So I don’t make a ton of personal posts. But. I don’t really know what to do.
Here’s the deal, kiddies. I have issues (anger issues, ADHD that’s been undiagnosed and sometimes penalized for…eh, going on 19 years–that public school system, though–some sensory issues, some other stuff). And some of them have been causing me trouble lately, specifically the ones pertaining to my extended family (more fun than a goddamn barrel of monkeys) and my delightful history with folks of the male gender (sometime I should tell the story about when I punched a boy in the fourth grade and got put in detention for it) and another incident that happened when I was eight that I’m not going to go into because I don’t want to upset anyone (if you want to know, you can ask, but…like…love thyself, it’s not a nice story). It’s particularly that last one that’s causing me trouble, though.
I’ve always been what my parents and I politely call ‘wary’ and less politely call ‘fucking wired,’ and I’ve always had more nightmares than peaceful dreams, and when I’m having a bad week I’ve been known to kind of freak out when someone opens a door and takes me by surprise. And from time to time I get flashbacks–not the full technicolor things you see on TV, just physical sensations and the occasional visual image, but trust me, I’ve tried really hard to come up with another phrase and there just isn’t one–and I get those anywhere from once every couple months to…more, depending on if I’m around the appropriate triggers (dentist’s equipment and anything else medical that comes toward my face, sometimes a handful of other things like being restrained or held down with a weight on my chest). And, you know, I’m a medical person, and furthermore I had the revelatory experience a few years back that I think a lot of people do after they leave an abusive situation (see previous re: my extended family) where I was like ‘oh, right, most people don’t have stories about the time they had to be rescued from their grandparent by their mother because that’s not normal’, so I’ve spent the last five years or so collating a mental list of the things that make people look concerned when I mention them. And it’s come to my attention that the flashbacks and the extreme startle reflex and the nightmares/distressed sleep-talking and the not-ever-sitting-with-my-back-to-the-door-and-always-knowing-my-exits-cold (fun fact: it’s called hypervigilance) are…not normal. (You’ve got to understand that they’re normal for me, though, okay, it took me almost 20 years because I’ve been like this almost my whole life, so cut me some slack for being dense.) And so I did some research and then I took an abnormal psychology class (as you do, because no one can ever say I’m not really really thorough) and…yeah, I have managed to drag myself, 11 years late, to the fucking blindingly obvious conclusion that I have some PTSD issues in addition to those listed above, pertaining to both the incident when I was eight and the other stuff with my extended family/men. Like, I am a fucking sparkling diagnostic example of post-traumatic stress disorder.
And I just. Feel so fucking broken about it. And before you jump down my throat, look, I have given the lecture about PTSD not being a sign of weakness, etc, etc, to several people, with extreme conviction and emphasis and I’ve been convincing as shit, okay, I convinced my dad to attend therapy and I talk to my mom about our mutual issues (her family is worse than Dad’s and fucked us up in some of the same ways, or at least relatable ways) and I get it, okay?
But.
I feel like the second I decide to live with that, all the really goddamn hard work I did over the last however-long to build the person I wanted to be after my extended family wrecked me will just fucking evaporate. Because they will have been right all along about how fucking weak and fragile I am, how I obsess over the little stuff and take things too much to heart, how I can’t just get over it. And I worked so fucking hard to be strong and to be able to protect people and take care of them and to not be this scared eight-year-old anymore, and…Christ. Am I making any sense here? I doubt it. I mean, good God, if you’re still reading I goddamn salute you. I wouldn’t be listening to me bitch about my relatively minor issues anymore.
Just. How do I even start to deal with that part of myself?
The thing that most freaks me out on American politics is that thing I’ve seen a few times where they’re like “this is [name] and she works 80 hour weeks to support her family” as if that’s supposed to be inspiring and not utterly terrifying.
