#I LIKE my spanish professor but she sent like 8 emails today

[drewjayjoan]

Everybody WATCH the FUCK OUT the Spanish Department has learned to send emails

[wildmichaelflower]

Too Young, Too Dumb - College!SOS PT. 1

Word Count - 1.6k

Warnings - Slight swearing

Luke groaned as his alarm went off, interrupting the peaceful sleep he had been having. Sitting up, he turned it off before going to his select his outfit for the day. Once dressed, he went to go make a coffee to go, biting his lip when he was greeted by the sight of his roommate Michael slumped over the table, a cup of coffee gone cold in front of his laptop. Luke gave his shoulders a couple shakes and whisper-shouted his name, watching the other man grumble to life.

“Mike, it’s 7 am. How long have you been sitting here?”

“Well,” he yawned, “I got off work at ten, stopped at McDonald’s, got home by ten-thirty-ish.” He took a pause to rub his face, “I took a shower, then came out here, so eight hours?” He took a sip from his mug, immediately spitting the contents back out, “That tastes like shit..”

“Well, that’s eight hour old coffee for you,” Luke sighed as he prepared his roommate a fresh cup.

“Nah, more like five hours. I remember making some around two and everything after that is a blur. I passed out around four, I think?” He yawns again.

“How do you expect to pass classes if you can’t stay awake in them?” Luke sighed as he set the mug down.

“I think the bigger issue here is that you’re still expecting me to go to my classes.” Michael mumbled as he eagerly picked up the mug.

“Dude, come on,” Luke gave a hard look, “You’re on a full ride, do you want to throw that away?”

Michael groaned, not in the mood to have this conversation, especially this early in the morning, but he also had to acknowledge that Luke was right.

“Ok,” He sighed, “My first class isn’t until eleven so I’m going to sleep until ten.”

“And your homework is all done?”

“Yep,” Michael grinned sleepily and finished his coffee before placing the mug in the sink. He picked up his laptop and its charger before heading towards his bedroom.

Luke shook his head before continuing to make his breakfast, humming softly as he made his plate. He poured himself a mug of coffee, then sat down to eat his fried eggs and turkey bacon with a side of mixed fruit. He unlocked his phone and began to scroll through Twitter, keeping an eye on any important headlines to bring up during his night class. He got extra credit if the class discussed something he brought up, not that he wanted or needed it, he just thought the conversations were important. After screenshotting a few articles, he finished the remnants of his breakfast before going to load the dishes into the dishwasher. He decided against running it, not wanting to break the silence in case Michael wasn’t asleep yet. 

He quietly went to pack up his bag, making sure he had the appropriate books and chargers for his laptop and phone. Sure, he was coming back after his second class, but it never hurt to be prepared.

He headed back to the living room, grabbing his keys from the coffee table before slipping on his shoes. He left a note on the counter for Michael, reminding him to take his meds, before heading out. As he was locking up, he smiled as he watched his neighbor also lock her door. 

"Morning," he said, biting his lip as she jumped, "Sorry if I scared you." 

"Yeah, you did," she smiled sheepishly as she ran a hand through her hair, "Didn't think anyone else was crazy enough to be awake and moving at 8 am." 

He laughs and nods, "Yeah, it's not for the weak, but someone has to make sure the world turns. I'm Luke by the way," he sticks his hand out, smiling as she takes it.

 "Carina," she smiled as she introduced herself, shaking his hand, before pulling away and heading to the steps, "So what's your plan for keeping the world turning?" 

He grinned, "I work the front desk of the student union. Gotta make sure people have their popcorn." 

She laughed and nods in agreement, the student union desk sold other things, but popcorn was easily it's most popular product. 

"And what about you?" He smiled. 

"I work at the bookstore, where, once the semester settles, people buy anything but books."

Luke laughed at that and nodded understandingly, "Guilty." 

"Aren't we all?" She smiled and opened the front door to the building. 

They walked out together, and Luke grabbed his keys from his pocket when he noticed her leaving the parking lot. 

"Want a ride?" He asked as he unlocked his car.

Carina stopped and turned around, biting her lip.

"You seem nice, but how can I trust you? We just met." 

Luke bit his lip, he honestly didn't think she should walk to campus, but he should've known what it would've looked like. 

"I'll let you drive?" He offered awkwardly, smiling as she laughed. 

"And I was thinking I trusted too easily," she smiled, debating with herself on whether or not to accept the offer. 

Granted, she just met this guy, but he was cute, in an awkward but doing his best kind of way, and didn't seem to pick up any bad vibes from him. She would play a test on him, and if he passed, then she would get in with him. 

"Before I get in, could I take a picture of the license plate and send it to my friend?" She pulled her phone out. 

Luke nodded, "Of course, anything that helps you feel comfortable." He smiled before getting into his car.

