#also just some of the stuff we read for grad school also helped

[biromanticbookbabe]

Okay for real. I think what finally made me finally realize I was a lesbian and not bisexual was my reaction to Stone Butch Blues. 

I know Jess isn’t real. But I wanted to go fight everyone who ever hurt her and they aren’t real either. Like that was one of several really strong emotions I had while reading that I can’t remember feeling in a very long time. 

The intensity of my reactions didn’t seem like a straight reaction to that book. I was like oh, okay. 

[averagewriter-inthedark]

Before He Cheats | Dagger Squad Imagine

Takes place after the events of TGM

TGM Masterlist

Characters & Pairings: female pilot!reader x Dagger squad (platonic), reader x ex!oc (past romance)

Content Warnings: angst, cheating, profanity, ends with sweet revenge | female!reader (she/her) | wc: 3.8k

Requested 📨 yes/no (rules for requests)

Premise: One thing about cheaters, they’re always gonna get caught. Whether right when it happens or years down the road the truth always comes out. And one thing they should realize is revenge is a dish best served cold.

Note: I finally finished my first year of grad school!!! Fucking finally people. Now I can relax and get to the drawing board. I already have visions and outlines for all current requests in my inbox and be sure to check out my April/May upcoming works and my pinned works in progress for what’s coming and posted! Thank you for your patience and to the anon who requested this I hope you liked it!

Also y’all….is there like some freaky shit going on with the universe and my works 💀 cause three days after I posted Lover inspired by Taylor swift she and her man of 8 years broke up and now I’m posting a cheater imagine (this request is from end of February) when there’s stuff going about Glen 👀 this is just freaky now

—————

Friday night at the Hard Deck consisted of a full house ready to kick off the weekend with beer and music. For a few years now Y/n had been working at the bar serving drinks and singing from 8pm to 9 as a way to make extra cash while her college sweetheart Ryan, who was a Lieutenant Junior Grade, was stationed at Miramar. Having not been married despite being a couple for so long, Y/n lived off base with some roommates while her boyfriend stayed in the dorms, however, he’d come to her place after work and stayed on weekends.

It was rare to see a military couple not be the stereotypically, “we got married right after I commissioned so my partner can be my dependent and travel with me when I get orders.” No, that wasn’t Y/n and Ryan. After Ryan’s commission Y/n stayed to finish up her Master’s at the University of Miami where they met while he was sent to Japan for two years. Then he was stationed in Virginia, followed by Lemoore, and now he was at Miramar. The longest base he’d been at. Y/n had been with him in Virginia, but didn’t move to Lemoore as she had a three-year contract with her job at the University of Virginia.

Toward the end of his two years at Lemoore, Y/n called Y/n to inform her he was being stationed at North Island and the contract was to be at least five years. Wanting to be close to him after being apart for so long and filled with hope they’d finally settle after Ryan hits ten years in the Navy, Y/n transferred to the University of California San Diego as the history of music professor. She also took on a part-time job as a bartender Friday and Saturday since she was only teaching two sections that occurred on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Plus Penny allowed her to sing Friday nights as an added bonus knowing she loved music.

Y/n settled rather quickly in North Island. With her two jobs she developed a friendly social circle consisting of the UCSD staff on campus and regulars at the Hard Deck. Several of the aviators took a liking to her. They knew Ryan and would often meet up every Friday after work to catch up on the week and watch her sing. Y/n always had their rounds ready the moment they walked in, “got ya seven cold ones.”

“Already?”

“The newbie over there didn’t read the sign. Round’s on him.”

They’d cheer Y/n on when she sang, literally the loudest bunch in the whole bar. “Sing it girl!”

“Ariana ain’t got nothing on you!

Phoenix sometimes sat at the bar when she needed to get away from the guys. “Are you working tomorrow?”

“Penny gave me the night off since I got papers to grade…but If I get done early I’ll be free.”

“Please, I am in need of a girls night. Hell I’ll even come help you grade if you tell me what to do.”

“Damn, Nat, were the guys too much this week?” She placed another beer in front of the pilot, removing the empty one to discard. “This one’s on me. You look like you need it.”

“You have no idea, Y/n. All week we’ve been training for an upcoming mission and they’ve been driving me nuts.”

Ryan had his own group of friends from the base who’d come toward the later hours of the night. They’d usually take up the space at the bar, Ryan greeting Y/n with a kiss and telling her how the day was. He’d nurse a couple beers before he and Y/n would retreat to her apartment when the place closed at eleven.

They’d been together for several years, coming up on their eighth anniversary when Y/n discovered his infidelity.

And it wasn’t just a one-and-done “I was drunk and stupid, she doesn’t mean anything,” type of deal. No, this was a long going affair lasting almost a year.

What was the kicker? The other woman was a married coworker of his.

Now Y/n may have had the reputation of being the sweet, down to earth, understanding person who would never hurt a fly. But as soon as her eyes landed on Ryan, her partner of eight years, shoving his throat down another woman’s throat while grabbing her ass like it would vanish from thin air…..she saw red. Kill Bill sirens blasting in her mind. Y/n wanted to ruin both of them seeing she wasn’t the only person betrayed. The woman’s husband was also being deceived.

And what was punishment for adultery and extramarital sexual conduct? Well, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice those in the military who are married or have affairs with married personnel are dishonorably discharged, forfeited of all pay and confined for one whole year.

Was it harsh? Maybe some would see it that way. But cheaters need to be taught a lesson.

And Y/n was gonna make sure they got it.

For a whole week Y/n put on a brave face. Accumulating photographs and screenshots of text messages, emails, and bank statements to show proof of the affair and how long it had been going on. She secretly got in touch with the husband of the Lieutenant Ryan was sleeping with, presenting him with everything. Heartbroken and angry, he agreed to remain quiet until the meeting Y/n had set up on that following Friday with their partner's supervisor.

“I know this is a lot to ask,” she exhaled, tired from everything and having to act like she was fine. “But come Friday they’ll be faced with the consequences of their actions. I’m sorry you’re having to go through this as well.”

“It’s not your fault—you’re not the one who cheated on me. You’re the one who found out and had the decency to tell me. We both got screwed,” he rubbed his face with his hands, wedding ring flashing under the light. When it caught his eyes all he could do was glare at it. “The only thing making this somewhat bearable is the fact they’re gonna be hit with the ultimate blindside.”

Y/n nodded to his ring, “What are you gonna do?”

“I’m contacting a divorce lawyer once I leave here. Hopefully the papers will be drawn up quickly so I can bring them to the meeting. Make it a double whammy. You?”

Y/n threw back the rest of her gin & tonic, letting out another tired sign, “I booked a flight to Cabo. Spring break is next week so I’m gonna take a well needed week long vacation and then figure it out from there.” Sunny skies with margaritas and radio silence seemed to be the best therapy at the moment.

For the next three days Y/n maintained a strong façade. Whenever Ryan went to kiss her she’d kept it short or moved to where his lips hit her cheek. She continued to send screenshots to her phone and delete the conversations so he wouldn’t notice. When she surprised him at work for lunch the day before the meeting it really threw both the cheaters off.

“Y/n,” his eyes went wide, “what are you doing here?”

“Thought I’d surprise you for lunch,” she held up a bag of homemade stir fry, bidding a glance at the woman who also was white a sheet. “Hi, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Y/n.”

“Becca.”

“Becca,” she repeated, a smile tight on her lips. While doing so she gave an obvious glance to Becca’s ring finger, finding the diamond. “Beautiful ring you’ve got there. Are you engaged?” Becca became flustered, but kept calm.

“Married.”

“Ah, your husband has a great eye for jewelry. You’re so lucky.”

Ryan was quick to cut the conversation short after the mention of Becca’s husband. Visibly uncomfortable with how Y/n was throwing their aldurty in their face despite not knowing she was aware of it.

The next day Y/n marched into their superiors office, dressed like a corporate CEO ready to fire the entire team for an unforgivable mistake, with two boxes on each arm. One filled with all the evidence of Ryan and Becca’s affair, the other containing all of Ryan’s belongings he had at Y/n’s apartment. Becca’s husband, Tim arrived a minute later with a folder of divorce papers in his hands.