The best story from this time period, however, is this. While stationed on a base in Thessalonica, some French officer got word that she was fucking brutal with hand grenades. He laughed at the idea that a woman could be that badass, so he took a bottle out of a case of ultra-expensive 1880 Cognac, set it on a post 40 meters (131 feet) away, and dared her the rest of the case that she couldn’t hit it.
She drilled it on her first try. That night her unit blew through 19 bottles of the finest Cognac on Earth.
”—
- Badass of the Week article on Milunka Savic, most decorated woman war hero of all time.
I think today is just gonna be reblog all the Warrior Ladies day.
just a friendly reminder that undocumented immigrants are allowed to donate organs but arent allowed to recieve transplants
they don’t pay taxes??? they’re not citizens??? why is this a negative post??? pay taxes and be a productive member of society and then you will have the operations and health benefits every other tax payer/citizen has???? like what???? I hate this website!!!!!
And even if they didn’t do all those things for American society, they have a right to life like every other citizen, it’s a truly revolting society that happily takes organ donations from a group of people it will not gilife-saving donated organs to based on some arbitrary system of human worth and “productivity”. People shouldn’t have to literally die because they are not “useful” to society, if we actually did follow that logic in society we’d be killing most of our rich for just coasting through life but you all know why we’re not targeting them.
Seriously. Even ignoring how inaccurate the idea that undocumented works “aren’t productive” and “don’t contribute” to society is.
How fucked up is it that there are people who think you need to “contribute enough to society” to be worthy of life saving medical procedures?
“Bring consent out of the bedroom. I think part of the reason we have trouble drawing the line “it’s not okay to force someone into sexual activity” is that in many ways, forcing people to do things is part of our culture in general. Cut that shit out of your life. If someone doesn’t want to go to a party, try a new food, get up and dance, make small talk at the lunchtable—that’s their right. Stop the “aww c’mon” and “just this once” and the games where you playfully force someone to play along. Accept that no means no—all the time.”—
People are always so damned shocked that I say no and don’t change my mind when they plead and coax, even when it’s something small like ‘hey grab some ice cream with us’ or ‘did you see that new embarrassing cringe viral video?’
Consent in everything that we do, in everywhere that we are, is so important.
Persuasion quickly turns to talking over/ignoring/silencing. It’s all potential bullying.
I said no at work the other day, and a VP (a fellow white woman, but older, so there was a power dynamic imbalance) ignored me. I said no again, and they kept talking over me. I kept saying no, and finally walked out of the room where I had hidden myself to work on a project (where the VP then barged in to demand my attention) and returned down the hall to my boss’ (another VP) office.
The VP actually chased (chased) me to yell at me to tell me that I didn’t have a right to say no– after not letting me talk to say that in fact, I had a project for 1) the CEO and 2) OSHA (you know, the agency with the authority to fine workplaces hundreds of thousands of dollars?) that I had to finish instead. But they wouldn’t give me space to talk and say WHY I was saying no until they were faced with my boss, at which point I said 1) no, I have conflicting projects and 2) no, and how dare you not listen the first time and 3) no, how dare you chase and raise your voice at me and then, 4) I left the room and my boss took it from there with more raised voices and some actual cussing.
I am lucky I could do this because I am 1) a bitch 2) have done stuff like this before and 3) have a boss who will back me up on stuff like this, but it happens all of the time. Consent isn’t just about sex. It’s about your time and your boundaries everywhere.
when reading anything i write please interpret each exclamation point as one wag of a golden retriever’s tail
e.g. if i type “aaaaaaaaah thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!” please imagine i am furiously wagging my tail and possibly causing minor property damage to low positioned vases, lamps, tchotchkes, etc.
So according to an interview with Neil Gaiman in the back of Good Omens, before Terry Pratchett became a full time writer he wrote at least 400 words a day.
I’ve been trying it out for a couple weeks now and let me tell you 400 words is a totally awesome goal. It is very approachable and not intimidating, often leads to more than 400 words cause well now I have to finish this scene.
