t'sé 🌻

24. she/her.

[fuckyeahchinesegarden]

lotus by 烟波里的棠

[visit-ba-sing-se]

shout out to every one still wearing their mask, no matter if mandatory or not. everyone who used their privilege to get their vaccine and booster shot. everyone who is careful to still follow the rules on social distancing. everyone who missed out on some kind of fun or thing they looked forward to because it did not seem right in the middle of a pandemic (and might have even gotten mocked as stuck up). all of this has been so long and frustrating but it would be way worse if It weren’t for you, so thank you so much for carrying on for all of us. 

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

When we were children, my sister had private music lessons at her violin teacher’s house. I only visited there once, but I still remember that afternoon. The teacher had an artificial pond in her yard, a large beautiful thing with lily pads and plant life. And in the pond, there were goldfish. I had never seen such enormous goldfish. 

I spent several minutes just staring at them (and trying to convince them to bite my fingers.) When my sister’s violin lesson ended, her teacher came out to the yard and explained that these goldfish were the same small creatures that were often unfortunately sold in plastic bags at state fairs. They were only about two inches long apiece, when she bought them and put them in the new, empty pond. In essence, they were like every goldfish I had seen before, but they had been given a much larger, much richer environment in which to flourish. As a result, they had grown into some of the most remarkable, vibrant creatures my twelve-year-old self had ever met with. All because of a pond. 

Funny what lessons children remember. My sister doesn’t play the violin anymore, but that was the first time I caught a glimpse of the overwhelming extent to which it matters, the way the world treats us.

[amanitacaplan]

[slavicafire]

On names/naming: my grandmother, mother and I all changed our names at around the age of eleven due to English speakers perpetual inability to pronounce our real ones. Having switched schools, moved across countries, quit jobs, none of us have anyone in our lives anymore who call us anything other than the names we chose in youth, none of my friends or teachers are even aware that mine isn’t the name I was given - it’s a strange sort of power, I think, to be able to look someone in the eye and tell yourself that they can’t hurt you, they don’t know you, they don’t even know your name. But let me tell you that every year during the honey harvest, when the three of us are spending days upon days scraping away at wax caps my mother won’t look up from her work but she’ll ask me to pass her a rag, and she’ll thank me with the name she gave me, I’ll call my grandmother what she was called before any part of her was considered alienating or deficient, and she’ll address my mother like she did when she first held her. It’s mournful, in a way, that the both of them were handed their daughters and thought to themselves “this is it, this is the girl that won’t feel the need to reduce herself to something recognizable and pacifying, who won’t do what I had to do.” For a long time I felt like someone calling me what I truly am might make me shake apart, just dissolve - maybe it was less about the grief inherent to my lineage and more about the fear of being seen, I’m not sure. I’m old enough now to be grateful for the week each year that the three of us allow ourselves to spend as that girl; being acknowledged and accepted and whole. It’s true that knowing someone has no insight into your true self is a defence better than most - but, it’s taken looking the matriarchs of my family in the eyes we all share, and admitting that they could hurt me, they do know me, they are intimately familiar with every piece of myself that I’ve bundled away, and seeing the immense depth of the beauty in that, to promise myself that if I ever have a daughter, wether or not she has our eyes or our sadness or our affection for our bees, that she’ll be given a name like the ones we changed. That even if she chooses another, I’ll tell her that I know her, and that I see her as whole.

this is so beautifully written - and the sentiment behind it reaches nearly forgotten parts of my heart, too deeply to express.

thank you so, so much for sharing. might your day be peaceful.

[sawasawako-archived]

[skullchicken]

Random socializing tip: Tell people when they’ve had a positive impact on your life!

e.g.: “Hey, remember when I asked you for advice on X? That was really helpful, I tried it and now (insert what has improved)”

“You kept gushing about (insert series/book/movie/recipe) and made it sound really appealing, so I checked it out and I really liked it!”

“Thank you for letting me vent recently, telling you what bothered me really helped me to work through it / helped me see it from another perspective / gave me the courage to address it with the person I was talking about.”

It helps people see their own strong points, it deepens your relationships, it makes the people in your life feel appreciated and special and it can give you warm fuzzy feelings!

Win/win all around!

[wumbreon]

The Middle

I wrote and illustrated this story as a birthday present for my partner, I hope you enjoy it!

