AP Psychology Studyblr @ap-psychology-studyblr - Tumblr Blog

In a room full of non-native speakers, ‘there isn’t any chance of understanding’. It might be their language, but the message is often lost

“A lot of native speakers are happy that English has become the world’s global language. They feel they don’t have to spend time learning another language,” says Chong.

“But… often you have a boardroom full of people from different countries communicating in English and all understanding each other and then suddenly the American or Brit walks into the room and nobody can understand them.”

The non-native speakers, it turns out, speak more purposefully and carefully, typical of someone speaking a second or third language. Anglophones, on the other hand, often talk too fast for others to follow, and use jokes, slang and references specific to their own culture, says Chong. In emails, they use baffling abbreviations such as ‘OOO’, instead of simply saying that they will be out of the office.

“The native English speaker… is the only one who might not feel the need to accommodate or adapt to the others,” she adds.

lierdumoa

I’ve been thinking about this post all day, and the article glosses over one important detail. All of the “native English speakers” the article mentions belong to the same niche demographic: white collar/corporate professionals

English corporate speak is it’s own fucked up dialect.

It’s so incomprehensible and exclusionary that even a native English speaker with a master’s degree in English will have difficulty parsing it. Trust me when I say that nobody who isn’t a business major knows what the fuck “synergy” means.

And the jargon’s just half the problem. The other half is the gross overuse of hobby-specific expressions and analogies.

Go to most corporate offices and you’ll be bombarded with sports analogies that only make sense to someone who spends all their free time watching ESPN.

I tracked down this quote I read in a tumblr post years ago:

“I remember working with a law school in which white men heavily dominated the faculty. They used lots of sports metaphors (doing an end run, Monday morning quarterbacking, and so on), with legal jargon thrown in for good measure. I suggested that this was not a particularly welcoming trait in their school, that in fact it was sexist, but they paid little attention. I made my point by speaking for about five minutes in dressmaking terms: putting a dart in here, a gusset there, cutting the budget on the bias so it would be more flexible, using a peplum to hide a course that might be controversial. The women in the room laughed; the men did not find it humorous….Language is power, make no mistake about it. It is used to include and exclude and to keep people and systems in their places.”

- Frances E. Kendall, Understanding White Privilege

My point is,

This kind of poor communication probably shouldn’t be blamed on monolingualism alone. It’s most certainly made worse by an exclusionary and elitist work culture.

You’ll probably encounter far fewer communication issues talking to a cashier at a tourist trap than you will talking to a lawyer or a stockbroker.

#linguistics

theawesomeadventurer

inkskinned

HOW TO WRITE 20 PAGES (from one girl w/mental illness 2 the rest of u, but please keep in mind all of this is just personal Stuff That Worked for me n u might be different):

first of all, and probably most importantly, make that paper about something you actually give a shit about. if you can write an essay on how long shakespeare’s dick is when you’re talking to your friends, that’s a good topic. don’t choose something u don’t care about, you will Want To Die

“okay but the only topics are ones i don’t care about” talk 2 ur teacher 99% of the time if you’re like “here’s a well-thought-out thesis can i talk about this instead” they’re like “sure lmao i just couldn’t think of other paper topics to suggest”

“they said no” cool find the one u hate the least and try to tie it into something u like. for example i really hated this stupid paper i had to write about a stupid book so i ended up writing about the food inside the book and whether or not it was a historically accurate depiction of food. turns out i fucking love talking about food. i also remade some of the old recipes and brought them in as part of the presentation of my project and people went fuckken nuts bc BREAD. basically i thought about “what motivates me? uh food” and followed that. it was a 45-page book about bread and i looked like a really good student when really i just love bread (somewhere, oprah smiles over me)

the 20-pagers are the ones you Actually Cannot Do the night before. i know we all got real fuckken cocky back in hs when we learned how to do 5 pages in one night w/out trying too hard but 1. as a teacher now i can tell u for sure that teachers do know you rushed it, we just Don’t Care bc We’re Not Paid Enough and 2. twenty pages is not the same thing. you need to actually take the time to do it. this is the actual version of “you’re not in hs anymore” DONT lie to yourself and think “it’s fine i’ll do it in one day” you will !! Regret it!!!!

“raquel. raquel. listen to me. do you actually believe i’m capable of time management. raquel i have depression i barely manage to exist.” same. but the truth is that when i started like?? actually following the rules of timelines and taking my time etc it actually really helps mental illness. you don’t feel pressured all the time by a deadline, so your anxiety chills a little bit. small progress being acceptable means that on depression days, you don’t have to worry you’re fucking it all up. when it’s 15 minutes every day (even if it’s only 1 word a day) it feels a lot better.

ask the teacher what timeline they’d recommend. they actually Know.

always ask if it’s informal or formal (if you can use “I” statements or not). informal essays can rely on personal feelings and are so much easier and trust me if you find out on the day it’s due that you could have written 12 pages about your feelings instead of 12 pages of research, you will Be Very Upset

i lie to myself all the time and move the deadline up. i write it in my agenda as at least 2 days before it’s due. surprise!!! i tricked u, self!!! you can’t procrastinate!!

