witchyprofessor - Tumblr blog

[witchyprofessor]

“pretending everything is fine”

Girl posing in front of an actual tornado. Photo was taken by her mother. (Nebraska, 1989) Check this blog!

[witchyprofessor]

Why PhD hurts

I think doing a PhD is generally a subjective experience. You invest in different disciplines. You handle stress differently. You have different work patterns. But I think sacrifice is the same across the board, no matter how small or large the sacrifice.

No one really tells you about the sacrifices you’ll make doing a PhD. It’s like living with constant fear of missing out. It’s telling your family you can’t see them because you need to read and write. It’s dealing with deflecting the typical response: “you decided to do it/you did it to yourself!”

[witchyprofessor]

Incredibly frustrating trying to live in New York as a student/adjunct/someone who isn’t rich 🥲

[witchyprofessor]

lovely excerpt from my week reading the amazing Angela Carter

"Sad; so sad, those smoky-rose, smoky-mauve evenings of late Autumn, sad enough to pierce the heart. The sun departs the sky in winding sheets of gaudy cloud; anguish enters the city, a sense of the bitterest regret, a nostalgia for things we never knew, anguish of the turn of the year, the time of impotent yearning, the inconsolable season. In America, they call it ‘the Fall’, bringing to mind the Fall of Man, as if the fatal drama of the primal fruit-theft must recur again and again, with cyclic regularity, at the same time of every year that schoolboys set out to rob orchards, invoking, in the most everyday image, any child, every child, who, offered the choice between virtue and knowledge, will always choose knowledge, always the hard way.”

-”Black Venus,” in Saints and Strangers 

[witchyprofessor]

This is how you find peace ✌️

aesthetic for @catsrcoolyeet

the quiet moment on stage before the curtains swing open

writing with a fountain pen, practicing your cursive

the cream color of old book pages

studying diagrams of complex biological processes, committing them to memory

holding proper fencing stance, feeling the burn in your muscles

pressed flowers, so old they crumble at the slightest touch

learning shakespearean monologues to recite with your friends

gazing through a telescope on a cloudless night

diligently reviewing your notes before an important exam

a bouquet of roses with thorns that prick at your palms

one hand curled gently around the hilt of your foil

analyzing the work of long-dead authors

an ornate mirror with gilded edges

identifying your favorite constellations

wandering through an old bookstore, looking for copies of books you want to read

carrying a stack of heavy textbooks

the satisfaction of finally understanding a difficult topic

working at night, moonlight shining through the window

[witchyprofessor]

Wondering how much writing I could’ve done today. Wondering how long it will take to write my thesis.