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janeyseymour · 3 years

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Old Soul

An intensely deep analysis on what qualifies Jane Seymour to be an old soul, as told through various thoughts, anecdotes, an article I found online, and a post that I saw on social media.

WC: 7219

In hindsight, what this man said was quite comical. “You’re an old soul,” he had said. It struck Jane Seymour as odd, but what he uttered was truthful, both literally and figuratively. Jane Seymour’s soul really was an old soul- 500 years old if you will. But she also had most of the characteristics of what an old soul would be classified as.

“Oh geez,” Jane would mutter to herself quite often. It didn’t matter what she was doing, it was better than what she had truly wanted to say. Knowing that she was in the public eye and had a younger audience, she did her best to keep herself as “PG” as possible, although some of the other queens didn’t follow that mindset as much.

The blonde would trip over the carpet in the house? “Oh geez.” The silver queen would be at a loss of words during an interview? “Oh geez,” she would sigh as she tried to articulate what was in her head. The third monarch would walk into the living room to see Anne Boleyn doing an Instagram live? “Oh geez,” she would laugh before settling next to the green queen.

“And, how do you think life would be different if all of the children were brought back in this life?” the man asked. “Surely, you miss the bright young Edward.” He gave her a sympathetic look. This question wasn’t as malicious as some of the other questions were in regards to the children and her family- no, it was simple curiosity coming from the man. Almost as if he sympathized with her.

“Oh geez,” she mumbled for the third time during this interview before letting out a small chuckle. “Sorry, let me try to find the words...”

“Oh geez,” he laughed genuinely- not at her, but with her. “You say that phrase quite a bit.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she shrunk into her seat a little, feeling as though he was poking fun at her.

“Oh! Nothing to be sorry for!” the man reassured. “It’s just, not many people say that phrase anymore. It’s mostly older people, not younger people like you. Are you an old soul?”

“Well, I mean... Yes?” Jane shrugged her shoulders. Her soul had been alive 500 years ago, although she lived a short time back then. And it was alive now too, although she had only been brought back to life a few short years ago and was barely what others considered her to be around thirty, maybe a few years shy of it. Now though, her morals and character didn’t stray all that much- she still stayed a kind hearted soul who would do virtually anything to keep her family happy- a woman of empathy she remained.

“It’s not a bad thing dear,” the older gentleman responded. “It’s quite good in fact. The way you speak about your family and friends, it shows you’re doing just fine in life.”

“Oh gosh.” The blonde blushed. “Well, thank you. I appreciate that.”

Leaving that interview, she smiled, a light blush still evident on her face. She wasn’t exactly sure what qualified her to be an “old soul”, but it didn’t bother her in the slightest.

Scrolling through social media a few nights after the interview with the sweet older gentleman, Jane Seymour found an article that read “17 Signs You’re An Old Soul Stuck in the 21st Century”. Immediately curious and remembering that she was called an “old soul” and was indeed stuck in the 21st century, she clicked the link.

“There is a special kind of person in our world who finds herself alone and isolated, almost since birth.” This line at the beginning of the page intrigued her. At a first glance, she thought to herself that she wasn’t alone and isolated. She had the other five queens to navigate life with, but this would prove to mean a lot more to Jane as she read on and read into what it really meant to her.

“1# You tend to be a lone wolf”

As she read the heading, she couldn’t help but laugh to herself. Oh how this man had been so wrong. She was not a lone wolf- she was the maternal figure of her household for crying out loud!

As she read the description beneath the subheading though, it began to click more. Jane for the life of her felt as though she didn’t necessarily have a place within the queens’ friend group. Of course, the others knew this wasn’t true: Jane was their maternal figure. Jane was more interested in embroidery, knitting, among other things that older people tended to drift towards as opposed to what say, Anne liked to do. Even Catherine Parr, a woman of many written words and not as many verbal words, could relate to the activities that Anne liked to participate in. Anna of Cleves could too. Even sometimes Catalina liked to participate in the- what the third queen thought was useless- drinking nights where the other queens would have a few too many drinks and wind up the next morning with a massive hangover. Jane would sip her glass or two of wine and put them to bed before pulling out her embroidery piece.

It was hard to connect herself to the others too because she truly had been the only one to provide a legitimate son to Henry. The others weren’t resentful towards her for this of course; it was pure luck. But that distanced Jane from them.

“2# You love knowledge, wisdom, and truth”

Jane Seymour was far from the smartest woman in the group. That title went to any of the others besides her, and she wouldn’t argue with you on that one. But that didn’t stop her from trying. The blonde found herself remembering a multitude of times she had told Katherine that knowledge was power, wisdom was happiness, and truth was freedom. It was strange in that way... she had uttered those words without ever hearing them before, and here they were in an online article she had never come across before this day.

Seymour wasn’t always gravitating towards academic knowledge either, no. She would gravitate more towards emotional intelligence and was happy to do so.

“3# You’re spiritually inclined”

The third queen was always fostering love and peace in her life. Whether it be settling an argument between Kat and Anne over who had to replace the chocolate milk or staying up with one of her fellow queens during a rough night, Jane was always trying to foster a peaceful and loving environment in their home. Along with this, the woman was quite sensitive, although she wouldn’t necessarily pin herself as spiritual. The silver queen laughed as she remembered the first time someone called her sensitive and she wept openly:

“Geez Jane, you’re so sensitive. Could you take a joke? I didn’t mean it!” Anne threw her hands up in exasperation when the blonde began to pout over something stupid her predecessor said.

“I-I’m sorry!” The third queen cried.

“Oh dear God,” Catalina had sighed as she simply pulled her friend into a hug and began to rub her back. “It’s okay. Hey, hey, querida: Look at me. It’s not a bad thing to be sensitive. It’s what makes you, you.”

She had overcome the confines of her ego quite soon after being brought back to life. Jane grimaced as she thought back to the first time somewhat had put her in her place. Funnily enough, it had been Katherine.

“You think you got it all figured out, don’t you? The world according to Katherine!” Jane had mocked the pink haired queen early on.

“You think you’re so much better than us just because you had a son! Don’t you?”Kat stared at the woman. “Go ahead! Throw your rocks at me from your little glass house and then take off running! You’re no better than me! We’ve both made mistakes, haven’t we?”

In that moment, Jane Seymour was grounded by a nineteen year old girl, and she realized that she was not above any one person in this house. They had all made mistakes in their past life. Some were bigger than others, but each and every one of them had made mistakes they so desperately wished they could take back.

“4# You understand the transience of life”

So many times had Jane Seymour thought about the transience of life. How could she not? She had died before, and she would die again. It was made clear to the women that their time in the 21st century would come to an end eventually- whether they would be brought back again in another 500 years was unknown, but they had to make the most of the extra time they were blessed with on Earth. While some of the queens took approaches that, in all honesty, terrified the third queen, Jane was well aware that the decisions she made in this life counted. If she wasn’t careful, her actions could ultimately lead to an untimely death.

“Seat belts!” the silver queen exclaimed before she would move the car from the parking lot outside the theater.

“Seymour, Katherine is asleep. How the hell do you expect her to put a seat belt on?” Cleves questioned from the back.

“Buckle her in!” the blonde monarch laughed, but the way she looked at her successor through the rear view mirror told Anna she wasn’t messing around.

“Come on, just drive,” Anne groaned from the middle. “I want to go to bed!”

“No! If we get into an accident on the way home, if she’s not buckled in-” Jane shuddered.

The maternal figure in the household, in her own privacy, had many existential crises. One day, Cathy found her in the midst of one.

“Jane?” the sixth queen made her presence known, or tried to that is. When the third queen didn’t respond, she tried calling her name again.

A blank stare was quickly replaced with a soft smile as Jane came back to and said gently, “Hey love. What’s up?”

“Are you alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be dear?”

“Do you know what time it is?” Jane shook her head no. “It’s 2:30 in the morning. You’re usually asleep by now.”

“Oh my,” the silver queen whispered. “How did this much time pass?”

“How long have you been sitting here?” The blue queen made a move to sit next to her friend at the dining room table, a mug of coffee in hand.

“You really need to lay off the coffee this late at night honey.”

“I could say the same for you and tea Mum,” Cathy joked. “But seriously, how long have you been sitting here?”

Jane turned sheepish. “Three hours,” she mumbled into her mug, sipping her now very cold tea. “I guess I just got lost in thought.”

“Why don’t I warm up that tea for you and then we can talk?” The writer gently pried the mug out of the blonde’s hand, only to set it back into her hand a few minutes later.

That night, Jane would reveal that she was terrified of going through this life only to be forgotten in history again. She didn’t know her purpose.

“Jane Seymour, I can promise you you will not be forgotten in history. You never were.”

“I’m only remembered for-”

“We all are, remember? That’s why we have our show,” the sixth queen tried to reason with her.

“Yes but,” Jane paused to wipe a tear from her eye. “Why was I brought back? What if I can’t contribute to society in a meaningful way before I pass again? I mean, we all are going to pass again, but none of us know when. Like, everyone else has already done so much in society and is making the world a brighter place, and I for the life of me can’t find my pur-”

“You stop right there. I will not hear this slander against yourself. So, maybe you’re a bit less outspoken than the rest of us, but you’re behind us every step of the way. Maybe you’re not always doing press like the rest of us, but do you know what you are doing? You foster an environment that allows us to let us be who we want to be and say what we want to say. The five of us are only doing these things because you gave us the confidence to. I mean, for heaven’s sake Jane- look at what you’ve done for Kat. She was this shy, skittish young girl when we were all brought back. She’s the sassy, outspoken, and sweetest young woman now because you helped her. So what if you’re not in the public eye as much as the rest of us? You made that choice, and that choice is 100% valid. You may not be changing the whole world, and neither are any of us. Do you know what you are doing though? You’re changing our world, and that is something none of us are ever going to be able to repay you for. You’re making our world a better place.”

Jane then understood that if she could change just one person’s life for the better, it was worth it. Of course, she was doing so much more- but sometimes it was hard to realize that.

“5# You’re thoughtful and introspective”

The third queen was never not in deep thought. She was always reflecting on the way she presented herself, handled things, and tried her best to develop a sense of self-awareness.

This started soon after she realized she had to put a lid on her temper. Yes, sometimes it would still get the better of her, but she had to get it under control- she was scaring Kat. How she hated the way the fifth queen would shy away from her for a few days after an outburst. And in the beginning, the silver queen had many outbursts, often leading Katherine to avoid her for several days at a time- sometimes even weeks.

“You really have to get your life together Seymour,” she mumbled as looked at herself in the

mirror. “You’re a mess.” From there on out, she practiced EFT on her phone, a tapping program on the right points on her body to help her de-stress and ground herself for the day. The other queens took notice to the change in the blonde’s demeanor. Jane was thankful for being able to reflect on herself and become better for the others.

“6# You see the bigger picture”

The third queen smiled softly at this one. She liked to think she saw the bigger picture. Very rarely did she focus on the trivial things in life; she focused more on how to live meaningfully and use her time to help advance her in this journey of self-growth she was going on. How would having the newest iPhone benefit her (in reality, the phone she had now was quite confusing to her still)? It wouldn’t. How would learning how to edit pictures of herself and learn all of the nifty tools on her phone help better her life? She knew it wouldn’t. It would likely consume her and take time away from her journey. Besides, that wasn’t the message she wanted to send out to her audience. She wanted to show the world that being natural and not always perfect (albeit she definitely struggled with imperfections) was okay. That was a better lesson to teach her followers. Why waste time on small and insignificant details in life when there were bigger things to focus on?

“7# You aren’t materialistic”

Jane Seymour was many things; materialistic was not one of them. Sure, she had the wealth, the status, the fame, and close to the latest tech gadgets, but did she really need them? The short answer was no.

“Janey, don’t you want the new phone too?” Anne had asked her when they all went to the store to upgrade their phones.

Jane shrugged before replying, “This one seems to be working just fine. No need to replace it quite yet.”

“Do you ever use your status to help you get somewhere better in life?” An interviewer had laughed. “It’s not an uncommon practice, I promise you.”

“People actually do that?” The blonde looked at the woman incredulously.

“I have!” Anne announced. “When I started wearing my heelys, I told people about them, and the company sent me new shoes!”

“I did it, but not on purpose. Some people asked me where I got my makeup from and the company sent me a ton of free gifts,” Kat nodded subtly.

“When I complained about my laptop breaking on a live and jokingly said that if Apple was to send me a new computer I wouldn’t complain, they did,” Cathy admitted sheepishly.

“Chocolate,” Cleves just said smugly.

Catherine of Aragon just nodded but wouldn’t reveal how she had used her status to put her up.

“I don’t think I’ve...” Jane trailed off. Had she really never reaped the benefits of her status and wealth like the others?

Materials didn’t enrich her soul the way it may others. No, the third queen was more sentimental. She appreciated the finer things in life like spending time with her family face-to-face as opposed to “Facetime” (is that what it was called?). The silver queen quickly made peace with the fact that she wasn’t materialistic.

“8# You were a strange, socially maladaptive kid”

Jane Seymour was introverted in both this life and last. Sure, she didn’t have a childhood in the 21st century, but she can’t imagine her soul would’ve changed all that much if she had the chance to grow up again. She was still very much the same person she was then... meek, mild, a bit hot tempered at times.

But even in her past life, she failed to fit into the mainstream behaviors she was set to practice. Adults never spoke to her as though she was a kid, some even referring to her as a “little adult” back then. In all honesty, now that she was thinking about it, she never even had a nickname until this life: Janey. It had a hint of a childish play to it, but she didn’t really mind it all that much. It reminded her in times where she was far too headstrong on mothering her family that she was only a young adult in reality.

“9# You’ve undergone an existential crisis”

“It’s common for Old Souls to ask deep and penetrating questions about life in their search for love, truth, and freedom. This quest to live a meaningful existence inevitably means that they will, sooner or later, experience an existential crisis.” Jane laughed- she was extremely familiar with the idea of existential crises. Point #4 easily lays out the undergoing of existential crises that the third queen has experienced. Above this though, Jane could recall many times she had wondered if life was just a product of chance.

“What are you thinking about Mum?” Katherine distracted the blonde by speaking and tucking herself into the older woman’s side.

“What is all this about, anyway?”

“What is what all about?”

“Life,” Jane replied simply. “You know, it’s funny. We all go through this life, but have you ever really stopped to think about what life is about? I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it’s about surviving. To survive you need money, and to get money you need to have a job. But to get a job, you have to be well versed in something. Of course though, shouldn’t life be about happiness? And yet here we are, in a world where many people are just... surviving. They aren’t doing something they’re passionate about and love. Are they happy? Isn’t life supposed to be about living life to the fullest and experiencing life with as much light as one can?”

Katherine could only stare at her mother figure. “Are you... is this...?”

“No, no, this isn’t about me. I was just, you know, walking around town earlier and meandered into a cafe. Do the baristas there... Are they happy with their lives? I made sure I left a nice tip for them. I always try to, but today as I thought about it, I may have left more than I probably should have.”

“How much did you leave?” Kat looked at her curiously.

“A hundred.”

“For a three dollar tea?”

“Yes, but you should have seen the gratefulness in their eyes. Young kids too, about your age. I hope they use that tip for something that makes them happy.”

“Well that’s very kind of you Mum.”

“But then I got to thinking about myself and my life,” Jane trailed off. “What is the point of everything I’ve done? In reality, I haven’t done much in either life I suppose. I mean, really. In the past, I never said anything anybody even deemed worthy of writing down despite the long lengths I went to and the hoops I jumped through to... well, survive I suppose. I wasn’t happy then. And thankfully now, I am surrounded with light and love in this life, but am I doing enough? Is there a point to everything I’ve done in this world?”

