Feeling Beings Full Of Fleeting Feelings

“Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.”

hobi wearing chokers + plants  moodboard

I want to see women...

I don't want female characters in a movie to be just the love interest. I want to see them fight. I want to see them hold things that are "too brutal for them" and "only for men". I want to see their eyes reflect that passion, that longing for their freedom, for their own rights. I want to see their "delicate muscles" to strain, their "small, little noses" to get flared up by intense scorn for unjustice, their "lithe fingers" pointing a gun at a person who looked down on them and called them "just a girl". I want to see women fight.

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.”

— Zig Ziglar

I’ve been asked a couple of times now what is my approach to self-study, and this is my messy attempt to answer that question. All of this is true for me, and might not work for someone else; still, I hope it may help somebody!

1. Getting acquainted with the language

When you’re learning a language with a different writing system than your own, that’s the first thing you have to tackle, of course; but I usually try to get some background information even when the alphabet used by my target language is the good old Latin one. One thing I pay extra careful attention to is phonology: you want to get the sounds right from the very beginning, before you develop any bad habits (also, learning IPA changed my life). Having an accent as close to a native’s as possible is not necessarily the goal (I do like to work on that, but to each their own), but being understood is! And incorrect pronunciation can sometimes hinder comprehension, in some languages more so than in others. So don’t obsess over it, but don’t overlook it completely either. Getting to know the sounds of a language right away can also help you understand what people are saying a little quicker, and figuring out how new words might have to be read. Wikipedia is usually not bad when it comes to phonology, and Omniglot is a good resource as well.

2. Finding a good textbook

I’m a free spirit so I often find myself not looking for a textbook right away, and just chaotically absorbing information from different sources (see immersion below). When I do set my mind to choosing, though, I try to stick to one well-made textbook that I like, which should possibly contain clear grammar explanations as well as exercises. The temptation to hoard resources is strong – and I’ve succumbed to it myself more than once haha –, but I usually try to steer clear from using more than one textbook at the same time (although I do have separate, more thorough grammars on the side more often than not). I’d rather use a physical book if I have the chance, but if that’s not your thing or you don’t have money to spend on that, that’s okay: you can find loads of perfectly good books or websites online!

3. Compulsive translation

Anyone who’s been following my blog for a while probably knows that I love translating virtually anything: from songs to poems to short stories. It’s something that has always been a part of my life, and I thoroughly enjoy doing. It’s also an awesome language learning technique, which will help you enrich your lexicon and teach you tons of new turns of phrase in your target language. It works both if you translate from your native into your target language and vice versa: find a good bilingual dictionary (I prefer paper dictionaries because they provide more examples of usage, but again, you do you) and look for equivalent expressions, don’t just translate word for word! It might work sometimes but not always. When it comes to translation, Reverso Context is a great resource for some languages, because it provides translation in context, taken from a massive corpus heavy on subtitles – which you shouldn’t trust all the time, but will help you as long as you put some critical thinking in.

4. Immersion (you don’t say)

What a surprise, right? I usually start listening to music / watching video content right away; I wasn’t that big on YouTube before but language learning has made me change my mind. You don’t have to get everything: even if you understand 3 words out of 20, this will help you grasp the rhythms and intonations of the language. This depends on how many similarities my new target language shares with the ones I already know, but as a general rule I use Italian (or English) subtitles in the very beginning, then move on to subtitles in the target language and finally get rid of them entirely. Some people will argue against subtitles of any shape or form, but I can only speak for myself and they’ve helped me quite a lot in the past. The way I see it, reading is also essential: if I don’t have time to leaf through novels, I usually check out at least an article a day in my target language and write down the words I don’t know, plus their Italian translation.

5. Routine – the good kind

In short words, I strive to make the new language a part of my life. There are a thousand things you can do: change your phone settings? Great! Check out the news? Even better! If you’re out of ideas, here are a few suggestions. And don’t worry if you struggle at first: in fact, the start of this process is a bit rocky for almost everyone. Consistency, however, is the key: once the early, most difficult days are over, all of this will start to come natural and stop feeling like a chore! The more you do it, the faster this process will be.

What did you read in September? 💗

the hunger moon, marge piercy

the world’s wife, carol ann duffy

(re-read) the unabridged journals of sylvia plath & her collected poetry

mysteries of small houses, alice notley

gods & mortals: modern poems on classical myths, edited by nina kossman

a strangers mirror, marilyn hacker

aftermath: poems, sandra m. gilbert

someday, i wanna wear a starry crown, jasmine ledesma

incarnadine, mary szybist

stay, illusion, lucie brock-broido

rhapsody in plain yellow, marilyn chin

selected poems ii 1976-1986, margaret atwood

thus were their faces, silvina ocampo

one day less, clarice lispector

& so many more essays & research based pieces but i didn’t bookmark them/have a pdf for them :-( 💛

some phone backgrounds ! nice

Okay fuck it if this post reaches 666k notes by the end of 2023 I’ll practise basic self care

Why 666k? Because it’s funny and impossible so good fucking luck

Korean Mythology [pt. 1]

안녕하세요! This post was requested by lunax02, who suggested that I talk about Korean Mythological Creatures as a way to incorporate more Korean culture into my blog! This ask is brilliant and I appreciate all requests made to me (especially if you guys are super interested in it)! In order to tell you about Mythological Creatures in Korea, you first need to know where they come from! This is crucial for understanding their history and why they are an important part of Korean culture! 

This is also very exciting to me as this post (and future Korean Mythology posts) will be a collab with my friend / mutual, @patrooocle​! Dare I say, the queen of giving us Korean culture blogs. She has been so kind as to share her notes and help me through this process, so if you don’t follow her already please please do!

patrooocle’s blog // patrooocle’s twitter // patrooocle’s IG

WARNING: This post will be very long! 

*for this post, I will be using some Hanja ( 한자 // 漢字 ), anything written by me is open to criticism as I am still learning how to make it more natural and the correct stroke order and would love all the help I can get

I am using Hanja as a way to incorporate a deeper understanding of the Korean characters and their origins! It is a way to break down the literal meaning of the Korean words so we can have a better understanding of their history!

Keep reading

executive dysfunction is telling yourself for two and a half hours that you need to shower bc you smell like your workplace and you absolutely Cannot do Anything Else until you shower, doing Any Other Thing before showering is illegal!!! but you still haven’t for some reason??? you’ve just been sitting on your bed in a towel scrolling tumblr for 2+ hours thinking “I need to shower right now immediately” and growing increasingly frustrated that you are still not clean and you haven’t eaten or done your laundry either

I thought there might be a lot of other people who would benefit from reading this, too.

(Original tweet.)