#(​that’s not to say that the education system doesn’t need improvement bc it definitely does!)

[petalsandpurity]

So I’m going to be training to be a teacher soon (!!) and all the internet is supplying me (literally every social media site, the news etc) is how no one should get into teaching 🧍‍♀️

[rckyclark-blog]

hello, angels!! i’m jess, i’m 22 & from rainy england. im a chaotic good aries sun / capricorn moon / leo rising. i study illustration at uni (soon to grad tho, woop!) support pineapple on pizza, and love bands more than i’ve loved any romantic interest i’ve ever had ( catch me selling my soul for arctic monkeys or catfish & the bottlemen... tea ) soooo now that u kno the mun a lil, without further ado, meet my trash boi ricky!! he’s a long-standing muse that i’ve revamped for this rp & i know u will love him. or hate him. or love to hate him jghfkghs

THE BASICS

ricky clark

cismale, he/him

twenty-four

major: music / contemporary & popular music

clubs: campus radio

living arrangement: ignatius house

employment: part-time at a music store off, but nearby, campus.

click here for moodboard

BACKGROUND

ricky clark is a scholarship student from hartford, connecticut. after losing his mom to heart disease at a young age, he was left to be raised by his father, who became troubled in his grief & gained violent tendencies as he grew cold and resentful.

this issue festered and festered until ricky was 14, at which point he had to join the foster system. 

financially pretty screwed & generally pretty void of all hope, all ricky could do was work as hard as he could in school so that he’d have a way out. this was a massive juxtaposition to the person he was outside of academia: a local hoodlum, trespasser, spraypaint-can-wielder, trouble-causer with a love of mischief & underage drinking. 

if that wasn’t bad enough, there was another huge obstacle – he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, let’s put it that way, so he embarked on a mission to gain scholarships for university based off of the merit of his skills as a musician. 

he was, admittedly, gifted in this particular area, and it was his only hope. where he lacked in academia, he thrived in knowing how to shred a guitar and songwrite / sing pretty amazingly. 

still, his growing rebellious tendencies clashed with the squeaky-clean reputation he needed to earn in order to be awarded scholarships. or so he thought

at age 18 he, to the shock of everyone who knew him, found himself in receipt of a scholarship to st. etienne’s. imagine that — little rough-around-the-edges ricky going off to a prestigious university..! the scholarship was definitely needed, to say the least, as there was no way he could afford the education without it. 

when he enrolls, he snatches himself a job at a nearby music shop in order to take care of everything the scholarship doesn’t cover, joins the university’s radio station team, and for a while things look like they’ve changed. he seems matured, adjusted. but it isn’t long before he’s back to his old tricks — and why not, right? he’s got the stinkin’ admission, now — all there is to do is enjoy it with no holds barred.

somewhat of a walking contradiction, ricky spends his time at university known for being trouble — nothing but a broke, borderline degenerate that got lucky — yet, at the same time, he’s fairly popular ( is it really all that shocking, though? everyone loves an asshole, right? ) as he’s a pretty likable guy once you get to know him. under all of the hardened exterior, there actually might be a few more layers. i guess you’ll have to wait and see~

PERSONALITY

basically a cocky, nightmarish little shit whose scholarship awarded to him years ago means that the sun shines out of his ass

thinks hes “better than u” because he can play electric guitar and write a few songs. dumbass indie musician energy

has probably stolen ur wallet right under ur nose during a 5 minute conversation

loud and obnoxious like literally i will pay him $50 to shut up for one second

BIG FLIRT and will probably assume u think he’s hot bc he knows he is. literally will flirt with anything w a pulse

fighty boy

bicon

tattoos. nosebleeds. the middle finger.

compare to: dally from the outsiders, kenickie from grease, billy from stranger things, nano from elite

tropes (from tvtropes.org): asshole victim, lovable rogue, emotionally tongue-tied

BASICALLY, he’s your typical bad-boy rebel type, but he feels that since he has his reasons for being an asshole, he isn’t really obliged do much in order to change or improve. he lost his mom at a young age and saw violence at the hands of his dad, so he feels like the way he acts is just a inevitable result of that & does little to grow from it.