“What the bloody hell are you even talking about?” The fifth queen detached herself from the blonde to look at her. “There is absolutely a purpose to everything you’ve done in this world.”

“I mean, Katherine, I died in my past life. That’s what I’m known for.”

“But in this life, you’re known for so much more.”

“Like what Kat? You’re all making your voices heard and speaking up and out about-”

“Sure, we’re all doing that, but so are you. You’re just as much a social justice warrior as the rest of us, even if you’re not as loud about it. Have you heard some of the interviews the rest of us have done?” Jane nodded; of course she had. She would support her girls no matter what. “Haven’t you noticed that in every interview we’ve done, someone always alludes to something that you’ve said to each of us in privacy. We’re learning these social justice ideas from you. We’re just the ones putting them out in the world.”

“I guess,” Jane shrugged. “But I don’t have much to offer to those who aren’t you guys and-”

“That’s not true either,” the pink haired queen cut her off quickly. “You provide the audiences a light and a heart and soul. Think of all of those people, especially the sweet young girls who come up to you and tell you how much it means to them that you give off a maternal aura. You give them this space that feels safe and loving. That’s a lot more than you think.”

“I suppose.” The third queen worried her lip through her teeth a bit.

“I promise you, it is. There is a point of everything you’ve done, even if you can’t quite see it.”

“Thank you love.” Jane pulled the younger woman into a tight hug.

“And you’ve done so much for me,” Kat pulled back a bit to look the older monarch in the eye. “You saved me, and I can never repay you for that.”

“10# You see life through a poetic/contemplative lens”

It was no question that Jane Seymour saw everything through a poetic lens. Yes, she was not the most well versed when it came to actual poems with words, but her outlook on life was quite poetic in itself.

The blonde had settled down on a park bench, happy to observe the others playing a round of catch. Sitting down, she noticed the way the trees swayed gently in the breeze, almost as if they were dancing to the sweet whistle of the wind. Instead of opening up the book she had brought along with the intention of getting through at least a chapter, she closed her eyes and felt the slightly cool breeze on her cheeks, inhaling the sweet oxygen that surrounded her. The sun was warm on her face, creating almost a glow around her to the others who had stopped tossing the ball around to look at the sweet woman in her element. She felt the green grass that snaked its way in between her toes, giggling slightly as it tickled her gently. Nature really was a beautiful thing to Jane Seymour.

The group of five had continued to play their game, leaving the blonde to revel in the beauty surrounding her. Jane opened her eyes at the sound of a child’s laughter. A young boy, about three, had taken to playing with her family- a young boy that looked like a spitting image of the portraits of her Edward. She stopped and drew it in, savoring the sweet little one’s laugh, before heading over herself and placing herself into the game.

“You wanna play?” Cleves looked at her. The third queen nodded with a soft smile before catching the ball and tossing it gently to the little tike, who giggled. Jane couldn’t help but wish that she had these experiences with her son. This was a good time too though.

The group had long since returned home, and Jane settled in her room, a pang now in her chest as she longed for her boy, for the night when she heard a quiet knock at the door.

“Come in love!” She called, fully expecting it to be her Kat. And it was, but Anne was with her too?

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” She quickly wiped away a tear that had escaped, hoping the two at the door hadn’t noticed.

“Uh,” Kat shrugged before settling herself into the bed she so often found herself in. Anne also made her way over to the bed, although she sat a bit awkwardly.

Boleyn looked at her in a way that made Jane uncomfortable. It was almost as if Anne herself was uncomfortable in the room, but she had been the one to put herself in this situation.

Coughing slightly, she spoke, “That little boy looked a hell of a lot like your Eddie at the park. Wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

“I’m alright dear. Yes, it hurts a bit to think that I don’t have my little boy with me anymore, but I have you all, now don’t I?” The silver queen pulled her predecessor into a tight hug with one arm, the other already wrapped around the pink monarch.

“I know. It’s just... different, you know?” Jane nodded. She knew Anne felt the same about her sweet Elizabeth.

“His little laugh was just so sweet, wasn’t it?” the blonde said softly, lightening the mood in the room immediately.

“Where’s Mum?” Kat asked Catalina. It was about time they started getting ready for the show.

“Did you check the stage? You know how she likes to sit there sometimes. Check the seats too.” The first queen suggested. Katherine shook her head and ventured out into the theater. Lo and behold, there Jane was, sitting in the back of the theatre deep in thought.

“Mum? Choosing the back of the house this time?”

“It’s nice once in a while to have a change of perspective, both literally and figuratively.”

“You’re so weird sometimes. You know that right?”

“And yet, you still love me.” Jane ruffled the girl’s hair quickly before smoothing it back over.

“I do. You know, we’re supposed to be getting ready for the show about now,” Kat informed the third queen.

“Yeah. I don’t know. I just needed a moment to think I suppose. You know?”

“I do. Do you think I could sit here with you, just for a few moments before we have to go backstage? Maybe I need a change of perspective too.”

“Of course love. You don’t have to ask. You’ve done it many times with me before.” The blonde wrapped an arm around her daughter and pulled her close, pressing a quick kiss to her hairline. Settling back into her position, she got lost in thought again until the golden queen would come out to tell them they should probably be getting ready now.

“Thank you Mum.”

“Of course love.” She kissed her forehead once more before offering a hand to help her up and guide the two back towards the dressing room.

“11# You tend to overthink everything”

It was no secret that the third monarch was quite an overthinker. Many times the others walked in on Jane practicing the way she walked, spoke, held herself. You name it, there was a good chance Jane Seymour had practiced it in the mirror.

“Seymour?” A slightly sleepy Cleves knocked on the door. “Are you in there?”

“Cleves!” Jane whisked the door open, a bright grin painted on her face, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes the way it usually would. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

“I could ask you the same,” the red queen retorted back.

“Oh no, did I wake you?”

“No, no. I had to go to the bathroom, but I could hear the small squeak of the floorboards, and someone talking to themselves. Are you alright?”

“Just fine love. Just practicing the way I walk.” The fourth queen looked at her in disbelief. “I’m serious! I just... don’t want to come across cocky and rude!”

“I swear, you’re the queen of overthinking. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. Get some sleep, yeah?”

“I will. I promise.”

“Now,” Cleves shot her a look before patting the door frame and walking back to her bedroom.

“Just a few more minutes,” Jane sighed to herself, making a note to walk more quietly.

“Jane? You’ve been staring at the two containers of granola for the past ten minutes. Just pick one, why don’t you?” A slightly disgruntled Catherine Parr had the... honor... of accompanying the resident grocery shopper and was beginning to get antsy. They had been in the store for over an hour, and Jane had only made her way through a quarter of the list of things they needed to pick up.

“But there are so many different reasons to buy both! Which is more healthy? Which one would taste the best? What is the best value for the price? What if there’s a price drop tomorrow? Is it in environmentally friendly packaging?” the third queen rambled on.

“Oh my,” Parr looked at her friend who was now in clear distress. “Why don’t we,” she paused to take the containers out of her hand before continuing. “Just buy both and you can decide which one you like more at home? Then, you can continue to buy just that brand. Sounds like a plan?”

“But that means we’re spending more-”

“None of it is going to go to waste though. You make sure nothing in our house goes to waste hun. Just, come on. We still have a majority of the list to go through, and we need to be back in time to make dinner before Annie decides to try to cook.”

That sped the process up. She didn’t need her overthinking leading to Anne Boleyn destroying her kitchen again.

“12# You struggle with anxiety in social situations”

Jane knew herself well enough to know that anxiety was heightened in social situations. Yes, she was a star in theatre and was always in the public eye, but she was a self-proclaimed introvert.

In this new life, it was quick to show itself when she entered the room where she would meet the other five queens for the first time.

“Jane Seymour,” she spoke quietly when it was her turn to introduce herself. The others mingled, but anxiety had reared its head and left the blonde to deal with the side effects. She considered the way that she held herself. Sure, she had a kind and inviting aura surrounding her, but she was still nervous. Adjusting her posture, she noticed that she was the only one not eating the snacks that had been provided (because she feared that the others would watch and judge the way she ate). Upon this discovery, she grabbed a plate along with a small sandwich before nibbling at it just a bit. Chewing, she held a hand over her already closed mouth subconsciously. Glancing around the room, she noticed she wasn’t the only one who had distanced herself from the larger crowd and was standing in a smaller circle. Katherine Howard, although she hadn’t said much, stuck by her.

“This is a lot, isn’t it?” Jane whispered after she had swallowed her food and taken a small sip of water. The fifth queen could only nod, eyes wide and ridden with anxiety. “Would you like to perhaps get to know each other out in the hallway where it’s a bit quieter? We can maybe eat our sandwiches without feeling like everyone else is staring at us.”

The grateful look the younger woman gave her told her everything she needed to know. This girl was too frightened to say anything, but a mere hour later, the two had already formed a strong and intense connection. Jane had a warm, maternal presence, and Katherine needed someone to mother her and bring her out of her shell. They shared many of the same values, which shocked Jane considering the upbringing Katherine came from as she learned. But in reality it made sense: they were both trying to fill holes in their lives- Jane trying to regain what she once had, and Katherine chasing after what she had always wanted. Kindred spirits, it was if destiny brought them together.

“13# You easily fall into the role of advisor or counselor”

The blonde, now glued to this article, couldn’t help but laugh out loud at this one. Of course she was the role of advisor or counselor. Her girls came to her for so many reasons. They didn’t all call her “Mum” (jokingly or not, they still all had at one point or another) for nothing! She remembered all the times Catalina had come to her in regard to Cathy and how to handle her sleep schedule, the times Anne had come to her crying because she thought she had ruined her relationship with Kat after the two had fought (they were cousins, but they acted more like sisters), the times Anna had come to her with the same ideas she had about not rightfully being placed among the other queens, the countless times Katherine had come to her looking for comfort, advice, and someone to vent to, and the times Cathy had trudged into her room begging her to help her with her writing (Jane couldn’t write or necessarily articulate the way Cathy could, but the two bouncing ideas off of each other always helped the writer process what she wanted to say). Without a second thought too, the third queen had put herself into this position. She never minded either. It may be a lot sometimes for the queen because she was a bit of an empath, but the overwhelmingness of it all was worth it if it meant she was able to help guide those in need.

“14# You enjoy the company of those much older than you” The others didn’t know this, but every Sunday early in the morning, Seymour would head down to the local cafe- long before anybody else was awake. There, she had a friend who was many years older than her (in relative terms. The kind elderly woman at the cafe knew that Jane had been reincarnated, but it hadn’t dawned on her that Jane’s soul had been around for many more years than she expected). Rosemary was her name, and the blonde couldn’t help but be drawn to her from the moment Rosemary sat down across from her.

“Hi?” The queen looked up and down at the older woman now sitting in front of her. “Can I help you?”

“You’re no later than thirty. What has you up and at the cafe this early?” Rosemary didn’t waste any time.

“Just trying to soak up the peacefulness of this beautiful Sunday morning before the rest of my housemates wake up. Gives me time to reflect and think. And you?” The woman dressed in grey smiled invitingly at the wrinkled woman.

“I’ve been up for hours now. Been coming to this here cafe for forty years. Used to come here with my dear husband before he passed. But back to you: you looked to be in deep thought. Care to chat about it?”

The two were fast friends. An unlikely duo? Maybe, what with Jane’s being mild mannered and her newfound friend telling quite the stories at times- not to mention that significant age gap between the two of them. But it was right. The two would trade stories, some from their distant past (or pasts in Jane’s case) and some from the not-so-distant past. Jane had learned so much about the modern world she sometimes felt trapped in, learning that she wasn’t the only one who felt somewhat out of place in the new century.

Above all though, Jane had felt grounded. When she was with Rosemary, it didn’t matter that she was a popstar starring in a show that was making waves around the country. She didn’t have to run around like mad trying to keep up with the antics of Anne Boleyn that always kept her on her toes. No, she was just another human living her life. It didn’t matter what she had or didn’t have. Together the two could have a good old-fashioned chat in the cozy corner of a cozy cafe on a peaceful Sunday morning over a cup of tea.

“15# You crave simplicity”

Jane Seymour, although living a life in the public eye, led a simple life. She craved the simplicity in the often complex world that she lived in. Being drawn to minimalism, it made its way into her everyday. She liked when things were easily read and plain. “Plain Jane” mocked her at first, but she had learned to take pride in it. What was so bad about being plain and well read? It was truthful, and shouldn’t the truth be simple?

“16# You’re attracted to all things vintage”

Vintage drew her in. Maybe it was because some of it reminded her of the times that she lived in before, but it didn’t have to be Tudor era-esque. Really, anything that was a bit older made her feel more at home. She had collections of records to play on her old record player. She had dresses that maybe were a bit more vintage than she was willing to admit. She loved watching programs that showcased antiques. While her co stars would gravitate more towards the newer store, she was drawn into the vintage boutiques and antique shops. She loved the historical sights that she was able to see- some of them holding rich history that she could intertwine herself with. It was simply a wonder to her.

“17# You just “feel” old inside”

“Throw away the ‘Old Soul’ label for a moment and focus on how you feel inside. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? Those who realize that they feel much older than their age reflects are often Old Souls at heart.”

Jane Seymour read over this a few times, truly trying to get a sense of how old she really felt in the times of now. It seemed as though she didn’t reflect a woman in her late twenties. No, she felt as though she reflected a woman who was in her late thirties, and although this wasn’t necessarily the biggest age gap, the difference of a 29 year old to a 39 year old was immense. And then she remembered how deeply she could relate to Rosemary- a woman who was easily forty or fifty years older than her.

“Common feelings that accompany being an Old Soul usually include a feeling of world wariness, mental tiredness, inquisitiveness, watchful patience, and the sensation of being an “outsider looking in.”

The blonde deeply resonated with the feelings that an old soul typically felt.

Later that night, the silver queen was curled up in bed, reading glasses slipping down the tip of her nose as she scrolled through social media mindlessly. She was about to retire for the night when she heard a small squeak from her door.

“Hey Mum,” Kat sighed from the doorframe. “Mind if I-”

“Not at all love. I was just winding down for bed, and I would love it if you joined.” Jane moved over in her bed and patted the space next to her, opening up an arm. Almost immediately, the pink haired queen bolted under the covers with her.

“You look so cute with your glasses on,” Kat commented sleepily. “What were you reading?” She tucked herself more into her mother’s side, if that was possible.

“Oh I was just scrolling through social media.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you. I’m just gonna get in my Mama cuddles.”

“Love you my dear.” The third queen pressed a firm kiss to the younger woman’s head before gently playing with her hair in hopes of lulling her to sleep- Katherine looked like she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in days.

“Love you too Mum,” the pink queen murmured as she dozed off.

Jane held her phone in one hand and her daughter in the other. A few more minutes of scrolling through social media couldn’t hurt.

“Those who experienced childhood trauma are often referred to as ‘mature for their age’ or ‘old souls’ when actually we were children having to adopt intense coping mechanisms in order to survive as adults.”

In this moment, Jane realized the truth in that statement and connected it to the statement at the beginning of the article she had read earlier in the day. She didn’t feel as though she was alone and isolated, but maybe she was a bit more than she had initially thought. She had come from a rather big family in her past life, but she had always felt alone, never being able to relate to her other siblings. And in this life, she was surrounded by five wonderful women who would have her back no matter what, but she couldn’t help but feel slightly different from the rest of them- even if she was one of the younger queens.

In her past life, she had simply found coping mechanisms needed to survive. And those coping mechanisms had made their way into this life too. She rarely had to rely on these mechanisms now. Her heart was open to the five other queens she had the blessing of sharing a home with.

