You May Not Rest Now, There Are 3 Unfinished Assignments Nearby

Last night was my company Holiday Party, and we're doing really well, so it was held at the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)

I was so happy that also included the Styled by Sargent exhibit, of John Singer Sargent paintings and the actual articles of clothing alongside them.

Now, you have probably seen this painting of Lady Macbeth

But have you seen the costume she's wearing??

It's gorgeous, obviously.

But that texture! It's *crochet*

And some knitting

Really simple crochet too; just a chain and single crochet lattice with beads and metallic thread added for this chain mail effect.

Despite John Singer Sargent being an expert painter of fabric (no, really, just look at it), I never knew Lady Macbeth's costume had to be *hand crocheted* for that texture in the painting.

Anyway I'm gonna be making myself some faux-chainmail by crocheting it for the next Renn Faire

The University of Barcelona's Medicine Faculty has temporarily installed a giant heart made by the Catalan artist Jaume Plensa, with the building's columns acting as the ribcage.

The objective of this work of art is to raise awareness about cardiovascular illnesses, which are the leading cause of death worldwide.

The work is titled El cor secret (The Secret Heart). The heart measures 13 metres tall and 10 metres wide, and weighs 150 kg. It's made of synthetic materials and painted by hand. It had previously been shown in Germany in 2014 and was supposed to arrive to Plensa's home city sooner, but it was delayed because of covid. Instead, in 2020, Plensa donated one of his famous head sculptures to this same building, to thank medicine professionals and students for their work during the pandemic.

not to be rude but some of y'all need to look on the bright side sometimes. like, yeah sure the world is fucked and people suck and we all die whatever, sure, but like. go outside.

“Get a rat and put it in a cage and give it two water bottles. One is just water, and one is water laced with either heroin or cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself very quickly, right, within a couple of weeks. So there you go. It’s our theory of addiction. Bruce comes along in the ‘70s and said, “Well, hang on a minute. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It’s got nothing to do. Let’s try this a little bit differently.” So Bruce built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything your rat about town could want, it’s got in Rat Park. It’s got lovely food. It’s got sex. It’s got loads of other rats to be friends with. It’s got loads of colored balls. Everything your rat could want. And they’ve got both the water bottles. They’ve got the drugged water and the normal water. But here’s the fascinating thing. In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use any of it. None of them ever overdose. None of them ever use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. There’s a really interesting human example I’ll tell you about in a minute, but what Bruce says is that shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. So the right-wing theory is it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment. […] We’ve created a society where significant numbers of our fellow citizens cannot bear to be present in their lives without being drugged, right? We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for a lot of people, much more like that first cage than it is like the bonded, connected cages that we need. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of our society, is geared towards making us connect with things. If you are not a good consumer capitalist citizen, if you’re spending your time bonding with the people around you and not buying stuff—in fact, we are trained from a very young age to focus our hopes and our dreams and our ambitions on things we can buy and consume. And drug addiction is really a subset of that.”

— Johann Hari, Does Capitalism Drive Drug Addiction?

I've really been struggling to study because I haven't been doing well mentally. I barely sleep so I can't concentrate and I don't have any motivation to do anything.

I really don't want to fail my exams, so tomorrow I'm going to the library in the morning. I also need structure and routine in my life. I graduated from high school 4 years ago (during the pandemic) and I feel like I haven't had a proper routine since.

I know this is going to be hard because I literally haven't studied at all. I do uni online, they give us study materials and that's it. No lectures. You study on your own, you take an exam and that's it.

So I have to study the whole semester in 2 weeks. I might not pass, but at least I'll feel better knowing I tried.

I'm going to try and study a little before bed, I'm also going to prepare some topics I would like to write about on my blog :)

Finishing my homework feat resident evil 7 by vegeta777, a very well known YouTuber here in Spain.

Weaving back the thread is actually quite difficult, but I'm managing to finish it.

Roasted chicken, ginger, daikon, shiitake mushroom soup with lime, cilantro, broccoli sprouts, and rice noodles

one thing that so many students forget is that, a win is a win. if you planned on doing english homework but instead you finished your history essay, celebrate that, don’t be upset taht you didn’t sick to your plan, at least you got SOMETHING DONE. a win is a fucking win and don’t let anyone tell you different.

Studying is hard work, but it's all worth it when you finally get the grades you deserve.