#'dark academia' for real

[ghooostbaby]

maybe it's because i had to get a new computer for school in the last few months (and also being back in University post-pandemic when they figured out they can offload a lot of costly labour to provide university services by offloading the responsibilities to the students by making things "virtual/online/digital")

but it feels like a very steep curve of acceleration in just how mediated by online/digital/computer accounts and processes my life is ... everything i need to do or need to acquire I have to find some online platform that I need an account for and then have to go through all these extra identity verification methods to get into and then invariably some part of that process goes wrong, or i DO get into them and then something I'm trying to use them for and there's no accessible way to find support from a fellow human. just the coldly serene text of the FAQ pages spinning me in circles where the thing I need that should be so attainable I get error after error that I can't contact anyone to help me resolve... it's kind of grim and terrifying what the future is going to become with such an accelerated push into more and more computer automated technology.

i truly do feel like a ghost trapped in a machine ... it feels totally alienating. like I'm just floating in this vacuum of metal and 2020s website design unable to enter anywhere, just doing 2 step verifications and creating and entering account information and account synchronizations that go nowhere and i can never move beyond this place...

even my fucking university exams. all of them this semester are "remotely proctored", for courses required for the degree we have to provide our own space to do an exam (when there are reports every night on the news of the complete crisis of housing in this country) on our own computer, download a chrome plug-in that seems to be spyware that will monitor you through your webcam and microphone and record your screen, and if AI notices any flag behaviours notify your prof who will watch your video to see if you were cheating... the amount of logistical work I had to do to get set up for this exam, when I have enough to do with studying for the exam, it makes me so angry how much of University services are being eroded away and the work is being pushed off on students to do for free, actually we're PAYING THEM to do this. I even have a disability and asked the disability office for accommodations for the exam, because when I was at a University before I had always been told part of my accommodations were to do the exam in a separate space to help with distractions and anxiety... so if that's the case for an exam where the University handles all the logistical considerations, I would think it certainly should be where I have to do the exam in my home where I have no control over the noise around my apartment or find some public place to do it, and all the work I need to do setting up my computer for this ... and the disability services basically said "nice try" and gave me some canned bureaucratic "please fuck off" response. the last exam I did I booked a study room at the library and took out one of the laptops the library loans and the webcam was not working and I missed the first 35 minutes of the hour time limit trying to figure it out. I contacted my professor and the exam support (thankfully at least this is ONE case one of these online platforms allows access to a human support person) and they started the hour from the time I got into the exam, but it was so stressful. the next day my professor emailed me to get the details because they wanted to make a complaint about the library for it and I'm like ... these librarians are the ONLY things keeping me from totally losing my mind and just being a human presence talking to me and helping me out in the faceless void digitally automated hellscape...

i had kind of been safe for a while with my ancient macbook that just couldn't access certain websites and apps, that was slowly having more and more apps and websites just refuse to support my OS anymore ... now that i can access them I have to say this is much worse.

[deesi-academia]

[glorious-destruction]

I post for the girls who have too much love inside them and have to act like they don’t care

[currentlyonstandbi]

universal exam experience

[metamorphesque]

The Eternal Idol, Auguste Rodin

[nipuni]

Some photos at the Royal Palace from earlier this week 📸

[visit-ba-sing-se]

not dark academia not light academia but a secret third thing (that one flickering light bulb in the library that is slowly yet surely making you lose your sanity academia)

[macaulaytwins]

Richard Papen winter

[why-the-heck-not]

writing anything always starts with the best intentions of trying to make the greatest damn cup of coffee there ever was, for morale & motivation ofc no not bc of procrastination no no shh

[pil0ttay]

from my instagram lol at a goodwill

i would have included dead poets society but i haven’t watched it yet

[decarbry]

[gardenofafterthoughts]

05/10/23

"We're all mad here."

- Lewis Carroll; Alice in Wonderland

[shisasan]

Turning everyday struggles into surreal nightmares since 1910

[hoezier-than-thou]

“I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.” – Chopin

[darkpoetrynprose]

"But how could you live and have no story to tell?"

– Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights

[g4rdensofb4bylon]

always the poet never the muse.