agendas/planners need to be what actually works for you. i liked to prioritize w/colors + keep lists. i really love crossing things off lists. it’s like… a balm. for me, i usually say i have to finish the first 2 things, start the 3rd thing, and “touch” at least half the list. if i finish the whole list i get a prize. also i get to cross off everything which is so satisfying i’m sure it’s someone’s idea of a rush. there’s so many “how to” documents on these that i won’t get into it but frankly?? if you don’t write it down you will not remember it. “yes i will” no you won’t greg. just do it. write it down. write it where u can see it. not there, greg. greg, somewhere good. my friend is smart af and uses a post-it on her laptop. that doesn’t work for me bc i can just? use my hand to cover the anxiety? so choose somewhere good greg.

nervous system, skeleton, meat, skin. nervous system is the thesis. skeleton is quotes/data. meat is the analysis of that data. skin is the fancy transitions + beautification. meat goes on both sides of bone, and skin goes all around. nervous system has to touch everything. do what your teachers have been begging u to do since 3rd grade and start w/an outline. do this while you read/research. i usually have a starter thesis like “lady macbeth is a feminist ICON” then take the quotes i think fit. but if while you’re reading u realize u wanna talk about the use of feminine language and how shakespeare parallels daintiness w/sharpness, u still have a bunch of quotes you can use or not use. this works also w/research papers. just pull what u think is something u wanna talk about. copy-paste it but leave a link to where u got it. then put a bullet point under that says roughly why u mention it

if you just write the outline like you’re keeping notes to yourself you’d be amazed how quickly you write the essay bc we get stuck in academic language but it’s easier to translate “this is why bees are the #bomb” into a paragraph. i mean you just rewrite your notes to yourself in academic speech. “The above passage illustrates the growing necessity of pollinators such as bees in an agricultural environment.”

keep track of your sources + label them. don’t just write “(SOURCE)” instead if you’re using multiple sources use the lazygirl way which is (SA1) or whatever shorthand u have for each source. then when you need to finish your sources you go to your little source document, find the one labelled SA1 and then “Find+replace” w/the actual source.

integrate quotes so it reads w/clarity which means don’t do this but if you’re running late on it and don’t have time to look up the quote u want to fit this situation, technically you can “use any” word you want (56). so yeah “there is” a moral question about it but you “can” make up quotes (79, 90). don’t “actually” do this unless you’re seriously in a crunch. which u shouldn’t be, bc u managed ur time, right?

running late part 2 (which again would never happen bc you followed my advice and made a little time table for yourself but anyway if it does somehow magically happen) i really recommend using school computers to do your work. ur surrounded by people who will hold u accountable + u will focus

running late pt3 on the day of it being due, around 5 PM, be honest w/yourself and see where you are. if you’re like “it needs 2 more hours” okay. but if you’re like “this is……… not started” email the teacher. they’ll be so much more receptive the earlier you do this in the process. it looks like “i’m genuinely struggling and i hope to finish this on time but i’m worried i won’t” instead of “i started this at 11:58PM and am asking for an extension”. please also just… be honest?

“my teacher won’t accept late work!” they all say that, he probably will, particularly if you have a note from the school therapist being like “lmao she’s got so many mental illnesses idek how to help her”

“no he really doesn’t, he doesn’t care” you can file for disability if you have mental illness, and, in fact, you should if it’s something that often stops you from completing work on time. i didn’t bc i found that it just let me procrastinate for a longer time, but having that on file means you can go to the dean.

“no!!! raquel you’re not listening i have 2 pages and he doesn’t take late work!!!!!!!!!” okay. yeah that’s bad. but nerves, skeleton, meat, skin. what is it that you’re struggling with? is it that your can’t find any quotes to back up your thesis? impossible, tbh, you need to be more willing to purposefully misuse quotes (don’t do that). but the better option is to just change the thesis.

“i don’t even have that!!” did you. do the reading? if you even just watched the movie, you probably have an opinion on something even if it’s “this is bad.” you can use that. use why you didn’t like it to write a hate-fueled examination on how whiny the main character is and why u think the author is trying to point out how miserable cis white boys are to deal with.

“i don’t have enough sources!!!” go to wikipedia’s page about it and look @ the sources. try to like actually read some if you have time but frankly in a hurry a student (me) might be compelled to just slap the source in there.

“how the fuck do i analyze this”. u know how ppl agonize over why an actor breathed in a scene. melt into that kind of thinking. you can literally force the words to mean whatever you want. i’ve talked about word choice so specific that i based a 12-page essay on three separate uses of the words “my dear”. i talked about the possessive “my” and how it developed for like 5 of those pages. and always repeat the thesis like a million times. after every analysis you should talk about how it links to the thesis. that is like a free 3 sentences every paragraph.

