trying to be great

[glitterfountainpen]

Hi! My name is Opal, i'm 22 and my pronouns are doll/dor <2

I'm studying English (I'm french so it's foreign language studies) and I just finished my master's degree in English-speaking Chlidren's Literature. This year i'm taking the hardest national exam in English, with only a 8% passing rate so I'm hoping that romanticizing studying will help me stay motivated :)

This blog is for motivation, to eventually make some study friends and to hold myself accountable ^^

i'm kind of a stationery addict (especially sanrio/cute characters and space themed but anything novelty) so i'll probably ramble about that too :)

this is a sideblog, but you can find my balletcore/jirai/girlblog here @one-must-imagine-sisyphus-happy and my main here @never-wake-up

Also I do have mental issues and literally just got stopped from work because of burnout so like. I might not be consistent all the time :) it's chillllll we'll see what happens. There will be no vents or triggering posts on here don't worry I keep it all studying and stationary

[whatmarvellousthings]

Pro tip: don't pick a super niche specialism that people think they know a lot about because you'll forever be mad.jpg

[thatlittleegyptologist]

Hello and welcome to Egyptology!

[glitterfountainpen]

I’ll be honest, it's kind of ridiculous that for the hardest English-language competitive exam in France, we have to study Huckleberry Finn but we’re not allowed to actually quote the book. Like we have to actually change the text of the book to n-word or N— the written or just leave a blank during the orals. I mean, I'm not advocating for saying the n-word but you know.

Either we can keep the text of the book as an artifact of its time or we can just. put another book on the syllabus. It's a strange choice of line in the sand is all. I can understand the reason we have to use "enslaved person" instead of "slave" and "slaver" instead of "slave owner" but we're also forbidden from using anachronistic language for other texts such as homosexual or heterosexual in relation to Shakespeare. Just. At this point put another book on the syllabus idfk.

Given that some teachers call the agrégation class the "elite of the English-speaking field" (which is bullshit btw), you'd think we can handle putting things in their historical context. It feels especially hypocritical when I had to translate very egregious openly racist and transphobic shit as an undergraduate. I can't stress this enough, they're not trusting actual future teachers (everyone here has a master's degree) with the actual text. Kind of scary.

Once again, I'm not saying we should say the n-word, I'm just pointing out that they're absolutely willing to put people who they can't trust not to misuse slurs in front of a class.

[cryptid-in-the-library]

'omg you have a studyblr account you must be so productive!'

babes this is me on a daily basis

[thecoolnerdblog]

Just need it to be known that my need for academic validation does not stem from arrogance but rather expectation. I don’t get an adrenaline rush when I get a good grade back I think “okay moving on” and go on about my life as if nothing happened.

But the second—the SECOND—I get below and A?? My entire life was meaningless and my existence was just a single insignificant blip within the frame of the universe and everyone I ever know will never remember nor forget me

[glitterfountainpen]

i'm running into administrative problems with my inscription to my exam because my old uni won't give the papers i need even after asking kindly. It's gotten to a point where the lady from the exam registration center i had on the phone was genuinely saying shit like "i can't tell you to sue them, but also. Know your rights, they are legally obligated to give you that paper and threats are always productive". aye aye ma'am i'll drink to that even if i hope it doesn't have to go that far lmao

[creeping-u-out]

study day with my friend :3 (im so fucking tired kill me)

we had completely opposite subjects to study for but it’s still so much nicer than studying alone (she was doing physics). we studied for 7 hours straight then at the end we went on a walk and watched the sunset over a lake and talked a lot about life, especially life after graduation. it was nice, i'm just really tired and burnt out now but i don't think i'll be able to sleep cuz i drank so much monster and took so much ritalin in the afternoon, stimulants on top of stimulants lol

[cannimumsable]

if i don't get only good grades forever I'm killing myself by the way

[freakoutgirl]

in many ways i am still my pretentious 14 year old self which is fine

[way-by-moonlight]

[witches-soup-bowl]

one must envision sisyphus happy (completing assignment after assignment after assignment just to get more work, but receiving academic validation and good grades)

[glitterfountainpen]

I haven't posted in a while because I forgot to take pictures the last week of class, and then I had a week of holidays and only came back to class yesterday (I remembered to take pictures,,, but forgot to post oops).

If you want to keep up with me when I'm not posting study or school stuff, I'm also here ^^ @never-wake-up and @one-must-imagine-sisyphus-happy

But I did a lot of work in the mean time ! I presented a paper about feminism and Miss Trunchbull at a conference. I finished Tristam Shandy, victory ! I read the whole corpus of Kathleen Raine's poems and I really like them. To be fair, after Sterne, I would enjoy anything really. But I really like those, they actually vaguely remind me of Apollinaire's Alcools, my favourite poetry book since I was 14. It's a bit too religious for me admittedly but I can understand it, poor woman had just lost the love of her life, she can cope with the grief as she can, I just feel bad for her. I also summarised half my linguistic textbook and I feel like I'm understanding it more now so I'm happy about it. And I'm already learning my civi by heart, I'm at about 3/4 memorized, figured I'd start early given I suck at it, and draft exams are in a month so I will take all the advantages I can get :)

[pirouettesandplans]

🏷️ pirouettes & plans

just a space for ballet, studying, and the occasional mental breakdown disguised as productivity 💻 🩰

be kind or be quiet—i’m too tired for anything else.

[kawaiibabeshop]

💖 Kawaii Babe Shop! 💖 // Photo Credit: [x]

[glitterfountainpen]

Spell of radblr and radfems begone, I'm one of those scary gendies you get your panties in a twist about

[writterings]

anyways something i hate about older academics and teachers in general is that they see teaching very much as "students are vessels to impart knowledge on" rather than "students are their own people who can make their own decisions and deserve respect and to be heard" like i got observed today and while the older prof gave me good feedback, he still was like "why don't you take off points for incorrect grammar or spelling on essays???" and i was like idk man i care more about what they're saying than how they say it. like i want them to LEARN THE CONTENT rather than have them worry about making mistakes. like, i get that i'm teaching writing but writing is so much more than just grammar and spelling. like god.

also what im saying about focusing on content over appearances is also an actual pedagogical practice that i was trained on and not, like, some intuitive thing as well. like there's literature on this. this is a way people are trained to teach. it's been proven to be more effective and it makes the students more confident. and yet some people still think that it's not "appropriate" for teaching. god.

[billliebyob]

[■■■■■■□□□□] 60%

𝐈 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧'𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐫.. 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐫