#i got a b in my bio anthro class

[specialmouse]

Line 1: cave painting. Their identity feels more secure when they can physically feel the presence of their ancestors

Line 2: Neanderthals likely would have had a different way of communicating from humans—the speaker cannot find harmony/synergy between their halves

Line 3: Land bridge, a common theory for several human migration patterns

Line 4: The Chatelperronian was a Neanderthal stone tool industry period. Many tools found that date back to this time have curved backings. The speaker curves their back over their spine: the fetal position. This is the most common burial position for Homo sapiens, not so much for Neanderthals. In trying to become fully Neanderthal, the speaker merely curves back in on themself and becomes more human. This contortion is both regressive (as in regressing back to infancy) and fatal to the speaker.

Line 5: The pronounced brow ridge of their Neanderthal ancestors is present, but not as much—it is *trying* to cover their eyes, so it does not succeed. However it is still enough to be noticeable.

Line 6: Idk seems self explanatory to me

Line 7: Weaving is a uniquely human activity, though humans were not weaving when they existed alongside Neanderthals. ConunDRUM, dancing to the beat. aHEAD of the rest, beat in my chest: head and heart—Homo sapiens is more intelligent, Neanderthals are stronger

Line 8: The Oldowan is the earliest known stone tool industry period headed by Homo habilis, beginning 2.9 million years ago in Africa. They are far more rudimentary tools in both construction and usage when compared to the much later Chatelperronian. Oldowans/older ones, i.e old people being set in their outdated mindset. Level, wah wah wah/Levallois, a tool technique created by Neanderthals that involves striking flakes off the center to form a point.

Line 9: A) Sharp and bevelled because of the Levallois technique. B) It is not known if Neanderthals could/did speak.

Line 10: When compared to all other hominids, Homo sapiens possess a larger frontal neocortex associated with higher cognition and language processing, so a Neanderthal will struggle with more complex ideas such as the liminal state of someone with a mixed species identity

Line 11: You man/human

Line 12: While both highly successful endurance and persistence hunters, Neanderthals possessed more strength than Homo sapiens

Line 13: Sahara Pump Theory: posits that several phases of environmental changes drew African flora and fauna (including hominins) towards the Sahara, which was dense with lakes and rivers at the time. Then the Nile stopped flowing and the West African monsoon moved south, causing the Sahara to turn into a desert, pushing some hominids, like Homo erectus, further out of Africa.

Line 14: Flores is an Indonesian island where a group of 50,000 year old hominin remains were discovered. They were 3.5 feet tall and, interestingly, more genetically similar to Homo habilis, which went extinct 1.65 MILLION YEARS AGO. Seriously go read up on them it’s actually incredible. Anyway they were nicknamed the Hobbits for their height. So if you’re looking up to Bilbo you’re even shorter than a Hobbit. Which isn’t true for Homo sapiens but it’s fun okay

Thanks everyone.

Take 2: half-Neanderthal half-Homo sapiens bispecial slam poetry

I reach out, press my hand against rock and through time

My tongue speaks in syllables that I can’t get to rhyme

Tryna find the bridge between these two worlds of mine

A chatelperonnian nightmare, my back curves over my spine

I’m wonderin why, my brow tries to cover my eyes

They’re hypnotized, an anthropological conundrum, I’m ahead of the rest

Weavin my own tale while I dance to the beat in my chest

Oldowans gon say that I’m not on their level, wah, wah, wah,

My bars were sharp and beveled before you could talk, talk, talk

Listen, try to understand this complex issue—oh wait, you can’t, you lack the neocortex tissue

Not like you man are able to get ahead

Just a few light hunts and you’re needin to go to bed

Your pumps are just a theory, you’re only erectus when you’re homo,

Go try this shit on Flores, you’ll be lookin’ up to Bilbo

I literally could keep going for hours. I can’t stop

[kyidyl]

Twelve Questions

I was tagged by @aquatic-owl

ONE/name

Kristina

TWO/birthday

July 2, 1980

THREE/zodiac sign

Cancer, unfortunately.  x.x

FOUR/height

5′9, a hair over 175 cm.  My jeans only go to the floor if I buy them from old navy because I’m 2/3 leg.  

FIVE/hobbies

I like to read, but pretty much most of my hobbies or former hobbies fall under the heading of visual art.  I’ve in the past cake decorated, modded ponies, painted, drawn with tons of different mediums, played video games (Sims and Minecraft for the creative aspect, Assassin’s Creed for the story aspect and the stabbing, and WoW because...idk, honestly, I just enjoy it.), and...idk a wide variety of stuff I can’t really remember.  I think I even got into sculpting styrofoam and assembling model cars for awhile.  Currently the stuff I do the most is drawing (I finally found a way of digital painting that I actually like so at some point I’ll finish something and post it.), playing sims, and...writing.  I write a lot.  Oh! And photography! I have a stupid expensive camera (A Canon 80d) and I enjoy using it.  Although all of this has kind of fallen by the wayside because my thesis is due in about a month.  

