radiumrascal

[radiumrascal]

My experience with the dead

I've heard plenty of people say "I remember the first day I stepped into the dissection hall like it was yesterday."

I, however, don't feel the same. The day is fuzzy and vague in the back of my mind. Not because I've buried it behind the unhappy memories and unpleasant events, but because it was simply like any other day.

Call me what you will, but that day wasn't remarkable enough for me to have it imprinted on my mind. Yes, it was my first time smelling formalin, and yes, it was overwhelming. Actually, the smell was more overwhelming than the body itself that was revealed from below blue plastic.

The first time I saw him, it was not fear that gripped me, but awe and respect. Lying before me was a whole human, one that had laughed and cried and angrily persevered through his life. One that agreed to contribute to learning even after death. One that was lowered into a tank of formalin instead of a burning pyre.

One that was ours to cut open and scrutinize.

I've had brief moments of surreal realizations as I peel off skin and fascia. The tendons I tug at which lift each dead finger once contracted all at once to hold a loved ones hand. The heel (out of which I had once plucked out a long thin needle burrowed deep within) I peeled has walked more places than I have. The brain that we removed holds, or once held, memories both anguishing and heartwarming. The still heart I held in my hands used to speed up in excitement and fear.

Bit by bit we consumed him, not physically but mentally. Each part observed under eyes narrowed with concentration and dripping with tears from the formalin. All the afternoons spent leaning over pooled formalin and bundles of muscle fibers, nerves and vessels were afternoons I loved and despaired.

You'd tell me to cut the crap, but I've learnt more with this stranger of a friend than with any teacher or textbook. The question paper would ask me about the muscles that supinate the forearm, and his clean dissected arm would pop into my mind, each muscle fiber and tendon in their places, running down towards his bony fingers.

I don't know you in the way that you might want me to. You don't know me at all.

But you've been a bigger part of my life than most people I've met, and certainly the only dead comrade I could boast of.

[radiumrascal]

Read more poetry, listen to more jazz, look up more facts, stack books around you, try new recipes, put up pictures, create art, talk to loved ones, buy people flowers, write letters to everybody and nobody, watch old films, watch new films, watch biopics, take long walks, go on bike rides, get yourself sweet treats, stretch in the sun, take afternoon naps, embrace the long metro rides, go on late night car drives, dance with friends.

To live is the greatest adventure of them all.

[radiumrascal]

so apparently it’s cool to wear your boyfriend’s clothes now?

but when i, patroclus-

[radiumrascal]

i think caring is the most punk thing you can do in a society that is becoming increasingly desensitised to the nuances and feelings of people and discourages you to be considerate of others if it doesnt benefit you.

yes, i do care. and no, im not willing to lose my relationships with people around me because of a narcissistic "self help" mindset.

be cringey, be kind, be a caring person.

[radiumrascal]

ya gotta stop caring what people think and start being extremely weird. but never cruel. i think that might save you

[radiumrascal]

ah yes, count orbeez my beloved.

[radiumrascal]

i kissed the wind and the cold made me numb and it made me realise how warm i am inside and how life is flowing in me right now. scarlet and crimson and ruby red, colours i once feared rushing to my cheeks and under my nails and my palms and my skin and my body and my tissues and every fibre of my being. it’s life and i am life and its mine and i want to live. god how i want to live.

[radiumrascal]

i feel like a person again. i feel real as i taste the salt on my skin after a run. i feel the bitter winter current seeping through my bones. i feel the soft kiss of my quilt at every point it touches on my body as it embraces me in the cold. i see the cranberry and amber hues of the sunrise every morning as i wake to chase the sun, and i smell the fragrant aroma of the garlic cloves as they sizzle in olive oil in my pan while i cook dinner for my family. winter i love you.

[radiumrascal]

i used to be such a skeptic whenever i came across any mental health advice asking you to “move your body” or “drink more water” or “eat nutritious food and get sunlight” because how can you narrow down my psyche to these physical constraints?

to me, these seemed like empty words ringing across a hallowed hall devoid of any warmth or feeling. only once i started implementing these have i realised what a power the state of your body and biological functions hold over you. i don’t feel that heavy burden of feelings dragging behind me like a phantom, choking me and consuming me and binding me in an inescapable vortex inside my head. physical liberation from that dictator of malaise and despondency has turned me into a changed woman.

i no longer recognise myself and i couldn’t be happier about it. i should learn to forgive those past versions of myself, i really know i should but perhaps i shall need more time. i don’t think it is in my nature to be forgiving yet. does god not require penance in order to unshackle you from the manacles of your sins? perhaps more atonement from my end is required to appease my grieved subconscious. or maybe im just meant to linger in the shades of what could’ve been. either way, i think im liking who im becoming.

