I'm just gonna start blocking people who send me essay length asks trying to argue about stupid shit because their personal experience was different

#the person who said american schools dont brainwash kids and proceeded to go on a 700 word rant about all the cool stuff their school did #like dude im sorry your lived experience isnt universal #and learning about the history of countries like mexico and france =/= learning about modern cities in 'third world countries' #so many places dont even offer world history until high school as an elective #like no fucking shit we learned about other countries in school but teaching us the the history of egypt does nothing to help us understand #parts of it are just as modern and lively as like. new york #they literally make us pledge allegiance to the American flag but you're gonna argue kids are taught american idealism because your friend #in texas had mexico DAY in school. like let that sink in. mexico day is your argument against mine #*arent taught

[inkskinned]

accidents happen. accidents particularly happen around children.

we make scissors designed for children because we know they can hurt themselves on it. we cut their food up smaller so they are less likely to choke. we "babyproof" our houses, make sure our medications are all closed and locked, close all the outlets.

we are told to just carry a gun.

at some point a kid is going to get hurt. everyone with or around kids knows this. often adults (who shouldn't work with kids) are a little-too-okay-with-this. they sneer that in their time, kids just got hurt. which is great for them, but i don't feel it's particularly necessary to willfully allow children to break bones just to "build character". the kids do just fine when i do my job right. i make sure, to the best of my ability, that they don't break the bone. it turns out you can still learn life lessons without trauma. yes, at some point they'll get hurt. that's the nature of it. but i like to try to keep it to a minimum of bloodshed.

about five years ago, in the middle of my summer training, the cop that came in to prepare us for mass shootings actually happened to be the same cop that used to be my DARE officer. what a small world! his hair had gone grey.

before working with children, i had no idea how many things a child can hurt themselves on. i had never thought about the possibility that a child could climb a bookshelf, only for that bookshelf to topple over. everything has to be screwed down. nothing can have particularly sharp corners - what if a child falls backwards onto it? - or be particularly breakable. no plastic bags or choking hazards. watch out for allergens, do your best to clean your super-gross classroom with all-natural (and expensive) fragrance-free products. there's a million other considerations, most of which are difficult on a public school budget. i hate the calculation - either the kids get a new playground 5 years from now OR they get new books now and just risk the tetanus.

the gun is not included in the paycheck.

we do our best, you know? but like, there's the rest of the actual job to do. we're neither trained, paid, or aided in our one-person quest to somehow get jason to stop giving himself splinters. and besides, we have the 98 other things to consider for our 30 other students. one of which is, you know, teaching them.

the children aren't prisoners. we need to walk this incredibly fine line of "chaotic exploration" and "reckless endangerment." to be frank - they're gonna do stupid shit and get hurt while they do the stupid shit. it's my job to at least try to predict the stupid shit, and minimize the risk. and before you judge the kids - i'm going to remind you that adults die every year from shaking vending machines. people just do stupid shit.

did you know that the leading cause of childhood deaths in america is to guns? we're the only country in the world with that statistic. it used to be motor vehicles, which is why there are so many laws about seatbelts, air bags, babyseats, and other protections against accidents. 1 in 5 childhood deaths will be a result of guns. of these deaths, 65% are the result of an intentional attack.

my brother often takes me to archery. i fucking suck at archery, because i have no aim, bad eyesight, and no grip strength. it's fun, though! as a teacher, archery at my school is super banned, because kids could get hurt. no throwing rocks or sticks. no impromptu self-made bows or arrows, oh my god, why do we keep having to have this conversation.

i remember this one conversation with a parent. he was chatting with me during pick-up and mentioned that kinder eggs being banned is so stupid, because, like, if a kid is gonna choke - they kind of "deserved it" for being so stupid. without thinking, my response was, "we don't typically practice darwinism at school, but you can encourage that at home if you wish!" which did result in me getting written up - for "talking back", i guess.

but his idea isn't unusual, is the thing. there's this sense that there's somehow almost an "expendable" child trauma rate. that it weeds out the weak or whatever, which is categorically cruel & dehumanizing. children should be able to mess up and have fun and - again - do stupid shit. they might get hurt, yes. but the job of the adult is to just go help the kid.

i had to quit teaching. i was really, really good at my job - 15 years of practice. but i would wake up at night, coating in sweat. trying to figure out how to bullet-proof my public school classroom with a public school budget.

bad things happen. in every other category: we try to prevent them.

#gun violence #gun control #warm up

[beardedmrbean]

Nunya can you explain this Twitter meme? https://x.com/AmericanaEthos/status/1726098935662719272?s=20

Like, I black and went to predominantly black schools. And they couldn’t stfu about civil rights and slavery.

Like no poor, marginalized, or even working class American think our country is perfect. Is wrong to believe this leftists memes are very classist? Our textbook acknowledges the terrible ( that career politicians allowed minus their own evil shit) constantly.

Did these marxists sleep through history class? Like, American slavery is the only type of slavery talk about in school that I had a little mid fuck after getting online and learning about the Dahomey.

I legitimately don't know who the not Superman dude is, but I can guess given the context here.

I think you're probably right about them having slept through every US history class they ever took.

I learned "Trail of Tears" in elementary school, same with slavery, and a few other of the less than savory parts of US history then as the years wore on the lessons got more and more involved and graphic since watching "Roots" in 2nd grade is a good way to traumatize kids so you know they moved in a more age appropriate direction.

I feel like the majority of the people that do this kind of meme fall in to a few different categories.

Not American and ignorant of what is taught here beyond what they see on twitter (things like Texas/Florida won't be teaching about slavery) and they're trying for viral fame.

Slept through history and got lots of F's as a result.

Didn't sleep through history and have selective memory

Did well in history, but don't feel like the subject was given enough attention.

Which is a valid opinion but people need to realize that there's only so much time to teach these things because other things need to be taught as well. So be glad that unlike me you have easy access to all of the information in the world you could want and you can learn more on your own.

They teach the history warts and all, you're likely to hear about Rosa Parks, Emmet Till, Ruby Bridges, and the Tulsa race massacre.

Rosewood massacre, Ocoee massacre, various tests before you could vote

This one is pretty easy so far. (just saw a longer version, it gets complicated)

Louisiana one here on the other hand... You got this if you couldn't prove at least a 5th grade education. 5th grader that passes this should directly to MIT.

very few people regardless of race are gonna be doing well on this.

But ya if we're doing racial issues it's all taught, most all at least. How much time did you see get spent on the people that built the railroads, the majority of whom if it was going west to east were Chinese and east to west Irish and all of whom were treated as disposable.

The 'if you die I can hire another man, but I gotta buy another mule' attitude.

Fuck I'm in CA and we did not spend a whole lot of time on that one, mostly that it was dangerous work and lots of people died.

I think at this point the best response you could give someone that makes or posts a tweet like that would be

"your abject failure to learn as a student does not mean the information wasn't taught"

(If you feel like hurting your brain I'm gonna link a few of the "literacy" tests)

Mississippi (not terrible)

Louisiana (whole thing, good luck)

Alabama (starts out easy enough, didn't skim too far so might turn incredibly difficult)

If you do any of these let me know how you did please, these things are insane. _________________

Hope this wasn't too long winded, tried to keep it mostly brief

#anonymous

[docholligay]

Why are you smarter and a better parent than me, please explain to me in excruciating detail the ways that I am better than you so I learn a valuable lesson about how actually I'm great all the time.