SIX/ favourite colours

TEAL.  Like the color of the water in Tahiti.  I also enjoy pink, blue, purple, green, and red.  Ok listen guys I love color.  I dislike plain white.  Plain white is a canvas waiting to happen - usually literally because I have this tendency to paint on walls.  Like...an image, with acrylics.  I just don’t like yellow for whatever reason.  And Olive green.  And brown.  And Grey.  Basically any color that makes me think either “mud” or “boring”.  

SEVEN/favourite books

I honestly, truely have very few favorite books despite the fact that I read a lot.  I love ASoIaF.  I love Feed (and the rest of the series) by Mira Grant.  I love to read romance novels that don’t end with kids being born.  

EIGHT/last song listened to

Oh god I have no idea...I don’t listen to music much.  I wanna say something by Adele.  

NINE/last film watched

I watched The Red Sea Diving Resort last night.  It was ok.  But in theaters it was the new MIB, which is as campy and fun as the older 2 but could have done with a cheezy Will Smith anthem.  

TEN/inspiration for muse

YouTube.  Often, it’s YouTube.  So I get up, poke around on Tumblr, get ready, take my meds with my food and watch YouTube while I eat.  So when my meds kick in I usually want to do whatever I’m watching.  If I’m watching some ASoIaF discussion (they’re nice and long so they are good background noise.), I want to write my fic.  If I’m watching someone draw, then I wanna draw.  It really just depends.  Outside of that, honestly, my brain has so many freakin things in it that I can’t get them out fast enough.  So many stories.  It’s one of the up sides of ADHD: I’ve been playing Ye Olde Head Movie for so long that I have a lot stored up.  

ELEVEN/dream job

Several, honestly.  A pro photographer on Martha’s Vineyard.  Someone who travels for fun.  A scientist.  That’s the one I’m going for.  I have an anthropology degree (I started the process wanting to be a doctor, and didn’t change my mind until I started really getting into anthro classes and I took Pacific Arch, so I’ve taken all of the mess o physical science classes bc of the prereqs.), and I’m working on a bio archeology masters with the intention of moving on to a PhD.  The goal is to become some kind of scientist that studies evolution and genetics without ignoring human culture and the impact of it.  But, my previous career was in IT.  I’ve worked for AOL, Verizon, the Naval Academy, and a few various medical/EMR companies.  So I’m basically the walking embodiment of the phrase “a jack of all trades”.  There is so much stuff rattling around in my head you guys.  SO MUCH.  

TWELVE/meaning behind your url

Ok, so in high school I was into two fandoms: X-men and Gargoyles (Fun fact: I have a piece of original Shinga art floating around on a hard drive somewhere because we did an art trade way back in the early 00′s ‘cause we both hung out in the Gargoyles chat rooms.), and I spent a lot of time making up a lot of OCs for them.  You know, as you do (Fun Fact #2: my niece now shares a name with one of my former OCs.).  And I loved the fae from Gargoyles.  My main OC and chat persona was a fae named Shayne, so when I started signing up for email addresses and whatnot I tried to use that but it was always taken.  So I went with the name of another of my fae OCs: Kyidyl.  That, itself, was a purposeful misspelling of the name Cydel because I loved the name but it was the name of a friend’s dog and I didn’t want to name myself after a dog.  Kyidyl is short, but it’s never taken when I sign up for stuff, so I’ve kept it for like 20 years now.  Cydel is pronounced Sigh-dell.  Kyidyl is pronounced similarly, with the Kyi being pronounced as sigh with a K sound.  Or was, originally, but over time it kind of morphed into Kyuh-deal, said quickly.  And, for your amusement, here is a rough, obviously unfinished drawing of the character in question: 

And now I’m supposed to tag some people so I’m gonna go with @athewasp, @innerllamagalaxy, @napshika, @alovethathelpsmethrive b/c they’re the top 4 in my mentions, and @dxmedstudent because she likes this kinda stuff.  =D 

[wastedstudies]

how i survived ib

hello, kalice here! it’s been a really long time since i used my studyblr, and i was going to do this awhile back, but it completely slipped my mind as i was busy applying for universities and such so here it is~

i took ib from 2017 to 2018, and i sat for the 2018 november paper and got 41 points in total the subjects i took were hl language and literature (6), hl chinese b (6), sl biology (7), sl math studies (7), sl social and cultural anthropology (6) and hl theatre (6)

everyone has their own method of studying and learning, which is why my method may not necessarily be very useful to every person, but i hope it somewhat helps you guys!

