#i could feasibly get into one out of undergrad

[insomnia-productions]

really feeling that can’t the future just wait can’t the deadlines come fashionably late if i could push every goal back take control back if we roll back the rate at wh

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I'm a student about to start my second year, and me and all my friends are really nervous. It feels like first year was really rough for everyone all over the place and we're all really hoping for a better second year this year! Have lecturers been noticing that too? Do you think it's because of COVID?

Oh my god yes. Jesus yes. It's absolutely the covid effect, and we're expecting to see the disruption for the next five or so years, tbh - the current 18-21 year old undergrads went through the most important years of high school during a lockdown. That not only interrupted academic development (home schooling during a time of stress, massive disruption to exams and exam-taking skills, etc), it also enormously hit emotional development (mid to late teens have the highest socialising needs of the human lifespan, and no one could meet and interact with each other.) And that latter point is having a much bigger effect than the former.

Current undergrads haven't been able to develop the same resilience, the same approach to andragogic education, the same interpersonal skills for dealing with lecturers/fellow students. University is not like school; in school teachers are giving you the knowledge, and gradually encouraging you to try and use it to formulate your own opinions. In university, we're supposed to give you the framework to then go out and do you own research. The bulk of your education comes from you, not us; we're more like facilitators.

But, we're noticing that there's a far bigger skew now towards needing to get the answer right. Anxiety is higher, and so the fear of being wrong is much more crippling for these students, and that in turn means they're less willing/able to take charge of their own education and are more passive with it, wanting to just be fed the right answers so they can rote learn them and get the Good mark. And the disconnect between that and the reality of what lecturers are expecting is pretty big, it turns out, and is causing even more anxiety and stress. Record numbers of my students have started asking me to give their assignment drafts a quick look over, just to see if they're on the right track. Which, you know, I'm more than happy to do; but I do think it's a notable pattern change from three or four years ago.

If you're worrying on a personal level though, Anon, I have some Handy Tips if they're any use!

Remember: the idea of uni is that you are doing your own research and learning on the topics your lecturers describe. They're giving you the basics, but they're expecting you to look up examples, case studies, other research papers, etc. They want to see analysis. That's what gets you the good marks. If you simply describe the information you got in lectures and don't add anything, you'll struggle to rise out of a basic pass.

What's the fundamental point of your particular course? It's important to know this, because it'll tell you how to focus your assessments and exam answers. Just within the environmental sector, you could have Environmental Science (focus: academic exploration and research), Environmental Conservation (focus: applying the academic research to actual management and solutions), Environmental Impacts (focus: philosophy and ethics), etc. In all three, you might be given a paper about the latest IPCC report, but in the first you would focus on exploring all the research papers that formed the conclusion on climate change, in the second you'd focus on case studies around the world and the applicability/feasibility of the shared economic pathways that are going to fix the problem, and in the third you'd focus on the human impacts of both the problem and the proposed solutions. You may of course include elements of all of those, but your main focus should be chosen appropriately.

Keep your notes with copies of the lecture slides in nice ordered folders. Keep a bulleted list of the topics covered in each. This makes it far easier to go and double check the right info when you're stressed out

On that note, the best note-taking system is to add notes/comments to the lecture slides where you record clarifications and things the lecturer said (INCLUDING CASE STUDIES). Don't bother duplicating effort by writing what's on the slide.

I truly do know this is easier said than done, but don't leave your assignments until the last minute. Are you struggling with motivation? You need a study group. You need to body double.

And finally, the biggest: CONTACT STUDENT SUPPORT IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING. Every time I go to an exam board and we get to a student who has failed stuff, the first question the Academic Office asks is "Has this student been working with Student Support?" Even if they aren't that helpful in your uni, working with them means they know about the things you're struggling with, and that you've clearly been trying to work around the problems. That makes the Academic Office far, far more likely to take a lenient view of a student, rather than going "Well, clearly they just don't care then, withdraw them from the program." Your Student Support should be able to help you with counselling, study buddies, a support worker that can help you organise your time and interpret your assignment briefs correctly and give you interim deadlines, etc.

Oh, and remember to schedule in rest and downtime, just as much as study time.

And... honestly, you learned a lot in your first year. The learning curve is less steep in second year, even accounting for the academic rigour increasing. By now, you're basically used to things like referencing, routines, assignment formatting, etc. There are no more surprises, really. Now's the point you can get the bit between your teeth and run.

Anyway: good luck! And enjoy it as much as you can. University is hard, no doubt about that, but it can and should be fun as well.

[allthingslinguistic]

Summer 2024 travel plans and Language Guinea Pig Diaries

In August and September, I'm doing a bunch of travel to various European countries. In order, they are:

Glasgow, Scotland for World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon), where I'll be on a panel about Languages as World-Building and doing assorted meetups

Helsinki, Finland for the Societas Linguistica Europea annual meeting

Tartu, Estonia for a colloquium talk on Applying Linguistic Methods to Linguistic Communication at the University of Tartu and a two-part workshop on lingcomm for participants of Methodological Excellence in Data-Driven Approaches to Linguistics (MEDAL)

Nijmegen, Netherlands for some meetings with linguists

Florence, Italy to visit friends

Madrid, Spain for the publication of the Spanish translation of Because Internet by Pie de Página

I hope to run into lots of interesting people at these events! If you're already in one of these places and I know you, including from the interent, feel free to reach out and see if we can fit something in!

This whirlwind list of events and places has also gotten me thinking: this trip is going to be a fun chance to learn some more about some languages! I'm already fairly familiar with Spanish and Scottish English (I doubt people will speak much Broad Scots to me with my Canadian accent), and I'm confident on my ability to brush up on them by a bit of exposure and possibly watching a relevant movie on the way there, but the other four languages are going to take a bit more doing. Here's my initial situation, in order of familiarity:

Italian - I studied it for two years in undergrad and spent about a week in Italy shortly thereafter, and by the end of the week I was finally beginning to feel like it was starting to "click" but then I haven't really touched it since then. So I feel like it would come back with exposure but I wonder if there's something I could do in advance to help it come back sooner/faster rather than taking the whole week of being there again

Dutch - I went through the whole Duolingo tree on rapid-speed back when you could skip through lessons for new material only and not practice drills over about a year in 2019-ish just for fun and as an excuse to look up lots of Germanic roots (I studied German before I knew any linguistics so it was fun to triangulate there). Never actually been anywhere Dutch was being spoken but I did find I could get the gist of youtube videos about linguistics in Dutch so it probably needs "activation" similar to Italian

Finnish - No background except for a few linguistics factoids (case! vowel harmony!), and that it's a Uralic language (related to Hungarian but not to any of the Indo-European languages, so this is a fun chance to learn some things about a language family that's unfamiliar to me)

Estonian - Also no background, also Uralic, clearly the fun thing to do would be to learn enough bits of Estonian and Finnish that I could compare them with each other (also since I'm meeting with linguists in both countries, this would be a fun topic for small talk conversation)

At the same time, there are a lot of language learning strategies floating around out there, and I have two nearly matched pairs of languages on this list: Italian and Dutch, both of which I am pretty good at cognate languages for and have studied some a while back, so I could test two activation strategies, and Finnish and Estonian, both of which I have essentially zero familiarity with, so I could test two strategies for getting somewhere near a basic functional ability.

