#I am taking an educational break

[caelanglang]

injury recovery…

*break an arm or two out there kids!*

[septembersghost]

some of you have leaned so hard into your utterly empty, intellectually devoid, frivolous language that masquerades as progressive radicalism and sociological purity testing that you have fallen all the way into dehumanization and condemnation of the "other" to prove from behind your screens that you have joined the "correct side" of what is tantamount to hardline dogmatic thinking. if you suppress individual thought, compassion, open discussion, and malign the free press, you are not a progressive, you are a functional conservative in a different outfit. if you have decided that your abstract language and frothy ideals should be elevated above actual human life, and are using said language to divorce it from humanistic approaches to others and concern for their welfare, or worse, are using it to actively harass and frighten them, you are, in fact, the very enemy you claim to be fighting, and you should not be trusted, because your philosophies are built upon sand and will shift with the tides to make sure you are not affected by the damage that you do.

[moki-dokie]

how to make 19 year old boy who came of age during the pandemic and never had a real real job before now realize he needs to Chill The Fuck Out and be Less eagar about working for free holy shit he is impossible to wrangle

[mewgatori]

Listening to a recording of a long lecture is spiritually painful to me. Having it as background noise while I draw only makes it slightly more tolerable

[neverendingford]

Therapists have two genders:

Professional Asshole and

Well-meaning Incompetent

[illdothehotvoice]

God god God why do I have so much work to do all the time for everyone ouuuuugh

[nabaath-areng]

I was planning to build new desktop this fall, but seeing that the winter half year practically chains me to bed making me incapable of sitting up I took some of my savings to get a laptop so I can have it in bed for drawing, writing etc at least. And so I'll save back up the coming months and build it once spring arrives instead (hopefully component prices has gone down then too)

All that to say I can only eat my hands as I catch glimpses of dawntrail news after having been ffxiv-less since july last year. my abstinence is out the roof

[the-irrelevant-trumpeter]

i think it should be illegal for people to have to do schoolwork in the holidays. they’re specifically there so that we DON’T have to do school. why must i do more stuff when this should be my opportunity to binge tv shows or write fics or create gifsets or just sit around doing nothing. i don’t want to do schoolwork.

[sunxdusk]

I mean, Briengr is rich. He has no use for coin, but he does understand their value and keeps all the coins he's acquired from his adventures in the cellar of his home. It's practically overflowing with septims, gems, and jewelry. So if a dear friend of his needs coins, he'll happily allow them to choose the amount they desire, or if there's bribing to be done, he'll give more than that person deserves.

"But Yaya, why doesn't he spend money like everyone else?"

Simple. Why should he go to the marketplace to buy fresh foods when he can easily grow crops or hunt for his own meat? Why should he buy potions from the local alchemist when he's already a pro at alchemy and can craft his own concoctions? Why should he purchase weapons and armor when he can prepare his own?

Briengr was raised to be self-sufficient. So long as he may live, you will NEVER catch him spending gold on anything unless he's got no other choice. That's why his cellar is nearly filled to the brim with gold...he barely uses any of it!

[asgardian--angels]

Planet's Fucked: What Can You Do To Help? (Long Post)

Since nobody is talking about the existential threat to the climate and the environment a second Trump term/Republican government control will cause, which to me supersedes literally every other issue, I wanted to just say my two cents, and some things you can do to help. I am a conservation biologist, whose field was hit substantially by the first Trump presidency. I study wild bees, birds, and plants.

In case anyone forgot what he did last time, he gagged scientists' ability to talk about climate change, he tried zeroing budgets for agencies like the NOAA, he attempted to gut protections in the Endangered Species Act (mainly by redefining 'take' in a way that would allow corporations to destroy habitat of imperiled species with no ramifications), he tried to do the same for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (the law that offers official protection for native non-game birds), he sought to expand oil and coal extraction from federal protected lands, he shrunk the size of multiple national preserves, HE PULLED US OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT, and more.

We are at a crucial tipping point in being able to slow the pace of climate change, where we decide what emissions scenario we will operate at, with existential consequences for both the environment and people. We are also in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction, with the rate of species extinctions far surpassing background rates due completely to human actions. What we do now will determine the fate of the environment for hundreds or thousands of years - from our ability to grow key food crops (goodbye corn belt! I hated you anyway but), to the pressure on coastal communities that will face the brunt of sea level rise and intensifying extreme weather events, to desertification, ocean acidification, wildfires, melting permafrost (yay, outbreaks of deadly frozen viruses!), and a breaking down of ecosystems and ecosystem services due to continued habitat loss and species declines, especially insect declines. The fact that the environment is clearly a low priority issue despite the very real existential threat to so many people, is beyond my ability to understand. I do partly blame the public education system for offering no mandatory environmental science curriculum or any at all in most places. What it means is that it will take the support of everyone who does care to make any amount of difference in this steeply uphill battle.