So, maybe being an old soul meant she had some trauma from her past life- she wasn’t there anymore. But being an old soul wasn’t such a bad thing as she walked through life. Maybe, she wasn’t as “stuck in the 21st century” afterall. Being an old soul was rare, and those who surrounded her loved her dearly for it.

#six the musical #six musical #jane seymour #six the musical fanfiction #six the musical fanfic #six fanfiction #six fanfic #six musical fanfic #jane seymour six #six jane seymour

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script-a-world · 4 years

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Clearly there are some settings which make no sense scientifically. But how do I decide when to intentionally ignore reality, can't bother to do research, don't understand research, and thus create scientifically impossible places? When are such things considered be offensive or overused cliche or have a reader point out the impossibility and can't get into the story? I'm guessing some of this might be structural issues instead of world building?

Tex: One of the perils of attempting to write about highly technical subjects is that you run into the issue of not understanding your writing. I do raise a nominal objection as your first sentence, because sensibility is a sliding scale based on one’s familiarity with a given subject. I don’t know crap about, say, textile art (however much I might have bluffed readers in the past - no, no, this is just good googling skills on my end), but that doesn’t mean the textile arts are an inherently incomprehensible subject.

Scientifically, automobiles were once thought to be insensible. Scientifically, phones were thought to be a flight of fancy. Scientifically, 3D printing was improbable. Scientifically, quantum computing was the stuff of sci-fi nerds who just wanted to slap the “quantum” label on everything.

And yet we are now on the verge of robotic vehicles, mostly functional smartwatches, laser printing cells (PDF), and quantum computers (VentureBeat, IBM).

So I would argue that the insensibility of a setting would be due mostly to, yes, a structural issue - on the part of the author. No matter what you put into your world, internal consistency is key; nothing, no matter how ostensibly outlandish, will make sense if you contradict yourself.

I’ll volley a few questions back to you:

“[...] when to intentionally ignore reality” - Are you ignoring reality entirely, or just parts of it? Why? How does that decision benefit your world? How does it detract from your world?

“Can’t bother to do research” - Is it because you are discouraged by the breadth of your comprehension of a subject, compared to the subject’s depth? Or is it because of something else?

“Don’t understand research” - Is this because you don’t understand the academic papers that turn up in your search results, or because you have a fundamental lack of or misunderstanding of the given subject? Or is it because of something else?

“When are such things considered to be offensive or overused cliche” - As someone who intentionally arranges their studying around the plausibilities of the future, I would quite frankly be delighted to see more conceptual stretches of the imagination in this regard, as do many others on this blog, and beyond it. Why have you already passed judgement on the offensiveness or clichéd-ness of incorporating scientific things? Is this related to your other comments?

“[...] or have a reader point out the impossibility and can’t get into the story?” - If you are writing to please a specific individual or demographic, you are inevitably always going to fall short, because it’s genuinely impossible to meet every single item on a group’s wishlist without devoting your life to it (not an entirely worthy pursuit, in my opinion, but alas). What made you decide to be so concerned over the potential reaction to your stories that you worry about it before the story is even written?

I think I will put the majority of my curiosity’s weight on the last bullet point, as I’m seeing similar themes with the other portions of your question. It’s a fruitless endeavour to tie yourself into knots over a possible (not necessarily probable!) reaction - and quite likely from a stranger, to boot. Education is a relatively easy situation to fix, so long as you’re patient with yourself; dealing with anxieties over readers is… not so easy.

I can really only recommend that you take a close look at the goals of your worldbuilding, and see where you contradict yourself - once you have that in hand, it’s a relatively simple yes/no process of what concepts you want to keep. If the issue of decision comes from a lack of understanding, then make a note to yourself to seek out either the million wikis we Pylons utilize ourselves like any other worldbuilder, or to chalk it up as a genuine lack of context.

Please understand that even someone who’s dedicated their life to a certain aspect of science won’t know everything about it - that’s the point of research! We’re constantly asking ourselves questions, and pushing the envelope of known boundaries. Star Wars has lightsabers, but we don’t need to know how they work; likewise with holodecks in Star Trek. So long as an audience is reasonably entertained with the least amount of head-scratching, you can get away with handwaving quite a lot.

Lockea: On a scale between Star Trek and Star Wars, how “hard” is your science fiction?

I mention that mostly to illustrate that science fiction exists on a continuum, wherein science fiction with more “science” than “fiction” drives a story towards the harder end rather than the softer end. Also, a story’s place on the continuum will change based on what we know and understand about science.

I feel like everyone always beats me to saying all the important stuff about questions, so I’ll just give a few thoughts from my personal experience as a science fiction fan with two engineering degrees and a thesis about robots on the moon (yes really, I wrote my thesis on AI for moon robots). I really, really, love the creativity of science fiction writers. I think so often in defending the genre, we can get caught up in saying things like “science fiction predicted XYZ!” Well, sure, I may have studied Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics in my introduction to engineering ethics course, but I was also greedily reading my way through “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins at the same time. The fact that I sincerely doubt Panem will ever happen didn’t dampen my enjoyment of Katniss’s story. It was a fun read and it gave my friends and I something to talk about that wasn’t “feasibility of Battlestar Galactica” during our daily lunches.

The thing about writing science fiction is that, without a doubt, there will be someone who knows more than you about a topic who reads your story. Most of the time, I end up being that someone since everyone likes to talk about Skynet and robots taking over the world to a roboticist who sincerely refers to artificial intelligence as artificial stupidity. Y'all are seriously overestimating the field, my friends. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” even as I thought how impossible Project Insight would be. Honestly, something every READER of science fiction needs to make peace with is the fact that writers will get something wrong. Writers, despite their best efforts, are not always going to understand that a facial recognition algorithm will fail if you introduce tiny amounts of random noise and are thus going to treat The Algorithm™ as infallible in your crime drama novel.

It’s not the writer’s fault, though.

That deserves to be on its own line. It is not YOUR fault if you get something wrong. Would it be nice if science literacy was just better all around? Of course! But it’s not your fault if your science literacy isn’t up to snuff enough to parse the article I cited above. It’s also not your job. Your job as the writer is to tell the most interesting story you can and to maintain your own internal rules and logic such that the reader never breaks the willing suspension of disbelief.

I watch Star Wars and get really into the light saber fight scenes and forget that light sabers are basically impossible to make. Star Wars has the Force, which is basically magic, and that’s okay. Really. I KNOW it’s not possible, but I still have a lot of fun watching it!

So yeah, write that story about how the robots are going to take over the world. I’ll probably enjoy reading it even as I laugh off my friends telling me that I will be the first to die in the robot apocalypse (of course I will -- I have five robots in my living room alone).

Constablewrites: Tone and consistency are the biggest pieces of this for me. If it’s the kind of story where the answer to “How does this work?” is usually a detailed and plausible explanation, then getting an answer later that is implausible or slapdash will stand out more. But if it’s the kind of story where the answer to “How does this work?” is “You push that button and it goes whoosh” from the start, my expectations adjust accordingly. (It’s possible to have the latter version in a story that is mostly the former, frequently when it’s played for last. Again, tone is key.)

So yeah, a lot of this is execution and the way the story sticks to the rules it sets for itself, and also how central the implausibility is to the story. A realistic thriller that relies on cartoon logic for a background bit might be a little jarring, but not nearly as much as a realistic thriller that relies on cartoon logic to set up its main showdown. The more central it is to the story, the more consistency and accuracy matters. Learning how to balance this can take some practice and some insight from beta readers.

#pylons #research #believability #worldbuilding #Anonymous

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allbeendonebefore · 4 years

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I was kind of under the impression that this is just a widespread thing in Alberta, especially because of the Angus Reid fractured federation survey (I cant include the link here, but you can Google it, its from January 24th 2019). When got back into Hetalia, I imagined the dynamics kinda changed to this, which would be pretty bad tbh. I hope its not that aggressive in Alberta, I will never be able to go check tho, too expensive :( I loved the bad french btw

i see you guys sending these asks super late at night and i wonder whether any of you sleep - idk where you’re writing from and i may be on the west coast but are you guys ok wherever you are? I just woke up but I have my tea and if I’m not caffeinated now I surely will be as I answer this.

I’m sure I’ve seen the survey you’re speaking of before and before I address it in any specific detail I just want to back up and re frame Why I’m Being Like This in regards to recent events and my orientation towards answering these questions in terms of Hetalia the way I do, because I think it’s the heart of how I answer.

the tldr of it is:

1. I have an opportunity to make interpretations of reality in unexpected and challenging ways, therefore widespread opinions don’t govern anything but my stupid gag comics in the simple sense that if everyone was represented by widespread opinion alone all the time, nothing would change and

2. if i can answer dozens of asks about ralph and oliver hanging out there’s absolutely no reason I can’t answer asks about ralph and jean hanging out, lol.

3. If you’d like a shorter, more concise “vision statement”, I have one on @battle-of-alberta here. (although now I notice the links don’t work on mobile so you’ll have to be on desktop for that one)

I’m assuming this will be long so cut time

(and yes, alas, the bad french is my legacy and I’m afraid it has not improved much although i swear i was an A student when i was actually taking it) (and no please don’t visit now, purely for pandemic reasons, it would be really expensive And you’d have a bad time) (and talking to me is free lmao) (I do not mean to say that you need to have feet on the ground to understand a place at all, i mean, at the moment I don’t lol)

headings because I say a lot

what even is hetalia

At the most basic level, Hetalia is a tool that can be used in a variety of ways. It can be for memorization, current politics at a glance or historical relationships in different settings. I use it for all of these things, of course, I certainly use it a lot in comics that take place in the much more distant past in @athensandspartaadventures. When I was writing that, I was in undergrad and AaSA was a tool to help me pass my exams, I didn’t think of how it might be read or interpreted by people who have lived in or experienced those places these days, or what kind of political and cultural tensions it might reveal. (Not to say that it has gotten me into sticky situations, exactly, but I am more aware of where things like that would arise now).

These days I look back on a lot of my experiences - both in IAMP/Hetalia and just as a person, and I think that if Hetalia is a tool it should be used with some awareness of intention and responsibility. Things in the fandom have changed as it became more mainstream and more well known and I think there’s a definite worry about screwing up or not representing Everything or not pleasing Everybody or not doing it Right. I have a simple, insufferably academic principle.

(That said, yes, you can still do it very wrong if you write a methodology.)

Still, it’s a comfort to me that I’m just doing the things the way I say I’m going to do them, and that is the underpinning of Inspired But Not Constrained By Hetalia. I don’t do things Himaruya’s way, I can’t do things the way IAMP would do them if it were running today because it’s not and things have changed, all I can do is do them how I would do them.

I have hurt people in the past because they sometimes couldn’t tell whether I was writing From an Albertan Perspective or not, and I’ve evoked some preeetty spicy comments over the last decade, and I realized that tone and perspective are something that really shapes how people understand and interact with my work and I’m trying to use that understanding in a conscientious way)

what even is alberta

So when you’re me and you’ve grown up in a province that is the Angriest in the country and the most Misunderstood in the country and the most Entitled in the country and nobody outside of maybe Saskatchewan has a good thing to say about you half the time and maybe you’re tired of that... you get kind of depressed thinking about how every year some kiddo comes on the internet ready to be excited about making or celebrating characters that represent themselves and No Matter Where They Go running into everyone else’s negative impressions first and foremost.

We joke about how everyone hates Toronto, though I’ve always understood it in a teasing way because I’ve never ACTUALLY met someone (outside of our current legislative assembly) who REALLY hates Toronto, but it does feel like I’ve encountered (directly or indirectly) people who do Genuinely hate Alberta and hoo boy is That a strange feeling. I mean, there’s an understanding that BC also ‘hates’ Alberta but half the people in BC are originally from Alberta so it’s a, uh, different feeling.

The story of Alberta from everywhere else is always the story of that Angus Reid article and the memes and comments and listicles that spin out around mainstream media. Alberta is giving too much. Alberta is getting too little. Alberta is too stupid to understand that equalization payments are a good thing actually, and Alberta is too dumb to understand you don’t really need EI if you make enough money in six months to own a house and multiple vehicles Just Because you own a house and multiple vehicles. Alberta is destroying the environment for everybody. Alberta has a huge concentration of white supremacists. Alberta is the Texas of Canada* and has the conservative streak and bible belt to match. Alberta should get annexed by the US. Oh, but Banff! We like Banff, though.

And like I said, politicians use these widespread feelings to stir up the sentiments of people who can’t afford to travel, people who are naturally suspicious of mainstream news, people who have barely even left their hometowns let alone the province and have no other means of validating what they hear, but people who’s emotions are genuinely tied to real feelings of alienation that really exist and HAVE existed for generations. And when the so-called “laurentian elites” in ontario and quebec make fun of them for being uneducated red necks, well, you hit a wasps nest and expected what, exactly?

what even am i doing

And like I’m faced with this question every day I decide to pick up my stylus and badger you all with unsolicited comics: do I want this to continue? Do I want to wear the mask that fits? Do I want to stand aside and say #notallalbertans #notlikeotheralbertans and stand over here on the island** patting myself on the back for not? being? there? Do I say yes, you’re right, and stand aside and watch loud mouth white supremacists co-opt wexiters and let them lead the perception of the province I grew up in just because that is what’s currently happening? Do I acknowledge the widespread sentiment and then pick apart every other province to say Well Actually You’re Equally Problematic Hypocrites, So There?

Obviously I’ve been saying no for a while. I’m perfectly happy to acknowledge the reality and when I draw stupid gag comics like this or this you can tell (hopefully) from my style that it’s tongue and cheek. When I draw less stupid not-gag comics like this or this I am trying to explore the Real Sentiments in a way that doesn’t completely polarize the issue and spin it out of control. I’m more of the opinion that even though Current Sentiments do get in the way that as personifications they 1. have some perspective and as people they 2. have some interest in not throwing out a friendship that was a struggle to build up every time the polls change or some new radical party seizes power. I do a lot of research and I want that to be reflected in my understanding of each characters deep seated beliefs and motivations, but I don’t want to let either the history or the current realities dictate the future if I am going to try to do that myself.

why even am i doing it for

So like really the heart of the matter is: I am writing what I write for my thirteen year old self. She was the me who moved back to Canada from the United States, who’s first introduction to living there was a hellish surge of nationalism after September 11th. Who’s defense against that was to hide behind a shield of Canada is Better, Actually and who returned to Alberta during the boom years to realize that, oh wait, the rest of the country thinks we’re assholes just like they think the United States is. Who spent her teenage years learning that, boom or bust, the widespread sentiment in and out of the province is just as narrow, shortsighted, self interested, and stubborn as her own fiction of What Canada Was Supposed to be Like. Who learned that propping up that image at the expense of her friendships was not worth it, that propping up that image at the expense of people who are suffering and dying under that image is not worth it. Who found herself rehashing the same sort of gut reaction defensiveness online because the Guilt and Apologizing on behalf of her province compared to others felt Really Heavy for a kid who didn’t have any clue what to do about it and was just there to have fun and learn some stuff.

So I’m writing for anyone else who finds themselves exhausted and saddened by coming online and seeing that the only way that people can imagine Alberta is as an antagonist. I’d like to challenge everyone to start to imagine it better. It’s my little “escape” from reality, and for me it’s much easier to talk to people here where the stakes aren’t as high and the grievances a little less personal.

