notesoncrocs

[notesoncrocs]

i should be doing work

i'm supposed to be doing work but i logged on here and tried to catch up with everyone's posts (ana's slides are so cute ahhh).

i miss this summer and yall a lot. i know missing it won't change anything but i still do. i've been saying this year is my era of peace and quiet -- i guess that's true. here's what i've been up to:

been going to the gym every morning with ana, making my room look nice, watching succession, having disappointing frat party experiences, trying to stay on top of work. there's a harvard class i'm taking that i really like, a creative writing workshop on the art of the short story. i like that this class is taught a lot better than that one time i took a fiction workshop at mit. we read adela's house by mariana enriquez, a story about a haunted house, and the prompt for that week was to use physical space and the interaction with that space to write a story. this week, we're reading bloodchild by octavia butler (which is literally an alien mpreg story) and the prompt is to write a story about the physical body. i'm writing some crazy stuff.

i like getting back into writing. it used to be a source of stress for me for a lot of very dramatic reasons, and i pretty much gave up on it after that mit fiction workshop. but i was reading this is how you lose the time war this summer (lesbian time travel story where they send each other really poetic letters, bought it with ana at trident in may) and i started thinking about writing more as sending letters to someone across space and time, which i thought was a nice way to think about it. summer was good but there was always an undercurrent of anxiety -- this happiness is temporary, my memory is imperfect and will forget these moments, i will leave these countries and these people and it won't ever be the same. thoughts like that. but there was a line in that book, something about how poetry ossifies, like wood from a tree, how it uses the words in a language (which are like a grimy deck of cards, really) to preserve this beating, writhing tissue, this ephemeral moment, into something strong, solid, and a little bit lifeless. but solid enough to package up and send to you, or to me in the future, or someone. so it's a good thing to write, to work against time, even if it's just to say things to myself that i can't say to anyone else.

anyway. all this to say that i like taking a class that teaches me how to make things up. i'm also taking paloma's class, which is just me being delusional about my spanish level (mexico did help a lot though). i'm also taking jazz composing (my next hobby mayhaps, watch out mit festival jazz ensemble!), 9.66 (computational cog sci), and computer graphics with ana (i'm supposed to be doing pset 0 rn but it looks so atrocious). when i'm not thinking about classes, i'm thinking about how i need to apply for internships next summer and need to relearn 6.006. when i'm not doing either, i guess i'm doing things like writing this, which is really just me procrastinating by feeling melancholic (tm).

like, maybe i should meet more people, or something? but the thought makes me so exhausted and disappointed already. but yeah, these are the things i've been thinking about. hope yall are doing good!

[notesoncrocs]

turns out i have a 16 hour flight tomorrow morning + 5 hour layover in singapore + 5 hour flight to shanghai. need to find shit to do for 26 hours so i’ll probably write stuff about mexico here! please send tv show / movie / book recs for this 26 hour journey :((

[notesoncrocs]

saw this tweet that was about hangouts where you sip a drink and watch some music videos and oscillate between cultural criticism, stannery, gossip, psychotherapy and confession and thought of actual ihouse, i think that’s what i’ve been missing all summer

[notesoncrocs]

i love my friends at my job, they're the only reason why i even show up anymore

[notesoncrocs]

i am not joking we need to force teach cooking in schools. like. it is an essential thing for survival. do you know how easy it is to make things if you know even the bare bones shit about how cooking works. we need to teach teenagers how far you can take an onion and some other veggies it’’s sad that people grow up not knowing how to prepare literally anything. and i’m not talking about oh this home ed class taught me how to make chicken nuggets at home i’m talking about learning the balancing of sweetness and acidity and saltiness and bitterness and shit like that and techniques and oil temperatures and how meats cook. it needs to be taught because it’s literally not even that difficult and it matters so much

