Reading Rules

Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon (by imagesofdream)

pro tip kiddos

take the time now and become so fucking good. practice; constantly, everything. learn everything you can. get upperclassmen, staff, anyone you can, to teach you. learn from your own mistakes, learn from the mistakes of people around you. learn from every source you have at your disposal. get creative. play easy songs you enjoy, because they will motivate you to practice. practice hard exercises that make you want to give up, because they will make you better. take the years you have now and become the best you can be, because regardless of what situation high school lands you in, you will be so good your chances at become better will soar. your peers will look up to you, because you have so much to teach and share. your superiors and staff will look up to you, because you have developed habits and skill and that are invaluable and have so much to give. you will have so many doors open to you, because you took the time to open them before you knew they existed. and finally brother, you will have learned, before your time, the most important lesson of all; what it truly means to be a musician, and that there is still so much more room to grow

to @recorder-jesus, on looking forward to moving up a level

So You Want To Be a Surgeon

(For: Domonique Nichols)

Every surgeon has to learn how to hold scissors without nervous hands, how to break open skin and wound a body just to fix it. How can we mend a broken heart if we’re too afraid of getting its blood on our hands? There will be blood on your hands. If you are going to be something, then you have to learn to kill for it. Every surgeon has the power to kill, however life exists at the cusp of that incision. Look at your hands. There is blood running through your fingers and every line in your palms lead somewhere. Where? to your destiny, where the light shines like a fire burning down forest. 

Be scared, but do not fear. The nervous pounds in your blood are natural stimuli just as the rain that feeds the seeds in the ground that cause the herbs to grow. Fear is created from the voices of question, of failure–waiting for rain. But voices can be silenced like the way a wave rushes in and drowns a ship. Rain will come.  I hope your insides tremble when you whisper your dreams and you awake at midnight hours gasping for air. there is a call for you I hope you answer in passion. So you want to be a surgeon? Your first surgery starts here. Here, in the quiet hours where the world sleeps and darkness swallows you with anxiety…  Make an incision while you are awake. bleed, feel, ache, heal. Begin to remove and sew whatever it is that is holding you back. Release yourself from self arrest; because walls are only walls, they are built with the same hands you have to cut away. Get away, pull apart the jail bars, diseased parts and set yourself free. Look at what your hands can do.

Your hands can sew and mended a heart, remove cysts that grow in the mind of emotional hurt bodies, cut away fears and tumors of the past. You can leave a body working like an unbreakable machine.  Your hands can bring life. Your hands can fight back, your hands can love better, Hold tighter, and let go easier. So you want to be a surgeon? Have faith. Kiss your hands with belief, and hold your dreams like a trophy you haven’t seen yet. Hold on to your hope, cradle dreams, sew wounds, and love is always a scar on the body like a piece of art. So love like a heart beat at the will of your hands on an open operating table.  Throbbing, breathing, beating.

Your hands they are warm and loving as the sun even when winter digs up goose bumps on the skin. You’ll spend time planting gardens just to see its beauty. Loving like petals but I hope you love like a rose thorn and pierce someone’s side so much they wail out in pain but are still strong enough to kiss you like a ticking time bomb just went off. Every surgery you will ever have to perform begins now. It begins with you. And if you’re too afraid to cut off people like snapped branches or too in love to let go as the leaves leave the trees in winter then you will never be able to save a life. Spring will never come. So walk with your hands wide open, walk ready to give. Give, give yourself. Surgery begins with saving your own life. Your life lived is a fountain of beauty awed by the eyes of another. You keep giving and they live from your waters.

You are herbs in a bush, a twinkle in the sky and one day someone’s body will pray for your hands. Somebody’s body will thank your hands. You are beauty in flaw and an ocean that refuses to stop waving even in winter when no one visits the beach. Your smile is a candle in a cave, your laughter a soothing anodyne in the moment of pain. Breathe and let be. Your hands can move an orchestra so beautifully tears fall without notice. And when the song is done, the score keeps singing in the soprano whisper of hope. So you want to be a surgeon… make an incision down the middle of your own heart and carry it in your hands. Give it away. So you want to be a surgeon… cut the world in half and let the light in. Die for this, breathe for this, shine for this, live for this. And your very hands that cut the world open will sew the world back up. 

*UPDATED* Here is a masterpost of MOOCs (massive open online courses) that are available, archived, or starting soon. Some are short, some are very interactive, some are better than others. I think they will help those that like to learn with a teacher or with videos.I checked each link to make sure they are functioning.

