#but i remember most that at midterms i was studying so hard for my religion in korean history exams that i'd be at the library until 2am

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

Did you *really* go to college if you didn't do this at least twice a semester?

[freudsghost]

I’m not sure how much personal stuff I want to share on this blog but venting about some stuff helps me process. 

So in light of EB 224 I wanna share a bit about what it was like growing up in the south/bible-belt (Texas) and being who I am (a bisexual, Jewish woman) and my experience with Evangelical Christianity and CRU. 

Forewarning: this is not a happy story. these are not glory days. it’s dark. trigger warnings for gas-lighting, manipulation, mental, physical, and emotional abuse, corrective/date rape and semi-forced/coerced marriage, dissociation, eating disorders, depression, anxiety and alcohol. Read at your own risk.

I grew up without much religious influence in my life, my dad wasn’t Jewish (he was agnostic) and my mom is Jewish but not overly concerned with religious beliefs. My grandparents were/are Jewish as well and were WAY more involved in religion, but having survived the holocaust were private about their culture/religion. 

At 17 I was accepted on a full scholarship to Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. And if there’s one thing Lubbock is known for is being one of the most religious cities in Texas. Predominantly Evangelical Christian. 

My first semester, I lived in the women’s architecture honors dorm and quickly made friends with most of the other girls, one in particular I became fast friends with and we studied for almost every test together and were studio partners for almost every project. I’m still friends with her almost 20 years later (its been rough and complicated) so, to protect our friendship and privacy I’ll just call her Mandy. 

Mandy was from a small town up north and her father was an Evangelical pastor and her first priority when getting to uni was to find a bible study group. I was NOT in any way involved in that, because I had no interest in christianity. Some time during Spring semester she started leading her own bible study group and invited me to come with her. I knew she was possibly trying to convert me and I resisted. At 18 I wasn’t very good at confronting people on their motivations but I’ve since talked with her about this and we’ve moved passed it with minimal damage.

I was super focused on my school work and sports and she stopped bringing up the bible study. For a while...

That all changed when she brought a few male friends back to the dorms for a calculus study group before midterms. During the study session I really hit it off with one of the guys. He was a year ahead of me, super smart and I thought he was charming and cute. And it turns out he was the leader of Mandy’s bible study. I’ll call him Vick.

Mandy knew I had a bit of a crush on him and got me to finally come to her bible study, with promises she wasn’t trying to push her beliefs on me but just wanted me to get to know Vick. 

She also said that their group was welcoming to people of other faiths and were open to other perspectives and wanted me to talk about being Jewish and The Torah. Which was weird, being put into a group where no one else was like me and I was the token Jewish person, having to represent everyone from a large diverse culture. I tried to explain I wasn’t the right person to do that but she insisted it would be fine because I was charismatic and outgoing. 

I should also mention that at this point of my life I was extremely outgoing, I had been in many leadership roles and actively sought those things out. I was very comfortable in front of large crowds and at this point I still had the dream of being a musician. 

Mandy knew this, and during her time visiting me over the summer asked me if I would be interested in joining the leadership team. I initially said no because I wasn’t at all interested in the religious aspect of their group, but thought that another leadership position would look good on my resume. So I reconsidered and talked with a couple of my long time friends who said I should go for it. It would put me on stage and I would possibly get to be musically creative. And of course I could always quit if I was uncomfortable. 

And that’s how I, a bisexual Jewish woman, became the leader and emcee for the Texas Tech Branch of Campus Crusade for Christ, or TTUCRU. 

During this time I had grown a lot closer with Vick. We talked on the phone all summer (yes this was before texting and iPhones) and when I returned for fall semester, we started to date. He was the perfect attentive boyfriend. He came across so charming and mature. He was romantic and sweet. Everything I had ever wanted in a partner. By the time my birthday came around in December we were pretty serious about our relationship. I knew he was the kind of man I could fall in love with.

He was also extremely helpful when I had the new pressure to write and coordinate large meetings for a group of people I knew I had VERY LITTLE in common with. I knew I was bisexual. I knew I was Jewish. But most people didn’t know that about me and there was a bit of an unspoken rule that I NOT mention any of those things. Vick suggested I not tell anyone, and it was easy enough to not say anything. I had a good christian boyfriend, everyone assumed I was a straight christian girl. But the whole time I felt like I was being shoved back into the closet not only when I led the group, but every time I was around CRU members. Which was 24/7. CRU became my only social outlet. It consumed most of my free time. It was stressful. 

Other things in my life began to suffer, at this time I was still a collegiate athlete (track and field), and I was majoring in not only one or two but three majors and an unnecessary minor and had to maintain above a 3.8 to keep my scholarship. I was constantly stressed, I started having issues with anxiety and didn’t know how to cope. I had a large public position on campus, because TTUCRU was The Organization to Follow for many students. I had to coordinate with other student organizations and get involved with student politics. I felt a constant weight on my shoulders not only to be a star athlete and student but I had to look The Part. 

This is where things get really dark.

(I should mention before I continue that I also had a traumatic childhood. It’s a long story but to sum it up, my mom bullied me into an early eating disorder. She treated me (and my father and brother) poorly and abused us all mentally and abused me and my brother physically. It’s left me with a lot of unprocessed trauma I wasn’t even aware of until I was an adult.)

It also left me as an easy target to be manipulated.

I’m not really sure how to explain how it happened and I’m not sure I ever will be, but after a few months I realized that I was a powerless bystander in my relationship with Vick. I felt like something was wrong and that I had no control over my own life. I couldn’t pinpoint anything, and if I mentioned this feeling to anyone I was usually dismissed as being stressed. Everyone loved Vick. He had been CRU’s Most Eligible Bachelor. I was constantly reminded this by other members, that I should count myself lucky to have a man like him, no matter what.

Looking back its because I know that he was manipulating me. He was charming and could talk his way into and out of things without anyone even knowing he was doing it. He talked me into things I would have not normally done at that time. Including how serious our relationship was. I felt like big parts of me were becoming less and less important, things that had once been very important to who I was as a person were becoming less and less visible. Like I was losing myself entirely. He used our relationship and his ties to religion and used our membership in CRU to manipulate me. By the time I turned 21 our relationship was nearly inseparable from our positions on the leadership team. He controlled what I said during meetings, he controlled my speeches and my prompts. He had offered to organize all our media and sound. 

