For Which F Are You Drinking To? Fuck, Forget, Or Fun?

I wish that photographs were physical spaces, like tunnels; that you could crawl inside them and go back.

— Lauren Oliver, Vanishing Girls

favorite language learning resources

duolingo- a lot of language learners have issues with it but it’s good to get a base on the language and they’re always adding new languages!

memrise- good for vocabulary and memorizing, they have a wide list of languages

babbel- really effective if you want to learn how to communicate with people or get around, costs money for the full version but they have sales all the time

hellotalk- language exchange app, i’ve had really good experiences with this app, the only downside is that you have to pay to select more than one language you want to learn

tandem- similar to hellotalk, i like it slightly less but it allows you to choose as many languages as you want!

forvo- you can listen to native speakers pronounce things! it’s amazing!

ipachart- interactive chart with the international phonetic alphabet

wordreference- online dictionary for french, spanish, german, italian, portuguese, dutch, swedish, russian, polish, romanian, czech, greek, turkish, chinese, japanese, korean, and arabic

bab.la- another online dictionary with 24 languages

linguee- really great for learning phrases and seeing words in context

omniglot- encyclopedia of writing systems and languages, really great for learning new writing systems & also basic phrases! also has links to other resources!

the great language game- game for testing listening comprehension to several dozen languages!

ba ba dum- fun vocabulary game

easy languages- youtube channel featuring native speakers speaking a variety of languages but mostly spanish, french, and german

wikitongues- youtube channel attempting to document every language in the world

languagepod101- offers podcasts and youtube videos in a wide variety of languages

verbix- verb conjugating website with a wide variety of languages

quizlet- flashcard website that’s great for compiling vocab lists

lingq- i’ve only used it a little but it seems helpful especially for beginners!

tunein- allows you to listen to radio in a variety of languages

wikipedia- they have thousands to millions of articles in various languages so it’s a great place to test your reading skills, and in addition you can read articles about the language you’re learning and get a grasp on the language’s structure and sound system

lyricstraining- allows you to learn languages using song lyrics, really helpful for comprehension

lang-8- you can post things and have native speakers correct them, and correct things from other people!

feel free to add!

““You should date a girl who reads. Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve. Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn. She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book. Buy her another cup of coffee. Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice. It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does. She has to give it a shot somehow. Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world. Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two. Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series. If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are. You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype. You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots. Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads. Or better yet, date a girl who writes.””

—

One of My Most Favorite Psalm. 🌻🌻

a friend asked me to read this....

New International Version (NIV)

  Psalm 103  Of David.

 1 Praise the LORD, my soul;     all my inmost being, praise his holy name.  2 Praise the LORD, my soul,     and forget not all his benefits—  3 who forgives all your sins     and heals all your diseases,  4 who redeems your life from the pit     and crowns you with love and compassion,  5 who satisfies your desires with good things     so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

 6 The LORD works righteousness     and justice for all the oppressed.

 7 He made known his ways to Moses,     his deeds to the people of Israel:  8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,     slow to anger, abounding in love.  9 He will not always accuse,     nor will he harbor his anger forever;  10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve     or repay us according to our iniquities.  11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,     so great is his love for those who fear him;  12 as far as the east is from the west,     so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

 13 As a father has compassion on his children,     so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;  14 for he knows how we are formed,     he remembers that we are dust.  15 The life of mortals is like grass,     they flourish like a flower of the field;  16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,     and its place remembers it no more.  17 But from everlasting to everlasting     the LORD’s love is with those who fear him,     and his righteousness with their children’s children—  18 with those who keep his covenant     and remember to obey his precepts.

 19 The LORD has established his throne in heaven,     and his kingdom rules over all.

 20 Praise the LORD, you his angels,     you mighty ones who do his bidding,     who obey his word.  21 Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts,     you his servants who do his will.  22 Praise the LORD, all his works     everywhere in his dominion.

   Praise the LORD, my soul.

Shunned at home, ‘Tortoise-man’ bags award for his act of kindness

By WANJIRU MACHARIA

Every day for the past 57 years, Mzee Job Tarkwen Kipkech, has diligently carried out his self-allocated task of helping tortoises cross the Mogotio-Marigat road.

And though the act of kindness never drew any appreciation from any quarters in his village, he was never perturbed and was always at hand daily to ensure one of the world’s slowest creatures made it across the road safely.

Kipkech, 73, a resident of Kures village in Mogotio, Baringo County says that instead of appreciating his acts, locals often questioned why he wasting time on the reptiles instead of performing more rewarding domestic chores.

“They would stare at me as I rescue the animals. Some rude motorists also ignore my pleadings and at times almost knock me down as I wave them down to allow the tortoises to cross the road,” he said in an interview with Nation.

That was until two years ago when one of the leading TV stations in the country noticed him and ran a story on his conservationist efforts.

Nothing happened immediately afterwards but last Wednesday, a call he never expected came. The caller informed him he has been named the over-all winner of the Jubilee Insurance Samaritan Award (JISA).