They met with the supervisor first. Y/n introduced who she was and who Tim was, presenting the box of evidence and explained while the Captain shuffled through the papers. Visibly disgusted, the Captain thanked Y/n for bringing it to his attention and promised the adults he would handle the rest.

“Are you calling them in right now?” She asked.

“I was planning to this afternoon, why?”

“I’d like to be present if you don’t mind,” a hand came up to the other box she had, “These are his things and frankly, I want to see the look on his face.”

“Me too,” Tim piped up and waved the folder in his hands. “These need to be served to Becca.”

The supervisor simply shrugged and said, “if that’s what you want, fine by me.” He hit a button on his phone, “Wilkins, please inform Lieutenants Stevens and Leeds they need to report to my office immediately.”

“Yes, sir.” Though her heart was racing, Y/n remained poised and took a seat against the wall of the room. Tim sat beside her, both setting their gaze on the door to await their soon to be exes.

Roughly ten minutes later, a knock on the door sounded and the Captain gruffly said, “enter.” The door opened to reveal Ryan, whose eyes went straight to his superior before scanning the room ultimately resulting in him to freeze where he stood. Turning white as a sheet, Y/n could only imagine what was running through her ex boyfriend’s mind. There was great satisfaction seeing his eyes flicker from her to Tim to the Captain.

“Have a seat, Lieutenant,” the older gentleman's finger pointed to the seat in front of his desk. It seemed to snap Ryan from his daydream, the man stumbling into the room and unable to form words.

When he sat the first thing he tried to say was her name to which the Captain voiced, “I didn’t say you could speak, Lieutenant. Keep quiet, we’re waiting on one more before we get started.”

Becca’s reaction was pretty much the same when she arrived two minutes later. “T-tim,” she stuttered, red as a tomato and fear etched on her face.

“Rebecca,” his tone was blank, matching his expression. Just the full name combined with the parties in the room indicated to Becca she was about to have the worst day of her life.

But hey, maybe she shouldn’t have cheated then.

And Ryan? Mans was shitting bricks where he sat. Couldn’t even bring himself to look at Becca when she sat in the chair beside him. He kept trying to plead to Y/n with his eyes but she wasn’t having it.

The Captain got right to it. He laid out all the evidence on the desk for the two to see, Becca immediately breaking into tears while Ryan tried to explain. What could he explain though? How could he defend a year long affair with a married coworker in front of her husband, longtime girlfriend and superior.

When it came time for the Captain to discuss where to go from there, Y/n excused herself by dropping the box of Ryan’s things into his lap, “Here’s all your shit,” it nearly spilled onto the floor when the action surprised him. “Don’t call, text, show up at my place or at the bar tonight otherwise I’ll call the cops. I’m done with you, Ryan. Thanks for wasting eight fucking years of my life.”

“Wait, Y/n, please—,” she cut him off when he went to stand.

“You’ve not been dismissed yet,” that got him to freeze, noticing the Captain smirking in the corner of her eye. She turned to Tim, “Thanks for your help. Good luck with everything and I hope it works in your favor.” Becca gasped, realizing what the folder in Tim’s hand represented. It spurred on another wave of tears.

“Thanks,” he gave a tired smile, “And good luck to you.” With that Y/n was out the door and Ryan was out of her life. First thing she did was go home, change, and drive to the Hard Deck. Penny immediately poured a glass for her, “long day?” Y/n accepted the beer with a nod.

“Glad it's almost over.”

“What happened?”

Y/n felt the tears welling in her eyes. The emotions she had been holding the past two weeks had finally broken free. Concern formed on Penny’s face. “Ryan was cheating on me for the past year.”

“No,” the woman gasped. Never had she thought Ryan, who always came to the bar to keep Y/n company and watch her sing and her partner of almost a decade would betray her like that. “Did you just find out today?”

“Last Monday. I went to bring him his dry cleaning he left at my place and found him making out with his married coworker.” Another gasp left Penny. “I’ve been playing actor the past two weeks to make him think everything was okay while I gathered proof. Told the woman’s husband a couple days ago and we both met with their superior today. Gave him his stuff while I was at it.”

“I’m so sorry honey,” Penny reached over to pat her hand, “he’s an asshole and you’re worth so much more than him.” Y/n softly smiled at that, mumbling a thanks. Penny served her another glass, “Take the night off okay, I can call Elise to take your shift.”

If Y/n was being honest the offer sounded like a dream. She wanted to go home and cry herself into a bucket of ice cream while watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine until she passed out. But part of her also wanted to sing her pent up feelings out. “Thanks, Penny. I’d still like to sing though if you don’t mind. I could use the release.”

“Of course,” Penny waved a hand, “Whenever you feel like it I’ll have Jose set up the mic. Your guitar’s in the back where I keep the stock.”

For the next couple hours Y/n caught up on grading some papers at a booth while she waited for 8 to roll around. By 6 most of their regulars from the base arrived, signaling the end of the work day. Nat was the first to spot Y/n, strolling over and immediately noticed by the professor's body language that something was off.

“What happened?” She sat across from her.

“What makes you think something happened?”

Nat gave a look, “first, you’re not working the bar.” Y/n shrugged, trying to be nonchalant.

“Penny gave me the night off. I’m still singing though so I thought I’d hang out for the time being—catch up grading before spring break next week.”

“The tone in your voice is off.”

Y/n scoffed even though the pilot was right, “It’s not off.”

“What’s not off?” Rooster comes up, pushing Nat aside so he could slide into the booth.

“Y/n’s acting off and won’t say why.”

“I’ve been grading papers for the last two hours,” Y/n rolled her eyes, “sixty to be exact and all are six pages each. If I sound off it’s probably because I’m tired.” Again, Nat doesn’t appear convinced.

“But you’re still gonna sing even though you probably would rather be home sleeping the day away?”

“Friday nights are what I look forward to during the week,” Y/n scribbled a grade at the top of the paper in front of her, placing it on the stack, “I get to see you guys and sing whatever I want. I wouldn’t miss this.”

“Is Ryan coming?” It was an innocent question and one to expect from her friends given they had no idea of the events that’d taken place. However it didn’t stop the sharp intake of breath Y/n did.

“No, he’s not,” she quickly added before they could ask why, “he got held up at work. His supervisor needed to discuss some things with him.”

“Uh oh,” Rooster made a face, unaware of the boiling anger surfacing in Y/n. “That can’t be good.”

“Yeah,” Y/n clicked her pen, finishing up the last paper. Nat decided not to press further on what was bothering her friend. If Y/n wanted to say then that was up to her.

So to brighten her mood Nat bought her a round and challenged Y/n to a game of pool. Y/n packed up her things, placed them behind the bar and then greeted the other daggers.

“There’s our favorite singer,” Jake announced with a smile. “We were wondering where you were.” Y/n took the cue Rooster handed her.

“Just trying to get through the semester, Hangman.”

The two women played best out of three with Y/n winning the first and final game. By the time they finished it was pushing 7:50 so Y/n informed Penny she was getting her guitar. Once retrieving the instrument she returned to the floor to see Jose had set up the mic and stool for her.

Grabbing a glass of water, Y/n took the stage and set the glass beside the stool before clearing her throat, “Hey everyone.” There were a few hoots and whistles from her friends and regulars at the bar. “How’s your night going? Good?” There were some ‘yeahs’ from the crowd, people moving to get drinks and settle close to the stage. “That’s great to hear. Just sit back, relax, and feel the music.”

Y/n played several songs, all acoustic, starting with Taylor Swift’s ‘Getaway Car’ followed by ‘Back to Black’ by Amy Winehouse. She changed the tune by playing Bill Withers ‘Ain’t No Sunshine,’ but changed ‘she’ to ‘he’ that not many caught. She played ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell,’ by Lana Del Rey and ‘Somebody That I Used To Know,’ from Gotye.

