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@caantari
finally some relatable content on ig
*sigh* Its that time of year where freshman high school classes start reading Romeo and Juliet.
And I'm just so tired of the "well they werent REALLY IN LOVE they were just dumb teenagers with hormones" take.
What do you mean "not really" in love? They werent real people. They are fictional characters. The story says they are in love. The omniscient chorus says they are in love. The themes of the entire play are built on the fact that they are in love.
So what does it add to undermine that except as an excuse to not engage authentically with the story? To suggest that actually it's the two teenagers fault that they died because they were being stupid and hormonal, rather than society and their families for the senseless hate that forced them to extreme measures? Does that seem like Shakespeare's intent? Does that seem like an interesting or useful reading, or as a cop out reason to role your eyes and refuse to engage with the play at all?
I understand that we are now in an age where "love at first sight" isnt really a valid literary trope anymore. Even Disney is taking shots at it. But this play was written in 1597- when the omniscient chorus tells you that they are in love, it isnt tongue in cheek.
romeo and juliet is about a certain kind of love that isn’t adequate, and it’s not the love of romeo or juliet!
it’s about the way their parents and families failed to love them enough, or failed to demonstrate that love adequately. it’s about how putting pride and honor and revenge above things like “love” and “the safety and happiness of your children” is a shitty way to parent.
idk i think it’s really interesting because that’s actually kind of a subversive message! the message “children have a responsibility to respect and obey their parents” was fucking everywhere in Shakespeare’s day, even more than it is today. it’s kind of a big deal to say “hey also, parents have a responsibility to love their kids more than they love themselves.”
Romeo and Julliet were a pair of teenage dumbasses. But teenage dumbasses grow up to be functioning adults all the time. Being a teenage dumbass is a step on the path to adulthood. It is the adults' responsibility to create an environment in which being a teenage dumbass is not a death sentence.
I mean, yes, I agree with the sentiment.
But I do want to push back on the idea that Romeo and Juliet are "dumbass teenagers."
The things people generally point to as them being dumb tends to be fast/impulsive decisions, but there are reasons in the narrative for why they are forced to make those decisions quickly. The violence and Juliets impending arranged marriage put them on a timer that they didn't choose. If they had waited, not gotten married, not been together on their wedding night- they might have lived, but they also wouldn't have had even those few fleeting hours together.
Juliets feigned suicide with the sleeping potion is supposed to allow her to sneak away with Romeo without escalating the bloodshed by getting Romeo accused of kidnapping, and without her being forced into the *deadly sin* of adultery if she were forced to marry while already being married. She BEGS her parents for more time, to delay the marriage to Paris so she can think of something better, and is told no.
And the plan WOULD have worked if the messenger had successfully reached Romeo- but didn't because of plague slowing travel.
So you know, they tried. And I think while it may appeal to teenagers to characterize them as dumbasses (teenagers love to criticize other teens, and then they can engage with the story by listing all the things THEY would have done differently), I don't think it's particularly fair to do so. And more importantly, I think the more emphasis we put on Romeo and Juliet being impulsive or dumb, takes away from the tragedy of the circumstances they were forced into, and undermines that their love was true. Their first conversation forms a sonnet, the rhyming couplet at the end is sealed with a kiss. They *should* have been together, and...come hell or high water....they would be together.
Students that I work with actually get really invested in criticizing the adults in the story, and the circumstances. Gen Z / Gen Alpha High schoolers care a lot about like the rights of children and youth, how adults treat them, how external circumstances impact characters pov and actions, and they pick up on all of it, and it’s so much fun every year.
To see kids go from ‘I don’t want to read Shakespeare, love is gross, school is dumb’ to boldly debating who’s more at fault for what happened to Romeo and Juliet, and also other characters like tybalt ! oooh the kids always love tybalt. and they blame Romeo a little for his death, but they also blame the adults, and the culture, and the messaging that both Romeo and tybalt are given as young men.
One student, a struggling reader I was working with, who is also one of our EL students, was completing an assignment this year where for part of a class, students take a character, write a paragraph about how that character would translate to the modern day, and then draw the modern day version of the character. He didn’t know where to start with the writing, so I told him to start with the drawing first, then we would work on the writing together. At first he didn’t know which character to even start with, so I read some of the shorter lines from some of the characters in the most recently assigned section, and I forget exactly what it was but it was something about Tybalt being described by another character, he stopped me. He said he wanted to do Tybalt. I asked him why and how he wanted to make Tybalt modern.
