My poem "Fish" has been published in Issue II of Jaded Jesters Society!!

 

Here is the cover of Issue 2 of The Jaded Jesters Society, which includes my poem "Fish." I had a really good experience with this literary journal and I highly recommend submitting your work to them if you're a writer :))

You can read this issue here: https://thejadedjesterssociety.com/

I am also going to include the text of my poem in this blog post and talk about my inspiration. Here's what it looks like on the page:

Fish

The pedants

scraped some slugs off the wall

in the garden that the dead ivy

clung to and they offered this

thing to him after his fast, so

he had to hold his nose, but still,

he gagged, and they thought

this was an act—some kind of

schoolboy defiance—when in fact,

he simply could not love

grammarians

They

took his book away,

and left him only fish when

he needed the Stoics to deal with this,

Yet those austere sops made sure he

never quite forgot what he was—

a bastard—when they drew up

some tables of words they wanted

to make him learn, and it made him

think of

his friend,

He remembered him with fondness,

A memory that dispelled the darkness,

Now, that was someone who he knew

had a mind like a book that you could

turn the pages of, and the words would

hold wisdom, though in hieroglyphs, but

he was far away

The inspiration behind this poem 

I wrote this poem because I was reading about how much Erasmus hated eating fish when he was a young boy at a monastery and that what the monks showed him. I wanted to imagine what that was like for him. Erasmus mocks monks in his works such as In Praise of Folly. He values inward piety but thinks monks are performative, basically. Also, I wanted to write about deep intellectual friendships. The friend referred to here could be someone like Thomas More.

Thanks for reading this!! 

Very specific romance trope I am obsessed with

I don't like YA books that much, but I am currently reading Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley. So far, it's okay. I'll post a Goodreads review when I'm done. I will say that I am happy that it's a debut by an Anishinaabe author with a protagonist who is proud of her Anishinaabe heritage though, and I hope this author will keep writing more. 

Anyway, what's keeping the pages turning for me is that it happens to have a very specific romance trope that I am obsessed with. This is the trope where people pretend to be dating as part of an undercover operation but then they fall in love for real. 

Where have you seen this trope before? That's right, in a rather brainrotted and unserious anime called SpyXFamily. Now, SpyXFamily is supposed to be slice-of-life, for entertainment only, "not that deep" etc. but I found it incredibly heartwarming. Some of the episodes that focused on Anya's dog were so wholesome I almost cried.

In SpyXFamily, a spy and an assassin get married as a fake marriage larp thing to avoid suspicion. To add even more spice to this, neither knows about the other's true identity. Also, they adopt a girl named Anya who can read minds but doesn't tell anyone about this ability. So she knows their true identities lol. And they have a dog who can see into the future, but only Anya can read his mind and use this information. Insane premise, I know. 

But what is really touching about this anime is that the fake family has more love for each other than some real families do. The fake mom, fake dad, adopted kid, and adopted dog are like the most wholesome family unit ever even though it's all fake!!! How can that be? I literally think it's satirizing suburban white picket fence families who wish they had that much love in their lives but who never will. I think the key is that the respect and friendship that Lloyd and Yor have for each other is worth more than what suburbanites call love. 

Suburbanites want this level of love, joy, and fulfillment but will never have it no matter how hard they try to larp as this. 

Sedna (new artistic rendition)

She truly lives in my mind rent free and is a very comforting figure to think about and I've always thought of her as motherly. Motherly figures can be terrifying and crazy, to be fair. But she's like the sea with her unpredictability. 

Here is my artistic rendition of Sedna.

I wrote a longer post about Sedna back in 2023 if you want to check it out here: https://freyathefrypan.blogspot.com/2023/06/hello-frens-today-we-are-going-to-talk.html

Also, I recommend reading the short story "kakoot" by Inuk author Norma Dunning if you want to see Sedna finding love and having a happy ending. Here is an artistic rendition based on Dunning's story. 

Modern Dating is Designed to Traumatize Autistic Women

This post is not going to be very long I just needed to get something off my chest. I'm using a dating app now but I HATE IT. I think I'm going to delete it after a week because this is the worst thing I have ever experienced, and honestly I am just using it because of family pressure to date people. 

I need y'all to understand that my brain hates novelty, so I don't like new/unfamiliar people. I literally don't want to meet new people. I'm attracted to familiarity. Hanging out with the same 3 people all the time for hours doing the same things in the same places is peak, I don't care what anyone says. 

Also, I really love my friends. And it kills me that society expects me to feel the same depth of admiration, loyalty, and affection that I have for my friends for SOME GUY ON HINGE WHO CAN'T HOLD A CONVERSATION. ??? 

I think my friends have set my standards too high lowkey. One of my friends said "Wanting a partner to be better than your friends is a reasonable expectation. Don't lower your standards." But I always get treated better by people who like me platonically than the ones who like me romantically, so idk. Maybe I'll ask about this on Reddit lmao.

Antarctic Journal (A Narrative Commonplace Book) Installment 1 of 13

    I fidgeted with the microphone at my desk. It was a rather nice and expensive one, and I was shocked that the Antarctic Culture Committee even had the budget to let me buy such a thing. I was supposed to be recording a vlog, but I kept getting distracted. The window was slightly open. What kind of idiot would open that window? The chill was not at all a slight one, and it reminded me of where I was. It was such a cold breeze that it felt like a wind of obsidian blades. Yes, the Aztecs thought their dead went to go live as animate skeletons in the underworld with the god of death. And the obsidian blade wind was what took off their flesh when they made their journey to his realm. 