It is astounding how much I hate it, before I saw it, i would have said, "Girl i survived Bebefinn" but bebefinn is ANNOYING, the wiggles are ANNOYING, but Peppa I am like, "Uh, beeb if you act like this cunt I will end you" (but said as you would to a three year old)

My favorites of hers are Shaboom, which is a Jewish preschool age type show that teaches about jewish values and lessons, and Miss Rachel, which teaches phonics and actual useful shit. I have a lot of fondness for the old school sesame street as well, there's an episode of Cookie World that makes me laugh every time, and I like talking to Beeb about Cookie and Gonger's Moster Foodie Truck.

But yeah, there's nothing I would watch without her ahaha. Honestly, I need to make my own show called like, fuck, Davy the Grade Horse or something, where we learn valuable country lessons like, "No one wants to hear about it!" and "Get up! It can't hurt that bad" or "Everyone fucking contributes or they don't get shit"or "Turns out, you're the one fucking up a lot of your own life" or many other things that I would like beeb to learn that people on tumblr would tell me makes me a monster or whatever. But I also would turn to adults watching it alone and be like, "Ain't you 36 or some shit? Read a goddamn book."

I won't watch Bluey for two reasons:

I won't pay for Disney.

:

I just can't even engage in good faith with the show because of the number of grown ass adults without children who are trying to fucking tell me Bluey is the media of the age that makes them feel seen and understood. And every time I say, "I am 38 years old and I don't want to watch a preschool show" I get accused of being prejudiced and yes, i absolutely do prejudge a show based on the fact that it is for the 3 to 6 set. Great for 3 to 6 year olds. Great for parents who are having to watch this shit that it is apparently not annoying. But I prefer to see life reflected through an adult lens.

So, I would hate Bluey for reasons that have nothing to do with the source material. I know this. I struggle with almost every cartoon adults get into because they want it to be Citizen Fucking Kane or something but it's at best a decent show for children.

I have never seen Caillou and do not plan to! Honestly, Peppa was not going to be a thing in our house but unfortunately I am married, and unfortunately my wife doesn't go, "no, we're not watching that because it's annoying" like certain other parents named Papa who are me she has.

[silentwalrus1]

Hi, can I ask you a writing question? One of my works has a place in it that i want to worldbuild and make feel authentic, or at least like i know what i'm talking about, and the fact that youve apparently never actually finished brotherhood and yet have fleshed out Amestris and it's relations down to insane minutiae honestly stuns me. So i want to ask how you're able to do that, how do you know where to look for the information you need? is hammering all that out just a continual process of interrogating yourself on 'okay, then what?' I'd be greatly obliged if you could share some wisdom. (also caveat emptor rules and i will be devouring non's fics later)

Worldbuilding! Arguably my favorite thing to do in stories!

Let’s take a look at this from the top down. 

Step one: notice stuff. 

I write what I like to read, and often what’s most interesting to me is the physical worlds built in fiction, as well as the cultures and behaviors etc that arise from them and how they differ from what we have in reality; that means I’m often paying the most attention to what other authors do when it comes to building out other realities, on everything from physical laws of the universe to linguistic drift. The details I particularly like or that stick out to me as the most convincing or interesting is what I tend to incorporate.

This is also true of real life - i love cities and gardens and food, so the things i notice about cities and gardens and food are what I write about: details that add texture and individuality to where I am, what I’m doing and how. What country am I in? How is it different from my own? Do I have to wear special clothing? How are the maps different? The street paving? Are people rude here? What is rude here? What the hell is that thing being fried on a stick and what does it taste like? 

 Making these details feel realistic in fiction, however, often involves building logic chains more than just copying things from real life or native creativity. which brings us to: 

Step Two: scream WHY? 

WHY are things the way they are? Why is the teapot full of so much goddamn limescale in Paris? Why are portrayals of ghosts illegal in Chinese fiction & media? Why does Russian food suck so so bad? All of these questions have answers. (Built on limestone. Implication of afterlife undermines state doctrine. Not a lot of fresh produce grows locally and what does tends to be tubers.) So building out these If X - Then Y chains give you depth and context to the world, and in fiction make it feel realistic. 

For example: Why do most countries in the world teach children English? Because an English speaking empire conquered a lot of them, leading it to become a lingua franca and the de facto language of higher education and commerce now. So if you want to have Fictional Country X, Y and Z all share a language - what’s the reason? Shared national origin, split apart later along ethnic lines? Shared colonial history? Shared trading ties so longstanding that a basic business esperanto developed? 

Step Three: integrate it... NATURALLY. Act NATURAL

To people living within a world, their everyday reality is not going to be news to them. They are also very likely going to have Opinions about how the world is set up around them. Having Character A monologue about How The World Works for twenty pages at Born Yesterday Character B is... look, that shit’s not even that fun even when it IS justified in-universe, like for example this being Harry Potter’s first day at magic school learning about magic world for the first time ever, from people whose job it is to literally give lectures on the stuff. 

So you want to get this stuff in there more organically. One of the best ways to integrate believable worldbuilding is to have your characters complain. Everybody gets around on flying dragons? Twenty minute rant on how the giant dragon manure cleanup crews are NEVER on top of it, and god fucking help you if you jaywalk under a major flight path and an incontinent Bluescale happens to trundle past. What’s pissing your character off at their job? What made them mad in the news this morning? What are they craving that’s out of season or too expensive or doesn’t come in the color they want? 

All of these things make your characters feel like more complete people, because in real life we’ve all got big, overarching goals (become a doctor, start a family, restore our bodies from a cruel and arbitrary god) but we also have medium goals (get that promotion at work, buy a house, stop the apocalypse) and of course small goals (change your bedsheets, buy that snack you’re craving, get your busted automail fixed & not die in the process). 

All of these goals arise from our surroundings and the world we live in, and are often quite interconnected (I need to go pick up my prescription -> the country in which my drugs are manufactured is currently at war with my country and under shipping embargo from three others -> i become a supervillain). If Amestris’ capital city is designed to be a circle, for example, then maybe kindergartners in Central learn basic neighborhood geography with maps that look like pies, and this makes people jokingly refer to various districts as Strawberry Rhubarb or whatever. 

So yes, a lot of it is just asking yourself “okay, what then” and extrapolating logically: you introduce X phenomenon, what effect will that have on everything else? If your story is on an island, you’re likely to have a lot of fishing industry, cuisine, culture. If your story is in a space station, people are going to move in ways that account for zero G. If your story is in a dictatorship, people are going to be less trusting, less socially mobile, less informed. (This is actually one of my main cinamasins ding sounds for FMA - where is the culture of repression and cultural control and fear endemic to authoritarian regimes!!!) 

So overall, my advice here boils down to get outside, read a lot (fiction and nonfiction) and just notice stuff, including all the ways how you receive new information - gossip? Memes? Church? News headline? History textbook? Racist joke? - which then gives you a big grab-bag of things to pull on and put together. Have fun! 

#writing #yap yap #thank you! I’m glad you’re enjoying my work!

