#my current classes are AP world history

[eleventeenratsinaflannelsuit]

if anyone wants the blog link its @studymaterialtokeepforlate (-r but it wouldn’t fit lol)

ignore those last few posts please (if you saw them before i deleted them), collecting study info for ap classes next year. accidentally posted to the wrong blog lol

[navysealt4t]

imo a teacher should almost always be on the students side. trying to help them as much as they can

[oksurethisismyname]

There’s a lot of One Piece student/ high school Aus but I suggest One Piece teacher AU

Note: these descriptions are based on my experience as a teacher in southern USA. Where I’m at, you have to be certified to teach in public schools and it is a well known fact that coaches are almost always history teachers (don’t ask why)

Luffy is one of those coaches that is also a history teacher, but every student knows he only got his history license so he could be a coach. He’s taking girls volleyball to state this year, they are absolutely destroying their opponents. He teaches World History and is known for being vocally anti government / capitalist, but also super optimistic.

Sanji is a French teacher who is also certified in Home Ec. He is known by students to be a bit of a hard ass but he always brings food from whatever francophone country their learning about and students low key love him for always having snacks ready for kids who might not have enough lunch money or have breakfast at home.

Zoro is a coach as well, and he got certified in Japanese so he teaches one section and then uses the rest of his time coaching. Him and Sanji are both on the World Languages department and when the state language competition rolls around, they go HARD. Somehow he got roped into teaching health this year but is really hoping the teaching intern will get hired and take that over next year.

Nami is a certified geography and economics teacher, which is unfortunately apart of the history department so she’s stuck in stupid department meetings with Luffy. Shes in charge of detention and has students do stuff for her class as “punishment”, but really it’s a fun time with music playing and her classroom is always spotless after.

Robin is obviously also a history teacher. She’s AP certified so she does AP World, AP US, and AP Euro. Her students love her but are also kind of afraid of her. She’s currently advocating for the inclusion of AP African American Studies at their school.

Franky is part of the vocational program at the school, doing mechanic and wood working stuff with students. Alternatively, Franky could be the maintenance guy at the school. He’s always around fixing something.

Usopp is the drama teacher. He is the most chosen elective because he’s super funny and also has a habit of getting off topic and just not giving tests. He and Franky work together on set design and lighting for the school shows.

Brook is the choir and orchestra director. He’s super old so students think it’ll be boring but day 1 he is acting a total fool and kids love this crazy old man.

Chopper is a student teacher doing his internship as a biology teacher. He’s got major baby face and a sweet voice which is funny considering his teaching mentor is Dr. Trafalgar Law, who has resting bitch face and a tired annoyed voice. His AP bio and AP anatomy classes are some of the hardest classes at the school, but chopper offers tutoring and students are doing better now that they see Dr. Law being kind to Chopper .

Jimbei is the guidance counselor. He’s always got his door open for students to talk to him and he never judges them. He’s kind and patient and students trust him.

[xiaq]

Steddie Time Travel Fixit: Pt. 6

Ao3 Pt. 1 Pt. 2 Pt. 3 Pt. 4 Pt. 5 Pt. 6 Pt. 7

Steve wears the Hellfire shirt.

He wears it half tucked in to a pair of tight distressed jeans with black lace-up shitkicker boots, both of which Eddie knows Steve has never worn to school before because he would have fucking remembered.

His hair is just as stupidly teased as usual, but paired with the rest of him it looks a whole lot less preppy and a whole lot more like he should have a cigarette tucked behind his ear and a leather jacket over his shoulder.

And Eddie knows that he should be focused on whatever the hell is happening with the kids and Hopper and the fact that Steve apparently has war flashbacks involving D&D characters but all that mystery falls to the wayside when the former reigning jock king is walking around the hallways like a living breathing wet dream in a shirt Eddie created.

Eddie is but a man.

Distractible.

Fallible.

Horny.

Steve catches him staring from down the hall and gives him a lazy two finger salute, grinning with the kind of ease that comes from being attractive and knowing it.

It should be infuriating.

It is not.

“Is this a dream?” Gareth says, drawing even with Eddie. “This has to be a dream, right? No way is Steve fucking Harrington wearing a Hellfire shirt.”

“I don’t know about you,” Eddie says faintly, “but if this was my dream he wouldn’t be wearing anything at all.”

“Oh, gross.”

“Look at him,” Eddie insists. Ever since that time at Jeff’s last year when the band was all high and Eddie got a little too honest, they’ve all sort of ignored the fact that Eddie is gay. They don’t ask him about girls and he doesn’t talk to them about guys. But this is…a special circumstance. 

And it’s fine. Because Eddie is not the only person looking. Everyone is looking—some with sneers or confusion but most with envy or probably equal amounts of the lust that Eddie is currently trying to subdue. Even the straightest guy in the world has to admit that Steve is—

“Yeah,” Gareth says. “I  mean no, still gross because it’s Harrington,  but yeah I can see how—no. Never mind. I’m going to class.” Gareth pauses. “Wait. Do you think he’s going to sit with us at lunch?”

He sits with them at lunch.

Eddie more or less sleepwalks through his morning classes and leaves History before the bell so he can get to the lunchroom first and he does not save Steve a seat. He has no expectations when he enters the cafeteria. No hopes related to the company he’ll keep while consuming his soggy PB&J. He just has a jacket that ends up on the seat next to him and when Jeff tries to move it he maybe glares at him a little.

When Steve moves the jacket so he can sit down, Eddie does not glare.

“Fucking figures,” Jeff mutters.

Eddie is never going to live this down and he doesn’t even care. 

“Nice shirt, big boy,” he says, because apparently Eddie’s mouth is just saying things.

Steve stills. For a moment, Eddie is reminded of the night before–of terror and gasped breathing. But then, just as quickly, he’s grinning at Eddie like some sort of sunshine creature, like joy incarnate, plucking at the tight fabric straining across his chest.