Coming up to the final five minutes of the hour, Y/n gulped the remaining bit of her water and put on a brave face. “This last song,” she paused to close her eyes, “fits the theme you’ve been hearing all night, but is a little more close to the heart. It’s dedicated to someone who’s not present in the crowd which really is a good thing because he knew what was best for him,” very quickly Y/n saw the confusion appear on her friends, some whispering to each other to ask if they knew what she was talking about. “If you can relate to this song because you’ve been on the receiving end of betrayal then my heart goes out to you for I feel your pain. If you can relate because you’ve been that one to betray someone, well, I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

Letting her fingers drum against the strings, the beginning chords of ‘Before He Cheats’ by Carrie Underwood echoed through the bar.

“Right now, he’s probably slow dancin’,” her voice carried into the mic, raw with emotion. “With a bleached-blond tramp and she’s probably gettin’ frisky. Right now, he’s probably buyin’ her some fruity little drink. ‘Cause she can’t shoot whisky.”

Out in the crowd Nat cursed under her breath, anger rising at the realization, “That sly bastard.”

“What?” Mickey whispered, the guys leaning in.

“Right now, he’s probably up behind her with a pool stick. Showin’ her how to shoot a como. And he doesn’t know….”

“Don’t you see?” She gestured with a hand to Y/n, “Ryan cheated on her! That’s why he’s not here. That’s why his supervisor needed to see him. It’s why she’s dedicated this song, a song about a cheater, to him!”

All the sirens ring in their heads as Y/n belts the chorus.

“I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped-up four-wheel drive. Carved my name into his leather seats. I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights, I slashed a hole in all four tires. Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats.”

“Oh,” the word left Jake’s lips, fury in his green eyes. Y/n was his friend, and nobody hurts his friends. “Oh he’s gonna regret that.”

“You guys thinking what I’m thinking?” Rooster crossed his arms over his chest. All of them shared a look. Nat took one look at Y/n and saw how she was holding back tears.

Kill Bill sirens flooded her brain.

“Yeah, I think we are.”

Come Monday Ryan was emptying out his desk while he awaited his discharge hearing, dark circles under his eyes and in dire need of sleep. As he carried the box out to his car, it fell from his hands with horror coating his face.

Parked in the same spot his beloved red Mustang Charger was not the way he left it. The windows were shattered, tires slashed, the leather of his seats torn. His license plates were missing and the word cheater spray painted in white along the sides.

Hiding behind the building, the guys were biting back their laughter at his reaction. Bob holding the spray paint can, Mickey with the Louisville slugger and Bradley and Jake with pocket knives. Reuben had the plates behind his back and Javy kept checking the phone where he had hacked into the building's security cameras to make sure they were disconnected.

Right on time, Nat came running around the corner in her PT gear, slowing her run when she approached a visibly distraught and furious Ryan. Removing her headphones the pilot whistled, “Damn. That’s gonna be a field day to fix.”

Ryan snapped his head to her, “Do you know who did this?” His tone was accusatory and Nat couldn’t blame him. He knew she was friends with Y/n and frequented the bar every week. He wouldn’t put it past Nat being involved. “Was it you and her? Huh? Y/n had to get one last final laugh—as if she hasn’t done enough!” Nat only scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“I wouldn’t throw accusations so loosely, Ryan. I’ve had PT all morning and Y/n left for Cabo yesterday.” There was no lie in her statement. Y/n was currently sitting at the poolside of her resort with a margarita in her hand. She’d posted on her instagram stories and let Nat know when she landed. Plus the pilot did have PT and was finishing up her run before heading to the flight line.

But she was the mastermind while the boys did the dirty work.

The truth only angered Ryan more, his face turning even more red. “Then who did this?!”

“How should I know?” Nat smirked, putting her headphones in as she started to move past him. “But maybe next time you’ll think before you cheat.”

………..

TGM tag list: @avaleineandafryingpan @caitsymichelle13 @poppyalice2001 @cutelittlepotatofry @luckyladycreator2 @americaarse @elenavampire21 @back-tooo-black @wildellaa @artemissunn @pinkpantheris

[scrybe-scott]

Hello world!

My name is Cam (he/him), and I’m brand new to the whole tumblr thing!

I figure the best way to join an online community is with an introduction, so here we are! Please don’t hesitate to reach out or interact! I’d love to make some new friends!!!

Okay, so who are you?

I’m glad you asked! My pen name, which I’m going to use for this blog, is Cam Scott

I’m 24, recently jumping back into writing after a whole slew of life stuff, and am looking to start grad school here in the next year or two!

Some of my interests include: comics, movies, folklore and folk music, philosophy, pro wrestling (the greatest form of theatre), and video games!

What do you write?

All kinds of stuff! Fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, westerns, even a comic or graphic novel from time to time. If only I could draw…

The only things you won’t catch me really writing are romances. Nothing against em, per se, but that’s not really my niche. A subplot? Sure! But not really my vibe for a complete work.

I also don’t really do fanfic, but again, no hate if you do! I think it’s cool to read people play around in those spaces; I just have to get all these voice- er, stories… out of my head.

Do you have any WIPs?

Too many! But I’ll try to list some of the main ones! (And keep it short)

The Silver Circle: The first in a fantasy series, it follows a group of adventurers making their way through a war-torn continent to help a cast-out prince reclaim his throne.

The Clockwork Lounge: A neon noir/cyberpunk-esque sci-fi story in which a man is hired to solve a murder in a casino run entirely by automatons.

Untitled Mystery (as in I came up with this yesterday lol): a man bounces back and forth between three bodies in three different time periods: the sailing age, the jazz age, and the far future in order to solve three murders that are somehow all connected.

If any of this sounds like anything you like, please don’t hesitate to follow! I’m also down for any tag games, asks, DMs, etc! I’d love to make new friends and really get involved with the community.

[hunxi-after-hours]

(paper anon) hunxi!! i know ur no longer active but it felt wrong to not give you this (probably final, since i dont wanna spam up your asks) update. first year of chinese finished!!! got the best % in my year for spoken chinese 🫡 written kicked my ass. next semester we have a class for reading literary texts and poems, i think you'd enjoy that haha. and also east asian general history!! all the fun stuff. its hard work but i love it. i hope you're also doing well and im sending you all the positive vibes :) <3

i know ur long non active on this hellsite (good for you!) but i just felt super nostalgic and wanted to send the ask anyway. im halfway done with my chinese degree and ive just finished translating an article about the statistics of tourism economy in china post modern reforms and its just. Huh. Huhhhh since when can i do that. (ive actually thought abt dropping out a lot.) i miss being as excited as i was in your ask box about studying this, but i think my love for chinese language is now a lot deeper, even without the pink glasses, now that i experienced first hand how fucking difficult studying it academically is. easier times dude. anw i hope ur well if u ever relog in and see this ^^^ (paper anon)

(checks time stamp, winces) ok so HOW WAS THE LITERARY TEXTS AND POEMS CLASS??? did the class skim through the literary tradition, or did you linger in any time period in particular? was it a Joy of Life episode 27 best hits of the chinese literary tradition kind of highlight reel? (ty for the excuse to rewatch this scene, I swear it gets funnier every time) and, most importantly — any favorites??

taking classes on chinese literature and poetry was honestly some of the most humbling and 劝退 uhhh disheartening classes to take... because then you really come face to face with the truly massive body of the tradition. what do you MEAN there are so many poets and they all reference each other. how am I supposed to catch up. how am I even supposed to summon the motivation to move forwards, knowing that I've 早就输在起跑线上

and like, I don't have a good answer — as someone who literally dropped out of the field upon graduation (I've flirted with the idea of going back to grad school but quite frankly I don't think it'd be worth it), I don't have any inspirational stories to tell about level-grinding my way up the Chinese tradition or overcoming academic hurdles to attain sagely academic enlightenment. I don't even know if such stories would be helpful, because each person's journey through the Chinese language learning experience/tradition is so unique and personal. all I can say is find that thing that you love, that spark that makes you come back for more, be it this one specific poet or this one archaeological collection, a particularly trashy webnovel or a niche music genre. find that something that sparks love for you, and hang onto it for dear life, because if that spark catches flame, it'll be the light that guides you toward the road that you're meant to walk

[moonstruckme]

Oh babe I read your post about graduation and life after. I FEEL YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!! I’m graduating Friday and I pursued a film degree in a city with little to no opportunities for that industry. Don’t know why I did that. Sorry to my parents who sacrificed a lot to put me through school. Moving to a bigger city is not an option bc I can’t afford it. Might be moving back in with my parents might not be. Everyone is asking whats next for me. Girl idk. I’m stressed I’m anxious. I hate it here. The real world sucks and I just want to skip over all this character building stuff and get to the part of my life where I’m happy with a career and can actually afford groceries. Sometimes I wish my dreams weren’t as big.