[aristoteliancomplacency]

The Classics mailing list is having another ‘how many languages should People know?’ discussion. (And it is actually a discussion this time! Not to jinx it But it has so far not descended into Oxbridge professors telling postgrad students that if they haven’t spent a year living abroad in specific European countries then they shouldn’t even be doing Classics).

And like, I’m never gonna contribute to that discussion on the mailing list because there is always the chance that you’ll set someone off and I genuinely cba to deal with that, but the discussion so far is missing actual practical solutions of any sort.

Here are some facts:

- Classics scholarship gets published in a lot of languages. It is absolutely the case that the majority of it is in a smaller group of languages.

- it would be super awesome and great if everyone was multilingual!

- Most scholars are not multilingual.

- difference circumstances make it more/less likely that someone will be fluent in a second language. This includes Country, school, class, etc.

- there is literally nothing to be gained from excluding people from the subject for not knowing more than one language.

- everyone would produce better scholarship if we could read everything written on the topic we’re researching.

- there are a not insignificant amount of instances in which something was published in a language other than English and then someone else comes along later and writes the same thing again but in English and it gets all the attention (and honestly leaves you wondering whether the author deliberately chose to ignore the non-English work bc srsly how do you write an entire fucking book and not be aware of someone else’s whole entire book on the same theme??)

- non-native English speakers are more likely to get papers rejected from English speaking journals.

- it is absolutely not reasonable to expect them to be spending so much of their time perfecting their knowledge of the foibles of English academic language.

- searching for Research is a skill. Knowing what terms to use and where to search is a skill. Knowing another language doesn’t actually mean you will be good at searching using that language.

- DeepL and even google translate are pretty good actually.

Here’s some thoughts:

Publishing: I’m currently co-editing a volume and I spent a lot of time working with one contributor bc it’s the first thing they’ve published in English. They’ve been a delight to work with. And honestly, yes, it has taken me more time to help them polish their chapter than for others, but it’s not even the chapter that’s taken the longest. Like, one of the chapters written by a native English speaker has been a way bigger headache for me.

I know everyone is overworked and underpaid and being asked to Peer Review Journal/Book submissions for free in their spare time, but also, some of us are very much happy to help others polish journal articles/chapters for free too. I’d rather do that than peer review shit, tbh.

Sure, in an ideal world we’d get paid for all this kind of work, but we do not live in an ideal world, other scholars can’t afford to pay us to do that and frankly, like, they shouldn’t have to be literally paying more money than others to stand a chance of getting published just because they’re having to write in a second/third/etc. language. Ideally universities or other bodies could fund that cost but whatever. No one is putting me in charge of a university budget anytime soon, so I’ll just be here helping people for free if they need it.

Language learning: I don’t care about what the ideal situation is. I care about what we can actually, usefully do. Sitting around complaining that universities should make x or y language mandatory is useless. And there will always be more languages that it would be useful to know.

What’s actually useful, and far easier to implement:

- teach people how to use DeepL and google translate. Get universities to *subscribe* to DeepL. Teach this as part of standard research methods. Make it clear even from undergrad that there is valuable scholarship available in other languages and that students are expected to Not Ignore It.

- resource share. What’s actually the best place to search for academic research on Y topic in X language? And what’s the word for X person/art style/literary genre in Y language? Even if someone wants to look at lit in different languages, they still have to know what to look for before they start.

- ??? Idk what to call this, but like, it would be really fuckin’ great if we could tag stuff in multiple languages. Like, it would be better if a user could search for, say ‘Iliad animal metaphors’ and have it turn up all Language results rather than having to run 10 different searches to cover a bunch of different languages (also see above, re: knowing how to successfully search is a language-specific skill). But without knowing how to fix that problem, we should still be sharing the knowledge of how to use translation tools + the best search engines per Language / area + reminding people ‘that ‘look up that term in X language dictionary and then search for that’ is something they should be doing.

Like, there are already tools at our disposal that should make cross-language scholarship easier for everyone. Whether you know one or five languages. We’re just shit at using them/teaching them.

[el-the-cell]

I think many students my age, especially in the west, don't realize what going to school actually means.

Yes, teachers treat us like shit, and are really entitled sometimes. The experience of going to school is hard, humiliating, very difficult to tolerate pressure-wise. And that is not ok. It is not good.

HOWEVER. It is not fair to think that just going to work instead is the solution. It is still vital that we keep going to school, clench our teeth, fight our way to graduation because otherwise we are fucked.

From the sixties up until i'd say the nineties, students were very politically active, trying to ensure their rights were respected, both as individuals, and as the collective group of students. Student's rights were one of the ways that people below eighteen could actually try to influence actively what concerned their lives.

This does not happen much anymore. The one thing i truly learned in school form the societal hierarchy point of view, was to keep my mouth shut as much as possible.

The effort that was put into making schools mandatory, so that lower class people could be at less of a disadvantage was insane. The hard work it took to get teens to go to school instead of working full time in factories or in the field is not something to forget. School is a right, and a hard earned right to be treasured.

And our government (italy), and i assume many others too, is trying to turn school into something made to churn out workers. They are exploiting our anxiety over not being able to make a living once we graduate, in order to get us to work instead of studying.

With the demographic change, the few young workers can no longer sustain the needs of the ageing population, but the government refuses to let immigrants in, because their whole voter base and popular support is based on the vestiges of fascism.

Young educated people flee the country like they are jumping into the water from the burning sinking ship that it is, choosing to work and study where they can actually get a chance at living a decent life.

All these factors contribute to a huge worker shortage, and the one way this country could think of as a remedy, was to get people into the mindset of finding a job as soon as possible. It's like entering the job market is the only important thing we are supposed to learn about in school.

They force us to participate in utterly useless unpaid internship programs, and it has happened before that students died on the job. There are so many activities that focus on what we want to do for work, not what we want to study or anything like that. And they just keep adding them. We had to endure conferences where the representatives of industries came to promote their corporate hell-scapes in order to convince us to stay and give up on anything else we want to do.

They are so fucking desperate and so fucking bad at appealing to us that it makes me both laugh and feel nauseous. Like wtf. WHY AM I MISSING FOUR HOURS OF PHYSICS TO HEAR A COP TRYING TO CONVINCE US TO BECOME COPS AS WELL. WHAT THE FUCK, PLEASE TEACH ME MAXWELL'S EQUATIONS INSTEAD YOU FUCKING COWARDS

#fuck the system #politics #student rights

[a-s-levynn]

15, 30, and 44 for the nosy anon questions! Hope you're having a good day ❤

🫶🏻 Thank you for indulging me to spend time on the train! It got long because 30 kinda turned into oversharey bitching at the end but i had to get it out while i was at it, sorry 😅

Under the cut: fav movie, what i hate about school/work and a random fact about anything.

15: Favorite movie

This is a two answer question depending on how we measure favourite. Do we see the emotional impact or which movie i've seen the most?

If the first, it's definitely Naked (1993, by Mike Leigh). I've only seen it 3 times but boy did it unlock something. I'm not sure what exactly but it had an effect. It's not an easy watchfor sure, but it definitely worth a shot if you are not the 'i only watch light-hearted comedies' type.

