@thornthewitch.bsky.social
Religious Studies PhD candidate: paranormal, secularism, magic, spiritualism, ethnography. Lit MA. Publishing production day job. Witch author, Gard priestess, guitarist, fountain pen person, Swiftie, probably a werewolf. https://linktr.ee/thornthewitch
Can’t wait to dedicate this dissertation to the team at my day job for being supportive while I went on an intellectual adventure. 💙
More and more it’s sinking in that I’m in the home stretch of the PhD. I have a feasible deadline and a plan. I’m also going to be one of the first in years who will finish on time (the other is in my cohort). And I’m doing it while working full time and with minimal departmental support. 🌈
I finally lost my shit about so-called AIs, LLMs, enshittification & everything fucking evil that @officialgrammarly.bsky.social is doing. I'm fucking furious, and not just about what 1 company has done. An open letter to Grammarly & the rest of the LLM hype machine www.moryan.com/an-open-lett...
Honestly that’s fine
After two years of ongoing fieldwork, it’s finally writing time! I’m still engaged in field research, but the dissertation clock is running. It feels good to make books.
Honestly same
That sounds like a reasonable compromise! I think the thing is just knowing yourself and prioritizing your own mental health and personal time! Everyone has to do what works best for them!
That’s heaven right there!
A related and reliable rule of thumb is don‘t take advice from people who are miserable.
The biggest naysayers are the old guard professors who think suffering is both inevitable and virtuous. The students adjust quickly and are usually thankful for the boundaries.
It can be hard getting there if you’re not used to that style of working, and it requires fierce boundaries, but it really will make your life way easier. People think things aren’t feasible because they haven’t tried them, and academics are no exception.
When I started my PhD I was coming from a corporate world. As a TA, I advised the prof that I don’t grade or meet on weekends, and I don’t answer emails after five on weekdays. Now, I tell my own classrooms that. People are always shook and tell me it’s impossible, but it very much isn’t.
At the recommendation of his vet, I’ve just bought my corn snake, Jack, a bigger enclosure. We are rearranging to accommodate his new house, and it’s very exciting. His old cage wasn‘t too small per se, but this one is taller and will allow for more climbing and exploring. 🐍💙
Like, I just want to hug everyone and tell them they’re good, even though they weren’t hugged enough growing up, or their teachers were mean, or they were wronged at that audition, or whatever. 🥹
It’s sort of nice when religious studies suddenly looks so healthy, though. And it really is fun learning more about music with absolutely no stake in the drama of it all.
Right down to the girl in the group project who doesn’t help because *she* is going to Nashville and *already* is a performer, so what’s there to learn. I had her in my classes twenty years ago too, and here she is again.
And watching the composition teachers fight with each other *through their students* about who is the rightest about some subjective idea about what’s good music, all while everyone is mad about pop stars or somehow *nobody else* knowing what’s good…it’s all alive and well, right where I left it.
And I feel like this aging auntie they just wheeled in who says things like, “You don’t have to be a prodigy to be a professional musician” or “It’s okay if you also want to study something else” or “You’re not in competition with that other girl.”
I’m taking an undergrad music performance class just for the hell of it, and it’s great, but it’s also been a WILD ride into my own young adulthood and the deeply unhealthy thinking that was so normalized in music school. My classmates are a wreck.
That’s why I’m so glad this kinds of online classes exist! Public scholarship is where it’s at. 💙
Oh yay! I’m so excited to have you!
Class starts on March 25!
www.religiondepartment.com/contemporary...
#witchsky #occultsky #religiousstudies
Me emailing my committee after a very hard week
*screaming*
(Just watch ads and talk to ChatGPT and go away.)
(Anyway, thanks for the space to rant. I'm not sensitive generally, but that's something that is measurably ramping up, and I wonder if people just...don't like people? Like, you don't want to hear people talk or see people who look like people and do people things? What is social media even for?)
Same. I'm not taking input from people whose main objective is to profit off of me, and that's most of what I see when I open YouTube.
It's so goofy. People have no appreciation for genre or personal style. Get an audiobook or watch Netflix, people.
"Well if you want to build a platform that would help." Y'all I'm getting a PhD and work a full-time senior corporate job. If you want styled hair and a girl who doesn't say "like," you better save your money and go elsewhere because you can't afford my time.
In fact, I stopped consuming YouTube videos around this time. I think I watch maybe two channels. I make maaaaaaaybe $200 per year on ad revenue. Most videos don't make anything at all (shocker: I'm not ad friendly). Do you know how much good lipstick is? How much time editing video and sound takes?