Hi gorgeous! First of all, I'm so sorry you feel that way. I promise your degree has value whether you feel like you can get a job out of it right away or not, and I won't pretend to know how your parents feel but I doubt they would have sacrified anything if they didn't feel your education was worthwhile. Graduating from college is a big deal nonetheless ! We both know I'm struggling with this too but I have some pieces of advice that have been given to me and I've found helpful if you want them <3

Obviously, "almost no one works in something related to their degree" is a really disheartening thing to hear, and I bet you've been hearing it (like I have) a lot lately. But what I think the people who say that are trying to convey is that there is no shame in just doing a job that makes some money (and preferably also makes you happy), and sometimes that financial security can help you pursue your dreams with a bit more surety since you're no longer trying to find a way to eat at the same time.

A few months ago, I talked to my mom about how guilty I feel about potentially not being able to get a job relevant to my degree after she helped put me through college, and while I know not all parents feel the same way about this, I think she made some great points. She said that college is about learning how to think, and your education and the experiences you've had in college will always be valuable no matter what job you end up with. And did you have a good time? Did you like learning all those things you did about film? Did you meet some cool friends, or get to talk about your interests with people who get it? If so, none of it was wasted.

It's so, so easy to feel pressure from others when you're trying to figure out your life post-grad, but in my experience most of that pressure is really internal. People ask what's next for you because they're interested, not becuase they have any one specific path in mind, and the vast majority of the time if you seem happy, they're happy. If you're not happy, fuck it! Then your priority should probably be getting to a place where you are happy, and those conversations really don't matter when you've got bigger fish to fry.

Last thing, but as someone also struggling to re-orient herself in her life plan, I've been taking a lot of time to figure out my priorities. I kind of got stuck in this idea of what my life was going to be, and once that seemed less certain I started questioning what I wanted if I didn't have to do that. I'm making a pinterest board (always my first course of action haha), and it's helped me figure out that whatever I do, I want to be around nature and books, and to live in a mid-size city. Figuring out what I need to be happy has really put things into perspective for me, and I'm sorry I don't mean to assume we're in the exact same mental state but I just want to give you all the stuff that's been working for me in case any of it fits into your situation too.

You can still use your passion in film while working another job, or use that job to save to move to a larger city, or maybe even reflect and find that you're content keeping the film thing as a hobby and there's something else you enjoy doing for a career (I know how heartbreaking that can sound when you love something, but that's how writing has turned out for me so I just wanted to put it out there--feel free to reject it of course). For me, trying to open my mind to all the possibilities and re-evaluate what I want from the next few years has been super scary but also kind of exciting, and I hope that whatever happens for you you're able to find happiness in the big and little things. Wishing you all the best my love!

[holdmecloser-gandydancer]

Barry takes his glasses off and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. He’s been staring at his computer for far too long today. The computer in question sits on the couch next to him, screen obscenely bright in his dim living room.

He’d been ignoring the emails that infiltrated his inbox with growing frequency and urgency, all of them riddled with subject lines like “Payment Plans for Upcoming Semester,” and “Payment Due Soon,” and “Seriously, You Owe Us Tens of Thousands of Dollars and We Aim to Collect.” You know, normal stuff.

He’d always figured that actually doing the coursework would be the hardest part of grad school, not figuring out how to fund it without owing his soul and first-born child to the federal government. But the fact of the matter is that he’s reached a dead end; most of everything his mom left him was used to pay off his undergrad loans some years back. His university has mentioned scholarships and work study but he’s convinced the scholarships are a myth and also his university declined to mention that the work study they offer doesn’t actually pay him in money, rather they just pay for three course credits. Don’t get him wrong, that’s better than nothing but that doesn’t help pay his rent or buy textbooks.

Once again he mourns the fact that the only applied arcane theory program that accepted him just had to be a private university many states away.

He returns his glasses to his face and pulls his laptop closer to him. He’s about three modules into his ten-module long loan counseling. It’s basically an online program that explains in excruciating detail just how deeply the federal government has his future in their pocket. “Oh, hey Barry! If you Ever fall behind on your loans, we can garnish your wages that already probably won’t be able to pay for a studio apartment in Neverwinter and also you’ll be paying these back for anywhere from ten to twenty five years! You also cannot declare bankruptcy because you live in hell!! Only way to get off the hook for these is if your school shuts down before you get your degree or you die! Now sign on the dotted line after you hyperventilate a little when you look at just how much money you’re going to be responsible for!”

The whole process makes his stomach hurt; there’s no good reason education should be this much. He’s going to be saddled with loans worth more than any yearly salary he could hope to have and now he’s gotta pay them back or die.

Wait.

He rereads the loan forgiveness terms. “If your loan servicer receives acceptable documentation of your death, your federal student loans will be discharged,” he reads to himself. He's got it.

He lets loose a laugh that borders on maniacal and roots around for his phone. It rings once before someone picks up on the other end.

“Lup!” He whoops.

“Bear? What’s up? You sound extremely excitable right now.”

“Okay, remember when you wanted to get married for tax benefits?”

“I do! I also remember you turned me down because you didn’t want to our marriage to be for convenience.”

Barry laughs to himself. “Yeah, I still stand by that.”

“You sap,” she sighs fondly.

“Well, I think I found a way to scam the federal government through a loophole.”

“Gods I love when you talk dirty to me!”

“We can talk more when you come home but I can almost promise you neither of us are paying off our student loans.”

“Barry, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about and I can’t wait to hear your devious plan. Love you!”

“Love you.” He clicks end on the call and looks around for his theoretical necromancy notes from a few semesters ago.

[autisticgirliesbracket]

What makes Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic the autistic girlie ever of all time? Here's what the people have to say:

Twilight-related asks/reblogs: x This post will be updated after each round!

Image ID in alt text and under the readmore.

[Image ID. White slide with a screenshot of Twilight Sparkle in the top left corner. She is surrounded by text boxes which read,

"nerd"

"Her defining character trait at the start of the show is trouble making friends and loving to read. She gets better at making friends but still loves to read and study magic. She’s very into the history of magic and geeks out over historical figures like Starswirl the Bearded. She also loves to organize things and she’s very particular about everything being in its correct place. If someone moves her stuff out of place it makes her stressed and her idea of a good time is reorganizing all of her books. Also she lived in a library and she’s a princess <3"

"This is sorta stereotypical but she's obsessed with science, order, books and list making, plus magic, but magic is normal in Equestria. Also, she was rather stringent in her scheduling. She never cared about friendship before she had friends and once she did, she had many, many, many lessons to learn! Her lessons in friendship helped me too! She also never seemed to know what was expected of her or what was right socially from wrong."

"She loves books and lives in a library and starts out not very good at making friends and not very interested in it either, but eventually she comes around on it, but she's still into being extremely nerdy and studying things like history and magic, and her organizational skill are unbelievably good. Honestly, she comes off with a touch of OCD too because she's also incredibly anxious and it's very important to her that everything is in its place, but in the Equestria Girls spin-off which takes place in an alternate reality where everyone is human instead of pony, the version of her who lives there is a STEM girlie who hides in her lab all the time, which is even more autistic of her."

"Socially awkward bookworm who is so focused on her studies that her mentor has to send her to friendship grad school so she can finally make friends. Ends up making the study of friendship her special interest and hyperfixates on it so hard that she becomes a princess through sheer magical force."

"Her Everything...hugely passionate about academics and magic but struggles with social norms but when she does find friends becomes very dedicated to them. often gets caught up in her own ideas and forgets to consult others and has to be gently reminded. more that i can't remember because i haven't watched mlp in a while but come on we all know twilight. the girl ever"

"Extremely knowledgeable on her subject of choice, has trouble understanding social cues and others feelings."

"She is obsessed with magic and science and has trouble relating to other people (er, ponies) and has few close relationships in the beginning, plus, she tends to have episodes when her schedules and routines are disrupted."

