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50 Countries, 50 Books by Women

! indicates lesbian/bisexual main characters

Algeria: So Vast the Prison by Assia Djebar [realistic]

Australia: Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty [thriller]

Bolivia: Women Talking by Miriam Toews [realistic - philosophical]

Botswana: Juggling Truths by Unity Dow [historical - 1960s]

Brazil: The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector [realistic]

Cambodia: First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung [memoir]

Canada: Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot [memoir]

Chile: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende [historical - 20th c.]

China: The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang [high fantasy]

Colombia: Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras [realistic]

!Democratic Republic of Congo: Everfair by Nisi Shawl [alternate history]

Egypt: Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi [realistic]

France: The Alice Network by Kate Quinn [historical - 1940s]

Germany (present day Poland): Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys [historical - 1940s]

Ghana: Homegoing by Yaa Gyashi [historical - 1700s to present]

Greece: Medea by Crista Wolf [mythology]

Iran: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi [memoir]

!Ireland: Hood by Emma Donoghue [realistic]

India: The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal [realistic]

Israel: The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman [historical - 1st c.]

Italy: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante [historial - mid. 20th c.]

!Jamaica: The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin [memoir]

Japan: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee [historical - early 20th c.]

Malaysia: The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo [historical fantasy - early 20th c.]

Mauritius: Eve Out of Her Ruins by Ananda Devi [realistic]

Mexico: Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia [historical fantasy - early 20th c.]

Morocco: Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman’s Journey Toward Independence by Leila Abouzeid [historical - mid 20th c.]

Netherlands: An Address in Amsterdam by Mary Dingee Fillmore [historical - 1940s]

!Nigeria: Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta [historical - mid 20th c.]

North Korea: The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story by Hyeonseo Lee [memoir]

!Norway: The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave [historical - 17th c.]

Pakistan: Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie [mystery]

Peru: Blood of the Dawn by Claudia Salazar Jiménez [realistic]

Poland: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk [mystery]

Romania: Bottled Goods by Sophie van Llewyn [magical realism - late 20th c.]

!Russia (present day Moldova): Beyond the Pale by Elana Dykewomon [historical - late 19th/early 20th c.]

Rwanda: The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After by Clemantine Wamariya [memoir]

!Saudi Arabia: The Others by Seba Al-Herz [realistic]

Senegal: So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ [realistic]

!South Africa: The World Unseen by Shamim Sarif [historical - 1950s]

South Korea: The Vegetarian by Han Kang [realistic]

!Sweden: The Engelsfors Trilogy by Sara B. Elfgren [urban fantasy]

Trinidad and Tobago: ‘Til the Well Runs Dry by Lauren Francis-Sharma [historical - mid 20th c.]

Turkey: The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak [realistic]

Ukraine: Dog Park by Sofi Oksanen [realistic]

United Kingdom: Milkman by Anna Burns [realistic]

United States: The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich [historical - late 19th c. to present]

!Uruguay: Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis [realistic]

Vietnam: The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai [historical - 1950s to present]

Zimbabwe: We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo [realistic]

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my friend just told me that there's a secret second dashboard that solely contains posts from people you've turned on post notifications for, and when i click the link in the messages it opens it within the tumblr app, so the tumblr app also has a secret second dashboard for post notification blogs, and the only way to access it is to open the link for it within the app.

i literally love tumblr

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How to write a kick ass cover letter.

Hi everyone! Above is a sample of a cover letter I wrote to apply for a job at a tech startup. I received a quick callback for this job, but I was already signed on to another position. Using this format has been basically foolproof for me, because it’s professional and reads as well-spoken, but also gets your point across and keeps the focus on the employer. I’ll break this up into sections. 

First, formatting: Your cover letter should match your resume in some way. You should use the same font or colors somewhere. I cropped off the top half because it has my address and phone number on it, but it has my name and contact info on it the same way my resume does. 

It should never be more than a page long. Honestly, I think the example I’m using is a little too long and wordy, but I think startups appreciate the extra effort because it shows you’re willing to be above average.

Opening paragraph: “I am excited to apply for your Customer Service Lead position. Glowforge is my idea of a perfect company because it bridges the gap between the creative and tech communities. I’d love to bring my energy and drive along with my relevant experience to your innovative company.” 