  I shut the window, but then I realized I had not fed the midge. The midge! I kept the creature in something that looked like an aquarium, but with snow and ice inside. He was a freakishly cold resistant insect, native to Antarctica. He had a shiny, black exoskeleton. I named him Itzcoatl because it means “obsidian snake” in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. And it was the name of the fourth Aztec emperor.

I was going to feed Itzcoatl, but then someone knocked on my door. It was my friend Marina. She’s from Aotearoa. She’s an ecologist. So basically, she’s a lot cooler than me. 

“Asmund and I may have found the perfect viewing area for seeing the southern lights! You should really come with us, Saperi,” she said.

Asmund was another ecologist. And he was from Iceland. Asmund and Marina had great reasons for being in Antarctica, of course. They were ecologists! They could study the midges, leopard seals, penguins, and all the other fascinating creatures that played a role in the Antarctic ecosystem. My presence there was perhaps a lot less easy to justify. 

“You guys go ahead. I should be recording a vlog. Or writing,” I said.

“What? But Saperi, it’s the southern lights! Seeing them is a life-changing experience. You’ll never get this opportunity again,” said Marina. “I know you may have seen the northern lights in the northern Ixa Chilan wilderness, but aurora borealis is for normies. Aurora australis is where it’s at. Even in Aotearoa, you couldn’t get such a perfect view. You just couldn’t.”

“I never saw aurora borealis. I learned what the Ojibwe people called it in their language though. It’s wasnoode,” I said.

“You can be a nerd here, then. Fine! Asmund and I are leaving now,” said Marina.

I needed discipline. I needed to focus on my work and not get distracted by anyone, not even Marina. She would never understand. But I loved her and I knew I needed to make it up to her for missing aurora australis one day. 

But for now, my priorities were clear. I needed to vlog and write. You see, the Antarctic culture committee was funding my study in this tundra because Antarctica needed culture. It needed artists and writers. And those artists and writers not only needed to paint and photograph and write, they needed to be social media influencers. That was probably the worst part of my job description. But the culture committee wanted the world to know what its funded writers were doing, so I had to vlog alongside my novel. It was just the rules.

I opened a notebook to a blank page. It was beckoning. But alas, none of my ideas were about Antarctica! My heart and mind were still brimming with remembrances of my travels throughout the great land of Ixa Chilan. 

I drew this at my best fren Vicky’s house while she was playing the piano

Snekzine is out now! Read it during No Simp September!

For those of you who are familiar with this blog, I am the originator of a trend called No Simp September. This is where you avoid simping and you lock in for a whole month. However, I also started a trend for people in relationships called Sigmimptember. This is where you can simp over your partner but you still have to lock in. However, I have mostly spent this September brooding, pondering, languishing, lamenting, bewailing, and bemoaning my fate. Because I was bedrotting and crashing out so much, I have decided to do No Simp October instead. Once October begins, it's over for y'all. 

Throwback to 2023 when I decided to start this trend. You can see the original No Simp September post here.

Here are some goals I have for No Simp October:

- 10,000 steps a day

- Go to jim every other day 

Walking and jim have emotional benefits. They can prevent crashouts. 

Anyway, now that I have established my No Simp October goals, I have to make an exciting announcement!

The very first issue of Snekzine is out now and it's autumn themed!

I am thinking of turning this into a quarterly zine with seasonal art, poetry, fiction, and puzzles. For now, here is the first issue. Made on Canva and posted on Fleepit. 

You can view the zine here:

https://flipbooks.fleepit.com/f-123798-snekzine_vol_1

I still have to make some promo materials for this zine on my new Instagram (@ax0lotl_slime). I'm going to add some promo links to this zine on my website sidebar as well when I have time. But for now, enjoy the zine. 

The next volume will be released in the winter. I'm so happy!! I've always wanted to make a cute little zine flipbook ting. 

Bye, frens!!!

in defense of people who have internet friends (I will die on this hill)

An amazing drawing by my talented internet fren Iriria. Check out @coppereddrawings on Instagram. 

Alright, I'll admit I'm mad. I always feel like it's the most privileged, normie, suburbanite, neurotypical ass people who hate on people who have internet friends. We get it, you have generic interests and low emotional needs so you can easily befriend random people and you don't need to spend one-on-one time with people to feel close with them. You don't need to ever have conversations about something deep or interesting because you're fine with shallow ass relationships. Whatever. Just don't expect the rest of us to be satisfied with that. 

So right now, I don't really have internet friends who I talk to that much. They're nice when I do talk to them, but they're not really that significant to my life any more. Shoutout to Anthony and Iriria if ur reading this tho lmao u guys are great. Anthony is this cool Mexican guy who's a history teacher and Iriria is my Costa Rican friend who makes very pretty art!! Right now, I just have tons of irl friends who I actually feel close to so I don't really need to talk to Anthony and Iriria every day. But I also wouldn't have been able to survive my tumultuous teen years without people like them. I'm not as reliant on internet friends, but I'm grateful af that I had them in my life when I needed them.

Internet friends were very significant for me throughout my teenage years and beyond that too. I'd say they were actually pretty significant to me until I started doing my masters, which was when I was 22. So what happened when I was 22? I had a friendship breakup the year before with one of my closest internet friends at the time and it was devastating. I still respect him and I'm grateful for the impact he had on my life even though he's not in my life any more. 

