Guy who has wandered through the halls and corridors of your body not with any special kind of love but with the untold intimacy of a contractor assessing the damages and potentials voice: right, so the main issue here is that the body is currently a temple, okay, and what we want is for it to be a home, cause temples are pretty and all and occasionally nice to be in if you're into that sort of thing but very few people would actually want to live in one. So what we're gonna do first is you're gonna take a look at what's here, the carrying walls and windows and all that, and you're going to come up with something you'd actually like to be alive inside of, and it's going to be a lot of work and it's going to feel strange and stupid and embarrassing but you're still gonna do it, because otherwise this construction site is fucked. And maybe what you want to live in is a skatepark or an anime-themed cat cafe or an esoteric library that has a dildo section for some reason, so it might feel like it's a downgrade from a temple, but it's actually the opposite cause the main customer for a body is you and the main customer for a temple are templegoers and maybe higher powers of some kind, - i wouldn't know about those, they never hired me, - not the temple itself, which is what you are, right, cause the body/mind/soul separation doesn't actually do anything, so what you're gonna do is look at the current layout and dig out whatever hope and ability to want you have and come up with a blueprint, and then my boys can actually get to work. Oh, and you have got to change the windows, it's drafty as fuck in here.

the fact that we need 8 hours of sleep is ridiculous we should only need 4 and the other 4 should be used to be cozy in your bed and rub your legs together like a cricket and listen to music and think about your little scenarios

I am not joking we need to take a page out of the Luddites book.

thing is, the luddites are so misunderstood and we learn a very simple revisionist version of their story. people are called luddites for simply going against technological progress but that's not what the luddites were actually about.

(i know i have some historians as followers who will probably want to chime in on this and please do as i am not a historian.)

the luddites weren't exactly against technology. they would have happily used the new machines being developed at the time if they could've owned them. who wouldn't want their lives to be made easier? but they couldn't own the machines. the machines were big and expensive and took a lot of energy to run. this meant that only wealthy industrialists who owned factories and mills could afford to own and run them.

the luddites realized they were losing their craft and their way of life to wealthy industrialists who were only willing to pay them a tiny fraction of what they were making before. not to mention that going to work for an industrialist meant being told what to make, when to make it, when to make it by, how much to make, etc. and all for a massive pay cut. it was a loss of income and freedom. (the machines produced a lower quality product too btw which was also a concern by craftspeople who actually gave a shit about what they were producing.)

the industrialist took the vast majority of the profits from skills and knowledge they never learned out from underneath the people who actually had the skills and knowledge—all because they could afford the machines and factories. sound familiar?

so the luddites took it upon themselves to protect their way of life from wealthy industrialists. this led to organizing and direct action like sabotage and stuff. unfortunately, the luddites lost their battle and their name went down in history as a pejorative against people who are afraid of technology.

it's a very interesting story and if you want to know more about it i suggest listening to margaret killjoy's podcast “cool people who did cool stuff.” she has a two-part series (i think it's in two parts if iirc?) on the luddites that is fascinating. can't recommend it enough.

LMAOOOO

cashier: ok that'll be $20

me (visibly sweating): ah, yes, of course! a perfectly reasonable price for a grilled cheese and a small smoothie! that was exactly the price i expected you to say when i ordered a single grilled cheese and a smoothie and my vision is NOT getting blurry as we speak! i am a perfectly normal temperature and my speech patterns are natural and even because this is the countenance of an individual who expected to pay 20 american dollars for a single grilled cheese and a smoothie!

cashier: where's all that blood coming from

YES!!

I do not condone medical malpractice.

chatgpt is the coward's way out. if you have a paper due in 40 minutes you should be chugging six energy drinks, blasting frantic circus music so loud you shatter an eardrum, and typing the most dogshit essay mankind has ever seen with your own carpel tunnel laden hands

Most of my job is marking essays and I will tell you this:

1. Most of the time it's painfully obvious when you're using AI because it spits out the most generic takes possible, and it often attributes statements to people who did not make those statements.

2. An AI paper fills me with a vitriolic rage the likes of no other. It makes me viscerally angry that you're wasting my time and yours this way. School is expensive. There are so many people who would love to be here, who would love to actually be learning but they cant afford to. Have some respect and actually use the education you're privileged enough to be able to pay for.

3. An AI paper will get you reported to the academic integrity office, because it's plagiarism. This is not an opinion of mine its a school policy. An academic integrity violation will follow you for the rest of your academic career (if you're even able to get anyone to give you a second chance) and beyond. Its not worth it.

4. A half assed, insane, incoherent paper that I know you wrote the night before? Relatable. Endearing. Ive been there, I can see you trying. You'll get the best mark I can reasonably give you- it might not be a great mark but it won't be as low as a chatgpt mark. You won't get an academic integrity violation on your record and you might actually learn something.

As a TA im always willing to help people if they ask for help. If you're confused or behind in a class I'm paid to help you keep up. Most schools also have writing centers, where you can access free tutors who will help you with outlines and editing your work.

There is no shame using those resources. The students that do use them reliably end up with better grades at the end of term, and they also save time because its a lot harder to spot your own mistakes than it is to have someone else point them out to you.

Ok rant concluded, carry on.

University tutor/TA here and I can second ALL of the above. Red Bull will destroy your evening. AI will destroy your academic career.

Writing a 40-minute paper on energy drink fuel is a time-honored tradition and infinitely more valuable to you as a person. We don’t assign essays for the purpose of gathering essays—we’re trying to teach you how to think critically and argue for your observations. There’s no point in having a degree if you don’t have the skills the degree confirms you were trained in.

Me slapping together final essays like UAAUGHGUUAAAAAAA while I know my class mates are using chatgpt to write them -_-

I love talking nonsense with you and I hope that we can talk nonsense with each other for the rest of our lives.

Trial of the Grasses

"How it washed away what little trace your mother had left in you."

the sea, the sea

the experience of tragedy in plays specifically because ‘maybe it will end differently this time’ feels possible. This isn’t pre-recorded. This isn’t set down in time and film. This is live, this is now, these people are real and maybe this time when they open the letter it won’t say ‘kill the messenger’. Maybe this time they get to live

This actually makes me giddy to think about! You’ve really put the magic of theatre into words

how it feels knowing that loneliness is still time spent with the world

HELLO I LOVE HIM

I am deeply enjoying the facial expressions on both woman and bird in this marginal drawing.

(Cambridge UL MS Add. 4085)

I still think its the funniest shit ever that when I used to volunteer at planned parenthood every week even though I walked past mostly the same protesters every single time they were begging me not to get an abortion theres other options yadda yadda. Like meemaw you see me here every week. They call me abortions georg because I get another one every Monday at 8am

The problem: you are Michael Bublé, it is 2011 and you would like to make a Christmas album. Your producers want you to sing the classic Christmas song "Santa, Baby," but if you sing it as intended, it's gonna come off as, like, super gay

The proposed solution: you will rewrite the lyrics to the song to imply a platonic friendship between yourself and the man in red, making Santa a real bro who's gonna help you get laid by some hunnies, with cool, masculine gifts like a steel blue convertible, a yacht and tickets to a Canadian hockey game

The reality: the combination of the eroticism of your voice and the inherently sexual vibes of the song means you create a story about a closeted gay guy desperately repressing his desire to - as the kids say - fuck that old man, no homo'ing your way through asking him to trim your tree, promising you'll be such a good boy if he treats you well, and begging him to slide down your chimney

arguably the funniest genius annotation ever