These angelic images are of baby eels, also known as leptocephali. Figures A and F show moray eel leptocephali. Don’t they look just like mommy?
Leptocephali are almost totally see-through. They have colorless blood, and their bodies are composed mostly of a transparent, gelatinous material that serves as both energy storage and structural support (since they’re just so damn frail).
Despite their fragile appearance, leptocephali are actually pretty good swimmers. They exhibit the highly efficient anguilliform swimming style, suited for long-term, slow swimming.
Depending on the species, eels may remain in this larval stage for as long as 250 days, before undergoing metamorphosis.
After metamorphosis, they grow into juveniles, then into the fully-mature adult eels we know and love. *tear*
***Disclaimer- to anyone who might be slightly annoyed at a 22 year old saying they feel old… this is not for you*** Similarly, if you like structure- this is a very stream of consciousness free flowing post.***
Upon jumping into the “real world” of having a job, a home, and money in the bank- I’ve weirdly felt angsty. Evener weirder is the fact that I’m mainly angsty about there being nothing to be angsty about- everything just seemed a bit too put-together.
Through the ambiguity of these feeling I have deciphered that they’ve been about growing up and feeling a bit too mature for my age, but it wasn’t until becoming obsessed with an MTV teen dram/com that I figured out exactly what this feeling was about: freshness and pessimism.
During the past 4 or 5 days, I’ve watched all 31 aired episodes of “Awkward.” It is a show about a high school- friendships, love, popularity, parents, and more. It is the perfect encapsulation of the emotions a lot of kids go through between 15 and 18, and it felt very real. Over the course of my forcibly short (I now have to wait for new episodes to air) but intense obsession, I realized something beautiful about that time in life- the wonderful and dynamic late-teens- and how I miss it- the freshness of everything and the pessimism that this freshness brings.
In the late teens, so many new things are happening on a much more intense and personal scale: falling in love, developing deeper friendships, new relationships with parents, and thinking of the future but having nothing to judge it by. It is all fresh and exciting and we don’t know how to deal with it and it feels so important because it has never happened before. Everything is life changing because the late teens are really when life is beginning.
And because everything is new, everything feels unique… and lasting. But when we see that all of it actually isn’t, then the pessimism comes. We haven’t known anything else and so when the breakup comes, or graduation, or moving or anything else - we feel as if the world is ending, life will never be the same, and we will NOT be okay. Just as the joy of newness had overtaken us so recently, the burn of loss does too.
But the truth is (and in the late teens we are told this constantly but never believe it, and any teen reading this now will not believe it either)- the truth is it will all be okay. Another love, another school, another friendship will happen and fill our time and our thoughts and our hearts. A sad month will be just a month in a pool of many and similarly a happy day will be part of a mental collage that makes us smile.
Of course, it doesn’t erase what was before or what was first, and the feeling of that newness will never be forgotten- it will be looked back on as magical- so encompassing and wonderful and frightening, but most of all- fleeting.
Life is like a puzzle- each person, place, and experience that we encounter is a piece. Some grow in size or hold an ever-important place, and others shrink to obscurity as more are added. The hard part is when you feel like you can’t control that shrinking, when without knowing you lose the connection to what used to be so important and when you can’t feel the same joys in the same way.
I think my angst is because new things are happening and things are changing… and I don’t really care. It feels normal. My life has been change for so long. I’m not phased. And though I’m excited- I’m not amazed.
A new city is a new city, a new friend is a new friend, a new fact is a new fact- it is all exciting and I’m learning and I’m growing and I feel my future becoming increasingly meaningful and important, but it isn’t the same all-encompassing joy or fear like that of the late teens. But it is a new feeling, and I’m eager to explore this feeling as well. There is something pleasant about knowing the wounds will heal, that people will stay in touch, and that life does go on.
That’s the important part of this post- it isn’t emo, or trying to say that the late teens are the most important part of one’s life (how could a 22 year old make that statement anyway) but what I’ve realized is how special that time is. How treasured the freshness and the pessimism should be kept.
