Latest Posts by toothbrushabsurdity - Page 2

Free Black History Library

will i end the semester or will the semester end me??? stay tuned

abuser’s point of view is not valid pass it on

Piccadilly Circus, c. 1928-1955 

ur twenties are weird. i have the priorities of a kindergartener again. i don’t know what in the hell is going on EVER. i like colors. i like soup. i want to take a nap

Don’t spend another year doing the same shit.

breakthrough, miracles, power

Put yours in the tags.

For all those wondering what, “just friends,” means.

Anyone want to join my club where we read pretentious literature, listen to dreary romantic music with classic undertones, wear tweed fall in love with an idea and idk maybe commit murder?

Hey kids, not to be a party pooping adult, but if you start noticing signs of having an addictive personality/tendencies at a young age, be really careful when experimenting with alcohol, marijuana, or nicotine (and other illegal drugs, which I would encourage you to avoid entirely; and medicinal drugs like opioids acquired after a surgery).

Like, if you can't tear yourself away from a video game, even to make it to an important event on time? Addictive tendencies.

If you keep spending your allowance money on those funny collectibles or new shoes even when you promise yourself you're going to save it? Addictive tendencies.

If you find yourself unable to resist and manage food cravings, or frequently overeating even when it makes you feel bad? Addictive tendencies.

Be aware of yourself, kids. Be cautious and don't be anybody's fool. I love you, be safe!

The internet is unsafe for children

The internet is unsafe for children

The true deadly sins

Lust

Not a sin- feeling sexual attraction, sex with consenting partners, masturbation, consuming pornographic media, having several sexual partners, sex before mariage. IT’S A SIN WHEN- the person projects lust onto an unwilling recipient person and does not take into account their wants or consent. Rape, harassment, sexual assault, catcalling, dick pics.

Gluttony

Not a sin- food, enjoying food, cooking, eating sweets, eating meat. In the larger sense, accumulating material things you enjoy, like books or collectibles or whatever.  IT’S A SIN WHEN- It deprives other people of what they need.

Envy

Not a sin: Wanting things you see other people have, like money, power, fame. IT’S A SIN WHEN: This is how you define people, and stop respecting them as humans. It’s a sin when you use them for what they have and what they can bring you.

Greed

Not a sin: Wanting financial security, working hard for the things you want.  IT’S A SIN WHEN: Your own financial growth depends on keeping other people impoverished and suffering.

Pride

Not a sin: Being proud of your accomplishments, liking your looks, dressing up IT’S A SIN WHEN: It stops you from accepting your faults and seeing how you can be wrong, not admitting that you can better yourself. 

Wrath

Not a sin: Righteous anger at situations, being mistreated, seeing other people suffer, at the injustice of the world. Self-defense. Revolution.  IT’S A SIN WHEN: Violence towards defenceless people, hitting your partner or your kids,.  Violence fuelled by intolerance and bigotry. 

Sloth

Not a sin: Resting. Sleeping. Taking a day or a year off. Being unproductive. Playing videogames. IT’S A SIN WHEN: You stay inactive when action is required. When people need you and you’d rather do nothing.

stop asking if you’re “valid,” start asking if you’re being honest about belonging to a community. stop this feelings-first, validate-me nonsense and realize that respect and validity starts with you, not with other people’s perception of you. if you don’t fit the definition for a term, then it’s not everyone else’s fault that you don’t feel valid, it’s yours for co-opting a term that wasn’t yours to begin with.

Is it just me or does 2019 feel....off? Everything is boring, the weather is weird, summer doesn’t feel right. The world isn’t fun anymore. Breaking rules is for enjoyment. People are rude and selfish. Drugs are a priority. Everyone is losing friends, relationships are falling apart. It’s like we’re all...stuck. There’s no emotion anymore. 2018 was weird, but 2019 just feels plain sad. We’re all growing up and forgetting how to act.

Rue, what happened?

concept: my home is filled with sunshine, always, and the sound of wind chimes in the morning. the doors are always open and it smells like sea. i am never lonely. this is my place.