I have about a month until I start this cycle with a flight to Helsinki. One month, four languages. What could possibly go wrong?

Here's my tentative plan so far:

Activation, Italian and Dutch - I'm pretty sure what I need for these languages is largely as much audio imput as possible (given what's feasible around like, all the other things going on in my life). I've decided to aim to watch one or two youtube videos in Italian per day, focusing on relatively concrete, daily life topics (such as gelato making) and to listen to one episode of a podcast in Dutch per day, aiming to get through the back catalogue of Kletsheads, a podcast about multilingual children.

Why these strategies? Well, I'm meeting up with linguists in the Netherlands but not in Italy, so it makes sense to try to learn more linguistics vocab there. Also, I'm curious about the effect of medium between video and podcast: will being able to see people talking and what they're talking about have much of an effect on how much I can understand? Will I find it easier to integrate one or the other of watching videos vs listening to podcasts into my life at a practical level? Plus, will concentrating on a single, more academic topic vs watching a scattered, unsystematic list of videos have effects on my vocabulary?

Basic function, Finnish and Estonian - I'm probably looking for some phrases to say to people in shops and restaurants and the ability to pronounce things written on menus adequately and match heard words/placenames to written versions on signs. I started doing a very minimal one lesson a day on Duolingo for Finnish in January, when planning for this trip started, for the very simple reason that I was already familiar with Duolingo and it doesn't have Estonian, so I decided to just start by doing a thing I was familiar with until I got around to doing more research. I've been casting around trying to figure out a source of basic Estonian phrases online when a friend mentioned learning French on tiktok, so I searched for "learn estonian" and voila! I think I'll also aim for a video or two of Estonian phrases per day but I want to do more rewatching than with Italian or Dutch, since I'm aiming to remember specific common phrases. So maybe one rewatched video and one new video, per day? They're shorter on tiktok than on youtube.

Why these strategies? This is a comparison of Duolingo's more systematic approach with lots of repetition and gamification and word-by-word translation in a relatively sterile environment versus a more organic and free-styling approach with more grounding in real people and faces and full phrases where I'm not really trying to understand the individual words. There are lots of factors to compare and it's not a completely fair comparison since I started Duolingo in January and I only thought to start the TikTok idea this week, but hey, learning anything still counts as progress.

Summary: I have four languages, each focused on a different app: YouTube, my podcast app, Duolingo, and TikTok. Hopefully for the video apps, this will help their algorithms kick in and start recommending me further useful videos. The difference between the two video strategies is that for Italian, I'm watching monolingual videos that are aimed at people who already speak Italian and just want to learn something about the topic, whereas for Estonian, I'm watching bilingual videos aimed at English speakers who want to learn some words or phrases in Estonian.

Am I going to get these four languages mixed up? Probably! I'm hoping that choosing a different app/strategy for each is a little bit helpful on that front.

Do I think these strategies are optimal? Probably not! But I'm aiming to choose things that feel relatively clear to implement consistently, rather than getting bogged down in researching language learning methods instead of actually getting exposure to the languages. I'll probably do a basic "look up some key phrases and try to learn them" a day or two before entering each place too. And maybe shift other aspects depending on how things are going, stay tuned!

At any rate, I figured it would be more fun to blog about my attempts to use myself as a guinea pig for a few different language learning strategies here than to just do it in my own head (and hopefully help me with staying motivated). And maybe people will have tips of either language learning strategies that have worked for you in general or specific ideas for these particular languages, so this is the beginning of a series that I'm calling #Language Guinea Pig Diaries and future posts will also be posted under that tag!

[2030kamenriders]

Basically, it looks like this right now.

The chances of me getting into grad school are, well, not good. And if I'm gonna go into research, I'm kind of going to need to get into grad school.

There are a few research-themed courses aimed at undergrad students, but those have limited space (in terms of how many students can take them). They also require having some stuff planned out: what the research topic will be, which professor will supervise the research project; those types of things.

In the lucky case that I can land a position in one of those research courses, it could help me for getting into a grad school. But it seems like it's only feasible to take it in the 2nd semester of the upcoming year. And even then, I can't count on getting it.

I guess the main thing to focus on is getting through the first semester as best as I can. And then the next semester, regardless of if I get into a research course.

The question is: what do I do after that?

[capesandshapes]

My whole entire night has been dedicated to the same insane thread, and I am going to break the fuck down here, because I am still reeling from what has just happened.

When I was in college I lived with a girl who unfortunately stalked a male actor, like full on, tricked me and a few other people associated with her into taking photos of him around our campus and sending them to her, acting like they were playing a game of Snapchat tag, which was a common thing on our campus. She also convinced other people to make plans with him to lure him into a place so that she can show up there and corner him. All of this adding up to an incident where she tries to kiss him the night that he comes to her dorm room because her roommates were instructed to cancel their weekly party, and I'm not fully sure whether he was told, or offered watching movies with her as an alternative but yeah.

And I only really realized that she was full on stalking him towards the end of my senior year of undergrad.

Supposedly, right around this time, which is great when this girl who is majoring in theater would be going into doing teaching hours, she was stalking him hardcore and pretty much almost got a charge, such I don't know if she actually got a charge. But it was iffy.

After I graduated, I said to myself I am never going to see her again, thank fucking god. To this day, I stand by thank fucking god. But people I knew continued to see her. Mainly because she was operating in our main Midwestern cityscape which is a small theater community.