“i did all that and it’s still 3 pages too short” quick ways to Beef Him Up: definitions are great in research papers + essays bc you can talk about either word choice or like the definition of every process used in getting the data. also make the conclusion hella informative (it should answer “what does this mean moving forwards” most of the time, tie it into modern life or into the past). thicken ur intro with “here’s a quote from this guy about it and what he personally felt about acid-base titrations”, use a paragraph to talk about the history of the data/book, use a paragraph to talk about the modern reception of the data/book. also look for where you can use two words instead of one even tho like grammatically don’t do that.

worst comes to worst, brevity is the soul of wit. most teachers prefer concise over rambling and all over the place. if you choose to scoot under the page limit, tho, your writing etc needs to be exceptionally clean. frankly i’ve only done this once and it was terrifying

make computer read it aloud 2 u before u submit. “raquel….. i can’t look at it anymore”. you’re not looking @ it, you’re discovering you wrote “breath” not “breathe” and u need to change it

tutoring centers exist, i worked in one, and this is how i know they actually Help and have Good Ideas

ask about extra credit and do it tbh

good luck…. breathe. and remember u are astronomically more important than a grade could ever be.

freddieandersen

do you have trouble writing words on paper but you know what you want to say? because that’s my personal form of useless perfectionism.

like, you can tell your friend all about what you’re planning on writing, and talk about it for like 20 minutes straight?

make notes for imaginary slides for an imaginary presentation on the topic

oops you have an outline now! your imaginary slides? paragraphs (or if ur paper is long af, each imaginary bullet point is a paragraph and each imaginary slide is a couple pages)

credit for this tip goes to my therapist. thanks amy. u solved paper writing for me and at least seven of my friends

ruby-white-rabbit

Partial credit is better than no credit at all. Only have 5 pages the day it’s due? TURN IT IN. It’s better than a zero if the teacher won’t work with you on an extension or late work

motherofunholystakes

for college friends

jeanjauthor

All of this is great.

But this part here:

“the 20-pagers are the ones you Actually Cannot Do the night before.“

I have literally written over 15,000 words in one day. (11,000-ish words is 20 pages of single-space paragraphs with spaces between paragraphs at font size 11, btw, which is what my current manuscripts all look like; you may be free to use font size 12, but I wouldn’t use anything larger than that.)

HOWEVER, with all that said…

That was in the middle of a long string of very productive days over over 3,000 words each.

I was hyped up on carbs (which I cannot do anymore, thankyouverymuch genetically inherited diabetes goddammit).

I already had the majority of everything plotted out.

I knew my topic, I knew my conclusion, and I knew most of how to get from A to Z, plot-wise, before I reached that day of 15,000+ words of writing.

It was goddamn fiction, which does NOT require references, quotes, and ESPECIALLY logic to tie everything together. (Okay, some logic would be nice so it’s not a hot mess failure of a story…but I’ve seen books that veered completely off its original frikkin’ course still be praised as high literature *cough*Stranger In A Strange Land *cough*…)

You HAVE to have logic tying stuff together. Even if it’s just you bashing on how awful something was, you have to provide proofs, citing points, enumerating reasons, etc.

That slows writing way the hell down. Which isn’t a bad thing, because you’ll want to remove all gratuitous swearing from the paper, like “hell” and “goddamn” etc. (If it’s a paper about cursing and verbal obscenities, you might actually want to delve into even more epithets; know your topic, folks!)

I didn’t have to follow anyone else’s rules in writing that story. With a research paper, you do have to follow the rules, or work out an exception to them. (If your professor is an asshat, get those exceptions in writing via their university email address or their own handwriting, etc.)

I am a professional writer. Putting words together is my reason for living. I have literally been writing stories since I was 8 years old, and seriously focusing HARD on learning how to write better since I was 15. By the time I hit college, I aced every writing class I took.

The average college student isn’t that into writing…and frankly doesn’t have to be (unless they’re studying literature, journalism, or the like)…so cut yourselves some slack…and get going a lot earlier.

Besides, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about completing writing projects ahead of time versus last minute…if you complete them ahead of time, your brain will often relax, put new information together, or make connections you just weren’t seeing earlier for all the stress…and if you haven’t handed it in, you can go back in, fix plot (or in this case logic) holes, draw new conclusions, and make it freakin’ awesome-er before handing it in.

The vast majority of time, someone like me, who has all day to write, can whip out maaaybe 3,000-4,000 words at a pace comparable to research writing (because we’re often world-building, which is very much like researching & patching holes in logic/plot). At least, at a sustainable rate. You really don’t want to burn yourselves out, folks.

And lastly…I have only written above 7,000 words a day less than 50 days in my whole life, and only above 10,000 words in a single day less than 20 times. And I have 26 novels and 27 short stories out there, folks. That’s a LOT of writing. (Especially as most of my novels are always over 100,000 words.)

So. Here are lots of reasons why thinking you can write 20 pages in a single day just isn’t a smart thing to rely upon.

This is not meant to be a discouragement, btw.

This is a reality check.