“I now believe that no prophet is honoured in his own hometown. It took people so many miles away, and not known to me to recognise by actions,” says the old man with a smile.

The father of five quickly adds that although he is happy somebody somewhere had recognised him, that did not mark the end of his rescue mission for the tortoises that are a common sight in the area.

“I do not do this to receive praises from people but it is uplifting to know that someone appreciates what you do,” he adds. But just how did the call to be the saviour for the tortoises come to be? Mzee Kipkech says he was herding his goats along the busy road at the youthful age of 20, when he noticed with pity, how the tortoises endangered their lives, ambling across the road, every move a close shave with death.

“All that this animal can do when it senses danger is recoil back into its shell and freeze but that is not enough to save it from being crashed by the vehicles,” he says.

This vulnerability touched him and he has since not stopped to pick up the reptiles and run with them to safety across the road. Alternatively, he waves approaching vehicles down to prevent them hurting the reptiles.

Mogotio is home to all the three types of tortoises in Kenya including the endangered Pancake species.

But Mzee Kipkech’s kindness does not end with helping the reptiles to cross the road. He often carries the injured ones home and tends to them as they heal. He also sprays them with acaricides to rid them of bothersome ticks.

And the reptiles seem to have detected his kindness as they keep turning up in his compound and have even turned his farm into a breeding ground.

The old man has appealed to Kenya Wildlife Service to build a water pan on his land to avoid subjecting the reptiles to the treacherous journey for water across the road.

source 

Communion.

Here’s where the dead things, come back to living. I feel my heart beating again. It feels so good to know You are my friend.

this is literally the sweetest thing ever 🥺

 ﹟random get-to-know-me ask game  !! 

orchid ⇢ what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

cactus ⇢ something you’re currently learning (about)?

bamboo ⇢ do you change into a different outfit when you get home?

abelia ⇢ do you have a particular piece of jewelry you always wear or can’t part with?

daffodil ⇢ do you have siblings? if yes, in what ways do you think you’re similar to or different from them?

mahonia ⇢ what place, thing, activity inspires you most and how do you express yourself when it does?

chia ⇢ what’s an inside joke you have with someone else?

sage ⇢ what ‘medium’ of art (poetry, music, fiction, paintings, statues etc.) is the most touching to you? why do you think that is?

edelweiss ⇢ how’d you think of your url/username? what’s it associated with to you?

camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?

jasmine ⇢ do you have a movie or book you loved but will never watch/read again?

ivy ⇢ what are your ‘tells’ for your emotions and moods? how can someone tell you’re happy, annoyed, upset or tired?

chamomile ⇢ what kind of things do you like receiving as gifts?

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

palm tree ⇢ do you have a fictional villain you shouldn’t like but love regardless?

nutmeg ⇢ how’s your room/home decorated? do you have a specific theme or style going on?

papyrus ⇢ if you put your ‘on repeat’ playlist on shuffle, what’s the first song that comes up? what do you like about it / associate it with?

taro ⇢ if someone called you right now to catch up, what’re the things you’d tell them about?

To being Woman.

I think about women a lot and the pain they share. I think about my mother's nights taking care of her sister, taking care of her mother's pain. I think about her cries when she miscarried the first time and how fifteen years later she still cries in the bathroom and barricades herself in a room when my father shouts.

think about my grandmother working in a factory fixing stockings for other women in the dark, talking to other tired women outside on the street. I think about her raising children and providing for the family, spending most of her life in the kitchen between pots and pans, riddled with cuts and burns and child bearing. I think about her abortion because she couldn't feed another mouth, because she was already starving.

I think about my great grandmother providing for a family with no husband around, carrying guilt, feeding the chicken, working two jobs, sleeping in a cold house with no lights on.

I think about the women I know who have blood on their thighs, from periods, from childbirth, from rape, from sex with violent men who don't care about them.

i think about the women in bathtubs filled with boiling water, drinking whiskey, using their own knitting needles and coat hangers and throwing themselves down the stairs.

I think about the women who get home and clean the house, wash the same dishes everyday, clean the same house everyday, raising the same children, crying secretly in their bathroom.

I think about the blonde woman on the street corner who I've seen being there for eight years now, waiting for violent men with violent fantasies, waiting for the next beating, the next police fine, the next chance to eat.

I think about a classmate who dropped out from sixth grade to go to Austria, to follow her mother, who went cried in the bathroom stall next to me, because she knew what is going to happen with her.

I think about the pain that women share, the pain they can't articulate, the pain that boils in them for all their lives, becuase it's never appropriate to let it out. wailing women at funerals burying what they made, wailing girls in bathrooms, wailing women alone in their houses.

their blood staining underwears, kitchen knives, bedsheets, thrown away condoms, being consumed from the inside out, because women's pain is natural, because there is greater pain out there, because only little girls cry, never adult women.

Mbele ninaendelea...

“By His grace, I’ll press on.”

— (via thelivingword)