Political Science Major And Indigenous Activist

An existent "college student" force who wishes to have enough money for food and animals.

[melindacarolinee]

[wlfgrrl]

[valtsv]

this is probably rlly specific but like… does anyone else ever get unbearably embarrassed about searching for content for something they’re really invested in and intentionally make things harder for yourself by trying to find it without actually searching or asking for it directly so that you don’t have to acknowledge to yourself that you want to see it or is it just me

[valtsv]

if we want the rewards of seeing more content for the interests we love we must first submit to the mortifying ordeal of actively looking for it

[valtsv]

britney_yeah.gif

[tlo-chi-iin]

Will Smith Writes New Rap Song, “Colonizers Just Don’t Understand”, for Natives.

NAVAJO NATION- Will Smith recently visited the Navajo Nation and greeted a Navajo practitioner right before he bungee jumped in the Grand Canyon. The medicine man did a quick prayer to so the actor/rapper can get jiggy with it.

In his meeting, Will Smith was inspired to write a new rap song for Native Americans titled, “Colonizers Just Don’t Understand”. He articulates the fact that colonizers will never understand the reality of Indigenous people. 

The song opens up with a catchy beat and Will Smith opens up.

“You know colonizers are the same No matter time nor place They don’t understand that Natives aren’t going to be erased. So to you, all the Natives across stolen land There’s no need to argue Colonizers just don’t understand”.

The song goes on to explain the logic of elimination through genocide, land dispossession, and blood quantum. Many of his lyrics were written and inspired by Natives and all the royalties will go to their respective communities.

His visit was only three hours long yet the rapper pumped out the song later that evening. Many Native hip/hop artists were quick to salute the veteran rapper for using his platform to educate people on the Native Americans. 

Many don’t expect the single to hit the top five chart because it is too “woke” for the public but the song has reverberated through the hip/hop community. Will Smith is expected to have a tour to major Native communities around the U.S. 

[studyblr]

study moods

sleepy dawn

open windows

listening to lo-fi

wearing pyjamas

planning your day, creating to-do lists

the sky is pretty

spring breeze

coming back after a walk

drinking a glass of water

getting a head-start on the assignment

the great feeling of productivity, ah

cozy evening

sitting on your bed

rewarding yourself afterwards with a bath or chocolate

highlighting with your favourite markers

warm tea or cocoa next to you

night vision

it’s way too late, but you gotta finish that essay

rock music all the way

everything is a mess

you’re gonna be okay though

cinnamon afternoon

drinking coffee

doing some math exercises

listening to a chill/coffeehouse playlist

scrolling through tumblr in your little breaks

[allbusybees]

forgive yourself. whether you fail a test, eat too many cookies, say the wrong thing, fail a class, or spend a whole day in bed — learn to forgive yourself. the next day will be better. the next day will be a day closer to your next success. you can do it.

[saythefisherman]

Thanos is a weak ass bitch of a villain because ever since killmonger I need all my villains to pull up with some style, looks, a certain je ne sais quoi. Killmonger stole a thousand year old artifact and wore it as armor and wore solid gold fangs. What did Thanos wear? The same body armor for hundreds of years and a dumb glove that wasn’t even designer

[saythefisherman]

People are all like “he’s an alien” like so was Hela and she pulled up with some iconic goth looks, Chanel horned helmet, a beautiful smokey eye, nails that could cut diamonds, Thanos has no excuse fashion is universal

[phastos]

[curls-and-courage]

My favorite is people who send me unsolicited dick pics and then they’re like, “uh, hi? Are you ignoring me?”

It’s just so funny to me. Like one minute I’m designing bioreactors and getting published for heat dissipation in polymers and then I open this godforsaken app to dudes hanging brain who can’t even pronounce “saponification” calling me a slut because I won’t give attention to their limp excuses for existence.

3 billion years of evolution and the greatest form of communication you can conjure up in your fermented omelet of a conscience is submitting your wrinkly ball sac to a stranger on the Internet to substitute the attention your parents never gave their mistake of an offspring.

[barbex]

This is poetry.

[mandysimo13]

This is Shakespearian in its brilliance

[theycantstopthesignal]

I’m in love

[trellyworld]

[kimreesesdaughter]

I’m reblogging this every time I see it.

[morninggggstar]

AND COUNTING.

[amer-ainu]

Outsiders are not not saving a language by learning it.