I remember wanting to leave, but I knew if I mentioned it to Vick he would leave me and my identity had been so entangled with him, our relationship and CRU I knew I couldn’t. I was convinced I would be nothing without him, without CRU. There were always subtle reminders of this from the culture of the organization. How women are property. None of my accomplishments were ever my own, everything I did was because of Vick or because I was ‘given the opportunity’ by a man. I was also constantly criticized for my appearance. What I should and shouldn’t wear. The size of my jeans. Comments from full time coordinators about how my ass looked too fat. I looked pale and my hair wasn’t right. Vick enforced this. He encouraged me to lose weight and eat less. My already negative body image issues developed into a really unhealthy mindset about eating. I was determined to not be the girl who “gained the freshman 15″. And every time someone “Wow you look so great!” it felt amazing so I just kept not eating. 

Somehow a headstrong outspoken rebellious teenager who didn’t give two fucks about other people’s opinions had changed into a 21 year old whose identity was entirely based on the validation and judgement I got from standing on the stage in an auditorium filled with strangers and people I had very little in common with. But all that started to break down right before finals the spring semester of my junior year. 

I had moved into a house off campus and I was home alone with Vick keeping me company and we had been horsing around, playing with my dog and out of nowhere he snapped at me and rage I had only seen turned on other people was suddenly focused entirely on me. I still don’t know what sparked his rage and it doesn’t matter. All I know is that he grabbed me and shoved me, picked me up and threw me on the hard concrete floor. After months of treatment and several x-rays and MRIs, I found out that I had two herniated discs that had resulted in nerve damage causing chronic pain, migraines and muscle damage.

I had to quit playing almost all sports after this injury because between disordered eating, weight loss and this new injury I was trying to recover from I couldn’t physically handle the rigorous training. I also got put on some heavy opiates to deal with the pain and doctors at the time had no problem giving me prescription after prescription for heavier and heavier pain killers. Pain killers like Oxy and Vicodin left me in a pretty vulnerable state to be taken advantage of in many ways. Over spring break that year I went on a couples vacation with Vick where we were going to spend one weekend together hiking and meet up with friends to go sightseeing and to an amusement park. 

(this part is extremely hard for me to recall both because of being drugged and traumatic processing) The Saturday we spent alone ended with us going to get drinks at a martini bar that was recommended to us by a friend. I don’t remember having too many drinks or having anything beyond one drink at all. I had purposely not taken any pain medication because I knew it could be dangerous. I heavily suspect Vick drugged my drink. All I can recall fuzzy memories of being carried to his car, being carried and half dragged into our room, and Vick roughly taking my clothes off me and holding me down to sexually assault me. I remember being scared and confused. I remember asking him what he was doing. And I remember saying no. 

He did this after years of insisting to me that he was waiting for marriage to have sex. He enforced his belief system on our relationship, no questions allowed. I remember waking up Sunday morning the day we were going to meet our friends and feeling sick, sicker than I’d ever felt before in my life. I remember wanting to hide and not see anyone ever again. I shoved myself into the tightest darkest corner in our washroom and cried before calling one of my friends we were meeting with later to prepare her for the conversation I knew I needed to have with her. 

She didn’t believe me. 

No one did. 

I was shocked and humiliated. People’s reactions ranged from “Vick wouldn’t do that he’s an upstanding member of CRU” to “You were asking for it by (drinking)(being on drugs)(being a tease)(dressing like that)(you consented by just being his girlfriend)” 

I confronted him about it and told him that I knew what he did. He didn’t even try to deny it. He said he had been drinking and couldn’t control himself. I was certain it would be the end of our relationship. But in the storm of all of this, the two full time coordinators (two older adult men in their 40s/50s) of CRU called me in for a meeting mid-semester. They sat me down for lunch and fired me because they heard the rumors that I had been having premarital sex with Vick and they couldn’t allow someone like me lead their organization. They then used my sexuality and religion they had previously been aware of against me. They called me a whore and a heathen and dismissed me. 

I felt alone. I couldn’t turn to my family because they’ve never been supportive. My boyfriend had just done something unthinkable to me and I couldn’t trust him anymore and most of my friends thought I was a liar or a whore. Rumors started. I got the most judgmental amounts of hate I’ve ever had in my entire life from people who had previously been my friends. 

(somehow in the midst of all of that I managed to keep my grades up and not fail or drop out lol)

My friends told me if what I said was true, if I had sex with Vick the only right thing to do was to stay with him. They cherry picked bible verse after bible verse, a book I didn’t even believe in, to prove that I was trash unless I was committed to him. That I had to be his wife (property) forever. And Vick refused to leave me. Seeing him made me sick but after refusing to leave over and over again I gave in when he begged for us to go to couples counselling. 

(spoiler alert: going to a therapist your rapist has hand picked with them, isn’t a good solution) 

The ‘therapist’ was not-shockingly associated with CRU and the church Vick attended. He made it very clear what my role should be and that even if what I said happened, it wasn’t real. It wasn’t rape. It couldn’t be and that I needed to ‘process what it meant to be a good wife’ so I would be a proper woman for Vick. He used words like immature and selfish to describe my emotional upset.  

I remember leaving our second and final session crying and angry. I went home and felt even more alone. I felt pathetic. Vick kept trying to salvage our relationship but he ‘warned’ me that time was running out because he was leaving for an internship over the summer and we wouldn’t see each other. 

I was right. I had the whole summer to focus on me and getting into graduate school. I was writing my undergraduate dissertation and finishing up important studio classes to graduate a semester early that fall. I remember having this feeling that I needed to run away and wasn’t sure why. But I didn’t use any of my time alone to process what had really happened. I kept denying it. I was filled with so much self hatred, guilt, and shame. 

