ʚ miney ɞ

➝she ➝minor ˖◛bread and boba⁺⑅♡༉‧₊˚✧｡⋆ʚkindness can be hard but its important to tryɞ⋆⋆¸*ೃ☼

[somerabbitholes]

Essays

Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of essays I like/find interesting/are food for thought; I’ve tried to sort them as much as possible. The starred (*) ones are those I especially love

also quick note: some of these links, especially the ones that are from books/anthologies redirect you to libgen or scihub, and if that doesn’t work for you, do message me; I’d be happy to send them across!

Literature + Writing

Godot Comes to Sarajevo - Susan Sontag

The Strangeness of Grief - V. S. Naipaul*

Memories of V. S. Naipaul - Paul Theroux*

A Rainy Day with Ruskin Bond - Mayank Austen Soofi

How Albert Camus Faced History - Adam Gopnik

Listen, Bro - Jo Livingstone

Rachel Cusk Gut-Renovates the Novel - Judith Thurman

Lost in Translation: What the First Line of “The Stranger” Should Be - Ryan Bloom

The Duke in His Domain - Truman Capote*

The Cult of Donna Tartt: Themes and Strategies in The Secret History - Ana Rita Catalão Guedes

Never Do That to a Book - Anne Fadiman*

Affecting Anger: Ideologies of Community Mobilisation in Early Hindi Novel - Rohan Chauhan*

Why I Write - George Orwell*

Rimbaud and Patti Smith: Style as Social Deviance - Carrie Jaurès Noland*

Art + Photography (+ Aesthetics)

Looking at War - Susan Sontag*

Love, sex, art, and death - Nan Goldin, David Wojnarowicz

Lyons, Szarkowski, and the Perception of Photography - Anne Wilkes Tucker

The Feminist Critique of Art History - Thalia Gouma-Peterson, Patricia Mathews

In Plato’s Cave - Susan Sontag*

On reproduction of art (Chapter 1, Ways of Seeing) - John Berger*

On nudity and women in art (Chapter 3, Ways of Seeing) - John Berger*

Kalighat Paintings  - Sharmishtha Chaudhuri

Daydreams and Fragments: On How We Retrieve Images From the Past -  Maël Renouard

Arthur Rimbaud: the Aesthetics of Intoxication - Enid Rhodes Peschel

Cities

Tragic Fable of Mumbai Mills - Gyan Prakash

Whose Bandra is it? - Dustin Silgardo*

Timur’s Registan: noblest public square in the world? - Srinath Perur

The first Starbucks coffee shop, Seattle - Colin Marshall*

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai’s iconic railway station - Srinath Perur

From London to Mumbai and Back Again: Gentrification and Public Policy in Comparative Perspective -  Andrew Harris

The Limits of “White Town” in Colonial Calcutta - Swati Chattopadhyay

The Metropolis and Mental Life - Georg Simmel

Colonial Policy and the Culture of Immigration: Citing the Social History of Varanasi - Vinod Kumar, Shiv Narayan

A Caribbean Creole Capital: Kingston, Jamaica - Coln G. Clarke (from Colonial Cities by Robert Ross, Gerard J. Telkamp

The Colonial City and the Post-Colonial World - G. A. de Bruijne

The Nowhere City - Amos Elon*

The Vertical Flâneur: Narratorial Tradecraft in the Colonial Metropolis - Paul K. Saint-Amour

Philosophy

The trolley problem problem - James Wilson

A Brief History of Death - Nir Baram

Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical - John Rawls*

Should Marxists be Interested in Exploitation? - John E. Roemer

The Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief - Scott Berinato*

The Pandemic and the Crisis of Faith - Makarand Paranjape

If God Is Dead, Your Time is Everything - James Wood

Giving Up on God - Ronald Inglehart

The Limits of Consensual Decision - Douglas Rae*

The Science of “Muddling Through” - Charles Lindblom*

History

The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine - Maria Dolan

The History of Loneliness - Jill Lepore*

From Tuskegee to Togo: the Problem of Freedom in the Empire of Cotton - Sven Beckert*

Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism - E. P. Thompson*

All By Myself - Martha Bailey*

The Geographical Pivot of History - H. J. Mackinder

The sea/ocean

Rim of Life - Manu Pillai

Exploring the Indian Ocean as a rich archive of history – above and below the water line - Isabel Hofmeyr, Charne Lavery