“I dunno, I don’t think I’m particularly big, it’s not my fault you gave me such a small size.”

“Well, beggars can’t be choosers,” Eddie retorts.“Everyone who signed up at the beginning of the year got one custom made,” he gestures to the guys as proof before drumming his fingers against Steve’s shoulder. “This’s one of mine and the most exercise I get is hauling amps and running from cops.”

Steve reaches over to wrap his hand around Eddie’s bicep and it’s Eddie’s turn to go still under the heat of his palm and the weight of his attention. Steve meets his eyes for a fleeting second before they flick down to his own fingers. Steve squeezes.

“You seem plenty fit to me.”

“Amps,” Eddie repeats. It’s a little breathless. It’s fine.

“Jesus christ,” Jeff mutters.

Steve’s hand is still on his arm when nearly half the basketball team approaches, detouring to stop on their way to their standard table. 

He wouldn’t say that a hush falls over the cafeteria but there are certainly a lot of eyes suddenly on their table. And not much talking.

“What the fuck, Harrington,” one of them––Eddie doesn’t know, nor does he care to know, his name––says. “You ditched us for the freaks?” He looks genuinely baffled, which Eddie has to admit is fair. “Is this some kind of joke? Does Munson have something on you?”

Steve leans away from the table, hand moving from Eddie’s arm to the back of his chair, he hitches his opposite elbow on the back of his own chair. He kicks one foot up to brace on the table leg.  It’s the stereotypical jock position: chest wide, staking a possessive claim, except Eddie isn’t a cheerleader.

“I don’t like what you’re implying,”  Steve says.

“Dude, whatever it is,” the guy’s eyes linger on Eddie in a way that Eddie really does not like, “we can take care of it.”

Steve sighs.

It’s long and loud and purposeful.

“Listen, I feel like maybe Hagan hasn’t held up his end of our bargain, so let me make this as clear as I can and we can all be mature about it. Ah––” he interrupts himself, raising his voice a little, “No, hey. Look at me. All of you.”  His tone is calm and level and patronizing in a way that Eddie knows would be infuriating if it was directed at him.

“I need you to understand,” he says slowly, making eye contact with each of them in turn, “That I’m not joking. I’m not posturing. If you touch Eddie, if you touch anyone at this table, you’re going to have a lot more to worry about than passing your driving test or making the starting lineup. There are people in the world with real problems and if you fuck with any of my new friends, you’re going join them.”

A couple scoff. Tommy, near the back, is distinctly silent. And without their usual ringleader, no one else volunteers to step forward as the aggressor.

“What happened to you, man?” One of the guys says instead.

Steve sighs again. It feels more genuine this time. “I grew up,” he says. “I recommend it.”

And then he just…waves them off, like he’s tired.

And they leave.

The group retreats to their own table in a wake of low murmurs, and everyone lets out a collective exhale.

Except for Steve, who is leaning into Eddie’s space again.

“You were weirdly quiet through that,” Steve murmurs, pushing Eddie’s hair over his shoulder so he can whisper in his ear. It’s an entitled gesture. The heat of his breath, fanned against Eddie’s neck, sends goosebumps down his arms.

“If I’m mouthy, it tends to just piss people off,” Eddie mutters back. “And I’m trying not to cause trouble for you seeing as you seem to create plenty for yourself.”

“Do what you want,” Steve says easily. “I know how to fight.”

Eddie tells his dick to calm the fuck down.

Now is not the time.

“Besides,” Steve whispers, even quieter, lips practically against Eddie’s ear, “I think I prefer you mouthy.”

Fuck.

This is flirting, right? It has to be flirting. 

He makes frantic eye contact with Jeff and––yeah, judging by the expression on Jeff’s face Eddie is not making shit up. Steve Harrington is hitting on him. In the school cafeteria. 

“Oh hey,” Steve says abruptly, turning to pull a Tupperware container out of his stuffed full backpack. “I made cookies last night if you guys want some.”

“Cookies?” Gareth says faintly.

“Yeah, peanut butter chocolate chip. The kids I babysit wanted some so I made a double batch to share. They’re good, I promise. And I substituted applesauce for some of the sugar and oil so they’re not as unhealthy as they could be––but don’t tell the kids that.”

He peels off the lid and Eddie is hit with the second-most heavenly smell he’s ever encountered. The first may or may not be Steve Harrington himself, who is now handing him one of the cookies. Eddie takes it wordlessly, watching as Steve stands to carry the container around to everyone else.

Gareth leans across the table so only Eddie can hear him. “How confused is your boner right now?” Gareth whispers.

Eddie suppresses a slightly hysterical whine. “Oh, are we talking about this? We don’t need to talk about this.”

“I think we’re going to have to if he keeps this shit up.”

“No,” Eddie says. “No, no. I’ll be fine. I just need to…get my head straight.”

“Good luck with that.” Gareth takes a bite of his cookie, “Oh, damn, these are good.”

Eddie eats his own cookie and tries not to moan about it.

He’s fine. Everything is fine. 

••••

Steve Harrington is good at D&D.

Eddie had been worried, at first, that Steve might not take things seriously. That he’d laugh at their silly voices or make fun of the guys who wear costumes or just…make it clear that he thought they were ridiculous. Childish.

Instead, he maybe takes things too seriously––asking detailed questions about terrain and weather patterns and doing so many perception checks that Jeff is about ready to strangle him an hour in, but his overly cautious approach uncovers more than one trap Eddie had set. Steve is excellent at strategy and disconcertingly good at organizing the party when there’s something to fight. Even more disconcerting, most of his strategies appear to involve martyrdom and it’s only through Eddie fudging his combat rolls a little that Steve’s character survives the night. 