At some point she goes to get her graduate degree in directing from one of the midwestern schools, and then she comes back to the theater scene. This is important. Remember this. She is accounted for during all of this. She's in Milwaukee for 2 years in order to supposedly do her graduate degree and then she goes back to the twin cities.

In the twin cities, she has her graduate degree, but she starts ghosting a lot of our mutual friends over a few months, essentially drops off the face of the earth, saving one of them for last. She notes that this is really weird, the girl who was last, not the girl who is insane.

The girl who was last sees her within the past year. She also happens to know where she's working. This is something you need to remember.

So, tonight, I am disappointed about the fact that you can no longer get married in a cave in the state of minnesota. And I am looking for other roadside attractions where I remember that, oh yeah, that girl that used to be friends with said that her mom had a metal rabbit sculpture at the twin cities sculpture garden. She mentioned it when I brought up visiting this really weird sculpture garden around where I lived. This is interesting.

I look up just about all of the metal rabbit sculptures in Minnesota and attempt to find the photos that she showed me. Only to find that the photos that she showed me were not made by a woman who is supposedly her mother, but rather a man. A man whose children don't happen to include her.

This is weird.

I decide to look into things a little more, and find her artistic website. I'll need to find that in her artistic website, she claims that she has a few years experience of working with disabled people, helping them build foundational English skills. This is interesting because she claims this happened in the twin cities, we've been graduated for the same amount of time, and all of her time in the twin cities is accounted for. She's just been working for this one theater-- confirmed. That's it. No years long span of experience.

She has used this supposed years long span of experiences appeared out of nowhere to get jobs that she is uniquely qualified having it however. Which is, great. Because like at most, the only time that she feasibly could have done this teaching of handicapped people is during a single month-long span.

I mean.

She also doesn't mention where we did our undergrad together at all. Or completing her graduate degree. She does state that she's from the twin cities, which is good.

I

Poke the bear

I decide to ask one of our friends in common the same one who knew where she was while she was in the cities ghosting just about everyone else, just to double check a few facts. I then find out that she has been banking on using an incredibly common name, the incredibly common name that was gifted to her, removing all of her friends and family, and crafting a fake life relying on the fact that when you Google her name, there's so many people with the same name in the midwest, but there's no way that you can actually verify her job, her education or anything.

This is

Both insane and yet somehow makes oodles of sense.

Also she may have stalked someone new in grad school which correlates with her original move before she packed it in for Chicago.

Also she may possibly have siblings that she lied to all of her friends and roommates about-- at one point saying she was an only child but then claiming to have a brother. We can't really verify. Which is remarkable.

[as-if-and-only-if]

[thinking out loud about applying for a phd]

hmmm...so one component of applying to a PhD program is inevitably going to be getting letters of recommendation. during my undergrad my adhd was bad enough (undiagnosed!) that I felt I didn't even get the chance to cultivate relationships with profs very deeply—too much to organize.

so now! i think that means

re-igniting relationships with profs I knew: re-engaging with stuff I was interested in, learning/asking questions in an extracurricular way, etc. (which I wanted to do anyway)

and...that's all I can think of.

reaching out to profs at the institutions I want to apply to is a long shot, but doesn't sound implausible. I think I'd have to somehow be involved in a project with them(?) for them to actually write one of those letters (and have it be any good). no idea if that could happen—I am living with my parents, so I guess I could afford to be unemployed for a little bit.

I could do a master's first. but I really don't think I want to? that costs money, and I already feel so behind. another 2-3 years, then a PhD, then something else...ugh. no thanks. though...I won't totally dismiss this as an option if I could get funding somehow. if I get to learn and do the research I want to I'm happy, so it might depend on how structured/restrictive master's programs are. so, unless I find a master's program that's actually really great and feasible:

I think I'd prefer to construct programs of learning for myself, then bring professors in on this basis ("hey, I'm self-studying this, had questions, is it alright if I ask you", etc.), then broach the idea of mini-projects and such. so that the letters follow from engagement with the real substance of what I want to do rather than arising artificially. ok. partial plan for this component formed!

[ppjeterka]

get to know me tag! i can’t remember the last time i did one of these, it was probably like 3 tumblr accounts and a decade ago lol. thank you @edwinamistressofthecart for the tag!!

do you make your bed? no but next question let’s not talk about it

what's your job? just finished undergrad and am on the full-time job hunt for the first time what if i died

if you could go back to school, would you? at this stage in my life the only way you are forcing me back into full-time studenthood is if you’re keeping me at gunpoint the whole time. But grad school is still definitely something i’m planning on doing in the future so eventually (or not so eventually) yes 😞

can you parallel park? yes!! but don’t ask me to do it on a one lane road with cars behind me i swear to god i’ll crash the car and kill us both

do you think aliens are real? very much so yes! something something fermi paradox something something it’s a special brand of human narcissism to believe we are alone in the universe

can you drive a manual car? nope

guilty pleasure? hrpf but I'm losing my shame about it LMAO (tennis rpf now too...)

tattoos? just the one for now! got it just before i turned 19 on a trip I took with my friend to san francisco. We both opted for ribcage tattoos because we had to hide them from our parents 😭

favorite color? evergreen green

favorite type of music? I'm so musically illiterate it pains me haha but I don't have loyalty to any particular genre/sound! While my knowledge is shallow I'd say my taste is wide. One thing I can say is that I was listening to chappell roan a couple of months before she really took off. So there. I'm also a huge rina sawayama fan!

(I am begging people to recommend me music)

do you like puzzles? only if i’m doing them with someone else who isn’t competitive about it

any phobias? nothing too crazy, not the best with heights, but only in situations where it's actually feasible I might fall

favorite childhood sport?

This genuinely feels like a lifetime ago but I was actually pretty good at horseback riding when I was younger (haven't been on a horse in a hot minute though). I also liked soccer but I was dogshit at it

do you talk to yourself? yeap

tea or coffee? Tea!! I also told myself in high school that I would save my coffee drinking for college so that any given cup would theoretically be more potent because I wouldn’t have had any caffeine immunity built up by then. then I went to college and promptly forgot to drink any coffee. So, tea. (I conveniently forgot that many types of tea also have caffeine, but alas)

first thing you wanted to be be when growing up? veterinarian

what movies do you adore? My mom and I have watched The Man From UNCLE maybe nine times? I also had a one month phase when I was ten where I was obsessed with Hairspray and watched it seven times, which is embarrassing but I feel some obligation to mention it here. Besides that, I adore Kung Fu Hustle, EEAAO, and I am on record saying that Challengers was my favorite movie going experience ever (admittedly, I don’t go to the cinema very often)

I don’t know people on hockey tumblr enough to be tagging them out of the blue 😭 but to anyone that wants to do this tag, take this as me tagging you!

