kohamarsonist

[kohamarsonist]

Modesty or Veiled Truth by Antonio Corradini (1752).

[kohamarsonist]

definitely easier after painting your lover's naked back in the dawn of light, still high off the night before.

you don't have to be hard to write poetry. but it helps

[kohamarsonist]

Oscar Wilde, from an essay featured in The Decay of Lying and Other Essays

[kohamarsonist]

Polaris in Dust Clouds © Miguel Claro

[kohamarsonist]

every so often life just throws you a plotline you absolutely did not storyboard like ??? my friends and I are literally working together in a goddamn observatory like some kind of sci-fi academia dream cuz we got our top-choice research projects??

I get to drive us girlies through the hills like some caffeinated chauffeur of fate, we get the free coffee and roll up to this building that feels halfway between a university and a spaceship, and then spend the day like. actually Doing Science. like wdymmm we are cool scientists now o.o

we forget our lunch xd and our code breaks in new and exciting ways daily. and yet? somehow, it feels like the stars aligned, pun fully intendeddddd so yeah. sometimes the universe does hand you a little “here, have a main character moment.” and you just have to say Thank You, put your snazzy sunglasses on, and keep driving.

[kohamarsonist]

“To the thinker, the most tragic fact in the whole of the French Revolution is not that Marie Antoinette was killed for being a queen, but that the starved peasant of the Vendée voluntarily went out to die for the hideous cause of feudalism.”

— Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism (via threeaminspiration)

[kohamarsonist]

Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Planers, 1875

[kohamarsonist]

[kohamarsonist]

just got back from a space conference and wow, academia really is a bubble lol

this weekend, aside from nerding out over space tech and getting way too emotionally invested in a Soyuz-ISS docking simulator (which I did successfully dock, thank you very much), the biggest takeaway? academia is SO limiting when it comes to career advice

like, don’t get me wrong—I love science. I love research but talking to actual companies, different universities, and people OUTSIDE the academic hamster wheel really opened my eyes to how many paths exist. A lot of academics have only ever been in academia, so their advice is kinda like asking a fish for directions on land—they mean well, but they genuinely have no clue what’s out there, in the nicest way possible.

this is why conferences are so important. chatting with industry professionals, reconnecting with old mentors, and just getting outside perspectives completely shifts the way you think about your future because let’s be real—academia will have you thinking the only options are PhD → postdoc → tenure track → existential crisis. Meanwhile, the space industry is over here like “hiya, wanna build rockets? design satellites? explore Venus? run mission control? you're amazing and we'll let you do whatever you want.”

anyway lmao I didn't realise how much academics rn do NOT inspire me at all to the point where I watched a goddamn solar system documentary and felt more inspired than I've ever been in the past 4 years. this weekend, I left feeling SO inspired (and only slightly crushed by the weight of imposter syndrome, but that’s standard).

so the tldr for my friends and enemies in stem??? go to conferences and TALK to people. get outside opinions because your future is bigger than that academic pipeline you're presented with. 🚀✨

[kohamarsonist]

John Singer Sargent (detail)

[kohamarsonist]

Dude it is SO FUN and EXCITING to see a reoccurring reader. If you've commented a handful of times on an author's work, I guarantee that they recognize you. You can't imagine how many times I've excitedly informed my friends "the person with the funny cat image commented!" "- anon is back!!!!" and the friends've recognized who I was talking about because I talk about my commenters so often LOL. We love you all!!!

[kohamarsonist]

so uh. somehow 4 out of 5 research groups want to work with me, I got the project I wanted the most, and now a whole international lab wants to collaborate with me on their climate change research?? wild. absolutely insane. anyways, guess I’m doing that now.

[kohamarsonist]

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlfailure.

[kohamarsonist]

Kiki Smith: 'Constellation' (1996)

[kohamarsonist]

Andrea Gibson, Lord of the Butterflies

[kohamarsonist]

2024 moments that made my life

aka the rare instances where life felt perfectly whole and wonderfully satisfying. I am starting this reflection series every year, noting moments I do not want to forget as they brought me the greatest joy

midnight dips in the pool and reading beside the pool at like 2am cuz I can't fall asleep in Sv.Vlas

going up on the highest hill in town to watch the stars and talk about love and life and literature and history, and laughing so so much with my astronomer friends

snuggling into his embrace and him hugging me and holding me as he plays the ukulele and I can hear his voice resonating in his chest as he sings me the sweetest songs

kissing her

wine and vodka and gossip in an abandoned building with our legs dangling out, as we share wisdom and experiences with my best friend <3 and her wee chimera kitten <3

reading in the park with my friend, chatting about life and laughing so much that our chests hurt, and so long that we got sunburnt in the fucking UK wut

italyyy, late bar nights, climbing the rocky coast of napoli only for the best sunset pictures ever, getting lost in venice only to find the best gelato. Not my friends lugging all our stuff around a town cuz the lifts weren't working. Twice. I'm so sorry about that. T-T

spending the day out and exploring a castle on the coast with my mum, and chatting about arctic hares and love, and almost getting spat on by a llama

using actual telescopes for observations, and finishing my dissertation with one of the biggest names in the field, getting another award, being an ✨ astronomer ✨ so cool that my younger self would lose it when she sees we made it <3

getting serenaded the proper way, so romantic and I got to play the accordion afterwards xd

forgiving an old friend as he came to me and apologised, literal shame oozing out of him, he made me believe in humanity again because if this man can atone for his mistakes and apologise, anyone can

massive appreciation for my friends who almost got us kicked out of the library at 3am for loudly singing katy perry while waiting on our res images to render from the telescope in tenerife <3

grabbing hot chocolates with the germans after our relativity and particles exam, abs gentlemen

finally framing my paintings and putting them around the house, with my parents, and right next to my cute drawings from my toddler years. I have come a long way and I am getting that cutesy little spark of life back <3

planning all the 2025 holidayssss, my citizenship application is gonna suffer cuz I won't be in the uk much at all. can't wait to do my physics readings from the greek beach <3

Onto a marvellous 2025 with the most amazing chaos gremlins, ofc the insufferable and adorable astronomers too that keep all of me together with food and coffee, and debugging my files. Ofc also to everyone else that I'm yet to meet :))

[kohamarsonist]

✞ 666 ✞