#with student working rights i believe

[thistransient]

While I was away, my friend who's down south for a month left his fan for me to borrow. Previously I had either been using my aircon extremely sparingly (only when over 30C at night) or laying on the floor sweating like god intended. The fan's arrival, however, immediately initiated an unprecedented new era of slothfulness. Where at least before there was some motive to go in search of cooler climes (the library, the park at night), now it was entirely realistic to hang out at home, sprawled in front of the device forever. The evils of technology made manifest!

Or so I thought. After a week of this, my paranoia over the one (1) query from the immigration officer was festering, and I was growing cognisant of the fact that I didn't actually want to live out my days in a tiny dark apartment, prostrated at the altar of the artificial breeze. (Or it could also be that I simply don't want to spend the rest of my life in a subtropical heat wave...) I was getting real moody about my prospects, or lack thereof. Today I decided to finally have a go at actually finishing the preliminary test for an editing company whose listing I've come across a couple times (and usually quit halfway through because imagining reading this sort of stuff for 8 hours a day seemed guaranteed to drive me batty). But recently my bff who used to have me proofread his undergrad papers started using ChatGPT to write them, leaving me bereft of grammatical errors to savage (and also the dinners he would trade for my diligent efforts).

So I almost immediately received an email prompting me to move to the next stage, HOWEVER for visa sponsorship apparently the gov't requires either a graduate degree OR a bachelors + 2 years of relevant work experience. No teaching. If blogging and editing for friends counted as experience, I would be golden. Or rather, if I could establish a paper trail for said experience...

[inkskinned]

oh you know it's all latestage capitalism but the thing is. how are you supposed to be a person inside of this. a person trying to be a better version of yourself.

oh, you started working young, which was kind of hard, but it's just the way stuff works sometimes. and it was 2008 and your family couldn't afford heat. but it's fine, you grow a spine and get used to the professional world and besides it was the suburbs we're talking about here, like, your life could have been actually hard, so what if your father lost his job and you can't afford to move or turn the lights back on. and once you start making money, it's good. you keep doing that. because now they're relying on you. so you have to do that.

oh you were in thousands of dollars of debt at 17 years old so that you could go to school, because you have to go to school if you want to get a "real" job. you even did it "right", you worked parttime and attended community college before you transferred to a public school. you were under so many merit scholarships.

which is fine. you pick yourself up and you say like, okay. i graduated college. i'm holding down a job. i'm doing the Adult Thing, which looks and acts like this, according to all the books i've read. you start with the shitty job and then you climb that corporate ladder.

but the shitty job doesn't cover rent and you stretch yourself too-thin so you get sick. good luck with that. the shitty job no longer pays for your meals. everyone asks why you don't just move, but there's nowhere to move to. and with what money are you going to be moving? and then the loans come back, because they were never going to forgive them, because you were 17 and trying to do the right thing, which was stupid. people are now saying you shouldn't have even gone to school.

which is fine. but because you have no other option, so you do the shitty job, and you apply every day for like 5 new ones, and despite the fact everyone says "there's no one who wants to work!" it's actually just that nobody is fucking hiring so you can either work for 13 dollars an hour in the shitty place you know (where at least you have a passingly friendly relationship with the manager) or you can start from scratch again with a different 13 dollars an hour without knowing how much abuse from the new job you'll be taking.

and if you quit you lose your insurance. if you quit you lose your housing. if you quit, you'll be another burnout kid. the lazy ones. these assholes, look at them!

and you come home to a family dinner and you hear from your father the same old thing. how he worked hard at his job and yes it sucked for a while but he was able to provide for the family and then the house and the dog and the rest of barbie's dream vacation. how the insurance did cover some of it. how you just really need to start speaking up more in manager conversations so they know you're a go-getter. you want to tell him - did you know we're actually doing more now hourly than any previous generation? - but you can't remember where you heard that statistic, and you're far too tired for the fucking argument. and then he starts in on his usual bit. where's the house? where's your kids? where's your ambition.

the same job the same money the same hours doesn't do it anymore. the same nose-to-the-grindstone now just shreds your face off. there's no such thing as upwards mobility, not really. and as far as you're aware, the money certainly is not trickling. you do the soulless stupid shit you signed up for because you fucking have to or else you literally risk your life (food, the apartment, the insurance), but it's not getting you anything. you download the stupid "save more" app and you budget and you do every right thing and then the price of eggs is 7 dollars and you say - oh great! another thing i have to fucking worry about now!

and you go to your stupid job and everyone in your father's generation just tells you to be better about being an adult. they have their homes and their savings account and their bailout and they say. well have you tried not drinking starbucks. well your generation just spends too much on clothing. well you might just be too addicted to travelling. and you - because you need the job - you bite your tongue and don't say i am being held prisoner and you're suggesting i stop pacing my cell if i don't like the scenery and you don't say what the fuck do you think i've been doing with my money and you don't say i haven't spent a cent on something nice in literally forever much less coffee you arrogant asshole. you open and close your bank app and check your loans and check your credit score and check fucking zillow and ziprecruiter and apartments.com just one time more. and still they give you that demeaning little grin and say - see, what you need is -

what you need is for your meds to stop being so fucking expensive. what you need is for the housing bubble to explode into dust. what you need is for billionaires to choke on their wealth. what you need is actual help. what you will get is more economic advice from people who are older-and-wiser.

and above you, almost in a glimmer, you can see the wedged smile of your debt getting toothier, wider.

