Inside The Academia

one thing i need to start living by is “become the thing that you want” if i want friends who throw themed parties maybe i should start throwing those parties. if i want someone who writes me love letters maybe i should start writing letters for the people i love. if i want to hang out at museums and pretty cafes maybe i should invite my friends to these places. and maybe even then i won’t find the kind of people i want to be around. but then i would have become the exact person i want to be around. and maybe that’s good enough.

the betrayal knows my name (2010)

Lately, not a single day has passed without the Armenian phrase "cavd tanem" [ցավդ տանեմ], directly translating to "Let me take away your pain", crossing my mind. A phrase filled with such deep devotion and yet, it's uttered daily and graces simple everyday conversations. In a sentence, it simply replaces the name of the addressee.

"Vonc es, cavd tanem?" - "How are you, [let me take your pain away]?"

"Cavd tanem, jur kberes?" - "[Let me take away your pain], could you bring me a glass of water?"

Such abundance of love that miniature rivers of it effortlessly flow into the most pedestrian pathways!

THE SECRET HISTORY- NETFLIX SERIES

Dark academia moodboard challenge:

Library 📚

Learning to like Physics

I actually cannot believe how much I used to hate Physics until last year, but then I actually took the time and effort to understand it and?? it’s so cool and fun and easy?? unreal.

It literally seemed impossible for me and I legit thought I wouldn’t be able to graduate because I was never gonna pass Physics (I’m a Math major so we actually have 4 required Physics courses). I don’t know what the point of this is but, don’t be afraid of Physics guys!! (or any other subject!!) yes it’s frustrating as hell and you feel dumb for not having a clue about what is happening or how to work out the problems but I swear once it clicks for you (and it will) it’s gonna be great.

So if anyone needs a step by step (for college/uni), here’s one:

Google is your best friend, the internet has plenty of videos/papers/worked out problems for you to check out. The most important thing to look for is drawings and videos that help you visualize what’s going on. In most of general physics, the key is to see what forces are acting, and from that follows everything else.

Know your core equations. Honestly it’s always the same ones in the end.

For mechanics: you absolutely gotta know Newton’s Laws, Work and its relation to Kinetic/Potential Energy. Momentum is also important.

For thermodynamics: First and Second Law of Thermodynamics; pV = nRT, Boyle/Gay Lussac etc (note that they’re all connected), Carnot’s Cycle.

For electromagnetism: Maxwell’s equations. This is as far as I’ve gotten in my studies.

Understand where the formulas come from, rather than learning them by heart. For me, this was necessary because my memory is absolutely shit so there was no way I could remember every variation. But most of the formulas actually do make sense, and once you’ve drawn out a diagram of what’s happening, you can work them out yourself.

For the previous point, I suggest you watch and rewatch your professor’s explanation until you get the gist. Don’t get discouraged if it’s not immediately crystal clear, seek out other explanations if you need to. Then try to do it yourself.

ASK. FOR. HELP. I cannot stress this enough, do not feel ashamed about asking questions in class or during office hours. There are no stupid questions, and you’re paying thousands every year for people to teach you. Also physics is hard, so you’re pretty much expected to not understand immediately. Moreover, I can guarantee there’s at least one other person in the room with the same question who’s too afraid to ask. I was that person, and I failed the class because of it. Don’t be me.

Practice until you’re able to do most variations of standard problems. Once you’re able to do a certain problem, try to change it and see what happens. You don’t have to crunch the numbers all over again, go with your intuition first. Then you can calculate everything and see if you were correct.

This is all I’ve got at the moment. It applies to General Physics because I’m still pretty shit at Mathematical Physics (Rational Mechanics?) lmao, which is why I don’t talk about Lagrangians and such here.

If anyone has any other tips (for Mathematical Physics as well!) , please feel free to add them. Note that I’m from Italy, and this is what it was like for me. Other countries might have different ways of testing or focus on some formulas that I haven’t included. Do what works for you, obviously.

Good luck STEM students, I know it’s hard, but hopefully worth it in the long run :)

The birds have vanished into the sky

and now the last cloud drains away

We sit together the mountain and me

until only the mountain remains

~ Li Po

Dresden, Germany

Donna Tartt developed some of the most stoic, serious, and selfish characters I’ve ever seen. The way she made every character in the Greek Class horribly unemotional for one another, really adds to the terror of the book.

That is one reason I wish she would’ve been able to keep the initial title of the book: The God of Illusions. Because that is the backbone of this group; it’s all just an illusion of friendship, an illusion that they care. They don’t care for one another, none of them are overly concerned about anyone but themselves. They are all extremely solitary people that came together for the look of being able to have friends, rather than for the want of friendship.

happy september to everyone! 🍂☕️