Carina smiled to herself, thanking the internet for giving her the clever idea then took a couple pictures of the back of the car before updating her best friend. 

Getting a ride from school from my neighbor, never met him before today but he seems nice! Just in case, here's some info.

She sent the pictures before getting into the car, surprised by how clean it was.

"Offer still stands if you want to drive," he smiles. 

She laughs but shakes her head, "I don't think you're pretty face can handle the speeds I drive at."

He chuckled and pulled out of the parking lot, heading towards the campus. It wasn't a long drive, just a few blocks, but with the temperature dropping, Luke felt better giving rides to people.

"So, what's your major?" Carina asked. 

"Business economics," he smiled, "and yours?" 

"Social studies education, with a minor in political science. I'm guessing your minor is something like mathematics or international relations. That's a common one for you business majors, that or Spanish." 

He laughed, much to her surprise, but he was used to people assuming those kind of things out of him.

"Actually, my minor is gender and women's studies."

"Wow.. what made you choose that?" 

"Well I took one class freshman year about history and social structures from the perspective of women to fill the diversity requirement, and I was hooked." 

Carina nodded, smiling at this new insight of her neighbor.

"Your partner is very lucky."

Luke blushed and bit his lip, "I, um, I don't have a girlfriend." 

"Really?" Luke wasn't her type but she was surprised, he had a good heart, a good looking future. How could there not be anyone for him?

He shrugged, "College has kept me busy, but who knows, this could be my year." He smiled hopefully. 

Carina couldn't help but returning his smile, while also running through a list of her friends that might be a good match for her neighbor.

Luke made another turn towards the bookstore, stopping at the dead end next to the building. 

Carina got her bag and smiled, "Thanks for the ride, I really appreciate it." 

"Of course! With the weather dropping I don't mind giving people rides, I rather them be safe. If you want to make this a regular thing, you know where I live?" He winked jokingly. 

She laughed and nodded, "I'll let you know." She pulled her phone out and opened it to Snapchat, "You should add me." 

He nodded, pulling his phone out and snapping a picture of her code, smiling as the request went through. 

She slid her phone back in her pocket, "Cool, now we'll be best friends," she joked before getting out, "Thanks again for the ride!" 

She closed the door then started to walk to the entrance, smiling as Luke didn't leave until he was sure she was inside. 

Luke smiled as he made his way out of the dead end, heading to the parking ramp where he kept his car during the day.

Once he parked, he grabs his bag and travel mug then heads to work.

He greets his coworkers next to him in the printing shop as he set his things down before sitting at the desk. He then logged onto the computer and got the desk ready for the day. He knew it would be hours until the building would be busy, now it was just professors and a student or two waiting to grab coffee. 

Luke pulled his laptop out, his boss didnt mind when he or his coworkers did homework on the job, as long as they paid attention to customers. An email popped up in his notifications, reminding him that his night class would begin the final presentations that week. It's not that Luke was unprepared, his presentation had been ready since that weekend, but he had some nerves about speaking in front of the class. 

He made a mental note to go over his presentation one more time, then opened a word document to the paper he had been working on.

[asfeedin]

Why celebrate Earth Day? Here’s 12 reasons why.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Live Science asked a dozen scientists to share their favorite facts about our home planet. These researchers marveled at everything from backward flowing rivers in Antarctica to the Giant Crystal Cave of Naica in Mexico, which one geologist called the “Sistine Chapel of crystals.”

Read on to learn about Earth’s wonders. If you’ve got one of your own to share, write about it in the comments below.

1. Mountainous changes

The stunning view of Mount Everest from the Gokyo Valley. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

“The top of Mount Everest is limestone from an ancient ocean floor formed 470 million years ago — before life had even left the ocean! I love this fact, because it reminds us of the tremendous changes our Earth has gone through to bring us to this moment in time, from mass extinctions to asteroid impacts and vast movements of the very ground we stand on. Just as humans are one small speck in a vast universe (thanks, Carl Sagan!), so too are we a tiny blip of time in the long arc of Earth’s history,” said Jacquelyn Gill, an associate professor in the School of Biology and Ecology and the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine.

That fact can be sobering, but it provides a message of hope for our species as well. 

“When we lose species because of our actions, we’re cutting threads in a tapestry that has taken billions of years to weave, and it records stories of vulnerability and loss, but of survival and resilience, too.”

So while our planet’s past may provide warnings of upheavals, it can also provide hints for charting the future.

“The clues to surviving global change are in the rocks, for those who can read them,” Gill said.