[notesoncrocs]

kevin just told me “pásame el ese del ese de la esa” for when you want to get something but you don’t remember the name. and the format is always el ese de la esa with el ese referring to the object and la esa to the general place

tostada here refers to a fried tortilla but i remember ana said that tostada is toast (or at least something bread-related)

kevin has a friend from guadalajara and he says that lonche here in cdmx means a packed meal that you put in tupperware, but in guadalajara it means una torta

pls tell us some of ur fav mexican / centam / latam slang

chorro / chorrío is funny because i think it's somehow related to a word for faucet (em ale can confirm), and it refers to a type of diarrhea that is purely liquid ahaha

people here also use padre as a word for "cool." i got asked something like "y te gusta mit? es padre?" and i was so confused at first like huh?? my dad is...my dad, what is going on

also sidenote i've noticed that mexican spanish uses a lot of indigenous words for location names, so on highway signs or metro station signs or neighborhood signs i see the "tl" sound come up a lot (e.g. tláhuac, pantitlán)

more to come!! most of the time i just go off vibes and hope i get the gist of things

[notesoncrocs]

mentioned this post to alex, carlos, and kevin today and might make this a Thing (idk if i should keep reblogging to add on to this or make new posts? idk how tumblr etiquette works)

but alex kept saying “ay güey” as an exclamation (when both good and bad things were being discussed) and i figured it meant wow! or something to that effect, which he confirmed. interesting, i’ve heard johan use anda that way but i’m realizing that might be pr-specific

alex also told me about “a gusto” (don’t know if i’m spelling it right) but it basically means “i’m chilling”

also venir (in a sexual context) might be something specific to mexico? this hasn’t been confirmed though

pls tell us some of ur fav mexican / centam / latam slang

chorro / chorrío is funny because i think it's somehow related to a word for faucet (em ale can confirm), and it refers to a type of diarrhea that is purely liquid ahaha

people here also use padre as a word for "cool." i got asked something like "y te gusta mit? es padre?" and i was so confused at first like huh?? my dad is...my dad, what is going on

also sidenote i've noticed that mexican spanish uses a lot of indigenous words for location names, so on highway signs or metro station signs or neighborhood signs i see the "tl" sound come up a lot (e.g. tláhuac, pantitlán)

more to come!! most of the time i just go off vibes and hope i get the gist of things

[notesoncrocs]

true heartbreak is going to text the group chat that we should try the grimace meal and then realizing that the next 1am drunk mcdonald’s order is a long time away

[notesoncrocs]

you know what one thing i don’t get is ahorita. is it now (urgency)? is it now (relaxed)? is it later (soon)? later (actually never)?? huh?? it seems to be all of the above

also i used coger today to talk about me getting something but it turns out coger in mexico means to fuck so that was a little bit awkward

pls tell us some of ur fav mexican / centam / latam slang

chorro / chorrío is funny because i think it's somehow related to a word for faucet (em ale can confirm), and it refers to a type of diarrhea that is purely liquid ahaha

people here also use padre as a word for "cool." i got asked something like "y te gusta mit? es padre?" and i was so confused at first like huh?? my dad is...my dad, what is going on

also sidenote i've noticed that mexican spanish uses a lot of indigenous words for location names, so on highway signs or metro station signs or neighborhood signs i see the "tl" sound come up a lot (e.g. tláhuac, pantitlán)

more to come!! most of the time i just go off vibes and hope i get the gist of things

[notesoncrocs]

sad sad sad post about fleabag

fleabag and the priest tell each other "i love you" at a bus stop, he vows to never see her again, says the line that kills me ("it'll pass"), leaves the bus stop, and then fleabag herself gets up and abandons the camera — abandons us — at the stop and walks away, ugly statue in hand (the act of stealing it again for the nth time a last "fuck you" to her stepmother, or a symbol of how tightly she clings on to this toxic relationship with her father and stepmother in her life because it's the only consistent one she has, or something).

"it'll pass" hurts so much and i'm trying to figure out why. back in high school my friend would say it every time after she talked about her depressive episodes, which made it seem worse in my mind. "it'll pass," spoken with such resigned certainty, implies experience, faith that this has happened a lot before and will happen again.

i don't know why, and this is really dumb, but that line also made me think of a text exchange i had with a friend that day. i was giving him shit for going to multiple joji concerts, said something like "i wanna love someone the way you love joji" and he responded "how about urself?" which killed me. LMAO. i guess these days i've been trying to figure that out too, be okay with exploring a city and being by myself and liking it. and so i was thinking about "it'll pass," and how to deal with loving someone and also yourself, and sometimes having to choose, and how that works.

