thoughtsafter3am

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What a week to assign Foucault, though, huh? This has definitely been a semester of rookie mistakes and just top notch timing.

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so. bad news. we have to keep going tomorrow. good news is that I’ll keep going with you

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Well, I’ve gotten out of the fetal position and have been just filled with rage.

I got to vote in one presidential election before it all went to shit. I was so excited to be one of the few in my high school old enough to vote that year and coloring in the circle for Obama made me feel like I was floating on air. How fucking naive that girl was.

I yearn for when the worst thing a Republican would say was “binders full of women.” Do we not remember that was effectively a campaign ender in 2012? And we’re electing this sexist, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic piece of shit not once but twice? Are we that dumb? Do we truly hate anyone who isn’t a cishet white guy that much? Apparently the answer to both those questions is a resounding “yes!”

I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry in my life. But I am seething with rage and the frustrating thing is there is nothing we can do because we’re screwed because the courts are already packed. The checks and balances aren’t going to happen. SCOTUS will just hand wave challenges away because some right wing asshole bought Alito a boat or something.

The rest of the world will laugh at us and rightfully so. We deserve every ounce of derision, every snide remark, and to be looked down upon because we have well and truly earned it. We are a bottom of the barrel country.

To steal a term from across the pond, I am gobsmacked. As a white woman, I am so fucking sorry. I’m sorry that time after time we continue to drop the ball and fail to care about people other than ourselves even though voting for him harms us too. I’m sorry we have sat by and let white men keep a chokehold on freely existing in the US. It somehow is a Sisyphean task for us to vote in our own best interests and the interests of those who year in and year out work to make this country better for the future.

I am angry. I am tired. And I cannot believe we have to deal with this sad excuse for a human in our highest office again because it’s only going to be worse this time around.

I truly hate living in the US. Like I should not have world ending anxiety every four years where I sit in the fetal position because we are this close to fascism. I am so fucking tired.

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I truly hate living in the US. Like I should not have world ending anxiety every four years where I sit in the fetal position because we are this close to fascism. I am so fucking tired.

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I don’t know how I’m supposed to teach these next two weeks because I am already super anxious about the election but the fact that not only do I have to teach but I have to teach about Critical Theory to undergrads in a general education class seems like I’m being punished for something.

Like, yes, let’s talk about Freire while some of your classmates are voting for a fascist. I’m already exhausted.

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me every day waiting for a Heartstopper season 4 announcement:

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But, sometimes there are good things that happen when doing this even if it makes us feel like this penguin because I just moved and didn’t look at my new voter card close enough. I thought I was in the same congressional district as before and repped by a career Republican BUT now I’m just outside that district and repped by an incumbent Democrat which I wouldn’t have known had I not looked up my ballot early. So happy surprise this time.

And if I can stand on my millennial soapbox for a moment and give my unsolicited millennial advice because I don’t have anywhere else to say this:

For the love of all that is good in this world, vote. If you are undecided, consider voting for the candidate who isn’t a hateful fascist and consider not using a presidential election to protest vote. The fact that this election is close and Harris is not eons ahead in the polls is just absolutely wild and not in the good way.

Presidential elections are not the time to stick it to the establishment. That’s what local elections are for so smaller parties can gain speed and momentum. But, parties outside the big two always seem to ignore smaller races and only try for the presidency. We cannot break the two party system in a presidential election. I would also argue we can’t break the two party system if both major parties don’t want to break it because you are fracturing only one major party and leaving the other at full strength.

I know we’ve heard it over and over, but there is so much at stake in this election. Project 2025 is not fiction nor is it a hypothetical if the overly orange fascist wins. It’s what will happen if he wins the election on November 5th when he fires government employees he disagrees with and fills those positions with cronies. Then goes the Department of Ed, restrictions on healthcare we are able to receive on a national scale, and so on and so forth.

There’s no such thing as a perfect candidate and the expectation that somewhere there is will never be a reality. This will be my fourth presidential election and I have never voted for a candidate that I agree with 100%. But I have voted for candidates who reflect my views the best. I love the plurality of views and opinions on the left. It’s part of what makes us more reflective of what America could and should be. But, damn, if it doesn’t make me incredibly nervous as well for that same diversity of opinions and views.

