I Have This Reoccurring Nightmare Where I Order An Extra Cheesy Pizza And I End Up With THAT One Instead.

This is what happens when white guys listen to Indian music

TRIGGER WARNING!!!! SA, Depression, self injurious behavior, suicidal tendencies

The hardest part of living with sexual assault is having to continue living. Countless weeks I've spent, fake smiles, pretending everything was normal while I crumbled inside. I've spent every waking moment haunted, feeling unclean, because of the actions a man took once he decided that I owed him my body.

I thought it got easier. It did for a few months. And now I'm back at the campus where it happened. My heart aches everytime I step foot on the sidewalk. I avert my eyes from 2 buildings, where two different men took something that wasnt theirs, something I didnt give them. Their selfish actions did this.

Sometimes all I want to do is scream. I want to scream in the middle of campus what unspeakable things these men have done to me. What they have done to others. Instead I bite my tongue, and duck my head as I continue to walk to class.

The only safe haven on campus is my professor's offices. I've spent many hours sobbing there, receiving advice on work and studying. Now I sob the for a different reason. And now my professors gently gesture for me to enter their office, offering words of comfort and support.

One had a story very similar to mine. On the same campus she was raped, 19, a virgin. I was 18 and 19. She is my hope for the future, my hope that it gets better, my hope for a PhD, because she did it.

I feel sick, everytime I look at something that reminds me of them. I cant be in red lighting. I cant play certain games. I cant hold my boyfriend because I'm afraid of his hands, so gentle and kind, because of the cruel hands of another.

I feel a lot of things. Anger, at them for believing they had the right to do this, and at the world for letting this happen. Angry for trusting them. Angry at them for using me as a plaything, disregarding my humanity. Sorrow for the loss of my innocence, and for all the pieces of myself I lost.

Sometimes I feel like I'm shards of myself stuck in my old body. In reality, I should be fragmented, broken, but instead I stand, eyes down, hiding my broken pieces, and posing as someone who isn't hurting.

I want to say this because it happened to me. I want to say this because it's real. I want to say this because it can happen to others. I'm sick of staying quiet and allowing my rapists to ultimately win as I break down and get swept away by the wind. I am more than a statistic. No means no. Being pushed, pressured, or coerced into saying yes means no. Being inebriated means no.

Please stay safe. Always travel in groups. Let your friends know where you are at and with whom.

whoever invented the cover letter got absolutely no pussy

when i was 10 i thought this was the most amazing picture in the world i thought it was so beautiful and well drawn and incredible and i think i got yelled at for making it the desktop wallpaper on my familys shared computer

This is a very specific vague.

Hiding government and public services to reduce how much they're used and "prove" that they're unneeded is a tried and true Republican technique. It's not a conspiracy, these things are deliberately made difficult to access to discourage people from using them because "more use = more funding" and "less use = less funding" is how public service funding is generally decided.

Musk outright lying about "deleting" a whole IRS program for low income tax filing is just a progression of common Republican tactics. Don't fall for it.

Academic writing advice inspired by Umberto Eco’s ‘How to Write a Thesis’:

Planning

Determine primary sources/bibliography.

Determine secondary sources/bibliography. 

Find title.

Brainstorm a table of contents with as much detail as possible (with chapters, sections and even paragraphs and sub-paragraphs - see How to Write a Thesis’ own table of contents as an example at the end of this document) (if the first drafted table of contents is good enough, it will not be necessary to start the writing from the beginning).

Do a first draft of the introduction.

Note-taking and research

Use Google Scholar to make sure you do not miss important sources.

Keep the table of contents in mind when researching and take notes of which sources could go where.

While note-taking, differentiate which parts could be used as quotations from the ones that are simply important for the argument.

Eco underlines the importance of what he calls reading sheets, which can be understood as your notes on your readings. According to him, these should contain:

information about the author if he is not a well-known figure;

a brief (or long) summary;

they should mostly consist of quotations (accompanied by all the corresponding page numbers)

any commentaries you might want to add;

an indication of which part (or parts) of your table of contents the information mentioned belongs to.