Spanish

Beginner 

Beginner’s Spanish:Food & Drink

Spanish 103 - Review of Elementary Spanish

AP Spanish Language & Culture

Preparing for the AP Spanish Exam

Spanish for Beginners

Basic Spanish for English Speakers

Fastbreak Spanish

Intermediate 

Spanish:Reading, Grammar, and Composition 

Spanish:Ciudades con Historia

Spanish:Espacios Públicos 

Advanced

Leer a Macondo (Taught in Spanish)

Spanish:Con Mis Propias Manos

Spanish: Perspectivas Porteñas

Corrección, estilo y variaciones

French

Beginner

AP French Language and Culture

Beginner’s French: Food & Drink

Français Interactif

Elementary French I

Elementary French II

French:Ouverture

Intermediate

French: Le Quatorze Juillet

Passe Partout

Advanced

La Francophonie Essence Culturelle

La Cité des Sciences et de Industrie

Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese for Beginners

Italian

Beginner

Survive Italy Without Being Fluent

Beginner’s Italian: Food & Drink

Beginner Italian I

Oggi e Domani

Intermediate

Intermediate Italian I

Advanced 

Italian Literature 

Italian Novel of the Twentieth Century 

Advanced Italian I

Latin

Latin I (Taught in Italian)

Russian

Beginner

Russian Alphabet

Reading and Writing Russian

Russian Phonetics and Pronunciation

Russian for Beginners

Easy Accelerated Learning for Russian

Basics of Russian

Russian Level I

Travel Russian

Advanced

Business Russian

Let Us Speak Russian 

Russian as an Instrument of Communication

Ukrainian

Read Ukrainian

Kazakh

A1 Kazakh (Taught in Russian)

Chinese

Beginner

First Year Chinese I

First Year Chinese II

Chinese for Beginners

Basic Mandarin Chinese I

Basic Mandarin Chinese II

UT Chinese 

Chinese for Travelers

Beginner’s Chinese

Chinese Characters

Oral Chinese

Chinese Made Easy

Mandarin I

Chinese is Easy

Start Talking Mandarin Chinese

Easy Mandarin

Intermediate

Intermediate Business Chinese

Intermediate Chinese Grammar

Japanese

Japanese JOSHU

Beginner’s Conversational Japanese

Learn 80 JLPT N5  Kanji I

Learn 80 JLPT N5  Kanji II

Learn 80 JLPT N5  Kanji III

Learn 80 JLPT N5  Kanji IV

Korean

Beginner

Pathway to Spoken Korean

Intermediate

Intermediate Korean

Dutch

Introduction to Dutch

German

Beginner

German Alphabet

Beginner’s German: Food & Drink

Rundblick-Beginner’s German

German Modal Verbs

Basic German Grammar

Study German Language from Native Speakers

German A1 Grammar

Deutsch im Blick

Advanced

German:Regionen Traditionen und Geschichte

Norwegian

Norwegian on the Web

Finnish

Basic Finnish

Finnish for Medical Professionals

Frisian

Introduction to Frisian  (Taught in Dutch)

Icelandic

Icelandic 1-5

Arabic

Arabic Language for Beginners

Arabic for Global Exchange

Arabic Fast Track

Moroccan Arabic

Conversational Arabic Made Easy

Arabic Without Walls

Hebrew

Hebrew Alphabet Crashcourse

Know the Hebrew Alphabet

Hindi

A Door into Hindi

Business Hindi

Indonesian

Learn Indonesian

Nepali

Beginner’s Conversation and Grammar

Welsh

Beginner’s Welsh

Irish

Introduction to Irish

I’ll keep an eye out for new courses and if you know of any, let me know so I can update this list.

Last updated: January 1,2016

Atey Majeed Ghailan  -   http://ink361.com/app/users/ig-1982936395/snatti89/photos  -  http://blog.sina.com.cn/snatti  -  https://www.behance.net/snatti  -  https://www.artstation.com/artist/snatti  -  https://www.instagram.com/snatti89  -  https://www.facebook.com/atey.ghailan  -  https://www.patreon.com/snatti?ty=h  -  https://www.youtube.com/user/rabuf666 -  http://snatti.tumblr.com  -  http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?id=3143520

It’s like being home sick for a place that doesn’t exist.

(via my-vanishing-hope)

Discovery

When the life you thought you’d live is not the life you know, and all that the world had to give was just a giant show,

looking back at mountains crossed, and finding they were hills, that everything you gave or lost was worth its weight in pills,

it’s time to sink into the ground and feel the dirt surround, from in our chambers all around, not a sight, not a sound can be found.

-Christian Fett (@christian-fett)

The awkward moment when...

…your parents walk in while you’re maniacally pretending to play Passacaglia (Handel-Halvorsen)