CONNECTION TO DAISEY

ricky met daisey at a party in freshman year. drunk & out of it, they were weirdly drawn to each other despite being polar opposites. 

it was never anything romantic, with neither of them even considering anything along those lines. it was nothing more than lust-filled enticement and this was clear on both sides.

even back then, daisey had an important social reputation to uphold & didn’t even want to be seen associating with someone like him, and so they began meeting up in secret at an isolated location near campus. it wasn’t too frequent, but frequent enough that they could maybe consider themselves friends with occasional benefits, not that they’d let anyone know that.

 it was late sophomore year when somebody found out about the rendezvous location, and so the two changed things up and started hooking up in his car, which is where she found an incriminating piece of evidence of his secret right there in the glovebox. she took great joy in holding this secret over his head as education was way more of a lifeline for him than it was for someone as privileged as her.

CONNECTIONS

BEST FRIEND — (reserved for the black hole) margot sullivan

FWB — (reserved for the junkrat) jill uhhhh idk their last name yet

ROOMMATE — 1 OPEN (must live in ignatius house!)

ENEMY/IES — OPEN (if ur muse would hate him, then hmu)

UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH honestly lets brainstorm

[judyta217-blog]

Things I Wish I Knew Coming Into a UC (or just UCI specifically bc I can’t speak for every UC)

Q: Do my AP’s even matter? Don’t I just need to get an A in the class and look good for college?

A: YES they matter a lot. Maybe I’m just dumb and I didn’t know this but AP credits do you a lot of good in college because there are these lovely things called enrollment windows. And the amount of AP credits you have affects the time of you enrollment window. So i.e. 58 credits you get your enrollment window at 11:15 am on Monday; 14 credits you get your enrollment window at 5:00 pm next Thursday

Q: Why does having an early enrollment window matter?

A: Well it matter bc everyone wants to have a good time in college amirite? So you want the best or easiest classes? And usually those classes are in high demand because who doesn’t want the best professor for that Chem or Anthropology class? Since I am a STEM major, I can can only speak on the part of classes like Biology and Chemistry because that’s all I’ve taken. So far my bio and chem classes with the “good” teacher have filled up within the first week ish. So if your enrollment date happened to be in the second week and you needed that class you will need to 1) stalk the class schedule thing for someone to switch out 2) wait for ppl to fail (bio and chem classes are taken in a series so lets say ur taking bio 1 and you need to get into bio 2; you’d have to wait for someone who signed up for bio 2 but failed bio 1)

Q: Housing?

A: They will send you an email and stuff. In terms of finding a room mate and stuff, most people go onto Facebook, click on the UCI Class of 2022 page, join it and look at the things people post. I would personally message the person I would like to room with just to get a sense of who they are as a person and if y’all would get along. Ask anything and address any issues you may have from the start because you’re going to be sharing a room and spending a whole year with these people and ofc you’d want it to be as smooth and easy as possible.

Q: What’s housing at UCI like?

A: Shit honestly LOL. Okay okay your first year dorms aren’t that bad. I actually like it a lot. But UCI has 2 types of housing for first years: 1) Middle Earth 2) Mesa Court. It’s actually the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year of housing at UCI that’s hella shitty. There’s different housing for upper classman that you’ll figure out when you come here lol. But for UCI, we had to wake up at like 6:30 am one morning to get housing for 2018-19. It’s basically on a first come first serve basis but the freaking system JAMMED ON ME HDSOFH. Yea so I didn’t get the on campus housing that i wanted for my second year. But that’s fine bc you’d just try again next year :’ )

Q: It’s okay to not be thriving all the time.

A: I think I had a hard time dealing with this these last two quarters because in high school I did everything I wanted to do. Which included: 

1. Waking up to get that education ya know 

2. Going to swim practice and trying to stay somewhat fit and feeling like I got to improve/ work towards a goal everyday

 3. Going to Medical Assistant vocational school to gain more insight on careers in health care (highly recommended bc you get paid $10-$15 after you get your certificate/ you get an externship during Jan-Jun another college app bonus)

and my Red Cross stuff which I won’t put into words bc that would be an essay.

But you see I did all this in high school and it’s a bit of a change to switch from a life that focuses so much on extracurriculars to one that focuses mainly on academics. I tried to be the same high school me, but that’ s a bit hard since you course load will be much heavier. However, this was my choice. You could do whatever you want in college and still be that busy extracurricular person. 

Q: How much do you study in a day?

A: I try to get in AT LEAST 4-6 hours a day bc chem and bio are hard for me personally but maybe you’re good at it and that won’t be the case for you. Everyone has different study habits and stuff.

Q: What’s it like making friends in college?

A: Now you can be like senior hs Judy who thought, “I don’t need friends bc I’m going to be a doctor!” lol. But I knew in my heart that I wanted to be surrounded by a good group of people so before attending UCI I knew that I would have a couple of friends going into college. But making friends out of my high school circle definitely takes a bit of effort just because nobody has like the same schedule as you so everyone is just doing their own thing most of the time and it’s hard to keep up with people’s lives. 

