Welp I Slept Last Night But Hey!

This came right when I needed it, thank you

The problem with academia is the idea of perfection. The idea that our grades and intelligence define our worth. That if we aren’t perfect we don’t know who we are. I see this culture at my school all the time. The competition for the best grades, for the most work. Kids burn out all the time because we are so invested in what school thinks we need to know rather than what we want to learn. Take a break from your school work and care about something you want to care about, not what they tell you to care about. School doesnt create individuals, so we have to become individuals all by ourselves

“if i told you about the darkness inside of me would you still look at me like i am the Sun?”

-𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘒𝘢𝘶𝘳

I see a lot of dark academia aesthetic involving the classics fields, literature and languages and theater and music, but can the STEM kids get in on this too? Where’s my dark science aesthetic at? where’s my STEM gothic?

•  It has to be a mistake, on the syllabus your professor e-mailed over yesterday. The lab class can’t possibly start at 8pm. Not that you’d notice the time of night anyway, considering that for some reason it’s held in a basement of the STEM buildings that you were sure was closed off. You’ve never seen anyone emerging from its depths, and honestly you’re not even sure how to get down there. But not to worry, your professor assures you when you reply with your concerns. He’ll send his TA to pick you up. Just try not to stare at their hand. Especially if it sparks. They’re still working out the kinks.

• The transparent lightboard you use in your apartment building for working out math equations that require more room is the only illumination piercing your otherwise dim living room. You’ve been working for hours, and haven’t noticed how late it’s become, mostly because you’re pretty sure that you accidentally just determined exactly when the world is going to end. Before you can grab your phone to tell everyone, there’s a knock at your door. “Well done,” the man and woman in dark clothes and glasses that reflect even the minor light so that you can’t see your eyes as they enter your apartment. “A little too well done, we think. You’ll be coming with us now.”

•   H2 = H 2 0 [ Ωm(1+z) 3 +ΩDEexp {3 Z/z 0 dz 1+z [1+w(z)]}

•  “We are doctors,” in heart if not yet in degree,” the neurologist teaching your afternoon class says, laughing. “We are the ones who stand between that looming reaper Death and all of our patients, scalpels and syringes in hand, and say “not today, old friend. Not this one.” But then the mirth fades from his voice, and his gaze drifts to the left of the lecture hall for some odd reason, fixed on some dark corner. “That’s why it hates us, you know. Death. All of us. We as doctors must be very, very careful in our everyday lives, because Death despises us for stalling its work time and time again, and it constantly has its eyes on us. Waiting for us to relax, to look away. There are rituals, as we get older and Death steps closer every day…” but then they come back to themselves, shaking their heads and laughing. “Not enough coffee for me today, apparently!” Shadows in the corner where no one sits seem to be shifting.

•  The chemistry majors always seem to know something that no one else does. They all keep tiny glass bottles of clove oil in their backpacks at all times, for some reason. You’re starting to wonder if it wouldn’t be smart for you to do the same.

•  The engineering majors know exactly what the chem majors think only they know, and they laugh when you mention the clove oil. “They really think that will protect them,” one future robotics pioneer says to you, shaking his head. “They really think they can stop what’s coming.”

•  Something in the forensics lab whispers at night, but only when a lone student is working down there alone. One of them snags you in the halls one morning and says, “I know you’re not forensics and you’ve never heard it before, but last night I was working on a paper down there and, well. It knows your name.”

• Your roommate is a biogenetics student. She keeps beakers brimming with bubbling fluids in the fridge, and she often seems restless and distracted. You’ve caught her stealing hair off of your brush before, and one night as you watch her mixing and stirring and taking notes as she’s hunched over her desk, you realize that a single blinking eyeball is staring back at you from the green fluid surrounding it in her glass tube.

•  The mathematics students have figured out what the chemistry students know, and what the engineering students have known for years. They all look anxious now, walking around campus and constantly looking over their shoulders. One of them suggests to you that maybe you should start stockpiling bottled water. Just in case.

•  An astronomy major comes barreling into one of your classes one dim and dying afternoon, slapping a star chart down onto a desk in front of a newly enlightened mathematics student, sweating and furious. “You weren’t even going to tell us, you bastard?! You were just going to let it happen while we sat around unprepared?!”