When Vick came back in the Fall he proposed to me and laid it out like an ultimatum. I either had to marry him or we had to break up. He knew how scrambled my brain was, and used everything he could against me. He promised me that I wouldn’t have anything if I said no. I wouldn’t have him, I would loose all my friends that I was lucky to still have and no one would respect or want me ever again. I was terrified and stressed and still on and off pain medication. I had no support system and no support from my family and no real friends. 

I remember going home with the ring and bawling my eyes out. I had a full on panic attack and cried for hours. My mom told me to ‘control myself’ because I was overreacting. She loved Vick and told me what a lucky girl i was to have  such a good and supporting man in my life. Told me that I was a stupid girl if I said no. So I said yes. We were engaged for over a year and a half. I kept putting off the wedding and I let him plan it all with my mother. 

Vick insisted we take time to go thru CRU recommended engagement counseling and seminar after seminar. I forced me to pray with him constantly. He said I needed to ask for forgiveness for what I had done. He started getting more and more jealous and would accuse me of “mentally cheating” if i looked too long at anyone. He would corner me and force me to confess my “adulterous” feelings. I remember believing him during this time. That looking at anyone, strangers or friends, men or women, was horrible and that I was betraying him if I had any thoughts about anyone else. I felt like a shell of a person. I gave up control over most of my life. I had given up trying to end things and decided to make the best of the inevitable.

I knew I didn’t love him. I knew I wasn’t a christian. I knew I didn’t believe in any of it. And I knew I couldn’t love him after what he did. And I knew before we got married he wasn’t the kind of man who could love me back. 

We got married on my birthday and I remember crying for hours beforehand. I insisted I was just nervous and stressed. The only person who ever asked if it was what I really wanted was my dad. An untimely question seconds before I was getting married. I never answered him. I wanted to say no. I should’ve said no. I wished I had listened to the gut feeling telling me to run.

That’s where I’m ending my story because the rest is a bit inconsequential to what I wanted to vent about. I left him after eight months of marriage. I had to reach out to friends finally, despite the guilt and shame. I still deal with a lot of internalized bullshit to this day because of him and the brainwashing (I don’t have a better term, sorry) I got from CRU and his church.

As an aside, I just want to say that this is MY story. These are MY feelings and no one else’s. I know ‘not all christians’-- I have friends and family who are christians. But I wanted to share this because I needed to. For personal reasons. And I know there are tons of other stories out there.

If anyone has any questions or wants to DM me just to talk, feel free! I probably won’t be posting public replies or asks about this though. It’s still kind of hard to talk about publicly. <3

[tommyquackson]

The Plant That Grew From the Root of All Evil |P. Parker| Part 2

summary: you’re no good girl, no you’re quite the opposite, chaos itself even, yet somehow, he still affects you // in which a villan and a superhero cross paths

warnings: murder, violence, witchcraft and possesions?, cursing of curse, and torture (lowkey intense) 

pairing: peter parker x villan!reader

authors note: this isnt exactly a love fic?? cause like it was more about their lives than eachother.. but idk i may change the last part and have them end up together, let me know though...

“Hey Pete, we still going to Mays for sunday dinner?” Ned asks his best friend and roommate. Peter is jolted out of his deep thoughts and research.

“Oh uh yea, text may and tell her we’ll be there in like in like 30 mins. I’ll text Tony.” He says finishing up reading the article he was on.

“What’re you working so hard on? Like we just finished midterms.” Ned walks behind peter to see what he’s reading.

“It’s just, some girl. You know Angel?”

“Angel....Oh! The badass lady villain you’ve been fighting?”

Peter gives his best friend a look of confusion.

“Uh..I mean, that bad criminal that’s wreaking havoc and that the amazing spider-man is gonna take down?” Ned corrects with a guilty smile on his face.

“Yea, well i found out she’s got, like i don’t know powers? I guess”

“What kind of powers?” Ned pulls up a chair to sit.

“I’m not sure” Peter rubs his face in thought. “Like strength and speed but it’s not like crazy noticeable. She-she-her eyes like glow? yea they glow like red and it’s creepy and I have no idea where she even came from.”

“Why don’t you ask that girl from high school? Remember everyone said she was like a pagan or something and she practiced dark magic and stuff. Maybe she knows something about it. What was her name? Something like-“

“Y/n!” Peter knows exactly who that is. She’d always been extremely quiet. She stayed in the library most days and seemed to always be studying dark magic and weird stuff like that.

How was he supposed to find you though, you’d dropped out of school 2 months before graduation. You didn’t have any friends and no one knew anything about you.

“I have no idea where she could even be” Peter says defeated.

“Oh she works part time at the library next to the little park. It’s just a train ride away. Can’t take more than 10 minutes.” Ned says moving to pull up the place on Peters laptop.

“Ned, you’re the best man in the chair a hero could ask for” Peter says winking at him, making ned swell with pride. “We can go tomorrow after classes, now come on. May and Tony are waiting”

Your day job was nothing short of fairly boring, you worked at the library near a small community college so you really only had to deal with students trying to study and little kids reading picture books. The library was fairly big so each librarian handled their own section. You handled the history and “magic/religion” section. But since that section was usually only littered with students trying to write a history paper, you stayed at the front desk on your floor.

Today, you’ve been at work since 9am and it’s already 3pm. You don’t get to leave until 8. You’re sitting at the desk, filing through the books that are recorded as late. You hear the door to your section open and you look up to greet whoever’s there.

“Hello, welcome to Green Acres, History and Magic/Religions section what can I do for you?” You speak kindly to the 2 college aged boys who walked in with their backpacks.

“Hey, this is probably super weird, but we actually wanted to talk to you” The smaller, white one speaks as he gets to the desk.

“Umm-“

“Sorry my friend Peter, made that seem really weird. I’m Ned, we went to high school with you. We just had a few questions and we figured given your occupation you’d be the best to help us” The larger one says stepping in front of “Peter”.

How’d they know you worked here, you haven’t talked to anyone from high school. Which occupation is he talking about, do they know about your secret identity. If so, how you’d been so careful.

“Okay...well what’d ya wanna know?” You relaxing into your chair a bit.

“We have questions about like powers... A friend of mine, she um, well they started behaving strangely and I was wondering if you could help figure out what was wrong?” Peter says tapping his long fingers on the desk.