He’s not perfect, of course. Steve’s math skills are abysmal and he constantly has to be reminded what his modifiers are, which Eddie does gently and without complaint, because he’d copied down Steve’s stats the night before and he doesn’t want Steve to be embarrassed. The guys will definitely never, ever, let him live it down, but he figures he’s already lost so much credibility with them at this point a little more won’t be the end of the world.

And Steve keeps smiling at him, so.

Worth it.

When Steve’s watch alarm goes off, a minute before 7pm, he makes a hasty exit for the bathroom, bag in hand, and the other guys decide he must have some sort of medication he has to take and he didn’t want to do it in front of them. Eddie doesn’t correct them, doesn’t know how he would even try to correct the assumption because he doesn’t actually understand what Steve is doing. But it does remind him that there is a Mystery afoot and Eddie really should be trying to figure out what the hell is going on instead of just…mooning over Harrington’s pretty face.

Then again, nothing is stopping him from doing both.

The guys warm to Steve by the end of the session, patting his back and calling goodbye as they exit the doors under the external halogen lights.

The night is quiet and cool and when Steve offers to drive Eddie home, Eddie can only say yes. Eddie slides into the passenger seat, tossing his backpack into the back, and decides to take the opportunity to snoop. He opens the glove compartment and pulls out the handful of cassettes inside.

“Oh,” Steve says, “wait, that’s not––”

There’s Dio and Metallica, Iron Maiden and Motorhead, and then the artists Eddie suspected all along: Madonna, A-ha, Donna Summer, ABBA, Journey, The Eagles and—oh.

Fleetwood Mac. With Landslide on the B side. 

It’s shiny and new. No scuffs on the case.

“Shit,” Steve mutters under his breath.

“When did you even have time to get this?” Eddie asks, baffled. And maybe he shouldn’t assume, maybe he’s completely off-base, but Steve looks like he’s been caught doing something illegal so he thinks the assumption is apt. “You left our place at like 10pm last night and you’ve been in school all day.”

“I have a free period before lunch. The record store is a five minute drive from campus.”

“But…why?”

“I don’t know,” Steve says, with the soft resignation of someone lying. It sounds more like, “I can’t tell you,” which makes Eddie want to shake him.

Eddie considers Steve’s shadowed face: his downturned mouth and his stupidly long eyelashes. He looks tired.

Eddie exhales. “Well, we’re listening to it.”

Steve doesn’t argue.

He doesn’t say anything else at all until they get to the trailer and he’s hurrying around to open Eddie’s door for him and get his bag from the backseat like Eddie is some girl he’s dropping off after a date.

“Oh wait,” he says, ducking back to grab his own bag. “I have—hold on, it’s—there we go.”

He emerges with another tupperware container in his hands, this one smaller than the one he passed around at lunch.

“I thought Wayne might want some,” he says shyly, eyes on the cookies in his hands. “As a thank you. For yesterday.”

Eddie is going to scream.

“That’s really nice. I’m sure he’ll love them, and if he doesn’t I’ll eat them because apparently you’ve been possessed by Betty Crocker’s ghost. Or—actually I don’t know if she’s dead or not. Or if she was a real person. Anyway, the point is that—“

Steve is smiling at him. Softly. Like he’d be happy to listen to Eddie ramble as long as he wants.

Eddie clears his throat. “Wayne should be home if you want to give them to him.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll, uh, walk you in.”

So much screaming.

Steve does walk him in, hands over the cookies to a baffled-looking Wayne, and then touches Eddie’s hand—hardly a touch at all really, his first two fingers resting, briefly, on Eddie’s wrist, his thumb tucked just under the meat of Eddie’s palm, almost like he’s checking Eddie’s pulse.

“Goodnight,” he says.

Eddie doesn’t even know if he responds.

He’s still looking down at his wrist when Steve’s car engine starts and the headlights fan over the windows before everything goes dark and still outside.

“So,” Wayne says. “Is he…”

“What?” Eddie asks blankly.

 “...your sweetheart?”

That’s enough to break Eddie out of whatever trance he’d been in. “My–? Jesus. No. You know who you’re talking about, right?”

“I know what I’m seeing,” Wayne mutters. “Not sure I’m happy about it.”

Eddie’s stomach immediately goes sour. They’ve never actually discussed Eddie’s romantic preferences. Wayne knew. He had to know, considering the circumstances in which Wayne became Eddie’s guardian. But they’ve never said anything out loud to each other and Eddie was hoping to continue that tradition potentially for forever.

“Wait,” Wayne says, moving forward to squeeze his shoulder, “I didn’t mean––fuck, you know I’m no good at this shit. Come sit down.”

They move to the couch.

They sit.

Wayne digs the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“I don’t care who you’re sweet on or who you bring home, you hear me? As long as they treat you right and they don’t get you into trouble. But that Harrington boy… I get the feeling he’s trouble. And with his folks being who they are, I just want you to be careful. That boy has a history and I don’t know what it is, but I’d wager it isn’t pretty.”

“I don’t know what it is either,” Eddie murmurs. “He’s not––I don’t think he’s bad trouble, though. He’s trying to protect me. Us. At school. Even though it’s put a giant target on his back. He’s quit basketball and joined Hellfire and he’s. I don’t know. I like him.” It feels like a confession.

“I wonder how his Daddy feels about all that,” Wayne murmurs. “You ever seen him come to school hurt?”

Eddie considers. “I don’t know. Why?”

Wayne just looks at him.

“You think his parents––?”

“I think I know the kind of boy his father was. I can imagine the sort of man he turned into.”

Eddie feels chilled all the sudden. He gets up from the couch to close the open window above the sink. It doesn’t help. He rests his hands, fingers splayed, on the countertop. He taps his nails on the fornica.