[fuckyeahchinesegarden]

永慧禅寺 yonghui chansi, suzhou, jiangsu province by 雨晴烟晚85

[dankmemeuniversity]

[sidras-tak]

here are some things I just heard:

a door slamming

someone exclaim “oh, you sneaky bastard”

the sound of a bell jingling down the hallway

someone at the end of the hallway gasping “hello beautiful!!” in that very special I’m-talking-to-an-unexpected-cat voice

[sandersstudies]

some things I heard myself:

a light thud

someone exclaiming “listen here, one of us can see in the dark and it’s not me, so we’re gonna have to figure this out”

a meow

[tehriz]

literally every minor sound from the street carries up to us since it’s so narrow, last year this happened:

a deep voice going “HEY”

me immediately concerned, it is dark, what is happening

same deep voice: “WHAT DO YOU HAVE”

the playful jingling of dog tags

“WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR MOUTH”

jingle jingle jingle

[queendread]

Right now, I’m sifting through 50+ applications for a new entry-level position. Here’s some advice from the person who will actually be looking at your CV/resume and cover letter:

‘You must include a cover letter’ does not mean ‘write a single line about why you want this position’. If you can’t be bothered to write at least one actual paragraphs about why you want this job, I can’t be bothered to read your CV.

Don’t bother including a list of your interests if all you can think of is ‘socialising with friends’ and ‘listening to music’. Everyone likes those things. Unless you can explain why the stuff you do enriches you as a person and a candidate (e.g. playing an instrument or a sport shows dedication and discipline) then I honestly don’t care how you spend your time. I won’t be looking at your CV thinking ‘huh, they haven’t included their interests, they must have none’, I’m just looking for what you have included.

Even if you apply online, I can see the filename you used for your CV. Filenames that don’t include YOUR name are annoying. Filenames like ‘CV - media’ tell me that you’ve got several CVs you send off depending on the kind of job advertised and that you probably didn’t tailor it for this position. ‘[Full name] CV’ is best.

USE. A. PDF. All the meta information, including how long you worked on it, when you created it, times, etc, is right there in a Word doc. PDFs are far more professional looking and clean and mean that I can’t make any (unconscious or not) decisions about you based on information about the file.

I don’t care what the duties in your previous unrelated jobs were unless you can tell me why they’re useful to this job. If you worked in a shop, and you’re applying for an office job which involves talking to lots of people, don’t give me a list of stuff you did, write a sentence about how much you enjoyed working in a team to help everyone you interacted with and did your best to make them leave the shop with a smile. I want to know what makes you happy in a job, because I want you to be happy within the job I’m advertising.

Does the application pack say who you’ll be reporting to? Can you find their name on the company website? Address your application to them. It’s super easy and shows that you give enough of a shit to google something. 95% of people don’t do this.

Tell me who you are. Tell me what makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work and feel fulfilled. Tell me what you’re looking for, not just what you think I’m looking for.

I will skim your CV. If you have a bunch of bullet points, make every one of them count. Make the first one the best one. If it’s not interesting to you, it’s probably not interesting to me. I’m overworked and tired. Make my job easy.

“I work well in a team or individually” okay cool, you and everyone else. If the job means you’ll be part of a big team, talk about how much you love teamwork and how collaborating with people is the best way to solve problems. If the job requires lots of independence, talk about how you are great at taking direction and running with it, and how you have the confidence to follow your own ideas and seek out the insight of others when necessary. I am profoundly uninterested in cookie-cutter statements. I want to know how you actually work, not how a teacher once told you you should work.

For an entry-level role, tell me how you’re looking forward to growing and developing and learning as much as you can. I will hire genuine enthusiasm and drive over cherry-picked skills any day. You can teach someone to use Excel, but you can’t teach someone to give a shit. It makes a real difference.

This is my advice for small, independent orgs like charities, etc. We usually don’t go through agencies, and the person reading through the applications is usually the person who will manage you, so it helps if you can give them a real sense of who you are and how you’ll grab hold of that entry level position and give it all you’ve got. This stuff might not apply to big companies with actual HR departments - it’s up to you to figure out the culture and what they’re looking for and mirror it. Do they use buzzwords? Use the same buzzwords! Do they write in a friendly, informal way? Do the same! And remember, 95% of job hunting (beyond who you know and flat-out nepotism, ugh) is luck. If you keep getting rejected, it’s not because you suck. You might just need a different approach, or it might just take the right pair of eyes landing on your CV.

And if you get rejected, it’s worthwhile asking why. You’ve already been rejected, the worst has already happened, there’s really nothing bad that can come out of you asking them for some constructive feedback (politely, informally, “if it isn’t too much trouble”). Pretty much all of us have been hopeless jobseekers at one point or another. We know it’s shitty and hard and soul-crushing. Friendliness goes a long way. Even if it’s just one line like “your cover letter wasn’t inspiring" at least you know where to start.