[crippleprophet]

may i ask about how you obtained and began using your wheelchair? someone i know experiences heavy abdominal and joint pain from Crohn's which has impacted their ability to walk for long distances and periods of time. they're unsure of how to get one or if they can even afford one, though they're looking into other options

yeah totally! i can’t use a manual wheelchair so if that’s what they’re looking for i don’t have specific sizing advice but there are a lot of great guides out there; while a professional fitting is definitely ideal for a manual wheelchair and still a good idea for a powerchair, it’s not feasible for a lot of, if not most, people

it’s definitely common to buy used devices or non-custom motorized aids out of pocket if & when doctors aren’t willing to prescribe one, insurance doesn’t cover it, you’re uninsured, etc, it just often takes a while of hunting & often some crowdfunding. however crohn’s-related arthritis is super common so if your friend happens to be insured & have a decent doctor i would definitely say it’d be worth at least trying to get a prescription!

so my powerchair (who is no longer with us due to Shit Happens rip) was actually a gift from a research mentor whose mother had used it and had since passed away; she’d originally gotten it from ebay. & my mobility scooter i bought new using scholarship funds in undergrad because i had some very understanding faculty willing to pull strings for me, the argument being “this is an educational expense because it will allow me to complete my education” basically lol

i know ebay, craigslist, etc are popular, and a lot of people also have success through medical auction houses - i’m blanking on any names for examples so folks please add on in the replies!

it definitely sounds like your friend could benefit from a seated mobility aid & i really hope they’re able to get one <333 best of luck to you both!

[the1975attheirverybest]

This is unrelated to matty and the guys but I'm interested to hear your pov about the writer's strike

It's a very complicated issue because of the number of factors involved. I can't speak on all of them with equal levels of "knowledge" or whatever, but I can speak on a couple things.

TLDR: Unions ( are vital in our capitalist society; I'm largely in favor of the strike; we need to invest more in the arts overall (including TV and film).

MBA: So, the fact that the Minimum Basic Agreement (the agreement that enforces wages for film and tv writers, etc.) leaves out writers for streaming is INSANE to me. Especially when more and more productions are starting to make media (film, tv shows, Late Night talk shows, etc) exclusively for direct to streaming. Like tons of shows are made FOR Netflix. Tons of TV shows are "Netflix originals," or "Apple+ originals." Hulu is also involved in this, but I think Hulu has a lot of partnerships with broadcast tv, so to a slightly lesser extent. Meaning, those writers, unlike their fellow broadcast writing staff have less protections and must negotiate for themselves individually, without the support that they would get otherwise.

Residuals: Same as the above. Writers report a significant decrease in the amount of money they seem from residuals after steaming has gotten involved. Like, compared to a decade ago. I get that streaming is a fairly new phenomenon, but it's not THAT new at this point. And there are so many of them that things get murky. Like HBO has one, and so does....CBS? Whatever "Peacock" is supposed to be. So, there are cases where shows are being made for both TV AND streaming. we've had it long enough, though, to have data. And to be able to see how much money is being spent and where it's going. Writers deserve to see their fair share of that money.

Mandatory Staffing: This one's a bit tricky, mostly cuz I don't know enough about it, but also because I have mixed feelings. Essentially, writers are calling for a requirement that companies have a minimum number of writers on their staff at all times. Like, regardless of project, x number of writers would come to work every day and know that they have a job to do. If Y TV show is finished/ not being worked on right now, then Z project is still there. etc. And I don't know if that's feasible? I imagine that there's enough work in Hollywood for everyone to be doing something all the time, lol. Like, for allll the tv shows and movies that we see, there's TONS that don't get made, or get a pilot but don't get pick up by network, etc. But they still needed writers to make them in the first place! so, its not like the minimum mandatory writers on staff will be twiddling their thumbs all year, lol.

I could see it MAYYYBBBEEE getting to be a problem if, like, someone's a comedy writer, but gets stuck on a horror show or some shit and turns out not to be great at doing the job. Or if they do scripts for John Oliver and they suddenly have to write a Game Of Thrones spin off episode, lmao. But, realistically speaking, that would probably happen very rarely? and I imagine most tv and film writers have had to write across genres throughout their career at least a couple of times? It's not like the WGA is demanding that EVERY SINGLE ONE of their writers be employed at all time. they just want to negotiate a certain number of minimum staff members. Like, (im making this up now for examples) 8 out of the 30 that usually work on a team. a portion of them. not all 30. you know? Again, I don't know much about financing production companies for media, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say that first they pay themsleves, then the actors, then everybody else, lol. Basically like any other capitalist institution, people at the top get the goods, and everyone else gets leftovers.

Pensions and Insurance: This one I feel VERY passionately about. I wanted to be a novelist when I was younger. Up until like the first two or 3 years of undergrad. Published short stories here and there, but then when I realized the financial scarcity involved, I did some math and I JUST couldn't see a way where I would make it work. Like, say I get a job and "write on the side," in this country and culture id be committing my whole damn self to said "job" and barely have time, energy, etc to write. But I can't be jobless and JUST focus on writing cuz then I'd have no health insurance, no 401K, no perks or benefits whatsoever. But this gets us into a conversation about how healthcare should be free for all. And...thats a different issue.

We glamorize the idea starving artists, but artists can't make art when they're starving. Why SHOULDN'T someone be able to maintain health insurance and get paid a decent living to like, keep their apartment/ mortgage, etc while they make the sort of art that influences us and our culture? when we think of TV and film, everyone's always interested in the actors. Sometimes, if you're Chris Nolan or Taranto or whatever, then maybe a director or producer. Seldom are screenwriters acknowledged and that's wild to me because they are behind the storylines and words that we see!!!

idk, just my two cents lol.

[thought-id-something-more-to-say]

Journal--12 August 2024

I'm not feeling anything in particular today. One of those emotionally vacant days I suppose. Work has been really... hard. Really hard. I am so embarrassed all of the time in there. I am so distraught about the quality of my work. I honestly want to quit so bad. I want to tell my professor that I can't do what he's asked of me. That I have failed.