Abuse wouldn’t explain the kids or the panic attack or why he suddenly seems obsessed with Eddie. But it would explain some things.

“I’m not going to start avoiding him,” Eddie says.

Wayne sighs. “I didn’t expect you would. Considering.”

Eddie doesn’t ask him to elaborate.

He holds up the container of cookies Wayne had abandoned on the counter, then carries them over to the couch when he nods. 

Wayne selects the largest one from the top. “Did he actually play your dragons game?”

Eddie nearly chokes on a laugh, helping himself to a cookie as well. “He did. Wasn’t half bad, either.”

Wayne takes a bite. His eyebrows go up. “Shit, did he make these?”

“He did,” Eddie says.

“Well. I suppose we can keep him around.”

Pt. 7

[allie-the-cinnamoroll]

allie’s diaries

Thursday, march 6, 12:15 pm

Dear diary,

it was a normal day, I was alright in English class, it’s not until lunch time, I saw my ex crush w my “enemy” (let’s say she’s not I’m just overreacting, she’s more like an ex elementary classmate) so I’m w my best friend, let’s call her bunny, so me and bunny are polar opposites, she likes well… erm… she likes using a type of c.ai called tipsy (that thing isn’t censored..)

so as I walked back from where I was, I saw him w her, which made my heart break a little bit..

It’s now 12:31 pm, currently I’m in history class, world history to be exact, learning about freaking apes..

well gotta go, I have to hear the class

xoxo,

-αℓℓιє яσмαиσνα

(Song I’m currently hearing)

tags: @hufflepuffavenger

@annathemcuandstlover

@narwhals-randomness

@over-bi-the-wayside

@maggiemelodies09

@thatone-midgardian

[joan-deactivated20230204]

I sat down and read Rampant AI Cheating Is Ruining Education Alarmingly Fast, & want to collect some thoughts on it:

Despite the headline, the article is pretty open about framing the widespread adoption of ChatGPT &co as a continuation of already available tools to help students cheat through university. And its not hard to see all of that as the product of massive institutional failures in making students feel like there is value in participating in their own education. Anyone who went through US public school can probably understand that there's a systematic apathy at work- schooling is presented as a way to meet minimum requirements to get students into the workforce. Unless you were lucky enough to have a teacher who was particularly motivated to keep you engaged, (shoutout to my AP world history teacher back in high school), its really easy to see tests & assignments as these burdens that you're fine to skip if you can. So students aren't primed to give a shit.

And I'm not going to say that higher education is inherently better in that regard, I have had some classes that definitely felt like I was just checking off boxes, but in theory a competent degree program will assume that you want to be there and will structure the work it hands you in such a way that it aids in your learning. Coming from a Humanities major, at least, the point of the term paper and the reading assignment is to get you to think critically about the subject(s), and to exercise your ability to evaluate and synthesize information and reach new conclusions.

So there's something uniquely horrifying to me about reading a case like this, where students who have been trained to see school as a chore are skipping over the work that enables them to learn. And this isn't an abstract, low-stakes scenario like cheating your way through a high school 5 paragraph essay about Hamlet- when the point of higher education existing at all is to imbue people with the specialized knowledge they need to get jobs in certain fields, cases like this mean that the people receiving these degrees and entering the workforce are going to struggle to do the actual work. What does the world look like, when the genocide scholars of tomorrow were kids who never bothered to read any of the texts they were given in school.

And beyond the workforce, what does it look like when voting-age individuals are being trained to outsource their ability to think critically? If you accept the idea that US fascism as it currently exists is defined by powerful people catering to a reactionary desire to view the world in extremely simplified terms- to find minority scapegoats for complex issues and demagogues to promise solutions to them- then how can we see this desire for simplicity, for being told what to do, as anything but an expression of that same fascist desire?

So while it's easy to want to pass this off as more of the same kind of cheating that has already existed in higher education, the fact of it being this widespread and the potential consequences of it do point to a need to take it more seriously, at a structural level, than the student who sneaks notes into a final. So far, the general response of universities to throw their hands up and leave this to individual professors to sort out seems absurd. But its hard to imagine what really can be done when this is ultimately the product of national-level schooling policy, and the big club-wielding ogre standing over this whole discussion is a much larger reality in which current admin education policy seems to see schools as a vehicle to pump out Hitlerjugend.

Idk what to do with all of this. The article comes off really bleak, and in general the increasing adoption of AI for personal use feels like we are on the cusp of a cultural shift that I really do not want to be a part of. Tell me that this vision of the world- one where you outsource your ability to connect with other human beings, where you move through the world with a sole view to optimize personal outcomes by building your own Cyrano de Bergerac- is one you want to live in!

[501st-rexster]

Your comments on that chatgpt post are horrifying. Like, high schoolers have always been kinda lazy, and honors students especially because they can usually use their intelligence to compensate for not having done the prerequisite work for something. When I was a senior honors student (15 years ago), I was totally guilty of writing an essay in the class period before it was due or reading SparkNotes for English class because I was too busy doing AP Calculus homework to have time for the The Worst Book I've Ever Opened (I didn't hate all school books, but senior year aside from Shakespeare was brutal) and one time my whole APUSH class got in trouble for "cheating" because we found the answer key to our current practice test in our workbook. But I also had to write 70 words in Spanish every day. I don't think I could have ever answered an essay question in English or History in less than 50. I still had to think for myself and even my laziest classmates rarely got zeros OR caught plagiarizing. If this is the state of even the "smart" kids in today's high schools, I am really concerned for our future, more than I already was from all the tiktok brainrot. Hopefully college will knock some sense into them... If they can get in, anyway.

Yeah it's absolutely insane. I do feel that for some of them, they are English Learners, so it's not their native language, but to get into the classes they have to pass an English proficiency test, which means that they definitely can read and write in English.