"I don't have the energy right now but her entire arc throughout the series is basically learning social cues. There's also some episodes early on that show her trying to find explanations to thing that don't have a clear answer, which I can relate to a lot. She also over prepares for things like tests and spends a LOT of time reading, which I kinda see as her special interest!"

"didn't feel a need to connect with her peers as a child and preferred reading books (relatable), sometimes takes expressions literally, has "obscure" interests, at times has difficulty "reading the room," can get lost in projects she's working on (her library goes back and forth from clear floors to many stacks of books all around depending on her current focus), is a perfectionist, plans things meticulously (has checklists for just about everything), and once had a sleepover "by the book" (followed the instructions in a book on how to have a sleepover step by step)."

"She is very smart academically, but lacking is social department (she gets better at it though as she makes friends). She likes routine, and things not going to plan is enough to send her into a stress spiral. She is passionate about magic and studying, which could be her special interests"

"Misunderstands social cues. Very studious, special interests in magic and Starswirl the Bearded. Only friends at the beginning of the series were her siblings and her teacher. Comforted by routines and organization. Link!"

"Constantly studying, to the point where at the start of the show she didn't want friends because they would get in the way of her studying. Not because she felt that she had to, but because it made her happy and it was her favorite activity. Extremely organized, she can't carry out a task if she can't make a fully-detailed list and plan. Is also abnormally talented at magic, which she has been passionate about since she was young, and more often than not she struggles to read social cues."

"she may be like the poster child for ocd and autism like just look at her. She was so bad at hanging out with people and making friends and she was such a bookworm who was obsessed with nothing but her studies of choice that her mentor had to ASSIGN HER TO MAKE FRIENDS. like the only way this girlie was gonna get along with people was if she was at risk of disappointing her mentor. Her special talent is magic and shes dedicated her life to figuring it out. So much so that when told to make friends she managed to uncover and spread the MAGIC of friendship. Like she had to include magic in it. And this lady just cannot take a hint. She never gets social cues. When one of her friends gets into a book seires that she likes the two of them bonded over it so much. Like twilight was fangirling all over the place." End ID.]

[three--rings]

Hello! Sorry to bother but I am waaay too curious

If you have time/energy/mood, could you please elaborate? I am curious about your perspective. Psychology is one of my biggest passions and I want to start a degree in it (with possibility to advance further with the degree maybe) I am aware of some of its flaws, and the fact that it can be biased and inconclusive and not exactly exact and precise like the other sciences. Is there anything else that perhaps I should keep an eye out on? Thank you for reading and if you reply, thank you for replying as well.

So the thing about studying psychology, especially at the undergrad level, is that you spend all your time being taught about these landmark studies that defined the thinking of decades of psychology theory and practice.

And then at some point, which may be during or after your education, you learn all of those studies were terrible research bullshit that can't be reliably reproduced even if they could get past a modern ethics board.

Psychology is a field that is really uncomfortable with itself because it desperately wants to be taken seriously as a hard science and not be thought of as just people thinking about people. But it is REALLY REALLY bad at being a hard science. The research is just not rigorous at ALL.

My senior year of undergrad for my research methods class my group of slackers who rarely went to class put together a research study where we drew up entirely new models and tools that looked far better than the published ones, applied them to a much larger and more diverse population of subjects and basically put the leading research in that little niche to shame. On the weekends. Our prof wanted us to publish but we were graduating and it never happened. We sent it to the leading researcher in the field and he was all...uh, yeah, I'm working on some new stuff too...but good for y'all. He was a known prick though.

Like, it's not that there's not good stuff in there somewhere. But my god there's so much chaff.

Then you get into the grad school degree maelstorm and...ugh. There are a lot of options. They are split into practical i.e. you want to help people in the real world and clinical i.e. you want to do shitty studies and publish.

I worked both in psychology research (so I got to see how the sausage was made on the ground) and in social work for mental health care and...most of my coworkers at both jobs had some kind of advanced degrees and were making something around $30K doing the same jobs as me. There are far too many people with masters in psychology because they are easy to get and even if you get your LPC they are still way too many people with them with no idea what they are doing. Like you can go to Christian College Number 304 and get your Marriage and Family Therapy masters and come out and have only learned to Pray On It and do some supervised hours and now you're licensed and yeah I worked with these people. (Go get your masters, they told me. It is SO EASY they told me. Uh, yeah that's not winning me over to your program.)

Anyway, if you can't tell I'm jaded. Besides the fact that the field is one that will eat you alive, burn you out, and then spit you up, with no money and no accomplishments. I also deeply loved it even though it destroyed me. (I mean also my spine exploded, which didn't help.)

If you want to do hands-on helping people stuff I like the social work programs out there. And if you want to study hard science of human behavior neuroscience is killing it. Psychology is...IDK. The most hopeful way to look at it is that it's a discipline going through a transitional period maybe. But I'm also fairly out of touch with the field these days so talking to someone actually in the field now would be a good call for further advice. Unfortunately most faculty in my experience are...deeply behind the times. You would not believe the kind of 1960s relics I had to deal with teaching me.

And most of what I learned about mental health I learned on the ground, in mental health crisis work, on the go. Most of psychology doesn't really enjoy dealing with "abnormal psychology". Which is literally the term for people with any mental health diagnosis. I had one class on it.

So that's my entirely personal experience based opinion. For more, look into the replication crisis of psychology research.

[zyrafowe-sny]

Thanks for the tag, @grey-automa!

EDIT: I think @violet-prism-creatively also tagged me in this a very long time ago (had to do some digging in my Tumblr notifications).

were you named/named yourself after anyone?

My middle name is my maternal grandmother's first name. All of her children (my uncle included) had her first name as their middle name, and a good chunk of her grandkids do too.

when was the last time you cried?

A few months back when I was visiting a place I knew I wouldn't return to again in a while - I was a combination of extremely overheated, hormonal, frustrated with people with me, nostalgic, and overcome by the passage of time. I don't think I cry all that often, but enough happened to stack at once that it came out as tears.

do you have kids?

I have roommates who are significantly shorter and younger than me.

do you use sarcasm a lot?

Never ever

what's the first thing you notice about people?

This feels like a question Spencer Tracy asked Katharine Hepburn in Desk Set.

Uhh... rough relative height/age? whether they are trying to actively engage with me or are just going about their day?

what's your eye colour?

dark brown

any special talents?

I can read non-technical English with solid comprehension faster than most people I've encountered (back in high school, I could read the same short story twice in the time we were given in class to read it once, and I always need to wait for my partner to catch up when we're reading the same thing).

scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings, I guess? Not a big fan of scary movies.

where were you born?

about an hour from where my parents lived because they were paranoid and wanted a bigger hospital (my mom was considered old for a first-time mom at *gasp* 30 and they had trouble getting pregnant)

what are your hobbies?

I got back into writing fanfic after a long hiatus (thanks to Thanks to Them). I also sing in a community choir. There was a stretch when I was a little more outdoorsy (though never hardcore), but that's scaled back substantially.

have any pets?

Don't feel up for the responsibility right now. Maybe someday - my living situation is more pet friendly than it used to be - but I'm already drowning in home stuff and don't think a pet would help.

I did have a dog as a kid, but he passed away fairly young when I was in middle school.

what sport do you play/have you played?

I did marching band all through high school, if that counts. I like to ski but it's expensive and a 3-5 hour drive in reasonable weather. I don't ice skate nearly as much as I probably could/should (not sure where my skates are). My partner and I took some sea kayaking lessons once upon a time and I'd like to try that again, but it's not cheap and would be hard to fit in our schedules.

how tall are you?

5'7"

favourite subject at school?

That all depends so much on the teacher and exact class. I really enjoyed my high school physics/AP Physics teacher and even considered a major in physics/astro along with a social science major (am a hopeless generalist), but really didn't like my professors or classmates in college. (I have any regrets that I didn't push through because I like the notion of more women in STEM, but oh well.)

My favorite class as an undergrad was probably anthro of food - it had interesting readings and I got to interview people for a research paper (probably my favorite college assignment).

In grad school, I took a great class on human rights that's colored how I see many policy issues.

dream job?

I wish I knew.

