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i say this in all seriousness, a great way to resist the broad cultural shift of devaluing curiosity and critical thinking is to play my favorite game, Hey What Is That Thing

you play it while walking around with friends and if you see something and don't know what it is or wonder why its there, you stop and point and say Hey What Is That Thing. and everyone speculates about it. googling it is allowed but preferably after spending several minutes guessing or asking a passerby about it

weird structures, ambiguous signs, unfamiliar car modifications, anything that you can't immediately understand its function. eight times out of ten, someone in the group actually knows, and now you know!

a few examples from me and my friends the past few weeks: "why is there a piece of plywood sticking out of that pond in a way that looks intentional?" (its a ramp so squirrels that fall in to the pond can climb out) • "my boss keeps insisting i take a vacation of nine days or more, thats so specific" (you work at a bank, banks make employees take vacation in long chunks so if youre stealing or committing fraud, itll be more obvious) • "why does this brick wall have random wooden blocks in it" (theres actually several reasons why this could be but we asked and it was so you could nail stuff to the wall) • "most of these old factories we drive past have tinted windows, was that just for style?" (fun fact the factory owners realized that blue light keeps people awake, much like screen light does now, so they tinted the windows blue to keep workers alert and make them work longer hours)

been playing this game for a long time and ive learned (and taught) a fuckton about zoning laws, local history, utilities (did you know you can just go to your local water treatment plant and ask for a tour and if they have a spare intern theyll just give you a tour!!!) and a whole lot of fun trivia. and now suddenly you're paying more attention when youre walking around, thinking about the reasons behind every design choice in the place you live that used to just be background noise. and it fuckin rules.

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Never posting my fanfiction. Call that AO2.

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liking an unpopular ship is like being dehydrated in a desert and liking a popular ship is like being dehydrated in the middle of the pacific ocean. you understand

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🌸° ✧ Studio Ghibli : S p r i n g ✧ °🌸

“Spring: A lovely reminder of how beautiful change can truly be.”

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The setting sun spotlights a ship hand climbing rigging in Buenos Aires. This scene has been repeated for nearly half a millennium, since the port was founded in 1536. Photo: Bruce Dale

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Omg!!!

How well do you see color?

I’m cry I scored 60, I feel blind

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Current Educational Goals:

Increase essay writing skills, specifically as it applies to historical narratives.

Understand the different movements that have applied to historical storytelling.

Learn more about current environmental initiatives at my university's farm.

For a future independent study:

Better my urban sketches and architectural drawings

Learn methods of tracing local knowledge from limited resources

Learn more architectural terms

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With August comes the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, what better way to celebrate the change in seasons than to set this month's 'to be read list' with books that look like the green summer but reflect the cold autumn.

Monster, She Wrote by Lisa Kröger & Melanie R. Anderson. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.

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Blumarine Spring 2004

📸: foundingfabric

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AN ART NOUVEAU ENAMEL FLOWER BROOCG, Designed as a sweet pea flower with iridescent enamel petals, mounted in gold

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i know supernatural is the show of missed opportunities but man. the trials really get to me - what a perfect way to reboot and reset this show that you're artificially extending for ratings. it could have been really, really good, actually

so the trials of god is a way for someone to gain the ability to seal the gates of hell and the gates of heaven

they have the translation for hell, they know that slamming the gates of hell shut means calling all the demons back home and locking the key. it's logical, then, to for them to believe the same is true of the one for heaven - that it calls all the angels back home and locks them away where they can't do any more damage

peace, for the people of earth, outside of the influence of angels and demons. that's got to be worth it, right?

so while sam is completing the hell trials, they get the angel tablet, kevin gets translating, to figure out the angel trials. or maybe metatron helps nudge them along to figuring it out, since him being the big bad here isn't really relevant and they are in a bit of time crunch

canon doesn't tell us what the heaven trials are, except that the first one involves a ritual using the heart of a nephilim. they make it sound like they're carving it from their chest, but what i would do is

have a nephilim offer you their heart from their chest (gain their loyalty in a binding ceremony)

create grace from freshwater (there is no rain that falls anywhere on earth that is safe to drink and god said let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters)

find a human soul to guide you to heaven (babel fell but the stairway was built and those with wings have no need of stairs)