After this happened, I decided to look more for irl friends because I thought this would help. But if you think about it, this is actually a stupid assumption. The friendship breakup didn't happen just because we were internet friends. A similarly devastating scenario could easily repeat irl (and DID actually repeat irl with someone I was close to during my masters). I also forgot how boring people in real life are. I'm not trying to roast anyone, because I realize boringness is subjective. You may be very interesting to someone else even if you're boring to me. But a lot of people are just very boring to me, and forcing myself to be friends with them is not good for either of us. 

The type of things I could talk about with my internet friends is just stuff that normies woudn't be able to keep up with because they don't have the same interests as me. For example, Iriria made a Discord server with me and some other internet friends and we watched Killers of the Flower Moon together while chatting live on Discord. Iriria and most of her friends are interested in Indigenous cultures. So the conversation they had about the movie was actually interesting. A normie would either not be interested or just mildly interested. 

I'm autistic, so I just like things more than you and I also get bored by things more. You can like a lot of things a little bit. I can like a few things a lot. That's just how my brain works. It's called monotropism. 

Anyway, during my masters, I didn't get along very well with my cohort but I forged a strong 'ride or die' bond with two PhD students who I met at the time. Shoutout to Andy and Sylvanna you guys are my homies. Something really crazy happened with Andy and Sylvanna. It was the first time I met people offline who I found so relatable.

Now, I do have two very close friends irl who were with me throughout my tumultuous teen years. Their names are Vicky (or V*c, as I call her) and Joan. They're from the same suburb as me. I love them, but I don't think our bond is really based on similar interests. We do have some interests in common but that's not really the basis of our friendship. The love I feel for Vicky and Joan feels kind of sibling-like. They're like chosen family. And family is held together by more than just interests. I feel like there's this sort of sense of duty, protective feeling, etc. that I have for them. 

But also, even though Vic and Joan are amazing, they can't satisfy all my needs. I needed internet friends to satisfy my needs of being able to talk about my niche interests. I could talk about the Aztecs with Anthony or Iriria but not with them, because they wouldn't know as much as my internet friends would. 

After my masters, I spent a year studying the Ojibwe language. Then, I started my PhD. I have NEVER had such as EASY time making friends as I have had during my PhD. It's ridiculous. Doing a PhD for me has been like the coolest, smartest, most relatable people I have ever met begging me to hang out with them and talk to them every day. I'm not even exaggerating. And as someone who was seen as a loser in high school who only had internet friends, this is just wild to me. It's because PhDs select for people who are crazy passionate and want to yap about their interests. The type of connections you make during a PhD are so electrifying it's crazy. I don't know how to describe it to normies who only have surface-level connections. I honestly don't think you guys have experienced anything close to it even in romantic relationships. 

People who thinks it's uncool or unhealthy to have internet friends are discriminating against people with autism, ADHD, and even against LGBT people without knowing it. Where do you think LGBT people who aren't out of the closet meet other gay friends? They need the internet to form a community. There is no guarantee that someone irl will treat you better, share your values, respect your interests more than someone you meet online. 

Also, having internet friends who are good and loyal is like 1901203 times better than being friendless and like 912834021229 times better than having irl friends who are mediocre, unfulfilling, don't really care about you and understand you, etc. 

So in conclusion, what do you do if you're weird and struggle with making friends? Get internet friends, or go to grad school. Your quality of life will improve immensely. Trust me. Most normies will never experience 1/100th of the quality of the bond I had with an 'AuDHD' political boy on Twitter or the autistic PhD students I talk to. 

Good luck!!!

The Improover to Doomer Crashout (Send help plz)

 This is how I look rn:

Yer girl is going through it rn. I actually need a doctor. And a therapist. And a physiotherapist. R.I.P. me. Basically, I've been dealing with horrible anxiety and it's been affecting my mental/physical health a lot. Today I realized the cause is something quite unfortunate: I've become too invested in self-improvement, what you can call "Improover culture," which means it's actually too hard for me to just turn my brain off and enjoy things without trying to improve in them. I also haven't really improoved in anything except marginally I guess. I don't know. It's just not working. In case you don't know what Improover culture is, this meme does a good job of romanticizing it:

Now as you may know, I like drawing and writing. But drawing is actually a source of immense stress for me now. I don't draw to relax, I draw to improve my drawing technique now. 

It's very hard for me to turn off my brain. I tried to mindlessly do a colouring book, but it didn't work for relaxing me. I always found meditation really hard. There were a bunch of times I tried to get into it with meditation classes or videos but I only kept it up for like a week or two at a time and then gave up. I find it hard to enjoy popular media because it feels low quality.

I used to make fun of my parents because they both watch too many TV shows, but my dad said they watch them completely without guilt. They don't view these shows as a time waster at all, even though I can't help but see them that way. But that means they're also way happier than me. They don't have these types of crashouts. 

There are some YouTubers I will admit I actually do like watching even though I feel cringe to admitting to this. I like watching JREG, Vaush, Contrapoints and on the completely opposite end of the political spectrum: Classically Abby sometimes (Ben Shapiro's sister). Obviously, watching YouTube is a low IQ and time wasting hobby. And I always feel extremely guilty if I watch these things because it feels so dumb, like how my parents watch dumb Pakistani TV shows with cousin marriage plots. 