2. Giant Crystals of Naica

A man (left) explores the Giant Crystal Cave of Naica in Mexico. (Image credit: Javier Trueba)

Juan Manuel García-Ruiz, a geologist at the Spanish National Research Council, has spent a good portion of his career crawling into underground vaults of pure crystal. Last year, García-Ruiz authored a paper on the history of the largest geode on Earth — a jagged, crystal chamber in a Spanish mine that can comfortably fit several scientists inside at once. But his favorite spot on Earth is where the Giant Crystal Cave of Naica lays buried, about 1,000 feet (300 meters) below the town of Naica, Mexico.

“This is the ‘Sistine Chapel of crystals,'” García-Ruiz told Live Science. Giant gypsum pillars, most of which are as large and thick as telephone poles, slash through the basketball-court-size cavern in a brilliant display of Earth’s slow-motion alchemy. The crystals are hundreds of thousands of years old, and still actively growing in the hot, humid cave. For now, the largest one measures 39 feet (12 m) in length and 13 feet (4 m) in diameter, and it weighs 55 tons (50 metric tons).

3. Earth’s mysterious synergy

An illustration of Earth’s mysterious innards (Image credit: Ed Garnero/ASU)

“My favorite fact about Earth is that all parts of it, from the center to the atmosphere, appear to be dynamically and chemically interactive, over a wide range of time scales and spatial scales,” Ed Garnero, a professor at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, told Live Science.

As an example of this planet-wide synchronicity, Garnero sent an image (which he made) depicting the mysterious underground structures that some researchers have labeled “the blobs.” These lopsided, continent-sized mountains sit inside Earth’s mantle about halfway between your feet and the center of the planet. While scientists know from seismic imaging that these blobs exist, nobody is exactly sure what they are or what they do.

One intriguing feature of the structures, Garnero said, is that plumes of exceptionally hot rock (depicted here in yellow) appear to rise off the blobs and feed certain volcanoes on the surface — essentially creating a chemical pipeline that connects the deep Earth to the high atmosphere.

“I guess an addendum to this fact is that there is SO MUCH that we do not know about Earth — from the internal structures to the climate,” Garnero said. “It is an exciting time to monitor, measure and model the observations.”

4. “Stained glass” diatoms

A wagon wheel diatom under a microscope (Image credit: NOAA/John R. Dolan, Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche; Observatoire Océanologique de Villefrance-sur-Mer)

One of the most amazing facts about Earth is that “around 20-50% of the Earth’s oxygen is produced by diatoms,” said Sarah Webb, a biologist and associate professor of life science at Arkansas State University-Newport. 

“Diatoms are microscopic algae with a shell made of glass,” Webb told Live Science in an email. Diatoms are pretty to look at, too, she said. “They look like stained glass when viewed under a microscope.” 

Life as we know it wouldn’t be around were it not for an abundance of lung-friendly oxygen gas in our atmosphere. Earth has been oxygenated for about 2.3 billion to 2.4 billion years, but the tiny, delicate diatoms of today likely evolved around 250 million years ago. These unicellular organisms are ubiquitous in Earth’s oceans, and scientists estimate that there are more than 100,000 species of diatoms. 

5. Rivers that flow backward

Robin Bell smiles for the camera in Antarctica, where she does most of her research. (Image credit: Courtesy of Robin Bell)

Antarctica, Earth’s southernmost continent, is one of the driest places on the planet. But there’s a surprising amount of liquid water lurking below the continent’s frozen surface that doesn’t behave as you might expect.

“Beneath the ice in Antarctica there are mountain ranges where rivers flow backward and lakes [that are] the size of New Jersey,” said Robin Bell, president of the American Geophysical Union and a professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, New York.

“The weight of the overlying ice makes the water flow backward while the heat of the Earth keeps the water in the subglacial rivers and lakes from turning into ice,” Bell said.

Scientists discovered clues to a backward-flowing river in Antarctica’s Gamburtsev Mountains after they examined the shape of the icy layer atop the hidden river; that layer aligned with the direction of the water’s movement.

6. Glowing sea creatures

The fluorescent seahorse, Hippocampus erectus, glows a bold red and green. (Image credit: Copyright David Gruber)

More than 70% of Earth is covered with water, so it’s no surprise that scientists such as David Gruber find inspiration in exploring these great depths. Gruber, a presidential professor of biology at City University of New York and an explorer with the National Geographic Society, studies glowing marine animals. He snapped the above photo, which shows the first biofluorescent seahorse known to science.

“Knowing how much magic is happening beneath the sea that we’ve yet to even learn about yet,” is Gruber’s favorite Earth fact. “It’s perhaps my main inspiration as a scientist that maintains my child-like curiosity.”

There’s so much to learn. “How we are connected to other life and what our place is on this amazing planet is still in its early stages,” Gruber told Live Science.

7. Route 66

(Image credit: vectortatu/Shutterstock)

“The boundary between Earth’s mantle and core is roughly 3,000 km [about 1,865 miles] below our feet, a little less than the total length of America’s ‘Mother Road,’ Route 66,” said Jennifer Jackson, a professor of Mineral Physics at Caltech.

