#i’m just not the best at being social

[anotherdyingstar]

Hi

so I’m guessing you already kinda know about me since you knew my name

but I don’t really know that much about you

do you mind if I ask you some questions?

you’re under no obligation to answer any of them and you don’t have to say why you don’t want to answer. I’d just like to get to know you better

Well, the way we (as a system) work is that I don’t remember specific incidents wherein Ari’s interacted with you, but I have a vague idea of who you are. You’re one of Ari’s nicer friends, aren’t you?

I don’t mind in the least, thank you for being so respectful. However, I barely front and I do have a slightly warped sense of identity, so be warned.

[6ebe]

When I said Spain were violating child Labour regulations I didn’t think they actually were 😭

[marisatomay]

“you don’t owe anyone anything” actually you owe everyone everything!!! you OWE your table server and your coworkers and the elderly person you pass on the street and the dog on its walk and the child toddling along in the park and the driver trying to merge next to you and the pregnant person standing on public transport KINDNESS in return for theirs!! the connections we build are what give life meaning!!!

[hanzajesthanza]

a book with geralt 😃

a book with geralt without ciri 😐

a book with geralt without yennefer 😔

a book with geralt without dandelion 💀

[eebie]

Grinds my teeth to dust…. i wish touch didnt have so many Implications. im just trying to survive out here

[bonesashesglass]

Jumblr is trending again cuz it’s where zionists like to go to hide (obviously not everyone in the jumblr tag, there are some genuine great posts about Jewish culture and takes and all sorts of stuff, and I wish that was the entire tag, but unfortunately most of what I saw just now was people trying to justify a genocide)

Looking at those posts…the mental gymnastics people go through to convince themselves that Israel is somehow morally correct here and anyone supporting Palestine is evil and anti-Semitic is crazy. I mean those posts are practically unintelligible

[goldensunset]

i do not like thanksgiving (week)

[loverbeefantasy]

I wish being genderqueer/nonbinary didn’t feel so darn lonely sometimes. It’s tough knowing I’ll always be seen by most people as something I’m not, and have to deal with whatever assumptions they project onto me. I often feel like I don’t fit into the broader trans community because my feelings about transition are so conflicted, not to mention the pressure to “choose a side.”

[gothicprep]

I think the most depressing thing that’s happened in my life over the past couple of months is watching an otherwise intelligent friend descend into paranoia and conspiracy. maybe ex friend now, because I don’t feel all that inclined to talk to him these days, but it’s still sad to be a bystander to this who can’t help even if you try to intervene.

[itspileofgoodthings]

Well, I actually have the most mundane of questions, but it’s been so long since I’ve been in an English class that I feel like I’ve completely forgotten (and I’m curious how you do it): how do you go about reading a book as a class? Do you assign them the chapters to read at home and most of them actually do it? Or do you give them class time to read? Do you have the kids who try to spoil the rest of the book for the class? Basically, how does one teach a book in the year 2024?  😀

And do you have your students annotate inside their books? (I know the English teachers in my school require the students to do that, and I get why, but I inwardly shudder every time I see a student marking up a page.) 

Haha I love this question because I too am always asking myself how DOES one each a book in 2024?

It’s sort of a combination. I absolutely assign reading every night (almost) unless it’s Shakespeare or any play in which case we read it all in class. But for a novel there’s a couple chapters a night. I read aloud to them a lot too. Sometjmes I make them read aloud to the whole class, rotating kids who read. Sometimes I assign a chapter to be read in class silently with questions or quotes due at the end of the reading. Sometimes I put them in groups and make them read aloud to each other. There’s no one way that works for sure and of course ultimately I have no control over how much they read and I’m not naive enough to think that most of the reading assigned for homework doesn’t get skipped most of the time buuuuuut.

My bottom line is that I believe it’s my job to get excited about the actual text itself (easier for me in some cases than others but overall pretty easy because it does fill me with excitement) and then commit to taking them on the journey of the story with me. And my goal—that I’m sure I often don’t reach—is to make that experience so much more fun if you have actually read. And the way that I teach is pretty text heavy which is why I always make sure I’ve read the chapters for the day and am not just relying on my memory because the way I do it is just sort of absorbing it all up like a vacuum-cleaner, schwooooop, and then either pulling stuff out of the reading to look at directly or directing them to do the same thing. So the big thing that I have going for me, if any, is buy-in. Is getting kids excited about actually reading the actual text. I also speak often and passionately about the evils of sparknotes etc. not because they help kids get better grades or whatever but because they present you with the husk and shell of a story, stripped of all that makes it interesting, and that by reading that alone they’re reading something so dry and dull and are not achieving what I always want them to achieve —which is, have an Experience with the Literature.

Again, it never works perfectly by any stretch and there are so many ways I want to explore in my quest to get better at it but overall I think, at my very best, I can create this wave of energy and excitement in the story itself which is the most organic and ultimately most helpful way to get them to want to read.

Also no haha. I don’t let them annotate! Though occasionally kids DO of course. But sometimes they bring in their own copies in order to do that. The spoilers absolutely happen and are annoying but I sort of get by it by moving on very quickly and/or talking about how it’s often not the ending but how you get there that makes it interesting. Because that’s just true!

[titsthedamnseason]

i actually feel like crying. it should be illegal to drift apart from your friends

[nothingwithdignity]

...

[equiz923]

Say what you want about artfight’s website, but it is genuinely the best way to find amazing artists. Every year I spend hours going down rabbit holes and opening tabs of defences upon defences that lead into more defences until I start seeing people I’d followed 100 pages earlier attacking other people that also have amazing art.

Genuinely not having algorithms that manipulate and force feed you things it already thinks you like makes the experience so fucking refreshing. It’s like you’re always discovering something special and new and that’s because you are, you’re finding new artists you’d never come across otherwise and that’s beautiful.

Almost every new artist I find happens in July if it’s not in the real world and if you’ve never been down a rabbit hole of defences I HIGHLY recommend it.

If by some miracle you’ve found me that way, I fucking love you man.

[starbuck]

this morning i was just living life as usual and now i have applied for one of my dream (seasonal) jobs and have mountain goats tickets so like. :))

[switchytransboy]

the hurt and betrayal and lack of closure just cutting off an 8 year friendship, no phone call that we had scheduled & my phone number blocked, leaves behind is such shit. and the reason??? makes it so much more fucked.

[ohitslen]

Hm. Uncanny valley Vash. Thoughts.