But my dad gave me the advice to actually do some activities purely for fun, no matter how stupid they are. He said it would be better for my mental health in the long run. And maybe I would actually improve a bit more if I didn't have anxious breakdowns all the time. 

Idk how to feel about this. I've been doing 'monthly goals' for some time and failing to meet them. I also made a huge list of 2026 goals and didn't achieve most of them so far. But is anything on that list worth the amount of stress I feel rn? I don't know about that.

I have been forcing myself to make 'technique drawings.' These are drawings that I don't like making. They're not my preferred style. But they're necessary for improoving. I was supposed to make 10 of these but I only made 5 so far. I leave you with my sad 'technique drawings' below:

Okay actually I'll try to end on a slightly hopepilled note? idk

So my dad studied engineering in university. But he was also an actor (just as a hobby). He used to perform in plays. He actually used to be a very cool person before he became a suburbanite. But anyway, he told me he'd have minor crashouts sometimes because he would meet professional actors and thought he wasn't as good as them. But then he remembered he was an engineering student (and a very good one), while these people did acting 24/7. It was their actual career. One can argue it's more impressive to be a good engineer and a mediocre actor than just a good actor, idk. I am not sure if this is hopepilled enough, because some Sigma Self-Improover reading this could be like "SKILL ISSUE!!!!!!! I'VE ACTUALLY BEEN A HOLLYWOOD ACTOR AND A WALL STREET BANKER AND A SILICON VALLEY TECH BRO AND I SPEAK 83 LANGUAGES AND I MAKE OIL PAINTINGS THAT SELL FOR $11988398110 EACH AND I HAVE READ EVERY DOSTOEVSKY NOVEL AND I CAN DO 69 PUSHUPS IN A ROW IN PERFECT FORM. YOU LAZY KIDS THESE DAYS JUST AREN'T LOCKING IN HARD ENOUGH."

Anyway, I'll let y'all ponder about this one. I haven't really figured out the solution to this problem yet, because I don't like the idea of abandoning self-improovment. idk what to do honestly. Do I just have skill issues?

The novel 'Silverwing' by Kenneth Oppel has been turned into a graphic novel and it's actually pretty good

Silverwing was a formative part of my childhood

What's up fam? It's yer girl. As you may know, I am a creature enjoyer. My favourite creatures are snenkes and axolotls. But I am also a huge fan of bats. This is because I read the Silverwing saga as a kid, which is a trilogy written by Kenneth Oppel that includes Silverwing, Sunwing, and Firewing. There is also another book by Kenneth Oppel called Darkwing which is also really really good, but it is about pre-historic creatures that are not really bats. They can glide on their skin flaps but they can't fly like birds yet. It's also 10 out of 10 stuff though and I recommend it if you want to read about Paleocene creatures like the miacis and diatryma who interact with the almost-bat creatures. These books were literally the highlight of my childhood, and I'm kind of mad there aren't more books for adults that have creatures as characters. The only exception I can think of is Animal Farm lmao. Great book but the plot depends too much on humans. We need more creature novels for adults. I bet creatures can be just as psychologically complex as Anna from Anna Karenina or Dorothea from Middlemarch if you want them to be. 

The Silverwing saga is also what launched a childhood fascination with the Aztecs and Mayans. This is because the villain in Silverwing, named Goth, is a spectral bat. They are found in central America. Also, Kama Zotz, the Mayan god of bats is literally a character in the book who Goth worships. I read Silverwing when I was 9 and I started this blog when I was 10, and my Aztec obsession lasted long enough for you to see evidence of it on this blog. In fact, if we're being real, I don't think the Aztec obsession ever ended. There are some Nahuatl words I still remember, and I still listen to Aztec-inspired music that has conch shell trumpets. You can see Aztecposting examples in this short story about Tenochtitlan that I posted on this blog or this insane post where I decided to ship Aztec gods with gods from other mythologies. 

Silverwing has an animation based on it. But to be honest, I thought the animation was a bit mid. Goth's character design was great though! Goth is my fave character lol. Here is a drawing I made of him when I was 13, which is based on the animation's design. (Also, hear me out lmao ;) the furries have a point.)

I DREW THIS WHEN I WAS 13 <3 I LOVE GOTH HE IS THE COOLEST VILLAIN EVER

I'm impressed by the graphic novel adaptation 

This is one of those books where the villain is super cool and the protagonist is just some guy (or bat), but if you like the traditional hero's journey type of plot structure then you'll probably still like the protagonist Shade Silverwing. 

Anyway, it turns out the bat books have been adapted to a graphic novel. And it's really good honestly. It made me so nostalgic. The artist is Christopher Steininger. I don't know if he's the same person who did the animation designs. That would explain why Shade and Marina look fairly similar in the graphic novel as they do in the animation. But Goth looks EVEN COOLER. He looks like a real spectral bat! Steininger clearly did research on them. HE LOOKS LIKE IF A SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATION OF A SPECTRAL BAT WENT ABSOLUTELY FERAL AND ACQUIRED AZTEC GOD POWERS. 

Here is the cover, giving making Goth look like the main character lowkey! lmaoo. It's sooo good.

The pacing was so good in this graphic novel adaptation. And honestly it felt like a cinematographic reading experience. Big fan. 

Here is a page of the graphic novel, so you can see the art style:

Incredibly based stuff. 

Anyway Kenneth Oppel if you are reading this, I liked Sunwing and Firewing even more than Silverwing. Probably because it had more of Goth. Give us a standalone ONLY about Goth if you ever feel like writing another book about bats!! That would be awesome. 