But I keep coming back to the same phrase: I have never been upset with myself for putting in the work. I have never kicked myself for not quitting. So, armed with data alone, I think I will continue what I have been doing.

I so wonder who reads these. Hello you.

I did get to have a chat about this very topic over the weekend. Not exactly this, but about whether I am to get a PhD or to go into music after my undergrad.

Like I said, I keep coming back to that same phrase, but in this context, that phrase has a counterpart--a mirror: I don't think I can do this for very long. That doesn't mean I am done tomorrow or even in a year. But 40 just sounds so far away. I know what I think would be in my best interest for the long-term, but being here to see the long term doesn't seem feasible at the moment.

I hate to sound so pessimistic. I'd hate for anyone I know to be reading this. If someone is, if someone I know has found this, just know that this is as healthy as I have ever been. It's not very high off the ground, but this is what I've known my whole life.

Beside the introspective part of my weekend, I found a friend further away than he's ever been. I've found all of my friends that way, when I think about it. I went to two parties. One was full of old friends, and one was only half-so. I regret to inform you that neither was particularly thrilling. What does it take to be thrilled these days? Love?

Don't even bring up such words. How is romance supposed to be born? I curse my disposition. I curse my body. I curse the mind that keeps me from the people who could want to love me. I want to love someone wholly. I want to look in their eyes. I want to sit by them; I want to close my eyes with them. I want to share a life, no matter how brief. I want to know that. Just once. My inexperience with these sensations disturbs me, and I don't know what to do.

Where did that come from? I can answer that. It came from within me. It came out because there is a part of me that needed to get that out. But that part isn't all of me.

There is no all of me, I believe I am coming to find. I think the only coherence I have left is who I am to other people. Upon turning my eyes inward, I see the web of my self ripped from end to end. I can only hope to convince someone there is something to me.

Why do people use good words to describe me? I don't understand. I don't think I am living in the same world as them.

[springcatalyst]

could you PLEASE tell us more about giant tube worms

I would love literally nothing more

Essentially these guys

(Riftia pachyptila specifically) are fucked up for a variety of reasons.  They live pretty much directly in the stream of superheated water coming out of hydrothermal vents in the deep sea, an environment that is not only hostile because of the super fucking hot water, but also the high concentrations of sulfides (toxic shit) in said water, and also there’s no goddamn light, so no algae or other photosynths that kick off the food chain in most of the ocean.  Even most deep-sea fishes are connected to the surface, they eat shit that falls down, whale falls, marine snow, or they eat other fish that migrate to and from the surface (depending on how deep we’re talking).  Nothing should be able to live here, except maybe the odd extremist bacteria (or archaea).  

But they do so, that theory’s out.

The most pressing of reasons why they’re fucked up, though, is that they don’t have a mouth, or a gut, so they can’t really... Eat.  They weren’t the first mouthless, gutless worms to be found, but the others were all small enough that they pretty much just figured they diffused nutrients in through their not-quite-skin, but these bitches are huge, and the surface-area-to-volume-ratio (every bio professor I’ve ever had is obsessed with surface-area-to-volume-ratio) was too large for that to be feasible.

Noooow I get to talk about the trophosomes. 

So the trophosome is a big fuckin organ that takes up most of the length of the worm.  It’s kinda spongy, real lobular, and obviously important.  They exist in other worms, but were thought to feed the gonads during gamete development.  But they found something in these guys’ that kind of negated that theory.  

Sulfur!

That’s what those little yellow dots are: pure, crystalized sulfur.  This is a cross section of a Riftia pachyptila trophosome, taken from a presentation given by the lady I’m about to talk about.  (It’s on youtube here, if you wanna watch 20 minutes of worm talk like I did)

They still didn’t know what the trophosome did, so they theorized that it could have acted like a filter, because hydrogen sulfide in particular is toxic to most life forms, and there’s a lot of it here. 

That’s where...

She comes in!  Her name is Colleen Cavanaugh, and she was an undergrad at Harvard at the time of the initial research, and she heard about the worms, the trophosomes, the sulfur.  And SHE basically knew what the fuck was going on from when she listened to the original researcher (Meredith Jones, of the Smithsonian Institute) talk about it, so she convinced some people to get her a hunk of worm.  As you do.  

After studying said hunk of worm for a while she basically said ‘yeah, I was right, get fucked, check it out:’  The worms house chemosynthetic endosymbiotic bacteria in their trophosomes, bringing stuff in through the plume, (the red bit at the top, functions kind of like a lung or a gill) that looks like this:  

And basically that’s what makes these guys so funky, they not only have endosymbionts, which exist in other worms we know of now, but weren’t aware of at the time, but theirs are also chemosynths: they oxidize/metabolize hydrogen sulfide as an energy source.  The pure sulfur in the trophosome was the waste product.  (chemosynthesis generally looks like this: 

though i’ve seen some slight variations of the formula.  This one is from Pearson education.)

The bacteria get oxygen and hydrogen sulfide from the worm breathing it in, CO2 from the waste of the worm’s own cellular respiration, and are osmotically protected, basically they have a safe home inside their worm pal.  The worm, then, is protected from the toxicity of H2S, because the bacteria are turning it into pure sulfur which is NOT toxic, and they feed off of the food the bacteria make for themselves (and the worms).  

So like goddamn how can you NOT love giant tube worms.  

[nothingunrealistic]

in questions that might be confusing or an insta dead end, ever had What If &/or au type ideas abt Situations That It'd Be Fun For Taylor & Philip To Have Petty Repartee / Competition in the way that they do in the kitchen over dairy alternatives, for example, rather than necessarily over much to do with business. e.g. other ways to spar in an office, outside of one, if the business was different au style lol, if they were competing on any genders bachelor (and end up together therein ofc)

oh i have… given the canonical detail of philip having gone to the university of chicago for at least one degree, “what if taylor went to chicago for an MBA / a PhD after all and crossed paths with / was in a cohort with / ended up at odds with philip there,” naturally presents itself. possibly with the postscript of philip continuing on the path that led him to being put in charge of prince cap and taylor, still ensconced in academia, seeing that news and recalling their axe cap internship and going “that could have been me if i’d chosen differently. i hate him so much” to themself.