But if you really want to go somewhere for college I don’t think your friends should be the reason stopping you bc why would you sacrifice you future/ being somewhere where you could become a better person for other people. Plus if they were your real friends they’d still be here for you during breaks and stuff. Go where you think you should go. I promise you aren’t wrong and that you’re will meet new friends and ppl who will push you to do better things.

yea and theres that stuff like self care and blah but i think that’s pretty basic stuff that you can figure out along the way. HAVE FUN KIDS

*if you have any other questions that are not related to UCI I highly recommend talking to someone who’s currently attending the college/university you want to attend to get a better perspective*

[secretbouquetpen-blog]

LIFE AWARENESS: Reveal my untold questions about our existence.

What is life?

 Hindi ko matandaan kung pang-ilang beses ko na 'tong naitanong sa sarili ko. I doubt if you say na ni-isang beses sa buhay mo ay hindi mo rin nagawang maitanong ito kahit sa sarili mo. No one have ever found the answer on it. If you are such like me who did an attempt on google, mapapansin mo kung gaano karaming sagot ang lumalabas. Most searched questions says like this: "What is life according to science?, What is life according to Socrates? What is life according to Philosophy?, What is life according to Augustine? and What is life according to Bible?"

Aren't you curious why lots of people are trying to look for an answer kahit ang totoo, the actual happenings in your life had already defined what is life?

From the our struggles, we learn life.

It all begins when you wake up in awareness of your surrounding.

To make a definite explanation, lets see kung paano nila ito ipinaliwanag.

What is life according to science?

A branch of science such as biology says that: The definition of life is controversial. The current definition is that organisms are open systems that maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, have a life cycle, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, reproduce and evolve.

Science supplies as with a new representation of the world, of life, of the human being. Science can liberate us from the views imposed to us by nature, to our senses and minds. Science offers new answers to the meaning of life.

What's life? Who we are? According to science. Kahit ang pinakamatatalinong tao sa mundo katulad nina Charles Darwin na nagsabing nagmula daw tau sa hayop (unggoy specifically) ay di rin paniwalaan ng lubos ng mga tao. Ikaw matatanggap mo bang isang hayop ang naging ninuno mo? Bukod kay Charles Darwin, pinatungan pa ito ni Richard Dawkins. He is an atheist, and is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. Sinabi niyang ang evolutionary processes  as analogous to a Blind Watchmaker (a book that he wrote) , in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided  by any designer. It means that he doesn't believe about the Creator that most religious people had. He contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is just a delusion.

What is life according to Socrates?

Socrates is one of the most famous philosophers who directly influenced a number of other famous philosophers, including those during his lifetime. For him, the goal of life is to find “virtue” and “the good” in order to improve the soul. In "The Apology of Socrates" (which was the Socratic dialogue that presents the speech of legal self-defense, which Socrates presented at his trial for impiety and corruption, in 399 BC. ) we'll learn how Socrates lives out his own philosophy to the fullest. He made an accurate explanation between the examined life and unexamined life. Sinabi niyang ang unexamined life ay hindi worth of living. He believed that philosophy - the love of wisdom - was the most important pursuit above all else. For some, he exemplifies more than anyone else in history the pursuit of wisdom through questioning and logical argument, by examining and by thinking. His 'examination' of life in this way spilled out into the lives of others, such that they began their own 'examination' of life, but he knew they would all die one day, as saying that a life without philosophy - an 'unexamined' life - was not worth living.

What is life according to Philosophy?

Below are lists of 5 american philosophers who had also define life in such different ways.

1. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson was the leading mind behind Transcendentalism, the first purely American school of philosophy. He was a pantheist and believed that God was in everything and everyone. To truly express this divinity, he felt, one has to find who they truly are and then live out their individuality as well as they are able. To do this, Emerson suggests self-reliance, independence, and a wariness of society and its pressures to conform.

Emerson reminds that even the dull and ordinary parts of our lives are filled with divine grace. His individualism, which has inspired people and encourages us to find who we truly are at heart and then act on that knowledge even if we are seen as radical because of it.

2. Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau was a follower of Emerson and his transcendentalist philosophy. He resolved to live simply in the woods and see how it compared to life in the modern world. His insights are often profound. His perspectives on the simple life, how we can reduce our dependence on worldly goods, the need for individualism, and the joys of solitude in nature remain important lessons.