The Book "Make it Stick" Shows that School is Against Neuroscience

This post is going to be about a must-read for adult autodidacts called "Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel. This book is about how most learners are actually going about studying the wrong way. Furthermore, the public education system seems to be designed around vibes and myths about learning techniques that are unsupported by neuroscience. The authors of this book call these myths "education folklore." This book also provides techniques that you can use to actually learn instead of falling into illusions of competency.

Learning is supposed to be hard 

One of the most important points in this book is that learning is supposed to be hard. If you don't make mistakes, you're not learning. Many learners fall into the trap of repeating easy tasks they are comfortable with. But "no pain no gain" applies to brain gains, don't forget! The authors are actually in favour of quizzes and tests, even though "education folklore" by woke snowflakes says that tests only lead to rote memorization and increased anxiety. However, the solution is actually to have several predictable low-sakes tests. Not pop quizzes, because those are universally hated. But not huge midterms or finals either as those are indeed anxiety-inducing and lead to cramming. Frequent, low-stakes quizzing is the way to go as this leads to effortful recall and makes things stick in your brain better. Without memory, there can actually be no progressing to more creative uses of knowledge. This means that while studying, you shouldn't be just re-reading passages but actually asking yourself questions and quizzing yourself. 

Also, stop being scared of mistakes and failure. They are necessary for growth. Take your ego out of it. 

Personally, I use Anki for memorizing vocabulary in Anishinaabemowin and I recommend it for all language learners out there (or even medical students, since y'all gotta memorize insane amounts of stuff). It follows the principles of this book because it doesn't show you flashcards you already know. It's going to be over a year before Anki shows me "miigwech," (the Anishinaabemowin word for "thank you," which I will never forget because it is literally seared into my brain, the first word I learned in the language and one that is familiar to many non-Indigenous people in southern Ontario). But it will show me "mshkiigimin" like every day, which means "low bush cranberry" and which I find way harder to recall. 

IQ isn't fixed 

Some of the most beautiful passages in this book are basically like poetry about human potential that show that IQ isn't fixed. Children who are taught that IQ isn't fixed don't back away from a challenge. They welcome the chance to stretch their brains. In a study, children who were called "smart," picked easier puzzles. Children who were called "hardworking" picked harder puzzles to solve! Have as scroll through some of these based excerpts. I took pictures of them while reading because they were just too good.

"Learning styles" are like astrology, basically 

So I'm a former "gifted kid." This means that they put me in special classes because I had autistic special interests and liked books and I passed some kind of "gifted test" (it was lowkey kinda dumb, idk). One of the things that the teachers made us do every year for some reason in gifted classes from grades 4-8 was the "multiple intelligences test" by Howard Gardner. However, even Gardner himself admitted the concept of multiple intelligences is an art not a science. So we were forced to do this thing every year and take the results extremely seriously even though it has no scientific basis. School is against neuroscience. Unsurprising to many people, I scored very high in "verbal and linguistic intelligence" and pretty low in other categories. I was not logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, interpersonal, musical, or bodily/kinesthetic. I was a clumsy person who couldn't do math, couldn't draw, couldn't socialize and couldn't play music. I just read books. The multiple intelligences test asked me about stuff like my hobbies, so of course I picked options related to how I liked writing stories in my spare time. What that test really shows is simply what a child is interested in. That's it. It's basically just a hobbies quiz. It showed that I was very interested in reading and writing and not really in any other subject, which was true at that age. As I got older, I became interested in art, music, fitness, friendships, and even in math. But books have just been a first love (and true love) for me throughout my life. The test just showed what was obvious to everyone: I was just passionate about something. It didn't show anything about my intelligence. 

Also, stuff like "visual learner" or "auditory learner" is actually unsupported by neuroscience. Those also indicate preferences or interests, not what the most effective way you actually learn it. Learning styles or multiple intelligences are basically astrology. The teachers might as well have given us a Buzzfeed quiz about what icecream flavour you are and it would've been equally scientific. Make it Stick made me understand how cringe that was, and honestly it doesn't encourage a growth mindset because then you refuse to learn things that don't match up with your preferences. 

I actually think it did a lot of damage to me that the school system led me to believe that I wasn't a logical or mathematical person. I think I'd always have loved fiction or poetry more than math, but God I really could've used some encouragement for powering through with the math. It would've been better for me. I'm 25 now and I go to the library to read shit like "Statistics Essentials for Dummies" to figure out basic math now. 

If Wisdom is a goddess, school is desecrating Her altar 

Wisdom is personified as woman in the Bible, and many ancient cultures had goddesses of wisdom. But Wisdom lowkey woulda hated school. It is going against what she stands for. Become an adult autodidact, regardless of how shitty your school experience was. Do mathematical proofs on napkins at a restaurant. Read books while waiting in queues in public. Wisdom will come to you faster than it comes to your local director of the Board of Education. Books like Make it Stick can help you fix your brain after the damage that has been done to it by school. 

If you want to read more anti-school posts, check out this anti-school poem I wrote back in high school and this recent poem I wrote that personifies Wisdom. 

That's all for today. Good luck with learnmaxxing. 

Anti-School Poem I wrote for Mnerva Literary Journal Volume VI: Wonder

Today I'm going to share a poem called "Grammar School" that I wrote and talk about my inspiration for it. I submitted this poem to Volume VI of Mnerva Literary Journal, which had the theme of "Wonder." The poem is about how school kills your sense of wonder. I had a great experience corresponding with Mnerva about this poem, and I highly recommend submitting to them if you write poetry. 