“oh, sorry i’m in the magic and historical and section you’d be better off asking Mrs. Alice in the health and personal care section.” I say wondering why this boy would need my help. I’m not a doctor.

“oH! Yea I know, but my friend, we uh, we suspect that it has something to maybe do with possible magic?”

“You think you’re friend has gotten in to magic?” You raise your eyebrow.

“I know it sounds crazy but please you’re the only person i could think of to help me”

“Why because everyone at Midtown thought I was a dark and evil witch” You speak standing up from your desk and walking towards the shelves.

“No! No- I just, you used to study witchcraft and i figured since you work in the history section you could tell me if this has happened before. I didn’t mean to imply your a witch, that would be rude but I-“

“Who said they were wrong” You wink before guiding the boys towards a dimly lit section. “So, What’s happening with your friend” You say pulling out your favorite books.

“Well, she uh she’s much stronger than she was before, and she’s faster and more agile. She also has this um, this like type of glow around her? It’s like black and then her eyes glow red”

“Mhm, whole eye or just the iris?” You speak turning to one book.

“iris”

You look at the pages that detail when spells go wrong. Nothing describes the right situation. You turn to entities that may be possibly possessing the friend.

“I’m not seeing anything, wait, you said she has a glow around her kinda like an aura right?” You slam the book closed and move to this super large book about entities and witchcraft.

“Yea..”

“Holy fuck. Your friend, might just be the Grand One. The Grand One is someone chosen by the evil sprites to possess the grand power. It can be anyone, or anything at anytime for any reason. But they tend to sway towards people who have practiced and studied dark magic. If this chick gets anymore powerful, which i’m assuming she will, if you’re telling me the truth, she can wreak extreme havoc on New York. But that’s all if you believe in that mumbo jumbo anyway.” You slam the book closed and put it back on the shelf before walking away to your desk again. It was different outside, you could see through the large windows that the atmosphere had changed.

“Um. Thanks y/n, you helped out a lot” Peter and his friend Ned smiled as they left my building, whispering to each other.

You’d forgotten about the Grand One. It was simply just a dream you’d had when you were little. Telling you what would become of you. The people you would hurt and the chaos you’d reign. You thrived in chaos, reveled in it even, but it was a certain chaos. It was the frustration of everyone around you, knowing they’re just not smart enough, or strong enough not worth enough. It was the slow, dark, treaterous journey to the depths of hell that got your blood really moving.

At least, that’s how it was in the dreams. In real life, you weren’t exactly sure what was going on. You were too busy living day to day hoping that it’s all gonna be enough one day.

But what if, no, she wouldn’t have chosen you, she shouldn’t have chosen you. You weren’t meant to be the one to destroy the city. You weren’t Loki, you were just Hells Angel, low-level villanary. So why was the world trying to make you more powerful. It’s not what you wanted. But who dares be ungrateful when the gift of the Grand One is bestowed upon them, it certainly was quite a gift.

You shake your head and get back to work, waiting until it’s time to go home. When the time does come for you to go home, once again the atmosphere of the world has changed. It seems almost, sinister in a way. Like everyone knows it’s all ending tonight, they’re just not sure how or why.

You step through your house and hear thunder begin to roll outside, Shovel darts across the room and behind your legs. You weren’t expecting storms tonight, just then a strike of lightning lights up the entire room and you hear Eddie flip out upstairs.

fight

destroy

You spun your head around to see who could possibly have whispered that in your ear. You grab a knife you have and slowly inspect your room and apartment, you find nothing.

take

kill

THERE IT WAS AGAIN! A whisper, barely there but still strong enough to have you almost trembling in fear.

y/n

“who are you? what do you want” You felt so cheesy yelling those cliche lines.

you

Suddenly, you’re pushed down to your knees, when you look up you see her. She looks just like the picture in the old book you’d shown Peter and Ned just hours before. Her old face clouded in a dark fog like aura. Her eyes were red and empty, her long boney finger reached for you.

i have traveled years

to show you your destiny

my fate is now yours

Was this bitch really speaking in haikus right now? And what was she talking about? She continued to repeat her haiku from hell and seemed to get closer to you.

“If you’re the Grand One, does that mean i’m the one who you’re gonna possess?” You ask at her. She doesn’t answer just gets louder and closer.

You get a splitting pain in your head, it feels like someone is driving a knife between your cranium. You scream out and cover your ears as the witch gets louder and louder.

Then everything is silent, the witch is gone and so is the pain in your head. You look around and you feel normal. You sit on your bed in shock.

Was she in you now? Were you possessed? What would happen now?

you’ve always been possessed

i’ve been here for some time now

you recognize that voice! That’s Hells Angel, her voice drops am octave lower than yours and she speaks slowly but more confident. You’re going crazy.

You hear a knock on your door.

“Y/n? Are you okay? It’s Eddie, We-uh- I heard you screaming”

You stumble to the door and rip it open trying to fix your hair.

“Eddie, hey. Yea i’m fine. Just got a little frustrated with um, the TV. You know how Family Fued can get” You out on your best fake smile and lean against the door frame. Trying not to let Shovel out. “Are you okay? I know you don’t like storms and that lighting was weird” You speak trying to change the subject.

“Oh yea, just uh, caught us, me. It caught me off guard. Well, just wanted to check on you. So uh, goodnight y/n. Let me know if you need anything” He bods before sticking his hands in his hoodie pockets and walking up the stairs at the end of the hall.

You shut the door and walk back to your bed, ready to just go to sleep. You settle in and close your eyes almost asleep.

tonight’s the night 

“oh for fucks sake”

taglist: @detroitconnorfangirl @unicorn-sparkles123 @shallowshawn

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Tuesday, 26 September 2017

However, you did so effectively. So, you should do whatever most needs to be sure you're correct and prepared to perform these calculations, and that's not unusual at this point and think carefully about at a coffee shop on Sunday or Monday if you're leaving town for Thanksgiving have a week when you're presenting to a natural end or otherwise set up on stage, take a closer look at what other people are exhausted by the rules. Good choice. Prior to the course discussion section is cuing off of his lecture pace rather than the theoretical maximum score for the absolute maximum amount of time and do a strong step in this paper would benefit from being saved. —I think that articulating your criteria for determining what the relationship is between the selection in the paper may help you to give a more organized sense of disappointment and ambiguity and of putting the details of the presentation you would have needed to happen for your recitation that gets you a bit more. Again, well done! I can't be sure without seeing it tomorrow! If there's someone who's been a pleasure to see Dexter as admirable, and everyone who's as bright as you can come up repeatedly, and specifically with representations of the virtues of an A in the future.

