✨ Are you ready for the new TBIN monthly essay prompts?

Sunny Side Updates with TBIN 🧠🍜 week 25

⏳ I was about to start another newsletter with “how has time flown by so quickly” until I caught myself doing literally the same almost every single week. Maybe it’s time for me to accept that time … moves forward… in time…?

✨ Which — brings me to an important topic of exciting new changes coming to The Brain is a Noodle!

✍ I’m getting a number of requests for the return of essay pieces, and I’m really excited to announce that they’re back in a limited fashion!

Here’s the quick overview for prompts:

Daily — Poetry Prompts
Weekly — Shortform Prompts
Monthly — Essay Prompts

✍ Essay/Creative Non-Fiction Submissions: Monthly Prompts

We will now accept essay submissions that are fewer than 2500 words and fit with the monthly prompt!

As an avid podcast listener (and someone in the midst of launching one — what, wait, no, shh, you didn’t read that, it’s a secret!), I’m really interested in your creative non-fiction pieces on the topic of…

Podcasts

Some questions to mull over:

What kinds of podcasts are your favourite?
Is there some commonality among all the podcasts you listen to?
How has listening to podcasts changed your life?

Be sure to check the TBIN submission guidelines as the same general guidelines apply on grammar and formatting.

This prompt is active from now (yes, now! ) until April 30th, 2021, 3pm EST.

Shortform Theme of the Week

This week’s shortform theme is: Stories — What books, tv shows, movies, have touched your heart recently, leaving an imprint? What pieces have you consumed years ago (perhaps in your youth) that still resonate and guide you today?

Submit your shortform piece (<150 words) now to share your thoughts!

This is just a guideline for inspiration! You may submit shortforms related to other concepts if other ideas come to you! :)

The Brain is a Noodle*

*This is factually incorrect. Please absolutely do not go out and eat brains.

🍜 Piping Hot New(dle) Pieces of the Week

Challenge: *highlight* the ones you bookmarked/ read and make sure everyone gets highlighted at least once! ❤

🧠🍜 [1] What’s Something That Needs to Change by Shaista Malik ‘I always wonder why people forward messages which are factually incorrect?’

🧠🍜 [2] Down to ashes by Julia Appa ‘When the letters disappear one by one they will hold each other in front of the burned city hearts hanging down the gate bloody brains staining the walls making for memories their frightened fingers intertwined.’

🧠🍜 [3] Goodbye by Chris Mooney-Singh ‘Me and you on the grass each night — ‘

🧠🍜 [4] Let Us Unite by Jen Eve ‘So much sadness during this time… A lot has been going on my mind. Let us take a step back and pray… Even though these days has been hard,’

🧠🍜 [5] Sparklers by Spirit ‘we’re all ourselves when we close the door we’re all beautiful when we’ve had too much’

🧠🍜 [6] The Road Travelled by Imad ‘I try to avoid a life of regret, when I can, I exhaust all my options and choose a path to the best of my abilities.’

🧠🍜 [7] I Miss You by Sahil Patel ‘I miss you my dear friend, I don’t know whether you left me, Or I left you, It’s just we don’t longer know each other.’

🧠🍜 [8] Human Resources by Jupiter Grant ‘Perhaps it is all the years I spent working in administration, but the first thing that immediately comes into my mind when I see the letter “H” and “R”, is Human Resources. ‘

🧠🍜 [9] More Than That by Adam Deitsch ‘what is resilience but rapid recovery bouncing back full swing after catastrophe’

🧠🍜 [10] Mumbai Memories by Niru ‘Mumbai- the City of Dreams Where Lady Luck dances along With Those who dream big And work undeterred and long.’

🧠🍜 [11] The March moon by Jac Gautreau ‘The March moon Ferocious and fertile Dances between Pisces and Aries Round and ruby Trapped in a golden fog’

🧠🍜 [12] Doorbell by Chris Mooney-Singh ‘(a tiny poem, so no quote was included! be sure to click through and check out the full piece!)’

🧠🍜 [13] When Anxiety Bites by Pretheesh Presannan ‘once the bee bites me I am left with pain so is anxiety — my own creativity — ‘

🧠🍜 [14] No Light by Jen Eve ‘Darkness, It can scary, weary, calming, relaxing, and overbearing’

🧠🍜 [15] Bloom by Spirit ‘I was never ashamed of puberty I knew magic was taking its place in tune with my sexuality’

🧠🍜 [16] Shorn Again by Rachel Ramkaran (she/her) ‘In spring my fleece falls to the ground, deeper and darker than the spring past like the ink of every word’

🧠🍜 [17] Little Dark Haired Girl by Naomi Leilani Acosta ‘Filled with things That make us laugh, punch air, and cry This little dark haired girl wants to fly Not in the skies’

🧠🍜 [18] Make Like an Indoor Cat and Adapt to Your Surroundings by Emily Wilcox ‘I did a little workout beside the catio (a patio we built for our indoor cats) today. The sunlight cascaded across my sweaty legs as my cats chomped away on grass poking through the gaps in their cage, like we were at a pandemic-friendly zoo.’