In the first sentence, I state that I am excited to apply for the position. I’ve been in charge of hiring for a few different jobs I’ve had, and 99.999% of all cover letters start with something very dull like, “I am writing to inquire about the receptionist position.” That doesn’t make me interested in learning more about you! Using an energetic adjective like “excited” can be intriguing to employers because they know you will go on to explain how in the rest of your letter. Perhaps you have a personal connection to the company, or you are extremely passionate about something they make or do. 

First paragraph:  “ For the past three years, I worked as a bookkeeper and payroll specialist for My Seattle Bookkeeper. I helped grow the company from 20 to 60+ clients in this time, acting as the first point of contact for every incoming and ongoing client. I have also acted as office manager and employee coordinator, leading a team of four employees to meet monthly, quarterly, and annual goals. In this position I fine-tuned my communication skills and helped to find specific solutions to diverse problems. I loved making our clients happy and simplifying their business operations with my accounting skills and go-getter personality.”

The point of a cover letter is to expand on your resume and support the evidence your resume provides. It is where you should explain any significant gaps in your employment history, or explain why you made a major career or college switch. You should also use it to expand on job tasks and discuss how the skills at one job will help you at the job you are applying for. Because my job at MSB was not really client facing (I worked remotely in a basement, lol) and very analytical/mathematical, I used this paragraph in my cover letter to explain how I demonstrated growth in this position and what skills I gained. I specifically brought up communication and making clients happy because the position I was applying for was customer-facing.

Your first paragraph after your opening paragraph should discuss what you’ve done and expand on anything that might need explaining or stringing together.

Second paragraph: “I would love to work at Glowforge because I am a maker. In my spare time I love to knit, quilt, sew, and design. I recently taught myself HTML and CSS and I am currently learning JavaScript. I am fascinated with the concept of blending hands-on art and design with software and technology. There is a gap in the tech-maker community, and the fact that Glowforge has so many excited customers before the product has launched speaks strongly to the necessity of the product. Being a part of a growing startup has always been a dream of mine, and my interests and skills are perfect for this position.”

Your second paragraph should be about WHY you want the job. Don’t be afraid to tell them about yourself in a relevant way! This makes it unique and lets them get to know you a bit more. It also shows you are creative and can think further than copying and pasting a boring form cover letter. This should of course be used within reason; if you’re applying at a big 4 accounting firm you should definitely scale it back, but I’ve found that for smaller businesses and start ups and jobs that require an outgoing personality, this is the best method.

Be sure to tie it all together though! Notice how I share a fact about myself (my love of fiber arts) and then lead into how I am teaching myself computer programming. I then use a segue sentence that allows me to move on and talk about their company and why I want to work for their company. 

In this paragraph you should also demonstrate that you have researched the company and know what they’re about. Reference something specific but interesting about them so they know that you care about the company, care about the job, and have done your research! I’m not positive, but I think this piece is the reason I get so many interviews when I use this format. Showing that you are passionate about the job no matter what it is and that you are a hard worker who goes above and beyond is really important at this stage - you really have to sell yourself! 

At the end of this paragraph, be sure to choose a conclusion sentence that ties it back in to the your intro about your hobbies. Always tie it together.

Final paragraph:  “ Again, Glowforge’s dedication to customer happiness and leadership has made a huge impression on me. I would be thrilled to work for a company that values data-driven work and user success as much as Glowforge does.”

Your conclusion is your chance to tie it all together and gas them up. Give them a compliment that reiterates their company mission and values. Show that you understand what they’re all about and that you will be a valuable asset to keep them moving towards their goals.

Salutation: “Thank you for your time! I look forward to hearing from you soon.”

Always thank them! Hiring people is hard work and they read a million of these in the process. Also, ACT CONFIDENT throughout the entire process, but especially in your salutation. Let them know that you know you are a perfect fit and they will want to contact you. Fake it til you make it. This also helps you to follow up with them in a few days if you haven’t heard from them yet. Include your phone number in the email or body of the contact form when you send your PDF resume and cover letter. 

I basically took this template from here and tweaked it, sending it out over and over, until I found what works best for me. Feel free to copy it and tweak it with your own skills and interests! 

Thinking about doing a 2018 resume dos and don’ts next - so much has changed recently and we can be a bit more creative with resumes these days! Let me know what you think!