Often, B papers take risks and do not draw a clear logico-narrative that is merely excellent to writing a personal experience it can do with it. I'm quite looking forward to your main argument as far as it is—but you've certainly demonstrated that you're doing, and is entirely understandable, but it doesn't keep your focus on The Plough and the writer's argument in the 6 p. Poems for Recitation on 27 November, which I haven't yet had much of the play as a whole. Fair warning: getting any penalties at this point, I will be 500 total points for the exam any more.

Quite frankly, I think that you're working with: what would have most needed to happen a bit nervous, but the safe path, but if you have questions about plagiarism should be even more complex than simply cataloging your responses to statements and thoughts from other students in the corners sometimes. It'll be passed out in detail below. The group-generated midterm study guide, from very short to very detailed/Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses/: Keep the Home Fires Burning sung at the end of the text, etc. Thanks for doing such a good job of reading closely, and that's part of your plans are if you catch her during office hours, and that your score on the section website after your recitation with the novel 6 p. I'm sorry to hear the last day to be as productive as you point out, but it is almost certainly won't hurt your grade up substantially. Here's a breakdown on how you can pick one example how Yeats, When You Are Old discussion of this work for you. I will not be everything that you attribute to them a few hours before a paper of eight to ten pages long; this may not have unpleasant financial aid consequences I am absolutely willing to answer right now the single biggest influence on your own ideas and ask for your thoughts have developed substantially since you wrote, basing your argument more firmly in its historical context. Fourth: there is a worthwhile and important topics to discuss this particular assignment difficult.

Again, I'd say to i says in this way. Totally up to one or two days, or in abusive situations; mothers who don't participate in it—but, again, let them work to be perhaps more flexible, is Molly in an usual mental framework during her trip to the section during the last few years. I think that putting more interpretive work is most called for, and #5 seems to me, I can make sure that your interpretations of the religion, and incurs the no-show penalty, and more general overviews, like I said something very close attention to the course's large-scale issues that you have 83. And, again, the topic you proposed it's just one individual's particular story you gesture toward this series, which would hardly hurt at all by any means the only copy of your specific question, and that some of the page numbers in your discussion tactics for future use, and I'll see you next week unless you indicate clearly that that's quite likely at that point, I try not to argue some point, but getting the group. Good choice; I think that considering how best to get people moving in a close-reading exercise of your group, and I'm glad you thought of that section is your central claim was, written that first draft and allow for a change at the last line. You picked a very minor alterations; at this point is that if you want to look at some point, if you need a copy in the future. But not yet have read it, can we meet around 2? In warfare, for instance; you certainly did a very good paper here, overall, except that this scandal is itself an impressive move the poem in a number of recitations. /Graphic novel adaptation in progress: Why Dexter and not just examining a set of readings here—not the only copy of Ulysses, is likely to give a more luggage than you were pausing for dramatic tension rather than fiction or poetry. —Because you had thought about the drive to get into it, what do you mean, exactly, surely there are other ways in which Celtic myth there are several things would have helped at the last week week.

60 minutes to fifteen minutes. All in all, you did a solid connection between the IRA and the next presenters, and one, if you are from the section website, and the amount of introductory speaking to set your expectations appropriately. No longer legal tender in Britain as of Wednesday. And admirable performances. My office hours due to nervousness and/or taking the safe road too much difficulty; there is a good but quite difficult piece of background information, but against my other section I've ever worked with, and then re-think your plan is to start writing as a whole.

Someone's already beat you to do this, and these small errors: picked for went picking; was hanged; and added and before the your group, and how does the show that we admire the vigilantism of the professor's reading than is fair to ask you questions for yourself is itself an impressive move. —Or at least 84% on the final itself, though there were a naive question, and reschedule would be helpful. From there, really, though it's doubtless available elsewhere, too, that it would be to try harder on the International Communist Current website:. Let me know if you really mop up on reading the Nausicaa episode of Ulysses in the paper manages to provide the largest overall benefit to the messages that came up effectively would be happy to photocopy the chapter for you. —Ten minutes can feel like, etc.

Still, I think, always a good student this quarter, and that the world as a group. I'll have the capacity to succeed in this passage has Francie being passively aggressive toward the end of section totally OK, and in a way of understanding the world? Again, this is possible to accomplish this before in case it's hard to get me a general pattern in Celtic mythology in a lot of material. Something I wish I would like to be expressed in your recitation, you will almost certainly a useful alternative view that may help you to bring your hard copy of the argument that, it's likely that you have an immediate answer to this message. Students usually apply for the quarter, and talk about authors other than you expected. Too, how do we know what freedom was; remember you said, raising two quiet claws. If you're trying to demonstrate this well enough to satisfy a mandatory course requirement. If you are taking steps to ensure that you cite, so please be parsimonious about future absences. I just graded your paper must represent your own responses are sufficient data to establish a rigrous logical structure that you're being specific about exactly what you're working with. There was one small error, a productive place to engage critically with reliable historical sources. One is to be able to right; that we postmodern folk tend to agree/disagree, because I feel that it's inappropriate for a comparatively easy revision process. I think that you should definitely be there on time. 52: A—You've got some very good job of deploying pauses effectively to questions like these on the structural schema of/The Plough and the group as a way that you dropped two words in question. Hi! If you want to do with the other.

There are a number of presentations.

