#bc the people suck and so does math/chemistry/world history

[gnrsly]

being a sophomore SUCKS

[jeonsdear]

God I’m 22 and I know almost nothing about politics and I get so confused when people talk about it and I feel so stupid. I’ve had people explain some things to me but I always forget bc my brain is the size of a peanut. Same thing about different incomes or taxes or rent or literally anything, I never know what is wrong, right, a lot or too little? Feeling stupid is a everyday mood for me and I hate it

Don’t be fooled by people confidently stating they know about politics. If there’s one thing I’m taking away from being a politics major is that most people know what the government, the media, their parents and conspiracy theories want them to know. Meaning, most people know shit. I’m a very empirical political science scientist (I guess? lmao) and I believe in numbers and tests instead of philosophy. Not saying you can explain everything empirically, but I do believe if you try to explain the world, international relations and politics purely philosophically you are not explaining reality. You are explaining your own reality. So don’t worry, most people just think they know. Or they love to pretend they do.

Having said that, I don’t believe everyone needs to be super into politics. But I do wish people would at least know the basics aka being able to identify major presidents, knowing how their own voting-system works etc. By not knowing you are allowing other people to control you. That’s not cool. See? The basics are enough and you don’t need to know International Relation Theories. 

I’m sure you understand the basics and that’s perfectly fine! Taxes, rent and income is mostly economics. Which is a part of politics, yes, but even political science researchers and scientists have their field they work in. You most likely won’t find a professor working in International Relations and at the same time publishing papers about Comparative Politics. We all have our strong interests, and we work in those. Economic classes are the ones I struggle the most with. I love law. God I could study law all the time. But I hate economics. Why? Because I’m not good at maths. Fiscal politics is my death.

What I’m trying to say is that just because you don’t feel smart in a certain field doesn’t mean you’re not intelligent. There’s no way I could teach a 7th grade maths class without epically failing and throwing myself out of the window because I can’t even remember how to divide without a calculator. Same goes for most natural sciences, I always sucked at them. Never understood chemistry nor physics and I dropped those in school as soon as I could. My strong suits are humanities. Psychology, paedagogics, language studies, literature, politics, history.  I’m really smart in those but have zero brain cells for natural sciences and mathematics.

What about students that suck in school in general, you might ask me. Well, I’m that kind of teacher that firmly believes that not every person is made for theoretical studies. I’m also that teacher that does not think that makes those people any less smart. They might not be book smart, but most of them excel in practical fields such as sports, sewing, cooking, building etc. I am a very book-smart person and I prefer theory over practical application so I can guarantee you I’m pretty dumb when it comes to fixing anything in my house. I can’t even change tires. I can barely cook. I don’t mind that but what I want to say is that they might be a lot more advanced in living life more easily. Our society puts so much value on academic intelligence when in reality it is practical people holding daily practices together. No society can work without one or the other. There shouldn’t be value placed on either. 

And you shouldn’t discredit yourself for not being the smartest in politics either. You are smart in your field. 

However if you ever feel like asking questions, feel free to drop by and I can try my best to explain 💖

[synchronysymphony]

My dear that's too vague, please rant

okay I’m so sorry wow but here it Comes ,, (this is really therapeutic for me LOL so you don’t have to read it bc it’s going to be so long) (also under a read-more bc I don’t want to ruin anyone’s day)

my guy ,, I’m not the type of person to give up easily. I’m persistent, and I really do believe in getting up and trying again, no matter how hard things are. But I feel like I really should give up, because nothing I do seems to do any good, and I’m fucking up everything in my entire life.I adore academia. I always have, even as a little girl when I had to teach myself math, and assign myself grades because being an unschooler can suck for someone who genuinely wants to learn everything, and has no one to ask for help. But I was good at it! I did teach myself math, and history, and literature, and science, and all those things– and I taught them to my younger siblings, too. When I got to high school, I thought things would change, because I fought so hard to get out of homeschooling (not that it’s a bad thing; it just wasn’t right for me), and now I had a chance to learn, and be taught, and do real homework, and it all seemed so perfect.Except, I really struggled! I didn’t have a good background in math and science, so I had to work so much harder than everyone else just to do worse (which, granted, for an AP student isn’t really bad, but I’ve always looked for reasons to hate myself, so this was a good one). And it continued all four years! I loved learning so much, and on the few occasions when I could concentrate long enough to read the textbook, I got really into it and could spend hours just poring away. I took AP chemistry, not because I’m good at science, but because I wanted to learn it, and I was fascinated by the labs. But I didn’t do very well in the end, and that probably really affected my ability to get scholarships. I ended up going to Ohio State my freshman year, 2500 miles away from home, because they gave me more money than anyone else.When I transferred to UCLA for my second year, I thought everything was going to turn around. I was back in California! I was studying at one of the best linguistics programs in the country! Except ,,I still couldn’t study. I still couldn’t concentrate. And I still couldn’t get out of bed or participate in class or go to office hours often. I tried really hard, and I still am, but nothing seems to be working. I had to give up my computer science minor because two weeks into Intermediate Programming, I realized I couldn’t remember how to do functions (which is like ,, really bad lol). I love learning so much, and it’s always been my dream to go into academia and be a professor/researcher and share knowledge with the world, because in my eyes, that’s the noblest thing I could do (me in particular, not “one”). But I can’t fucking cut it in this world. My syntax class is so hard. I failed two quizzes, do you know that? Most of the people in my class really hate it. All they do is complain, and they don’t care about it, and they’re definitely going to forget everything in two months, which is totally fine, and I’m not judging, but I hate myself so much, because I do care, and I do want to learn, but I do so horribly in comparison. 