[radiumrascal]

STEM DARK ACADEMIA

I'm a little upset at the lack of stem in dark academia, so here's my list of aesthetic science things, STEM ACADEMIA (dark edition)

• relating a little too much to the mad scientist trope (and telling everyone "no, no I would never do anything like that, I just want to help people" but like imagine if we could resurrect people)

• rereading Frankenstein every year, specifically in the month of october

• "why is STEAM a thing?? Art? who that?"

• minoring in classics because you still like mythology and history and reading

• finding the science in art (why things make you feel a certain way, how they do that, what effect they've had on health and medicine) and finding the art in science (isn't it incredible that dna knows how to tell plant cells to break down chlorophyll and this makes the gorgeous fall colors)

• reading every book that mentions at all a scientist or has a character who is interested in stem (they are few and far between)

• enjoying the structure of math and engineering but thriving off the chaos that is science

• where are the mad scientist women? I need this

• people being surprised when you tell them you're majoring in something "really science-y" after being an absolute bookworm and musician all throughout your childhood and having to defend what your heart desires (no? just me?)

• CARDIGANS are peak stem culture

• "why aren't you a doctor? why aren't you going to med school? why are you doing insert reasonable science degree here and not becoming a doctor? don't you want to help people?"

• wanting to go into genetics but wanting to go into botany but wanting to go into theoretical physics but wanting to go into astronomy but wanting to go into geology but wanting to go into chemical engineering but wanting to go into astrophysics but wanting to go into wildlife biology

• for some reason having a huge obsession with morals, ethics, and philosophy

• watching true crime just for the forensic bits

• watching mythbusters as a kid

• LISTENING TO TCHAIKOVSKY, BEETHOVEN, BACH, AND MOZART those are the stem classical musicians change my mind

• doing all your homework and frying your brain then getting to read a simple book that really refreshes you

• you had the astronomy and archaeology obsession as a kid

• listening to synth wave instrumentals

• MITOCHONDRIA IS THE POWERHOUSE OF THE CELL

• when people tell you that one cool science fact they learned and you try your hardest to encourage them but girl that wasn't even close to being correct

• ScienceDirect and PubMed are your go-to databases

• having lots of intrusive, existential thoughts that sometimes suffocate you, because you know better than most how much dark dna there is or how small we really are in the universe or knowing how much math explains and how little room there is for free will or thinking about how we are made up of mostly four types of atoms

• reading science or math textbooks for fun

• reading the fountainhead by ayn rand when you were way too young and didn't understand it but now parts of it emerge from the depths of your memory and you are struck by the power

• watching marvel and x-men and jurassic park just because

• reading sci-fi because it's the closest thing to real science in literature

• knowing a little too much about radiation poisoning and how to really dissolve a body in chemicals

• wearing white to make up for how little your professors make you wear lab coats

(sorry, I don't know that much about technology and I'm a literal grandpa when it comes to using it myself)

[radiumrascal]

sometimes I take life really seriously but actually the key is 2 relax. Be silly. Try new things. See my friends. Create plans that I look forward 2. Spend time with nice warm people.

[radiumrascal]

you don't want to look back and wish you had worked a little harder.

[radiumrascal]

Anyone else stare at their mutuals like 👀👀👀👀 “please dm me. You seem so cool and I wanna be friends. “

[radiumrascal]

One day you think: I want to die. And then you think, very quietly, actually I want a coffee. I want a nap. A sandwich. A book. And I want to die turns day by day into I want to go home, I want to walk in the woods, I want to see my friends, I want to sit in the sun. I want a cleaner room, I want a better job, I want to live somewhere else, I want to live.

[radiumrascal]

gentle reminder you can rise up from everything. you can recreate yourself. nothing is permanent. you are not stuck. you have choices. you can think new thoughts. you can learn something new. you can create new habits. all that matters is that you decide today and never look back.

[radiumrascal]

Nitish Kumar has the opportunity to do the funniest thing in Indian political history right now.

[radiumrascal]

Nothing makes me want to do evil science more than people who are like "STEM students have no moral compass unless you FORCE them to take ethics classes and humanities classes they're so base and culturally illiterate" like I will personally make the giant fucking space laser to zap you i swear to god