And seriously, if you have any friends that do any kind of hiring or have any involvement with that side of things, ask them to look at your CV with a big red pen and brutal honesty. I do this all the time, and the most important thing I do is making it so their CV doesn’t read exactly like that of every other person who took the same ‘how-to-get-a-job’ class in school. If your CV has a paragraph that starts with something like ‘I am a highly motivated and punctual individual who–’ then oh my god I AM ALREADY ASLEEP.

[revysprite-deactivated20170502]

Very good post thanks for this.

[copperbadge]

Excellent advice for building and submitting job application documents.

[dispatchrabbi]

This is the first good resume advice post I’ve seen on this site. Much better advice than the “lists of active verbs to use” and “here are resume templates”. Follow this advice.

[academicssay]

[neat-deadandlive-things]

Today is another heavy day in Canada.

CW/TW: residential schools, genocide, religion.

For those of you who may be unaware, Canada has it's own very recent history of genocide. This history has been known but unacknowledged by the government and religious groups responsible for too long. Now the extent of this tragedy is becoming more apparent to the rest of the world as we find the bodies of indigenous children who died while at residential schools in the "care" of government and religious groups.

In the next several months they will find more and more unmarked children's graves using ground penetrating radar at the sites of these schools.

This is not ancient history. The last residential school in the province I live in now, closed in 1996. The families that these children were stolen from are very much still alive, as are the survivors of these schools. There is work being done to identify and bring the children home.

You can help by offering support to the indigenous people in your life; we will continue to see more emotional and triggering news in the coming months.

As the number of graves discovered increases we need to remember that they aren't just numbers, they are children and siblings and cousins.

You can also choose to wear orange on July 1st ("Canada day") in solidarity with the survivors and victims of residential schools. This is not a year we should be celebrating Canada, this is a year for mourning and justice.

Residential school crisis line:

1-800-721-0066

Métis crisis line:

1-833-638-4722

751 unmarked graves found at former Saskatchewan residential school

On Wednesday, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations called the findings 'the most significantly substantial to date.'

[tiktaalic]

if you have a couple of bucks to spare, consider throwing them to The Indian Residential School Survivor Society (IRSSS). they provide counseling and other forms of support to first nations people who are residential school survivors. this is a list of other charities that support first nations people, this list is a mix of charities and ways to learn more about first nation activism and history, and this is a link to a free online college course called Indigenous Canada

[mysharona1987]

[nekojitachan]

https://nerdbot.com/2021/01/09/new-pill-bottles-for-shaky-hands-will-help-people-with-parkinsons/

[peachdoxie]

This makes me cry, actually.

[thesharpestlance]

Just to add on. Libraries in many cities have 3d printers you can use that charge you only the price of materials. So if you can't wait for the shipping from the engineers, try your local library.

[cricketcat9]

Humanity at its best 🤗

[desperate-acts-of-capitalism]

This could be how everything works if capitalism didn't exist

[neonperri]

(I was right: the first dude in question, the one with Parkinson’s, is Jimmy Choi, an amazing athlete who currently competes regularly on American Ninja Warrior. It’s not even close to being the coolest thing about this story, but it is still cool.)

[lauraannegilman]

Someone’s cutting onions in my office.... (my dad had Parkinson’s, and the tiny pills were a daily frustration for him.  This is... blessed, and I don’t use that word lightly.)

[imhereandhistorical]

OK, look it’s just-

The reference is going over SO MANY people’s heads on twitter and he doesn’t have to explain himself but it’s SENDING ME SO LIKE. 

Just in case you missed it, Bezo’s rich ass is going to be flying to space, on a rocket ship from his own company. That’s fine. That’s totally ok and normal. 

Jamaal Bowman, who is a congressman from/for the Bronx (so you know I like him more) is directly referencing a song by Gil Scott-Heron called “Whitey’s on the Moon.” Scott-Heron debuted the song in 1970 on his spoken word album Small Talk at 125th and Lennox. It was directly inspired by activist Eldridge Cleaver, who argued that the space program/space race was a way to ignore the internal issues going on in America at the time.  

I’ll put the video to the song below the cut, but Bowman has taken the lyrics from the actual song that read as the following, and plugged in Bezo’s name. Still works.

I can’t pay no doctor bill. (but Whitey’s on the moon) Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still. (while Whitey’s on the moon)

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