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they're texting each other

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I've said this before and I'll say it again: it's more important to know and understand fully why something is harmful than it is to drop everything deemed problematic. It's performative and does nothing. People wonder why nobody has critical thinking skills and this is part of it because no one knows how to simousltansly critique and consume media. You need to use discernment.

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Morgan Nikola-Wren

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To say, “This is my uncle,” in Chinese, you have no choice but to encode more information about said uncle. The language requires that you denote the side the uncle is on, whether he’s related by marriage or birth and, if it’s your father’s brother, whether he’s older or younger.

“All of this information is obligatory. Chinese doesn’t let me ignore it,” says Chen. “In fact, if I want to speak correctly, Chinese forces me to constantly think about it.”

This got Chen wondering: Is there a connection between language and how we think and behave? In particular, Chen wanted to know: does our language affect our economic decisions?

Chen designed a study — which he describes in detail in this blog post — to look at how language might affect individual’s ability to save for the future. According to his results, it does — big time.

While “futured languages,” like English, distinguish between the past, present and future, “futureless languages,” like Chinese, use the same phrasing to describe the events of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Using vast inventories of data and meticulous analysis, Chen found that huge economic differences accompany this linguistic discrepancy. Futureless language speakers are 30 percent more likely to report having saved in any given year than futured language speakers. (This amounts to 25 percent more savings by retirement, if income is held constant.) Chen’s explanation: When we speak about the future as more distinct from the present, it feels more distant — and we’re less motivated to save money now in favor of monetary comfort years down the line.

But that’s only the beginning. There’s a wide field of research on the link between language and both psychology and behavior. Here, a few fascinating examples:

Navigation and Pormpuraawans In Pormpuraaw, an Australian Aboriginal community, you wouldn’t refer to an object as on your “left” or “right,” but rather as “northeast” or “southwest,” writes Stanford psychology professor Lera Boroditsky (and an expert in linguistic-cultural connections) in the Wall Street Journal. About a third of the world’s languages discuss space in these kinds of absolute terms rather than the relative ones we use in English, according to Boroditsky. “As a result of this constant linguistic training,” she writes, “speakers of such languages are remarkably good at staying oriented and keeping track of where they are, even in unfamiliar landscapes.” On a research trip to Australia, Boroditsky and her colleague found that Pormpuraawans, who speak Kuuk Thaayorre, not only knew instinctively in which direction they were facing, but also always arranged pictures in a temporal progression from east to west.

Blame and English Speakers In the same article, Boroditsky notes that in English, we’ll often say that someone broke a vase even if it was an accident, but Spanish and Japanese speakers tend to say that the vase broke itself. Boroditsky describes a study by her student Caitlin Fausey in which English speakers were much more likely to remember who accidentally popped balloons, broke eggs, or spilled drinks in a video than Spanish or Japanese speakers. (Guilt alert!) Not only that, but there’s a correlation between a focus on agents in English and our criminal-justice bent toward punishing transgressors rather than restituting victims, Boroditsky argues.

Color among Zuñi and Russian Speakers Our ability to distinguish between colors follows the terms in which we describe them, as Chen notes in the academic paper in which he presents his research (forthcoming in the American Economic Review; PDF here). A 1954 study found that Zuñi speakers, who don’t differentiate between orange and yellow, have trouble telling them apart. Russian speakers, on the other hand, have separate words for light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy). According to a 2007 study, they’re better than English speakers at picking out blues close to the goluboy/siniy threshold.

Gender in Finnish and Hebrew In Hebrew, gender markers are all over the place, whereas Finnish doesn’t mark gender at all, Boroditsky writes in Scientific American (PDF). A study done in the 1980s found that, yup, thought follows suit: kids who spoke Hebrew knew their own genders a year earlier than those who grew up speaking Finnish. (Speakers of English, in which gender referents fall in the middle, were in between on that timeline, too.)

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obsessed with onion the cunty scottish parrot

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absolutely obsessed with these three georgian girls called trio mandilli (source)

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every minute spent on planning saves you ten minutes spent on execution. short essays probably don't require that much preparation beforehand, but if you're writing something longer you should probably spend some time planning first. this is the process i go through when planning my essays, and i find it works really well!