He started the drawing and while he worked, he told me about his older brother who taught him to play soccer, a fast and skilled athlete, who hasn’t been able to play much recently because he took a part time job to help out the family. Who laughs loudly and takes every opportunity to be active, but who also cares deeply for his loved ones and would defend them. He sketched out a (very rough sketch, he’s an athlete at an arts school, he’s doing his best) drawing of a tall boy in a soccer jersey, shin guards, cleats, and wrote in pencil at the bottom, ‘[his brother’s first name] prince of cats’ all lowercase. Then we worked on talking through his paragraph. At the end of class, when students could pick up their phones from the phone holder, he wanted to show me a picture of his brother, mostly joking with me, to try to convince me that he did actually put effort into his very quick very rough sketch. But also probably because I let him tell me about his older brother, who he clearly idolizes, as younger brothers sometimes do.
When the class got to the death scene and were reading and discussing it, this student spoke up and said he didn’t blame Romeo. He wanted to know how were the characters supposed to know that they are defending the same family (since Romeo had married in to the family secretly right before this fight scene) and wanted to know why no one taught them to talk things over first before fighting. He referred to Romeo and Tybalt as family a few times in that discussion, getting so specific about reminding other students that they’re related to each other now, and didn’t get the chance to figure that out because they always have to be fighting.
I think after this year, every time I read or teach R + J, I will always picture this student’s older brother playing the role of Tybalt.
And sometimes the kids are alright.
Not only do I love this story, but I really like that assignment. What a fun way to to have kids dig into character analysis! :)
*sigh* Its that time of year where freshman high school classes start reading Romeo and Juliet.
And I'm just so tired of the "well they werent REALLY IN LOVE they were just dumb teenagers with hormones" take.
What do you mean "not really" in love? They werent real people. They are fictional characters. The story says they are in love. The omniscient chorus says they are in love. The themes of the entire play are built on the fact that they are in love.
So what does it add to undermine that except as an excuse to not engage authentically with the story? To suggest that actually it's the two teenagers fault that they died because they were being stupid and hormonal, rather than society and their families for the senseless hate that forced them to extreme measures? Does that seem like Shakespeare's intent? Does that seem like an interesting or useful reading, or as a cop out reason to role your eyes and refuse to engage with the play at all?
I understand that we are now in an age where "love at first sight" isnt really a valid literary trope anymore. Even Disney is taking shots at it. But this play was written in 1597- when the omniscient chorus tells you that they are in love, it isnt tongue in cheek.
romeo and juliet is about a certain kind of love that isn’t adequate, and it’s not the love of romeo or juliet!
it’s about the way their parents and families failed to love them enough, or failed to demonstrate that love adequately. it’s about how putting pride and honor and revenge above things like “love” and “the safety and happiness of your children” is a shitty way to parent.
idk i think it’s really interesting because that’s actually kind of a subversive message! the message “children have a responsibility to respect and obey their parents” was fucking everywhere in Shakespeare’s day, even more than it is today. it’s kind of a big deal to say “hey also, parents have a responsibility to love their kids more than they love themselves.”
Romeo and Julliet were a pair of teenage dumbasses. But teenage dumbasses grow up to be functioning adults all the time. Being a teenage dumbass is a step on the path to adulthood. It is the adults' responsibility to create an environment in which being a teenage dumbass is not a death sentence.
I mean, yes, I agree with the sentiment.
But I do want to push back on the idea that Romeo and Juliet are "dumbass teenagers."
The things people generally point to as them being dumb tends to be fast/impulsive decisions, but there are reasons in the narrative for why they are forced to make those decisions quickly. The violence and Juliets impending arranged marriage put them on a timer that they didn't choose. If they had waited, not gotten married, not been together on their wedding night- they might have lived, but they also wouldn't have had even those few fleeting hours together.
Juliets feigned suicide with the sleeping potion is supposed to allow her to sneak away with Romeo without escalating the bloodshed by getting Romeo accused of kidnapping, and without her being forced into the *deadly sin* of adultery if she were forced to marry while already being married. She BEGS her parents for more time, to delay the marriage to Paris so she can think of something better, and is told no.
And the plan WOULD have worked if the messenger had successfully reached Romeo- but didn't because of plague slowing travel.
So you know, they tried. And I think while it may appeal to teenagers to characterize them as dumbasses (teenagers love to criticize other teens, and then they can engage with the story by listing all the things THEY would have done differently), I don't think it's particularly fair to do so. And more importantly, I think the more emphasis we put on Romeo and Juliet being impulsive or dumb, takes away from the tragedy of the circumstances they were forced into, and undermines that their love was true. Their first conversation forms a sonnet, the rhyming couplet at the end is sealed with a kiss. They *should* have been together, and...come hell or high water....they would be together.