I’m also writing (in a more secondary way) for everyone who’s ever looked at alberta from afar and wondered What is going On inside your Head and is it always This

(no comment at this time)

as always, I’m here to explain At The Very Least what goes on in My head because at the end of the day, that’s all I can do. And though there are some things that make me angry and emotional, I’m happy to explain why. Happy to answer asks or chat on discord or whatever, any time I have the time. :)

footnotes

*This is just a footnote to say something I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of my comments, but this is an annoyance that me and my Texas Tomodachi share lol

**You’ll notice angry Albertans online have a favourite tactic, and that’s pointing out hypocrisy. They can justify A N y T h I n G by calling another province a hypocrite “so there” (i.e. BC can’t claim to be environmentally conscious because of Victoria’s sewage problem or Site C) - and while I am interested in shattering the image of Alberta vs. the Perfect Rest of Canada a little bit, I feel like it’s a very lazy argument that is used to deflect and not to help. I think it is more useful to unpack the sentiment of Why Alberta Still Feels Taken Advantage of rather than mudslinging, and when the mud starts flying no one seems interested in addressing problems anymore.

#hapo rambles #hapo replies #hapo rants #yeah y yeah alberta #projectcanada #iammatthewian #pc: alberta #iamp: alberta #Anonymous #will i actually directly address the survey #maybe later but i have other stuff to do #you can remind me

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bereft-of-frogs · 4 years

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Have you spoken at all about how you got into death? It’s so not part of the astronaut/doctor/firefighter career options, and I’m curious about how you found it and what drew you to it.

Ha, I guess I haven’t talked about it because it’s not that interesting of a story. It really started more because I wanted to be an academic. Like, the problems with the academy and the university job pool (or lack thereof LOL) aside, all I’ve really wanted to do is read things. And write things. And talk incessantly about whatever I’ve learned. It just so happens that gradually that turned into my working in the broader field of death studies and people usually don’t want me to talk about it outside of October. (My time. to. shine.) But I think it’s secretly the way most people in academics find their subjects - you write one paper, and then another, and then you can’t think of anything to write for your next class and hey how do you think we could make this term paper about X subject- and it builds from there until you find yourself staring down a thesis.

So there wasn’t any real ‘grad school application essay’ moment. It’s not even about like...my parents being in medicine? Though that had certainly helped to desensitize beforehand. It was definitely in college...I don’t even really remember the first paper I wrote that centered on death. I vaguely remember the class it was for...I’m pretty sure it was very bad and I don’t think I got a good grade on it. I do remember the second, because it was about cemeteries and ritualized burial that’s when I was like ‘oh wait cemeteries are interesting.’ I did get a very good grade on it, and a lot of praise from the prof, another reason I think I got in so deep. Because fairly early on I started getting positive feedback, so it was like...’oh this makes it easy to choose paper topics and I get that sweet sweet validation for it, sign me up for this.’ I started reaching for it as a topic when I couldn’t think of paper topics.

I’m fortunate in a way because ‘death’ is a very broad topic and it is also truly universal - ‘we’re all riding that bus,’ a woman once said to me after a tour. So it’s very easy to grab onto that as a rough base to work from and approach whatever term assignment you’re given through that lens. It’s something that happens to everyone, is a major part of every culture, but is so different depending on cultural context and I find it so interesting to see how that’s changed through time. (Why I ultimately switched from anthropology to history for my MA.) I try not to be too sensational about it. While working at a crypt, I actually had a whole conflict with an outside tour company because I wasn’t a huge fan of how they stretched stories to make things seem gruesome or spooky. Like, sure I’m a spooky bitch, but when I’m actually talking about real funeral rituals or burial practices, I’m not about making it look grotesque. I’m very much more in favor a nonjudgmental, nonsensational exploration of this common experience.

(I guess I’m really more of a spooky bitch about ghosts. I like ghost stories, I really do. What I took issue with was I was trying to approach the interpretation of our site as, ‘here are some common ways that people in the 18th and 19th century processed death and the rituals they did’ and there was a specific outside company that always wanted to make it like ‘isn’t that just horrifying?’ about practices that were quite normal in their context. Or just plain making up ghost stories. I worked there for several years and I knew the origins of every ghost story they tried to tell, so I could see the way they were expanded on in each retelling. It wasn’t haunted. And I do actually believe in ghosts. (#boogara) But that crypt wasn’t haunted. Now, the small cemetery in the marshes by the house I grew up in...that was haunted.)

So yeah, anyways, the start was just...I just...kept writing papers. I actually thought of it at first as a “lazy” way of choosing paper topics - but by the time I showed up to grad school I realized that’s just how academics get into specialties. That’s how you start to become more of an expert in your field. You cover the broad strokes first, start reading the foundational texts, then get more and more specific as you go on. You get to the point where you’re able to say shit like, “I really liked this article, but I don’t quite agree with the author’s interpretation of Gorer.” It’s fun.

Thanks for asking anon! It helped to remind me why I got into this whole thing in the first place; I genuinely like reading and writing about stuff. (Grad school ended...poorly...for reasons that were not related to my performance or subject. There’s some bits in the #academic adventures tag if you’re curious.) And also a good reminder that 1) I should really write that essay about death in media because there’s a new show out I can work in to be #relevant and also I have come too far and worked too hard to let my career die because of what happened (even though it was also valid that was a super traumatizing experience) 2) I have so clearly replaced my academic career with fanfiction. I’m not even mad. I’m not even going to fight it. Just know that the number of fics I write that take their titles from folk songs and/or poems about death is probably going to continue to rise. Just a heads up. I’m not going to fight it. There will probably be more footnoting. I’m sorry.

(I’m not sorry.)

#also yes guilded crypt tours are fairly rare in north america #if you somehow piece together where i worked from context clues #let's keep that between us k?#i should probably be more careful with identifying information #anyway #thanks for asking!#this was fun #i should probably go to bed now #death studies #long post #Anonymous

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innuendostudios · 5 years

Text

Research Masterpost

Legend: Titles in bold -> finished Titles in italics -> partially finished *** -> livetweeted as part of #IanLivetweetsHisResearch (asterisks will be a link) The book I am currently reading will be marked as such.

Media Manipulation & Disinformation Online, by Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis Alternative Influence, by Rebecca Lewis The Authoritarians, by Bob Altemeyer*** Eclipse of Reason, by Max Horkheimer Civility in the Digital Age, by Andrea Weckerle The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt On Revolution, by Hannah Arendt Don’t Think of an Elephant, by George Lakoff The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein How Propaganda Works, by Jason Stanley*** This is an Uprising, by Mark and Paul Engler Neoreaction a Basilisk, by Elizabeth Sandifer This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed, by Charles E. Cobb, Jr. Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson Healing from Hate, by Michael Kimmel The Brainwashing of my Dad, doc by Jen Senko On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt The Reactionary Mind, by Corey Robin*** Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X. Kendi Fascism Today, by Shane Burley Indoctrination over Objectivity?, by Marrissa S. Ballard Ur-Fascism, by Umberto Eco Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, by Lindsay C. Gibson Anti-Semite and Jew, by Jean-Paul Sartre Alt-America, by David Neiwert*** The Dictator’s Handbook, by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Alastair Smith Terror, Love, and Brainwashing, by Alexandra Stein Kaputt, by Curzio Malaparte The Anatomy of Fascism, by Robert O. Paxton Neoliberalism and the Far Right, by Neil Davidson and Richard Saull Trolls Just Want to Have Fun, by Erin E. Buckels, et al The Entrepreneurial State, by Mariana Mazzucato

Media Manipulation & Disinformation Online, by Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis (free: link) A monstrously useful report from Data & Society which- coupled with Samuel R. Delany’s memoir The Motion of Light in Water - formed the backbone of the Mainstreaming video. I barely scratched the surface of how many techniques the Far Right uses to inflate their power and influence. If you feel lost in a sea of Al-Right bullshit, this will at least help you understand how things got the way they are, and maybe help you discern truth from twaddle.

The Authoritarians, by Bob Altemeyer (free: link) (livetweets) A free book full of research from Bob Altemeyer’s decades of study into authoritarianism. Altemeyer writes conversationally, even jovially, peppering what could have been a dense and dry work with dad jokes. I wouldn’t say he’s funny (most dads aren’t), but it makes the book blessedly accessible. If you ever wanted a ton of data demonstrating that authoritarianism is deeply correlated with conservatism, this is the book. One of the most useful resources I’ve consumed so far, heavily influencing the entire series but most directly the video on White Fascism. Even has some suggestions for how to actually change the mind of a reactionary, which is kind of the Holy Grail of LeftTube.

(caveats: there is a point in the book where Altemeyer throws a little shade on George Lakoff, and I feel he slightly - though not egregiously - misrepresents Lakoff’s arguments)

Don’t Think of an Elephant, by George Lakoff An extremely useful book about framing. Delves into the differences between the American Right and Left when it comes to messaging, how liberal politicians tend to have degrees in things like Political Science and Rhetoric, where conservatives far more often have degrees in Marketing. This leads to two different cultures, where liberals have Enlightenment-style beliefs that all you need is good ideas and conservatives know an idea will only be popular if you know how to sell it. He gets into the nuts and bolts of how to keep control of a narrative, because the truth is only effective if the audience recognizes it as such. Kind of staggering how many Democrats swear by this book while blatantly taking none of its advice. Lakoff has been all over the series since the first proper video.

(caveats: several. Lakoff seemingly believes the main difference between the Right and Left is in our default frames, and that swaying conservatives amounts to little more than finding better ways to make the same arguments. he deeply underestimates the ideological divide between Parties, and some of his advice reads as tips for making debates more pleasant but no more productive. he also makes a passing comparison between conservatism and Islam that means well but is a gross and kinda racist false equivalence)

How Propaganda Works, by Jason Stanley (livetweets) A slog. Many useful concepts, and directly referenced in the White Fascism video. But could have said everything it needed to say in half as many pages. Stanley seems dedicated to framing everything in epistemological terms, not appealing to morality or sentiment, which means huge sections of the book are given over to “proving” democracy is a good thing using only philosophical concepts, when “democracy good” is probably something his readership already accepts. Also has a frustrating tendency to begin every paragraph with a brief summary of the previous paragraph. When he actually talks about, you know, how propaganda works, it’s very useful, and I don’t regret reading it. But I don’t entirely recommend it. Seems written for an imagined PhD review board. Might be better off reading my livetweets.

Neoreaction a Basilisk, by Elizabeth Sandier A trip. Similar to Jason Stanley, Sandifer is dedicated to “disproving” a number of Far Right ideologies - from transphobia to libertarianism to The Singularity - in purely philosophical terms. The difference is, she’s having fun with it. I won’t pretend the title essay - a 140-page mammoth - didn’t lose me several times, and someone had to remind which of its many threads was the thesis. And some stretches are dense, academic writing punctuated with vulgarity and (actually quite clever) jokes, which doesn’t always average out to the playfully heady tone she’s going for. But, still, frequently brilliant and never less than interesting. There is something genuinely cathartic about a book that begins with the premise that we all fear but won’t let ourselves meaningfully consider - that we will lose the fight with the Right and climate change is going to kill us all - and talks about what we can do in that event. I felt I didn’t even have to agree with the premise to feel strangely empowered by it. Informed the White Fascism video’s comments on transphobia as the next frontier of bigotry since failing to prevent marriage equality.

On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt Was surprised to find this isn’t properly a book, just a printed essay. Highly relevant passage that helped form my description of 4chan in The Card Says Moops: “What tends to go on in a bull session is that the participants try out various thoughts and attitudes in order to see how it feels to hear themselves saying such things and in order to discover how others respond, without its being assumed that they are committed to what they say: it is understood by everyone in a bull session that the statements people make do not necessarily reveal what they really believe or how they really feel. The main point is to make possible a high level of candor and an experimental or adventuresome approach to the subjects under discussion. Therefore provision is made for enjoying a certain irresponsibility, so that people will be encouraged to convey what is on their minds without too much anxiety that they will be held to it. [paragraph break] Each of the contributors to a bull session relies, in other words, upon a general recognition that what he expresses or says is not to be understood as being what he means wholeheartedly or believes unequivocally to be true. The purpose of the conversation is not to communicate beliefs.”

The Reactionary Mind, by Corey Robin (livetweets) Another freakishly useful book, and the basis for Always a Bigger Fish and The Origins of Conservatism. Jumping into the history of conservative thought, going all the way back to Thomas Hobbes, to stress that conservatism is, and always has been, about preserving social hierarchies and defending the powerful. Robin dissects thinkers who heavily influenced conservatism, from Edmund Burke and Friedrich Nietzsche to Carl Menger and Ayn Rand, and finally concluding with Trump himself. There’s a lot of insight into how the conservative mind works, though precious little comment on what we can do about it, which somewhat robs the book of a conclusion. Still, the way it bounces off of Don’t Think of an Elephant and The Authoritarians really brings the Right into focus.

Fascism Today, by Shane Burley Yet another influence on the White Fascism video. Bit of a mixed bag. The opening gives a proper definition of fascism, which is extremely useful. Then the main stretch delves into the landscape of modern fascism, from Alt-Right to Alt-Lite to neofolk pagans to the Proud Boys and on and on. Sometimes feels overly comprehensive, but insights abound on the intersections of all these belief systems (Burley pointing out that the Alt-Right is, in essence, the gentrification of working-class white nationalists like neo-Nazi skinheads and the KKK was a real eye-opener). But the full title is Fascism Today: What it is and How to End it, and it feels lacking in the second part. Final stretch mostly lists a bunch of efforts to address fascism that already exist, how they’ve historically been effective, and suggestions for getting involved. Precious few new ideas there. And maybe the truth is that we already have all the tools we need to fight fascism and we simply need to employ them, and being told so is just narratively unsatisfying. Or maybe it’s a structural problem with the book, that it doesn’t reveal a core to fascism the way Altemeyer reveals a core to authoritarianism and Robin reveals a core to conservatism, so I don’t come away feeling like I get fascism well enough to fight it. But, also, Burley makes it clear that modern fascism is a rapidly evolving virus, and being told that old ways are still the best ways isn’t very satisfying. If antifascism isn’t evolving at least as rapidly, it doesn’t seem like we’re going to win.

(caveats: myriad. for one, Burley repeatedly quotes Angela Nagle’s Kill All Normies, which does not inspire confidence. he also talks about “doxxing fascists” as a viable strategy without going into the differences between “linking a name to a face at a public event” and “hacking someone’s email to publicly reveal their bank information,” where the former is the strategy that fights fascism and the latter is vigilantism that is practiced widely on the Right and only by the worst actors on the Left. finally, the one section where Burley discusses an area I had already thoroughly researched was GamerGate, and he got quite a few facts wrong, which makes me question how accurate all the parts I hadn’t researched were. I don’t want to drive anyone away from the book, because it was still quite useful, but I recommend reading it only in concert with a lot of other sources so you don’t get a skewed perspective.)

Healing from Hate, by Michael Kimmel (Michael Kimmel, it turns out, is a scumbag. This book’s main thesis is that we need to look at violent extremism through the lens of toxic masculinity, so Kimmel’s toxic history with women is massively disappointing. Book itself is, in many ways, good, but, you know, retweets are not endorsement.)

A 4-part examination of how men get into violent extremism through the lens of the organizations that help them get out: EXIT in Germany and Sweden, Life After Hate in the US, and The Quilliam Foundation in Europe and North America. Emphasizing that entry into white nationalism - and, to an extent, jihadism - is less ideological than social. Young men enter these movements out of a need for community, purpose, and a place to put their anger. They feel displaced and mistreated by society - and often, very tangibly, are - and extremism offers a way to prove their manhood. Feelings of emasculation is a major theme. The actual politics of extremism are adopted gradually. They are, in a sense, the price of admission for the community and the sense of purpose. The most successful exit strategies are those that address these feelings of loneliness and emasculation and build social networks outside the movement, and not ones that address ideology first - the ideology tends to wither with the change in environment. The book itself can be a bit repetitive, but these observations are very enlightening.