I am not interested in Tumblr arguments as I am far too old for that at this point and I lack the energy. While I love the idealism, passion, and tenacity of the youth, watching the states turn colors in 2016 and too many of them red has left me so afraid of people protest voting as a middle finger to the establishment. The only thing protest or third party voting will get us this time is Cheeto in Chief 2.0. And if that happens, it’s going to be worse than it was when he was there the first time. I’ve already canceled class on November 6th because I have no way how this is going to shake out but I’d love to spend it not in a fetal position on my bed this time and able to get things done instead of zombie-ing my way through the day. And that only happens if we vote in a way that is thoughtful and forward thinking, not (only) an emotional response or attempt to make a statement on the two party system.

Me doing my stupid research so I can fill out the stupid ballot and do my stupid civic duty.

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I swear today’s undergrads have absolutely no idea they are using their phones as much as they are. It’s like an extension on their hand because as much as I hate being the professor that calls students out by name, the unabashed cellphone use by one of my students today sent me rocketing to the moon in terms of my niceness going away. In what was literal seconds after I said we have to do a better job with participation and that includes putting our phones away, this student had the audacity to pull their phone out and start texting and I swear it took all I had in me to not turn into the Anger character from Inside Out with my head on fire.

It also did not help that today after half a semester I realized the classroom I teach in most does not lock at all which is such a uniquely American fear that I am now buying one of those portable locks with the hope I won’t have to ever pull it off my keys.

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oh this scene is so beautiful and poignant

for the ones who didn't have role models and people around them to let them know it was okay to be gay

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Me to Netflix right now about renewing Heartstopper for a fourth season:

Like, I’m generally a patient person but the Netflix pattern of post-season 3 cancellations has started to make me nervous about this kind of stuff. Let the narrative end like it should! Give this beautiful story and these characters the conclusion they deserve!

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Charlie: if you cry, I’ll cry.

Me, watching episode four: S A M E

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Just finished season 3 of Heartstopper and it made me sob on my couch because it was so beautiful so while I told my students yesterday that I’d start grading their projects today, it’s looking like that is not going to happen. It’s rare that I get that “end of season” quasi-parasocial breakup from media when a season of a show ends anymore but I definitely feel it with this one.

What a beautiful and emotional season and a masterclass of an adaptation! Fingers crossed for season 4!

(Also, Isaac bringing 3 books to the group’s one day beach trip in episode is so relatable.)

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So I got a nice, swanky new MacBook when I started my postdoc and it is great. It runs so fast, Zoom doesn’t hang, and the battery life is bananas. I have gone literal days without charging it and the battery has barely dipped at all.

But tell me who had the bright idea to make these laptops so thin as to not have the capability to use a flashdrive or any other USB-based peripheral? Like at some point we have to go back to function over form for stuff like this. I love my dinosaur mid-2012 MacBook Pro with the disc drive because it is the Swiss Army knife of laptops. It does it all. Bring back that level of peripheral integration possibility in favor of a machine that looks like it would snap in half if I as so much look at it wrong.

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yeah sex is cool, relationships are cool, but have you ever read a scientific paper that was so perfect you wanted to cry, was short and easy to understand, and fit perfectly into your research and the theories you wanted to use?

(i did. just now. i want to build a shrine to this paper. when i’m sad next time i’ll just read the paper)

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I’m used to grading for grad seminars of 12-15 students but I have 80 total undergrads in my classes this year and my body and brain are not used to 80 journal entries. The stamina required to be a teacher/professor/educator cannot be taught, just acquired over time, because I am exhausted. 😳

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I’m having some definite 2016 flashbacks in the past 24 hours with a woman becoming the presumptive democratic nominee (Go Kamala Harris!) and actually being excited and not disappointed in the character arc of someone in a Game of Thrones property (queer Rhaenrya confirmed!) but please let the outcome be different, I beg of you.

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Can I stop living historical moments for 5 fucking minutes 😭