Small Ways To Improve Your Life

How to feel again

Walk barefoot in the grass, remember the way this feels. Now put your shoes back on, you do not want the thing to touch your toes.

Go outside in the dark, scream at the moon. She is listening, it is okay.

Allow her to comfort you, she means well.

If you hear other people screaming, do not fret, they are just as apathetic as you, let them feel.

If an elderly woman comes and stands near you, thank her. Listen to what she has to say, she knows best.

If you see an animal that does not belong, leave. Go home, and sit in a room in the dark. If you don’t, go home and have a good night’s sleep

Do not fall asleep.

If you hear whispers, it is okay.

Remember rule number 7 and 10. Leave at sunrise. Lock the door behind you. Feel.

More guides

Escaping angelic prison

How to confirm whether or not you are a changeling

If you are a researcher or adventurer and want to share a guide, join our subreddit!

A thing about undiagnosed autism

One of the things that sucks about being diagnosed late with autism is that before you're diagnosed (if you want to be, that is), you're grasping at straws for ways to define your behaviour so that people can understand.

I've only ever had a panic attack once, but I claimed to experience them several times, because I couldn't think of what else they could be. Turns out they were autistic meltdowns.

I once wrote a big paragraph on Facebook explaining and apologising for my relentless obsessions, trying to say that they were a coping mechanism. Turns out they were special interests.

Being undiagnosed puts a pressure on you to present as "normal", because you don't feel like you're ALLOWED to use autistic terminology.

If you're sure you're autistic, and you haven't been diagnosed, you're welcome to use our terminology to describe yourself. Diagnoses are hard to come by. I understand that.

I hope an undiagnosed autistic sees this and feels a little better.

Captives’ Facade 

Corinth, Greece

2nd century CE

   An ornate two story facade located in front of the early basilica flanks the Lechaion Road between the North Shops and the Monumental Gate. The upper story consisted of a row of six larger-than-life-size figures standing against Corinthian piers. The two best preserved pillars represent men in eastern dress wearing Phrygian caps. Two heads of women from the same monument indicate that the males were accompanied by female figures. They may have been personifications of geographical places. The monument has been thought to commemorate the victories of the Emperor Septimius Severus over the Parthians in CE 197.

history is a subject i adore and over the years i’ve been studying it, i’ve picked up some great skills! here are my five top tips for aspiring historians out there, whether you know you’re one yet or not ;)

1. read!

no matter what you’re into, someone in history will be #relatable. want to study a gay king who kissed his gold-digging boyfriend in public? james i is right here! what about a prince who wore dresses to court? well, have you heard of philippe d'orléans? maybe you want to learn about the noblewoman who inspired dracula and bathed in the blood of local ladies! elizabeth báthory’s your girl. whatever you’re interested in, there’s someone out there who’s written about it - and learning about your course beyond the syllabus will improve your understanding as well as your writing skills! if you’re struggling to find a way to make a particular period interesting, just message a historian - i’m more of a social historian, but i’m always happy to talk about any aspect of history, and i’m sure others on tumblr feel the same!

check out:

academia.edu - papers about pretty much anything you could want to read, ranging from very accessible to heavy academic language

google books - a great starting point for literally anything, you can search “gay women 14th century” and you’ll find the historical lesbians you’ve always wanted

jstor - great for academic texts, but you can only read three per fortnight unless you sign up with a bunch of spam emails

2. take it outside the classroom!

history is all well and good in theory, but visiting historically significant locations can change your understanding completely. whether it’s a local graveyard to trace the stories of those before you or a medieval castle, visualising the lives of people you study makes the subject far more engaging (and easier to remember in the long run)!

check out:

travel journal masterpost by @stillstudies

historical days out for under £20

museums and galleries with free entry

3. make a timeline!

again, visualising history makes it so much easier to remember. whenever i start a new module of history, i make timelines by buying a huge roll of the cheapest wrapping paper i can find and taping it up onto my wall, patterned side down. i’ll make a really rough timeline of key events (e.g. my tudors timeline started with the accession of different monarchs, deaths of important people, where henry viii’s fancy led to) with big markers and then as we go through the course, i’ll add more detailed information in different colours! then, when i’m revising, i’ll tape another piece of wrapping paper over it and try and reconstruct it from memory. some people in my class use flashcards instead, with one for each year - do whatever works for you!

check out:

formatting and using flashcards by @illolita

flashcard tips by @tbhstudying

flip cards by @brokestudiesnrefs

4. make profiles of key figures!

when i was studying the american west, i found it really hard to keep track of all the generals because a) i’m about as far from a military historian as you can get and b) i hated them all. so to try and remember them, i made them into characters - some of them i doodled, some i made on the sims, some my history class acted out together. it’s a great way of forcing yourself to both research individual figures and remember little details about them - i’m a bit of a perfectionist, so looking up tiny facts about each rank to make The Perfect Sim really helped them stick in my head!

5. make your own history!

at the end of the day, it’s you that has to remember these facts for an exam. why not make a game out of it? reenact a key argument with a friend, read out preserved letters dramatically to yourself, watch historical dramas involving the figures you’re studying. if you can get yourself to remember things outside of a textbook, you’re halfway there!

check out:

studying history by @universtudy

writing history essays by @thehistorygrad

i hope you can find these useful! if you have any questions or just want to talk history, feel free to message me :)

Walking the Path of Hermes

Roll with the punches.

Help those in need.

Travel fearlessly, but not foolishly. 

Become intimately familiar with that Hunger for movement. For change. To explore. To see.

Hermes has his palm placed on every word you speak, everything you say that can be understood. In this sense, it’s very easy to call him close. Don’t underestimate that. 

There’s never a good reason to not do the right thing. 

Subtlety isn’t helpful if you’re not being heard or understood.

It’s impossible to hold onto everything you value forever. 

The world isn’t going to pause and wait for you to recover from that loss, either. 

Real self care involves a lot of hard work. 

There’s always something amazing to be discovered in any moment. 

Strength training will change your life. If you want to lose weight, gain muscle, and/or just look and feel better, strength training will do just that.

Online look for the best feiyue shoes on: http://www.icnbuys.com/feiyue-shoes .

Examples of a Brocken Spectre, a phenomenon where a person’s giant shadow appears magnified onto clouds miles away. The shadow from the sun behind the person creates a halo, giving it an angelic appearance. This mostly occurs on any misty mountainsides or cloud banks, and can even be seen from aeroplanes.

Brazilian cherries aren’t related to common cherries at all! They look like this and taste rather sour:

Also, if you’re not used to them, Brazilian grapetrees look really alien:

The fruit is formed in the trunk, not the branches!

Women Self Defense in 1947