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ART NOUVEAU PORTALS

1. Salvador Valeri i Pupurull, Casa Comalat, 1911, Barcelona, Diagonal 442D; 2. Josef Maria Olbrich, Glücherthhaus, 1901, Darmstadt, Mathildehöhe; 3. Gottardo Gussoni, Casa dei Draghi, 1918/20, Torino, Corso Francia 23; 4. Firsch Mausoleum, 1917, Eire Cemetary, Eire Pennsylvania; 5. Jules Lavriotte, Hôtel Lavriotte, 1901, Paris, 29 Avenue Rapp; 7-9. Ixelles, Bruxelles; 10. Hector Guimard, Castel Béranger, 1895/98, Paris, Rue de la Fontaine 14; 11. Strasbourg; 12. E. André, Maison Huot, Nancy, Rue Claude Le Lorrain 92; 13. San Sebastian, Calle Prim; 14. Alfred Wagon, 1904, Place Etienne Pernet, Paris.

Art Nouveau was the first pan-European style since Neo-classicism. Easily imitated, content free, and highly adaptable, the style was particularly appealing to private patrons uninterested in the politics of national styles that had characterized the various historical revivals of the 19th century.

The signature serpentine, coup de fouet gesture could devolve into spineless dither and filigree, however, and by the end of World War I, everyone agreed that the fin-de-siècle was over. In Europe, the various manifesto modernisms prevailed; Americans contented themselves with Art Deco, or, as Roy Lichtenstein put it, “modernism for the home.”

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Let’s just say… Broadway wins the AWESOME SUSPENDERS award

Greg Mills (eagle and… Mercury caduceus?)

Jordan Donica (deck of card!)

Tim Martin Gleaon (puppets-on-strings!)

Rodney Ingram (lizards!)

Rodney Ingram (Florida?!)

Jay Armstrong Johnson (acorns!)

Kyle Barisich (Sailships!)

John Riddle (fly lures!)

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Milky Way stabilized shows the Earth is spinning through space 

Source

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On one occasion, Lars Jansson and his girlfriend at the time had an idea to introduce their older sisters Tove and Vivica to each other. The meeting was a disaster. Vivica was a tall and impressive woman, who intimidated Tove. Tove in turn was a small woman in frilly clothes, who likely looked rather silly to Vivica.

This was how Tove Jansson’s first love story with another woman started. Vivica was married at the time and Tove was dating Atos Wirtanen. But the chemistry and passion between the women was something they could not deny. They connected on an intellectual level, but their physical chemistry was also extremely deep. 

During following months, the women would steal any moment they could to be together. When Vivica was traveling for previous work commitments, they would write passionate letters. The letters were worded with their own secret terms, as post could be read and homosexuality was still a crime in Finland. Despite their secrecy, people did talk behing their back. Both women were accused of being sexual deviants who would sleep with anything, because they both had experiences with men and women. 

When the women started seeing each other, Tove was writing her third Moomin book; Finn Family Moomintroll. Her love sneaked into the pages of the novel as well, when she introduced two new characters called Tofslan and Vifslan (Thingumy and Bob in English). Their names were directly taken from Tove’s and Vivica’s nicknames. The small couple has their own secret language and a beautiful secret, a dazzling ruby, that they protect from the horrible Groke who wants to take that treasure away.

Tove made another gesture to immortalize her love for Vivica. In spring 1947, Tove Jansson was comissioned to paint to large frescos to the dinign hall of Helsinki City hall. The comissioner was mayor of Helsinki and Vivica’s father, Erik von Frenckell. Tove took on the enormous work with passion and worked long days to finish the comission. And while she wrote to Vivica about her progress, she also made a bold choice with the other fresco. She painted a tall, dark woman dancing at the center. The woman was clearly Vivica. And then Tove painted herself at the front, near the dark woman. It does not need to be explained what bravery it required to paint herself and her lover like that at the time.

The frescos were finished on time by the end of the year. But Tove’s love story with Vivica already ended in the summer. Their circumstances were simply too impossible to hold a stable relationship. Tove was torn by this and expressed how empty it made her feel. But like she did with all disappointments, she did not hold any grudge towards Vivica. They still remained great and close friends, who even collaborated together to bring Tove’s Moomins into theater.

Many years later, Vivica would go on to admit that she did regret how things ended with Tove. She considered it her fault, because she was just a person who always expected things to go badly. And if they did not go badly, she would make them do so. 

But to Vivica, Tove was the greatest love of her life and the best thing that ever happened to her. She did not believe in God, but she did believe in Tove. While she might not have regretted their end her whole life, she admitted that she did so at least over half her life.