‘Piracy’, connectivity and seaborne power in the Middle Ages - Nikolas Jaspert (from The Sea in History)*

The Vikings and their age - Nils Blomkvist (from The Sea in History)*

Mercantile Networks, Port Cities, and “Pirate” States - Roxani Eleni Margariti

Phantom Peril in the Arctic - Robert David English, Morgan Grant Gardner*

Assorted ones on India

A departure from history: Kashmiri Pandits, 1990-2001 - Alexander Evans *

Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World - Gyan Prakash

Empire: How Colonial India Made Modern Britain - Aditya Mukherjee

Feminism and Nationalism in India, 1917-1947 - Aparna Basu

The Epic Riddle of Dating Ramayana, Mahabharata - Sunaina Kumar*

Caste and Politics: Identity Over System - Dipankar Gupta

Our worldview is Delhi based*

Sports (you’ll have to excuse the fact that it’s only cricket but what can i say, i’m indian)

‘Massa Day Done:’ Cricket as a Catalyst for West Indian Independence: 1950-1962 - John Newman*

Playing for power? rugby, Afrikaner nationalism and masculinity in South Africa, c.1900–70 - Albert Grundlingh

When Cricket Was a Symbol, Not Just a Sport - Baz Dreisinger

Cricket, caste, community, colonialism: the politics of a great game - Ramachandra Guha*

Cricket and Politics in Colonial India - Ramchandra Guha

MS Dhoni: A quiet radical who did it his way*

Music

Brega: Music and Conflict in Urban Brazil - Samuel M. Araújo

Color, Music and Conflict: A Study of Aggression in Trinidad with Reference to the Role of Traditional Music - J. D. Elder

The 1975 - ‘Notes On a Conditional Form’ review - Dan Stubbs*

Life Without Live - Rob Sheffield*

How Britney Spears Changed Pop - Rob Sheffield

Concert for Bangladesh

From “Help!” to “Helping out a Friend”: Imagining South Asia through the Beatles and the Concert for Bangladesh - Samantha Christiansen 

Gender

Clothing Behaviour as Non-verbal Resistance - Diana Crane

The Normalisation of Queer Theory - David M. Halperin

Menstruation and the Holocaust - Jo-Ann Owusu*

Women’s Suffrage the Democratic Peace - Allan Dafoe

Pink and Blue: Coloring Inside the Lines of Gender - Catherine Zuckerman*

Women’s health concerns are dismissed more, studied less - Zoanne Clack

Food

How Food-Obsessed Millennials Shape the Future of Food - Rachel A. Becker (as a non-food obsessed somewhat-millennial, this was interesting)

Colonialism’s effect on how and what we eat - Coral Lee

Tracing Europe’s influence on India’s culinary heritage - Ruth Dsouza Prabhu

Chicken Kiev: the world’s most contested ready-meal*

From Russia with mayo: the story of a Soviet super-salad*

The Politics of Pancakes - Taylor Aucoin*

How Doughnuts Fuelled the American Dream*

Pav from the Nau

A Short History of the Vada Pav - Saira Menezes

Fantasy (mostly just harry potter and lord of the rings)

Purebloods and Mudbloods: Race, Species, and Power (from The Politics of Harry Potter)

Azkaban: Discipline, Punishment, and Human Rights (from The Politics of Harry Potter)*

Good and Evil in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lengendarium - Jyrki Korpua

The Fairy Story: J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis - Colin Duriez (from Tree of Tales)*

Tolkien’s Augustinian Understanding of Good and Evil: Why The Lord of the Rings Is Not Manichean - Ralph Wood (from Tree of Tales)*

Travel

The Hidden Cost of Wildlife Tourism

Chronicles of a Writer’s 1950s Road Trip Across France - Kathleen Phelan

On the Early Women Pioneers of Trail Hiking - Gwenyth Loose

On the Mythologies of the Himalaya Mountains - Ed Douglas*

More random assorted ones

The cosmos from the wheelchair (The Economist obituaries)*

In El Salvador - Joan Didion

Scientists are unravelling the mystery of pain - Yudhijit Banerjee

Notes on Nationalism - George Orwell

Politics and the English Language - George Orwell*

What Do the Humanities Do in a Crisis? - Agnes Callard*

The Politics of Joker - Kyle Smith

Sushant Singh Rajput: The outsider - Uday Bhatia*

Credibility and Mystery - John Berger

happy reading :)