And the fact that I teach in Massachusetts, which has one of the best education systems, is even scarier.

We try so hard to prepare these kids for college and the real world but they don't seem to get it. They're only focused on their phones and their friends. It honestly sometimes feels like I'm in a Disney Channel school show where it's all comical and no one does their work and everyone talks all class.

Because that's exactly what happens.

There's policies about cell phones in the classroom and they have to go in a hanging pouch and they aren't allowed to be used. There are kids who will bring in DECOY PHONES to put in the pouch and use their phones in class.

The next generation is honestly disappointing me so much this far. I'm worried for our future.

[khara-k]

The beginning.

Hello my name is Khara Ragobeer.

I am currently a 14 year old Highschool student from the Caribbean, approximately one and a half year away from writing my final exams.

I want to attend an Ivy league College and University and as an international student I am aware that it will be harder for me, but I am more than willing to try.

I have started this little blog as a passion project, and I plan to religiously keep track of my escapades, experiences, and goals in hopes that i develop an elevated sense of responsibility as for now I am a very lazy and mediocre person.

In this blog you will find my perfectly unfiltered-filtered thoughts so keep in mind that as i grow my views will change as I am an ever-growing ever evolving individual.

I plan on using this blog to improve on my language, writing, reading, reporting/documenting, and record keeping skills.

These are some questions i will ask myself every time i post, to keep track of my views and growth as an individual:

-Khara, why do you want to attend an Ivy league school?

The world is rigged and biased and if I am being completely honest, the name of the school you attend does matter. Ivy leagues are prestigious and while I am aware that the name of the school you attend does not determine much in your life, it sure helps.

-What do you bring to the table, what makes you worthy?

In all honesty, i do not think of myself as worthy at the moment, but I am willing to work, strive, and while i do slip back, I am determined to keep going. So far, i do not believe i have anything to bring to the table, but I am working on it and i will find something as we are all unique.

Extracurriculars and clubs I am in currently:

-Badminton

-Debate and Literature

-Chess

Subjects i do so far:

In-school:

-Geography

-Physical Education

-Visual Arts

-Literature

-Mathematics

-English A

Home-schooled:

-AP Psychology

-AP World History

-Communications

Languages i speak:

-English

-German [only a little]

-Mandarin [now starting]

Some of my goals:

-Participate in Badminton nationals

-Participate in Debate nationals

-Achieve a 4.0+ GPA

-Be in the top 5 for each of my classes

-Score 1540+ on any SAT or ACT i take for my other subjects.

For this blog i plan to post once a week. A little recap on how productive my week was, how many hours i studied or trained, poems, short stories, reports on books have read, and a bit of rants here and there.

Thank you for taking your time to read.

[umichenginabroad]

Week 1: Place Japan

Howdy y’all, it’s me Connor, checking in after my first week here in Nagoya, Japan.

First off, holy guacamole the culture shock is real. Who could have guessed being in a country 6000 miles away from home is a bit disorienting. However, I have begun to get used to all the changes. Because classes have yet to start I have done nothing but eat, explore and experience this amazing country, that I have somehow found myself in. So let’s go over some highlights together:

First day in I visited the forefront tourist destination the Nagoya Castle. There is nothing I can say about this location other than stunning, an absolute marvel of scale and human ability. Every inch was intricate and precisely made.

This is a photo of me in front of Nagoya Castle. Sadly the main portion (The white building) was closed to visitors however I was able to tour the palace (The smaller wooden building) which was astoundingly beautiful. The entire area was filled with history and I was able to learn so much. I even got to see the largest stone ever placed in a handmade stone wall (Photo not included).

(left) A cup of matcha and a green tea mochi dessert I had. Both had a wonderful earthy flavor which I really loved. I even got to sit at a traditional Japanese table on the ground it was a ton of fun. (right) a photo I got with two real life ninjas at Nagoya Castle. Later this week we even got to explore Iga, a city renown for the Ninja arts.

Day two was orientation, this is the first day where I met all the new people I’m going to be spending the next month with. Luckily everyone was super friendly so I had no problems introducing myself. I moved in with little issue and got done with the orientation for classes quickly. We even had a huge party afterwards with the professors and some other Nagoya University students.

A banquet and party held by the staff. This is where I met a lot of the tutors who are current Nagoya University students who are helping us adjust to life here. They are all super cool and telling me I shouldn't be a Chunichi Dragons fan (The local major league baseball team) but I still can't wait to go to a game (Hopefully next Friday).

This is my dorm room, it is actually smaller in real life but I can't wait to call it home for the next month.

The next couple days were spent on a huge group trip to the cultural capital of the country, Kyoto. We saw a ton of amazing architecture between the number of castles and shrines we visited along with the clustered and vibrant streets of the downtown. This trip is when I met a lot of my new friends too. I had such an amazing time and plan on going back at some point later this trip.

The first of the temples we visited in Kyoto, this was the Kinkaku-Ji. It was a massive gold structure surrounded by beautifully cut wilderness. This will truly be a place I will never forget. Funny enough this temple was also known for its mochi, I got the brown sugar flavor which was quite delicious.

This was our trip to the Kiyomizu-Dera one of the most famous temples in the entire world. This is where you wash yourself with sacred water which was a wonderful time. Another absolute wonder of human ingenuity. Most of it was built simply with wood fittings and no nails.

I lit incense and candles at temples for a number of reasons. I was shown how to by some of the staff for the NUSIP program and how to properly pray to ensure my wishes come true.

This was me visiting the Fushimi-Inari Shrine (More commonly known as the primary Torii Gate Shrine). Fun fact I woke up at 3:45 am to see this and it was well worth it. Another absolute marvel of scale with there being about 10,000 gates you can walk through.