(caveats: the final chapter on militant Islam is deeply flawed. Kimmel clearly didn’t get as much access to Qulliam as he had to EXIT and Life After Hate, so his data is based far less on direct interviews with counselors and former extremists and much more on other people’s research. despite the chapter stressing that a major source of Muslim alienation is racism, Kimmel focuses uncomfortably much on white voices - the majority of researchers he quotes are white Westerners, and the few interviews he manages are mostly with white converts to Islam rather than Arabs or South Asians. all in all, the research feels thinner, and his claims about militant Islam seem much more conjectural when they don’t read as echos of other people’s opinions.)

Terror, Love and Brainwashing, by Alexandra Stein A look at totalitarian governments and cults through the lens of attachment theory. While not explicitly about the Far Right, it’s interesting to see the overlap between this and Healing from Hate. Stein stresses that the control dynamics she discusses are not exclusive to cults, and are, in fact, the same ones as in abusive relationships; cults are just the most extreme version. So you can see many similar dynamics in Far Right organizations, like the Aryan Nations or the Proud Boys. It’s made me curious how many of these dynamics are in play in the distributed, less controlled environment of online extremism, and makes me want to look further into the subject before drawing conclusions.

(caveats: book is, as with How Propaganda Works, sometimes a slog and rather repetitive. I clocked a 4-page stretch in chapter 8 where Stein did not say a single thing that hadn’t been said multiple times in previous chapters. also, when talking about people coerced into highly-controlled lifestyles, she offhandedly includes “prostitutes” among them? it’s that liberal conflation of sex work and trafficking which is really not cool. this isn’t a major point, just something to notice while you read it.)

Alt-America, by David Neiwert (livetweets) A look at the actual formation of the Alt-Right, and the history that led up to it: the Militia and Patriot movements of the 90′s, the Tea Party, the rise of Alex Jones and Glenn Beck, and so on. Having been steeped in the rhetoric and tactics of the Far Right for so long, someone doing the work of sitting down and putting it all in chronological order is immensely helpful. Generally clear and well-written, too, and would be an easy read if not for how goddamn depressing the content is. Has an unfortunate final 7 pages, where Neiwert starts recommending actual policy. Falls into the usual “have empathetic conversations with genuine conservatives to turn them against the fascist wing taking over their party,” not recognizing the ways in which conservatism is continuous with fascism, nor the ways that trying to appeal to moderate conservatives alienates the people whose rights they deny. Means an extremely valuable book leaves a bad taste in the final stretch, but everything up to then is aces.

#the alt-right playbook #alt-right

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ninequestions9 · 4 years

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Lowell, 24, Part Time Worker at Edible Arrangements and Michael’s

What is the biggest frustration you’re facing now?

My biggest frustration is within myself. Nothing external in the world has really given me any frustration. I’ve recently come into some very bad habits and a lot of it was through this relationship I was just in that was really destructive. I think we didn’t really get along well ultimately because we didn’t promote good behaviors in each other. Not to put it all on the relationship because every relationship takes two to tango. A lot of that came from me allowing it to happen. You can see why a lot of that frustration is internal. I’ve gotten past that relationship though and I’m looking forward to an excellent 2020 because I finally feel like I’m able to receive the external love.

2. What trait do you wish you most had?

It’s a combination of perspective and empathy. People throw around the word empathy a lot like you care about other people. That’s a very simple version of it. But that’s not what empathy ultimately is. Empathy is similar to an out of body experience. You actually empathize with them, how they’re feeling, what their perspective is in a way that doesn’t directly relate to your own perspective. That’s really hard to do. I feel like a lot of stuff that I’ve learned since ending that relationship was like getting a different perspective of myself and what life is. I think it’s a part of growing up and becoming an adult. You learn a lot of stuff that you don’t get when you’re not an adult. It’s a difficult time to be in.

3. What are 3 characteristics you look for in a friend?

Honesty, humor. That’s all it takes. The third one would be non-malevolence. If you’re a nice person and you’re genuine then, sure. Honesty…be an honest person. Don’t lie and sneak around. Humor, be a fun person. Be a fun person to joke around with. I often think about humor as a way of learning. Humor is learning. It’s a novel thing that you experience because it’s new. Usually if you’re a humorous person it means you’re fairly intelligent and you’re interesting and you’re curious. Non-malevolence is like don’t be evil, but the more people I meet the more I realize that evil people are so rare in the world. Most people are really genuine people who aren’t trying to screw you over, but some people are so you can never be too sure.

4. What makes you feel brave?

Bravery usually requires action. Like be brave and go into that cave or be brave and face something. If the act is for someone else that I care about then I’m really brave. This New Years party in particular is a big thing that I do for the people that I care about. I’m always motivated every year to do it even through the hard times. So other people make me brave.

5. What makes you feel vulnerable?

I’ve been described as a person who is really easily vulnerable. I really put myself out there. I’m a a lot all at once. It’s a lot for most people. People get thrown off by that I think. It doesn’t take much to make me feel vulnerable. I try not to put myself in a shell too much.

6. What was your proudest moment?

I was in undergrad and my economics teacher….we had an instant connection in the class room. The lecture was something about time travel and I gave an answer about it or something and it was like a joke, but then the professor immediately responded with a rebuttal to what I was saying and it was a deadpan serious rebuttal, she wasn’t treating it like a joke. It struck me and it was so unique. I told her I’d meet her in her office afterwards to discuss and we did. That’s an example of how she’s special. One day after an exam came back and the deal was if you think there’s any discrepancy like if you think there’s anyway to challenge what the professor graded you then you can bring it up. So I was looking through it and I read a question again and I saw it was marked wrong. This is logically true what I’ve answered and I went through it like 4 or 5 times. I went to her office afterwards and I was like “This is the case. This is logically wrong and I should logically be correct.” It was clear she did not expect this and she was not happy about a student challenging her in this way. It was so natural to me. This is just what you do. If the question is marked wrong then bring it forward, but it was perceived as a challenge. We got into this discussion about what was communicated in class. It went like two or three layers deep this discussion. At one point she became visibly angry, but she has class so she kept it low and simmering. I realized I’m on the wire now. It completely threw me off and I realized like I need to give her something. In the end I convinced her that this is logically true.

The next class, she started off by saying “A student has come to me about the exam and I marked him wrong and he came and presented it in such a way.” She basically gave a play by play of our discussion. She said that she believed in her heart that this student does not have a dishonest bone in his body. Then she gave a modified version of the question for everyone to answer. She did that because of our discussion and it just hit me like, Oh my fucking God, I had an effect. We had a heart to heart. I went to her after class and I thanked her for what she did.

7. Who is your role model / hero and why?

My role model is Mark Rosewater. He is the lead designer for Magic the Gathering. It’s like a nerd’s heaven. I’m getting my brother-in-law into it and we’re playing a little bit. I’ve never really understood for most of my life, idols. Why would you idolize someone? I didn’t look up to anybody. Then it struck me very recently….I was reading a blog that he write about Magic the Gathering and one week he posted a blog post. He was like “It’s a special week and I’m going to post about something completely different from Magic the Gathering.” It was an article about hosting a party. It was all about giving good advice to party hosters and what makes a good party. It was really good advice. It was fascinating and I like hosting. He is such a multifaceted dude. He used to be like a full time comedian and he used to be a regular game designer, but he landed as head designer for Magic the fucking Gathering. He’s called it his dream job on multiple occasions. He’s been exposed to everything. He was a jack of all trades until he just happen to fall into his perfect job. He’s my role model. That’s how I want to be. Just jack of all trades until I can find something.

8. What is one life lesson you’d like to pass down to future generations?

I don’t think I’ve learned that lesson yet.

9. What is your opinion of Jesus?

Jesus was a pretty good guy. I haven’t read the Bible in a while. I’d like to read the Bible again. I want one of those versions that have the words of God in red. It makes it a little more clear of what the actual message was. I’d want to read the new testament because no where did Jesus Christ say call people who are different from you The Other. It’s scary. I don’t think it’s Christian like in the truest sense. Alan Watts is a kind of quirky dude. He’s a religious academic, or he was. He was really popular during the late 1970’s and he’s a little hippy dippy to be honest. I think he offers some really unique perspectives on Christianity and religion as an idea that you don’t often hear. He had a really good one on Christianity. He said that calling Jesus Christ the Son of God is a translation thing. The best they could do at the time that they translated the new testament to English was at a time when “the son of” was a legitimate translation of “one with,” which is the more accurate translation of what it was. That changes the whole reading doesn’t it? Every instance of “son of” becomes “one with.” Jesus was one with God. He and God are the same. He’s not like a son in the sense; he’s not a different being. It’s wild. That’s why they call it the great paradox. How can you be three in one? Yet, here it is Jesus and God are one. It’s beautiful and it’s incredibly democratic. Watt’s view is that this man on earth became one with God.

He is a man on earth who is birthed. You and him are the same, reader. He’s a human and he is God-like. He’s divine. It’s very democratic. God isn’t some being out there. He’s here on earth with you. He’s here to talk with you. Incredibly familial and friendly. Like one on one. In a way that the concept of God could never be in that sense.

I’ll take a quick aside to tell a Christian short story that I think perfectly describes what I just described. There was a man and it was Christmas Eve. The man was not religious anymore. He was over the whole God thing. This man thought how could God be so ludicrous. If God is all powerful, surely he’d be able to talk to me. He can do anything he wants, why can’t he just speak to me directly and not send down this messenger. The rest of his family went to church that night for Christmas Eve service and he stayed in the cold farm house. It’s a freezing blizzard outside. He looks out the window and sees this bird in the blizzard. An injured baby bird flopping around on the ground. He’s like, oh my god it’s going to freeze to death. He had empathy and compassion so he said I gotta save this bird. I gotta get you and bring you into the barn where you’ll be warm and at least you won’t die. The bird wouldn’t listen. The bird was freaking out when he approached him to guide him. The bird was flapping and injuring himself even more. The man was like, why doesn’t this bird do what I want him to do? I’m trying to help it out, why doesn’t it just listen? That’s when it occurred to him that God must have had the same problem. I think it’s all well and good the whole Jesus idea. But the way that’s it’s being practiced now a days is not to those beliefs. That’s my firm opinion of Jesus Christ. I think he’s an excellent man, but I think he’s losing sight of his flock if you ask me.

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eabhaalynn · 5 years

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Your Local A-Level Survival Guide

If you’re reading this, I’m sorry.

It probably means you’re doing a-levels. That is… unfortunate.

Everyone has a different experience of their a-level years. For me, they were the most enjoyable two years of my school career. I found some of the best friends in the world and honestly learned so much, both in and out of school. However even I have to say that the exams were the WORST. There were too many tears, tantrums and existential crisis’ to count.

And yet, I survived them. And I have so many friends who survived them too. And if I can get through them in one piece, anyone can.

So; here’s a little advice on how to survive the stresses of sixth form, both in school and out, and maybe even get a few a-levels along the way. I’ve split them into revision tips, school life and social life because this post is a fairly hefty read. (sorry again!)

STU(DYING)

1. Make notes as you go along.

You will LOVE yourself for this in June. A-Level content isn’t anything close to GCSE content, and you simply will not have time to start writing notes and learn them all around exam time.

Try to keep within a day of your class with your own notes and if you fall behind during the week, try to get caught up that weekend.

Find a note-taking style that fits how you learn. I personally realised in my upper sixth year – just a tiny bit late - that I loved making and learning off of summary posters. Trying out different ways of note taking will do no harm.

2. Ask if you need help

Your teachers and friends are all on your side. You are not a burden for asking them to explain an idea to you again, or to reword something. Your teachers are literally being paid to help you, and your mates are in exactly the same position you are. Ask them for help if you need it, because a-levels really are very hard – and they only get harder if you try to go it alone.

3. Find somewhere you can bare to study in

In school, if you have a choice of study rooms, spend your free time in ones you like – okay, maybe tolerate – being in. At GCSE we only had one study and I hated it, but at A-Level I had the choice of two, with a definite favourite, and it really makes the difference.

Make friends with your study supervisors, they have the power to make or break your a-level years.

At home, study where you’re comfortable. But not too comfortable. Your leavers hoodie will become your wearable hug over study leave and I also highly recommend investing in comfy tracksuit bottoms. You get used to looking like a tent most of the time

My favourite places to study were the public library and various coffee shops around the town I studied in. They were less strict than school, but still required more discipline than trying to study in my bedroom. Just try not to develop a caffeine dependency over the next two years because I certainly did.

4. Don’t compare yourself to others.

You are not your friends. You are different people, you probably have different ways of making your tea, and you almost certainly will have different ways of studying.

I remember around repeat season seeing my friend sit and do a booklet of twelve past papers all day. To her credit, she did them all. I, on the other hand, did a total of one past paper over three repeat exams. We put the same hours in. We got the same grades in the end.

Other peoples work doesn't invalidate your own. Everyone is working with their own skills and capabilities.

5. Repeat everything you need to.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with repeating modules in upper sixth. There’s also absolutely nothing wrong with repeating upper or lower sixth.

The extended exam period (seven (!!) weeks) is awful; it is genuinely very difficult to avoid burnout, but your understanding of modules is so much better second time around and repeats almost always pay off.

You will meet a whole new group of friends through repeating modules, purely because it is so difficult that you have no choice but to cling on to the people that are going through it with you

6. Don’t do an unnecessary hard one

All A-Levels are hard. Some a-levels (chemistry and biology for me, also twitter tells me further maths) are very hard. Unless your Uni course requires those traditional, exceptionally hard subjects, don’t do them.

Pick your subjects around your interests, because your whole life is going to revolve around them for two years. Two years of interesting impossible exams beat two years of boring impossible exams any day.

No matter how much you love that fourth subject, don’t take it – and don’t keep it on – unless you absolutely have to. Your grades may suffer, your already limited free time will suffer, and there are very few cases where you will ever need it. I loved AS History with every fibre of my being, but for my course I didn’t need four subjects past AS and so it would have been unsustainable and unnecessary to keep on yet another academically challenging subject

7. Make use of the resources available to you.

Ask your older friends for their notes, borrow and buy textbooks, read relevant articles online.

My school was especially good for this, if you like making notes on a certain kind of paper (like A3 or squared for example) ask your teachers to get you some.

Use the free printing credits your school gives you! The internet is full of additional notes and papers and worksheets that are free and quite literally a click away.

SKOOL LIFE

1. You are the most important

No a-level is more important than you and your wellbeing. Take care of your mental and physical health throughout your studies. Nothing in this world is more important than that.

If you are suffering, tell someone! A-Levels can feel so lonely and sixth form can be a very high-pressure environment, but every adult in your school has a duty of care over you, and there is always someone to help you through it all; be it a friend, family member, teacher or youth worker.

2. Be nice!

- Schools are inherently toxic environments. Everyone is loaded with hormones and there are few things in this world scarier than a building full of stressed teenagers.Be nice to everyone you come across, no one loves a levels and most will really struggle through them. You only ever know a tiny bit of what is going on in someones life, so do try not to make anyone’s life any harder.

3. Take every opportunity that comes to you

- Take part in any extra curricular you can. You probably will learn more from them than you do in class, and you get the chance to make friends with people you’d never come across otherwise. I did debate, public speaking and the rotary award during my sixth form, and they all helped me so much to develop the soft skills and time management that eventually got me into my degree.