1. don’t lie to yourself

everyone at the start of ib was like “i’m going to delete all my social media! i’ll be at the library and be super productive!”, and sure, you were able to keep that up for a couple of weeks before slipping into “i’ll just download and delete afterwards- i deserve a break” and going back to square one for me, i did delete majority of my social media- i was off instagram and twitter and snapchat, but the two things i never deleted were tumblr and youtube. the reason as to why i kept it was because if i got rid of one thing, i would jump to another, and it would get worse over time, but also because i love everything on tumblr and it’s practically my life instead, i would use selfcontrol whenever i studied or went for classes (except for math studies- i won’t lie i went ham on tumblr during that class). the smart way to use selfcontrol is to set it for a couple hours and use those markers as time for studying. so let’s say i have biology class for an hour, and chinese for another hour before my lunch break, i would set two hours to selfcontrol and it wouldn’t allow me to go on tumblr or buzzfeed or anything until lunch. when i’m studying, i would set it for an hour and a half, and during that time i would study. only after that timer is up would i take a break and do whatever i want to do. so don’t completely cut off social media, but rather restrain yourself from using it during certain periods of time

2. class discussions

for classes like chinese, langlit, anthro and tok, it is super important to participate in class discussions. even if no one starts a discussion, you should start one! your teachers are willing to take on any sort of discussion with relation to the topic, and you’ll realise that you’re more likely to remember things in that class through the things that you’ve discussed in chinese, our teacher would always relate the topics back to what’s happening in our country and our society, and it was because of the heated discussions and bad jokes that we had which helped me to remember the class more

3. questions and consultations

to be very honest, i hate asking questions and emailing my teachers for consultations because i always fear that they’ll find me stupid or annoying, but once you realise that your teachers technically can’t reject your questions or need for consultations, you’ll have no worry about booking consultations even though they beg you to stop seeing them in 2018, i saw my langlit teacher a LOT, so many times that she asked me to stop booking consultations with her so that she can consult other students, but i continued to consult her anyway :^) anyway, when you go for consultations, make sure you have prepared a bunch of questions and material for your teacher so your consultations actually help you instead of just wasting both you and your teacher’s time. for langlit, i always made sure that i wrote at least my introduction and first paragraph as well as a brief outline for the rest of my essay to let my teacher review. i would also show her how i did my annotations for paper 1 and 2 so i would know what i need to look out for and how i should annotate my texts better for biology, i would do a bunch of exam papers, mark them and circle the questions that i didn’t understand what i got wrong, as well as do the essay questions!! so during our consultation sessions, i would pass her all the questions i didn’t understand and she’d explain them to me

4. don’t do notes for the aesthetic

literally don’t. i wasted a year and a half doing my biology notes and it was a complete waste of time as i barely remembered anything. in fact, i was overly reliant on my bio notes to the point where i pushed it aside and just did papers during the last few months before ib notes are good to consolidate and summarise, but don’t spend too much time making notes if it’s not going to help you better understand and memorise content. instead, keep practicing papers and questions and let your teacher look at them

5. cry

it’s okay to cry when you’re stressed- in fact, it releases a lot of the stress and tension building up in you. cry to yourself, cry to a friend, cry to a family member. usually i cry to my friends because they understand what’s up, and if everyone is crying, everyone will get better together and you guys will continue to study as if nothing happened

6. enjoy

you might be thinking “how tf do i enjoy ib” but i really enjoyed it because when i think about ib i think about staying back in school till 10.30pm and cooking food in school and going for karaoke and while it was stressful, i also played hard which made it enjoyable

so that’s all i have to say! do note that throughout my ib journey i was not as wild as my friends- i didn’t go clubbing or drinking or get a boyfriend or anything (partially because i didn’t want to get scolded by my parents for doing so) and while i have nothing against anyone who wants to have a good time, please don’t dedicate a chunk of your time on those things. some of my friends had problems with their s/o which affected their studying and i personally believe that they could’ve done so much better if it weren’t for such circumstances, and yes, i did miss out on the “youth experience”, but now i’m 19 and i’m trying new things to make up for the lack of fun in the past two years and while i do regret not being able to experience so much back then and having to cram it all in now, i also don’t regret being one step closer to my dream- besides, you can always take a gap year to do all the things you’ve always wanted to try before going to university! either way, i hope that what you do makes you happy, and you’ll have friends and classmates who are willing to support you along the way!!