so sam is in the midst of the hell trials when dean sort of accidentally on purpose completes the first heaven trial and then the brothers are on parallel train tracks heading in the opposite direction

sam works to close the gates of hell

dean works to close the gates of heaven

demons and angels both working to stop them

sam completes the trials. he restores crowley's humanity and he dies and the gates of hell are closed

but that's not the end

metatron says they can close the gates if they're willing to pay the price. canon says the price is sam's death, but frankly that doesn't make any sense. what's the death of one human against the horrors of hell? and remember, metatron doesn't know the winchesters. maybe another angel would make this comment, knowing how the winchesters have weighed the safety of the world against their brother and left the world out to dry, would think this a price worth warning for. but metatron wouldn't bother, wouldn't even think of it, if that was the only price

the gates of hell close and malevolent spirits explode across the globe, evil spirits and angry ghosts causing death and destruction everywhere

hell serves a function and now the gates are closed and every evil human soul is forced to stay on earth, causing as much destruction as it can

that's the price for closing the gates of hell

except. except. aren't the hell trials interesting?

kill a hellhound. rescue an innocent soul and return it to heaven. purify a demon and restore their humanity.

the trials are not to prove if someone is worthy of closing the gates of hell. it's to prove they're capable of setting hell to rights

the trials are if things got too out of hand, if things were taken too far, and hell had to be put back in it's place. sam dies and ends up exactly where azazel wanted him - ruler of hell. all the demons and souls are trapped with him and what he has to do, while he has them all there, while they can't escape, is exactly what he did to get there

he kills the hellhounds, leaving only those meant to patrol hell. he releases every innocent soul bound there. he purifies the demons one by one, who he either releases as innocent souls or who to pledge to do their job as demons of hell - punishing evil, containing evil - in penance for what they did before (how do i even begin to make up for what i've done, crowley had asked, and this is the answer)

meanwhile, dean, heartbroken, completes the heaven trials and dies

and the gates of heaven slam shut and all the angels are stripped of their grace and expelled from heaven and dean finds himself in charge of an empty heaven

the trials are for when things have gone too far and heaven must be rebuilt, after all

good souls pile up, no one who dies able to truly leave earth, and given enough time they become twisted things that must be hunted along with the spirits of evil men and women who cause chaos from their last breath

dean has work to do. he has one angel - the nephilim whose loyalty he earned in the first trial - and this is what he has to do. he recruits more, to replace the ranks, he creates grace and hands it out judiciously. he sends them to guide the good souls home, using the stairway that the former angels wouldn't be able to use even if they wanted to, and each good act and deed earns them a little more grace. former angels throw themselves into the fight for humans, because they know it's the only way that dean will return their grace to them and lift them back into heaven

and in fighting for them, in living like them, they learn to love these creations of their father that they'd despised. they see what he saw and the thought of destroying this place in a civil war becomes unthinkable to them. they are once more the angels god intended them to be

in this, dean and sam fulfill their destiny as lucifer and michael's vessels. not in letting them in, but in pushing them out, in doing the work each was intended for but refused

only when there is only evil human souls being punished and caged, only once the demons are once more working to run hell and earn their release to heaven, does sam reopen the gates of hell

only when there's a full choir of angels once more, committed to their cause, only once there are souls working with reapers as it once always was, does dean reopen the gates of heaven

they're called the god trials for a reason. above and below, sam and dean act as god, putting things back in their intended places

they could stay. they should stay. keeping house, making sure it all goes smoothly, eternally keeping earth safe from angels and demons both

they're called the god trials for a reason. not even god could resist the paradise inbetween that he'd created

dean doesn't know if sam is going to return to earth. he might stay in hell, and if dean becomes human once more, then what's the point? he'll live and die a human, get stuck in heaven, and be forever separated from the brother he loves

sam doesn't know if dean is going to return to earth. he migh not be able to, might be stuck doing his work - sam assumes if the hell trials did this to him, then the heaven trials did the same to dean, and the idea that dean could have failed the heaven trials after he dies doesn't even cross mind. if he returns and dean's not there then he loses it all, he never again gets to see the brother he loves

but when, exactly, haven't they been willing to risk everything for each other?

dean falls as lucifer fell, throwing himself towards earth

sam rises as michael did after the fall, pulling himself towards earth the same way michael once pulled himself to the top of heaven

what's the use of being a god without his brother, after all?