On the left I am joined by some friends at a river in Kyoto we actually took a quick dip in because it has been exceptionally hot and humid out this week. On the right it is another group of friends I have made at an Izakaya, a type of Japanese restaurant often know for its large number of appetizer-like courses and large drink menus.

During the Kyoto excursion we also stopped in Nara, another huge cultural center of Buddhism within Japan, more important though, THEY HAVE SUPER FRIENDLY DEER THAT YOU CAN FEED AND PET.

Finally the weekend came and we were left to our own devices:

Saturday we has a chock full day of visiting Nagoya's very own shrines which although less impressive than the ones in Kyoto were beautiful never-the-less. This day also included a trip to the Nagoya Port Aquarium where we saw an amazing dolphin show.

Sunday we went to Nagoya Spaland. It is a combination amusement park, water park and spa. It was so much fun and there were no lines and I even went on the longest roller coaster in the world. Sadly we got caught in a massive rainstorm and you can see me and my friends rocking trash bag ponchos to protect ourselves. We got laughed at by everyone but we made the bus so it all ended well.

Classes are finally going to start this week and I am eagerly awaiting them. I have gone over all of the syllabus for my engineering course and I am going to learn an incredible amount about the automotive industry. I truly cannot express my excitement as Japan is just filled to the brim with automotive history. I am also ready for my Japanese skills to improve with class. Its been fun being the Americans who don't speak any Japanese but it has made traveling quite a bit harder.

Lastly for a little surprise here is a tik I made in Kyoto to the song Kyoto by Phoebe Bridgers :)

Until next time, さようなら, また 来週

Connor Gilfillan

Mechanical Engineering

NUSIP Automotive Engineering in Nagoya, Japan

[wasteland-soul-project]

Here's an insano list that will be continually updated so I have an online record of all that Im currently receptive to include. Consider this spoilers actually.

Greens got a spot on the timeline finalized.

White is sorted by era for workload

Agar.io, Saurian,Ancestors,Far Cry,Civ,History channel,The sumerian game,Hammurabi,Ass cred,Ryse son of rome,Ghost of Tsushima,evil dead,Kingdom come deliverance,western gun,Turok,Oregon trail,Samurai western,Call of Juarez,Red Dead Revolver,GUN,This land is my land,Bioshock Infinite,Valiant Hearts,Call of cthulhu,Sea wolf,Battlefield,Mafia, front line, endless war, the saboteur,Medal of honor,Call of Dutygenesisnoir,Capcom 1942,Commando,Castle wolfenstein?The incredibles,Cathode ray tube amusemen device,La Noire remember da whorient,Bertie the Brain,Nimrod,Destroy All humans,Christophers draughts,Fonzie road race,Atomic Heart,Tennis for two, gta,Spy hunter ,Spacewar!, xcom, metal gear, resident evil, 1967 world series, team fortress, afterburner, galaxy game, computer space, pong, silent hill, night driver, elevator action, E.T, space ace, uncharted, firewatch, jalopy, contra, gone home, portal, postal, prey, max Payne, illbleed, blood, FEAR, venture bros, manhunt, dead island, dead rising, kane and lynch , bully, cherry 2000, hell comes to frog town, burt reynolds flick, socom, saints row, mercenaries, half life,Alpha protocol,Outlast,Life is strange,Payday,Sleeping Dogs,Lollipop Chainsaw,Duck dynasty, hatred, tomb raider, Evil within,Dying light, edith finch, control, trad meme, alaskan road trucker, tume pilot, disco elysium, octodad, tacoma,Van Buren Tech Demo,Five lesbians eating quiche, thag cute radioactive couple,Fallout: Zero,System Shock,One man and a crate of puppets,Fallout: Frost,Wasteland,Fallout nevada,Atom RPG,Metro,Soma,Ashes twentysixty three,Fountain of Dreams ,Organ Trail,Employee of the month,Fallout 1.5 Resurrection,Squidward suicide,Stray,Horizon,Fallout Yesterday,Jazzpunk,xcom classic, breaking badFallout New Califnornia,Mad Max,Hwarts of Iron OWB, soace station 13,Storyteller,Fallout Lanius,Fallout nuka breakFallout 4 miami,All roads,Death Stranding,Morrowind,Outer Worlds

Fallout minecraft map,Fallout:Dust

Post war:Spongebob, 60 seconds, the story must be told, fallout revelation, starcraft, space quest, dead space, broken roads, breath of death, star heroine, mass effect

Prewar: 2050+, idealized-era retroscifi jetsons, overwatch, series of unfortunate events, deathloop, f zero x, afro samurai, thief reboot

Prewar 2025-50, dystopia class struggle sci fi deus ex, cyberpunk, mirrors edge, cruelty squad, final fantasy

Pre war (big mess of speculative future) home front,dishonored, naissancE, space station 13, crackdown, timesplitters, kentucky route zero, red faction, dreambreak, attack of the saucermen, metal slug

My lived yearss that one 4chan comic in france, plants vs zombies ,the boys, slender, sniper assassin, stalker, hitman, the quarry, pandemic 2, black watchmen, alien hominid, police quest, tony hawk, ape out, ace attorney, the beginners guide, arma, aemy of teo , chimamande adichi, crysis, just cause, just dance, prototype, skate, various sports, dangenrampa, true crime, post void, burger tycoon, dino crisis, the cat lady downfall devil went through here lorelei, science adventure, goldsrc counter strike, detectives united, deadly premonition, freedom fighters, eternal darkness, unboxing, that unity game abt the painting, subnautica, perfect dark, famicon wars, the darkness, captain underpants