It's actually not the first time I've written an anti-school poem. You may remember this old post I wrote where I was digging through my high school poetry. This poem was about attaching your self-worth to grades, which are just numbers, and about how awful that feels. School can feel like no real learning is happening at all and that you are just trying to optimize for grades. 

However, this time I wanted to write a poem that was about how school also kills our natural sense of wonder and curiosity. I thought Mnerva was the perfect place to submit because of the "Wonder" theme. 

The Cover of "Wonder"

I have to say, Mnerva did a great job of designing this cover. The font used to write "Wonder" is adorable and childlike. The font actually relates to the meaning of the word, which is great. It's a whimsical font. And the background looks like a mysterious forest ready to be explored. Also, the whole cover has a dreamlike quality. 

'Grammar School' -- A Poem

I am also a huge fan of the print layout. Very clean and well-designed. Here is what my poem, called 'grammar school,' looks like in print:

The poem text:

Grammar School

he chews a pencil until his tongue is black

his teachers say it must have darkened

from uttering blasphemies

he holds back questions they don’t let him ask

some of them love the rod and strap

like he loves the snake in the garden

the one he says must have a soul

who can really blame them

for lording over schoolboys when

they have no say in their households?

he thinks about the ocean then

with all the secrets She holds

how could she possibly have been created?

surely there is more wisdom in pondering this

than in writing down words like

Temperance and

Prudence

and Reverence

when the school inspector comes for a visit

tonight someone has plucked the stars out of the sky

but he is too wise to think that darkness is emptiness

he does not understand why the others care for

the notion of light dispelling the dark

can they not see that the night is like a mother?

when he takes refuge in his chamber

she shelters him when his candle flutters out

Wisdom herself emerges out of the dark

where he was the only one who thought to seek her

she loves him the best and garlands him above

scowling schoolteachers with their eyes ablaze at children

The Inspiration 

My inspiration from this poem largely came from a class I took about Genesis, in which the professor told us about how people have been discouraged from questioning if there was anything that existed before God created the world, even though the beginning of Genesis actually makes it seem like water existed before God started his act of creation. That's why I included the line about the ocean. The boy in the poem gets punished for his curiosity because the teachers don't like it when he asks questions. I was also inspired by a desire to inverse Oxford University's Latin motto, which is "Dominus illuminatio mea" or "God is my light," and link wisdom with darkness instead of with light. Basically, I thought ignorance = darkness and wisdom = light is too cliche, and decided to switch the imagery. We do injustice to things we consider part of the darkness by refusing to study them.

Anyway, I hope y'all liked that poem and hearing about the inspiration behind it. It was really nice to see it in print. Don't forget to submit to Mnerva Literary Journal!!! You can submit to their regular issues, or try one of their contests that offer some prize money. Good luck!!!

What's next?

While we're on the anti-school theme, I'm reading a book right now called Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning that shows how school is against what neuroscience has actually proven about what helps people learn. I'll let you know my thoughts when I'm done. 

And what's next with my creative writing? I've been working on a poem from the point of view of Erasmus during his monastery days, another poem about a wolverine, a short about nuns in medieval Spain, and another short story about Babel from the Old Testament. Stay tuned to find out what becomes of these projects!!!

The Marriage Trilogy (Jude the Obscure, Middlemarch, and Anna Karenina)

Warning: this post contains SPOILERS on nineteenth-century novels!!!!!!

Don't mind me if I make a lonelymaxxing type of post. I just really wanted to talk about three nineteenth-century novels that I believe everyone who ponders about marriage should read. These three books constitute what I am going to call The Marriage Trilogy. They contain everything marriage-related you can possibly ponder about. These three books are:

1. Jude the Obscure (1895) by Thomas Hardy -- (Book #1 The Doompill)

2. Middlemarch (1872) by George Eliot -- (Book #2 The Hopepill)

3. Anna Karenina (1878) by Leo Tolstoy -- (Book #3 The Compromisepill) 

This is probably not the last time you're going to have to deal with me marriageposting or divorceposting (I recently read John Milton's pamphlet on divorce!!! So watch out!!!) By the way, Hardy actually quotes Milton in Jude the Obscure!!!!

Jude the Obscure -- The Doompill 

Jude the Obscure is actually my favourite novel of all time. It's also a book that made me cry, scream, and crash out because it's the saddest novel I've ever read. Without giving too much away, the novel is about two people who love each other who can not be with each other. This is because Jude marries a woman who manipulates his sense of honour/chivalry but who he does not actually love, and Sue (who he actually loves) marries someone else who can provide for her out of convenience. But Sue does not love the old schoolmaster she marries either. Jude and Sue have an intellectual connection. Sue basically changes Jude's entire worldview through their intellectual discussions. It's clear that Hardy thinks intellectual companionship is important. They both do Latinmaxxing and Greekmaxxing, but Jude does this to study Christianity while Sue has a deeper appreciation of the classical pagan authors. And this has a huge impact on their worldviews and leads to lively debate and long yaps between them. This book is extremely doompilling because it makes it sound like everyone ends up marrying someone they settle for rather than who they truly love. Even when Sue's husband sees Jude and Sue yapping together, he has to admit that they are lowkey perfect for each other. Jude and Sue technically never get married, but you can argue that they are more married than anyone else in the book is if you use love to define marriage rather than a piece of paper. By the way, what is the Milton quote that Hardy includes as an epigraph in this book? It's this one: 

