a heart's a heavy burden

emma | 21 | they/them | poli sci but not weird about it | tracking #seltzerstudies

[seltzerstudies]

☼ introduction and lil about me post ☼

Hi! My name is Emma and I’m a senior CLEG major attending school in D.C. Click below to learn more about me!

name: Emma, but feel free to give me a nickname! My username comes from my love of seltzer and all bubbly drinks

pronouns: any really but they/them is preferred!

major/minor: Interdisciplinary Studies: Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics, Government major, Anthropology minor, Politics Policy and Law scholar program

current classes:

- Internship class - Capstone class - The Art and Craft of Lobbying - Rethinking Pakistan - Applied Political Writing

involvements:

- Resident Assistant - Executive Director - student theatre troupe - Internship in performing arts management

dreams: 

languages: English, basic German, very very basic Spanish

favorite music: The Killers, Hippo Campus, Bruce Springsteen, Lucy Dacus, Bill Staines, The Altogether, Etta James, Emmy Meli, Bleachers, Razzberry, Muse

hobbies: acting, reading, embroidery, lifting, bullet journaling and stationery, watching sports (baseball, volleyball, and hockey), and watching movies!

studyblr etc.: I’m a mod on the academics unite discord server so you may see me there! I also track the tag #seltzerstudies if you want me to see a post you’ve made!

other links: letterboxd, main blog, storygraph

I have too many favorite blogs to list them all but feel free to ask me for recs for folks with specific areas ☼ 

[thesecrethistori-an]

Back to basics: french press to get through a long study session ☕, kitchen-timer pomodoros ⏳, sweet snack for the brain 🍰

[learnelle]

What I carry in my bag, September 2025 edition :-)

[outsassing-nero]

my first ever hobonichi arrived and I'm over the moon!! watch the unboxing on my channel :)

[mostlyghostie]

A new commission, enjoyed drawing this one.

Shop

[maisiewilliams]

10 Female Written Short Stories Everyone Should Read

I have seen a post circulating for a while that lists 10 short stories everyone should read and, while these are great works, most of them are older and written by white men. I wanted to make a modern list that features fresh, fantastic and under represented voices. Enjoy!

1. A Temporary Matter by Jhumpa Lahiri — A couple in a failing marriage share secrets during a blackout. 

2. Stone Animals by Kelly Link — A family moves into a haunted house.

3. Reeling for the Empire by Karen Russell — Women are sold by their families to a silk factory, where they are slowly transformed into human silkworms. 

4. Call My Name by Aimee Bender — A woman wearing a ball gown secretly auditions men on the subway. 

5. The Man on the Stairs by Miranda July — A woman wakes up to a noise on the stairs. 

6. Brownies by ZZ Packer — Rival Girl Scout troops are separated by race. 

7. City of My Dreams by Zsuzi Gartner — A woman works at a shop selling food-inspired soap and tries not to think about her past. 

8. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor — A family drives from Georgia to Florida, even though a serial killer is on the loose. 

9. Hitting Budapest by NoViolet Bulawayo — A group of children, led by a girl named Darling, travel to a rich neighborhood to steal guavas. 

10. You’re Ugly, Too by Lorrie Moore — A history professor flies to Manhattan to spend Halloween weekend with her younger sister.

[astrangewoman]

I LOVE THIS POST!!

I’d like to add:

11. Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor

12. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (this one is my favorite short story of all time)

13. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

14. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates

15. Désirée’s Baby by Kate Chopin

16. The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

17. Impressions of an Indian Childhood by Zitkala-Ša

(I wanted to put little summaries for each of them, but I’m afraid I’d spoil the whole story if I did!)

[ellydash]

adding a few more! all by women of color, & the first four were published within the last few years

18. “My Dear You,” Rachel Khong — love, loss, & absurdity in the afterlife

19. “The Husband Stitch,” Carmen Maria Machado — a feminist retelling of the folklore story “The Green Ribbon”

20. “Inventory,” Carmen Maria Machado — one woman’s retrospective list of her life’s sexual encounters

21. “Boys Go to Jupiter,” Danielle Evans — what happens after a white college student poses for a photo in a Confederate flag bikini

22. “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” ZZ Packer — a Black woman attends Yale University

[izzychao]

oh i have some of these too! many are science-fiction or science-fantasy, because the woman in those genres are severely under-represented ! The first two authors are slightly older, but their works are so important in the development of the roles of women in scifi as a genre so!

23. “Those Who Walk Away from Omelas” and “Mountain Ways” by Ursula K. Le Guin — The first is a study of philosophical questions similar to the trolley problem, told in very loose form. The second is a science-fantasy story about two women navigating love and sexuality in their society’s polyamorous marriage rituals. But honestly you should read all of Le Guin’s short stories and novels, she’s amazing.

24. “Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler — One of my all-time FAVORITE short stories, about a future where humans live alongside large insect-like aliens, and serve as hosts for their eggs and larval young. It’s gruesome, gory, unsettling, and honestly pretty horrific but it’s really wonderful–if you can handle horror in your stories I highly recommended it. Butler’s novels are also wonderful, please check them out if you can (not all of them are this unsettling)

25. “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi” by Pat Cadigan — A trans allegory in which future humans go through surgery to become invertebrate sea creatures (cephalopods and arthropods mostly) in order to better work in space. Wonderfully weird in so many ways.

26. “From the Lost Diary of Treefrog7” and “The Palm Tree Bandit” by Nnedi Okorafor — Lost Diary is a story about a woman and her husband exploring an alien jungle told through research log-style journal entries. Very much survival horror scifi. Palm Tree Bandit is told as a mother reciting a story to her daughter as she braids her hair, about her great-grandmother who started a kind of small revolution for women in Nigeria. Nnedi’s novels and other short stories, as well as her works within the comics industry, are all fantastic, so look into her more if you can!!!

[pefkaes]

23.09.2024 // day 214 // cute charms

I've been chipping away at my ethics application. every day I feel overwhelmed by how much I don't know. there's so much to learn and that's equally exciting and terrifying. these days, I've been trying to do the following:

write sections of my literature review

create datasheets of my primary sources

work on my ethics application and prep for 'fieldwork'

submit abstracts for symposiums/WIP seminars

compile annotated bibliography on decolonising museums as a part of my RA work. this is frankly out of my expertise area, so I'm struggling a bit. but I welcome the fact that I'm reading literature on a topic that's completely new to me

make my way through BoTW

also, finally added these charms to my TN; I love them so much.

[puffycinnabunny]

Is it the finals week or my final week, stay tuned to find out fellas!

[expiationist]

study days + pastel desk setup

[lightgaswaterelectricityrent]

[seltzerstudies]

graduating with my bachelors in less than 2 weeks and I can't actually believe it

[daily-spooky]

[somerabbitholes]

i loved the sense of freefall in this book — it was persistent but never inevitable; and i loved loved loved the end

[worthlessgold-deactivated202305]

Venetian book cat

[seltzerstudies]

linkedin, the working man's tumblr

[jacayls-deactivated20240405]

rb with how you read books, one at a time or multiple at once / bookmark or folding page corner / highlight scribble notes on pages or no notes

[huariqueje]

Brick mantel with Vermeer   -   Elena Climent , 2021.

Mexican, b. 1955-

Oil on linen on bord, 12 x 18 in.