While I’m personally grateful services like Tribalingual exist, creating some academic access to Indigenous languages, particularly for Indigenous diaspora (if they can afford it), I’m extremely dubious of the notion that a outsiders learning an Indigenous language is somehow “saving” it. There was a testimonial from some white American girl learning Ainu itak, and she spoke of it as if she were collecting some rare Pokemon card before it went out of print or something, framing it in typical dying Native rhetoric. What is she going to do with Ainu itak, except as some obscure lingual trophy?

If you want to save a language, save the people.

Language means nothing without history and culture breathing life into it, and in turn we are disconnected from our history and ancestors without it. Support Indigenous quality of life, ACCESS to quality education, quality health services (mental and physical), land and subsistence rights, CLEAN DRINKING WATER, advocate against police brutality and state violence, DEMAND ACTION FOR MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN.

Damn, if you really want to “save the language” pay for an Indigenous person’s classes for them to reconnect to their mother tongues. I’m not saying outsiders shouldn’t learn languages they’re invited to learn, but don’t pretend like you learning conversational Ainu itak is saving it from extinction.

[typewritertimemachine]

A language needs to be used in its proper context, and that context is the community that uses it. Maybe try respecting people’s human dignity first before looking to save solely their language? 

[study-sleep-tea-repeat]

1. Summer homework if you have any. I’ve had homework every single summer since 1st grade (around 7 years old) but I know that a lot of schools don’t do this. This is actually my first summer in 11 years without any homework since I am graduating from high school this weekend!

2. Teach yourself something new / take a class online. Personally, I’ll be using Memrise to teach myself Astronomy, French, some miscellaneous history, Political Science, and ASL. If you’re looking to learn a language, I highly recommend Duolingo as well, and there are a huge number of other websites where you can take classes.

3. Get school supplies for next year. Pretty self-explanatory :)

4. Read more! Pick up one of those books that you’ve been meaning to read, or go to the library and choose a book that looks interesting. If you like writing, you could also write a paper about it.

5. Get some work experience or volunteer. Although not really study related, it can improve your ability to work during the school year.

6. Organize your room, desk, backpack, closet, etc.

7. Pick up or pursue a hobby. Maybe you haven’t had time to practice guitar or painting since you’ve been so busy with school, but now is your time to actually do it! If you can’t think of any hobbies or skills to try, there are a bunch of ideas online.

8. Set up a bullet journal if you haven’t already. If you don’t know what that is or haven’t tried one yet, there’s tons of inspiration right here in the studyblr community!

9. Start the 30 day studyblr challenge, the 100 days of productivity challenge, or another similar challenge. Yes, even during the summer!

10. And lastly, just RELAX. We all push ourselves so hard during the school year, we all need to learn how to relax and keep ourselves from burning out.

[sealedbeastnue]

when will Ted himself.. finally show up to the Talk ?

[beangeneboy]

The final boss

[stray-suh-nur]

You guys know TEDtalks stands for technology, entertainment and design talks right?

[sealedbeastnue]

I will not let Ted hide behind these lies any longer

[moody-poet-deactivated20180227]

How I Got Straight A’s in My First Year of University

I was so proud of myself when I received firsts (that’s A’s for those not attending uni in the UK) on all of my assessments in my first year at university. Here are some tips for y’all to try at any point in university. They may be specific at times to my experience—my degree is in the social sciences and humanities, and I’m studying in the UK—but I did try to make them more generally applicable, and hopefully they should be helpful to someone out there.

Part One: Everyday Study Routine

Before the start of the academic year, try to get in a little bit of preparation. See if there are any syllabi or reading lists posted online. You don’t have to pour over them, of course, but do attempt to do something, and have a basic grasp on what will be covered in your classes.

Go to all your lectures and seminars. Unless you absolutely have to miss class because you are ill or have an important obligation to take care of, it’s really important to attend your lectures every day. (Note: if you are struggling with mental or chronic illness or a disability, don’t beat yourself up if you keep missing class. Please take care of yourself.) You may be tempted to just look at the PowerPoint presentation online, but it’s much more effective to be there in person. Often the lecturer may include information or extra explanations which are not included in the presentation. It will also allow you to process the information aurally as well as visually, and you will have the added benefit of taking notes too. You may also be able to ask questions.

