the fiction we tell ourselves

I was trained in the dark arts of the cover letter by my mother, who is a hiring manager. And her training has paid off: I've been consistently told my cover letters are excellent. Let me pass on the wisdom.

The job of a cover letter is to give a prospective employer strictly more information than is on the resume. This is where you take the resume contents and put them into context. You look at the job requirements (you are looking at the job requirements before applying, right?) and look at your resume and ask the question (in your head) "why would a person think this candidate would be good for this job?" and your cover letter is the answer to that question. If you don't answer that question, the hiring manager is going to have to do it themselves, and you have way more information to work with than they do.

This is especially important if you're moving from one industry to another, because then the relevant connections aren't obvious. It's also very important if you're overqualified, because then you can use the letter to say "I know it looks like this job would be too entry-level for me, but I'm interested to pursue it for reasons x, y, and z". You can also use this space to explain away something that might otherwise be disqualifying, like job-hopping or a long break in employment. The tone to strike here is always matter-of-fact and constrained to topic - don't go into detail about health stuff or personal tragedy, just tell them what they need to hear: that this period of your resume was affected by [bad thing] but that it's now in the past and you're looking forward to the next chapter. Remember, one of the things they're trying to learn is whether you'd be content in this role, or whether you'd be miserable and leave after 2 months, which would force them to do all the work of hiring again. You're trying to establish that you will fit right in and not cause problems. Knowing what drew you to this job in particular (and don't just say 'money', that's true for everyone) helps with that.

When you're talking about the design of the boat, you say "it".

When the boat is still being built, your say "it".

When the boat is nearing completion, you can say "it" or "she".

When the boat is floating in the water you probably say "she", unless there is still a lot of work to be done (e.g. no engine yet) then you say "it".

When the boat is officially launched and operating, you say "she". If you continue to say "it" at this point you are not incorrect but suspiciously untraditional. You are not playing the game.

If you are referring to a boat you don't really know anything about you may say "it" ("there's a big boat, it's coming this way"). But if you know its name, it's probably "she" ("there's the Waverley, she's on her way to Greenock").

If you are talking about boats in general, you say "it" ("when a boat is hit by a wave it heels over")

If you speak about a boat in complimentary terms, it's "she" ("she's a grand boat"). If you are being disparaging it may be it, but not necessarily ("it's as ugly as sin", "she's a grotty old tub").

If she has a boy's name, she's still she. "Boy James", "King Edward", "Sir David Attenborough"? The pronoun is she.

If it's a dumb barge (no engine), you say it. But if it's a rowing boat (no engine), you say she.

"wow that must be so terrible" "deserts are so ugly" "I would never want to live in a wasteland like that" "it's just empty nothingness"

wishing 10,000 exploding hammers upon you

behold New Mexico

[ID 1: tall, snowcapped rocky mountains rising above a plain filled with desert scrub

ID 2: brightly colored banded cliff walls of several mesas climbing their way into mountains

ID 3: a desert prairie

ID 4: colorful hoodoos against a twilight sky

ID 5: white sand dunes as far as the eye can see

ID 6: a collection of hoodoos against a stormy sky at sunset

ID 7: a juniper tree standing with a cliff wall in the background

right now the trump administration is attacking the public lands in the Southwestern US. most recently (July 2026), in Utah the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments have been cut by over 90% to allow for mining. these lands are sacred to multiple Native nations in the area and contain irreplaceable archeological sites. additionally, the commission of Native representatives who aided in management of these lands has been dissolved leaving Native people without a voice in caring for the remaining land. (read more here)

here in New Mexico, the 10 mile buffer zone surrounding Chaco Canyon preventing oil and gas drilling is under attack. Chaco Canyon contains incredibly old and incredibly fragile archeological sites sacred to Pueblo people. these sites are threatened by mining and drilling. (read more here)

you can't appreciate the desert and also erase the fact that these places are under attack.

and I'd even say it's downright racist. this isn't "just" the desert, these are sacred locations to multiple Native nations and they are under attack because they are sacred to many Native people. the least you can do is reblog to raise awareness to the attacks on these lands. there is no going back from mining and drilling. there is no way to repair these ancient archeological sites when the vibrations in the ground topple them and when they are bulldozed.

Yes please play this 12 year-old game. Sorry you can't play the first part of it because it was so bad they rebooted the whole thing and dropped a dragon nuke on the planet and caused planetary ecological changes. They will still reference that, sorry. Yes the entire base story is considered okish, please play for a 60 hours to get to the first expansion. It is actually worth it trust me I know it sounds wild, but it will rip your heart out several times. Some of the best writing in the entire game is in an optional job quest storyline where you pick up a greatsword and get asked by your own internal pain why you don't just go mad.