4. Set aside time for careers/admin

- It might not be a-level important, but you’ll find yourself with a lot of sorting out of your life to do throughout sixth form – especially if you’re applying to medicine or similar courses that require multi-step application processes.

5. There’s no right or wrong way to do sixth form

- A-Levels aren’t a one-way street. You may have to change subjects, you may have to take time out, you may end up sitting your courses at two different schools, over one or two or three years, and that is all okay. No matter what way you do it, you’re doing alright.

6. UCAS will ruin your life.

- UCAS is the sixth form version of the wee guy on the bus who would pick on you incessantly, and even though he was never that important, he’d always be there and never do anything worthwhile for your life.

- It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it is another thing to worry about, when you really don’t need it to be.

- Try to keep on top of it and get your application over with early. The emails from track will keep giving you the fear forever, even after you’ve had 3 straight up rejections, missed an offer, declined two different offers and confirmed your place.

SOCIAL LIFE (trust me it does exist)

1. Balance is everything

It is not normal to have your life be so centred around one place as much as it is during a-levels. As well as this, being 16 – 18 is literally the best time to be alive and make memories in your whole life. Spend lots of time on schoolwork, but not all of it.

2. You’re not going out too much

You work so unbelievably hard all week. You do deserve to go out sometimes.

My upper sixth was framed by panicking and feeling wracked with guilt every time I left my house or went on any night out. This is no way to feel There is more to life than a-levels and upper sixth is the last time in your life where all your school mates will be all together all the time. Make the most of it! (Just, also make notes)

3. Take a day off

Like literally, take a day off a week

I took Sundays off schoolwork in upper sixth, when I usually worked in the afternoon, had the morning to myself and the evening as a time to rest. This will keep you sane.

4. Make time for the friends you don’t see everyday

You won’t have a lot of free time, but if you make a conscious effort to see your far away friends every couple of weeks it always gives you something to look forward to.

5. Don’t give in to peer pressure

I promise it is so much fun to go out and not drink excessively. Don’t do hard drugs, don’t drink more than you can handle, especially not over term time. It’s just not worth it. Showing up to school hungover is not a good look, or any fun at all – no matter what your mates say. A-Levels are a stressful enough two years without losing all this extra time to hangovers and come downs.

6. Make good habits

If you have a spare evening during the week, go for a walk. Take the bus and walk one day a week instead of driving. Maybe even join a gym. As well as a distraction, exercise and a generally healthy lifestyle will get your endorphins flowing and you will notice a huge difference to your stress levels within a few weeks.

You’re going to need comfort food – trust me on that one. But if you’re going to substitute a healthy lunch for a chicken box and squashies, at least have a banana for breakfast. And never skip breakfast, it will make you a hangry, hanxious, horrible person.

Congratulations! You made it to the end. I really hope you’ve found at least some of this advice helpful, and that you get through sixth form with all of your sanity intact.

(I’d like to thank Julia Anusiak, Alexandra Rosbotham, Aoife Donaghy, Maeve Denver, Gabrielle Carland, Caitriona Fitzpatrick, Grace Craig and Jack Worrall for their contributions to this blog post)

#study #a level chemistry #a level #a level exams #study tips

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cornelisdemooij · 5 years

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Innuendo Studios Research Masterpost - With More Links

This is my research list for The Alt-Right Playbook. It is a living document - I am typically adding sources faster than I am finishing the ones already on it. Notes and links below the list. Also, please note this does not include the hundreds of articles and essays I’ve read that also inform the videos - this is books, reports, and a few documentaries. Legend: Titles in bold -> finished Titles in italics -> partially finished *** -> livetweeted as part of #IanLivetweetsHisResearch (asterisks will be a link) The book I am currently reading will be marked as such. Media Manipulation & Disinformation Online, by Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis Alternative Influence, by Rebecca Lewis The Authoritarians, by Bob Altemeyer*** Eclipse of Reason, by Max Horkheimer Civility in the Digital Age, by Andrea Weckerle The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt On Revolution, by Hannah Arendt Don’t Think of an Elephant, by George Lakoff The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein How Propaganda Works, by Jason Stanley*** This is an Uprising, by Mark and Paul Engler Neoreaction a Basilisk, by Elizabeth Sandifer (Patreon) This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed, by Charles E. Cobb, Jr. Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson Healing from Hate, by Michael Kimmel The Brainwashing of my Dad, documentary by Jen Senko On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt The Reactionary Mind, by Corey Robin*** Stamped from the Beginning, Ibram X. Kendi Fascism Today, by Shane Burley Indoctrination over Objectivity?, by Marrissa S. Ballard Ur-Fascism, by Umberto Eco Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, by Lindsay C. Gibson Anti-Semite and Jew, by Jean-Paul Sartre Alt-America, by David Neiwert The Dictator’s Handbook, by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Alastair Smith Terror, Love, and Brainwashing, by Alexandra Stein <- (currently reading) Kaputt, by Curzio Malaparte The Motion of Light in Water, by Samuel R. Delany Media Manipulation & Disinformation Online, by Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis (free: link) A monstrously useful report from Data & Society which- coupled with Samuel R. Delany’s memoir The Motion of Light in Water - formed the backbone of the Mainstreaming video. I barely scratched the surface of how many techniques the Far Right uses to inflate their power and influence. If you feel lost in a sea of Alt-Right bullshit, this will at least help you understand how things got the way they are, and maybe help you discern truth from twaddle. The Authoritarians, by Bob Altemeyer (free: link) (livetweets) A free book full of research from Bob Altemeyer’s decades of study into authoritarianism. Altemeyer writes conversationally, even jovially, peppering what could have been a dense and dry work with dad jokes. I wouldn’t say he’s funny (most dads aren’t), but it makes the book blessedly accessible. If you ever wanted a ton of data demonstrating that authoritarianism is deeply correlated with conservatism, this is the book. One of the most useful resources I’ve consumed so far, heavily influencing the entire series but most directly the video on White Fascism. Even has some suggestions for how to actually change the mind of a reactionary, which is kind of the Holy Grail of LeftTube. (caveats: there is a point in the book where Altemeyer throws a little shade on George Lakoff, and I feel he slightly - though not egregiously - misrepresents Lakoff’s arguments) Don’t Think of an Elephant, by George Lakoff An extremely useful book about framing. Delves into the differences between the American Right and Left when it comes to messaging, how liberal politicians tend to have degrees in things like Political Science and Rhetoric, where conservatives far more often have degrees in Marketing. This leads to two different cultures, where liberals have Enlightenment-style beliefs that all you need is good ideas and conservatives know an idea will only be popular if you know how to sell it. He gets into the nuts and bolts of how to keep control of a narrative, because the truth is only effective if the audience recognizes it as such. Kind of staggering how many Democrats swear by this book while blatantly taking none of its advice. Lakoff has been all over the series since the first proper video. (caveats: several. Lakoff seemingly believes the main difference between the Right and Left is in our default frames, and that swaying conservatives amounts to little more than finding better ways to make the same arguments. he deeply underestimates the ideological divide between Parties, and some of his advice reads as tips for making debates more pleasant but no more productive. he also makes a passing comparison between conservatism and Islam that means well but is a gross and kinda racist false equivalence) How Propaganda Works, by Jason Stanley (livetweets) A slog. Many useful concepts, and directly referenced in the White Fascism video. But could have said everything it needed to say in half as many pages. Stanley seems dedicated to framing everything in epistemological terms, not appealing to morality or sentiment, which means huge sections of the book are given over to “proving” democracy is a good thing using only philosophical concepts, when “democracy good” is probably something his readership already accepts. Also has a frustrating tendency to begin every paragraph with a brief summary of the previous paragraph. When he actually talks about, you know, how propaganda works, it’s very useful, and I don’t regret reading it. But I don’t entirely recommend it. Seems written for an imagined PhD review board. Might be better off reading my livetweets. Neoreaction a Basilisk, by Elizabeth Sandifer (Patreon) A trip. Similar to Jason Stanley, Sandifer is dedicated to “disproving” a number of Far Right ideologies - from transphobia to libertarianism to The Singularity - in purely philosophical terms. The difference is, she’s having fun with it. I won’t pretend the title essay - a 140-page mammoth - didn’t lose me several times, and someone had to remind which of its many threads was the thesis. And some stretches are dense, academic writing punctuated with vulgarity and (actually quite clever) jokes, which doesn’t always average out to the playfully heady tone she’s going for. But, still, frequently brilliant and never less than interesting. There is something genuinely cathartic about a book that begins with the premise that we all fear but won’t let ourselves meaningfully consider - that we will lose the fight with the Right and climate change is going to kill us all - and talks about what we can do in that event. I felt I didn’t even have to agree with the premise to feel strangely empowered by it. Informed the White Fascism video’s comments on transphobia as the next frontier of bigotry since failing to prevent marriage equality. On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt Was surprised to find this isn’t properly a book, just a printed essay. Highly relevant passage that helped form my description of 4chan in The Card Says Moops: “What tends to go on in a bull session is that the participants try out various thoughts and attitudes in order to see how it feels to hear themselves saying such things and in order to discover how others respond, without its being assumed that they are committed to what they say: it is understood by everyone in a bull session that the statements people make do not necessarily reveal what they really believe or how they really feel. The main point is to make possible a high level of candor and an experimental or adventuresome approach to the subjects under discussion. Therefore provision is made for enjoying a certain irresponsibility, so that people will be encouraged to convey what is on their minds without too much anxiety that they will be held to it. [paragraph break] Each of the contributors to a bull session relies, in other words, upon a general recognition that what he expresses or says is not to be understood as being what he means wholeheartedly or believes unequivocally to be true. The purpose of the conversation is not to communicate beliefs.” The Reactionary Mind, by Corey Robin (livetweets) Another freakishly useful book, and the basis for Always a Bigger Fish and The Origins of Conservatism. Jumping into the history of conservative thought, going all the way back to Thomas Hobbes, to stress that conservatism is, and always has been, about preserving social hierarchies and defending the powerful. Robin dissects thinkers who heavily influenced conservatism, from Edmund Burke and Friedrich Nietzsche to Carl Menger and Ayn Rand, and finally concluding with Trump himself. There’s a lot of insight into how the conservative mind works, though precious little comment on what we can do about it, which somewhat robs the book of a conclusion. Still, the way it bounces off of Don’t Think of an Elephant and The Authoritarians really brings the Right into focus. Fascism Today, by Shane Burley Yet another influence on the White Fascism video. Bit of a mixed bag. The opening gives a proper definition of fascism, which is extremely useful. Then the main stretch delves into the landscape of modern fascism, from Alt-Right to Alt-Lite to neofolk pagans to the Proud Boys and on and on. Sometimes feels overly comprehensive, but insights abound on the intersections of all these belief systems (Burley pointing out that the Alt-Right is, in essence, the gentrification of working-class white nationalists like neo-Nazi skinheads and the KKK was a real eye-opener). But the full title is Fascism Today: What it is and How to End it, and it feels lacking in the second part. Final stretch mostly lists a bunch of efforts to address fascism that already exist, how they’ve historically been effective, and suggestions for getting involved. Precious few new ideas there. And maybe the truth is that we already have all the tools we need to fight fascism and we simply need to employ them, and being told so is just narratively unsatisfying. Or maybe it’s a structural problem with the book, that it doesn’t reveal a core to fascism the way Altemeyer reveals a core to authoritarianism and Robin reveals a core to conservatism, so I don’t come away feeling like I get fascism well enough to fight it. But, also, Burley makes it clear that modern fascism is a rapidly evolving virus, and being told that old ways are still the best ways isn’t very satisfying. If antifascism isn’t evolving at least as rapidly, it doesn’t seem like we’re going to win. (caveats: myriad. For one, Burley repeatedly quotes Angela Nagle’s Kill All Normies, which does not inspire confidence. He also talks about “doxxing fascists” as a viable strategy without going into the differences between “linking a name to a face at a public event” and “hacking someone’s email to publicly reveal their bank information,” where the former is the strategy that fights fascism and the latter is vigilantism that is practiced widely on the Right and only by the worst actors on the Left. Finally, the one section where Burley discusses an area I had already thoroughly researched was GamerGate, and he got quite a few facts wrong, which makes me question how accurate all the parts I hadn’t researched were. I don’t want to drive anyone away from the book, because it was still quite useful, but I recommend reading it only in concert with a lot of other sources so you don’t get a skewed perspective.) Healing from Hate, by Michael Kimmel (Michael Kimmel, it turns out, is a scumbag. This book’s main thesis is that we need to look at violent extremism through the lens of toxic masculinity, so Kimmel’s toxic history with women is massively disappointing. Book itself is, in many ways, good, but, you know, retweets are not endorsement.) A 4-part examination of how men get into violent extremism through the lens of the organizations that help them get out: EXIT in Germany and Sweden, Life After Hate in the US, and The Quilliam Foundation in Europe and North America. Emphasizing that entry into white nationalism - and, to an extent, jihadism - is less ideological than social. Young men enter these movements out of a need for community, purpose, and a place to put their anger. They feel displaced and mistreated by society - and often, very tangibly, are - and extremism offers a way to prove their manhood. Feelings of emasculation is a major theme. The actual politics of extremism are adopted gradually. They are, in a sense, the price of admission for the community and the sense of purpose. The most successful exit strategies are those that address these feelings of loneliness and emasculation and build social networks outside the movement, and not ones that address ideology first - the ideology tends to wither with the change in environment. The book itself can be a bit repetitive, but these observations are very enlightening. (caveats: the final chapter on militant Islam is deeply flawed. Kimmel clearly didn’t get as much access to Qulliam as he had to EXIT and Life After Hate, so his data is based far less on direct interviews with counselors and former extremists and much more on other people’s research. despite the chapter stressing that a major source of Muslim alienation is racism, Kimmel focuses uncomfortably much on white voices - the majority of researchers he quotes are white Westerners, and the few interviews he manages are mostly with white converts to Islam rather than Arabs or South Asians. all in all, the research feels thinner, and his claims about militant Islam seem much more conjectural when they don’t read as echos of other people’s opinions.)

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howtogetanysteamgamefree253agame · 4 years

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How do I find all of my previous free games on steam

Need To Have Xbox Extras For Your Console

Games certainly are a fun interest for a lot of people and offer adventure for people spanning various ages. There are numerous points linked to video video games in general and it can be difficult to know each of the techniques. This article will provide any significant or newbie game addict together with the tips, secrets and cheats and recommendations that they need for movie video gaming achievement!

To enhance your speed and agility, turn down the background music. When you want to concentrate on an especially difficult activity or degree, look into the options for a method to turn off the in online game songs. Even if you are not regularly watching it, a little part of the human brain is. Transforming it off allows you to invest your full brain capacity to the video game.

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Shut off chatting features on games for kids that are fresh. You must not expose your young children to these sorts of communication. Avoid acquiring game titles that don't permit you to eliminate talk. Prior to making an order, speak to a person informed about the overall game.

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How to get steam to show only free games on queue

Games are a great way to spend time with your kids. These days children love actively playing online games. If you believe such as you aren't acquiring ample time together with your youngsters, enjoy online games using them. Present interest in whatever they are interested in and you can increase your romantic relationship.

Take into account your youngsters and when they can deal with video games scored "older". You can put in place consoles in order not so as to perform mature articles. This usually takes some talent, though it may also be carried out with a Laptop or computer. You should very carefully check the kids whenever they play online games.

Stay away from getting new games for consoles and personal computer systems. The normal commencing cost is sixty $ $ $ $, but frequently falls to fifty bucks in a couple weeks or several weeks. The longer you hold out to acquire a title, the cheaper it is going to be for you to get exactly the same game.