“Whoso prefers either Matrimony or other Ordinance before the Good of Man and the plain Exigence of Charity, let him profess Papist, or Protestant, or what he will, he is no better than a Pharisee.” — John Milton, quoted by Thomas Hardy

This is a truly based quote. And I don't think anything more based about marriage has been said than this in the entire history of western thought, except for maybe that thing that Nietzche said about marriage being a long conversation. That was pretty based too. However, I have not actually read Nietzche's Human, All Too Human yet so I don't have much context for that. What I can tell you is that Milton and Hardy are based and 100% correct about marriage. If you don't think that whatever Jude and Sue have is a love that is higher than marriage, you are basically a Pharisee (by which Milton means someone who cares more about the law than what is actually right)!!!!!

 

Middlemarch -- The Hopepill 

Middlemarch is the novel that made me end a relationship. I know I said Jude is my favourite novel of all time, but Middlemarch is a close second. I love how this novel basically has two stories going on at once. Dorothea, the protagonist, is in an unhappy marriage with an old scholar named Casaubon. At first, Dorothea thinks Casaubon would be a good match because she wants to be with an intellectual guy who she admires. She thinks she can help him with his scholarly work. However, Dorothea comes to the nasty realization that Casaubon has no admiration for her even though she is an intelligent woman. He has no interest in her inner life, but she remains devoted to him out of a sense of duty. Dorothea has a literary foil, or a character who is in a very similar circumstance as her, named Lydgate. Lydgate is a doctor who is very passionate about his work, but his wife Rosamond doesn't respect his passion. She rejects Lydgate's interest in the medical field, making Lydgate himself feel rejected, unhappy, and resentful. Dorothea and Lydgate both want to be valued for their minds, but their partners do not offer this to them. My relationship reminded me too much of Dorothea and Casaubon's relationship, which is why I ended it. Eventually, Dorothea meets a man named Will Ladislaw who truly loves her soul!!! There's an unforgettable scene where Will Ladislaw and his friend are in an art museum where they see Dorothea. Ladislaw's friend, an artist, says he would paint Dorothea. And Ladislaw says what she really deserves is a poem about her, meaning that he deeply appreciates her non-physical attributes. He is captivated by her voice, soul, and mind. The most romantic scene ever is after Casaubon dies and Dorothea marries Will even though he's poor. 

Anyway, men shouldn't date Rosamonds and women shouldn't date Casaubons. 

While reading Middlemarch, I took pics of passages that had me howling and screaming and posted them on my one-person Discord server. I'll share some with you guys here. This is about how Rosamond was a terrible wife:

Also here is something I saved about some characters who had more minor roles in the story, Fred and Mary. Mary wanted to fix him so badly:

Anyway, Middlemarch is based. It is more hopepilled than Jude because of how Dorothea finds Ladislaw at the end who is basically a perfect man and marries him. 

Also, this is a meme I made. I posted this before. But here's a repost anyway.

Anna Karenina -- The Compromisepill 

Eventually when you're pondering about marriage, you arrive at the compromisepill. However, this is a hard pill to swallow and I lowkey didn't really swallow it yet ngl. 

My cat Mictlan is a Russian Blue, and so I thought it would be cool to take a picture of a Russian creature with a Russian book!! Lowkey Tolstoy should've added more creatures. There were horses though. 

Now, this is 800 pages about a woman cheating on her husband. Interestingly, I actually hated two other classic novels that were about women cheating on their husbands. One was Main Street by Sinclair Lewis and the other was Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. I think the reason why I didn't like those books is because I thought the women were dumb and hard to sympathize with, even though their husbands were such mediocre men. The husbands in both Main Street and Madame Bovary were doctors who had no time for their wives. They were also lowkey kinda uncultured and didn't read enough poetry. However, their wives were also mediocre and I can't say I liked them much. But Anna is different. I loved Anna, idk. She was cool af and I understand why the young women in the novel like Kitty are captivated by her, and the men too of course. Her husband Karenin is very similar to the hubsands in Main Street and Madame Bovary. That is to say he is extremely mid. Anna wants a passionate love, and so she cheats on him with Count Vronsky, a handsome charming guy who I imagine had a great jawline. However, Vronsky never truly does value her. He sort of treats having her as a status symbol. You also see elements of the classic demand-withdrawal cycle in their relationship. 

Anna Karenina's plot structure is similar to Middlemarch because it sort of has two storylines in one. There's the Anna-Vronsky storyline and the Levin-Kitty storyline. This is kind of like how Middlemarch has Dorothea-Casaubon and Lydgate-Rosamond. I actually wonder if Tolstoy read Eliot. He probably did. I know he liked Dickens. 

Anyway, Vronsky doesn't truly love Anna's soul. There are times when he seems to, like after Anna recovers from a nearly fatal illness, but he mostly just seems like a hotter version of Karenin. Anna realizes that maybe it wasn't worth it. Meanwhile, Levin turns to God instead of turning to other women when he is unhappy in his own marriage.

The novel shows Levin as a noble character while Anna tries to fulfill her own desires instead of turning to spirituality. 

However, the genius of the novel is probably in that even though Levin is endorsed as morally superior, Anna is the more likeable character by far. Her intensity and passion makes her so much easier to sympathize with and relate to than Levin.