Some pointers my Prof gave me before I began grad school

Yesterday I visited my university (undergrad) after two years in order to collect documents since I’m moving to grad school. I contacted one of my profs there and asked for advice, as I was nervous about joining research after such a long gap. Here is the advice he gave me:

General tips:

1. Be truthful to your research. Do not copy down somebody else’s work, even if you know you won’t be found out. Trust me on this, being accused of plagiarism is the worst thing to happen to a researcher and if you are exposed later on in career, your entire reputation will go down the drain.

2. Don’t hesitate to ask for help. He screwed up an instrument and waited 6 months before asking one of his subordinate who fixed it in 5 minutes. Imagine the amount of work he could have accomplished in those six months.

3. Manage your time well. Grad school is extremely demanding and some days you may not have time for sleep. Do not put off important work if you have time else you’ll end up doing it all in a hurry and without quality.

4. Every professor/guide/supervisor has her own unique method of teaching. Respect that and try to adapt. Even if you don’t understand most of what they teach, just listen. You might get a fresh perspective on things.

5. Be in touch with your teachers from undergrad etc. and ask them if you get stuck. They might help you out or at least guide you to someone who can.

6. Choose your topic wisely. Study the trends and know what are thrust areas in your field. However, the choice of guide is a major one. Make sure you understand the ways of your supervisor. Ask around, google his papers etc. and make sure he is not someone you’d hate for the entire extent of your school.

Tips related to Science research:

1. Know that there are more than one ways to solve a problem. However you cannot try them all due to time/energy/resources restrictions (or simply because your guide advises you against it). You need to know your limits and try methods that are optimized to your situation.

2. Be like Feynman. He knew his theory but he was a good experimentalist too. Have a balanced approach and know your strengths. If you are experimentalist, interact with theoreticians in order to get an idea of their approach and vice-a-versa. Your goal is to get the result and understand how you got it. 

3. You are in research not only to understand a theory/idea but also to apply it. It is not enough to know your books, you need to be able to solve the problem you are tackling. You won’t find a complete solution because nobody has solved it (thats why YOU are working on it, aren’t you?). You need to create/discover the solution.

4. Every problem in science completes a picture/theory. However not all of them receive the limelight. Find a topic you are interested in and know something about rather than chasing a “popular” one that everyone is talking about.

5. The biggest one: Do not feel inadequate for not knowing everything.

Nobody knows everything. You are in grad school to learn too. When you get stuck, get help/ask around; do not let the fear of being inferior get in the way of learning. You have got brains enough to understand things and you can.

6. Do not rely only on teachers/guides. Often your guide/supervisor will not know anything about the problem you are struggling with and will not be able to help you. In those times, find an expert (if there is) or consult books/papers. You should be able to study on your own, without somebody pushing you or deadlines.

Well, this is all I can remember. I hope it is helpful to those of you who are in a similar situation.

When STEM people have fun.

can we make 7-eleven day also alexei day

get ur hands on a free strawberry cherry slurpee every 7/11 at ya local 7-eleven in honor of our favorite purest ever russian puppy<3

live

Okay, so. It’s late at night and I kinda wanna play a game with you all.

The one where a person says a word, and you have to make a new word by changing only one letter, I’ll start.

Pork. 

Enough excuses for parents who abused their kids but “meant the best”. They “meant the best” for themselves, not for the kids. It’s fucking easy to just rely on emotional abuse, threats, humiliation, shame, guilt and violence to get your way and to force your kid to stay in control and to sabotage and fuck up the child’s life so you would feel good about it, and then to just remind yourself “i meant the best” to feel no guilt about doing so whatsoever. Just repeating to yourself “it doesn’t hurt them” and “they deserved it”  while actively forcing your child to keep all the obvious trauma symptoms out of sight or ensuring the child believes it’s their own damn fault for feeling the way they do.

You know what’s not easy? Having your parent force control of your life via emotional abuse, threats, shame, humiliation, violence. Your parent getting into your own head and  gaslighting your senses until you feel worthless and insane and like a monster, until you don’t dare to feel your own feelings, until you’re ashamed of the pain you feel and can’t see yourself as anything other than a horrible burden and nothing you do can ever change that or make you good enough. You know what’s even harder? Still believing that your parent “meant the best” and not even daring to blame them and still being forced to draw the conclusion that it was after all, all your fault, for existing as you do, for being who you are, for not ever being good enough! And then, on top of all of it, hearing the rest of the world agree with the parent’s view, pressuring you to never blame them, to forgive them, to never hold them responsible, to “be better” and understand them, to not ever try to place blame on anyone but yourself because then you’re the monster.