You might have a day where you can pop off 20 pages of cohesive coherent research paper writing in that single day–and if so, good for you! Great job! Now plan in advance enough time to take 3 more days to edit and revise.

Because I guarantee those 20-pages-in-a-single-day will have things that need editing & tweaking.

Hell, just writing 1 page a day, you’ll always have things that need editing & tweaking!

#writing #writing tips

the-art-of-medicine

Dopamine (C8H11NO2)

A dopamine molecule consists of a catechol structure (a benzene ring with two hydroxyl side groups) with one amine group attached via an ethyl chain.

C: Mix of navy, teal, and blue

H: Navy

N: Gray/blue

O: Teal

the-art-of-medicine

Serotonin (C10H12N2O)

Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) is a small molecule that functions both as a neurotransmitter in the central nervous system and as a hormone in the periphery.

These are two pools of serotonin, have different functions:

Brain-derived serotonin (BDS) acts as a neurotransmitter

Gut-derived serotonin (GDS) acts as a hormone and regulates a wide variety of processes

biomedicool

Human reward system and addiction - Neurology

The human reward system is made up of neural structures responsible for incentive salience (desire), associative learning (primarily positive reinforcement and classical conditioning), and positive/pleasure emotions (e.g. euphoria).

Dopamine is the primary neurotransmitter of the brain’s reward mechanisms

Most important reward pathway is the mesolimbic dopamine pathway.

This connects the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain, to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and olfactory tubercle, which are located in the ventral striatum

The projections from the VTA are a network of dopaminergic neurons with co-localized postsynaptic glutamate receptors.

The NA itself consists mainly of GABAergic medium spiny neurons.

When a rewarding stimulus, such as eating food, or direct stimulation by a drug occurs, dopaminergic neurons in the VTA are activated. These neurons project to the NAc, and their activation causes dopamine levels in the NAc to rise, activating dopamine receptors and generating a reward response, thus encouraging repetition and learning. –> any activity that resulted in a reward from your brain will therefore be one you want to repeat. This is essentially how your brain keeps you alive and reproducing.

Another major dopamine pathway, the mesocortical pathway, also originates in the VTA but travels to the prefrontal cortex, and is thought to integrate information which determines whether a behavior will be elicited. The basolateral amygdala projects into the NAc and is thought to also be important for motivation, while the hippocampus plays a role in learning and memory.

Even though increased dopamine in the brain reward system is generally thought to be the final common pathway for the reinforcing properties of drugs, other neurotransmitters such as serotonin are involved in the modulation of both drug self-administration and dopamine levels. Serotonin may be important in modulating motivational factors, or the amount of work and individual is willing to perform to obtain a drug. Serotonergic neurons project both to the NA and VTA and appear to regulate dopamine release at the NA.

Excessive intake of addictive drugs –> repeated release of high amounts of dopamine –>increased dopamine receptor activation.

The intrinsic purpose of an endogenous reward center is to reinforce behaviors that promote survival, so when a drug stimulates this center, drug-seeking behavior is also promoted - induced by glutamatergic projections from the prefrontal cortex to the nucleus accumbens

Prolonged and abnormally high levels of dopamine in the synaptic cleft can induce receptor downregulation, resulting in a decrease in the sensitivity to natural stimuli.

Alongside the positive reinforcement, these withdrawal symptoms can be considered negative reinforcing factors.

Discontinued drug use will often induce various negative responses such as chronic irritability, physical pain, emotional pain, malaise, dysphoria, alexithymia, and loss of motivation for natural rewards.

Chronic addictive drug use causes alterations in gene expression in the mesocorticolimbic projection, which arise through transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms. The most important transcription factors that produce these alterations are ΔFosB, cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), (CREB), (NF-κB). Overexpression of ΔFosB in the D1-type medium spiny neurons in the nucleus accumbens is necessary and sufficient for many of the neural adaptations and behavioral effects (e.g., expression-dependent increases in drug self-administration and reward sensitization) seen in drug addiction. This means an individuals actual genes are changed by chronic drug use to make them even more addicted - not just a case of being able to stop when they chose.

#addiction

prosetintmyworld

“In an experiment revealing the importance of having friendships, social psychologists have found that perceptions of task difficulty are significantly shaped by the proximity of a friend. In their experimental design, the researchers asked college students to stand at the base of a hill while carrying a weighted backpack and to estimate the steepness of a hill. Some participants stood next to close friends whom they had known a long time, some stood next to friends they had not known for long, and the rest stood alone during the exercise. The students who stood with friends gave significantly lower estimates of the steepness of the hill than those who stood alone. Furthermore, the longer the close friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared to the participants involved in the study. In other words, the world looks less difficult when standing next to a close friend.”

