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sorry i only date pokemon masters

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Furbonacci Sequence Proves That Cats Are Purrfect

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C-H bond: *is hold*

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What's the difference between a dog and a marine biologist?

One wags a tail and the other tags a whale.

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okay here’s the thing about grad school

(i’ve been thinking about this post and the responses to it all day today)

the thing about grad school is that there’s no separation between the parts of my life anymore. in undergrad, i had schoolwork, i had my clubs & orgs, i had my jobs, i had my friends. in grad school my job is my schoolwork, my friends are my classmates, the clubs and orgs have been replaced with guest lectures and reading groups (also comprised of my classmates) and seminars and conferences where i’m always discussing my work, or someone else’s work. i can’t get outside of it. when i’m at a party, i’m talking about department gossip. when i’m with my best friend, half the time we’re discussing our students. when i come home at the end of the day, i talk out paper topics to my roommates. i have dreams about conferences and panels and exams. 

if you have an office job, a 9-5, you go to work, do the work, come home, and maybe there’s a little emotional transference from the day, but for the most part, the two are separate. in grad school (and academia in general), you come home from “work” and maybe you make some dinner, call a friend. then you sit down to grade, to lesson plan, to do the reading for your classes, the reading for your projects, the reading for your field, the reading you meant to get to last quarter but couldn’t because you had that conference that week, etc. when i shower, i’m thinking about work. or i’m thinking about how i think about work too much.

there’s a culture in grad school that because everyone’s talking about work 24/7, because there’s so little divide between our work and our personal lives, if you’re not working, you’re slacking off. you’re not taking it as seriously as everyone else is. you don’t want it bad enough. “taking the night off” is something i feel like i have to deserve. and i can never quite do enough to deserve it, because there’s always more work to be done. because 80% of the work is thinking. and i feel like i don’t know how to stop doing it anymore. drinking works (sometimes). being with people who aren’t grad students works (sometimes). i take some nights off anyway, and feel this vague sense of guilt hovering around me like a cloud the entire time. i feel guilty right now, typing this.

the thing about grad school is this: i love what i do. the more i do it, the more i love it, because my field is amazing and complicated and unbelievably beautiful. i’m so grateful to be here, to be learning and thinking and talking about it with other people that understand because they love things the same way. i love it so much that the thought of being bad at it - of not being good enough - is honestly one of the worst things i can imagine. last spring i ended up having emergency surgery and the whole week i was in the hospital i just kept thinking, thank god i read ahead in ulysses, maybe I can still write the paper – 

i don’t know who I am without grad school, without academia, without the work.  i think (i hope) this feeling fades with time. my professors and advisors have a much better balance than any grad student i know, which is encouraging. but for now - yes, you can love something and occasionally be unhappy doing it. grad students know how lucky we have it. that’s the problem, for me, sometimes.

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Chemistry Crayons Represent the Hue of Each Chemical Element

Independent boutique Que Interesante prides themselves in creating a union where art and science meet. The artist’s goal is to create an everyday children’s object into an educational and fun experience. She gives each color, its designated chemical element label under the flame test. For example, when lithium undergoes the flame test, it creates a red flame; thus the red crayon is renamed to “Lithium,” the color of an apple.

Instead of naming each crayon after the ordinary colors we have come to learned since childhood, she instills a chemistry experiment, where color theory is far more fun and intelligent. With chemistry expertise and careful attention, she appoints each crayon’s color its appropriate chemical label.

She confesses: “Children play and draw with crayons practically every day, so why not make the experience more educational? This listing is for a set of 48 labels to stick in the crayons in a basic 48 pack of crayons so that while children are coloring, they are also exposed to the names of chemicals that will make those colors! So instead of thinking ‘I want green’ they will think ‘I want Barium Nitrate Ba(NO3)2 Flame’ and then when they take chemistry in high school and their teacher sets some gas on fire and it makes a green color and they ask the class what chemical it was your student will know it was Barium! Genius!”

Find the entire collection of crayons in her Etsy shop.

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concept: me, well-rested, getting up just after sunrise before work. the sky is that golden pink, I am sleepy but content. I pour myself a cup of coffee and read the newspaper. I like my job and it pays the bills.

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me: good morning linda linda, who has backpacked across europe: not nearly as good as the morning that i experienced as i saw the sunrise across Barcelona,

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tag yourself i’m brett

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“Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green, an assistant professor at Tuskegee University, is one of less than 100 black female physicists in the country. She recently won a $1.1 million grant to develop a cancer treatment involving lasers and nanoparticles. (Courtesy of Hadiyah-Nicole Green) “

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tag yourself I’m spud

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The War In Our Stars

Kylo Ren: It's a metaphor

Kylo Ren: you wear the scary breathing mask but you don't actually need it to breathe

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im janet

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actual deleted scene from tfa

bonus:

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