Seriously I probably would have written nothing in the last couple weeks, instead I’ve written 1000′s of words.
i would literally rather have darth vader be our next president than donald trump. if darth vader ran in the 2016 elections, and it came down to him and donald trump, i would vote for darth vader without even thinking
this post is interesting because it implies a future in which darth vader won the democratic primary
No but this could totally be a thing.
Like he’d look at gay marriage and be like “I too have known what it’s like to not be able to get married simply because of who you are.” Marriage for everybody.
He’s pro gun-control. Light sabers are much more elegant weapons, anyway.
He’d probably be for raising the minimum wage. He grew up a slave, living in the worse kind of poverty. He knows how important it is for single mothers to be able to support their children.
Darth Vader: a Force We Can Count On.
can this be real?
Darth Vader was a better human being than Donald Trump and that is truly amazing
he murdered children with a laser sword
We don’t have any real proof that Trump hasn’t murdered children with a laser sword. He needs to provide documentation on that. Some kind of certificate. Until then, I won’t believe him. America deserves the truth.
I know there are a lot of differing opinions about Harry becoming an Auror after the war, but personally, I understand and accept it. If there’s anything that is characteristic of Harry Potter, it’s the inability to remain uninvolved. From the first book when he refuses to let Malfoy taunt Neville, to the last when he curses Carrow for spitting in McGonagall’s face. These moments aren’t about duty or obligation. Harry sees an injustice, and feels the need to correct it. This point is made quite clearly in the fifth book, when Hermione points out Harry’s ‘saving-people-thing.’ Even in situations where the danger is contained, like the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, Harry feels the need to give his all to keep everyone safe. He doesn’t just protect the world because he’s The Chosen One, the symbolic hero of the world. He does it because he’s Harry Potter, and that’s who he was far before he ever really met Voldemort.
They’re not going to rat you out. They’re going to adjust your anesthesia dosage so you don’t WAKE UP IN THE MIDDLE OF SURGERY.
Some anesthesiologists will refuse to put you under if you’ve smoked cannabis within the past 24 hours – and let’s be clear, this is NOT because they’re morally against it – it’s because THC and anesthetic react in unpredictable ways and waking up in the middle of surgery is slightly less of a concern than SLIPPING INTO A COMA OR DYING.
So there’s that.
Yes, this too. Should have included this. It just wasn’t on my mind when I made the original post because my mind was full of NOPE NOPE NOPE after, you guessed it, one of my patients woke up in the middle of her surgery because she didn’t tell her anesthesia team she used marijuana.
A gentile vampire turns a promising Torah scholar into a vampire. Is the scholar still permitted to study Torah? Are they still under the yoke of the mitzvot? How does vampirism impact observant Jewish practice? Are they still Jewish, or are they apostates? Would it be permissible for the scholar to turn other people into vampires to cure them of terminal illnesses?
To what degree are Jewish werewolves morally responsible for their actions while under the influence of the full moon? What must they do if they eat treyf in their wolf form?
If, for some reason, we must leave earth for another inhabitable planet on the other side of the galaxy, what do we do about holidays and observing Shabbat? Would we go by earth time or local time? What if this planet has no moon or more than one moon? How would we face Jerusalem to pray?
Can aliens convert to Judaism? If so, does it only apply to humanoid aliens like the greys, or would reptilian aliens and ilithids be able to convert too?
Can sentient machines like the Terminator convert to Judaism? What about Agents from The Matrix?
Speaking of The Matrix, are we still obligated to obey the mitzvot even if we are literally brains in jars or living in a simulated reality created by computer programs? What happens if we’re freed and whatever basis for our Jewish identity we had is no longer present or certain. Are we still Jews? Do we still have a covenant?
speaking with my minimal scholarly experience but also opening this up for all jews to contribute:
1. i don’t see any reason why such a promising torah scholar shouldn’t be allowed to continue to study torah, but practicing judaism would be difficult: blood of all animals is probably treyf, and blood of humans is definitely treyf, so a jewish vampire would have to break mitzvot on a nearly constant basis to survive. however under pikuach nefesh i feel like were the vampire literally about to die, they could consume human or animal blood. therefore a jewish vampire would have to live in a state of starvation at all times, which would probably have a fascinating impact on his torah study.