"it'll pass" reminds me of the wong kar-wai film in the mood for love (花樣年華), which also made me lose my shit when i watched it. the relationship is toxic from the beginning, and eventually they separate for years and years. maybe decades. he comes back to her apartment building and asks about her, receives the answer that a woman and son are living there now, and leaves. doesn't even realize that the woman could be her after all this time. later, he goes to a temple in cambodia and whispers a secret into a hollow in the wall before plugging it with mud.

"it'll pass" is so horrible because it does pass. your past self, who no longer exists, loves someone else, who also no longer exists. it's amazing how easy it is to adapt. you wake up every day in some room for a couple weeks and it starts feeling like home. you move through life without someone and after a while it's as easy as breathing. you forget. when you miss them, you are also missing the you that actually knew them. you'll love again, and that will pass too. you experience the full breadth of time, the brutality of it.

“时间就这样过下去。” — my dad <3

[notesoncrocs]

pls tell us some of ur fav mexican / centam / latam slang

chorro / chorrío is funny because i think it's somehow related to a word for faucet (em ale can confirm), and it refers to a type of diarrhea that is purely liquid ahaha

people here also use padre as a word for "cool." i got asked something like "y te gusta mit? es padre?" and i was so confused at first like huh?? my dad is...my dad, what is going on

also sidenote i've noticed that mexican spanish uses a lot of indigenous words for location names, so on highway signs or metro station signs or neighborhood signs i see the "tl" sound come up a lot (e.g. tláhuac, pantitlán)

more to come!! most of the time i just go off vibes and hope i get the gist of things

[notesoncrocs]

ICYMI 2

all about my job! my job is super chill.

my supervisor gave me two days off so i started work last wednesday (so i used that time to go exploring in condesa, el parque mexico, paseo de la reforma, el museo de cera, el museo de chocolate, the gayborhood, el bosque de chapultepec, palacio de bellas artes, museo tamayo, etc. found a market that sells insects! and another market that sells east asian cooking supplies, hooray! i'll write about this later).

my hours of work are 9am-3pm but i come in at 10-ish and no one's here usually. my supervisor sometimes doesn't come in. the only thing worrying me about my work is that i think they expect me to design and build and test the entire project (a machine learning model for the visual system of a chameleon robot) because i asked the prof what they'd done so far and he sent me a link to a github repo that contained this when i cloned it:

i am actually so scared. they asked me to come up with a block diagram of a model and i took liberal amounts of inspiration from two papers on google scholar. and then they told me my idea was interesting which made me even more scared. now i have to collect data somehow. please. i muddled my way through 6.036 and i only know how to make machines learn through google colab.

work aside, i know people at my job now! there are two mit students here with me working on different projects, carlos and alex, and we're having lunch today. i've been hanging out and talking to carlos a lot because we were assigned to work in the same lab/workspace area. also, on my first day of work, carlos and kevin (incoming grad student working with carlos on the same project) roped me into one of their experimental trials where they strapped a bunch of electronics on my legs and feet and had me walk around a room in different ways. i was so, so confused the whole time but carlos explained to me that they're trying to find patterns in people's walking style/gait to better detect the onset of parkinson's.

carlos is nice — one of his personality traits is that he runs a lot (like a lot a lot, every day for an hour or so). i remember him from one of the misti info sessions because he asked griselda for recommendations on running routes throughout the city. yesterday he told me he almost died from hiking on a mountain this past weekend. i'm glad he's still with us today.

kevin is also nice and very funny! he talked to me a lot on my first day when i was nervous and didn't know what was going on. my spanish isn't that cute but he was very patient and understanding. he made meet the robinsons references and told me about where he was from (tampico) and how the universities and classes here work. he took me out to lunch and showed me around campus a little so that i knew where to find food and how to not get lost. along with kevin i also met miguel and pilar, who all work on the parkinson's project with carlos, and they're so funny and unserious.