— my new favorite psychological study, done by Schnall, Harber, Stefanucci, and Proffitt and published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

turing-tested

there’s nothing purer or better than how much kids enjoy being picked up and then hurled at soft surfaces

turing-tested

anyone who’s ever been around kids for ay meaningful amount of time should know exactly how much kids long to be hefted up and then just fuckin tossed! it’s so good! they’re so excited to get fucking tossed around like a sack of potatoes it’s so pure

abigboysblog

Why do kids love it so much? Like I remember when I was a kid at diving practice during the summer, the best part was when one if the coaches would toss you into the deep end. And in gymnastics coaches would toss us into the foam pit. Do kids just have a evolutionary urge to die?

deanwinchesterisadorable

https://themilitarywifeandmom.com/why-kids-wont-listen/

“Vestibular sense provides information about where the body is in relation to its surroundings. This is the sense that helps you understand balance, and it connects with all the other senses.

When the vestibular system does not develop properly all other senses will struggle to function properly. Without a strong vestibular sense, kids will have no choice but to fidget, get frustrated, experience more falls and aggression, get too close to people when talking, and struggle with focusing and listening. Because they literally cannot help it.”

“Here are a few ways to support your child’s vestibular sense:

Spinning in circles.

Using a Merry-Go-Round.

Rolling down a hill.

Spinning on a swing.

Going upside down.

Climbing trees.

Rocking.

Jumping rope.

Summersaults or cartwheels.

Using monkey bars.

Skating.

Going backwards.

Swimming.

Dancing.

Wheel-barrel walks.”

Yeeting kids, spinning them, flipping them upside down, tossing them in the air, and otherwise disrupting their balance temporarily, is Important For Their Development, specifically for their vestibular sense.

Kids love this because they NEED it.

severalowls

In other words: Don’t forget to calibrate your child’s GPS!

roseyturtles

YEET THE CHILD FOR THEIR HEALTH

hjartaohamast-svohljott

Hi! Paediatric Occupational Therapist here who yeets children into pillows for a living. It’s actually more than the vestibular system! It’s also giving them proprioception, which is the feeling of your joints and muscles / where your body is in space!

We all seek proprioceptive input, leaning against walls, pushing against the steering wheel when driving, giving your body a squeeze to wake yourself up, the list goes on! When we ‘crash’ kids into soft things like pillows or beds, we’re waking their bodies up AND calming their bodies down! In other words, getting them into this super nice zone of “just right” regulation.

When I see a child who is bouncing off the walls and can’t seem to stand still for more than a few seconds? I start wrestling with them, crashing them into pillows, giving their body the right amount of input they need to feel good and organised. And suddenly, this kid is able to sit and play attentively or do their handwriting practice. It’s amazing! If you want to know more about why the vestibular and proprioceptive systems are awesome at making your body feel good, google those two words (and sensory processing) and read through some occupational therapy websites!

Side note: As adults, does your body ever feel jittering/jiggly/wiggly/like it needs to move or calm down but you just can’t figure out why? That’s your sensory system saying Hey! I need to feel differently in order to function better! Here’s what you can do:

Jump up and down (vestibular and proprioception)

Give yourself big squeezes (proprioception)

Place your hands on a wall and do push ups (proprioception)

Do cartwheels (vestibular and proprioception)

Get someone to give you the biggest bear hug for at least 10 seconds (proprioception and social connection, also proven to help regulate your sensory system into just right zone!)

Get a drink of water and drink it through a straw OR blow bubbles into the water (way more fun!) (oral motor input and respiration)

Have a shower or a bath (tactile)

Stretch and do exercise (vestibular and proprioception)

Eat something crunchy or chewy (like chips or gum) (oral motor input)

Listen to some music that suits your mood (auditory)

etc etc etc! I’m sure you already have a strategy that your body has figured out works for you. I personally like to chew gum when I feel like i need to eat something but I’m not actually hungry and just need that chewing sensation in my jaw.

Long story short, everyone has a sensory system and we all use regulation strategies like the ones listed above to help make our body feel better. So if you ever see someone (especially kids!) fidgeting and having a hard time focusing, maybe suggest something from the list above!

ms-demeanor

Are you telling me that push ups are the cure for ADHD leg bounce?

sassafrassrex

Push-ups have always been the cure for the ADHD leg bounce but for some reason no one wants to hear it.

lierdumoa

…you know…dancing…exists. We have other workout options. Even jogging is better then pushups damn we’re not in solitary confinement in a coffin sized prison cell we have options besides pushups, the most boring workout ever invented.

literaphobe

UH WHAT

UH...... WHAT.........

eirenical

This entire article is eye-opening, even as someone who has ADHD and has read a lot about it already. There's so much more there than just the bit about the glucose-craving brain. SO. MUCH.

This might have been the bit that hit me hardest, actually:

it would be easy to misinterpret the following scenario as a standoff between two partners: Imagine that your partner asks you to pay the electric bill, and you say to yourself, “OK, I have time to do that today.” But when you sit down to do it, you keep getting distracted. The ADHD brain needs higher stimulation in order to complete this rote task with minimal payoff. Your ADHD brain says, “That task is way too boring, and I refuse to focus on it. Find something that interests me more, which offers me a bigger dopamine reward, and I’ll work with you.” It doesn’t matter that you know you should pay the bill as promised; if your brain won’t engage, it’s an ugly standoff. Perhaps, after a day of procrastination — when your partner will be home in 20 minutes and the bill is still unpaid — there may be enough of an adrenaline rush from a sense of crisis that your brain will engage and you pay the bill.

