Ok Im Gonna Eat BUT THIS GIRL ON TWITTER

ok im gonna eat BUT THIS GIRL ON TWITTER

shes chinese and also like a chinese historian and she watched the live action mulan 

the way she had me crying through this thread because its apparently V bad

like. 

its trying v hard to be historically accurate but theyre using terms/concepts that chinese people would NOT

and the battle scenes are bad please 

remind me to link it later, but oh my god

the pain she was in is like clearly felt through the tweets shes so upset

Hey kids, take it from an old forest hag: it's totally okay to half-ass your hobbies

... trace that picture for your journal

... like old cars without knowing how to fix them

... watch the movies without reading the comics

... super glue the part of the model

... learn one (1) way to make a braid

... watch how-to videos for every step of the recipe

... google every second word in that article

... use the automatic setting on your camera

And don't be ashamed. Real life isn't school. The all or nothing mentality is not healthy. Don't gate-keep yourself from stuff that might be fun. Shrug, grin, and hold eye contact with a boomer while you do it. It's good I promise.

https://bookshop.org/

More Chinese Song Recs

I’ve discovered a lot of new music since I made my first post recommending some Chinese songs. So here’s a part 2!

凄美地 - 郭顶 Why did no one tell me about Guo Ding sooner?!? The whole album that this song is on is honestly perfection. I think this song is really appealing to Westerners because its style of rock reminds me a lot of many American/British rock bands. If you only check out one song from this list, please listen to this one!

在云端 - 郭顶 This song is on the same album as the song above. It’s a similar rock style but more “smokey,” if that makes sense. I always wish this song would go on longer–it feels like it is just over too soon. Honestly you should just listen to the whole album.

醉 - 黄龄 The best way I can think of to describe this song is to say that it sounds like a dream. It’s so smooth and melodious with some 中国风 elements. Listening to this song instantly makes me feel more relaxed.

天空中划过一道星光 - 黄龄 This song also has 中国风 elements, but it is much more powerful and bombastic than the previous song. The contrast between the bombastic parts and 中国风 parts makes this song really complex and interesting. I feel like it would great background music for a martial arts montage.

Don’t Panic - Shi Shi/孙盛希 Relatively speaking, this song has quite a bit of English, but it’s the same couple lines repeated over and over, so it’s still mostly in Chinese. It’s a fun acoustic song that I can guarantee will get stuck in your head! Also, “don’t panic” is some much needed advice right now.

是他不配 -  Shi Shi/孙盛希 This song shows off Shi Shi’s slightly darker side. It’s not exactly heavy, but it has some rock influences. I think you could headbang to the chorus if you tried. I really hope she makes some more songs in this vain in the future.

Keep reading

Practical advice for if you want to start a podcast

I wrote a post for the RED team at La Trobe with some general advice for podcasting, but I’ve found there are some recurring questions that I get about setting up a podcast. This post is here to answer those questions.

If you’re not interested in starting a podcast, but want to listen to more linguistics podcasts, I’ve got a list for you!

I last updated this post in August 2020 - if you find this post a few years after this you might want to search for some more up to date specs. I’ll continue to update this from time to time as new questions (or answers) come up.

The length and format of your show are a product of your aims

I personally like shows in the 25-35 minute range. But, having said that, I love Shortwave, which regularly clocks in at 10 minutes, and I’m disappointed when an episode of You’re Wrong About is less than an hour.

Know your audience and the level of depth you want to explore a topic in. The frequency of episodes and the amount of time you have to prepare and edit will also affect how long episode end up. Record a few episodes first and share them with people you trust will give you good feedback.

The best interviews are conversations

Good interviews are just conversations that are intentionally lopsided, and good interviewers make the conversation feel like it’s not lopsided. Do your homework, write out some questions, and then take a step back and actually listen to the person you’re interviewing.

Anyone who has done even a few interviews has already faced most of the questions you first think of. There are some fixes for this: push through your initial brainstorming, think about the specific angles on their topic that are most relevant to your audience and (again) listen to what the person is telling you. Like many podcasting skills, good interviewing takes practice, and you can practice by staying curious about humans you interact with in any area of your life, not just your podcast guests.