Just. How. Is. One. Supposed. To. Heal. From. That. Healing can’t even begin until the blame is placed on the parent! This person literally benefited from their child’s suffering! They did not get affected negatively from it at all, they didn’t even care, they walked away satisfied and getting what they wanted while the child now has a lifetime of traumatic consequences and mental illness problems! Their freedom is taken away, their quality of life reduced, their relationships and friendships sabotaged, their confidence crushed! They’re placed at extra risk for addictions and obsessions because they keep falling into the black pit of trauma no matter how hard they try to distract and their life is heavy and painful no matter how well they do afterwards! Their brain can’t regulate stress properly anymore! Abuse causes literal brain damage and all this is just so the parents would get their way! And you all still insist they shouldn’t feel guilty about it or be faced with consequences of their abuse? They shouldn’t fucking admit to themselves and to their children what they’ve done? If the truth will kill them, let them die. Abused children’s right to heal comes way before the abusers feeling good about themselves.

Child abusers don’t let children know they’re victims. Survivors of child abuse by large don’t know they’ve been abused. Abusive parents raise the child to have great compassion for them, to always view them as humane as possible, they make sure children are grateful to them, they point out every single thing they did for the child, such as “paid for your stuff” or “financed your schooling” or “gave you a roof over your head and fed you all these years” (even though to not do these things would be straight illegal, but they don’t mention that part, do they) as a proof of how good and generous they are, they make sure to recite all possible excuses to why they’re acting so abusive, they had a hard life, they have a lot on their plate, they’re good people they just make mistakes, they’ve been badly treated too, they don’t even know they’re hurting you, they’re insisting you’re too sensitive and get hurt from nothing, they don’t let the child hold them accountable or hold them guilty for any of their abuse. Abused child will be ashamed of themselves and hardly ever consider themselves a victim, they will be taught to repress and ignore trauma symptoms, to find a way to blame themselves for everything, to feel guilty just for how awful they feel all the time.

Emotionally abused child strongly believes that their parent is inherently good and deserves all the compassion in the world, all the excuses, all forgiveness and none of the blame for their actions (parents make sure children know that the blame would hurt them so children must never blame them) and will fight to defend the parent and point out why abuse was not really abuse, why children deserved it, why nobody is to blame, except maybe themselves, because “they weren’t good enough” to appease the parent which would then hopefully be a bit more kind (of course not). They often wont even admit how badly they’re scared of their parents.

To have an abused child realize they’ve been exploited, lied to, betrayed, systematically destroyed and dehumanized by their parent, their entire world needs to break down, everything they’ve been taught has to be acknowledged as a lie, what they considered right and fair needs to change to wrong, who they trusted the most needs to change to be least trust-worthy, who in their head, made sure they survive up to that point, needs to turn into a person who almost cost them their life, and destroyed it rather than held it safe. It’s not a fun ride. It’s devastating to go through, it breaks a person apart completely and forces them to re-construct their entire reality. And it’s the only way to have a chance to really recover, to validate themselves and their pain, to understand to what depth they’ve been damaged, and by who and why. It’s the only way to realize that they’re entitled to life, to food, to roof, to nurturing, to everything that was held against them, they’ve been required to feel grateful that they weren’t left to die. 

For those who still have to face this, or are facing it right now, you are going through the worst of your life right now. For those who have no empathy or patience for survivors to figure their lives out, fuck you, try living their life for a few years, see if you survive it. For abusers, I hope someone figures out how to force you to feel every single bit of pain you’ve inflicted on your children, I hope you fucking scream yourself to death from pain you’ve caused.