So if you fully swallow the Compromisepill, you could end up like Levin. And he is an admirable guy when it comes to morality. 

But Anna is more based, remember that! At what cost will you swallow the Compromisepill?

Here's a pic I took of a page from the book. Anna and Vronsky are quarrelling in this chapter. And I just thought Tolstoy did a 10000 times better job of describing "the demand-withdrawal cycle" than psychologists do. Take that, psychologists. Your field isn't a real science and it can be done better by writers of literary fiction. The demand-withdrawal cycle usually has a woman feeling unappreciated and demanding more from a man who then withdraws because he doesn't like the criticism. It had me howling and screaming when it happened to Anna and Vronsky.

Now, we are almost at the end of this post. I just wanted to end with a poem about the Marriage Trilogy. I chose juvenile rhymes and simple words on purpose to make it sound more like the style of a person who wouldn't read the Marriage Trilogy for some irony. Anyway, here it is:

A Poem I wrote about the Marriage Trilogy 

Long conversations between Jude and Sue

on matters that changed their entire worldview,

Perhaps you'll never know what that's like,

Philosophy taking over the night

Casaubon made Dorothea feel like

he was the sea, and her mind was a pool

until Ladislaw showed her what it was like

to actually be loved for her soul,

But they'll never say you're like him

Maybe you're like Count Vronsky

so handsome he made Anna Karenina

cheat on her husband and ruin her life,

All she wanted was love, 

though Vronsky didn't know how to do that right,

But her husband was not much better 

so she never satisfied her desires

Jude loved Greek and Latin

a poor boy who became a stonemason

just so he could have books 

And Lydgate was a doctor

who truly had a passion

but I'm not sure you know what that's like

any better than his wife did

Maybe that's why you can't love

a person that well either,

Jude and Levin and Ladislaw

could do it better

I don't even think you see

your lover is ensouled,

Ladislaw thought Dorothea's

beauty 

was too much for a portrait,

just right for poetry,

It would capture more of

her mind, her voice,

They say their love is beautiful

and in this one short life

I can't see the point

of being with you if

it doesn't feel like what they have,

So it can't be right

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

that's all, folks! I'll probably try to post something less lonelypilled next time.

im autistic

 

This is the meme my best fren Vicky sent me when I told her im autistic

Okay so I'm an autistic woman and I know we are less likely to get diagnosed as children than our Brothers in Autism because we are better at masking. But my parents, best friend, ex, etc. all thought I had the tism. My parents never tried to get me diagnosed though, and I'm gonna be fr I'm self-diagnosed with a score of 139 on the RAADS-R (suggesting very high likelihood though it's not confirmed) but it's kinda obvious at this point. I go to a school where the autism rate is very high (apparently quite common at high-ranking schools) but there is a 16 year waitlist for a diagnosis because basically everyone there thinks something is sus. I'm a grad student and during my training to become a teaching assistant, they told us about 30% of the undergrads at my school in the program I'll be teaching for are autistic or have ADHD (the actual rate may be higher because not everyone informs the schools that they have autism). And I'm a humanities student, so now imagine what the STEM autism rate is like lmao. I think the stereotype of an autistic person is still a boy who's a math prodigy, so autism is underdiagnosed in girls who have book addictions. Apparently people think autistic people don't like fiction because we are uncomfortable with ambiguity. I can't speak for all autistic people, but even though I really need direct communication during social interactions, I don't mind figurative language in books at all. I love a good metaphor in a poem, but not if you're trying to communicate how you feel to me please!!!! 

I also have very intense interests. It took my like 24 years of my life to realize that a lot of people don't. They don't really enter that flow state where they're obsessed with something and intensely concentrating on it. And that's just sad. 

I have a preference for routine so I can't deal with spontaneity. If a friend changes the time or location of a hangout on the day of the hangout, I have a minor crashout. Moving, travelling, etc. are like the worst things ever to me. 

I have sensory issues for loud noises, crowds, and bright lights. This means I basically have an old lady idea of fun. I just need tea, cats, and books to have a good time. Anything more than that has me overstimulated. I am also a clumsy person, not very athletic. 

I've struggled a lot with making friends in the past but when I finally did make close friends, almost all of them were neurodivergent. I always felt like I clicked better with people with autism or ADHD than with neurotypical people even back when I believed I was neurotypical. I also go to a school that is like one of the world's autism capitals, so it is statistically likely. 

A lot of people assume I'm introverted or I hate socialization, but I just hate surface-level interactions that seem that they don't like depth. I still value emotional closeness but don't get it from mid friendships. I've impulsively cut off friends before and had unstable relationships, leading me to think I might have BPD. But guess what? Masked autism in women is frequently misdiagnosed as BPD! And I haven't displayed any BPD symptoms within the last year, a year that I have spent surrounded by neurodivergent people, leading me to believe that the unstable relationships were simply just caused by not being with the right people. 

Everything makes sense now!!!!!

This book will literally save your life if you're an aspiring polymath

Today I went to the library. 

I finished reading one of Erasmus's essays called Lingua. 

I reviewed 469 vocabulary flashcards in Anishinaabemowin (the Ojibwe language). 

I worked on planning a lesson for the kid I'm tutoring. 

I found a book on statistics in the library. I learned some stats concepts from this book and practiced them.

I worked on some art as well (a realistic drawing of a cat). 

And I finished reading a self-help book for people who have many interests. It's called Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher. This book is what I have come to talk to you about today.