•  A week later. You sit up in bed and your roommate is gone. Their things are gone. Campus is still and quiet, the chem and engineering and astronomy and mathematics students having all cleared out save for you. The bio, forensics, and med students are left blinking, dazed. Clearly you’ve all missed something important, but your roommate responds to your text with assurance that it’s fine. You’ll all know soon enough.

as an aspiring avatar of the beholder and dark academic i must know everything just so i can scare people off yes in gay

I HAVE AN EYE INFECTION AND I CANT SEE CLEARLY AND I THOUGHT THE MAN WAS WILL GRAHAM

I WAS SO CONFUSED LIKE WHY THE HELL IS WILL TALKING WITH BABY YODA

I CAN'T

- Nikos Kazantzakis

french expressions with “en”🌼

these french words are also used in english (mostly older english), maybe to indicate someone who uses pompous dialogue, and the sentences below are examples of the usage of the words in english. 

1. En ami (“as a friend”): “I confide in you en ami.”

2. En arrière (“behind”): “Discretion is the better part of valor, I reminded myself as, letting my more valorous friends go before me, I marched en arriere.”

3. En attendant (“meanwhile”): “I entertained myself en attendant by thumbing through a magazine while she troweled on her makeup.”

4. En avant (“forward”): “En avant, comrades. Fortune awaits us through that door.”

5. En badinant (“in jest”): “Relax, my friend — I meant what I said en badinant.”

6. En bagatelle (“in contempt”): “He glared at me en bagatelle, as if I were vermin.”

7. En banc (“with complete judicial authority”): “I sentence you en banc, as judge, jury, and executioner, to death.”

8. En bloc (“in a mass”): “We can depend on them to vote en bloc in support of the proposal.”

9. En clair (“in clear language, as opposed to in code”): “The spy’s telegram was carelessly written en clair.”

10. En deshabillé (“undressed, or revealed”): “She opened the door to find me standing there en deshabille, and immediately retreated.”

11. En échelon (“in steps, or overlapping”): “The flock of geese flew overhead en echelon.”

12. En effet (“in fact, indeed”): “You see that I am, en effet, in control of the situation.”

13. En famille (“with family, at home, informally”): “Let us now return to that happy household, where we find the denizens lounging en famille.”

14. En foule (“in a crowd”): “He had the remarkable ability to blend in en foule.”

15. En garçon (“as or like a bachelor”): “I have separated from my wife and am now living en garcon.”

16. En grande (“full size”): The bouncer approached and, with a scowl, reared up en grande.”

17. En grande tenue (“in formal attire”): “She arrived, as usual, en grande tenue, and in consternation that everyone else was dressed causally.”

18. En grande toilette (“in full dress”): “The opening-night crowd was attired en grande toilette.”

19. En garde (“on guard”): “She assumed a defensive position, as if en guard in a fencing match.”

20. En haute (“above”): “From my perspective — en haute, as it were — I’d say you are both wrong.”

21. En masse (“all together”): “The members of the basketball team arrived en masse at the party.”

22. En pantoufles (“in slippers, at ease, informally”): “He had just settled down for a relaxing evening en pantoufles when the doorbell rang.”

23. En passant (“in passing”): “She nonchalantly mentioned the rumor en passant.”

24. En plein air (“in the open air”): “We celebrated by venturing en plein air.”

25. En plein jour (“in broad day”): “They boldly rendezvoused en plein jour.”

26. En poste (“in a diplomatic post”): “Though he was a friend, I decided to send the memorandum en poste.”

27. En prise (“exposed to capture”): “He found himself en prise, beset on all sides.”

28. En queue: (“after”): “I bided my time and followed en queue.”

29. En rapport (“in agreement or harmony”): “I’m delighted that we are all en rapport on the subject.”

30. En régle (“in order, in due form”): “I believe you will find the documents en regle.”

31. En retard (“late”): “Typically, they arrived en retard for dinner.”

32. En retraite (“in retreat or retirement”): “After uttering the verbal blunder, she ducked her head and exited the parlor en retraite.”