Use the best mics you can, but don’t over-invest

You don’t have go and buy the fanciest tech. If you have access to a studio, great! If you don’t, then decide what your budget is. When we started Lingthusiasm, Gretchen recorded into her phone, because we were running the show on no budget and had no idea if we’d stick it out more than 6 months. When we started making money we got Gretchen a Zoom H4n to match mine. It’s still not the fanciest, but it’s rugged and adequate, especially if you make sure you’re in a closet with some blankets. Do I regret the earlier episodes of Lingthusiasm don’t sound amazing? Not as much as I would have regretted investing hundreds of dollars in a podcast that had 4 episodes.

Edit your show

Even a light edit will make the show easier for your audience to listen to, and show respect for the people you interview. I know people believe there’s an aesthetic of authenticity that comes with not editing, but all podcasting is a performance. Editing is a politeness to your audience.

I use audacity to edit

Audacity is free to use. It takes a little longer to learn than something like GarageBand, but once you know how to use it, you’ll be much faster at editing. I appreciate that it has stayed pretty much the same since I started using it almost 15 years ago.

Get your levels right

Once you’ve edited your show, making sure there aren’t too many loud laughs, or your two hosts aren’t unbalanced in loudness. You’ll also need to make sure your podcast isn’t too loud or soft compared to others in people’s list. You need to regularise it. A lot of podcasts regularise to -16 LUFS. A few other numbers bounce around (-14, -18), but this is what we use and no one complains.  Audacity can’t do it. You can process a certain number of hours of audio for free each month using the web-based Auphonic. It’s great. 

There’s lots of great free music to use

You want to look for music that has a license that’s free to use. Even if you don’t plan to make money from your podcast, make sure the license includes commercial use so you don’t limit your future options. SoundCloud and YouTube have lots of options, as does Kevin MacLeod - who has created royalty-free music in a massive range of genres. 

Web hosting is different to getting your show on iTunes

We use SoundCloud to upload and share our audio. It’s fine. I have no complaints. Once you’ve uploaded a few hours of audio you’ll have to pay annually for a pro account. Anchor seems to be a good new competitor, it’s free - I assume they make money off people choosing to run ads on their podcasts. You then generate an RSS feed, which is the thing that points all the podcast players to the place you’ve uploaded your recording. You’ll then have to add your show to major podcast platforms (Apple Podcast, Google Podcast), smaller ones will pick it up from there.

It takes a few days for your show to get picked up on all the podfeeders

Launching a podcast is a bit of a mess - it will go live on your hosting site but then you’ll have to set yourself up with iTunes, Google Podcast etc. and that can take a few days to update and populate. The sites that are popular, and the process of linking into those spaces, changes often enough that you should just google advice when you’re ready to launch, and give yourself a few days. This is part of why some podcasts launch a short ‘episode 0′ or a trailer, it gets the show set up.

Transcripts should be one of the first things you fund

Not every podcast has the time or funds to make transcripts. I do think they’re important though; for people who can’t or don’t want to listen, for discoverability and for your own record when you can’t remember when you talked about a specific story. If you have any time or money and want to be taken seriously at all, this should be one of your earliest priorities. This is even more true for educational podcasts, where a transcript ensures all students can appreciate the content of your show.

You don’t neeeeed a website, but it’s handy

You can run a show using a hosting platform and some social media. Having a website does allow you to add more information about the show and yourself. The Lingthusiasm page has grown over the years as the show has; we made a page for our liveshow events, we provide a list of episodes by topic, information about our Discord community, and our marvelous wall of supporters. The website was much more minimal when we started, but compared to just having a SoundCloud it gave the show room to grow.

You probably want socials, but be selective

You need to make your podcast discoverable by people who are likely to be your audience. Social media is one way to do this, but it’s better to be actually engaging on fewer social platforms than overextend yourself. Focus on platforms that are the intersection of where your possible fans are likely to be and where you enjoy being.

Funding a podcast takes time, and takes work

There are three main revenue streams for podcasts: advertising, crowdfunding and merch. A fourth option is institutional support (through your university or business), but then you’re beholden to the funder. Whichever revenue options work for you, think about them and plan towards them early. Part of that is making sure your podcast gets in as many ears as possible. Most successful podcasts spend as much, if not more, time on marketing, audience engagement and business planning as they do podcasting (it’s just not very glamorous to admit that!). 

Seasons are a great structure to keep a podcast manageable

Planning a season with a fixed number of episodes allows you to take some time off, to maybe change some things that weren’t working, or to step away from the project with a podcast that hasn’t been left hanging.