All moments in life need to be appreciated, and often it is easiest to do that in retrospect. I’m not sure what is best though- is it nicer to be swept away in the moment and only realize how astonishing it is later? Does reflecting in the “now” take away from the now- or complement it?
… If there is a show that answers that, let me know.
I feel as if my whole life has set me up for disaster. That every day has been a push towards the edge. Every breath is buried with burden. The mornings are filled with guilt, I swallow my words for breakfast, drink my sorrows whole. The nights are meant for battles, sinking into sheets, dread mixed with dreams. Hope slips through my heart, gets lost in the broken cracks. I am clinging to loose threads, dangling over the darkness. Each passing minute is a moment spent with misery. All the years of wasted youth, the ghosts of who I’ll never be, all trail behind me. The hauntings of never really living, the reality that this world has only offered me wreckage; it’s a truth I’ve carried in my throat for far too long. So I’m stuck coughing up the chaos, growing in the gloom.
I never share an opinion on tumblr bcz frankly, no one cares abt my opinion. However, l feel a need to reblog w a brief comment: No woman, man, child or animal deserves to ever experience the type of abuse depicted on this video. Abuse of any kind is never appropriate or acceptable. This is not a mutually healthy relationship. Reach out. There is help. For those of us on the outside looking in, never ignore the warning signs and be the person who makes a difference. It may save a life.
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800.799.7233 or text START to 88788
Love Sam Hunt and this song…and the video is an important reminder ⚖️
Now I’m back to being carefree and fun!
La otra cara de la vida.
“Y hallarás detrás de la voz que te injuria busca herir … el silencio que sufre.”
De que otra forma, ¿creerías que detrás de la fiera imagen mora una ovejilla amedrentada? ¿Acaso que ocultos debajo de la violencia se hallan la inseguridad y el temor?
“Time to smile is the time backwards Where to do the usual thing is to start over When the eyes of the world stop and watch you spin It’s time to love.”
“Love is built day by day with love, good treatment, support, respect, communication and trust."❤️
"Nuestros ojos, pensamiento y palabras saben ponerse de pie, cuando los sentimientos entran por nuestros poros, nos conmueven pero más allá de repetidas acciones que nos puede llevar la rutina del deseo. El verdadero amor y su incansable invención a improvisar, reencontrarnos y dejar sobre sus recuerdos gran parte de nuestra sed y piel. En algo que parece una poesía de la vida, que detona la alegría, la nostalgia de quien amas.”
— Interpretations. “incidental: thought, minimalism, short poems, a place where words and feelings come together.”
Being happy makes us spread enthusiasm and be more united. “It allows us to fly with the imagination, invent new things, attract people, dissolve grudges and resentments, forget sorrows and minimize adversity.”
“…They say that what you look for finds you”. But I don’t understand why if you show your eagerness and interest in someone, as the surprise and pleasure pass, then you only receive indifference? As if you had never existed, which is why I think so It’s how one changes and becomes the same as the others.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Sabila.”
“Areh jaan! You want her to grow up without any idea about her background, her history, who she is?”
“Backgrounds and history - that’s for the past! You have to see the future. See what is best for her now.”
"What is so wrong about speaking to her in our language? Teaching her what we learnt? You think all those years at the Cadet College were a waste?”
“Even the Cadet College is no more, Sabila. It was all destroyed in the war - there’s nothing left!”
“The war for our culture and language! And we won!”
"With everything destroyed - all our infrastructure, our leaders, our intellectuals, dead and gone! Our kind, gone!”
"They cannot be all gone. I know it. I know our kind are still around. It’s not like all Bangladeshis were killed off in the war.”
"Our kind? Our kind either escapedor died! No two ways about it! And let me tell you - those that escaped? I know for sure that they don’t follow the old ways anymore.”
“‘Old ways’? OLD WAYS!? You think all those years of jadu that we learnt are “old ways”?! Cheech! Maybe maa was right…”
"Right about what?”
“Right about you thinking we are just stupid casi. No respect for our heritage. Maybe I should have listened to her.”