I like: being useful, asking questions, figuring out answers to questions/analyzing things, figuring out how to best communicate answers to things, switching between more quantitative and qualitative work, being able to be just the right amount of stimulated between the work itself and/or any background media, being able to body double (I do well with cubicles/shared offices and less well when I'm in a room by myself), working more on deliverables than project/people management and presenting, and getting several-hour blocks when I'm allowed to just focus and only be interrupted by the most urgent fires.

I might have burned out badly in a past job when also going through some other personal stuff.

I'll be job hunting for the first time in a while probably inside the next year, and am dreading it.

no pressure tagging: @abstract-moth @thegrimshapeofyoursmile @enigma-the-mysterious/@sir-ballister-boldheart @childlikegoblinqueen @sercezgazety

And of course anyone else who wants to.

I turned off reblogs because some of this information approaches personally identifying, but feel free to copy-paste the questions into your own post!

[tacroyy]

first week of school. also want to add that ill try to do content warnings better for these! haven’t done a good job of that at all. mentions of racial and ableist slurs, discussion of stressed kids, food insecurity, institutional neglect and harm, general discussion of trauma

ok, thursday and friday weren’t bad other than me being beyond exhausted. i truly couldn’t have functioned without my adhd meds. the seventh graders are fucking amazing and we had The Best discussion, totally out of the blue, about prejudicial language, specifically the n-word and the r-word (both are problems at our school 🙃). i basically don’t have classroom management over them rn (or at least am not bothering to Exert It) bc their other teachers are Overreacting and being Too Intense bc it’s the start of the year so since they already know me it’s all steam blowing off in my class but honestly that’s fine. they don’t have to be non-feral until next week bc i just want them to Relax right now. the sixth graders just got lockers and are Going Through It emotionally so there’s a lot of “breathe, try again” and “nobody is doing tardies right now” bc some of them literally haven’t developed their fine motor skills enough yet and our locks and lockers are, no lie!!!!!, forty years old and Cranky. so that’s a lot of unregulated stress to channel off. i think i say this twice a week but i Do Not Understand how ANYONE teaches elementary school. makes No sense to me. beginning of sixth grade is often too young for me, really; so many of them haven’t developed that, like, independent rationality yet, and it’s A Lot when there are So Many of them.

the ideal way to end this first week would have been to have like a half day for prep so we could meet w teachers, contact parents/guardians, do sped referrals, seating chart upheavals, etc. there’s a lot of “ah, okay, here’s what This batch needs” even 3 or 4 days in, and it would just be so lovely and useful and productive and overall good for everyone to have that. for example i overheard a convo that made it clear that a family hadn’t signed their kid up for free lunch this year and so the kid didn’t get lunch so i had to run around and tell the right people (teachers don’t have access to that info) and make sure they got fed and all but it took my whole prep, and im obviously delighted to do that, but then i didn’t have any prep time and did my last three classes on the fly. not that this kind of thing doesn’t happen most days. it’s just that more prep time is imo the number one thing we need as a profession. i cant begin to express how much it would help everyone.

plus there are, as always, the kids that i just want to have a four hour productive meeting about every single day, where we hash out an Actual Plan. with a social worker, a reading specialist, a developmental psychologist, a pediatrician, a therapist, a sped expert, a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, a case manager, a para AND an ea and a secretary for notes. instead it’s me and the counselor who has a 250 kid caseload for ten minutes in the hall.

ive had a dream for a while, since grad school actually, of studying the affect of referred trauma on kids’ peers and school faculty and staff, especially peers and faculty and staff who also have trauma. the amount of shit that slides off of me now because you Have to grow the most perfectly balanced shield of “i will Act on this and Not ignore it” and “i must Remain Calm” and “I’ve just heard the Worst Thing Ever and have to teach for another four hours”. what does it do to you long term? what about the ones who get inured? and the ones who don’t? how can we actually help people handle this well? i know there’s So much stuff out there about secondary/vicarious trauma, and trauma informed education, and i want to be able to know if it’s at all useful or if it’s too tainted to use, like i now expect from basically all educational academia. to be clear i have already done a lot of work in this area but not for a while, and i wanted to reframe the fundamentals.

so glad we have a three day weekend now.

[giacosketch]

Hello! I Graduated!!

Hey, hi again. It's been a bit since my last update, but I wanted to share what I've been up to since you last saw me.

So, let's rewind to a few months ago for my last post. That was a school project I had to do, but I want to take this blogging thing kinda seriously to keep track of my work and career progress. So, jumping to now, I finally decided to get off my ass and make a new post! Anyway, let's talk about the meat and potatoes of the post: my graduation from the Seneca College (or Polytechnic) Diploma of Illustration program!

I've been in school for a LONG time now. I started in Art Fundamentals (or 'fundies' as I'll refer to it) at Sheridan College back in 2016. Then, after some hiccups and a few failed classes here and there, I took a year off. I then reapplied to Fundamentals and redid that so I could get the credits needed to get into Sheridan's famous Animation program! After two attempts (one during my first round of Fundamentals, and the other during the second), I finally got into the Animation program! But after some more failed classes and hiccups, paired with being held back a year and the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I just ended up dropping out of the course, cursing the name of Sheridan College, and taking yet another year off to ride out the pandemic and see where things would take me. This takes us to 2022 when I applied to Seneca College for their animation program and their illustration program. Now, you may be asking, "But if you're gunning for animation, why did you switch to Illustration???" and to that, I say 'I needed something to change'.

I initially went to art school to pursue comics and MAYBE storyboarding because I thought it was cool. It wasn't until some chats with tutors and classmates that I switched to animation. I was hesitant at first, and the more I look back, the more I think I just wasn't ready for that kind of work. But I did it anyway, and turns out, while I do like animating, I don't like animation school (at least not yet).

So, after a few weeks of waiting, I got an update from Seneca! I did not get into the animation program, BUT I was accepted into the illustration program. I took this as a sign to pivot and try something I wanted to do from the start. Who knows, I might like it! So, I accepted my offer and again, after SOME hiccups and a few failed classes, I… I graduated… I actually did it, I graduated college, and it DIDN'T suck!

I won't bore you with the full details, but my experience at Seneca was really good! With my past knowledge of art school and generally knowing the structure of assignments and the deadlines, I was able to manage my time and my work while also experimenting with new mediums and techniques I was too scared to try before. I went in with the mindset of 'Well, I paid for it, might as well try'.

I kid you not, that carried me through this program, even when I didn't want to do the work.

So, after an amazing 5 semesters (I was held back one) and the amazing crit and help I got from my professors, I got to the end game of making a four-image set piece for the Illustration Grad show. This is the program's thesis project, which basically everything you learn leads up to. The show went amazing, my family and friends all came out to cheer me on. My classmates won awards for their beautiful artwork, and after an amazing week of the show and a great reception night, it was all over. The college ride came to an end, and I can now hold my head up high and say…

"I graduated college."

TLDR: I went to Sheridan College for some time, messed around and failed. Then I applied to Seneca College for their animation or illustration program. Got into illustration and had a great time, then I graduated!

Full visual Timeline*:

*This timeline is leaving out some important things that happened but for the sake or simplicity and privacy, I left that stuff out.

OK so that was A LOT to take in and read, how about we talk about some art!

So I said I got my work into the Illustration Grad show and I bet you're wondering 'What was the work you did?'

this is it!

INVISABLE

11 x 17 cream text paper

Risograph Print

(and here is my artist statement I wrote to accompany the piece:)

Change is a force all around us. We see it in our everyday lives and experience it within our minds. Both the invisible and visible change controls us. I’ve experienced it a lot during my time in school, both artistically and emotionally, and I've seen my family and friends change from once familiar nostalgic forms, into mature and responsible beings. 

INVISIBLE brings creatures from our deep past,(Microraptor, Tiktaalik, Smilodon, and Australopithecus) and inserts them into our modern era in familiar settings. We think of these animals as things from a time long forgotten, or as museum specimens, but without the past, the present just wouldn’t come to be. Their lives, and struggles shaped us and molded the very ground beneath us. We are our past, just as much as we are our future.

Pretty fancy, eh? I wanted to really put on my artist cap for this one, and I honestly had a blast making it.