1900s fnaf, calvin and hobbes, papers please, mother, zaxxon, heros journey, stalin vs martians, x files, tom clancy, spec ops, gorillaz, the sims, GI Joe, leisure suit larry, pathologic, cold war game, hammer and sickle, jurassic park, evil dead, james bond Tropico, sims city, ikari warriors, spy hunter, time crisis, alone in the dark, syphon filter, gabriek knight, arma cold war, chinua achebe, camara laye, persona, shenmu, yakuza, brothers in arms, company of heroes, punchout, operation flashpoint, professor layton, sniper ghost warrior, sniper elite, undying, stanley parable, hotline miam, war in the east, wings of orey, men of war, 9th company, red orchestra, iron front, death to spies, mother russia bleeds, roller coaster tycoon, counterspy, esrls day off , gaiden, shin megami, suda 57, fatal frame, gorogoa, hotel room dusk

1800s thief, amnesia, samurai champloo, jojo, dark pictures anthology, wadjet games multiverse, bloodborne

1500s sekiro

1400s Europa Universalis

1300s Demons souls classic

1100s lionheart

1000s crusader kings, chrono trigger

800s prince of persia

200 silk

100 romanc eof the three kingdoms, dynasty warriors

Ancient 0ad, pharoah, the scorpion king, sphynx and the cursed mummy, age if mythology, noahs ark, empire esrth, rise of nations, total war, tak and the power of juju, hades

Cavepeople: dawn of man, jawa mammoth, age of empires, tork, tail of the sun, echo secrets of the lost cavern,roots of patcha

Old af: jurassic the hunted, nanosaur, a prehistoric tale, id software timeline, AVP TIMELINE OLD AF, evo, evolution games of itnelligent ligr, lynn margulis, civ dinosaur war like cthulhu mythos, robert howard books, cthukhu saves, DC, Marvel

[navysealt4t]

hhhhhhh. do i stay in my current world history class where it’s pretty easy but i don’t like the teacher, or do i switch to my old ap human geo teacher bc i actually like him and he makes the class interesting and actually teaches us but his work is harder. head in hands.

[hyperfixating-rn-brb]

i saw someone else do this and thought why the hell not. some fun things about me :)

1. Were you named after anyone?

My name is Haley, and its loosely after Edmond Halley, who discovered Halley's Comet. My parents just didn't like the double L.

2. When was the last time you cried?

This morning. I listened to a song I haven't heard since I was in kindergarten.

3. Do you have any kids?

I'm only 15, and plan to wait a while. I do love kids and want one or two when I'm older. I already have names picked out in my head

4. What sports do you play/have you played?

I played volleyball from 5th to 8th grade, and had 3 undefeated seasons and 2 conference championships. I'm currently on my high school's varsity bowling team.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Liberally, when in person. not as much online because tone is harder to get across.

6. What's the first thing you notice about people?

General level of colorfulness. Something about people who have a lot of fun with color in their clothes and hair and everything tend to draw me in pretty quick. being free and comfortable with clothes and color is a huge green flag for me

7. What's your eye color?

Brown so dark it looks black.

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings every time. I'll watch horror if there's nothing else on, but it's not my go to. Give me the angst then stuff it full of hurt/comfort until they ride off into the sunset.

9. Any talents?

Pretty good at art and have a decent singing voice.

10. Top 3 fandoms?

Good Omens, PJO, then LOTR. This account is pretty much good omens even though it started for PJO, but I interact more with PJO and LOTR content on instagram and other apps. good omens certainly has the best stock of fic writers, meta writers, and fanartists imo.

11. Hobbies?

I crochet a ton, and have sold at a couple craft shows. Current obsession is crocheting replicas of the many sweaters of David Tennant. Other than that, I read and draw as much as possible.

12. Do you have pets?

I have a painted turtle named Oliver, a 21 year old cat named Claudia, and a crap ton of fish. We foster kittens occasionally, current babies are Squadcar, Squinty, Eddie, Beelzebub, and Hastur. i think its obvious which ones I was allowed to name..

13. How tall are you?

5'5"

14. Favorite subject in school?

Current favorite classes are digital art and web design, but favorite mandatory class is AP World History.

15. Dream job?

Something in either animation or museum curation.

16. Favorite books?

Good Omens, LOTR, PJO, Lockwood & Co, The Reader trilogy, The Girl at Midnight trilogy, Song of Achilles. anything myth or fantasy based, really!

[oooohno]

social+ language contact between islands and island communities?!?! Nana that is SO COOL! At this point I wanna join your pirate crew lol Robin can come too but I'm trying to learn from you! Sociology is so interesting and I had considered going back to school for sociology and archeology before I started my Masters.

Repatriaton as a fad ABSOLUTELY makes sense! Institutions trying to save face can quickly become performative and not reflect an actual change in ideals and practices.

I don't have an area of expertise yet! In high school and college I very much leaned towards American History. I had to take American History 3 out of my 4 years of HS and did AP classes on government and politics so I basically did US History the whole time.

I did an Associates in Liberal Arts with an concentration in Poly Sci and a Bachelors in History and so the American History focused stayed and kind of narrowed down to the history of my city and history related to the bullshit the US is always involving itself in (one class I took was something like the politics of terrorism).

I haven't made any exhibits yet, my projects have been basically "if you had no real world things holding you back tell me what your plans for an exhibit or changes to an existing exhibit would be". One year I wrote a paper for a WWE museum that would actually be in partnership with the WWE. I did a bunch of research and so many peope have tried to create wrestling museums with varying levels of "success".

Last year I created a very veryyy simple protoype of what an Animal Crossing event at the Louvre would look like. Animal Crossing New Horizons partnered with aquariums in Japan and the US and since there's a museum in the game my idea was well why not do the same thing for an art museum. I focused a lot on accessibility.

Actually, in this program I find myself leaning very much towards Visitors Services and Accessibility. There's so much work being done on amplifying all the other voices and experiences that have been left out of the straight white male centric narritive of history which is amazing but if everyone can't access it then I don't think we're looking at the whole picture.