The ADHD brain and its owner are at odds with one another. It’s difficult to compel a disengaged brain to engage by force of will. In fact, much of the treatment for ADHD involves learning to psych out the brain, so that it will attend to necessary, low-stimulation tasks.

Appreciating the tug-of-war within that pits intellect against neurobiology increases compassion and acceptance for one’s hidden struggle.

I feel SEEN. OTZ

Seriously, though. Read the whole thing. It's a good one.

blackwoolncrown

Add to this that it's not just that your brain says "I don't want to"- the prefrontal cortex literally shuts OFF.

#adhd

negativefeedback-teen

👏🏾Education 👏🏾is 👏🏾a 👏🏾right,👏🏾 not👏🏾 a👏🏾 service 👏🏾

Pass along and use the shit out of them

hashtagloveloses

wolfram alpha is a tool made by the gods themselves. do not underestimate its power. it goes in the hallowed halls with quizlet

heavyweightheart

“Disordered eating is linked to a reduced ability to cope with stressful situations, as well as an increased incidence of suicidal thoughts and behaviours (NEDC, 2018). Research has found that starvation has widespread and profound effects on mood and cognitive functioning (Brockmeyer et al., 2012).

Severely restricting the amount of food eaten can be a very dangerous practice. When starved of food, the body responds by reducing the rate at which it burns energy (the metabolic rate) (NEDC, 2018). The human brain operates at a very high metabolic rate, using a substantial portion of the body’s total energy and nutrient intake (Sarris et al., 2015). Without proper nutrition to fuel our brain transmission and function, our brain is left vulnerable (Altomare et al., 2017).”

More on disordered eating, nutrition, and the brain

obscuritiesoffbeat

I don’t usually soap-box, but I’m going to for a hot sec since this has been on my mind:

Cults are getting better branding, prettier leaders, hipper-sounding cosmologies, and wider reaches due to social media. They’re not all deity-focused. Thoughtful, intelligent people can get sucked into them. Just…stay safe out there, guys. Do your research, look at all your options, and trust your gut, not groupthink.

obscuritiesoffbeat

I’m glad this is resonating with people.

I do want to emphasize, again, that cults (and toxic groups with cult-like attributes, I’m using this term pretty loosely) don’t usually look like what you’d expect. A lot of toxic and dangerous religious movements are tiny and you won’t find much about them via Google. Cultish non-religious movements are the same way.

Start-ups, multi-level marketing companies, activist groups, fan groups, political groups, and internet mystics who run retreats can all be cult-like and dangerous. Tune your BS detector, ask family, friends, and experts for advice.

Here are some warning signs:

Pressure – pressure to make quick decisions, to give (or pledge) considerable amounts of money, to move in with a group, to abandon family or cut off friends. Elevated Leaders – anyone claiming special insight, special powers, or that they aren’t human. Demanding special treatment (compared to other followers). Misuse of funds or money collecting at the top. physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse. Lack of accountability or oversight. Isolation – encouraging (or requiring) members to cut off family relationships, friendships with those outside of the group, leaving jobs, moving to isolated areas, taking away communication methods. Strong “us-vs-them” mentality. Vilification of ex-members. Love-bombing. Altered states of consciousness – long work hours, sleep deprivation, lack of access to adequate food or water. Otherwise unproblematic activities like meditation/prayer/chanting, but done for hours. Discouraging doubt – discouraging or punishing doubt and critical thinking.

(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)

If these send up red flags for you or loved ones, here are some collected resources: one, two.

fidnru

“Male culture ensures that women’s anger is not taken seriously (and thus that women’s anger will not lead to social change) by defining anger in women as pathological. Broverman et al. (1972) found that mental health professionals judged aggression to be a trait associated with a healthy man, but not a healthy woman. Feinblatt and Gold (1976) found that more girls than boys were referred to children’s mental health centers for being defiant and verbally aggressive. Aggressive girls described in hypothetical case studies were rated both by graduate students in psychology and by parents as more disturbed, as being more in need of treatment, and as having poorer prognosis than boys described with identical problems. Hochschild (1983) found that males who displayed anger were thought to have deeply held convictions, while females were considered personally unstable.”

— Dee L. R. Graham, Loving to Survive (via reading-blog)

ink7blot

It’s one or the other. And honestly, I would like to see more boys ending up in children’s centers if that will keep them from being violent and angry men in the future.

puttingherinhistory

This. I’d really love to see more little boys getting serious mental health help and having serious interventions on violent and aggressive behavior if it meant less violent and dangerous adult men. It’s not enough to stop demonizing little girls for the slightest bit of aggression or standing up for themselves. We also gotta take it seriously when little boys are aggressive or violent instead of dismissing it as normal boy behavior that they’ll “grow out of”

wonderful-language-sounds

Free Online Language Courses

Here is a masterpost of MOOCs (massive open online courses) that are available, archived, or starting soon. I think they will help those that like to learn with a teacher or with videos. You can always check the audit course or no certificate option so that you can learn for free.