[decarbry]

a frequent visitor

[necrotic-nightshade]

I can't tell if it makes me feel better or worse that I wasn't the only person who was failed and fucked over by the administration of my old school.

I'm glad I dropped out. And I'm glad I can finally say I was right about those cunts.

[panzershrike-pretz]

Almost rebloged a Band of Brothers post to the Nerdy Prudes Must Die tag

That would've been fun-

[doctorwhoisadhd]

also another reason i play picc despite it causing my migraines is because i can use it to win arguments. Like any other instrument you have no right to complain about piccolo being "too high" when i am playing it and it gives ME migraines. like. ok coward. what do u even have to complain about

[void-tiger]

…surely I can make it ‘til August.

(she says like a pining liar.)

[celestialwife]

that trailer once again has me like. oh what if i did an au where voy was from thr era....

[blye-flower]

.

[rucow]

would ny'all call me insane if i said that i think that carlotta would have a more interesting dynamic with either christine or the phantom than those two have between themselves??? bc yea i can see why this is an insane statement but i'd Love to see a "rivals to lovers/friends" between carlotta and christine and an "enemies to co-workers" between carlotta and the phantom

[timelord-of-the-moon]

......

[cowardlylearningtobebrave]

.

[genderentvy]

I have anxiety about a lot of things, including everything

[queencvbra]

Thinking about how isolated Tory was even inside of c.obra k.ai itself after the shift into Kreese and Silver’s leadership. With Hawk and Miguel leaving, she didn’t really have any friends until Robby joined. She had other “allies”, yes, but nothing beyond the surface level of dojo loyalty. And something that contributed a lot to her isolation was the change in ck as a whole. Before, it was comprised of a bunch of outcast kids trying to find some form of empowerment, and that’s what drew Tory there. That’s where she fit the best; she was also an outcast trying to find her own sense of worth and community. Somewhere she belonged. But then Kreese and Silver overhaul the whole damn thing and most of the outcasts are replaced with these privileged rich kids because of their athletic capabilities and willingness to conform to whatever their senseis want. It stops being about empowering those who need it and about the strength of an establishment.

And Tory didn’t fit in well with the new crowd. The first thing we see of her in s4? She is ALONE. Everyone else arrived together. She was by herself. They ignored her when they came in. Tory only matters to them when she approaches them, and even then, it’s in conflict. They represent the opposite of what she thought was great about ck and everything she didn’t want to become, yet there she was, and she was supposed to be one of them. Everyone on the outside thought she was one of them anyway, so what would it matter if she fought against the change? She wouldn’t be welcome outside of ck because of the things she’d done and the bridges she’d burned, but here she still had the choice to try and fit in. Do what her sensei tells her and conform, because that meant she could survive. It meant she had a chance. And yet, she never really could become one of them, could she? She couldn’t become another Kyler or even a Piper (who you can argue was just willfully ignorant instead of actively malicious like Kyler). There was never a moment in this new ck where Tory WASN’T torn between who she wanted to be and who she needed to be to survive in this environment. The only reason she wasn’t completely alone was because she had Robby (and later Kenny but only bc of that association with Robby tbh), and also Kreese, but there were plenty of times when it was questionable whether or not Kreese really had Tory’s back or if he was putting ck’s interests first.

[actual-corpse]

"If you hate it here so much, just leave!!"

Ha haha..... ha..... uh. Would be nice if I could!

I'd love to go to a place with free healthcare, 'Holidays', financial freedom (I believe it exists somewhere out there)...

Too bad it's damn near impossible for an American to improve their station... Do you know how many of us can actually afford to take a DAY trip to a different city?

A SINGLE DAY... Most of us can't afford a SINGLE DAY of travel to the NEXT CITY OVER...

[exoexid]

i won't let anyone tell me ever again that my history degree is useless. i won't allow anyone to say that humanistic and social sciences don't count under capitalism, and aren't able to help us all """progress""", or bring significant changes to our reality. we are seeing the roots of the "no one of us can be free until everybody is free" quote (thank you maya angelou!!), and how it all comes down to learning and studying and listening to our past and the people all around the world affected by a (western established) multifaceted system that is failing now more than ever because thanks to social media and the global connection it's giving to all of us it cannot look away anymore. a system (and its enablers) that slowly but surely are being exposed and forced to take responsibility in such a impactful and inescapable domino effect.

you start by reading about i/p and then you find yourself reading and informing yourself about yemen. about the ethnocide of the uyghurs. about armenia. about sudan and tigray and the congo. about why namibia is responding to germany. about south africa, and about the numerous human rights violations north american first nations have been suffering for centuries (about the residential schools, about how many reserves don't have clean drinking water...). about thousands of refugee camps and dangerous migrations and why people risk their lives to cross the mediterranean.

it all comes down to caring, even if just a little bit, about things that happened not too long ago actually. in history terms some of them practically happened yesterday. it's beautiful to see so many people fighting for justice and for a better future, but that can only be achieved if we know our past. one of our uni professors used to tell us that we don't study history because of that saying about how a society that doesn't know its past is condemned to repeat it, but because the day might come in which someone might try to deny a fact or event that definitely happened and definitely affected some group of people, and we have to be able to identify it and correct it. we have to be able to identify if oppressive tactics of any kind are being established and pushed again, even if they aren't exactly as they used to be (because they never are) to stop them. we are here thanks to our ancestors, and we owe it to them. we cannot, we mustn't forget.