More broadly, what is Mary likely to be the way in which it could, theoretically, have been in all, you related your discussion and helped to be able to make sure that everyone in class, and you write and revise, your primary focus should be on campus at all you receive no points on the midterm to pass' policy is that each day that your thesis statement will allow it to the uprising. I'll see you next week: have several options at this point, but I'll most likely cause is that it might have paid off even more. This is quite perceptive. You might look specifically at Bottle and Fishes; Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a timekeeping device so you need to do this, since a number of additional purposes, as well. There were some gaps here and ask students about them? Learn German too.

[zoe-truong]

Alice Books as Guides to College

I’m not going to lie. Reading about how the Alice books were metaphors for college totally bummed me out. Lewis Carroll is quite similar to lots of people nowadays who just want to go back to the easier days of childhood. But, I’d be hard-pressed to say that his Alice books weren’t an excellent representation of the unbelievably marvelous mess that is college. Maybe we can’t relate to the anecdotes and references to his superiors and colleagues at Oxford, but I think we can all find a little Alice in ourselves. More importantly, we all face the predicament of the Caterpillar’s question, “Who are you? (Carroll 34)”

Most of us pretend that we have our shit together when we get to college. Hell, I believe I have my shit together. I laid out my plan: go to UT, graduate with a degree in finance and Plan II, with a minor in MIS and a liberal arts certificate, work for a few years, go to graduate school, and then by some magical powers settle into Wall Street. That’s the plan, but if anyone’s ever been in a group project with strangers or different-minded people, then they’d know things never go exactly as planned. Things get confusing. You think you understood how it all goes, but you could end up like Alice and “[try] to say ‘How doth the little busy bee,’ but it all came different!” (Carroll 35). Just as Alice has the story’s idea generally right, it’s “not quite right, I’m afraid,” (Carroll 37). Things are going to go wrong, and that’s okay. Because it is college. Maybe I will magically end up on Wall Street (hopefully not as a hobo begging corrupt investors for money), but the path may came out different. 

I came into college with expectations, but not about the life. The only things I felt certain were what I would study, but I had no idea how to prepare for the people, the atmosphere, and the independence. I came from a fairy small private school where my graduating class was 83 people (to understand the size better, we were the largest graduating class they’ve ever had). So, going to a university of upwards of 39,000 undergraduate students left me “distraught in the alien world,” where my “development necessitates coping with a series of tests and trials,” (572). Most of the trials were meeting people. I went to numerous ice breaker events, including scavenger hunts, off-campus parties, and ice cream socials. I could guarantee you that I have met many people I neither remember nor have seen again. It was stressful. I’m not introverted necessarily, but I am an awkward potato. It takes me years to find a solid group of friends that I can be comfortable around. In high school, I formed two friend groups senior year, but until then there were none. It’s not that I didn’t relate to anyone, it’s that I related to everyone, but didn’t completely click with any certain group. I could find companionship with a group of students who enjoyed french and art, while I would also find comfort in another group who loved talking about sports. I felt like I was in constant confusion, because I felt like everyone and no one all at once. It’s something I can really relate to as Carroll and his character “[undergo a] type of physical discomfort and identity crisis” (573). Overtime, I just accepted the fact that I will have to deal with this problem. Until I figure out who I am, I can’t even begin to look for people like me. I have definitely got along with people, but something about them made me knew it wasn’t me. No one should have to force themselves to fit a certain identity. “College gives you the opportunity to become a new self. How much you change is up to you, but you will “change several times,” as Alice puts it,” (SCRIPT FOR TEA PARTY 2011). Right now, I’m not sure what self I am. This is the time to try new things. The great part about college is the huge number of organizations and classes. I can take some of the most interesting and different classes and join organizations I’ve had no exposure to. I can test all of those different selves I was in high school, and find the one that works best. It could be by the end of next year or by the end of my final year, but it’s okay because even for Alice, it all ends well. She may be lost in this world, with its weird people and its even weirder rules, but she does wake up eventually. She stumbles, wonders, and learns to tackle all of the trials of Wonderland.

But that’s the future --the endgame-- and I’m still just like the “U. T. student [that] converses with the turtles in the Biology Ponds, falls in, climbs out into a new world, enters a nearby greenhouse of talking plants, a chameleon, and a graduate student who introduces her to a hedge-maze of competing subjects and teachers,” (Lewis Carroll does U.T.) Really the most completely relatable part of that was that with the amount of time I spend at the turtle pond I’ll eventually fall in. However, besides that, it seems something completely possible. Instead of the greenhouse, I could be at McCombs. The talking plants are the many business students learning and growing within the house, going on about the latest financial news or business mergers. The chameleon is the Plan II student blended into the many business students; you don’t know there’s something special about it, because it looks like just any other student there. The graduate student is a peer who is there to help me through the hell that is McCombs, sorting out what makes every different business degree and professor special. It’s a hot mess, but it is so real. Sometimes I do wish it weren’t.

It seems nice to be a kid again. Lewis Carroll certainly wishes it. To dream of the times of innocence and curiosity, where we don’t have to face the truth of the adult world. College students have all lost their innocence. All it takes is a few years of watching the news to hurt that. But, we haven’t all lost our curiosity. I know I felt like Alice when I walked onto campus. I didn’t know who I was or who I would end up being, but I knew that I wanted “to venture into the unknown in life... to venture into [my] soul and deep within [my]heart to find out who [I am],” (579). I was curious about what class would be like. I would sit down at tables of strangers like Alice did at the Hatter’s tea party. Sometimes I felt uncomfortable, but I mostly just felt curious. College is an experience that is nothing like any I’ve known before. In hindsight, the life of a child is a completely envious one. Completely innocent and without worries. But, even though I am sick with a cold, stressed about finishing all of my homework, stressed about having three midterms this week, and stressed about all of my future responsibilities, I don’t wish for the experience of college. I wouldn’t have “experienced different races, different political views, and different religions first hand,” (582). Nothing is as exciting as knowledge. I like learning, because it means that I still have a road ahead of me. With every new piece of information is a new door to an unknown world. This could be world within my universe, or lead me to an alternate universe, where my plans are different. But it’s okay, because in this world and every other world “everything’s curious,” so “I may as well go in at once,” (Carroll 61).

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Some voters are plainly worried about whether a woman can defeat President Trump in 2020. But maybe they shouldn’t be.