Students that I work with actually get really invested in criticizing the adults in the story, and the circumstances. Gen Z / Gen Alpha High schoolers care a lot about like the rights of children and youth, how adults treat them, how external circumstances impact characters pov and actions, and they pick up on all of it, and it’s so much fun every year.
To see kids go from ‘I don’t want to read Shakespeare, love is gross, school is dumb’ to boldly debating who’s more at fault for what happened to Romeo and Juliet, and also other characters like tybalt ! oooh the kids always love tybalt. and they blame Romeo a little for his death, but they also blame the adults, and the culture, and the messaging that both Romeo and tybalt are given as young men.
One student, a struggling reader I was working with, who is also one of our EL students, was completing an assignment this year where for part of a class, students take a character, write a paragraph about how that character would translate to the modern day, and then draw the modern day version of the character. He didn’t know where to start with the writing, so I told him to start with the drawing first, then we would work on the writing together. At first he didn’t know which character to even start with, so I read some of the shorter lines from some of the characters in the most recently assigned section, and I forget exactly what it was but it was something about Tybalt being described by another character, he stopped me. He said he wanted to do Tybalt. I asked him why and how he wanted to make Tybalt modern.
He started the drawing and while he worked, he told me about his older brother who taught him to play soccer, a fast and skilled athlete, who hasn’t been able to play much recently because he took a part time job to help out the family. Who laughs loudly and takes every opportunity to be active, but who also cares deeply for his loved ones and would defend them. He sketched out a (very rough sketch, he’s an athlete at an arts school, he’s doing his best) drawing of a tall boy in a soccer jersey, shin guards, cleats, and wrote in pencil at the bottom, ‘[his brother’s first name] prince of cats’ all lowercase. Then we worked on talking through his paragraph. At the end of class, when students could pick up their phones from the phone holder, he wanted to show me a picture of his brother, mostly joking with me, to try to convince me that he did actually put effort into his very quick very rough sketch. But also probably because I let him tell me about his older brother, who he clearly idolizes, as younger brothers sometimes do.
When the class got to the death scene and were reading and discussing it, this student spoke up and said he didn’t blame Romeo. He wanted to know how were the characters supposed to know that they are defending the same family (since Romeo had married in to the family secretly right before this fight scene) and wanted to know why no one taught them to talk things over first before fighting. He referred to Romeo and Tybalt as family a few times in that discussion, getting so specific about reminding other students that they’re related to each other now, and didn’t get the chance to figure that out because they always have to be fighting.
I think after this year, every time I read or teach R + J, I will always picture this student’s older brother playing the role of Tybalt.
And sometimes the kids are alright.
Not only do I love this story, but I really like that assignment. What a fun way to to have kids dig into character analysis! :)
She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.
She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.
81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.
The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.
Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.
Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.
The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.
She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.
Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.
When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.
The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.
When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.
The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.
You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.
Edited down a long tweet. (x)
When I was in the hospital, they gave me a big bracelet that said ALLERGY, but like. I'm allergic to bees. Were they going to prescribe me bees in there.
So there's a medication called hyaluronidase. It's used to make other medications absorb better, because it makes the cell wall more permeable.
One common usage is to make local anesthetic more effective during surgery, for instance. It's used in a number of injected medications.
Bee stings contain an enzyme very similar to this medication, so sometimes, people with bee allergies have an allergic reaction to hyaluronidase.
This is called cross-reactivity, where your body mistakes something for the thing it's actually allergic to, and has an allergic reaction anyway. For instance, sometimes people with latex allergies also are allergic to bananas and other fruits. They don't actually contain latex, but there are some similar proteins.
Apparently, hyraluronidase used in humans is derived from one of four sources: sheep testicles, cow testicles, cow testicles again, and GMO hamster ovaries.
tl;dr: They won't inject you with bees, but they might inject you with purified cow testicle juice, and your body might say 'eh, cow balls are BASICALLY bees' and try to kill you anyway.
The world is full of such beauty and wonder. Thank you for that sentence.
The good plot twists aren't the ones that are wild left turns out of nowhere, they're the ones that make all the other little things that didn't quite add up before suddenly click
giving myself a merit badge that says SURVIVED MARCH
oh fuck. I’m so sorry. listening and learning
Stole this from somewhere but i think it’s appropriate
i think a lot of people internalized the misogynistic idea that “men are rational and women are emotional” and just went “that’s true… but it’s a good thing!” instead of saying “that’s obviously bullshit and we shouldn’t perpetuate this belief in any form”
I don’t know a word of Korean, but I love how I can tell the chat is clearly cracking up at this.
“LOL I’M DRIVING” is a universal experience
The chat going absolutely apeshit is my favourite part of this video.