On the other hand the movie i've seen the most is either Drive or Blade Runner. Probably Blade Runner wins the numbers but not by much. I love cyberpunk as a genre and after my favourite novel this is what i love about the genre at the core.

30: What I hate the most about work/school

Now i have a bit of a perspective on both, let's talk both.

Mind you this is my perspective on the country i grew up and live, this is not a general opinion.

What i hated about school the most was the fact that we learned a lot of unnecessary things. We accumulate such a large amount of lexical/encyclopedical knowledge that offers next to nothing in a practical sense. And that is by how we measure knowledge. So in an academic sense i'm considered dumb because i can't pull out 50 historical dates out of my arse. Which i can found in any chronological works or somesuch. It's equivalent to saying a fish is stupid 'cause it cannot climb a tree like a cat. I always despised the fact that we never really learned anything with practical application. Like how to prepare an envelope for postage? How to read a proper map? How to fill out a check for bills. Fuckin' how the rules of the road works. And then uni is a whole another beast on it's own because there are no real seminars anymore and it is basically a self-teaching club in most cases.

With work, i find it inherently stupid that the younger you are the less off days you have. You hear from everywhere that 'go travel when you are still young' like no shit, i'd love to but i have 23 off days per year and 19 of them is fixed so that leaves me with 4 fucking days to use at my leasure. Otherwise i can on unpaid vacations but then i have no money and i'll get fired because i'm not working. Retirement age is so high at this point that i either not gonna live long enough or be in no condition to finally go see the world. I despise the 40 hours (5days, 8hours) work weeks. I know that's the standard. I knkw there are jobs that are worse (which is borders on inhuman in my eyes but that's an other can of worms) As someone who lives alone, 2 days of weekend is so fucking short. When am i supposed to do anything? One day taken up by the housework and the other is either for friends which leaves me with no resting time or i rest and ignore my friends. I know i know many fi d it enough but i'm neurodivergent. I have exectuive dysfunction. I have trouble sleeping so i'm constantly tired. I know it's a me problem but like.. i know a lot of people who are in the same shoes. (This also applies to school btw. It's fucking horrid that you are in there for at least 8 hours a day and you have addition homework and than extra curricular shit and then you are left there withouth time for friends basically.) This is the general qualms of my life regarding my work.

A more immediate one is the fact that i work at a religious organization's library and i'm not religious. I'm not straight and definitely left leaning. So i mostly just keep to myself and do my job. Which is at least appreciated but still the crap i hear sometimes is.. Let's just say i kinda have an existential crisis every three days just by overhearing conversations on the hallways. But it pays the bills better than any other alternative and i really needed to start to work after uni and there wasn't many options during covid. (Not that i make good money in general, i'm only managing to live comfortably because i live in my friend's smaller room and she doesn't ask market price for it. When i have to move out i have no idea what i'm gonna do..) Not that there is many options right now especially with all the crap happaning in the family.. But at least both my bosses are nice and nobody tried to convert me yet. That day would be the one when i hand in my resignation even if it makes me homless i think. But so far it's fine. But i'm definitely not making friends over there.

44: A random fact about anything

Uuhhh my favourite random fact is actually is pretty well known i think, but it never fails to amuse me that wombat poop is square. Look i'm a simple person with childbrain. I find these kinda stupid things fun and interesting just as much as deeper discussions and any kind of wonders and inventions and whatnot. So my random fact is wombat poop. It is square. 😌

#levynn answers #reveries-of-my-mind #levynn tries to think

[loremonster]

Why the hell do we tell children to hate vegetables?

Like it's not just a kid thing, I have met a plethora of kids who fucking love multiple vegetables-- PROVIDED THEY ARE FRESH AND OF QUALITY

I'm sorry I'm looking at the country who gave actual mammal estrogen to factory farm cattle and did not tell the public why so many young girls were going into puberty when they were 12 instead of 16

That put chlorine in chicken and then allowed lobbyists on the senate floor to argue for why it's okay, even though it means nobody else fucking wants the product BECAUSE CHLORINE IS FUCKING POISON, NOT A PERSERVATIVE

That refuses to restrict the sugar lobby and the corn lobby while more sugar and corn syrup is being put into processed foods every fucking year, and Americans keep getting sicker and keep getting told it's their fault for not exercising enough

Looks really loudly at the culture that voice stereotypes on to children and shames them if they fail to follow those stereotypes, but also punishes them if they do

Children hate vegetables and love candy, but if you like vegetables and talk about it your peers will bully the ever living fuck out of you because they learned it from their parents to make fun of anyone who doesn't fit the norm they were told

In other words we teach children to violently enforce stereotypes, and then teach them stereotypes that are very bad for them and make life more difficult for them and everyone around them

And it makes me highly fucking suss that the things we're teaching children to hate are things that can be grown out of the FUCKING GROUND but children are supposed to love things that you can only get from the store

Children are so greedy and needy and they want so many things, but if a child doesn't want material things their family gets angry at them for being hard to shop for

Their peers get angry at them for not liking anything

But they like loads of things, those things just get them punished by the people around them

I noticed this shit when I was five, and everyone told me that it's just marketing and it's just the way the world is, no it fucking is not

IT'S HOW CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS KEEP US REPEATING THE SAME SHIT, AND SELL US MORE BULLSHIT WHEN WE'RE SICK, TIRED, AND NO LONGER ABLE TO WORK ENDLESSLY

There is something fucking wrong with the fact that I come out of school knowing that almost everyone is allergic to peanuts but not how to plant and grow a fucking carrot

[they-lived]

I’m in my feelings again and need to scream about it so… yeah.

So one of the first jobs I had in Ukraine was working with students who were… not foster kids per say but we’re living in an orphanage like equivalent because their families were unable to care for them (or not deemed fit to care for them).

Well, these kids felt like nobody wanted them and they told me that. They told me they didn’t understand why I was “wasting my time” on them. They said I shouldn’t bother teaching them because as one boy said “nobody wants us”. And my heart fucking shattered for these kids. These 14-15 year old kids that really felt like they had no potential. The school I was working at during that time did nothing to encourage these kids and didn’t seem to care what would happen to them after graduation. So I spent what little time I had with them making sure they felt like I cared and believed in them. I tried to instill a sense of community with them, like we were a little club. And some of them became… maybe not friends but people I keep in contact with and check in on.

Apparently my kids are now all grown up. With the last of them turning 18 this week they’ve all decided to join the armed forces together to defend their homeland. My babies are joining the war effort to protect their country and each other. And my heart aches knowing that not all of them will survive this war. I just remember how small they looked to me on that first day of school and now knowing that those kids, who felt abandoned by the world (and rightfully so in some of their cases) are now coming to her defense makes me feel so lost.

I have heard from so many people (the staff at that school included) who are proud of them and see this as an aspirational story and maybe it is? But it feels so sad to me that these children spent their youth feeling so deeply unloved and like they were a burden on society and now some of them will be giving their lives for the protection of others. They are noble and brave and stupid and beautiful and smart and no one saw that in them. I love those kids and I felt like no one else saw them like I did. I feel like people see them as this beacon of patriotism and all I can see is the devastation of children being forced to grow up too soon.