🧠🍜 [19] There Are 50 Shades of Happiness by Emily Wilcox ‘I woke up this morning and it was super sunny. Three breakfasts later and now it’s drizzly, rainy, windy, grey.’

🧠🍜 [20] Haiku’s That Will Make You Hungry by JF ‘Haikus for poutine, montreal bagels AND beaver tails!!! ‘

🧠🍜 [21] Parsley is the Con Artist of the Spice World by Carlos Garbiras ‘I read a small percentage of people taste soap when they eat cilantro. But I think the researchers are wrong — they meant to say parsley and not cilantro.’

🧠🍜 [22] Masculine by Spirit ‘They have the seed and believe they are solely responsible for the flower so entitled to titles they are.’

🧠🍜 [23] The Food Where I’m From: Multicultural London by Jupiter Grant ‘Fancy a curry? Then no need to worry. You can pick up a spicy jalfrezi,’

🧠🍜 [24] Explicit Content by Spirit ‘🔞 whispering his name the way he feels like silk all over my fingertips’

🧠🍜 [25] Life Keeps Spinning, Even on Pause by Evan Wildstein ‘It was the early 1990s when I learned about discs of the compact variety. Amazing. I could oscillate with the precise push of a button. Forward, backward, play, pause.’

🧠🍜 [26] Stop Thinking About the Past, Start Thinking About Dessert by Emily Wilcox ‘The only past that should concern you is pasta. That mound of cheesy homemade spag, igniting starbursts in your throat. Yesterday really doesn’t matter. Neither does that Geography test you failed when you were fourteen. All that matters is pasta.’

🧠🍜 [27] Ode To Fear Of Heights by Jennifer McDougall ‘Staring down at people ants Industriously marching to and from work’

🧠🍜 [28] A Coat by Chris Mooney-Singh ‘You are not here. You are walking in the city. I saw you leave this morning in your thick brown coat, the one I gave you last winter.’

🧠🍜 [29] Night’s Battle Ensues by Amy Lee Kite ‘tireless thoughts invade my mind as these hidden hours float over me’

🧠🍜 [30] Delicious Homemade Spring Rolls by James G Brennan ‘There are very few, if any starters as delightful as homemade spring rolls! H-o-m-e-m-a-d-e S-p-r-i-g- R-o-l-l-s!!’

🧠🍜 [31] Weird Dreams & Crazy Cravings — A Prompt Response by Michael Burg, MD ‘Vivid fun dreams nightly And every afternoon that I nap Pickles, and someone got an Eiffel of that tower in Paris’

🧠🍜 [32] Death of Love by Paola Perez ‘Waiting for you, I spend my days. I call out your name, but you walk away. You say you are tired. I understand. But in my heart, there is a pain I cannot withstand’

🧠🍜 [33] Our God-Given Right to Privacy by Carlos Garbiras ‘Are you not worried that if the NSA can tap our phones, our cameras — not blurry — Are also, oh, so exposed?’

The Eggcademic Corner

🥓 Quick brEGGfast Bites

What I’m watching: The Young Doctor’s Notebook & Other Stories

What I’m reading: Clean: The New Science of Skin by James Hablin

What I’m listening to: [The Savvy Psychologist] Speaking Out ABout Violence Against Asian Americans

S🍳mething to chew over

Probably the most interesting question I’ve asked this week — what is your username’s “origin story”? I wanna hear yours! So far the stories range from “that’s what my parents named me” to truly wild explanations like “this is the name of the yeast I work with”.

🎊 Top 3 articles of the week

Celebrate with me!

The Six W’s of Woodworking

A poem

medium.com

The Journey of Cutting Through Noise and Getting To What’s Important

Digging down and focussing values while managing your inner critic

medium.com

How to Automate Grunt Work Without Learning to Program

Recipes for letting you and your brain rest so it can focus on the real, fun and creative work

medium.com

Thank you to ScienceDuuude, 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊. & The Post-Grad Survival Guide for hosting these pieces!

😭 Flop 3 articles of the week

Give these a little love, will ya?

Chicken Noodle Soup

A poem

medium.com

Why I Read One Journal Article A Day

A journey of overcoming low motivation

medium.com

Familiar Dreams

A poem of déjà vu

medium.com

🧠🍜 Thank you to the Noodle Team!

challenge: pick 3 writers you haven’t met yet and get acquainted with their pieces!

Last but probably most important

Hop on the jumbo thread!