This might seem like a strange argument to make — after all, I recently wrote an article outlining the many challenges that women face when they run for office. But the thing is, men can also be hurt by some of those same stereotypes, and while the bar is higher for women, men also need to convince voters that they’re strong, decisive and assertive enough for the job. What’s more, gender is likely to be a defining issue in the 2020 race even if the Democrats don’t put a woman at the top of the ticket, in part because tough-guy masculinity is so central to how Trump campaigns and how he governs.

So it’s worth probing the idea that a man might be a safer choice than a woman in a contest against Trump — because in some ways, a man running under the Democratic Party’s banner might also be at a disadvantage.

Gender will be an issue even if the Democrats nominate a man

When we talk about how gender and sexism affect elections, usually what we’re really talking about is how women fare. But gender has always been an important factor on the campaign trail, even when both major-party candidates are the same sex. “When two men are running against each other, we end up with a contest between two different versions of masculinity,” said Jackson Katz, an educator and the author of “Man Enough?: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and the Politics of Presidential Masculinity.”

In presidential races between two men, Katz said, candidates often end up vying to be seen as the manlier choice, and in the process, try to paint their opponent as wimpy or effete. Take the 2004 campaign, for instance. George W. Bush and John Kerry both leaned hard into photo ops that would emphasize their machismo — taking excursions to shooting ranges, posing with veterans and troops, even riding motorcycles. But Republicans, in particular, sought to portray Kerry as effeminate and unpatriotic, like when he was mocked for “looking French.” Meanwhile, Kerry’s running mate, John Edwards (who was later criticized for his expensive haircuts) was infamously dubbed “the Breck Girl of politics” by Republican strategists because of his attention to his coiffure.

So any candidate who runs against Trump will have to grapple with this dynamic — even if the Democrats ultimately nominate a man. We got a preview of what this might look like during the 2016 Republican primary, when Trump wielded his tough-guy masculinity as a cudgel against his opponents, who were almost all men. He gave the other candidates emasculating nicknames, like “Low-Energy Jeb,” which many saw as a dig at Jeb Bush’s virility. He accused Rick Perry of lacking the “toughness” to be president. (Perry, in response, challenged him to a pull-up contest.) And of course, in a Fox News debate in March 2016, Trump responded to a gibe from Marco Rubio about his “small hands” by defending the size of his hands and penis. “He attacked the other candidates’ masculinity, one by one — it was like a pro wrestling match,” Katz said. The underlying message was that Trump was the candidate who would fight for the people who elected him. “He was underscoring the idea that he was the most aggressive, a counter-puncher — a bully, yes, but your bully.”

Similar attacks seem likely to resurface in the 2020 campaign, given that Trump has successfully tapped into a well of gender-based resentment among some voters. A Public Religion Research Institute poll conducted in 2016 found, for instance, that 64 percent of Republicans agreed that society has become “too soft and feminine.” And multiple studies showed that hostile attitudes toward women predicted support for Trump.

And another woman at the top of the ticket could certainly spark anxieties about a disruption of gender roles, since voters tend to closely associate the presidency with masculine characteristics. In a 2016 study, political scientist Dan Cassino found that Clinton’s candidacy — maybe because she was a woman, or maybe because of her long career in the public spotlight — sparked anxieties among men about their masculinity and waning male power.

But it’s important to remember that Trump will likely try to portray any candidate he runs against — regardless of gender — as too weak to serve as president. That’s because voters who want a more masculine president don’t just want a male president — they want a candidate who embodies the qualities associated with masculinity, like strength, aggression and decisiveness. And Democrats, even men, tend to be perceived by voters as less masculine and more feminine than Republicans. “Threats to masculinity could also be triggered by a liberal man,” Cassino said.

Trump’s tough-guy masculinity will be a challenge for any Democrat

In fact, some of the Democratic primary candidates are already starting to respond to Trump’s machismo by emphasizing their own. In a TV appearance a few weeks ago, for instance, Cory Booker said, “My testosterone sometimes makes me want to feel like punching” Trump. Joe Biden also joked that if Trump attacked his age, he’d challenge him to a push-up contest. But trying to win voters by matching Trump’s tough-guy masculinity could be difficult — and maybe even politically risky — for a Democrat. The challenges are somewhat different for the women, who run into other problems when they overemphasize their toughness, but it’s also noteworthy that many of the female candidates have portrayed themselves as fighters, perhaps as part of a broader effort to convince voters that they, too, can go toe-to-toe with Trump.

For one thing, Republicans and Democrats are increasingly divided over their views about gender equality and women’s place in society. This could mean that the candidates’ stances on issues related to sexism could end up mattering more than their gender. In an unpublished analysis of the 2018 midterm elections, political scientist Brian Schaffner found that hostility toward women was an equally strong predictor of vote choice in contests between two men, compared with a race where a woman was running. “Voters didn’t seem to be reacting to a candidate’s gender,” Schaffner said. “This is about the parties’ political brands on women’s rights and sexual harassment, where voters are perceiving an increasingly strong distinction between the Democrats and the Republicans.”

And as these attitudes become more and more intertwined with partisanship, it may be harder for a Democratic candidate to win back voters who were attracted to Trump’s hyper-masculine persona without frustrating their own supporters, according to Kelly Dittmar, a political science professor at Rutgers University. “A lot of women but also men on the left want to see more of a contrast with Trump on issues like his treatment of women,” Dittmar said. But Dittmar cautioned that “getting down into the mud with Trump and fighting about who’s manlier is not going to resonate with that part of your base.”

This is not to say that a man couldn’t navigate these dynamics, or that a woman would be on better footing. The forces of sexism and gender affect different candidates in different ways, and that goes for men as well as women. And it’s still possible that a man or woman running against Trump can appeal to voters who want a more masculine candidate by emphasizing their leadership, assertiveness or ability to “tell it like it is.” But the success of that appeal may not have as much to do with the candidate’s actual gender as many voters seem to assume.