American Sign Language

ASL University

Sign Language Structure, Learning, and Change

Arabic

Arabic for Global Exchange (in the drop-down menu)

Intro to Arabic

Madinah Arabic

Moroccan Arabic

Arabe (taught in French)

Catalan

Intro to Catalan Language & Society

Intro to Catalan Sign Language

Chinese

Beginner

Basic Chinese I. II, III, IV , V

Basic Mandarin Chinese I & II

Beginner’s Chinese

Chinese for Beginners

Chinese Characters

Chinese for HSK 1

Chinese for HSK 2

Chinese for HSK 3 I & II

HSK Level 1

Mandarin Chinese

Mandarin Chinese for Business

More Chinese for Beginners

Start Talking Mandarin Chinese

UT Gateway to Chinese

Chino Básico (Taught in Spanish)

Intermediate

Chinese Stories

Intermediate Business Chinese

Intermediate Chinese Grammar

Dutch

Introduction to Dutch

English

Online Courses here

Resources Here

Faroese

Faroese Course

Finnish

A Taste of Finnish

Basic Finnish

Finnish for Immigrants

Finnish for Medical Professionals

French

Beginner

AP French Language and Culture

Basic French Skills

Beginner’s French: Food & Drink

Diploma in French

Elementary French I & II

Français Interactif

French in Action

French Language Studies I, II, III

French: Ouverture

Intermediate & Advanced

French: Le Quatorze Juillet

Passe Partout

La Cité des Sciences et de Industrie

Vivre en France - A2

Vivre en France - B1

Frisian

Introduction to Frisian (Taught in English)

Introduction to Frisian (Taught in Dutch)

German

Beginner

Beginner’s German: Food & Drink

Conversational German I, II, III, IV

Deutsch im Blick

Diploma in German

German at Work

Rundblick-Beginner’s German

Intermediate

German: Regionen Traditionen und Geschichte

Landschaftliche Vielfalt

Gwich’in

Introduction to Gwich’in Language

Hebrew

Biblical Hebrew

Know the Hebrew Alphabet

Teach Me Hebrew

Hindi

A Door into Hindi

Business Hindi

Virtual Hindi

Icelandic

Icelandic 1-5

Indonesian

Learn Indonesian

Irish

Introduction to Irish

Irish 101

Irish 102

Italian

Beginner

Beginner’s Italian: Food & Drink

Beginner’s Italian I

Introduction to Italian

Italian for Beginners 1 , 2, 3 , 4 , 5, 6

Intermediate & Advanced

AP Italian Language and Culture

Intermediate Italian I

Advanced Italian I

Letteratura italiana

Japanese

Genki

Japanese JOSHU

Japanese Pronunciation

Sing and Learn Japanese

Tufs JpLang

Kazakh

A1-B2 Kazakh (Taught in Russian)

Korean

Beginner

First Step Korean

How to Study Korean

Introduction to Korean

Learn to Speak Korean

Pathway to Spoken Korean

Intermediate

Intermediate Korean

Nepali

Beginner’s Conversation and Grammar

Norwegian

Introduction to Norwegian

Norwegian on the Web

Portuguese

Curso de Português para Estrangeiros

Pluralidades em Português Brasileiro

Russian

Beginner

Easy Accelerated Learning for Russian

Advanced

Reading Master and Margarita

Russian as an Instrument of Communication

Siberia: Russian for Foreigners

Spanish

Beginner

AP Spanish Language & Culture

Basic Spanish for English Speakers

Beginner’s Spanish: Food & Drink

Introduction to Spanish

Restaurants and Dining Out

Spanish for Beginners 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Spanish Vocabulary

Intermediate

Spanish: Ciudades con Historia

Spanish: Espacios Públicos

Advanced

Corrección, Estilo y Variaciones

Leer a Macondo

Spanish:Con Mis Propias Manos

Spanish: Perspectivas Porteñas

Swedish

Intro to Swedish

Swedish Made Easy 1, 2, & 3

Ukrainian

Read Ukrainian

Ukrainian Language for Beginners

Welsh

Beginner’s Welsh

Discovering Wales

Multiple Languages

Ancient Languages

More Language Learning Resources & Websites!