And then, my future. I love working in the lab with all my heart, but I don’t think I’m going to get a position there for next year. I decided to take a gap year, you know, because grad school is expensive, but now I need to find a job, and I’m so scared that I won’t be able to. My mom thinks I’m a burden already, and I am, and I really do think it would be better if I died, because then she wouldn’t have to pay for me anymore. It’s a bit of a sunk-cost fallacy, though, because I’ve stayed alive for this long, so it seems like I should continue on. But that’s logically not true. I don’t know if I’ll get into any grad schools, and even if I do, I’ll probably just fuck it up and throw away my chance like I did here. I can’t do anything right, not even the things I love. Yeah, if I’d done a different major, I probably would have been fine, because I’m a good writer, and I’m good at analyzing texts and stuff, but gosh, can you imagine the blowback if I’d decided to do literature or political science? It’s bad enough that I’m doing linguistics and cognitive science. I think the only reason people accept it is because they don’t know what it is.And speaking of which, my dream is of course to get a PhD in linguistics (morphological processing, yeah), but my mom wants me to do psychology. Which, okay, I’m interested in everything, and I do love psych, but she wants me to do it at her university, because it’s free. What kind of horrible person would I be to turn that down? It’s another reason to die, because I know I would go completely insane if I had to live in my home (without my siblings) for another six years, but I can’t say no to my mom after everything she’s done for me. I would be good at clinical psych, I know I would. I shouldn’t even complain. Because what am I even looking for, fulfillment? That’s so selfish. I’m probably the most selfish person ever, because here I am, in love with something so economically useless. I can’t pay for my parents’ divorce by drawing bad syntax trees. I don’t know what’s going to happen in my future, but I dread it so much. I never thought I’d be alive this long, and actually, I still don’t think I’ll make it out of college alive sometimes. I have a really detailed plan for when I die, and I could carry it out literally any time, and most days, I feel like I will. But I probably won’t, because I fail at everything else, so I’m definitely going to fail at that, too.

People have always thought I was popular, and still do, and I do act like it because I’m a conventionally attractive valley girl, but I’m so scared of losing everyone around me and doing something bad that would hurt them. It’s happened before – I’m too pretty, and I get too much attention from people of other genders, and that makes the people around me upset. And I’m not even that great anyway. Like, I’m fun to party with, and I’m charming (I think), but I’m not Good. I’ve had so many bad romantic relationships, and some of them are totally not my fault lmao but others must be. I don’t know what I did, but I must have done something. They would never tell me, though, so I don’t know how to fix it. Anyway, I’m also a really bad person. I’m so selfish and lazy, and I don’t do enough for others, and I’m so self-absorbed, and I’m a whiny crybaby who can’t even stand the word “bitch” and I’m just so weak and annoying and gross. I’m too bubbly, and I say motivational things, and I tell everyone to do their best, and it’s so annoying, but I don’t know what else to do, because I tried creating a fake personality before, and it was just weird, and I hated myself even more. I’m scared to lose people, but I’m even more scared to hurt them, so I end up pushing them away, or isolating myself, and I know I’m going to end up all alone. I’m so afraid of getting older. I have panic attacks whenever I think about graduation. I haven’t even ordered my sash and cap yet, because I’m too much of a fucking baby to go online and do it, and now it’s probably too late. I’m missing so many things, and I’m too old to be this young. I’m so immature, you know? And so ignorant, and so inexperienced, and yeah, I want wisdom, but I’m so afraid to grow up and get it. 

I have two papers to write this weekend, and a take-home final, and a final to study for, but I’m struggling so hard, because I just want to die, and it’s hard to think about anything else. I’m stupid, like it’s not even an indictment, I mean intelligence is just a construct anyway, but I hate it. I want to do better, and I can almost do it, but then something happens, and I fall back down again. I can’t do anything right, and I never have, and I never will. I will die as a complete failure and waste and burden on the world.

And I think that’s the worst part. Because above all, above anything else, I want to be good. I want to help, and make the world better, and create some light and beauty where I can. But I’m not, because even my presence, even the smallest breath I take, is an inconvenience at best. At this point, the only good thing I could do would be to die, but even that would have consequences, because then my parents would have to pay for the funeral (I have it planned– I’m going to keep them from knowing that I killed myself, because the shame of having a daughter who committed suicide would upset my mom so much, but funeral costs aren’t cheap). I just keep putting it off, because I’m a loser like that. Right now, I do have a reason, because I need to write the paper for my group project, but once I do that, I can die. My group partner can present it by herself, I’m sure. But knowing me, I probably won’t. So that’s another thing to hate myself for.

I’m sorry for unloading this. I really am. I know you asked, but you don’t deserve to have this dumped on you, and of course, no one else does either. I’ll do something, so don’t worry, but yeah, don’t feel too bad. I’m still going to do my best (at least until Tuesday).