Keep reading sheets on primary sources (which should be the longest) separate from those on secondary sources (which should only be 1-2 pages long).

In the end, re-read the notes and color-code all the different parts according to where they would fit in your table of contents.

Writing and editing

A good place to start would be by redrafting the introduction.

Define every key/technical term used/mentioned unless indisputably obvious.

General writing tips:

keep sentences short;

do not be afraid to repeat the subject twice (ex: Roberta went to the shop (…) Roberta bought carrots and tomatoes);

avoid excessive details;

avoid subordinate clauses (orações subordinadas);

avoid vague language;

avoid unnecessary adjectives;

avoid the passive voice.

While drafting, write everything that comes to mind. Leave the editing for the end.

Use your tutor as a Guinea pig. Make them read your first chapters (and, progressively, all the rest) well before delivery is due. 

Ask for as much feedback as possible. Ask colleagues, friends and/or family to read your work. They will provide you with more diversified feedback, as well as allowing you to know if your writing is clear to anyone.

Stop playing ‘solitary genius’.

Don’t insist on starting with the first chapter. Start with what you know best and feel more comfortable writing about, then fill in the gaps.

Leave time for editing and try to take at least a one or two days long break in between writing and editing. 

Do not forget to fill in the gaps. When you revisit your writing, go through it with all these writing tips in mind as well as a conscience of what your most common mistakes are.

Use Hemingway in the final editing phase.

Quotations and footnotes

Since there are two kinds of sources (primary and secondary), there are also two kinds of quotations: either we quote a text which we will interpret, or we quote a text which supports your interpretation.

Some quotation rules to know:

“Quote the object of your interpretive analysis with reasonable abundance.”

 “Quote the critical literature only when its authority corroborates or confirms your statements. (…)  when quoting or citing critical [aka secondary] literature, be sure that it says something new, or that it confirms authoritatively what you have said.”

“If you don’t want readers to presume that you share the opinion of the quoted author, you must include your own critical remarks before or after the passage.”

“Make sure that the author and the source of your quote are clearly identifiable.”

“When a quote does not exceed two or three lines, you can insert it into the body of the text enclosed in quotation marks. (…) When the quote is longer, it is better to set it off as a block quotation. In this case the quotation marks are not necessary, because it is clear that all set-off passages are quotes, and we must commit to a different system for our observations. (Any secondary developments [like the quote’s reference] should appear in a note.) (…) This method is quite convenient because it immediately reveals the quoted texts; it allows the reader to skip them if he is skimming, to linger if he is more interested in the quoted texts than in our commentary, and finally, to find them immediately when need be.”

Some footnote rules to know:

“Use notes to add additional supporting bibliographical references on a topic you discuss in the text. For example, ‘on this topic see also so-and-so.’”

“Use notes to introduce a supporting quote that would have interrupted the text. If you make a statement in the text and then continue directly to the next statement for fluidity, a superscript note reference after the first statement can refer the reader to a note in which a well-known authority backs up your assertion.”

“Use notes to expand on statements you have made in the text. Use notes to free your text from observations that, however important, are peripheral to your argument or do nothing more than repeat from a different point of view what you have essentially already said.”

“Use notes to correct statements in the text. You may be sure of your statements, but you should also be conscious that someone may disagree, or you may believe that, from a certain point of view, it would be possible to object to your statement. Inserting a partially restrictive note will then prove not only your academic honesty but also your critical spirit.”

“Use notes to provide a translation of a quote, or to provide the quote in the original language.”

often middle-class leftist obsessions with the guilloutine unsettle me not because im against violence (im not) (especially not against an unjust nationstate) but rather i am against executions especially by literally any state ever. & i cant fuck with people who are like "okay but we will execute people morally this time" girl thats what you said the last 5,000 times it never works give it UP.

It’s always “why did you go out in the storm” and “your soaking wet” and never How was the storm The storm looked fun was it fun