"Sabila! Don’t be ridiculous. I have a lot of respect for our heritage. I just don’t think that trying to teach it to Ayesha now would be useful for her. I mean - firstly, who is she going to speak Bangla to?”
“There are other Bangalis here too, you know. You moved here specifically because of them. And I’m sure there’s at least one jadukara in there.”
"Ya, they move here, with their big names and big jobs and big degrees, and what happens? They become cooks! or taxi drivers!”
"Is there something wrong with being a cook or a taxi driver?”
“NO! It’s just…they also learnt so much about their culture and what not, but look, the Bilatis, they do not care. I don’t want our Ayesha to suffer because the Bilatis don’t care.”
“Then why not just move back to Bidesh then?”
“Did you forget already? Everything is destroyed. What can we return to? We would suffer. Ayesha would suffer. You want Ayesha to suffer? I got us here for a good life, you know. Lucky for us she is born here, makes things so much easier I think.”
"So you want her to grow up like a Bilati? No concept of her culture at all, is it? Pagol na ki tui?”
"No no no! Sabila, shuno na? It’s not that I want her to not know where she comes from, at all. Na na. I’m just saying, I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to learn Bangla right now.”
"Then how is she supposed to learn our literature, our stories, our songs? How is she supposed to be a good jadukara?”
"There are magical people here in Britain you know. With that one school…Hogwarts, I think? Some top people from there. It’s not like she will never know how to perform jadu.”
“But she won’t know how to do it like us! How is she supposed to cast a good tantramantra if she can’t even speak Bangla properly? How is she supposed to make good potions if she doesn’t even know the names of the ingredients? How, Faizal, how?”
"She will learn Bilati magic! It’s not hard, look - Lumos - see, there is light.”
"Where did you get that wand from?”
“Oh, one of my friends took me to Diagon Alley the other day. Said all the Bilati magicians have wands. We should get one for Ayesha. Oh, and you too.”
“And why should I have to learn Bilati wand magic? We didn’t need this faltu wand business back in Bidesh!”
“Things are different, Sabila. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, ha na?”
"Oh, so if the Romans all jump off a bridge I have to jump also? Chagol!”
"If I am a chagol then you are a goru - so stubborn.”
"DON’T YOU DARE FAIZAL…”
“Hey hey, I am only kidding, areh. Sabila. Look. I’m not banning Bangla from the house. You want to tell her all our stories and literature and what not, you can. What I am saying is, for her sake, I think we should talk to her in English. And teach her English. Do everything in English.”
"And what happens if I put ek Bangla khota in my sentence? What, it will be all ulta palta hai hai ki hoisei?”
"One or two things, ok. But we have to be careful not to mix up so much. One of my cousins, he is a child psychologist, he says that sometimes the children get confused when they hear more than one language, so they keep quiet. They don’t know how to say anything! But if you pick one, then they learn easier.”
"Your cousin, ah? You Shafiqs, you think you know everything.”
"You wanted to be a Shafiq. Couldn’t stop talking about it even before we got married. Thought we had the good life.”
"I didn’t think having the good life means we have to forget ourselves!”
“We don’t have to forget ANYTHING! We can teach her Bangla later, when she’s older and can master one language. Then she won’t be so confused. But Sabila, look - even if she knows Bangla now, who is she going to practice with?”
“Us…”
“Yeah, and that’s it. You think the neighbours can talk to her in Bangla? Her school teachers? Her classmates? They will only make fun of her.”
"Oh, you think Bangla is funny?”
"No, I think the Bilatis are stupid. But I don’t want their stupidity to cause my children trouble. So we have to adapt.”
“Then what about the jadu?”
"Again, where is she supposed to cast tantramantra or find ayurveda ingredients? Where is she going to find the sahitya books we loved so much? For all we know, it’s probably banned here. One strange word and whoosh - off to Azkaban. The Bilati Ministry did ban flying carpets after all.”
"Faizal, I don’t think the Bilatis will send a child to Azkaban.”