Monitor your child's video game actively playing. Many video games are actually performed on the internet where your youngster can communicate with anybody who is playing this game on-line. Question your kids about his online game playing and who he or she is talking to. You can even check into your child's video games method and set adult regulates that enable you power over what your son or daughter does throughout his video game engage in.

As you have just go through, there are many strategies to enjoy video games. When you go to a video activity shop, it can be frustrating to know how to method the field of video games. This article has hopefully really helped you open your eyes towards the new tricks and tips you can utilize for video gaming!

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blog-researchblog · 4 years

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Possible Future Educator

By: Morgan Hartlaub

Answers to the Serious Questions

I have always had an idea in my head of what I wanted to be when I grew up, a teacher. In order to be sure I answered Scott Christ’s “7 Most Powerful Questions To Find Out What You Want To Do With Your Life”. I used this article to find out if my answers correlated with what I believe being a teacher is all about.

As a child by parents would always ask me questions every day because they knew my answer would always be different. Every day my favorite food or favorite color would change by the time I had to go to bed. However, there was something that stopped changing by the time I hit first grade. Children are constantly asked what they would like to be when they grow up. My answer throughout elementary school was to be a teacher. I grew up with a learning disability that was not diagnosed until I was a year into school. This caused my learning to kind of come to a halt and I needed help in my academics, especially my reading. When a young child is not excelling at what is supposed to be the easiest years of their academic career they can become discouraged. I was lucky enough to have astounding teachers during elementary school that made school an enjoyable place rather than a setting I absolutely loathed. These experiences have caused me to really think of education as my major and has led me to where I am in life right now.

In life I am most passionate about working with kids, I feel most successful when I am able to help a child understand something. Whether that be how to correctly kick a ball or solve a math question. I was in an elementary seminar course my senior year in high school and genuinely enjoyed going to the school and helping the students. When I was there it did not feel like I was there for a grade, I just enjoyed being there. This led me to want to become a teacher.

If I could, I would travel the world and see as much as I could. I love traveling and seeing new places around the country. I am currently crossing off all the places I have seen. One day I hope to travel outside of the country, and really see the world. I appreciate learning about different cultures and traditions so I would like to see them firsthand. I would also want to help people. By being a teacher I can help people, the future generations of this country. I would be able to help my students everyday by teaching them things they need to know in order to be successful.

I have always valued education, whether that be higher education or elementary level. When I was in high school I was in the National Honor Society for my junior and senior year. In order to be in this society you had to have had a certain GPA, be involved in extracurriculars, and had a positive relationship with your teachers and fellow students. Being in this organization only increased my value on education, which I believe is another reason why I think I would enjoy being a teacher. As a teacher I believe that an unnamed task is to get our students to love learning and value education. So that the students are able to fully grasp what they are trying to learn.

Out of the individuals I listed that I admired, a good amount of them would have to be my past teachers. Majority of those teachers were elementary level as well. I think they did a great job making learning fun. Those teachers really made a difference for me, they made me actually enjoy coming to school. They worked with me and helped me stay on track and focused so that I could do the best I could. Another person I look up to is my aunt Sherry. She has been an educator for over ten years and has been telling me the joys and downfalls of being a teacher over the years. Through all those years at the end of the day you can still see the passion she has for teaching and that she could never see herself doing anything else.

After completing these seven questions I have looked over my answers and noticed that the profession of teaching could easily apply. I have already considered this option but would like to find out more information to be completely satisfied.

In order to get the real information on this field I checked out the Occupational Outlook Handbook, specifically the “Kindergarten and Elementary School Teachers” section. After reading these facts I realized that the aspects of my dream job correlated with this profession.

Getting the facts

According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, the field of elementary education is projected to grow, pay varies, and you can work in any state. This career is projected to grow, “overall employment of kindergarten and elementary teachers is projected to grow 3 percent from 2018 to 2028.”. After reading this one can tell that this job choice seems decently stable and jobs will continue to increase and become available. This growth is predicted based off of the increase in students over the past few years. The website explains that opportunities for this career vary based off of where the district is located. Differences such as pay and jobs occur when one compares suburban or urban school districts.

Kindergarten and Elementary teachers have multiple responsibilities. They have to create lesson plans for daily and even weekly lessons. Teachers have to cooperate with parents, other teachers, and even administration. They have to instruct small and larger groups of students at one time. Grading papers in another one of many other tasks teachers must complete.

Individuals can be teachers anywhere in the United States of America. All fifty states have hundreds of schools that need teachers to educate their students. Because of this one could live anywhere and teach. However, every school is different because of standards, pay, benefits, and funding. One might also need to get a new certification if they move to a different state to teach. Anyone that decides this career path will most likely not be limited as to where they have to live.

A kindergarten or elementary teacher’s average salary is $57,980. Early education teachers work the same days of a school week but also have extra duties. They attend meetings with their school’s administration, but also with their student’s parents. Overall, they work for ten months and then have two months off. The two months that teachers have off are for the student’s summer break.

This occupation is exactly what my career goal is. It was interesting to see all of the facts and statistics for my future job. I think the Occupational Outlook Handbook did a fine job explaining the job of a kindergarten or elementary teacher.

Since this is just information, I wanted to get some real-life insight into what a teacher’s life is actually like. To do this, I interviewed one of my professors from last semester.

Learning from a lifelong learner

In order to learn more about this career path I decided to interview professor Marissa Wallace. I selected this interviewee because of her experience and other jobs she obtained. Last semester I took SPU 205 with Wallace. This course discussed supporting children with special needs in a math setting. I am a dual major so I am hoping to be certified in not only elementary education but also special education. Because of this I was excited to learn Wallace’s answers since she specializes in the special education field.

I conducted this interview because I thought professor Wallace would be an interesting individual to interview. I find her other jobs quite interesting and her opinions well rounded. During class last semester the class would get involved in multiple discussions and sometimes even debates about topics in the education system. I was excited to sit down with her one on one to hear even more of what she had to say.

Wallace started as a psychology major when she graduated from Kutztown University in 2004. She says that it was because of her placement in a school that she decided to go into education. Her placement was at a nonprofit in Allentown, Pennsylvania. After talking with her I personally believe the school(s) she worked with has really shaped her as an educator. Wallace and I started talking about why she became an educator in the first place, “it was realizing that a teacher is more than just a content specialist, I could also build relationships with students and impact them. I could share knowledge with them.”. After she stated this I completely agreed with her and talked about how no matter the pay we will receive, at the end of the say we do this job because of our passion for it.

I started asking professor Wallace simpler questions that would relate to her personal experience. This answer really showed me just how much of a social individual Wallace is. She said that if she was not an educator she would still be in a career that is used to help people,“Life coach, really anything to help people. I am a big people person I could never be behind a desk that’s not my jam.”.

Professor Wallace thinks that the field of education is very stable and that the jobs of teachers will never not be necessary. She believes that even though education is constantly changing, the role of a teacher will never disappear and with that last sentence neither will their jobs. There are a lot of topics up for discussion in the education field right now such as year round and online schooling. Wallace thinks that year round schooling could be beneficial as long as the breaks do not interfere with retention plans for students with disabilities. Even though special education is one of my two majors I never thought of that possible disadvantage. While conducting my own research for year round schooling I never came across that point.

Online schooling came up during the interview, and through her personal experience professor Wallace thinks a student's transition from online to in class schooling can be difficult. Students' academic and social skills do not always line up with the ones expected of them.

After knowing Professor Wallace in class and getting to know her better through this interview it is obvious what she cares most about in the education system. Wallace is currently a professor at Kutztown University and an educational consultant but she was also a vice principal for three years. She was a vice principal in a charter school in Philadelphia. From her psychology placement in Allentown to working in Philadelphia professor Wallace has worked with a lot of children from urban schools and has firsthand see the type of funding and resources those schools are receiving. This topic is professor Wallace’s biggest concern with the education system of our country, “I definitely think the equity of resources and funding in our country. The politics of all of our students.”.

It was really interesting to see one of my professors' personal opinions come out during this interview. I enjoyed being able to hear her experiences in this field and what she has gotten out of it. When you go to your professors classes you do not tend to think of them being teachers themselves, starting right out of school just like you. Professor Wallace brought up a lot of good points that I myself have never heard or thought of. After listening to her I have definitely thought more about the funding and resources schools receive. I want to do more research on what different types of schools receive from the government.

Real Life For a Teacher

After conducting that interview with professor Marissa Wallace I wanted to find out more about finding and resources schools receive, based on if they are in suburban or urban settings. To do this I started looking for articles relating to those topics.

In the article “Segregation in Pennsylvania’s Schools: How a zip code determines the quality of a child’s education”, Jaqueline Palochko states that a child’s education is drastically different depending on where their school is located. Funding from the state varies from school to school, especially when comparing funding given to suburban or urban schools. Lack of funding can lead to lack of experiences for the students attending the schools. One big impact of low funding is the amount of technology that is incorporated into the classroom.

This article focuses on schools in the Lehigh Valley area located in Pennsylvania. This area is known to have more urban schools that find themselves receiving less funding and resources from the school. The schools in Allentown were highlighted in this article because of the amount of funding they receive. Less funding gives students less privileges in the classroom. These privileges can easily keep a child from getting the equal education they deserve. Then the lack of equality can cause students to not reach their full academic potential.

I chose this article because the topic interested me during my interview with professor Marissa Wallace. During my interview with her it was obvious were her passion laid in education, and that was making sure that education was equal no matte where a child received that education. After talking with her and being involved in discussions in her class last semester I agree, this topic is serious. Every child deserves to get the same education and have the same opportunities. I chose this article because it was able to give me real facts about this topic.

This topic correlates to my future career spot on. I intend to be a teacher one day and it is important for me to know about current things affecting schools and students. I want to be as informed as possible. Also, I currently attend Kutztown University which is rather close to Lehigh Valley so I will most likely end up conducting my student teaching hours at one of their schools. Therefore, it is crucial that I know what is going on at those schools.

From this article I learned a lot of interesting facts about this topic. I learned how an urban school receives less funding than a suburban school, especially in Pennsylvania. I learned more about the schools in my area as well, and how they operate. I would like to learn more about urban schools in other cities.

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a-woman-apart · 5 years

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Release the Outcome

Yesterday, I applied for a full-time job working for the library system of the city that I live in (my other job is one city over). I probably won’t hear back from them until after August 2nd, because that is when the posting comes down. This works perfectly for me, though, because I really do not want to leave my current position until the new people are more settled. It could be a long shot; I applied to library jobs in my city before and have never been selected for an interview. I also know that I limit my opportunities by only applying for jobs in one section (out of 6) of the city, but my only other economically reasonable option is also applying at the downtown branch and I cannot see my anxiety-ridden self making that drive daily.

My main goal right now is to just keep pursuing opportunities while remaining detached from the outcome. I am tentatively looking into more volunteer opportunities, but nothing is jumping out at me. Sometimes, I think about the types of volunteer positions that would look better on a resume, or help to give me “marketable skills or “build identity capital” but my boyfriend scolded me about that and encouraged me to just volunteer for whatever I care about, regardless of whether it will benefit me in the workplace. He is right. I have been so caught up in the hustle culture (albeit more focused on academics) that I have started to lose sight of what is important. We need to be able to strike a balance between working to survive and achieve things we genuinely want and being work-obsessed.

I realize that in my position, even as a neurodivergent and marginalized person, I hold incredible privilege. Friends and family have helped support me financially, and although it will be going away in a few years (or very soon, depending on my income), I receive assistance from the government in the form of my SSDI. It is both temporary and not nearly enough by itself to survive on in a city like this, but it provides something to fall back on, and has enabled me to work part-time while pursuing my education.

As far as education goes, I know that my original goal to complete my COREs (gaining my Associate in the Arts in the process) can still be completed next year, but I am going to just observe myself and how I am feeling. It is likely that I will be working full-time by then, and if that happens, goodbye SSDI. That is ultimately the goal—and there would be a way to restart benefits if I fell into a rough patch—but that would mean keeping a decent job would take even higher priority than before. I was a part-time—sometimes full-time—student before and a part-time worker, but then I would be a full-time worker and part-time student. My disability does not allow me to go to both work and attend school full-time; many healthy people can’t even manage that, and it is not recommended by instructors.

Ultimately, though, these plans are very tentative. I have really been reevaluating what I want and why I want it. I have always loved writing. To me, turning what I loved into a career seemed like a no-brainer, but now, I can see that I always hesitated. I took a detour and went to school for music instead of just getting an Associate in the Arts (with the goal of transferring to a university to get my BA in English). Do you know what studying music for four years did for my passion for learning about and creating music? It utterly killed it. I had all the knowledge, but now I had no drive to create. I am only now starting to record little demos and play with concepts over a year later.

I can see now that I have been afraid of getting similarly burned out on writing. Yes, there is some element of being afraid that I am not a good enough writer to make a career in editing, publishing, and writing. Those fears are rather faint and distant; I am mostly confident in my writing ability. What I am seeing now, is that we live in a society that encourages us to monetize our passions, and that might not be healthy. On Adventures in Roommating, Meghan Tonjes and Keith Battista talked about being careful about making the thing you love into the thing you depend on to survive. I used to be perplexed about my youngest sister’s decision not to pursue culinary arts as a career, even though she loved it so much, but I can see that maybe she had a lot more wisdom than I do. Maybe we should hold our passions a little more sacred to ourselves. Maybe 2+ years of reading boring 1800s literature and churning out essay after soulless essay for picky English teachers just so I can have an English degree is not what I need to be doing. It doesn’t mean that I’ve “given up on my dreams”. Capitalism will extract value from you in any way that it can, but you can say, “No, this is mine.”

So many amazing writers majored in things other than English. So many English majors started off in other fields. Po Bronson, author of What Should I Do with My Life?, was told by teachers that his writing was so poor that he would never succeed as a writer. His proficiencies were in math and science. My own English teacher— one of the best teachers I have ever had—started off as a pharmacy tech.

My “back-up” plan if I was not able to succeed in writing, editing, publishing, or journalism, was to go to school and get my Master’s in Library Science. Working in libraries is a happy medium for me. It is not my absolute favorite thing to do, but I like it enough that I would not mind working in or around libraries for the foreseeable future. Some people say that the library field is shrinking, but that is not the whole truth; libraries are evolving, and the people that work in them are needing to be more flexible and to have greater variety in their skillset. Being a school librarian also means being adept with media; a reference librarian might also assist with writing grants, ordering books, or budgeting. Jobs are largely becoming more automated, but people who work in libraries are often required to supervise these systems and make sure that everything is working smoothly.

Maybe that “back-up plan” would be a lot better as a “main plan.” There are plenty of library jobs that just require a Bachelor’s. There is great flexibility in what my Bachelor’s degree can be, so now I have to be like “what would complement my Master’s the most, but still be a ton of fun?” I might as well enjoy whatever I am studying, and to be honest, I do not always enjoy English classes. If you have a great teacher, the hard work always feels worthwhile, but a persnickety, nit-picking teacher can turn the experience into a living hell. I do not want to see my love for writing turn into hatred. Yes, it would be great to “be a writer”, but I already am. I do not need a degree to confer that title on to me. I would also just love to explore writing conventions on my own, take independent classes, and continue blogging. I want to network with other writers and see if we can spark off some new ideas.

I could even just be undeclared for a while (AUDIBLE GASP) and just see what speaks to me. I could go to a smaller school that is closer to me. Once the time comes, I can move where I want to move without feeling under pressure to move closer to campus. I can take my sweet time with classes. In fact, if I get a good enough job, they may just pay for me to get my Master’s and that would be lovely.