33. En revanche (“in return, in compensation”): “En revanche, I invite you to attend my upcoming soiree.”

34. En rigueur (“in force”): “We have arrived en rigueur to support you.”

35. En route (“on the way”): “En route to the post office, she passed by the derelict house.”

36. En secondes noces (“in a second marriage”): “The community was so conservative that she found her matrimonial state, en secondes noces, to be the topic of gossip.”

37. En suite (“connected, or in a set, as a bedroom with its own bathroom”): “She was pleased to see that the room was en suite.” (Also spelled ensuite.)

38. En tasse (“in a cup”): “I’ll take some en tasse.”

39. En tout (“in all”): “We’d like to use your banquet room, please — we are a score or more en tout.”

40. En vérité (“in truth”): “En verite, I am the one responsible.”

Source: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/40-french-expressions-en-tout/

Let’s talk about Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship

And basically just how gay they are.

I want to start off by saying that I haven’t watched the entire Good Omens tv show but HOWEVER  I got a little too obsessed and watched all the scenes I could find. And by all I mean all. And some clips on it. And the thing that made me want to write this were the quite concerning amount of people categorising it as queerbaiting. 

I won’t say anything related to the book because unfortunately I couldn’t find the time to read it.

Okay so first of all the author confirmed that Good Omens is a story about two people in love. I do not have the time nor dedication to find where this was first mentioned but trust me on this one. But like I get it why people say it’s queerbaiting. I mean there’s no romantic interaction and all we have is subtext, right?

right?

well I, personally, wouldn’t say so. I mean yeah all we have in the actual show is pretty much subtext but there are also things that we have to take into consideration. First of all we have to remember that they are both (former or not) celestial enitites. They were both angels at some point. And what have those random posts and tiktoks taught us? Angels don’t look the way we think they look. Angels aren’t what we really think of them. 

Crowley and Aziraphale are spiritual entities, only having the bodies we see ,as some kind of vessel to help them integrate in human society. Therefore they are only human (biologically, we aren’t here to get into the entire moral structure and stuff, maybe another time idk???) by the way they look.

Now, why does that matter? Because the way we express love and the way we think about it is entirely a human thing. We basically created it, somehow, based on our biological desire to procreate. Spiritual beings don’t have the desire to procreate, cuz they don’t need to. Therefore they haven’t really evolved a way to show the romantic love, and at first or even always will be reluctant with the human ways. 

How do we know our ineffable husbands (they’re non-binary most probably, spiritual entities don’t need gender) are actually in love? OHH BOYY I haven’t even watched the show and it’s obvious that they truly share a profound bond (destiel reference to mourn after sp’s ending). I mean there are a lot of scenes, but I decide to be less professional and just say exactly why, not when.

1. I meannn the amount of times Crowley made compromises for Aziraphale and for him only, and just those sweet little things like always asking him for lunch or dinner or whatever and being careful with his books. I mean not to be sad but like my best friends wouldn’t have really been that careful with the things I appreciate. There gotta be something

2. Aziraphale was always telling Crowley (sooner or later) what he had found out and what he should do. He always wanted him to be on the right path, despite him being a demon and by definition being on the wrong path, a fallen angel.

3. Just Aziraphale being worried about Crowley and vice-versa. I mean that’s clearly a thing friends share as well but like they are basically on opposite sides. They should be fighting each other but, instead, go on cute little lunch dates together for like 6000 years???

4. Also this is a when one, but remember when Crowley asked Aziraphale to run away with him? Running aways is a gay thing, I’m sorry I’m not accepting any criticize on this one.

Anyways what did I try to prove with this long post? That love can be shown in many forms, some being sexual, some being romantic and some just being slightly romantic but not in an obvious way. Our little angle x demon ship does not do harm to the LGBTQ community, it does not practice in queerbaiting either, it just shows another way of showing love, a love that is so strong it doesn’t need to be proven. They both know it, it’s obvious, and they love each other in their own way.

Basically they’re asexual because they’re angels and honestly I am yearning for a relationship like theirs.

Anyways I’m down for any other opinions, this was just one out of hundreds.

anyways look at them I love them

I love my bookmarking system on ao3 because i see this kinda thing

and i go "OHHHH this one must be good"

watching good omens for the first time:

rewatching good omens:

Essays

Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of essays I like/find interesting/are food for thought; I’ve tried to sort them as much as possible. The starred (*) ones are those I especially love

also quick note: some of these links, especially the ones that are from books/anthologies redirect you to libgen or scihub, and if that doesn’t work for you, do message me; I’d be happy to send them across!

