I’ve Gotten In Trouble At Almost Every Thanksgiving Family Gathering Starting From The Time I Reached

Learning recipes passed down from my mother’s side of the family is so interesting but also kind of annoying because there are no measurements whatsoever. You just have to look at it and go, ‘yes, that looks about right’.

Imagine if, instead of buying NFTs, those people "adopted" wild animals, zoo animals, or animals in rescue and rehabilitation and get to help great causes and conservation AND get cute photos and stuffed animals and updates about the animals they're supporting.

Imagine if all the money that went into mining cryptocurrency and buying NFTs went into general conservation efforts instead, if it was used to help our planet instead of destroy it more.

If you really want to help indigenous people, now is your time.

Ngati Paoa and other protestors have been occupying Putiki Bay after resource consent was given to develop it without consent from the local iwi. Today, they are blocked by police as developers being to destroy Little Blue Penguin habitat, a species on the decline with climate change and habitat destruction.

Public outrage and eyes on Putiki may be the only thing that can save Putiki now after every route has failed. Spread information about Putiki every where you can - Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, your local group chat, whatever. Please please please help save Putiki Bay, Aotearoa NZ!

So, my family is Greek, and my grandmother, who grew up in Athens, was named Urania. And funnily enough, I’m now in university majoring in Astrophysics. I’ve always found that coincidence kind of funny and this is a cool aesthetic!

(Also, Urania is pronounced like Oo-rah-nee-uh, if anyone wonders)

Urania

One of the purest moments I have on a semi-regular basis is seeing a complete and total stranger rocking out to a song they love by themselves in their car and I’m just sitting there in a different lane in my car with no clue who they are but smiling fondly at their enjoyment and silliness

Yeah my Greek family always says ‘close the lights’ or ‘shut the lights’ instead of ‘turn off the lights’ and I’ve been hearing that since I was little so it honestly sounds perfectly normal to me lol.

In terms of my own blunders: 

for some reason my brain likes French articles (le, la, les) better than any others, so I have this weird thing where I keep trying to use French articles when speaking English or Greek. 

random everyday words that get used a lot, like hello and good morning and thank you, are very easy to mix up for some reason. Sometimes I say ‘merci!’ without even thinking about it in an English-speaking environment or I have to consciously stop myself from saying ‘γεια σασ!’ (hello) to some poor random friend who will have no idea what I’m saying...

English is my first and most fluent language, but there are random words that I learned in greek or french first, and it just sounds really weird to me to say them in English. The most egregious example of this is the word chamomile, like chamomile tea. Saying kam-oh-meel sounds so utterly weird to me that I actually have to pause before I say it out loud in english. The greek word for it is χαμομηλι, pronounced sort of like hah-moh-mee-lee (chamomili). It makes no sense if I try to use the greek pronunciation in the middle of an english sentence, but saying it in english sounds so odd that I sometimes just avoid the word. 

when I forget the french word for something so I switch to english to try and explain to someone who speaks french but knows a little english and we puzzle it out together

there was one time I was trying to ask someone how to say ‘please’ in italian except for some reason I forgot the word please and could only remember it in french and greek (s’il vous plait and παρακαλο, respectively) so I was standing there for a few moments like a nitwit while I tried to remember how to say please in English

On occasion, my Opa will be speaking Dutch to another of our Dutch-speaking family members, then turn to me and start jabbering to me in Dutch, conveniently forgetting that the extent of my Dutch knowledge is like, ten words. (It was particularly funny one time when he did this to my mother, who, being from the Greek side of the family, has absolutely no reason to know any Dutch.)

Also I am strongly reminded of this hilarious post which I originally encountered on @space-australians

im going to have a stroke

Our world does not welcome wild things.

As a zoology student, this is a brutal truth I must face. We slaughter keystone predators, leaving ecosystems to rot, then ponder why we are so overrun by the animals they hunt. We destroy forests, jungles, prairies and marshlands, then wonder why these pests dare encroach on our land. 

We hunt rare creatures for their tusks, for their horns, for their skin, for their bones, forcing those that remain onto reserves, culling them when their populations grow beyond our control. Our highest-ranking political figures publicly delight in murdering endangered species for mere thrill of the hunt. If a creature is fierce, or frightening, or mysterious, or beautiful… we kill it. 

This is why How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is important. Grimmel is a trophy hunter. He kills dragons for the fun of it. Because Night Furies are beautiful and rare and dangerous and the world heralds him as a hero for it. He doesn’t need another reason for it, anymore than any of the trophy hunters of our world need a reason for shooting an elephant and proudly posing with its bloody tail other than it boosts their egos. 

“Our world doesn’t deserve you…”

…because our world destroys all that which is fierce and beautiful and wild. So until the day comes when mankind stops desecrating, polluting, and exploiting the natural world we are meant to protect, I hope the dragons stay hidden, where man cannot reach them. 

apparently there’s some sort of recipe involving feta that has gone viral on tiktok? and apparently it’s reason why my grocery store was nearly out of feta when I went to buy it? idk I’m not on tiktok

I managed to get the last package of feta there which is good because I always have feta around and it would be sad if I didn’t have any this week

I usually get sick like clockwork every year in late January/early February, always different things - the flu, a stomach virus, pneumonia, etc. and this is the first year in a very long time where that didn’t happen! I haven’t gotten sick at all this past year and a half. I think wearing masks seasonally or when you have any symptoms is the best idea

“People are saying mask-wearing might become a seasonal practice” God I hope so I’m tired of getting breathed on every flu season and honestly they’re kind of fashionable.

Worshippers trapped inside Al-Aqsa are now being subjected to explosives, gas, stun grenades, and bullets. This video shows heavily armed soldiers throwing grenades, point blank, into a group of women and children trapped inside.

Women and children are being targeted, specifically.

Palestinians are being run down on the street in broad daylight. I chose to share screenshots instead of the video because it was too violent. Police and Military are protecting and endorsing this.

This woman was arrested after she fainted from exhaustion watching over her own home and trying to protect it. Then they arrested her entire family, too. Another woman was arrested for intervening and attempting to stop a soldier from kicking a little girl.

In further retaliation from the government, airstrikes in Gaza. The Arabic captions mention that women and children were the victims, among 9 others martyred.

These aren't "clashes" between two equal parties. This is a targeted campaign of violence and ethnic cleansing by an apartheid government funded by the USA and enabled by cowardly countries in the Middle East who have decided to turn a blind eye. If you pay taxes in the USA - know that over three billion dollars a year get sent in aid, which is used to fund this terrorism.

Media organizations only continue the colonialism by whitewashing the rhetoric and blocking hashtags and silencing voices.

One of our holiest sites is being desecrated in the holiest days of the year. The blood of the innocent is being shed. Children have been slaughtered, homes taken, bombs dropped, sexual violence runs rampant, and the western world continues to look the other way.

Do not be silent.