getting more Alternate with it, just the other day i was considering What If: Taylor & Philip Were Collegiate Quiz Bowl Rivals, with variations in the forms of [they go to different colleges and are the stars of their respective teams and keep getting pitted against one another at tournaments] or [they go to the same college and are on the same team and are competing to be The Star of that team] or [they started out as competitors but ended up on the same team once they were both at chicago, combining both those concepts in one plot along with canon’s We’re Going From Rivals To Teammates concept]. options 1 and 3 would be easier to pull off if we knew where taylor went for undergrad, and if it were a college that could feasibly compete against stanford (which philip attended for undergrad) outside of national tournaments, but that’s what overlapping postgraduate educations are for.

certain subsets of the cultural knowledge that everyone in billions seems to share, combined with taylor & philip’s specific educational backgrounds / high levels of competence and achievement / general intensity of purpose, would qualify them both to be fairly well-rounded and deeply knowledgeable quiz bowl players, and their different styles of doing business could easily translate into distinctly different styles of play. (if we’re overlooking the fact that taylor’s style of doing business developed from several years of experience and was itself very different from what they started out with.) also it’s fun to imagine taylor showing up at tournament after tournament with winston & rian as their competent-but-not-astonishing teammates (who would probably both rather be playing at trash tournaments) and then arriving as a solo player one weekend (thanks to neither winston nor rian being available) and still blowing everyone away.

naturally, this also opens up possibilities for bonding / moments of tenderness / et cetera in the form of, say, “wow taylor’s playing so well even solo, but they look so lonely without their teammates beside them during matches / eating lunch with them, and they also look exhausted from playing a whole tournament by themself after getting up early to drive themself to [whatever location we’re in], maybe i should offer them an opportunity to eat lunch with me & my team / a sympathetic ear / a few minutes of friendly conversation between matches / this energy drink i grabbed from the vending machine that i just decided i don’t actually need That badly.” (let’s also remember that ben kim went to stanford too and could feature as philip’s teammate who has a year or two more of experience but isn’t quite as stellar a player, though he still holds his own. and i’ve just reminded myself that sacker went to stanford too, though specifically stanford law, so she might not be competing against / alongside a bunch of undergrads, if at all.)

other related sub-concepts: a very close match between philip’s team and taylor’s team hinges on a question that one of them answers and the other disputes; they compete in a tournament that requires teams to write & submit questions, and they both have criticisms aplenty for the questions that the other person(’s team) submitted; they spend an entire tournament sniping at each other, then are invited to claim book prizes for having been two of the highest-performing players and find that they’re reaching for the same book, which could be a moment of “hey we have more in common than we thought” or “ugh of course we’re fighting over This too,” or even both if they’re really not on the same page; stanford hosts a tournament, and depending on how warmly they feel toward one another at the moment, philip either shows taylor around parts of the campus as a friendly gesture or deliberately gives them wrong directions to the building(s) the tournament is held in. (or vice versa if it’s hosted by whatever college taylor attends.)

[oofuri2003]

not oofuri related but how did you convince yourself that you need to pursue master's and phd?

me rambling under the cut!

I should preface this by saying: One, the career i am aspiring towards (professor/PI) requires at least one of these degrees, which is the short version reason why I pursued it, just to be transparent. Two, I am just some guy on the internet, and these degrees are very different across fields of study, so I can only speak from the place of my field of study (ecology/zoology/evolution/organismal biology/whatever you want to call it).

I did not actually intend to get my master's - I had planned to go straight from undergrad to PhD, which is possible in my field (maybe not in others?). due to some circumstances I ended up applying to a master's program and finished it before applying to and starting my phd, which honestly I'm kind of glad that I did since I got a taste of what writing a proposal is like and doing research and data analysis and writing up my thesis etc. before having to do that for a dissertation.

in undergrad when I realized that I had a passion for teaching/tutoring and also had a passion for research and field work, it became clear to me that my career path was going to include graduate school of some kind, so it was kind of just the next logical step for me. Even if you might feel this way I would really suggest thinking about if that environment is right for you - it isn't for everyone and that isn't a flaw, it just means this kind of thing isn't for you n that's alright.

I have some medical issues that make doing physical labor very difficult or impossible for me, and even though I love field work a lot, it's just not feasible as a career for me (field tech, etc) to do all the time or for extended periods. Academia on the other hand does not require a lot out of me physically, and academia is my one singular skillset lol so this was kind of the one path I was going to and could follow, and knew that I would be okay doing. It's a lot of work, especially in fields like mine where these degrees are research heavy, and your PI/advisor can really make or break your experience.

My undergrad degree is in zoology w/ a concentration in animal behavior, which, thinking about it objectively, is kind of a "useless" degree, at least in the eyes of a lot of people. My options outside of academia are like, USFWS/federal jobs, field tech jobs, agency jobs, or more of a lecturer position than a PI position. Of these my preference is of course to be a professor that teaches and does research, so I've been working towards that. I could've easily been done at my master's and gone and got a fed job or a consulting job or something, but that's not really something I'm interested in!

Basically this is a bunch of nonsense but I got these degrees because they're the precursors to my intended career. Graduate school is not for everyone and is also very different based on what field you're in, so it's hard to give general wide sweeping advice, but if you have any more specific questions feel free to ask :)

[kristenbouchard]

hi syd!! i'm starting mcgill law next year (i deferred so that i could move & get used to the city - if you have any recommendations for places to go for coffee in verdun/pointe saint charles or downtown, i would love to hear them!) and i have a few questions about studying & time management, if that's okay?? the thing i'm most worried about is balancing the workload & keeping a job at the same time. how manageable did you find it? was it heavy straightaway from the first term onwards? i know this probably sounds like a super weird question, but what did an average day look like for you? because one of my friends who did medicine at mcgill used to get up at 5am to memorize her textbook while on an elliptical, & i'm wondering if i'm going to have to start doing that!! i also love walking to get around mtl right now, did you find it was feasible to take the time to walk or go to the gym every day, or did you need to keep your nose to the grindstone most days? should i get into the habit of reading 500 pages a day?? i hope it's okay to ask, i'm just nervous!! and if any of this makes you uncomfortable, dw, you can def ignore me!! thank you for your time, either way :)

hi, wow, how exciting!! i’m glad to hear you’re enjoying mtl, i have been missing it so much. i wish i could be of more help but i didn’t go to mcgill nor law school, so i’m not the best person to ask for those specifics. you’ll find your own routine and workflow that best suits you and the classes you’re taking. i did my undergrad in five years instead of four which made it much easier for me to balance working at the same time — i don’t know if spreading out your credits is an option with their law program, but that’s maybe something to think about? a full course load, a job, and being very involved with an extracurricular did end up being too much for me and my pitiful mental health in my second year, which is why i did an extra year, and that was the best decision i could’ve made. but lots of people manage it! so the very helpful answer is: it depends.