[recoverr-deactivated20220605]

some comforting things you might need to hear right now:

it’s not going to last forever. i promise you. bad times don’t last forever and you’ll feel better again. you’ll feel whole again.

hey, it’s okay to cry!!! it’s okay to feel things, to feel confused and messy and to crave company. you’re not a robot, you’re a human being with a complex story and wounds to heal. you can honor that.

if you are missing someone, but don’t necessarily want them back, that’s okay. you don’t have to convince your heart out of loving someone. sometimes, we never stop loving people we left behind. we can still acknowledge that the relationship needs to stay in the past.

you did your best. even if your best wasn’t 100% at the time. you did what you could. please don’t punish yourself over and over again, okay?

listening to your body is important!!! listen to your gut!!! listen to what you’re feeling and sensing. the world is not going to end if you allow yourself to feel. even if it’s anger. even if it’s sadness.

there are more people and places and things to love. i promise you.

[id1367]

Manifesting academic success and an unlimited supply of cute stationery for the person whom you reblogged this from

[seradite-deactivated20221114]

HOW TO BE THAT GIRL

1. Letting go of your past

Stop dwelling on the old story and settling for less!! Your imagination creates your reality; you are the creator, you are GOD. When you continuously feed your brain with negative thoughts like “I’m lazy” “I’m ugly” “I can’t…” your 3d starts showing you proof of your assumptions. You’re the god of your reality, now start acting like you are.To let go of your past, you revise it to fit your ideal reality. If you believe you were born rich, it’ll show in your 3d maybe a deceased relative kept billions for you to inherit, it’s not about questioning the how or when, it’s about knowing and living in the end. You are who you want to be. Forgive yourself and realise you can change your past, present and future. Stop creating barriers and start making opportunities for yourself. Your 3d will reflect what your 4d creates and thinks.

If you believe it’ll work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you don’t believe it’ll work out, you’ll see obstacles.” - Wayne Dyer

2. Embracing positivity & failure

Now you’re probably asking how? Why? You’re outer world is a reflection of your inner world. When you accept that you change things no matter what, you’ll see movement. Your subconscious is like your body; it needs to be feed. If you feed it ‘bad’ food it will manifest whereas if feed it ‘good’ food it’ll manifest. You are what you assume yourself to be — feed your brain with good words and you’ll see it reflect in your 3d.

Your day didn’t go according to plan? There’s no right or wrong time to start working on yourself. You planned to get your work done by 2:00 pm and it’s 3:00pm so you procrastinate. Revise it, flip it and envision how you wanted your day to go. Affirm accordingly, you don’t have to be specific at all you could affirm for your desires as whole using self concept or blanket affirmations “ i have everything I want without trying” “Today’s going to be a good day” etc. It’s that simple don’t over complicate it. If you say you only need to affirm once then congrats you’ll see movement in your 3d. Whereas, if you complicate the law and talk about how you’re not seeing movement you’ll get exactly that. Don’t affirm like a robot, affirm like you genuinely have it, affirm like you’re talking to a friend. Time’s working with you not against you.

There are a ton of ways to manifest your dream life without using affirmations:

-> Visualising/imagining - celebrities like Arnold Shwarzenegger and Jim Carrey have talked about using visualising and imagining to manifest fame and success. Arnold would visualise his bodybuilding career “what you do is create a vision of who you want to be — and then live that picture as if it were already true.” Jim Carry would visualise having directors interested in him and people that he respected saying that “I like your work” or whatever that is. I’ll go into celebrity success stories in a different post & the difference between visualising and imagining. Imagining is using your 5 senses to envision your reality. I have a little success story for y’all a few days ago I wanted crackers and my mum said no so I revised the scenario and imagined her agreeing and I kid you not a day later she gave in. I didn’t even persist I thought of it once or twice and boom, there’s always movement in the 3d I didn’t even dwell on it I knew it happened exactly how I wanted it to happen 🥱

-> Daydreaming - for maladaptive daydreamers like me I feel like this has to be one of most creative ways to manifest. If Marilyn Monroe can do it you can do it too no excuses!! Imagine your ideal scenarios like your already living it. Guess what you’re crush asked you out, you passed that one exam you were stressed about, you have all your desires, your df, db, everythinggggg!! Stop settling for less, you’re everything you want to be and more.