"Oh you don’t know. I’ve heard them punishing children very strictly for doing magic in front of Muggles. Just small things, but oh - Statute of Secrecy!”
“Listen to you! You sound like a Bilati already. ‘Muggle’, what a lousy word. As if they are like a pig or something.”
“That’s how the Bilatis see jadunai, really.”
"WHAT? Are the Bilatis really that backwards? Are you sure you want to raise Ayesha in this place?”
"It’s better than our other option, Sabila. At least here she still gets a chance to learn some jadu, even if it’s different than ours. Maybe she can be a magical scientist and put our jadu and their magic together. I don’t know. But back in Bidesh? She will be nothing. Worse than here.”
"I’m still not sure about this.”
“I know you’re scared, Sabila. You loved sahitya so much. I do too. That is why I loved you! Your passion for the language, so evident in your eyes! But it will have to wait, jaan…just wait a few years. Just wait till she is old enough to be able to appreciate it. You try to tell her now, she will forget.”
"And you’re sure talking to her in English only and giving her only English books is okay.”
“It will prepare her for a bright future. We don’t want her to suffer because she doesn’t know the language. People are already going to criticise her because she is not White like the Bilatis. Even though she is born and raised here. The less hurdles she has to jump through, the better.”
“So we have to hide ourselves because the Bilatis are close-minded?”
“I know, I hate it too. But that is how the world works. Not everyone can fight fight fight. That is why we did not go to the war. Sometimes we have to take care of ourselves first.”
“Spoken like a true Bilati.”
“I’m just saying the facts.”
“sigh…”
“Sabila, I promise you, if she wants to learn Bangla, once she’s ready, you can teach her. You don’t have to hide anything. You can tell her about the old days if you want. All I’m asking is, just do it in English. Until she’s old enough. OK?”
"…ok, jaan. I hope you’re right.”
[[source:Rajiv Ashrafi OOPS WRONG BLOG LET ME TRY THIS INSTEAD written to commemorate International Mother Language Day, which in turn commemorates the Bengali Language Movement. It’s a pretty huge deal in Bangladesh. thanks to serkestic for the reminder! a lot of this is based on a true story: I was primarily raised in English because my family figured I would not have any avenues to practice Bangla while being raised in Malaysia. English is my first and primary language. I speak rather broken Bengali and can’t read the language. This project is as much about me trying to reclaim what I’ve lost as it is me having fun with fandom.]]
there’s nothing wrong with admitting you were once toxic.
there’s nothing wrong with admitting you made a couple people feel like shit.
there’s nothing wrong with admitting you fucked up and were horribly arrogant and parasitic.
there’s nothing wrong with admitting you did anyone wrong, especially if you’ve learned from it. If you’re humble enough to admit it, I guarentee there’s a bit of a good person inside of you.
Sometimes it is your fault.. Sometimes you don’t listen well enough, you’re selfish, you’re rude and you aren’t always right. Sometimes you fucked it up and tbh that’s okay. It happens, learn from it, apologize and keep it moving. Just because you fucked up doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Don’t dwell on it
no but this is so important.. it’s so important to just accept you can fuck up you’re allowed to fuck up. you’re allowed to be wrong and it won’t be shameful, it won’t be the worst thing to happen. you’ll either let it go or learn from it and not let it happen again and that’s good.
Can confirm, sometimes you do just really fuck up. But that’s okay! As long as you learn from the experience and try to make things right, you’re on the right track. Even if you end up unable to fix what happened, you can always do your best to make sure it’s something that never happens again.
If you’re a teacher and believe you’ve never fucked up something, you’re not being honest with yourself, and worse, you’re being a bad teacher. It’s not that “good teachers” always make mistakes. It’s that good teachers are cognizant of the fact that they have learning to do as well to be good at their job, to understand how to reach their students, to understand how to communicate more clearly with parents, to understand how to balance their workload and their personal time.
Be open to the fact that you have made mistakes. Maybe even that you royally fucked something up and can never go back and change that moment in time. But you can absolutely do better moving forward and help others avoid those same mistakes.