an average day for me at my busiest would probably look like getting up early ish before class to do readings or finish a paper, taking the metro to campus, going for a walk between classes, doing more work between/after class at the library or a cafe, then going to a work shift or extracurriculars in the evening — not unusual to spend 12 hour days on campus being consistently busy. i did prioritize time for walking because i learned very quickly that it was necessary for me, which sometimes meant i would get home and be studying an hour later than i wanted to, but that was my choice!

cafes!!!! in verdun, my beloved: station w, pavillon, sweet lee’s, lili & oli, not sure if there’s still one in la librarie but that was good, and i miss the boys at balance torréfacteur and their coffee every day (would highly recommend buying beans from them too). just on the other side of the aqueduct is yo & co which was also my second home for a year when i lived around the corner. i don’t know pointe st charles as well but florence is good! slightly adjacent is september surf which is excellent. downtown(ish): cafe myriad, faro, shaughnessy cafe, cafe aunja, melk, humble lion, many i’m forgetting. if you haven’t been to crew collective already it’s a must. hope that helps!!

[mr-entj]

Hello Mr. ENTJ 👋🏻 ENTP girl here. Like any other Ne-dom I have major struggles with discipline and commitment. This ended up, obviously, screwing my life and I have no idea what to do. I have problems figuring out what career should I choose, and this is depressing me because I'm ambitious and would like to find my place and succeed. What advise do you have on discipline? Or on how to stick with something even when is not fun all the time? I know that for us is very difficult and that maybe an advise for others might not work so good with us (our brain is programmed to jump from one topic to another) but is there anything you know that could help with this?

Sorry for the long ask, and thank you so much.

(ps: I have depression, which I'm already working on with proper help. But discipline related to study/work and goals is something I still haven't found an answer)

Related answer:

Hello! I've been trying to be better about procrastination, because I realize how detrimental it can be, not only to myself, but also to other people in group project situations. Do you have any tips on pacing comfortably or figuring out how to have an equal amount of school work each night?

Hey there. Full disclosure before I go into procrastination: I don’t procrastinate, I’ve never struggled with it, and throughout my life I’ve done everything in my power to avoid procrastinating for reasons we’ll skip because they aren’t relevant to your ask. For that reason, I struggle to answer questions around this topic because I have limited personal perspective and my default response tends to be: “Don’t wait, suck it up, and get it done.” Plus, what works for my personality type may not work for yours.

The good news is that I have extremely brilliant and insanely accomplished colleagues and direct reports with your personality type who have found ways to manage procrastination. Here are some of the solutions we’ve come up with and they’ve used that’ve worked which may be helpful for you and others.

Managing procrastination for xNTPs (applicable to xSTPs)

1. Choose goals you’re excited about. This should be inherently obvious but it’s actually a common problem. Do you even want to achieve the thing you’re trying to achieve? If not, achieving it will be an uphill battle from start to finish. Here’s my framework to get you started.

2. Fail early and fail fast. High Ne users need to explore possibilities before they can make a decision so explore them early and move on. Do you want to study art or music? Take both classes, now. Remove the question mark.

3. Create an external support system. Go talk to other people about your goals: friends, colleagues, classmates, family members, mentors, and have them keep you on track. Even better, get a therapist if that’s an option. You mentioned depression and that you’re working on it which is great, keep your mental health up. Set up weekly, bi-weekly, monthly check-ins with them to measure progress. This helps with two things: 1) it pulls your goals out of your mind and into reality by speaking it into existence (as an intuitive, this is a constant struggle) and 2) it creates a system to keep you accountable to those goals especially if you’re not making progress. Ask for help if you need it.

4. Get a mentor. Find successful people who are where you want to be that you want to emulate. Talk to them, ask them questions, and keep them close. If you don’t know anyone like that, then research them online, watch videos, read books, and study their thought processes and habits. This helps because you’ll be able to see that someone has already walked the path you’re on and it’s completely achievable. You need to be able to see the result, not just imagine it in your head. The second benefit is that you’ll be able to check your internal logic against external facts. Are you doing what you’re supposed to be doing to succeed? Is your method actually feasible? If not, what facts from other successful people contradict your logic? Compare, analyze, adjust, and adapt.

5. Choose your friends wisely. Most people are influenced by their environment and their social groups, but xxTPs are especially vulnerable to social influence due to having extraverted feeling (Fe). If you’re trying to become a neurosurgeon but your friends are playing Fortnite 14 hours per day, then you’ll feel a strong pull to do the same thing they’re doing. For this reason, you don’t need to cut them off, but you’ll need to distance yourself from people who are interfering with your ability to do deep work. Set expectations with them: “I can game on weekends only for 2-3 hours” and enforce those boundaries. Then, add new friends to your social circle who have similar goals as you.

6. Work in groups. There’s a quote: “Many hands make for light work.” If you’re studying for an exam, then study with other people. Schedule a study group where everyone is expected to contribute notes to review and discuss. Global pandemic? Schedule a Zoom studying session. This accomplishes a few things: 1) it distributes the burden of crappy tasks and dense material among many people to become more manageable 2) it checks your logic and understanding of the material to ensure it’s accurate 3) it creates external accountability as covered in #1 and 4) it builds relationships with other people who may have similar goals as you and who may become part of your lifelong network. In general, xNTPs struggle with self-imposed deadlines and internal discipline but they tend to respond better when there’s a risk of letting other people down.

7. Break large goals into small chunks. Self-explanatory. Take a large goal like becoming a doctor which can take 10+ years (4 years of undergrad, 4 years of medical school, 2+ years of residency) and break it down into smaller goals like 1) master biology 101, master chemistry 101, etc. 2) get a research lab position studying something you find interesting 3) talk to some physicians in the specialty that you’re interested in 4) complete a few MCAT classes, etc. Small wins build confidence, increase momentum, and create gratification. 

8. Burn all bridges. xNTPs are masters of creative excuses and you must destroy all possible escape routes that can be used to get out of doing the tasks you must do. If you’re trying to get into better physical shape, then sign a non-refundable gym membership so that you’ll lose your money if you don’t go. If you’re trying to be more consistent with studying at the library, then volunteer to drive your study group so that you’ll let them down if you don’t drive. If you’re distracted by television, then sell your TV and cut your cable subscription. If you’re addicted to Tumblr, then delete your account. 

