In other news, goodbye ergonomically-effective office chair at the dining room table. Hello childhood-bedroom zoom-teaching-background.

Literally just realised that tonight might well be my last night home alone for….ever.

My sibling’s coming home from uni a week and a half earlier than I thought and likely not living on campus next semester. So he’ll be living with me for the foreseeable, and when I eventually move out, possibly before he ever leaves, I’m almost certainly gonna live with my partner.

Literally just realised that tonight might well be my last night home alone for....ever.

My sibling’s coming home from uni a week and a half earlier than I thought and likely not living on campus next semester. So he’ll be living with me for the foreseeable, and when I eventually move out, possibly before he ever leaves, I’m almost certainly gonna live with my partner.

I swear some kids are like mute police in online classes.

Yesterday while one kid was talking, I pressed my mute because I needed to sneeze, and another kid yells “YOU’VE MUTED YOURSELF!” faster than the sneeze even came out.

As I get older I’m starting to let go of the guilty urge to build permanent habits. Like, a while ago I decided I would start jumping rope every day. I did it for like three weeks and felt good about it. Then I got bored, because of course I did, because I’m a human person. So now I do a bit of kickboxing because that’s what I like now. The other week I cut all sugar from my diet, just for a week, to challenge myself. Now I’m back to eating sweets but I don’t crave them as much.

Growth is about stretching, trying new things, and setting small, realistic goals for yourself, not picking a “good habit” you’ve decided you will be doing always and forever from now on. That’s not discipline. That’s pointless self-torture and unhealthy resistance to change.

What’s good for you today will not necessarily be what’s good for you tomorrow.

expectation: i leave these browser tabs open, and they serve as a reminder to do the activities on those sites

reality: i become very good at ignoring browser tabs

worst part of adulthood so far is definitely the fact that people have the ability to contact me and i have to respond in a timely manner

I love this

Every intellectual task lately is too hard for me.

To the point I can’t believe I ever got a good grade in any exam.

Something I’d add to this is also sometimes you feel sick and it’s fixable - by sleeping a little longer / taking time to stop feeling weird and eat / taking a few hours break / skipping a meeting or a class or two. Lots of times in high school I’d start the day feeling so exhausted, sick, and anxious and be faced with either having to suck it up (which a couple of times resulted in me getting sent home anyway) or pretend I was “more sick”. In my last 2 years, we could self-certify a certain number of lessons missed, and I tried out coming to school after the first couple of class periods. Mostly that worked, I felt better, and could still engage with some of my classes.

Some things are better than no things if you can’t (physically OR mentally) handle everything.

Still got stopped in the corridor by an earlier-class’s teacher to be told “I thought you were supposed to be home sick” though.

As an adult who’s lucky enough to be able to cancel/postpone individual commitments (without cancelling my whole day), I’ve become so much more productive, and I actually feel sick a lot less frequently.

Growing up my parents taught me that if you’re too sick to [insert responsibility here] then you’re too sick to [insert something that makes you happy here].

It took me a really long time to unlearn this. When I would get sick or have a “bad day” I would deprive myself of anything that made me happy. Watching movies, eating something I enjoyed, going for a walk, playing video games or just browsing online looking at funny cat videos. I wouldn’t let myself do these things because I was always told that if I’m too sick to go to work, or do homework, or go to school then I must be too sick to play Mortal Kombat or watch Unsolved Mysteries lol.

Whenever I wouldn’t feel good, which I later learned as an adult was due to sleep deprivation caused by my ADHD and depression (and of course the depression itself would cause me to feel like shit), my parents would tell me “if you’re not throwing up, then you’re not sick.” And when I would stay home from school (or even work in my later teen years) my parents would make sure that I didn’t have any “fun.” No TV, no movies, no games, no going outside, no arts and crafts, no books, no nothing. Just lay in bed and feel miserable.

I’m happy to say that I no longer do this to myself. Now when I’m having a bad day or I’m sick (cold, flu or whatever) I allow myself to do the things (within reason lol) that I actually love doing. If I’m not too sick to step outside for a few minutes then I’ll go for a walk. I’ll watch my favorite movies and if it’s a bad day or a cold (something that doesn’t hinder my appetite too much) I’ll eat my favorite foods. I don’t guilt trip myself anymore for having a “sick day.”

Just because you’re sick (whether physically, emotionally or mentally) doesn’t mean that you can’t do things you enjoy. You’re not any less sick because you watch TV. You’re not any less sick because you’re playing video games. 

Actually you SHOULD be doing these things when you’re not feeling good because they make you feel better. The better you feel, the faster your heal. 

I had a professor in college who used to start solving every problem with the same dialogue.

Proff: What’s the first step to solving any problem? Class: Don’t panic. Proff: And why is that? Class: Because we know more than we think we do.

I think about that a lot tbh. It didn’t occur to me until much later that he meant for us to apply that dialogue outside of the classroom to any problem. Because we always know more than we think we do. We are all an amalgam of random information that ends up being relevant with surprising frequency.

Hi, im on my last year on a phd program, but this summer was very bad, i just loose two months in front of my pc without any progress in my writing. So for now i'm feeling very desmotivated and frustrated. I loved the last years just reading and taking notes, but writing is such a diferent thing... Idnk, if you have any good advice for this moments, or tell me something about your experience on this, it will be, i think, in some way helpful to know it. Thanks in advance, and have a good day.

Hi Anon, sorry I’ve not been online for a while. 

Writing is hard - what you’re required to do is hard. But it’s not impossible.

Depending on your supervisor-grad student relationship, you might be able to get them on board to help you out.

Even if you’re on your own, I find getting a structure down helps massively. Scrawl it out, as messy as you like, on a big piece of paper. Figure out what sections you need to include and what order they’re going to be in. Then pick one and write it. One per day even if that’s where your head is at.

You got this :)

That’s freakin awesome

The kind of advisor-grad student relationship think I wish I’d had...

Went into a bathroom at a conference (ages ago) before a grad student’s talk and she was in there tying up her hair and her advisor came out to wash her hands.

Grad student: “Advisor, do you think I should cut my hair?”

Advisor (looks puzzled): “Why are you asking me?”

Grad student: “is the correct answer, fuck that, let’s go do science!”

They left laughing and just had generally awesome interactions every time I saw them together.

Also the advisor both attended the grad student’s talk AND didn’t undermine her once.

Long shot posting here but I’ve been tasked with finding more students for this 6 week course. The teacher is willing to give a $12 discount to fill up the first course (sign up, message the teacher with BIOPSY 12, and get it refunded).

Please share to anyone with teens who may be interested!

The kind of advisor-grad student relationship think I wish I’d had...

Went into a bathroom at a conference (ages ago) before a grad student’s talk and she was in there tying up her hair and her advisor came out to wash her hands.

Grad student: “Advisor, do you think I should cut my hair?”

Advisor (looks puzzled): “Why are you asking me?”

Grad student: “is the correct answer, fuck that, let’s go do science!”

They left laughing and just had generally awesome interactions every time I saw them together.

Also the advisor both attended the grad student’s talk AND didn’t undermine her once.

omfg