This Is Liek . Im Speechless. This Is A New Type Of Guy Entirely

the imperial chinese examinations are a godsend for enjoyers of pathetic historical men such as myself. they gave rise to so many types of guy, such as: guy who failed the examinations like forty times and despondently wrote one of the great works of chinese literature between failures; guy who failed like ten times and decided “you know what? this is bullshit. this all has to go” and started a brutal peasant uprising; guy who just barely passed and was suddenly thrown into a very high military position, which he has ABSOLUTELY no training for; and guy who failed several times, faked a degree, got hired by harvard to teach chinese, had his fake degree discovered after he got to boston, begged harvard to let him teach because otherwise it would be really embarrassing for them all, taught like seven students, and died of pneumonia

🍞 lately ...

recently, i've been trying to avoid digitally keeping track of my productivity. it's quite a difficult thing for me to tackle, as i've been heavily relying on my devices for pretty much everything! gradually, i will be moving more towards non-digital methods, such as traditional journals and planners.

the most distracting thing that i am aiming to tackle is my reliance on my phone. my screentime has been crazy and i'm not proud of it, considering that most of that time was social media. due to this, i am going to start using my phone as a tool; to transform its purpose from just being a distraction to being used to make productivity an easier process. it will be a difficult transition, so i don't expect myself to achieve this goal overnight. instead, i will take specific steps towards this goal. as of lately, i've been deleting instagram when i find myself getting looped up in the algorithm. i am aiming to get to a point where i can delete the app and only download it once a day to check any messages, then delete it again. i still use it for communication with friends and family, so i don't see myself deleting it permanently any time soon.

in general, i've also just been trying to avoid digital methods of productivity! it's not as big of a priority as avoiding my phone, but so far, i think i'm doing well! i have learned that if you write your goals down on paper, you will feel more inclined to work towards it, so i've been using my planner and journal recently! i used to use todomate for my daily todos, but i found that i am more successful when i actually write my tasks down on paper. i still use notion and google sheets on my laptop, but not as much as i used to. setting my goals on notion didn't help me much since i would rarely ever read them again. so now, i use notion as a kind of a database (?) for my ideas. i might explain more about it in a future post! as for google sheets, i've been using it to make trackers for myself. for example, i used to use yeolpumta to keep track of my study time but i eventually found it to be inconvenient because of how frequently i would have to unlock my phone to start and stop the timer. now, i just keep track of how many pomodoro sessions i complete, then record it on my google sheet tracker at the end of the day. this way, i am able to put my phone out of sight and out of mind!

lastly, i have been using google calendar for time blocking. but i have realized that i often don't commit to my schedule, so i am wondering if time blocking in my planner might be better. i might try it out soon! i want to make a big post before the start of the next quarter about some productivity tips, so i'll be testing different methods and report on what works for me!

“do we think maybe a vegetable would cause less despair” still living in my head rent free

yes it's cool when unrequited love isn't treated as this huge tragedy and people can still be friends or accept it and move on but i do love the fucked up dynamic you get when someone is so utterly obsessed with someone else that they beg and plead with them just to be allowed to devote themselves to them like a dog even if they get nothing in return for it. when the love is completely one sided but it isn't any less intense for it.

an incomplete collection of tweets i consider to be short poems

Free Yale online courses that sound interesting

This one is actually my favorite. They put a LOT of full courses on youtube! They also have some courses on Coursera.

Arts & Literature

Introduction to Classic Music

Cervantes Don Quixote -- Youtube

Dante in Translation -- YouTube

The American Novels Since 1945 -- YouTube

Modern Poetry -- YouTube

Milton -- YouTube

Introduction to Theory of Literature -- YouTube

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner -- YouTube

History & Social Studies

African American History: From Emancipation To Present (2010) -- YouTube

Introduction to Ancient Greek History -- Youtube

Epidemics in Western Society Since 1600 -- YouTube

Roman Architecture -- YouTube

Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature -- YouTube

Death -- YouTube

Capitalism: Sucess, Crisis and Reform -- YouTube

Introduction to Political Philosophy -- Youtube

Foundations of Modern Social Theory -- Youtube

Global Financial Crisis

The Making of Modern Ukraine

"You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked, where of course you will not wish to go." That's some Bluebeard shit.