Last updated: April 1, 2018

neddea

!!!!!!!!! THIS IS SO USEFUL AND 💜💜💜

Is it wrong of me to try to learn, like, 8 of these languages??

tikkety-tok

Good news that we deserve 😌

bagheadautist

for people who can’t watch the video: THE AMYGDALA CHANGES TRADITIONALLY FOUND IN MOTHERS SHOW UP IN ALL PRIMARY CAREGIVERS REGARDLESS OF SEX

Changes in this part of the brain were previously used to previously used to argue that women are the ideal primary caretakers of children in all cases. And apparently, it’s false. The reason they found these changes in women was that women were already the primary caretaker in almost all cases, not because there’s something inherent to women that makes them better parents.

this is big news for SAHF and single dads!

guardian-headcanons

Yeah

historyofshipping

My male partner is our kid's primary caregiver and he 100% is way more in tune with kiddo's needs than I am.

thisisctrying

Gosh I hate grind culture. My little sister just started medical school and all of her orientation leaders are like “you absolutely cannot have a life WHATsoever you WILL have to give up EVERYTHING besides this program say GOODBYE to your hobbies and relationships” and now she’s calling me feeling guilty for running and going to the grocery store and that’s just WRONG! And that is exactly what I was told starting law school as well, and rejecting that mentality was the best thing I ever did but it was so hard not to buy into. Anyway if any of you are in an intense academic program PLEASE take time to sleep and eat and exercise and maintain your relationships and keep up your hobbies! you are not a robot who exists solely to study and I promise that living a life and staying physically and mentally healthy is not going to make you fail

ready-player-fun

Resist any and all notions that dictate you should put your job BEFORE your human comforts, those jobs exist so that we can be comfortable, having a job to sustain having creature comforts is literally the goal.

You aren't a worker drone.

chaoticum

I believe in free education, one that’s available to everyone; no matter their race, gender, age, wealth, etc… This masterpost was created for every knowledge hungry individual out there. I hope it will serve you well. Enjoy!

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

Alison

Coursera

FutureLearn

open2study

Khan Academy

edX

P2P U

Academic Earth

iversity

Stanford Online

MIT Open Courseware

Open Yale Courses

BBC Learning

OpenLearn

Carnegie Mellon University OLI

University of Reddit

Saylor

IDEAS, INSPIRATION & NEWS (websites which deliver educational content meant to entertain you and stimulate your brain)

TED

FORA

Big Think

99u

BBC Future

Seriously Amazing

How Stuff Works

Discovery News

National Geographic

Science News

Popular Science

IFLScience

YouTube Edu

NewScientist

DIY & HOW-TO’S (Don’t know how to do that? Want to learn how to do it yourself? Here are some great websites.)

wikiHow

Wonder How To

instructables

eHow

Howcast

MAKE

Do it yourself

FREE TEXTBOOKS & E-BOOKS

OpenStax CNX

Open Textbooks

Bookboon

Textbook Revolution

E-books Directory

FullBooks

Books Should Be Free

Classic Reader

Read Print

Project Gutenberg

AudioBooks For Free

LibriVox

Poem Hunter

Bartleby

MIT Classics

Many Books

Open Textbooks BCcampus

Open Textbook Library

WikiBooks

SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES & JOURNALS

Directory of Open Access Journals

Scitable

PLOS

Wiley Open Access

Springer Open

Oxford Open

Elsevier Open Access

ArXiv

Open Access Library

LEARN:

1. LANGUAGES

Duolingo

BBC Languages

Learn A Language

101languages

Memrise

Livemocha

Foreign Services Institute

My Languages

Surface Languages

Lingualia

OmniGlot

OpenCulture’s Language links

2. COMPUTER SCIENCE & PROGRAMMING

Codecademy

Programmr

GA Dash

CodeHS

w3schools

Code Avengers

Codelearn

The Code Player

Code School

Code.org

Programming Motherf*?$%#

Bento

Bucky’s room

WiBit

Learn Code the Hard Way

Mozilla Developer Network

Microsoft Virtual Academy

3. YOGA & MEDITATION

Learning Yoga

Learn Meditation

Yome

Free Meditation

Online Meditation

Do Yoga With Me

Yoga Learning Center

4. PHOTOGRAPHY & FILMMAKING

Exposure Guide

The Bastards Book of Photography

Cambridge in Color

Best Photo Lessons

Photography Course

Production Now

nyvs

Learn About Film

Film School Online

5. DRAWING & PAINTING

Enliighten

Ctrl+Paint

ArtGraphica

Google Cultural Institute

Drawspace

DragoArt

WetCanvas

6. INSTRUMENTS & MUSIC THEORY

Music Theory

Teoria

Music Theory Videos

Furmanczyk Academy of Music

Dave Conservatoire

Petrucci Music Library

Justin Guitar

Guitar Lessons

Piano Lessons

Zebra Keys

Play Bass Now

7. OTHER UNCATEGORIZED SKILLS

Investopedia

The Chess Website

Chesscademy

Chess.com

Spreeder

ReadSpeeder

First Aid for Free

First Aid Web

NHS Choices

Wolfram Demonstrations Project

Please feel free to add more learning focused websites.

*There are a lot more learning websites out there, but I picked the ones that are, as far as I’m aware, completely free and in my opinion the best/ most useful.

englishgradinrepair

just saying

bookofwisdom

WE CAN WHAT

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