My kids are heroes, they are, and they are going to do great things but I am so conflicted about this situation. The student that messaged me told me that they were looking forward to “making something of themselves” and that “they want to make a difference too”. I told them they made a difference in my life and then I cried myself to sleep.

My heart aches knowing that I am one of a handful of people who cares about these kids. I know that not all of them will live. I know that some of their names will not be remembered.

I can’t say it enough, I’m tired of this war. I’m tired of seeing suffering and devastated cities. I’m tired of telling these kinds of stories. I’m tired of having to hear “not all Russians” because I fucking know that not all Russians believe in the war but nobody is stopping them and the blood of my friends and family and students are on their hands. I’m tired of seeing blood on my Instagram feeds and learning the name of the newest city under siege or in a humanitarian crisis or witnessing the most recent crimes against humanity until it is burned into my memory. I’m tired of watching children die in droves. I’m tired of hospitals and schools and dormitories and theaters and office buildings and parks being blown to shit. I’m tired of the mass deportation of the Ukrainian people. I’m tired of teachers being forced to teach in Russian. I’m tired of this terrorist state trying to wipe Ukraine and Ukrainian heritage off the fucking map.

Most of all I’m tired of that little man in the kremlin living above the laws of mankind. That man is a stain on our world and the fact that the world is so scared of him will NEVER make sense to me. My babies, my students, my freshly turned 18 year olds are not scared of that man, and they will give their lives to prove it. I love those kids with every fiber of my being and I will hope for their survival until my own last breath.

I hope that this is the last time anyone had to feel this way. I know it won’t be. I know that war will keep happening but the pain I feel now is so deep and indescribable I hope no one ever feels this way.

My beautiful students, my Ukraine, my heart bleeds for you. Please stay safe, please.

#ukraine 🇺🇦 #ukraine #🇺🇦 #💙💛 #🌻🌻🌻 #rant #my heart is breaking #personal #tw war mention #tw war

[captorsicallfriends]

Insane anon back okay so basically- I grew up in a VERY Christian household (as I'm sure you can imagine from the pig incident yes we're calling it that now) my grandparents are extremely Christian and nearly all of my aunts and uncles are too, and the ones who aren't still do stuff like "don't say oh my god it's disrespectful" and go to church if asked and whatever. My town is generally like this too so everywhere I go I'm most likely going to see or hear something to do with religion. So I didn't really pay much mind to religion considering I'm really little and too busy collecting Pokemon cards ponder the possibilities of heaven or hell, much less moral philosophy and ethics which we're led to believe is what gets us our sentences in the first place. So my school taught us religion, but we had to have our parents say if we could attend or not. Take a wild fucking guess what my parents then condemned me to. So then I had to show up to a religion class like every day to learn about God and such. Now, because my school had only labelled the subject "religion" and not "Christianity" (which is the only religion they even taught us, dickheads) my small child brain registered that religion = Christianity and they're just two interchangeable words for each other. Which is, to say the least, not correct. But I didn't know that I was 8 and so I went on like this for admittedly longer than I should have qeygdjoaudgjldugas but anyway- I learnt all about Jesus and Mary and God and everything there was to know. Well when I say learnt I really mean "picked up as much information as I could" cuz let's face it teaching a religion class to a herd of 8 year olds who have had next to no prior experience to religion is pretty much just "yeah tbh I would murder my brother too I get it" "I wonder if Jesus played bass I feel like he would" "mr religion teacher what's a virgin and why is Mary one?" So yeah fun. But then eventually religion class ended for the term. Except. I was friends with a few other kids who were Muslim and Buddhist and Hindu and other religions that weren't Christian. And keep in mind I still don't know there's more than one religion I think it's just another word for Christianity. So while they're sharing their experiences with their gods and traditions and such, I'm registering it all as one big thing. And so my small child brain is like "oh I guess there must be just a bunch of different gods in religion huh cool I wonder when lunch will end." So all this time I'm walking around with the idea of like every god to ever exist (yes even the what 500 I think Egyptian gods they had) just existing at the same time and this made complete sense to me. And Diya my friend I am going to be completely honest with you I didn't realise religion didn't just mean only Christianity until I was like 11 it's embarassing but true 😭 I also thought Islam was a country. I'm so glad no one on this webbed site knows my irl identity I don't know how I'd cope with you people having a name to put to this 😭😭😭 but yeah point is don't be a dumb shit like me and teach your kids what religion actually means please I can't stand the thought of there being more of this nonsense. Also my religion teacher didn't believe in evolution and thought David Attenborough was manipulating us all. Idk how he got that job. But yeah. Bonus story: I asked my religion teacher "wouldn't Jesus have been black because of the place where he was born, why am I seeing a bunch of skinny white people" and he told me to ask Jesus myself and gave me a colouring sheet and walked away and I'm 8 I don't know how to commune with all-knowing immortal beings so I just wrote yes and no on my eraser and flipped it a bunch of times. So yeah if you guys were wondering Jesus is a black trans man and he loves abortion and autism and hates billionaires this is a fact because I said so okay peace ✌️

this is why we hate religion classes that only teach christianity, and that last bit about jesus, preach 🙏

#diya answers #anon #my old school had bible studies class as compulsory #even as a senior year subject when you're meant to have full agency over your classes

[majoringinsarcasm]

I read IG comments again this is a sad ramble don’t read this. Sincerely if you read this and are rude I’m blocking you lol

I think ironically the most frustrating and sad thing about all those “why other countries hate Americans” posts is that

1) It points out very legitimate awful things that current day citizens Cannot Control or Change

2) The sweeping generalizations that, while anyone can have, feel very white American leaning

Don’t be me don’t read Instagram comments but I just read a bunch and so much of it was either your government sucks, which yes it does thanks bestie. Or just education stuff and how we don’t know geography or other cultures or history. Or a very unique “you call yourselves Americans despite other counties being in America you’re so entitled by claiming that title for yourself”

And maybe it’s bc I’m black. Maybe it’s bc my brain doesn’t like rules that I can’t follow the logical road to. But. That’s not our fault.

And what I mean by that is that we only know what we are taught. That’s not a full excuse to NOT CARE about other countries but as children and into adulthood schools only tell us So Much. And if you went to a lower income school you didn’t even learn as much as higher income schools. We’re in school for 12-14 years before age 18 and then it’s either Go To College to get a job or Get a Job right away. And things like learning other languages or culture studies are only useful For A Job if you’re going into that field.

Now. I would’ve loved if my school taught other languages. We had Spanish but it was the “memorize this thing” type and not actually teaching you how the language is formed. And it’s really hard to learn a New Language as an adult. (Which is why the insistence that people speak English when they move or immigrate here is so stupid). BUT I wasn’t. We didn’t have the money for that. And as you can see by current events what history WAS taught is trying to be BANNED as of now.

This sounds so very “be sad for Americans” or US citizens I guess if ppl are gonna be picky about what we were told to call ourselves without any alternative which again We Did Not Choose. But also the US isn’t just white people. And there are many people white included who HATE how things are run. How land is stolen and people silenced and killed. How our money is used without our permission to fund wars and not given to those who need it. Many of us who might be proud of individual roots aren’t proud of the country itself. But uhhhh good luck getting Money to Go anywhere else.