Initially, researchers thought that this region was a simple interface between solid rocks and liquid iron-rich metal. But, in reality, “this remote region is almost as complex as Earth’s surface,” she said. 

While it’s impossible to reach this Route-66-long place in person, “geophysical and experimental studies of this distant region reveal a fascinating landscape of chemical and structural complexity that influences what’s happening on Earth’s surface,” Jackson said. “For example, the complex dynamics of Earth’s core-mantle boundary affects Earth’s protective geomagnetic field and the motion of tectonic plates.”

8. Life on our planet

Cambrian fossils formed by cyanobacteria are found in Newfoundland, Canada. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Our planet harbors magnificent life-forms, from tiny, near-invisible organisms to giant, ferocious beasts. Billions of years ago, conditions became just right for the tiniest particles to combine together and form the very first life-forms. 

These life-forms are nearly as ancient as Earth itself. “The Earth is over 4.6 billion years [old], and life has been present on the Earth continuously since at least 3.5 billion years ago,” Shuhai Xiao, professor of geobiology in the Department of Geosciences at Virginia Tech. The earliest evidence for life on our planet comes from the marks these organisms left on rocks, according to a previous Live Science report.

Photosynthetic organisms called cyanobacteria were some of the earliest life-forms on our planet. Here is a photo of fossilized Cambrian mounds formed by cyanobacteria in Newfoundland, Canada.

9. Climate feedback

It’s not too hot or too cold for this moose in Washington’s temperate rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Another amazing feature of our planet is how various processes interact in so-called climate feedbacks, which act to either amplify or diminish other climate forces. 

“It’s amazing how climate feedbacks have maintained a habitable planetary climate for hundreds of millions of years —- right in the sweet spot of not too cold, not too warm,” said Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. 

However, these same feedbacks could make the effects of climate change worse, because they may further amplify the planet’s already increasing temperatures, resulting in what is known as “positive feedback,” according to NASA. For instance, as the globe warms, it causes more sea ice to melt; ice reflects a lot of sunlight, sending heat back out to space; but when that ice melts, it reveals a dark sea surface that instead absorbs heat.

“We need to fight climate change harder, to keep our planet habitable and flourishing,” Overpeck said. “That’s what we all need to rededicate ourselves to on this 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day.”

10. The past influences the future

(Image credit: Merritt Turetsky)

An amazing fact is that “historical legacies often dictate how Earth will respond to modern change,” said Merritt Turetsky, the director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder. 

“A legacy can be thought of as [a] memory of an ecosystem with regard to past events,” Turetsky said. “One example is permafrost, frozen soils that have accumulated at high latitudes over millennia. Today, permafrost soils store so much carbon — derived from ancient plants, animals and microbes that existed on the surface of our planet — that they will be a major player in how Earth responds to future climate change.”

“The past often is the key to understanding our planet’s future,” Turetsky told Live Science.

Caption: Merritt Turetsky’s team samples frozen permafrost soils in Alaska and Canada to understand how past soil types influence the ability of Arctic ecosystems to cope with modern environmental change.

11. Fascinating dimensions

(Image credit: Johann Philipp Klages)

Our planet is a dynamic and ever-evolving giant orb, with earthquakes shifting the rocky plates that make up its surface, volcanoes that exude fiery lava from the planet’s innards, and even deep-sea hydrothermal vents that gurgle out sizzling mineral water that supports bizarre forms of life. All of this can be enchanting to scientists who immerse themselves in the planet’s geology.

Glacial geologist Johann Philipp Klages said his favorite aspects of Earth are “its fascinating dimensions and unexpected forces, which pleasantly tell us, again and again, how small and insignificant we are in the context of Earth’s history.” 

Klages is a research scientist in the Marine Geology section of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany. An expedition on the institution’s icebreaker RV Polarstern took Klages to the Amundsen Sea Embayment in West Antarctica in 2017, where he captured this gorgeous image of the ship in front of the Pine Island ice shelf edge.

12. Natural healing

This mother and baby tapir might just help the Amazon rainforest.  (Image credit: Shutterstock)

What is Earth’s greatest feature? That “it supports life!” Marcia Macedo, an associate scientist and director of the Water Program at Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) in Massachusetts, told Live Science.

“What amazes me is that most natural systems have the capacity to heal themselves after big disturbances,” she said. “This is as true for a human body recovering from disease as it is for a tropical forest growing back after an intense fire.”

Macedo added, “sometimes that healing is facilitated by surprising heroes,” such as the tapir, which can restore degraded forests in the Amazon. The tapir does this by munching on fruit from healthy trees and then depositing their seeds in areas that have been previously burned, according to a WHRC statement.

Originally published on Live Science. 

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Tags: 12, Celebrate, day, Earth, Heres, Reasons

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