Do all the pre-reading for lectures. I know it’s tempting to put it off, but try to work it into your daily routine (because you will have reading to do every day). Inevitably, there will be times where you slip up and don’t have time to finish. If this happens, make sure you catch up on it at some point, because it’s very important to solidifying the concepts you are learning about. Also, the more you read in general, the better you will become at reading (and also writing).

Take diligent notes (for both your lectures and pre-reading), and keep them organized. I prefer to handwrite in a notebook, as it helps me synthesize information rather than just typing it out verbatim—but it is totally up to you. If you do use a notebook, make a table of contents on the first page, where you write the date, topic, class, and page numbers of each set of notes you take. I think it’s a great idea to include your own thoughts and opinions in notes, or linking concepts you are learning to concepts you already know about.

If you have the time, make sure to be reading books/essays/articles and engaging with ideas outside of your regular syllabus. This is one of the most important techniques (in my experience, at least) when it comes to writing essays and answering exam questions. Evidence of wider reading around a topic is a great way to boost the credibility of your argument. It also does wonders to solidify and broaden your conceptualization of certain ideas you may have covered in your classes.

Where possible, try to contribute (as much as you feel comfortable) in seminars. If you are very quiet and reserved, that is totally okay too. I’m with you. But it has helped me tremendously in the past year to push myself to speak up more often in seminars. Talking in seminars allows you to clarify concepts and engage more deeply with the material being discussed (and it might impress your seminar tutor too, though this is secondary to the learning in my opinion).

If you have some nerdy-ass friends, talk with them about your ideas and what you’re both learning in your courses. I can’t tell you the number of essays I’ve written which actually have blossomed out of conversations I’ve had with friends, where they’ve exposed me to topics I’d never heard of before or broadened my view of a concept. Learning from each other in a casual and fun setting is amazing!

Part Two: Assessment Time

When you are given notice about big assignments coming up, such as essays or group projects, try to start working on them ASAP. Trust me, I know how hard it is. This is coming from someone who has dealt for years with chronic procrastination issues and nearly didn’t graduate from high school because of it. But you must start planning as soon as you possibly can, because the due date will come screaming up and before you know it, it’ll be the night before the deadline and you won’t have a clue what you’re writing about. Work it into your daily schedule if you have to. One great tip is to write down the deadline as being earlier (say, a week earlier) than what it actually is. This will prompt you to start earlier than you normally would have.

Do a shitload of reading, widely, from multiple sources. Read everything you can on the topic you are doing your assignment on. For a basic literature review, this means looking through at least 20+ sources. That doesn’t mean carefully perusing each one front to back; it means looking through all the relevant literature to find a few great sources which will really give you a coherent argument and a big picture of the topic at hand.

Keep your sources organized. I use Paperpile, which is a Chrome extension that allows you to save and organize academic sources. I make a folder for each assessment I am working on, and anything I find relevant to my topic, I save it to the folder. This will be a life saver for you when you actually go to plan your paper and also do the referencing.

Content is important, but perhaps even more important is your argument and structure. This mostly applies to essays, but you can apply it to other types of assessments too. Try not to structure your argument in terms of blocks of content—e.g. Paragraph 1 is about Topic A, Paragraph 2 is about Topic B—but rather in terms of how you are laying out your argument. Make sure each part of your essay flows into the next, so that you are, for example, setting up a kind of dialogue or narrative between the different sources you’re using. Also ensure that any point you are making clearly relates back to your main thesis.

If you’re a perfectionist like me: train yourself to remember that there is no such thing as perfect. Try to imagine what the perfect essay would be like. Can you imagine it? It’s probably pretty difficult, right? That’s because there is no such thing as a perfect assignment. Remind yourself of this, constantly. Tell yourself that you will be okay with just doing your very best. If you think about it logically: handing in something that is perhaps not your best ever, but handing it in on time and doing pretty well, is infinitely better than attempting to have a “perfect” essay but handing it in late and failing the assignment.

I hope this helped some of you! Best of luck and happy studying this year—go knock ‘em out! xo

[ramenuzumaki]

This post needs to be shared in all the blogs.

[greatmindquotes]

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” - Lao-Tsu

[cyndigenous-deactivated20210204]

Friendly reminder that indigenous lives are important

Indigenous babies, youths, adults and Elders are important.

Indigenous men, women, Two Spirited, non-binary people are important.

Indigenous people matter.