There are not enough environmental scientists to solve these issues, not if public support is not on our side and the majority of the general public is either uninformed or actively hostile towards climate science (or any conservation science).

So what can you, my fellow Americans, do to help mitigate and minimize the inevitable damage that lay ahead?

I'm not going to tell you to recycle more or take shorter showers. I'll be honest, that stuff is a drop in the bucket. What does matter on the individual level is restoring and protecting habitat, reducing threats to at-risk species, reducing pesticide use, improving agricultural practices, and pushing for policy changes. Restoring CONNECTIVITY to our landscape - corridors of contiguous habitat - will make all the difference for wildlife to be able to survive a changing climate and continued human population expansion.

**Caveat that I work in the northeast with pollinators and birds so I cannot provide specific organizations for some topics, including climate change focused NGOs. Scientists on tumblr who specialize in other fields, please add your own recommended resources. **

We need two things: FUNDING and MANPOWER.

You may surprised to find that an insane amount of conservation work is carried out by volunteers. We don't ever have the funds to pay most of the people who want to help. If you really really care, consider going into a conservation-related field as a career. It's rewarding, passionate work.

At the national level, please support:

The Nature Conservancy

Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

Cornell Lab of Ornithology (including eBird)

National Audubon Society

Federal Duck Stamps (you don't need to be a hunter to buy one!)

These first four work to acquire and restore critical habitat, change environmental policy, and educate the public. There is almost certainly a Nature Conservancy-owned property within driving distance of you. Xerces plays a very large role in pollinator conservation, including sustainable agriculture, native bee monitoring programs, and the Bee City/Bee Campus USA programs. The Lab of O is one of the world's leaders in bird research and conservation. Audubon focuses on bird conservation. You can get annual memberships to these organizations and receive cool swag and/or a subscription to their publications which are well worth it. You can also volunteer your time; we need thousands of volunteers to do everything from conducting wildlife surveys, invasive species removal, providing outreach programming, managing habitat/clearing trails, planting trees, you name it. Federal Duck Stamps are the major revenue for wetland conservation; hunters need to buy them to hunt waterfowl but anyone can get them to collect!

THERE ARE DEFINITELY MORE, but these are a start.

Additionally, any federal or local organizations that seek to provide support and relief to those affected by hurricanes, sea level rise, any form of coastal climate change...

At the regional level:

These are a list of topics that affect major regions of the United States. Since I do not work in most of these areas I don't feel confident recommending specific organizations, but please seek resources relating to these as they are likely major conservation issues near you.

PRAIRIE CONSERVATION & PRAIRIE POTHOLE WETLANDS

DRYING OF THE COLORADO RIVER (good overview video linked)

PROTECTION OF ESTUARIES AND SALTMARSH, ESPECIALLY IN THE DELAWARE BAY AND LONG ISLAND (and mangroves further south, everglades etc; this includes restoring LIVING SHORELINES instead of concrete storm walls; also check out the likely-soon extinction of saltmarsh sparrows)

UNDAMMING MAJOR RIVERS (not just the Colorado; restoring salmon runs, restoring historic floodplains)

NATIVE POLLINATOR DECLINES (NOT honeybees. for fuck's sake. honeybees are non-native domesticated animals. don't you DARE get honeybee hives to 'save the bees')

WILDLIFE ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER (support the Mission Butterfly Center!)

INVASIVE PLANT AND ANIMAL SPECIES (this is everywhere but the specifics will differ regionally, dear lord please help Hawaii)

LOSS OF WETLANDS NATIONWIDE (some states have lost over 90% of their wetlands, I'm looking at you California, Ohio, Illinois)

INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE, esp in the CORN BELT and CALIFORNIA - this is an issue much bigger than each of us, but we can work incrementally to promote sustainable practices and create habitat in farmland-dominated areas. Support small, local farms, especially those that use soil regenerative practices, no-till agriculture, no pesticides/Integrated Pest Management/no neonicotinoids/at least non-persistent pesticides. We need more farmers enrolling in NRCS programs to put farmland in temporary or permanent wetland easements, or to rent the land for a 30-year solar farm cycle. We've lost over 99% of our prairies to corn and soybeans. Let's not make it 100%.

INDIGENOUS LAND-BACK EFFORTS/INDIGENOUS LAND MANAGEMENT/TEK (adding this because there have been increasing efforts not just for reparations but to also allow indigenous communities to steward and manage lands either fully independently or alongside western science, and it would have great benefits for both people and the land; I know others on here could speak much more on this. Please platform indigenous voices)

HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS (get your neighbors to stop dumping fertilizers on their lawn next to lakes, reduce agricultural runoff)

OCEAN PLASTIC (it's not straws, it's mostly commercial fishing line/trawling equipment and microplastics)

A lot of these are interconnected. And of course not a complete list.

At the state and local level:

You probably have the most power to make change at the local level!

Support or volunteer at your local nature centers, local/state land conservancy non-profits (find out who owns&manages the preserves you like to hike at!), state fish & game dept/non-game program, local Audubon chapters (they do a LOT). Participate in a Christmas Bird Count!

Join local garden clubs, which install and maintain town plantings - encourage them to use NATIVE plants. Join a community garden!

Get your college campus or city/town certified in the Bee Campus USA/Bee City USA programs from the Xerces Society

Check out your state's official plant nursery, forest society, natural heritage program, anything that you could become a member of, get plants from, or volunteer at.

Volunteer to be part of your town's conservation commission, which makes decisions about land management and funding

Attend classes or volunteer with your land grant university's cooperative extension (including master gardener programs)

Literally any volunteer effort aimed at improving the local environment, whether that's picking up litter, pulling invasive plants, installing a local garden, planting trees in a city park, ANYTHING. make a positive change in your own sphere. learn the local issues affecting your nearby ecosystems. I guarantee some lake or river nearby is polluted

MAKE HABITAT IN YOUR COMMUNITY. Biggest thing you can do. Use plants native to your area in your yard or garden. Ditch your lawn. Don't use pesticides (including mosquito spraying, tick spraying, Roundup, etc). Don't use fertilizers that will run off into drinking water. Leave the leaves in your yard. Get your school/college to plant native gardens. Plant native trees (most trees planted in yards are not native). Remove invasive plants in your yard.

On this last point, HERE ARE EASY ONLINE RESOURCES TO FIND NATIVE PLANTS and LEARN ABOUT NATIVE GARDENING:

Xerces Society Pollinator Conservation Resource Center

Pollinator Pathway

Audubon Native Plant Finder

Homegrown National Park (and Doug Tallamy's other books)

National Wildlife Federation Native Plant Finder (clunky but somewhat helpful)

Heather Holm (for prairie/midwest/northeast)

MonarchGard w/ Benjamin Vogt (for prairie/midwest)

Native Plant Trust (northeast & mid-atlantic)

Grow Native Massachusetts (northeast)

Habitat Gardening in Central New York (northeast)

There are many more - I'm not familiar with resources for western states. Print books are your biggest friend. Happy to provide a list of those.

Lastly, you can help scientists monitor species using citizen science. Contribute to iNaturalist, eBird, Bumblebee Watch, or any number of more geographically or taxonomically targeted programs (for instance, our state has a butterfly census carried out by citizen volunteers).

In short? Get curious, get educated, get involved. Notice your local nature, find out how it's threatened, and find out who's working to protect it that you can help with. The health of the planet, including our resilience to climate change, is determined by small local efforts to maintain and restore habitat. That is how we survive this. When government funding won't come, when we're beat back at every turn trying to get policy changed, it comes down to each individual person creating a safe refuge for nature.

Thanks for reading this far. Please feel free to add your own credible resources and organizations.

[curiousorigins]

Also just to further complicate this debate. In much of the Western U.S., a Scone is pretty much Fry Bread, Sopapillas or Beignets and is the base for a Navajo Taco. (Again called in that case called Fry Bread because that is what Indigenous Americans call it. For them it came out of their cleverness in using the particularly insufficient Government rations they received when they were forced onto barren reservation lands.)

Depending on where in the Western U.S; it is traditionally served with honey and butter, at least when the particular recipe comes from White Americans that have been in the Western U.S. for 3 generations or so, sometimes Jam. Sopapillas have their own particular way of being served, (honey, and syrup; or savory) and sometimes dramatic differences in recipes; those come from Latin America. Beignets I'll admit to knowing almost nothing about them, a part from the Princess and the Frog; usually with powdered (confectioner's) sugar.

Obviously the nearer you are to a Rez, the more likely it will be called Fry Bread. Whereas if you're in a white former frontier/pioneer land it's probably called Scones and if you're in a Latino Heavy place in the West... Sopapillas it will be. Having never made it to the American South, I can't say how common Beignets are... it's possible it's just a Former French Colony thing, I know Fry Bread also happened there... but it's possible that's partly the influence of the Reservation System.

