Creature Of Mad Enthusiasms

Free Harvard courses. Free Courses from Stanford. Free Courses from MIT. Free courses from Yale. Free courses from Princeton.

Free courses on Coursera.

Free Courses on EDx Free Courses on Alison

For paid, there's The Great Courses+/Wonderium. 20$ a month for unlimited courses.

And I also wanted to mention that humanitarian organisations have free courses too, like the Red Cross on international humanitarian law.

"The America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."

My comic from @very-sincerely-yours-zine !

This was a lovely little thing to hop into after finishing last Summer after The Beekeeper's Picnic.

Filippo Palizzi (Italian painter 1818–1899)

Excavations in Pompeii, 1870

Oil on Canvas

119.5 × 86 cm.

But it was buried by generations! Yes, it was buried in a volcanic eruption, but it was also figuratively buried. Over the centuries the location of Pompeii was lost, and it was found again by accident during construction projects. The ruins were not conclusively identified as the city of Pompeii until the 18th century (more than a millennia and a half after the eruption!) and it has been excavated ever since. People have been digging there since before the formation of the United States.

And even though money is pretty tight for her, she told me I could name my price if I would help her, because it was so far away.

I told her she was a dummy for thinking i would take her money but that i would accept the traditional helping-a-friend-move price: a meal (i know she would feel wrong about herself if she didn’t do something for me in return, that’s just how she is) Tradition suggests pizza and beer, we opted for enchiladas and a margarita.

we crashed on the floor of the empty place and left back north in the morning - when we got back to the city three more friends met us at her storage place (the place she was moving into wouldn’t be vacant for a couple months) and we started to move all her stuff up to a storage room on the THIRD FLOOR (because large city storage places be like that)

we had just taken the first box out of the truck when the (only) lady working there walked by and told us they closed in an hour and twenty minutes, and she couldn’t stay even a little late because she had to get to her other job.

One hour twenty minutes. To completely un-jenga a large uhaul and re-tetris it back into a similar sized room on the third floor.

We all just, shared a look, took off hoodies, and got the fuck down to business. 

It was actually.. I still cherish look we passed around. The tiny eyebrow quirks and chin nods. The eye glints. The bigger breath we each took as we prepared to kick it up several gears. That moment of wordless connection, when we all just silently agreed that we were damn well going to do the impossible and didn’t even waste the time it would take to say anything, just got to it.

And we did it too. Finished with exactly two full minutes to spare. And then we all went for dinner and drinks to celebrate. And my friend’s friends that came to help? Two of them were acquaintances/friends of mine already. Like I lived with one for a year a decade ago sort of thing. But this experience? Brought us all closer. Made myself a new friend too.

And the friend i helped move? She and I are closer than ever because of it.

When i left our storage success diner to go home, she asked me again if I was sure i wouldn’t take any money.

I said “I ever tell you when I was 22 I went down to Hollywood to try that scene out? Anyway ten months later, when I just couldn’t do it anymore, and needed to come back, I called one of my best friends and said i can’t do this anymore i need to come back. You know what he said? He said: I’ll be there tomorrow. Not how much will you pay me, not what do i get out of it, not will you be able to cover my gas, just: I’ll be there tomorrow. Okay? You’re my friend. If you need help, I’m going to be there”

Guys guys guys guys guys guys

Aaaaaaaaaa

I am feeling so fucking emotional about the fact that not only did this guy read a huge chunk of my essay, but he spent so much time backing up what I said with video clips and photos.

I cut down the video so that Tumblr would actually post it — it's almost 25m long — but please go watch the whole thing and let him know I sent you. It's a REALLY good video.

die Welt = world

die Umwelt = environment

ver = prefix to indicate something difficult or negative, a change that leads to deterioration or even destruction that is difficult to reverse or to undo, or a strong negative change of the mental state of a person

der Müll = garbage, trash, rubbish, litter

-ung = -ing

die Vermüllung = littering

ver- = see before

zweifeln = to doubt

-ung = see before

die Verzweiflung = despair, exasperation, desperation

das Monster = monster

das Wort = word

der Groll = grudge, anger, malice, rancor

die Imitation = imitation

un- = un-, in-

fähig = able

-keit = -ility

die Unfähigkeit = inability

die Fehde = feud

der Handschuh = glove

der Fehdehandschuh = gauntlet

der Wurf = throw

Monsterwortbildungsunfähigkeitsangstverzweiflungsrückzugsecke

Monster=monster // wort=word // bildung(s)=formation

unfähigkeit (s)=incabability  // angst=anxiety

verzweiflung(s)=desperation  // rückzug(s)=retreat // ecke=corner

Monsterwortbildungsgespür

Monster = monster 

Wort = word 

Bildung(s) = formation

Gespür = intuition

• irren = to become lost (also: to err, to be mistaken; to wander, to stray)

• der Garten = garden

der Irrgarten = maze, knot garden

• be- = prefix with a variety of functions: ¹as part of a compound word, it denotes a processing or change of state; ²as part of a compound word, it denotes a touch; ³as part of a compound word, it denotes a more intensive preoccupation with or thematization of something; ⁴it forms from a noun an adjective with a pseudo-participle form because the corresponding verb does not exist; ⁵as a prefix, it forms a transitive verb from a previously intransitive verb; ⁶as a prefix of a verb, it shifts the focus and thus changes the sentence structure

• lustig = funny

• -ung = suffix turning an adjective/adverb into a noun

die Belustigung = amusement, entertainment, merriment

Doom scroll // self explanatory

auf- // lit.: „up“ indicates rising, or something becoming bigger, better, healthier

hell // bright

aufhellen // to brighten something up

-ung // makes a verb a noun

-s- // the glue that keeps german compound words together

repost // self explanatory

Doomscrollaufhellungsrepost // a repost to brighten up your doom scroll

It’s just conventional in English to keep writing spaces in between larger compounds, whereas in German it’s conventional to remove them. But they sound the same! Grammatically, they’re identical!

You could call it the…