9. Summon the procrastination demon-- early. You know the demon I’m talking about, it’s the one that comes out right before a deadline that chases you to finish your work. Summon it yourself. Have you been wanting to write a book? Send out invitations to your friends and family to schedule a reading.

10. Show off. When you accomplish something, talk about it with other people. Share your knowledge, teach a class, write an online post, and distribute that wisdom to other people. It creates an added layer of gratification from your success.

[mak--taylor]

Things I Wish I Knew Before Going Into University/College

1. You don't need to have everything figured out.

You probably just decided what your next step is going to be, whether that is continuing onto university, heading into the job market, or taking a gap year, and it feels like you have to have everything figured out. That's wonderful, but it's important to have an open mind and be accepting of change. Things may not go as you planned, or they will go swimmingly well.

2. Grades don't matter... to an extent.

Sure, if you have great grades, you have wider options: scholarships, employment, funding, grad school, etc. But truthfully, most scholarships and internship offers are based on a 3.0 GPA. Some of the stricter ones have a 3.5 GPA requirement. Unless you're set on going to graduate school (in which case, definitely try to get a high GPA), you will likely be fine with a 3.0 GPA (this is the case especially if your major is STEM; if your major is non-STEM, maybe shoot for a 3.5 GPA). When I graduated undergrad and got my first "real" full-time job, they never even asked me what my GPA was or required a transcript. I say this to hopefully relieve some pressure off you. A few "Bs" (or "C"s tbh) won't kill you.

3. Your responsibilities (may) change.

I'm going to preface this by saying that each person has their own individual experience when it comes to responsibilities. I am going to speak very generally here. Moving on from high school brings on many more unexpected responsibilities, at least in my experience/experiences from friends. Through high school, the focus is generally set on getting through the coursework and maintaining extracurriculars. However, once I hit college, I found myself needing to balance coursework, work, household things (I lived at home and commuted to university, but there were still expectations), as well as trying to build up experience in whatever field of interest. It IS a lot, and trying to figure out the right work-life balance is key to having a successful college career.

4. Time management is KEY

I think almost anyone who's gone into university can attest to this. Tying back to my previous point, more and more things get added on as you progress through your career as a student/individual. With that, it is important to not lose track of things, and find a proper balance. I found that one of the main things I struggled with going into uni was time management. I was always able to scrape by last minute in high school with assignments and tests, but realized that was not feasible once I started college. I realized sooner than later that I needed to find a way to keep myself in check.

I found that maintaining a planner as well as having a calendar with important dates was vital for me to keep track of things. I had to-do lists, whiteboards with lists, physical planners, all of the things, and even though it seems like overkill, I needed the visual reminders.

5. Find a mentor (upperclassmen/professor/teacher)

I did NOT realize how much I needed this as I started freshman year. I went in kind of just expecting to be able to get by, which I did during my the first semester of freshman year. However, it was a challenge trying to interact with upperclassmen since they all just seemed so unreachable and b u s y. It took my until the end of my freshman year and into the beginning of my sophomore year to finally find people that I felt could give me guidance in both smaller things like class selections or just life advice. I personally found some of my more approachable TAs to be very helpful, as well as my professors in my smaller classes. If your university offers mentoring programs or similar opportunities, take advantage of those- you may never know what can come out of it!

6. Get involved!

This is something that I found to be difficult as a commuter. Many of my colleges clubs and events were hosted later in the evenings, and I just did not want to spend 2 extra hours on campus after a long day of classes and then have to drive home. However, I do wish I had taken more advantage of the clubs on campus. There are SO many different ones that cater to a plethora of interests. I feel like I would have had the opportunity to build a community around each of my different interests, and been able to keep up with them. And, if there is not a club that caters to your interest, then start one! I did that with a group of friends, and that was one of the best choices I made. I was able to pursue something that I was truly passionate about, while being able to hang out with a wonderful group of people. you don't want to always be in your dorm, watching Netflix, when you're not in class. Sure, sometimes you need to wind down but you don't want your entire undergraduate experience to be summed up with "netflix." I promise you: you will not remember the shows you binged your sophomore year of college, but you WILL remember that awesome overnight camping trip you took at Yosemite.

7. Network.

I used to cringe when people would network in undergrad because I thought they were being so "extra" and so "fake." And now I'm understanding that the mantra "fake it til you make it" is really accurate... It doesn't matter how you personally feel about networking, but the reality is that most people get their jobs through networking (and those who network tend to have a "leg up"). If you want to be successful, I'd argue that networking is a key strategy you should implement, to some extent. The more professional experiences you have earlier on, the easier it is to get better opportunities later on: your success builds upon itself. And you don't have to be super fake about it either; the people who are the best networkers tend to be the most genuine.

8. Have a small group of close, quality friends and work on strengthening those friendships.

It's better to have 3 quality best friends, instead of 10 friends that you're not really all that close to. Quality over quantity, for sure. Although you should focus on quality, I still think it's good to be socially connected with your classmates and acquaintances/friends through Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, etc: after all, this is just good networking + who knows who may become your next close friend when you move to a new state! In college, it's easy to hang out with friends but after college, it's much more difficult to keep these friendships up.

9. Take care of yourself.

College is busy, it's stressful- there's really no sugarcoating it. Through high school, I was never really focused on mental health and trying to make sure that I was not about to combust. However, after finishing three years of college, I can assure you that being able to maintain your mental AND physical wellbeing is extremely important. Not only does it make you feel good, it does impact your performance as a student. Make time for yourself. Yes, school is important, but so are you. Find room in your schedule for your hobbies- paint something, go on walks, hang out with friends- whatever brings you joy. Make sure you are eating ALL your meals, getting 7-9 hours of sleep (try to, at least), exercising, and taking care of your mental health. It is important, don't forget about that.

This means both mentally (most college campuses offer free, or reduced cost, therapy sessions! take advantage of this! once you're in the "real world", these sessions are $$$) and physically (eat the right type of food! exercise!).

Ultimately, college is what you make of it. It's a period where you can explore your passions and find who you are. But also at the same time, it's also meant to help advance your (future) career. You can definitely find the right balance between your professional and personal goals!!

Stay safe everyone <3