It’s like being tied to a chair with tape over our mouths watching as other counties talk about how we’re terrible and live under a corrupt government and we kill people and we kill ourselves. And thrashing and screaming because WE FUCKING LIVE HERE. THE AWFUL SHIT YOURE COMPLAINING ABOUT IS OUR DAILY LIVES. WE ARE THE ONES LIVING LIKE THIS WE ARE THE ONES WHO ARE TOLD ITS FINE TO KILL PPL AS LONG AS ITS THR RIGHT PEOPLE. AND THOSE WHO SPEAK OUT ARE ARRESTED OR KILLED

A man was killed in broad daylight on camera and when people marched for him and protested against police brutality they were met with More brutality! A woman was killed in her bed. A boy was killed going to work. In front of their kids. While fleeing a crime scene. Indigenous people ARE NOT GONE they are still fighting to keep their children in Native families. Like.

I get it. I fucking get it. I truly do. But YOU are seeing an entire patchwork of people under one umbrella. We are living day to day watching people we love and people we don’t know who deserve to just fucking live be utterly crushed. We are kept ignorant on purpose. The rise of AI makes “a simple google search” an entity new obstacle. We don’t control where our races go. Our public transit is not well funded our schools are not well funded. We don’t. Have. Places to be that aren’t Home or Work anymore.

Again this is not to take away from the Active Genocides going on. Or the way the US Government is complicit in many many crimes against humanity.

I’m just saying that many many of us aren’t running around shirtless praising the place. I don’t want to. Live. Thinking I’ll be stuck under awful leadership until I fucking kill myself man. You’re looking at the shitshow from across an ocean. We live here. I can’t explain the disconnect of seeing actual suppression of the truth and education and how fucked up it is and how helpless it is knowing that firing back isn’t as easy as yall make it sound. Not to say we just sit around and do nothing. But some Europeans talk about resistance and shit and it’s like they Kill Us In Public And Get Away With It Over Here.

Idk man. They’re not wrong about some points but it’s sad LIVING here and knowing information about other places is deliberately not taught or readily available. They called it brainwashing but clearly they don’t think about what that actually entails. Never learning about the color red doesn’t mean blue is the best. You’re just never given a chance to see other colors.

[beardedmrbean]

Hey, about the black Americans taught to hate our country.

Yes we and in many other parts are treated like shit…but so was everyone else. I mean…I don’t know their exact backgrounds…but people do know a lot of Japanese creators in the entertainment industry of Japan are mostly the descendants of the “peasants” not the feudal lords?

Just asking…I mean people know the sengoku period was about Japanese CIVIL WARS?

Hell what I heard another modern imperial Japan ancestry. Their ancestors ghosts probably go “you got to be fucking kidding me” when they learn they have the same descendants

Sorry funny

But yeah we could use Bass Revees, Tuskegee Airmen, the Harlem fighters, as inspiration for black characters

“We weren’t taught that in school!” You honestly think career politicians like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden who heavily influence the education while they push for the tough on crime bill and ensure that black Americans are 75% born out of wedlock

Would teach the fact that many black people successful lives despite systemic oppression?

Not to mention the white liberals with their savior complex would fight tooth and nail and said we were nothing until the civil rights movement

And the feminists are damn sure not to mention the fact their ogs founders were racist af and made damn sure that black men didn’t get proper voting rights until the 60’s

Also learning what the government did to my community made me more anti socialist as hell

Also we bounce back that fast from the Civil hence our “modern” American empire? Actually I heard Teddy Roosevelt say the Lincoln coffin tour when he was 6

But thanks, I wanted to used a American military outfit era that wasn’t colonial but not ww2-now

Also my Chimera republic (you know I just keep the us part until I figure out what to do with pseudo latam) is a combination of different American eras in a steampunk setting. As east coast have very colonial look with the rising art deco

While Midwest part especially the in universe Chicago is very art deco and rampant “advance “ as I watched a video on the queen of nyc glided age and I realize how different my midwestern ass is to East coast

Of course the west coast have a lot of it Spanish influence. Actually your Californian (the good ones) can you help me out with that?

And yes I’m trying to figure what to do with First Nations as my chimera republic is a fantasy America were we drop the social Darwinism is shit and DIDNT do. The residential school horror show

Of course I’m just a 23 year old man with a HS degree. But I’m pointing out we got our own culture to take inspiration and not trying to force ourselves into Asian or European cultures like what modern black activists do.

Yes we and in many other parts are treated like shit…but so was everyone else. I mean…I don’t know their exact backgrounds…but people do know a lot of Japanese creators in the entertainment industry of Japan are mostly the descendants of the “peasants” not the feudal lords?

People take offense at 'your experiences are not unique' it's wild and not limited to age, race, hair colour, nationality, disability, and so on.

Me being dyslexic there's stuff I'll relate to more than most people, but I know better than to say it's purely a dyslexic thing.

Just asking…I mean people know the sengoku period was about Japanese CIVIL WARS? Hell what I heard another modern imperial Japan ancestry. Their ancestors ghosts probably go “you got to be fucking kidding me” when they learn they have the same descendants

They kept their slaves (peasants) after this one, not sure how many wars globally were fought in order to free slaves, only wars I can think of that were fought with the abolition of slavery in mind were waged by western nations. US, UK, and France specifically.

You want civil wars in Asia check out China

“We weren’t taught that in school!” You honestly think career politicians like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden who heavily influence the education while they push for the tough on crime bill and ensure that black Americans are 75% born out of wedlock ect

Some of it there really just isn't time, they have to hit the big stuff and if anything catches your eye hope people have the ability to study it themselves, much more complicated before the internet at large.

Suffragettes were massive racists fighting for white women's right to vote, but that was society at the time.

Margret sanger founding planned parenthood as a way to reduce the black population was just evil, difference between the two is one was denying rights one was attempting to deny life.

Also learning what the government did to my community made me more anti socialist as hell

That's fairly common for people that study history.

The Chimera thing, ya there's all kinds of different influences all over the place when it comes to they way things are laid out and constructed and I'd be happy to help with the Spanish influence stuff San Diego has managed that better than Los Angeles, honestly CA covers so much different kinds of terrain and has different histories you can find most anything here, so long as you don't expect to be able to afford it.

And yes I’m trying to figure what to do with First Nations as my chimera republic is a fantasy America were we drop the social Darwinism is shit and DIDNT do. The residential school horror show

First Nations, this ain't canada. lol

I'm sure you'll come up with something

Of course I’m just a 23 year old man with a HS degree. But I’m pointing out we got our own culture to take inspiration and not trying to force ourselves into Asian or European cultures like what modern black activists do.