Literature + Writing

Godot Comes to Sarajevo - Susan Sontag

The Strangeness of Grief - V. S. Naipaul*

Memories of V. S. Naipaul - Paul Theroux*

A Rainy Day with Ruskin Bond - Mayank Austen Soofi

How Albert Camus Faced History - Adam Gopnik

Listen, Bro - Jo Livingstone

Rachel Cusk Gut-Renovates the Novel - Judith Thurman

Lost in Translation: What the First Line of “The Stranger” Should Be - Ryan Bloom

The Duke in His Domain - Truman Capote*

The Cult of Donna Tartt: Themes and Strategies in The Secret History - Ana Rita Catalão Guedes

Never Do That to a Book - Anne Fadiman*

Affecting Anger: Ideologies of Community Mobilisation in Early Hindi Novel - Rohan Chauhan*

Why I Write - George Orwell*

Rimbaud and Patti Smith: Style as Social Deviance - Carrie Jaurès Noland*

Art + Photography (+ Aesthetics)

Looking at War - Susan Sontag*

Love, sex, art, and death - Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz

Lyons, Szarkowski, and the Perception of Photography - Anne Wilkes Tucker

The Feminist Critique of Art History - Thalia Gouma-Peterson, Patricia Mathews

In Plato’s Cave - Susan Sontag*

On reproduction of art (Chapter 1, Ways of Seeing) - John Berger*

On nudity and women in art (Chapter 3, Ways of Seeing) - John Berger*

Kalighat Paintings  - Sharmishtha Chaudhuri

Daydreams and Fragments: On How We Retrieve Images From the Past -  Maël Renouard

Arthur Rimbaud: the Aesthetics of Intoxication - Enid Rhodes Peschel

Cities

Tragic Fable of Mumbai Mills - Gyan Prakash

Whose Bandra is it? - Dustin Silgardo*

Timur’s Registan: noblest public square in the world? - Srinath Perur

The first Starbucks coffee shop, Seattle - Colin Marshall*

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai’s iconic railway station - Srinath Perur

From London to Mumbai and Back Again: Gentrification and Public Policy in Comparative Perspective -  Andrew Harris

The Limits of “White Town” in Colonial Calcutta - Swati Chattopadhyay

The Metropolis and Mental Life - Georg Simmel

Colonial Policy and the Culture of Immigration: Citing the Social History of Varanasi - Vinod Kumar, Shiv Narayan

A Caribbean Creole Capital: Kingston, Jamaica - Coln G. Clarke (from Colonial Cities by Robert Ross, Gerard J. Telkamp

The Colonial City and the Post-Colonial World - G. A. de Bruijne

The Nowhere City - Amos Elon*

The Vertical Flâneur: Narratorial Tradecraft in the Colonial Metropolis - Paul K. Saint-Amour

Philosophy

The trolley problem problem - James Wilson

A Brief History of Death - Nir Baram

Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical - John Rawls*

Should Marxists be Interested in Exploitation? - John E. Roemer

The Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief - Scott Berinato*

The Pandemic and the Crisis of Faith - Makarand Paranjape

If God Is Dead, Your Time is Everything - James Wood

Giving Up on God - Ronald Inglehart

The Limits of Consensual Decision - Douglas Rae*

The Science of “Muddling Through” - Charles Lindblom*

History

The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine - Maria Dolan

The History of Loneliness - Jill Lepore*

From Tuskegee to Togo: the Problem of Freedom in the Empire of Cotton - Sven Beckert*

Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism - E. P. Thompson*

All By Myself - Martha Bailey*

The Geographical Pivot of History - H. J. Mackinder

The sea/ocean

Rim of Life - Manu Pillai

Exploring the Indian Ocean as a rich archive of history – above and below the water line - Isabel Hofmeyr, Charne Lavery

‘Piracy’, connectivity and seaborne power in the Middle Ages - Nikolas Jaspert (from The Sea in History)*