-> Commanding your subconscious - commanding your subconscious is insisting that your subconscious will get what desire you want. It’s like ordering something and waiting for it to arrive. “ subconscious get me my df” and letting it go/living in the end. No need to affirm, visualise or use any other techniques. If you’re still confused this post might help.

-> Subliminals - subliminal messages are affirmations that bypass your subconscious mind and go straight to your subconscious. There are a ton of subs on yt to help you manifest. Remember it all comes from you. You don’t need an outer source.

-> Scripting - Scripting is a manifestation where you write out the life you want as if you’re already living it using the present tense. It could be a diary entry about how you have all your desires like @/kittibtch on instagram things like: “dear diary, I can’t help being so pretty”. Complain about how pretty you are, how you manifest easily , how people can stop hitting on you, how you get millions for breathing each second. It’s practically loa on paper.

3.Deciding what your definition of ‘that girl’ means

What does she think? How does she act? How is her day life? Being the best version of you doesn’t mean going into over drive and burning yourself out. Take it one step at a time. It’s okay to figure things out.

The tiktok version of that girl is wayyyy too eurocentric. Remember no matter what race, ethnicity, sexuality etc you are beautiful just the way.

If journalling, having a routine or anything else doesn’t resonate with you & doesn’t feel right, you don’t have to do it. Even if you don’t agree with this post, it’s ok. You create your own limits and opportunities.

4. Habits to incorporate

-> Taking care of yourself - Self care is important but it’s not just putting face masks on and lighting candles. It could be doing nothing, spending time with your family, making time for yourself. Putting some effort into your appearance could make a difference. When you start putting effort into yourself, other people will start putting effort into you. It could be doing one yoga pose, walking around your house, anything honestly, anything. If you hate working out you don’t have to. If you assume you don’t have to workout or eat healthy to lose weight watch your 3d appear in your 3d effortlessly. I’d recommend a skincare routine, reading and a good morning or night routine. Personally I’d suggest a fluid morning routine depending on how you feel: high energy, medium energy and low energy and a short night routine. Something like:

High energy:

Wake up

Make up bed

Brush teeth

Workout

Shower

Eat

And so on..

-> Journalling - taking the time to write down your thoughts by brain dumping, using journal prompts or writing it in a diary entry could you give memories to look back on and keep your thoughts organised. Just like reading it could improve your writing, relieve stress and allow you to self-reflect. Incorporating it in my night routine to summarise my day has helped feel so grateful for what I already have.

-> Prioritising school & studying - stop complaining about how hard you find school or how terrible some subjects are, it’ll manifest. Stop claiming all those negative assumptions like “I procrastinate” You’re the top of your class, you ace all your exams and get straight a’s. Romanticise school and studying: dress like the world’s your fashion stage, create a comfortable study space, decluttering and organising your space, make a playlist, start a studyblr account, read and journal at school. Romanticisation only goes to a certain extent, discipline is where your productivity comes from.

More habits:

Stretching

A mental diet

A regular sleep schedule

Limiting social media use

An account I would recommend is @glowithin and other similar blogs. You know the how, now stop scrolling and manifest it bb :)

Summary

-> Self discipline > motivation

-> Revise and let go of your past

-> Affirm your desired life through positivity

[heavenisc]

my pinterest: heavenisc

[diorskinnygirl]

Feeling stunning today 💓 Have a nice day <3

[inmediasre-s-deactivated2022020]

a gentle reminder:

a holiday is for resting. no need to feel guilty about taking time off. productivity isn’t the meaning of life.

sometimes you need to waste some time & notice that it wasn’t a waste after all.

[peachblossomstudy]

april 2021 —

look at me actually posting weekly spreads in the month they’re for! (though this spread is from two weeks ago). sorry for being so inactive in the way of original content, i’ve been pretty busy with work - my maths a level exams start in two (2!) weeks and i really need to do well in them.

