Cupcake Does Things

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

Hey everyone!

I finally wrote up my notes for the SF Asexuality UnConference 2015. They’re fairly unorganized, train-of-thought, student-style notes, but I tried to expand on concepts discussed in some cases.

Some notes:

I use shorthand a fair bit (read: a lot)

there’s some repetition, sessions were not planned, and I took notes (by hand) as the convo naturally unfolded

“Open” and “Closed” refer to whether the session was “open” to people of all identities or “closed” to people not of the identity specified

in at least one sessions I used mogai/mogii/queer/lgbtqia+ interchangeably in note-taking, they were not used interchangeably in discussions (usually)

my notes are 100% of the time unorganized, if you want me to expand on something, please ask, and I will try to expand from what I remember of the convo

these notes are 100% public, you can find them via google and all that jazz. Feel free to widely share, copy, etc, as long as my tumblr url or (future) blog link is attached. Please do NOT modify my notes without permission.

I always write my notes using an indentation system represented by dashes, it makes them very easy to copy/paste and save lots of times without losing my original formatting

I will probably (read: maybe) write an event wrap-up at some point, I’m also trying to get a real blog (!!) together so I can post some longer things without them getting lost in tumblr mess. This will probably be the first post there.

Without further ado, the notes for 4/5 of the sessions I attended:

Aromantics (grey-romantic, demiromantic, spectrum, etc): Romantic Normativity and Romantic Compulsive Society (Open)

Ace&Aro in the LGBTQIA+ (MOGAI) (Open)

Zucchinis, QPs & Marriage: Non-romantic alternative relationships for ace/aro specs (Open, but aro-spec focused)

The Ace Blogosphere: 101, 201, and staying on topic (no notes from me here - nextstepcake took some, though! (spoiler alert: we did not stay on topic this session)

Draw Yourself Challenge –– Wanda Maximoff

To clarify the art:

I am a muslim girl (who wears a hijab) and I prefer to wear long/loose things that go below the butt

Happy Birthday, Idina Menzel! (May 30th)

Aang is about the strike the final blow and kill Ozai while in the Avatar state, and all the past Avatars of all the Four Nations are speaking through him, but he stops, and the glow fades from his tattoos

and the fire and the water and the earth drops away, and all he’s left with is Air, his native element, the element of a people that were wiped out, and the air surrounds him with this simple grace and dignity

and it’s like, even with all the power in the world, Aang remembers who he is, he remembers what he learned from the monks, he remembers his heritage, and he stays true to it. It’s no accident that Air is the element he’s left with when all the others fall away, that it’s Air he’s surrounded by when he comes out of the Avatar state and decides to spare Ozai’s life.

The Air Nomads were wiped out by ambush because they had no military power, Aang was brutalized in his fight with Ozai because of his mercy, and everyone, including his friends and past lives, were urging the necessity of killing OzaI. Ozai himself taunts Aang “your people didn’t deserve to exist in this world, in MY world”. But against all this, Aang refuses to let go of the ideals of compassion and mercy. He refuses to believe that power and violence are the only ways. Aang sparing Ozai was the last, bittersweet stand of the Air Nomads: not vengeance but true justice, an affirmation of the power of their beliefs, an assertion that the ways of peace, freedom and forgiveness are vital for the world.

I mean, how much courage does that take, when your entire culture has been wiped out by a violent world, to still say “No. What my people believed has value, has strength.”

Why an Iron Fish Can Make You Stronger

When Canadian science graduate Christopher Charles visited Cambodia six years ago he discovered that anaemia was a huge public health problem. In developing countries, such as Cambodia, the condition is particularly widespread with almost 50% of women and children suffering from the condition, which is mainly caused by iron deficiency. 

Dr Charles had a novel idea. Inspired by previous research which showed that cooking in cast iron pots increased the iron content of food, he decided to put a lump of iron into the cooking pot, made from melted-down metal.

“Boil up water or soup with the iron fish for at least 10 minutes. That enhances the iron which leaches from it. You can then take it out. Now add a little lemon juice which is important for the absorption of the iron.”

If the iron fish is used every day in the correct way, Dr Charles says it should provide 75% of an adult’s daily recommended intake of iron - and even more of a child’s.

One woman and her daughter, who are part of a current trial in Preah Vihear Province, told the BBC they would use it during cooking.

“I’m happy, the blood test results show that I have the iron deficiency problem, so I hope will be cured and will be healthy soon. I think all the people in Sekeroung village will like the fish, because fish is our everyday food.”

-> Read more about Dr. Charles’ research

-> Learn about the effects of anemia

Give this man a Nobel Prize!

This is going viral on Facebook right now. There are jokes being made about it, and it makes me sick. Let me educate you guys, and hopefully save a few turtles in the process:

1. Turtles know where they’re going. DO NOT MOVE THEM IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION THAN THEY ARE ALREADY HEADING. Some turtles, such as Box Turtles, will actually die if they are moved or deterred from going where they’re going.

2. If the turtle is in danger, such as being in the middle of a busy road, then simply pick it up and move it (in the same direction it was going) until it is in a safe place. That’s it. Don’t take it home, and don’t bring it to a completely new location unless absolutely necessary!

3. While I’m talking about it, there is a proper way to pick up a turtle! DO NOT grab or pick up the turtle by its tail or legs. That can cause extreme pain and permanent harm to the animal! Place one hand on each side of the shell, a little bit behind the front legs, and lift the turtle. Make sure you keep the turtle low to the grown, should it decide to freak out a bit and you drop it.

4. If the turtle is large, it may be a snapping turtle. Those are aggressive and have extremely painful bites! Instead of picking it up, gently move it along with a blunt object until it is safely out of harms way.

5. Turtles swim and enjoy water. They know how to find a water source, they do not need your help. If you see a turtle roaming around next to a pond or lake, don’t pick it up and toss it in the water, it’s likely on land for a reason!

6. Tortoises are NOT water animals in any way, shape, or form! Don’t EVER throw them into any water! While some can swim, most cannot and will drown!

7. How do you tell the difference between a turtle and a tortoise? Here’s a few ways:

-Turtles tend to have webbed feet for swimming, while tortoises have round, stubby feet for walking.

-Turtles have flatter shells; tortoises have large, dome shaped shells that tend to have bumps and ridges on them.

because we as a species were so lonely and we wanted friends so bad, we wanted to meet other species and we wanted to talk to them and we wanted to learn from them and to stop being the only people in the universe

and we started realizing that things were maybe not going so good for us— we got scared that we were going to blow each other up, we got scared that we were going to break our planet permanently, we got scared that in a hundred years we were all going to be dead and gone and even if there were other people out there, we’d never get to meet them

and then

we built robots?

and we gave them names and we gave them brains made out of silicon and we pretended they were people and we told them hey you wanna go exploring, and of course they did, because we had made them in our own image

and maybe in a hundred years we won’t be around any more, maybe yeah the planet will be a mess and we’ll all be dead, and if other people come from the stars we won’t be around to meet them and say hi! how are you! we’re people, too! you’re not alone any more!, maybe we’ll be gone

but we built robots, who have beat-up hulls and metal brains, and who have names; and if the other people come and say, who were these people? what were they like?

the robots can say, when they made us, they called us discovery; they called us curiosity; they called us explorer; they called us spirit. they must have thought that was important.