Oops! It Seems I Tripped And Dropped Several Million Free Books, Papers, And Other Resources

i dreamt that he spoke french to comfort me

i dreamt that he spoke french to comfort me

his lilting voice butchering the complex french words he tried to say

making such a beautiful language sound so stilted and choked

there is a metaphor in this

one that i am too lazy to write

i have never understood french

despite years of private school education and ski holidays and a father who is fluent

i remember the words 'trois petit cochon'

i do not remember how they are spelt

i remember the word for condom, the word for london, how to tell someone my age

but if i woke up tommorow in annecy or paris or toulouse

i would be hopelessly, desperately, lost

french people cannot say my name

they do not have the 'th' sound in their language

so my name ends harshly and abruptly

so in this dream he speaks to me in a language that is barred to me

see now that metaphor writes itself

Can we talk about how the idea that STEM and the humanities are mortal enemies with no overlap is actually incredibly harmful and is not only preventing people from pursuing their passions but also part of the reason why the humanities aren’t given their proper respect? No, artists are not all snobby pretentious assholes who think they’re more cultured than everyone else and no scientists are not all emotionless robots who think they’re smarter than everyone else and it’s possible to be an artist and a scientist at the same time. By acting like you have to choose between STEM and humanities we are eliminating thousands of potential careers and causing unnecessary divisions in a time where nothing is more crucial than unity. I’m so tired of people acting like STEM majors are incapable of understanding art and humanities majors are incapable of understanding math when the two fields are crucial to one another. Who would design our architecture if it weren’t for artful engineers? Who would discover the rules of composition? At the end of the day we are all just people trying to learn and make a living, and all of these careers are important to humanity. People can’t say that STEM is more important than humanities if there’s no such thing as STEM vs humanities.

i just wanted to reblog this to clear some stuff up, because a few radfems have reblogged this with their own thoughts.

i was 100% including trans people in this, i meant to write a paragraph on them but it slipped my mind.

but yeah i have heard stories of trans men in academia who got treated better after transitioning, and trans women who got treated worse.

i don't rlly know how to phrase this i just wanted to make the point that this blog is not a safe space for trans-exclusive feminism, i beleive trans women and women and trans men are men.

btw if you say 'i'm just a girl' you are contributing to the negative misogynistic stereotype that women are silly and ditzy and lesser than men. if you say 'girl math' you are contributing to the negative misogynistic stereotypes that girls are not good at maths. if you say 'pink jobs' or 'pink chores' to describe washing the dishes, doing the laundry, and cooking, you are contributing to the negative misogynistic stereotype that women belong at home or in the kitchen.

i personally am a humanities/social sciences student. frankly sciences and maths baffle me. but i love my female friends in architecture, engineering, medicine, maths, physics, and coding. i think they are so smart and cool!

please do not start contributing to the rise of 'humanities are for girls, sciences are for boys' this is bullshit!

also it should not, and quite frankly cannot, be separated from the rise of the arts being seen as 'useless' or 'mickey mouse' degrees. they are defunding the arts! be angry! they are saying that this what women should be studying and then they are making it harder to chose to study it! they are trying to remove women from academia!

also shout out to men in humanities, y'all are important to!

TLDR: women in stem rock, they are defunding the arts in an attempt to remove women from academia, your harmless jokes spawned from tiktok trends actively contribute to negative misogynistic stereotypes

What prompts you to write poetry?

honestly i don't really have a good answer for this. i'm not even sure what i write qualifies as poetry, it's most just my ramblings to myself. i just think of lines or concepts i want to write and then write it. poetry isn't something we get asked to write in our english classes, so i don't write very much. but every now and again i think of a line and then the rest of the poem just kind of writes itself? in my head?

physically go to your local library at least once. seriously.

look around. find a random book with a cover that catches your attention. read the description. read the first page. if you like the sounds of it, borrow it and take it home to read. borrow a handful of books even.

if a book loses your interest, drop it. if a book grips onto you, ride that wave.

i've struggled to read recreationally for years despite having read so much as a kid. a lot of us are frozen by the seemingly infinite choices. even when we buy books to take home, we don't read them because which book is worth reading first? we don't have to decide, we have it right here in our bookshelves, we have an eternity of never deciding.

in this past month, i have read five books, most of them i've never heard of when i spotted their cover at the library. most of them, i've ended up loving. the due date of library books maintains the ability to read a book so i can return them to the library and leave the library with more books. an even better incentive than borrowing ebooks, because i actually have to leave the house and not be a hermit.

so if you used to enjoy reading but struggle with it now, ignore the book recs you hear. go to the library, come across a book that piques your interest, and read one page after another until you either lose interest or finish the book.

then it's onto the next one.

one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become

YOUR FATHER’S A BURNING HOUSE

Sue Zhao / Family Tree, Ethel Cain / Unknown / Father, The Front Bottoms / Silver Spoon, Erin Lecount / Unknown / Sarah Kay

“You shouldn’t self-ID as ADHD/autistic, you’re turning a very real mental condition into a trend” Ok then stop saying delulu. Stop speculating on which cluster C personality disorder the criminals you hear about on the news have. Stop saying “schizoposting” and “acoustic” and “is it restarted?” Stop using “psycopath” and “sociopath” as catch-all ways of calling someone a bad person. Stop saying “the intrusive thoughts won” when you bleach your hair and then turn your nose up at people who suffer from very real, very scary urges of physical/sexual violence. Stop saying “I’m so OCD” as a way of calling yourself neat. Stop treating BPD/ASPD/Bipolar as inherently abusive. Stop saying “OP I am living in your walls” without tagging for unreality. Stop diagnosing complete strangers you’ve never met on r/AITA with NPD.

You first. If you don’t want our disabilities to be treated like trends then stop belittling and minimising them. I’ll NEVER judge a person for trying find labels for their symptoms when an apathetic, racist, sexist, ableist healthcare system refuses to. But I will absolutely judge a hypocrite. Which a lot of you are

02/06/25

posting this to promise to myself that I will actually get something done today

☑ tune cello

☑ finish job application for local bookshop

☑ print off emails about work experience

☑ attend both work experience events today

☑ minimum 40 minutes music practice

☑ try make sure i have to to eat lunch

☑ sort out some files from the stuff i won't need next year

Wikipedia / Image from pinterest / Machiavelli / George Santayana / Thucydides / Image from pinterest / Abba - Waterloo / J. M. Barrie - Peter Pan / Fibonacci spiral / Catherynne M. Valente