2. a shoteh is not held responsible for their actions by human or divine courts. maimonides defines a shoteh as any mentally unstable person - for our purposes, a jewish werewolf in wolf form can probably be seen as under the influence of mental instability, and is not responsible for their actions under the law.
3. this is fascinating because when we face jerusalem in america, we face east - even though, physically speaking, jerusalem is somewhere under us, on the other side of the globe. for this reason i’m inclined to avoid the obvious answer, “face earth”. perhaps it would be possible to face, in general, the stars? going by “earth time” seems logistically impossible, since earth has 24 separate times. i think this will be a separate issue for every planet.
4. we are already a reptilian alien race, this question is moot.
5. if robots cannot convert to judaism i am quitting. more seriously: this seems like a good place for the analogy of the four children: the simple robot asks, “what is all this”, i.e., judaism, and you download information about it into his database; the wicked robot asks, “what does all this mean to you,” i.e., humans, and you reply, “we are doing a human thing; if you were a human, you would not be part of it, either”; the wise robot asks, “can you please explain the laws and customs of judaism to me, fellow sentients” and you do so and allow him to convert if he wishes it; and the robot who does not know enough to ask a question does not pass the turing test, so the point is moot.
6. oh yeah, we’d totally still be jews! it’s like finding out for sure there’s no god - maybe it’s gonna stop some people from practicing judaism, but not most of us.
Do you ever wonder how much you exist in other people’s lives? I’m always curious if people think of me when a certain song comes on, or when they pass through a certain town. I wonder how many stories I’ve been a part of that I may have forgotten. I wonder if I still I exist in the minds of people that I don’t speak to anymore. I wonder how many times a day I pass through someone’s head.
if you sneeze in a jaeger does your partner sneeze with you since you’re linked? does the whole jaeger sneeze along too or is it programmed not to? have jaeger pilots ever sneezed and accidentally ended up activating one of their weapons?
“biological sex is a social construct” doesn’t mean “chromosomes, anatomy, hormones, and genitalia don’t exist”. it means “these exist, but assigning roles, labels, and expectations to certain combinations of these characteristics is a social construct, and an unnecessary and pointless (actually harmful) one at that”.
Why isn’t using sign language more common in society? like??? Not even just communicating within deaf communities but for everybody to use with anybody?
I feel like this should be standard learning material for those working in loud workplaces or with machinery, or maybe idk for talking underwater or when someone else can’t hear you at a concert. Or what about when somebody is having a panic attack and can’t talk, or just isn’t all that comfortable with voicing their feelings?
Why isn’t nonverbal communication more integrated into our society? Cause it should be.
Planet 55 Cancri e is basically a giant diamond. like the planet is a diamond. and it would be worth $26.9 nonillion
Planet Gliese 436 b is an ice planet that is constantly on fire do to its close proximity to its parent star. the ice doesn’t melt bc the planet’s gravity is so strong it physically prevents the ice from melting
Planet HD 189733b rains sideways glass…. constantly
Planet J1407-B has planetary rings that are 200x the size of saturn. if saturn’s ring were as big as J1407-B’s we’d be able to see them with our naked eye from earth AND they would dominate our sky and look larger than a full moon
Planet Wasp-12b rotates so close to its parent star that its slowly being consumed by the it
Planet Gliese 581c is one of the candidates for a planet that can support life however it orbits a tiny dwarf star and is tidally locked so one side is constantly subject to immense sunlight while the other is constantly in darkness. there’s a small area of the planet however, that is just the right temp to support life. u just can’t step out of said area. the skies are red and the plants would have be a black color instead of a green bc they would use infrared light for photosynthesis. (a message was actually sent to the planet in 2008 in hopes that there’s life on the planet but the message wont reach the planet until 2029).