Each of the skeletons shown is drawn as ACCURATELY as I can make them. I referenced skeletal diagrams, research papers, and I reached out to some paleo mutuals and Discord servers for some critique. Oh, and you may be wondering why Risograph. To be honest, it's really just because of the aged look of the ink. I wanted a semi-museum quality to the final product, and Risograph just felt right to me. Shout out to the amazing Colour Code Printing for the excellent work they did. Lastly, the name "INVISABLE" is in reference to how these animals and the change they caused are NOW invisible to us, and it's also a reference to the Duran Duran song of the same name. I liked the vibes a lot, and there was a meme circulating around with the song at the time, so it was in my head a lot. The feeling I got from the vocals and the instrumentals was something I wanted to recapture in my work, albeit to varying success. I'm extremely proud of this work, and the reaction from everyone at the reception was awesome!

I do hope to maybe one day do another gallery in the future, but I'm also not really about that kind of stuff. But the last few years have taught me a lot about myself and that I have to be open to change and reinventing who I am. I can't stay stagnant, or I'll just sink, and I've seen it happen to many, many people not only in school but at work and just out and about. Keep an open mind and try new things; that's the lesson I learned throughout all of this.

If you're reading this and you don't know how to feel about growing up or if you should go to school, all I say is this: Try new things and don't be afraid to mess up. Fail faster, and you'll learn faster.

[self-loving-vampire]

Yeah I 100% agree re: having so many things to do/not enough time to do them.

I already look at this like

Welp, at least I'll literally never run out of things to do

but also my second biggest fear (after ceasing to exist) is that I'll invest too much time/energy into something, anything, only for it to not pan out, because the sense that my existence is finite hangs over my head like the Sword of Damocles.

It's bad enough that this already happened once with grad school, and even regular college to a certain extent. Any uncertainty makes me wary of long-term commitment because any time spent suffering for a goal I don't end up achieving is too long when I could have been doing something more valuable.

There are so many things I want to do, and half of them aren't even new things. There are certain games I could play forever, and I'll never get tired of iterative drafting character models, or working on the board/card game I've been designing for the past 20 years.

And you're right, on top of everything I know I like, stuff keeps coming out so fast that I'm already way behind on so much, and it takes me so long to do anything, and I hate having to choose between enjoying the things I know I like but that take time to enjoy and trying to keep up. Especially when so many things are "live" events, because what really translates to is pressure to prioritize things that are "limited time only", or else be unable to enjoy them because I'm too fixated on something else.

Sometimes I'm too unfocused to do much of anything at all. I don't draw nearly as often as I used to, and I hate it. I feel like the only way I ever make progress on something is when I hyperfixate on it, but I have so many things I'm interested in that I can't prioritize anything if it means sacrificing something else like some people seem to be able to do, and more often than not I just feel too guilty about wanting to do one thing while feeling like doing something else that I can't effectively do either.

Sometimes I wish I could just stop time and think, without feeling the pressure to act before I run out of time. But really I wish time didn't exist. That I didn't have to worry about decision making or regret because eventually I could get around to everything. Because as it stands it will never be enough.

In terms of people, I'd honestly be happy to never meet a new person again, which is admittedly paradoxical, because I only "met" you (read: found your blog) recently, and you're such a source of hope that things can work out for someone like me that it's proof positive there are new people out there I could benefit from meeting.

But honestly I could spend forever with just my best friend (and a head full of semi-autonomous sub-personas, although I don't consider myself plural either), because everyone else in my life either seemingly values me less than I value them, or doesn't understand me well enough.

I don't know if I'll ever get to know you well enough to be considered your friend, but just knowing you exist makes me feel less alone, and I hope we both get to live together with the people we love.

Yeah, it would be much more relaxing if you could afford to waste a lot more time pursuing interests that you might get burned on and just go on with your life as if there wasn't much of a cost to doing that. Having a radically longer lifespan could help with that.

But even without that, I think it's important to try to enjoy the present as much as you can. There's definitely times in your life where you may feel like you're just enduring in hopes that the future will be better (and a lot of the time it is), but it's still worth trying.

I actually feel a lot like how you describe regarding meeting people, by the way. I remember when I was young I felt like "loneliness" was not really something I experienced and I typically preferred to spend time alone with the computer or books even when I had the opportunity to interact with people I got along with.

It took me a bit to really open up to my first real friend group (which master was a part of) too, and even though I felt as if I didn't need to interact with people to maintain my emotional state they still did help motivate me to leave and survive even though I used to be pretty hopeless about that kind of thing.

But it wasn't really that I needed "people" in general, but rather that those specific individuals were kind and supportive in ways I was not expecting. I would have been indifferent to most others, and even expected that those who were physically around me at the time were not safe to be honest with. They never really knew me as a result.

Even then, those friends were online. Even after making them I spent years not really bothering to meet people in person (and I still don't make any effort to do that).

That said, I'm getting attached to people I only recently met once again and feel like it's helping my already-good mood.

I don't know if maybe I'm just somewhere on the kuudere spectrum about this kind of thing.

[theforensicintrovert]

introduction post 3/4/23

hi! you can call me six! im a third year college student studying criminal justice w/ a forensic psychology specialization! i decided to create this tumblr blog as a way to find students like me, as well as help educate and share some stuff throughout my educational career :)

just to give you some insight on my studies: i am hoping to go to grad school right after primary, gaining a masters in forensic psychology. then i hope to find a job where i can specialize in crime scene investigation or counterterrorism (with a focus on hate crimes like anti-semitism). i also enjoy mixing other disciplines like religious and gender studies into criminal justice! i am also starting my decesnt into ancient latin :)

here are some quick facts abt me:

classes ->

intro to psych & criminal justice

abnormal psychology

criminal investigation

FBI practium

criminology

victimology

favorite media ->

shows - criminal minds, bones, greys, blue bloods, ncis, & hawaii 5-0

books - american sherlock, education of a coroner, god is one, & forensics

hobbies - photography, reading, video games (i stream!), collecting cat socks, tarot & crystal collections, & star wars!!!!

some stuff i want to share in the future would include:

- study tips & study guides

- book recommendations

- case studies

- aesthetics

- and more :))

i hope we can be besties! and talk crime!

cum rursus occurremus :)

<3 six

[thegirlwiththelilactattoo]

No. 10, or Chapter 2: Electric Boogaloo

Introduction

In my first dissertation chapter, I found it exceptionally challenging to parse out what a chapter was supposed to look like and how to articulate my ideas. These are like pretty fundamental elements of writing, so my first chapter ended up being largely unfocused. I'm a write-as-I-think sort of person, but it felt pretty discouraging to turn in writing I felt wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. After sending the draft off to my committee chair for the first round of comments, I decided I wanted to address the most glaring shortcoming of chapter one in my second chapter. This manifested as two goals: remain in control of the argument and use evidence more efficiently.

Writing Chapter Two

I started chapter two largely the same way as chapter one, with a mind map. I mentioned in a previous post how I use mind maps, so I won't rehash that here (link to that post). The argument and evidence I initially planned in my mind map didn't end up in the draft I turned in...at all. Like in my first chapter, I planned to cover a robust amount of information that ended up being entirely unreasonable to cover in a chapter -- not in the sense that there were too many ideas, but that the strands of discussion didn't amount to an actual argument. I like love to info dump, so my writing often reflects me rambling with no point because I'm excited about what I learned. I ended up chatting with my advisor in the early stages of this chapter (good idea!!) to get her feedback. While I also didn't end up incorporating what we talked about in that conversation, it helped to reframe the chapter with more focus.

Another fail this time around, was my also bad habit of doing a ton of reading before I start writing. I ended up reading a lot about new materialisms because I thought I would do a literature review in this chapter. I didn't find anything particularly interesting in the literature from new materialism or other ontological turn stuff, so instead I wasted a lot of time reading for no reason. idk if I have any coherent advice for this, but I think I learned that I need to start with the data first and then read what feels appropriate to help me write the argument. I'm a firm believer in not deleting words. Instead I move them to a different word doc (I call mine "Chp X Bits") in case I want to include those words later. My Chp 2 Bits ended up being about 10k words of different stops and starts where I tried to figure out how to enter the narrative of the chapter.