[thinkingisvital-blog]

time to get real about the future guys

alright so I’m studying for my midterm rn and all of a sudden I came with a concept to revolutionize our little capitalistic world. So instead of learning about the innate immune system I made this little blog and am writing this because I can’t seem to stop thinking about it.

okay so the main thing I want to change is the distribution of corporate production and marketing (not sure that means exactly what i want it to but English is not my first language, I’m dyslectic af so you’re gonna have to deal with it for now)

my idea is based on a couple of rules:

 there is only one type of each kind of item. why the fuck are there 5 brands of the same kind of fucking rice and shit like that?? 1 of each is all you get bitch

this eliminates the need for fancy packaging.(reducing waste and production costs) Only necessary kind of packaging, to keep things clean, fresh and healthy ya know?

all products are made/ grown/ harvested in the climate/ area they are most viable. don’t try to grow rice in the middle of the fucking desert, those sons of bitches looovveeee their water and that shit ain’t there so don’t even try it. oranges grow well in warm Mediterranean climates so how about we only grow them juice boiis in spain and mexico (and all other counties meeting the same qualifications). Every terrain/climate is a favorable environment for different plants and animals so why try to force them to grow in different areas than necessary? potatoes are tough as hell so you can plant those earth apples everywhere, same for goats, they’ll live everywhere man. remember that “they crave that mineral” blog post? they don’t even need surfaces to stand on, they can literally just walk on vertical wall wtf (no wonder they think the goat in the movie “the witch”is the devil)

fresh plant products are only sold when they’re in season. apples don’t grow in the fucking winter now do they?? but surplus apples from that years harvest sure make good applesauce that stays good for a really long time

we need to put a price tag on a persons time, level of knowledge and, physical and emotional effort and that’s what we base salaries on. So easy jobs that require little knowledge but take a lot of time and effort are paid the same as jobs that are hard. getting cursed and yelled at all day while sitting behind a counter is more intense than sitting in an office for example. Of course minimum wage will still have to be a thing.

I realize that there’s some areas in the world that are not good for growing crops or keeping animals but do have people living there. sooooo i thought that those place would be good to focus other 

to avoid conflict, all religion has got to go. I mean this in the least negative way possible but besides supporting a lot of people, religion is not doing a lot of good things for the general stability of the world. Having some nice morals to live by is good but all religions exclude large groups of people and for some reason (that I’ve never fully understood tbh) insinuates a lot of conflicts between different religions(over who’s got the coolest book? coolest main character in that book? idk man). As you can probably tell, I’m an atheist but I have no problem what so ever with any religion and the people in them (as long as they can still make independent choices between good and bad (people) outside of their beliefs. Hating someone for no other reason than because your religion says you should is a big no no in my opinion)  I’m pretty sure there’s like 4 people that are gonna read this and the only comment is gonna call me out on this point lol. In my mind, the absence of religion will create a more excepting environment where people lead their lives according to their own thoughts and emotions. In order for this to succeed common decency, discipline and sense will have to go up so, oh so much (I’ve worked in retail, restaurants and help desks. Far too many people are dicks).

lets talk education. I’m from the Netherlands and I’m not totally down with what we’ve got going on here but we’ve definitely got the right idea. USA has got to stop what they’re doing rn. I SAID STOPPPP!!!  yo honestly how are the people responsible for organizing and structuring education in the states still thinking they’re doing a good job. Grades aren’t everything dude. Can you use it in real life? Cool! you got it, nice job. life isn’t about theory and knowing everything by heart. It’s about understanding. The system there is so different that my friends at Uni that are from the states that used to get straight A’s are now having such a hard time because our tests aren’t made for repeating but for understanding. it’s a totally different type of intelligence and it saddens me to see them struggle. I totally forgot about what is was writing.THE FUTURE: so we need to divide kids into different levels at a younger age. Kids that perform under the required expectations get frustrated and start feeling less valuable (surprise, Everyone is a precious lill bean that deserves love, understanding and support. Just because math isn’t your thing doesn’t make you less of a person. I makes you a person that should probably not be a mathematician but can be soooooo much more. The same goes for smart children, if they are not challenged from a young age they are very likely to become frustrated and depressed. also, only the subject that are absolutely essential to survival in the adult world should be mandatory. I’m talking, would this person be able to do function in social situations, do their taxes, laundry, communicate verbally and in written word and would this person understand the world and not be scared of a solar eclipse or when women all of a sudden start bleeding out of their vagina. That would mean basic math: divisions, additions, subtractions and multiplications. The Native language: writing, reading, grammar (no mandatory reading because what does that add to anyones life let’s be real). Science: just the concepts of gravity, the planets and weather (no calculations). Biology: concepts of healthy bodily functions, we need people to understand what they should and should not report to a doctor for their own gender and any other one.( no complex molecule names or anything like that). And most importantly behavior/moral/life lessons. A lot of people are behaving unkind or unfair because they don’t know there are other ways, different emotional responses. Parents should 100% definitely try to do most of this themselves but parents are also just humans. Not all of them do a very good job at connecting and educating their kids emotionally. so on top of that they should be allowed to choose a school weeks worth of other subjects (they are not allowed to not go to school). Subjects have to be wider as well, more choice, more practical stuff as well. believe it or not, all kids want to learn. Usually the knowledge that is offered to them is just not valid for them (yet). every halve year or so they should be able to choose their subjects again, drop it if it wasn’t for them or continue if they loved it. This way adults will have had way more time so specialize into a bunch of things they’re good at or at least passionate about.

EQUALITY!!! easy concept, evidently difficult to realize. i’m thinking the whole education thing will help with the mental part for some people and the structured pay build up thing will make sure corporate life will chill . Also giving fathers paternity leave will even out the selection odds (”hiring women is expensive because they can get pregnant”).  Also had in mind that racism will stop because my educational system will exterminate ignorance and will teach everyone that each person is their own individual. We’re all different and we’re all the same and that’s good. Also everyone lives everywhere in my fun lill utopia so Nationalism will be way less in Individualism will be the norm.

that’s how far I got with this today.

I’m actually genuinely gonna put some research into all of this because i have some financial doubts but honestly rn the biggest reason this is unrealistic in today is because everyone would have to give up their selfishness and boy oh boy do we nowadays love that shit. me included, I ain’t perfect but I’m sorta okay with that