yesterday i met diego, who is this guy who's almost finished with his specialization and just wants to gtfo and be employed, which is so real of him. he's the first guy i met who's working on the chameleon project, and he's the one who warned me about the lack of work on the visual system of the chameleon. he's also really talkative and funny and invited carlos and me to lunch. i learned a lot of important (tm) (maybe mexican-specific?) spanish terms from him: huevón (spelling might be off), which means guy with big balls / guy who does nothing all day, and chorro, which means diarrhea (i think em ale mentioned this to me once). diego talked to us about gringos, u.s. intervention / modern imperialism, racism in mexico vs. in the us, and the spiderman movies. he also has a sister-in-law who is chinese, or something, so he knew how chinese pronunciation worked, and how to count numbers with one hand.

there's a starbucks on the first floor that i am becoming intimately acquainted with, a fancy sit-down cafe in the courtyard that does tacos, quesadillas, and smoothies, and an on-campus convenience store / food court (i miss the stud so bad!!). i'm told there's a nice gym somewhere on campus so a reentrance of a dumptruck era may be imminent. if i'm feeling brave, i might ask around to see if i can sit in for a big lecture, or see if i can access stuff in the music building. in general, people are patient and understanding with me, and often go out of their way to help me out when they see that i'm struggling to communicate or figure something out. i think i'm in good hands.

[notesoncrocs]

finished watching fleabag last night and it has fundamentally altered my brain chemistry. literally cried so hard i almost threw up. then i tried watching gumball to make myself feel better but it just made it worse because i started laughing at how ridiculous it was, but then i felt weirdly guilty and self-conscious for laughing because i was still so sad, and i was still crying while laughing so i probably looked insane.

i'll write up a more comprehensive post/review later but initial thoughts: insanely well-written and acted and planned out and amazing, probably the best show i've ever watched, but also horrible and i will never watch it again.

[notesoncrocs]

felt cute might delete later 1

tried to come up with the fruitiest outfit imaginable. half of hair back in ponytail + cherry earrings (shoutout to trident booksellers) + shorter nails + wrinkly strawberry button-up (should've tucked it in tbh) + pink jeans + black sandals + the fucking peace sign i did at the mirror = "put a finger down if you've ever watched lesbian porn — i know you have"

[notesoncrocs]

my friend who i met up with in italy after being apart for three years said that she doesn’t like saying “goodbye” and says “see you later” instead. so see you later x

[notesoncrocs]

Best language learning tips & masterlists from other bloggers I’ve come across

(these posts are not my own!)

THE HOLY GRAIL of language learning (-> seriously tho, this is the BEST thing I’ve ever come across)

Tips:

Some language learning exercises and tips

20 Favorite Language Learning Tips

what should you be reading to maximize your language learning?

tips for learning a language (things i wish i knew before i started)

language learning and langblr tips

Tips on how to read in your target language for longer periods of time

Tips and inspiration from Fluent in 3 months by Benny Lewis

Tips for learning a sign language

Tips for relearning your second first language

How to:

how to self teach a new language

learning a language: how to

learning languages and how to make it fun

how to study languages

how to practice speaking in a foreign language

how to learn a language when you don’t know where to start

how to make a schedule for language learning

How to keep track of learning more than one language at the same time

Masterposts:

Language Study Master Post

Swedish Resources Masterpost

French Resouces Masterpost

Italian Resources Masterpost

Resource List for Learning German

Challenges:

Language-Sanctuary Langblr Challenge

language learning checkerboard challenge

Word lists:

2+ months of language learning prompts

list of words you need to know in your target language, in 3 levels

Other stuff:

bullet journal dedicated to language learning

over 400 language related youtube channels in 50+ languages

TED talks about language (learning)

Learning the Alien Languages of Star Trek

.

Feel free to reblog and add your own lists / masterlists!

[notesoncrocs]

room tour!

just kidding, this is from 2 am when @anas-bizarre-adventure and i finished putting stuff in the pod. shoutout to my two suitcases with broken wheels (europe had such an impact this january), the ikea bags, @tumblasha's crate, my yoga mat, lamp, and skateboard. also my friend jonathan for taking my fridge. i'll see them again but i'll miss that little j-shaped room -- so many memories every time i see the charles and the tree out my window, or put stuff on the speakers (rip), or sit on the beanbag.

onto the next!