Paul-petta

22 | italy, rome | classic studies now statistician wannabe | she/her Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor

[bury-me-alive]

Days go by so fast and I'm losing them all

[vvedalar]

[dark-sappho]

"defend your thesis" why are you attacking my thesis

[placethemoonatmyeyes]

stop making shows about americans in europe… try europeans in america instead. the outrage of not knowing exactly what something costs at a store,, no public transport,, everyone smiling in your face and waiters scaring you by constantly popping up at your table… ice in your water for some reason,, the kind of culture clash i want to see!!

[obliqe]

fuck emily in paris i want françois in texas

[mathed-potatoes]

I got a proof wrong on an exam. No points. 

Then, I thought about it for fifteen minutes outside of the exam, wrote it down, nailed it. 

I showed a classmate and told him what happened. He looked frustrated. He’d clearly had this happen before, too (haven’t we all?).  He said, “Don’t you hate it when that happens?”

I almost said yes. What the h*ck!? No. No, I do not hate it when I can fathom a deeply abstracted concept in mathematics. I never hate that. I the opposite of hate that. Expecting myself to immediately understand topics like this is unrealistic. I’m proud of being able to do it at all. Who cares if I did it in the exam or within the next hour? I DID IT. It’s mine now. I can do it whenever I want. Missing points on that problem doesn’t take the knowledge out of my brain. How dare I be taught that my knowledge is useless because I didn’t have it right at that moment. It’s just as good now. 

Education is not about the arbitrary numeric number ascribed to your ability to do things quickly in an arbitrary, restricted time interval. Education is about being able to do progressively more things, to understand progressively complex things. 

Tenacity and challenging yourself far beyond your limits is a hundred times more important than getting good grades. Because, when you’re one of .4 percent of the population who possess complete knowledge on a very complex topic, nobody cares how long it took you to do it, or how well you did it the first time you tried. 

Grades don’t discover new mathematics. Mathematicians do (even the ones who failed a basic topic in mathematics because their base way of thinking was too complex). Grades don’t advance medical research. Scientists do (even the ones who had to apply for their PhD programs 3 times in a row before they got accepted). Grades don’t make science fiction into real-world technologies. Engineers do (even the ones who dropped out of school because they wanted to build things, not talk about building things). 

Knowledge is power. Skills are power. Grades are constructs. Never trade actual understanding for a semblance of understanding. 

[tittytron]

I don’t even procrastinate anymore I just straight up neglect 100% of my responsibilities

[why-the-heck-not]

Expectations for 2020 were Gatsby parties, but in reality we all just ended up dead in a pool

[aranealux]

If anyone’s interested in how my finals are going, I was convinced for the past 24 hours that 202 was greater than 219

[aetihaasik]

i shouldn't be here

[aetihaasik]

artefacts at the british museum

[hybridsignals]

humans in love are terrible

[nodded]

Chess isn’t always competitive. Chess can also be beautiful. It was the board I noticed first. It’s an entire world of just 64 squares. I feel safe in it. I can control it. I can dominate it. And it’s predictable, so if I get hurt, I only have myself to blame.

THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT (2020)

[the-shy-girl-420]

Not to sound too slutty but I'd play with your hair and listen to your problems.

[bhitalianxx1024]

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Katherine Mansfield, from a diary entry featured in “The Diaries of Katherine Mansfield,”

[heartlessqueen]

time is terrifying

[blooooom]

the cure to self-sabotage is to anchor yourself to the universal truth that you are worth it. you are worth the effort. you are worth the difficulty, you are worth the time, you are worth the consideration. there is never a point in your life, in time itself, that you are not worth it. return to this truth when you feel yourself slipping. do not let it go.

[catchymemes]