Amen to that

#zoomer huey anon

[the-anonymous-vent-blog]

hi, i just found this blog by searching for "anonymous vent" because i just. i just really need to get this out, but the only friends that i'm close enough to to vent to are going through rough stuff and my part of my vent is about one of them so. and these friends also follow my tumblr. so i'm here.

i'm just so fucking tired. i started music school this year, studying music technology, which i have next to no prior experience with, but i was ready to learn. but it turns out our school is one big shit show where nothing works and a lot of people, like teachers i mean, just don't care. like seriously something like half of the students get burnt out within their first year. and i'm really feeling it too, and i've lost my motivation for learning music technology, bc it turns out they don't really teach us! we just gotta go mix gigs on our own accord and hope it doesn't end up a disaster. and when i seriously have a miniscule amount of prior experience, yea, that doesn't sound very inviting. the latest gig i did i just froze, i panicked and had no idea to do, so two other students did most of the job and i felt completely useless and stupid. and i feel bad and lazy about how i'm not motivated to learn all this stuff on my own, like i wanna know and learn this stuff, but it's not such a passion like that. i dunno. for the first time in my life i have wondered if i'll be able to graduate at all.

in the spring i've got so much stuff coming up, like long term projects every month, some are school, some are work, and some are volunteer stuff. i don't know how i'm gonna be able to handle that. i mean it's gonna be lots of rehearsals, lots of meetings, long nights working. yea.

this year also our country got a new government, and guess what, they're racist, classist, homophobic, transphobic, and all that fun stuff! there's so much drama going on about the new government closing borders and making huge budget cuts that worsen poor people's, students', and families' lives in an unbelievable way, while happily giving money to the already wealthy. that's rly stressful. then there's the ongoing war in ukraine, which actually quite closely affects us. and a genocide in palestine, can't even describe how frustrating and heartbreaking it is. oh yea and also i've now come to realize in our country the media lies and the police are corrupt (i know it's not new to most people in the world, but i've wrongfully believed our country is just and modern). oh right and of course climate change! natural disasters and epidemics that follow that! ain't that fun!

with all of that stuff going on, i've become a much more active citizen, taking part in protests of many different kinds. it's wonderful to feel like i'm able to do Something about the injustices of the world, but when the protests don't give much result, it's frustrating. and it turns out taking part in activism leads to a lot of feelings of guilt for not doing More. and just in general, activism is a lot of hard work, meetings and getting educated, and they involve their risks. so. you know.

and lastly i have two friends who are both severely depressed, both suicidal. one of them is going through very rough treatment right now, and it doesn't look like it's helping, it's just exhausting. at least weekly, i go to bed fearing that in the morning my friend won't exist anymore. i try, i try so hard to tell them that they mean the world to me (and the other friend also tells them that, they both know each other very well), i try to offer to help, to come over at night, to drive them to the hospital when they're especially bad, but it feels like nothing works. i'm just so scared. i love them so fucking much.

so um. i guess that's all. or all the big things at least, going on right now. then i have the general stuff, hating myself, hating my body, feeling so fucking unproductive, i haven't been creative in so so so long.... i feel like i can't get a grip on my life and just get things done, and take care of myself too. there's so much.....

i dunno, i guess that's enough complaining for now. sorry for saying so much. i'm just. i am so fucking tired. i really wish i could just. pause the entire world. and just. enjoy christmas. go sledding. or ice skating. play minecraft with my brother. breathe. but there's just so much going on both in my own personal life and in the world in general that's just. it's all crashing down on me.

Woah. That's alot.

#vent blog #anonymous vent #vent #you're doing great things #youre doing so much be proud of how youre doing

[ahmumbles]

Check-in from Nam

Hey, it’s me. Or you. We both know who this is.

It’s been a while... it’s been a long, long while since I’ve spoken to you like this. I used to write so much in Barcelona, especially in the beginning years, and now it’s been several years since then, since I’ve gotten lost in life’s tornado and haven’t been able to keep up with myself. Sometimes enjoying and just being, sometimes so swept away with to-do lists and organizing and endless bullet points in my notes app- organizing, decluttering, rearranging, figuring out, settling down, getting back up, moving, wondering, thinking, sighing, zoning out

Today it is April 11, 2023. 

I am currently in Hanoi, Vietnam. It’s been about 8 months since I’ve moved here. 

26 was a year of Atlanta (and working at my parent’s place and struggling with old, way-too-familiar family pains, hating working, seeing old faces, being home) with a gap in Europe (revisiting my second home of Barcelona, housesitting with Tom in stunning Lake Como, celebrating Claire’s birthday in Bosnia, staying at Laurine’s in London and Steph visiting, a wild Berlin adventure with the boys).

27 was moving with hopes, curiosity, culture shock, learning, absorbing, and loneliness. So much, so much loneliness. Feeling like 22 again when I first moved to Barcelona. Without the escape of a beach, without the freedom of breezy night walks, without sun-kissed smiling beautiful people everywhere, without looking up at the architecture in awe, without the bustling youth and energy. Hanoi has been quite the experience. I’ve undoubtedly learned so many new things- how to ride a motorbike, living by myself for the first time, teaching at a public school, Vietnamese culture, breaking out for the first time in my life, the effects of pollution, realizing that the glitz n glamour of a developing country is not what I had imagined. In many ways, it has drained me. But in other ways, it has solidified for me what I want, like, tolerate, and anticipate. The people I want to be around. The environments I feel comfortable in. Boundaries. Self-awareness. It has taught me a lot in those fields. I feel... older. I really do. I feel (and look) like I’m in my late 20s. Like all those years of reckless behavior and confused thoughts, although still not completely gone, have definitely subsided as I’ve gotten to understand myself better.

My energy has calmed down a lot. I no longer, truly no longer, have the energy to put up with many new faces. New personalities and same conversations about useless shit I don’t give a fuck about. And although I am leaving, I’m glad that I’ve given this place a try. I now realize that I should visit a city before packing up all my shit and moving there (ha). I also realize that at this moment in my life, in my final 20s, I don’t want to struggle anymore. I do eventually want to settle, and so during these final years, I want to cherish my life in places that inspire me, motivate me, and keep me evolving in the most positive way. I don’t have the time nor the patience to ‘just go along with it a bit more’ or ‘see where it goes’. I feel a lot more confident in decision-making, something that I so lacked in my earlier years. I’m glad I can say this about myself, because I don’t think I could’ve just a few years back.

Although I am realizing there are some things I do genuinely enjoy: skating on a smooth wide ground, making ceramics n all the endless ideas of trinkets for home decor, tattooing a sick design I really love, a fucking good book I can’t put down, a movie that slams your heart, actually good clean coffee, going to the cinema alone with butter popcorn, traveling to a new city (alone or with someone I love), seeing landscapes that make me feel so small and insignificant,

I haven’t had the.., no I’ve had the time, just not the motivation to really pursue these loves of mine this (almost) past year (or more). I think because I’ve decided that this place isn’t for me, I’ve kind of just given up on doing anything about it until I leave. Sometimes I wonder if Haerin is right, if I just keep running away from things, or, on the flip-side, I just chase what I want and won’t put up with something I no longer care for.

Some things on my mind though, that’s actually what prompted me to start this post, are the following:

- I am, and have always been, so good at being alone. Being alone, doing nothing. Lockdown in 2020 obviously came with its difficulties, but it was also one of the only times in my entire life that I was able to be still. And I love being still. Just like in Lake Como. I need these moments of just being still, not thinking, not watching anything, not even sleeping, just moments to be blank and I feel those moments recharge me more than any activity ever could.