Please join!!! The more the merrier :3. And I’m working on an MA in social & cultural anthropology and another one in English linguistics…so not sociology but close enough lol. What degree do you currently pursue?

Ooooooh a history buff 🌚 very sexy 🌚. I kinda wish I had done a minor in history too although most of the classes I took taught you about history in the broad sense - but I think it’s such a fundamentally important basis. AND OMG I also had a seminar on the concept of terrorism and terror!! It was so interesting bc it really shifted the focus on how I view those terms when used in media! You have to tell me what you learned in that class 🌚. And I’m still thinking about taking archeology classes lol so I feel you…but I’m not allowed to start a new degree unless I finish one of my current ones lol. And maybe also a couple art history classes…there’s no such thing as too many classes if the topic fascinates you, right :’))))?

I’m obsessed with all your projects! The animal crossing x Louvre one is like a dream!!! Also the opportunities to create further adventures within are endless! Like a rally for kids to collect stickers or stamps 🥺.

And big fan of your focus on accessibility! When I interned at the ethnographic museum, they had an online training on how to make collections more accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired & there are so many things to consider that I was unaware of…and I agree it’s so important to work together with different communities to create public museum spaces that cater to multiple audiences! In relation to that I’m also a big fan of a multi-sensory approach to exhibits. Like offering things to touch or hear because it’s so much fun to experience new knowledge in diverse ways 🌚. What kind of measures did you come up with to make your Animal Crossing New Horizons x Louvre project more accessible? 🌚

[macadamianutacademic]

About Me!

-Sophomore in High School

-16 yrs old

-Feel free to interact, just be kind!

My Current Classes:

-World History (college class)

-Honors Latin II

-Music theory

-Ap Calculus

-Honors English

-Honors Chemistry

-Orchestra

-Advanced Drama

Bio:

Hi! I’m a high schooler attending a college preparatory school, so I thought it’d be fun to document some of my journey on here! I am definitely no Rory Gilmore, but I’d like to think I am pretty realistic while still a little aesthetic ;)

My interests outside of school include:

-Musical Theater

-music

-arts/crafts

-movies

-books

-figure skating

[sunnyuto]

The real answer is that our education system is literally designed to propagandize us into an insular, anti-intellectual, American individualist mindset.

1. Every state sets its own educational curricula, which means the things you get taught differ depending literally on what part of the country you live in.

2. Some states require some form of civics education for high school graduation, but not all of them, and again, not all curricula are created equally.

3. The closest thing we have to a nationalized civics education is the AP US History or AP Government courses, which not every student takes or even has access to. The students that do take APUSH or APGov are students that are already interested in history and civics, already intellectually curious and engaged, and who either live in districts that can afford to cover the test cost for them or have parents who can independently cover the test cost.

4. The aforementioned course and its associated test is incredibly limited in its scope. It focuses on American DOMESTIC history and pretty deliberately excludes information about American acts abroad, both positive and negative. The non-AP curricula are usually the same if not worse. I went to school in a decently well-funded public school district in a very liberal New England state and my education about countries outside of the US was limited to basic geography, European history from medieval times through the renaissance, and isolated projects related to WWII and the Holocaust. We don’t learn about WWI, we don’t learn about Korea or Vietnam or the Cold War, we certainly don’t learn about anything in the 21st century. Our education on alternate systems of governance or economics is entirely theoretical and we aren’t often educated on real world examples of those systems at work other than maybe one sentence describing how they failed. We certainly aren’t learning about American actions in the Pacific or the Caribbean. Honestly, a lot of US History curricula don’t even get into the 20th century because it spends so much time on the American Revolution and the Civil War. And this is, again, the standard public school education, which is what the Vast Majority of people are getting. There are names and ideologies that the Standard American Citizen denounces simply because they got a one sentence lesson telling them it was bad in high school.

5. All of that above applies to US History classes and not Civics classes because, again, the vast majority of us aren’t required to take a civics class. They literally don’t even teach us how our own government works, which is why you have people out here going on a Jubilee debate claiming that government agencies get tax cuts for hiring Black people.

6. Unless they are choosing to go into a specific degree field like political science or economics, most people don’t continue learning about history or government beyond high school, and their investment in current events is usually limited just to domestic issues or only to foreign issues that directly affect them. As a byproduct of the way the US is positioned in the world, we are not generally shown news about the rest of the world the way they are shown news about us. You’re not going to turn on the 6pm newscast and see stories about the work USAID is doing in Cambodia. The only case where foreign happenings make the local news is usually disasters, like the plane crash in South Korea. If you want news about the rest of the world, you have to deliberately go looking for it. Most people aren’t tuned in enough to foreign affairs to even consider doing that, they just expect that if something is important enough, the local news will tell them.

7. Americans are, on a cultural level, actively discouraged from staying educated. Learning is seen as a thing that you get to stop doing once you finish high school. Even for those that go to college, it’s approached with an attitude of “great, I finally got through 13 years of being taught all that useless stuff, now I can just learn what I want.” There are a lot of people that are actively opposed to general education requirements at college because they see college as a place for focusing on and training for a career field rather than continuing to learn. So not only to people avoid learning new information after they graduate, they become offended at the idea that there is more or updated information to learn. It’s very much an “I did my time” mindset pushed on us both by the American capitalist state and the American carceral state. School and learning is culturally regarded as imprisonment and a punishment. The Trump Administration as we speak is actively dismantling the Department of Education because Americans culturally place so little value in education (and also because they as fascist authoritarians know that they need a less educated society in order to succeed in their goals).

This is not to take the blame off of the American people entirely. We should know how our government and our status as a global superpower directly affects the lives of other people, not just because we should have empathy for others but also because we have a vested interest in knowing what our government is doing with our money. But there is absolutely a cultural mindset that makes that knowledge a choice.