There are bunnies on the moon, the dragons are aliens, you optionally travel through time and space to catch a fish, you have a cook-off and alpaca catching competition to determine a nation's ruler, the guy who basically invented advanced gun technology keeps stealing old advanced weaponry to tinker with and no one is stopping him for some reason, Estinien is there (it makes sense in context), the catholic elves are so messed there are LEVELS to that shit (everyone should do the Scholasticate quests! :D), one of your foes won't fucking stay dead and goes to extreme lengths just to have a punching match with you, depression is a bird, one old tired man just wants a nap but also funded an entire theater company, if you do an option storyline of fights you can find a sentient plush chocobo and his world-ending superweapon bug pal just in the world map, you have an entire WWE cagematch fight series, gundam references!, there's Evangelion crossover!(soon), there's Nier crossover!, the gods of the world form Voltron, a man shackles himself to an ancient database tower to pull you to another world.

I sound like a crazy person but that's not even all of it! It's a major time sink I really don't blame people for not playing it. But if you've at all considered it give it a go, there's a free trial that keeps getting expanded so you can play 5/6 of the 10 year story that just wrapped up for free. You've probably seen the meme.

Give it a shot. This game actually literally saved my life.

That brings us to the gauchos. Argentina's revisionist history turning Antonio Rivero from a murderer into a patriot is as transparent as an attempt to assert their territorial claims as it is pathetic. No, historians agree that these were men upset about their working conditions under Vernet whose response was cold blooded murder. IF this was a patriotic act of rebellion against British presence (it wasn't), it was an even more spectacular failure than the later war would be, as it caused Britian in 1834 to respond by having a permanent resident on the island and establishment of a permanent colony in 1841. FAIL.

Fast forward to the 1980s and post-WWII Britain has a lot of other concerns, and Argentina gets it in its head that a military invasion and occupation of the islands would go unopposed. Perhaps they thought everyone on the island would fuck off back to Britain if they just showed up and started bossing everyone around? So they did it, treated the islanders like shit because of course the islanders see themselves as British, and the British responded with overwhelming military force. At the time Margret Thatcher was in her first term with a very low approval rating, but the war was so politically popular at home that her approval rating actually became positive afterwards. There's a very real possibility that without the Falklands war she never would have been re-elected, SO THANKS FOR THAT ASSHOLES.

Since Argentina had failed spectacularly at holding the islands, they responded by basically making up a bunch of shit into a legend and then weaving this story that the islands actually belong to them into multiple facets of life in Argentina that way over the generations Argentinians would roundly be raised to believe this is the case. So here we are today.

Possession is 9/10th of the law and Britain has had it since ATLEAST the mid 1830s. Everyone there today is ethnically British and if you ask them 98% of them want to remain British rather than have independence; they certainly have no interest in joining Argentina.

The Falkland Islands have never had any native inhabitants and no indigenous people have ever been displaced, instead the Islands were entirely unoccupied until 1765, when they were first claimed by the British who established a garrison at Port Egmont. Over the years, the British, French and Spanish periodically had garrisons within the Islands until 1811 when all were withdrawn. On 6 October 1832, an Argentine military garrison arrived in an attempt to establish sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, disregarding the British claim of 67 years prior. Less than three months later, on 2 January 1833, the Royal Navy evicted the military base with no loss of life. The civilian population, who had sought permission from Britain to live there, were invited to stay. A year later, a small, permanent British administration was established and in 1845 Stanley become the capital. We enjoyed a peaceful existence until 1 April 1982, when an Argentine military force invaded our home. For 74 days we lived under foreign occupation, until our liberation by British forces on 14 June 1982. Nearly 1,000 Falkland Islands, British and Argentine lives were lost as a result of the war. Since 1982, our lives have been transformed, we have become financially self-sufficient and almost entirely self-governing, we determine our own future and way of life. Our community has been formed through voluntary immigration and settlement over the course of nearly two hundred years. We are a diverse society, with people from over 60 nations having made the Islands their home. At our heart are those Falkland Islanders whose families have been in the Islands for nine generations. In 2009 our new Constitution was established which provides enhanced local democracy, internal self-government and enshrines the right of self-determination. Four years later in 2013, we held a referendum which was overseen by international observers, where 99.8% of the electorate voted to remain a British Overseas Territory.

This is an article from the government of the faulklands. It's a pretty good overview of the history. If it misses anything/downplays anything on account of it being a british-positive source please make me aware!

If you have other information to argue against the idea that the faulkland islanders view themselves as british and want to remain a territory, please enlighten me. (I'm being genuine here!!)