Thoreau reminds us that we must examine our lives at every juncture, that progress in science and technology may not be what makes us happy, and that sometimes the simplest things are the best. While his escape to the simple life might have been more of a vacation than anything else, it does show us that technology may not be the path to finding meaning. An excellent overview of his ideas can be found here.

3. John Dewey

Dewey was a philosopher and reformer who worked in many fields and is largely remembered for his work in pragmatism and progressive education. He encourages us to stop looking at education as preparation for a job. Rather, it must be considered as a tool to help giving meaning to our lives. To do this, education must encourage autonomy, student involvement, active inquiry, and cover a wide field of subjects so the student can find what they enjoy doing. This, he argues, will not only improve our educational system and our democracy but will also allow us to live meaningful lives.

Dewey asks us to see ourselves are more than just technical staff in a modern economy, but as people with talents for art, science, and the humanities as well. To properly live full, meaningful lives we must educate ourselves for the entirety of life.

Cease conceiving of education as mere preparation for later life, and make it the full meaning of the present life.

4. Thomas Jefferson

As the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, a founding father of the United States, the founder of the University of Virginia, and third president of the United States, Jefferson was a busy man. While he never wrote out a grand tract on the meaning of life, he did give us some insight on a good one.

Jefferson declared himself to be an epicurean in a letter to a friend, that philosophy blends elements of both hedonistic (engaged in the pursuit of pleasure) and eudemonic happiness in a way that promotes the happiness of the individual without resorting to debauchery. It is this sort of happiness that Jefferson himself strived for in his daily life.

He also invoked epicurean ideas in his praise for the life of the independent farmers. Self-reliance, democratic government, and live in small communities would come not only to embody Jeffersonian Democracy, by the United States itself for the first part of its history. Jefferson reminds us to seek out the good life with an eye towards independence and a not too complicated life of progress.  

5. Robert Nozick

Robert Nozick was a philosopher at Harvard who is best known for his lone venture into political philosophy Anarchy, State, and Utopia. In that book, he briefly touches on one of the more popular ideas for the meaning of life; that we should maximize our pleasurable experiences and minimize our unpleasant ones.

He asks us to imagine that a team of neuroscientists have invented a machine that allows you to live in a simulated world with nothing but enjoyable experiences in it. The world inside the machine is perfectly lifelike and the only catch is that nothing inside is real. Think the Matrix, but much more enjoyable for people living inside of it. He points out that if all we really want is to feel pleasure, then we have no reason to not get in. However, most of us would say that we have reservations about living in the false reality. This, he argues, shows that most of us want more than just pleasure in our lives.

While this doesn’t mean that you can’t value a life with pleasure, if you decide not to get into the machine you must think there is more to the meaning of life. He doesn’t give us a prescription for what we should value, however. He instead encourages us to think it out for ourselves.

What is life according to Augustine?

Augustine of Hippo was the first to develop the theodicy. He rejected the idea that evil exists in itself, instead regarding it as a corruption of goodness, caused by humanity's abuse of free will. Augustine believed in the existence of a physical Hell as a punishment for sin, but argued that those who choose to accept the salvation of Jesus Christ will go to Heaven.

So, for Augustine, life about doing good things that will pleasure God from above. In return, an eternal life with Him will later be claim.

What is life according to Bible?

Life is contingent upon the continuing, sustaining "breath" of God. The situation and quality of life may be diminished and even destroyed by chance, circumstances, and the conduct of unrighteous or negligent persons. In such circumstances, the lowly pray for divine mercy and help. Worries, riches, and pleasures ( Mark 4:19 ; Luke 12:15 ), as well as hunger, sickness, sorrow, and sin can choke and even destroy life.

Mortal humanity was created in the image of God ( Gen 1:26-27 ), and given the opportunity of eternal life in relationship with the Creator (Gen. 2-3). Life , predominantly has a metaphysical and spiritual meaning, an indestructible quality, which supersedes physical death and the grave. This life is more important than eating, drinking, and clothes ( Matt 6:25 ; Luke 12:22-33 ), and more valuable than physical wholeness and health.  There is a tension, even a conflict, between the present physical existence with its passions, and the spiritual life that will continue beyond physical death. Whoever loses or denies the present life for the sake of Christ, finds eternal life, life in the age to come ( Mark 8:35-37 ; 10:30 ; par. John 12:25 ). The rich young ruler desired to inherit eternal life, but to him the cost of denying his present life by selling all that he had and giving to the poor in order to gain the eternal was too great ( Mark 10:17-31 ; par. ).

From all this chosen explanations for life, one thing is for sure that I will never regret of believing of, God is real and He is the One behind everything and all the histories.