After this point, I had another committee member read my draft. This was a bad idea. In my discipline, committee members typically don't expect or want to read rough drafts or be the first pair of eyes on early writing. The committee chair is considered the first line of defense who and gives comments on the initial draft. My other committee member did give some helpful comments about my over reliance on other scholars, which for her, limited my own theoretical contributions. Not sure if other people feel this way, but I've found that grad school has chipped away at my confidence to make authoritative claims that aren't couched in some other theorists' words, so this has been really challenging for me. I took her feedback and deleted entire sections that were just me talking about other scholars. Most of the deleted text didn't appear in the finalized rough draft or if it did, it was in the footnotes as additional context.

I switched gears after this second round of feedback and made an outline of the chapter just with data I collected to ground each section. I wrote a section heading with a scant description of what the data demonstrated and then from there, reorganized the chapter to emerge more organically from the data instead of secondary scholarship. As I wrote, I also used color-coding to organize this draft: words I wanted to keep (black), paragraphs that needed to be moved (green), main ideas the section needed to cover (purple/or highlighted), and stream of consciousness to be rewritten (blue).

Like I said before, I love to info dump and having the main idea of each subsection really helped me stay focused. I also find that using different colors frees me to write messily because it's not the standard text color I'll submit. If it's in blue, I know I have to rewrite it, so it's black text. (I also do this as a write anyway. I write everything single spaced and I double space text to signal to myself that it's finalized.) The color coding also helped structure my editing process because I had a better sense of the edits I wanted to make before I sent the draft off to my chair.

What I Learned/Chapter Three Plans

I won't start writing chapter three until July as I take a "break" to edit my first chapter, work on an article, and outline chapter three. I think that I'm going to focus a lot more intentionally on using the data to structure the chapter. For this chapter, I got a lot of great feedback about the theory, rather than structure because my writing was easier to follow. Without the tangents to secondary data, my writing also felt clearer and more controlled. I did qualitative coding for my data, so I have a ton of thematic codes that I haven't really used to their full potential. I'm going to start the outline from the codes/data to keep my argument consistent.

I also think that I'll check in with my committee chair more often. Usually I meet with her once the chapters done, but having her feedback when I ran into a challenge made a big difference. Especially as I attempt to make theoretical claims sans secondary sources, I want to rely on her more for direction.

Conclusion

So yeah, that's chapter two done, which means I'm halfway done with the rough drafts of my body chapters!! Writing my dissertation has been truly an Experience that I don't think coursework/teaching prepared me for. So much of it feels like throwing anything at the wall to see if it sticks, but I think with each chapter I get closer to understanding what this part of the academic training is supposed to do.

As always if there's anything you would like me to write about, let me know!

[whentherewerebicycles]

god okay I feel like I am on firm ground at last. welcome to my public diary where I must process everything aloud! but I will put it behind the cut.

here’s where my head is at re: the job…

I feel WAY better about the work after the second interview and follow-up conversation. the first interview left me with the impression that it was going to be kinda dull training work, whereas the second one made it clear that it’s actually a lot of fairly high-level design work that I think I am going to find very interesting. seems like it’ll be 1/3rd independent research and learning module design assignments, 1/3 direct one-on-one coaching or group facilitation work, and 1/3 higher-level planning & design work to build out learning and development infrastructure for a new government organization. they are also in the middle of a major restructuring/launch of a new org and they kept saying they really wanted me to feel like I could propose ideas and have a lot of room to create new stuff and establish priorities for the role, which is nice to hear.

they really liked me!!! and seemed to value my skillset. this is not crucial to the decision-making calculus lol but I feel like one thing that is frustrating about working at the same place where you were a grad student is that you are sort of forever a grad student in everyone’s eyes, no matter how long you’ve been out of grad school. I am excited to get to work in a different field with people who will only have known me as a professional.

they made it clear that they are willing and eager to spend $$$ on any professional development trainings or certifications I want to pursue. I am making a LIST!!!! like I badly want to get official training/certification in coaching and I want the agile project management certificate and and and.

it’s for sure not the kind of thing I want to do forever but I think a year in this role would help me build some practical skills and save money. I also feel way better about working for the government than doing this kind of work in the corporate world? nothing wrong with corporate work I just think that public sector work will keep me closer to where I want to be long term.

they are going to pay me an amount of money that seems insane to me and I could kinda tell they expected me to negotiate for higher in the phone call where they offered me the job. I’m going to look at the full offer letter and then ask for a little bit more just to get practice lol but regardless: it’s going to let me save so much and that is a RELIEF because I have so little in savings.

so I think I am going to take it for sure.

BUT THEN… if we get approval to use the extra $ from the foundation, I think I am going to try to negotiate a part-time role with my current job. that would mean staying in Texas longer, but it would give me the chance to finish out my lease, save a LOT of money, enjoy what is usually a glorious Texas winter, help secure long-term funding for our program, and then hire/train a new manager so the program doesn’t die when I leave. most importantly it would let me keep doing values-aligned teaching & mentoring work during this bridge year, so if I decide I don’t like working outside of a university I can make a fairly seamless transition back into that kind of work.

my university might not approve this plan but I honestly can’t see why they wouldn’t… they have plenty of money to pay a part-time salary and I’m basically offering to do this work as a service to the program. and if they don’t, then I’ll just decide what I want to do about the move at that point. I thought about it a lot after reading everyone’s comments on the option A vs. option B post and I think it’s going to be a lot to handle a major (and very abrupt) cross-country move to an unfamiliar city while also getting up to speed on a new job. I’d rather navigate those gigantic life upheavals one at a time instead of all at once.

the best part is that now instead of this summer feeling aimless and endless, I have a clear start date for new job, which means that suddenly the next three weeks are actually VACATION TIME before the next thing begins! so I can absolutely luxuriate in them instead of feeling like I am drowning in unstructured time. whoohoo!!! maybe I will even visit seattle in this time lol who can say!

[qqueenofhades]

my undergrad gpa was really bad, but then my masters gpa was really high, so i hope my undergrad gpa won't affect my phd program admission 😂

the thing is, everyone knew i was smart during my undergrad. like, professors were always vocally impressed with my projects and presentations, students said that i explained stuff better than the professors did, my thesis was said to be one of the best thesis works that year BUT my mental health state was really really really bad and in the end of the day, it affected my gpa since i had a lot of absences.

i'm a lot better now, handle things a lot better and got my masters, my country isn't strict about gpa, so i hope my bachelors cgpa won't mean much.

ok i'm telling u all this bc i'm curious how are things in your uni/state, is undergrad gpa important for phd even if you have masters? 😂

Well obviously, things vary everywhere and it depends on where you're applying and for what program and so forth, but as a rule, graduate applications receive more attention than undergrads and they read them more holistically -- i.e. they take everything into account, rather than just the GPA-and-test-scores which can be the primary basis for admission at places that get a lot of applications. So while a middling-to-bad bachelor's GPA might make them look more carefully at other parts of your application, they do usually look at the whole picture. If you then had a very good master's program, they would in all probability weight that more highly than the undergrad.

As I mentioned in an earlier ask, I work at (for context) an American private university that is pretty good; not Ivy League, but we're generally ranked in the top 100 schools in the country and some of our graduate programs are top 20 in the world. Nonetheless, the minimum undergrad GPA we require for a graduate application is 2.5, so you don't NEED to have graduated cum laude from undergrad to get admitted to grad school, even a good school. Besides, admissions counselors in any school are generally aware that people can struggle in undergrad or have other issues that affect their overall GPA, and they would be more likely to lean toward your most recent experience, i.e. the master's degree.

As ever, however, this is just hypothetical, and will vary depending on your field, your intended degree, the school you want to go to (and in which country). If you get in contact with program admins/faculty beforehand and seek their help in putting together an application, which is generally the case with most PhD programs, you're also more likely to be successful and have a chance to explain your undergrad circumstances in more detail. If any of your undergrad professors write letters of recommendation for you, they can also address the situation specifically, so the admissions office knows that it's not just you saying that. But yeah, it it's definitely not a dealbreaker, especially if you're upfront about it and have a good master's degree to boot.