Online Classes + Dark Academia

I’m in a terribly urgent need to romanticize my life because that’s how I get through it. Online classes might kill me but at least I can die in style.

1. Waking up five minutes before your class starts and logging into it while still in bed.
2. Waking up too early before class to complete the readings you forgot to do.
3. The moment you decide to un-mute yourself and speak out in class even though it feels like your social anxiety might kill you.
4. The moment you decide not click the un-mute even though you know the answer because your social anxiety might kill you.
5. Taking naps in between class breaks.
6. Wondering if the pandemic has made you dumber.
7. JSTOR, Academia, and other websites are your life now.
8. Doing extra readings that you found while you were down the internet hole.
9. Handwriting turning into a scrawl because no one else needs to read it.
10. Reading whenever you want, even while in class.
11. Classes that make you feel connected with the world even from so far away.

To wear a mask or not, really can make the difference between being able to breathe…

… and choking on someone else’s perfume.

When they say you can’t go outside but you know who pays the muhfuckin bills on your land

#BitchPlease

after this fire has burned everything to the ground

i wonder who will stand among the ashes

and tell us,

“we did all we could.

this is a [damn] shame.”

if we wake up from this nightmare–

(because remember

some of us will not be waking up

and for some of us

it was your choices

that will bury us)

–i wonder who will look back and say,

“we got through this

together.”

we could point fingers

many already have; 

we could say, “it’s your fault, their fault, his fault”

but let us not forget

our world was already crumbling before it was set aflame

the fire was beyond anyone’s control

(things would have crumbled regardless,

but it’s true–

there is a difference between crumbling

and being razed to the ground)

and while we were all burning

let us not forget

that some were warming their hands by the fire;

and some, the even more detestable few,

they lined their wallets with our cries for help.

(at a time when there was not enough to go around;

isn’t it just human nature

that the wealthy few

continued to walk over our hollowed spines

to enter the mansions housing their riches?)

after this fire has burned everything there is to burn

i wonder if i will just be ash

blown away on the wind

or if i will become the fire

that lives to consume everything in rage

to feed the emptiness scraped out of me

by every loss

by every struggle

by every injustice

by every time i was told

in no uncertain terms

that something

someone

everything

was more important

than how deeply the burning had set in my flesh

(”don’t you know?

you’re one of the lucky ones.

at least you havea job,

and besides?

didn’t you 

sign up for this?”)

when this fire has burned everything away

will i feel clean, instead?

left behind by all those around me with too much self-respect

to let the fire conquer them–

will it re-teach my soul the lightness that was stolen?

after this fire

will everything just go back to being exactly the same?

(just one slight breeze from breaking)

after this fire

who will be next in line

to tell me i’m unimportant,

disposable,

and

oh-

so-

flammable?

Perhaps one of the greatest things this virus has robbed us of:

Time

The time to spend cuddling the little ones growing up too fast

The time to spend with our loved ones that left us too soon

The time to breathe between crushing shifts at the bedside

The time to properly mourn all these lost moments

The time to give ourselves the grace to let ourselves fall

And the time to pick ourselves back up, skinned knees and all

We have been broken by this virus that drowned us in the undertow

Choking every last scrap of faith we may have held;

Suffocating the little bit of hope left in the recesses of our souls;

Fracturing an already sick system at every fault line that went ignored far too long,

And ensuring that we lacked the

Time

We need to heal.

I think my fiance has shown me too many TikToks because I legit just had a weirdly detailed vision of a greasy 13-year-old kid waiting 8 hours to be seen for CTAS 4 “COVID+” but then when I actually go in to see them:

Me: What brought you to see us today?

Kid: Yeah, I have the ligma variant.

Me: That’s… not a variant?

Kid: No, yeah, it’s the ligma variant. 

*silence*

Kid: LIGMA BALLS!!

And I’m just speechless.

Anyone else in health care being gaslit by the government, society, and their institution into feeling survivor’s guilt because even if things are crappy for you, they’re crappier for somebody else?

Really feeling for my primary care/family medicine, critical care, emergency/urgent/acute care, and mental health colleagues at the moment. This pandemic has been going on way too long, and no one seems to care about the fact that even when things were reopening, you were all still being worked into the ground (and through the crust of the earth into its molten core) by all the ripple effects of this pandemic uncovering the systemic inequities and BS that was just lurking in the shadows before 2019… All the stuff that health care workers, in general, managed to barely keep at bay from their sense of altruism and dedication (now obligation?) to their patients. If I’ve learned anything from COVID-19, it is that everyone will do their best to take advantage of you, and short of doing your job well, you actually don’t owe them anything.

You really do gotta take care of you first, otherwise this system will beat you down to nothing before you even realize it. “Resilience” is great and all, but it’s really just the system shifting all responsibility for surviving its BS onto its victims.

This system has been sick for a very, very long time. It’s gonna need a lot more than a bandaid and some yoga to rehabilitate it.

Dr. Fauci on why the U.S. is ‘out of the pandemic phase’

View on Twitter

View on Twitter

View on Twitter

Early in the pandemic, liberals lionized Fauci, putting him on tote bags, coffee mugs, even in that absurd photo shoot for People. Now he’s lying to the public about COVID in the service of capital, and libs are going to eat it up with a spoon because of their infantile idolatry.

Liberals: “Ugh, it’s so cringe when these teen socialists wear t-shirts with Che Guevara on them!” Also liberals:

“I’m gonna pat myself on the back

‘Cause I did the bare minimum

Where the fuck is my medal?

Tweetin’ from my brand new condominium

Yeah, we did it

(We didn’t)

It’s all getting better now, is it?

(It isn’t)

I’m gonna get away with it

I’m gonna be a winner

I’m gonna get away-

'Cause the rich get richer and the sick get sicker”

guerrillatech:

Makes me think of the Star Trek: TOS episode “The Cloud Minders,” when Droxine suggests calling the filter masks for the at-risk miners “protectors” instead of the drier technical term “filters.” And I 100% agree with Dr. Blackstock.

Masks