The Vikings and their age - Nils Blomkvist (from The Sea in History)*

Mercantile Networks, Port Cities, and “Pirate” States - Roxani Eleni Margariti

Phantom Peril in the Arctic - Robert David English, Morgan Grant Gardner*

Assorted ones on India

A departure from history: Kashmiri Pandits, 1990-2001 - Alexander Evans *

Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World - Gyan Prakash

Empire: How Colonial India Made Modern Britain - Aditya Mukherjee

Feminism and Nationalism in India, 1917-1947 - Aparna Basu

The Epic Riddle of Dating Ramayana, Mahabharata - Sunaina Kumar*

Caste and Politics: Identity Over System - Dipankar Gupta

Our worldview is Delhi based*

Sports (you’ll have to excuse the fact that it’s only cricket but what can i say, i’m indian)

‘Massa Day Done:’ Cricket as a Catalyst for West Indian Independence: 1950-1962 - John Newman*

Playing for power? rugby, Afrikaner nationalism and masculinity in South Africa, c.1900–70 - Albert Grundlingh

When Cricket Was a Symbol, Not Just a Sport - Baz Dreisinger

Cricket, caste, community, colonialism: the politics of a great game - Ramachandra Guha*

Cricket and Politics in Colonial India - Ramchandra Guha

MS Dhoni: A quiet radical who did it his way*

Music

Brega: Music and Conflict in Urban Brazil - Samuel M. Araújo

Color, Music and Conflict: A Study of Aggression in Trinidad with Reference to the Role of Traditional Music - J. D. Elder

The 1975 - ‘Notes On a Conditional Form’ review - Dan Stubbs*

Life Without Live - Rob Sheffield*

How Britney Spears Changed Pop - Rob Sheffield

Concert for Bangladesh

From “Help!” to “Helping out a Friend”: Imagining South Asia through the Beatles and the Concert for Bangladesh - Samantha Christiansen 

Gender

Clothing Behaviour as Non-verbal Resistance - Diana Crane

The Normalisation of Queer Theory - David M. Halperin

Menstruation and the Holocaust - Jo-Ann Owusu*

Women’s Suffrage the Democratic Peace - Allan Dafoe

Pink and Blue: Coloring Inside the Lines of Gender - Catherine Zuckerman*

Women’s health concerns are dismissed more, studied less - Zoanne Clack

Food

How Food-Obsessed Millennials Shape the Future of Food - Rachel A. Becker (as a non-food obsessed somewhat-millennial, this was interesting)

Colonialism’s effect on how and what we eat - Coral Lee

Tracing Europe’s influence on India’s culinary heritage - Ruth Dsouza Prabhu

Chicken Kiev: the world’s most contested ready-meal*

From Russia with mayo: the story of a Soviet super-salad*

The Politics of Pancakes - Taylor Aucoin*

How Doughnuts Fuelled the American Dream*

Pav from the Nau

A Short History of the Vada Pav - Saira Menezes

Fantasy (mostly just harry potter and lord of the rings)

Purebloods and Mudbloods: Race, Species, and Power (from The Politics of Harry Potter)

Azkaban: Discipline, Punishment, and Human Rights (from The Politics of Harry Potter)*

Good and Evil in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lengendarium - Jyrki Korpua

The Fairy Story: J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis - Colin Duriez (from Tree of Tales)*

Tolkien’s Augustinian Understanding of Good and Evil: Why The Lord of the Rings Is Not Manichean - Ralph Wood (from Tree of Tales)*

Travel

The Hidden Cost of Wildlife Tourism

Chronicles of a Writer’s 1950s Road Trip Across France - Kathleen Phelan

On the Early Women Pioneers of Trail Hiking - Gwenyth Loose

On the Mythologies of the Himalaya Mountains - Ed Douglas*

More random assorted ones

The cosmos from the wheelchair (The Economist obituaries)*

In El Salvador - Joan Didion

Scientists are unravelling the mystery of pain - Yudhijit Banerjee

Notes on Nationalism - George Orwell

Politics and the English Language - George Orwell*

What Do the Humanities Do in a Crisis? - Agnes Callard*

The Politics of Joker - Kyle Smith

Sushant Singh Rajput: The outsider - Uday Bhatia*

Credibility and Mystery - John Berger

happy reading :)