Stop Putting Anyone Or Anything Up On A Pedestal (2021)

Morning Star (Lucifer) // by Paul Fryer at Holy Trinity Church

The birds have vanished into the sky

and now the last cloud drains away

We sit together the mountain and me

until only the mountain remains

~ Li Po

happy september to everyone! 🍂☕️

the divine, only in dreams

Nikki Giovanni, The Collected Poetry, 1968-1998

Science Dark Academia Things

staying up late to read one cool paper

which turns into reading another cool paper that the first paper referenced

that turns into getting to lab mid afternoon because you woke up at noon 

staying in lab late into the evening because there’s just so much to do

wanting to be aesthetic, but knowing that wearing nice clothes into lab is a bad idea (:’()

blue light glasses to protect your eyes from strain as you analyze data

going back to lab late at night to rerun an experiment because the data sucked and you have group meeting tomorrow

the wonderful feeling of finally troubleshooting that one experiment correctly

having science idols that you gaze wonderingly at when you see them at conferences

struggling through a class even but you enjoy it because sometimes learning is just hard

students emailing you with questions about the class you’re TA-ing causing you to wonder when you became the Adult In Charge who Knows Things

talking with your PI/ older grad students and realizing that you definitely are NOT the Adult In Charge who Knows Things but that’s a good thing because it means that you’re in the right place to learn

when your NMR shows your expected product and the MS shows high purity (tears of joy)

being the nerd in all your conversations with non-Science people and pulling out fun facts about solubility rules, thermodynamics, or the ultimate crowd pleaser: molecular quantum mechanics

getting really excited meeting another person your age from your field even if your projects are totally different

remembering even that when science is kicking your butt… you’re doing something cool that will have an impact and that no-one else has done yet!

― Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, This Is How You Lose the Time War

[text ID: I love you. I love you. I love you. I'll write it in waves. In skies. In my heart. You'll never see, but you will know. I'll be all the poets, I'll kill them all and take each one's place in turn, and every time love's written in all the strands it will be to you.]

“I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Donna Tartt developed some of the most stoic, serious, and selfish characters I’ve ever seen. The way she made every character in the Greek Class horribly unemotional for one another, really adds to the terror of the book.

That is one reason I wish she would’ve been able to keep the initial title of the book: The God of Illusions. Because that is the backbone of this group; it’s all just an illusion of friendship, an illusion that they care. They don’t care for one another, none of them are overly concerned about anyone but themselves. They are all extremely solitary people that came together for the look of being able to have friends, rather than for the want of friendship.

forever in love

with your dark night