Planet GJ 1214b is a water planet nicknamed “water world” is has no land at all and the water is so deep it goes down miles all the way to the planet’s core.
Planet Wasp-17b is the largest planet discovered thus far. its so large its existence contradicts our understanding of how planets are formed. and it has a retrograde orbit, so it orbits in the opposite direction of its parent star.
Planet HD 188753 has 3 suns you should have triple shadows and there would be almost daily eclipses. and no matter which direction u face on the planet u would always see a sunset
Planet HD106906b is the loneliest planet discovered thus far. its known as “super jupiter” bc its 11x bigger than jupiter. it orbits its parent star at a distance of 60 billion miles (which is v strange) hence why its the loneliest planet.
Planet Tres 2b is the darkest planet known. it reflects less than 1% of light (it reflects less light than coal and black acrylic paint). the tiny part of the planet that does reflect light is red making the planet glow a dim red.
emotional abuse is when someone does something to hurt you, and when you express your feelings, that you’re upset, they turn it around to be something you did to hurt them and they force you to apologize for it, and your feelings, like always, are rendered invalid and silenced, forever damaging the ability to trust others with your feelings because they always are used against you.
i’m still so blown away by the spot on characterization of deadpool in the movie
the fact that the first time we see him not as deadpool, he’s working a free job for a teenage girl and putting the fear of god into her stalker
the fact that he doesn’t hurt kids, not even older ones, and “aw, he’s not a bad kid, weas”
him being ready to stand up for vanessa when some guy disrespects her and immediately going heart-eyes when she stands up for herself instead
and then not caring one bit that she’s a prostitute/stripper and it never being a problem when they’re in a serious long-lasting relationship
occasionally losing his temper (”AARRGH RIGHT UP MAIN STREET—three—two—stupid! worth it.” and then of course when vanessa gets kidnapped)
him totally not underestimating tiny negasonic, letting her take on angel dust because he knows she can hold her own, and then the immediate split second decision to grab her and pull her into cover when the guns start going off because he knows she’s strong as shit but not bulletproof
his bonding with blind al oh my fucking god and their disabled-person-to-disabled-person banter (”love is blind” “no, al, you’re blind”)
idk man this character just means a lot to me and so many people are being introduced to him solely through this movie, and i was so worried that they’d get a different character than what we get from the comics but they didn’t and i’m so happy about this
To my ladies of color. To my fat ladies. To my disabled ladies. To my trans ladies. To my lesbian, bisexual, and ace ladies. To my mentally ill ladies. To my Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist ladies. To my scientific and political ladies. To my ladies in poverty. To my ladies in uniform. To my single ladies. To my mothers. To my sisters. To my girlfriends. To my wives. To my daughters.
To my women, of all shapes, sizes and colors, celebrate yourselves and all your great accomplishments. It is because of you that we thrive. Never let yourself think you are less than you are. Thank you for paving the way forward for those who follow in your proud footsteps.
A story that may have relevance for others, or then again, maybe not:
When I was in college, about ten or so years ago, I was a history major. I wanted to learn to dance, so I joined a swing dance club on campus. To my surprise, this club had about twice as many men as women (in high school, the last time I’d tried dancing, the ratio had gone the other way–lots of girls, and boys only that you could drag by their ears).
But apparently, there had been some kind of word spread specifically to the STEM guys that dance was a way that they could meet girls.
So anyway. I joined the swing dance club, and met a few guys. And at one point, when socializing with the guys outside of dance class, one of them asked me what my research was on. (I had already established that I was an honors history student doing a thesis, just as he had established that he was an honors… I’m not sure if he was CS or Math, but it was one of those.)
