i'm a small queer who lives in their bed and is trying to learn how to use tilde.town you can find me on the fediverse at @alex@cybre.space you can also email me at blanketritual@maildoggo.net i'm going to try to continue to update this and work on my css and html skills :^) i guess i should focus on content first, and then formatting ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 07-27-18 checked my grades today. got 100% on one of the worst papers in my academic career so far. also got 100% on the rough draft, even though I turned it in four or five days late. sometimes i wonder what the point of going to school is. it's not super challenging, other than managing my time and feeling motivated to actually work. but i don't really feel like i'm learning all that much, and maybe that's just because i'm more or less in the early phases of my degree. i kind of feel like all i have to do is pay a bunch of money, show up to class, do an okay job on assignments for four years, and then i'll graduate and be "employable." maybe this is why college degrees are worth a lot less now than they supposedly used to be. it's like, they're mandatory to get a "good job" (whatever that is) and everyone expects you to go through the motions and get one, but you really just end up giving so much money and time and energy to academia. and what am i gaining from it? i honestly feel like the classes that have pushed me the hardest have been the ones that aren't "valuable" or whatever. any class i have taken in the gender studies department has pushed me harder than just about any class i have taken in the science department. when i considered being an art minor, i backed out after taking one class because it required a lot more work than any other traditional class does. and yet those are the degree paths that are considered pointless. but honestly, i think i've learned more in the social sciences than in the hard sciences. 07-25-18 started reading "desert solitaire" by edward abbey last night. i enjoy his writing style, and it's admirable how much he likes nature and is able to really feel himself in it. i'm reminded of mount eerie, and phil elverum's absolute reverence for the natural world. although phil tends to be mostly afraid of it, while abbey is just amazed. and pissed off about humans. i especially appreciate the end of the introduction: "This is not a travel guide but an elegy. A memorial. You're holding a tombstone in your hands. A bloody rock. Don't drop it on your foot-- throw it at something big and glassy. What do you have to lose?" it's funny to be reading this book when i've spent the last few days inside, even during the summer, which i've been anxiously awaiting. i do like nature, and i do like being outside. i do like arches national monument, but i've never been there before it became a tourist hell. i just don't think i'd ever be able to take a solitary job like abbey and be able to keep my cool and still feel appreciation for the american southwest. there is something about the smell of juniper, though.