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It's world poetry day so here are some (more) of my favorite poems:

What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade by Brad Aaron Modlin

All Trains Are Going Local by Timothy Liu

Rural Boys Watch the Apocalypse by Keaton St. James (@boykeats)

HOPE YOU’RE WELL. PLEASE DON’T READ THIS. by Lev St. Valentine (@dogrotpdf)

Time of Love by Claribel Alegría

Every Job Has a First Day by Rebecca Gayle Howell

ALL THAT WANTING, RIGHT? by Devin Kelly

Reading by A.R. Ammons

things i want to ask you by Helga Floros

Night Bird by Danusha Laméris

Prayer for Werewolves by Stephanie Burt

The Two Times I Loved You the Most In a Car by Dorothea Grossman

The Yearner by Rachel Long

If I Had Three Lives by Sarah Russell

I Dream on a Crowded Subway Train with My Eyes Open But My Body Swaying by Chen Chen

We Have Not Long to Love by Tennessee Williams

Jesus at the Gay Bar by Jay Hulme

Cracks by Dieu Dinh

and here's part one <3

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Keyboard Puffer by Liminal (2023)

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poetry is a fundamental food group if you dont read a decent poem once or twice a month you get soul anemic bone tired and all that

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Kyle Thompson

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-Sunrise, The Sea-

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Hopelessness is a form of silence, of denying the world and fleeing from it. The dehumanization resulting from an unjust order is not a cause for despair but for hope.

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970)

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Bisan's recent post. I think it's important for you to read it. Tonight 03.12.23, journalists in gaza share their last messages. There are no words to describe the horrors unfolding in gaza right now.

I no longer have any hope of survival like I had at the beginning of this genocide, and I am certain that I will die in the next few weeks or maybe days. I have been sick with severe viral infection for days and cannot move from the mattress!

I suffer from nightmares that are so closely resemble reality that I no longer differentiate between reality and dream.

I live in a world other than the one I claimed to be building! I am a community activist who lived on the fantasy that the world was free and just, and I sought to bring rights not only to my people, but to many men and women in third world countries!

I was shocked that I was not from the third world! Indeed, we are the most humane and moral! Yes, because the world approves, supports, and finances the genocide we are being subjected to, legislates it, and gives reasons for for 58 days! While we are a people who have been living on occupied land for 75 years and are still searching for our rights and communicating our voice to the world!

My message to the world: You are not innocent of what is happening to us, you as governments or peoples that support Israel’s annihilation of my people. We will not forgive you, we will not forgive you, humanity will not forgive you, we will not forget, even if we die, the history will never forget .

A Message to friends: Thank you and the supporters around the world. You have been compassionate and very strong. We ask you not to lose hope, even if the world seems completely unfair and your efforts have not yet resulted in a ceasefire.

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May we all witness a liberated Palestine in this lifetime and the next

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Not to be an anarchist on main but violence doesn’t mean just mean shooting or bombing; it’s often a structural feature of a state that is any mechanism preventing people from meeting their basic needs. Of course the carpet bombing, for example, is violence, but so too is the starving, the threatening, the checkpoints, the economic suppression, the displacement, the denial of education, the search and seizures, the second class citizenry, it goes on. When, inshallah, a ceasefire is put into place to pause the bombings, an unimaginable amount of violence will remain in a Palestinians every day existence. Ignoring this violent context to ask for blanket condemnations of Hamas is an irresponsible and bad faith way to have a conversation about actually finding resolution and freedom.

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In Spanish mannerisms, is it common to use the usted conjugation for your peer group? Then as you become well acquainted,you eventually transition to the tú form? Trying to gauge social norms with proper grammar. It's easy to offend when learning a language.

It is no longer common to use it that way, no

Bear with me because I'm going to have to explain how things were, and how things are now to make it make complete sense

For the purposes of general modern Spanish, usted is considered polite and formal, and tú considered more common among your peers and people younger than you. You don't usually have to use usted with someone your same age or in your peer group (like a stranger at university)

Sometimes people use usted with their bosses and superiors, regardless of their apparent age... but there are times when someone will say something to the effect of "use tú with me"

It's not a big social faux pas if you address someone about your age or younger with tú. It could be a bit rude to do it to a client/customer/judge/doctor depending on where you are, but it used to be a bigger mistake than it now is

A lot of countries have relaxed the social norms after moving away from a more aristocratic/feudal society... where usted is now a social courtesy for someone in a respected position, but not because they're "better" than you if that makes sense

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In older Spanish it was more common to use usted with strangers as a courtesy. The roots of the formality/informality are related to title and acquaintanceship; where usted was more commonly used to address someone unknown to the speaker, and its etymology is related to saying "your lordship/ladyship" like saying "sir" or "madam" when speaking to someone

It was common to use this form of address in polite conversation to afford someone the respect that their title afforded them, or in cases of unknowns, it was to treat people with respect so as not to accidentally slight someone's reputation