A lot of cultural exchange happened between even Faraway Indigenous Nations because of how necessary supporting each other was in trying to keep the American Government from decimating them. (Both regular genocide and cultural genocide wise. Because the U.S. definitely are colonists in the worst kind of way and learned Imperialism as an M.O. from the Brits.) But from my understanding Fry Bread has been claimed to be from the Navajo. (But I also live in a Navajo corner of the nation... so... It's also possibly the case of Simultaneous Invention. )

But yeah, Look up California Scones or Utah Scones if you want to see those. Sopapilla to see those and Fry Bread too. Scones/Fry Bread may be square or they may be free form blobs. I learned to make them freeform but they were temporarily commercialized with SconeCutters and were square then. From my understanding Sconecutters as a restaurant is no more. You could get them with Chili Cheese, honey butter or as a subway like Sandwich from there. Now for rising base, there's some debate about whether they're traditional Scones with yeast, without yeast or with baking soda. I learned to make them with Yeast. They are always deep fried though and turned over when one side is done.

I was around 20 years old the first time I ordered a scone at a restaurant and was given something that looks like the example of the American Scone. Every other time I got Fry Bread. (And I loved Scones/Fry Bread... so plenty of ordering ;)) I'd lived in the Western U.S. my entire life at that point and was 4-5 generations (depending on the family side) there. Funnily enough I thought it must have been an English Scone. Until it kept happening at various Cafes when I traveled.

settling a debate, reblog for reach

[bulletbilltime]

"Did you hear the stupid bigoted thing this known outrage farmer said? What a stupid thing he said! Let's post it everywhere and make the news 24/7 about that thing and make him the center of attention so more people can see the shitty things he said! There is no downside from giving the stupid bigot more of a platform!"

"What do you mean he is the president now. What do you mean he's the president a 2nd time. Nobody could have predicted this."

[faithfromanewperspective]

the thing is, when I think about graduating from my degree in 18 months time, I think of the relief of finishing high school that we felt when we realised we’d never have to do some of those subjects again. don’t get me wrong, I love what I’m studying, but the endless pile of tasks and assignments and new information I’m bombarded with and everything being on my computer and in my notebooks and doing nothing with my hands—that I could do without. at work I always struggled with the fact that I don’t have an end date—there was no end of semester when all my assignments were done, it was just another task on top of another task and up to me to manage how I fit them into my schedule and they’d often roll over the summer break too—there was no big celebration when each task was done, and I need to celebrate the satisfaction. I also need to see a time on the horizon when all of the things taking up my mental load are finished, and in an office job, you don’t have that. but with a university degree, you do.

I’ve come to realise that maybe I’m good at thinking and solving problems and shit but when it comes to basic tasks, maybe I just cant do them and maybe that’s okay. sure, there are more medications and I can work through my traumas that distract me all day when I don’t feel the drive of purpose and the promise of relief from at least one of my burdens more than I have—but in the end, it’s going to be years and years of struggling for something I may never be good at and there is no obligation associated with sunk cost. I’ve done all the studying I need to to start up a not for profit and I’ll probably work a few contract gigs in the industries I’m trained in but damn it I need an end date in every job that I work for anyone so I can know I won’t feel like this forever.

this is why any kind of non white collar job is so enthralling to me. anything that’s about helping people and you get to see the reward when it’s done and you have a happy client and money in your pocket that I can see and actually associate with the job that got done. it’s like doing the laundry, in theory at least. I know people are going to judge me. I know my universities are going to be disappointed in me. but I can make my degrees useful in my not for profit and I can also choose a life for myself that’s simpler on my brain—which is always going to be hyperactive and laser driven on altruistic causes to the point of neglecting anything else. and you know what? if I can earn money at all that’s a win. if this is what it takes to design sustainable cities properly—and I can simply reach out to people working in industries I’m training for rather than working for them forever too—while having a perspective that no one else does because who the fuck does a trade after a master’s degree—then maybe I’ve found the gap in the market or whatever you want to call it. if I have to be cold and emotionless in a job, at least I can do something where I’m in contact with the people living in communities and sustain myself off making them feel better. at least I won’t have to rein in my active hands as well as my sidetracked mind. at least maybe I can see new places every day. maybe there’s a life for me where it’s better than the suffering of the manic grind I’ve put myself through for almost two decades.

[sandsucks]

it’s ok if i skip replying to a profs email bc i don’t feel like it right

[quiltedlovers]

im not booktok’s intended audience and am a hashtag hater for many reasons but jack edwards is doing something right

[sketchyfandomgirl]

College really is out to get me

I have two exams to do over the weekend, 3 projects from the same class, 3-4 assignments plus a quiz from another class, and idk how many courses of math homework that doesn’t even get mentioned in my stats class and it’s fuckin break

It’s really not a break it’s basically a fucking relocation back home to do the same shit as always and have the audacity to say “have a restful happy break”