Dark Academia Procrastination 

already well into november but i thought i’d post (with pdfs included of course) some things i read (& loved) in october b/c it was a hard month & these writings held my hand the whole way through 

‘by grand central station i sat down and wept,’ elizabeth smart (!)

‘life and death,’ andrea dworkin 

‘seam,’ tarfia faizullah (!)

‘play it as it lays,’ joan didion 

‘war of the foxes,’ richard siken

‘midwinter day,’ bernadette mayer

‘in the pines,’ alice notley

‘death is not an option,’ suzanne rivecca (!)

‘the dead and the living,’ sharon olds

‘the melancholy of anatomy,’ shelley jackson

‘edinburgh,’ alexander chee

‘the woman destroyed,’ simone de beauvoir (!)

‘monster: poems,’ robin morgan

‘how we became human,’ joy harjo

‘ayiti,’ roxane gay (!) 

‘our andromeda,’ brenda shaughnessy

‘second childhood,’ fanny howe

‘the lady in the looking glass,’ virginia woolf

Resources masterpost

Witnessing French:

Websites, social media

Online courses in French

French subreddits

Fanfictions

Buzzfeed

Improving your:

Pronunciation

Speaking

Things to listen to:

Music

Podcasts

Radio stations

TED talks

Things to read:

Graphic novels/comics

News

Ebooks + quizzes (by me)

Short stories

Vikidia - kids’ Wikipedia

Things to watch:

Cartoons

Kids shows

Imago TV - free activist Netflix

The Simpsons the movie

True crime

TV programs - sci-fi shows, travelling, etc.

Youtubers

Extra:

Antidote 10 + BonPatron - Grammarly equivalents

Conjugation by le Nouvel Obs

Deepl - very good at translating sentences/expressions

Forbo - natives pronouncing things

Lexicity - about Ancien/Moyen Français

Lingolden - Chrome extension that teaches vocabulary

Linguo.tv (french videos + subtitles)

Reverso - very good alternative to Google translation (single words)

Wordreference - very complete translation website (expressions)

i really like being pretentious and all but what i actually like even more is that i'm genuinely so invested in this hunt for knowledge that i'm on. like,,,, i do wanna know every work of shakespeare by heart and i do wanna read the night away draped over second hand philosophy books and a worn out volume of the illiad and i do wanna quote french poetry and oscar wilde at social events and i wanna be what history would call an intellectual and i wanna live and breathe these things i care about because i have a deep and consuming passion for them and i want to be as immersed in them as possible.

yesterday my german teacher said "being a poet must be so eye opening but so constraining at the same time. you want to really see the world, but as soon as you do, you've had enough of it." and then he stared into nothing for a moment before shaking his head and continuing with the lesson? someone protect this man

Auguste Ottin, Polyphemus surprising Acis and Galatea, Fontaine Médicis, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris.

I wanna find my real self in 2020. I will read everything, finally start writing Poetry and travel. I will be productive. I will put myself first, take care of my skin, put good food in my body, save money and stay away from negativity and drama, especially not start drama ( so important) I wanna bury my past negative self while still honouring her, I just hope I become who i truly am.

*adjusts Victorian shirt* What do you mean? *writes poetry with an expensive fountain pen* Am I really  *drinks Absinthe* too dramatic?! *flings herself on a 19th century chaise lounge* Don’t be ridiculous!

Dark Academia Lifestyle

Remain an enigma, talk less about yourself. In social situations, make it a game, even if you are a rather social person, to shroud yourself in mystery. If others show interest in you, answer vaguely. Disappear at specific times. Reveal little of your background. When you do speak, speak in riddles or quotes. That isn’t to say you should never speak up in class or in debates, have opinions and remain socially active; however, keep people guessing a lot of the time, and, if you’re really into it, only speak when spoken to.

Wear vintage clothes, elegant accessories, monochrome colors. Emphasize sharp features with purely dark or light colors and jewel tones. I usually find nice vintage clothes at random thrift stores. Keep an open mind.

Listen to jazz and classical music. Listening to older, more tasteful music brings a spark of elegance to your life. I, personally, like to hear the used jazz vinyls crackle. There are multiple types of dark academia; to me, jazz demonstrates the erratic artist spirit of revolutionaries, while classical music possesses me with the sophisticated spirit of a Classicist who has preparing tea down to a science.

Light candles. Doing things such as writing, reading, and getting ready for bed by candlelight makes it seem thrice as elegant and academic… going to sleep so late never looked so enticing. On the other hand, you could wake up before dawn, light some candles, and study or read. 

Stay ahead in school. Read your textbooks ahead of time, write essays about anything you’d like at all, just for practice. If you’re learning about something in science, devise experiments to illustrate the concepts to yourself and make them easy to remember. If you’re reading a book in English, read a handful of articles about the author beforehand to prepare, write down quotes from the book, make essay pitches, write to your heart’s content a critique of the book, an analysis of the book, of gender roles in the book. In history courses, find articles about the subject matter, annotate them, and write about them. If you’re taking a math class, devise applications of the concepts and solve problems of your own creation.

Go to libraries, museums, bookshops, and coffee shops. These are all really good places to sit in the corner and read for hours on end. Not only do you get Mysterious Points but you get an aesthetic environment and (hopefully) some peace in which to devour literature. I know that in the upcoming term, I’m going to be in the library from opening time to closing time every day.

Make Ancient Roman or Greek food. To be honest, the food was of so much better quality than it often is today, so I would suggest looking into some ancient cuisine archives to look for some recipes for your dinner party. Not only is it most of the time much better than modern food, but it’s also much more elegant. Not to mention it is fun and enlightening to try recipes which are perhaps completely foreign to  you.

Have routines. Perhaps your life is erratic, but you can feel some semblance of order and elegance by creating rituals for, perhaps, everything. You might start the day off with a walk around the neighborhood or a nearby pond. I start my writing sessions by 1) playing jazz 2)opening my windows 3)reading Belief and Technique for Modern Prose 4)chugging a whole glass of water really fast 5) breathing violently. Feel free to make up really weird Winding Down routines, like, I don’t know, closing all your windows, stripping down, and meditating for 20 minutes before you go to sleep. Literally anything. It doesn’t even have to be useful, it just has to be strange.

Hang stuff up on your walls. Postcards, paintings, drawings, poetry, snippets from books, moodboards, your routines, lists (places you want to go, people you want to meet, things you want to do), playlists. Make it yourself and make it chaotic and, most importantly, make it aesthetic.

READ. Read anything and everything educational. Do it. Just, don’t pick up your phone for 3 days because you’re reading, just ignore everything else. Good things to read would be: feminist literature, nonfiction, mystery novels, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier…

“We read to know we’re not alone.” - William Nicholson, Shadowlands