So I gave him the thumbnail sketch of my research. Now, to be clear, an honors senior thesis, while nothing like what a graduate student would do, was still fairly in-depth. I had to translate primary sources from the original late-Classical Latin. (My professor said, basically, that while there were plenty of translations of my source material, that I’d only be able to comfortably trust them if I had at least made a stab at a translation of my own. And he was right.) And there was so much secondary material, often contradictory, that I had been carefully sorting through.
But I was able to sift it into a three-sentence summary of my senior thesis work, you know, as one does.
So I gave him that summary, and then asked–since he was also an undergraduate senior doing an honors thesis–what his research was on.
“Oh,” he said, “you wouldn’t understand it.”
Reader, I went home in a frothing rage. Because I had thought we were playing one game–a game of ‘let’s talk about what we’re passionate about!’– and he had been playing another game, which was, one-upsmanship. I had done my best to give a basically understandable brief of my research–and he had used that against me. As if my research, my painstaking translation, my digging through archives and ILLs of esoteric works, my reading of ten thousand articles in Speculum (yes, the pre-eminent medievalist journal in North America is called Speculum, I’m sorry, it’s hilarious/sad but also true), and then my effort to sum it up for him, was nothing. Because his research into some kind of algorithm or other was just too complex for my tiny brain to conceive of. Because I just couldn’t possibly understand his work.
Now, the important note here is that the person I went home to was my senior year roommate. She was a graduate student–normally undergrads and graduate students couldn’t be roommates, but we’d been friends for years, and the tenured faculty-in-residence used his powers for good and permitted us to be roommates that year. Anyway. My senior year roommate was basically… in retrospect I think possibly an avatar of Athena. She was six feet tall, blonde, attractive in a muscular athletic way, a rock climber and racquetball player, sweet but sharp, extremely socially awkward, exceptionally kind even when it cost her to be kind, and an incredibly brilliant computer science major who spent most of her time working on extremely complicated mathematical algorithms. (Yes, I was a little in love with her, why do you ask? But she was as straight as a length of rope, and is now happily married, and so am I, so it worked out.)
(Still, yes, she is my mental image of Athena, to this day.)
Anyway, I came home in a frothing rage to my roommate, the Athena avatar. And I said, “He made me feel like such an idiot, that I could sum up my research to him but his research was just too smart for stupid little me.”
And she shut her book, and smiled at me, with her dark eyes and her high cheekbones and her bright hair, and said, “If he can’t explain his research to you, then he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.”
Now I hesitated, because I’d be in college long enough to have sort of bought into the ridiculous idea that if you couldn’t dazzle them with your brilliance, you should baffle them with your bullshit. But she said, “Look, I’ve been doing work on computer science algorithms that have significantly complicated mathematical underpinnings. What do I do?”
And I said, “Genetic algorithms–that is, self-optimizing algorithms–for prioritization, specifically for scheduling.”
“Right,” she said. “You couldn’t code them because you’re not a computer scientist or a mathematician. But you can understand what I do. If someone can’t explain it like that, it isn’t a problem with you as a person. It’s a problem with them. They either don’t understand it as well as they think they do–or they want to make you feel inferior. And neither is a positive thing.”
So. There.
If you are looking into something and have a question, and someone treats you like an idiot for not understanding right away… here is what I have to say: maybe it isn’t you who is the idiot.
ATTN: ALL COLLEGE STUDENTS EVERYWHERE PLS READ
HEED ATHENA AVATAR’S WORDS BBCAKES EVERYWHERE.
As an academic working in academia: this this this. Never buy into the elitist bullcrap of ‘oh, you wouldn’t understand.’ And never perpetuate that crap yourself, either out of pretension or even simple laziness. If you can’t explain it to a ten-year-old, go back and hit the books again cause you’re not there yet.
If you find a bunch of bones that are A: untouched and B: supernaturally clean, there is definitely a reason for both of those things. Sometimes that reason is ants. Sometimes those ants are fire ants. Sometimes those fire ants have made a nest over the entire three meter area around those bones
Sounds like someone had an adventure with fire ants