The tú form was then more commonly used with people who were related to you [a sign of intimacy or kinship], and in older feudal settings, more commonly used with servants and people who were lower than your station

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These rules have relaxed considerably since most Spanish-speaking countries either have different rules, or they're not so distinctly feudal in nature

In practice, usted is more commonly used for someone older than you; even with strangers, it's more common to use tú with someone who is your age or younger. And it is considered preferable to use usted when speaking with customers and clients

HOWEVER - this will largely depend on the country in question

As an example, I was taught [in the US] that you should talk to doctors and teachers with usted. However, I've been told by Spaniards for example that they use tú with their teachers, and their teachers use tú with them

Argentina is completely unique in that they use vos for everything and that tú and usted are less commonly used now

Some countries in Latin America prefer to use usted even with children or people they know

And many countries have some kind of use of vos which is in some places more informal than tú and vos is used among friends/relations

Chile, for example will use vos among peers and it's considered more common among the younger generation. But I've been told that vos is considered impolite, practically rude, when used with the older generation - sort of like if you called your grandmother "dude"

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You will find a lot of variation in countries - everyone will understand usted and tú and they're understanding of you being a foreigner and not exactly fitting in with the country's particular social norms regarding formality

Still in a place like Argentina I would expect them to call me vos even if I'm using tú because I never learned the vos conjugation; if I were living/working in Argentina I would go out of my way to learn the vos to fit in better

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10 Rules to Stay Focused on Studying

Here are my very own tips and tricks to keep you focused on studying:

1 . Hydrate to stay focused on studying

This is a tip that my friend gave me a long time ago.

When your mind begins to wander while studying, take a sip of water.

It works because it turns your focus to drinking and feeling the sensation of water hitting your system.

2 . Remove all distractions

You can’t focus on studying because your phone is right next to you.

There are so many distractions in the world today.

I was writing on my laptop while the TV was playing in the background, but my phone was playing YouTube at the same time!

If you want to focus on studying, you need to remove all distractions.

Turn off your wifi on your phone.

3 . Start a stopwatch

This is my very own tip to stay focused on studying.

All you have to do is start up your stopwatch on your phone.

Remember that it’s a stopwatch, not a timer! All it does is track how much time you can focus on studying before you get distracted.

It really helps me. It might sound weird but try it out.

4 . Make studying fun

Studying is boring and a lot of people hate studying. Those are the facts.

If you want to focus more on studying, switch things up.

5 . Fix your mindset

Stop studying just to get good grades on your next exam.

Change your mindset.

Become a person who studies every day just because.

It’s not about the exams anymore. Live and breathe studying.

That is when you can focus on studying better.

Think of it as a journey, not a means to an end.

6 . Resign yourself to your fate

What do I mean by this?

I mean that you need to understand that studying is an inevitable part of your life.

You are going to have to focus on studying. So, stop being stubborn and study right now.

Be practical and stop studying at 1am when your exam is at 10am – you drink coffee to stay up but all it does is mess up your system!

7 . Take breaks to stay focused on studying

Breaks are very important to focus on studying.

A break can be as simple as standing up once every 10 minutes and stretching.

Stop slouching and hunching over your books for 1 hour and then complaining when you can’t stay focused on studying!

Take more breaks.

8 . Guided meditation to focus on studying

If you can’t focus on studying because your thoughts get in the way, it might be time for you to try out guided meditation.

What is guided meditation?

Go on youtube and type it into the search.

It is a video where someone tells you what to think about. It reduces distraction in your head.

9 . Get enough sleep

I have done experiments on sleep. If you sleep late, trust me you won’t be able to focus on studying.

Forget 8 hours of sleep! If you are a young student, you need 10 hours of sleep. 8 is the minimum.

10 . Eat right to focus on studying

If you don’t eat the right amount of calories for your body, you can have trouble focusing on studying.

If you keep eating things that your body hates, you won’t be able to stay focused on studying.

My body hates milk and coffee. Trust me when I say I won’t have any of that!

I need to take care of my body to keep it at its best.

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Nevermind, finished the book, thank gods for the last three chapters.

If I was not reading it for a class, I would dnf The Jungle by Upton Sinclair so fast. It's not even bad... I'm just 25 chapters in and don't know how much more I can take

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and let the history books name joe biden, rishi sunak, justin trudeau, emmanuel macron, ursula von der leyen and every other world leader who did not step in to prevent the genocide of palestine as cold-blooded murderers. may they face a shred of the immeasurable pain and suffering they allowed to be committed against 2.2. million innocent lives.

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If I was not reading it for a class, I would dnf The Jungle by Upton Sinclair so fast. It's not even bad... I'm just 25 chapters in and don't know how much more I can take

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children’s dreams / al-yarmouk, palestinian refugee camp in damascus, syria 

little palestine; diary of a siege (2021) dir. abdallah al khatib