Lebanese suicide hotline: 1564

US Helplines:

Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696

Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-8433

LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255

Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386

Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743

Eating Disorders Hotline: 1-847-831-3438

Rape and Sexual Assault: 1-800-656-4673

Grief Support: 1-650-321-5272

Runaway: 1-800-843-5200, 1-800-843-5678, 1-800-621-4000

Exhale: After Abortion Hotline/Pro-Voice: 1-866-4394253

Child Abuse: 1-800-422-4453

UK Helplines:

Samaritans (for any problem): 08457909090 e-mail [email protected]

Childline (for anyone under 18 with any problem): 08001111

Mind infoline (mental health information): 0300 123 3393 e-mail: [email protected]

Mind legal advice (for people who need mental-health related legal advice): 0300 466 6463 [email protected]

b-eat eating disorder support: 0845 634 14 14 (only open Mon-Fri 10.30am-8.30pm and Saturday 1pm-4.30pm) e-mail: [email protected]

b-eat youthline (for under 25’s with eating disorders): 08456347650 (open Mon-Fri 4.30pm - 8.30pm, Saturday 1pm-4.30pm)

Cruse Bereavement Care: 08444779400 e-mail: [email protected]

Frank (information and advice on drugs): 0800776600

Drinkline: 0800 9178282

Rape Crisis England & Wales: 0808 802 9999 1(open 2 - 2.30pm 7 - 9.30pm) e-mail [email protected]

Rape Crisis Scotland: 08088 01 03 02 every day, 6pm to midnight

India Self Harm Hotline: 00 08001006614

India Suicide Helpline: 022-27546669

Kids Help Phone (Canada): 1-800-668-6868

FREE 24/7 suicide hotlines:

Argentina: 54-0223-493-0430

Australia: 13-11-14

Austria: 01-713-3374

Barbados: 429-9999

Belgium: 106

Botswana: 391-1270

Brazil: 21-233-9191

China: 852-2382-0000

(Hong Kong: 2389-2222)

Costa Rica: 606-253-5439

Croatia: 01-4833-888

Cyprus: 357-77-77-72-67

Czech Republic: 222-580-697, 476-701-908

Denmark: 70-201-201

Egypt: 762-1602

Estonia: 6-558-088

Finland: 040-5032199

France: 01-45-39-4000

Germany: 0800-181-0721

Greece: 1018

Guatemala: 502-234-1239

Holland: 0900-0767

Honduras: 504-237-3623

Hungary: 06-80-820-111

Iceland: 44-0-8457-90-90-90

Israel: 09-8892333

Italy: 06-705-4444

Japan: 3-5286-9090

Latvia: 6722-2922, 2772-2292

Malaysia: 03-756-8144

(Singapore: 1-800-221-4444)

Mexico: 525-510-2550

Netherlands: 0900-0767

New Zealand: 4-473-9739

New Guinea: 675-326-0011

Nicaragua: 505-268-6171

Norway: 47-815-33-300

Philippines: 02-896-9191

Poland: 52-70-000

Portugal: 239-72-10-10

Russia: 8-20-222-82-10

Spain: 91-459-00-50

South Africa: 0861-322-322

South Korea: 2-715-8600

Sweden: 031-711-2400

Switzerland: 143

Taiwan: 0800-788-995

Thailand: 02-249-9977

Trinidad and Tobago: 868-645-2800

Ukraine: 0487-327715

(Source)

Sleeping 👏 with 👏 stuffed 👏 animals 👏 is 👏 valid 👏 and 👏 nice 👏

Gonna tell y’all what I can hear now that I got my hearing aids

Italian idiom of the day #10

Essere in una botte di ferro

“To be inside an iron barrel” – to be on safe ground, to be shielded from all harm.

When someone tells you you are “inside an iron barrel” with them, they’re trying to reassure you: it means you’ve got nothing to worry about, that you are in safe hands.

Con Marco sei in una botte di ferro: è il medico più bravo che io conosca. – Marco really is your guy: he’s the best doctor I know.

Brock Rapist

Writing about a child rapist did not make Vladimir Nabokov a child rapist.

Writing about an authoritarian theocracy did not make Margaret Atwood an authoritarian theocrat.

Writing about adultery did not make Leo Tolstoy an adulterer.

Writing about a ghost did not make Toni Morrison a ghost.

Writing about a murderer did not make Fyodor Dostoevsky a murderer.

Writing about a teenage addict did not make Isabel Allende a teenage addict.

Writing about dragons and ice zombies did not make George R.R. Martin either of those things.

Writing about rich heiresses, socially awkward bachelors, and cougar widows did not make Jane Austen any of those things.

Writing about people who can control earthquakes did not make N.K. Jemisin able to control earthquakes.

Writing about your favorite characters and/or ships in situations that you choose does not make you a bad person.

It’s a shame that in this day and age these things need to be said.