- I am also still my own torturer. I love hating myself. I love criticizing myself. And I still love overthinking things. To be fair, I have numbed out a lot, maybe since I moved to Hanoi, but I still get these waves of emptiness and sadness, with such intensity, but it doesn’t even bother me anymore. I’ve realized that that side of me is just part of me, and I’m working on not getting rid it, but of accepting it and learning how to work with it. I think that breakdown on shrooms when I had Covid in Atlanta after Cancun in August 2022 was what I needed for a very long time. I cried more than I had in many years combined. Rivers of sadness, mostly stemming from my family, mostly about my brother, just pouring out of me, shriveling me up. I needed that. It broke me.

- I’m learning about love. Aran was my first boyfriend, my first everything, the one who spoiled me silly and made me feel butterflies and a perfect introduction to relationships as I started my 20s. Ferran was my bridge between being a young girl to a maturing woman and my best friend, made me laugh more than anyone, especially in the beginning, but also showed me what I don’t want in any future relationships, especially towards the end. Tom was the unexpected curveball that’s taught me the messiness of ‘relationships’, non-labeling labels, a comfort space that I pried open and snuggled myself into, the calm, level-headed situationship that I started to feel myself maturing in and making me question what it is I want in love and who I want to love and how I can love someone the best I can. A rooted yet emotional person that’s taught me about communication which has been one of my biggest downfalls throughout my entire life.

- I don’t know where I am at life at the moment. I’m 27, 28 in a few months, and although I’ve been enjoying that each year in my 20s have counted for something and that age is just a number, especially nowadays, for some reason 30 still scares the absolute shit out of me. It looks old. It sounds old. It feels heavy. I’m not ready to approach it. I feel a giant weight that I need to start providing for my parents soon, finally, after all their years of slaving away. I want to help my mom, so much, it feels like my heart is physically breaking when I think about her aging and still working and her body breaking down and me being across the country. Their house got broken into recently and they took all her bags, cash, gold, and most importantly- the hand-me-down jewelry she’s been saving to give to me since I was young. Always reminding me that she’ll give me this necklace and this pair of earrings in a few years. Just a bit more. And some bastards took all of that away from a woman that never splurged on herself. That never cared for herself the way she’s always deserved to be cared for, since her birth.

- I don’t know how I’m going to provide for my parents. I don’t know how I’m going to buy a house, buy furniture, buy kitchen appliances, buy a car or bike, grow my savings, start a retirement fund, or any of that adult shit when I don’t even know if I want to be a teacher anymore. I’ve been so drained with teaching, especially after a long-break of working at my parent’s place in between, and the middle schoolers in Hanoi have been a nightmare for me. Enough to make me start to hate teaching. To feel like it’s useless. I don’t feel respected, I don’t feel inspired, I don’t feel patient, loving, empathetic, accepting, or any of those magical emotions that I felt before and thought I’d always feel when it came to teaching. This might be the first time in my life since I was young that I’ve really started to question my career choice. And it’s not good for someone like me who has always prided herself in being rock-solid in this aspect of my life.

- I’m definitely coming to deeper terms with what friendship means to me. My Atlanta girls are still and probably, hopefully, will always be my roots. Haerin, Stephanie, Chanell, Julie. Even Jaehee and Christine and Joanna. My Barcelona friends have definitely floated away a bit- Jess, Claire, Leo, Dan, Laurine, Liam, but they still hold a special place in my heart and I know we will always cherish each other whenever we do reunite. But I’m realizing that these friends I have, they’re enough. I don’t really want anymore. I don’t want to go through the hassle of making new friends in each new city I move to, but I know that I have to, because I am still human. And as stubborn and detached as I can be, I know that sometimes loneliness aches me to the core and I lose sight of joy, laughter, acceptance, and a feeling of warmth.

- I hope Japan works out, and I don’t expect that my life will drastically change where I’m all of a sudden happy and full of spirit. But I hope that I am inspired in a bigger city, that even if I am alone, at least I am in the #1 country that sees beauty in being alone, and I know that I will evolve even more there. In its own inevitable way.

These are a few things that’s been on my mind, in the most condensed way possible. Skipping so many single moments that have weighed heavy on me up to this point. But I guess that’s life. Every day, every moment, may feel so big, but time never stops, and eventually it’s been a week, then two, then a few months, and when you look back, some of those moments are just flashbacks in your mind, and you forget. You block it out. Your other moments over power those moments.

Well Ange, I want you to know that the Ange right now, in this moment, is feeling lonely. Feeling sad about Tom. Feeling disheartened with teaching. Feeling sorry for myself. But also in its own way, enjoying this time alone. She’s feeling confused. She’s continuing with her weekly lists, finishing them one by one, making new ones, never-ending hamster ball of her brain... feeling like having control of the little things in her life will make her feel like life is okay. And I’m not so sure it is.

[uninspiringdyke]

I would LOVE to hear/read your rant about economics education 😍

I literally saved this to do once I had to finish my econ homework because that shit pissed me off so much

anyway. these are a serious of convoluted thoughts that are only sort of connected.

the chicago school of economics is probably one of, if not the, most influential school of thought w/i economics. their driving philosophy? that the government should stay out of government matters. if anyone reading this has done any sort of search into antitrust policy (something I have also unfortunately done), the harvard vs. chicago school debate comes up a lot, because antitrust policy relies on the assumption that, at a base level, the government's job is to prevent business practices that are, on balance, worse for consumers.

in my experience/hearing from others, MOST entry level econ classes are taught by grad students who use external platforms for most assignments (such as macmillon). now i can't prove it, but i think the chicago school of economics bankrolls these edtech companies so that a) overworked grad students have less to do (since grades can also be imported automatically) and b) they're able to push their agenda. real things i have "learned" through econ classes: discrimination isn't real because it's not economically advantageous (until it is, and then it's not discrimination, it's good business sense), people should be "happy" with the minimum wage, and sometimes countries just shouldn't invest in green tech. why are economists Like That?? because their entire education is Like That.

i'm not an econ major--but i am a social studies education major (aka: i go to teacher school). again in my experience (and the experience of non-economics-track social studies education majors) is that economics is an afterthought of program planning. i take two econ classes. i take...7+ history classes, not including the classes that are just about how we teach history. i think we, as a teaching body, have "given up" on economics education. and this is VERY BAD considering *waves hands at the general state of things*

all of economics is fucking made up. every random person just creates their own math and goes "this explains this, and if it doesn't explain that, than you're just wrong." and no one wants to say this, for some reason.

idk why all econ education focuses on math. math is important, sure, but part of economic education is IN FACT NOT MATH

i think we don't teach ethics in econ education because the entire economy would fall apart. if we required every economist to read amy klobuchar's book on antitrust (or like. anything about antitrust) i think we'd enter into degrowth within 5 years. i guarantee it. if we required econ students to to take as many ethics-related classes as i have with my minors in public health + queer studies, and my major of social studies education...we'd have no milton friedman's left. that's all i'm sayin'

also the binary of macro v. micro is fucking stupid. the economics of urban planning is different from the economics of fisheries. also, the idea everyone values money as the most important thing is the dumbest goddamn thing i've ever heard. take philosophy 101 and we can have a conversation then, dumbass

#sorry this is one giant wall of text #tumblr keeps auto formatting my numbered lists AND the dashes into bullet points #anyway. anyone want to hear about antitrust law