dean and sam are reunited on earth, human once more

no more angels, no more demons, heaven and hell functioning once more as they should. we're back to basics, a clean slate, all of the rest remade and set aside by their own hands (it's literal and a metaphor, the way the show could have remade itself with the trials, after setting aside kripke's plan while at the same time recognizing that the design of it - two brothers who love each other going across america and fighting evil - is the thing that made it worth watching to begin with) and now it's them again, brothers forged in blood and sacrifice and love, and a new appreciation for the humanity they gave up and returned to

and then we get my beloved monster of the week with no stupid too high stakes, convoluted bullshit involved, beyond the occasional angel who dean refused to reinstate and demon tracking down miscreant souls and, every once in a while, a person or creature or something in between squinting at them and going - weren't you two gods?

nah, they say, all corn fed grins and the dimples their momma gave them, we're brothers

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ever since i was a little girl i knew i don't want to drive

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Winona Ryder as Mina Murray in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

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Writing Notes: Op-Ed vs. LTE

Op-Ed

Short for "opposite the editorial" (from print)

States point of view

Evidence-based and persuasive

LTE

Written in response to an article

Uses facts to bolster article or clarify information

Reasons to Write an Op-Ed or LTE

Raise awareness about your topic of expertise

Make yourself visible as an expert

Add something new to the conversation

Op-Ed Mechanics

Introduce the topic and explain why it's relevant and timely

Back up your argument with examples, statistics, and expertise

Conclude by stating your point of view and have a call to action

LTE Mechanics

State what you're responding to and why

Include statistics, facts or examples to support your point of view

Conclude by stating a specific call to action

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Dear Emily,

Your poems make me smile.

Thank you for writing a soft sea washed around the house.                      Love,                      Aro   CT    age: 7

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I love your page it’s very inspiring I’m always looking at new updates and I was wondering do you have any channels for Spanish, French, and Italian language learning. I’m trying some new things and language learning is definitely at the top.

thank you so much!

spanish language learning:

♡ spanish after hours

♡ anna lenkovska

♡ butterfly spanish

♡ learn spanish with spanishpod101.com

french language learning:

♡ learn french with frenchpod101.com

♡ learn french with alexa

♡ easy french

italian language learning:

♡ italy made easy

♡ learn italian with italianpod101.com

♡ shea jordan

general language learning:

♡ elysse speaks

♡ jo franco

♡ tanya benavente

♡ veronika’s language diaries

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The Mirror and The Palette

by Jennifer Higgie

This book tells the story of female artists from the renaissance to the modern day (20, I just counted them) through their self portraits. I think it did an amazing job of telling the history and personality of the artists and how this influenced their art. A lot of the chapters I related to and felt connected to my life. Here are some highlights:

Gwen John (1873-1939)

Gwen John was welsh (as am I) and I saw myself in her reclusiveness and obsession (and her love of cats). I love her portraits and their muted colours, the models reserved expressions. The book includes her 1902 'Self-Portrait' which I saw at the Tate Now You See Us exhibition (the exhibition was great maybe I'll write about that another time). I like that her eyes are just slightly staring into space, instead of at the viewer

I also love her 'A Corner Of An Artist's Room In Paris' (1907-9) which I think is a self-portrait in another font - its a reflection of her but more enigmatic than a portrait. It shows her room she rented from money earned being an artist's model - she has a room of her own despite a lack of inherited funds which is a powerful message after hundreds of years of female artists being only upper class daughters or wives of artists, able to work in their husband or father's studio. Although Gwen John wasn't a hugely successful artist at this time, she was independent, living alone and free to paint as she wished.

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-c.1656)

Artemisia was taught by her painter father and was producing professional works by the time she was a teenager. She was, when she was 18, raped by an artist employed by her father to teach her painterly perspective. Her subsequent arduous trials are recorded in a 300 page transcript. Her history paintings (a genre not deemed suitably feminine at the time) often feature prominent female characters who were usually treated as secondary to the male characters in other artists renditions. One of my favourite examples of this is Susanna and The Elders (1610)

Her self-portrait featured in this book is based on the symbol for painting from 'Iconologia' and shows her engrossed in her work, brandishing a paintbrush. I love this painting because of the energy and passion shown and because its so different from other artists self-portraits of the time which were much stiffer and less dramatic.

'Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting' (1638-9)