(Source: myjetpack)
This is lovely – Diego Stocco makes music from leaves and a turntable.
A student in the I.B. Program heads to class.
The International Baccalaureate Program offers advanced students a chance to take courses more advanced than regular Advanced Placement courses, with extra emphasis on leadership principles and knowledge theory. The difficulty and quantity coursework for the program often exceeds college level work for many students.
This has lead to criticism from some parents who feel the program expects too much of their kids too soon and robs them of a childhood. Billy Stenson, pictured above, is only 13 years old but shows signs, both mental and physical, of precocious development. The I.B. Program loses about 60% of children who start it within the first year, and a further 20% before graduation.
Still, the program has produced world leaders and geniuses such as Ken Jennings, Jeopardy millionaire and Kim Jong-un. That last sentence is real by the way, those are its two most famous grads.
(Source: forgedhalo)
(Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to lie down again.)
“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”
―Albert Camus, The Stranger
(Source: vintageanchorbooks, via horizontaltranslations)
microcosmic -
- as chemistry exams to life.
The usual lesson: it made sense at the time, but was promptly contradicted and outdone by anyone who was justified in their righteousness/correctness/certainty, thus leaving: (1) a sense of bewilderment, (2) the acute and vague awareness of failure, and (3) the desperation to prove them wrong.
In summary: it seemed ok while I was writing it but afterwards apparently I got everything wrong!? WHY why is everything like this
whitewabbit0w0 asked: sincerely sorry to hear about the lost hat. (although it was a month ago. and this is kinda late) i know your pain ㅠㅠ our family has a servant in hong kong and she is number one sketchy and there's so much paranoia when i'm around her that home isn't that relaxing even if i'm not the one doing the cleaning. have you gotten it back yet? i hope you're the vanessa that i think you are ^^ (excuse me if i made a hasty assumption based on what you wrote about a history symposium, chem, and montreal)
I think I am! This is Jessica, I presume? =w= asdfjaoih w;ih sorry I’m so bad at telling who people are…
What if people told European history like they told Native American history?
The first immigrants to Europe arrived thousands of years ago from central Asia. Most pre-contact Europeans lived together in small villages. Because the continent was very crowded, their lives were ruled by strict hierarchies within the family and outside it to control resources. Europe was highly multi-ethnic, and most tribes were ruled by hereditary leaders who commanded the majority “commoners.” These groups were engaged in near constant warfare.
Pre-contact Europeans wore clothing made of natural materials such as animal skin and plant and animal-based textiles. Women wore long dresses and covered their hair, and men wore tunics and leggings. Both men and women liked to wear jewelry made from precious stones and metals as a sign of status. Before contact, Europeans had very poor diets. Most people were farmers and grew wheat and vegetables and raised cows and sheep to eat. They rarely washed themselves, and had many diseases because they often let their animals live with them. Religion infused every part of Europeans’ lives.
Europeans believed in one supreme deity, a father figure, who they believed was made of three parts, and they particularly worshiped the deity’s son. They claimed that their god had given humans domination over the earth. They built elaborate temples to him and performed ceremonies in which they ate crackers and drank wine and believed it was the body and blood of their god, who would provide them with entrance into a wondrous afterlife called heaven when they died. Many wars were fought over disagreements about the details of this religion, each group believing their interpretation was the right one that should be spread across the land.
Now imagine that is part of a textbook that has entire chapters on the Mississippian polities of the 1200s and a detailed account of the diplomatic situation of the southeastern provinces in the 1400s and 1500s, an enormous section that goes through the history of the rise of the Triple Alliance in Mexico and goes through the rule of each tlatoani and their policies, the heritage of Teotihuacan and its legacy in later Mesoamerican politics, elaborate descriptions of the trade routes that connected and drove various nations in North America. Long explanations of the rise of various religious movements such as the calumet ceremony and Midewiwin, and how they affected political agendas and artistic trends. Pages and pages and pages going through the past thousand years of American history century by century.
And these three paragraphs are the only mention of European history before the year 1500.
(via roachpatrol)
(Source: wnycradiolab)
silience
n. the state or condition of unnoticed excellence—the hidden talents of friends and coworkers, the fleeting solos of subway buskers, the slapdash eloquence of anonymous users, the unseen portfolios of aspiring artists—which would be renowned as masterpieces if only they’d been appraised by the cartel of popular taste, who assume that brilliance is a rare and precious quality, accidentally overlooking buried jewels that may not be flawless but are still somehow perfect.