You can have it all and still be miserable; I think we millennials, who are wrought with anxiety, student debt, and underemployment understand that more than others. We have been fed this lie about working hard and “making it”, and we are utterly disenchanted with the status quo. We are always questioning our identities. We ask ourselves “Is this it?” and we are always looking for meaning and purpose in our lives.

My 20s are almost at a close, so my “quarter-life crisis” is going to need to wrap up soon. If I learned anything from my 20s, it is that so much can change, and that a lot of the things you worry about now will be non-issues down the line. Relationships of all types come and go and people and situations evolve and shift. In fact, you probably experience the most changes in your life in your 20s, and you are laying the foundation for who you will be down the line. Your brain is not even fully developed out of adolescence until you are 25. So, while you are considered an adult in the eyes of the law, there is a reason why you still engaged in a lot of childish bullshit in your early twenties. Not to mention that if you have a mental illness or experienced trauma as a child, you can become “developmentally arrested” (I don’t have a good specific source on this one sorry, but look up “arrested development psychology” and there will be lots of interesting articles.).

Look, growing up, or as we say, “adulting”, is very difficult. As more of us are staying home and/or still financially dependent on our parents or other family members, it is hard to truly feel like we own our own lives. Ultimately, though, we never know how things will change. We just need to keep exploring new opportunities. Don Estell said, “If it doesn’t work, try something different.” It may feel like you have tried everything, but the only other alternative is to give up. Don’t do that. Don’t relentlessly pursue achievement at the expense of your mental health, but do not lose hope. Take a break, dust yourself off, then get back out there.

You will find a way, I promise.

#release the outcome #detach from the outcome #living with anxiety #living with mental illness #struggling student #pivot #changing majors #changing directions #working for the library #volunteering #dropout #roommate pod #adventures in roommating #capitalism wants us to monetize our passions

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lemondice · 4 years

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Guest post: Mia!

This week, I thought it would be fun to have my bandmate in Lemon Knife and girlfriend in lemon life, Mia Blixt-Shehan, write a post for some variety. I asked her to write about her favorite bands and how they influenced her work in Lemon Knife, and you can read her post right below:

So, I’m a Guest Writer for a blog! Exciting times! Really! Look, I’ve had this title exactly once before (https://www.writebynight.net/news-events/wfpl-rats/), where I made the interesting (read: ill-informed) decision of pawning off the first chapters of a thirteen-year-old novel—by which I mean I was thirteen years old when I tried to write the stinking thing (what was I doing trying out novel writing at thirteen?)—about the coming of age of a group of British sewer rats who decide to migrate to America in the era of Beatlemania…???...to promote a now-defunct blog under a now-defunct nom de plume. I’ll gladly take my second chance to appear on someone else’s blog without completely exposing the gaps once filled by my long-lost tween-aged marbles, thanks very much!

Well, anyway…of course, I have a bit of a personal attachment, to understate things—the blog’s author is my dear bandmate and partner, John, so I, Mia, am here to write about my top three favorite musical artists and how they made a mark on the excellent duo that is Lemon Knife! I hope you enjoy my stop by and learn a few things as well. Here we go, lowest- to highest-ranked:

3. Muse

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of the air raid siren with the bass. Lowercase—The Air Raid Siren is the formidable Bruce Dickinson, obviously, I can’t take that title. But I’d be an effective red alert nonetheless—“EEEEEEVAAAAAACUUUUUUAAAAAAAATE IT’S A MOOOOOOOOONSOOOOOON!!!!”…new Lemon Knife lyric?

Before my love affair with the Muse discography began just five or so years ago, however, I wasn’t an air raid siren but a coffee shop bulletin board flyer. At this point I’d finally become semi-comfortable with my instrumental abilities, in specific circumstances, anyway, but I was still terrified of singing louder than, like, 25 decibels. I knew my voice was imperfect and didn’t really want to use it for much. The potential use of my vocal imperfections finally clicked on the fateful day where I heard the Black Holes and Revelations album for the first time (of at least ninety since). Loosely recommended by a visiting librarian when I was a library page, it was something I remembered only by fate on my usual very long train ride to college one day—“sure, let’s stream this thing, this train is stuck and I’ve got nothing better to do!” And there it was, as I sat spellbound through the opening track, “Take a Bow”—I was listening to a voice I hadn’t heard the likes of before, though I couldn’t quite place how it was so distinctive at the time. This was something greatly commanding and uniquely beautiful, and something that evoked copious amounts of whatever song’s emotion without sacrificing the ability to sound genuinely stinking good, and I wanted to know how it was done straight away. And so, after the last notes of “Knights of Cydonia” had died away, I set to figuring out the keeper of that voice—the magnificently brilliant Matt Bellamy—and diving into the music and generally obsessing over every recording I could unearth on my lengthy train rides. Good college pals, Muse were…

In the depths of my weekly Muse analysis (weekly classes, you know) I also became fascinated with the instantly recognizable bass work in the band, granted to the listener by the utterly fantastic Chris Wolstenholme. This isn’t your typical fuzz bass by any means. It’s got every amount of effect manipulation and gear tweaking and all—the—pedals—yet it’s combined with a great and distinctive technique that ensures that unlike that of too many other bands of their era and just before it (looking at you, Green Day!), their bass will almost certainly never become a lesser part of the music. It was here that I heard about another distorted bassist that was openly inspired by Muse and took it to the next level—he was Mike Kerr, the sole melodic instrument (well, besides vocals!) in a little band called Royal Blood. And it was THERE that I realized that bass/drum duos could be a thing…and…well…what do you think happened next?

2. The Who

We’re going a pretty hefty step up in influence here—I wouldn’t be a fuzz bassist and air raid siren vocalist without Muse, but I wouldn’t be a musician at all without The ‘Orrible ‘Oo.

It’s a story I’ve told countless times and will forever retell: Right around the extremely tender age of five, I came across a VHS (remember those?!) of the original Who rockumentary, decades before the squeaky-clean presentation of Amazing Journey—I speak of The Kids Are Alright. Familial lore dictates that the music of Neil Young was an immediate sedative when I was kicking hard in the womb, but a few years out of it, this was the first time I’d been exposed to music so raw and raucous and explosive…literally and figuratively. It had clearly seeped into my underdeveloped brain as an obsession grew through the years. (The first piano chords I learned outside of classical training were the ones in “Baba O’Riley,” at my independent request.)

At thirteen—oh, yeah, when I was also trying to write a novel about rats!—I got my first guitar. I took a few lessons for some months with a couple of fantastic tutors and then I was off on my own with a self-prescribed in-depth study of acoustic Who songs. I can’t imagine I was a particularly typical student, because from the very beginning I had absolutely no interest in learning to Van-Halen-shred and very little in the Gilmour bend, even though I greatly admired both—I was in deep with the Townshend -sus4 chords and vicious pick attack. To this day my right hand is ridiculously gritty with sets of both six and four strings, more so with my choice of using coins as plectrums (we’re about to get to that). Eventually I decided to abandon soloist peer pressure entirely and focus hard on rhythmic playing and making songs melodically interesting, which, filtered through The Who, greatly informed my later interests in both musical composition and the deep dive into bass. Rock composition came easily—much easier than lyricism, then and now—after spending so much time with my head in the Who discography, with the instantly recognizable chord structures and ever-expanding boundary-pushing within songwriting (flailing rhythm guitar! Lead bass guitar! ARP-2600s! Rock operas!!), and my decision to pursue bass was solidified by John Entwistle, the band’s resident Ox and my four-string hero to this very day.

1. Queen

Oh, buddy! This is it! This is the point of the article where we start really jumping up and down about things—like, if you thought those other two entries were fanatical, well, ohhhh, buddy!!

Queen! Yes! The greatest band on Earth, then, now, and onward. Well—to me. It’s all subjective, I’m aware. But the greatest band on Earth. Really. Here are four guys that took rock by its legs, stood it on its head, and spun it around until the very soul of it was changed for good. The way I see it, there are two schools of musical artists in the current era—the ones that mostly grew up on everyone else in the 1970s, and the ones that mostly grew up on Queen. You can always tell who they are if you have the innate sense, which often comes to you by being a fellow Queen fan. The Struts. Fun. (fun., actually.) Mika. The Killers. And in news that should surprise no one reading this, three of the most obvious Queen fans in music make up Muse. They can’t be understated.

Let’s look at this further—what did we have here? The most “duh” answer first—we had the greatest frontman in the history of any style of music, I’d venture to say, in Freddie Mercury. Need I say more about him—really?!? We had a bassist that told miniature stories within his prominent sound in John Deacon. We had Roger Taylor, the human drummer who was “more reliable than a drum machine,” the primary utterer of THOSE harmony high notes, and, as it turned out, probably the most experimentally minded member of the band if his solo career is any indication. And last but most certainly not least, we had a guitarist who literally crafted one of the most immediately known tones in rock with his bare hands (from a fireplace!) and pushed every boundary of the instrument in Brian May. Whose musical presence, by the way, essentially saved my life way back when. (I was about to say that there should be shirts made with the statement “Brian May Saved My Life” on them, but I immediately recognized how terrible of an idea that would actually be, although I wanted it known that it passed through my brain, so yup, here’s a parenthetical on it. Voila.) Many apprehensive people who eventually get into music see themselves for the first time in a tough-as-nails leather-clad punk goddess, or a platform-wearing out-and-proud queer, or a genre-blending, every-line-crossing, overall bad-arse POC. I saw myself in a frizzy-haired nerrrrrrrd equally inclined to embroil himself in academics (astrophysics in his case, anthropology and library science in mine) and jet onstage to make himself very known in a rock band. A convincing argument to be sure.

Okay! That was a while. It was. I hope it wasn’t too much of a while. If you made it here, congratulations—and thank you! Lemon Knife is a happy endeavor indeed—maybe we’ll see you at a show!!

#lemonknife #musicinfluences

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annoyingcherryblossomtrash-blog · 6 years

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Helping Students Become Better Online Researchers

Your students are probably Internet authorities. When it comes to Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, they might know far more than you. All of that time spent tweeting and chatting doesnвЂ™t necessarily translate to deep learning though. As students progress through school, online research skills become more important вЂ” for good reason.

Both college professors and employers will expect young people to know their way around the academic side of the Internet; a skill that for many students, needs to be taught. In a Pew survey, a majority of teachers said that their students lacked patience and determination when doing difficult research. A majority of teachers also said that their students didnвЂ™t know how to use multiple sources to support an argument. WeвЂ™re about to change that. Read on to find some of the best websites for teaching digital literacy.

Image via Flickr by Brad Flickinger

For many students, doing research means typing a word or two into a Google search and using information from the first link that pops up. Students need to know that the quality of their search terms helps determine the quality of the information that they find. If youвЂ™re new to strategic searching, or need fresh ideas, weвЂ™ve gathered some lessons to get your studentsвЂ™ brains turning.

You will find lesson plans to teach strategic searches to middle school and high school students. As with everything on the Common Sense Media site, these lessons are focused on finding quality material and keeping children safe online.

Of course Google will be a go-to source both for doing searches and for finding related lessons. Google has lessons on selecting search terms, narrowing searches, and evaluating sources. Options range from beginning to advanced, so you can tailor the lesson to students from elementary school on up. For some brainy fun, try the Google A Day Challenge, which poses difficult questions that students might be able to answer with their new searching expertise.

Do you have a complicated relationship with Wikipedia? YouвЂ™re not alone. While the site is packed with interesting information, students tend to use it as a one-stop shop for research. Often, they donвЂ™t realize that they need to check the reliability of that information. The Internet is overflowing with all sorts of biases, and students must learn to sort fact from fiction. This can be a challenging lesson to teach, but itвЂ™s usually fascinating as well.

Here, you will find a short video of a lesson on assessing websites. The Teaching Channel also has lesson ideas for teaching online research and fair use. This is a great site for teachers who canвЂ™t devote a full class period to research skills and need quick, succinct lessons.

This is an in-depth lesson plan for teaching students to evaluate web sites. Students will learn to consider the author, audience, and purpose of a website and to ponder the role of advertising. There are good resources here, such as a website evaluation form, even for teachers who donвЂ™t want to use the full lesson.

Find an amalgamation of resources here to teach critical evaluation. There are links to lesson plans and articles on the importance of digital literacy. The 5 WвЂ™s of Website Evaluation worksheet is a handy reminder of everything that your students вЂ” and you вЂ” should be thinking about when gathering information from a website.

Though the Internet offers breadth on every topic, it sometimes doesnвЂ™t offer much depth. And a simple Google search often wonвЂ™t lead students to the meaty resources they should be using. WeвЂ™ve gathered sites that will give students the detailed research they need quickly, saving them вЂ” and you вЂ” hours of frustration. Along with these sites, remind students that many newspaper websites have searchable archives.

This portal guides children from kindergarten through high school on how to select keywords, take notes, and more. It also allows children to search kid-friendly databases, such as Grolier Online, so that they find information that is right for their reading level and age.

Students can search millions of books for information, and they will find previews of pages or even an entire book. Some students might use this to avoid a trip to the library. But with some helpful teacherly guidance, this could be a stepping stone that gets kids into the library to dig deeper.

GoogleвЂ™s academic search site sifts through scholarly articles and even law cases. This is best for high school students who already have some research experience. Send them here when they need authoritative information to support their views.

Explaining plagiarism with books is clear-cut. The authorвЂ™s name is there on the cover, and the author was paid for the work. The Internet can be trickier to work with. Sometimes no author is named, and much of the information is provided for free, so students might not see any harm as passing the work off as their own. Any lesson on research will also require a lesson on citations and fair use. Many teaching websites offer ideas, and weвЂ™ve found a few more.

The writing lab has links to lessons both on understanding plagiarism and teaching students how to avoid it. Use these ideas to have students create their own ethics policy or one for the whole class.

If you think a discussion of plagiarism might be a snooze, check out the resources here. YouвЂ™ll find lessons involving plagiarism in music and even school textbooks. Students can also respond to questions about whether cheating is increasing and whether they consider this a big problem.

Students вЂ” and if weвЂ™re being honest, teachers вЂ” love online research because it saves time. They donвЂ™t have to go to the library and wander through shelves of books. Remind students that although online research is wonderful, librarians are also wonderful. They are experts in information technology and often know of the best resources вЂ” even online вЂ” for students. So keep these websites handy, but befriend your librarian, too.

Editor's note: This piece was originally written by Jeff Dunn and ran on November 9, 2012. A lot has changed since then, so we've had author Sarah Muthler update this piece with the latest techniques and innovations.

5 Comments

October 3, 2015 at 12:06 pm

I once had a lesson with my Spanish learners and we used Google to find specific grammar topics. It was fun and the learners liked it too.

It's a very effective way to teach multiple skills to students.

October 13, 2015 at 3:36 am

Nowadays Internet is need of every people. So keep update with your child in on-line presence and teach them how to on-line research are done. This article is best option for on-line presence.

October 22, 2015 at 2:39 am

That's the danger with doing research today. It is far too tempting to type the search term into google rather than investing the time to do genuine research.

November 12, 2015 at 7:58 am

Our world is addicted to technologies. It's hardly ever to imagine the way technological evolution has changed our lives. So, I think every teacher needs to tech children how to use google and find out the information they really need. Such kind of research, without doubts, will cultivate logical way of thinking. By the way, the idea of plagiarism works! Actually, the problem of plagiarism settled unawares in my class, so I've decided to dedicated lesson to this. We're talking about famous plagiarists. Also, students compared some texts using Unplag checker https://unplag.com/ The results were awesome! From that day, every Friday we discuss with students educational innovations which can paint their studying process.

Christine McKenna Lok

November 16, 2015 at 2:43 am

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