[ladyausten]

Say what you will about Shigure, but it cannot be denied that he is one of the most intelligent and observant characters in Fruits Basket; which is why he is excellent at manipulating people and situations. He’s more than willing to say the things that no one else is willing to say. The zodiacs know that they are complicit in the imprisonment of the Cat. Yet, they are often taken aback when it is stated outright. Kureno was startled when the old maid told him that without the god, he and the other zodiacs would be just as monstrous as the Cat. When Shigure states that the zodiac members are all monsters and that they won’t do anything to stop Kyo’s imprisonment, because his imprisonment benefits them, Rin gasps and turns away from Shigure and Tohru (Rin even asks Tohru why she loves Kyo - the Cat has always been viewed as unlovable and undesirable, which is ironic because Rin and the other zodiacs have been treated as unlovable, undesirable, and monstrous. Yet, they purposefully choose to not sympathize with Kyo, because if they do sympathize with him they cannot other him. Again, undoubtedly, the god is the most monstrous one of all. Arguably, the Cat is the least monstrous one of all.)

Shigure: He [Kureno] believes the end is near. That tiny changes and catalysts build up, and the whole thing moves. Of course, as things stand, Kyo will still be locked up. Yes, we know. All of us know exactly what will happen to him, in the very near future. But we won’t do or say anything. Because that’s the Cat’s role. We zodiac members are monsters. But when we look at him, we can think, “Thank god, at least I’m not him.” The Cat is a gift to us: an Other creature for us to exclude. 

The pointed comment about the selfishness of the zodiac members is a parallel to Tohru’s belief that she is selfish, because she admits to herself and to Rin that she doesn’t care about breaking the curse for the sake of all of the zodiac members. She wants to break the curse to save Kyo, because he is what is “most precious” to her. She wants to protect and save Kyo. Tohru doesn’t want the Sohma family, the curse, or anything else, to take Kyo away from her. She questions if the “cruel, greedy” thing that she is feeling is pity - it isn’t. That feeling is love. At the heart of it, there is a sort of selfishness in love - the desire to have and love and be loved by someone, regardless of how that will impact others. This gestures back to the time in Tohru’s childhood when her mother said “It’s ok to be selfish. That’s something we all deserve.” - It’s ok to be selfish, we all deserve to be loved. It also connects back to when Kyo told her “Being selfish sometimes…it’s no big deal. I wouldn’t like it if somebody was selfish every single day, but that isn’t the way you are. You can be selfish every once in a while. I figure you deserve that much at least.” - You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. 

[amoebium]

mlp g5 movie spoilers with no context

[ghostystudies]

am I ever going to have a chemistry lab in person? let me touch the fucking chemicals

[veciti-filozof]

LDR Asks

This is my first time making these, but please, enjoy!

How did you guys meet?

What was your first impression of your current partner(s)?

What made you fall for your current partner(s)?

Who confessed first?

Who said "I love you" first?

How long have you guys been together?

Do your friends and family know and, if so, are they supportive?

What was your opinion on ldr before meeting your current partner(s)?

What's your friends'/family's opinion on ldr?

How long is the distance really?

Is there a time difference you have to keep in mind and, if so, how big is it?

What would your reaction be if your current partner(s) just showed up at your door as a surprise?

What do you guys do to make the distance feel close to or completely non-existent?

Describe your current partner(s) in 5 words, go!

How often do you guys FaceTime?

How would your first date with your current partner(s) look like?

Do you enjoy doing mundane tasks while on the call with your current partner(s)?

Your current partner(s) name pops up in your notifications. What's your reaction?

Have you ever met up with your current partner(s)?

Have you ever had a fight with your current partner(s)?

How often do you daydream about your current partner(s)?

Do you think non-ldr couples take closeness for granted?

Have you made playlists for each other?

How different/similar are your guys' aesthetics?

How did you save your current partner(s) contacts? Under which nickname?

Does the distance make the heart grow fonder?

How fast do you guys reply to each other's texts?

Do you nap/sleep on the phone with your current partner(s)?

How often do you guys text?

On a scale of 1 to 10, how soothing is(are) your current partner's(s') voice(s)?

ASK AWAY!!!

[xspvct]

I don’t care what anyone says, being intelligent is so fucking attractive. Like yes, tell me random facts I didn’t know. I’ll think it’s the cutest thing ever.

[hbios]

— 01/02/21 it was meant to be the first day of senior year but my state’s gone into a lockdown since a new case was found! but i’ve started my notes for food sci and i’ve started studying at home since we were provided with the material. — playlist / nectar by wayv

[hbios]

— 01/02/21 it was meant to be the first day of senior year but my state’s gone into a lockdown since a new case was found! but i’ve started my notes for food sci and i’ve started studying at home since we were provided with the material. — playlist / nectar by wayv

[shiruki]

[musicalsaregreat]

Top ten most played Smash songs on Spotify